Love in Verses (XII)
Chapter 12 : Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again
Hi! Here is new chapter! This one is… interesting… Whiskey is very dangerous, indeed…
I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!
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Pairing: Hozier x fem!reader (professor!AU)
Warnings: slow burn, angst, hurt, hurt/comfort, tooth-rotting fluff in later chapters, some scenes in later chapters will have heavy sexual themes even if it’s not explicit nsfw description, so minors here
Summary: Your life seems perfect. You're engaged, your career is thriving as you become an assistant professor at Trinity College, and this Andrew Hozier-Byrne you're sharing an office with seems to be a nice guy you hope to call a friend soon. Life seems to be smiling at you... until everything goes sour. When your fiancé breaks up with you, your perfect world shatters. And when your colleague also gets his heart broken soon after, your shared office seems to be a curse rather than a blessing. But Andrew seems determined to mend your broken hearts... Will things finally go according to plan?
Word Count: 2527
Masterlist for the series – Hozier’s masterlist – Main masterlist
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver, Dream work, 1986
You ended up at your place with Andrew. After that awful dinner you both needed some emotional support.
You didn’t talk about the meal though. He didn’t mention how Frank had hurt you, you didn’t talk about how Andrew deserved better than Sam.
That was your final conclusion after the evening. Andrew deserved better than her. You didn’t know all the details that had drawn him away from a professional career in music, but you knew that it had been a tough decision to make for him. The way Sam made it sound, Andrew had simply given up. And yet, his eyes still lit up every time he talked of music.
You sat down on your couch with a bottle of whiskey, getting lost in thought as you replayed the conversation through your head. You had noticed how Sam had stopped listening the second you had started talking about your job, about music… about things Andrew loved. And perhaps you were too busy grieving for him, but was Frank the same with you? Because Andrew deserved someone who listened, someone who actually cared…
What did both Andrew and Frank saw in Sam that you didn’t? The question was relentless, spinning in your head again and again, a fly trapped under a glass trying to escape. What did you lack that she had?
You watched Andrew as he downed his first glass of whiskey. Neat. No ice or anything. He didn’t flinch, merely let out a long exhale as he let his head fall back onto the backrest of the couch.
“God… that felt good. I needed that,” he sighed, pouring himself another glass while you drank yours as well.
You winced slightly at the burn of the liquor, but silently asked for more anyway.
“What’s next on the list of things to ruin?”
Andrew chuckled at that.
“I reckon we haven’t really ruined anything yet… but… I guess not much until the New Year. You’re still coming to their party?”
“Of course,” you sighed. “We need to make a plan for this. We need to ruin something and then save the day.”
“We should ruin the champagne.”
“And replace it with another excellent one? Good idea. That could work for you.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know… Maybe help Sam. That would impress him.”
“Hmm… a knight in shining armour? Ruin her dress and you fix it?”
“Oh…. That’s nice! You’re very good at this Andy, that’s a little scary!” you joked, nudging him. “I could give her my dress, and wear some disgusting clothes instead. The self-sacrifice will make him grow fond of me.”
“I’ll make sure to have the worst change of clothes in my car.”
“Perfect.”
“They said they wanted to organise the party in some sort of club…”
“Hmm… I bet you love the idea.”
“I’m already panicking at the mere thought.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”
You thought yourself silly for offering such a useless argument, but Andrew didn’t seem to think of it that way. Instead, he gave you a grateful smile.
“Why are we doing this again?” you asked, question aimed the ceiling as you sighed, Andrew shifted by your side.
“Because we love them.”
His voice sounded like a lie. It was true though. It had to be, somehow…
You drank again, tried to think of something else, let silence settle instead. It was okay. Silence with Andrew felt comfortable, like the world shushed under a blanket of snow. Natural. Slow.
And outside the world kept on turning, as if you weren’t in pain, as if you weren’t grieving. Wasn’t that a strange truth? Frank had left, and the world hadn’t stopped with him. You wished you could feel it spinning again, look at the rest of the world and feel its beating, and be part of it once more. Maybe, if someone listened to you, and understood you, and made you feel safe again… if you could be yourself with them…
“I’m glad you listened to the record,” Andrew spoke after a while and another emptied drink.
“I loved it.”
“It’s one of my favourites. My father listened to it often when I was a child.”
“Is he the one who made you love music so much, your father?”
Andrew nodded.
“He was sick when I was a child. Bad surgery on his spine. He never recovered.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was a drummer, back in the days. And even after everything changed he just… I don’t know. No matter what we said to each other, how angry we were, how much we argued… we’ve always had music in common. Even when we couldn’t communicate properly, we would put on a record, sit in silence and listen to it, and then we’d discuss it, and things would get better.”
You knew that he was blinking tears away, heard him sniffing. He wasn’t looking at you and you were still staring at the white ceiling. It didn’t matter. Perhaps it even made it easier.
“I just… I didn’t… I made a choice, back in the days, you know? I wasn’t being a coward or something, I just… I didn’t want to tell other people’s words; words that I didn’t care about, I wanted people to listen to me. I wanted to make something that was true and earnest. I wanted… I wanted for someone to listen to me…”
He sniffed. You reached across the couch for his hand, easily found his fingers. He held your hand so easily, like it was obvious, like your hands were meant for that gesture, for holding onto each other. His so large, yours so small in comparison…
“I thought she used to listen, but I don’t know anymore. She wasn’t listening tonight. She hasn’t listened in a while. Do you think…? Do you think she ever listened to me? I had so much to say that I couldn’t express, I didn’t know how, I still don’t know how… I wanted her to listen… God I wanted for someone to listen, just once… just once…”
You tightened your hold on his hand, and you hoped that he would understand what you meant by this simple gesture. That you were listening now. That you listened. That you understood him. That you were there…
“Thank you.”
His voice was a mere whisper, but it was enough.
You struggled with your own tears as you spoke again, your voice shaking.
“I don’t understand why Frank needed to wait for me, and not for her. What… I feel like I’m lacking something…”
“You’re not.”
You felt his stare on you now, but you kept your own gaze set on the ceiling.
“You’re not lacking anything, stop it. Frank is the one who left…”
“Because he saw something in Sam he didn’t see in me. And I don’t know what it is. And I’m scared… I’m scared that I thought he cared about me, and he didn’t. I’m scared to have built my life on that kind of lie. And the worst is… I still want it. I want the life he promised me.”
You were surprised when Andrew let go of your hand. But then you felt his palm cupping your cheek, the brush of his thumb drying your tears.
You finally turned to him, he gave you a sad but soft smile.
“Don’t cry over him. Please, don’t cry.”
You sniffed, let him caress your skin for a moment longer. It felt reassuring, anchoring. Soft and tender. Safe. You felt safe with him…
You shook yourself, moved to the bottle of whiskey again.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t cry,” you nodded, drying your face on your arm. “Let’s get hammered instead, that was the deal!”
Andrew silently agreed by handing you his empty glass for a refill.
“Tell me something silly,” he requested.
“Something silly?”
“Something about… your college days. Those are always worth a good laugh.”
“It’s good craic,” you agreed with a chuckle. “Alright… I’ll tell you a couple of stories. But you’ll have to tell me some as well!”
“Fair enough.”
You exchanged a smile, united your glasses with a cling.
And then you talked about yourself. And he listened.
Your head was spinning, you weren’t sure anymore if it was because of the alcohol or how much you were laughing.
You let yourself fall back into the sofa, holding on your painful stomach, tears in your eyes and on your cheeks. God, you hadn’t laughed so hard in… you were about to think ‘since Frank’ but you couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard with him.
“There was this one time,” Andrew went on. “I was playing with a band… Alex thought it would be hilarious to hide my guitar… I was so fucking panicked, I fell down the stairs leading to the stage and almost broke my neck…”
You doubled over with laughter, and he followed you close.
“How did you pay him back?”
“I told the girl he fancied he couldn’t read music, and she went on to teach him…”
You were hysterical at that point.
“And then…” Andrew choked on his own breath, and it took him a moment to recover and speak again. “Then, he was too afraid that she would push him away if he said anything, so he pretended he didn’t know and let her teach him all over again…”
You were both laughing too hard, the alcohol blurring your senses and making the stupid jokes and silly stories funnier than they ought to be. You looked at the bottle of whisky, admired the empty part of it, felt the burn of its effects on your cheeks.
And you looked at Andrew who was drying his cheeks, his long fingers spread across his stomach. He took off his glasses, they were wet with happy tears. He put them down on your coffee table and leaned into the couch again, slouched and comfortable, with his cheeks flushed with the liquor you had been drinking through the evening. His hair was held back in a messy bun, that had only become messier along the evening.
Damn, you couldn’t help the thought when it crossed your mind, because he was so bloody handsome…
He felt your stare on him, turned his attention fully to you. Focused and expectant, as if he knew you were about to say something incredibly interesting. And this black shirt he had on…
There were butterflies in your stomach and stutters on your tongue while your heart was pounding. You didn’t think. You didn’t think at all, you only felt, and wanted and easily yielded… and perhaps it was just the liquor, you would blame it on the whiskey in a few hours, but for now, you weren’t thinking about tomorrow morning. And for the first time in three months, you weren’t thinking about Frank at all either. Instead, you were thinking of Andrew, of how gentle and warm he looked sitting with you on your couch, how inviting his lips were, how you longed to touch his hair and his beard and him and…
… and then your lips were on his.
You felt him raising his eyebrows, but when you leaned closer and let your fingers find their way to his cheeks, the brush on your cheekbones told you he had closed his eyes too. And there you were, kissing him, and he was kissing you back, your mouths moving in perfect unison somehow, despite a first kiss and too much alcohol. He pulled you closer, wrapping an arm around your waist, while his other hand came up to cradle your face. The long fingers soon moved to your hair though, pulling you closer while he deepened the kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck in a slow, lazy movement while you kissed, gasping for air every now and then, but your lips always connected again after a mere instant. You weren’t sure for how long you kept on kissing, too long for it to be meaningless, and yet you refused to think for now.
When you at last opened your eyes again, Andrew blinked at you, seeming a little shocked, and you weren’t sure if it was a good sign or not. You felt dizzy… dizzy with his scent, something of wood and a tinge of spices. Dizzy with his taste still on your tongue, a mixture of whiskey and something that was just him. Dizzy with the burn of his beard against your skin, with the heat of his body against yours.
Dizzy with him…
“Y/N?”
The way he whispered your name, his words a little slurred because of alcohol, and yet it sounded so good, tender, like he cradled the vowels and the consonants in his mouth, with tenderness in the way he spoke it out loud…
He cleared his throat, but didn’t let go, his hands on your waist and in your hair still, and you held onto him for a moment longer, admired how your kisses had reddened his lips.
Why did it feel so good to hold him? Why did it feel so good to kiss him…
“Erm… You… you kissed me.”
“Yeah… yeah, I did,” you whispered, refusing to pull away, remaining in his arms and your lips only centimetres away from his.
“You… I mean… We…”
You felt him leaning closer again as he took a deep breath, felt the brush of his lips on yours… but just when you were about to lean in, he pulled fully away, moving further away on the couch.
“Wait… what’s going on?”
You blinked up at him, regretting his brown curls between your fingers and the warmth of his breath against your mouth. But then your brain kicked in again, and your eyes grew round as the realization of your own movements sank in.
You had kissed him. You had kissed Andrew…
Holy…
“God, I’m sorry,” you stammered. “I… I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. God…”
“It’s alright,” he reassured you, but it was obvious that he was shaken.
“That was so out of line, I’m sorry…”
“No, it’s okay… I… I think we’ve both had a little too much to drink.”
“Yeah… yeah, I think it went to my head.”
Why was your heart aching when you thought he regretted it. He should have regretted it. And you ought to regret it too…
“Frank and Samantha…” you mumbled under your breath, thinking out loud, but Andrew caught your words and nodded.
“Yeah… yeah, we… they are the ones we want.”
He slowly nodded, ran his hand across his face, as if to clear his head.
“You… you were just drunk. Just drunk…”
He looked at his watch.
“God…it’s almost 2 a.m. We should go to bed…”
You nodded again, but stopped him when he pulled out his phone.
“I have an extra bedroom, you can stay if you want.”
“I can take a uber.”
“It’s late. You can stay, if you want to.”
Slowly, he nodded.
You let him head to the bathroom, and hid inside your bedroom, resting your back against its wooden surface as you closed it.
What the fuck was that?
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The Great BNHA Review: Katuski Bakugou, the Character That Ruined Everything
Yeah, that's right, this guy gets his own section in this!
Because he's literally the catalyst that ruined what could've been a good series if he was just left behind after the battle trials.
So by now I’m sure we ALL know who this douche is, he’s part of the main cast who used to bully Izuku and was also the one who gave him that degrading nickname Deku. And from there has become a sort of rival to Izuku to butt heads with... but here's where things kind of start to go wrong.
Hori found himself liking him out of everyone and decided to make BNHA his wattpad fanfiction where everyone loves Bakugou and blows sunshine up his ass whenever he becomes a topic of discussion.
And that isn't even the worst part, no no no, the worst part is that Bakugou himself is a flaming dumpster fire of a character!
He's always yelling everything he says so it makes it hard to listen to him, he's obnoxious and rude to everyone around him, is pretty much talented at everything he does so he comes across as more of a Gary Stu than anything... And he's never. Punished. Once.
At least in a way that's satisfying.
Sure he got put under House Arrest for being out after curfew, but the reason why this doesn't work is because Izuku ALSO gets punished alongside him! When he was only defending himself and couldn't run away! And the fact that Izuku got more flock for it AND was the one to apologize to it... I'm sorry but that's literally fucked up!
And I know there's gonna be some people that'll say:
"Well that's how it is in the real world, it's being realistic of how bullying situations usually goes."
I'm sorry, I don't go to fiction to be reminded of how much the world sucks. I go to fiction to experience a good story and watch characters grow and become better versions of themselves!
But Katsuki Bakugou, never goes through any of this!
He never grows or learns from his past mistakes, he never learns that his behavior is toxic and how it effects the people around him, and he never becomes a better version of himself... In fact he only got worse if the ending is anything to go by!
He just stays the same because that's how the fandom adores him as! A potty mouth arrogant asshole character who happens to be hot in their eyes!
To put it simply, he's a leech to the BNHA story. He sucks away screentime and attention that could've gone to the other characters that needed it to make their stories hit harder. He sucks away the nuance and themes the story was supposed to have in order to keep him in a good light without acknowledging his bad actions. And to hammer in the worst part about Bakugou.
... He prevents Izuku from growing and becoming the main character he was supposed to be. In fact I would even go as far to say Hori probably wished Bakugou was the main character instead, if he loves asshole characters so much, then he might as well make one the main character in his next work.
Edit: This part is an add on as I completely forgot about it and couldn't do it earlier today as I was at work, but now I'm here to fix it.
Bakudeku... this ship is a stain on all shipping. It's literally Abuser x Victim and it's disgusting how people romanticize this so much. And I believe it's this ship that twists their views on relationships and it'll cause them to get into abusive relationships since it's so normalized in this fanon ship that shouldn't even be seen in the positive light that it is.
So to end this part off before we get to closing thoughts, Katsuki Bakugou is without a doubt the worst anime character I have the misfortune of seeing. He's the shining example of what happens when you play favorites and trying to show everyone how great they are.
Fuck you Katuski Bakugou. You ruined BNHA.
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