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#BUT EVEN WITHOUT MEANING THIS PANELS COLD ASF
earthtooz · 1 year
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x : APOLOGY ACCEPTED :*+゚
in which: isagi doesn't like it when you give him the silent treatment.
warnings: 1.9k wc, gn!reader, fluff with a little angst, ooc!isagi (i tried), mentions of manhandling, sleepy isagi, mentions to arguments. food.
a/n: I FEEL ILL REREADING THIS why is this so bad hELP. for being the main character, it's hard asf to get good manga panels of isagi lol. anyways. enjoy this shit piece xx i can't believe this is my first isagi fic and i did him so wrong, i'm so sorry cri
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“y/n?” echoes a voice from down the hallway, one laced with grogginess and fatigue, paired with the gentle padding of footsteps trudging their way to where you resided in the living room. in your periphery, isagi rounds the corner shirtless and messy bedhair, and not sparing him a glance proved itself a challenge. 
usually, you would’ve sprung up from your seat and greeted him good morning, but the soreness of your throat is a harsh reminder of the argument you had last night, and thinking too hard about it would press into the bruises of your ego, resurfacing awkward and sour feelings. yet, you still had to fight to contain the butterflies in your stomach upon seeing him and it becomes harder to fight when you realise that the first thing isagi did since waking up was find you, not even brushing his teeth or putting on a shirt. 
as adorable as he was, you don’t know what to say to him, unsure of where you stood since you both just went to bed last night, the problem never resolving itself. 
isagi’s face however, upon seeing you, lit up with a smile as bright as a thousand suns and endearing enough to crumble your resolve but you persevere with your tough facade. the true stake to the heart is the way his face drops when noticing your reluctance to acknowledge him. 
"y/n?" he asks again as greeting, waddling over to stand before you. you still don't look up at him from your phone. "why are you awake so early?"
silence.
"y/n?" prods the soccer star who now seats himself beside you, hand shaking yours a little in hopes of getting your attention. "you're mad at me, aren't you?"
you don’t know how to respond, remaining silent despite the countless words brewing in your mind that were unable to spill over to form a sentence. should you be nice? mean? petty? you could never have the heart to do the latter two, but-
"-i'm sorry," he mutters, placing his chin on your shoulder so he could give you his best puppy-dog eyes. you don’t react, no matter how hard you had to fight to not look at him because you knew that if you did, you’d crumble right into his arms. 
you miss the way his frown deepens with every shake of your shoulder that you ignore.
“you know i don’t like it when people ignore me.”
despite your cold shoulder, he still lingers around you, just now fast asleep after prying a spot on your lap for his head to fit, disturbing your peace with his hesitant invasion. naturally, you run your hands through his raven hair, lounging in the morning sun with your phone in one hand and your soccer sensation of a boyfriend in your lap.
eventually, the tranquillity is ruined alongside the urge to use the bathroom, but the difficult part of said task however, was getting isagi off your lap which turned out to be a carefully organised operation. gently lifting his head, you manage to shuffle away before laying him back down. somehow you manage to keep him from rousing, leaving you to tiptoe away without making much noise.
you went as far as you could because when you opened the bathroom door againÇ, isagi was lingering outside, slumber still evident in his face as he blinks sleepily at you. so much for leaving without waking him.
“oh. hi,” he greets, voice still ridden with sleep. he rubs his eye innocently, streaks of his nap engrained on his skin. 
he grumbles a sleepy murmur of your name as you slip away around him, giving isagi the chance to latch on to your waist. this wasn’t the silent treatment you were imagining, but you have half a mind and even less of a desire to shrug your boyfriend off, no matter how difficult your predicament is. 
“i need to brush my teeth,” the athlete mutters, dragging you into the bathroom with him. “we can do skincare together.”
you don’t have it in you to tell isagi that you’ve already done your morning routine so you settle for doing it a second time. not like it’ll hurt anyone, especially not your skin.
wordlessly, you do your morning routine alongside him and it’s oddly peaceful without the usual talking and music in the background. you get more of a chance to admire isagi and his boyish features, shyly looking away from his gaze every time his eyes meet yours in the bathroom mirror. after putting away all the products, you don’t move very far before the dark-haired latches himself to you again.
he remains like that even as you continue with chores and tasks you assigned yourself, deciding that there’s no place he’d rather be than half-asleep behind you whilst you sort through laundry, organise your drawers, and fix organise the kitchen cabinets. he’s gracious enough to help a little, holding spices and cans here and there.
if you tried to shake him off, isagi would grumble and come right back, never straying too far away for too long.
his insistence to stay like this was endearing, but very irritating, especially it was hindering your productive. however, your will to scold him for it is at an all-time low so you’ll have to continue living with another being wrapped around you until isagi gives up or you tell him off.
you didn’t have to wait long for the latter. after you were done with organising- or rather when isagi was fed up of standing, he drags you right back to your shared bedroom, silently arranging the two of you on your shared bed with his strength, moving you into a comfortable position under the duvet. 
“please stop,” you demand quietly as if you were silent enough, you wouldn’t technically break the silent treatment.
he immediately perks up at the sound of your voice and his name on your lips, a wide smile breaking out on his face. “babe!” isagi flops on you, the ‘oof’ that escapes you not going unnoticed, “you talked.”
“isagi, please give me some space.”
the smile on the soccer player’s face completely melts away and he furrows his eyebrows, causing guilt to strike you in the heart as he reluctantly moves away from you. the use of his last name in comparison to his usual, affectionate-filled nicknames didn’t soften the blow directed at him either. 
“is this because of last night?” he asks, resting his chin on your sternum. “i’m sorry about everything that i said.”
“isagi,” he stops rambling. “please, i just need some space right now.” 
“okay, i’m sorry. i’ll go now.”
he shuffles out from under the covers rather quickly, picking up a shirt from his closet before walking out with it half-on. you call out his name only to hear the front door slam close and you wince slightly at the sound, guilt weighing heavily on your heart.
when you said you needed space you didn’t mean for isagi to leave the apartment completely.
if you had set your boundaries clearer this morning maybe you could have avoided this scenario. now isagi’s out of the house and you don’t know where he’s even going or when he’s returning and the thought is enough to scare you, riddling you with enough anxiety for your heart to sink to your feet. it’s getting hard to breathe too and your mind is racing with countless thoughts that all pile on top of each other.
texting isagi was a flunk too, he left his phone at home and only took his wallet. 
what did you do? what time would he be back? 
could he have gone to bachira’s? nagi’s? without his phone though? isagi wouldn’t usually go very far without a device at the very least. maybe he’s just out for a walk to clear his mind. yeah, that sounds right, isagi loves walks after all so who knows when he’ll be back. speaking of walking, you might benefit from one right now too-
“-i’m home!” a voice shouts out, breaking you out of your funk like hammer shattering a glass.
practically running out of the bedroom, you disregard the shards of hurt, running over them to see isagi staring at you with wide eyes. he holds a bakery bag and a bouquet of flowers- your favourites, in one hand and the apartment keys in the other.
“oh, y/n, are you okay?” he asks fondly, setting the bag down on the kitchen counter before wandering over to you. without thinking, you reel him in to a hug when he’s close enough, half jumping onto him as the soccer player catches you effortlessly, surprised by your sudden show of affection. “i thought you were mad at me?”
“you scared me, you doofus,” you say into his shoulder with a watery laugh, relief flooding your body like no other at the feeling of his warmth against yours again. “don’t just leave like that ever again.”
“i’m sorry! i wanted to say sorry because of how big of a dick i was to you last night and this morning.”
“you left so abruptly! i thought i angered you even more or something,” you laugh, all watery and emotional. 
isagi snakes a hand up to your face, cradling it. “that wasn’t my intention, i didn’t mean to scare you.”
“apology accepted and i’m sorry too. i was mean to you last night as well and i should have communicated properly with you this morning. wasn’t fair on my end.”
“apology accepted,” he says with a charmingly boyish grin. you have an urge to kiss it off. “i love you.”
“you make it so hard to stay mad at you. i love you too,” you mutter before isagi’s pressing his lips to yours, pouring all his love for you to breathe in, filling you with reassurance. you smile against him, unable to contain it, which then causes him to mimic you, and the kiss breaks away because the two of you are laughing too much. 
isagi will be the death of you. 
your eyes glance behind him and the striker follows your line of sight. “i got your favourite cake too by the way, last one the bakery had. guess i’m one lucky guy, huh?”
“the stars aligned perfectly just for you.” 
“i agree,” mutters isagi before leaning in to leave a kiss on your forehead. 
“should we have some cake now?” you question, loosening your arms around him to back away and  faltering when he doesn’t let you. his grip around your waist is tight and unforgiving as mischief shines in the dark-haired’s eyes.
then, he pulls you right back, peppering your face in endless kisses whilst you giggle in response to each one. the more he plants the more you want to pull away out of reflex but his hold forbid for you to travel too far, leaving you vulnerable to all of his advances.
“i love you,” he repeats with each press against your skin.
“yoichi, stop!” you giggle. the sound is a remedy to his pain.
“can’t stop, i have a whole day of affection to make up for.”
you shove his shoulder teasingly, “later.”
“later. i’ll never make you mad again, i swear. that was the worst day of my life. next time you do this, i’d rather you end me.”
2K notes · View notes
k9zuha · 3 years
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THIS PANEL GOES SO HARD LIKE SERIOUSLY FUJIMOTO WAS ON SOME NEXT LEVEL SHIT WHEN HE DREW THIS
18 notes · View notes
vidalinav · 4 years
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Cassian’s Love is Warm (3/4)
Summary: Nesta’s recovery in the Illyria and her developing relationship with Cassian... Or the chapter where Nesta communicates a little better and dives more into her magic. 
Links: Nesta’s Love is Quiet Series Masterlist 
This took so long and I don’t even really know if it was worth it but here you go. This is dedicated to those 15 followers who always ask when these chapters will be done and like all my posts about updating this fic. Y’all keep me young...and honest. 
Thanks for reading! Long asf author’s note at the end. 
~
Something in the air smells like spring.
Nesta can imagine Elain here, in this field where wildflowers bloom and cold wind tickles her hair. She can see it all so clearly as if the sun has melted more than the snow—has left more than mud.
Cassian stands behind her, waiting for her to take it all in. She can see the purple tents of the market, the bustling of people. All of them running around with the things to do and accomplish. The presence of life in such a remote piece of the world.
They walk towards that noise, the sweet song beckoning them forward.  
It hits her all at once, then. The smell of cinnamon and cardamom, the array of autumnal spices lined in neat rows. Nesta inspects the red and yellow peppers hanging above the counters. Her eyes trailing over pots of hot broth and the bubbling swirls of chocolate and cream, trying to imagine the sweet taste of strawberries coated in crystalized red.
Cassian points to food she’s missed along the way and there’s something intimate about the way he leans towards her, his hair gently grazing her cheek. He points to his favorite dishes, the color vibrant against the worn brown of the stalls. Nesta wonders if he’s noticed she’s only half paying attention, caught more by his enthusiasm than the seven different kinds of fried food.    
His face grows red when he’s excited, she notes. Like spring has a made a home in him, and he too comes alive. He talks with his hands, gestures wildly, at ease in this unfamiliar place. Nesta lets him guide her along, all too aware of the shy smiles he keeps trying to hide between glances.
When Cassian suddenly stops at a stall, Nesta has to catch herself from running into him. She always forgets he is larger than her—larger than life really, but Nesta never notices how tall he is compared to her. A mountain in her way, she thinks, if he had not also been the bridge.
Cassian points to an ornament hanging from one of the railings. A chandelier of blown glass that sways gently. “How about one of these?”
Nesta tries to imagine the house with its bare walls and tattered décor and place the chandelier in the midst of its chaos. She hopes that the picture will appear like paint on a canvas with its cerulean hues against grey. A hint of sky between parted curtains. Forget-me-not shades in forget-it-all concepts. But the image that appears in her mind is her sister’s skin smudged in the same blue Nesta looks at, a brush gripped firmly in her hands.
Nesta stares into the clear teardrops.
“Where would we put it?” She asks, trying not to meet his eyes. She notes the stalls across from them and the amount of people drifting from each. Tries to count them one by one in her effort to escape his gaze, questions already forming at the tip of her tongue. How long will they stay here perusing items that have no commonality? How long before the items become unwanted again? Things thrown haphazardly around each room with no purpose but to be pleasant, yet still can’t manage even that.
“Maybe, above the dining table…after we get a new dining table.” He remarks. “Maybe, the living room.” He nods slowly, tapping his finger on his cheek. “I can see it hanging there.”
Nesta can see it there. She hates to admit it, but she does.
Such a bright light in all that darkness.  
She can imagine them under it, too, with more than enough pillows cushioning them on the couch, pushed to the floor. A thick rug she can feel through her toes, that she can feel on her back. Their shadows tangled by firelight. Her head resting on his shoulder. His fingers trailing along her arms and—
Nesta shakes her head. Her face growing warm.  
“We can look at other things, if you don’t think—”
“No” Nesta says, breathless and her heart beating much too fast. “It’ll work; I think. With the rest of the house I mean.”
She scorns herself for sounding flustered, but Cassian simply smiles in confirmation. Mouth wide and endearing.
“We can make it work.” He promises, as he signals the shop owner.
Nesta watches as they talk, the muted gestures careful as he hands the chandelier to Cassian. Such craftsmanship in glass. Beauty in something so breakable. She could shatter it before they even made it back home—
Home is not a prison like she thought it was. It is not four walls and a roof, or food or no food at all. It is not poverty or silk sheets. It is not made of glass and it is not so breakable that she could crush it between her palms and bleed on white carpet.
Nesta’s not entirely sure what it is, but she knows what it’s not. Knows that it is not fragile, and it does not hang, and it is not painted with decorative leaves that fall in shades of blue.  
It is not glass.
But maybe it’s wood, and the next stall, larger than the last, offers an array of furniture and a female that carves and carves never noticing Nesta as she gleans.
On and on she gathers. She walks to the next stall and then the next and the next, not even sure if Cassian is following or if he stayed behind collecting the light that will hang above them like a glittering star.
It’s odd, Nesta thinks as she turns in a sea of unknown faces. She’d spent so much time with her nose raised, she forgot what it was like to stare straight ahead, and… see the world for what it is. Color and wind and sun, and not just walls. A thousand different things she could see, feel, touch… A thousand different things she didn’t have to hate—that she didn’t have to love either but could choose to anyways. So many choices at the tip of her fingers.
As liberating as that thought is, there’s something sad about it still. The world tinted grey, even when the sky is blue.
Even in a crowd of people she is still not where she ought to be. She isn’t at the center, while the world spins around her. Nesta is not where the world ends or where it begins or where it continues. She’s not even sure if she could see her world if she could fly above it. She is not the part that if removed would eradicate all function, all fluidity.
People move around her, whether she stands in place or walks. They laugh with their friends, talk to their family, to shop owners, mumble to themselves. And as Nesta stands, glancing here and there, a thought enters her head. She is still merely at the edge. Hanging off of it? Maybe not. But she could see her feet dangle. See all the rocks below—
“Are you going to buy anything?” The sharp voice cuts through. Nesta manages a quick glance at the older fairy, unaware that she’d been standing by a shelf of framed mirrors.
“I’m sorry. I was—I’m waiting for someone.” She manages, wanting to kick herself for being flustered twice in one day. The female looks pointedly at Cassian who is still talking animatedly with the shop owner.
“Could be a while.” She says, and Nesta can’t help but agree. “Come in while you wait.”
The female moves, lifting the tent flap behind her, revealing a dim, dark space. A hidden place tucked into a corner of the market, larger than the others had been. A tent, Nesta thinks, rather than a stall. With wine-stained cloth enclosing all inside.
Nesta tries not to look to curious at the awaiting female, analyzing every tick of her patient gaze.
“What do you sell here?”
The ominous panels shift, and Nesta wonders if perhaps she asks too many questions. Never trusting the slightest possibility of endangerment, even when it’s disguised as shopping and pretty trinkets.   
“A great deal of things.” The fae answers. “But nothing I can show you if you stay here outside.”
Her skin like weathered paper, crinkles as her eyebrows raise in waiting. “There are things you’d like I think.”
“How would you know what I like?”
Without so much as a blink, the fae steps inside, her chipper voice carrying behind the tent flaps. “I don’t expect you to be so different from anyone else.”
It’s those words that bury themselves in her, make a home in her, crawl into her skin, until they all but coat her like a new wool sweater.  
For as long as Nesta can remember, she is always the one who’s different. The smart one, the clever one, the quiet, judgmental one, the mean one, the one with the most hostility. Never the one who played nice with the others, who had many friends that ran to her with secrets and gossip. She was not the one they trusted. Not the one they let in.
But not in this world—she’s one of the many in this world. Not one of the few. So, Nesta enters the little shop and wanders.
She walks from one shelf to the next, expects to see marvelous rubies and diamonds with a thousand different colors woven into its shine. Imagines inventions that move when she winds them or talking clocks that sing songs at the end of an hour. Disappointedly, all the shop owner keeps is picture frames.
Nesta stops to stare at a large one, dust covering the worn brass.
A picture of the market appears in its frame, and Nesta blinks at the sudden image. She can make out one of the shopkeepers, children laughing with balloons and candy in their hands. She can even see Cassian in the corner, talking with the fae next door, his hands waving. His head nodding.
“Is it—” Nesta shakes her head in disbelief, “Is it moving?”
The female comes to stand next to her, peering into the image. She smiles, too self-indulgent to be anything but praise and pride. With the glint in her eyes, Nesta almost expects to hear a long-forgotten secret make its way out of her lips. Perhaps where the treasure lies. Or where the golden eggs are hidden. She leans in unconsciously towards her and listens.   
“Marvelous, isn’t it?”
She points to one on her left. “This one is Monteserre in winter… and this one depicts the stunning shades of blue in the Night Court stars.”
Nesta follows her down the row as she continues to describe the various pictures that wink and wave and shudder beyond her control.
“This one is my personal favorite, Spring in Dahlias, I call it.”
Nesta looks at the flowers that flutter as if wind has shifted them. She places her hand on the image, her fingers gliding along, expecting to feel soft petals. Nesta only feels the cold glass.
She doesn’t try to keep the awe out of her voice.
“How much are they?”
“They are not for sale.” At Nesta’s furrowed brows, the shop owner explains, a small, conspicuous smile creeping along the edges of her mouth. “I only sell the frames.”
Nesta watches as the shop owner maneuvers behind the first image. The market a bustling and lively place that one could dream of and be satisfied with. “Pictures are a kind of magic, I think… and just like hopes and dreams and memories, we see what we want to see. Feel what we want to feel. ”
The fairy trails her fingers along the brass, hunching over the top to get a better view. As if she had not made the view herself.
“In many ways I made these because I was trapped in places I didn’t want to live in and was myself not someone I wanted to be. They let me escape this world. Even for a moment.” The fairy gazes wistfully at the picture, turning towards Nesta. Her eyes a pale shade of green and self-assured promise. “And later when I didn’t want to escape anymore, they were memories. Little recollections of times I didn’t even consider the magnitude of or how much impact they would have on my life.”
The female steps around the image and Nesta feels the sudden urge to run, though she doesn’t know why. She is in no danger as far as she’s gleaned and even if she were Cassian is only a few stands away. But Her heart thumps regardless, one beat after another, faster and faster, as the shopkeeper continues.
“Hopes, dreams, memories. It’s all simple magic, really. Perhaps the only kind we all possess. Past the names we call ourselves, beyond the masks we wear. I think to master it is to master ourselves.” She takes a cloth out of her pocket and wipes the edges of the frame. “How else can we see things as they truly are?”
“Why do you keep these hidden?” Nesta asks, her voice soft and accusatory. She could hear the light laughter. Mocking her or believing her to be naïve, Nesta didn’t know.
“Because there’s some who’d rather not know what they look like when they don’t know they’re being watched… Others who don’t want to know what magic looks like when it’s not used for violence or war… No, these are for the special few. Those who think too much already. The ones who need to see.”
Nesta shakes her head.
“I don’t understand—” She starts, but Cassian appears through the tent flaps, a box placed carefully in his hands
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
He sets the box down gently at his side, combing his hair with his fingers. A carefree, contented kind of way. “I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
Nesta can feel the urge to roll her eyes but she can’t deny that that something about him makes her feel assured. More calm. Less cautious. As if all the words ever spoken make sense somehow, even if she can’t decipher what they mean. Even if she can’t tell if they’re meant to be dangerous.
“I wasn’t so far away.” A huff in her words. “I was waiting for you, but you took too long.”
“Sorry” Cassian answers, a sheepish grin on his face. “The shop owner wanted to talk about the new policies of land ownership in Prythrian, and once he started, he wouldn’t stop.”
He notices the shopkeeper watching them, an intrigued, curious gleam in her eyes, and nods slightly in her direction, taking his time perusing the items leaning on each wall. A warrior’s assessments that Nesta would find odd in such a place if she had not done so herself.
“Did you find anything you like?” He asks, at last.
Nesta maneuvers to the corner, tracing her fingers along one of the frame’s edges.
She is not a painter like Feyre. She is not hopeful like Elain. She is not brave like Cassian. She is not useful, or pleasant, or trusting… but something in her heart says that she can have this one thing, if only she’d reach out and take it.
Perhaps, Nesta lies when she says she doesn’t want to be like them. Maybe, she’s been waiting for them and them for her and got lost somewhere along the way. Somewhere that was messy and monotonous and crass. Maybe she lets herself get carried away, swept up in the lively fire of anger and the grandeur of being unrelenting and unforgiving.
Perhaps it is also true that Nesta is not like them at all. Maybe she is merely trying on different shoes until she finds one that fits the best, until she can walk in those shoes comfortably, stand in front of every person who means anything to her and look each one of them in the eye.
What will she tell them after it’s all said and done? What will she see reflected back at her?
 “I want to get these frames.”
Nesta holds them up for Cassian to see, the brass of one contrasting with the wood of another. She counts three in her palms, but she wants more. She’d take them all home if she could.
“We’ll take these.” Cassian directs his words to the female waiting, “As many as you have.”
He doesn’t ask what she’s going to do with them. Possibly trusts her enough to know about such things, or maybe he doesn’t care at all, Nesta thinks. Maybe Cassian knows she needs this, like he knew she needed all of those books, or the training, or the teasing arguments whenever she was too sad to get out of the house or out of her nightgown. Like all of those games he played with her or the food he set out to have her try. Maybe it was just in his heart to be like that. To be that caring.
Nesta barely notices as the female collects the frames, giving Cassian back his change.
His eyes light up when he’s content, she notes. Not quite green, not quite amber. A little bit eager as he looks at her. Nesta wants to know what it means to be looked at like that. If it’s as dangerous as she always imagines it would be...
Cassian takes the frames out of her hands, holding them for her as they make there way outside. But not before the shopkeeper grabs a hold of his arm and leans towards him.
She holds her hand next to her mouth as if she is telling some secret, and though the statement she says next is directed at Cassian, Nesta still grasps the words.
They float around like music notes, reach her ears, travel down her spine.
The words curl around her heart, burrow in the center of her chest, warming her all over.
Your mate is lovely.
~~~
The mountains have many different names, she learns, and its acres sprout multi-colored flowers. Enduring patches of delicate petals. She passes wisteria, rhododendron, azalea, feels their softness on the tip of fingers. It’s for this reason, Nesta asks to walk some more before they go home.
She spends her time balancing on the raised edge of the sidewalk, Cassian close beside her. Never too far away. Never so distant that she can’t make out his shape or smell his scent or feel the warmth he resonates in the early spring chill.
Her hands are clasped behind her, but she feels a little braver, a little more playful and child-like. Not nearly enough to hold her arms out like she wants to and fit the whole world in the length of them. But she does wobble slightly every now and then, just to see Cassian flinch.
“How did you find the market?” Nesta asks as they reach a clearing of muddy rocks and grass.
“I used to come here when I was young. Azriel, Rhys, and I.” He shakes his head fondly as he remembers. “We used to spend all day here, eating as much as we could and taking more home.”
Nesta waits for him to continue as he passes her, going to sit on the cold ground. His large body at odds with the tiny daisies that sprout in aimless places on the field. She stays behind watching, trying to capture the outline of his figure and every color that bleeds into his skin.  
“Actually, I didn’t start coming here until Rhys’s mom took us. She used to sell dresses here and she’d take us with her sometimes. If we behaved, she said she’d get us each our own surprise. It always ended up being food, but sometimes it was new clothes, or toys, or weapons as we got older.”
Nesta can see his fists clump the grass as she gets closer to him, lured by his story and the image of three children running around the market square.
“I don’t know why I remember, but I know we used to steal food when no one was watching, even made a game out of it. Who could take the apple from the crabby goblin? Or how many strawberry tarts could we eat behind the dryads back? The one who always raised her nose at us and complained to Rhys’s mother to.”  
Nesta laughs quietly. The sound bright as she pictures a smaller version of him, with rosy cheeks and a penchant for getting in trouble. She wonders if she ever looked that way, too. Innocent and hopeful. Playful and proud.
Nesta wants to say so much to him. Ask him questions about his favorite things, the memories that make his voice sound like he sprinkles sugar atop them. Such sweetness in the light of his smile.
“That sounds fun.” Nesta says, cringing at the perfunctory response.
“It was,” he agrees. “Until we got home and took turns throwing up everything we ate.”
Nesta can’t help the grin that appears, and Cassian knocks his shoulders with hers. His smile reaching his eyes as he looks at her, mirth in the crevices of his mouth.
“You have dimples.” He notes. Nesta touches her cheeks, covering them with her hands. “I didn’t expect you to have them.”
The words sink in before Nesta can decipher what they mean, and she spends the next minutes deciding on an answer, worried more about her response than the stillness that tangles around them. She can feel her teeth pull on her bottom lip, begging her not to say anything.
She never says anything.
“My mother didn’t like them.” Nesta admits, not daring to look at Cassian. “She said that I was born with such a perfect face, it was a pity that the only imperfection she could see was in my smile.”
She shakes her head, staring into the wide expanse of interlacing pinks and marigolds. When did she lose the right to laugh so freely, the freedom of being love drunk and a curious daydreamer? When did life decide she was no longer a child and the only thing she could carry were the memories piled so high and so heavy they were crippling?
“I never wanted to smile in front of her, after… I didn’t want her to look at me and only see what I lacked—how imperfect I really was to her.”
And, Nesta lacked almost everything to her mother. Always talking when she shouldn’t, saying things she could never take back. She was always too moody, too angry, too taciturn. Never what her mother wanted her to be.
Even now she reveals too much and Nesta wants to slap a hand over her mouth, rewind time, start at the beginning where her secrets are kept hidden. Safe in the anger she never hid well.
She can see the questions already forming, something Nesta hopes isn’t pity making a way in the honey tones of his irises.
“I guess I took her words too literally.” Nesta bites, the animosity burning bright red.
Cassian opens his mouth to say something, but Nesta doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t even want to know what he could possibly say to take the bitter taste out of her mouth.
“Why did you stop coming here?” She asks accusingly, amazed that she can switch her emotions, like blowing out a candle. One minute a flickering flame, another smoke rising to the mist.
His brows furrow as his eyes darken. Nesta is almost ashamed that she feels proud to have caused such a look. ”You said you used to come here. Why don’t you anymore?”
Cassian grimaces, his wings drifting higher. “No, I don’t come here often.”  
His hands wring themselves around and around and Nesta wants to know what he is imagining between his fists. If he hopes to maim as much as she wishes to pummel.
“When she died, I never had the heart to come back. I didn’t want to see where she had walked, where she had laughed, the people she knew so well, and not see her in the midst of it all. There was a part in me, a part in all of us, that was already empty. I didn’t want to see how empty this place had become—what the world looked like without her. So, I just… stopped coming.”
Nesta pauses at his words, suddenly guilty that she is playing a game of whose life turned out worst. There is no winner in daddy issues or absent mothers. No crown for the unwanted, the unclaimed. And she will not find secrets in fingerprints or under the skin her nails dig into. There is only pain.
His and her own.
“Did she come here often?” Nesta asks, her voice steady and soft. His words blinking away the burning sting in her eyes.  
“When she could get away—from raising us that is, or some task she had to do for Rhys’s father.” He scoffs. “Raising us mostly. That was all she good for apparently. Never mind that she was smart as all hell and could rival any male Illyrian, trained or no.”
“Do you think she would have been seamstress all her life if she had never mated?”
Nesta doesn’t know why she asks more questions, when she all but ruins the conversation. When they get back, she’s sure she’ll spend hours going over everything she says, marking every tally of moments gone awry. But she wants to salvage as much as she can, wants him to spill the words out so she can collect them like tiny seashells, like parts of a ship already wrecked and abandoned.
Cassian stays silent and Nesta wonders what has trapped him in his head. He stares at the mountains not meeting her gaze and takes his time answering her question. When he does, she can hear the strain of his voice, can see the veins in his hands bulge as he tightens his fists on the grass.   
“Illyrians are not… good with females making their own money. They saw, it is as a bad example to the others. No one needed to get ideas, so they gave her more chores, more work. And that was before she had married, so I’m told.” He pulls on the daisies between them. The petals falling in clumps as he grits his teeth. “I can imagine what they would have done if she continued.”
She can feel the anger from Cassian, and feels it rise up inside her, as well. A pain Nesta supposes she shares with all of them, no matter what body she walks in. Like calls to like, she hears Feyre once say.
To be an Illyrian, fae, or human. To be a female, forever young and beautiful. To be a male, always the strongest and most self-assured. To be nothing, but petals and dust. To have it all. To have so little. It was never enough.
In that way, they are the same, she supposes. Both with their feet in the sand, the waves crashing on their ankles. Anger and sadness floating out in that bitter sea she so often drowns in.
Nesta never stops drowning, gives up trying to keep her head above water. She imagines her mouth opening, and a waterfall bursting out. A broken pipe siphoning from an ocean that would never dry. Something explodes out of Nesta. A silence she can no longer keep by holding her lips tightly together.
“My father used to make carvings out of the wood I had to cut,” Nesta holds her palms out as example.
She always expects to see the blisters, count them one by one, as some kind of reminder that she’s suffered. Sometimes, she wishes they’d appear, so she could rub her fingers across them and trace the memories. But they are long gone, and all she can see now are weaving lines and skin.
“I remember being mad at him, so very angry that he’d use the wood that was supposed to be for fires or…food—" She looks towards the bushes, so full and overflowing with berries. What would she have given to have just a taste then? To have these resources growing just outside her door. “He’d sell them, and I still could only thing that it was mine. He’d use my wood, my time, my pain, and it was my money—what I deserved for dealing with a father who could care less about his own daughters.
“I suppose that’s how Feyre felt.” Nesta feels her eyes sting as she stares straight ahead, “And I guess that’s why I understand.”
The anger, she thinks. The sour taste of regret.
Cassian stays oddly quiet as she speaks and Nesta can’t help but be grateful. She does not need to hear sweet coddles as if she needs sympathy, but equally so Nesta doesn’t know what she’d do if she heard criticism. He can’t possibly understand something he’s never lived through, and it makes a part of her furious to think he’d try. But it also makes a deep sadness fill the center of her chest.
Nesta—never to be understood or her sins forgotten.
He stares up at the mountains and she watches as he closes his eyes, his wings lifting slighting at the breeze. “The only thing I remember of my mother is her voice. I don’t remember what color her hair was, how tall she was, even what eye color she had. I can only assume they’re like my own…but that isn’t good enough. Not really.”
Nesta listens carefully to it all.
She’s never heard anything about Cassian’s biological mother and he’s never spoken a word about her, though she often notices how he looks at the others in the camp. The children, the couples, the families he is and will never be a part of. Even sometimes when he looks at her—like he is missing something that nothing in the world can fill.
“I like to imagine that she smelled like the woods, like fresh air… fires…warmth. That she carried me when I was tired and tucked me in when I was sleeping. I liked to imagine that she told me bedtimes stories. I hoped she told me bedtime stories, and I imagined waking up and believing every word that she said the night before. As if she painted my soul, my wants, and my wishes on the edge of my dreams.”
Cassian sighs, his shoulders sinking to the ground as Nesta resists the urge to lay a hand there. She is always trying to resist him, shake the feel of him off of her. A lump forms in the back of her throat, and she clenches her fists to stop the reaching.
“All this time, I could hear her call out my name as if she were screaming right in front of me,” He croaks. His eyes red as he stares, never quite looking at her. “This year, I could barely remember what she sounded like.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She asks, softly, her head resting on her bended knees.
Nesta watches as his grins. His face so obviously despairing that Nesta wants to ask him why he smiles when his heart is broken, why his expression looks so familiar to her. As if she were looking in a mirror as opposed to his war-torn face.
“Maybe all memories fade away, at one point or another. Whether we want them to or not.”
Nesta looks away, leaning back and blinking at the sky quickly turning to its dark cerulean hues. An ocean of darkness, she thinks.
She is always, always drowning.
“Do you miss your mother?” Nesta asks.
Cassian sighs, his hand running through his hair.
“As much as I can miss someone I’ve never known.”
“Do you miss your father?” He questions.
Does she?
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. Grief looks so strange in Nesta’s eyes, she often wonders if she cares at all.
But she remembers the tombstone she can never visit, the goodbyes that get caught in her throat, the ships she doesn’t even want to look at in fear that she would cry and never stop.
Does she want to miss someone who hurt her so badly?
“More than I wish I did.” Nesta decides.
She looks him over once more before laying down on the grass. The feel of it pillow-soft and cool against her arms. The sky watching over both of them.
“We’re both orphans,” Nesta remarks.
Cassian chuckles, their shoulders touching as he follows suit. Nesta can feel the heat from his body all the way to her toes. “Penniless, parent-less lot, the two of us.”
She stares up at the wide expanse, the stars already peeking through the twilight. The space so substantial and vast it could swallow them whole.
“I suppose we have each other now.”
~~
Amren tells her to think of magic as water. To bathe in it, to wash in it, to let it move around her. Nesta never tells her she’s afraid to take a bath, afraid of what the water might to do her. Even after she put one foot in and another until her whole body is submerged, she’s never wanted to touch that magic she felt just beneath her skin. Never wanted to know just how much it felt like hate.   
But, Amren also tells her that if magic is water, her emotions are fire. The more she rages against it, the more she can’t control it. The more she hates the magic, the more it burdens her. Her anger breathes through her, and so the magic evaporates before Nesta can see exactly what it’s made of and what it calls to.
That’s what she tells herself when she stares at the picture frames and nothing appears. Nothing moves and she swears it’s because the magic inside of her does what it wants and doesn’t care at all about her. How could anything care about something that is so miserable and broken.
She scowls at the offending structures leaning lazily on the wall. The picture frames seeming to hum before her. The one Nesta holds in her hands, with its carved mahogany, glares at her to get on with it.
Nesta supposes it would be easier if she knew what images she wanted to appear. She can think of nothing, though she tries all morning, all last week, and all the way back to Windhaven when they make it back from the market.
Nesta sits back and sighs, her head bumping on the new couch they are still deciding on where to place.
The problem, it seems, is that Nesta can think of no good times worth remembering. She has seldom laughed with unutterable joy at the jokes her friends make. She has no friends. She can’t imagine the famous blooming roses of Rask or the briny beaches of Vallahan. She has never been anywhere. She doesn’t want to be reminded of Velaris, where she can still smell the putrid scent of puke and whiskey. An image would merely remind her of the headaches she gets with even a whiff of alcohol.
She moves on to people, but she is not inclined to dwell on any of them either. In fact, Nesta doesn’t want to think of them at all. And so Nesta sits there, resigning to the belief that she was born to be good at nothing…
Some part of her knows she’s scared.
The stiff spine, the wringing hands, the focused gaze. It isn’t an enemy that stands before her, but—Nesta inhales—there is too much that hasn’t been said.
She doesn’t want to know what her mind thinks of when she loosens the reigns. Amren has taught her so many times to keep those shields up, it seems counterintuitive to break them down now. But mostly, Nesta doesn’t want to know what magic looks like. She’s spent so much time denying it’s even there, that the idea of letting it move freely makes her feel wild—her spooked horse-like tendency to see all things as fearful even if they were smaller than her and she could stomp on them easily.
Nesta sets the frame down, the base screeching against the hardwood without leaving a scratch. Her fingers tapping along her thigh to some unnamed melody she can barely recall.
Her powers are always a mystery to her. Never to be understood, never to be forgotten. They are always there. She imagines its depth, the endlessness like drowning in a cauldron, the questions forming in the space between morphing bodies. Human to fae or… something or other.
Nesta tries to silence these questions, but she is simply too curious.  
Will the magic shoot out of her hands, follow the sound of her voice, grant her wishes? Will it twist around her spine so that every time she uses it, she’ll feel a twinge in her back and a terrible need to bend and crumble? Will it spit fire out of her mouth like those roaring insults meant to bite and hide her away?
Is it hollow like a hole never filled? Does it echo like a rock in a well? Will it squirm? Eating her from the inside out.
Nesta does not want to know, she asserts, does not even want to imagine what the others have called powerful and strange.
But she can name one type of magic.
It was there that day. Between the two of them.
Nesta thinks about the idea of them several times. Even before she ever lives in this cabin. Long before she lets herself think about them together like that. The image always there, always waiting, and always agonizing.
She lets herself dwell on it now for the picture appears.
Maybe not a memory. Maybe not a dream.
In the space between mahogany lines, Nesta traces her fingers along the glass and brings it closer to her. The appearance finer than paint and perhaps more vibrant. She is almost afraid to look at it for long, fearing that it will change into something dark and horrid. But there they lay.  
The two of them.
On that hill of vibrant green. The specks of white and yellow dusting their skin. A blanket of beautiful things she’d like to wrap them in, across both of their shoulders where dust and time had settled. This Cassian looks down, a soft grin on his face, pulling his arms around tighter, wrapped around this—this girl who looks a lot like her and nothing like her at all.
This girl grins. A wide and happy smile, her cheeks brimming and a lively red. Nesta watches as the girl in the picture with her hair and her eyes, leans her head on his shoulder. Both of them so close and so…loved.
Nesta hates this girl. Immediately chastises this young thing.
This girl who never sees terror or feels the deepest regrets. Who never knows starvation for touch and affection. Who never looks at the world with its hatred and despair and is just so hungry that she eats them like scraps of food left on the dinner table. This girl doesn’t know pain—
Nesta breathes deeply. Her fist only inches away from punching the glass into oblivion.
Or maybe she does… Perhaps this girl, this young, naïve, hopeful girl sees it all—feels it all, as she does, but smiles as Nesta always wishes she could, remaining free and unencumbered like no Nesta has ever been before. Perhaps this Nesta knows what it’s like to feel the raging disappointment and instead of soaking it up and bottling it for later, she tells stories instead, laughs instead, thrives instead.
Despite the pain. Regardless of the memories.
Nesta does not destroy the image. Whether its some dream manifested or some cosmic joke, the magic is there. Her power is in the center of it all and it is not cruel or angry or crass.
It’s water…and if it is, she’s made of it. There is no separation between who she is and what the magic makes her. There is no way to pull it out and leave the whole of her behind. As much as she wants to pretend it isn’t there, she can more dismiss that it exists than she can claim that air doesn’t take space in the atmosphere or that she doesn’t dream strange, improbable dreams.
Pretending doesn’t equate to truth.
So, Nesta leans the finished, moving frame on the living room wall and picks up another. The lavender paint reminding her strangely of dinner parties.
Nesta makes so many, fills all of the frames of different sizes and shapes and colors with moments she not only remembers, but of those she wishes to see—the pictures she needs to see.
Of Cassian with that group of friends she almost always resents. Of Amren and her, in that tiny apartment with puzzles strewn about. Of the camp and the raging, rising females who lay claim on her and treat her like one of them. Of the stories she swallows and the worlds that swallow her, that she can feel in the pit of her stomach.
Of her sisters. Because she loves them.
More than herself, most days.
She fills the walls with them all. The snow, and city lights, and night stars, and mountain tops filling the backgrounds, quietly saying hello, goodbye, stay a while. We promise you’ll like it here. We promise to be good to you.
Nesta straightens each one.
The one of her and Cassian though, she hides. Behind her bookshelf, where it won’t taunt her with its hopeful dreams, with its lies it tells so truthfully.
That one can wait.
When the night arrives, Nesta goes to the doorway and the moon scrutinizes her as she waits for the tell-tale sign of wings that signals Cassian’s return. It’s silvery sheen ordering her to do more this time, than watch from the living room window.
She is not the one trapped behind glass.
His feet hit the pavement as the crack of the open door reveals him. She is not a painter like Feyre, but she counts all the shades of indigo and wine that form the backdrop as he steps towards her. The stars as alive as each person who stares at her from those picture frames and blinks.
He looks at her cautiously, waiting for her response, but she takes his arm instead. Pulling him toward the day’s work.
She doesn’t ask him what he thinks, what he can read through gazes on his family’s faces, but she watches as he scans over the images, taking his time assessing each one.
She swallows when he looks back at her, and Nesta braces for the response. Will he deny her visions, her hopes and her wishes? Will he call her out for moving too fast? Will he knock all of them off the wall and yell?
Worst of all, will he say nothing? Her wants not even worth a response.
Cassian places his hand on her cheek. She feels his thumb trace her skin where it burns and if he moves any lower, he can probably hear her heart thumping wildly. And even if she’s scared beyond belief, Nesta still leans into his palm.
She closes her eyes, clenches her fists, and waits for that crippling fear.
Nesta feels the hot press of his mouth instead.  
He pulls her to him, his arms moving to her waist as hers wrap around his neck.
His lips are soft, and she leans into him, tastes him, soaks him into her skin. Not at all sure what she should be thinking. Not thinking at all.
But Cassian pulls away far too soon, and when she opens her eyes again, his cheeks are brimming red. Nesta doesn’t say anything and neither does he, but she can feel him in the silence. Joy in deep breaths. Warmth she can feel to her toes.
She turns as he does, back to the images on the wall. Their shoulders almost touching as Nesta fiddles with her neckline and Cassian smiles neatly.
The two of them beaming.
The people of their pictures dreaming their own little dreams.
She will not be afraid of memories. She will not be afraid to hope.
~
Tags:  @dreaming-of-bohemian-nights , @missing-merlin, @strangeenemy, @saltydreamcollector, @midnightbluhm, @my-fan-side, @queenofillea1, @tswaney17, @gloriousinlove, @ekaterinakostrova, @thebluemartini, @anishake, @lord-douglas-the-third, @mis-lil-red
AN: 
I wanted this part to be a battle for Nesta. Happiness and Sadness are two sides of the same coin, and I wanted Nesta to constantly toss it and I wanted it to be a fight against what she hoped it would land on. I didn’t want to write her one day getting over it all, because I don’t really think that’s true. Healing, after all, is the ugliest part. So, this chapter ends a little hopeful but bittersweet and it will probably remain that way for the rest of it. 
I split this chapter up, so we have one more part 4/4. And then the last segment which I may or may not ever get to called “Love is Bright Red, Hope is Dark Blue” which is more about the inner circle and their part in all of this. Since I think it’s easier for Nesta and Cassian to love each other in the dark so to speak and maybe not in front of their family. But, I haven’t written any of it, and to be frank, I only sometimes like writing this fic and I want to move past this. So, I will not make any promises. 
But I hope everyone is doing well. It’s an odd time to be alive right now, and I really hope everyone is staying home and staying healthy. Oh btw, I’ve read Crescent City. It’s such a good book! I was amazed but not at all surprised. SJM always writes the books I want to read so there’s that. 
Anyways, thank you for sticking with this fic, I know I take forever to update, but every comment, kudos, like, and reblog mean the world to me and tbh, the constant comments are the only reason I have even made it this far. 
Of course, if you like this second to last end part, please feel free to do just that! I always love what you guys comment. I’m out! Finally 
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