#anyway//this is by far the most romantic thing ive ever written | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cheswirls · 4 years

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you won't remember / i won't forget [ 2/2 ]

sabo shivers where he stands as ace digs for his house key. he’s in a long-sleeve shirt and ace’s red coat, but it’s snowing, and they had walked slow to get here after sabo nearly tripped on a patch of ice.

a ting greets sabo’s ears, and ace finally slots the key into the lock, pulling him and the door in. it’s not near as cold inside as it is out, and sabo stands there a moment to bask in the warmth, his breaths no longer visible in the air.

their place is very small. there’s one door that sabo suspects leads to a bathroom, and a nook that breaks the squareness of the space to house a kitchenette. ace is quick to sit sabo down on the futon and replace the damp coat with a soft blanket. he pulls his jacket off and sighs as he drapes it over a hanger. “do you want anything to eat?” he asks, wandering back over.

“everything,” sabo answers.

ace looks more amused with this response than anything, stopping short. “you’re that hungry?”

“no.” sabo shakes his head. “i want to try everything. i haven’t had anything but hospital food for months. i want to know what real food tastes like.”

ace snorts. “right,” he says, but he’s already moving to the cabinets.

sabo takes a small paper plate and samples everything he’s given. corn chips, pickles, jerky. “salty,” he keeps repeating, like he can’t believe it. ace has a hard time not laughing at the sight. he does laugh when sabo tries a red pepper and makes a face as he crunches on it.

“not that one,” he says between breaths.

“not that one,” sabo echoes in a mutter.

ace walks him to cognitive therapy. it’s warmer out, without the snow on the ground, though still cold enough for them both to be bundled up the best they could be. ace ties sabo’s blue scarf for him, then throws his own coat over the blond’s shoulders. he tugs it off before sabo heads inside, though, and this is how he knows to say ace walked him there, and not, oh, ace dropped me off, but he’ll be back later.

sabo comes out two hours later tired and exhausted and tired again with nothing to show for it. ace is waiting for him on the steps. sabo thinks about berating him for staying so long in the cold, but he walks into ace’s arms instead, held in his embrace while he tries to calm his aching heart.

“it’s going to take some time,” ace murmurs, right by his ear. “if it even works at all.”

sabo doesn’t want to hear that. he presses himself further into ace. “give me the coat,” he mumbles, and ace complies.

sabo learns how to organize his thoughts and retain information and seek out the feelings, but he makes no progress recovering his memories. he feels drained every time he leaves a session, having spent hours tracking movements and listening to sounds and even letting his mind be hypnotized, at one point. nothing is working.

he tells his caseworker this, one day, when asked how he felt about his progress.

“do you want to quit?” he had asked.

sabo has yet to give him an answer.

sabo showers late one night and throws back on the same shirt he’d worn before. the floor is cold, so he puts the same socks on his feet. it’s dark in their room, so after closing the bathroom door, he wanders over to flick on the small light above the stove, give the space a little ambiance.

he sits on the futon and gathers a blanket around his form, folding his legs up and leaning against the wall. he could go to sleep. he should go to sleep. he knows this, but it’s so quiet, and he doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. he wants ace to come home.

he wants ace.

sabo waits for a long time. he’s hardly awake when the door opens, head slumped against his arms, and he doesn’t rise when it closes again.

“hey,” ace says, voice quiet.

sabo shifts his face up and attempts to blow the hair from his eyes. it falls right back into place. “how was work?”

“work is fine. how are you?”

“tired.”

“i didn’t think you’d be awake,” ace admits, sitting in front of sabo.

sabo glances down. “yet you bought flowers,” he mumbles.

ace glances down, too, smiling at the bouquet. “well, maybe i had a suspicion. mostly i had an idea.”

sabo raises a brow. “i’m listening,” he says, moving his legs down. ace sets the daisies in his lap and reaches to push one of sabo’s sleeves up, turning his arm forward. sabo blinks rapidly but lets him do it, only growing more curious as he pulls a stem from the bunch and holds one of the daisies near the scar tissue.

“pretty, right?” ace murmurs, pressing the white petals to his skin. “what about a tattoo?”

“of flowers?” sabo says blandly.

ace shrugs. “why not? you could get a whole line of them, right up your arm. i’m not saying it has to be now, it definitely can’t be right now, but i know someone i’d trust to do it in the future, if you want.”

sabo takes the daisy in one hand and slips his other hand into ace’s. he holds the flower to his face and sniffs, and his expression softens as he clings to ace’s cold fingers. “i’ll think about it,” he promises.

ace rubs his thumb over the back of sabo’s hand and gives him the rest of the flowers. sabo sets them all to the side in favor of pulling ace close, until he’s knelt before him, and his knees are on either side of ace’s waist. he reaches up to grab ace’s face and bring him close, all while his mind repeats the same question, do you want to quit, over and over and over again.

nothing was guaranteed to work. he knew this. but he owed it to ace to keep trying. that’s what he kept telling himself, and yet here he was, falling apart for something that was only a chance. at some point he had to start being selfish, put himself first.

he doesn’t even notice he’s crying until ace pulls back and reaches up to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. sabo blinks, and his face is wet, and ace leans back further, his gaze questioning.

“are you okay?” he asks.

“no,” sabo answers, and he can feel all his hopelessness put into the word.

ace frowns. he looks unsure, and his next question is hesitant. “did you . . remember something?”

“no,” sabo says again, and this time his voice breaks. and then ace understands, and he bends in close, wiping sabo’s face as the tears start falling again.

“shhh, sabo, it’s okay,” he whispers. “no one is forcing you to rush. did your therapist say something?”

“no.”

“do you want to talk about it?”

“no.”

do you want to quit?

“no. no. no,” sabo repeats, lifting his hands to shield his face. ace takes them and gently pries them away, refusing to let him be alone. he leans his forehead to sabo’s hairline, closes his eyes.

“hey, sabo. i love you. i know it’s been a while since i’ve said it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. i’ve loved you for a long time, and i’ll keep loving you for even longer. no matter what. i mean that. no matter what happens, no matter what you decide to do, i want you to know my love for you won’t go away. so you do whatever you have to do, and i’ll support your decision. i’m here for you. i’ve always been here, and i always will be here. nothing is going to change that.”

“i’m sorry,” sabo gasps, hands still trapped between ace’s. “i’m sorry,” he says, because he can’t say it back. because the feelings are there but it doesn’t feel right to parrot back words he’s unsure of, even after all this time.

“shhh,” ace whispers, releasing his hands to pull his body closer. he feels sabo’s arms go to wrap around his back. “you don’t need to feel sorry,” he breathes. “you just need to be sabo. the current sabo. and everything will sort itself out from there.”

sabo is asleep before ace gets out from his shower. he gathers the flowers, hooks them through the doorjamb, and makes his way across the room in the dark.

sabo uses ace’s phone to call and cancel his psych appointment. ace is still asleep, and he really needs some air, so he grabs the house key and slips on his shoes.

the bouquet greets him at the door. sabo takes it in his arms and slides the door shut, careful not to make any noise.

the daisies don’t take long to start wilting from the cold. sabo empathizes with them.

ace starts coming home later and sabo decidedly feels useless. he’s not contributing to anything. he’s not doing anything. at least he had things to look forward to, when he was at the hospital. now, nothing is new, and nothing is exciting. at least at the hospital, ace was there, right until he fell asleep, and then back again when he woke up.

he doesn’t mean to bring it up one night. it just happens, the “you’re hardly ever here” spilling from his lips before he can stop it.

ace pauses stirring, holding the spoon steady. “i know. it’ll get better. i promise.”

“you’ve been saying that for months now.”

he reaches out to turn the burner to low. “and hasn’t it? gotten better? you’re not in the hospital anymore. you’re alive. that’s more than i ever could have imagined, back then. we have this place, and food, and i’m here right now, and you’re here right now. i’m not lying to you, sabo. things aren’t perfect, no, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t gotten better.”

“you’re not lying to me. but i think you’re lying to yourself, ace.”

ace turns the stove off and puts a lid over the pot to seal the warmth. “how?”

a rustling lets him know sabo is standing. “when are you going to admit that i’m not the person you fell in love with?”

ace pauses, as he sets the spoon in the sink. “i fell in love with sabo,” he says, turning.

“i gave him my name. i gave him a cherry ring pop, and we ran away from home. we chased the high in a car, and mapped an adventure across the country. we sold the car to a scrapyard and he insisted we drag the tires all the way to a secondhand store. most damn money he ever made, in a day. then he found us this little hovel, and we started camping out there.”

sabo feels his heart sink, as ace proves him right.

“i gave him my time, my patience, my outstanding humor. my outlandish remarks. so much grief he should’ve gotten rid of me long ago. another cherry ring pop, and a goodbye kiss. and then a promise, behind the curtains of an icu room.” ace takes a deep breath, and sabo looks up, stuck on his last sentence until it fades into more.

“i gave him my name, again. to anyone who would listen. told them the blond kid? the one who was unconscious in a coma after surgery? his name was sabo portgas.

“i gave him skittles in a hospital room. i gave him all my time, all my patience. i told him his name and my name every time he woke up, then watched as the nurse came back in and he treated her like it was the first instance they’d met. he was brash and abrasive and distrustful, it was like i had stepped back in time, like i was wooing nine-year-old sabo all over again. like the essence of him was still there, even if he forgot again when he woke up.

“i gave him information, but he changed it, morphed it. suddenly his favorite color wasn’t blue, it was red. suddenly he had battle scars he wasn’t proud of. suddenly he was letting his hair grow out, even after years and years of complaining that it would get in the way.” ace pauses, moving closer, until he can lift sabo’s head up in his hands.

“i fell in love with sabo,” he confesses. “there’s no end, and there’s no beginning. he’s one person, accident or no, memories or no. things will change, but nothing is going to change that.” ace huffs out a breathy laugh, and swipes his thumbs under sabo’s eyes to collect the tears before they fall.

sabo squeezes his eyes shut, sniffs. “i don’t deserve you.”

“i think we make a perfect match,” ace counters.

later, when they’re both curled up on the futon, sabo will surprise them both.

“blue raspberry,” he mumbles, head pillowed on ace’s chest.

“for what?” ace hums.

“the ring pop,” sabo slurs. “i wanted cherry, but they were out. the only thing close was strawberry, but you got blue raspberry, because-” he breaks off, suddenly.

ace, who had been wide awake from the second sentence, slowly tightens his arms around sabo’s middle. “because what?” he asks softly.

“because it matched my eyes,” sabo finishes. “so i took it.”

“and then?” ace prompts.

“it was really sour, and i couldn’t stand it. so i gave it to you instead.”

“and then?”

“you broke off the plastic ring from the bottom and gave it back. said you would get cherry next time. made it a promise, on the ring.”

“and then?”

“i became sabo portgas, right there in the parking lot.”

sabo grows quiet after that. ace waits a little, then leans closer. “what’s next?” he whispers, right in sabo’s ear.

sabo picks his head up to rest his chin on ace’s chest, facing him. “i don’t know,” he admits. “that’s all i got.” he bites down on his lip, as the gleam in ace’s eyes refuses to die out. “don’t get too excited, okay? that’s the only thing. if this-” he said not to, but he’s the one biting on his cheeks to keep from grinning like a madman. “if this is happening, then taking it slow would be better.”

“i got cherry, the second time,” ace tells him.

“yeah, you told me that.” sabo rolls his eyes. “slowly, okay?”

“whatever you want.”

the vase sabo had been moving to the sink never makes it, slipping from his hands and shattering on the tile instead.

sabo flinches at the noise, takes one step back, and then sighs, dropping his outstretched hand down to his side. “shit.” well, it could have been worse. it could’ve already had the water in it, and then the floor would be soaked too.

sabo frowns as he stares at the mess. the impact echoes in his ears, and he shakes his head to ring it out.

a hand lands on his shoulder. sabo startles, bad, and jumps forward, crunching glass underneath his shoes. he breathes out and whips around, sending more of the glass sliding around the tile. ace stands with his hand still raised, mirroring sabo’s surprised expression. sabo closes his eyes, presses a hand to his forehead.

“sorry, i thought you heard me come in.” ace walks forward and nudges sabo out of the glass, careful when he grips his arms to pull him to the edge of the kitchen.

“no,” sabo admits. he’s still trying to process. why the glass sounded familiar, and why it was almost muscle memory that had him moving from any sort of contact after. he can’t come up with anything, which is an ever continuous cycle of annoying and bemusing.

they don’t have a broom, sabo realizes, and he steps forward again. “here, let me-” he starts, bending down to gather the bigger shards. ace catches his wrist and shakes his head until he’s standing again.

“don’t. you’ll cut yourself. i got it.”

sabo bites down on his lip and resigns himself to watching as ace folds a paper towel and sweeps all the glass onto a plate. he moves around the tile with a wet one next, collecting the pieces that had crumbled so small they were only noticeable by the shine in the cracks between tiles.

“are you okay?” ace asks, once he’s disposed of it all. “you were holding your head earlier.”

“yeah, i’m fine.” sabo shrugs. “i don’t know -i think it reminded me of something? but i can’t figure out what,” he confesses.

“beats me,” ace says. sabo can’t help the sting, hoping that if he was honest, ace would tell him. he still hadn’t remembered anything past that one day, and it was starting to wear on him again.

“have-” he cuts himself off before he can start. if ace didn’t know, he didn’t know. there was no point asking. “nevermind.”

ace lets it go in favor of retrieving an envelope from his coat. “food stamps came in. wanna go shopping?”

“yeah.” sabo puts on a smile and lets it go. it wouldn’t be best to dwell. “that sounds great.”

they meet up late in the evening by the car. sabo is rounding the side when he catches sight of ace’s messy hair. he’s waiting for him on the bumper, looking up at the sky. sabo stops short and smiles. he must shuffle some gravel, because ace turns his head, and then he’s smiling too.

“hey. kept me waiting. what did you do?”

“i painted a house today.” his smile turns lopsided. ace notices.

“are you okay?”

“i feel kinda woozy,” sabo admits. he takes a step and drags his hand along the rim of the truck for balance, and ace jumps up.

“here, c’mon, you should lay down before we do anything.” he helps situate sabo in the truckbed and sighs as he squats next to him.

“here,” sabo mumbles, digging out a wad of cash. ace takes it and flips through it.

“hm, pretty good.” he pulls out a bigger roll from his shorts and fans it in front of sabo’s face. “not as good as me though!”

“aww!” sabo whines. “how come you always win?”

“guess i just find better things to do.”

“cheater,” sabo grumbles.

ace doesn’t comment on that. “you still smell paint?” he asks instead.

“a little. my head just . . ugh, feels weird,” he mumbles.

“want to-”

a buzzing rouses sabo from sleep. he peels his eyes open as ace extracts himself enough to reach out and silence his phone. he moves back to bury his face in sabo’s hair, and sabo allows it for a moment before turning around to push him away. ace groans, his arms tightening around sabo’s middle.

“no,” sabo insists. “if you don’t get up now you won’t at all.”

ace, knowing this, sighs and finally pulls back. “i hate it when you’re right.”

sabo doesn’t go back to sleep in favor of watching ace move around the room. he sits up after a minute, leaning against the wall, blanket draped over his form. “hey, can we talk for a minute?”

ace glances over, then resumes his task. “yeah,” he answers, voice still raspy from sleep. he comes back over eventually and settles himself in front of sabo.

“i dreamed something,” sabo reveals. “i’m not sure what to make of it, or if it’s even real, so . .”

“tell me,” ace insists, suddenly more awake. sabo recounts the dream and watches his expression morph.

“what did we do with the money?”

“at first i thought we would eat good, but it took a long time for you to start feeling better.” ace shrugs. “spent most of it on medicine and gas, then headed somewhere new.”

“how long did we stay somewhere?” sabo asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“depends. if there was work and we didn’t run into trouble, a few weeks at most. some places we’d stop for some food and make the decision to try somewhere else.”

“trouble,” sabo mutters.

“ah, that was on me.” ace shrugs as sabo looks up. “well, it’s okay if that never comes back.”

“what do you think caused this?” sabo frowns. “it’s not like we were talking about anything before i fell asleep.”

“i’m not a doctor, sab. don’t have that answer.”

“right. uh, sorry.”

“hey, it’s okay. thanks for telling me. was there anything else . . ?”

“go to work,” sabo drones.

“right, okay. see ya.”

ace leaves and sabo unfolds himself until he can stand. he sets his resolve as he pulls on his shoes.

“you got a job?!”

“yeah, i think so,” sabo mutters around his food. he reaches out and rips off another piece of bread, munching on it.

“where at?”

“the library on the corne- what? what is it?”

“nothin’.” ace shrugs, still smiling. “just suits you, is all.”

“thanks, i guess.”

“when do you start?”

“they have to call me back.”

“but you got it?”

“i think so.”

ace frowns. “wait, call you back?”

“aha. about that.”

ace is already sliding out his phone. “i guess you could keep it for a few days,” he mutters. “and don’t apologize! if that was your only option, it’s fine.”

sabo wisely closes his mouth and goes back to eating.

“would i have done this?” he asks later. “before?”

ace hums. “dunno. does it matter? you’re doing it now.”

“that’s not what i meant. i just . . sometimes i get curious, about what i was like.”

“the only thing that matters is who you are right now,” ace reminds him gently. “nothing should influence that. the past sabo has no right to the current sabo.”

sabo thinks on this for a long time before deciding he didn’t quite agree. if wasn’t like the two were separate. as slow as it was, he was regaining memories. what happened when he reached the point where his old self felt just as much him as his current self?

what happened when he regained enough sense to merge the two?

sabo is clearing books from an abandoned table when he spots ace in the corner. he gathers the stack in his arms and walks over, stopping right before his seat.

“what are you doing?” he asks, as ace looks up.

“can i not sit here?” ace says drily. sabo gives him a look and he relents. “okay, okay. i thought i would wait for you. better than being at home alone.”

“i’m not off for another few hours.”

“that’s fine!” ace beams up at him as sabo turns suspicious. “just being around you is enough,” he admits.

sabo looks away, the heat bubbling to his face. “sap,” he mutters.

“go do your job. i’ll be fine! promise.”

sabo nods one more time before moving into the stacks. he takes a moment to cool off and then heads to the back with the books.

when he’s done for the night, he moves back to ace’s spot only to find him asleep, head nestled in his arms piled on the table. sabo rolls his eyes and bends by the chair legs. he runs a hand through ace’s hair until he makes a soft sound.

“ace,” he tries. “it’s time to wake up.”

“mm- wha-?” ace shifts his head as his eyes open. sabo lets his hand fall away.

“hey. let’s go.”

“sa-” ace interrupts himself with a yawn. he lifts his head from the table, glances around. “where are we?” he mumbles.

“library.”

“why?”

“you tell me,” he hums, pulling the chair back. ace grabs hold of the arms to steady himself, glaring up at sabo.

“how’s it going?” ace asks, once they’re out the door. he waits until they’re in the parking lot to swing his coat from his arms to sabo’s shoulders, pulling it around.

“it’s good.” he catches one of ace’s hands before he can pull away, and tugs his scarf off with the other.

“do you need more clothes?”

“i think-” sabo pauses to loop the scarf around ace’s head. “that if i keep this jacket zipped, no one will notice for a while.”

“yeah, that’s fair.” ace takes their joined hands and pulls sabo forward.

“i like having something to do.”

“i don’t!” ace whines, swinging their arms. “i mean- that came out wrong.” he shrivels a little at sabo’s look. “i like knowing where you are,” he rephrases. “and i like coming home to you. it’s going to be different, not seeing you as much.”

“i got used to it,” sabo says quietly. ace squeezes his hand.

“i know it’s been hard to adjust. after i saw you so much in the hospital, anything less was bound to be rough to handle. but you’ve been amazingly considerate, for the most part, and i should learn to do the same.”

ace looks away when the crosswalk changes, though there’s no traffic. he steps forward but doesn’t get far, not when sabo’s not moving. he turns back and blanches when he sees tears running down the blond’s face.

“sabo, hey.” he steps closer again, raising his free hand to wipe sabo’s face. “did i say something wrong? what’s going on?”

“you’ve never said anything wrong.” sabo sniffles, blinks, lets fresh tears fall and blur his vision. “everything you say is so nice. sometimes i don’t know how to handle it. like now.” he sniffs again, lets ace wipe at his cheeks. “thank you. i know i don’t say it often enough, but really, thank you.”

“don’t mention it,” ace mumbles. he steps closer, and cradles sabo’s face in his hands, and lets the lights cast them in red. it shines on sabo’s cheeks, and in his bright hair, and ace knows going for a combo hit wouldn’t be the best idea, but he can’t help it. “you’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, just loud enough for sabo to hear.

sabo laughs, a little shakily. “knocking me while i’m down, huh?”

ace shrugs. “i just told the truth.”

“i need to sit down before you say something else.”

“let’s cross the street first.” ace pulls on sabo’s arm and spins around. the street is still empty, so he moves them across, even under protest.

“but the light-”

“it’s good, sab. don’t worry so much about it. see?” he says, as they hit the sidewalk again. “no problem.”

“okay,” sabo mumbles.

they make it home without incident, and sabo starts thinking again. while ace is asleep, he pushes up his sleeves and looks at all the marks littering his arms in the dim glow of the bathroom. usually, he would have grouped all the injuries he had accumulated and gotten treatment in the hospital for as part of the same incident. but now he wasn’t sure. what if only some of them came from that, and the others from another event that occurred the same day? what if he was hurt, and then got into something like a car crash?

sabo frowns. that didn’t sound right, but he was so lost, at this point. he had some puzzle pieces but no frame to match them to. he didn’t know what to think anymore.

“That boy is always out there waiting for you,” his supervisor calls out to him. sabo doesn’t stop walking toward the checkout, the last stack of spare books in his arms, but he does turn his head to look out one of the windows. it’s not hard to spot ace, a modest distance from the doors, face lit up by his phone. sabo looks back in a hurry, a light laugh bubbling in his throat.

“yeah, i guess,” he replies. his supervisor doesn’t say anything more. not until he’s leaving, anyway.

“you two get home safe,” she tells him, waving him out the door. sabo ducks his head.

“right,” he mutters, stepping outside.

ace pockets his phone as sabo comes through the door. he tips his head at the frown suddenly on sabo’s face. “what’s wrong?”

“it’s too cold to be waiting out here,” he protests, stepping closer to rub ace’s free hands with his warmer ones. ace shrugs.

“it’s been getting warmer, actually.” he uses the grip to pull sabo towards him. “but if you wanna warm me up, i won’t complain.”

“of course you won’t,” sabo mutters. “hey, don’t wait up tomorrow. i’ll be home late.”

ace shrugs, pulling them both down the street. “yeah, i might get off at a weird time anyway, so i doubt i’ll see you until you get home.”

“perfect,” sabo says, a little absently, then freezes up at his mistake.

ace watches him closely. “yeah? got a surprise or somethin’?”

“guess you’ll have to wait and see!” sabo smiles cheekily, throws up a peace sign, then dashes down the street. ace lets out a startled shout before running to catch up.

it’s snowing when sabo wakes up.

guess the good weather couldn’t last forever, he thinks, as he steps outside. he wraps his scarf over his head but it does little to help. when he makes it to work he stops on the doormat to dust himself off, covered in fresh powder. it was already piled high on the ground, too.

it’s still snowing when he gets off, the thick white blanket offsetting the night, still bright enough to see even without the sun. “be careful out there,” his supervisor tells him, before he leaves.

sabo stands under the awning for a minute, debating going straight home while he crunches a few bills in his jacket pocket. the wind wasn’t bad, really, but it was snowing pretty heavily, and it was likely to pick up soon.

but. sabo bites down on his lip.

no. he wasn’t going to be deterred.

he stamps his feet in the entryway once he’s through the door of the gas station, breathing out a sign as his face slowly stops stinging. the cashier glances outside after scanning his item, looking from sabo’s meek winter wear to the worsening weather.

“be careful out there,” he tells sabo, an echo of the woman from the library. he nods, adjusts his scarf, and braces himself as he steps back out into the snow.

the walk home is not great. he’s trudging through the snow at this point. his socks are wet. he can’t see very well, even with all the street lights. this was not a good choice in hindsight, he thinks, and then the sky lights up.

a low rumble of thunder cuts in, and sabo blinks, pausing in his step to process. that was lightning. was it because of the temperature change? because it was snowing so much? sabo didn’t know it could thunder while it was snowing.

hm. well, he was almost home. if he waited around it would only get worse, and he had promised ace he would be late, not not there at all.

with that in mind, he picks up his pace, jogging until he hits a streetlight, tightening his grip on his earlier purchase, safe inside his pocket. he breathes out in annoyance, moving in place to stay warm, then perks up as he remembers something.

a gust of wind cuts past, and sabo brings up an arm to shield his face. he glances back and forth to confirm the street was clear, then breaks off from the sidewalk. at least the roads weren’t piled with snow like the walkways were, having been stamped down by passing traffic. the only thing that was worse was the ice, which-

sabo’s breath catches as his heel hooks onto a smooth patch, unsteadying him. he throws his arms out to regain balance, stepping off from the ice. well. could’ve been worse, he thinks, as he guards himself from another wind gust and steps forwa

sabo comes to with a wince as a light shines in his eye. his eye is closed again and his mouth falls open in a grunt. voices speak in urgent tones above him. he might hear a siren, and oh, that would explain the flashes behind his eyelids.

his hand crumples the plastic packaging in his pocket. it’s the last thing he registers.

sabo yawns into his hand as he makes it up the last of the steps, pushing out with his free one to shove at the door. since it didn’t have a doorknob, he wasn’t overly concerned over the fact it wasn’t already pushed into the frame. it happened often enough.

“ace, i’m home,” he calls out, rubbing at his eyes. he walks several paces into the house, not noticing the wind passing easily through the broken window panes. if anything, their place is already drafty, so when he trips over the glass shards on the ground, he only frowns down at the mess.

“what broke?” he mumbles, finally dropping his arms. actually, they definitely didn’t own anything made of glass, so-

sabo looks up as a hand settles on his shoulder, but he’s thrown into the wall before he can make out a face. someone else comes up, complexion hidden by the shadows, and thrusts a damp rag into sabo’s face, holding it there as a hand tightens around his neck.

he passes out almost instantaneously.

sabo comes to hazily. his head is down so he’s staring at his lap. he has enough awareness to realize he’s sitting up, his legs bound to something hard, but not enough sense of self-preservation to control the harsh exhale through his nose. there’s something tied to his mouth, and the air feels heavy, laced with something that keeps him dizzy. he can’t find the strength to raise his head, and it’s probably the only thing that keeps the others in the room from taking notice of his waking. his hands are bound too, tied tight against something flat out in front of him. sabo takes note of voices, but they’re too low for him to make anything out. he doesn’t pay attention until he recognizes ace’s among them.

“i got it. it’s yours. i’ll- it’s-” ace breaks off with a huff. “nothing is in the house. it’s in the wall in the building behind it. there’s a loose brick, about four down and-” he continues but sabo loses track of the words with the pressure on the back of his neck. he winces sharply, and it must be loud enough to be heard through the rag, because the pinch grows tighter, and someone is lifting his face up. sabo’s eyes blink open, but it’s heavy, and they don’t expand anymore than halfway before the light grows too intense to bear.

“sabo-” ace starts, voice loud and startled, but he’s cut off.

“v, go and check. bring j with you. make sure you count everything. if it’s not all there, call me.”

sabo squints and the hand holding his head releases him. he works hard to keep it raised, leaning right with the effort. movement comes and goes, but he still can’t make out much. he tries to move his eyes left, where he heard ace’s voice, but it’s hard.

“everything is there,” ace promises, sounding on the edge of desperation.

“oh i don’t doubt that. you seem pretty desperate. there’s another matter we have to settle, though.”

the voice moves closer, and sabo tenses as something enters his peripheral. he flexes his fingers, but his wrists are bound so tight that even that hurts.

“you hurt m pretty bad. poor guy won’t be moving easy for a bit. sucks, y’know? one of my best men, gone just like that. you sure aren’t an easy guy to please, portgas, but even that was going too far. so i started thinking to myself . .”

he brandishes something that gleams in the light, and ace sucks in a breath, and sabo blinks, heavy, thinking his eyes must be playing tricks on him.

but then the cold press of metal is on his forearm, edge digging into his skin, and the raspy voice is right by sabo’s head.

“since you hurt one of my boys, i’m going to hurt your boy.”

“wait-” ace says, but the knife rips down sabo’s arm before he can get anything else out, and sabo is screaming long before he can process where the cut stops at the rope binding his hands.

“sabo, listen to me,” ace says, and he tries. it hurts. he doesn’t know how long he’s been here, or when it started, or where the pain begins and where it ends, the damage too extensive. blood covers his forearms from thick cuts, spilling onto his legs, staining the carpet underneath. he’s dizzy, and he feels like throwing up. his breaths come in pants, and he can barely hear ace between them, everything else too loud in his ears.

“if we get out of this, i promise i’ll do better. i’ll stop the dangerous shit. i’ll find something else to do. i’ll change, so please, please, you have to hold on.”

sabo doesn’t know if he nods or tries to or succeeds or fails. footsteps sound loud, echoing off the walls, and his brain short-circuits, pure, unadulterated fear flowing through him. he tenses his arms and blood leaks through the cuts and he chokes on a sob, the effort making his neck ache. there’s a weight on his chest that he can’t make out, and sabo squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation.

ace flinches harsh at the loud noise. when he pries his eyes open, r is on the ground, a hole in his head. he’s slumped, but it doesn’t take long for the rest of him to tumble down, slamming into ace’s chair. he jerks forward but doesn’t tip over, thankfully. still, the motion is enough to jar him, and ace coughs hard, hunched over, blood dribbling from his mouth.

someone comes the rest of the way down the narrow staircase and ace tenses, having enough instincts to spin his head around. a burly man steps down from the last step, eyeing ace through his shades with his gun still raised. he takes stock of the situation pretty quickly, lowering the arm to raise one with a receiver to his mouth.

“there’s only one down here. i already took him out.”

static crackles in the next few, tense moments. “then hurry back up.”

he pockets the gun and the receiver and steps further into the room, grimacing at the blood that makes the carpet squishy underfoot. he moves his eyes away from ace to look down at the bloody bat r had used to bash sabo’s head in, kicking it away with a grunt. he looks to sabo next, still tied to the chair, and presses his lips tight until they turn pale. then he crouches next to r and checks his pulse.

“yep, he’s dead dead,” he mutters to himself. then he sighs. “should probably take the body . .” he turns his head over his shoulder to look at the stairs, sighs again, then hauls the corpse up. he doesn’t spare ace a second glance, leaving the room rapidly, and once he’s out of sight ace doesn’t spend another moment worrying about him, moving his fingers to wrestle with his restraints.

the house is silent when ace frees himself, breaking the chair to slide out the legs from between the rope. he collapses on the ground and gags and flips over onto his back and lies there for a moment, breathing. the action nearly makes him sick, so ace picks himself onto his knees as quick as he can manage, crossing across the soiled carpet to sabo’s chair.

“you’re okay you have to be okay please be okay,” he mutters, leaning on the chair and reaching a hand up to brush the back of sabo’s head. the bleeding hasn’t stopped, and sabo’s unconscious, his head lolled far enough forward for ace to be dizzy with anger when he sees the injury there.

ace coughs again and curses as he spits blood onto sabo. he moves to a stand and sags against the chair, vision blurring, the room spinning. somehow he makes it to the stairs, using the wall to climb up and digging for his phone, thankful they hadn’t seen the need to take it. once he gets a signal he sags onto the railing, talking hurriedly into the speaker. he abandons it on the steps once he gets an affirmative, crawling back down to sabo to cut his restraints. he wants to pull him down but he’s afraid of moving him too much. he passes out before he can make a decision, slumped over one of the armrests, still holding tight to sabo to try and stop the bleeding.

sabo groans before he is fully conscious, the sound coming from closed lips. his eyes are sticky when he finally opens them. the smell of antiseptic is strong, but ace’s head is above his before he can look at his surroundings to gauge his location.

“hey,” sabo mumbles, not liking the way his lips form the words. his face feels weird. his body hurts.

“hey,” ace says lowly. there’s something unreadable to his expression, and sabo wants to pry it out and reveal its intentions.

“what happened?” he asks instead.

ace’s lower lip worries, and he steadies it before answering. “what’s the last thing you remember?”

oh. sabo squints. okay, he can definitely see the distress rolling off ace in waves. so that was it. well, he supposes that was a valid reason.

“waking up to this cute nurse,” he says, because sabo is an asshole first and foremost. ace leans back and sabo looks him up and down. “or maybe you’re an intern,” he amends, eyes moving back to ace’s face.

he looks on the verge of tears, as he moves off the bed. sabo rolls his eyes.

“sit back down, ace. please.”

ace’s breath catches and he glares down at sabo. “you-”

“sorry, i guess i took that too far,” sabo apologizes. “i remember crossing the street. i think i almost slipped on a patch of ice.”

ace huffs and climbs onto the bed to sit even with sabo’s waist. he’s propped up slightly by the pillows, so it brings them close enough for ace to comfortably reach up and carefully cradle sabo’s face in both hands, thumbs gently smoothing over his brows. he relaxes into the hold. “i think you did slip, because a car rammed into you pretty badly. it’s unlike you to be distracted enough not to notice.”

“hmmm. no, i think it was snowing, so maybe i didn’t see.” sabo does his best to shrug. it feels weird. “it doesn’t matter, i guess. what happened after?”

ace’s hands still. “they brought you here.” his expression grows pained. “i’m your emergency contact, so they called me when you went into surgery.” he frowns. “i wasn’t even off work.”

sabo blinks, and god, that was right. he moves his hands up to rub at his eyes. “thinking about you with a real job is so weird. i don’t think i’ll ever get used to it.”

“i mean, you have one too.” ace pauses. “wait what?”

sabo pushes himself up off the pillows, dislodging ace’s hands. “my jacket,” he stammers. “you have it? where is it?”

“yeah, sure.” ace moves off the bed to pick up the jacket from the chair he’d been seated in. he passes it to sabo and watches as he roots through the pockets, hand clenching around something that crackles, and then leans over it, until his forehead is against his legs.

“ow,” he says after a moment, raising up again. one hand moves to his ribs. “what did i break?”

“a few ribs,” ace admits. “you have a lot of bruising. they did surgery for internal bleeding. it’s only been a handful of hours since then.” he nods to the window. “the sun’s barely been up an hour.”

“oh.” sabo crinkles the wrapper again. he turns his head to look at ace. “close your eyes, okay?”

ace wants to refute. he wants to talk about this, because sabo is saying some very familiar things, but they’re things he hasn’t heard in a long time. but he indulges him for the moment.

sabo takes the package from his jacket and tears it open. he frowns down at the contents, but he supposes it’s the best he could hope for. “hold out your hands,” he tells ace. his brow furrows, but he complies, cupping them together.

sabo scoots to the edge of the mattress and pours purple candy shards and a distinct plastic shape into ace’s hands. ace frowns and wastes no time in opening his eyes to look at the mess. they catch on the blue ring in the center and blow wide, and he sits there staring at it without a word.

sabo sits back and tosses the wrapper away, unbothered by the candy crumbs it scatters. “they only had grape ring pops, where i went.”

ace frowns deeper. “this is such a mess. you want me to lick these off my hand? you don’t ever think these things through. how am i supposed to pick up the ring?”

“after enjoying the candy i bought you, duh.” sabo reaches forward to grab the ring base, but he must be a little forceful about it, because the motion topples the iv stand from the other side of the bed, sending it crashing against the mattress, and then to the ground, which pulls the iv clear out of his wrist. his “here, let me-” is cut off at the noise, and he holds down against his bleeding wrist with the hand holding the ring. “ow!”

“oh my god.” ace can’t help it when he laughs. “that’s not funny,” he says when sabo glares at him, but he’s still laughing. a nurse comes in to find them like that, takes one look at the iv on the ground, and leaves again.

the doctor comes in with her next, cutting off sabo’s words with his entrance.

“hm. i see you’re already being disruptive.”

he doesn’t appear angry or annoyed at the fact, and sabo thinks it might have been a joke, considering he had the same doctor, but he still looks away guiltily. “sorry,” he mutters.

“how are you feeling?” the doctor asks as he reinserts sabo’s iv.

“like i got hit by a car.”

“oh, good. i’m happy to inform you that’s not an outlier, in your case.”

“you mean, considering i got hit by a car?”

the doctor raises his brows. “you have a lot more sass than i remember.” he moves his gaze to sabo’s other hand, and the ring pop base he has clutched in it. he tracks the rest to ace’s hand, the other slowly picking out bigger pieces to suck on, and scattering smaller bits with every movement. he sighs. “you know, i’ll come back later. it can wait.”

the nurse looks like she doesn’t quite agree with him, but she follows him back out without protest. sabo waits until the door is closed to lean back against the pillows, still sitting up, just with more support. he breathes out deep. “i’m exhausted.”

“you should probably explain this before you pass out.” ace motions to the candy.

“oh, right.” it takes little effort for sabo to break off the ring from the base, even considering how tired he was. he tosses the top half away and holds the plastic ring out to ace. “i’m giving you one back. i know it’s overdue.” he shrugs. “sorry it broke.”

“unavoidable, considering the circumstances.” ace’s eyes narrow as he sticks out a finger to put through the ring. “which were completely unavoidable. you scared me to death.”

sabo’s gaze drops to ace’s no-longer-ringless hand, and he grabs at it with both his own before ace can pull back. “you really have changed,” he murmurs, just loud enough for ace to hear, and his heart startles at the thought.

“you really do remember,” ace counters, voice faint as he tries to recall how to breathe.

sabo’s already shaking his head. “not all the way.” he suddenly looks very tired. “just that night.” he squints. “nights. however long we were there.”

ace winces. “and . . that made you want to do this?” he wiggles his fingers, the only thing he can manage with sabo’s hold.

“oh, no. like i said, it was overdue.” sabo’s lips purse. “i’ve been remembering more and more, but it’s not all back. a lot of it isn’t back. there are still a lot of gaps. but, i guess i remembered enough to figure you really were telling the truth, about being in love with me, and i realized i was in love with you, too.” he reaches out to slowly twist the ring around ace’s finger. his eyes are fixed to it. “and i know it might not all come back. but i don’t care anymore. and you’ve told me enough times that you don’t care, either. so i just thought . . . uhm. that i would, y’know, let myself be happy, and all.” his head is turned to the window, at this point. “and i promised that i would get you a ring, after my second one, so this is just me acting on that! it’s not a new idea or anything. it’s very un-spontaneous, actually.” his face breaks, as he releases ace’s hand and looks into his eyes. “sorry it broke,” he says, his voice wavering.

ace stands up and spills the rest of the crumbs and uses the same hand to tug sabo into a hug, careful of his chest. sabo doesn’t seem to mind, gripping him tight, and his face falls into ace’s neck, just like it always used to, and he doesn’t even care that ace’s sticky hands are all over his hospital gown, or on his face, pulling him back to pull him in again, parting his lips with a gentle force that sabo allows, sighing into it.

ace moves back and sabo is dizzy and his eyes are heavy. “ace portgas, i love you.”

“sabo portgas, i love you more.”

“yeah, you probably do. i don’t doubt that.” he reaches up to trace ace’s jawline. “still.”

ace rolls his eyes. “you should try and sleep. i’ll still be here when you wake up.”

sabo hums. he pulls away to settle down, but he doesn’t release ace, instead shuffling to one side of the bed. ace gets the memo without any words and huffs out a contained laugh, kicking his shoes off proper and climbing under the blankets.

“staff won’t like this,” he muses, letting sabo curl up to him, arm gentle over his back.

“don’t care,” sabo mumbles, burying his nose in ace’s chest, until he can feel his heartbeat.

ace is fire and pain and yet it hurts the most not knowing, so the second he can he sits up out of bed and throws his feet over the edge. he drops heavy on his knees, hands held hard to the iv pole, barely on his feet. one hand comes off to touch at his chest, and curl into the fabric of his gown. his eyes are shut, his teeth gritted. it takes him a long time to relax.

he shoves the curtain aside and is immediately met with a bunch of stares that he ignores, eyes searching. they land on an open curtain not far from his own, sabo in the middle of two nurses in drab scrubs, looking radiant between the dull colors and heavy monitors. they’re hooking him up, so he must have just arrived. ace wastes no time in moving forward, pushing even when his breathing deepens from effort and his chest begins to ache.

“wait, sir-!” someone begins, but ace moves out of the loose hold until he’s at the foot of sabo’s bed. his eyes widen as he takes sabo in, at his wrapped head and arms and legs and what he can see peeking out from under the hem of his shirt. he places one hand at the edge of the bed to steady himself, curling his fingers against the folded sheet that lay there.

the nurses look between each other and one of them stops messing with the machines. “sir, you can’t be here.”

ace looks up, panicked as she comes closer. “wait, but sabo-!” he bites his lip. “i just wanted to see sabo. he’s okay, right?”

“you should go lie back down,” she says, but that doesn’t answer ace’s question. he feels discomfort in his chest, like he has to cough or something, and he squeezes the sheet tighter as he forces the urge down.

“please. i can sit down here if you want, but i just want to see him for a bit. just a minute.”

the other nurse finishes that side and looks past ace, to the nurse that had followed him. he glances back to ace. “you know his name?”

“yeah.” ace bobs his head, realizes his sudden bargaining chip, and immediately puts it to full use. “it’s sabo. i can tell you whatever you need, just let me sit here to do it.”

the one nearest to him sighs and goes back to fiddling with the machines. “go grab a chair,” she mutters, and her coworker runs off to do just that.

ace feels relief that is tough to hide as he sits, grateful to be off his feet. “sabo portgas,” he says, moving closer to be near sabo’s head while being out of the way. he’s sickly pale. ace is glad he’s alive and seems to be stable, but he’s tough to look at. he bites at his lip again. “did he have surgery? is that where he was?”

“portgas.” the nurse frowns, then frowns further as ace comes to attention. “that was the surname you gave us, wasn’t it?”

ace nods.

“you’re family, then?”

ace nods again.

her frown deepens as she looks between the two. “i can’t see much of a resemblance.”

“oh, we’re not blood-related,” ace admits.

“ah. well, i guess you are within your bounds. he did just undergo surgery. it’s his second.”

ace turns back to sabo, but he looks at all the machines instead. he doesn’t ask what the surgeries were for, because he has a pretty good idea of what both of them were for, and the fact that two were needed was already concerning enough to make his stomach roll. “when will he wake up?”

“we don’t know. we put him in a coma to speed recovery, but when he regains consciousness is partly his choice.”

“i hope he chooses soon,” ace mutters.

the nurse chuckles. “not that sort of active choice. it’s more how fast his body heals. regardless, he’ll wake up on his own eventually.” her hand moves across the clipboard she’s holding to scribble in numbers, and ace’s eyes stick on the far machine, a pulse monitor with a slow beep.

“that doesn’t seem right,” he says, nodding to the monitor when she looks up. she glances at it and hums.

“it is a little slow, but it’s steady, which is the important thing.” she scribbles in the count, then pauses, pen hovered over the page. “is that concerningly slow? do you know his normal count?”

ace blinks. “uh, no.” was that bad? was that a usual thing to know? ace thinks on all the times he’s heard sabo’s heartbeat, and they’ve only ever been when it’s racing.

“you get the name?” another nurse asks, stopping while wandering by.

“sabo,” she says over her shoulders, tapping the page.

“sabo portgas,” ace stresses.

“right. portgas,” she amends.

the other nurse narrows his eyes in thought. “and you’re ace, right?”

ace nods as the nurse across from him taps the page with her pen, drawing the attention of her colleague. he scans that section and hums, then looks back up to ace.

“you were brought in together,” he murmurs in thought. he holds up a vial. “is he allergic to anything? we wanted to put this in the iv.”

“no allergies,” ace says, eyes lidding. that he knew of. but if sabo had a spontaneous reaction to something medicine-related, would it be on him?

his face must give something away, because the nurse gives him an odd look before moving to sabo’s other side, where the iv sat.

“he’ll say it, too,” ace says suddenly, drawing both of their gazes. “when he wakes up. he’ll say he’s sabo portgas, and that he’s mi-” he cuts off with a violent cough, hand going up to his face, and the nurse quickly stands to assist him.

“c’mon, that’s enough. you should go lie down now.” ace opens his mouth in protest as she helps him to his feet. “you can always come back, ace. he won’t be in icu forever. focus on self-recovery for now. at least until he wakes up.”

ace sighs and gives up with a small nod, dropping his head down. he looks to the bland, bright floor as he lets her lead him back to his own area, drawing the curtains after helping him settle into bed.

“he won’t deny it,” he says, as she’s moving to leave. “he’ll tell you the same thing. promise.”

when she looks back, her smile is gentle. “i’ll hold you to it.”

“i’ll do better,” he mumbles to the air, later on. “i’ll do better, so please, wake up soon.” he frowns, sniffing, as his emotions overwhelm him. “please wake up and come back to me. as long as you can do that, everything else will be okay.”

part 1 | notes

#writing #op #saboace #ywr/iwf #anyway//this is by far the most romantic thing ive ever written #even then its not rly there i still gotta long way to go #BUT some progress is better than none

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normal-thoughts-official · 4 years

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Ok so Camille’s an asshole on that we can all agree, but I’m really tired of people in the fandom acting like she’s just your typical annoying ex and she makes poor uwu Alec feel insecure cause fuck that. Camille was 100% abusive and manipulative but I also think she was sexually abusive too I mean seeing what she did to Simon and kissing Magnus without his consent even though he was clearly uncomfortable, consent doesn’t really seem to be an issue for her-

I feel like she definitely manipulated his fear of loneliness and not being good enough, to suit her needs. Like Magnus isn’t in the mood for sex or it’s especially triggering on a certain day, either way he’s not up for it but Camille makes him do it anyway. She threatens to leave or go find someone else who can fulfill her needs or take care of her when Magnus won’t, ‘I mean does he even love her when he won’t do this one simple thing for her?’

So he just lets her do what she wants, even if he’s having a full blown panic attack Camille doesn’t care or she’ll just leave insulting him saying she can’t deal with this right now and leaving Magnus with no idea when or if she’ll be back. So the next time she asks he hesitates less or initiates it more even when he’s not in the mood so she won’t leave and yeah I have a lot of emotions relating to this. and now I’m thinking about how it’ll affect his future relationships, not even talking about Alec but other people - I have this headcanon where when he got away from Camille and is healing, him ragnor and Catarina live together in ragnors cottage or somewhere away from people for awhile so Magnus can slowly heal and focus on himself and unlearn Camille’s abuse with the help of his family

But despite what this fandom says Magnus has always been a helper and a selfless person to the point of self destruction. He’s unable to prioritise his own health and he wouldn’t be able to slow down and feel the full force of the abuse he experienced cause he feels like he’ll fall apart if he does and ‘no one wants a pathetic crybaby who breaks down when someone moves their hand too fast in his direction it wasn’t even that bad he’s just exaggerating like he always does this is why Camille doesn’t love him back’ (the ‘’ parts were meant to be strikethrough to signify Magnus’ inner thoughts but that doesn’t work on asks)

And he’s scared to get in another relationship cause he doesn’t think he’d be able to speak up for himself if they turned violent or controlling, he’s scared that if they did he’d just let them so he closes himself off from people puts these walls around him and a bright smile on his face that doesn’t let anyone think there’s anything wrong. And theres so much pain going on in the world ‘they have it much worse than him anyway’ and Magnus tries to help the best he can as he always does and he’s always there for people to lean on without any reciprocation and he’s so emotionally and physically tired and he’s not sure how much longer he can take it, almost considers going back to blackfairs bridge ‘really he’d be doing the world a favour’ but theres too many bad memories and he promised his family he would try so he holds on and then he finds Raphael and that obviously doesn’t fix everything but- I was going to continue this but it’s two am in my country and honesty it’s too long already😅 sorry for the rant it’s just a lot of emotions. Im so tired of the ‘Camille’s an annoying ex who keeps getting in the way of my favourite gay ship😠’ metas and needed to let out some feelings before I explode from my hate for Camille

UGH ANON HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE NOT ONLY A GENIUS BUT ALSO MY NEW BEST FRIEND, AN INTELLECTUAL, AND COMPLETELY RIGHT. YOU ARE SO CORRECT!!! idk if uve read my other post that i posted while i was waiting for you but we no longer have the same hat we are SHARING the hat!! i can't believe i got this ask right after i had just made that long ass rant and was in so much need to talk about this like ugh are you my guardian angel. i love you more than anyone else ive ever met

ok ok ok coherent thoughts ok i can do this. first of all THE SALT how does it feel to have vision and coherency. ppl writing camille as just an annoying ex or a bad ex or even as like "oh they both made mistakes and it ended up terrible" drives me UP THE WALL. camille was explicitly abusive, so much so that magnus CANONICALLY WAS UNABLE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO GET CLOSE TO HIM FOR ALMOST A CENTURY. and she was shown to be abusive, both in the physical sense as you have reminded us so brilliantly and in the sense that her whole "choose me" speech? like she doesn't have to literally say the words "no one but me would ever love you" for that to be exactly what she's saying. she's obviously playing with his insecurities and putting him down while presenting her as his savior, it's CLASSIC ABUSE. she was written as such a perfect to-the-book abuser that it honestly shocks me like they did that really all they ticked all the boxes. the way she immediately launched to talk about alec's mortality too, the way she was obviously trying to make them fight and draw them apart - it wasn't a jealousy thing, it is just that she's abusive and she wants him isolated so she can toy with him and manipulate him

EVEN SALTIER WHEN THEY MAKE IT ABOUT ALEC BEING INSECURE LIKE. especially because canonically he literally watched camille kiss magnus and didn't care, which was sexy of him because i was dreading some jealousy drama or something but instead he was just like. obviously she did it to hurt you. i only care in the sense that she's a fucking bitch. we stan!

as for how she treated him! oof i think the same thing with the same words dioajdsaoij it always circled back to "why can't you do this for me?" in and outside of sex - i mentioned that in a conversation in the comments of my other post but i think that with camille the sexual abuse was really just an extension of the regular abuse, so they bleed together and are not really separable in that sense. at every turn, he had to prove his worth, and she used his fear of loneliness both in the sense that she amplified it and made it seem like the only way to not be lonely was to be with her, and that she gave him just enough for him not to feel desperately lonely so she could string him along. not to mention, they both always go back to how magnus supposedly "owes" her, and yes, it's because of the bridge, of course, but there's also that underlying tone of "because she put up with him and gave him affection when no one else would". even when what she did was nowhere close to real affection. so it's both the bridge and the after. she could have saved him and left, but she stayed. that's why he feels he owes her, and she will absolutely use it

AND UR SO RIGHT ABOUT MAGNUS BEING UNABLE TO PRIORITIZE HIS OWN HEALTH UGH UGH UGH UGH like he has no choice for a while because she left him fucking broken and seeing the way she treats him and the amount of shit he puts up with i can only imagine how far she had to go for him to reach a breaking point and leave her for real. but as soon as he could pretend to have himself together he just threw himself out there. and i believe that he felt guilty for having catarina and ragnor take care of him when he abandoned them because of camille - obviously that's not what happened, she manipulated him into staying away from them, made his life hell whenever he wanted to hang out with them until he no longer had the energy to put up a fight to keep in contact with the people he loves, but it's what he feels that happened, and most likely what camille herself eventually started to tell him happened once they had been pulled away enough. ("you're gonna leave me? and go back to who? your little friends who tried to pit you against me from day one? they're just gonna say 'i told you so', magnus. and why would they take you back when you left them before? when was the last time you even saw them? you chose this, you chose me, and now you're gonna come back to them and expect them to welcome you with open arms? you selfish little prick")

AND RAPHAEL!!! raphael was so important, honestly, we say that magnus didn't let anyone into his heart but obviously raphael was the exception and EXTREMELY important for his healing. it's a complicated relationship because he's sort of a father figure for rapha, and as such, he doesn't allow himself to be completely vulnerable around him, because that's not "his role". but! he was the first person whom magnus let in. and they obviously know each other deeply ("i hate to see you like this" even though magnus looked completely put together to the outside eye) and are plenty affectionate ("sweet boy", the hugs, the way rapha talked about magnus with so much love and awe in his eyes and voice) and trusting (the way raphael went to magnus' loft, not his own damn clan, when he was tortured...). i know this fandom likes to pretend that they pretend to hate each other but NO THEY DON'T they are openly caring and loving with each other fucking fight me on this

anyway, my point is that raphael was the first person he allowed himself to trust, and of course, part of that is simply because raphael was vulnerable and in need and like you said he can't just stay still when he sees someone struggling. but to care for raphael eventually had to mean to open up to him and when he welcomed raphael in, he gained a new member to his family. raphael is his kid. that's no small thing. their bond goes deep and it's extremely important because again, after camille magnus wouldn't allow people to get close to his heart, because he was scared of how they could use that against him. raphael was his first, and the only reason magnus was able to open himself up for romantic love again (which was an extra step, not because romantic love is more important or deeper, but because it's specifically the kind of love that camille used against him, and thus it makes him even more scared) was because he had already been relearning trust and platonic love with rapha

rapha did him good!!! there's a reason he calls him "sweet boy" okay. and rapha cares about him and he NOTICES WHEN HE'S IN A BAD SHAPE EVEN THROUGH ALL OF MAGNUS' WALLS and he specifically didn't want magnus involved with the camille drama even when it had obviously gotten out of hand because he wanted to keep him safe and away from her!!! i want to be shot in the face!!! they love each other so much! fuck!

and also that implies that raphael knows about camille which means he might be the first person who met magnus post-camille and heard the story, which means that he might be (and probably is) the first person who was never involved that magnus opened up about this to. if that ain't some powerful and important shit i don't know what is. because part of abuse is that you can't talk about it - there's this sense of shame and guilt both from staying and from not staying more, especially because magnus canonically still feels like he owes her... aaaaa

this answer is all over the place im sorry but my point is you are correct, camille is a textbook abuser not just a shitty ex, she fucked up his head and made him unable to open up for a long time, and the first person that helped him break those walls was raphael and they LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH AND DEEPLY thank you for your attention

#magnus bane #shadowhunters #sh #meta #magnus bane meta #camille belcourt is an abuser #long post #ask #anonymous #camille's trash party #brotp: i'll do whatever it takes to protect them

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benisasoftboi · 3 years

Text

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel IV:

WHY ARE THEY CALLED CLASS VII?

WHO ARE CLASS VI?

Anyway - I started playing Trails in August, and I’ve finally, finally caught up (yes I know Hajimari I can’t read Japanese) and like... what do I do now?

It’s a fantastic series and I’m so, so glad I picked up Trails in the Sky on a whim last summer

This game was long. Is it longer than the other ones? It felt that way

The best part was the first chapter because Rean wasn’t in it and yeah I still don’t like him!!! But seriously, it was astonishing how much more I was enjoying things without him

I audibly groaned when goddamn bonding points returned in the second chapter

Actually that was a lie, the best part was Any Time My Angel Estelle Was On Screen

I missed her so much

I let her get the final hit of the game against the boss because she’s the best

Speaking of angels I caught three Wazy cameos!!!

Also Gilbert came back and if there had been a camera on me... I quite literally teared up a little I was so thrilled

I hate the curse it is dumb and rips all the nuance out of the characters. People do not need a goddamn evil curse to be swayed to extremes by overzealous nationalism. Trails I know you are better than this, I played Sky and Crossbell

Fav new location was Milsante (liked Alster too, though). I really like going to tiny little outposts and villages in JRPGs, they make the world feel more real

What the hell was up with the Osgiliath Basin? As in, Giliath Osborne??? Is this going to be a Hajimari thing?

Oh yeah, HOT TAKE, Alan Richard >>> Giliath Osborne. I was reading an LP of Sky FC while playing the game, and Richard’s motivation is clearer and less over-complex, more sympathetic, and he’s just generally a far more human character

Alan Richard best political antagonist in the series fight me (Rufus Albarea distant second)

For best supernatural/cult-y antagonist I’m stuck between Weissmann and Joachim. Or maybe Campanella lol

Oh uh speaking of characters named Georg I will never not hate everything about the George and Angie subplot. Angie should have died and George should have stayed evil, or it shouldn’t have happened at all. As it is, it was a complete waste of time - you could take it all out and NOTHING would change

Angie would have been the perfect character to sacrifice as well, she’s just important enough that it would feel like ‘oh shit’s getting real’ but not so important that it’s unbelievable

(like Olivier. I could not fully believe they’d actually kill him, and the moment Laura told me ‘they never found the bodies’ I was like, oh, so they’re definitely all still alive, cool)

I mean, it would be a Bury Your Gays, but honestly... there are things I like about Angie, but is anyone really looking to her as a lesbian role model? I hope not. Yikes

So yeah I guess I hate George now for getting my hopes up and then being boring. Shame

I did the Towa romantic ending, of course. I genuinely think she’s the best match for Rean, of all his love interests

Chaaaracters

Rean: Still the least interesting person. Not a good sign when I’m sadder about the robot dying than the main protagonist yeeting himself into the sun (side note, the two endings thing? Unnecessary and dumb). There is no reason girls would like him this much, blah blah I’ve said it all before. Liked his new hair. Honestly would have respected it if they’d had the balls to kill him off. I basically never even used him in battle lol, Juna became my new team leader

Juna: Honourary protagonist imo. I’ve changed my mind since CS3, she’s my fav new Class VII without a doubt. She’s just really good and full of personality and depth and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM WHY

Kurt: pls falcom don’t try to force this aroace king into a nonsense ship with Sully I liked her but what are you doing, anyway Kurt is great and he got cool new swords and he got to hang out with Mueller, who I adore, I love Kurt

Altina: I also love this little bunny. Her relationship with Millium is so lovely and seeing her grow and become her own person made me so happy and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM I LITERALLY SAID SHE HAS THE BEST RELATIONSHIP WITH REAN OF ALL THE GIRLS BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T DO THAT IN THE LAST GAME WHY DO YOU HATE ME????

Musse: Yeah I’m still not sold on Musse but I liked her better this time! I like a smart, confident girl! Just stop being weird about your teacher and we’d be golden!

Ash: Good boy. Sweet boy. Ash and Joshua game now Falcom

Alisa: Still cannot believe she’s presented as the deuteragonist by the marketing - but you know what? Solid arc, she got some closure with her parents, maybe she and Jusis can get together for tea and complain about their messed up families. She’s never going to be a character I like all that much, but I don’t dislike her. I just wish she hadn’t clearly been written as ‘Rean’s love interest’ before anything else

Elliot: I love Elliot, I really do. I mean, I wish he hadn’t been flanderised to the point of speaking in music puns half the time, but he’s a solid, consistently pleasant character

Laura: Goddamnit Falcom please give Laura anything resembling an emotion regarding her dad dying. Also you tell me she’s kind of oblivious and stuff but we never see it. I like Laura but she really could have been more

Machias: I love Machias, fight me fan base. He’s so funny to me. It feels like, at this point, all he really wants is a nice office job, near a nice coffee shop, where he files papers and sometimes gets to yell at corrupt rich people, but NO, he has to run about in dungeons and fight monsters, and are you FUCKING kidding me, ANOTHER crazy snake cultist!?!? It’s great, he’s the only one who’s just done with it all and love it

I low key headcanon that he and Jusis are kinda dating at this point, but we don’t see anything because the games are from Rean’s POV and they don’t want to tell him because they know he’d be weird about it

Jusis: I still really like Jusis! He’s interesting, and his surrogate brother-sister relationship with Millium is so sweet (yes, I saw that bouquet catch, Falcom, and I hate it, stop it, gross). Awesome to see him confront his brother, obviously I let him have the final blow. Rufus was a great antagonist. Jusis has some of the best development over the games, and is also really fun to use in battle (apparently I am the only one who feels this way though :/ ah well)

Fie: I was surprised by how much I liked Fie’s confession scene, seeing as I don’t like Rean/Fie at ALL. Fie finally gets to have feelings about her dad, and we see her working with Zin at the end! Very happy for Fie, best girl

Emma: Ahhh I still find Emma kinda dull and exposition heavy, but she also had a nice arc, I liked her relationship with Rose, all good

Rose beat me at Vantage Masters for 40 minutes lol

Gaius: It’s still extremely funny to me that Gaius became one of the most important people on the continent *off screen*. And he still doesn’t really do anything. He has his own airship now, I guess. Justice for Gaius

Sara: Kind of faded from relevance after CS1, but I do really like her all the same. And I loved her speech at the end

Crow: At the end his hair got darker and everyone was like ‘you’re back to normal!’ and I literally did not realise he was meant to have been looking different

But anyway Crow is a really good character and I literally never didn’t enjoy him. I love the bit where Jusis and Machias team up to call him a cringy edgelord, because they are right. Crow is fantastic

Towa: Towa has never done anything wrong in her life and all of Erebonia should pay for her therapy

Patrick: I cannot believe how much I love Patrick now, compared to CS1. He’s just such a sweetie. Good boy

Elise: Take her to the sun with you, Rean. Pointless character

Alfin: Is she the heir now? I hope so. She’s such a funny character, not my fav, but I enjoyed her

Angie and George: Should have died, moving on

Celine: I love her, but did she really need a human form? No, no she did not. Great character though

Tita: Special mention, because you know what? I do not like this version of Tita! Like I said, I was reading FC recently and she was so much better there! Now a third of her lines are just her saying ‘Agate’ in various different tones. And it feels like she’s lost a lot of her confidence, where’s the little girl who followed us up Carnelia Tower? I would have preferred them to just not bring her back at all

Duvalie: Haha I love Duvalie she’s great. Stop implying that she’s crushing on Rean. Literally WHY would she. Ugh

Rose: Everything about Rose is great, I would play a full game about her backstory. More Rose

Ships!

Obviously I like Machias/Jusis because I am BASIC

I didn’t like Olivier/Schera back in Sky, but you know what? They sold me. It’s cute (even if I feel Schera’s character was neglected in favour of Being A Love Interest, sigh). Though I’m not sure when Olivier made the switch from ‘Schera is one of many people I flirt with’ to ‘Schera is my one and only’?

But am I the only person who’s kinda on the Oliver/Schera/Mueller train? I’m not normally into OT3s, but Olivier and Mueller have one of the best dynamics in the series, and Schera and Mueller would probably get along great if they were ever allowed to properly interact. And you know Olivier would be down

Like I say, I do not like Jusis/Millium at all, it’s not a ‘I like another ship better’ thing, it just massively skeeves me out because of the maturity difference

Ash/Tatiana was unexpected but adorable

Patrick/Elise, because I want Patrick to be happy and Rean to be mad

Also Elise/Alfin, sorry Patrick

I hope Anton and Sharon really do get together. Sharon deserves unconditional love and Anton deserves a happy ending

Sharon also deserves to hook up with Sara like once

I also sort of feel like Sara/Claire would be fun

I’ve actually like Gaius/Linde from CS1, I’m happy it’s kind of a thing now!

If Lila/Maybelle is the LET’S GO LESBIANS Trails ship, then Emily/Theresia is LET’S GO BABY LESBIANS

Vincent/Margarita. They’re both horrible people. At least this way no one else has to deal with them

Joining my Kloe/Josette in the ‘crack ships I love that have very, very little canon basis’ is Fritz/Kairi, based on their interactions in that one mission and then that they’re eating together at Mishelam. It’s pretty much just a height differences thing, lol

Miles/Elnan. I have literally no justification for this

Other stuff There was this one scene where Gaius says how nice it is that Mueller cares about Olivier and Mueller just snaps his head round and the scene ends, and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but I laughed for like a full minute

The intro to the music at Mishelam is extremely creepy to me

I love the Pom Party mini game a whole lot

There were... a lot of typos in the second half of the script. It’s massive, so I’m not mad, but I hope there’s a patch at some point

BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL I love her

Uh if we’re still doing romance next arc please give us a gay option, no Crow did not count

I hate divine knight battles! I really do! That last one against Ishmelga was really hard and not in a fun way! In a ‘this is bullshit fake difficulty’ way. Please don’t bring them back!

The true final battle, though? FANTASTIC, now THAT is a final boss! One of the best in the series, like that’s such a fun gimmick!

I got it trapped in break state and spammed Heaven’s Kiss/Quick Star, because I’m a strategic gamer

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to recognise Lucy

KLOE CAMEO!!!

Oh and I assume Kaela is going to be important next arc, since it’s in Calvard?

I love Thomas??? And Rosine???

Why was the grandmaster reveal hidden behind watching the ending twice, why do that? Great scene, though

My theory is that she is Aidios, I will cling to this for as long as possible

I probably have like a million other things to say that I’m just not remembering right now. Look forward to random shouts into the void about it in upcoming weeks, followers

I really enjoyed this overall, despite the problems I mentioned above. It was just fun, I like the cast, the gameplay is great... just a solid game

Trails is a really fantastic franchise - not perfect, but what is? I’ve had such a fun time with it over the past half-year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. Thank you, Falcom, the localisation team, the VAs - stellar job all around

This is normally where I’d end on a joke but like. Nah, I’m just happy. Cue ‘The Whereabouts of Light’

#long post #cold steel #cold steel 4 #trails of cold steel 4 #cs4 #cs4 spoilers #cold steel 4 spoilers #trails of cold steel #kiseki #kiseki series #trails series #:)

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too-gay-for-marvel · 4 years

Text

broken

a/n: listen. i had fun writing this one, and i enjoyed it, but i am so done with it. this was the most writers block ive had in so long. i promise im not dead, im just busy being as unproductive as i possibly can

Word Count: 1855

Warnings: none

Pairing: Carol x Reader

“This sucks.”

Carol turned from her spot at the counter to see you throw your book against the wall. It had been a long three days, and you still had a lot of time left before you could go on another mission. She almost felt sorry for you. But then she remembered what you had done to get in this position in the first place, and she didn’t feel so bad anymore.

“Shouldn’t have been so careless,” she shrugged even though she knew you weren’t looking at her.

“It was Sam’s fault,” you mumbled just loud enough for her to hear.

If she were a good girlfriend, she would have gone and sat with you. Maybe she would have pulled your head into her lap and offered some snacks or a movie or a game. A kiss or two on the forehead to show she was with you until the end.

But no one ever said she was a good girlfriend.

“Sam wasn’t even on the mission.”

“He told me to do it!” You shouted back, and Carol could see you throw your arms into the air in indignation. It was pretty cute.

“If your friends told you to-”

“-Without question.”

“You didn’t even let me finish,” Carol complained as she finally fully turned around to face you.

“Doesn’t matter,” you shrugged. “I take no convincing to make bad decisions.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she mumbled to herself.

You both went quiet and Carol could partially see the look on your face from over the back of the couch. She knew that glazed look in your eyes and the way you were zoned out at the ceiling. And even though she wanted you to know she wasn’t happy with you, she knew she needed to have mercy. Only for a little bit.

She slid off the counter stool and made her way to the couch where she could just stare down at you. You didn’t move, though, instead still staring at the ceiling. Carol could only imagine how infuriating this probably was, and even though it was absolutely your fault, she felt for you.

“Move over,” Carol said a little harsher than intended. When you still hadn’t moved, she nudged your unbroken leg with her knee, and when you looked at her she raised her brow.

“Fine,” you sighed before lifting your legs enough for her to sit down.

“Your leg is heavy,” Carol complained when you set your legs back down.

“It’s a cast, Carol,” you huffed, “it’s gonna be heavy.”

“You know what would have fixed this problem?”

“’Don’t break your leg,’” you mocked, “yeah yeah, fuck off.”

You sighed and threw an arm over your eyes before you both went silent. That was exactly what Carol had been about to say, and she had to hand it to you; you knew her better than most. But you went quiet, so she decided to instead just run her fingers over the new markings on your cast.

It seemed everyone had signed it in some way or another. Rhodey, Nat, and Bruce had signed it like normal people. There was a flower on your knee that Steve had drawn. Sam and Bucky had written a mini argument down your calf. Clint had, of course, drawn a dick (and a poorly drawn one at that). Tony had written the number for an escort service on the top of your thigh “so you can always see it.” Even Hulk had managed to scribble out his name.

“When did this happen?” Carol asked as she looked back up to your face.

“Couple days ago, I guess,” you shrugged without looking down from the hole you were staring into the ceiling.

“Where was I?” Carol chuckled nervously to herself. But she knew the answer.

“Away,” you confirmed with a small voice. And it broke her heart.

You knew going into this that Carol would have to be gone for unknown amounts of time. She loved being home, but she had a responsibility to keep everyone safe, and that meant a lot of distance at the worst of times. And in her defense, as soon as she had gotten word that you’d gotten hurt she had rushed home.

And then had to leave again for almost two weeks.

“Let me up,” Carol said softly with a pat to your good leg. You finally looked down and raised a brow at her, but raised your legs anyway so she could stand.

She ignored the look she could feel you sending her way and continued walking to the kitchen. It took a little longer than she had thought, but she eventually found the junk drawer and dug around. There were scissors, matches, random batteries… and an orange marker. Why orange? She had no idea, but it would work.

Instead of sitting under your legs again, Carol kneeled in front of the couch. She took the cap off with her mouth and started drawing, up on your thigh. It wasn’t going to be pretty. Okay, it was going to be borderline hideous. But that wasn’t the point.

“What are you doing?”

Carol’s hand stopped when she noticed you had raised yourself up onto your elbows. Your frustration seemed to have melted away - even if temporarily - to be replaced with curiosity. Which was understandable because she may have been ruining your cast, but honestly? She didn’t care.

“Leaving my mark,” Carol answered as she went back to drawing.

“You don’t have to,” you said quickly.

“I know I don’t, I want to.”

“No, really, it’s okay.”

“Baby, just let me finish-”

“-I don’t even know what that is,” you whined as you gestured toward the beautiful new drawing on your thigh.

“What do you mean you don’t know what it is?” Carol asked. She had finally finished and was now focused on you. And the almost terrified look on your face.

“It’s a mess!”

“It’s Goose!”

“If that’s Goose, then I’m a Skrull.”

“Wait, are you?”

“Carol,” you warned.

A silence fell over the both of you as you stared each other down, daring the other to make the first move. Carol stared into your eyes and searched for something, she didn’t know what. The tension was so thick it was almost hard to breathe. But when the corner of your mouth slowly tilted up, she couldn’t stop her own smile and the tension devolved into laughter.

It was so nice to get to see that smile on your face once again. You hadn’t smiled or laughed since the accident, and even though Carol couldn’t blame you, she had missed it. She had missed hearing you laugh at the team or smile to yourself when Goose came over to lay on you.

She had missed you.

“If someone makes fun of me, I’m blaming you,” you managed to choke out around your laughter.

“Now you’ll always think of me,” Carol retorted, completely ignoring your threat.

“For better or worse,” you shot back with a smirk that quickly turned into a wide-mouthed yawn.

Carol’s eyes flitted to the clock on the wall and noted that it was far too late to still be awake. Even though the both of you were homebound for a while, she knew how grumpy you could be if you didn’t get enough sleep. Okay, maybe she got a bit grumpy too, but that wasn’t the point. She was going to pretend it was all for you.

“Let’s get to bed,” Carol said softly, but she still didn’t get up from her spot on the floor.

“I can’t walk.”

“I’ll get your crutches,” Carol shrugged.

“They’re not… here,” you mumbled, and she noticed you desperately trying to avoid her eyes.

“Where are they?”

Yet again you avoided her gaze, and Carol couldn’t help glaring at you. She knew you could still see her, and she hoped you just caved. You needed those crutches for when no one was around, so where could they possibly be? She would understand if Tony had taken them, or if Clint had tried to use them and lost them.

But you looked guilty.

“Y/N?” Carol tried again, and you looked at her out of the corner of your eye. “Where are your crutches?”

“I… can neither confirm nor deny the location of my crutches,” you stated, sounding an awful lot like Tony when he was trying to get away with something. “But they may have been thrown out the window.”

And the truth comes out.

“How did you expect to get around?” Carol asked as she stood up and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I…,” you paused and, with a sigh, dropped your head. “I didn’t think that far.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Carol sighed. She should have been more disappointed but, knowing you as well as she did, it wasn’t really a surprise.

She knew what she had to do.

“Come here,” Carol said far softer than she had intended. Not that she wanted to be harsh, but she was going to have a talk with you later about not throwing things out of windows.

You squinted your eyes at her until she held her arms out, and you quickly relaxed again. She bent down and slid her arms under your back and your knees, being careful not to jostle your cast too much. When she stood up you quickly wrapped your arms around her neck and let her start carrying you.

“This is so romantic,” you whispered as you buried your head in her neck. The feel of your breath on her skin tickled.

“Don’t get used to it,” Carol shot back, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling when you shook with hushed giggles.

When she reached your shared room, she was about to just toss you onto the bed until she remembered your leg. So instead she walked over and set you on your side of the bed, helping you arrange yourself so you could get settled. Since you were already in pyjamas - and had been since you got out of the medical wing - she only had to get herself changed and turned the lights off before climbing into bed.

“Carol?” You whispered after a few minutes of hearing nothing but the fan.

“What?”

“My cast is itchy.”

“You’ll just have to get over it,” she sighed. She didn’t even open her eyes; it was too dark to see anyway.

“But it itches really bad.”

“Where?” She conceded.

“My knee.”

“Baby, you can’t even reach your knee,” Carol explained even though you knew that already. “You’re just going to have to ride it out.”

You groaned, but otherwise went silent again. And Carol thought that would be the end of it for the night. She would get some sleep, you would get some sleep, and you could both relax tomorrow. You both needed it, and maybe you could both talk a few things out. Something you both needed.

“Carol?” You whispered again, interrupting her train of thought. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah, baby,” Carol mumbled.

“I have to pee.”

Carol sighed. This was going to be a very long night.

#carol danvers #carol x reader #carol danvers x reader #captain marvel x reader #carol danvers imagine #captain marvel imagine #marvel #marvel x reader #marvel imagine

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angelyuji · 4 years

Text

BAU - Types of Yandere

ive gotten back into my weird yandere phase and ive seen literally no yandere bau so ive decided to make my own headcanons on them ;) im gonna do the og team + tara lewis, since im only on season 11. i’m not gonna do anything nsfw unless requested. enjoy!

TW // DARK THEMES, ABUSE, GASLIGHTING, JUST BAD THINGS!! i do not condone any of this behavior!!! this is just for fictional purposes!!!!!

Spencer Reid:

calculated, resourceful, patient, emotional/extremely jealous

he’s gonna fall fast. u could literally do one nice thing for him and hes hooked.

he’ll watch u for sure, pictures of u will cover some secret area in his house

he won’t try to kidnap u, unless he feels like he has no choice.

u get a gf/bf? he’ll panic and grab u.

remember: he has an iq of 184. hes smart smart, so he’ll probably get away with ur kidnapping

if he has u,he’ll be patient then too. probably lock you up in a closet or empty room till uve calmed down.

if u calm down and pretend to love him, he’ll honest-to-god be the best boyfriend

he’ll read to u and treat u like a literal queen, with limitations, of course... until u earn his trust

hes literally the smartest babie so he knows how to break u if u dont listen or if ur trying to escape

good luck trying to escape becuz ur in the hands of a genius and he probably has plans to either: a) prevent u from escaping or b) bring u back if u escape.

Aaron Hotchner:

resourceful, sadist, calculated, strategic

he probably met u at a coffee place or at the park, ur gonna talk and he’ll be smitten but the way u interact with jack will make or break his obsession

if ur good with jack, then ur done. ur his now. sorry i dont make the rules.

if ur bad/not good ig? with jack, then he’ll slowly distance himself and u’ll be free :)

holy shit, he does not mess around

unlike spencer, hotch has social skills lol

he’ll probably try to get close to u and then show his true colors slowly.start showing, very very manipulative

if u start dating, he’ll rush for u to move in and try to get u to slowly only depend on him and only him.

if u don’t fall in love, he’ll maintain distance and slowly integrate himself into ur life until he is THE most important person in ur life.

if u end up dating someone else, he’ll try to get u to break up with them and try to make them seem like a bad person.

if this person is ur eNdGaMe, ur gf/bf might end up dying in a weird accident and ur going to wake up in hotch’s spare guest bedroom, tied up on the bed. sooo... sorry.

anyway, once hotch has kidnapped u, there is a 50/50 chance u can escape successfully, but in the end, u’ll be back in hotch’s manipulative arms in no time.

jack will be the no.1 manipulation tactic. ex.”jack sees you like a mom,u can’t leave him”

if u do escape, good luck staying low, hotch will find u no matter where u are on the globe.

Derek Morgan:

sadist, quick tempered, manipulative, quick-witted

morgan has literally one of the best social skills on the team.

u are his gf/bf. u have fallen for him. there is literally no way in hell u didn’t

he is the king of smooth (lol thats the dumbest shit ive ever written)

but like once u guys are dating, he’ll start controlling you.

he doesn’t have to manipulate you becuz ur just gonna listen to what he says

if he tells u to stop talking to ur friends, ur going to stop talking to ur friends

if he tells u to not wear that dress, ur not wearing that dress

morgan doesn’t have to kidnap you becuz you’ll willingly move in with him becuz he’ll make u dependent on him and only him

there is no chance you’ll escape becuz u’ve been gaslighted into being his

sorry babie, you’re out of luck.

David Rossi:

listen, out of all the cm cast, i cannot see rossi as a yandere. maybe like a platonic parental figure yandere but like...romantically? ill write for both tho lol

manipulative, phD in gaslighting, toxic, obsessive

Platonic:

he is a helicopter parent on STEROIDS

you wanna go out with ur friends? who are they, what are their names, where do they live? what are their parents names, address, and contact number?

if rossi doesn’t like any of ur friends? holy shit don’t even bother asking to go out, you’ll only get him mad.

toxic parenting TO THE MAX

literally if u don’t listen to what he says, he’ll shame u and degrade you. ex: “you’re so stupid, y/n! didn’t i tell you to put the dishes in the dishwasher AFTER rinsing them? Do you not have a brain in there?”

he’ll try to not physically hurt you, but if push comes to shove *shrug*

if ur 18, honestly fucking RUN. get into a college as far away as you can and get a job vastly different from his. so you’ll never cross paths

rossi will check in tho at least once every day

if anyone’s bothering you? you won’t see them again

ur boss is being a dick? he won’t be at work tomorrow or ever again.

if u decide to go back home, don’t bother getting a ticket back cuz once you go back to rossi, there is no going back.

Romantic:

parent rossi but romantic instead of platonic basically lol

manipulative, toxic, obsessive, abusive

he’s controlling, emotionally and mentally abusive

god, hes awful

he will make u feel like shit for wanting to hang out with someone else or if you want to leave his mansion

he’ll make u feel like he’s the only one for you.

ex:”no one else will love you like i do” or “who will anyone love you? ur a mess you shouldn’t even be outside!”

you can try escaping, since he’s gone and he “trusts” you to stay home, but there is 89.99% chance you’ll be caught.

Penelope Garcia:

sensitive, jealous, emotional, possessive

omggg yall are probably friends at first

so easily jealous abt e v e r y t h i n g

you can mention how you had brunch with a couple friends. “are they better than me? u never have brunch with me? why do u always hang out with them?”

god forbid you try to defend urself, “are you mad at me?” immediate tears.

then ur apologizing instead of her.

if ur dating? she tracks everything, ur phone, bank accs, where u are, what u watch. (incognito is ur best friend)

but even then,she knows everything ur doing,no matter the time of day

you can easily escape Penelope tho

shes not out in the field much, so as long as u stay off the grid, you’ll be safe.

the only person she trusts you with is the BAU team, so if you escape

be warned that they’re going to look for you too.

Jennifer Jareau:

possessive, obsessive, kind, deceptive

she’s a mild one honestly

she treats you well, and asks you out + dates you like a normal person

but sis believes that u are the only one for her

if you try to break up, “YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME. ILL DIE WITHOUT YOU”

of course, thats not true, but you can’t risk it.

jj is probably the safest one to be with, she won’t endanger anyone unless she has no other option.

you won’t need to escape either, you have freedom and everything in a normal relationship.

you just can’t leave. thats all.

Emily Prentiss:

obsessive, protective, strategic, patient

holy shit, emily is the worst. like jj, she’ll let you have your freedom

you can go out, but emily comes with, she chooses what you wear, and where you go.

“youre going to wear that? are you sure? cuz that color makes you look fat. you should wear that one dress i got you.”

“baby, stop wearing make-up, you look like a whore.”

“the beach? ill come too. i can’t trust you to take of yourself.”

you probably met at a club and clicked

if you try to break up, “you want to break up? go ahead, leave. who would want you, other than me? you’re pathetic and stupid. no one would ever date you.”

she’ll break you down till you only depend on her, so don’t bother to escape.

you won’t have the will to try anyway

Tara Lewis:

mild, protective, calculative, gaslighting

honestly, tara is the last person i see as a yandere, but she’ll be a lot like jj

she’ll give you freedom and everything in a normal relationship, except if you don’t listen her.

tara is controlling as hell, so if you disrespect her or don’t listen, she’ll break you down and make you question your own sanity.

she’s incredibly protective and she plans like 20 steps ahead (a lot like spencer)

be a good gf/bf, and tara will be good back

be disobedient, and you’ll regret it

if you plan right, you can escape.

tara has to be out of town and you would have to be in her good graces to be allowed out when shes gone, but if the stars have aligned in your favor... you have a small chance of escaping

if she didn’t get help watching over you from the team.

thanks for reading! hope you liked! I take yandere requests as well as normal character requests! nsfw/sfw are both okay!

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thattimdrakeguy · 4 years

Note

I liked Alan Grant’s work with Tim (specifically Batman 457, it’s still one of my favourite Tim stories) but yeah Dixon’s early stories (especially his 1st miniseries) were some of the best Tim writing. Lewis had a few good Tim moments, mostly with his relationships with Dana and Steph, but I felt like Lewis preferred Steph’s character over his, since she had a lot of focus in his run. I can’t remember much of Willingham’s run (also according to him, Tim kept journals of his time as Robin? 1/2

I can’t remember the journals appearing beforehand) I felt like Beechon made Tim more angry than he’d normally be, but he was a relief after the last 2 writers. His stories (evil Cass who?) were decent. Brandon Thomas wrote one issue (167) and it was a bit angsty, but not too overbearing and it had a hopeful ending (Jack wasn’t a good dad tho). Dixon’s second run was disappointing (I think he called Ives Martin?). Fab Nic’s was a mess. Yost was not bad, but his Tim could be OOC at times 2/2+

+ I wish Yost stayed on as Red Robin’s main writer tho. Bringing back Cass, RR 16 (I think(?) where Anarky tries to find out RR’s ID) and the Teen Titans crossover were the only positive things about Nic’s run. Funny how TT!Tim was more broody than solo!Tim and RR!RR is more broody than TT!RR. I knew Tim as RR first, so reading backwards, his earlier stuff were definitely more well written. It’s why I love your blog, since early Tim is the best Tim and your analysis is spot on +

I think Alan Grant’s work is very undervalued, because alongside Marv Wolfman and Chuck Dixon, he’s another writer that brought us a fully fleshed out Tim Drake during his first year of existence. He helped bring us a lot of good Tim moments too, and honestly some of his better ones from his pre-Robin days as well, and after he was Robin too of course.

Dixon in his early work did amazing work and taking all that we learned about Tim and putting his character to the test in so many fun and interesting stories. At least until his decline where he comes off as too self-obsessed and became known as the jerkface we think of today, cause with the internet coming in--he's more bigoted views came out. And makes some hindsight stuff even more obvious.

John Lewis though I don’t honestly like. The most I can say for him is that he had good Tim moments where he understood Tim’s dorky nature, but overall he wrote him to be a pretentious, judgmental, boy genius, that just seemed so off the mark for the meek-ish, insecure, but super clever, and slowly forming confidence Tim that we saw just before. He made Tim kind of a jerk, like all of Tim’s worst moments, but except if Tim was always like that and not just in the moment when he’s having a difficult time or put on the spot. So I really can’t like his run because of that. His stuff with Steph too, was just really forced, and simply continued all the forced stuff Dixon did with her. Lewis besides some good moments has a lot of the worst stuff Dixon did with the romances, plus his own weirdness and lack of understanding.

Late Lewis and Willingham though, is were you really get the sense that editorial (namely Didio as this was when he gained more power in the company. And the storyline where Batman put Tim through a test that gave him paranoia came from) wanted to make Tim tougher, and edgier, because he was too soft before. He had “war journals” even though I don’t believe Tim ever spoke about having any, nor thought in a way that would have him calling them “war journals” suit him. They made him more conventionally cool, and rebellious (this was also happening in Teen Titans at the time). He had a motorcycle over a mildly dorky, tiny sized car (like pretty much only Tim can fit in the Redbird comfortably). He was becoming more Batman-esque, and there was angst about how that was happening. It was just all about changing Tim into something he’s not simply because people with power didn’t like him as he was.

Beechon I think did really good though with Tim, because he wrote Tim after Tim’s months of having people he loved die. So I think being angrier made sense. Although I remember it being more frustration and desperation. But he also wrote him in a way that showed an idealistic spirit in him, and a heart that pushed on that kept it feeling like Tim. It felt like Tim dealing with his loses, much more than Geoff Johns’s over the top melodrama. Evil Cass though--can’t deny that’s Beechon, ain’t gonna, but at least he attempted to make it up by writing a Batgirl mini too mixed reception.

Dixon’s second run really showed just how bad Dixon got. Like you’d think a break might have him get his head back into it. But it was all just about bringing Steph back and shoving her in, because he became borderline obsessed with his OC like that. He just wrote things with no regard to how other things were. Wrote Zoe, who was a very sweet, but awkward, understanding, independent, and unsure kind of girl, exactly how he wrote Ariana, just a romantic plot device to be frustrated at Tim to give Tim boy-angst, instead of like she’s a real person with her own issues like how Zoe actually was. COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER SEBASTIAN IVE’S NAME. And sometimes wrote Tim more like he was in the mind zone of writing Dick versus actual Tim. It was a trainwreck that at one point I loved cause of rose tinted glasses, but now, it’s entirely obvious how far he had fallen. Everything going sour towards the end of his original run times 10. Awful stuff.

FabNic though. I just really don’t like FabNic’s run. He made Tim a cold, caluclating, somewhat apathetic-ish (not fully, but in ways), angsty, edge lord. He didn’t resemble Tim to me. But sort of represented the final position of Johns’s and Didio’s, and others transformation of Tim into something not recongnizable through contrived deaths and situations, that wouldn’t have happened under writers who could write a competent story.

Yost was okay though, but still pretty mixed for me. I recognized Tim more in him, but there’s still a lot of moments where it just didn’t feel like Tim at all. Like I can’t picture Tim punching Damian in the face, I can’t picture Dick just giving away Robin when he knows more about Tim than anyone, and I can’t picture Damian just acting like a stereotypical bratty kid, he’s a total jerk, but not how he wrote it, he just wrote a random kid, not Damian. But there’s more moments of genuine Tim-ness then there was with FabNic. I’m not an honest fan of Yost’s run, but comparatively, it was superior. And while a lot of his writing for it was awful in spots, his story was at least one that was interesting and worth reading just for premise, but shouldn’t be held highly on characterization.

That’s my feelings on it anyways. I’m really glad to hear you enjoy my blog, and I appreciate your compassion about it too. I needed another smile today. it genuinely means a ton to me.

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veiledpeaches · 4 years

Text

chance encounters | part v: in a parallel universe we could have been something

Summary: Between pages of meddling friends and societal expectations, all she actually wants is to find a happily ever after with Doyoung, even if it feels like that is no longer possible.

part i x part ii x part iii x part iv x part v x part vi

word count: 5.9k

for @donsjae, who always reminds me to prioritize myself and my health. thank you for our conversation that day, and thank God for you <3

GIF originally posted by @lukhei

Most relationships, whether familial, friendly or romantic, are built on shared passions or a sense of connection, but the relationship lasts because of an understanding of limits - the implicit understanding that no matter how close, there are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. At times, this reasoning extends to the belief that every individual has personal land mines, and it is not until we are covered in cinders, splinters and snow-like ashes, that we recognize the propensity for that person to explode catastrophically.

It has never occurred to Haewon that there could be such a line to be crossed between her and Johnny, until he presses her up against the sink and covers her lips with his own.

Almost as quickly as he kisses her, Johnny pulls apart, his eyes wide.

She takes in his striking brown eyes, the strong line of his jaw that sets, an uneasy laugh escaping from her lips.

“You know, no one really appreciates pity kisses.”

Johnny relaxes, taking a deep breath. His eyes softens, never leaving her face.

“This isn’t pity.”

“Johnny, what are you doing?” She stops him before he leans in again, panic arresting her chest as she watches his face fall.

“I’m sorry.” He averts his eyes, the warmth of his arms retracted as he steps away from her.

“W-What… Why…”

“I don’t know! I mean… Look, I know you and Doyoung are like, great…”

Her mind is whirling at a mile a minute. “Isn’t that what you were rooting for just yesterday?”

“I know, I know, I just!” He rakes his fingers through his hair, refusing to look at her as he keeps talking, “I can’t help but think, I mean, I… Won’t we be good together?”

Her heart sinks. “Johnny, you just broke up days ago. You’re not thinking straight.”

“No,” he shakes his head, still not looking at her as he swallows, “This isn’t what you’re thinking of. I have been thinking about it for a while-”

“Stop,” her voice straddles the line between a whisper and a shout as she turns away from him, her hands gripping the countertop even tighter this time, but for a completely different reason. “Please, don’t. Please.”

She hears him take a step closer, his finger gently meeting the back of her arm and trailing downwards, almost nostalgically. At his touch, she finds the knot in her stomach letting, and she doesn’t have enough energy left in her to pull away.

She doesn’t want to pull away. This is her friend, this is what they are, have always been. This wasn’t the way the story should’ve been written.

“Is it Doyoung?”

God, Doyoung.

She shakes her head, affixing her gaze on a small stain on the countertop that had never been really cleaned off properly through the years.

If you leave a stain uncleaned for too long, her mother used to tell her, someday it’ll become permanent. And then the more you wipe at it, the more it stares right back at you.

“It’s not Doyoung,” she forces herself to speak again, turning around to face him.

“It’s us.”

She watches his face as he bites his trembling lip, his eyes two abysses she could not fall into.

“You’re the closest friend I have-”

“You mean to say,” his voice is wobbly as he speaks, “you’ve never considered this before? Ever?”

This time, it’s her jaw that quavers.

To say yes would be misleading, but to say no and shut that down completely would be untruthful. Once, many years ago, when she’d just arrived in Seoul, there was a time where Haewon contemplated pursuing something that could bloom between them. But as quickly as that thought had come, it had been just as quickly displaced with another thought - louder and more fervent than the first - ‘he’s all you have here’. The circumstances that had made her move had been less than ideal, and to repeat the same mistake with another man - a man as brilliant as Johnny - would be unthinkable.

As even more time had passed, when notions of “type” and “meant to be” had entered their conversations, the vast differences in their approach to dating and relationships had made anything potentially happening between them simply unimaginable, and she had gently scoffed at her earlier consideration, burying it in the deepest recesses of her mind.

Until now.

“If you can’t answer that… Maybe the absence of an answer is an answer in itself.”

She shakes her head even harder, taking his hands in hers and urging him to look at her, her gaze chasing after his, “Johnny, I can’t lose you. Not you. You know I love you-”

Johnny finally looks up, tears shining in his eyes but the look on his face is defiant, almost angry. “Don’t do that.”

“I can’t lose you, Johnny, you’re all I have here. Could you possibly understand?”

He drops her hands as if he has just been burned, stepping away from her completely as he walks away wordlessly, his tall body growing smaller and smaller as he walks down the bedroom corridor, the gravity of their situation reverberating even after he had shut the door and she could no longer see him.

Johnny has not left his room since this morning, and Haewon has not stopped worrying. It isn’t like Johnny to hide himself away when things happen, because he is the kind of person who wants to talk about everything. She remembers how their three-hour heartfelt conversation had gone when Aoi had broken up with him, the way he had tirelessly listed every single part of her he would miss.

Squatting in front of his room door, she slips a note under the door, seconds before the door is flung open and there he stands, in his six-feet tall glory towering over her crouched figure, looking sort of judgmental.

The ink on the paper that reads “I made all your favorites for lunch!!!” suddenly seems gaudier than usual, and she has half a mind to snatch it back and shred it.

He looks at the paper. “What are we, fifth graders?”

She pulls her lips into a straight line, shaking her head without looking at him.

“Don’t be weird.” Johnny says petulantly, pulling her up from her position on the floor.

“You’re weird.”

“You cried.” His voice remains almost factual, but still slightly hoarse.

“So? You cried too.”

“Yeah but I cry suitably, like a healthy, emotionally-thriving person. You never cry.” He says, but he doesn’t argue further. This is the first time he has seen her with bloodshot eyes, and he is lying if he says it does not clench his heart. Further, to be the cause of that expression has never been a fantasy of his, but he holds these thoughts in his head, taking a seat at the dining table and starting to eat like nothing has happened.

Haewon wipes her eyes with the back of her hand quickly and takes her seat.

“For the record, I’m not hurt.” He pipes, gesturing with his chopsticks, “I expected it. And I’m thirty-two years old, so don't treat me like glass.”

She nods, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. Her mind flashes back to the sight of a teary-eyed Johnny when the girl from Haewon’s gym had told him that she just wanted to be friends after two dates, but she lets it slide.

He licks his lips, “I was just being dramatic… You know, the usual.”

There are so many girls out there, Johnny will start dating again in no time, she thinks. Then all of this would be forgotten and he would feel much better. Despite knowing Johnny would be fine, that it is not likely that his feelings had become that deep over such a short period of time, she finds herself reaching forward to hold his fingers in her hand.

Johnny’s eyes land on their entwined fingers for a moment, before he balances his chopsticks on his bowl and holds her hand in a tighter grasp.

He sighs emphatically. “Hey, it’s fine. I’m okay. It’s not the end of the world. I’ve been rejected before, it’s nothing new. And just so you know, I didn’t cry because I was rejected, I just… I felt like I screwed up what we had.”

She starts to shake her head, but Johnny continues, “Just know that, it’s all good. By tomorrow I’ll be completely fine, okay?”

Her bottom lip is still under her teeth when she nods, so Johnny ruffles her hair comfortingly.

“Anyway, since you rejected me and made me all cry-ey…”

Haewon’s eyes widen.

But Johnny’s expression is sheepish, “can I exploit your pity and make you cook dinner too?”

This draws a laugh from her, “of course.”

True to his word, the next morning and then for the next two months, Johnny does not raise the subject anymore. Everything slows down back into a routine again, and Haewon is relieved to know that the rapport between them remains more or less the same. Johnny still goes on dates, still works hard on everyday except Friday, and tries to be okay around her. Haewon focuses on preparing for her move to the states, continues to feel things for her former boss, and tries to show Johnny that everything is okay.

As for Doyoung, conversations with him are few and far less, with most of them skirting around the same issues; their work, him being a workaholic and her hardly planned departure. They don’t talk feelings, don’t talk about the unspoken agreement that had latched another perforated layer to their relationship.

There is no need for deeper conversation, not when Haewon is leaving in two months, and especially not when there is more to be risked and lost.

So Haewon finds herself dreading the possibility of running into Doyoung as the ‘ding’ sound of the lift is heard at the twelfth floor, the papers in her hand slightly crinkled from her tight grip. DAM-IL PUBLISHING CO. flashes in her periphery as she scans her temporary access card from the guard house, making a beeline for Jeno’s desk.

It’s nine o’clock, so no one with any semblance of a life would be caught dead in the office, but Haewon cannot say she is surprised when she catches the faint glow of Doyoung’s desk lamp beyond the translucent glass, allowing her gaze to fall on the silhouette on the chair.

For more than three years, walking into the office to be greeted with this sight… Perhaps this is one of the things she would miss most about being here, the simultaneous rush of excitement and sense of comfort she would feel when their eyes met through the glass.

“Haewon?” She hears his voice and freezes, before giving up and walking into his inner office.

Doyoung’s tie is lying on his desk next to a pile of papers, his dress shirt is slightly unbuttoned and his head is against the headrest of the chair as he looks up at her when she enters, exhaustion making his eyelids seem heavier than usual.

“Boss, it’s late, what’re you doing here?”

“Just looking through some stuff.”

Haewon’s eyes gloss over the papers, immediately recognizing the familiar scrawl on the yellow post-it stuck at the top.

“These are... This is my work.” She frowns. “I thought I handed it over to Jeno.”

Doyoung’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, I thought I should look over it too. I... I didn’t realise how reliant I had become, on you.”

Their eyes meet for a moment, before Haewon coughs and looks away.

“Do you need anything?”

She gestures vaguely towards the outside of his office. “I just came to get some things I left here, on Jeno’s desk.”

“How’s the preparation coming along?”

“Logistically? All good. Saying goodbye?” She shrugs, “pretty damn hard.”

Doyoung laughs heartily, his short, breathy laughs faintly reminiscent of arpeggios in staccato.

“I understand, leaving is the hardest thing.”

Haewon smiles, but she cannot concur. She had spent her teen years in four different states due to various reasons until her family finally settled back in Chicago again. She has found a familiarity in disappearing, the safety in belonging to nothing and nowhere, never being comfortable to stay for long. And with all the traveling she’s done her whole life, even state lines blur. Roads meander similarly and street signs just read differently but in the same font. Sunset views start to converge with each other and in the end, they are all the same.

That’s why moving halfway across the world - a decision that would have taken someone else an indefinite amount of time to decide - had not fazed her. Given a job and a life open for her in Seoul, why wouldn’t she be open to it, when she had pretty much been living her life the same way, taking any opportunity to pull the brakes and reverse out of the situation once she has hit the end of the road?

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was just so damned hard.

“Anyway,” Doyoung says after a while, drawing her out of her reverie, “take your time, I’ll be here for a while.”

Nodding, she returns to the desk, pulling a manila envelope and some congratulatory cards she had received from past clients from the bottom drawer, where Jeno said he would leave them.

Flipping through the documents in the envelope, Haewon misses the way his gaze lingers on her shoulders from inside his office, misses the way he gets out of his seat after a minute, misses the way he strides quietly but resolutely towards her turned back, but doesn’t miss the way he wraps his arms around her, his lips just behind her ear.

Whether he knows this well or not, Doyoung has an unquestionable talent for rendering Haewon speechless.

“Boss—”

“Don’t say anything. Please.” Doyoung’s voice is soft and sounds even lower than it usually is, as he holds her even more tightly in his arms.

She feels the familiar prick of tears in her eyes, but swallows them back with the knot in her throat. It’s not that she doesn’t know that on some level, she has an effect on him. But that effect — and the extent of it — remains unaddressed, and Haewon has taught herself not to cling on to any shred of hope.

Her fingers find their grasp on his forearms as she relaxes and listens to his soft breathing, letting her heartbeat slow down into the same rhythm as his now. Save for the sympathetic whirring of the air-conditioner, the room is completely quiet, and it is only now that Haewon allows herself to revel in the silence, in the arms of the man she is held by. With the press of his arms around his waist and his heartbeat against her back, it feels like they can almost believe that the impending dates and unyielding timeline of their relationship momentarily cease to exist.

But as he nuzzles his face into the place where her shoulder and neck meet, Haewon realizes that even the best show comes to an end, and the curtains will fall eventually. Because no matter how big a step this is for Doyoung, it would never be enough for her.

There’s a familiarity in disappearing, and maybe the silence is what Doyoung needs right now, but Haewon can’t wait forever if there isn’t an end in sight. For a few months after her confession, she had thought that she would be fine with letting her questions find a space in the vast proverbial grey area, but she knows now that it is no longer an answer she can accept.

And if Doyoung had said something, anything, Haewon wouldn’t think twice about hanging up her running shoes to build a home in his arms.

“I told you people would come,” Johnny smirks, taking the marinated meat out of the freezer. “Free food, free booze - anyone would come.”

It’s the night before Haewon’s departure, and Johnny had organized a small farewell party with her closer co-workers at the last minute. They had made a bet that very few people would turn up given the eleventh hour invitations, but somehow Johnny had managed to convince most of them.

“They’re too nice to say no,” Haewon says, bringing the food to the barbecue grill at the balcony, smiling at Kim Jungwoo and Lee Donghyuck entering the apartment with a bottle of wine.

There’s tipsy chatter from her former colleagues all around her, as Lauv sings about getting what you give and giving what you get in the background. A smiling Jeno offers to start the barbeque, and Haewon’s about to thank him when she hears someone shouting from across the apartment jokingly, “Hey! Who invited the boss to the party?”

Doyoung’s still in his usual work suit, but somehow looks softer than usual, his fringe sweeping across his forehead, looking all sorts of handsome. His eyes are tired but amused as he lifts his eyebrows comically upon seeing Haewon’s slightly agape mouth.

“Doyoung!”

From the corner of her eye, she finds Johnny standing right next to her with a wide smile on his face, Jeno suddenly nowhere to be found.

Haewon turns towards him, “you invited Doyoung?”

“You were planning to have a farewell party without Doyoung?” Johnny frowns, replying in an equally hushed tone.

Haewon lets her eyes fall on the sizzling fire beneath the wire grill silently, the flames lapping excitedly at the charcoal, until the marinated slices of beef sits on it.

“I know stuff happened between you guys, but don’t you feel you owe each other a decent goodbye?”

“We have said our goodbyes.”

“On text? He wasn’t even there on your last week.”

Haewon hasn’t told Johnny about her encounter with Doyoung in the office a few nights ago, the way his jaw had settled on her shoulder, her skin still tingling from the warmth of his hug. It’s less about Johnny’s non-judgmental friendship compared to how there’s no express need to externalize her hopeful thoughts on an embrace that fell short of a promise.

It feels more like a scene in a movie than real life when Doyoung walks towards her in dramatic slow-motion and envelopes her in a hug, everyone at the party clapping and whopping. Haewon’s about to push away, when she realizes she has become so paranoid to the extent of not being able to recognize this simple greeting for what it is - a farewell, well-intentioned professional hug from a former supervisor to a former employee.

“Speech, boss, speech!” Lee Donghyuck’s voice is almost booming, closely followed by echoes of the same request.

Doyoung laughs, taking the glass of white wine Johnny offers timely.

“Okay, okay! So… Well, I’d like to start by saying that this farewell is, to me as I’m sure it is to all of you, bittersweet. Haewon has been with us for more than three years now, a huge testament to her patience given how ‘easy’ I am to work with,” he chuckles when he hears a joking ‘who let the cat out of the bag’ in the small crowd.

“I first met Haewon through a recommendation from a mutual friend - yes, Johnny, everyone knows it’s you - and I can’t be more thankful that I could make this decision for her to join us. She is a great asset to the team, an amazing creative artist and writer, and I can’t wait to see what life has in store for her.”

His eyes meet Haewon’s, and she doesn’t dare to look away.

“Haewon, I hope that nothing ever stands in the way of your dreams. I hope you’ll always have the courage and strength to do whatever you’re called to.”

The atmosphere now is almost still, and she can’t tell if her eyes are lying to her, or if his eyes are getting a little misty.

“So… Let’s raise our glasses to Haewon!”

There’s cheering and polite applause, but Haewon can’t concentrate on anything else as she watches Doyoung down all the contents of his glass and then smile as he exits her line of vision. Perhaps it’s now more clear than ever, Doyoung’s personal intentions behind those words, but as Haewon bites down the lump rising in her throat, raw and throbbing, she finds it difficult to continue believing in the power of believing, unsure of how much is real and how much has been conjured by the blindness of a scaffold, the scaffold of rose-tinted glasses.

“When the timing isn’t right, neither is the man.”

Haewon swivels around, meeting Yuta’s piteous gaze. It feels like something’s lodged in her throat again, and her voice cracks as she says, “y-you knew?”

“I’ve been sitting behind you for three years, Haewon. I could tell you loved writing more than all our work at the office, how could I not know you’re in love with him?”

Tears rush to her eyes, but even as she blinks them away it’s like there are seven Yuta’s looking indulgently at her.

“But you’re still so young, you need to experience the world…” He smiles, “‘so many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.’”

She chuckles tearfully, “Tennyson.”

“I’ve never been a fan, but he was the one who said, ‘’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’, which I think is fair.”

“I know you want him – enough that you’re even thinking of rescinding on the Brown offer. But you can’t put life on hold, Haewon, especially not for boss.”

Johnny would say he’s not the least surprised, but it’s unexpected to her that Doyoung outstays everyone - even Yuta, after a long conversation with him at the corner of their balcony. Haewon keeps herself busy, smiling as her ex-colleagues give her their last handshake and shoulder squeeze before they bid their final goodbyes with best wishes and promises to stay in touch.

It’s close to midnight and she’s almost done washing the dishes when she feels Doyoung’s fingers against her elbow.

His gaze is still on her elbow as she turns to face him.

“Can we go somewhere else to talk?”

It would be much later, before Haewon can bring herself to admit that she was entirely aware of what the outcome would be upon stepping into Doyoung’s car.

It’s not that she doesn’t know that on some level, she has a place in Doyoung’s head, if not his heart. The suppressed emotions all these years have better equipped her in presenting herself differently from how she feels, but the ability to pitch and hold two different sets of emotions doesn’t help her anymore now than it did pre-confession. Instead, in a self-induced, partially aware stupor, Haewon recognizes that she is less in a state of oscillation than she is in the state of desiring a reconciliation between two duelling thoughts - the voice that cries, “what if he wants to be with you?” and that which cries, “what if he does not?”

As for now, she just sits in the passenger seat, her hands and lap empty this time. It’s been almost ten minutes since Doyoung has reached their destination, the same place he had confessed to her about what had happened with Inhee. This time, the atmosphere is thicker than before, unexpressed implications heavy on their skin. The air has become a tad cooler than many nights before, and the lights on the bridge and over the water still remain. But this time, the road is a lot quieter, with no other headlights, not many streetlights - nothing that could have been mistaken for constellations.

This time, they do not leave the car. There’s no need for alcohol, for cigarettes, for anything that could be blamed for foolishness.

“Oh! Here,” Doyoung exclaims lightly, reaching to the backseat to grab something, which Haewon only recognizes as a book when it’s in her hands.

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS by CHO YOUNG-JUN, the book reads, with a picture of a cat on a ledge looking at the biggest moon Haewon has ever seen, a style so characteristic of Nakamoto Yuta that it brings a smile to Haewon’s face. She remembers how Cho Young Jun had insisted on the details of the visual, and how it had to look like a pencil sketch, a metaphor for how a life is never really finished even when someone else’s role in that life has, how everyone is a guest star on another person’s stage.

“He wanted you to have one of the first published copies,” Doyoung explains, “he said it was a pity that you couldn’t see it to the end, and that it would be a bigger pity if he couldn’t give one to you himself.”

“He’s a good kid,” she nods, “thank you. But how did you know I’d get into the car with you?”

Doyoung’s expression is abashed, “let’s just say I got lucky.”

She smiles, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Doyoung says finally, “truthfully, I couldn’t decide whether I should come or not.”

She laughs again, but it sounds more resigned than amused. “You didn’t wanna say goodbye to me?”

Doyoung falls completely silent, so silent that it forces Haewon to look at him as he speaks, “I can’t say goodbye to you.”

“Not you.”

She feels the tell-tale warmness in her eyes, but swallows and manages to collect herself as she turns away.

“Well you made it,” she says lamely.

“I had to,” she can feel his eyes on her face as his voice grows quieter but more insistent, “I had to see you one last time before you leave, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Because… You were wrong.”

“What?”

“You were wrong.” His eyes are twinkling as he speaks again, “when you said that my engagement wasn’t the only thing standing in the way of something happening between us.”

It feels like all the air has been robbed from her lungs once the words leave his lips, her eyes searching his face desperately for a sign that this is a joke, that he’s about to pull away like he has every time. But Doyoung is here, and under the lights in the car he’s unfamiliarly close, her eyes falling on the beautiful freckles on his cheeks and then the small scar at the corner of his mouth, before resting on his soft pink lips. This sudden and indisputable closeness seems to make all other distance irrelevant, and it is this closeness that she tries to concentrate on - not that it might be fleeting, a feeling she knows only too well - as Doyoung pulls her from across the console onto his lap and presses his lips against hers.

There is a recklessness to the way Doyoung kisses, a sense of abandon that has been concealed for too long. She feels it in the movement of his lips, in the firmness of his fingers against her jaw, in the way he pulls her even more tightly against him when her own fingers card through his hair before slipping down to settle on his nape. A stray tear escapes her eye, finding a place on his thumb and he kisses her even harder. Doyoung kisses the way he lives, sure and intentional and wanting to regret nothing, and even as his lips leave hers they travel across the line of her jaw and down her neck, giving everything he has and asking for nothing back.

But as soon as her arms wrap around his shoulders, Doyoung is pushing away again, his head shaking so vigorously that it brings tears to her eyes instantly.

“W-Why?”

His face contorts painfully as his lips close over the words, “you’re leaving tomorrow, we can’t do this.”

Her eyes are burning with tears, and it no longer fazes her as they slip from her eyes.

“Don’t make it sound like this is about me,” her voice is tight, “you were the one who held me first, at the office. And then those things you said, every single thing you’ve said since I tendered. And now, you kissed me first.”

“I know…” His eyes are sparkling with tears as well as he stills his trembling lip, “I’m sorry, Haewon. It kills me to see you like this.”

“You’re playing with me…”

Even as the words leave her, she knows how unfair they are.

“I’m not!” He shakes his head furiously, “I swear, I’m not. I would never do that to you.”

“It’s not about how you feel!” She isn’t shouting, but she might as well be, “It’s about how you act! You can’t say things like that without thinking, Doyoung, you know that I’m in love with you.”

Doyoung is as much of a mess as she is, his eyes red and his cheeks wet, and his voice has faded into a whisper when his mouth opens again, “but I can’t, Haewon, I can’t.”

At these words, she finds herself unable to speak, unable to do anything except to wait for him to continue.

“I can’t just run from the arms of one person into those of another. I can’t promise you anything or ask anything of you. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Her eyelids feel heavier with every blink of the eye, distributed almost like a telephone line she can no longer connect. Giving up, she shuts her eyes, trying to hold more tears in and not let them escape.

It is only now that she realizes what would later seem obvious. That it doesn’t matter what she said, how carefully she crafted her arguments, even if she uses every tool of persuasion she has mastered over the years. There is only one thing that really matters, now and always, and this is it.

She’s leaving tomorrow, and he can’t give her anything. It wouldn’t be fair to him, because even if he has feelings for her, there are bigger things at large. And it’s this thought that she wrestles with - the weight of having too much of him, and yet, never enough. She’s leaving tomorrow, and it wouldn’t be fair to put another log on that fire.

For the longest time, her feelings have been hidden away, out of sight, forbidden and shameful. But even now, even when Doyoung is no longer engaged, no longer her superior and they are no longer surrounded by people, his love seems so out of reach.

Perhaps, it will always remain that way.

This is it, she thinks. But even with the heaviness that comes with finality, even as a fresh bout of tears come, she cannot be sure who she is crying for. For her weakness, for Doyoung’s brokenness, or perhaps, just for what they will miss.

“You know what you’re doing, right?”

She is brought out of her daze at once, Johnny’s words only registering seconds later. She looks at him for a moment, wondering how he could have known, belatedly realizing that he’s only talking about travel arrangements. Johnny had been in his room when she had reached home last night, to her relief. She definitely would not have wanted him to see her eyes bloated from crying.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She grins up at him, “I’ve been there before, I think I’ll manage. Besides, my Mom insisted on flying in to spend time with me before I start for real.”

Johnny nods thoughtfully, checking once more that she has her passport and air ticket.

“We’ve checked so many times, John,” she snatches her passport back almost childishly, “I’ll be fine, please don’t worry. Any last words?”

“I would say ‘I’ll miss you’, but you promised to come back every semester break.”

“That’s all?” Her jaw drops in mock betrayal.

Johnny laughs, his hands finding their place on her shoulder. “Is brevity not the soul of wit?”

She rolls her eyes and they smile at each other for a while, but then he catches her hopeful glances around, and his hands on her shoulders squeeze gently, his face turning serious.

“I don’t think he’s coming, Haewon-ah.”

There’s something within her that she cannot find a name for, but she is certain it isn’t just sadness, certain that it isn’t that devoid of regret and self-deprecation.

“It’s okay,” she releases a smile, unsure if she is comforting herself or Johnny. “Not all seeds were meant to grow into big trees anyway.”

Johnny sighs emphatically, “I’m sorry. I really thought something was going to happen when you left with him last night.”

Her mind flashes to the messes they made of each other last night, their bodies pressed against each other but their lives and futures already seven thousand miles apart. There is a place in my head that he will always inhabit, she thinks to herself, a place that no longer belongs to me, but I will learn to be okay with that.

She shrugs, “I know. But it’s just… We kept missing each other, you know? It was never the right time.”

He nods sympathetically, and then his expression changes at a certain memory.

“Listen Haewonnie, I wanted to… I wanted to apologize as well, before you go. What I did that morning was… stupid. Would you for-”

“Hey,” she pulls his hands into hers, “you don’t need to apologize for anything, John. You didn’t do anything wrong. And you know I love you, and you mean more to me than anyone else here.”

He nods again, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Too bad for you. I’m somewhat of a catch.”

She laughs adoringly, smiling so wide with her eyes so warm. She knows he’s joking, but she also knows that if they were still in Chicago, if he hadn’t left all those years ago and Haewon hadn’t come to Seoul, it is conceivable that she would eventually fall in love with Johnny. His personality is so similar to the guys she dated back in America - only taller, more handsome and even brighter. And much, much better.

Johnny looks at her dotingly for a moment, before he opens his arms wide for her to step into his warm embrace. His palm closes gently over her ponytail, and she relaxes in his arms. This is Johnny, one of the only people in the world she trusts so wholeheartedly, and she knows how much he cherishes her, and how much she will miss him.

So she pulls him more tightly towards her, dreading the moment she would finally have to let go.

She’s halfway across the Pacific when she remembers the book Doyoung had given her the night before, oddly thankful that she has something to read on the way there. She tries to tune out the parent quietly admonishing their child about kicking people’s chairs on the plane, the rolling of the beverage cart and the old man mumbling behind her, as she flips the book open, eager to start.

Instead, she feels her heart swell impossibly, because written on the first page in penmanship that couldn’t be anyone’s but Doyoung’s, is a short line:

If my answer changes one day, would you still save me a seat?

w/n: i hope this longass update was worth the wait! was uncharacteristically busy with life these couple of weeks, hence the late drop. hope it’s ok! (yes i know i’m incredibly draggy, i’m a soap opera kind of girl.)

just one more part left!! would be really grateful if you could reblog this post if you enjoyed it!

COME SCREAM AT/WITH ME!! ask

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hiirunakaarchive · 4 years

Text

– to act in haste (3)

↳ Facts could never be disputed, but natural and insensible phenomenons like fate were fickle and ever-changing. Ethan hoped that maybe the outcome of this god-awful situation he was in right now could be fickle and ever-changing too.

↳ (pt 1), (pt 2), (pt 4)

◇ pairing: ethan ramsey x mc (haruna sakurai)

◇ genre: like 99.9% angst, 0.1% comedy (?) i hope that part of the story was funny man idk

◇ word count: 4.6k+

◇ tags: @aworldoffandoms, @perriewinklenerdie, @jooous, @senseofduties, @moteestro, @anything-but-reality

◇ author’s note: hey friends, i hope yall are staying safe and indoors during these strange times! classes have been moved online, so i’ve been writing and lo and behold –– part three to my series (which i finished a lot sooner that i expected :o) ! i was honestly writing this thinking it’d be the finale but the 10k word count was telling me smth else, so a FOURTH part is gonna be posted and THAT is gonna be the last one! also not to toot my own horn but i really, honestly, TRULY believe this third part is the best ive ever written, and i hope you guys like it as much as i do! like always, feedback is super appreciated and i’d be more than happy to add anyone to the tags! happy reading!

–

Dr. Ramsey was almost never wrong.

Almost.

And he hung on to that almost with a vice-like grip, that one in a million possibility that maybe this time, he could be wrong, and God, he had never wanted to be wrong so badly. But anyone with half a brain could put two and two together and figure out why his spiteful ex-lover stood in his office long after her shift had ended; white coat folded neatly and hugged against her chest with a sealed envelope at hand. Yet, despite knowing fully well what that letter being slid across his desk meant, he dared to challenge the inevitable truth. To let himself hope—

I could be wrong.

He took it in his hands carefully, and tore the envelope open.

Let it be wrong. Let it be wrong, let it be wrong, let it be-

”You’re resigning.”

He read it slowly and steadily, gathering himself with one long breath and the last sliver of calm he could find.

Over the course of the year, Haruna Sakurai had become some sort of a celebrity in Boston’s exclusive world of health care professionals, dubbed the perfect model to emulate in all aspects of being a doctor. She was as kind as she was intelligent, but unflinching in her righteous principles and a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

She was Edenbrook’s most valuable asset, yet the letter of resignation laying open on Ethan’s desk seemed to taunt him in ways that delved beyond a professional context. He regarded it hollowly, absorbing the great loss her departure would serve to the hospital, but also let his mind pathetically wander to the thought of where her resignation would leave the both of them.

It was silly and stupid, because they weren’t even romantically involved anymore. That tranquil period where they sat across from each other in comfortable silence, danced in his kitchen until they realized breakfast was burned, talked and laughed until they couldn’t breathe – it was such a distant memory that Ethan was convinced that it was nothing but a dream.

It didn’t matter because she was slipping from him anyway.

“Losing you would be quite a blow to the hospital, Dr. Sakurai. Is there anything that would make you reconsider?” He had to be impartial.

Convince her to stay. For the hospital, not for yourself, you selfish prick. No more of this lovesick nonsense.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, and it was deplorable. The year Haruna spent on the fellowship had changed her. She stood taller, spoke louder, smiled wider, and Ethan convinced himself that losing her was a trivial price to pay for the success she so deserved.

Haruna had grit her teeth and accepted his twisted gift, abandoning that whirlwind romance they had, and as compensation, acquired invaluable knowledge that no one could pry from her cold dead hands. She had so clearly moved on, thus, there was nothing left to do but for Ethan to make peace with it and follow suit.

“I’m sorry, but my mind is set. It’s a...career move.”

Yet why did he still insist on making her stay?

“A career move? Dr. Sakurai, you do know that you’re employed at one of the best hospitals in the United States.” He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, and she rolled her eyes at his statement of the obvious.

“Of course I do, but our partnership with Panacea Labs has them trampling on every standard and principle that made Edenbrook one of the best in the first place.”

“I hate saying this as much as you hate hearing it, but that’s not something we can change.” Ethan sighed as he rubbed his temples.

“I know, so I’m leaving before it disappoints me further.”

“Life in and of itself is a disappointment, Dr. Sakurai.” he argued. “We-“

“I’m going back to Japan.” She blurted.

Haruna bit her lip, bringing a hand to her face like it was a secret she meant to keep and just as suddenly as she said it, Ethan’s world stopped all at once. The clock that hung just above the entrance to his office stopped ticking. He saw Haruna’s lips moving as she continued to speak, but couldn’t hear a thing. Every joint in his body seemed to have froze and gone numb. Dead silence enveloped Dr. Ramsey to the deepest part of him that it could dig.

Dr. Sakurai’s confession rang in his ears like a siren, and Ethan wanted nothing more than to make it stop. The loss of what they had stung him to the point that he almost clutched at the imaginary ache of his chest, but despite that, he carried on. Seeing Haruna was never easy, but the dull sting at the sight of her served as a very real reminder that she wasn’t just a dream. That there once existed a period where Ethan loved a woman so much that he was no longer himself. She was real and tangible, and as long as she remained so, Ethan fooled himself into thinking he had a chance and the luxury of time in fixing what seemed to be irreparable.

You can’t fix this anymore.

That cruel realization slapped him back to reality.

“-y parents are encouraging me to come home and work in their hospital. I’m hoping that it can offer me new and invaluable insight– Dr. Ramsey are you listening?”

Ethan lifted his gaze from the envelope on his desk and met her eyes. He stood from his office chair and planted his hands on the surface of the table, leaning forward.

“I’m listening. And what insight, pray tell, can the Sakurai Medical Centre give you that Edenbrook can’t?”

The tone of his voice adopted a subtle bitterness to which Haruna raised a brow. She uncrossed her arms, imitating Ethan’s pose and setting one hand parallel to his on top of his desk.

“It’s a new experience.” She responded impatiently, “A more challenging setting.”

“In the hospital that your parents own? How could that setting ever challenge you the same way we do here?” He continued to prod.

“In ways you couldn’t possibly hope to understand. Are we done here?”

“Not until you tell me the real reason why you’re resigning, Dr. Sakurai. You’ve made a name for yourself in this city, you’ve accomplished what thousands of doctors wished they could at your age. How could you leave that all behind?”

Here they were again, arguing, God, they were always arguing. Both of them were far too proud and far too stubborn to swallow their pride and back down. The only thing that seemed like a capable reminder to keep things civil was the mahogany desk that kept them mere inches apart.

She placed a hand on her hip and leaned closer across the table.

“I think you’re taking things too personally, Dr. Ramsey.” Haruna accused.

She was close. Too close, and Ethan swallowed hard and realized he could never win against her.

He looked away, in denial. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Haruna scoffed.

“Really? Then look at me and tell me that I got this far so early into my career because of my own hard work. Tell me that every doctor in Boston would know my name even if you didn’t use your position to land me that spot on the diagnostics team even though I was in fourth place. Face it, Dr. Ramsey, you don’t want me to leave because it means that everything you did was for nothing.” She spat.

Ethan threw his hands up in aggravation. “Sakurai, this isn’t about me, god damn it! This is about you compromising a perfect career that–”

“You don’t know what it’s like!” She yelled, her voice resonating across the room.

The sudden raise in volume took Ethan by surprise, and he bit back a response as Haruna scowled in an attempt to calm herself.

“You have no idea what it’s like...walking into that room everyday with doctors like you, June and Baz, and knowing that I’m not even supposed to be there. I come in here and see you and am just reminded that every bit of success I have now is because you loved me. Too damn much, if you ask me.”

“You want to know the worst part of it all?” She laughed despite herself. “Acting like I didn’t enjoy every minute of that fellowship, when the truth is that I relished in it. I spent this entire year resenting you yet basking in all this knowledge and these opportunities that you gave me. Then I’d come in the next day and hate you a little less than I did the day before. One day, I woke up and realized that I probably never even hated you at all. If anything, I was...grateful.” She cringed as she said it, then looked at Ethan with contempt.

For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t directed at him, but at herself.

“Do you get it? I can’t keep working here, because the mere sight of you is proof that I’m just as greedy and self-serving as bastards like Declan Nash, and I’d sooner die than become a doctor so disgusting. If I can’t bring myself to hate you, then...” She trailed off and looked away, taking a deep breath to steady herself.

The revelation was all too much for Ethan to process, and his mind was riddled with questions. For over a year, he’d wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares of how she regarded him with immeasurable animosity. Was she trying to tell him that, that too, was a facade? A tense muscle in Dr. Ramsey’s jaw relaxed as he asked her quietly,

“Are you running from me, Haruna?”

“If I am?”

They looked at each other in a moment that seemed to end all too quickly, and the weight and meaning of what she said dawned on the both of them. Her eyes widened at the proclamation she mistakenly let slip and Dr. Sakurai snatched her letter of resignation from Ethan’s desk, starting towards the door.

“Never mind. Forget it.”

For a moment, he considered listening to her. To let her go like he’d always done. Every time they spoke, she always ended up leaving anyway. Ethan persuaded himself into believing that she was better off without him, but–

You are never going to have another chance after this.

And he realized, that the moment he let her leave that room, everything would really be over. He’d have to live with the regret of never having taken that final opportunity to mend what they’d both thought was unmendable, or at least try to. Would she have also wished that he’d tried to stop her?

“Wait...I said wait!”

Ethan bolted towards the exit, and Haruna froze in her tracks as he slammed the door back shut as she was about to leave. Her back was to him and his arm remained situated on the wooden surface, inches from her head.

“I need to know, Dr. Sakurai,” He breathed,

“Do I still mean something to you?”

Ethan heard her sharp intake of breath, taken aback by his sudden inquiry. Cautiously, Haruna turned to face him and that calm air of hers that always seemed so natural now looked like nothing but a brittle front to hold herself together.

“You do.” She admitted.

“I still love you, Dr. Ramsey. So much. I’ve loved you all this time but I-“

Her breathed hitched, and like a dam, she, and that distant and unbothered facade she was so adamant on maintaining, collapsed. Her cheeks were wet with tears and Ethan’s face fell as Haruna buried her face into her hands. He willed himself not to hold her.

She wouldn’t want you touching her. You don’t have the right. You don’t-

But against his better judgement he took her in his arms, and the solace he felt with the familiarity of this woman’s warmth, who seemed so small trapped against his chest, overwhelmed him with emotion. It had been so long since he last touched her, and both Ethan and Haruna knew that it may very well be the last. So he held her. He held her the way he wished he could have in the year that they didn’t speak. The way he should have held her from the start. And she let him.

He wasn’t sure if he could ever embrace anyone else the same way ever again.

“God, Ethan, where did we go wrong?” She sobbed.

He rested his chin gently on her head and didn’t respond, because he knew that nothing he could say in this predicament that they were in– no, that they’ve been in, would console her. Dr. Sakurai’s shoulders shook uncontrollably as she cried, and Ethan felt her go slack against him, holding her tighter as he lowered the both of them gently to the floor.

***

She was in his arms for the next hour. Sixty minutes of pure silence, apart from her weeping, and Ethan could do nothing but comfort the woman. He looked up at the ceiling as Haruna sniffled, and couldn’t remember the last time she had let herself be so vulnerable in front of him.

“We can’t be together like this.” She finally spoke, her voice raspy from the crying.

“I-” Dr. Ramsey began, ready to argue. He knew better though, and sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall. “I know.”

“Good. So you know that you have to let me leave, then.”

He stayed silent in an attempt to avoid the question. Of course he knew that, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. If he did, he’d be acknowledging that this was for the best; and more often than not, the right decision wasn’t always the easiest.

“Haruna, I...” He started in protest, but paused as he felt Dr. Sakurai’s hand slide up to rest on his cheek.

He looked down at her, and wondered if he was being too transparent. If she could see how broken he was at realizing the choice they both had to make. She sat up a little straighter, still in Ethan’s arms and rested her forehead against his. Then she asked him quietly. Pleadingly.

“Please, Ethan.”

How could he ever say no to her?

So he responded wordlessly, tilting his head and bringing his lips to hers. Haruna met him halfway, and a year and a half of fierce self-restraint and inexplicable pining for the feel of each other erupted all at once. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer by the nape of his neck. Ethan cupped her face in his hands as he kissed her, softly at first, but every second that passed with her mouth on his summoned a tide of longing that he forced himself to keep latent all this time, and it only urged him to kiss her harder.

“I love you.” He groaned against her mouth. “God, I love you.”

She merely smiled at his reckless confession, holding him by the lapels of his coat until, Ethan, breathless, forced himself to pull away. He brought a finger below her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. Her eyes were red and swollen from the crying and her hair was disheveled from the moment of passion they just shared, but Ethan couldn’t recall ever being in love with her more than he was in that moment.

“Haruna, marry me.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. She looked like she was going to say something in protest, but Ethan continued in order to validate his outrageous request.

“Not now.” He interjected. “You’re going to go to Japan, and become the best damn doctor they’ve ever seen. Your success will be your own, and no one will ever remember that you were ‘The’ Ethan Ramsey’s protege in the first place because you’ll become someone a hundred times better.”

Dr. Ramsey pushed himself off the floor, and pulled Haruna up following that. Her eyes had begun to shine with tears again, dangerously close to falling, and Ethan held her face in his hands. He offered her a comforting smile, but he wasn’t certain if it was meant to reassure her, or to hide his own brokenness.

“Then, if these god damn stars ever choose to align for us and we see each other again, however long that might take, we’ll get married. Is that clear, Rookie?”

She laughed through the tears.

“Crystal, Dr. Ramsey.”

––

Dr. Haruna Sakurai departed for Japan the following week. No one knew of her resignation except for the diagnostics team, Naveen, and her closest friends from intern year, so Ethan remained unbothered at the gossip that rang through the hospital when one day, she had stopped coming to work and no one knew why.

After that evening where he vociferated that almost childish marriage pact, Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Sakurai failed to have another chance to speak. He was busy with his own doctorly duties and Sakurai was preoccupied with tying up any loose ends before she left for good. They’d merely pass by each other in the halls and their interactions alternated between a subtle smile, a curt nod, or a discreet brush of the fingers.

When Haruna accepted his poor excuse of a proposal, Ethan thought he’d convinced himself that it was going to be alright. That things would turn out fine because they parted on good terms and with the knowledge that they’d made the right choice.

So he had to pretend, and to an extent he never did before.

Pretend like he wasn’t heartbroken at the fact that she didn’t say goodbye.

Pretend like he wasn’t just as surprised as everyone else when he came to work and didn’t hear the sound of her voice by the nurses’ station like he would everyday.

The feigning of indifference had embedded itself so deeply into his routine that Ethan believed it was real. He readopted his strictly objective nature, like how he used to be before he met her, and just like that, his world went numb and grey.

“I’m worried for you, Ethan.” Naveen sighed as he sat across Ethan’s desk, genuine concern written all over his face.

Dr. Ramsey didn’t bother looking up as he flipped through applications for the year’s new batch of interns. “We have hundreds of patients to treat and a budget cut that still needs to be solved. I’m not who you should be worried about, Naveen.” He replied dryly.

“My shift ended twenty minutes ago, my boy,” Dr. Banerji chuckled.

“I’m not here as administration, I’m here as your friend. Now tell me, why are you acting this way?”

"Acting what way?” Ethan quipped, setting down a folder to give his mentor his full attention. “I’m not any different from the last twelve years we’ve been working together.”

“Completely and wholly devoted to your job, I know. But in the past twelve years I’ve known you, you’ve never been so...” Naveen rested his elbow on the armrest of his chair as he pondered for the right word. “Anesthetized?”

Banerji eyed Ethan carefully, almost strictly.

“You’ve always been a workaholic, Ethan, but never to the point that you neglected your own health. You’re a walking contradiction as a doctor.”

Ethan knew he was right. If there was anybody in the world that he could never win against in an argument, it was his mentor and his mentee. The three of them were an elite trifecta with a unique bond equipped with boundless knowledge, and Ethan swallowed hard as he remembered her for the first time in the four months since she left.

After coming to terms with her resignation, Ethan thought that their parting satisfied him enough to live on happily and assured of their love for each other. But the following week of being deprived of her presence and being reminded he might never see her again made Dr. Ramsey realize that it was stupidly naive of him to think so. This was nothing like the two months he spent in the Amazon, because he didn’t have that certainty of her greeting him when he inevitably came back. He was unsure of whether the stars really would align for them like he suggested, but certain that he’d never love anyone the same way he loved her.

He drowned himself in work and almost stopped coming home. The bags beneath his eyes had grown so much more prominent, and four months of this self-negligent lifestyle had aged him more than twelve years of working as a doctor of internal medicine ever could. Of course Banerji had been the first one to notice.

“She’s there everywhere I go, Naveen.” Ethan confessed, unable to keep it to himself any longer.

“Can’t even leave this damn office and grab a coffee anymore. I ordered my usual roast at Derry’s, and you know what happened? The barista snuck me a free espresso Romano! Told me, ‘for the other pretty doctor,’ and I almost lost it.”

Dr. Banerji stared in disappointment at his own pupil’s oblivion. He had given him too many invaluable lessons to count, but the one thing he never succeeded in helping Ethan understand was the importance of subjectivity. That sometimes even the most logical and calculated decisions were no match against the fickle loyalties of the heart.

“Answer me honestly, Ethan,” Naveen dropped all hints of playfulness.

“Do you regret letting her leave?”

–– FIVE YEARS LATER

“Do you regret letting her leave?”

When Naveen asked that question, the answer popped into Ethan’s mind shamefully quick. Accompanied with that epiphany, his world, the one that went numb and grey, began to scream altogether. The imaginary pain that once pricked him frivolously like pins and needles hit him all at once and burst into flames. Shallow incisions made to his heart with every thought of her and what could have been, transitioned into relentless, deep cuts that came at a pace faster than he could heal.

Over the course of five years, Ethan stopped trying to fight it and left his heart to be mangled by the regret.

“Yes, I regret it.”

Today marked his seventeenth year of working at Edenbrook, and Dr. Ramsey had lost count of how many batches of interns had come and gone. He still thought about her occasionally, when he’d see her friends in the hospital or at midnight in bed and alone with his thoughts; but time had done a fairly adequate job of healing that wound. Five years in retrospect didn’t seem that long, but it was enough for Dr. Haruna Sakurai’s face to blur and drown into the deepest recesses of Ethan’s mind.

“He’s so freaking fine, but I swear he doesn’t have eyes.”

Making his rounds, Ethan’s brows furrowed irritably at the interns he caught gossiping in the hall. He tucked his clipboard under his arm, more than ready to reprimand them until a calloused hand caught him by the shoulder.

“Shhh. I want to know what they’re saying about you.” Ethan turned his head just enough to see that it was Dr. Lahela.

He never expected to grow close with one of her brother-like figures, but him and the surgeon spent too much time together at the gym, and Ethan grew fond of the younger doctor more than he cared to admit.

“You know Dr. Tremaine? The pretty one with a sixteen thousand follower count on Instagram? She asked him to dinner and he just walked past her like he didn’t hear anything.”

“You did not turn down Dr. Tremaine.” Bryce covered his mouth with a hand, feigning shock and Ethan retorted almost immediately with his own dry humour.

“I think you forget sometimes that the thought of your best friend still torments me.”

“Right. Sorry.”

They turned back towards the young doctors, so deep into their conversation that the two didn’t even bother hiding anymore. Ethan leaned against the wall patiently as Bryce cleaned his stethoscope with an alcohol wipe he dug out from his pocket.

“Dr. Castillo’s brother did his residency here too, and rumour has it that Dr. Ramsey actually had a fling with an intern from his batch a couple years back.”

“Shut up. She must’ve been so hot if she could make Dr. Ramsey budge.”

Ethan leaned over to Bryce, unsure of why he was even following his request of keeping silent.

“My ears are bleeding, Lahela.” He aggressively muttered under his breath.

“Wait, they’re getting to the good part. You know how I love hearing Haruna’s praises sung– wait, Dr. Ramsey!” The surgeon’s voice faded as Ethan ignored his plea, beginning his march towards the rumourmongering interns.

“–Super hot, super smart, and super scary. Apparently she punched Declan Nash in the face once.”

“Shut up! Who is she?”

“You know the one from the last issue of Times? Like, total medical prodigy? Asia’s top doctor who-”

“–Turned her parents hospital into Japan’s top research facility, I know the whole deal. What about her?”

“So, like, she used to work at Edenbrook right? Apparently-”

“You two, interns!” Ethan barked down the hall.

“Dr. Ramsey!” And his terrifying approach was drowned out by Harper Emery’s own voice and the loud clicking of her heels as she rounded the corner.

Complete, utter fear settled into the young doctors’ eyes as they realized that they were in the company of Edenbrook’s most skilled and accomplished staff, one of whom they were gossiping about. Their gaze darted between a cool and collected Harper, and Ethan, who was very visibly seething, and found they could look nowhere else but the floor.

Harper and Ethan rekindled their friendship following Aurora’s transfer to Mass Kenmore. Harper realized that she wanted the fellowship more for Aurora than she did for herself, and thanks to the younger Emery distancing herself from Edenbrook and her aunt’s legacy, the women were closer now than they’ve ever been before.

“We need to talk.” Harper demanded, despite being aware of the tension.

“It might have to wait, Dr. Emery, I’m in the middle of something important.”

Harper stepped towards him and spoke in a voice low enough that only Ethan could hear, her tone demanding his full attention.

“Dr. Ramsey.” Harper repeated, more firmly this time.

Ethan sensed the urgency in her voice, and looked between his friend and the interns. Exhaling once, he shot them one more infuriated look before turning back the way he came and following his colleague. Ethan eyed Dr. Lahela expectantly as him and Harper strolled past.

“You're up, scalpel jockey.” And Bryce smiled excitedly, closing his eyes and getting into character before storming down the hall.

“Coffee must be one hell of a drug if I’m seeing not one, but two interns chatting ‘til kingdom come while they’re still on the damn clock! Both of you, names!”

Harper failed at containing a smile. “You’re a horrible influence, Ethan.”

He shook his head, repressing his own laughter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That pupil of yours wouldn’t leave me alone until I showed him the ropes of...what did he call it, ah– oral persecution. So what was it that you wanted to tell me?”

“You and Dr. Hirata will be in attendance for a medical conference in Kyoto as Edenbrook’s representatives.”

He nodded in response, continuing to look straight ahead as they walked. “Hmph, like always.”

“And Dr. Sakurai will be present as the keynote speaker.”

#choices #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey fanfiction #choices fanfiction #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart

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akfanficlove · 4 years

Text

“What if I remember?” - #SeblaineWeek2020

Written for Seblaine Week 2020 – Hurt/ comfort

Sebastian had proposed. A week later, he was in an accident, Blaine not knowing if he’d make it and remembering the day he went back to Dalton, met Sebastian again and – in the end – fell in love. This hurt so much when I was even just writing it but I love how it turned out.

He remembers. He knows it happened, yet he can barely believe it. Why is he silently sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to beeping machines when he wants to scream at Sebastian to finally wake up? The hand that’s holding his boyfriend’s for dear life is sweaty. No, wait, not his boyfriend’s – his fiancé’s. It can’t be, it’s only been a week since Sebastian went down on one knee during their vacation in Paris.

Paris, where Sebastian had lived as a child and where he spent six months as an intern in college. Paris, where they wanted to go together after graduation, then after getting their first jobs, then after Blaine’s first show closed on Broadway.

Finally, 2 years after Sebastian had returned home to San Francisco, they finally went there and it was everything Blaine had dreamed about. They were strolling down the Seine late at night, eating crêpes and kissing under the Eiffel Tower, just like Sebastian had promised. And then, on their last night, Sebastian had insisted they’d go to this little restaurant in Montmartre that’s a cute café by day and a funky bar by night, even though they were both tired, so why exactly couldn’t they just order room service and go to bed?

Blaine knew why when Sebastian took his hand, his palms sweaty and shaking a little. “Blaine Anderson”, he said, “you are the most ridiculous person and a pain in my ass. But every day I wake up next to you and for a moment I am so in awe that you are still with me.”

His voice trembled a little and Blaine’s eyes started to fill with tears because, no, he couldn’t mean that, this couldn’t be… “You are stubborn and you drive me insane when I know there’s something bothering you but you brush me off like it’s fine. I hate it when you sing in the shower before I had my morning coffee and hate even more how I could never ever hate it when you’re singing because it’s beautiful. You have this smug smile when you know my arguments are better but your puppy eyes will make me give in anyways and we really need to talk about you not using them for evil purposes like having dinner with your strange public school friends you insist you like.”

Blaine gasps half-mockingly, half self-conscious (Sebastian might have a point about him using that method to get his way).

“All of this should have me running for my life as fast as I can, yet, you are in every way said puppy – one look, one smile and I’m done, Anderson. Actually, thinking about leaving you kind of leaves me shaking with fear because I might be able to survive without you but I would hardly call that living, so I’d really rather not.” Sebastian actually blushed and Blaine was about to yell “yes, I do!” before he even heard the question.

However, Sebastian got down on one knee, holding out a small velvet box with a beautiful simple silver ring with a row of very small black diamonds and asked Blaine to marry him right there in a little restaurant in Paris. It sounds cliché and cheesy but Blaine likes cheesy and he likes Paris and he likes the ring and, hell, yes, he wants to marry Sebastian! For a fraction of a second there’s an image in his head of the boy he used to love, the boy he thought he would marry one day and in another lifetime or universe maybe he would, would have proposed with a big romantic gesture and a moving speech, but here and now, he kissed Sebastian as he slid his finger through the ring.

At home, they threw a little get-together a few days later to break the news to their families and closest friends, both of them still basking in actually doing this, taking this next step together. They wanted to officially tell their fellow ex-Warblers, Blaine’s public school friends Sebastian pretends to dislike (although he knows Sebastian has a soft spot for Marley, likes playing video games with Sam and Sebastian’s relationship with Santana, founded on a deep respect for each other’s wit and snarky banter, Blaine will never understand) and a few other friends on a bigger party next saturday.

Next saturday seems so far away right now. He doesn’t really know what happened, couldn’t listen to what the doctor told him a few hours ago when he stormed into the hospital after a call that began with “Mr. Blaine Anderson? You are the emergency contact for a Mr. Sebastian Smythe. I’m sorry to inform you that there was an accident…”

Everything is a blur now. He went where they told him to go. He moved when the nurses needed some space to change Sebastian’s IV-drip. He laid his head in the crook between Sebastian’s head and his shoulder, held his hand carefully, unable to say anything but “Please don’t leave me…”. He’s been like that for hours.

It’s getting late and visiting hours are long over, one of the nurses obviously feels sorry for him, that’s the only explanation he has why he’s still allowed to be here. He really must look as awful as he feels. His whole body hurts when he moves to get up, not wanting to go but not wanting to cause any trouble for the lovely nurse who let him sit with Sebastian a little longer. He kisses Sebastian’s forehead. He knows, Sebastian doesn’t like this, feels like a little kid when he does it, and maybe Blaine does it on purpose to make Sebastian finally wake up. He remembers fragments now, that the doctor said something about “potential brain damage” and “we just need to give him a few hours, maybe a day or two” and Sebastian “being lucky”. He really wants to believe her, has a deep respect for doctors after seeing some of his friends like Wes and Jeff suffer through med school. So, he hopes she’s right and reluctantly let’s go off Sebastian’s hand.

Turns out, going back to their apartment was not a good idea. Everything around him is Sebastian and when he’s finally in bed, the only thing he can think about is What if?

What if Sebastian doesn’t wake up tomorrow?

What if he wakes up at night, now knowing where he is, what happened and looking for Blaine?

Or what if he wakes up not even knowing who Blaine is? What if what they had is gone now?

Something in Blaine’s stomach doesn’t feel right and he needs to get it out one way or the other. He runs towards the bathroom and makes it just in time before he throws up his breakfast and some of the shitty coffee he had at the hospital. For the first time since the call, he allows himself to break down into tears. He sits on the cold tiles of their bathroom floor, grabbing his curls when the sob’s ripple through his body.

What if Blaine goes back tomorrow and they tell him, Seb will never wake up?

What if they ask him to decide to turn off the machines or believe in wonders?

Oh dear god, what if he actually dies?

Usually, when Blaine is upset, he finds comfort in Seb’s arms and a solution for whatever problem in his analyzing way of thinking. Blaine gets up, washes out his mouth to get rid of the sour taste and makes his way back to the bedroom. He falls down on the mattress and curls up into a ball. He reaches for Sebastian’s pillow and hugs it tight, smelling the faint smell of the cologne he knows Blaine likes, and why? Why did it have to be Seb? Why now? Why doesn’t he wake up already?

Silent tears stream down Blaine’s face, memories flooding his brain: Sebastian laughing because Blaine’s very small mom was hugging him so tight when they told her about the engagement. Sebastian in Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the parks, the ring and his smile. Tears he tries to hide every time they watch “Moulin Rouge” or a Disney classic. Date nights in the park for the 4th July, sitting on a blanket watching the fire works explode over the Golden Gate Bridge. Little moments like them holding hands all the way back to the hotel with their National’s trophy. Their first kiss a few days later when Blaine burned his tongue on scalding hot coffee, Sebastian being there to soothe the ache. All the way back, Blaine’s first day back at Dalton, not officially attending classes yet but in his uniform anyway to try how it would feel. He remembers. He remembers Sebastian starstruck-expression and the hand on his back. He remembers the warmth that was partly because he was so excited to be back and partly because something stirred in his belly he didn’t dare name yet, not back then.

It’s that warmth he craves now. That warmth he wishes he could give Sebastian. He falls asleep with tears drying on his lashes, his body on Sebastian’s side of the bed. He sleeps restlessly but when he does, he dreams about that day at Dalton that changed everything.

It’s 7 a.m. when he slowly wakes up, feeling even more exhausted than when he fell asleep. He just wants to shower and go back to the hospital. Before getting up, he looks at his phone, a little anxious to see a message from the hospital there telling him bad news although it’s a ridiculous thought. They would’ve called if something was wrong, right? Yeah. But they would’ve also called if Seb had woken up, a bitter voice in his head tells him.

After the shower and getting dressed he dials the hospitals number where they tell him visitors were not allowed sooner than 8:30 which leaves Blaine with one more hour to ki– to spend. What he wanted to say is a bad, bad word. A bad, bad word he purposely doesn’t use, afraid he might jinx something. Blaine huffs. Sebastian would so make fun of this, of how Blaine behaves when the doctor’s prognosis was that he would be fine and Blaine wishes more than anything for Sebastian to come home and make fun of him. He’d gladly take a life full of rolling eyes, half-smiles and shaking heads if it meant that Sebastian would just be fine. He loves this man and no God would be cruel enough to take him from him, right?

Blaine sits down on the couch, completely ready with his shoes on and watches to clock on the wall on the left side of their TV tick. He unlocks his phone and scrolls through his pictures.

There are a lot from Paris, one of them in front of the Louvre – it didn’t stop raining this whole day. One of Sebastian in a small café with a French newspaper and an espresso. One of him kissing Sebastian’s cheek out of a sudden and Sebastian’s eyes wide in surprise from when they finally made it up the hill to Sacré-Cœur and enjoyed the view.

Then there are other pictures. Sebastian with his arms slung over Hunter’s and Beat’s shoulder on the night of their housewarming party for their offices of the advertisement agency the founded together. Sebastian, Kitty and Marley dancing on Sam’s birthday party last year, his boyfr– his fiancé’s tie undone and probably too many buttons of his shirt open to be appropriate. Yet, they seemed like they didn’t have a care in the world. A picture of Sebastian and him hugging in front of a huge poster of Blaine’s face on Blaine’s opening night on Broadway. It’s the look in Seb’s face, so proud, so in love, so excited that has Blaine’s heart breaking a little and makes tears sting in his eyes. His thumb brushes over their faces. “Seb, you can’t leave me now…”, he whispers although no one’s there that could hear him.

How he made it to the hospital, he has no idea. His whole body aches and it’s getting worse the closer he gets to the room door. When Blaine opens it, he actually stops breathing, only to let it out in a deep sigh when he finds Sebastian in exactly the same position as he was yesterday. “He looks so fragile”, Blaine thinks and he wants to do nothing but hold his boy in his arms. Maybe that’s why he dismisses the chair and lays down next to Sebastian, curled into his body, careful not to accidently pull out the IV-drip. How often he had found himself in almost exactly this position when they were cuddling in bed after an orgasm or when Blaine’s had this awful cold last winter. Blaine cups Sebastian’s cheek and stroked lightly. During the 5 days of the cold when he thought he might actually die, Sebastian kept him company in bed when he could, took a few days off of work to take care of him, brought him soup and water and tea and advil. And he sang to him, Blaine remembers, the memory might be a little fuzzy but he remembers his soft voice in his ear grounding him. So Blaine starts singing softly, if only to help Sebastian ground himself:

“I still love you

I still want you

I still need you

After all.

For better or worse

Sickness and health

Till death do us part

After all.

Please don’t leave me…”

It must be hours since Blaine has arrived. His voice is starting to get hoarse, his face is wet from tears Blaine couldn’t stop from falling and he feels exhausted. When the song is over, he burries his face in Sebastian’s neck and breathes in before getting up. He needs to go to the bathroom and even though he’s not hungry, he knows he should get something to eat. Before he turns to leave the room he leaves a lingering kiss against Sebastian’s forehead and mumbles “I’ll be right back…”. He walks towards the door.

“You know I hate it when you do that, B.”

Blaine stops in his tracks. He’s afraid to turn back around. What if his brain is playing tricks on him? What if he’s sleep-deprieved and going crazy?

“Makes me feel like a child.”

Blaine turns. Deep green is looking at him. There’s a crocked smile on a beautiful face and Blaine rushes back to the bed and grabs this handsome face. He doesn’t feel the tears of relief but he feels the chains that suffocated him burst in his chest, suddenly it’s easier to breath again. He doesn’t hear himself whisper his name again and again in awe. But he does feel it when Sebastian turns his head a little and winces but kisses his palms.

“Hey…”

Blaine blinks. “Hi… oh my god, Seb, you scared me so much!” He launches himself into his fiancé’s arms with an “I love you” but scrambles to his feet when he hears him groan in pain. “Shit, I’m sorry, Seb, I’m so, so sorry. Wait, let me get a nurse or a doctor, fuck, you must be in so much pain and I– I’m just so glad, you’re awake…” He wipes tears and snot away with the back of his right hand. Sebastian is awake. He’s awake.

Sebastian just smiles at him. “It’s okay, B, I’m okay, I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor, not right now.” He grab’s Blaine’s hand. “Why don’t you lay down again?” He scoots over and Blaine obliges, raveling in the feeling of Seb’s finger’s lacing through his curls. He’s awake.

“Oh, Blaine?” – “Mhm?” – “We have to postpone the party. I am so not giving Hunter the satisfaction of showing up with bruises on this usually perfect mark of beauty…”

Blaine just rolls his eyes and hugs Sebastian tighter even though he hears him hissing in obvious discomfort. Good. That’ll teach Sebastian to never, ever scare Blaine like that again. “I swear to God, Seb, if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll burn your French vintage-writing desk without batting an eye.”

#seblaine week 2020 #seblaine #2020 #blaine anderson #sebastian smythe #sebastian x blaine #hurt #hurt/ comfort

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