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starberryes · 2 years

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don't you (forget about me) | steve harrington x reader

“Oh, great, she’s here,” Steve says, stepping away from the door. "First of all, Harrington," You scoff, glaring at that mop of hair with all the rage you can muster. "I have a name. Second of all, we are talking here—” Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever—" "You did not just roll your eyes at me—” Dustin sighs. "Here they go." (or: You've always thought Steve Harrington was a weirdo. When you find out you might be in terrible danger, he might be just what you need.)

pairing: steve harrington x fem!henderson!reader (she/her pronouns used), lots of henderson siblings bonding <3

words: 13.9k

a/n: gif by @dailysteveharrington. thank you all for being patient and i hope you all like it<3 i loved this season and i love steve so i hope you enjoy this lil enemies to lovers fic. this fic is a one shot, but let me know if you'd like a sequel once vol 2 is out bc its a bit of an open, ambiguous ending ;) also some fun facts before this fic starts: dustin's dad appears at will's funeral in s1 and there are several theories about him-- officially, he and dustin's mother are divorced in canon. i'll explore that in this fic. ST4 SPOILERS. this is set in season 4 ep 3 "the monster and the superhero" and follows vol 1 canon also sorry if this doesnt follow canon pretty well i mostly did it from memory cause the wiki still isnt fully updated 💀

disclaimer: this fic discusses the topic of an absent parent, please proceed with caution if this is hurtful to you. also warning for canon typical violence and cursing. english is not my first language so please let me know if there are any mistakes.

📼 NOW PLAYING: Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Mind

Your mother had always been slightly overbearing and fearful, but the murder of Chrissy Cunnigham you think might actually kill her. Or at least will force her to lock you in your bedroom and flush the key down the toilet.

“You can’t go anywhere without telling me,” your mother tells you over breakfast, worriedly overcooking her bacon. “You hear me? I don’t want you running around town without me knowing. Or better yet, don’t go anywhere at all!”

You glare at Dustin’s chair, where your brother is munching on toast and eggs, hoping your mother takes the hint. She does, and so she shakes her head and says, “Dustin’s different.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Maybe this killer has a thing for pretty girls,” your mother shakes her head, shivering. “Chrissy Cunningham was such a nice and pretty girl, right your age.”

“You don’t know what that killer was thinking!” You groan. “Why can Dustin leave but I can’t?!”

“Dustin’s not an eighteen year old girl with an easily breakable neck.”

“He’s easier to man-handle!”

Dustin frowns, finally looking up from his breakfast. “I’m not!”

”Besides, do you even know where he was last night?” You ignore your brother’s protests, choosing to point at him as he scoffs in offense. “I bet you don’t, because he’s always sneaking out!”

“I’m not always sneaking out!”

“I try my best with you, Dusty,” she sighs, finally sitting down. “But your sister is right, you’re difficult to keep track of. You’re always running around, like those little legs have minds of their own.” She points the spoon she was using for her coffee at your face. “Don’t you throw that in my face, (Y/N).”

“Mom, you’re right,” you nod, sipping your orange juice, trying to appeal to her soft spot. “He is difficult to keep track off, and there’s a dangerous killer on the loose. How about I keep track of him? Make sure he’s not getting into any trouble, hm? I’ll make sure we’re always safe, together.”

Of course, you were planning on bolting as soon as you were out of your mom’s sight. You mom’s cat Tews meows somewhere across the room, as if he knows not to trust you. That damned furball.

“What the fuck? No!”

“Dusty! Language.”

“Mom,” Dustin says, exasperated. “I don’t need a babysitter. Much less a babysitter that’s also my annoying older sister.”

“No, you have Steve Harrington for that,” you mutter under your breath, and Dustin manages to kick you under the table. You glare at your little brother, then turn to address your mom once again. “I promise we’ll stay together. I know— no, I understand that it’s scary out there right now, but I can take care of myself. And Dustin. You have to trust me.”

“I trust you. It’s the murderer I don’t trust.”

“Mom—”

“Let me finish,” she stares pointedly at you, and you promptly shut up. “I don’t want you two sneaking out. But, it’ll make me feel better if the both of you are together.”

Dustin covers his face with his hands. “Shit.”

“Yes!” You squeal. You stick out your tongue at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Guess you’re stuck with me, Dusty.”

“Screw you.”

“Dusty, it’ll be fun. (Y/N), don’t taunt your little brother,” your mom scolds both of you into silence. “It’ll be like old times, won’t it? Aw, you two used to be thick as thieves back then.”

Dustin sighs, picking at his toast absent-mindedly. “Was there a murderer on the loose back then too?”

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

After breakfast, you give Dustin a ride until you arrive in a neighborhood that is most definitely not Lucas Sinclair’s like he told you it would be. You turn to stare at your brother before you unlock the car’s door, confused.

“Where are we?”

Dustin looks at your shoes. “I told you. Lucas’s.”

“Okay, you might lie to me whenever you want, just not to my actual face, Dustin.” You roll your eyes, and he mirrors you. “Seriously, why did you make me come all the way down here?”

“Why do you care?”

“I know we’re doing this to get mom off our backs, but there is actually a killer on the loose,” you say. “So, excuse me if I’m also a little wary about dropping you off at unknown locations, or whatever.”

“Fine,” Dustin sighs. “I’m here to see Max and Steve.”

“Steve?”

“Harrington.”

You blink at him. “Fucking Steve Harrington?”

“See?” Dustin rolls his eyes again. “This is why I didn’t tell you! You are extremely uncool about Steve, you know.”

“I’m not!” You try not to dwell about how defensive you sound even to yourself. “I’m extremely cool about him. I’m extremely cool about the fact you hang out with that douchebag with stupid hair.”

“He’s not a douchebag! I don’t get why you hate him so much.”

Because you remember him and his friends making fun of you all throughout High School, his sneering and stupid stares. Like your brother, you’d never fit in— you never liked going to parties or drinking and you never made an effort to be liked by him and his group of popular dorks, instead you spent most of your days in the library, reading, hiding from Steve and his friends. Whatever honorable things Dustin saw in Steve Harrington you think he might have imagined them.

Now, in your last year of High School and with Steve becoming a social pariah, you don’t have to hide the fact that you still dislike Steve as much as you did back when he was still King Steve. Steve, for however much Dustin insists that he’s changed, upon first meeting you had tried to sweet talk you as if he didn’t know who you were. And you had barely kept it together enough to tell him to fuck off. Ever since then, you and Steve Harrington had hated each other’s guts. Your mutual dislike of each other is not lost on Dustin, who continues to mostly ignore it and tiptoe around it as best as he can.

“He’s not not a douchebag,” You murmur. “Why is he hanging out with two fourteen year olds during spring break? Isn’t the barf bag, like, supposed to be in college, going to frat parties, having a life of his own?”

Dustin doesn’t appreciate the way you talk about him, clearly, but he still replies, albeit unhappily. “He’s helping me with something.”

“With what?”

Before Dustin can respond, someone knocks on Dustin’s window. You jump, surprised, but it’s just Steve and Dustin’s friend redhead Max, looking bored and impatient. You groan and reach over Dustin’s seat to roll the window down.

“Do you mind?” You say to Steve. “We’re talking.”

“Oh, great, she’s here,” Steve says, stepping away from the door.

"First of all, Harrington," You scoff, glaring at that mop of hair with all the rage you can muster. You ignore Dustin’s groan. "I have a name. Second of all, we are talking here—”

Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever—"

"You did not just roll your eyes at me—”

Dustin sighs. "Here they go."

“I did not roll my eyes—”

“You absolutely did!”

“There was something in my eyes.”

“That something was lies!”

“Jesus fuck,” Steve finally throws his arms up in exasperation and turns to your brother, ignoring your insults. “You done talking to your lovely sister there, Henderson? We got a counselor to see.”

“What?” You frown at Dustin, irritation immediately melting into concern. “What’s he talking about?”

“Steve, shut your mouth,” Dustin glares at Steve, who shrugs and finally steps away from the car. “Nothing, (Y/N), seriously. See you later?”

“No.” You shake your head. “What does he mean a counselor? Are you seeing Ms Kelly?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I promise. It’s—” he looks like he’s scrambling to think of an excuse, then his eyes land on Max. Something flashes across her face and she speaks next.

“It’s for me.” she says, “Chrissy died in my neighborhood.”

“She’s kind of freaking out,” Dustin says, and when you finally turn to look at Max you realize how tense she is, her shoulders square, with her lips forming a straight line.

“Oh. That sucks. Hey, Max.”

“Hey,” she greets, awkwardly. It’s part of her charm, you think.

“See?” Dustin asks. “Can I go now?”

You nod, a little shaken up for some reason. Maybe Chrissy’s murder still made you feel slightly ill, and the mention of it made you feel even worse. You couldn’t imagine what Max might be going through. It didn’t help that they had found another body this morning, either.

“Ye— yeah. Sorry. I hope everything’s alright, Max.”

“Yeah,” she nods.

Dustin nods to the door. “Can you unlock the car, then?”

You wordlessly comply, and as your little brother steps out of your mom’s blue Ford Cortina, you talk to Max once again. “Ms Kelly is great help. I’m sure she’ll make you feel better. She really helped me this year, you know, she’s a great listener.”

“Yeah, I know,” Max says. “I’ve been thinking about seeing her for a while, a—actually. I’ve heard she’s well… you know… fine, or whatever.”

“Hey, there’s no shame in that,” you shrug. “Lots of people go to see Ms Kelly… Actually, now that you mention it, Fred Benson, the guy they found this morning, was seeing Ms Kelly too. And Chrissy Cunningham.”

Dustin pauses before closing the car door. “What do you mean?”

You blink, slightly confused as to why you’d even bring it up. “I’ve seen them in Ms Kelly’s office before. I’m not sure why I’m even mentioning it, sorry.”

“No, no, (Y/N), that’s…” Dustin says, then doesn’t finish. “You’ve been seeing Ms Kelly too?”

“Yeah,” you nod, a little ashamed. You think about telling Dustin about everything that’s been going on, the nightmares, the guilt— but then you glance at his friends looking expectantly at him and cower. So you don’t continue.

It’s Steve who breaks the silence. “Henderson, chop chop, let’s go.”

“I’ll see you at home?” Dustin says, a little softer.

“Yeah, yeah. I was gonna go to Dinah’s near Ave Park, but do you think you’ll need a ride later?”

“Steve’s got his car,” he says. “Don’t wait up, okay?”

You nod, watching him leave.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

It’s around eight PM, and Dinah is painting her toenails as you skim through one of her books, the soft hum of the TV in the background, entering through the open bedroom door. Her parents are watching the news, the news anchors are urging people to stay home and to lock their doors to be safe of this new serial killer.

Dinah’s house is your usual hangout spot beside your own. You don’t have many other friends, and there’s only so many times you can force Dustin to watch The Breakfast Club before he’s fighting you for the remote.

“It was all Matty could talk about,” Dinah continues to rant. “I can’t stand this murder talk any longer! I can only hear about Chrissy Cunningham’s missing eyeballs so many times, (Y/N), it’s way too fucking gruesome, but it’s all everyone in this town seems to care about.”

“It’s a pretty pressing issue,” when Dinah glares, you shrug. “I’m just saying! You know I agree with you. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

“Chrissy was always so nice, wasn’t she?” Dinah shakes her head, putting her nail polish back in her nightstand, then wraps her arms around her legs, hugging herself. “And Fred had a future in front of him. It’s so unfair. They had a family that loved them.”

“Dinah, I really don’t wanna talk about it,” you say, feeling yourself shiver. You don’t want to think about poor Fred or Chrissy, or the families mourning them. You try to focus on the book in your hands, but the words start blurring together, becoming harder and harder to read.

You blink, confused, then realize Dinah is still talking.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it? I think about their dads too. Chrissy’s dad was crying so much at her wake. Do you think your dad would ever cry for you like that?”

You finally snap to look back at your friend. She’s staring at you like you’re small, like an insect she could stomp on. You’ve never seen her black eyes seem so soulless, so empty.

“Maybe they’ll be tears of joy, don’t you think? After all, weren’t you the one who made him walk away?” She tilts her head to the side, a sneer forming in her lips. “They could be a family without you.”

There’s something wrong in Dinah’s eyes. There’s something wrong about all of this, but you can’t point to what, where are you, when, why…what…?

When you blink, Dinah’s eyes look normal again.

“(Y/N),” She asks, frowning. “Are you there?”

You shake your head. What the fuck was all that?

“What?”

“You were staring at me like you weren’t all here,” she explains, grimacing. “Where did you go just now?”

“Sorry…” When you speak you feel a dull ache around your temple, and you lift a hand to rest against it, trying to soothe the pain aimlessly. “I think I need some painkillers or something, my head’s killing me.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” even before spring break you had confided in your friend about the headaches and the nightmares— you never told her why, but she at least knew you were seeing Ms Kelly.

Dinah stands up, careful not to stain the carpet with her fresh black nail polish. “I’ll ask my dad for some Tylenol. Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.”

Before Dinah is out the door she’s interrupted by the doorbell, which rings once, twice, three times and more. Dinah frowns, as her dad yells I’m coming, Jesus!

“Someone’s impatient…” you murmur, hand still resting on your temple.

“Hey,” Dinah, who has always had great hearing, says. “I think it’s your brother.”

You frown, and when Dinah’s father confirms it’s your brother by yelling out that It’s little Henderson!, you and Dinah head downstairs to find a heavy breathing Dustin, Max, Lucas and even Steve Harrington, looking as if they just ran a marathon.

Dustin’s eyes land on you. “(Y/N)!”

“Dustin?” you say, “What are you doing here? You need a ride ho—?”

Dustin runs to hug you by the waist, almost knocking the air out of you.

“Are you okay? Do you have a headache? Is your nose bleeding? Do you feel—?”

“Woah, Dustin,” you don’t know what to do with your hands— you and Dustin hadn’t hugged since he turned twelve and he and you both deemed it lame. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Dustin finally lets go of your waist to grab you by the face and inspect it properly. He roughly pulls your face down and tries to pull up your nose to look at your nostrils. “No nosebleed yet?”

Steve tries to stop him. “Dustin, buddy—”

Lucas adds a sustancial, “Dude.”

“Dustin!” you push his hands off your face, feeling your cheeks heat up when you notice everyone looking at you. “What the hell are you doing?”

Your brother opens his mouth to speak, but then seems to notice Dinah behind you and seems to think better of it. “We need to talk,” he says instead, “Like, right now.”

“Right now?” You ask. “I already told Dinah’s mom I’m staying for dinner. Dustin, what the hell is going on with you?”

Dinah clears her throat. “I’m… just gonna go get that Tylenol.”

“Tylenol?” Dustin asks when she walks away. “What for?”

“I have a headache.”

“Shit,” Max says, still by the door frame with Lucas and Steve.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dustin curses, deep in thought. “It’s already started.”

“What?” You ask as Dustin starts pacing back and forth.

“We need to find out how to stop this right fucking now,” Dustin starts pacing back and forth. “Think, everyone.”

“Maybe Robin and Nancy found something in the library,” Steve offers.

“Yeah,” Lucas nods. “C’mon, man. Let’s go find them.”

“Okay, yeah. Okay, okay.” Dustin calms himself down, manages to stop his pacing. “Let’s go wait for them at the Wheeler’s. (Y/N), let’s go.”

You throw your hands up in disbelief. “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

“(Y/N),” Dustin says, his voice unfaltering. Dustin is never serious about much, and this renders you speechless. “I need you to listen to me for once in your goddamn life, okay? We need to go. Now.”

“Okay, Jesus,” you say finally. “Dinah’s mom is making Lasagna so this better be worth it, Dustin.”

📼📼📼📼��📼📼📼📼

On the way to Nancy Wheeler’s house, you learn two things: One, Dustin knows where a serial killer might be hiding, and two, your brother thinks you’re cursed and are going to die in, give or take, twenty four hours.

You glare at Steve Harrington in the rearview mirror. “What the fuck have you been giving him?”

“I’m serious!” Dustin yells. “I knew you wouldn’t fucking believe me.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, because he looks genuinely frustrated, but a second dimension and a supervillain? Does your brother think you’re stupid? Just how many movies has he been watching? “I just think D&D might actually be getting to your head, Dustin. There’s no way what you just told me is real.”

“Lucas and Max know it’s real too!”

Both of them nod furiously.

“Are the other two fourteen year olds your only source?”

“Steve too!”

Steve winks at you through the rearview mirror.

“Even worse,” you say.

“Listen,” Lucas tries to reason when Dustin groans in frustration, cursing under his breath at you. “I know this sounds absolutely crazy, I wouldn’t believe it either. But I promise you it’s all true, and if we don’t do something soon about it you’ll end up like Chrissy and Fred.”

An involuntary chill runs down your spine every time you think about them.

“Guys,” you say, slowly, “I know things are scary right now, but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the murders besides a demon supervillain.”

“I didn’t believe it at first either,” Max shakes her head. “Not until I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Didn’t Ms Kelly’s file say the others who were cursed were also having hallucinations?” Steve asks the kids, looking for a place to park. “So, have you gotten any weird visions lately?”

Hallucinations? You think back, but can’t seem to pinpoint anything similar to that. Except tonight at Dinah’s place, before Dustin and the rest had rung the doorbell. Suddenly you grow a little paler, uncomfortable at the memory being brought back. That had been weird, but you were exhausted and knowing a serial killer, Eddie Munson, who apparently your brother knew, was out there still was making you restless.

“I wouldn’t really call them visions,” you murmur.

“Shit,” Dustin breathes, looking at you with wide eyes. “It’s spreading faster.”

“Listen, Dustin, I may be going through some shit lately, but I promise you I’m okay. I just need some painkillers for my head, seriously.”

“(Y/N)!” Your brother takes you by the shoulders and shakes you. “Your life is in imminent danger! You don’t need painkillers!”

“I do if you keep shaking me like a ragdoll!”

“Listen,” Lucas says, grabbing Dustin and prying him off you despite his protests. “Just stay with us tonight, okay? We’ll sleep at the Wheeler’s and it’ll make Dustin feel better, right? We’re all tired.”

“Dude—”

Lucas cuts Dustin off and whispers, “We’ll wait for what Nancy and Robin have to say and then figure out how to convince her later, yeah?”

Dustin sighs. “This was so much easier when El had her powers.”

“So yeah? You’ll stay the night?” Lucas asks, hopeful.

You see all three of the kids staring at you and cave in. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” You say, at the same time Steve parks right in front of the Wheeler residence. Before you can even step out of the car another car pulls over by the garage and Nancy Wheeler and another girl you don’t know step out of it.

“Nance, Robin!” Steve exclaims as he stops the car and steps out. “Had fun at the library? I sure didn’t.”

“It went well, I think—”

“We have a situation,” Dustin is quick to interrupt, reaching over your space and popping his head out from the open window. “It’s my sister. We think Vecna cursed her.”

“Whatever that means,” you mumble, getting out of the car, Dustin trailing behind you and slamming the door shut.

“She doesn’t believe us,” Max explains.

“Well, I personally would be more weirded out if she did,” The girl you don’t know shrugs a little. You recognize her now— she worked with Steve at Scoops Ahoy last summer before the fire at Starcourt, and now works at Family Video. You’ve spoken a bit with her before.

“She’s been having visions, headaches, nosebleeds,” Dustin continues, “like Fred and Chrissy were, according to Ms Kelly’s files. I think Vecna is preying on vulnerable people, people dealing with...” he looks at you for a second, then back at the girls, settling on saying: “Some shit.”

“We found some articles about Victor Creel at the library,” Nancy says, then motions at the house with her chin. “Let’s talk inside.”

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

Nancy and Robin turn out to be as crazy as the rest of them— they tell the story of Victor Creel, infamous in Hawkins for murdering his entire family, and about how he was supposedly possesed by the devil according to some conspiracy newspaper. They want to talk to Victor, but the problem is that he’s now a patient at Pennhurst Mental Hospital and completely unreachable to the public. They plan to go first thing in the morning and the rest of the group seems to agree.

“We’ll need a disguise,” is Nancy’s big plan.

You never quite get that Tylenol, because the strongest thing Ms Wheeler has is green tea. You think everyone’s lost their goddamned minds.

“So what do you want me to do while all of you plan?” You ask, sitting on the couch. Nancy and Robin leave to Nancy’s room. Max and Lucas are by the desk in the corner speaking softly, Dustin is pacing around the room impatiently as he usually does when he’s this restless, while Steve is sitting on the couch beside you, playing with Dustin’s (or is it Mike’s?) walkie-talkie. “Am I allowed to eat something? Because I’m starving.”

Dustin snatches the walkie-talkie from Steve’s hand. “You’re gonna break that.”

Dustin’s, then.

“We don’t know yet,” Lucas says, walking over to where you are, holding Max’s hand gently. “We’re hoping the girls find out something from Victor. In the meantime…”

“You can eat,” Steve concludes. “... Right?”

“Right,” Max nods.

“We have to do something soon,” Dustin’s the most anxious you’ve ever seen him, even before you took him to see The Empire Strikes Back. “We don’t know how much time you even have once the visions and all the hallucinations start. We said twenty four hours but we can’t be sure.”

“If it helps, they started today. At Dinah’s.”

“You snapped out of it, right?” When you nod, Steve shrugs. “Henderson, I think we have time to order some pizza, at least.”

“And a movie?” You ask, finally relaxing into the couch. You toss away your shoes and hug them to your chest. “Does Mike have The Breakfast Club somewhere around here?”

“Not that movie again,” Dustin groans.

You throw a pillow at your brother, who manages to dodge it easily. “It’s a great movie!”

“It lost its charm after the thirteen time you forced me to watch it with you.”

“The Breakfast Club?” Steve asks aloud. “(Y/N) Henderson is obsessed with The Breakfast Club? Is that why Dustin is always renting it at Family Video?”

Dustin huffs, offended. “Why else would I want to rent that stupid movie?”

“Molly Ringwald,” Steve answers, at the same time you yell out, “It’s not stupid!”

When Nancy comes downstairs she informs you that sadly no, she doesn’t have The Breakfast Club, but that she should. She does have the soundtrack, however, and you think about asking to borrow it tomorrow before she goes back upstairs to order a pizza.

A while later it’s almost midnight, everyone around you is tired, except maybe for Dustin, but the majority wins and you all decide getting some sleep is the best option. You agree, but know that you’re probably not getting any sleep tonight, either; you’ve been having nightmares every night for the past few days and you don’t believe today is going to be any different.

When the lights go off and everyone is already starting to doze off, Dustin is quick to turn his flashlight on.

“Dude! Turn that off!” Steve moans, launching a pillow straight into his face. Dustin doesn’t dodge this one this time, much to Robin and Steve’s satisfaction, who chuckle lightly.

“C’mon, Dustin, what the hell?” Lucas groans.

“Shut up! I’m trying to see if I can find something else in Ms Kelly’s files!”

“Dude,” Max sighs, “you’ve read them each four times already.”

“You won’t be able to find anything if you’re exhausted,” Nancy tries more softly. “Just try to sleep for a bit, okay?”

“Dustin, c’mon,” you reach for his hand— it’s a bit uncomfortable from your position on the couch and his on the floor, but you do it anyway. That seems to soothe him slightly, to see you still offering comfort, like you’re still yourself. He manages a weak nod, and he squeezes your hand slightly before turning the flashlight off.

After a few minutes, Dustin starts snoring loudly. Steve, who you’re unfortunately stuck sharing the couch with, chuckles.

“He’s a good kid,” he says.

“Yeah,” you can’t help but agree. You wouldn’t trade your dork brother for anything. “He’s great. When he was little, he used to wet his bed all time after watching scary movies with me, and he’d wake me up to change his sheets so my dad wouldn’t yell at him for ruining them.”

“Steve raises a silent eyebrow at you, sounding amused. “And you actually did that?”

“I forced him to watch them. I felt bad,” you smile at the memory. “He would offer to wash the dishes for me, though.”

“Your moral compass is stronger than mine,” he hums.

“You know, he…” you start, unsure if Dustin would be upset if you shared this, then decide it’s not as embarrassing as telling him he used to wet his bed, and continue, “he really admires you. God knows why, Harrington, but he worships the ground you walk on.”

“Henderson?” He asks, a little in disbelief. “I don’t know—”

“I’m serious, Harrington. He loves you,” You hoped you didn’t sound jealous. There had been a time where you thought Steve was almost a replacement for you as an older sibling, but as time went on you realized how important Steve was to him.

“Well. I’m pretty loveable.”

You roll your eyes. “Sure.”

“He’s pretty loveable, too,” Steve says after a few beats of silence, more softly now. “I don’t have any siblings, did you know that? So it’s… uhm, really cool to have him around. Even if he’s kind of a little shit sometimes.”

“Such a little shit,” you agree.

The rest of the group seems to be asleep already, or maybe they don’t care about the conversation enough to join you. Steve starts telling you about the time Dustin burrowed his hair gel and almost set fire to his bathroom, and you have to cover your mouth to stifle your giggles.

It’s not long before you start to feel abnormally cold, and can’t keep your body from trembling. Steve’s gentle voice is gone. The room is dark around you, and realizing that you must’ve fallen asleep while talking with Steve at some point, you hug yourself trying to seek some warmth. You try to grab a blanket from somewhere. Jesus, it’s spring for fuck’s sake, it shouldn’t be this cold. But you realize that despite the darkness you can see, and when you look up at the ceiling, you find a grandfather clock that most definitely doesn’t belong in the Wheeler’s basement.

“(Y/N).”

The voice calling your name is unfamiliar and it makes you feel ill almost immediately, like your stomach has turned into nothing but knots. You try to speak, to ask who it is, but nothing comes out, you can barely even breathe.

“Do you think you could ever keep living with this guilt?” The voice asks, somehow you feel as if the voice is right behind you, whispering into your ear. It’s like nails scraping against chalkboard in your eardrums. “Knowing what you did to your family?”

You want to turn around and find the voice, but you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. The clock is ticking, haunting you, calling for you. You want nothing but to run away from it, but you can’t move— you’re glued in place somehow, maybe in fear, you can’t tell. Everything is uncertain, except for the clock. The clock, you know, it’s real.

It’s counting down. You know what it’s trying to tell you. It’s coming for you and you can’t escape it. It’s only a matter of time now.

“Soon, (Y/N)...” It whispers. “Soon, I’ll come for you, and no one will be able to help you, (Y/N)... (Y/N). (Y/N)!”

You open your eyes with a gasp to find Steve’s arms around your shoulders, shaking you slightly. His eyes are wide, a little frightened. When you look around you find Lucas and Max draped all over a chair, their chests rising slowly, asleep. Dustin is in a sleeping bag on the floor, near Robin and Nancy, hugging each other tightly in their sleep. Steve is the only one awake.

“Shit,” you say, placing your hand in your heart. “Did I wake you?”

“We were talking and then you just went somewhere,” he says. “You don’t remember?”

You suddenly feel very cold. “I thought I was sleeping. I saw…” You think about telling Steve, but it seems pointless now, almost. What would you tell him? You saw a clock? “I think it was one of those hallucinations you guys keep talking about. You’re really freaking me the hell out, you know.”

“Fuck, I think Dustin’s right,” he says.

“About me being cursed by a being from another dimension? Are you kidding?”

Steve does manage to look apologetic. “I know it sounds bonkers, but that’s because it is. I’ve seen it.”

“What? This other dimension?” You were starting to think Dustin and his nanny were just trying to play an extremely elaborate joke on you.

“The Upside Down, but no,” he shakes his head, and then his eyes land somewhere around the room, focusing on one of Mike’s many posters. “The monsters.”

“Vecna?”

“Others,” he says, then murmurs, “Haven’t had the pleasure just yet.”

“The demoger…? What was it?”

“Demogorgon, yeah,” he grumbles. “The Mind flayer too. It’s all real. I wish Will and Eleven were here to actually explain this stuff; they are the ones who actually know their stuff about this.”

You have never seen Steve actually sound so… serious, before. It’s all actually starting to freak you out, you decide, and you aren’t sure if you actually want to find out if it’s all actually real or not. You stay silent for a few moments, sleep escaping you. You figure Steve’s fallen asleep until his voice startles you again.

“You okay there, Henderson?”

No, you want to say. You can’t shake the feeling that the voice is watching you, waiting to catch you by surprise. “Yeah,” you mumble, sleepless, scared.

Steve doesn’t seem to buy your answer however, because you feel his body shifting near your side of the couch, sitting right beside you. When you give him a look (he’s so close he can actually make it out) he clicks his tongue.

“See, I don’t really believe you, Henderson. So, I’m gonna stay near you, just in case you get another vision. Or if you want to hold my hand.”

“Screw you, Steve,” You glare, turning to the other side so that your view is Harrington-less. If you do feel better with him beside you, that’s between you and maybe Vecna, if he’s actually inside your head.

In the morning, when you wake up and Nancy and Robin are both gone (probably visiting a murderer in a mental hospital) and Steve is tangled up beside you, you decide you’ve had enough.

“So we’re just gonna wait around to see what happens?” Dustin argues, as Lucas and Max try to reason with him.

“What else can we do?” Lucas asks, frustrated.

“Literally anything else, dude! My sister might die!”

“Okay, Dustin, you need to stop and we need to go home, now,” you tell him, looking around the basement for your jacket.

“No!” he points at you. “You’re not going anywhere until we know what to do.”

“Dustin. I’m four years older than you,” you glare, placing your hands on your hips. “I’m the older sibling. I’ve entertained this enough already, but I left mom’s car at Dinah’s and we need to go get it and then get our asses home before mom loses her shit.”

“(Y/N)! Listen to me!”

“No, Dustin!” You finally snap, taking Dustin’s walkie-talkie from his hand and shoving it into your bag despite his protests. “I’ve had enough about monsters and other dimensions and whatever other nonsense Eddie Munson has been feeding you! We’re going home, now!”

“I can’t believe I’m actually trying to help you!” Dustin screams, “You suck!”

“Well, you’re stuck with me!”

“I wish I wasn’t,” he says, his eyes cold. “I wish you weren’t my sister.”

The chills return like a slap across your face, making you stumble backwards slightly. The room around you turns dark immediately, the only person left is Dustin in front of you. But it’s not him, it can’t be, his eyes have never looked this lifeless.

“You took his chance away, didn’t you?” The unfamiliar, bone chilling voice returns. “His chance of having a real family, or at least a father figure. He’s right in wishing you weren’t his sister. He deserves someone better.”

Again you want to scream, but it’s like your mouth is taped shut. Around you Mike Wheeler’s basement seems to fade away into blue, and suddenly you’re standing on your front porch, watching your dad walk away. You’re saying the hardness around your eyes, your lips drawn into a tight line. You don’t look like yourself; you look older, and tired, and disappointed, more like a woman than the girl you were when this happened, the girl you must’ve been.

“Don’t come back again,” you tell your father’s retreating form. But your voice is distorted, so far away.

“How many times has Dustin needed his father?” The voice asks. When you blink you’re somewhere else; not Mike’s basement, not your home. There’s splinters of wood scattered by your feet, like a house just destroyed. Everywhere around you is red, like blood, like the blood in those horror movies you forced Dustin to watch because he made them less scary when he squealed. “Are you proud you broke up your family?”

“I was a kid,” you manage to say, and only now you realize you’ve been crying all along, the salty tears wetting your dry lips. “I didn’t want Dustin to know what he did. I would take it back if I knew he wouldn’t actually come back.”

“But you did it anyway. You did.”

I did, I did, I did, you think, over and over. You close your eyes, hard, ignoring how it almost hurts.

“You miss him too, don’t you? Despite everything. You’re sadder about the fact that he left you, too. He left his daughter behind.”

“Who are you?” You hiss out, through your anguish.

“I’m part of you, (Y/N). Whether you want to or not.”

You’re not alone. When you open your eyes you see him — a monster, vicious even in looks, like someone slowly peeled away his skin, and all that was left of him was muscle and meat, not even blood. Vecna. Around you there are two different bloody columns, and you’re quick to notice they’re holding Chrissy and Fred’s bodies, like morbid museum displays, tokens. He was right, Dustin was telling the truth about everything, and now you were going to die because you didn’t listen to him.

“No,” you want to say, you want to scream. But you’re not strong enough, you can’t—

Hey, hey, hey, hey

You blink through your tears. You manage to recognize that melody in this unfamiliar place. You want to run towards it, but you’re not sure your legs can even respond to your commands right now.

Vecna seems to think something’s wrong, too, because as the song progresses he grows more impatient. “You think you can escape like this?”

Tell me your troubles and doubts

Giving everything inside and out and

Love's strange, so real in the dark

Think of the tender things that we were working on

His hands— his claws are stroking your cheeks, an aborted tender gesture, like he’s trying to soothe his prey before going for the kill. It’s over, you think, there’s nothing but this certain death. But then; you think of the hundreds of times you forced Dustin to watch this movie with you; of you both playing with Tews until he scratches one of you in annoyance; driving Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will to the movies; getting ice cream at Scoops Ahoy and guggling when Steve gets rejected once again; putting Dustin’s hair in braids and practicong makeup on him when he was younger; asking Will Byers what he was sketching at the park; Dustin and you laughing during dinner because of some stupid joke. You think about last night, sleeping beside Steve, and the way he made you laugh.

Don't you, forget about me

Don't, don't, don't, don't

Don't you, forget about me

You can’t give up. You can’t leave Dustin.

Somehow you manage to pull Vecna off you with a shove, and you run. You run, you run as fast as your legs let you, as your jeans stain with what looks like blood, as Vecna screams at you. You run like you've never run before.

And then you gasp and you’re falling.

“Shit, fuck, shit!” Someone’s arms are around you, and it takes you a second to calm down to realize it’s Steve, and that you’re in Mike Wheeler’s basement and you’re alive, somehow.

“Holy fucking shit,” Max is saying, but you can barely hear her over the rapid beating of your own heart— erratic, but unquestionably alive.

“God, god, (Y/N),” Dustin’s voice stands out from the others, and when you look at him there are tears streaming down his eyes, and you can barely process anything before you’re trying to reach for him despite feeling like you’re not even in your own body.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, Steve letting go of yours. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“I thought you were gonna die,” he whimpers.

“I’m here,” you breathe out. “Oh my God, I’m here thanks to you.”

You realize that the song is still playing, only to notice the headphones in your ears. You see your scattered bag around the room, and the walkie-talkie that Dustin must’ve been looking for already on the floor. Don’t You (Forget About Me) slowly fades to an end before the next song on the soundtrack starts.

“I’m sorry,” Dustin says into your shirt. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were going through something, I should’ve noticed. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” You shake your head, holding your little brother even closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Fuck, Dustin, I’m so sorry.”

You stay like that for a moment, hugging Dustin on the carpet, Max and Lucas hovering near, and Steve’s hand on your shoulder, grounding you.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

When you explain to Nancy what happened and what you saw once she comes back from Pennhurst she’s quick to pinpoint the house you saw when you met Vecna as Victor Creel’s house. All of you grab your things and head to that location. You try to not feel so dreadful, and Dustin forcing you to listen to Don’t You the entire car ride and holding onto your jacket sleeve helps soothe your nerves, at least a little bit.

But Victor Creel’s house is something out of a horror story, dark and abandoned as it is, and the only light source in the house seems to be the hole Robin made when she smashed the window.

“Let’s split up,” Nancy offers, and everyone seems to comply much to your dismay.

Lucas and Max leave to investigate with Dustin (reluctantly parting from your side) trailing off behind them, Nancy and Robin head upstairs and you and Steve are stuck together and instructed to stay downstairs by Nancy, the only thing illuminating your way being your flashlights.

You wander through hallways, staring at ruined wallpaper and dusty portraits. Victor and his family seemed so happy in their pictures, and you wonder why nobody, family or not, ever came to look for their things. The house seemed frozen in time, like one day the family had decided to get up and leave everything behind, the house nothing more than ghosts.

“I hate this place,” you comment, trying to hug yourself tightly to keep the cold at bay. “Thinking that people died here is…”

“Horrible,” Steve finishes for you. “Yeah… Fuck this place, man.”

When you turn to a corner, you freeze in place.

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re seeing this, right?” You point at a clock with your flashlight, unmoving. It’s the same clock from your visions, the one you saw before meeting Vecna.

“Yeah,” Steve frowns. “Real old. Why?”

“I saw it,” you try to explain through the rapid beating of your own heart. “In my visions, I mean. This clock was in them— well, the second one, mostly. In the Wheeler’s basement last night.”

“Shit…” Eloquent as ever, Steve Harrington. “Has to mean something, right?”

“If anything it proves Nancy and Robin were right. It all started here.” You finally force yourself to look away and continue forward, ignoring the way you feel your skin crawling. You hold up your cassette before re-starting the song. “What would happen if I suddenly got tired of this song? Will it no longer work? Does this mean Vecna will… come back for me?”

“Listen, I— I’m not a genius at this like your brother, or like Nancy, or even Robin,” Steve admits, very honestly. “But I promise we’ll find a way, even if that happens. Besides, Dustin told us how much you love this song. Seems kinda impossible you’ll ever get tired of it if you listen to it every day. And listen, I gotta ask. Breakfast club?”

“What?” You feel heat rise up to your cheeks, embarrassed. You start walking away from the clock, trying to get rid of the chills that had gotten ahold of you just a few moments before. “It’s a great movie.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Steve says, and even though you can’t really see him in the dark, you can hear his smirk, picture his smile. He’s teasing, and you’re kind of glad for it. It helps. “I just didn’t think it would be your thing, is all.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh? What’s my thing then?”

“I don’t know. You seem like a Dune fan, maybe.” He wonders out loud, your flashlight lighting the way.

“I do like the book.”

“See?” Steve points at his temple. “I knew it.”

“I think working at Family Video is finally getting to you.”

“I’m good at reading people,” he says, and you raise another silent eyebrow at him. He continues, “I’d always thought of you as a little brainiac, and that you’d liked movies that were kinda difficult. You were always reading in school. I didn’t think you’d like teen flicks and Hughes.”

“Dune is not difficult. And maybe you don’t really know me enough to know what my thing is,” you shrug. “... Or maybe every girl is a little bit in love with Judd Nelson.”

“Yeah,” Steve actually laughs. “Can’t beat that hair.”

And you can’t help yourself, you smirk. You think you might actually be dreaming, or maybe this curse made Steve seem more tolerable than usual. “You give him a good run for his money.”

“We’re still talking about hair here, right?”

Now you point your flashlight at Steve and elbow him.

“I’m just asking!”

“It was a stupid question. And just so you know, there’s nothing wrong about liking teen flicks,” you say, continuing to walk and not waiting to see if Steve follows. “Pretty in Pink is my new favorite movie and my GPA is still 3.5.”

“Oh wow. Pretty in Pink?” He whistles. “You have a soft spot for Molly Ringwald.”

“Who doesn’t?”

He hums in response.

You stay like that for a moment, walking through dusty hallways and trying to avoid spider webs. Even with the flashlights the place looks abandoned and lonely, and there’s a coldness running down your spine that you can’t shake off no matter how much you try. You focus on trying to catch the sound of Steve’s breathing to somehow ground yourself to reality. It feels like ever since meeting Vecna your grip on reality slowly fades away, like someone is unraveling the carpet from underneath you, trying to catch you by surprise. Like you’re falling into an abyss of darkness and you can’t hold onto anything— because nothing around you is truly real. And so you bite your lip to keep yourself from reaching out to Steve and holding on. You can’t think of a moment you’ve felt as uncertain as you do now; but Steve’s teasing and your bickering back and forth is normal, makes you feel like you’re not actually in immediate danger. You figure if there’s a different dimension called the Upside Down, then you can most definitely forgive Steve Harrington for being a jerk in High School. He has more than proven himself to you.

Because the truth is that maybe Vecna will win. Maybe you will never beat this curse. And you’ll end up like Chrissy Cunningham, like Fred Benson, like Patrick McKinney; just dead bodies along the trail.

“Hey, Steve,” you call, slowing down to walk beside him. He turns to look at you, but you can’t bring yourself to look at him. “Uhm. If something… like, happened to me—”

“Woah, woah, wait,” Steve shakes his head. “Nothing will. We beat the curse, remember? With the song?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t actually beat it, did we?” Now you do turn to look at him, and his big eyes almost render you speechless. You don’t know what to call the look on his eyes, but it makes you want to look away from him; makes you want to run. “Listen, Steve, I just— I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, quickly. You think he’s noticed how embarrassed you feel, and you look away, embarrassed. “You’re just scared shitless like the rest of us.”

“It’s not that,” you shake your head. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk around you and picking fights with you. You’ve— you’ve been there for Dustin when I wasn’t, and I guess you’re not actually a bad guy. So… I’m sorry I judged you. And thank you, I guess. For being there for Dustin. And… me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a second. You’re still looking anywhere but him, now focusing your eyes on a spider in one of the many spider webs in front of you. You feel embarrassed and stupid, but a little bit better. You know you’re doing the right thing by apologizing— you know Steve now, better than you’ve ever thought you would. You finally dare to take one look at him and his eyes are still on you, and when your eyes lock, he smiles softly.

“You’re apologizing for that?” Steve asks, and when you nod matter of factly, he tilts his head to the side. “Huh. Never thought I’d see the day Henderson’s sister apologized to me.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, Harrington,” you roll your eyes, but can’t help the small smile forming on your lips. “I’m only doing this because I might die.”

Steve chuckles, nodding. “Fair enough,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too, Henderson. To be honest, I think I kind of deserved it. I was an asshole in High School, so… yeah. I, uh, I’m sorry it took me getting kicked off the clique to realize you’re not half bad.”

“Well,” Now it’s your turn to laugh. “It took me almost dying to realize you’re not half bad either. I think we’re even.”

Steve stops in his tracks, making you stop, too, a little confused. You turn to look at him, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look quite so… earnest, maybe. You can’t name the look on his face, but you can’t look away, can’t seem to be able to keep walking. You’re frozen in place.

“You’re not gonna die, Henderson,” he says, determined. “I won’t let you.”

Your mouth goes dry. All you can do in response is nod. You want to say something, but the words escape you, and so you stare at each other for a few seconds, neither of you saying anything. You wonder if Steve can hear the rapid beating of your heart, if he can make out the way your eyes drop to his lips for a slow second despite the darkness around you both.

Then you hear Dustin yell out, “Guys!” and the moment fades away.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

Finding Eddie at Skull Rock seems to be harder than it should be, and once you find him you’re made to follow Dustin’s apparently broken compass. You feel like you’re wandering through the desert, with no clear path in mind. Dustin is at the front, with Lucas and Max following closely behind, Eddie (who you now have a hard time believing would ever be able to kill anyone), Robin and Nancy in front of you and Steve.

You find yourself time and time again choosing to spend more time with Steve, that he seems to be the one able to actually make you feel grounded, like you’re not gonna die in the next three seconds. You feel like yourself around him; but different. Steve is different. This whole experience is making you rethink everything you’ve ever known.

You can’t help but wonder in the silence about Dustin and the others, guiding the rest of you through the night time in the forest. Despite all of them being younger than you, they don’t seem to need your help, especially Dustin, who you think is completely in his element leading the way.

After a while of walking in silence, Dustin announces that the compass seems to be going even crazier. At this, Robin pries it off his hands to confirm that it’s true. Eddie and Dustin argue for a second about following the compass and make another Lord of the Rings reference that has you smiling.

“He’s not half bad,” you comment. “Eddie, I mean.”

“I still don’t know what the hell Modor is,” Steve mumbles under his breath.

You don’t try to explain Lord of The Rings to him— you don’t think there’s even enough time. But, maybe one day, when Hawkins isn’t in imminent danger and Steve still wants to hang out with your uncool self for whatever reason.

“What do you think we’ll find wherever this stupid compass is taking us?” You ask him, trying to avoid accidentally stepping on some poison ivy. Just your luck to get cursed and also poisoned on the same week. “You know more about this than me.”

“I’m actually more like, the, uhm, action guy of the group.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t know where we’re going,” You conclude.

Steve nods. “No damn clue, Henderson.”

“Great,” you chuckle lightly.

“All I know is that it’s probably a portal Vecna opened after killing someone.”

“A portal. To the upside down?” When Steve nods in confirmation, you sigh. “I still can’t get used to how crazy this is.”

“The third time you do this you kind of just start going with the flow of things,” Steve admits. “Russian spies, MK-Ultra, different dimensions, monsters— it all just kind of starts to sound like background noise.”

“Dustin and the kids seem to really know about all of this.”

“They do,” Steve nods. “Dustin is like, their leader. Our leader, I guess.”

“My little brother… fighting communists and monsters.” You shake your head. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. How did Nancy? With you and Mike?”

Steve stops for a second to frown at you. “With me?”

“You know, with Nancy and you dating.”

“Me and Nancy?” he asks, then shakes his head. “No, me and Nance just… we go way back, but she’s with Jonathan. That ship sailed a long time ago. We’re friends now. Besides, she’s the one killing more monsters than me.”

“Oh.”

There’s no way to ignore the way your heart skips a beat at this, or the hopeful glint in Steve’s eyes. The rest of the woods disappear and it’s only you and Steve and your rapidly beating heart. The others are lost to you, in their own little world, searching in the dark with their flashlights like fireflies.

“Yeah,” Steve scratches the back of his neck. “And, just in case, me and Robin are not a thing, either. Just friends.”

“Platonic with a capital P!” You hear Robin yell out in front of you.

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you at Steve’s blush. “Yeah, yeah, think she got it, Buckley, thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

“That’s… good to know,” you comment.

Steve raises his eyebrows at you, then scratches his chin. “Is it? Good to know?”

You nod slowly, avoiding his gaze. “Maybe.”

“Maybe. Okay. Maybe is—” he breathes out. “Maybe is cool.”

“Maybe is really cool,” you allow yourself a small smile.

“Really?” Steve inquires, and when he notices his smile he gifts you one of his own. “Okay. That’s great. Maybe is really cool. Cool. Cool beans.”

“Yeah?” You bite your lip, finally daring to look at him.

Steve follows your movement with his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, breathless.

“Hey guys,” Dustin’s voice rings out, the moment gone. “I think we found the portal!”

You both follow Dustin’s voice until you reach a lake, where Eddie explains Vecna killed Patrick when he was running away from Jason and the rest of the basketball team.

“So the portal is… what?” Robin asks, “Underwater?”

Dustin shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

He starts climbing up the boat, and you’re quick to grab him by the sleeves of his shirt to stop him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” You ask him.

“Looking for the portal,” Dustin says, matter-of-factly.

“You told me this portal is supposed to teleport you to another dimension, one Will Byers got stuck in,” you reply, pulling him away from the boat. “You’re not going anywhere near that portal. None of you kids are.”

“Who died and made you the boss?”

“Three people died,” you note.

“I made her the boss,” Robin quips. “Well, Nancy might technically be the boss, actually. Nance?”

Nancy blinks at Robin’s words. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Nance says yes.”

Eddie frowns. “Yes to being the boss or yes to—”

“Let’s just go,” Nancy urges, gesturing at Steve to help her drag the boat offshore. Steve complies, and helps Nancy climb into the boat, followed by Robin and then Eddie.

“But what about the curse?” Dustin wonders, looking at you.

“I have this, remember?” You hold up the cassette player, and wink at your brother. “Don’t worry about me, okay? Look after Lucas and Max. Nancy might be the boss, but you’re their leader.”

“Okay, yeah,” he nods, sounding more like he’s talking to reassure himself than anything.

“Compass, please,” you tell him, and Dustin complies unhappily. You can’t help yourself from grabbing him by the cheeks and kissing his forehead like you did when he was younger. Despite being a good leader, a fighter, he’ll always be little Dusty, who steals your waffles and makes really bad coffee. “See you soon.”

Steve offers his hand to help you climb the boat and you take it with a tiny smile.

The trip on the boat is short and dark. Even with Steve using his flashlight to try and light the way, it’s barely enough to keep you from being engulfed in the darkness of the night. When was the last time the moon shone down in Hawkins? There are almost no stars above, the view chillingly dark. You fear what you might find. Nancy stares at Dustin’s compass, trying to give any semblance of direction when the compass starts going crazy.

Steve starts pulling off his socks.

“Steve,” Nancy says slowly, “what are you doing?”

“Somebody’s gotta go down there and check this thing out. Was one of you four Hawkin’s High’s swimming co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years?” He figures, already working on his other shoe. “It’s gotta be me, no complaints, alright?”

Eddie chuckles nervously. “Hey… I’m not complaining. I do not wanna go down there.”

You watch as Eddie takes something off his pocket and throws it on the boat’s floor. You want to stop Steve somehow, irrationally, because as far as you know Nancy, Robin and Eddie can’t dive, and you can barely float — but the words die on your throat when you look up and Steve is peeling off his shirt.

“Here,” Eddie says, and you realize now he had wrapped a plastic bag around a flashlight and is now handing it back to Steve. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, taking it from his hands.

“Steve,” Robin rasps out before he dives, and Steve stops to look at her. “Don’t… die?”

“Gee,” he scoffs. “Thanks for the encouraging speech, Robs.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t die, seriously,” you manage to tell him, wanting to reach for his hand but stopping yourself. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Steve nods. He looks like he wants to say something else, but keeps his mouth shut before diving underwater.

The silence on the boat almost kills you, as it rocks quietly, everyone holds their breath waiting for Steve to come up once again. Your heart is in your throat, Don’t You still playing softly in your eardrums, the cassette player still on, a constant to remind you you’re still here. Miraculously.

“He’s…” Eddie whistles. “He’s got balls, King Steve.”

“Yeah,” you nod, looking at the water like you’re hypnotized, waiting for his soaked head to pop up.

“Not what you’d expect,” he adds, a little quietly.

“No,” Robin says, and the way she says it— so fond, so genuine. You couldn’t agree more. Steve is so much more than what you’d expected him to be. “Not at all.”

You stay silent for a few more seconds, all of you waiting for Steve to come back. When he does he emerges with a gasp for air, startling the rest of you. Eddie screams so loud you hear it perfectly well over the music.

“Found it,” Steve claims, holding onto the edge of the boat.

“You found it?” Nancy repeats.

“It was pretty wild,” Steve explains that he seemed to have stumbled into the portal, like an open gate illuminating the bottom of the lake and tinting it red. “It was pretty damn big—”

Before he can continue, Steve is pulled into the water once again, and you jump up instinctively, trying to reach for his hand, but he escapes your grasp quickly. He emerges again and you breathe a sigh of relief— but it’s short lived, because Steve is dragged under once again and he’s not coming up.

“Steve!” you yell. “Steve!”

“What the hell was that, man?!”

Between all the screaming going on, the only thing you can think about is Steve, Steve, Steve—

And so you stand up.

“Wait, (Y/N),” Nancy starts, “What are you—”

“You’re not going in there!” Eddie screams, trying to grab you by the arm.

“I—” You start, but can’t seem to decide on what to say. You don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you know you’ll do it anyway. You have no plan, that much is certain, you’ve never fought a day in your life. “I can’t just stay here!”

“Are you insane?!”

Robin pales. “No, (Y/N), wait—”

With one last look at the rest of the guys, you dive into the water and swim. You’ve never been a good swimmer, but you find yourself swimming like you’ve never had, quickly finding the red portal Steve had mentioned before being dragged down here. What you find on the other side reminds you of when you met Vecna— when he showed you your memories, cold, distorted and dark. You briefly wonder if Vecna had managed to drag you all the way here then, but you have no time to dwell on it too much.

Steve is laying on his back, as some creatures bite at his abdomen incessantly, like leeches. They are choking him, curling their tails around his neck. You stand up and run towards him, only to notice the others have followed behind you, their wet footsteps a reassurance.

“(Y/N)!” Nancy yells, making you turn. She throws one of the boat’s paddles at you, keeping one for herself.

You manage to catch it, God knows how. Steve is still struggling when you get to him, and the first thing you do is smack one of the things across the face, forcing it on its back and stopping it from further gnawing Steve’s abdomen. You see as Robin starts stomping on the one who has its tail curled around Steve’s neck, and Nancy takes on the other one.

“Shit,” Eddie murmurs when he looks up the sky and sees even more of them approaching.

One of them starts going after Nancy, Eddie trying to come to her rescue by grabbing Steve’s still working flashlight and smacking it as hard as he can manage. You help Robin by hitting the one she’s stomping on with the paddle, until Steve manages to bite its tail, forcing it to curl itself from his neck.

With more coming, you are distracted enough to barely notice when Steve manages to behead it, his lips stained with pitch black blood.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie mumbles. “Jesus H Christ!”

The adrenaline pumping through your veins, your heartbeat going faster— everything seems to go for so long, when in reality it must’ve been just a few minutes.

“Steve,” you manage to rasp out, walking towards him, only looking at his wounds, unsure of what you can do to help him. “Shit, Steve, are you okay?”

“They only took about a pound of flesh,” he says, making you sigh. “But other than that… Yeah, never better.”

He stares at you when he says it, and you can’t help the way your breath catches.

“You’ll need bandages,” Nancy notes.

“Do you guys know if these bats have like, rabbies?” Robin wonders aloud. Aware that everyone’s eyes are on her, Robin starts rambling about rabies symptoms and death. You and Steve glance at each other.

Steve’s chest is still rising erratically, exhausted, when he asks, “What the hell are you talking about, Robin?”

Before Robin can go on any longer though, the sky is tinted red again, and the screeching of even more approaching creatures gets you on edge.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” you say, and the rest of the group seem to agree.

The five of you break into a run into the forest, as far as you can before Steve’s wounds start to appear more serious, and when Nancy deems it safe enough, you stop near a tree where Steve can lean against, still breathing rapidly. You remember that Nancy said he’d need bandages, and so you take the hem of your pants and start ripping them open.

“What are you—” Steve starts.

“Bandages,” you say. “I saw this in Indiana Jones.”

“Indiana Jones?” Steve asks with a chuckle, looking up at the sky, smiling. “Your movie choices keep surprising me, Henderson.”

You tie the cloth around his wounds as tightly as you can, hopeful that it’s a good enough job to keep him from bleeding out until you guys get out of here. The wounds don’t look too bad, but you have no idea how long you'll stay here for. Nancy, looking over your shoulders, seems to approve of your bandage work.

“Thanks,” Steve rasps out.

“Just don’t die on me,” you nod, staring at his eyes.

“I’ll try not to.”

He holds your gaze, your mouth going even more dry than it already is. “I’ll hold you to that, Harrington.”

You’re interrupted when Steve catches something behind you. It’s Eddie’s jean vest. When you turn, Eddie scrunches up his nose.

“For modesty, man.”

“We escaped now, but there’s more of those monsters than what we saw,” Nancy interrupts, walking around, trying to think. “They’ll come looking for us. We need to get out of here.”

“So,” Eddie starts, running a hand through his mouth. “What the hell do we do now? How do we get out of here, exactly?”

“We need to find another portal, right?” Robin replies. “That’s the only way to get out of here. But we can’t go back to Watergate, it’s probably full of those bats now. Those bats full of rabies!”

“Right now, the most important thing is to defend ourselves,” Nancy says. “We don’t know what kind of monsters are down here. Maybe they’re even worse than that.”

“Hell,” Eddie breathes. “You think Vecna is here?”

“I don’t know… Maybe.”

A chill runs down your spine at the mention of Vecna’s name. Your hand flies to your ear, and only then you realize you’ve jumped in the water with your headphones on, and when you reach the player secured inside your front pocket it’s wet and broken. Through the adrenaline of the fight, you hadn’t even noticed that the song was no longer playing.

“Shit,” Nancy breathes out, looking at your ruined headphones. “The player.”

“It’s ruined,” you lament, seeing the way it’s soaked. You toss the cassette player to the ground, near Steve’s feet, who pales even more, if it’s even possible.

“Fuck,” he says, breathless, the slight reassuring smile he’d been wearing disappears in an instant. He stands up straight despite his body clearly protesting against it. “We need to find another one before it’s too late.”

“Would it even work here?” Robin wonders. “If it’s one from the Upside Down, I mean. Things seem to be… kind of broken here, don’t they?”

“Then we need to get her out of here right now,” Steve urges, and when he starts trying to walk away it’s Eddie who stops him.

“Dude, do you want your intestines to hang out of your abdomen like some shitty Nightmare on Elm Street scene?” he asks, “Stay still! Those bats could be anywhere!”

“We need to move!”

“Steve, wait a second,” you urge after him.

“We could go to my house,” Nancy offers. “I have guns. We could use them to fend off the demo… bats, or whatever. And we need a player. We can use Mike’s, he has one he didn’t take to California.”

Eddie blinks. “You, Nancy Wheeler… have guns.”

Robin grins. “Full of surprises, isn’t she?”

Steve is already on his way despite his groans of pain, and even though the wounds had seemed pretty superficial to you when you wrapped them up, it doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt like a bitch.

“Steve, you’re just hurting yourself even more now,” Now Robin is sighing, exasperated. You briefly wonder how many times she’s had to deal with Steve like this.

“Let’s go,” he says, ignoring her.

“Steve...” you try to stop him, but he turns around quickly.

“Let’s go!”

Robin scoffs, crossing his arms. “Where are we even going, oh great leader?”

“Nancy’s!”

You all turn to look at each other, unsure if following Steve is the best idea, but with nothing else to do and no other ideas, there’s only one thing to do.

And so you all start walking.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

It’s a while before you arrive at the Wheeler’s, the five of you mostly exhausted from the fight, with Steve clutching his wounds but still leading the way, right next to Nancy. You’re all on edge the entire way back, but despite the lack of music you don’t feel different yet, and you don’t encounter any more demobats, as Nancy had called them.

Nancy’s house seems haunted in this place, just as much as the rest of Hawkins seems to be. Despite housing monsters, the Upside Down looks more like a ghost town than anything. You couldn’t help but wonder how tiny Will Byers had ever survived something like this so young… Nobody ever gives that kid enough credit.

Nancy wastes no time climbing up the stairs; she almost seems unaffected looking at her house like this, so… dead. She hovers near a door and turns to look at you.

“This is Mike’s room,” she nods at it. “His cassette player should be in there. Me, Eddie and Robin will get the guns and look for the cassette in my room.”

You agree to it, and she disappears down the hallway along with Eddie and Robin. You and Steve enter Mike’s room, start rummaging through cabinets. You work in silence. You’ve never seen Steve this quiet, this focused. You wonder if he’s mad at you— he had to be. Now besides demobats and trying to escape, he had to help you too because you’d went and done something stupid and completely irrational.

Steve clears his throat, holding up something in his hand. “Found it,” he calls. “Think it’ll work?” He wonders aloud, as you close the closet door before walking up to him.

“Here,” You say, then pull your ruined flashlight from your back pocket. You hit the back of it against the palm of your hand and the batteries come off. You’re not sure if this might work since the flashlight got wet and stopped working once you jumped into the water, but once you plug them into the cassette player it seems to come to life. Steve sighs, relieved. “Thank God that worked. Let’s get that stupid cassette and get out of here.”

“Sounds good to me,” he quips. He wets his lips, looking around. “You don’t feel any different, though, right?” When you shake your head, he seems to be able to relax a bit. “When we were on our way here, Eddie told me you didn’t waste a second to help me.”

You wait for Steve to continue, but he doesn’t.

“I’ve never been much of an adventurer when we were kids,” you say. “Dustin wanted to climb trees and go camping, and I wanted to stay home and read books. We used to fight all the time because I never wanted to play outside with him, because I was scared of bugs and dirt and I just wanted to stay inside.”

Steve doesn’t say anything to that, but he’s near you, hoving near your hand, like he knows you need the comfort, unsure if it’d be wanted from him.

“If I don’t make it out of this stupid curse, Steve,” you breathe out, legs feeling so shaky you want to throw up, “I need you to promise me you’ll take care of Dustin.”

“He’ll kill me before I let you die,” Steve says, trying t sound lighthearted but failing.

“Steve,” you rag out. “Promise me. Please.”

Steve nods, his voice soft in the way it does when he’s trying to be gentle. “Y—yeah. Of course. You know little Henderson’s like my own little brother.”

“I know,” you acknowledge. “You’ve been a way better sibling than me. I’ve been such a shitty sister and I’m… I’m really glad Dustin has you.”

“That’s not true,” he argues, reaching for your arm in the darkness of the room— you want to flinch away. “He loves you, (Y/N). Seriously, you should hear the way he talks about you when you’re not around.”

You ignore the sting in your eyes and berate yourself for tearing up.

“It’s my fault,” you whisper.

“What?”

“It’s my fault my dad walked away,” you shake your head, tearing your arm away from Steve’s touch, feeling cold as soon as you’re away from him. But you deserve it, you deserve the cold. “I told him I hated him after I learned he cheated on mom and that he had another family, and he never came back. I told him I never wanted to see him again. I’m the reason Dustin doesn’t have a dad now. But— but I was just fifteen, I didn’t— I didn’t know what I was asking—”

“Stop, stop,” Steve interrupts, and suddenly he’s pulling you close to your chest and holding you close.

And suddenly that’s all you need to break down, tears flowing freely down your cheeks. You feel embarrased, stupid for crying about something like this when the world might be about to end, horrifyingly guilty for everything— but for the first time you feel like something has been finally lifted off your chest and you can breathe, here, with Steve holding you. You’re glad Steve stayed behind with you. In truth, you think you might just be glad for Steve.

If someone had told you a week ago you’d be crying in Steve Harrington’s arms you would’ve smacked them. Life can change really fast, huh?

“Nobody is going to die,” his voice is so soft. You’d never thought you’d think of Steve’s voice as anything other than grating, but now you hold onto it like a lifeline. “I won’t let that happen.”

You breathe into his chest. You finally manage to let go of him, thanking God the others weren’t near. You miss the warmth almost immediately, as much as you don’t want to admit it. “Shit, sorry, your bandages.”

“You need to stop doing that,” he quips.

“What?”

“Apologizing so much,” he reaches for your arm again before walking, and you thank him silently. You have to bite your tongue not to apologize again. “Let’s go get that cassette.”

When you both step into Nancy’s room, the silence is almost deafening.

“What happened?”

“The guns,” Nancy explains, her eyes focused on her nightstand, not looking up at either of you. “They aren’t here. But so many things that shouldn’t be are. Like— like my curtains, and these— these toys I gifted my cousin Joanna. They haven’t been here since 1983.”

“We’re stuck in time, dude,” Eddie finishes for her.

“Three years, to be exact.”

“What?” Steve asks, confused. “Three years into the past?”

“... From when Will disappeared, you mean?” You question.

Nancy nods. “Yeah, I… think so. But, (Y/N), If we’re three years in the past, it means The Breakfast Club isn’t out yet,” Nancy swallows, hard, then finally looks up to stare into your eyes.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, his chest rising erratically.

You bite your lip. “She means the song doesn’t exist, either.”

Nancy closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N).”

“Fuck!” Steve yells, “fuck!”

He kicks one of Nancy’s nightstands with so much force he manages to force it into the ground, Nancy’s belongings following suit, scattering around the carpet, making Nancy flinch.

“Steve,” you whisper, trying to reach for him. “Stop.”

Steve sits on Nancy’s bed, hand covering his mouth. He lets you rest your hand on his arm, and he breathes out another curse. He almost looks frozen in place like this, and it reminds you that everything in here feels like it is— ghosts, so many ghosts. You feel like you’re stuck in hell.

“Maybe any song will work,” Robin offers a little desperately, going through Nancy’s drawers, pulling out different cassettes and soundtracks, Duran Duran, Madonna, Elton John. “C’mon guys, one has to work.”

Eddie scratches his neck. “Doesn’t it have to be her favorite song? Isn’t that what Henderon said?”

“Screw it,” Nancy shakes her head, taking in a shaky breath. “We have to try whatever we can. This is our only option.”

“Okay,” you nod, shakily, prying your hand off of Steve’s arm, reaching to cruch own next to Robin and look through the rest of Nancy’s cassettes. “Okay, let’s— let’s try it.”

Robin holds up Total Eclipse of the Heart. “You like Bonnie Tyler?”

“Seems as good as anything,” you nod, taking it from her hands. As the first notes of Total Eclipse start playing, you gulp nervously, praying this might work, that you have at least enough time to get out of here alive.

Steve still looks miserable, but seems a little calmer now. “We need to get out of here right now.”

“How?” Robin sighs. “How did Will ever manage to get out of this place?”

“There has to be a way,” Nancy figures, then something seems to dawn on her. “Will. Will used to talk to Joyce with the Christmas lights while he was stuck in the Upside Down.”

“The Christmas lights?” Eddie asks, incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

As she explains, you can’t help but think that Nancy Wheeler is absolutely brilliant. You can’t blame Steve for falling in love with her before. She’s interrupted by Robin rather quickly though, when she claims she can hear Dustin’s voice— soon enough, all of you start to hear him, distorted and distant, but it's there no less. Quickly Dustin communicates that he thinks there might be another portal in Eddie’s trailer and that seems to be your best shot at an escape.

Robin and Nancy leave to get some supplies for the trip— whatever they can find to use as a weapon, while Eddie wanders off behind them, with the excuse of rummaging through little Wheeler’s action figures. Steve stays with you, as you stare at Holly’s Lite Brite, unsure on what to do.

You trust Dustin and his plan, of course you do. Dustin’s done nothing but prove himself to you these past few days. Still, the thought that everything might go incredibly wrong is almost unshakable at this point. What was it Max said to you? Something about how Vecna’s curse made people feel hopeless and lonely.

“You okay, right?” Steve wonders aloud, searching your face. “You haven’t had any visions yet?”

You haven’t felt Vecna’s pull yet, but you don’t want to be overly optimistic just yet. “I’m okay, I think. Are you?”

You glance down at his bandages, but he only nods. “Yeah, they don’t hurt anymore. I’m more worried about you.”

Warmth spreads all over your cheeks and inside your chest, but now’s really not the time for all of these feelings, and so you try to squeeze them out, to focus on something else.

“I just hope the plan works,” you mumble. “I want to get out of here.”

“You—” Steve shakes his head, looks at you with a look you can’t name. But he sounds frustrated, exhausted. “You just jumped in after me? You didn’t even think…” he trails off. “Eddie said you just jumped. Fucking jumped. You’re unbelievable, you know that, don’t you, Henderson? Absolutely fucking unbelievable.”

You look down at your hands.

“It was stupid, I know, I—”

“Thank you,” Steve murmurs, honesty bleeding into every word he speaks. You look up at him, surprised. “You saved my ass back there.”

The truth is you hadn’t doubted one second— you hadn’t even stopped to think about what might happen to you. Helping Steve was more important to you than anything in that moment, and you didn’t regret it, how could you regret that?

“You saved my ass first, back at the Wheeler’s,” you smile at him. “Even later, in the woods, and at Creel’s house. I don’t know if I could have kept going without you… so thank you.”

Steve stays silent for a few seconds, unsure of how to continue. You can practically feel him grow nervous now, when he clears his throat and begins speaking. “Listen, I know we are on the brink of life and death and maybe world threatening danger, but I kinda need some motivation to get out of here.”

“Yeah?”

“So, now that you know me and Nancy aren’t really a thing, and that me and Robin are platonic with a capital P…”

“Keep going.”

“And since you know, maybe is really cool,” you nod, trying to fight off a smile. “We should, maybe, go on a date together.”

“Hm…” you place a hand on your chin. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can go out with someone who doesn’t like Pretty in Pink.”

“I’ve never said I didn’t,” he shrugs. “I just haven’t even seen it.”

“You haven’t seen Pretty in Pink, you monster?!”

“You know, I’m actively bleeding out here,” Steve gestures at your last minute bandages, his smile almost as handsome as him, even more so after tearing off a bat monster’s head off. Even more so now that it seems you finally have a plan to get out of this goddamn place. “You’re gonna make a dying man wait?”

“You’re not dying, Harrington.” You smack him gently across the shoulders. “I won’t let you.”

Steve chuckles, his hand finding its way to yours, almost nervous, scared of rejection.

“So? What do you say?”

“I say that if we get out of here alive, and it seems like kind of a longshot right now…” you acknowledge, holding onto his hand and squeezing. “I would really, really like that.”

“Yeah?”

You’re smiling. “Yeah.”

You both might be the people with the worst timing in the entire world— you’re cursed by a demon villain from another dimension, and Steve is bleeding out while you’re both trapped inside the Upside Down, with no clue if you’ll be able to actually escape. Not to mention this is all happening in his ex's house. And yet you can’t help but laugh when Steve tries to reach for the back of your neck and fails miserably.

“I really want to kiss you,” he says, “but my abdomen still really hurts.”

“I have to do everything,” you tease, before closing the distance between you, your lips pressing against his with a sigh.

Steve’s lips are chapped, bloody, raw, and yours must be equally as bad, salty, open and bleeding raw. But despite everything the kiss is perfect, as imperfect and uncoordinated as it is; the way your lips fit together, the way Steve cradles your cheek, and how you hold the back of his neck while Bonnie Tyler plays in the background of it all. Now, more than anything, you feel hope.

When you break off the kiss, Steve is smiling.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says. And you just might.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington one shot #steve harington fic #steve x reader #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #stranger things scenario #steve harrington scenario #st4 #joe keery #female reader #dyfam #mine #stranger things

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comphy-and-cozy · 2 months

Text

GASLIGHT - andrei svechnikov

Pairing: Andrei Svechnikov x Reader (f)

Summary: A dance of desperation, destruction, and desire with the man who broke your heart.

Word Count: 5.4K

Author’s Note: This is about a year in the making thanks to the thirsty, depraved minds of @pyotrkochetkov and @smileysvech. Inspired strongly by gaslight by inji, I present to you: toxic, cocky ex Andrei.

Warnings: Toxic relationship, dubcon/drunk consent, infidelity. Alcohol use/mention. Smut (18+ ONLY): Unprotected sex, very public sex/exhibitionism, oral sex (m receiving), fingering (f receiving), heavy degradation, Andrei has a filthy mouth.

Your media consumption is your responsibility. Do not proceed if any of the above warnings will trigger, hurt, or offend you. Masterlist / Moodboard

In all fairness, you knew Andrei Svechnikov was trouble as soon as your eyes locked with his at that fateful frat party, bathed in a deep blue light strobing on the ceiling. Even then, it was etched into his handsome face, his smile far too confident to be anything but a terrible, terrible idea. But you were young, dumb, and all too willing to fall for the broad Russian with the dimples and a body that looked like it was sculpted out of clay. He was way too hot to resist, and really, what’s a girl to do?

In all honesty, he was sweet at first, even genuine. He held the door open for you, walked you to class, let you wear his jersey. He swept you off your feet with an ease that should’ve had your radar beeping, but you were already in too deep to notice. Besides, you had no reason to believe that the handsome, charming boy with a toothy smile would be anything but wonderful.

Oh, how wrong you were.

When you look back on the chapter of your life regretfully titled ‘Andrei’, the pages stained with tears and spilled ink from all of the letters you never sent, you’ll remember the red flags that you didn’t notice (or maybe willfully ignored), heading straight into a myriad of heartbreak. You two were toxic together, in a seemingly endless cycle of hurt and betrayal.

But it was hands down, unequivocally, the best sex you’ve ever had.

And that’s what kept you coming back, even when he’d pull his shit and make his excuses for the hickeys on his neck that you didn’t put there or the purple thong on his floor that was a size too small for you. You’d turn a blind eye, pretending not to see, pretending that it didn’t sting after the sweet nothings he’d whisper to you after a night in his sheets.

The real turning point of your relationship was when you saw him leaving your sorority house the morning after a night out, a clear walk of shame—except you’d gone to bed alone. Seeing the bedhead and hickeys on your sorority sister, Callie, was all you needed to put the pieces together, your heart shattering for the first time.

So, after crying until you made yourself sick, drinking more tequila than you’d care to admit, you brushed yourself off, rose from the ashes, and did what any logical and sane girl would do in your shoes: fuck his teammate. And then another. And another. You took your rage and all of the hurt that simmered beneath your surface and channeled it into sweet, satisfying, addicting revenge. The orgasms weren’t quite the same, but you were surprised at how good getting even felt. Seeing the look on his face when he’d come down the stairs to find you in the kitchen, in a ratty old t-shirt of one of his friends… priceless.

From then on, you and Andrei were locked in what felt like an eternal battle at who could out-toxic the other. You thrived on knowing you were riling him up, getting under his skin, burrowing your way into his psyche to ensure he’d never forget you and would forever regret betraying you. You were the one who got away, not the other way around.

From the moment you stepped into the bar that fateful night, instantly feeling his eyes crawling over your legs, you couldn’t deny that you had voluntarily set yourself up for it. Unable to resist his charm, dripping in honey, trouble etched into the predatory gaze he held on you, there was no way you were getting out unscathed.

His white button-up is a size too small, hugging his muscles in a way that makes the fabric fight against the buttons in the middle. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, the corded muscle of his forearms on display, the expensive watch sitting on his thick wrist. He wears it everywhere he goes, so you know he couldn’t have done it on purpose, but you can’t help but feel he knew you’d be there tonight, exposing it with the sole intention of driving you wild.

So, it’s only to be expected that you make your way over to a friend of his, slinking up beside him at the bar with a seductive smile and wide eyes, leaning into him and letting your hand rest on his bicep while you laugh at his joke. It feels over the top—because it is—but you’re fueled by the knowledge that Andrei will be fuming once he sees it. It’s the same old cat-and-mouse game that you always play, pushing his buttons even from afar.

It makes for the best foreplay.

Your new beau—Scott—struts off to the bar, smug at how easy his win tonight is. He barely had to work to have you hanging all over him, and the prospect of getting you into his bed at the end of the night is all but a slam dunk. Your eyes watch him, appreciatively admiring the broad shoulders and built back, envisioning what it’ll look like littered with angry, red scratches from your pristine, hot pink nails.

He saunters up behind you, and you feel his presence without even needing to turn around.

“What do you think you’re doing?” His words, heavily accented, are slurred—just slightly, but enough for you to know he’s been heavy on the vodka tonics. Part of you wonders if your antics with Scott have influenced his state of mind. Judging by the way his arms are crossed, revealing the curve of his enormous bicep and the thickness of his forearms, you’d wager that they have.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Andrei,” you say, tossing your hair back, dismissing him instantly.

“Cut the shit, sweetheart,” he sneers. His eyes drag shamelessly over your figure, heat lingering where his gaze travels. “That’s the third one of my teammates you’ve tried to fuck.”

“Fourth, actually.”

“Do you actually want them, or are you just whoring around my friends to get a rise out of me?”

“That’s rich,” you scoff, voice dripping with distaste. The absolute nerve on this guy. “Can’t handle the thought of your friend fucking me better than you?”

Andrei’s smile is sickly sweet. “We both know that was never the issue, sweetheart.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. Memories of late nights punctured by a thick Russian accent, bite marks that turned into bruises that lasted for days flood your mind, a phantom touch along your hip making your shiver.

“Where's your new bitch?” you pivot. “Let me guess, busy taking your Insta pics?”

His smirk grows, enough to reveal his missing tooth. The mockery in his tone drips from every word as he says, “That’s no way to talk about your sister.”

You bite back your grimace and the urge to say, “That’s not my sister,” but unfortunately he’s picked up your strategy of ticking off your friends on his bedpost one by one, and this latest iteration has landed him in bed with your suitemate, Jenna. When she broke up with her long-term boyfriend, you knew it was only a matter of time before Andrei swooped in with his handsome smile, dimples, and delicious muscles, sisterhood be damned. The fact that you two shared a wall was only the cherry on top.

With a glance at the bar, you see that Scott is stuck in line, your 3rd Mezcal margarita too far away. He sends you an apologetic shrug, gesturing to the growing crowd and signaling to wait for him. Your lips curl into a forced smile, blowing a kiss and offering a cheeky wave.

Andrei shifts on his feet, amused at the overzealous act that his idiotic linemate seems to be buying. With another glance across your figure, doing far more than just undressing you with his eyes, he sidles back up to you. With the way you look, he supposes he shouldn’t expect to resist.

“Seems like your man is gonna be a while. Dance with me?” he whispers into your ear. You ignore the way the heat from his breath travels down your spine, arousal instantly pooling through you despite every nerve in your body trying to fight it.

“I’m not your girlfriend, Andrei.”

“Doesn’t mean two old friends can’t have a dance,” he counters.

You resist the urge to snort at the label, as if you were ever friends. It’s the same look in his eye as always, the one that got your heart broken a thousand times before, but you find your hand slipping into his—ignoring the sheer size of it compared to yours—and letting him lead you into the throng of people anyways.

The way Andrei’s firm body slots up behind yours is far too easy, his hands all too familiar on your hips as he pulls you into him, forcing a slow and steady grind to the beat of the music. It should be shocking the way that Jenna—and Scott—completely slips from your mind, replaced by the feeling of his groin pressed against the curve of your ass.

“Look so fucking hot tonight,” he purrs in your ear. Your eyebrows raise in surprise, but your body reacts involuntarily when his praise goes straight between your legs. “Made my dick hard just looking at you.”

“Wouldn’t want your girl hearing you talk like that,” you manage to retort, shaking away the arousal that threatens to warm your entire body.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“That what you said about me?” you ask, ignoring the pang of hurt that strikes your heart. It’s the first—and only—glimpse of a real emotion, hidden beneath snark and quick remarks.

“Aw, baby, let’s let the past stay in the past,” Andrei says, deflecting by pressing your ass against his groin, allowing you to feel the firmness beneath his zipper. The flash of any serious conversation disappears when the tips of his fingers graze against the underside of your breast, fostering the spread of goosebumps over your body. It’s a diversion, and you hate that it works; his hands have always been a source of weakness for you.

Heat simmers in your core, gradually growing until it’s bubbling; his hands crawling over your body while your hips move in sync with his. The chance of rekindling whatever you had before is long gone, and you’re well past any apology or reparation, so you might as well have fun with it, right?

His hands trail fire down your sides, over the bare skin between your top and skirt, to your bare leg. You’ve lost the ability to speak, to protest—not that you would—when you feel his fingers curl under the hem, tugging it up until you're all but entirely exposed, challenging you to resist. The air, though warm from the crowd, feels heavenly on your hot thighs, cool against the damp fabric of your panties. Your body gives an involuntary shiver when one large hand splays possessively over your hip, the other creeping over to the inside of your thigh.

You know what Andrei’s up to, and as much as you hate him, there’s not a single ounce in your body that wants to stop him. Your legs fall open against your will, making more space for his hand.

“Fucking soaked,” he sneers, laughing at the way you shudder when his finger barely grazes your clit, pressing against the wet scrap of fabric covering your modesty. “Knew you would be. You can never get enough of me, can you?”

Refusing to give in so easily, you reply by slowing the roll of your hips, pressing further against his groin to grind against him. His chuckle is low in your ear, amused at your attempt to keep the playing field even. The pad of his middle finger runs over your pussy, collecting the wetness that’s seeping through the cotton.

Andrei’s hand stays gripped on your thigh while the other comes up to press his finger against your lips. You can taste your own essence on the tip of his finger, coating your lip with the moisture. It presses into your mouth, pushing against your tongue in a display of dominance; though you want to push him away, your body betrays you and your lips close around his digit, sucking hard.

The sound of your moan when he roughly tugs your panties to the side is covered by the heavy bass pumping through the room. The lights are dim enough, strobing around to hide the way Andrei plunges a thick finger into you, though admittedly you wouldn’t notice or care if someone were to spot you, the thought making you even hotter.

“Always so fuckin’ tight,” he murmurs in your ear, shifting his hand to add another finger. “Dripping all over my hand like a fucking whore.”

“Andrei,” you whisper, fruitlessly, the sound of your voice swallowed by the electronic wobs of the remixed rap song overhead. Your resolve is slipping quickly, with each deep twist of his fingers inside of you, knees losing strength with every passing moment. Maybe it’s the cocktail, or maybe it’s just him; either way, you’re intoxicated.

His marriage and middle pump their way into you, the slick between your thighs making it all too easy for him to slide them in and out. Your eyes flutter shut, head lolling back slightly when he strokes you perfectly, even despite the awkward angle of his wrist, shoved between your legs in the middle of a sweaty, crowded room. So far, no one’s seemed to notice—or perhaps, if they did, they just opted to ignore it.

“Fuck, kisa,” he murmurs, and the heat in his voice makes you clench around his digits. It’s rough, deep in your ear, followed by what you presume is cursing in Russian. Andrei grips your hips so tightly you’re certain there’ll be fingerprint-sized bruises on them tomorrow. “Such a desperate whore for me, you’d let me take you right here in front of everyone, wouldn’t you?”

His finger presses against your g-spot in a way that has your resolve completely melting; suddenly, all you can focus on is the feeling that’s blooming in your core, flooding pleasure through your veins. Fuck it.

“Fuck yeah, give it to me.”

You’re not really serious, at least not entirely, but your stomach flutters with excitement when you feel one of his hands fidgeting behind your ass, fishing out his erection to press it against you. He’s hard, and you can feel the way he throbs against you through the thin material of your skirt. Admittedly, you had missed that specific part of him. No one, not even his linemate Scott with the big dick, could replicate Andrei.

“This what you want, huh? Want it deep in that little cunt?” he says, tapping himself lightly against your ass in the limited space he has between your bodies. “Guess my dick doesn’t know how much of a bitch you are.”

“Probably because your dick has been inside way bigger bitches than me,” you bite back, the throb between your legs not enough to cull the sass and bitterness that lingers just beneath the surface. If his fingers weren’t just buried between your thighs, you probably would’ve had more to say about the matter.

When you feel the curl of his fingers tugging the material of your skirt up farther, you arch into him, your senses ablaze with adrenaline. You can’t help it, giving into the way you throb, empty, waiting for him to soothe the need with the harsh thrust of his cock.

Andrei is slow, drawing out your torture. He keeps his hips pressed against your backside, shielding his erection with your ass, because you are still in public, after all. His large hand grips your hip while the other reaches between your bodies, and you let out a whimper when you feel his tip lining up with your entrance.

He pushes in, slowly, mainly to avoid attracting attention. His hands flex against your waist, pulling you into him and encouraging you to resume the grind of your hips; only this time, his dick is buried deep inside of you and he’s pressed directly against your g-spot. He hasn’t been inside you for 5 seconds and your legs are already shaking, trying desperately to steady your breathing while heat floods through your body.

Even through the loud music, you can hear the way Andrei grunts lowly in your ear, and you’re pleased to know he’s just as strung out as you, fucking you in the middle of a dance floor. His hips begin to push forward, subtly, forcing you to feel each inch and ridge of his cock dragging in and out of your soaked pussy. Large hands crawl over your hips, guiding them to gyrate against him and using your body to drive himself deeper inside of you.

It shouldn’t feel so good, getting blatantly fucked by your sworn enemy in the middle of a sweaty crowd, grinding shamelessly on his dick. But the beat syncs with his thrusts, heat flooding your system as he hits the perfect spot at the perfect pace to have your legs squeezing tightly around him.

“You been thinkin’ about this?” he whispers in your ear, and you can hear the smug smirk on his face. “Think about you while I’m fucking Jenna sometimes. She’s hot, but her cunt isn’t as tight as this one.”

“You’re—” you gasp when he delivers a hard thrust at the beat drop of the song that’s playing, “—such a fucking dick.”

“Aw, but you love it, don’t you?”

You hate him. Him and everything that he’s done to you—breaking your heart, picking up the pieces, only to shatter it again. There had been more nights spent crying over him than nights with him, screaming into your pillow until there were no tears left in your body. Worse than that, he’d turned you into someone you barely knew: someone who takes the low road and stoops to his level when you know you deserve better than all of it.

But damn, if you don’t love the way he fucks you.

It happens before you even have a chance to think about how you’ll mask it, instead crying out as your body goes limp against Andrei’s. His strong arms hold you in place, stilling his hips to feel the way your cunt clenches around him as your orgasm washes over you like a tsunami. The sound of your moan is swallowed by the bass, evaporating into thin air before it has the chance to make its way to any of the club’s patrons around you.

“Fuck,” Andrei husks in your ear, breath heavy against your skin. Your walls flutter around him as he lets the waves siphon through your shaking limbs. “Barely had to do any work for you to fall apart on my cock, huh? Comin’ for me like the pretty little slut you are.”

The retort you want to snap back doesn’t come out, mind still completely blown from the force of your climax. Your heart pounds in your throat, pussy clenching weakly around his thick cock, and you know you have no space to try and pretend he didn’t feel the way you came all over it.

“You gonna give me another one, dorogoy?”

“Drei,” you choke out, a wave of clarity splashing over you. “Not here.”

He hums, the vibration in his chest pressed against your back, so deep that it travels down your spine. “Unfortunate. But I suppose getting arrested for public indecency probably isn’t very good for my career.”

Behind you, you feel him tucking himself back into his pants, using your body to shield the way he adjusts before he’s gripping your arm and dragging you with him. “C’mon. M’not done until your face is painted with my cum.”

He doesn’t bother to fix your skirt, and you’re frantically tugging it back down to cover yourself as he leads you through the crowd. The next thing you know, you’re being pushed into the dark, dingy bathroom before his hands are pushing your crop top up, exposing your bra. Your eyes glance to the unlocked door when he tugs the cups of your bra down.

“Nah, a slut like you doesn’t need privacy,” he purrs, like he’s reading your mind. His eyes glitter as he follows your line of sight. “I wouldn’t even bother charging anyone who walks in for the show. S’a free for all.”

He doesn’t wait for you to respond before he’s roughly pushing you against the countertop, growling when he pulls your skirt back up your hips. Your mouth opens to protest, but he speaks over you. “It’s so cute when you act all modest, but we both know you’re a cheap whore, huh? Pretendin’ that you wouldn’t like an audience. Like you wouldn’t let me bend you over one of those cocktail tables out there.”

“Think you wanna get caught, Svechnikov,” you tease, pressing your ass back against his pelvis, grinding on him in the same movements as earlier—only this time, you’re an orgasm deep, and you have at least some semblance of privacy, so you have no reservations. Your eyes lock with his in the reflection, holding his gaze. “Looking for an excuse to end things with Jenna, are you?”

“Nah, I think I’ll keep her around,” he says with a smile, pushing at your back to press your breasts against the cold countertop. “She’s a good fuck.”

“You gonna fuck me, or you just gonna talk about her? I can go get her, if you want. Catch her up on the details.”

With a laugh, Andrei tsks. “So impatient. Didn’t your mother ever teach you about manners?”

“More than yours ever taught you, that’s for sure,” you spit back. If only his mother knew the things he’d done and said to you; you’re sure she’d have plenty to say about her son’s behavior.

Andrei pulls himself out of his pants, fisting his dick before he’s dropping a wad of spit on the tip, running it through your folds. In the mirror, you see him watching the way it melds with your slick, coating the head of his dick. “I love when you talk dirty to me. Makes me so fuckin’ hard.”

He doesn’t give you the satisfaction of having the last word, shooting back whatever sassy comeback is lingering on your tongue, instead pushing into you so quickly a gasp is ripped from your throat. His hips press hard against your ass, buried to the hilt so you can throb around the entirety of him. “So tight, ‘specially for a cunt that gets used so often.”

The degradation pours out of his mouth, a hot wave of arousal trailing up your spine with every word. He’s the only one that can pull it off, igniting the blue flame inside of you with filthy whispers, paired perfectly with each precise thrust. His hands dig into your hips, pulling you back against him roughly, loud slaps of your ass against his pelvis echoing around the room.

A large hand makes its way up your spine, slipping into your hair and tugging you back until your spine is arched and his chest is pressed against your back. You take in your own reflection in the mirror, cheeks growing warm at the sight: hair mussed, makeup smeared, clothes disheveled across your frame. At the apex of your thighs, you can’t help but stare at his thick cock driving into you, glistening with your slick.

Andrei hums lowly in your ear. “Look at you, filthy fuckin’ whore with your tits out, getting this slutty little cunt destroyed by my dick.”

“Andrei,” you gasp out—whether at the filth spewing out of his mouth, or from the way he’s driving into you, relentless, you aren’t sure.

“Yeah, baby, you gonna come?”

Your reply is a choked cry. “No–”

“No? Yeah, you are, can feel the way you’re gripping my cock. You’re gonna gush all over me.”

Your hand betrays you, slipping from the edge of the counter to paw at your clit. His chuckle makes your cheeks hot, burning even hotter when his breath fans against your neck. “Say ‘please.’”

The last shred of dignity you have left lodges in your throat, and you glare at him in the reflection, refusing to take his bait. His eyebrow raises, and a moment later, his hips cease their movements.

An involuntary whine claws its way out of your throat, feeling the way your pussy flutters helplessly around him. You know he can feel it, too, judging by the way his eyes glitter as he looks at you. His voice is deep, rumbling lowly in your ear, “We both know you want it. Need it. Scott wasn’t gonna give it to you, was he? Not like this. Not like me.”

You purse your lips, shaking your head. You’re not quite sure what game you’re playing, not when he can read you like a book, can feel the evidence of your pending release, pulsing desperately around him. Begging.

When you don’t answer, still stubbornly clinging onto your last, desperate piece of humility, his hand slithers up to roughly grope at your breast. He massages, then pinches your peaked nipple between two large fingers. “Use your manners.”

Your hips cant backwards, attempting to goad him into moving—all you need is just a little bit, and you’ll be falling off the cliff into oblivion. He chuckles, hips moving quickly to avoid being sheathed fully inside you; you’re reprimanded with a slap to your breast. No words are necessary; he isn’t going to bother repeating himself, so you steel yourself and say with a shaky voice, “P-please, Andrei.”

A satisfied smirk curls onto his stupid, handsome face as he releases your breast, knocking your own hand out of the way to rub at your clit as he resumes the same brutal rhythm as before. The warmth of his finger sends a spark up your spine, heightening the pleasure that surges through you.

“C’mon, kisa. Come on it.”

You have no choice but to obey, the world shattering around you after freezing entirely for the briefest of moments. You swear your soul leaves your body in the middle of that dingy bathroom in the city’s hottest club; one set of fingers pressed against your throbbing clit, the other gripping the edge of the countertop, holding on for dear life. The sound of Andrei’s groan of satisfaction is deep in your ear, approving of the way your hips twitch in his hands.

“You’re so pretty when you come,” he says, patronizing, nipping affectionately at your shoulder. You don’t have it in you to roll your eyes, but you sigh loudly when he pulls out of you; the empty void in your pussy is devastating. “On your knees, sweetheart. Gotta clean up the mess you made.”

He isn’t rough, but he isn’t entirely gentle as he encourages you to your knees; you do your best not to imagine what is on the sticky, tiled floor of the bathroom—or the last time it was cleaned. Andrei smirks as he tilts his head down to look at you. “Knew I’d get you back here someday.”

“You want me to suck your dick or not?”

“I do,” he says slowly. “But I know you want that even more.”

Now, you do roll your eyes, ignoring him and leaning forward to take him in your mouth.

“Ah ah ah,” he stops you. You hate that he makes you feel like a greedy child going for a piece of candy before you say ‘thank you’. “Want you to say it.”

“Fuck you,” you spit out.

“Already did, sweetheart,” he winks, and you scowl in response. He’s the worst when he’s right.

“Wanna suck your dick, Andrei,” you say reluctantly, the words tasting awful in your mouth. You’re tempted to slap the smug look on his stupid, handsome face.

Your eyes draw to the way he takes his length in his hand, stroking it slowly. “Want it in your throat, hm?”

A glare, burning hot, shot in his direction. He watches you, expectant, and you know he’s waiting for you to repeat his words. The sooner you say it, the sooner it’ll be over. “Want it in my throat.”

“Want me to spill my cum all over that pretty face?” he smirks. You swallow, hot from the inside out.

“Want you to come all over my face, Drei.”

It sounds so sincere he pauses to stare. Then the smirk returns. “Aw, baby, all you had to do was ask.”

His dick meets your lips and you whimper as soon as it presses into your mouth. The weight of him is familiar, almost comforting on your tongue, though the width of him is something you never got used to. He’s big, and he knows it.

“Forgot how much I like the way you look with my cock stuffed in your mouth,” he says, pulling his phone out of the back pocket of his unzipped pants to snap a photo of you. “Should I post on my private story, you think?”

“You post and I’ll never suck your dick again, Svechnikov.”

“Don’t worry, kisa,” he coos. “Want to keep that for my eyes only. Now, put that pretty mouth to work, yeah?”

With a scoff, you roll your eyes and part your lips again—reluctantly. You can’t explain why, but there’s an inexplicable urge to have him back in your mouth, to deliver the pleasure he never fails to offer you.

To keep him addicted to you the same way you are him.

He presses in, doesn’t give you the time to adjust before he’s hitting the back of your throat, nor does he bother to hide his dark chuckle when you choke, tears brimming in your eyes. With a groan, his thrusts grow quicker, drool spilling out the side of your mouth.

“Not sure what I like fucking more: your cunt or your face,” he drawls, accent thick as he draws closer to his release. Thick fingers card through your hair, securing a hold at the back of your head and you blink away the stream of tears pooling in your eyes. A string of broken Russian falls from his mouth, eyes squeezed shut while his hips increase their pace. “Fuckin’ love when you gag on it though, baby.”

Andrei lets out another loud groan and a frantic series of thrusts before he’s pulling out of your mouth quickly, wrapping his fingers around length and stroking himself. He jerks a few times before releasing another curse in Russian before he spills onto your face, dripping thickly over your skin.

“Fuck,” he says, this time in English. “Now I gotta get a picture of that.”

When he tugs his phone out, you do your best to scramble away, but you hear the telltale click of the camera anyways. Andrei’s hum is smug as he admires his artistry. “M’sure Scott will love this preview of you for later.”

“You are the worst,” you huff, glaring at him as you clean up your face. Still, you can’t help the heat that creeps into your cheeks.

“What? All I was doing was warming you up for him. Think about how much dick you can take now that I’ve stretched you out.”

Not bothering to even waste the energy arguing back, you opt to flip him off. The effect is much less powerful given that you’re tossing out the paper towel that wiped his cum off your face. He raises an amused eyebrow, eyes raking over your figure before stepping beside you to grab his own paper towel.

While he’s cleaning himself up, you adjust your skirt, ensuring you’re properly covered. A glance in the mirror renders your reflection less than stellar, but you clean up the smudged lip gloss and wipe away the runny mascara from under your eyes. When you look back at Andrei, he’s distracted by his phone, so you seize the opportunity to take his wallet and pull out two crisp hundred dollar bills, fresh from the ATM.

Rubbing the bills together catches his attention, and he grimaces as he lunges toward you. Holding them just out of his grasp, you offer a big pucker of your lips, pressed to his cheek with a loud, “mwah!” before tucking the bills into your top, snug against your breast. With a wink, you walk out, feeling his gaze hot on your ass as the door swings shut behind you.

#andrei svechnikov fic #andrei svechnikov imagine #hockey fic #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fic #andrei svechnikov smut #andrei svechnikov x reader

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misguidedasgardian · 1 year

Text

The winter Sun (26)

26. The Strength of certainty

MASTERLIST

Summary: The aftermath of the battle and the reunion

Pairing: Cregan Stark x Fem!Targaryen Reader

Warnings: Cursing, medieval and asoiaf customs, AGE GAP, Cregan is 12 years OLDER than reader), arranged marriage, war and all that comes with it, mentions of burnt bodies, mentions of childbirth, implied non-con, use of the word bastard, death of characters, mentions and descriptions of injury, might miss some warnings

+18, MINORS DNI

Wordcount: 3k

Notes: FINALLY I'm not going to hide it, they will see eachtoher again! can't wait for you to read it.

As you commanded your dragon to fly back to your home in the Vale you couldn’t help the shake in your hands as you grabbed the reins tighter.

You had been reckless in coming here, when you left your home this morning you didn't even believed you could make it, but as you approached Harrenhal you realized you had come just in the right moment, the perfect moment

As you commanded Vhaelar to jump on Vhagar, you felt a sharp pain between your thighs, you had just given birth.

And although your dragon did most of the job, your body was a tight as a bow, constricted on it’s own, your muscles were so sore you believe it was a miracle when you could unsaddle from your dragon when you arrived back in Runestone, it was already dark, the night had fallen over the seven Kingdoms

You were in shock still

You couldn’t believe what you had done

It’s like some sort of strange personality had taken over you, the rage, the fire within you had taken control and unleashed its savage self on Aemond

Aemond was dead

You had helped on killing the kinslayer

And perhaps you were one yourself now

You walked slowly inside the castle, all the soldiers and servants had removed the green dragon from their clothing and removed it with the classic red dragon one, of House Targaryen, in your honor

You didn’t even know the full extent of Aemond’s attack on your home and staff within, you didn’t know what was said and done to them, but they all seemed relieved to see you return, unharmed, and something told them everything was over.

You knew they talked amongst themselves, so, it was clear, they reverted their loyalties back to you, you were safe in the castle your father had built for you.

You found the midwife sitting in a rocking chair, sewing something, right next to the crib. You decided right then and there that you had to put everything behind you, you needed to stay here until you healed and then you were going to reach out to Sara in Winterfell to see how you were going to proceed, your baby was yet too small to travel on dragon back and either way, he was the priority now.

And Rickon? your heart clenched in your chest every time you thought about him, you wanted to see him so badly, so terribly much it pained you, you missed him dearly, with every breath you took.

The Midwife found you looking and immediately stood up from her chair and bowed

“thank you for caring for him”, you said softly

“The young lord is delightful, princess”, she said with rosy cheeks and a sweet smile, “he never cries, and he is so quiet”, you were content as you walked towards the crib and found that actually your son was awake.

The midwife left and left you alone with the baby, you took in your arms. You cooed at him, and he seemed to be happy to be in your arms

“How am I going to name you, uh?”, you asked softly, and you frowned when you remembered all the names Aemond had suggested, Maegor, Visenya, and more that resemble… strong… characters of your family…

But Maegor?

You couldn’t curse him like that and furthermore… Why would you listen to Aemond? he was dad, he was not going to come near YOUR son

But still you had no idea.

Tears came to your eyes as you wished Cregan was here next to you, to name your child, and then you wondered if he would accept him, he might doubt the baby’s paternity.

“Where could she have gone?”, Cregan was desperate, and he had trouble finding Daemon in the middle of the mayhem that surrounded the castle of Harrenhal

The Rogue Prince removed his helmet

“I don’t know”

He owned you his life, he would be dead if it weren’t for you, the scariest part?, he was prepared to die today, only to take Aemond with him.

He was never close to you, he couldn’t bear it, you reminded him too much of your own father, it was painful to him. But once he learned that one-eyed HIghtower bastard had kidnapped you? He saw red, and he decided right then and there he was going to kill him and it didn’t matter if he died in the process.

He had to take him down

But as your father before you, you had proven to be capable of handlings things yourself

He smirked, just thinking about

“Actually I do know”, he said, looking at the Wolf of the North, “she flew east, and there is only one place she could have gone in that direction”

But men were distracted when a handful of soldiers brought Aemond Targaryen to the castle, from the lake from which he had been recovered

The motherfucker was still alive

“One of his legs was completely destroyed”, narrated a soldier, as the One-eye prince had fainted for the pain and the fall, Vhagar rested in the bottom of the lake

Cregan and Daemon shared concerned looks

“We have to kill him”, demanded the wolf

“No”, said Daemon, “not here”

“What he had done to my wife? we have to kill him”

“Publicly”, he said, “we put him on trial and behead him in the King’s Landing square, or better yet… in Old Town”, Cregan wanted to fight him, he wanted to draw his own sword and kill him right then and there, a man injured and unarmed

“I promise he will pay for what he did, but we have to send a message”, said the Rogue Prince, and Cregan just dropped it, because there he stood, the One-Eye Prince, dragonless, eye-less, he had lost one of his legs which meant he was paralyzed.

He was not going to hurt you or anyone else ever again.

He could wait until he woke up, he wanted to face him for what he did, to tell him he was going to get you back and he was never going to see you again. He wanted to tell the Kinslayer he had won, that love, and goodness preailed.

But his state was critical, Cregan didn’t know when Aemond was going to wake, if he was even going to, and he couldn’t wait anymore

He needed to see you, he had to

So he abandoned Harrenhal without even having a rest, a group of soldiers, his most trusted men followed him.

He left his best friend Ben Tallheart on Harrenhal to oversee the taking of the lands and the army marching to King’s Landing afterwards.

Cregan rode his horse for a week

A man possessed by the need of returning to his adoring wife, a man possessed by love and devotion, he needed to see you, he needed you to see him, to see he was still alive, that the nightmare was over, that Aemond was over, and nobody could ever hurt you again.

He rested at night because he couldn’t see the road ahead of him and because his men and his horse deserved it, if not he would have rode at night as well, but the rocky roads of The Vale were treacherous even in midday.

But finally after seven days of a heavy march, he could recognize the castle Daemon had described for him, your home

He felt embarrassed that he never accompanied you to your own home while you had been married, then he was reminded that you two had been married for almost two years… incredible…

The doors of the walls surrounded your castle were close, he dismounted his horse to approach the gated

“I’m Lord Cregan Stark, and i’ve come to see my wife, the Princess (Y/N)”, he said firmly to the soldiers above the battlements

They looked at each other, amazed, and opened the gates immediately to let him pass

“Welcome to Runestone, Lord Stark”, they welcomed

“Like I said, I would like to see my wife, but my men and horses…”

“They will be taken care of”, offered the young soldier. Cregan offered his thanks as he walked through the courtyard and towards the main entrance to the palace, where another guard offered to take him inside.

“the princess is recovering in her rooms”, he told Cregan as they walk up the stairs

“Was she harmed in the battle?”, he asked, fearfully, and he looked puzzled.

“No my lord”

As they walked through the hallways and corridors Cregan looked around amazed, it was a beautiful place, with many large windows and colorful paintings and tapestries, it was a comfortable palace, he even saw a painting of your father and you, who in it you were only a child hanging near the stairs that led to the bedrooms.

And soon enough, they were outside a set of double doors, two more guard guarding you

Cregan suddenly felt nervous, he wanted to see you, and for you to see him, but he was scared of surprising you too much, he didn’t know how you were going to take it…

“I will let her know”, the soldier said, knocking on the doors and once he heard you telling him to go in, he entered your chambers

“Lord Cregan Stark”, he announced

You froze in your palace near the window. Was this some sick joke?

“What?”, you asked

“Lord Cregan Stark is here for you, your grace”

“Is this some joke?”, you asked, the soldier immediately regretted his decision, turning pale, not knowing what to say

And then Cregan let himself in, not wanting to put the soldier in any trouble.

When you saw him you truly believed you had died, or that you were dreaming, or having an hallucination

You lost your foot and had to grab onto the nearest table, not believing your eyes

“Cregan?”, you called

“My love, I’m here!”, he said gently, “I've come back for you”, you couldn’t help but ran to his embrace, and he hugged you tightly.

He was real, he was alive, he was here

“You are alive!”, you cried on his chest

“I’m alive my love”, he whispered against your hair, caressing your silver locks and your back, “I’ve come back for you”

You finally released him and he released you, only for you to gaze on one another

“Aemond told me he had burn you”, you whined

“He did, from the skies, but, my men, they, covered me”, he explained, “Jon, the son of Lord Roderik Dustin he took my cape and covered me with his own body”, he told you, and you could see in his eyes the storm of pain and traumas from war. “Then I saw Aemond walking through the field of burn corpses and he took the cape from him”, he said, and you nodded, tears falling down your eyes

“I can’t believe you are alive!”, you cried, and he hugged you again

He could tell you were so shocked by the news he led you to sit on the edge of the bed, and you smiled warmly at him, but he stood tall in front of you.

“I was badly hurt, my men carried me east from Harrenhal, the only thing that kept me alive was the thought of seeing you again”, he saw, with such devotion in his eyes that made you tremble, “and I…”, he was interrupted by your son who began to cry softly, and just then Cregan noticed the existence of the baby in the room.

He was resting on his crib by the window, and Cregan looked at it as it was a beautiful thing. He began to walk towards it slowly

“Cregan…”, you called, but he didn’t even acknowledge you as he walked until he could see your silver haired son resting on his crib

“You were indeed pregnant”, he whispered, with a wide smile on his face, he leaned in, and took the baby in his arms, he didn’t seem to realize what the baby’s hair might say about his parentage. He only looked at the baby with such love in his eyes that made your eyes water.

“I’m sorry”, you cried, clawing at the sheets underneath you

“What for?”, he asked, and he looked at you innocently dubstruck

“Cregan…”, you called, wanting to cry, did he really not see it?, but he did, his face got serious, looking at you with sad eyes

“You have nothing to be sorry for”, he said gently, cradling the newborn babe in his arms, he looked down at his little reddened face, his eyes trailed the silvery hairs on his head, and he swallowed hard, he looked at you and found you looking at him with wide eyes and tears streaming down your cheeks

“It might be Aemond’s”, you whispered, with a choked voice. You saw sadness in his eyes

“We don’t know that”, he said simply, shooking his head

“Look at him”, you demanded

“This is not your fault”, he said seriously, his eyes softened when he looked at you, “hey”, he called gently, “what do you want to do?”, he asked, hope in his icy blue eyes

“Regardless, he is my son”, you said, in whimpers, “and I love him”, but then you sighed, feeling a lump in your throat, “what do you want to do?”, he could do it, he could claim he is a bastard and he could shun you, for a split second you forgot who Cregan was…

“He is our son”, he said firmly

“What…?”, you asked, sounding hopefully

“I don’t care”, he said dismissively, cradling the babe in his arms, “he takes after you, his mother”

“What if he turns out like… what if he is evil like Aemond?”, you asked fearfully

“We are going to raise him, and he came out of you”, he said with a gentle smile, “how can he ever be evil?”. he smiled at you and now happy tears rolled down your face, “and besides, I’m certain he is mine, there is no doubt in my mind”

“Cregan…”

“He is my son”, he said firmly, “and we will never speak of this again”, he said firmly, hugging the baby against his chest, you nodded, He looked down at the baby that cooed gently, cuddling deeper in his embrace, looking for his warmth, “my dragonling”, he said gently, “he looks like your father”, he whispered, and that really brought more tears to your eyes, “hello there”, he whispered, cradling him in your arms, “what’s his name?”, he asked

“I don’t know yet”, you whispered

“I will ask you to call him Jon, but he has your Valyrian curls is kind of sad…”

“Jonaerys”, yous aid then, and he looked at you wide eyed

“Jonaerys”, he agreed, sitting by your side, with your child in his arms.

The night had fallen over the castle, and you had just finished having dinner with Cregan, and you were walking up the stairs with him.

“Can I stay with you?”, he asked gently, and you looked at him wide eyed

You knew he knew what Ameond had done to you, there was a reason that the baby could be Aemond’s, and you could see how cautious he was while being near you.

“I don’t want to push you”, he said gently

“I want you to hold me”, you said back, with a shy smile on your face, he smiled back at you

And he held you alright, you hugged him tightly, not yet believing he was there right next to you, you couldn’t believe it.

“He is gone, is all over my love”, he whispered, “now we go home”

“You keep saying…”, you started shakily, “he is gone, he is gone… but… you are not saying… he is dead”, you whined, and then you looked into his eyes

“He will never hurt you again”, he said surely

“Where is he?”

“He is being taken to King’s Landing where he will hold trial and surely be executed”, you nodded, “Vhagar rests in the bottom of the lake, where you sent him”

“I see”

“You will never see him again”, he whispered

“I know”, you said back, burying your face on his chest. Cregan was your home, your safe palace, and with him, nothing could harm you

“We need to go to King’s landing”, he said then

“We need to go and see our son”, you said back

“The war is most likely over, we need to go and bend the knee to Rhaenyra”, he said gently

“I’m sure she will understand”, you muttered

“There are still people in King’s Landing that call her a usurper”, he said with a warning in his voice, “there still the Lannisters held the treasury…”

“I want to go and see our son”, you whined, “we haven’t seen him in moons”

“I know”, he said softly

“Eight moons”

“I know”, he kissed the top of your head, “we will go home first”, he said surely, “as soon as the baby is stronger and you had recuperated, we will fly there”

The war was over

The fear and uncertainty was over, you had won, your family was safe, you had to believe it, you had to. The biggest threat was gone.

“I will take you home, or rather, you will take me”, he chuckled, “You, me, Rickon and Jonaerys, our little family”, he said, so proud of his two baby boys

You were distracted when Jonaerys started to cry, Cregan was faster and he got up, to grab him from his crib, he took it to the bed, and he cuddled him against his chest

“He is smaller than RIckon was when he was born”, he whispered softly, “was the labor easy?”

“A little more messy, but there were no complications”, you said, caressing your son’s head

“He is beautiful”, he whispered, “my son”, he whispered, “I’m the luckiest man on earth”

More notes: did you see something else coming from Cregan?? hehe

that is why I posted this picture in a publications some weeks ago hehehe

taglist! @severewobblerlightdragon @missusnora @stargaryenx @poppyreader @chainsawsangel @court-jester-stuff @batprincess1013 @eddiepicker

@lyannesworld @arujee @kamisunshine @mss-nthng @partypoison00 @grimistangel @elleclairez @may-machin @prettykinkysoul @justagurlwithships @champomiel

@laura-naruto-fan1998 @zoleea-exultant @devotedlythoughtfulanchor @zoleea-exultant @llleon666 @dark-night-sky-99 @bitchigoteverythingissues @harrypotteranna23-blog

@esposadomd @ajanauia @phantomtea19 @let-love-bleeds-red @kishie8 @dreamingofyourmoons @esposadomd @sandronebabyy @kemillyfreitas @trifoliumviridi @dreamingofyourmoons @darling-jace @biblichorr @ivvypg @mendes-bae @borikenlove @tssf-imagines @praline357 @alitaar @prettykinkysoul @aelora-a @a-mexican-waffle @ateliefloresdaprimavera @alexa4040 @lrboyd @anditsmywholeheart @weaselyss @scarlettqueen190 @deeeeexx @cloudroomblog @dreaming-of-the-reality @yentroucnagol @crazymusicgirl104 @toodlesxcuddles @thanyatargaryen

#misguidedwinter #cregan #cregan stark x reader #cregan x reader #cregan x you #cregan stark #hbo house of the dragon #house targaryen #house of the dragon #targaryen!oc #targaryen!reader #aemond targaryen #daemon targaryen

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child-of-the-nights · 10 months

Note

hello! could u maybe write something for elrond where he gets injured saving reader and she shuts off and starts avoiding him because it made her realize she loves him and she panicked? maybe she's a widow like him too? if not thank you anyway <33

I love Elrond so much so of course! Have fun reading!

Warnings: injury, near death experience, battle (so expect killing as well), angst (with happy ending) -> nothing graphic tho

A/N: the reader is an elven woman in this oneshot but let me know if you would like something else ^^

word count: 1676 words

Elrond x Fem! Elf! Reader: Elrond gets injured and Reader avoids him

Although Elrond never enjoyed putting his people's lives in danger, he would never refuse to assist those in need if requested. That is how he ended up in the middle of a bloody battlefield where armor, weapons, and bodies were being flung around like nothing. He was skilled enough in combat to protect himself from the enemy's blades, though. No matter how many orcs tried to attack him, he easily defeated them.

The battle raged on, the sound of blades deafening those involved. Arrows sped through the air and soon struck their victim, whose cries were barely audible. The elves fought with unmatched skill and grace, and Elrond slowly led them to victory. By that time, the orcs were outnumbered, and the elven Lord had some time to look around and aid his kin.

Amidst the chaos, Elrond caught sight of you, a brave and spirited elven woman, fighting alongside your people. You were as competent as anyone on the battlefield, but it so happened that you became trapped, surrounded by enemies, with no way out. Elrond jumped into action and moved swiftly to get to you without even pausing for a second. His blades cut through your foes before they could strike you down. Once they were all dead, he took a glance at you, trying to check if you were hurt but before he could proceed, an awful strike hit Elrond. He stumbled back, clutching his side, his face twisted in pain. The sight of his injury sent a shiver of terror through you.

"Baw (No)!" you yelled as you circled around Elrond to slay the orc. Your opponent died because he couldn't get his sword out of the elf's body in time.

Even though you wished to help Elrond, you were unable to do so since your foes spotted the opportunity and approached him. He fought bravely despite having a serious wound, albeit his posture wasn't as steady as before. You held your ground and defeated as many orcs as you could before the enemy decided to retreat.

When it was safe to do so, Elrond fell to his knees and groaned in pain. You rushed to his side and helped him to find a comfortable position. Shouts could be heard from afar, but you couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

"Everything will be fine." with great effort, Elrond reassured you, his voice strained but filled with determination. "Mae carnen. (You did well)."

You tried saying something, but words simply didn't come out of your mouth. Some fellow elves came to their Lord's aid as you stumbled back to give them space. It only dawned on you just now that if you hadn't found yourself in this situation, Elrond wouldn't have been injured. Everything after the battle happened so fast, the elven Lord got safely brought back to Rivendell, where the healer's immediately began to work, while the rest of the elves slowly traveled back.

It didn't feel real to be traveling back to your home. It was almost as if you were seeing with your eyes but your head was blank. Seeing Elrond on the ground had left your face pale. Everything that had happened felt too familiar. It seemed like the day's happenings were right out of your nightmares—the nightmares about losing your beloved spouse. You started crying as you thought back to that terrible day. After they passed away, Elrond was the one who helped you recover because he knew how painful it was to lose a loved one—possibly the most precious of them all. Elrond was the one who took the time to help you heal by lending you his wisdom.

Your sobbing became more intense with each thought. You had come to a realisation as you reflected on the time you spent together, the comfort his presence provided you, and the coldness the separation brought you. You suddenly realized what you had been experiencing while around him. It was love. You considered yourself dumb for only realizing that at the last second, just as you might lose him. And you were genuinely horrified by that.

Weeks passed as Elrond received treatment for his wounds in the security of Rivendell. When you learned of his recovery, you felt both relief and anxiety at the same time. Overwhelmed by the weight of your emotions, you withdrew, avoiding Elrond's presence, afraid of what your feelings meant and the vulnerability that accompanied it. But, Elrond being Elrond, you knew he had noticed it. Since you two were close, visiting him while he was recovering would have made sense. And yet, since the battle, he had not seen you. You ached to be by his side, to console and comfort him, but you were unable to.

As Elrond slowly regained his strength, he sought out your presence. Every time Lindir came by to let you know that Lord Elrond had asked for your presence in the gardens, you would come up with an excuse not to go. You avoided him at every turn, anxiously waiting for him to pass through the corridor. You could see how his gaze searched for you in the halls, but you were nowhere to be found. Elrond became very concerned and yearned to know why you had been avoiding him. It was unlike you to act like this.

Determined to understand the cause of your withdrawal, he sought you out, finding you in the quiet solace of Rivendell's library. You had been reading a book, trying to take your mind off of the elven Lord. That was until a gentle tap on your shoulder turned your attention away from the book. Your stomach dropped as you realised who had disturbed you. He took a seat beside you, without asking you first.

"What are you reading, exactly?" Elrond asked with curiosity.

Suddenly forgetting what you were reading, you looked down to view the cover. "Oh, I just grabbed something off the shelves." You tried to avoid making eye contact as you shook your head.

Elrond grew silent, noticing how even now, you tried to run away from him. It broke his heart that you grew to resent him so. If he had to be honest, Elrond fell for you a long time ago. He never really showed it but he longed for someone who could understand his pain. And then you appeared at his doorstep, asking for support after the death of your spouse. At first he just looked at you as a friend, but those feelings soon grew. If you hadn't expressed your disinterest in dating, he would've said something sooner. But being the gentleman that he is, he respected your bounderies and tried to move on. The problem was that he couldn't.

"Please, mellon nîn (my friend)," he began softly, his voice carrying a mix of concern and vulnerability, "help me understand. Why do you avoid me so? What has come between our friendship?"

Those words stung. You sighed, unable to give him a straight up answer. But you knew Elrond valued honesty so you gathered all your strenght and looked him in the eyes. "I cannot express it, Elrond, for I fear if I do, history will repeat itself."

Elrond looked deep in thought, carefully deciding his next sentence. "I'm not quite sure I follow." he admitted.

You looked away, trying to hide your pained expression. "The battlefield, brannon nîn (my lord). It was my fault."

"It hardly was." he shook his head, slowly sliding closer to you. When you had not moved away, he reached out to grab your hand.

"You nearly lost your life, Elrond!" you yelled. "If that blade was aimed just a bit higher, you would've dropped dead! And it would've been because of me! Because I was incompetent enough, to let myself get trapped!"

"Please, do not think of yourself this way." his pained voice could be barely heard. Elrond's eyes widened in shock at what you were saying. He in no way had blamed you for his injury. "Any of us could've been in your situation. You fought well, you came to my aid when I needed it. Why do you put yourself down?"

"I just..." you sighed. "I can't lose you too, Elrond."

His grip on your hands became firmer. "Is this the reason for your withdrawal?"

You hesitated for a second, then nodded. Although it was difficult, there was a part of you that wanted him to be aware of your worries. No matter how hard you tried to turn it off, that self-indulgent part of you wanted to be comforted by him. "My feelings, they terrify me. It's as if acknowledging them would make my fears come true. After I lost... them, I didn't want to put myself through the pain of loving someone but on the battlefield I had realised that I had already broken that promise. You matter so much to me that I cannot even express it with words. I have fallen in love with you, Elrond. And it scared me."

Elrond took each of your words in carefully. He pondered on them for some time before giving you a nod. Elrond's gaze softened as his hand reached out to gently cup your face. "I understand your fear. Loss leaves deep scars upon our hearts. But shutting ourselves off from love only denies us the chance to heal. I, too, have felt the sting of loss, the ache of a heart once broken. Yet, here we stand, with an opportunity to experience something quite beautiful together."

His words shocked you. "You feel the same way?"

"Chin gelair chîn orthernir guren (Your radiant eyes conquered my heart)." Elrond smiled at you.

Finally, when he whispered those words, you felt the warmth of his presence spread throughout your body. Elrond welcomed your hug as you threw yourself into his arms. Although your worries have not vanished, it helped a lot to know that someone was by your side.

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moonlightgrisha · 11 months

Text

Make a choice

Ch. 7 You feel like you don't belong anywhere, but the Darkling makes you a proposal which helps you make up your mind . [Masterlist] Previous - Next

You need to make a choice.

The tsaritsa called for a private meeting this morning, which you didn't expect at all, not so soon anyway. You left your chambers in the Little Palace to be escorted to the royal quarters. You had left the Grand Palace only a few days earlier, but it already felt so unfamiliar. It used to be your home, but you have no home, now.

The tsaritsa welcomed you like you just came back from a nice visit to Novyi Zem, and asked her servants for tea and biscuits. Then she managed to compliment you for the dress you chose in the morning. You thanked her, but kept feeling slightly suspicious, waiting for the storm to come. And just as you were taking your first sip of tea, she added: "I see you are not wearing a kefta".

"No, I'm not, moya tsaritsa".

"May I ask why?"

You wished you told her it was none of her business. But somehow you managed to take a small sip of tea and then answer, perfectly calm: "My position at the Little Palace is currently... unclear".

She raised an eyebrow. "How odd. General Kirigan seemed already fond of you. But I guessed not everything is how it seems, as you proved us to be, dear".

There it was, the first blow. You smiled and gulped down your tea, hot as your shame.

Your royal cousin stood silent for a little while, before casually saying: "Maybe we could pretend nothing happened".

"Excuse me?"

She leaned over to you, whispering. "I could arrange for you to leave. Disappear. Wouldn't you like that? Living your life, far away. No more talking of summoning, sorcery or whatever all this matter is about".

"This matter is..." you were hurt, somewhere deep inside, because you had realized that you were no more than dust to be swept under the carpet. "I am Grisha, cousin".

"And royal". She remarked. "There are no Grisha in the royal family".

"I am the first".

"Are you?"

She left you wondering, and doubts and questions fell hard on you, like winter rain. How many more Grisha were born in the royal family, and how many disappeared?

And precisely, how did they disappear?

"I'll think of your generous offer", you smiled, hiding your fear and your rage behind the prettiest of smiles.

But now, you storm through the Little Palace. You are done, being a prisoner or waiting for whatever destiny has in store for you. You don't know if you are supposed to be wondering around, and any Grisha on your path would surely wonder what is this polished girl in otkasat'sya clothes doing around their home, but you don't care anymore at this point.

You need to make a choice. And you need to think.

So you run down the stairs, sneak in the stable and reach for your horse, which you missed terribly. While you proceed to saddle him, you think of some witty explanation for anyone who could surprise you right there.

And just as you're tightening the straps under the saddle, you see the Darkling entering the stable.

You stay completely still, while he pats his horse on the head, taking the reins in his hand. You are considering sneaking out unnoticed, when he turns and sees you.

There is a moment of silence. Then he says: "I'm glad to see you out of your chambers".

"That's it?" you snap. "All you have to say?"

"Is there something else you wished I said?"

Not really, but you are still waiting to figure him out, to figure all of this out. You simply shake your head, and turn to leave.

His voice reaches you at your back. "Please, don't leave".

He sounds earnest, just slightly exasperated. You stop.

"I was just about to head out", he continues. "I know how you like riding".

He can't see you over there, but he can feel the smile in your voice. "We already know who's going to win the chase".

"No chasing this time. We ride together".

Maybe it's the way he says it. Maybe it's the words. Eventually, you take you horse and follow outside.

You've been quite unfair to him. He is an exceptional rider. He's also the only person you know in the Little Palace, except for Genya, and even know you don't trust him yet, it feels good not being alone with your thoughts.

You ride side to side, and only sometimes you talk, but not about moon and darkness, destiny or summoning. You talk about the path you are riding, the blurred horizon and the skeleton trees not ready for spring yet.

You don't ask him once where he's taking you. You like to pretend he's taking you far away, further than what the tsaritsa promised you. A place where you can glow with moonlight without fearing to be thrown on the battlefield.

Then you remind yourself that he's the one who's probably going to throw you on the battlefield, and your heart cracks a little.

You stop by a fountain, to let the horse drink plenty. You notice the carvings on the side: skulls, soldiers and sorcery.

"How charming", you mumble, recognising the Black Heretic's tale in the pictures. "To remind me of my duties".

"And what exactly are your duties?" he asks, and that irritates you more than you care to show.

"You perfectly know that". You gesture to the fountain. "Once upon a time darkness fell on the land. Since then, people have been waiting for someone to get rid of their nightmare. It never occurred them that the chosen one might have her own nightmares".

You are no longer looking at him, but you can feel him frowning. "What do you mean?"

You hesitate, but then you tell him. "I've been dreaming about it for years. Shadows. Monsters. Blood".

He stares at you, and doesn't talk. For a moment he seems terrified. Then he smiles.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I took you here because this is one of my favorite spots, and for no other reason whatsoever?"

"No."

He laughs. It's the first time you hear him laughing. You let a smile escape your lips. His eyes are still laughing when he asks: "I expected you to run away on the first day at the Little Palace. Why did you stay?"

The question leaves you speechless. He's right. Why haven't you? "I guess..." you try to collect your thought. Finally, you find them. "I am tired of hiding".

He nods. You are sitting by the fountain, at this point, and he sits next to you, but not too close.

"I would like you to join me on an expedition", he says.

You flinch. "Where? Why?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow for the Fjerdan border. I would like you to come".

"So you are taking me to the batterfield".

"To the border", he remarks. "See with your eyes what the stakes are. What we are fighting for".

You don't answer, so he stands up and goes to kneel in front of you, just like he did on that first night in the Little Palace. The memory makes you blush, but he speaks before you can stand up and leave.

"We fight so that no Grisha will hide anymore", he says, looking at you in the eye. "No one. Ever".

"And there is a price to pay", you whisper.

"Everything has a price". His voice is heavy and regretful, and you almost feel his pain in his words.

You stand up. You feel like a queen with a postulant knight at your feet, and you'd like to think that you have the upper hand, but you also know it's much more complicated than this.

You are the one to give him your hand to help him up, this time. He accepts it with a cunning smile, and even if your skin fizzles as you touch him, you control your power, so that you only glow a little.

"Fine", you say. "I'll come".

At least, today you have made a choice.

Taglist @mysweetlittledesire@flostvs1508@budugu

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apopcornkernel · 20 days

Text

thank u sm @lisascumslut78 for the tag mwah kiss tayo

how many works do you have on ao3?

48 on apopcornkernel and 23 on poppyf1owers!! the numbers aren't the same as on my profile bc i have some anon works hehe. so that's 71 in total! woag

what's your total ao3 word count?

136,751 on apopcornkernel and 50,067 on poppyf1owers, making 186,818 in total!!! and i have around 70k lying scattered around in my wip drive so :>

what fandoms do you write for?

i started with miraculous ladybug, dipped my toe in asoiaf (specifically jaime/brienne), went into genshin & hsr, and rn all my current writing is going into dc!!

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all this, and love too — spy x family — a whopping 4,379 kudos (??? still don't understand how)

lesterlicious — trials of apollo — 980 kudos (okay woag did not realize the numbers were that big now)

a fine bird nests wisely — hsr, jingfu — 384 kudos (one of my personal favorites dont read the others here just read my jingfu <3)

a chat in disneyland — miraculous ladybug — 337 kudos

Enough — miraculous ladybug — 327 kudos

do you respond to comments?

yes of course!! im just really bad at keeping up but i read and treasure each comment i promise 🥹

what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i have an unfinished jingfu fic (propaganda movement chinoy au) where there will be major character death! im really looking forward to finishing that one

as for published works, my friend sent me death threats when i posted redder than february flowers (hsr/jingfu), so I'll answer with that :3

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i think it's gotta be all the stars crowd around the moon <3 just softness and love and warmth <3

do you get hate on fics?

i was about to say i thankfully dont but then i suddenly remembered that single comment i got on a fine bird nests wisely KNCNDVSHAHS let me just grab it for your viewing:

THIS WAS SO FUNNY BECAUSE ON THAT AO3 I HAVE A FIC WHERE CHARACTER A TORTURES CHARACTER B AT THE BEHEST OF SOMEONE ELSE, AND THEN PROCEEDS TO MURDER INNOCENT SUBORDINATES AGAINST CHARACTER B'S WISHES TO ENSURE THERE ARE NO WITNESSES. AND ANON CHOSE TO COMMENT ON PURE BIRD FU XUAN SILLINESS 😭😭😭😭😭

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

i do! i have! there's one published (among our other torments not the least) which is wriolyney hate/desk sex, and there's an arlefuri one in my wips which will remain a secret until i finish writing it hehehe cant go spoiling the content yk

do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

i dont think i have :0 but i like to transfer concepts into another media, like for example yelone (yelan/pantalone) in a death in the nile plot, or crimson peak !!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope, or at least not to my knowledge LOL pls dont do it though

have you ever had a fic translated?

nope! i once wrote just dialogue for a liubai fic in my terrible chinese, tho, and then i translated it into english and added description and everythig!! here it is with the translation

have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes!! i dont think im cut out for it tho because im very bad at powering thru wips. i cant turn my writing on and off like a spigot :(

what's your all time favourite ship?

this is sososo hard and sososo evil but i guess jingfu </3 not thinking much about it rn tho bc im busy witj dc huhu

what's a WIP you want to finish but sometimes doubt you ever will?

JINGFU CHINOY PROPAGANDA MOVEMENT AU, dinahbabs fake dating, vichelena post-breakup situationship, hawk & dove aftermath of titans burning rage and legion of bloom in connection with the mordru arc, yelone crimson peak au, SO MANY . SO SO SO SO MANY

what are your writing strengths?

i genuinely don't know anymore bc my writing changes sm all the time. uhhh. i know how to perfectly format dialogue tags?

what are your writing weaknesses?

i hate starting things i hate too much description,, im also prone to really really long sentences, which i try to cut in half when editing, but sometimes im too tired to edit so...

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

girl im filipino wdyt HAHA

serious answer: absolutely. just make sure your target audience will be able to comprehend ur meaning. do this by either making a translation easily accessible without extra steps, or by making a translation obsolete by clarifying the meaning within the text!

or if you're writing, say, maria clara at ibarra fic, just write in taglish bc ur readers are almost all gonna be filipinos anyways LOL

first fandom you wrote for?

miraculous 😞😞😞 ladybug 😞😞😞😞😞 i wrote a chloe fic for an english assignment it was really bad but it was my first real story ever HAHA

favorite fic you've written?

VERY HARD especially since some of them aren't even published yet. but i will have to go with, again, redder than february flowers <3

tagging: @queer-cosette @theladyfae @hanaasbananas uhh anyone else who sees this and is a writer!!!! thank you for reading til the end LOL

#poppy speaks #tag game #poppy talks about writing instead of writing

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zablife · 2 years

Text

Bringing Michael Something at Work

Part of my Corrupt a Wish challenge.

Request: Going into work to bring them something they forgot. Requested by a lovely anon.

Warnings: Stockholm syndrome, kidnapping, false imprisonment, mention of murder, Corrupt a wish reminder: If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention. Proceed with caution.

You woke to find Michael gone. Rolling to his side of the bed, you ran a hand over the crisp linens and found they were still warm. He obviously hadn’t been gone very long, but you missed him anyway. You missed Michael terribly when he had to leave you. However, you knew he had a job to do and couldn’t always take care of you.

Some days he wasn’t able to go to work at all because of your nightmares, but he didn’t seem to mind. On those occasions, he allowed you to burrow down into the soft blankets next to him, finding comfort under one of his sturdy arms. Then he would pull you impossibly close so your cheek rested over his heart. Hushing you gently as he carded his fingers through your hair, you were lulled by his heartbeat and the pleasant warmth that radiated from his skin. He was the only person who had this calming effect over you.

Today you decided to pass the time by soaking in the bath. However, you didn’t get far before you noticed Michael’s wedding ring sitting atop the bathroom counter. You looked down at your own matching golden band and felt a pang of sadness. The familiar feeling of melancholy was setting in once again and you needed Michael’s reassurances. You turned off the hot tap and went to dress yourself as quickly as possible. The only thing you could think of to make your day better would be to visit him, with the excuse of returning his ring.

When you arrived at Shelby Co. Limited, Lizzie looked up at you surprised. It was rare to see you on company premises unless you were escorted by Michael. You gave her a shy smile before asking to see your husband. Hearing voices, Michael opened his office door and greeted you briefly before escorting you inside and closing the door.

You rushed to him and began peppering his face with kisses, finding it impossible to contain your excitement. His reaction was quite different. He grasped your shoulders, holding you away from him as he studied you. Then he took your chin between his thumb and forefinger as his voice lowered an octave. “Y/n, you know you’re not allowed to interrupt my work,” he scolded harshly. Your eyes immediately welled with tears, scared that you had displeased him.

Your hands began to shake nervously as you fished his ring from your purse and held it up to him. “I just came to bring you this. You forgot it…” you said forlornly. You hoped your explanation would save you from any punishment, but you couldn’t be certain. The only way to tell would be to look in his eyes and watch for the minute change in the color of his irises. It was like a small storm that overtook them, signaling an impending unleashing of his carefully controlled rage. It was usually contained so well no one knew it was lurking beneath the surface.

There were many things people didn’t know about your husband. For instance, no one in the family knew the real story of how you’d met or why you were such an obedient wife to him. There were days you struggled to comprehend the chain of events yourself.

You’d had an independent life once with a job and a flat in London, but that was in the past ever since the morning you arrived early for work and witnessed Michael kill your boss. He’d taken you away that day as you tried to scream for help and threatened your life if you didn’t comply. After that, you’d spent months locked in the house trying to find a way back home, but Michael was relentless. He told you every day that you would be his.

In time you’d forgotten what you were fighting against. Michael had become your whole world and you couldn’t help but get excited when you saw his handsome face. He was suddenly so kind to you, bringing flowers and small gifts. You began having long conversations and he confessed his ambitions for the future. By the time he asked you to marry him, you were eager to say yes. As you looked down at the band he was slipping onto his finger now, you gave Michael a weak smile and wondered if things hadn’t worked out for the best after all.

#zablife corrupt a wish #Peaky Blinders fanfic #Peaky Blinders imagine #Michael Gray fanfic #Michael Gray imagine #Michael Gray x reader #Michael Gray x you #Michael Gray x y/n #dark!Michael

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blackjackkent · 2 months

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Past Cazador's prison cells and through a door labeled "Crypt Gate", we find... this.

"Holy hells," Hector mumbles as they proceed down the enormous stairway leading through the crypt. The room is enormous, a giant cavern of a place, full of hanging cages and ornate gilded stonework. It would have taken decades, centuries, to build such a place. And to make use of all these cages...

At the middle of the room, suspended with abyss both above and below, stands an equally enormous platform. Seven alcoves marked with obsidian columns line its edges; six of them are filled, each with a vampire spawn suspended in midair. Several of the same werewolf creatures they fought in the ballroom pace the platform with agitation...

...and Cazador stands at the center of it all.

Hector feels a strange sort of cold hate prickle through him. Everything about this situation is terrible, particularly the tangled, twisted complexities surrounding the fate of the spawn in those jail cells. But Cazador's fate is the sharp clear line that he can follow with ease. Whatever else will happen, that man cannot be allowed to live. That, at least, is certainty.

He looks back towards Astarion, gestures the other man to walk forward with him.

Cazador rounds on them as they approach. He completely ignores Hector, his eyes locking onto Astarion at once with a hunger that has nothing to do with blood and everything to do with power.

"Who stands before us?" he cries. His voice is high, keening, like a wolf's howl. "Is this truly our prodigal son."

Astarion is looking at him with abject hatred - but involuntarily, from habit or from fear, his shoulders hunch up, his head ducking so he is looking up at the vampire lord from under hooded brows. Hector remembers him taking the same involuntary stance before Oblodra back at Moonrise Towers - the automatic submission born of centuries of torment.

Cazador recognizes it too, and smirks. "Do not slouch before me, boy!" he snaps mockingly. "Have you no respect for yourself?"

His fingers tap restlessly along the shaft of the ornate staff he holds in one hand. "Look at you," he goes on, disdainful. "Crawling back after abandoning your family. You should be begging our forgiveness."

The cold cruelty inherent in these words - when Cazador is responsible for all the misery Astarion and so many others have gone through - stings Hector like a slap. How dare you, he thinks with disgust.

But he remains still. As with so many other confrontations that he has witnessed in their journeys... this is not his fight to direct. And this is, perhaps, more important than it was with any of the others, even Shadowheart -- because Astarion has been taught for so long that he had no control. For Hector to deny him that now would be the height of hypocrisy.

Keep back. Do not intervene.

"Forgiveness?" Astarion cries. "You've never forgiven anything. Every mistake, every slip, was punished!"

"I strove for perfection in all things," Cazador returns primly. "Even those as imperfect as you. A pity you amounted to so little, despite my efforts."

"No." Astarion's voice goes hard. His fists are clenched and his eyes unblinking. "No. Fuck you. And fuck everything you've ever done to me."

Damn right, Hector thinks. Slowly, casually, he shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet. It's only a matter of time before this comes to violence.

Say nothing.

Cazador laughs sharply. "I suspected you would return to me changed," he taunts. "Never did I imagine you would be so wretched." He takes a step towards Astarion, spreading his arms in a mocking welcome. "Oh, thankless child. Did I not bless you with our immortal gift? Did I not make you what you are?!"

Every word is stabbing into Astarion like a knife, and the rage is building in him until finally it can't be contained. "You son of a bitch!" he howls, and hurls himself at Cazador, one fist coming up, ready to strike--

Red light bursts from the base of Cazador's staff, enveloping the two of them, and Astarion cries out as he is frozen into place, his movement arrested into stillness in the space of a blink.

"You truly forgot my power." Cazador clicks his tongue scornfully. "You truly thought our bond as creator and creation was all that stopped you from killing me!" He steps closer, his face only a few inches from Astarion's. "You are weak, my child. You are a small, pathetic little boy who never amounted to anything!"

Astarion whimpers with pain and fury. Cazador ignores him, jerks the staff in a sudden wide arc. "But today, you will finally do something worthwhile. You will burn, and I will ascend!"

Instantly, Astarion is lifted into the air and hurled bodily across the platform and into the last remaining niche waiting for him. A blaze of blood and magical energy bursts around him, shattering his equipment aside and leaving him bare-chested and bathed in red. A deeply scored and elaborate scar on his back begins to glow as if flame is bursting from within his skin.

"NO!" Astarion screams, and there is nothing left of his usual confidence-- the word is heavy with terror. "STOP HIM! AND GET ME OUT OF THIS!"

Hector is already moving, his fists coming up, ready to strike-- but Cazador shows no fear, just a gleeful, triumphant grin. He raises his arms, crying out to the heavens, to whatever dark god he serves.

"Witness the birth of the Vampire Ascendant!" he bellows. "ECCE DOMINUS!"

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #everyone say it with me #FUCK CAZADOR

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dkakapizzaboy · 1 year

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5pm

Pairing: Mingyu x Fem Reader (Office AU!)

Category: Fluff

Trope: Just Mingyu being absolutely clumsy and causing the reader a headache honestly (?)

Words: 530

Warnings: None I think

A/N: Would’ve posted this way sooner but my Tumblr app hasn’t been working very well. Also, as usual, no power dynamic involved :)

Feedback always helps!

You made your way to 12th floor of your office, to the investment department, pissed beyond words as portfolio manager Kim Mingyu had officially broken the last straw of patience in you.

You saw him in the break room, in all his tallness and buffness and higher than thou glory that he exuded, as he took a sip of his coffee talking to a colleague.

He saw you make your way to him, face flushed red, most probably with anger as your brows were furrowed and he knew he was in trouble. But Mingyu always believed that his best quality was that he was a quick thinker. You had to be, if your day job was dealing in stock market. So, he calmly excused himself from his colleague and gently made his way to the deserted balcony of the 12th floor, aware that you were following him.

"Kim Mingyu!" You yelled as you stepped outside, in the balcony, tired of following him around in 4 inch heels.

He turned towards you, waiting for you proceed.

"I almost paid a broker 6k extra just because i believed you'd written 7 instead of 1!! You know this kind of mistake would've been deducted from my salary. Loss of reputation aside", you fumed.

Mingyu was known in the office for being terrible with paper work, always submitting it at the last moment haphazardly. You'd put up with it for past year and a half because he was an invaluable asset to your firm, and even though he had terrible writing, you were able to read it with clarity after some effort. But today's experience almost shook you to the core. 6000 dollars was not a small amount to be deducted from an individual's salary.

Mingyu felt terrible, but not for the right reasons. Who were you to yell at him even though you'd worked with him just fine for the past year and a half. He'd never seen you complain before, and just coming up out of the blue and yelling at him made him angry.

"It was my first mistake, why are you yelling?" He'd raised his voice slightly as well.

You started laughing bitterly. There was no way no one had told this man how terrible he was with paperwork.

"Because," you came within an arm's length of him, poking him in the chest with your index finger, trying to talk as evenly as possible even though you were boiling from rage within.

"You've always done that, and I've never said anything but this time I'm done."

You spun around, heading towards the door but Mingyu yanked you by the arm, forcing you to step back towards him.

"What do you mean you're done?" He asked, his hand still on your wrist.

"I'm requesting a transfer, I don't want to deal with you anymore. Go be someone else's problem."

His heart dropped. You were nice to him, and looking at your bright smile and pretty face never failed to cheer him up, sometimes even gave him a little bit of butterflies when that smile was directed at him. He didn't want to lose you.

So he did what any reasonable *man* would do.

He let you walk away.

#svt fic #svt fluff #mingyu #mingyu x you #mingyu x reader #mingyu x y/n #kim mingyu #mingyu fluff #mingyu fic #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #sam writes svt

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queenpiranhadon · 8 months

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Okay so uhm

Just thinking about interactions between the KotLC and ATLA characters

Zuko marveling over Marella’s control over her ability and how she was able to not draw her power from rage, but from herself, but also feeling so sad for the girl as he finds out that she’s forced to eternally hide her ability (he can relate because of his time in Ba Sing Se, but the burden of hiding it for the rest of her life is terrible to him)

Katara and Linh bonding over their goofy brothers and showing each other water tricks and overall just being great friends.

Aang and Sophie finding comfort in the fact that they weren’t alone in becoming some monumental figure gifted with the abnormality of multiplie abilities, with the responsibility of keeping the world in one piece, when they’re just trying to be kids.

Sokka meeting Keefe and telling him that your abilities don’t define you, and that you aren’t your parents, you define your own legacy (Sokka felt all the pressure from stepping into Hakoda’s shoes, and while their situations are different, they share the same sentiment) to do something great, and proceeds to show him how to use a boomerang. (They end up cracking jokes and Keefe decided to get his hands on a boomerang someday to cause havoc within the halls of Foxfire)

Fitz attempting to read Toph’s mind after a heated debate on his abilities and her mental blocking (she doesn’t know what it is, but is stubborn enough to assume that it’s the strongest). No one knows how it ends because they refused to talk about it afterwards, but Dex ended up handing Biana his most rare Prattles pin afterwards.

Maaaaybe I’ll do a part two if this is liked enough

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localartinstallation · 19 days

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intro-to-jesus

JESUS 101:

¿really don’t want to do your english essay? take a blinker for me, you, the hoes, yo mama, and God. then get around to starting that cult u always wanted…the ones with vague allusions to a primal feminine rage and faux-cannibalism…

and so i write unto you, my beloved, in hopes i may have love with u 5evah. but i digress…in my experience with one of the many extreme religions, i’d like to wager that any religion that insists on “belonging”, requires an identity from you. this group-assumed identity often lacks the nuances of an actual human being and leads to a lot of, at the deep frustration of gnosis, stagnation…

id like to start this venture off with a little deconstructive exercise in how religion informs one’s sense of identity; therefore, restricting the self. (hows that for a thesis?) personally, i have been informed by christianity and not much else, so forgive me for solely depending on it, but uhhh anyway, in scripture God’s like literal name is pretty much

I AM THAT I AM.

and that’s, like, a really powerful idea to me. thats the sort of identity i want. hey guy……..we should be like God……..i struggle a lot with identity and i have taken a lot of solace in always depending on the fact that i am that i am. literally works all of the time. try it out on your priest or bishop, or even the folks at home! who are you? I am that I am. what are you? I am that i am? why are you? I am that I am. whats your name? I am that i am. got one of them pronouns? she/they. as easy as pie. shrimple as that! no matter what, we are who we are, and if we learn to accept the fact that a God of all things good has to be infinite in both existence and goodness, then we can actually start believing it. if you wanna listen to Jesus, that really smart and really cool mysterious guy that we’re all somehow best friends with? His God is the God of love and thats pretty cool i think…if you think thats cool then we should be friends, and hang out and love each other so much that we start thinking that love is God. and i found this book that dubiously recorded all that neat stuff Jesus said. but that was like 2024 years ago exactly and so the only stuff thats totally real is that Jesus was just another minority killed by angry romans. i adore the new testament, that shit is peak, and REALLY shoves that whole love wumbo jumbo down your throat. tastes like bread and wine, terrible stuff. anyway, heres what i liked in there.——read em’ and weep liberals——

*PSA: the holy bible i will continually be referring to will be the nrsv edition; the most accurate translation of the original texts according to the academic consensus that i am in possession of. verses may be updated when possible.*

*PSA2: to skip bible lecture: proceed to “end transmission” and continue.*

2 John 1:5-6 “But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning, let us love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it”

1 Thessalonians 3:12 “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you”

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 “Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more…”

John 15: 12-20 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”

*END TRANSMISSION*

so God is love and Their Love is so incomprehensibly infinite and eternal that we gotta just trust one of the better men in history? errrrmm yup! is me having the highest regard for love a coping mechanism for daddy issues? not sure…but bad news buddy, God knows you and loves you so fucking much. u dumb-stupid-cute-ass bitch...God will never stop loving you…bitch…but what about these tips to remember all theosophy? cuz its a lot, and thats really hard to remember…

ENTER: MY BOMB ASS BLOG o3o

tune in next time for the “praying with ocd or a million mr.beast bucks? epic super mega awesome challenge". okay love u bye <3

#real af #freaky-chick-posting

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diabolicalacid · 2 years

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⋆｡ﾟ☁︎ way back home

pairing : oikawa tooru x reader

wc : 19k

genre : angst

summary : tooru’s home has always been where his heart is. right next to you.

music : way back home by shaun

an : this is part two of the fic. read part one before you proceed.

part one here!

two.

during his time away from home, whenever he used to feel the heavy weight of emotions push over his body, oikawa would picture you with his eyes closed. there used to be a classified kind of calm and a scant amount of regret he used to feel each time he remebered you, and the wave of emotions that raged inside his body sequentially dispersed to merge with the sea of his blood.

now, it’s the emotions of extreme worry, a gut twisting sorrow, salient amount of regret and overbearing guilt that he feels when he thinks of you. he no longer feels the classified kind of calm when you occupy his mind. because right now you aren’t quite alright. you’re miles away from him, fighting to prove your existence is worth the allowance to be perched a little longer. and ‘not quite alright’ construes to ‘terribly not ok’.

you’ve always been his supporter, even in ways he hasn’t been able to perfectly fathom so far, and he’s just as nescient about it as he was at its genesis. the day you were educated your new friend, oikawa tooru, was a member of the boys volleyball club, you decided to become his prime support system through the process. later, when he opened up about his plans to go professional, you were enthralled to help him reach the top. he saw the way your eyes shone when you looked at him in awe and cradled his goal alongside him. then, when he chose to leave japan for a future in the sport of volleyball, quite far from where you, the love of his life, stood, you let him go, simply and easily with a reassuring, soft smile.

there wasn’t holding him back, you knew. because oikawa tooru was truly alive only when he was on the court. it was the safe space where he could boundlessly spread his wings. so you let him go when he wanted to leave. you never put up a fight. even when his absence grew heavier that what your heart could take, you only ever cried to yourself without letting him know. you let him look for his belonging afar from your future together.

sometimes, even three thousand miles away from japan, away from you, he wondered about your eloquent ways and the way you always chose to be a little too kind to him. he was aware you loved him. letting go was a swift process for you and he saw you do it willingly, and there was pain, a terrible amount of it that sprung through, but you hid it volubly to voice a happier goodbye rather than something that sounded bitter. he’s always wondered about the power you held and the ways in which you chose to live for him, and the longer he’s tried to look for an answer, the closer a dead end has approached him.

regardless of how you managed to pull it off so eloquently only to benefit him, he’s thankful he had you standing firm beside him through what he defines, a tumultuous process to success. he knows he’s in debt to you with added interest that augments every next day. he owes you a lot more than he knows he does for nudging him to push himself closer to his goal, and even closer. you entered into his safe space just like that without a warning and quickly became a robust figment of it. you caged him under your loving shelter, amidst the hold of your welcoming arms and he had never felt this safe before. it was a peculiar kind of security he felt when he was with you.

he’s thankful for the days you spent holding him close to you when defeat announced its arrival on the scene — on days the trickling stream of tears was too overwhelming but the world around him kept spinning quite alright, never blurring off like it was supposed to because you cried alongside him too — on days the bottle of flavoured gatorade was popped to celebrate yet another victory on the court — on mundane days when there wasn’t much left to do and it was just him and you, exitsting in the world without any veiled context, with hands wrapped into one.

he’s thankful you existed right next to him. your existence was transient, momentary, only lasting a brief while, but you chose to exist right next to him, putting up with anything and everything, so he knows he’ll always be in debt to you.

(you sit next to your window, peeking at eri and tao playing some game in their front yard. the book in your hand, a romance novel, was abandoned ten minutes ago when your attention was taken off of it by the kids across the street making noise. there’s nothing more you want to do on a sunday afternoon other than invest your time into some pleasurable reading.

you drift your eyes off eri and tao to focus on the book in your hand with an intention to finish off at least twenty pages without taking a break. the book belongs to the local library and you’re supposed to return it by the middle of the week. the library is a ten minute walk from your place, so it won’t be a difficult task to hand over the book on schedule. except you’ve barely covered half of it’s content. you started reading the book on the day you got it, thursday, but with school activities extending up to saturday, you couldn’t read much of it.

the doorbell chimes and your mother, who’s busy chopping some vegetables in the kitchen, puts her knife on the cutting board and rushes to check on the person waiting at the door. you already have a good enough idea about the said guest, and you would leave your position to open the door, but your mother is fast enough to reach the door before you can commence your walk down the stairs, so you stay back in your place.

oikawa tooru stands at the door with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a chocolate box in the other. one would think he spent his money buying those presents for his significant other, but instead, he hands those to your mother.“for you, missus LN.” he offers her the belongings in his hand, an admirable smile stretching across his lips.

“thank you, tooru.” she giggles, accepting the presents aimed at her, pressing her nose closer to the lilacs to draw in their smell.

oikawa tooru’s taste is impeccable, she knows this much because the flowers he offered her are some of her favourites and no one has ever mentioned that detail to him during conversations, not even in a slip of tongue.she’s quick to place the bouquet on the shoe rack in the genkan, from where it’s visible to the outsiders as well, through the transparent sidelights on either side of your front door.oikawa peeks into your house curiously, looking for your traces around the kitchen and living room. your mother notices, a faint smile etching into her face out of plaudit for his anticipation to meet you.

“she’s upstairs.” your mother informs him, smiling at him, and oikawa, who’s here to spend the rest of his day with you, unties his footwear, bows down to your mother in respect and bolts up the staircase where your bedroom is. your mother watches him hurry your way, spilling out a gracious laugh, thinking how wonderful young love truly is.the door to your bedroom is open.

oikawa arrives in a haste, heavy breath and sweat beads strewn across his forehead. he rests one of his hands against the door jab, doubling over his knees with the other in an attempt to catch a breath. you look up from the book when you hear his weighted breath announcing his arrival. your face is hidden behind then the hardcover of the book and when he looks up, he can only see your forehead shining at him. you put the book aside, jumping off your seat and trot towards him.

“you could’ve walked upstairs instead of running.” you comment as you put your hands to use, dusting off his outfit and wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead using a tissue paper.

“i know, but i wanted to see you sooner.” he purses his lips into a small smile, sighing, making a confession, hoping your jowls will red, but instead you smack his face, chaffing off his flawed attempt.

“that made no difference.” you state, pulling him into your embrace as you wrap your arms around his waist. he encases your body into his arms, close to his own and brings his lips closer to yours, depositing a brief kiss.you pull away, now having a smudged nude lipstick, grinning at him, “i love you, tooru.”

“i love you too, yn.” he responds, biting into your nose, not vigorously, avoiding any teeth marks. you bop his face away from your own, releasing yourself from his warm clasp.

you take his hand, wrap your fingers together and pull him closer to your bed. he flops down, dragging you alongside him, and you fall on top of him, making him vince at the impact. you giggle at the expression on his face, kissing him on the cheek, adjusting yourself into a more comfortable position on his chest.

“ouch, yn, you’re heavy.” he scrunches his nose in pain, teasing you. you’re still on top of him and he slides his arms around your waist to secure grip. your hands move on either side of his face, gripping his cheeks.

“i’m not.” you revolt, deadpanning him in the eyes as you pull at his cheeks to impart punishment. he chuckles at how gentle your touch is when it’s intention is to penalise him. you join in soon enough, voices harmonising with one another as well as with the birds crooning on the branches of the trees outside.

you fall silent when you look him in the eye, this time around brimming with love. his chocolate brown eyes and contrasting locks of hair are a sight to cosset. the afternoon sun shines, giving off rays that implore on your privacy through the curtain, accentuating his brilliant features.you caress his cheeks, looking down on him while still resting on his bosom. his eyes squint when the bright light condenses right onto his face. you squint too when you feel the balmy rays ambling close to your eyes.

“the sunlight makes you look very pretty, tooru.” you compliment him, pressing your lips against his cheek to plant an airy kiss, dissipating the heat of the sun. his red cheeks elucidate an even deeper shade of the colour and he turns his neck so you won’t be able to notice it. but you catch a hint of their transforming shade, teasing him even more when you offer another kiss and then one more.

“you’re even prettier.” he smiles at you, soft and full of adoration, gently sliding you off his chest to relocate you right next to him. he tilts his body to face you and begins playing with your hair.

the heat of the sun wanes through the duration of the afternoon. oikawa and you spend the day splayed in your bed without taking part in any particular activities. the book you’re supposed to return by the middle of the week remains untouched. by the time he leaves, the moon is already hanging up against the darkness of the sky, expanding its light throughout miyagi.you know the next sunday will be the same. the one after that will be too. oikawa tooru will come over and you’ll spend the day cuddling in your bed. now that you think about it, you should probably stop borrowing books with an intention of reading them over the weekend.)

(oikawa tooru spends an unhealthy amount of time training with the other third years. you know this because on some days, you sit outside the gym waiting for him to finish. on other days, you sulk in the library, envying him and his love. the turquoise hued curtain spills it’s shadow on your textbook opened to a certain chapter, and you spend the afternoon staring at the mango tree on the campus, envying tooru oikawa’s imperious existence.

you peek at him from the corner of you eyes sometimes when he’s not looking and you feel your existence is obscure, while he seems to have this conundrum called life figured out, and his looks pretty well constructed. you adore that he has something he desperately wants to dedicate his hundred percent to. however, you don’t. so you dedicate your hundred percent to him instead.

jealousy spies through the window pane of love. you look at him when you know he won’t notice and instead of love, there’s resentment that glimmers under the natural light in your pupils. he doesn’t realise the look in your eyes. you believe he’s too blinded by the light he’s engulfed in for him to notice that there are days when his significant other, who he’s under the impression always loves him, hates him just as much. words falter, dripping hot in envy. he hears but it never strikes the iron hot.

sometimes you wonder if your ‘i love yous’ have always been a bunch of adroit lies. you wonder if you only stick to him because you want to see yourself become more like him.

at the end of the day, despite the resentment and jealousy, you have nothing but love for him that you look back on. you know this much because you do everything possible to support his efforts.

he tells you once, head laden on your knees, under the same mango tree you stare at sometimes, that he wants to become a professional volleyball player. he wants to enter the big leagues and become the very best in the field. although there are thoughts that dictate loving you for the rest of his life, he never says those to you openly. ever. you want to ask him if he looks forward to a future with you, but you hold back when he starts talking about his recent game with a rival high school.

you show love through certain acts of service, spending time in the kitchen, cooking him a bento. sometimes when you want to make something more special for him, you lose sleep over it. you hope he sees through your love language. oikawa tooru doesn’t. he’s blinded by the light he’s engulfed in. and if he does, he most probably takes it for granted because he never parades the recognition.

you’re no good at it, really, you’re pretty average. you learnt a thing or two about cooking from your obaasan last year when you visited her town during spring break. you put that knowledge to good use. the rest, your mother helps you with. sometimes you stall off the tracks along the way. sometimes you don’t know where to begin. but somehow, before you step out of the house, you always manage to ready a bento for oikawa tooru in time.

your cooking is nothing special but there’s love. obaasan says love is the essence of cooking. if there’s true love, there’s taste. you know what she says isn’t wrong because when you take the bento to the gym during lunch time, the response you receive from tooru says it all. you taste it too, only to realise you can never compete with your mother’s skills or your obaasan’s immaculate taste.

oftentimes you stand in corner, observing oikawa setting to iwaizumi, who always makes a perfect shot. it takes a while for the third years to notice your presence. unlike oikawa, whose presence is imperious and boisterous, yours hardly speaks for itself. that’s a good thing because being his significant other already pulls a lot of unnecessary attention your way.

the others love your cooking as much as your boyfriend does. they always start a fight over who gets to have the first morsel of the bento. the bickering doesn’t stop until oikawa steps in to claim the bento for himself. the love you put in your cooking flickers in the twelve o’ clock sun when you see the galaxies unfolding in his eyes as he eats, complimenting you over and over again.

the boys and you move out of the gym, securing a space in the garden, where you bask in the afternoon sun, reeling in the taste of home cooked food. you think you love oikawa tooru more than you’ll ever envy him. a life lies ahead of you and the passion for the right thing will come in it’s own time. like oikawa has the volleyball to call his own, you’ll have something too. for now, you have him.)

oikawa’s pain begins with the emotion of regret that implants a seed to cultivate a tree. the littlest hint of a frail green stem erupts to originate from the seeds of the mistakes enacted in the past, and there’s a musing that follows the process of germination. the possibilities of how oikawa could’ve prevented the feelings that are now floating at the level of his chest, and it rootles to the foul choices he once made that could’ve been prevented if he’d spent more time discussing their viability.

second, there’s agony that wanders along its tracks on its way to him to function as the vindictive comrade of the regret he’s basking in. it’s existence salutes, he speculates, the idea of ‘to be human’, and to truly be human is to feel crestfallen at certain events that unfold along the course of life and one finds their occurrence bemusing to the soul.

third is the emotion that mankind collectively decided to name guilt the first time someone truly realised what it meant to feel it’s occupance inside the body. it grips the heart, wielding it’s rough hold over the carinated epicardial surface. it operates to represent the blame oikawa tooru dispatched over himself following a circumstance that was out of his reach. yet, he believes, no doubt beneath his thought, he is to blame (partly) and there’s no explanation why, but he accepts the accusation he’s cast upon himself.

he thinks, and stupidly enough, he decides he wants to learn to exist in the same atmosphere as the emotions that pester him. they might as well corrode his edges, blear his being to nothing, and toil to pierce through his chest to hit the center of his throbbing heart, but he decides they deserve a gentle welcome and a cozy stay. he decides you’re worth the suffering.

(oikawa collects his stuff after wrapping up practice for day, marching out of the volleyball court to head home. the first thing he does the moment he steps out is to look for you somewhere around the place. you told him you’d be waiting for him to finish up so the two of you can take the bus home together.

he peeks around the campus and spots you resting on a bench next to the basketball court. you’re reading some notes for an upcoming test, supping banana milk from time to time from the carton in your hand. his lips curl into a smile at the sight of you. he finetunes the strap of his duffel around his shoulder and jogs to reach you.

“hey, earth to yn.” he waves at you, bending closer to your face, annexing your personal space. you look up to find his nose touching yours, and in a brief moment of surprise, you push him away thinking it’s a creep trying to make a move on you. he lands on the ground in front of you, crumpling his nose in pain. this sure feels like deja vu from the time you first met.

“ouch.” he groans, scratching his back, an aching look across his face as he stares up at you. the view in front of you is your boyfriend sunken to the ground. you honestly didn’t think it was him when you pushed him off.

“oh my god, i didn’t realise it was you.” you gasp at the sight of your boyfriend fallen to the ground, putting your hands over your mouth in stupefaction.

you quickly squat down to meet his gaze and start off by helping him dust off his uniform. you take hold of his duffel bag and place it on the bench. you stand up to your feet and help him up. oikawa quickly draws you in closer and slithers his arms around your back. you look down in embarrassment, spurning facing him.

“i’m so sorry, toru.” you apologise, pulling your ear to elucidate the apology, avoiding eye contact because you’re lingering in utmost shame right now. “i didn’t know it was you.” you step back, opening out the distance between the two of you.

“it’s okay, yn.” he laughs it off, moving in a little closer, cupping your chin in the palm of his hand to level your gaze with his own. you spoor your eyeballs to the side to avoid eye contact with him. you feel so overwhelmed by guilt, completely blank as to what to say more than a sorry to make things right.

“come on, i said it was okay.” he reassures you, shaking your shoulders, hunching a little bit to place himself such that he can finally look you in the eye.

“i’m not even hurt, yn.” he claims, spinning around in front of you to prove that he’s fine and you have nothing to feel culpable about. he cracks up into a laughter to sound more believable but you interpret it as something else.

you purse your lips, dabbing his shoulder, feeling like he’s teasing you with his previous action, “i’m so embarrassed, toru.” you shove your face in your palms, mumbling in embarrassment.

he looks at you, all flustered, red cheeks and tears brimming at the corner of your eyes. he finds it endearing that you’re worried about him. but he doesn’t understand why you have to over do it with the guilt and the apology. he’s unscathed and you have no business blaming yourself over something so small.

“yn, you’re worrying over nothing.” he draws you in closer, shrugging as he tries to pacify your concern. you finally look up to him, sighing in some sort of relief, still experiencing the guilt but you decide to shake it off since your boyfriend insists.

“is there anything i can do to make it right?” you ask, rubbing your thumb across his cheek, resorting to a new form of apology since he clearly didn’t want to receive the traditional one.

he moves away from you, clasping his duffel bag and runs off towards the gate of your high school. you’re surely perplexed since you weren’t expecting him to react by dashing off like this. you expected him to propound a demand or maybe repudiate the offer you made, but this? this is surely a new one.

oikawa jogs up to the store next to your highschool. it’s rather small and owned by a lady who’s probably in her late sixties. she sells candies and the location of the store is quite convenient, considering the kids from aoba johsai visit her all the time. it also helps that she prepares most of the things she sells.

him and you aren’t necessarily fond of the candies, but you visit her from time to time to buy pocky. it’s been a tradition for you since the two of you started dating— sharing a packet of pocky on your way home from time to time. you were never really a fan, but hanging out with oikawa changed your views regarding the said savoury.

“here, for you.” he hands out a pocky stick smeared in chocolate cream. you take it off his hand, ripping it apart into two pieces. you don’t know what you were expecting, but the pocky ends up divided into two unequal halves and now the query is, who takes the smaller piece.

“i’ll take the bigger one.” oikawa teases, snatching the larger piece from your hand, sprinting away towards the bus stand. you giggle, following him to acquire it back from him before he puts it in his mouth.

“hey, wait up, it’s mine.” you huff, catching your breath as you jump to reach the piece he’s dangling in the air away from your touch.

oikawa is swift in motion when he places it in your mouth without you noticing it until the flavour of chocolate melts on your tongue. he bites off the other end of it until your lips finally collapse. you freeze in spot, too stunned to move at his reaction. your lips separate and oikawa notices the colour of your cheeks changing to a rosy shade that’s a hard miss. he leans in for another peck and you feels the vessels in your cheeks flooding with an outburst of blood.

before he can proceed, you rush inside the bus that arrives just in time, aiding to your convenience. he chuckles as he follows you inside to take a seat next to yourself. you avoid eye contact for the rest of the ride, peeping at him from the corner of your eyes every once in a while.

he remains silent throughout the journey as well, handing out pocky sticks dipped in chocolate sauce from time to time. you accept, munching as silently as you can to avoid disturbing other passengers. the perks of being in a newfound relationship are being made known to you and so far, you’re very much in love.)

in the last seven days the ticking of time has become an alarm clock set to countdown the numbered days that remain before the monitor tethered to your wavering lifeline beeps the lamentable tone to symbolize the absence of any pulse, any life in your body.

and although time is nothing but another human construct that was put forth in order to prove the goldmines of human literacy, oikawa tooru knows, one way or another, he’s bound to lose you in the next few days. whether time is real enough for him to feel the touch of one fine day, or just a figment of the human imagination like the theories he’s heard before insist, he has been made aware that you’re perishing slowly. now that he knows you’re surviving on counted days, he doesn’t give a crap about time or anything else, really, he just wants to be next to you, even if it’s just for a while before you leave.

he’s been made aware now. you’re dying. he knows now, but those words still keep sauntering back to him every day. he’s gulped them down his existence, breached them with his acceptance, but they’re still the very focus of what truly terrifies the million minuscule fibres that constantly loom themselves together to build him brick by brick into a functioning human. if there’s any thing the boy with the devil may care stance is genuinely terrified of, it’s always been, since the very moment his eyes were trained by his body to never leave the sight of you, losing you forever.

oikawa has never been fond of losing, neither on the gigantic volleyball court, nor when it comes to the basic tendencies and self constructed concepts of the simple human life. but he eventually riddled his body, mind and soul into making peace with the inevitable cycle of life and death. sometimes one is bound to lose despite wagering in their best possible effort. he vigorously trained his soul to understand the unco core of the concept of winning and losing. but truly, in retrospect, he believes he never really learnt what it overtly means to be alright with a loss.

accepting defeat on court became an easier task to deal with after he crossed a certain checkpoint in the lessons he taught himself. but losing an entire breathing human wasn’t a casual or a simple thing he could’ve managed to ready himself for, so he left that part of the lesson off his self training chart. maybe he should’ve pitched in extra time to train his soul for the anguish that comes with death, not necessarily for the situation he’s been plunged into as of now, but for the long run when he’d eventually have to lose somebody that has mattered to him.

by any possible means, oikawa tooru is aware he needs to accept the inevitablity of death as a part of his transit life, and maybe you just so happen to be the nature’s medium to assist him in learning about it by laying its odds on a personal experience.

in the end, oikawa tooru knows he still hates losing just as much as he did before. maybe not on the court like he did a few years ago, but he still hates losing the people he has naturally grown fond of over the time he spent with them. he honestly doesn’t expect himself to come to terms with the oddball notion of letting go a person forever after their death or after a breakup, or anything else entirely. it sounds cheap to him, if not cheap, he certainly thinks it’s a dumb concept proposed by his own kind because he doesn’t think there’s any part of him, any thread that winds to form his being that’ll ever be okay with it.

he believes, you don’t let go of the people you’ve come to cherish in your life even if the adoration you felt was only ad interim. you hold onto them even after you’ve lost them and that’s sure to hurt the aching soul, so be it. you wager in time outside your schedule to train yourself to accept the pain that follows until it condenses into a sort of harmless, softer emotion overtime.

it’s a long process involving baby steps. you need to learn to make the larger compromise for the people you’ve chosen to love. to him, that’s how the ideal human nature is supposed to be. that’s who he has become as a person. so the feeling of letting go, he knows, he’ll never truly, immaculately know, and perhaps, that’s okay because he’s learnt overtime, he can pull through the hardships quite well if he sets himself to.

but he has his limitations and exceptions too. you are, unfortunately, the most trivial essence of the outlier conditions he’s been placed into the sphere of by his own heart. oikawa might’ve come to terms with the concept of losing people and still holding onto them even when they’ve passed from their transitory role in his life, but you’re the sole exception that constricts the rhythm of his heart and the motion of soul to accept it.

when the simple notion of “tooru, y/n is in a coma. she might never wake up” tintinnabulates at the bedrock of his head, acceptance no longer poses its concept as something simple, bookish or elucidative. when the reality he resides in condenses to settle its weight on you, it no longer emulates with his way of living. its confession to him only complicates whatever he learnt about the concept of loss.

all gains and losses considered, the trail of oikawa tooru’s thoughts terminates at a solid conclusion. of all the people he’s known and loved, he’d hate losing you, and most certainly, he won’t be able to accept the loss if that were to happen. right now, while his vision is trailing across the ink black sky in search of the tiniest shard of hope, he’s losing you.

he also knows he’s losing the very last string of hope his heart is loosely wound underneath. so he looks around for more hope to cling onto in the most unforeseen locations. he looks for it in the beautiful night sky that hums him a sorrowful lullaby, the sauntering clouds that pass by the aircraft he’s seated in, in the specific pattern of lines etched into the palm of his hand you once used to trace your index finger across. he looks for it anywhere he thinks he might find it hiding from himself.

he cradles specks of frisking fear inside the crooks, crevices and facets of his heart. he knows he’s losing you. oh god, he’s losing you and for the first time, he doesn’t have a robust strategy stored up his sleeve to turn the tables on the game he’s stuck working through. oikawa tooru has been grasped into an undoable knot of a rope cast toward him helplessness itself. for the first time since his defeat against karasuno over three years ago, he feels helpless to the very core, so much so that his soul cramps underneath the quilt of trepidation.

he would’ve had a better chance at serving his best performance in this situation if it were a heated game of volleyball, but it isn’t, and for someone who has never really known what it’s like letting go of someone, he doesn’t find it in himself to tolerate this any longer. your life hangs in the balance and he can’t possibly play the arbiter who in the most unbiased way there is to exist, decides your unltimate fate.

opposing the rationale the human mind has been endued with, oikawa wants to pose as the heavenly soul, only once, for the love he holds for you, he wants to take the final decision. but of course, he cannot quite achieve the odd goal his mind has been fixed on. there’s axiomatic reasons why he can never be the unearthly being who, with utmost circumspect, holds the human life in the hanging balance of life and death and what stretches beyond the deep, dark, cosmic end.

one, he’s only human, a simple, debilitated earthly creature. two, he can never propound an unbiased opinion when everything he’s ever grown to know falls into the balance to either let you live a little while longer or kill you because your time on earth has marched to its terminus. three, he’s no heavenly god or a respectful disciple of him to be granted the privilege of ventilating decisions alike this one.

oikawa tooru is simple guy. he’s only a frail embodiment of the commixed broth of human emotions. he’s liked being this way so far, a simple boy who loves volleyball and most importantly, a boy who has always been idiosyncratically in love with you. but maybe he’s not fond of being just a simple guy anymore, not as much when all the weight of the world as he’s steered himself to learn about it,m settles into a conference to decide the fate of the only person he truly loves. that’s you.

oikawa tooru is simple guy in a boeing craft on his way back to miyagi in japan at what he speculates, three in the morning, under the dimmed lights of the economy class cabin. he’s unable to permit himself to close his eyes and experience the pitch black that follows the mating of his lids.

to him, darkness is the symbolism of his existence in this world without you and it’s something similar to the quaking terror that slithers up his arms and plunges knives into the beating muscles of his heart. it’s not a feeling he’s overjoyed to experience, but unwillingly, perhaps as a final ode to you, he deserves the wounds that materialise as palpable spots of bright red and glum purple on the surface of his myocardium.

(the world around you seems to have a wrong idea when they look at the two of you and think you’re a perfect couple. tooru and you are most definitely not. you love him and he loves you, but all said and done, you have differences that mould a rift between the two of you.

the world doesn’t notice the space separating your opinions because it only looks at you from the sidelines. from there, they can only see grounds overflowing with love. from afar, the cracks you etched in yourself aren’t visible. what people see is what they assume.

oikawa walks you to school every morning hand in hand. sometimes the hold is far too tight when there are things he wanted to say during a fight but didn’t. he brings you chocolates after you’re done with the chess club, but sometimes no words are exchanged when he offers them to you. you bring him food during lunch, but there are days when he silently eats, not uttering the usual words of admiration.

your classmates see him show up in front of your classroom to meet you between classes and they assume what you have is picture perfect. to them, oikawa tooru is the model boyfriend and you’re the significant other who got too lucky when you were given the chance to fall in love with him.

there’s only so much love you can give and so much you can receive. you offer him everything you have in yourself, but he never returns half of it. oikawa tooru loves volleyball and at the end of the day, though he ends up in the embrace of your arms, you always notice the love is lacking. the table lamp on your desk illuminates your fingers tapping against the wood, while you sit deep in thought, thinking about life and about tooru.

you’re meticulous when you plan your dates but he bails out on most of them and there’s only one reason he propounds. volleyball. every time you look forward to spending time with your boyfriend, he somehow reduces your imagination to rubble. oikawa tooru in a way is a heartless person and only you see this when he walks over your relationship over and over again.

you respect his love for volleyball. you support his dreams. but you also wish for him ho return the love you offer so selflessly. he returns it in the form of chocolates, pocky sticks and flowers. he never says it though. words never leave his mouth. perhaps it’s ego that swallows them whole. you say ‘i love you’ all the time but you rarely hear it back from him. you know it doesn’t matter whether those words are said or not. love doesn’t have to be so loud. it can be soft as well. but tooru’s love isn’t soft either. it’s diminished, a mile away, singing praises of the sport he adores.

so when you feel the slurry desperation surge to your throat, you don’t hold back. you fight him. the roots of love are quick to get poisoned by dissent. but before the love withers away, before you can say something that might leave a scar that will never heal, he apologises and leaves. sometimes you don’t talk to him for weeks. sometimes the silence only lasts for a few hours. sometimes iwaizumi talks you out of your grudge. you both feel the loneliness creeping in. there are things about you only he knows and there are things about him that only you’re privileged enough to know. so when the moon rises in the sky, it also brings along the urge to call tooru to talk to him.

love springs up just as quickly as it was dragged down when oikawa and you make amends. the way he talks doesn’t let you doubt his love for you anymore. again, he never says it to you. he never says ‘i love you’. but he tells you the reasons why he does love you more than enough. for you, that’s good enough, even if it’s just a while before the absence of the words is bound to upset you. you know he loves volleyball, but somewhere deep deep deep down, in some corner of your body, you’re assured by your system that he loves you too.)

the hostess who’s sauntering through the aisles to check up on the guests looks at oikawa, unsettled and troubled in his seat. he’s constantly squirming in his position with his body trained in an ongoing rattle, and his attention is fixed on the pitch black view outside the oval window. from the spot she’s standing in, he looks like a feeble guest who’s afraid of heights but had to find the courage to fly for a good enough reason, or just a nobody who gets a little breathless in closed spaces, very congruous with several quirky guests she’s dealt with before.

she sighs, thoroughly prolonged and deep. it’s three in the morning and she’s nothing but exhausted from having been at the beck and call of the guests the previous evening, but because she’s still on her job and ought to put up a proper etiquette, she walks over to oikawa regardless of her disheveled shape and state.

“sir, is there anything i can get for you?” the hostess whispers. she leans down a little for her voice to thoroughly reach him because he’s far from the position she’s bent at, perched in the window seat.

oikawa quietly turns in his seat to face her, careful not to disturb his fellow passengers aboard the aircraft. it’s certain the echo of her voice amidst the silence of the night startled him, and it was when oikawa subtly jumped in his seat for just a mere moment before he realised there existed no good reason to panic.

it’s three in the morning and as far as his vision and thoughts could’ve trailed off to from his position in the window seat, he pretty much believed he was in midst of spending a few lone hours with the crestfallen thoughts creeping up his mind. to him, there could’ve possibly been nobody else still risen at such an ungodly time of the night. his theory should’ve meticulously included the phrase, nobody else awake, except for the cabin crew onboard, of course, working their job.

“no, i’m alright. thank you.” he gestures a solid no, waving his hand to the sides.

she nods, then takes a leave, striding out of the cabin. oikawa trails deeper into the transitory comfort of his seat. he almost touches the passenger asleep on the seat next to him, but carefully strays away from disturbing their slumber. he crumples his splayed limbs into a smaller space and balls up quite comfortably in his seat.

oikawa sighs and the sound of the breath escaping his lips is tangible. the lady in the seat next to him shifts in her position and growls a couple muffled words at him with her head still resting below the blanket. he covers his nose and his mouth, then proceeds to breathe in the air deeper from the space around him. the enclosure built against his nose and his mouth restrain the breathy voice that follows.

his vision drifts to the side to inspect the lady beside him. she rests comfortable underneath the svelter of her blanket and he can clearly hear muffled snores sneaking out of her safe space. oikawa huffs in relief. he doesn’t want to become a source of trouble for his fellow passengers, quite not when the needle of the clock has already trooped beyond three in the morning.

oikawa carefully opens the plastic packaging to the blanket he was given a few hours ago when most people and crew on the plane headed into the nuzzle of sleep but he just couldn’t get himself to. his movement is careful enough to spare the rattling noise accompanying the uncovering of the plastic sheath wrapped around the cloth. he moves on to unfurl the blanket over his body and then his head. his body feels warmer underneath the stitched woolen cloth and his nerves sequentially dissipate the terror affixed at their tips into their atmosphere. oikawa, still troubled, tries to close his eyelids. it’s a brief process that takes him a considerable amount of time to bring their tips together to shut them.

when his eyes shut, darkness, in steps accounted for, disperses around him. if it’s regret and agony it parallels its nature with, those feelings stay behind. he hopes the glutting emotions will ascend to dim too and his heart that’s been soaked heavy in those feelings will find some place to breathe.

the only sound oikawa can immaculately hear is the timed beating of his heart. his heart weighs down in a spread of relief and you’re still alive, not quite well, but alive. something inside of him, something much more hopeful than his mind sinking in pain, makes him believe you’re still hanging in there, which certainly is relieving to his soul that is wrapped in disquietude. he might be awfully wrong about it, but he’ll let himself trust his opinion until he finally lands in japan and runs to see you for himself.

his make belief accounts to some kind of flickering significance to him because he cares about you and he isn’t ready to lose you for the final time, not yet. he’s also in love with you, but that’s a fact he can’t quite attest to because even when he’s loved you, it’s always been selfishly and for his own benefit more than yours.

oikawa tooru previously made countless mistakes in regards to you that he eventually advanced to regret. he knows he can’t turn back time on the selfish acts he once put up and you tolerated, because truly, you were just as much in love with him. but you loved him selflessly, unlike how he loved you, and his needs were always put ahead of anything else that existed in the little world you’d built together.

he believes his biggest mistake was boarding the flight to argentina four years ago. then it was cutting all contact with you because that way separation would’ve hurt him less than his previously estimated how much it would. he also knew you’d understand his actions like you always did and you’d just as quickly forgive him for straying away from your initial plan. except, there was no final voicemail that spoke of a final goodbye, no last message that took a heavy heart to write left on your cellphone on his behalf. there was only the brief silence of ignorance that dallied its way along the line connecting the two of you.

when he made his choice four years go, he thought he’d be returning to japan one fine day and after you’d get the news of his arrival, you’d be ready, waiting for him at the terminal of the international airport with arms wide open to welcome him home, because his home had somehow always been in the endearing embrace of your arms.

you’d drive him away from the airport, bickering where you’d like to spend the day on your way back. you’d decide to crash at your little apartment and share the milkbread you went out of your way to bake for him. you’d feed each other with the love and passion you missed out on late into the night and call it day. the next morning, he’d wake up next to you and for years to come, he’d continue loving you, just like he’s been trained to love you before.

one day you’d be walking down the aisle with your arm tangled in your father’s, on your way down the path scattered with red rose petals, to him, on your way to step up as oikawa tooru’s forever home. as selfish as his love for you was, he always had dreams he wanted achieve alongside you. except they were never what he wanted to prioritise. volleyball was. now that he looks back, volleyball couldn’t have waited, but neither could his dreams with you have.

(the wind blowing past his cheeks doesn’t flutter him out of his slumber, instead, oikawa tooru is socked awake by the ringing of his cellphone. it’s four in the morning and for a moment he wonders if he set the alarm wrong. it takes him a moment to notice he’s receiving a phone call when he takes a hold of his phone and his blurry vision senses somebody’s name digitalised on the screen in front of him.

with his eyes barely open, he stares at the glowing screen with maximum concentration until he can finally read the name popped up on the screen. it’s four in the morning and he’s receiving a call from iwaizumi hajime. he reads the name that still has a purple heart emoji pasted next to it. although he cut contact with hajime, he never went back to change his name in his contacts.

oikawa knows iwaizumi is well aware of the twelve hour time gap between their countries. he’s equally aware that iwaizumi wouldn’t be calling him unless something terribly gross has happened back home in japan. but he also thinks there’s a possibility that he buttdialed his contact, which is a far fetched assumption because oikawa’s name isn’t in his recently dialed numbers. although he assumes a little positivity, he knows all too well that’s not the case.

“hello, this is oikawa tooru on the line.” he begins the unanticipated conversation, sounding as formal as he possibly can as he suppresses his nervous breaths at the bottom of his throat.

iwaizumi senses the clattering in the voice that greets him after four years of zero contact. oikawa tooru sounds all the same. he sounds just like he did at twenty. he sounds just the way he did when he said his final goodbye.

his voice is still shriller than most males. it’s still airy with no weight. it’s also very familiar to iwaizumi’s ears. although it’s been four years since they last talked, iwaizumi recognizes he has called the right person when he hears the voice from the other side of the line. although there’s only dissent in his heart for the setter, the tune of his voice still sounds like home, making warmth disgorge around his heart.

“tooru, no, i’m sorry, oikawa. it’s me, hajime iwaizumi.” the voice oikawa has known since kindergarten speaks to introduce its owner. it offends him that his best friend feels the need to do this. he shouldn’t. iwaizumi uses oikawa’s first name, but quickly resorts to his last name, giving oikawa signs that nothing between them is the same as it was. when they were still friends, they would always make use of their first names to refer to each other. so when iwaizumi refuses to call him by his first name, oikawa’s shambles edges further begin to burn in the kind of regret only the know of.

iwaizumi sounds different. his voice is heavier now. at twenty four, he sounds far more mature than he did when they last spoke. his pitch is certainly lower, and to people who have only talked to him once or twice when he was younger, recognising him by his voice would be impossible. but oikawa still recognises the sound of his voice, even when it’s a little heavier, a little more mature, a little lower, it still belongs to his childhood best friend. it used to be them against the world and there’s no way tooru will never not recognize the sound of hajime’s voice no matter how much it’ll change.

the conversation begins and oikawa wonders how to continue it. they might not be in the same room but so many unsaid words hang by the ceiling around both of them. iwaizumi doesn’t care much for it now. rather than saying all that he’s kept captive for so long, there’s something more important he needs to tell the setter. when he did care enough, oikawa failed to look past his love for volleyball. now that oikawa cares enough, iwaizumi doesn’t wish to say much.

“iwaizumi, it’s really you, huh? long time, i must say.” oikawa lets his nervous breath jump out of his throat, leaving behind a palpable sigh in between their conversation. he seeks a rhetorical confirmation about his friend’s identity. but he receives no response.

oikawa moves on to enquire about iwaizumi’s wellbeing, cautious words spilling out, “how have you been doing, hajime?” his tone is much formal, but he uses iwaizumi’s first name, making him chuff at its mention. again, there’s nothing iwaizumi has to say. he isn’t here to make small talk.

“i would appreciate if you don’t do the small talk, oikawa.” iwaizumi says, compelling oikawa to smother his next words. just when iwaizumi is about to begin what he wants to tell oikawa, he’s interrupted by skittish words that escape the setter’s hold, “i hope nothing’s wrong back in japan. i mean you did call me up at four in the morrow. it’s such an ungodly hour, hajime.” the setter’s chuckles falter out, laced with tangible nervousness and dripping concern.

“look, oikawa, i really don’t have time to entertain a small talk with you. i called you because you deserve to know, no matter how things ended back then.” iwaizumi insists the setter to stop with his babbling, sounding stern and commanding, tone smeared with bitterness. it makes oikawa’s heart drip in disgruntlement and he withdraws, sighing in defeat.

his intention was to hold a sound conversation with iwaizumi, and although he’s four years too late trying to make it happen, he still hoped it would work out well when he read iwaizumi’s name illuminated across his phone screen. but clearly iwaizumi is intolerant to oikawa’s expectations, which impels the setter to hold back from any further efforts.

iwaizumi doesn’t speak for a minute, and oikawa remains silent as well, choosing to respect his former best friend’s privacy, adding to the silence contrived in the middle of their not so lively conversation.

“yn, they were in an accident this afternoon.” iwaizumi begins, voice breaking apart as he speaks. oikawa stands in his place, pressing fingers against his head in disbelief. he closes the void created by another moment of silence as he gasps, “what?”

“it’s, it’s really not looking good, oikawa.” hajime confesses, buttered in grief as he informs the setter about the situation in japan. now, oikawa experiences his bitter emotions eddying up to level with his chest to soak his heart, inflicting pain.

all the regret and guilt he ignored for so long, shining under the scorching glory of his dreams, quickly transmutes into agony, and although oikawa wants to respond to iwaizumi, his negative emotions stagger them and they never make it out. iwaizumi waits for his acknowledgment, but when he gets none, he commences to end the conversation with a final note.

“yn is in a coma, tooru. they might never wake up.” iwaizumi says and it’s the last of what oikawa hears before the darkness around him swallows him whole and the air disperses, rendering him breathless and speechless.

“i’ll be there soon.” oikawa mumbles, stuttering along the words, informing hajime to expect his arrival within a few days. iwaizumi hums before he ends the call, leaving the setter alone with his thoughts in the middle of the night)

four years ago, oikawa tooru made a selfish decision that would benefit himself. he accepts it was a rather hurried, half planned, stupid decision he took on a whim, but it somehow thrusted him along the right path, so he lived believing that it was absolutely right. although he resided a few thousand miles and exactly twelve hours away from you, oikawa, when he stared into the endless light of sky at five in the morning, every single day with his weight supported by the grills bordering the end of his little balcony with his thoughts sauntering around the place, thought he still had more than enough time under his grasp to return back to you and to love you all over again.

this time around, he wanted to love you in ways that deeper and softer than he did during your days together in highschool, and perpahs, more selflessly, dedicating himself to finally think about your well being besides his own. he wanted to give back what he had taken from you when you loved him like there was no tomorrow and the two of you only existed in the moment.

he already lost you once, four years ago, when he stepped on the flight to argentina with an one way ticket to heaven in his hand. but then, when he chose not to look behind to wave you a final goodbye, he thought you would be perched right around the corner, patiently waiting for him to come back to japan. he was aware you trusted him enough to know that he would eventually saunter back to you once he had achieved his goal.

maybe your infinite trust etched into himself was the prime reason why he never dared to look back at his life in japan for the last four years. he chose to permanently cut contact with you, and it was very much intentional. he intended to temporarily cut the ties that bound you together. oikawa tooru, somewhere amidst his first few days in a county abroad, decided to let you go, only physically that is, because he could’ve never trained his body, mind or soul to leave behind the love his heart felt when it was attached by the string of fate to your own.

oikawa knew you’d wait for him, though in the darkest crooks of heartache, you’d still await his return. you’d always been loyal to him and he knew he could count on you to be patient. back then, when he said goodbye, you’d sworn you’d still love him even though you were miles apart, and because you valued the promise spoken under the surmounting ceiling of sendai international airport during a setting twilight, you did continue to love him. just like you’d promised to him, crossing your heart, you continued to love him until you finally decided to let him go for good.

(the breeze is strong this evening. it shakes you in your space, fabric of your clothes swaying to its tune as you stand centimetres away from your lover, awaiting a final goodbye before he leaves you. there are several families saying their respective goodbyes, lonely businessmen traveling to sign new deals, friends embarking on new adventures, but all the noise around you and tooru reaches its exhaustion, and there’s only the silence of your grief that you’re subjected to.

“tooru, good luck with argentina. i’ll be waiting for you to come back.” a bitter smile forms when you curl your lips, drawing circles against his soft cheeks as you hold his face.

goodbyes aren’t difficult for you. you’re used to seeing your parents off on several business trips. knowing they will return to you, you never really felt any grief or loneliness clouding over you. you’ve also said goodbye to your obaasan before, and although it was final, it didn’t maim your heart as much knowing that she lived a good life.

but this, this is heavy. seeing oikawa tooru off before he flies to argentina drags your heart down a road of thorns poisoned with grief and you tremble when you think of the miles and oceans that are bound to seperate you. you know he won’t ever forget you. you trust his love that much.

however, there’s a lack of security that comes with him being oceans apart from you. there’s a lack of familiarity in his eyes that no longer shine with love for you as much as they do with his love for volleyball. you know he won’t forget you, but somewhere deep down you believe he might, so you clench his face tighter, gatekeeping your tears ready to flow down.

“goodbye, yn.” tooru smiles a small smile, curling one side of his lips upwards, sighing as he takes your hand off his cheek to kiss it. he kisses it four times before he drags you in closer, pulling you into a hug and nuzzles into you.

“i love you. you know i love you, right?” he speaks, voice muffled as it sprints along to the woolen fabric of your clothes, and tooru asks for reassurance from you. if it’s you who’s worried of being forgotten by him, he’s just as much worried about you feeling that type of way. so he looks for your assurance while he’s soaking in your embrace and you hum in response, patting his back.

“i love you so so much.” he sighs, lifting his head off the crook of your neck as he gently clasps your face with his right hand, lurching in for a soft, momentous kiss. he says, “i love you and i hope you’ll never forget that.” he traces lines across your cheek, looking into your gaze, tears bubbling at his caruncle.

“I know you do, tooru.” you nod, shaking your head vigorously as the tears you caged earlier start tripping down your cheeks, turning their skin pink. you reassure him, burying your head in his chest, voice cracking under the pressure of your flowing tears, “i love you too, tooru. so much. so much that it hurts.” the last part of your words, you smother into the fabric of his coat, resorting to not letting him hear it. tooru kisses your head as he rocks you in his embrace.

“let’s meet each other again soon.” you look up, searching for his gaze, but it’s blurred by the tears that pool, waiting to fall off. when he looks at your somber face, the tears that were fighting for an opening begin pouring down his scarlet cheeks and you cup his cheeks, stroking them off his face, as you gesture him not to cry.

“it’s a promise, tooru.”

“this is your new beginning, don’t cry.” you purse you lips, gulping down the grief you’re the holder of, and as much as you want to tell him to not leave, your selfless love for him impels you to to say otherwise, so you end up saying the opposite of what you’re wanting to say. so you end up letting him go rather than chaining him to stay back, “you want to become a professional player, tooru, so do it.”

you ruffle his hair with one hand, wiping off his tears with your kerchief in the other. you sigh, separating yourself from his hold and place your arms on his shoulders, looking down for a moment before you look up to grin at him, hoping your face brimming with mock up confidence initiates something alike in himself as well.

“yn, i’ll miss you.” he fesses, head dropping down to appreciate the pavement instead of looking for your gaze. as words escape the cage of his lips, his sobs become more apparent and the last of it sounds hazy, but you catch it well enough.”

“i don’t want to go, i don’t want to leave you behind but i want to go.”

you sense the guilt and dilemma his words are topped up with and you wonder if there’s any part of him that genuinely wants to turn back. you know whatever you’re hearing right now is something that’s coming off in the spur of the moment, but truly, tooru means none of that. more than he wants to stay behind, he’s only looking for a quick exit to leave. he might be in tears right now, wandering about and around his words for your reassurance, but that’s just momentary, gleaning from formality, gleaning from some kind of love you share. if he doesn’t leave now, you know he’ll only come to despise you, so you want him to leave as quickly as he can, before you say something that might make him not want to.

“i’ll miss you too, tooru, but you should go now.” you smile softly, nodding, shaking his shoulder as you thrust him closer to the entrance of the airport. a gust of cold winds flies past you, stealing your scarf off your neck, but neither you, nor tooru move to collect it. you stare into each other’s eyes, speaking what you’ve been restricting for so long.

his eyes speak of freedom, yours of grief. he wants to leave, achieve his goals and return one day. you want him to stay, build a life with you and drown in your love. although your gaze overflowing with tears says what it wants to, and his pouring with ambition does too, the two of you still agree it’s best for tooru oikawa to leave for now. what happens when he returns, you’ll see later.

the scarf that flew off lands in iwaizumi’s hands, who makes an entrance to stand behind you. you said you’d be back in five after saying your goodbye to tooru, but when you didn’t make it back and it’d been quite a while since you left with oikawa, so hajime decided to get off the car to look for you. when he finds you looking eye to eye with oikawa, he doesn’t make his presence known, but the setters eagle eye catches a glimpse of his coat and his gaze shifts off you to look at hajime. you turn back to find him making his way closer to the two of you after having been discovered.

“goodbye, tooru. it’s time to leave now.” you say, peeking at your wristwatch to check in on the time, avoiding looking into his eyes. you sigh, patting his cheek before you move away from him, closer to iwaizumi, waving your hands in a goodbye, hoping he would walk away now.

“yn, i’ll miss you.” he inches in closer, extending his hand to take yours in captive to drive you closer to him but you decline, retaining your spot next to hajime. your action doesn’t bemuse tooru. he knows it took you courage to let him go, so he moves back instead, nodding in agreement with you, wrapping his finger around the trolley mounted with his luggage.

“goodbye, yn.” he proceeds to tighten his grip on the handle, pushing it down, getting it to move. one last time, he grins at you. you see the love for you in his eyes this time around but you also see his love for volleyball shine brighter, so you return half a smile, clutching your fist to bite back the grief.

“goodbye to you too, iwa-chan.” he chuckles, moving away from the trolly to thrust his best friend into a giant hug, and hajime pulls you in on it too. you stay like this for a while, then, tooru pulls back, breathing through his mouth before he grips the trolley again and starts walking in the other direction.

“goodbye, tooru.” you and hajime shout in unison, waving your hands in the air as tooru’s figure grows smaller by the second. you feel the thread detaining your destinies together loosen and approaching a splinter as he moves away.

“call either of us once you have the chance to buy an international sim card.” hajime yells, running to close the distance between him and tooru and you follow his steps. the setter stops in his tracks to face the two of you.

“yes, iwa-chan, don’t worry, i will.” tooru reassures in a sing song tone, and instead of chaffing at his shrill voice, hajime only chuckles, but underneath that sound of laughter is the feeling of dread he’s known since oikawa announced his plans. but hajime never spoke of it. he doesn’t speak of it now either, only smiling at his friend.

oikawa jangles his hands against the fabric of his overcoat to remove the numerous specks of dust perched on the cloth. he then sighs, smiling one last time before he begins walking off once again. the automatic doors open and he walks inside, revealing his documents to the guard before he proceeds to the check in counter to collect his boarding pass.

you watch from your spot next to hajime’s as tooru’s figure grows tinier by the second once again, but this time, neither you, nor hajime run towards him. you hope for him to look back one last time before walking away from you. you look for him to reconsider his choices. you look for him to find it in him to stay back. but tooru walks off without ever turning back, without ever looking into your eyes with love once again for the last time.

hajime, next to you, looks at your face from the corner of his eyes. he sees as your lips curved into a smile droop into a frown and the tears that has halted begin descending down your cheeks once again. he sees your gaze reeking with pain as you watch your lover walking out of your life and even if it’s for just a while, hajime recognises the desperation you’re fuming in to stop tooru from leaving. so his arms find a place around your shoulders and he shifts closer, tugging you into a side hug. you rest your head against his shoulder, still peeking into the airport.

“y/n, it’s time to leave. let’s go.” he mumbles, squeezing your shoulders and shaking your body quite a bit to bring you back to senses. you hum, sighing as you turn around to face him instead of facing tooru’s walking figure.

“i know, hajime. let’s go.” you nod, shoving your hands inside your coat and start to walk towards the parking lot. hajime peeks at you for while as you move with heavy steps and a heavy heart weighing your motion down. there’s nothing he can say to pacify you, so he simply follows, sprinting a few steps to catch up with you.

he looks back one last time to find tooru’s eyes looking for your regard, but you’ve already turned away and as much as he wants to inform you, he strays off the idea when he concludes it will only hurt you more. when he receives no response, tooru walks off, closer to argentina, farther away from his home.)

oikawa rests under the woolen quilt, settled in the pitch black darkness that lingers with the absence of light. he ponders about his habits four years ago and the weight of that thought slumps his body further down into the seat. then, he was so nonchalant, so carefree, so ignorant, and looking back on it now, he should’ve been a little less nonchalant, slightly less carefree and less ignorant. he should’ve been a better lover, a better friend, a better son, all altogether a better person.

he took certain selfish decisions that had their consequences he’s facing now and there’s no reason for him to not come to terms with the overwhelming guilt. he thinks losing you is a far more cruel punishment than the one he anticipated, except he doesn’t think it’s cruel to him, rather, he believes it’s cruel to you. you don’t deserve to be ripped apart from the world of living yet. he decides that’s unjust, unfair, biased and you don’t deserve the suffering you’re being put through. selfishly, only slightly, a small part of him also thinks that he doesn’t deserve to be separated from you.

he knows there’s no bringing you back. he knows you’ll either be dead before he arrives, or you’ll die a while after he does. your fate has been set in stone and he knows no prayer can turn the tables on that. when he pictures your body plugged to the beeping machines, lying lifeless on the bed surrounded by the smell of chemicals he can never bring his brain to recall, he rethinks his point of view, concluding that you don’t deserve this but he very much does because he failed to cherish what you had, but you always contributed your hundred percent to make it work.

all the time he thought he had to return to you and love you all over again, he never actually did and he knows that now. he also knows that the only option he really had once he walked out of your life four years ago was to move on himself and let you move on too.

he isn’t sure if you ever moved on from him after he cut contact and slithered your relationship. nobody informed him if you found someone new or if you lived your life by yourself, existing in your quaint space, indulging in your own thing. what he knows, is that he never moved on. but he never found out about you because he restricted your social media as well. however, he’s sure you must’ve been better than what he’s expecting because it was second nature to you to deal with troublesome situation with a smile on your face.

he knew you enough to know you had enough self respect to not dwell on the heartbreak longer than it deserved. he knew your ways, and because he knew them so well, he already has the answer to his question. did you move on? yes, you did. perhaps long ago. he doesn’t know if you found someone new, but he knows you didn’t let his absence stop you from living your life.

for him, there’s a lot more to the concept of moving on and letting go, than just finding something or someone new to love. he knows the closure from your tainted relationship is long overdue now, and even if you don’t want his answer, you still deserve an explanation whether you’ll be able to comprehend it or not. and it’s no longer about if you want him to come clean, it’s about his guilt too, and he wants to offer you an explanation out of respect and apology.

“why did you stop returning my texts and calls?”

the bottom line is that tooru oikawa, who spent his teens loving you and loving volleyball needs to move on himself too. the thoughts he painted about loving you all over again need to be wiped clean and he needs to look for closure as much as he needs to provide it to you. as much as he wants you to see the sunrise in your life, he also needs to feel the warmth of the sun lighting up his own life.

he knows what he needs to do but he doesn’t know where to begin. whether his closure begins with an apology or it begins with a formal greeting, he’s unaware. you’re dying while his heart is being smothered by the misery. despite the dire circumstances, he’s clueless about how to go about it. it’s been a week since he learnt about your condition but he hasn’t been able to come up with the right words to narrate his apology, to offer you something as his explanation.

there isn’t much left to do except to muster enough courage to voice an apology to you. although he might stutter or end up saying everything he wants to say completely off sequence, he knows he needs to do it before you ago. he can only hold your unconscious self in his arms one last time, as he picks the unspoken words hanging by the thread one at a time while reading those out to you.

huddled in his window seat, oikawa senses the flow of fear commencing it’s motion within the construction of his vessels. it’s motion is meticulously calculate to match the velocity of his body fluids, so when he senses the fear bridling through his blood, the dread of losing you grows bigger and bigger by the second.

he thinks back on hajime’s words from a week ago informing him about your state, and regret skyrockets inside of him, flooding and swallowing him whole. he still recalls the heaviness in his friend’s voice, the distinct stutter and the fear of losing you that even his words were wrapped underneath.

he was foolish enough to choose the demise of his own love, missing out on an opportunity to experience a lifetime with you. he was foolish enough not to realise what truly mattered to him and what could’ve waited. he was foolish enough because even though you were fated to die at twenty four, he could’ve had many more memories with you if only he’d cherished you better. if only he would’ve responded to the texts he left on read that eventually stopped coming and the calls he missed that eventually paused. things would’ve been different for him and for you.

four years ago when he left, he didn’t think he’d be rushing back to japan, postponing the game of beach volleyball he’d promised his teammates he’d take a part in. he didn’t think he’d be hunting for the quickest flight back home. heck, he didn’t think he’d have to face your death at twenty something. tooru oikawa never thought fate could be so cruel and your life could be so insignificant, so light, that it would only take only a moment for it to disperse away from the living.

he recalls everything you wanted to do together. the list you wrote down during lunch break on a sunny afternoon resurfaces along his memory and he looks back on the crumpled parchment of paper you wrote your goals on right before he graduated high school.

he remembers you made him sign at the bottom of the paper, both of you pinky promising each other you’d never about it, and he recalls how he forgot about it the moment he received a letter of opportunity and perhaps you still held on, crumpling the old sheet and tossing it aside when it became clear that his focus had shifted.

(“and exactly how is feeding ducks at the pond next to your place a long term goal?” you question, twisting your brows, looking at tooru, who’s slumped in the seat next you.

“i don’t know, sounds like a fun thing to do.” he shrugs, surmising at the possibility that walking five minutes every morning to feed three unnamed ducks at the park he spent his childhood in, would account for several great date to enhance the essence of your relationship.

“you know what, never mind.” you roll your eyes, balking as you add yet another item to your list of things to do in long term. although you’re perplexed at his addition, you’re quick to write it down, pondering if feeding ducks would make your day any less better than not accompanying your boyfriend to feed them at all.

you balance your mechanical pencil against your philtrum, asking, “tooru, do you think we can add world tour to our list?” the pencil sways side to side in the hold of your upturned lip, and tooru raises his head to examine your said suggestion.

“do you think we’ll ever be rich enough?” you ponder, sighing at the thought as you look out of the window to spot a pair of love birds chirping on a branch. your lips bloom into a smile and the pencil falls off, landing on the piece of paper.

“of course we’ll be rich enough, yn.” tooru declares, cocksure as he brushes off your concern. he picks the mechanical pencil, adjusting it in his hand to pen down your addition to the list.

“one day, we’ll make it for sure.” he expresses sanguinely, tweaking your attention to drift over to him. you see the smug smile painting his face and chuckle at him, leaving a peck on his cheek.

“because you’re so sure, you already wrote it down, huh?” you raise your brow when you spot his handwriting running across the sheet in front of you. you scrunch your nose at how foul it is and his eyes widen when he looks at you.

“it’s not that bad, yn.” he defends his own handwriting, tutting at you, stating, “yours is just too good.”

“also yea, since we’re going to be able to do it a hundred percent, i wrote it down.” he declares, compelling to roll your eyes once again to his exuding confidence.

“what about setting up our own nursery?” you suggest, hyping up your love for plants and tooru pretends to ponder over it to tease you as if he’s about to say no.

“umm, sure, i think we’ll be able to do it.” he teases, shaking his head as he expresses in a tone of fraud doubt. you sigh, dabbing his shoulder and proceed to write yet another thing on the paper.

tooru watches the mechanical pencil bleed on the paper at the rhythm of your hands. afternoon breeze floats through the sky, followed by a heavy gust that swings your hair and he thinks you’re magical, and you’ve never looked better than you do right now as he watches you fight the wind while scribing the piece of paper you tore from your biology notebook earlier.

“do you think we should get married?” he questions on a whim, unaware of the words falling in the space between the two of you, leaving you startled as well as him. he quickly looks away, while your cheeks glow red.

you look at him wide eyed with warm cheeks, utterly shaken, but you think it won’t be so bad after all. marrying tooru oikawa wouldn’t be half as bad because you would always be in love, because there would always be a light surrounding you, because tooru would never make you feel less loved. marrying him wouldn’t be half as bad because you would do it willingly in a heartbeat and the sun would rise to illuminate you and only you because you would never know what sadness feels like.

he turns around and when your gaze engrosses in his shining brown eyes, his cheeks turn crimson too and you curl your lips into the stupidest grin he’s ever seen, and he can’t help but chuckle. even he feels the warmth in his chest at the thought of loving you forever but he’s still embarrassed he said it out loud when he didn’t mean to.

“maybe we can get married.” you shrug, imitating his expression from a while ago when he was teasing you, and he puckers his lips, vaguely frowning at your joke.

“maybe we can.” you repeat, this time in assurance, tucking your disheveled hair in place as you look down to miss his gaze, feeling the heat rising up your cheeks furthermore. tooru laughs at you as he takes your hand, continuing to rub it, and he says, “i can’t wait.” he kisses your hand and you smile to yourself, feeling the butterflies dancing inside your belly.

“don’t let it get to your head, shittykawa.” you chaff at him, flicking his head, looking up to roll your eyes as you giggle. the light of the afternoon sun spread across your face and he almost feels as if he’s living in a dream, so instead of glowering at the mention of the nickname, he chuckles to, rubbing your hand and placing another one over it. you follow while you look into his eyes, smiling like a fool, so does he.

“i mean it, don’t let it get to your head, shittykawa.” you interrupt the sweet moment with another mention of his nickname, drawing your hands away from him grip as you proceed to scribble something on the paper, hiding it from him.

“way to ruin a moment, yn.” he pouts, crossing his arms to purvey disappointment, when he notices you’re sheathing the sheet of paper as you write something. he hunches forward in an attempt to see what it is, and when he takes a lot, he grins widely, bending over to plant a kiss on your lips, leaving your flustered. you shake it off, giggling to yourself, shaking you head in disbelief at him.

“tooru!” you squeal at the setter in awe at his action, sliding away, looking at him wide eyes and the colour of your cheeks deepens. in an empty classroom at fifteen minutes past twelve, tooru and you decide you want to get married and although eighteen seems too early, you don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about the plan falling apart.

“did you add it to the list too?” he questions, wiggling his brows at you as he tries to peek through, but you hold the paper away from him, restricting it from his vision. he’s already seen it and this is just his way of teasing you, you know that, but you play along.

“add what?” you ask nonchalantly, pretending not to know what he’s talking about. you leave your seat and walk towards your desk to place the paper inside your bag. he follows, taking a spot right next to you, sneaking a view into your school bag.

“nevermind, yn, it’s nothing.” he shrugs your query off the table, sighing as he slides his arm along your waist, twirling you to face him. you’re taken aback but proceed to place your arms on his shoulders, smiling a soft smile.

“can i know what you added to the list, yn?” he asks, caressing your cheeks, eyes burrowed into yours and you nod at him, telling, “i can’t. it’s a secret.” you shrug and he moues at you, giving up as leans in to kiss you.

“but i know exactly what you wrote, so you don’t have to say it.” he admits, a small laugh dispersing around his words as he pulls away, fixing his eyes on yours once again.

“i know you do.” you confess, smiling half a smile at his sneaky behaviour as you separate yourself from him to collect your bag to leave for your next class.

you walk towards the exit of the classroom, waving him goodbye but he interrupts you, reassuring, “we’ll get there too. i know.” you turn back and nod at him, grinning as you take a step back, closer to the exit.

“it’s us against the world, isn’t it?” you declare, earning his agreement when he shakes his head, leaning against one of the benches, confirming, “it is.” the two of you laugh before you leave.)

oikawa exits the elevator to walk into the hallway of floor seven and his vision greets the familiar faces he’s known all his life, but he doesn’t make his presence known, observing them in silence.

his okaasan stands next your mother, comforting her as she cries for her ailing child. his oneesan observes the two of them in silence and her eyes are wet with grief as she rubs your mother’s back from time to time, agitated because she’s holding her tears back as well. takeru sits in a corner with his gaming console, focused on clearing the next level. while he’s old enough to understand the gravity of the situation, he’s also rebellious enough to pretend not to care.

your father and hajime iwaizumi stand in front of the hospital room tooru assuming belongs to you. they peek inside every now and then, and hajime comforts your father, rubbing his back. your father looks at his wife from the corner of his eye to check up on her every passing moment.

hanamaki takahiro and matsukawa issei are there too. they sit by the vending machine, sipping on canned latte, chatting in negligible volume. while he can’t make out what they talk of, he assumes it’s either about him or about you. issei sneaks glances at iwaizumi, worrying about him, and every time hajime notices a pair of eyes staring him down, he smiles at them ik reassurance.

tooru doesn’t find his father his father in the crowd gathered outside your room, nor does he see the iwaizumi’s around. he concurs they must’ve already visited you earlier. he wonders why everyone is huddled here. he understands they’re worried about you, but there’s no reason to crowd at a hospital. then again, he knows these are the people closest to you, so he doesn’t think much of the inconvenience they’re causing.

the air that surrounds them is grim. it’s chilling and when he takes a notice of its flow, it sends chills down his spine. there’s silence that suffocates everyone, interrupted by the voice of your mother’s cries, his okaasan’s comforting words and takahiro and issei’s low key conversation.

there are other patients around but no one really speaks when they approach your room. they pass along in silence, going their own way, respecting the family that grieves the potential loss of a loved one. tooru feels his breath tightening at the bottom of his pharynx. for a moment he wants to ditch the idea of seeing you one last time. for a moment he wants to walk out of here and fly back but that would be cowardly, so he braces himself.

he takes a step ahead and the tap of his shoes alerts everyone around. the sudden attention makes him take the same step back to approach the beginning again. there’s no turning back now, he knows he needs to face the music.

all heads turn to him as he stands in front of the elevator at the far end of the hallway with a pint sized suitcase next to him. it’s small and indication enough that he’s here only for a short while with no intention of waiting back. this much they all conclude because they’re just as close to him as they are to you and they know him well.

tooru would love to stay but he doesn’t think he’ll have a good enough reason left to, once you pass away. as he stands there, a center of attention to all, looking for courage to approach your hospital room, looking for the courage to face the people he left behind four years ago, he wonders if you’re still alive. he wonders if you’re still hanging in there. he wonders if you’re dead already but he takes the thought back, hoping for the best.

he curls his lips into a small smile, gaze meeting them all one at a time. okaasan smiles back at him but there’s pity hidden beneath the beauty it holds. your mother doesn’t spare him a second glance as she continues sobbing in his okaasan’s arms. akane looks at him for a while, bleak expression scattered across her face. she’s quick to look away, expressing her dismay towards him.

your father returns his gesture but tooru sees through the fake smile he puts on. your father doesn’t intend on forgiving him, this much he understands and he looks away. hajime sighs, scrunching his nose with red eyes, telling tooru he cried a while ago. when their eyes meet, hajime doesn’t smile, in fact, he doesn’t offer anything, choosing to lean against the wall instead, drawing his gaze back into captivity.

takeru looks up from the console to grin at his uncle. as excited as he is to see tooru after years, he’s certainly more interested in clearing the level he’s stuck on, so he goes back to gaming. takahiro and issei are nicer. they smile at him softly and wave at him, welcoming him back to japan. but even they don’t spare him much attention, proceeding to indulge back into their ongoing conversation.

tooru recognises the tension that clogs the air. he stands in front of the people he grew up around, the same people he loved and still does, the same people who loved him back selflessly, but they don’t look at him the same way anymore. he ruined what he had when he chose to leave them behind. now, when he stands in front of them, they look at him with the same amount of love as before, but there’s also anger that lingers around. while their love exists for him to feel, it also droops in the weight of the impact the last four years left on them.

okaasan doesn’t have much of a say in this, so she only smiled back at him before she reverting to comfort your mother. you probably told your mother about what he did and she probably lives under the impression that tooru is an asshole, which he agrees he is. so she refuses to look up and spare him some attention when he announced his arrival.

your father would spend a lot of time with tooru whenever he came over, and he loved him, but now he looks at the twenty four year old with eyes that speak of disappointment. he trusted tooru enough to take good care of his child, but then he left you behind like used goods meant to throw. so when he smiled at your father, your father didn’t offer him much except anger and disappointment.

iwaizumi, he knows, is the most hurt of them all. he’s the most hurt after you. he’s sure if you weren’t dying right now, you would be the one hurting the most. although he knows you must’ve already moved on, he also knows he must’ve lingered in your memories from time to time, and seeing him again would’ve definitely sparked something inside you. then again, if you weren’t dying, he wouldn’t be standing here meeting all the old faces in the first place.

hajime frowned at him before turning away and although the look on his face hurt tooru, he couldn’t help it, so he kept grinning at him like an idiot, tears dripping down from the corner of his eyes.

hanamaki and matsukawa are hurt too, but they still spared him some regard. their smile was a warm welcome but they didn’t bother closing the distance between him and them. he didn’t bother involving him in the conversation, and that’s enough for him to know they blame him just as much as everybody else does.

akane is disappointed. she isn’t angry like the rest of them are, but she expected better from him. so when he chose to leave his family and friends behind, when he chose to leave you behind, she didn’t have much to say except that she didn’t think her brother was capable of being so heartless. and because she’s still reeling from the disbelief, she didn’t think he was worth her attention when he smiled at her, looking for a similar response.

everybody in the hallway offers him some attention, then snatches it back from him just as quickly. it reminds him of when he chose to abandon you just as quickly, when he deliberately didn’t return you texts and calls, when he decided volleyball was more important than his loved one. there’s perhaps just one person here who isn’t disappointed in him, only one who isn’t really angry at him. thinking of it, maybe okaasan isn’t really happy with him either. maybe she’s just as disappointed, just as angry as the rest. she’d tell him to call you up after he cut contact with you, but he never listened to her, restricting himself to his own rules. so perhaps, she isn’t really happy with him either, but she has a way of hiding it beneath her love for her son, so he doesn’t take notice.

despite their views on him, there’s only one thing that demands his focus. sure, he’s hurt by their actions and he’s hurt them just as much, but he can only bring himself to think of you. all he really wants is to walk through that door to see you one last time. he wants to leave his suitcase unattended, rush through the doors and hold you in his arms.

he wants to talk to you about so many things. he’s made a mental list of them all. he wants to spill everything he didn’t get to say because he chose to alienate himself from you. he doesn’t really know if you’ll be able to hear him while you’re asleep. he doesn’t care if what he narrates to you doesn’t get through, but he knows that he still wants to do it nonetheless.

while there’s a lot he wants to talk to you about, most importantly, he wants to apologise to you and to the others equally. he wants to confess that he was wrong and he wants to beg for your forgiveness. he wants you to wake up and he wants you to tell him that it’s okay. he wants to hear you forgiving him. he wants to convince you to love him again, and this time around, he really wants to love you selflessly.

when he walks in closer on them to ask about your condition, tooru is informed that you passed away earlier this morning. those words don’t only gnaw at his edges, but also begin to eat his soul away as a whole. he’s only a few hours late and if he were here a few days or a few hours earlier, he would’ve had the chance to talk to you one last time.

but his fate isn’t on his side anymore. it’s the judge in the jury punishing him for his sins, and he thinks it’s only fair that he didn’t get to see you one last time. it’s only fair that he’s being put in much more pain than what he was in when he heard the news of your accident. the smile dangling along his lips fades away. he begins to cry, but no one step in to comfort him, they just watch, while he thinks his fate is fair to him, it wasn’t fair to you.

unlike your mother who highlights the floor with the sound of her cries, tooru’s sobs aren’t boisterous, neither is his presence. lately he’s been feeling small, insignificant. he doesn’t utter a word, instead, only tears jog down his cheeks, faster than before. he takes a seat to process whatever he just heard.

“she fought well.” hanamaki remarks, five minutes into the intolerable silence that began keeping them company. he twirls the can of coffee in his hand, walking closer to the setter and pats his back before pulling him into half a hug.

“it’s okay, tooru.” issei reassures, crouching in front of him. he follows the setter’s gaze but tooru holds back, looking the other way. in guilt. in embarrassment. in pain. you name it.

nobody else, not even hajime steps up to say anything. the rest of the day fleets away into the night, in the silence of the hospital hallway as it eats away parts of oikawa tooru even he didn’t know exist, rendering him a completely different man than the one who walked in earlier.

he learns that iwaizumi’s parents left to make preparations for the funeral, while his otosan busied himself to complete the formalities required to obtain your death certificate.

the ring on iwaizumi’s finger doesn’t go amiss. it glints under the led lights etched into the ceiling. “you’re engaged?” tooru inquires to crack open a conversation to allude the piercing silence, when he spots the twinkling band clutching his ring finger. he looks for hajime’s eyes that are swollen after crying silent tears. hajime looks up at tooru, gaze meeting his, full of love but also full of dislike.

“was engaged.” he tells the setter, shrugging his shoulders, ending his note with a crack splitting his voice into a stutter. he slides the ring off his trembling finger and clenches it in his fist, kissing it once before putting it into his pocket. “to yn.” hajime tells as his voice splinters, tears following the revelation.

tooru hears this and dread clouds about and around his head. so you did move on and you did find someone else to offer your love to. you didn’t wait for him. he thought you would wait for his return even after he cut contact, but you moved on, you fell in love with hajime and you ended up deciding to tie the knot with his best friend. as dreadful as it is, he’s happy that you found happiness again.

he wonders if hajime’s love was anything like his own. he wonders if you ever felt the lack of love, if his love resonated with his own. he wonders if you felt there was a void in the middle of his love that you believed only tooru could fill in. he wonders if you were as happy with hajime as you were with him when you loved him just like that.

he thinks he knows that hajime made you happier than he ever could, and his heart smiles at the thought. tooru hurt you and you found someone new to help you get through it, and instead of feeling jealous, he’s glad you found hajime somewhere in midst of the darkness he left you alone in. his heart smiles that hajime was there to help you pick up the pieces of the heart tooru ripped to shreds. you didn’t have to die with the sorrow of his separation. you died knowing there was someone capable of loving you the way he did.

if hajime’s love was in shared packets of pocky, dates at your favourite coffee shop, lazy sunday afternoons, walks in the park, tooru thinks you were loved enough, you were loved more than what he could give. if hajime’s love was asking about your lunch, fighting and making up in a jiffy, feeding the ducks in the park next to tooru’s place, he thinks hajime must’ve made you the happiest version of yourself to exist. and his heart smiles knowing that his best friend did what he couldn’t and you were able to leave on a good note.

tooru takes a flight back the same night. okaasan insists he should stay back for your funeral but he thinks he’s too weak to face the music, so he leaves.

he decides he’ll see you a few months later in the graveyard, and he’ll talk to your grave instead. he’ll apologise to your ghost because he can’t bring himself to say it to your lifeless body. so he books a ticket for the earliest flight back, and takes a cab to the airport. hanamaki offers him a ride, saying he wouldn’t mind driving him, but tooru repudiates the offer, wanting some time alone with his scrambled thoughts.

on his flight back, he’s still surrounded by the darkness but there isn’t a lack of sleep. there isn’t the sotto voce of some outlandish sound buzzing next to his ears. there isn’t helplessness he dangles by. however, there’s pain and there’s guilt and there’s sorrow and there’s regret pooling inside his stomach, but he still manages to make it to argentina in one piece.

for him, knowing that you were loved more than enough even in his absence is quite sufficient. knowing that you didn’t have to die acquainted to heartbreak is quite enough. there was hajime who repaired the void tooru cracked in your life. in the end, he thinks, things turned out well for you, and he’s hurt, but he’ll learn to live with your absence. he knows he still has volleyball to keep him company.

- fin.

part one here!

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