Invictus
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Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 5633
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
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Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 5633
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
Season I | Chapter XII: Joy To The World
The cold hits Zane first. A sharp wind cutting through his hoodie as the three of them step out of the car and face the squat, grey building that looms in the distance like a scar on the horizon. The prison doesn’t look festive—no wreaths, no garland, just fences and razor wire that glitter faintly in the winter sun.
Felix tightens his coat, muttering something under his breath about how this place always smells like bleach and bad choices. Mary hushes him gently, her gloved hand looping through his arm.
Zane says nothing. His hands are buried in his pockets, molded around his phone that he had been nervously checking every five minutes. Nothing since he typed out a quick response to Bianca's "Good luck, I'm thinking of you" text. His heart beating fast in that jittery, uneven way it does before football games. But this isn’t a field. There are no plays, no crowd. Just the metallic buzz of the security gate as it opens, and the cold echo of boots on concrete.
Inside, time feels slower. The fluorescent lights make everything look pale and tired.
When Rasheed walks in, Zane almost doesn’t recognize him at first. His father’s usually broad grin is missing, replaced with something weary—eyes that dart around the room a little too much, shoulders drawn tight. He’s thinner, too.
“Hey, champ,” Rasheed says, his voice cracked like old vinyl but trying for cheer. He leans in for a hug, and Zane lets him, though the embrace feels shorter this time.
“Hey, Dad.”
Mary smiles softly, sitting down across the table, her purse clutched close. Felix stays standing for a beat longer than necessary before finally sitting, arms crossed, watching his son like a man taking inventory.
“Happy Holidays, baby. How are you doing?” Mary asks.
Rasheed shrugs, the way a man does when the truth isn’t fit for sharing. “You know. Same old.”
Zane studies him. “You look tired.”
Rasheed chuckles, low and dry. “Yeah, well, the holidays don’t exactly come with eggnog in here.”
Felix snorts. “You made your bed, son.”
Mary elbows him, hard enough that the table shakes. “Felix.”
“What?” Felix mutters, glaring at the scratched tabletop. “Boy needs to hear some truth once in a while. Not every day’s a Hallmark card.”
Rasheed’s eyes drop, a faint shadow passing over his face. “Yeah, I know, Pop. Trust me—I’m hearing a lot of truth these days.”
There’s a moment of silence then, filled by the distant clang of a door somewhere down the hall.
Zane fidgets with his visitor’s badge. He wants to say something—anything—to cut through the fog. “Coach says some colleges been asking about me,” he offers quietly. "Rivals.com got me as a two-star recruit. Lots of room to move up over the summer too."
That gets Rasheed’s eyes to light up, even just a little. “For real? My boy getting looks now?”
“Yeah. Nothing solid yet, but… maybe.”
Rasheed leans forward, his smile flickering back to life. “You keep at it, you hear me? Don’t let up. You got something special, Zane. Don’t let nobody take it from you.”
“I know,” Zane says. But his voice wavers just slightly.
Felix exhales through his nose. “He’s got good people raising him. We’ll keep him steady.”
Rasheed’s eyes linger on his father—tired, but sharp now. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “You always did, huh?”
Another pause. He shifts his shoulders, wincing a little. “Look—I might not be able to write for a while. Mail’s… messed up right now.”
Zane looks up. “Everything okay?”
Rasheed nods too quickly. “Yeah. Just, uh—some stuff going on. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Mary catches the look between them, and her voice softens. “We’ll pray for you, Rasheed. Every night.”
“Appreciate that, Ma.”
A guard calls out “Five minutes.”
Rasheed stands and pulls Zane in again, tighter this time, like a man holding on to something slipping away. “Proud of you, champ,” he says against Zane’s shoulder. “You keep winning out there, you hear? You keep shining. Don’t end up in a place like this.”
Zane nods, swallowing hard. “I won’t.”
The Anthopoulos dining room looks like something out of a design magazine — all sleek lines, soft lighting, and an oversized fir tree glowing in the corner like a corporate Christmas ad. The long mahogany table is set perfectly: linen napkins, silver cutlery, and wine glasses that catch the chandelier light just so.
Bianca sits at her usual spot, halfway down the table, next to the empty seat where her mother’s laptop rests open — its screen glowing with an unread email.
Her father, Nikos, is speaking briskly between bites of salmon. “The Singapore contract finalized this morning. That should streamline the systems for next quarter.”
Her mother, Eleni, nods without looking up from her tablet. “Perfect. We’ll need to be wheels up by seven a.m. if we want to miss the Heathrow bottleneck.”
Bianca stares down at her plate — roasted vegetables, untouched. The smell of rosemary and lemon fills the space, but the food tastes like nothing.
Her father’s phone buzzes. He picks it up mid-chew, thumb scrolling. “Tell Coach Evans congratulations on the Penn State commitment, by the way. That’s impressive.”
“I haven't decided yet,” she says, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip. “I'm still weighing my options.”
“You should go to Penn State,” he says, barely looking at her. “All the partners at my firm think Penn State is the only way to go. Michigan is beneath you.”
Pressure, not pride. Not paying enough attention, and it would very easy to mistake the two.
They keep talking, effortlessly slipping back into their world of contracts and deadlines, time zones and quarterly projections. Words like deliverables and proposals fill the air where warmth should be.
Bianca tunes them out. Her reflection in the window stares back at her — a girl who looks put together, polite, silent. The kind of daughter people envy from afar.
She wonders, not for the first time, if they even notice when she leaves the room.
When dinner ends, her parents are already on separate calls — her mother pacing near the tree, her father typing something furiously into his laptop.
Bianca clears her plate without being asked. Her phone buzzes. It’s just a group chat from her teammates, something about Christmas workouts. Nothing from Zane. She's not offended. She knows where he is. The only place she can think worse than where she is.
She slips upstairs, grabs her coat, and walks out.
The air outside is crisp, the kind that nips at your skin and makes your breath cloud. The driveway lights glow along the stone path as she gets into her car.
For a while, she just drives. Past the glowing storefronts, the last-minute shoppers, the trees wrapped in lights. Her fingers drum the steering wheel, heart beating too fast for no real reason.
By the time she turns onto Zane’s street, the world has quieted down. Snow flurries drift lazily in the air. His grandparents’ house sits small but warm-looking, with a string of mismatched lights sagging across the porch.
She parks across the street, engine idling.
Through the front window, she can see movement — the faint silhouette of Zane in the living room, probably helping his grandmother with something.
Her throat tightens.
She could knock. She could text him. But she doesn’t. Not yet.
Instead, she sits there, watching her breath fog the glass, feeling the ache behind her eyes build until it spills over.
Tears slide down her cheeks — quiet, unannounced, the kind that don’t come from one thing but from everything.
All she wants, in that moment, is to be near him. To feel something real.
Outside, the snow keeps falling — soft, unbothered, indifferent — as Bianca sits parked in the dark, hoping somehow he’ll sense she’s there.
Zane’s just finished drying the last dish when he spots the faint headlights through the kitchen window.
At first, he figures it’s a neighbor, or maybe someone turning around — nobody ever really stops on their block this late. But the car doesn’t move.
He squints past the reflection of the kitchen lights. Then he sees it — the shape in the driver’s seat, still, head bowed.
“Zane?” Mary calls softly from the living room, her voice warm and tired. “You coming to watch It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“In a minute, Grandma,” he says, drying his hands on a towel.
He steps onto the porch, pulling his hoodie tighter against the cold. The air smells faintly of wood smoke and pine. The snow’s light now — more of a whisper than a storm — but it crunches under his sneakers as he crosses the yard.
The closer he gets, the clearer it becomes. Bianca.
He taps gently on her window. She flinches, wipes her eyes fast, and lowers the glass halfway.
“Hey,” he says quietly, voice careful. “What are you doing out here?”
She tries to laugh, but it comes out shaky. “I— I don’t know. Just needed to get out.”
He crouches beside the car, his breath fogging the cold night air. He narrows his eyes. “You okay?”
She nods, then shakes her head, and her face folds into something fragile — not broken, just worn thin.
Zane glances back toward the house. The lights inside are soft and yellow. The kind of warmth that always looks better from the outside.
“Come in,” he says gently. “You’ll freeze out here.”
She hesitates. “I don’t want to intrude—”
“You’re not. You're here. It would be mighty weird if you didn't come in and meet them.”
He opens her door before she can argue, holds out his hand. She takes it. Her fingers are cold, trembling a little.
Inside, Mary looks up from the couch, smiling instantly. “Well, who do we have here?”
“Hi, Mrs. Jones, I'm -” Bianca says, forcing a small smile.
Mary cut her off and pats the spot beside her. “I know who you are. It's lovely to meet you. Come sit, baby. You want cocoa?”
Bianca shakes her head, but Mary’s already headed for the kitchen. Felix grunts from his armchair, eyes on the TV, but there’s a faint nod in greeting — the closest he ever gets to affection with strangers.
Zane guides Bianca to the couch. They sit close, their knees almost touching. On the screen, black-and-white snow falls over Bedford Falls.
She stares at the TV, not really watching. Her voice barely above a whisper: “They’re leaving tomorrow. My parents. For the holidays.”
Zane frowns. “Without you?”
She nods. “Business trips. Meetings. They said they’ll FaceTime.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just sits with her in the quiet. Sometimes silence feels like the only thing that doesn’t make it worse.
The movie flickers on. Somewhere behind them, Mary hums while stirring cocoa, the sound homey and gentle.
Bianca leans her head against his shoulder. It’s small, instinctive — but it fits.
Zane exhales slowly, feeling her weight settle, the tension leave her bit by bit. His hand finds hers, resting there, steady.
Outside, snow drifts past the window, the world hushed and still.
For once, neither of them feels the need to say anything at all.
The cold hits Zane first. A sharp wind cutting through his hoodie as the three of them step out of the car and face the squat, grey building that looms in the distance like a scar on the horizon. The prison doesn’t look festive—no wreaths, no garland, just fences and razor wire that glitter faintly in the winter sun.
Felix tightens his coat, muttering something under his breath about how this place always smells like bleach and bad choices. Mary hushes him gently, her gloved hand looping through his arm.
Zane says nothing. His hands are buried in his pockets, molded around his phone that he had been nervously checking every five minutes. Nothing since he typed out a quick response to Bianca's "Good luck, I'm thinking of you" text. His heart beating fast in that jittery, uneven way it does before football games. But this isn’t a field. There are no plays, no crowd. Just the metallic buzz of the security gate as it opens, and the cold echo of boots on concrete.
Inside, time feels slower. The fluorescent lights make everything look pale and tired.
When Rasheed walks in, Zane almost doesn’t recognize him at first. His father’s usually broad grin is missing, replaced with something weary—eyes that dart around the room a little too much, shoulders drawn tight. He’s thinner, too.
“Hey, champ,” Rasheed says, his voice cracked like old vinyl but trying for cheer. He leans in for a hug, and Zane lets him, though the embrace feels shorter this time.
“Hey, Dad.”
Mary smiles softly, sitting down across the table, her purse clutched close. Felix stays standing for a beat longer than necessary before finally sitting, arms crossed, watching his son like a man taking inventory.
“Happy Holidays, baby. How are you doing?” Mary asks.
Rasheed shrugs, the way a man does when the truth isn’t fit for sharing. “You know. Same old.”
Zane studies him. “You look tired.”
Rasheed chuckles, low and dry. “Yeah, well, the holidays don’t exactly come with eggnog in here.”
Felix snorts. “You made your bed, son.”
Mary elbows him, hard enough that the table shakes. “Felix.”
“What?” Felix mutters, glaring at the scratched tabletop. “Boy needs to hear some truth once in a while. Not every day’s a Hallmark card.”
Rasheed’s eyes drop, a faint shadow passing over his face. “Yeah, I know, Pop. Trust me—I’m hearing a lot of truth these days.”
There’s a moment of silence then, filled by the distant clang of a door somewhere down the hall.
Zane fidgets with his visitor’s badge. He wants to say something—anything—to cut through the fog. “Coach says some colleges been asking about me,” he offers quietly. "Rivals.com got me as a two-star recruit. Lots of room to move up over the summer too."
That gets Rasheed’s eyes to light up, even just a little. “For real? My boy getting looks now?”
“Yeah. Nothing solid yet, but… maybe.”
Rasheed leans forward, his smile flickering back to life. “You keep at it, you hear me? Don’t let up. You got something special, Zane. Don’t let nobody take it from you.”
“I know,” Zane says. But his voice wavers just slightly.
Felix exhales through his nose. “He’s got good people raising him. We’ll keep him steady.”
Rasheed’s eyes linger on his father—tired, but sharp now. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “You always did, huh?”
Another pause. He shifts his shoulders, wincing a little. “Look—I might not be able to write for a while. Mail’s… messed up right now.”
Zane looks up. “Everything okay?”
Rasheed nods too quickly. “Yeah. Just, uh—some stuff going on. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Mary catches the look between them, and her voice softens. “We’ll pray for you, Rasheed. Every night.”
“Appreciate that, Ma.”
A guard calls out “Five minutes.”
Rasheed stands and pulls Zane in again, tighter this time, like a man holding on to something slipping away. “Proud of you, champ,” he says against Zane’s shoulder. “You keep winning out there, you hear? You keep shining. Don’t end up in a place like this.”
Zane nods, swallowing hard. “I won’t.”
***
The Anthopoulos dining room looks like something out of a design magazine — all sleek lines, soft lighting, and an oversized fir tree glowing in the corner like a corporate Christmas ad. The long mahogany table is set perfectly: linen napkins, silver cutlery, and wine glasses that catch the chandelier light just so.
Bianca sits at her usual spot, halfway down the table, next to the empty seat where her mother’s laptop rests open — its screen glowing with an unread email.
Her father, Nikos, is speaking briskly between bites of salmon. “The Singapore contract finalized this morning. That should streamline the systems for next quarter.”
Her mother, Eleni, nods without looking up from her tablet. “Perfect. We’ll need to be wheels up by seven a.m. if we want to miss the Heathrow bottleneck.”
Bianca stares down at her plate — roasted vegetables, untouched. The smell of rosemary and lemon fills the space, but the food tastes like nothing.
Her father’s phone buzzes. He picks it up mid-chew, thumb scrolling. “Tell Coach Evans congratulations on the Penn State commitment, by the way. That’s impressive.”
“I haven't decided yet,” she says, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip. “I'm still weighing my options.”
“You should go to Penn State,” he says, barely looking at her. “All the partners at my firm think Penn State is the only way to go. Michigan is beneath you.”
Pressure, not pride. Not paying enough attention, and it would very easy to mistake the two.
They keep talking, effortlessly slipping back into their world of contracts and deadlines, time zones and quarterly projections. Words like deliverables and proposals fill the air where warmth should be.
Bianca tunes them out. Her reflection in the window stares back at her — a girl who looks put together, polite, silent. The kind of daughter people envy from afar.
She wonders, not for the first time, if they even notice when she leaves the room.
When dinner ends, her parents are already on separate calls — her mother pacing near the tree, her father typing something furiously into his laptop.
Bianca clears her plate without being asked. Her phone buzzes. It’s just a group chat from her teammates, something about Christmas workouts. Nothing from Zane. She's not offended. She knows where he is. The only place she can think worse than where she is.
She slips upstairs, grabs her coat, and walks out.
The air outside is crisp, the kind that nips at your skin and makes your breath cloud. The driveway lights glow along the stone path as she gets into her car.
For a while, she just drives. Past the glowing storefronts, the last-minute shoppers, the trees wrapped in lights. Her fingers drum the steering wheel, heart beating too fast for no real reason.
By the time she turns onto Zane’s street, the world has quieted down. Snow flurries drift lazily in the air. His grandparents’ house sits small but warm-looking, with a string of mismatched lights sagging across the porch.
She parks across the street, engine idling.
Through the front window, she can see movement — the faint silhouette of Zane in the living room, probably helping his grandmother with something.
Her throat tightens.
She could knock. She could text him. But she doesn’t. Not yet.
Instead, she sits there, watching her breath fog the glass, feeling the ache behind her eyes build until it spills over.
Tears slide down her cheeks — quiet, unannounced, the kind that don’t come from one thing but from everything.
All she wants, in that moment, is to be near him. To feel something real.
Outside, the snow keeps falling — soft, unbothered, indifferent — as Bianca sits parked in the dark, hoping somehow he’ll sense she’s there.
***
Zane’s just finished drying the last dish when he spots the faint headlights through the kitchen window.
At first, he figures it’s a neighbor, or maybe someone turning around — nobody ever really stops on their block this late. But the car doesn’t move.
He squints past the reflection of the kitchen lights. Then he sees it — the shape in the driver’s seat, still, head bowed.
“Zane?” Mary calls softly from the living room, her voice warm and tired. “You coming to watch It’s a Wonderful Life?”
“In a minute, Grandma,” he says, drying his hands on a towel.
He steps onto the porch, pulling his hoodie tighter against the cold. The air smells faintly of wood smoke and pine. The snow’s light now — more of a whisper than a storm — but it crunches under his sneakers as he crosses the yard.
The closer he gets, the clearer it becomes. Bianca.
He taps gently on her window. She flinches, wipes her eyes fast, and lowers the glass halfway.
“Hey,” he says quietly, voice careful. “What are you doing out here?”
She tries to laugh, but it comes out shaky. “I— I don’t know. Just needed to get out.”
He crouches beside the car, his breath fogging the cold night air. He narrows his eyes. “You okay?”
She nods, then shakes her head, and her face folds into something fragile — not broken, just worn thin.
Zane glances back toward the house. The lights inside are soft and yellow. The kind of warmth that always looks better from the outside.
“Come in,” he says gently. “You’ll freeze out here.”
She hesitates. “I don’t want to intrude—”
“You’re not. You're here. It would be mighty weird if you didn't come in and meet them.”
He opens her door before she can argue, holds out his hand. She takes it. Her fingers are cold, trembling a little.
Inside, Mary looks up from the couch, smiling instantly. “Well, who do we have here?”
“Hi, Mrs. Jones, I'm -” Bianca says, forcing a small smile.
Mary cut her off and pats the spot beside her. “I know who you are. It's lovely to meet you. Come sit, baby. You want cocoa?”
Bianca shakes her head, but Mary’s already headed for the kitchen. Felix grunts from his armchair, eyes on the TV, but there’s a faint nod in greeting — the closest he ever gets to affection with strangers.
Zane guides Bianca to the couch. They sit close, their knees almost touching. On the screen, black-and-white snow falls over Bedford Falls.
She stares at the TV, not really watching. Her voice barely above a whisper: “They’re leaving tomorrow. My parents. For the holidays.”
Zane frowns. “Without you?”
She nods. “Business trips. Meetings. They said they’ll FaceTime.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just sits with her in the quiet. Sometimes silence feels like the only thing that doesn’t make it worse.
The movie flickers on. Somewhere behind them, Mary hums while stirring cocoa, the sound homey and gentle.
Bianca leans her head against his shoulder. It’s small, instinctive — but it fits.
Zane exhales slowly, feeling her weight settle, the tension leave her bit by bit. His hand finds hers, resting there, steady.
Outside, snow drifts past the window, the world hushed and still.
For once, neither of them feels the need to say anything at all.
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redsox907
- Posts: 2784
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
Invictus
Dad getting roughed up in jail eh?
It'll be interesting how poor little rich girl and Zane develop, especially with her likely leaving for college soon. At some point Zane going to have some competition in a higher economic tier for his track star rich girlfriend
It'll be interesting how poor little rich girl and Zane develop, especially with her likely leaving for college soon. At some point Zane going to have some competition in a higher economic tier for his track star rich girlfriend
Last edited by redsox907 on 09 Nov 2025, 22:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 5633
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
Poor little rich girl is a crazy narrative, but considering the other female characters we got on this site, I'll take it.redsox907 wrote: ↑09 Nov 2025, 20:36Dad getting roughed up in jail eh?
It'll be interesting how poor little rich girl and Zane develop, especially with her likely leaving for college soon. At some point Zane going to have some competition in a higher economic tier for his track star rich girlfriend
One hell of a factor to consider
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Caesar
- Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12703
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Invictus
Well when you look at Soapy Perry’s crop, up is the only direction.Captain Canada wrote: ↑10 Nov 2025, 08:48Poor little rich girl is a crazy narrative, but considering the other female characters we got on this site, I'll take it.
Zane, powered by some pum pum, is going to jet up the boards and go to Michigan with Poor Little Rich Girl Bianca as she rebels against her parents. Lock it in.