#stupid cold feels like i have a rock instead of an heart

[babygorewhore]

Eddie Munson x fem reader

When Eddie wakes up one night, he finds you alone and having a breakdown. And he refuses to let you go through it alone.

So, I’ve thought about this for a little bit and I decided to write this hurt comfort with Eddie. This isn’t me saying I’m writing for ST again. I have no plans to. I may once in a while in the future. But I make no promises. However, Eddie is a comfort character and I miss writing him. One final note. I do not want to hear or sense ANYTHING about the photos I use in my header. They are based on ME. All my headers are. It’s self inserted aesthetics. So don’t come into my inbox or anything about it. Thanks. Dividers by @xxbimbobunnyxx

Warnings! Talks of depression! Mild self harm! Reader has BPD, autism and depression! Feelings of worthlessness, anger and isolation. But happy ending as always!

Eddie woke up after a chill of cold ignited his shirtless body. He blinked a few times, gathering his senses in the dark and he looked over to the other side of the bed. It was empty. He sighed and sat up, wiping his face. His hair was messy so he tied it back with a ponytail. He always stole them from you. He removed himself from your shared bed, throwing on one of his many band hoodies and searched for you.

The apartment was quiet but he spotted you on the sofa, your headphones secure on your head and you rocked back and forth. The tv was off and so were the lights. He didn’t want to scare you but Eddie needed to make himself known. He stepped in front of you and you glanced up.

Your eyes were bloodshot. Despair darkening them and he noticed your lips were bloodied. Your legs were completely covered in bruises. You took off your headphones, the security blanket that kept you from losing your mind from overstimulation and Eddie’s eyebrows were pulled together in sadness.

“Did you hit yourself, sweetheart?” You didn’t respond and Eddie couldn’t help himself from saying, “Why? You don’t deserve that, baby. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because I just didn’t.” You finally reply and he exhales sharply.

“Princess, you know you can talk to me. You can rely on me. But every time you go through this, you pull away. You avoid. You run. You don’t need to-“

“You don’t get it.” You shake your head but Eddie wasn’t going to give up so easily this time.

“Then help me. Help me to understand. You’re not gonna scare me away, baby. I promise.” He didn’t expect you to stand up and for a split second he was hopeful you’d ask for an embrace but instead you turn away.

“I don’t say because it’s stupid, Eddie. Why would you want to waste your time listening to this?” He was shocked at your words. His heart ached at the sight of you physically shaking, arms crossed and eyes avoiding his.

“Why are you so mean to yourself? You haven’t done anything wrong-“

“Nothing wrong? Come on, Eddie! Everything I do is wrong! I’m a mistake. A burden and I’m not normal. All I do is mess up. I’m nothing.” You snap and he steps forward.

“That’s not true-“ He tries to interrupt but you push through.

“Yes it is! Eddie, look at me. Do you see anyone who wants to be around me? Do you see anyone who tolerates me more than a few hours? No. Because who the fuck wants to deal with someone who struggles getting out of bed? Or who can’t eat? I can’t even drive myself because I’m too scared! I’m in my twenties and I feel like my life is just dark and grey. I’m a complete useless mess!” Your voice grew louder at the end and unshed tears burned your eyes.

Eddie was horrified at how cruel you were speaking about yourself. These thoughts never crossed his mind and he couldn’t fathom a world without you.

“I mean why are you with me, Eddie? Why would you want to be with someone who doesn’t know what’ll happen when I wake up? Who hits themself with they get angry? Or when I can barely function?” You bury your face in your hands and breathe heavily.

Eddie was speechless for seconds. Unable to get the words out. He was overwhelmed by your confession, deeply saddened by the way you viewed yourself. But he shoved aside any doubts and embraced you in a bear hug. His strong arms were wrapped around you, squeezing tight-probably too tight but you returned the hug. He rested his head against yours, rocking you slightly and then he pressed a kiss against your hair.

He pulled back, hands gripping your shoulders. He looked you in the eye, something you struggled with and cleared his throat. “I need you to listen to me, sweetheart. Through everything I’m about to say. Can you do that for me?”

You nod.

“All of those things you said about yourself? They aren’t true. None of them. Your mind is lying to you. Your mind is being vicious to you. And I know what that’s like, baby. I know how that feels. And it’s heartbreaking for me to hear you say those things. And to see bruises from your own fists. I’m not gonna stand here and allow you to ever fight this alone. You are my perfect girl. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone more than you. If that means I have to tell you this? Even when you don’t want to hear it? I will. You aren’t a burden. You aren’t worthless. Maybe your depression lies to you, but I never would. Baby, never let me sleep with you feeling this way again. Wake me up. Scream. Cry. Just let it out. You can count on me. You saved me. In a lot of ways. After Vecna, you never left my side. Why would I ever, leave you?”

“But-but what if I never get better?” You whimper, tears streaming. Eddie wipes them away with his thumb.

“Princess, depression isn’t something that can be cured. But you will never be alone in dealing with it. When you can’t carry it, I will help you. You are my life. Do you hear me?” He gently shakes you and you sniffle. “Now, can I please kiss you? I feel like I’ll burst.”

You manage to laugh and he leans forward, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, gentle kiss. He lingered on your lips, “Now, come on. Let’s go back to bed. I’ll read to you, that usually does the trick with getting you to sleep.”

“I love you, Eddie. I know it sounds weird because we’re always together, but I missed you. I missed talking to you.” He nods and strokes your cheek.

“I missed you too, sweetheart. But it’ll get better. You’re my strong girl. You can do this.”

Tagging @marchsfreakshow @slvt4jamesmarch @lesservillain @take-everything-you-can @starkeysprincess @emsgoodthinkin @littlexdeaths @voyeurmunson @rowanswriting @hippiegoth97 @munson-mjstan @ali-r3n @gri959

[cherry-leclerc]

20/90 ☆ cl16

genre: humor, smut, angst, jealous!charles, post-break up, toxic ex trope, on & off

word count: 2k

After a painful break-up, you and Charles find yourselves taking part in what seems to be a never ending cycle. But there are rules that apply.

nsfw warning under the cut!

18+...car sex, riding, wrap it before you tap it!

req!...two in a day?? you guys are spoiledddd

It takes about twenty days to break a habit, give or take. There’s proof; like the time you scolded yourself into not biting your nails anymore, horrified with the idea of getting engaged with monstrous hands. Or when you swore you would never drink again after Singapore.

But it takes ninety to make a permanent change.

It was a mutual decision, it was the most mature one, really, too. He was getting more and more busy; higher demand. You were drowning with homework, and senior thesis, it was long overdue. Yet it still broke your heart just the same. We can try again in the future, he tries to reason when you sob against his chest, linen shirt growing damp, but never once thinks about pulling away. 

There is no future if there’s no you, you whimper. You feel stupid, desperate, and disgusting. It was not a lovely mix, but it was true. How could you move on when he was all you’ve ever wanted?

And there’s no present without you.

That was thirteen days ago, to be exact. Life was not better, but bearable to say the least. Often, you would find yourself stalking him on social media, unbeknownst that he did the same. You finally got your bachelor's you had worked your ass off for. He finally came to a renewal on his Ferrari contract. Life should be good.

Instead, you find yourself slumping against the cold wall, eyes squinting at the harsh sun. You’re well aware you’re panting like a beast, and sweat trickles down your face like a water faucet, but you couldn't care any less. Running was definitely not for the weak. 

Abandonner si tôt?

Directing your attention to a deep voice, your heart stops before excitedly pumping against your chest. You can feel it in your ribcage. It should be a crime how handsome he still is, the more he gets day by day. W-what are you doing here? 

His green eyes flicker against the rocks. Oh, you know. 

Are you here for me? You want to foolishly ask, but bite down instead. I thought you were already in Bahrain. 

Keeping tabs on me? 

Flustered, you narrow your eyes, feigning a normal state. We dated for five years. I know your schedule by heart. His soft features register a wave of shock, nervous fingers gripping his phone.

It was good seeing you. And he leaves.

It shouldn’t hurt so much, but it does. It feels as if you’ve scraped your knee, hit your heart, got punched square in the face, and got run over by a school bus. Infinite times. And he seems A-OK. It's against your better judgment to follow after him, to yell at him out of spite for no apparent reason. But you were not the same girl he used to know.

“Oh fuck,” Charles groans as you ride him hastily, headboard banging against the wall as he keeps a steady hold on your hip, where a path of fresh bruises lie. He almost laughs if it weren’t for you rolling your hips tentatively. He quirks a brow when you shake your head and finish around his thick girth, leaving him no choice but to follow along with a low shudder. 

“What have I done?” you whisper, delicate hands coming up to cover up your bare breasts. “Oh my God…”

“Ah,” he hums. “What a delightful thing to hear.”

Scurrying off his lap, you grab your wrinkled clothes, inching towards the exit as you wag your finger. “This –that– could never happen ever again. Capeesh?” 

Charles tries his best to hide his hurt, braving through with a nonchalant smile. “Never again.”

-

You’re eight days in when he texts you. Something about needing someone to talk to. You might have broken up, but who said you couldn’t remain friendly acquaintances? He demands you meet at your spot, and it's a slap in the face but find yourself there nonetheless. He rambles on and on about his ongoing stress, and the neverending pressure. You knew it got bad, but you never thought this much. 

“My PR manager is debating on whether I should date someone for the sake of increasing views. More attention.” 

Your jaw goes slack. “You called me for this?” Rushing up to your full height, you brush off a gust of dirt, struggling to not roll into a coughing fit. “What makes you think this is something I want to hear?”

The Monegasque’s face pinches up like a clam. “I thought you should know.”

You scoff. “Right…” He watches as you scarily pace the open field with a blank expression. It saddens him how suddenly he doesn’t know how to read you. “You’re a fucking coward.”

And you leave.

-

He follows through with it because there’s really no other choice. She’s nice, but not kind like you. She’s pretty, but not breathtaking like you. You get the gist. 

Her touch is unfamiliar and cold, forced. Abnormal. Her father is some kind of wealthy man who invests in prestigious hotels in his home country and is looking to make some more money as if what he doesn’t have is enough to serve him a lifetime. Sometimes, Charles feels for her. She probably wanted this the same amount as he did. 

Behind a screen, you live through all of it. Your friend nicknamed you as Bella-From-Twilight-When-Edward-Goes-Away. Only Edward comes back. Charles never did. But it's now been seventeen days. And you curse the day you run out of your favorite ice cream.

“Why am I always bumping into you?” you huff when you spot the brunette. He rolls his eyes. I’m the famous one here. I don’t need to follow anyone, unlike you. Where his cold tone finally blossomed from –you don’t know– but you didn’t like it at all. Purposefully hitting your cart against his own, you stroll off. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Superstar.”

Comedically, you both find yourself glaring as you check out from adjacent sides, a silent competition on who can get out of there the fastest. You came here just for that, he mouths from afar as your burn bright pink, gaze flickering towards your strawberry ice cream. You flip him off, but giggle apologetically when the cashier assumes it’s aimed towards her. 

Charles wants to chuckle in amusement but would rather eat his own foot than admit to that. Have a good day, you can hear his clerk tell him at the same time yours does too. Flinging your arm into the hoop on your tote bag, you run off as he races you with a full cart of groceries. There’s a curve you hit as you manage to squeeze through and smile back at your ex, somehow satisfied. Amidst skip, you feel a harsh push as you fling forward, falling onto your knees as a little boy winces, licks his lollipop, and walks away. 

Blood trickles down your knees as you fiercely turn back to look at a regretful loser. “Is it really that deep?” you spit out, ears turning bright red from your reasonable anger. He tries to help you up but that only receives him a slap in the face. “Great. I look like I just got my period. Unbelievable.” 

“You just hit me,” he speaks in disbelief.

“You just pushed me,” you retort pointing at your injury, flesh being creepily visible. “On purpose, I might add.”

The Monegasque scoffs, gently massaging his aching face, dark brows pointed at you like knives. “You’re one crazy fucking girl…”

“Thanks, I get that a lot.”

It's all a fateful haze, the way you end up in his car. You suppose it starts the moment he presses on helping you unload your groceries, as some sick apology. But it’s only my ice cream. But he sheepishly shrugs. Now blood paints his driver's seat as you sit on top of him, and occasional grunts overflow due to his red cheek. “I can’t have sex with you,” you mumble against his swollen lips, chest heaving as your tinted windows begin to fog up. It was still early, but you didn’t care. 

“And I shouldn’t want to have sex with you, and yet.” 

“Yeah,” you pant, kisses steaming up. “Okay then.”

Shame lingers on your drive back home, and grows even deeper when you realize your strawberry treat has melted.

-

You would never take yourself as a self-driven person; not like most people. It was only one of your many flaws, but in this very moment, bent over the kitchen counter, you promise to become one.

“I can’t keep going back to him,” you groan over the phone as Lily attentively listens to what she considers gossip, and you consider a mid-life crisis. “We broke up months ago, why do I keep doing this to myself?”

“Perhaps because two still care for one another.” And because you know you still love him, and he loves you, she wants to add but stops herself when you glare coldly. 

“I am so over him, are you kidding? I’ve never been better. In fact, I’m going out tonight. First man I see boom! Fuck him. Just like that.” You click your fingers magically for emphasis. 

Lily’s face drops as her eyes zigzag towards something behind her screen. Before she can try to talk you out of it, you hang up. She’s obviously joking, the Chinese girl stutters when Charles freezes, midway from hanging Alex a pair of joggers, since he had forgotten his own. The green-eyed boy forces a dark smile, tipping his head and heading out without a goodbye. 

“I should probably warn her.”

You weren’t picking up–you weren’t going to. It was starting to hit you how stupid this all was and you did not need your friends erasing the last bits of determination you had within you. Beaming at a group of guys, you can’t help but flutter your eyes as they quietly fight over who gets to have the first move. Dibs, if you must. Swallowing the last bit of your awful drink, you start making your way over before a warm hand grips your wrist. “No. I’m not doing this again.”

Charles rolls his eyes. “And you’re not doing that either, we’re leaving.” It takes a lot of mental strength to not kick him in the shin and run off, but you can’t help but slap him once again as soon as he drags you out into the alleyway. A habit you’ve picked up, I see, he growls.

“Why are you still doing this?” you whimper, glassy eyes looking up in complete defeat. “You broke up with me. I agreed. We’re supposed to be moving on from one another. Why can’t you at least try to let me go?”

It’s a punch to the gut, the sound of your raw voice, broken and weak. He takes a clumsy step back, chest tightening from the tense situation he has wheezed himself into. “Believe me, I’m trying but I just can’t…”

Your nose is runny, mascara coats you like a baby racoon, cheekbones are splotchy as if you’ve just been hit, and you were still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Which is part of the reason why he can’t walk away from everything you've been through. 

“Well you’re not going to try, but I am. For real this time.”

-

It’s been ninety-two days, a lot, but not enough at the same time. But there was a piece of you that knew you weren’t missing him as much. So, maybe–it was. Enough, you suppose. It still hurts a tiny bit sometimes, watching him pose with fake smiles, or maybe they’re genuine, you can’t really tell the difference anymore. The way his eyes learned to sparkle for her over time. Fake can become real, it appears. But you being yearnful didn’t mean you weren’t moving on for your own sake. This was good, a new start. The kind you now looked forward to.

And it only took ninety-two fucking days.

taglist: @urfavnoirette @lpab @d3kstar @namgification @myownwritings

*feel free to let me know if you would like to be included in the general taglist!!

[bunnys-kisses]

okay, okay, okay! i know we're still on the jailhouse rock au (we will come back to this), but in the process of staring at simon's tattoos i came up with another idea.

it's the classic biker au, you met him after you cursed at him for running a red light and almost running you over. while at the time time you thought nothing of it, you see his bike in the parking lot of a grocery store and reminded of what almost happened, you take your keys and key the side of his bike.

but as you were going to put you key away, you were met face to face with the six foot two behemoth that was simon riley. the lower half of his face was obscured because of a face mask, but the sternness in his eyes made cold sweat go down your back.

"whatcha doin' there, girlie?"

you frowned at him before you said, "you almost ran me over a few days ago mister motorcyclist. you should be watching where you're driving, people use the streets too." you stood up a little straighter. it wasn't your finest moment, keying a strangers car, but the fear that raced through you when he ran that red was still fresh in your mind.

"well then." he said, then looked to his bike, "i guess i should apologize." he leaned in close to your personal space and said, "i'm sorry, but you have to look both ways, little girl." then ruffled your hair.

you felt rage build up inside of you. you actually stomped on his foot to get him away from you before you walked away. you refused to be talk down to like a little girl. this wouldn't be the last you saw of simon.

a few months later, your older neighbour was moving out to live in a long term care facility after she had a pretty bad tumble. but on moving day, you weren't expecting to see heavily tattooed men with amazing body strength move boxes into the apartment. and then you saw simon again.

he recognized you and smiled under his face mask, "well. if it isn't the girl who keyed my bike."

"well, if it isn't the man who tried to kill me." you replied. you would've never guessed that you'd soon up in simon's bed with him holding your legs open as he thrusted up inside of you.

"that's a good girl, we could've done this instead of you ruinin' my bike." he purred as he gripped your thighs. the muscle under his palms riled him up.

"shut up and fuck me you idiot." you groaned as you clutched onto the pillow under your head. your heart was racing as you felt his cock deep inside of you. you wanted to wipe that stupid smirk off his face, but you were too busy feeling his cock in your throat.

"anything for you, love. you just lie there and let me take care of everything." he chuckled lowly.

eventually you two would make amends, even become lovers. one day you'd be mrs. simon riley. but not at that moment, at that moment you wanted to make sure that he didn't feel like he won this battle. <3

thoughts? feelings? want more?

[riverbutghost]

Cold But Warm

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and your lieutenant found a safe cabinet. And once all of the adrenaline left your body, you realized that you got a little wounded, which led to you and your lieutenant to have a conversation.

Warnings: blood, military stuff, strong language, Simon acts like an asshole ‘cause he’s scared… Also, this is so rushed and i don’t like this one but here we go lol

Masterlist ~ check my other fics if you like this <3

Also, please send me requests lol

Russia was cold, as usual. But it was December, and you were wandering around in the Russian forests. It was something else.

“I’m freezing!”

Simon huffed at you. He was starting to get sick of your complaints. He gritted his teeth.

“Stop whining like a fuckin’ child.”

You rolled your eyes. He was a good soldier, he would never complain about his surroundings or anything at all. You admired him sometimes, all the time.

He was one of the best, his tactics were always impressive. His flirting skills were impressive too.

“You had said something about needing time?”

His steps faltered for a second. He returned being cold and dismissive in a second as well.

“I don’t remember.”

“Back at the base, like three days ago or something.“

He shrugged. You were starting to get annoyed at him for not giving a fuck. He was always like this.

“Can you slow down for a second? Jesus…”

You gripped his arm hard enough to make him falter. He turned around, took three steps towards you in an angry way. You stepped back at the same time as he took a step towards you.

Your feet slipped and all of a sudden you were on the ground. You groaned at the pain in your butt. He hovered over you menacingly. His eyes weren’t the soft ones you knew. There was something there, an anger.

“I said I don’t fuckin’ remember. Can’t you just shut that stupid mouth of yours for a second? I’m trying to hear something for fuck’s sake!”

You narrowed your eyes at his tone and anger. You wished you had teamed up with Soap instead, but Price wouldn’t let you anyway.

You couldn’t help but feel a little hurt at his sudden change in behavior towards you.

What could have happened in a week for him to change?

“Get up sergeant.”

He turned around, started stepping away from your flinched form. You wondered why he was that angry. Surely, the comms weren’t working because of the weather. But there had to be something else. Something you couldn’t get your finger on.

You got up, took quick steps towards him. His posture was sharp, ready for anything. You averted your eyes from him after checking him out.

“Focus,” You mumbled to yourself, for thinking about him, your superior, that way. What were you, a high school student?

He was a distraction.

-

“S- Ghost?”

You waited for his reply as you breathed a long sigh, the journey was clearly exhausting. And you found nothing, not a single rock because of the snow. It was hard.

You were sweating one second, then feeling cold. Your vest was useless for this weather. You just hoped you wouldn’t freeze.

“Someone’s here.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. You couldn’t see anything.

“Wha-“

Simon pushed you out of the way at the same time the shots started coming. You coughed a little then rolled over to your side, your gun ready to shoot anything. You looked down, gasped at how close you were to the cliff. It wasn’t that deep, but still.

Simon was behind a tree, you were laying on the ground. He was a few feet away from you, shooting at anything and everything. You watched him shooting, at the same time trying to make sure you were okay while talking to his comm. He was a multitasker. For sure.

You got up quickly, a slight pain tugging at your lower abdomen. You brushed it off, your heart pounding with nervousness. You crouched.

You quickly hid yourself behind a tree next to Simon.

“Where did they come from?!” You yelled over the noise.

Simon grunted. He wasn’t panicking like you do, again proving that he was always a good soldier.

“I don’t fucking know.”

You didn’t question anything further than that, he was clearly pissed.

“Fuck- Fuck!”

Simon yelled and threw his gun at the ground, getting a pistol from his holster. Your stomach filled with proud for your teammate Soap, for giving him an extra pistol. You were going to kiss him on his cheeks when you were out of there. If you could.

“We have to move.”

You gulped down your nerves. How could you move in this situation?

“How?”

He turned around, looked at you while reloading his pistol. He tilted his head towards the cliff.

“We’re gonna jump.”

“What?!”

Simon turned again, one hand moving to his throwing knife. He threw the knife right into the enemy’s neck. You reloaded your gun, only to realize there wasn’t any ammo left.

“Fuck! I’m out.”

You panicked, it was a shitty time for you to be out of ammo. You didn’t even have another gun because you forgot. Yeah you fucking forgot.

“Jump! I’ll cover you.”

You looked at him worriedly. It was all happening so fast, and you couldn’t comprehend anything. You were going to die.

“It’s just water, sergeant. I’ll find you.”

You jumped after looking at him with determined eyes. He visibly swallowed.

You couldn’t help but feel scared while falling down to the water. It wasn’t something you liked, God it was the worst thing ever. Your body made contact with the freezing water, and you couldn’t help but get lost in your memories from your past.

The torture, the abuse, the training..

You felt your eyes close, falling and falling in the deepest parts of the water.

-

Simon wasn’t kidding when he had told you he would find you. He was indeed, searching for you.

When he had finished killing them all, he jumped of the cliff because he couldn’t spot you from up there.

He searched through the freezing water, even though his mind was trying so hard not to shut down from the cold.

He spotted you eventually, you were laying down on the snow a few feet away from the water. He rushed towards you, hands immediately gripping your vest and pulling it off. He lowered himself down a little, tried to hear your breathing. You were, to his surprise, breathing slowly. Though your shaking was not normal.

He scooped you up, carrying you safely to the cabin he had found while looking for you.

He kicked the door open with his feet, then pushed it again after entering. He put you down on the soft mattress, which seemed clean enough.

He then started working on the fireplace, trying to make something warm for you.

“Hey,”

He sighed at your soft voice, shaky from the cold. He sighed again after hearing the fire’s cracking noise. He got up and turned around, looking at your shaking form.

“Strip.”

Your breath hitched, your mind going to the past. He realized the mistake he made, and cleared his throat.

“I’ll give you a sheet that I’ve found. Now, strip. Don’t want you to have hypothermia or some shit like that.”

You nodded, still looking at him. His eyes moved from your hair to your face, to your body and you shook.

“Get out?”

Simon cursed himself for a moment, then left the room. He thought about the decision he had made, to stop talking to you unless it’s necessary. It made everything easier, he thought. But no, it didn’t. He was rude to everyone except you, until now. He was rude to you too, to keep you from being a liability to him.

“Uh, Simon ?”

He composed himself, then left the little kitchen. He looked at you, your face a little pale. He hummed, tilting his head a little.

“I think I got shot.”

His face turned serious as you could tell from the mask, he took rushed steps toward you. You were holding the sheet to your body, still shaking from the cold but not as much.

“Let me look,”

A wave of insecurity washed over you. You were totally naked, and he was asking to see your body? Hell no.

“Uhm, let me-“

Simon stood up and took a pillow from the couch. He gave it to you.

“I need to see, c’mon now.”

You pulled the sheets away, holding the pillow to your chest. Simon kneeled down, fingers delicately holding your waist. His serious eyes trembled slightly at the sight. You didn’t get shot, the bullet just grazed the side of your chest.

“It’s just a scratch.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He looked up to you.

“Does it hurt?”

You swallowed the intense pressure of being naked in front of him, your lieutenant. Your lieutenant who fucked you so good that you forgot your own name-

“No, just feels uncomfortable.”

He nodded then got up. You frowned a little. Why was he acting like that?

“Simon-“

“Gonna go get some water.”

You gulped again. It was like the first time you had met. He was making you nervous, and you didn’t like it one bit. You wanted him to come closer, cuddle you to him while you stroke his hair. Apparently, he had decided to keep things professional. All of a sudden.

He came back with a washcloth and a bowl of water. You gulped down your nerves.

The washcloth softly touched your side, making you suck in a breath.

“Why are you distant all of a sudden?”

His hand stopped for a second. He looked up to your eyes, then back down. He continued tapping your side softly, even though his eyes hardened a little his touch was still gentle.

“I’m not.”

You scoffed. He gripped the washcloth harder than before, and dipped it in the water again.

“Stop it, Simon. Fuck, it hurts.”

His hand stopped midway through, and looked at you. He thought you meant the scratch for a second.

You didn’t mean to tear up, but there it was. Your eyes blurred, and your lips wobbled a little. Simon gripped the bowl, a little pressure more and the bowl would break.

“Stop it.” He said sternly.

You hiccuped, the soft noise clenching Simon’s heart. His knuckles were white under his gloves. He looked down and up again. You were fully crying now, your hands coming to your face.

“You’re all I have-had.”

Tear after tear ran down your cheeks, soft sobs echoing through the little cabin. Simon looked at you, you were slowly crumbling in front of him. He made you feel that way, he crushed you.

Simon put the bowl beside him with shaky hands, then gripped your hands, putting them down. Your eyes found him, softly looking at him.

Simon took the pillow which was hiding your chest and put it down, eyes still looking at you. You didn’t say anything. His hands then found your waist, pulling you to him. You immediately threw your arms around him, resting your head on his shoulder. He stayed still, rubbing his hand up and down on your back. You sobbed on his shoulder.

Simon’s heart was beating extremely fast, he wasn’t sure if it was heart attack. He was scared. He had never felt this scared about someone before. It was tugging at his heart, and the fact that he made you cry didn’t help but worsen the feelings he had.

“Why?”

Your muffled voice came after a few seconds.

“Thought I had to stay away,”

You cried harder at that, hands gripping his shirt. He had taken off his vest, but still the mask was on.

“Don’t- don’t do that please.”

Simon hugged you harder, tighter. He was stupid for sure, to make a decision like that.

“Never felt like that before,” He mumbled, voice groggy. You sniffled.

“Like what?” You asked.

Simon fell silent. He knew what he was feeling, but didn’t want to admit. He was scared, of losing you too. It was all so complicated, and he was tired. Of all this feelings, it was overwhelming for him.

“M’sorry, pretty girl.”

You shivered at his nickname, remembering the last time he had said it. Your head left his shoulder, and you looked at him.

“You’re so stupid.”

You sniffled, an angry expression visible on your face.

“I’know.”

You licked your lips, then looked at him through your eyelashes. Simon tilted his head. Your hands slowly moved to his face, holding the hem of his mask.

He hummed lowly, his chest vibrating. You slowly took his mask off, giving him enough time to intervene.

Your hands roamed over his face, every detail had already been on your head. You kissed his lengthy scar, making him feel alive again. He hummed, the sound vibrating through his chest.

He hummed again and dropped his head to your forehead, mumbling apologies over and over again while kissing your face.

He felt weird, overwhelmed about all of this. He broke his decision in a second just because of you, and he wasn’t regretting it. Not yet anyway.

“Don’t do that again, okay?”

You mumbled, eyes dropping ever so slightly. He hummed, giving one last kiss to your jawline.

“Never, love.”

[peterparkersnose]

Folded

pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

word count: 3.4k

warnings: attack description, clicker attack, nightmares, anxiety, wound description, angst, denial of feelings, alcohol mentioned, swearing, mentions and descriptions of gun use, near death experience (if u can’t handle the game don’t read)

HAPPY LAST OF US DAY!!!

a/n ive played tlou 3x and tlou2 2x (going through my second round rn) so shut up pls i dont want any of the ‘you only like joel bc hes pedro’ fr come on ive been playing this game since i was 12. (i’m not like other girls 🥵) jackson joel just does something to me mmmm. wrote this nov 18 ‘22 saved for today

Don’t forget 9PM EST on HBO Max

summary Y/N gets attacked by a clicker during an intense time with Joel

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read time: 12 mins 28 seconds

You could feel the air escaping your lungs at a dangerous rate. The rifle at your side slammed against your thigh as you kept running. The thick forest was just as you remembered it; wet, cold, and dark.

You were outnumbered. Mostly runners, but you spotted a few clickers. The brush on the forest floor wasn’t helping. Your heavy breathing and the sloshing of your boots against the snowy ground were making too much noise.

Where the fuck was Ellie?

3 bullets. Rifle was empty, spent that on some sharp shooting up the hill on some runners you and Ellie found in the town. How stupid were you? Those were an easy kill with a knife. But your childish games on who could get the best headshot left you empty.

Your heart dropped as the rock formation appeared. It was too high. It covered the forest like the earth split into two. That is when you came to terms, and you had to come to it quickly.

You were going to die.

Soon enough, the first runner appeared. Easy kill. One down, maybe 7 to go?

Where the fuck was Ellie?

The next one came. Two down. Three at a time now? A fucking clicker followed them? You wished the brush was tall enough to hide in.

It was useless fighting off three runners at a time with a clicker on their heels. This was it. Death.

The stone wall was cool against your backside. You hugged your knees to your chest as you pulled out your handgun.

At least the clicker would have a good meal.

Shot- one down. Shot- another. The clicker sped up. Shot, wounded but not dead. Quick slice with the knife. Dead.

The shrieking screams of the clicker engulfed your senses as the monster came running at you. It’s flailing arms we’re the last thing you were prepared to see.

You felt the hands on your shoulder. Dead hands of a monster, unspeakable to most. The hands grabbed your shoulders, but no bite came.

Just blinding white noise and a splatter on your face.

You had convinced yourself you were dead. You would never see anyone again. You had died the same death as your father years prior. The death that left you alone.

“Dad?” you managed to mutter out.

The white noise turned into ringing as two hands held your shoulder and shook you.

“Y/N? Y/N please, are you okay?”

Ellie.

“Maria I found her! Here!”

Cloth material wiped over your eyes and they opened. Ellie, splattered with blood stood in front of you with the most panicked look you had ever seen on the girls face.

“Your okay!” she yelled at you, wrapping her arms around you.

Sitting besides you two was the headless clicker that should have killed you.

***

You should be dead. Get this horrible life over with. Dead with your father, with the mother you never knew. Living a life without this disease, these creatures. Free of pain.

When you woke up in the medical wing you were pretty sure almost the whole town was there. You felt like an item on display at a museum. Looking over all the eyes, you most definitely were not searching for his. The whole reason you volunteered to go out with Ellie that day instead of Dina. And of course, he was not there. Why would he be?

“She’s awake!” someone yelled from the crowd. Every eye in the room seemed to fall on you at once. The nurse pushed past the group of people and went to your side.

“For heavens sake! Get out!” the nurse yelled to the group of onlookers. “Give her some goddamn space.” you heard from the crowd as people started to walk towards the exit.

Everyone wanted a look at the girl who survived a clicker attack.

“Hey,” she said, slowly approaching you and sitting on the chair next to your bed. “Ellie!” you exclaimed, embracing the girl tightly. “What happened?” you asked Ellie, releasing your grip on her and settling back into the bed.

The bond had been there since the day you met her. You always remember the look of the scared little girl on the back of Joel’s horse when they first entered Jackson. The bond you two had helped her grow into the person she is now. Ellie had always described you as an older sister. But Ellie was always there for you, and you for her. She was your best friend, platonic soulmate. And a damn good shot.

“I killed it,” she said bluntly. “I-I came at the right time it was about to bite you and- you should have seen it Y/N my shotgun did a number on that thing.”

“A-am I infected?” you asked, looking down at your body for the first time. Your tank top was still on, your jacket was missing. Your jeans were covered in dry blood and smelt of pine needles.

“It’s been three days. You got some pretty nasty scratches though. Sick looking if you ask me. Scars of a warrior.” she added, referring to her tattoo.

And that’s when you saw them. The claw marks were sewn shut on your left shoulder. Your eyes widened as you began to panic. You began to squirm and the pain set in.

“Hey, hey calm down. She took care of you. Best nurse in town, I made sure.” Ellie said, grabbing your good shoulder and stroking your arm to calm you down.

“The doctors said if your vitals stay stable for the next few hours you can go home. Dina and I cleaned up the place for you,” Ellie smiled, stroking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“What have people been saying?” you asked, holding her hand tightly in yours. “That your a hero. You cleared out that building and we found a stash of food that’s going to last for… well, probably a good year. That’s amazing Y/N! They found baby formula for JJ- tons of it. You were right it was the old warehouse.”

A small smile rose to your lips but Ellie could tell what you really wanted to hear about.

What Joel had been saying.

And Joel hasn’t said much. Tommy had told him a brief description in passing of what happened when it was happening. He figured you were dead when they sent out a rescue wagon for you. He even watched as Maria’s horse lead in your body. Ellie was sitting with you in her arms screaming for a nurse, your whole left arm was covered in blood. What was visible of your face was white as a sheet and you weren’t moving. Joel had to silently give up the inkling of what could have been. Hell, you were the first girl who he even considered after his divorce over thirty years ago. It had to end one day and he had to silently agree with it.

“I don’t…” Ellie began, following with a sigh. “Y/N, don’t get yourself worked up over it. It’s not worth it.” Ellie began, knowing her friend too well. “Did he even come and see me?” you asked, looking to Ellie’s eyes. She couldn’t look into yours. She closed her eyes for a quick moment and shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“Am I a fool?” you asked her. “I’m not sure,” she replied, weary.

The whole reason you went with her instead of Dina was because of Joel. You most definitely could not face him that day after the previous night.

He had knocked on your door a little after nine. He noticed a change in your demeanor today when he came in the room while teaching the some of the kids how to shoot. He wanted to make sure you were okay. Joel felt like he had some responsibility over you to make sure you were always okay because of what happened.

Joel was the one who was with your father when he died.

Sure, he was older than you. You weren’t sure exactly, but he was younger than your father by many years. The attraction from your end started when you saw him drunk off his ass during a celebration dancing with Tommy in the bar. It was the most unconventionally attractive thing, but it flipped some switch in you. When your dad died he taught you how to perfect your aim and kill efficiently. Never crossing any line because you were his dead friend’s daughter. And you were so close to Ellie. Ellie wasn’t too fond of your crush that you confided in her, but she grew to love the idea. Her family.

He came and visited you a little after nine. You were about to slip into bed before you heard the knock on your door. The night was cold and your pajama pants and thin tank top was not cutting it. You invited him inside. He had brought you a tiny gift to lift your mood; a bottle of gin. Your favorite. And you two drank at least half of that bottle of gin. You talked about everything from your father’s death to the time Tommy accidentally washed his clothes with Maria’s pink bra and still has an abundance of pink clothing to this day. The gin was most definitely speaking when you told him how you felt.

And he left.

“Let it go for now- okay? We’re gonna get you out of here and back home.” Ellie reassured you. Nodding your head, you fell back into the cold bed and closed your eyes just wishing it could all go away.

-

Home was empty as it could be. The bottle of gin sat on your coffee table. Your bed was made for the first time in years. Your work station was organized and all of your pens and art supplies were cleaned. You had remembered when Joel gave you those pens, he found them one day and thought of you. Your rifles now hung on your wall. Definitely was Dina’s idea, but you liked it. A tiny gift wrapped in a beige paper with a tiny bit of twine around it sat under your newly mounted rifles.

“Woo hoo. Christmas.” you said to yourself sarcastically. Kneeling down, you opened the package.

Bullets.

For safe keeping, ~Maria

Of course it was from Maria. She always played the mother you never had when she wanted to.

The immense feeling of sleep hit you like a brick wall. I guess being attacked by a clicker and living was a strenuous activity. All you wanted now to do was sleep. Unmaking the nicely folded sheets, you melted back into your bed. The sun was setting in your window and the horses were coming in for the day. You could hear them trotting past your window. You wondered if Joel was just feet away. It was what now… Thursday? You couldn’t remember if he still did the Thursday shift or if he switched with someone else. Who cares, sleep was creeping up slowly and the thought of Joel set you out cold.

The forest was blacker than usual. Without a doubt, you recognized where you were. Running again. All you seemed to do was run now these days. Taking a brief look back while you ran through the forest, you stopped as you realized a whole hoard of clickers were just at your heels. You didn’t have time to react. They were on you ripping your flesh off your body. The dream never seemed to end. You felt each bite and tear of your flesh until-

“Y/N!” Maria screamed, shaking you awake and still being mindful of your wound. “Fuck!” you screamed, sobbing into her arms. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck!” you continued, squirming in bed as she held you.

Your door was wide open and it was now pitch black out. The screams alerted security, and they called for a search of the town. Tommy quickly found the source of the screams and sent Maria in.

Standing outside your door was Tommy, peering in on the sight of his wife with you.

“Gather people. She needs to be watched.” Maria commanded Tommy as she held your shaking body. Too many people had left their homes now to look at the scene and disrupted the peaceful night.

-

Ellie sat with your head in her lap, slowly stroking your hair trying to get you to fall asleep. “Don’t worry. Nobody in this town will let anything happen to you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The whole previous night you didn’t sleep. You stared at your wall and just thought. And that whole day you delved yourself in drawings you hadn’t finished or poems you had the inspiration for. Took a shower. You looked through your closet and picked out a fresh outfit. You tried all the little things that usually worked on your old self, but your old self was gone.

That bottle of gin sat on your coffee table and haunted you throughout the day as well. You didn’t have the heart to throw it away, or the mindset to drink it. So there it sat. Pitiful.

You were at a loss for words. No words could describe the immense amount of pain re living that memory caused last night.

Ellie began to hum a tune. It was sweet and reminded you of something innocent. Your eyes began to get heavy. “You ready?” she asked, fluffing up your pillow. Reluctantly, you shook your head yes.

The absolute end was there and tiredness finally seeped in. Distraught sleep left and peaceful sleep took its place.

Ellie dimmed your lamp and smoothed the covers on your bed. It reminded you of the time you took care of Ellie years ago when she was sick. “Sweet dreams,” she said, giving your forehead a brief kiss.

Mumbling was heard outside your door, but you didn’t care.

The field was beautiful. Finally, peace. The flowers stemmed beautifully and the sun shown down on your face. Your hands ran through the fresh green grass. Laying in the rays, you suddenly felt the field get smaller. Sitting up, you realized the sun had disappeared and the field was getting smaller and smaller by the second. The sudden edge of a forest was getting closer and closer. And then with one blink you were back. The forest erected around you. You were back.

“No, no…” he heard from your house. Joel’s interest peaked from the grounds left in his coffee mug to the silent struggles in your bedroom. He lifted himself off your porch chair and looked through your window. You were writhing in bed.

“Ellie!” you let out the first yell. It was so loud that it startled Joel to his core and began a flight of panic. Joel didn’t hesitate to burst your door open. “Ellie don’t leave!” you yelled again.

“Hey,” he said softly, patting your shoulder. A loud groan of pain came from your lips. Joel’s heart sank as the feelings on guilt he felt for letting you go on patrol that day set in once again.

“Y/N!” he whisper yelled, yanking your body over to face him. Your eyes shot open. Ripped from the dream into another one.

You looked him up and down. This wasn’t real. It was another dream. Tears welled up in your eyes as you shut them tight, praying you would wake up somewhere else.

“It was a bad dream,” he whispered, resting his hand on your thigh. His thumb patiently rubbed your thigh as your breathing sped up. Your legs matched up perfectly, knees facing him. Your face was buried in your hands that were now grasping at your eyes.

“Stop it,” Joel hissed, grabbing your manic hands tightly. “This isn’t real,” you cried out, sobs following it.

His heart seemed to break into a million pieces when you started to full on cry. The last time he dealt with a crying girl it was Ellie. Wait- no, maybe it was Sarah. He honestly wasn’t sure, but it was most definitely years ago.

“Everything is alright. I know how it is. I-I didn’t sleep for a few days after my first clicker encounter. Those things are nasty fuckers.” he said, his hand returning to your thigh trying to soothe you. He was clueless on what he was supposed to do.

At this point, you realized you weren’t dreaming. He was here. His hand was on your thigh. He was sitting on your bed. You were in a tank top that cut a little too low for your liking.

Your teary eyes looked up and met his. He hadn’t moved his gaze off of your face. He gave you a soft reassuring smile.

Joel cursed himself for letting his feelings creep back in. This was wrong anyways, he felt sick any time he thought about you. The pit of his stomach couldn’t handle it much more, he had pretty much forgotten about you (as much as he would like to admit). But when Tommy assigned him second watch of you that night, he just knew it had trouble written all over it.

“Go back to sleep now. Pretty girls need their beauty sleep.” he said, instantly regretting it.

That line worked on Sarah, but in a whole different way with a much different meaning. He wanted to suck back in the words as fast as he said them.

Letting a tense breathe go, he steadied himself on your bed frame and made his way to the door.

He had made his way to the door as you spoke.

“Joel?”

His hand stopped his motion as it rested on the top of your door frame.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning around.

“W-will you stay? Just for a little bit.” you said, stuttering as you realized how large his body was compared to your door.

He paused. “I suppose.”

You moved your legs so he would have enough room to sit next to you. You heard his knee crack as he sat down on the low rise bed. His legs sat upward as he leant a hand behind your legs to steady himself.

“I’m sorry.” you said. It had to be said, what better time than now? “I don’t want to hear your apologies.” he huffed. “It was inappropriate.” you spit out again. “No- Y/N, stop. Please.” he asked. “You need to get some sleep.”

“I can’t sleep. Every time I sleep I go… back there. I can’t.” you whimpered. He sighed, groaning and wiping his brow.

“What would you like me to do about it? I can’t do anything.”

“Stay.”

Joel was left confused on how your calmness met his angry tone. He knew you well, he was surprised you weren’t screaming in his face. You didn’t take shit. You were being patient for once in your life.

Oh, how you’ve changed since the attack.

“I’m here. What more do you want from me?” he asked. His tone had extra edge of anger to it that was fueled with a faint passion.

In the darkness, you reached for his hand. It was coarse and dry, with many various scars and callouses you could feel just with a slight touch. He instinctively pulled back a bit, but gave in within the second. Wrapping your fingers with his, you places his hand back on your thigh.

“Y/N I-”

“The thing you were doing before on my leg. It was nice.”

“Oh,” he said, defeating the original thought from his head. His thumb began slowly moving in circles once again.

You were showing him what you needed.

He watched as your sad face closed your eyes and sighed. You felt safe for the first time in days.

Joel felt the pit in his stomach widen and fully consume him. The girl who practically raised Ellie from when she arrived; his dead friend’s daughter; one of the best damn killers in all of Jackson; Y/N. God, he was in so much trouble with his morals.

“I’m too far deep in this shit,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead with his free hand.

Your eyes fluttered open to see him. “What?” you asked.

“I can’t…” he said, beginning to shake his knee up and down. “What?” repeated yourself in a confused tone.

His strong body swept over yours. He grabbed your shoulder ever so softly and perched you in his arms. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck.

No initiative had to be made besides the movement of your lips against his. Your hand wrapped itself in his hair, playing softly as he held your back strongly. A slight moan came from his lips that he instantly regretted when you accidentally tugged ever so slightly on his graying strands of hair. For the split second that you two separated gasping for air, he pulled you tighter.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been fighting this,” he whispered on your lips. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” you sighed, staring back at his scruffy face.

Joel came back to his senses. He felt different. He could never go back to the same person he was a minute ago. His world revolved around something new. No more obsessing over patrol and how to appease Tommy. No more worrying over how Ellie could handle herself. No more worrying about his aching joints and the fear of getting older. Something new became the center of his universe. He had folded.

The girl laying in his arms who now rested her head against his chest.

“You really need sleep darlin’,” he sighed. You sighed in resistance.

“You want me to stay?” he asked, looking down at your exhausted face.

“Please.”

You moved over in your bed as he made himself comfortable. Joel never realized how much larger he was than you until he slept with you in his arms.

You layed on his chest as one arm wrapped around your shoulders. His hand rested comfortably on your shoulder.

“Thank you.” you whispered. He placed a small kiss on your head. Your arms wrapped around your stomach, making yourself more comfortable in his embrace. The only sound in the room was your soft breathing.

“Go to sleep now. Your safe with me, my sweet girl.”

tag list: @dani5216 @uwiuwi @alohastyles-x @samanthacookieone @maddieinnit0 @alexxavicry @scoliobean @jmillerswife

[blkgirl-writing]

Conversations with the Moon

Gale Dekarios x Fem!Reader

Summary: Gale finds himself at the lake with a drink in his hand again, talking with the moon.

Authors note: This one is actually really good and easily my favorite i've made for bg3 Inspired by the absolutely amazing song, conversations with the moon by grantperez, this combines a few requests into one fic.

It was a blue mooned night, wonder happened on blue moons, simple as that. This blue moon no different than any other, but special, as Gale found himself on his seventh drink, leaned against a very cold rock, talking to the moon. Enticing his truths out of his lips like a sweet sweet melody. Words only alcohol and a friend could get him to mutter.

“I wish I could just tell her how incredible she is-“ his words slurred slightly, “she’s enchanting. Every word she speaks is like a charm” 

“A charm, hm?” The moon replied “you sound like a man deeply in love.”

“I can’t-“ Gale stuttered. “We haven’t even made it to baldurs gate, I don’t…I don’t even know how many days, weeks? It’s been.” 

The moon sighed, followed by an unmistakable “tsk”, peculiar considering it was the moon, but as he recalled it he was sure it happened. 

“Night after night, when I shine brightest, you talk to me, and always about her. Love is all I hear, just not in those words. Everything but those four words.” 

Gale huffed, grabbing his goblet from the ground, drunkenly swishing the red liquid around, some sloshing out of the rim. The moon only spoke truths, but he kept denying it. Over and over again.

“Do you try to scare me?” Gale but his lower lip softly, his small attempt to stop the words from leaving his lips. “To dangle the promise of love in front of me?“ 

“Do you try to punish me? I don’t know if this heart can take another crack..it’s destined to shatter, eventually. Soon enough…”

“You let the possibility of hurt ruin a lifetime of love and happiness with the woman who you will call soulmate?”

“soulmate…? Moon, you can’t mean“ Gale fumbled standing up, wobbling left before gaining his balance again. accusingly pointing at the blue moon itself like he had discovered a secret never meant for his ears.  “You said soulmate.”

“I did indeed. Very observant.” The moon said, the sassy tone ever so present. “I can tell you a million times if you’d like, but it is your decision to accept it and proceed” 

“You confuse me for a fool. She couldn’t ever…why would she..could…” Gales voice trailed off, his finger that was pointed up falling to his side. “She could never love me.”

“You bring your insecurities into your otherwise rational mind. That does not make a fool, just a deeply scarred man.” The blue moon continued, “but soon I will disappear. Do you want to spend another night talking to me, or the woman you care for.”

“I care for her.” Gale repeated, brushing his fingers through his hair, he cared. He cared if you got hurt, if you smiled at his stupid jokes. He cared if you walked next to him instead of the others, he cared so deeply and truly. 

He loved. He loved hard and true. He wanted to never be alone again, he wanted to show you his whole world, share his heart and learn yours through and through. 

“I do..I do love her.” He let out a sigh, relieved? Perhaps. “I can’t let my happiness….our happiness slip by.”

“Thank you, moon.” He smiled up at the sky, the sun moments away from peaking its head above, turning night to day in a flourish of colors. “I’ll tell her everything.”

Gale finally dared open his eyes, which were closed tightly as he recounted his night to you. His eyes still tilted downward, however, as, honestly? He was terrified of what his story made you feel. Joy? Happy to hear his confession? Guilt, perhaps? For having to let him down gently? 

“What do you think?”

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I have no future plans to make this a two parter.

Tag list, tell me if you want to be added!

@shyminnie07 @makers-breath @claryvoyantfray @black-sapphic

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[deadboyfriendd]

Stains in the Granite

Summary: Throughout the years, Steve has undergone multiple head traumas. You knew this much when you were together. The migraines, the forgetfulness, moderate hearing loss in one ear, vertigo. The list was expansive. When you were together. It’s been over a year since you had last spoken to him, but an unexpected call from Hawkins Regional sends you reeling back to him. A forgotten emergency contact, he probably just never bothered to update it. You would let Robin know and be back to your regularly scheduled activities, sans Steve. A dead line turns the spigot, worry plugs the drain, and your inability to let him go drowns you in the tub. When he wakes up, he falls in love with you again. And again the next day. And again the day after that. They say he’ll regain his long-term memory storage eventually. They say the amnesia will wear off soon, but, for now, this is who he would have to be. He may only have to live through losing you once, but you’re not sure if you could handle losing him again every day until he regains his memory. You wouldn’t have the heart to tell him.

Content Warning: My content is 18+, Minors DNI, head trauma, mentions of hospitals and the things that go in them, smut, fluff, angst, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, alcohol

Word Count: 14.2k

Author’s Note: This is dedicated completely to @dr-aculaaa I have had this piece in the works for months before getting it to the version that you are getting. Drac has tirelessly loomed over my docs like God beta reading, helping out with dialogue, and brainstorming these characters with me. This is as much her baby as it is mine, and I love her very very much.

Drac, I love you.

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Granite, noun, gran·​ite ˈgra-nət 

: a very hard natural igneous rock formation of visibly crystalline texture formed essentially of quartz and orthoclase or microcline and used especially for building and for monuments

: unyielding firmness or endurance

the cold granite of Puritan formalism.

the cold granite of your heart.

You were sullen, eyes unable to focus on any one speckle of the countertop in front of you. You ran your hands over it in a grounding motion, forcing tired eyes upon skin instead of stone. You blinked and it settled. The warmth of your palm could feel the slight unevenness of the surface, where the natural stone had been polished down just slightly too much. You watched it catch the light, glitter beneath your fingers snuffed out by the shadows of your touch. You watched the way the light cast a glowing square onto the ground in its early-morning iridescence. You had not slept, only watched the sunrise before you went to sleep. 

You missed the nonchalance of high school, when being sad was not an inconvenience, in the same way you missed the grandeur of college, where being sad was an art. Now, though you took comfort in the blanket of sadness, it was more obnoxious than anything. Your sighs held a certain bitchiness to them now, less sad than they were unimpressed. 

But you couldn’t help the way the hogs-hair bristles from your years-old, overused brushes stuck in the too-thick paint. You couldn't help the frustration that bubbled through when the linseed oil seeped through too thick and thinned the pigment of your paint so thin the underpainting shone through. It was hard enough to paint your heartbreak, without the added interruption of frustration and all of its woes. You wanted to pick at the scabs of old wounds, reopen them and let the blood drip down onto self-stretched canvases with ragged edges. You wanted your art to feel as raw as your heart did. 

Sometimes you wish you could go back, study something practical like education, be something stupid like an art teacher and talk about fulfillment with dead eyes, but you were too ceremoniously tortured for that. You thought about easy, but you didn’t want it. You craved goddamned difficult. You were goddamned difficult. 

But people bought it. Commissioned it to hang in their ugly suburban sprawls. Ugly art in ugly homes. Maybe people liked the subjectivity, felt like they could see their own heartbreak in it. You weren't so pretentious that you felt like the only person in the world to experience it. You certainly weren’t. Maybe there were people that were introspective, that wanted to feel the heartbreak when they dissociated into the white walls of their cookie-cutter homes. Maybe heartbreak was the only emotion they could force themselves to feel. 

Maybe they took comfort in it, too. 

You didn’t exactly know who you were anymore. Yes, at whatever bullshit ice breaker you could define yourself as an artist. An even more bullshit mediocre descriptor that served as a face to the sacrifice of self you went through for the sake of it all. That was usual, it just came with the territory. It was your only redeeming personality trait. You traded your sense of self for an established style that put cans in your cupboard and secondhand clothes on your back. 

Everything was covered in a wax sheen, the desensitization taking over your personage and casting a vignette across everything you saw. Not even sex was good anymore. It hadn’t been for a while. It had reduced itself to nothing more than another school of art— another subject of  heartbreak. Another thought process and another complication. Your entire sense of self came from academic validation. You were a bachelor of fine art, consistently praised by professors and featured in student exhibitions, graduated magna cum laude from your university. But now? You were lost in a vapid attempt to redefine yourself outside of the college community. This was the real world now, and sucked even worse than college had. 

Your studio apartment overlooked the heart of the historic downtown district of Hawkins, Indiana. It was gray this time of year, rain a near-constant promise over the thick smattering of clouds overhead. You paid entirely too much to live in eight-hundred square feet, but you could justify the cost with the stone hearth and floor-to-ceiling windows, even if that meant sleeping in a twin-sized mattress sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room. Your clothes hung messily on mismatched hangers over a laundry rack beside it. Your few enamel dishes cast drip-drying across the countertops in their own choreography. The rest of the place was barren, save for paint splatters over tarps, stacked canvases, and easels. Maybe it was too indulgent to live in-studio, but poverty would argue and win nearly every time. 

The tortured artist persona was trendy while you were in college, but you were just plain insufferable now. You didn’t even want to associate with yourself. You guessed that’s why you had Robin. She was just as insufferable as you were. 

She was the embodiment of everything you hated, a humbling experience in a flesh box wrapped with a short bob and a beret and adorned with a nose ring. You had met her in an Art: History of the French Renaissance class. She was a linguistics major with all of the subtlety of a clapped-out Honda Civic. She heavily romanticized the greater works of Van Gogh and made her brief year in a study-abroad program in Paris a personality trait. Though, you supposed, her redeemable feature was that she was loyal to a fault, albeit mean. Like a small, white dog that haunted your home instead of offering companionship and happiness. 

Though you, for the most part, kept it to yourself, you had made it known in the past that the Italian Renaissance was far superior to the French. You didn’t understand how she could so  heavily romanticize the ritzy portraits of those aristocratic jerk-offs when she had the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait directly in front of her. Maybe you just didn’t think Van Gogh was all that great. Maybe you hated him altogether. Maybe you hated yourself and you were just projecting– or you were jealous that he could be a tortured artist and people left and right seemed to romanticize his work but when you did it, you were just annoying. You knew, for a fact, that you hated yellow. And she sure liked to wear a lot of it.

The weathered oak was hard and uneven against the curvature of your spine, but you refused to move, the numbness in your fingers happening were the beginnings of the best high you had gotten in ages. There was a resonant patriarchal tenor shrill in your ears as you attempted to focus on the beams and exposed plumbing on the ceiling above you. She spoke it again, louder this time, 

“What are you gonna do with an art degree? Be a tortured artist forever?” You could hear her arm slap coldly against the ground next to yours and echo throughout the emptiness of your apartment. 

You groaned, though it was only proving her point, “I don't know, what are you gonna do with a linguistics degree? Be super fucking annoying?”

“At least I have a job.” 

And she did. She was a translator who rotated on call-circuit to Indianapolis for international business meetings, sometimes they even paid her fare to other countries, in essence getting to vacation on some company’s dime between meetings. The grandeur of it all was sickening. 

The ring from your land-line was shrill and echoing, shattering the silence of your own discontent like tempered glass, fragmenting and exploding into millions of little pieces. No one called here ever, and the suddenness of the tone made both Robin and yourself jump. You gave her a shove to the shoulder, a wordless gesture meaning, go get that. 

Her Hello was tepid, in the same meek demeanor she twirled the line around her finger. Her face registered from confusion to concern, a quick contortion that took place over the course of seconds, “Is he okay? What do you mean you can’t disclose that?” 

You sat up, propping your arms underneath you like the kickstands on a bike, brows knit together in question. She looks to you, holding the receiver out towards you, 

“For you.” She says, then silently and exaggeratingly mouths, About Steve.

What? You mouthed back.

Just– Pick. It. Up. She insisted in silent accuse, shaking the receiver towards you once again, 

You took the plastic receiver from her, fingers drawing the skin of your temples back and rubbing your eyes, “Hello?”

You don’t recognize the voice on the phone. A woman you know is older than yourself by the way she sounds, officiating and knowledgeable, but carrying a certain morosity with her. She held the kind of tone you know brought bad news. 

It feels like a fog, hearing his name again. Hearing that he is a person who is alive and living a life separate from you. It wasn’t right, and that unease turned itself in your stomach as you repeated back her medical jargon to yourself in layman’s terms. Steve fell off a ladder and hit his head. Again. He was unconscious but stable. The neighbor found him and brought him in and gave them your name and phone number 

“And why are you calling me?” You finally asked, followed by a long pause. You cursed yourself mentally, realizing the harshness of the statement after you had said it.  

The nurse sounded displeased, “You’re his wife, aren’t you? You were listed as the primary emergency contact.”

You hadn’t spoken to Steve in over a year, not since you broke it off with him. You trailed your thumb over the webbing between your middle and ring finger, still feeling the phantom sensation of the ring that sat there just a year prior. The dissidence churned in your stomach, and you couldn’t help the worry that filled you. 

Steve was the embodiment of everything you loved. He was smooth like linseed and fell into all of your texture. He didn’t understand it, but he agreed on the superiority of the Italian renaissance. If you hated the romanticization of Van Gogh, then so did he. Steve was agreeable. Steve was easy in all of the places you weren’t. 

Steve cared about people in the way that you didn’t. 

When you broke it off, your families, both found and biological, were shocked. Robin especially. You’d felt bad for her, caught in the crossfire between two of her best friends. You and Steve had both agreed not to make her choose. She was the sentient being of pure neutrality. It was as if she was a separate entity on two different timelines. If she was present in your reality, Steve did not exist. You assumed the same of her relationship with Steve. Though, a part of you still hoped he’d ask sometimes. 

Your brain is a flurry of Steve. His migraine medication, his medical history, his eyewear prescription, fuck his shoe size. You card through the rolodex of head traumas he had undergone through the years, recounting them between relationship markers. You don’t allow yourself the time to think, slamming the phone back down on the stand with a quick, I’ll be there. 

The drive to the hospital is sombering, though, you selfishly are less worried about him being okay than you are about what he would think of you showing up after they thought you were his wife. 

The smell of the hospital is pungent. Horrendously human and unnaturally sterile wrapped up into one fragrant demise. There are people buzzing, both physically and metaphorically, yet despite the controlled chaos the women at the front desk seem unnaturally calm. Uninterested, even. You tell them your name and who you are here to see, and yet, despite the fact that they had just reached out to you over the phone, they still attempt to validate your marriage. 

You knew it was nasty when, “If you don’t think I’m his wife, then why did you call asking if I was his wife?” rolled off your tongue, but you knew Robin would smooth the turmoil with an apology on your behalf. Frankly, you didn’t care. They buzzed you in without another word. 

There was an older man in a white coat standing in front of the room, flipping through a chart with Harrington across the top. The embroidery on it read neurology. You figured he would have to undergo a few whirring uncomfortable scans with any head trauma, but his face remained stoic. You couldn’t read him, and, personally, it was terrifying. 

“Mrs. Harrington?” He asked, holding a hand out. 

You took it as an appeasement, tried to let his old man charm seep into your bones and put you at ease. If he was old, that means he’s done this before. “Yes.” You knew it was a lie, but who else was going to claim him? Not his parents. There was no one else remaining in Hawkins but you and Robin, and she wasn’t family. Technically, you weren’t either, but you weren’t cruel.  

“I wanted to formally speak to you before you saw him. There’s a few things we need to discuss.” This sent a panicked chill through your bones. You expected to step into the room and they would ask you for permission to pull the plug or something. 

“Is he..?” Your face must have registered as panicked, because the neurologist quickly backpedaled with a grounding hand on your shoulder. 

“Oh, no. He’s fine ma’am, we weren’t seeing any bleeds or swelling that he can't recover from.”

That he can’t recover from. Meaning that there is, in fact, something wrong with his brain. You figured that much, with maybe six concussions within the last ten years, but you wouldn’t dwell on that fact too much for now, “But?”

“There is a small amount of swelling in the temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory storage. Your husband is suffering from a form of fixation amnesia that is pretty uncommon…”

You zone out listening to him talk, trying to piece everything together. Steve is okay. He lost his short-term memory for a while. Words like retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global are thrown around and bouncing back with a resounding tenor in your phonetic loop. Steve has forgotten the last year, he cannot store new memories for the time being. He forgot your breakup. He still believes you are together. He needs around the clock care. 

Steve was awake when they opened the door and pulled back the curtain to the room he had already been admitted to. At least someone in this administration was competent enough to get him into a room instead of keeping him in the ER. 

“Baby.” A large, flat palm reaches itself towards you. You stood in the corner in silence, waiting for someone that wasn’t you to speak. But, it just so happened that you were the only person in the room. You don’t realize he’s talking to you, so he says it again, a little more firmly, and you walk up and sit at the chair next to his bed, avoiding the hand outstretched towards you. 

Though, in all of his firmness, where the weight of your elbow finds a dip in the bed, his hands finds your arm. It searches for your hands and finds them with a firm grip. They’re warm like you remember. Steve was always warm. 

“Hi, Steve.” You keep your voice quiet, remembering the days of migraine management. Barely-there decibels creating resounding, echoing pain around his skull. 

“What happened?” He asks you, “ –-head hurts.” He manages, burying his face into the polyfilament of the pillow below him. 

You tried to make your explanation concise, only giving him the cause and not the prognosis. You’d deal with that at a later time. “You fell off a ladder, hit your head pretty hard. Cullen brought you in.” You explained. 

“The dentist? With the labs?” He asked you, and it made you laugh. Steve always remembered people by their cars or their dogs. 

You agreed with him nodding your head despite his closed eyes, “Yes, the dentist with the labs.”

“He’s a really nice guy.”

“He sure is.” 

+

The discharge process was long and rigorous the next morning, swarms of insurance and neurologists and shrinks and case managers. All faces to a crowd that apparently had never communicated with the other department a day in their sad, corporate lives. 

Steve had no car, no means of getting home, and, quite frankly, no recollection of the year leading up to the accident. So, you loaded him into your car, pulling out as slowly as possible and driving at least ten under the speed limit the entire way. He seemed chipper as his hand found yours resting over the shifter, hands meeting your movements as your gears moved up and down with the rhythm of traffic– almost as if he was driving the car himself. You silently thanked him for the movement, already distracted by the constant fear of rattling his already tenderized brain any more than it had been. 

The street looked like it had frozen in time as you slipped past its residents unscathed. The dentist, surrounded by the flurry of yellow labs, waved as you drove by. The house sat in a caul de sac, the one you used to call yours, the third one in from the end between a vacation home and a stalled fixer-upper. It was a smaller Victorian built at the turn of the century. Your selling point was the turret at the front end of the house, sporting floor-to-ceiling windows and housed by oak buttresses. 

You pictured Steve carrying you through the threshold of your home the night of your wedding as you half-dragged him from the driveway to the bedroom. Some of your spring daylilies were coming out of dormancy, the pertinent blooms bulbous and waiting to open. You remembered picking the pink ones, to match the pink peonies and coneflowers that you had planted alongside it. 

This house was a dream. Actually, this house was his dream. Encased in dark oak and copper plumbing. You just wanted a place to paint – and, for this, he had spared no expense either. 

You remembered the day he’d surprised you with the keys:

You had felt soggy, the stale coffee and milk drying into the stomach of your apron and hardening into a sugary breast plate. You knew you’d never be able to get the smell out, instead understanding that was just a part of life when you were a barista. Along with the burns and odds-and-ends scrapes and bruises. 

Steve had been waiting for you on a barstool in front of the door, looking like he had something to say. You knew he had most likely been pacing back and forth from the couch to the barstool as he had waited for you to get home. You weren’t a stranger to his mannerisms. Living with him had been a front-row ticket to The Steve Harrington Show. Sometimes you joked that David Attenborough should join you for dinner, narrating Steve in his natural habitat. 

He had greeted you with a kiss, saccharine sweet like everyone before it, grip on your waist like a vice and a smile that he couldn’t help on his lips. 

“I picked something up today,” He mumbled against your lips, “for the house.” 

The incomplete set sat freshly unwrapped in its paper casings. The Blue Willow china was beautiful nonetheless. Steve had taken a liking to it almost more than you had. You didn’t mean to get annoyed, you had just had a long day. Though Steve knew it, your defensiveness caught him off-guard. 

He would never admit it, but he took after his mother in his eyes and in his shopping addiction. You knew you were moving, house-hunting on weekends and late evenings. You didn’t want to begin your life together in this apartment, which had been filling quickly with heirlooms and antique pieces collected from both shops and family members, “for the house” and, “as an engagement gift”. 

“Steve, what happened to saving money?” You had asked him, reaching behind you to untie your apron to throw into the basket that needed  to be dragged downstairs to the wash. “We’ll never get a house if you keep spending the money as soon as we get it.” 

“Actually,” He said to you, pretty lips turning into a smile as he dug around in his pockets, “We already have a house.” 

He watched the cogs turn in your head, your face exchanging confusion for shock as your eyes widened and you brought your hands up to cover your mouth. You couldn’t help the small years that spill from your eyes and you jump on Steve, laughing along with him as he spun you in a circle. 

You remembered buzzing the entire way there, only remembering to pull your apron off once you tried to buckle your seatbelt. It was dark out, and the streetlights in the historic neighborhood were sparse, if present at all. 

The house was a great cathedral in front of you, rickety and crumbling in nature. 

“The bones are good.” He reminded you, “We can take care of the rest.” 

“I love it!” You squealed to him, throwing your arms around his neck. It caught him off guard, your enthusiasm. 

That night, he refused to carry you through the threshold of the house. He said he wanted to save it for the wedding night. Only do it once so it stays special.  

You sat alone at the dining table, cigarette in hand. You rarely smoked anymore, but you figured this ordeal permissed one. He kept the binders of your wedding planning, all of the stuff you bought, the cause of your cold feet. They were tucked away next to the dining table in the built-in for easy access. They looked like they had been untouched save for a finger print along the spine of the binder that remained bare of any dust or particles– like he had gone to take them out, but hesitated. You looked up and around at the main living space. 

He was going to build you a new life and it didn’t look like he had touched it for a year. 

+

The first day is just playing the game. You were aware he would have temporary, moderate-to-severe memory loss. You attempted to recall the words that swirled around your phonetic loop. Words from neurologists and trauma doctors and nurses alike. 

Steve knows he was in the hospital and knows desperately how horrible this migraine was. He spent it in the dark, on his regular dose of sumatriptan, supplemented wonderfully in a vicodin-induced haze. You did not expect him to remember today, nor did you expect him to care. You know he is alive from barely-spoken words between exchanges of water and his prescription, which, thank God, hadn’t changed in the last year. 

You sleep on the couch. 

The second day, you are up before him, sifting through the pots and pans you’d let him keep to try and feed both him and yourself. You are surprised when he gets out of bed before 9:00, and even more surprised when he asks, 

“So, what are you going to paint today?” Through squinted eyes, lean arm braced against the counter to support the weight of his body. He sips idly from the orange juice glass he used to take the sumatriptan, but not the vicodin. 

It’s not like it was a question that strayed away from the mundane, however, it had been almost a year since you’d heard it last. You’d tried not to let the surprise register on your face as you’d continued to stir the eggs around in the pan. You let the corner of the wooden spoon scrape some of the dried remnants of soft egg from the sides of the pan where the butter hadn’t reached. You shrugged with a soft, I don’t know, unsure of how to answer. 

As Steve retreats back to the master bedroom, you hear the kick of the plumbing and the steady stream of water rattling through the house. You thanked him silently for buying an old place, the plumbing was loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. 

The knock on the window sends you reeling back like the crack of a gun. Your ménage-a-trois with a nose ring and encased the ugliest yellow beret like some gay French Alp paratrooper stood guard outside the bay seating of your kitchen window. You hated yellow, but, for today, you would keep it to yourself. She came bearing gifts. The only suitcase you owned was filled with the only clothes you owned, and as many art supplies as she could carry with the promise of more. Today, she bore her yellow beret as a barrel full of brandy around her neck– a drooly Saint Bernard to your avalanche. You propped the window open on its stakes, cinnamon color mixed with dirt crumbling from its unused hinges. 

She looked around in secrecy, “How is he?” 

“Better today. He just got in the shower.” You shrugged, looking back over your shoulder. 

“How’s the…” She circled her splayed hands over her head, signaling amnesia. You wish she would just say it instead of tiptoeing around the subject. 

You shrugged again, running a hand over your head, “I’m not sure yet. He knows who I am, but, ugh, I don’t know.” You sighed, sitting down at the bench and burying your face in your hands.

Robin leaned against the windowsill, reaching a hand through to push your hair back out of your face, “What’s wrong? Why is that bad?” 

“He still thinks we’re together. Like– doesn’t remember that we’re not together.” You said through your palms, knowing that her linguistics degree also covered your dramatics and mumbling. 

“Oh God,” She gasped to you, not quite able to contain herself, “What are you gonna do?” 

“I’m just gonna have to roll with it, I guess.” You slurred past your arms, willing back the onslaught of stress-tears beginning to pool against your tightline. You couldn't abandon him now, not when he was like this. 

Your former studio, nestled at the base of the turret within the house, surrounded by windows encased in stained-glass embellishments and flying buttresses, remained the only room in the house that was finished. You sat on your spinning stool, ignoring the creak from the way you pushed yourself back and forth on the balls of your feet. Your eyes fixated on the piece in front of you. It had been sitting on this easel for a year– the only one too heavy for you to move on your own, however, you were past asking for Steve’s help. So here it sat, holding your work once again, arms open in waiting. 

“Woah, you work fast.” Steve’s voice startled you, the stool squeaked again as you jumped. 

He walked up behind you, hands smoothing over your shoulders in apology– his skin still shower-warm and tacky from the water, “What are you talking about?” 

Your voice was much softer than you initially intended it to come out as. It resonated under the guise of a smile rather than the initial annoyance you turned to as a defense mechanism. 

“Didn’t you start that painting last week?” He asked, smoothing a broad hand down the exposed expanse of your upper arm, turning his face to look at the painting, “It’s done now.”

You tried not to let the confusion register on your face. You had finished the painting well over a year ago. The oil had long-since cured. You thanked the universe softly for Steve’s untrained eye. 

“I guess I just got really into it.” You shrugged, feigning your own insufferability for his well being– just this once. 

You had forgotten what it was like to be held by Steve. He lingered around your proximity in a near-shroud of constance. You had forgotten the soft feeling of nimble fingers as they grazed across any exposed skin you had. You had forgotten about warm hands cupping your cheek or twirling the ends of your hair. You had forgotten what the warmth of his felt like, in the same way that you moved away from the slow-creeping sun square that beamed from the windowsills. You didn’t realize how long you had been fighting any warmth after him. 

That night, his broad hands lured you to bed with the promise of warmth. You try to remember the way it felt a year ago, if it resounded in the same way. His hands were still a comfort as they encased you in a tight embrace. His breath still felt the same coming from his nose and traveling across your shoulder, dotted intermittently by haste staccato kisses. 

You tried to hold on to that feeling after he had long been asleep, and held on to it again as you peeled his hands from your waist. You let it slip from your fingers as you slid from the bed and let your feet pad across the hardwood flooring. You laid it to rest next to you on the couch, let it fold into itself and hibernate once more. 

By the next morning, Steve’s brain had pistoned back into his regular routine, which consisted of a god-awful early morning jog. It was almost obnoxious how perfect he was for this neighborhood, golden skin glowing against the rays of morning, efflorescence in nature and ugly, heinous perfection. By the time he gets back, it’s still ungodly early. The sun only casts a blue haze into the atmosphere in its feigning presence. 

You could guess by the way he tried to control his heavy breaths as he walked through the door that he was dewy, shirt tucked into his jogging shorts and hair raked back with sweaty fingers. You would not force your eyes open to look at him, leaving any feelings of adverse adoration back in the white quilt you had abandoned over a year ago. He walked up to you, feat unabashedly heavy against the hollowness of the floor despite the carpet muffling them. His hand was warm and heavy against the exposed expanse of your hip, riding your shirt up further.

“What are you doing out here? You know this couch kills your bac-” He started, pausing abruptly in surprise,  “Where did that come from?” 

“What?” You mumbled through closed eyes, still only barely awake. 

He traces the tattoo on your back, rough fingers tracing over the thickened lines of ink, “This.”

You didn’t bother to crack an eye open, instead folding your arms in further on yourself and readjusting against the couch cushions, “Gee, Steve, you must've hit your head really hard.”

“What?” 

“What?” You asked him, finally waking up enough. You pushed your arms underneath you, squinting at him as best you could through the haze of the morning light. 

“I hit my head?” He asked, confusion– then terror– registering on his face. 

You sat up fully, realizing then that, in your daze, you had effectively put your foot in your mouth. The look on your face, supplemented by the look on his face tells you that there is no way that you could backtrack now. 

“... Yeah-” 

“When?”

“Three days ago.” You started, and he let out a deep exhale, almost in relief that it hadn’t been longer. 

He turned to look at you, and you reached out to grab his hand. He took it, gripping yours like a vice, but never enough to hurt, “What did I do?”

“You were up on a ladder, doing something with the electrical. You fell and hit your head pretty good. Cullen brought you in.” You shrugged, trying to play it off. 

“Where were you?” He asked, it wasn’t accusing. He just tried to piece everything together. Still, you couldn’t help the pang of guilt that pooled in your chest after he said it. 

You weren’t going to break his heart, not now. Not while he was already fragile like this. You hated lying, but anything was better than a category five meltdown. He shook now, acting too tough to hide it. Steve was strong for everyone, too strong for too long. 

“Am I okay?” 

“Yeah, Steve. You’re okay.” You reassured him, no matter what. 

+

That night, you put a band-aid over your neck, despite the itching, burning sensation from the adhesive, it would live there for now. You said it was to save yourself the trouble. You didn’t know why you’d thought to care so much. You also don’t know why you felt so guilty. Maybe it’s because you weren’t there. Maybe it’s because you were here now and you shouldn’t have been. All you know is that you can’t break Steve’s fragile psyche now, not again. 

Steve’s routine was stone-set and rigorous, you’d remembered that much. He was the kind of person that thrived off of routine and egg-whites alone. You’d envied him for his discipline. 

He started out of bed every morning at the heinous, ungodly hour of five. Every morning, without fail, he rose silently, rubbed his hands over his face, fought the urge to disturb you and lost every time. He would smooth a tender hand over your hair and slip out the door with a soft, waking kiss, and proceed with a jog. Every morning, he would run his 3.1 miles, 5,000 kilometers, and every morning, he would slip back through the front door. 

Every morning, you woke to the smell of a better-than-cheap cup of coffee with a sweet kiss, and he would whisper to you that he achieved the run in thirty minutes– a personal best, and you wondered if one day it would slip below that number. Without missing a beat, he would place the coffee on a coaster placed there for that specific purpose on your antique bedside table, and your body would roll into the dip in the mattress where his body sat, his warm hand circling waking patterns across your bare back while you sifted through the prevalent swarm of too-little sleep. 

Because, every afternoon, Steve would take his Saturday (which was actually a Tuesday) and  paint that heinous yellow wall in the guest bedroom over with an earthy green tone– one that, without fail, would remind him of you enough to where he would seek you out to tell you. 

And every night, without fail, you would slip from the bed in silence, pull the heinous yellow paint bucket delivered thankfully by Robin out of the bushes from the window that was set just slightly too high to be comfortable reaching over, and paint that lovely green wall back to that awful, ugly yellow. 

There were no discrepancies to his routine. He was an unfortunate creature of habit, and it was so dreadfully painful that you indulged him in this routine. Because, every day, he would pull those old wedding binders out– no longer covered in dust and forgotten memories– and pick the same three options for wedding china that you never saw the point of anyways. Every day, he would try to cheekily pull you in for a shower, and you would make up the same excuse over the same dishes from the same meal that you had eaten to the point where you were just choking it down. 

And you would do it all over again. 

Because, if that same meal and awful yellow paint and ungodly six o’clock wake time would be enough to stop him from feeling like that again, you would keep doing it. 

Your nightly decompression was your saving grace. The only way you felt like a human again. Because every night, Steve would sit and read the same chapter out of the same book, and you would get in some still-life practice. 

Steve was pretty always, even in his blissful unawareness. Even in his ignorance. Even in the fact that he was no longer yours. Steve was pretty by fact. Pretty by nature. You had gotten good at drawing him, you knew where to block the square of his head and the triangle of his nose. You knew where his glasses rested against his face and exactly where to place every mole. You knew where the bone beneath would ebb and flow and where the warm light from that stained glass bowl-lamp would accentuate and valley against them like rivers. Steve was a topographical map and you had explored every inch in these moments of blissful dissonance. You did not need to waste your time getting the likeness correct by now, only getting in the fine details. 

Every night, your wonderful moment away from the catatonic nature of this ordeal would end when Steve would finish his chapter. You would act like you didn’t notice, like you weren’t staring at him. He would act like he didn’t know you were. He would press a tender kiss to your shoulder, smile at the work in your hands, tell you how talented you were, and finalize the ritual with a kiss to your cheek– an invite to bed. 

You know there will come a time when there will be a deviation from this routine, and you try to prepare yourself for this by running every possibility through your head. Calming tactics in the event that he has a category four meltdown, the words you would say and the explanations you would give him, but nothing prepared you for this deviation. Not in the slightest. 

You are unsuspecting as you wipe down the kitchen counters, melancholy with your towel in hand. Your hair is still wet and dripping uncomfortably down your back. You breathe deeply, enjoying the smell of kitchen lemon multi-surface cleaner. Steve approaches you. You feel his presence before you see him or feel his arms around your waist. You indulge in his warmth before he even touches you, before he reaches for your hand. You bask in his radiance before you feel the cold smoothness of gold scrape across your ring finger. 

“You forgot this after your shower.” He whispers through a kiss against the tender skin beneath your ear. He does not understand the devastation his words have caused you, not in his innocence. 

You reconstructed the scene in fragments of memories:

They were lawn seats, and you had no idea how he scored them. This concert had been sold out for weeks. The Tragic Kingdom tour was potentially the greatest album to ever grace this earth, and Steve agreed– potentially more than you did. 

When your eyes turned to get a good look at his face, it was hard to tell where that light sheen of sweat ended and the glitter that wafted in the air began. He was so fucking beautiful. You could look at him forever, put him in a jar on a shelf to admire for a lifetime. He was more blonde than brunette at this time of year, gold-skinned and eager. The July rays had set minutes ago, yet seemed to settle their clinging remnants in his eyes. 

His eyes that shone when they met yours, the eyes that gripped on to your hands, met your mouth, and settled within your gaze. 

You came in with the breeze, on Sunday morning…

You almost missed his words over the ambient concert sounds around you, louder now as Gwen started the beginnings of the song. Had you not been staring at him, you figured with your mouth open like a trout, you would have missed the two quiet words he mustered. 

“Marry me?”

You didn’t say anything back, you didn't need to. You remember the feeling of your knees sinking into the grass beneath you, wet against your skin. You remember how his body was too-warm in the staleness of the July air and the hardness of his body pressed tight against yours. Any qualms he had about saying more than those words disappeared in an instant, your hand willingly accepting the modest diamond encased in a gold band the only answer he ever needed. 

You thought back on that time, on the I love you’s and the please hold me’s. 

You remembered the I can’t do this anymore.

The problem was never committing to Steve. He had you. He had all of you. He could take you whole or in pieces in any slice or interval or fracture that he could have ever dreamed up. Though, that was the problem. You had committed yourself to him fully, never to the idea of committing yourself to anyone else, never thought of having to share him or change what you had. You lived in comfort, willful bliss. You’d never wanted anything more. 

But you saw that hopeful glimmer in his pretty eyes. The ones that looked like chunky baby legs and bubbly giggles. The distant memories that sounded like mimed laughs and raspberries against new skin. You were not maternal, not by nature nor by instinct. You felt broken, not wanting that. 

And knowing how well Steve was made for it. 

How he mapped rooms in the house with oak cribs and baby-pastel paint colors. How he pointed out names he liked and stared for just a little too long at happy families in passing. 

That night, long after Steve had fallen asleep, those dusty old wedding binders called out to you, screamed your name in birdsongs and infant wails. You clung to them, still covered in that awful yellow paint on the floor of that awful yellow room, and you cried awful tears that stained the pages of the awful thing that could have been. 

Except that could have started to feel less awful. It felt more like a should have now. 

You kept the wedding band on, convincing yourself it was more for him than yourself. 

+

“Hello?”

The shrillness of the landline still rings in your ears despite picking up the sound of a voice on the other end. Instinctively, you twirl your fingers into the cord. 

“Hey.” Her voice is scratchy on the other line. You know who it is, yet you still ask. 

“Who is this?” 

“Bill fucking Clinton.” You can hear the way her eyes roll in her voice. You almost find it endearing. 

You roll your eyes back, knowing that she can’t see it. You hope the sentiment is the same. “Hi, Robin.”

Silence on the line. You know what she will ask. She asks almost every other day or in the in-betweens where you can catch each other and she doesn’t have to fake a conversation on the phone with Steve. 

“How is he?” 

You feel like she knows the answer by now, she knows every part of his routine and exactly where you fit into it, “He’s fine. He just got into the shower.” 

There was a silence again, this time slightly more deafening. It felt like she was thinking, pondering the exact thing she was going to say and how exactly she planned on saying it. 

“How are you?” You hated it, despised it. It almost made your blood run cold. You didn’t do feelings, you were just a pawn in this big, fucked up game. It was your obligation to live in this lie. You had already hurt Steve once, the least you could do was keep him safe now. 

“Fine, Robin. I’m good.” You willed, regurgitated it like a curse. 

She sighed, hoping she wouldn’t have to pry but knowing she was going to, “Ha-ha. But really?”

“Really what?”

“How are you?”

You fell silent, the static basso of the line between you buzzing like a flatline as the tears welled up and over your lash line. The first sob you choke out is louder than you expect, and draw your knees up to your chest in the bay as you cry over the phone, unable to find words and unable to speak if you had then anyways. 

For once robin shuts the fuck up. For once she doesn’t have anything to say. Somehow you wish she would. Instead, she lets you cry for a few minutes in silence. She lets you let it out. 

“Do you need me to come over?” She asks, voice a welcome comfort not that you can breathe through the snot and tears running down your face. 

“No.” You sniffle, wiping the stream of facial fluids across your sleeve like you didn’t disgust yourself when you did it. 

“Do you need a professional?”

“No.”

There was a sigh, followed by another moment of silence. She didn’t know how to help you, though, she didn’t really think you needed help. 

“Hey, Robin?” You finally spoke up, eyes finally dry and your throat finally clear enough to be coherent. 

“Yeah?”

“Tell Monica Lewinsky I said hi.” 

+

You have a headache, simply put. That you could supplement. The ache and the pressure behind your eyes could be solved with acetaminophen and a glass of water and a bath. The ache in your chest was less tangible, and would have to wait until the ache in your head was fixed to even be evaluated. 

You’d managed to slip past Steve getting dressed in the convex opening of your walk-in closet, light spilling yellow against the dark floors in the dim lighting of the master bedroom. The one thing you’d greatly missed about this house that your apartment did not have the luxury of was the cast-iron tub, in its claw-footed, wing-backed glory. The water spilled steam from the mouth of the faucet as it spilled down the white porcelain glaze, hot enough to turn your skin red and draw the overage of blood from between your temples. You dimmed the lights, shoulders lax as you slumped your arms sideways over the edge of the tub, water tinged green from both the reflection of the seafoam walls and the capful of eucalyptus epsom salts dissolving in the water around you. 

You close your eyes, focusing more on the crisp smell of the water instead of the pounding of your head. You rest one arm beneath your head as a barrier between your temple and the porcelain, allowing the other to hang off the side. 

You don’t miss the way Steve slips in, nearly silently. The change of air pressure that came with his presence was what gave him away– that and the soft click of the chair legs against the hexagonal tile as he rotated it to face you. 

His touch is so gentle. His touch feels like the only inherent good in the world around you. His touch is soft enough to bring you to tears. And it does. 

You cannot help but let two roll down your face, not upset enough for it to scrunch up in the ugly sobs that you heaved on the kitchen floor to Robin. They splat quietly on the tile beneath you, and you sigh like an exasperated hound. One deep, shuddering breath beneath Steve’s hand. 

You cannot confide in him, even if he asks. You wonder if that fact hurts worse than understanding that he is going to wake up eventually. 

Steve does not pry. He’s really good at that. Instead, he rakes his fingers across the grain of your hair, thrown upwards with reckless abandon– fingers both a consolation and a devastation. He wishes desperately to know. Wishes desperately that he could fix it, but he knows this sadness. Knows the pain of forcing you to talk. The only thing that hurts worse than not knowing is the pain of seeing you cry. 

But he’s so tender, and he’s so endearing. You can’t help but want him. 

“Can I get you anything?” He says to you, just above a whisper. He even dips his head down closer to yours so you can hear, but you’re already clawing at the collar of his shirt. 

“Wanna be close.” You mutter, words muffled against your arm. He understands it anyway. 

His skin is hot. Hot enough to still be felt under your hands despite the temperature of the water. You missed the texture of it, smooth, interrupted by soft constellations of moles and bone. Quickly, and with grace, he stands– pulling your hands from his body for a mere few, painful seconds. He strips his clothes quickly, and you watch the muscles of his shoulders ripple as he maneuvers to pull his shirt over them. 

Silken skin glides across your back, the hot water squelching between your bodies as he slides into the tub behind you, arms encircling your waist in an iron-clad grip. Caring and grounding all at once. 

His lips are soft as they press a hot path against your neck and you sigh, tilting your head further away to allow him the affection you so desperately need. 

“That’s it, honey. Let me give you what you need.” It’s a low growl, not quite a whisper. His voice keeps that resonant patriarchal basso that vibrates against your neck and settles in your coccyx. His kisses turn to soft nips, as he takes the suppleness of your flesh between his teeth– never enough to hurt. 

His hands reach up to cup your breasts, squeezing tenderly as he runs a thumb over a pert nipple. He leaves one hand on your chest, gently pinching and rolling the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, another hand sliding over the hills and valleys of your body to find a home between your legs. 

Despite the water surrounding you, there is a much more distinct slickness that has gathered there in decadent anticipation of him. When his thick fingers finally breach the threshold of you, it is both a devastation and a need. Slowly, he finds the bud of your clit, circling it slowly. 

You suck in a breath, accompanied by a soft whine. When you arch your back, you feel him press against your back, hard and heavy against your flesh. 

“Come on, honey,” He urges, a heeding groan fans across your shoulder disguised as a breath, “I’m gonna get you there. Just gotta let me do it.” 

His middle and ring finger circle your core, easing their way in. You relinquish the new, subtle stretch. His other hand leaves its place on your breast, coming down to hold the soft flesh of your lower belly, creating a soft pressure that soothed the ache in your core as he held you there, relentlessly pumping in and out of you with his fingers. The other hand crept lower, the other two fingers continuing the rhythmic circling of your throbbing clit. 

You cried out, the coil in your core hitting that vapid crescendo and tumbling over the edge with shaky legs and breaths. Steve continued working his fingers within you, easing you through the climax of your orgasm and slowing when you whined. His arms remained around you like a vice, holding you in your place against him. 

He nibbled at your ear softly as you came down from that wonderful, floaty place, and whispered softly, “You did so good.” against your neck. His hands rubbed the insides of your thighs in slow, soothing circles. You felt the water from the tub rush over his arms and create whirlpools over the valleys of your skin. 

It was then that you turned, your arms locking around his neck and your lips crashing into his. Your body fell against his with enough force to push a wave across the edge of the tub, but the wet floor was an issue for another time. Your own carnal desire to have him seated within you was far worse than your desire to maintain the grout in the bathroom floors. This much you knew. 

The stretch was welcome and familiar, albeit foreign to you, now. You cried out, as you slid down to the hilt and seated yourself firmly atop his thighs, either one of your thighs bracketing around his. You felt the scrape of hair from his thighs scratch against your skin, broad hands planted firmly on the plush of your waist, and deep, guttural groan fan out across the crevice of your neck where he buried his head. 

Your hand clutched the nape of his neck for purchase, fingers burying themselves in the damp locks there and tugging softly. It draws a gasp from pretty pouted lips as his head tilts back in reverie. He looks at you through dreamy, half-closed lids, reminding himself to draw himself back and forth again, now that you have adjusted to the sensation of him filling you. 

“Oh, baby. Honey.” He cried, pistoning his hips upward, more rhythmically now. It was more of a cry now than it was a plea, and a rosy blush crept its way across the bridge of his nose, spread over his cheeks, and kissed the tips of his ears. He was ethereal as it spread across his chest and he heaved whines into your mouth like he needed to feel himself inside you to survive. You caught the way his dark lashes kissed the apples of his cheeks, and the way the space between his brows scrunched as he huffed breaths towards your face. 

There is a realization in the impending vapid crescendo where Steve attempts to push you over the edge a second time. Your body is on fire as he rubs fast, sloppy circles around your already sensitive clit. He falls from the edge first.

“O-oh, fuck.” He cried out in pleasure as a tear rolled from beautifully crinkled eyelids. Though, he desperately urges you to continue bouncing with fingers buried into the plush that accumulates where your hips fold. His thumb is still relentless over your sensitive bud until he pushes your already teetering form over the edge as well. 

He holds you close, strong arms around your shaking frame and wet hands smoothing back your flyaway hairs. He presses a kiss to your forehead, guiding your head between his palms and trailing them down your nose. He lands his final kiss, longer this time, against your lips and fans his palms across the expanse of your cheeks and neck. 

You whine when he pulls himself from you, suddenly empty. Steve soothes you with a, “Shh. It’s okay honey, ‘ve got you.” as he pushes water up from the tub and over your cold, drying shoulders. 

You cannot tell if you feel better or worse, having him in this way again. You think of the way he slid the ring back over your finger, and relived all of the gilded moments of your past. You’d always felt like a ghost in this house, haunting the remnants of what the life that should have been. But this did not feel like the life that you walked out on. This felt like the life that you chose. 

Steve felt like your husband when he kissed the skin of your shoulder in the early mornings after his runs. He felt like your husband when he sprinkled the feta into your spinach omelet in the morning, and when he sat behind you to watch you paint like you couldn’t sense him behind you, and when he gave you that goofy smile and wave when you caught you peering at him from the bay curtains while he tended to the lawn, 

And he certainly felt like your husband when he helped you from the tub on shaky legs, while he dried your legs with fresh towels and planted sweet kisses against your ankles and knees as he did so. He felt like your husband as he held your hand and guided you with soft hands to bed. He felt like your husband when he pulled your head to his chest beneath the sheets, sneaking a not-so-secret sniff to the crown of your head and smiling a not-entirely-concealed smile. 

Steve may not have been yours anymore, but he was yours for tonight. 

+

The morning light is dappled when you wake, and the way it sparkles hurts your eyes. You half expect to see Steve, feel his lips against your shoulder and relinquish the warmth that radiates from his skin like the sun as he invades your waking space. Instead, you find him sleeping, golden and beautiful under the dappled light, white linens draped over the oiled ellipses of his hips and legs tangled in the sheets. You bury your nose into the valley of his spine and he jolts awake. You can’t help but to giggle. 

“Jesus, what the fuck?” He starts, pushing himself up on his elbows, stomach pressed to the bed. 

“Oh, good morning, Steve.” His brow furrows as he looks at you. Steve does not look happy to see you. Steve looks confused. 

“What are you even doing here?” He asked, more towards the sheets than you. He buried his face in his hands, groan echoing in his palms before he asked, “Oh, God, how drunk did I get?”

Your heart sinks. He is awake. There is no retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global to worry about anymore. It is just you, and him, and your new sense of impending doom. Though, how impending could the doom really be if it was staring you in the face this very moment? Impending should have been reserved for when you decided to move back into the house you tried to build. Impending was reserved for the phone call from the hospital. No, this was doomed from the start, and now, it was blowing up in your face. 

You can tell he doesn’t know what happened, and that he has a throbbing headache. 

“Here– let me–” You start, turning over to grab his prescription from the drawer in your– Steve’s bedside table. He stood, suddenly. 

“No– ugh,” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to apply some pressure there, “I think you need to go.” 

“No, Steve, let me explain–”

“Just, go. Please.” He pleaded. 

You would not argue. You especially would not cry in front of him, not now. Instead, you scrambled the bathroom floor for your clothes that were shed before your bath, pulling them on, scrambling for your purse and car keys on the counter, and promptly leaving with those items to your name. It was foolish for you to build another home there, to leave remnants of yourself and reminders to him of just how fucked you were around his house. You don’t remember breathing on the drive back to your apartment. The air in this place is stale and, if you owned more things, you figured they’d be shrouded in a fine layer of dust from your negligence. 

When Robin answers the phone, you are incoherent. At first, she figures it is the shoddy signal from her company-issued brick phone, though she eventually realizes that it is not the faulty technology. You are in fact, choking on words and hot tears. Robin has a nagging feeling that she knows what happened, and your few words, “Steve” and, “fucked up” both confirm her suspicions and are reminiscent of a time where she was caught in the crossfire over a year ago. 

Robin’s car zig-zags in and out of the morning traffic, shaving both minutes off of her commute time to your apartment and her life. Her entrance to your apartment is dramatic, tired screeching and door hitting the wall so hard you can almost feel the security deposit solidifying in you landlord’s bank account. She greets you with a hug that you don’t ask for– you don’t need to. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. 

Instead, she stands there, in the nearly empty room where your studio once stood, and she holds you. And you cry. And you want to scream and want to throw things and want to curse the universe and ask why me? But you know why you stand here. You know that you are shitty. So instead, you sit here, and feel sorry for yourself, and let Robin hold you. Because, no matter how shitty you are, she won’t say anything about it. 

This ugly nostalgia rears its even uglier head when the phone rings shrill, deafening against the brick walls that encase you in this place worse than they had when there were paintings occupying this space. She slides across the concrete on the floor just slightly so she can grab her phone.

“Hey– you busy?” Steve asks, and she can tell he’s been crying. 

You look at her, eyes red and confused. 

“No,” Robin lied to him, it was small and white, “What’s going on?” 

Who is it? You mouth. 

Robin is inherently a bad liar. She could say it was her boss, or her mom, or a telemarketer. Instead, she stares back, contemplating the lie and the inevitable conversation she would have to make up on the spot. She decides it is not worth the effort, and mouths back, 

Steve. 

You sit up, looking at her with wide eyes. You will not ask to eavesdrop, though, there’s a small, shitty part of you that wants to. 

“Something happened.” He started, and she knows exactly what happened, “but I don’t exactly know what.” 

What’s he saying? You mouth back at her, though, she holds a pointed finger up at you in waiting. 

“Are you in trouble?” She asks, “Do you need help?” 

“Look, I don’t know. Can you just come over? I’ll explain everything.” He asks, voice small. He sounds like he is on the precipice of a breakdown. She hangs up the phone, knowing you know what she is going to ask next. 

“Hey, are you gonna be okay? I’ve gotta–”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You can go.” You tell her, pointedly, though, she doesn’t fully believe it. However, your nosiness outweighs your ability to be this hurt for this long, “Look, can you just give this back to him? It doesn’t feel right.” and it's not right, it never was right. 

You slide the ring from your finger, closing Robin’s palm around it. She opens her palm once again, twirling the diamond between her fingers. She slides it over her middle finger, diamond side in to protect it. 

“Yeah, I can.”

“Thanks, Rob.” 

“Call me.” She says to you, and It is both a threat and a consolation. 

“Okay.” 

+

There is an aura that has overtaken the house since this morning. It was threatening. Robin had sensed the shift from her car, clear up the avenue. There was something frighteningly wrong here. 

Her knock on the door was poignant, scared almost, and she held her breath as Steve turned the knob. He looked tired. He looked spent. He looked like he wanted to cry, and yell, and throw things, and curse the universe, but was too morose to perform any action but stare blankly at Robin. 

“What happened?” She asked, taking the invited, but welcome, step through the threshold of the front door. She knew what had happened already, there were remnants of you strung about this place like shrapnel. Steve avoided them like landmines, even though the explosion had already happened. 

“She– she,” She meaning you, he started, but didn’t know where to begin. He sat on the couch, bouncing back with the weight and force of his body thrown against the cushions. 

“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Robin finally asked.

Steve looked up at her, red eyes slick with freshly fallen tears, “What?” 

“Steve, you hit your head. You fell off a ladder and knocked something loose.” Robin explained to him, voice soft as she said it, “You couldn’t remember anything that happened in the last year.” 

Robin wished you were here to help her explain. She wished she could remember the big words you remembered to describe what was wrong with him– maybe it would help him understand better. Maybe you should have come. She could have been able to act as a buffer between the anger– 

“You fucking knew about this?” Steve interrupted her thoughts, he had stared for a few seconds while he figured out his thoughts. 

Robin went quiet, more quiet than she already had been, “Yeah. I did.” It was a statement riddled with shame, though she didn’t quite know for what. 

“Steve, you were sick fo–”

He stood, rage apparent in his eyes as he poked his finger into Robin’s shoulder, “No, Rob, I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to me like that but you?” Robin didn’t say anything to him. Instead she just looked up at him, “Whose side are you even on?”

“Steve, you know goddamned well I’m not picking a side.” She was angry, standing now to match his posture, “You brooded for months fucking haunting this house like a ghost, Steve. You. Were. Miserable– and you were making me miserable too! All you did was talk about how you were gonna get her back, and now that you had her, you decide you don’t want her?” Robin started. It was Steve’s turn to stare, now.

“I get that you’re mad, and I get that you’re confused, and I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this isn’t my fault.” She continued. She was a republic of voices tonight, and unfortunately, that republic was Italy. 

“Oh, and here’s your stupid ring back. It’s ugly, anyways.” She finishes, shoving the ring back into his chest. He holds it in his hands, stunned. 

There is an immediate regret that fills him up and drowns him in it. Robin was right, it was not her fault. “Ugh, Robin. I’m–”

She turns at the beginning of his apology, scooping her back from the doorway, “Don’t. I’m not the one you should even be apologizing to.”

“Rob–”

“Bye, Steve.”

He is alone now. The house is quiet and stale, the walls sing in silence, speak their truths, tell him how awful he was. He was so quick to anger, wore his father’s anger like a hand-me-down coat. It hung loose in the wrong places, did not cling to him like his father and looked silly while he was wearing it. He twirls the ring in his hands, watching the light refract white off the brilliant-cut diamond. 

He should call Robin, should. He knows that, even after this, that she will forgive him. You, however, would not be so easy, though, he can’t exactly fathom how badly he wants your forgiveness when he has not quite forgiven you himself. 

He twirls it in his hands as he gets into his car, runs his thumb over the cluster of diamonds in his pocket as he drives down the road, in search of your apartment. It burns a hole in his pocket as he parks, burning hotter and hotter until he swears it scorches his skin the closer he gets to your door. 

When you answer, door swinging open in reprieve and eyes holding the morosity of several generations, he feels a pang of guilt begin to choke him, though it is not big enough to not be swallowed. Something else burns there, still hot and still angry and still confused. It takes over the forefront of his mind. He should not have come here. It was not right to come here. 

“Seriously? This? You still had it?” It is an ugly statement, it's the first thing that he can think of. The angry coat was still tied tight around his waist, the anger was still bubbling in the forefront of his temporal lobe. He holds the ring up in your face, the sparkle hurts your eyes. 

You furrowed your brows, confused by both the fact that we was standing at your apartment door and also that you opened your door to him yelling at you, “You gave it back to me Steve–”

“No, the version of me that forgot what you did gave it back to you. And you took advantage of that. You–”

“Steve, I couldn’t–”

“Couldn’t what?” He wouldn’t give you a chance to explain yourself, he took a step forward and crowded your space. It wasn’t entirely fair, but you hadn’t been entirely fair either. There was no winning this battle. 

You stared back at him in silence, willing fresh tears from breaking over the edges of your lash line. His eyes seethed with anger. You had never seen Steve this angry before. 

“Couldn’t what?” He asked again, taking another step closer. He stood over you now, towering and angry. 

You were shaking now, seeping with your own anger and frustration, “Anterograde Amnesia!”

“What?” He stops sudden;y, realizing his closeness to your figure, taking a step back. 

“That’s what you had. Every morning you woke up and it was the same day. Every morning you woke up and you– you–” You were crying now, hot tears running down your face at an embarrassing, unrelenting pace. You could not tell if they were of anger or sadness. Probably both, “You woke up and did the same thing, and then every night you went back to sleep and we started all over again.”

“Why didn’t you just walk away?” He asked, turning and bracing himself on your counter, hand on his hip as he stared you down. 

“I-I I just couldn’t, okay?”

“Why not?” He had a way of backing you into a corner, making you feel small in this confrontation. Steve was rarely angry with you, and never like this. 

“Because the one day you did find out, before all this shit,” Before he felt like yours again, “–you begged me to tell you that you were okay. You fucking begged me to.” Your arms were flailing now, it was your turn to back him into a corner. You hadn’t meant to be this defensive, hadn’t meant for this to end in a screaming match, but no one ever intended that, you supposed, “How the fuck was I supposed to leave after that, huh? Let them institutionalize you? Saddle Robin with you? How the fuck was that supposed to be the better option?” 

His hands were up now too, defenses in a war against yourselves, “Oh so you just did this so you could be a hero? So you could prove to yourself that you aren’t shitty? Prove to yourself that you weren’t gonna fucking leave again?” 

You found silence, suddenly, more hurt and more angry than before. You stare at each other. He knows he’s crossed a line. Several lines actually. You aren’t as forgiving as Robin. 

“Just go, Steve.”

“I–”

“Just fucking go.”

+

This felt like the remnants of a hurricane. You could hear the wind ringing heavy and violent in your ears like screams. You could feel the rain hot and heavy as it rolled across your cheeks still. Yet the air was still, entirely too still. The shrapnel of your reality built back up and torn back down again, and now you were here. Alone. In silence. 

Robin’s pointed knuckle is quiet against your door, yet it crashes and booms a resonant patriarchal tenor across the echoing walls of your solitude. You groan at her, something akin to its open. You hadn’t managed to lock it again after she left this morning. 

“Are you still being insufferable?” She asks you, as if it isn’t clear by the way you seem to enter a state of active decay, melting into the corner piece of your sectional. 

Though you are insufferable, you are not so insufferable that you cannot bite back, “Are you still being annoying?”

She does not answer, instead, the clinking of glass on glass and heavier glass against granite serves as an answer for her.

“Do you want a glass?”

The ruffling of a paper bag wills your head up, and she exhumes the bottle from it. You see that it is red, but don’t say anything about it. You recognize the bottle as Beaujolais Nouveau, from the same region in France in which it is aptly named– the same region in which Robin did her semester abroad. You could have said something about how it is not winter, or how there are better italian wines or better whites or literally anything else from Trader Joe’s, but alcohol seems nice, and you are never one to complain about free alcohol. 

“Yeah.” you say instead. 

“Okay.” 

She serves you a too-full glass on the couch. She had half a mind to bring some snacks over, but did not feel like putting forth the effort into making a snack board. Instead, she pulls a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a candy bar open with her teeth, pointing the mouth of the bag towards you in a peace offering. You oblige, stuffing a handful of them into your mouth as a chaser for this awful, dry red. 

“What a jerk.” She says, and you know who she is speaking about. 

“What an ass.” You say back to her, and she knows who you are speaking about, 

Your body rolls into the dip where hers sits on the couch, and you let the natural flow bring your head to her shoulder. You do not wrestle with the qualms of physical affection, and, if she is surprised by your sudden affectionate nature, she doesn’t say anything. 

“I spilled some wine on your counter.” She said to you, but you’ll clean it up later. 

You have half a mind to let it stain. 

+

You beg Robin to get your stuff from his house. Your heartbreak is scabbed over enough for you to pick at, and you have a desperate urge to smear some goo all over a canvas in an Oliver De Sagazan-esque pity party, but alas, your studio resides in the place of your demise– Steve’s house. 

Robin is more forgiving than you are, and also more willing to brave the walls of Fort Steve for your stuff. Robin is also a saint, and you have let her know ten times over. 

“She wants her shit back. Have it ready on the porch when I get there.” She says to him on the phone, the line aptly going dead seconds later. 

His hands on your things feel foreign when they touch them, like they might blow up. He had been avoiding them like landmines as he haunted the remnants of this home. Nothing had been touched since that morning. The house would not change. 

There is a fine layer of dust that has accumulated over the confines of your studio, and it makes his eyes water as he agitates it enough to send particles swirling through the air. He stacks your canvases in piles according to their sizes and fills your water cups with brushes. He takes extra care to separate the current painting you abandoned midway through, the one where the linseed-to-oil ratio wasn’t quite right and, in turn, the layers of paint would not cure properly. 

When he moves to the last stack, one of a modest collection of books and sketchpads, he loses his bearings, and the top sketchpad slides out with loose pages all over the floor. He sighs in exasperation, and bends down to scoop them into a pile. He recognizes the figure drawn on one page, and then another, and then another. A mirror image of himself, ruched hair at the end of the day, glasses perched on the end of his nose, elbow on the arm chair. In some he can see the tops of his folded knee. In some he is smiling and looking directly back at him. 

Every one of them is dated one a day for eighty-six days in chronological order, yet every paper he is holding has the same headline. 

The final page in the stack is a doodle page, he almost misses it. A series of boxes and riddles. Number two down, number three across. You were creating crossword puzzles, a new one every day, and yet none of the answers vaguely familiar to him. His blood runs cold. He was the ass. 

In a panic, he scoops the drawings up, sliding them as quickly as possible into the sleeve from which they fell and clutching them to his chest like previous gems. To him, this was a lifeline, and he did not have time to wait for Robin, though she is sitting outside waiting for him when he runs out the front door, leaving it open in a panic. 

She is colder when she greets him, colder than he’s ever seen. It's an odd juxtaposition, seeing her be so cold. She adorns black jeans with a black turtleneck. She does not look like herself, she looks like you. 

“And where are you going?” She asks him, watching hum fumble with his car keys and with the drawings in his hands. 

He puts his hands on her shoulders, wraps her in a hug, and gives her a kiss on the forehead. 

“Robin, I love you, and I know you came here for her stuff, but I’m going to talk to her.” 

She is stunned, staring at him with wide eyes at both the kiss and the sudden change in demeanor. She does not have time to ask him what drugs he possibly could have been on or make a back-handed remark about how hard he hit his head. Because, instead, she is standing in his driveway while his car takes off down the road. 

Your ground floor apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows. It was charming, really. It was one of the reasons you chose this place despite its ridiculous cost. Well, that, and the fact that it was the least suburban place you could think of. You are sitting on the kitchen island, scrubbing now at that wine stain on the counter with a rag and granite polish at the forefront of this battle when the first thud sounds off clear against your winder. You thought it had been an unsuspecting bird, but the shadow of a man behind your sheer white curtains startles you. You unfold yourself quickly, going over to pull them back and investigate. 

Steve stands with his feet in shrubs, hands with papers pressed flat against the glass. He pulls more from his chest, switching them out every so often, and then ends the spectacle with a crossword puzzle placed flat to the glass. He looks ridiculous like this, hands splayed across glass, hair disheveled and out of breath from running. He left his glasses on in the shuffle, and they slid down his nose in the commotion. Your confusion registers clear across your face, and he says something adjacent to, “Can I come in?” against the glass. 

You nod, and he shuffles the drawings back into a cohesive, carryable pile. You meet him at the front door, letting him run in and dump them on the counter you were currently cleaning. He spreads them out in front of you, breathless and disheveled. They are in order, chronologically. All of your drawings of him. You are both mortified and embarrassed. 

“That one.” He points to it, moving to stand next to you on the counter to look at it. 

“The first one.” You say, looking at the date. 

“Was that the first day?” He asked, “Of being home from the hospital?” he specified, staring down at you with intent eyes. 

You nod, looking back up to meet him, “Yes, that was the first day. I knew you had amnesia, I knew you thought we were still engaged. Though, I didn’t know the extent of your condition yet.” 

You go through all eighty-six drawings, the things he said to you, the things you did. A lot of them are repetitive, some of them caught you off guard and you are able to  laugh about it now. You talk about the day he gives you the ring back, and the day you realized he was in the same infinite time loop, you talk about the dastardly yellow paint and the vellum crossword puzzles so he wouldn’t get bored even though you knew he wouldn’t remember, and the binders. You talked a lot about Robin and her place in it all. You talked about the dentist up the street, and how Steve, even in his delirium, still knew him as the guy with the labs. 

There is one day where the drawing is missing. 

“Is this the day,” He asks, “The day that I–”

“Yeah, it is.” You answer. 

“What exactly happened then? On that day?” 

You struggle to recall every detail, so you start by giving him the gist, “Well… you saw the tattoo on my back,” You reach up to touch it, running your fingers over the raised lines of ink beneath your fingers. Steve tilts his head back to get a glimpse of it as well, his own fingers calloused as they chase yours across it. 

“Looks nice.” He says, without thinking. 

“Thank you.” You reply back, “And then you got really confused. I was still sleeping on the couch then. We were still figuring it out, and I was still clumsy. I asked you how hard you hit your head, and you didn’t even remember doing it. You panicked so quickly, I– I had a hard time calming you down.” 

The guilt still ate you alive, the guilt at your own clumsiness for letting it slip, and the guilt that you lived in the lie for that long. The guilt mostly for leaving in the first place. 

“You asked me where I was, and I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t there because I was trying so hard to live my life separately from you. We hadn’t been together in a year, but I couldn’t tell you that.” You said, words becoming frantic as you fought off tears. 

His hand is both a consolation as it is a devastation as it rests across your shoulder, broad and warm and grounding. 

“What did you say to me, then?” He asked. 

“You asked me if you were okay. You were so confused.” 

“And?”

“I told you that you were.” Hot tears broke the threshold of your lash line, and spilled in streams down your face. It cut through the dryness there, and you choked on a sob. “I didn’t even know if you were or how to take care of you or what I was doing and, and I’m sorry.” You cried ugly tears now, wet into your own hands. 

He grips your shoulders, pulling you into a familiar hug as your words grow frantic and your breaths become shallow and stuttered. He holds you close to his warm chest, encased in soft arms. He cradles the back of your head like you are encased in glass, and he plants a kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair, now rocking your back and forth as you calm down. A wet drop falls on your shoulder, and you cannot tell if it belongs to yourself or him. You would forgive Steve in every life. 

He pulls back from you, hands still planted firmly on your shoulders as he stares at you, amber eyes both piercing and comforting. 

“Listen, you don’t have to take this, not yet. But it would make me so fucking happy if you would.” He pulls the ring, sparkling and brilliant from his pocket, and presents it to you. You oblige happily, sliding it back on to your hands before tackling him into an embrace. His kiss is as soft as it had always been. 

You would do this again, and again, and again if it meant you could have him, because the same day with Steve was better than any of the days you had ever spent without him. 

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

Can I please have scenarios for EJ, Toby, Julius, and bloody painter helping their nonbinary s/o through a panic attack and comforting them? Thank you and have a wonderful evening

����𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 ℙ𝔸𝕀ℕ𝕋𝔼ℝ!!!! 𝕄𝕐 𝕊ℙ𝔼ℂ𝕀𝔸𝕃 𝔻𝕌𝔻𝔼!!!

ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕘𝕠 𝕥𝕠 @𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕𝕘𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕤-𝕟-𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖!! 𝔾𝕠 𝕗𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕦𝕡𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕜!

𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕜 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕠 𝕞𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘!!

Eyeless Jack

Whenever Jack sees you in a state of panic, his brain immediately shifts to a more medical state

He isn't good with emotions, but facts he can work with

So he starts instructing you on what to do

He doesn't touch you, as he doesn't want to induce more panic

He instructs you to stand up and do jumping jacks, which you very much do not want to do

He insists you do it anyways, and while you are doing your jumping jacks he is off getting you a big cup of very cold water

When he comes back, he tells you to take at least 3 big gulps of the water

Once you've drank all the water you want, he tells you to lay on your back and breathe through your stomach (basically meaning your stomach rises instead of your chest)

You do this until you are calm, and while he waits, Jack records your heart's pace

Once you are calm, if you want anything like cuddles, you'll have to tell him

Because on his own, he saw this as purely medical and not a reason to be all lovey with each other

However, he is happy to oblige with your requests for a little bit before going back to whatever he was doing before

Sorry guys his ass does not understand emotional intimacy

Toby

When Toby sees you panicking, he starts to panic

What happened? How long have you been like this? How does he help?

He tries to not make that panic known though, because he knows that would likely stress you out and he doesn't want that

So he instead comes to where you are and sits in front of you, whispering to you how it's gonna be ok, and how he's gonna make it better

He cradles you in his arms and rocks you back and forth, rubbing your back and telling you to just breathe, don't even think about anything just breathe

And he will sit there just like that, for minutes, hours, days, however long you need to feel ok

He will wipe away your tears and kiss where they were

He will give you breathing exercises and try them with you

He will brush your hair (if you have any, if you don't he will give you some soothing hand lotion and tell you to just breathe in the calming scent)

He will literally do anything for you, and once you are calmed he will kiss you all over and take you out to celebrate overcoming such an obstacle

Julius The Dressmaker

He's typically a more goofy guy, so he gets kind of awkward in emotional situations

He will still care for you of course, but it will be slightly unconventional

"Hey dummy, there's nothing to panic about"

"Come on, take your meds and be done with it"

He'll likely end up taking you to one of the more mental health practiced doctors of the manor, so you won't get to see Jack, sorry pookies

You will however, get to see Dr. Smiley! (He isn't allowed to do any physical medical practices because he's stupid, so he's a psychologist now. Yes i did just make this up right now, why do you ask?)

Julius will kind of just...drop you off there and hope for the best

Surprisingly enough, Smiley is in fact qualified for his job and does help you out quite a lot!

You are still kind of upset, but it's definetly way better than before

Julius will comment about how much he "missed the happy you" before insisting that he cuddle with you for hours

Just to be sure you're 100% ok

Bloody Painter

Being a very quiet and observant person, Helen likely noticed something was wrong before you even did

So he was on top of it instantly, instructing you to drink water, breathe, and practice coping skills

He stays glued to you the entire time

While you pour yourself water from the pitcher, he is holding you from behind and pressing kisses to the crook of your neck

While you are breathing, he helps you count the seconds that pass

And to try to distract you from your oncoming panic, he will bring you to his studio and let you paint

And if you don't want to paint, he sets up some of his "failed projects" outside and let's you go ham on them

Awww your own personal rage room <333

Of course, it's nothing like a fancy tv, but you do get to stab some canvases and shatter some pottery so it's still fun

While you do this, he kind of just stands back, his hands on his hips with an observant expression on his face

When he is certain you are calm, he will gently take your hand and hold it high up while muttering how good you did and pressing a kiss to your head

[sunnynwanda]

House of Memories

Based on the snippet Newspaper clippings.

The room is spinning at an ungodly speed when Villain looks away from the last clipping in their trembling hands. The walls are closing in on them with every shaky exhale that slips past their parted lips. Their pulse is throbbing in their ears, the pressure obstructing their hearing. They feel like they were skyrocketed into outer space, enveloped by its dreadful silence. The air is too dense to inhale; they are suffocating, gasping for oxygen, struggling to swallow down the lump in their throat. Tears well up in the corners of their eyes again, threatening to spill down their pale cheeks as they card a hand through their hair and over their forehead, not registering the bead of sweat running down the side of their face. They feel numb as they run their cold fingers over their arms, trying to pull their chaotic mind into a semblance of a person.

After the initial shock passes, Villain springs to their feet, ignoring the nauseous churn of their stomach and running downstairs to search for more information. They find their biography retold by dedicated fans on forums and websites. They find lists of their accomplishments, events held as homage to their work, and even whole shrines constructed in their memory. Many still harbour hopes of them returning. Some even tried looking for them, despite having positively no idea what Villain looked like. Hero was meticulous in their quest to erase any trace of Villain from the face of the Earth.

By the time Hero's car screeches to a stop in their driveway, Villain has calmed down. They greet Hero by the door and, despite their reluctance, kiss them on the cheek. Hero talks about their day at work while helping Villain set the table and maintains the conversation through dinner. Villain cannot find it within themself to talk, instead opting for nods and hums here and there. Their mind is swarmed by countless whys and what fors, left in anguish and confusion.

"Is everything alright?" Hero quirks an eyebrow at them, taking note of the tension weighing on their spouse's shoulders. Villain nods slowly, still deep in thought. "How was your day?"

"O-okay.. it was okay," Villain squeezes out in hopes to drop the subject. After a moment, their eyes shift to look at Hero, determination setting deep inside their cracking heart. They shrug, and it takes everything in them to act nonchalant. "I finally cleaned the attic."

Part of them still harbours hope that maybe, just maybe, it's not what they think it is. They don't want to believe it is true. They don't want it to be true. They want to wrap themself in Hero's arms and forget they ever opened that box. They could have misunderstood it. It could have been an accident, right? Or, a stupid joke. A prank, for all they care. Anything, anything at all that would stop their heart from hitting rock bottom, shattering at their feet as they force a pained smile onto their face.

Please. Please. Please.

Hero pauses, sending a sharp jolt of pain through Villain's entire being. They can feel it radiating off of the hollow space in their chest to their limbs and up their throat, rising like bile and exploding in their temples. They squeeze their eyes shut, gripping their fork until it bends between their fingers. Hero shallows thickly, before they meet Villain's glassy gaze with the most terrified expression Villain has ever witnessed on their face. They try to come up with words, but nothing crosses their mind except for panicked ringing. Their mouth remains agape, but their voice never comes.

"Do you have anything to say?" Villain finally manages, voice still carrying a grain of hope. Please. How foolish of them. 

"I-I love you," Hero mumbles, face incredulous. They were not ready for this conversation. Villain scoffs at that, shaking their head in disbelief. Hero tries to salvage the situation, only making it worse. "I meant to tell you... one day."

"One day," Villain breathes out. They feel benumbed, and their senses are stupefied with the unresolved incertitude.

There's no mistaking it anymore - it was never an accident. It has always been a part of the plan. A depraved, vile, inhumane plan.

"I never meant for you to find out like this." Tears flood Hero's eyes as they get up, crossing the room and kneeling by Villain's side. They try to capture their hands, but Villain pulls away.

"You never meant for me to find out at all," their voice is hardly above a whisper when they speak, lips trembling so violently that they have to press them together to keep whimpers of pain from escaping. They feel sore all over, prickling with recollections of Hero's every touch, every kiss laid on their skin, every mark left by them. It's an ache that gnaws at their throat, burns their eyes with salt, and tears their flesh with crooked claws and sharp teeth.

"Villain, please, hear me out," Hero's voice reaches Villain through a haze of hurt. They shake their head no, but Hero persists. "Why do you think I kept those clippings?"

"To gloat your twisted victory," Villain offers, willing themself to get up only to collapse back onto their chair when their knees buckle under them.

"Is that how little you think of me?" Hero's arm shoots up to support them, but they push them away. It's a little too strong, causing Hero to fall over on the soft carpet. Villain remembers the day they bought it. They had spent several hours looking for a perfect match for their dining room, and upon finding it, decided to celebrate by having a movie night on it.

The hurt crushes over Villain in tidal waves, leaving them gasping for air once again. Hero doesn't move - a twinge of guilt flashes over their face when Villain turns to look down at them.

"You lied to me," they whisper, no longer controlling the quiver in their voice. "You erased my memory. You erased my very existence from people's minds so no one could recognise me. And then had the fucking audacity to show up in my hospital room and act like my spouse! So, yes, that's what I think of you!"

They get up onto wobbling feet, holding onto the wall as they try to walk, and Hero follows them. "Where are you going?"

They want to scream, to wail, to rip Hero apart the same way they are torn into bleeding pieces, to put them through the same agony. Yet their words barely make it past their lips. "Anywhere away from you."

"Stop, love, let me explain," Hero reaches for them again, expression splitting into that of hurt, and Villain hates how it pangs through their nape.

"Don't. Fucking don't, Hero," they growl, ignoring Hero's pitiful look. "You have no right to call me that."

"We need to talk," Hero looks baffled but doesn't back down - they stand firmly in front of the door like that can keep Villain from leaving.

"About what?" Villain snaps, throwing their hand into the air. For a second, they think about slapping Hero but restrain themself, opting to tug at their own hair. "Everything I know is a lie. Damn it, I don't even know who I am!"

"Villain, I- I had to do it," Hero hiccups, swallowing their tears and taking a deep breath to compose themself before continuing under Villain's inquiring stare. "There was no way around it, but I never planned to keep you in the dark forever."

"I don't believe you." The words taste bitter in their mouth, but they savour it - roll it on their tongue as a brutal reminder. "You cried. You begged me to remember you, to recognise you! Gods, you were on your knees!" They are sobbing at this point, tears streaming down their face in currents of resentment and dejection.

"I meant it. Every word of it," Hero laments, running their hands through their hair.

"No, you did not," Villain shakes their head solemnly. "All that for your demented game. You played your part perfectly." They can feel the pounding at the base of their neck where it connects to their head - a promise of a rising migraine. "You could have told me. Five years. You couldn't find a moment in those five years to tell me you had to erase my fucking personality and make me your... what am I even?"

"My entire life, that's what you are," Hero's reply earns nothing but a disgruntled chuckle from their spouse. "I tried to tell you. Many times."

"Yeah, right," Villain's tone is bitter even to their liking. They can't be bothered to care for decorum, when they are falling apart in the middle of the damn entryway.

"Villain, please," Hero drops to their knees, wrapping their arms around Villain's mid, pressing their forehead to their stomach. "I couldn't do it. I tried - but I couldn't bring myself to ruin everything we had. We were happy. You were happy. I was scared I'd lose you."

"You did," Villain confirms Hero's every fear, but their voice betrays them, breaking when they try to order. "Now return it to me."

"What?" Hero looks up at them with tears staining their flushed face.

Villain pries their arms off their body, backing away to put some distance between them. "Return my memory."

Hero goes rigid. Their shoulders sag under the weight of Villain's gaze. "I can't."

"Of course," Villain steps towards the stairs with a short nod. They need to grab their bag and get out of those walls before they collapse over their head, burying them alive under layers of concrete and debris.

"I'm sorry," Hero tries to stop them with one last attempt. They are on the verge of a breakdown; their entire body shudders when Villain pushes past them. "I'm so sorry, love."

"Don't you dare apologise now," Villain sneers over their shoulder before disappearing upstairs. They hear Hero sobbing when they walk out and shut the front door. They don't look back, afraid they won't find it in them to leave if they do.

An enormous part of them yearns to go back, climb into bed and find solace in the comfort of Hero's arms. They want to fall into oblivion, blissful nihility of mind, to forget the truth and deception, to forget the knife in their back and the kisses on their forehead every time they had a nightmare. They want to forget every laugh they shared, every happy moment, the love in Hero's eyes, the tenderness of their touch, the way their heart fluttered every time Hero shot them that damned smile they loved. They want to forget.

Oh, how they want to forget. 

Newspaper Clippings snippet

Masterlist

Taglist: @marvellousdaisy @alltimelowing @lateuplight @surplus-of-sarcasm @betwist @excusemeasibangmyheadonawall @enemies-to-idiots-to-lovers @miaowmelodie @thatonerandomauthor @hhabaddon @burningoutlikeicarus @daemonvatis @weepingcowboywolfbat @thelazywitchphotographer @kaiwewi @soul-of-a-local-bard @pigeonwhumps @aflyingsheepnamedrose @thatneptune @ohwellthatslifesstuff @worldsfromhoney @thiefofthecrowns @crow-with-a-typewriter @qualityrabbitsoup @stargeode

[nutal]

What are some of your head canons for Adam and Lute?

omg this is a GREAT question anon thank you so much for this mwahahahah 😈 OK ANYWAY BUCKLE UP

- They both have some sort of act they put on but in two entirely different ways, for Lute it’s a cold, untouchable front, and for Adam it’s an overly confident, boastful attitude. When the two really start connecting with each other intimately, those walls slowly start to come down and they kind of go hand in hand. Adam would probably be pretty insecure underneath all of his narcissism due to the fear of being left behind, and Lute would likely let her coldness dissipate in the face of something like that. And after one of those heart-to-hearts Adam probably would say something like “…yeah, but don’t get the wrong idea or anything cuz I still totally rock babe HAH.”

- Adam probably wakes Lute up in the middle of the night to talk about some REALLY stupid bs but Lute will listen regardless of what time it is in admiration of her dumbass boyfriend. <3

- Whenever Adam is trying to make a point about something while just casually rambling on about whatever, sometimes he’ll just stop and say “I mean, c’mon, you agree with me Lute right? RIGHT?”

- Adam uses pet names 24/7 and Lute simply does not care to use them at all but she enjoys it when Adam does, even if his ideas of pet names can get a little odd sometimes. Like wtf is “dangertits” LMAOO

- You can tell Lute is really being vulnerable in front of Adam when she starts calling him by his actual name instead of “Sir.” *cough cough* that one episode 8 scene☹️. As much as Adam doesn’t want to admit it, that shit hits him pretty hard.

- In an AU where these two are living as normal human beings on Earth, Adam brings Lute to every rock festival/concert imaginable and he would absolutely geek out about every single band that came on stage to her. “LUTE ITS FUCKING SLAYER BITCH!!! HOLY SHIT!! THE SLAYER THAT MADE REIGN IN BLOOD, HELLOOO?” Lute enjoys each second of it.

- Talking about what canonically happened for a second (even though I’m still in denial), after Adam’s death, Lute sometimes visits his room, tending to it as she feels morally wrong leaving it alone to be and damaged and decayed by time. Plus, it’s a duty that all of Heaven’s quarters be kept maintained as to keep a good image. One day, Lute accidentally stumbles upon a dusted mixtape Adam had on one of his shelves, with a note attached to it saying, “For my awesome lieutenant after we kick ass at extermination”, and yet, he never got the chance to give it to her.

SORRY GUYS I HAD TO WITH THAT LAST ONE MY FAULT GANG ADAM IS DEFINITELY TOTALLY ALIVE! HAHA… ok anyways hoped u guys enjoyed this cuz i would love to make more in the future

I LOVE GUITARSPEAR/GUARDROCK/GUITARSWORD! THEY STAY WINNING!! 🎸⚔️

[dollxmania]

ㅤㅤㅤ ❝ 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐒𝐍𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐒！ ❞

tw: blood/injury for floyd, mildly suggestive, ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ gn reader with octavinelle. established relationship. not proofread.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎no context, only wanted to write about them in their seaforms. please feel free to imagine a scenario before/after the snippet.

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ❝ 𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄. ❞

— AZUL ASHENGROTTO. ꒱·˚

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ the foreign sensation of cold and slimy tentacles was a weird experience at first to say the least, but not an unwelcome one. smiling encouraging at him, you urged your boyfriend to continue, tentacles embracing you gently as though you’d break under his grasp, which you would have to admit, you may from the sheer size and strength he had right now. “where’d my confident businessboy go?” you teased, wrapping the tentacle shyly tugging at you around your waist, taking another in your hand as you pressed it a small kiss, holding it against your heart. “I’m really not afraid or disgusted Azul. i love you, regardless of how you look.” you could see red dusting across his cheeks to his ears, easily flustered as ever when you were alone. looking to the side, you shook your head at him and leaned over, peppering kisses up his jaw and to his lips, nibbling down and exploring his mouth.

— JADE LEECH. ꒱·˚

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ “it’s so pretty,” you hummed, holding out your hand as he kissed your ring finger, lightly tickling it as he placed the piece of jewelry on. “did you make this?” you questioned, raising your hand up and looking at the seashell in the middle. pulling you flush against him, his tail wrapped around your waist as his hand tilted your head to look at him rather than the ring. “i did,” his face drew closer to your’s as the two of you closed your eyes, meeting in a passionate kiss, tongues swirling around and little whimpers. even a waterbreathing potion were useless if he were going to knock the breath out of you anyways like this. parting, you panted and looked up at him, grinning while wrapping your arms around his neck. “could i take this as a proposal?” you joked. instead you found another encouraging squeeze around your body with his hot breath hitting your ear in a whisper, “of course, when do you want the wedding?”

— FLOYD LEECH. ꒱·˚

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ tongue trailing along your thigh his fingers dug into your hips, nails almost causing you to bleed, it would definitely leave a bruise. humming, he pulled away happily, wiping off the blood off his lips. “haah~♡ shrimpy, try not to be so stupid again, alright?” laughing, the eel was once again submerged in the water as you cursed at him, staring at your knee. the audacity he had to say that after being the one to bring you near jagged rocks under the water. “Floyd,” you hissed as he nipped at your ankle dangling in the water, giggling to himself. massaging your temples with your free hand you kick upwards in the water, only to feel yourself dragged in from down under, holding your breath as Floyd towered you, nose red with an annoyed expression. “you’re really playful today, aren’t you, shrimpy?” struggling to hold your breath you barely manage to see his sharp teeth as he held onto your injured leg, tail coiling around you while he went in to ‘give’ you air.

©dollXMANIA ꒱·˚ - wrote this in under thirty minutes 😘 a little treat for those stumbling upon this snippet.

[xxspringmelodyxx]

Betrayal~

Hello my lovely readers! This story takes place way back before the Archons battle, when Guizhong was alive. The day is your birthday and you were so excited to see Morax, hoping it would be just you two…however, this was not the case. And it potentially could end up terribly. So have fun with that! Sorry if it feels a little fast paced, its a wee bit late where I am and I want to go to bed, but I was afraid I would forget this story tomorrow. Anyways, enjoy~<333333 Part II

I walked down my usual path surrounded by rocks and vegetation, enjoying the fresh smell of gardenia flowers surrounding the area. 

Some of the people I passed by wished me a happy birthday, to which I thanked them. With every step I took, my excitement increased as today was the day I got to see Morax again. He had asked me to take a walk with him so we could spend some time together. You figured it was a little gift for your birthday, which was more than enough for you. Seeing him meant everything to you, especially his smile. 

I looked over and noticed a small flower was slowly wilting. I looked above it and saw that it was hidden under a rock, making it impossible for the poor thing to get any water or sunlight. I quickly walked over to it and placed my hand on it, bringing it back to life, showing a vibrant lavender color. I then moved my hand away, letting the flower head follow me. I elongated it just enough so that it was outside of the rock, allowing it to get proper sunlight. 

However, that was when I realized it still needed water to live, to which it would get none due to the rock covering it. I huffed as I realized it would be hard to help the poor thing. 

I looked up at the boulder, seeing the size of it. In my head, it didn’t look too bad to move. I may have to use a bunch of my energy, but it would be worth it. I got up and walked to the boulder, placing my hands on it. I began to push, using my legs to push into the ground. I tried so very hard to move it out of the way, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it. 

I let go of the rock, crossing my arms in frustration. 

“Stupid rock anyways.” I said.

Then, out of nowhere, the boulder began to shake, causing the whole ground to shake. I looked up to see the rock slowly rise up, making me slightly gasp. The ground began to shake harder, causing me to lose my footing and falling over. 

A small yelp came out of my mouth, expecting to feel the cold, hard ground hit my back. 

But it never came. Instead, I felt an arm wrap around my waist, hoisting me back up into their chest. I looked up and saw none other than Morax himself. My heart almost leaped out of my chest as I saw him, seeing his intense stare as he moved the rock out of the way. He placed the rock far away so it wouldn’t cover any other plants, allowing all of them to get the proper sunlight and water they needed when it came. He then looked down at me after dropping the rock, smirking at me. 

“Did you really try and move a boulder just so you could save a flower?” He asked with amusement. Your face heated up as you felt embarrassed. You shoved him playfully, telling him to shut up.

“Hey, no need to be embarrassed. I thought it was cute. But you would have never been able to lift or move that rock by yourself.” He teased

You glared at him.

“I'll have you know that I was making progress! In fact, the only reason you were able to lift the boulder up in the first place was because of me loosening it up for you.” You spoke back. 

He chuckled as he ruffled your hair, turning on his heel.

“Let’s go.” He said, taking your hand and pulling you towards him. Your stomach turned, butterflies going throughout your stomach. 

–

“So where are we walking to?” You asked.

“We are going to see Guizhong.” he said, making me stop.

“I thought it was just going to be me and you today.” You said, not liking the fact that he was going to see her.

“It will be while we walk to her place. Then I thought we could hang out together. It will be a fun time, don’t you think?” He asked.

You hesitated a bit, knowing good and well that he wouldn’t take any time to talk to you once he sees her. It has been going on like this for some time now, almost 2 years to be exact. He would ask you to be with him for ‘alone’ time, but in reality, he just wanted to talk to you before he got to Guizhong so he could get all of his nerves out. Then, once he sees her, it's like you don’t exist to him anymore. 

“I guess.” You replied quietly, continuing to walk with him. Your heart began to hurt as you walked closer and closer to Guizhongs place. You knew she was in love with him as well, but a part of you had hoped that Morax would fall in love with you instead. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that it’s going that way at all. 

“So, what were you thinking we all do?” You asked, your voice sounding more down than usual, but Morax never noticed. He was too excited to see Guizhong that he barely paid attention to you, once again. 

“Morax?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, did you say something?” He asked

“I asked what we were going to do.” You said again

“Oh! Well I was thinking we could all go out by the pond and have a nice picnic. Guizhong made the food, so all we have to do is get there right before the sun goes down.”

“Okay, that actually doesn't seem bad.” You said, making him smile down at you.

–

It took you guys a good 10 minutes to get to Guizhongs place. During that time, you both talked to each other continuously about the randomest things. Morax laughed with you multiple times, making your mind go crazy. However, the smile that was once plastered on your face was soon wiped off once you saw Guizhong come out. She smiled at Morax and hugged him. You looked up and saw Morax blush as he held her tightly, breaking you more and more.

What’s worse is that he hasn’t said anything about your birthday yet…did he forget?

You were starting to doubt him as he began to ignore you. He took Guizhongs hand in his and they walked together, leaving you behind. You sighed as you treaded slowly behind them. 

You watched them giggle with each other, seeing Morax wrap his arm around her, pulling her in. Just like he did with you.

You were so confused. When you were alone with him, it's like you were his world…but then when she arrived, it's like he didn’t even know you. You looked down at your feet, trying to hide your tears. Every now and then, a single tear drop would fall and touch the ground beneath you. The plants that were touched by the tear slowly wilted and died, but you didn’t do anything to fix it. If you tried, it would just happen again in another area. 

“Ah! We are here!” Morax said as he quickly sat down with Guizhong. She got the food out and placed them out nicely.

You looked down and realized it was all food that you couldn’t eat. They were all made with a specific ingredient that could kill you due to a stupid allergy you had. 

The two began to eat, enjoying the delicious food. Morax took notice of you not eating and spoke

“Come on, Y/n. The food is really good!” He said

“Morax, I can’t eat any of that. It has Mericila in it. You should know that.” You replied. Mericila was an ingredient that was very abundant in these types of areas. It comes from a Mericila root. The root itself won’t hurt you, it’ll just make you sneeze or cough. But once the liquidy substance is extracted, that’s when it can be bad news for you. It runs throughout your whole family.

“Oh…I’m sorry, Y/n. I totally forgot you couldn’t eat it.” Guizhong said in a fake tone. You gritted your teeth as you tried your best to hold back, knowing fully well that she knew of your weakness.

“It’s fine. I just won’t eat.” You said, putting your knees up to your chest. There was a good distance between you and Morax, almost 5 feet. 

–

Hours passed, and you have yet to say a word. Morax was too occupied with Guizhong to notice, which just made you more frustrated. You couldn’t stand for this anymore, you wouldn’t stand for this. He keeps playing with your feelings and it's making you angry.

The grass around you began to fade into a blackish color, slowly wilting away. That was when Morax noticed and scooted over to you, smiling wide and everything. If you weren’t mad at him, you would’ve thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world. “Hey, what's wrong?” He asked, placing his hand in yours. Usually, you would hold onto his hand, expressing to him what was bothering you. But that was only because it wasn’t about him. This time, it was. You then shocked Morax when you quickly jerked your hand away from him, concerning him.

“Y/n?” His voice was no longer in his happy tone, and his smile faded away as he saw you weren’t acting like your usual self.

“Nothing. I’m fine.” You said in a monotone voice.

“Obviously you’re not. The plants around you are dying, and that only happens when you aren’t feeling good.” He said, following the wilted areas. He saw that there were little circular patches of dead plants farther back from where you guys were walking. He then looked back at you and saw that your cheeks were stained with tears, alerting him. He grabbed your face, wiping them away.

“Y/n?! Talk to me! What’s wrong?” He asked with worry. 

Again, you just pushed him away from you. You then stood up and began to walk away. 

“Where are you going?” He called out to you.

“I’m going home.” You said as you walked away from them, each step causing the plants to die. Morax quickly got up and ran after you. 

“Y/n wait!” He yelled out, catching up to you.

When you weren’t stopping, he ran faster and grabbed your wrist, turning you around to look at him. 

That’s when he saw you full on crying.

“Y/n, please. Tell me what's wrong!” He begged, grabbing your face. 

Guizhong’s eyes followed Morax, seeing him hold you close. She grimaced as she saw how close you two were.

You pushed him away.

“Go away. Go back to Guizhong. That’s who you’re more excited to see anyways.” You said

He looked at you confused, not understanding what you were going on about.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh come on Morax. I know you only wanted to be with her, but you didn’t want me to feel left out. Well guess what, I always feel left out! Every time you see Guizhong, it’s like I don’t even exist to you anymore. Like I’m nothing but air.”

“Y/n, that’s not true, I like you too-”

“Yes but not in the way you like Guizhong!” You interrupted, making him shut up.

There was a slight pause between the both of you, but you managed to gain the courage to speak up.

“I’m gonna tell you something right now, and after I do, I want you to make a choice.” You said, making him look up at you.

“For years, I have loved you. Not just in a platonic way…in a romantic way. I have known you much longer than her…I have always been by your side…yet one day she shows up and you have never looked at me the same.” You confessed, shocking Morax.

“Every day that went by, there wasn’t a single one where I didn’t think of you. Every night, I prayed that I could get the courage to finally admit how I feel to you, but when I was finally ready, it was all ruined once I saw you with her. I see the way you look at her. You’re completely infatuated with her. But then you go on and do these things to me that are so sweet and full of love when she’s not around. It’s like you are playing with my feelings!” You said

“Y/n, I never meant to hurt you…and I never wanted to play with your feelings.”

“Then make your choice! I can’t keep going on like this. Pretending that everything is okay. Pretending that I don’t love you. I can’t keep letting you hurt me like this.”

“What are you saying?” He asked

“I”m asking you to make your choice! Who do you love more? Because you can’t love both of us…it would just cause chaos.” You replied

“Please, don’t make me choose between you and her.” He begged, guilt filling him up.

“Why? Because you’ll choose her?” You asked, your heart crying out, hoping he would say the opposite.

A long silence went between you two, the wind being the only sound that was heard. 

“Yeah…because I’ll choose her.” He said, his anger getting the better of him. 

Your eyes widened as tears fell down them. Your breath hitched at his words. You knew it would come, you just weren’t ready for it yet. 

Morax’s eyes widened as well, not meaning a word he said.

“Y/n, I-”

“Save it. I guess all those years mean nothing to you. What a wonderful birthday gift. I’ll never forget it.” You said as you turned and ran away.

Morax’s eyes widened as he finally realized what day it was today, The day you were born.

He tried to run after you, but you raised your hand up. Within an instant, a fresh and strong wall made out of tree bark formed in front of him, blocking him and forcing him to stay back. No matter where he ran to, a new wall would be created, making it impossible for him to run to you.

He made his decision, and that was all you needed.

–

You ran into the middle of a forest, knowing no one would be able to find you. You cried and cried, not caring about the plants dying next to you. Small little creatures ran up to you, rubbing their bodies against you to help calm you down. However, as they did, they started to cry out in pain, alerting you. You quickly wiped your tears away and apologized, helping them back to their normal health. 

You then placed your hand on the plants and healed them, making them come back to life. 

A small bunny nuzzled its nose on your leg, cuddling up to you. You chuckled sadly, grabbing the small creature. You held it close and enjoyed the warm and fuzzy feeling. 

You placed your hand on its back and began to pet it, feeling yourself calm down. However, as you were doing that, you saw the bracelet Morax had gotten you for your birthday two years ago. It was to signify your friendship, and you have had it on ever since.

You grabbed it with your other hand and slowly slipped it off, your heart slowly breaking as you felt the strange emptiness on your wrist. 

You stared at the bracelet with pain, reminiscing on all your guys’ old memories.

He no longer needed you anymore. You guys couldn’t be friends anymore, not after that. Ugh, you felt so stupid. You should’ve just kept your feelings to yourself. At least you and him would still be friends. But then again, it would just hurt you more and more every time you saw him with Guizhong. 

But no matter, what’s done is done. You can’t go back. There is nothing left in that relationship anymore. It’s over.

You took the bracelet and threw it far away, knowing that if you kept it, it would just bring bad memories now.

You looked down at the bunny in your hands, smiling sadly at it.

“I guess it’s just you guys and me, huh little guy?” You said, talking about the creatures of all shapes and sizes that surrounded you.

Morax was the only person who truly understood you. Every other archon thought that you were nothing but a weak archon. A girl who can’t rule over people. But that was something you never wanted to do. You never wanted to control anyone. All you wanted was to be seen as their equal. You didn’t want to be seen as a scary and powerful archon. But you also didn’t want to be seen as weak. That’s why you never got along with the other archons, only the citizens. But even then, you could never quite get close to the citizens due to them thinking you were superior over them. They treated you differently and that is what separated you from them.

But Morax, he treated you like he truly loved you…until now.

Maybe you were wrong about him. Maybe he only treated you that way because you were the only person who stood by him no matter what….but now that Guizhong is in the picture, an archon that is also powerful…and more beautiful as other archons would say, maybe he started to change his view of you.

Suddenly, you felt weird. It was something you weren’t used to.

You didn’t feel anything.

You didn’t feel sad, angry, regret, love, nothing. You felt…empty once you came to your own reality.

All you had was yourself, no one else. You couldn’t rely on anyone anymore. 

And that was what flipped your switch from being a sweet and innocent girl, to one who didn’t have a care in the world anymore. A girl who did what she wanted, no matter what anyone else thought. 

–

Months had passed and Morax still hadn’t heard anything from you. He felt horrible and the guilt wouldn’t stop building inside of him. He still can’t believe what he said to you. It was just his anger getting the best of him…letting it choose for him. 

Of course he loved you. But he thought you never loved him that way, hence why he kept trying to see Guizhong. He was hoping she could help get rid of his feelings for you…but no matter what, he couldn’t get you off of his mind. 

That was until you confessed to him a few months back, changing him entirely. He wanted to confess to you, tell him that he loves you just as much, if not more. But once you made him choose….its like he wasn’t himself. And now, because of that, you were long gone. He hates himself because of it and just wishes he could go back in time to fix everything. What’s worse is that no one has seen you, not even the citizens who you loved talking to. 

Guizhong would try and comfort him, but it never worked. She would try and distract him, but every little thing he saw reminded him of you. 

Now every night, he cries himself to sleep, praying that one day, he would get to see you once more and apologize. The guilt was eating him up and he wasn’t sure what he would do if he couldn’t see you once more. He just wanted to fix everything.

But little did he know that once he did find you, it would be the last.

_____________

[thebellearchives]

𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

~ Vash the Stampede ; Trigun Stampede

✧˚ · . S Y N O P S I S : the secret feelings between you and vash shine through when you dance together in your shared hotel room

‧₊˚ c o n t e n t s : vash x gn!reader, fluff

‧₊˚ a / n : i’ve had this idea in the back of my head for a while!! this was inspired by “in the night” by fly by midnight ~

You walked in the room curiously, eyeing the golden decor that complimented the cream color of the walls. You and your friends had managed to get rooms in a pretty fancy inn. Since it was a nice place it seemed like it was usually fully booked, and even though you did get a couple of rooms you still ended up having to share. After a heated game of rock paper scissors, Meryl won a room all for herself, Wolfwood had to share with Roberto and you were sharing with Vash.

The room was spacious, with a big comfortable looking bed, a big bathroom and a small kitchen. Vash closed the door when your eyes spotted a radio, neatly placed over a round dining table. You picked it up, searching for the on/off switch.

“What is it?” Vash curiously walked up behind you.

“Just a radio” turning it on, you changed stations for a while until a familiar melody filled the room “hey! I haven’t heard this song in a long time”

“Oh I know this song” Vash smiled and moved his head from left to right on beat, making you giggle.

You turned up the volume and placed the radio back in the table, singing along and joining Vash in a stupid little dance. Vash laughed and grabbed both of your hands, lifting them up and dancing with you. Soon your steps steered away from the table, and you found yourselves swaying all around the room. The blond sang along too, voices following the lyrics’ rhythm and only getting interrupted by laughter. He lifted one of your arms to twirl you around, the sound of his laugh filling the room. A wide smile appeared on your lips, and your eyes lingered on his face. The sound of his happiness was so pretty, and it was just as musical as the song coming from the radio. You hung your arms from his shoulders, completely mesmerized by his bliss, he wrapped his arms around your waist in the middle of innocent chuckles. The pulse on your veins quickened almost immediately, and the tempo of your heartbeat was suddenly faster than the melody leaving your lips. He made you feel like you were under a spell, he had you so captivated that for a moment you moved your hand without permission from your brain. You brushed his blond hair away from his pretty eyes and rested your palm on his cheek with adoration, your heart swelled in tenderness watching that sweet smile of his on his lips, the long lashes that adorned his blue orbs, and the soft and warm feeling of his clear skin on your fingertips. Sometimes you weren’t even sure if he was real, how could someone so infinitely kind and caring even exist? The way that Vash’s blue eyes widened snapped you out of your daydream, a blush spread through his cheeks. You didn’t move an inch, but you stared back into his eyes, scared that maybe you had crossed the boundaries of your friendship, that maybe he’d awkwardly push you away. But he didn’t, instead you felt his arms tighten a little around you. Vash’s gaze softened, leaning towards you just a little. You noticed he was breathing nervously through his mouth, his lashes moved downwards as he watched your lips. Lifting your chin up closer to him, your fingertips grazed the fuzzy sides of his undercut and then curled around his blond strands, heart drumming hopeful in your ears. You closed your eyes slowly, and next thing you felt were his soft lips kissing yours sweetly. You kissed back longingly, a relieved sigh escaping from your lungs. Cold metal fingertips traced your back soothingly, a sweet burning sensation of crave in your chest pumping your blood towards your face and flushing it with a tint of red similar to the color of his coat. Kissing Vash felt like finding water after months in the desert, and when he stopped and inhaled sharply your lips chased after his, wishing to indulge in his kiss once more.

“Vash…” his name fell from your mouth in a yearning whisper, and he complied to you almost immediately.

Vash held your chin before placing another kiss on your lips and his thumb caressed your cheek. Your shaky hands led your arms to hang from his neck as you forgot about everything around you, his name and his touch being the only thoughts in your head. When the kiss stopped you remained still with your eyes closed, feeling his warm breath tingle over your mouth before he smiled gently. With a sigh, Vash rested his forehead on yours and nuzzled against your nose, making you giggle. Vash chuckled too, and at last you noticed that the song you had been dancing to had finished a while ago.

[onedaughterofman]

For me (Papa Emeritus III x g/n reader)

A/N: Based on that "please, do it for me" tiktok audio.

Summary: Terzo can be very persuasive, when he wants to. And today he wants to.

Tags: fingering, +18, adult content, Terzo being a manipulative manwhore, desk sex. Around 800 words.

“Please, do it for me.”

You take a deep breath, but there’s not enough air inside Papa’s private office. The hard wood of the desk digs in your flesh when you lean back, trying to rock into his fingers. 

Fuck. It’s too early for this. Seven in the morning, if you’re reading the clock on the wall correctly.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. In theory, you had to help Papa get ready for a short trip, for some sort of clergy reunion or something like that. Of course, Terzo had other ideas.

He always does. His ideas often include sex, fucking on desks and against the wall, his fingers ticking deep inside you. You don’t complain, clearly, but today had to be different. He has to leave soon, and all the important documents you were supposed to put inside a binder folder are now on the floor.

Hell, he’s not even wearing the Papal regalia. 

Terzo doesn’t pick up the pace, no matter how much you try to rock into him. His other hand presses down on your lower stomach, in orden to keep you still as his eyes bore into your face. The way his mouth is in a tight line and his eyebrows are raised softly tells you he won’t yield, no matter what you do. “It’s just a stupid trip, you’ll be fine,” he says. 

“The same applies to you,” you retort, as soon as you find your voice. It comes out too airy, full of doubt. “Sister said you have to go.”

For a short moment, his fingers stop completely. Terzo looks up, mismatched eyes finding yours. He’s serious, way too serious when he speaks. “Sister is not the head of the clergy, is she?” 

It might be a little too early to be fucking on a hard desk, but it’s definetely way too early to indulge in this discussion. “No, but she’s my superior.”

“And so am I.” Terzo’s voice vibrates against the skin on your neck when he leans to whisper in your ear. Your throat is tight when you swallow, saliva thick inside your mouth.

Fuck. 

Terzo senses his words stirred something inside you, because he curls his fingers in a way he knows you love before speeding up, going further and harder. It’s still not enough, but it’s better than the previous pace. “Come on, do it for your Papa. I’ll make it up for you.”

And so he does. He traces circles inside you, rhythmically and deep, fingers coming in and out and making a loud noise over the silence of the office. You fight hard to keep your voice down, because Imperator might be lurking around waiting for Terzo to accompany her and Nihil to this reunion. And Lord below, you don’t want to be the one who joins them instead, no matter how hard he insists on that. 

“I can’t. They are expecting a Papa in the meeting, not a Sibling of Sin.”

“Ah, but you’ll be my representative. No big deal. Besides, Imperator will be there and she never lets me speak out of fear of me saying something stupid. I just sit there and look pretty. That’s something you can do, si?”

There’s no time to argue when he hits the right spot, making your back curl. One of your arms darts out to hold him closer, nails digging on his back. The wood is cold, so cold over your feverish skin, and he feels hot to the touch. 

“I…”

When Terzo kisses you, slow and passionate, with too much tongue as he always does, all the words die inside your throat. Your heart beats hard, pouding inside your ribcage as your stomach tenses up. 

“Please? You’ll do it for me, certo?” He whispers over your lips, dark eyes looking at your face through his lashes. “You’ll do it, and I’ll reward you.”

This time, you don’t even try to argue against his logic. Nodding and clinging closer to him, you let his weight crush you on the desk. Terzo honors his words, fingering and sucking bruises on your skin until you come, back arching and legs shaking. It takes a while to fully come down, but when you do, the regret clings to your ankles and waist.

It all doesn’t matter when Terzo stares at you again, a satisfied smile on his face as he licks his fingers clean. “Tell Imperator I’m… indisposed. And when you come back, I’ll reward you for being so good to me.”

Fuck, again. Regaining your composure, you collect your clothes and all the important documents laying on the ground. “I hate you,” you said, softly, but that smile never wavers. 

“And I love you, so much.”

When Imperator hears the news, she’s livid. Nihil trying to vouch for you doesn’t help at all. Still, no matter how much she runs around the cloister, she can’t find Terzo. And so, to the reunion you go. 

What a price to pay for some quick morning hookup.

PD: don't know what to say about this one ghesties. The things I'd let that man do to me.

I wasn't going to post this today but I was so excited after the new chapter that I just had to finish it and share it as celebration ♥

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

Can we get some cute headconons on Jio, Isaac, Jadu (he is slowly growing on me) and Lance accidentally blurting out the L word to their crush aka farmer in like a very random time 🤧

L word? *searching "L word meaning"*

Oh! You mean 'love'? Yay, fluff! Thanks so much for the ask and enjoy!

Isaac:

The fact that Isaac had stopped chasing the Farmer away from him meant a grand gesture on his part.

The chaotic and charming Farmer had managed to break through the first line of defense to the cold adventurer's heart, and they became friends.

Isaac studied them for a long time, out of curiosity, and didn't notice how he managed to fall in love with them. Though he'd tried to deny it at first.

They never interrupted him, never gave him trash, but rather useful things for adventures. They knew the value of honor, always trying their best to protect the Valley and even the Castle Village.

And yet Isaac couldn't admit his feelings. Not because he didn't trust them, but because deep down he was afraid of rejection.

Only he was so engrossed in Farmer's story about their recent adventures that he didn't realize that he had quietly said to them: "I love you."

The realization after the words were spoken hit him instantly.

"Huh? What did you say?"

"I said I'll blow you!" Yoba, that's even worse...

"Wha-"

"Go to hell!" Isaac yelled at the farmer and walked off in the opposite direction from them. His cheeks were as red as a ripe tomato.

The next day he apologizes for the incident. Isaac will be numb if Farmer says they also loves him.

Jadu:

Oh, no. No no no no. Whyyyy?

To smash a whole crate of potions for the guild in Stardew Valley!

He's been brewing them for a week, and because of a stupid rock he tripped over - all the potions are on the ground, broken! And right almost near the guild's doorstep. Ugh...

Even worse, the Farmer he'd been secretly in love with for the past four months was nearby, and must have seen everything. Now they would consider Jadu a total loser.

But instead, Farmer walked up to him, looking anxiously at his hands.

What? Oh, right. He cut himself a bit over the glass of the broken bottles, but that's nothing. However, Farmer insisted on treating the wound, and began bandaging Jadu's hands with bandages.

Such a gentle and careful touch.... And Farmer is so caring....

"I love you."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Jadu's silly smile immediately slid away when he realized what he had said to them.

"Jadu, did you accidentally hit your head in the fall?" The Farmer asked worriedly.

"I hit my head four months ago now, that's for sure."

Lance:

Apparently, Farmer took the phrase "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" very seriously. Whether in friendship or in love, this phrase is equally effective.

Think about it: you're standing at the post office somewhere in a forgotten part of the world that can safely be called Hell, you're hungry, and your friend appears out of nowhere and brings you your most favorite food.

Lo and behold, a relentless fortress named "Lance" has also been conquered.

The gallant pink-haired adventurer had been very interested in the mystical farmer since their very first meeting. But he never imagined that after their adventures together, Lance would have a crush on them.

They both sat watching Crimson Baldlans, eating the most delicious tropical curry Lance had ever tasted in his life. Talking about monsters and adventures for over an hour. Their first meeting, sighting in the Highlands, meeting The First Slash.... So many fond memories in that short time....

"I love you..." It was a good thing Lance happened to say that phrase quietly enough, as Farmer didn't hear them.

"Hm? Did you say something Lance?"

He coughed, quickly corrected himself. "Ah, I said I love your cooking. The curry was wonderful. Thank you, my friend."

The Farmer smiled broadly, Lance melting every time he saw their beautiful smile.

Maybe he should take the first step soon to move to a new level of relationship, more than friendship. But not tonight, tonight they would just enjoy each other's company and food.

Jio:

Have mercy, forest spirits! He's even worse than Isaac...

He was a master of caution, he was hiding all these strange incomprehensible feelings that had begun to manifest after all those adventures in Spirit Realm with Farmer. Jio couldn't understand what it was.

"It's called love, silly!" "Shut up, Daia."

Love? Pfft, absurd! Jio even laughed at this silly idea.

Truth be told, when he and Farmer were in Ridge Forest at night, in such a magical place where Farmer looks especially beautiful, Jio still accidentally said something that had been tormenting him for a long time. "I love you."

Farmer.exe and Jio.exe stopped working.

"What did you say?"

"DIE!" Jio turned into a mist and disappeared from Farmer's sight. The fuck was that?...

The elf afterward would think that Farmer was using some kind of enchantment that made Jio behave like that.

"Silly old Jio, you just fell in love with Farmer! You need to talk to them" "Shut up, Daia."

But his friend is right about something: he needs to apologize for being rude at the very least.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/728337438156734464/since-we-ended-up-talking-about-experimental oh god fucking dammit that slipped me by entirely. thanks for the free beta I guess lol. *goes to fix*

see, your version as two sentences makes sense but is also the kind of prose I'd consider just the tiny bit boring, and I feel like there should be a way to do it as one and still have it be comprehensible yknow

that's exactly where Experimental Grammar(TM) would have a place

--

My dude, you opened with "The fact that". We're in wordy-and-stilted territory here.

I think there are ways to do it as one sentence and probably lots of them, but we're going to need a little style.

The fact that the only genuine human connection he'd had in months had been with a criminal on track to one of the worse penal facilities really shouldn't be something to shake him to his core.

is, at its heart... not very interesting to start with. I'm not saying my version is interesting. It's not. It's just the clearer version of what you gave me.

If this were in my first draft (and it totally would be), I would rewrite the sentence entirely, not tweak it.

"One of the worse" is a culprit here. So is "really". This feels flabby and generic. It's only one of the worse and not one of the worst? Is this only, like, B-grade sucky?

Who is this person? This collection of banalities won't tell us. Sure, it's in the middle of something else that will help, but it's still so plain and so loaded down with helpers like "really" instead of having strong word choices in the first place.

Is this a person who uses very long sentences that get lost in their own verbiage? That's a style choice and it can work.

Look, if you want wordy, do wordy. But pick better words.

That his sole, solitary spark of human connection in this bleak year had been with a genocidal maniac on his way to a lifetime in The Poison Hells should not have sent this bolt of ice through his guts.

The fact that the only living creature to break through the gray fog of these past months was a venal excuse for a public servant headed for exile in a second-tier penal colony should not have likewise destroyed his calm, and yet...

And if they aren't someone who specifically wants to wax lyrical for too many words before a period, why stop at two sentences?

What was wrong with this piece of shit he called a brain? Two months of cold, calm quiet and then—then—that little shit Danvers said one word and he melted like a kid's popsicle in the sun. Was he really that desperate for human companionship? No. Fuck that. Danvers could try what he liked, but he was up against thirty years on The Rock no matter what any of them said now. Only that weasel was too stupid to know buttering up a guard couldn't do shit. The other option wasn't worth thinking about—the option that Danvers hadn't been trying anything.

Are these good? Eh. Nothing one puts in a writing advice post is ever good enough and is doomed to vivisection, but they're at least less boring.

I'm sorry, dude, but what you gave us, we gave you back.