#Stages of Addiction Recovery

[markllockwood]

Emotional Stages of Addiction Recovery

A Guide to Measuring Addiction Recovery Through the Skyscraper of Consciousness This framework shows the Stages of Addiction Recovery through the “Skyscraper of Consciousness,” metaphor. It offers a powerful metaphor for understanding your journey of addiction recovery. Think of it as a building with 100 floors, each representing a level of awareness and emotional growth. We’ll focus on the…

[gooenthusiast]

Considering how long an entire junimo hut is ‚more efficient‘ when given all of five (5) grapes‘ worth of raisins, downing a bottle of wine would probably feel like snorting an entire pharmacy‘s worth of uppers… i just hope the farmer isn‘t around for the comedown.

The Jojamart Junimo

[valeisaslut]

⭒࿐COLLIDE - epilogue

credits for the fanart: nramvv - edited by me

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

𝐏𝐓. 𝟐 : 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟷 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 | 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟹 →

⚢ pairing: Rockstar!Ellie Williams x Popstar!Reader 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ synopsis: You’ve seen your side of the story—now it’s time for Ellie’s. After losing herself in letting you go, she plunges deeper into chaos until she's left with nothing but the wreckage of her choices. But just as darkness threatens to consume her entirely, an unexpected lifeline appears in the form of someone she believed she'd lost forever. Forced to confront the devastating reality of her addiction and the damage it has inflicted not only upon herself but on those she loves, she’s ready to reclaim the pieces she abandoned. Through an intimate, raw, and brutally honest journey, we’ll see her rediscover her voice and reconnect with music, walking the fragile line between ruin and redemption. 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ word count: 20,8k (yeah. ik)𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ content: angst, almost entirely from ellie's pov, very heavy themes throughout—detailed depiction of drug addiction, intense withdrawal symptoms, suicidal ideation, and emotional unraveling, AFAB!Reader, modern AU setting, multi-part series. MEN AND MINORS DNI. Likes and reblogs are deeply appreciated — thank you for supporting! 𖥔 ݁ ˖

Disclaimer: This chapter contains graphic, realistic portrayals of drug addiction, severe withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, and the deeply emotional process of rehabilitation. These scenes are presented with vivid intensity and careful authenticity, as integral parts of Ellie’s journey toward recovery and self-discovery. I've approached these difficult subjects thoughtfully and sensitively, doing the deep and intense research—but your mental health and emotional safety must come first, always.

If you feel these themes may negatively affect you, trigger distress, or harm you in any way, I strongly encourage you to proceed cautiously or skip entirely. Please prioritize your well-being above all else. Take care of yourselves, loves.

CLICK TO LISTEN - SPOTIFY FULL PLAYLIST - The Shape Of What I Lost !

CLICK FOR The Shape Of What I Lost POST !

Three years.

Three years since the night you left—after Ellie left you.

She had walked onto that stage, guitar slung over her shoulder, the spotlight slicing through smoke like a blade, and felt no fire in her blood. No rhythm in her chest. Not even the familiar hum of adrenaline. Just a numbness so thick it dulled the lights, the sound, the meaning of it all.

She stood there, frozen, dizzy, staring out at a sea of faces—thousands of people screaming her name, mouths wide with adoration, hands lifted in praise—and she felt absolutely nothing.

No tether to a world that used to love her back.

And that was the moment Ellie Williams sank into the grave she’d dug with her own hands. Not with shovels, but with choices, with every drug consumed, every bottle drained and every lie wrapped in a grin. 

The moment her mind finally screamed what her heart had always known, whispering it over and over like a curse.

You lost everything.

Music had been her one constant—the first love of her life, her refuge, her weapon, the only thing that made sense before anything else did. The only thing that made fame worth it. The only reason she ever agreed to sell herself to the world. The only thing that made the screaming fans, the sleepless nights, the tour buses and interviews and headlines and all-consuming spotlight even remotely bearable. 

The stage had always been where she bled and where she bloomed.

But that night, it felt like a sentence. The lights, a cruel interrogation. The mic, a noose tightening with every breath. The guitar strapped across her body—once an extension of her soul—now hung like dead weight she could no longer connect with.

And after ending the show by walking offstage with not even two songs played, after spending hours destroying the green room where she had already shattered everything, both material and not, after screaming until her throat tore ragged, after bleeding from her knuckles, after collapsing to the floor and crawling back to her feet, she finally opened the door.

And didn’t explain a single thing.

She walked past the crew like a ghost draped in her own skin—eyes hollow, shoulders tight, jaw clenched so hard it could’ve cracked. No one spoke. No one reached out. Not Dina. Not even Jesse. Because whatever was left of her in that moment wasn’t someone they recognized. Wasn’t someone they could save.

She disappeared into the night. Into the elevator. Into the hallway. Into herself. She locked the door of the hotel suite behind her and let the shadows devour what little was left.

The only instinct she had left was to isolate—an animal curling around their wound. To pretend that the world could go quiet inside four walls. That if she was still enough, small enough, nothing else could hurt her. 

She drank. She snorted. She swallowed. She poked. 

Anything to feel something. Or nothing. 

Anything to make the voices in her head shut up. Anything to blur the faces in the crowd, frozen in time behind her eyelids. Anything to dim the stage lights that still flickered in her skin. Anything to blur the headlines, to wash them down with whatever would make them sting less.

Anything to make the truth easier to swallow—because it was terrifyingly simple: she had proven them all right. Everyone who had whispered that she was a beeline for wreckage, a walking collapse in slow motion. She had become the prophecy.

Anything to drown out your voice, broken, aching, too real, from echoing through the hollow corridors of her mind. To stop your hands from reaching through the dark, from pulling her back to the soul buried beneath pills and powder and needles and lies and manipulation. 

Anything to erase the image of your eyes, glassy and heartbroken, staring at the version of herself she had fought as hard as she could to keep hidden from you. The truth she couldn’t bear to see reflected in someone who had once—and still—loved her like a saint. Blind to her chaos, faithful through her sins, willing to forgive everything. Even what she couldn’t name.

And anything rather than admitting her addiction had burned through everything she once was—until nothing was left but smoke and the shape of what she once had.

It had started as a party trick. A little edge-taker. A backstage secret. A shortcut to invincibility. 

Then it became a way to slip into the version of herself that people adored—louder, cooler, untouchable. The version everyone lusted over, cheered for, posted about. The version the world wanted onstage every night, no matter what it cost her offstage. The version she thought she had to become just to be enough.

And now, it became a thing she couldn’t live without—slipped into her bloodstream, settled into her bones, made itself at home. It filled every corner of her, inch by inch, cell by cell, until there was no room left for anything or anyone else.

The hands that used to tear through solos with a precision that made her legendary now trembled uncontrollably—shaking from regret, from the weight of everything she did and couldn’t undo. Her once unforgettable voice, the same powerful roars that had sold out stadiums and started riots, crumbled into hoarse whispers and dry, broken coughing.

She didn’t sleep. Didn’t dream. Didn’t eat. Just drifted from one blackout to the next. Convinced herself it was the only thing she still knew how to do.

But when Joel stepped through the glass doors of the hotel, everything slowed.

Every single soul there knew who he was. And he wasn't what they expected. Not a bodyguard. Not a manager. Not some industry suit sent to clean up the mess. He didn’t wear a lanyard or carry a clipboard. He wasn’t holding coffee or flowers or excuses. He wore worn jeans, a weathered jacket, and a stare that could gut a man in silence.

The staff went quiet. The concierge froze mid-sentence. Someone from the Fireflies’ touring crew, a kid barely out of college, stood up too fast and knocked over a coffee cup. Even the elevator dinged like it was afraid to make too much noise.

Because he wasn’t just her father.

He was Joel Miller.

The legend. The one she never talked about. The man sewed into the fabric of the music industry and into every song she wrote, whether she knew it or not. The reason her fingers knew how to play guitar before she knew how to name the chords. 

The man who raised a storm and let the world believe it had come from nothing.

He walked through the lobby without looking at anyone until he spotted Jesse, standing halfway down the hallway. A walkie gripped tight in one hand, speaking into static—fast, clipped, the kind of voice reserved for damage control. But the moment he turned and saw him, he stopped mid-sentence. His whole body went still. The color drained from his face like someone had flipped a switch.

Jesse looked wrecked. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. The exhaustion hung off him like he’d been carrying something for so long it was too heavy to set down.

Behind him, Dina stepped out from the room next to Ellie’s. Her hair was in a messy braid that hadn’t been redone in days. Her eyes were rimmed red, cheeks blotched. She looked exhausted too—pale and drawn and older than twenty-two should ever look. 

They froze when they saw Joel. Tried to pull themselves together. Straightened their backs. Lifted their chins.

But Joel saw all of it. Every crack in their armor. Every inch of what his daughter had left behind.

“Where is she?” 

No greeting. No explanation. Straight to the wreckage.

Jesse blinked. “You—wait, are you—how even—?”

“Where,” Joel repeated, slower now, voice rough but low, “is she?”

Dina stepped forward. She studied him for a moment, like she was trying to reconcile the legend in front of her with the silence Ellie wrapped around him like a bandage.

“She’s here,” she finally said. “Hasn’t left her room since the last show.”

Joel’s eyes darkened, but his mouth didn’t move.

“She hasn’t eaten. Barely spoken a word. We know she’s alive—we hear her pacing—but she won’t come out. We tried sending medics, tried knocking, pleading, threatening. Nothing works. She won’t open the door for anyone.”

Jesse glanced towards the suite at the end, and finally spoke too.

“It’s been a week. We thought—fuck, we don’t know what to do.”

A silence passed between them, thick with the weight of everything.

Then Joel looked down the hallway. Walked towards the door.

And knocked once.

Then again. Louder this time, but still steady. The kind of knock that didn’t come with threats or questions. The kind that simply said I’m here.

He stood with his hand still hovering, knuckles grazing the wood. Breathing quiet. Deep. Preparing himself.

Preparing himself to finally see with his own eyes everything he hadn’t been strong enough to acknowledge. Everything he’d kept at bay with stubbornness, with denial dressed up as distance. What the world had done. What the spotlight had done. What he had done—with his silence, with his absence, with every word unspoken. What all of it had carved into the girl who was his flesh and blood.

But behind the door: silence. No footsteps. No movement. No reply.

Just the kind of thick, unnatural stillness that only comes from the kind of room that hasn’t seen sunlight in days, were nothing is truly alive.

So he leaned his head in slightly. Lowered his unmistakable voice.

“…Ellie.”

A name he hadn’t let himself say out loud in years. Her name.

And from the other side of the door—a sound. The scrape of a heel against carpet. The faint drag of limbs too tired to move. The slight creak of bedsprings shifting under someone sitting up.

Another beat passed, longer than it should have, heavy enough to age him.

Then, the faint clack of a deadbolt turning.

The door cracked open fully and the hallway light poured through, slicing the shadows in half.

Ellie.

Or what was left of Ellie.

Joel didn’t move. Couldn’t.

It felt like the floor dropped out beneath him, like every bone in his body went hollow. If he hadn’t known her—the way you only know someone when you’ve built their childhood with your own hands—he wouldn’t have recognized the girl standing in front of him. 

Because the girl standing there wasn’t Ellie. She was the ghost of her. The remains. A flickering echo.

Her skin was the color of sickness. Pale in some places, blotched in others, faintly green where it wasn’t feverish pink. Her cheeks were hollowed out, sharp angles where softness used to live. The sharp, raw jut of bone beneath the skin made her look like a sketch of herself, hastily erased and redrawn in shaking lines. Her eyes were sunken, bruised with fatigue. The purple beneath them looked like it had been there for ages. 

Her lips were cracked, chewed raw—not just bitten, but torn, as if she’d been trying to silence herself from the inside out from pure self hatred. Her shirt was stained and damp around the collar. It clung to her frame in desperate patches, sagging everywhere else. 

She had lost so much weight it made Joel’s stomach drop even further. Her collarbones cut through her like knives. Her arms looked like they didn’t belong to her. Her tattoos, once bright declarations of defiance, had faded beneath grime and bruises. Some fresh. Some healing. All painful. 

But it was the look on her face that truly broke him.

Not pain. Not shame. Not surprise. Vacancy.

Her expression wasn’t empty. It was abandoned. Her irises, once so fiercely alive, had dulled to become cloudy and dim, like a storm had taken root behind them and never passed. Like the soul that had once lived behind those eyes had packed up and fled, leaving only a faint trace behind. 

The last time he saw her, she was still a teenager—hard edges wrapped in defiance, all spitfire and sharp laughter. Too much fire for one body, too much hunger in her bones. Reckless with hope. Starved to make the entire world hers.

Desperate to outrun the weight of the name before her and etch her own into history with nothing but a Les Paul, a voice full of thunder, and the loyalty of two high school best friends who followed her into that path like religion.

This wasn’t the daughter he’d raised. This wasn’t the stubborn, brilliant, furious and rebellious soul who had once held her heart out like a weapon and her music like a revolution. 

This was the ashes left after that blaze.

Joel couldn’t breathe. Could barely keep his knees under him.

Ellie’s lips parted. The sound that came out wasn’t speech. It was a dry, rasping exhale, like it hurt just to exist. She coughed—deep and wet and awful—and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The same hand that used to write songs like magic. The same hand that had held his with quiet, childlike trust.

Her eyes flickered over his face with disbelief—like he was just another trap her mind had set, another hallucination conjured by a body begging her to stop before it gave out entirely. 

"You're not real."

Her voice cracked as it came out, barely a thread of sound.

Joel stood frozen in the doorway. His hands didn’t move. His face didn’t change. But his heart split open in his chest, a soundless rupture he felt in his ribs and behind his eyes.

“I’m real. I’m right here.”

Ellie stared at him, blinking too fast, too hard, as if trying to reset her vision. To erase him. Then she took one staggering step back, as if his presence had struck her.

“What…” she croaked, eyes wide. “What is this?”

Her body started moving backwards, deeper into the room, like retreating might make him vanish. 

“They sent me,” Joel said softly.

“Who the fuck is they?”

He swallowed. The answer was already there, caught behind his teeth. He knew exactly who called. Who had begged him to go.

But he also knew he couldn’t say your name. Not now. Not like this.

“Didn’t ask for names,” he lied quietly. “Didn’t need to.”

She scanned the hallway behind him, frantic, sharp-eyed—like she expected flashbulbs to burst, a microphone to be shoved in her face, interviewers to question her. A trap. A punishment. Maybe even you.

She hadn’t slept in days. Reality had become slippery, warped at the edges. Paranoia threaded through every thought, tugging at the last shreds of her sanity. Her gaze skittered from shadow to shadow like something might leap out of them.

“You can’t be here,” she murmured. Her voice was sharper now, edged in fear. “You can’t just show up.”

“I’m not asking permission.” 

“So this is it?” she muttered. “Some fucked-up intervention? You think you can walk back in here after three fucking years and what—fix me?”

He didn't respond. He knew, deep down, that she was right. 

So he just watched her vanish into the dim corners of the suite, pacing like something caged for too long. Her hands dragged down her face. Her breath hitched. She didn’t cry. She had run out of tears long ago.

But the door remained open.

He stepped inside—slowly, carefully, crossing into a nightmare he knew he wasn’t welcomed in—and closed it shut behind him with a soft click.

The room was a graveyard. Everything looked tired of existing. A cave of rot and ruin, thick with the scent of everything that had decayed and nothing that had ever lived. No light dared to enter. The curtains, sealed with tape and stained with smoke, refused to let the world in. Day or night—it didn’t matter. Time had lost meaning. The only thing cutting through the gloom was the weak, flickering glow of a single bedside lamp. It cast a sickly yellow halo over the ruins, illuminating just enough to make it even worse.

The coffee table was buried beneath a chaotic sprawl of liquor bottles, half-empty and sweating glass. Prescription vials rolled into corners, labels smudged beyond reading. Rolled-up bills, limp and damp. A small pile of crushed cigarettes and half-melted lighters. Bent spoons blackened at their base. Scattered syringes. Fine dust of residue clinging to every surface.

The stench—alcohol, cigarettes, vomit, sweat, blood, melting plastic, something sour and sharp and sickeningly sweet—coated the air like paint.

Ellie’s voice came again, thinner this time.

“Why didn’t you just let me die?”

Joel turned slowly.

She was barely standing—shoulders slumped, arms hanging at her sides. Her head was tilted back against the wall, as if it was the only thing holding her up. Her eyes weren’t on him, they were fixed on a water stain spreading like rot across the ceiling.

She looked so small. So young. So far away.

He walked to her, slow but steady, like any sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile and divine force still held her upright. 

He didn’t tell her she was wrong. Didn’t tell her she was a disgrace or a failure or disgusting or a junkie.

He just stepped forward and pulled her into his arms.

And her body—rigid at first—slowly folded into his like paper softening in the rain. The soft weight of her breath stuttered against his chest. He felt his own heart breaking again between them.

It wasn’t the kind of hug you saw in movies. It wasn’t tidy or heroic. It wasn’t a triumphant moment. It was ruin, quiet and total. The kind of embrace that carries years of silence and every word left unsaid. The kind you only give to someone you thought you’d lost forever. 

Her arms didn’t lift, didn’t curl around him. They just hung there, slack at her sides. But she didn’t pull away either. And God, that was enough. That was all he needed to stay right there, holding her like the only thing anchoring them both to the world was the space they were occupying together.

Joel could feel the bones of her back through the thin cotton of her shirt—sharp, wrong, exposed. Her heartbeat thudded against his chest, frantic and fragile, an uneven rhythm struggling to hold itself together. It didn’t feel alive. It felt mechanical—like a rusted engine. 

But it was still beating. And in that moment, it meant everything.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Ellie murmured into his shoulder, voice muffled, brittle as dry leaves. “I didn’t want this.”

“I know,” Joel said quietly.

“I’m not going back.”

“You’re not staying here.”

“I don’t need you.”

“You need something,” he said. “And I’m here now.”

“But why now?” she whispered, so quietly it nearly vanished.

“They said you were disappearing,” his voice was thick, low, heavy with something he hadn’t let himself feel in years. “Said if someone didn’t come find you soon… there might not be anything left to find.”

“You’re late.” 

Joel tightened his arms around her. “Still here,” he said. A vow in two words.

Her palms lifted—slow, uncertain—and pressed flat against his chest. Not quite pushing. Not quite holding. Just there, as if trying to decide what he was. Real or not. Ghost or grave.

And then, without warning—she shoved him.

Joel took a step back. Not from the force, but from the feeling. Her palms left a ghostprint on his chest. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t reach for her again. He just looked at her as if seeing everything clearly for the first time.

Ellie’s shoulders were heaving now. Her eyes were glassy, stretched too wide, too alert, the way animals look right before they bolt.

“Go!” she rasped. “Fucking go. I don’t want this. I don’t need this. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t—I didn’t ask for you to come!”

“I don’t care,” he said, “You’re coming with me.”

“To what?” she spat. Her voice pitched higher, sharp and spiraling. “Some padded room full of people with name tags who hand me coloring books? Spare me, Joel.”

He flinched. Barely, but there.

Joel. Not Dad. Not even old man. Just a hard, flat syllable thrown like a stone between them. A line in the sand.

He nodded once. Took it in like a bullet.

“You’re going to rehab. Whether you want it or not.”

“No!” The word came fast. Violent. Like it had been living in her throat, waiting to escape. “No. No, no, no—you don’t get to do this! You don’t get to show up after three fucking years and act like you can drag me off somewhere. I’m not twelve anymore!”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

He took a step forward. 

“But you’re not anything right now. You’re not living. You’re surviving in a place that’s rotting you and calling it freedom.”

Her jaw clenched. Her body was shaking, not just with rage, but with something underneath it. Sickness.

“Fuck you!” Her voice cracked again. “You don’t know me. Not anymore!”

“You’re right,” he never once raised his voice. “I don’t. But I remember the girl who would’ve ripped the sky open just to feel something. I remember the kid who made music like it was oxygen. I remember the look on your face when you loved something truly.”

“Well, she’s fucking dead.” 

“Then let me help bring her back.”

She exhaled, too fast, like air hurt her lungs. 

“I didn’t want to be saved,” she choked. “I still don’t. You should’ve let me fucking die!”

“I couldn’t, Ellie.”

“Then why now?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “Why not when it still mattered? Why not when I still wanted to live?”

“Because I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed away again. Not this time."

The silence stretched. And then, softer, almost afraid: 

“I know you’re not gonna heal overnight. I know this isn’t gonna fix anything. But I also know what happens if you stay here. And I can’t let that happen. Please, Ellie. I'm begging you.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I’ll stay. I’ll stay in this shithole suite and I’ll sit on that goddamn carpet and wait until you’re ready. But I’m not leaving without you.”

She stood there, silent. Frozen in place.

“Please,” 

His voice broke on the word. His eyes were glassy and wet. She had never seen him like that. Not Joel. Not the man who never bent.

Something cracked then. Not a sob. Not a word. Just a sound, low and raw, torn from somewhere deep in her chest. A breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. A surrender she didn’t mean to give.

And then, she moved.

Not towards him—but towards the corner. Towards the suitcase half-zipped and slumped against the wall, still full of clothes that smelled like sweat and cigarettes and days she couldn’t remember.

Because she knew Joel.

There were no more speeches left. No more mercy dressed up as choice. He hadn’t come to bargain. He hadn’t come to reason. He had come to claim what the world hadn’t yet finished killing. He had come to take her.

And she could feel it—time unraveling, slipping like sand between her fingers. Breath stretched too long beneath the surface. A match burning down to the quick. The edge of the edge. The final flicker before everything turned black.

Time had run out.

She crouched. Her hands shook as she zipped the suitcase closed. The sound was louder than it should’ve been, like a coffin lid snapping shut.

She picked up a hoodie from the chair. Oversized. Gray. A gift from Jesse. Two birthdays ago, back when birthdays still meant something. She tried to zip it up. The zipper jammed halfway. Her hands trembled too badly to fix it, so she gave up and let it hang open like a wound.

She pulled the hood up. Then down. Up again. Her fingers twitched at the edge of it. She didn't know if it was better to hide or be seen. Neither felt safe.

Joel didn’t say another word.

He just stepped forward. Picked up the suitcase and her guitar case. And without looking back, he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

And Ellie followed. Not because she wanted to. Not because she was ready. But because she understood there were no other exits.

She either stepped through that door—or died. Simple as that. Final as that.

Jesse and Dina were already there. Waiting. Trying not to look like they’d been standing right outside the whole time. But Ellie saw the way Dina's face was blotchy, and how Jesse's hands were clenched too tight. A kind of expression you can only get from listening to that conversation.

Joel gave them a nod. Something between a farewell and a thank you. Then walked down the hall and without looking back.

And suddenly, they were alone.

No instruments. No cameras. No crowd roaring.

Just three kids in the hallway of a hotel that had seen too much—their silence louder than fate and the stadiums they used to fill. The kind of silence that doesn’t come from peace, but from aftermath. 

Three teenagers who once built a dream so big it swallowed countries. Who bled into microphones and howled into smoke machines. Who dropped school and poured their youth into amplifiers and rode adrenaline like it was enough to outrun consequence. They had stood shoulder to shoulder beneath lights so blinding, they mistook the heat for forever. Mistook the noise for safety. Mistook each other for unbreakable.

And for a while, they had it all in the palm of their hands. The fame. The critics. The awards. The fans. The world.

But then came the cracks —late arrivals, quiet fights, bruises hidden by sunglasses and lies. Then came the screaming matches. The missed rehearsals. The broken things. The insults. The lies. 

And now here they were. Not The Fireflies. Not legends. Just kids standing in a hallway, breaking beneath the weight of everything they lost. The tour was over. The music had stopped.

And the dream—that impossible, holy, feral dream—had burned to ashes.

Ellie could barely look at them. Could barely breathe through the guilt.

She was the one who lit the match. The one who crumbled first. And in crumbling, she had taken it all down with her.

And still, they stood with her. Not because they weren’t angry. Not because they didn’t hurt.

Because even when the dream died, something in them didn’t.

Jesse broke first.

His breath hitched, and in the next second he was moving, crossing the space between them in three long strides before Ellie had the chance to run away. He pulled her in, hard, arms locking around her like he was afraid she might shatter through his fingers if he hesitated longer. 

She stiffened at first—out of habit, out of shame, out of the muscle memory that told her she didn’t deserve forgiveness—but then her body gave in.

Dina followed without a word, her arms wrapping around them both, closing the circle, anchoring them together like she could hold what was left of the band in her embrace. 

“I’m sorry…” Ellie said, “God, I’m so fucking sorry. For everything, for every single thing I did to both of you. I…I wanted this to work. I did. With everything I had. I wanted to be better for you.”

Dina shook her head as tears spilled freely down her face. “We know,” she choked. “We know, Ellie.”

Jesse was crying too now, barely holding himself together. He pressed his face into Ellie’s shoulder and wept for the version of her that was gone—for that best friend who had vanished long before she ever left.

“We tried,” he said. “We tried so fucking hard, El. But you kept shutting the door. We didn’t know how to reach you anymore. We didn’t know how to help you. And we are so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. Her throat burned like she’d swallowed a thousand unsaid things. “It’s not your fault I couldn’t find my way back… I did this to myself.”

“I’m gonna try,” she continued. “But I don’t know who I’ll be after this. I don’t even know if I'm still worth saving. But I’ll try. I’ll try to come back.”

Dina sobbed into her other shoulder, loud and broken. “You better,” she said. “You better come back. I swear to God, Williams, if you don’t come back—”

“I will,” Ellie said. Her voice cracked so badly the words nearly fell apart. “I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But I will.”

She pulled back enough to meet both of their eyes.

“But if I can’t reach you… if it takes longer than it should… just keep going. Please. Move on. Do what you have to do. Don’t wait for me.”

Jesse wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “We built something together, El. Something that was ours. And maybe it fell apart, but it was the best fucking dream I ever lived.”

“Me too,” Ellie whispered. “It was the happiest I’ve ever been. We really made it. And I was never alone until I made myself alone.”

Dina cupped her face gently, and her breath hitched the moment her hands touched her skin. Her thumbs tried to wipe her tears but froze mid-motion, eyes scanning every angle like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing—what was left.

“Oh, El…” she whispered, barely audible, like saying it louder might make it worse. She then swallowed, trying to keep herself together, “It was a dream. But now we woke up. You go get better, you go find your way. And when you’re ready to come back… we’ll still be here.”

Ellie nodded, once. Then again. Her whole body trembling. Her fingers clutched the hem of her sleeve like she was trying to hold onto something, anything, that still belonged to her.

She took a breath that sliced her open on the way down. 

“I love you both.”

“We love you more.”

And that was the end of it.

She turned. Walked down the hallway. Too long, too quiet.

And didn’t look back.

They didn’t talk on the jet.

Joel sat across from her, arms crossed, jaw set tight. He didn’t stare. Didn’t sigh. He let the silence hold. Let her sit in whatever she needed to sit in.

They didn’t talk in the truck, either.

The driveway was long. Joel drove with both hands on the wheel, steady and silent. The only sounds were the low growl of the engine and the faint hum of classic rock murmuring from the speakers—some band from the '70s Joel probably used to get drunk with in some Texas bar.

Outside, the world blurred by. Rain dragged its fingers across the windshield in thin, trembling lines. The sky was the color of steel wool, heavy and low, like it might collapse under its own weight. Trees passed in smears—tall, dark, skeletal things that looked more like memories than landmarks, clawing their way out of the earth and stretching towards a sky that wouldn’t bend.

Ellie didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t think.

She just watched the road disappear beneath them, mile after mile, like maybe if she looked hard enough, she’d disappear somewhere in the rearview.

When they pulled up to the gates, Joel rolled down the window. Told them her name. Told them she was here for long-term. He didn’t need to say a last name to make the gates open.

Rehab didn’t look like what Ellie expected. It wasn’t padded walls and flickering fluorescents. It wasn’t people screaming into the void or nurses in white coats pushing pills like candy. But then, she wasn’t even sure if that’s what she expected.

All she really knew was the feeling—that hollow, leaden silence that settles in your bones when you’ve run out of fight. The numb acceptance that came when you had nothing left to bargain with. 

When all the bridges were already ash. When even feeling became too much weight to carry. The moment you stop running. Stop asking. Stop pretending that you know what comes next. It was letting them take you by the arm and lead you wherever they thought you belonged—because you didn’t believe you belonged anywhere anymore.

The place was quiet. Almost unnaturally so. Rich, suffocating silence wrapped in beige walls and throw blankets that smelled like lavender and wood polish. The walls were cream and soft brown. Plants lined the windowsills. The kind of place designed to make broken people feel like they were healing simply by being somewhere expensive. Like grief could be curated. Like pain could be dimmed with scented candles and soft jazz.

She could feel the recognition hit the staff before they even got inside.

The receptionist looked up, froze, and blinked too many times. She didn’t say a word. Just stood. Just nodded. Just ushered them forward like they were checking into a hotel that only accepted the severely wounded.

Joel did the talking. Ellie kept her head down. She let them take her phone. Her lighter. Her blades. Her pens. Her pills. Her past.

Then it was time. They were taking her upstairs. One of the counselors stood to the side, smiling with polite detachment, ready to walk her to her new room.

Joel didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there. Looking at her like he was memorizing the shape of her shoulders. The way her hair tucked behind her ears. The way her green eyes were so hollow they couldn't even reflect the soft light. 

And then he stepped forward. Reached for her shoulders, and pulled her in.

At first, she resisted—only in that way where her body had forgotten what it meant to be held. But then, slowly, she leaned in. Folded into him. And then, just above her ear:

“You be strong, kiddo.”

Ellie didn’t respond. Her lower lip trembled.

Joel pulled back. Just enough to look at her. There was one single tear tracking down his cheek. He wiped it before she could see, but she’d already seen.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he said. “This place—it’s real help. Not noise. Not punishment. Help. Let it help you.”

Ellie nodded, just once. It was all she could do.

“Try, that’s all I’m asking.” He touched the side of her face, warm and rough. “I love you, Ellie.”

She nodded again. A little firmer.

And then he let her go.

Three months.

She spent the first five days in bed.

Not resting. Not healing. Barely surviving.

Her body had become a war zone—bone against nerve, memory against muscle, pain crashing through her like a wave with no shore. 

She didn’t eat. Couldn’t. Every attempt to swallow felt like dragging glass down her throat—jagged, raw, unforgiving. Her stomach rejected everything. Her body, so used to poison, couldn’t recognize nourishment without recoiling. She vomited every bite. In the sink, in the trash, in towels. It came up bile-yellow, bitter and acidic, her throat left scorched and trembling after every gag.

She didn’t shower. Couldn’t stand the pressure of the water or the sound of it against the tiles. Couldn’t bear the sight of her own body in the mirror—shrinking, hollowing out, unfamiliar. The frame of a stranger she no longer recognized.

The nurses tried. Gentle voices, gentle hands. They moved like white ghosts through the room, soft-footed and full of mercy. They brought small trays with bland food she never touched. Offered medication—anti-nausea pills, muscle relaxants, sleep aids, things that might take the edge off the screaming inside her skin.

She acted like she did. But she never swallowed them.

You don’t deserve relief. This is the price. This is what you earned. This is what you get.

That was what her brain told her. That was the drumbeat in her ears. 

The few things she couldn't refuse to came through needles. IVs slid into the bend of her arm, saline dripping slow, cold, quiet. A half-measure of mercy.

But nothing touched it. The pain didn’t dull—it roared.

Every cell in her body screamed for the god she once worshiped—in backstage stalls, hotel bathtubs, and the hands of plugs who never asked questions, only offered more.

Coke, heroin, pills—they had rewritten her wiring, turned her nerves into a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. Without them, she was a body on fire with nothing left to burn.

The drugs had silenced her grief. Had numbed her fear. Had made her feel like she could float above the noise. That she was above everything living and not living. But now that they were gone, it was all crashing in. The noise was inside her now. Under her skin. Screaming through her bloodstream. Now she was beneath it all. 

She shook like something feral. Burned with fever. Her skin felt like it was blistering from the inside. Her bones felt too big for her body. Her mouth bled from clenching her jaw too tight.

She sweated through her sheets twice a night. They stuck to her back like it was her real skin. She stared at the ceiling for hours, the whites of her eyes stinging. The whole world slipped sideways. The corners of the room stretched and curved. The shadows grew bigger and darker, swallowed her and spitted her out. 

She sat for hours on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, arms around her middle, forehead pressed to her knees, rocking back and forth. Wondering if maybe she could choke on her own breath. Wondering if maybe that would be enough to make it stop.

And the nightmares didn’t come in dreams.

They came when she blinked. 

A hand she couldn’t see at her throat. Faces at the edge of her bed. The crowd, always the crowd, roaring with empty mouths and red eyes, thousands of phones raised, all pointed at her, all flashing, all recording, all screaming her name over and over again.

Jesse. Yelling behind her. His voice cracked and distant. Dina. Standing in the corner. Her mouth moving but the only sound Ellie could hear was liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.

Joel. Sometimes he stood in the other corner, silent and blurry, holding her guitar like a corpse. Sometimes he was on his knees on the side of the bed, younger and smaller than she remembered, whispering, I did everything I could, over and over again until he turned to ash.

But there was something worse—something that came after sleep, but before waking. That trembling, liminal state where the line between memory and madness blurs. The room around her was real—she could still smell the antiseptic, still feel the scratch of the rehab sheets against her clammy skin—but you stood at the foot of the bed like a phantom carved from guilt and need. Like her mind had conjured you out of the very air she was choking on.

You were lit from behind by a spotlight that didn’t exist, too bright to come from any lamp. It seared her vision, turned your edges soft and glowing, like you were holy. Your chest heaved. You were crying—openly, messily, the kind of crying that had no dignity left in it.

She blinked. You didn’t vanish. You were still there. Still weeping. Still looking right at her.

You are a fucking liar. You promised. I believed you.

She tried to move. Tried to sit up. But her limbs were heavy, pinned to the bed like they’d been nailed in place. Her breath turned jagged. The light behind you pulsed, then flickered, like a dying star.

You said you wouldn’t disappear on me.

The floor stretched. The bed tilted. The room distorted into angles that didn’t make sense. You were getting further away—not by walking, not by moving—but by some cruel force in her own head warping space and time and regret.

You told me you were going to fight. For you. For me. For this. For us.

Your voice cracked on the last word. It sounded like the green room. Like the final night. Like goodbye.

She whimpered. Just once. Just enough. Then reached toward you with a hand that didn’t move.

And then you disappeared into smoke. To light. To silence. 

And Ellie, drenched in sweat and trembling like a leaf caught in a storm, curled into herself and wept like she had that night—quiet, slow, full of the kind of pain that doesn't want to be heard. 

She bit the pillow until the fabric tore. Scratched her own arms until they bled. Her biceps were covered in raw, red claw marks for weeks. She didn’t remember making them. But the blood under her nails said otherwise.

Withdrawal wasn’t linear.

It was war. No other word for it.

Every nerve begged for a hit. Just one. Just something to dull the noise. Just a second of silence.

But there was no silence.

Only guilt. Only the knowledge that this was her fault. 

She convinced herself she deserved it. All of it. Every second. Every scream. Every sting. Every shard of herself breaking off, one by one.

That she had done this. To herself. To you. To Jesse. To Dina. To Joel. To her music. To her career. To the people who believed in her. To the girl she used to be.

She didn’t pray. Didn’t believe in redemption. 

She believed in nothing at all.

Day eight. 

Group therapy. She didn’t want to go. Said she wouldn’t. Said it over and over. Two staff members came anyway. Sat on the edge of her bed.

One of them—a woman named Hope, which felt like the universe was spitting in her face once again—talked in a voice so soft it made Ellie want to scream at her to shut the fuck up. She spoke to her like she was a toddler. For so long that Ellie finally stood, not out of agreement, but because that irritating ass tone was drilling holes in her skull. Her legs buckled the second she put weight on them. She nearly went down in the hallway. 

They whispered when she walked in. They knew who she was. Of course they did. 

She kept her hoodie up. Eyes down. Didn’t speak.

But a man across from her did.

Buzzcut. Sixty, maybe. Skin like creased paper and hands that shook even when they weren’t moving. His voice didn’t tremble from nerves. It trembled from memory. He didn’t sit tall in his chair. He sank into it like the story was too heavy to carry and the act of telling it required surrender.

"She was the love of my life," he said. "God, she was everything. Beautiful. Funny. Loud. Too smart for me. And I loved her more than anything I ever held in my hands."

"But I couldn’t stop. Not for her. Not even when our lights got shut off. Not even when I sold her record collection for a hit. Not even when our kid asked why mommy cried at night." He pressed a trembling palm to his chest. "I wanted to stop. I swore I’d stop. I meant it, every time. But meaning something isn’t the same as doing it."

A long breath. A broken one.

"She left me the morning I sold her wedding ring. Didn’t yell. Didn’t cry. Just packed a bag and told me she loved me, but she couldn’t die beside me." His voice cracked. "I hated her for that. I hated her for a long time. But now that I'm clean I realize… she saved me. By walking away. She saved my life."

He looked up, eyes glassy and faraway.

"She never came back. But she saved me anyway."

Ellie didn’t cry. But her jaw locked so tight it sounded like bone on bone. Her throat swelled. She gripped the edge of the chair like it was the only thing holding her to the earth.

That night, she didn’t sleep.

Her mind spun a film reel of every second she ever spent with you—backwards, forward, in slow motion, in loop. Your voice in her ears. Your laugh in her neck. Your tears in that green room. The last I love you you said to her. And somewhere, under it all, the question she couldn’t silence:

What would I have done if she had left me first?

Day twenty.

She still couldn’t cry in front of anyone else. Mostly, she sat in therapy and stared at the floor. Gave short answers. Shrugged a lot. Refused to talk about fame. Refused to talk about the band. Refused to talk about music. That one felt like a bone still broken beneath the skin. Refused to talk about you. Especially you.

But they let her smoke.

In designated areas, away from the main building, near a cluster of thin trees that always looked half-dead. She went there every morning before breakfast. Eyes red. Hands still a little shaky. She’d stand on the cold patio and stare at the fog that drifted low between the trees, like the earth was still deciding whether to exhale.

That was where she met Thomas.

He was already there when she arrived that day. Leaning against the railing. A cigarette between his lips. Thin but sturdy. Soft-spoken. Big eyes. Twenty-five.

"I know who you are,” he said. Quiet. Almost an apology. “I’m a fan."

Ellie didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at him. She was one second from walking away.

"But I also know what you’re feeling," he added. "So... I won’t ask for a selfie."

She snorted. Just once. A dry, surprised sound. It startled her.

The next day, he was there again.

They shared silence like it was holy. A language neither of them had to translate. They talked, eventually—not about anything real. About sci-fi. The new Dune movie. Favorite comics. A band she loved before she ever picked up a guitar. They argued about Batman. Laughed, sometimes, in short bursts that felt foreign to her mouth.

He never asked about her music or the band. Never asked about what happened. Never asked who she had written all those songs about.

He just smoked with her. Talked to her. Breathed beside her.

And something shifted. Not all at once, but slowly. Like light seeping in beneath a door.

Her appetite didn’t come back overnight, but she started eating half her tray instead of none. She started taking her meds. Let the nurse check her vitals without flinching. She showered every other day. Then every day. Let the water hit her neck. Let the steam open something tight in her chest.

She slept, sometimes. Still haunted, still twitching, but not as violently. Not as often.

And she wrote. God, she wrote.

They’d given her journals. Cream-colored covers and blank inside. She filled at night the same they handed her in the morning. Her handwriting looked like someone fighting their own hand. Crooked lines. Crossed-out verses. Scribbled lyrics. Poems that not even herself dared to read out loud. Pages torn, then taped back in. Fragments of thought. Lines that didn’t rhyme. 

Doodles of your hands. The shape of your mouth. Your smile. The soft space between your brows. The way your hands looked when they curled on a mic.

One day, she tried to draw your eyes from memory and couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t remember the exact curve, the shape of them, their glint. She sat on her bed for an hour staring at the half-finished sketch, then ripped the page out and tore it to pieces. 

But she wrote more after that.

Wrote letters she’d never send. Wrote songs she couldn’t sing yet. Wrote apologies that were too late and memories that hurt too much.

One afternoon, with trembling fingers and graphite-stained sleeves, she sketched the soft curve of your back from memory—every line tentative, reverent. Her hand slowed as it reached your shoulder. She drew the tiny mole there, exactly where it had always been. A landmark on a map she could still trace with her eyes closed.

And in the bottom corner of the page, almost too small to notice, she wrote:

A kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.

Day forty.

In private therapy, the counselor asked: "What do you think your addiction was hiding?"

And something inside her finally caved.

"I don’t know. I think… that the crowd got bigger than the music. That I had to be brilliant even when I was empty. That no one noticed the difference between real and performance. Not even me."

And once she started, she couldn’t stop. She talked for hours.

About the band. About the noise. About the interviews and the eyes and the pressure to be a genius all the time. About the fear of being ordinary, of not being enough, of not even being a fraction of what Joel was—of what he built, of what he carried, of what he sacrificed. About how the drugs made her louder, bolder, brighter, filling a hole she didn’t know existed.

“It wasn’t about getting high,” she admitted. “It was about being who they needed me to be. And then about forgetting who I really was. And then… about surviving not being anything at all.”

She swallowed air like it might steady her.

"I thought they made me more. But really they just made me disappear."

The therapist didn’t speak. Just let her keep going.

"And I lost everything. The band. The sound. The one I loved the most. My fucking voice. I lost me." Her voice cracked. But she didn’t cry. "And I know I did it to myself. That’s the worst part."

That night, she touched the guitar.

Didn’t play it. Just held it.

She sat on the floor of her room with the lights off, cradling the body of it against her ribs like it was something living. She didn’t strum. Didn’t sing.

She just breathed.

And while Ellie fought her way back from the edge, Joel took the rest into his own hands.

Jesse and Dina left quietly a few days after Ellie checked into rehab. No press release. No airport sighting. Just quiet nods and long hugs. They were young, and they were tired, and they had families back home who’d been waiting—worried—since the night the final Fireflies show imploded into nothing. They boarded separate flights with sunglasses on and hearts shattered, stepping away from the spotlight and going back to their roots to mourn what they'd built together.

There was nothing more they could do.

The announcement of the Fireflies' indefinite hiatus hit the world like a meteor. It wasn’t just music news. It wasn’t just another headline. It was cultural collapse.

The biggest band of a generation, the revival of rock, the ones who had made stages burn again—gone. Not a break. Not a rest. A disappearance. One statement, stripped of detail, cold and final.

The entire planet had never seen anything like it. Cities paused. Billboards went dark. Fans lit candles outside arenas that would never hear them play. People cried on livestreams. Talk shows froze mid-sentence. 

And Joel made the kind of calls people don't forget. Not the kind you scroll for in your phone. The kind stored in memory, in blood. The kind reserved for debts owed from decades ago. For favors etched into silence. For names you only speak once.

He didn’t care about the cost. Within weeks, he moved more money than most people saw in ten lifetimes. But the result was total.

The headlines stopped. The paparazzi photos vanished. The rumors about the cause of The Fireflies’ disappearance shriveled into dust. Blogs were erased. Video uploads failed mid-buffer. Search results redirected to blank pages. Social media accounts were flagged, suspended, dismantled. Journalists were warned. Managers were paid off. Former assistants silenced. Every whisper turned into static. Whatever he couldn’t bury with money, he buried with power.

And you—on the other hand—got buried with it too.

The world didn’t go quiet for you. It got sharper. Meaner. Colder. Crueler. They turned on you like wolves. Blamed you. Made you the cautionary tale. As if loving her too loudly had lit the match. As if the fire was your fault.

And Joel didn’t think about that. Didn’t think about the tour you cancelled. The silence that wrapped around your penthouse like a second skin. He didn’t see the weight of being the only one left behind—visible, bleeding, blamed.

But we already saw that part of the story.

The girl left behind. The silence, the spotlight, the ruin. The way she took her own broken heart, stitched it back together with shaking hands, and conquered the world all over again—crowned not in gold, but in scar tissue. A phoenix with no flame left to borrow, so she built her own fire.

Now it’s time for the other side.

The girl who vanished. The wreckage she dragged behind her like a second skin. The addiction that gutted her slowly, quietly, while the world kept spinning. The spiral no camera caught, the withdrawal no headline wrote. The one who left, but never stopped loving. The one who got away.

Joel wasn’t looking for justice. He was looking for her. And so, he burned the world to the ground to shield what was left of his daughter—never once turning to see what the smoke did to you.

And then he packed up everything she owned. Her clothes. Her guitars. Her amps. Her notebooks. A copy of every Fireflies album, still shrink-wrapped.

And then he left, too.

He went back to Jackson. Back to the outskirts of the only place that had ever felt like his hands could rest. And there, at the edge of the woods where the air tasted like pine and the birds still sang in the morning, he found a cabin. Small. Weathered. No TV. No Wi-Fi. Not even signal. Nothing like the world Ellie had been eaten alive by.

He bought it in cash. Tore down half the walls. Brought in contractors who didn’t ask questions. Insulated the attic. Reinforced the windows. Built a fireplace from scratch. Laid new floors himself, every board smoothed with his own calloused hands. Planted rosemary outside the front door because she liked the smell when she was a kid. Painted the walls soft, lived-in colors—muted greens and warm browns and the kind of blue the sky only makes after the storm passes.

And built her a studio.

Not the kind she used to record hits in. No glass wall separating her from a producer. No overpriced espresso machines or assistants on call. No executives pacing with Bluetooth headsets. No stylists fixing her collar between takes. 

Just a room. Perfect soundproofing. A mixing board that hummed like it had a soul. Three guitars mounted on the wall—one of them chipped from a stage dive in Berlin. A bass. A drum kit with fingerprints still on the cymbals.

A place she could make music in. If she ever wanted to again.

He stocked the shelves with vinyls. Filled the kitchen with real food. Bought a fireplace grate shaped like a wolf. Found a lamp shaped like a crescent moon. A home, not a hotel. Quiet, but not empty. A place you could come back to and not feel like you’d failed the world.

He didn’t call it a new beginning. He called it waiting. Because he knew what Ellie needed wasn’t a rescue.

She needed a place to land.

Day ninety.

The last day.

She woke before sunrise, not from a nightmare, not from withdrawal, not from the weight of everything she had lost—but from something quieter. A strange stillness in her chest. Like her body had finally stopped bracing for impact.

She stood at the window for a long time, then reached up and opened the blinds without thinking. The sky was soft with early blue, mist rising like smoke. 

And for the first time since arriving, the light touched her skin and didn’t flinch.

She showered. Ate a full breakfast. Took her medication. Laughed at a joke Thomas made over oatmeal, something stupid about a dinosaur president and a war for Mars. She told him he was an idiot. He said she was the meanest person he’d ever called his friend. She called him a loser. They high-fived.

She walked the long hallway to group therapy and sat in her usual seat, but this time, she didn’t fold into herself. She didn’t stare at the floor. She looked up. And when they asked if she wanted to share something on her last day, she said yes. And her voice didn’t shake.

She told them what it felt like to lose everything. Her band. Her friends Her music. Her persona. Herself. About the stage that felt like home until it didn’t. About craving the applause and hating the attention and then hating and craving all of it at the same time. About the slow death of becoming everything people wanted and nothing she could survive being.

She told them about her experience with addiction. Not as a spiral, but as a silence. A quiet gnawing. A disappearing. She said it felt like becoming a ghost with good lighting. Said it felt like sleepwalking into your own funeral.

She then told them about the girl with the voice like velvet—the one she loved more than anyone, and losing her hurt worse than anything. She spoke about what it meant to break something that had once felt unbreakable. 

How it felt to love someone while the world was trying to swallow them both. How they had stood side by side, each unraveling in their own way, watching the other fade like breath on a mirror.

She talked about how your first love being your greatest loss wasn’t just something that happened to her—it happened to both. What it meant to be taught how to love by the very person she had to unlearn. How letting go of her wasn’t a decision, but a mercy. 

She didn’t say a name. She didn’t have to.

The shape of her sorrow carved it into the silence. And everyone in the room knew exactly who she was talking about.

The glitter-drenched popstar. The girl in the front row of every headline, every stage, every magazine. The other half of the spectacle. The one they photographed beside her, draped in designer dresses and smiles, always camera-ready, always polished, always posed, always perfect.

They’d seen you everywhere—billboards, red carpets, award shows, airport lobbies. But they never really looked. Never stopped to wonder if those smiles held. If your fingers trembled under the table. If your voices cracked when the microphones were off. 

If the two girls who lit up the industry like a supernova had ever been allowed to just love each other without the world clawing at their edges. The worst part was that, in the end, it got what it came for. It tore them apart. 

When Ellie cried, she didn’t hide it. And when she looked up, everyone else was crying too.

She then packed in silence. Folded her clothes slowly. Asked to keep all the journals, even the ones filled with illegible scribbles and coffee stains and blacked-out pages. Especially those.

The guitar Joel brought still leaned in the corner. Still never strummed. She didn’t mind. Not yet. Not today. It would still be there tomorrow.

She wasn’t whole.

There were still wounds inside her that hadn’t fully healed. Ghosts that would ride with her wherever she went. She knew the moment she stepped out of those gates, the world would be waiting. Joel would be waiting. And whatever came next was still terrifying.

But for the first time in years, Ellie didn’t want to disappear.

And for now, that was enough.

The sky was gray when she stepped through the front doors of the facility. Not stormy. Not bright. Just muted, like the weather had softened itself in reverence for this exact moment. Her face was fuller. Her steps were sure. Her hands didn't tremble.

Joel was leaning against the hood of his truck.

He hadn’t changed. Same flannel, same boots, same belt buckle weathered from decades of grit. But he looked older. Or maybe just more human. There were new lines around his mouth, his eyes. A kind of soft tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. A quiet sorrow that never said its name.

Their eyes met.

And then Joel opened his arms.

It was slow. Gentle. He didn’t step forward, didn’t call her closer. Just waited.

And Ellie—God, Ellie walked into them like they were the only thing left on earth. Her face buried into his shoulder. Her arms wrapped around him with more desperation than grace. A breath caught between her ribs and stayed there.

He held her back like he hadn’t let himself hope for this moment. Like it broke something inside him to finally touch her again.

One tear slipped down his face. He didn’t wipe it this time.

"You did it," he murmured. "You're here."

Ellie said nothing. But she didn’t pull away.

"We’ll go slow," Joel said softly. "Whatever you need. Whatever it takes. Just take the next breath, alright?"

Ellie didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t need to. She knew he’d pick a place. Somewhere off the grid. Somewhere no one would find her unless she was the one that wanted to be found. The kind of quiet only Joel Miller could make safe.

They pulled up to the cabin just before dusk.

It wasn’t big. Not modern. No white marble countertops or cold glass walls. Just a low-roofed wooden house with ivy crawling along the porch and a chimney puffing soft smoke like it had been waiting for her all this time.

She walked inside.

It smelled like rosemary. The floors creaked. A fireplace cracked low in the corner. Vinyls lined a shelf in the living room. An owl mug sat clean beside the sink. A blanket was folded on the couch.

And in the back corner—a room made of music. Soundproof panels. A mixing board. Three guitars on the wall. Her old amp. A drum kit. 

She didn’t go to it, but she almost cried when she saw it.

She set her suitcase down in the bedroom. Looked at the bed. Sat on the edge of it like it might vanish beneath her. Like this was all too peaceful, too good to be true.

"You can stay as long as you want," Joel said. "And if you want to go—you say the word. No questions. No fight."

"You don’t owe me anything," he added. "Not one damn thing. But I’m so proud of you. I hope you know that, kiddo."

Ellie looked at him then. Her eyes rimmed red, but dry.

"Thanks for not giving up on me."

"Couldn’t. You’re my daughter."

She looked away, biting the inside of her cheek.

That night, she slept. Really slept. Her body surrendered without a fight—no twitching limbs, no cold sweats, no ghosts dragging her down into dreams she couldn’t escape. Just sleep. Heavy and whole.

And when the morning came, soft and slow, when sunlight spilled like honey through the cracked window, when a birdsong threaded its way through pine needles tapping gently at the glass—Ellie breathed.

Not a gasp. Not a fight. Just a breath. Steady.

Alive.

Twelve months bled into one another like watercolors—soft, pale, undemanding. In the quiet corner of a three-covered stretch outside Jackson, the house Joel had bought felt more like a memory than a place. There were no city lights. No interviews. No sold-out shows. Just the creak of old wood under her feet and the scent of firewood lingering on everything they owned.

Ellie woke with the sun. Not to vomit or sweat or claw at invisible ghosts. She simply… woke. She’d blink at the ceiling and listen to the silence for a while. Let it wrap around her like a second blanket. 

Most mornings, Joel would already be up. Coffee brewed. A single mug left steaming on the counter with her name scrawled in permanent marker across the ceramic. They sat together on the porch and watched deers move through the trees. 

They didn’t talk much. But it wasn’t awkward. It was restful. The kind of silence that never demanded to be filled.

She wrote and drew in the mornings. Scribbles and stream-of-consciousness poetry. Things she remembered. Things she didn’t want to forget. The exact placement of Dina’s freckles. The curve of Jesse’s laugh. The way your voice sounded in the morning and how your legs looked when crossed. What her own name looked like when she wrote it in red ink.

Afternoons were for painting. Joel cleared out the back shed and gave her the whole thing. She painted on cardboard, on loose wood, on the back of half-rotted cabinet doors. Portraits. Shadows. Skies that didn’t exist. A girl that always ended up looking like you. 

She ate. Three times a day. Joel made sure of it. Sometimes it was good—herbs from the garden, toast burnt just right. Other times it was just food. Fuel. But she ate. Slowly. Quietly. With gratitude. 

Her body began to remember itself. The bones softened. Her hair grew longer. Her eyes lost that yellow tint.

And Joel… Joel never pushed. He didn’t ask questions he didn’t need answers to. But he was always there. Always nearby. Fixing the porch steps. Sharpening tools. Sometimes he’d sit beside her while she painted and said nothing for hours. Sometimes he’d hand her a book and mutter something about it being “not too bad.” 

And sometimes—on those rare, quiet nights when the fire cracked just right and her chest didn’t feel like it was splitting in half—she’d lay her head against his shoulder and close her eyes.

Their bond grew back the way moss grows. Slow, delicate, unspoken. 

She would catch him looking at her sometimes with that ache in his eyes, the kind of sorrow only fathers can carry. And she would nod. Just a little. Just enough to say, “I’m still here.”

But the guitar stayed untouched.

He’d placed it on a stand in the studio—lovingly built and filled with warmth and light— but Ellie never stepped inside. She passed by sometimes, paused at the doorframe. Looked at it like a wound that hadn’t scabbed. But couldn’t even touch the doorknob.

Because music didn’t belong to her anymore.

It belonged to the version of her that had died under a spotlight. To the girl who collapsed in a green room with your voice in her head and heroin in her veins. It belonged to the wreckage and the worst version of herself.

And every time she tried to remember what it felt like to strum, she tasted blood and bile and screaming.

So she let it stay behind glass.

Sometimes—on the rarest nights—when the sky went purple and the pine trees whispered things that almost sounded like forgiveness, she wondered if this was real. 

If this house, this life, this quiet was just a hallucination her dying mind had conjured in a hotel room somewhere. If she was really just dead already, and this was what came after.

But then Joel would call her name, soft and simple. The way he used to when she was a kid. She’d look over her shoulder and see him leaning against the kitchen doorway with a flicker of warmth in his eyes.  And the air would return to her lungs.

The night air settled over Jackson like a held breath. Just cold enough to bite at the edges of skin. The porch creaked gently beneath them as they sat—Joel with his elbows on his knees, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. Ellie beside him, hoodie up, one foot tucked under the other.

The sky above was clear. Stars sharp. The kind of sky that reminded her how far away she was from the world. How far away she was from Jesse and Dina. How far away she was from you.

Joel exhaled smoke, watching it twist into the dark.

“You sleepin’ alright?” he asked finally.

Ellie shrugged. “Sometimes.”

He nodded, like he expected that. Crushed the cigarette into the ashtray on the railing. Another long silence.

Then—quiet, almost too quiet to catch:

“Ellie…”

She turned to him slightly. His face was shadowed by the porch light, but she saw the way his jaw clenched before he spoke again.

“You don’t have to answer this, but…” A pause. A breath. “Why didn’t you do it?”

She blinked. He didn’t look at her when he said it.

“Those nights you spent locked in that hotel room.” His voice was gentle, but firm. “You could’ve. God knows you had enough reason. Enough pain. But you didn’t.”

Ellie looked back out toward the trees. Her hands were in her sleeves, fingers curled into fists.

“Every day I thank whatever’s up there that you didn’t.” He continued, his voice rough and bare. “But I still… I still think about it. Wonder what gave you the strength.”

Her throat felt like sandpaper. But the words came anyway.

“I wanted to,” she said. “I thought about it all the time”

“And I tried.” She swallowed. “A couple times.”

The wind shifted. The trees rustled like they were listening.

“But every time I got close…” 

Her voice caught. 

“Her face came back.”

Joel turned then. Really looked at her. Ellie was staring down at her knees. Eyes glassy. Mouth tight.

“I kept seeing her, I kept hearing her voice,” she whispered. “The last time. Crying. Begging. And I thought—I can’t do that to her again. I can’t be the reason she breaks twice.”

Joel didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

“I didn’t survive for me. I survived for her.”

Her voice cracked on that last word. 

Joel felt it like a punch to the chest.

He thought—God. He’d seen a lot in his life. Too much for only one person. Wars waged in cities and kitchens, grief stitched into the fabric of every year. Love that rotted under pressure. Love that left. Love that wasn’t really love at all. 

But this?

This kind of love—this raw, surviving thing that crawled its way through wreckage and blood and spotlight and distance, and still had enough breath to whisper her name—undid him.

He had never seen anything like it. Not in his youth. Not in the world. Hadn’t even believed it could exist—something so unwilling to die, blooming out of the kind of ruin most people never crawl out from.

He looked at her. Really looked.

And there she was. This kid—his kid, not only by blood, but by fire and stubbornness—wrapped in bruises and a kind of aching devotion that still burned in her chest.

She hadn’t made it out unburned. But she’d made it. And it wasn’t faith or hope that had kept her alive.

It was love. Not the clean kind. Not the kind with fairy tales and forgiveness. The kind that shattered you and still refused to let go. The kind that whispered through inside her mind and said don’t. The kind that looked like her.

And for the first time in his life, Joel Miller believed in something he didn’t have a word for. He only knew that it looked like Ellie. And that it sounded like a girl who still loved her, even after everything.

His voice was thick when he finally said, 

“You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Ellie didn’t answer. Just lit her own cigarette and took a slow drag.

It started to become a kind of ritual.

Not planned. Not spoken. Just something that happened—every few nights, when the moon was sharp and the woods were quiet, Ellie and Joel would sit outside on the porch. Two chairs. A pack of smokes. Coffee gone cold.

And then they’d talk.

Not always about the heavy things. Sometimes it was about the deer tracks Joel had spotted near the tree line. Sometimes Ellie would mutter something dry about the government, and Joel would scoff like he hadn’t been the government at some point. Sometimes they’d sit in silence for an hour before a single word was said.

But when the heavy came, it always came honest.

“You ever think about music again?”

Ellie didn’t look at him. She was staring out at the trees. Smoking slowly, the cigarette cupped in her hand like it was sacred.

“Sometimes,” she said. A beat passed. “And then I stop thinking real quick.”

Joel learned, over these months, that Ellie didn’t move for pressure. She moved when she was ready. And sometimes, when the dark was soft enough, she was.

“It just… it brings me back,” she admitted, eyes still fixed forward. “To everything. The tour. The blood in my mouth. The drugs. The lights that felt like they were trying to kill me. The silence that came after.”

Joel didn’t speak.

“And also, she…she was my muse,” Ellie said, quieter now. “She was in the best things I wrote. The songs that people liked the most… every chord I played right. She was there. And now it’s like… I don’t know how to do it anymore. Like I forgot the language.”

Joel breathed in through his nose. Nodded.

“I read some of your journals,” he said gently.

Ellie stiffened.

“Only the ones you left open,” he added. “Didn’t go snooping.”

“You’ve still got it in you, kiddo. You’ve just buried it under the grief.”

Her throat clicked as she swallowed. Still wouldn’t look at him.

“Music’s a way out,” Joel said. “And a way through. It’s how you’ve always spoken. Even when you didn’t have words, you had that.”

Ellie closed her eyes.

“That girl you loved? I think she’d want you to make music again. For her. For you.”

That broke something. Not enough to collapse her. But enough to shift the weight.

She glanced at him. Eyes tired. Voice like gravel.

“I don’t remember how.”

Joel didn’t speak. He stood instead. Went inside. When he came back, he had it in his hands—her acoustic.

He held it out.

“Then we remember together.”

Ellie looked at it like it might bite her. Her breath caught.

“I can’t,”

“I’ll start,”

And he sat down, resting the guitar on his knee like it weighed less than memory. His fingers moved slowly, stiff from age, but so familiar. He strummed a slow, soft chord. Then another. The air shifted.

He played the opening notes of Wayfaring Stranger—old, worn, rooted in some deep Appalachian ache. Ellie’s breath hitched.

He nodded toward the space beside him. It was quiet.

Then she moved. Sat down. And her voice came.

Shaky at first. Rusted from silence. But real. Raw.

“I am just a poor… wayfaring stranger…”

Ellie didn’t cry. But when they finished—when the last note dissolved into pine trees and wind—she leaned her head on Joel’s shoulder.

Because in that moment, a piece of her soul returned.

A flicker. A chord. A bridge. A breath.

That night, Joel had gone to bed early.

He’d kissed her temple in passing, ruffled her hair like she was still thirteen, said something about needing to catch the sunrise. She smiled without answering, waited until his door clicked shut. Waited another twenty minutes, maybe thirty, counting the creaks in the old floorboards and the rhythm of his footsteps fading into sleep.

Then—quietly, carefully—she got up.

Her socks barely made a sound on the wood as she moved through the darkened house. The kitchen light above the stove still glowed like a nightlight. Outside, a late snow had started falling, brushing the windows with flurries that looked like static on a screen.

Ellie finally opened the door. Because tonight, something had shifted like thaw after a long, bitter winter.

The studio was still warm from the afternoon sun. The insulation held the heat. Her breath didn’t cloud the air. The soundproof panels still clung to the walls, dark and padded. The guitars hung where Joel had mounted them. The desk lamp was on, casting a low golden glow across the mixing board. And there, on the shelf, were her journals.

She walked to them.

Chose the one she hadn’t touched since she closed it, worn soft at the corners. The one with the sketch she’d done on day twenty-eight. Your back, your shoulders, that mole. The one she’d captioned with a line she didn’t even remember writing until she saw it the day before:

A kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.

She sat. Flipped through pages of grief and ink-blotted apologies.

And she let herself feel it this time. The ache. The missing. The love.

And it wasn’t kind. It was raw. She remembered the way your voice cracked when you told her she was a liar. The way your hands trembled when you let her go. The last kiss.

Tears streaked down her face in silence. Her shoulders shook. Her chest cracked open, soundless and shaking, and she let the pages in her lap blur with salt.

Then—slowly—she pulled the guitar down from the wall. The acoustic one. Her first. The one Joel had taught her to play on.

Her fingers hovered for a beat. Then she strummed.

The sound came out warped, soft, imperfect.

But it came out.

She flipped through the pages. Pieced together verses from scribbled corners, from margins, from half-abandoned choruses. A line about her being hungry for your love with no way to feed it. A line about being too young to hold on and too old to break free and run. A line about you being the tear that will hang inside of her forever.

She built a melody. And when it felt right—when the bones of the song finally locked into place—she turned on the mic. The red light blinked once. Twice. Then held.

Her voice wasn’t what it used to be. It trembled. It cracked. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t powerful.

But it was honest.

And when she finished—when the last note hung in the air like smoke from a blown-out candle—she didn’t say anything. She just sat there. Breathing.

Then she saved the file.

lover_you_shouldve_come_over.wav

And after that, Ellie didn’t stop.

She lived in the studio like it was a second body—unwashed coffee mugs on the desk, blanketed in flannel shirts and cables. She slept on the floor most nights, curled up in half-buttoned clothes, a pencil still tucked behind her ear, dried ink smudged across her cheekbone like warpaint. She dreamed in melodies. Woke with her fingers still curled in phantom chords.

Sometimes she forgot to eat. Sometimes she forgot what month it was. Joel started leaving sticky notes on the fridge with things like Eat today or It’s Wednesday, dumbass.

All the songs were acoustic at first. Bare. Unadorned. Like bones washed up on a beach.

She wrote them from the wreckage—pages torn from old notebooks, grief tucked into the margins of rehab journals, fragments of lyrics she scrawled years ago when her hands still smelled like blood, whiskey, stage smoke and the perfume of five different groupies.

The studio felt wrong without Jesse and Dina.

Once, it had been chaotic—Jesse cracking jokes while playing the drums way too loud, Dina blasting bass lines over vodka-fueled all-nighters, all three of them arguing about reverb like it was life or death.

Now it was just Ellie.

Well. Ellie and Joel.

He sat in when she needed him. Plucked chords while she rewrote verses. Nodded or shrugged when she looked for approval. Sometimes he’d grunt out a melody while tuning and it would always be perfect, and she would curse him out like it wasn’t the best thing that happened to her all week.

They recorded Wayfaring Stranger together one night.

It was storming hard—rain on the roof like applause from ghosts. The cabin lights flickered once. Joel didn’t flinch. They sat with two old mics hissing soft static, the smell of rosemary in the air, guitars balanced in their laps.

Joel’s voice was cracked and low, worn-in like a denim jacket. Ellie’s was thinner, rawer, but sharp—cutting through the quiet like a blade through fog.

After the last verse, she lowered her headphones and frowned.

“That mic sounds like it’s dying, man.”

Joel kept tuning, didn’t look up. “It’s vintage.”

“It makes me sound like I’m stuck in the ‘70s.”

“You are.”

“I’m not! I’m—” She stopped. Tilted her head. “Actually… yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

She didn’t fight it anymore.

Joel’s music—his bare-bones honesty, his refusal to dress things up just to make them easier to swallow—it started to seep into her own. The way he played. The way he said something real and didn’t care if it sounded pretty.

She used to resent that. Spent years trying to polish the edges of his influence off herself. Now she understood. Now it sounded like home.

Then one morning, Joel walked in and said, “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s your birthday. You're twenty-five now.”

She’d forgotten.

She hadn’t left the cabin in over two years. Hadn’t seen anyone but Joel. Her hair was longer now, almost reaching her shoulders, uneven at the ends from the times she hacked at it with kitchen scissors. She never let it all the way down, always tied it up in a bun or a half updo. It wasn’t the messy mullet from before—it was softer now. Grown in. Like it had survived something.

Joel dragged her out. Said they were going for coffee in Jackson.

Incognito. Baseball caps, oversized jackets, sunglasses too big for their faces. He called her “Josh” the whole time. She scowled but didn’t correct him.

She clutched something in her coat pocket the whole time. A folded, yellowing page. It had phone numbers scrawled across it—names and addresses she’d written down when she was sixteen. Just in case she ever needed to reach someone. A page she never thought would matter again. 

But now, it felt like a compass.

“Can we stop at a payphone?” she asked quietly, her voice raw from too many takes and not enough talking.

Joel raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask questions. Just handed her some quarters.

The booth was cracked and rusty. It smelled like old pennies and rain. She shoved the page flat against the glass and started dialing.

She called Jesse first.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

She almost hung up.

“...Hey,” she whispered. “It’s me.”

A silence. Then: “…Ellie?”

And then: “Holy shit—Ellie? Are you okay? Are you—”

“I’m alright.” She smiled, just a little. “I’m doing good, actually.”

“Jesus. Jesus, we thought you—Dina said—fuck, Ellie—”

She heard the shudder in his breath. The tears. She told him she was alive. That she was sorry. That she didn’t call because she didn’t know if she ever could.

He told her he’d been working with a few bands—nothing major, nothing that stuck, but enough to keep his hands busy and his heart half-healed. The Fireflies name still opened all the doors, even if it felt weird saying it out loud without her there.

"People still talk about you, you know. All the damn time."

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that.

“Sometimes,” he admitted, voice cracking, “I think about that show. The one where your amp blew out mid-set and you didn’t even flinch. Just screamed the whole damn chorus ‘til the crowd lost their minds.”

They cried together. Quietly. Like people who’d already cried a lot in private and didn’t need to explain why anymore. Then laughed about how fucked up everything was.

Then Dina. She picked up on the third ring.

She didn’t even said hello. She didn’t have to. Her gut feeling told her who called.

“…Ellie?”

Ellie nodded before realizing that it didn't translate through a payphone. “Yeah. Hey.”

The silence stretched for a second—then snapped.

“You asshole!” Dina was already crying. “You selfish, unbelievable—fuck. I missed you so much!”

Ellie laughed through her own tears. “I missed you too, D.”

Dina told her she’d been in Europe for months—spinning records in sweaty clubs, working late-night DJ sets in little places where no one knew her name or history. “I dyed my hair pink. I ate shit on a Vespa. I’ve been healing, I guess. Or fucking around. Same thing.”

Ellie grinned. Of course Dina was the one who turned grief into glitter.

“Sometimes I play Fireflies tracks,” Dina added, softer now. “Not full sets. Just… when it feels right. And every time I do, Ellie—” She stopped, breathed in. “The crowd goes still. Then they go wild. Like they’re remembering something holy. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in our shows. Tears. Screaming. People grabbing strangers just to scream the lyrics together.”

That made Ellie’s stomach drop. Not because she wasn’t proud. But because it felt like looking in a mirror at someone who didn’t exist anymore.

The world hadn’t let go of her. But she didn’t know if she could ever go back to it.

“You still mean something to them,” Dina whispered. “You still mean something to me.”

Then—Ellie pulled in a breath. Deep and jagged, like it might get stuck on the way out. Her fingers found the last quarter in her pocket.

She didn’t need the crumpled page for this one.

Your number had never left her. Not when she was bleeding backstage. Not in the grey mornings in rehab when her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not when Joel found her slumped against the studio wall, whispering lyrics like prayers to a God that couldn't even listen to them.

She could’ve dialed it blindfolded.

The rotary clicked under her fingers.

She pressed the receiver to her ear like it might hurt. Like maybe hearing you would split her open in a way she would never recover from.

It rang. Once. Twice. Then—

“The number you have dialed no longer exists.”

Static. Dead air. A silence so absolute it felt like the biggest punishment she had ever received.

Her hand hovered over the receiver. Then she slammed it down hard and tried again. Faster this time. Desperate.

“The number you have dialed—”

No. No, no, no.  

Her stomach caved in. Her lungs forgot what to do.

She didn’t move. Not for a full minute. Just stood there in the booth, wind pushing against the glass, her face slack and still. The receiver hung in her hand.

Her heart didn’t break loud. It didn’t explode. It sank. And when the tears came, they didn’t fall like before—not in storms, not in grief, not in the animal sobs of withdrawal.

A single tear at the edge of her cheekbone. Another clinging to her jaw. She didn’t wipe them away. She just let them slide, slow and steady, as if maybe they carried part of you. As if maybe they could make up for all the words she didn’t say.

She just wanted one second.

Just one second where she could hear your voice again.

She wanted to know if your hair was still the softest thing she had ever touched. If your laugh still cracked in the middle. If you still sang harmonies under your breath without realizing.

If you hated her. If you missed her. If you ever thought of her. If she haunted your music the way you haunted hers. If you still love her the same way she does.

She wanted to tell you she made it. That she didn’t die. She almost did, but she didn’t. That she didn’t want to anymore. Not since she started writing again. Not since she remembered who she was underneath the noise.

She wanted to tell you that you saved her.

Even if you didn’t mean to. Even if you wouldn’t care anymore.

She left the booth with her hands trembling from everything she did and could no longer undo.

Joel was waiting by the truck. He looked up when she approached, coffee gone cold in his gloved hands. He didn’t ask why she spent hours on that payphone or why she was crying.

When they reached the cabin, Ellie didn’t take off her coat. She didn’t speak. She just dropped her bag by the door, kicked her boots off half-heartedly, and went straight into the studio.

She sat down at the console and opened a fresh journal. Not one of the old ones—the wrecked ones with pages water-warped from blood and tears. A new one. Clean. Blank. Terrifying.

And she wrote pages and pages of lyrics.

She picked up the bass for the first time in over a year. The strings felt foreign beneath her callouses. Still, the weight of it grounded her—solid, real, unyielding.

She let it hum beneath her fingers. Slow at first. Then louder. Then louder still.

She played until her fingertips ached and stung raw, until the studio felt full again. Then she turned to the drum kit in the corner—still coated in a layer of dust like no one had dared touch it.

She didn’t know what she was doing. Didn’t care.

She wasn’t chasing perfection. She was chasing pulse.

She needed noise. She needed proof she was still here. She needed to fill the space before it swallowed her.

By morning, she had added basslines and makeshift drums to nearly every track. They were rough. Unpolished. Nowhere near what Jesse or Dina could’ve done.

But they were hers.

Joel found her in the studio one evening, back turned, sleeves rolled, headphones slung around her neck, mouth gently moving with the melody in her head. The soft glow of the monitors bathed her in blue, and he stood in the doorway for a moment too long, just watching. She didn't look twenty-five.

She looked twelve and thirty and ageless all at once.

He cleared his throat.

“You done?”

Ellie blinked, startled out of whatever place she'd been floating in, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Think so.”

Joel stepped in, boots thudding against the wood. The place smelled like dust and coffee and burned wires—the scent of something born too fast and too bright.

“Mind if I—” He gestured toward the speakers.

She hesitated. Just a beat. Then reached over and hit play.

The room filled with her voice—unmistakable. Still raspy in places, sharp in others, but deeper now. Weathered. Like a field after fire. Still growing, but forever changed.

The first tracks bled in gently, acoustic at its core, but layered—drums like a distant storm, a bassline humming beneath it like a heartbeat.

And then—

Guitar.

Electric. Clean, furious, aching.

It slid in like it had been waiting all this time.

And Joel froze. Because that guitar wasn’t just good. Wasn’t just decent. It was her.

Not the kid who used to play for him on porch steps in Jackson. Not even the version of her who’d burned up on stages, who'd screamed into microphones like it could keep her alive and made magazines call her one of the greatest.

This was something else. This was someone who had crawled through ash and come out holding fire in her hands.

Some song sounded like heartbreak wrapped in honey. Others punched like fists through drywall. Others had violins and beats and sounds she found on the mixing board. And then came some solos—raw, wild, effortless. Like those fingertips still held the meaning of that second language she spoke when her lyrics didn’t find the right words.

She was holding the Les Paul again. The black one. The one she used to sleep next to during tour season, always afraid someone would steal it. It looked heavier now, older, like it had waited too. The final and most important piece of herself finally came back.

When the last song ended, Ellie exhaled like she’d been holding her breath the entire time.

Joel didn’t look at her. He just stared at the speaker, then shook his head a little.

“Jesus, kiddo.”

She glanced up, uncertain. “What?”

He turned to her. His voice cracked just once. “That’s the most heartbreakingly beautiful goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.”

She blinked.

“It’s so… you. Not you tryna be what people expect. Not you tryna prove anything. Just... you. In every chord. Every line. Your voice—hell, it sounds like it grew up with you. Got scarred with you. Got clean with you.”

“You don’t have to say that just ‘cause I’m your kid.”

“Ellie.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not sayin’ this ‘cause I’m your dad. I’m sayin’ it ‘cause I’ve heard a hell of a lotta music in my life, and none of it comes close to this. You got lightning in your blood. I ain’t just proud. I’m lucky. I got to watch a genius figure herself out.”

Ellie let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Genius, huh?”

Joel smirked. “Yeah. Turns out I gave birth to one.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

They both laughed. And then she stepped into him, forehead against his chest, arms curling around his waist.

“Thank you, Dad.”

He hugged her back, tightly. Like he’d been waiting for this moment longer than she had.

They stood there for a long time. No music playing. No words. Just the hum of everything that hadn’t been said over the years.

“So… what now?”

Ellie chewed her lip. Looked at the floor. Then finally back at him.

“I wanna come back.” Her voice was soft, but steady. “I wanna release the album. Independently. I mean, I doubt the label would touch me again. Not after everything.”

Joel tilted his head. “You let me worry about the label.”

“What?”

“I’ll handle it. When you’re ready.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You just keep doin’ what you do. Finish the tracks. Wrap it up right. When the time comes, we’ll put it out on your terms.”

“You’d do that?”

Joel shrugged like it was nothing. “Damn right. You think I’m gonna let the best thing I’ve ever heard rot on a hard drive in this cabin?” 

Something in her face cracked open. Not sadness. Relief.

“They will hear it, El. One way or another.”

And for the first time in years, future didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like a door. She looked back toward the Les Paul, still slung against the chair like it belonged there.

Like it had been waiting.

But now, she was ready.

It was early, just after nine. The air still smelled like frost and wet asphalt. Ellie stood in the cereal aisle of the Jackson general store, her hoodie pulled low over her brow, fingers wrapped around the handle of a red plastic basket. She had a list Joel made folded in her back pocket: milk, eggs, bread, apples if they had the good kind. 

Joel had said it like a reward, “You’re ready. Just keep your head down.”

So she did. Josh. Quiet. Hoodie, sunglasses, sleeves pulled low over the tattoos that might give her away. Nobody recognized her. It felt kind of surreal, like pretending to be someone else was easier than being who she was.

The checkout line was slow, but Ellie didn’t mind. She liked watching people. A mom trying to control a sugar-high toddler. An old man counting coins like they were magic. The soft beep of the scanner. Life in motion. Life that wasn’t hers.

Then the cashier glanced up at the small, dust-covered TV mounted above the register. Volume low. A red banner on the bottom of the screen.

BREAKING: Eight-Time GRAMMY Winner Y/N Confirms Romance with Star Quarterback Abby Anderson

The cashier smiled, bagging a box of cereal. “I’m so glad that girl went through all that and still came out on top,” she said. “Good for her.”

Ellie turned to look. Just a glance. 

A mistake.

She had never felt her stomach drop like that in her entire life.

Not when the tour got canceled. Not when the pills ran out. Not even when she first realized she was in love with you.

This was different.

This was a freefall. No warning. No parachute. Just gravity dragging her heart straight to hell.

You.

You in a long velvet gown the color of midnight, standing beside Abby Anderson in a black suit with her hand on the small of your back. A camera caught you mid-laugh—head thrown back, eyes closed, glowing. The kind of laugh she used to get out of you when she whispered something filthy in your ear or caught you stealing her hoodie in the middle of a shoot.

But now—you looked different.

God, you looked different.

Your hair was darker. Longer. You stood taller, somehow. Not in heels, but in presence. Like the world didn’t get to touch you anymore unless you said so. There was something else too—an energy she couldn’t name. A kind of light that used to come from her. From the songs. From the love.

Now it came from somewhere else. Someone else.

The basket dropped itself from Ellie's hands.

It hit the ground with a clatter—milk carton bursting open, Cheerios rolling across the floor like gold coins. The cashier called something after her, but Ellie was already outside.

She barely made it to the truck. Door open. Head between her knees.

And then she threw up.

Right there in the parking lot gravel. Acid and coffee and guilt.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and tried to breathe, but her chest was caving in. Not fast, but slow—like it had been waiting for this collapse.

She sat behind the wheel for twenty minutes before she could stop shaking.

Then she cried. Not loud. Not violent. A quiet, stunned kind of weeping—like the body trying to process a pain it didn’t see coming.

She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe the way you looked. Couldn’t believe the world had been spinning like that without her. That you had became even more radiant and beautiful than she remembered—and she'd always remembered you like a wildfire.

She couldn’t believe she’d missed all of it. That while she was drowning in rehab and hollowing herself out into songs, you had survived. You had won eight grammys. You had become someone new. Someone braver. Someone who laughed like that with someone else’s hand on your back.

She leaned her head against the steering wheel.

She remembered how she used to trace every freckle on your shoulder like it was scripture. How you used to mouth the words to her songs before they were even finished. How you used to ask her what she saw in the stars when she couldn’t sleep.

And now she didn’t even know what time zone you lived in.

Ellie didn’t even park the truck properly. Gravel spit behind her tires as she slammed it into gear and killed the engine outside the cabin. She didn’t bother locking it. Didn’t bother breathing.

She threw the door open so hard it bounced back. The screen creaked, the wood groaned, and there was Joel—sitting at the kitchen table, tuning his old acoustic like nothing had happened. Like the entire goddamn universe hadn’t just exploded. Or at least, that's how ellie reacted.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” she hissed. “What the actual fuck,—why didn’t you tell me?!”

He didn’t look up. Just kept turning the peg. Calm. Steady. “Tell you what?”

“Don’t play fucking dumb with me!” she snapped. “She’s with someone. You didn’t think that was something I should fucking know before I threw up outside the fucking grocery store?!”

Joel let out a long breath, one of those fatherly ones that said I’ve been waiting for this. He finally met her eyes.

“Ellie, don’t blame me for something you didn’t wanna see.”

She flinched.

“I’ve been just as disconnected from the world as you. We’ve both been ghosts in this cabin. You haven’t asked about her. Not once. You think that’s coincidence?”

Her fists clenched at her sides. Her jaw was ticking.

“You had months! You could have—”

“What?” he interrupted, his voice calm but firm. “Ripped the Band-Aid off for you? Showed you the picture and held your hand while you cried?”

Joel softened, his shoulders sagging. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. He never was.

“I didn’t keep it from you, kiddo. I just... didn’t go looking. Same way you didn’t. ‘Cause we both knew it’d hurt like hell when you saw it.”

Her throat was closing again.

“You don’t have drugs to drown it anymore,” Joel said gently. “Now you just have to feel it. Go to that studio. and don’t come out ‘til your voice is hoarse and your fingers are bleeding and you feel even a little bit better.”

Then added:

“You’ve got to learn how to go through your feelings. Not around them. Not under them. Through.”

Ellie didn’t say anything else. Just nodded once—sharply—and turned away.

The studio door slammed behind her like a warning shot.

She didn’t hesitate. Walked straight to the mic stand, flipped on the switch, and yanked the pop filter off like it insulted her.

She took a breath. One, two, three.

And then—

“ABBY ANDERSON YOU FUCKING BLONDE BITCH—”

The mic popped from the force of it.

“I’M GONNA FUCK YOU UP! I’M GONNA RIP YOUR STUPIDLY BIG FUCKING ARMS OFF AND USE THEM TO PLAY GUITAR BETTER THAN YOU EVER COULD—”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU AND THEN TEAR YOU APART AND VOMIT YOUR GUTS AND THEN SHOVE ‘EM BACK DOWN YOUR THROAT— YOU STUPID FUCKING QUARTERBACK BITCH—YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO THROW A BALL—”

Her voice cracked. She coughed. Then screamed again.

“YOU THINK JUST ‘CAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING JAWLINE AND A PANTSUIT AND AN ARM AROUND HER WAIST THAT MAKES YOU WORTHY? SHE WAS MINE, YOU FUCKING JOCK STRAP, SHE STILL FUCKING IS AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW—”

Her knuckles were white on the mic stand. Her voice went hoarse halfway through the next sentence.

“You don’t even know her,” she gasped. “You don’t know what she sounds like at 3 a.m. when she can’t sleep. You don’t know how she takes her fucking coffee. You don’t know that she sings when she’s nervous and cries when she’s mad and tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s about to lie and—”

And for the first time in almost three years, Ellie let herself mourn.

Not just you. Not just Abby. Not just what she saw. But all of it.

The missed years. The songs she never sang to you. The poems she burned. The way she’d clutched her sobriety like a gift she didn’t know what to do with. The way she thought maybe—just maybe—you were still holding her somewhere in your heart.

Joel didn’t sleep that night.

He heard everything through the studio wall—every scream, every screech of distorted guitar, every thundering kick drum and rattling snare. The bass bled through the floors like an earthquake held at bay. It wasn’t music, not at first. It was fury in waveform.

Ellie had started with a scream. He heard it cut the silence like a blade—sharp, ragged, gut-deep. And then came the noise.

Something harder than anything Joel had ever known. Harder than Slipknot. More brutal than Judas Priest. Louder, darker, filthier than anything she’d played before. Like metal had swallowed electronic and spit it back out in flames. There were no lyrics for a while. Just shrieking static, guttural breaths, beats that hit like punches, and one hellstorm of a guitar that sounded like the devil himself was grinding his teeth.

Then silence. Long, unsettling silence.

Then it started again. A different track. This one still metal—but now it was a song. A real song. Drums and guitars and layered vocals screaming over themselves, a wall of sound so thick Joel could barely tell where Ellie’s voice ended and the instruments began.

She had to go through it. And this—this was her going through it.

He made coffee at midnight and sat by the window with the lights off, listening. Hours passed like waves.

Around 4 a.m., the tone shifted.

The third track started and Joel didn’t need lyrics to feel the grief in it. Her voice was still screaming, but it was breaking, too—splintered and raw, almost childlike in its desperation. There was no rhythm. Just pain.

The fourth was slower. Quiet. A heartbeat on bass, distant guitar like wind through broken glass. And Ellie’s voice—barely a whisper now—singing something that sounded more like an apology than a song.

The fifth was melancholic. But still powerful. It had piano, brittle and off-key. And one line that sounded like it had been wept into the mic:

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be the star in somebody else's sky. But why, why, why can't it be—

Why can't it be mine?

That last word stretched long, then the note broke in a painful scream.

Joel waited another hour, just to be sure. Then he stood, stretched his aching back, and walked to the studio.

Inside, Ellie was sitting on the floor, knees tucked to her chest, fingers resting on the neck of her black Les Paul like it was a lifeline. Her face was blank. She hadn’t slept. She didn’t look up when he entered.

“What did you do?” Joel asked gently, voice low.

She didn’t answer at first. Just stared at the wall. Then, after a long pause, her lips parted.

“I made five songs.”

“That makes thirty. Album’s supposed to release in two months, right?”

She nodded.

He reached over, gently took the flash drive from the interface, and plugged it into the old studio computer. The screen flickered, files loading.

Custer. A Match Into Water. Twilight. Undressed. Black.

He listened to them all. Quietly. No commentary. No judgment. When the last track ended, he leaned back in the chair and exhaled.

“Did I just listen to the five stages of grief?

“Yeah. They’re in order.”

He looked at her, not as her mentor, not even as her father—but as someone who knew what it meant to be broken and still build something out of it.

“You made it.”

"Yeah." She scoffed bitterly. “But do I look like I feel better?”

Joel shrugged, the corner of his mouth lifting. “No. But you made it through your feelings. And that’s what matters.”

Another pause. Then—

“I’m proud of that.”

Ellie looked at him for the first time. Her eyes were bloodshot, her skin pale, but there was something behind it—something still alive.

“Are you gonna add them to the album?”

“Yeah. They’re going in.”

Two months after the studio lights in Jackson dimmed, after Joel made the calls and opened the doors she thought had rusted shut, Ellie flew to New York .

It was strange being back—the metallic taste of smog, the haunted trace of fame hanging in the air like a perfume she didn’t want to wear anymore. But the studio Joel had found for her was perfect. Private. No flashing lights. No label execs breathing down her neck.

Just a producer who’d been given the raw files and said, after the first track, “This doesn’t need much. It’s already bleeding.”

They touched the recordings gently—leveled the vocals, pulled back the fuzz, let the breath between words stay. They didn’t try to smooth her edges. They let her sound jagged. Real.

And then one morning, without a countdown or a photo or a press release, without so much as a tweet from her long-dead accounts, Ellie Williams released her first single. With her own name. The name she wasn’t afraid of, not anymore.

It dropped into the world like a bomb in a library.

No promo. No interviews. Just one link. One song. No explanation.

And the world collapsed.

Within twelve hours it was number one in sixteen countries. Within twenty-four, it was the top-streamed track on every platform. People played it in clubs and churches and funeral homes. They called it sacred. They called it the second coming of Jesus.

And all of it takes us here.

To you.

Your breath left your body like a blade had been driven straight through your sternum—slow, silent, clean. No gasp. No warning. Just the kind of pain that doesn’t scream because it’s too old, too deep, too familiar.

You stared at the screen in Rachel’s hand.

#1: Lover, You Should’ve Come Over – Ellie Williams

And your world cracked open.

Your fingers—those same fingers that once traced the shape of her spine like it was sheet music—trembled violently as you handed the phone back. Not a word. Not a whisper. You didn’t wait for Rachel’s face to fold into sympathy, didn’t hear her call your name, didn’t care how loud the room suddenly felt.

You walked through it like a ghost already halfway gone. Past the laughter. Past the questions. Past the life you had rebuilt with such careful and wounded hands.

You made it to the car before you could shatter.

The door slammed shut behind you and the silence inside rang louder than any applause you’d ever received. Louder than the Grammys. Louder than the sold-out stadiums. Louder than Ellie's voice at its prime.

The keys slipped into the ignition with muscle memory. The city rushed around you, its usual chaos blurring at the edges—streetlights dripping gold down your windshield, a world still spinning like it hadn’t just gutted you. Again.

You took the stairs instead of the private elevator because you needed the punishment.

Each step a question you couldn’t answer. Why didn’t she call? Why now? Why? When? How? Why? When? How? Why? When? How? Why? Why? Why?

You unlocked the penthouse like you’d done a thousand times. Like you hadn’t spent the last three years turning it into a mausoleum. You opened your bedroom door with hands that had once held her. Locked it behind you with the kind of finality that made silence gasp.

Everything was exactly the same. The bed still made the way she used to do it—crumpled, uneven, like someone had loved and left in a hurry. The chipped mug still sat on the desk. Her hoodie was still in the drawer. You told Abby it was just an old favorite.

But you were a liar.

You sank down onto the bed, and the mattress sighed under you like it had been waiting a lifetime to catch you in this moment.

Three years of silence. Three years of holding your breath. Three years of wondering if she was dead in a hotel bathtub or recovering or in a deserted island or lying on some stranger’s floor with a smile that wasn’t yours. Three years of clawing your way through grief while the world watched and speculated and fed on the pieces.

And now she was just here. No context. No warning. No apology.

And all the feelings you thought you had buried—beneath Abby’s calmness, beneath champagne and shows, beneath the chaos of returning to the spotlight—came crawling back like they’d been living under your skin this whole time.

You didn’t leave your room for a week.

The curtains stayed drawn. The phone stayed off. The only thing you ate was a handful of grapes you didn’t remember buying and some cereal, and the only time you spoke was to whisper “Ellie” in your sleep like a secret your soul never stopped keeping.

Everything felt exactly like those weeks after she left—when the world went mute for her and louder for you and every morning felt like a nightmare you couldn't wake up from. You thought you’d moved on, that you had grown, that you had gotten better. That no sorrow would ever be bad enough to keep you in bed again. But grief doesn’t age. It just waits.

The days passed like a open, bleeding again wound. And then it was Friday.

And you had dinner with Abby.

Because you always had fucking dinner with fucking Abby.

So you got up. Got in the shower. Tried not to cry. Failed. Got out. Tried not to look in the mirror. Failed. Tried to do your makeup like nothing had happened. Cried. Removed it. Started again. Cried again. Removed it. Started again. Until it stayed, barely, through the trembling of your hands.

You wore the black dress she liked. The one that fit too well and showed too much cleavage and said too little. You showed up on time. You smiled. You pecked her lips. You laughed at her jokes—too loud, too long, too late.

When she slid the velvet box across the table, you already knew. Diamond tennis bracelet. Flawless cut. Another gift you didn’t ask for and couldn’t wear without thinking this doesn’t belong to me. But you said thank you. Let her put it on. Let her beam like she’d won something. 

Later, at the hotel, you let her undress you. Let her kiss you. Let her believe your moans are real. Let her fill the silence where your soul used to be. Let her touch your body while your heart sat elsewhere.

And before you knew it—

Her strap was buried deep inside you. Abby’s breath was hot against your throat, shallow and frantic, like she was trying to chase something she didn’t realize had never been hers to chase. Her hands gripped your hips tight—anchoring, claiming, desperate—like if she held on hard enough, she could keep you here.

And for a single second, you closed your eyes.

And she was there.

Not a thought. Not a memory. A presence. Immediate. Intimate. Crushing.

Her face flashed behind your eyelids like lightning. 

Her eyes—green and wild and sharp, burning like fire. Her hands—calloused and careful, etching into your skin like they’d carved your body from the inside out. Her voice—all smoke and wreckage, echoing through your chest like a song you will never stop humming.

She filled the dark like a storm surge, rising fast, drowning everything else. 

Ellie. Ellie. Ellie. Ellie.

And then Abby moved. Shifted just enough. Angled herself in a way that once used to make you see stars—back then, back with her.

And your body betrayed you.

A single wrecked, loud enough word.

It rose from somewhere deep—below thought, below shame, below breath.

It wasn't your mouth who said it.

It was your heart calling out the name of the only one who ever owned it.

“Ellie!”

Time didn’t slow—it stopped.

You froze.

Abby stilled.

The air turned solid. Heavy. Like the word had cracked through the drywall, the ceiling, the night. Like the word had struck both of your spines, straight and sharp, paralyzing something deep inside.

Then, without saying anything, she pulled out.

Rose to her feet like she was finally waking from a dream she didn’t want to admit was never hers.

And started getting dressed.

Like this—you—had always been temporary. Because you moaning that name—Ellie—wasn’t just a slip. It was the last drop. And the glass was already overflowing.

“Abby—fuck, fuck, I’m sorry! I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” she snapped, but her broad back stayed turned. “To moan your ex’s name while I was inside you? Fucking spare me.”

“I’m just—” you sat up, reaching for the sheet like it could save you “I’m going through a lot lately, and I—”

She spun around.

“Stop lying!”

You froze.

“You think I don’t hear you whisper her name when you sleep?” Abby’s voice trembled now, edged with a hurt so sharp it cut through the air between you like broken glass. “You think I don’t hear you crying in the shower? That I don’t see how you stare at the gifts she gave you like they are relics?”

Her eyes burned into yours, “You think I haven’t caught you reading her letters at three in the morning, fingertips tracing every fucking word? Or replaying your old videos together when you thought I was asleep?”

Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper, each word laced with accusation. “You think I don’t see how you choke up and cry on stage when you sing the songs you wrote for her?”

Every sentence landed like a blow, striking harder each time, the truth cutting deep into your bones.

And that's when it hit you: Abby had always known. Every single moment, every quiet sob, every desperate memory. She had just been waiting for this moment. For you to slip and finally say Ellie’s name out loud in front of her face.

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck happened between you two,” she said, anger rising up like bile, “But I am so goddamn done being treated like I’m stupid.”

“I care about you,” you whispered. “I really do.”

She stepped forward.

“But do you love me?” she asked. Her voice didn’t rise. It dropped. “Because I do love you. And you never once said it back.”

“I...I feel the same way.”

She stared.

“Say it.”

“Abby…”

“Say that you love me.”

“I—I care—”

“Say. That you. Love me.”

And then, brokenly—

“I… I can’t.”

The silence after was worse than screaming. Abby’s jaw clenched. Her nostrils flared. And for a second—just a second—she looked like she might cry. But she didn’t. She blinked too quickly, like she was trying to trap them before they reached the surface.

“You are so fucking pathetic,” she said, barely louder than a breath—but it hit like a punch straight to your chest. “Biggest popstar in the world, and you still can’t get over your ex.”

She let out a dry, humorless laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “We are so fucking done. Go and write a damn stupid song about it.”

You swallowed hard. Met her eyes with a calm that didn’t come from peace—it came from truth.

“Oh, Abby.” You almost smiled. Almost.

“I will never write a single song about you.”

And that was the kill shot.

Without another word, she grabbed her coat. Walked to the door. And slammed it shut behind her. The sound echoed through the room like an aftershock.

You didn't flinch. Just stood there in the wreckage—still naked, the bracelet still gleaming mockingly on your wrist, the name Ellie still burning in your throat like acid you couldn't swallow.

The sheets beneath you were soaked in sweat and guilt and the ghosts of everything you had tried to bury. The air in the room felt thick, sour, heavy with everything left unsaid, unhealed, undone.

And then it cracked. The numbness. The performance. The lie. A tremble in your shoulders. A shallow inhale. The whisper of something fragile beginning to splinter.

Then it broke wide open.

You collapsed back onto the bed like your spine couldn’t hold the truth anymore. Your knees curled into your chest, arms wrapped around yourself like maybe you could contain it—but there was no containing this.

You cried.

Not for Abby. You barely thought about her now. Her voice, her touch, her anger—all of it already evaporating, disappearing into the static.

You cried for Ellie. For your Ellie.

The one who held you like her life depended on it. The one who touched you like you were the last song she’d ever play. The one who called you baby in the dark, who kissed you with apologies on her tongue, who broke and rebuilt you with the same pair of hands a million different times.

You sobbed for every second you spent convincing yourself you were fine. You weren’t. You never were.

Because you still loved her. With every part of you. With every scar she left. With every lyric you wrote, and every lyric you never dared to write.

And no matter how many cities you conquered, no matter how many stages screamed your name, no matter how many diamond gifts Abby clasped around your body—you never moved on.

And now she was back. Back.

Her name trending in every country. Her voice spilling from every speaker like a memory you never asked to remember.

And she hadn’t called. She hadn’t written. She hadn’t even fucking tried. Maybe she never would.

That was what broke you most. Not her silence. But the fear that it might last forever.

That she had healed. That she had closed the door you kept propped open with grief.

You screamed into the pillow. Bit down so hard you tasted blood. “Fuck you, Ellie!” “Fuck you for coming back and still staying gone.” “Fuck you for writing a song and not sending it to me.” “Fuck you for loving me and ruining me and leaving me.”

You cursed her. And then you cursed yourself. “Fuck me for waiting.” “Fuck me for still loving you.” “Fuck me for pretending I ever stopped.”

Tears soaked the pillow. Your wrists shook. Your breath came ragged.

You wanted her to disappear again. You wanted her to knock on your door. You wanted her to scream your name back.

You hadn’t listened to the song. 

Because if it was about you— If her voice cracked in that familiar way, if she said the things you never stopped needing to hear, if the guitar curled up into that shape only she knew how to play when her fingers were on your skin—It would kill you. Utterly. Unforgivably. Like the day she left.

And if it wasn’t about you? If she had given that voice, that intimacy, that love and pain to someone else? That would kill you in an even slower, impossibly more merciless way.

So you cried until your body gave out. Until your limbs went numb. Until your voice went hoarse from whispering the name that wouldn’t stop haunting your lips and your soul.

And a week later, Ellie released the album.

No warning. No press tour. No album rollout meticulously planned by agents in pastel offices. No teaser posts, no pre-saves, no comeback photoshoots in designer jackets that never felt like her. No features. No thank-yous.Just a thirty tracks posted at midnight.

The Shape Of What I Lost — Ellie Williams

The title alone was enough to break the internet.

No one had heard from her in three years. Just speculation, whispers, one single grainy shot of her walking into Joel’s truck with her hood up. Some thought she’d quit music. Others thought she was dead. Some hoped she was. Fame was like that. Fickle. Devouring.

But the truth was simpler. She hadn’t vanished. She had been bleeding. Recovering. Building something unbearable and beautiful out of everything she could no longer say out loud.

When the album dropped, the planet collapsed. Twitter imploded. TikTok went silent for a full hour. Journalists pulled all-nighters trying to write about something they didn’t understand. Critics used words like “devastating,” “seismic,” “a once-in-a-generation exorcism.” People stayed up all night listening. And crying. And relistening. And crying again.

But Ellie didn’t care.

She didn’t care that it was number one in thirty-two countries by sunrise. Didn’t care that it broke records previously held by people she used to idolize. Didn’t care that everyone was calling it a masterpiece. Because the only thing she cared about—the only number she was waiting for—was one. One stream.

Yours.

She didn’t care if the album was played a billion times. If that billion didn’t include you, it meant nothing. Because it was for you. Every bridge and breakdown and backmasked lyric. She didn’t even try to be subtle. She wanted everyone to know. She wanted you to know. 

That she had never stopped thinking about you. That she had never stopped writing about you. That she had never stopped loving you.

But she hadn’t listened to your album either.

She knew it existed. Joel told her over coffee a week ago, voice low like it might hurt to say out loud. He said it was called Supernova. Said you dropped it two years after her disappearance. Said it was brutal. Brilliant. Said it sounded like someone trying to build a cathedral out of ash. She never asked to hear it.

Because the thought of you pouring your voice into songs she would never be able to respond to—of hearing her name in a melody meant for closure, or worse, not hearing it at all—was something she didn’t think she could survive. 

So she stayed away from it. The same way you stayed away from hers. Two people too afraid to open the door, even when the key had always been each other.

Until one night.

You couldn’t sleep. The air in your LA penthouse felt sharp, like memory had a scent and it was everywhere. You lay on the floor of your bedroom, the same room that had held your rebirth and your ruin, clutching your phone like it was going to detonate.

In the same hour, across the country, Ellie was parked in Joel’s old truck. The windows fogged. The night holding its breath. The city lights flickering like your name spelled out in Morse code.

You both pressed play. At the same time. Without knowing. Without planning.

Thirty songs each. Thirty lifelines cast into the dark.

You listened to The Shape of What I Lost alone, in the dark, your body curled under the weight of the silence you had built around her name. The moment the first track started, something inside you snapped—not cleanly, not even loudly. It broke in slow, silent fractures, like a mirror spidering beneath a fist.

And then there she was.

Her voice was raw, unfiltered, unfinished in the most intimate way. It wasn’t studio-perfect. It was real. It was midnight and sweat-soaked sheets and breathless arguments and love too big to name. You heard her unravel in real time—angry, apologetic, addicted to you and terrified of hers. She didn’t hide behind metaphors. She let the truth bleed straight through the verses.

She sang about the way she left. The way she never stopped dreaming about you even when the drugs made dreaming unbearable. The night she almost didn’t wake up. The days she didn’t want to. The guilt that wrapped around her ribs like wire. The things she never said, and the way it ruined her voice when she tried to say them too late.

She sang about what addiction took from her: the music, the meaning, the way she could no longer hear a melody without seeing your face at the edge of the stage. She sang about you. In screams, in whispers, in sounds that didn’t even feel like language anymore.

And across the country, she was sitting in the dark, too.

And when she finally pressed play on Supernova, she exhaled like someone about to break a lifelong silence.

You came back in pieces. Your voice, your breath, the way you used to talk in the morning before you remembered the pain. She heard her own name buried in the harmonies—disguised, bent into rhyme, tucked inside the melody like a secret you still weren’t ready to say aloud. But she knew it. She recognized the shape of it. The ache of it. And she realized: every song you had released since her had been a love letter you were too proud, too shattered, too human to send.

And now, hearing it, she wept.

In the truck. One hand on the wheel. The other pressed to her mouth like she could hold the sound in, like crying out loud might summon you by accident. Each lyric was a wound she’d forgotten she had. Each chorus a reminder of the love she once held like a match between her fingers.

But what was the point? you were with someone else now.

Meanwhile, you were falling apart in your bed. Your face buried in your hands, the sheets damp with tears that had waited years to be cried. Your body curled like it had been struck. You weren’t just crying—you were keening, the kind of sound that only comes from love that was never buried properly.

Every line she sang brought you closer to the edge of yourself. Because now you knew. She had never stopped loving you. She had never stopped writing about you.

But what was the point? she never reached out.

You had both lived in silence, and that silence had been filled with thirty songs. Each.

Two albums, born in isolation. Two solitudes. Two hearts that beat like they were trying to find their way back through lyrics alone. Sixty tracks total. Composed in built in studios. Written in grief, carved out of silence. Sung through cracked voices and saltwater lungs.

Released not with fanfare, but into a void. At a time when the world had stopped looking for your faces. When the lights had dimmed on stages you once ruled. When both of you believed—quietly, privately, bitterly,  that the world had already moved on.

Forgotten you. Forgotten her. Forgotten both of you. Forgotten what you were together.

But the songs remembered, and they never stopped waiting. And for the first time in three years—you were both listening. To the truth. To each other. To what was never lost.

And maybe it was too late. Maybe too much had happened. Too many years. Too much silence.

But for those sacred, fragile two hours, you were both listening

To each other.

And to the love that never died, only waited to be heard.

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟷 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 | 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡.𝟹 →

taglist (tysm for supporting, hope you enjoy <333): @st0nerlesb0 @willurms @vahnilla @mancyw1214 @rxreaqia @laceyxrenee @antobooh @annoyingpersonxoxo @haithone @lofied @sunflowerwinds @xojunebugxo @reidairie @piscesthepoet @elliewilliamskisser2000 @pariiissssssss @mxquelo @elliesbabygirl @xx2849 @kiiramiz @mikellie @brooks-lin @lovely-wisteria @marscardigan @elliesanqel @lovelaymedown @gold-dustwomxn @ilovewomenfr @seraphicsentences @mascspleasegetmepregnant @raindroprose23 @creepyswag  @elliesgffrfr @kirammanss @liztreez @catrapplesauces @livvietalks @furtherrawayy @thatchosen1 @kanadadryer @littlerosiesthings @eriiwaiii2 @nramv @redlightellie @elliepoems @sabrinathewitchh982 @shady-lemur @jubileexoxo @l0velylace @look-me @adoringanakin @daughterofthemoons-stuff @st4r-b3rries @liasxeatt @desiretolive @rios-st4rs @miajooz @hotpinkskitties

࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ Damn… Collide Nation, are y’all.......breathing...? I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the hardest chapter I've ever written; I immersed myself in documentaries, interviews, and extensive research because I desperately wanted to portray how genuinely heartbreaking and devastating addiction truly is. know this chapter was intense—maybe even shocking, painfully raw.

To anyone sensitive to these themes: please know I approached this with absolute care and respect, ensuring it remained realistic, grounded, and never exploitative. Your well-being matters most to me, so my DMs and inbox are always open if you need someone to talk to. I’m here for you. ♡

see ya'll May 30th for the FINAL part, stay tuned ;)

[twihs-blog]

Guilt and Shame:

A few months ago I wrote the below post on my journey of sobriety. Making my sobriety public was never what I had envisioned when I went crawling into AA defeated. I’ve been thinking a lot recently on my journey as a human being on this planet. It’s a beautiful thing. I’ve been thinking a lot on guilt and shame surrounding my slip up and I suppose I wanted to share with you more on that.

I have been invited to a recovery house in America to help them raise awareness and money for their charity. I of course jumped at the chance, after all, giving back is what we are lead to do. I would be lying though if I said I wasn’t terrified. 

The fear of admitting fault of feeling like I let down those around me. Writing this is terrifying but I’m trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and become more attune with me and what my higher power want’s me to do.

I suppose ultimately I want to share this with you as I’ve already opened the door to this part of my life and it seems vital that I continue to do so.

Fear is at the root cause of so many issues regarding addiction in my experience. 

I still have anxiety, yesterday I took the tube to see some friends and had to leave half way through my journey due to the overwhelming feeling that I may at any second pass out. Even at dinner this feeling was hard to shake. It’s hard to describe. I walk out on to a stage to talk with you all or play music or act and I feel little of this, however in daily life it can creep in so quickly. 

Whilst my consumption of marajuana wasn’t what I would call habitual I recognize that it was a poor attempt at controlling my own feelings, anxiety’s and stressors. Which is backwards because it wasn’t exactly helping with those things either as they still were there regardless.

Living the life I am fortunate enough to live now I recognize those things and how I respond to them now is with choice. 

I suppose writing this is an exercise in digging in, in recognizing the feelings of guilt and shame, in owning up to myself and to my world. 

The last thing I ever want to be doing is walking out in to my world with a lie. 

It’s hard to know how to end this post. I suppose a thank you would be appropriate, I have a deep love for the world and for people in it. I have a love for my world and my higher power and I was very much moved to write this.

With love.

Jamie

[beforetimes]

planning a modern/fame timebomb au in my head where jinx is a celebrity recovering from addiction after a public meltdown who's lost contact with most of the people she knew when pre-breakdown/pre-fame. and in completing her recovery program she reaches out to ekko to offer a direct apology for anything she might have said/might have happened in the depths of her addiction, but doesn't hear back from him.

following this she decides to go out and sign up for a program to help at-risk kids like herself—after reflecting in therapy and realizing that a lot of the issues that lead to her being in such a volatile state of mind was because of the lack of support she had in childhood when dealing with losing her family [haven't planned what would work as a stand-in for the powder factory explosion so lets skirt past that for now] she decides that she wants to be that support for other people that she didn't have herself, after spending about a year trying to get better.

basically, she signs up as a volunteer to this big brother/sister-esque outreach program after a few months of anonymously donating to see if she can help someone in person rather than continuing to isolate herself. which is where she meets isha, who immediately imprints on jinx and insists on following her around. and jinx, who is unused to being at the centre of someone's attention without larger expectations that come with her status as a celebrity attached as caveat, starts relaxing by the very nature of her interactions with isha not being as loaded as others. like, this is just a kid! she doesn't know about jinx's issues or how she freaked out and lost it on stage/on a set/made headlines before disappearing from the public eye and ending up here. all isha sees is someone with cool blue hair and nails she wants to try her hand at painting.

after a few months of building a rapport with isha through this community mentor program, jinx accidentally bumps into the last person she really expected to see here—ekko.

ekko is also very surprised to see her here, because the last time he saw her, she was freaking out on him because he wouldn't enable her self-destructive behaviour, their final and most explosive fight resulting in their subsequent falling out where jinx threw a lot of shit back in his face and he did the same and they decided not to contact each other. well, besides jinx's attempt at an apology, but he didn't reply to that.

he sees her here and they both freeze because, like? what do you even do in this situation? they haven't seen each other in a few years at this point, maybe two or three at the most. enough time that it feels so entirely awkward to even try to act like nothing happened while also knowing that it would be equally nerve-grating to try and acknowledge the history between them.

of course, this stand-off is interrupted by isha, who sees jinx frozen in the hall and immediately stomps over to drag her away because they had been working on a painting together that she's been waiting to finish all week.

and jinx eventually relaxes because ekko doesn't say anything and neither does she, even though she wants to know what he's doing here in the first place. but the day ends without any further interactions between the two.

eventually, after asking around, jinx learns that ekko was the one who set the program up a few years prior, a tentative friend in the program telling her that the community didn't really have a lot of resources on hand and that a lot of the program was personally financed by ekko and he did a lot of work to try and uplift the people and community without demanding financial support in return, like most state-funded programs tend to do.

jinx is just, like, in awe of the fact that this childhood friend grew up to do something so great before being overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that she had been so wrapped up in her own world that she hadn't even noticed.

of course, this doesn't really change things because they're still not talking to each other, but weeks pass and jinx feels like they've gotten into a steady pattern of avoiding each other.

what she doesn't know is that ekko has been subtly watching in on her and isha's little hang-out sessions and is just in awe that this girl who had only a few years ago been so unsure of herself and in so much pain had managed to heal to the point of being able to help someone else and make a good positive impact on isha's life in a program he created.

so, after a while, jinx gets a reply on that email she had sent him nearly a year ago where ekko just asks if she wants to meet for lunch. which she replies to, after a lot of back-and-forth, by saying yes absolutely.

and then the romance unfolds further from there, yadda yadda yadda. haven't decided how this will ultimately end or where vi will play a part or anyone else but i thought that the bare bones concept i had in mind was worth posting here.

in my head maybe ekko's second, scar would be a friend who had seen the majority of the fallout and would be warning him away in the background while ekko was sort of caught up in being both happy that jinx seemed to be doing better while also conflicted on whether or not he wanted to forgive her because their last fight was like, super nasty. awful stuff said

maybe if anyone has ideas for how vi / cait / anyone else could be worked in, you can leave that below?? none of this is super set in stone! just rambling. ^_^

[twopoppies]

The article is in Spanish, but it's a very trustworthy source from Argentina. That Roger was a fucking leech, hope he rots in jail

https://www. infobae. com/sociedad/policiales/2024/11/08/pesos-argentinos-para-comprar-droga-negocios-en-comun-y-dias-libres-el-oscuro-control-de-rogelio-nores-sobre-liam-payne/

This is so fucking disturbing. I know fans have had a bad feeling about Roger for a while. It sounds like they weren’t wrong.

Today, Nores is charged with abandoning Liam Payne and killing him , as well as supplying and facilitating him with drugs, in a relationship that sources in the case describe as “almost Maradona-esque, a friend of the champion , like those who surrounded Diego at his worst .” To charge him, Madrea and his team analyzed 800 hours of footage from the CasaSur hotel and opened Liam’s phone. In addition, they took a large number of testimonies, including that of Liam’s father, Geoff Payne.

Liam's father said the same thing that the courts were able to confirm through the analysis of communications and the comparison of other testimonies: that Nores, after meeting Payne in Miami at the beginning of this year, became the force that dominated his life. If the Payne family wanted to know how the singer was, then they should contact Rogelio. He was not just another friend of Liam's, under any circumstances. Geoff Payne himself said it: "Roger" was always the intermediary. "He is better than ever," he would have told the family when asked.

And this explains the charge of abandonment of a person. It is not about the fact that the businessman did not come to the singer's aid, but about the long road that led to the CasaSur hotel.

The businessman would have become a sort of de facto manager . Although they did not have a specific contract in this regard, sources in the case say that Nores operated as an "investment advisor" and that they had business in common in view of Payne's possible return to the world stage. For this, the singer's recovery from his addiction to drugs and alcohol was key. He just had to be detoxified.

Nores accompanied Payne in a deep detoxification treatment in the United States. There, a psychiatrist prescribed sertraline, the antidepressant that was found in the toxicology test on the singer's body. The specialist said it clearly: if you mix alcohol and cocaine with sertraline, the result can be lethal.

Then, another treatment in Spain was carried out, which also failed. So they ended up in Argentina. Payne was put up in a prestigious five-star hotel that was used to hosting big rock stars. They kicked him out of there. They even visited a local psychiatrist, who testified in the file. After the five-star hotel, they both went to the Patagones polo club with the singer's last girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, where the singer was photographed wearing a helmet and heels on a horse. They spent a few days there. However, Payne quickly became nervous and left the place.

Thus, they arrived at the CasaSur hotel in Palermo on the Sunday before the death. Liam did not even have a bag. There, according to the testimonies and analysis that are part of the case of the prosecutor Madrea, Nores' control would have been much more evident, with alleged orders to the hotel staff to report each expense. Nores, this time, managed Payne's expenses , while receiving calls for each whiskey, champagne or tequila that the former One Direction member ordered, with physical money delivered at the reception. The evidence also speaks of "free days" when Liam could consume cocaine.

The day he died, precisely, was a “day off.”

Thus, Nores frequently returned to the hotel to top up the bill. Payne, meanwhile, insisted on the phone, asking for Argentine pesos to pay the dealers who offered him cocaine, with photos of the bags they offered him and the corresponding prices. The prosecution suspects that Nores had obtained cocaine for him himself, which led to the second charge against him.

Meanwhile, hotel cameras filmed Liam as he wandered the halls , drunk and with a distant look.

For the time being, Nores is free, with his passport handed over to the courts and a ban on leaving the country, while he awaits being summoned for questioning by Judge Laura Bruniard. Article 106 of the Criminal Code, which defines the crime of abandonment followed by death, speaks of “anyone who endangers the life or health of another, either by placing him or her in a situation of helplessness, or by abandoning to their fate a person who is incapable of taking care of himself or who must be maintained or cared for, or who the author himself has incapacitated .” Here, the alleged supply of narcotics plays a key role.

If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison. Given the amount of the sentence, the crime is not bailable.

[somedaylazysomeday]

Good Intentions Part Twenty-Seven

The fallout from Silco's most recent stunt sends shockwaves through the Haven... but not as much as his latest attempt to ensnare you.

Ongoing Silco x fem!reader fic (no reader description, no use of 'Y/N')

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5,900

Warnings: Drug mentions, mentions of addiction and relapse, mentions of poisoning, innuendo, unprotected sex, restraints, emotional conversations, references to Silco's operations in Arcane Season One

Previous | Next | Masterlist

---

The fallout from Silco’s stunt kept the Haven occupied for almost a month. 

Not only had he leaked Shimmer into the streets, he had ordered his distributors to offer it at one-third the usual price. Anyone who wasn’t fully recovered had been unable to refuse an offer like that, and the patient relapses you’d seen in the neighborhood had numbered in the triple digits.

The only thing that had kept you going was that the neighborhood had poured out support for the Haven. Jazper and Ronid had come by with two additional doctors, hired temporarily to help assist with the recovery efforts. The other members of the Undercity Innovation Committee had donated other things: enough food to support the Haven without sparing volunteers for kitchen duty, free electrical and maintenance work, help writing grant proposals, and some extra donation money. 

Even people who had nothing to do with governing the Undercity had reached out to support the Haven, doing everything from clearing rubble from the entrance to guarding the building at night. 

It was humbling, and you worked around the clock to take care of everyone who had chosen to keep fighting their addiction. 

Fortunately for both the Haven and the struggles of its patients, Silco’s Shimmer sale seemed to have been an isolated incident. The dealers had been pulled from the area and no one had seen them since that fateful night. It didn’t speed the recovery of the people who had been impacted, but it helped reduce the number of people who came in needing help. 

An unexpected downside to Silco’s new, self-imposed business limitations was that he was doing his best to start communicating with you again. 

Every day, you found a letter waiting outside of your door. More often than not, you found a different letter waiting on your desk at the end of the day. You had briefly started avoiding your office, but the envelopes appeared on your pillow. 

No matter how many people you asked, no one admitted to delivering letters for Silco. Clearly, he had someone at the Haven who was willing to do some work on his behalf. The problem was that you had no idea how to figure out who it was. There were more unfamiliar faces in the Haven than familiar ones, these days, and it wasn’t as if you could start turning people away on suspicion that they were working for the head Chem Baron himself. 

You suspected that Silco wanted to meet. It was only a suspicion, since you refused to read any of the letters. You didn’t know who was delivering them, so it wasn’t as if you could send them back to him unopened to make your point. You settled for burning them, leaving enough for whoever was sneaking into your office to see that you had never opened a single envelope.

But at last, the number of patients began to dwindle. Having beaten their Shimmer addictions back for the moment, people left the Haven. Some of them came back to work with other patients or to volunteer on a more permanent basis. That helped, but you were still relieved when the number of patients from the surprise Shimmer release returned to the single digits. 

The day your borrowed doctors left the Haven was the day you finally relaxed. The remainder of the patients were in the final stages of their withdrawal and actively working toward recovery. Things were wrapping up nicely, but there was also the benefit of having fewer people in the Haven who could be delivering Silco’s letters. 

And yes, you did feel bad about counting that as a benefit. 

You stopped by your office that night, tired almost beyond reason. Perhaps that was the reason you were filled with near-rage at the sight of the envelope on your desk. 

You snatched it up from the desk, but your hands refused to obey your commands from there. Instead of flinging it into the fireplace, they ripped it open and pulled the page free. Silco’s angular writing was difficult to read in the shivering light of the fire, but you managed. 

My dearest philanthropist, 

I would say that I have given up all hope of you reading my letters, but I know two things: firstly, that you are insatiably curious. If you were not, I believe our association would not have lasted nearly so long as it has. 

Secondly, and more importantly, you know that I would not reach out idly. Surely you know me well enough by now to suspect that I would make an offer. 

Of course, you would have recognized far earlier than this that I was interested in bargaining with you, but it has been reported to me that you have yet to open a single one of my letters. 

Before I propose any further deals, I will assume you are still upset about your lost opportunity to work for Piltover. Have you not yet realized that I acted as I did as a favor to you? Piltover has never worked toward any ends that did not benefit them directly. It is likely that they would have positioned you as a scapegoat when their task force failed… and it would have. 

In any case, you would have lost your reputation in the Undercity as surely as you believe it has suffered across the river. The recovery of a reputation in Zaun is a far longer and more arduous process than it is in Piltover. 

I find myself rambling in this letter, and I blame you. With no guarantee of when you will finally open one of my messages, I am forced to write from somewhere softer than my mind. Perhaps not my heart, but somewhere nearer its vicinity than I am accustomed. 

Allow me to make my offer before this letter grows still longer: come to The Last Drop. I want to discuss terms with you face-to-face. For my end of the deal, I will vow to keep Shimmer from ever entering the Haven’s neighborhood again. You can decide what you are willing to give in exchange. 

I hope to see you soon, sweetheart.

- Silco 

You stared at the page long after you had finished reading. You didn’t trust Silco’s offer - not in the slightest. But if there was a chance you could keep Shimmer off of the streets permanently, wouldn’t you be far more foolish not to look into it? 

That was what had gotten you into this mess, and the one before it, and the one before that, but what was your alternative? If there was any hope you could help someone, how could you refuse to take the risk? Even if you were the one who would suffer if that hope turned out to be false. 

You didn’t burn the envelope. Not because you were tired, or feeling sentimental. If you were going to show up at The Last Drop, you were going to make sure Silco knew you were coming. Whoever was leaving the envelopes had clearly told him that they were going unread. With any luck, they would report back to him that you had read this one. 

Silco would know what it meant. 

You slept soundly that night, dreams held at bay for the first time in well over a week. The plan had been formulated, and there was nothing left to do until the following day. 

Just after ten the next morning, you left the Haven. Okkan had wanted to come with you, but you had assured him and Fletcher that you were fine. Yi was sleeping after her late guard shift; she would have been much more difficult to convince. 

The Lanes were quiet, as they always were in the morning. In the weak midmorning light, you could almost consider them peaceful. Fortunately, you also weren’t stupid, so you kept your guard up to avoid any enterprising and motivated pickpockets deciding to practice their craft first-thing in the morning. 

The door to The Last Drop was unlocked, and you let yourself in without a fuss. If the unlocked door hadn’t convinced you that Silco knew you were coming, the sight of the main bar would have. 

The mismatched tables and chairs that typically filled the space in front of the bar had been cleared away. Instead, there was a small table draped with a white tablecloth and topped with a small flower arrangement. Chairs sat on either side of the table, angled so that neither had its back to the main door. 

“Good morning,” Silco greeted, walking around the bar. 

He looked incredibly… domestic. His sleeves were rolled up so he could carry a silver tray with a cover on it. You watched dumbly as he set the tray on the table, worried for a moment that it would hold a severed head or something equally horrifying, but he removed the cover to reveal breakfast. 

The plates, both bearing your favorite breakfast - when had he found that out? - were placed in front of either seat, while a smaller dish of pastries ended up beside the flowers. Silco tucked the tray and the cover behind the bar and rejoined you.

“Do not worry,” he told you with a smile. “I remember that you do not trust the food I offer you. You choose your preferred seat and I will gladly sample everything first so you know it is trustworthy.” 

You frowned for a moment, wracking your mind for what he could be talking about. At last, a shadowy memory appeared, one in which you were waiting for your first meeting with Silco. You hadn’t touched the food he had sent out for you. Apparently, he was determined that the same thing wouldn’t happen again. 

You took a seat, watching as Silco sat opposite you. He cut a bite of food, checking to be sure that you were watching him. 

“You don’t need to do that,” you told him quietly. He paused, eyes searching your face intently. “If you were going to kill me, you would just kill me. Poison isn’t really your style.” 

Silco’s smile faded. “I would prefer that you trust me because I have proven myself trustworthy, but I suppose that is a point well-made. Poison has never been a favorite tool of mine, and never one I would deploy against you.” 

You hummed skeptically and took a bite of your breakfast without further comment. 

“If I may,” Silco said, breaking the silence that had fallen between the two of you, “what drove you to open one of my letters?” 

You pondered the question, taking a sip of water before offering your answer. “I’m not really sure. Maybe I just hoped you had something worthwhile to say.” 

Silco’s polite smile turned to something sharper. “And I assume, from your presence here, that you were satisfied?” 

The way he purred ‘satisfied’ wreaked havoc on your body, not least because your psyche had decided that now was the perfect time to play back all of the hyper-realistic dreams you’d had about him over the past month. 

With any luck, none of that was showing on your face. “Maybe I’m just curious to see what price you plan to ask in exchange for keeping Shimmer off of the streets.” 

Silco’s face grew serious once more. “I meant what I wrote. You name what you are willing to give for it.” 

“Last time, you had a specific price in mind,” you remarked, half-hoping for another smirk. 

Silco didn’t take the bait. “I mean for this to be a negotiation, one taking place between two equal parties. You name your offer and I will decide if it is fair.” 

A distinct throb between your thighs let you know that your libido would be thrilled to make the same deal as you had last time. Your brain warned that it was a bad idea, but that voice was growing steadily quieter under the flood of lust surging through your body.

It would be easier, you realized, if Silco just wanted your body. If you could narrow down what he wanted to something as simple and limited as the option to fuck you a few times a month. 

But in the light of your newly realized feelings, you couldn't ignore that he hadn't done that. Silco hadn't given any hint of what he might want from you, but he also hadn't limited you to making offers based on physical pleasure. 

It was so much worse. You would rather keep yourself from having any hope at all rather than risk everything for the slim possibility that he felt a shadow of what you did. 

You set your fork down, taking a deep breath to steady yourself. You had come here for a purpose - to keep Shimmer away from the Haven. It didn't matter if doing that meant denying yourself. You were used to that. The important thing was helping people. That was all that had ever been important. 

“If we want this to be a business discussion, maybe we should go to your office,” you suggested. Silco watched you blankly, and you expanded, “I've seen you do quite a bit of business and none of it ever happened in an empty bar.”

“Would you care to finish your breakfast first?” Silco asked. 

Your stomach was right with nerves, with fear that you wouldn't be able to come to an agreement with him. Even the few bites you had taken were sitting heavily. 

You shook your head. “Not unless you need the time to finish yours.” 

Silco stood immediately. “Unnecessary. Follow me.” 

You were amused despite yourself as you followed Silco to his office. It wasn't as if you hadn't been there before - you knew the way. But if he wanted to lead, there was something more to it. Maybe he just wanted to prove that he was willing to have you at his back. 

Silco’s office was precisely the same as it had been the last time you were there. The desk spoke of the messy mind and busy life of someone doing his best to rule a city. The wicked-looking lance he used for his eye was kept carefully behind the desk, but it was softened slightly by the neon doodles on the handle. The furniture was just as austere as ever, though it was less intimidating when you could vividly remember every time you had been sprawled naked across each surface. 

Somehow, it felt like home, and that made your stomach tighten reflexively with nerves.

Silco sat behind his desk, motioning for you to sit across from him. When you did, he folded his hands on the desk’s surface, fixing you with a mismatched stare. “If you prefer to get straight to business, let us do so. What are you willing to give me in exchange for the Haven’s neighborhood remaining free of Shimmer?” 

You smiled mirthlessly. “I have nothing you want.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far, my dear,” Silco said, openly admiring you. 

The exchange was familiar, a faint echo of the conversation that had started you both on this path. There was a gleam in Silco’s eyes, a fond reminiscence that made you want to smile at him in earnest. 

But you gathered your willpower and shook your head. “We can’t make that deal again, remember? When you came to the Haven last month, you said that was the only chance to resume our original deal. I turned you down.”

“I could be persuaded to make an exception.” 

You arched a brow. “Really? This would be the first time I’ve ever seen it. Why?” 

“I miss you,” he admitted openly. When you frowned, he leaned toward you. “No lies or manipulations - I have missed you. I have felt your absence every day since we ended our meetings.”

“You missed me, so you released Shimmer outside of the Haven?” you asked, wincing at the open hurt in your voice. “You missed me so badly that the only thing you could do was try to destroy everything I’ve worked toward for the past few years of my life?” 

“I had to-” Silco broke off with a rueful laugh. “I had to give you a reason to come back to me.” 

You gaped. “So you-?” 

Silco raised his hand, cutting off your protestations. “No, pet, let me say this. I need to, and I need you to listen. And if you still hate me afterward, I will let you live in peace. No more Shimmer and no more contact with me, I give you my word.” 

After a moment of consideration, you sat back in your chair and motioned for him to continue. 

With a deep breath, he did. “I know you have no need for me. Everything I provided for you, you are well capable of getting for yourself. You have managed without my security team, you found support for your Haven that has nothing to do with my donations, and you stood against Shimmer sales in the area. You have built a fine enterprise. I- I have nothing to offer you anymore.”

“So I had to resort to underhanded dealings.” Silco shook his head with a rueful little smile. “Perhaps you do not realize how well the Haven withstood my Shimmer. I pulled my dealers, but they were far less profitable than I had expected. I would have withdrawn them regardless. I did regret my actions, but they were born of desperation. You wouldn’t agree to a new deal, and I realized how capable you are even without assistance from me. ”

Silco pressed his hands against the desk’s surface, making grim eye contact with you. “I hoped that I could push you into answering me. More than that, I hoped to force you into making another deal with me, into seeing that you could not survive down here without my protection. I was wrong. You have made a place for yourself here and - more importantly - you have found a way to care for the people of Zaun. I see what you have done to change and shape their lives and it has forced me to accept what I have known for months: I am yours.” 

The kind thing would be to say something in reply to that revelation. You wanted to, but it was so far from anything you had expected him to say that you couldn’t do anything but gape at him. Silco’s gaze stayed trained on your face, but there was a tightness around his eyes and mouth that spoke of nervousness. 

“If-” You broke off to clear your throat, trying to make your voice sound less waveringly uncertain. “If you aren’t being sincere, please don’t say that. Don’t joke about it or use it to manipulate me. Please.” 

“Manipulate you?” Silco repeated, sounding irritated. “Pet, you don’t seem to understand that I have done the very opposite. I have given you the keys to everything I can offer. I have given you the simplest possible way to manipulate me.” 

“I wouldn’t,” you assured him instantly. He lifted a brow and you repeated, “I wouldn’t.”

“And why wouldn’t you?” he asked. “You could everything you wanted without being required to give anything in return-”

“Because I care about you, Silco,” you snapped. 

Immediately afterward, a deathly silence fell in the office and you leapt to your feet. There was nothing to do but leave after that. 

You didn’t make it even halfway to the door before Silco caught your arm, holding you steady as he stared down into your face. 

“If you are being insincere, please don’t say that.” You might have thought he was mocking you if he hadn’t looked so terribly concerned.

“Silco, why would I possibly lie about that?” you asked. “If you’re right and you’ve given me everything, why would I lie about my feelings? To not use the keys you gave me?” 

“You-” It wasn’t often that you saw Silco thrown off his game, but he seemed to struggle to find the right words. “You love me?” 

Strictly speaking, neither of you had said anything about love. But in the privacy of your thoughts, you had realized weeks ago that your feelings for Silco had run deeper than you had ever assumed. There was no other reason you would still care about him after everything he had done. 

Besides, you had already come this far. 

“Yes.” 

Silco was studying you with the stunned, slightly suspicious look of a mad scientist watching a successful experiment and you were starting to think this entire meeting had been a mistake. 

“Maybe we should-” 

Your suggestion was left forever unfinished as Silco kissed you suddenly, deeply, and with such fierceness that it took your breath away. When your lungs were screaming, you pushed him away. He didn’t go far, staying close enough that you could feel his rapid breathing across your kiss-swollen lips. 

“Feels like we should talk about this.” 

Silco chuckled against your neck. “I can think of several more productive ways we could spend our time…” 

Everything in your body voiced a sudden and vehement opinion that Silco was right, and that sounded like a much better idea. You lifted your face for another kiss and Silco was quick to indulge you. 

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. There was kissing and touching and the marvelous scent of Silco - how could you have missed one person so much? - and when it was over, you were lying naked on his bed. Silco was finishing stripping off his own clothes, eyes already devouring you with a predatory eagerness that probably should have scared you. 

When he was as bare as you, Silco joined you on the bed. He was on top of you almost immediately, kissing every bit of skin he could reach and exploring the rest with his wandering hands. You arched against him, fighting for as much contact as possible. It was like your body was drinking him in, soaking up everything you had been missing out on since your deal had been on pause. 

Silco’s fingers were even more dextrous than you remembered, plying your flesh and molding you still closer. If there was a breath of space between you, it was only so that he could sneak a touch into that same spot. You felt like you were on fire, but it only drove you to kiss him with more desperation. 

When you couldn’t stand it anymore, you reached down and took his length in a firm grip. The heat of him throbbed in your hand and Silco’s natural eye went heavy-lidded. He leaned forward to press another kiss to your lips, pulling away just far enough to whisper, “Missed you, pet.” 

It reminded you so strongly of the vivid dreams you had experienced that you nipped his lip to see if he would react like a real person. If you were dreaming again, you would be incredibly disappointed…

Silco pulled back with a garbled curse before plundering your mouth, delivering a wicked pinch to your hip at the same time. He took full advantage of your gasp to deepen the kiss even further. 

Without any clear thought or plan, you tightened your legs around his narrow hips and rolled, forcing him to the mattress while you straddled him from above. Your hands moved back down to his cock, teasing the head of it against the throbbing point of your clit. 

Silco bared his chipped teeth up at you. “You’re killing me, lovely.” 

“Can’t- mmmm… Can’t help it,” you babbled. “Feel so good…”

You bucked mindlessly on top of him until both of you were thoroughly slicked up and aching, but you couldn’t tear yourself away from the sensation long enough to line yourself up with him. 

That horrible, shining thread of tension broke for both of you at the same moment. Silco’s eyes narrowed and his fingers dug into your hips, lifting just as you planted your feet to do the same. 

Despite your best joint efforts, you weren’t properly aligned and the two of you slid against each other awkwardly. Silco growled while you let out what could only be termed a whine, but the frustration seemed to sharpen your concentration. The second time you tried to impale yourself on him, your breath caught at the feeling of his head notched against your entrance. 

Then you were lowering yourself and Silco was thrusting upward and he slid home with a teeth-rattling slam. If there was anyone else in The Last Drop, they would have heard your cry. It bounced off the high ceiling, echoing back to you in a cacophony of ecstasy that only drove you and Silco higher. 

If you had thought grinding against Silco felt wonderful, it was nothing compared to the tremendous depth of pleasure you felt at having him so deeply inside of you. All you could do was lift and lower, fucking yourself on him as Silco’s hands took some of your weight and tried to speed your movements. 

The slap of flesh meeting flesh was loud in the room, almost drowning out the shaking breaths that you and Silco were panting. His thumb found your clit, drawing a quick circle before he pressed down against the sensitive nerve cluster. It made you tighten desperately around him and Silco swore vividly. 

Of course, that didn’t stop him from repeating the torment. 

“I’m going- going to-” Your voice was far beyond breathy. It was almost reedy with the effort it was taking to stave off your impending orgasm.

Silco groaned, loud and hoarse. “Been dreaming about the way you feel when you come around my cock. Come for me, darling. Show me everything I’ve been missing.”

As if he had some sort of direct line into your nerves, the muscles of your core started to flutter and spasm, constricting around him like you were going to collapse in on yourself. 

That was more true than you realized. If there was ever a person in your life who felt like a black hole, it was Silco. Mysterious and fascinating and utterly unknowable. It was a strange series of thoughts to have during an orgasm, but your mind was locked into it by that point. Silco was such an outsized presence in your life, and to think that he loved you… well, it was almost beyond what your mind could comprehend. 

Then your mind went fuzzy and you didn’t have to worry about comprehending anything anymore. All that was left was pleasure and heat and the feeling of Silco fucking upward into you with every bit of force he could muster. He buried himself deep as he came, spreading more heat through your core and dripping out to smear between you. 

When your shaking thighs refused to hold you up any longer, you collapsed forward and onto his chest. Silco held you there, arms tight around you as you both caught your breath, then rolled you gently to one side so he could curl himself against your back. 

“I cannot believe you exist,” he murmured, tracing a tickling line over your temple. “And the idea that you love me… it is impossible.” 

You smiled despite yourself. “I feel the same way about you loving me.” 

He kissed your fingertips, humming softly as he folded your hand into his. 

Eventually, the flood of hormones receded enough for you to think clearly. “Silco? What does this-? Do we-? What, exactly, does this change?” 

Silco chuckled softly, and you felt the warmth of it against the nape of your neck. “As much or little as you’d like, pet. The Haven will be under my protection, but I can be as subtle about it as you’d like. And there will be no Shimmer in the neighborhood.” 

You thought that over for a while. The idea of Silco having a hand in the Haven again made you a little uncomfortable, but more for appearance’s sake than any real concern. And the majority of people had already proven that their morals were performative - you were horrible and the Haven was worthless… until they needed something. 

In the end, you relaxed against Silco. “This city isn’t going to know what hit it.” 

Silco laughed - a genuine, happy sound totally unlike the sardonic smirks you usually saw from him. “Too true, my little philanthropist. You and I united will be a force unlike anything they’ve ever seen.”

“I have a few ideas on where to start,” you confided, eyelids drooping with weariness. 

“I do, as well,” Silco agreed. “In fact, I’ve already begun the preparations for our final push for freedom.” 

You hummed, nearly asleep already. Silco pressed a kiss to the curve of your shoulder and you stirred yourself back to wakefulness. “Hmm? You have a final push worked out?” 

“Of course.” Silco sounded affectionately amused, as if it was adorable that you thought he would do anything without planning it fully. “I’ve hired a scientist to work out the details. He tells me the final product will take a few years to develop, but we have the time. We can continue our improvements to Zaun until then.” 

You were fully awake by that point, frowning blankly at the far wall. “Wait…” With some effort, you wiggled around until you were facing Silco directly. “You’ve hired someone to work on… what? What is this product? Sounds like you already have some things set in stone.” 

“Not quite, darling,” Silco assured you. “Just putting some pieces in place. I’ll still need to work out the final plan. In fact, I would welcome your help with that.”

“Okay, but say I want some of the details now,” you pushed. “What product are you having developed?” 

He sighed, rolling back on the pillow to stare up at the ceiling. “Very well, since you are so interested… It is a compound, similar to Shimmer in some ways, but not addictive. Not in the slightest.” 

Your hum was distinctly skeptical. “But what does it do?” 

“It mimics the increased adrenaline and reduced pain reception of the user,” Silco explained. “The adrenaline allows the user to push their body past many natural limits. They will accomplish incredible things.” 

You tensed, fighting the urge to sit upright. “So it turns people into super soldiers. But what about after the effects have subsided? Are there negative health impacts? And even if it isn’t chemically addictive, people can become obsessed with feeling like they have that kind of power.”

“It isn’t addictive because the user rarely survives,” Silco said, finally looking at you once more. You flinched, and he cupped your cheek. “This is precisely why I wished to spare you the details. You have a the ideals of a dreamer, despite your willingness to fight for a good cause.” 

“You’re planning to have people take a drug that will probably kill them.” You shook your head slowly. “What cause could be worth that? Scaring Piltover?” 

“No, I have no use for frightening them,” Silco said, grimacing. “They are fearful enough already. My soldiers would be dispensed to fight off guards, infiltrate the city, and clear the way to the Piltover Council.” 

“And-” Your pulse was thundering so hard that your voice shook with it. “And when you get to the Council?” 

“I kill them all, of course.” 

You gaped at that, horrified by the casual ease of his answer. Silco seemed oblivious to your feelings, kissing and nipping along the sensitive skin of your throat. 

“Silco, you can’t do that,” you said, gently pushing him away.

He blinked at you, the beginnings of irritation growing on his face. “And why, precisely, can I not?” 

“Because you can’t take Piltover by force!” 

“No, I cannot,” Silco agreed, a sly smile growing on his face. “Not yet, at least. But the initial trials are more than promising.”

“This isn’t an option,” you argued. “You’ll do even more harm if you come in by attacking the Council and using drugged soldiers as your muscle.” 

A muscle ticced in Silco’s jaw, and you changed your tone to a logical one instead. “Think of it this way: if you take the city by force, you’ll hold it for a while. You’re clever and you have the ability to draw followers. But if you present yourself as a powerful enemy, the people will combine forces to fight  against you. They will always see you as an invader to repel. You’ll never manage to quell the resistance to Zaun.” 

“Have you already forgotten that I’ll have an army powered by one of the most potent substances ever developed in this city?” Silco asked archly. 

“You’ll have a single-use army,” you countered. “And as more and more of them sacrifice themselves for this war, you’ll have fewer and fewer supporters willing to fight for you.” 

“Then I’ll make it so they have no choice but to fight for me,” Silco bit out. 

You furrowed your brows, studying him more intensely than you had since you first met. There was nothing but resolve in his expression, and you knew without further questioning that you wouldn’t change his mind. He was going to destroy Piltover - and, in doing so, he would destroy any hope for the nation of Zaun. 

With a sigh, you tossed back the covers he had tucked over you and made to rise from the bed. 

Silco caught at your wrist, pinning it to the mattress. “Where are you going?” 

“I’m not going to convince you to change your plan, and you’re not going to convince me that it’s a good idea.” You smiled sadly at him. “It seems we’ve finally found something we cannot agree on.” 

You tugged a little harder at your wrist, but Silco held firm. “But you love me and I love you. You’ve admitted as much.” 

“I do love you,” you agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I can support you in this. Whatever concessions you were going to make for the Haven, consider them either paid for or unaccepted. I think it would be best if we don’t meet up again.”

The cool slither against your skin was followed by two distinct clicks. You turned slowly, both knowing and dreading what you would see when you did: Silco had handcuffed you to one of the rings embedded in his headboard. 

“Silco, take this off of me.” You managed to keep your voice even despite the panic rising in your chest. 

“No.” 

You couldn’t help but pull against the metal encircling your wrist. It did nothing but make you feel more trapped. “Silco!”

“No,” he snapped again, voice harsh enough to make you stop struggling momentarily. “I lost you once. I don't intend to be so careless as to allow it to happen a second time.” 

“Silco,” you pleaded, striving for a less confrontational tone. “This is insane. I can't just stay locked in your room.”

“We love each other,” he reminded you, buttoning his pants. “Everything else will work out in time.”

And then he left, slipping shirtless into his office. You tugged fruitlessly at the handcuffs and tried to keep your breathing steady.

---

Author's Note - They were SO CLOSE to a happy ending. But Silco will always be Silco and our dear reader just can't handle some of his more pragmatic plots.

We're in the final stretch now, friends! Only a few more chapters until the end of this story.

Thank you for reading! If I can ask a favor, I haven't had the chance to watch any of Arcane Season Two yet, so if you choose to review (thank you!), please try to avoid including any spoilers. I can tell from my tumblr notifications on this story that Silco must be in S2, but I'm trying not to know how much or in what capacity. I'll try to be caught up by the time I post the next chapter.

I'll see you soon!

[thusspoketrish]

Hiya, I'm Trish! Below you'll find a list of my completed Drarry fics + a gist of the story + a handful of tags. All of my stories are postwar, EWE, and rated E or M. I will update this list as I complete more stories! Wooo!!!

MOST RECENT FIC:

Netflix and Chills | E | 20K Halloween might be over, but the tricks, treats, and heat between the sheets are just beginning for our favorite dynamic duo! Humor. Post-Second Wizarding War. EWE. Drarry in the Muggle World. Established Relationship. Snarky Draco Malfoy. Muggle Technology. Slice of Life. Humor. Romance. Domestic Fluff. Pop Culture References. Shenanigans. Halloween Night. Netflix and Chill. Banter. Mystery. Idiots in Love. Light Dom/Sub Elements. Dirty Talk. Blue Ball Hell.

Summary: When Draco innocently asks what "Netflix and Chill" means, Harry simply can't pass up the opportunity to impart some knowledge while demonstrating a masterclass in the art of seduction. Now, if only those plans weren't constantly interrupted by trick-or-treaters—some of them far more trick than treat.

The Art of Getting By | E | 149K Recovery fic set in a psychiatric hospital. Mental health Issues. Trauma/Traumatic Experiences. Heavy Angst. Harry and Draco admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Therapy. Fastburn. Co-dependency. Falling in love. Draco's + Harry's POV. Please read warnings. Dead Dove.

This Year's Love| E | 84K. A Drarry slowburn inspired by When Harry Met Sally! Humor. Light Angst. Draco in the Muggle world. Lovable Disaster!Harry. Enemies to Best Friends. Modern Dating. Layabout!Harry. Medical Student!Draco. Draco Dates Zaddies. Harry Is Living His Best Heaux Life. Sex (or no sex!) Positivity. Idiots In Love. So Much Pining. Harry's POV.

Everything That Happens Is From Now On | E | 42K. A sensitive story that explores the aftermath and recovery from a stranger SA. Established relationship. Secrets. Supportive/Loving Partner. RTS. Living Together. Body Positivity. Enthusiastic Consent. Hope. Draco's POV. Please read warnings.

Lemon Colour, Honey Glow | E | 67K. A love story that takes place over a series of unfortunate nights at the Leaky Cauldron. Enemies to Lovers. Falling in Love. Auror!Harry. Potion Master!Draco. Secret Relationship. Emotional Hurt/Comfort. Possessive Harry. Flangst. Beer Gardens. The Leaky Cauldron. The Slytherin Trio. Bullying/Violence. Spoilers Left Untagged.

Super Rich Kids | E | 81K. True crime meets wild government conspiracies when Draco becomes a twisted sort-of Robin Hood, robbing the badly behaving rich to give to...well...you'll have to read the story to find out! Angst. Murders. Coverups. Enemies to Friends to Lovers. Bisexual Draco. Lush descriptions of glamour. Humor. The ULTIMATE Slytherin ensemble. Mental Health Issues. Drug Usage/Addiction. Pureblood Elitism. Social Season. Angst with a Happy Ending. Draco's POV.

On The Last Day | E | 53K. Draco's role as an Unspeakable, Harry's untimely death and ghostly return, and conspiracies bind them in a quest for truth and redemption. Mystery. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Grief/Mourning. Horror Elements. Science. Neurology/Neuroscience. Slowburn. Memory Loss. Draco's POV.

My Best Friend, the Serial Killer | E | 37K. Ride or Die BFFL Draco finds he's tired of moonlighting as a serial killer's accomplice. No matter how much he loves Pansy, he draws the line at helping her dispose of a sexy, flirty Harry Potter. Dark Humor. Campy/Kitsch Elements. Serial Killer!Pansy. Healer!Draco. Femme Fatale Trope. Falling in Love. Self-Love. Jealousy. Everyone is seriously morally grey. Draco's POV.

A Ferret, a ScarHead, a Weasel, & a Baby | E | 91K. The ultimate bromance takes centre stage (alongside a sweet and tender Drarry romance) in this Three Men & a Baby inspired story! BAMF Auror Draco. Protective Draco. Healer Harry. Capable and Emotionally Intelligent Ron. Illegal Potions Ring. Orphaned Baby. Roommates. Nothing to Something to Everything. Draco's POV.

Seven Days | E | 8K. It takes seven days for the Malfoy-Potter family to unravel. Grief/Mourning. Child Abduction. Death of a Child. Implied Mpreg. Alcohol Relapse. Coming to Terms. Harry's POV. Please Read the Warnings.

Portrait of a Young Girl | M | 8K. Navigating the complexities of love, marriage, and child-rearing, Harry and Draco face a new challenge when they suspect that four-year-old Teddy might be transgender. Married Drarry. Young Couple. Inexperienced Parents. Marital Problems/Disagreements. Stay-at-Home Dad Draco. Fluff. Acceptance. Love. Family. Happy Ending. Harry's POV.

A Day at the Park | M | 6K. Draco discovers that love has its own timing, and sometimes, that means returning to the place where he once lost it all. Estranged couple. Flashbacks. Pining. Postman's Park. Exiled Draco. Draco's POV.

Long for Bliss! | E | 9K. A random night out takes a dark and thrilling turn when Harry, after taking MDMA, encounters Draco Malfoy, looking like something straight out of his wildest dreams – or nightmares. First Time Drug Use. Nightclubs. The Perils of Ennui. Mildly Dubious Consent. Rooftop Sex. Light Dom/Sub Elements. Harry's POV.

Idiot Boys In Love & More | Various Ratings | 18K. Here you'll find a collection of one-shots, drabbles, and poems about Harry and Draco that are all standalone pieces! Each story is centered on a prompt provided by @drarrymicrofic and said prompt will be listed in the summary of each story (Series I completed). Harry + Draco's POV.

[jeniffercheckwannabeme]

ahh this is soo ugly. gonna format it and tag everything correctly in like.... a week?

hiiii! It is meee! I love you all!!!

welcome to my digital diary!

are you ready to unveil the secrets of the universe? (my mind?). oops! one second let me get my fairy dust ready...

ଘ꒰੭˶• ༝ •˶꒱੭ .⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹❀

right, so what will you find here?

Thoughts

collages

pretty things idk (dont be suprised if u see urself here my bby!)

& overall, things that make me - me

what's my name? you can call me anything you'd like! I'd prefer Jen or Natalia(my actual name)

well here are some clues... to uncover my top secret identity!

I adore lana, Radiohead, Hozier and other artists. Especially 2000s and 60s songs.

I am obviously also (obviously) addicted to movies. 2000s movies, musicals, series etc are my fav!! I especially love legally blonde and all the go barbie movies

my comfort 90s show is f.r.i.e.n.d.s. people tell me I act like Monica, but I think i'm more of Phoebe. I also love psych, awae, derry girls and hannibal

my favourite colour is pink, but I love periwinkle and powdery blue too!

im a taurus sun, virgo moon, and Scoprio rising!

infp, huffelpuff, cabin 10!

I love playing casual games, girl rotting, blogging, reading, and yapping all day long!

DNI: nobody Safe space even if you have Ed or are in recovery!

I take breaks every other day and might dissapeafr for weeks at a time, So don't panic. I'll love you always.

Christian bale's wife (he doesn't know it yet)

Only ever on pinterest, letterbox (not rlly, I'm lazy), and tumblr.

Might start an instagram soon for hee hees

been here on and off since may 2024 (yes y'all are my most interesting talking stage)

my(tm) tags:

#jen (me) loves anakin #jen (me) loves christian bale #jen is raising a cult : asks, tag games, random posts #jen was born with a loving heart too : me loving #jen was born with a hating heart :me hating #jeniffercheckwannabemefr : all of themmm

[moonveiltarot]

YES OR NO PICK A CARD TAROT READING

Think of your "yes or no" question and choose an image from above that you're drawn to. This is just a quick reading!

1 - 2 - 3

4 - 5 - 6

7 - 8 - 9

10-11-12

1. The Magician. I'm getting a yes from this card. You're currently manifesting whatever you asked about. Your practical and spiritual actions are in alignment with what you asked for. I'm assuming it's something you really want, in which case, you can absolutely achieve it.

2. Two of Wands. Yes. You're probably still in the planning stage or will be making a solid plan to move forward soon. You are on the right track, follow your intuition for each step. If you ever get nervous about making the wrong move, your guides are with you every step of the way. Mistakes are okay to make. They won't be detrimental to your plans or manifestations.

3. Seven of Wands. Not yet. Your defenses are up, but there are legitimate reasons for you to be guarded right now. Your spirit team want you to know that your struggles will be over soon and your blessing is right at the end of this difficult time. This is part of the manifestation. Inner work is being done now, as seven is the number of actively overcoming obstacles. You are going to succeed in this as long as you don't give up.

4. The Lovers Reversed. No. This decision is not in alignment with the path you want to go down. If you are having negative thoughts, they are not in alignment with your higher purpose and are throwing you off guard. If this is a potential love interest, avoid canoodling of any kind. Just because there is chemistry and a vibe that only you two feel does not make this person your soul mate or twin flame. They are likely not a good option for you right now or they may not be available. If you're inquiring about a person, you don't know enough about them to assume they'd be a good match. You need to avoid this for now. The Page of Pentacles popped up as well, so take your time and look at this practically. Get grounded and think about this choice or person realistically.

5. The Lovers. Yes. You can firmly make this decision. If you are of two minds, spirit is urging you to take the path you are most drawn to intuitively. I saw the Two of Swords a moment ago flip over with this card. Some of you need to make a decision now or spirit will assign you one to put you in alignment with your goals. Seriously make this choice and stick to it, don't doubt yourself. Your intuition is correct. Whichever path you take is going to lead you to where you want to go. (This deck has 4 lovers cards and I got the NB lovers for this pile, so you may be NB or it's just a gender neutral card for spirit's message to reach whoever it is intended to).

6. The Devil reversed. Yes, but there is some healing to do. You seem to be making the right choices and aligning with your true purpose, which is the life you choose to live. You are overcoming an addiction, bad habit, abusive behavior or completing a karmic cycle. Your path ahead is one of healing and recovery, but it's worth it. Good job making such a strong decision! Your spirit team is proud of you and happy for you.

7. 6 of Cups. Yes. Your inner child is happy about this, go for it! It may not seem very grown up to others, but if it brings you joy and delight, go for it. Everyone else can shove off, to be honest. This is for you and your happiness. Go ahead and indulge. If it's about love, yes, someone is coming back or reuniting with you and it will feel so good. It could also involve a childhood home, family or an inheritance. Regardless, whatever your question was … the answer is yes!

8. Strength. YES! You can handle whatever you inquired about or choose to take on here soon. You are able to do this with dignity and grace. I can see you making it look effortless, even if there were a lot of options or some confusing circumstances. You are going to get through whatever difficult times you are facing coming up, if there are any.

9. Justice. Yes!! Justice and balance are returning. Did you ask if you're pretty? The answer is yes, you are symmetrical or harmonious in terms of facial features and aesthetics. You look very pleasant. Your mannerisms and behaviors are enjoyable too. If you asked about a situation that needs to play out and you wonder if it will go in your favor, justice tells us that the scales will be karmically balanced. You saw what you saw, you heard what you heard. You aren't crazy, that really happened. I felt like that last part needed to be on here for some reason … were you gaslit a lot about something?

10. Eight of Wands. Yes. Whatever you asked about is moving along quickly or will arrive soon. I'm seeing someone on a motorcycle in my mind. Confirmation? It's arriving quickly and there's a sense of excitement. Are you waiting for a package? It's definitely going to arrive. If it's communication or something, it may be brief, but it will happen.

11. The Hanged Man. Not yet. You need to see things from a new perspective, most likely another person's. See from their point of view. After that, you can really think the situation through. Maybe turn to your crystals or tarot for more guidance. I felt like a couple of you might need to hear that to nudge you in the right direction. Meditation may help to clear your mind too. Try to be emotionally balanced in this situation as you view things from their perspective. Your guides love you and want you to be understanding of the other person. Eventually, this will be a yes.

12. King of Swords. Yes. Think logically and be decisive about this matter. You probably already are and just needed this nudge in the right direction. In which case, yes, you have a practical and logical response or person or thing in mind. Your strategy is working and will continue to do so. I heard “Keep your cards close to your chest.” Don't stray from your path, keep to your strategy and you will succeed. Just keep others out of it. No sharing details or being bold about it. Real Gangstas move in silence …

That's all for this reading! Thanks for checking in. Keep in mind that your own thoughts, beliefs, intentions and actions shift the energy surrounding you and your situation. Things may change moment to moment, so check back in from time to time to see how things have changed. Tarot is just an “energy-check-in” tool, it isn't meant to be set in stone. If you ever get a reading you don't like, it's an opportunity to reassess your current vibe and realign with your intentions.

[morbidmorbid]

rare affections i think s2 daryl would like.

fingers scratching at his beard. this is usually followed by typically smaller qualms; brisk disagreements within the group. it was talking to him under the shade of the tree, listening to him swear out selfish complaints about anything, everything. it was telling him to shut the hell up and bringing a chiding hand up to swat at his ears and it stays there then, like appeasing a cat with light scratches rather soothingly against his jaw and beneath his chin.

daryl would nudge away at first like he always did, but he wanted it—needed it more, perhaps—if the way he’d simultaneously lean into it was telling. it seemed it killed him, too—to accept something like this, to surrender to someone, to allow himself to sit and think for a moment.

and he would indeed shut the hell up, fiddling with a handful of arrows with a dwindling frown. it didn’t do much damage control otherwise a bigger situation, though in these observantly smaller moments it did enough.

playing with his hands. he pretends that he hates it, ‘hurts like shit,’ he’d say when you massaged the knuckle, kneaded the palm. the filthiness that he never seemed to wash away would turn up on your own hands as you kept in contact with his. daryl’s flexing fingers and tight joints were a combination that you had to work through, and while it seemed to ease him a bit, it did for you as well.

he would usually talk through it, seemingly not understanding having an idle mouth and mind. if you eased him at the muscles, you simultaneously couldn’t at the mouth. he would talk about his missing brother, about sophia, about the farm and how much disdain he had for the group. and so often would he pause in between spits of negativity to eye the way you soothed over the skin of his hands, and when the air stiffened with his realization of finding a comfort in something, he would swat you away. “s’enough.”

but later when he’d been worked up by something else and you watched the way he mimicked on himself what you often done to him, it was reassuring.

forehead kisses. another thing he pretends to dislike—or rather him declining an act so foreign to himself. it always shocks him, always makes him flinch, always keeps him up and a bit lost. you typically feel that urge whenever he’s hurt or on the brink of sleep or thinking entirely too much and you do it to reassure him without the words. you’re going to be okay. yes, it’s alright to sleep. relax, this doesn’t all fall on you. if it helps or not isn’t too clear at first. if he’s lying down, he is quiet, unreadable eyes on you until he’s turning in the other direction and ending whatever thoughts had even dared to make a head.

but after some time, after he’s expecting it, he practically asks for it. when he’d been grazed, bruised and bandaged and forced to spend valuable time in bed, he talked with you in the midst of the night. you talked loads and he listened and for a while it halted his complaints of being in recovery, and when the night and conversation came to a close, he’d look at you in a way; someone who yearned for something they’d never had. like someone addicted to something that they should have been given but was not.

so when you’d read him completely with a peck to his temple, that’s when he’d finally roll over.

this could probs pertain to daryl at any point in time i think but my obsession for him in the earlier seasons makes me imagine these things in the earlier stages and how they’ve developed idkk. also i want to add that i can only see this being a thing specifically if reader and daryl have known eachother prior to the outbreak, not exactly a relationship but an establishment of something ..

but yes i have a terrible horrible brain eating “i can fix him” delusion and that is why i wrote this

[kurtsworm96]

do you ever think about how fucked up it is that Amanda was at oldest 21 and youngest 18 when she was at homeward bound clinic. and she was being paraded around by Jill in the early stages of her recovery when she was "good" but when she got difficult she was declared a "lost cause" and wasnt given the support she needed from a literal support centre for drug addicts. and that she was dating a man who was at LEAST 10 years older than her and also a drug addict. Like no one is ever acting in her best interest I'm going to start maiming

[valeisaslut]

OKAY SO. I WANNA TALK AB THIS.

CUSTER – SLIPKNOT | ELLIE’S ANGER TRACK

Adding Custer to Ellie’s album wasn’t just about sonic contrast—it’s a deliberate, explosive shift. This is her rupture. Her scream. The moment when the grief and depression and numbness of the rest of the record combust into rage. It’s not clean. It’s not fair. It’s raw.

This is Ellie right after finding out about Abby. After three years of silence, three years of recovery, three years of imagining that maybe Reader had waited… she sees the headline. She sees the photo. And suddenly, she’s nineteen again. Screaming on stage. Tearing her guitar strings out of the neck. Bleeding into the mic.

“These days, I never seem to get enough / I’m tired of this shit, I want to go home.” She’s with Joel. She’s clean. She’s safe. But “home” doesn’t mean the cabin—it means before. Before rehab. Before the band broke. Before she saw someone else’s hand on your back. “Home” is Reader. “Home” is the Fireflies. And she’s furious that she can’t go back.

“Because anything exceptional gets crushed by common people / With jealousy and ignorance and all their common evils.” She’s not just mad at Abby. She’s mad at everything. At fame. At the media. At the pressure that ate them alive. At the way the world turned something extraordinary—them—into a public spectacle. She blames the noise. The spotlight. The eyes. She blames all of it, because she NOW, after seeing that, can’t bear to fully blame herself.

“I fight hell and I fight fear because I understand it.” This is Ellie defending herself. Defending her pain. Her masculinity. Her sharpness. Her complexity. She’s comparing herself to Abby here—implicitly saying: "I’ve walked through hell to earn her love. You didn’t.” Ellie was always too much—too loud, too masc, too broken, too queer. She got torn apart for it. And now this other woman just walked in and took her place? No. She won’t accept it.

“Androgyny and insults, you try so hard to be difficult / You wanna win the war? Know what you’re fighting for.” This is directed at everyone. At critics. At Abby. At Reader, maybe. It’s messy and defensive and petty and so real. It’s Ellie trying to claw her identity back after years of being misunderstood and misrepresented. She’s screaming,

“I KNOW WHO I AM. DO YOU?”

“With angel eyes and demon seeds / You’re missing what you really need.” Reader’s voice echoes here. It’s a direct hit—accusation disguised as mourning. “You look like an angel with her. But you’re lost. You know what you actually need. And it’s not her.” It’s Ellie trying to convince Reader that she’s made a mistake. That even after everything—she’s still the one.

In context of the album:

Custer is the climax. The fever spike. The rest of the album is soft. Broken. But this? This is her old self clawing out of the grave. The girl who destroyed hotel rooms, who bled on stage, who survived with nothing but a guitar and a scream.

It’s Ellie relapsing emotionally—not into addiction, but into anger. And it has to be here. Because grief isn’t linear. And neither is healing. You rage before you let go. You blame before you forgive. You scream before you can sing softly again.

Custer is the part of Ellie that refuses to die. And she’s not sorry for it.

[kestalsblog]

Tips for Writing Characters in Recovery from Addiction

I've encountered several portrayals of characters in recovery from addiction, both in fanfiction and published writing, that are clearly somewhat under-researched or leaning into stereotypes. Additionally, writing advice posts on the subject often feel detached and cite statistics rather than express humanity.

As a result, I decided to put together what I believe to be some characteristics and shared experiences of people in recovery that aren't just about withdrawal and might be less familiar to the general public. Perhaps they can be useful to writers aiming to write thoughtful and accurate portrayals of characters in similar situations.

Please note, of course, that both addiction and recovery are very unique, personalized experiences, so no one list will ever apply 100% to a single person—fictional or real.

Dreams of relapse. I personally experience these dreams at least 4-5 times a month, and they're unlike any other other dreams I have because they're so vivid and lifelike that I wake from them completely convinced for a moment that I did, in fact, relapse. These dreams do NOT mean you want to relapse. In fact, they are often a sign of extreme fear of relapse. The possibility of it is so nightmarish that your mind can only translate it into a literal night terror.

Adding to the previous point, the fear of relapse is seriously underestimated. Some people assume recovered addicts are always thinking about relapsing in a tempting way, but lots of these thoughts stem from the absolute, paralyzing terror of the past repeating itself—not an alluring urge to return to it.

Paranoia that everyone is looking at you thinking "they know the truth about my past. They know I was an addict." These beliefs are, of course, unfounded.

Constantly categorizing everything as "before addiction," "during addiction," and "after addiction." Even something as simple as looking at photographs can elicit thoughts like, "I was so happy in this picture. I had no idea what was coming for me in six months."

Counting recovery days nonstop to the point that it can even become debilitating. Your sense of time is forever altered because you're always trying to "catch up" on all the time you "wasted."

If people know, they will constantly make snide or condescending remarks, no matter how far along in recovery you are. "An addict is always an addict." "Well, I can see you're doing better than you used to be!" "I would never do something like that."

People will relentlessly assume you are less intelligent and talk to you like you're a child, especially if you're in the early stages of recovery.

Everyone knows addicts lose friends and/or family, and sometimes for good reasons, but the sheer number of people who leave for no apparent reason when you're actively trying to get better is surprising. The stigma surrounding addiction is so intensely negative that most people don't even want to be tangentially associated with it.

Addicts and recovered addicts are fetishized in unexpected ways— sometimes because of the obviously sickly appearance, the assumption that they will do anything to feed their addiction, the false belief that they are "fun" or "exciting," or maybe even that they just seem pathetic. Random people in public will approach you and straight-up ask for the most disrespectful sexual acts you can imagine. (After my addiction became common knowledge, people I thought were good people suddenly started trying like mad to sleep with me and then ditched me entirely. That's probably one of the most painful learning moments I had).

Physical symptoms can appear months, even years, after recovery starts. I know some who have noticed their hands suddenly becoming shakier, their hair thinner, and unusual chest pains.

You often become so angry and guilty with your past self that it prevents you from seeing how extraordinary your progress really is.

You start to realize how far you've come and how liberated you are in the smallest of moments. One of the greatest accomplishments of mine was realizing one morning when I woke up that the last thought I'd had before going to bed had not been about my addiction. Throughout my entire years of addiction, it was literally always the first thing on my mind when I woke up, even if it was just getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was the last thing I thought of every single night before I fell asleep.

Speaking of sleep, a full night's sleep! Full meals! Not feeling sick 100% of the time. At first, it's almost like growing into a new body.

Your memory is not the same as before, whether you remember too much or there are big dark patches in your mind.

The appreciation. As difficult and painful as it is, a world in recovery is also so often a world of supreme beauty. You pay attention to life's details in ways you never could have imagined before. Things assume a gentle sincerity and sensitivity they never had previously.

Relapse does not always even happen. Some people quit and never look back. I decided to change my life in every way in February 2021 and spent all of that March relapsing. By April 1, I was ready and never went back once.

Addicts are always deemed selfish and narcissistic, even recovered addicts. Sometimes, ironically, recovery leads to increased empathy. It can take reaching a low point to understand another person's low point.

Recovery can be quiet. It's not always over-the-top constant relapses, breakdowns, etc. Sometimes it's just very private and silent attempts to make your life better.

Finally, a point I would like to emphasize is that addiction is a lonely, isolating experience, but often recovery is too. Yes, you can have rehab (if you're lucky to get into a good one), and, yes ,you might have a group or loved ones who help you (I hope). But every reason behind addiction and what you're actually addicted to is so individualized that no one will ever wholly share your experience. Finding a community can be challenging.

But, despite it all, recovery is a unique, beautiful, enlightening experience. If I were given the choice to go back and make it so I'd never had any of it happen, I would choose that option in a heartbeat. Still, I know in the depths of my soul, I'd be trading away some of the most raw, vulnerable, and profound lessons of my life in favor of blissful ignorance.

Above all else, I hope if you write a character in recovery, you try to portray them as you would anyone else—a nuanced and interesting human being 🫶

[downinthevoid3]

So I have some questions within the Sleep Token story that I have been unable to answer until the new theory I created the other day. A huge one for me has been who is 'she' in Nazareth, Alkaline, and Distraction? Why does Vessel want to be consumed by a God when typical worship fashion (at least to me) is to consume the spirit of the God? Why does it seem in some songs, like TNDNBTG, Sleep and Vessel can only meet at night while others like Granite seems to be how Sleep constantly stays in Vessel's head, hence why they are fighting while discussing a typical street within a city as if Vessel is just awake wondering around? Why can a clear linear story not be created from the normal discography order and why does attempting to rearrange it not work?

So I bring a new idea. Sleep is the God reaching out to Vessel, not to manipulate him but instead to help him. Dreams about Gods often signify a need for growth and change. It's made obvious within Thread the Needle and multiple other songs that we are following a labyrinth, a long potentially difficult trail to the center often signifying personal growth and change. In Nazareth Sleep offers fortune and fame while seemingly also asking Vessel to kill a woman. I think that woman is a personification for an addiction. Far too many songs within this band discuss addictions and I just don't see a reason for Vessel to be addicted to Sleep so quickly as the 8 (9 if you count covers) songs before Sundowning don't seem to even bring that idea. Now with this theory of addiction, I have realized you can make an entirely much more clear picture of what the story being told is and how the discography order is the correct order. Also with this theory, Vessel isn't wanting to be consumed by a God, instead he wants to be consumed by what he is addicted to. This theory also makes the plot hole surrounding when Vessel and Sleep can meet or talk to one another disappear because Vessel isn't directing any of this at Sleep. This addiction could be something he gives into anytime, anywhere. I have spent entirely too much time thinking about how this theory works within this band and I have a lot more I could discuss and explain (which I am more than happy to explain anything anyone has questions about within this theory) but for now I leave this idea and continue my analysis.

Also this came to me because I was thinking about when we talked about addictions in one of my psychology classes (I am a psychology major) because of the line "synapses snap back in blissful anguish." I feel like it sounds insane to first mention but once you dive more into it, so much more makes sense. I even managed to place where each stage of recovery starts with this theory. I also don't want to discuss exactly what I think this addiction is to because I couldn't tell you in all honesty. I have my own thoughts and theories on that right now but I don't think that's something we are necessarily meant to know.

[therealcocoshady]

Recovery - Chapter 41

Author’s note : As always, THANK YOU to @shady-577 who kindly agreed to read this beforehand ❤️. I kept this one short and « sweet » 👀. Hope y’all enjoy it !

When you got to your couple therapy appointment, you were rather optimistic. Both you and Marshall were in a good mood and you went there holding hands, smiles on your faces. You’d even had a talk before, telling each other just how committed you were to making things work, because you were so in love with each other. It would have been childish to expect the therapist to give you praises and a pat on the head for being such a great couple, but you did not expect her to dissect every aspect of your relationship, making it feel like you were under a microscope. She started the appointment by asking each of you to say why you were here and, even though both of you answered by talking about most recent events, she asked a lot of follow-up questions about how the relationship came about. You knew your relationship was far from perfect - after all, every couple has their issues - but it did make a dent on your confidence. During that first session, she seemed to pick up on a lot of things. She mentioned that the both of you treated this relationship like it was something you needed, instead of something you wanted, relying on mechanisms similar to addiction.

- For this relationship to work, you need to want this, she explained.

- We wouldn’t be here otherwise, you said. We’re here because we want it to work.

- Or are you here because you’re too scared of functioning without the other one as a lifeboat ? She asked.

You both stared at each other. Evidently, she had picked up on something. Of course you wanted to be in this relationship. But she was also definitely right about you treating your relationship like an addiction. The time spent apart was like being on withdrawal and Marshall’s presence wasn’t only something you wanted - it was something you craved. In hindsight, it was true that you had relied on him for a lot of things. He had been instrumental in your sobriety, had been there for you through tough times… So maybe you tended to think of him as a solution to your issues.

- Isn’t that what couples are supposed to do ? Marshall asked. Support each other ? What’s wrong with that ?

- Support is indeed a key component of a relationship, the therapist agreed. But there is difference between supporting someone and having your stability rely on them entirely.

- So… You think our relationship is unhealthy ? You asked.

- I’m not here to judge your relationship, she said. I’m here to give you tools to solve your problems and increase intimacy so that you can thrive.

- What do you recommend, then ? Marshall asked.

- I’d like to see you both on a weekly basis, she said. I already see Marshall regularly, but we might also schedule appointments with you, Y/N. I will also be giving you exercises.

- Like homework ? You asked.

- Like homework, she said with a smile. I’ll end today’s session with a simple one : go on a date.

- A date ? You chuckled. We already live together. We’re past that.

- From what I gathered, you haven’t dated for very long, if at all, she explained. The dating stage is crucial in a relationship. It helps build communication skills, it nurtures emotional intimacy, it also helps establish trust and commitment.

- We can give that a go, Marshall said as he took your hand.

- Good then, she said. I’ll see you next week.

You left the therapist’s office a bit puzzled. Overall, you were satisfied, but you were also a bit frustrated. All this first session had done was set the tone but you hadn’t really gotten to talk about the events that had led to this session. You had mentioned the track, how hurt you were, as well as the cheating part, but you hadn’t addressed it fully. Marshall, however, seemed rather satisfied. He mentioned something about it taking at long as it takes and being willing to put in some work. All in all, it was encouraging and it gave you hope that you could actually move forward as a couple.

- So… A date ? You asked playfully.

- It’s true that I’ve never really taken you out on a proper date, he chuckled. We just got down to business.

- We already knew each other, though, you pointed out.

- Still… We could use a date, I guess, he said. A real one.

- I’d like that, you nodded.

He pressed a kiss to your temple and told you he had an idea. All you needed to do was to trust him. You decided to leave the planning up to him and, as you went home, you got back to your usual schedule, planning details for Talia and Jamal’s wedding. You were looking at stuff on your iPad while Marshall was next to you, reading a comic book. Your phone started ringing and you froze as soon as you saw the name on the screen. It was Simon. You weren’t too sure what to do so you just let it ring. Marshall was absorbed by his reading and didn’t see the caller ID.

- You’re not picking up ? He asked.

- No, you said quietly.

- What’s wrong ? He questioned as he looked up.

- It’s Simon, you said earnestly.

- Oh.

He stared at you intently, clearly waiting to see what your next move would be. You quietly hummed and went back to your web browsing. However, the phone kept on ringing and ignoring it, with Marshall’s gaze upon you, was growing harder.

- Do you want to pick up ? He asked.

- I don’t know, you admitted.

- Do you want to talk to him ?

- I don’t know, you repeated.

- Do you miss him ?

- I don’t, you sighed. Marshall, please stop with your questions. You’re not helping matters.

- I can’t take it, he said. I’m sorry but I can’t shake the image of him holding you. Touching you. Kissing you. And knowing he is blowing up your phone makes me mad.

- I get it, you said as you reached for his hand. I’m sorry. I’m yours. You know that, right ? And we’re working through it.

- I know, he said as he held your hand. But knowing you’re mine doesn’t change anything to my will to eviscerate him.

- Marsh… I know it hurts but… I’m the one at fault, you said. I’m the one who kissed him. It’s my mistake. Simon didn’t do anything wrong.

He stared at you silently and nodded. You kissed his cheek and held his hand in yours. Obviously, he hadn’t forgiven you yet, and he was still hurt by the whole situation.

- You’re too good, he sighed. I wish you would just say he’s as faulty as you. I wish I could blame him instead of you. I think that’s what hurts the most. It would be so much easier.

- I’m sorry, you said sheepishly. But I can’t lie… I’d rather be honest.

- Speaking of honesty… when are you going to tell him to beat it ? He asked.

- Tell him to beat it ? You asked with a raised eyebrow.

- You’re not really going to entertain this, are you ?!

- I… no, you said. I’m not entertaining anything. But Simon has been a true friend this past week. He even offered to help me look for a job.

- Your « true » friend explored your tonsils days ago, he pointed out coldly. Your « true friend » wants much more than a friendship.

- He pushed me away, you said. As a friend should.

- Is that why you’re back ? He asked. Because he pushed you away ?

- What ? No, you said in disbelief. I’m here because I love you, Marshall. I’m here because you said we can work things out. Because that’s what I want. I want to be with you.

He looked at you intently, not saying anything. You could see the sadness in his eyes. It was a feeling you knew all too well, it was the same feeling you’d felt when you learned about what happened with Tracy in London. Knowing the person you loved had been touched by hands that aren’t yours, been kissed by another’s lips, and wondering what could have happened if things had gone further. Your heart strained and you were feeling more guilty than ever.

- What if he hadn’t pushed you away ? He asked as he swallowed dryly. What if he had taken you to bed ? Would you have let him ?

- I don’t know, you confessed. I hope not.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Obviously, it was not the desired answer and you knew it hurt, but you also didn’t want to lie to him. You respected him too much to lie to his face. You brought a hand to his cheek and stroked it. You could see him release the tension of his clenched jaw as you touched him. You placed a kiss at the corner of his lips, then another one in his neck.

- Marshall, I love you, you said. I am yours. Yours only.

- I know it’s my fault, he said as his eyes were still closed. I know that… the way I made you feel is what led you to do it. But it still fucking hurts, Y/N.

- I’m sorry, you said as you kept on kissing him. I’m so sorry. I love you. You know that, right ?

He simply nodded, eyes still closed. You kept on kissing him, hoping that it would make his pain go away. He wasn’t too responsive, at first, but he let you kiss him nonetheless. Eventually, he kissed you back, each kiss growing more passionate. You were straddling his lap and you could feel him getting hard underneath you.

- I’m yours, you whispered.

- If you don’t stop what you’re doing, I’m going to take what’s mine, he warned.

- Yours, you repeated as you kissed him.

- You can still barely walk, he pointed out.

- Just be gentle, then.

He hummed and kissed you hungrily. His hands on your hips pinned you against him and his rock hard erection. You were soaking wet already and you whimpered, aching to feel him. Five minutes later, you were naked and he was on his knees, face buried between your legs. His soft tongue against your clit felt heavenly. He was making you see stars and you were about to come but you needed more. You begged for him to be inside of you and you could see the hesitation on his face. He got undressed and positioned himself at your entrance. You winced a little when he entered you, still sore from the previous day’s exertions, and he almost stopped but you pleaded for him to keep going. You needed to feel him inside of you, dying to have this heavenly connection. You were all his and you needed him to feel it. You were laying in the couch, legs wrapped around his waist, moving your hips in sync. His moves were slow but he was hitting the right spots. You were a moaning mess under him.

- it’s so good, you whimpered.

- Yeah ? He asked.

- Yeah, you moaned. Please don’t stop.

- Say you’re mine, he pleaded.

- I’m yours, Marshall… I’m yours, you cried in pleasure.

- Say you’ll tell this motherfucker to beat it, he ordered.

You stared at him in shock, confused by both your pleasure and his request. You didn’t want to think about it. Especially not in the middle of sex. You were desperate for him to make you come, but his movements stilled.

- Marshall, please, you pleaded.

- Say it and I’ll make you come, he said.

- Marsh… i- no…

- Maybe you can ask Simon to make you come then, he groaned as he stopped what he was doing.

You stared at each other for a second and, before you could fully comprehend what was going on, he was pulling his sweatpants up and leaving you, naked on the couch, in a state of frustration and confusion.

MARSHALL’S POV - 3 HOURS LATER

He had left Y/N on the couch,right in the middle of sex. He wanted to please her, to give her what she wanted, make her see stars and bring her to orgasm but he couldn’t let go of the thought of Simon. It haunted him, kept coming back at the worst moments. Every time he looked at her and thought of how in love he was, he couldn’t help but think of her ex. The one she had willingly kissed. Thinking about her with him made it sick to his stomach and the thought of him calling her was driving him mad. Usually, he would have vented in the form of writing lyrics but the last time he had picked up his pen, it hadn’t worked too well.

He knew it was a dick move, using sex as a way to get her to get rid of Simon, leaving her high and dry. But he couldn’t help it. He had to get the anger out or his system. He spent two hours in the gym, punching his boxing bag, imagining Simon’s dumb face in its place. He punched until his fists were almost numb but at least, it did a decent job helping him with his thoughts. After a hot shower, he went to the bedroom, where he found her laying in bed, reading a book. She was focused on the reading, not paying attention to him. He observed her face, as beautiful as usual even though she was clearly frowning.

- Hey, he said as he leaned against the doorframe.

- Hi, she said dryly without looking up.

- I’m sorry, he sighed. I’m an asshole.

- You are, she nodded.

- I’m really sorry, though, he said apologetically.

- About what ? She asked as she looked him in the eyes. Using sex to get back at me ? Leaving me high and dry without so much as an explanation ?

- All of it, he said. I just… I didn’t plan- I don’t deal with it very well. I keep on seeing you with him. And knowing you want to keep talking to him… it hurts so much, Y/N. I can’t stand it.

- I know, she said. I know.

- I don’t think you do, actually, he said sheepishly.

- Right. It’s not like you had me meet your ex-wife and mother or your children, or like you keep working with your ex, she said sarcastically.

He stared at her in silence. She had a point and, as hard as he was trying to come up with an argument to counter it, he couldn’t. He simply sat on the bed and looked at you.

- Right, he said sheepishly. So… you’re going to keep him in your life ? I just… I need to know because… the thought of you being around the dude you cheated on me with…

- Marshall, I just need a minute, she sighed. You have absolutely no idea how hard it’s been for me. And I know I’m not the only one suffering, here. And I don’t mean to be selfish. But the truth is… Simon was here for me, and even though I regret what happened, he did act like a friend. And even though I know I’m going to have to tell him that we can’t keep talking, I just need to wrap my head around it. Not because I love him. Not because I miss him. But because I’m lonely. Besides you, I only have two friends. Talia and Jamal. And I love your friends, but they’re not mine. And now, it’s going to be even harder to connect with people because your song is humiliating for me. And I know i hurt you but guess what ? You hurt me too. Several times. And I’ve been doing a lot of the emotional work in this relationship. I’ve moved countries for you. I’ve given up a ton of things for you. I have accepted a lot of things for you. I just need a minute to adjust. And I need you to understand that it’s hard for me.

He swallowed dryly and looked at her. He knew he had put her through a lot but hearing her saying it frankly and out loud felt different. Suddenly, he felt like the most selfish person on earth. He sat on the bed and took her hand.

- I’m sorry, he said.

- I’m sorry too, she replied. I guess… we both put each other through things that are hard to get over.

- Yeah, he nodded. But I love you, Y/N. I just want us to be happy. Just tell me what you want, what you need and I’ll get it for you.

- I just need time, Marshall, she said. And I know I hurt you but you using sex as a form of punishment or whatever that was is not ok.

- I didn’t mean to, he said. It’s just… I don’t have a lot of ways to work through my feelings. I either rap about them or fuck them out of my system. Or exercise.

- Hence the bruised knuckles ? She asked.

- Yeah, he shrugged. I know it sucks. I just… have to work on it, I guess.

- I know, she said softly. And I know you’ve been putting some actual work, with therapy and everything. I see it.

He laid down and rested his head on her knees, closing his eyes as she ran her fingers on his scalp. Her touch was soft and he felt at peace, wishing they could stay like this forever.

- I love you, he mumbled. I’m so scared to lose you.

- I’m scared too, she said.

- I don’t care what the therapist said, he continued. I’m ok with being addicted to you.

- Im addicted to you, too, she said softly. I can’t stay away from you. It’s like… I always need my fix.

He sat up and kissed her lovingly. She leaned into his embrace and they kissed hungrily, pouring their feelings into the kiss, whispering sweet words to each other.

- Let me give you your fix, he whispered. I want you.

- Are you going to leave me high and dry ? She asked.

- No, he promised.

She nodded and, soon enough, they were under the sheets, moaning each other’s name. He made up for his earlier outburst and made it a point to make her come again and again, until she had tears of pleasure streaming down her face. Afterwards, they cuddled, simply enjoying each other’s warmth. They were all fucked-out, exhausted. They were about to fall asleep when Y/N’s phone started ringing. He looked at the screen and saw Simon’s name, which made him tense up instantly. After the talk they had, though, he understood her position and, even if it physically hurt him, he didn’t say anything. She threw him an apologetic glance before picking up, getting up from bed as she took the call.

- Hi, Simon, she said. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up sooner… Yes, I’m good… Well, I’m back home… with him, yes… We’re working through it… Look, I don’t know how to tell you but… I don’t think I can keep talking to you. I hope you understand…

He could her her conversation - or at least what she was saying and his heart felt a little lighter as he heard her say she couldn’t talk to him anymore. It was selfish, but it felt good.

- I love him, she said. I need to do what’s best for me… thank you for understanding… wait… are you sure ? … what’s that about ? … I guess… Ok.

She came back to bed and handed him the phone. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

- He wants to talk to you, she whispered.

- I don’t want to talk to him, he scoffed loud enough for Simon to hear. Tell him to go to hell.

- He says it’s important, she insisted.

He sighed and took the phone.

- Hello ? He asked. What do you want ?

- Hi, he heard Simon say. Marshall’s is it ? I have information you might find useful.

- Look, man, he replied curtly, I don’t know what you want but you heard Y/N. We don’t need you. So whatev-

- I know who leaked your track, Simon said. The one about Y/N.