WANDERER/SCARAMOUCHE X READER
When he is married to the reader and they were arguing In the car and wanderer kicks her out
# Stranded
The rain drummed against the windshield as harsh words filled the confined space of the car. Your husband's knuckles were white against the steering wheel, his jaw clenched in that familiar way that meant he was barely holding back his temper.
"You never listen," Scaramouche's voice was low and dangerous, the kind of quiet that preceded a storm. "I told you not to interfere with my work, but you just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"Interfere?" You turned in the passenger seat to face him fully, your own anger flaring. "I was trying to help! That deal was going to fall through and you were too proud to see it!"
"Help?" He laughed bitterly, finally turning those indigo eyes toward you. Even in the dim light of the car, they seemed to glow with fury. "You embarrassed me in front of my colleagues. Made me look weak."
"Made you look human, you mean." The words escaped before you could stop them, and you saw his expression darken further.
The car suddenly swerved to the side of the empty highway, gravel crunching under the tires as he brought it to an abrupt stop. The engine idled roughly in the sudden silence, broken only by the steady patter of rain.
"Get out."
Your heart stopped. "What?"
"You heard me." His voice was eerily calm now, which somehow made it worse than his anger. "Get out of my car."
"Scaramouche, we're in the middle of nowhere. It's pouring rain—"
"I don't care." He reached across you, his movement sharp and deliberate as he grabbed the door handle. "If you think I'm so inhuman, then you can find your own way home."
The door swung open, letting in a gust of cold, wet air. Rain immediately began soaking the passenger seat.
"You can't be serious." Your voice cracked slightly. "We're married. You can't just—"
"Can't I?" His smile was cruel, nothing like the rare, genuine ones you'd fallen in love with years ago. "Watch me."
For a moment, you stared at each other in the dim light. You searched his face for any sign of the man you'd married, the one who held you during thunderstorms and brought you tea when you were sick. But all you saw was cold indifference.
Pride warring with disbelief, you grabbed your purse and stepped out into the rain. The cold hit you immediately, soaking through your clothes within seconds.
You turned back, certain he would change his mind, that this was just another one of his dramatic displays of temper. But the car door slammed shut with finality.
Through the rain-streaked window, you could see his silhouette. He didn't look at you as he shifted the car into drive.
"Scaramouche!" You banged on the window, but he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.
The car pulled away, its taillights growing smaller and smaller until they disappeared entirely around a bend, leaving you alone on the empty highway with nothing but the sound of rain and your own ragged breathing.
You wrapped your arms around yourself, shivering as the reality of the situation set in. Miles from home, soaked to the bone, with a phone that had no signal.
As you started walking along the dark road, you wondered if this was finally the breaking point—if some lines, once crossed, could never be uncrossed.
Behind you, thunder rumbled across the sky, as if the heavens themselves were commenting on the wreckage of your marriage.
---
Three hours later, you finally pushed through the front door of your shared home, water still dripping from your soaked clothes onto the hardwood floor. Your shoes squelched with each step, and your teeth chattered uncontrollably from the cold that had seeped deep into your bones.
A kind truck driver had eventually stopped, taking pity on your bedraggled state and giving you a ride to the nearest town. From there, you'd managed to catch a late bus, enduring the stares and whispered comments about your appearance.
The house was dark except for a single lamp in the living room. Scaramouche sat in his usual armchair, still in the same clothes from earlier, though his hair was disheveled as if he'd been running his hands through it. An untouched cup of tea sat cold on the side table.
He looked up when you entered, his expression unreadable. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The only sounds were your chattering teeth and the steady drip of water from your clothes.
"You came back," he said finally, his voice quieter than before, stripped of its earlier venom.
"Where else would I go?" Your voice was hoarse from the cold and exhaustion. "This is my home too. Or was, anyway."
His eyes flickered—something that might have been regret, or perhaps just surprise that you'd made it back at all. He stood slowly, and you noticed the way his hands trembled slightly at his sides.
"You're soaked," he observed, as if just now realizing the full extent of what he'd done.
"Amazing observation." The words came out sharper than you intended, but you were too tired and too hurt to soften them.
He flinched as if you'd struck him. "I'll... get you some dry clothes."
As he moved toward the stairs, you called after him, your voice breaking slightly. "Is that it? You leave me stranded in a storm for hours, and all you can say is that I'm wet?"
He stopped, his back still turned to you. His shoulders sagged, and when he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I know."
But you were already walking past him, your waterlogged shoes leaving a trail on the stairs as you headed to the bedroom. You didn't want to hear his excuses, didn't want to see whatever expression he was wearing now. The hurt was too fresh, too raw.
"Wait—" he started, turning around.
You didn't acknowledge him. Instead, you went straight to the bedroom and locked the door behind you with a decisive click. Through the wood, you could hear his footsteps pause outside, then the soft sound of his hand pressing against the door.
"Please," his voice was muffled. "Let me—"
Silence. You peeled off your soaked clothes with numb fingers, each piece hitting the floor with a wet slap. Your reflection in the mirror showed exactly what you felt like—a drowned, abandoned mess.
You could hear him lingering outside the door for several more minutes before his footsteps finally retreated down the hallway.
The next morning, you emerged from the bedroom to find a steaming cup of your favorite tea waiting on the kitchen counter, along with a plate of toast cut exactly the way you liked it. Scaramouche was nowhere to be seen, though you could hear the shower running upstairs.
You walked right past the peace offering without touching it.
When he came downstairs, hair still damp and dressed for work, you were sitting at the kitchen table with your own hastily made coffee, pointedly ignoring the breakfast he'd prepared.
"Good morning," he said carefully, hovering near the counter.
You turned a page in the newspaper you weren't really reading. The silence stretched between you like a chasm.
"I have meetings today, but I could cancel—"
Still nothing. You took a deliberate sip of your coffee, keeping your eyes fixed on the words that might as well have been in a foreign language for all the attention you were paying them.
His frustrated sigh was audible across the kitchen. "You can't ignore me forever."
You finally looked up, meeting his gaze with cool indifference. "Watch me."
---
Two months had passed since that night, and the house had become a graveyard of unspoken words.
You and Scaramouche moved around each other like ghosts, sharing the same space but existing in completely separate worlds. He'd stopped trying to make conversation after the third week of being met with silence. The breakfast offerings had ceased after a month of watching you throw them away untouched.
Your shared bed had become a carefully negotiated territory—you on your side, him on his, an invisible wall of hurt and pride running down the middle. Some nights you could feel him lying awake, his breathing too controlled to be natural sleep, but you never acknowledged it.
The house itself seemed to reflect the state of your marriage. Rooms felt colder, colors more muted. Even the plants you'd once tended together were beginning to wither from neglect, neither of you willing to be the first to care for something that required cooperation.
Scaramouche had grown quieter, more withdrawn. The sharp edges of his personality had dulled into something listless. He worked longer hours, came home later, sometimes falling asleep in his office chair rather than facing the arctic silence of the bedroom.
His colleagues had started asking questions, you suspected. The few times the phone rang and you happened to overhear, his voice carried a strained politeness that hadn't been there before.
You'd thrown yourself into your own work with renewed intensity, anything to avoid the suffocating atmosphere at home. Friends invited you out more frequently now, their concerned glances speaking volumes about what they could see that you refused to acknowledge.
On this particular evening, you sat at opposite ends of the dining table—a table that had once hosted laughter and shared meals, now serving as another barrier between you. He picked at his food mechanically while you scrolled through your phone, both of you eating in the kind of silence that screamed louder than any argument ever could.
The sound of his fork hitting his plate made you glance up involuntarily. He was staring at his barely touched dinner, his hands clasped so tightly in his lap that his knuckles had gone white.
"I can't do this anymore," he whispered to his plate, so quietly you almost didn't hear him.
You looked back down at your phone, but the words on the screen blurred together. Your heart hammered against your ribs, but you kept your expression carefully neutral.
Two months of silence, and it felt like you were both drowning.
The admission hung in the air like a challenge. You could feel his eyes on you now, waiting, hoping for any kind of response. Your finger hovered over your phone screen, the words you'd been reading forgotten entirely.
"Please." His voice cracked on the single word. "Just... say something. Anything."
You set your phone down with deliberate slowness, finally meeting his gaze. He looked terrible—dark circles under his eyes, cheekbones more pronounced than before, as if the weight of your silence had been physically consuming him.
"What do you want me to say?" Your voice came out hoarse from disuse in conversations with him. The sound of it seemed to startle you both.
Relief flooded his features so completely that for a moment he couldn't speak. He leaned forward slightly, as if afraid you might disappear again into silence.
"I don't know," he admitted, his hands still trembling in his lap. "I just... I need to hear your voice. I need to know you're still here, that we're still—" He stopped, swallowing hard. "That there's still an 'us' to save."
You studied his face, seeing past the careful mask he usually wore to the raw desperation underneath. Two months of your silence had stripped him down to something vulnerable and broken.
"You left me on the side of a highway in a storm," you said quietly. Each word was measured, deliberate. "You looked me in the eye and drove away."
He flinched as if you'd slapped him. "I know."
"Do you?" Your voice grew stronger, the dam of suppressed emotion finally beginning to crack. "Do you really? Because I stood there for twenty minutes thinking you'd come back. Twenty minutes in the rain, believing that my husband wouldn't actually abandon me like that."
Tears were sliding down his cheeks now, his composure completely shattered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I—"
"I called your name," you continued, your own voice breaking. "I banged on the window and called your name, and you wouldn't even look at me."
"I know," he whispered. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I've hated myself every single day since then."
You opened your mouth, ready to unleash all the hurt you'd been carrying—ready to tell him that he'd become exactly like the woman who had abandoned him, that he was repeating the same cruel patterns his mother had carved into his soul. The words were right there, sharp and cutting, designed to hit him where it would hurt most.
But as you looked at his broken form across the table, something in your chest twisted painfully. The memory of late nights when he'd wake up gasping from nightmares about being left behind, about not being good enough, about everyone always leaving him in the end. The way he'd curl into you those nights, vulnerable and small, whispering fears he'd never voice in daylight.
You saw his mother's cruelty reflected in what he'd done to you, yes—but you also saw the scared, abandoned child he'd once been, acting out of the same fear that had been carved into him long before you'd ever met.
The cruel words died on your lips.
Instead, something else broke inside you—not the sharp crack of anger, but the soft collapse of a heart that remembered loving him despite everything. The pain in your chest shifted, transforming from the ache of betrayal into something deeper, more complex.
"I forgive you," you whispered, the words surprising even yourself.
His head snapped up, eyes wide with disbelief. "What?"
"I forgive you." The words came easier the second time, though tears were now streaming down your face. "I hate what you did. I hate that you hurt me like that. But I forgive you."
He stared at you as if you'd spoken in a foreign language, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"I can't keep carrying this anger," you continued, your voice shaking. "It's killing both of us. And I... I remember who you are underneath all this pain. I remember why I fell in love with you."
"I don't deserve—"
"No," you said firmly. "You don't. But that's what forgiveness is, isn't it? It's not about what you deserve."
He broke then, completely and utterly. His shoulders shook with silent sobs as he buried his face in his hands. Two months of guilt and self-hatred poured out of him all at once.
Without thinking, you stood from your chair. Your body moved on instinct, drawn by the sight of him falling apart. You walked around the table and gently placed your hand on his shoulder.
"Come here," you whispered.
He looked up at you through his tears, confusion and hope warring in his expression. Slowly, carefully, you pulled him to his feet and wrapped your arms around him. He went rigid for a moment, as if he couldn't believe this was real, before melting into your embrace.
His arms came around you desperately, clinging to you like you might disappear again. His tears soaked through your shirt as he pressed his face against your shoulder, and you could feel how much weight he'd lost in these past two months.
"I'm sorry," he kept whispering against your neck. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"I know," you murmured, your own tears falling into his hair. "I know you are."
You stayed like that in the dining room for a long time, holding each other as months of pain slowly began to drain away. Eventually, you pulled back just enough to see his face.
"Come on," you said softly, taking his hand. "Let's go upstairs."
He followed you wordlessly to the bedroom—the same room where you'd locked him out that first night, where you'd slept on opposite sides of the bed like strangers. Now, you sat on the edge of the mattress and gently pulled him down beside you.
Without hesitation, you wrapped your arms around him again. He immediately curled into you, his head finding its familiar place on your chest. His tears hadn't stopped, and you could feel each shuddering breath against your body.
"I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, his voice muffled. "I thought you'd never forgive me. I thought I'd destroyed everything."
You stroked his hair gently, the same way you used to during his nightmares. "You almost did," you admitted quietly. "But we're still here. We're still trying."
His arms tightened around you as fresh tears came. In the quiet safety of your bedroom, with your forgiveness wrapped around him like a blanket, he finally let himself grieve for what he'd almost thrown away.
---
You woke to the unfamiliar sensation of warmth beside you. For a moment, you were disoriented—it had been so long since you'd shared the bed properly that you'd almost forgotten what it felt like to wake up next to someone.
Scaramouche was still asleep, his face pressed against your shoulder, one arm draped protectively across your waist. His cheeks were stained with dried tears, and even in sleep, his grip on you was tight, as if he was afraid you might disappear.
The morning light filtered through the curtains, casting everything in a soft, golden glow. For the first time in months, the bedroom didn't feel like a battlefield. It felt like home again.
You shifted slightly, trying not to wake him, but his eyes fluttered open immediately. For a split second, confusion crossed his features—then memory returned, and with it, a mixture of relief and uncertainty.
"Good morning," you said softly, your voice still rough with sleep.
"You're still here," he whispered, as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"I'm still here."
He studied your face carefully, searching for any sign that you might have changed your mind overnight, that forgiveness given in the heat of emotion might have evaporated with the morning light.
"How are you feeling?" he asked hesitantly.
You considered the question honestly. "Tired," you admitted. "Sad. But... lighter, somehow. Like I can finally breathe again."
He nodded, understanding exactly what you meant. The house had felt suffocating for both of you these past months.
"I called in sick to work yesterday," he said quietly. "After you... after we talked. I couldn't imagine sitting in meetings, pretending everything was normal."
"Good," you said, surprising him. "We have a lot to figure out."
His expression grew serious. "We do. I know that forgiving me doesn't mean everything just goes back to how it was. I know I have to earn your trust back."
"One day at a time," you agreed, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from his face. The simple gesture made his breath catch.
"I love you," he said suddenly, desperately. "I know I don't deserve to say that after what I did, but I love you so much it terrifies me."
"I love you too," you replied, and watched as relief flooded his features. "That's why this hurt so much. That's why we're going to fix this."
---
**Six Months Later**
The sound of rain against the windows no longer made you tense. If anything, it had become comforting—a reminder of how far you'd both come.
You were curled up on the couch together, a book in your lap while Scaramouche worked on his laptop beside you. It was a quiet evening, the kind that had once felt suffocating but now felt peaceful. The house was warm again, filled with the small sounds of a life shared: the turning of pages, the soft clicking of keys, the occasional comment about something interesting.
"I have to drive to the next city tomorrow for that conference," he mentioned casually, then paused. His fingers stilled on the keyboard. "Would you... would you like to come with me? We could make a weekend of it."
You looked up from your book, noting the careful way he'd phrased the question. Even now, six months later, he was still cautious about anything involving cars and arguments. Some wounds took time to fully heal.
"I'd like that," you said with a smile. "It's been a while since we've traveled together."
The relief in his expression was subtle but unmistakable. These small victories still mattered to both of you.
Outside, thunder rumbled gently across the sky, but inside, you were both exactly where you belonged. The work of rebuilding trust was ongoing, probably always would be, but you'd learned that love wasn't about perfection—it was about choosing each other, again and again, even after
