I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket; But I will soon forget the colour of your eyes and you’ll forget mine.
james cook x reader
summary: how do you let go of someone you love when loving them is the very thing destroying you?
word count: 1.7k+
a/n: new cook fic just dropped… who up?
this one’s for my lovely husband @strangerhands because he’s just as crazy about cook as i am!! thank you to my brother ruben for making the sick header image and to my friend lou lou for creating my new logo, you’re both insanely talented i love you lots like polka dots!
this fic genuinely wouldn’t have happened without my proofreaders and a special thank you to my friend for forcing me to lean into the angst… love you robson.
if you haven’t listened to the song yet, please do and as always, i really hope you enjoy!! :D #yapcentral
It always starts the same: Cook bursting into your life like a fire alarm, too loud, too sudden and impossible to ignore.
He doesn’t knock. He never does. One minute you’re half-asleep in bed, the next he’s climbing through your window, breathless from running God-knows-where, his grin stretched sharp and wide.
“Get up, sweetheart. World’s waitin’.”
And you always go. Because how could you not? Cook makes even the ugliest parts of the night feel electric. He pulls you into his orbit, reckless and radiant, all teeth and laughter. You’ve run through the rain with him at two in the morning, danced on rooftops with a bottle in hand, kissed him with blood on his lip after he started a fight he couldn’t finish. Each second feels stolen ,dangerous, addictive, intoxicating like something you were never meant to keep but can’t bring yourself to give back.
But the highs never last.
Sometimes it’s shouting. Sometimes it’s silence. Sometimes it’s the taste of copper in your mouth after words are thrown too hard, after apologies come too late. You try to wash him out of your system with something stronger. Whiskey. Cigarettes. Anyone else’s arms. It never works. The taste of him stays. The ache stays.
He disappears. Three days. Five. Once, a whole week. Cold, empty mattresses. You lying awake, staring at the ceiling, watching imaginary constellations form and fall apart. Every night starts to look the same after a while. Same ache. Same hope. Same lie you tell yourself that this time, you won’t let him back in.
Then he shows up again.
At your door. At your job. At the corner shop where you buy cigarettes. His eyes are tired. Still burning. Still ruined. He says your name like it’s a confession, like a plea, like he doesn’t know how to survive without it.
And you break. Every time.
Cook kisses you like he’s drowning. Like loving you is the only thing keeping his head above water. His grip is too tight. His mouth is desperate. He clings to you like happiness and torture are the same thing, like he doesn’t know how to separate them. He whispers things into your skin he won’t remember saying. “You’re all I’ve got. Don’t leave me. Please.”
You tell him you’ll stay.
You tell him you’ll work through it.
You tell him you can handle this.
Because some part of you believes that if you love him harder, if you stay longer, if you don’t give up, it’ll change. That this pain means something. That it’s leading somewhere better.
The nights stretch on. He slides into bed while you get drunk on hope and denial. Conversations happen half-asleep, half-afraid. Things are said that feel heavier than any threat, heavier than any promise. Sometimes it feels like there’s a loaded gun sitting between you, unspoken but understood. The silence says more than either of you ever could.
You tell yourself this isn’t love. Love shouldn’t feel like this. Love shouldn’t hurt like this.
And yet.
Every time he looks at you, it feels like falling.
Every time he laughs, it feels like home.
And even when the world goes dark, even when it feels like there’s no sun left to see, you still reach for him. You still pull him closer. You still tell him you’re not done.
Because it’s cold outside.
Because being alone feels worse.
Because loving Cook, even like this, still feels better than letting him go.
And so you stay.
You start thinking about endings long before one actually comes.
Not in a dramatic way. Just quietly. In the gaps between his disappearances. In the mornings where he’s gone before you wake up, the other side of the bed already cold. You tell yourself this can’t last forever. You tell yourself you won’t always run when he calls.
Time starts doing its slow, cruel work.
You forget small things first. The exact sound of his laugh. The way he used to tilt his head when he was lying. The smell of smoke and rain clinging to his jacket. Then, one day, it hits you that you can’t quite remember the colour of his eyes. You know they mattered. You know you used to trace them like a map. But the colour slips through your fingers no matter how hard you hold on.
And it terrifies you.
Because you know what comes next.
One day, he’ll forget yours too. Not all at once. Just in pieces. Your eyes will blur into a feeling, then into a memory, then into nothing at all. You’ll become someone he once loved badly, briefly, the way he loves everything.
You imagine running into him years from now. Somewhere ordinary. A street. A pub. A shop you used to haunt together. He’ll look at you for a second too long, like he almost knows you. Like something aches but won’t explain itself.
And you’ll realise that this was always how it was meant to end.
Not with a final fight or a dramatic goodbye. Just distance. Just time. Just forgetting.
But tonight, he’s still here. His breath is warm against your neck. His hand is curled in your shirt like he needs proof you’re real.
Tonight, you still remember his eyes.
Tonight, he still remembers yours.
And that knowledge feels heavier than any goodbye.
It doesn’t end in a fight.
That’s the strangest part.
There’s no shouting, no slammed doors, no glass breaking this time. Just a slow, unbearable quiet settling between you. The kind that presses in on your chest until you can’t tell if you’re breathing or not.
Cook sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it’s got answers he doesn’t want to hear. He looks smaller like this. Stripped of the fire. All the noise burned out of him.
“You’re being quiet,” he says finally, voice rough. Careful. Like he already knows.
You swallow. “I don’t trust myself to say the right thing.”
He laughs under his breath, sharp and humourless. “You never cared about that before.”
“No,” you say. “I cared about you.”
That lands. You see it hit him, see the way his jaw tightens like he’s biting down on something ugly.
You think about all the nights you tried to save him. All the ways you bent yourself around his damage, convinced love was supposed to hurt this much. You think about how tired you are. How loving him feels like bleeding quietly and calling it loyalty.
“I can’t keep doing this,” you say. Softer now. “I’m disappearing in you.”
He looks up then. Really looks at you.
“So what,” he snaps, standing up too fast. “You’re just gonna leave? After everything?”
“After everything,” you repeat. “Because of everything.”
He runs a hand through his hair, pacing. “You make it sound like I didn’t try.”
“I know you tried,” you say. “That’s the problem. This is you trying.”
Silence sits between you, thick and mean, like wet cement poured into the space where words should be, setting too fast for you to pull free. It presses against your chest, heavy as a bruise you keep touching just to prove it’s real, sharp in its stillness, cruel in the way it refuses to break. Every second stretches, ugly and deliberate, until the quiet is louder than anything you could have said.
You step closer, because some habits die hard. “I don’t hate you,” you tell him. “If I hated you, this would be easier.”
He scoffs. “Then what am I to you, huh?”
The answer comes before you can stop it. “Someone I loved more than I survived.”
That does it.
He looks away. You see it then, the truth settling in. That you’re not the exception. That you’re another person he loved too loudly and too wrong. Another body he’ll bury in memory when it gets too heavy to carry.
“So I’m just—what,” he mutters. “Another fuckin’ mistake?”
You shake your head. “You’re just another set of bones with dirt under your nails, still digging like the grave might give you something back if you go deep enough.”
He flinches like you slapped him.
There’s a long pause. Then, quieter, almost careful, “I guess this is where you say goodnight.”
Your throat burns. “I guess it is.”
He nods once, slow. Defeated. “Hope you had a really good time,” he says, trying for a joke and failing miserably.
You almost laugh. You almost break.
“I did,” you admit. “That’s what makes this hurt.”
You move toward the door. He doesn’t stop you. That hurts more than if he had.
“Hey,” he says, just as your hand touches the handle.
You turn.
For a second, he looks like he’s going to say something that could change everything. Instead, he just says, “You deserved better than me.”
You don’t argue. You don’t comfort him. You just nod.
“Goodnight, Cook.”
When you leave, it doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like burial—like standing at the edge of a grave you dug with your own hands, lowering something beautiful and already ruined into the ground because keeping it alive would have hurt more. The dirt is heavy, clinging to your fingers, packing itself into every space where hope used to breathe. You tell yourself this is mercy. You tell yourself this is what ending things gently looks like, even as your chest caves in around the lie.
You don’t look back, you can’t, because if you do, you’ll see it still reaching for you from beneath the soil. You’ll see how part of you is already down there with it, mouth full of earth, learning how to stay quiet.
Some loves aren’t meant to survive. They’re built to combust. They’re too volatile to keep, too sharp to hold, they’re meant to scorch everything they touch before collapsing into ash. They hurt on purpose. They hollow you out, teach you what it feels like to bleed without leaving a mark. In the end, you don’t bury them because you’re healed or brave or ready. You bury them because there’s nothing left to save, and letting them keep burning would only turn you into smoke too. There’s no closure, no peace, just the slow understanding that some things only stop hurting once they’re finally laid to rest.
hi! i feel like i’ve been gone forever so i’m really sorry about that. life’s been super busy lately (i’ve been doing a lot of things impulsively like buying tickets to see friends abroad and go to a music festival plus i’ve been working lots, free me!) but i’m back now! i think. hopefully.
i took some inspiration from one of my favourite pierce the veil songs… see if you can spot the lyrics throughout heh.
thank you so much for reading!! i hope you guys enjoyed it. comments, likes and reblogs are always appreciated and i’m so sorry for the long note #masteryapper :P
