#AND I WOULDN'T MARRY ME EITHER

[hairmetal666]

This post is full angst, so be warned!!

"I don't understand," Eddie says.

Steve sits at their kitchen table, hands in fists and jaw clenched. He won't meet Eddie's eyes.

"You heard me."

"I--are you saying you don't want to be together anymore?" Steve doesn't answer, and Eddie can't bear it. "Steve. Is that what you're saying to me right now?

The hard line of Steve's jaw tenses further. "I don't know. I don't know if we want the same things anymore."

He shakes his head, tightening his lips around the furious words that want to spill out. "I want those things. You know I want them too. Nothing has changed for me."

Steve scoffs, turns his face away. "Kids, a dog, the white picket fence, that's not you, Eddie."

Eddie's mad that this is happening here, now, but this at least brings a sliver of understanding. "Is this about what your dad said last night? Because, bab--"

"That has nothing to do with this. I don't care--"

"You do care, Steve, don't lie. Not about this."

"He's a homophobic prick, it doesn't matter."

Eddie sinks to his knees in front of his boyfriend. "It matters, of course it does. He's your dad, the things he does hurt--"

"Is he wrong?" Steve snarls with a vehemence that has Eddie stumbling back. "You can't give me kids or stability or--or normalcy."

Angry tears threaten now, but he blinks them away, has to stay calm has to figure out how to make this right. "I'm trying to give us that life, sweetheart. I'm sorry it's not gonna happen overnight."

Steve shakes his head. "How can we have that when you're never home?"

Eddie lets out a noise that doesn't know if it's a laugh or a sob. "Are you serious? How can you--You can't just--You want to do this now?" He settles on, eyes flicking to where his suitcases and guitar are in a pile at the door. The clock audibly ticks down to when he needs to leave to meet the guys, to go on the tour that could change their lives.

"When else would we do it?" Steve asks, and there's suddenly fire in his voice, a blaze in his eyes.

Fury makes him shake enough that his teeth snap together. "I've been home for two weeks, Steve. We've had thirteen days to talk about this, and you pick an hour before I leave for three months?"

"You're always leaving, Eddie, that's the whole problem!"

"Yeah, so I can give you that life you're so desperate for! This is our ticket out of here."

"It's your ticket! It has nothing to do with me."

Eddie stands, so angry he thinks he might throw up. This isn't the first time they've had this fight, far from it, but they agreed--they agreed. "You said," Eddie's voice shakes. 'You said you wanted me to do this. That it was important to you. I told you what it would be like, that it would be hard, and you, you--" If he speaks anymore it will be a scream.

Steve is crying now, silent tears dashing down his face. "You know how many days you've been home in the last year, Ed?" He can't answer, hides his face in his hands. "One-hundred and fifteen. I might as well not even have a boyfriend, at this point."

"Don't say that," Eddie chokes. "Don't you dare. This is for you. For us."

"Nothing is for me!" Steve yells.

"Everything is!" Eddie shouts back. He's pulling at his shirt, like he's trying to bare his whole heart to the only man he's every loved. "Every song we record, every show we play, every tour we go on, is for you, Steve. Everything I do is for you!"

Silence rings through their kitchen, until Steve's soft, emotion broken voice, asks. "What if it's not enough?"

He does sob at that, can't hold in any longer. "Are you done with me?"

Steve doesn't answer, buries his face in his arms.

"Steve. Say it. Tell me we're over."

Still, Steve doesn't answer.

Eddie doesn't speak again. He crosses to the door, gathers his bags, his guitar, his keys and wallet. Doesn't bother to look back to where Steve sits, can't stand it, opens the front door.

It's the squeak of the hinges that finally drives Steve to speak. "Are you coming back?"

Eddie tilts his head, opens his mouth but closes it again before he says something he'll regret for the rest of his life.

He walks out, the door slamming into it's frame behind him.

[planetsandthefates]

im going to need 13 more years to process you're losing me and an additional 33 years to process the bridge alone

[thejudeduarte]

How have I just realised how good the your losing me bridge by Taylor Swift is like what

[two-maroon-ghosts]

On April 11th I saw this video. Three days after the breakup went public. After watching it this is what I texted my friend, "Maybe she wanted something more permanent and he didn't. Idk. But it looks like this song seems way more real to her now. Cuz she almost looks angry when she says, 'So I watched you go'."

...

With what we know now. I think I hit it right on the nail.

[shallyne]

I'm the best thing at this party

[billie-nicole]

and I wouldn’t marry me either, a pathological people pleaser, who only wanted you to see her. /// 💔

[meep-meep-richie]

´´ he cares about you.´´

[nartml]

was it casual when i had a panic attack at the thought of you dying was it casual when you risked your entire carrier just to feed me lunch was it casual when you were willing to die protecting me even though you wouldn't accomplish any of the goals you devoted yourself to was it casual when i spent so many nights rolling around in deep thought about whether you think of me like i do about you was it casual when i wished for you upon a shooting star was it casual when i refused to let you continue your way down a path of self-destructive loneliness even though you wanted me to was it casual when you needed to kill me and only me to grow stronger and be entirely untethered from your past but you just couldn't was it casual when i preferred to bear your pain and hatred and die fighting you as opposed to giving up on you was it casual when i could trade blows with you (read your heart) even though your supposed wife couldn't was it casual when i was your one and only was it casual when the hands that we blew off of each other bore the evidence of our cosmic connection was it casual when you cried your first tears of relief and happiness after you lost to me was it casual when you kept in touch with me but not with your wife was it casual when we fought and laughed and became inseparable was it casual when i can't exist without you was it casual when i put all my goals on hold because how could i focus on them when i can't even save you was it casual when you were my main motivation for training to become infinitely stronger was it casual when i'd remain a fool my entire life if being smart meant that i had to give up on you was it casual when you know my heart i yours was it casual when

[sukibenders]

"Rhaenyra isn't the stepmother, she's the mother who stepped up!"

The HOTD writers themselves are hardly doing anything to support that narrative, so I take this rhetoric with a grain of salt. While I think, in some way, Rhaenyra does care for Baela and Rhaena....if I had to point out a motherly figure for them that could pose as someone stepping in Laena's place, Rhaenyra would not be it.

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

reigen arataka and senshi of izganda are peak sexy aroace representation. entire fandoms are so down bad for them it's concerning and they're just existing in their own media doing their own weird guy things, addressing and dismissing romance and sex with total nonchalance any time anyone brings it up

[iwasbored777]

It just doesn't sit right with me that in fanfiction whenever Branch and Poppy get married he becomes a king. He would outrank the current queen when he's not even royalty and usually in real world the highest title that he would get would be prince consort. He would be the happiest troll ever if they get married but they would co-lead and he would help her just like now but she would still be the real leader and things wouldn't change that much.

[rosietrace]

[ The Inheritance Games ] | “I wouldn't marry me, either.”

Prologue

The Inheritance Games series belongs to Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

SYNOPSIS — What if things had been different, when Avery inherited the old man's fortune? What if Alisa did some puzzle solving of her own, and what if Nash started to feel something for Alisa he thought he'd never feel in a long time?

MAIN TAGS — Canon divergence, Exes to lovers, slowburn, angst with happy ending, suggestive-ish, oc insert, WHAT-IF, mention of character death (Emily Laughlin mention)

| [ The Following is a fanfiction that drifts away from the canon source material. If you aren't particularly interested in anything relating to Alisa Ortega, Nash Hawthorne, or anything about The Inheritance Games in general, this fic probably isn't for you. ] |

Never lose your heart to a Hawthorne. Something Alisa repeated to herself like a mantra over the course of several years, leading to the present day.

The way Hawthornes loved was all-consuming, all-encompassing. Destructive in ways it shouldn't be for both parties involved.

Alisa could remember a time when things were simpler. When she was a little girl spending her days in Hawthorne House while her father was at work, playing with Tobias Hawthorne’s four grandsons— his eldest, in particular.

But those days were long gone, Alisa had reminded herself, now seated with her head hung low, dressed in all black; Tobias Hawthorne — over-ambitious, machiavellian philanthropist that he was — had finally been put to rest at the age of 78.

For most of the ceremony, it was eerily quiet. And while Alisa thought herself as strong as steel, she couldn't shake the feeling of unease throughout her body at the deathly silence of the funeral— even if such silence was understandable.

She, her father, and the rest of what was left of Tobias Hawthorne's family sat during the ceremony of his funeral, where he'd be buried beside his late wife, Alice O’Day Hawthorne.

He was a complicated man, Alisa thought. Too many gears in his head… so many ideas. Perhaps too many.

“Alisa,” she'd heard her father call out to her, garnering her attention in record time. With their heads hung low, the father and daughter duo met each other's gazes.

Her father — Mr. Ortega, most people called him — was a lawyer, a man she admired a great deal to the point where she'd slaved away studying to join him at his law firm: McNamara, Ortega, and Jones.

The very law firm that paid for the funeral services of their main, and only client.

“Yes?” Alisa's voice was barely a whisper. Her eyes beckoned at her father, wondering what he had to say to her.

His gaze was paternal, fatherly in ways Alisa's seen through the majority of her childhood even when he was busy with work to properly care for her.

“Are you alright?” Her father asked gently, “I know that you must be thinking of the changes that'll be made. What'll become of the law firm, the Hawthorne family…”

Alisa exhaled, holding her father's gaze a moment longer with her hand over his. “I'm fine, Papa. I'm fine.”

But her father was right; She had been thinking of the changes to come of what she considered normal up until today. Of the law firm, of who would be inheriting the Hawthorne foundation, what'll become of the Hawthorne family now that their patriarch had now passed— and that wasn't even bringing the forty-six point two billion dollars of the old man’s net worth.

It wasn't as silent as it was at the start of the funeral. Alisa took a good look at her surroundings, at the people around her.

Her father's colleagues, McNamara and Jones respectively, did what most of everyone was doing: Keeping their heads low to pay their respects to the old man.

Skye Hawthorne was the only one making any actual sound, sobbing to an almost comically loud extent. No one tried to get her to quiet down, and no one did.

Zara Hawthorne-Calligaris and her husband, Constantine Calligaris, sat beside Skye. Where Skye was flowy fabrics and oversharing, Zara was pencil-skirts and pearls.

Zara’s expression was borderline unreadable, but even Alisa could notice the small glance the woman had stolen at John Oren, the old man's personal bodyguard and head of his security team.

The Hawthorne grandsons were… a different story.

They've known the old man the longest, Alisa’d pointed out the obvious in the confines of her mind.

Grayson had his elbows on his knees, his hands obscuring most of his face; Jameson had a small frown, looking up at the ceiling; Strangely, it was Xander that had the more unreadable expression of the three.

Three. Alisa frowned. Not four.

She turned to her father. “Papa.”

“May I be excused?”

“Hm?.. whatever for?” Asked her father, a slightly raised eyebrow creasing his features.

Alisa pursed her lips, squeezing her father's hand assuringly. “It'll only be for a moment.”

Once her father conceded, Alisa had politely excused herself from the solemnity of the funeral ceremony.

⊱───────────────⊰

Where is he? The purse of Alisa's lips tightened. There were four Hawthorne grandsons, and yet one of them had already decided upon himself to leave early.

It didn't take Alisa a long time to spot the beat-up motorcycle amongst the sea of cars parked near the property; and for a second, she remembered a small memory where she pestered its owner about getting it dismantled for parts.

It was no use, Alisa shook her head dismissively, making her way to the eldest Hawthorne grandson right as he mounted that piece of junk.

“Nash.”

Nash Hawthorne stole a glance at her and raised a brow. “Lee-Lee?”

“What’re you doin’?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I'm leavin’.”

“In the middle of the funeral? Right before the burial?” Alisa knew the rocky relationship between Nash and his grandfather, but even she was appalled by this behavior.

“‘Hate to break it to ya, Lee-Lee, but Skye's waterworks ain't exactly pleasant to listen to.” Nash remarked, switching off the engine of his motorcycle and sitting to the side to face Alisa directly.

“I don't think that's a good enough excuse to leave in the middle of your grandfather's funeral.”

Alisa crossed her arms. Nash looked at her with those piercing eyes, looking at her up and down.

Lifting a hand, Nash grazed Alisa's cheek ever so slightly, tucking her hair behind her ear. And Alisa wished it didn't have the kind of effect on her the way it did.

“You know exactly why I'm leavin’ early, Lee-Lee.”

Because of your grief, because of your family, because of the old man. Alisa paused, her body tensing up at her last thought.

Because of me.

When she said nothing, Nash hummed, adjusting the worn-out cowboy hat he wore like a crown on his head.

He turned on the engine, revving up his motorcycle— all the while he maintained eye contact with Alisa Ortega; A girl who, if circumstances were different, would've been his wife.

“You take care, Lee-Lee.”

And there he went, driving out of the property without so much as a second thought. Away from all things Hawthorne. Away from Alisa.

Alisa looked down at the ground with clenched fists, a tightness in her throat as she whispered that self-made mantra over and over again.

“Never lose your heart to a Hawthorne.”

TAGLIST

None so far . . .

[homerjacksons]

The great Jackmund feud of SO3E01-02 feat. Bennet Drake as confused mediator

[sincerelyyoursg]

actually the "pathological people pleaser" line is for girls who fall in love too easily. for girls who open their hearts to someone so early, for girls who never learn to not get attached so quickly.