Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
The words meant little to a body struggling to get over the hard reset the ground had done. Little for the sharp fire in back, the pain in his arm. He wasn't sure how to get his lungs to respond, to function as the world swam uncomfortably.
Then there was a dark face looming over him, a face he couldn't discern but the voice was unmistakeable. The usually rough and angry tone that was his father was talking, something that didn't quite make sense, but it was an off tone. More concerned? He wasn't sure what it was. And just like that, he was breathing - it hurt so much - but he was breathing huge lungfuls of air, rapidly trying to recover and get oxygen back.
Shaun shook his head and held a hand on Jace's chest, keeping him against the ground - "You stay put you stupid boy. My stupid boy. Doing something so dangerous..."
Shaun hung his head, shaking it slowly, but whatever rage he'd been in moments before was now dead in the water, his tone a lot softer.
"Nash, can you grab my phone off the kitchen counter for me please? I need to call an ambulance."
”No, I didn’t want this, Jace, this is all on you!” he yelled out as the glass kept cracking, ”STOP IT!”
Jace reached through the broken pieces of glass and fumbled for the latch, unable to get a solid grip from all the crimson on his hand.
”Shit... Dad!! He’s losing his fucking mind!”
Shaun rushed the stairs and burst into the room, immediately pulling Nash behind himself as he glared at Jace, his face full of a dark fury that he'd never really shown his children. He locked onto Jace once he'd checked over Nash at a glance making sure that sure he wasn't hurt.
"JACE CHRISTIAN BRECKAH YOU FUCKING FILTHY ROTTEN MONGREL!"
Shaun stormed over, and for a moment there was a register of fear in Jace's eyes. Jace went to retract but Shaun was across the room and had a hold of his wrist tightly. Jace yelped, a noise both startled and full of the sudden pain of the hold. He leaned back as Shaun tried to stop him, hissing and screeching like a cornered cat.
"HOW FUCKING DARE YOU START MORE OF YOUR GODDAMNED BULLSHIT! IF I'D KNOWN NOW HOW MUCH OF A PAIN IN MY ASS YOU'D BE I WOULD'VE FOUND A WAY OF PUTTING YOU ON A DOORSTEP AND LEAVING YOU THERE. YOU WERE A GODDAMN ACCIDENT JACE AND I WILL BE FUCKING DAMNED IF YOU CONTINUE TO WANDER ABOUT BEING THIS GREAT BIG STAIN ON THIS FAMILY SO HELP ME!"
The blood seemed to evacuate Jace's face rapidly as his father threw heated words back at him, barely registering the tears running down his face. His heart was racing, his lungs burning and there was blinding white hot pain shooting up his arm. And just like that his face twisted, lashing out a kick at the window, shattering more glass inwards to wards his father and brother. It was then a chain reaction, an unthinking one. Shaun let go and Jace back pedaled, stepping back two, three steps - then air. Nothing. Falling... He hit the ground hard, something cracking audibly as the air was forced out of his lungs. They hated him...
Something in Nash's tone only served to feed the twisted part of Jace that was enjoying the fear.. was it really fear? Whatever it was, it was driving him.
"You wanted this!" Jace roared, slapping the glass again, earning another protesting crackling noise. "I'm going to shut your yappy mouth for you!"
”Are you seriously out of your mind?!”
Jace seemed to pause for a moment, the briefest moment of pain crossing his features, everything about him softening out in that instant before it hardened over again. Vanished. Then he hit the window again - fist closed. He wanted to hurt him, he did - to hurt as much as he hurt, to feel what he felt on a regular basis. His fist shattered the glass with a bang, shards flying - oblivious to the razor edges tearing his hand and forearm apart as he reached for the window latch.
"Get back here!"
Jace didn't even care to think as he heard his father shout from downstairs, the sound of the old man quickly moving through the house.
”Who are you calling an idiot?” he spat back, ”Why don’t you take another drag of that cancer stick, loser, we’d love to lose another family member."
We can help...
Make him pay...
Some foreign panic filled his ears, hearing those words - we'd love to lose another family member. Mum was gone. Oh god she was gone... And they wanted him gone too. Rolling over, he picked himself up of the ground despite how heavy he felt, drawing deep and heavy on the cigarette before stubbing it out on his knuckle. Now that he was more upright, it was more clear how much Jace was destroying himself - hundreds of red raw claw marks, speckles of newly formed and old fading bruises, the assortment of burn marks on his arms. He was so tired...
”Oh, you wanna put your money where your mouth is, tough guy? Or are you going to beat me up like you did dad?”
There was a challenge and that window being pulled closed spurred him to see red. It was a blinding red. There was no logic, no real rational thought process as he moved over to the window, every muscle in his body coiled and tense like he was expecting something in return. He slammed his palm against the window with a growl.
"Open the fucking window you gutless pig," he roared, face twisted into an ugly, unrecognizable snarl, "At least I can fucking fight unlike you! Stop stealing them from me!"
He hit the window again, a slight cracking noise going with it.
The world didn't feel right, like there was a larger than normal piece missing and the voices in his ears were more alive. Hearing those individual voices telling him all sorts of violent and awful things, painting images behind his eyelids in a waking nightmare that never seemed to end. No one listened. No one cared. Grunting, he picked himself up off the floor of his bedroom and slid open his window, using his upper body strength to cling to guttering and metal sheeting of the roof to pull himself out into the fresh air.
He didn't even care about the fact that he wasn't being quiet - everyone else had learnt to deal with his fascination with the roof and sitting perched there for hours at a time. Nor did he care about the fact that he was only in jeans and his hair was a mess as he lit another cigarette from a pack of Marlboro's he'd stolen off his father. Slowly, he laid back on the metal porch roof and shut his eyes.
”What the hell are you doing out here?”
Some part of Jace ran cold at the voice, but it was drowned out by the irritation that was surfacing.
”Can you keep it down? Some people are trying to focus and have an actual life.”
Jace let his head turn towards the speaker, scowling with the smoke between his lips.
"The only one making noise is you, fucking idiot," he barked back, "How about I shut your yappy trap for you huh?"
Jace just stayed seated across from his brother, not moving, not entirely there as his mind went elsewhere. Perhaps it was the most peaceful he'd been - despite the initial violence - in a long time. There wasn't much a time where his family could've pinned him down for being simple and easy to deal with. Not even their mother had had the patience for him some days, but what he was now was far worse than before.
"Help me up?"
Blinking, he looked at the offered hand and studied it with a slight head tilt, the gears clearly working through the request. It wasn't like he wasn't able to do the right thing, he'd proven on the rare occasion he could do some things right and without violence. Hesitantly he stood up and took Maverick's hand, taking a moment to get over the contact before putting strength into the grip to assist him. He continued to study him once his brother was standing, his grip relaxed and easy to get out of.
"So is it a scenery picture or something more sinister?"
Jace jumped and yanked the headphones out of his ears, looking up somewhat startled as he noticed someone near him. He wasn't used to people coming near him, unless it was his brothers looking for a fight or the students that didn't like him and had something they wanted to do to him. He was stunned for several moments before he managed to reply.
"I-uh..." he scrubbed at his eye for a moment. "Portrait... of my dad, back when he used to fight."
He offered the black and white image towards her for a closer look - it was a decent, relatively accurate image done in black and white, almost done in some ways yet still lacking the face of his father - a detail he was still struggling with.
Jace sat across from him and tilted his head slightly to one side, almost like a puppy hearing a something new for the first time. It easy to see the little gears turning over in his head, the genuine confusion coupled with a soft concern that was rarely ever there. He carefully reached out, his movement much more cautious, and touched Maverick's cheek lightly before retracting his hand and dropping it to his side.
"Ma always said to be nice," he mumbled, "I try. I do. But it's hard."
He began fiddling with his fingers, picking at them until they looked sore, but he didn't lash out at his brother, just sat opposite him, looking up from his fidgeting occasionally to see Mav before dropping his eyes again.
"I miss her. When she left, things got worse... She kept it all at bay. Now its noisy, angry."
He was talking almost mindlessly, drawing up his legs and wrapping his arms around them as he rocked a little bit.
Jace stood there, heart racing as he stared down at his brother, his face mostly cleared. He knelt down near him, frowning slightly, colour returning to his face. He wasn't sure what to do now, he'd never gotten rid of the shadows before like that. They just stayed put and sometimes got worse. He scratched the back of his head slightly and tried to work out what to do.
Then he sat down on the ground in front of him and started picking at his fingers. From one extreme to another, Jace was now quiet and almost normal save for his obsessive finger picking. His breathing still wasn't completely calm, but he was no longer so hostile towards his brother, still baffled by what he'd done.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, "When it touches you, does it hurt at all?"
It was the first thing on his mind, still baffled about the shadows.
"No, he wouldn't love that Jace, none of us would. As fucked up as you are sometimes you are still our brother."
Jace felt something give, like glass breaking, the light in his eyes dimmed and his fist clenched around the glass in his hand tightly, shaking. He didn't even register the pain as the glass broke in his hand.
"Fuck stain, that's a new one. losing your creativity are you, you heaping pile of psychotic deranged energy. You can't think it's not the truth."
His chest shuddered painfully as he fought to regain the ability to breathe. His thoughts were whirling around in a maddening spiral, his throat tight and his vision blurred but he didn't understand why that was the case. He didn't care that his face had gone red or that he had started the nervous twitching that came when the voices started to join in the yelling.
"No one likes you. And you're going to end up alone and you deserve it!" he snapped back, voice breaking. "Because you're a fuck up!"
He wasn't even looking at his brother's anymore, turned to face a space no one was stood in. He threw the pieces of broken glass at the sink, the shattering pieces flying everywhere before he took off up to his room, leaving a small trail of blood on the floor. He slammed the door behind himself and shrunk down on the floor behind the door, cradling his hand to his chest. He felt tears fall onto his cheeks and he immediately covered his mouth trying to smother out the sobs trying to break out.
"What can't we see?" he asked as he turned in the chair, "If I could, I'd make them leave you alone."
Jace started picking at the scabs on his knuckles anxiously, not registering the fact that they almost immediately started to bleed - "It's right there!" he insisted, pointing at the shape behind Maverick's chair, "It's too close to you. I don't know how to explain it."
"Fucks sake Jace, there isn't anyone there," he said as he looked back over his shoulder, as if to make sure before he looked back at Jace. "Now shut up before you wake everyone else in the house, okay?"
Jace watched his brother look back over his shoulder again and when he looked back, the blood rushed from his face. Panic rushed his system in a massive wave and before he think about his actions, he threw a punch at Maverick and staggered backwards away from him, shaking.
"Get away from h-him!" he hissed, though it was lacking the normal level of bite he usually had in his voice, "Let him go! Fuck, just go away!"
Jace couldn't tear his gaze away from his brother, the space where his face had been filled in darkness that had an awful smile spread across it.
Jace could only frown between his brothers. Why did they pick on him so much? He didn't get it. He began chewing on his thumb nail furiously, barely noticing how far back he was chewing it. His other hand began to fiddle with the zipper of his jacket.
"There's no need to be rude, since when didn't we care? If we didn't care you'd have been locked away by now."
"Dad would love that, wouldn't he?" Jace spat back. "He's always saying that I'm a fuck up, so why does he bother?"
It wasn't strictly true, but that was how Jace took the ranting and raving about school and how his father was constantly called to collect him.
"Typical isn't it. He wasn't even talking to you Jace."
Immediately Jace faced Maverick, "Well he wasn't talking to you fuck-stain!"
As Link hissed at them all, he turned around with his own feral growl; feeling cornered. He was never sure which brother was going to poke or prod or make fun of him, so he reacted violently accordingly.
Jace barely paid his brother's reply much mind. He was too fixed on the shape near the table. It was vibrating, smokey... it was hard to focus on it.
"what's wrong with your face?"
Jace's expression remained twisted, taking on hints of frustration.
"Why can no one see it?" he asked, ignoring Maverick entirely no, "They always come back. They aren't welcome here, no one sees them. They get me into trouble a lot, these things... I want them to go away. I don't like them."
His hands were shaking at his sides, even he brought his hands up to push his hair away from his face. The figure he could see seemed to move closer to his brother, his anxiety picking up.
"Stop moving to him. Go away. Leave me alone!" his voice was taking a slightly desperate twinge.
Jace reclined back against a tree, music blaring in his ears, not giving two tosses about the world around him. So far he'd managed to avoid getting himself into trouble and even turned up to his few classes on relative time - impressive for him. He felt good for once, especially now that he was sat focused on drawing in his old sketch book. It was one of his rare good days, something that didn't show through. He hadn't squabbled with his brother's during breakfast, hadn't pissed off his father, actually got to school. Admittedly he hadn't done his class work because he couldn't focus on the letters, but he'd turned up at least.
Hell, he hadn't even had a smoke since getting up. He was doing good. That's what he felt, he was almost sure about that. And he hadn't seen anything either! It was just a really good day. He was even smiling as he worked on the image in his book, the art work not nearly as dark or depressing as some of his other artworks. He was happy, content for the first time in a long while and whilst he didn't understand why he suddenly felt this way, he wanted it to stay for a few days at least. He didn't care if his brothers thought that there was something wrong with him or not, it didn't matter, he could breathe - there wasn't that unbearable weight on his chest that made everything hard to deal with.
Jace's thoughts were scattered, non-existent. Nothing felt entirely real or tangible. The biscuit was dry and tasteless as he stood there aimlessly.
"Have you ever heard of a towel?" he said.
The words broke the out of place calm as he turned to look at his brother, "Ever heard of I don't care?"
He moved to the bin and threw the biscuit away which had only been a third consumed. He didn't feel right but he said nothing - they dismissed him anyway. He pulled out the box of cigarettes from his pocket and looked at the soggy mess before throwing them in the bin too, along with the lighter. He'd just nick a fresh box in the morning or something. Or he'd go without, depended on how much effort it was going to take him.
He was beyond caring all that much, the paranoia wasn't gnawing at him for the moment, all he knew was that he was tired. Impossibly tired and that his bed was calling for him, but he didn't move from the spot he had beside the bin, his expression twisting to that of confusion, seeing a shadowy figure by the kitchen table which was screw over his mind. Did he ask about it? Or did he leave it alone?
