Summary: You and Harry cross paths again years after you were expelled from Hogwarts.
Words: 2.6k
Song: Downtown Train by Everything but the Girl (loosely based)
Category : kinda angst and fluff
Warnings: angst, light cursing
Disclaimers: GIF NOT MINE! I do not own any of the characters in this story.
A/N: ok i got kinda lazy at the last part in sorry skdjeow hope you guys like it tho :)) i took a bit of inspiration from the scene where Ted and Tracy finally meet in HIMYM. this is my second fic omfg thank you to those who liked the first one!!!
It has been around a decade since you’ve set foot in London, and although a lot has changed over time, you could still see the little things that remained ever the same. You watched the city pass by before your eyes as the cab you were in sped through highways. No use dwelling in the past now, you’ve been through so much already, why let it bother you?
You could’ve taken the train to the terminal, for it would’ve made much more sense but... You wanted to see something for yourself first. After a forty-minute drive, you finally arrived at King’s Cross.
Making your way to the platform, you raised your wrist to check the time, and it was more than enough to piss you off. Missed it by eight minutes.
You knew it wasn’t worth fretting over, but the fact that everything is always within reach but then gone once you try and seize it was deeply frustrating. The terminal felt deserted even though there were still people bustling about. You hated that there were no seats and you had to just stand there, leaning on your trolley suitcase’s handle as you waited for the next train. Your shoulder slumped in disappointment.
Wait—
Right.
You almost forgot your suitcase as you hurriedly trudged toward the 9th platform, looking for any sign of...anything. You looked at the barrier you only walked through four times. You’d only been in (What was it called? Hoggerts?) that one particular Wizarding School for two years, but you got expelled for becoming an unregistered animagus. “Oh, right, Hogwarts.” You muttered under your breath, a lump in your throat already forming.
A mirthless laugh escaped your lips, and you were quite certain the passersby thought you were a mad woman. You were twenty-three already, but the memory of when you were eleven kept slapping you in the face. You think about how you made an Animagus Potion and how long and difficult it took to make. It was hard to keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth, having to not take it out until ready. But when you had succeeded and mixed it with the untouched dew, you turned into an owl. This was a year before you received a letter to Hogwarts, when your only intention was to visit the unnamed boy with pretty green eyes who lived with the Dursley family. You think about how your stepmother left for a week and put a nanny named Bertha Jorkins in charge, how an owl swept downstairs with a red envelope and an unfamiliar voice erupted, how you pretended to sleep in fear of your life, how Bertha left a thick book which you found out were spells.
It took about a year for you to succeed in making that potion. You almost passed out at the sight of the moving illustration of what was called a mandrake. You kept thinking about what lead to where you were now, you kept racking your brain thinking about what could’ve been. Maybe you’d be working in some magical job instead of a bland Muggle office career. You kept thinking about the shabby ‘witch’ shop you stumbled upon from which you purchased mandrake leaves and untouched dew, both sealed tight in jars, the dew packed with extra wrapping, as it was not allowed to see the sun.
No, you had to stop thinking about it. But then again, the memory of when you found out the Dursleys let the green-eyed boy sleep upstairs and visited him as an owl twisted your guts.
It was around early July and you sat just outside his window. He immediately raised his blinds and slid the window open. His eyes darted your leg. “No letter?” He muttered, but you heard it well. Were you...supposed to bring a letter or something?
You cocked your head to the side. You still didn’t know his name, and for the past years that you fawned over him, you resorted to calling him Specks. “Did Hagrid send you?”
Hag-what now?
“Ron? Hermione?” His eyes had this twinkle of hope, as if waiting. For what, you did not know. Then Specks faltered, his shoulders slumping. “Guess not. Haven’t been receiving any letters from them.”
He didn’t seem to know what to do, either. “Do you need water? I have one in Hedwig’s cage.” He gestured to the cage tucked into the corner of his room. I’m not drinking from that, you thought. “Are you lost?”
The first meeting was awkward, but as you noticed an assortment of owls flying to the window, you caught on and went down to make waffles. The last time you visited him, he was eating plain tuna. That’s got to be rough, you thought as you started to make waffles on your own. As soon as the package was tied, you flew out and pecked on his window, which he immediately opened.
He untied the package on your legs, reading what was written. “From... owl?” He looked at you hesitantly as he unwrapped it. And then he did that thing— he smiled. And you were sure you’d have thrown your hands over him if it weren’t for your tacky wings. You often visited him, he even started to call you Owl. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. You brought him cookies, waffles, and stuff like that. Until one day, you noticed Mr. Dursley barricading his windows.
You thought that would be the last you ever saw him, when at some point you vividly recall a flying car stopping by his window, and as much as weird that scenario looked like, you couldn’t help but laugh at the faces of the Dursleys as the car drove away into the night.
You laugh as you recall the letters you wrote you never would’ve sent to him, crying because you thought he was gone forever. Then you received a letter yourself, from Hogwarts.
It was all complicated from there, you found out your mother left you an amount of fortune by Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts while your father left you Muggle money, which you had converted to fund for your studies at Hogwa—
A rumble of lightning shook you back to reality. This is the now, you must focus on the now. Not the past. So you lifted your chin, finally turning away from platform nine and three-quarters, not daring to step into it. You get into a cab, asking the driver to take you to the other terminal, which took maybe half an hour to get to. You didn’t know where you were, but around the area was a deserted train station. There were only two other people seated on the bench, you couldn’t see them well, but from their backs you could tell one was a sleeping elderly woman, and the other one a man in a tuxedo.
As you stepped out, you walked to the back of the car to open the trunk. The driver opened his window. “‘Vat are you doing?”
“I’m getting my luggage,” your voice almost drowning from the pouring rain. “Luggage!” You repeated.
“You ‘zo not have luggage!” The driver responded. What does he mean I don’t? Then you opened the trunk, and realized you forgot it at the train. “Fucking hell...”
“Sorry, Mister! You may go now, thank you for the ride.” He honked in response, and drove away. Well, at least you had your handbag and umbrella with you.
You stepped into the platform, tired from walking endlessly. You wish you never even returned here. The umbrella’s stick rested on your collarbone, and you could feel the cold of it numbing you. You turn to the two other people seated on the bench. The old woman was still sleeping, and the man was hunched, his elbows resting on his thighs, hands clasped together, deep in thought. When he looked up from his seat, you instantly recognized him. How could you not? He had grown since the last time you saw him, when he was only thirteen years old. He was rugged and tired, but there was no mistaking it. The undone necktie resting around his neck looked out of character for him, but it was just as well.
You think about your second year at Hogwarts, when you were caught turning into an animagus. The professors were impressed, but not in a nice way. They started to assume you might’ve been the Heir of Slytherin. To quote Snape, “Y/L/N, a young Half-Blood such as yourself couldn’t have made a complex potion.” There was a clear hint of a sneer in his voice, as if he wanted you to know you shouldn’t be there at all. He even suggested the possibility of sending you to Azkaban, but the potion just got confiscated and you received detention.
The following week, you started to avoid Harry. Of course, he knew. You were the one who dropped off little snacks. Every animagus had a unique pattern, and the spiral-looking pattern on your left wing sold you out. You never talked to him again, never been this embarrassed in your life.
But then you used the Cruciatus Curse, and the teachers were livid. The truth was that you only suspected a fellow student as the Heir of Slytherin, out to get Potter.
“On a student, Miss Y/L/N!”
The parents of the student sent complaints, having even suggested to send you to Azkaban. Some of the rumors even said that you were the next Dark Lord, to which you just laughed off. So you packed your bags, about to leave Hogwarts.
“Y/N,” Harry called out. “I’m—”
“You don’t have to say anything. It’s fine, really. I wouldn’t be able to fund my tuition next year anyway.” You jokingly said. He didn’t seem happy about it. “Be careful, Harry.”
That was the last time you saw each other. And seeing him here, in that tuxedo, with that damp hair... Was he coming from a wedding? His wedding? You shouldn’t be curious, and so you swallow the lump in your throat and looked straight ahead.
A minute or so later, someone tapped your shoulder. “Excuse me,” the person started. “You seemed cold.”
He was holding out the jacket of his tuxedo. Don’t look at him, don’t look at him.
You kept your eyes trained to the ground as you politely turn his offer down. “It’s fine,” you say in the tone you always do. “Really.”
He seemed to recognize you now, so you look up to him. He grew a couple inches, and his jaw had hint of a growing beard, and it looks like he just shaved recently. “Fancy seeing you here,” he starts.
“Just on a business trip, I’m not really gonna stay. But nice to see you too.”
“What, you don’t live here anymore?”
“Well, yeah. I had to take school late. You know, can’t really apply for a job and say I come from some magic school, right?” The two of you chuckle. “Congratulations, I guess”— you gesture to his tux — “or not, if you chickened out.”
“Oh, I’m not the groom. It’s Ron and Hermione.”
“They got married?”
“That’s right,” he bellowed. “I guess some of our friends owe us a fortune, huh?”
The two of you just caught up with each other there, and you found yourself wishing it wouldn’t end. You don’t know when it happened, but his jacket was draped on your shoulders already. You both eventually end up away from the platform and to a deserted park, taking a seat at the swings. They were still damp from the rain, but it didn’t matter one bit. At one point, silence engulfed the space between you two, but it was strangely comforting. Like the knowledge that the other one was there was all it took to right everything that was wrong in the world.
“So,” he cleared his throat. “Did you make the waffles yourself?”
“Yeah, how were they?”
“Brilliant, thank you.”
The silence again. But this time, it might have been the loudest and deafening sound you’ve ever heard. There were words you both wanted to get off your chest, but it felt like they had expired already. Words that should’ve been said a long time ago would be nothing right now. Maybe it would be something, but what good would that do at all?
So much has happened, so much time apart, you weren’t even sure if he was the same person he was. You had so much to say, but the words weren’t there with you right now. Maybe you’ll tell him when the time is better, but that isn’t the case now.
“It’s getting late. Where are you currently staying?”
And so you two ventured in the dead of night, with him telling you stories about Ron and Hermione, how the wedding went, and how everyone is. You, on the other hand, told him about how you just graduated a few years ago and are here to look for potential clients and how you plan on quitting and starting a different career you really like, maybe start a bakery.
“Well, this is me.” You give him the same smile you gave the last time you saw each other, only that this time, you hoped this wouldn’t the end. “Thanks for walking me that far.”
You hand him a small amount of money, and you start to walk into the hotel, not knowing how to feel.
“Is that it?” His voice broke. You stopped in your tracks and pulled out your wallet from your handbag. “Sorry, how much more?”
“You’ve technically risked everything for me way before you had any clue what you were doing and all you do now is hand me cash for a cab?”
“What do you think should I do, then?”
You could see him carefully analyzing your question, gulping, fidgeting, and more. Although now was not a good time, you felt proud that you still knew him at least a bit, and that he was enough assurance that he’s still the Harry you brought waffles and cookies when you were younger.
“I don’t know, but just not this.” You could hear his throat getting hoarse. “I can’t just let you go now. I didn’t know where you were, how you were doing, I kept waiting for the owl with the spiral pattern on its left wing and it never came and then I saw you again on that downtown train, all beautiful and... I don’t even know what I should do.”
You take a few steps down the stairs, walking toward him and finally reaching your hand out to cup his cheek, smiling. Then you took his jacket off your shoulders and held it out to him. “I think it’s rather flattering you think I’m beautiful.”
“Well, you are.” He hated that every word you said felt like it was the last you’d ever say to each other. He hated that this really might be the last time you crossed paths. He hated that you weren’t staying. Both of you were waiting for something, you just didn’t know what. A kiss didn’t feel right. At least, not yet.
And so it made his chest lighter when you put on his jacket again and hopped down the stairs and to the sidewalk. “Whe—”
“You don’t have to say anything,” You said, just like you did last time. Only that now it was with better reason. He did as he was told, and the two of you kept walking to no particular destination, ever thankful for the distant downtown train.
Summary: You're just trying to help your best friend get the boy she likes, but George Weasley keeps looking at you instead. Turns out the only person who doesn't know she's the one worth looking at is, is looking at her.
Warnings: no use of y/n
Cw: angst, slowburn
Wc: 7k+
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9 (finale)
Hannah had been planning this for longer than she admitted.
You could tell by how calm she was. While the rest of the dormitory was loud and chaotic — someone's dress had the wrong buttons, someone else had lost an earring between the floorboards, a third person was making a sound you could not legally describe as anything other than a wail. Hannah moved around you with the focused quiet of a person who had already thought about everything and was now simply executing the plan.
"Sit still," she said.
"I am sitting still."
"You keep pressing your hands together."
"That's just what my hands do."
"That's the nervous thing. Stop it."
"I'm not nervous." A pause. "I'm a little nervous."
"You're going to be fine." She separated another section of your hair, her fingers quick and certain. "More than fine. Trust me."
The dress was already on.
Dark purple underneath, so deep it was almost the colour of a night sky just before full dark. Over the top of it, black lace, delicate and intricate, the kind that looked like it had grown there rather than been added, like something that had always been part of the fabric and was only now becoming visible. The neckline connected behind your neck in a halter — two pieces of lace-covered fabric coming from the front and tying at the back of your neck — leaving your back completely bare from the nape of your neck to the base of your spine. The first time you had seen your own back in the mirror you had stood there for a full minute. It was graceful in a way you hadn't known you were capable of being. The dark purple gloves ran up past your wrists, smooth and fitted, and the whole thing together was more than you were used to being. More than you usually let yourself wear.
---
Hannah had been doing your hair for forty minutes.
Braids, pulled up and twisted, gathered into a loose bun at the back of your head that looked effortless in the way that only things with real effort behind them looked effortless. Curls came free at the sides, soft and deliberate, falling just past your jaw and framing your face in a way that made everything look softer. More open. Like you.
"Okay," Hannah said. She stepped back. Looked at you for a long moment with an expression that was trying to stay objective and not managing it. "Look."
You looked in the mirror.
And something happened in your chest that was very quiet and very significant.
The girl in the mirror had your face. Your eyes, your nose, the mouth you had never known what to do with. But she was wearing all of it differently. Like someone had taken every piece of you and arranged it with intention, with care, with the specific attention of someone who had been looking at you for a long time and knew what you looked like when you were all the way yourself.
The dark colours made your skin glow. The bare back was elegant. The curls were soft and real. The gloves were quietly dramatic in the way that made everything else make sense. You looked like you — not the version that stood slightly to the left, not the version that made herself small and useful and easy to look past.
The real version.
The one that was hidden underneath.
Your eyes went a little bright. Just slightly. You blinked it back.
"Hannah," you said, quietly.
"I know," she said. Her voice had gone soft too. She squeezed your shoulders from behind, meeting your eyes in the mirror. "That's you. That's just you. I didn't add anything that wasn't already there." She smiled — warm and genuine and something close to proud. "He's going to take one look at you and completely fall apart."
"Don't—"
"He is," she said. "And it's going to be the best thing you've ever seen. Come on."
---
George was mid-sentence when it happened.
He was standing at the top of the staircase with Fred and Lee Jordan, one hand in his pocket, saying something about Fred's terrible plan for the evening, completely relaxed, completely himself — easy the way he was always easy, like the world was a place that generally went along with whatever he wanted from it.
He had dressed carefully, though he would never have admitted that.
The black dress robes had been pressed. His hair had been attempted, which for George meant it looked slightly better than usual before gradually returning to its natural state over the course of an evening. And the tie — dark purple, exactly dark purple, the specific shade Hannah had described to him in a note that he had read three times to make sure he had it right. He had stood in front of the mirror in the Gryffindor dormitory for longer than he was ever going to tell anyone and checked the tie three times and then checked his reflection once more in a way that was not something George Weasley generally did and meant something specific.
Fred had watched the whole thing without saying a word.
Now they were at the top of the staircase and George was talking about something and the entrance hall was full of people, and the evening was about to start.
"Hey," Fred said.
"What," George said.
"Turn around."
"In a second, I'm in the middle of telling—"
"George." Something in Fred's voice. Not the joking tone. Not the theatrical one. Something quieter and more urgent. "Turn around right now."
George turned around.
---
And the world stopped.
Not slowed. Not paused. Stopped. Like someone had reached into the machinery of everything and pulled out the piece that made time work.
You were at the top of the staircase.
Coming down slowly. One hand trailing the railing. The dark purple dress moving with you, the black lace catching the candlelight from below and finding the deep colour underneath it, so that with every step you looked like something that existed slightly outside of ordinary things. Your hair was up — soft and slightly undone, curls falling free at the sides of your face, the bun at the back of your head loose and perfect and entirely, devastatingly you. The gloves. The bare back. The halter neckline connecting behind your neck in a way that made the whole line of you — shoulders, spine, the way you held yourself — into something that made it genuinely difficult to think in complete sentences.
George's heart did something it had never done before.
Not the fast nervous kind. Not the anxious kind. Something enormous and quiet and completely certain, like a clock finding its correct time after being wrong for years. Like something saying yes, that one, it has always been that one, how did you ever look anywhere else.
Every other person in the entrance hall blurred.
Not figuratively. Genuinely. The people in his peripheral vision became shapes, became noise, became background, became nothing. There was only the staircase and you coming down it and the candlelight finding you like it knew where to look.
He forgot what he had been saying.
He forgot Fred was standing beside him.
He forgot, for approximately three full seconds, how to form words in any language.
His throat moved as he swallowed.
You reached the bottom step.
You looked up.
Your eyes found his immediately, the way they always found each other, that specific pull that had existed between you for months and that neither of you had had a name for until recently. You looked at him and something in your expression shifted — a small careful thing, a trying not to show too much.
"Hi."
Just that. One word. Your voice.
And George opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again.
"Hi," he managed, and it came out lower than he intended, rougher around the edges, like his voice had been sitting somewhere far away and had needed a moment to come back to where the rest of him was.
From beside him, Fred's voice, "Man." Loud. Clear. Addressed to the general universe. "You are so down bad."
George didn't look at Fred.
He didn't look at anything except you.
"Damn right I am," he mumbled to himself.
"Wait, what did you just say"
The small group around them went very still for a second.
Lee Jordan made a sound. Someone laughed. Fred covered his face with one hand and made a noise that suggested this was simultaneously the worst and best thing he had ever witnessed.
---
You went pink from your collarbone to your hairline.
The kind of pink that was visible even in candlelight. The kind that came from something landing somewhere you hadn't entirely fortified yet. You looked at the floor and then at the ceiling and then at his tie — the exactly-matching purple tie, which you were noticing properly for the first time.
"We matched."
"Hannah told me the colour," he said. Still looking at you. Still not looking anywhere else.
"She mentioned," you said. You looked at Hannah, who was standing slightly behind you with the expression of a woman who had pulled off the plan of her life and was very aware of it. "Of course she did."
"Are you annoyed?" George said.
You looked back at him. At the green robes and the matching tie and the face that was completely open and unashamed and looking at you like you were the reason he had bothered with any of it. "No," you admitted.
"Good." He held out his arm.
You looked at it. At him. At everything that had led to this exact moment. And then you put your hand in the crook of his elbow and he smiled — the real one, wide and warm and slightly overwhelmed — and you walked in together.
And the Great Hall opened up like something from inside a dream you had never let yourself finish.
---
The Great Hall was extraordinary.
The enchanted ceiling had shifted into deep winter — dark blue, stars close and bright, the kind that looked like you could reach up and move them. Floating candles drifted in warm gold clusters, their light landing differently on everything, making the stone walls look like something that had been built for exactly this evening. The enchanted snow fell between the candles — fine and slow and shimmering, catching the light as it drifted, filling the air with something that made the whole room feel like it existed just slightly outside of ordinary time. The music came from a stage at the far end, live and warm, filling the hall without crowding it.
You stood in the entrance and looked at all of it and felt the evening settle around you like something you had been waiting for without knowing you were waiting.
"Wow," you said softly.
"Yeah," George said beside you. He was looking at the hall too, but you caught him glancing at you while you took it in, watching your face rather than the room. "It's really something."
"It's really something," you agreed. You turned to look at him and caught him already looking. "Stop doing that."
"Doing what," he said, not even pretending.
"Looking at me."
"The hall is nice," he said. "You're better."
You made a sound. Not words. Just a sound. A slightly overwhelmed sound that you immediately tried to convert into a normal breath and did not fully succeed at.
His hand found yours. Easy and warm and completely natural, fingers wrapping around yours like they had been doing it for years, and you looked down at your joined hands and then up at the beautiful hall and thought — quietly, privately, in the part of yourself you were only recently learning to listen to — that this was what it felt like to be chosen. Not felt sorry for. Not used. Not stood slightly to the left of. Actually chosen. Actually here.
You held his hand back.
And walked in.
For a while it was everything you had quietly hoped it might be and more.
---
You found Hannah near the drinks table and stayed together for a while, laughing about nothing in particular, the kind of laughing that happened when you were happy enough that ordinary things became funny. The hall moved around you, beautiful and warm, and you let yourself be in it.
"You're actually enjoying yourself," Hannah said, like she was witnessing a rare natural phenomenon.
"Don't make it weird," you said.
"I'm just noting it for the record." She beamed at you. "You look happy. You look genuinely, properly happy and I want it documented."
"Hannah—"
"I'm going to remember this night forever," she announced.
"You're so dramatic."
George appeared at your shoulder with butterbeers, handing you one first before Hannah, and settled in beside you with the ease of someone who had decided this was where he lived now and the world could adjust.
"Fred is attempting to dance," he said.
"Surely he can—"
"He cannot," George said. "He really genuinely cannot. It's one of the most interesting things I've ever watched. I recommend it as a spectacle."
You laughed. He turned his head to look at you when you did. He always did that — turned toward you when you laughed like the sound was something worth orienting himself toward.
"What," you said, catching him.
"Nothing," he said.
"You're staring again."
"I'm looking," he said. "There's a difference." He tilted his head slightly. "You have this thing when you laugh. Your whole face does it. Not just your mouth." He said it simply. Like an observation. Like it was just a fact he had collected and was reporting accurately.
Your face went warm. You looked at your butterbeer. "That's a very strange thing to say."
"Is it weird?"
"It's a little weird."
He smiled. Slow and warm. And then he held out his hand. "Dance with me."
"I don't really—"
"It's just moving," he said. "That's all. I promise."
"You always say that like it's simple."
"Because it is simple." He kept his hand out. Patient. Waiting. "Come on."
You took his hand.
---
He led you to the floor and turned and one hand settled at your waist — steady and warm and sure, his palm against the fabric of the dress just at the curve of your side — and you put your hand on his shoulder and he started moving and you moved with him and it was easy. Genuinely easy. The kind of easy that came from him being confident enough to make it feel that way.
"See," he said.
"Hmm," you said.
"Just moving."
"I can hear the smugness."
"I'm not smug."
"You absolutely are."
"I'm a little smug," he agreed. "Just a reasonable amount." His hand shifted slightly at your waist, not moving, just — settling. More present. "Is it annoying?"
"Good annoying," you admitted.
Something in his eyes went warm. "Good annoying," he repeated, quiet, like he was keeping it somewhere.
You looked at his shoulder because looking at his face directly right now felt like looking at something too bright. You were aware of his hand at your waist and the warmth of it through the fabric and the way he moved, easy and unhurried, and the music wrapping around you both and the enchanted snow falling through the candlelight above.
---
"You look—" you stopped.
"Finish that sentence," he said immediately, grinning from ear to ear.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You absolutely were. You started a sentence."
"I stopped the sentence."
"The sentence was started," he said. "I heard the beginning of it. You look—" he prompted, tilting his head, the corner of his mouth going up.
You looked at him. At the green robes and the matching tie and the jaw and the eyes that were on you with that look, the full warm certain look that had been doing things to your internal organs for months. You thought about the astronomy tower. The runes. The four nights. The six attempts. You thought about him saying you're worth four nights like it was the simplest thing in the world.
"Disgustingly handsome," you said. Flat. Like you were reporting a mildly irritating fact. "Objectively. It's a problem."
George blinked.
For approximately one second he looked genuinely surprised. Like he had been expecting a deflection and you had not deflected and his system needed a moment to catch up.
Then his whole face went. The controlled expression, the waiting-to-see-what-you'd-do expression, all of it — gone. Replaced by something that was warm and pleased and slightly undone in a way that looked good on him, looked very good on him, which was the problem you had just identified out loud.
"Yeah?" he said. Low.
"Don't make it a whole thing," you said, looking away.
"I'm not making it anything," he said. But his hand tightened slightly at your waist. Just slightly. A small involuntary thing. You felt it and kept your eyes firmly on his shoulder.
"You're making it a thing," you said.
"I'm just dancing," he said. "Very normally. Very calm." His thumb moved once against your side. "Disgustingly handsome, she says."
"I will take it back."
"You can't take it back."
"Watch me—"
"It's already mine," he said. "I'm keeping it." He sounded insufferably pleased about it.
"You're pretty when you're annoyed," he said.
"Stop—"
"I said it once before and I meant it then and I mean it now," he said, completely unbothered. "It's just true. You get this look—"
"George."
"—where your chin goes up slightly and your eyes do the thing—"
"What thing—"
"The sharp thing," he said. "Like you're about to say something that will be ten words or less and will end the conversation." His eyes were bright. "I think about it more than is probably reasonable."
You stared at him.
Your face was so warm. The enchanted snow was drifting above you and the music was slow and the candles drifted and George Weasley was looking at you like you were the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him and saying things about the way your eyes looked when you were annoyed like it was just a normal sentence to say to a person.
"You're unbelievable," you said.
"You're beautiful," he said back. Simple. Immediate. Like it had been waiting just behind his teeth and your sentence had opened the door for it. "The whole night. Since the stairs. I've been looking at you and thinking about how—" he paused. Something worked through his expression. More honest than even he usually allowed. "How did anyone ever look anywhere else. That's what I keep thinking. How did anyone ever look anywhere else when you were in the room."
The music kept playing.
But you just stood looking at him.
---
George went to find Fred when the song changed, pressing a kiss to your temple so casually, so easily, like it was just the thing he did when he stepped away from you — warm and brief and leaving a specific point of heat on your skin that stayed after he was gone.
You stood at the edge of the dance floor for a moment with your fingers pressed lightly to your temple and your face doing something you were very glad no one was looking at.
Hannah appeared at your elbow. "Your face," she said.
"The kiss on the temple," she said, in the voice of someone who had witnessed a sacred event. "He did it so casually. He's so sweet with you"
"Okay," you said firmly. "We're going to get drinks and you're going to stop talking about me and George."
"I just want to—"
"Drinks," you said. "Now."
You went to the drinks table.
You picked up a goblet of something cold.
And turned around.
And Cecily was there.
She was beautiful the way she was always beautiful. Red dress, perfect hair, the specific precision of someone who had prepared for this. She was looking at you with an expression you recognised — not the public warm one, not the performed one. The one underneath it. The one she only showed when she had decided something needed to be handled.
"You look different," she said.
"Thank you," you said.
"I didn't mean it as a compliment." Her eyes moved over you slowly, taking inventory. "You're trying very hard tonight."
"I'm wearing a dress," you said.
"You're wearing his colours." She nodded at the purple of your dress, at George's matching tie visible across the hall. "Very deliberate."
"It was Hannah's idea."
"Mm." The smile was light. "You know this won't last, right? George gets interested in things and then he moves on. That's just who he is." She said it so gently. So kindly. The particular cruelty of a sharp thing wrapped in concern. "I'm not trying to be horrible. I just don't want you to embarrass yourself."
The old tightening arrived. Right on schedule.
"He spent all that time being interested in me first," she continued, "and then the setups happened and suddenly he was talking to you instead and honestly—" a perfectly placed pause "—I think he felt sorry for you. You know. The quiet friend thing. He's kind. He was being kind."
You said nothing. You were watching her face. The way she said it. The absolute certainty in it, like she had decided this was true and the deciding had made it so.
"The tower thing was sweet," she said. "Really. But that's George. Grand gestures. It doesn't mean what you think it means." She tilted her head. "You've always been a bit—" a pause, aimed precisely "—you know how you get when you start believing things."
You looked at her for a long moment.
---
At the red dress and the perfect hair and the girl you had stood behind for six years. At the face that was arranging itself into something caring while saying something that wasn't.
"What is wrong with you," you said.
Quiet. Clear. Just the question. Right at her.
Cecily blinked. "I'm just—"
"No." You took one step toward her. People nearby had noticed. You didn't care. "I want to actually know. What is wrong with you." Your voice stayed even. Completely level. "You know exactly what you're doing. You've always known. Every time." The words came without effort, without dramatics. Just true. "Six years of small things. Six years of being the pretty one while I was the useful one. Six years of knowing exactly where to aim." You looked at her. "And you stand here tonight, in this hall, when things are actually good, when something is actually mine, and you do this."
Her jaw was set.
"I helped you," you said. "For months. I wanted good things for you even when it cost me something I actually wanted. And you told me you didn't need me. That you would have figured it out anyway." The memory of it was still sharp. "You said that."
"I was upset—"
"You were honest." You breathed. "I don't know what I ever did to make you treat me like I don't matter. I genuinely don't know. But you have the most unkind heart I've ever known and I'm done trying to understand it."
She said something.
You were already turning. Moving through the people who had gone quiet around you, through the warm golden impossible hall, toward the door.
The doors closed behind you softly.
Like the castle hadn't noticed anything had broken.
---
The cold outside was immediate and complete.
And then the rain.
It was falling hard across the courtyard, heavy and committed, coming off the stone in sheets, silver under the amber glow of the castle windows, turning the whole outside world into something blurred and soft and loud. Thunder rolled somewhere low and distant, the sound of it moving through the ground.
You found the stone archway and stopped there.
Half in. Half out. The rain fell past your hand when you held it toward it. You were mostly dry. Mostly cold. You stood and watched the rain hit the courtyard stones and let your chest do what it needed to do in the private dark.
She always wins.
The thought settled in the way it always settled. Finding its shape. Sitting down. Making itself at home in the space between your ribs.
You pressed it back.
You knew it wasn't true. You knew that in the part of you that had been growing louder lately, the part that had looked in the mirror tonight and recognised itself. But knowing something and feeling something were two different rooms and right now you were standing in the second one and the walls were close.
---
The music from inside was a faint pulse through stone. The dance was starting. The one you had been—
Footsteps.
Fast. Uneven. Not careful. The kind of footsteps that came from someone who had stopped caring about how they looked and started caring only about where they were going.
They stopped.
Right behind you.
A breath. Caught. Someone who had been moving fast and had just stopped.
"Hey."
His voice was different. Quiet. Low. Feeling for something carefully, like he wasn't sure what the ground was like here and was stepping onto it slowly.
"What happened."
You kept your eyes on the rain.
"Nothing," you said.
Automatic. Worn smooth. The words that had kept you functional for years.
A silence. Then George exhaled — a sound that was almost a laugh and wasn't quite, something fond and frustrated and relieved all pressed together in one breath.
"You're under a storm arch," he said quietly. "In the middle of a Yule Ball you walked out of." A beat. "That's not nothing."
The rain kept falling.
"I was finding for you"
"Maybe I didn't want to be found," you said.
It came out tired. Not at him. Just — tired. The specific tiredness of someone who has been holding something in place for a long time.
George went still behind you.
Then he stepped closer. The warmth of him changed the air. Still not touching. Just — there. Present. Choosing to be in this with you.
"I figured," he said.
The rain.
"But I didn't really like that idea."
So simple. So plain. Said the way he said everything that mattered — without decoration, without performance. Just the truth of it, offered straight.
"I looked everywhere," he said. "Hannah didn't know where you'd gone. Fred went the wrong direction entirely. I went through four corridors." His voice dropped slightly. "I'll always find you. No matter what."
Something in your chest shifted. Moved. The warm ache of it moving through you like the feeling after crying, except you hadn't cried yet.
You didn't answer.
"Look at me," he said. Soft. Just a request. Waiting.
"No, my makeup is ruined"
“Then let it be ruined,” he whispered. “I’d rather see you crying than pretending you’re okay for everyone else.”
His hand stayed gentle against your face.
“You don’t have to hide from me.”
You hesitated.
Turned.
He was right there. Closer than you expected. His hair was damp, falling forward, darker with the rain he had been running through to get here. His dress robes had rain spots across the shoulders. His face — god, his face — was doing the thing. The completely open thing. Every layer of George Weasley pulled back and just him underneath it, looking at you with his eyes full of something he had stopped trying to hide.
He was slightly out of breath.
He had actually run.
"She said something," he said.
"She always says something," you said.
"What did she say."
You looked at the rain behind him. "She said you felt sorry for me. That it was kindness. That I shouldn't get too attached." You swallowed. "That you always move on."
George looked at you for a long moment. Something moved through his jaw.
"You know that's not true," he said.
"I know." Your voice came out quieter than you meant. "I know it isn't. And she said it anyway and it landed anyway and I hate—" it caught slightly "—I hate that she can still just get in. After everything."
"Come here," he said.
You looked at him.
"Come here," he said again. Softer.
You went.
---
His arms came around you and he pulled you in properly, one hand at your back and one at the back of your head, and you pressed your face against his shoulder and felt him exhale slowly above you like he'd been holding that breath since he'd started looking for you.
"She was wrong," he said. Low. Into your hair. "She has been wrong about you for years. And she knows it. That's why she keeps saying it." His arms tightened slightly. "People who are sure of something don't need to keep saying it out loud."
You breathed. In. Out. His shoulder was warm and solid and smelled like the green robes and something underneath that was just him.
"The dance already started," you said, after a while.
He was quiet for a second.
"I don't care about the dance," he said. "I just want to be here. With you."
You pulled back to look at him. He looked back. Rain behind him. Castle light blurring in the wet. His face right here, present and certain and looking at you like you were the whole point of the evening he had just left without hesitating.
---
Something shifted in his expression. The careful tender look changing into the other one. The lit up one. The one that came right before something unexpected.
He stood back. Held out his hand.
"Come on," he said.
You looked at his hand. At the rain. At his face. "Come on where. George it's pouring—"
"I know."
"My outfit—"
"Still beautiful."
"My hair—"
"Still perfect." He wiggled his fingers. The grin was starting. "Come on."
You got reminded of your parents.
---
You took his hand.
He pulled you out into the rain.
Cold hit everywhere at once — your shoulders, your hair, your bare back through the fabric — and you gasped, half-laughing, already protesting, and George turned back to you with rain running down his face and his hair completely flat and wrecked and a grin so wide and so real and so entirely, completely him that your heart just — gave up trying to defend itself. Completely. All at once.
He reached out.
Tapped your shoulder.
"Tag," he said. "You're it."
You stared at him.
The rain poured down between you.
"You're not serious," you said.
He raised his eyebrows. Took one deliberate step back.
And ran.
Something cracked open in your chest. Clean and complete and sudden. Not the sad kind. Not the tightening kind. The other kind — the kind where something heavy falls away all at once and your lungs fill all the way and your feet move before your brain catches up.
"Oh it's on," you said, and ran after him.
The courtyard opened up around you both. Wide and dark and slick with rain, the castle windows blurring on all sides into warm amber smears, the stone gleaming dark under your feet. You ran in your ball gown and your soaking gloves with your braids coming completely undone and your lace dress getting darker and heavier with the wet and you were laughing — genuinely, helplessly, the kind of laughing that came from somewhere below language, somewhere that didn't care about dresses or balls or things people had said inside.
George was fast. But he kept slowing. Glancing back with that grin every few seconds. Letting you almost have him. Close enough to hear him laughing too, the real laugh, the full one, the one that had been in your chest like a warm memory since the first time you had heard it in a library months ago.
You pushed harder. Reached—
Almost—
Your foot hit a slick patch of stone and went out completely.
You dropped fast, no time, eyes squeezing shut, bracing—
It never came.
Hands. Both of them. One solid at your waist and one catching your arm, pulling you upright before the ground got anywhere close. You opened your eyes.
George had you.
He had moved so fast and was right there — your waist in his hands, you standing and intact and close. So close. Closer than the catching required now that you were stable. Close enough to see the rain on his lashes. Close enough to see every detail of his face in the dark. The slight part of his lips. The way his chest was moving a little fast.
His hands didn't let go.
"Don't worry," he said.
Low. Just for you. The words landing somewhere specific in your chest.
"I'm here."
Everything else went quiet.
The rain was loud. But everything else — the castle, the ball, the music, all of it — went very far away. There was just the courtyard and the rain and his hands at your waist and his face right here and the way you were both very still and very close and neither of you moving.
Your hands had found his jacket.
Both of them. Fists in the wet green fabric, holding on, knuckles just touching his chest.
He looked at you.
The full look. The one with nothing behind it and everything in front. The one that had been building since a library and a book held upside down and eleven words counted carefully. His eyes moved over your face slowly like he was memorising it. Like he wanted to know exactly what this looked like so he could keep it.
And then his eyes dropped.
To your mouth.
Just for a second. Just long enough to be undeniable. And came back up. Met yours.
You had seen him do it. He knew you had seen him. And neither of you looked away.
The air between you was very small. Very charged. Like standing too close to something that was about to happen and choosing to stay anyway.
His thumb moved.
Against your waist. Slightly. That same small movement from every almost-moment before this one — the staircase, the Quidditch stands, the tower — except now there was no Cecily between you and no redirect and no practiced smile to arrange and no drawer to put things in.
---
You were so close.
His jaw was right there. The scar near his eyebrow. The rain on his face. The way he was looking at you like he had run four corridors and crossed a rainy courtyard and would do it again tomorrow without question.
You smirked.
You couldn't help it. Something about the perfection of it — the rain, the ball gown, the two of you soaked and breathless and right here — was so completely, specifically yours that the smirk came up before you could manage it.
You leaned in just slightly.
"Tag," you whispered. "You're it."
George stared at you.
For one second he looked completely betrayed. Like he could not believe you were doing this to him right now, in this moment, when he was standing here with his hands on your waist and his heart doing something significant.
Then the breath left him in a sound that was half laugh half something else entirely. He shook his head slowly. The expression on his face was so full it was almost unbearable to look at directly — fond and exasperated and helplessly, completely gone.
“You’re unbelievable,” he murmured.
But he was smiling. The full one. The real one. The best one.
---
He let go of your waist and gave you a headstart before he came running after you.
You shrieked — a real shriek, the kind that bounced off wet courtyard stone and rang up into the dark — and ran after him and the whole courtyard opened back up and it was just this. Just running and rain and the both of you laughing too hard to be fast about it. At some point you both slowed because the rain surged heavier and you couldn't see and couldn't breathe through the laughing anyway.
George stopped running.
Turned back.
And caught your hand from where it was swinging as you slowed — just caught it, easy and natural — and pulled you in.
And spun you.
One full turn. Your wet dress flying out in a dark arc. Your hair completely free now, loose and wild around your face. The rain hitting you full on when he spun you and you tipped your head back and let it, the way your mother must have, in a street somewhere years ago, with a boy who had stopped walking and held out his hand.
He spun you again.
And you smiled.
Not the practiced one. Not the small careful useful one you had been giving the world for years. The real one. Wide and open and coming from somewhere so deep it had no edges. The kind of smile that didn't know how to be anything other than completely itself.
He pulled you back from the spin and you came in close, the momentum of it bringing you together, and his hand was still holding yours and the rain was falling and you were face to face and close and neither of you were laughing anymore.
He was looking at you.
All the way. Every part of it.
"Doesn't this remind you of something," he said. Very quiet. Just noticing. Just following what he could see moving across your face.
You looked at him. At the rain on his face and his wrecked hair and his eyes that were simply, completely on you.
"Yes," you said. "Yes, it does."
He looked at you for a moment. The soft certain look. "I'm glad," he said quietly. "I hoped it would."
Something moved through your chest. Warm and permanent.
"I guess mission success then," he said.
You laughed. Small and real. "Mission success," you said. And without deciding to, without thinking about it, you stepped in and put your arm around his neck.
Slowly. Like you were checking whether this was real. Like you were making sure it would hold.
It held.
His hand settled at your waist and pulled you gently closer and the rain fell around you both and the courtyard was empty and dark and the castle glowed in every direction and none of it mattered except this. The specific this of his hand at your waist and your arm around his neck and the rain and the stars somewhere above the clouds and the whole long arc of everything that had started with a book held upside down in a library.
His thumb moved against your waist.
Slow. Careful. Like he was paying attention to it.
---
He looked at you.
You looked at him.
He swallowed.
"Can I kiss you," he said.
So quiet. So careful. Even now. After everything — the astronomy tower, the runes, four corridors, the rain — still asking. Still making sure. Like you were something worth being careful with and he intended to keep being careful with you.
You looked at him for one long moment.
At everything he was.
And you nodded.
He didn't rush.
He never rushed anything.
He closed the small space between you slowly, one hand moving up to rest against your jaw, warm and gentle and certain, and he kissed you.
Soft.
Warm.
Like coming in from somewhere cold. Like the lights in the tower that had taken six attempts and finally held. Like the runes in the stone that were permanent now and would be there long after both of you were gone.
Like something that had always been true and was only now being said.
You kissed him back and felt the rain on your shoulders and his hand warm against your face and the solid present certain realness of him and thought — in the small quiet part of yourself that was still capable of thoughts — that this was it. The feeling your mother had been describing all those years at the kitchen table with rain on the window.
Just this.
A rainy courtyard. A ruined dress. A boy who had counted your words and come back four nights and run through four corridors and pulled you into the rain because your mother's story deserved to happen again.
When you pulled back you were both breathless and his forehead came down to yours immediately, like gravity, like of course, and the rain was still falling and the world was very quiet and he was right here.
"Hi," he said. So soft.
"Hi," you said back.
His arms came around you properly. Both of them. Warm and solid. You pressed your face against the side of his neck and he rested his chin on top of your head and the rain fell and the castle glowed and the ball went on behind thick stone walls without either of you.
You had never been less bothered about anything.
---
"We should go back in," you said, after a while. Not moving.
"Probably," he said. Not moving.
"Hannah is going to completely lose it."
"Fred is going to be insufferable about this forever."
"You say that like it's a problem."
"It's not a problem," he agreed. "It's worth it." He pulled back just enough to look at you. At your soaked hair and ruined gloves and your face which was doing the smile, the real full one, in the rain at midnight. "You're worth it," he said. Simple. Plainly. "Just so you know."
Your throat did the tight warm thing.
You shook your head. He took your hand. And you walked back toward the castle through the rain together, not rushing, not minding the wet or the cold or the state of either of you, the music getting louder as you got closer, the castle lights getting warmer.
And then—quick, light—he pressed a kiss to your lips.
You froze.
"Hey!" you snapped immediately, eyes wide.
"What was that for?"
He pulled back slowly, completely unbothered, like he hadn’t just done something criminal. A small smile tugged at his mouth.
"You look so cute when you're blushing"
"What, no I'm not—stop looking at me," you said,
"You can't just—do that whenever you want!"
He raised a brow. "Can't I?"
You opened your mouth, then closed it again because you had no actual argument that didn’t sound like you were lying.
He leaned back slightly, clearly enjoying this way too much, then said, "You say that like you don’t secretly want me to keep doing it."
Your breath caught. And for once, you didn't have a quick answer.
Maybe that was actually how you wanted it to be.
A/n: I guess that's the end...It was so fun writing this story, if you want to be tagged on my next George Weasley rivals to lovers series, comment!!
Check out the spoiler for my next george weasley series!
A/N: Fred Weasley has always always ALWAYS been my fav and I love reading fics like this but I decided to add extra gooey lore and molly angst bc bae went thru a lot
Warning(s): Fred being protective, Arthur basically being scared of his wife, mentions of death and loss. Reader is a pureblood from a rich family, distant relative to the blacks and distant cousin of draco (all purebloods are related somehow)
Word Count: 3.3K
Credit to @diviniyae for the dividers!! <3
“Baby, c’mon.”
Fred had been pleading with you for weeks now to spend your summer vacations at the burrow. Ever since the two of you started dating in your fourth year, you’d grown impossibly close to all his siblings, even Percy, for Godric’s sake. That’s how perfect you were for him.
He was known for being reckless, impulsive, and uncontrollable. He still was, but his storm had mellowed ever since he’d been with you. Pranks made to entertain instead of embarrass, jokes without singling out. He was still the same flashy, charismatic showman; now he was more mature, more reasonable. Loud as ever, no doubt of it, but he’d finally been balanced.
You were like wind to his fire; you might amp it down or fuel it, but you were always there. Your snarky remarks and witty comebacks offered him the perfect challenge; he’d hit the jackpot. You two could joke and laugh without offence or insecurity, without late nights wondering if a joke had a hidden meaning behind it because you read each other effortlessly. He never thought he’d fall for a Slytherin, especially not one with a family like yours.
You were part of the sacred twenty-eight and additionally were a very distant relative of Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, and Andromeda Tonks. They were your second or third aunts. Purebloods always married within their circle; people had complex relative histories. It even technically made you Draco’s distant cousin. The thought alone should’ve driven him away, but he wasn’t like that. Even if you were Bellatrix’s own daughter, he’d go up to you, because that’s how he is; what he does. He was fearless in a way that made one question whether it was rooted in stupidity, naivety, or maybe possible genius.
“Freddie,” you breathed, eyes soft with guilt. “I’m not sure I should, you know, your parents aren’t very fond of me,” you said softly.
It hurt you immensely that his parents had a distaste for you despite your best efforts. You saw it in the way Fred never showed you any letters his mother sent him unless he was sure you weren’t mentioned once in them. His mother wasn’t exactly subtle.
You couldn’t blame them for it, though a part of you was still bitter. Your family name was loud, your parents were sharp-tongued and prejudiced against anything that wasn’t a rich pureblood elitist. People heard your name and already drew conclusions that lingered; impressions of a cold-hearted, calculating, ruthless heir without empathy or tolerance.
Because of these assumptions, no one bothered to disprove them, opting to avoid you instead. Everyone but Fred. People called it stupidity, a death wish. But all those whispers and anticipation of a hex hitting his chest were eliminated after you threw your head back in a cackle, not even ten minutes after he came up to you.
The image was broken as soon as your laughter was heard; saccharine and normal like any other girl in the castle. And just like that, people came up to you more, returned smiles in the hallways, and didn’t stiffen when you walked past. Hogwarts turned comforting, more like home than your own. Fred stuck to you through it all, and you slowly won over each and every one of his siblings over the past seven years. You won over Charlie before he graduated when you were in your third year, and Percy warmed up to you when he caught you tutoring the twins in your second year. Ron was the toughest to break, but you finally got him when he was in his second year and you in your fourth, right after you and Fred began to date. He had passed the courtyard on his way between classes and saw you and Fred sitting out there, together. You were going on a tangent, hands on your hips as you scolded him for something he didn’t hear, but what really did it was how Fred reacted.
Fred Weasley, his big brother, was affected by nothing, brushing off punishments and detentions like dust on a coat, was pouting, head hanging as he stared at the floor, hands behind his back in compliance as you chided him. Ron decided something that day; if Fred let someone do that to him, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Ginny was by far the easiest to connect with. The poor girl screamed and nearly cried when she saw you, yelping about finally having another sister. You didn’t dare correct her. You even charmed Bill when you met him at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup Finals between Bulgaria and Finland.
You hadn’t realised Mr and Mrs Weasley themselves would be the toughest nuts to crack; they were stereotypical. It’s unsurprising given their age, but their persistence was staggering. Firmly written opinions sent to all their children about you, and long, long lectures Fred had to sit through about deceit and how people are images of their parents. It didn’t matter how much Fred defended you, how much his siblings vouched for your character; Molly was clear, and Arthur never opposed his wife.
“My love, light of my life, honeybear,” Fred continued, his hands travelling further up your arm as he pulled you closer to him. You let him with a lingering pout. “My parents can bugger off for all I care; they can’t do or say anything if I’m there. Trust me on that,” he continued, his eyes wide and pleading. He didn’t play with you; you were the most important thing in his life, and he made sure you were treated like such.
You went silent, thinking about it, but you were weak; you knew that. Fred Weasley, knowingly or not, was your weakness. You weren’t smiley, friendly, or easy; with him, you turned impossibly soft. It was almost a sickness; he calmed your rage within seconds, and you shut down his life-threatening pranks with a single look. “Okay,” you relented. He lit up completely with a gasp, pulling you into a bone-crushing hug, face in your hair.
“Ginny might cry when I tell her.” He said with a breathy laugh, making your heart swell. God, you loved that girl. “I’ll tell her myself.” You mumbled back, turning your head to kiss his neck before pulling back.
You were a bundle of nerves the entire train ride to the Burrow, everyone noticed. Ginny offered up her skincare, Ron passed you extra chicken from the lunch he packed from Hogwarts, even George didn’t try to slip you a nosebleed nougat; he had more sense than that.
Fred kept you close the entire time, tucked into his side. You saw the tension in the hard set of his jaw as he looked out the window. His hands flexed from where they were on your waist, squeezing the soft flesh every once in a while merely to assure himself of your presence.
When you reached, one thing became abundantly clear: Molly and Arthur had certainly not been told of your visit. You saw it in the way her beaming smile harshly fell from her face once she spotted you next to Fred. She grabbed him, pulling him away.
You felt nauseous, smiling politely at Arthur as he gave you a forced smile in turn, his hesitance to shake your hand only added to the twist in your stomach. Ron took your suitcase, and Ginny took your hand, squeezing it in support as she tugged you to the car.
You turned your head to see Fred now proper scowling at his mother before he simply turned and walked off in the middle of her rant, face changing when he saw you look over, giving you as soft a smile as he could manage.
It didn’t get better at the burrow. Molly never looked directly at you, spoke to you through her children. ‘Ginny, she’ll sleep in your room.’ ‘Is she going to eat, Fred?’ ‘Ron, will she need her very own sheets?’ You saw the way Arthur winced, but said nothing. He himself was incredibly awkward near you.
You didn’t like it, Fred absolutely didn’t. Glaring and hissing a sharp “why don’t you ask her herself?” that Molly always promptly ignored. It went on for two weeks; Molly stopped laughing when you entered a room, and Arthur found excuses to leave. Whenever you were with their kids, something always came up. You and Ginny giggling and eating ice cream in bed? Molly needed her help sewing. You and Percy discussing the NEWTS? Arthur needed him to proofread something.
Fred was the main victim. Suddenly, he was needed all around the house as soon as the two of you were able to be together. The dishes, setting the table, helping with lunch, and helping load the laundry. It was so targeted and so obvious.
It all shattered during dinner one night. Fred and George decided this was the perfect time to talk about the fact that they’d be dropping out to open their own joke shop. Everyone knew Molly wouldn’t support it; she’d faced poverty. The thought of her sons not completing their education to start a shop made her all kinds of angry.
So, on went the screaming. Arguing at the table as George and Fred quite literally fought for their business with their mother, while Molly kept screaming about homelessness and how they’d never succeed.
It reached a point where she looked at you for the first time since the railway station and growled a low “You.”
You stiffened; everyone did. “You did this, didn’t you? Think it’s amusing, girl, making these two believe they can make it? Without suppliers? Investors? Nothing? You’re ruining my son's life!” She hissed, screaming the last part. You flinched, eyes widening.
“M-Misses Weasley, I don’t– I just want him to be happy-” You choked, but she slammed her hand on the table with a scoff of outrage.
“You don’t understand anything. People like you, sheltered, protected–you’ve never had to work for anything a day in your life, never struggled. ” She continued, the rage in her voice something no one at the table had ever heard before. “Rich, pompous, overconfident people like you are exactly the folk we don’t want to get mixed with—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up!”
Everyone whipped their heads around to Fred, the usually cheeky and unserious boy, now straight scowling. “George and I are doing this with or without your approval, Mum. I truly don’t care about what you say in accordance with the business, nor about your hopes for our success, but you will watch it when you talk to her.” He hissed, pushing back his chair with a harsh screech before throwing his napkin on the table, grabbing your hand to pull you up as well.
Molly was mortified, and Arthur looked like he’d been spat on. “Frederick Gideon Weasley, you will sit–”
“Mum, please!” Ginny huffed, making your heart clench. The poor girl looked close to tears. She sniffled, turning to hug George’s arm. Molly’s scowl broke at the sight of her only daughter in such peril.
Fred dragged you up the stairs to his room. He’d gotten his own ever since Charlie moved into his own cottage somewhere in Scotland, closer to the dragons had been his only justification before taking off.
Your eyes were wide, heart pounding horrifically loud in your chest. You looked at the back of his head the entire walk to his room until he finally slammed the door.
“Fred!” You whisper-hissed, hands trembling with adrenaline. He dragged a hand down his face as he turned to you, the other wrapping around the small of your back. “This doesn’t help my whole image with your mother, she’s gonna think I’m manipulating you against her or something—”
“She’s not that manic.” He mumbled, ducking his head into your neck before taking a deep inhale. “Hopefully.”
He hugged you around your waist, tugging you into him as he leaned into you. You could feel he was doing this more to calm himself than offer any comfort, but you didn’t mind much, dragging a hand through his hair. You felt the breath leaving him.
You could hear the thud of footsteps climbing up to his room, and feel the way his shoulders tightened. He nudged you behind him as he turned to the door, half expecting his mother to come bursting in, but all he heard was three soft knocks.
“Fred?” Came a soft, older tone. His father, Arthur.
He didn’t hesitate opening it, letting the lesser of two evils in. Arthur looks guilty, almost hesitant, when he steps in, mouth open, before he shuts it. “Fred, my boy, your mother— both of us, we want the best for you. The shop, I-I’m not saying you shouldn’t follow your dreams, but you can’t expect her to be okay with it.”
“That’s not why I stormed out of there, Dad.” Fred huffed in turn, narrowing his eyes as he grabbed your waist, pulling you to stand next to him. “You know that.”
His father clasped his hands together, glancing towards you for a moment. It was clear he was choosing his words as carefully as he could. “Freddie, she– she’s not what we had in mind for you.” He said delicately, you could see Fred’s shoulders tighten.
“Her family, people like her, haven’t been good to people like us.” He continued, you took Fred’s hand as a reminder to keep himself regulated. It was odd, having to regulate his anger instead of him regulating yours. “Do her parents even know about you?”
That made you stiffen, hanging your head. You hadn’t told your parents, certain they’d forbid you from seeing him. You’d talked to Fred. He understood. Still, admitting he was a secret boyfriend was degrading.
“It doesn’t matter whether she’s told her parents. I trust her, that’s my choice. She’s brilliant, dad, you and mum would know if you gave her a singular chance.” Fred muttered, venom dripping from each syllable. Arthur felt the bitter truth in his words, nodding solemnly.
“No, you’re.. You’re right. I know.” He relented, looking at you apologetically. “I’m sorry, dear.” He all but breathed. You just offered a soft smile, nodding.
“It’s– We have lived through a lot, Fred.” Now it was Fred’s turn to stiffen. “Your mother lost Fabian and Gideon in the war. To people from families like.. Well, hers.”
Fred sighed, squeezing your hand. “I know about them. She’s told us. But, Dad, things are changing. Times are changing. She can’t be bitter forever. Your mother was Cedrella Black! Does that mean she hates that part of you?!”
Arthur stammered. That was enough. “Why is it different for y/n, huh? Haven’t you been cruel enough? I’d like you two grown adults to realise you’ve been bedevilling a girl who’s nearly three times younger than you!” Fred continued, finishing with a scoff. He knew he was loud—knew the whole damn house probably heard. He couldn’t find it in him to care; he almost hoped his mother heard.
Arthur just nodded, unable to gather the words to continue the conversation, exiting the room.
You shuddered, Fred pulled you in.
Safe to say, no one minded if you spent the night in Fred’s room that night.
Morning rolled around, the tension still present like a living, breathing presence. Fred didn’t leave you for a single second, and no one tried. Neither Arthur nor Molly pretended he was needed anywhere; they knew Fred wouldn’t entertain it.
To his credit, Arthur really did seem like he was trying. Wished you good morning, offered you tea when he was making any, even went as far as to ask for your future job plans. Fred was already grateful, smiling whenever he heard it. He eased up on his father, let himself relax around you when his father was near.
But Molly was a woman on a mission. She made sure it was known that Arthur was alone in his acceptance. She let you serve yourself during meals, dramatically moved away from you like you had Spattergoit. You chose to ignore it, a smaller, pettier part of you made you extra nice to her in turn.
All of the Weaslings (apart from Bill and Charlie) were around the coffee table, playing exploding snap. The air was filled with hysterical giggles and pure orange-haired competitiveness. Arthur was off at work, and Molly was serving snacks, very pointedly placing the plates as far from you as she could.
You shot her a smile dipped in honey. “Oh, thank you, Miss Weasley! You’re so good to me. I couldn’t be more grateful.” You cooed, making Fred stifle a snort. His mother looked appalled, muttering a quick ‘no matter’ before rushing back to the kitchen.
You’d come to accept it, almost took it as a sad fact of life. Ready to fight Molly Weasley for the rest of your life.
Then came that fated night.
You couldn’t sleep. George thought it was genius to watch some low-budget horror movie. You crept down the stairs of the burrow to the kitchen to take a glass of water and, potentially, a cookie Molly made.
You filled the glass before the light flicked on from behind you, startling you. Damn you, George.
“Oh.” Molly mumbled when she saw it was you, hesitantly walking into her kitchen to grab something from the fridge. It was rather early, four am. You didn’t think she’d be up so early.
There was a horribly awkward moment where neither spoke; you simply drank your water at the counter. Then, the silence was shattered.
“I had brothers, you know.” She mumbled; you immediately knew where this was going. You looked over at her; her expression was something you couldn’t pick apart.
You nodded, she continued.
“They joined the order. First Wizarding War. I’m sure you’ve met Harry. They met his parents there. Young, stupid and ready to fight.”
Her voice thickened, your heart sank.
“Twins. Like my Fred and George. Good people, amazing to me.” She kept going, unwrapping dough she got from the freezer. “Died when I was pregnant with Percy.” Her voice broke around the word died and you suddenly felt like a monster.
“Took five deatheaters to kill them. Antonin Volohov was the only one who was named in the report, the rest having taken their own lives once captured.” It was unsettling, the things this woman had gone through. It made your heart ache for her.
“Volohov worked closely with Bellatrix. I guess I just… can’t accept that a trace of what killed my brothers lives in you.”
You felt your throat tighten, tears stinging your eyes as the woman placed the small balls of frozen dough on a baking tray.
You cleared your throat, moving to wash your hands, drying them, then wordlessly assisting her.
“My mum once killed my pet mouse because attachment was a weakness to her.” You mumbled, and she shifted to make room for you. Not to get away, but to make space. You noticed.
“I cried to my father, but he offered no solace. He said nothing should be important enough to bring me to tears.” You rolled the dough into a ball, passing it to her. “Met Bellatrix once. I was.. Maybe seven. She threw her shoes at me when I touched her wand, grabbed me by the hair and presented me to my parents like a fox she killed.”
Molly hummed in acknowledgement, but there was something softer. A sympathy.
“I may not hate her as much as you do, I may never will, but I truly despise and loathe her very being. She’s hurt you much more than she hurt me, but her cruelty to more and more people gives me more and more reason to be as different from her as I can.”
The room settled into comfortable silence after that. She put the cookies in the oven, and you washed your hands.
As soon as you turned to leave, she took your hand. It was gentle, not like she was trying to restrain you. You turned, and she placed a kiss to your forehead before walking away. “Goodnight, dearie.”
You bit back the smile growing on your face, sheer joy filling your chest.
warnings: the battle of hogwarts—death, death, death, and more death. blood. crying. psychological warfare. angst. angst. angst. one use of Y/N just to keep it gender neutral, hastily proofread
Everything must happen for a reason.
The human need to rationalize everything, to explain every single thing, find a foundation, a background—curiosity. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction most certainly brought it back.
But what happens when there is no reason? When logic doesn’t soothe the ache, when justice doesn’t come, when the people you love most are taken from you without a lesson to be learned? What happens when there is no neat bow to tie around suffering—just blood on stone, just silence where laughter used to be?
They say grief is the price of love. That sounds noble, until you're the one paying.
You used to believe in fate. In the idea that some lives were woven together on purpose. That souls found each other across time and war and pain. You used to think you and Harry were one of those stories. A story written into the stars.
But the stars did not blink out in protest. They burned on, indifferent. The prophecy, once whispered like gospel, dissolved into dust the moment he fell. And fate—faithless, fickle fate—let his hand slip from yours as easily as breath from lungs, as if it had never mattered at all.
Now there is only this: the stillness after everything has fallen apart. The breath that won’t come. The echo of a name you can’t bear to say aloud.
And a question that will never leave you.
If everything must happen for a reason—what was the reason for this?
What was the reason for Fred Weasley’s smile to have permanently fallen? For the light in his eyes to go out mid-laugh, mid-life, as if the universe simply decided joy was no longer needed?
What was the reason for Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks to die with their fingers just barely outstretched toward one another, doomed to watch their son grow up from wherever death had taken them?
How foolish, then, for Remus to name Harry as godfather. To lay that responsibility on the back of a boy he knew would throw himself into the fire if it meant sparing someone else. Harry was noble. Good to the marrow. But he was also broken. Already grieving a world he hadn’t yet lost. He wasn’t made for parenting—he was made for sacrifice. And Remus knew that. He had always known that. Maybe that was the most tragic thing of all.
What was the reason for every single body lining these hallowed walls, embellished with teardrops, screams, and question marks?
If there was a plan, you wanted to meet its maker. And ask them what, in all the stars and spells and sacred things, Harry Potter had ever done to deserve this.
---
He loved you like he was scared of it.
Like it was a secret he had to whisper into your skin, in case saying it too loud might bring the war crashing through the door. Like he couldn't believe he had been allowed to love something soft.
It started in stolen moments. A brush of fingers when passing the map, a shared cloak in the cold, the way he only smiled like that when he was looking at you. He would linger too long in your doorway. Let his eyes wander to your lips and then away, ashamed of wanting something in the middle of so much loss.
But you had kissed him first. Pulled him into your room one night under the guise of patching a torn sleeve, and then, with both of your hands trembling, pressed your mouth to his.
He melted into you like he had been waiting his whole life for someone to teach him that love didn’t have to mean pain. That it could be soft and aching and warm. He touched you like he was afraid you'd disappear, kissed you like you were a spell he couldn’t believe had worked.
He learned to smile into your collarbone. To laugh against your throat. You learned how to guide trembling hands, how to coax warmth into places that had gone cold with fear. There were nights the world disappeared, when all that existed was the shared breath between you, the slow undoing of armor, the quiet reverence of skin on skin. You whispered I love you into the hollow of his throat, and for a breathless moment, everything stilled—his pulse beneath your lips, the warmth of his skin against yours, the weight of the world beyond the walls. He clutched you tighter, like he could trap the words there, bury them beneath bone and blood, keep them from floating away into the air where death might hear them.
In those moments, he was just a boy. Just Harry. Yours.
But war eats love. And slowly, so slowly it was almost unnoticeable at first, he began to pull away.
The kisses turned to sighs. The laughter gave way to silence. He flinched more often. Spoke less. You reached for him and found only the outline of someone preparing to disappear.
He started waking up screaming and wouldn’t let you hold him. He stopped meeting your eyes. He stopped saying goodnight.
You begged him to let you in. He gave you half-smiles and said nothing was wrong.
But you knew the difference between a boy in pain and a boy who was already mourning something he hadn’t lost yet.
The breakup was not loud. It wasn’t cruel. But it broke something in you all the same.
It happened in the forest, by the dying light of a low-burning fire. Hermione was asleep. Ron had already gone. You and Harry sat beside each other but didn’t touch.
“I can’t keep you safe,” he said, voice hoarse.
You looked at him then, really looked, and saw the storm behind his eyes. “That’s not what I asked you to do.”
“I know,” he said, barely a whisper. “That’s why it hurts.”
There was no big fight. No door slammed. No names shouted. Just the weight of everything left unsaid collapsing in the silence between you.
You didn’t cry until he left your side. Until he crawled into the tent and turned away from you. Until you realized that wasn’t just the end of the night.
It was the end of everything.
---
The battle had taken everything out of you.
Your wand still hung in your hand, limp at your side, fingers stiff and burned. Smoke clung to your lungs. Blood—not all of it yours—painted your sleeves. You had screamed until your voice cracked and fought until your body shook. Now there was nothing left but the hollowed-out shell of someone who had loved, and lost, and lived through it.
While Harry had walked into the Forbidden Forest—while he had signed himself up for a death sentence you couldn’t stop him from—you had found your way inside. Into the castle. Into the Great Hall.
To say goodbye.
Goodbye to the ones you couldn’t save. Goodbye to the ones who died still fighting. Goodbye to the ones who would never get to rest their wands or hold their children again. You stepped around the bodies with the reverence of someone stepping through sacred ground, your knees aching, your chest refusing to rise evenly.
The silence inside was louder than the war outside. And you stood in the middle of it, surrounded by loss, waiting for the scream that would finally break you open.
You found the Weasleys by the far wall, gathered around Fred.
He looked too still, too quiet. Someone had closed his eyes. Someone had tried to smooth the blood from his face. But it didn’t change the unbearable fact of it.
George knelt at his side, one hand on Fred’s chest, the other fisted in his own shirt. His face was blotchy, soaked. He had screamed himself hoarse. There was nothing left but a rasping sob, raw and ruined.
You approached without words. You didn’t have any left.
You dropped to your knees beside him and slipped your hand into his. He didn’t look at you. But his fingers curled tightly around yours, shaking.
Mrs. Weasley was wailing, rocking back and forth beside Arthur. Ron was cupping Fred's face, swearing to make an unbreakable vow just for him to come back. Percy had buried his face in Charlie's shoulder. Ginny sat stiff and silent, clutching Bill’s hand like it was the only thing tethering her to the world.
You didn’t say goodbye out loud.
But your tears fell onto George’s hand as he held yours, and you let them.
A chill moved through the hall then—slow and certain, like someone had opened a door to the grave. It curled around your ankles, slithered up your spine. The kind of cold that came before a storm.
Ginny’s head lifted first.
Her eyes, wide and shining, went toward the entrance. Toward the darkness just beyond the ruined threshold.
She stood slowly. Tugged at Bill’s hand. Whispered something too soft to hear.
And then the Weasleys began to rise.
One by one, with aching limbs and shattered hearts, they followed her. George’s fingers slipped from yours, damp and trembling.
You didn’t ask where they were going. You already knew.
But you didn’t move.
You stayed.
Stayed in the quiet. In the ache. In the weight of it all. You stayed where it still felt like him. Where it still smelled like fire and blood and the end of things.
You stayed because once, you had loved him here.
And now, you would mourn him here too.
Then it came.
A voice, not from the Hall, but from the sky itself—magically amplified, splintering through the stillness like a crack of thunder. Cold. Echoing. Unmistakable.
“Harry Potter... is dead.”
The words didn’t make sense at first. They hung in the air, absurd in their finality, like someone had scrawled them in the clouds with blood.
“Harry Potter is dead!”
It came again.
You felt it before you understood it. The tearing. The breaking. The world slipping sideways on its axis. And then came the sound—the sound that didn’t sound like it came from you but did. A scream, primal and hoarse, torn from the deepest part of you.
You collapsed.
Your knees hit stone. Your spine curled inward. Your palms slapped against the floor as your stomach convulsed, as if the grief were something physical, trying to wrench itself out of you. A broken, animal sound ripped through your chest—again, and again, and again. A howl. A cry. A keening meant for a god who would never answer.
Your face pressed against the cold stone and you sobbed until you could not breathe, until your throat burned raw, until the taste of ash and salt and blood filled your mouth.
He had done it. He had gone where you could not follow.
Harry Potter is dead.
You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that.
Curled against the stone. Trembling. Shaking. Pleading into the cracks of the floor like they might widen and swallow you whole. You begged it—whimpered it like a chant into the ground beneath your cheek. Let it take you. Let it take you too. Let it all rewind. Let it all vanish.
But nothing happened. The stone did not open. The world did not shift. The silence did not break.
And then it did.
Somewhere in the distance—through the shattered windows, beyond the walls—you heard it. The boom of spells. The crackle of fire. The sound of war resuming.
The battle had started again.
And you were still here.
Alive, while he wasn’t.
Your body moved before your mind did.
Your legs carried you through the hall, over blood and rubble, down the corridors that used to lead to classrooms and laughter and life. Now they led only to noise. To chaos. To fire and ruin.
Your wand was in your hand again, you didn’t remember picking it up. You couldn’t feel your fingers, but spells burst from them anyway. Red light. Blue sparks. A shield charm thrown up on instinct. A curse screamed from a throat that still tasted like salt and stone.
You didn’t think. You didn’t feel. You fought.
What else was there to do?
You followed the noise until you were in the thick of it, until your robes were scorched and your lungs ached, until the line between fury and grief disappeared entirely.
Until you found yourself face to face with her.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
She grinned like a wolf who smelled blood.
“Well, well,” she purred. “Another little girl who thinks grief makes her brave.”
You didn’t speak.
You raised your wand.
And you fought like someone who had already lost everything.
Sparks erupted instantly, a violent clash of color and light. Red met green, blue clashed against silver, gold shot through like lightning. The air screamed with energy. It cracked, warped, exploded.
Bellatrix's laughter cut through it all—shrill, unhinged, delighted. She spun as she cast, her robes flaring like wings of shadow, her hair wild with electricity.
"You think you matter, little thing?" she howled, dodging a jet of violet light. "You think he died for you? Please. He barely lived for himself."
You threw another curse, and another, your wand an extension of your rage. Her shield shattered under the force of your grief.
"Touched a nerve, did I?" Bellatrix cackled. "Oh, you poor darling. Did you really think love could save him? That your pretty little fingers, your trembling little kisses, could anchor someone like him to this world?"
She hurled a bolt of emerald light. You twisted, barely dodging it. The heat seared past your shoulder.
You screamed a countercurse, slamming her back against a wall with a thunderous crack. Rubble rained down. She staggered, giggling.
"That's more like it!" she shrieked. "Give me your pain! Feed it to me! Let it make you strong, pet, because hope certainly won’t."
You advanced, step by step, wand blazing, heart hammering. Your magic burned through your veins like molten steel. You weren’t casting spells anymore—you were releasing something. Years of it. Fear, fury, heartbreak.
She danced away, twirling like a phantom, throwing curses that split the earth beneath your feet.
"He died believing in something pathetic! In love. In loyalty. In you!"
You sent a whip of fire lashing across her chest. Her laughter turned into a snarl.
"He died for nothing!"
You roared as your spell collided with hers—a tidal wave of blue-white magic that knocked her back, splintering the wall behind her. The world went white with the collision.
And when the smoke cleared, she was still standing.
Bruised. Bleeding.
Smiling.
"Now this," she whispered, eyes gleaming, "is fun."
And the duel raged on.
But something in you had begun to unravel.
Her words were poison, and they were working. They crept into the cracks in your chest, dripped down your spine. They sounded too much like your own thoughts. The ones you’d tried to drown in battle. The ones you couldn’t unhear now.
He died for nothing.
You were slowing down.
Your arms felt heavier. Your spells came with more effort. Your body moved, but your spirit was slipping.
What was the point?
You were alone. He was gone. There was no light at the end of this.
Bellatrix threw another curse. You blocked it, but your knees buckled. The stone scraped your skin. You staggered up again, barely.
She grinned wider. “There it is. The truth. You don't want to win, do you? You want to follow. You want to go where he went. Join your little savior in the dirt.”
And maybe she was right.
Because suddenly, the idea didn’t seem like surrender. It felt like relief.
Bellatrix stepped closer, her boots crunching over the debris between you, her wand loose in her hand like she didn’t even need to try anymore. She tilted her head, almost pitying. Almost gentle.
“You poor little thing,” she cooed, her voice syrupy and mocking. “So much heart. So little sense.”
You couldn’t raise your wand again. You couldn’t lift your head. Your knees gave, and you sank, shaking, blood on your lip and smoke in your lungs.
Bellatrix crouched in front of you, inches away, eyes gleaming with victory. “You fought well. But you were always going to break. He was your spine, wasn’t he? And now—” she smiled wider, “—you’re spineless.”
She stood, took one final step back, and pointed her wand at your chest.
“Avada Kedavra.”
The world flashed green.
And everything stopped.
---
They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.
But it wasn't your life that came first. It was him.
It was the first time he smiled at you across the Gryffindor table, jam on his cheek and sunlight in his hair. The first time his fingers brushed yours in the common room, and you both pretended not to notice. The way he said your name—softly, like a spell he hadn’t mastered yet.
It was your first kiss in the rain, soaked through and laughing. It was sneaking into the library after hours just to sit near him while he studied. It was dancing together at the Yule Ball, his hands trembling where they rested at your waist. It was your last night together—before he left, before you broke, before the world did.
You saw his face in every memory, as if your soul had shaped itself around him.
And then came the rest.
The small things. A sunrise through the window at Grimmauld Place. The sound of Hedwig's wings against the glass. The way Hermione hummed when she read. Ron’s laughter. Mrs. Weasley’s cooking. Every moment that made life more than war.
Then—Fred. Grinning, brilliant, loud. A joke half-finished and a life half-lived.
Remus and Sirius, shoulder to shoulder in your mind, voices echoing in tandem. One with a smile that never quite reached his tired eyes. The other all bark and bravado, laughter like thunder, arms always open.
Colin Creevey, eyes wide and camera always ready, asking if you’d seen Harry, if you thought he’d sign a photo, if maybe you could help him write a letter.
Harry. Always Harry. Standing in every shadow. Breathing in every light.
And finally—the silence.
The great stillness of death. Not frightening. Not cold.
Just quiet.
You waited for him there.
---
"Have you seen Y/N?"
Harry’s voice was breathless, lighter than it had been in years. His cheeks were pink with wind and adrenaline, his barely-there smile catching on every word. He looked like someone reborn—scarred, yes, and trembling, but free.
He was asking anyone who passed by—Hannah, Dean, Kingsley, even George, whose eyes were still red. “Y/N? Where's Y/N?”
He was searching for you.
Because Voldemort was gone. The war was over. The weight had lifted.
And all he wanted now was you.
He weaved through the rubble with purpose, barely glancing at the wreckage. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind—not really. Not you. You couldn’t be—
“Potter.”
He stopped.
McGonagall’s voice was soft, nearly drowned out by the distant shouts of reunions and healing. But it hit him like a curse. He turned slowly, confusion already cracking through his smile.
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to.
“No,” Harry breathed. “No, no, no.”
He was running before his heart could catch up. Stumbling over stone and broken beams, slipping on blood-slick marble, his eyes frantic.
“No,” he panted. “No. No, please.”
And then—
Your hand.
Just your hand at first, curled near a shattered column. Fingers slack. Your wand beside it.
The same hand that had held his beneath the table during Order meetings. That had patched him up after battles. That had pressed flat against his chest when he kissed you like he might never stop.
“No,” Harry whispered, collapsing to his knees.
But there was no waking from this.
He crawled toward you, shaking, broken. He reached for your hand and brought it to his lips. It was cold. Too cold. And it didn’t curl around his like it used to.
“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Please, wake up. Please come back.”
He pressed his forehead to yours, sobbing now. Violently. Loudly. His cries echoing off the ruined stone.
“I was coming back to you. I was always coming back to you.”
He gathered you into his arms like a man who’d just remembered how to breathe only to drown. Rocked you like he could will your soul to return.
“You promised,” he whispered. “You promised you’d be there.”
And there, in the rubble of victory, Harry Potter broke.
Because saving the world meant nothing if it didn’t save you.
Because what good was destiny, was prophecy, was survival itself—if it led to this? If it ended with him on his knees, holding your stillness in his arms, whispering your name like a prayer that went unanswered?
The universe had offered him peace, and he would’ve traded it all back for one more heartbeat. For one more breath. For you.
Because you were the reason he fought in the first place.
And now, there was no fight left worth winning.
His heart thumps out of his chest, his sobs echoing in the ruins of his triumph. His blood continues to flow, yes, but for nothing.
“I have a feeling you got everything you wanted. And you're not wasting time stuck here like me, you're just thinking it's a small thing that happened, the world ended when it happened to me.”
pairing: james potter x hufflepuff!reader
cw: angst, cursing, angry confrontation and confession in the rain
requested by: @sweetstrawberrianne
a/n: wooooo this is such a roller-coaster ride to write, and this is the longest story I've ever written for now, btw this is inspired by the song “We Hug Now”
Masterlist
requests: open
you can play this while reading it
He noticed you first.
It wasn’t some great fanfare or sudden cinematic slow motion — no, James Potter noticed you in the most ordinary of ways: you dropped your quill.
It rolled across the corridor floor, clattered into the base of a stone column outside Charms, and when you stooped to get it, he was already there. Quill in hand. A half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You know, some say when a Hufflepuff drops something, it’s the universe telling them to slow down.”
You blinked at him, unimpressed. “And some say Gryffindors are allergic to minding their business.”
He had the audacity to grin. That wide, boyish kind of grin that made your stomach flip — not that you’d ever admit it. You snatched the quill from his hand with a muttered “thanks” and walked off without waiting for a reply.
But you felt him looking after you.
And the next day, he sat beside you in Charms.
It started there — small, almost unnoticeable things. James would lean over during class, whispering jokes about Professor Flitwick’s tiny podium, or nudge your knee under the desk with childish mischief whenever you got an answer right. You tried to ignore him. You were a Hufflepuff — quiet, collected, known more for patience than outbursts.
James Potter was the opposite of patience.
He was loud. He was everywhere. He was the boy people talked about in corridors, the one who kept getting detention for sneaking into the Astronomy Tower after hours, who turned everything into a joke. He was not the kind of boy who noticed people like you.
But he kept showing up.
He brought you a pumpkin pasty one morning before class. He didn’t say anything — just dropped it on your desk, muttered “Figured you skipped breakfast,” and then turned bright red.
You tried not to smile. You failed.
It was small things, then larger ones. Him waiting outside your classes. The way he asked you to the Hogsmeade trip by slipping a note under your teacup in the Great Hall. It simply said: Say yes, yeah? I’ll bring the chocolate frogs.
And slowly, everything softened.
You and James became you and James.
He held your hand like it anchored him. Like touching you grounded the chaos of everything else. When he kissed you, it wasn’t like anything you’d imagined — it was shy, breathless, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to want something so real. He kissed your knuckles in the library when you were studying. He kissed your forehead when you were tired. He kissed you like you were the only thing he ever wanted to get right.
People said he changed because of you. That he stopped chasing someone else’s shadow and started walking in the sunlight with you instead.
And for a while, it was everything.
He whispered things to you in the dark. “You're it for me,” he'd say into your hair. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.” You believed him. How could you not?
But love isn’t always enough.
Not when pressure builds and expectations claw at the walls.
James started pulling away. Slowly. Subtly. Like waves eroding sand.
He was distant in study group. His notes didn’t appear on your desk like before. He stopped showing up after class — always saying he was busy, had practice, had patrols. You told yourself not to worry. That he was just overwhelmed. That everything was fine.
But one night, you asked him directly. “James… are we okay?”
He didn’t look at you when he answered. Just stared at the fireplace, jaw tight. “I don’t know.”
And in that moment, something cracked.
You argued. Not loudly — that wasn’t your style. But there was hurt in your voice, accusation in his. “You used to want this,” you whispered. “You used to fight for us.”
He shook his head, not angry — worse. Resigned.
“Maybe it was just easier back then,” he muttered. “Maybe we were only right for a moment.”
Your breath left you. “That’s all it was to you? A moment?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
The worst part? He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg. He just left.
Like he’d already said goodbye long before he spoke the words aloud.
And you — you stayed. Sat in the common room, staring at the place where he stood. Not moving. Not breathing. Just breaking.
He begged to stay friends, of course.
You said yes. Because the idea of letting go completely felt like death.
So he still sat beside you in Charms.
He still laughed at your jokes. Still remembered how you took your tea.
But he didn’t kiss your hand under the table anymore.
Didn’t pull you into quiet corners to tell you that you were his favorite thought.
You tried to pretend it was fine.
That sitting beside him didn’t feel like bleeding quietly.
Then one afternoon, you saw him.
Leaning against a hallway wall. Laughing.
With her.
And she — she smiled like she had no idea what it meant to crawl out of the wreckage of loving him. She didn’t know the version of him that forgot birthdays, that turned cold in the name of stress. She didn’t survive him like you did.
Your chest caved. You turned around. You walked fast. You sat by your window that night and whispered:
"I’m still here. Still holding a love he forgot. Still standing in the rubble while he rebuilt somewhere else."
And the worst part?
You didn’t hate him.
You missed him.
Still.
Weeks passed. James didn’t stop talking to you — but it was different. Polite. Friendly. Like you were someone he’d once shared a carriage with, not someone who once knew how his heartbeat changed when he was falling asleep.
You told yourself you were fine. That you were healing.
Until one day — you snapped.
It happened in the hallway outside Potions.
You were walking past him. He said your name — soft, hopeful.
You turned. “What, James?”
He hesitated. “You look nice.”
You stared. Something in you — all that grief, all that pain — cracked open.
“Oh,” you said bitterly. “Thank you for noticing now.”
He blinked. “That’s not fair.”
“No, what’s not fair,” you snapped, “is you walking out like I was just some phase — like we were nothing more than a small thing that happened.”
“I never said you were—”
“But that’s how it felt!” Your voice trembled. “You left like you were tired, James. Like loving me was just another thing on your to-do list. But for me? When you walked out, the world ended.”
Silence.
He looked at you like you’d slapped him. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
You laughed, broken. “Because you didn’t care enough to ask. You were just thinking it was a small thing that happened. But I’ve been stuck here every day since May.”
His voice cracked. “I still—”
“No,” you cut him off. “You don’t get to say that now.”
And you walked away.
But that was the moment it changed.
Because James started trying.
Desperate, romantic gestures. Leaving notes under your cup again. Staying late in study group, eyes only for you. Pulling pranks just to hear you laugh. He looked at you with that same boyish grin — but now, it came with something else.
Regret.
He waited after class. He showed up at your favorite corridor, nervous.
“Do you still think about us?” he asked quietly one day.
You didn’t answer.
Because you did. Every damn day.
He tried harder.
It started with the way he showed up outside the Hufflepuff common room at sunrise the next morning, robes damp, a paper umbrella charm flickering pathetically above his head, holding a charmed box that released the scent of your favorite breakfast. He didn’t say anything. Just held it out like a peace offering, eyes rimmed red and hopeful.
You took the box. You didn’t take his hand.
The next day, it was the Owlery. You went for your usual late-night letter writing, and found it—your favorite song, spelled out in hovering notes, enchanted to drift like music through the air. You didn’t need to ask who did it. You left before the last note could finish, heart pounding, fists clenched.
The third night? It was fireworks.
Real ones.
They exploded into the shape of a badger and a stag tangled in the sky above the courtyard, right where you first kissed. You heard the entire castle talking about it. You saw him watching from the Astronomy Tower, eyes only on you.
You wanted to hate him for it.
And when he hugged you one rainy evening outside the Great Hall — just a friendly goodbye — you realized something horrible:
He didn’t hug you like he remembered the sound of your heartbeat.
He hugged you like he was scared of it.
And you?
You hugged him like you were still trying to feel it.
You weren’t sure what hurt more.
And suddenly he was leaning in closer, closer to your lips.
Until two worlds collides, again.
---
You were the first to pull away.
He didn’t understand at first—his arms stayed around you, forehead pressed against yours, breathing like he’d finally found the surface again after drowning for months.
But your fingers dropped from his collar.
Your eyes lifted to his and there was something heavy behind them. Something final.
“I can’t do this,” you whispered.
James froze. “What—what do you mean?”
You stepped back. The warmth between you vanished like a spell undone. “This... you hugging and kissing me like everything’s still the same.”
Rain began to fall—soft at first, then harder, slicing through the humid air in sharp streaks. The storm rolled over the pitch like it had been waiting for this moment.
“You said you missed me,” he said, voice small. “You kissed me.”
“I did. And it was a mistake.”
His face crumpled. “Don’t say that.”
You turned from him, just enough to put space between you. “You keep doing this. Pulling me back just enough so I remember what it felt like to be yours, and then standing there like you’re still the boy I gave everything to.”
“I am—”
“No, you’re not!” you snapped, spinning to face him, hair plastered to your cheeks from the rain, heart breaking with every word. “The boy I fell in love with wouldn’t have left when things got hard. He wouldn’t have picked someone safer just because he panicked!”
“You don’t think I regret that every single day?” James shouted, rain running down his cheeks, his voice cracking. “You think I don’t wake up and hate myself for letting you go?”
“Then why did you do it?” you cried. “Why did you throw me away like I was something you could just come back for when it was convenient?!”
“Because loving you ruined me!” His words shot through the air like thunder. “Because I’ve never loved anything like I loved you, and I didn’t know how to hold that without burning everything down!”
James let out a breath like he’d been holding it since you first pulled away from that hug. “You’re not just someone I loved. You’re the only one I wanted to love. And I ruined it. I ruined you.”
“I rebuilt,” you said. “You just weren’t there to see it.”
His voice cracked. “Don’t say that like I didn’t want to be.”
“Then why weren’t you?” you said, barely louder than the rain. “Where were you when I couldn’t sleep? When I sat by the window at three a.m. and thought maybe—just maybe—you’d show up and remember how to love me again?”
James looked like he couldn’t breathe. Like you’d knocked the wind out of him.
“I still love you,” he whispered. “I never stopped.”
You shook your head, backing away again.
“No. You love the version of me who didn’t learn how to live without you. The girl who didn’t stitch herself back together.”
James followed. “No—I love you. Even when you won’t look at me. Even when you pretend this doesn’t still kill you too.”
“Why now?” you asked. “Why wait until everything was broken?”
“Because I was stupid,” he said, voice rising. “Because I thought I’d have more time. Because I didn’t know how to admit I was still in love with you without begging.”
Your chest heaved, every part of you burning.
Lightning cracked overhead.
You were both soaked. Breathing hard. Standing on opposite ends of everything you used to be.
“I gave you all of me,” you said, voice low and trembling. “Even the parts I never let anyone else see. And you ran.”
He stepped closer. Desperate. Wild. “Because I was scared! Because I didn’t know if I could be what you needed, and I thought leaving you would hurt less than disappointing you—”
“You were wrong.” Your voice was steady now. Quiet. “You didn’t just disappoint me, James. You broke me.”
James’s hands clenched at his sides, eyes glassy and furious. “Then why did you let me kiss you again? Why did you come back if you didn’t mean it?”
“Because I wanted to know if it was still real.” You looked at him like it killed you. “And it is. But that doesn’t mean I’m yours anymore.”
Silence crashed between you. And then—
James surged forward, cupping your face in his shaking hands, kissing you like he was drowning all over again. It was fire and thunder and devastation. You kissed him back, once, with every piece of what you used to be—
Then ripped yourself away.
“I can’t keep doing this,” you gasped. “I can’t be your almost, your what-if, your second chance when I never stopped being your first.”
James looked wrecked. “Then tell me how to fix it.”
“You don’t get to fix it,” you snapped. “You get to watch. You get to see me heal without you. You get to sit with what you lost.”
He stepped forward again and you shoved him back.
“Stop trying to fix it like a broken broomstick. This isn’t a game, James! This is me. My heart. My trust. My entire fucking soul!”
Rain clung to your eyelashes. James looked shattered.
“You want me to come back?” you said, trembling. “Then earn it. Not with fireworks. Not with stupid violin songs. With consistency. With honesty. With showing up every single damn day—when it’s boring, when it’s hard, when I’m not smiling.”
He blinked rapidly, like he didn’t know whether to cry or beg or drop to his knees.
“Or,” you added, softer, “you let me go.”
You turned then. Walked away. Soaked. Shaking. And this time, you were the one leaving him in the rain.
And James Potter just stood there. Drenched. Alone. Watching the only girl he ever truly loved disappear into the storm he created.
Because love—real love—doesn’t always get saved by a kiss in the rain.
Sometimes, it ends with the silence that follows after.
Summary: Your four years of friendship with Joe starts to fall apart when he gets a new girlfriend who isn't your number one fan.
The first time Joe cancelled on you, he sent 3 texts.
Please don't hate me...
Claire already booked dinner 😣
I'll make it up to you, promise 🙏🏼
And then a voice note, rushed and apologetic, his laugh awkwardly at the end like he knew it wasn't enough, trying to lighten the mood. You listened to it while standing outside the tiny cinema the two of you had practically lived in for 4 years.
The employee at the ticket booth gave you a sympathetic smile, "Your friend not coming?".
You forced one back, "Something came up".
She just smiled, "Haven't seen you both here together in a while".
Something always came up now. Still, you bought two tickets out of habit, part of you hoping he would text you a few moments later saying change of plans, on my way.
Before Claire, everyone joked that you and Joe were attached at the hip. You were there before his auditions, after bad press days, during insomnia spirals at two in the morning where he'd show up at your apartment with chocolate and a lot to talk about. He knew how you took your coffee, you knew when he was lying just by the way he scratched the back of his neck or his wrist. There was never anything romantic about it. At least, not intentionally. It was Joe being Joe and you being you.
That had always been enough, until suddenly it wasn't.
Claire was beautiful in an intimidating kind of way. She walked into rooms like she already owned them. The first time Joe introduced you, she smiled too brightly and said, "Oh. You're the best friend". Not your name, just the title. You ignored the weird feeling in your stomach. At the time, you told yourself you imagined it and everything's fine, but you didn't imagine it for long.
"She's here too?"
You looked up from your drink at Claire's voice. It was Joe's birthday, everyone on some rooftop bar downtown packed with his friends, and music thumping through the floor.
Joe frowned slightly, "Yeah? Why wouldn't she be?"
Claire shrugged, sipping her cocktail, "I just thought maybe tonight could be...you know, more couple focused. So I can enjoy the birthday boy".
The conversation around you died. You laughed awkwardly, "I can leave if you guys want-"
"No" Joe interrupted quickly, but he didn't sound angry.
Claire tilted her head, "Nobody said you had to leave" and rolled her eyes at her.
The damage had already been done. You spent the rest of the night pretending not to notice the looks everyone kept exchanging, and at this point giving up with trying to communicate with anyone here. Everytime you tried to speak with somebody whether it be Joe, or Sam, literally anyone in the group, Claire would collar them for a conversation right then and there.
Then came the cancelled plans. Coffee walks replaced with "Sorry, busy right now". Movie nights replaced with silence of him not there. Your texts went unanswered for hours, then days, and when Joe did reply, it was rushed.
Crazy week
Claire's having a hard time
You know how it is...
You didn't actually because when Joe needed you, you had always made time. Always.
The breaking point happened in his apartment. Ironically, during takeout and a movie that you finally squeezed in because he wasnt working and she was out. The old routine felt almost normal again of Chinese food cartons spread across the coffee table, and some shitty hallmark movie playing in the background. For the first time in months, you felt like maybe things could go back to the way they were before, then Claire walked in.
She stopped short at the sight of you curled into Joe's sofa wearing one of his hoodies. The atmosphere shifted instantly.
"Oh" she said.
Joe muted the TV, "Hey babe".
Claire stared at the hoodie, "Seriously?"
You immediately sat up, "It's just cold and Joe gave m-"
"She has her own clothes, doesn't she?"
Joe rubbed his face, "Claire..."
"No, I'm trying to understand" She laughed sharply. "Every single person says your relationship with her is weird, and I keep trying to be chill about it".
Your chest tightened. Joe looked exhausted more than angry.
"We're friends.." you said quietly.
Claire crossed her arms, "Friends don't act like this".
You looked at Joe, waiting for him to say something, anything. Tell her she was being unfair, that you mattered, or the friendship wasn't something shameful. Instead, he sighed and said, "Maybe we have been a little too close".
The room went completely still. You actually felt your heart break, no...shatter.
Joe realised too late what he'd said, "Wait, that's not-"
"No" you interrupted softly. You stood, pulling the hoodie off immediately like it burned, chucking it down on the sofa where you sat, "No, it's okay".
"It didn't come out right"
"But you meant it right?"
His silence answered for him. Claire looked almost happy for half a second before masking it.
You grabbed your bag with shaky hands. 4 years.
4 years of memories suddenly rearranging themselves into something humiliating. "You know what the worst part is?" Your voice cracked despite your effort to keep it steady, "I kept defending you".
Joe stepped toward you, "Please don't do this".
"Do what? Finally realise I'm the only one fighting for this friendship?"
"That's not true"
"You let her take shots at me constantly"
Claire scoffed, "I never-"
"You did" you snapped, turning toward her for the first time. "And honestly? Fine. You don't have to like me" Then your eyes found Joe again, "But you were supposed to".
The pain on his face almost broke you. "I think" you whispered, "I miss who you used to be before", then you left.
Joe called you 8 times that night, ignoring every single one. Then came the texts;
I'm sorry
You know you matter to me
Please talk to me
I don't know how to fix this
That one hurt the most because neither did you.
Weeks passed from there. Mutual friends stopped mentioning him around you, the group chats grew quieter and your life adjusted around the absence of him. Some nights you would still reached for your phone to send him things before remembering what had happened. Usually it's a stupid meme, or a new movie trailer, or some new place for them to try out. Then reality hit all over again.
It rained the day you saw him again. You were ducking into a small bookstore to avoid the weather when you nearly collided with someone coming out. Joe froze but you froze harder. He looked tired. His hair was damp from rain, hands shoved into his jacket pockets like he didn't know what to do with them. For a second, neither of you spoke, till a small "Hey" left his lips. It almost destroyed you hearing his voice again.
"Hey"
His eyes searched your face carefully, "You look good".
You let out a tiny laugh, "Yeah and you look awful".
Shock flickered across his face before he laughed too. You missed that sound whether it was over the phone, in a voice note or laid on the couch together. You missed it terribly.
The silence afterward was gentler this time. "She's gone" he admitted eventually.
"Joe..."
"I'm not telling you because I expect something" He shook his head quickly, "I just...thought you should know".
Rain hammered against the windows behind him, honestly it felt like something out of a movie. You looked at the floor, "Did you love her?".
"I think I wanted to" Joe swallowed hard, "I lost you anyway, love or no love".
You closed your eyes briefly, because that was the tragedy of it, wasn't it? The fact that somewhere Joe stopped protecting the person who had never once let him stand alone. You really thought your friendship could survive anything that got thrown your way, everything a famous person has to deal with, but abandonment?
When you finally looked back at him, his eyes were watery. "I missed you" he said quietly.
You missed him too, that was the unbearable part, but missing someone wasn't always enough to bring them back to you.
"I know" you whispered.
Joe nodded slowly like he understood exactly what you weren't saying, why you didn't say it back. Neither of you moved or spoke up, but eventually Joe gave you one last smile before walking away.
Joe made it three steps before you said his name. He stopped instantly like he didn't have to think about it, like some part of him had always been wired to respond to you, "What?"
You hated how fragile his voice sounded. Your fingers tightened around the strap of your bag, "Did you mean it?".
Joe frowned slightly, "Mean what?".
"When you said you missed me"
"Every day" he admitted. Joe looked at you carefully, like he was afraid one wrong movement would make you disappear again. "I kept picking up my phone to text you" he said quietly, "I still do". You stared at him. "I almost called you when I saw this terrible movie last month because I knew you'd hate it too".
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it and you saw his mouth twitch faintly at the sound. "And then I remembered I wasn't allowed to do that anymore".
Wasn't allowed.
Not couldn't. It was almost like losing you had become a punishment he accepted.
"Joe..."
"I know I fucked this up" He stepped closer, "I know I let things happen that never should've happened".
"But you did"
"I know I did"
"And you stood there while she humiliated me and said things"
His face tightened immediately, "I know"
The thing was, if he'd argued back, if he'd gotten defensive, maybe you could've stayed angry but he looked devastated in a way that felt painfully genuine. "I kept trying to balance everything between her and you" he said. "I thought if I just kept everyone happy, it would settle itself and it would be okay".
You crossed your arms, "So instead you let me take the hit. Person who's been there for you everyday for over 4 years compared to some girl you've known months?".
His silence confirmed it again.Joe rubbed a hand over his mouth. "You wanna know the worst part?".
You didn't answer.
"I knew she was being unfair"
That hurt more than anything else had because somewhere deep down, you'd always wondered if maybe you were imagining it. Maybe you were too clingy, maybe too present or too much.
"I saw it happening" he continued quietly, "Every time".
Your chest ached, "Then why didn't you stop it?"
His eyes met yours, "Because I was scared"
You blinked, "Of what?"
"That if I defended you the way I wanted to..." He exhaled shakily, "She'd leave".
You stared at him in disbelief, "And?"
"And she did anyway"
You did nothing but snicker.
Joe laughed once under his breath exhausted, "Turns out pushing away the best thing in my life to save a relationship was a pretty shit plan".
Best thing in my life.
You didn't feel like the best thing in his life. Thats for sure. 4 years of friendship suddenly crashed into you all at once. Midnight cinema trips, his terrible attempts at cooking, coffee walks where neither of you actually drank the coffee before it got cold because you talked too much. All of the couch naps, the inside jokes, the stupid arguments over movies. All of it.
You looked at him and realised the anger had never fully replaced the grief. Losing Joe hadn't felt like a friendship ending, it felt like part of you.
Joe's voice softened, "I don't expect you to forgive me".
"You keep saying that"
"Because I don't. I just..." He swallowed hard. "I needed you to know that none of it was because you didn't matter".
You laughed quietly then, tears suddenly burning behind your eyes, "That's the problem, Joe". His brows pulled together. "You acted like I mattered until someone asked you to prove it. You decided to think with your dick before your head. Do you know how fucked that is?"
The words visibly hit him. You saw it happen. Saw the exact moment he realised there was no defense for that. Joe looked down at the floor, "You're right".
You wiped quickly at your eyes, annoyed with yourself, "I was so angry at you" you admitted. "But mostly I just missed my friend and doing things with who I thought was my best friend".
Joe looked up immediately, "I'm still here".
The answer came too quickly from you, "No. You're not. You disappeared months ago". His face fell. "You were my person" you whispered. "And then one day you just...stopped choosing me".
Joe's eyes shut briefly, like it physically hurt him hearing you speak like that. When he opened them again, they were glassy, "I'd choose you now".
"That's the problem. Now. Not then"
Neither of you spoke for a long moment. Then quietly, Joe said, "I kept your mug".
You blinked, "What?"
"The ugly yellow one at my apartment" His lips twitched faintly, "The one you said made coffee taste better".
A startled laugh escaped you through your tears, "You hate that mug".
"I know"
"And you kept it?"
Joe finally smiled properly for the first time all evening, "I've spent the week reorganising the apartment, I couldn't throw it away".
Your heart betrayed you completely, part of you just wished none of this happened and you could just reach over and hug him.
The rain outside softened slightly, becoming gentler now.
Joe took one careful step closer. "If I asked you to get coffee with me" he said softly, "Would you say no?"
You should have. Probably, maybe definitely. But then you looked at him standing there soaked from rain, exhausted, hopeful in the smallest and saddest way and all you could see was your best friend. The one you lost, the one who hurt you, the one you still loved anyway. Not romantically, maybe, but still loved.
You exhaled shakily, "One coffee"
"One coffee" he repeated carefully.
"And if you cancel-"
"I won't"
"You don't know that"
"I do" The certainty in his voice made something shift inside you.
The next day, Joe opened the coffee shop door for you. For the first time in months, you walked beside him again. It wasn't quite the same, but close enough to remember what it felt like. The coffee shop wasn't one of your usual places but maybe that was a good thing. Too many memories lived in the old ones, too many corners where Joe had sat across from you, stealing the rest of your sandwich or talking about whatever ridiculous thing had happened that week. This place was an attempt at a fresh start. He sat opposite you, hands wrapped around his coffee cup and for a while, neither of you really knew where to begin. 4 years of friendship with 6 months of silence. There wasn't exactly a roadmap for that.
"So" Joe said eventually.
"So"
Then you talked, really talked. None of it was surface level conversation or careful small talk, it was the ugly, honest stuff that made you weep once or twice, "You made me feel disposable Joe".
Joe visibly flinched, "I'm sorry".
"I kept waiting for you to stand up for me"
"I know"
"You never did"
His eyes dropped to the table, "I know, and I'm sorry".
The repetition should have annoyed you, but for some reason it made your chest ache. He wasn't arguing, or defending himself. He accepted every hurtful thing exchanged between the two of you because he knew he earned them.
"I felt stupid" you admitted quietly.
Joe looked up, "Why?"
"Because everyone saw it. Hell, I even know some of the boys even fought for me yet it all still happened"
Your throat tightened, "Everyone saw what she was doing except you".
His expression twisted immediately, "No..."
You frowned, "No?"
"I saw it" Joe swallowed. "I just kept pretending I could fix it without confronting it".
You laughed bitterly, "Because that worked out well".
"No" His voice cracked slightly, "It didn't".
Silence settled between you.
Joe rubbed at his jaw, "You know what I missed most?" You raised an eyebrow, "Besides having somebody who actually answers my texts?".
You rolled your eyes, a smile flickering across his face, "What?".
"That look"
You frowned, "What look?"
"The one that says I'm an idiot". Joe's smile widened slightly, "I missed making you laugh".
You missed it too. More than you'd ever admitted out loud and definitely more than you'd wanted to. The conversation drifted after that to movies, friends, work, life, just normal things, and for the first time all afternoon, it started to feel easy. Nothing was fixed, but it started feeling familiar again.
Then Joe's phone lit up. You barely glanced at it, but you saw her name. A text. The screen went black and conversation continued, pretending it didn't matter. Then the phone lit up again with another text, Joe stared at it longer this time, followed by it ringing. Her. Neither of you spoke, Joe looked at the phone, then at you, then back at the phone. The familiar dread started crawling through your chest. You knew this feeling all too well. That feeling of being second, of waiting whilst someone else got chosen, but the fact he hadn't answered it yet thought maybe there was some hope to it all.
It wasn't until Joe sighed heavily, then stood. Your stomach sank. Part of him hesitated, you could see it in his posture, but he answered and walked away, "Hello?". He walked towards the far corner of the cafe, away from the table, away from you, away from you hearing whatever he spoke about. Your eyes fixed on your coffee suddenly unable to look anywhere else. The warmth of the situation as well as the coffee disappeared, maybe this had been a mistake, maybe you let yourself believe something impossible would happen. But in fact, people didn't really change and apologies didn't undo choices which happened.
Across the room Joe turned slightly away, still talking, and suddenly you were back in every cancelled plan, every ignored text and every moment you spent waiting for him to pick you up and never showed.
Your chest tightened painfully because maybe this wasn't fair and maybe he genuinely needed to take the call and there was context you didn't know. But none of that changed how it felt and feelings didn't care for logic in situations like this. You looked at him one last time, still completely distracted and wrapped up in whatever she had to say.
The decision came quietly. You stood, grabbed your coat and pulled your bag onto your shoulder, walked towards the door with nobody there to stop you. The bell above the entrance chimed softly and the cold hit you again. As soon as the door closed behind you, you faintly heard your name being called through it from inside. "Wait-".
You didn't turn around because you already knew what you'd see. You'd seen him standing there with his phone in hand trying to stop you leaving and explain, trying to fix something after it had already broken. You kept walking, hearing that same chime and your name being called again. A tear shed from your eye, you wiped and continued to walk. The hurt of it all was loud, and the memories were deafening. And that's when for the second time in your life, you walked away from Joe. Only this time, it hurt even more than the first.
The photos appeared 6 days later. You weren't looking for them, a friend who knew about the situation sent you a screenshot of them. No caption, or comment, just the images of Joe and Claire walking through New York, side by side, coffee cups in hand, looking exactly like a couple that had never broken up.
Your stomach dropped so hard it physically hurt.
You stared at the photo for a long time that somehow another appeared, then another. Someone had clearly spotted them and posted them online. You locked your phone and tossed it onto the sofa, a strange numbness settled over you. You thought about that coffee shop and how he said he missed you every day, standing and talking to you drenched from the rain, her name on his phone. You never heard his explanation for the call, you never gave him the chance to but seeing those photos made you realise that maybe you didn't want the explanation. The result was going to still the same either way, he chose her, again.
A month later there was a knock at your door around 8pm. You weren't expecting anyone, but the second knock came louder. You walked over quietly and slid the little cover on the door viewer to look who it was. Joe. You immediately froze and held your breath thinking you was breathing too loud and he wouldn't hear you. His hands were shoved into his jacket pockets with slightly messy hair and tired looking. You slid the cover back on and stepped back silently. A second later his voice came through the door, "I heard that".
You squeezed your eyes shut.
"I know you're in there"
You held your hand over your mouth.
"Please..."
The single word almost got you but you stayed exactly where you were. Minutes passed and eventually you heard him exhale, "Okay", "I'm sorry" and footsteps followed. When you looked through the viewer again he was gone.
Two months. Two whole months. No texts, no calls, no random appearances. You spent your birthday quietly, usually you spent your birthdays together, dinner, going out, sometimes just a night in depending on what you wanted. You'd get each other a funny card and a gift you knew each other had been eyeing up for ages but never bought themselves. Joe didn't call, text or acknowledge it. Part of you noticed and the other half wished you didn't.
A week later you found yourself standing inside Kate's studio. The space smelled faintly of paint and coffee, canvases leant against the walls and half-finished pieces occupied every available surface. It was chaotic, yet creative. Very Kate.
During the time of becoming friends with Joe, his sisters would sometimes tag along on occasions and before you knew it, you and Kate were almost as inseparable as you and Joe were.
"You can finally stop complaining now" she announced dramatically while uncovering the painting.
Your jaw dropped, "Oh my god it's...stunning"
Kate grinned.
The painting was beautiful. Not just good, beautiful. The kind of gift that immediately made your chest ache. She had painted a photo taken just over two years ago that Joe had captured of the two of you looking out towards the ocean, beach in view, you remember the both of you wearing the smallest bikinis you owned in hopes you'd attract some rich guy who lived out in the Hamptons where you was all staying. The painting focused on more of the surroundings than it did of the two of you, but it was such a memorable vacation.
"Kate..."
"I know, I know" she said, waving you off. "I'm amazing, and I know how much you love this photo".
The two of you sat talking for a while after that. Catching up on things, discussing everything and nothing all at once. Then eventually Kate tilted her head, "You and Joe doing okay? Neither of you have mentioned each other in a while".
You looked down at your cup. The question everyone had carefully avoided.
You shrugged, "He has different priorities now. You know we had that coffee that ended...badly and we haven't spoken since".
Kate went quiet. When you glanced up, something understanding had settled across her face, "Oh...".
That one word carried a lot, because she knew her brother, and she also knew you and exactly what you meant. Neither of you said anything else about it, because there wasn't really anything to add.
Then the studio door opened. You looked up automatically, immediately wishing you hadn't.
Joe froze. You froze. Kate muttered something under her breath.
Joe looked between both of you, then landed on you, "Hi".
You looked at him, then turned back to Kate as if he hadn't spoken. You heard him close the door behind himself and his footsteps slowly edging forward.
You stood, carefully lifting the painting, "Thank you for this".
Kate smiled, "You're welcome".
"No, seriously" You looked down at it, "It's probably the best birthday gift I've ever received".
Kate laughed, "Only two months late but we're here finally".
"It still got here". You adjusted the painting in your arms. "Besides, it's the only thing I got for my birthday so I will treasure it with my life".
The studio went completely silent, Kate's smile disappeared. You heard something behind you, "Shit..."
Joe.
The word slipped out before he could stop it, and suddenly you knew the realisation had finally hit him. Your birthday. He forgot. You closed your eyes briefly, not because it hurt, oddly enough it didn't because it was 2 months ago, it just all felt inevitable just like the long list it already was.
You didn't turn around and acknowledge him, or rescue him from the guilt flooding his face. You simply hugged Kate around the painting, mentioning meeting up for drinks later in the week for a proper catch up, "Thank you again".
The walk toward the door felt strangely calm. Joe stepped aside automatically giving you room, and you walked right past him. Close enough to hear his breathing hitch, but you never looked at him.
For the first time since you'd met him 4 years ago, Joe became a stranger standing in a doorway.
The painting sat above your sofa. Every time you looked at it, you thought of Kate. Not Joe, Kate, which was probably why you loved it so much.
3 months passed, then 4. Life kept moving on, you started saying yes to things again like weekend trips with friends, work events, dinner invites, because you hadn't already made plans with Joe like usually would be the case for turning them down. During the second month you even went on a date. Not that it wasn't great, because it was, you just wasn't ready for that yet. You were enjoying the free time that you had, making the most of being young and in the city.
You stopped checking your phone hoping for a message that wasn't coming. Stopped wondering what Joe was doing. Stopped asking mutual friends questions you pretended weren't questions. Eventually, his absence became less of a wound and more of a scar. Still there but not bleeding anymore.
Kate remained in your life. That surprised neither of you. She refused to choose sides, and she shouldn't have had to. One evening you were helping her carry supplies into her studio when she suddenly sighed. A very dramatic, very Kate sigh. You immediately groaned, "What?".
"I hate this"
You frowned, "What?"
"This" She gestured vaguely between the two of you, "The fact that I have to pretend Joe doesn't exist every time you're around".
You looked away.
Kate immediately softened, "I'm sorry..."
"No, it's okay. You can talk about him, you don't have to stay clear of the subject of him. What's done is done, I'm a big girl".
She leaned against a worktable, "You know he's miserable, right?"
You laughed quietly, "Kate..."
"I'm serious"
"I don't need updates"
The subject dropped, but not before she quietly added, "He misses you".
You didn't answer because you already knew he did. The problem was that missing someone and choosing them weren't the same thing. You'd learned that lesson the hard way.
Winter soon arrived. Cold mornings, grey skies and hardly no sun. The city dressed itself in Christmas lights. One evening, after work, you found yourself walking through a small holiday market. The kind Joe would've loved and he would have dragged you to as you complained the entire time. It wasn't that you hated the holidays, it was just lonely. Loosing both your parents young and being an only child had its toll on you, but Joe made you enjoy the holidays where he could. There had been two Christmas' where he even took you back to Massachusetts with him to spend it with his family which was nice. But this year, you was completely ready to spend the day alone, watching shitty TV and probably eating some form of pasta.
Your phone buzzed. Kate, so you answered immediately, "Hey".
Her voice sounded strange, "Can you uh-come to the studio?"
You frowned, "What happened?"
"Nothing bad. Just...can you come?"
20 minutes later you pushed open the studio door, "Kate?".
No answer. You stepped inside, and the space was empty. Confused, you looked around, then noticed something sitting on her worktable.
A familiar yellow mug. The ugly one that Joe had kept and beside it sat an envelope with your name written across the front.
You stared at it for several seconds before slowly picking it up. Inside was a letter. Handwritten, messy and very Joe.
I don't know if you'll finish this. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you threw it away but Kate threatened my life if I didn't at least try.
You were right about everything. That's a terrible way to start a letter, but it's true. You were right when you said I stopped choosing you. You were right when you said I let things happen. You were right when you said I made you feel disposable and I've spent every day since wishing I'd figured that out before I lost you. I just can't believe it's been almost a year.
For a long time I thought fixing things meant convincing you to forgive me. I know now that's not something I get to ask for so this isn't me asking, this is me saying thank you.
Thank you for all the years of friendship. Thank you for every terrible movie you made me watch which I probably secretly enjoyed. Every coffee walk we shared or every midnight phone call. You showed up when I needed someone always.
Thank you for being my best friend.
You deserved better than what I gave you in the end and I know that now. And if our story ends here, then I wanted you to know that losing you changed me. Not because it hurt, because it did.
But because it forced me to become someone who wouldn't make that mistake again.
I hope you're happy.
I hope you're loved.
And I hope one day when you think about me, it doesn't hurt anymore.
Love always,
J x
You stared at the signature for a long time, then at the yellow mug, then at nothing at all. The studio was completely silent, and for the first time since everything happened, you cried.
It was full of heartbreak, relief, anger, grief, pain, hope, and endless cycles of everything gone. All that remained was love. The kind that survives disappointment and exists even when two people no longer belong in each other's lives.
When you finally left the studio, the evening air was cold against your cheeks from where the tears sat. You carried the yellow mug in one hand with Joe's letter tucked safely inside your coat.
Halfway home, your phone buzzed with a text from Kate.
You doing okay?
You looked up at the falling snow.
Yeah.
A moment later another message arrived.
You want to know something funny?
You rolled your eyes.
Always
Kate replied instantly.
That idiot still thinks coffee tastes better in that awful yellow mug
A laugh escaped before you could stop it followed by a single tear.
He's wrong.
Three dots appeared.
I know.
You slipped your phone into your pocket and continued walking. The city and the lights glowed around you, and somewhere out there was a boy who had once been your best friend, someone you would always care about and put before yourself. For years, you thought the story was about losing Joe, but walking home beneath lights, you realised it wasn't. It was about finding yourself again after he left, and for the first time in a very long while, you were finally okay.
A year later, Christmas lights hung from every available surface in Kate's studio. The place looked completely different from usual with paintings that had been pushed against walls, tables moved aside, strings of warm fairy lights draped across beams and shelves, music playing softly somewhere in the background.
People laughed, talked, drank too much wine. The kind of gathering Kate always managed to create, warm and comfortable.
It was a week before Christmas so Kate decided to throw a little party for everyone to celebrate a successful year. You couldn't believe how fast the year had gone.
You'd almost said no to coming, wasn't feeling it, but Kate had given you one of her patented guilt trips over the phone and somehow you'd found yourself standing in the middle of a Christmas party. Life was different now. Good, actually.
The past year had been quiet, peaceful, fast paced and somewhat chaotic all at the same time. You'd moved forward, maybe not completely but enough. Enough that seeing or hearing Joe's name no longer made your stomach drop, or enough that you'd finally started remembering the good parts without drowning in the bad ones.
You were talking to one of Kate's friends when she suddenly appeared beside you, "Merry Christmas!"
You laughed, "Merry Christmas"
Kate took a sip of her drink, "So what are your plans for this year?"
"Probably same as last year, treat it like another normal day. Breakfast, some TV reruns, walk round Central Park, whatever leftovers I have in the fridge and bed"
Kate's face just showed a sad smile, "You know the invites always there to come home with us".
"I know..."
Then she wandered off again leaving you standing there sipping at your wine. It was about 20 minutes later when you saw him across the room talking to somebody with his bank turned towards you but seeing he's laughing softly at something they'd said. Part of you couldn't believe it's been a year since that letter, almost 2 years since you last spoke properly. He looked different, not drastically but just older, broader, somehow more attractive. The sight of him didn't hurt, but you'd be lying if it didn't make you sad because 4 years of friendship shouldn't have ended the way yours did.
You watched him for a moment, then sighed. Maybe it was the Christmas spirit, maybe it was growth, or maybe you were just tired of carrying old resentment. Either way, you walked across the room, and tapped his shoulder. Joe turned automatically, his smiling disappearing straight away and eyes widening. For a second he genuinely looked like he'd seen a ghost.
You almost laughed, "Hi".
The room suddenly seemed very quiet, and Joe just stared, like he couldn't quite believe you were standing there. "...Hi" His voice cracked.
For a moment neither of you knew what to say, but you offered a small smile, "Want to talk?".
Joe nodded so quickly it almost hurt to watch, "Yeah...yeah".
You ended up finding a quiet hallway away from the party. The music and conversations became distant. It was just you and Joe standing there and facing each other properly for the first time in over a year. And the second the silence settled, Joe broke. Not dramatically or loudly, but a small sound escaped him, almost a whimper. His hand came up to cover his mouth immediately like he was embarrassed by it, and your heart shattered into a million pieces just watching him.
"I'm sorry" The words came out immediately, shaky and desperate, "I'm so sorry". His eyes filled almost instantly, "I know I already said it but I'm sorry".
"Joe"
"No" His voice cracked, "I am". Tears gathered despite his obvious attempts to stop them, "I was awful to you". You stayed quiet letting him talk because it was clear he'd been carrying all this around for a long time. "I hurt you. I let things happen I shouldn't have. I missed your birthdays". The guilt in his voice nearly made you look away.
"I know"
His eyes shut. The words clearly still haunted him from your last conversation.
"I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for everything" and suddenly he was crying properly.
Before you even thought about it, you stepped forward and hugged him. Joe froze like he couldn't believe it, then wrapped his arms round you lightly, then tighter a few seconds later when he realised you wasn't pulling away. It was the kind of hug that comes from someone terrified you'll disappear if they let go. You stood there quietly in each other's arms listening as he apologised again and again. Listening as all of this guilt finally spilled out, and you let him. Because for all the anger you'd carried, you knew he meant every word.
Eventually he pulled back, eyes red and embarrassed, looking down at the floor.
You shook your head slightly, "Joe".
His eyes lifted, and you took a breath. A long one, because this part mattered, "I need you to understand something". He immediately nodded.
"I really need you to hear me".
Joe went still, "I hated what happened. I hated how you treated me, I hated the distance she caused. There were days I hated you and I missed you anyway. I missed by best friend".
His tears immediately returned, and you almost laughed. The idiot was crying again. "You don't get to cry harder than me" you muttered.
A watery laugh escaped him.
"As much as I hate everything that happened...and as much as I wish things had been different...I don't think we're done".
His eyes widened in complete shock.
You folded your arms, "What happened between us deserves more than a hallway conversation at Kate's Christmas party".
Joe actually let out a breathless laugh.
"Right?"
He nodded immediately, "Yeah..."
"So we need to talk properly"
His eyes never left yours.
"We need to discuss everything and we need to see if we can work things out"
He looked like he was going to cry again, and then quietly, almost fearfully, he asked, "You really want to?".
You stared at him. At the man who'd once been your favourite person, the man who'd hurt you, the man who'd lost you yet the man who somehow still mattered.
"I think I owe my best friend that much". Joe's eyes immediately filled again, "Oh my god, stop crying you idiot".
"I'm trying..."
"You aren't though"
"I know I'm not"
For the first time in years, you both laughed together. Not because everything was fixed but because for the first time since everything fell apart, you were finally heading in the same direction again and sometimes that was enough to start.
summary: when a crawl mission goes wrong, Steve and you have to find an escape. but the only way out is through the rift under lovers lake. and of the many problems you're facing, there's one that looms darker than the rest. you can't swim.
warnings: angst, descriptions of drowning, impending doom, no happy ending.
notes: I need to vent some of my personal angst and so I have unfortunately given life to this short little thing. I pumped this out in a few hours, so sorry if it's not the best. also sorry for the heart breaking I'm about to do.
Drowning is nothing like the movies make it out to be. When you think of it as a way of dying, you picture thrashing. Convulsing, like someone trying to crawl out of their own skin. Eyes bulging, mouth agape, trying to find oxygen.
But this.
This was different.
It was still. So still, you felt like you were frozen in time. A cold so deep and piercing, it burned. An icy fire tingling up and down your body, seizing every muscle, every movement, every memory-
It was all consuming. Everlasting.
Dark.
So dark.
It was hard to tell where the depths of Lover’s Lake began and where your darkening vision took over.
You imagine how you look right now, deep below the watery surface’s of Hawkin’s popular makeout spot. Former make out spot. Before the rumors about it being Eddie Munson’s sacrificial grounds began and the government took over.
You’re sure you look a mess, hair floating like stalks on a windy day, face pale and lined with exhaustion. The cut on your cheek from running through the upside down is surely bleeding still, likely leaving a plume of red to stain your skin.
You imagine you’re sinking. It’s highly likely, considering all the layers you were wearing. The brown leather combat boots Murray had smuggled in for you a few months ago, heavy and worn. The thick puffer vest, torn at the pocket; jeans and a sweater you’d borrowed from Steve.
He’d insisted really, handing you the soft gray thing before you could argue.
“It’ll keep you warm. You look better in my clothes anyway.”
It wasn’t warm now. It was freezing in fact, soaked all the way through, clinging to your skin. Weighing you down, down, down…
Despite your brain screaming at you to stop, to hold your breath, to keep fighting towards the surface, you breathe.
A deep gulp of lake water- fresh air- lungs burning as you try to find relief. You kick your legs upward, trying to push yourself towards the surface.
But you've lost all direction. Lost any sense of up or down, of life or death. Were you still breathing? Still thinking? Was this just the short space between one life and the next?
Was every breath leading you further down a path you weren't ready for?
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
You had plans. Big ones. A whole future mapped out with Steve. One you both had spent hours talking about in between crawl missions and shifts at the radio station. Hopes for a better future, one where you didn’t have to hold your breath every time you passed the MAC-Z, or where your little town wasn't fenced in.
“We’re gonna get out of here someday.”
“Oh yeah?” You smile. Steve nods, dipping his spoon into the tub of icecream you were sharing. Your legs were tangled together on the concrete floor of the station’s basement, your shoulders resting together. “And where are we going to go, Harrington?”
“Somewhere far from here. Where we don’t have to worry about any of this mess. Somewhere we can get a house together.”
“A house?” He nods.
“A big one. Two stories, with a little white picket fence I’ll fix up, and a roof that creaks when it rains. A kitchen that’s a little too small but a living room big enough for company. Oh- and a backyard, spacious and green.” You laugh, stealing his spoon and scooping some ice cream for yourself.
“You want a fixer upper?”
“Of course. We can fix it up on the weekends. Make it our own.” Steve smiles down at you, thumb rubbing a circle into your shoulder as he holds you. “And maybe, some day down the line, we’ll have a few kids running around the house.” You raise an eyebrow.
“How many is a few?” He smiles guiltily.
“Six?” You laugh again, smile bright.
“Alright, slow down Harrington. I’ve seen you with six kids and every time it just spells trouble.” He huffs, nose pressing into your temple as he kisses your cheek.
“So we compromise. Maybe start with three till I can convince you we need a few more.” You think for a moment, Steve giving you those big brown eyes you couldn’t resist.
“Alright Harrington, three to start. But I’m not giving you any kids till you marry me.” He chuckles, looking away.
“Yeah, well. I’m working on that…”
You can’t remember what else he had said. You’re trying but the burning sensation in your chest is becoming all consuming.
You will your arms to move. Your feet to kick.
But nothing happens. It’s all dead weight, pulling you further away from the surface.
Away from your future. Further into your memories.
“Gosh, it’s cold.” you shiver, leaning further into Steve’s side. The sheets of the bed were doing little to shelter you from the winter settling around his house. Steve tugs you closer, hand rubbing up and down your arm.
“I got you baby. Just use me as a heater.”
“Heaters don’t talk.”
“Hey,” he pinches your side. You let out a tiny yelp, Steve laughing as he tucks you into his chest. “I make a great heater. Stop complaining.”
“I’m not complaining.” You sigh, settling into him, head resting on his chest. “You make a nice pillow too.” Steve hums, fingers tracing shapes up and down your side. He’s quiet for a minute before speaking again.
“Do you think we’ll ever find him?”
He didn’t have to explain who ‘him’ was. You knew. You always knew. It was all anyone talked about. You sigh.
“I hope we do. We have to.”
“Yeah. But sometimes… I don’t know. Sometimes…” Steve trails off, searching for the right words. You shift to look up at him, his face soft in the dim shadows of the room.
“What, Steve?” He takes a breath, rubbing a hand down his face.
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re all killing ourselves for nothing. If Vecna really is gone and we’re just digging through the upside down for a ghost.” You hum, reaching up to run your hand through his hair. Steve sighs, closing his eyes at the feeling.
“I wish that were true. But until we find a body-”
“We torched him. We burned him to the ground. I- Vecna has to be dead.” You grimace, wishing you could agree with Steve’s sentiment.
“Steve… I can’t in good faith say he’s dead until we see Vecna’s body. Until I know that he won’t come after El or Will or any one of the kids ever again.” Steve sighs, looking at you through his lashes. You press a kiss to his shoulder, snuggling closer. “We’re being careful. Every mission is carefully planned out. We’re not killing ourselves.”
“But-”
“Steve. For once I’d like to go to bed without dreaming about vines and Mike’s grating voice on the walkie. Can we talk about Robin’s terrible taste in jokes or you getting a haircut please?” Steve groans playfully, arm wrapped around you tight.
“Oh no, come on. That’s a nightmare in itself. My hair’s my best feature!”
“But you’d look so good,” you tease. “Come on-”
“Noo,” Steve laughs-
Your chest burns and you feel your body jerk. You were trying to find air. To find relief.
But everything was just so heavy. And you were so tired. Tired from fighting against the current. Tired from running through the upside down.
Everything had gone so wrong.
It’s funny really.
To remember how careful you’d both been, how alert and ready. Only for it to have never mattered in the end.
The mission was simple. A lap around the woods in the upside down, rendezvous with Hopper and Nancy back at the van and get home safe before bedtime. Steve had, of course, chosen you as his partner. He always did.
And it had been fine. The two of you walking through the Upside down side by side, being observant as always. Careful as alway. Eyes wandering occasionally to each other, a silent question.
You okay?
Soft smiles shared, elbows brushing each other. Maybe you hadn’t been careful enough. Maybe you’d let your guard down a little. Too used to the safety being around Steve provided. Too reliant on the fact nothing bad had happened before.
Until it did.
The single demodog Steve spotted first, his hand reaching out with lighting speed to yank your vest. You’d stopped, almost falling backwards into him. Eyes wide, fear beginning to course through you.
“Don’t make any noise.” Steve whispered, watching the demo carefully as it sniffed the mulchy ground. “Just back up slowly.”
You had nodded, taking a careful step backward, eyes darting between the ground and the dog. Steve backed up with you, one hand on your back, the other gripped around his bat.
Slowly.
Too slow.
The demodog had lifted its head, turning just as Steve’s boot came down on a rotten branch he hadn’t seen. The loud crunch echoing through the woods.
And then running.
Your heart racing, pounding in your chest. Your throat constricts, keeping in the scream you wanted to let out. The scream which would just lead you quicker to an ugly demise.
Steve ran as fast as he could beside you, his head in a state of limbo, half turned between you and the demodog scrabbling through the forest towards you.
“Run! Keep running okay?”
“Steve!”
“KEEP RUNNING!”
You gripped his hand as he’d pulled you down the hill, the demo running into a tree, buying you some time. Steve led you out of the woods, to the edge of the lake-
The dry lake of the upside down. Nothing but creeping vines and the stench of rotten fish.
The lake which held the closest exit. An emergency call Steve had to make to save the both of you.
“You have to run. Go to the rift and swim out of here!”
“Steve- you know I can’t swim. I can barely hold my breath for long-”
“You have to try. I’ll be right behind you. I’ll get you out of there.”
“I can’t-”
“Yes, you can. You have to”
His dark eyes were wild. They were scared. His hand gripped your arm like a lifeline. Like he was willing you to trust him.
You trusted him. You always had.
The growling of the demo had grown closer. Steve pressed a kiss to your temple, pushing you towards the glowing rift. You had run, glancing back to see Steve shifting into position, his bat at the ready as the demodog charged.
You ran to the edge of the rift, the tear in reality pulsing a red- orange. You glanced back once more, watching Steve as he swung, the bat tearing open the demo’s side as it lunged.
Steve turns once yelling at you to dive. To get out.
And then you were diving head first into the rift, taking a deep breath before the water hit you like a cold wave.
The darkness was blinding, the pressure building too fast, leaving you disoriented.
And Steve.
Steve still hadn’t come.
You want to close your eyes and sleep. Slip away into the soft dream that was calling you. Away from the darkness. Away from the cold. The pain. The confusion.
But you had to hold on. Steve was coming.
He had to be. He always came for you.
“I’ll be right beside you. Not gonna let anything happen to you.” Steve tightened the strap of his pack, giving you a soft look. You roll your eyes, gently pushing his shoulder.
“You’re such a romantic Steve.”
“What can I say? I’m always going to be here.”
You want to go home. To wash the stink of the upside down away and slip into bed next to Steve. Watch as he puts on those ugly sweatpants you hate but he loves, turn on one of those terrible tapes you both liked to rent.
You wanted to go back to the Hawkins you remembered. The quiet streets and farm backroads, the town which once was lively and beautiful in a haunting way. The diner Steve liked to go for their flapjacks, the kind he drowned in syrup just so you could kiss the extra clean. The library where Steve had kissed you senseless in the study rooms, the two of you sneaking around like you were still kids.
You want the arcade where you’d tag along on his nights out with Dustin and the other kids. Watching as he argued about everyday things, Steve’s smile brighter than the sun when he was able to make Lucas laugh.
Nights spent playing board games in the Wheeler’s basement, not plotting the next crawl. Summer afternoons spent in the pool, teasing and kissing as the water lapped against your bare bodies, not sinking at the bottom of the lake. Waiting for Steve to rescue you.
Steve…
He’s the only thing you see besides the darkness. His face vivid against the back of your closing eyelids.
“Hey. Sleepyhead.”
You mumble, rolling over on the station’s couch. You vaguely register Steve laughing, his hand warm against the back of your neck as he tries to shake you awake again.
“Baby, you’ve got to wake up. It’s time.”
“For what?” You grumble.
“Time to go home.”
“Home?”
“Yeah. Time to go home.” You blink, a soft smile on your face. Steve smiles down at you softly, thumb brushing against your hairline as he looks at you with all the love in the world.
“Okay. Okay, I’m ready.”
"You got everything?" He asks as he helps you stand.
"Just you. And that's all I need, really."
Steve…
Steve breaks through the surface of Lover’s Lake with a sobbing gasp. It’s dark outside, the stars dim, the moon hiding behind the clouds. Like even the sky knew what they were about to witness was not something they wanted to see.
“Come on baby,” Steve gasps as he grips your limp body. You were pale, lips blue, lashes still against your cheek. “Come on!”
He says it more for himself. As a reminder he had to push. He had to get you to land. To safety. Steve had promised he’d come after you. He promised he’d get you out of the lake.
You'd already been under for too long. Steve had been too long in making sure the demo wouldn't follow, too slow in running towards the rift. The demo had pounced, leaving a terrible, bloody wound in his side.
But when he had dove in after you, heart racing, his side aching from a hit he’d taken, his heart had dropped.
The change in pressure had been disorienting. The water freezing, the cold washing over him like a shot to the heart. It was challenging for him, a well trained swimmer.
It was a catastrophe for you. You who couldn’t swim.
Steve had never swam so fast in his life before.
The lake laps against his face, and he shakes his hair out of his face, grunting as he pushes through the water. You bob behind him, head limp against your shoulder in a painfully still position.
“I’m here baby-” Steve pants as he finally reaches the shallow end of the lake, guiding your body towards the pebbly shore. He pulls you by the vest, the sound of your body dragging sickening. His hands are clammy as he checks your pulse, your skin frozen against his.
Steve’s heart practically stops when he realizes he can’t find your pulse.
“No, no. Hey, come on.” Steve peels off his wet sweater, tee shirt clinging to his skin. “Come on honey!”
He begins chest compressions, hands working hard against your chest. Steve wishes he could look away. Wishes he could wake up from this nightmare; roll over and spoon you, tucking you into him in the way he always found comforting.
Steve yells your name out into the night air of the lake, his lips covering yours as he breathes air into your lungs. You had to wake up.
You had to.
“Steve. Have you seen my- is that an ABBA tape?”
“Uh… yes.” Steve laughs nervously, hiding it quickly. “You weren’t supposed to see this yet.”
“Why not?” You beam, coming beside Steve as he rifles through a box of things Murray had just delivered. “This is my favorite song on the album.”
Steve sighs, giving you a look.
“It’s for a surprise. And you asking questions is going to ruin it.”
“Oh,” you nod, smiling. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“No, we wouldn’t nosy.”
“I’m not nosy.”
“You are if you’re still here trying to see what else I got from Santa Claus.”
“Well, I’m trying to see if my boyfriend got me those boots I wanted.”
“Of course I did. What kind of a boyfriend do you think I am?”
Of course Steve had. He never got anything for himself. Besides those stupid peanut butter boppers you hated but still shared with him because he insisted.
Of course he had gotten you that tape, because hearing you sing along in the car was one of the things that brightened his day. That made the nightmares a little less scary.
The one thing he had gotten for himself had still been for you. The little silver ring hidden inside the tape.
The one he was going to propose to you with.
The one which glinted uselessly on the shore now, falling out of the pocket of his sweater as he had tossed it aside.
“Honey, come on! I need you to wake up. Please wake up. I can’t- you can’t leave me. Not now. After everything-”
Steve presses his lips against yours again, trying to will the air into your lungs. Trying to pound the life into your heart as he presses down on your ribcage.
But it’s no use.
You’re still at his touch. Lashes unmoving, lips still blue. Silent.
Not even a breath left to whisper an I love you.
Had Steve told you he loved you? Did you even know just how much he cared about you, how much he needed you here.
After everyone you'd lost, everything you both had been through. You couldn't just leave. Not like this. Your face wasn't supposed to become another ghost to haunt his dreams.
You were always in his dreams. The future he’d been planning, the thing that he held onto in the twisted routine of Hawkins, was just you. You were his future.
Steve was serious about everything. The house. The kids. The backyard.
But it was all slipping away, like the tide erasing footprints in the sand. Slipping away as he held your cold body, his throat raw and aching as he sobbed into your hair.
“Why are you crying?”
Steve looks up, palm wiping his wet lashes quickly. You frown in the doorway of the bathroom, pajamas loose around your frame.
“I’m not crying.”
“What- and you always let a few tears go in the middle of the night?” You cross your arms.
“It’s nothing,” Steve mumbles, looking away. You shake your head, padding closer, your arms wrapping around his middle.
“Steve… I trust you with everything. I have since day one. And I want you to know you can trust me too.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you crying.” Steve swallows thickly.
“I… had a bad dream. It’s silly really.”
You hum, cheek resting against Steve’s back. Your fingers rest on his stomach, the presence of your hands already easing the tension of the nightmare.
“I’m sure it’s not.” Steve sighs.
“I dreamt you left me. One moment you were there and then, bam. You were gone.”
“That sounds awful. I just left you?”
“In the blink of an eye. And I couldn’t do anything to get you back.” You slip your arms out from around Steve, hand reaching up to cup his cheek.
“Honey, I’m right here. You don’t have to be afraid.”
“But-”
“Steve. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. I’ve wormed my way into your heart,” you tap his chest.
“And I’m going to love you till the day I die, Steve Harrington.”
“You promise?”
“Of course I do.”
Steve just holds onto you.
Willing you to take one more breath. To hear one last "I love you."
warnings: enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort (because it's me, c'mon), lots of angst, takes place pre-season 5 and will continue as it progresses, 18+, smut in later chapters, steve being steve and trying to fix the past again :'((
summary:
you escaped hawkins the moment you graduated. ran from the gossip, the memories, the high school years you couldn’t wait to leave behind. college was supposed to fix all of that.
but life has a cruel way of circling back, and somehow you found yourself returning to the town you swore you were done with. a job at the radio station gave you purpose again, something steady to cling to in a place that no longer felt like home.
then he walked back into your life.
steve harrington. the bane of your high school existence. the golden boy who managed to be every bit as infuriating as you remembered.
one look at him drags up memories you’ve spent years trying to bury, and the worst part? he’s truly bought into this whole “changed man” narrative, acting like he’s shed the version of himself who helped make your teens miserable.
but when home begins to unravel in ways you never believed possible, he’s the one person you keep crashing into. the one who refuses to let you slip through the cracks no matter how hard you try.
and some awful, aching part of you is beginning to wonder if steve harrington might be the only one capable of piecing you back together. right as the rest of the world threatens to break you for good.
part one ★ prologue
reliving the humiliation that drove you out of hawkins and the moment steve harrington proved he was no hero, you realise that things never stray too far from "home"
part two ★ sanctuary
just as you finally settle into something that feels like comfort, the one person who took it from you all those years ago threatens to take it away once more
part three ★ interference
a late-night break-in shatters a fragile sense of safety, bringing the past crashing into the present
part four ★ collision
steve attempts to apologise for the previous night, but it quickly becomes clear he doesn’t understand the weight of what he’s done
part five ★ terms
you give them a tour, not an invitation. steve learns just how much distance still lives between you
part six ★ first show
you bear witness to the station moving without you, and steve learns that doing everything right doesn’t guarantee feeling whole
part seven ★ unscheduled
you return to the station expecting your orders to be followed, only to be confronted with the consequences of your own actions
part eight ★ infiltration
small victories blur into something riskier, and steve starts to understand that making things right may cost more than he’s prepared for
part nine ★ progress
a malfunction at the station results in boundaries tested, and the inconvenient realisation that some people don’t stay the same
part ten ★ shift
an ordinary day winds down into an unordinary offer, where both you and steve realise the history between you needs to be confronted sooner rather than later
part eleve ★ reckoning
a forced conversation cracks open years of silence, and neither of you is ready for what spills out
cw- henderson!reader, steve harrington the d1 yearner, you are lowkey a little brat, steve is def into it tho, mentions of drinking, mentions of starcourt trauma, breakup :(, sexual themes (ish), LMK IF I MISSED ANY!!
from jules- as always, not proofread 🙏 fuck it we ball. anyways i originally wrote this for my conrad x oc fic but i loved the set up so i straight up stole it LMFAO. quick little oneshot ig bc im procrastinating working on the other 10 unfinished projects i have :) I MEAN IT THIS TIME WHEN I SAY I WILL COME BACK TO EDIT eventually.
Even in your most volatile, unreasonable, borderline insufferable moments, Steve Harrington would never have wished this on you.
Which was saying something, because you had given him plenty of material over the years.
He didn’t want to be here.
Not anymore.
He hadn’t even known you would be here.
That seemed important, somehow. If anyone ever asked, he could point to that and prove this wasn’t what it looked like. He hadn’t shown up hoping to run into you. He hadn’t parked outside some stupid house party with your name already caught behind his teeth.
He was here because of Robin.
Robin had spent half their shift at Family Video pretending not to worry about him, which mostly meant insulting him until he accidentally understood she cared. She said he needed to get out more. Steve said he got out plenty.
Robin had stared at him over a stack of returned tapes until he realized, with some irritation, that driving Dustin to the arcade and waiting in the parking lot like a divorced dad did not count as a social life.
So now he was standing near the wall at a party full of people he either barely remembered, actively disliked, or had once tried way too hard to impress.
Recognizing faces and no longer knowing what they were supposed to mean to him. Guys he used to laugh too loudly with in kitchens. Girls he used to flirt with because flirting was easier than having an actual conversation. People who had once looked at him like he was something worth watching, back when he still knew what to do with attention.
Parties like this used to feel built for him: too much beer, too much noise, too many people pretending they were having the best night of their lives because admitting otherwise would ruin the whole thing.
Once, Steve had been good at that. Great, even. He knew where to stand, who to smile at, when to laugh like he meant it. He knew how to make a room turn toward him.
Now the whole house felt like it was breathing wrong.
Heat pressed beneath the ceiling until the air tasted like stale beer, cheap weed, and something sugary enough to sour in the back of his throat. Music rattled through the walls and climbed the soles of his shoes, every bassline knocking somewhere behind his teeth.
People filled every corner of the house, laughing too loud, moving too close, spilling into doorways and hallways like the place had taken in more bodies than it knew how to hold
Someone bumped his shoulder without looking back.
Steve glanced after him, unimpressed.
Near the kitchen, a group of girls shrieked over nothing while some guy stacked empty cans into a leaning tower with the solemn focus of someone discovering architecture. Two boys argued over whose turn it was to pick the next tape. Somebody near the stairs yelled something that made half the room laugh and the other half pretend they had heard it.
Steve stayed near the wall, arms folded loosely, his eyes moving over the room out of habit.
Front door. Windows. Staircase. Kitchen. Backyard.
He found them before anything else: before faces, before music, before the girl laughing too hard from the arm of the couch.
It wasn’t a decision anymore. His body did it for him now, the same way it still tensed at sudden footsteps behind him, the same way fluorescent lights could send pain flickering behind his eyes before he remembered why.
A few weeks ago, he might have hated himself for thinking like that at a party.
Now he barely noticed himself doing it.
He hated the noise, the heat, the sticky press of bodies pretending this was fun instead of a few hundred people trying to outrun themselves for the night.
Then he heard your laugh.
It wasn’t loud, or even close to the sharpest sound in the room, but it was familiar enough that Steve’s body recognized it before his mind could argue.
His stomach twisted with the kind of recognition he hated, immediate and embarrassing, like some part of him had been waiting for you before he even knew you were there.
You were near the open windows, half-turned toward a cluster of people Steve didn’t recognize, your hair loose over your shoulders and catching in the porch light whenever you moved. You spun once in a slow, careless circle, laughing at something one of them said, your skirt riding higher on your thighs than you seemed to realize. The red plastic cup in your hand tipped with every gesture, close enough to spilling that Steve almost managed to focus on that instead.
Almost.
You looked bright in a way that made the rest of the room feel badly lit.
It annoyed him, how easily his mind tried to do that. Steve had seen you with pillow marks on your face, old sweatshirts swallowing your hands, and Dustin’s cereal crumbs stuck to your sock. He had watched you threaten bodily harm over the last Pop-Tart at the Hendersons’ kitchen table. He knew the real version of you too well to turn you into some untouchable thing under a porch light, no matter how badly his brain kept trying.
Still, his eyes stayed on you.
Judging by the glances you kept pulling from across the room, Steve wasn’t the only one struggling to look away.
Attention gathered around you in small, ugly increments: a pause in conversation, a glance held too long, someone laughing half a second late because they had lost track of whatever they were pretending to listen to.
The whole room wasn’t watching you.
A room full of staring would have been easier for Steve to hate.
The scattered glances made it harder to dismiss, because Steve could follow each one back to a face. One guy let his eyes stay on you until Steve noticed him noticing. Another looked away only after his friend nudged him, grinning into his cup like he had been caught doing something funny instead of something that made Steve’s jaw tighten.
Someone near the hallway watched your mouth while you talked, his gaze dropping whenever you laughed and your skirt slipped higher on your thighs. You kept smiling through it, loose and unguarded, and Steve couldn’t tell whether you missed the looks entirely or had simply learned to move through them without giving anyone the satisfaction of flinching.
Heat crawled up the back of Steve’s neck. Another guy didn’t bother hiding it at all, watching you openly with the lazy entitlement of someone who had never once been told to look away. Steve’s fingers flexed against his own arm before he forced them still.
He tracked a few more before he could stop himself, his attention catching on every glance that lingered too long. Steve felt his expression harden before he managed to pull it back into something neutral. His breath caught high in his chest, and he looked away for half a second as if breaking eye contact with the room might keep him from doing something stupid.
Steve reached for the safest explanation first.
Feelings involving you had always been easier to handle once he gave them someone else’s name.
Tonight, that name was Dustin.
Dustin was his best friend. Dustin trusted him with things he probably should have questioned harder. Rides home. Monster plans. Secrets too big for kids. His sister, apparently, even if Dustin had never said that part out loud.
Dustin would lose his absolute shit if he saw his sister standing in the middle of this room, drunk and bright-eyed, surrounded by guys who treated wanting you like permission.
The logic felt thin even as he tried to believe it.
Thin enough that, for one dangerous second, Steve almost had to admit Dustin had very little to do with the way he was looking at you.
Your laugh still did something strange to his chest. His eyes still found you first in any crowd. The feeling he had spent years refusing to name had only gotten meaner with time, settling deeper every time he gave it another chance to leave.
He tried Dustin’s name again anyway.
It still sounded almost believable if he didn’t look too closely.
You were Dustin’s sister, and there were rules to that kind of thing, even if nobody had ever bothered writing them down. Robin would tell him this counted as normal concern. The kids would expect him to do something. Any decent person would step in.
The excuse survived for about three seconds.
He had dated other girls. He had tried to like them fairly. He had tried to stop measuring every laugh, every argument, every easy silence against you. He had told himself, over and over, that eventually he would walk into a room and stop searching for you before he even knew he was doing it.
Sometimes he managed it for a little while, which almost made the failure worse.
By now, the truth had lost the courtesy of feeling new.
Realizations were supposed to arrive once, change everything, and leave you alone. This one had stayed with him for years, patient and humiliating, waiting in the background until the sound of your laugh dragged it forward again.
Someone shouted near the kitchen. Laughter broke over the music. A shoulder clipped Steve as he stepped forward, and he barely felt it.
His attention narrowed until the rest of the room blurred around the edges.
He hated how naturally his body knew where to go.
All that effort trying to move on, and one bad party was enough for his first instinct to betray him.
Before he could remind himself how badly this usually ended, Steve started moving.
He cut through the crowd before he could talk himself out of it, slipping between bodies that shifted too slowly and shoulders that knocked into him without apology. The room smelled like sweat, stale beer, and something sour-sweet that made his head pound harder with every step.
Someone shouted near his ear, and a drink sloshed cold against his sleeve.
Steve kept moving.
When he finally reached you, his hand found your arm before he had figured out what he was allowed to say.
His grip stayed careful, just enough to steady you when you turned too quickly and your cup tipped dangerously in your other hand. Your skin was warm beneath his fingers, your pulse jumping fast enough that his grip loosened on instinct.
You were too warm, though Steve couldn’t tell if it was the crowded room, the August heat still trapped under your skin, or whatever you had been drinking.
He blamed the room first, because the other possibilities made his stomach tighten.
You startled at his touch and turned too quickly, your hair slipping over one shoulder as your eyes searched his face. For a second, your gaze stayed unfocused, caught somewhere between alcohol and surprise, before recognition slowly pulled you back to him.
“Steve?”
You said his name like you weren’t sure whether to believe in him or be angry that he was real. Your voice came out softer than the look in your eyes, disbelieving in a way that reached him before he could protect himself from it.
It hit a place in him he had spent the better part of the past antagonizing weeks pretending into silence. Once, hearing you say his name like that would have made something in him unclench. Your voice used to be one of the few sounds that could pull him back into himself after a bad night, after a fight, after one of those ugly stretches when his parents’ house felt too big and too empty to survive.
Now the same sound made him feel sick.
He hated how badly he still wanted it.
He hated that your voice could still make him hope before he had time to stop it.
“Come on,” he muttered, already glancing past you toward the door. “Let’s get some air.”
Your brows pulled together. “What? Steve, I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” he said, failing to keep the disbelief out of his voice. “You look super fine.”
You made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had come out less confused, but Steve was already guiding you away from the group before anyone could decide they had earned the right to comment. He didn’t drag you. At least, he didn’t think he did. His hand stayed around your arm, loose enough for you to pull free if you wanted, steady enough to keep you from swaying into the guy behind you when the crowd pressed too close.
That was the version he could live with.
The hallway narrowed near the front of the house, bodies closing in on both sides, and Steve’s hand moved to the small of your back before he could think better of it. The motion came from habit before thought, the kind of habit he should have broken by now.
His palm settled there for half a second too long, warm through the thin fabric of your shirt, and the familiarity of it hit so hard he almost missed a step. He remembered guiding you through movie theater aisles that way, through crowded school hallways when you walked too close on purpose and pretended you hadn’t, around the Hendersons’ kitchen when Dustin left cabinet doors hanging open and you walked backward through the mess, laughing at something Steve had said.
Touching you used to be easy. You would have noticed his hand immediately back then, then made some stupid little comment just to watch him trip over himself. Closeness had felt like a dare then, something both of you kept pretending not to start.
He should have moved his hand.
He didn’t.
Moving it now would prove he had noticed where it was. Leaving it there was probably worse, but then the crowd shifted and your shoulder brushed his chest, close enough to knock every decent reason for letting go clean out of his head.
Now the same closeness made his chest ache with everything he no longer knew how to do with. Whatever the two of you had become was too careful for casual touch, and Steve knew that, which made the fact that his hand was still there feel even worse.
Your laugh slipped out again, sharper this time, carrying none of the warmth it had across the room.
“You don’t get to boss me around, Steven.”
You twisted against his hold, trying to pull free, and Steve’s stomach dropped as he realized how it must have felt from your side. He let go so quickly that you nearly stumbled from the sudden lack of resistance.
“Okay,” he said, lifting his hands where you could see them. “Okay. I’m not trying to grab you.”
Of course you fought him on it. You had never reacted well to being handled like a problem someone else had already solved. Especially by him. By anyone, really. Your stubbornness could look almost pretty from a distance, all lifted chin and steady eyes, until someone got close enough to feel how brutal it became when you decided surrender would cost too much.
Steve had told himself he hated that about you more times than he could count.
“You’re drunk,” Steve said.
The words landed colder than he intended. They were easier than every honest thing he refused to say. He couldn’t stand the way those guys had been looking at you. You were drunk and warm and angry, still close enough for every old instinct in him to start making promises he had no right to keep. Some selfish part of him still reacted to you like you were his problem. Like you were still his person. Even after everything.
Your eyes narrowed on him, and even through the soft blur of alcohol, the anger in your expression came through clearly enough to make his stomach sink. Beneath it was something wounded and familiar, the kind of hurt he recognized too quickly and still did not know how to face.
Steve knew that look too well to pretend it was only anger. You looked at him that way when you had already decided he was about to disappoint you and were bracing yourself to be right.
“So you think I need saving?” you demanded, your brows drawing together as if the question itself offended you.
Your voice rose enough to draw curious glances from the people closest to you. Steve stepped closer when he noticed people pretending not to listen. The hallway had gone nosy in that awful party way, everyone glancing over while pretending their own conversations still had their attention.
He lowered his voice near your ear, close enough that no one else would hear him make the mistake he already felt coming.
“I think—” Steve stopped, jaw tight. “I know you deserve better than this.”
For one brief second, something in your expression shifted. The anger stayed, but it faltered long enough for him to glimpse the girl he used to know, back before every conversation between you became a contest in who could care less convincingly. The girl who used to sit beside him on quiet summer nights, talking until the streetlights hummed overhead and neither of you wanted to go home first. The girl who had trusted him once, before he gave you reasons to stop.
Before he got scared and dressed it up as honesty.
Before you believed him enough to leave.
Then you blinked, lifted your chin, and whatever he had almost reached closed off before he could touch it.
“Go to hell, Steve.”
You turned sharply and headed for the front door, pride carrying you almost three full steps before your foot caught on the bunched-up doormat. Steve reached out on instinct, then stopped when you caught yourself against the doorframe before he could touch you again.
Steve exhaled hard through his nose.
You were somehow even more stubborn when you were drunk.
Unfortunately for both of you, Steve Harrington had spent years learning how to survive stubborn Hendersons. That kind of knowledge didn’t come all at once. It came from years of kitchen arguments, half-apologies in driveways, slammed bedroom doors, and Dustin shouting through walls like volume could fix emotional damage.
He had learned it from the way you stormed off mid-argument with your chin lifted high enough to make defiance look like a life raft. He had learned it from the way you refused to look at him and still somehow knew exactly where he was standing. He had learned it every time you tried to outrun your own feelings and ended up circling right back to them, furious with everyone else for noticing.
Mostly, he had learned that you didn’t stop just because someone told you to. If Steve wanted you to listen, he had to give you a reason worth stopping for.
So when you pulled free with one hard twist of your wrist and spun toward the door, Steve didn’t pretend to be surprised.
You moved fast, hair whipping across your shoulder as you shoved through the front door without looking back, disappearing into the night with the same furious certainty you brought to arguments you had already decided to win.
The door fell shut behind you. It barely made a sound, only a soft clap of wood against the frame, but Steve still felt it land somewhere behind his ribs.
For a second, Steve stayed in the entryway, caught between giving you space and remembering how often space had turned into silence between you.
The party swallowed him again the second you were gone. Someone shrieked near the kitchen. A bottle clinked against the counter. The music kept pulsing through the walls, thick and mindless, while the house carried on around him as if nothing important had happened.
When Steve pushed the door open and stepped outside, the night hit him all at once.
The open air should have helped. Before Starcourt, it probably would have. Now even quiet took him a second to trust.
Warm air clung to his skin, heavy with cut grass, damp pavement, and the dusty smell of the gravel road beyond the yard. Behind him, the music dulled as the door swung shut, sinking into the walls until it became a muffled thud beneath the softer sounds of the night: crickets in the tall grass, leaves shifting overhead, laughter drifting from the backyard where people lingered beneath the string lights.
The porch light spilled across the steps in a warm square and stretched his shadow across the lawn.
You were already halfway across it.
You walked like anger was the only thing holding you together. Your shoulders were tense, your posture rigid, every step aimed toward the road with enough purpose that Steve knew calling your name would only make you move faster.
For a moment, he watched you go.
Your hair moved against your back as you crossed in and out of the porch light, dark one second, gold-edged the next. From there, you looked untouchable, almost unreal against the ordinary Hawkins dark, and Steve hated how easily his mind still turned you into that. Into something distant. Something impossible. Something he had already lost before he even opened his mouth.
Steve exhaled hard through his nose and followed.
He knew calling your name would only make you move faster. He knew it before he opened his mouth, because you would cross the whole damn yard on pure spite before giving him the satisfaction of stopping.
He called after you anyway.
“Y/N, wait.”
His voice carried too clearly through the quiet yard, cutting over the crickets and the muffled bass leaking from the house behind him.
You didn’t look back.
Your pace quickened, your shoes brushing harshly through the grass as if you could outwalk the sound of him through sheer force of will.
Steve dragged a hand through his hair as frustration tightened behind his ribs. “You know I’m not just gonna let you—”
He stopped before the sentence could finish itself.
Let you what? Walk home? Be angry? Make your own choices?
The answer should have been simple. Standing there with you storming toward the road, it wasn’t.
“Y/N,” he called again, sharper than he meant to.
That one reached you. He saw it in the small break of your stride, in the way your shoulders tightened beneath the porch light while every part of you seemed to fight the urge to turn around.
Then you kept going. Faster, of course, because stopping would mean admitting his voice could still reach you.
Steve closed the distance in a few long strides. He cut across the lawn and got ahead of you, planting himself between you and the road.
You stopped short, your whole body pulling back as if the sight of him there offended you on principle.
“Seriously?” you snapped.
Steve lifted both hands, palms open, trying to look less like an obstacle after planting himself directly in your path.
“I’m not grabbing you,” he said, breath uneven from the quick walk across the yard. “I’m trying really hard to avoid making this worse.”
Your mouth tightened, and Steve could practically see the argument taking shape before you opened your mouth.
He got there first.
“Let me walk you home.”
You stared at him like he had said something much worse.
His voice came out lower than he meant it to, stripped down by the quiet yard and the sick feeling sitting beneath his ribs. The anger had gone out of him somewhere between the porch and the lawn. What remained sounded tired. Worried too, though Steve wished that part were less obvious. Honest enough that he knew he would regret it the second you found a way to use it against him.
“Please,” he added, softer this time. “You can hate me the whole way there. I don’t care. Just don’t walk home alone.”
His voice stayed low, stripped of the sharp edge he usually reached for when a fight started feeling too honest. The tiredness in it made you angrier. Honest Steve was always harder to argue with than defensive Steve.
“Honestly, Henderson, I’m kind of counting on it.” He added.
Your brows pulled together.
“I don’t need you,” you said, the words unsteady enough to betray the alcohol and sharp enough to pretend they hadn’t. “And i’m glad you find this funny, asshole.”
Steve had the sudden sense that you had carried those words across the lawn like a weapon, waiting until you were close enough to make them hurt.
Steve kept his hands where they were. The instinct still pulled at him. He hated that most. Some stupid, panicked part of him still wanted to catch your wrist, hold you still, and make you listen long enough to understand that he was trying to help.
He kept his hands open at his sides and stayed planted between you and the road, like an idiot who had convinced himself that being less wrong counted as being right.
Your glare fixed on him with enough heat that Steve almost missed being ignored.
“You don’t get to do this,” you said.
He swallowed, even though he knew better than to ask. “Do what?”
“This.” You gestured sharply between the two of you, like the word could barely hold everything you meant. “Showing up out of nowhere. Acting like nothing happened.”
Steve studied you for a moment, really looked, in the way he knew you hated because it made hiding from him almost impossible.
He saw the tight line of your jaw first, then the rigid set of your shoulders, then the way your eyes kept skimming over his face without settling for more than a second. You were trying so hard to look furious that anyone else might have missed the hurt underneath.
Steve didn’t miss it.
He had never been good at missing you.
“Walking you home isn’t exactly a crime,” he said quietly.
“That is so clearly beside the point.”
“Then what is?”
That stopped you.
Steve watched the answer rise behind your eyes and get stuck before it reached your mouth. For once, your own silence seemed to catch you off guard, as if you had expected the anger to keep carrying you and hated him for finding the place where it gave out.
For all your sharp edges, all your big talk and practiced indifference, you were nowhere near ready to say it out loud.
You reached for anger again.
Your mouth tightened, and you tried to step around him, your shoulder brushing his as you made for the road.
This time, Steve let you pass. He turned with you instead, falling into step half a pace behind your shoulder, close enough to stay with you and far enough away to prove he had heard you.
Your frustration sharpened. “You’re unbelievable.”
“So you’ve told me,” he said, because apparently self-preservation had abandoned him somewhere between the porch and the lawn.
“Steve,” you warned, and somehow his name sounded worse than an insult.
Your mouth tightened around the next words before you said them, as if some part of you knew exactly where they would land.
“I don’t need you anymore.”
Steve went still.
For a second, the yard quieted around him. The crickets, the muffled music behind the door, the distant laughter from the backyard — all of it thinned until there was only your face and that sentence between you.
He could have argued. A younger version of him would have. He would have gotten defensive, said something stupid, and turned hurt into volume because volume was easier than admitting you had found the place that still bruised.
Steve swallowed once and nodded.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I heard you.”
That threw you more than an argument would have.
He glanced toward the road, then back at you. “I’m not standing here while you walk home drunk in the dark just because you’re pissed at me. Let me get you home, and then you can slam the door in my face.”
Your eyes narrowed.
His mouth twitched, though the rest of his face stayed serious.
For a long moment, neither of you said anything.
The night settled closer around you, warm and humming with crickets, the music inside reduced to a muffled thud behind the door. You hated the way Steve looked at you then, like he could still tell which parts of your anger were real and which parts had been built to keep him away.
You wanted to shove past him. You wanted to say something cruel enough to make him finally stop looking at you like he understood. You wanted to burn whatever was left between you before he could find a way to touch it again.
You didn’t move.
Something in you faltered, too small for anyone else to notice. Your anger stayed bright enough to hide behind, though for one brief second it lost its aim.
The silence stretched between you, crowded with everything the two of you had never learned how to say when it mattered. You could feel it in the careful space between his body and yours, in the way he held himself back, in the way your own feet stayed planted even though every sensible part of you knew they should move.
You wanted to step away. You wanted to tell him to leave you alone with enough conviction that he would have no choice but to believe you.
Instead, you stayed there, caught between anger and the part of you that still knew exactly how close he was standing.
Then you tried to move past him.
It was barely anything, just a shift of your shoulder and one stubborn step toward the road, but Steve reacted before either of you could think. His hand lifted, careful this time, catching yours for half a second when you brushed against him.
His thumb brushed once over the inside of your wrist.
Both of you went still.
His thumb had found the small birthmark there, the one he used to kiss when you were younger and reckless enough to believe tenderness could survive anything.
Steve dropped your hand almost immediately, as if the memory had burned him.
Your breath caught anyway.
The night settled around you again, warm and quiet except for the crickets and the muffled pulse of music behind the door. Whatever had opened at the brush of his thumb stayed open after he let go. It stayed there, fragile and awful, pulling the memory of your breakup into the space between you without either of you saying a word.
You broke first.
You pulled your hand back, firmly enough to remind both of you that the moment had gone soft too quickly and you were nowhere near ready to admit it.
Steve didn’t stop you.
This time, he let you take the first step toward the street.
Then he followed at your side.
Neither of you said anything as you crossed the yard and stepped onto the road.
The silence had weight. It moved with you, caught in the careful distance Steve kept from your side, in the stubborn angle of your face turned toward the road, in the way you refused to look at him while still noticing every step he took.
Steve filled that silence with lies.
He told himself he did this for Dustin. For Claudia, too, because Mrs. Henderson would skin him alive if she found out he had let you walk home drunk in the dark. For Robin, who would give him that awful knowing look over the Family Video counter and ask when, exactly, he had become so committed to being an idiot.
He gathered excuses as you walked, one after another, and each one fell apart before the next driveway.
He wanted to be there.
He wanted to be the person walking beside you in the dark, close enough to catch the first unsteady step and far enough away to let you pretend his presence meant nothing. He wanted the miserable privilege of being near you after you had looked him in the face and told him there was no place left for him in your life.
He glanced over at you, at the stubborn line of your profile turned toward the road, and felt something old settle back into place with a pain so familiar it almost felt ordinary.
He had spent so long arranging his life around the loss of you that he had started calling the shape it left behind progress.
Walking beside you now, with summer pressing warm against his skin and your anger keeping pace beside him, Steve ran out of room to pretend.
He loved you.
He had built an entire life around keeping that fact quiet.
pairing: best friend!steve harrington x fem!reader
word count: 3.7k words
description: the summer changed you two forever.
important warnings: 18+ content, MDNI!!, no use of y/n or descriptors but reader has a backstory, no smut just angst, this one is heavy, mentions of intense depression and ptsd, flashbacks to childhood, steve's has medical issues in the aftermath of s3, reader is mentally unstable, mentions of using alcohol to cope with it, nightmares, using medication, rejection, kissing, no happy ending (yet).
this is a multi-part series: part one - two
author's note: hank you all for the love on this series. i have so much more to share with you. I promise the love and happiness is coming soon, just gotta get them through the rough stuff. pls like, reblog, and comment <3
playlist while listening: end of august by noah kahan / the cure by olivia rodrigo / fine line by harry styles / peace by taylor swift
You were a terrible smoker.
You were always attempting to take in more smoke than your lungs could handle. The coughs and hacks were constant and guttural.
But you needed something to fixate on that was not Steve’s shirtless body being backlit by the sunset across the lake. He’s submerged up to his chest, wading and looking towards the same beautiful sky you were taking in. Every time you saw the expanse of his shoulders and his bare chest, you envision those horrible bruises that riddled his tanned skin. They have finally faded with time, but you can picture them so clearly.
August was always humid in Hawkins, but this past week, it’s been overwhelmingly muggy and potent.
You were going to miss moments like this. The simplicity and the sweat you resent now, but would yearn to feel going down your neck and spine later.
You take another puff, finally not choking immediately.
Steve finally moves from his swaying position to look back, eyeing you up on the rock formation you are sprawled across. You never swam in the lake, always taking up the real estate on the shore or tucking yourself up on a rock to observe Steve’s backstroke or look out for fish in the shallow end.
“You never get better with those things,” He mutters, standing up and brushing his hand across his nice-toned stomach.
He slowly moves up to the shore, dropping onto the muddy grass with an oof. He had not said much to you the entire time you two had been here, which you didn’t mind. You were caught up in your own rattling thoughts.
It had been almost two months since the mall fire. That’s what the local news and townspeople have been labelling it.
You were grappling with the nightmares and living in a constant state of anxiety throughout every single day since. Being in public was overwhelming, which made your job search fruitless. Your parents were not pressuring you much. They knew that what you had gone through was crippling you from doing your normal tasks.
Your only partial solace is being with Steve. He made you feel safe in a way not even your mother made you feel. A shared experience and an unspoken understanding that no one in the world could even comprehend.
There was still this part of your soul that had been stripped away. You had been obsessive about trying to narrow down what made you so anxious, but you did not know if you should search for it or accept that this is how you would be forever.
You had been attached to Steve’s hip, sure, but he’s only a mere mortal. He cannot make you any better.
But he has yet to complain about you being near him all the time. If anything, it seems like he is enjoying your time together, distracting him from some of the weird medical stuff he’s been dealing with and that residual anxiety he tried to shield from your prying eyes.
Two weeks ago, you drove out to the audiologist a few hours away with him because of the constant ringing in his ears. He held your hand in the waiting room while his leg bounced. When his name was called, you gave him a reassuring smile as he dropped your hand to see if they could solve his problem.
But people are terrible at having answers for either of you.
As the days go on, you notice some slight positive changes, but they are slow to come back.
He’s not shaking his head as much, telling you the ringing actually goes away for small increments during the day. You chalk it up to the variety of medications he’s on.
His fingernails are growing back and aren’t bleeding as much due to his abuse of them. He gnawed them down to the cuticles and had bandaids on every other finger for a month.
Just last week, you were able to actually sleep for more than 4 hours. With the light on. Your doctor has not been notified about your sleeping habits. Or the fact that you cannot close your eyes at night without rehashing the Mindflayer’s wrath and the following days.
You numbed those intense, vivid memories with wine you stole from your father’s large wine cabinet in the basement. It was becoming the only thing you could rely on to pull your thoughts away from that entire incident. You knew it was bad. You knew that you could not get dependent on it. You had only done it three times when you were really desperate and exhausted. You couldn’t shut your eyes without envisioning Steve sacrificing himself for Dustin. Even though that had not happened, your mind became obsessed with laying out that scene. The alcohol numbed you enough that it became a small crutch. But you were becoming uneasy with the idea that you would never feel at peace without it.
You promised yourself two nights ago that you would stop. And you have.
You just wanted to be normal again.
“The more I smoke, the better I get.”
He grimaces at your response. He’s quick to hop up onto your rock throne and snatch the unlit end from your fingers. “Nope.”
“What do you mean nope?”
“Meaning I am not letting you get better at it. Find a new oral fixation.”
You roll your eyes when his dripping wet shorts leave tiny droplets on your bare thigh. He ashes out the cigarette, dropping down next to you.
He was not going to stop you from figuring out a way to redirect your traumatized brain.
“I think it’s time you change the subject.”
You wipe off some of the water with your pointer finger, focusing your eyes elsewhere.
“Fine…I think Robin has a lead on a job,” Steve states as he stretches his shoulders and leans back onto his palms beside you. His long legs hang over the side of the miniature cliff, and he kicks them like a toddler on a swing. He can never sit still.
“Oh, really?” You draw a heart with the residual water, right on your knee. “Where?”
“Before she left, she said that the new video store on Kersey was hiring. Apparently, she knows the manager.”
You hum before you speak, “That’s great, I’m sure she’ll get it. She knows a lot about movies.”
“Maybe we could all get a job there.”
You shoot him a glance. He’s still looking over the lake, now wrapping his arms around his knees. He tucks himself inward, and as he does, his wet thigh brushes over yours.
“I wouldn’t count on that, Steve.”
He smirks, his hazel eyes finally meeting yours. You would not dare look away from him, now. He looked too pretty in the orange and pink hues that took over the entire sky. His hair is slicked back, but three tiny strands are curled onto his forehead. He hasn’t shaved for the last couple of days, so his face is a bit more stubbly.
You wonder if he notices the small things about you. You wonder if he can read your mind and see that you are hiding something from him.
“But just imagine! You, me, Robin,” His brows raise in excitement, “Working in a video store with endless movies to watch.”
“Yeah, it’d be cool, but I am not putting my faith into something like that.”
His face slightly droops, obviously annoyed by your passiveness. You had not been that gung-ho about anything lately. You were overly cautious to really put all your eggs in one basket. And with Steve, he tried to be optimistic if it was something that came to you.
His shoulder pushes you, shifting your ass across the rough platform you were on, “Why are you being a stick in the mud?”
You manage a half-assed giggle, “I’m just being realistic.”
“Well, I’d like to daydream about a world where I get to work with my best friends.”
You stare out over the bugs that are settling over the haze of the lake water.
Life seems simple here. The outdoors have always made you feel some sort of freedom you yearned for growing up. That’s why you loved driving around, too. Fresh air, open road, your best friend by your side. You did not have to worry about the pressure of doing anything. No one was waiting for you. No one needed your input or opinion.
You didn’t have the constant reminder that your childhood was basically behind you.
This summer was really hammering that home.
When September hits, you won’t be able to sit in this spot without a hoodie or jeans on. You liked the piercing sun on your bare legs and shoulders, not the frigid overcast that Indiana was permanently stuck in during the fall.
There was a time when you didn’t mind it. When you got together with friends during October to go trick-or-treating. The fall festival Hawkins always hosted in the town center. Thanksgiving at your Grandma’s, and your uncles would pile a bunch of leaves for you and your cousins.
It was the season you started getting close to Steve.
6th-grade chorus Christmas concert. You two were stuck next to each other on the risers, and he would intentionally sing the wrong note to make everyone laugh. You would nudge him to keep him on track, and somehow that spiraled into you two walking home side by side every day.
He was easy to talk to. He was enthusiastic about just about everything you said. He would get this twinkle in his eyes when you would talk about your new favorite song or all the boys you had crushes on.
That twinkle had faded quite a bit over time, but on rare occasions, you’d catch a hint of it when you teased him.
You click your tongue, thinking of a way to steer the conversation. Faux optimism. That’ll get him.
You nudge him with your shoulder, “If you get a job there, maybe you’ll meet some chicks.”
His face flickers, staring in the opposite direction. It’s almost like the comment made him uncomfortable. “I think that ship has sailed.”
You don’t know why he’s being weird now. So you double down, trying to joke more, so maybe he will give it back to you.
“What do you mean? You trying out guys for size?”
“Don’t be an ass,” He gives you a hint of a smile, scanning your face, “No, like, I don’t know. I just feel like… I want to focus on me. Figure out what I really want.”
You bite your lip, only encouraging him to continue. “That is important.”
“With Nancy, I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted. But the more I…” He pauses, really contemplating his next words. His fingers tap on his bare knee, “I guess getting older shines a light on different parts and people in your life.”
It’s endearing to hear him talk like this. Steve is a lot of things, but he’s rarely sentimental. So hearing that he is taking into account different people in his life, and their meaning to the bigger picture, made you happy.
“Aw, Steve Harrington gettin’ all old and wise on me?”
“Hopefully.”
The intense rise of bugs buzzing and making noise makes you believe you misheard him. Your brow twitches as you scan him all the way from his feet to his suddenly very serious expression.
“Hopefully?”
“Yeah, hopefully I get old and wise with you.”
Your eyes flicker down at his lips. Only the briefest glance before locking back onto his eyes.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He looks at your lips, “But it’s what I meant.”
It makes goosebumps rush across your skin.
You needed to create a barrier. Distance. Deflect. Something.
You slide off the slicker part of the rock, finding your footing in the mud below. You trek through, not saying anything because you are already sick of the way Steve has been making you feel lately.
Like there’s something unsaid. Something that lies in wait, waiting for you to pull back the curtain.
But you were sick of that. Having to be the one who pressed forward when things got too real. It made you feel stupid and anxious.
You could count on one hand the sly comments like this Steve had made towards you in the last week.
He’s all talk.
Because if there was more intention behind what he said, there would be a follow up. A kiss. A holding of your hand. A heated gaze. Something.
But it always resulted in some casual joke or him averting his eyes away from you.
As you work your way up to the tall grass and dirt path, you hear Steve’s rapid footsteps behind you. His bare feet splatting on the mushy ground, his breath uneven.
“Hey!”
You instantly begin rambling, trying to disconnect from what just happened. “We should get home, it’s getting dark.”
“What just happened?”
You try to play stupid, but it sounds strained, “What?”
He does his normal stance. Both hands on his hip, one leg slightly jutted out. Eyes narrowed, his nose slightly scrunched.
“I think we should stop dancing around this.”
You cross your arms over your chest, not wanting to hear much more from him. That was until he moved from his spot, inching closer to you with those oogling eyes.
“For fucks sake, Steve.”
His face flickers, “What!?”
When his hand reaches out for your hand that’s placed on top of your forearm, you snatch it away. Maybe these physical queues were not enough after all. You still did not want it. You felt like this was wrong somehow. Like your best friend must have really gotten his brain rattled in his skull during his fight with the Russians a couple of months ago, and caved into a delusional world that centered around his genuine feelings for you.
“You don’t feel that way about me, okay? You can’t. You don’t.”
He looks offended, but his hand still tries to reach out again to yours. You let him take it this time, but you don’t wrap your fingers around his knuckles.
“You don’t get to tell me how I feel about you!” He barks, pulling you closer. You brace yourself against his chest, trying not to fall too much closer into him, “Jesus, do you hear yourself?”
“Yes. Loud and clear,” You whisper, dropping all physical contact with a quick swivel.
With your back turned to him now, you take three steps before his voice rings out again.
“Is it me? Am I-”
You shift back, head snapping towards him to stop him mid-sentence, “Steve, stop.”
“I’m not good enough?”
You shake your head, knowing he’s about to jump down the rabbit hole of self-deprecation.
“That’s not it at all.”
“Then tell me!”
His voice is shaking, and he looks uneasy, like he may throw up.
“I am not someone you need to love because I’ve just been around for a while,” You state before biting down on your lips, as if to seal them off from saying more. There was more to your rationale, but it felt like the wrong time to say it.
His face relaxes slightly, like he was about to change your mind. Like this was just a misunderstanding that he could fix with a confession. “Did you not hear me earlier?”
You did, but you wish you hadn’t. You are mad that this conversation was even sparked because you were not ready to have it.
“I am an idiot because I didn’t see you earlier, Bug! God, I was the biggest idiot ever! Because everything that I could possibly want has been here the entire time! Nancy was great, and yeah, I have had other crushes before, but I was always trying to be something else for them. I’m me when I’m with you. I want that. I want you.”
It was like your entire life flashed before your eyes as he poured his heart out. You see yourself falling in love with him, spending every holiday together. Then a wedding by a beautiful lake, just like the one you’re currently at. Then children. Two or three. A small baby in your arms while two toddlers run around the backyard of the beautiful home that Steve fixed up. Going to soccer games and hosting birthday parties. When they grow up, you and Steve fall into a lifeless routine where you make dinner when he gets home from his 9-5, and you watch TV together on the couch. Then repeat that every day. Until you’re old and the grandchildren come by to try to fill that void you are harboring.
Then you die, old and miserable and completely unfulfilled.
And the entire time you watch this flash go by, you recognize the lifeless eyes you display. That residual ache that is currently lingering in your bones stays around forever, and you’re never fully present in every small moment that truly matters. Sure, you can share those happy moments, but you’re truly unfeeling.
All because you had a part of you ripped out of you when you were a teenager. All the love Steve gave you wasn’t enough. Your children were never enough. You were never fucking enough. Your brain and heart were toxic and poisonous, and you remained stuck in one place the entirety of your life.
It makes you sick to your stomach. You cannot put Steve through that.
“You can be you around me. I love that,” You say gently, as a single tear drops from your eye, “More than you even know. But I’m… I’m not me, right now, okay? I’m… I’m not ready. I’m anxious, and my brain is fucking muddled with all these racing thoughts all the time. I am not me with you. Or anyone. Not right now. If you had said this at the beginning of summer, sure. I was different then. I was normal. But you don’t want me like this.”
He’s quick to respond, reaching back out and pulling you towards him. He’s pleading now. “I do.”
Your lip quivers as you speak, “You won’t. You don’t.”
“I’m with you every day, already. Why does a label change that?”
“I’m not going to be your girlfriend because I need to fix me first, and I cannot do that when you want something from me! I’m not going to be someone you deserve.”
He cradles your face, looking down at you with the utmost admiration. His eyes are slightly misty, but at this angle, you can only really focus on how much green is laced throughout his iris, mixing in with that golden brown.
He was so goddamn pretty you wished your heart was ready to fully take him on. But you know you’d be doing him a disservice. You needed to figure some shit out first. You didn’t know what, but there was something.
“Can I just…” His thumb sweeps over your chin, “Can I kiss you?”
You feel like you almost look through him when you respond, “It’s not going to change my mind.”
“I don’t care, I just need to.”
You don’t know why you nod, but you do.
In all honesty, you hope that it will change your mind. That the electricity of finally kissing Steve after years of pining after him would heal you and wake you up from whatever you’re dealing with.
He presses his lips into yours, but instead of melting into it, you go completely rigid. His right palm cradles your cheek as his fingers pass your hairline. His left hand travels down your shoulder, making you more aware of where it’s passing through and not the fact that he’s trying to get you to move your lips with his.
His hand finally stops right on your elbow as he withdraws from your mouth.
His eyes are still closed, and that’s when it hits you that you had your eyes open the entire time.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands millimeters from your face. The air grows tense the moment you unintentionally exhale loudly. Like a sigh of relief that the kiss is finally over.
That rubs him the wrong way. It would rub you the wrong way, too.
He is quick to start towards the car, snatching his t-shirt from a nearby branch he used as a hanger, “Let’s get you home.”
You blink rapidly, suddenly feeling the need to tell him what you’ve been meaning to tell him. Maybe this was the right time.
“I’m going to live with my aunt.”
He stops dead in his tracks, his t-shirt balled up in his hands like he wants to throw it like a basketball. “What?”
The plans had been confirmed the evening prior. Your mom reached out to her sister, and she agreed to have you stay with her in the city. Your struggles did not need to be Hawkin’s problem. You needed to be somewhere else.
Your eyes well up with tears. It’s the first time you cried since that night two months ago. “I leave next week. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
He races towards you, stopping about 2 feet from you. “Bug, what the hell?”
You hate the expression he has on his face. It’s already morphing into resentment.
“My mom thinks it’ll be good for me to get a change of scenery. My aunt knows a good therapist in South Bend that I can go see-”
He cuts you off, his nostrils flaring, “You’re leaving?! Four hours away?”
A single tear drops across your cheek, and you instantly wipe it away. You swallow, knowing that if you don’t do this, the resentment would go both ways. You did not want to hate Steve, but you knew you could push through him hating you.
He was never quick at coming around to things, but once it happened, he was usually grateful no one listened to his plan.
“I need to. I need this, Steve.”
His demeanor changes when he hears your shaky voice. He stucks in a sharp breath, letting his eyes travel towards the woods that line the lake.
“It seems you already made up your mind,” He whispers, the sounds of locus practically covering up his words, “And I don’t think I’d be wise to try to change it.”
Summary: When you were a child you had a best friend, a little blonde boy who you used to do everything with until the reaping came and he was stolen away from you. His face is muddled in your memory now, his name a whisper on the tides you roamed in District 4 until his horrible fate became your own. Katniss Everdeen was not the first girl to volunteer for one she loved. This is the story of a girl and a boy, a tribute and a game, a victor and a rebellion;
This is your story.
Pairing(s): Finnick Odair x District 4!fem!reader
Warning(s): MDNI! Canon typical violence, descriptions of gore, a less kid-friendly take on the Hunger Games universe, mentions of SA and forced prostitution (Finnick is the love interest guys bfr), some chapters contain smut, read the hashtags for the rest!!
Word count: 54.681k
——————————— Chapters 🍒
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
——————————— Headcannons and Art 🍒
Y/n and Scylla’s Reaping Outfits — (Spoilers for Chapter One)
Y/n and Blythe’s Tribute Parade Outfits — (Spoilers for Chapter Three)
Y/n and Blythe’s Interview Outfits — (Spoilers for Chapter Seven)
Y/n and her Allie’s Arena Outfits — (Spoilers for Chapters Eight/Nine)
synopsis: it was just supposed to be a routine mission. but when things start to go wrong and time starts slipping through his fingers, gojo realizes a little too late he might lose you too.
pairing: astronaut!gojo x f!reader x teacher!choso
wc: 14.8k
content: mdni. HEAVY ANGST. smut. character death. inspired by interstellar, time dilation, sad ending, hurt no comfort, unprotected piv sex, teasing, kissing, gojo is so incredibly in love and obsessed with reader, accidental pregnancy, twins, pining, yearning, complicated emotions, misunderstandings, choso is also a lovesick puppy dog, video messages, gojo cries and throws up, moving on, absolutely sadness and despair
art is by @to00fu !! div by @tsumiinum !! this was an incredible commission to write for @dayanim <333
“You’re literally the prettiest girl on the planet.”
You giggled, your mouth curving up into a painfully cute smile as his palms spread your soft thighs further apart. Perfect face tilting to the side as you arched an eyebrow, “Just this planet?”
“All of them,” he easily chuckled, pressing a peck to the inside of your exposed thigh, admiring the expanse of your bare skin, completely naked in his sheets. Sprawled out like his favorite feast, waiting for him to devour.
If he could, he’d swallow you whole and take you with him to space.
Pack you up and bring you with him.
But unfortunately, NASA probably wouldn’t approve of him stowing you away on his final official mission before he moved to a different position.
“I don’t want you to go,” you pouted at him, running your fingers through your hair as he returned to dotting more kisses up to your hips, down to just below your belly button, trying to memorize the way your skin felt on his lips.
“I know,” he sighed, struggling to justify why he was going to you when he could hardly convince himself these days. “It’s just six months.”
A routine mission.
It was far from his first. He knew how it would play out. Shoko and Suguru would join him on the crew, so at least the time wouldn’t totally drag by. He hadn’t planned to join, but with what they promised to pay for it, it was sorta hard to refuse. Especially when he was still saving for a wedding and a house down payment.
Still, considering the fact that he’d only just gotten back from one less than a year ago, he knew that it wasn’t just him it was hard on.
“It feels like forever,” you complained, a crease between your brow as your hand shifted to cup his cheek, lift his face up to look at you. The cool band of your engagement ring resting on his skin reminding him of the promise he made to you when he popped the question. That he’d give up exploring the reset of the universe if you’d be his wife. “I’m so tired of missing you.”
“Baby,” he frowned, heart slamming into his rib cage at the disappointment he detected in the lines of your face.
He didn’t want to do this to you. Didn’t want to be the guy that wasn’t there for you.
But this was all just temporary. Soon he’d have secured a future where you could both permanently settle in a beautiful little house with a big yard for mini-yous and mini-hims to run and play.
Climbing back on top of you properly as you huffed at him, caging you in underneath his muscled arms, not stopping until your bodies were connected, skin-on-skin, his forehead resting on yours as your eyes met his.
“Don’t baby me,” you defensively murmured.
“But you’re my baby,” he pouted back at you. Your body shivered a little, thighs pressing together before he used his knee to nudge them further apart. “And you’re gonna be my wife when I get back.”
He liked the ring of it.
His wife.
All his.
He proposed to you the day he got back from his last mission. Maybe he should make it a tradition and marry you the day he returned this time.
Skip the whole big wedding he talked you into the past few months in favor of a courthouse ceremony. Maybe drag Suguru back after the landing to be the witness.
You made a face, nose scrunching up and lips parting like there was something you wanted to say, but you stopped yourself.
“This is my last mission,” he reminded you, a weak attempt at reassurance as his thick cock rubbed against your clit. Your breath hitched, getting caught in your throat as he dragged it over the sensitive bud.
“You said that about the last one,” you reminded him, and he didn’t have an argument to counter it.
“Well, I mean it this time,” he muttered softly. He wasn’t particularly good at being soothing. Spectacularly bad, sometimes, actually. But you still stayed.
Still smiled at him when he sucked at being what you needed.
The moon hung heavy outside the window, a thick crack running across the glass pane as the night sky filtered through it and bathed the room in soft light. The apartment you shared wasn’t much, pretty shitty honestly, but it was just a stepping stone. A way to save money for when you’d really need it.
Soon, you’d have the best.
“Besides, I can’t leave again once you start having my babies,” he teased, moving a hand down to your stomach, feeling your soft skin. Dreaming of a future where you’d be waddling around his kitchen pregnant, trying to decide if he’d prefer a boy or a girl – only to land on wanting both.
“So you’ll be here for them and not for me?” You huffed.
“I just want to make sure I make a good life for all of you,” he replied, struggling to sound confident when you were looking at him with a faint hint of hurt shining in your eyes.
You wanted to believe him.
“Uh-huh,” you exhaled.
He supposed he’d just have to remind you another way that you had his heart. That even if he left the planet for a few months, he’d always have to return back to you.
His home.
Your thighs opened up for him, letting him shut up all those awful thoughts with a kiss as he pushed the first few inches inside your pretty pussy. Felt you sucking him in, losing himself in your warmth as he pushed past that first ring of resistance. Filling you up until you were stuffed full, your head tilting back, lips parting in his favorite moan — his name falling from them in broken little gasps.
“Satoru,” you whined, wiggling under his weight as he leaned down to start trailing kisses across your jaw. Down the delicate skin of your throat, sucking greedily just to see what other sounds he could draw from you.
“Mhm, sweetheart?” He hummed, pausing to drag his tongue over all the sore spots he’d left, tempted to sink his teeth back over them, to leave little bruises just so you’d have to keep thinking about him even when he was planets away.
“I don’t want you to go,” you huffed, forcing the words out between little whimpers, your body shivering as his cock slowly thrusted in and out, deliberately taking his time to stretch you out. He hesitated mid-pump, lips still pressed just above your collarbone as he tried to come up with something that would make it better.
“I don’t want to either,” Gojo softly admitted, kissing you again as if it would cure the ache in his heart or the one in yours.
There was a moment of silence, seconds slipping by with tension that wouldn’t dissolve, and he wasn’t sure if he should keep thrusting or pull out.
But then your hips shifted, and his cock twitched, and he was already readjusting, palms moving to push your soft thighs against your chest with his cock still keeping you plugged up.
And really, you couldn’t blame him for how pretty you looked in a mating press.
Fucking you faster, the wooden bed frame creaking and bumping into the wall with every rough thrust, each harsh snap of his hips against your skin as he plunged his cock in and out, in and out.
Watching your face screw up in pleasure, lashes fluttering and nails scrambling for purchase in the sheets as his thumbs dug into your thighs. Holding onto you, keeping you firmly pinned between him and the bed, like he could imprint every ridge and vein inside you, supposing he’d just have to be satisfied with leaving the shape of both of you on the mattress.
“I love you so goddamn much,” he murmured, chest constricting, heart racing as the pressure built and mounted in the pit of his stomach. Some invisible thread being pulled tighter, or maybe it was just himself, wrapped around your finger without you even realizing it.
Ready to break just thinking about not getting to hear your voice every day, not getting to touch your skin, like he wasn’t still buried inside you.
“I love you too,” you whispered back, your voice quivering as you looked up at him with glossy eyes.
He kissed you hard, teeth nearly bumping into each other as his tongue slipped past your lips. Tracing over your canines, tasting the hint of toothpaste on your tongue. The remnants of the candy-flavored lip gloss you’d been wearing earlier too.
You were returning his fervor, squeezing down on his cock like you were trying to suck him dry like he wasn’t already struggling not to cum.
He had to hurry to shift his hand, fingers rushing to find your clit, rubbing rough circles over it just to swallow every cute moan of yours that tried to escape. Cock twitching and aching for relief that he refused to give it, keeping an iron grip on his restraint as he waited for that familiar tremble, for you to really clamp down on him as shudders wracked through your body.
Until you were crying his name in his mouth, whimpers muffled as he soothed you through your climax, rolling that sensitive bud between his thick fingers, only breaking the kiss to purr in your ears that it was all going to be okay.
“That’s it, baby. Just cum for me, okay? It’s gonna be fine,” he promised, his voice cracking on the final word as he came with you. Finishing with warm spurts of cum filling you up, each thrust pumping more into you as he groaned your name, head collapsing into the crook of your collarbone.
Sweat making your skin stick to his, your breathing mixing together as you both came back down to earth from your high.
“Fuck,” you murmured, trying to shift underneath him, roll out from his heavy body.
But he refused to budge, burying his face deeper into your neck just to smell your soap and shampoo, nuzzling his nose against your neck.
He didn’t want to let go.
And for a second, part of him considered cancelling. Backing out of the mission, coming up with an excuse or calling out sick. They had back up astronauts.
They had a few people, perhaps not as qualified as him, but still acceptable, on standby that could take his spot.
He might get fired. Shoved back to some bottom-tier desk position.
But he’d get to stay with you.
Would get to spend the next six months sleeping like this instead of alone in a spaceship compartment.
“Satoru,” you softly said his name, shifting as he finally released your thighs, letting you lay them back down more comfortably – but still kept you caged in.
“Can’t I just lay here for a while longer?” He groaned, jaw tightening at the idea that this was the last night he’d get this. You.
Cock still twitching as the last of his cum leaked out, some of it starting to spill down your thighs as he refused to take it out.
You ran your fingers through his hair, scratching a spot behind his ears, sifting through the silky strands with a long sigh. “Sure.”
That was just who you were.
What you’d do.
You gave him what he wanted.
Even when you didn’t like what he asked for.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t be sorry,” you replied gently. “Just be sure you’re coming home.”
“The stars can’t keep me from you,” he promised, moving to leave another kiss on the tip of your nose as you rolled your eyes at him.
But you giggled, and that was good enough.
“Let’s get married when I get back,” he suggested.
“We already-”
“Like, the same day, sweetheart,” he insisted, lips curling up in a smile as he snagged your left hand, bringing it to his lips so he could press a kiss to your engagement ring. The big diamond glittering in the moonlight, accented with small gemstones that same shade as his eyes set in a white-gold band. One you picked out with him once upon a time.
“You’re ridiculous,” you laughed, shaking your head like you weren’t grinning at the idea too. “Didn’t you want, like, the whole huge wedding?”
“I just want you.”
Gojo could make it six months if it meant you’d be waiting there for him when he got back.
He just didn’t think everything would go to fucking shit in sixteen weeks.
Clinging to the same dream of you, the same memory his brain had chosen for comfort as he opened his eyes for another difficult day in a long line of them.
Waking up to a window that only overlooked the cold, dark expanse of space instead of the familiar city. Missing your warmth in bed – trading it for a sleeping bag and a stiff compartment that they somehow still hadn’t figured out a better alternative for despite how advanced their rocketships had become.
Sure, they could figure out how to simulate gravity inside the living areas now. But no, getting a good night’s rest was still impossible.
They were only supposed to be running a supply drop off. Sending equipment to a planet a few other astronauts were previously sent to, one they’d recently started establishing a settlement on. Shoko was planning on staying behind there to be their medic – but he was supposed to return with Suguru.
It wasn’t the only habitable planet that had been discovered. There were a few, all being explored, data being collected and catalogued by various astronauts like themselves, sent back periodically and retrieved by relief missions like the one they were on.
All just a galaxy away.
It meant going through a wormhole to get to them, but according to all the calculations and the previous voyages, it was safe.
Risky, sure, but it’d been done before.
And to be fair, getting through it hadn’t been the problem.
The problem was they were just outside the orbit of the wrong fucking planet.
Whether one of them had bumped into the navigation system, inputted the wrong thing at the wrong time, or maybe some internal error was to blame, it didn’t matter.
No, a more pressing issue had presented itself.
A distress signal was being sent up.
Someone was below – and begging to be rescued.
“I have a bad feeling about it,” Suguru murmured, scowling at the screen as if he could make the message go away just by glaring at it.
“You always have a bad feeling,” Shoko hummed, dark circles under his eyes as she scanned the data on her screen.
“I think we should just continue to the correct planet. It’ll be a waste of fuel and time,” Suguru scoffed, ignoring her as his fingers flew across the keyboard, inputting either calculations or coordinates.
Satoru reclined back in his seat, fiddling with a pencil as his friend glanced up at him like he was looking for support here.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the one who wants to save people?” He asked, cocking his head to the side just to get a scoff. He’d known Suguru most of his life. Went to school together, graduated from the same program just to end up colleagues too. Between both of them, Suguru was always the altruistic one. The guy who thought of everyone else before himself – even if he was looking down at them from his moral high ground half the time.
“Not if it means putting our mission at risk,” he argued, lips pressed together in a thin line. “Or us.”
“The last reported conditions there seem fine,” Shoko shrugged as she directed their attention back to what little data had been collected so far.
Most of the planet was made of water, a massive sea dotted with a handful of islands, some mountain ranges that rivaled the highest peaks back on Earth. Two fellow astronauts were supposed to have been there for the last nine months.
“You really want to just leave them?” Gojo asked, not sure how exactly to feel about it himself. Not wanting to totally throw away Suguru’s hesitation – but reluctant to just leave another astronaut stranded.
“There are other people counting on us,” Suguru insisted, and Satoru knew he was right. Knew that you were counting on him to come back in one piece. “We can just send a message back to Earth and let them decide.”
Suguru knew as well as he did that doing that would most likely mean death to whoever was sending the distress signal.
It would probably be months before they sent another ship up.
And given that they didn’t have the data to know how fast or slow time passed below. No way to know when the signal they were receiving had started.
There was a heavy pause, all three of them weighing whether or not to take the gamble — and imagining what it’d feel like to be the one stuck on the planet praying for someone to come save them.
“I think we should check it out,” Satoru eventually spoke up, although he wasn’t exactly excited about it.
He just wasn’t sure he could stomach the alternative. If he could handle coming back home to you and telling you the truth.
Risk you leaving him like they were about to leave the stranded astronauts.
“The extra data they have would be useful,” Shoko pointed out, tilting her head appraisingly. “If we needed to, we could bring them back to the other settlement.”
“Two minutes,” Suguru begrudgingly gave in, irritation pricking in his voice as he stood up, rubbing his temple. “We shouldn’t spend more than ten on the surface when we don’t know how much time we could lose. Get there, see what’s salvage, get the fuck out.”
Whether it was data or people, they’d just take what they could and leave.
There was a chance that the relative time on the planet was off. That even just an hour on the planet could be the equivalent to a year back on Earth.
“Yeah, agreed,” Satoru waved him off, watching him walk off, probably to start preparations for landing.
He told himself it was the right thing to do.
That it was what you would expect from him.
He stood up too, walking around to one of the communication terminals they set up – where they could send and receive messages.
You’d sent a couple videos, unofficial ones, of course, something he arranged in advance when he agreed to join the mission – that he’d be able to contact you and you’d be able to do the same. They were short, just a few minutes of you updating him on life back on Earth. How you were doing, how wedding planning was going, murmuring that you missed him in a soft voice before leaning in to kiss the camera.
But a new one was waiting for him as he popped his headphones in to listen, leg bouncing nervously as it loaded, automatically smiling when your face popped up.
“Hi, Satoru,” you greeted, but then you awkwardly looked down, fiddling with your fingers out of frame like you were shy all of a sudden. Biting your bottom lip, the skin there already broken like you’d been busy chewing it.
He wanted to touch the screen.
Caress your cheek and ask you what was wrong.
“I, um, was gonna wait until you came back. But, uh, I don’t think I can keep it a secret that long,” you breathed, eyes glancing up at the camera like you were imagining him on the other side of it.
And then you were picking something up, holding it out in front of you as the camera refocused and-
Holy shit.
“Surprise,” you excitedly called out from behind the tiny onesie in your hand. “You’re going to be a father.”
A baby.
He was going to be a father.
His brain stopped working. Shock freezing him in place as you peeked out from behind the onesie like you could see his reaction. Pride glimmered in your eyes as you grinned, his entire world sitting in front of him a galaxy away. His future wife and child just waiting for him to return.
“I wanted it to be a surprise, but it’s been so hard holding it in,” you continued, and he craved you even more than he had in the past few months combined. Dying to pick you up and press kiss after kiss to your lips, your cheeks, your stomach.
Aching to wrap his arms around you and start talking about baby names and nurseries, to take you out shopping for baby furniture and be there for your appointments.
“There’s something else,” you said, reluctance creeping in. Glancing down at your lap again before pulling up a second onesie.
No. You surely didn’t mean…?
“I’m having twins,” you announced, a little awkward like you started second guessing how he’d take it. “Are you surprised?”
It didn’t take his brain long to calculate the fucking odds of that, but his mind had a hard time accepting it, discomfort coiling in and mixing with the exhilaration in his stomach at the idea of you back in bed, carrying his babies, while he was up in fucking space.
Unable to be there for you. To rub the lotion on your stomach, to sing terrible impressions of lullabies to them, to drive you to the doctor and hold your hand throughout all of it.
You didn’t seem too bothered, or maybe just too excited to show it, holding up the ultrasounds next, proudly showing him baby A and baby B, talking about how you should find out their genders in just a couple weeks.
“You better be back before I have these two,” you murmured into the camera, fixing him in a serious stare, your eyes shining in the fading daylight drifting in through your window. “Don’t make me go to the hospital alone.”
Never.
He’d fucking be there.
“I love you, Toru,” you spoke softer, hesitating over actually hitting the button to stop recording. “Please don’t do anything stupid.”
He’d already done something stupid by saying yes to coming here, hadn’t he?
Still, he plastered on his best smile, sitting awkwardly in front of his own camera, recording you a message back. Making you a million promises, telling you how proud he was of you, how thrilled he was to be a dad. Selling you dreams of a life he was desperately trying to buy for your future family of four.
“We’re, uh, about to go down to a planet to check out a distress signal, but, it’ll be fine, baby,” he informed you, hearing how stiff the words came out as he forced his palm to press down on his thigh to stop his leg from bouncing. “It’ll just be a quick pitstop before the supply drop, promise.”
He paused, having to clear his throat, his tongue suddenly dry as he made himself look directly into the camera.
“I’ll come back for you.”
Gojo didn’t want to admit Suguru might be right when he had to sit with the heavy feeling in his stomach after he shut the camera off and sent the message back – knowing it would probably be a couple days before you saw it.
But it would be fine, wouldn’t it?
In a year, he’d be waking up in bed with you, laughing about how worried he’d been while you each held one of your babies. This would just be a memory.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Staring at the screen long after it shut off, replaying your voice in his head, itching to really hear it, to feel it on his skin, to touch you instead of just clinging to a digital copy of you.
“You ready?” Suguru’s voice called out to him, and he snapped out of his daze.
Found his mouth opening, about to say no.
Tell him he changed his mind. Say he was wrong and that they should just save their fuel.
But if you knew, if they knew, that he’d left someone to die just to come home to them sooner, would they look at him the same way?
Would he be able to look his children in the eyes?
He swallowed hard as he glanced towards the doorframe Suguru was standing in, slowly nodding instead of saying what he really wanted to. “Yeah.”
Gojo wanted to believe that between their three-person crew, they’d be able to handle it.
He just hadn’t realized that only two of them would make it back to the ship.
𖥔 ݁ ˖
“You should move on.”
It didn’t matter how many people said it. How many times your therapist pleaded with you to put the past behind you.
You couldn’t let go of him.
Six months turned into six years without Satoru.
The one thing you were terrified of had come true.
You lost him.
Didn’t even have the fucking confirmation of his death. Just a gravestone with an empty casket, a plot picked out for you next to it — even if you’d never get to be buried by him.
Wasn’t that the funny thing about taking risks?
You always know what could happen. You just never think it will happen to you.
It’s always someone else.
Until it’s not.
Until you’re the one waiting for a phone call you’ll never get or a knock on the door that will never come.
“It’s not exactly like men are lining up to date me,” you muttered into the phone, tucking it between your ear and shoulder as you frowned at your reflection in the mirror, reaching up to fix a stray hair just for your still-shiny engagement ring to shimmer in the sunlight. Swallowing the lump in your throat before you turned away, nearly tripping on a toy. “With the twins-”
“Guys like MILFs,” your friend teased in your ear, and you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes as you bent over to pick up the stuffed bunny and toss it in an overflowing toy basket.
You doubted they’d like one still in love with their babies’ father.
Still holding out hope he’d show up with that stupid smile and wrap you in a crushing hug.
Even if the rest of the world thought he was dead.
When the government had declared his ship missing and him deceased. Cut you a check for it even though you weren’t technically Satoru’s spouse yet since you had his babies. A little boy that could be his clone and a girl that looked a little too much like you.
Their check had been enough to get you out of your crummy apartment, to move the three of you in a small house in a quiet neighborhood.
Suguru’s mother had ended up moving next door, offering to babysit and watch them during the day so you didn’t have to send them to daycare. Helping you raise your children while her child was still out there in space somewhere.
She didn’t talk about Suguru with you. And you never spoke of Satoru.
But you knew she understood anyway. Coped with it the same way you did. Skirting around their existence like it would lessen the hurt.
“I know a guy who-” Your friend started, and your stomach lurched at the thought of being set up with someone who couldn’t come close to the man you were supposed to marry.
“Look, I’ve, uh, gotta go get the kids. Their teacher wanted to discuss Apollo’s behavior. I guess he bit someone,” you muttered, heels clicking as you slung your purse over your shoulder and snagged your keys.
She was disappointed, mumbling a goodbye that you tuned out, hitting end and dropping your phone in your bag with a sigh.
You wondered what Satoru would’ve thought of it.
If he would’ve laughed at his son picking fights at school or if there was a stern side to him buried somewhere beneath his goofy grins and cheesy jokes.
You tried to pick out names he’d like. Even if sometimes it stung a little to think about.
Apollo and Artemis.
After the space missions. He’d think it was cute. Probably dress them up like little astronauts and kiss their foreheads, promising that he loved them way more than just to the moon and back. Paint stars on their ceiling and hang planets up on strings in their nursery.
To be fair, you had done it in his place.
Worn one of his old t-shirts as you bit your lip and bent over your swollen belly to get all the corners, carefully standing on a ladder to hang everything on the ceiling, standing in a nursery full of furniture you built yourself a month after his return date came and went.
The last thing you heard from him was a video message where he promised he’d come back. If you shut your eyes, you could still see that look on his face, the flicker of nervousness that flashed across it as his mouth curled down into a frown before he admitted that they were about to go check out a distress call.
And then nothing.
NASA never told you if they had any additional information on it. But the conclusion they came to was obvious.
Their mission was a failure. And your husband was forever missing.
Somewhere you’d never be able to reach.
You snapped on the twins' first birthday. You hadn’t even managed to bring yourself to throw them a party when Satoru wasn’t there to take the photos, to pick them up and blow out the candles for them.
Carrying them next door to Suguru’s mom’s place, asking for her to watch them for a few hours just to come back home and rip down every stupid space-themed piece of decor you’d once painstakingly picked out. Throwing them all in a big, black trash bag before running out to the store to grab tarps and more paint.
You didn’t stop until the entire room was drenched in shades of blue and green, alien toys traded in for sea animals.
At least the ocean was on Earth.
It wasn’t like they were old enough to understand.
But you couldn’t fucking stand the idea of losing them too.
You had kept both their convertible cribs in your room since the day you brought them home from the hospital, unable to sleep without them in the same room. The crippling fear that you’d some intruder would sneak in and snatch them if you weren’t right there to stop it didn’t actually go away until they were big enough to toddle and talk.
Now they were old enough to be in school, no longer babies, no longer toddlers, big enough to ramble on about what they learned every day, bicker over their toys and pick them back up before they went to bed.
And Satoru had missed all of it.
Every first they experienced tainted by the never-ending reminder that he wasn’t fucking here to see a single one.
And like an idiot, you just kept recording message after message, setting up a camera and trying not to cry as you recorded yourself talking about the twins, showing them off to someone who should’ve been by your side every step of the way. You still had a few contacts with his old colleague, one who promised he’d send them all up anyway.
Just in case Satoru was still out there in space. Still trying to come home to you.
There wasn’t a single day that passed yet where you didn’t think about it.
Him.
But it appeared your attempts to keep him alive, to teach your kids about their dad, weren’t going so well when you replayed the voicemail you’d been left an hour earlier requesting you come in for a meeting after school was over when you picked up the kids.
The soft voice on the other end apologetically explaining that Apollo had gotten in an argument with another kid to defend his sister, that no action was being taken, but that he’d still like to speak with you in person over it.
You stared at the brick building of the elementary school, readjusting your purse as you swiped away another message from your friend sending you contact details of a man you certainly were not going to contact, steeling yourself for an uncomfortable conversation as you walked through the door and went into the office to get a visitor’s pass before you started navigating through the halls to look for the twins’ class.
Suguru’s mom handled most of the pick ups for you, kept them at her place until you got back home from work in the evenings.
Your boss had been annoyed that you’d taken off early, but you had to put them first. You were the only parent they had.
You heard Artemis first. Her soft giggle twinkling as your steps picked up, her brother’s grumpy voice scolding her as you stopped just outside an open classroom door, pausing as you looked inside and saw sitting cross-legged on the floor with another boy who looked a couple years older, a bunch of toys dumped out between them on a carpet with the alphabet on it.
“Are you their sister? I thought their mom-” A low voice spoke up, your head snapping over to see a dark-haired man stepping out from behind a desk. Warm brown eyes scanning your face as you stiffly shook your head.
“I’m their mom,” you interrupted him, swallowing hard as you pushed your sunglasses back up in your hair before holding your hand out to shake.
His hand was surprisingly soft when he took it, gently shaking it a few seconds too long before awkwardly letting go.
“I’m Choso, their teacher,” he said, and you forced a small smile.
“I, uh, know,” you muttered, averting your stare back to where they were playing.
“Yuji’s my little brother,” he added, pointing out the boy playing with yours, plucking out a toy from the pile and handing it over.
You wondered if it would be awful to just ask him to go ahead and skip all the polite niceties, that you didn’t need them.
“Sorry for making assumptions,” he awkwardly apologized, his dark eyes dragging over you again. “You just looked like you’re around my age, and I guess I forget sometimes that it’s normal for us to have kids of our own now.”
You blinked at him, trying to decide what to make of his slightly nervous rambling just for his mouth to open again.
“I wasn’t trying to comment on your appearance or anything, I mean, you’re beautiful-” His lips abruptly shut, cheek flushing pink in a painfully familiar way.
Your chest hurt.
Ached at the thought that Satoru was no longer the last person to call you beautiful.
“Um, thanks,” you murmured, looking at your outfit a little self-consciously. Wondering if he was just saying that to make you feel better or if he really meant it. You didn’t think you looked terrible. But without Satoru around, you’d sorta forgotten what it felt like to look in the mirror and see something pretty when you were struggling to survive most days.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, glancing down to the ring on your finger. Your throat started to close, palms getting clammy as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t realize you were married.”
“I’m not,” you answered, a little too quickly as you folded your arms across your chest. Putting your left hand underneath your other arm as if it would make you stop thinking about it. Him.
“Oh, um-”
“I was engaged to the twins’ dad,” you explained, watching them giggle and pretend to eat the plastic food with their new pink-haired friend. “But, uh, he passed before they were born.”
People usually asked too many questions if you told them the whole story.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he apologized, face falling the way everyone else’s always did. Regret etched into the soft lines of his face, nose scrunching up as the tattoo across his nose crinkled. “I had no-”
“It’s fine,” you lied, waving it off like Satoru didn’t still cast shadows across your thoughts. “So, um, what happened with Apollo? Is he in trouble?”
“No, no, one of the other kids tried to take a toy from Artemis, and he stepped in to stop it. I actually wanted to speak to you about him having a hard time making friends outside of her,” Choso spoke softly, obviously trying hard to pick his words carefully. “I was thinking of recommending they get put in different classes next year to help them socialize.”
You bit the inside of your cheek.
Torn between immediately shutting the idea down and trying to argue against it before second guessing whether or not your parenting was actually just fostering codependence.
Satoru would know what to do.
But he wasn’t here.
And all the decisions were yours to make.
Artemis was the outgoing one, inherited her father’s personality even if she pretty much got your face. Bright and brilliant, easy charisma that shined even at her small size. Apollo was reserved. Serious.
Scowling if he wasn’t with his sister, grumbling at the world like he already realized how it screwed them over.
“They’re just five,” you muttered, glancing over at where they were still distracted with his brother.
“Well, I guess we can see if there are any changes throughout the rest of the school year. I, uh, coach a boys soccer team on the weekends. He’s welcome to join, if you’re interested,” he said, running his fingers through the ends of his hair.
You guessed if it meant your twins wouldn’t be split up in school, you’d sit on the sidelines to watch little kids try and fail to kick a ball across a field.
Not that he was that happy about it when you told him he’d have to spend his Saturday morning in a soccer uniform with kids he barely spoke to before instead of playing with his toys at home.
Choso grinned when you first showed up, one of those crooked ones that gave away his surprise when he saw you setting up fold-out chairs for you and Artemis. Even jogging over to tell you he was happy you came, squatting down to get on Apollo’s level to ask him if he knew how to play.
He didn’t.
To be fair, after watching a single game, it was clear none of the other kids did either.
Still, you left it with a schedule of practices and games stuffed in your purse, a couple of them circled and marked for your days to bring snacks and juice boxes for the team.
You told yourself that you were being an active parent.
Showing up to every single school event. Refusing to miss a single soccer game even when Apollo spent half of it plucking weeds from the field to give to you afterwards.
Taking him to play dates with his new soccer friends before taking Artemis to sleepover with her school friends, juggling their new social lives with your own work.
And somewhere along the way, you supposed you’d made a new friend in their teacher too.
He went out of his way to talk to you at every game, greeting you at their school stuff with a shy smile and considerate questions while he updated you on how they were doing.
The kids loved him, coming home chattering about what he planned and taught them during the day, complaining whenever he was out sick and they got stuck with a substitute.
Wasn’t it normal to like someone if they made your children happy?
Smile back when they spoke to you?
Find your thoughts lingering a little on their dark-haired teacher when your son excitedly exclaimed that Choso promised to be his soccer coach next year too, your stupid heart stalling for a second when Artemis casually dropped that he helped her make a mother’s day card for you as she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet.
You definitely didn’t pick them up from school yourself more often, swearing to Suguru’s mother that you were just trying to spend more time with them.
But eventually, the school year wrapped up.
You couldn’t really comprehend why some sliver of you was disappointed by that.
Still, you suspected that it wasn’t just because Satoru wasn’t here to see it.
A strange flutter in your stomach stirring watching Choso pass out printed graduation certificates to the class, plastering on a bright smile as Artemis proudly bounded over to show you hers. Toothily grinning as you sat and clapped for her in a cramped chair, a paper plate with a tiny slice of pizza in front of you as the other parents tried wrangling their own kids.
Apollo was half-sitting on your lap, sneakily stealing your pizza after he polished off his own plate, enjoying their classroom party just to start bickering over which mini cupcakes they each wanted, eyeing the boxes Choso hadn’t given out.
“Are you excited for next year?” You asked, barely able to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at their arguing.
“No,” Artemis smiled immediately flipped into a frown as she flopped in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. “We’ll have to get a new teacher.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Apollo huffed at her.
“S’not fair, he’s still your coach,” she whined back, right in time for him to show up, holding out a plastic container with cupcakes to let them choose.
They were quick to snatch them, thank yous muffled when they stuffed their mouths the next second, but to your surprise, he held out the box for you to pick too.
“I, um, got enough for the parents too,” he awkwardly said, eyes hesitantly flicking up to meet yours as you chewed the inside of your cheek before accepting.
“Thanks,” you murmured softly, selecting one with purple frosting as he smiled softly at you.
It was nice of him.
This was nice, actually.
A classroom of sugar-fueled kids and hastily strung up party streamers wasn’t exactly where you pictured you’d be spending your afternoon a decade ago. Being a single mom had never been a part of your plans.
But it wasn’t terrible.
You loved your children. Loved being their mom.
Maybe you could learn to love your life too.
You stayed behind once the party wrapped up to help clean the classroom with a few of the other parents, stuffing greasy and frosting splattered plates into trash bags while the twins excitedly caught up with Yuji after his teacher dropped him off after the bell rang.
“Hey,” a quiet voice startled you, your head snapping back to see Choso stiffly standing next to you, nervously raking his fingers through his hair.
“Hi,” you breathed back, just as awkward. “The party was great. I think the twins will miss you next year.”
You didn’t want to consider if you would.
“They’re great kids. I know they’re gonna succeed some day,” he earnestly said, your mouth curling up as you nodded.
You didn’t really mind if they succeeded or not. Wouldn’t hold them to the same standards their dad once held himself to.
All you really wanted was for them to be happy.
“Thanks, um, seriously,” you swallowed hard, throat constricting as you thought about how much Apollo had started to come out of his shell thanks to him.
Choso’s intense stare swept over your face, scanning over your features like he was searching for something there.
His eyes were dark.
Not blue. They didn’t shimmer, didn’t sparkle when the sun hit them.
But they were deep. Warm.
“I’m glad I got to meet you,” he started, speaking slowly like he wasn’t sure if he should even say it. “Getting to know you, um, it’s been great.”
“Yeah, it has,” you agreed, actually meaning it too.
He stepped a little closer, taking a deep breath as his gaze settled on your face. “You can like, slap me if I’m out of line here-”
“I’m not going to slap you,” you intercut, biting back a laugh as his brows knitted together seriously.
“Would it be totally inappropriate to ask you on a date?”
𖥔 ݁ ˖
Their mission was fucked.
Suguru was dead.
Body stuck on a planet of water and waves, left behind with the other astronauts that had died long before they even received their distress call.
Swept under a fucking tsunami, unable to make it back on the ship on time in an attempt to save a stupid fucking data recorder.
Now they had neither.
The ship had been damaged in the process too, fuel wasted and plans derailed as they barely managed to get it off the planet before all three of them ended up as corpses. Water corrupting important systems as Gojo slammed his fists against the hard metal frame of a door, throwing off his helmet as Shoko said something his brain refused to process.
Grabbing his arm to pull it back before he could fuck up his suit. Telling him to just take it off and cool down before he damned both of them too.
Like his best friend wasn’t gone.
He’d never get him back.
No one would.
Gojo just had to leave his body there for the tides to take. What the hell was he even going to say to his mom? How was he supposed to tell her that her son wasn’t coming home?
He barely managed to get his suit off, stripping down and throwing it on the ground without giving a shit about proper protocol, storming off to his private compartment to stop himself from losing it in front of the only other person up here now. Shoko said something about getting everything back on course, but he wasn’t listening as he turned his back from her.
God, he felt like he was going to fucking hurl.
The edges of his vision kept blurring, going in-and-out of darkness as he forced himself to change clothes, sitting hunched over the edge of his bed and burying his face in his hands, replaying the look on Suguru’s face when he realized he wasn’t going to make it.
Rewinding and searching for some other way to change the past as he screwed his eyes shut.
But he couldn’t save him then and there was no way to save him now.
He wished you were here.
Wished you’d wrap your arms around him and run your fingers through his hair and promise him that it would still be okay. That Suguru wouldn’t blame him.
That his best friend was somewhere better.
Even if everything scientific in his body swore that there was no better place waiting for him.
Gojo pushed himself back up to his feet, jaw locked tight as he walked back over to the one piece of you he still had access too, tapping away at the controls to see if you sent any videos while he was out there making the worse fucking mistake of his life.
Foot impatiently tapping against the floor as he reclined his head back against the floor, wishing that he’d never even come on this mission in the first place – if he hadn’t, Suguru wouldn’t have even answered the distress call, would he?
He’d still be alive, and Gojo would be with-
The computer let out a beep, interrupting his thoughts as the screen came to life, loading everything up as he sighed with relief.
Seeing your smile, hearing your soft words might not heal him, but it was the only thing he could think of to help the raw wound of loss ripping through his chest.
Until the automated computer voice made an announcement right as he popped his headphones in.
Loading messages from the past eleven years.
No. No no no no no.
It was wrong.
It had to be fucking wrong.
The computer had to be fried. Some water must have somehow gotten in it and fucked with the wiring and-
Before he could even hit a single button, try to troubleshoot, there you were in front of him, your hand on your swollen stomach, scowling in the camera as you asked where the hell he was. Fear creeping in your pretty voice that no one had heard anything from any of them – reminding him that he promised to come back.
He did. He would.
The small lump in his throat getting bigger and bigger as the video auto-played into the next one, where you were obviously about to pop, filming in a space-themed nursery, your anger twisted into worry, telling him that you didn’t want to do this alone.
Begging him to not make you.
Gojo froze.
Shoulders stiff as he saw the tears rolling down your cheeks, stunned as his own brain short-circuited, the guilt swimming in his stomach threatening to drown him as you ended the message.
Part of him wanted to hit stop.
Like if he paused it now, he would be able to freeze time and somehow make it back to Earth in time to not miss any more of it.
But his fingers weren’t fast enough.
And the next frame came with the audio of a baby crying.
Two babies. One swaddled in blue and the other in pink. Their names on knitted hats he already knew Suguru’s mom must’ve made, a strangled sob escaping him before he even realized he was crying.
The twins. His twins.
Sleepily yawning and opening their eyes just a peek, enough for him to see his son had the misfortune of inheriting his looks while his daughter came out like a miniature you. Someone else was recording you in the hospital bed, but you were talking to the camera like it was him, face soft as you giggled that he would probably bawling harder than the babies when he realized he missed this.
Suguru’s mom laughed behind the camera.
He was.
Tears falling freely as the videos just kept playing. One after another.
His children were growing up without him.
From tiny and fragile bundles to bumbling toddlers to fuck, full-sized little kids.
In what? Fifty minutes?
Five entire years of their life, condensed down to a handful of clips. The first steps he missed, the birthdays and holidays and father’s day he’d never get back.
They didn’t even look at the camera half the time. Too busy playing and giggling and laughing while you did your best not to cry in front of them. They didn’t know him.
Their father was barely more than a fucking video camera being pointed at them.
And you, god, his pretty, perfect you.
Still sending him these even when you had to think he was fucking dead.
Dark circles under your eyes and a hollowness to your face that only got worse over the years. Exhaustion in your expressions as you spoke to him like you didn’t think he was listening.
You mostly updated them on the kids' life. Skimmed over the details of a job you obviously didn’t like. Told him how Suguru’s mom had basically become their grandma. Sometimes Artemis would be on your lap, squinting at a book or playing with a toy while you talked.
His girls a wormhole away.
Gojo wanted to scream. Shout at the world to stop fucking spinning for a while so he could make it back to you.
But five years turned into six, and six turned into seven, and he watched in horror as it started to set in that he was losing you too.
What if it was too late?
What if you moved on? What if your life had no room left in it for him by the time he made it back to Earth?
The twins were already in school and playing sports and clearly didn’t miss the man they’d never met.
Would you stop missing him too?
He didn’t know how many videos he watched. Guessing the time jump between each one based on how much the twins had grown in the background.
You looked more mature now too. More put together, hair styled differently, no longer bare-faced when you turned the camera on, in a different room that obviously belonged to a house that wasn’t his home.
Toys weren’t scattered around everywhere in the background anymore. But sometimes the twins would run through with one of their friends, some pink-haired kid that seemed to come over often judging by the way you barely blinked when they passed behind you.
Gojo felt like a stranger.
Some creep looking in the window of a happy family and thinking it should be his.
“Mom,” Apollo whined, trying to tug on your sleeve as his shaggy white hair hung around his shoulders, attempting to drag you away while you were in mid-sentence. “Me and Cho made a cake. Come try it.”
“Sure, honey,” you softly said, cringing a little before glancing back at the camera apologetically before signing off.
Was Cho one of his friends? One of yours?
He didn’t actually want an answer.
But the next video seemed to clue him in on one anyway.
You were wearing a shirt that was too big for you. The collar of it stretched out, your hair mused and down as you softly spoke, like you were trying not to wake someone up.
It wasn’t Gojo’s shirt.
An awful feeling settled in his bones. One that etched deeper with every little off detail he noticed.
A pair of men’s shoes in the background. A watch left on your desk, barely in frame. The Cho the twins occasionally chattered about affectionately.
Who apparently was taking them to soccer games and science museums like he should be doing right now if he heard them correctly.
Gojo didn’t want to believe that you were dating again. Even if he knew that it would be the normal thing to do.
Completely reasonable for you to move on after not hearing a word from him in nearly a decade.
But the idea of you loving another man, letting him into your life, letting him take his space-
He puked.
Head between his knees as he got sick on the floor, throwing up a mixture of salt water he swallowed earlier and the freeze dried breakfast he had this morning. Funny, wasn’t it? He’d lost over ten years with you and his best friends in just a day.
An hour on that horrible planet had cost him a decade.
Body wracking with shudders as he coughed and spit, wiping the back of his mouth just in time to look up at you while those pretty lips of yours pressed in a thin line. Sadness shining in your eyes, frustration and disappointment you rarely let show evident in your trembling frame.
“It’s hard to keep hoping for you,” you admitted, reaching out to shut off the camera, and he desperately wanted to scream for you to not give up, to just fucking wait.
But then the computer chimed in that there was one video left the second the screen went black after you ended it.
His hand reached out, desperate to touch you, desperate to stop you, but your world was spinning faster than his was.
And your face was back on screen, something inside him wilting and withering at the realization that another year had probably passed for you, maybe even two, more that he would never be able to get back.
A few more faint lines were etched by your eyes, subtle creases left as a sign of all the time he missed with you. But you looked healthier. Happier.
His beautiful girl sitting there and smiling at him instead of screaming like you should’ve been. Cursing his name for not coming home sooner, scolding him for being a piece of shit that should’ve stayed on Earth.
“Hi, Satoru,” you spoke softly, fiddling with your hands. “Been a while since I’ve made one of these.”
He was terrified to know how long.
“The twins are good. They’re gonna be ten next month,” you continued, not looking directly at the camera as you talked. “They’re both smart, like you. Apollo’s been more into soccer than school these days though.”
He wanted to see him. See both of them.
Hold them too, know his children outside of the information you would tell some distant relative, even if that was all he felt like right now.
“Artemis wants to be a scientist when she grows up. She sits on the sidelines of his games with her nose buried in books,” you told him, a little smile reflexively curling up on your lips just from talking about them. “I wish you could see them. Wish you were here.”
His chest hurt.
Gojo didn’t know he stopped breathing until his body forced him to suck in a breath, lungs screaming for air as he stared at the woman he was supposed to marry.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
The mission should’ve been routine. Simple.
Suguru should be setting up the navigation. He should be begrudgingly agreeing to being his best man and coming to the courthouse to witness the rushed ceremony.
“Sometimes,” you started, swallowing hard as your gorgeous eyes welled up with tears that threatened to spill out. “I dream of you. Us. Back in our old apartment in the creaky bed and the broken window. I wake up thinking I’m still there.”
The hard lump lodged in his throat was threatening to choke him entirely, the taste of bile still on his tongue as his nails digging crescent moons into his palms as he watched your mouth quiver.
“The government declared you dead a few years ago. One of your old colleagues came by one day, said that no one really knew for sure what happened, just that you missed the supply drop. Used a bunch of big words like I was too stupid to understand that the bottom line was that you weren’t coming home. Tried to make me feel better about it too,” you bitterly scoffed at the memory, resting your chin on your knees as you exhaled. On the brink of crumbling just recalling it, “Told me that you might’ve settled on a colony on a different planet or got stuck in some fucked-up time dilation. That you might still be alive out there somewhere.”
If his throat wasn’t already raw, he would’ve screamed at the screen that he was.
Wanted to beg you not to fucking believe whatever bullshit everyone else was feeding you and believe in him.
“You don’t feel dead,” you added. Sniffling a little, using the back of your hand to rub underneath your eyes. “Maybe it’d be easier to move on if you did.”
Even his relief was tainted by guilt, ruined with his own worry that he was ruining your future by wishing you’d be stuck on him forever.
“My therapist thinks I’m wasting my life waiting on someone who’s never coming back,” you murmured, speaking to him more like you were talking to your diary than truly believing he was going to hear any of it. “But how am I supposed to tell her I’m scared that some day you will, and I won’t be here?”
Everything hurt.
His body, his heart, his soul.
Aching for everything he’d lost. Everything you lost because of him. His own kids growing up without a fucking father because he was an idiot who put a career before his family.
The life he’d spent years carefully building towards lost because he miscalculated.
“I know it’s not fair, but fuck, thinking about you moving on with another girl, or fucking starting some colony up in space and having kids with someone else, makes me wanna throw up,” you admitted, clueless that he had just puked at the idea of someone else being the stepfather to his twins.
You hadn’t even confirmed-
“I’m being a hypocrite,” you muttered, burying your face in your hands to hide the fact you were crying — and that’s when it hit him.
The engagement ring on your finger wasn’t his.
Smaller. More subtle. A different cut and style.
No. You couldn’t-
“I’ve, um, been dating a guy for a few years. He’s sweet. Everyone loves to tell me how much you would’ve liked him,” you admitted, twisting the ring around your finger anxiously like you were confessing a sin. He didn’t like him. Already hated whatever bastard had snuck in and swept you off your feet. “They keep saying that you’d want me to move on.”
What a load of fucking shit.
The last goddamn thing he wanted was for you to move on. The idea of you marrying another man was enough for him to gag again, bile rising from his stomach as he struggled to stop it.
“I still love you,” you shrugged a little, guilt of your own etched in your face as his eyes stung with more tears. “I just love him too.”
Gojo would take getting stabbed over hearing those words from your lips again.
“Choso said maybe it’d make me feel better to make another video for you, y’know, get everything off my chest,” you exhaled. “I’m just so tired, Satoru.”
Okay, well, that kind of felt like being stabbed.
Knowing that this was all his fault and you were the one bearing so much of the burden.
“I know you’re probably never going to see this, but you’d want me to be happy, wouldn’t you?” You asked, eyes big and wavering as you struggled not to sob, reaching up to play with the silver chain of your necklace tucked under your shirt. “Would you hate me for choosing someone who cares about me and our kids?”
He could never hate you.
Even if you married ten other men while he was gone.
He would just always hate the man who got to call you their wife. Jealous of whichever one got to take family photos with you and take you on vacation and sleep next to you every night.
Gojo wanted to be that guy. Wanted to get down on his knees next to you now and dry your cheeks, kiss your mouth and murmur anything you wanted to hear just to make you feel better.
“I’m getting married in four months,” you murmured, wiping the tears away from underneath your eyes, mascara smearing on the back of your hand as you sniffled. “At that chapel we picked out. The one with the pretty hydrangeas out front.”
No no no.
He could still make it.
Couldn’t he?
If they skipped the supply drop entirely and went straight back through the wormhole?
Hadn’t he lost enough?
Gojo refused to let you slip through his fingers a second time. No matter how fast the hourglass was running out of sand.
You stood up, walking out of frame for a few seconds as he heard the sound of something unzipping. And then you came back, holding out something white and-
A wedding dress.
“You never got to see me in one, so I thought-” You didn’t finish your sentence, just swallowing hard as you draped it back down on furniture just out of sight.
The camera barely focused on your body as you peeled your clothes off, his breath hitching at the intimate sight of you slipping the dress on, struggling to zip the back by yourself before walking closer.
You looked like an angel.
And Gojo sorta wished he was dead.
Stuck in the stunned shell of his body as he watched the way the dress clung to your chest and flowed to the ground, his heart thrumming loud enough he was sure it was about to break through his ribcage.
And then a noise in the background startled you.
The thud of a door shutting. The excited clamoring of children, a girl giggling as a man said something he couldn’t quite make out.
Your face scrunched up, a million different emotions flashing across it as you both heard it at the same time. “We’re back, baby.”
Another man was calling you baby.
Footsteps echoing down a hallway he’d never gotten to walk down, your own body rushing over to block the door before it could open.
“I’m trying my wedding dress on, Cho,” you called out, lips pressing together in a pretty pout. “It’s bad luck if you see.”
“Yeah? We brought back your favorite takeout, want me to put it in the fridge or-” he started asking, his voice deep, gravelly.
“You can leave it out,” you replied, your voice softening as you spoke to him. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
You glanced back at the camera, guilt returning the second your stare hovered over at it.
And before Gojo could even really appreciate what a beautiful bride you made, you were rushing to get out of it, biting your lips before stuffing it back into a garment bag, putting your clothes back and returning to your seat.
“I’m sorry,” you said, fingers trembling as your hand reflexively reached for your necklace again. “I wish things were different.”
It could be.
It would be.
Even if a little voice in the back of his head suggested that you might not leave your current fiancé for him if he made it back in time.
That you might choose the man that had actually been there for you all this time.
Behind you, there was a knock on the door.
“Can I come in now?”
No.
This was supposed to be private, a one-sided conversation that was for his ears only, but you were glancing back over your shoulder.
“Yeah,” you quietly answered.
Gojo almost wished your fiancé was ugly. That it would make it easy for you to pick him instead.
But of course, he had to be annoyingly attractive, dark hair hanging around his shoulders and bangs that reminded him of the best friend he just damned as he casually walked over to you, concern etched into his sharp face as he leaned in to press a kiss on the top of your forehead.
“Everything okay?” He asked, but then his eyes shifted and he noticed what you were filming. “Oh, baby.”
The sound of someone who knew you were hurting. Who cared.
“I’m okay, really, I’m just saying goodbye,” you murmured, like they both couldn’t tell how close you were to breaking down.
“I’ll give you a few minutes,” he spoke gently, his touch lingering on your skin like it really was his now. “Apollo and Yuji want to go spend the night with one of their friends.”
Gojo wanted to strangle him.
Fly through the space and stars just to give him a black eye for just how casually he spoke about his son.
Although some sliver of him was well fucking aware that Choso had probably been more of a dad to Apollo than he’d ever gotten to be.
“That’s fine,” you shrugged, nodding a little as your body relaxed, tension lifting from your shoulders the longer you looked at him.
Gojo hated that he could see that you really did love him in your eyes.
See that familiar glimmer shining in them as you looked up at a stranger instead of him.
Choso left the room, but his presence didn’t.
You stared at the door for a few moments after it shut, but you didn’t say whatever you were thinking. Kept it bottled up before you eventually looked back at Satoru.
Not that you could even see him.
You thought you were talking to a ghost.
That’s all he’d become to you. To his children. A phantom haunting rooms he’d never entered. Lingering in empty spaces he should’ve been. A spectre living in the shadows of your heads.
“I miss you,” you murmured, reaching for the button one last time to shut it off. “I don’t think that will change. But I can’t keep believing you’re coming home.”
No. Please no.
He was.
“I love you, Satoru,” you half-whispered, choking the words out. “Goodbye.”
The screen went dark.
His reflection staring back at him. Cheeks wet with tears that wouldn’t stop, breaking down as he fell apart, nausea swirling as he forced himself to stand and step around where he’d thrown up, pacing the floor as his brain struggled to work through a problem he didn’t know how to solve.
He went back to the console, frowning when he tried to start recording to send a message back out to you, to beg you to just give him a little more time, but nothing happened.
Body and brain barely working together to frantically tap buttons, staring at what data was available to see if he could find when the transmission was received.
A faint flicker of hope stirring when he realized it had only been two days ago.
You weren’t married yet.
Maybe there was time.
And even if there wasn’t, he’d do his damndest to get there and wreck your marriage if it meant winning you back.
He was a wreck, stumbling out of the room to rush to find Shoko, nearly tripping on his own feet as he found her by the controls, her neat brunette brows scrunching together in disgust when she saw the state he was in.
“What the hell-”
Gojo wasn’t sure he was even speaking in full sentences when he started rambling about time dilation, about how they already missed a goddamn decade, her mouth curling down into a tight frown as he got into the details of how they needed to go home now.
“We don’t have the fuel,” she deadpanned, drawing his attention to the data on screen. “We can make it to our supply drop, but unless they have some there, we’ll probably be stuck on their settlement until another crew comes along.”
That wasn’t a fucking option.
They had to make it.
But even when he spent the next forty-eight hours crunching the numbers and calculating different ways to return, he still came to the same conclusion – Shoko was right.
And still said ‘I told you so’ when he said fine to going to the planet for the supply drop, figuring that at least if the load was lighter, he might be able to make what they had left stretch.
He was barely showering.
Barely eating.
Manic energy getting him through the long days and longer nights to avoid the dreams that would only mock him for all his failures.
They were just filled with your face, with Suguru’s, of children that called another man dad.
Filling his notebooks with different calculations he was desperate to get right this time.
Skin crawling with the fear that he’d fuck this up and lose you forever.
He didn’t get to mourn Suguru. Couldn’t mourn the years he missed.
Not if he didn’t want to miss the rest of them.
By the time they made it to the next planet, he was a wreck. Practically shoved in the shower by Shoko to get cleaned up before they landed, feeling ill when he was forced to get his suit back on, praying to whatever higher power might be out there to let there be fuel. Let him go home to his family.
This planet wasn’t full of water. Wasn’t one big ocean.
Landing in a lush green field, not far from real buildings, actual structures erected, fellow scientists rushing out to greet them as Shoko worked fast to unload the supplies with their help.
Gojo knew he probably sounded like a lunatic rushing to get his request for fuel out as soon as possible, counting the seconds in his head as he hoped that they weren’t months passing for you back home.
“I need to get back to my fiancée, my kids, please," he begged, pleading without caring how pathetic it came out when everyone here had given up their lives on Earth in the name of science and research.
“I’m sorry,” their de facto leader apologized, an astronaut he once grew up looking up to frowning at him as he glanced around at their simple setup to search for anything that could help him. “We don’t have any. There’s going to be another supply drop in a month, more people coming to live here. You could probably go back with them if-”
“No,” he accidentally interrupted, the word ripped from the back of his chest as he recoiled.
It couldn’t end like this.
He’d be too late if he stayed.
“Satoru,” Shoko hissed, pulling him back as his breathing got ragged, on the verge of a panic attack.
“Shoko, they don’t-”
“I know,” she cut him off, swallowing hard as she fixed him with her steady stare. “Look, I’ll stay here. You take the lander back. Without me and all this stuff, the fuel should last.”
“You want me to leave you?” He asked, automatically shaking his head no at the absurd suggestion.
“I don’t have anyone waiting for me back on Earth anyway,” she shrugged.
He didn’t have the seconds to debate it.
“Are you sure?” He asked, his chest already aching at the idea of being alone on the ship.
“Go get your wife back,” she huffed. “Name one of your next kids after me.”
“Deal,” he breathed, throwing her arms around her in a rushed hug before he had to sprint back to the lander.
Both his best friends left behind on planets he knew he’d never get back to.
And still, he wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to make it back to the one they came from.
He wasn’t even meant to be the navigator.
Wasn’t supposed to be the one frantically typing in coordinates and rushing through checklists to get back home.
Struggling and squinting at the consoles, breathing heavy when everything was inputted, running the numbers again and again.
He should make it.
Although, his current path put him at landing in some random field in the middle of nowhere, NASA would probably be rushing to get there once they realized it was one of their landers.
If only he could send out a fucking transmission.
He tried to figure out why it wouldn’t work, fiddling with it almost every day in failed attempts to fix it and rewatching your videos when his energy threatened to run out.
Gojo hadn’t cut his hair in months. That was something Suguru usually helped him with. It was nearly touching his shoulders, looking like a stranger in his reflection in the fogged-up mirror on the occasions he’d make himself shower and scrub his skin until it was practically red.
But maybe you liked men with longer hair now. Wouldn’t mind the fact that he changed too.
When he slept, he made it to the chapel just in time, rushing through the double doors right when the officiant asked if anyone objected.
He would whisk you away, dip you down and kiss you, fingers sinking into the silk of your wedding dress as he begged you to still be his.
Some part of him felt like it was all light years away.
Up until Earth was outside his window, his heart thrumming at the thought of you down there, sharing a bed with someone else while he was fighting so hard to come back to you. Did he fuck you as good?
Make sure you finished every single time? Dot your face with kisses and carry you into the bathroom? Make all your favorite foods and worship the ground you walked on every day?
Gojo didn’t know if he’d be able to handle knowing.
But fuck, if it meant he’d still get to have you, he’d share you with that asshole.
Gojo still couldn’t send a transmission, had no way of actually notifying anyone when he got in the lander, flipping switches and changing settings as he got behind the controls.
Shutting his eyes for a few seconds as he set the coordinates, palms sweating as he clutched the controls. If his math was right, today would be the day you were supposed to be standing at the altar.
He could do this.
Failing wasn’t an option.
Not after everything that had brought him here.
“I’m coming home, sweetheart,” he murmured, a little aware that he had probably lost it if he was talking to himself up here.
But he hoped you could feel him.
That even if you were wearing your wedding dress right now, you would be able to sense him somehow. Clinging to the hope that yours hadn’t completely faded yet.
The landing fucking sucked.
Hitting the ground too hard, his head snapping forward fast enough he was pretty sure he had a concussion or whiplash, body bracing for the impact as it skidded to a stop in a corn field an hour from that chapel he just toured with you last year. Even if it’d been more like twelve to you.
It still didn’t stop him from rushing to get out, nearly kissing the ground as he stumbled out. Sucking in the fresh air as he glanced around, his legs trembling as he forced himself to keep moving, well aware he definitely looked like shit even if he tried to clean himself up before his, ah, crash landing.
“Are you okay? What the fuck is-”
Gojo grimaced as he glanced up to find someone who pulled over on the side of the road, a stranger squinting at him and the wrecked lander in disbelief.
“Uh, could you give me a ride?”
Maybe the universe had decided to cut him some slack. Give him a helping hand as he sat in the passenger seat of a beat-up truck, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes as he noticed the new phone in the cupholder.
“Do, uh, you mind if I make a couple calls?” He asked, the distant sound of sirens echoing as they put mile after mile away from the lander – and inched closer and closer to you.
“Sure,” his new friend shrugged, using his face to unlock his phone at the next stoplight and passing it over.
Gojo still had your number memorized.
Even if you didn’t pick up the phone for him.
No voicemail box set up either, just the generic ‘please leave a message at the beep’ he didn’t have it in him to oblige. He hurried to dial one of his old contacts from NASA he remembered, not sure if Ijichi would pick up either.
But they did.
“Hello?” Ijichi croaked, almost sounding like he just woke up, or maybe was sick.
“Hey, it’s, uh, me,” he said, tapping his fingers on the side of the window. “I sorta crash landed. You guys are gonna want to send someone out to take care of clean up.”
“Satoru?”
“Yeah, it’s, um, been a bit, hasn’t it?” He awkwardly chuckled, rambling off the coordinates twice, sure that Ijichi was scrambling to get them down before he exhaled. “Look, I’ve got a wedding to crash. I’ll check in later.”
Gojo hung up before he could get caught up in any more stupid space bullshit.
He was finished.
Ready to spend the rest of his years devoted solely to you and his twins.
Would you be happy to see him?
Let him pick you up and press kiss after kiss to your mouth and promise that you missed him?
He’d spent so long daydreaming about it that he didn’t really know what to do when the truck pulled into the very much empty parking lot of the chapel.
Was he too early?
Too late?
Walking up to the double doors and pulling them open to find barren pews illuminated by stained glass windows. He walked around like an idiot, something pricking at the back of his brain that he wouldn’t listen to as he looked outside at the cemetery next to it.
He didn’t have a real reason for going back out there.
Just some invisible string tugging him there as he held his breath, searching for proof in the last place he wanted to find it.
And there it was.
Sitting underneath a willow tree waiting for him.
He stared at the gravestone. Your name etched into the stone – with another man’s last name attached to it.
His knees gave out. Collapsed underneath him as a broken sob racked through his body, hitting the hard ground as his body surrendered to the pain. Fat tears rolling down his cheeks, sucking in shallow breaths as he cried for the life you had.
The one he hadn’t been there to give you.
You couldn’t be-
Someone tapped on his back.
He turned fast, shaking as his eyes landed on your face. His pretty girl, probably a good twenty years older than him, aged like a fine wine as your mouth fell open in a surprised gasp. He reached out, fingers trembling as he nearly touched your cheek from his position on the ground, but you froze.
“Dad?”
It wasn’t you.
Artemis tried helping him up, tears springing up in her eyes as she immediately hugged him, his brain fractured as he realized that his daughter was here. His daughter was older than him. How much time had passed? How fucking off was he?
“Oh my god, it’s actually you, when I got the call, I didn’t think-”
“Artemis?” He breathed her name, wishing he’d gotten the opportunity to say it to her a million more times. “You’re-”
“Holy shit, I have to call everyone,” she grinned, her smile hurting his chest when it looked so much like yours. “Apollo isn’t gonna believe it. You know, you’re already, like, a great grandpa thanks to him, by the way.”
Every word was a fresh punch to the gut.
A great grandfather.
He never even got to be a father.
Missed his kids growing up, getting married, having kids of their own, and even them having kids.
“How long has it been?” He asked, his voice raw, broken chords of disbelief as Artemis' face twisted up, looking behind him as it struck her that he hadn’t known any of it.
“Since you left?” She awkwardly spoke, tilting her head as she scratched the back of her neck. There was a wedding band on her finger. Did your husband walk her down the aisle? “Um, about fifty years?”
Four months had been forty years.
Gojo couldn’t stop himself from crying again, wiping away his cheeks faster, ashamed of what he’d done.
A fool masquerading as a man.
Artemis awkwardly wrapped an arm around him, trying to soothe him as she used her free hand to send texts like he couldn’t see through the tears.
Sobs wracking through him as the dam inside him broke, reduced to rubble as he fell apart. Painfully aware that he was only inches away from you, and still no closer at all.
He’d never hold you again. Never touch you again.
Wouldn’t get to see your smile or hear your laugh, feel the warmth of your affection.
His children wouldn’t need him.
For a while, his daughter just sat there with him. Let him cry until he managed to halfway collect himself, his eyes swollen and sore as he struggled to breathe, body aching and stomach starving despite how sick he felt every time he looked up and saw your grave.
“She passed away last year,” Artemis muttered. “She’d been sick for a while.”
God, he felt like he was going to die right now.
Figured it would hurt less than hearing about everything he missed.
“She talked about you a lot. Made you out to be a big hero,” his daughter smiled softly, obviously trying to make him feel better. You should’ve turned him into the bad guy. “I actually work at NASA. God, she was pretty pissed at me when she found out I even applied, but I promised that I wouldn’t go to space so, uh-”
It seemed like she inherited his ability to shove his foot in his mouth, her lips clamping shut as she realized that maybe this wasn’t the time.
“Apollo’s a teacher now,” she abruptly changed the subject, and he didn’t know what to say.
Just staring at her in shock, unable to form proper sentences when he thought he was coming home to a preteen – not a fully grown woman who looked so much like you it hurt to breathe. “Oh, there he is.”
He looked over to see his son was walking down the path with an old man, talking between each other with furrowed expressions.
Watched the shock register on their faces when they saw Gojo there.
He didn’t know what to say when they finally approached, the thick silence and tension simmering in the air as he stared at Apollo.
Strands of silver in his white hair, blue eyes burning with emotions he didn’t blame him for. Resentment. Reproach.
“You’re-”
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he heard himself say, voice cracking painfully.
“Yeah,” his son huffed, arms folding across his broad chest. “Us too.”
“Apollo,” the older man next to him scolded, giving him a fatherly look that seemed so natural on his face before throwing Gojo a look that was almost like ‘kids, right?’ “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Choso.”
And despite the fact he had to be in his seventies now, Gojo still sort of wanted to hit him.
Rip the golden band off his finger and start a fight over the fact he’d gotten to spend decades with the love of his life.
“Was she happy?” He asked instead, hollowed out, no strength left in him to stand.
“She was,” Artemis softly confirmed, patting his shoulder like he was a child. And he wondered if she had kids too, or if even his son’s children were older than him now.
“She missed you,” Choso added, more mature than Gojo suspected he would ever be.
Because right now, he was filled with hate.
Anger and rage boiling and burning under the surface at the injustice of all of it. At everything he missed. Everything that should’ve been his that ended up in the hands of someone else because he was too stupid to hold onto you tight enough.
He hated Choso. Hated space. Hated the universe.
Mostly though, he hated himself.
“We should go get some food,” Artemis artfully pivoted away, trying to tug him upright. “You’re probably starving, right?”
Gojo thought he nodded, not that he was totally in tune with his body, dazed as he tried to sort through the thousand thoughts flooding through his mind.
Numbness creeping in now that he knew it had all been for nothing.
“Before I forget,” she murmured, taking off a necklace he hadn’t noticed her wearing. The thin silver chain weighed down by two rings dangling at the end. The engagement ring he once gave you – and a plain band of white-gold. “Mom always wore it. She told me she bought the band for you before you were supposed to come back and could never bring herself to put either of them away.”
She dropped it in his palm, his pulse pounding in his ears at the proof you never fully gave up on him. One last thread of you in his hands as he automatically unlocked the clasp and put it on himself, the weight of it sitting over his chest and tethering him back to reality.
To the two children he made with you standing in front of him now he was still lucky enough to meet.
Artemis interlocked her arm with her brother, laughing at something he said before immediately beginning to bicker about where to eat at, who to call next.
Giggling about their sister, his throat closing at the confirmation you had another baby after him. That you lived a full life he’d only get to see second-hand. Through photos and stories instead of in person.
Apollo grumbled something under his breath, throwing a glare back at Gojo, still protective over you after you passed. Artemis just elbowed her brother though, tossing the hair back over her other shoulder that reminded him of you.
And some depressing part of him wondered if that’s what you and him would’ve looked like together one day if he stayed.
He would never get to know.
His eyes drifted back to your grave. And then the one next to it.
His name etched next to yours. A plot you must have purchased for him back when you thought you’d never get his body back.
A loving fiancé and father.
Gojo was grateful he would at least get to be buried next to you one day.
It’s his fault tonight, as is most times. He loves you. He wishes he could do whatever you asked of him. But, Jujutsu society has other plans for him sometimes.
Work. It’s always work that takes immediate priority. Time and time again.
It’s two in the morning. His brain feels like it’s been scrambled fifteen times over and cooked on medium heat, then refried again and finally lit on fire. The cursed spirit he spent the last eight hours exorcising—with a technique of immediate reincarnation—left him to utilize hollow purple in rural-side Japan to avoid casualties, his reversed curse technique to heal himself constantly when he was exhausted, and then teleport way too far of a distance just to get back to you.
Even if it was hours after the date night you had planned for him.
It makes him wince when he tries to envision it all—candles and rose petals decorating the penthouse. Takeout since you can’t cook for the life of you. Waiting at the dining table in that pretty red dress he bought for you last month, hair and makeup done, practically begging to be ruined by him afterwards. Eating dinner by yourself when you realize that maybe he isn’t showing up and heading off to bed.
He wanted to text you, really. But that fucking curse knocked his phone from his pocket mid-air and sent it into the brush of the prairie—the screen cracked and device completely unusable.
“Sweetheart,” he starts softly, his voice echoing in the uncomfortably empty space. He recalls when he left the place practically vacant aside from his mattress, not even caring to furnish the place until he met you. Made a home with you.
He toes his shoes off and tosses his uniform jacket on the couch as he passes the threshold. His bandage hangs loosely around his neck, his Six Eyes barely able to ascertain anything while a grimace of pain passes his face. His cursed energy reserves are running low, and he doesn’t have the power to heal himself right now.
He can only recharge with you.
He makes his way to the bedroom, stumbling and trying not to trip over his own feet. Exhaustion hangs heavy under his eyes, weighing down his limbs. You’re probably asleep seeing as it’s the middle of the night, but a part of him hopes you’re awake. Even if you yell at him, or hit him.
Pushing your bedroom door open, he sees your form under the sheets, facing away from him. Your breaths are slow, rhythmic.
His chest tightens.
He doesn’t have the battery power to even undress himself, slipping into the sheets beside you. He smells like curse, and he has a feeling you’ll cuss him out in the morning for sleeping without getting cleaned up.
His head hits the pillow, milky hair creating a halo of white around his head. The need for sleep hits him quickly, before you stir.
“I don’t want to do this anymore, Satoru.”
Despite how soft and careful your words are, they hit Gojo like a truck. Air is stripped from his lungs as he stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, despair leaving him to spiral. “Okay. Okay,” he turns over to stare at your back, even though it feels like his ribs are being split. “Uhm, I’m sorry, baby. I know how much this date meant to you and—.”
You push air from your nostrils and Gojo stops talking, his gut churning violently. He can taste bile on the back of his tongue. You then turn to face him, and it’s alarming how composed you look. This decision has probably been weighing on you for quite some time, seeing as this wasn’t the first date where he’d had to stand you up. Letting you down, time and time again.
“Just— stop. I was well aware of your role in the Jujutsu world when we started dating, even if you introduced me to it all. I still am now. I just thought… I’d be able to handle it. I guess I was wrong.”
You aren’t even looking at him, slowly appraising the charred holes in his black compression shirt revealing slips of skin. At some point, Gojo couldn’t hold up Infinity and exorcise the curse simultaneously. So, he lowered it, taking a great number of hits trying to kill the fucker. He’s never looked this disheveled before—his hair a mess and perspiration clinging to his skin. It makes your throat close up.
There’s an awkward moment where you pick at your nails and Gojo can’t peel his eyes from you.
Fuck, he hates this. Hates that he has to contest with both his personal and work life. Again. And again.
If only the fate of the world didn’t hang between his fingers.
You’d never make him choose, either. Abandoning his position to make time to grow the life you both want. Which is why you took the choice from him.
Desperation starts to claw at the edges of his mind, his pulse roaring in his ears. He’s not thinking clearly, lips curling downwards. “Baby, please. I-I know I fucked up, but I’ll make it up to you. I love you. Please, just. Don’t leave me?” his voice, barely a whisper now, wavers with each syllable.
Finally, you look up. You’re both crying. Tears run down his pale cheeks, his eyes a deep crimson red. You’re sniffling, your heart wound too tight.
This hurts. It’s hurt for a while now, and you’re certain it won’t stop hurting. You can’t keeping living like this.
“I don’t think I’ll stop loving you, ‘Toru,” you hiccup. You lean forward, cupping his cheeks in your hands. Your palms are warm against his icy skin. Then, you press tender kisses against his cheeks to erase the tears. “And that’s why I have to leave. I have to. You’re hurting me,” you mumble, chewing against the inside of your cheek.
A sob punches itself from his chest. You’ve never seen him cry before—your pretty boy that teases you incessantly, tugging at your hair and kissing you until you’re flustered. Spoils you like he’s got an endless chest of funds, which he probably does. Finds immense comfort in coming home to you. He’s been adverse to vulnerability since the day you met him, and you can sympathize why. When it gets dark for him, it’s really dark.
His arms, bulky and heavy, ensnare around your waist as he buries his face into your chest. He doesn’t stop crying for a while, your name on the tip of his tongue, the fabric of your chemise damp.
“Stay with me tonight,” he mutters after a while, fingers curling against you. “Please.”
You nod quickly, wiping your tear-streaked cheeks with the back of your hand. “Okay.”
You already feel selfish enough, staring at your packed bags tucked in the dark corner, ready to head out in the morning.
If he needs you for one last night, you’ll give him that. Even if it’s the last thing you’ll give him.
pairing: Frank Langdon x reader ; Dennis Whitaker x reader (not at the same time)
word count: 2.1 k
warnings: ANGST, fluff, love triangle???? This is more of a Frank Langdon story!! Mention of rehab (implied addiction - Frank), mention of divorce, kissing, jealousy, cursing, mention of falling asleep together on the same bed
a/n: I felt angsty, and typed it out. I really wanted to explore this dynamic, inspired by Frank and Dennis this season. The ending is sort of open ended (I may do a part 2👀)
Let me know if I should add more warnings
Feedback, comments and reblogs are appreciated. Thanks!
NO SMUT but Minors DNI
—~—~—~—~—
After coming back from rehab, Frank was still finding his way back to his old colleagues, some were more accepting, some well-
When Perlah and Princess planned a birthday party for Dana, and everyone pitched in, even if Frank was not in the mood for socialising he agreed, he needed to feel… like he belonged there.
They all head out together after work. Dana truly was the glue holding everyone together and Frank felt happy being there to celebrate her.
Mel and Frank were chatting about her sister Becca when Whitaker arrived.
“Sorry sorry, we’re here now, hey,” Dennis informed and hugged Dana, a little curiosity peeked in Frank as he turned his head to see who “we” were. And curiosity shredded the cat in pieces when- he saw you.
Dennis Whitaker was the star kid of the ED currently, and Frank? No longer the golden boy for sure. From Robby’s support and praises, to colleagues trusting him more, Dennis had everything which he once did. But the final straw? You.
An old face from the past, his past. Before he realised what he was doing he excused himself, got up and walked to you.
You stood beside Dennis, smiling, wished Dana a happy birthday, as Dennis introduced you to her and everyone as his-
“Girlfriend?” Frank’s voice made you turn your head. Frank Langdon. Your Frank- no no not yours, not…
There was a split second of awkwardness when Dana cleared her throat and patted Langdon’s shoulder
“Frank-“ you open your mouth as Dennis looks at you.
“You guys know each other?” he asked
Frank and you look at one another.
Frank Langdon, your neighbour once upon a time, Frank Langdon, your first love, Frank Langdon, who left.
When he visited home after finishing med school to celebrate, during a summer night when his parents hosted dinner for few neighbours, you were awkwardly sitting on one of the lawn chairs when he had walked up to you.
“You still don’t like to socialise?” He asked casually, didn’t look at you yet. You look up at him, there he was, your crush, the charming Frank Langdon. He never really talked to you much before as kids so you were surprised to see him interact with you, and also that he noticed you didn’t like to socialise much.
“Not really” you chuckle, that’s when he looked at you and boy were you in trouble?
He was more charming than you remember and Med school definitely gave him more confidence and maybe a slight air of arrogance too which you didn’t want to acknowledge, too focused on how soft his hair looked.
That night, Frank and you talk, laugh, get to know one another better, your silly crush was more in that moment, he was sweet really, underneath that confidence, he was still that nerdy neighbour you remembered.
“You still around? I’ll be here a couple of weeks” Frank asked and you nod, hopefully not too quickly, but his smirk suggested otherwise.
“How about we go to the theatre sometime hm? Watch a movie, grab something to eat later?”
“Sounds great, I’m in.”
You exchanged numbers. He suggested a movie, you fixed a date and time and there you were. Frank picked you up in his car as you drove to the local theatre nearby.
“I’ve heard good stuff about this movie, oh do you know those aren’t special affects, it’s real, and also I heard many of the actors performed their own stunts” As you needed out about the movie, Frank had one hand on the steering wheel, his gaze flicked between the road and you. A soft smile on his face.
You ignored when your hands brushed together reaching for popcorn, sitting beside each other. The little shiver it sent down your body and you swear you heard a faint chuckle from Frank amidst the loud theatre speakers.
The two of bantered and argued playfully about character arcs, tucked away from the world in a corner booth of the local diner, when he offered you fries from his plate.
“Sharing?” you ask
“Peace offering” Frank smiled
Frank dropped you home like gentleman and opened the car door as you stepped out.
“Had fun” you told him
“Same here” Frank leaned in a little, very gently brushed your cheek. But took a step back just in time, looked away.
“I uh- do you wanna do that sometime again? Maybe we can have ice cream” He suggested, felt like a topic change really, topic being him leaning in to-
“Sure yeah, I’d like that” You smile politely, pushing away the pang of disappointment, maybe you read into too much.
One night when you were hanging out in your room, you mentioned about going to New York
“Wow, the big apple? You’ll do good” Frank looked at you
“Thanks, I hope so. And you?”
“Maybe something with Emergency Medicine”
“That sounds intense…” you trailed off but smile “You’ll fit right in, Frank” And in that moment Frank finally took the step he wanted to the first time you went out. He kissed you, slowly, softly, before touching his forehead with yours.
“Maybe I can visit you in New York sometime” He murmured
“Yeah?” You asked with hope. Frank didn’t use his words, kissed you again instead, deeper this time, rough, his fingers trailed on the back of your neck, used it as leverage to pull you closer.
Summer was gone, and so was Frank. He was busy finding his path in the world of medicine. You had messaged him from New York, even sent a picture his way but there was no reply. But then he was busy of course. Or that was what you had told yourself for a couple of weeks, that turned into months, finally years. You never heard back from Frank.
So when Dennis asked if you knew each other. That man in front of you? Tired, dark circles under eyes, hair a little greasy. You didn’t know him, not anymore.
“Yeah-“ Frank tried to say firmly but came out shakier than he expected. Dana gave him a quick look before she focused back on Dennis.
“So how’d you two meet?”
“Don’t tell Trinity but I’m glad she had bullied me to join a dating app” Dennis chuckled and looked at you. You smiled back at him.
“Really? A dating app?” Frank asked pointedly, his gaze on Dennis borderline scary.
“Yes.” You answer this time. Formal, polite but firm.
Dennis took you aside to introduce you to Mel, Victoria and Samira excited, you had met Trinity already. All while Frank’s gaze was on you. He wanted to- scratch that, needed to talk to you. But how could he after-
“So how long has this been going on for?” Victoria asked, her eyes sparkled
“Went on our first date four months ago” You told her as Dennis blushed, oh he was so sweet. Frank overheard (eavesdropped).
“Girlfriend in four months, give me a break” Frank murmured to himself, jaw clenched. Robby who had just arrived saw Langdon brooding from the side. They were still not on the best terms after everything, Robby gave in anyway.
“Why the long face?” He asked and looked at Frank’s direction
“Ah, is that the girl Whitaker’s been chatting about a bit too much in my ER?” Robby chuckled but Frank didn’t find it funny. Not one bit. Robby didn’t comment.
“Langdon-“
“Why? Why him?” Frank said more to himself. And he really wanted to know, why Dennis Whitaker out of everyone. Why was Dennis taking everything? How? Or was Whitaker just an easy target to just for Frank to stop blaming himself and blame someone else for a second. What a cruel turn of events.
You came out of the restroom only to stumble into a wall, no wait, a person, Frank Langdon.
“Can we… please can we talk?” Frank could hardly look into your eyes. You didn’t answer, instead attempted to walk away. Frank gently held your hand.
“Don’t touch me” Frank let go.
“Sorry… just- please can we talk”
“Why?” You ask “Why now?”
“I don’t know, I never thought I’ll see you again-“
“Oh I think you mean ‘I never wanted to see you again’”
“That’s not… I’m sorry”
“I don’t give a fuck” you turned away and walked away. Went back to where Dennis and his friends were. Frank kept standing there.
Frank had messed up a lot of things in his life. And to think his life could have been completely different if only Frank didn’t get cold feet, if only he had replied, if only he didn’t get scared of those intense feelings and simply reached back to you.
Maybe that could have been his life, he thought to himself as you wrapped one hand around Whitaker’s arm.
“I’m not trying to intrude but I did sense weird vibe between you and Dr. Langdon” Dennis observed rather than questioning. He was driving you back to your apartment. The one you had moved into not very long ago, six months, almost seven, after moving to Pittsburgh.
“You okay?” Dennis asked, out of concern not doubt. You nod. But didn’t really comment on the Langdon thing and Dennis didn’t push. When he dropped you, you asked him to come upstairs.
That night, lying on your bed, Dennis hugged you a little tighter, pulled you closer against his bare chest, you smiled. Gradually Dennis had drifted off but you were wide awake. You untangled from his gentle embrace, kissed his forehead and went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
You picked up your phone to double check if it was charging properly when it buzzed.
Inbox. New Message. Frank.
Should have replied long time back, should have not screwed this up royally. I’m sorry, I know that doesn’t cover it but I really am. So much has happened but none of them are excuses. I’m trying this thing where I’m making amends… Well that’s a whole story really, I won’t drag this too much. I don’t even know if you still have this number. But in case you do. In case you even read this. I’m really sorry. I was scared back then, didn’t know how to balance my upcoming career and my feelings. One thing lead to another and I tried to pushed those feelings away. Wanted to prioritise my work. I thought I was doing the practical thing, wasn’t ready… I saw that picture by the way, of you in New York. Smiled to myself seeing that, but couldn’t reply, didn’t want to get involved. Fuck, I’m sorry! If you never want to talk to me I’ll understand. But if you do, please give me a proper chance to apologise. Take care.
You planned on ignoring the message. Why bother? Frank didn’t reply back then. Frank didn’t bother to. You left him on read. Got back on the bed, covered yourself. Dennis felt warm and comfortable beside you. The phone buzzed again and you were about to put it on silent when against your better judgement you opened the new message. An image.
It was Frank’s working ID after Med School. Another text followed.
I had gotten my ID the same day you sent that picture. This would have been my reply. I got into Emergency Medicine. I wanted to send this, but made the mistake of staring too long at the picture. The heavy weight of becoming the best doctor. Wanted to prove myself. Only if I knew about the life ahead.
You had almost hit block contact. Frank on the other side of the screen kept his phone away. Of course he didn’t expect a reply. Stared up at his ceiling, wanted to curse at the world. Wanted to scream-
Buzz
Inbox. New Message.
I don’t owe you anything. Not even a chance to explain, you took a decision, and that’s that.
Frank bit his lip harshly, he fucked up. He was typing a reply when another text popped up.
You looked like shit today. And nothing like the guy in the ID anymore.
Frank typed back quickly
I’m not that guy
This had to stop. You had no intention of texting another man while lying beside your boyfriend. One last message.
I’m happy Frank, I hope you can be too.
With that you blocked his number. And turned to face Dennis.
Frank closed the phone when his messages weren’t delivered anymore. Closed his eyes and went back to that night in the theatre. When even the engaging movie didn’t intrigue him as much as your bright smile did. Frank fell asleep thinking about your smile. Perhaps dreams would treat him better than life did.
It's been a long ten months for Frank Langdon. Rehab, endless meetings to prove he's fit for his job, and losing you.
It's his own fault. He knows that. He couldn't handle the pressure of his entire life going to shit, and combusted, destroying your life in the process. If things had gone to plan, the two of you would've been married by now. Instead, you're near strangers, and Frank doesn't know how long he can watch you date a guy that absolutely doesn't deserve you.
Until you turn up on his doorstep, with nowhere else to go after being kicked out by your ex.
And so, Frank Langdon's second chance begins.
warnings: 18+, mdni! this fic will feature medical gore, a little bit of violence, and explicit sex. more detailed warnings on each chapter individually
summary - dennis' blue eyes are the calm in your storm.
cw - workplace assault, choking, men (derogatory)
a/n - lowk wanna do something like this for all the pitt babes. already have one kind of planned for robby. happy pitt finale🥲
---
You remembered too well what it was like to be new. Not just new, but new in one of the most stressful, fast-paced places in the world. The pitt, any ER really, was enough to send anyone spiraling.
There were a few days from your life that were ingrained into your memory, whether you wanted them to be or not. Senses heightened, vivid imagery, things you played over in your mind late at night when you couldn’t sleep. Some were hard. Like the day your grandmother died, or the day of the PittFest shooting. Others were less so, like your eighteenth birthday your brother flew in for from overseas, or the day you adopted your cat, or your graduation from nursing school.
Your first day working at the pitt was hard. Hard to live through, and hard to relive even years later. You were a new grad RN, fresh-faced and naive, ready to help patients and make the world a better place. However, you were also a twenty-two year old with no real experience and crippling anxiety.
That day, two different doctors yelled at you for accidentally feeding an NPO patient before surgery, you managed to lock yourself into the clean supply closet to be rescued by an agitated resident, and a patient projectile vomited into your face.
Worst of all? Dana, the charge nurse you had so quickly come to admire, looked into your teary eyes and told you to pull yourself together.
You cried all the way home and well into the night, sure that you were the most incompetent, ridiculously idiotic nurse on the planet, and everyone at your new job knew it.
You couldn’t help but freeze sometimes. You forgot common medication side effects, took three pricks to get a blood sample, and rushed off to get the “real” nurse for things you knew you knew. The weight of decision making and pure responsibility clouded your judgement and had you running for mommy.
The next few days were much better. You found that taking a deep breath and listing the facts helped you focus up. Your first patient that day was a grumpy old man who started yelling when you missed his vein. Apparently, he wanted a doctor to do it, not some stupid kid with no real degree. Shaken and embarrassed, you went to get Dana.
Stupid. Unqualified. Unteachable. Failure.
To your surprise, Dana didn’t say any of those things. She didn’t scoff, storm ahead, or chide you. Instead, she took your shoulders and fixed you with a hard stare.
“He’s a scared, most likely bigoted old man who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow,” she had said. “You’ve got four years of school under your belt. You’ve done this before. Don’t let him talk you into your own head, kid.”
Before you walked back into the room, you’d stopped. Your head was still spinning. You glanced around, searching for solid ground. It was an old exercise, one your drama teacher from middle school used to suggest for stage fright. Pick a color, and find it around the room.
You took a long breath. Green. Green pattern on the privacy curtain. Green shoelaces. Green water bottle at the nurse’s station.
When you opened the door, it was just how you left it. The patient was still yelling, and you still hadn’t found a vein, and you still had a full bag of normal saline to hang. But your heart was calm, and you got that IV in, gave him the call bell, and wished the grump a good day.
It wasn’t magically fixed after that, you still had plenty of difficult days, days that left you wondering where you really belonged. But every day got just a bit easier to manage, and within the year, you were unrecognizable. Cool, collected, and willing to ask questions.
You still remembered your first day as a hard day, and it was. But it was nice to look back on how far you’d come.
The day you met Dennis was a good day. Well, the first half, anyways. He was big eyed and shaking, eager to make a good impression but without an ounce of self confidence. He reminded you of you, on your first day all those years ago.
You took him under your wing, so to speak, giving him all the pearls of wisdom you could offer. He didn’t believe you when you told him about your first experiences, on about his third pair of scrubs. When the shooting was over, and you finally clocked out hours after you were meant to, you gave him your number. You told him to call you if he needed anything, and he did.
So, yeah, maybe your intentions weren’t purely professional, but to be fair, neither were his. At first the questions were understandable, like “what’s the hospital policy on line patency?” and “how do I get on Princess and Perlah’s good side so they don’t talk shit about me?” But after a while, it became obvious he was using every excuse in the book just to hear your voice or have your name light up his phone with a text.
“What type of coffee do you keep in the breakroom?”
“Should I call in if I have a fever?”
“I’m studying and I just wanted to double check — Tylenol and acetaminophen are the same thing, right?”
You humored him, albeit teasingly. And eventually he plucked up the courage to ask you out… albeit, over the phone.
“I’m having some trouble with telemetry strips again… maybe, if you were free, we could meet for coffee, and you could quiz me? If you wanted to.”
There wasn’t much talk of heart rhythms at that cafe. You’d ended the night with a kiss, and the rest was history. Almost a year later you were still together. Everybody knew, but nobody knew. You never talked about it at work, never let yourselves get touchy, never even called him Dennis, although there was a certain softness in the way you said Huckleberry that Trinity definitely didn’t share.
You were practically “out” with just one little exception. Management. You were sure fraternization amongst coworkers was frowned upon, no matter how many times you’d seen it with your own eyes. Trinity and Garcia, Robby and Heather, Robby and Noelle, you were sure something was going on with Robby and Abbot… really it was mostly Robby, the slut. But Dennis had only just been offered residency, and you loved your job. You didn’t want to risk it.
“I just think the longer we wait, the worse it’s gonna be if they find out,” said Dennis anxiously, one cold morning.
“Why would they find out?” you asked, pouring hot coffee into two travel mugs. “Unless someone ratted us out, which they won’t, or unless we were caught fooling around at work, which we have never and will never do.”
Dennis sighed, wringing his hands together.
“I just think, maybe, it makes more sense to appropriately document it with HR,” he said.
“God, you’re such a square,” you teased, and he rolled his eyes.
“It’s not like we’d be the first ones!” he said. “Look — I don’t want to pressure you into anything, but you’ve told me before that you’re never planning on leaving PTMC, right?”
“Probably not,” you agreed, pouring a hefty serving of cinnamon creamer into Dennis’ coffee.
“Right, well, I’m gonna do everything I can to get an attending position there, too,” he said. “And if we’re never leaving, and…” he got suddenly shy, eyes diverted to the kitchen floor. “I mean, I’d like to stay together, for as long as possible, so…”
You smirked, putting down the creamer and wrapping your arms delicately around your boyfriend’s pinkening face.
“Aw, Denny,” you said. “We’re not breaking up. Not if I can help it.”
He cleared his throat, not bothering to hide his timid smile.
“Well, good,” he said, hands brushing your waist. “So, if we aren’t breaking up, and we aren’t leaving, then we’ll have to do this at some point. I mean, what happens when we get married?”
Dennis knew he’d made a mistake the second that shit-eating grin took over your face. He stuttered, desperate to backtrack, but it was far too late, and who was he kidding? He meant it.
“I — if we do, if — or — I mean —”
His face was bright red. You were giddy.
“You love me,” you sing-songed, too happy over his discomfort. “You think I’m gorgeous, you think I’m sexy, you wanna marry me!”
“Alright, alright,” he said through your giggles, glancing anxiously at Trinity’s closed door. “Yes, I love you, very much, okay?”
“That’s so embarrassing,” you said, poking his tummy and making him yelp. “I can’t believe you have a crush on me, ew!”
Still, you pressed a lingering kiss on his lips. He pulled you closer by the hips, smiling into you and your familiar taste.
“By the way,” he said, when you moved your lips to his cheeks, “I got a reservation at Golden Gai for Saturday.”
You hummed happily, brushing some stray curls away from his face.
“Mm, putting that resident money to good use, huh?” you said.
“Finally,” he sighed, touching his nose to yours. “Just wait until I’m an attending, you’ll never pay for anything ever again.”
“I don’t know,” you said lovingly. “I think we’ll have to split some wedding costs. Realistically, I mean.”
Dennis could only nuzzle into your neck, face burning once again. You took a sip of coffee over his shoulder and checked your watch. Just as you realized the time, Trinity’s door opened and she came bustling out into the kitchen. The look and noise of disgust was instant, as she saw the two of you tangled up together. Dennis didn’t raise his head, just flipped her the bird.
“You’re roommate works nights, why can’t you go be gross at your place?” she whined as Dennis picked up his own coffee. “This is a common area, you know.”
“Because my cat freaks out if we shut the bedroom door, and he can’t see us have sex, that’s sick,” you said, chuckling as Dennis inhaled his sip of coffee.
“Um, ew?” said Trinity, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“Oh please, you and Garcia rattle the walls,” you laughed, opening the fridge. “And I bet she never gives Dennis an apologetic Monster, does she?”
All transgressions were instantly forgotten as you tossed the can to Trinity. Her face cleared, shoulders relaxed, as she cracked it open.
“Well, maybe you should stay over all the time?”
“I thought so.”
***
“I’m starving.”
You collapsed next to Dennis, head in crossed arms. Wordlessly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a granola bar. You took it gratefully.
After a few bites, you found words.
“Hey, you’re free tomorrow at three, right?” you asked.
“No, we’re working,” he said.
“Right,” you nodded. “But you think you’ll be able to find a window? Because I told HR we’d be there by then.”
He shot you a look.
“You made a meeting with HR?” he asked. “You mean…”
“That’s right,” you said, poking his cheek. “For our anniversary, I got you a frightfully uncomfortable conversation with Linda from HR to talk about our intimate relationship. Happy one year!”
He laughed. He wanted to hug you, kiss you, tell you he loved you, but that would definitely be counterproductive. Especially if you were going to try and convince management that you had only just started dating. Instead, he gave you a high five.
“Thank you,” he said.
And as you were called away to south six, you realized that today would probably go into your good-day book. It was funny, how you could wake up on a random Tuesday, not knowing it would be a day to remember. Not knowing it would be a day, no matter your desire, that you would never be able to forget.
“Okay,” you said absently as you entered, eyes focused on the tablet in hand as you pulled the curtain shut behind you. “Mr. Hammarath?”
There was a grunt in response. You placed the pad on the cart and grabbed some gloves.
Mr. Hammarath was fifty-four, tall, and beefy. He had rough looking hands, like he worked with them, and mean eyes that followed your every move. You knew almost instantly that he wasn’t about to be easy, but you shook it off. Part of the job was offering the patient the benefit of the doubt.
“How are you feeling today, sir?” you asked.
“You know I’ve been waiting for seven goddamn hours?” he grumbled.
“I’m very sorry about that,” you said, giving your best apologetic smile. “I see you’ve got some chest pain. When did that start?”
“I already told all this to that other nurse,” he snapped. “When am I gonna get to see a fucking doctor?”
You took a deep breath.
“Once I run just a few more tests,” you said. “Has the pain changed at all since —”
“I’ve had enough fucking tests!” he said, growing more and more irritated by the second. “Can’t anyone tell me what’s wrong with me?”
You locked your eyes on your watch. It was gold. The face was pink. You’d had it since high school. It hadn’t failed you yet.
“Not without these tests, I’m afraid,” you said, rounding the bed to set up the monitor. “I’m gonna hook you up to an ECG, that will tell us about your heart rhythm. Then —”
“Don’t you think I know what a fucking ECG is?” he said. “I’ve had enough of ’em waiting around here.”
You ignored the outburst, just grabbed the pulse ox and held it out to him.
“If you could just put your finger in this —”
He snatched it from you before you could finish your sentence, jamming it onto his own finger. You were right, his hands were rough. He was probably strong, too. You glanced nervously at the sliver of glass you could see behind the curtain, but continued on with blood pressure. He stuck out his arm so quickly, his fist came within inches of your face.
You jerked back a bit, pulling the cuff tightly around his arm. You had dealt with more difficult patients than this. All you needed to do was diagnose this man with GERD and send him on his merry way.
A part of you wished Dennis was observing, though. You tried to imagine his calming presence in the tense room as you finished blood pressure, and wrapped up the rest of the vitals. You were happy to be done.
“Blood pressure looks good,” you said, tapping at his chart. “Heart rate, good, spO2 97%. So far you seem stable.”
“Oh, I’m fucking stable?”
You scratched your nails along the bottom of the tablet. The tablet was black, just like the monitor.
“So far,” you said evenly, grabbing a needle and an alcohol wipe. “But I need to grab some blood from you —”
The reaction was instant.
“No, no, no,” said Mr. Hammarath, jumping to his feet. “You’ve taken enough.”
On his feet, he towered over you, breathing like an angry rhinoceros and red in the face. You forced yourself to keep your feet planted where they were.
“If you have been having an undetected heart attack,” you started to explain slowly, lowering the needle, “it’s possible certain proteins would only show up late —”
“I don’t want anymore fucking needles,” he growled. “You keep that away from me.”
“Sir,” you said calmly. “You do not have to consent to any tests you don’t want. However, —”
It happened in a split second. You turned to place the capped needle onto the cart. Perhaps he misconstrued it as an advancement towards him, maybe he was just angry and looking to take it out on someone. Whatever the reason, you suddenly found yourself up against the cold wall with a crack, his large forearm pressed across your throat. Your hand, needle now long lost, he had in an ironclad grip, squeezing hard, certainly hard enough to cut off circulation.
Was this real? Ten minutes ago you were talking to Dennis. Now, you were staring into the spitting, fuming face of a man, a man who you knew nothing about but that he wanted to hurt you, and he was. You didn’t struggle like you normally would, thrashing and pulling until you reached freedom. You were frozen.
Your watering eyes swiveled desperately around the room, but you were alone, and the curtain blocked you from view. You could hear your pulse in your ears, that turned into a gravely rushing sound. You were running out of oxygen.
You opened your mouth, willing a scream, a yell, anything, to call attention towards you. All you managed was a dry squeak. Blindly, your free hand jerked out, away from you and towards whatever it could find. Your shaking fingers made contact with something hard. Vision blurring now, you scrambled for the object, whatever it was, and slowly they began to close around something. It was hard and flat, an edge.
Darkness was pressing in around you, pulling you from the room. With your last ounce of strength, you yanked your hand back towards you, with the intent of causing a commotion. If it worked, though, you didn’t know. Your head was filled with static. Your eyes were fixed upwards, away from the dark, angry irises glaring down at you.
The ceiling was white.
In the distance, you heard yelling. Or was that your imagination?
The ceiling was white.
Dennis’ eyes were blue.
***
Back home in Nebraska, if he could even call it “home” anymore, Dennis had no one. He loved his parents and his brothers the way any good kid would. He wouldn’t call them close, and he definitely wouldn’t say he regretted leaving.
Especially not after meeting you.
He had been nervous for his first day at the pitt, but those nerves were dwarfed by the ones you brought out. By the grace of god, his hopeless fumfering seemed to endear you somehow, and he spent the next two months trying to work up the nerve to ask you out on a proper date.
Oh, how many nights had he spent writing and rewriting texts, desperately trying to sound aloof, then devoted, then cool, only to scrap the whole thing? Agonizing and “simping”, as she called it, to Trinity became an evening ritual. He hoped you’d never find out, but she was the reason he managed to send that text he did, the one that started it all.
“Call her tonight, ask her out, or I’m setting her up with hot Jordan from my gym.”
He did, and you said yes, and the last year had been the happiest of his life. Never before, even with his awkward, month-long girlfriend in a high school of fifty kids, had he had someone who he loved so fiercely, and who loved him back just the same. Late nights spent together with you tucked under his arm, he couldn’t help but marvel at it as he watched you breath calmly in your sleep. How did he manage to have you, blazing, boisterous, quick-whitted you?
It was this thought that clouded his mind as he watched you head off to south six at Langdon’s request. Chest pain in fifties, been waiting for seven hours, troponins negative, strips clear. Just get some blood, vitals, ECG, you know the drill. You did. There were at least ten patients with chest pain admitted every shift, you could do the work up in your sleep. So, Whitaker didn’t think anything of it.
Until he heard the crash.
At first, he assumed it was a clumsy med student, or maybe someone had passed out again. Then came the yell. It was Emma’s voice, the new nurse, and she sounded terrified.
“Hula hoop!” she bellowed.
Even as Dennis jumped up to help, you were the last thing on his mind. He knew the statistic and had seen assaults happen many times before. But in no scenario, no wildest imagination, could he ever have conjured up the terrifying image he saw as he rounded the corner.
There was Emma, looking pale, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. Just ahead of Dennis, Robby and Trinity dashed into the fray. Behind him, he could hear Ahmad rushing to the scene.
It was you. He caught just a glimpse of you pinned up against the wall, before your attacker was being yanked back. You slumped to the floor, unmoving, but your wrist was still trapped in the man’s grip. It took this, this link unbroken yet, for Dennis to take action. Trinity, Emma, Robby, and Ahmad were all struggling to keep hold of the massive man, who towered above even the attending’s head.
With a fire foreign to him, Dennis jumped atop Mr. Hammarath’s arm, prying at his fingers until they released you. He felt very hot, steaming, even as the man was pulled onto his back. Dana appeared with a syringe, but everything after that was unseen and unheard by Dennis. With the threat neutralized, his attention snapped onto you.
Careful of your neck, which had no bruises but already looked flushed and irritated, he cradled your head in his hands. You were out cold, not even stirring as he turned you onto your side to inspect the wet spot on the back of your head. His shaking hand came away red.
Staying coolheaded in a crisis was an essential skill to have as a doctor, but right now, Dennis felt sick to his stomach, and a little lost. He attempted to check your pulse, radial, then when he couldn’t keep his hand steady enough, carotid.
“I can’t —” he breathed, pressing under your jaw. “I — I can’t —”
All he could feel was his own pulse, thrumming painfully through every artery, every last inch of his body. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from your deceptively peaceful looking expression, now with a smudge of your own blood adorning the skin.
“Emma!” barked Dana, helping tie restraints. “Go assess!”
Emma quickly broke away from the group to join Dennis on the other side of you. Trinity followed her without a word.
Right, thought Dennis vaguely, as Trinity took out her stethoscope and pressed the diaphragm to your throat, airway.
“Clear,” said Trinity stonily, while Emma examined your wound. “No stridor, airway secure for now.”
“The head might need a stitch or two,” said Emma, holding a piece of gauze firmly in place. “But it’s just a laceration.”
Dennis thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should move, give them full access. But he didn’t budge from your side, and they didn’t ask him to. They worked around him, speeding through.
“Pupils good, PERRL.”
“Reaction to pain.”
“Can you hear me? Open your eyes.”
Dennis watched intently, fixed onto your face. As Trinity tapped your cheeks hard, your eyelids began to flutter. He held his breath, bringing your hand to his chest. When they finally slid open, he could see the sclera was pink, in great contrast to your irises he knew so well.
As soon as they registered the light, they were falling closed again, scrunching in that familiar way he saw when you were waking up too early. But now, there was no accompanying dramatic whine, or grumpy smile, or arm reaching for him. The groan pulled from your throat was raw and broken, and immediately had you wincing.
Someone handed Trinity a cloth, Robby maybe, and she slid it carefully under your head. Dennis was scared to move, scared to speak, clutching your hand too tightly. He eased his grip as much as he could stand to. Trinity nudged him.
“Talk to her,” she said, watching him carefully.
Slowly and cautiously, he brushed a hand gently across your forehead. He could hear your breathing start to pick up.
“Sweetheart?” he said, hushed, swallowing thickly. “Can you hear me?”
Your eyelids fluttered again, but you couldn’t seem to keep them open. Someone clicked the overhead lights off. Your lips parted and formed a word, but there was no sound.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Try again.”
With difficulty, it seemed, you swallowed, then opened your mouth again. The sound that came out was barely a whisper, but he watched your lips move closely.
“Arm?” he asked.
He shifted his attention briefly from his face to your right arm, but when he tried to lift it, you hissed in pain. He quickly lowered it.
“We need to get her up,” said Robby. “Can someone get a board —”
Before anyone could make a move, Dennis slid his arms carefully under your shoulders and knees and lifted you easily onto a bed. Not the one your patient had sat on — the sanitation department would need to strip the whole room. Dennis tried very hard not to look at the spots of blood spattered on the wall as he helped wheel you out.
He placed a hand over your eyes as you fell under the lights of the corridor. People stared as they passed. Kiara and the nurses shook their heads darkly, muttering to one another. He was glad to stow you safely in a dim room with the curtains drawn, hopefully as far away as possible from the one who did this to you.
As Trinity got out the suture kit, Dennis’s fear began to grow into anger. He wasn’t violent, never had been. He was the boy who got teased for crying when the pigs got slaughtered, and who would take the time to trap and release spiders rather than squish them.
But that was before he had ever experienced life with you, and worse, thought for a short but very real moment that he was going to lose it. Life with no more you wasn’t life worth living.
As Trinity gloved up, he stopped her.
“I’ll do it,” he said coldly.
She raised a brow.
“Don’t worry about it, man, I got it,” she said.
He rolled the table away as she reached for a swab. His eyes had never looked so hard.
“I’m going to do it,” he said, grabbing his own pair of gloves.
“Whitaker,” said Robby firmly. “You know we can’t work on family members.”
He kept his head down, arranging his supplies.
“We’re not related.”
Robby crossed his arms, eyes filled with pity.
“Girlfriends. Partners.”
“We’re not technically dating, either,” he said sharply. “Not according to the hospital.”
Robby placed a hand on Dennis’ chest, not too pushy but not soft, either. Dennis shoved it away. Trinity looked on with worry.
“Dr. Santos will do the sutures,” said Robby, with an air of finality. “If you can’t handle that, then you need to step outside.”
“Are you kidding me?” he said, getting heated. “You think I’m leaving her, after she got attacked by a lunatic?”
“You don’t have to if you just calm down,” said Robby evenly. “You know she’s in good hands.”
“Dennis.”
The sound was so quiet they almost missed it. Dennis leapt to the other side of the bed, falling to his knees at your side. Your eyes were open just a slit and took a second to focus on his anxious face. Beyond his field of focus, Robby motioned at Trinity to start working.
“Hi,” he breathed. “Hi. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
You flinched as the cold antiseptic was brushed against your wound, and he grabbed your good hand. The other had been put into a splint while they waited for x-ray.
“Tiny pinch,” said Trinity.
Your face, already tightened with discomfort, barely changed as she inserted the lidocaine needle. Your eyes stayed locked onto his, however drowsy.
You muttered something he didn’t catch.
“What, honey?”
“Blue,” was all you said.
His heart clenched in a terrible ache at the sound of your voice, rough and scratchy and forced. It would likely only get worse as your vocal cords continued to swell.
“Blue?” he said, blinking. “Okay. Blue.”
He looked around the room, familiar with your ritual by now. It had saved him more than a few times as well, brought him back from the edge of panic.
“Blue… blue…”
The room was dim, the only light coming from the cracks in the curtain and the lamp Trinity used to see her work. He rubbed your hand soothingly as he searched.
“Robby’s hoodie,” he said. “Robby’s hoodie is blue. And Trin’s shirt, that’s blue. And…”
He raked the space over with his eyes, desperate. The fact was, these clinical rooms were awfully barren.
“The soap,” he said. “And — and the caps on the collection tubes.”
He held one up, but you didn’t look at it. Your eyes were still fixed onto his.
“Blue,” you said again. “You’re blue.”
He took a deep, trembling breath and leaned his forehead against your hand.
Just then, the door opened, and in walked Gloria. She didn’t look well, obviously nervous and a little frantic.
“I just heard,” she said in a low voice to Robby, who ushered her into a corner of the room. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure,” he said heavily. “We haven’t been able to ask her, she was knocked unconscious and seems a little hazy. Definitely a concussion, hard to grade since we don’t know if the LOC was from the blow or the choking.”
“Jesus,” said Gloria, rubbing her forehead. “The patient?”
“Behavioral two,” said Robby. “We had to administer a sedative to get him to calm down. No history of mental illness in his chart, no meds, no indication that he wasn’t acting in full awareness and intent.”
“Police?”
“Should be here soon.”
Dennis watched you as they spoke, wondering how much you were processing, and how much was lost in the daze. Trinity finished off the suture by clipping your hair up away from the injury at the base of your skull. He could feel her eyes on him as she cleaned up.
The door opened again, and Emma entered with some pills and a cup of water. As she got closer, Dennis noticed her eyes were rimmed a little red, as though she’d been crying. Poor Emma, he thought. You had become something of a mentor to her, when Dana wasn’t working, and he knew you took a liking to the sweet girl, and she to you.
Your eyes, which had closed again, were opened as Emma raised the head of the bed, just enough to facilitate swallowing.
“One thousand Ibuprofen,” she said, holding them up to your opened mouth, and following with the straw.
It was painful to watch. Your hand flew to your swollen neck as you swallowed, eyes squeezed as you forced the pill to pass. Your heart rate on the monitor spiked as you tried to breath your way through it, and let your head fall back onto the shitty hospital pillow.
Dennis stroked your knee, ignoring Gloria’s presence in the room. You rolled over onto your back, wincing all the way. First your shoulders, which were surely bruised, then your head, then your wrist. Trinity quickly grabbed an extra pillow to lift the braced arm.
“Thank you,” you croaked.
Emma nodded, looking tearful again.
“Of course,” she said, brushing a hair out of your face. “How are you feeling?”
You seemed to struggle to find the words.
“I…” you stopped to rub your throat. “I don’t know. Dizzy.”
“Hopefully the meds will help,” said Robby. “Where’s the pain?”
“Throat,” you said. “Head. Back. Arm. Everywhere.”
Trinity stepped forward and asked you to follow the pen. As she moved it, it was clear that your eyes were having trouble tracking the object. They jerked ahead, and in the end you had to close them, complaining of pain. Trinity pocketed the pen, looking somber.
“Definite saccadic pursuit,” she said. “CT, MRI.”
You didn’t seem to be listening. Dennis leaned forward, heart in his throat, and asked a dreaded question.
“Do you remember what happened?”
You stayed quiet for a long time, but he could tell by the way you moved your fingers, middle rubbing against thumb, that you were thinking.
“Chest pain,” you rasped eventually. “He was in… for chest pain.”
“Memory, good sign,” Trinity muttered to Robby, who nodded.
Dennis waited patiently for you to continue. It seemed to be hard work.
“He was angry,” you said, and Dennis had to bite his lip. “Been waiting… didn’t like needles.”
“Is that when he got violent?” asked Emma softly. “When you stuck him?”
You rubbed your eyes tiredly, looking distressed.
“No, he — I didn’t get that far,” you said.
Robby pulled Trinity’s stool forward and sat at your bedside. He looked slightly guilty as he continued questioning.
“Do you remember the attack itself?” he asked. “Did he hit you?”
Your heart rate was steadily climbing on the monitor in the corner of Dennis’ eye.
“I — I just remember his arm against my throat,” you said.
“After you sustained the laceration on your skull?”
“I — I —” your lip began to quiver as you hid your face in your hand. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Okay, no more questions,” said Dennis harshly, taking the tissue Emma handed him and wiping your tears as they fell. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to talk anymore, okay?”
The door opened yet again, revealing a scrawny looking kid with a fearful expression.
“Um,” he said. “I’m here to take a patient to radiology?”
“That was quick,” said Robby. “Good.”
The boy looked relieved, and rounded the bed to turn off the wheel brakes. Dennis began pulling up the side rails.
“I’m going with her,” he said.
Gloria looked at Robby with a hard-to-read expression, and he sighed, rubbing his neck.
“I think you’re more needed down here, Dr… Whitaker,” said Gloria, reading his badge.
“She just got attacked!” said Dennis incredulously, and Robby cringed. “Clearly security isn’t capable of protecting the nurses, and if I have to do it, I will.”
“The aggressor is well supervised and is no longer a threat,” said Gloria, calmly but with a bit of an edge.
“Forgive me for not having much faith in this hospital’s ability to protect its staff, when this is about the tenth incident I’ve personally witnessed in my one year of working here!”
“Okay!” said Robby raising his hands and stepping in between the supervisor and intern. “Dr. Whitaker, you may accompany the patient to radiology. Gloria, you and I should continue this discussion elsewhere.”
It was certainly an awkward group that meandered out of North two. Emma was quick to find shelter at the nurse’s station, perhaps fearing another shouting match.
The x-ray was unclear, but the MRI confirmed a hairline fracture in your radius bone. That had Dennis suppressing the urge to storm down to BH two and take matters into his own hands, but luckily your brain looked fine. No bleeds, no skull fractures, no longterm damage, just a nasty grade two concussion and two weeks off work.
When you returned to the pitt, now able to sit upright for more than a minute without vertigo, and with sunglasses provided by Princess, there were two officers waiting for you, and you were ready to talk.
“I’m proud of you,” said Dana, helping Robby as he did your cast (“The Chief Attending himself? I’m honored.”). “That asshole’s getting what he deserves. You did good, kid.”
“Thanks Dana,” you said, voice still sore and rusty. “But I’m willing to bet this isn’t his first rodeo.”
“Well, if anyone’s gonna bury him, it’s you,” she said confidently. “I bet he thinks twice before pulling some shit like that again. You gave him a nasty bruise when that cart fell over.”
“Did I?”
There was a knock on the doorframe, and Jack stuck his head in.
“Hey, Robby — woah, woah, woah, what the hell happened to you?”
“A man,” you said as he looked you over.
He clicked his tongue.
“It’s always a fucking man,” he said, sliding your sunglasses down your nose to peer into your eyes. “Tell me you’re pressing charges, Slugger.”
“Fuck yeah, I’m pressing fucking charges,” you said. “Fuck that guy!”
“He’s still in BH two,” said Robby. “Talking to the cops. And in case you were wondering, it was GERD.”
You humphed, and Dennis rubbed your shoulders.
“Well, the night shift’ll provide special treatment,” said Jack with a mischievous grin. “Hey, was this damaging enough to put you off of the day shift and join us?”
“Stop trying to steal my nurses!” said Robby.
“Only for a pay raise,” you said cheekily.
“I can get you that.”
“Well, in that case —”
“Nuh uh,” said Robby, giving Jack’s hip a good push in the direction of the door with his elbow. “Out!”
***
All things considered, it probably wasn’t your worst day at the pitt. And, although you wouldn’t voice it, you were quite happy to take a hit if it meant your fellow nurses wouldn’t. Emma had already been assaulted once (talk about a hard first day), and you were prepared to go toe to toe with anyone who messed with that sweet baby angel again.
And speaking of sweet baby angels, you were realizing as you were helped into the car, Dennis wasn’t about to leave you alone for at least two weeks. This was all good and well; you probably wouldn’t want to leave him for long if the situation was reversed, and you never minded alone time with him. But you would have to figure out a way to convince him not to miss two weeks of work, and pay, just to watch over you.
“How does your head feel?” he asked as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Any nausea? Dizziness?”
“It’s fine, just a little achey,” you said. “Really, Den. I’ll let you fuss all you want for the next week, but I’m okay. Okay?”
He huffed, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
“How can you say that?” he whispered. “Do you know what it was like in there? You lost consciousness, you were on the ground, you — you weren’t moving.”
Your left hand smoothed over his curls.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” you said.
“See it?” he said incredulously. “I’m sorry you had to live it. I should have been there. I should’ve noticed, or something, I mean you were —”
You shushed him gently, scratching his scalp.
“Don’t even go there, Den,” you said. “No one could possibly have known what was gonna happen. And what are you gonna do, come with me to every room with every patient I ever see, just in case something bad happens again?”
He cocked his head, considering.
“No,” you said quickly. “That was not an invitation. That’s crazy, and no.”
“Alright,” he said sadly. “It’s just — I don’t ever wanna see you like that again.”
You bit your cheek.
“Honey, you might,” you said. “It’s a hazard of the job. It shouldn’t be, but it is. You want to do something, then talk to Gloria, talk to the board. That’s the only way anything’ll change.”
He took your hand from his curls and held it on his thigh, fingers intertwined.
“I just love you,” he said, eyes burning. “So much. You know that, right?”
“I know,” you said with a smile. “I love you too.”
He lifted your hand to press a kiss to the back. You sat in comfortable silence for a while, then, as Dennis always did, he broke it with a blurted thought.
“We should move in together.”
Your eyes widened.
“What?”
“I mean,” he said, chewing his lip. “If you wanted to, I’d — I’d love that. To see you all the time. I know it’s kind of stupid, but… I don’t want to miss another second, ya know?”
You could tell he was nervous by the pink of his cheeks, visible even in the dark car, but he kept his gaze straight and his hand steady.
“Well, if we’re already getting married,” you said with a smile, “I guess it only makes sense that we live together, huh?”
He started to smile.
“Wait, are you joking?”
“I’m not joking Dennis.”
He turned to stare at you, moon-eyed. His smile was one of pure love and disbelief.
“So… we’re gonna live together? Just you and me?”
“Just us,” you said. “And Jericho, of course.”
“Can’t forget him,” Dennis muttered, still in awe.
Someone honked loudly from behind and jolted him into motion. He had to take his eyes off you, but he never removed his hand.
Jericho was all over you the minute Dennis helped you through the door, purring and howling, though you knew Dawn always fed him before she left. Dennis had to work around him to remove your coat and shoes, while you stroked his head and his ego.
You felt okay, a little too exhausted to fully comprehend the events of the day, but undeniably rattled. A patient had never knocked you out before, nor had been so easily able to overpower you, and as the memories returned more and more, you knew they would refuse to leave again. But with Dennis by your side? It certainly felt a little less daunting.
“You know what?” you asked as Dennis ordered some pizza.
“What?”
You held up your bright blue cast.
“At least it matches your eyes.”
---
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