#I feel. infinitely out of place. always. The depths of storms never last and they destroy what they touch

[blackvahana]

now hold on Asunder why did you reblog Apocrypha posts here

[oofthwoods]

CHAPTER ONE! ── ˙ ̟ bring home the glory !!

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 :: "what is a legacy? it's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. i wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me". | a victorious journey always begins with a death and an offer.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 :: funerals, grief and death. if you don't feel comfortable with these themes, go straight to the part after 2023. you won't lose much, i promise! the second part is somehow based on right hand man from hamilton, don't ask about it. this is pretty much a prologue number two tbh, but i still hope you enjoy it.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 :: 3.2k

⭠ previous masterlist next ‭→

2021

In the solemn setting of the cemetery, the sun hung in the sky, seemingly unaware of the grief below. Its golden rays contrasted sharply with the darkness consuming your soul, each beam of light piercing through the heavy clouds of sorrow. As tears streaked your face, the warmth of the sun felt out of place, a painful reminder of the world's indifference to your shattered heart.

Standing beside the graveside, you looked up to the sky, seeking solace in its vastness. But the heavens offered no comfort, no relief from the ache within. You wondered why the sky remained clear, why it didn't reflect the storm of emotions raging inside you. Its serene blue expanse seemed to mock your devastation, its unwavering indifference amplifying your pain.

Your mother and her siblings stood ahead, their shoulders bowed under the weight of grief, their sobs a haunting melody that echoed through the air. But you stood alone, isolated in your sorrow, drowning in memories that threatened to consume you whole.

Memories of your grandfather flooded your mind like a deluge, each one a bittersweet reminder of the love you had lost. His laughter, once a source of joy and comfort, now felt distant and painful, a cruel reminder of all that had been taken from you. His stories, his wisdom, his gentle touch — they all seemed like distant echoes of a life that was slipping further and further away with each passing moment.

You recalled his final moments, the frailty of his form, the sadness in his eyes as he whispered his last words to you. "Be proud of who you are," he had said, his voice barely a whisper, his breath brushing against your cheek. "And never forget where you come from. Your roots are your strength, my dear." His words had been a lifeline in the storm of your grief, a reminder of the legacy he had left behind, of the love that would endure long after he was gone.

As you stood beside his grave, the words offered little solace. They felt empty, a faint reminder of the warmth once found in his embrace. You longed to reach out to him, to feel the warmth of his touch one last time, to beg for just a moment more in his comforting presence. But he was gone, lost to you forever in a world that seemed infinitely colder and darker without him.

You closed your eyes, allowing the tears to fall freely as you whispered your silent goodbyes to him, each word a prayer for his eternal peace. But even as you spoke, you knew that no amount of tears could ever hope to fill the void he had left behind, that no words could ever hope to capture the depth of your loss.

As you stood there, lost in your grief, the soft sound of footsteps approached from behind. You turned to see your mother returning, her eyes red and swollen from tears, her expression etched with the same pain that weighed heavily on your own heart. For a moment, you simply stood there, sharing a silent understanding born from the depths of your shared sadness.

Without a word, she wrapped you in a gentle hug, her arms providing solace amidst the whirlwind of emotions swirling around you. "I'm not sure I can go on without him, Mom," you murmured, your voice barely audible as you buried your face against her shoulder.

Her embrace tightened, her fingers gently combing through your hair. "I feel the same way, sweetheart. But we have to find strength, for his sake," she whispered softly, her words tinged with a mixture of sadness and determination.

As you leaned into her embrace, the weight of your grief seemed to press down upon you, threatening to crush you beneath its relentless force. Your mother's presence briefly brought comfort, like a delicate lifeline amidst the stormy sea of emotions swirling inside you.

"I miss him so much already," you confessed with your voice trembling. "It feels like a part of me is missing, like I'll never be whole again."

Her arms tightened around you, a silent reassurance that you were not alone. "I know, my love. I do too," she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. "He was the heart of our family, the glue that held us together."

A bittersweet silence fell between you, punctuated only by the soft rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. Memories of your grandfather danced through your mind like flickering candle flames, casting shadows of laughter and love against the walls of your grief-stricken heart.

"Do you think he's watching over us?" you asked quietly, your voice barely a whisper in the stillness of the evening.

Her hand stilled against your hair. "I'd like to think so," she replied, her voice wavering with uncertainty. "I'd like to believe that he's found peace, that he's somewhere out there, looking down on us with love in his heart."

Tears welled in your eyes as you imagined him, a silent guardian in the heavens above, watching over you with a warmth that transcended the boundaries of life and death. "I hope he knows how much we love him," you whispered, your words a fervent prayer whispered into the vast expanse of the sky.

"I'm sure he does, my dear," she murmured, her voice soft with tenderness. "And I know that wherever he is, he'll always be with us, guiding us through the darkness, lighting our way with the love that he left behind."

As your mother's words gently washed over you, a sudden movement caught your eye. In the corner of your vision, a flash of royal blue fluttered amidst the solemn surroundings. You blinked, momentarily startled, before fixing your gaze on the delicate creature that alighted on a nearby branch.

A small gasp escaped your lips as you beheld the bird, its feathers shimmering like fragments of the sky woven into living form. With a heart full of wonder, you watched as it stretched its wings, basking in the fading light of the evening sun.

"We can leave now, if you're ready, sweetheart." her mother murmured, delicately turning her daughter's face to meet her own. 

As your mother looked into your eyes, you could see the sadness reflecting in them, speaking volumes on its own. Although she softly hinted that you could go if you wished, it was evident that she longed for some respite from the weight of your mutual grief. Beneath her calm demeanor, you sensed her vulnerability, a silent plea to escape the overpowering sorrow surrounding you both. With a simple nod, you silently agreed.

With a mix of sadness and resolve, you followed your mother's lead, letting her guide you away from the graveside and back into the world. While you walked together, a quick look back caught your attention, drawing your eyes to the scene you were departing. And there, on top of the gravestone, sat the blue bird, its colorful feathers standing out against the solemn surroundings.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still as you watched the bird, a silent sentinel overlooking the final resting place of your beloved grandfather. He seemed to look at you, and, if birds could smile, you would swear he did.

2023

You find yourself standing outside a closed door, your hand hesitantly reaching out to lightly tap against the wood. The muffled voices from within only add to your uncertainty, but the urgency of speaking with the team principal before the Abu Dhabi sprint pushes you to take action. Whatever discussion awaits behind that door must be significant enough to pull you away from your pre-race meeting with the mechanics.

In the stillness of the hallway, time seems to stretch endlessly as you wait for a response that never comes. With a mixture of nerves and anticipation coursing through your veins, you finally muster the courage to grasp the doorknob. Its cool metal provides a fleeting sense of reassurance as you turn it slowly, the hinges creaking softly in protest as the door swings open to reveal the dimly lit room beyond.

Inside, seated at a table, is Mr. Vowles, engrossed in conversation. Your presence at the threshold goes unnoticed for a moment until you gather your resolve and speak up, your voice barely above a whisper as you address him.

"Mr. Vowles, did you need to see me?" you venture, your words hanging in the air with a hint of uncertainty.

At the sound of your voice, James looks up, his expression softening into a welcoming smile.

"Williams, come in," he says, his warm tone instantly easing your nerves as he gestures for you to enter. "Have you met Sargeant?" he continues, motioning towards a figure standing nearby, their presence previously hidden in the shadows of the room.

As James mentions Logan, it's like a floodgate of memories bursting open, whisking you back to the time when you and Logan shared an unbreakable bond. You were inseparable, navigating the twists and turns of life at the academy with laughter, support, and a shared vision of the future.

But as the competition for a spot in Formula One heated up, your friendship began to strain. What started as friendly competition slowly morphed into something more complicated. The pressure mounted, and with it came a subtle shift in your relationship. Each race seemed to drive a wedge between you, rather than bringing you closer.

It was at the peak of your rivalry that things started to unravel. Every little disagreement or perceived slight seemed to fester, poisoning the once vibrant atmosphere between you. Despite your efforts to keep up appearances, there was an underlying tension that threatened to fracture your bond.

When Logan secured a seat at Williams while you remained in F2, a whirlwind of emotions swept over you. Of course, you were genuinely happy for him, but there was also a pang of envy and disappointment gnawing at your heart. It felt like a piece of your own dream slipping away, leaving you grappling with a sense of loss you couldn't quite shake.

And then, just when you thought things couldn't get any more complicated, James hinted at the possibility of you stepping into Logan's shoes. The idea of replacing your friend-turned-competitor added another layer of complexity to an already tangled web of emotions. It was a constant battle between your ambition and the fear of losing the one person who had been by your side through it all.

"Yes, sir," you respond, choosing a simple response. Logan's gaze meets yours, seeming to ignite with intensity. "We keep on meeting"

In a deliberate choice of silence, Logan sidestepped any engagement with you, his eyes fixed on the team leader instead. "As I was just saying," he began, his voice brimming with confidence, "I truly believe that with these adjustments, I can improve my control over the car."

James reciprocated Logan's smile, though his gaze hinted at a wandering mind. "Sargeant?" he interrupted, signaling a shift in focus to another pressing matter.

"Yes, sir?" Sergeant replied promptly, ready for further instructions.

"We'll talk about this later. Close the door on your way out," James commanded, his tone decisive, drawing their exchange to a close.

As Logan's footsteps faltered on his way out, a pang of unease settled in your chest. You couldn't shake the guilt that crept in, knowing your success might come at the cost of his dreams.

In the relentless world of Formula One, sentimentality was a luxury few could afford. You grappled with the harsh reality that success often meant sacrificing the dreams of others. It was a something you had grappled with since the beginning of your journey, one that forced you to confront the truth that in this fiercely competitive arena, there would always be someone waiting in the wings to take your place if you faltered.

As you redirected your focus towards James, the man who now held the reins of your family's team, you couldn't help but reflect on the rarity of such a moment. Conversations with him had been few and far between, a testament to the typical hierarchy within Formula One teams where direct interaction between a team leader and a junior driver, especially mere hours before a pivotal race, was uncommon.

“Have I done something wrong, sir?” You ventured, a tinge of uncertainty coloring your tone.

"Not at all, quite the opposite actually," James responded, rising from his seat and leaning casually against the table, his arms folded. "Your stats this season are impressive—seven wins, numerous podium finishes. You've got a bright future ahead of you. But here's the thing, every day I see offers come across my desk to buy out your contract, and frankly, I find it amusing."

"Uh, sorry, I'm not following," you admitted, furrowing your brow in confusion.

"Williams, why is it that no team seems to be able to snag you?" James clarified, a hint of curiosity lacing his words. "You're undeniably talented, but turning down offers from big names like Alpine and Alpha Tauri might not be the smartest move."

"To drive their tractor, or worse, become a reserve driver? I don't think so." you remarked with a disbelieving smirk.

"Think about it, a spot at Alpha Tauri could open doors at Red Bull down the line," James suggested, attempting to sway your perspective.

"Everyone knows they have their sights set on Daniel Ricciardo, or Liam Lawson at best" you countered, a note of frustration creeping into your voice. "I'm a bit lost here. Why are you laying all this out for me?" you questioned, a perplexed furrow creasing your brow. You knew full well the offers on the table and why you were declining them. James likely wasn't in the dark about your reasons either.

"I'm just being honest with you," He replied, his tone carrying a hint of earnestness. His hand reached up to rub his forehead, fingers tracing over the lines etched there as if seeking solace in the familiar. "We're on a tight budget," he explained, a touch of resignation in his voice. "We're short on engineers and mechanics compared to almost everyone else, except maybe Haas and Sauber. While we've made progress since last year, I can't promise our car will match up to the competition next season."

James lifted his gaze, fixing it upon you with a mixture of earnestness and concern. "I'm not one to squander talent. I know you've got your reasons for sticking with us, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have you on board. But I can't move forward without ensuring you understand exactly what you're signing up for."

"I'm just asking for a shot, James. Just one chance to prove that we've still got what it takes," you implored, your words tinged with determination. Images of past triumphs flickered through your mind, a reminder of the team's glory days.

With a weary smile, James let out a soft sigh. "Seems like sheer tenacity runs in the family, huh?"

"They used to say I took after my grandmother," you remarked casually, a wistful grin playing on your lips.

Turning to the desk, the man retrieved a piece of paper from a drawer, his movements deliberate and measured. "What are the odds?"

You knew precisely what he was referring to. "Iwasa's already out of the running. If I take the sprint, I'll have enough points to clinch the championship."

Extending the contract towards you, James presented it as if unveiling a glimpse of what lay ahead. "Win this championship, and the seat is yours."

The weight of his words hung heavy in the air, mingling with the anticipation that crackled between you. With the contract poised like a tantalizing promise, the room seemed to hold its breath.

You reached out tentatively, fingers hovering over the document that held the potential to shape your future. The paper felt crisp beneath your touch.

"I know it's a risk, trading one rookie for another" James conceded, his voice tinged with a hint of apprehension. "But I believe in you, and I need someone who believes in this team."

A surge of determination coursed through your veins, bolstered by James's unwavering faith. "I won't let you down," you vowed, your voice steady despite the flutter of nerves in her chest.

"TO TOP OFF AN INCREDIBLE SEASON, Y/N WILLIAMS WINS THE ABU DHABI SPRINT AND HAS ENOUGH POINTS TO CROWN HERSELF A CHAMPION." The narrator's voice reverberated through the sprawling circuit, amplifying the momentous declaration that crowned your achievement.

The roar of victory surged through the airwaves as your race engineer's voice erupted over the radio, a symphony of celebration. "You did it, Williams! Formula 2 champion, with one race to spare!"

Amidst the cacophony of cheers echoing from Rodin Carlin's garage, you felt a surge of adrenaline coursing through your veins, the weight of your accomplishment settling upon your shoulders like a mantle of triumph. Your mind raced with a whirlwind of emotions, a torrent of exclamations, gratitude, and tears that threatened to overwhelm your senses.

As you gradually eased the car to a decelerating pace, you couldn't help but feel the swell of pride and disbelief wash over you. With trembling hands, you lifted them skyward in a gesture of reverence, a silent tribute to the one who had inspired you journey.

"This one's for you, grandpa," you murmured, your voice a whisper against the backdrop of roaring engines and jubilant cheers. "I hope you're proud up there."

Amidst the jubilant chaos enveloping the pit lane, your thoughts swirled like a tempestuous storm, each emotion vying for dominance in the tumult of your mind. As you joined in the exultant cheers of your team, a sense of disbelief mingled with elation, the reality of your victory sinking in with each heartbeat.

In the midst of the celebration, you couldn't help but steal a moment to glance towards the podium, where your destiny awaited. The anticipation pulsed within you, a heady mixture of excitement and nervous energy propelling youforward.

As you ascended to the highest step, each stride felt like a triumph, a testament to the countless hours of dedication and sacrifice that have led you to this pinnacle moment. Your mind hummed with a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, a kaleidoscope of memories and aspirations swirling in the depths of your consciousness.

The thunderous roar of the crowd enveloped you like a tidal wave, the sound of applause echoing in your ears as you stand upon the podium, bathed in the radiant glow of the spotlight. Your chest swells with pride, your heart beating in time with the pulsating energy of the spectators.

Locking eyes with James amidst the sea of faces, you feel a surge of excitement washing over you. There's a silent understanding that passes between you, a shared recognition of the journey you will embark upon together. In that fleeting moment, as your gazes meet, you know with a certainty that transcends words— you'll be signing that contract.

With a triumphant smile, you raise the championship trophy high above your head, the weight of your accomplishment buoyed by the unwavering support of your team and your unyielding belief in yourself.

And in the middle of the bustling paddock, a blue bird chirped happily, swooping towards the girl as she lifted the trophy high. It appeared as though he'd be sticking around a while longer.

taglist (tell me if you want to be added or removed <3 | italic means i couldn't tag you) :: @formulanni @clownrrari @leilanixx @notyouraveragemochii @alliwantisadonut @oooom4rie @watermelon-sugars-things @glitterquadricorn @minkyungseokie @formulaal @itsjustkhaos @thebearchives @hiireadstuff @laura-naruto-fan1998 @cptg00s3 @welovediaaxx @eugene-emt-roe @cha-hot

[sylusjinwoon]

{ 03 }

- what falling in love with yuta feels like -

yuta okkotsu x reader

alternate title: a love letter to a quiet beauty

falling in love with yuta feels like having your first taste of cotton candy.

his laughter was as sweet as spun sugar, and his kisses were as addictive as melted cotton candy against your lips.

everything about yuta was soft- from his hair to his gentle true blue eyes that drew you in like a moth to a flame.

he was an infinite reservoir filled with kindness;

he was a man who wasn't afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, flashing his every emotion with his expressive eyes that you knew you could get lost in;

but most of all, he was the one you gave yourself whole-heartedly to.

falling in love with yuta feels like taking cover from the rain together.

the storm was lightly pounding against the windows of your shared apartment, splattering heavy droplets of rain as the dark clouds paints your room in grey hues.

despite the depressing weather, you couldn't bring yourself to feel the tiniest ounce of sadness. after all, today marked the first day your beloved had come home after such a long mission away from you.

you bask in the way his arms lightly encircle around your waist, feeling his soft and gentle breaths tickle at your skin as you slowly came closer to him.

with your face now pressed gently against the base of his throat, you allowed yourself the pleasure of kissing him. you relished in the warmth of him- knowing that you would never forget the scent of him for as long as you lived.

shutting your eyes, you breathe him in, whispering his name with a reverence you felt vibrating from the very depths of your soul. yuta evoked so many powerful emotions from you, so much so that you felt yourself sympathizing with rika orimoto and the all consuming love she had for yuta.

silently, you thank rika for protecting yuta with her strength even after her death and closed your eyes-

you already knew your dreams would be filled with yuta even before drifting off.

falling in love with yuta was like being forever protected by a loving shadow.

"yuu, i don't see why you want to go with me so badly. i'm just picking up some groceries to cook your favorite meal. it'll only take 30 minutes tops."

he pouts at you, arms coming around your form as he rests his head against your shoulder, "don't care. i wanna go with you anyways because i can't stand being away from you."

"what if i want to surprise you with dinner?" you ask him with a giggle, only to see him pout even more at you, "then i'll just close my eyes as you're buying the ingredients."

his cute answer makes you flick at his forehead. "you're such a dork."

"yeah, i'm your dork."

after bickering back and forth for the last 5 minutes, you finally cave in and let yuta accompany you. as you both stepped out of your shared apartment, yuta makes sure to lock the door before holding out his arm for you to take.

even when walking together, yuta made sure to always walk near the side of the road while you stayed closer to the sidewalk. it didn't matter the sheer amount of times yuta had done this before, the sentiment was enough to make your heart race as your eyes began to glimmer with unshed tears.

yuta notices your soft sob and looks down at you, panicking while placing both hands on your shoulder, "honey, are you okay?!"

instead of answering him, you plant both hands on his face, framing his handsome features before pressing your lips against his. you didn't care about the tears that ran down your face or the fact that yuta could taste the saltiness of them against your skin.

you were the one who pulled away first, leaving yuta in a dazed expression as he softly called out your name, "what was that for?"

you shake your head, choosing instead to wrap your arms around his back as you hugged him tightly, "i just love you so fucking much, you know?"

no words were needed to convey yuta's answer to your admission, for you felt it in the way he tightens his arms around you, never daring to let go.

falling in love with yuta was diving into a lifelong commitment, forging yet another unbreakable bond together.

after a particularly long night spent loving one another, with yuta bringing you nothing but the sweetest pleasure all throughout the night, you were exhausted and out of breath.

yet still, yuta remained hovering above you, eyes still dilated from the passion he spent loving on you. with a gentleness that you had never felt before, yuta picks up the back of your hand, placing butterfly kisses against your knuckles as he whispered your name over and over again like a mantra.

with a desperation felt clawing at you, you lift yourself up towards him, meeting his eager lips once more as you kissed him. you were quickly becoming addicted to him, needing more of his sweet taste as you prayed that your kiss would convey your undying devotion to him.

this time, yuta pulls away from the kiss first, making you whine at the sudden loss of him. "wait, there's something i need to give you."

using the bed sheets to cover his naked body, you watch with curiosity as he rummages through his nightstand, asking you to close your eyes for a moment.

you do as he says, shutting your eyes as you felt yuta slide something cool and heavy on your ring finger. "okay, y-you can open them."

he sounds nervous. you muse to yourself, yet follow his instructions all the same. only when you opened your eyes and look down to see a gorgeous ring with your favorite gemstone settled in the middle of it did you finally let out a gasp.

"i love you." yuta's voice was husky, interlocking your fingers together with his as you both looked down at the beautiful engagement ring he had given you. "i want you to be tied to me for the rest of my life, my greatest dream is for you to take me as your husband. so please, marry me. say yes and i promise i'll make you so fucking happy."

unable to answer him with words, you shake your head and fling yourself into his open arms, resuming your kiss with him as your tears returned, "of course you dork, i'll marry you."

you hear yuta let out a choked laugh before gently laying you back in bed, going back to kissing your hand as he uses his knee to pry your legs apart once more, "this calls for another round of 'celebration', right?"

feeling the heat pool against your cheeks, you simply respond by wrapping your legs around his waist, readying yourself for more of your fiancé's love.

all stories are written by rei; reposts, translations, and plagiarism are not allowed.

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

The Day the Ocean Erupted

Foul Legacy Childe x Reader Gender Neutral (no pronouns mentioned) Angst, Hurt/Comfort Warnings: Allusions to death, drowning, pain, storms, thunder, rain

~ * ~

You remember the day the ocean erupted.

You’d been in your office, at 2 PM exactly, pen in hand and ink spotting your fingers, the culprits a stack of papers in the upper corner. The sun had filtered through your window and casted shining streamers on your desk as you wrote, typical of Liyue’s golden summers. You tapped your pen against your chin- how to phrase this next sentence? Should you focus on one or two types of silk? You hummed contemplatively, then scribbled a few more words. Sturdiness- that was important to mention in a report, especially one about something elegant like silk. The room filled with a comforting silence as you wrote word after word on the paper in the delicate warmth of the sun.

The first drop came and went without attention. But it was soon followed by another. And another. And another, until the sky was shedding all its tears into the streets and ocean of the city. Your pen had fallen from your grasp with a resounding clatter as you stood to peer outside the window, your eyes narrowed. Rain? In Liyue? Now? It was ridiculous.

Then something burst out of the ocean and you fell backwards in shock, pushing yourself away from the window despite being on one of the upper levels of the harbor. You rushed downstairs and pushed your door open, catching glimpses of an enormous serpentine creature rising from the waters as people rushed up and down the streets in a panic. The rain poured down in buckets, drenching everything and everyone, and all around there’s a frenzy of screaming, shouting, yelling, the same phrase reworded a thousand times, The Fatui did this, it’s the Fatui’s fault, the Fatui are to blame, and you could only think of one thing- your associate, your acquaintance, your companion.

Your friend.

Childe. Where was he? Vanished to the Golden House, they told you, but not as Childe, as Tartaglia, the Harbinger. For business, he said.

But soon you were swept up with the waves of screaming, and the thought had been lost.

That was weeks ago, when the Traveler had harnessed the power of the Adepti and defeated the old god Osial, with a final blow from Lady Ningguang’s Jade Chamber to seal him in the sea. The entire nation held its breath as Fatui activity wavered, dropped, then fizzled out completely. Life returned to normal, the seasons rolling by like a sigh of relief as reassuring whispers spread the news that the Fatui were finally, finally stopping their irritating interferences with the harbor.

You finish your final words and set your pen down, a thoughtful frown prominent on your face. You’ve never really been affected by the Fatui. For the most part they simply existed, a rumored plague on the Liyue Qixing with their endless meddling, but to you they were simple guards standing near doors and on the docks. On occasion when you had to wait there you would make conversation, to which most of them would respond to either in earnest or slightly tense surprise. For all their supposed horrid tendencies and practices and nosiness, you had found that many of the Fatui were, quite simply, people; people from a different nation and far away from home. People who had their own interests and likes and dislikes. People who had their own reasons and dreams and realities.

People who had all vanished when the last ripple in the ocean had stilled. And among them, your friend Childe, the Eleventh Harbinger Tartaglia. He was the only Fatui you would really consider a friend, the others being mere acquaintances. He was always teasingly kind to you, offering to get you a meal or asking to spend some offtime together. You, ever-suspicious, had often refused, but he was persistent and determined to chip down your walls one by one. And when they shook and crumbled your friendship had blossomed, despite the odd melancholy in his eyes whenever he looked at you, a question you never knew the answers to.

All this he was. But he was gone now, you suppose, following the tall, elegant woman you had seen exiting the Northland Bank to the mysterious depths of Inazuma. He looked so exhausted, outwardly appearing as tired as you sometimes felt inside, and your brow pinches.

You sigh and set your pen to the side before rising from your chair, cursing yourself for contemplating old memories. You don’t expect Childe to return anytime soon, if ever, so perhaps some thoughts are best left packaged in their pretty boxes scattered around the attic of your mind. The door swings open as you slip on your coat- it’s chilly outside, and you walk to the teashop for a new blend and distraction from the conflicting turmoil in your head.

The rain begins just as you hurry back home, having forgotten your umbrella in a moment of carelessness. Liyue’s winters, while cold and biting, never froze the storms that encroached almost every other day, instead letting icy droplets of slush fall on people’s backs and clothes. The clouds shield the few stars in the sky from view, blocking out the moon and turning the raindrops an inky black. You shove your door open and immediately shut and lock it again with a sigh of relief, shaking out your clothes and rubbing your chilled hands together. Your breathing is the only sound in the house, and your bones soon settle with a deep chill as the pressing quiet seems more and more foreboding. You cock your head to the side and hear an ever-so-faint rustling sound, and you pick up your weapon before making your way down the hall.

When you reach the living room you blink in surprise. Unlike what you expected, nothing is broken, not a dish is out of place, no drawers are flung open and riffled through. Nothing is wrong, nothing is out of order, your limited vision tells you, but a cold breeze sends goosebumps down your arms and you make your way over to the ajar window, very nearly bumping into furniture several times. You fumble with the latch and pull the window shut, dragging the curtain closed as if to cover the rain with elegant patterns and cloth, and for a few moments, you listen to the steady pour outside as it creates a chiming melody on the roof and glass.

Something breathes next to you. You whirl away in shock, clutching your weapon tightly. Something is here with you, watching you across the room, observing your every move as you hurry to light a match for some semblance of sight, the lamps in your house completely useless right now. The match strikes and connects, a yellow flame bursting to life, flickering like a firefly. You hold it up and come face-to-face with a single eye. Enormous and pearly, it gleams softly in the darkness, although whether it is blue or purple you cannot say. Sharp, plated red armor surrounds it, mask-like and curling into twin horns. The creature’s skin is also armored and bony, shades of purple and black with occasional splashes of red or silver, covered by a pair of translucent, sparkling wings like the deepest sea. It towers over you, claws and teeth razor sharp even in the persisting gloom, and you gasp and stumble away in terror. The starry wings and deep, rich colors, and the feeling it emanates, of being crushed and drowned by shining waves…

An Abyssal creature, some sort of monstrous beast from the depths of your world. It must be.

You back away from it, your chest tight with fear and the thought of death, of dying at the hands of this monster, holding your weapon so tightly you fear it might crack in your grip.

You’ve never been a fighter, only practical enough to keep a weapon you could use nearby. Between you and the creature, the creature would win with a simple swipe of its claws, and you would bleed out on the floor until you didn’t exist anymore, just another body lost to the infinite ocean.

But there is no attack, no clashing, no burning, searing pain, only a soft, sad whimper. You open your eyes and see the creature reaching out to you, crawling across the floor like standing causes it agony, as it lets out a broken and desperate wail. You take a step back again, then a step forward, your fear seeping out of you. Holding the match higher, you lean forward and squint, dots of color bleeding into the environment.

Ginger. Wondrously fluffy ginger hair, although it's wet with rainwater, and a single streak of white like snow.

You know who, and you say who before you even think who, uttering out it’s, his, name in a hushed whisper.

Childe.

Your weapon forgotten, you stand shellshocked in a corner of the room, so still and frozen that Childe himself attempts to rise to his feet, only to fall back to the ground with a pained cry, a sound that snaps your thoughts like shattering ice as you rush to support him. He scratches his claws on the ground, hiccupping, sobbing, whining tearfully at a pain you can’t see. You place a hand on the side of his face and he leans into it, almost slumping to the ground as he brings his hand up to cover your own. He stares at you, pained and suffering, with the same melancholy as before, a melancholy you now understand means I cannot love you, even though I so wish to, it is forbidden by fate and stars, and your heart breaks. 

You pick up a distant rumble of thunder, and Childe yelps in fear, wrapping his claws around you and pressing his face into your side, trembling. Your fingers stroke through his hair, running down the sides of his face and horns, and his sobs die to labored breathing as exhaustion finally overtakes him and lets his body relax.

You remember the day the ocean poured down from the sky. It was now, in a dark room with a pinprick flame of light, holding the consequences of the Abyss.

[husbandohunter]

What they love about you (part 2)[Genshin Impact]

Synopsis: It was as if the universe had changed when they saw you.

Characters: Zhongli, Childe, Albedo, Kazuha. Part 1 here

Genre: fluff

"Poetry for my hopeless romantic heart 🥺 and Kazuha, he was the perfect candidate for this. I decided to put Zhongli first of course, he deserves it after saving my ass in Baal's fight."

=================================

Spirit flows through the Immovable rock (Zhongli)

Nations fall, truths be told, iron rusts and earth erode

Through six centuries these were stories he watched unfold.

He sees you and the archon knew that you shall too grow old

But despite it all, he loves you for your existence, as nothing can compare to your intransient soul.

The purpose of contracts were made to ensure there had been a fair trade between two parties. Like merchants striking business deals for a favourable outcome, like mother nature maintaing the balance between life and death, like how you and your beloved said your vows and whispered promises to one another as evening bids farewell by the warm welcome of the moon's gentle glow. Those days were the most treasured that you couldn't help remisicing them-- when Zhongli appeared in your life. Your mortal life. How time can fly so fast.

Perhaps this had been a common notion among human standards. That to be connected, both sides must share the same factors in order to proceed the contract. Clearly your placement proved to be mismatched. Unlike Zhongli there could be a day when your legs gave up and you can no longer walk. He will go on without you, continuing to drift in places where you cannot reach, where time was out of the question, further and further away until the mist begins to seize your field of vision and soon your eyes were too old to see.

The difference in age can truly make someone feel alone and Zhongli knew it well. Thus he smiled softly like he always does and held you close, speaking with so much kindness:

My dearest.

Your soul existed like an evergreen tree blooming through all four seasons, unwithered and everlasting, even against the cold storm of white. And it could be as soft as the sunbeam cascading through the mountain peaks while they dust the land with their ethereal hues and emitting the warmth that breaths absolute serenity. If artifacts were a piece of what someone left behind then maybe everything you made was considered an artifact-- a treasure. A piece of you in those handwritten letters, the beauty in your fingertips after knitting him a scarf which caused scars to mar them, and because of how heavy your spirit weighs through everything you did, it became evident that the one he had fallen for was not your skin nor your body but the person who resides in it.

And sometimes he wonders if he had met you once upon a dream. What else could explain the mysterious feeling that made you seem so familiar, even when he only saw you for the first time? Or perhaps you were an old friend from the long long past, someone he stargazed with upon the infinite mounds of grass and glaze lilies, someone whom he shared the taste of osmanthus wine, someone he came to cherished just like how he cherished his own nation. Regardless, whether you were that someone or not, he wouldn't hesitate to relive those times all over again.

If there was a day when the world around you decided to cave in, where time inevitably caught up and you succumbed to change, he would still be yours. After all, the immovable stone was meant to be the symbol of constancy. He already sworn to you that his devotion and affection will never waver, they were solely held towards your essence for you had touched him through the things he could not touch, and left a mark that would last longer than his ancient self can last. Zhongli may have lived through many lifetimes but meeting you was the beginning of everything. You were a mortal immortalized in the world his heart, etched so deep that it stirs him apart, there was no room for anyone else.

~xx~

Drowning in the ocean flames (Tartaglia)

There was a man who fell deeply in love with war

They raged inside of him like the spontaneous battlefields he came to adore.

Consumed by desire, pain became an addiciton

And he eventually surrenders to the heat of your passion.

While many fear death, Childe learned to dance with it.

He revels in the way his heart pounds endlessly, as if new life had been born from the inside and then bursted like thunder, sending trembling sensations through his veins, bringing him to the peak of euphoria. The feeling was a drug in which Childe hesitates no more when he confronts it, rather he deliberately seeks it. He seeks thrill in the most dangerous situations since they were the moments that made him feel so alive.

Henceforth the Harbinger sought you out. He inches closer and ever so close, those deep cerulean eyes trapped in your hypnotizing ones. Childe loves how you look at him like you were about to devour him, consume him as the flames in hell would, perhaps destroy him completely to the point there was no turning back and yet...he would not mind.

Childe had been so drawn to you like a moth to a light. No. Rather, Adam and the devil, tempting him to sin because the things he would do for you were undeniably impetuous. It was too late. It was too late when you told him you wanted to stay. Too late when you pulled him down, with arms around his neck, stealing away his breath in one swift manner as well as a kiss. Curse you for having so much power over him, from then and there he was no longer the mighty harbinger everyone knew but a man foolish in love. Take him higher. Higher. Take him far. To say you were alluring would be an understatement. The scent of you brings all his senses to disarray and the taste of you-- by the archons-- had never made him feel so starved. All he thought of was mindlessly running his hands over your small back, reveling in the shape of you, exploring every inch and curve in attempt to make you completely his.

This was the reason why he grew accustomed to dancing with death. Because it was you. You were going to be the cause of his downfall and you were the cause of this insanity. Even though you constantly reminded him how risky the situation was due to being a wanted criminal in his homeland's eyes, Childe pays no mind. Didn't he already tell you to trust him? Anyone who threatens you would be an enemy of his, much to their misfortune. Whether it'd be conquering the world and laying it beneath your feet or walking through the depths of the abyss all over again, he'll make sure to have it all and no one can say otherwise.

~xx~

Shelter (Albedo)

Your warmth was his hearth

Like stars falling onto the earth

Gracing the plains in an empereal bliss

As they trembled under the touch of heaven's kiss

Closing his eyes, you are the first person he sees.

The sound of snow chasing the wind fills the silent night once again while it's whispered blows continued to echo just by the cave's entrance. Albedo had planned to take you back to Monstadt that day but Dragonspine was not the place to be merciful with the weather. No one else except the two of you occupied the abandoned space and a singular camp fire to serve as a source of warmth. You place your hand on your lover's forehead, brushing away his ash coloured strands while he seeps into slumber. Albedo sighs contentedly. Despite the world being engulfed in sheer cold, here he felt safe and sound.

Before meeting you Albedo never really had that. People regularly held him on a high regard and had a hard time matching his pace. He was a born genius to the point that he practically stood out like a swan out of the ducklings' crowd as they admired his brilliance. Truly Albedo was a perfect human being. But when turns around to see the rest he noticed how distant everything seemed. He was so focused on his pursuit towards the universal truth that he hadn't given the time to consider; where is he going with this? And what for? Everyone else looked so happy living in their mundane routines and Albedo soon grew curious about such thoughts. Out of all the places in Monstadt, exactly where does he belong?

Opening his eyes, you are the first person he looks for.

"Welcome home, Albedo!"

The answer was obvious. Home was the sound of his name on your lips. When you were side by side with him while he sketched the landscape from the far distance. In places where the lights were on as he entered the room, knowing you were inside. This feeling couldn't be describe with just a word. Home was not a nation nor was it a destination. Home was in your touch where he felt the most protected.

I'm home.

A sky filled with stars and he only saw one; his Starlight. Your warmth held the emotion similar to the kind where there had only been one cande lit amidst an infinite stretch of darkness. But it also brought the joy of flowers blossoming into the vivid future of new spring. There was no place he'd rather be than the shelter of your arms because with you, Albedo believed he truly found where he belonged.

~xx~

Pirr against the Scarlet Leaves (Kazuha)

Silencing the world

My heart begins to find peace

Soothed by your presence

- For my beloved, (Y/n)

I remember how the first petal of spring drifted by as it had flown into the crossroads of our path. Subconciously my entire being began to still. This particular flower... it must have come far and wide for the wind to carry such a pleasant scent. Although I had intended to continue my venture onwards but the air ceased to sound and I knew that this way was true. And so nature beckons me to the shore where the waves lulled back and forth under the moonlight's entrance, only then I began to sharpen my vision to see what was before me. You stood there on a rock with your face looking into the sparkling sky, singing a tune that drew me near. Just the mere sight was enough to stir my heart alone.

My beloved, do you know why I named this poem 'Pirr against the Scarlet Leaves?'

Watching you was like witnessing the ephmereal birth of a flower sprouting amongst the slums of an abandoned nation. A fleeting miracle where snow falls from the summer sky. I am compelled to capture these feelings in this poem yet there are moments where my thoughts scatter as if the autumn wind had whisked them away and out of my grasp until a singular leaf is only what was left. Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary for me to keep a notebook of ways I can describe your presence, instead a few simple sentences would suffice. Nevertheless, I only wish to express my feelings for you.

When you're with me it seems I have nothing to think about. The aura around you can silence the world alone, speaking louder than thunder cries, weighing heavily to those around you in ways it would feel empty if you're not here. Yet I could breath as if alleviated from the burdens of my past. This had me realize that this must have been the will of the wind. You were the greatest gift to have ever bestowed upon me and I confess, sometimes my chest aches because of how much I cherish you, it pierces me like a sharp blade but even if my heart bleeds it will continue to bleed only for your sake.

So wherever you are, wherever you may be, I can feel you in the breeze. Return soon my beloved, I'll be here, waiting.

[taentedmess]

sleepless nights

summary: a year is a long time, isn’t it? you’ve spent yours stuck in an eternal, monochrome winter. a surprise encounter derails all of your plans: feelings fade… or do they, really?

pairing: taehyung x reader

word count: 5.4k

warnings: swearing, terrible terrible angst (im sorry!), heartbreak, implied smut, angsty flashbacks :(

a/n: hi everyone! this is my very first fic on tumblr and i really hope you enjoy! please listen to spring day and scenery to really get into the feels - i hope you lose yourself in this little slice of a seoul winter :’) also i do have a storyline planned if you enjoy this little piece and could potentially even make this a series aah! please leave comments and constructive criticism - i’d love to grow as a writer! (@chateautae i finally did it!!!!!!)

[    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙      ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

09:17am, december 17, 2020

It’s been a year since you last saw him. A year of emptiness, hollowness, blankness. A year since you turned your back, leaving without a goodbye. It’s been a year since you’ve walked out his front door, the same one that you’d find yourself visiting and revisiting when you knew he wasn’t home.

It’s been a year since you last felt some semblance of happiness, a year since you’ve let out a genuine laugh, smiled from cheek-to-cheek. It’s been a year devoid of warmth: you shivered under the embrace of the summer sun, no longer noticed the blooming flowers that you had once loved so much. The world lost all its color. Fading into a bleak grayscale so far away, unreachable. No longer did you walk with a spring in your step, no longer did your eyes glimmer with galaxies that you’d once built with him. You were empty, a ship lost in the depths of the dark oceans. Floating, barely surviving, with no set destination. All you saw were never-ending, infinite oceans in all directions. No escape, no lighthouse. Just you. Alone. Pointless.

Your heart aches for him, the echo of a honeyed baritone, the ghost of his warm, muscular arms wrapped around your shoulders.

It’s for the best, you had thought. It’s for the best.

You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the thoughts out of your mind. There was too much, too many feelings, pent-up emotions. You weren’t a woman of emotions, never were, swore to never be, until you had met him. And he had changed everything.

Stop. This is getting ridiculous.

You needed to get on with your life, you think. There are too many things to think about, so many better thoughts requiring your attention. What were you doing, wasting your energy on him? It was time, you had decided, to end things once and for all.

The ticket machine snaps you out of your reverie, demanding it get paid. How much did the trip cost? You’ve forced yourself to forget, holed up all the memories too far into the shadows of your mind in your sheer desperation to evade the pain. You slot in a W10,000 bill, way too much, but better than having to remember. The machine happily eats up the cash, returning your card and sending you on your way.

You navigate the platforms, seeing the brightly-lit signs: Incheon line, Suin line, Bundang line. Then you see it, Platform 6, Gyeongwon line. South-bound to Soyosan, stopping at Iryeong. Your heart thumps, stomach twists, and you feel like throwing up. How many times had you once ascended these very steps with him, hand-in-hand, smiling to one another? How many times had you raced up these stairs, trying to get to the platform first? It’s too much, and you want to run. Run away from this place, from the thoughts and feelings.

No. You need this.

The winter air roughly brushes against your cheeks, hurrying you along.

What are you so afraid of?

Everything, you think. Everything. You’ve bound your heart in chains and locks, plastered it with thousands of bandages, one on top of the other. You’ve holed it away, willed it out of existence. You’re afraid of the memories, the emotions. You’re afraid of yourself.

Go. Just go. Get it over with.

You force your feet to move, one after another. You don’t think, you just move. Move onto the platform, move onto the train. You don’t realize that you’ve boarded the machine until you hear an all-too-familiar voice on the loudspeaker.

“This is the Special Rapid Train, on the Gyeongwon line, headed for Sosoyan. We will be stopping at Seokgye, Wolgye, Dobong and Iryeong. Please stay clear of the sliding doors!”

You vaguely see the blinking of lights and hear the shutting of the doors. The train picks up speed, clicking against the railroads. You are blank, a passenger on an endless journey. You sway when the train sways, stop when it stops. You don’t know how many stops have passed, having lost yourself in the familiar nothingness that had hollowed you out for the past year, until the speakers announce something about the next station being Dobong. You’re near, you realize. Too near.

Too soon does the train halt, birthing out and collecting new passengers as seats empty and taken once more in a matter of seconds. You watch this interchange with a bitter smile: how quickly he must have replaced you after you’d left, how he must’ve taken in another in your place.

Stop it.

Too engrossed in your thoughts, you don’t notice the closing of the doors and the blinking of the lights until you hear the loud system once more as the train starts to accelerate.

“Iryeong, Iryeong. Our next stop is Iryeong, please get off on the right side of the train.”

You are left suddenly hyper aware of your surroundings, watching as snow paints the ground white. The houses blur into trees and back into villages as you stare out the window, and you start to remember. You remember your hands intertwined, dancing in the snow, the click of a camera as the melodies of your laughs twirling in the air. You remember the snugness of his embrace, his earthy cologne, his smile, his lips pressed against yours…

Stop.

You tear your gaze away from the glass, staring down at your gloved hands fiddling in your lap. It’s been a year. It’s laughable how much and how little has changed. You’re different, yes, but yet so painfully similar to the girl who ran away. It’s funny how much of a difference, or lack thereof, a year can make, you think. It’s certainly been hard on you, and you find yourself wondering about him, about how maybe the year has changed him, how he’s doing, if he’s eating well, if…

Stop.

You’re hopeless, aren’t you?

You sigh and shut your eyes. You’re going crazy. Or maybe you’ve always been crazy. Your thoughts are feverish, a maelstrom in your mind. Involuntarily, you notice your feet rapidly tapping the metal bar to your side, vibrating against the pole. You feel the ghost of a touch on your thigh, hear the empty shell of his words, breathe, Y/N, breathe. What’s got you all worked up? And for a moment, just a moment, you feel his presence to your side, capture the warmth radiating off of his figure, and smile. Because it’s all okay when he’s here.

But he’s not.

You decide to focus on the sound of the railroads, staring down at the speckled floor of the train as the carriage undulates gently, side to side. You ride along, the train’s movements easing your own and you begin to lose yourself once again in the clacks of the rails, mind going blank, until you start to notice the slowing of the sounds. The train’s dance comes to a slow, inviting people to start getting up and shuffle towards the doors. Your heart sinks to your stomach. Not yet, not yet. It can’t be. It’s too soon.

The loudspeaker crackles to life, confirming your worst fears. “Arriving at Iryeong, please stay clear of the doors and exit on the right side of the train.”

Your legs move on their own accord, pulling you to a standing position as you grip the metal post with your life. The train continues to slow, eventually, painstakingly coming to a halt. You wish it never will, that it will continue on with its journey ahead. But it’s too late. The doors slide open, the sounds of the outside world whistle for you, calling you, urging you out of the comfort of the train. You don’t dare move, standing still as passengers trickle out, as the flashing lights start to appear, as the minute at the station starts to come to an end. The doors are closing in five. Four.

You twitch.

Three. Two.

“Wait!”

You rush out the doors, barely escaping the iron clasp of the metals that would’ve devoured you had you been a second too late. Behind you, the steel hisses as the vehicle exits the station, leaving you alone. So utterly alone.

You’re blessed with a moment of solitude, feeling nothing but the cold air chilling your face, until you realize where you are and why you’re here.

The bliss of being alone rapidly evaporates, and you’re hit with a speeding truck. The memories flood in; you’re winded, gasping for breath as you’re stormed with images, short clips of him, you, the pair of you. His smile, his laugh, his cheeks, eyes, nose. His breath tickling yours before he leans in for a kiss, his gentle, large hands cupping your face as you close your eyes…

Stop. Get a fucking grip, will you?

You force the color out of your mind as you make your way around the platform, empty now that everyone has gone. Your eyes graze against the pathetic, run-down station: the signs are only partially lit, the electricity having worn out. Your fingers run against the peeling, dirtied paint of the walls, dust bunnies catching onto your gloves. You scoff. This is pathetic. The floor is littered with plastics and old soda bottles, as if nobody’s been here to clean in too long. Graffiti smiles sadly back at you as you scan the fading walls, losing their life by the second. The bricks have faded into a musty brown, drab and uninteresting. Everything is so run down, so tired. You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you make your way to the minimart to your right, wanting a beverage to help warm your insides up.

The doors slide open with a gentle clink, altering the store of your presence. The cashier at the counter looks up at you through half-lidded eyes, barely acknowledging you, before returning to the drama playing on his cracked phone. The shelves are well-stocked, however, in stark contrast to the beaten-down appearance of this whole ordeal. You glide along the aisles, and everything is the same. Your favorite tea is still on the same shelf as it was all those months ago, his favorite gimbap in the bottom left corner of the chiller. Beef and sesame, he’d get, while you’d get a tuna for yourself, clinking your drinks and hearing the hiss of his cola opening, laughing as you made a mess of yourselves, two young fools madly in love. You’d talk, drink, eat for hours, whispering, dreaming and wishing, wondering what was going to come in the future, what you’d name your first puppy, whether you wanted a girl or a boy for your first child. Never would you have ever imagined that it would all end this way.

Stop it.

You grab your bottle of tea violently, almost knocking it over in your hurry to leave. You could no longer stay, not here, suffocating in your memories of him. You erased the gimbap out of your vision, ignoring it as you made your way to the counter, paying for your drink as the half-hearted employee handed you with your change. You mutter a thank you, unsure if he had even heard, and mindlessly make your way out of the store, too focused on keeping someone out of your head. You nearly bang into the glass doors in your haste, looking down and walking as fast as you can. Until your heart stops, that is.

You don’t dare look up, not now. The whole world slows to a stand-still, your gaze sharpening on nothing. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, your lungs stop working. Electricity charges through the air and you’re left reeling, not knowing what to do.

Slowly, painfully, your neck raises, muscles straining with all their might. You already know what you’re going to see, who you’re going to see, but the sight of him still shocks you all the same. You nearly spill your drink all over yourself when you finally look up, and your brain goes into overdrive. You’re sure that your mouth is hanging open, jaw slack, but you can’t do anything about it. Your knees buckle, you can’t breathe, suffocating, wanting the ground to swallow you up at this very moment. You want to fall, tumble into an eternal tunnel. You are dizzy, light-headed, going crazy, you swear. You’re going crazy, aren’t you? This can’t be real, can it?

You can’t believe it. You’re drowning, drowning in those chocolate eyes, sinking into his pupils, losing yourself in his gorgeous features. You drink him all in, his own face mirroring yours, in no doubt absolute shock or maybe even despair, his deadly stare making your breath hitch as it once did so long ago. He’d never lost his power over you, after all. The world is suspended around you, all operations ceased as you both continue to stare into each other’s eyes, the tension so palpable that it threatens to devour you whole. Your larynx seems to be glued shut, your tongue a stone in your mouth. There are no words, no way to express this feeling that washes over you upon seeing him again.

“Y/N…”

His voice. Your ears ring with his deep baritone, honey to your ears. You can’t help it: you quite literally swoon, despite the circumstances. His voice: it ignites a fire within you, warm tendrils of heat rising up from your stomach. Vibrations send throughout your core, making you lightheaded and sure that you’re about to fall. You remember his timber next to you in the dead of light, comforting you, whispering sweet nothings into your ear, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, you’re here with me.

You hug your arms around yourself, trying to keep it all in, retain the strange feeling that was now foreign to you after months of cold. It’s been too long, after all - you’ve gone too long deprived of this humanness, comfort that radiated off of him.

Things are different now, Y/N.

Yes, they are. Your mind goes berserk once more, considering all of the scenarios. Why is he here? He probably just needs to go to the minimart - no, why would he come all this way, he lives pretty far as well, or maybe he’s waiting on a friend, no, maybe he’s brought a new girlfriend, maybe she’s with him right now waiting to jump out of the shadows. Maybe they’re both exchanging looks right now when I’m not looking, laughing, taunting me, this girl from the past who doesn’t deserve to be here, maybe they all think I’m a joke now, what am I doing, why, why, why?

You’re so lost in your thoughts that when Taehyung addresses you once more, you’re violently jolted out of your mind and nearly fall backwards, body forgetting everything but the sound of his voice.

“Y/N…” he says again, forcing you to look up at him. Your name splinters through the air from his lips, cutting through the frost and straight into your chest; you notice now that his voice seems tired, that he seems tired.

You finally regain some semblance of control over your frozen tongue, lips moving in an attempt to emit a sound, any sound. Your lips wrap around the sole syllable that comes to you like muscle memory, the only one that you manage to choke out.

“T-Tae…”

Your voice cracks, unable to continue. The prolonged eye-contact has got you weak, his pupils boring into your soul. You look into his eyes, reciprocating, and you notice that maybe they’ve lost their golden sheen, that they no longer twinkle with constellations of stars. And it’s then that you realize: maybe the year has taken a toll on him too.

Look at what you’ve done to him.

“T-Tae, I, I, I…” you sputter out, guilt flooding your system like a drug. There was nothing you could say, nothing you could tell him to cheat yourself out of the situation or paint yourself in a better light like you’re so used to doing. You’re not used to feeling this powerless, this weak. Taehyung was the only one who saw through the facade, the only one who allowed you to feel vulnerable. You couldn’t lie to him, you knew you couldn’t; there was no wheedling, no bullshitting, no lying yourself out of any sticky situation, which had caused you this whole trouble in the first place. You ran because you were too much of a coward to talk to him, to confide in him. And look where that’s gotten you.

“Why are you here?” he asks, burying his head in his hands. “Y/N, why are you here?”

Why am I here? You don’t really know as well, there’s nothing that you can say to him. Why am I here? To get over him? How are you even going to tell him? He has to think that you’re over him, that it’s done. Stop torturing yourself, and stop dragging him through this mess of your life. Tell him that it’s done.

“I… I came because…”

Y/N, say something?

“I came because I… I was looking for you.”

What the fuck?

His head snaps up, his piercing stare catching your gaze once again. “You were looking for me?”

You feel your heart stop.

“Umm… well, I mean, no, but, no, well actually if I think about it now, yeah, yeah I was looking for you,” you stammer, unable to produce a single cohesive line of thought. “I was looking for you because I wanted to tell you that it’s over.”

Your own words are like a dagger twisting into your own heart and vaguely hear a choked sound breaking the awful, awful silence. Until you realize that it’s come from your own mouth, a sob that you hadn’t even realized that you were holding in.

A moment of charged silence goes by, yet louder than any noise that either of you could’ve let out. Never in your life has silence felt so utterly deafening, and you wish to cover your ears and scream it all out.

“You’re telling me this now?” Taehyung manages, features distorted in pain. “You’re telling me this now, a whole fucking year after you walk out the door without a single word to me?”

You look down at the ground, hating, blaming your traitorous mouth for saying something that you hadn’t fully thought through.

No, Y/N. You have to stop bringing everyone down.

You’ve lost all rational thought when you say, “yes, Taehyung. Yes. I had nothing to say to you then and nothing to say to you now. It’s done and it’s over.”

You couldn’t even say sorry?

The frosty wind brushes over the pair of you, causing you to shiver in your boots. You want nothing more than to curl up into a ball and disappear, pretend that this never happened, that this was all a bad dream.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a security guard watching the whole exchanged with piqued interest. It’s none of your fucking business, you want to scream. It’s none of your fucking business. And yet you’re so humiliated, embarrassed at this whole mess that you’ve made of not only yourself but the situation in its entirety that you cannot muster up any words to merely defend yourself. You want to cry, sob, yell, scream.

“Fine, Y/N, it’s okay. You know what? It’s okay, you don’t owe me an explanation, you don’t owe me anything, not an apology, not a reason, not your love. It’s okay. It’s fine. Maybe you never loved me, saw me in the same way. Maybe I just assumed, maybe it was wrong of me to assume. Maybe I was too optimistic, too in love with you that I had forced myself to believe the story that I had made up in my head, that you were in love with me too. Maybe I had wanted it, wanted you so bad that I had made myself believe it. Made myself believe that you were in love with me.”

Your heart instinctually reaches out to him, drumming feverishly against your fragile ribcage. No, you want to scream. No, Taehyung, you couldn’t be more fucking wrong. He doesn’t know the way your heart beats for him in the dead of night, how the mere thought of him sends shivers down your spine, how every cell in your body, every thread of your being aches, yearns for his presence with every hour, every minute, every second.

You feel your heart breaking, splintering into thousands, millions of tiny little fragments raining down like shards of glass. It hurts, it hurts like hell.

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t force yourself into anything. There’s no need to anymore. There’s no more need to lie, no more need to pretend that you’re happy.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

It’s not the truth, you want to cry. It’s not. It’s the farthest from it. But you return his look, tight-lipped. You nod, despite the swell of emotions that are threatening to cut you in half at this very moment.

“You’re welcome.”

He reciprocates your nod and slowly, painfully, tears his eyes from yours. He stands up, gingerly, as if hesitating, and you want to tell him to stop, to sit back down, that you’re lying to him, that you want him, that you want him more than anything in this world. But you don’t, and he continues onto his feet, sparing you one last gaze.

“At least I get to say goodbye,” he says, wistfully. “At least I now have the chance to say goodbye.”

You’re sure that tears are streaming down your face at this point, little trails of ice making their way down your blushed cheeks. Your lips are tight, and you cannot, for the life of you, return his look.

Before you can fully comprehend what’s happening, you know he’s here, the familiar hold of his arms, your face finding itself nestled on the same spot on his chest, right above his heart. You feel it beat, gently, slowly, under your ear, a comforting rhythm that you’ve too often fallen asleep to, whispered to. Your arms instinctually wrap around his waist, and his head settles on the crook of your neck, the curve of his nose gently kissing your delicate skin. His warmth radiates from under his coat, and you soak it all in, collecting as much as you can. You are two puzzle pieces, a perfect fit, and you will this moment into eternity, searing it into your memory, wishing for the world to stop, stop right now and leave you in this moment forever. You’ve been lost, wandering, and have finally come home.  

But forever doesn’t exist.

You’re struck with a blast of cold at his loss, feeling horribly empty. He steps away from you, and you’re almost certain that you see moisture in his eyes, tears threatening to break free. Every fiber of your being yearns for him, you want to reach out to him, extend the hug, shower him in kisses, make up and forget that this all even happened, but you’re too prideful. You can’t let yourself do this.

“Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for everything.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

                                            [    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

11:42am, March 12 2021

[taehyung]

I miss you.

I miss you as the seasons come and go, I miss you as I watch the world going to shit, losing all hope. I miss you when the wind blows, taking me along like a pointless man, destined for nowhere. I’ll miss you eternally; I’ll miss you when all the ice melts into the ocean, I’ll miss you when everything’s finally disappeared and there’s utter nothing left for me.

I miss you in the brightest mornings and the darkest nights, when the sun comes out to play and the rain starts pelting down like there’s no tomorrow. I’ll miss you in the loneliest winters and the blooming springs.

Everything reminds me of you. I am stuck in this eternal frost without you here; your loss has trapped me into this winter forever. I am slowly losing feel of my limbs as they succumb to the cold around me - everything has frozen into place, trapping me into the confines of this perpetual season. The world is closing in, I have nowhere to go, nothing to do. No longer do I have you to lead me out of this snow, no longer do I have you to hold my hand and bring me warmth through it all.

Why did you have to go?

Baby, did you know how much pain I’d be in when you’d left? Did you know how much it would hurt, how you’ve trapped me into this never-ending arctic, leaving me behind to freeze?

Did you know when you chose to go?

You’ve left me in ruins, my love. I can’t continue without you. I’m struggling to breathe, suffocating, as the world collapses inwards, threatening to bury me alive. I wait for you everyday, through all of the grief, the pain. I still wait for the day that you come back, that I get to see your face again.

Or maybe I’m a dumbass. I don’t know. Have you changed? Or is it I who has? Or perhaps, us both? I’m still a lovesick fool for you, Y/N, that I can tell you for sure. I can’t stop thinking of you, as the days pass, sun and moon taking their turns in the sky. I’m left, suffering in this darkness, bleakness without you here. I wonder if you’ll still be there at the end, when all ceases to exist. I wonder if I’ll see you again; how much more do I have to wait? How many more sleepless nights will have to pass before I can lay my eyes upon you again? How many days, months, years do I have to hold back before I get to feel you, touch you, kiss you, one more time?

Or maybe I’m being optimistic. You know what, Y/N, I’ll never see you again, maybe you’re better off without me. Maybe it’s all for the best, maybe it’s time for me to move on, maybe it’s time for you to move on. Maybe it really was not meant to be, maybe you really weren’t the one for me.

Then why can’t I get you out of my head?

Y/N, I wish I could just forget you. I wish you never existed, I wish I had never gotten to know you. Then it would be so much easier for me. I wish that you had ignored me, that you had turned me down when you had the chance. It would’ve been the most pain that I’d feel at the time, but believe me, it’s nothing compared to this.

Now I can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard I try. You’re there, you’re there when I lie down and close my eyes for the night, you’re there at work, hiding behind my papers and my laptop, waiting to take me out to lunch. You’re everywhere, baby, you’re in the car, riding shotgun and racing to connect to Bluetooth first, singing at the top of your lungs as we speed down the highway like the reckless teenagers that we were. I see you, hair tangled by the wind, belting out your favorite lyrics out of the roof of my convertible. And I remember thinking, for the hundredth time that night, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. Damnit, Y/N, you’re standing by the mirror every morning when I get ready for my meetings, dainty fingers straightening my tie and planting a kiss on my lips. You got this, lover boy.

You’re there, and then you’re not. You flicker between reality and imagination, I cannot discern whether I’m living in a fever dream or simply hallucinating. You’re slipping through my hands like grains of sand: I’m losing more of you by the second, can’t seem to hold on to you. You’re disappearing, getting further and further away as all I can do is watch helplessly as you fall through my fingers.

Where are you now, Y/N?

I worry about you, I worry whether you’ve eaten well, whether you’ve slept well, whether you’ve had a good day at the office. Have you seen your parents lately? Have you had some time to yourself over the past days, have you overworked yourself as you often tend to do? Are you taking care of yourself?

Is it selfish of me to be wishing for you, thinking of you after all this time? Tell me, Y/N, is it wrong of me to be wanting you despite it having been over for so long now? You’ve probably moved on by now, considering how long it’s already been. Maybe you’ve met someone new, maybe you’re in love with someone else, maybe I’ve already been replaced with another man in your life.

Maybe I treated you wrong, maybe you didn’t feel like I loved you enough, maybe I didn’t make you feel special enough. I wish, Y/N, I wish that I could turn back time for you, I wish I could go back and be better for you, that I could fix all of the mistakes that I’ve made, wipe all of the tears that you might’ve cried for me, swallow up all of the pain that must’ve been plaguing you, to suck up the hurt that you were feeling back then. I wish you could give me all of the pain, I wish that I could’ve carried it all for you, shielded you from it all like how I should’ve done.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

You’ve met someone else by now, you’re laughing, smiling, whispering with another, kissing someone else’s lips, in love with your new man. And I’m still here, trying to get over you like the pathetic loser that I am. There are so many regrets, so many things that I wish that I could still tell you, so many errors, mistakes that I made. It’s all my fault. I want nothing more than to be able to get on my knees in front of you and apologize for everything. There are so many more words, so many moments that I want nothing more than to be spending with you.

I’m still in love with you.

I think I always will be, Y/N. I know it’s selfish of me. I really can’t help it. I’m sorry.

You came into my life like a whirlwind, taking all of me along for the ride. And now that you’re gone, I don’t know what to do with myself no longer. I’ve been swept away with you and my fate will forever be left in your hands. There’s nothing left for me here, not in my work nor art. All that’s left is you. You are the only thing keeping me going now - I live another day, endure another night hoping for you, waiting for the day that I will finally see you again. I open my eyes for you in the mornings, in hopes of laying them upon your figure once more.

Maybe it’ll all be for nothing, I know. Maybe I’ll never see you again. But there’s nothing left for me, remember? I’m willing to take my chance. For when I finally do see you once more, it will all be worth it.

I miss you, Y/N. I miss you so fucking much. My heart beats for you, my lungs breathe for you. My every cell in my entire being aches so desperately for you, for you and you only. And so I’ll wait for you. I promise. I’ll be here for you, waiting for the day that I get to catch a glimpse of you, to be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, for when you need even the littlest, tiniest thing. I’m ready to give you the world, baby. I’m ready to right all my wrongs, to treat you like the fucking queen that you are. I’m going to treat you the way that you deserve.

When that time comes, my heart will be happy. When the time comes that I see you again, that I hear your voice again, your laugh again, it’ll be okay. All this pain will fade away to nothing. Don’t worry about me, darling, I’ll always be here, waiting. Waiting for you, until the end.

I promise.

                                                   ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙

an: i hope you liked it!!!! <3 please please please leave feedback my loves!

[sereineityy]

how many more sleepless nights?

genre: nonidol!au, ANGST, slight fluff

summary: a year is a long time, isn’t it? you’ve spent yours stuck in an eternal, monochrome winter. a surprise encounter derails all of your plans: feelings fade... or do they, really?

pairing: taehyung x reader

word count: 5.4k 

warnings: swearing, terrible terrible angst (im sorry!), heartbreak, implied smut, angsty flashbacks :(

a/n: hi everyone! this is my very first fic on tumblr and i really hope you enjoy! please listen to spring day and scenery to really get into the feels - i hope you lose yourself in this little slice of a seoul winter :’) also i do have a storyline planned if you enjoy this little piece and could potentially even make this a series aah! please leave comments and constructive criticism - i’d love to grow as a writer! (@chateautae i finally did it!!!!!!)

                                                                                    [    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙      ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

09:17am, december 17, 2020

It’s been a year since you last saw him. A year of emptiness, hollowness, blankness. A year since you turned your back, leaving without a goodbye. It’s been a year since you’ve walked out his front door, the same one that you’d find yourself visiting and revisiting when you knew he wasn’t home. 

It’s been a year since you last felt some semblance of happiness, a year since you’ve let out a genuine laugh, smiled from cheek-to-cheek. It’s been a year devoid of warmth: you shivered under the embrace of the summer sun, no longer noticed the blooming flowers that you had once loved so much. The world lost all its color. Fading into a bleak grayscale so far away, unreachable. No longer did you walk with a spring in your step, no longer did your eyes glimmer with galaxies that you’d once built with him. You were empty, a ship lost in the depths of the dark oceans. Floating, barely surviving, with no set destination. All you saw were never-ending, infinite oceans in all directions. No escape, no lighthouse. Just you. Alone. Pointless.

Your heart aches for him, the echo of a honeyed baritone, the ghost of his warm, muscular arms wrapped around your shoulders. 

It’s for the best, you had thought. It’s for the best.

You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the thoughts out of your mind. There was too much, too many feelings, pent-up emotions. You weren’t a woman of emotions, never were, swore to never be, until you had met him. And he had changed everything.

Stop. This is getting ridiculous.

You needed to get on with your life, you think. There are too many things to think about, so many better thoughts requiring your attention. What were you doing, wasting your energy on him? It was time, you had decided, to end things once and for all.

The ticket machine snaps you out of your reverie, demanding it get paid. How much did the trip cost? You’ve forced yourself to forget, holed up all the memories too far into the shadows of your mind in your sheer desperation to evade the pain. You slot in a W10,000 bill, way too much, but better than having to remember. The machine happily eats up the cash, returning your card and sending you on your way. 

You navigate the platforms, seeing the brightly-lit signs: Incheon line, Suin line, Bundang line. Then you see it, Platform 6, Gyeongwon line. South-bound to Soyosan, stopping at Iryeong. Your heart thumps, stomach twists, and you feel like throwing up. How many times had you once ascended these very steps with him, hand-in-hand, smiling to one another? How many times had you raced up these stairs, trying to get to the platform first? It’s too much, and you want to run. Run away from this place, from the thoughts and feelings.

No. You need this.

The winter air roughly brushes against your cheeks, hurrying you along.

What are you so afraid of?

Everything, you think. Everything. You’ve bound your heart in chains and locks, plastered it with thousands of bandages, one on top of the other. You’ve holed it away, willed it out of existence. You’re afraid of the memories, the emotions. You’re afraid of yourself.

Go. Just go. Get it over with.

You force your feet to move, one after another. You don’t think, you just move. Move onto the platform, move onto the train. You don’t realize that you’ve boarded the machine until you hear an all-too-familiar voice on the loudspeaker. 

“This is the Special Rapid Train, on the Gyeongwon line, headed for Sosoyan. We will be stopping at Seokgye, Wolgye, Dobong and Iryeong. Please stay clear of the sliding doors!”

You vaguely see the blinking of lights and hear the shutting of the doors. The train picks up speed, clicking against the railroads. You are blank, a passenger on an endless journey. You sway when the train sways, stop when it stops. You don’t know how many stops have passed, having lost yourself in the familiar nothingness that had hollowed you out for the past year, until the speakers announce something about the next station being Dobong. You’re near, you realize. Too near. 

Too soon does the train halt, birthing out and collecting new passengers as seats empty and taken once more in a matter of seconds. You watch this interchange with a bitter smile: how quickly he must have replaced you after you’d left, how he must’ve taken in another in your place.

Stop it.

Too engrossed in your thoughts, you don’t notice the closing of the doors and the blinking of the lights until you hear the loud system once more as the train starts to accelerate.

“Iryeong, Iryeong. Our next stop is Iryeong, please get off on the right side of the train.”

You are left suddenly hyper aware of your surroundings, watching as snow paints the ground white. The houses blur into trees and back into villages as you stare out the window, and you start to remember. You remember your hands intertwined, dancing in the snow, the click of a camera as the melodies of your laughs twirling in the air. You remember the snugness of his embrace, his earthy cologne, his smile, his lips pressed against yours…

Stop.

You tear your gaze away from the glass, staring down at your gloved hands fiddling in your lap. It’s been a year. It’s laughable how much and how little has changed. You’re different, yes, but yet so painfully similar to the girl who ran away. It’s funny how much of a difference, or lack thereof, a year can make, you think. It’s certainly been hard on you, and you find yourself wondering about him, about how maybe the year has changed him, how he’s doing, if he’s eating well, if…

Stop.

You’re hopeless, aren’t you? 

You sigh and shut your eyes. You’re going crazy. Or maybe you’ve always been crazy. Your thoughts are feverish, a maelstrom in your mind. Involuntarily, you notice your feet rapidly tapping the metal bar to your side, vibrating against the pole. You feel the ghost of a touch on your thigh, hear the empty shell of his words, breathe, Y/N, breathe. What’s got you all worked up? And for a moment, just a moment, you feel his presence to your side, capture the warmth radiating off of his figure, and smile. Because it’s all okay when he’s here.

But he’s not. 

You decide to focus on the sound of the railroads, staring down at the speckled floor of the train as the carriage undulates gently, side to side. You ride along, the train’s movements easing your own and you begin to lose yourself once again in the clacks of the rails, mind going blank, until you start to notice the slowing of the sounds. The train’s dance comes to a slow, inviting people to start getting up and shuffle towards the doors. Your heart sinks to your stomach. Not yet, not yet. It can’t be. It’s too soon.

The loudspeaker crackles to life, confirming your worst fears. “Arriving at Iryeong, please stay clear of the doors and exit on the right side of the train.”

Your legs move on their own accord, pulling you to a standing position as you grip the metal post with your life. The train continues to slow, eventually, painstakingly coming to a halt. You wish it never will, that it will continue on with its journey ahead. But it’s too late. The doors slide open, the sounds of the outside world whistle for you, calling you, urging you out of the comfort of the train. You don’t dare move, standing still as passengers trickle out, as the flashing lights start to appear, as the minute at the station starts to come to an end. The doors are closing in five. Four.

You twitch.

Three. Two.

“Wait!”

You rush out the doors, barely escaping the iron clasp of the metals that would’ve devoured you had you been a second too late. Behind you, the steel hisses as the vehicle exits the station, leaving you alone. So utterly alone. 

You’re blessed with a moment of solitude, feeling nothing but the cold air chilling your face, until you realize where you are and why you’re here. 

The bliss of being alone rapidly evaporates, and you’re hit with a speeding truck. The memories flood in; you’re winded, gasping for breath as you’re stormed with images, short clips of him, you, the pair of you. His smile, his laugh, his cheeks, eyes, nose. His breath tickling yours before he leans in for a kiss, his gentle, large hands cupping your face as you close your eyes…

Stop. Get a fucking grip, will you?

You force the color out of your mind as you make your way around the platform, empty now that everyone has gone. Your eyes graze against the pathetic, run-down station: the signs are only partially lit, the electricity having worn out. Your fingers run against the peeling, dirtied paint of the walls, dust bunnies catching onto your gloves. You scoff. This is pathetic. The floor is littered with plastics and old soda bottles, as if nobody’s been here to clean in too long. Graffiti smiles sadly back at you as you scan the fading walls, losing their life by the second. The bricks have faded into a musty brown, drab and uninteresting. Everything is so run down, so tired. You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you make your way to the minimart to your right, wanting a beverage to help warm your insides up. 

The doors slide open with a gentle clink, altering the store of your presence. The cashier at the counter looks up at you through half-lidded eyes, barely acknowledging you, before returning to the drama playing on his cracked phone. The shelves are well-stocked, however, in stark contrast to the beaten-down appearance of this whole ordeal. You glide along the aisles, and everything is the same. Your favorite tea is still on the same shelf as it was all those months ago, his favorite gimbap in the bottom left corner of the chiller. Beef and sesame, he’d get, while you’d get a tuna for yourself, clinking your drinks and hearing the hiss of his cola opening, laughing as you made a mess of yourselves, two young fools madly in love. You’d talk, drink, eat for hours, whispering, dreaming and wishing, wondering what was going to come in the future, what you’d name your first puppy, whether you wanted a girl or a boy for your first child. Never would you have ever imagined that it would all end this way.

Stop it.

You grab your bottle of tea violently, almost knocking it over in your hurry to leave. You could no longer stay, not here, suffocating in your memories of him. You erased the gimbap out of your vision, ignoring it as you made your way to the counter, paying for your drink as the half-hearted employee handed you with your change. You mutter a thank you, unsure if he had even heard, and mindlessly make your way out of the store, too focused on keeping someone out of your head. You nearly bang into the glass doors in your haste, looking down and walking as fast as you can. Until your heart stops, that is.

You don’t dare look up, not now. The whole world slows to a stand-still, your gaze sharpening on nothing. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, your lungs stop working. Electricity charges through the air and you’re left reeling, not knowing what to do. 

Slowly, painfully, your neck raises, muscles straining with all their might. You already know what you’re going to see, who you’re going to see, but the sight of him still shocks you all the same. You nearly spill your drink all over yourself when you finally look up, and your brain goes into overdrive. You’re sure that your mouth is hanging open, jaw slack, but you can’t do anything about it. Your knees buckle, you can’t breathe, suffocating, wanting the ground to swallow you up at this very moment. You want to fall, tumble into an eternal tunnel. You are dizzy, light-headed, going crazy, you swear. You’re going crazy, aren’t you? This can’t be real, can it?

You can’t believe it. You’re drowning, drowning in those chocolate eyes, sinking into his pupils, losing yourself in his gorgeous features. You drink him all in, his own face mirroring yours, in no doubt absolute shock or maybe even despair, his deadly stare making your breath hitch as it once did so long ago. He’d never lost his power over you, after all. The world is suspended around you, all operations ceased as you both continue to stare into each other’s eyes, the tension so palpable that it threatens to devour you whole. Your larynx seems to be glued shut, your tongue a stone in your mouth. There are no words, no way to express this feeling that washes over you upon seeing him again. 

“Y/N…” 

His voice. Your ears ring with his deep baritone, honey to your ears. You can’t help it: you quite literally swoon, despite the circumstances. His voice: it ignites a fire within you, warm tendrils of heat rising up from your stomach. Vibrations send throughout your core, making you lightheaded and sure that you’re about to fall. You remember his timber next to you in the dead of light, comforting you, whispering sweet nothings into your ear, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, you’re here with me. 

You hug your arms around yourself, trying to keep it all in, retain the strange feeling that was now foreign to you after months of cold. It’s been too long, after all - you’ve gone too long deprived of this humanness, comfort that radiated off of him. 

Things are different now, Y/N.

Yes, they are. Your mind goes berserk once more, considering all of the scenarios. Why is he here? He probably just needs to go to the minimart - no, why would he come all this way, he lives pretty far as well, or maybe he’s waiting on a friend, no, maybe he’s brought a new girlfriend, maybe she’s with him right now waiting to jump out of the shadows. Maybe they’re both exchanging looks right now when I’m not looking, laughing, taunting me, this girl from the past who doesn’t deserve to be here, maybe they all think I’m a joke now, what am I doing, why, why, why?

You’re so lost in your thoughts that when Taehyung addresses you once more, you’re violently jolted out of your mind and nearly fall backwards, body forgetting everything but the sound of his voice.

“Y/N…” he says again, forcing you to look up at him. Your name splinters through the air from his lips, cutting through the frost and straight into your chest; you notice now that his voice seems tired, that he seems tired. 

You finally regain some semblance of control over your frozen tongue, lips moving in an attempt to emit a sound, any sound. Your lips wrap around the sole syllable that comes to you like muscle memory, the only one that you manage to choke out.

“T-Tae...”

Your voice cracks, unable to continue. The prolonged eye-contact has got you weak, his pupils boring into your soul. You look into his eyes, reciprocating, and you notice that maybe they’ve lost their golden sheen, that they no longer twinkle with constellations of stars. And it’s then that you realize: maybe the year has taken a toll on him too. 

Look at what you’ve done to him.

“T-Tae, I, I, I…” you sputter out, guilt flooding your system like a drug. There was nothing you could say, nothing you could tell him to cheat yourself out of the situation or paint yourself in a better light like you’re so used to doing. You’re not used to feeling this powerless, this weak. Taehyung was the only one who saw through the facade, the only one who allowed you to feel vulnerable. You couldn’t lie to him, you knew you couldn’t; there was no wheedling, no bullshitting, no lying yourself out of any sticky situation, which had caused you this whole trouble in the first place. You ran because you were too much of a coward to talk to him, to confide in him. And look where that’s gotten you.

“Why are you here?” he asks, burying his head in his hands. “Y/N, why are you here?”

Why am I here? You don’t really know as well, there’s nothing that you can say to him. Why am I here? To get over him? How are you even going to tell him? He has to think that you’re over him, that it’s done. Stop torturing yourself, and stop dragging him through this mess of your life. Tell him that it’s done.

“I… I came because…” 

Y/N, say something?

“I came because I... I was looking for you.” 

What the fuck?

His head snaps up, his piercing stare catching your gaze once again. “You were looking for me?”

You feel your heart stop.

“Umm… well, I mean, no, but, no, well actually if I think about it now, yeah, yeah I was looking for you,” you stammer, unable to produce a single cohesive line of thought. “I was looking for you because I wanted to tell you that it’s over.”

Your own words are like a dagger twisting into your own heart and vaguely hear a choked sound breaking the awful, awful silence. Until you realize that it’s come from your own mouth, a sob that you hadn’t even realized that you were holding in. 

A moment of charged silence goes by, yet louder than any noise that either of you could’ve let out. Never in your life has silence felt so utterly deafening, and you wish to cover your ears and scream it all out. 

“You’re telling me this now?” Taehyung manages, features distorted in pain. “You’re telling me this now, a whole fucking year after you walk out the door without a single word to me?” 

You look down at the ground, hating, blaming your traitorous mouth for saying something that you hadn’t fully thought through. 

No, Y/N. You have to stop bringing everyone down.

You’ve lost all rational thought when you say, “yes, Taehyung. Yes. I had nothing to say to you then and nothing to say to you now. It’s done and it’s over.”

You couldn’t even say sorry?

The frosty wind brushes over the pair of you, causing you to shiver in your boots. You want nothing more than to curl up into a ball and disappear, pretend that this never happened, that this was all a bad dream.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a security guard watching the whole exchanged with piqued interest. It’s none of your fucking business, you want to scream. It’s none of your fucking business. And yet you’re so humiliated, embarrassed at this whole mess that you’ve made of not only yourself but the situation in its entirety that you cannot muster up any words to merely defend yourself. You want to cry, sob, yell, scream.

“Fine, Y/N, it’s okay. You know what? It’s okay, you don’t owe me an explanation, you don’t owe me anything, not an apology, not a reason, not your love. It’s okay. It’s fine. Maybe you never loved me, saw me in the same way. Maybe I just assumed, maybe it was wrong of me to assume. Maybe I was too optimistic, too in love with you that I had forced myself to believe the story that I had made up in my head, that you were in love with me too. Maybe I had wanted it, wanted you so bad that I had made myself believe it. Made myself believe that you were in love with me.”

Your heart instinctually reaches out to him, drumming feverishly against your fragile ribcage. No, you want to scream. No, Taehyung, you couldn’t be more fucking wrong. He doesn’t know the way your heart beats for him in the dead of night, how the mere thought of him sends shivers down your spine, how every cell in your body, every thread of your being aches, yearns for his presence with every hour, every minute, every second. 

You feel your heart breaking, splintering into thousands, millions of tiny little fragments raining down like shards of glass. It hurts, it hurts like hell. 

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t force yourself into anything. There’s no need to anymore. There’s no more need to lie, no more need to pretend that you’re happy.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

It’s not the truth, you want to cry. It’s not. It’s the farthest from it. But you return his look, tight-lipped. You nod, despite the swell of emotions that are threatening to cut you in half at this very moment. 

“You’re welcome.”

He reciprocates your nod and slowly, painfully, tears his eyes from yours. He stands up, gingerly, as if hesitating, and you want to tell him to stop, to sit back down, that you’re lying to him, that you want him, that you want him more than anything in this world. But you don’t, and he continues onto his feet, sparing you one last gaze.

“At least I get to say goodbye,” he says, wistfully. “At least I now have the chance to say goodbye.”

You’re sure that tears are streaming down your face at this point, little trails of ice making their way down your blushed cheeks. Your lips are tight, and you cannot, for the life of you, return his look. 

Before you can fully comprehend what’s happening, you know he’s here, the familiar hold of his arms, your face finding itself nestled on the same spot on his chest, right above his heart. You feel it beat, gently, slowly, under your ear, a comforting rhythm that you’ve too often fallen asleep to, whispered to. Your arms instinctually wrap around his waist, and his head settles on the crook of your neck, the curve of his nose gently kissing your delicate skin. His warmth radiates from under his coat, and you soak it all in, collecting as much as you can. You are two puzzle pieces, a perfect fit, and you will this moment into eternity, searing it into your memory, wishing for the world to stop, stop right now and leave you in this moment forever. You’ve been lost, wandering, and have finally come home.   

But forever doesn’t exist.

You’re struck with a blast of cold at his loss, feeling horribly empty. He steps away from you, and you’re almost certain that you see moisture in his eyes, tears threatening to break free. Every fiber of your being yearns for him, you want to reach out to him, extend the hug, shower him in kisses, make up and forget that this all even happened, but you’re too prideful. You can’t let yourself do this.

“Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for everything.” 

And just like that, he’s gone.

                                              [    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

11:42am, March 12 2021

[taehyung]

I miss you. 

I miss you as the seasons come and go, I miss you as I watch the world going to shit, losing all hope. I miss you when the wind blows, taking me along like a pointless man, destined for nowhere. I’ll miss you eternally; I’ll miss you when all the ice melts into the ocean, I’ll miss you when everything’s finally disappeared and there’s utter nothing left for me.

I miss you in the brightest mornings and the darkest nights, when the sun comes out to play and the rain starts pelting down like there’s no tomorrow. I'll miss you in the loneliest winters and the blooming springs.

Everything reminds me of you. I am stuck in this eternal frost without you here; your loss has trapped me into this winter forever. I am slowly losing feel of my limbs as they succumb to the cold around me - everything has frozen into place, trapping me into the confines of this perpetual season. The world is closing in, I have nowhere to go, nothing to do. No longer do I have you to lead me out of this snow, no longer do I have you to hold my hand and bring me warmth through it all.

Why did you have to go?

Baby, did you know how much pain I’d be in when you’d left? Did you know how much it would hurt, how you’ve trapped me into this never-ending arctic, leaving me behind to freeze? 

Did you know when you chose to go?

You’ve left me in ruins, my love. I can’t continue without you. I’m struggling to breathe, suffocating, as the world collapses inwards, threatening to bury me alive. I wait for you everyday, through all of the grief, the pain. I still wait for the day that you come back, that I get to see your face again.

Or maybe I’m a dumbass. I don’t know. Have you changed? Or is it I who has? Or perhaps, us both? I’m still a lovesick fool for you, Y/N, that I can tell you for sure. I can’t stop thinking of you, as the days pass, sun and moon taking their turns in the sky. I’m left, suffering in this darkness, bleakness without you here. I wonder if you’ll still be there at the end, when all ceases to exist. I wonder if I’ll see you again; how much more do I have to wait? How many more sleepless nights will have to pass before I can lay my eyes upon you again? How many days, months, years do I have to hold back before I get to feel you, touch you, kiss you, one more time? 

Or maybe I’m being optimistic. You know what, Y/N, I’ll never see you again, maybe you’re better off without me. Maybe it’s all for the best, maybe it’s time for me to move on, maybe it’s time for you to move on. Maybe it really was not meant to be, maybe you really weren’t the one for me. 

Then why can’t I get you out of my head?

Y/N, I wish I could just forget you. I wish you never existed, I wish I had never gotten to know you. Then it would be so much easier for me. I wish that you had ignored me, that you had turned me down when you had the chance. It would’ve been the most pain that I’d feel at the time, but believe me, it’s nothing compared to this. 

Now I can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard I try. You’re there, you’re there when I lie down and close my eyes for the night, you’re there at work, hiding behind my papers and my laptop, waiting to take me out to lunch. You’re everywhere, baby, you’re in the car, riding shotgun and racing to connect to Bluetooth first, singing at the top of your lungs as we speed down the highway like the reckless teenagers that we were. I see you, hair tangled by the wind, belting out your favorite lyrics out of the roof of my convertible. And I remember thinking, for the hundredth time that night, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. Damnit, Y/N, you’re standing by the mirror every morning when I get ready for my meetings, dainty fingers straightening my tie and planting a kiss on my lips. You got this, lover boy.

You’re there, and then you’re not. You flicker between reality and imagination, I cannot discern whether I’m living in a fever dream or simply hallucinating. You’re slipping through my hands like grains of sand: I’m losing more of you by the second, can’t seem to hold on to you. You’re disappearing, getting further and further away as all I can do is watch helplessly as you fall through my fingers. 

Where are you now, Y/N?

I worry about you, I worry whether you’ve eaten well, whether you’ve slept well, whether you’ve had a good day at the office. Have you seen your parents lately? Have you had some time to yourself over the past days, have you overworked yourself as you often tend to do? Are you taking care of yourself?

Is it selfish of me to be wishing for you, thinking of you after all this time? Tell me, Y/N, is it wrong of me to be wanting you despite it having been over for so long now? You’ve probably moved on by now, considering how long it’s already been. Maybe you’ve met someone new, maybe you’re in love with someone else, maybe I’ve already been replaced with another man in your life.

Maybe I treated you wrong, maybe you didn’t feel like I loved you enough, maybe I didn’t make you feel special enough. I wish, Y/N, I wish that I could turn back time for you, I wish I could go back and be better for you, that I could fix all of the mistakes that I’ve made, wipe all of the tears that you might’ve cried for me, swallow up all of the pain that must’ve been plaguing you, to suck up the hurt that you were feeling back then. I wish you could give me all of the pain, I wish that I could’ve carried it all for you, shielded you from it all like how I should’ve done.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it? 

You’ve met someone else by now, you’re laughing, smiling, whispering with another, kissing someone else’s lips, in love with your new man. And I’m still here, trying to get over you like the pathetic loser that I am. There are so many regrets, so many things that I wish that I could still tell you, so many errors, mistakes that I made. It’s all my fault. I want nothing more than to be able to get on my knees in front of you and apologize for everything. There are so many more words, so many moments that I want nothing more than to be spending with you. 

I’m still in love with you. 

I think I always will be, Y/N. I know it’s selfish of me. I really can’t help it. I’m sorry.

You came into my life like a whirlwind, taking all of me along for the ride. And now that you’re gone, I don’t know what to do with myself no longer. I’ve been swept away with you and my fate will forever be left in your hands. There’s nothing left for me here, not in my work nor art. All that’s left is you. You are the only thing keeping me going now - I live another day, endure another night hoping for you, waiting for the day that I will finally see you again. I open my eyes for you in the mornings, in hopes of laying them upon your figure once more. 

Maybe it’ll all be for nothing, I know. Maybe I’ll never see you again. But there’s nothing left for me, remember? I’m willing to take my chance. For when I finally do see you once more, it will all be worth it.

I miss you, Y/N. I miss you so fucking much. My heart beats for you, my lungs breathe for you. My every cell in my entire being aches so desperately for you, for you and you only. And so I’ll wait for you. I promise. I’ll be here for you, waiting for the day that I get to catch a glimpse of you, to be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, for when you need even the littlest, tiniest thing. I’m ready to give you the world, baby. I’m ready to right all my wrongs, to treat you like the fucking queen that you are. I’m going to treat you the way that you deserve. 

When that time comes, my heart will be happy. When the time comes that I see you again, that I hear your voice again, your laugh again, it’ll be okay. All this pain will fade away to nothing. Don’t worry about me, darling, I’ll always be here, waiting. Waiting for you, until the end. I promise. 

                                                     ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ 

an: i hope you liked it!!!! <3 please please please leave feedback my loves!

[theseshipsshallsail]

There’s a new club in the Village - Infinity emblazoned in bright, neon letters - and naturally, the building is jam-packed with society’s outcasts on its opening weekend. Oliver grimaces, pressing his third beer to the side of his face, yet the condensation does nothing to soothe his overheated skin. It’s like a furnace of writhing bodies, and with every bead of sweat that bisects his neck to soak into his collar, he can’t help but wonder why he ever agreed to come in the first place.  

“Drink up,” Vanessa says, brandishing a bright amber concoction as she slides into the booth opposite him. “You look like you need something a little stronger.”  

Oliver raises an eyebrow as he returns the bottle to the table, then plucks the wedge of orange peel from the rim of the proffered glass. It’s been three years since he tasted a negroni, and the potent combination of gin, Campari, and vermouth sends his mind reeling in directions he usually fights tooth and nail to avoid. 

“Remind me again why you brought me here?” he asks, trying not to wince at the bitter aftertaste. “This isn’t exactly my scene.”

Vanessa scoffs. “Well, if you ever left your study...”

“I’m up for promotion!”

“You’ll be up for an ulcer if you don’t slow down. Besides, you deserve to let loose after... you know.”

You know, meaning his divorce, and the eighteen month shit-storm that preceded it.

Vanessa has the office next to his, and in between general grousing about University politics they’ve become close friends. It helps, of course, that she understands his situation all too well, and even though her parents never tried to strong-arm her to the altar, she and her girlfriend still have to hide their relationship from the rest of their colleagues.

Oliver sighs as he takes a second sip of his drink. “It’ll take more than a one night stand to loosen me up,” he tells her, and the filthy smirk that curls Vanessa’s lips has him tempted to bang his forehead against the table.

“Whatever tickles your pickle, Professor.”

“Why do I put up with you?”

“Hell if I know.” Slurring somewhat, she taps their cocktails together, and Oliver laughs as she leans forward, poking him in the chest. “Listen, Ollie, you and Micol did a spectacular job of making yourselves miserable, but at least you stayed faithful ‘til the end. Why not enjoy yourself, yeah?” 

“Why not indeed?” 

He’s aiming for sarcastic, yet his tone falls somewhere short of exhausted. She’s right, he realises, but Oliver hasn’t had much interest in men or women for a while. He’s not so deep in denial to admit his heart still belongs to another, and being hopelessly in love with someone he can’t have has done a real number on his libido.

“Damn! This place is heaving!” Simone says, slumping in her seat when she returns from the bathroom. Slinging an arm around Vanessa’s shoulder she drops a quick kiss to her cheek, and Oliver averts his eyes, the casual intimacy leaving him yearning for the impossible. “A few too many student-types for my liking, though. Makes me feel like I’m back in the theatre department.”

“Makes me feel like I’m pushing thirty,” Oliver mutters, painfully aware of the significantly younger crowd as he tugs at the cheap material of his shirt. Too many curries and not enough exercise has made him self-conscious of the few extra pounds at his waistline, and depressingly, twenty-eight feels ancient in comparison. 

“You wanna call it a night?” Vanessa asks, and Oliver nods absently as his gaze catches on a couple in the middle of the dancefloor. 

Caught in a world of their own, they make a striking picture. The taller of the pair is bleached-blond and athletic, his arms wrapped tightly around the slim waist of the man in front of him in a surprisingly protective gesture. Oliver can’t see his partner clearly from this angle, but his skin is pale and shimmering as they move to the beat, dark curls falling in a tousled mess. Whether it’s by artful design or sweat-damp from dancing, he can’t quite tell, yet Oliver is hypnotized by the way they bounce as he loses himself to the music, obscuring his vision until the other man reaches forward, gently brushing them away.  

The bass pounds in his rib cage, and Oliver’s throat feels constricted as he watches the brunette link his hands behind his lover's neck. Profile half in shadows, he raises up on tiptoes to whisper in the shell of his ear, and Oliver experiences a crisis of tenderness when he butts their temples together. Something squirms in his stomach. Something raw and envious. Memories flare, unfair and brutal, and he immediately blames the burning of his retinas on the relentless assault of the strobe lights surrounding them. 

“Oliver? You okay?”

No. 

Definitely not.

The jostling crowd causes the blond to alter their position, and Oliver’s head spins from more than just the alcohol as his blood runs cold in his veins. 

“Elio…” he murmurs, vaguely aware of Vanessa’s stifled gasp when she tries to get a better look.

“Your Elio?”

He wants it not to be - wants his eyes to be deceiving him - yet there’s no denying the truth. All that he’s forgotten - all that he’s clung to - coalesces in a rush of unslaked longing, and between one blink and the next, Oliver remembers everything. 

“Not anymore,” he whispers, but then, why would he be? 

Elio was seventeen when they first met, and Oliver isn’t naive enough to think he hasn’t fallen in and out of love many times since then. He’s beautiful, intelligent, talented beyond measure. Was he really so arrogant to imagine he would still be single? Pining for him, maybe? Saving himself? And for what? A six week romance one too-hot Italian summer? Something his cowardice cut short with a long-distance phone call?

He was, wasn’t he?

Arrogant. 

And so very stupid.

“Of all the gay bars in all the world…” Vanessa takes a swig of her piña colada as he continues to spiral. “I thought you said he lived in Italy?” 

“He did,” Oliver replies, picking at his thumbnail. “He moved here for school.”

“And you didn't contact him?”

“To say what?” His ears ring from the shrillness of her tone. “Hey, Elio. Remember that time I broke both our hearts ‘cause I’m a gutless schmuck? How about I buy you a coffee to make up for it?”

“It would’ve been a start.”

“It would’ve been selfish,” he says, tearing his eyes away. “He has enough on his plate with Juilliard. I’d only get in the  -”

“Juilliard?” Simone’s low whistle interrupts his self-reproach. “Impressive.”

“Son of a professor,” Oliver explains. “I always knew he was a genius.” He gathers himself with a quiet huff. “Though he’ll probably say he knows nothing.” The spark of nostalgia is crippling, and it takes everything he has not to break down on the spot. “I should go,” he says, draining the remains of his drink as he rises to his feet. 

“Oliver -”

“Why don’t you come back to ours?” Vanessa offers, making to follow, but whatever expression is on his face causes Simone to catch her by the wrist.

“We’re here if you need us, alright?”

“I know,” he says, eternally grateful for their support as he pushes some cab money into her hand. “Get home safe. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

“You’d better,” Vanessa tells him, obstinate in her concern, yet all he can focus on right now is leaving.

The swirling thoughts inside his head are all-consuming, but Oliver is determined to reign in his emotions for a little while longer. Ignoring the way his shoes stick to the tacky vinyl flooring, he grits his teeth as he snakes his way through the crush of humanity. He needs space. Fresh air. Hell, a damn time machine wouldn’t go amiss. He has nobody to blame but himself, and he’s halfway to the exit sign when his pace grinds to a halt, his masochistic streak unable to resist one last glimpse. 

A flash of irrational panic makes him breathe in deep - hold it for a count of three - and when he turns to scan the roiling bodies that fill up the dance floor, he finds them immediately. The shock doesn’t lessen, and if Oliver thought his heart had broken when they’d clung to one another on a train station platform, it’s naught compared to when Elio tips the other man’s chin up with the same fingers that used to play his body like a finely tuned instrument. White noise fills his ears as he ghosts a kiss to his lips - two chaste pecks at first - and then harder. Hungry. Mouths open. Tongues swirling. Deep and dirty. 

Just the way he likes it.

Fool that he is, Oliver doesn’t turn away. But he’s not the only one. Their bawdy display has garnered a small audience of the jealous and horny, and when the cat-calls eventually die down he notices a clearly disappointed red-head stalk past them on route to her table of friends. 

Time has not domesticated him, it seems, and Oliver feels like crying as the world returns frame by frame - the oscillating pulse of the dance track. The lightning burst of colour from the laser system above. An innate sense of powerlessness floods through him - the depths of which he hasn’t experienced since Elio sobbed against his chest in an attic bedroom - and a heavy weight settles in his belly as he recognises the cues and rituals that were once directed at him alone. 

Elio has obviously flourished in his absence. His body language is looser, more relaxed, assured in a way his younger self could only dream of, and Oliver allows an almost-smile as the couple laugh for a moment before turning to walk away. 

His fingers itch for a cigarette - a habit he’s struggling to waive - and the next thing he knows he’s taking a seat at the bar, a double shot of bourbon in his hand he doesn’t remember ordering, and a screaming admonishment from his better judgement to not do anything stupid. 

All I had to do was find the courage to reach out and touch, Elio said once, rife with self-mockery, and Oliver’s advice was to try again later. Was this it? Their later? And if not now, when? Because whatever his feelings of bitterness - whatever his misguided envy - if he lets this opportunity pass him by, he will always wonder. Always look. 

In truth, he already does. 

Ever since Samuel mentioned Elio was moving to the States, he’s carried the idle fantasy of crossing paths in some random book store, eyes locking across a busy street, a name - his, theirs, both - shouted across a bustling coffee shop. Of all eventualities, though, he hasn’t prepared for an Elio who might not be happy to see him. Who might dismiss him. Cast him aside like some ill-fitting chapter in the editing process. The context is all wrong, and for it to happen like this is akin to being plunged into the icy waters of the berm.

“Accidenti!” an achingly familiar voice says from somewhere behind him. “Are all Americans incapable of taking a hint? Or is it just an East Coast thing?”

“It’s the accent, mio amico. Fries their brains.”

“Never mind their brains,” Elio replies in the same lazy drawl. “I think you’ve sprained my tonsils.”

There’s a snicker to his left, and like a moth to a flame, Oliver peers up into the mirror behind the bar, only to find his living nightmare mere meters away, sharing a cigarette. Elio’s still wearing the same bracelets he did that summer, and three years of sleepwalking collapses around him as Oliver hunches over, palms sweating. 

“Seriously though,” the blond continues. “Look at this place! Wall-to-wall entreés, and you won’t so much as skim the menu. You’re spoiled for choice, compagno.”

Elio scoffs as he brings the filter to his lips. “Didn’t I tell you choice is an illusion?”

“As is time, according to Adams.” The man slings an arm over his shoulders. “And here you are, free as a bird, wasting the perfect opportunity.” 

Elio flips him the middle finger. “Stronzo,” he says, leaving Oliver more confused than ever as he studies him over the rim of his glass. “It’s a curse.”

“Self-inflicted, maybe.”

“So what’s the answer? And don’t say forty-two.”

The guy chuckles. “Variety,” he says, signalling the harried bartender. “Things didn’t work out with the violinist - I get it. È la vita! You’re not in the mood for pushy red-heads? Fine. But don’t sell yourself short. Trust Fund Tina’s not the only one checking you out.”

“Perhaps.”

“What perhaps?” A knowing smirk shoots in Oliver’s direction. “See for yourself.”

It’s like experiencing the first tremor of an earthquake. Elio was always a force of nature, and bracing for disaster, Oliver feels the fault lines buckle beneath him. He thought he was done letting fear and shame dictate his life, yet even now, at peace with his true self, he can’t bear to witness the seismic shift between past and present. Instead, he falls back on avoidance, tearing strips off a frayed beer mat until the hair prickles at his nape.

He can feel it - the instant his fate is sealed - and taking a deep breath Oliver returns his eyes to the mirror, meeting Elio’s stunned features. Dark brows climb towards his hairline as the happiness on his face shifts into something else. Something measured. Unrecognisable. A blank slate, almost. For a moment, Oliver fears he’s going to ignore him completely, but then Elio straightens his spine, offers the half-smoked cigarette to his friend, and with a few whispered words strides forward with purpose.

His daring is a law unto himself, but the look he’s giving him now exudes superiority - omniscience, almost - as if he can read every thought that’s going on inside Oliver’s mind, and has already deemed them wanting. It shouldn’t be such a turn on, yet his heart skips a beat regardless. Then another. Every instinct in his body tells him to reach out, to hold Elio’s hand, tuck those wild curls behind his ear, but it’s no longer his place - if it ever really was to begin with - so Oliver takes a deliberate sip of his whiskey, scared and aroused simultaneously, before swivelling towards him.

“Oliver.” His name on Elio’s lips - three smooth syllables - and he feels reborn. “Long time no see.” Hesitating, he offers up a pack of Luckies. “Fumo?”

“I shouldn’t,” he says, dragging trembling fingers through his hair. “I told myself I’d quit. God knows it won't take much to -” 

“Tempt you?” 

Heat rises to Oliver’s cheeks. “Yes,” he admits, and Elio’s smile is a shallow, brittle thing. 

“Well, you know yourself,” he says, returning the cigarette carton to his pocket. “Don’t let me ruin your good intentions.”

His flippancy is like a red rag to a bull, and Oliver’s hackles rise as he sets his drink on the counter, irritated enough by Elio’s calm exterior to try and provoke a reaction. “Is your boyfriend not the jealous type?” 

All he receives is an eye roll. “Bruno’s not my boyfriend.”

“Could’ve fooled me. From what I saw earlier.”

“You saw nothing,” Elio replies, defensive. “We’re friends. Roommates.”

“Roommates?” Rising from his stool, Oliver takes a step towards him. “That kiss -” 

“Is none of your business. Not anymore.” 

It hits him like a punch to the gut. Oliver’s lips part, but no sound passes between them. He’s being irrational, he’ll accept, but old habits die hard, and through sheer force of will he quashes down his guilt, knowing better than to use it as a weapon. 

“Of course,” he says, chastened. “You’re right.” 

“I usually am.” 

“Elio…” This isn’t how he wants the conversation to go. “I know it’s too much to expect your forgiveness, but please don’t be angry with me. We were friends, once. Before anything else.”

“I’m not angry.” A beat. “Not anymore.” Tipping his chin, Elio folds his arms in front of him. One more barrier despite the brush-off. “I’m processing.“

“Processing?”

“Yes, processing. Originates from the Old French proces. Related to the Latin processus, and from the verb procedere in Middle English.”

“Wise ass.”

“Sempre.” Elio shrugs, watching him openly. “What are you doing here, Oliver?”

“My friends saw the flyers,” he says, bypassing the here, specifically, when Elio’s attention drops a few inches lower, and he realises he’s staring at his ring finger.

At the white line that’s all but vanished since he signed his way to freedom.

“You’re…”

Oliver clears his throat. “Divorced,” he manages, shuffling his feet. “Almost three months now.”

“Divorced?” Elio’s mask slams back into place, the distress in his voice palpable. “Why?”

And there are so many things he could say to that - the stress of his job, money, differing expectations - but this is Elio. His first love. His forever love. He, above anyone, deserves the truth. 

“I think you know why.”

“Do I?” That same phony indifference. “What the eyes see, and the ears hear, the mind believes.” 

“The truth is never that simple.”

“Not for us, it seems. Not in this world.” Elio gives his head a small but firm shake, blowing out a frustrated breath. “You know, tonight was supposed to lower my stress levels, not raise them,” he says, granting them a temporary reprieve. “But then, you always were hazardous to my blood pressure.”

“Trust me. The feeling’s mutual,” Oliver tells him wryly. “Might I recommend some deep breaths?”

“Deep breaths?” Elio rocks back on his heels. “If I had any peaches I’d be using my right hand.”

It catches him unawares, and Oliver can't help it. He snorts. Overcome by relief. Then he laughs - a weak sound, and damn near helpless - but a laugh, nonetheless. Cupping a palm to his mouth. Moving it to his eyes. Feeling the tears he’s been fighting since this whole debacle began.

“My God you’re incorrigible,” he mutters, the sharp stab of regret cutting him to the core as he glances over his shoulder, and the blond - Bruno - shoots him a wink. “When you said I saw nothing...”

The hesitant curve of Elio’s smile lights a fire in his chest. “There was a girl on the dance floor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Lucky for me, Bruno’s never been shy about putting on a convincing performance.” 

Oliver winces. “Well, I bought it.”

“Mission accomplished, then.” Elio edges closer. “I could’ve said the same for you, once upon a time.” The air between them grows charged. “Do you ever miss it?” he asks. “Italy, I mean?”

“Every single day.” Oliver finds himself captivated by the smattering of stubble along Elio’s jawline. The touch of smudged kohl beneath his lashes that turns his gaze smouldering. “Do you?”

“In a way.”

“Just a way?” He’s not entirely certain they’re talking about the same thing, and Vanessa’s advice seems all the more pertinent. “Let me buy you a coffee?” Oliver asks, and Elio frowns.

“What? Now?”

“If you like.” 

“It’s gone midnight!” 

“Tomorrow, then. Whenever you’re available.” Suddenly desperate, he closes the gap between them. “I can’t excuse my actions, Elio - I know I can’t - but at the very least I owe you an explanation.”

“Oliver...” This time it’s Elio who reaches out, his usually steady hands uncertain as they entwine with his. “I was young, not stupid. What’s there to forgive? You left because you had to. You married because -”

“I was weak.”

“Cazatte!” The tension in Elio’s body snaps back like a coil. “My father would have carted me off to a correctional facility,” he murmurs, squeezing his fingers tightly. “I’ll never forget those words.” 

“I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be!” Elio sounds furious on his behalf. “Weak, you say? No. Control over others is the true weakness. Coercion. Conformity. All it does is breed hatred. And that’s not you. Not my Oliver.” 

“Am I still?” he asks, laying his cards out on the table. “Your Oliver?”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” 

Oliver swallows thickly. “I guess we will,” he says, dropping his forehead to Elio’s crown.

He’s braver at twenty-one than Oliver could have dared imagine, and for the first time in years the dull ache beneath his ribs is replaced by a different sort of craving. The way they fit together so easily, like no time has passed, fans the banked passions within him - the desire to press his lips against Elio’s neck, to nip his way along countless freckles until he can fist those unruly curls and guide his mouth back to where it belongs. 

Flush against his. 

Devouring.

But not yet.

This isn’t leading to sex. Not tonight. This is about reconciliation. Reassurance. Redemption.

“There’s a late-night diner on the corner…”

It’s a whisper against his cheek - so quiet he barely hears it - and Oliver leans down, pressing his face to Elio’s collarbone, breathing him in. He knows this won’t be easy - knows there will be dark clouds before the dawn - yet here they are, older and wiser, and three years might as well be yesterday as the parting crowds provide a temporary island in which to weather the storm.

[subbing-for-clones]

She Who Walks the Line Between Part 1

Maul x GreyJedi!Reader 

Summary: A lone grey force user has sequestered herself in the furthest regions from the inner rim that could reasonably reach. She never could have fit in with the Jedi and their plethora of useless rules and regulations. Nor could find her way with the Sith and their needless thirst for power and control. After spending years along-side them both and learning all she could she took to the life of a hermit so she could continue her studies in peace. She lived happily until someone’s pain ripped through her inner sanctum. Now restless, she must tip the scales back in the favor of balance.

Word Count: 2085

WARNINGS: Mentions of pain and injury.

NEXT          MASTERLIST

      So far out in the outer rim it could be considered wild space existed a planet blanketed with jungles and planes. This lonely world is where you called home. Far from wars, from civilization and the unbalanced frivolous problems that existed within this universe. As secluded as it was, this small planet was in perfect balance. Hunters sought their prey and the prey helped one another to survive. Close enough to the ocean that you could smell the salt in the air during a storm; on the border between grass lands and what seemed like infinite jungle, a large stone cottage stood firmly as if it had grown straight from the soil like the crops that lined the east wall.

    Your ship was still warm from your recent trip to a more populated system for supplies impossible to come by on your world. This recent trip had left you weary, visions and a voice now plagued your mind. Quiet was all you wanted. Just quiet. Yet screams of agony filled your ears through the force as you sipped your fresh mint tea on the roof of your home. You scanned the planes that spread in front of you as if you could locate the origin of this suffering behind one of the blades of tall grass.

    Closing your eyes with the cup still hot between your clasped hands you quieted your mind and reached out into the force.

Blazing heaps of metal.

Sweltering heat.

Foul sulfuric stench.

A man, no, half of one. Red and black flesh, a crown of stained ivory horns.

A mess of steel legs, bellowing raggedly.

“Always remember I am fear. Always remember I am hunter, always remember I am filth, always remember I am... nothing!” His glowing eyes seemed to meet yours. Holding for but a moment.

    Slowly your eyes opened, looking around to convince yourself that the man you connected with didn't lay before you now. Satisfied that you were where you had started in your meditation you looked up to the sky, dusty with the falling sunset. You closed your eyes again and whispered to the universe through the force, "find me," casting out reassuring waves of unwavering peace and tranquility towards wherever this wretched soul writhed.

 ~~~~~

      Maul screamed in agony and rage. He couldn't remember anything but a name and a grim mantra that he repeated over and over for a decade hoping against hope to be comforted by it. Although comfort never came, something new spanned out in front of him. For the first time in years, something new graced his vision. A woman.

Glistening eyes heavy lidded but bright. A figure clad in light grey dress sitting in a meditative position. Her plump lips whispered two simple words to him. Find me. For the first time that he could remember he had something he needed to do other than devour and wail. A purpose perhaps.

    His steel spider legs twitched as he crawled his way out from his hole in the depths of Lotho Minor. The atmosphere was a thick, dingy fawn. Perfectly akin to the scent of fire and sulfur that he could no longer smell. The grey pressed dirt kicked up from the ends of his jagged limbs as he pulled himself across the hellish landscape. Drop ships came here frequently to dump garbage but every so often a scavenger would come to brave the terrain in search of something of value. As luck would have it, a small ship had landed some time ago, the pilot likely perished to one of the many dangers here on the planet wide dumping grounds. Fear encompassing his mind, he eased toward the abandoned ship. Eight legs clumsily carrying his torso forward. Eyes darting around for the owner of this vessel but none in sight. Cautiously he boarded.

    Muscle memory took over as he powered up and took flight. His ship floated stationary just outside the atmosphere, he gazed upon open space for the first time in twelve years, shrinking back into a corner out of fear of the openness after so long in the confined darkness of a hole in the ground. He was loosing the little motivation for momentum that he had and was torn between surging forward and retreating back to what was familiar. Even if he did continue on, he didn’t know where to go.

"I don't know... I don't know... I don't KNOW... where.. to go… WHERE ARE YOU?!" He sobbed. As if to answer his question his vision clouded over and a sense of peace eased his twisted, knotted muscles as well as his fractured mind. Images of tall cliffs overlooking a roaring ocean. The sounds of creatures chattering unseen in a dark jungle lit by bioluminescent fauna. Wind blowing through tall dry grasses. Smoke drifting out of a chimney. The woman he had seen, sitting on a wooden porch.

    Without opening his eyes he punched coordinates into the nav computer that if asked to, he couldn't have recited. Hyperdrive activated, he vanished into the unknown, convinced this was his destiny. To find the ghost of a woman he had seen in his squalor.

 ~~~~~

    You woke just before dawn with a start. Something was coming, you weren't quite sure what. You couldn't see it clearly through the force but you could feel the darkness. Cold like the side of a moon that had never been blessed by the sun. The universal scale tipped out of balance and it rang through you like a gong.

    Groaning, you pushed the woolen blanket covering your body aside and stood, pulling on a slate-colored cotton dress and slipping your feet into your shoes. You peered out of the transparasteel, the sky was dark but just starting to blue. An hour before sunrise you guessed. Sighing and making your way to the kitchen you put on some caf. If you had to be awake this early at least you'd be caffeinated.

    Stepping out onto your porch you could hear the goats you kept nearby bleating alarms at you. Sending them calming waves through the force was all you could do. A moment later you could sense a ship entering the atmosphere. You squinted while shushing the goats from your perch. In all your years on this planet you had never seen another ship aside from your own. You strode to the west side of your home and herded the goats back inside the barn while fetching a large basket. Locking them safely inside before you made your way toward the landing ship. Keeping a hundred meters or so between you and the ramp that extended, eyeing the opening cautiously. Darkness spilled out along with the monstrosity of what was, at one point, a Zabrack. Easily recalling him from your vision you weren't afraid in the least. Perhaps a bit surprised that he had found you so quickly but not afraid.

    You had strode half the distance between you and the man before stopping and placing the basket at your side. You watched as he limped over to you, unbalanced in every sense of the word. Physically clumsy and mentally clouded he laughed and sobbed utterly broken.

"I found... you." He groaned hoarsely. Pointing a shaking finger in your direction.

    Not saying a word you looked him up and down, lingering where scrap met his organic body. His horns over grown, his eyes bloodshot so horribly there was hardly any white to them. His legs rusting away. His face was gaunt with starvation. This man that stood before you was what was tipping the scale out of balance. Mentally making a decision you nodded, fearlessly and confidently you closed the last of the distance between you and him, gazing right into those burning eyes until his face relaxed a bit out of utter confusion. He hadn’t known what to expect when he found you. He could feel your force signature surrounding you. An aura of equally bright and dark colors swirling together.

"You did find me." You paused for a moment. Turning and walking along the line between the plains and jungle you looked over your shoulder, he hadn't moved.

"Come. We have much work to do with you." You sighed.

    He followed you unsteady on those eight spindly legs. How he managed that much force energy to make them walk you had no idea. They definitely weren't powered or connected to his nervous system so he had to be using the force. A Sith by the feel of it, if not a Sith then he was only calling upon the dark side. Not a drop of light permeated from his aura. Yet he followed you silently.

 ~~~~~

      This woman he followed, he couldn't sense or smell any fear in her. But he could sense something. She was strong with both the light and the dark sides of the force. So strong that he could feel it coming off her like a reactor. He eyed the two lightsabers that clung to her legs. The dress she wore slit all the way up both sides. They didn't hang from a belt like his used to but rather were strapped to each if her thighs. Her hair draped down her back, glinting in the very early morning sunrise.

    He followed this woman snarling occasionally in pain but otherwise silent until they reached a cliff that overlooked the ocean. The waters were calm, the smell of salt on the air familiar but he couldn't place a memory with it.

    She turned to meet his eyes and he froze. "Stay put for a moment I need to collect clay from the cliffs" and without waiting for his response she stepped over the edge and landed gracefully on a ledge fifty feet below. He dared not move even to look and see what this woman was doing. Fear starting to spread through him again he missed his hole in the bowels of Lotho Minor.

    Just after he thought the thought she leapt high above and over him, feet touching down silently. He still jumped back defensively and growled. The woman sighed and balanced the large basket now packed high with clay atop her head and beckoned him back the way they came with two fingers and a nod.

    Slowly once again he followed but this time he spoke.

"Are you a jedi?" He hissed, eyes narrowing.

"Gods no," she replied curtly.

"Are you Sith then?"

"Wrong again." Without looking back at him she replied in a sing song tone.

He followed her silently in thought. Listening to birds chirp in the jungle to his left.

"What.. are you...?" He dared to ask almost whispering.

She didn't reply to him until her home was in view again.

"I am the one who walks the line between the dark and the light. Not a jedi, not a Sith but something so much more." She gazed off into the horizon, her mind wandering to places he could not see.

"What do you want with me?" He snarled yet still he followed.

"You are no longer a Sith yet the darkness rages inside you like a storm. It is upsetting the balance and quite frankly, I've been bored so I'm not going to just kill you off. I'm going to bring you back from the precipice." She stopped and turned to face him.

"But first I'm going to fix this mess." She said tapping one of his hideous legs.

    He didn't know what was to come or become of him but for the first time in a very long time he felt something that wasn't fear or rage. He didn't know what to call it but he was glad for a second that he found this planet.

[sereineity]

how many more sleepless nights?

genre: nonidol!au, ANGST, slight fluff

summary: a year is a long time, isn’t it? you’ve spent yours stuck in an eternal, monochrome winter. a surprise encounter derails all of your plans: feelings fade… or do they, really?

pairing: taehyung x reader

word count: 5.4k

warnings: swearing, terrible terrible angst (im sorry!), heartbreak, implied smut, angsty flashbacks :(

a/n: hi everyone! this is my very first fic on tumblr and i really hope you enjoy! please listen to spring day and scenery to really get into the feels - i hope you lose yourself in this little slice of a seoul winter :’) also i do have a storyline planned if you enjoy this little piece and could potentially even make this a series aah! please leave comments and constructive criticism - i’d love to grow as a writer! (@chateautae i finally did it!!!!!!)

[    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙      ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

09:17am, december 17, 2020

It’s been a year since you last saw him. A year of emptiness, hollowness, blankness. A year since you turned your back, leaving without a goodbye. It’s been a year since you’ve walked out his front door, the same one that you’d find yourself visiting and revisiting when you knew he wasn’t home.

It’s been a year since you last felt some semblance of happiness, a year since you’ve let out a genuine laugh, smiled from cheek-to-cheek. It’s been a year devoid of warmth: you shivered under the embrace of the summer sun, no longer noticed the blooming flowers that you had once loved so much. The world lost all its color. Fading into a bleak grayscale so far away, unreachable. No longer did you walk with a spring in your step, no longer did your eyes glimmer with galaxies that you’d once built with him. You were empty, a ship lost in the depths of the dark oceans. Floating, barely surviving, with no set destination. All you saw were never-ending, infinite oceans in all directions. No escape, no lighthouse. Just you. Alone. Pointless.

Your heart aches for him, the echo of a honeyed baritone, the ghost of his warm, muscular arms wrapped around your shoulders.

It’s for the best, you had thought. It’s for the best.

You squeeze your eyes shut, willing the thoughts out of your mind. There was too much, too many feelings, pent-up emotions. You weren’t a woman of emotions, never were, swore to never be, until you had met him. And he had changed everything.

Stop. This is getting ridiculous.

You needed to get on with your life, you think. There are too many things to think about, so many better thoughts requiring your attention. What were you doing, wasting your energy on him? It was time, you had decided, to end things once and for all.

The ticket machine snaps you out of your reverie, demanding it get paid. How much did the trip cost? You’ve forced yourself to forget, holed up all the memories too far into the shadows of your mind in your sheer desperation to evade the pain. You slot in a W10,000 bill, way too much, but better than having to remember. The machine happily eats up the cash, returning your card and sending you on your way.

You navigate the platforms, seeing the brightly-lit signs: Incheon line, Suin line, Bundang line. Then you see it, Platform 6, Gyeongwon line. South-bound to Soyosan, stopping at Iryeong. Your heart thumps, stomach twists, and you feel like throwing up. How many times had you once ascended these very steps with him, hand-in-hand, smiling to one another? How many times had you raced up these stairs, trying to get to the platform first? It’s too much, and you want to run. Run away from this place, from the thoughts and feelings.

No. You need this.

The winter air roughly brushes against your cheeks, hurrying you along.

What are you so afraid of?

Everything, you think. Everything. You’ve bound your heart in chains and locks, plastered it with thousands of bandages, one on top of the other. You’ve holed it away, willed it out of existence. You’re afraid of the memories, the emotions. You’re afraid of yourself.

Go. Just go. Get it over with.

You force your feet to move, one after another. You don’t think, you just move. Move onto the platform, move onto the train. You don’t realize that you’ve boarded the machine until you hear an all-too-familiar voice on the loudspeaker.

“This is the Special Rapid Train, on the Gyeongwon line, headed for Sosoyan. We will be stopping at Seokgye, Wolgye, Dobong and Iryeong. Please stay clear of the sliding doors!”

You vaguely see the blinking of lights and hear the shutting of the doors. The train picks up speed, clicking against the railroads. You are blank, a passenger on an endless journey. You sway when the train sways, stop when it stops. You don’t know how many stops have passed, having lost yourself in the familiar nothingness that had hollowed you out for the past year, until the speakers announce something about the next station being Dobong. You’re near, you realize. Too near.

Too soon does the train halt, birthing out and collecting new passengers as seats empty and taken once more in a matter of seconds. You watch this interchange with a bitter smile: how quickly he must have replaced you after you’d left, how he must’ve taken in another in your place.

Stop it.

Too engrossed in your thoughts, you don’t notice the closing of the doors and the blinking of the lights until you hear the loud system once more as the train starts to accelerate.

“Iryeong, Iryeong. Our next stop is Iryeong, please get off on the right side of the train.”

You are left suddenly hyper aware of your surroundings, watching as snow paints the ground white. The houses blur into trees and back into villages as you stare out the window, and you start to remember. You remember your hands intertwined, dancing in the snow, the click of a camera as the melodies of your laughs twirling in the air. You remember the snugness of his embrace, his earthy cologne, his smile, his lips pressed against yours…

Stop.

You tear your gaze away from the glass, staring down at your gloved hands fiddling in your lap. It’s been a year. It’s laughable how much and how little has changed. You’re different, yes, but yet so painfully similar to the girl who ran away. It’s funny how much of a difference, or lack thereof, a year can make, you think. It’s certainly been hard on you, and you find yourself wondering about him, about how maybe the year has changed him, how he’s doing, if he’s eating well, if…

Stop.

You’re hopeless, aren’t you?

You sigh and shut your eyes. You’re going crazy. Or maybe you’ve always been crazy. Your thoughts are feverish, a maelstrom in your mind. Involuntarily, you notice your feet rapidly tapping the metal bar to your side, vibrating against the pole. You feel the ghost of a touch on your thigh, hear the empty shell of his words, breathe, Y/N, breathe. What’s got you all worked up? And for a moment, just a moment, you feel his presence to your side, capture the warmth radiating off of his figure, and smile. Because it’s all okay when he’s here.

But he’s not.

You decide to focus on the sound of the railroads, staring down at the speckled floor of the train as the carriage undulates gently, side to side. You ride along, the train’s movements easing your own and you begin to lose yourself once again in the clacks of the rails, mind going blank, until you start to notice the slowing of the sounds. The train’s dance comes to a slow, inviting people to start getting up and shuffle towards the doors. Your heart sinks to your stomach. Not yet, not yet. It can’t be. It’s too soon.

The loudspeaker crackles to life, confirming your worst fears. “Arriving at Iryeong, please stay clear of the doors and exit on the right side of the train.”

Your legs move on their own accord, pulling you to a standing position as you grip the metal post with your life. The train continues to slow, eventually, painstakingly coming to a halt. You wish it never will, that it will continue on with its journey ahead. But it’s too late. The doors slide open, the sounds of the outside world whistle for you, calling you, urging you out of the comfort of the train. You don’t dare move, standing still as passengers trickle out, as the flashing lights start to appear, as the minute at the station starts to come to an end. The doors are closing in five. Four.

You twitch.

Three. Two.

“Wait!”

You rush out the doors, barely escaping the iron clasp of the metals that would’ve devoured you had you been a second too late. Behind you, the steel hisses as the vehicle exits the station, leaving you alone. So utterly alone.

You’re blessed with a moment of solitude, feeling nothing but the cold air chilling your face, until you realize where you are and why you’re here.

The bliss of being alone rapidly evaporates, and you’re hit with a speeding truck. The memories flood in; you’re winded, gasping for breath as you’re stormed with images, short clips of him, you, the pair of you. His smile, his laugh, his cheeks, eyes, nose. His breath tickling yours before he leans in for a kiss, his gentle, large hands cupping your face as you close your eyes…

Stop. Get a fucking grip, will you?

You force the color out of your mind as you make your way around the platform, empty now that everyone has gone. Your eyes graze against the pathetic, run-down station: the signs are only partially lit, the electricity having worn out. Your fingers run against the peeling, dirtied paint of the walls, dust bunnies catching onto your gloves. You scoff. This is pathetic. The floor is littered with plastics and old soda bottles, as if nobody’s been here to clean in too long. Graffiti smiles sadly back at you as you scan the fading walls, losing their life by the second. The bricks have faded into a musty brown, drab and uninteresting. Everything is so run down, so tired. You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you make your way to the minimart to your right, wanting a beverage to help warm your insides up.

The doors slide open with a gentle clink, altering the store of your presence. The cashier at the counter looks up at you through half-lidded eyes, barely acknowledging you, before returning to the drama playing on his cracked phone. The shelves are well-stocked, however, in stark contrast to the beaten-down appearance of this whole ordeal. You glide along the aisles, and everything is the same. Your favorite tea is still on the same shelf as it was all those months ago, his favorite gimbap in the bottom left corner of the chiller. Beef and sesame, he’d get, while you’d get a tuna for yourself, clinking your drinks and hearing the hiss of his cola opening, laughing as you made a mess of yourselves, two young fools madly in love. You’d talk, drink, eat for hours, whispering, dreaming and wishing, wondering what was going to come in the future, what you’d name your first puppy, whether you wanted a girl or a boy for your first child. Never would you have ever imagined that it would all end this way.

Stop it.

You grab your bottle of tea violently, almost knocking it over in your hurry to leave. You could no longer stay, not here, suffocating in your memories of him. You erased the gimbap out of your vision, ignoring it as you made your way to the counter, paying for your drink as the half-hearted employee handed you with your change. You mutter a thank you, unsure if he had even heard, and mindlessly make your way out of the store, too focused on keeping someone out of your head. You nearly bang into the glass doors in your haste, looking down and walking as fast as you can. Until your heart stops, that is.

You don’t dare look up, not now. The whole world slows to a stand-still, your gaze sharpening on nothing. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, your lungs stop working. Electricity charges through the air and you’re left reeling, not knowing what to do.

Slowly, painfully, your neck raises, muscles straining with all their might. You already know what you’re going to see, who you’re going to see, but the sight of him still shocks you all the same. You nearly spill your drink all over yourself when you finally look up, and your brain goes into overdrive. You’re sure that your mouth is hanging open, jaw slack, but you can’t do anything about it. Your knees buckle, you can’t breathe, suffocating, wanting the ground to swallow you up at this very moment. You want to fall, tumble into an eternal tunnel. You are dizzy, light-headed, going crazy, you swear. You’re going crazy, aren’t you? This can’t be real, can it?

You can’t believe it. You’re drowning, drowning in those chocolate eyes, sinking into his pupils, losing yourself in his gorgeous features. You drink him all in, his own face mirroring yours, in no doubt absolute shock or maybe even despair, his deadly stare making your breath hitch as it once did so long ago. He’d never lost his power over you, after all. The world is suspended around you, all operations ceased as you both continue to stare into each other’s eyes, the tension so palpable that it threatens to devour you whole. Your larynx seems to be glued shut, your tongue a stone in your mouth. There are no words, no way to express this feeling that washes over you upon seeing him again.

“Y/N…”

His voice. Your ears ring with his deep baritone, honey to your ears. You can’t help it: you quite literally swoon, despite the circumstances. His voice: it ignites a fire within you, warm tendrils of heat rising up from your stomach. Vibrations send throughout your core, making you lightheaded and sure that you’re about to fall. You remember his timber next to you in the dead of light, comforting you, whispering sweet nothings into your ear, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, you’re here with me.

You hug your arms around yourself, trying to keep it all in, retain the strange feeling that was now foreign to you after months of cold. It’s been too long, after all - you’ve gone too long deprived of this humanness, comfort that radiated off of him.

Things are different now, Y/N.

Yes, they are. Your mind goes berserk once more, considering all of the scenarios. Why is he here? He probably just needs to go to the minimart - no, why would he come all this way, he lives pretty far as well, or maybe he’s waiting on a friend, no, maybe he’s brought a new girlfriend, maybe she’s with him right now waiting to jump out of the shadows. Maybe they’re both exchanging looks right now when I’m not looking, laughing, taunting me, this girl from the past who doesn’t deserve to be here, maybe they all think I’m a joke now, what am I doing, why, why, why?

You’re so lost in your thoughts that when Taehyung addresses you once more, you’re violently jolted out of your mind and nearly fall backwards, body forgetting everything but the sound of his voice.

“Y/N…” he says again, forcing you to look up at him. Your name splinters through the air from his lips, cutting through the frost and straight into your chest; you notice now that his voice seems tired, that he seems tired.

You finally regain some semblance of control over your frozen tongue, lips moving in an attempt to emit a sound, any sound. Your lips wrap around the sole syllable that comes to you like muscle memory, the only one that you manage to choke out.

“T-Tae…”

Your voice cracks, unable to continue. The prolonged eye-contact has got you weak, his pupils boring into your soul. You look into his eyes, reciprocating, and you notice that maybe they’ve lost their golden sheen, that they no longer twinkle with constellations of stars. And it’s then that you realize: maybe the year has taken a toll on him too.

Look at what you’ve done to him.

“T-Tae, I, I, I…” you sputter out, guilt flooding your system like a drug. There was nothing you could say, nothing you could tell him to cheat yourself out of the situation or paint yourself in a better light like you’re so used to doing. You’re not used to feeling this powerless, this weak. Taehyung was the only one who saw through the facade, the only one who allowed you to feel vulnerable. You couldn’t lie to him, you knew you couldn’t; there was no wheedling, no bullshitting, no lying yourself out of any sticky situation, which had caused you this whole trouble in the first place. You ran because you were too much of a coward to talk to him, to confide in him. And look where that’s gotten you.

“Why are you here?” he asks, burying his head in his hands. “Y/N, why are you here?”

Why am I here? You don’t really know as well, there’s nothing that you can say to him. Why am I here? To get over him? How are you even going to tell him? He has to think that you’re over him, that it’s done. Stop torturing yourself, and stop dragging him through this mess of your life. Tell him that it’s done.

“I… I came because…”

Y/N, say something?

“I came because I… I was looking for you.”

What the fuck?

His head snaps up, his piercing stare catching your gaze once again. “You were looking for me?”

You feel your heart stop.

“Umm… well, I mean, no, but, no, well actually if I think about it now, yeah, yeah I was looking for you,” you stammer, unable to produce a single cohesive line of thought. “I was looking for you because I wanted to tell you that it’s over.”

Your own words are like a dagger twisting into your own heart and vaguely hear a choked sound breaking the awful, awful silence. Until you realize that it’s come from your own mouth, a sob that you hadn’t even realized that you were holding in.

A moment of charged silence goes by, yet louder than any noise that either of you could’ve let out. Never in your life has silence felt so utterly deafening, and you wish to cover your ears and scream it all out.

“You’re telling me this now?” Taehyung manages, features distorted in pain. “You’re telling me this now, a whole fucking year after you walk out the door without a single word to me?”

You look down at the ground, hating, blaming your traitorous mouth for saying something that you hadn’t fully thought through.

No, Y/N. You have to stop bringing everyone down.

You’ve lost all rational thought when you say, “yes, Taehyung. Yes. I had nothing to say to you then and nothing to say to you now. It’s done and it’s over.”

You couldn’t even say sorry?

The frosty wind brushes over the pair of you, causing you to shiver in your boots. You want nothing more than to curl up into a ball and disappear, pretend that this never happened, that this was all a bad dream.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a security guard watching the whole exchanged with piqued interest. It’s none of your fucking business, you want to scream. It’s none of your fucking business. And yet you’re so humiliated, embarrassed at this whole mess that you’ve made of not only yourself but the situation in its entirety that you cannot muster up any words to merely defend yourself. You want to cry, sob, yell, scream.

“Fine, Y/N, it’s okay. You know what? It’s okay, you don’t owe me an explanation, you don’t owe me anything, not an apology, not a reason, not your love. It’s okay. It’s fine. Maybe you never loved me, saw me in the same way. Maybe I just assumed, maybe it was wrong of me to assume. Maybe I was too optimistic, too in love with you that I had forced myself to believe the story that I had made up in my head, that you were in love with me too. Maybe I had wanted it, wanted you so bad that I had made myself believe it. Made myself believe that you were in love with me.”

Your heart instinctually reaches out to him, drumming feverishly against your fragile ribcage. No, you want to scream. No, Taehyung, you couldn’t be more fucking wrong. He doesn’t know the way your heart beats for him in the dead of night, how the mere thought of him sends shivers down your spine, how every cell in your body, every thread of your being aches, yearns for his presence with every hour, every minute, every second.

You feel your heart breaking, splintering into thousands, millions of tiny little fragments raining down like shards of glass. It hurts, it hurts like hell.

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t force yourself into anything. There’s no need to anymore. There’s no more need to lie, no more need to pretend that you’re happy.”

“Thank you for telling me the truth.”

It’s not the truth, you want to cry. It’s not. It’s the farthest from it. But you return his look, tight-lipped. You nod, despite the swell of emotions that are threatening to cut you in half at this very moment.

“You’re welcome.”

He reciprocates your nod and slowly, painfully, tears his eyes from yours. He stands up, gingerly, as if hesitating, and you want to tell him to stop, to sit back down, that you’re lying to him, that you want him, that you want him more than anything in this world. But you don’t, and he continues onto his feet, sparing you one last gaze.

“At least I get to say goodbye,” he says, wistfully. “At least I now have the chance to say goodbye.”

You’re sure that tears are streaming down your face at this point, little trails of ice making their way down your blushed cheeks. Your lips are tight, and you cannot, for the life of you, return his look.

Before you can fully comprehend what’s happening, you know he’s here, the familiar hold of his arms, your face finding itself nestled on the same spot on his chest, right above his heart. You feel it beat, gently, slowly, under your ear, a comforting rhythm that you’ve too often fallen asleep to, whispered to. Your arms instinctually wrap around his waist, and his head settles on the crook of your neck, the curve of his nose gently kissing your delicate skin. His warmth radiates from under his coat, and you soak it all in, collecting as much as you can. You are two puzzle pieces, a perfect fit, and you will this moment into eternity, searing it into your memory, wishing for the world to stop, stop right now and leave you in this moment forever. You’ve been lost, wandering, and have finally come home.  

But forever doesn’t exist.

You’re struck with a blast of cold at his loss, feeling horribly empty. He steps away from you, and you’re almost certain that you see moisture in his eyes, tears threatening to break free. Every fiber of your being yearns for him, you want to reach out to him, extend the hug, shower him in kisses, make up and forget that this all even happened, but you’re too prideful. You can’t let yourself do this.

“Goodbye, Y/N. Thank you for everything.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

                                             [    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙    ]

11:42am, March 12 2021

[taehyung]

I miss you.

I miss you as the seasons come and go, I miss you as I watch the world going to shit, losing all hope. I miss you when the wind blows, taking me along like a pointless man, destined for nowhere. I’ll miss you eternally; I’ll miss you when all the ice melts into the ocean, I’ll miss you when everything’s finally disappeared and there’s utter nothing left for me.

I miss you in the brightest mornings and the darkest nights, when the sun comes out to play and the rain starts pelting down like there’s no tomorrow. I’ll miss you in the loneliest winters and the blooming springs.

Everything reminds me of you. I am stuck in this eternal frost without you here; your loss has trapped me into this winter forever. I am slowly losing feel of my limbs as they succumb to the cold around me - everything has frozen into place, trapping me into the confines of this perpetual season. The world is closing in, I have nowhere to go, nothing to do. No longer do I have you to lead me out of this snow, no longer do I have you to hold my hand and bring me warmth through it all.

Why did you have to go?

Baby, did you know how much pain I’d be in when you’d left? Did you know how much it would hurt, how you’ve trapped me into this never-ending arctic, leaving me behind to freeze?

Did you know when you chose to go?

You’ve left me in ruins, my love. I can’t continue without you. I’m struggling to breathe, suffocating, as the world collapses inwards, threatening to bury me alive. I wait for you everyday, through all of the grief, the pain. I still wait for the day that you come back, that I get to see your face again.

Or maybe I’m a dumbass. I don’t know. Have you changed? Or is it I who has? Or perhaps, us both? I’m still a lovesick fool for you, Y/N, that I can tell you for sure. I can’t stop thinking of you, as the days pass, sun and moon taking their turns in the sky. I’m left, suffering in this darkness, bleakness without you here. I wonder if you’ll still be there at the end, when all ceases to exist. I wonder if I’ll see you again; how much more do I have to wait? How many more sleepless nights will have to pass before I can lay my eyes upon you again? How many days, months, years do I have to hold back before I get to feel you, touch you, kiss you, one more time?

Or maybe I’m being optimistic. You know what, Y/N, I’ll never see you again, maybe you’re better off without me. Maybe it’s all for the best, maybe it’s time for me to move on, maybe it’s time for you to move on. Maybe it really was not meant to be, maybe you really weren’t the one for me.

Then why can’t I get you out of my head?

Y/N, I wish I could just forget you. I wish you never existed, I wish I had never gotten to know you. Then it would be so much easier for me. I wish that you had ignored me, that you had turned me down when you had the chance. It would’ve been the most pain that I’d feel at the time, but believe me, it’s nothing compared to this.

Now I can’t get rid of you, no matter how hard I try. You’re there, you’re there when I lie down and close my eyes for the night, you’re there at work, hiding behind my papers and my laptop, waiting to take me out to lunch. You’re everywhere, baby, you’re in the car, riding shotgun and racing to connect to Bluetooth first, singing at the top of your lungs as we speed down the highway like the reckless teenagers that we were. I see you, hair tangled by the wind, belting out your favorite lyrics out of the roof of my convertible. And I remember thinking, for the hundredth time that night, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. Damnit, Y/N, you’re standing by the mirror every morning when I get ready for my meetings, dainty fingers straightening my tie and planting a kiss on my lips. You got this, lover boy.

You’re there, and then you’re not. You flicker between reality and imagination, I cannot discern whether I’m living in a fever dream or simply hallucinating. You’re slipping through my hands like grains of sand: I’m losing more of you by the second, can’t seem to hold on to you. You’re disappearing, getting further and further away as all I can do is watch helplessly as you fall through my fingers.

Where are you now, Y/N?

I worry about you, I worry whether you’ve eaten well, whether you’ve slept well, whether you’ve had a good day at the office. Have you seen your parents lately? Have you had some time to yourself over the past days, have you overworked yourself as you often tend to do? Are you taking care of yourself?

Is it selfish of me to be wishing for you, thinking of you after all this time? Tell me, Y/N, is it wrong of me to be wanting you despite it having been over for so long now? You’ve probably moved on by now, considering how long it’s already been. Maybe you’ve met someone new, maybe you’re in love with someone else, maybe I’ve already been replaced with another man in your life.

Maybe I treated you wrong, maybe you didn’t feel like I loved you enough, maybe I didn’t make you feel special enough. I wish, Y/N, I wish that I could turn back time for you, I wish I could go back and be better for you, that I could fix all of the mistakes that I’ve made, wipe all of the tears that you might’ve cried for me, swallow up all of the pain that must’ve been plaguing you, to suck up the hurt that you were feeling back then. I wish you could give me all of the pain, I wish that I could’ve carried it all for you, shielded you from it all like how I should’ve done.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?

You’ve met someone else by now, you’re laughing, smiling, whispering with another, kissing someone else’s lips, in love with your new man. And I’m still here, trying to get over you like the pathetic loser that I am. There are so many regrets, so many things that I wish that I could still tell you, so many errors, mistakes that I made. It’s all my fault. I want nothing more than to be able to get on my knees in front of you and apologize for everything. There are so many more words, so many moments that I want nothing more than to be spending with you.

I’m still in love with you.

I think I always will be, Y/N. I know it’s selfish of me. I really can’t help it. I’m sorry.

You came into my life like a whirlwind, taking all of me along for the ride. And now that you’re gone, I don’t know what to do with myself no longer. I’ve been swept away with you and my fate will forever be left in your hands. There’s nothing left for me here, not in my work nor art. All that’s left is you. You are the only thing keeping me going now - I live another day, endure another night hoping for you, waiting for the day that I will finally see you again. I open my eyes for you in the mornings, in hopes of laying them upon your figure once more.

Maybe it’ll all be for nothing, I know. Maybe I’ll never see you again. But there’s nothing left for me, remember? I’m willing to take my chance. For when I finally do see you once more, it will all be worth it.

I miss you, Y/N. I miss you so fucking much. My heart beats for you, my lungs breathe for you. My every cell in my entire being aches so desperately for you, for you and you only. And so I’ll wait for you. I promise. I’ll be here for you, waiting for the day that I get to catch a glimpse of you, to be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, for when you need even the littlest, tiniest thing. I’m ready to give you the world, baby. I’m ready to right all my wrongs, to treat you like the fucking queen that you are. I’m going to treat you the way that you deserve.

When that time comes, my heart will be happy. When the time comes that I see you again, that I hear your voice again, your laugh again, it’ll be okay. All this pain will fade away to nothing. Don’t worry about me, darling, I’ll always be here, waiting. Waiting for you, until the end.

I promise.

                                                    ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙

an: i hope you liked it!!!! <3 please please please leave feedback my loves!

[myelocin]

infinity times infinity | matsukawa i.

synopsis: issei feels the kind of familiar where you know you’ve loved him in your lives before this, but it’s in this life and in this moment where you realize you don’t want to forget and start over again.

characters: matsukawa issei, you

genre: hurt/comfort, reincarnation!sortofau lol, smidge of angst, i guess some fluff bcos yall cuddle

wc: 2000+

a/n: saturn, by sleeping at last is the song that’s been on repeat and this piece is heavily inspired by that song. please listen to it, it’s worth it. i yacked this piece out last night when i was crying and in a weird mood lol. @/kate, this is for our brainrot ab the song last night ;w;

-

“how rare and beautiful it is to even exist,” are the words that loop in your head over and over again every time issei holds your hand under the night sky.

you think of how the space around you feels like a pool of nothing. like you’re suspended in a void of just whatever nothing was made out of. even if in the back of your mind you’re aware of how issei’s car is parked some distance away from where you lay on your backs, side by side as the night sky above watches you. you’re aware about how his grandmother’s house is only a few streets away from this space of temporary nothing—but somehow when you look up, then around the space that still looks like just a void, the moment feels still.

so even as you begin to feel yourself drift up with the stars, the moon’s pull sounding like the siren’s song you’ve been warned all your life to never drift towards—earth’s gravity manifests in the form of a boy whose hands are warm like the sun.

“what time is it?” you know you should probably ask, because the lights from the houses in the distance are dim by now.

issei next to you can hear the unspoken question, so he smiles as he reads you, but ultimately chooses to not answer either way.

“how have you been feeling?” is what he voices out instead, and when you don’t turn your head to face him, issei shifts to his side and turns to look at you instead.

saturn, he thinks. he thinks he sees the rings of saturn swirl around your eyes. but when he squints and tries to look closer, issei can only smile more when he sees the stars from above reflect in the depth of your irises—looking more like twinkling fireflies instead of the balls of fire that could very well give life.

and stars, issei smiles. probably the most heartbreaking metaphor the universe could offer. the lights in the sky that’s probably live longer than he; coming from stars that are long gone—their very essence scattered across the dark space of a universe who can’t be known of whether it is kind or cruel.

“how do you want me to answer that?” you reply that comes in the form of a question, the corners of your lips quirking up into a smile.

then when you blink, a gleam of light from above is caught in your eye before you turn to face him, the traces of it quickly swallowed back into the depths as you turn from the light. black holes, issei recalls.

he thinks that tonight you reminded him a little bit like the universe. and because the universe witnessed nothing but truth as humanity thrived and evolved under its watch, he opens his mouth as he asks you for your truth.

“just answer it however you want to answer it.”

“i feel like every time i look at the sky, i’m only reminded of how much of a flicker we only are,” is your truth that you whisper to him. and much like the listening ears of the void, issei stays still next to you, but lets his presence be known through his silence.

but in his silence, you find safety, so you look up at the sky again and continue.

“i think about this life, the past, and the next. maybe i knew and loved you in the life before this, maybe i didn’t. maybe i loved someone else as much as i love you now, issei. and it always trips me up because what if that’s the grand plan for us after this life. what if we’re only meant to love each other in this life and only get to brush shoulders a couple of times as strangers in every life after this?”

“i don’t want to forget you, issei,” you whisper as you finish confessing the truth that’s weighed heavy on you.

beside you, issei exhales and looks at the sky. at the moon whose phase he can’t quite recall the name of and like its gravity that gently pulled you—he felt himself rise to the sky with his emotions.

he knows that something inside him aches—has ached— but for as long as he felt it he could never find a name for it. your hand, a little cold in his, shakes, and just like that issei knows that the storm inside you is raging at its greatest speed.

“i think of the lady down the street all the time too, you know?” he hears you speak again.

he hums, squeezing your hand motioning for you to continue.

“when she used to give me cookies during the holidays, i’d always say thank you to her and to who she could have been before because every time i eat what she makes, it tastes like i’ve had it before. i know no one in the house really had time to bake, but that auntie felt like an old friend. “

“but then again, even if that was the case, who she was in this life is who is in my memories. i didn’t like her because i felt like i knew her, but i did because i got to know her. in this life.”

you pause to exhale. shaky, issei notes, like the almost unnoticeable tremble of your hands. he knows that if he were just to loosen his hands in the slightest, that he would miss it. but because he is still next to you, still like the void that listens to the very universe that cradles and destroys galaxies whisper its truth over and over again, he still hears you.

“i feel like i’ve known you for lifetimes,” you say as you finally turn to face him, cradling his face in the palm of your hands. your breath hitches because every time issei looks at you—you know that he sees you. he’s always understood you. always made the madness in your head and scattered bursts of emotions in your heart make sense even if in reality it’s anything but fluid.

like scattered light, you think. the sparks you see during the new year that build and build and build until it bursts.

then when it scatters, the feeling that comes to you is one that you understand despite the lack of words to frame it with.

“we probably have,” you hear him reply, softly. kindly. in honesty.

but the rage in your heart doesn’t succumb to the call of silence. because like scattered light, it’s in this lifetime where the epiphany hits you that you love him with an intensity as such. you know the fireworks are beautiful and are only in the sky to be seen by your eyes, but much like the stars you know that even if the remnants of their light remains for the shortest while—they, themselves, will cease to exist.

and the fact that you don’t know where they would go after is what terrifies you the most.

“i don’t wanna chase you again and again and forget this,” you whisper.

“us,” you continue.

“matsukawa issei is the name of the man i love in this lifetime and i don’t want you to become just familiar,” you cry.

“i don’t want us to just be stars,” you finish.

your truth, issei begins to think, is what sparks questions for him. for as long as you tried to explain the infinite, he has always just listened.

the void.

where weightlessness was the constant he felt when he was with you. the kind that’s in between space and earth; where he’s caught in a trance when he’s with you until he eventually drifts too close to the edge until gravity starts to take hold and pull.

but even as issei hurdles towards earth, his speed too unprecedented that it comes to a point where he’s confused of whether he’s diving or soaring—in the midst of its chaos, issei only knows peace. because whether he looks up at the sky or down where he’s meant to land, the black of the sky and the inked navy of the ocean looks the same.

do we soar to the stars or dive headfirst into the ocean? is the question he thinks of, and just like that the infinite remains unanswered.

“the inevitable is something that will never be in our hands to change,” issei replies instead, his voice hushed.

and he knows you hear him because just like that, you tremble in his hands and cry at fate’s truth.

“to think that i have loved you, am loving you, and will be loving you, i think is really the universe’s only way of being forgiving,” you hear issei mumble, as your heart clenches even further.

the scattered lights are back, you notice. you see them vivid behind your eyelids as you press the heels of your palm to your eyes to fight back the tears. the words you wish to say come in pieces of letters instead of coherent sentences while the feeling in your heart feels like it’s already at its peak.

looking at issei, you scramble for a sense of fluidity so you can capture your thoughts and lay them out as how you feel them—but your mouth comes dry.

and like the simplest lullaby that never failed to hum you to sleep, issei’s voice chimes: “how rare and beautiful it is to even just exist.”

“in this moment, in this very second we’re in the same life and loving each other with names we’ve come to know.”

and because you’ve always thought that the listening void deserved the greatest honors, before you could even allow it, your heart calms as the puzzle pieces snap in place.

“do you really think that the universe is still forgiving? despite it making us chase each other in different lifetimes with different faces and names every single time?” you ask, looking for comfort in his truth.

“your soul remains,” issei says, the twinkle in his eyes looking like stars.

“i love you by your soul, and not your name, and neither the universe or fate could ever take that away from us,” he finishes.

you decide that the stars you see in his eyes are those who are still alive.

“are you certain? that the universe won’t take that away from us?” you ask, exhaling your truth as a question instead of a confession.

“could we ever truly be certain?” issei replies, not really knowing the answer himself.

earth’s gravity reminds him of its presence when issei turns to look at you and sees the hem of your sweater fall onto the blades of grass. and for what it’s worth, it brings him comfort; it reminds him that despite the uncertainties and cruelty of fate, the universe’s mercy also exists.

where you and him with the souls that probably have loved again and again, in the moment exist together under the stars.

the truth you hold is one that speaks of an unsourced ache.

and though shrouded in mystery, as you turn to look at him and offer him a smile where he knows he may have just seen in this life but found a familiar refuge in from his soul—issei can never deny the beauty the universe holds when it comes to exhale its truth.    

 -                                                                                           

[wrctings]

Levi Ackerman | To live

i absolutely cannot stop writing about emotional levi... he’s been through so much and he deserves to finally have something for himself :(

fandom: Attack on Titan summary: Where the war is over and Levi finally gets to grow old peacefully, which comes with reconnecting with emotions he has long buried—namely, Erwin. But he doesn’t want to join him; not just yet.   inspired by this magnificent piece of art 🥺 word count: 1k music: coastline - hollow coves disclaimer: SPOILERS FROM THE ENDING OF THE MANGA

The setting sun's soft outpour washed over Levi's worn out features, shrouding the man's short silhouette in a frame of golden, crepuscular light, which weaved the phantasmal threads of a solar cape around his shoulders. It had taken him a little while to come out there, by himself.

Drops of melted gold rippled the grey surface of his weary eyes, one of which remained zoomed out of focus, its clear pupil parted by a milky slit—the relic of a time that had slipped through his fingers, and yet that he had known all his life... What was there left for someone like him, now?

There, atop the quiet cliff that had taken in the worn out soldier, Levi’s solitude had been welcomed by the peaceful murmurs of unbridled waves lapping the lone shore, and the clean stillness of a wooden cabin. Sometimes, Gaby and Falco would visit, storming into the homey silence of Levi’s house in a friendly hurricane of childish enthusiasm and frenzy, turning everything upside down with the lively force of their chattering youth; and though their elder would brew them tea and listen to their infinite babbling with his familiar ruggedness, he never complained. If anything, Levi was grateful. Grateful that there were people left for him to cherish. 

But the tall, immovable cliff, stood still. And, just like it, something in Levi couldn’t move.

Something within the heart that many deemed cold, long drained of all vital warmth, also stood frozen in time, unknown to the mesmerising sunsets that had declined over Levi’s head and to the wideness of the world he had embraced. When he had turned his back on the walls, something had stayed behind. Something, someone. The one thing Levi could never forgive himself for—the stone lying in the pit of his stomach, sunk so profoundly, he feared he would drown before his hand desperately reach its sharp edges. He’d gasp for air, breathless, all alone in the hillside cabin, calling out his name, screaming... He could see it. Through half-lidded eyes, in the depth of night, he had already battled enough nightmares to know. 

Everything had taken him a little while, after all. A little while before he stopped shuddering whenever his calloused fingers absent-mindedly skimmed the scars etched in his skin; a little while before the faintest flicker of determination drove him out of crumpled bedsheets, limbs leaning onto a wobbly cane while he’d progress about the house step by tentative step, and a little while before he started taking care of himself again, jaw clean-shaved and hair neatly trimmed even when nobody was around to help. Levi had to be again, first. But now, he also had to feel. 

Captured by the generous halo of light, whose grand decline kept on unfolding right before the man’s eyes, Levi’s gaze found itself fixed on the glimmering white horses playing upon the sea, bathed in the the warm colours dripping from the orange sky specked with herds of rosy clouds. The stone that once sat in the pit of Levi’s stomach gently weighed on his chest, against his flimsy shirt, almost right over his heart.

“You would’ve liked it here, Erwin,” he finally breathed out, letting the wind take hold of each syllable and carry it away into the sea, the horizon, beyond the cliff, into the sky. "The sea, those people and all their weird inventions... You like that sentimental shit. I can picture you just now, with those stupid sparks in your eyes and that child-like laugh of yours,” Levi chuckled quietly, fingertips brushing against the polished emerald hanging around his neck; he had kept it safely shut away for a long time before he could look at it again. “Even the brats seem to be doing fine, they come visit from time to time. They’ve grown so tall, it’s irritating. But neither you nor shitty glasses would get that. Tall bastards.”

Levi cautiously clasped the cool green gem in the palm of his hand, feeling it fit just right, the warmth of his skin shielding it from the spray borne by the maritime breeze ruffling his hair and clothes. “I hope you didn’t think I would forget you.” He slowly raised the stone, letting it touch his lips, which he softly pressed onto its smooth curve. “You were brat number one, after all. To me, you will always be. And shitty-glasses, too. That’s brat number two.” 

For a few tender seconds, Levi’s eyelids fluttered close, and he could imagine, even just for that fragment of a moment, the ghostly pressure of large hands placed upon his shoulders; he still remembered the last day he’d felt their comforting touch, an unspoken pledge. Before Shiganshina, before Levi's own razor-sharp voice would condemn Erwin to an irredeemable liberation, they’d stood together, as always, and Erwin’s hand, as always, had lingered a little too long on Levi’s shoulder, wordlessly promising him they’d remain together until the very end. The Survey Corps way—Erwin, Hanji, their comrades believed that. For the first time, humanity would fight back, would reclaim their land. For the first time, the Survey Corps, under 13th Commander Erwin Smith, would take a decisive step for mankind. A step toward truth, toward freedom, toward... Levi shuddered. He was all alone.

Or...  His mother, Kenny, Isabel and Furlan, his squad, Mike, Erwin, Sasha, his comrades, Hanji... was he? Levi opened his eyes. The sun was still setting, the sea peacefully rocked back and forth beneath his feet, the wind made loose strands of dark hair flutter above his lashes. He was still alive. Then, he saw them. The blond boy with bright eyes who had reminded him of Erwin on so many occasion; the two insufferable young brats constantly picking fights, but whose bravery had touched the squad leader; the caring young woman whose strength unrivalled that of her peers... Those cadets from the 104th; and the two new young brats who had taken care of him. Perhaps Levi had never been alone, after all. 

Taking a deep breath in, Levi’s lips curled into a weak smile, and the wind wiped away his tears. For the first time in his life, he felt something... that didn’t hurt. “Just wait for me a little longer, okay, Erwin?”  After all these years, the war had finally come to an end. And now, Levi wanted to live. 

[grim-faux]

09_Snare

 First

 A long time ago, he accepted that no matter how hard he tried, how far he wandered, the man in the hat would find him. Not like he was very active in the escape; he wanted to reach the tower and get inside. It was at time convenient to travel near the tall man, the presence as unsettling to him as it was to the other adults that would normally tear after him.

 It was a problem, since he had no idea what should be done once he found Six. If When he found Six – and he would find her – they would have to get away. Again. The idea of reverting back to the running and escape heightened his unease. The man in the hat would find them, just knew where he was. Always knew.

 Six was gone, the man stole her. Why would help, or let him, steal Six back?

 Nothing added up. None of it made sense. It was a trap. But a trap, when already caught? Very confusing, and scary.

 If he knew more of the man, then a better chance for the run and the escape would be his. They could trick the man, they were good at tricks. She was good at leading and finding places, and he was good as bait. They could figure this out.

 When the Thin Man stopped following, Mono let out a little sigh. The oppressive gaze was gone and the static faded from the air. He could focus on finding his way, getting lost and less found. Sometimes, that was the way to find what was missing. Stop looking for it, stop knowing where you were, become lost with it. Find first. Run later.

 Run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run-run- run-run-run-run-run.

 The light within the doors crooned a strange melody, a calming and gentle sing. The tail of his coat flashed and frilled as he spun this or that way, dashing to one radiant portal to the next, trying to smell through the strange dust and mist of this place. It was a strange place. The corridors familiar somehow, but not in the way they pretended to be places he knew. It was a different kind of familiar, something he felt should be known but was not easily placed.

 These colors he knew. The walls, too. Sometimes it was hard to walk and push on – his limbs like lead and the air resisted his passage. It was a silent and invisible torrent of a storm rattling against his body, but nothing visible wailed against him. He didn’t think about trying to run away. First Her. First Six.

 A thrashed door greeted him, mocking his approach. The cracks gawked at him, and he swore it sniggered. He took an axe and tore away the illusion.

 Then he found her. And felt this whole trial had been for nothing. Nothing ever went right in the horrible place.

 It was Six, he knew it was her. But she was monstrous and twisted, a horrendous memory gone awry. How could he fix this? Was it possible? It wasn’t possible, his friend was too distorted. There was no way.

 “Sorry,” he murmured, and stroked her arm. He never gave her sorry. Never showed her how it meant.

 The lumbering behemoth didn’t seem to understand. But she did show him the music box. The thing which guided him here, and twittered its lovely sing. Calming and soothing, somehow sad. Like a place that was left behind and forgotten, but a piece of it always remained. Waiting for them.

 Mono curled up by an open suitcase, staring at her as she watched him. The music box chirping endlessly, reminding him where he first found her. What they had to do to escape the place. It was a good memory, but a hard one to return on.

 He broke his friend. He broke her so bad.

 The music box seemed to judge him. Snickered and gargled ugly noises.

 I keep. You leave. She is mine. Mine-mine-mine.

 He took up the axe and crept over to the thing. He managed to get her away from the melodic device, then, with her back turned, like a thief, like the worst kind of monster ever. He brought the axe down.

 And the laughter screeched in his mind.

 The walls distorted and lurched, with each strike of the metal cylinder. It screamed at him. She screamed at him. The walls glared and hissed, eyes glittered within the cracks.

 “I’m sorry!” he howled. The loudest that he ever screamed before, it cut something in his throat. She almost caught him when he hid under a table, snagged the blanket over his back with long disjointed arms. He didn’t stop, he would never stop. Never!

 “SORRY!” With each careening crack, everything became much worse. She became worse.

 But it was hurting this place, too. And that’s what mattered. It hurt the place that stole people. And that’s what he wanted. Hurt it, punish it. Make it regret!

 Give Six B̸̢̧̢̲͉̤̙̻̭͈̤͚͍̭̫̖͇̞̯̦̲̭̜͚̰̜͕̜̦͆̔̅̓̌̚͠͝A̷̩͇͉̿̽̀͌̒̏̌͛̐͊̏̈́̽̓͘̕C̵̡̢̟̪͈͇͎͇̟͉͔̣̖̭̠̜̩͇̬̦̝͕̦̰̓́̅́͌̄̈́̃͂̒̐̉́͋̍̐̇̀̔̀͛̽̅̽̒́̏͠͝͝K̵̡̨̛̤̲̰͉̔̃̇̈͂̊̓̀͠!̸̨̢̮͚̝̳͈͎͚͇͉̗̺͉͗̓̈́̈́͋͛̉̓͋̇͘͝

 Possessed by his rage and terror, he tore through the barrier built to hold him back from his friend. She cowered over the box, hissing, eyes flashing inside the hood of her coat. He wondered if this was right, if he was doing what was good.

 But the place would eat her. There would be nothing left. He wouldn’t let die. It couldn’t end like that.

 He tricked her away. While her back was turned, he brought the axe down.

 Everything was crumbling and warped, the ceiling buckled. Terrible eyes glared, and in there someone, something was laughing.

 She tried to steal the music box away. He brought the axe down one last time, summoning all the strength in his battered body. Everything went black.

 It couldn’t have been long. The place was still coming undone; plaster and cinderblocks erupted off the walls… something gross and oozing spilled forth. Beneath his back the floor twitched and withered. He sat up.

 Across from where he fell. Her! The Six! It was his Six. Normal, small, not horrendous Six. She was standing, all back and put together. His friend!

 He couldn’t help himself. He raised an arm and waved. “OI!”

 She twisted to him. Then, gathered in their surroundings. Eyes everywhere, gleaming, teeth gnashed. The walls would chew them, that much was a promise.

 He swung his arm and struggled to rise – nearly collapsing – the wind knocked from him in that last barrage. His feet couldn’t hold his weight. He gave a sharp whistle, cutting through the grinding bellow of everything around them. There was a path, to the side. He swept his arm out, gesturing, unsure if she saw through the distortions of light. She must’ve, because she zipped by.

 Mono was not far behind. Not too far.

 But the walls rolled and rebelled against the confines of a building, or the mask of a harmless place. Eyes tore out of notches, veiny and bulbous masses bubbled from the ground where his feet should stand. They ran like never before, and Six kept the lead. She guided the way, and if not for the yellow coat she wore, he might’ve become so lost in all the silt and shadows swirling.

 He rolled over another wave of flesh but caught his footing fast and smooth, barely missing a step. The floor around them disintegrated, and the walls crooned with snarling laughter. He nearly went down and off the side, but shoved back up onto his feet and staggered. Breathing coming in ragged spits, his sides thrummed from this abuse – stop-stop! You have to stop this!

 He would collapse in the rain or some grungy bog, but not here! This place was made of death.

 Ahead the path caved and collapsed. He thought for a moment she too, went into the chasm below – the entirety of it so deep, he felt his soul leech off into the infinite darkness. But no! She was there, turning back. Her outline clear and distinct against the sizzling glean of a screen. A television!

 Without a second thought, he leapt from the edge – not judging, not wondering if he could make the jump. His coat and the blanket flared out as he came down, fast! He shoved his arm out.

 Six lurched from the other side, throwing a hand out.

 Gotcha!

 Mono whined in his throat when his arm crashed against the toothy side of the broken platform. But hurt meant he was not dead. He reached for his shoulder and tried not to jostle, she might not have the best grip on the ledge. He looked up and blinked hard at the soot, tightened his grip on her hand to express that appreciation he couldn’t convey.

 And then waited.

 The walls thundered, the place was still collapsing. Whatever blistering radiance which followed them here, gave out and darkened. They had to go. It was time to leave. Mono didn’t respond or say a word, she knew. But maybe, maybe she was hurt too and needed a moment more. He stared up at her, and she gazed back. Or… he presumed she gazed, her hood concealed most of her face.

 Then he was falling.

 It was so effortless, without warning. She inched him up a bit, then… her hand was gone. The tight hold tore out of his grasp. His arm cut along the side of the bridge, and he was plunging unrestrained. Into the dark abyss that growled below.

 No.

 She stood there, observing. Unmoving.

 I’m….

 Was she mad? She was mad. But….

 I’m SORRY!

 Mono reached, tried to stretch his arm higher from the depths curling around his sinking form. As if that would change anything. He coiled his hand into a fist, wanting to feel that warm palm in his. Not the icy air rushing in to rob him of that contact. Stealing him away, from her, and the light. He was falling.

 But WHY?!

 He was falling.

 He was falling.

 She let him fall.

 He was going to die. He was plunging into a deep, dark grave. A living pit, of writhing walls and millions of eyes and teeth. Don’t let me GO!

 His shoulder wrenched within a vice, and he thought for certain he’d collided with the wall or some chunk of cement smashed into his bones. But his plunge ceased, the swiftness of it dragged out of his legs and through his toes. Reflexively he snapped his head up to where she was, but he was so far below, couldn’t see the surface above or if she was there still. He whipped his head around, and kind of wished he was still falling.

 A set of fingers knotted around his shoulder, extending to an arm and to a familiar hat. The shimmer of the static screen glistened across the downcast bill, he couldn’t see the face. This was possibly worst. If he was dead, he couldn’t be hurt. There was no telling what that would do with him. And no one was coming to save him. No one was left who would care.

 The fingers tightened and he cringed, but suddenly he was sailing through open air. His knees barely cleared the rocky surface of the path and he landed poorly, but light swarmed around him. His was basking in the hard silver light of the television screen. What happened? Why was he here? Where was Six?

 Mono pushed himself up off his knees and edged toward the light – a crack formed in the screen, as the wall around it disintegrated. A low, groaning croon worked its way through the surface.

 __

 Too close.

 That had been too close.

 This was all supposed to work out differently, as he recalled. It had been decades, but he knew the events too well. Replayed them near constantly, when he wasn’t wondering of the cruelty of it all. He might know something about what the child was made to endure, or had endured, but not all of it. Unlike the child, no one caught him when he fell. He fought, he retaliated. Enough was ENOUGH. The whole affair exhausted him.

 The Thin Man tried to adjust his posture and ease back. Too close. The boy nearly fell out of sight completely, and that was after he tempered time. He nearly missed, almost couldn’t draw the child back.

 The thundering walls howled at him. Shut up. You’ll have me.

 The small bridge crumbled and he lost his grip, his long legs swung down against the base. Somehow, his arms managed to loop over the surface and keep him from swinging off into the gnashing void. Despite knowing where this would all go, and how this was meant to lay out, he brought his face to the side of his shoulder and just… held on. A little longer. Debris splint and showered his hat, and the ravenous abyss clawed at his feet. It would drag him down and hold him tight. Now that it knew everything. Now that he understood. The last item he wanted to insure, was that the—

 “HEY!”

 He was in the process of turning his head, but the hoot caught him off guard and he all but lost his hold completely. What?

 Ẅ̶̧̨̻͚͇̙͎̥̝͇͈̮͖́H̵̗̟͔͓̑̏̉̈́̀̐́̇͆̀̀̇̑̈̕͘͝Ą̸̦̠̪̣͈͖͍͉̞͐͋͑͋̀̑̎̀̀̀̽̽̐͊͝T̵̨̬͕̱̞̝̰̫̞̰̉̍͆̾̏̀̍̉̀͠?̶̡̛͉̞̺̮͈̩͚̲̙̟͕̬͚͓̗̬́̃͆̆̿͛͗̍̚!̶̙͚̣̬̟̠͙̟̺̮͖̤̹͊͋̕?̵͎͗͆͐́̈͂̄͑̌̒̈́͐͘͠͝!̸̧̧̛̳͍͇̦̙̈́̽̑̂͂̈́̎̇̀̏̄͂͝͝

 Of all the— this child was still there! His escape was evaporating!

 His impulse was wave the foolish boy away, but his arms were occupied. Instead, he hissed, “Go.”

 The boy shook his head, a stalwart silhouette against the grinding screech of static. “Here! Here!”

 The Thin Man lost his hold but managed to snare the remnants of the path with his fingertips. “No! My place here.” It would be fine. He would return to his room. Leave the child to have a few more years or however long in the sun. It was a dangerous and unforgiving world, but living in a trap parading as a cage, deceiving him into believing there was sanctuary… that was more dangerous. He’d learn.

 “Stay with!” the child hailed. He ducked backwards, when a chunk of wall folded down. He glanced back to the screen, the exit, debating. “Here! With!” He tottered to the edge. “Then stay with!” The edge began decaying, and he was forced to retreat a few feet. “HAI!”

 He absolutely cannot believe this idiot, stubborn, dolt. Unbelievable. “You understand nothing!” If they’re both trapped, and… who knows what will happen. A dead end. Retaliation? He was going to ruin everything, without realizing the severity. “You will undo us.”

 Something below snared his ankle and heaved downward. The Thin Man was stretched to the extent of his arms and prepared to let go….

 When the walls ceased to thrum and coil inward. He blinked, baffled by this change. What happened? A low, hissing growl rumbled through the interior encompassing the chamber, but they moved no further. Some of the eyes shut and dissolved, the laughing for a moment ceased entirely – replaced only by that dangerous grating. A promise, that retaliation INDEED would be fast and cruel.

 Stunned, he twisted his head, nearly knocking his hat off. Ah. Ah!?

 The child was bent over the very crest of the bridge, one arm extended while the other pressed at the side of his head. It looked as though the whole event was taking its toll, he was crumpled under the exertion. He recalled one time, long-long ago, poised like that. But it certainly was not hunched over a collapsing wall.

 “Mono! Don’t!” It didn’t appear his words got through, the child warred with an entity he did not grasp. The boy might be less aware of his surroundings by now, and there would be no reasoning. No further warning. Fool!

 He tugged himself up, tearing his leg from whatever undesirable thing was latched on. Kicking his feet into the corrupt wall beneath, the Thin Man hoisted up the inverted wall and clambered awkwardly onto a more stable surface. For a moment longer it would hold. Only a bit longer, if the child could maintain this. Idiot, foolish….

 Once he collected himself and dusted off, he tempered time, stalling out the entire space. Overlapping with the tampering the child willed. When he checked the other side, he was alarmed to find the boy collapsed. Not only collapsed, but aimed to fold over and plunge into the wretched depths he had barely whisked him from.

 Teleport and time tampering was risky one after the other, but all and together? The effects on time would expire out and he wouldn’t have options to mull over. He shifted himself to the opposite side, a shriek of static and pop announced the distortion. That too, would be hard on the smaller one. At this point, it wouldn’t matter what happened if he didn’t resolve to risks. He spared a moment to coalesce himself, steady the static and fibers of the long-limbed shape. Then, whipped back and snagged the child by the coat tail, before he could topple fully over the edge.

 With the manipulator of the chamber incapacitated, the walls erupted with an aggravate shriek. The last of the cement and rebar splint free, and a hundred eyes snapped open, searching. For the first time in what seemed to be his entire existence, this ugly placed sounded… upset.

 The Thin Man cradled the child over his palm and knelt, touching at the screen blazing with white fury. With well-mannered intuition he tuned the transmission, all the while ignoring the swelling mass creeping closer and bubbling around his shoulders. Once satisfied, he forced the child and his shoulder through, then the rest of his lithe form. At his feet, the boiling flesh collided with the transmitter.

 On the other side, a television set burst.

Next

[juminly]

Hide and Seek (Mitsuhide x Reader) Part 2

This is Part 2 of “Hide and Seek” which you can read here: Part 1.  I hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave your comments ^_^ Tagging: @yunohawkeye @kylor​ Warning: NSFW.  ------ “Your welcome was more than stimulating, my little mouse. It appears that our little game has been fruitful. I believe it’s time I reap what I’ve sown.” You stared at his back and at his now disheveled hair, completely dumbstruck. How could he say all that… how could he leave himself so undefended when he knew exactly the state you were in? You were too proud to admit that he was right. He knew better than yourself. Your body responded even more when you were denied and forced to fight for what you want. Biting your lower lip, you straightened your back and sighed heavily, your breath rushing passed your gnawed pink flesh. “You could’ve tried to appear surprised. That’s the least you could do, Mitsuhide. You could give me the satisfaction of catching you”, you whined childishly. “You’ve been away for too long… I missed you, Mitsuhide.” You were at the end of your wits and decided to finally put an end to the charade that you helped orchestrate. “Well... I lied, (Y/N).”His voice had dropped an octave, the smooth huskiness making your chest tighten and your heart skipped a few beats, propelled into an allegro that he conducted with such ease. Every inch of your being was an instrument to be toyed with, loved and revered by him. Mitsuhide finally turned around, shifting himself onto all fours and sinuously crawling towards you. Wrapping his cool fingers around your ankles, he pulled you swiftly under his body, parting your legs with his knee and settling his hands on either side of your delicate figure. Leaning down, Mitsuhide brought his lips to your ear, running the tip of his tongue along the seams, your entire body shuddering in response before he slowly breathed out. “The kitsune is a sly creature that is extremely hard to find. Even so, being alone for long isn’t much fun, wouldn’t you agree?” A warm chuckle reverberated from him, a decadent sound that was reserved only for you. His soft lips began to travel down the length of your jaw and your neck then back up again towards your cheek, his breath leaving a trail of chilling warmth in his wake.

With a sharp inhale, you frowned and a muffled whimper caught in your throat. “What are you doing, Mitsuhide? Can’t you see that I’m...” With a long finger pressed against your lips, he silenced you. “Isn’t my mouse such a beautiful honest little thing, hm?” he murmured lovingly, while you frowned further at his choice of words. He knew that you openly disliked the endearments he used to call you, yet, it aroused something deep within you. “Does my sweet little mouse really think that I lost, when I have her exactly where I need her to be?” With a quick peck on your forehead, Mitsuhide removed his finger and smiled down at you. Why.. was he looking at you that way? Mitsuhide was being so heart- wrenchingly sweet, you almost felt the need to look away but ultimately, couldn’t. “I am the Devil King’s left hand man, (Y/N). I have done vile and atrocious things and don’t plan on stopping. I’ll do everything I have to to reach my goals. I am… the devil himself. Yet, you...” He cradled your rose-tinted cheeks with achingly gentle hands, their coolness, a contrast to the warmth of your skin, sending a blissful rush through your form. Thin lips hovered over your own, the heat of his breath mingling with your own as his words strum the sensitive chords of your heartstrings. You had to tell him. You couldn’t hide it any longer. As your lips parted to release the song that you trapped in the depths of your being, your thoughts were relinquished and replaced by your kitsune’s searing kiss. A mystical communion between the pure and the malicious. A destiny damned and spurned by the Heavens. That’s what he saw. That’s what he thought. But, it wasn’t the truth. “Actions speak louder than words, (Y/N). Allow me to reveal my secrets and I shall uncover yours whileI do”, he purred zealously against your lips. Heaving sighs and swallowed whines marked the beginning of your symphony. Fierce, passionate and feverish were his lips against your own while his tongue stole away the last bit of your sanity. You trembled softly in his arms, hands clenching his arms before wrapping around his neck, whimpering wantonly when he broke the kiss, only wanting to taste more of him. His tongue teased the seams of your plump lips once again, leaving you reeling with your mouth open, waiting for him to claim you in an inexorable dance which left you breathless and writhing. “Mitsu…!”, you mewled in frustration and frowned. “Patience, angel. Good things come to those who wait.” He hummed with a suggestive smirk. You could see it in his eyes. He was at his limit. Your silver-haired kitsune was now the epitome of unbridled lust and… love. Brimming foxfire threatened to set you both ablaze, a fleeting thought crossed your mind. You would die happy in his love, drowning in his affection and his infinite yearning that clawed for your heart. It was the truth that you hid and that he finally unveiled. It was already his, yet this was a preamble to Mitsuhide's vow to claim your body. “Mitsuhide… what are you doing?” you barely managed to croak under the weight of your deepened desires. Just like water on firestone, his tongue languidly careened over your silky flesh, drinking in all the love you had to give, coaxing a rising storm of pleasure within you. Mitsuhide’s long fingers traveled from your shoulders, sliding the sleeves of your kimono down your arms, unwrapping you with such refined dexterity. “I have just begun yet your body is quivering for my attention, (Y/N). What do you think I must do when my angel desires me so blatantly?” he began to suck loudly on your collarbone, slowly dipping down to your breast. “Hm… I shall stop and wait for your instructions since you do not seem pleased.” While he remained positioned above your chest, his smile stretched from ear to ear as he tugged on the edge of your sleeves, allowing you to pull your arms out of them and exposing your perked up breasts to him. “Do you always have to tease me like this?” a long exhale pushed through your lips, sounding exceptionally dreamy and satisfied rather than the exasperated tone you intended. “I was not aware that this was a trial regarding my innocent and pure intentions towards you, love.” His rich baritone resounded with a deep laugh while his hands cupped both your breasts, caressing your flesh ever so lightly. “Do you expect me not to treasure these dusky jewels that you offer me so willingly?” His thumbs grazed over your nipples with cruel softness, eliciting a loud hiss from you. “It’s… I don’t mind… I want you to.” “What is it that you wish for, love?” “You can do what you want, Mitsuhide… I won’t stop you.” “Oh… Well, I would like to inquire on what it is that you wish me to do. Aligning on expectations is a crucial part of what I do, (Y/N). You are more than aware of that.” “I’m aware that your cock is rock hard and pressing against my thigh, Mitsuhide. I know that you’re barely able to control yourself and God knows that I want a taste of you. Just… You can… fuck me.” Your hands slowly slid to his neck, brushing softly over the column of his throat and caressing the tender skin behind his ear before reaching inside his kimono to touch his chest. "God, Mitsuhide… I want more.... Give me more." He was a masterpiece of masculinity that you wanted to consume every inch of. But the silver kitsune clearly had other plans. A dichotomic smile hooked the corner of his lips, sensual yet devastatingly serene. “I could never say no to you, my angel. However, I’m afraid I can accommodate such requests only to a certain degree and as I deem fit.” Mitsuhide meticulously hunkered, catching one of your beaded nipples while his fingers played at your obi, ridding you of the weight constricting your breathing, of any barrier between your body and his. His tongue slithered around the sensitive bud before sucking on it gently, sliding every bit of fabric from under you, leaving you completely bare to his salacious gluttony. The dim light of the candles cast undulating shadows on your writhing body, contorting under Mitsuhide’s. Your burned for him and every breath he stole from you, every electrifying touch of your skin, every breath of his lips brought you closer to a release that would shatter her world. Leaving a trail of blemishes over your skin, your body unravelling beneath him, a canvas purposely marked, staking his claim to all the places he had been, a sacred oath to the plains and meadows yet to be explored and ravaged by the kitsune’s fervent touch. The languorous and sultry sweeps of his tongue on your chest and abdomen impeding the steady ebb and flow of sensations washing over you into a tumultuous abyss of ravaging pure bliss. “I was thinking of making love to you, from now on.” His words were pregnant with meaning and his voice was oozing with blissful implications. Was that a confession? Your heartbeat quickened as the blood began to rush through your veins, the quivering of your legs more visible and the rocking of your hips grew more urgent as you grind your center on his knee. You were so close and he was adamant on bringing you over the edge. Or, that’s what you believed. “(Y/N), your pleasure is mine and you shall only taste it until I tell you so.“ Slender fingers twisted in his silver tresses, pulling on them when the words falling from his lips overcame you like a jolt to your body. He clicked his tongue derisively as you tightened your hold on him. The questioning look he cast your way was enough to have you untangle your grip from his silver tresses, allowing him to rouse from his crouched position and separate you from the only source of friction you could use. “I fear that I cannot allow you to do as you please, (Y/N). Leave it all to me.” He drawled while he gathered your obi in one hand, lifting one of your arms above your head and then the other, joining your wrists together. “No! Stop it! I want to be able to touch you! You can’t do this!” you contested roughly, wriggling and thrashing under his domineering hold. “Be still, (Y/N).”His husky tone turned severe, cutting through your useless protest. “You will do as I say or I will leave you hanging.” He began tying your fragile wrists with your obi, securing your hands above you and out of his reach. You knew Mitsuhide well and his intentions. He only acted out of your own interest and sought only your pleasure, not control over you. He always did everything… just for you. "Mitsuhide… Just give me… give me what we both want! "you panted, voice barely recognizable, deeper than it usually was, dripping with untamed lust. The underlying threat and possibility of him denying you your promised release drove you mad. “I despise you.” “Such hateful words for a woman in such a compromising position, love.” He slowly began undressing, loosening the fabric that covered the ropes of tight sinew that blessed his body and unceremoniously tossing the nuisance away. His chiseled chest that you had bruised with your kisses so many times before, the body that you ached to worship.   ----- Final Part will be posted tomorrow! <3 Hope you enjoyed it so far! Edit: Here’s the Final Part ^~^  If you enjoy my work,  Please feel free to like/reblog and leave comments/feedback!  💜  Masterlist

[nikkzwrites]

(They Long to Be) Close to You | Dark Fix-It Fic Series Part 2 | Chapter 4

A/N: This fic is one that I started with my OC because honestly, I personally didn’t like how season 3 ended. So I am rewriting all of Dark with my OC Annalise Dahlheim. I hope you all like it. Some things will be expanded more on just for more depth to Dark that season 3 kinda skipped over so…. yeah. This is part two of the series! You can start the full series here!

CW: Canon Typical Triggers: Smoking, Sex, Language, Drugs, Drinking, Death, Violence.

Word Count:  7.9k

[First Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

“From then on, I knew that nothing changes,” the man explained to his son as their carriage went through the Winden woods, “That all things remain. The spinning wheel turns, round and round, in a circle. One fate tied to the next. A thread, red like blood, that connects all our deeds.” The man closed the book and explained to his son, “Ariadae. That was your mother’s favorite play. She surely would have liked to come with us tonight, in the company of such a distinguished young man.” He opened up his watch to see an engraving, “For Charlotte” inside.

His blind son spoke, “Why do we die?”

“The dead are never truly dead,” his father explained, “Maybe they’re not here, now. But everything that once lived, lives on forever. In the eternity of time.”

The old man sat remembering this memory of his father when his carriage stopped. He panicked as he heard his coachmen start to speak to someone. He hid his money away as he held close his mother’s favorite play. As the footsteps approached he asked, “Who is there? Who are you?”

“He who has eyes to see,” The Unknown spoke, “and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret, because if his lips are silent,he chatters with his fingertips. Betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

“I…” The old man spoke, “I don’t understand.”

The middle part of the Unknown nodded, “Oh, but you do. You’re going into town to draft a telegram. Because you want to tell the world about us. Are you not?”

The man started to panic, “You’re one of them. A traveler. All those years.” As the man rambled, the Unknown started to take out his wire, “they said my father was insane. But now they are here. The travelers from the future. The world must know that they exist.”

The Unknown shook his head, “What we know… is a drop. What we don’t know is an ocean.” He slowly leaned forward to eand the man’s life.

Eve spoke to Jonas, “The mistake in all of our thinking is that we each believe ourselves to be an independent entity. One self… besides countless other selves.” When Jonas turned to her, she continued, “While, in reality, we’re all just fractions of an infinite whole.”

“What is this place,” Jonas asked Eve, “A copy of my world?”

Eve strolled over to him and asked, “Do you remember what you said to me? Under the bridge? The light. The forest. You. Me.”

“A glitch in the matrix,” Jonas responded. He stared to glare at her and asked, “Why am I here?”

Eve studied him then looked up at the painting, “You and I. Adam and Eve. That’s what we are. A glitch in the matrix. You want to know why you’re here? To save them. Your world and mine.”

“Last night, Kilian Obendorf, Bartosz Tiedemann, Annalise Dahlheim also known as Annalise Kahnwald, and Franziska Doppler, along with Magnus and Martha Nielsen, found an as-yet-unidentified boy’s body on the Doppler property by the forest road. His clothes and the Walkman are from the 1980s,” Ulrich explained with tears in his eyes, “We also found… an ID card on the body.” His eyes shifted to look at the evidence box. Ulrich started to sob and Charlotte walked over to him to give him a hug.

Charlotte turned to Woller and asked, “Woller, may you continue?” She turned to Ulrich and whispered, “Can I talk to you for a second?” Ulrich looked up and followed the woman into the file room. She turned to the defeated man and said, “You don’t have to do this. Woller can do the briefings. I can go to forensics. Go home.”

“I’ve spent 33 years looking for my brother,” Ulrich spoke up against the woman, “Those are his belongings. Those are Mads’ belongings.” He took a deep breath and said, “Someone… Someone kept them all. And then put them on the boy in the bunker. Thirty-three years later.”

Charlotte’s brow furrowed. She asked, “You think it was the same killer? That it’s all connected. Mads, Erik, the boy in the bunker?”

Ulrich looked at her and asked, “Do you know why I joined the police? When my brother disappeared… they made pretty much every mistake you could imagine. The detective was a drunken moron. And me? I swore I’d do it all differently. That I’d do everything right. That was 33 years ago. And what do I do? My marriage is ruined and now I’m cheating on the woman I cheated on my wife with.” Ulrich sighed as Charlotte touched his face, “I can’t do this anymore.” He allowed her to remove her hand and he walked out of the office.

Jonas looked up to see Bartosz strutting in with Martha slowly approaching behind him. Jonas stormed to Bartosz and demanded, “Where were you?” His eyes turned towards Martha and turned back to Bartosz to ask, “What did she tell you?”

“We’ve been stuck here for weeks,” Bartosz responded to the man, “The fucking device is empty. You have no idea how any of this works. All you did was lie! You knew what would happen, and you told us NOTHING!”

Jonas growled, “Don’t you realize she’s just using you?” He motioned towards the girl and spoke, “That isn’t Martha. She’s dead.” His heart ached at his memories, “No one returns from the dead.”

Magnus spoke up and said, “Whoever she is… she may be our only chance to get out of here.”

Bartosz grit his teeth then asked Jonas, “Why don’t you tell us the truth?” When Jonas didn’t say anything, Bartosz stepped closer and growled, “Tell them who really killed Annalise and Martha.”

Jonas’s eyes flinted to Martha then down after hearing Bartosz. He sidestepped and started his way out of the warehouse. Bartosz growled and waited for a moment before going and chasing him outside.

“Bartosz! Wait,” Magnus called as he and Franziska chased after him.

The rain fell as Jonas walked outside. He silently thanked the God forsaken town for complying with his emotions before he heard Bartosz screaming behind him.

“Tell them,” Bartosz demanded. He growled as he pushed the man over, “Tell them who Adam really is!” The two rolled around fighting just as they did 34 years ago before Magnus and Franziska pulled them apart. Magnus held Bartosz back as he screamed at everyone, “I told you all along! Jonas is to blame for everything!” He fought Magnus off and stood away from everyone as he cried, “It’s him. He’s Adam!” When Magnus looked at him in disbelief, Bartosz screamed through his tears once more, “He’s Adam! Adam wasn’t even the one who killed Annalise! It was just him proper! He killed both of them!” He stormed away from the group after asking Jonas, “Couldn’t have both so killed them both? Huh?”

Jonas and Magnus tried to catch their breaths and exchanged a look.

Eve, at the same time in another universe, told Jonas, “In all of that, didn’t you ever wonder, why you can’t let go of them, of her? You knew, you know it’s impossible. Yet still, you can’t let it go.” When Jonas turned to her with tear filled eyes, she continued, “An invisible bond that binds you for eternity. Adam tried to sever it. But that’s impossible.” She took out a silver tree of life necklace and showed it to him, “You gave this to me.”

Jonas took out his Annalise’s necklace and rubbed his dirt covered fingers over it, cleaning the blood off of it.

“You and I,” Eve continued, “Black and white. Light and shadow. We are bound together for eternity in this eternally repeating deja vu.”

Jonas whispered, “What is all this? What do you want?” His voice started to get louder, “Why don’t you just tell me why I’m actually here?”

“You’ve seen what you’ll do,” Eve tried to reason with him, “What Adam will do. If you want to save your Annalise, you have to choose the side of light. And you have to make me what I am today.”

Jonas slowly approached her, “I have to? I don’t have to do anything anymore. I’m sick to death of always having to do things!”

“Then ask yourself,” Eve responded, “what you want.” Watching his face change she asked, “Do you want her to live?”

Annalise awoke, yet she was still face to face with Mads. She screamed and started to cry again. She kicked the small enclosure entrapping her with the dead boy. She heard a very familiar voice call her name. Then Mads slowly turned to Mikkel then to her father. After that, Annalise found herself listening to her father’s voice message and words flowed out of her mouth without consent, “I just called to let you know I had my first kiss today.” Her tears choked her as her voice continued against her will, “I wish you could have met him Dad. His name is Adam and he reminds me so much of you and mom. You would love him just as much as I’ve fallen for him.” As she looked out the window, her vision faded to black. Her throat feeling like it was being filled with water again. When Annalise tried to scream, she found herself in something like a mirror of Martha’s room. Annalise turned and saw a blond boy there laying next to her, fast asleep. He seemed so familiar. Her hand shakely reached out and his name spilled from her lips without knowing, “Jonas?” 

Right when the boy was about to turn, Annalise shot up in her bed in Ulrich’s house. Her breath shaking from terror and crying. She turned towards her phone to see Bartosz had tried to call her. There was a text there saying, ‘If you need to talk, let me know.’

Hannah burst into the room, “Annalise!” She quickly waddled to the girl and held her closely as the teenager started to scream, “Shhhh… It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here.” Hannah kissed the girl’s head as she rocked with her, “I’m here.” As she rocked the girl, her eyes started to trace the electrical burn scars on the teenager, yet she said nothing.

Martha stared up at the ceiling in her room. After finding the body last night, it was the last straw and Katharina forced her to come back home to be with her family instead of staying the night with Annalise. When Ulrich was finally able to come home that night, he drove his daughter back to his ex-wife. She sighed remembering that argument and the one before it where Hannah, her, and her mother argued about where Martha should be with as Annalise stood there just zoning out repeatedly and mumbling to herself some physics equations. Katharina had only conceded from seeing Annalise and knowing that the girl probably needed someone. So she made the condition that once Ulrich was back home, he was to bring Martha back. She heard the doorbell ring and sighed as she got out of bed. When she answered the door, there in front of her was Ulrich. “Dad,” she asked in disbelief.

“Can I come inside,” he asked his daughter.

Martha sighed and begrudgingly allowed the man inside. They stood in front of the staircase.

Ulrich asked, “Is Magnus here too?”

Martha studied her father trying to get a read on him, “I think he’s still sleeping.”

Ulrich nodded and told the girl, “You have to tell me the truth. What really happened in the bunker?” When his daughter looked at him again in disbelief, he continued, “What did you see?”

“I did tell the truth,” Martha said, “we went in and the bunker was empty. There was nobody there! Then there was a light. And then this...this body fell down. Annalise fainted at the sight of it.”

“Had you taken anything,” Ulrich asked accusingly.

“What,” Martha questioned him.

As Magnus walked down the stairs, Ulrich asked again, “Did that Kilian kid give you anything?” Magnus just finished walking down the stairs when Ulrich turned to him and asked, “Come on, what did you take?”

“What is this shit,” Magnus sneered at this father, “Are you playing worried father now? Why don’t you ask your precious new daughter?” Martha looked at her brother and shook her head, yet he continued, “You usually don’t give a shit about us!”

Martha crossed her arms and shrugged, “It’s just as we told you. There was this noise...It came from the caves...or the ground,...or… I don’t know. We went to the bunker. At first there was nothing there, then...he...he was just lying there.”

Ulrich turned away and stared out into the dining room calculating what was going on.

“Is that all,” Magnus growled at his father. When his father turned to look at him again, Magnus replied, “Mom will be back any moment. You’d better go. But it was nice of you to drop by to see how we’re doing.” When Ulrich reached up to caress him, Magnus took a step back.

Hannah walked through the halls of the police station with a tray of brownies. When she was greeted by Woller and Charlotte, she asked, “Is Ulrich here? I’ve been trying to reach him all morning. Annalise is having nightmares and just woke up finally.”

Charlotte shook her head and said, “I thought he went home.”

Hannah studied the woman for a second. Her mind started to wonder. “You look so different,” commented the woman, “Did you get a haircut?”

Charlotte shook her head, “No.”

Hannah looked her up and down. She laughed, then hugged the woman. She took her smell in deeply. She pulled away and waited a moment before saying, “It’s nice to see you. I’ll just put this in his office.”

Charlotte turned and watched her go.

Hannah closed the door behind her and walked to place the container on his desk. She looked up as she realized who it was that Ulrich was cheating on her with. She left as the pictures of his children, Annalise with Martha, and herself with him burned their place on his desk.

Annalise sat there staring at the wall. Her brain running six different directions just trying to figure everything out. She ran her fingers through her hair as she screamed. She yelled and closed her eyes. Everything that happened kept running in her head. Her dreams danced in her head. She felt empty. There was a pulling inside of her. She ran out to the woods and screamed again. It felt as if someone was tugging at a string within her. Plucking at it, like a chord of a guitar.

“Can we talk,” Martha asked her brother as she walked in.

Magnus rolled his eyes, “Get lost.” He assumed she was going to scold him about what he said about Annalise. 

Martha, instead, walked in and sat next to Magnus, “Last night…in the forest... Did you see anything else?”

“No,” Magnus told her, “Like what?”

Martha turned away from her brother and asked, “Do you sometimes feel like you’re losing your mind? That nothing makes sense anymore?” She sighed and commented, “Maybe… Dad is right.” When Magnus looked at her confused, she said, “Maybe he was already lying there.” She shrugged and said, “And...we…”

Magnus stared at her and stated, “I know what I saw.” Martha and he sat quietly for a minute before she stood up and walked to his window. “Where are you going,” he asked.

“Don’t tell Mom,” Martha replied, “I’ll be back for dinner.” She opened the window and left.

“Everything repeats itself,” Eve told Jonas, “Again and again for all eternity. Because none of us is prepared to let go.” She lifted up a light and walked over to Jonas, “It took me a long time to understand that. That you can’t let go of your past. That you will always choose her, always choose your Annalise.” She nodded and told him, “And just as you can’t let go of your past, I’ve spent my life clinging to mine.” She made a face then told him, “You trusted Adam. But where did that lead you?” She walked to Jonas and said, “You have to show her, Martha, how everything is connected. You don’t have much time left. She has to see her future in order to understand what must be done.” She handed him the lantern and spoke, “She will follow you. She is bound to your fate, just as you are to hers.”

Jonas grabbed it from her and turned away. He looked at Eve and wondered if she knew what he was thinking. He walked out of the office determined to find Annalise before trying to go forward with Eve’s plan.

In Adam’s world, Martha looked down at the necklace in her hand. She quickly hid it after hearing a knock on the door. She pushed herself closer towards the window as she looked to see who was coming in.

Jonas opened the door and closed it behind him. He stood in the middle of the room and said, “You said I was in your world. With you. Why can’t I remember it?”

“I don’t know,” Martha told the man, “That letter… I didn’t write it.” She slowly approached him and said, “You have to believe me.” As he turned away, she spoke again, “Sic Mundus, what is it?”

Jonas sighed, “Old Tannhaus’ father… tried to bring someone back from the dead. His wife. He was convinced that the ability to time-travel would be the world’s salvation. Every mistake could be prevented before it even occurs. But it doesn’t bring salvation. Only Damnation.”

Martha took a deep breath and growled, “They’re all dead. In my world. I can’t help hoping I can change that.” He glared at her as he tried to walk away, but the girl grabbed him, “I know you think you can’t trust me. I want to prove to you that you can.” She brought him out into the woods and unburied her ball to show him the device she used to get there.”

“This is what you used to travel,” He asked.

Martha nodded at him. She undid a dial and took out a small dark ball, “this is the last one I have.” She held it out to him, “It’s the only way I can go back again.”

Jonas sighed as he took it from her.

Eve sat in her office waiting for her son and Mary. The Unknown walked in with all materials he had grabbed for her. 

The Unknown told his birth mother, “You could have told him which path you’re sending him down. How it will end.”

Eve shrugged as she explained, “He will never stop trying to break this cycle. He’ll never understand that we must preserve the knot. That his Annalise must die. So all the others can live.”

She stared at her son as she opened the leather planner, “The beginning and the end.”

Jonas walked out of the cave and through the woods. He heard sobbing and screaming he only knew as Annalise and ran towards it.

Charlotte walked to the bunker and called Ulrich. She asked him to call her back as she approached the door. She opened it up and walked inside. She stared at the chalk outline and started to investigate. When she knelt down, under a bench she found a penny with a red string around it as if like a necklace.

On the other side of town, Helge sat repeating to himself, “Tick tock. Tick tock.” He looked up and started to walk out of the house to try to stop it.

Bartosz exited Mary’s car. He sighed and looked towards the power plant. As his eyes scanned, he noticed a figure stumbling across the street. Normally he wouldn’t think anything of it, but it looked very familiar. The beating of his heart echoed in his ears when he realized just who it was. He jogged across the street and called, “Anna.”

Jonas was just about to interrupt the girl’s drinking when he heard Bartosz’s voice. The boy had been following her for a while, but he didn’t know how to approach her, so instead he just decided to watch her from afar. He slunked back into the shadows right out of sight of the two. His heart raced. He knew what was going to happen.

Annalise took another large drink of her mixed drink a very kind older man had given her. She smiled gently. It reminded her of the drinks she heard about back home. Fruit punch, Red Bull, vodka mixed in the right fashion still only seemed like fruit punch. He had given her a large bottle just with a few bucks and for “looking cute.” She drank as she made her way to the bus stop out of Winden. The burning sensation masking her brain being torn apart at the seams. 

Bartosz easily caught up to the girl and grabbed her arm, “Anna! What are you doing, idiot?!” He kept a firm grip on her. Frustration rose into his chest. Where did she even get what she was drinking? Where was she going? Shouldn’t she be with Martha or nearly anyone else? She never went anywhere alone.

“I’m going home,” she answered simply, “Now please let me go.” She tried to jerk away.

He shook his head, “What are you drinking? Your place is that way.” He gestured with his shoulder towards where she lived with Ulrich and Hannah. He stared at the girl floundering to get away from him. His heart started to ache. More than that. He was angry. Furious even. Filled to the brim with an anger he had never known before.

Annalise started to cry as she tried to tear away from his grip, “Let me go!” She started to yell at him. Tears built up pressure behind her eyes as she remembered back to what had driven her to this point. How she wished for the rain to finally start in this God abandoned town. The wind howled as it shook the trees awake. At least, she reasoned, that was on her side. “Let me go Bartosz,” she repeated screaming at him with the full force she wanted to let out at everyone.

Jonas felt powerless. Here he was watching a mirror of what happened that night. His throat dried up. His heart started to ache. It was being tugged in so many directions. Jonas wanted to interrupt. He wanted to run, yet his feet stayed firmly rooted in the ground. It was as if the Knot wanted him to see this. It was its punishment for him kissing Martha that night. It was punishment for taking Lise for granted.

“No!” Bartosz roared back at her. He pulled her into his arms. His heart raced. He just wanted her to calm down. He knew instantly then that he loved her. All this time was just him lying to himself trying to keep the status quo and hoping things were going to go back to the way they were before his mother died. He wrapped himself around her. Was she always this tiny, he wondered. It was his first time ever fully embracing her. He had to bend down a bit to bury his face into her shoulder and neck. Oh, how it felt nice to finally hold someone, to hold her, in his arms, but he couldn’t dwell on his own happiness. He needed her to be happy. He thirst to see her smiling and laughing again. That happy radiant infectious smile that he loved seeing across her face. 

Annalise beat her fists into the taller boy as the tears fell from her eyes. She continued to scream at him to let her go. The girl struggled as he just held her in an embrace. Her breathing was off. The thumping his chest made as she hit it reminded her how her heart felt when they saw the boy just drop in the bunker like that. She just wanted to go back home but she could never tell him that. Annalise hated every moment of this. She hated every moment of Winden. She just wanted to go back in time to right before they saw that moment and never see that poor dead boy just drop...Before she agreed to help that short haired Martha... Before she was trapped with that dead boy...

Bartosz pulled his face away. There was something he had heard Magnus mention before while Mikkel was throwing a tantrum. He needed to distract her from her emotions so that Annalise could actually TELL him what was going on. He sighed knowing he was going to hate himself later for indulging the part of him that loved her without ever telling her that, but he had to do it. With one hand, he trapped her wrists from continuing to beat into his chest. The other he used to grab the back of her head. Bartosz pressed his lips against hers. 

The girl froze. His lips were so desperate. She could feel his yearning for her to stop and think about what she was doing. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she allowed herself to kiss him back. There was a saltiness to it, yet tender and warm. Soon, she felt her wrists freed from his grip. She just gently rested her hands against the boy’s chest as his now unoccupied hand found a new home at the small of her back. Annalise’s heart fluttered. She felt as if drunk, longing for love, and finally acquired a bit of that feeling of being wanted.

Bartosz pulled her closer. He clinged to her as they slowly deepened their kiss. They both wanted this for such a long time. He sighed happily as her arms slowly started to snake their way off his chest to around his neck to play with his long hair. He let one of his arms slide under her so that he could scoop her up while they were still making out. He lifted her up into his arms and walked over to the bus stop so that the side of it could be used to stabilize the couple. He pressed her back against it as he could feel the both of them getting weak from the lack of breath and their hearts racing quickly.

The hidden boy’s heart shattered as it fell to the cement. He wondered how much of this was like that night and how much wasn’t. Jonas could see how much heat and longing was between the other two teenagers. They were so desperate for the other one to be close to them that the rest of the world didn’t exist. He didn’t exist. He wasn’t supposed to exist.

Bartosz eventually pulled away gently. Annalise reached up and pressed his forehead against hers. Her eyes closed as the last of her tears drained from her. He calmed himself and asked, “Anna, what’s wrong?” He gently brushed her wild hair from her face, unstuck some strands stuck around her eyes from her tears, and put it in a place not easy to get stuck there again.

Her face contorted in agony. The fountain of sorrow slowly turned back on. Something about this moment felt as if something similar had happened before. It felt as if she, him, the moment, it was all supposed to happen. “I,” she started. She took a breath and then confessed, “I am so scared. What does this all mean Bartosz? There is so much going on in the world now and I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m… I don’t know what role we play in this...” She choked on her words and started to cough.

Bartosz cooed at her and held her close once more, “I know. I know. It’s okay.” He swallowed hard and rocked with her. Bartosz gently kissed her head every so often as he just kept her safe within his arms. The boy just repeated that it was okay, that he was there with her, he wasn’t going to leave her, that everything was going to be okay until he could feel her body start to go limp. She must have been exhausted, he figured. He lifted her up and tried to figure out how to manage her with a bike. In the end, he called his father to come pick them up. He took off the jacket his mother had gifted him and put it on the girl as they waited.

Jonas turned finally unstuck from the Knot. He tracked his way back to where he knew he had to be, with this world’s Martha and to try and fix this world so that his could be fixed and he could go back home to his Lise. Be in her arms once more where she clung to him like that. Where she loved him, when she loved him. Not seeing some stranger with her face loving the boy that shared the same face as his best friend back home. 

Martha walked over to Kilian’s trailer and knocked on the door. She stood back for him and spoke, “Hey.”

He responded back, “Hey.”

Martha stood there staring at him.

“What are you doing here,” He asked the girl.

Martha shook her head, “You weren’t at the dorm. I was worried.”

Kilian grabbed her arm and walked with her away from the trailer, “They kicked me out. Your father called. He wanted to know if I slipped you guys something.”

“Did you,” She asked.

“Fuck no,” He gowled, “No, I didn’t.” He shook his head, “But sure, none of you can get it out of your system. I haven’t lived here for two years, but I’m still the trailer park trash everyone points fingers at.” When Martha didn’t respond, he sneered, “I knew it.”

“What did you know,” she asked him.

He shook his head and said, “That you were only with me to rile up your parents. You didn’t give a shit about me or Erik.”

Martha scoffed at him. If she really wanted to do that, she would have just dated Annalise. She turned her head back towards him. She wasn’t really able to fight back though. Maybe she really was and he was just the safe option.

Kilian turned away and told her, “You’d better go.”

Martha fought back her tears as she whispered, “Okay.”

The boy turned and walked away leaving her alone in the park with Jonas there watching.

“About Regina…” Hannah spoke to Aleksader, “I’m sorry. It must be very difficult for you.” She paused, then asked, “How are you? Bartosz?”

Aleksander nodded and told her, “We’re managing.” He turned towards the pictures on his desk and stared at them.

“I…” Hannah spoke, “I hear that Annalise and Bartosz really like each other.”

Aleksander nodded, “My son speaks of her pretty often. Please, tell me why you are here.”

Hannah shifted awkwardly and got to the point, “I’d like to propose a deal.”

“A deal,” he questioned the woman.

Hannah looked down at her purse, “I have something that belongs to you. I’d like to return it.” She carefully pulled out the bag from 1986 and slid it towards him. As his face changed she asked, “Do you recognize it? Don’t worry. The contents are in a safe place.”

 Aleksander asked quivering, “What do you want? Do you want money?”

“I don’t want money,” Hannah told him, “I want you to destroy Charlotte. I want her to lose everything. Everything.”

Charlotte drove to the church meeting her husband who was talking to a man inside. When she walked in, Peter stood up.

“Charlotte,” Peter asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Thank you,” The man told the pastor before leaving.

Charlotte slowly approached the man and said, “I tried to get a hold of you. I went to the bunker. Why aren’t you home with Franziska?”

Peter shrugged, “I…”

Charlotte shrugged it off and asked, “Last night, where was Helge? You said you ate dinner with him. Where was he afterwards?”

“What is this,” Peter asked her.

“In 1987, when you came to Winden, did your father still live in the cabin,” she asked the man.

Peter shook his head, “I don’t understand.”

“Did he or didn’t he,” Charlotte pressed on.

“No,” Peter shook his head, “After the accident he was moved into the nursing home.”

“And the summer before, in 86,” she asked.

Peter nodded, “I think so. Why do you want to know?”

“Did he use the bunker for anything?”

“Charlotte,” Peter approached her, “What do you want from me?”

She pulled the penny from out her jacket and showed it to him, “This is Helge’s. I found it in the bunker.”

Peter huffed and shook his head, “That...That can’t be. He was with us all night.” He answered his phone to hear that Helge had left the nursing home. He turned to her and said, “Helge’s at the police station and he made a confession.”

Annalise started to stir as she felt the atmosphere around her change. She was warm and cuddling something soft. This was very pleasant compared to last night and how horribly she slept then. She hummed happily, slowly waking up. She could hear a man and a very familiar boy’s voice talking.

Aleksander looked at his son in the rear view mirror with the girl snuggled up to him. “So,” he started to ask, “Is this the girl?”

Bartosz’s face flushed, “What do you mean?” He asked nervously. He started to awkwardly chuckle, “I mean, it’s just Annalise, Dad. You two have met before.”

“Have I,” Aleksander teased, “I don’t remember you telling me you liked her this much.” He chuckled, “You know I was around your age when I met your mom right?”

Bartosz thanked God that Annalise was asleep and couldn’t hear his father embarrassing him, or so he thought. Bartosz groaned, “You don’t have to embarrass me in front of her do you?”

Aleksander chuckled, “I thought she was asleep.”

“Still,” Bartosz complained. He looked over to the girl cuddled up to his side once more. A small smile graced his lips as he moved some of the hair from her face again. He couldn’t complain too much. The thought of her being like this with any other person ate him inside. So somewhere deep inside he knew that if they were together forever, that he would be happy.

When Peter and Charlotte reached the station, Peter asked his father, “Dad, why are you saying this? It makes no sense at all.” He turned to Woller and explained, “He didn’t leave the house. I was with him all night. Elisabeth was there too.”

Helge spoke again, “I killed the boy.”

“Dad,” Peter scolded the man, “Cut it out!”

Charlotte spoke up, “His things… The walkman. The clothes. Those are Mads Nielsen’s things, the boy who disappeared in 1986. Do you remember that?”

“I killed him,” Helge repeated.

“Who,” she asked, “Mads?”

Ulrich stormed into the station. He turned towards Helge and asked, “Where did you get his stuff?” The man rushed forward and grabbed onto the man despite Peter’s yells in protest, “What did you do to Mads?” He yelled at the older man, “What did you do to him?!”

“You’re alive,” Helge asked, staring at the man.

“What,” Ulrich asked.

Helge spoke, “It was you.”

“What was me,” Ulrich asked, pulling the man out of the chair as the other officers tried to pull Ulrich away from Helge.

“It was him,” Helge spoke, “It was him.” Helge held up the penny in his own things.

Charlotte looked down and unfolded her napkin to see the penny she had was still in her possession. It was the same coin, yet… two places at the same time.

Martha walked in the woods alone. She was determined to try and get to Annalise to talk to her when she heard a rustle in the bushes. When Jonas revealed himself from the shadows, she asked him, “What is this? Are you following me? Why won’t you tell me how we know each other? How you know Annalise?” 

“Actually,” Jonas spoke, “You and I, we’ve always known each other.” When Martha swallowed, Jonas approached her, “When Magnus knocked your tooth out in kindergarten… I was there. When Mikkel put spiders in your shoes while camping in the yard… On the third grade class trip… when you were so homesick that Katharina had to come get you. You met Annalise and she told you how your father scared her because she didn’t know German really well to cheer you up on your first day back to school.” He whispered, “Where I come from, you and I share a past.”

Martha shook her head, “You’re nuts.” She turned to walk away from him.

“Last night,” Jonas told her, “in the forest. You saw yourself.” He shook his head and said, “I know how completely insane this all sounds. For the longest time, I too thought it was all totally crazy. That I was crazy.”

“Who are you really,” She asked the boy.

“I can show you,” Jonas explained, “How it’s all connected.”

It wasn’t long before they reached the Tiedemann abode. Annalise knew it was wrong to still pretend she was fully asleep, but when Bartosz scooped her up into his arms to carry her, she didn’t want it to stop. She listened as he mumbled to himself.

Bartosz debated on where to put Annalise, “I could put her in the guest bedroom. But that’s halfway across the house and what if she needs me? I am not going to put her on the couch. I know that much. But… My bedroom… would she be weirded out by that? Would-” He felt her move. He nearly dropped her from surprise. He panicked pulling her closer to him once more. He asked the girl, “Annalise?”

Annalise’s smile couldn’t contain itself any longer hearing his verbal debate. She let out a small giggle surprising the boy. She squealed as she felt herself drop for a moment before he grabbed her once again. The girl clung onto him. She turned to face him once more, “Yes?”

“How long have you been awake,” He asked, walking her into his room and gently placing her on his bed.

Annalise smiled and sat up. Still a little buzzed, she asked, “Do you really want to know?” She looked around his room. It was different. His room was full of dark colors and scattered books, diagrams, and hastily scribbled notes. There was an attached bathroom that seemed nice and light though. Yet still it felt like an empty shell. She yawned and turned to him as he helped remove his coat from her. Her voice strained as she looked at him beggingly, “Stay?”

In the other world, Jonas placed the ball into a large bowl. He walked to the control panel and started up the machine. He stared intently at it as the liquid slowly arose up and formed a ball. Sadly it was not enough energy to hold it. 

After it dropped, the group converged on the bowl to investigate. Sensing someone was missing, Franziska looked up and around. After accounting for who was there, she asked, “Where’s Martha?”

The group all looked up to find the girl missing. Jonas, then, knew, she had lied to him.

Martha rushed back to her room and placed a new ball into her sphere and set it to go to her new objective.

The group walked into the bedroom just as she disappeared. Jonas turned to Bartosz and glared at him as if to say, ‘I told you.’ 

In the other world, Bartosz blushed and took a step back. He blinked wondering if he really heard what she had asked. He dropped the coat in his hands. He shook his head and bent down to pick it up. While he wasn’t staring at her, he asked, “Stay?” He slowly looked up to try and gauge her reaction.

Annalise nodded, “Please?” She grabbed one of his hands and pulled him towards the bed.

Breathless, Bartosz struggled out, “Wait. Just…” He held up the coat once more and slid his hand away so that he could go and put up his coat. His heart raced. He tried to calm himself as his back was turned to her. The boy knew his father wouldn’t care so he couldn’t use that as an excuse. He was shaking with nervousness. He really wished his mom was here so that she could help him with this. Annalise’s small voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Bartosz,” Annalise asked. When he turned his head, she blushed and asked, “Can I have some water?”

Bartosz nodded quickly and rushed out of the room closing the door behind him. 

Martha followed Jonas to the cave. Right before she walked into it, she got a text from Annalise and Bartosz. The one from Annalise was her asking if Martha was okay and that Kilian had texted her to tell her what had happened. The text from Bartosz consisted of, ‘Annalise is staying over. Help?’ She shook her head and stared at Jonas.

Jonas looked at her and asked, “Is everything okay?”

Martha nodded, “Yeah.” She hid her heart breaking from the boy and started to follow behind him into the cave.

Helge stared at his hands as he sat in a cell.

Martha and Jonas continued through the caves as Charlotte turned away from Ulrich sitting sadly at his desk staring at the picture of him and Hannah.

Hannah walked into her and Ulrich’s bedroom to see the bed perfectly made up and her husband not there. She turned and walked out the door just as Jonas and Martha approached their door.

Eve looked down in her hand to look at Jonas’s Annalise’s necklace and then looked up at the pictures of Adam and Eve.

Bartosz walked to the kitchen and grabbed her bottled water. On his way back, he saw his dad.

Aleksander could read Bartosz’s hesitation all over his face. He chuckled and sat on one of the bar stools. “Something the matter,” He teased.

Bartosz jumped, “No. No. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s good.” He blushed and tried to stand up taller to seem more confident. He ran his fingers through his hair, “What would be wrong? Everything is perfect.”

Aleksander chuckled, “Maybe the girl in your room?”

“What,” Bartosz unconvincingly laughed, “Annalise?” He shook his head with a giant uneasy smile, “No. There’s nothing…”

Aleksander laughed, “She woke up, didn’t she?”

“She wants me to stay,” Bartosz admitted, “I mean it’s not like it's the first time with someone, but like...What if she doesn’t just want to sleep? In my bed?”

Aleksander leaned on his elbow with his chin in his hand. He chuckled, “Well, it's just a question of if you’d want to, yeah?”

Bartosz’s face glowed, “It’s not just that simple. She’s… I…”

“So you don’t want to,” Aleksander asked.

Bartosz shook his head, “No! I mean… I’d like to, but she’s drunk…” He looked towards his room.

Aleksander nodded, "Well, have you tried talking to her about this?"

Bartosz blushed, "What? No. I… I mean I guess I can. I should."

Aleksander stood up and patted his son's shoulder, "I'm heading to sleep. Stay safe. Pleasant dreams." He walked back to his bedroom.

In the other world, Martha walked through the halls of the decrypted nuclear power plant on September 20, 2053, she walked into a room to be greeted by a gravely voice, “Did you give it to him?” 

When Martha nodded, Adam turned to tell her, “I was always too gullible.” He turned back to look at the machine and said, “You did the right thing.”

Back in Eve’s World, Bartosz walked back into his bedroom to find Annalise not there. He heard the shower running and sighed in contentment. He blinked as he realized she didn't have a change of clothes. He knocked on the door and called, "do you need some clean clothes?"

The water stopped and he heard walking towards the door. She peeked her head out the door, "I'm sorry. I stole some of your pyjamas." She walked away to go grab it. Bartosz blushed seeing her naked form from the display of mirrors. He turned away with closed eyes. When she came back, she showed him what she stole. They were his soft plaid flannel ones that he loved. Not that he would admit that he loved them to his friends due to them being part of a matching set for his family and normally worn for celebrating holidays. 

"Oh," Bartosz nodded, "okay." He turned away and told her, “You can let me know if you need anything else.”

The girl was very quick to walk out. His pants were extremely baggy on her due to his height over her. She was still buttoning the shirt and seemed to be having a bit of issues. She grumbled at the shirt, “Stupid ass buttons.” Eventually, she got it and smiled up at him, “Thank you.” Her face became a little bit more serious, “You know, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to… I just thought… You know…”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” He said hurriedly. His breath caught in his throat trying to explain, “I just didn’t want to make you feel like I’m taking advantage…”

Annalise smiled gently. She closed the distance between them and kissed him gently. She pulled away and shook her head, “You wouldn’t be. I’ve been wanting this.” She pressed her lips against his once more.

Bartosz smiled against the kiss then kissed her back. He wrapped his arms around her once again. He scooped her up once again. The boy walked them to his bed and gently sat down keeping her in his lap for the moment.

Annalise giggled against his lips and pulled them down so that they were laying down staring at each other. She smiled and asked, “Do you think that people are meant to meet?”

Bartosz nodded, “Yeah. I mean statistically it would be impossible for us to meet any other way.” He pulled them towards the head of the bed when he saw her yawn again. He chuckled, “You’re exhausted. Please allow yourself sleep. I will be right here in the morning.”

She yawned and nodded, “Promise?”

“Promise,” he kissed her head and tucked her in before going to get changed and showered himself.

Jonas walked with Martha into her 2052. He stumbled out seeing it so bright and more like a desert.

“What is this place,” Martha asked the boy as they walked through the blistering heat under the blazing sun. They looked around to see the debris of trees before just seeing a sandpit, “Where are we?” She turned to him and asked, “Did you do this? How did you do that?”

Jonas simply told the girl, “She told me to bring you here. That she’d explain it to you.”

“Who,” She asked. They turned to see a lone woman walking towards them. Martha asked, “Who is that?”

The woman stopped in front of them and took off her wraps to reveal herself, “Welcome to the future.”

[crystalgirl259]

The Flame and the Dragon Ch11

Chapter 11: The Cerise Room

Kai's defiant gaze and wails of despair echoed in Cole's mind even as he followed Skylor and Chamille out towards the courtyard, to make sure the two guards returned both of Kai's siblings home safely. Both of them begged and pleaded for their brother's return, even offering the same deal, but Cole refused them. The smaller one could barely speak as his coughing fit returned with force.

"Get going both of you!" Cole ordered, as Skylor and Chamille secured Nya and Lloyd and took off to the forest. Knowing his servant's speeds, Cole assumed the two humans would be home in a manner of minutes, and plenty of time to make sure the smallest boy got his medication. Sighing, Cole turned on his heels and returned to the manor. He couldn't help but feel the pain of guilt wash over him as he heard his prisoner's wails, but he brushed it off.

The brunette will just have to get used to it. He concluded that as he stormed back up the spiraling staircase to the tower.

"Um... Master?" A timid voice said, causing him to pause.

"What, Jay?" He snarled, turning to the blue fox.

"Well, uh, we were just wondering which one of the guest rooms we should be preparing for Kai, you know?" He gulped as he tried to steady his voice. Cole had never harmed or hurt any of his servants and didn't ever plan to, but the lord's presence and commanding authority made it difficult to not feel nervous in his presence.

"And why would you all be wondering that?"

"Well, we just figured since Kai is going to be staying with us for some time, that maybe he would be more comfortable staying in a proper room." Nelson timidly explained. Cole snarled, causing Jay to squeak and took a step back.

"Or not."

"Cole!" Someone snapped and Cole turned to meet a scowling young yeti. Even though he was slightly shorter than Cole, Zane still stood tall, but it was the way Zane said Cole's true name, that even he sometimes forgot in the depths of his mind, that herald his attention.

"Zane!" Nelson cried and abandoned his creature form for his human one and hugged the yeti. Zane gave him a small smile before his neutral mask returned when his eyes met his Master's.

"Nelson, I believe me and the master have other matters to discuss at the moment." He said. Unlike the younger servants, Zane was one of the few who had no fear of Cole.

"Really, and what matters?" Cole joked arrogantly despite Zane's scowl deepening.

"I certainly hope you don't plan on leaving that poor boy locked up and freezing to death in that tower all night?" Zane scolded, making no effort to hide the disdain in his voice.

"And why not?" Cole challenged, with a sarcastic tone. "He is certainly strong enough to handle it, and besides, he had no trouble screeching at me when he made the deal." He snarled.

"Master please," Neuro pleaded as he flew in, hoping to calm his Master's temper. "The boy lost his family and his freedom in less than an hour; anyone would be upset in his position."

"Besides, your curse's deadline is in less than five months, Master," Nelson said as he kept his face towards Zane, so Cole couldn't read his emotions. "It would be a waste to have your last hope of breaking the spell freezing in a tower, who knows some, curtsey may inspire him to follow suit; he most certainly wasn't this feisty when I first saw him." He explained and Zane resisted the urge to smirk, knowing exactly what the werebear was trying to do.

"Anyone would be feisty if they found their family locked up, and he is a bit of a mess, a good night's sleep and a hot meal might help him relax," Jay added.

"Hmm, you all seem to have put too much faith in a child who claims to hate me." Cole chuckled, bitterly.

"Cole, are you saying you don't care if the curse is broken or not! You know what happened to you if it isn't!" Zane hissed, growling at his stubborn master, more out of concern than anything else.

"I'm well aware of that, Zane, I simply don't see the point in raising everyone's hopes when they'll only be shot down in the end," Cole replied in a very detached manner. "But if it will put you all at ease; no, I don't plan on keeping him in the tower." He snapped and stormed towards the tower staircase. "Go prepare the Cerise room."

"The Cerise room?" Jay gasped as everyone, even Zane's, eyes widened with surprise.

"It suits him, go get the others and set it up, now." He ordered and watched the servents move. "Nothing too over the top, he won't like that," Cole ordered, turning back towards the tower and ignoring all the baffled glances his servants were sending him. "He's not some helpless docile kid who'll just accept his fate and be happy with a pretty room." He explained without stopping or looking behind him before he vanished up the tower steps.

"That was a very clever but a very risky move, Nelson." Zane half scolded when the Master was out of hearing range.

"I know, but the Master is always so stubborn because he's lonely, who knows, maybe spending time with Kai will be good for him?" The werebear boy smiled, optimistically...

****************

The iron door slammed open with a loud clang when Cole shoved it. His dragon eyes scanned the tower dungeon for his captive. He found him right where he left him, collapsed in front of the windowsill, still crying. Cole felt his heartstrings wrench at the sight of the strong-willed youth looking so broken, but shook it away.

"Kai?" He called. No sooner has the teen heard his name did he lookup. Wild amber eyes blazed with anger and sorrow; visible tears marks on his cheeks. Kai wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and gripped the windowsill before pulling himself into a standing position. Then, without warning, he dashed forward and with one swift motion punched Cole in the face.

The dragon hybrid's head snapped to one side with a force that almost knocked him over.

"YOU BASTARD!" Kai exploded, shaking in anger, but refused to let any more tears fall. "You couldn't give five measly seconds to say goodbye!? I had just signed my life away to you! I gave up everything for my family and I'll never see them again or say that I loved them! Did you not see my little brother's face? I couldn't even have a minute to calm him and down and tell him I'd be alright!" He roared. All he wanted was to tear Cole's tail off and shove it down the lord's throat.

Cole moved his head back and moved one of his clawed hands to rub the abused cheek, eyes glowing dangerously at the teenager as he continued his rant.

Cole remained silent, purely from shock. No one ever spoke to him like that or stuck him, even after he'd been cursed. Anger soon replaced astonishment. Cole's pride kicked in and he snatched his captive's wrist before he could move away. Kai opened his mouth to protest but was silenced when Cole slammed him back against the stone wall, pinning both his wrists above his head. The dragon hybrid's tail around Kai's thigh, holding him in place.

Fearing the worst, Kai began to struggle, but Cole pinned him with his free hand and forced the teen to look at him.

"Strike me again, and there will be dire consequences." Cole hissed in a dangerously low voice. A slight satisfaction filled him when Kai shivered, though the brunette's glare refused to falter.

"Let go of me!" Kai growled and bit his lip until he tasted blood when Cole used one of his legs to pin him against the wall. He refused to cry out. He wouldn't give the Dragon Lord the satisfaction.

"Let's get something straight here, candle; you don't make the rules, I do, you agreed to be here and follow them, so I suggest remember that or your time here will not be pleasant and I won't hesitate to punish you if you disobey me, again." He growled before he released Kai and he dropped to the floor. "Mark my words; I will douse that defiant flame of yours." He smirked and turned and headed back towards the door. "Now, if you're done throwing a tantrum, I'll show you to your room."

"My room?" Kai asked his head shot up, and he got to his feet.

"Of course, you didn't think I was heartless enough to leave you here in the tower all night, did you? Surely even you must have a higher opinion of people, unless, of course, you would rather stay." He mocked. Kai growled at the mocking tone and felt his ego bruise a bit, showing Cole that was what he thought. Swallowing his pride, Kai followed the lord out of the tower. Cole grabbed a nearby lantern and ordered Kai to follow him. As they walked, Kai's amber eyes wandered around the corridor in amazement.

The castle's inside was just as magnificent as the outside.

Once Cole escorted him up the staircase to the second floor, he followed down a hallway, done like an open balcony with marble railings. Kai peeked over the side and found a fantastic view of the main corridor and several other rooms. Chandeliers made of glass and crystal and candles hung from the ceilings on thick chains, and statues of gargoyles and mythical creatures embedded the walls. His gaze fell on the marble floors beneath him to the shadowed ceiling.

The points and curves of the roof were done elaborately,

Windows of stained glass were speckled everywhere, while the pillars seemed to continue forever into the infinite darkness. Unlike the castle of his dreams, everything in this place was a darker color or seemed veiled in shadows. No dust or cobwebs littered the castle walls or floor. Not even the polished stone of the statues, floor, and balconies were all aged by time. Cole's eyes trailed behind him, mentally telling himself he only wanted to make sure the boy was following him, but another part of him couldn't resist the look on his captive's face as he scanned his new home.

The silence between them suddenly became tense and suffocating.

Cole had always welcomed silence, the absence of noise had always offered him a sense of peace, but suddenly, he'd give anything to break the silence. Knowing Kai wouldn't make the first move, he cleared his throat.

"Since the castle is your home, you're free to move about it as you like; if you get lost or wish to find a specific location, ask the servants." The Master explained. A snort was his only answer. It was a miracle Cole didn't scowl. "The only restrictions are that you are not to leave the palace grounds or go anywhere near the woods, but that is for your own safety; the second is you are not allowed near the west wing under any circumstances."

"What's in the west wing?"

"That is not your business!" Cole snapped before they started walking again. "Other than that, you are free to go about as you wish." He added, but this time his answer was full-blown laughter. Cole stopped in his tracks and whirled around. Kai didn't even flinch at his feral gaze.

"If you think giving me a room and suddenly being polite will convince me to forgive and forget, and make nice, you are sorely mistaken!" He spat with heavy sarcasm in his's voice. "I have no intention of becoming another one of your servants, so do us both a favor and don't pretend to be nice to me." He snapped. Cole's first response was anger. The fury rose inside him like a caged beast, then it turned to anguish. This person knew his story, and yet he criticized him?

His expression suddenly changed and he started laughing, but it wasn't a normal laugh.

His laughter wasn't what Kai usually heard when people showed their happiness. This was darker, more amused, and curled with a type of humor that chilled Kai to the bone. Once the king's gaze returned to him, he smirked at Kai's state, a smile that curled at the corners.

"You have quite a defiant spirit and a sharp tongue." He said as he took a step towards the human, who took a step back, but Cole continued forward not letting the short distance between them grow. Kai cursed when his back hit the wall of the balcony and his hands grabbed air. Cole leaned over his captive, meeting the boy's amber eyes, their faces now even closer. "It'd be wise of you to keep that tongue of yours in check, otherwise, it just might get you killed." He warned.

Kai flinched when one of Cole's claws traced his cheek.

He breathed in Kai's ear before pulling back, leaving Kai still shaking against the banister. The teen cursed himself for showing weakness in front of his capture, but his glare returned with full force. His defiance only seemed to amuse Cole even more. He then turned to the room that would now be Kai's new home. The click of keys unlocking the large gold door was the only warning Kai got before he suddenly found himself whisked inside his new room.

Not even bothering to check around, he turned his attention to his capture and glared.

"I can walk just fine on my own." He scowled but Cole snorted as he shook his head, and turned around as if leaving.

"Despite the circumstances, and as difficult as this is for you to accept, I do hope you enjoy your stay here." He said and Kai resisted the urge to blink at the sympathy in the Dragon Lord's voice.

"Now, get dressed and have the servants bring you down for dinner." He commanded.

"No," Kai said, hands balled into fists at his sides. Cole froze in his tracks.

"I beg your pardon?" He growled, his voice was lower and more dangerous than it had been all night.

"I'm not hungry." He said flatly, grateful his empty stomach didn't voice its protests.

"I wasn't asking if you were hungry or not, I'm telling you that you're going to dinner." He ordered as his glare met Kai's, the intensity of his own green depths rivaled by the untamable fire in Kai's amber orbs.

"No, I'm not." He said simply; his tone undaunted. His eyes bore into the Dragon Lord's. They remained transfixed, neither willing to break their control or give the other the satisfaction of knowing he'd won. Finally, the dragon hybrid smiled, a small smirk that made Kai blink, before a boom of laughter erupted from Cole. Blood boiled in Kai's veins. Did Cole really find him so amusing? The thought made his teeth clench in rage.

"Very well, be stubborn; I will not argue." He half-mocked. "If you insist on acting this way then starve for the night! Perhaps going without food for a while will do your attitude some good." He laughed, but just as quickly his glare turned hard and he leaned over to meet Kai's eyes. The boy too stunned to do anything but a standstill. "But I mean what I say when you won't get anything tonight! The servants obey only me and if I order them not to, they'll obey so you won't be able to have them bring you something because you skipped a meal because of your stubbornness, so you either come now or go without, the choice is yours." He snarled.

Despite the flinch in his step and his churning stomach, Kai's glare refused to falter.

"I'll take my chances."

"Fine." Cole huffed before he turned on his heels and stormed out the door. He said nothing else as the door slammed shut, leaving Kai alone in the gilded cage. Kai growled and kick the door in frustration, before grabbing the nearest pillow and released a violent scream he'd been holding back into it. After he was finished he let it drop into his lap and panted in frustration. It didn't make him feel better, but it felt nice to release some of his pent-up stress.

When he opened his eyes, he finally took in the surroundings of his new room.

He wasn't sure what to expect when Cole said he was having a room in the palace. He expected something straight out of a fairytale when the princess got her prince. The exact opposite of what he got. The room was beautiful in a gothic way. Instead of a wooden bed, he got an iron frame bed. A grotesque pattern formed the headboard and end of the bed like a spider web. The iron frame contorted upward like twisted vines in a type of canopy.

Red and gold veiled the roof and draped down, pooling once it hit the carpet like waterfalls of gold and blood.

Bright red blankets of satin draped the full-sized mattress. Pillows that were woven from gold, red, and black satin and Egyptian cotton aligned the headboard in various sizes, forming patterns that served both comfort and decorative. Next to the bed was a black iron table in the same molding as the bed. A lit candle rested peacefully next to a book bound in brown leather and a black pen. Above the table, a large branched candlestick rested against the wall.

Each of its multiple branches held a lit, vanilla-scented candle.

Opposite the bed, a fire roared to life contained by about three feet of obsidian stone and mantle. Iron and glass served to keep the embers safely contained while heat flooded into the room. Candles lined the mantelpiece, all in iron candle holders. A black vase filled with white and yellow roses in the center contrasted with the black stone of the mantle. Two large candles blazed to life in black, iron lanterns on either side of the fireplace. Kai's eyes wandered further around the room.

All the furniture was simple yet elegantly carved from rich wood with gold handles.

The pieces lined against the walls opposite the bed. In the far corner, against the same wall as the fireplace, an enormous wardrobe towered over him, almost touching the ceiling. The carvings resembled the vines of a forest, moving up the wood, while the images of deer decorated the doors. Next to it was a door that Kai could see led to a bathroom. The polished obsidian floor contrasted nicely with the ivory tub and the pale cream marble counters.

In the corner next to the entrance door sat a carved wooden desk and a large bookshelf, stacked with books with brass or silver bindings.

Brass knobs and bindings decorated the desk where stacks of paper, books, and pens had already been organized. The darkness of the furniture and bed contrasted nicely with the gold carpets covering the floors. Despite his desire to hate the room, Kai loved it, but at the same time, it was a gift from his captor. What drew Kai's attention was the wall on the left side of the bed. A strip made almost entirely out of glass, save for the aged, gold bindings of a doorway and the mesh curtains.

If not for the balcony appearing through the invisible wall, Kai could've been convinced nothing was there.

He got up and walked to the glass. A transparent reflection met him as he approached. His hand moved automatically to meet that of his reflection, only to feel the cold glass of the invisible barrier beneath it. He saw the dark forest, covered with snow and ice, beneath a towering mountain. The full moon, shimmering in the black sky, perfected the image. It became too difficult to look beyond his reflection and at the portrait behind it before he found himself meeting his eyes in the clear mirror.

His hand gently retracted from the glass, pulling back as far as it could before tightening into a fist.

Kai growled and punched the glass window, hard. Not even a crack or dent marred the surface. His bangs shadowed his eyes as he lowered his face and pressed his forehead against the glass, shaking in anger, anguish, and fear. All his emotions pooled together at once making it impossible to calm himself down. His nails scraped against the living symbol of the bitterness of his sacrifice. Overcome by his raging emotions, he struggled backward from the window until the back of his hand touched the iron sides of the bed.

He collapsed to the floor, no longer caring about the tears on his cheeks...

****************

After a few hours of leaving Kai to stew, Cole decided he had had enough waiting and he walked back to the Cerise Room to check if Kai had finally cracked and wanted to get some dinner. When he arrived, however, he was a little surprised to see Jay, Tox, Ronin, and Nelson crouched by Kai's bedroom door with their ears pressed up against it. Cole struggled to suppress a laugh at the sight. It was clear they hadn't noticed him as he walked closer.

"Shouldn't you three be in bed by now?" He said and the servants jumped and whirled around to see Cole standing there with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face.

"Witt all due respect, Master, we're over 100 years old, and it's only 1 am." Ronin replied.

"Rules are rules; now get to bed before I call Zane." He playfully warned, watching them scurry away. A small chuckled escaped his mouth before his attention turned to the real reason he'd returned to the east wing. The lock of the door opened with a shallow click and a low creek. Though darkness shrouded the room in shadow, the multiple candle-lit candle holders and the roaring fire lit the room in a bright glow. He saw that his captive was not on the bed where he'd left him, or at the desk, or in the bathroom.

His dragon eyes scanned the corners of the large room until they caught a flash of red on the other side of the iron bed frame.

With an elegant swoop, the Dragon King found himself on the other side of the room, staring down at his shivering captive on the floor. Cole sighed and knelt down, a clawed hand removed the stray strand of hair from the boy's sleeping face. This revealed the tear-streaks on his cheeks. Carefully, Cole whipped the tears away with the back of his hand. A silent shiver ran through his hand when the warm skin touched his cool scales. The boy truly was beautiful.

He didn't know what Kai had to be so stubborn.

He sighed before hooking his arms under Kai's legs and back and gently lifting him into his arms. Kai's coat slid to the floor with the action, but Cole's tail was quick to catch it. Relieving his captive of the uncomfortable position, the dragon lord placed him on the bed, him resting against pillows. His eyes scanned the boy over, taking in his dirty shirt and pants. They had been soiled from the day's events. Cole closed his eyes and with a snap of his fingers, the clothes joined Kai's coat on the floor.

The Master turned to the wardrobe and pulled out something for the brunette to wear tomorrow.

His eyes caught something shinning against the candlelight.

"I thought I'd lost this." He muttered as his clawed hands lingered over one of his old dark red sweaters. He pulled it from its place on the chair and held it open. It looked as lovely as it did when he'd lost it. The fabric as crimson as freshly spilled blood and the stitching of a gold dragon decorated along the arms. His eyes darted from the sweater to his shivering captive, then back to the sweater. He deposited the fresh clothes on the rim of the bed and gently covered his captive's shivering body.

He made a note to have Harumi have it fitted for him once he was settled.

That sweater looked better on Kai than it did on him...