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#forgotten!memory sans
thenocturnenarrator · 17 days
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Fanart fro Memories of a Protector by Im Sorry Buddy!
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WOOOOOOO I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS AFTER LAST CHAPTER UFHCUYFCYF SKETCH IF DUST DIES BECAUSE OF YOU ILL HIT YOU WITH A NEWSPAPER DX
Nightmare: give me Ink if you want to save Note
Me: *sweats nervously*
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Day 21: The unknown. unknown? or just forgotten? .. what's the difference?
Notes down below:
aah cramps hit m like a truck this morning and all my motivation to draw was just zapped away just like that T-T, but i told myself i wouldn't be late for any day and i couldn't miss a red one so i put my feelings to the paper(or screen) and this came out!
simple but alright :]
also I headcanon that he will liter his sketchbooks with sticky note's and smaller papers filled with even more sketches and reminders, but there just as unorganized as everything else is in his life but every now and then he'll find a note along the lines of "remember" or "don't forget" and it will bother him until he forgets about it again.
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kosmicfeelings · 4 months
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and all of a sudden I’m remembering the nights I played outside of the apartment in San Diego
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remedyx · 4 months
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Snowmen and Saviors
Summary: It was too late and too cold to be out at night. But if I hadn't been out there, we wouldn't have met...
Pairing: San x Reader
WC: 5,448
Warnings: Mature content ahead. Specifically smut. 18+ only. Please skip this one if you are uncomfortable with reading such content.
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Decorating was, for me, the best part of Christmas. In fact, one could say that I probably go too far in decorating, but that was subjective. The point was that I enjoyed it, and my loving husband knew it enough that he never questioned me. Even when our box of decorations doubled in size each year. I placed what very well could have been the tenth or eleventh Santa figurine in the house on the mantle. Readjusting the garland strung through with lights, making sure everything was still visible, including the host of photos I had situated on it.
My eyes drifted to the nearest one, the nostalgia hitting instantly when I remembered the day San and I had met. Even four years later, this photo was one of my favorites. The picture wasn’t the best quality. Really, I had been holding my phone in my shaking hand with how cold it was outside for a close-up selfie. My terrible photo skills barely catching the snowman in the background along with one edge of my face. I was smiling, unbelievably proud to be catching the moment that I had just like I did every year.
But what really mattered in the photo was San. I had been able to get most of him in the picture. His face was turned, not even paying attention to the camera, but instead had been looking at me. Soft smile on his face as he shared in our accomplishment together. Little did I know at the time, but he was the start of my forever. Although I was positive he had to have thought I was insane. I laughed at the memory; the scene just as funny as it was at the time.
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Four Years Ago
Man, it was cold as hell. Cupping my hands to my face for the probably the hundredth time since I started, blowing warm air onto them in hopes they’d last another lap around the schoolyard. I rubbed them together, my eyes lifting to the dark sky as snow flurries fell around me, sinking into the light jacket I had on and my hair. It would snow the one day I didn’t check the weather before coming in. And it would also be the first snowstorm of the season to stick that I chose to not be prepared as well. Shaking my hands, I tried to bring the feeling back in them before resuming my endeavor.
The small ball of snow rolled across the ground, picking up the quickly building layer coating the yard as I hummed Christmas tunes to pass the time. It was getting much later than I had planned on being out, but I refused to give up. This year would not be the first year I didn’t keep the tradition. The longer I stayed out here, the more my teeth had started to chatter, the cold seeping into my jacket and the melting snowflakes soaking through the thin material. Ugh, I’m definitely regretting not checking the weather now. I lifted my hands to my face again, rubbing my fingers over my freezing nose while simultaneously blowing on them again.
“What are you doing?”
The shriek I let out was ungodly. Scaring the man as much as he had scared me by the way his eyes widened in terror when I turned around. I laid my hand over my heart to settle it, cold long forgotten for the moment.
“You scared the crap out of me.” I admitted breathlessly, my fear quickly turning to amusement at my reaction.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you!” He apologized, looking more than relieved now that I was laughing at my own expense.
Unlike me, he was better dressed for the weather. Thick coat over his broad shoulders and scarf loosely wrapped around his neck. It was the first time I had ever been struck speechless by how attractive someone was. His sharp features noticeable even in the lowly lit yard, his dark hair sweeping across his forehead, brushing the tops of the glasses he had on. The small smile on his face one I wished I could stare at without coming off as a complete creep. Which was exactly what I was doing…
“Oh! Don’t apologize.” I finally knocked myself out of my stupor. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone else to be out here.”
“I suppose you’re right. Most people wouldn’t be out here unless they absolutely had to be.” He smirked, eyes drifting over me. “I did pass by you earlier, on my way to the store.”
He lifted the bag as if to prove his point. That it was just coincidence that the two of us were out in the middle of a snowstorm.
“Really? I have a terrible habit of not paying attention to things around me.”
“It’s fine.” He chuckled. “You looked busy. What are you doing anyway?”
I looked down at my half-finished snowball, realizing just how nuts this might look to someone just passing by.
“I’m making a snowman.”
“Right now? In this weather? Dressed like that?”
I nodded. “It’s kind of a tradition. I work at the elementary school, and I build a snowman every year for the kids after the first big snow of the season. They love showing up the next day to find one out here and not knowing how it got here. It’s sort of, magical for them. Makes them believe in Christmas a little more, you know?”
I could feel San’s eyes on me without having to look. The weight of his gaze heavy whether he realized it or not.
“As for the way I’m dressed…” I trailed off looking down at my jacket and leggings that were definitely not built for the current weather. “I neglected to check the weather this morning.”
He did laugh at that. The sound eliciting a laugh of my own as I realized just how ridiculous it sounded.
“In that case, would you like some help?”
He had asked but had already moved to set down the bags he’d been carrying, but not before rifling through one in particular.
“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”
“I’m sure.” He grinned, retrieving whatever he’d been looking for. “Besides, I’d feel bad for leaving you here when I’m not entirely confident you’ll finish before you freeze to death. So, it’s a good thing I bought these.”
He held up the things he had fished out of one of his bags. My eyes widening as he approached to hand them to me. A pair of gloves, thick sweatshirt, and handwarmers.
“Wait, you bought these for me?”
He shrugged, tugging his own gloves onto his hands. “I told you. I passed by you earlier and I may have felt a little bad about how unprepared you were in this storm. And don’t give them back.” He eyed me as I tried to hand them over again. “You obviously need them, and I didn’t waste any money. Even if you weren’t still here when I came by the second time, I would have used them regardless. At least in this case, I know they’re being used well.”
Figuring it wouldn’t do me any good to argue, I thanked him and tugged the sweatshirt and gloves on. I popped open the package of handwarmers, electing to share as I pocketed one and gave him the other.
“I’m Y/N, by the way.” I told him as he took the warmer from me.
“San.”
“Alright then, San. Let’s finish a snowman.”
And that’s pretty much how it all started. San helped me finish the snowman in record time. Even going so far as wrapping his scarf around our finished masterpiece at the end. I had asked if he would take a photo with me, seeing as how I did it every year and since he helped me with it, he should be in it too. And that was it. We parted ways that night without so much as exchanging numbers. My only evidence that it had happened being the snowman himself with San’s scarf around his neck and the photo on my phone.
It wasn’t until almost two weeks later that we just happened to run into one another again. My obsession with creating new tree themes every year along with the inability to control my impulse buying when it came to household decorations serving as a blessing in disguise when I literally bumped into him. I had chosen my tree, just like I did every year and was browsing the selection of bulbs and lights, trying to decide between red and gold, or blue and white when I accidentally shoved one of the nearby boxes of tree decorations too far back onto the shelf, knocking off whatever was behind it into the next aisle.
I hadn’t actually been aware of my mistake until I heard the soft grunt of pain followed by whatever it had been, smacking the floor in the next second. Realizing what I had just done, I quickly rounded the aisle, intent on apologizing until I recognized him.
“San?”
He looked up at the sound of his name, hand covering the top of his head as his eyes widened, surprised to see me.
“Y/N?”
“Hey!” I greeted him excitedly, glancing at the box of outdoor lights that I had accidentally pushed off the shelf and onto him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to drop that on you.”
“Oh, no. It’s fine. I mean, I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m totally okay!”
He readjusted his glasses, rubbing the spot on his head one more time before tossing me a huge smile. One I hadn’t realized I missed so much until now.
“What are you doing here?” He asked.
I lifted the boxes of tree bulbs. “Shopping for tree decorations. Although I’m having trouble deciding.”
“Well, would you like some help?” He offered.
“Are you asking me if you can help me decide colors, or decorate my tree?” I grinned, reveling only a little in the slight shade of red that came over his cheeks.
“I meant- uh, the colors. Picking colors. Not that I wouldn’t want to help you with your tree too. No- not that I’m assuming you’d want my-“
“San.” I cut him off laughing. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.”
He finally relaxed, a chuckle of his own escaping as he shook his head.
“Right.”
“But you know, I could also use an extra set of hands to trim my tree for me…”
The line made both of us burst into laughter. The cringe on my end rooting deep into my chest as I realized just how awkward that came out. An apology on the tip of my tongue when San finally caught his breath enough to respond.
“Was that meant to be code for something else? Or did you seriously mean a real Christmas tree?”
“Believe it or not, I meant the tree.”
He finally composed himself enough to give me a nod.
“I’d love to come help you trim. Your tree, I mean.”
I snorted at the suggestive tone but couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
“Alright alright. You can never let me live that down later. Now help me choose a color scheme.”
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We had decided to go with red and gold. The tree coming out nicely as we hung the bulbs to complete the look. I left San to do the top since he had an easier time reaching up there than I did.
“So, how long have you been a teacher?”
“I’ve had my own class for a few years now. Although I guess I’ve been there longer just as a fill-in. What about you? I think you know a lot more about me than I do about you.”
I didn’t miss the smirk he quickly tried to hide with a shrug.
“This and that. My job isn’t something I want to come between us.”
I paused, peeking at him from around the tree.
“Alright, that didn’t sound ominous at all.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
“I didn’t mean for it to be. I just meant that when people find out what I do for a living it tends to change our relationship. I didn’t want that to happen with us yet.”
I hung the last of the ornaments I had in hand, walking around to where he was finishing up his half of the tree.
“Do we have that kind of relationship?” I teased.
“Well, you did invite me back to your place to trim your tree. Whatever that was supposed to mean.”
I smacked his arm, scoffing.
“Exactly as I meant it. That is what we’re doing, is it not?”
“Sure.” He drawled, unable to keep the smile off his face as I pushed him playfully again.
Leaving him to it, I went back to my boxes of decorations I had splayed all over the couch. Most of them were empty now that the tree was pretty much finished. All except for one last detail. I pulled my tree topper out.
“Do you think you’d be able to reach to put this on, or should I go dig out my ladder?” I asked walking back to him.
“Uh, probably not. But I have an easier idea than a ladder.”
I was looking down at the angel I used as a tree topper. It had been a gift from my mom a long time ago. My family having a long running tradition of using themed angels for our trees instead of stars. I fluffed her dress, about to ask San what his idea was when I felt him grab my thighs. I gasped, knees buckling under me as he spread my legs apart to fit his head between them and I dropped onto his shoulders. He offered a hand up to me when I scrambled to find something to hold onto and I gripped it like a lifeline. Once I was situated, he stood, the added height of being on his shoulders putting me much closer to the ceiling that I could almost touch.
“What made you think this was a good idea?” I giggled, my feet hooking around his sides when my balance was thrown off when he started walking.
“I didn’t say good, I said easier. Now hurry and put it on so I can see it all together.”
“Jeez, I didn’t realize you’re so bossy.”
He pinched my thigh making me swat his hand laughing. I laid the angel over top, making sure she was steady and not crooked before letting go. I tapped San to let him know I was good. He took several steps away from the tree before helping me off his shoulders. But instead of letting me jump down, he grabbed one of my thighs, dragging me down and around his body to his front where he held me comfortably with my legs around his waist. Being this close to him reminded me just how handsome he was. I mean, he’s always handsome. It’s hard to not be struck by just how good-looking he is all the time, but at this proximity, my heart pounded much harder than it ever had. The sharp features, black hair over his forehead, glasses doing nothing to hide his dark eyes that looked up at me invitingly. I wound my arms around his neck, leaning into him a bit more.
“Can I kiss you?” I asked, somewhat surprised by my boldness.
Then again, maybe not. I had a tendency to voice my thoughts without much preamble. A slow smile took over his lips, the slight lift of his face exciting me.
“You’re asking?”
“It’s better than me just assuming I’m not reading too much into things.”
He chuckled. The sound sending goosebumps through me.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
I wasn’t really the type to let my inhibitions go like this. I barely knew him, and yet, it felt as if I already knew everything I needed to. San was kind, that much was evident after helping me in a freezing snowstorm and even going as far as buying me clothes. And funny. I’m not sure I had ever laughed so much around someone I had only met a handful of times before. I was realistic enough to know how crazy this was. Inviting someone over I had only met once prior and then finding myself in his arms, asking to kiss him. Maybe it was the atmosphere. Christmas was one of the most magical times of the year and meant to be spent with someone other than yourself.
It did things to people. Drove them to share their lives with one another even if it was only for one night. Myself included apparently given the situation I currently found myself in. Or maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the holiday at all and was more just San himself. The idea was beginning to sound more plausible the longer I looked at him. He was beautiful. And not just on the surface. The genuine warmth I’ve felt since being with him was unlike anything I’d experienced with anyone before. I remained lost in my head, San mistaking my hesitance as me second guessing, a faint blush coloring his flawless skin as the gaze behind his glasses dropped.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you unco-“
My lips met his before he could finish his sentence. He froze under my kiss, a soft sound of surprise leaving him as I kept my mouth pressed to his. I slowly pulled away, meeting his eyes that had turned wide behind the lenses of his glasses. I stifled a giggle, counting the blinks before the glaze in his dark eyes dissipated.
“Kiss me again?” He mumbled shyly, the tint on his cheeks either from the heat in the room with the fireplace crackling nearby or the kiss we had shared.
I liked to believe it was the latter. I obliged, hardly leaning in once again before San’s lips captured mine in a passionate kiss. His arms tightened around me, gluing my frame to his as he took a couple of hesitant steps back. I slanted my mouth over his, tracing his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue before pulling away again teasingly.
“Can I be honest with you?”
The furrow between his brows and slight increase in breathing was cute as he looked up at me.
“Yeah. Of course.”
“I really want to fuck you in front of the fireplace.”
San was a man of action in two seconds flat. He released his hold, my body sliding down his and barely separating before he was tugging his sweater over his head. Excited by his eagerness, I quickly snatched a couple of blankets and pillows from the nearby couch, haphazardly throwing them onto the floor in front of the fireplace before turning my attention to my own clothes. My shirt removed and hitting the floor just as fingers looped through the waistband of my pants and yanked me to him. I stumbled, feet catching one another, but luckily San’s reflexes saved me from hitting the floor as I fell into him. I laughed at my clumsiness, the dimples flashing on San’s cheeks betraying amusement before swooping down to kiss me again.
My chest pressed to his, my bra being the only barrier between my skin and his. Our lips remained locked, kisses thick with the desire we had for one another and refusing to part for even a second. My palms connected with the warm skin of his back, keeping him close as he backed me towards my makeshift pallet. Another embarrassed giggle left me as my foot slipped on one of the pillows, San’s hold on my waist tightening to keep me steady.
“I promise I’m not usually this clumsy.” I blushed, looking up at him.
“All I’m thinking is that we better get you to lay down before this ends in a way I’d rather it didn’t.” He chuckled.
True to his word, he lowered me onto the blankets. My butt planted on the plush pile while he stood in front of me. Before he could follow me down, I grasped at his pants. My fingers tugging the button of his pants loose before pulling the zipper. My surprise left me on a soft, ‘oh’ when I realized he was commando. Somehow that discovery didn’t seem too farfetched for him and internally I was glad I wouldn’t have to fumble with the extra layer. He helped me as I pulled them off, not even bothering to be patient as his hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me towards him, forcing me to lay on the pillows and blankets under me.
Another laugh escaped me, the notion that it felt like I did that a lot around him not lost on me, but I liked it. It’s been a long time since I’d been around someone who made everything so effortless and enjoyable at the same time. He smiled down at me, hands gathering fistfuls of my leggings to tug them down my hips and thighs.
“You should know I’m not typically this impatient. I also don’t normally do this kind of thing.” He admitted, tossing my pants somewhere behind him.
“Is this your round-a-bout way of saying I’m irresistible and you’re desperate?”
He dropped to his knees between my thighs, palms coasting up along the outside of them before reaching my hips and then my waist. His hands were warm, but his touch sent goosebumps over my skin it was so impossibly soft.
“You bring it out of me.” He whispered, crawling over me to slot his mouth over mine again.
I kissed him hungrily, tips of my fingers bumping the frames of his glasses. Carefully, I pulled them off, letting him trail his kisses down my neck as I reached to set them aside on the coffee table lest we accidentally break them. I hooked a leg over his outer thigh, pulling at the same time I pushed against his opposite shoulder to roll him over. He went without much effort, cupping my hips as I settled over his stomach, looking down at him coyly.
“I did say I would be the one to fuck you.”
His eyes darkened, head falling back against the pillows as he licked his lips.
“Oh baby, I would never say no to you riding me.”
I leaned down, giving him one quick peck before pulling back again, rubbing my hands over his defined chest while I was at it.
“Do you have a condom?”
He froze mid-caress up my sides, a tortured groan escaping him as he dropped his arms.
“Shit. No, I-“ He ran a hand through his hair roughly, disheveling the strands even more. “I really didn’t plan for this.”
I caught his wrist, pushing it above his head to get him to stop tugging at his hair.
“No worries. I think I might actually have a box in my bedroom. I’ll be right back.”
I hopped to my feet, careful to avoid the plethora of boxes we had drug out while decorating the tree to get to my bedroom. I was a pretty careful person. Not that I made it a habit to bring strangers home for sex, but I kept a box just in case. A part of me a firm believer in practicing what you preach, and I was an advocate for safe sex. My days as a substitute for the high school health teacher serving me well and I wouldn’t be putting my foot in my mouth now. Finding what I was looking for in the bedside drawer, I tore one of them off before making my way back to San.
He was right where I left him, perfectly laid out among the pile of fabrics, the warm fire casting a golden glow across his naked skin making him look as if he belonged in some kind of painting rather than nude in the middle of my floor. His head turned towards me as I walked out, soft smile and hair wild making my heart pound harder.
“Find them?”
I held the package up, unable to contain my amusement as San looked at it dubiously.
“Hopefully you have more than just that. I’m not sure once will be enough for me.”
I giggled, shimmying my panties off before straddling him once again as he welcomed my weight on top of him.
“I have more. Don’t worry.”
The feeling of the head of his cock brushing over my bare pussy was electric. Soft moan seeping through my trapped lips as I sank my teeth into the bottom one. I rolled my hips over him experimentally, the bump against my clit with every pass driving my arousal higher. San wouldn’t be the only impatient one this time around. The man beneath me groaned quietly, hands urging my hips faster as a low curse escaped him on a exhale. As good as it felt, I needed more. I moved my lower half down his thighs. Just enough to get to his hard length before ripping the small packet open. I slid it on for him. His breath catching at my touch as I rolled the condom down his length.
“Okay?”
He looked up at me, words falling into a stutter as I reached behind me to unhook my bra and let it slip from my shoulders. He nodded; eyes glued to my chest as I removed the cups to bare myself to him. He sat up, muscles flexing under me providing a beautiful sight that I didn’t get enough of a chance to appreciate before his lips wrapped around one of my nipples. His mouth was warm and the insistent sucking wreaked havoc on me, sending gushes of arousal to pool between my thighs. My breasts had always been sensitive, every sensation heightened when they were given special attention. And San didn’t have a problem doting on them.
He paid equal attention to both. One under the ministrations of his lips and tongue while the other his fingers. I was a mewling mess above him that couldn’t wait any longer. With a bit of difficulty, I maneuvered myself in his lap to line his cock with my entrance. Sinking my hips down to his, the stretch was immense after not having been with someone in so long. San’s nails dug into my sides, momentarily distracted from what he had been doing as he filled me. His forehead rested against my collarbone, open palms trailing up my back as he attempted to control his breathing.
“My God, Y/N.” He murmured into my skin, pressing light kisses against it. “You feel so good.”
“You do too.” I answered back breathlessly, cupping his jaw to tilt his face up to mine.
I smashed my lips onto his. Delighting in the moan I got from him as I pushed him back into the pallet. I leveraged myself against his wide shoulders, gripping them tightly as I lifted my hips slowly. His head caught on my entrance, a silent indication for me to push back down, my eyes wanting to close with how good he felt filling me once more. But I kept them open, simply to watch the man at my mercy, cupping my thighs and urging me on even as his eyes rolled back, and soft groans of pleasure filled my ears.
Any other time, I would have relished in the affect I had on him. Right now, though, I was finding it hard to think of anything other than riding him into oblivion. His name was a whine as I uttered it, my hips setting a rhythm that would no doubt leave my thighs screaming in protest come morning. I angled my thrusts, letting every reentry hit that spot inside me that shot stars through my vision. My walls clenching around him every time it did making San’s returning thrusts falter as I tried to keep him trapped inside. The crackling fire beside us filled the room apart from our moans. The heat of it scorching my skin the more my temperature rose. In part from the heat of the room, but mostly from San, his body feeling exceptionally hot beneath me.
A light sheen of sweat had manifested across both our bodies. San’s brown hair turning almost black the damper it became sticking to his forehead. He was strong. The grip on my waist tight as he bounced me in time with my thrusts. My breath leaving me harshly on every drop of my pelvis as he directed the pace faster.
His head tilted back, the drawn-out groan sending tingles down my spine, veins in his neck prominent and begging to be licked. And that’s exactly what I did. My tongue met the column of his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed thickly, cock jumping within me. Both hands grabbed my ass, pining me against him before guiding my hips into a grind against his. The friction it delivered to my clit was heavenly. My toes curling as he set my hips to grind against him harder, hot breath hitting my ear with every pant before whispering into it.
“Cum for me baby.”
With two more hard grinds, I was cumming. My release ripping a sob from me while I clamped down on San’s cock greedily. Trying to keep him as deep as possible even as he thrust his hips into mine to keep fucking me through it and chase his own release. It didn’t take him long to find it, his face burying itself into my hair as he groaned softly, body trembling as he emptied himself into the condom. I held him close, still trying to collect my bearings after my own orgasm, but conscious enough to comfort him through his. I collapsed onto him, my sweaty cheek laying against his pec, content in listening to his heartbeat return to normal while we both calmed down.
The fire was a welcome source of heat now that we had started to cool off. The sweat turning cold and giving me chills. San took notice, carefully rolling me towards the flames and tugging a blanket over me. He stood, asking if he could use the bathroom before promising to be back soon. I gave him directions, watching as he made his way to the bathroom. Usually at this point, I would feel some urge to kick the person out after such activities. Unless we were dating, I didn’t typically like to let them stay. And San and I hadn’t so much as had a conversation about what we were prior to the night’s activities. But a little self-reflection revealed that I actually didn’t mind him staying. In fact, I honestly would prefer it.
Luckily for me, he didn’t seem all that concerned with leaving either. The blissful smile forming on his lips as he looked at me while making his way back to our spot in front of the fireplace sending butterflies into disarray within my gut. He plopped down beside me, tugging on an edge of my blanket in a silent bidding for me to let him under too so we could cuddle. I accepted, letting him in to tangle his legs with mine and pull me close to his chest. I hummed happily, more than ready to sleep now that he was back. Just as I felt myself drifting off, he nudged me awake, running his fingers through my hair.
“Would you rather I left?”
I shook my head, scooting closer to him.
“No. Stay.”
I could feel him smile against my forehead, his lips puckering to leave a soft kiss there.
“For the night?”
I peered up at him, waiting for him to look at me.
“I think you should stay until next Christmas. You know, in case I need help again.”
He chuckled, pulling me in close again.
“That sounds like a good reason for me to stay.”
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Arms coming around me pulled me from my memories. My head turning just enough to find San staring down at the same picture I was. A fond smile splitting his features as he hummed happily.
“You like this one.”
“Of course, I do. It’s our first picture together.”
“The snowman that started it all.”
I turned in his embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“We still have a lot of decorating to do. Care to help me trim my Christmas tree Mr. Choi?”
He laughed, looking over at the still bare tree.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that all year Mrs. Choi.”
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jupitercomet · 6 months
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The Difference a Minute Can Make
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summary - Jake broke your heart when he left you behind. All that remained of him were the memories of when you were in love—and the phone number he never picks up. Now he's back, ready to claim his title. And you think that that's all he wants, that he's completely forgotten about everything you were together, until he tries to fight for you too. But, this time, will you finally be worth more to him than the glory?
warnings - DARK THEMES, boxer au, violence, language, Jake is 6′5″ because I said so, my nonexistent knowledge of boxing, will I ever stop making Neil the villain of Jake’s story?, crass insults between men, physical assault (not descriptive), mild gore, mentions of blood, mentions of injury, panic attack, Jake having his jtldm!Bradley moment, no use of y/n
this series is 18+, minors please do not interact
word count - 4.8k
one new voicemail masterlist
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It’s almost as if your run in with Jake at the butterfly pavilion altered the trajectory of time and space because, after it, you started seeing Jake almost everywhere. The grocery store, the gas station, even somewhat obscure department stores in the mall. You’d almost think he was following you if he didn’t look equally as surprised every time. And, in a weird way, you guess it makes sense, the two of you always had unusually similar lifestyle habits.
It was always the same, your gazes would meet, Jake’s eyes would widen almost comically, and then he would either give you a small wave or, worse, attempt painstaking small talk. And then the whole exchange would end in forced smiles and awkward goodbyes. Maybe Jake was good at that.
Weirdly, Jake’s sudden appearance in your life caused your voicemails to kick back up to their daily occurrence. After cutting down to sparing voicemails every couple days, you’d fallen back into leaving him voicemails on every walk home from work by the third time you ran into him. It felt a little strange to be talking to him about him, but this influx of Jake in your life was throwing you off and you didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Oh my gosh, Bradley, my favorite waitress is here!”
The door of Knockouts opens and two regulars make their way inside before much more of the wind can. It’s slightly chilly for fall in San Diego—not terrible weather, but windy. You’d never liked the wind much, it seemed to always make things worse than they already were.
The couple move to their usual booth—the back left, near the widow—and you grab two menus. You were honestly surprised when they came back about a week and a half ago and the woman could still recognize you. Since then, they stopped by semi regularly—sometimes to dine in, sometimes to take out. They were always nice to you and the man tipped well. You like them.
“Toots, stop shoving your phone in my face, I can’t even see what you’re tryin’ to show me,” The man (you call him Grumpy because he is) grunts.
The woman (Shoes, because, the first time she came in, she helped you find a really good deal on shoes) looks like she’s about to speak before she sees you and perks up. “Hi!”
“Hi,” you smile politely, passing them the menus. “Can I get you guys your usual drinks?”
Shoes lets out a gasp, and you worry you’ve said something wrong, but Grumpy answers for her. “Yeah.”
You nod, heading back to the kitchen to get one water and one oreo milkshake.
“Bradley, she knows our drink orders! I told you she liked us!”
The door of the kitchen swings closed and you maneuver your way through the hustle and bustle of people and kitchenware as you make your way to the milkshake blender in the back. It looks like someone is making a peanut butter milkshake. You have the time, so you pour it into a glass before moving to clean out the machine. Malory comes up behind you and smiles gratefully.
“Thank you,” she balances the milkshake on her tray. “I swear, that scar guy is so weird.”
“He’s back?” You look up from the oreo mix.
Grumpy and Shoes weren’t the only sudden regulars spending their nights at Knockouts. An older man with a large, alarming scar on his cheek, who was always dressed in leather jackets and tight jeans, started stopping by too. He was usually a part of the evening rush but sometimes he’d show up in the afternoon. He was strange though, and none of the girls liked him, you included.
“Yeah, I’m this close to talking to Freddie about him, but it’s not like he’d do anything,” Malory shrugs. “A customer’s a customer.”
You nod sympathetically.
Malory leaves the kitchen after that and you try to shake the strange man out of your head as you finish getting a glass of water and the oreo milkshake ready. Jake preferred smoothies, he always said that milkshakes were “So overrated that any schmuck could see it” and that they were just  “Big Milk’s way of covertly infiltrating the life of the average consumer, angel”. You smile slightly at the thought.
You know Jake didn’t actually care that strongly about milkshakes. He only said it so much because it made you laugh. And maybe that’s why it was so hard to let go of him. How do you move on from a man who pretended to hate milkshakes for you?
Clearing your throat, you weave your way back out the kitchen doors and back to the farthest booth to the left, closest to the window.
“Sorry about that,” you apologize as you set down their drinks, but Shoes waves it off. “Are you ready to order? Or would you like some more time?”
“We’re ready,” Shoes smiles brightly. “Also, can I just say that I love your hair!”
“Oh, um, thank you,” you look down, flustered.
“Yeah, it’s so—”
“We’ll take three cheeseburgers.” Grumpy cuts in bluntly, not looking up from his menu.
You blink in mild surprise, hesitantly shooting a glance to Shoes to see if she’s offended by her partner’s—boyfriend’s? You honestly can’t tell—sudden interruption. Weirdly, she’s only smiling at him softly. She turns to you and her smile widens, though it somehow seems slightly less genuine. “Please,” she adds.
You scrawl the order down quickly, nodding. “I’ll have those right out for you.”
You turn, walking away from the table and, again, you can catch the beginning of their conversation.
“You know, I love your hair too, Bradley. You don’t have to be jealous.” You can hear the playful teasing in her voice.
“...I’m not even going to respond to that.”
Hiding your small smile of amusement, you head back to the kitchen, but something catches your arm before you can give your ticket to the chef. You recognize the feeling of Freddie’s pudgy fingers against your bicep. Freddie is who you imagine Augustus Gloop would be if he never got sucked up the chocolate tube. You’d never say that to anyone—you knew it was mean—but that’s what you thought when you first met him. He was round and pink and always sweaty, a girthy man fit tightly into yellow-stained khakis. Oddly, he’d never been that sleazy, you and the other waitresses had all voiced to each other how surprising that was. Though you suppose that, in order to be sexually attracted to you, he’d have to view you as a human being first. He was bossy and didn’t have an understanding bone in his body, he was the kind of guy you just agreed with if you knew what was best for you. He was also the most paranoid man you’d ever met. 
Freddie’s fingers feel clammy against your skin, stubby nails digging into you. “Which table is yours?”
“Table six,” you point.
“Mm,” Freddie nods, keeping his eyes on Grumpy and Shoes as he takes a step closer to you. His breath is hot against your face. “You know ‘em?”
“I mean, yeah, they’re—”
“Good.” He drops your arm suddenly and starts muttering. You watch him warily. “That’s good.”
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“Alright,” Javy drops his gloves with a sigh, shaking his head. “I’m not sparring with you if you’re gonna be in your own head the whole time.”
Jake furrows his brows. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been leaving my face completely uncovered for the past two minutes and you haven’t gone for a head shot once.”
Jake swallows. Maybe he had been in his own head. But it’s not his fault that he keeps running into you everywhere and it’s distracting him. What’s worse is that, even when he’s not running into you, even when you’re not even there, he’s still somehow seeing you. You’ve somehow made home in his brain and now, everywhere he goes, he’s reminded of you.
Since he moved back to San Diego, you’ve basically been putting him through the ringer. First, you suddenly stopped sending him voicemails, there’s nothing waiting for Jake everyday after 6:00, and it made him go crazy. He basically stopped sleeping, staying up all night wondering if this was really it and you’ve really moved on from him. Then he sees you, he sees how much he hurt you, but he also sees how much you’ve grown from it. Then he’s breaking down in front of drunk women because all he can think about is you. He can’t stop wishing that he didn’t ruin things with you the way he did. He can’t stop wishing that you give him anything more than a forced smile whenever the two of you run into each other in public.
Jake almost feels like this borders on obsession, but he knows that it’s not. He wants it to be obsession because otherwise it’s something else and that’s much scarier. But the thought of not having you at all is even worse.
“Sounds like Cowboy Ken doll isn’t shaping up to be so good in the big leagues.” A quiet chuckle rips Jake from his thoughts and he turns his head to see two of Maverick’s boxers laughing under their breath.
“Sorry,” Jake speaks up, ignoring Javy’s warning look. “I know you aren’t laughing like you’re tough shit when you’re too much of a pussy to say it to my face. Or did you need to practice a little before you said it like a big boy?”
The man, who Jake vaguely recalls as Omaha, snickers in disbelief. “Damn. You kiss your momma with that mouth, Hangman?”
Javy freezes. Jake’s jaw clenches. And then his expression transforms into a smirk, his tongue tracing his front teeth slowly.
“Nah. But yours doesn’t seem to mind.”
“The fuck did you just say to me?!” Omaha’s friend grabs him before he can lunge at Jake and Javy mirrors the action.
Jake just laughs though. “That’s all it took? You wanna talk shit about me and you can’t even handle someone sayin’ they fucked your mom? Javy, are you seeing this shit? I didn’t even have to try.”
“Would you cut it out?” Javy glares at him. “You’ve made your point, now shut the fuck up.”
The air is tense, neither man content with backing down, and everyone else in the gym can sense it. It was really only a matter of time before Maverick came strolling out of his office. He checks the time on his expensive watch boredly, as if seeing two men on the brink of a fight isn’t anything new for him. Given his occupation, Jake knows it isn’t.
“There a problem, boys?” He looks up at the four men, two on the elevated boxing ring and two on the ground below.
“Nothing more than shit-talking, Maverick,” the man holding back Omaha takes the initiative to explain.
Maverick snorts. “Well, then figure it out, yeah? You’re boxers for fucks sake.”
The four men look between each other and—slowly—Jake and Omaha are released. Javy sighs heavily when Omaha moves to put his own wraps and gloves on and gives Jake a knowing look.
“Stay out of your own head, dumbass.” He warns.
Jake smirks. “Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
And when Omaha’s finally ready and they go to touch gloves before the first round, Jake smirks again.
“When you go home tonight, crying like a little bitch, tell your mom I said that I’m sorry about what I did to your face.”
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You check again that you have everything contained in your purse before sliding on your jacket.
“Mal?” You call out and Malory pops out from behind the counter. “I think I’m gonna head out. Are you alright here by yourself?”
“I’m fine, Betty should be showing up for her shift any second,” Malory waves you off. You both know you have a bit of a walk and you’d be walking in the dark if you stay any longer.
You nod. “Only if you’re sure,” you check again and she just nods her head. “I’ll see you, then.”
You can hear her shout goodbye as you open Knockouts front door and step outside. The wind’s picked up, blowing at the strings of your zip-up and you wrap your arms around yourself a little tighter. You hate the wind.
Though your fingers are cold—and so are your ears—you can’t help but reach for your phone. Taking a deep breath, you press on the familiar contact and wait to go to its inevitable voicemail
“Hey, Jake. I’ve, um, I’ve been thinking about this all day, so sorry if it seems like it’s coming out of nowhere. But I just have to say it.
I don’t know if it’s just because I know you’re in San Diego now but I just feel… I don’t know, I guess I thought I could do all this without you. I mean I had to. You left. But— But maybe I don’t want to.
I don’t want to do this without you, Jake, and I don’t know what to do because I don’t think you want me— God, I’m sorry, I need to stop crying on my walks home. This is getting ridiculous. I’m sorry. But I made so much progress, Jake, I really did. I promise. And I—
Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know where that is—
No, I— I really don’t know where that is. But maybe someone else can help you two—”
Harley barks suddenly and Jake looks down at him. “What? You want to go outside?”
“I’m actually on the phone right now—”
Harley’s barks get louder and he circles Jake’s legs, whining. “What? Would you stop? I can’t hear.”
“Please don’t—”
“Harley!” Jake furrows his brows at the doberman when another loud bark overtakes your quiet voice. “What is with you?” 
The dog isn’t even looking at him and Jake follows his gaze to the iPhone 6 in his hand.
“Wait, what—”
The voicemail ends with what sounds like the beginning of your scream and Harley won’t stop barking. Jake can feel his own panic rising as his dog continues barking, and whining, and pawing at his furniture, never once taking his eyes off Jake’s phone.
“Look, I’ll go check on her, okay? Is that what you want?” He leads Harley to the backyard, not wanting the dog to destroy his house while he’s gone. “I know where she is, she said she was walking home. I’ll check on her.”
Though Jake was trying to reassure his dog—as if Harley could understand him—there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach. He’s trying to tell himself that your scream was just you slipping and falling, that you’re probably halfway home by now. 
Jake grabs his motorcycle keys.
He doesn’t know the exact route you took to get home, but there were only so many ways to get to your apartment from Knockouts quickly. He picks the one with the least amount of busy streets—you’d always been smart enough to figure that stuff out—and finds himself scanning every sidewalk and crosswalk for you. He’s getting closer and closer to Knockouts with every intersection and still hasn’t seen a person who so much as looks like you. Jake can’t explain it, but he feels almost suffocated by dread. 
He’s about a block away from Knockouts when he finally spots you. At first he doesn’t even realize it's you, until it hits him so suddenly he almost crashes his bike.
“Angel? Shit!”
Jake parks haphazardly—he might not have even turned his bike off—and he scrambles to the alley hidden by the large Denny’s. 
In his life, Jake has seen many people look bloodied and battered. Hell, this morning, he found pleasure in the blood and bruises he inflicted on Omaha. He’s seen people spit out teeth and choke on bloodied spit and, never once, has it fazed him. 
But when Jake finally gets a look at you, his heart plummets to his stomach. There’s blood dripping from your right temple and your face is covered in scratches. Your clothes are ripped and wrinkled and dirty. Jake already knows you have even more injuries that he just can’t see yet. Without thinking, he takes a step forward and you flinch.
“Hey, hey,” Jake crouches down, whispering softly as he gives you some space. “It’s okay. It’s just me, sweetheart. You’re okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
You’re looking at him, but you don’t seem to see him, and Jake tries to catch your eye with a comforting smile. “It’s just me, angel. It’s okay.”
It takes several minutes, but after a few blinks, there’s mild clarity in your eyes. You swallow thickly. “J-Jake?”
“Yeah, angel, just me. Can I take you home, sweetheart?”
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Under any other circumstance, being in Jake’s house, on his couch, in his arms would be awkward. Painful even. But now, as he holds your shaky body with equally shaky hands, you wonder if you even have room for those emotions. 
You feel numb. Empty and weightless. You don’t hate the feeling, in fact it’s cutting you off from the pain of your physical injuries. It’s like your body knows it’ll be too much if it lets you feel anything. Vaguely, you wonder if you’re going into shock. But, fighting through all of that, is one gnawing question that you can’t seem to shake.
“How did— How did you know I needed you?” You turn your nose to Jake’s pulse point. When you breathe in, you’re soothed by the smell of his cologne. He hasn’t changed it since you were dating, a rich mix of cashmere and mahogany, and it’s still a familiar scent. You want to drown in it. 
“I, um,” you can feel him swallow. “I was listening to your voicemail.”
His words—their meaning—hit you and you pull away from him slowly, betrayal evident in your features. “You’ve… You’ve been listening to my voicemails? And you never said anything?”
Jake can only look at you guiltily. 
“No…” You shake your head slowly, getting off of him and moving to the other side of the couch. “You let me think— This whole time—”
“I know, okay? I know. I’m awful and horrible and you have every right to be mad at me, I know,” Jake pleads with you, holding his arms out, his voice as soft as his movements like you’re some sort of frightened, feral animal he’s trying to rescue. “But I’m begging you, angel, be mad at me later. I’m being so selfish, I know that, but I can’t— I— Not right now. I gotta hold you right now. Please.”
His own eyes are misty, his voice breaking as he opens himself up to you. Though you’re mad at him, though you’re hurt beyond belief, you need him just as much. It feels like everything is catching up to you, the confusion and pain and heart-stopping terror. And after all of it, after everything, you just need Jake.
When you throw yourself to his chest, Jake relaxes with relief. He’s holding you on just the border of too tightly, one hand gripping your waist and the other holding the back of your head. He holds you like if he lets go, even for a second, you’ll be right back in that dark alley. Like the only way he’ll know you’re truly safe—truly alive—is if he can feel you between his fingers. You’re not much better though, the dam finally breaking as you sob violently into his chest.
“Thank you, angel,” he breathes and his voice sounds thick. You realize that he’s crying too when you feel drops of his tears in your hair. “God, I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Seein’ you like that, I thought— Angel, I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
If Jake’s grip on you is almost too tight, yours is well past it, your body shaking and trembling as it finally processes what just happened.
“I don’t wanna be alone. Don’t leave me alone.” Your voice doesn’t sound like your own, desperate and pleading.
“Never, angel,” he promises, rocking you both soothingly. “Never, never.”
“I can’t— I— I can’t—” He sounds like he’s underwater and you can’t stop choking out begs through your sharp intakes of breath. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want you to leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you, angel,”Jake assures you, rubbing the back of your head softly. 
“Please—” You can’t seem to fight past the images of large men, rough hands, dark allies that clog your throat and you feel trapped. Only able to breathe in, breathe in, breathe in.
“Hey, let’s breathe yeah? You and me? Can you follow my breaths?” Jake mimics sucking on a straw, taking deep breaths as you look at him with wide, panicked eyes. Jake only smiles gently, taking another over exaggerated breath. “It’s okay. Just try to breathe with me, angel. You’re safe.”
You do your best to mirror him, pushing through the harsh collapsing and inflating of your chest as you try to even out your breaths. It takes a few minutes—and a fair amount of coaxing from Jake—but finally the adrenaline lessons its weight on your chest and exhaustion takes its place.
Jake seems to realize your panic attack has passed, softly brushing his thumb over your cheekbone. “There she is. There’s my pretty girl.”
You swallow, too tired to do anything but look at him. 
“I have to clean you up, is that alright, sweetheart?”
You’re not sure how quickly it happens—you’re so exhausted—but you find yourself in Jake’s bathroom, standing in your undergarments as Jake tests the temperature of the shower. He’s stripped down to his boxers as well, your clothes a crumpled pile on the floor. You can’t look at them. You want to throw them out and never look at them again.
Under the brighter lights of his bathroom, Jake must be able to see you more clearly and he straightens so as not to view you at an angle. You watch as his jaw sets as he takes in your injuries, the blood and dirt clinging to your skin and hair. You feel naked under his gaze—you basically are—and you want to shrink into yourself and just disappear. 
Jake purses his lips. “Do you wanna check if it’s too hot?”
You shake your head.
“Would you be willing to get in for me then?”
You take a step forward and Jake places a supporting hand on your back. The water feels nice against your skin—comforting. You think you want to cry again.
“Here,” Jake gently places one of your hands on his hip. “If I start hurting you, just squeeze, okay? Can you do that?”
You nod.
He presses a tender kiss to your forehead.
Neither of you say anything as Jake washes you of the grime covering your skin. He’s gentle, almost feather light, as he cleans you with unscented soap and a smooth washcloth. It occurs to you that Jake’s probably gone through this routine a thousand times. You wonder if it’s any different for him now that it’s you.
“I’m all done, angel.” His voice is a whisper that can barely be heard over the sound of the running water. “Do you wanna stay in here for a bit or get out now?”
It takes a moment for you to speak. “Get out please.”
The water turns off and Jake wraps you up in a fluffy towel before carrying you to his bedroom. You should be more helpful, you know you should. At the very least, you should be able to change yourself out of your sopping wet bra and underwear. But you’re so tired. You only have the energy to stand there, staring at the floor as Jake quickly puts on a pair of sweatpants.
He seems to understand your exhaustion, peeling the towel off you without a word once he’s come back with an old t-shirt and pair of boxers. Though it’s something you’re all too aware he’s seen before, Jake keeps his eyes trained on your face as he takes off your wet clothes and replaces them with his soft, dry ones.
“I know you’re tired, angel. Let’s get you to bed, yeah?” Jake pushes back the duvet for you. “I’ll… I’ll be on the couch if you need anything.”
When his words register, your eyes widen in panic and you grab his wrist frantically. “No! You said you wouldn’t leave me! You promised! You—”
“Hey, hey, okay,” Jake shushes you lightly. “I’m not going anywhere, I just didn’t think—” He stops himself, seemingly shaking off the thought. “I won’t go anywhere.”
It’s only when you’re positive he’s not leaving you that you allow Jake to coax you into his bed. The bedding is warm, and soft, and smells like him—or maybe that’s just his clothes you’re wearing. Still, you can’t seem to force yourself to sleep. You feel almost sick, fatigued maybe, but you’re too afraid to close your eyes.
Jake tenses in surprise when you suddenly cling to him again, but it only takes him a second to relax. 
“I’m so proud of you, angel.” He traces your hairline with kisses, being extra tender with the injured skin above your temple.
“Tried— Tried to do what you taught me but—” You shake your head, tears spilling over onto your cheeks once again. “I thought they were mugging me, so I just tried to give my purse to them— But they didn’t want it!”
Jake furrows his brow, keeping his voice soft as he strokes your back. “What did they want, angel?”
“They kept telling me to tell Rooster to ‘leave it alone if he knows what’s good for him’. And I kept telling them that I don’t know a Rooster, but they wouldn’t listen!” You look at him desperately, your fingers clinging to his bicep. “They wouldn’t listen, Jake! I don’t— I don’t know—”
“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. You were real smart, telling them you were on the phone. You did so, so good.” You feel the words spoken quietly into the top of your head and Jake’s grip on you tightens. “Just, maybe I take you to and from work for a bit, yeah?”
Without even hesitating, you nod against his bare chest.
“Yeah, it’ll be okay. We’re okay.” And then he says it again, a bit more like he means it. “We’re okay. Try to get some sleep, angel.”
It’s probably the longest you’ve ever been comfortable in Jake’s grip. Even when you were together, you couldn’t help but second guess yourself if you touched him for too long. Embarrassingly, you feared you weren’t doing it right. But now, the thought of not being in his arms fills you with such a debilitating panic that it outweighs any of your insecurities. 
Because you need to be consumed by cashmere and mahogany, olive green, and soft sheets so there’s no room for you to be consumed by anything else. You need to focus on the feeling of Jake’s fingers dancing across your skin so that your eyes can finally flutter closed. You’re so tired.
Jake waits for your breath to even out. And then he waits a couple minutes longer. And then he waits for a little under an hour because he needs to. Finally his brain seems to register that you’re okay, that you’re safe. The fact that there was even a second that you weren’t makes him sick.
There’s a pawing at the patio door and a soft, muffled whine and Jake cranes his neck to see Harley standing at the sliding glass. With everything that had happened, Jake had yet to let him back in.
Positive that you’re asleep, Jake gently separates himself from you, padding over to the door quietly. Harley seems to understand the situation, because he steps inside the bedroom just as quietly and only looks at your sleeping body and then back at Jake.
“She’s alright, buddy,” Jake assures the dog with a soft scratch of his head. “'Cause of you she’s alright. Now I gotta do something, so you keep your mom safe, okay?”
Jake waits for Harley to settle at the foot of the bed before stepping out and sliding the glass door closed. He unlocks his phone and clicks on a contact he hasn’t had to for almost two years.
“Hello?”
“Rooster,” Jake grits out. “What the fuck did you do?”
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join my Jake Seresin taglist here or follow my library @jupitercometgold
Jake taglist: @dempy @cottagecori @avengersgirllorianna @under-the-seas @auroraacrane @olivia21blunt @dreamlandcreations @blue-aconite @averyhotchner @sgt-barnesveins @lillunna @mayhemmanaged @appledressing @bradswolfe @lynnevanss @babyyy2020 @thekebs @deliriousfangirl61 @callsign-cacti @yoonbutterfly @liliana234567 @uniquedreamlandcheesecake @kmc1989 @redbarn1995 @wishingwell-2 @justenoughmadness @petemitchells @hookslove1592 @pietrothemovie @tiredqueen73 @linkpk88 @daddymack01 @smallishbook @s-u-t @cheesecakeinahole @berryjuicyy
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theysaidhush · 9 months
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heyy i happened to see you asking for threesome related hard thoughts and i suddenly thought about brat taming with poly woosan uwu like imagine how teasing and mean they would beee <333
Woosan fucking some sense into your bratty mind (why is this so hot 🥵)
San is such a sweetheart but I feel like Wooyoung’s corrupting him ugh 🥵. Anyway here some mean Woosan for you fyp
Feedback are well appreciated 👀
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"What a naughty girl, thinking she could get away with this."
San roamed his hands through your hair, gently massaging your skull before making sure the tie around your head was covering your vision.
"Hey, stop being so nice to her." Wooyoung tsked, grabbing your hair and pulling them roughly, the sweet touch of San long forgotten and replaced by a sting you were very much familiar with.
"I-I didn’t do anything…"
"Good girls don’t lie." Wooyoung sing songed before getting on top of you, straddling your thighs as you were laying flat on your stomach. "What should we do with this thing, huh ?"
He shook your head mindlessly, making you whimper at the sensation, before slowly starting to grind his clothed dick on your ass. He admired the red stripes on your skin, grinning at the memory of San spanking you again and again as soon as you all came home. He might act nice, but his lover wasn’t merciful.
"Ah, I’m not your thing, fuck you." You loved teasing them. Seeing this dangerous glint in their eyes, feeling their hands roughly manhandling you.
But as soon as those words came out of your mouth, you gagged on the dick that was pushed inside of it, tears feeling your eyes and broke whimpers stuck in your throat. "Ah~. Now, kitten, good girls don’t say b-bad words. Ah fuck your mouth feels so good around my dick..." San groaned, stroking your cheek before grabbing your jaw, making you open your mouth wider.
As Wooyoung got his dick out of his boxers, adjusting your body so your ass was at the perfect height for him to fuck, he smirked, entering your tight and leaking hole in one push, making you moan and wiggle under him, choking and spitting around your boyfriend’s cock. "This mouth is only good at sucking dick, isn’t it ? You’re so fucked."
San grabbed a fistful of your hair and pushed your head down his length, giggling at the sight in front of him. Your hands were roaming around the bed, trying to get a grip on something as Wooyoung was being relentless on you, slamming his dick in you in an almost painful way. You were so pretty. "Yeah, let’s fuck some sense into you."
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li-louie · 8 months
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He smells of smoke - burning cigarettes, ash… and the soft feather coat. He smells of a saviour - bitter memories, pain and love.
Cora-san has never been forgotten
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halesandy · 1 year
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Ana's ATEEZ Fic Recommendations
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So this lovely anon was sending me a lot of good stuff to read, so thanks a lot to them!
Here's the list of our combined reads that we recommend for all Ateez fic lovers. Enjoy! 🥰
🧡 @escapewriter's Coffee House Diaries - 8 smau stories
🧡 @ilymatz's Cherry On Top - Yeosang x Reader smau
🧡 @hwalyn's Sweeter Than Candy - Yeosang x Reader smau
🧡 @desayunho's whole masterlist, but my favorite is Time of Love - Woosan x Reader smau + wonderful written parts
🧡 Omg @imagine-a-life-like-this's Cliché Romance Masterlist is to die for! My personal favorite are with San and Seonghwa
🧡 Another talented writer is @songmingisthighs with their expansive masterlist! My favorite is Algedonic with soulmate!Yunho x Reader smau
🧡 OT8 x Reader Into The Aurora by @honeyhotteoks !!! This! Must read 1000%
🧡 @seung-hwa's Infinity had me so hooked! The tears were there, I swear. It's a San x Reader soulmate!au, reincarnation!au
🧡 In this place, full of lies by @wordstro. Okay, this is not what I usually like to read and I was a bit sceptical, but.. BUT This is a work of ART! Really! I might need a few weeks to recover from this and stop daydreaming about this being a real tv-series! Really love this series! It has aliens/monsters, it has San a an ex, it has post-apocalypse settings, so yeah. Go give it some love, guys!
🧡 @baekhvuns's Memoir with mafia!Yunho and some good old memory loss trope, and it's a gem! Also love Guns and Roses with Hongjoong and Mr. & Mrs. Park with Seonghwa
🧡 Cute librarian!Seonghwa written for you by @itgetsquiet, right here, in Blooming Feeling
🧡 You wanna feel your heart break? @nonclassyparty will break it 8 times and you're gonna love it! Read it here, in Subtle variations of heartbreak
🧡 Bright pink haired San as your lovely younger coworker? YES! Here, in @yunlvr 's Loveholic. Angst and fluff? Just how we love it
🧡 🧡 🧡 🧡 🧡 🧡 🧡 🧡
I'm pretty sure that I might have forgotten some of the works I've read and loved, so there's gotta be more parts of Ateez fic recs! Make sure to follow these amazing people who keep feeding us good stuff and give them some of that big big amount of love you have!
Don't forget to send me your fic recs if you want your favorite fics, writers or even your own works to get a bit more love 🤗
Hope you're having a great day and staying healthy! 🧡
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shijiujun · 6 months
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TGCF SEASON 2 EPISODE 1 PREMIERE RECAP
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Omg okay so it was the premiere today and yes TGCF DONGHUA season 2 is not out yet it’ll air on October 18 as scheduled but episode 1 is premiering early today, tomorrow and next week (?) at physical premiere ticketed events, one in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok each.
What happened: (1) VA intros and yes! Xie Lian’s new VA (2) An edited 1 hour plus long S1 highlights so you JOG UR MEMORY OF WHAT HAPPENED (3) S2 Episode 1 premiere (4) Guest appearance by vtuber Fulgur lol and (5) There’s a lucky draw quiz segment (?)
What you guys can expect in Episode 1 of Season 2:
It starts with court drama as we all know and Jun Wu’s voice is more twinky than I expected LOL
SHI QINGXUAN?! That first meeting between SQX and XL we saw in the mid-autumn teaser release ISNT ALL LIKE THAT SCENE IS WAY FUNNIER IN FULL OMFG
Yes the part where SQX male turns back into SQX female and trying to get XL to try it out
GHOST CITY ANIMATION IS SO DAMN FUCKING GOOD??!!! And all the random store sellers and Lan Chang the older ghost who harassed XL?! And the way he delivers the line where he says he’s impotent LOL
OMFG AND THE DAMN HIGHLIGHT WAS CERTAINLY THAT GAMBLING SCENE FOR LANG QIANQIU omg all the ghosts were watching HUA CHENGZHU flirt with Xie Lian and LIVING FOR IT IT IS WAY FUNNIER ANIMATED EVERYONE IN THE HALL WAS LAUGHING EVERY TWO MINUTES
The TRIPLE QUARDRUPLE HANDHOLDING SCENES OMGGGGGG LIKE EVERYONE ISTG EEPED AND AWWED LIKE THAT IS HOW SWEET AND MUSHY AND EMBARRASSING IT WAS HUA CHENG CONTROL URSELF
We are in for a treat ISTG episode 1!!!
Ends with ‘Gege, I lost to you’ ERMMM AND FLASHBACK TO WHEN SAN LANG SAID HE WOULD MEET XIE LIAN THE NEXT TIME IN HIS TRUE FORM
A random ghost in the background: “omg I’m going to die I’m going to die” after seeing Hua Cheng’s newest ‘skin’ and another ghost going: “wtf aren’t you alr dead lol” 😂😂😂😂😂
Sound on for half a Xie Lian intro and a full Hua Cheng intro 😘
Going to head back and open up the goodie pack!!! I swear I had forgotten how good TGCF was and how excited I am for it like GET TOGETHER TGCF FRIENDS CUZ EPISODE 1 AND SEASON 2 DONGHUA IS GOING TO BE A HELL OF A RIDE
Edit: LOVE THE KEYCHAIN FROM THE SET
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itstheghostofmypast · 25 days
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Meow (Chp-3)
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Choi San x (f)Reader
Summary: He had spent an entire millennia in solitude, waiting for her to come back to him, bearing this curse that was a constant reminder of his ignorance, his mistake, and his guilt. He had forgotten how fate had always been cruel to him, punishing him for all he had done, and so be it, meeting her in the 21st century should have brought him joy- there was only one problem, his love for her may not have decreased a drop, but she may love Poofy more than she ever loved him.
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 4.3k
Est Read Time: 21 min
Warnings: death of a major character, war, PTSD.
Rating: nc-17
Networks: @cromernet @k-labels
Masterlist I Chp-2
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"Bullshit"
Sighing for the nineteenth time, Wooyoung growled, glancing at Jongho who just shook his head letting out a dry chuckle, walking "Stubborn as ever."
"You really think I’d buy this crap?" Yunho sat up, rubbing the back of his neck, "Where the heck is he anyway? You guys give me poofy- I  MEAN SAN and I'll let you all go."
"It's almost time." Wooyoung sighed, staring out the penthouse window, watching the sun sink over the horizon, its streaks of orange slowly fading, "Yunho, you may not believe us, but you need to understand that San doesn't mean to harm her. He didn't back then as well." Yunho stood up, walking over to the glass wall, amazed at the view, how exactly did a few hooligans like them afford a penthouse in one of the most expensive places in the city?
"How do you even afford this place" he turned to look at Wooyoung, though he saw nothing in his eye view, "Wooyoung?"
A little chirp caught his ears, eyes flickering down to spot a red fox staring up at him, its fluffy tail swishing side to side at the back, "What the -"
"He's growing weaker." Jongho interrupted him, walking into the room, Yunho turned to look at Jongho who threw something at him.
His muscle memory reacting, with quick reflexes he caught the item, before opening his palm and staring at the keys, the keychain in particular, the golden retriever shining in all its glory. A gift, more like his graduation gift, he remembers when she gave it to him, once he graduated from the police academy.
“Lock the door on your way out, I’m going to my room”, Jongho mumbled, eying the way he had been standing there, staring at the keychain, he could smell traces of her on him, hell, all of them could smell her scent on him, and even if Seonghwa was not going to admit it out loud, all of them could see why San had decided to trigger her memories without consulting with them first. He was scared, and unlike last time, he was not going to risk losing her, not again, but this rashness would bring nothing but the worst, and as much as Jongho loved his brother, he knew the others, nor him, could physically or mentally endure for any longer, and knowing San had been using magic almost every night just meant his condition was worse than theirs combined, which would explain the man’s calm behaviour when Yunho had socked him in the face- it wasn’t guilt the only factor that had forced him to accept the beating, but his depleting health as well.
“Wait!” Yunho called down, speeding walking after the man who went down the corridor, finally stopping at the door at the end of the hallway, he was about to close the door when Yunho stopped him with his foot, “Finish, the story, what happened next, I-
“I don’t have enough time Yunho, I- I don’t want you to see me like this… you need to remember, just think, it’ll come to you…hopefully.” With that, he closed the door before Yunho could even ask what he even meant by that, he was about to knock on the wood until he heard a low animalist growl, a cry if you could call it. Something at the back of his mind nagged him to open the door, to see what was on the other side, and perhaps he would have, but when he heard his phone’s ringtone, his body went on auto, moving towards the sound. Luckily he had found it at the console table, next to a sticky note and coupon, picking up the coupon he looked at the deal, ‘buy one kitty-kat cupcake  and get a beverage of your choice for free’, he stared at the neon sticky note, the knot in his stomach tightening at the feeling of unease settling in,
‘A thank you gift, for letting Sannie go. PS- really missed you, Yuyu – Love Woo.’
.
“Where have you been?” Mingi asked, not looking away from his phone, “Captain almost lost a kidney when he found out you took a sick leave.”
Sighing as he got into the elevator the taller man glanced at his friend before shaking his head, “Yeah, I felt…under the weather.” He said before walking out onto their floor, Mingi followed after, noticing how Hongjoong’s door was closed, he must be having a meeting. He sat down at his desk, right across Yunho’s, usually his friend would be radiating the same energy as a golden retriever, hence the nickname, and the uncanny keychain of his, but tonight he just looked a bit too glum. Clearing his throat he eyed the man, who was busy cleaning out his desk drawer, slamming file upon file on the table.
“You okay there, buddy?” he asked, turning on his monitor, though his eyes never left the brunette’s mumbling form.
“No, Mingi, because I just realized I’m in love.” He sighed, stopping his little sissy fit as he looked at Mingi, who looked like he was about to implode at the revelation.
“What?”
“Never mind.” Huffing he got up, pulling on his jacket, “Don’t tell the captain I came, although knowing him he’s already seen me, if he asks, tell him I have diarrhea or something.” With that he walked away, not even waiting for Mingi when he pressed the elevator button, instead choosing to go down the emergency staircase, it was all getting a bit too loud, his thoughts, the people, the constant ringing of the phone, to top it all off, he had realized how he had not received a single text from her all day, not even a reply to his good morning, so what exactly was he chasing after- when did this become a chase anyway? Were they not just friends, best friends at max?
 Slamming the car door shut he sighed, leaning back against the headrest, Yunho was not one to lose composure, in fact, he rarely lost his cool, but the thought of her- this pestering lingering thought of losing her was bothering him, on top of that today’s events had begun to haunt him, he had seen and gone through hell today; first, he encountered a naked man in her apartment, then he took said man to his place of work which was filled with creeps he called his brothers, a man spoke in his head, he got flung across the room by another man and finally he witnessed someone morph into an animal- the worst part of the situation was that no one was ever going to believe him. Not even her, in fact, she would just laugh at him and how on a normal day he would love to hear the sound of that, he would not appreciate it being directed at him when he was so overstimulated by his feelings and the situation at hand. Picking up his phone he stared at the time, 8.09 pm, she should’ve been home by now, yet, he had received not a text from her, nothing at all. What if something had happened to her? What if that man had done something to her? But they did keep on saying how they never wanted to hurt her, especially the man, San, he was persistent that his intentions with her were pure and- Officer Jeong, since when did we pay mind to emotions over rationality?
He was almost about to go into cop mode until his phone tinged, a familiar tune – a special tune- he had set only for her. Pulling out his phone he stared at the notification, tapping the screen for the message to open,
“Heyy, sorry I was busy today. How was your day? Mine was shit- I want a whole year off. We should definitely go on a vacation- like somewhere warm? Tropical? Though it should be somewhere we can take Poofy, I’d like my beloved boys to get along. Speaking of getting along, my poor baby has a swollen eye, idk, who hit him, or maybe it was another cat? Anyway, enough about us. I hope Gotham is a bit safer tonight thanks to you my knock-off Batman. Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t reply today. Stay safe, Yuyu.”
Sighing he locked the screen and tossed the phone to the passenger seat, of course, she’d apologise to him, of course, she’d take the blame and beat around the bush, of course, she’d make his heart clench, but what was worse that he may have not been losing his mind. Poofy and swollen eye, memories of today flashing before his eyes, how he had punched Poofy, knowing very well the man would have a black eye. Moreover, she had called him Yuyu, she was the only one to ever call him that, yet tonight, someone else had called him that too, the fox guy, and not once did he ever mention his name to anyone there, especially not his nickname. So, the real question is, if it were true, and the whole past life scenario was true then why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't she remember? He kept jumping from one train of thought to another, no longer driving home but to the only place that made him feel safe, he didn't care what time it was, or the gravity of the information that was brought down upon him today.
He wasn't even sure when he had reached the door, until his knuckles knocked on the wood, echoing in the quiet of the night. He knew everyone was asleep, he knew it was late, he knew she was asleep, but he couldn't wait, he couldn't think straight when something at the back of his mind kept bothering him, the question he was too afraid to find the answer of; am I... going to lose her in this life too?
The persistent knocking didn't stop until the door swung open, revealing a tired, dishevelled woman, staring up at him through sleep-deprived eyes, her bedhead hair just adding to her appeal, suddenly the dread that had been simmering within him began to settle down, replaced by a wave of admiration, wanting nothing more than to be surrounded by her.
“May I come in?” he whispered, watching her glare at him.
“It's midnight.”
The statement meant nothing, it held no malice or anger and wasn’t even a warning, but for him, he knew what it meant, she was upset and she wanted him to know, of course she was, he never responded to her goodnight note, for which he knew he was going to pay later, but perhaps he wanted to hear her yell at him too, just till it lasts.
“I know, I’m sorry…I- I’ll make us my midnight special dish?”
Reluctantly, she moved to let him in, locking the door once he was inside, sighing when he strolled inside like he owned the place, technically he did, he was often found here, if not at the precinct, which would explain why her neighbours assumed the two had something going on, until she had clarified to the old lady next door that the two were in fact just very good friends, though she chose not to truly believe her.
“Wake me up once your apology is ready.” Mumbling she stomped into her room, earning a sigh from him, as she slammed the door shut. Poofy snapped awake, his head snapping in every direction, eyes wide and glowing in the dark, looking for her, how did he not notice her leave? Were his senses getting duller or was he getting weaker? Was this because of the overuse of his powers or because he was injured? Truth be told he hadn’t even seen Yunho when he pounced on him, after deflecting the knife he almost lost all focus, the fatigue getting too much- that would explain how Yunho had found him in the first place. He had slipped away before she woke up,  
“It’s okay baby, I’m here.” She whispered, fingers brushing over his fur causing him to purr, muzzling into her palm as she chuckled, leaning closer to peck the top of his head, scrunching her nose at the scent, “Did I give you a bath with my shampoo last time? You smell like my shampoo- damn I should be more careful, sorry baby.” Snuggling deeper inside her blanket she pulled him closer like a teddy bear, he let her do as she pleased, enjoying the attention. Truth be told he smelt like her shampoo because that’s what he used, Jongho had told him to change it but he didn’t follow, he wanted to be enveloped by her scent all the time, it helped calm down his nerves, relaxed him and considering how he was always on edge, he really needed the stimulant.
Yunho sighed, ripping open a packet of instant ramen, and placing it aside, watching the water boil. He had chopped all the vegetables and even fried the chicken tenders for her, sliced them up nicely to decorate her bowl later. They had invented this dish back in their fun days at college, way before Poofy had entered their lives, when he had her undivided attention and affection, though who was he to hold her accountable for playing with his feelings when it was him who had led her own then let go of her whenever things got a bit too serious for him, to afraid to ruin their friendship.
“And now you place the tenders like this,” she smiled in triumph, garnishing his bowl and hers, before coming over to the small table and placing the tray down. He sat there legs crossed on the heated floor, looking at her in the small open kitchen, smiling at the thought of what their domestic lives would comprise together. Turning back to stare at the table in front of him, she had called him over to her dorm at 2 am, their child psychology exam waiting for them at 7 am, yet, he was here, ready for a late-night snack with her, one she had just invented instead of studying.
“Hmm?”  he looked down at the bowl she placed in front of him, smiling at how he had received the bigger one. ‘A big serving for the lanky growing boy.’ She’d always say, much to his pleasure.
“I’m telling you, once we have this and go to sleep, tomorrow will go great.”
“Oh?” he cocked a brow, before reaching for her glass, pouring her some soda, “Because we’ll remember everything for the exam?”
“Nah girl, that we might fail tomorrow, but we’ll have our tummies full of yummy food.” With that she began eating not even looking up at him when he choked on his spit, laughing louder than anyone would want at 2 am, sure, leave it up to Jeong Yunho to get you kicked out of the girl’s dorms for laughing too loud.
Indeed, the two did fail the exam the next morning, but the memories they had created were far better than any result.
 Poofy was almost asleep, blinking slowly at her drowsy form, until they heard a pot fall in the kitchen, followed by a masculine apology- shit, who was that. He didn’t even wait for her to answer and ran out at full speed, making a sharp turn to the kitchen, bouncing off the wall, ready to pounce on the intruder, he couldn’t transform into his beast form, especially since that day, he couldn’t even morph back into a human till sunrise, but that wasn’t going to scare him. With a hiss the cat pounced into the kitchen, landing on the tiles right in front of the intruder- Yunho?
Yunho’s ears caught the bell chiming across the hall, he could hear the quick padding of the cat’s soft paws, and he prayed to God that it was just a normal cat and not who he feared, but once again fate was not on his side, for as soon as his eyes landed on the cat’s swollen eye, he knew for a fact this was his doing. Sighing he placed a bowl of milk in front of the cat, who looked at it then Yunho, only to smack it away and hiss at him.
“Look, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you last time buddy, but, I- I can’t just- I need some time okay?” he sighed before picking up the tray of food, turning to walking out the door but the cat stopped him, standing in front of him growling.
“You don’t understand San, I can’t let her go…I love her.” With that he walked over the frozen cat, who was staring blankly at nothing, too stunned by his words to even process what was happening, the only thing that had brought him back to reality was the sounds of her muffled laughter, causing him to turn and look down the hallway, noticing how her bedroom door was closed- she never closed the door, it was always left ajar so he could come and go as he pleased, yet here he was staring at her door with blurry eyes, feeling more nauseous than he did that day.
.
Yunho walked towards the main door, glancing at the ball of fur curled up on the far end of the couch, sighing to himself, a part of him telling him what he was doing was perfectly fine, he had no reason to believe or help out these people, but something deep down begged at him to stop, to not give into his ways and listen to the good that resided with him. With one more glance he closed the door, leaving both sleeping parties alone in the cold of the apartment, while he had tucked her in, he left the cat there, cold as ever, leaving at the early hours of the day.
His ear turned to the door once it closed, sitting up he stared at the turned-off TV, staring at his feline reflection, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath once he heard the subtle chirping of the birds from outside, waiting for the curse to lift, welcoming the gentle, warm light of the sun. At one point in his life, he loved the night, the way the stars would shine above him, watching him perform his duty wholeheartedly, keeping the valley safe and quiet. Moreover, he loved how the moon had witnessed the first time he declared his love for her, the moon had witnessed when she had shied away from the kiss, coyly mumbling how they were not wed, thus they could not perform such an act of intimacy. The moon had watched her favourite soldier proudly, watching him with great intent as he held himself back, trying not to fall onto his knees in front of her, to cry in joy at her innocence and pure heart, he truly wondered what he had done to deserve to call someone like her his own.
Unfortunately, as much as the moon had witnessed her favourite being an exemplary creature, she had also been there to bear the sight of her favourite turning into a beast, of him letting envy wrap him in her green cloak, watching him push away the one he claimed to love, the one who had given him her everything, body and soul, yet, the moon still gave him time to make amends, to try to heal the wounds he had caused, much to her displeasure, he had not, both pride and envy being his companions, letting him destroy the plan destiny had laid down for him, leading to an eventual demise of everything and everyone he had loved, holding onto her limp form as she stared up at him with a broken resolve, too afraid to ask for anything, too afraid to beg him, but not afraid of death that was awaiting her, even though he begged her to stay. The moon had witnessed how he broke down over her, watching how even after what he had done, she had saved him once more, only this time, it had cost her life, proving to the stars that their choice of candidate was not wrong, and it was not a human characteristic to deceive or lie, but a trait brought with pure love, one that he had felt for her, but accepted the little green dot that begun to spread upon the canvas of his heart. The moon had watched him cling onto her lifeless form before he lost all control, his brothers lost all control and did the one thing a guardian is not supposed to do, ‘harm a human’, for the moon had witnessed these fools let their emotions take over, watching them disobey her and end the fleets sent to fight them, watching them tear them down, her final straw perhaps was when her exemplary soldier’s claw’s dig into the neck of the emperor, his teeth bearing the blood of his four sons the beast had ripped apart before his eyes, eyes as black as the moonless sky, resembling the hole that lay in his chest, a cavity which was once occupied by his warm, romantic heart. The moon watched him snarl out in disgust, one last question before the head of the emperor was flung across the royal hall, his body falling limp on the ground,
‘Do you still think your daughter’s life was worth nothing?”
That was all it took for the moon to take back her blessing, perhaps the stars were on the same page, angered by this act of blasphemy, turning what was once a blessing into a curse, one that would shackle them down, bringing their egos and pride to its knees, watching them slowly succumb to their end, until they had not only made amends but had repented to fate itself, earning her favour.
He stared at the reflection, sighing as his feet pressed against the soft carpet, glad that the moon was no longer out to taunt him and mock him, but she was replaced by her brother, showing him some form of mercy for a few hours. He made his way to her bedroom, San stared at her, watching her sleep in bliss, her steady breathing almost lulling him to sleep as well, welcoming him. It had been so long since he had held her in his arms since he had laid next to her, felt her close to him- not like a feline, but all his manly glory. What if he just slipped in for a minute or two? Would she notice? Would she wake up?
Standing above her, he leaned closer, his knuckles caressing her warm cheek, watching as she nuzzled into her pillow, mumbling something about Poofy- ah yes, she still loved Poofy, this was another issue, only Yunho being in love with her just added more to his plate. How was he going to handle all of this? At this point, he knew that time was not on his side and even though he would willingly succumb to death, if it meant that she would remain happy and safe, even if it were with Yunho, he could not let his brothers suffer because of him- how were his actions justifiable, if they had partaken in the war, it was only because they had lost their brothers as well, which was only caused by the ripple effect of San’s own action’s, his prejudice and disdain. Leaning closer he pressed his lips to her forehead, whispering the usual spell, making sure the enchantment was well recited to keep her safe and out of harm’s way.
“How I wish I could hold you once more, my love.” He whispered, before pulling back and going across the room to open the window, staring up at the pastel colours of the sunrise, taking a deep breath he turned to glance at her one last time, “I beg you, do not forget me, for as much as I am in pain right now, the thought of my memories leaving your essence will rip me apart worse than death could possibly intend to, even at his peak.” With that he hopped out onto the emergency staircase, slowly making his way downstairs as he thought about doing that one thing he did not do the last time he was in trouble, ‘ask his brothers for help’.
.
Bonus:
‘In love?’ Seonghwa mumbled, staring at his phone, still trying to understand why Wooyoung was digitally poking him through this application. Yeosang hummed in agreement, still trying to understand what San had said, narrating the events of the previous night, this was worse than the mage could imagine, the time of the course now had to be altered, perhaps increased in terms of pace.
“Aww Sannie, don’t worry I’m sure Yuyu is just confused.” Wooyoung pouted, wrapping his arm around the taller man’s shoulders, trying to help him out, only noticing how his shoulders slumped even more at the mention of Yunho’s name, “I mean, he…this isn’t the same Yunho, he still has to come to terms with it and- I bet as soon as we revive the old Yunho he’ll come to his senses.”
“This isn’t about him though, and it’s not about us,” Jongho mumbled, placing a tray of coffee on the counter, and giving each one of them their mugs, only San didn’t get a coffee, he got Jongho’s special hot chocolate to make him feel better. San had been staring at the red napkin, thumb caressing the small sunflower stitched onto the corner fabric, its once bright colours now faded into a duller tone, much like the matted red of the cloth
“Then who is this about dear baby bear?” Wooyoung snorted, at the sight of San’s ceramic purple cat mug.
“I think Sannie has the answer for that.” He sighed, before taking a sip of his bitter beverage while the other turned to look at the man who was staring at a San who was still looking at his napkin, fingers gripping onto it tighter,
“It’s about her.”
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Taglist: @edenesth @mlysalt @yessa-vie @spooo00oky @cereal-simp
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deadboyfriendd · 7 months
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Stains in the Granite
Summary: Throughout the years, Steve has undergone multiple head traumas. You knew this much when you were together. The migraines, the forgetfulness, moderate hearing loss in one ear, vertigo. The list was expansive. When you were together. It’s been over a year since you had last spoken to him, but an unexpected call from Hawkins Regional sends you reeling back to him. A forgotten emergency contact, he probably just never bothered to update it. You would let Robin know and be back to your regularly scheduled activities, sans Steve. A dead line turns the spigot, worry plugs the drain, and your inability to let him go drowns you in the tub. When he wakes up, he falls in love with you again. And again the next day. And again the day after that. They say he’ll regain his long-term memory storage eventually. They say the amnesia will wear off soon, but, for now, this is who he would have to be. He may only have to live through losing you once, but you’re not sure if you could handle losing him again every day until he regains his memory. You wouldn’t have the heart to tell him.
Content Warning: My content is 18+, Minors DNI, head trauma, mentions of hospitals and the things that go in them, smut, fluff, angst, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, alcohol
Word Count: 14.2k
Author’s Note: This is dedicated completely to @dr-aculaaa I have had this piece in the works for months before getting it to the version that you are getting. Drac has tirelessly loomed over my docs like God beta reading, helping out with dialogue, and brainstorming these characters with me. This is as much her baby as it is mine, and I love her very very much.
Drac, I love you.
Find the Playlist Here!
Granite, noun, gran·​ite ˈgra-nət 
: a very hard natural igneous rock formation of visibly crystalline texture formed essentially of quartz and orthoclase or microcline and used especially for building and for monuments
: unyielding firmness or endurance
the cold granite of Puritan formalism.
the cold granite of your heart.
You were sullen, eyes unable to focus on any one speckle of the countertop in front of you. You ran your hands over it in a grounding motion, forcing tired eyes upon skin instead of stone. You blinked and it settled. The warmth of your palm could feel the slight unevenness of the surface, where the natural stone had been polished down just slightly too much. You watched it catch the light, glitter beneath your fingers snuffed out by the shadows of your touch. You watched the way the light cast a glowing square onto the ground in its early-morning iridescence. You had not slept, only watched the sunrise before you went to sleep. 
You missed the nonchalance of high school, when being sad was not an inconvenience, in the same way you missed the grandeur of college, where being sad was an art. Now, though you took comfort in the blanket of sadness, it was more obnoxious than anything. Your sighs held a certain bitchiness to them now, less sad than they were unimpressed. 
But you couldn’t help the way the hogs-hair bristles from your years-old, overused brushes stuck in the too-thick paint. You couldn't help the frustration that bubbled through when the linseed oil seeped through too thick and thinned the pigment of your paint so thin the underpainting shone through. It was hard enough to paint your heartbreak, without the added interruption of frustration and all of its woes. You wanted to pick at the scabs of old wounds, reopen them and let the blood drip down onto self-stretched canvases with ragged edges. You wanted your art to feel as raw as your heart did. 
Sometimes you wish you could go back, study something practical like education, be something stupid like an art teacher and talk about fulfillment with dead eyes, but you were too ceremoniously tortured for that. You thought about easy, but you didn’t want it. You craved goddamned difficult. You were goddamned difficult. 
But people bought it. Commissioned it to hang in their ugly suburban sprawls. Ugly art in ugly homes. Maybe people liked the subjectivity, felt like they could see their own heartbreak in it. You weren't so pretentious that you felt like the only person in the world to experience it. You certainly weren’t. Maybe there were people that were introspective, that wanted to feel the heartbreak when they dissociated into the white walls of their cookie-cutter homes. Maybe heartbreak was the only emotion they could force themselves to feel. 
Maybe they took comfort in it, too. 
You didn’t exactly know who you were anymore. Yes, at whatever bullshit ice breaker you could define yourself as an artist. An even more bullshit mediocre descriptor that served as a face to the sacrifice of self you went through for the sake of it all. That was usual, it just came with the territory. It was your only redeeming personality trait. You traded your sense of self for an established style that put cans in your cupboard and secondhand clothes on your back. 
Everything was covered in a wax sheen, the desensitization taking over your personage and casting a vignette across everything you saw. Not even sex was good anymore. It hadn’t been for a while. It had reduced itself to nothing more than another school of art— another subject of  heartbreak. Another thought process and another complication. Your entire sense of self came from academic validation. You were a bachelor of fine art, consistently praised by professors and featured in student exhibitions, graduated magna cum laude from your university. But now? You were lost in a vapid attempt to redefine yourself outside of the college community. This was the real world now, and sucked even worse than college had. 
Your studio apartment overlooked the heart of the historic downtown district of Hawkins, Indiana. It was gray this time of year, rain a near-constant promise over the thick smattering of clouds overhead. You paid entirely too much to live in eight-hundred square feet, but you could justify the cost with the stone hearth and floor-to-ceiling windows, even if that meant sleeping in a twin-sized mattress sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room. Your clothes hung messily on mismatched hangers over a laundry rack beside it. Your few enamel dishes cast drip-drying across the countertops in their own choreography. The rest of the place was barren, save for paint splatters over tarps, stacked canvases, and easels. Maybe it was too indulgent to live in-studio, but poverty would argue and win nearly every time. 
The tortured artist persona was trendy while you were in college, but you were just plain insufferable now. You didn’t even want to associate with yourself. You guessed that’s why you had Robin. She was just as insufferable as you were. 
She was the embodiment of everything you hated, a humbling experience in a flesh box wrapped with a short bob and a beret and adorned with a nose ring. You had met her in an Art: History of the French Renaissance class. She was a linguistics major with all of the subtlety of a clapped-out Honda Civic. She heavily romanticized the greater works of Van Gogh and made her brief year in a study-abroad program in Paris a personality trait. Though, you supposed, her redeemable feature was that she was loyal to a fault, albeit mean. Like a small, white dog that haunted your home instead of offering companionship and happiness. 
Though you, for the most part, kept it to yourself, you had made it known in the past that the Italian Renaissance was far superior to the French. You didn’t understand how she could so  heavily romanticize the ritzy portraits of those aristocratic jerk-offs when she had the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait directly in front of her. Maybe you just didn’t think Van Gogh was all that great. Maybe you hated him altogether. Maybe you hated yourself and you were just projecting– or you were jealous that he could be a tortured artist and people left and right seemed to romanticize his work but when you did it, you were just annoying. You knew, for a fact, that you hated yellow. And she sure liked to wear a lot of it.
The weathered oak was hard and uneven against the curvature of your spine, but you refused to move, the numbness in your fingers happening were the beginnings of the best high you had gotten in ages. There was a resonant patriarchal tenor shrill in your ears as you attempted to focus on the beams and exposed plumbing on the ceiling above you. She spoke it again, louder this time, 
“What are you gonna do with an art degree? Be a tortured artist forever?” You could hear her arm slap coldly against the ground next to yours and echo throughout the emptiness of your apartment. 
You groaned, though it was only proving her point, “I don't know, what are you gonna do with a linguistics degree? Be super fucking annoying?”
“At least I have a job.” 
And she did. She was a translator who rotated on call-circuit to Indianapolis for international business meetings, sometimes they even paid her fare to other countries, in essence getting to vacation on some company’s dime between meetings. The grandeur of it all was sickening. 
The ring from your land-line was shrill and echoing, shattering the silence of your own discontent like tempered glass, fragmenting and exploding into millions of little pieces. No one called here ever, and the suddenness of the tone made both Robin and yourself jump. You gave her a shove to the shoulder, a wordless gesture meaning, go get that. 
Her Hello was tepid, in the same meek demeanor she twirled the line around her finger. Her face registered from confusion to concern, a quick contortion that took place over the course of seconds, “Is he okay? What do you mean you can’t disclose that?” 
You sat up, propping your arms underneath you like the kickstands on a bike, brows knit together in question. She looks to you, holding the receiver out towards you, 
“For you.” She says, then silently and exaggeratingly mouths, About Steve.
What? You mouthed back.
Just– Pick. It. Up. She insisted in silent accuse, shaking the receiver towards you once again, 
You took the plastic receiver from her, fingers drawing the skin of your temples back and rubbing your eyes, “Hello?”
You don’t recognize the voice on the phone. A woman you know is older than yourself by the way she sounds, officiating and knowledgeable, but carrying a certain morosity with her. She held the kind of tone you know brought bad news. 
It feels like a fog, hearing his name again. Hearing that he is a person who is alive and living a life separate from you. It wasn’t right, and that unease turned itself in your stomach as you repeated back her medical jargon to yourself in layman’s terms. Steve fell off a ladder and hit his head. Again. He was unconscious but stable. The neighbor found him and brought him in and gave them your name and phone number 
“And why are you calling me?” You finally asked, followed by a long pause. You cursed yourself mentally, realizing the harshness of the statement after you had said it.  
The nurse sounded displeased, “You’re his wife, aren’t you? You were listed as the primary emergency contact.”
You hadn’t spoken to Steve in over a year, not since you broke it off with him. You trailed your thumb over the webbing between your middle and ring finger, still feeling the phantom sensation of the ring that sat there just a year prior. The dissidence churned in your stomach, and you couldn’t help the worry that filled you. 
Steve was the embodiment of everything you loved. He was smooth like linseed and fell into all of your texture. He didn’t understand it, but he agreed on the superiority of the Italian renaissance. If you hated the romanticization of Van Gogh, then so did he. Steve was agreeable. Steve was easy in all of the places you weren’t. 
Steve cared about people in the way that you didn’t. 
When you broke it off, your families, both found and biological, were shocked. Robin especially. You’d felt bad for her, caught in the crossfire between two of her best friends. You and Steve had both agreed not to make her choose. She was the sentient being of pure neutrality. It was as if she was a separate entity on two different timelines. If she was present in your reality, Steve did not exist. You assumed the same of her relationship with Steve. Though, a part of you still hoped he’d ask sometimes. 
Your brain is a flurry of Steve. His migraine medication, his medical history, his eyewear prescription, fuck his shoe size. You card through the rolodex of head traumas he had undergone through the years, recounting them between relationship markers. You don’t allow yourself the time to think, slamming the phone back down on the stand with a quick, I’ll be there. 
The drive to the hospital is sombering, though, you selfishly are less worried about him being okay than you are about what he would think of you showing up after they thought you were his wife. 
The smell of the hospital is pungent. Horrendously human and unnaturally sterile wrapped up into one fragrant demise. There are people buzzing, both physically and metaphorically, yet despite the controlled chaos the women at the front desk seem unnaturally calm. Uninterested, even. You tell them your name and who you are here to see, and yet, despite the fact that they had just reached out to you over the phone, they still attempt to validate your marriage. 
You knew it was nasty when, “If you don’t think I’m his wife, then why did you call asking if I was his wife?” rolled off your tongue, but you knew Robin would smooth the turmoil with an apology on your behalf. Frankly, you didn’t care. They buzzed you in without another word. 
There was an older man in a white coat standing in front of the room, flipping through a chart with Harrington across the top. The embroidery on it read neurology. You figured he would have to undergo a few whirring uncomfortable scans with any head trauma, but his face remained stoic. You couldn’t read him, and, personally, it was terrifying. 
“Mrs. Harrington?” He asked, holding a hand out. 
You took it as an appeasement, tried to let his old man charm seep into your bones and put you at ease. If he was old, that means he’s done this before. “Yes.” You knew it was a lie, but who else was going to claim him? Not his parents. There was no one else remaining in Hawkins but you and Robin, and she wasn’t family. Technically, you weren’t either, but you weren’t cruel.  
“I wanted to formally speak to you before you saw him. There’s a few things we need to discuss.” This sent a panicked chill through your bones. You expected to step into the room and they would ask you for permission to pull the plug or something. 
“Is he..?” Your face must have registered as panicked, because the neurologist quickly backpedaled with a grounding hand on your shoulder. 
“Oh, no. He’s fine ma’am, we weren’t seeing any bleeds or swelling that he can't recover from.”
That he can’t recover from. Meaning that there is, in fact, something wrong with his brain. You figured that much, with maybe six concussions within the last ten years, but you wouldn’t dwell on that fact too much for now, “But?”
“There is a small amount of swelling in the temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory storage. Your husband is suffering from a form of fixation amnesia that is pretty uncommon…”
You zone out listening to him talk, trying to piece everything together. Steve is okay. He lost his short-term memory for a while. Words like retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global are thrown around and bouncing back with a resounding tenor in your phonetic loop. Steve has forgotten the last year, he cannot store new memories for the time being. He forgot your breakup. He still believes you are together. He needs around the clock care. 
Steve was awake when they opened the door and pulled back the curtain to the room he had already been admitted to. At least someone in this administration was competent enough to get him into a room instead of keeping him in the ER. 
“Baby.” A large, flat palm reaches itself towards you. You stood in the corner in silence, waiting for someone that wasn’t you to speak. But, it just so happened that you were the only person in the room. You don’t realize he’s talking to you, so he says it again, a little more firmly, and you walk up and sit at the chair next to his bed, avoiding the hand outstretched towards you. 
Though, in all of his firmness, where the weight of your elbow finds a dip in the bed, his hands finds your arm. It searches for your hands and finds them with a firm grip. They’re warm like you remember. Steve was always warm. 
“Hi, Steve.” You keep your voice quiet, remembering the days of migraine management. Barely-there decibels creating resounding, echoing pain around his skull. 
“What happened?” He asks you, “ –-head hurts.” He manages, burying his face into the polyfilament of the pillow below him. 
You tried to make your explanation concise, only giving him the cause and not the prognosis. You’d deal with that at a later time. “You fell off a ladder, hit your head pretty hard. Cullen brought you in.” You explained. 
“The dentist? With the labs?” He asked you, and it made you laugh. Steve always remembered people by their cars or their dogs. 
You agreed with him nodding your head despite his closed eyes, “Yes, the dentist with the labs.”
“He’s a really nice guy.”
“He sure is.” 
+
The discharge process was long and rigorous the next morning, swarms of insurance and neurologists and shrinks and case managers. All faces to a crowd that apparently had never communicated with the other department a day in their sad, corporate lives. 
Steve had no car, no means of getting home, and, quite frankly, no recollection of the year leading up to the accident. So, you loaded him into your car, pulling out as slowly as possible and driving at least ten under the speed limit the entire way. He seemed chipper as his hand found yours resting over the shifter, hands meeting your movements as your gears moved up and down with the rhythm of traffic– almost as if he was driving the car himself. You silently thanked him for the movement, already distracted by the constant fear of rattling his already tenderized brain any more than it had been. 
The street looked like it had frozen in time as you slipped past its residents unscathed. The dentist, surrounded by the flurry of yellow labs, waved as you drove by. The house sat in a caul de sac, the one you used to call yours, the third one in from the end between a vacation home and a stalled fixer-upper. It was a smaller Victorian built at the turn of the century. Your selling point was the turret at the front end of the house, sporting floor-to-ceiling windows and housed by oak buttresses. 
You pictured Steve carrying you through the threshold of your home the night of your wedding as you half-dragged him from the driveway to the bedroom. Some of your spring daylilies were coming out of dormancy, the pertinent blooms bulbous and waiting to open. You remembered picking the pink ones, to match the pink peonies and coneflowers that you had planted alongside it. 
This house was a dream. Actually, this house was his dream. Encased in dark oak and copper plumbing. You just wanted a place to paint – and, for this, he had spared no expense either. 
You remembered the day he’d surprised you with the keys:
You had felt soggy, the stale coffee and milk drying into the stomach of your apron and hardening into a sugary breast plate. You knew you’d never be able to get the smell out, instead understanding that was just a part of life when you were a barista. Along with the burns and odds-and-ends scrapes and bruises. 
Steve had been waiting for you on a barstool in front of the door, looking like he had something to say. You knew he had most likely been pacing back and forth from the couch to the barstool as he had waited for you to get home. You weren’t a stranger to his mannerisms. Living with him had been a front-row ticket to The Steve Harrington Show. Sometimes you joked that David Attenborough should join you for dinner, narrating Steve in his natural habitat. 
He had greeted you with a kiss, saccharine sweet like everyone before it, grip on your waist like a vice and a smile that he couldn’t help on his lips. 
“I picked something up today,” He mumbled against your lips, “for the house.” 
The incomplete set sat freshly unwrapped in its paper casings. The Blue Willow china was beautiful nonetheless. Steve had taken a liking to it almost more than you had. You didn’t mean to get annoyed, you had just had a long day. Though Steve knew it, your defensiveness caught him off-guard. 
He would never admit it, but he took after his mother in his eyes and in his shopping addiction. You knew you were moving, house-hunting on weekends and late evenings. You didn’t want to begin your life together in this apartment, which had been filling quickly with heirlooms and antique pieces collected from both shops and family members, “for the house” and, “as an engagement gift”. 
“Steve, what happened to saving money?” You had asked him, reaching behind you to untie your apron to throw into the basket that needed  to be dragged downstairs to the wash. “We’ll never get a house if you keep spending the money as soon as we get it.” 
“Actually,” He said to you, pretty lips turning into a smile as he dug around in his pockets, “We already have a house.” 
He watched the cogs turn in your head, your face exchanging confusion for shock as your eyes widened and you brought your hands up to cover your mouth. You couldn’t help the small years that spill from your eyes and you jump on Steve, laughing along with him as he spun you in a circle. 
You remembered buzzing the entire way there, only remembering to pull your apron off once you tried to buckle your seatbelt. It was dark out, and the streetlights in the historic neighborhood were sparse, if present at all. 
The house was a great cathedral in front of you, rickety and crumbling in nature. 
“The bones are good.” He reminded you, “We can take care of the rest.” 
“I love it!” You squealed to him, throwing your arms around his neck. It caught him off guard, your enthusiasm. 
That night, he refused to carry you through the threshold of the house. He said he wanted to save it for the wedding night. Only do it once so it stays special.  
You sat alone at the dining table, cigarette in hand. You rarely smoked anymore, but you figured this ordeal permissed one. He kept the binders of your wedding planning, all of the stuff you bought, the cause of your cold feet. They were tucked away next to the dining table in the built-in for easy access. They looked like they had been untouched save for a finger print along the spine of the binder that remained bare of any dust or particles– like he had gone to take them out, but hesitated. You looked up and around at the main living space. 
He was going to build you a new life and it didn’t look like he had touched it for a year. 
+
The first day is just playing the game. You were aware he would have temporary, moderate-to-severe memory loss. You attempted to recall the words that swirled around your phonetic loop. Words from neurologists and trauma doctors and nurses alike. 
Steve knows he was in the hospital and knows desperately how horrible this migraine was. He spent it in the dark, on his regular dose of sumatriptan, supplemented wonderfully in a vicodin-induced haze. You did not expect him to remember today, nor did you expect him to care. You know he is alive from barely-spoken words between exchanges of water and his prescription, which, thank God, hadn’t changed in the last year. 
You sleep on the couch. 
The second day, you are up before him, sifting through the pots and pans you’d let him keep to try and feed both him and yourself. You are surprised when he gets out of bed before 9:00, and even more surprised when he asks, 
“So, what are you going to paint today?” Through squinted eyes, lean arm braced against the counter to support the weight of his body. He sips idly from the orange juice glass he used to take the sumatriptan, but not the vicodin. 
It’s not like it was a question that strayed away from the mundane, however, it had been almost a year since you’d heard it last. You’d tried not to let the surprise register on your face as you’d continued to stir the eggs around in the pan. You let the corner of the wooden spoon scrape some of the dried remnants of soft egg from the sides of the pan where the butter hadn’t reached. You shrugged with a soft, I don’t know, unsure of how to answer. 
As Steve retreats back to the master bedroom, you hear the kick of the plumbing and the steady stream of water rattling through the house. You thanked him silently for buying an old place, the plumbing was loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. 
The knock on the window sends you reeling back like the crack of a gun. Your ménage-a-trois with a nose ring and encased the ugliest yellow beret like some gay French Alp paratrooper stood guard outside the bay seating of your kitchen window. You hated yellow, but, for today, you would keep it to yourself. She came bearing gifts. The only suitcase you owned was filled with the only clothes you owned, and as many art supplies as she could carry with the promise of more. Today, she bore her yellow beret as a barrel full of brandy around her neck– a drooly Saint Bernard to your avalanche. You propped the window open on its stakes, cinnamon color mixed with dirt crumbling from its unused hinges. 
She looked around in secrecy, “How is he?” 
“Better today. He just got in the shower.” You shrugged, looking back over your shoulder. 
“How’s the…” She circled her splayed hands over her head, signaling amnesia. You wish she would just say it instead of tiptoeing around the subject. 
You shrugged again, running a hand over your head, “I’m not sure yet. He knows who I am, but, ugh, I don’t know.” You sighed, sitting down at the bench and burying your face in your hands.
Robin leaned against the windowsill, reaching a hand through to push your hair back out of your face, “What’s wrong? Why is that bad?” 
“He still thinks we’re together. Like– doesn’t remember that we’re not together.” You said through your palms, knowing that her linguistics degree also covered your dramatics and mumbling. 
“Oh God,” She gasped to you, not quite able to contain herself, “What are you gonna do?” 
“I’m just gonna have to roll with it, I guess.” You slurred past your arms, willing back the onslaught of stress-tears beginning to pool against your tightline. You couldn't abandon him now, not when he was like this. 
Your former studio, nestled at the base of the turret within the house, surrounded by windows encased in stained-glass embellishments and flying buttresses, remained the only room in the house that was finished. You sat on your spinning stool, ignoring the creak from the way you pushed yourself back and forth on the balls of your feet. Your eyes fixated on the piece in front of you. It had been sitting on this easel for a year– the only one too heavy for you to move on your own, however, you were past asking for Steve’s help. So here it sat, holding your work once again, arms open in waiting. 
“Woah, you work fast.” Steve’s voice startled you, the stool squeaked again as you jumped. 
He walked up behind you, hands smoothing over your shoulders in apology– his skin still shower-warm and tacky from the water, “What are you talking about?” 
Your voice was much softer than you initially intended it to come out as. It resonated under the guise of a smile rather than the initial annoyance you turned to as a defense mechanism. 
“Didn’t you start that painting last week?” He asked, smoothing a broad hand down the exposed expanse of your upper arm, turning his face to look at the painting, “It’s done now.”
You tried not to let the confusion register on your face. You had finished the painting well over a year ago. The oil had long-since cured. You thanked the universe softly for Steve’s untrained eye. 
“I guess I just got really into it.” You shrugged, feigning your own insufferability for his well being– just this once. 
You had forgotten what it was like to be held by Steve. He lingered around your proximity in a near-shroud of constance. You had forgotten the soft feeling of nimble fingers as they grazed across any exposed skin you had. You had forgotten about warm hands cupping your cheek or twirling the ends of your hair. You had forgotten what the warmth of his felt like, in the same way that you moved away from the slow-creeping sun square that beamed from the windowsills. You didn’t realize how long you had been fighting any warmth after him. 
That night, his broad hands lured you to bed with the promise of warmth. You try to remember the way it felt a year ago, if it resounded in the same way. His hands were still a comfort as they encased you in a tight embrace. His breath still felt the same coming from his nose and traveling across your shoulder, dotted intermittently by haste staccato kisses. 
You tried to hold on to that feeling after he had long been asleep, and held on to it again as you peeled his hands from your waist. You let it slip from your fingers as you slid from the bed and let your feet pad across the hardwood flooring. You laid it to rest next to you on the couch, let it fold into itself and hibernate once more. 
By the next morning, Steve’s brain had pistoned back into his regular routine, which consisted of a god-awful early morning jog. It was almost obnoxious how perfect he was for this neighborhood, golden skin glowing against the rays of morning, efflorescence in nature and ugly, heinous perfection. By the time he gets back, it’s still ungodly early. The sun only casts a blue haze into the atmosphere in its feigning presence. 
You could guess by the way he tried to control his heavy breaths as he walked through the door that he was dewy, shirt tucked into his jogging shorts and hair raked back with sweaty fingers. You would not force your eyes open to look at him, leaving any feelings of adverse adoration back in the white quilt you had abandoned over a year ago. He walked up to you, feat unabashedly heavy against the hollowness of the floor despite the carpet muffling them. His hand was warm and heavy against the exposed expanse of your hip, riding your shirt up further.
“What are you doing out here? You know this couch kills your bac-” He started, pausing abruptly in surprise,  “Where did that come from?” 
“What?” You mumbled through closed eyes, still only barely awake. 
He traces the tattoo on your back, rough fingers tracing over the thickened lines of ink, “This.”
You didn’t bother to crack an eye open, instead folding your arms in further on yourself and readjusting against the couch cushions, “Gee, Steve, you must've hit your head really hard.”
“What?” 
“What?” You asked him, finally waking up enough. You pushed your arms underneath you, squinting at him as best you could through the haze of the morning light. 
“I hit my head?” He asked, confusion– then terror– registering on his face. 
You sat up fully, realizing then that, in your daze, you had effectively put your foot in your mouth. The look on your face, supplemented by the look on his face tells you that there is no way that you could backtrack now. 
“... Yeah-” 
“When?”
“Three days ago.” You started, and he let out a deep exhale, almost in relief that it hadn’t been longer. 
He turned to look at you, and you reached out to grab his hand. He took it, gripping yours like a vice, but never enough to hurt, “What did I do?”
“You were up on a ladder, doing something with the electrical. You fell and hit your head pretty good. Cullen brought you in.” You shrugged, trying to play it off. 
“Where were you?” He asked, it wasn’t accusing. He just tried to piece everything together. Still, you couldn’t help the pang of guilt that pooled in your chest after he said it. 
You weren’t going to break his heart, not now. Not while he was already fragile like this. You hated lying, but anything was better than a category five meltdown. He shook now, acting too tough to hide it. Steve was strong for everyone, too strong for too long. 
“Am I okay?” 
“Yeah, Steve. You’re okay.” You reassured him, no matter what. 
+
That night, you put a band-aid over your neck, despite the itching, burning sensation from the adhesive, it would live there for now. You said it was to save yourself the trouble. You didn’t know why you’d thought to care so much. You also don’t know why you felt so guilty. Maybe it’s because you weren’t there. Maybe it’s because you were here now and you shouldn’t have been. All you know is that you can’t break Steve’s fragile psyche now, not again. 
Steve’s routine was stone-set and rigorous, you’d remembered that much. He was the kind of person that thrived off of routine and egg-whites alone. You’d envied him for his discipline. 
He started out of bed every morning at the heinous, ungodly hour of five. Every morning, without fail, he rose silently, rubbed his hands over his face, fought the urge to disturb you and lost every time. He would smooth a tender hand over your hair and slip out the door with a soft, waking kiss, and proceed with a jog. Every morning, he would run his 3.1 miles, 5,000 kilometers, and every morning, he would slip back through the front door. 
Every morning, you woke to the smell of a better-than-cheap cup of coffee with a sweet kiss, and he would whisper to you that he achieved the run in thirty minutes– a personal best, and you wondered if one day it would slip below that number. Without missing a beat, he would place the coffee on a coaster placed there for that specific purpose on your antique bedside table, and your body would roll into the dip in the mattress where his body sat, his warm hand circling waking patterns across your bare back while you sifted through the prevalent swarm of too-little sleep. 
Because, every afternoon, Steve would take his Saturday (which was actually a Tuesday) and  paint that heinous yellow wall in the guest bedroom over with an earthy green tone– one that, without fail, would remind him of you enough to where he would seek you out to tell you. 
And every night, without fail, you would slip from the bed in silence, pull the heinous yellow paint bucket delivered thankfully by Robin out of the bushes from the window that was set just slightly too high to be comfortable reaching over, and paint that lovely green wall back to that awful, ugly yellow. 
There were no discrepancies to his routine. He was an unfortunate creature of habit, and it was so dreadfully painful that you indulged him in this routine. Because, every day, he would pull those old wedding binders out– no longer covered in dust and forgotten memories– and pick the same three options for wedding china that you never saw the point of anyways. Every day, he would try to cheekily pull you in for a shower, and you would make up the same excuse over the same dishes from the same meal that you had eaten to the point where you were just choking it down. 
And you would do it all over again. 
Because, if that same meal and awful yellow paint and ungodly six o’clock wake time would be enough to stop him from feeling like that again, you would keep doing it. 
Your nightly decompression was your saving grace. The only way you felt like a human again. Because every night, Steve would sit and read the same chapter out of the same book, and you would get in some still-life practice. 
Steve was pretty always, even in his blissful unawareness. Even in his ignorance. Even in the fact that he was no longer yours. Steve was pretty by fact. Pretty by nature. You had gotten good at drawing him, you knew where to block the square of his head and the triangle of his nose. You knew where his glasses rested against his face and exactly where to place every mole. You knew where the bone beneath would ebb and flow and where the warm light from that stained glass bowl-lamp would accentuate and valley against them like rivers. Steve was a topographical map and you had explored every inch in these moments of blissful dissonance. You did not need to waste your time getting the likeness correct by now, only getting in the fine details. 
Every night, your wonderful moment away from the catatonic nature of this ordeal would end when Steve would finish his chapter. You would act like you didn’t notice, like you weren’t staring at him. He would act like he didn’t know you were. He would press a tender kiss to your shoulder, smile at the work in your hands, tell you how talented you were, and finalize the ritual with a kiss to your cheek– an invite to bed. 
You know there will come a time when there will be a deviation from this routine, and you try to prepare yourself for this by running every possibility through your head. Calming tactics in the event that he has a category four meltdown, the words you would say and the explanations you would give him, but nothing prepared you for this deviation. Not in the slightest. 
You are unsuspecting as you wipe down the kitchen counters, melancholy with your towel in hand. Your hair is still wet and dripping uncomfortably down your back. You breathe deeply, enjoying the smell of kitchen lemon multi-surface cleaner. Steve approaches you. You feel his presence before you see him or feel his arms around your waist. You indulge in his warmth before he even touches you, before he reaches for your hand. You bask in his radiance before you feel the cold smoothness of gold scrape across your ring finger. 
“You forgot this after your shower.” He whispers through a kiss against the tender skin beneath your ear. He does not understand the devastation his words have caused you, not in his innocence. 
You reconstructed the scene in fragments of memories:
They were lawn seats, and you had no idea how he scored them. This concert had been sold out for weeks. The Tragic Kingdom tour was potentially the greatest album to ever grace this earth, and Steve agreed– potentially more than you did. 
When your eyes turned to get a good look at his face, it was hard to tell where that light sheen of sweat ended and the glitter that wafted in the air began. He was so fucking beautiful. You could look at him forever, put him in a jar on a shelf to admire for a lifetime. He was more blonde than brunette at this time of year, gold-skinned and eager. The July rays had set minutes ago, yet seemed to settle their clinging remnants in his eyes. 
His eyes that shone when they met yours, the eyes that gripped on to your hands, met your mouth, and settled within your gaze. 
You came in with the breeze, on Sunday morning…
You almost missed his words over the ambient concert sounds around you, louder now as Gwen started the beginnings of the song. Had you not been staring at him, you figured with your mouth open like a trout, you would have missed the two quiet words he mustered. 
“Marry me?”
You didn’t say anything back, you didn't need to. You remember the feeling of your knees sinking into the grass beneath you, wet against your skin. You remember how his body was too-warm in the staleness of the July air and the hardness of his body pressed tight against yours. Any qualms he had about saying more than those words disappeared in an instant, your hand willingly accepting the modest diamond encased in a gold band the only answer he ever needed. 
You thought back on that time, on the I love you’s and the please hold me’s. 
You remembered the I can’t do this anymore.
The problem was never committing to Steve. He had you. He had all of you. He could take you whole or in pieces in any slice or interval or fracture that he could have ever dreamed up. Though, that was the problem. You had committed yourself to him fully, never to the idea of committing yourself to anyone else, never thought of having to share him or change what you had. You lived in comfort, willful bliss. You’d never wanted anything more. 
But you saw that hopeful glimmer in his pretty eyes. The ones that looked like chunky baby legs and bubbly giggles. The distant memories that sounded like mimed laughs and raspberries against new skin. You were not maternal, not by nature nor by instinct. You felt broken, not wanting that. 
And knowing how well Steve was made for it. 
How he mapped rooms in the house with oak cribs and baby-pastel paint colors. How he pointed out names he liked and stared for just a little too long at happy families in passing. 
That night, long after Steve had fallen asleep, those dusty old wedding binders called out to you, screamed your name in birdsongs and infant wails. You clung to them, still covered in that awful yellow paint on the floor of that awful yellow room, and you cried awful tears that stained the pages of the awful thing that could have been. 
Except that could have started to feel less awful. It felt more like a should have now. 
You kept the wedding band on, convincing yourself it was more for him than yourself. 
+
“Hello?”
The shrillness of the landline still rings in your ears despite picking up the sound of a voice on the other end. Instinctively, you twirl your fingers into the cord. 
“Hey.” Her voice is scratchy on the other line. You know who it is, yet you still ask. 
“Who is this?” 
“Bill fucking Clinton.” You can hear the way her eyes roll in her voice. You almost find it endearing. 
You roll your eyes back, knowing that she can’t see it. You hope the sentiment is the same. “Hi, Robin.”
Silence on the line. You know what she will ask. She asks almost every other day or in the in-betweens where you can catch each other and she doesn’t have to fake a conversation on the phone with Steve. 
“How is he?” 
You feel like she knows the answer by now, she knows every part of his routine and exactly where you fit into it, “He’s fine. He just got into the shower.” 
There was a silence again, this time slightly more deafening. It felt like she was thinking, pondering the exact thing she was going to say and how exactly she planned on saying it. 
“How are you?” You hated it, despised it. It almost made your blood run cold. You didn’t do feelings, you were just a pawn in this big, fucked up game. It was your obligation to live in this lie. You had already hurt Steve once, the least you could do was keep him safe now. 
“Fine, Robin. I’m good.” You willed, regurgitated it like a curse. 
She sighed, hoping she wouldn’t have to pry but knowing she was going to, “Ha-ha. But really?”
“Really what?”
“How are you?”
You fell silent, the static basso of the line between you buzzing like a flatline as the tears welled up and over your lash line. The first sob you choke out is louder than you expect, and draw your knees up to your chest in the bay as you cry over the phone, unable to find words and unable to speak if you had then anyways. 
For once robin shuts the fuck up. For once she doesn’t have anything to say. Somehow you wish she would. Instead, she lets you cry for a few minutes in silence. She lets you let it out. 
“Do you need me to come over?” She asks, voice a welcome comfort not that you can breathe through the snot and tears running down your face. 
“No.” You sniffle, wiping the stream of facial fluids across your sleeve like you didn’t disgust yourself when you did it. 
“Do you need a professional?”
“No.”
There was a sigh, followed by another moment of silence. She didn’t know how to help you, though, she didn’t really think you needed help. 
“Hey, Robin?” You finally spoke up, eyes finally dry and your throat finally clear enough to be coherent. 
“Yeah?”
“Tell Monica Lewinsky I said hi.” 
+
You have a headache, simply put. That you could supplement. The ache and the pressure behind your eyes could be solved with acetaminophen and a glass of water and a bath. The ache in your chest was less tangible, and would have to wait until the ache in your head was fixed to even be evaluated. 
You’d managed to slip past Steve getting dressed in the convex opening of your walk-in closet, light spilling yellow against the dark floors in the dim lighting of the master bedroom. The one thing you’d greatly missed about this house that your apartment did not have the luxury of was the cast-iron tub, in its claw-footed, wing-backed glory. The water spilled steam from the mouth of the faucet as it spilled down the white porcelain glaze, hot enough to turn your skin red and draw the overage of blood from between your temples. You dimmed the lights, shoulders lax as you slumped your arms sideways over the edge of the tub, water tinged green from both the reflection of the seafoam walls and the capful of eucalyptus epsom salts dissolving in the water around you. 
You close your eyes, focusing more on the crisp smell of the water instead of the pounding of your head. You rest one arm beneath your head as a barrier between your temple and the porcelain, allowing the other to hang off the side. 
You don’t miss the way Steve slips in, nearly silently. The change of air pressure that came with his presence was what gave him away– that and the soft click of the chair legs against the hexagonal tile as he rotated it to face you. 
His touch is so gentle. His touch feels like the only inherent good in the world around you. His touch is soft enough to bring you to tears. And it does. 
You cannot help but let two roll down your face, not upset enough for it to scrunch up in the ugly sobs that you heaved on the kitchen floor to Robin. They splat quietly on the tile beneath you, and you sigh like an exasperated hound. One deep, shuddering breath beneath Steve’s hand. 
You cannot confide in him, even if he asks. You wonder if that fact hurts worse than understanding that he is going to wake up eventually. 
Steve does not pry. He’s really good at that. Instead, he rakes his fingers across the grain of your hair, thrown upwards with reckless abandon– fingers both a consolation and a devastation. He wishes desperately to know. Wishes desperately that he could fix it, but he knows this sadness. Knows the pain of forcing you to talk. The only thing that hurts worse than not knowing is the pain of seeing you cry. 
But he’s so tender, and he’s so endearing. You can’t help but want him. 
“Can I get you anything?” He says to you, just above a whisper. He even dips his head down closer to yours so you can hear, but you’re already clawing at the collar of his shirt. 
“Wanna be close.” You mutter, words muffled against your arm. He understands it anyway. 
His skin is hot. Hot enough to still be felt under your hands despite the temperature of the water. You missed the texture of it, smooth, interrupted by soft constellations of moles and bone. Quickly, and with grace, he stands– pulling your hands from his body for a mere few, painful seconds. He strips his clothes quickly, and you watch the muscles of his shoulders ripple as he maneuvers to pull his shirt over them. 
Silken skin glides across your back, the hot water squelching between your bodies as he slides into the tub behind you, arms encircling your waist in an iron-clad grip. Caring and grounding all at once. 
His lips are soft as they press a hot path against your neck and you sigh, tilting your head further away to allow him the affection you so desperately need. 
“That’s it, honey. Let me give you what you need.” It’s a low growl, not quite a whisper. His voice keeps that resonant patriarchal basso that vibrates against your neck and settles in your coccyx. His kisses turn to soft nips, as he takes the suppleness of your flesh between his teeth– never enough to hurt. 
His hands reach up to cup your breasts, squeezing tenderly as he runs a thumb over a pert nipple. He leaves one hand on your chest, gently pinching and rolling the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, another hand sliding over the hills and valleys of your body to find a home between your legs. 
Despite the water surrounding you, there is a much more distinct slickness that has gathered there in decadent anticipation of him. When his thick fingers finally breach the threshold of you, it is both a devastation and a need. Slowly, he finds the bud of your clit, circling it slowly. 
You suck in a breath, accompanied by a soft whine. When you arch your back, you feel him press against your back, hard and heavy against your flesh. 
“Come on, honey,” He urges, a heeding groan fans across your shoulder disguised as a breath, “I’m gonna get you there. Just gotta let me do it.” 
His middle and ring finger circle your core, easing their way in. You relinquish the new, subtle stretch. His other hand leaves its place on your breast, coming down to hold the soft flesh of your lower belly, creating a soft pressure that soothed the ache in your core as he held you there, relentlessly pumping in and out of you with his fingers. The other hand crept lower, the other two fingers continuing the rhythmic circling of your throbbing clit. 
You cried out, the coil in your core hitting that vapid crescendo and tumbling over the edge with shaky legs and breaths. Steve continued working his fingers within you, easing you through the climax of your orgasm and slowing when you whined. His arms remained around you like a vice, holding you in your place against him. 
He nibbled at your ear softly as you came down from that wonderful, floaty place, and whispered softly, “You did so good.” against your neck. His hands rubbed the insides of your thighs in slow, soothing circles. You felt the water from the tub rush over his arms and create whirlpools over the valleys of your skin. 
It was then that you turned, your arms locking around his neck and your lips crashing into his. Your body fell against his with enough force to push a wave across the edge of the tub, but the wet floor was an issue for another time. Your own carnal desire to have him seated within you was far worse than your desire to maintain the grout in the bathroom floors. This much you knew. 
The stretch was welcome and familiar, albeit foreign to you, now. You cried out, as you slid down to the hilt and seated yourself firmly atop his thighs, either one of your thighs bracketing around his. You felt the scrape of hair from his thighs scratch against your skin, broad hands planted firmly on the plush of your waist, and deep, guttural groan fan out across the crevice of your neck where he buried his head. 
Your hand clutched the nape of his neck for purchase, fingers burying themselves in the damp locks there and tugging softly. It draws a gasp from pretty pouted lips as his head tilts back in reverie. He looks at you through dreamy, half-closed lids, reminding himself to draw himself back and forth again, now that you have adjusted to the sensation of him filling you. 
“Oh, baby. Honey.” He cried, pistoning his hips upward, more rhythmically now. It was more of a cry now than it was a plea, and a rosy blush crept its way across the bridge of his nose, spread over his cheeks, and kissed the tips of his ears. He was ethereal as it spread across his chest and he heaved whines into your mouth like he needed to feel himself inside you to survive. You caught the way his dark lashes kissed the apples of his cheeks, and the way the space between his brows scrunched as he huffed breaths towards your face. 
There is a realization in the impending vapid crescendo where Steve attempts to push you over the edge a second time. Your body is on fire as he rubs fast, sloppy circles around your already sensitive clit. He falls from the edge first.
“O-oh, fuck.” He cried out in pleasure as a tear rolled from beautifully crinkled eyelids. Though, he desperately urges you to continue bouncing with fingers buried into the plush that accumulates where your hips fold. His thumb is still relentless over your sensitive bud until he pushes your already teetering form over the edge as well. 
He holds you close, strong arms around your shaking frame and wet hands smoothing back your flyaway hairs. He presses a kiss to your forehead, guiding your head between his palms and trailing them down your nose. He lands his final kiss, longer this time, against your lips and fans his palms across the expanse of your cheeks and neck. 
You whine when he pulls himself from you, suddenly empty. Steve soothes you with a, “Shh. It’s okay honey, ‘ve got you.” as he pushes water up from the tub and over your cold, drying shoulders. 
You cannot tell if you feel better or worse, having him in this way again. You think of the way he slid the ring back over your finger, and relived all of the gilded moments of your past. You’d always felt like a ghost in this house, haunting the remnants of what the life that should have been. But this did not feel like the life that you walked out on. This felt like the life that you chose. 
Steve felt like your husband when he kissed the skin of your shoulder in the early mornings after his runs. He felt like your husband when he sprinkled the feta into your spinach omelet in the morning, and when he sat behind you to watch you paint like you couldn’t sense him behind you, and when he gave you that goofy smile and wave when you caught you peering at him from the bay curtains while he tended to the lawn, 
And he certainly felt like your husband when he helped you from the tub on shaky legs, while he dried your legs with fresh towels and planted sweet kisses against your ankles and knees as he did so. He felt like your husband as he held your hand and guided you with soft hands to bed. He felt like your husband when he pulled your head to his chest beneath the sheets, sneaking a not-so-secret sniff to the crown of your head and smiling a not-entirely-concealed smile. 
Steve may not have been yours anymore, but he was yours for tonight. 
+
The morning light is dappled when you wake, and the way it sparkles hurts your eyes. You half expect to see Steve, feel his lips against your shoulder and relinquish the warmth that radiates from his skin like the sun as he invades your waking space. Instead, you find him sleeping, golden and beautiful under the dappled light, white linens draped over the oiled ellipses of his hips and legs tangled in the sheets. You bury your nose into the valley of his spine and he jolts awake. You can’t help but to giggle. 
“Jesus, what the fuck?” He starts, pushing himself up on his elbows, stomach pressed to the bed. 
“Oh, good morning, Steve.” His brow furrows as he looks at you. Steve does not look happy to see you. Steve looks confused. 
“What are you even doing here?” He asked, more towards the sheets than you. He buried his face in his hands, groan echoing in his palms before he asked, “Oh, God, how drunk did I get?”
Your heart sinks. He is awake. There is no retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global to worry about anymore. It is just you, and him, and your new sense of impending doom. Though, how impending could the doom really be if it was staring you in the face this very moment? Impending should have been reserved for when you decided to move back into the house you tried to build. Impending was reserved for the phone call from the hospital. No, this was doomed from the start, and now, it was blowing up in your face. 
You can tell he doesn’t know what happened, and that he has a throbbing headache. 
“Here– let me–” You start, turning over to grab his prescription from the drawer in your– Steve’s bedside table. He stood, suddenly. 
“No– ugh,” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to apply some pressure there, “I think you need to go.” 
“No, Steve, let me explain–”
“Just, go. Please.” He pleaded. 
You would not argue. You especially would not cry in front of him, not now. Instead, you scrambled the bathroom floor for your clothes that were shed before your bath, pulling them on, scrambling for your purse and car keys on the counter, and promptly leaving with those items to your name. It was foolish for you to build another home there, to leave remnants of yourself and reminders to him of just how fucked you were around his house. You don’t remember breathing on the drive back to your apartment. The air in this place is stale and, if you owned more things, you figured they’d be shrouded in a fine layer of dust from your negligence. 
When Robin answers the phone, you are incoherent. At first, she figures it is the shoddy signal from her company-issued brick phone, though she eventually realizes that it is not the faulty technology. You are in fact, choking on words and hot tears. Robin has a nagging feeling that she knows what happened, and your few words, “Steve” and, “fucked up” both confirm her suspicions and are reminiscent of a time where she was caught in the crossfire over a year ago. 
Robin’s car zig-zags in and out of the morning traffic, shaving both minutes off of her commute time to your apartment and her life. Her entrance to your apartment is dramatic, tired screeching and door hitting the wall so hard you can almost feel the security deposit solidifying in you landlord’s bank account. She greets you with a hug that you don’t ask for– you don’t need to. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. 
Instead, she stands there, in the nearly empty room where your studio once stood, and she holds you. And you cry. And you want to scream and want to throw things and want to curse the universe and ask why me? But you know why you stand here. You know that you are shitty. So instead, you sit here, and feel sorry for yourself, and let Robin hold you. Because, no matter how shitty you are, she won’t say anything about it. 
This ugly nostalgia rears its even uglier head when the phone rings shrill, deafening against the brick walls that encase you in this place worse than they had when there were paintings occupying this space. She slides across the concrete on the floor just slightly so she can grab her phone.
“Hey– you busy?” Steve asks, and she can tell he’s been crying. 
You look at her, eyes red and confused. 
“No,” Robin lied to him, it was small and white, “What’s going on?” 
Who is it? You mouth. 
Robin is inherently a bad liar. She could say it was her boss, or her mom, or a telemarketer. Instead, she stares back, contemplating the lie and the inevitable conversation she would have to make up on the spot. She decides it is not worth the effort, and mouths back, 
Steve. 
You sit up, looking at her with wide eyes. You will not ask to eavesdrop, though, there’s a small, shitty part of you that wants to. 
“Something happened.” He started, and she knows exactly what happened, “but I don’t exactly know what.” 
What’s he saying? You mouth back at her, though, she holds a pointed finger up at you in waiting. 
“Are you in trouble?” She asks, “Do you need help?” 
“Look, I don’t know. Can you just come over? I’ll explain everything.” He asks, voice small. He sounds like he is on the precipice of a breakdown. She hangs up the phone, knowing you know what she is going to ask next. 
“Hey, are you gonna be okay? I’ve gotta–”
“Yeah, I’m fine. You can go.” You tell her, pointedly, though, she doesn’t fully believe it. However, your nosiness outweighs your ability to be this hurt for this long, “Look, can you just give this back to him? It doesn’t feel right.” and it's not right, it never was right. 
You slide the ring from your finger, closing Robin’s palm around it. She opens her palm once again, twirling the diamond between her fingers. She slides it over her middle finger, diamond side in to protect it. 
“Yeah, I can.”
“Thanks, Rob.” 
“Call me.” She says to you, and It is both a threat and a consolation. 
“Okay.” 
+
There is an aura that has overtaken the house since this morning. It was threatening. Robin had sensed the shift from her car, clear up the avenue. There was something frighteningly wrong here. 
Her knock on the door was poignant, scared almost, and she held her breath as Steve turned the knob. He looked tired. He looked spent. He looked like he wanted to cry, and yell, and throw things, and curse the universe, but was too morose to perform any action but stare blankly at Robin. 
“What happened?” She asked, taking the invited, but welcome, step through the threshold of the front door. She knew what had happened already, there were remnants of you strung about this place like shrapnel. Steve avoided them like landmines, even though the explosion had already happened. 
“She– she,” She meaning you, he started, but didn’t know where to begin. He sat on the couch, bouncing back with the weight and force of his body thrown against the cushions. 
“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Robin finally asked.
Steve looked up at her, red eyes slick with freshly fallen tears, “What?” 
“Steve, you hit your head. You fell off a ladder and knocked something loose.” Robin explained to him, voice soft as she said it, “You couldn’t remember anything that happened in the last year.” 
Robin wished you were here to help her explain. She wished she could remember the big words you remembered to describe what was wrong with him– maybe it would help him understand better. Maybe you should have come. She could have been able to act as a buffer between the anger– 
“You fucking knew about this?” Steve interrupted her thoughts, he had stared for a few seconds while he figured out his thoughts. 
Robin went quiet, more quiet than she already had been, “Yeah. I did.” It was a statement riddled with shame, though she didn’t quite know for what. 
“Steve, you were sick fo–”
He stood, rage apparent in his eyes as he poked his finger into Robin’s shoulder, “No, Rob, I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to me like that but you?” Robin didn’t say anything to him. Instead she just looked up at him, “Whose side are you even on?”
“Steve, you know goddamned well I’m not picking a side.” She was angry, standing now to match his posture, “You brooded for months fucking haunting this house like a ghost, Steve. You. Were. Miserable– and you were making me miserable too! All you did was talk about how you were gonna get her back, and now that you had her, you decide you don’t want her?” Robin started. It was Steve’s turn to stare, now.
“I get that you’re mad, and I get that you’re confused, and I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this isn’t my fault.” She continued. She was a republic of voices tonight, and unfortunately, that republic was Italy. 
“Oh, and here’s your stupid ring back. It’s ugly, anyways.” She finishes, shoving the ring back into his chest. He holds it in his hands, stunned. 
There is an immediate regret that fills him up and drowns him in it. Robin was right, it was not her fault. “Ugh, Robin. I’m–”
She turns at the beginning of his apology, scooping her back from the doorway, “Don’t. I’m not the one you should even be apologizing to.”
“Rob–”
“Bye, Steve.”
He is alone now. The house is quiet and stale, the walls sing in silence, speak their truths, tell him how awful he was. He was so quick to anger, wore his father’s anger like a hand-me-down coat. It hung loose in the wrong places, did not cling to him like his father and looked silly while he was wearing it. He twirls the ring in his hands, watching the light refract white off the brilliant-cut diamond. 
He should call Robin, should. He knows that, even after this, that she will forgive him. You, however, would not be so easy, though, he can’t exactly fathom how badly he wants your forgiveness when he has not quite forgiven you himself. 
He twirls it in his hands as he gets into his car, runs his thumb over the cluster of diamonds in his pocket as he drives down the road, in search of your apartment. It burns a hole in his pocket as he parks, burning hotter and hotter until he swears it scorches his skin the closer he gets to your door. 
When you answer, door swinging open in reprieve and eyes holding the morosity of several generations, he feels a pang of guilt begin to choke him, though it is not big enough to not be swallowed. Something else burns there, still hot and still angry and still confused. It takes over the forefront of his mind. He should not have come here. It was not right to come here. 
“Seriously? This? You still had it?” It is an ugly statement, it's the first thing that he can think of. The angry coat was still tied tight around his waist, the anger was still bubbling in the forefront of his temporal lobe. He holds the ring up in your face, the sparkle hurts your eyes. 
You furrowed your brows, confused by both the fact that we was standing at your apartment door and also that you opened your door to him yelling at you, “You gave it back to me Steve–”
“No, the version of me that forgot what you did gave it back to you. And you took advantage of that. You–”
“Steve, I couldn’t–”
“Couldn’t what?” He wouldn’t give you a chance to explain yourself, he took a step forward and crowded your space. It wasn’t entirely fair, but you hadn’t been entirely fair either. There was no winning this battle. 
You stared back at him in silence, willing fresh tears from breaking over the edges of your lash line. His eyes seethed with anger. You had never seen Steve this angry before. 
“Couldn’t what?” He asked again, taking another step closer. He stood over you now, towering and angry. 
You were shaking now, seeping with your own anger and frustration, “Anterograde Amnesia!”
“What?” He stops sudden;y, realizing his closeness to your figure, taking a step back. 
“That’s what you had. Every morning you woke up and it was the same day. Every morning you woke up and you– you–” You were crying now, hot tears running down your face at an embarrassing, unrelenting pace. You could not tell if they were of anger or sadness. Probably both, “You woke up and did the same thing, and then every night you went back to sleep and we started all over again.”
“Why didn’t you just walk away?” He asked, turning and bracing himself on your counter, hand on his hip as he stared you down. 
“I-I I just couldn’t, okay?”
“Why not?” He had a way of backing you into a corner, making you feel small in this confrontation. Steve was rarely angry with you, and never like this. 
“Because the one day you did find out, before all this shit,” Before he felt like yours again, “–you begged me to tell you that you were okay. You fucking begged me to.” Your arms were flailing now, it was your turn to back him into a corner. You hadn’t meant to be this defensive, hadn’t meant for this to end in a screaming match, but no one ever intended that, you supposed, “How the fuck was I supposed to leave after that, huh? Let them institutionalize you? Saddle Robin with you? How the fuck was that supposed to be the better option?” 
His hands were up now too, defenses in a war against yourselves, “Oh so you just did this so you could be a hero? So you could prove to yourself that you aren’t shitty? Prove to yourself that you weren’t gonna fucking leave again?” 
You found silence, suddenly, more hurt and more angry than before. You stare at each other. He knows he’s crossed a line. Several lines actually. You aren’t as forgiving as Robin. 
“Just go, Steve.”
“I–”
“Just fucking go.”
+
This felt like the remnants of a hurricane. You could hear the wind ringing heavy and violent in your ears like screams. You could feel the rain hot and heavy as it rolled across your cheeks still. Yet the air was still, entirely too still. The shrapnel of your reality built back up and torn back down again, and now you were here. Alone. In silence. 
Robin’s pointed knuckle is quiet against your door, yet it crashes and booms a resonant patriarchal tenor across the echoing walls of your solitude. You groan at her, something akin to its open. You hadn’t managed to lock it again after she left this morning. 
“Are you still being insufferable?” She asks you, as if it isn’t clear by the way you seem to enter a state of active decay, melting into the corner piece of your sectional. 
Though you are insufferable, you are not so insufferable that you cannot bite back, “Are you still being annoying?”
She does not answer, instead, the clinking of glass on glass and heavier glass against granite serves as an answer for her.
“Do you want a glass?”
The ruffling of a paper bag wills your head up, and she exhumes the bottle from it. You see that it is red, but don’t say anything about it. You recognize the bottle as Beaujolais Nouveau, from the same region in France in which it is aptly named– the same region in which Robin did her semester abroad. You could have said something about how it is not winter, or how there are better italian wines or better whites or literally anything else from Trader Joe’s, but alcohol seems nice, and you are never one to complain about free alcohol. 
“Yeah.” you say instead. 
“Okay.” 
She serves you a too-full glass on the couch. She had half a mind to bring some snacks over, but did not feel like putting forth the effort into making a snack board. Instead, she pulls a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a candy bar open with her teeth, pointing the mouth of the bag towards you in a peace offering. You oblige, stuffing a handful of them into your mouth as a chaser for this awful, dry red. 
“What a jerk.” She says, and you know who she is speaking about. 
“What an ass.” You say back to her, and she knows who you are speaking about, 
Your body rolls into the dip where hers sits on the couch, and you let the natural flow bring your head to her shoulder. You do not wrestle with the qualms of physical affection, and, if she is surprised by your sudden affectionate nature, she doesn’t say anything. 
“I spilled some wine on your counter.” She said to you, but you’ll clean it up later. 
You have half a mind to let it stain. 
+
You beg Robin to get your stuff from his house. Your heartbreak is scabbed over enough for you to pick at, and you have a desperate urge to smear some goo all over a canvas in an Oliver De Sagazan-esque pity party, but alas, your studio resides in the place of your demise– Steve’s house. 
Robin is more forgiving than you are, and also more willing to brave the walls of Fort Steve for your stuff. Robin is also a saint, and you have let her know ten times over. 
“She wants her shit back. Have it ready on the porch when I get there.” She says to him on the phone, the line aptly going dead seconds later. 
His hands on your things feel foreign when they touch them, like they might blow up. He had been avoiding them like landmines as he haunted the remnants of this home. Nothing had been touched since that morning. The house would not change. 
There is a fine layer of dust that has accumulated over the confines of your studio, and it makes his eyes water as he agitates it enough to send particles swirling through the air. He stacks your canvases in piles according to their sizes and fills your water cups with brushes. He takes extra care to separate the current painting you abandoned midway through, the one where the linseed-to-oil ratio wasn’t quite right and, in turn, the layers of paint would not cure properly. 
When he moves to the last stack, one of a modest collection of books and sketchpads, he loses his bearings, and the top sketchpad slides out with loose pages all over the floor. He sighs in exasperation, and bends down to scoop them into a pile. He recognizes the figure drawn on one page, and then another, and then another. A mirror image of himself, ruched hair at the end of the day, glasses perched on the end of his nose, elbow on the arm chair. In some he can see the tops of his folded knee. In some he is smiling and looking directly back at him. 
Every one of them is dated one a day for eighty-six days in chronological order, yet every paper he is holding has the same headline. 
The final page in the stack is a doodle page, he almost misses it. A series of boxes and riddles. Number two down, number three across. You were creating crossword puzzles, a new one every day, and yet none of the answers vaguely familiar to him. His blood runs cold. He was the ass. 
In a panic, he scoops the drawings up, sliding them as quickly as possible into the sleeve from which they fell and clutching them to his chest like previous gems. To him, this was a lifeline, and he did not have time to wait for Robin, though she is sitting outside waiting for him when he runs out the front door, leaving it open in a panic. 
She is colder when she greets him, colder than he’s ever seen. It's an odd juxtaposition, seeing her be so cold. She adorns black jeans with a black turtleneck. She does not look like herself, she looks like you. 
“And where are you going?” She asks him, watching hum fumble with his car keys and with the drawings in his hands. 
He puts his hands on her shoulders, wraps her in a hug, and gives her a kiss on the forehead. 
“Robin, I love you, and I know you came here for her stuff, but I’m going to talk to her.” 
She is stunned, staring at him with wide eyes at both the kiss and the sudden change in demeanor. She does not have time to ask him what drugs he possibly could have been on or make a back-handed remark about how hard he hit his head. Because, instead, she is standing in his driveway while his car takes off down the road. 
Your ground floor apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows. It was charming, really. It was one of the reasons you chose this place despite its ridiculous cost. Well, that, and the fact that it was the least suburban place you could think of. You are sitting on the kitchen island, scrubbing now at that wine stain on the counter with a rag and granite polish at the forefront of this battle when the first thud sounds off clear against your winder. You thought it had been an unsuspecting bird, but the shadow of a man behind your sheer white curtains startles you. You unfold yourself quickly, going over to pull them back and investigate. 
Steve stands with his feet in shrubs, hands with papers pressed flat against the glass. He pulls more from his chest, switching them out every so often, and then ends the spectacle with a crossword puzzle placed flat to the glass. He looks ridiculous like this, hands splayed across glass, hair disheveled and out of breath from running. He left his glasses on in the shuffle, and they slid down his nose in the commotion. Your confusion registers clear across your face, and he says something adjacent to, “Can I come in?” against the glass. 
You nod, and he shuffles the drawings back into a cohesive, carryable pile. You meet him at the front door, letting him run in and dump them on the counter you were currently cleaning. He spreads them out in front of you, breathless and disheveled. They are in order, chronologically. All of your drawings of him. You are both mortified and embarrassed. 
“That one.” He points to it, moving to stand next to you on the counter to look at it. 
“The first one.” You say, looking at the date. 
“Was that the first day?” He asked, “Of being home from the hospital?” he specified, staring down at you with intent eyes. 
You nod, looking back up to meet him, “Yes, that was the first day. I knew you had amnesia, I knew you thought we were still engaged. Though, I didn’t know the extent of your condition yet.” 
You go through all eighty-six drawings, the things he said to you, the things you did. A lot of them are repetitive, some of them caught you off guard and you are able to  laugh about it now. You talk about the day he gives you the ring back, and the day you realized he was in the same infinite time loop, you talk about the dastardly yellow paint and the vellum crossword puzzles so he wouldn’t get bored even though you knew he wouldn’t remember, and the binders. You talked a lot about Robin and her place in it all. You talked about the dentist up the street, and how Steve, even in his delirium, still knew him as the guy with the labs. 
There is one day where the drawing is missing. 
“Is this the day,” He asks, “The day that I–”
“Yeah, it is.” You answer. 
“What exactly happened then? On that day?” 
You struggle to recall every detail, so you start by giving him the gist, “Well… you saw the tattoo on my back,” You reach up to touch it, running your fingers over the raised lines of ink beneath your fingers. Steve tilts his head back to get a glimpse of it as well, his own fingers calloused as they chase yours across it. 
“Looks nice.” He says, without thinking. 
“Thank you.” You reply back, “And then you got really confused. I was still sleeping on the couch then. We were still figuring it out, and I was still clumsy. I asked you how hard you hit your head, and you didn’t even remember doing it. You panicked so quickly, I– I had a hard time calming you down.” 
The guilt still ate you alive, the guilt at your own clumsiness for letting it slip, and the guilt that you lived in the lie for that long. The guilt mostly for leaving in the first place. 
“You asked me where I was, and I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t there because I was trying so hard to live my life separately from you. We hadn’t been together in a year, but I couldn’t tell you that.” You said, words becoming frantic as you fought off tears. 
His hand is both a consolation as it is a devastation as it rests across your shoulder, broad and warm and grounding. 
“What did you say to me, then?” He asked. 
“You asked me if you were okay. You were so confused.” 
“And?”
“I told you that you were.” Hot tears broke the threshold of your lash line, and spilled in streams down your face. It cut through the dryness there, and you choked on a sob. “I didn’t even know if you were or how to take care of you or what I was doing and, and I’m sorry.” You cried ugly tears now, wet into your own hands. 
He grips your shoulders, pulling you into a familiar hug as your words grow frantic and your breaths become shallow and stuttered. He holds you close to his warm chest, encased in soft arms. He cradles the back of your head like you are encased in glass, and he plants a kiss to the top of your head. 
“I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair, now rocking your back and forth as you calm down. A wet drop falls on your shoulder, and you cannot tell if it belongs to yourself or him. You would forgive Steve in every life. 
He pulls back from you, hands still planted firmly on your shoulders as he stares at you, amber eyes both piercing and comforting. 
“Listen, you don’t have to take this, not yet. But it would make me so fucking happy if you would.” He pulls the ring, sparkling and brilliant from his pocket, and presents it to you. You oblige happily, sliding it back on to your hands before tackling him into an embrace. His kiss is as soft as it had always been. 
You would do this again, and again, and again if it meant you could have him, because the same day with Steve was better than any of the days you had ever spent without him. 
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jo-harrington · 6 days
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TW: Death and Catholicism
Eddie as someone you meet at a funeral.
You’re a great-niece, he’s a grandson’s friend. You both really only knew the deceased distantly but in different lights.
To Eddie she was the lady who pinched his arm, fed him too much food, asked if he had a girlfriend, and said she knew some nice girls if he was having trouble dating. To you she was the lady who pinched your arm, fed you too much, asked if you had a boyfriend, and said she knew some nice boys if you were having trouble dating.
Nice to him. Rude to you. That’s just who she was though. To everyone. She had her favorites.
But you’re both there for your cousin more than you’re there for yourselves.
He ends up sitting near you at the funeral home, dressed in black. Well, everyone is. But it’s how you wear those black clothes. You both wear a comfortable shroud while everyone else shuffled in dresses that don’t fit and shoes that pinch and rented suits with ties that choke.
Funeral homes have formative memories for both of you. You bond over it in those drawn out minutes…hours where you connect with strangers only to probably never see them again. For him, it’s his mother and in return he gained a love of heavy metal and the inexplicable need to March to the beat of his own drum just like she did. For you, a grandma you were too young to really know.
“You and Danny have that in common then,” he tries to lighten the mood. “Dead grandma’s.”
“I think everyone gets a dead grandma at some point. Sometimes even two.”
“That’s fair.”
“Mine died on my 5th birthday though,” you tell him truthfully. “So I think I had it worse off than he does.”
“Gotta hold him to that then. He’s a cocky shit.”
“Yeah he is. He still holds some Mario Kart victory over me from when we were 7.”
You both fumble at the church as you seek out a familiar face—although for you it’s a sea of familiar faces you wish you didn’t have to see—and you guide him through, to you, partially forgotten prayers and the sitting and standing and you even hold his hand during the Our Father. He doesn’t let you go because he feels you shake with the uneven ground of your faith.
“I don’t do church anymore,” you whisper.
“Me either,” he whispers back. “Would you believe me if I told you people used to think I worshipped Satan?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I might currently worship Satan?”
“No shit.”
“Meh, anything that isn’t Jesus might as well be Satan to my mom so it’s not that much of a stretch.”
He doesn’t ask where your mom is. Where the rest of your immediate family is. And it’s nice for that to be the first time not to have to answer that question.
You continue to hold hands as the casket is sealed behind a stone wall, as your aunt and her secrets get locked away forever. Eddie remarks that it’s weird to bury people behind walls instead of in the ground. You think it’s weird that he thinks it’s weird; it’s all you’ve ever known.
You offer to show him around the big mausoleum if he plays his cards right.
It’s a joke. You both know it’s a joke.
But after Danny approaches the two of you once the service is over, and thanks and hugs are shared, he stands there with his hands in his pockets and stared at you expectantly.
“So?” He shrugs. “Grand tour?”
You’re speechless but you nod.
“And I know a place that does a good eggplant parm san—”
“Eggplant Parm Sandwich,” you nod. “Cue’s. Off Wolf Road? Yeah it’s my favorite.”
“Mine too. We can get some lunch?”
“Sure.”
And you both think as you walk around the silent cemetery.
You think your aunt must not have been so bad, and he thinks she must have been as good as he always thought she was.
Because she filled her promise of introducing you both to someone nice after all.
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softsoundingsea · 1 month
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Diego Javier Luis is assistant professor of history at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He is the author of The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History (forthcoming, 2024).
Edited by Sam Haselby.
Cape Sebastian in Oregon perches above two forested declivities along a rocky patch of the state’s southern coast. Travel there today, and you are likely to miss a roadside marker that reads:
Spanish navigators were the first to explore the North American Pacific Coast. Beginning fifty years after Columbus discovered the Western continents, Sebastian Vizciano [sic] saw this cape in 1603 and named it after the patron saint of the day of his discovery. Other navigators, Spanish, British, and American, followed a century and a half later.
Standing before this sign, I winced rather predictably as I read ‘discovery’. But simmering beneath my displeasure with this word was a deeper conviction that Sebastián Vizcaíno’s voyage was, indeed, significant, though not in the ways that the sign suggests. Thousands of miles to the east, in Seville, the old centre of the Spanish Empire, I had stumbled upon Vizcaíno’s voyage in the dusty volumes of treasury records for the port of Acapulco, Mexico. Buried in line after line of winding, Baroque script were curious notations – ‘chino’ and ‘japón’ – next to the names of seven sailors that Vizcaíno had recruited for his voyage up the North American coast. To the tune of carriages rumbling through Seville’s cobbled streets and the crinkle of centuries-old pages turning, I read the names again and again:
Antón Tomás Antonio Bengala Francisco Miguel Cristóbal Catoya Agustín Longalo Lucas Cate Agustín Sao
Seven Asian sailors – entombed by an archive and forgotten by human memory – had sailed with Vizcaíno to what is now Oregon. Where in the chronology of Asian American history could these sailors fit? Flip to the beginning of most books on Asian America, and you will find no content earlier than the 19th century. You will be in the world of the Gold Rush, the transcontinental railroad, indenture, and the San Francisco and Los Angeles Chinatowns.
These seven names transport us to a different world, a different timeline, a different Asian America. These sailors’ presence off the coast of Oregon predated not just the entire Asian American canon but also the founding of the United States and even of the Thirteen Colonies. The histories of the first Asians in the Americas do not take place in the nations born from the fires of British colonialism but, rather, they guide us to a region rarely considered relevant to Asian American history: Latin America.
Read more...
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alice-angel12x · 1 year
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Death is always around the Corner
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Vil + Death!Reader
Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, Vil,Idia, Malleus
Masterlist
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Let's set the scene:
"Magic Mirror on the wall. Tell me, who is the fairest of them all," The Beautiful queen asked her magic mirror. " I see the figure of your fair stepdaughter. With her lips as red as a rose, hair as black as ebony, and skin as white as snow," The mirror said. " Snow White…!" The Queen scowled.
Death stood in the shadows as they watched the vain queen glare and curse the young princess.
---------------------------------------
Reading Vil's book brought back memories of the terrible women. Y/n could only hope that history is not about to repeat itself, but they knew. Just by the patterns of what has been happening around this school, they knew that was most likely.
"Wha—?! Don’t just stop and stare, Yuu! I hit my nose on your leg, yanno?" Grim groaned.
"You’re staring intently at the Great Seven’s statue, Y/n. Something up?" Ace asked.
"It's... It's strange seeing all these people. Being looked up to and aspired as such," Y/n said simply.
"Why is that? Did you know them personally?" Deuce asked.
"Not personally, but I was there to witness their prime and watch their downfall," Y/n explained.
"Really?! So what was the Queen of Hearts like?" Ace asked."
"A hypocritical tyrant. She would enforce the rules on everyone, but herself. She would even make up laws on the fly just to have an excuse to behead people. 60% of the rules in Heartsybuyl were ''on the fly'' made ruled," Y/n explained.
-----------------------------------
After that Ace and Deuce certainly had a new perspective of the queen of hearts. But school continued as normal, and Y/n could already feel the presence of a growing blot. It Has Begun.
Later that day an announcement was posted in the cafeteria. An audition for the Joint Cultural Festival’s Vocal & Dance Championship.
“Come and join us! Aspiring singers and dancers, this is your chance for stardom! You shall represent our glorious school! In the case that you are chosen to be part of the finalists. The prize money of 5 million Madol will be divided among the participating members."
This certainly caught the boy's attention. As the group walked through the courtyard expressing their excitement. They were interrupted by singing, a lovely voice too.
That voice belongs to none other than Epel Felmier. As those boys began talking, Epel noticed that Y/n seemed to be left out. Sadly before he could reach.
----------------------------------
"Goodness, Epel. Are you neglecting your lessons to talk to some pigeons?" asked a smug voice.
"Vil-san!" Epel gasped.
"Wha—?! Is he talking about us?" Grim asked nervesly.
"Who else is there? This is an important lesson for our Epel. There are less than two months before the VDC. He does not have the time to be fraternizing with lowlifes like you," Vil said with a prideful smirk. " Please do not bother him while he is doing his lessons."
"We weren’t bothering him at all—," "Vil-san, don’t shout at them! This’s—This is my fault—," Epel said, cutting Deuce off.
"Epel, how many times must I tell you to stop with that vulgar way of speaking? It is not befitting a person of your standard. Surely you do not want to be referred to as a “Poisonous Red Apple,” do you?" Vil continued.
"But I—I don’t really want to do this—!" Epel stuttered
"Have you forgotten your promise with me already? Come along now," Vil commanded.
"Hey, you. I don’t care whether you’re a Prefect or not, but you just look like you’re bullying him," Ace glared.
" H-hey, you two…! Didn’t the Headmaster tell you both not to pick fights anymore?!" Deuce said nervesly.
"Hmph, pretty bold of you nobodies to challenge me. This will be perfect exercise after a meal. Come now, I’ll turn you into mashed potatoes," Vil smirked.
Sadly Adeuce and Grim were not on the same level as Vil, so Y/n eventually decided to step in. Just as Vil was about to throw a blow at the First Years, Y/n effortlessly caught his fist.
"Abusing your authority as a Prefect is not a good look. I thought you were better than that, but I guess I was wrong," Y/n smirked as they tossed Vil into the air. Only to grab him by his collar and slam hard onto the stone below. Vil had the wind knocked out of him.
"I'd give you a... 5 points out of 100," Y/n smirked at Vil's gasping form.
"Instant kill!" Grim and Ace cheered.
"S-so cool," Epel awed quietly.
______________________________________________________
After that one-sided fight, Epel asked Y/n if it would be possible to be as strong as them. They answered "That is for you to decide, but don't focus only on the strength. Or is trying to be a muscle head the only thing about you?"
With that Y/n and the Adeuce group left. After some days of dance training with Kalim and Jamil. The group had to sign up by talking to Rook. The school stalker, who was all to happy to lurt random info on the group. Though he didn't have much on Y/n
So Y/n returned in kind.
"Greetings Rook hunt from Class 3-A, seat number 10. Your height is 177cm, whose unique magic is "I see you," Y/n smirked as Rook froze. For the first time being on the receiving end of his action.
But Rook would smile it off and tells them to come to Pomfiore in three days' time. And thankfully Adeuce was accepted into the group. Along with Kalim and Jamil.
But unfortunately, Y/n and Grim were forced to house the new VDC group. for the next 2 months, and While Grim was easily won over with money and tuna. Y/n didn't want to share their temporary home.
So with much back and forth Crowley ignored Y/n and gave the boys the green light. So Y/n was not the happiest when they came. especially when Vil starts making demands and setting down his own rules. And order them around.
Sadly not only did Y/n have to house them, but also help assist them with their training.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Of course. Manager, please play the song for us," Vil said expectantly.
"Who?" Y/n asked as they leaned against the windowsill.
"Who else is there? Didn’t the Headmaster ask you to support us? If you want to get paid, then work yourself to the bone for us, too," Vil said.
"Well, I don't need your currency," Y/n answered simply.
"What?!" Grim Gasped. "B-But my Tuna!"
"Grim I cook fresh fish for you for Breakfast and Dinner. You have no reason to complain. I even get the certain types of fish you like," Y/n scolded.
But Grim wants that money so he did follow Vil's command. As the Video was about to play an Ad of Neige popped up. And As Y/n watched they could see Vil crumble inside.
"He is very Lovable," Y/n commented, throwing salt into the wound.
"Gentlemen, stop focusing on the wrong things and watch the dance video, for god’s sake! This time for sure… I promise that we will not lose," Vil promised.
"Good. Well, I wish you luck. Don't cause trouble Grim," Y/n said as they left the dance room.
"W-where are you going?" Vil asked, but was ignored.
Practice went well, all the way to sunset, But Vil began to rear his head. As his ugly tendency surfaced.
" I… I don’t want to do it…" Epel stuttered.
"Pardon? “Meandering and girly? Are you sleep-talking, my dear? Well, even then I still will not tolerate such brashness," Vil scoffed as he grabbed and yanked harshly on Epel's ear. "Let me explain. This “meandering” dance trains the inner muscles so that our movements look clean and beautiful. Clothes and dancing should not be categorized into “girly” or “manly.” You are absolutely being close-minded if you think you shouldn’t do “girly” dances just because you’re a boy."
Suddenly Vil yelped in pain as a strong pair of fingers grabbed his ear. He was pulled down to Y/n's level by his ear as Y/n began to talk directly into it.
"And You should know that Boy or Girl, you have no right to place your hands on another individual. Or have you thrown out common human decency?" Y/n asked. "Since we're on the trend of pointing out flaws, I have many of yours to point out."
"Like how you drag unwilling people into your goals. Aren't you ashamed of forcing your dreams onto Epel? What are you incapable of reaching your goals on your own, and need someone else to succeed for you?"
__________________________________________
Y/n called the first day of training to a close. Vil wasn't feeling too chatty after that earful with Y/n.
Y/n sensing that Vil had enough, they left the group alone Till everyone went to bed. Kalim was surprised to See y/n outside. They gave Kalim a small pep talk and sent him back to bed.
Since Y/n death Didn't need sleep, they continued to do work. Like Removing Vil's curse on the baked goods Trey made. Before anyone could get hurt, reaping unfortunate souls, and Catching fish for Grim to eat.
Vil was not happy when he caught Ace and Deuce eating sweets, but was infuriated to learn that Y/n removed his curse. And Y/n would continue to be a thorn in Vil's side.
But sadly Vil's tune didn't change over the few days. And Eventually, it Got to the group. Epel quits, Deuce with a massive loss of confidence, and Ace becomes more of a jerk.
________________________________________
" Well only after a few days, you're out of a team. Seems like you are well on your way to losing after all," Y/n laughed.
"Those potatoes didn't have what it takes," Vil glared.
"Oh, just like you don't have what it takes to beat Neige?" Y/n asked with a knowing and cruel smile.
"Gaining what you want by means of pure effort is a thing of dreams," Vil muttered to himself. "And I do have what it takes, I will be the fairest of them all."
"Will you, or are just repeating words of people telling you are beautiful?" Y/n asked. " find something else to do with your time. Like becoming a better teacher or instructor."
"Do you just enjoy insulting me?" Vil glared.
"I just act how you act when you do when you are around people you think are beneath you. Time 5 of course,' Y/n said. " And yes, I do find it amusing how fail to be an influencer. Like how you fail to influence Epel into seeing the benefits of being pretty. You just Sqwaked and screeched at him the whole time."
"Then what would you do?" Vil scoffed, as he nervesly watched Y/n polish their blades.
_________________________________________
Y/n recommended trying to appeal to Epel, like helping his family with their business. This helped ease things over with Epel, and Vil was a bit nicer. And soon 2 months were a breeze.
Things were looking up for the group and Vil, spirits were high, and confidence was through the roof. Til Vil got cold feet after seeing Neige's performance. And the story of the evil queen replayed once again.
---------------------------------------------------
"Where am I?" Vil wondered as walked in the darkness.
As he did he found a backstage vanity, the lights were bright and the station was pristine. There was a book on the table, it was about Him. He read through the script-like text, and memories began to surface. And it was strange seeing it from a new perspective.
"Ah, your here Mr.Vil. Are you ready for your makeup session?" Asked a voice.
Vil turned in his seat to see Y/n dressed like a makeup artist. The boy nodded slowly as Y/n began to recline his chair.
"So what do you think of the script. Do you like the Vil Shoenheit character?" Y/n asked as they began to soak Vil's hair with warm water.
"I just wanted to stand on the stage till the very end," Was all he could say.
"Everyone one does, and you just wanted more then what you got," Y/n agreed as they began to shampoo his hair. " You didn't want to be seen as the Villain any more."
"Exactly, but no matter how much I try and Improve... I don't want to be just that, that villain character. I'm sure the Queen of beauty would look upon me with disappointment," Vil sighed.
"The queen of beauty wouldn't give a flying feather about your struggles. If she were in your passion, she would have killed Neige back in high school. And eat his heart, thinking she would gain his beauty," Y/n said as they rinsed Vil's hair.
"Do not mock the Queen of beauty, and how could you possibly know who she was?" Vil spat as Y/n conditioned his hair.
"I know you very well, I wrote the script in your book," Y/n answered.
"Y-you did. How did you know such personal details about me? Who are you Y/n?" Vil asked slowly.
"I am always near, but never quite here, I am feared by most, yet always appear. I take life from the living, with one final breath. Who am I?" Y/n asked as they rinsed and dried his hair.
Vil looked back at the mirror, but instead of seeing a style artist. There stood a black-robed figure with two razor-sharp scythes.
"Y-your Death. So... You were there during The queens time?" Vil asked as Y/n brushed his hair.
Flashes of Y/n's memories of the Evil queen appeared in the vanity mirror. Showing the queen's true color. Vil slumped into his chair as his idol, everything he knew of her... Was a lie.
"If you were to ask me, you outshine the queen far more than snow white," Y/n said as he turned his chair to face them, applying the makeup. "The queen never cared about improving her own beauty. She simply would not allow more beautiful people to live. You on the other hand worked har to improve your beauty."
"You really mean that?" Vil asked as he looked back at his book, only to see a wanted poster on top of it.
"Yes, straight from death's lips. You are everything, you thought the queen embodied. Sadly you would have never known that, because you really on strangers to inform your worth. When only you can truly know what your value is," Y/n said as they finished their work and turned Vil around to face the Vanity.
"Vil? Who is the fairest of them all?" Death asked.
As he looked in the mirror, images of his life achievements flashed in the vanity. Vil smiled as turned to face Death.
"I am the fairest," Vil said.
"Are you sure?" Death asked as they bored into Vil's eyes.
Vil stood from his chair and stood face to face with Death. " Yes, I'm very certain."
"Good," Y/n smiled as they stepped aside. "Well, you better hurry. You're going Live in 30 seconds. Your public awaits."
Vil looked ahead to see the stage doors open, as a blinding light showed through. With confidence, he stepped back into the living.
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jupitercomet · 6 months
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The Grow Apart
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summary - Jake broke your heart when he left you behind. All that remained of him were the memories of when you were in love—and the phone number he never picks up. Now he's back, ready to claim his title. And you think that that's all he wants, that he's completely forgotten about everything you were together, until he tries to fight for you too. But, this time, will you finally be worth more to him than the glory?
warnings - DARK THEMES, boxer au, violence, language, mentions of drinking, mentions of suggestive themes, my limited knowledge of boxing, no use of y/n, Jake is 6'5" because I said so, I recommend that you read the orange butterfly before this chapter
this blog is 18+, minors please do not interact
word count - 4.4k
one new voicemail masterlist
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You’d never been the most tech savvy person, you know that.
You understand the basic functions of your laptop and definitely aren’t hopeless. No one would ever call you technology deficient. But your knowledge ends with the essentials. 
So when you overheard one of your coworker’s talking about the way she learned to delete her voicemails, you didn’t exactly question it.
“You just have to press *67 as soon as you’re finished and it’ll delete it. It’ll make it look like you never called.”
It didn’t seem like vital information at the time, but nights later, as you were sitting on your couch slightly drunk, watching The Fox and the Hound, it suddenly became much more useful. Unable to stop yourself, you called Jake that night, leaving a brief and somewhat tearful voicemail before typing out *67 and hanging up.
Admittedly, you were a little weary of your coworker’s tip—maybe you’d watched too many TV episode plots that revolved around tracking down someone to delete a voicemail off their phone. But you woke up the next morning with no questioning text from Jake. When a week had gone by and he still hadn’t reached out, you testingly left another voicemail.
You don’t entirely know when they became such an integral part of your daily routine, almost a voice diary you found yourself using on every walk home after work. But it became a comfort, a way for you to talk through your grievances with someone you used to think cared about them. It got so lonely in San Diego, it was nice to have someone to talk to.
You could talk about whatever you needed to and then delete it, without ever having to worry about Jake answering his phone either. Back when you were still dating, you learned that Jake had two phones—only keeping his older one in case people too far back in his past to have his new number ever tried to reach him. In the entire year you’d been together, no one but a telemarketer had called it and it stayed untouched in a drawer.
So you could cling to the first man you’d ever loved, like you wanted, and Jake could forget you ever existed, like he wanted. It was a win win.
“Hi, Jake. It’s me again— I feel like I don’t have to keep introducing myself, sorry. Today was pretty good. I got a lot of tips, so I think I’m finally gonna get new shoes. Even customers started noticing, it was really embarrassing. 
I see my therapist tomorrow. She wants to talk about you, which I’m kinda nervous for, but it’ll probably be good for me. She’s been really helpful actually and she’s really nice when we work though stuff… I don’t know, I like to think you’d be proud of me for that.
I’m pretty sure it’s, like, 8:30 in Texas, so you’re probably at the gym right now. Unless you’re not— Sorry, I shouldn’t assume. But, um, what else?
Oh! I saw a dog that looked like Harley today. It was walking past the window at the diner with a cute bandana and I got a little excited... I miss him. I miss—
Anyway, I’m rambling so I’ll probably hang up now, but, um, I hope you had a good day. Bye, Jake.”
Jake’s fingers tighten around his phone, his knuckles white as your voice cuts off in his headphones. He has to force himself to loosen his grip on his phone out of fear of breaking it, the old iPhone 6 was hardly durable as it is. Jake squeezes his eyes shut.
He can still hear you in his head, your quiet voice, your soft breaths. He hates it. When he goes home, he’ll screen record your message so he can keep his voicemail box empty for you.
In truth, Jake had discovered your voicemails entirely by accident. Moving back to Texas eradicated his need for his second phone since he was now close enough that any friend or family who didn’t have his new number could probably just walk to his condo if they needed something. He’d completely forgotten about the phone for months until Javy’s sister said she was looking for an older phone to give to her son as he started 8th grade.
It took him hours to find, but when he did, the last thing he was expecting was notifications for no less than 10 missed calls and voicemails. Jake was even more surprised when he realized they were all from you. He listened to every one of them, as you talked through the highlights of your day. And the lowlights. For a moment, Jake could almost pretend you were still together.
But you weren’t talking to him—you were talking to the idea of him. Because that’s all you had. That’s all he left you. 
Jake must have stayed up all night playing your voicemails over and over again.
The logical part of him, the part he usually listened to, told him to forget about it. He should just put the phone back where he found it, and let you reach the voicemail limit, and never think about it again. The logical part of him told him that clearly even you didn’t want him to listen to them and why would he want to listen to him anyway? Jake Seresin doesn’t get hung up on his ex.
And Jake suddenly carrying his old phone everywhere with him and recording every voicemail so he could still listen to them while keeping his mailbox empty was Jake not being hung up on you.
He’s allowed to still think about you, to still care about you. And that didn’t mean he regretted breaking up with you. Just because he always felt lonely, and started letting Harley sleep on the bed with him which he had never allowed before, and found himself wanting to pick up your call if only just to hear your voice in real time, didn’t mean he regretted it. It didn’t mean he thought it was the stupidest decision he ever made. And it wasn’t the reason he was so ready to move back to California.
“Dude.” Javy’s voice breaks him from his reverie, and Jake turns to see his best friend giving him an unimpressed look. “You’re the one who said you wanted to go to the gym tonight.”
Jake tries to shake you from his head, sliding his old iPhone 6 discreetly into his gym bag. “Sorry. I was changing my music.”
He knows Javy doesn’t believe him, the other man just crossing his arms without a word. He has that look on his face, the one Jake sees quite frequently now, the look of wanting to step in but being hesitant to push him. Jake hates that look more than your voicemails. 
“Dude… If you wanna talk about something—”
Jake rolls his eyes with a scoff.
“Don’t do that,” Javy points an accusing finger at him. “You’re doing that thing you do where you get mad at people for caring about you.”
“To get mad at you would require caring in the first place,” Jake walks away from his bag with a snippy tone.
Because Jake doesn’t care.
“I don’t know, I’d like to think you’d be proud of me for that.”
Jake doesn’t care that he is proud of you. He doesn’t care that it feels like a knife through the heart every time he realizes that he is now something you have to work through, that the pain he caused you is something you have to learn to let go of.
“I miss him. I miss—”
Jake doesn’t care that you miss him. It doesn’t rip him apart that maybe you don’t. It’s not like he has dreams where he’s with you, where he’s telling you that he’s sorry and that he loves you. He doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat, shaky fingers swiping through his phone before he plays one of your voicemails because your voice is the only thing that calms him down. He doesn’t do any of that because doing that would require him caring. 
And Jake doesn’t care.
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“Hey, Harley.” You give the dog a scratch behind his ears as he greets you excitedly, stubby tail thumping against your legs.
Harley prances after you as you walk further into the house, hanging up your jacket and dropping your purse on a chair like shedding those items will be enough to shake off the day. It’s not, you still feel drained, and you hope that Jake’s up for something from Charlotte’s tonight.
“Angel? That you?” 
Jake’s voice drifts from the living room and you start heading in that direction. You’re mildly surprised he’s home at all, he spends most of his time at Maverick’s and you usually don’t see him until much later in the night. But it’s only 6:30 and he’s looking through his laptop as he sits on the couch.
“Sorry,” you move to sit next to him on the couch, the cushion in the middle feels like feet between you but you’re not quite courageous enough to move any closer. “I didn’t know you were home. I thought you’d be back later.”
Jake nods offhandedly, continuing to scroll through whatever is on his laptop. You hardly take offense to it, though no one would guess Jake is weirdly responsible and it’s a very real possibility he’s filing away things for your taxes or something. Instead, you pull out your phone, reveling in the quiet for a moment.
Though working at Knockouts paid the bills, it was by no means your dream job. It was loud and customers could be cruel and almost all your coworkers were looking for other work—or, at the very least, didn’t plan to stay there forever. Jake promised you that once his boxing career took off, you wouldn’t have to work there anymore. You could go back to school, and get your masters in English like you always wanted to.
That hasn’t happened yet though. And you can tell it frustrates Jake every time you come to his house exhausted or on the verge of tears that he’s still waiting for some big break to be able to provide for you. But you always try to assure him that it isn’t his job, that eventually he’ll find his footing and everything will be okay. You’ve gotten better at hiding the bad days from him.
In fairness, it seems like he has too. These past couple days he’s been scarce—more than usual—this is the first time in a long time that he’s been home before you’ve fallen asleep. You know he’s taking things more seriously at the gym, training more, winning more. He’s also going out partying with Javy a lot more too, it only stings a little that he doesn’t invite you. 
It’s not like he hasn’t always been doing this, but something about this time around feels different. Like, this time, he knows something that you don’t. 
“I think we should break up.”
Your phone falls from your hand and into your lap. “What?”
“I think we should break up,” Jake repeats, reaffirming that his words weren’t something you’d misheard. That they weren’t some nightmare you’re having while awake.
“I… I don’t— Why?” You swallow thickly, your chest feeling heavy as you try to understand what feels like a blindside on Jake’s part. 
Jake sighs, looking up from his laptop. “Mav told me there’s a guy back in Texas that’s looking for fighters. The fighting scene isn’t as competitive there. This would be my shot.”
“You think we should break up because you want to move back to Texas?”
You don’t understand how Jake can be so nonchalant about this. Maybe he thinks you wouldn’t want to go with him? But you would. You would go with him. You weren’t loyal to San Diego. Hell, you weren’t even loyal to California. It would take you a bit of time of course, you’d have to put in your two week notice and figure out how to sell your apartment—
“It’s huge for me, you know?” Though he sounds excited, he’s looking at you with an unreadable expression. “And we really aren’t serious enough for long distance to make sense—”
Oh.
There was a part of you that was always a little wary of Jake. Of the guy you met at a bar, who called you “angel” before he called you your name. And maybe this was why. Because guys like that didn’t do serious relationships. But Jake had been loyal and yours for so long that you thought that, maybe, it was okay. Maybe it was okay to trust him. All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.
You clear your throat, biting down on your lip harshly. “Right, um, that makes sense…”
There’s a flash of something in Jake’s eyes—maybe hurt—but it’s gone before you can know for sure. “I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and I just think it makes the most sense.” He laughs suddenly, but you can’t seem to find the joy in it like you used to. “It’s not like you were planning to spend the rest of your life with some underground boxer.”
You were, but it feels childish to admit now. Like Jake was just some fantasy and you’ve reached the end to find no happily ever after. You swallow thickly.
“I mean, this is a really big opportunity for you.” You’re grateful Harley is playing in the backyard, because he’d have certainly called you out on your clear distress if he were here. “So, you should do what you think is best.”
It’s silent for a moment as Jake stares at you, and you wish he would just say something. Because you don’t know what he’s thinking and you don’t know what he wants you to say. You’ll say it, whatever it is. You don’t know what he wants from you. 
Jake wets his lips. “And we— I mean… We can still be friends.”
You knew what that meant. He’d never talk to you again. You’d no longer be there for him when he just didn’t want to be alone. You’d no longer be the first person he thought of when he caught a trailer for a new movie that looked good. You wouldn’t speak to him for years and years and then suddenly, out of the blue, you’d get a pity invite to his wedding to some Russian super model and all he’d introduce you as is someone he knew from college. Because that’s the kind of “friends” exes became.
“Right,” you force a smile. This time, not even Jake could make you believe him. “I’m— I’m okay with that.”
It wasn’t until months later, when you were wine drunk watching The Fox and the Hound, that you finally admitted it out loud. “Hey, Jake. I, um, I lied. When I said I was okay with you leaving, I lied. I’m not okay. I’m really, really not okay…”
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The soft scent of floral notes fill your lungs as light mist lands on your skin. You take a deep breath, looking up at the fluttering butterflies moving in the air above you. It calms you, how silent butterflies are, like they’re the only creatures that don’t intrude on your space. Silent, and soft, and beautiful.
Dr. Elsher’s words ring in your head as you walk your feet through the familiar turns of the butterfly pavilion. The two of you had been talking about Jake for the last couple sessions, working through what he meant to you and what he made you feel about yourself. It was painful, you won’t pretend that it wasn’t, but it helped. You’d even stopped leaving Jake voicemails every day. 
It wasn’t a lot, you know that. But it was something. It wasn’t that you stopped loving Jake, or missing him, or wanting him, you just didn’t need him. You could live without him. Because you had other things—or, at least, you’re working on that. For now, you have butterflies.
For a moment, you think about leaving Jake a voicemail, but you shake it off. Not today. Today is about you and your happiness and the fact that you can live without Jake.
“And that’s important,” Dr. Elsher gives you a knowing look. “That you look at it as living. Up until now, you’ve been surviving. I want you to know that you can live whether or not you have Jake, or your parents, or anyone else.”
A blue butterfly flies in front of you and your shoes stop on the concrete to watch it for a moment. It lands on a peony growing near you, its wings spread to show off their iridescent shimmer. Your fingers brush against the edge of your phone case in your back pocket, but you stop yourself. Though you can’t explain it, you decide not to take a picture of the butterfly. Instead you just watch it until it flies away.
The bench you always sit at is just behind the flower bush in front of you and your shoes start moving against the concrete again. Dr. Elsher had recommended you try journaling for a bit and you figured this would be the nicest place to do it—sitting at your bench, in the quiet, surrounded by butterflies.
Your breath feels like it was ripped from your lungs when you finally move past the flower bush.
“Jake?”
The blond’s head turns at the sound of your voice, confirming his identity. He looks equally as shocked and he hops up from the bench quickly. “Hey…” He swallows.
You stare at him. He’s bigger now, muscles more toned and firm. He looks taller, if that were even possible, and you have to crane your neck a bit just to look at him. He’s still Jake though. He’s just a bigger Jake with slightly longer hair and… softer eyes. He’s Jake all the same.
“You’re, um, you’re back,” your voice is small and you wet your lips out of habit. “I thought you were in Texas.”
Jake scratches the back of his neck with an awkward chuckle. So unlike the Jake you know, he seems nervous and for a fleeting second panic fills you. Has he been getting your voicemails? “Yeah, I just moved back. It’s— It’s nice to see you though. It’s been a while, huh?”
A year and a half. That’s how long it’s been. One year, six months, and eleven days.
“Yeah.”
When you say nothing more, Jake clears his throat. “Well, I should go. I mean, I know this is your spot and— I was just—” He stops himself, his expression morphing into one that almost looks like he’s disappointed in himself. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you around.”
With a strained smile, Jake brushes past you, heading towards the exit as he runs a hand through his hair. He seems anxious, fidgeting with himself as he leaves. You can’t stop staring at him.
Jake doesn’t spare you another glance before he’s gone.
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Jake feels like he’s going to get a headache from how loud the music is, the flashing lights making his eyes squint. California feels different compared to Texas, but not by much. Alcohol is still alcohol after all. 
Not that Jake’s having that good of a time due to that fact. The amount of bodies packed into this club has him more irritated than anything and even the alarming amount of shots he’s been taking doesn’t seem to help. He’s just annoyed. Javy’s been pushing him in the gym, critiquing every mistake and making him practice punch combinations again, and again, and again. And there’s no reason for it either because, while Jake thought he was just competing with Rooster for good fights, he came to learn that some other up-and-comer has carved out his place in Mav’s lineup and now Jake has to sit back and watch the Grim Reaper take fights that should’ve been his.
It feels like the beginning of his career all over again, except this time he knows he deserves better fights. He’s stronger now, he knows how to put on a show, and if he just stayed in Texas he could be fighting whoever he wanted. If he just stayed in Texas a lot of things would be simpler.
Throwing back one final shot, Jake gets up. At this point, he might as well stop moping around and do something that’s actually going to make him feel better. There’s a buzz in his head that has the ability to take his mind off things if he focuses on it and what looks to be a bachelorette party has just made its way to the dance floor. Despite how in his own head he’s been, he isn’t stupid enough to remain oblivious to the redhead that’s been eyeing him since she got here.
With confident strides, he makes his way over to where she’s dancing with a few friends, gaze locked on the carefree swaying of her hips. She moves to make another glance at him, but she seems to have not realized that he’s already spotted her as her eyes widen slightly when she sees he’s coming closer. Whispering something quickly to her friends, she pulls herself away from the group.
Jake watches the way her chest rises and falls, taking in oxygen deeply with how much she’s been dancing. Sweat pools at the dips in her collarbones—something Jake can see because of her low cut top—making her skin look like it’s shimmering under the neon lights. She looks up at him through long, innocent lashes, biting her lip shyly.
Like it always is, the way he speaks to her is a blur. He says something to make her giggle and she steps closer to him under the guise of wanting to hear him better. She tells him her name and he forgets it and he pretends to be interested in what she’s doing in the city. One thing leads to another and then she’s grabbing his hand, leading him away with that same giggle, and then he’s pressing her against the wall in some dark hall before he inevitably takes her home like he always does.
Jake ignores the somewhat queasy feeling in his stomach, chalking it up to one too many shots, and lets his hands fall to her hips. Her head tilts up just slightly, an invitation to kiss her, and Jake can see the pink lip gloss that’s reflecting off her parted lips. 
The lights from the club travel over them occasionally, illuminating the scene enough for Jake to catch details about this woman, like the freckles peppering her shoulders and the glitter she’s smeared on her eyelids. But Jake never usually takes the time to notice these things, not when they truly and utterly don’t matter, he hardly ever gets with these women just to look at them.
When he finally dips down to kiss her, the lights pass over them again, right before her eyes can fully flutter closed. Jake jerks his head back.
“What?”
Jake knows the woman is looking at him in confusion, but he can’t bring himself to care. Instead he shoves his palms into his eyes, trying to erase the clear effects of alcohol he’s experiencing like he’s trying to wake up from a dream. Because this woman doesn’t have your eyes.
He sucks in a shaky breath, letting his hands fall. The lights pass over them again. The woman looks heavy with concern. But she has your eyes and your perfect nose and Jake feels like he’s going crazy because she’s not you.
She’s not you.
And he was going to kiss her.
Jake feels sick. He takes a step back from the woman, eyes darting all over the club as he tries to collect his thoughts. He knows that running into you had thrown him, he hadn’t been expecting to see you, not so soon and not when he still didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been expecting to be so grateful though, like seeing you suddenly made everything feel right again, like he didn’t know how much he needed it until it finally happened.
He saw you at the butterfly pavilion and had to stop his heart from skipping beats because he had never truly realized just how right he’d been when you were together. You are an angel. 
And Jake always thought poetry was stupid, but now he wishes he paid more attention when excitedly you spoke to him about your literature classes in college because no words seem sufficient to describe what it felt like to lay eyes on you again. Beautiful didn’t even hold a candle—ethereal maybe? He felt like a lovesick idiot.
And here he is trying to kiss another girl that isn’t you.
“Are you okay?” A delicate hand weighs down on his shoulder but it feels like it’s 1000 pounds.
Jake flinches away from the woman’s grip, only able to shake his head. The alcohol is catching up to him now, as is the realization that this entire time he’s been doing everything he can to forget you and he’s finally reached his limit. He can’t forget you because he doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to find women that only like the idea of him and who he only likes the idea of too. He only ever wanted them because he can’t have you.
“I have to go.” Jake says finally. He doesn’t want this. “I have to— I should go.”
He’s walking away before the woman can even say anything, shouldering his way past people to get out of the stuffy club. His ears are ringing and it feels like all he can see are flashes of you. Jake knows that he should go home, sleep off the alcohol and the memory of you so guarded at the butterfly pavilion. At the very least, he should call Javy so that he isn’t alone
Instead he stumbles his way to Mav’s with the plan to hit a punching bag until he physically can’t anymore.
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iwriteoccasionalli · 2 months
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Concepts for relationships I think would fit the Sans’. Pardon any typos.
Nightmare:
I feel he would more so be materialistic rather than physical.
Physical items are what is left behind once someone finally passes, it leaves behind their legacy for years maybe even centuries give or take.
While the emotions and actions of someone can leave huge impacts later on, they are destined to be forgotten. A fading memory no matter what they’ve done. Eventually everyone will forget you. Eventually there will be less and less people to trickle down your story to generations to come.
Material possessions leave your mark on the world, it ensures that people will know that you lived, that you breathed, that you loved. Even if not by name.
Even if Nightmare wouldn’t be a good partner mentally or physically, I feel if he truly cared for someone he would showcase it in gifts. There is virtually next to no emotional or physical availability, he’s busy all the time. He has no time to spare.
Even so I believe he would try, if only to ensure that you will not be forgotten.
That his love for you will not be forgotten
Dream:
Dream is the exact opposite however.
Unlike Nightmare, Dream has a less strained relationship with those he does love.
He prefers to keep them close. He values time over the lasting impression left.
You don’t even have to accept any confessions. He might not even make you aware with it out of his own nervousness of rejection. He will love you regardless.
He is far more appreciative of time that he is able to have with you. He knows that lives can not last forever like him, he wants whoever he does love to know how much he appreciates them no matter how much time they have.
He also hopes that no matter what happens after death that if you were to ever look back on your memories. That maybe, just maybe, you would only have fond memories to think about from your life lived.
Ink:
I cannot see him thriving in a romantic relationship.
He might think it would be something interesting to try, when he was unsure of his emotions that is.
Not to say he wouldn’t try to keep up a loving and fulfilling relationship with someone, it just feels as if it would be forced. He will try and get gifts, spend nights together, etc. he may even seem to be someone who is entirely committed to a relationship. Of course he has his faults with his flighty memory, as well as his… eccentric personality. But overall a very caring and “loving” relationship.
But he just can’t.
He has seen so many examples of what love truly is, that whenever he does try to showcase such things it comes across as entirely false. Or at the very least that is how it would feel to him.
Not to say he doesn’t LOVE people, he loves his friends very dearly and will act as such. But he can never truly fall in love in the way you wish him to.
Time to go back into hibernation
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