burification - Tumblr blog

burification · 2 years ago

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not enough words in the world to express how in love i am with this

dulce et decorum est

lmanbur x reader - 19.1k - AO3

warnings: violence, heavily implied sexual content, major character death, erm war, animal death

notes: this is my lmanbur love letter, i love him, i think i could have done a better job but it is what it is,,,,,, please read this I'm begging on my hands and knees i promise it is good and worth your time i promise

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

taglist: @your-shifting-gurl @lillylvjy @toiletwipes @lotusmisc @mosslovestherain @burification @sweet-soot

It is cold and quiet. The air settles in your body and whittles a wordless warning into your bones of the coming numbness of your limbs. You sit patiently in the snow as flakes still lazily fall down, find themselves in your hair, melting on your gloves, and joining the millions of snowflakes scattered upon the ground. You take in a deep breath and let it sit as you pull back your hand holding an arrow carefully. The string whines in your ear, begs to be let go, unleash pointed violence, calculated pain. Your stomach growls horribly, that deer of big black eyes raising its head, meeting your gaze. No one has eaten a meal in days, people picking on bones, sucking on the white pieces of former life. You will ask for forgiveness later. The deer watches you, not daring to move, and when you clench your eyes shut you know the arrow will meet its mark. It whistles by your head and finds itself lodged in the heart of now-fallen prey.

People celebrate when you return with the animal poorly tied on the back of a horse, you smile, act polite, and try and find who you wanted to impress. He isn’t there, off doing better things, like planning a war soon to be fought again and not entertaining your childish infatuation. You are alone when you are pouring water over your hands, freezing water that runs pink and stains the snow behind your tent riddled with moth holes, imperfections that sing when the wind howls. The blood reminds you of the guilt that killing brings, this blood, for once, is pure and unarmed. You shiver, sigh with breath that catches in the horrible freezing air, and reminds you that you still can in fact breathe.

When you return, new gloves on your hands, a stew has been made. He’s standing there, facing away from you, the perfect uniform unspeckled by dirt or melting snow. He is as impressive as ever, a commanding presence that leaves your fingertips buzzing. He turns at the sound of your crunching footsteps and you meet his gaze the same way the deer had met yours. There is brief recognition, just enough to make your heart race, to feel the tip of your nose as warm instead of cold. He nods his head with a small smile.

“Everyone thank, y/n, for the deer,” his hand raises to point, a lazy extension of his arm to you. “Enjoy a warm meal for once,” and his words are that soaring arrow, the turn of his heel without any of the steaming food in his hand is the action of ripping it out. Voices cheer, creating a steady static of sound as you watch him walk away to his own pitched tent. A warm bowl is placed in your grasp as your eyes stay in that place he used to be, lingering there until the smell of the food tempts you more than that afterimage of him.

You eat slowly, venison earthy in your mouth paired with potatoes that warn of those last measly bits of rations. It’s good, better than good. For a moment, you feel like everything may be fine, survivable, this winter something that will pass us by and this paused war something that will be swallowed all the same as this food. You sigh out and feel lighter. It’s getting dark when it begins to snow again, you wonder if he’s eaten anything? If not the stew what would he have? Wasn’t he starving like the rest of you?

It eats at you, worry that aches more than the cold in your joints. You think of gaunt cheekbones during a speech, hands shaking with notes, and that man destroying himself for others. It settles with the snow on your unmoving limbs. You shouldn’t care this much. You shouldn’t be filling a bowl, shouldn’t be walking towards his tent, and you shouldn’t be pulling that flap open with a shakey hand, and yet, you find yourself facing him and his shocked expression as your sudden intrusion.

“President?” The honorific left you in an awkward way, it got stuck in your mouth on the way out. You choked when you met the sight of him, him standing looking down at a map spread out in the middle of the room on a makeshift table, a few buttons on that uniform undone yet not shed to conserve warmth. His gaze when it met yours was that of a honeyed summer, sunsets that stretch out across the sky. He is warm, sickeningly so. His eyes on you feel akin to basking in the sun, and in the dead of winter, you are all too content to soak it in.

“Yes?” he says, a word that leaves him softly and yet sobers you all the same to your disruption and to the warm stew still in your hand.

“I-” you start, stuttering again with a wince. “You didn’t get any food at dinner, So I, I brought you some,” You give a sheepish smile and set down the bowl beside that map marked in red, scribbled on, and crossed out. You shiver, allow the cold to bite until you meet his face again, the puppy-dog look he’s giving you making your stomach turn.

“I didn’t want to take food from the people who needed it,” he says, his eyes half-lidded, dark, flickering in that lantern light.

“You can’t lead if you aren’t eating,” you look away from him “and we all need you, so you need this,” you whisper the last part before escaping from the small space with your face hot. The cold is quick to make this clear to you, tease you with windchill and a bout of dizziness. You take a few steps, fighting back against those gusts.

“Y/n, wait,” he calls, his head peaking out, wind whistling as you turn. This moment is that horrible letting go of the arrow repeated again, it's the finality from brushing shoulders to knowing each other's names, it’s your arrow that strikes his heart unbeknownst to you. He ushers you back and you obey, follow him into that tent with your head held low. When you turn, find him fastening that door shut to keep whatever warmth he can from being stolen, you flush. He turns, a perfect sight of wind-chaffed cheeks and parted pink lips.

“I, uhm, I should have thanked you, I mean personally, before” he gestures between himself and you. It was then that your heart first ached for him, really ached. He laughed lightly and retracted back to his place on the other side of the table. He laughed again, a quiet rawness that left his mouth, his lips cracked from the dry cold, and yet the sound still soothed you. It told you to press on, warmth across your body. A part of you begged to cull distance, to tuck yourself into him if only to seek out his body heat. You think his arms wrapped around you would erase all thoughts of casualties, of war-torn faces, and of that deer. It’s indulgently delusional.

“It was nothing,” you say, knowing that the deer was anything but. He looks hesitant as you realize the food is now being held in his large hands, that he’s eating, and something about it stirs you. His eyes look up through his hair only to meet your own. You couldn’t help the way you moved in turn, averting your gaze to become glued to the ground instead of his face.

“Thank you,” he says again and finally you retreat successfully, darting through the storm to your tent to curl yourself up with the butterflies in your stomach.

You dream of fields full of wildflowers, a picnic with Wilbur across from you, his head tilted up to the sun. You wake to the unfortunate numbness in your toes, a familiar feeling that has you groan, and curl tighter around yourself. You dress quickly, rubbing away at dried mud and not bothering to look at the state of your hair. There wasn’t enough time for wishes of beauty and yet you still let yourself entertain the worry its absence brought you.

You are sent to hunt again, given that same bow, and a kiss on the forehead from a soldier that begs you kill again. You nod, crease your brow, and tromp back out into the snow. You can’t make yourself pretend you aren’t also seeking more of that general’s attention. It’s days of the same routine with moments of a friendly nod from the man who somehow always catches you coming back to camp empty-handed. It’s a week until you succeed again. It’s another deer. This one is a buck, you think, as it stands larger up on a hill. He looks out, ears twitching, and you realize your time is as limited as it always is, the atmosphere volatile.

You pull back with two fingers and you look up at pride, that deer that stood tall with the imagined weight of antlers atop his head, of beauty. When you let go you close your eyes as you always do, and when you snap them open you find him dead, shot through the eye. It takes you far too long to drag it back, and when you do you are met with cheers, that soldier from before pressing a kiss now to your cheek. You find Wilbur leaving his tent to investigate the commotion. He stands tall, concerned for a brief moment as he scans those faces so strangely adorned with smiles. He finds you in the middle of it all, dripping with wet snow, hair frozen in icicles at the end, mud and blood smeared on your face and you are only looking at him, not at the crowd of people or the deer being pulled from your hands to be made into food.

And maybe it’s embarrassing, maybe it’s like being caught red-handed, or just maybe this is the start of something, a stir that you can’t ignore.

He asks you to join him in his tent, two chairs found somewhere set around that table, two more bowls of stew made with fresh meat, and no more blood on your face. You allow yourself to look in that small pocket mirror you’ve kept stowed away, allow yourself vanity for right now if only to make the heaviness of his gaze feel less critical. You smooth down your hair, wipe your face with a rag, and you feel pretty.

He looks prettier than you never the less, as his hands bring that spoon to his lips. It feels strange to be here, intimate in the way there is a candle lit between you two, an uncovered flame that dances the same steps of trepidation in the cold air that you are carrying out in conversation.

“Do you worry of the war?” you ask, implore, because there are no better questions than that of the looming threat. Your mind must be as heavy as your heart, always.

“Every moment,” he says and it suffices as an answer in the way it crawls from his mouth as a plead he doesn’t want help with. You flutter your eyelashes, blink away any fear you harbor in your body, and still his hand finds yours. He reaches out across that table that has seen the plans of battles passed and yet to come and grazes his calloused fingertips across your own hand like it's the simplest thing in the world. “We will win this, you can leave the worrying to me,”

“Must you do everything alone?” you ask and his thumb grazes across your skin, his own hand warm. A grin finds its way to his face, something that betrayed the thickness of the air.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, letting the words crystalize as a cloud of water vapor in the still-freezing air despite the flush on your cheeks.

“To lead? Yes. To take care of yourself? Absolutely not,” you lock eyes with him and he tilts his head.

“I’d say one of those is more important,” he says.

“And I’d say you are weighing the wrong one over the other,” you challenge and it’s strangely tense as you pause, bite your tongue, and are quick to look down at your food that is growing cold. “I’m glad you are eating,” you say and at that moment he is mortal, human, looking at you with soft eyes, unspoken affection that you would not allow yourself to name. He is no longer the leader, the president, a name that weighs too heavily on his shoulders. He is so suddenly the image you’d admired from afar now so suffocatingly close. He is Wilbur, someone who must be reminded to eat, who hasn’t yet let go of your hand, and who, in this dying light, looks small.

The night lapses into itself until you are without him again, curled up in your own sleeping bag shivering, and replaying a night of conversations that have gone past. It’s then you wish for his warmth, for bodies pressed against bodies. It’s a desire you do not allow yourself to fuel, and yet the next day he hovers near you. He seeks you out himself, pulls you to the woods to practice shooting, and you think you must be ablaze with the heat in your cheeks.

He sets up a bottle, retreats to press himself against your back, and steadies you with large gloved hands. It’s less the actions and more the feeling of his hot breath fanning the shell of your ear as he directs you to raise that gun. He reaches with you, bodies overlaid.

“Fire,” he whispers as snowflakes gather in the curls of his hair out of the corner of your eye. The end of his nose was red and his glasses were fogged up with the hot breath that was escaping past the scarf you had wrapped around his neck. You were quick to pull the trigger of that heavy gun, obey his orders and sublimate yourself to the air of authority in that familiar voice. The sound rang in your ears for a moment then fell away to him looking down at you with a grin.

Bullseye. A broken glass bottle.

“Are you impressed?” you joke, prod, your desire for praise outweighing any rational thought or action. He untwists himself from you, steps back, and looks down again just to face you.

“Quite, maybe you don’t need training?” he offered, no such desired praise crawling from his lips.

“Thought my proficiency with a bow would have told you enough,” you say softly, leaning into the levity of the moment, the warm sight of the upturn of his lips as it contrasted with the wind nipping at the tips of your ears. You shuffle, the snow crunching your boots.

“Guess I didn’t really think this through, hm?” and you want to say something dangerous, reply, tease, and draw out a reaction at the expense of your better judgment. A branch breaks far away and Wilbur lifts his head to stare out like a startled animal. You keep your gaze on him, the bob of his Adam’s apple, the angle of his nose, and still those snowflakes gathering in his brown curls.

“Maybe you just wanted me alone,” you say and his attention rears back to you, snaps to you the same it had that broken branch, surprise clear across his features that so quickly bloom with a blush. You are terrified as he opens his mouth and struggles to find the right words. He is speechless, that leader of a nation stricken silent by just an utterance from your lips. He leans down, gets so impossibly close, and shares your oxygen, a feeling so intimately warm when it is this cold.

“What would you say, if that is, the reason for this,” he implores and you want to scream as a shiver runs down your spine that is, for once, not caused by the temperature.

“I would hope you would kiss me,” and yet he doesn’t kiss your lips. He instead presses them to the apples of your cheeks, to your forehead, to the tip of your nose, and then, finally, to your lips. Its soft wordless worship, it’s suffocatingly intimate, the shuttering inhales as he catches his breath. You bare your heart as he had his own, and you can’t stop yourself from being terrified of what will come after. His hands trail up, cradle your face, and hold you like something has never been more precious.

“I am being selfish to have you like this so soon, my darling,” you kiss him instead of replying, instead of fueling his own self-doubt. You drink him in, move your lips in a way that speaks of pining returned, of months of staring now unwasted. You keep him, allow yourself this, and attempt to absolve him of his own guilt.

“We can be selfish together,” you breathe, “I think we deserve that, I think you deserve that,” and you resist the urge to beg.

“And yet don’t you deserve something proper?” he ponders, his hand brushing down your face, wiping at the droplets of melted snow “Once we have food, I will take you on a proper date,” and you laugh. You don’t tell him you would let him ruin you, that you are scared you already are even when it’s just this. His lips meet yours again nevertheless and this time it states of new beginnings and waning control.

The two of you find yourselves connected. A relationship that terrifies you both being kindled by that very same fear. Passion swallows that carefully kept peace, burns and engulfs you both into this intertwining of souls that lacks a steady footing.

It’s fast to when you find yourself attached to his hip, him much the same, never complaining about the proximity. You are warm and he’s been cold for so long. You indulge each other in late-night conversations and feed each other's insatiable desire for intimacy, shared oxygen and ever-present skin-to-skin contact. He never prods for more than you are willing to give and after a month you can’t imagine a night spent alone, a day spent without his company.

So you spend most nights in his tent, overlaying each other on two cots pushed together, though it doesn’t work very well it’s enough to rest. He savors the weight of you on top of him, finds it grounding, your head rested on his chest or your leg laid atop his own. He pulls you there now, straddling him in an awkward way. It’s late and the camp is silent as you lean down to whisper in his ear but he speaks first.

“Thank you,” he breathes out, his mouth finding its way to your neck, to creating bruises just below where he knew they would be hidden by your clothing. The phrase confuses you even as the action of unwinding like this is familiar. He leans back again and you resituate, resting your head on his chest, listening idly to the beating of his heart. “I’m sorry if I ever feel like a burden,” he says quietly.

“You never do,” you whisper, pulling more blankets over the pair of you and settling yourself into his side. “I wanted you before you probably knew I existed,” you confess and he chuckles. You wish you could see the smile on his lips but your eyes have yet to adjust to the dark, leaving you with the outline of him.

“Then I’m glad I found you before you changed your mind,” he says and you kiss at his jaw, stubble brushing against your skin. All of him feels like an indulgence, a vice you will never earn.

“I don’t think you realize how much people adore you,” you say and he huffs.

“Until they realize I’m a mess a-” You cut him off with your finger to his lips and a gentle shush. He is frequently critical of himself even as he hands out compliments to others so passively, he can’t extend that kindness to his own talents nor his mistakes.

“Don’t talk like that, s’not productive, Wil” and you can feel the soreness of your limbs calling to sleep, the slow shutting down of your body. You ignore it, for now, push past your own exhaustion. “I’ve never met someone like you, someone with so much passion, so much to bring to this world.” you pause and find his head tilted to see you as much as he can in the darkness of the tent where your face is obscured from where it is still half laid upon his chest, rising and falling slowly with the pace of his breathing. “Wilbur, people surround themselves around you because they can see what you can’t,”

It’s still winter when Wilbur asks you to teach him how to hunt and you don’t have the strength to say no when he flashes his perfectly poised puppy dog eyes. It wasn’t a skill you thought he needed nor one you thought you were especially qualified to teach, and yet, here you were following the tracks of a bunny. Wilbur is not the quietest, his footfalls heavy even after you’ve urged him multiple times that this matter is delicate. He is also not the best with a bow and arrow but he tries in an attempt to entertain you.

“Steady,” you say as he pulls back, a shaky hand attempting to aim at a blissfully unaware rabbit. “Breathe, Wil,” you say and you can watch as he relaxes just slightly, one of his eyes shuts to get a better look. When he lets go the arrow misses by only a few inches. The rabbit scurries away, the white of its fur conceling it back into the snow. You can’t suppress your giggle.

“Am I hopeless, darling?” he asks and you smile at him, his cheeks flushed as he looks away embarrassed.

“I wouldn’t say you are hopeless,” you drag out and he rolls his eyes. You blink, suddenly stunned by how mundane the moment feels. His brown eyes fall back to you and the adoration you find there shocks you further, though you do your best to conceal it. “Just need some practice,”

“At least I have the best to teach me,” he praises, leaning to you and pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. It makes your face feel hot. It’s only been two months and yet your head has not stopped spinning, every action of his still making your heart race. Maybe it’s unhealthy, the bond so quickly foraged, the way the two of you so desperately leaned on one another, but it was making this winter survivable.

“The three rabbits we have should be okay, if you are cold?” you ask and he hums, arranging the bow out of his hand to free it so it can hold yours. You squeeze his hand as soon as it’s intertwined with yours and the chuckle that leaves him is music to your ears. A part of you still can’t believe he holds you like this, like love is something so easily found in this situation. “It’s no deer but it’s food,” you tease.

“They won’t complain,” he says and you know he is right.

“I know, I think some of them worship me for the deer,” you joke and he nods. His gaze falls down on you, memorizing every complexity of your face.

“They should worship you if my poor attempt to hunt is anything to go on,” he says and you roll your eyes. He had gotten one of the rabbits, albeit poorly, it was still impressive for his first time hunting.

“Can’t be good at everything, Mr. President,” you say, giving him a wry smile.

“Seems like it,” he replies and you can’t help but laugh, bump your shoulder into his as the both of you trek back. “I’ll get the hang of it if we keep practicing,” he mumbles and you giggle again as both of you walk into camp, passing off those rabbits to people waiting to begin cooking. It wasn’t every day you caught something, it wasn’t every day you hunted, and yet they believed in you the same, always assuming you would come with prey. You give a bashful smile and Wilbur pulls you to sit near a fire, to wait for that food even if it will be a while. The moving flames warm your numb face.

In the end, it’s a common dish, more stew. You both don’t complain. You force yourself to eat there by the fire, listening to the idle conversation, but not adding anything. It’s a gentle silence from you that is occasionally observed by Wilbur shifting his attention but never making you speak.

The first day it is warm again, the unthawing of your skin brings nothing but settling dread of a war effort relit. The camp bustles with the cleaning of rifles, the counting of ammunition, and the organizing of medical supplies. When you see Wilbur’s worried brow, you can tell he feels the same. It’s in the way his hand finds yours in every moment he can, squeezes tight, and then only lets go as he stands to speak, breathing that fight back into them with words so carefully crafted. He has spoken these same words to you in the last days of snow, whispered them with his hand slung across your waist, spoke them to a growing audience of you and singing birds, and now he shared them with all those soldiers they were written for.

You don’t listen, not in the same way everyone else is. No, you nod as he hits those beats he was so worried about, be attentive to the changes in his tone, and you notice as his hands begin to shake, the moment of realization when the speech went past careful words and became what is was, another declaration for war and violence no matter how much he detested it. He smiles all the same as people cheer, he takes your hand and you sheepishly stand beside him, though you know it’s nothing concrete.

“Don’t hate me for this,” he leans down and whispers in your ear. You cock your head to the side, confusion clear on your face as he smiles. He squeezes your hand again, you look at him, are forced to look at him as he practically vibrates with the adrenaline from a speech now slowly passing him by. When he kisses you your eyes are wide because as much as the two of you were not trying to hide your relationship it was never like this. It's a short firm press of his lips against yours, another declaration, this one to you alone, it is wordlessly ‘I love you’, words that would remain unsaid even when acted out a million times over.

When you follow him back to his tent, you want to yell for reasons you can’t place, a hot ball of stress wadded up in your chest, but when he turns and faces you it lapses, that anger swallowed by adoration because he’s still blushing.

“Will you fight with us? Will you stand beside me?” and it is a rush out of his mouth, its mixed syllables and stumbling.

“Yes,” you say and it feels like informal enlistment, the draft is his will of who he wishes would fight beside him. You would never have been able to say no, wouldn’t have been able to muster the strength to shake your head when he was giddy like this, high on attention and brighter horizons you still weren’t sure would come. You had seen this war, had been in this war already, and yet he invited you again.

He kisses you, clinking teeth and excitement, he doesn’t let himself think of what the war really means.

The threat looms, as it always has. In a week you would learn war again from wherever Wilbur would let you, even if you were sure you had enough of war from before winter. When he bounds up to you with a bouquet of wildflowers one afternoon as the spring day begins to heat up you can’t help the tilt of your head. He looks like an excited puppy as he hands you the small assortment with a grin. Your heart flutters as he presses a quick kiss to your cheek. It’s affection that violently contrasts with the coming battle and yet you lean into it, bask in the gesture longer than you should.

“These are so pretty,” you say as you look at the fresh blooms, some not all the way open, picked hastily out of excitement that now seems to radiate off the man. You take them carefully into your hand and try and think of something you could use as a vase.

“I promised you a real date,” he starts and your eyes widen as you are quick to shake your head, whine out his name. “Love, please,”

“Wil,” you drag out.

“It’s already set up, please just indulge me,” and he’s flashing those brown eyes, pouting his lip. You can’t help but groan knowing you already have no choice but to agree.

“But you didn’t-” you start and he finishes the sentence before you can.

“You’re right, I didn’t have to, darling, I wanted to,” and with a sigh you take his hand, let him lead you to a small picnic, a mostly untattered blanket laid out on freshly green grass. You can’t help but look at him with tears in your eyes. This was not something awarded to you, this kind of care that sunk into your bones, ate at you from the inside out. He ushers you to sit with a goofy smile and when you do you are wiping stray tears to keep them from falling down your cheeks.

“Thank you,” you say quietly and he’s quick to replace your hands, ease those tears himself with calloused fingertips.

“Why are you crying?” he asks gently, words that fall from his lips out of worry.

“It’s just-” you take in a deep breath, composing yourself “It’s too nice, I-” and he shushes you, asks you not to pretend like this kindness isn’t everything you deserve. Your heart flutters and you can’t help but kiss him. You kiss him knowing what is coming but wanting, desiring selfishly to stay here, at this picnic, where nothing yet has been ruined except for you. He returns the affection eagerly.

He takes out food from a basket that you don’t know how he found. It’s things he's prepared, foraged food and fresh bread. It's the bottle of wine that he pulls out that makes you widen your eyes. It’s a luxury you haven’t known for so long and so when he passes you a glass of that maroon liquid you take it and stare. He smiles at you, something soft as the sun warms his skin.

“You can enjoy yourself,” he says and your gaze falls to him, bewildered by all of this. He sips from his own glass of the alcoholic liquid. You follow in kind, feel as the liquid warms your throat on the way down, it’s bitter and just almost sweet. You crave his closeness and so you move until your head is laid in his lap, his shadow blocking out the sun. His hands push hair from your face, trace the line of your jaw. You don’t know what to say and you wish you were content enough with the silence.

“Will you still want me?” you say because your brain is quick to doubt. He creases his brow.

“What are you talking about?” he says and you resist the urge to whine. You close your eyes, unable to face him as you speak.

“When everything starts again,” it’s a topic you’ve both been grazing by, hiding from the soreness of what is to come. “I know you said you wanted me there but I- I’m just a distraction, I don’t wanna be that,” and you are facing him as leader instead of as lover.

“I need you here,” he’s quick to speak, to overcome your own words with his own. “I need you here beside me, I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” and you nod, shaking away the fear he’s lying with your clenched shut eyes. When you open them he’s still there, your head still in his lap, and your heart now beating in your throat. You both won’t say it, not yet, terrified it would scare the other away with just those three words.

That night he pulls you closer than usual, not able to stand the distance between skin, and the proximity is as suffocating as it usually is. On his table is that wine bottle filled with the flowers gifted now flaunted.

The next afternoon you find him in your new uniform, the one ordered to be made by Wilbur due to the one hole in the collar of your former uniform, it feels stiff, unearned. He smiles when he sees you in it and beams in a way you hadn’t expected. It’s all warm, heat that is stored under the layers of professionalism and the guise of being a soldier. He smiles when you walk into his tent and stands to greet you.

“They did a good job,” he hums, his hands cupping your cheek, always so adamant for his hands to be on you in some way, for touch, the present comfort of skin-to-skin contact.

“Do you think so?” you tease, poking his nose with a small giggle. He shakes his head, running his hands up your face before letting go of you completely. You bask in his attention, soak in the warmth across your cheeks and the uneasiness of the affection in your stomach, it doesn’t settle like it should.

“You know I do, darling,” he says and you try to not melt because there are more important things to do. You croon your head up to him, eye contact that feels smothering. Tomorrow is when that call back to fighting must be answered, tomorrow is a day of battlefields and bullet shells, tomorrow is making you feel sick even though it has yet to come. He sees the words begging to leave your mouth, the way you seem to lean forward in anticipation for something still hours away.

“Tomorrow,” you begin. You feel the word slip past you to only reduce to that simple utterance of the future even though it was such an insurmountable thing.

“Tomorrow,” he repeats it back because of course he knows what your fear feels like, it’s the same taste plaguing his mouth echoed back. You don’t know what to say, find it to hard to speak, to recognize the grief forming in your gut for people not yet lost, for peace still yet to be broken.

“I’m scared,” you state the obvious.

“Everyone is, even me, maybe me most of all,” he says the words softly, not ones that are made to ease your terror but to bring it company. You nod, solemn.

“It’s just, I’ve done this, I’ve done this” you repeat yourself, tamping down the memories of this. You shake with them, tremble in the presence of the idea. Your stomach burns, a gash, a scar unseen that talks to that terror, makes it so painfully real. “but-” you stop and he nods.

“I know,” is his response, care that feels so strangely muddled by his own fear, his own worries. Time passes between you two until his hand is reaching down, a familiar action that finds your own hand, he squeezes. “I think we are going to win, darling, and I promise I won’t let you get hurt, not when I know what I have to lose,” and you know he can’t protect you, not in the way he is claiming he can, but again, you nod. You sublimate yourself to that fantasy of untouchable. Your hand releases his and reaches out nervously, flattening down his own uniform whose colors match yours. He lets out an exhale, a breath he’s been holding this whole time. There is more to say but you can’t find it within you to open your mouth.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says.

The gun weighs heavier in your hands now than it ever did, dark metal made hot by the sun. Spring is slowly cresting into summer, and the war effort is not slowing but ramping up with the temperature. You sigh out, wipe at your brow, as you look across a wide field waiting for the enemy. They have remained intangible to you, always at an arm's distance, a safety net created by Wilbur that made you leave before you could be injured. It was frustrating, to march back with men and women who had fought, who were injured, while you were untouched. It was unlike before winter when you sustained injuries you would not speak about.

There was a night of shed clothes and Wilbur’s fingertips gracing your body, tracing over a scar still so sore, angry, and jagged. He didn’t ask and so you hadn’t answered. You hadn’t offered up information of days spent in the medical tent shaking with fever and of whispers from the nurse that you would not make it through the night. You didn’t tell him how it felt to have a knife lodged into your side. You had shuttered as his hands grazed over the uneven skin and kissed him as if it would ease the memory, make him forget.

You wish that pain made you feel strong but all it did was make you feel small. Somehow the distance from the action, from the chances of that same wound being repeated, made you feel worse.

Now you look again across the field to see rising smoke and small figures walking closer. It’s watching a storm roll in knowing that casualties will surely come as a consequence. People just like you, alive now soon to be still and cold later. Wilbur comes up behind you, you know it’s him by the heavy sound of his footsteps, the way they drag across the dirt. You look at him, your view of his uneasy expression and a head framed by the blue sky, he bites at his lip.

“Is everyone prepared?” you ask, eyeing the fidgeting of his hands. His gaze finds yours, irises pools of brown and honey where the sunlight reaches down to lighten them.

“As much as they can be,” he leans down, and presses his face into the crown of your head, breathing you in, his hands placed steadily on your shoulders. You know he is going to tell you to leave before he says it because as much as he wants to be close to you he also would crumble if you were ever hurt. He would blame himself. These are things that you know. He steps back slowly and you are compelled to speak.

“Let me stay this time, all the way back here, please,” you say and you see the way he stiffens, a knee-jerk reaction of no almost slipping past him. “I want to help, I’m a good shot,”

“I know you are,” he supplies but you watch as his eyes run over you. “If you stay here,” he offers and you are quick to nod. He leans forward, kisses your forehead, then your eyelids as you laugh, then he quickly kisses your lips. It’s a routine, the love that he litters across your face. You smile at him all the same, laugh lightly at his antics, and then your eyes find his dark circles, cuts across his face, and the wrapped state of his hands.

“Do you need to go now? Do your job, Mr., President?” you tease him and his smile is gold.

“I do, but,” he chews at his bottom lip again “I need you to promise me you will stay here. That you will leave if we get pushed back,” his expression is serious, severe in a way that you've only ever seen when it’s about this horrible war.

“Please,” the word is quiet from his mouth. You nod and lie through your teeth. He kisses you anyway, presses his lips against yours in a way that he allows to be slow, to take the time that he doesn’t have to spare. He squeezes your hand, the one not holding a gun, and then he turns to leave you alone with the heavy guilt of your lie on your chest. You would fight today, fight for everything he was a beating image for, and you would see him again when it was over. You watch him walk until you can’t see him any longer, him disappearing into the crowd of untrained soldiers, faces of friends obscured by distance swallowing him.

When it all comes down to it, sweat beading down your face, hair plastered to your forehead, and looking down the sight of that gun. The sounds echo to you across the field, yells and gunshots and metal crashing. Screams are what make your body run cold, your hands shake, and you thank god you are not close enough to see the blood that you don’t know how you were ever accustomed to. You aim carefully, pull the trigger, and allow the distance to strike you apathetic to where that bullet lodges itself. A body falls all the same, a limp and unmoving shape painted into that scene of bloodshed. With each shot from your rifle, the pit in your stomach grows. You see the innocence of that deer, that died so long ago now, and the pride of the buck that was flaunted to no one until it was spilled into the snow. When you see them fall back, blue, red, and white uniforms move closer, and deaths become more concrete.

You run, do as you were told even though you said you would stay, keep fighting. You run back to the camp and find yourself with shaky hands and a gun still hot from firing. Your heart is racing as you search for anyone left waiting. You find yourself in the medical tent, almost able to ignore the ache of the memories from the last time you were there. When your wild eyes meet the familiar nurse, she pales.

“They are losing, w-what do we do, th-they are losing,” you say, a rush of words that leave you in gasping breaths. You see the way the nurse’s brow furrows, she walks closer slowly. Her eyes check you for injuries, linger at your side, then at the absence of a head wound causing your pure panic.

“We wait for them to come back, sweetheart,” she says softly, her hand finding its place rubbing at your back.

“B-but wh-what if,” you stutter.

“They will come back when they need us. You have to trust the President. Help me set up more beds, okay?” and you nod instead of speaking, instead of asking more questions. You follow directions, set up cots and medical supplies until you hear them outside, hear the stomps of heavy feet, groaning, and shouts of names that are never yours. The nurse looks to you, a silent plea for help as the injured find themselves piling up, laying in cots to wait or to die in pain. You stare wide-eyed at a woman your age, bleeding, blood on her hands, uniform cut open, a knife still sticking out of your side. You can’t move, can only see your face on hers until the nurse is brushing your shoulder, startling that sight back into obscurity.

You bustle around alongside the nurse, clean cuts and do your best to stitch up wounds that are too deep to close themselves. You don’t let the blood bother you even as your hands smell metallic and begin to be stained pink. You don’t stop even as you become lightheaded, dehydrated, and starving you push on because you did not keep your silent promise, You fled, ran away instead of having the nerves that would have allowed you to stay put, you followed Wilbur’s orders.

You didn’t think of how your presence here would mean your absence would be felt elsewhere.

When he finds you, Wilbur has tears running down his face. You see him for a flash of a moment, standing from your place beside a cot where you have placed a cool towel on a woman’s forehead. He wraps you in his arms before you can process his sudden appearance and you can hear his labored breathing as he holds you tighter than he ever has. Guilt finds you as its victim again.

“I couldn’t find you, I thought, I thought you had- you had- or they had taken you or-” he panics quietly, worries spoken in a hush as he refuses to let go of you. You look anxiously around at the beds full of the injured, at the nurse still wandering between patients. You should have found him first, it’s a horribly selfish thought.

“I-” you start though you don’t have the words to defend yourself, to explain. “I- I was helping with-”

“I know, I know, I just- I thought you were dead, my love,” he finally pulls away from you, studying your face as you study his own. The tear tracks break up the layer of dirt on his skin. There is blood splattered across his face, speckled on his uniform that is no longer left pristine. You reach up hesitantly, brush your fingers lightly across his face. You try and ignore the blood seeping out from him from a cut in his shoulder, a wound exposed through a hole in the thick fabric of his jacket.

“I’m okay, see, I’m okay, I ran just like you told me,” and he nods, pushing his forehead against your own, and sighs out the tension in his body. “Let’s go to your tent, Wilbur. I’ll bring something to clean you up?” he nods again, but he doesn’t move to leave, his eyes still running up and down you, his hand still grasping yours. He reassures himself over and over that you are fine, that you are in front of him, that you are breathing not dead in the grass with all those other familiar faces, but he can not shake it. He can not forget every time he saw someone like you and thought that you were dead, thought that it had been his fault, thought that he had let you slip right through his fingers.

“Wil?” you whisper and he looks at you, really looks at you. His face falls then as his breathing evens slightly.

You hum and grab his hand lightly before getting enough supplies to treat his wounds, he follows you without complaint. You lead him slowly to his tent, pulling open the flap for him. It’s as good as it can be, mud tracked on the tarp of a floor and other messes littered through the space. He sits on the edge of his cot silently as you pull up a chair to sit across from him. He flinches when you press a cool washcloth to his face, begin wiping away the dirt and blood with languid drags of your hand.

“Just me, you’re okay,” you breathe out as you run that rag featherlight across his skin, applying pressure where it is needed. When you are carefully undoing the buttons of his uniform, peeling back bloodied clothing to reveal a wound so much worse than he let on you try and not to show surprise on your face. You try and be professional, in a sense, as you clean and dress it, the same work you’ve been doing all day.

“You should have gone to the medic tent sooner, Wil, this is,” he winces as you dab antiseptic over the cut.

“Needed to find you,” he whines lowly “Couldn’t think about anything else but you dead or you-” he begins to panic again, fear bubbling over into rushing words and more uneven breathing.

“Shhh, s’okay,” you coo, leaning forward, kissing at the now clean skin of his forehead before again resting your head against his. You take in a deep breath and listen as he follows suit without the direction to do so. “Everything’s okay right now,” you repeat, your voice steady and another slow inhale and exhale. He leans back with you, though you keep your eyes closed, and keep taking steady breaths. You feel his hands reach out, trail up your arms, and fingertips then trace your collarbones before again his hands find your face. You meet his eyes. He holds you, feels as you move with life under his touch, and he relaxes. You have questions on the tip of your tongue, a bombardment of them begging to leave your mouth, but it’s not the time, not when he’s like this.

“I need you to stay still while I give you stitches, Wil” you mumble, unentangling yourself from him, your hands guiding his own back to his lap.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, resigns himself.

“Don’t be,” you are quick to say as you pull the knot tight in the thread with your teeth. You begin slowly, creating sutures with the precision of a day's practice. You listen to his sharp inhales, and glance as he winces but remains still. Seven stitches later and you are carefully tying off the wound and wrapping it.

Your hands smooth over the bandages unstained, fingertips brushing over the rough fabric, and a beat allows you peace of mind. Your actions mirror his own, a craving for the reassurance of the survival of the other, shaking hands hovering over warm skin. It’s a different kind of intimacy not derived from pleasure but from contact to seek out the other as clean and well and alive. It’s unique to the situation, sustained by mutual dread and the circumstances of war. You retreat your touch all the same.

“All done,” you say and he hums, something low in his throat that resists becoming a whine, becoming desperation that doesn’t have an answer. You flounder as you lose what is clear to do in this situation. So you busy yourself, repacking up the supplies instead of facing the aftermath of a battle you didn’t see. When you finish, you stand from the chair and place it back by the table along with that medical kit and various bloodied rags. You consider leaving, darting away from this emotional burden instead of facing it, and you shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t.

“It was horrid,” he says, his voice small, barely a whisper. You look at him over your shoulder and his eyes are glued to the ground. For a split second, you morbidly consider your own absence, and then you peak outside. It’s dark now, the camp having fallen silent and still. “I don’t know if we can keep fighting like this, keep losing people to this magnitude,” his words sit heavy on your chest and you can’t lie, you feel the same. In this small space, it feels hopeless, your eyes tracing his bandages, wounds clear and on the skin.

“But it will be okay, right? I mean we, we aren’t going to lose?” and you meet his gaze, the one of his worried brow, of biting the inside of his cheek, of doubt that leaks out and swallows you. It’s cruel to ask him that.

“It’ll be okay,” he says quietly, and you leave the tent without another word even though it’s unfair. You slink back to what used to be home, a pile of blankets, a bed unmade in a small tent whose littered holes have joined into each other, holes that now show the night sky peeking through, twinkling stars that do nothing to console the tears from your eyes. The rest you find alone is unsatisfying, it lacks warmth not that of the sticky humid night, it lacks the softness of hands up your sides, and it lacks a presence to keep you from the buzzing behind your eyes. You fall asleep only once the crying has made it too hard to stay awake.

The morning comes with dew in the grass and a familiar face saying your name. There have been many faces, many people whose names never stuck. They were friends of Wilbur’s met in winter when survival had been more important to you than camaraderie. Wilbur had been an indulgence ill-advised by your will to survive but tempted by your want to live, by desire that struck you selfish enough to hold him close, a spark that the hunger and cold could not stomp out.

“Y/n?” It’s strange to hear your name spoken by anyone but Wilbur, but you blink away the sleep from your eyes, focusing until the young man becomes more than a messy blur of blonde hair.

“Hello?” you ask hesitantly, sitting up with a sigh.

“Wil, he sent me to get you,” he says, his voice soft, a quality you don’t quite recall it ever having. “He needs to see you for like, President shit,” you exhale as the boy gets more snappy, more like the distant memories you had of the blonde.

“I’ll uhm, I’ll head over there soon, his tent?” you ask and the boy shakes his head, blue eyes closing with the motion that he exaggerates.

“He said the woods, said you would know,” you nod and he hovers for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Do you know?” he questions and it’s almost more than you can choke down. The woods, the same clearing of poor thought over training and stolen kisses, the same clearing of a date you hadn’t yet repaid, the same clearing of a speech he had repeated endlessly to you there, a speech now losing words in your memory, the same clearing, the same woods, the same expanse of nature that saved you, brought you a deer whose death led to more life, more Wilbur, and a reason to keep pushing.

“Uhm, yes, yes,” you say, shaking your own head to try and dispel your tendency to drift from the present “W-what’s your name again?” you ask him and he tilts his head, and for a second you expect outrage.

“Tommy, Toms, Wife-haver,” he points at his chest, puffing it out in another exaggerated motion. You smile at the boy, relax, at the show of pride and youth and innocence, things lost so quickly still embodied and celebrated by him, Tommy, in front of you. He leaves then, allows the sunlight peaking through the flap to be culled though the light is still littered in torn circles shown down. You let out a heavy sigh before picking up the pieces of yourself, dressing in something comfortable that eases the ache in your heart.

You walk slowly and brush your fingertips on green leaves that are so unlike the dead branches piled with snow imprinted in your memory. When you see him he is looking out into the trees dancing with the gentle breeze that picks up occasionally into gusts that blow his hair and the loose fabric of his white button-up shirt. His boots are untied, laces left to drag in the dirt. He isn’t in uniform, no layers of armor in the form of a title displayed by clothing, of epaulets of gold or high collar. It’s a way you are graced with seeing him often, undershirt and tousled hair, it’s an intimacy he extends to you now extended to the late morning light.

“Wil?” you say his name, let the wind take it further than you are willing to speak it. He turns, eyebags and all, a smile still finding his face as you walk closer. You keep your distance, wrap your arms around your torso as you wait for words to leave his mouth, as you wait for the horrible way you feel to fade, as you wait in fear for what comes next. It’s a sickness in your stomach, a thrum in your heart, and a frown upon your lips.

“Good morning,” he says just as softly, as noncommittal. It pulls you to him, stepping closer to tamp down more green grass under your feet. You stray until you are inches from him, a distance that is bearable but burning nevertheless. It’s now you can see bandages laid by you, a messy job, a wrap now spotting with dark red. It’s weakness peaking out just barely and yet you find it as easily as breathing.

“Yesterday,” you begin.

“Yesterday,” he repeats, an action mirrored from days ago, fear of the future folding into trepidation of the present.

“I needed distance,” he nods as you speak “I’m not like you, I mean, I can’t pretend this doesn’t affect me in front of people, I can’t pretend that all those people I helped aren’t in pain right now, I can’t shut my brain down, and I just couldn’t bare to look at you and see all of it right there in front of me, every bloody wound, cold hand, and fucking shot I took,” it’s everything you couldn’t even bare to think suddenly leaving you as words inflicted upon him. You want to rush out apologies but he’s hugging you, wrapping his arms so tightly around your body it’s uncomfortable, and yet you wouldn’t dare move for fear he would let go.

It’s then the cruelty of your words comes over you, a chill down your back.

“It’s not your fault,” you say, hiding your face in his neck, breathing him in, savoring the warmth of his skin against your face. Your words go against what you’ve just said, pointed blame you placed in his hands with your heart. You can’t deny the tears welling up in your eyes or the croak in your voice; His arms don’t loosen.

“It is,” he says quietly and it’s almost enough to feel held. “You don’t need to be what I am. I am supposed to be strong, darling, you don’t owe that to anyone.”

“I owe it to you.” It’s a hesitant utterance from your mouth then swallowed down as his grip around you waned. “I owed you not leaving the tent, I owe you softness. I owe you being a good soldier. I owe you being a good partner. I ow-” He pulls away and places a large hand over your mouth. The space your voice filled becomes the soft far-away sound of a bird singing as he stares at you, meets your gaze in a serious way. There is no levity to escape to, just the aftermath of something the two of you can’t tiptoe around anymore, and he’s right there in front of you but you miss him. You miss him horribly, he is that ache in your chest that only knows how to intensify. His hand lowers slowly from your face, it finds your hand, and squeezes lightly in a way that is familiar, it’s an action that feels like home, that he has made feel like love.

“This isn’t a transaction,” his other hand runs down your face, and you want to cry. It’s two deeply flawed people entangled in each other, and you don’t know how to make this healthy, how to resolve your own doubts, but what would you do without him? “You don’t owe me anything, you don’t need to feel guilty for taking care of yourself.” and it’s simple reassurance, it’s a softness in his eyes, it’s everything he is laid out in front of you.

“I love you,” he says for the first time out loud no matter how many times he’s said it in his head, no matter how it’s been shown in his actions, it’s said now, heard not felt, confessed. “I really love you, I love you so much it terrifies me,” You cry then, allowing those tears begging to fall to trail down your cheeks slowly. He’s quick to wipe them away and ease you again.

Your hands grip him, pull him closer until you are intertwined in one another for the second time. Your shoulders gently shake as you silently cry and hide your face in the crook of his neck. He presses his nose into the crown of your head, rubs gently at your back, and takes in steady breaths until your own mirror his. It’s desperation, clinging to one another, shedding miscommunication in a way that is physical, that lacks the complexities of speech.

“I love you too,” you say trying to not make that phrase seem like an ending, like the last line that must leave your mouth. It blooms in your chest as he hums in acknowledgment.

“I want-” he begins and it’s already so much, to want, to desire more “I want a life with you,” You let out a shuttering breath thinking of dreams of more picnics and softness that can extend to everything derived from butterflies in your stomach and what was a crush, far away adoration. It’s a phrase you both never would have said in the winter, when this relationship was cradling embers, feeding oxygen until that charcoal glowed enough to burn. Now the both of you were on fire, flames unburdened.

“After we win,” you say, taking a step back to search his face, to memorize again the curve of his cupid’s bow, the eyelashes under his eyes, and moles littered across his skin. You both take in a deep breath, and you watch him nod.

“After we win,” he whispers back, his hand finding the back of your head, digging into your hair. He pulls you closer with his other arm and his lips find yours in the expanse of a gasp. His touch is demanding yet everything you’ve ever craved from the man, it’s the warmth of the sun in the winter and the gentleness of a knife. It’s a promise he’s ruined you, become all-encompassing, and yet you aren’t terrified yet comforted by leaning into him, digging deeper.

The war rages on.

Wilbur can’t keep you as close as he would like, can’t leave you stranded at camp waiting for him to come back, and he couldn’t have you just beside him risking the cold fate of death. You pushed and he collapsed, gave in to your wish to fight again with a rifle from away. For a while it helped, battles were won not lost, and people felt hope again. It was a sick feeling that pushed you all further, that had people begin building on the land, planting flowers in the valley, and beginning to understand that camp as home. It was what you were fighting for, a life that would drain of violence and grow into days spent with your feet in the river.

You told him you would build in that valley, the one that shared so much joy and pain, a small house to share surrounded by trees that brought privacy. He had smiled, something quick and high-strung. You spent the days that you did not hold a gun in your hand sat in that field, looking up at the blue sky and flurries of clouds. You dreamed of the future, a version of you under that very same patch of sky without the fear of the next day being your last. You dreamed of sweet tea on your tongue and Wilbur’s voice in your ear. You dreamed of deer out the window of a cabin, eyes meeting without the anxious thought of an arrow. You found yourself with a sunburn and memories of a life you were not sure you would ever have.

It gets worse before it gets better. Wilbur talks less, silence finding him time to think not worry. His arms hold you closer at night, fingertips that dig into flesh and leave more bruises than the battlefield. It’s quiet desperation that he doesn’t allow to touch you, his own worries sinking back into him, pulling him down into himself. There is no amount of softness to ease it, and you almost always wake alone.

It’s not just silence but frustration that turns to anger. It’s a boiling point mirrored by the growing temperature of the season,

It’s late and the heat has not been broken by the night, sweat still beads on your skin. You can’t sleep, tossing and turning alone on that cot in his tent. You find yourself leaving that place as lonely as it felt, wandering out in thin clothes you usually wore just to sleep. Your bulky boots are left untied on your feet, out of place without the matching uniform.

The camp was dark, littered with dying lights and quiet conversation from tents that flicked with oil lamps. There was the occasional bout of stifled laughter that stirred you as you guided yourself through paths of stampled grass. Above you, there was the wide open sky speckled with stars and twinkling horrible bits of hope. You didn’t mean to find him, you hadn’t left your shared tent with the intent of seeking him out and yet there he was. He was stuck looking down at information received from the other side, things that would not change no matter how long he looked at the scrawled warnings.

You debate saying nothing, turning tail, and hiding back by yourself in that tent that far too often only sees your face. He startles as you accidentally drag your feet, those heavy shoes giving away your location. He doesn’t relax in your presence.

“Sorry,” you begin and he looks back down. It’s tense when you wish it wasn’t, and beyond your better judgment, you gravitate to him as you always do.

“You should be asleep,” he says.

“I could say the same thing, but I know it’d be a waste, Wil.” There is a tension in those words, a craving for something manifesting itself as simmering anger that leaves the air thick. You blink, think again then of words shared and repeated between you too.

“After we win,”

It spoke proudly of a future to be realized, and yet it left you both in limbo, in waiting, in soon not now. He looked at you, narrowed his eyes, and then let out a breath he seemed to have been holding. You watched as his shoulders fell and he seemed to crumble down into a man again. You think he wants to speak, you watch as he moves to do so, and then freezes again. You can only imagine an apology, can only know how much you don’t want to hear one.

“You don’t need to be here,” he says and it stings. “This,” he gestures to those messy notes covering a messier map. “This is my job, darling, it’s not yours, I know I’ve been distant and it’s been on purpose because as much as I need you, I know you don’t need to be sucked into this aspect of war, of planning, of guilt,” the last part comes out quieter, but it’s more than he’s said in a week to you all at once and still it is not enough.

You can’t help but think of the guilt he must be consumed by, remember snapshots of that feeling in the medical tent. It had felt like humid air that could not be sucked down, a heavy horrible growing feeling in your lungs that only grows larger, that consumes and consumes. Is that all he knows? Has he learned how to tame that hungry thing that only knows the desire to ruin you more? You think of the feeling that made you flee from him, turn tail, and run. He didn’t have that option.

“So you have to do all of it alone?” you say.

“What is my other option? To drag you into this further than I already have?” and it snaps from him with that anger back and biting, drowning our all sense of guilt because it will always be easier to burn.

“I’d rather have you drag me in than not talk to me,” you say trying to control your own words, trying to stay level.

“So I can watch you fucking fall apart once you hear about what’s going on when you aren’t looking? Do you want to know how many people die? Do you want to know how little supplies we have left? You want to carry the same weight? What would be the point?” he hisses and it hurts. It hurts more than you would like to admit and yet you stare there, look at him, look at the man that bears the curse of leader, of general, of president. He has not sated any of those consuming emotions, he has not muzzled the guilt that covers his words that only escapes due to the tense sting of irritation. You take in a shuttering breath and the summer night inhales with you, a gust of wind that evaporates that sweat from your skin in a temporary moment of reprieve from the heat.

“That’s not fair,” you say, allowing it to leave you in a lapse of the silence that comes after, he lets that quiet return without complaint. “Wilbur, you can’t make that decision for me, do you think I stand by you because it’s easy?”

“I don’t know why you stand by me.” he says and it rears to the reality, of self-doubt and the root of anger, hurt.

“Because I love you, because I am hopelessly in love with you, and I don’t know how to show you that when you push me away,” and there is still a steady distance between you too, a drawn-out few feet that is almost never there. You bite your tongue, look away and to the distant field moving with the flashing of lightning bugs.

It’d be easier to walk away.

Abandon him again, just like before.

“I’m tired,” he says and it comes as an excuse. “I’m sorry,”

You huff. The moment runs long. You wonder how many hours it is until the sun will rise, will cleanse these bad feelings only to have the dark dig them back up once given the chance. When Wilbur speaks he doesn’t make eye contact with you.

“I’m scared that if I let you involve yourself with this mess of a war I will lose you. I can’t be without you, I can’t stand the idea of being without you and yet I’m terrified of your presence,” he says and it is horribly heard. You cull the gap, wrap your arms around him, and try and ignore the sound of him softly crying. It’s not weakness, you want to tell him that, but all you can muster is the further constriction of your grasp.

“I won’t leave you, I couldn’t,” you say and he is shaking his head against your shoulder. You wouldn’t leave him, couldn’t have walked away even if you begged your body to. You were stuck now, for better or worse.

“We both know that would not be up to you, my love,”

“Like hell it won’t,” you say with a pained laugh. He can’t help but kiss you. It’s a desire that changes its form, no longer wanting pain but touch. It leaves you in the weeds, entangled. You don’t know if it’s right and yet you return that passion because it’s him. Wilbur groans into your mouth because his hands have found your hips, can feel the curve of your body under the thin clothes you wear. You love how it feels, to be his again, refrain. You think the heaviness can be shed, you think you can crawl from this chrysalis, you think it will be okay because soon that’s all you’ll know how to be, because the war will end, because he loves you.

You both stumble to his tent, feeling like teenagers with muddled inhibitions.

“I love you,” he says kissing every newly unveiled part of your skin, he can’t say it enough. It’s love that consumes him and sets flame to every rational thought that begs to come to fruition. His mouth is hot.

“I love you too, more than anything.” you say breathlessly and it doesn’t matter that it’s been said before. It could be confessed a million times and never lose the weight of the words. His tongue is heavy on your skin, it’s pleasure that rises up your spine and makes your chest fall out. You look up through half-lidded eyes and he is a mirage of good. He is intangible love and light and it hurts to look, the same feeling of looking into the sun. You crave him, you despise it. You need him like oxygen and you have no inkling to hold your breath.

It ruins you all over again, cannibalism of your soul, and yet your eyes roll back and it’s the best you’ve ever felt.

You wake and he is still there.

You can feel his chest expand, can feel his breath on the back of your neck, and you know that, in some capacity, it will be okay.

His distance lessens, he tells you of his day, all the good and bad. You learn how to swallow that information, how to hold him in a way that it is adequate to ease the pain of war. He learns your limits, falls silent when the downturn of your lips grows too much. Summer makes your heart ache, the trill of cicadas and the streaks of falling stars on nights you wait too long for him to come to you.

You lay in that clearing, this time at night, the act ever present in your life. You allow the grass to hold you, lick at your skin with wisps of prairie. You listen as frogs croak and bugs buzz hopelessly in the dark. It grounds you, whisks away your mind from spilled blood or carefully taken rifle shots. It makes you feel whole again even in the absence of anyone but yourself. You light your own happiness in solitude, share it with Wilbur and whisper details of the night he does not have the energy to focus on.

The enemy catches your joy and crushes all hope under the dying light of a sunset.

You press your back against a hill. You hold that rifle close to your chest, an extension of every bad part of you. A loud sound rings in your ears, bombs that have gone off, wreaked havoc on the soldiers now splattered across your face, and taken down walls you all built with calloused hands. You think it must be immoral what they’ve done, blow your home to smithereens and spare parts, kill soldiers not in their uniforms. It’s shock that has taken you, left you shaking, and yet still. You wanted to beg your legs to move, to run, to flee finally from the very ground threatening to swallow you, and yet your body will not respond. Your eyes search, dazed, the destroyed land and the uprooted dirt stained with scorched grass. The sky breathes a red setting sun, pink and orange struck above you.

Another explosion sounds off, booms in your chest from the ground shaking with aftershocks, rubble falling down to rain upon your skin. You yelp and cower down further, the sound brings the attention of a nightmare not yet realized. Hands find you, fingerprints of violence pressed into your uniform in drying blood. His touch digs into your ankle and jerks you back towards this assailant.

“Let me go, please, just let me go,” you scramble, blurred vision and panic not letting you see that elusive enemy. The very air is full of smoke, of metallic blood, and you scream. You run your throat dry and push and pull. The whole world rushes up to meet you, hands sinking into dirt, and propelling yourself away from the enemy, crawling desperately. You kick at the still-unseen soldier and when your own hands find your gun you are so quick to turn and aim.

“Don’t fucking move,” you spit as you widen your eyes, take in the sight of a man who almost killed you while you take in labored breaths Your wild gaze traces the sharp edge of a knife in a white-knuckled fist, and when eyes meet eyes it’s horrible because it’s human fear you are met with, the same live feeling stored in your chest merely staring back. His expression is as terrified as yours.

You shouldn’t let him go, you should have some sense of vengeance for the blood on your hands that was not spilled by your violence but an extension of his. You should be furious that he touched you, that the dagger in his hand held an intent that did not come to fruition leaving a weapon that will always crave the taste of your blood. That knife falls to the ground nevertheless and begging becomes folded over this time without words. Your finger finds the trigger without the strength to pull it. When he runs you take no move to aim your gun at his retreating figure, he disappears into that visceral field of death, smoke that swallows him.

You make a pathetic sound, gasping for air that is as disgusting as before. It fills your lungs and reminds you of small victories, of not dead yet. You stumble to your feet to press on. You step over bodies until the faces morph into one mass of loss, names unlearned and voices never heard by you now silenced forever.

There is nowhere to go, only ruins of a home that never got to know peace, land that was supposed to be beautiful, dreams of tomorrow, of soon, of after we win crushed.

This was home, L’manberg.

You walk on footpaths, mud that formerly swallowed shoes in the cold, and you search for movement. You walk until you find his tent now reduced to a smoldering tarp, bullet holes, and ruined maps. He doesn’t crawl out of that wreckage and everything around you remains quiet except for moans of far away pain and cracks of licking flames.

You remember the first time you saw Wilbur, love at first sight, for you. He didn’t notice one soldier among hundreds, and yet, you had looked at him like he had hung the moon. He stood and spoke, in an undamaged uniform, light reflecting off golden accents. His words filled you with unfounded hope, a wild buzzing that fueled your crush.

You remember the first clumsy night spent in his cot together. The way his arms didn’t know where to rest, where you would allow him to touch you. The blush that had fallen across his face when you breathed out everywhere. He had been easy to fluster, to overwhelm, and yet at times that night felt burned in your skin, hickies never quite fading from the expanse of your neck.

You remember him from this morning. Bedhead still a top of his head, a white shirt with a stretched-out collar loosely hanging off his frame. You can see the mug of disgusting coffee beside him as you watch his eyes scan over the same map for the hundredth time looking for a way out, a way in. You coaxed him back to bed with a giggle, a kiss to his ear. He had groaned playfully and for once your chest did not feel heavy.

Home.

The crushed tent blooms into a million memories of fading touches and hunger pains.

“y/n?” your name startles you. You turn and find Tommy, dirt-smudged across his face, part of his blonde hair stained with dried blood. You can’t help the smile of desperation that leaks onto your face. You wrap your arms around him, cling to him like a lifeline as you resist the crawling urge to cry.

“Tommy,” you say his name, the one you’ve finally learned, his arms awkwardly come up to give you a weak embrace. You take a hesitant step back and he gives an equally awkward smile.

“Uhm, I’ve been out here looking for survivors,” he says quietly and you let yourself mourn the things he’s seen, mourn that it was him to see them. You want to whine, be angry, to scream because he is so young. “Everyone, everyone that made it is in a small camp just that way, I can walk you there?” and there is no joking, no usual taunt to his words. You nod anyway, and you don’t ask about Wilbur because you are terrified to hear the answer, so you keep his name in your mouth, a weight ever-present on your tongue.

You two walk in silence though you never stray far, adamant to stay close, steer him away from bodies lying still. He occasionally throws stray jokes into the wind, laughs that never quite have the audacity to bubble up from your throat. It’s dark when you see the flickering light of fire through the trees, and he takes the time to announce himself, throwing on a brave face. You force a timid smile, your eyes glued down on the ground instead of baring to look at all those soldiers now deemed survivors. There is a warmth that meets Tommy’s antics, undesernable love for lightness.

Wilbur’s name stays in your mouth, waits to escape past vice-trap lips, but once you ask it you are convinced it will be true. You stare at dull flames, flicking light of dying hope. There is no one there to promise you it will be okay, no one to stand and speak of a brighter future. You find yourself on your feet in front of all these people, and you want to be Wilbur, to be strong, to be a leader. Then there is a hand on your shoulder, arms that wrap themselves around you tight. It’s panic for a moment that overwhelms you, that reminds you of hands on your ankles and the steadying breath of aiming a rifle. He smells of cigarettes, a nasty habit born of stress that you didn’t have the heart to reprimand him on. The reunion repeats a moment in the medical tent from weeks ago, a wound that is still fresh, but this time you don’t have the strength to keep it together, you are lucky you can force yourself to not cry.

You lean back into him without a word, have hands that come up and grip his arms for dear life. His breath fans across your neck as his forehead is pressed into the back of your hair. The moment runs longer than it needs to in silence, in the distinct absence of words. When Wilbur whispers in your ear it's a croak.

“I knew you would be okay,” he says like it’s a past mantra from the expanse where you were missing. He repeats it quieter and pulls you somehow closer. You can feel eyes on the pair of you that make you stifle slightly, and wince as the president professes worry. You turn until you can face him, resting your eyes on his hollowed-out cheeks and intense gaze. He kisses you as soon as his eyes have the chance to fall down to your lips.

It’s more desperation than he was willing to let on with his words, leaning just almost to something frantic, worry fuels the firm press of his lips to yours that is so quickly devolving into the messy stealing of oxygen, of shared saliva. You squeeze his hand and catch your breath.

“Can we go somewhere more private?” and the request leaves you feeling small, removed. He is quick to nod, to walk until the light of the moon is all that is left. He walks until he is in a prairie, wildflowers faded in the night, and your hands are still interlocked. You listen for the crackling of the fire and only find the sound of wind through leaves. He kisses you again, and crowds in your space until your back hits a tree.

“This isn’t what I meant,” you whimper but don’t move to stop him as his lips attach themselves to your neck.

“I know, sorry,” he says panting, stopping the teasing of his lips but not moving away. He can’t bring himself to pull back, risk that close proximity never gracing him again. You don’t resist when he continues his ministrations, and moves his lips down to your collarbone. “Is this what we need?” and you shake your head.

“I need to breathe for a second,” you say and he stands fully, towers over you. You find his hand, squeeze and he squeezes back, a learned routine grounding you. His hand is warm, he’s alive, and tomorrow is still waiting for you both. “I never want to be without you like that, I thought they must have killed you, and I couldn’t ask, I couldn’t ask” You meet his brown eyes that are so dark like this, that are pools of adoration.

“I know. darling, I know. I wanted to look for you myself,” he presses his nose into your hairline, and you can feel his lips ghosting against your forehead as he speaks. “I’m so happy, I’m so happy I still have you, so proud you got through that,” and his praise makes you hide your own face in his chest.

“Don’t leave me, just let me stay beside you, fight beside you,” you beg and he regretfully finds himself nodding. He could protect you like that, he could keep you safe. He kisses down from your forehead, returns himself to sucking bruises against your neck, and moves his hands to your hips. The night smells of honeysuckle, a sweetness reflected on your skin. You whimper, allowing want to manifest itself in the sounds from your throat and the hitch in your breath.

“I’ll keep you safe, keep you right here where I want you,” and his hands are still holding you, moving up under the hem of your dirtied shirt, the one stained by every nightmare you’ve seen in the day. It’s shed before him, the scar on your stomach silvery as he runs his hands on familiar skin. There is peace in the practice of worshiping the known, the curves of your body that have so often been graced by the palms of his hands. “So perfect, so beautiful,” he mumbles.

You unbutton his shirt carefully with hands that are steady instead of shaking under his watch. You pull it off him, kiss at the scars across his own skin, ones treated by you and whose stories you’ve never heard. He flushes under the attention that is everything he gives to you without a single request.

The summer’s heat beats under your skin as he swallows the sounds from your mouth, it’s quiet and suffocating, it’s needy and horribly dependent.

Tomorrow comes and drags into the next week. You relearn hunger pains caused by the smithereens of rations and the night sky unabashedly above you as you sleep. You don’t leave Wilbur's side, and you learn the frontlines even though your aim only worsens the closer the enemy is, the more you can see the whites of eyes or the smattering of freckles. He is always there before anyone can hurt you though, always pushing you out of harm's way or in some cases taking the pain himself. It hurts after every battle to clean wounds that should have been yours. Patching him up becomes a routine practice, something slow and repeated. It’s comforting to know you can fix him, undo the wounds you blame yourself for. He enjoys the attention, the hovering of featherlight touches. It’s one of the only times you can find the comfort of just his company uninterrupted.

You’ve both built a makeshift tent on the outskirts of the camp, it was a day's effort that now blessed you with shelter, cloth walls that kept the intimacy of mending each other between you both. You look at a particularly deep gash with a whine in your throat, a replaying of that moment, him instead of you. Blood drips down from the cut that grazed the top of his shoulder. You don’t let the sight debase you as much as it wants to.

“You need to let me fight some of my own battles,” you say with levity, a joke that is anything but joking. It’s easier to say it when you don’t let it be serious, an all-consuming conversation.

“I am, I’m just not letting you lose them,” he kisses the tip of your nose with a slight wince due to the movement.

“Shhh, don’t move like that if it hurts you,” you can feel the flush in your cheeks as you speak, somehow still flustered by the man even now with him shirtless in front of you in a clinical way, your hand gently placed near an open wound. Your eyes widen when he moves again, presses his lips now against yours, and kissing him comes as easy as breathing. You pull away after a moment with a furrowed brow, a weak attempt to scold the man when you are anything but angry that he wants you like that, that still something as simple as kissing makes your head spin. “I really wish you wouldn’t defend me like this, in a way that makes you get hurt when I have barely a scratch on me,”

He doesn’t have the will to defend his actions, nor to rehash this conversation when it’s the one you whisper to him every time your hands are delicately patching up the wounds the day litters him with. You let out a sigh as your gaze meets his, you don’t have the strength either. Tomorrow is another day, another argument lost, and another battle to wage. Times like this, of soft flickering candlelight and night uninterrupted by the sounds of gunshots, were precious, and you didn’t want to waste that time dredging something up that he’s already made up his mind on. You hum instead, leaning forward until your forehead is rested against his bare chest.

He takes in a deep breath, you can feel as his lungs expand. His hand finds yours and traces patterns on your palm. It is again, the known, the slow matching of the both of your breathing until there is no doubt to either of you that you are both alive, both well enough.

“I don’t wanna be bad for you,” you say and he shakes his head, you can feel it in the movement of his body.

“You are the best thing I’ve had since the war began, my beloved. Christ, you’ve been the only reason I remember to even eat some days,” and you laugh, a cruel sound because it denies all those heavy feelings the space to breathe. “If protecting you is all I can do to thank you I’d say I’m not doing enough,” You shush him with a groan and yet you don’t lean away from your place pressed against him.

“Just, just don’t die for me okay?” you say and he hums.

“I don’t plan on leaving you anytime soon,” You pull away finally and look into his brown eyes again. He is Wilbur, for you, so presently the man you love not the one you follow into battle.

“Good,” you whisper.

He keeps well on his promise, the intention to not die. You feel like he is taking fewer risks, fewer nasty cuts and bruises for you to dote over each night. Still the routine remains but shapes into something less devastating more so the careful cleaning of grazes and the act of putting food in front of him and on top of that cursed map. It’s something repeated, an action of care that comes easy.

It’s a day when no battle comes to greet the morning air that you drag him to that shaded grove where you want the house to go. You speak excitedly of the future like it’s a promise that it will come, like you can speak it into existence.

“We can have a garden here and a porch to sit on and-” you continue as he laughs at your giddiness. It was your way of making sense of all this, of making the guilt and doubt of war bearable if only you keep your sights on the horizon not the ground. He entertains you all the same, speaking of details of your future home, big wide windows and a study.

“And it will be all ours,” Wilbur says because this is still a matter of land when it all comes down to it. He sits with you in the middle of all those trees, his surroundings just as familiar. He kisses you, soft and slow. It feels like the domesticity you are dreaming of because it lacks any context of haste. He cups your cheek and leans back, eyes fluttering open.

“I love you,” he says, a phrase that still hasn’t become commonplace making it weigh as heavy as lead as it leaves him. His eyes search your face as still you flush under the blue sky of late afternoon.

“I love you too, for all it’s worth in words,” you say and he smiles, crowding you and kissing again until you must gasp for air. This field will be your home, this grass your backyard, and he will be here still, as warm as ever. The sunlight brings a comforting heat to your skin as he seeks to remind you of nothing but that love he professes endlessly.

It’s more weeks of fighting that somehow leaves you unfazed. You wake to the sounds of drums and the absence of a body wrapped around you. It wasn’t unusual, the war so often demanded early mornings and Wilbur never wanted to drag you to those anxious preparations. The night before Wilbur had spoken of peace treaties, of winning, really winning.

“I hear whispers of the enemy giving in, considering a peace treaty,” he says, pulling you back against his bare chest. You craved the proximity like this but you couldn’t help if summer nights made it harder, skin adamant to be as sticky as the air.

“Really?” you had asked and his chest vibrates with a hum.

“You are the only one I’ve told, my love, but I want to believe it's true.” he says.

The memory comes to you and, for once, you rise easy. You button up your uniform and pull on those high boots without the insidious weight of a surefire loss. You felt hope, again, burn in your chest like it had when you first heard Wilbur speak, like it had in all those people before the camp was blown to smoke and ash, like it had every time you allowed yourself to still dream of a simple life in that cabin still unbuilt.

You sling a gun over your shoulder, a dagger in the sheath of your belt, and you go to find him. You think not of coming death but of when this will end. It is easy for you to seek him out, finding him with the ever-present worry across his face looking down at that wretched map you assume is burned into his eyelids by now with overlapping scrawlings of strategy.

“President?” you tease and his rigidness flattens slightly as he looks at you. Wilbur then comes closer and eases his face down until it’s buried in your hair. There are cigarette buds you can see out of the corner of your eye littered on that table. You hum, relax yourself into his grip, and wish silently that he would stop smoking if only so he would stop smelling of it, but he is allowed vices when reality has been so cruel. “Is it still looking good?” you ask him and he pulls away to look back at the map.

“Better than it has in weeks,” he says and you smile, can’t help but smile. “Darling,” he insists but you can’t wipe the expression from your face. It makes you feel dizzy to believe that this could be over soon, that there ever could be a day without spilled blood because as much as you’ve dreamed the day would come, part of you never believed it could. You don’t want to curb your expectations, you want to scream, you want to shake the man in front of you around, and, fuck, you want this war to end.

“I have a good feeling about today,” you say and he shakes his head in a way that is not punitive but reminds you he must focus. “When will we get into formation?” you ask and he waves you away saying to come back in 30 minutes. You wander the camp and note every smiling face as birds sing the songs of the morning and the rising sun. You scrounge up food, enough for both of you as you filter your way back to him sharing more polite upturns of your lips with those people preparing much the same as you are.

He doesn’t have the heart to complain when you place some bread and an apple in front of him, so he eats in contemplative silence.

“I think this will be it,” he says and you reply by knocking on the wood of the table with a cheeky smile. He is thankful today for your desire to keep him from spiraling into the type of doubt that only finds him before they must line up, and make ranks. When he finally finishes eating, you both stand. You gravitate to him, brush off crumbs of that bread, and straighten every bit of his uniform that your eyes deem crooked.

“You should stay back today,” he says and you are quick to glare.

“And miss the end of this fucked up thing? Wil, I can’t” you say and he looks down and away. You tilt his face to you until you make eye contact again. “I have given so much to this country, I need to see it through,” and he understands, you know he does because at times L’manburg feels more like Wilbur’s passion project than a country. You look over him and find no more mistakes, no more things to anxiously straighten or flatten down.

Everyone marches forward in silence until the frontline is formed and found. You all are a crowd of unchained desperation, all buzzing with the idea of this finally being over. You don’t look at the face of the other side, you keep your hand in Wilbur’s, you keep taking steady breaths, and you notice the inklings of panic in your body.

These two sides stare at each other knowing only the sickness of war and a thirst for blood, part of you knows still that this is the final battle, it’s something in the air that feels like the twist of a knife, tension running thinner and thinner. You make a surprised sound when Wilbur pushes you behind him and strangely you find Tommy’s eyes to your side, and feel the palpable fear stored there. It’s so sudden that something shifts in your chest, that hope blown out like a candle, the smoke of dread filling your quivering lungs. Your heart is beating in your throat as you hold that gun close to your chest. You count sensations, you try and come back, the coolness of the metal of the gun, your shoes tied tight, the stray buzzing of a bug past your ear. Wilbur is speaking, you can hear the timber of his voice but your ears betray you or maybe it’s your frazzled nerves not allowing you to focus, to comprehend any of the words leaving his mouth.

“Wilbur,” his name leaves you as an afterthought, a small squeak of wait.

The line swells forward without you, around you they push, and you can’t snap into it. You feel sick and dizzy when Wilbur turns back, sees you frozen, so horribly frozen, and is then swallowed by the crowd, his brown eyes disappearing behind the heads and uniforms of soldiers. Tears well up in your eyes as you try and muster the ability to be strong, to aim that gun, and kill people like they are prey, like they are that deer. The world rushes up to meet you too quickly and maybe it was due time you lost, took some pain that Wilbur could not harbor.

You make a strangled sound as someone finds you, a face you don’t get to see long enough to memorize. All he becomes is the close lean-in of brown eyes as he sinks a knife into your stomach. Your scar acts as a blueprint as that wound seems to be repeated. The pain is searing and familiar, the way he drags it up is a ripping feeling in your abdomen, the action of gutting a live animal. You choke as blood so quickly invades your mouth, metallic and sharp, it sputters out from the corners of your lips. The horrible human presence then fades, and you don’t remember when you found yourself sinking into the grass of the field. All you know is the sounds of gunshots and the warmth gathering on your skin, blood pooling then spilling over.

You whimper, try and move, get up and flee.

You manage to sit up, then fall back as your head spins and the pain fades to a thrum. You are drunk on blood loss, disoriented by the chaos that deems you just a body. People pass your struggle, red, blue, and white uniforms that walk on without a glance. You cry out, choke, and spit out that viscous red as you get to your hands and knees.

It hurts.

It hurts more than before.

The ground begs for your collapse but you dig your hands into the strands of grass, compel yourself forward. You can’t die here, you can’t, you won’t. Tears run steadily down your cheeks and you think of the energy being dispensed to cry to no one. Your arms give out, and you fall forward but scramble again to moving.

It hurts, it burns, it aches more than your heart, that hole ripped into your stomach, and yet you’ve done this before, been injured with the intent of bleeding you dry, so why does it hurt? Why is it so hard to be alone this time where the absence of care had existed then?

Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur.

You hope he doesn’t miss you. You hope that they win this. You hope he gets to live in that cabin you both dreamed of. You hope he finds someone else. You hope and hope and hope and you can’t keep up your weight anymore. The hope does nothing to fuel your effort to live, it instead cradles that weakness, and tells you it is okay.

“Wilbur,” his name is now spoken out as you roll over and look up at the sky that is painfully blue, absent of any clouds. The sun beats down and licks at your skin until it offsets the cool feeling running over you. You close your eyes.

He’s there, behind your eyelids, pressing his hands to your stomach and kissing your forehead. He’s there whispering in a panicked tone as his arms scoop under you. You don’t know where the fantasy of being saved meets the reality of bleeding out. You open your eyes to the same blue sky, to the same stillness as the sounds from the rest of the world fade away and you are left in the obscurity of now silent pain. It’s growing duller and maybe you should be terrified of losing it.

Then he is there, really there, and the pain returns because he’s nursing it.

“Hey, hey, hey, love, come on look at me,” he is strung thin, candle burning on both ends, and you must be selfish to be anything but okay right now. You force yourself to look at him, at the curls atop his head, the moles of his face, and the deep brown of his eyes.

“Wil,” you hum, eyes closed then open then closed. Everything feels slow, faded at the edges, and yet he seems so vivid. Your hand reaches up, and you don’t remember finding blood to touch until you are smearing it against his face with stray fingertips that feel the roughness of his 5 o’clock shadow.

“Hi, darling, hi,” he says, his voice wavering as his head looks back and forth, as he looks for a way out, away from this. His hands then press down on that wound and you groan, something that summons itself from your numbed silence. You gasp and wrap your hands around his wrists as he tries to slow the bleeding. “I know, I know, It’s okay,” he says as the words leave him in his own sounds of gasps.

“Hurts, to, h-hurts” you babble because you must speak, must fill his silence to numb that pain again. You whine, blink away more tears until you find his face. A stray smile passes your lips as you stare at him, drink him in. “Wil,” you say.

“We gotta get you up, okay?” you shake your head and still your hallucination seems to repeat itself. He lifts you easily with a care that makes your head spin. You groan as he walks, as the movement causes more blood to leak out of that horrible wound. You think of how it must stain him, ruin his uniform. You wonder how long it has been, how quickly did everything change from the front line to your body in his arms?

“Please, hurts, please, Wil,” you say, words so quiet as they fall from your lips. You peak at him through eyelids that have never felt heavier, rest calls to you as a weight on your chest, a demand to sleep not a request that bubbles out. You whine again, can’t resist the unseemly sound of weakness. You see in blurry backlit the act of him looking down, of his furrowed brow and frowning lips, of haloed hair and dark eyes. “Ju-just tired, wanna go home, and sleep,” you mumble and he’s shaking his head, a bleeding together change of light in your vision.

“No, No, gotta stay awake, remember?” he says, his voice croaking. You nod and yet the desire to fall away grows no less, even as his begs wash down upon you. “We are almost back, almost to the nurse, come on, y/n, just talk to me okay?” he says and you hum, something high-pitched and wrong from your throat.

“I- I w-what do you want me to talk about?” you ask, blinking your eyes in a desperate fleeting attempt to focus.

“Just about you, darling, just talk about you,” and he is walking faster now, even as the jerkier movements burn you. A tear runs down your cheek, and stings as it flushes your skin down.

“I love, I love lilies of the valley, th-they used to be all over the meadow and,” he’s moving quickly and you see tents passing down as you go down paths you don’t remember. It’s all fuzzy, all disjointed shapes and the curve of his face. “There were so many of them in the b-bouquet when you gave me flowers” you choke out and he hums.

“I love autumn, n-never got to spend autumn with you, it’s been so little time,” you say and are surprised as he lets out his own desperate sound. It’s only been a few months, almost a year, milestones neither of you ever got to celebrate because passing time was so often a sentence of either starving or battles to be waged.

“I know, I know, that’s why you gotta stay right here, my love,” he pleads as his eyes flick down the discoloration in your skin. He shakes you, just slightly an action that makes you cry out in pain but, god, he needs to know you are still here. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, darling, tell me about autumn, okay, what are we gonna do together?” and he’s imploring for more because he needs it, he needs you. You smile, something lazy and wavering that tells of no pain because you can’t feel your hands nor your feet.

“S’gonna be cold,” you say and its voices now suddenly talking, one making your chest rumble. Then it’s a familiar place, a cot and roaming hands and lamp light. It hurts to look around, to see in passing the panic still so adamant on Wilbur’s face. So you close your eyes.

You think of Wilbur, of autumn, of pressed and dried lilies of the valley. It's all cold, all removed. You can feel the dryness of the flowers under your fingertips, can imagine the feeling of fall rain across your skin. It makes you feel clean. You imagine the cabin just out of reach, of days spent in flowy clothes and of layers made for nothing but warmth. There isn’t anything left to fight for, you imagine days that are slow and dragging, Your head in Wilbur’s lap as he reads a book, as he does anything but work. You can feel hands on you still but the strength to open your eyes doesn’t come.

“Please,” Wilbur pleads, his hand in yours. His skin is so warm, he is so warm. You squeeze his hand, one last weak extension of I love you.

You can feel a breeze on your skin, you can feel Wilbur’s lips grace your own, and you can tell it’s over. There isn’t anything left to fight for. It doesn’t hurt anymore, all aches and pains eased. You hope you’ve done enough. You hope that tomorrow is a better day. You hope he can live that day without you. You hope and hope and hope.

The war was over as you took a final breath, one last slow rise then a permanent fall of your chest. Wilbur is holding your hand as it grows slowly cold. He sits with the muffled buzz of celebration that lies outside the medic tent and he tries to think of a speech. He tries to think of any words that would leave his mouth that could be fully celebratory.

You look to be resting, an expression so perfectly peaceful and unburdened. He wants to be angry that he let this happen to you. He wants to be irate that the war took even with its dying action. He is inconsolable in every moment that there is no longer the heavy feeling of being watched. When he no longer has to be strong he so quickly resorts to being weak.

Your funeral takes place a week after L’manburg becomes a sovereign nation. Attendance is sparse. It finds itself during the quiet evening on the first day that feels like autumn, a chill in the air. The leaves are just turning orange, warm golden light filtering down on your face making you seem almost alive again, Wilbur spends so much of that ceremony with his gaze glued to your chest, to your hands, to the closed state of your eyes wishing for a sign that you were going to crawl out of that coffin, that fate would grant him you again as an apology. He is, for once, not in his uniform, but instead, he is in a loose sweater to compliment the cooling weather. Before long he is called to speak to that small group of people, faces he recognizes and ones he swears he’s never seen. The walk to the podium, closer to you, is the hardest thing he’s ever done.

There is a long dragging moment where he takes your hand, rubbing against the back of it with his thumb, warming the skin that is now so horribly cold. He counts the flowers in your hands, in your hair, surrounding your body in that haunting mahogany coffin. He places his own among the myriad, a lily of the valley that has yet to droop too much, that looks fresh.

“I think a lot of people will remember them as the person who killed deer in the winter, I think a lot of them will have never learned their name or anything but how their face looked as they threw food in front of us like we weren’t all starving,” he says it all without the strength to really project his words, some people chuckle lightly and more just listen. “I will remember them as warmth,” he choked slightly at the words, wiping at tears that fell from his eyes for the millionth time this week.

“I will remember them as asking me to eat when taking care of myself was the last thing on my list of things to do. They wanted-” he starts but feels sick “They wanted to live, they wanted peace, and they died right before they ever got to have it,” and it’s a truth he’s been struggling with, it’s a painful thing.

“It’s not fair they don’t get to see all of this, and yet we have to keep moving, keep making this place a home again.” he shakes his head, looking to the sky that is being painted pink. “I just ask you don’t forget them even when you are happy or at peace or-” he takes in a shuttering breath “This should have been theirs too,” and he can’t find it within himself to speak more, to hold back the sobs begging to wreck him. His shoulders begin to shake as he sits down and no one else stands to speak. The procession grows so hauntingly silent except for the sounds of Wilbur’s stifled crying, his hand so firmly over his mouth.

He doesn't let them lay you to rest with the flag, and when all that is left is fresh dirt he turns on his heel. He doesn’t look back at the familiar shape of the trees, the familiar way the light floods into that valley, or at the familiar presence of a deer in the tree line.

#who cried #i cried #i love you love bombing <3

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burification · 2 years ago

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no words. i love you.

Zombur, I'm So Sorry

zombur(william godwinson) x reader drabble

small guy drabble, this is just angst I wanted to write for the millionth time in my life span and sorry boys video is an excuse, do you think kissing would make you get infected was my general premise :>

He eyes the bite on his arm, revels in the heat under his skin, and stares through you for a moment. A horrible pause where your flesh seems more appetizing than your lips. It terrifies him and it scares you much the same, as his eyes linger on the curve of your neck, the exposed skin of your leg, and your outstretched arm. You grab his wrist, and press your thumb where that bite is with a whine that matches his moan of pain. It is all equally horrible, all equally as unfair as the rest of the situation. You’ve lost your friends, lost the hoard chasing you through these god-forsaken tunnels, and now it’s just the two of you left to ruminate in the coming storm that is the infection coursing through William’s veins.

“You should go,” he is quick to say as you lean in, overwhelming him with the sweet smell of your skin, your eyes studying closer the idents of incisors and canines.

“You’ll be fine, we just need to get out of here, and you’ll be fine,” you say, mostly to yourself, but you still see him shake his head out of the corner of your eye. You look at the discarded gun beside him and he doesn’t miss the implications of it, the weight of its presence.

“You should, shoot me, I mean,” his words come out gravely, strained, as he resists the whimper bubbling in the back of his throat-, the ache of his body returning. You give him a severe look, an expression that changes into one of disbelief that he could even possibly ask you to do such a thing.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Will?” and the idea makes you angry at him, angry at the world that, from a survival standpoint, you should. “I-I’m not going to kill you, I-I-”

“Then leave me here,” he’s hunched against the wall, only able to stand without you because of it. You whine. “You can’t just throw away your life cause I got infected, darling. You need to leave or tell me, promise me, you will kill me before I can hurt you.” he desperately wants you to stay, but can’t let himself be selfish enough to share that desire with you, infect you already with his self-serving will. You look at him with tears in your eyes and you shake your head profusely.

“Yo-you are going to be fine,” you say.

“I’m not, fuck, love, I’m not going to just be fine,” and your eyes flit down to the bite again then back to his face, to the sweat beading on his forehead, the quivering of his lip, and the paleness of his skin. “I’m gonna become one of those things and I’m not letting you do this to yourself, okay?” his voice cracks, body jerking for a moment with a shiver. His blood feels hot, feels like it’s boiling as the walls of this tunnel constrict on both of you.

“William,” you say, voice so quiet it’s hard for him to focus on the sound. He takes in a shuttering breath, and watches as you place your hand on his cheek, and rub gently at the feverish skin. His eyes widen when you lean forward, kiss him in a desperate way. Your tongue finds its way into his mouth as he moans against you, and then suddenly he is stumbling back, falling away as the realization burns more than the infection spreading.

“No, no,” he starts.

“Now stop telling me to fucking kill you,” you say again and it’s his turn to shake his head, to cry, tears welling up then trailing down his cheeks. “It’s gonna be fine,”

“You didn’t- You shouldn't have-” he slides down the wall and you follow suit, placing yourself beside him, eyes glued forward, away from any pressing truths. “We’re both gonna-” he trails to silence.

“I’m sorry I didn’t wanna do this without you, might as well do it together,” you say and he sighs and turns his head until he sees you chewing at your bottom lip.

“We aren’t gonna get better,” he whispers.

“I know,” you reply and you meet his gaze. He kisses you again, no more reservations. He whines into your mouth, something of pain when you’ve heard it so often come from pleasure. “Stay with me, please,” you mumble pulling away from the intoxicating taste of him. It’s metallic in your mouth. He shivers under your scrutiny as you pick out symptoms mentioned in the news, of that virus now taking you both. His shaking hands then were reaching out to grip your sweater, pull you closer, and devour you again in a way that is still so heart-wrenchingly human.

“I want you to know- to know I wanted you here,” he breathes, kissing you again.

“I didn’t want to leave,” You press your lips to his temple, slow down, and push your hand back through his curls. You want to know his face in death, you want him to follow you to the grave. You watch as he links your hands together, fingers intertwined as the heat from his skin leaks to yours.

#uueueueueeueu

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burification · 2 years ago

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LOOOOOVE AGHHHH

this'll never be the same

clinic!wilbur x reader - 3.6k

warnings: self-hatred, explicit sexual content, mentions of blood and injuries

notes: okay and if i posted this? heavy sigh if there are any mistakes do not bring it up with me fr

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

taglist: @your-shifting-gurl @lillylvjy @toiletwipes @lotusmisc @mosslovestherain @burification @spicy-piscesx

Some days are harder than others, some days touching you scares him more than he would like to admit, some days you are the only thing keeping him grounded. He’s selfish for feeling this way, he knows he is when he meets your gaze and knows that you feel none of the heaviness of your promises. You don’t know how much your utterances of ‘be safe’ make his stomach turn, you don’t know that he needs that luck more than he lets on. You don’t know he’s Siren and he intends to keep it that way.

He promised himself he wasn’t going to tell you what he was so long ago. Your life was so normal, achingly so, unaffected by the mess that was heroes and villains. You floated above it all in his mind, and he didn’t want to change that. He didn’t want to ruin you more than he already had just by being Wilbur, you didn’t need to know. He had met you in college classes and gravitated to your sweet smile and ever-present dialogue with the professor. Courses where you kept his grades afloat with late-night study sessions that he spent overthinking how close the two of you were sat, his knee brushing against yours. He doesn’t know what had possessed him to think he ever could have deserved you, even then.

“Okay, so do you need to go over chapter four, or do you feel okay on that one, Wil?” you asked looking up at him with soft eyes, that textbook open in your lap, pages carefully held between your fingertips. He couldn’t help but stare. You coughed slightly from your place sitting criss-cross across from him on your bed. “Wilbur?” you said again and he flushed at the sound of his name from your lips. Heat bloomed across his face as you tilted your head, your eyebrow lifted.

“Can I kiss you?” the question rushed its way out of his mouth as his eyes fell down to the perfect curve of your lips. They parted slightly as you processed his words, reeling in shock as his face grew hotter. He waited with bated breath for a rejection, for you to say anything that at the very least would end this horrible moment.

“Really?” you asked nervously instead, uncertainty clear in your voice. He couldn’t believe you were surprised, not disgusted, your eyes wide and hinting at hurt.

“Yes,” he reaffirmed, allowing you both to make eye contact again before you nodded and jumped off the deep end. He crawled to you quickly, balancing himself with his hands on either side of your lap. His lips met yours in a desperate sense, in the ‘I’ve been holding this in for too long’ way. You melted into it never the less, kissed back with hesitation that fizzled into explorative touches, your hand digging itself into his curls. He couldn’t believe what he was doing, allowing himself something as good as you, like this, physical touch that did not aim to hurt.

His body was stiff now as he stood outside the door to your apartment, he was working up the courage to knock, to do anything but run through his memories of you. It was easier to picture your face, think of moments already passed, things he can no longer mess up now. It was one of those days where he was terrified to see you, scared of your proximity to him, degrees of separation that fed into his fear that he would spell the end for you. It was the aftermath of a nightmare he had the night before, your arms tied behind you with fraying rope, a black eye blooming on your perfect face, and it was all his fault.

He raps his fist against the wood of the door a few times with an exhale through his nose. It swings open in record time with you standing there to meet him with an excited smile across your lips. It’s effortless for you, that lilt in your voice and the grin you give him without a second thought. It makes his chest feel warm, allows the worry to leave him for a moment, and get drowned out instead by ‘fuck, I love you’.

“Wil!” you say with a laugh, pulling him down by his shirt until you could press your lips against his with an excited hum. It’s short and sweet, a kiss not meant to be savored, and yet he desperately lingers in the feeling. “You being late has forfeited your choice of the movie tonight,” you scold him lightly with a smile as you pull him inside the door without a second thought. He forces a matching smile to his lips as he lets you corral him to the couch. You take his backpack, placing it near the front door before collapsing beside him on the hand-me-down furniture that creaks with the weight of the pair of you. You’ve set up snacks and glasses of water on the table, and it makes him feel sick to see just how much you care. It’s everywhere.

“So what will we be watching, love?” he asks, speaking of levity, as you begin to think through your options. He knows what’s coming before you say it. It’s always horror movies with you, turned on until you get bored or too scared to keep watching.

“I’m thinking a horror movie,” you give him a knowing look, pushing his shoulder playfully before grabbing the remote off the coffee table.

“So you want to torture me?” he asks with a laugh, something that leaves him feeling lighter as he watches your antics. It’s so easy to pretend that this is all he is, the loving boyfriend.

“I haven’t seen you in a week, Wil, of course, I want to torture you,” you smile before choosing some dumb found footage movie to put on. “This movie is going to suck and I’m going to enjoy it.” you giggle before scooting closer to the taller man, laying your body on the couch with your head in his lap. He’s quick to entertain your wordless request, playing with your hair with soft touches and a sigh. He’s not watching the movie, his eyes glued down on your face watching as the light danced across it.

“I missed you,” he says thinking of the previous week away, of injuries healed by Tommy, of too many close calls, and of that polaroid of you in his wallet being the only thing keeping him going. He knows he shouldn’t keep it on him, not as Siren, when it gives away so much, but Wilbur is a selfish man. He thinks of holding it in his shaking hands, of deep breaths, and blood. He sighs again, the sound this time louder as he tries to breathe out the stress he’s stored in his body. It helps to be around you, helps to have your weight on his legs and his hands in your hair. He wants to be present right now, he wants to be Wilbur, the idea of being unaffected by these things that are supposed to be so much bigger than he is.

“Are you doing okay?” you ask and he looks down to see your face now looking up at him “If you missed me I could have made time to see you sooner?” you provide and it makes his chest tighten, it makes him feel caught. Your hand reaches up, cupping his cheek. It’s warm pressed against his face, it’s another tether grounding him.

“No, no, it’s okay, darling,” he says softly, forcing himself to not accept your request, complicate his life further than he already has even as he craves your company like this. “I know how busy you are, and it’s not like I would have the time either,” he says dejectedly. It’s not a conversation he was prepared to have.

“I could move some things around, really,” you sit up, scoot closer, and offer something again, your ear, someone to talk to. “Did you have a bad week?” you ask and it’s his hands pressed firmly to a bleeding gash in his side, it’s fumbling until he’s collapsed in the back of that coffee shop, it’s being terrified he would die without saying goodbye to you. He tenses, horribly so.

“Just a bit stressful, my love,” he presses a chaste kiss to your lips, lingers, drags away, and then he jumps as a loud sound from the movie scares you both. He looks panicked at you only to find the crinkle of your eyes as you giggle lightly, hiding your face in his chest as you calm yourself. He is quick to touch, hold the back of your head, and reassure himself of the absence of blood, of real terror,

“Maybe I hate horror movies too,” you laugh, pulling him closer with your arms now swung around his neck. His hands find your hips, moving you until you are sat on top of him, your legs laying off to one side, your back against the armrest. The proximity is stifling, it’s distracting, and it’s what he wants. Your eyes bounce nervously to the screen, anticipating the next jump scare. He watches as you reach for the remote, turning off the TV with an exhale. The room grows dim as the TV turns off.

“But what could we possibly do now?” he asks, his hand coming up to cup your cheek, to turn your gaze on him.

“Definitely not whatever you have in mind,” you laugh before kissing him as fast as possible, not giving yourself the chance to be sucked in. “Let’s keep talking, Wilbur,” he dreads your words, the prodding for honesty that makes him have to scrabble for half-truths. “what made your week stressful?” you ask and Wilbur lies, much to the fueling of his guilt. He says something about a mistake he made, something about deadlines, and you listen and offer advice to a situation that is wholly not happening to him. You speak slowly, drone on in a way that drowns out any real stress. When you stop you run your hands through his hair and hum a tune. He wants to cry under your careful touch as you massage his scalp, will him to melt further into you. He instead kisses you with a fervor he shouldn’t. His hands find their way under your shirt when you stop him, hold his wrists and mutter wait.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, the words choking to say in it of themselves, the idea that you could say yes, break all of this down so easily, the picturesque relationship he is being so selfish to keep. He scans over your expression, the swollen state of your lips and the way your brows are raised. He traps that image in his chest, that perfect sight of you.

“No, no, I just-,” you giggle again slightly, kissing the side of his mouth “Uhm, let’s just make our way to the bedroom instead of the couch?” you giggle, getting out of his lap before offering your hand so he can stand with you. He follows behind you, stumbling slightly to your bedroom, his lips at your neck, nibbling at the lobe of your ear. You playfully slapped him away before he spun you around by your hips and pushed you back until you fell onto that bed. The physically of this was not new, nor was the guilt that attached itself to it.

He was quick to descend himself onto you, connecting both of your lips again though this time his tongue found its way to moving against yours. He groaned into your mouth as his hands now ran up your sides, savoring the feeling of your smooth skin under his calloused fingertips. You were addicting to him, sweet on his tongue, perfect under his hands, and you didn’t know what he was, not in a way that mattered, no, you thought he was Wilbur. You moaned out as his hands drew lower, and slipped you out of your clothes in no time. He drank the sounds from your mouth and he let himself be proud, he let himself be so fucking selfish.

“I missed you too, all week, Wil,” you said breathlessly, his name a broken breathy sound from parted lips, a sentiment shared late. He kissed those words out of your mouth, nipped at your neck until they were replaced by desperate sounds instead of something that made him feel that guilt again this time burning in his chest, because it was always his name and never Siren. It was easier to hear that he could make you feel good now, he was good at pleasure, at making you clench your eyes shut, whine and whimper. He could be good here, good for you right now even if he wasn’t good for you. He didn’t need to make you stay, didn’t need to use that horrible poison from his mouth to make you love him. Your hands grabbed at his sweater, pulled until it was off. He was quick to take your gaze away from his body, try and keep you from seeing the various healing bruises littered across his skin.

“Be good for me, okay, my love?” he asked, his head hovering in the crook of your neck as his finger slowly pressed into you. You arched your back slightly as he added another, pumping them slowly. He listened to the sounds from your mouth like music to his ears, each huff another thing he did right. He shed his nervousness around you so long ago leaving him just with the infatuation controlling him now, just his fingers leaving you breathless beneath him.

“Please, Wilbur,” you moan, desperate for more, for him. He hums, a sound that rumbles in his chest, as a reply. His movements don’t leave you more time to beg, he answers those pleas without thinking. You gasp as his fingers leave you only for him to enter you while placing sloppy kisses across your face. His hips stutter as he adjusts to the overwhelming feeling of being inside you, of you sucking him in, of the sudden stinging feeling of your nails digging into his back. “Please move,” you breathe and again he only knows how to obey that breathy exhale.

He sets a steady pace and feels as your hands travel down his back as you clench around him. It’s what he needed, more physical touch, more ways to ground himself to you instead of his swirling thoughts. You whimper in his ear, throw your head back and let out strings of his name when his fingers find your clit. His hips grind into you as he resists the urge to give in to his desire to chase his own pleasure, allow himself to be even more selfish. He moves with purpose, with small praises and sweeter things lost to the pleasure overwhelming your body.

“Just a bit more,” he huffs, moving faster, relishing in the way you buck your hips back against his. You nod your head, entangle your hands in his hair, and pull just slightly. He groans with slight pain, moving faster, finally losing that rhythm. He hears as your breath hitches, your eyes sealed shut as you finish around him. He collapses down onto you after he reaches his own end, and catches his breath as he places lazy kisses across your skin, wordlessly apologies.

It’s not how tonight was supposed to go, it was never supposed to be just sex, interrupted movies and heated make-outs, but yet so often it was, You both had so little time now, and Wilbur couldn’t stop himself from craving you, your heated touches or the way you gave him some semblance of normalcy. He loved your texts after a battle about your stressful days with customers because it was so fucking normal. He loved your gifts, simple things bought with a budget, thrifted and cherished. He loved you because you were so different than him. Everything you loved was spread right out in front of you, the definition of an open book, smiles and trailing laughter. It made his stomach turn, his heart ache, and now it made him look down at your blissed-out face, at the intertwined state of both of your limbs and feel so horribly guilty.

You let out a light sigh as he fell to your side. You turned to pull yourself into him, too tired to bother with cleaning your skin, too willing to just crawl into Wilbur and sleep. He obliges and is quick to wrap his arms around you, to flatten his large hands against your skin.

“You can always text me if you have a stressful day,” you say quietly, reprising the conversation from earlier. “I wanna be here for you,”

“You are here for me,” he says, thinking again of your presence, the polaroid, the texts, and the plaguing of his thoughts. You were why he fought so hard to live, even when injured, sometimes he lost the point of the battle against the committee and attributed all his anger to the idea that someone would take him from you. You could not allow you to learn the truth of his circumstance with his lifeless body. You let out a shaky breath and pressed your forehead into his chest.

“I mean, like whenever, like you can tell me anything,” you mutter, muffled slightly. Your words make his guilt rise again from that cold place in his chest, let it turn into paranoia that you already know his second identity, that this is some ploy. He shakes it away before those fears can manifest themselves into a question from his lips, one that would blame you for anything but kindness.

“I know, darling, I’m here for you like that too,” he says instead, rubbing a hand down your back in a soothing motion.

“You better still be here in the morning, we need-” you yawned “We need to make breakfast like you sa-” you trail as sleep begins to out will your conscious mind. He can’t promise you he would be here, even in those last moments of your wakefulness as he feared he would have to leave early, like he always did. He’d rather let you sleep with the prospect of more time together tomorrow even if he would not allow himself to drift to sleep with the same wishful thinking.

You woke to the sounds of movement outside your bedroom, soft thumbs and heavy footsteps. You slip on one of Wilbur’s sweaters before trailing out to see him picking up your small apartment. It feels domestic to watch the morning sunlight halo him in gold as he cleans up the small space while the smell of coffee fills the living room. It made your chest feel warm, made you almost feel sick with the feeling.

“Good morning,” you mumbled, walking up to him in the comfy clothes he had put on while you slept, various things he had left at your apartment over the many months the two of you had been together. A large brown sweater and dark jeans adorned him, making him fit into the warmth of the space even more than his smile already did.

“Morning, darling,” he hums, pulling you the rest of the way to him, wrapping his arms around you, and placing a gentle kiss on the top of your head. “I can’t stay much longer,” he confesses, not allowing himself to be thankful he even was allowed to be here now, to clean, to wait for you to wake naturally.

“Breakfast,” you say, more so whine.

“I know,” he replies. “Next time I’ll make you something, I’ll bring all the ingredients, okay?” he says and you let out a heavy sigh. There was so much you didn’t know about him. In between only ever staying at your apartment, seeing each other in classes, or not seeing him at all. You wanted more, more time, more of him, and yet both of your schedules denied you that.

“So you have to leave?” you ask, even though you know the truth already, he’s mentally already halfway out the door.

“I’ll text you, okay?” he says and you pull him closer, bury your face in his chest, and breathe in the way he smells. He was never good at texting, never replying anymore than a few hours in between each message. You wouldn’t complain that he was busy, wouldn’t let yourself not be grateful for the time that he does spare you, but fuck is it hard.

“I love you,” you whisper as he pulls away and slings his bag over his shoulder. His glasses are perched on his face, his eyebrows furrow just over the thin metal frames as he looks down at you with slight worry. It’s nothing either of you can bring yourselves to address, so you both let it fizzle in that moment, and he turns away.

“I love you too,” he says giving you a small smile before he closes the door. He doesn’t allow himself to think of the click of the lock to be final, he doesn’t allow himself to spiral as he makes his way back home, and he doesn’t allow himself to mourn something that has yet to happen. You are still his, even if you shouldn’t be, for now. He sighs out, grabbing the straps of his backpack to feel something all the way concrete, the weight of that horrible costume in his bad. It grounds him for a moment, the slight pull. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and Wilbur knows it is you, sending him something encouraging with a heart emoji. He doesn’t possess the strength to look right now, and part of him knows it will be hours before his fingers are moving over that screen to reply.

#my beloved #every word you write is my gospel and holy scripture <333 #love…. !!!!<33333

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burification · 2 years ago

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Fever In Bedtime Covers

Wilbur Soot x Reader

Ao3

Warnings: almost smut. but not. cheating,, toxic relationship, i think that’s it ???

no smut but minors dni pls pls pls plssssss

It’s cold. It’s late. You’re tired. You’re too upset to care. You’re livid. Despite your anger, a rational part of you admits that you should’ve gone to bed, or at least drove instead of storming out of your apartment. You don’t know where you’re going but you don’t stop. It’s not the most dangerous area, but you are still young and alone at almost one in the morning and that adds a layer of uneasiness to the air nipping at your skin.

You give up on storming off before you get lost and you seek solace on a bench at a park nearby, usually lively with families and laughter but is now so quiet. You take a moment to collect yourself, let your breath steady, attempting to find some semblance of peace. You breathe. You want to go home, you want everything to be how it was before. You don’t want to be alone in this park.

The eeriness and uncertainty of the dark decides for you that you should get back home.

You feel stupid. You feel immature. You plan how you will make it up to him, for making accusations and then storming out. You think until you’re in your building and climbing the stairs before you collide into another body. A familiar face- you recognize him as someone from your building. He’s distracted by something on his phone and you don’t know if you should make anything out of this interaction before your thoughts are interrupted by a “Sorry, ‘m just trying to get up to my apartment.”

You knew you recognized him but had never spoken to him. You’ve heard someone with an accent playfully yelling from time to time, you just wouldn’t have guessed to associate those joking vulgarities with the seemingly reserved and warm looking boy in front of you. “I’m Wil, I’ve seen you around but I don’t think we’ve met properly.” You introduce yourself to him, in hopes that a nice chat will ease your anxieties of going back home.

Before you can start any meaningful conversation, he excuses himself to take a phone call and you’re left with a mix of curiosity and relief from the brief interaction.

You go back to the flight of stairs up to your apartment until you’re in front of your door. You’re back in your thoughts again, thinking of how you could possibly make this up to your partner. Again, your thoughts are interrupted but this time by the sound of keys being shoved into a lock to your left. It’s Wil again.

“We just keep running into each other,” you joke. He laughs half heartedly.

“What’re you doing out this late anyway?”

You’re not sure how to respond. You settle on a vague response, not wanting to burden him with your personal troubles. You don’t mention your insecurity and self doubt, unsure if you overreacted or if there’s a genuine cause for concern in your relationship. Despite the turmoil, you simply say, “I just needed some air.”

“Very well. Goodnight then.” And he disappears into his apartment. You feel a yearning to talk to him more. There is something about him that exudes warmth and comfort and in this moment of vulnerability, you want to confide in him.

You retreat into your own apartment, trying to ignore the emotional turbulence and focus on your partner. It’s dark, no sign of anyone. You wonder if he had the same idea as you after the fight- perhaps he decided to clear his head as well, hopefully he was smart enough to take the car. A glimmer of hope wonders if he felt bad and went to go look for you. You feel around the wall to find the light switch while you grab your phone to call and let him know you’re home safe. As light fills the room, your gaze shifts down at your phone, you notice a pair of shoes by the door that you don’t quite recognize. They’re definitely not your partner’s and they’re a bit too expensive to be yours. The pit of anxiety in your stomach weighs heavy like a rock and molds into disappointment.

The hallway seems to go on forever, your heart races with trepidation as you quietly make your way to the bedroom. Hoping against hope that your fears are unfounded, you pray that you’re worrying over nothing. You would rather be insecure and crazy for the rest of your life than any of the other thoughts running through your head be true. The doorknob is cold, the door is cracked already and all that’s left for you to do is push. You do. It’s dark, it’s silent.

There’s a blue hue filling the room and with that small illumination, you make out a small figure in the arms of your lover. There’s no clothes strewn across the room, there’s no sick smell of sweat. It resembles the room you left behind, with the sole difference being the presence of the woman entwined with your partner.

You can’t bring yourself to cry out. You can’t bring yourself to be angry. It’s late. You’re tired. The hallway shrinks in size as you make your way to the front door again. You can’t storm off. You’re not livid, you’re just defeated. You’re standing in the hallway of your apartment complex, unaware of where to go or who to call. It’s too late to burden your family and you left all your friends to focus on the man lying in your bed with another woman.

Your knuckles against wood catches your brain up to your body. “We just keep running into each other don’t we?” Wil says in a playful tone. You wonder how he has so much energy this late at night. “I’m tired,” is all you manage to get out. “Are you locked out?” He asks, because he didn’t see you walk in and he didn’t see you walk out with half of your heart still in that apartment.

He takes your lack of an answer as acceptance, he extends an invitation and welcomes you in. His apartment is warm, not only physically but it’s also comforting, much like his presence. There’s a sense of home that you didn’t know could exist in this building, it’s a nice contrast from the cold and dark of your apartment.

The lights are on and there’s light music coming from another room. Nothing too loud, nothing you could hear from your apartment, it’s gentle.

He breaks the silence, “Is everything alright? It’s pretty late and you seem upset. Did something happen to you?” And he’s right. It is late. And you don’t know this man, who was stumbling up the steps when you met him. And you’re alone in his apartment. You wonder if he lives by himself or if anyone else is here.

“Do you afford this place on your own?” you try to get some information out of him. It’s not the nicest place but you could barely afford your apartment with your partner's income together.

“I do, yes.”

You wonder how he’s able to. It’s decorated nicely, guitar stands in the corner of the living area next to the gaming consoles across from the nice looking sectional couch. It’s nothing too extravagant but it’s comfortable.

He motions you to sit down and make yourself comfortable while he offers you a glass of water. He behaves as if he’s ready to start his morning.

“What’re you doing up this late?” It's your turn to ask questions now.

“Could you just confirm that everything is okay? Do I need to call anyone?” He seems genuinely worried. You think about how you’d react if a stranger just knocked on your door at three in the morning without saying much.

“I’m okay.” You assure. Wil visibly relaxes.

“I’m just up so I can work.” You assume he’s trying to get stuff done before a deadline, “Where’re you working?” “I do online stuff. Some of the people I make things with live across the country. I try to work with their time. I don’t mind it too much though, I prefer being up in the later hours.” You’re too tired to care to pry so you just accept his answer.

“May I ask why you knocked on my door?”

You don’t want to relive it, your heart still aches for the pieces of it that you left by the door. You tell him. You try not to look at him while you do because every word that comes out of your mouth, his eyes soften. Every word of consolation he says is dripping with a care and hospitality that you’ve grown so unfamiliar to. You want to cry because this stranger is being so kind to you and you want more, you feel pathetic. You want to tell him all your troubles so he can lick your wounds. And he does. In a way a stranger can without overstepping, he does. He listens.

You feel bad for burdening him. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He listens like he is truly interested in you and your stories. It’s almost three in the morning now and you wonder if this guy sleeps at all. You’re not tired anymore. Your body is, but your brain is wide awake. Maybe you’re trying to stay awake to be alert or to take in this moment. Your glass is empty. You know you should leave but you don’t know if you could bring yourself to go home. Almost as if he could read your mind, he grabs your glass and takes it over to the kitchen. You prepare to leave and to be alone again. You think of ways to thank him but instead, he’s sat back down with a full cup of water. Almost as a way to say ‘Stay.’ You accept and hope he can see the gratitude in your eyes.

You two talk like old friends catching up with each other. You exchange stories and Wil’s soft and sympathetic eyes have turned to squinty ones accompanied with laugh lines. His personality is just as warm as his eyes are and you wonder if the room is being lit up by the lights or if it’s just that smile he bares. You can’t help but feel a bit guilty taking in his appearance when he listened to you so intently. Your glass is empty again and you can barely keep your head up. You want to stay, you want to be safe here and let him put you back together. You want him to make you whole again. “Here,” he gets up to grab you a blanket and a remote to turn on the tv, “Would you like to watch anything?” You feel like you’ve surely overstayed your welcome, “I should go.” “You don’t have to go back. Stay,” he says it out loud this time and like a well trained dog, you listen.

“Is this okay?” He sits close. “Mhm,” you mumble. He throws the blanket across both your laps. “What do you wanna watch?” He nudges the remote towards you but you just bury your face in his shoulder. “You choose,” you don’t care, you just want to be close, “please hold me.” He obeys. He rests an arm around your shoulder, he’s careful about it but you move yourself closer to him. You crave him, his warmth and his touch. You want to be whole again. He pulls you closer and you hold him harder, you hold him like he will disappear if you let go.

“Thank you for being so kind to me Wil,” you say it just above a whisper, “thank you.” He holds your head against his shoulder. He doesn’t say or do anything other than that small action but you take it and savor it. “Why are you being so kind to me, Wil?” He’s quiet for a second, “I don’t know,” you look at him but he’s not looking at you. He’s looking forward to the tv show he put on before, “you seem like you need someone right now. I want to be here for you.” He’s looking down at you now, you try not to let your eyes water but his expression is honest and it sends you over the edge.

He pulls you onto his lap until your legs are caging him and then his hands are on the back of your head. He pulls you close until the top of your head is met by his lips. He holds you close, he holds you like you are made of porcelain, as if you will shatter into a million pieces if he lets you go.

You know you shouldn’t, god knows how much of a hypocrite you’d be if you did, but you do it anyway. You need this, even if it’s just for tonight. You bring yourself up from your place on his chest to cup his face, you kiss him. You don’t expect him to, but he kisses you back. It’s fluid, it’s natural. Your hands are laced in his hair and his hands have gone from rubbing your back to holding your hips. You’re filled with another spurt of energy, a carnal desire. You’re so drunk on his lips that you cast aside any need for oxygen. His hand goes from your hip to your cheek and he pulls away. “Are you sure about this?” He’s searching your face for any trace of doubt. “Please, Wil,” you need this. You would get down on your knees to prove to him if you needed to.

You kiss him again, it’s short this time as you make your way down to his jaw, his neck, and to the small bit of collarbone exposed from his collared shirt. You move with the rise and fall of his chest as you undo his buttons. The kisses get hungrier with desperation with every button undone until you’re at his jeans. You leave small kisses at his hips before you look up at him one more time for an okay to go ahead. He looks at you at with the same sympathetic look he gave you before.

“I don’t think this is what you need right now, my darling.” You know he’s right, every part of your being wants to fight against it and just have this but you know he’s right.

“I’m sorry,” you take back your place next to him on the couch, “you’ve been nothing but kind to me tonight I don’t mean to use you. I’m so sorry.” Any lingering feeling of confidence and bliss has gone and replaced itself with regret. You want to crawl away and sulk in your deplorable sorrows like a bad dog.

A hand on your knee breaks you from your trance. You don’t move, you hope that maybe if you’re still enough you’ll disappear from this situation.

“Look at me please.”

To no avail you’re still here. Your head feels like boulders upon your shoulders as you bring yourself to look at him. You don’t expect what you see. There’s no trace of pity or discomfort anywhere on his face. Instead, you see the eyes filled with warmth and comfort you were met with before any of this happened which makes it feel all the more heart wrenching.

“I want this,” he keeps his hand on your knee and offers a reassuring squeeze, “just under different circumstances.” You can’t bring yourself to say anything so you just nod.

“Let me take you out tomorrow? Maybe we can try this again.”

“I could settle for that.” You wonder how a person’s company could be so serene.

“You can stay here tonight, okay? I’ll take the couch.”

“Can we both stay here please?”

He hums a yes and excuses himself to his room to wash up and grab some pillows and blankets.

When he comes back his face looks fresh and his hands are full with two pillows, a thick blanket and stuffed whale.

“Whalebur.” Is all he says, in full seriousness. “You can sleep with him tonight.”

He makes the couch into a makeshift bed and turns off the lights, the only thing granting you guys vision is the tv screen that he leaves on. He pulls you into his side in a half sit half laying down position, you lean your head against his shoulder with one arm around his and one arm holding onto his stuffed whale. There’s some album review youtube video playing on the screen that he watches intently and if you’re being honest, you don’t know if it’s his fingers tracing circles on your skin or the video that’s causing you to doze off.

At some point in the video, you fall asleep. You’re awoken shortly after to a light snore above you, where Wil decided to rest his head against yours. His arm is around your waist now and you’re closer to him than you were before. It’s cozy. You want to stay here, in this moment. You want to get used to this warmth, this comfort. You want to get used to the closeness and the tenderness he offers.

You hold the plush, blue whale to yourself tighter and drink in every second of the setting. You want to get used to this. Your head is filled with thoughts of waking up and falling asleep next to someone so unconditionally sweet. You let these ideas saturate your brain and hope they bleed into your dreams before you drift off into sleep for a final time.

#burification #wilbur soot x reader #c:wilbur #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot fanfiction

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burification · 2 years ago

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MEOWWWWWWW

tear you apart

tear you apart - she wants revenge

♡ vampbur x reader ♡

warnings: blood, biting, slightly suggestive you could say probably

notes: this is v short and goofy but i am trying to be okay with that and have fun with this instead of beating myself up ♡

taglist: @saccharinesunset (just ask to be added!)

He pulls you close like he’s done it before, like this is a century-old obsession gravitating him to you, a matter of the force of attraction. His touch burns in that same familiar way as if his fingers already knew exactly how to carve you out, to make you fold into him. It’s so quick you half-don’t realize this is a stranger. You fumble out a question but his hand is over your mouth, eyes giving you a look that makes your blood run cold. He grabs your wrist, releasing your lips before dragging you to an alley. You huff out a protest but can’t make your legs work against him, only knowing how to function enough to not trip.

“Hey, what-” you start as finally he stops, the pair of you hidden in the dimly lit side road. You can’t help the fear that runs over you as you study his face like this, long shadows accentuating the hollowness of his cheeks and the dark look in his eyes. Your eyes shoot open when he kisses you, presses you back against the brick wall, and demands all of you with his mouth that is so strangely cold against yours.

“You look just like someone I know,” he breathes out before his lips are on yours again, his hands resting on your hips. It’s more heated this time, somehow more demanding as he presses into you, begs more. You oblige, knowing that no matter what fucked up situation this was, you made the wrong decision. You know this when he groans into your mouth, cursing himself under his breath. Then he leans down, further into your space, using his nose to tilt up your chin, you can’t help the way your heart skips a beat.

“Maybe I should thank said person, jesus,” you say shakily as the man sucks at your neck, runs his tongue steady across skin until he finds your pulse point.

“Or curse them,” he huffs, so suddenly panting, hovering there. He pulls away as fast as he descended upon you and you can’t help the whine that leaves you in his absence.

“That was just getting good,” you complain and you see the way he skittishly looks around the alley he’s dragged the both of you to. “No one’s around, why don’t we have some more fun?”

“Fun for me,” he drags, crowding you back against the wall “or for you?”

“What do you mean?” you ask dumbfounded staring up at the pretty man, his arms caging you in.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers instead and you can’t stop yourself from obeying the command. So suddenly there is burning pain in your neck, it feels familiar, bodily trauma carried on. You find a moan escaping your mouth as teeth find their home again in your flesh. Your hands comes up to pull at the hair on the back of his neck, tug fruitlessly in a way that only drives him deeper. When you see his face again his pupils are blown, mouth dripping blood that he seeks with his tongue running along his teeth.

“You taste just as good as last time,” he says “but I won’t let myself get carried away, love, I want to keep you longer,” and you look at his wild eyes, see the way he is practically panting, and you know you should be terrified.

“And what is there left for you to do?” you ask in a shaky voice, the quiver in your lip magnified by the feeling of your warm blood running down your neck, the way you watch as his gaze falls to that beautiful sight.

“Tear you apart, darling”

#no words. i melted into a puddle on the floor im in love

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burification · 2 years ago

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for your name's sake

faebur x reader - 4.7k - AO3

warnings: EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT, derealization, obsessive relationship, toxic relationship (probably), strained relationship, overstimulation, swearing, arguments, idk

notes: okay i love faebur pls read the devil's law secondly happy birthday @burification my beloved. sorry if this is like watching a train crash violent into like a sea of people i am a train crashing violently into a sea of people

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT - I BLOCK AGELESS BLOGS

taglist: @your-shifting-gurl @lillylvjy @toiletwipes @lotusmisc @mosslovestherain

(pls msg if you want on or off taglist pls i can't be annoying I'll throw up)

You can feel the anger running down within you, waves of confusion and frustration making your face feel hot. You stomp through long grass until you’ve reached the treeline, and then you are pushing your way through bushes and branches that strangely do not sting as they run across your skin. A sigh escapes you as you feel the forest pull you in, a welcome hum as your feet sink into the ground but never stop moving.

“Don’t follow me,”

You had said it out of spite, out of the boiling feeling under your skin, your self-righteous belief that this monster would not hurt you. His face hadn’t changed, hadn’t fallen. He had said ‘stay’. You shouldn’t have pushed it off, should have stayed. You look around now, open your eyes wide to adjust to the dimmed moonlight through the leaves of the trees, you find nothing of worth. The dark seems to swallow you, a void looking down through the leaves now instead of twinkling stars. Your steps become uneven, a fear of drowning rising in your body as it feels as though you are treading water, growing tired.

“Stay,”

You can hear him say it, hear the rise of his voice before it’s being covered by the sound of cicadas crepitating. They buzz and submerge you further into mind-numbing because the goal is passiveness, to have you give up. Vines seem to kiss at your ankles, threatening to constrict as each step forward makes your stomach turn. Your fear is now unmistakable, your body coming up to hinder you with a tremor in your legs.

“Stay”

It sounds off again, pulls a groan from your lips as you suck in the humid air, wet down your throat, stuffy where it fills your lungs. You would not just Stay, you are not a fucking dog. You shake out your anger and grip fallen tree branches with newfound will even as that jagged dry bark bites back with splinters in your fingertips and palms. You suppress the ache of exhaustion.

‘Stay’

It comes quiet, a blip of a word as finally you fall forward. Your knees landed hard on the ground, pebbles digging into your skin with a painful wince. The stinging brought you strange clarity as you forced yourself to raise your head. Determination makes you crawl until a clearing opens itself to you and tickles your arms with the gentle licks of blades of grass.

“You are going to die here.”

You cough up the words and spit out the taste until the fit subsides. It sounded like him whispering in your ear, ghosts of the feeling of his breath crawling across your skin. It’s dry heaving and the grass now feels as though it is leaving razor-thin cuts as you move. You can feel your heart palpitating as your ears begin to ring. Your hands dig into the ground as you crawl to the middle of that field and fight desperately to breathe. He hadn’t said that, no, no, he hadn’t said that.

You are someplace you shouldn’t be, it’s clear now, no more wool over your eyes. It’s a feeling like the very air is trying to suffocate you, pressing against your skin. It’s that same pressure all over your body as you fight to stand. It’s only when your knees straighten and buckle for a moment, feet so firmly in the long grass now scattered with wildflowers does the pressure stop. You wobble as that weight is released and stare at your surroundings.

A pit in your stomach opens and waits to swallow you. It’s the same one that held you captive when your house creaked or you couldn’t help but feel the need to look behind you. More flowers bloom lazily, grow in front of your eyes, bluebells that droop in those vibrant shades of violet. It calms you for a moment and feels familiar to just watch as the world moves without you at a pace it shouldn’t. It’s disarming in the worst way.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says, his voice honeyed but stern, and you turn, allow yourself to face him. All attention floods, the vacuum effect of bated breath. He’s not smiling, a pensive expression on his face that leaves your body feeling cold. He’s as gorgeous as ever anyway, dark eyes that swim with something impossible to discern. He is from this inhuman place, the same pull that led you here leading you back to him. You had walked into the forest, sunk into whatever current of power that was within that treeline, and let it take you. Now you wanted to walk to him, hide your face in his chest, let him take you if that’s what he wished. There was no telling how long it had been, no discernible passing of time that you could point to explain how pathetic you felt. So, you resist the urge, build a wall bigger than your emotions.

“I told you not to,” you say, an attempt to cull the desire to fold, arrogance that takes you up easily. There was not a single thread of time where he wouldn’t have followed you, not a single moment in this forest that you were safer than you were when you were with him. You feel small and stupid. He huffs, the sound leaving the field struck silent and still. It’s enthralling to watch as everything around you seems to lean in, desperate to hear what comes next. This is what it’s been waiting for, a front seat.

“And you were stupid to walk away in the first place,” he says and you roll your eyes. It’s simple defiance, bodily, something you can manage. “Do I ask too much of you? Is my wanting you safe something to detest?” the questions rise, find their way under your skin, and thrive there. This is the byproduct of an argument and yet it burns all the same as you swallow it down, words on an uneasy stomach.

“Did you even listen to me before?” you say and his face remains stoic, almost conceited. “Christ” it comes muttered, exasperation clear, body that of aching, reeling with aftershocks of terror you refuse to recognize. His name begs to crawl its way from your lips, strike like lightning. You think of coughing, being suffocated by this forest, suffocated by him. “You are too much. Is that really what you want to hear?” it echoes horribly in that wide-open space and no sound comes to drown it out, the air lets the words live in reverberated horror.

“No,” he says as if he could make you take it back, but you just stare at him, stare through him, let it wash the both of you away.

“Then what do you want me to say? What could I possibly say” It feels cataclysmic, tightness in your chest. “How can I be enough for you when you are so,” you made a frustrated sound “you,” It’s vulnerable and volatile as it croaks its way from your throat, it derives itself from doubt, conceals itself again with your unwillingness to recognize your own self-hatred. You feel dizzy, almost drugged, and maybe it had been all of that humidity, the invisible cuts, the coughing up spit instead of bile. When you finally gather the strength to meet his eyes he’s dejected, it’s miserable.

“You are everything I’ve ever wanted.” it lapses from him, the forest unable to consume the adoration before it meets you. “There is nothing you need to do for me for that to be true,” and he wants to hold you, to take you away, keep you forever instead of arguing your sufficiency. He wants so much from you, it’s a realization that bleeds into his expression. He is too much, too much, too much, and yet gravity wishes you to him, begs for proximity with the shake in your hands and his own tentative step forward.

“What happened to us?” you ask him, letting it leave you breathless, the sentiment of childhood and easy feelings that did not weigh so heavily. It’s of this forest when it met you with open arms not treading water. He looks away from you, a side profile of sharp edges and an understanding of what human is supposed to be if only surface level. It’s a rotten thing that makes you want to step closer. It’s a horrible thing when you do. Allow yourself to buzz closer to that light, risk extinction.

“You left and I waited an eternity for you to come back, would wait an eternity more just to have you again” and his words feel wild, unchained devotion sinking into some sort of resentment. “So what do you want, human?” and it’s a strange push of mortality all stored in that word he practically purrs.

“I just-” you start but he looks at you again, gaze stifling. Tension rises as he soaks in your forced silence, and walks closer to you, pupils blown as he smiles something like mirth. The upturn of his lips feels sinister and off, and yet you don’t run or scream. You let the situation shift without a fight and take on the role of game, the ill-prepared deer.

“I want you, darling, I want you to love me, fear me, give yourself to me as I have given myself to you,” he says so close now as you stare up at him with furrowed brows and clenched fists. It’s fidelity, selfishness and selflessness. He is a hungry animal, starved. “Is it so wrong? To love you completely? To never want to let you go?” he teases, words leaving his breath fanning across your face as he leans down. It makes your heart race as the labile forest wakes again, hums to life with calls of made-up birds and the whistle of wind that sounds too melodic.

“Wilbur,” his name finally falls past your lips, making your chest ignite with that supernatural warmth, it’s not enough. In its wake is an ugly feeling, an itching ache to be closer, to forget harsh words, and running away. He soothes it, crosses off the distance with his burning hand cupping your cheek and tilting your head up. There is no resolve left in your body, anger fizzling so quickly, emotion cresting elsewhere.

He tilts his own head, his hair floating to the side as his smile grows. Your resistance wanes further, his fingers so hot against your skin. His lips brush lightly against yours, imperceptible touch as a way to implore you to act, crave your own collapse. You push forward, kiss him with words you promise you will say once your desire dies in the pit of your stomach. The forest chitters with excitement as he returns that to you, languid and dragging. When he steps back it feels crushing, an emptiness rushing up to meet you.

“Am I asking too much?” he questions again and your whole body feels like it's buzzing, begging to be closer.

“Yes,” you say because you know it’s true, that allowing him you is feeding something you shouldn’t. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to-”

“Then let me have you,” he interjects as if he couldn’t make you. “Cave in, my love,” The forest hums as his hands find your hips, weigh heavily, and sear perfect skin. You lean into it all, quivering like prey in the beast’s mouth. His eyes dilate and turn practically black as he drinks you in. Wilbur is an inhuman animal licking at the skin of your neck, letting it be more about devouring than worship. You savor the feeling, croon. When his eyes again meet yours, its swirling questions and uncertainty, heat just under that still lying frustration

“Did it hurt you?” he asks, yet there is no subject, no name to wail. You understand all the same and shiver thinking of suffocating humidity. It’s the same as now, watchful gaze and devastating attention. It’s two sides of the same coin, one that meets you with prickling pain and the other with gentle touches that conceal the same ability to bring harm. They burn the same, fear that desperately attempts to numb out any desire to live, turn flight to fawn.

“The forest?” you answer as another question and he nods, his hands grabbing your wrist, running fingertips gently across skin. They dip, seek out cuts, ease. His touch leans on bruising as he allows you to view that horrible cured jealousy fed by his obsession with you.

“Were you scared, love?” he shifts, purrs. It makes you whine, squirm under his sudden ministrations of feather light, his hands roaming the secret skin under your shirt unabashed. It feels the same as those branches, the long grass, the very air, overwhelming, akin to drowning in stimulation but now instead of wanting to beg for less you must refuse your own urge to plead for more.

“Would it change anything if I said I was?” he clicks his tongue in response, it's disapproving. You want to push more and yet you find yourself regretting that impulse as the air seems to so suddenly become hostile again.

“Maybe you’d be more inclined to listen next time,” he says sharply speaking of ‘stay’, hands back on your hips, pulling you closer for emphasis.

“Doubt it,” you reply, shuddering out the words as he nibbles at your skin, peels off the paint of your composure, and dares that moan stuck in your throat to show itself.

“So I should send you back? let this place destroy you instead of me?” he's daring you to say yes, to define yourself there in that defiance he knows isn’t anything but an act. You find a hesitant shake of your head is lost on him. “May I remind you, my little human, of your fragility?” It’s a reminder you don’t want, don’t need when in front of him like this, peeled back, bare. He is a reminder in it of itself that when cut you will bleed, that if his fingertips pressed any harder against your heart that it would collapse.

He grins something wicked anyway, and you watch as he raises his hand, snapping. It’s suddenly all the air stolen from your lungs, it's the feeling of perpetual falling as your feet are lost under you, the ground and the sky confusing themselves. There is a crawling sensation of vines reclaiming a body he swore would never be theirs, running up, constricting, you scream. It stops as quickly as it began and his hands are there to catch you, your knees there to buckle.

His hand finds its way to resting on your throat, then squeezing lightly in a way that is purposeful control highlighted again. You take in a rattling breath that has him release you and replace that presence with his lips again prodding against yours, licking desperately into your mouth, running against your teeth, and leaving you gasping for air all the same. He chuckles lowly and you feel light-headed

“y/n,” it makes you freeze and he hums, tilts that last bit of control to him so easily. It's satisfying to feel so helpless, to let yourself be cradled by coming and going cruelty. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” you choke, find it hard to speak even as he commands it. He smiles down at you, his hand running back through your hair. He is gentle like he has never known how to be rough even when his actions moments ago betray that facade, it makes your head spin, your chest falls out from beneath you.

“Do you know what it means that I have your name, love?” and a needy whine escapes you. It’s ownership, a protection he extends to you. You are too happy to be his, to lay under him knowing he could as easily kill you in the same way he takes you apart. You fall into him now fully feeling boneless. “Darling,” he’s saying as the two of you collapse in slow motion into that field, an ocean of moving grass and uncertainty. You shake your head, feigning ignorance if just to hear him say it, that possession of your name an indisputable claim on your soul. The corners of his lips tip up again.

“Means you’re mine, love,” he says pressing you down, your body parting the grass. His lips find the collum of your throat, press kisses down to your collarbones, chaste things like the bitter dryness of wine that leaves you shivering without the ability to beg for more. He revels as your helplessness blooms into desperation, neediness finding its physical mark in the part of your lips “My little human, do I scare you like this forest?”

“No,” the reply comes quick and jagged; It’s wrong to admit when you know he is so much worse than his sentient sadistic environment. It’s wrong because it isn’t the full truth, and doesn’t speak of the complexities of adoration washing away lingering terror that is only ever reflected in the shape of his body. At times, he is created of the same monster and yet when his fear hits your tongue, you can’t help but savor it. The sound that escapes him is a groan, something that wavers into a growl. It’s lovely, the best thing you’ve ever heard, it’s news of harvest, starvation mirroring building lust.

“That’s right, you know I would never hurt you?” (not really) and the implication that he could goes without saying, weighs heavy in his words as you pant but nod, “Could never ruin something of mine,” he whispers against your skin as his hands slip again under the thin fabric of your shirt, but this time he pulls that clothing over your head, explores what is so undoubtedly his. He looms and your eyes can’t look away, this beautiful man that of circling vultures, a dance of let me devour you. His dark hair falls over his eyes, his face flushed. You let the needy moan leave your mouth as soon as he touches you again, his expression is that of pride. “Now be good, let them know who you belong to, my little human,”

He’s quick to devote his attention to you, to kiss and prod. His mouth is hot as he runs his tongue over your skin, marks wherever he pleases with nipping teeth. He scratches with his nails, presses with his fingertips, and it all resembles before, but now you crave it, the desolation of your psyche. It’s his act of pretending to be human waning. It’s so much of the same overwhelming sensations now pushed to the emotional cresting of bodily pleasure. His mouth on yours, the humidity of heated actions stuck in your throat, the taste of him on your tongue. He’s whispering praise at every sound he pulls from your mouth, removing the rest of your clothes with tactile hands, and letting you forget where you are if only to have you crawl into his waiting mouth yourself. He is an atomic bomb turning every rational thought you’ve ever had into shadows of his touch.

You gasp as his fingers finally reach where you need them, needy sounds pouring from your mouth with reckless abandon because it’s what he wanted. You are clay, malleable, a masterpiece formed by him as he rubs at your clit, drawls gasps, and whimpers from your mouth. You scramble and finally allow your hands to hold him, to pull him closer, grip that of white knuckles. You clutch the loose fabric of his shirt and undo those buttons with shaky hands, it feels like undoing the straps of a muzzle, accepting that sharp teeth do not always bring bites. Though you wouldn’t mind his teeth sinking into your skin.

“Please,” you breathe and it’s submitting to being ruined, bowing your head because it’s him. Your heart flutters as he kisses you in a way that is so far from the franticness thrumming under your skin, he placates with his lips, dives deeper as he moves his fingers faster. You arch yourself into him and moan into his mouth until he’s moving down, trailing your skin again with his tongue. His breath is so suddenly fanning against your heat, cool against your skin in a way that makes you whine as his hands retract. You buck your hips up into the air at the lack of stimulation until his hands are pressing them down, keeping you still with a teasing smile.

“Don’t move, darling, or I’ll be forced to stop,” he purrs, looking up at you from in between your thighs, something wild in his eyes. You nod weakly, clenching your eyes shut until his mouth is lapping at you. The return of pleasure made you cry out pathetically as his tongue found your clit. His fingers tentatively push inside you, piecing apart further the fragile state of your strung-out body with a pathetic sound from your parted lips to join all the others. You felt pressure building quickly in your stomach as your thighs shook. He pressed down on your hips firmly, yet didn’t complain as your hands threaded themselves into his hair, pulled as he hit that spot that made you shudder. You convulse under his mouth, fall off that precipice into his observant care. When he moves back his chin is wet with you as he watches the rise and fall of your chest with careful consideration, the eyes of a predator not yet satisfied.

“Darling, have you had enough?” he asks and you shake your head with huffs of catching your breath, he meets you with a click of his tongue. The forest rises to life, chaos blooming with the sound, and yet none of it touches you, wouldn’t dare. You watch as he wipes at his chin, makes a show of the debauched action, and then everything falls silent again except for the shared sounds of both of you heavy breathing. “Tell me what you want, darling. your wish is my command,”

“God, just fuck me, Wilbur,” you say, exasperated, whining. He crawls over you again, tattered pants discarded sometime in this mess. He sucks at the pulse on your neck and dedicates himself to your slow torture, to recognizing the way your body writhes under his attention.

“Manners, love,” he hisses “say please,” and you whine hopelessly. You take in a shuttering breath and feel his smirk against your skin.

“Please,” the ache of desire grows horribly with the desperate word. He hovers again, looking at your flushed face as you struggle to speak. His hair is run through, a clear sign of your fingers. “need you so bad,”

“I know,” he coos. “But maybe patience will do you some good?” he taunts but pulls you towards him. His touch is as stifling as his words, his actions now more suffocating than the journey here. His hands seek reactions again, survey skin for real pain, and he allows your begs to fall on deaf ears. His touch falls past where you need him as you squirm. He takes his sweet time, not showing any signs of ceasing his unhurried pace.

“Please, please, begging you to-” and he hums, pressing a chaste kiss against your lips, hushing you, “Wilbur,” his eyes meet yours then, really meet yours, desire so clear. The utterance acts as the pull of a leash, the smell of fresh blood in open water.

“Fuck,” he mutters, shivering. “Isn’t that unfair, to say my name like that, my little human?” his hold so suddenly tightens, shows waning restraint. It’s a control that finds itself in your hands, his name from your lips enough kerosene to burn you both.

“Wil,” you moan and more expletives pass him, his want is metallic in your mouth blood drawn from biting his own tongue. “Please, Wil,” and he groans, the sound of a wounded animal, collar too tight.

“Okay, my love,” he rasps, his hands parting your thighs, your eyes on his painfully hard cock. “Be good,” and you lose the chance to babble out ‘yes’ as the stretch of him entering you steals away your breath. You clench your eyes shut, tie yourself to the pleasure just under the surface of your skin, rushing blood and beating heart. You open your eyes slowly, flutter your eyelashes until his face is there, his parted lips, the sight of him panting, finally restive, the ebbing of his ability to take his time. He connects your lips and swallows down your sounds lest they escape him as he begins to move slowly. There are breathless things said, words passed in exhales, and yet never is it a name, something so sobering and reverent.

“Wilbur,” you say knowing he will listen “break me,” and so easily does his pace become brutal, fulfill that wish just as he said he would. You cry out, clench around him, and take it all. It’s swallowing the sun, choking on it to please.

“Just like that,” he’s instructing as you buck your hips against him, chasing your own release with your hands firmly tied into his hair again, pulling to be met with the alluring sound of his own needy moan. “y/n,” it falls from his lips like prayer, your name that heavenly god he prays to. The name brings electric current, inhuman feelings of devotion that manifest as the building pleasure in your body, your breath hitching, and your head thrown back. It’s the sealing of a deal, he repeats it until you sob out, shatter around him to no deterrence to his own hunger. He flashes sharp teeth, grins as suddenly every thrust of his hips is a broken sound from your convulsive form. Your eyes brim with tears as your hands search for stability, settling to entangle in the grass, digging nails into the dirt. You shake under him, get reborn with tears down your face as he pushes you further even with your nerves already frayed.

“All mine,” he whispers from the crook of your neck, licking tears from your face and never losing the rhythm of your undoing. You flutter around him, feel the familiar pull in your stomach again as you writhe under the self-proclaimed monster. You wrap your legs around him, seeking any way to be impossibly closer. “Please, say your mine, my little human,” he chokes.

“All yours,” you gasp and think of ‘stay’, of words left unsaid, and he’s losing control. Wilbur can’t help the sounds trailing from his mouth as his composure begins to fail, it becomes that of the animal caged inside him. His nails dig into your skin, half moons of future scabs, claws that are, at the very least, dull. He growls, purrs, and laps at your neck to find himself tethered to the salty taste of your skin. You keen into him, kiss at his face much the same, lips soft as they brush the perfect slope of his nose, the dimples of his cheeks. It's a dissonant dichotomy, bodies that melt into one another in a perfect visage of horrible.

“Stay with me,” he pleads into your ear, the pleasure is that of eyes rolling back as you pull him closer, treating yourself to scratches down his back.

“Always,” you say, throbbing around him as he pools so quickly under your skin. Harmony finds you both struck speechless as waves of climax run over you both. You tremble with the feeling, of fullness eclipsed by white-hot warmth. He kisses you, the action sloppy and blown out but meaningful all the same. It sears his name into your mouth, feels like a contract sealed again with the movement of your lips against his.

“I’m yours, all yours,” he breathes out the words and in the shared oxygen between you two. It’s certain, the promise already made is now stated. When he collapses beside you the world sinks in to fill his absence, that void of a sky fills with the visible conversations of blinking fireflies, in between your fingers grows those bluebells, and the winds dispel the stillness of the air. It soothes the rawness in your chest. You breathe in deeply and turn until eye contact is made again. A sigh leaves you as you study his face, eyes tracing what you think you will never be able to forget even if you wish to.

“I love you,” you say to the curly-haired fae. He hums, leans closer, his lips pressed to the shell of your ear.

“Stay,” he says.

#LOVE #happy… birthday. to me.#best birthday gift #im insane

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burification · 2 years ago

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HI… it’s valley,,, i made an account to WRITE on… 3k words in..,,, going insane

thsi user is elite AAHEJFJDJ BALLEYYYY VALLEY YAYYYYY YAYYYYY YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY TELL ME WHEN YOU POST TAG ME PLS CHEERING U ON

#love #my beloved <333 #fav writer #MWUAH

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burification · 2 years ago

Text

i've been twisting to the sun

cc!wilbur x reader - 11.1k - AO3 - FAKE DATING/FRIENDS TO LOVERS

warnings: anxiety attacks, self-esteem issues, miscommunication.

for THIS EVENT !!! fake dating is my enemy now and forever and i hate hate hate hate hate what i wrote here but i procrastinated fixing it (sorry this is my crayon project)

NO SMUT BUT -> MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

taglist: @your-shifting-gurl @lillylvjy @toiletwipes @lotusmisc @mosslovestherain @valleyoh

(tell me if you want off this taglist!!! PLEASE)

There were worse things he could have asked you to do. The all-encompassing favor has weighed heavily on you for a while. You had gotten so embarrassingly drunk, and he had taken care of you. It wasn’t your fault you told him you owed him a favor if only to save yourself the guilt. He had laughed at the time, brushed you off like you hadn’t ruined his night, but then he started teasing you. What about that favor? Something that would make you sigh, push him away playfully, until all of a sudden he’s cashing that favor, asking you to pretend to be dating for his family over the weekend in a text message. He’s asking this the day before he’s begging you to go.

You knew his mom had been nagging him about it lately, he had complained in length about exes and how his online presence made it impossible to just find someone. You had listened to all of his woes like they didn’t make your heart pang, like you hadn’t had a crush on him since year 10. Your feelings towards the man became hopeless a long time ago, sometime between the drunk breakup crying on your shoulder and now. They were impossible to live with, they weren’t something you could allow yourself when he was so often all you had. So you made a pact that it was never going to happen so long ago that this was more than just uncharted territory, it was signing up to drown, willingly, because you owed him.

You sigh looking at his stupid text and at your stupid reply where you had already agreed. You should have said no, made up some elaborate excuse not to be at his beck and call this one time, he would have understood, and surely, found someone else to fill your shoes as his fake partner if he had not also told you he had said he was dating you, not just that he was dating someone. Blinking a few times though didn’t make the conversation disappear nor did it make your own texts of ‘I’m sorry, I can’t’ appear, the favor was this, was going to be this. You fighting to tamp down the version of yourself that didn’t assign themselves to that pact of I am not in love with Wilbur Soot.

God, fuck this. He cried on your shoulder after breakups, told you every embarrassing thing that has ever happened to him, and knew every horrible secret you cared to share and after everything, you were still both friends. It was something you forced yourself to accept, adhere to, and it was painful when he was talking to someone, hard to be pushed aside in favor of spending time with another, but it was what you had gotten used to. You were not used to this, fake dating, fake kissing, fake everything. How were you meant to accept whatever artificial show he was going to put on when you still desperately wished it was going to be real?

How could you survive this? Some elaborate plan to numb out whatever happens?

You could set up good boundaries, get through this easily with invisible walls, and not fuck up your friendship along the way. It could all go back after, back to lingering one-sided stares that were enough if you could keep him. It couldn’t be that hard to ignore your crush for a weekend when you’ve been pushing it aside for months, years even. What boundaries could you even set to keep this realistic but at a distance? The idea of him touching you at all in a romantic way already made you want to bang your head against your desk.

W̶e̶ d̶o̶n̶'t̶ t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ e̶a̶c̶h̶ o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶.

Fuck, you shook your head. You stand from your chair, moving to lie down on your bed, maybe get some rest before you have the worst weekend of your life. Yet your brain keeps buzzing, trying to ration a way to remain comfortable, and have the future look less miserable. It just needed to look real.

Don’t touch me if there is no one around

W̶e̶ t̶r̶y̶ a̶n̶d̶ a̶v̶o̶i̶d̶ k̶i̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶?̶ (that wouldn’t work,)

We don’t talk about this ever again

We keep all of it to a minimum.

This was going to be just fine, just three days, and then that’s it, you get to keep going on with suffering in silence. You sigh out again, push yourself further into the blankets on your bed and allow sleep to take you. When you wake up, unfortunately, it’s all not some bad dream, a crazy scenario you’ve concocted in your brain to cope. No, when you open your shared messages between you and Wilbur there are the texts. You pack quickly, picking out clothes you wore on dates, nice enough but not showy, perfect ‘hi I’m your son’s partner now and no longer his weird clingy friend’. It all makes you feel sick to your stomach, thoughts and scenarios filling your mind all just to feed your dread. You run your hands down your face, consider again, banging your head against your desk instead of accepting whatever this weekend was going to be (At least it’d be over quicker.)

You can’t stop circling back to the mirror, looking close at uneven skin, flattening down clothes, and obsessively running the lint roller over everything you knew was going to be ruined anyway. It’s meticulous, something to block out all your worries by busying your hands that only ends in those anxieties getting worse. You allow yourself to daydream this was real, an actual instance of remeet my parents because we are dating now. Your anxieties of the culmination of trying to impress not the afterbirth of biting more than you could chew. When he texts you he’s outside you quickly begin dragging yourself and your bag out to the inevitable, your keys jingling all the way as you lock your door. You know that once you turn around, it’s over. So you smile, turn on your heel, and pretend this is something fun. He’s waving at you from his place standing next to your shitty car with a bag in hand. His enthusiasm is stifling.

“Hi, Wilbur,” you say, not able to summon the same excitement when all you can feel is creeping nausea now that you are here looking at him. He continues to grin anyway as you both place your things in the trunk, him more so haphazardly. You watch as he climbs his way into the passenger seat, feel the way a lump grows in your throat, a feeling that resembles the one you got when he said he had a girlfriend years ago, the same feeling you get when you close the door after being around him, the same feeling that cements you to your act of watching blankly as he shuts the passenger side door. Starve out the thought. Forget this. Move on. This is fine, it’s all fine.

“Hello to you too,” he says simply when you finally open the door and crawl your way inside, quickly turning on the car to start the AC. It hums to life and only then do you allow yourself to turn to him.

“So let’s start with this,” you take in a deep breath “Why would you ever tell your parents we are dating?” you look at him exasperated. He fumbles for an answer for a moment, you see that hesitancy that hovers as he clearly doesn’t know said answer, or maybe just doesn’t know the truth that he wants to tell you.

“Listen,” he starts and you know whatever he is going to say is gonna be bullshit which, coincidentally, makes the words that leave his mouth all the more confusing “You were who I thought of first and you already know my parents.”

“I know them as your friend, Wil, I’m really not excited to be lying to them about us dating,” you pout for a moment and the car somehow feels smaller as you revel in his gaze on you. You shake away your thoughts, movements feeling a bit frantic for a moment as you try and recenter yourself, you already agreed. “Let’s do boundaries first, okay?” you move on. You ignore the stinging realization that, yes, you were who he thought of first. That had to count for something. right? but you knew your wishful thinking was only going to make this all the more painful.

“What are you comfortable with doing? We have to at least make it believable,” he asks, biting at his bottom lip before looking away from you. It’s despite your better judgment that you give into your habit of staring at him. He looks nice today, freshly shaven and with almost a new haircut, just grown out by a few weeks. His question leaves you feeling a bit lost. You weren’t really comfortable with any of it, wish you had said fuck the favor, but here you were fumbling to make sense of the ground rules you had thought of yesterday.

“We never talk about any of this ever again, you don’t touch me when no one is around, and we try to keep all of this to a minimum,” you say and he nods with you, giving you a look that almost seems calculated. It’s not like your ‘rules’ were good, but here you were, floundering with your metaphorical life jacket.

“Seems good enough,” he laughs lightly as you flick on the radio and jump slightly for a moment as Bon Iver begins to play. It reminds you in that lapse of a second, of drives with him and panic attacks. An apology is quickly mumbled as you change to the radio, turning the volume down until it acts as background static.

“There is really nothing you want to add?” you ask him with a tilt of your head, feeling less rigid as the silence in between both of your voices is now filled with the low-playing music. You want him to add something, crave any of this feeling more concrete than just your bullshit boundaries. You can practically hear him thinking as you pull away and begin the drive to his childhood home.

“No, I think I’ll be fine, love,” you flush at the pet name thankful you can keep your eyes ahead on the road. He called you things like that often, words that slipped past his lips like sweetness he wasn’t aware he was expressing. You had gotten good at ignoring it but now it felt different. There was some added weight to the endearment. Nevertheless, you guys talk about random things, you listen as he rants on about topics and facts you would have never known about without him. He explains what he’s doing on Twitch and on Youtube. You liked when he talked more than you would ever be willing to admit. It was calming, helped you now to ignore the fact you were driving to quite possibly the last time you would be able to be around him like this. You stopped yourself from letting that thought swallow you. Don’t allow yourself to think of past car rides that felt as final as this one. He talked of Wikipedia pages, youtube analytics, and music. It all made you feel normal until you are on his street. When the two of you pull up to the small home you are thanking god that he allows the pause in the car to linger, doesn’t jump to get out, but sits there with you and the repetitive drone the the pop music playing from the stereo.

“What now?” you ask and he turns to you with a small smile. Let the show begin I guess. At least it won’t be hard to feign attraction or the blush that has already risen to your cheeks.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, instead of anything else he could have said, and you widen your eyes “Just to get it over with?” he explains and you try not to think of it like kissing you is something repulsive.

“What?” you immediately answer. He smiles, again, and flashes those brown eyes in a way that claims his own innocence, absolving him completely. He moves in his seat, resituating like that question had not just fallen from his lips.

“We, as a couple, can’t just not kiss, they wouldn’t believe it, if we do it now, without an audience, it will be easier later,” he explains and he is right, annoyingly so, but you think of the broken rules already, don’t touch me if there is no one around sounding off in a whisper, and you nod. You had been thinking about the idea of kissing him, had been thinking about it for years but now that it was here you froze. Your eyes flicked down to his lips, still curled up in a smile as he awaited your reply. Fuck this seriously fuck this, jesus christ.

“You’re right,” you look up at his eyes again and he for a moment looks just as anxious as you do, something that flashes in his eyes almost imperceptibly. His hand comes up, pushes your hair back before he’s slowly leaning forward over the middle console. He is cupping your cheek, his swooped dark lashes falling shut as you can’t help but be freaking out. His lips softly press against yours, something completely sweet. When he pulls back a moment later you watch the way his eyes fall down to your lips, stop and stare if only for a second. It makes your head spin. He gives a lopsided smile before he's clambering his way out of your car, and you are pretending like kissing Wilbur was just kissing Wilbur. The world hasn’t ended and the small supernova he created in your chest didn’t collapse, yet. He knocked on the driver’s side window as you attempted to cull the butterflies filling your chest.

“Let’s go,” he whisper-shouted as you got out of the car. You pushed him away with your hand as he gave you your bag. His footsteps were heavy behind you as he raced to catch up then linked both of your fingers together. It was childish, the way this still made your heart race, consider if your hand was weird and clammy, and flush maybe a few shades darker than you thought was possible. You don’t register he’s knocking until the doors open and his parents are pulling you in for a warm hug. Wilbur’s hand leaves you as you wrap your arms around them, and sink into the familiar family. People you’ve known for so long.

‘What wonderful news!’ his mom is saying, telling you all sorts of things about how glad she is that he ended up with you, how she had been waiting for so long for him to say something. You try and ignore it. The ‘waiting for him to say something?’. You don’t dare look at Wilbur after she says it. His dad is watching as you melt under the strange genre of compliments before Wilbur is having everyone head inside.

He’s smiling the whole time as he hovers close to you, always touching you in some way that made your head spin. He talks about mundane things, his life reduced to what he’s doing in the studio, what his friends are up to, and nothing about the relationship you both apparently share. His hand is on your shoulder, on the small of your back, pushing your hair behind your ear. He’s all over you, touching you like it is the simplest thing in the world, something he’s practiced. They must think you aren’t talking enough, but everything is so soft, it makes you feel sick. You are stiff, struggling with the affection and hoping you just look like you are nervous to be like this around his parents and not like this is the big lie it is. When all of you end up in the living room he is sitting quickly on the loveseat and pulling you by your hips backward into his lap.

“Christ,” you yelp out as he laughs lightly. “A bit of a warning next time?” you say but he just smiles at you, that stupid grin with his stupid crinkly eyes, and he snakes his arms around your waist to hold you closer to him. He’s warm pressed against you, something that makes you relax into his touch. It’s strangely comfortable even with your frayed nerves.

“We’ve been together three weeks now,” you hear him say as you try and tether yourself to the conversation.

“Mhmm” you hum, looking back at him to avoid looking at his parents. His eyes flick to yours for a moment, and you don’t know how to pretend to have your heart skip a beat and yet it does. You look to his mom, feigning a sweet smile instead of the grimace wanting to dawn on your face. “We are- we’re trying to take it easy,”

“You two are so cute,” his mom says are you lean back into him, you want to disappear. Wilbur laughs and you can feel it against your back as he presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. He’s then quick to move on the conversation, let his parents talk about their lives, and explain at length the updates they want to do to the small house. Even if you know you shouldn’t get used to this, the manufactured closeness, you sink back into Wilbur’s arms, breathe a bit deeper, and find yourself falling asleep to the sounds of everyone talking.

You wake slowly in a dark room you know you didn’t fall asleep in. It’s Wilbur’s childhood room, the one you two had spent hours in together, sitting doing nothing or playing Minecraft or just talking. It’s moments you can see in the space, residual happiness that still permeates past the present. He lingers in every single part of this room, the scratches in the paint, posters of bugs, and his name next to yours in the corner. It’s a bittersweet memory.

“We are going to be friends forever, even if you move for uni, or become famous, promise, okay?” You ask him and you are a bit more tipsy than you thought as the words slur together slightly. He still laughs, watching as you write your name in a corner of his wall. “Proof,” you say with a small smile, gesturing for him to do the same. “Please,” “I think I need to drink more,” he says before taking the pen from you, brushing his fingers and yours, and writing his name next to where you already had put your own to entertain you. “But there,” You look from his name to him, he’s pretty, blinking at you in confusion as you stare at him, beaming. His hair is a bit messy, curls undefined, as he grabs the bottle of vodka again. The moment drags on.

You crawl out of his bed, feeling raw, looking at those two names hurts slightly, more than you want to admit. It’s a reminder that even then you knew if anyone of you was going to leave the other it would be him. You pad your way out of the room anyway, go down the stairs, and find yourself in the kitchen fetching a glass from the cabinet to fill with water. You pass all those family pictures, and you can see it’s still light out, the sun fighting to stay up, painting the sky light pink. Wilbur and his dad are sitting outside talking, a conversation that files in mumbled and unintelligible. You close your eyes and drink from your glass as the sad nostalgic feeling doesn't leave you but becomes stranded in your chest. He could leave you. You had no claim to him, and he had no valid reason to keep speaking to you. All you had was that drunk scribbling of two of your names and the hours of memories strung between. He had become great, adored, and you were stagnant. Yet, here you were. Pretending to be his partner because you would do anything for him, even if you would rather die than tell him that fact, rather die than admit to the open air that no matter what happens between you two you think there will always be a part of him settled inside you. It was admitting every ugly pathetic feeling you surrendered yourself to just by being here.

“Glad to see you are up again,” his mom makes you jump slightly, “thought you died for a second there, sweetheart,” I flash her a nervous smile. Fuck. I drink at the glass of water greedily, hoping that the cool liquid with ease my anxiety. “Hope we didn’t bore you to sleep, honey?”

“No, you didn’t, I guess I just didn’t sleep that well last night,” she smiles at you with a warmth she always had, something you don’t think she could control even if she wanted to.

“Then I’m happy to see you got some more sleep then, hun,” She watches as you drink more of your water, the silence between you too not quite uncomfortable but confused as you both search for a new ground in your relationship. She sighs, looking out at Wilbur as he begins to talk loudly about something, the tone of excitement clear even while muffled. “He’s always been sweet on you, I was so relieved when he said you both were finally dating,” The words sink in, burning you slightly as you watch his animated movements. ‘Finally Dating’. She said it like it was something that was inevitable. You wish it was true, that this care was really being extended to you.

“Y-yea,” you said quietly knowing anything you said here would leave you feeling guilty. You are lying to her willingly just to please Wilbur and sink into your staring role.

“You would get a kick out of some of the things he said when he was younger, would come home and only talk about you for hours,” she goes on “I hope he treats you well, I’m really not worried about how you will treat him, you’ve always been an angel,” You give her a small smile, force it on to your face. “Goodnight, honey,” She walks back to her room quietly as you stand there frozen. You shouldn't have agreed to this, he didn’t like you, not like that. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You stood there frozen with that glass in hand as it felt like the whole world got further and further away. You are blinking, realizing your breathing is uneven, and placing that glass in the sink.

You retreat from the kitchen and go back to Wilbur’s room. Thank fuck he’s not here. You can feel the tears welling up in your eyes, even if you aren't quite sure why. Pathetic, you feel pathetic, and you shouldn’t have said yes, and this is day one of three and you are crying already. It’s the names that you see out of the corner of your eye that make you stop, pause again, to take in a deep shuttering breath. Lean on the past, of writing sloppily while drunk, of not remembering anything else in the morning. He’s opening the door before you finish, and you are quickly wiping at your face.

“Oh, you’re awake again,” he starts, not looking at you until he’s already shut the door “Hey, are you okay?” He’s perceptive, has always been, but it’s not like you did a good job of settling yourself in the first place. You rub at your eyes before folding your hands in your lap.

“I’m fine,” you reply quickly “I’m sorry for falling asleep,” Your voice sounds a bit skewed, more scratchy than usual, but if anything, it’s passable.

“You’re alright, probably made it easier for them to believe our relationship anyway without you being so fidgety,” He smiles at you, making the words feel light instead of scolding, though you can see the part of him that is hesitant, something being held back. He floats around the room, picking out clothes from his bag as he readies himself for bed, he’s outgrown the space. His closet was just a bit too short for his height, the rug is now a nuisance where he no longer remembers where it started and ended on the wooden floor, and the guitar in the corner was gathering dust. It’s something that feels innately sad, the way he doesn’t even fit perfectly in his own bedroom anymore, no longer resembling the boy from your memories that lived and breathed here. You wonder how you look, sitting on his full bed just as you used to, hours spent with your legs crossed. He trails his way out of the room and you finally move, fetching your own pajamas, and changing after him. When you come back he’s laying there on his phone with a small smile on his face.

“Ready for bed?” you ask before realizing there was only that one bed. When you had sleepovers as kids his mother had always set up something for you, blankets and a pad that made the wooden floor more bearable. You hadn’t thought of that until now, the expectation of needing somewhere else to sleep having disappeared with the apparent relationship status.

“Are you okay with sharing the bed? I know it’s small but-” he scoots over with a sheepish smile. I reprise my fantasy of banging my head against a desk.

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

This was not the minimum, you stand there, thinking about his arms once again wrapped around you, feeling the heat radiate off his skin, thinking of gentle kisses pressed into your hair, the back of your neck, down. You run your hands down your face.

“We can figure something else out?” he says and you must be red. No this was fine, this was great, this was wonderful and good and-

“No, uhm, it’s fine,” You stay there, looking at him before he pulls up the duvet and waits for you. ‘He’s always been sweet on you’. You crawl into the bed, facing away from him, tense. You pull that blanket over you, feel the warmth contained under it, and sigh. You can hear him behind you, breathing steadily as he scrolls on his phone. He’s not touching you, you making yourself smaller just to avoid it. Your quickened heartbeat is damning, you can hear it in your ear that is pressed against a pillow, the sound of the blood rushing. Every shift of the bed makes you lock up further.

“You can relax, darling,” he whispers as his hand reaches above you, pulling at the string of his bedside lamp. It leaves the two of you in darkness as you listen to his phone clatter onto that night stand.

“I am relaxed,” you reply.

“You never are, I’ve known you long enough to know that.” he chuckles and when his arm pulls you by your waist closer to him you resist the sounds that want to leave your mouth. “It’s not like we’ve never slept in this bed together,” Your whole body is pressed against his now, his arm slung over you. “You used to get so cuddly when we got drunk in here, and I’d wake up before you to save you from feeling embarrassed,” Christ.

“Well, that’s-” you let it run over you “embarrassing,” for lack of a better word. You used to drink enough that you could forget how nervous you felt when you were around him, there was a period of time when any sort of close proximity made your head spin. You didn’t remember these nights, just hoped you never said or did anything stupid. Clearly, you had.

“Sure,” he says laughing softly, you can feel it in his chest. “I always liked those nights the best, but maybe I was just a bit touch-starved,” he huffs. A bit touch-starved, that’s one way to put this, whatever this was. His body shifts, his arm still keeping you comfortably pressed against his chest.

“and what about now?” you ask, feeling like you were watching a storm brew, egging it on.

“The same as then,” he says quietly as the conversation lulls. His breathing slows further, fans across your neck. What the fuck? It’s placating in a horrible way of how will I ever sleep without this? You love the sound, achingly so, every quiet inhale the twist of a knife. It was too much, too much to smell him, to feel him pressed against you, and pretend like he is yours when he is never going to be yours. You close your eyes, tight, begging to sleep if only to leave this moment behind you, and keep going forward. It happens eventually, restless sleep takes you away. Leaves you with dreams of sweetness, kisses that linger longer, lives that intertwine further again.

When you wake up, he’s still there, your head is now resting on his chest as it steadily rises and falls. His hand is running through your hair as you keep your eyes closed. His fingers scratch your scalp slightly before twirling strands around his fingers idly. It’s disgustingly close, stifling, and abominable. You resist the urge to hold your breath and he lets out a heavy sigh before he is carefully moving you off of him and slipping out of the room. The world keeps moving as you lay there, turning onto your back to stare longingly at the ceiling, finding familiar shapes in the raised paint, the same things you saw every time you woke up here and devoted yourself to looking at the ceiling until it became some great story, a distraction.

He must hate you. Must know about your hopeless crush and take some sort of sick fascination in making you squirm, playing with your feelings until you break, an ant under a magnifying glass. You need to leave. Get out before it hurts too much to stay. You can hear soft talking from downstairs, smell food being made, and it all makes your stomach turn. The door creaks open.

“Good morning,” he says, still in those loose clothes he wore to sleep. He looks perfect, something about the uneven way the oversized shirt’s neckline has fallen or the slightly frizzy state of his hair. “We are making pancakes when you are ready to come down?”

“Okay,” you reply, ripping your gaze away from him because it’s unfair and it’s so much easier to look back at the ceiling. The door clicks shut and you can’t make yourself move. You need to get up, be normal, act like you are dating Wilbur all over again, and let him touch you and hold you like it doesn’t set all your skin on fire just to fucking think about it. You reason with yourself. You can go on a drive after breakfast, get away for a second, breathe. You can do this. Pep talk yourself into being doting and affectionate. Fuck him. You stand, go to the bathroom and brush your teeth.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” his mom calls to you from the dining table reading a newspaper.

“Morning,” you reply with a sweet smile before turning to Wilbur who’s standing by the stove with a spatula in hand though you swear he has never been good at cooking. He’s looking at you, worry in his eyes. You can see it, have seen it more times than you can count. So you walk up to him, reach on your tiptoes to press your lips against his quickly, and pretend this is easy. He doesn’t react for a moment until you are pulling orange juice out of the fridge and filling a glass. He’s being scolded for burning a pancake by his father and it makes you smile to know you were the cause.

You sit at the table and scroll through notifications on your phone as the sounds of birds outside singing filter in through an open window. You tap on Twitter and cringe slightly at your timeline that has somehow been filled with fan tweets, people saying they miss Wilbur or anything else they can think of. His fanbase was always something you were weary of, it happened so quick, from youtube views to twitch streams. You didn’t understand it, Wilbur kept you away from it aside from showing you music projects he was proud of and explaining his roleplay character to you. He talked idly about it like it was the most normal thing in the world, having thousands of people watch you play a video game.

It was something you made yourself purposefully removed from until he followed you on Twitter and suddenly it was all just there, spread out in front of you. People messaging you about Wilbur, likes to your tweets that were not your close friends. Every worry he had articulated was justified in text posts and images of his face. He had unfollowed you, said nothing of it, and eventually things went back to normal but you never tweeted again. You just used the account to keep up in a small way with all of it. You jumped slightly as he sat down a plate in front of you, brushing his hand on your shoulder. You mumbled a small thanks before he went to get his own food.

You weren’t really hungry, your appetite having died sometime between your arrival here and now. The pancakes looked fine, probably tasted fine, but you found yourself cutting them up and pushing the pieces around the plate, watching as syrup and butter sunk in and disintegrated the sharp shapes into mush as you prodded. The conversation moved on without you until he’s saying your name, asking if you are done, and taking your dishes away. He doesn’t comment on your lack of eating and it eases you to not have to explain. You retreat upstairs, hide in his room again, waiting to tell him you needed to go on a drive and leave if only for a second. Breathe.

You last five minutes before you are slipping out without a word, saying nothing except the jingling of your keys because it was too hard to be here. It was hard to wait, sit like a dog. So you are desperately trying to tie your shoes and not interrupt the bustling kitchen.

“Y/n?” it’s Wilbur, right behind you.

“I need to go out and get something,” you blurt and he tilts his head. His parents are there behind them, watching as you whisper now. “I’ll be right back,” You lean up, and kiss him again with all the strength left in your body, a hand that lands on his chest for a way to be okay, to steady yourself. It wasn’t worth the way it made you feel just to do the dance, go through the stomach-turning motions.

“I can come with you,” he says and you can’t say no to him, never can. You nod almost imperceptibly, watch as he quickly slides on shoes, and grins.

“We’ll be back,” you say with a forced smile, not that you think any of them could notice it. As soon as the front door shut you shoot him a look. He doesn’t notice it, he can’t stop smiling. “I just needed to go on a drive, I- I don’t really need anything,” you say.

“So you didn’t want me to come with?” he flashes you a hurt look, that smile falling from his face so quickly because of you.

“Uhm, no, it’s fine, we used to do this all the time,” you did. As soon as you learned to drive it happened so often. You both wanted wide open fields and sky. It was always just a text away, he would accompany you when all you wanted was to listen to soft music and talk. So many conversations happened on back roads while you were scared your car would breakdown. It was always the same CD, the only one you had, even if you suspected he might hate it by now.

“I’m so tired all the time,” you say and he hums as Bon Iver plays quietly in the dark car. It’s only on because it was the only CD you kept in your car, something to numb you out. It’s raining and you are parked in some random parking lot, watching together as raindrops fall quickly, and splash against the front windshield. You feel like you’ve been suffocating recently, and there hasn’t been time for this. He’s been busy with his girlfriend. You are happy for him, have told yourself that a million times, but this is the first time you’ve seen him in a week. “And I have to do this for the rest of my life,” you mumble. “Go to work?” he laughs slightly. You nod, pull your legs up on the seat, and rest them against the wheel careful to not honk. He always said you were strange for sitting like that but you think it was just a way to make anything feel different. You wanted a new angle. You look at him and watch as the light on his face moves with displaced raindrops. “Yes,” you laugh, something wet leaning to the sound of choking “I wish this was a world I felt like I could be happy in, do something creative for the rest of my life, and not get yelled at by others for not being convenient enough.” When you look at him again, he’s staring forward. “It’s not all like that,” he says. “Sure feels like it,” you say thinking of the horrible shifts you’ve been having. People yelling at you. You shutting down. “Everything in life I mean, maybe you have to have a job you hate just so you can go experience the world, fall in love, see new places, it’s all just give and take,” he says and you smile, looking at his reflection in the glass windows as he spares you a look you don’t dare meet. “Alright, big guy,” I push his shoulder and laugh.

He got to do something he loved, music and writing for that minecraft server, something creative. The music mostly, you know that he loved it. You had watched him learn the guitar and been on the ground floor for experimental songs as he got better. You were still pathetic, some shifts making it more obvious, when all you could do was go home and look for any way to forget the repetitive cycle of your life. You put that CD on, For Emma, Forever Ago, and it’s familiar the way the music makes you feel raw. It reminds you of him, closeness in this stupid car, and secrets whispered to each other like currency.

He seems tense when you glance over at him, no words to add or subtract from the silence.

“I miss doing this with you,” he says, finally, and you hum, not trusting your voice as you muster yourself back together.

“You’re always busy, couldn’t ask you to step away from your job just to drive around in my shitty car,” you say it feebly because you don’t want to say it. You don’t want to talk about this.

“I could try and make time, we can schedule it on my calendar,” he says and you laugh.

“Wow! I’m so excited for my scheduled time with my best friend!” you joke “That’s belittling,” You turn to him to see him over-exaggerate a wince. The conversation then folds into itself, is swallowed by the guitar strumming that always made you cry when you were alone. It’s empty side roads now as you drive. It’s familiar nothingness that consumes you instead of the feeling that is growing in your chest the longer you are around Wilbur like this. You didn’t want to feel like this.

The tears well up in your eyes slowly as your breathing begins to quicken. You pull over because your vision is blurry because you can not be so selfish as to put him in danger with you and drive like this. It feels like suffocating and he’s right there watching this time. There have been so many countless times you found yourself at the side of the road sobbing because everything is too much. The drive to work is so familiar it’s just shapes and turns and shapes and sometimes the space left open in the passenger seat of the car, a loneliness that follows you, sucks all the air out.

He’s here now though, that seat is horribly un-empty and It’s worse. He’s rubbing his hand on your back, touching you. It feels like static is biting at you everywhere he is, your body reeling with his unwelcome presence in anticipated pain.

“Breathe,” he is saying and he’s touching you, he trying so hard to comfort you by touching you but it’s so much.

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

“Please, stop,” you hiccup, gasping for air, as you dig your fingernails into your palms. His hands retreat so quickly it’s as if he has been burned. You fumble for the radio, and turn the knob to desperately silence the songs. Shut the fuck up, get yourself together, shut the fuck up. The silence grows and grows until it becomes ringing in your ears. You still can’t breathe until you are gripping the steering wheel.

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

You look at him and his furrowed brows, think of him leaning over the center console, kissing you like it’s something casual because he made it something casual. It’s just gonna become another ghost of this fucking car. Another thing that makes your stomach turn and reminds you how much you fucked all of this up by saying yes. So you start driving home, periodically wiping at stray tears, hiccuping, and taking shuttering breaths as Wilbur searches for the right words that never come. You turn the knob again, let that album fill the space. It drowns you out and makes your eyes focus on the road. The pain turns to a steady ache keeping you present enough.

It’s silent when you slow the vehicle to a stop, and mute the music so it’s just the sounds of soft breaths until he is pushing the passenger side door open. He doesn’t come around to the other side, doesn’t wait to go inside, and you consider leaving. Sit there in your car and consider driving away, leaving Wilbur with the consequences of his ‘partner’ leaving him alone, his ‘best friend’ so eager to not see him that they abandon all of their things. Yet, you find yourself inside, eyes searching for him to confide in because you have no one else. Fuck. At least this is on your terms. You lay against him on the couch, his arm slung around you like the past hour or so never passed. He’s tracing shapes into your skin, the back of your hand serving as the best place for morse code, of I’m sorry repeated so many times it turns into something else, something entirely more desperate. But for a moment, it’s just him, his hands, his rising and falling chest, and not the end of this. Not the end of fake dating or your friendship, just nothing but the two of you sitting beside each other.

“I’ll be right back,” you say with a small smile before rushing up to his room, rubbing at your hand, and feeling the way your body grows cold where it is no longer pressed beside him. You can’t be mad at him, he doesn’t know how much this hurts you. So you sigh out, sitting on his bed until the door is squeaking open and he’s there, again, just when you don’t want him to be. He closes the door slowly.

“Let me fix this,” he says as he’s walking towards you. Let me fix this. The words bang around in your head as he’s standing there in front of you practically breathless. He looks devastatingly pretty, it makes your stomach turn as he blinks, begs you to do something, say something,

“You agreed to my rules,” you say instead, tearing your gaze from him not willing to bring up the fact he hasn’t been following said rules. “One of which is that we don’t talk about this ever again, that it just happened and then we move on and we act like it didn’t, so can we just get through this?” you are trembling slightly, your hands balled up in your lap “There is nothing to fix,” and when you look at him he’s frozen, his lips slightly parted, and he looks hurt.

“O-okay,” he stutterers, and the catch in his voice is so unfamiliar. It aches, something inside of you wants to lean in, give in, allow his fingers tips to depress your skin. “My parents made dinner and I got your favorite wine, was supposed to be a nice surprise,” he whispers before he’s walking out and you want to puke.

“Wait,” and he stops at the door, his hand on the doorknob. “I’m sorry,” it tumbles out of you.

“I was just gonna tell you a joke, love, try and lighten the mood,” and he’s leaving and you know he’s lying. You can feel it, the itching feeling because you know him so well, know him to a sickening amount recognize his stiffness as a lie. You wish you didn’t, wish you could push down the fact with a fake smile as you go down those stairs knowing that no matter where you go in this small house he will find you eventually. He didn’t need to be there to haunt you though. Let me fix this, the shape of his lips, his hand running through your hair, his lips pressed to yours in that cramped car.

“Take a seat, sweetheart,” his mother says, you sit down beside Wilbur, place the napkin in your lap, and pretend like the conversation is easy as you drink from that wine bottle by pouring that burgundy liquid into a glass. It’s nice, it’s easier like this, just like when you were younger, to flatten out those edges of affection with the alcohol, drown your crush with the burn. You can look at him, grab his hand under the table and kick at his feet with a giggle because you feel lighter. His parents ask if you two are planning to move in together and you don’t know if the correct reaction is to laugh and yet you do. A laugh bubbles it’s way out of you even as you cover your mouth with your hand.

“No,” he looks at you “Not any time soon, anyway,” he smooths out the small amount of tension. The conversation lulls nevertheless and Wilbur is saying you drank too much, signing to the empty bottle and your lack of eating anything sufficient today, your plate once again mostly untouched. You see their worried looks before he’s shuffling you upstairs, steadying the both of you when you wobble slightly.

“This is so embarrassing,” you say as soon as you are sitting on his bed, some of the syllables are tied together. He looks at you with furrowed brows and a deep sigh.

“They’ll get over it when we ‘breakup’” he makes quotation marks with his hands as he looks through your clothes and you whine, low in your throat, the ever-impending end. He fetches the sweatpants you slept in last night to wear again but he’s handing you one of his shirts. You don’t notice, just nod and follow his orders, get ready for bed, and return. He looks at you when you enter, his eyes lingering for what felt like forever. You point at the names on the wall, the ones written in a few years old handwriting that you can’t stop staring at. He’s nodding, laughing slightly as he recalls that memory.

“Don’t leave me after this,” you say with a slight pout not really knowing what this is. Is it tonight, embarrassing him in front of his parents? Or is it just this, the favor.

“Can’t, we have that promise, the names” he says. You nod and stumble towards the bed. You want him closer. It's a stray desire that you’ve lost the ability to tamp out, suffocate. It’s your turn to break the rules, right? And wouldn’t that only make this fair? So you are crawling to him, tucking yourself into his arm, and laying your head on his chest to listen to his surprisingly fast heartbeat as his hands avoid touching you when all they’ve done this weekend is touch.

“You are doing it again,” he hums, and his voice sounds strange, strained as it rumbles from his chest.

“Hm?” you ask, nuzzling yourself further into that smell of him as his hands come up to rub against your back. His touch makes you melt, keen into his touch.

“Getting drunk and-” he starts, He feels guilty.

“Cuddly, touchy, bleh,” you finish his sentence for him.

“Yea,” he breathes out and you laugh a breathy sound.

“Y-you’ve been touchy all weekend,” you mumble from your place hiding in his chest.

“Well, that’s beca-” you cut him off.

“s’my turn to be touchy,” you reply, weakly getting up slightly just to look at him. His curly brown hair, perfect cupid’s bow, moles, dark eyelashes, and dimples as he laughs nervously. You lean in with no one to watch, his parents probably winding down for bed in the room over as you press your lips against his, the curtain falls. It’s messy, you more sloppy than calculated as he hesitantly kisses you back knowing that it’s the last thing he should be doing. This isn’t part of that favor, not part of the elaborate act. You feel like a live wire as you dig your hands into his hair, making yourself known by undoing those curls. You lick into his mouth, let yourself be uncoordinated and desperate for once because part of you knows you aren’t going to get this again.

You pull away, and lean back on your knees, gaping for air as he stares at your swollen lips, blown pupils, and hovering frame. He knows he hasn’t earned this even as his nerves feel frayed. And you need to make this into a bad thing, need something to undo the knot in your stomach, need to feel slightly sober.

He stares at you still, silently. Then he’s moving you, pulling you against his back just like the night before. You would forget this, probably, had forgotten all those other times of you pressing yourself against him while drunk, seeking out warmth and touch that he was always readily willing to give. It had never been this though, never been lips meeting his own, desperation he couldn’t allow himself to match. It was fine, it would be fine. You shift and turn until you can look at him again. He meets your droopy gaze hesitantly.

“Why’d you tell them we were together,” you mumble into his shirt talking about his parents and why you both were like this in the first place.

“I was under pressure,” he can feel you laugh against him.

“So you said my name? You could do so much better,” you say, your laugh turning into something cruel about yourself. “So many people you know that are perfect and get your job and treat you well and have time and a future ahead of them,” You blink away your dizziness. “Not me,” you mumble, pushing yourself again into his touch before your breathing is beginning to slow. Wilbur is in shock at your words, but you didn’t know that.

You woke up with a slight headache, nothing you couldn’t handle, but you didn’t really remember going to sleep last night. You remember dinner and Wilbur helping you up the stairs you were still sure you probably could have gone up yourself but then it all kinda falls away. It wasn’t too troubling, except for maybe when you thought about how you got to be wearing his shirt or having him hold you like this. Your face is pressed into his chest, his heavy arms wrapped around you as if you were something he needed to protect.

He wasn’t awake yet, Wilbur still softly snoring, a sound that sometimes resembled a purr if you listened close enough. The events of yesterday seem duller now, still embarrassing, but far away. You were an emotional wreck but he didn’t need to see that, he had been privy to it enough when you were both younger. It made you feel guilty, that you gave in to that part of you that so craved him in your mess of a life more than he already was.

It was over today anyway, all of this, of him holding you, of fake kisses, of proximity that made you feel sick to your stomach. You get up carefully and tiptoe out of the room to shower. When you get back he’s swiping on his phone in bed, probably facing various inevitabilities of fame. You think of how he can even be here, how many people he’s been blowing off this weekend, just to watch you cry in a car and get too drunk to go up stairs. He doesn’t register the door opening, seemingly having just woken up. There is the steady hum of the fan and the soft sound of the door shutting when he does look at you.

You freeze for a moment. He looks sad, something that feels distant in his eyes as you place his folded-up shirt on the desk. You had debated keeping it, forgetting to give it back and stuffing it in your bag just in case. Just in case the two of you never talk after this. Just in case. He looks away, and you begin packing, settling your various belongings into their places in your bag. You get done rather quickly, getting your phone charger and placing it in your pocket when you look at him again. This feels final, like an end to something more than just this act. You knew this was going to happen.

“I’m gonna go,” you start “I just- I have to work tomorrow and it’s gonna take half the day just to unpack after this trip so-”

“You could at least have breakf-” and he sits up, looking at you with those brown eyes.

“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” you confess, cutting him off “I can’t be here anymore and I shouldn’t have ever agreed to do this but I did so,” you sputter.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, though softly, it still makes the air get caught in your throat as you choke on some words.

“This!” finally, you gesture to him and you “I can’t keep doing this, faking that, it-” and suddenly it’s all rising within you and you want to cry. You want to cry. The feeling overwhelms you as it finally crashes against your skin after days of pooling. Your bag is already packed and on your shoulder and you could just leave. “It fucking hurts, Wilbur.” it tumbles out of your mouth “Why do you want to play with my emotions? Why would you say my name of all people? Do you want to hurt me that bad, am I that much of a joke to you?” It’s harsh and you know it’s not all true. You huff out the words anyway and he’s standing now and you’ve taken a step to the door. It occurs to you then, that you were being loud. That the secret of the weekend just passed your lips in more words than one. Then you are thinking of last night and ‘let me fix this’. He’s walking towards you, mouth bobbing open and closed as you watch him think, his eyes darting around the room until they find yours. He looks like guilt incarnate.

“I deserved it,” Wilbur says, hiccuping occasionally resembling a drunk cartoon character more than a man, a situation that would be funnier if he wasn’t crying. He was allowed this, you thought, he had just gotten broken up with. You had found him, snuck up through the back door when he stopped answering your texts, just for him to be drunk on the floor. Your worry wasn’t completely misplaced though. “No you didn’t, Wil, you’re just drunk,” you say quietly as his head has ended up in your lap, your hands playing with his hair. You weren’t used to seeing him like this while you were sober, it was overwhelming. He was unfiltered, depressed, and all too quick to punch down at himself. “I was so-” he trailed off “it was my fault” “Wil,” you say again. You move your hands away, him without your touch, and he whines, looking at you. “You can’t be thinking like that,” You frowned at him and he just stared. You understood those feelings and you think that made it worse. It’s thoughts you’ve had countless times in a different light, repeated instead as it’s your fault, you aren’t good enough for him, a constant burden, that you are horrible, and that no matter what life was not going to get better if it was you behind the wheel, “Yea,” he says, instead, conceding and fluttering his eyelashes. You see the guilt that seems to lighten, his eyes feeling less heavy. It’s as if something has clicked and all he wants to do is look at your face. His eyes don’t leave you the rest of the night as you fill the silence with stories to distract.

‘Please,” he says, his voice that of begging. “I-” and you step back again, so close to reaching that door. “Please, that’s not what this is,” but it’s not I didn’t know, it’s not I’m sorry. It’s guilt without the words and you want to scream, to cry, to run. He’s closer with raised hands, the etiquette of a spooked animal.

He’s leaning forward and it’s just like that ‘let me fix this’ that passed his lips the day before and was never answered.

He kisses you, his hands pulling you closer by the waist. His lips ask for permission silently, like searching for it until it comes in the form of you kissing him back feverishly. It’s suffocating, so much more than it had been in the car or any other time you forced yourself to not mind the feeling. Your hands push back against his hair, struggling to find their place at his neck as all of this settles in your racing heart. He stays close, keeps his forehead pressed against yours as the two of you share oxygen.

It feels overwhelming, so you press back again, part your lips to be softer, give more. He’s addicted to it. So he pushes further, and begs for forgiveness with his hand on your jaw, fingers parting under your ear. It makes your chest ache, feels like holding your breath underwater as you lean into everything until he’s stepping back with a shuttering breath. The silence then falls, cuts itself between the both of you.

“I’m sorry,” he starts and you take it, that apology that doesn’t bloom into anything but. “I didn’t- I didn’t know how to tell you, didn’t think I ever would tell you,” he explains.

“Why?” you whine out because it’s been so much of this, the loneliness that bites, it’s been so long that you’ve been begging for this, him kissing you like it was all he ever wanted to do.

“because I didn’t want to do that to you?” he whispers and you don’t understand. Then you know, can hear him talking of self-hatred. Of ‘i deserved it’ that becomes worse without anyone there to make it stop. You can hear yourself talking about how you could never be him, be on stream in front of that many people. It all folds together into pining. “Didn’t think you would ever feel the same after everything and this was some desperate attempt to get it out of my system,” and he is so horribly wrong for that, but it aches again anyway.

“You are so stupid,” you say, shuffling yourself until your face is pressed into his chest. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” you shutter, unable to look at him as the confession breathes past your lips. It’s been years of please, let me and it was both of you. He doesn’t need to say it, repeat the sentiment back, for rather he is holding you close. His large hands splayed across your back and pulling you tightly against him.

“We are stupid,” he says with his chin resting atop your head. He takes in a deep breath. “I still don’t know how to do this, how to navigate something like this with you, darling, not when I am so-” he cuts himself off and it's true of the weight on both of your chests because what does this mutual attraction mean anyway?

“more fake dating?” you joke and he chuckles but it fizzles too quickly when he’s pulling back to look down at you. The room shifts. You still feel your stomach turn, butterflies fill all that space that was previously empty. “I- I’m willing to put in the time,” you whisper as if that is what this moment required, it leaves you in a tone that bleeds coming pleas.

“I just don’t know if I have the time,” and it falls over you like cold water. That joke of scheduled hanging out from the day before is far too true. “I didn’t want to put us here that’s why I never said anything, I didn’t want to get somewhere where my job was gonna ruin this.” and he stops because he’s looking at you, because you are there in front of him crying. You are losing him anyway. You wipe at your face and try and collect yourself.

“o-okay,” you say because by no means is this okay, but you still have your bag on, you still could just leave, get out of here, escape the dying feeling of his touch.

“I’m sorry-” he starts.

“I know,” you whisper but you pull the straps of your backpack closer, you get away from him. “That doesn’t make it any better, Wil.” He steps towards you and your hand is on the doorknob.

“Please don’t just leave, darling, please, we can talk about it,” he speaks quickly, trying anything to make you walk back towards him, anything to allow him that apology. “I want-”

“We said we wouldn’t talk about any of this,” you start thinking of those boundaries and rules put in place to help you keep him and your sanity. They’d all been broken in one way or another, distance ruined by his prodding touch, gentle lips.

“Don’t do that again, don’t push me away,” he’s saying.

“You chose me to do this because you are selfish, Wil,” you can feel yourself on the precipice of crying, just almost there. “I agreed because I don’t know how to say no to you, because I would do anything just for the promise that you will remain in my life even torture myself by fucking kissing you and you-” you look away from him.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I was selfish, love, but I never wanted to hurt you,”

“You hurt me all the time,” you huff, exasperated and tired “You are so busy and I know that’s not fair of me to blame you for that, but I can’t find it in myself to try and be in your life because it must be such a waste to spend your time on me,” you are crying now, tears running down your cheeks. You can’t find it in you to push him away when he’s wiping away those tears. His hand is carefully easing away the redness of your face. “How can you even stand to be around me?”

“I want to give you that time, wish I could spend every minute with you,” he says softly. It doesn’t ease you, not in the way he wants it to. It brings up again passing time, sentiments of soon and never to be.

“Then why?” you start “Why can’t we have this?”

“I want to try,” he says and you stop. “I want to be with you, but I am terrified.” the confession makes you clench your eyes shut, try and stop time from marching forward because you don’t want to face any of this. He’s going to tour and be busy and have a life so much grander than yours. “I don’t think I could handle losing you, not when it would be my fault,” You think of those names in the corner, that promise to be friends forever. You would do anything for him, travel the world, let him pull you to the end of the earth to just be graced by the fact you would be together.

“You won’t lose me,” you whisper and let yourself fall to him. The distance between you wanes until you are kissing him again. It’s tender but devouring, through confessions of please, don’t let this be it “I want to try,” you say the words slowly, opening your eyes to look at him. He smiles weakly, rubbing his thumb across your cheek again. “We can just try,”

He kisses you again instead, the tremoring of his feelings falling in, secrets unfolded. He grins into the kiss, bites at your bottom lip, and lets himself savor what he never thought he was going to have. He lets your hand grip his shirt, promising in touch to hold his heart gently. It’s joy that finds his lips as they move against yours, it's suffocating in the best way.

“What are the rules this time?” he pokes, leaning in to breathe in your air, if only to satisfy that continued urge to be closer. You think of all those rules, of being friends forever to keeping all of that affection at a minimum. You’ve broken all of them.

“No more rules,” you whisper and he kisses you, again, pressing deep to make up for everything. More apologies spoken with soft touches and drinking you in. You could have him like this without the restraint of rules that keep him at arm’s length. You feel dizzy as that new reality comes to fruition, shared affection blooming between you both without the weight of guilt or self-doubt.

#im insane

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