#hdgkjhfkdfhkdfhk this is wildly out of my comfort zone sorry if this is like not good lmao

[weemssapphic]

do you get deja vu when she’s with you?

Larissa Weems x reader

“The truth is that you’ve always gravitated towards Larissa - always turning towards her like a sunflower turning to face the sun, as though you need to bask in her light to survive (you are honestly starting to think you might).” Or A collection of scenes post-breakup with Larissa Weems, based loosely on the song ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo.

EDIT 17.1.2024: ao3 user levisha created a playlist inspired by this fic and it is absolutely fire! really sets the mood :')

A/N: This is a breakup fic - read at your own risk, I guess (I won’t be offended if you skip this one, I usually steer clear of hurt/no comfort - both in the reading and writing sense - but I felt weirdly compelled to write this. Was on the fence about posting it but here it is I guess).

Words: ~2.3k

Content/warnings: hurt/no comfort, angst, no happy ending, breakups, mentions of alcohol, mean!Larissa

The sun bathes your face in a comforting warmth as you stroll along the pier. It’s the end of summer and there’s a cool breeze in the air as the days slowly turn shorter. You’ve visited this pier dozens of times this year, but today is the first day you’ve gone alone. The sounds of children playing and waves rolling rhythmically, the scent of salty sea air mixed with strawberry ice cream - all send waves of nostalgia crashing through your body.

You took Larissa here for the first time last summer. It was all she could talk about for weeks after, until you brought her here again. You pass by a bench, the bench where you sat back then, your head leaning on her shoulder, her hand on your thigh, alternating between talking about anything and everything, and watching the seagulls, wrapped in a comfortable silence. Your chest constricts but you walk on, passing by couples and families and groups of teenagers.

It’s been a month since you last saw her. A month of crying and screaming, a month of feeling like your heart has been torn out of your chest. Today is the first day in a month that you’ve successfully managed to make it to the afternoon without crying once. 

As you look across the pier, your gaze settles on a woman. She’s standing alone, watching the water ebb and flow. You notice her because of the sundress she’s wearing, the funky print - it’s something you could see yourself wearing, and it makes you smile. 

It appears that someone has called out to her - she turns her head and you can see from the side that her face lights up as she reaches out her hand, into which a cup of ice cream is deposited. The woman beams, but your own smile melts right off your face as you drink in the form of the tall blonde that has sidled up next to the young woman.

You already know that Larissa has found someone new - it isn’t exactly a secret, she’d told you so herself when she’d ended your relationship. Her heart had been captured by another. They’d met during a work conference. They’d hit it off. It wasn’t personal, she’d told you with doe-eyes and a sad smile as she cracked your heart in two. You just weren’t enough, that much you could infer. And that was that. A part of you knew from the start that this was exactly how Larissa would leave - she found someone more exciting, the next second she was gone.

You wonder what Larissa had said to her new girlfriend before leaving the house this morning. “I have the perfect spot for a date,” perhaps. “There’s a lovely spot by the ocean I’ve been meaning to show you,” maybe. Either way, you’re certain she left out the part about coming here with you.

That was our place, I found it first.

It hurts to look, and you know you should look away, but you can’t. Not when the woman slides closer to Larissa, when Larissa’s arm winds its way around her waist, when she presses a kiss to the top of the woman’s head, when they begin to share the ice cream - one spoon for two, just as you’d always insisted. 

You don’t know how long you’ve been standing there, but a gust of wind makes you shiver and you know the two women have felt it too, because Larissa rubs a hand over her bare arm and the woman shrugs off the cardigan she’s wearing to drape it over the taller woman’s shoulders. It looks tiny on her, and both women begin to laugh, and you feel you may be sick because you recall offering Larissa your own jacket on a day not unlike this and it feels so reused to you - you wonder if the thought crosses Larissa’s mind, too.

When you trudge home shortly after, you can’t help the tears that begin to stream down your cheeks, staining the front of your shirt. So perhaps today isn’t the first day you haven’t cried in a month.

~~~

You don’t want to, you don’t try to, but somehow you manage to run into Larissa and her new girlfriend everywhere. 

It’s a few weeks later and you’re standing in line at the Weathervane. The barista hands you your coffee and you turn to make your way back to your usual corner booth.

Except, it’s already occupied. The woman sitting there facing you looks vaguely familiar, but what’s even more familiar - so achingly familiar - is the back of a blonde head, soft curls pinned into elaborate loops. 

Your stomach churns as your eyes fall to the table, to the two mugs of hot chocolate, each covered with a generous heap of whipped cream. You step closer in spite of yourself, drawn like a moth to a flame - you know you will be scorched, burned alive, but you cannot help the trance you find yourself in as soon as Larissa is involved.

“Go on, try it,” comes a smooth, velvety voice - you’d almost forgotten her voice (almost made yourself forget), but now it comes flooding back to you and hits you straight in the gut. The lilting accent, dripping like honey from painted (always painted) lips - you can picture the way they curl up into a little smile, baring pearly white teeth as Larissa waits for the woman across from her to lift the mug to her own lips and take a sip.

The smile that lights up her face is bright, innocent. “It’s really good!” she says enthusiastically, and then Larissa reaches across the table to swipe her thumb over the little dollop of whipped cream that coats the woman’s upper lip. She giggles - they both giggle - and you feel tears prick your eyes as the ghost of Larissa’s thumb passes over your own lip.

She thinks it’s special.

She thinks she’s special.

You look away. You take a step back towards the counter. “Actually, can I have this to go?” The barista gives you a funny look but takes the mug from you, pouring your drink into a to-go cup and pressing the lid firmly in place. You leave. You cannot stand it anymore, and you leave. Before the woman catches you staring at her, before Larissa turns and pins you in place with what would surely be a look of pity or disgust - or worse, apathy.

~~~

New Year’s Eve. A party at a local bar. A party that everyone goes to. A party that you managed to drag Larissa to the previous year. You aren’t sure you even want to go - you are sure that the memory of Larissa will be everywhere, the memory of the New Year’s kiss, of singing together, of whispered resolutions to fall even more in love and travel the world together.

But you need to get out, you cannot sit at home drowning in memories. Not after months have passed since the breakup - you should be moving on. And they’re only memories. You should be safe, you think - Larissa never was one for crowded parties, she would’ve rather spent her New Year’s Eve on the balcony of her apartment with a glass of wine in hand. “Please, Larissa,” you would beg. “I wouldn’t go for anyone else,” she would purr. 

So you go. And for a few blissful minutes, it is pleasant, and the music invigorates you and the alcohol numbs you and maybe, just maybe, you can forget about Larissa Weems for a few hours.

But as you stand in the dimly lit bar, clutching a bottle of beer to your chest, you spot her. More specifically, you spot her first, all bouncy and giddy and wrapped in a sparkly dress that catches the light and throws specks of silver across the floor in front you. You think - it’s possible - she could be alone, but then Larissa is standing there, tall and regal and grinning from ear to ear. Her eyes sparkle in amusement as she looks down at her girlfriend and it’s as though time has slowed to a complete stop. Her hand settles on the woman’s lower back and you find yourself shivering in response, recalling how it felt the first time it was your back that her fingers pressed into.

“Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel starts to play. You cannot escape this damned deja vu that sneaks up on you every time you see Larissa with her girlfriend. All of your senses are invaded by the feeling of standing in this very same bar with Larissa, drunk and singing along, giddy at the prospect of another year together, another year of falling even more madly in love. 

You wonder, as you watch the woman turn her head up to meet Larissa’s gaze, as you watch her mouth form the words to the song, as you watch Larissa sing back to her, leaning in until they are practically shouting the lyrics into each other’s faces, grinning giddily - does Larissa feel it too? The deja vu? Does Larissa have a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach just like you do? Does the memory cross her mind of you yelling “it’s our song” whenever “Uptown Girl” began to play? Does she think about how you teased her for getting the lyrics wrong? Does she still get those lyrics wrong? Maybe her new girlfriend teases her about that, too. Maybe Larissa whispers “I love you” to this woman after the chorus, too, just like she always did with you.

You try to spend the evening as far from Larissa as possible, try not to look for her in the crowd as you might have once done. Your efforts are futile. The truth is that you’ve always gravitated towards Larissa - always turning towards her like a sunflower turning to face the sun, as though you need to bask in her light to survive (you are honestly starting to think you might). 

She never turns to face you, though. Not once. You aren’t sure if she doesn’t know you’re there or if she is actively ignoring you - you aren’t sure which would be worse. That she can walk directly past you without registering your presence, even though you could pick her out of a crowd of hundreds in an instant, irrespective of her height? Or that she cannot even bear to look at the person she once swore she’d spend forever with?

Your throat is dry and you aren’t nearly drunk enough to get through the evening - but Larissa is sitting at that damned bar once again, elbows on the counter and chin resting in her hands as she listens intently to something her girlfriend is saying to her - she used to hang onto your every word like that, like she was held captive by your voice. It used to make you feel like the most special person in the world, that Larissa Weems would choose you, that she would value what you have to say.

Larissa speaks - it’s too loud in the bar to hear their conversation, but she must have said something funny because her girlfriend throws her head back with laughter, and Larissa simply watches her with sparkling eyes and parted lips that curve up into an adoring smile. You cannot help but wonder if you’ve heard the joke she’s told before - if it’s one of the jokes you’ve taught her, that she loves to retell. You cannot help the bitter taste this leaves in your mouth. 

No more drinks for you then - not when Larissa is at the bar and you’d have to brush against her to get the bartender’s attention. It’s nearing midnight anyway, and most people are starting to turn towards the TVs hanging in the corners of the bar - a news program covering the Ball Drop in Times Square plays.

The countdown begins:

“10, 9, 8…” 

The entire room chants as the countdown on the TVs continues. 

“…2, 1 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Confetti begins to fall around you. It catches in your hair, blurs your vision with kaleidoscope colors. Music and screaming and laughter fill your ears, deafening you. But all you can do is watch as Larissa kisses her girlfriend - right at midnight. They kiss and kiss and just as you feel you’re about to be sick, Larissa pulls back. And then she smiles, she smiles like she used to smile at you, and reaches up to gingerly pluck a piece of neon pink confetti out of her girlfriend’s hair, and her girlfriend’s shoulders shake with laughter as her hands slide down from Larissa’s neck to her waist to tug her closer - even closer. 

Then Larissa, beautiful, sweet, merciless Larissa, begins to laugh as well, and as she does so she turns her head and her eyes (half-lidded as her face scrunches up with unadulterated joy) pierce your own. And it is the worst feeling you have ever felt, and a knot begins to form in your throat, because her gleeful expression does not change. Not into one of guilt, not into one of pity - not even into one of recognition. It is as if you are two strangers, accidentally and fleetingly making eye contact in a bar.

Tears prick at your vision and for a moment, Larissa is blurred. You blink the tears away and when you can see clearly again, her attention is back on her girlfriend. She’ll never feel sorry for the way you hurt, you realize.

A new year. A fresh start - for everyone but you. You will always be stuck in a bar with Larissa Weems on New Year’s Eve, with nothing but your memories and an overwhelming sense of deja vu.

x

Taglist: @oceansblooming @alexusonfire @brienneswife @rosieathena @pro-weems-places @bigolgay @kimiinou @imprincipalweemspet @h-doodles