provcking:
⁕*ﾟ → NOAH YAXLEY ; DISTRACTIONS ; 003
HOPE? DID QUEENIE HAVE HOPE? she may have lived her entire life as a DREAMER masquerading as a realist, but perhaps hope wasn’t the word she’d use──────── she had something else entirely. a lust for REVENGE had her heart racing from the sheer force of its will; it would have FRIGHTENED her, if its fierceness hadn’t been outcasted by a determination she’d spent YEARS of her life honing. ‘ you’ll need more decent meals cooked if you intend to fight an ACTUAL war. ’ queenie might have FLUSHED at the idea of making them for him herself, if a rising wave of GUILT hadn’t stopped her; was it really okay to smile or FEEL something when nina was somewhere far away, potentially suffering unspeakable horrors queenie had no way of SAVING her from?
‘ WELL, ALWAYS AIM FOR A WEAKNESS. ’ she feels her lips lifting despite her earlier sentiments. besides, no one had authorised noah to go on that SELF-SACRIFICING mission anyway──────── even if she was GRATEFUL to him, queenie wasn’t beyond punishing him for it. before the feeling of VICTORY could settle on her, she’d been SWEPT off her feet as he manoeuvres himself around her EXPERTLY, leaving her breathless and ENTIRELY in his rather capable hands. he’d gotten better; an unkind reminder of everything he’d been through in recent months. she scoffs in his firm grip, tilting her head back as far as his grasp allowed in playful disbelief. ‘ you BET your child’s NAME? ’ she’d scold him for it. she would CHASTISE and warn him against bets regarding FAMILY. . .
. . .AND THEN SHE LOST THE HEART FOR IT, his lips soft against hers in a chaste kiss that melted away some of the GRIEF planted deep in her chest. queenie reaches a hand to his jaw, letting her fingers travel along the stubble that had grown there in leisure strokes. ‘ maxinella? ’ that had MAX written all over it. her body lax in his hold, queenie weaves her arms behind his neck as fingers play at STRANDS of his hair──────── KISSING him half wildly, she hopes it’s enough to dull the shadow of doubt cast in her mind; it was one thing to WANT a child, but it was another entirely to RAISE one, and so far. . . queenie had RUINED her brother’s life, had let her sister SLIP through her fingers, hadn’t even KNOWN about her niece, and ellie, well. . . was ellie. ‘ -it doesn’t matter, anyway. ’
PERHAPS SHE WASN’T MEANT TO BE A MOTHER. it wasn’t like anything in her life had gone as she’d planned. she could scarcely even THINK about the wasted journals she’d spent years mapping her whole life in, without feeling a slight PANG of disappointment. not of him──────── NEVER OF HIM. but queenie hadn’t been able to shake the weight of all her failures and, ‘ -sometimes, i can hardly BREATHE just thinking about how things have gotten to this point. i didn’t even KNOW nina would be in danger. i didn’t know. ’ lost in her WILD thoughts, queenie hadn’t realised she’d uttered the words aloud; steel blue eyes drift downwards, AVOID him in what she could only assume was a rather familiar sense of SHAME. ‘ i should have at least KNOWN. ’
SHE WASN’T SAD, SHE REALISED. SHE WAS MAD. ‘ MAYBE I. . . -MAYBE I SHOULDN’T BE A MOTHER. ’
