#triage playlist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maiverie · 1 year

Text

TRIAGE! ┊ a lee heeseung series — FINALE ♡

you try to teach the nerd how to date.

synopsis: heeseung is not, by any measure, date-able. he’s dorky, he’s nerdy, and he does this weird thing where he snorts loudly every time he laughs. in fact, he loves everything that normal people are allergic to — computer science, collecting rare comic books, and birdwatching on the weekend.

given that you two have obviously nothing in common, you find yourself utterly flabbergasted when you receive a letter in your locker, on which heeseung has written, "hi. will you please teach me how to date?"

MASTERLIST HERE !

kayla’s playlist (@/miiiwaa) ♡ my shitty og playlist . tags : #.*triage .

TAGLIST

@enhyflirt @dreamyenskz @icedcoffeesunwoo @ssolari @skazoo @jjunis @heejake-en @koroktsuya @jeongwins @tinykoi-s @en-boyz @soobin-chois @blessed-sky @jhyunieee @kisswon @vbxrin @cosmicsunghoon @bloomedberry @jungwonielove @miiiwaa @jungwoniee @lhsng @missharubear @deonuism @sarahxy537 @bambisgirl @hrrhmay-primaryblog @yeonzzun @msxflower @sunsunu @jangwonie @sweetjaemss @seungstarss @tokyoflies @solelyenha @softforqiankun @goodforgyu @va1ry @taekbokki @ashxxkook @moon-gyus @jakeified @markleeisdabestdrug @wccycc @viagumi @pisss111 @outrologist @fairfairee @hiqhkey @ctrlemis

chapter five (finale)

word count: 8k | navigation: previous / MASTERLIST warnings: swearing, (verbal) bullying a/n: final chapter; thank you so much for reading this far. sorry this took so long to get to you :(

‎‎‏‏‎ ‎

‘let’s have a little talk, you dweeb.’

heeseung had been backed into a corner.

while he often liked to reserve that idiom for metaphoric effect, he means it quite literally — ryujin and taehyun had literally backed him into a corner of a bedroom with no way out.

it was obvious he had stumbled across something he shouldn’t have.

ryujin and taehyun kissing? how disturbing.

if it were up to him, he truly wouldn’t have meddled in their business. however, the way they’re sneering at him leads him to believe that they think his actions were intentional. he wants to insist that no part of this was deliberate—that he was honestly just trying to find you—but tense silence circulates the trio and he has no inclination to speak first.

“who the fuck do you think you are?” ryujin punctuates the silence with her malice, making him inwardly wince. her hands find their way to her hips as she openly scowls with disdain. “god, you’re annoying.”

“i-i should go,” heeseung lowers his head, scratching the nape of his neck. “i didn’t mean to intrude,” he laughs nervously in an attempt to dispel their hostility, “i was just trying to find—”

“no, you should stay.” taehyun suggests, a smirk slithering to his lips. he rolls his head around his neck before sighing contently. “you should stay and play with us.”

play…?

heeseung physically recoils with horror, stomach twisting with unease. there’s something about taehyun’s predatory stare that flares goosebumps all the way across his arms. he realises that the most wise decision right now is to escape the enclosed space as soon as possible.

“sorry, i-i don’t want to keep my parents waiting,” he lies, lowering his head. “they’re downstairs.”

the two exchange impish glances.

“well, we won’t be long,” ryujin stifles a laugh before taking a seat on the bed. she folds one leg over the other, leaning back with her arms propped up. “since you were creeping on us, we thought you could exchange the favour and tell us all about your girlfriend.”

“girlfriend?” heeseung blinks. he doesn’t have a girlfr— oh.

miss sunset.

you? his… girlfriend?

as if.

“oh,” heeseung dips his head shyly. “n-no, you’re mistaken. she’s, um… she’s not my girlfriend.”

if he were being honest, he was kind of hoping to change that some day.

“what, so you guys haven’t fucked yet?” ryujin bats her lashes, a playful stare in her eyes.

heeseung’s brows instantly furrow, a frown on his lips. frankly, he was a little bugged by their vulgarity and the tone used to address you. this was the same type of contempt he noticed in other people in his life — like his aunt at her wedding, who pulled him aside and cautioned that ‘girls like that are foxes, heeseung! they’re nothing but trouble.’

it shouldn't matter, because they’re all wrong.

every single one of them.

they're wrong.

it boggles his mind that people can’t see what he sees.

then again, it can’t be helped that all the best things about you are what can’t be seen. sure, you’re so pretty that sometimes he can’t even meet your eyes properly, but you’re also warmer and kinder than you give yourself credit to be. you must not realise, but he notices the little things you do for him — like the way you clean his glasses when he places them down on the table to sleep; or the way you pretend you’re full so he can finish the rest of your lunch; or the way you scribble encouraging little notes and drawings on his textbooks when you know he has a long night of studying ahead of him.

it boggles his mind that some people may never have the privilege of peeking behind the curtain to see that you’re warm, and funny, and kind, and caring. you embody everything that his well-fitting nickname suggests. miss sunset — a blaze of colour; an explosion of soft yellows, bright oranges, fierce reds, pearly pinks and vibrant purples.

you’re a fiery kiss to the sky.

it’s both a shame and an honour that he’s able to keep you to himself.

“you know she likes you, right?” ryujin smirks, erecting from the bed.

heeseung’s eyes instantly round. “wh-what?”

“yeah,” she slowly slinks toward him. “she told me.”

“r-really?”

“duh. why wouldn’t she? we’re best friends,” ryujin scoffs, arms folded. “and i know her better than anyone. we’ve known each other since we were little kids, you know.”

heeseung notices that you don’t often talk about your relationship with ryujin and taehyun. you don’t really tell heeseung much about anything from your past, but he would certainly consider your old friendships to be the biggest elephant in the room. he doesn’t doubt that you were all once close friends, but he knows you haven’t been in contact with them for a while now. it’s obvious why, in his opinion — they’re mean-spirited people who enjoy sinking their claws into people and injecting poison.

they’re callous and vicious and hateful. they’re everything that you’re not.

‘best friends’? he felt insulted for you.

it was like trying to hold a candle to the sun.

“what… what was she like?” heeseung can’t help but ask, his stomach doing a little flip at the thought of you as a child. he knows he should probably leave the room, but the temptation runs too deep — he wants to consume everything about you.

what did your hair look like? what did your laugh sound like? did you prefer playing outside or staying inside? what made you smile during the day and what kept you up at night?

his heart began to thump at the thought of these answers before reluctance settled in.

was it wrong to wonder these many things about you?

was he allowed to be curious?

would that truly be okay — given that you were a goddess and he was next to nothing?

“cute,” ryujin replies, head bobbing. “she was cute.”

aha!

heeseung can’t help but smile profusely. “of course! i knew it,” he mumbles, blushing to himself. of course she was cute; beauty like that must have been obvious even at a young age.

ryujin’s razor-sharp stare remained. she seemed to study heeseung carefully before lowering her gaze. “she was also kind of mean, i guess,” she continued, inspecting her nails nonchalantly. “a bit of a bully.”

taehyun stifled a laugh at this, and they exchanged knowing glances as though they were indulging in an inside joke. “oh, yeah, i remember she once bullied that kid for sitting in her seat.”

bullied?

heeseung frowned, doubtful about their claims. he reminds himself that they’re both the type of people to embellish any story for their own entertainment. “you’re wrong,” he frowns. “she wouldn’t do something like that. sh-she’s not like you. she’s different.”

ryujin’s lips extend into a smile. “how well do you think you know her?”

his frown deepened. “better than you do.”

the pair instantly burst into cacophonous laughter that seems to poison the air in the room.

heeseung bites his bottom lip, feeling unease swirling around at the pit of his stomach.

“really?” ryujin defies him with a raised brow. “you really think you know her that well?”

he nods slowly.

“okay,” she tilts her head, “then where is she right now?”

heeseung’s eyes flicker to the ground. he didn’t know the answer to that question, but that wasn’t indicative of anything. “well, i-i don’t know, but… she’ll be back—”

“obviously, she ditched you. she left you, heeseung, it’s something we used to do a lot. we’d invite two or three suckers to a party, get them drunk as shit, and then make them entertain us for the next few hours.”

his eyes widened as he fell into momentary silence, forming as many rational justifications as he could. “but… i was the one who asked her to come with me. and… and you just told me that she… she likes me.”

ryujin rolled her eyes. “the only reason yuna invited you was because we thought it’d be funny. plus, don’t get me wrong — i’m sure she likes you, but don’t put any weight on that. it’s like how a person can like a helpless puppy. it’s pity; that’s all it is.”

“th-that doesn’t mean anything.” heeseung felt discomfort sprout inside his chest, branching insidiously in his lungs and up his throat. “that has nothing to do with her! she’s… she’s an angel.”

“really?” ryujin slithered over toward him and placed a hand on his shoulder, clenching it tightly to bring their faces close. “then why’d she tell us about that letter of yours?”

heeseung felt his heart drop to his feet. “wh-what?”

“the letter you left in her locker,” ryujin continued. “what did it say again? something like…” she pretended to brainstorm, tapping her chin with a finger. “oh! right… wasn’t it something like hi, will you please teach me how to date?” ryujin giggled as taehyun joined in snickering from behind.

his breathing quickened. the letter.

you told him you never told anyone about that.

did you lie?

maybe they’re bluffing — you wouldn’t do that. and even if you did lie, you would have definitely told heeseung afterward, right?

“the funniest part was the fact that you signed it off like the fucking virgin-loser you are. kind regards, lee heeseu—” they cackled again, this time even louder. they continued to banter with one another by echoing the contents of the letters.

heeseung felt himself shrink. hot tears burned his eyes as he felt their humiliation pile on and on as though they were determined in hammering him into the ground.

“oh my god,” ryujin laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes. “gee, thanks for tonight’s entertainment, heeseung,” she chuckles off the rest of her amusement, “i wish i took a photo of the letter or something. so that i could share it around with—”

“no!” heeseung cried as he swallowed the lump in his throat and began to enter a swivet of panic. “d-don’t! i-i—”

“you’re shaking like a leaf!” ryujin pouts, reaching to grab his shoulder before he flinches. “it’s okay. i won’t tell anyone. unlike your girlfriend, i know how to keep secrets,” she whistled. “say, heeseung… i’m keeping a lot of secrets these days, aren’t i?” she brushed his hair with her fingers.

“even yours.”

he stopped dead, chest rising up and down as he attempted to breathe. he tried to clear his tears with rapid blinking, but it only resulted in more tears replacing the previous ones.

“don’t worry. we’ve been nice. we haven’t told her your secret yet,” she winked.

yet?

“listen,” ryujin’s voice lowers, her finger lifting his chin so that he faces her. “i really don’t want to keep your parents waiting for too long, so i’ll say this: your girlfriend’s not a saint. she’s vicious in her own way. and if you hate us for the things we make you do, then you should hate her, too. why? because she and i are exactly the same — everything we’ve done to you, she’s done to someone else.”

“y-you’re… you’re wrong.” he turned away from her finger.

ryujin hummed once. “well, let’s face the facts.” her lips slowly lifted into a grin. “you’re alone right now, heeseung. she’s not even here. she left you. i saw her get in the car and leave just earlier. go ahead and look outside if you don’t believe me.”

heeseung’s gaze flickered to the ground.

“but anyway,” ryujin whirls around and exchanges a smile with taehyun. “we gotta go… we wouldn’t want to stay out too late since we have an early morning, right?” she smirks. “we’ll see you tomorrow, heeseung. at the police station.”

“wh-what? why?”

“because someone ratted us out,” taehyun chimes in, eyes rolling. “so we’ll keep your secret so long as you do one more favour for us.”

you can have your puzzle back. i don't want it anymore.

“you can have your puzzle back.” your little sun says, his voice lowering into a register so low that you almost miss it. “i don’t want it anymore.”

the room remained dark as heeseung’s words hung like ghosts in dead silence.

it was deafening, the way his whisper was the softest sound you’d ever heard. you were holding your breath, fearing a reality in which i don’t want it anymore meant something beyond what you could hear at face value.

“i don’t want your stupid gift,” he croaks, burying his face in his hands, stifling a sob. “j-just… please, just leave me alone.”

finding him sitting in the dark room alone and crying made your heart shatter. it was easy to confront the idea that ryujin or taehyun had hurt him, but you weren’t equipped to face the possibility that it might have been you. the distance he was creating between the two of you allowed your inner antagonisms to fester — your chest tightened with unease, exacerbated by the pressure of fear expanding within you.

“h-heeseung,” you blurted in surprise, your throat so parched that it forced you to swallow and brace yourself for what felt like impending heartbreak. “why…”

you were so stunned that it honestly felt as though time had stopped moving for a moment. you allowed space to pour between the two of you — you let a beat pass, then two, then three, then four, and with each one that scurried by, you grew more and more apprehensive that he wasn’t going to retrace his steps. you thought there was a chance he’d backpedal his words and tell you they’d sprung from his chest in the heat of the moment, but instead, he let you soak in abject misery.

your heart sank. above everything, you were terrified — he was slipping away from you like dust between your fingertips. it wasn’t long before tears followed — they blurred your vision, no matter how many times you’d tried to dismiss them with your hands.

“h-heeseung?” you called his name softly and hoped to peel his fingers away from his face, but he flinched at your touch. in every attempt you make in closing the distance, you find that heeseung draws a line between you; each harsher than the last. he recoils at your touch, shrivels at the sound of your voice, and offers you nothing but a view of his back that shields you away.

he was cowering from you.

it made you feel ill. sick. like the taste of bile was rising to your mouth and leaving an acidic, ghostly burn in your throat. bit by bit, your resolve was crumbling like a house of cards.

“tell me what’s wrong,” you begged him, crouching before him on the carpet though he curled away from you. “i promise i’ll fix it, okay? i’ll fix everything.”

“y-you can’t,” he sniffled.

you felt your throat constrict. “why not?”

“because…” heeseung finally lifted his head, and the moment your eyes locked with his bloodshot ones, it felt as though his fear, hurt, and pain ricocheted back to you tenfold and struck you like a stab to the heart. he sniffled again. “because you lied,” you saw his eyes well with tears again, “and i lied, and—” his voice became smaller. “all we do is lie to each other.”

perhaps this was what you’d always feared — that you were going to be the one to break him.

after all, you had a tendency to do precisely that. you can’t even count the number of times you’d accidentally shattered the dishes in the kitchen that your mother adored so dearly. or the number of bones you’d broken during wild dares from late nights. or the countless number of fractured friendships in your life because you never really struggled with breaking — whether they were dishes, or bones, or promises, or hearts.

was he another?

was heeseung just another one of those things you were always bound to break?

“please leave,” his voice was becoming softer, and softer, and softer, further eclipsed by his cries. you could tell he was struggling to make out his words. you could also tell that he was being honest.

you’ve never had anyone beg you like this before.

“okay,” you whisper, tears littering the carpet. “i’ll leave.”

unable to look at him any further, you twist on your heels. you do what you do best — you run. you run down the stairs and out the house and run and run and run, ashamed that this story has unfolded the exact way anyone could have predicted.

he hates you, you may love him, and neither of you are puzzle pieces that fit together.

perhaps heeseung was right; perhaps you truly are sunrises and sunsets, because alike parallel lines, the two never meet.

perhaps heeseung never taught you to heal after all. perhaps broken bones and hearts can never properly heal, the same way cuts and grazes may leave permanent scars on our bodies. perhaps your body did what it could to fix what broke, but it only took one gust of wind to retrace old scars and re-break what will always remain broken.

you’ve never been very good with your emotions.

you constantly misrepresent them.

you smile when you’re sad, frown when you’re happy, say things you don’t mean and omit the words that you resonate deepest with.

after the party, you cried like you have never cried before. it was a foreign, almost out-of-body experience. every emotion exploded and pierced through the thin surface they were bubbling beneath. your scathing tears had soaked everything — your eyes, your cheeks, and your pillow late through the night. the worst of it was the heaviness inside your chest that ceased to subside, one so hefty that it was the reason you felt like you were sinking to the bottom of an ocean.

it was only until the next morning that anger, the emotion you consider to be the easiest to wear, brought you the energy to pay a visit to ryujin. you were going to get the answers to all your questions.

after all, that was what you’d learned over the years — anger is the only emotion that gets you answers.

which is why you began with ruthlessly banging your fist on her front door.

“open the door, ryujin!” you bellow.

bang! bang! bang!

what could she have possibly said to heeseung?

bang! bang! bang!

why? why was it that ryujin was so insistent on butting in your life?

bang! bang! bang!

was this some form of karmic reparation? was the universe simply rescinding what should have never been yours in the first place?

you didn’t know what you were going to do. or say, for that matter. yet here you were, desperately trying to claw your way up to the surface where the sun kisses the water. to hell you were going to let this heaviness make you sink and give ryujin the satisfaction.

with no response on the other end, you began to kick the door now.

bang! bang! bang!

“i said, open this fucking d—”

it finally swings open.

“are you fucking nuts?” ryujin shrieks from the other side, face contorted with outrage and disbelief. she glances at the door before openly gaping at you. “what the hell? you’re going to break the fucking do—”

you waste no time in lunging toward her. you shove her with both hands, thrusting her so far behind that she lurches back and stumbles onto the floor. while sprawled on the ground, ryujin instantly snaps her head up at you and scowls. “what the fuck is wro—”

yet again, you don’t give her much time to react. you step toward her, making her scramble back before her back hits the wall. as the distance between the two of you closes, you crouch in front of her and roughly push the side of her head with a finger.

“what, ryujin?” you smirk vindictively. “did that hurt?”

her chest sharply rises heavily when she meets your icy glower. “get out.”

though she attempts to pick herself up from the floor, you harshly grip her shoulder and force her back down. you reach over and tap her cheek condescendingly, your voice now a lowly whisper.

“how funny,” you scoff, head tilted. “i thought i told you to stay out of my life.”

she grits her teeth. “i said, get out.”

“why should i? you’re the one who keeps insisting on getting involved in my shit.”

“you’re batshit.” she gapes at you. “is this about that dweeb?”

“his name is heeseung.” you snap at her, bunching the collar of her shirt in your fist. you yank her toward you, your other fist lifted and curled.

ryujin barks out a dry laugh when her eyes flit to the sight of your fist. “you’re going to punch me?” she snickers again in disbelief. the sight of her grin makes your fist tighten under her shirt. anger. you felt your anger simmer at cautionary temperatures and slowly branch up in your neck to your face.

“what did you do to him?” you grit your teeth, breathing slowly to control your emotions.

it was difficult, because you felt as though she relished at the sight of your anger. she must have recognised your most familiar emotion and felt as though you had shifted back into becoming your old self. you saw it in the way her lips curled, and the way her brows had lifted, and most notably, in the way her eyes paraded a small, tiny, starry glint that conveyed her amusement.

it made you wonder if she was doing this all intentionally.

just to get a reaction out of you.

just to get something.

“it wasn’t exactly what we did to him,” she smirked. “it was what he did to himself, really.”

“where’s taehyun?” you reach over and slowly comb your fingers through her hair, before closing your fist and grasping a bundle of her strands, jerking her head backwards. “i want him to see your face all battered up. you know, before i beat the living shit out of him, too.”

she sneers at you. “why don’t you ask heeseung? i’m sure he’ll know exactly where taehyun is.”

you narrow your eyes at her. “what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“they’re probably together right now.”

heeseung and taehyun? together?

you scoff. “what?”

she stifles a laugh, and there it is again — that glint. like a tiny star amidst a midnight canvas. you could feel the anger grow like an inferno within you. that glint was pestering you; it was almost begging for you to reach over and extinguish it. you grip her hair harsher, this time yanking her head backward.

she yelps as you pin her down with a glower. “tell me where.”

she hisses at the pain of your grip on her hair and narrows her eyes. “police station, obviously,” she spat with a glare.

her eyes met yours, where your confusion must have been evident. those midnight eyes turned with patronising pity. “wow,” she remarked sarcastically. “the idiot still hasn’t told you.”

“ryujin,” you lean toward her and hiss slowly, with the intended effect that each syllable augments your hostility, “say one more thing about him and i’ll bash your skull against the cement.”

“now tell me,” you hiss, “what are they doing at the police station?” though your words appeared to be laced with composed venom, the truth remained that your heart had begun to drum. everything was coming at a surprise — you couldn’t imagine what would ever bring heeseung to a police station, though you could enumerate a thousand reasons for taehyun.

“like i said, heeseung did it to himself.”

not satisfied with her answer, you yank her hair again and this time she attempts to strike you with her free arm, but you grab her wrist and desist her from doing so. she winces when you pull her hair tighter, prompting her to quickly open her mouth and elaborate. “okay, okay!” she cries. “he was the one who agreed to take the drug test for taehyun!”

your lips drop into a frown. “what?”

“then the police found out, okay?” she seethed. “we needed him to come in and deny everything. happy?”

you stopped in confusion. what the hell was she talking about? as you sifted through the many thoughts that raced in your mind, you finally froze when you began to comprehend the situation.

you remember now. it was that day — the day you’d first met heeseung in the school hallway, when taehyun had set his eyes upon and sunken his claws into his latest victim.

taehyun was a drug user, and when he was finally caught by the school, he was mandated to perform probationary urine tests. he constantly evaded these tests by intimidating somebody into giving him fake samples. this was common practice, and it just so happened that heeseung was his chosen victim the day you two had first met.

heeseung never told you that.

he never told you that he went through with it.

“i mean, maybe if he’d kept his mouth shut or done a better job at peeing in a fucking cup, things wouldn’t be like this. in saying that, whose fault is it really?” ryujin rambled on, rubbing salt to the wound as your anger multiplied. “it was still fun at least. especially when we got to talk about you.”

your hand balled into a tighter fist.

“me?” you pin her down with a dark gaze. “what the fuck did you say about me?”

she shrugs smugly. you watched as a sly smile slithered to her lips and her eyes pooled with shiny darkness. “nothing that wasn’t true.”

your heart drops to your feet.

“you know, it’s funny,” ryujin stifles a laugh, “because he denied it at first. said that you were…” she lifts her hands and uses her fingers to show quotation marks, “different.” you felt your anxiety pierce and gush into your stomach. “we laughed in his face. different, my ass. you didn’t tell him, did you? that you’re actually as much of a piece of shit as we are. he even called you an angel, you know that?”

angel.

“so we decided to set the record straight and we told him what he had the right to know.” she giggled. “you didn’t forget, did you?”

you stared.

“the letter,” she reminds you. “he was so embarrassed i think that was when he started to cry.”

you froze.

the letter.

fuck.

you wanted nothing more than to run to heeseung and clarify the misunderstanding as best that you could. you wanted to talk to him. hold him. apologise and tell him you’d never intentionally hurt him. that it was an accident — that you lied, yes, but you just didn’t want him to feel embarrassed at that time. that it was a lapse in judgement.

but for some reason, something holds you back.

anger.

anger holds you back.

the thing about anger is that while it may be your most familiar emotion, it is also the most paralysing of them all. and when it’s combined with resentment, it becomes insidious. the reality about anger is that it exists only in the absence of control, a dangerous condition to find yourself in.

nevertheless, you feel that way.

you feel out of control.

helpless. angry. frustrated.

why? because that glint is still there. the gleaming, ostentatious star in her eyes that flounces around in her own delight. mocking you.

ryujin is staring at you expectantly, anticipating your reaction.

you know that she’s waiting for you to punch her. to show her you prefer fists over words. to show her you have not changed in the slightest. everything she has done is aimed to get a rise out of you; she doesn’t care about anything else but avenging the fact you had tossed your friendship to the side — that you had tossed her aside.

in this moment, you realise that no matter how hard you try, you know that ryujin has won. she doesn’t even need to try very hard to show you that you will never be able to change into a better person. your efforts have come to naught. even now, you are held by anger; you want it to control you — even if it means reversing everything heeseung had taught you about not acting upon your impulses; about not fighting fire with fire.

you wonder how heeseung would react if he found out what you’d done today. that you’d allowed anger to override you and that you had already used your hands on ryujin.

you pushed her, shoved her to the ground and pulled her hair without a second thought.

after all, you’d proven her right — you are still the same person.

how would he react?

these very thoughts loosen your grip on ryujin’s collar.

you slowly retract your hands from her, feeling the heaviness inside your chest gnaw at you. why are you stooping to her level? as you swallow and salvage whatever amount of sense you have left, you shake your head and slowly rise to your feet.

if heeseung saw you now, he’d probably be scared.

he’d probably see them in you.

your sudden withdrawal makes ryujin freeze. she seems taken off guard. she watches you suspiciously as you attempt to compose yourself, noticeably irked by your lack of response. “you’re… not going to hit me?” she hesitates, sitting up slowly.

“ryujin, you and i are done.” you attempt to stabilise your shaky breaths. for some reason, focusing on heeseung helps your mind from spinning. he’s your anchor and when you use him as your moral compass, he brings the clarity you need. “for real this time.”

“what?” ryujin splutters with disbelief. she pauses, openly gawking. “what the fuck?” she scrambles to her feet and storms over toward you before abruptly shoving you into the door — the impact thunders down your spine and instantly releases a grunt from you, head spinning.

“hit me!” she taunts you by sneering in your face. “i made your little boy cry. hit me.”

“if he wanted me to, i honestly would,” you spit at her. “you should thank him you’re not bleeding out right now.”

she yells as you storm away from her house and it occurs to you that there’s really only one person you want to see right now.

you want to tell him that he was right.

you are different from ryujin after all.

and you will do whatever it takes to stray further and further away from being anything remotely similar.

‘you never know.’ ‘you might wake up one day and find that the sun is gone.’ ‘and then it’s like, poof — no more sunsets.’

heeseung was right.

the day you two had first met, you laughed and called him a loser for taking photos of the sunset. after all, he was attempting to immortalise something that was already a cosmic promise.

honestly, you didn’t get it.

what was the point of taking a photo of something he could see every day?

you realise now that he was right all along – it really was possible to wake up one day and find the sun gone.

everybody just has a different idea of what the sun is to them. for you, yours disappeared when you realised heeseung was doing whatever it took to avoid you over the weekend.

your texts were left unanswered.

calls were sent to voicemail.

he was shutting you out.

you tried to visit his house on sunday morning, but his mother faced you with a regretful smile and asked you not to come in. you didn’t know what else you could do because he seemed to close down every avenue you pursued.

you were so eager on monday morning to see him at school. you were an hour and a half early as you roamed everywhere, attempting to control your nerves. you didn’t know whether or not you should have waited at the school entrance, or by his locker, or just outside the classroom door.

it didn't matter, because he was late.

you were already halfway through the day when you had almost given up, though you got your first glimpse of him in days when he had finally showed up.

he looked almost as horrible as you did.

the darkness under his eyes had grown. his brown hair was fluffy and in plain disarray compared to how he usually styled it. his eyes were so puffy that it looked like he’d been crying all weekend, the same way you had. you tried to catch his eyes, but he didn’t return your gaze and instead slid into his desk quietly with his shoulders slumped.

there was a pang in your chest. his appearance made guilt expand within you.

did you do the impossible? did you break the sun and make it rain?

when class finished, you waited outside the door and stopped him when he tried to leave. it was only then that he finally looked back at you and you felt your heart stop. it took you all the strength to not cry, so you snaked a hand around his wrist and led the way to the school’s court garden.

“heeseung,” you faced him when you both stopped at a quiet place inside the open garden. his gaze was affixed to the grass beneath his shoes, so you took a deep breath and let the words flow from your chest.

“heeseung, i’m so sorry for lying to you about the letter.”

he didn’t reply.

it stung to hear silence on the other end because you weren’t used to it. you were used to heeseung’s warmth; his smiles, his laughs, and the bright stars in his eyes. instead, he seemed to have retreated back into a shell of dejection.

you gulped and fiddled with your hands. “i-i should have told you the truth. ryujin saw it, yes, but it wasn’t because i showed her. i-i just… she was there when i found it in my locker. that’s it. it’s not an excuse for lying, but i promise i would never intentionally embarrass you.”

you waited for his response and still found silence. this was when panic slowly crept up inside you.

“i-i really fucked up when i lied to you. i just didn’t want to embarrass you, and the more time that went on, the weirder it felt to bring it up. but i should have told you the truth. i’m sorry, heeseung.”

there was a pause before he finally lifted his head.

“stop apologising,” he whispered so gently you almost missed it.

“wh-what?”

“it was here,” he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth and roamed the area with his eyes. “i-i think it was here when you told me to stop apologising to people. you said i said sorry too much.”

god, you felt relief in your chest, it felt nice to hear his voice again. you were worried he might never talk to you again.

as you briefly considered his answer, you glanced around and recognised the bench you two had sat on when he’d tried to confess to lia. he was right — it was exactly here that you two had your first real conversation. your stomach twisted. he always remembers everything.

“i’m really sorry for ignoring you over the weekend.” heeseung finally returned your stare, and once your eyes had met, you felt your heart squeeze at the sight of misery in his pretty eyes. you hate the sight of him like this. this must be one of the worst things you’ve ever done. you wanted nothing more than for the rain to stop and the clouds to pave way for your sunshine.

“i-i just needed some space,” he continued gently. “and actually… mom thought it was a better idea for her to take my phone, so i didn’t see your texts.”

“oh,” you replied, noticing the distant tone in his voice. “it’s okay, heeseung. i understand.”

“but, um… i did a lot of thinking,” he says, smiling weakly.

you smiled back, though trepidation edged along your nerves. “o-okay.”

his eyes diverted to the side. “i… i wasn’t sad over the weekend because of the letter. i—” you saw his eyes flicker upwards toward the sky, as though he was attempting to contain his tears. “i-i think… i was just upset because…” he bit on his lips as you watched him deliberate over his next words. your heart was beating faster and faster at the possibility this may be the last conversation you ever have with him. it was selfish, but you didn’t know if that would be manageable for you.

because even if he didn’t need you, you needed him.

“because i didn’t tell you about taehyun,” his lips fell into a sad frown. “thing is, i… i was really embarrassed about it. and… well, i-i…” he took a deep, shaky breath.

you knew he was gathering as much courage as he could to speak with you.

“i just really, really, really hate embarrassing myself in front of the person that i like.”

he finally looked up at you and everything in you stopped. blood felt like the crackling of lightning in your veins. every other sound seemed to dull into a deafening silence.

“to clarify, th-that’s you. y-you’re the person that i like. a lot. i like you really a lot— that... doesn’t make sense,” he winced at himself, eyes shut tightly. “i’m sorry, i… i sound so stupid right now.” he slumped his shoulders.

“heeseung, i—”

“wait. p-please let me continue,” he looked up at you through his glasses and you fell straight into his deer-like eyes.

“okay,” you whispered. “go on.”

“i… i just want to be good enough for you,” he finally admitted and you felt everything around you crash. him? good enough for you? he already was; he was more than enough. you were the one struggling to catch up with him. “be someone you can depend on. someone you can trust and be proud of.”

“heeseung,” you step toward him and clasp his hands with yours, forcing him to look back at you. “you’re right. you really do sound stupid.”

“h-huh?” he peered up at you as you saw panic flicker like disco lights in his eyes. “i-i’m sorry, i… i just wanted to come clean and not lie to you anymore. i’m really sorry for pressuring you, i—”

“no,” you shook your head, silencing him immediately. “it’s not because of that.”

you dropped his hands and slid yours in the spaces under his arms where you could wrap around his waist and embrace him into a tight hug. he instantly froze while you allowed yourself to melt into him, your face in his chest.

“fuck,” you mumbled against his uniform, inhaling the scent of his laundry powder. “i missed you like crazy.”

his heart was hammering inside his chest and you squeezed yourself tighter, finding solace in the synchronicity of your beat with his.

“two days and i felt like i was going insane,” you gripped his blazer tightly, “i… i thought you hated me.”

“hate you? n-no way…”

a stupidly wide smile stretched across your lips. slowly, you noticed heeseung was beginning to return your embrace. his arms slowly found their way to your back, and once they rested on your body, you allowed yourself to take a proper breath, engraving memories associated with his scent.

“i like you too, dummy,” you mumbled against the fabric. “ceaselessly. probably way more than you like me.”

“you—”

“yes, me.”

“y-you… you really like me? for real?”

when you release him, his bewildered expression makes you instantly erupt into a fit of laughter. he seems to take this as an indication that you’re messing him because of the way lips return into a point.

“are you kidding?” you scoffed playfully, grabbing his face and cradling it with both hands, his soft skin against yours. “you make it ridiculously easy to.”

“a-are you serious?” he pointed to himself, lashes batting innocently. “you really like me? me? heeseung? you like lee heeseung? you know i’m heeseung, right?”

you stare, astounded by his reaction. “you’re crazy.”

“no, i just told you i’m heeseung,” he deadpanned.

idiot. “yes, heeseung. you. i like you like crazy. it’s sickening how much i do.”

heeseung watched you expressionless for a moment before you watched his face explode with sunshine. speckles of gold dust returned to his eyes and twinkled like constellations. his smile swept his face and instantly made your heart thump out your ears.

“you’re not lying, right? you really like me? and it’s definitely because of my bowties, right?”

you almost wanted to groan aloud and slap yourself in the face, but you stifled down this desire and shook your head instead. sickening, you thought to yourself. his sunshine is so sickeningly sweet.

and if there’s one thing about you — it’s that you have a sweet tooth; and heeseung is a taste you have been dying to have.

“yes. it’s definitely the bowties. they’re basically chick magnets,” you remarked, a smirk forming. “do you know what happens to chick magnets?”

heeseung quickly shook his head.

you smiled. “they get devoured.”

heeseung’s brows slightly furrowed, his head tilted to the side in what appeared to be confusion. he blinked, not quite understanding your implication.

“in other words, i’m going to kiss you.”

that, he understood.

heeseung’s eyes instantly rounded like saucers. “h-huh?”

“i know you heard me,” you took a step toward him, circling your arms around the back of his neck to ring him in close. he blushed at the proximity, and if you were being honest, so did you.

frankly, you were more nervous than you’d thought you would be. this was the fastest and hardest you’d ever felt your heart beat; it almost threatened to leap up through your throat.

perhaps it was because heeseung was an expert at annihilating everything you thought you knew about yourself. he was great at that: showing you that you were much further from who you thought you were, and close to who you thought you could never be. there were no more first, second, third, and fourth experiences anymore. just a life before him and after him.

when you felt his breath nearing and the heat from his chest, you thought your head spun for a moment. it felt as though the distance between your lips were simultaneously the closest and farthest distances apart. it wasn’t until he sighed – a release of just the faintest, softest breath — that the sound swept through your chest like a hurricane, and you felt everything within you topple over.

your whole body sank forward into his and you kissed him. you shut your eyes and did what you feared most — you opened up your heart to him and let everything you had within you flow out so that he could feel every inch of your warmth and sincerity. you led the movement first, noticing the way he tried to mimic your movements. he was slow and uncertain at first, until he followed through with what felt right.

when he began to kiss you back, it felt like fireworks shattered within you. you instantly softened when he looped his arms around your waist and hugged you tightly, because there was no safer feeling than being in his arms.

you knew it.

heeseung is good at everything he tries.

when the kiss deepened, you thought he tasted like he fell from the clouds and the stars. like stardust and eternity and endlessness. you liked the taste of that. all you’ve ever known are temporary people, the leaving and the waiting and the hoping, so it makes all the more sense when you crumble and melt at the taste of forever and focus on carving this memory onto your soul.

you couldn’t deny it any further — you were falling in love with him. in fact, you’d fallen down a slippery slope that led you into a pit with no way of crawling yourself out.

when your lips pull away, you’re both panting for a proper breath. it isn’t until your eyes meet that the world stops moving and something warm ignites like a candle.

you allowed time to pass you by as your eyes raked every feature of his face; drinking in his beauty, indulging in the rare moment you were able to admire him so closely. you felt bewitched by the way the sunlight gently radiated his features; they shone through the sky and struck him like a spotlight, even in broad daylight. being this close to him brought forward all of his prettiest, most finely drawn features – the mole on the left side of his lips, his long, wispy lashes, and the slight scrunch of his brows.

you should’ve stopped, but you couldn’t, because he was prettier the longer you stared.

time slowed while you were slipping further and further into an enchanting spell.

falling.

you always hated that — the sensation of falling. being out of control; being helpless. but somehow, with heeseung it felt different — you were falling through time and space and the stars and the sky and everything in between. it was really beautiful.

you’ve been falling for days and weeks and what felt like lifetime across lifetimes. you fell until it no longer felt like falling, but flying.

“heeseung, you’re really bad at kissing, you know that?”

you felt so bad when his entire face fell and he looked at you with complete horror. “wh-what?”

you placed a finger on his lips to keep him from talking. “since you’re so bad, i think you need a few more lessons,” you smiled. “let’s ditch school and go to back to mine. you know, for education’s sake.” you winked.

heeseung tucked his bottom lip between his teeth, smiling shyly. “o-okay.”

fin.

a/n: and then they went home and watched Star Wars :) ANYWAYS. guys u do not understand I actually went thru 32842378 cycles of frustration, anger, and giddiness while trying to wrap this series up. I'm not lying when I say I have about 6 different versions of this chapter, but I decided to keep it simple and straight to the point because ultimately that's what I felt triage was all about :) if you came here looking for genuine dating tips& got lost im sorry i can’t help u cos I'm in my healing era (subtext: literally no man wants me). but anyways I hope this series brought you a little bit of joy some way or another. I honestly had the best time writing it ^^ all the best! hope i to see u in my future works too! thanks for reading! love u so much! <3 (also feedback would be vv nice if u have the time!) MWAH

also, i’ll probably write bonus chapters every time i miss this story so lmk if u wanna be tagged in those ^^

back to masterlist.

577 notes · View notes

lpmurphy · 2 months

Text

Spring in Tchakova Park

Read on AO3

Master List

Chapter Playlist

Summary: Green was the color of the grass where he used to walk in Tchakova Park.

In which John meets a stranger in the park, Violet learns of the care and keeping of Spartans, and Cortana offers dating advice. (Complete 5/7/24)

Chapter Summary: John goes looking for his botanist after battle.

Chapter Thirty Three: Home

There was nothing left of the village by the time Silver Team had arrived. It burned around them as they engaged the Covenant. The attack had been the result of a small raid, he had seen similar all across the galaxy; always random and violent. It hadn’t taken long for the small village to be reduced to nothing but rubble and the bodies of those medic teams hadn’t been quick enough to save. He instructed Cortana as they left the village to find a flight plan that wouldn’t pass over the destruction when they left this ruined place. Violet had seen enough. He would not subject her to any more.

Nomad wasn’t in much better shape when they returned from the ruins of the place she had made a monument of in her memories. The southern wall of the perimeter had fallen in the attack, the distance in which it sat from the installation too sickeningly close for John’s liking. He had seen similar sights to these countless times during his lifetime - destruction had just become a part of the scenery as he went from battlefield to battlefield. He found himself truly disturbed for the first time as he looked out to the obliterated wall, to the splintered buildings, to the place his botanist had spoken so fondly of and held sacred. Perhaps what disturbed him the most was knowing that she had been a witness to its desecration. Cortana’s voice was soft as she spoke through the auditory system of his helmet.

“A triage hospital was set up in the mess hall. I believe that is where Captain Mullins took Doctor Harris after you last saw her.”

John nodded in acknowledgment. He set off in the direction of the building at the center of the base. Crews worked to clear debris around him as they sorted through what remained of the structures. John watched as a medic team rushed by with a stretcher, calling out their assessments of the wounded as they ran towards the mess. John followed after them to the doors of the rectangular building, hoping to catch sight of his botanist through the opened doors that peered into the bustling space as he looked in.

Soldiers and villagers alike were being attended to by medical staff. At some point they must have run out of cots and started using tables to hold the wounded as medics and doctors circled triage zones and administered care. Surgical teams called out directives to one another from the makeshift surgical suites that sat at the back of the mess. It was chaotic. It was messy. It was riddled with grief and dread. It was not a place for her. John scanned over the room again, eyes searching for her in the groups of triaged and medical staff.

John had thought when they arrived at Nomad that there was no place less fitting for Violet. He was wrong. As he looked out over that wretched place, the stench of death and blood thick, he found a place in which she didn’t belong. She existed in places in which life flourished, tending gently to that life and nurturing it with that goodness that did not belong in a place like this. She did not belong in places in which death lingered as heavy as it did there. He glanced at the bullet holes that riddled the walls around the doors as he stepped through it, to the plasma blast that decorated the wall across from it. Blue stained the floors under his boots and John swallowed hard, hoping whatever struggle had existed there had occurred before his botanist’s arrival. She should have stayed in the installation. She should have followed procedures. Fuck, what had she been thinking running out into that?

“Find her on the surveillance systems, Cortana,” he muttered out, setting out through the aisles. “I want her exact location.”

There was a pause. John’s brows furrowed in confusion; Cortana didn’t pause . He spoke again, hoping to rouse the voice that usually responded so immediately. “Cortana?”

“I can’t,” the worry in her own tone chilled him, anger flooding in to replace it in an instant.

“What do you mean you can’t?” he snarled. A medic turned to look up at him in confusion, unsure if his words were meant for her before she turned back to the villager she assisted. John lowered his voice before he spoke again, “Find her. Now.”

“I can’t, Chief. Surveillance feeds were damaged during the attack on the base. There isn’t a feed for me to go into. I can only see footage from before the cameras went down - I can see her enter with Captain Mullins and Doctor Powell, but nothing after that.”

John scanned over the room as he walked the aisles, searching for any sign of her. For the sway of her hair as she walked, for a flash of freckled skin, for the pale yellow sweats she had worn to bed that night. Something. Anything to prove to him that she was alright. But the sign he searched for didn’t come as he only found covered cots and blood slick floors. Panic began to itch his skin in a way it never had after combat. He knew loss was always a reality. He knew every time he joined the fight that there was a possibility that he would leave someone behind. He had lost others before; Sam. Nora. It had been something he had been prepared for and accepted every time. He carried each one of them with him, their names carved into him the same way they were in that oak. But not hers. He refused to allow her to become just another name that was carved into him.

The bounce of blonde curls ripped him from his searching. Meredith straightened up from beside a cot where she changed the bandages of a young boy. John turned to her, a tinge of relief pinching in his chest. She had been with Violet when he sent her away with Mullins. Surely, she would know where she was. She had to.

“Powell!”

Meredith looked up at his shout from the villager she hovered over. She watched John approached and he was taken aback when he found that his botanist’s companion did not speak; she did not offer some unbecoming statement or call him by one of the infuriating nicknames she had referred to him by each time he would visit the greenhouses to see Violet. She stood silent and pale and wide eyed and John wasn’t sure why it unnerved him in the way it did.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith stammered out. She held gauze in her hands, so soaked with blood that it looked black as it dripped down her forearms and stained the front of her tee shirt, “She was moved to a different zone. I’ve been working in this zone for the past three hours. They’ve been bringing in the less critically wounded since they secured the base. It’s been a madhouse all morning. I’ve barely had a chance to look up.”

“You two were supposed to stay with Mullins,” He felt an icy chill creep through him, his body tensing uncomfortably as he glanced around again and couldn’t locate her. Meredith turned from him to return to the villager. John caught her arm, the blonde’s eyes snapping back up to him, “I told you two to go with him. I gave you both an order.”

“I’m not a soldier,” she hissed, staring up at him with tearfilled eyes. Her lips trembled as she pulled her arm from his grasp, “Neither is she.”

John turned from Meredith as she returned to the cot, dread surging through him as he searched for her in the crowded room. He recognized the young girl from the village sitting beside a cot, the wound she had when she had run to his Violet bandaged. She held the limp hand that had fallen from under the sheet as she stared out to where the medics and doctors worked frantically. John’s eyes fell to another cot and he froze.

A flash of dark hair spilled out from under a bloodied sheet; rich brown and stiff with blood. He has seen the same cascade over the arm of the sofa on the nights she would fall asleep watching her shows. The same tumble across her pillow as she slept beside him. Cortana began to speak, warning him about his heart rate and cortisol levels as he started towards the cot, but he didn’t hear her, her voice muffled by the beating of his own heart as it pounded in his head. He needed to see what lay below that sheet. He needed to see it with his own eyes and know. He shouldn’t have left her. He shouldn’t have sent her off with someone else. He should have taken her himself.

I save who I can, he had told her in that greenhouse, I can’t afford to get hung up on the ones I couldn’t.

He knew he’d be hung up on this one for the rest of his life. He would return to the solitude that she had coaxed him from. To the silent isolation that had been his life before Violet Harris. He had never feared anything more than knowing a time without her again; had dreaded the day that she would wake up and decide that she wanted more than him. For a time in which she would pass by him in the park with the man who would give her all of the things he so desperately vied to provide her with and the love in her green eyes would belong to that man instead of him.

But this.

This was more than he could stomach. This was not the time after he had braced himself for. This was not the time after he ever wanted to know. He would get hung up on the one he didn’t save this time. He knew that she would haunt him. She would settle into the cracks of him as she always had and he would carry her with him, and if that was all that would remain of her, he would allow her ghost to possess him so long as she never left. He’d carry two women with him; the one that resided within his mind and the one who would burrow into the soul that she had created in the same way she once had in his arms.

All of the beauty and love and warmth she had brought would fade out of him once he lifted that sheet. He refused to feel it without her. They had become like the geese that slid across the waters of the pond, never one without the other. But geese mate for life; and if he couldn’t love her for the rest of his, then he would spend it tearing apart those who had taken her from him. He swore to rip their hearts from them in the same way they had his.

He reached his hand out to the cot and prepared to pull back the sheet.

“John,” Cortana breathed, that familiar tingle crawling down his spine as the hope returned to her voice, “Look.”

He looked up to see the familiar sway of chocolate brown sweeping across the back of the plate carrier he had ordered Kai to take to her and put on by force if she had to. She moved between cots, speaking softly to the wounded as she worked. Violet spoke to a medic before nodding and turning back to replace the IV bag on the pole beside her. John caught sight of her face for the first time in hours and it felt like seeing the sun after years of darkness. His fears rushed out of him with the relieved puff of his sigh as he watched her.

Violet spoke to the villager that laid below her, that gentle kindness present even in that dismal place. Exhaustion paled her freckled face, green ringed with dark puffy circles as she carefully watched her fingers replace the connectors between tube and bag. Blood stained her skin in the same way it had Meredith’s; some old and dark, some fresh and thick and too bright against her gaunt skin. Her eyes turned from the bag, falling upon him for a moment before realization crossed her face. She smiled that Violet smile and the laughed sob that escaped her lips was the most beautiful noise he had heard in hours.

Relief washed over him as he crossed to her and John felt still for the first time since he stood with her in the greenhouses early that morning. Violet wove through the cots, bumping shoulders with medical staff as she ran to him. John caught her before she could crash against his armor, gathering her in his arms as she threw her own around his neck, those wet giggles still rattling from her as she clung to him. He took her face in his hands, brushing his thumbs over the blood that splattered her cheeks in search of the source it oozed from.

“Are you alright?” Violet watched his motions in the reflection of his visor as he checked over her for injuries, lifting her arms as he assessed her, “Are you hurt?”

She nodded her head, “I’m fine. It’s not mine.”

“I told you to go inside,” John gritted out, “What were you thinking?”

“I know,” she murmured as his hands still roamed over her. He was unsure if he still searched for injuries, or if he just needed to feel her to prove that she stood before him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I thought I lost you, goose,” he murmured. He took her face in his hands and lifted the green he had feared left him to meet his own eyes. Violet looked up at him, and John found nothing but warmth in the way she watched him. The same warmth that had shone from her since that very first day existing in that place so filled with darkness.

“I’m okay,” she breathed.

Violet brought a hand to the helmet, fingers brushing over the metal that would have been his cheek. He leaned into her touch as she looked up at her reflection in the gold; into the eyes of her John. John brought the helm to her brow and her eyes fluttered shut, “I’m okay.”

A throat was cleared beside them and John peeled himself away from her to look to the source of the noise. Violet turned her head as well, both staring at the unwelcome interruption that had come in the form of a medic. The woman pointed beyond them.

“Excuse me, sir. I need to get by you.”

Violet stepped back, apologizing to the medic as she passed by them to the surgical suites. She smiled up at him sheepishly as she held her hand out to him, tilting her head towards a less populated corner of the room, “I think we’re in the way. C’mon.”

John took her hand, allowing her to lead him to the quiet corner that only housed a single covered cot. Violet touched it gently as they approached, a solemn silence falling over her as she stood at the bedside. John didn’t need to be told that Mullins laid below the covering. Her quiet care in which she handled him was enough for him to know. He stepped beside her as she stood over her friend, giving her fingers a squeeze.

“He wasn’t scared,” she whispered, her voice thick. She rested her hand on his leg as she spoke. John pressed his hand to her back, unable to trace his fingers along the curve of her spine through the plate carrier. He longed to touch her, to feel her, to anchor himself to her and take her away from this.

Violet sniffled and brought a dirty hand to her cheeks, “He wasn’t angry or afraid. He was so at peace. He wanted me to make sure that his mom knew that he was okay; that he was going to be with his dad. Who is going to tell his mom that he’s-.”

She stopped, swallowing back a sob as she shook her head. She crossed her arms tightly and turned back to him, tears carving paths through the grime on her cheeks. He lifted a hand to her face again to brush them away and longed to feel her skin under his fingertips rather than through the thick fabric of his gloves.

“I can’t imagine that… God, if I lost you, John,” she whispered, “I don’t know what I would do.”

“You didn’t,” He brushed his thumb along her cheek. It would take entire fleets to keep him from her. He would return to her every time. He refused to know a time without her, nor allow her to know a time without him. “You won’t, goose.”

A wet chuckle bubbled from her, “You sound so sure of that.”

“I am.”

The corners of her mouth lifted as she nodded. Her eyes returned to where Mullins lay, and he watched as she smoothed the dirtied fabric over him with the same tenderness she handled her blooms with. There was nothing but her gentle affection in the way she handled him, that compassion still pouring from her as she cared for him even now. She gave the captain’s leg a squeeze, a moment passing as she sent her friend off with a final goodbye before she turned back to him. Her lips trembled as she stared up at him with wet eyes and John took her hands. Violet gripped it tightly.

“I could have lost you today,” she repeated.

“You didn’t, goose. We get another day. That’s what matters.”

Violet stared at the body a final time. John watched a contemplative look cross her lovely face as she chewed her lip, lost in whatever thought had brightened the green. Violet turned to look up at him, her lips turned up in a soft smile as she slipped her fingers into his.

“Do you remember one of the first things I said to you?” she said, “What that weird fact about birds was?”

“I remember! I believe she told you about how geese mate for life, in regards to the pair of brent geese that were on the pond the evening you met.”

“Cortana. You’re ruining it.”

“Sorry, Chief.”

John brought his hands to her face as she matched the tilt of his head. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, looking up at him with all of the kindness and patience that he had once thought himself undeserving of. She had shown him the opposite, made him feel the opposite in the months he had shared with her. He wanted to know nothing different. He brushed his thumbs along her cheeks, “You told me that geese mate for life.”

“Do you think we could be like that?” she asked, her voice gentle.

“Like what?”

“Like the geese.”

He chuckled, “I think we already are, Vi.”

“Maybe we could always be like that,” she smiled up at him encouragingly, as if waiting for him to come to the same conclusion and agree on the forever he had already chosen for himself. The corners of his mouth tugged up as he brushed her hair from her face and swept it behind her ear.

“What are you getting at, goose?”

“Let’s get married,” she said. She spoke quickly, like she was hoping to convince him. He didn’t need to be convinced when it came to her. Not in the slightest. Violet continued with a hopeful smile, her voice low and soft, “I could have lost you today. I could lose you every time, and I don’t want to know what losing you feels like before knowing what it feels like to be yours. I don’t want to do that again without being your wife.”

He traced his fingers along her cheek, along the curve of her jaw to the lips that had brought him to life when they first brushed against his. He had spent his days since removing his pellet searching for what he had felt he was missing; for the home that he never seemed to feel. But as his fingertips brushed against her skin and he took her face in his hand and it felt like coming home.

Marriage seemed like a word spoken in a language he couldn’t understand. The notion so distant from anything he had known or understood. But, he knew that part of himself existed only in the gentle glow of the goodness that was Violet Harris. He would follow that glow to wherever she led and be the man who would love her for however many moments he had left. He couldn’t remember the time that came before Violet Harris; before she came crashing into his life and painted every shade of black and white that he had known in hues he had never seen. He would spend forever familiarizing himself with that notion if it meant a lifetime of that glow rather than knowing a time without her again.

He wanted to build her a universe in which he never had to let go of that feeling that existed only in the gilded glow of her warmth. In which he could exist simply in the green eyes that peered up at him with nothing but love as she crawled into his arms like ivy and settled into him like the moss that clung to the sides of trees as if it was made only to belong there. He wanted to linger in the sunlight that she had grown him in. He’d decided long ago that he would be the man she deserved. He would become that man for her and there would not be another who came after. He’d happily be that man for the rest of his days if he was doing it for her.

“You know, historically the man proposes marriage,” Cortana snarked, “And usually, it doesn’t take this long for someone to give their answer. Look alive, Chief. She’s waiting.”

“Are you sure you want that? With me?” he murmured, watching Violet’s face splint into a grin at his question. Cortana sighed noisily.

“Smooth, Chief. You sure do know how to make a lady feel special.”

“I’d marry you right now if I wasn’t, you know, covered in blood and guts,” she laughed softly as her eyes glanced at the rusty stains that dappled her skin, discomfort tightening the sound. She took his fingers and pressed her lips to his palm before turning her eyes back to him, “You’re stuck with me, big guy.”

He didn’t need to consider. He didn’t need to strategize. He didn’t search for an answer as he brought his forehead to rest upon her brow, his nose brushing against hers as he smiled and looked down into the green.

“Okay,” he murmured, that musical giggle filling his ears.

She smiled that Violet smile and John felt that familiar twist in his chest; gentle and whole and freeing. He felt the love that was Violet Harris settle into him; the love that was the two of them. He had spent countless hours beside that pond on Reach staring down at the lights that dappled the waters. He hadn’t been sure what he searched for in each pin pricked illumination, what answers he hoped would rise from the depths. But the answer had come to him beside the shores under the shadow of a white building. It had come in the feeling that crept into him as he watched her jog across the grass that only grew stronger even now. He had found the home that existed only in his memories within the botanist that stood in his arms, and he would return to it every time.

Stuck with her.

He couldn’t think of a better place to be.

“Okay.”

#halo fanfic #halo tv show #master chief #master chief/oc #romance #romcom in space #au #halo fanfiction #not canon compliant #halo series #halo #john 117/oc #john 117 #spring in tchakova park

2 notes · View notes