Going on a social media detox for a week. I reached my lowest low today, put myself in danger’s path, and actively hoped for something to happen. I dropped the burden of information on close friends, and will now be seeking help. I love my mutuals, and Tumblr, but there was no reason for me to be chronically online while working two jobs and not expecting that to not burn me out.
Much love everyone, please remember to take care of yourself.
you gotta start rambling in those tags bestie how else are you going to get that blogger to follow you back and your mutuals to fall in love with you #GetYapping
hi vannie i hope youre having an awesome day!! i'd like to request some headcanons or a drabble of lads men x reader (or only caleb if all five is too much!) who's chubby and never got any love letters or confessions growing up, so on one hand they dont have to fight anyone off but on the other reader doesn't believe she's pretty or desirable, and when they confess she gets upset thinking he's doing it out of pity or taking a joke too far, and just hurt/comfort <3
you're my favorite lads fluff/comfort author and i love all your works!! even if you don't write this tysm for everything you have written!!!
𐙚˙⋆.˚ mainfive! x chubby fem!reader ꒰੭
𐙚˙⋆.˚ hurt/comfort! ꒰੭
𐙚˙⋆.˚ sfw! ꒰੭
𐙚˙⋆.˚ do not translate/copy/repost! ꒰੭
﹙♡﹚ohhh, this one was so sweet :((( i'm not going to lie, i might have projected my own insecurities here and there, and i wish we could all be happy and feel worthy of love regardless of how we look like! one can only dream ( ˶•ᴖ•) !! anyway, how are we feeling about the new headers/dividers? i had such a blast making them, i hope you like them! ♡
your life had been quite… uneventful, or at least when it came to the romance department.
no suitors, no boyfriends, no flirty dms or flattering comments on your posts.
of course, you didn't need the approval to feel worthy of something beautiful and lasting, but it still sucked watching every other girl get praised and loved while you remained unseen.
in a way, it helped you make true friends; ones you could trust would never develop feelings that made things awkward.
it also helped you recognize genuine compliments and those that came out of pity.
however, it made you doubt yourself tremendously.
if someone stared at you in public, you automatically assumed it was because they were judging you, and not because they were admiring your appearance.
if someone said you were very attractive, you thought they were part of a bet or a cruel joke.
you tried not to judge that quickly, but time and different experiences made you realize that, at least in this lifetime, you weren't meant to be worshiped and adored like the other girls.
and you were starting to accept that fact, until a certain someone decided to flip your world upside down by doing the unthinkable.
genuinely liking you.
𐙚˙⋆.˚ caleb! ꒰੭
caleb was the perfect definition of the “guy next door;” helpful, handsome, charming, and kind.
he was every girl's dream, and, you couldn't lie, you felt flustered every time he helped you carry boxes or whenever he took care of your flowers in the morning since he left earlier.
you would also catch glimpses of him shirtless whenever he worked out with his window open, or when he went on his early runs.
of course, he was way out of your league (or at least that's what your brain constantly repeated).
he was a kind guy, presumably raised right by his mama, with a huge heart and puppy-like energy; you were almost certain he was just as nice and helpful to everyone else.
however, you failed to notice his burning-red ears whenever he talked to you, or that satisfied glint in his eyes when you acknowledged his presence.
he offered you rides, he came by to offer meals or to ask for sugar, he offered to babysit your pets…
and it wasn't because he was kind and sweet.
in fact, the other neighbors thought he was a bit distant and aloof, but with you, he was total sunshine.
and you didn't notice.
it didn't even cross your mind that it could be the case, and if it was, maybe it was out of pity.
perhaps he was one of those guys who liked to “fix” people and adopt those who were lonely or outcasts, and, in all honesty, you refused to be an experiment or a charity case.
one sunny day, as you came back home from grocery shopping, caleb was suspiciously close to your door, waiting with a huge grin and sweaty, sunlit skin.
“need help with that, gorgeous?” he offered as always, to which you hesitated.
his eagerness confused you.
“it's fine, caleb. but thank you so much,” you gave him a soft smile and opened your door.
he stayed close, hair clinging to his forehead, bare muscles glistening.
he had been exercising before you came.
“hmm… whatever you say, doll,” he stepped back, though his eyes remained glued to your moving form, even when you came back to retrieve the last bags.
he decided to finally approach, standing behind you so closely that you could feel his chest warming up your back.
“may i ask a question, angel?”
you froze in place, eyes going slightly wide.
he was too close.
too close.
you turned your head around to meet his gaze, his tangerine scent mixed with a manly, yet not unpleasant, musk invading your senses.
“uh… yeah, go ahead,” you nodded softly, gripping the shopping bags.
caleb's eyes softened as he smiled warmly, tilting his head just enough to seem curious.
“why do you keep avoidin' me?”
and you inhaled sharply, taken aback by the question.
fuck, fuck, fuck.
he noticed.
“i… uh, i don't know what you're talking about,” you whispered, your voice coming out a bit shaky.
he chuckled gently, his hand reaching out to softly fix your hair before falling to his side again.
“you don't have to lie to me, doll,” he whispered. “i just wanna know why.”
you took a step back, confused and slightly embarrassed.
but he was right.
you didn't have to lie.
“caleb, i… you don't have to be nice to me, you know?” you cautiously began, your eyebrows furrowing slightly. “i'm sure you're genuinely caring and kind, but i… i feel like you're also doing it out of pity. and i don't need that.”
his chest tightened at your words.
kindness?
pity…?
he stepped back, his sunset-like eyes darkening ever so slightly.
“huh,” he nodded quietly, processing and tasting the bitterness in your words. “so you think that's what i'm doin'...”
you sighed heavily.
“caleb, please. i'm so… so grateful for your help and everything you've done for me as a neighbor, but i truly, truly don't need to feel like… you know, a charity case,” you mumbled. “i mean, if i thought you were doing it to be my friend, i would gladly accept it, but i've heard people saying that it looks as if…”
you trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
it was way too crazy of a rumor either way.
“as if what?” he approached again, leaning down until his face was right in front of yours. “as if i liked you? as if i wanted you?”
you nodded again, your eyes going a bit wide.
he looked down at your lips before looking into your eyes again.
“you don't think that might be the case, gorgeous?” he whispered softly.
you froze.
you didn't know how to answer.
“let me tell you somethin',” he began, his voice turning softer. “i've never pitied you. not once, angel. i don't think i ever could.”
you swallowed loudly, your lips parting slightly.
“if anythin', i've been sufferin' for months,” he whispered, leaning in just enough for you to feel his breath brushing against your lips. “because i've wanted you, angel. wanted you bad. wanted to take that frown away from your pretty face.”
you inhaled sharply, turning around fully to face him properly.
what the hell was he talking about?
his eyes were glowing with something… intense; something you've seen before, but never directed at you.
attraction?
lust?
…love?
“been wantin' to take care of you, to please you, to be close. to see that pretty smile, to feel that flushed skin under my fingers…” one of his hands gently cupped your cheek, all while his eyes darkened. “because i like you.”
then, his thumb brushed your bottom lip softly, as you didn't seem to reject his touch.
“does that sound like pity to you, doll?” he whispered, his voice laced with genuine warmth and a hint of hurt and disbelief, as if he couldn't believe you considered his flirting a mere act of kindness.
“i… how can you like me?” you whispered all of a sudden, your heart acting before your brain could catch up. “how can you be so sure you… you find me attractive and this isn't just to feel like a savior or something? because guys like you don't simply like girls like me, and i'm sure there are plenty of other girls that— hmph!”
your rant was rudely interrupted by a kiss; a desperate kiss that made time stop.
he grunted and groaned against your lips, his eyes closed so tightly as if he were restraining himself from kissing you harder.
he was desperate; so, so needy for a kiss…
a kiss girls like you never usually received, yet you were experiencing it right in front of your doorway.
his arms coiled around your torso, pulling you impossibly closer, all while your brain still tried to process the turn of events.
when he pulled back, he panted against your lips, licking the remains of your taste with hunger.
still, his grip was gentle, his eyes were warm and sincere.
“i'll show it to you, yeah?” caleb mumbled. “don't care how, but i'll get through to ya', angel. you'll be convinced by the end of the week that i want to make you happy, and that i wanna be the man by your side.”
with a last, lingering kiss on your cheek, he pulled back. he grabbed the remaining shopping bags and carried them into your living room before you could.
“see you tonight, gorgeous,” he called out once he returned, rubbing his palms together. “call me if you need anythin' at all.”
just like that, he crossed the street and went home, leaving you standing there, looking absolutely wrecked and stupid.
he looked serious, he sounded serious…
so he had to be serious, no?
your walls were still up and strong, but… this guy jumped over them with ease, like they weren't even there.
seven days were enough for you to determine how eager and serious he was, so… giving him a chance wouldn't be so bad, would it?~
𐙚˙⋆.˚ rafayel! ꒰੭
rafayel was the kind of guy one could only date in books or romance novels.
he was unapproachable, charmingly mysterious, the kind of guy who told you everything about him if you asked him to, yet didn't reveal a single genuine fact.
not to mention he was very, very handsome, tall, and rich; which wasn't the most important thing, but it did add to his allure.
you met him in the most random way possible, when he entered your workplace and begged you to help him hide from a group of foreign photographers.
naturally, you did, and from then on, you had a new friend visiting you every single day.
a friend, nothing more.
as the months progressed, both rafayel and you became very comfortable with each other, so much so that you started frequenting his house, and he crashed at yours whenever he pleased.
things would get a little bit physical, too, but nothing that could be easily misinterpreted.
for example, raffy loved hugging you, poking your cheeks, or even resting against your shoulder, and you let it happen because he would whine otherwise.
he would also say you were very pretty and drawable; that your body type had been worshipped for centuries, and he totally understood why, but, once again, you assumed he was just saying poetic shit to make you feel less insecure, and it didn't really resonate.
you lived in a modern era, and in this modern era, you were looked at as if you were a dead bug.
one night, as you were peacefully making dinner, rafayel came in with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and a huge smile that always led to trouble.
“so, my dearest dear to ever dear…” he began, slowly walking towards you. “would you do me a teeny tiny favor?”
you sighed heavily, stirring the stew with a wooden spoon and a dejected expression.
“what is it this time, raffy?”
he clapped in delight, arms coiling around you from behind, head nuzzling yours over and over.
“i swear you won't regret it! but, uh, you might want to finish that quickly, cutie. we're going to spend a lot of time at my place tonight. pronto.”
and, without much choice, you obeyed, trying to rush with the stew to let it cool down before leaving with rafayel.
back at his house, you immediately noticed the blank canvas and the brushes, all carefully placed as he always did before starting a new piece.
the lights were dimmed, and he became a little tornado of blue and purple, moving around and lighting strategically placed candles.
what the hell was going on?
“uh, rafayel…?”
he just turned to you and smiled softly, arching an eyebrow.
“patience, patience,” he stepped back to contemplate the layout, nodding in satisfaction. “now, my muse… i need you to undress.”
your eyes went immediately wide, hands clutching your sweater.
“excuse me?”
he tilted his head and soon smiled.
“oh, it's not what you think, silly! i just want to paint you,” he offered his hands. “buuuut, since i knew you'd get shy on me, i got a gorgeous white robe. you'll look like a goddess.”
you, however, stepped back.
no, no, and no.
“i'm sorry, there's no way, rafayel. i'm not— i'm not showing off my body like that!”
his expression fell, and his lips pouted ever so slightly.
“why not? i promise i won't do anything funny! i just had this… surge, this vision the moment i laid my eyes on you, and now that i have the inspiration, i really want you to be my muse.”
muse.
you?
yeah, right.
you huffed and grabbed your bag, brows knitted together.
it had to be a sick joke; maybe he'd sell the painting with a nasty title, or post it online for everyone to mock you.
you angrily walked to the door, tears streaming down your face.
he frantically followed, his eyes wide open.
“wait, my dear!” his hand quickly found your shoulder. “oh! i'm sorry… did i make you feel uncomfortable? i know i should've asked first, but i wanted this session to feel natural!”
“session?” you mumbled. “you call this a session or a humiliation ritual? what are you intending to do, rafayel? sell that painting for everyone to laugh at my body? or do you think fucking painting me naked will make you look like a body-positive artist to be praised by the masses?”
the words came out like venomous tides, each one drowning rafayel more and more, because they weren't true at all, yet you didn't even give him time to retaliate.
you were already twisting the knob when he suddenly gasped.
“i'm in love with you!”
the words echoed loudly in the silent studio.
rafayel didn't mean to say it like that…
actually, he didn't mean to say it at all.
not yet, at least.
your fingers froze in place, yet you couldn't bring yourself to turn around and face him.
“i… i love you. i am attracted to you. everything about you is… is worth capturing,” he whispered.
after some seconds of sheer silence, he continued.
“that painting would've been mine, mine alone. something beautiful to look at when you weren't around. something… beautiful to look at when i was in need of inspiration. something beautiful to just admire and cherish.”
you remained still, simply listening to his shifting, his ragged breathing, the flickering candles behind you, your own heartbeat.
“and if you deem me capable of such… atrocities, then i guess i haven't been clear enough,” his shoes clicked against the floor the closer he approached your trembling frame. “but i truly think you're breathtaking. the most beautiful woman i've ever seen in my life.”
you finally turned around to face him, cheeks glossy, lips parted.
“don't… please, don't do that,” you whimpered.
he, however, kept walking, his palms now pressing against your waist with the utmost care.
“don't do what, my dearest? tell the truth?”
“no… no, you're lying just— just because you know i've never had someone say those things to me. and i don't need your pity, rafayel, i don't!” you pushed him away, yet he barely moved.
that's when he grabbed your wrists softly, pulling you closer.
“do i look like a saint, hmmm?” his forehead met yours, making your breathing hitch. “that i go around doing favors, opening up my heart just because? because if that was the case, my studio would be filled with thousands of portraits of all of those poor souls i chose to save.”
you stared into his eyes, trying to find any hint of deceit or foolery.
“but i don't want to paint you to prove a point. i want to paint you to relish your body, to feed my desires, to satisfy my needs,” his smile turned bigger, charmingly predatory in a way that didn't seem creepy. “i selfishly want to enjoy every crevice and curve, to drown myself in you… or in what you'll allow me to have.”
your knees went weak, legs trembling as his fingers traced your wrists.
“so… if being my muse really makes you uncomfortable, i'll understand. but i won't stop telling you how beautiful you are, and i won't stop trying to get you to believe me.”
you stared at him, dumbfounded.
was this real?
was he really confessing his feelings?
your trembling hands slowly moved up to his chest, fingers curling around his shirt.
“i— i can't trust this… i can't,” you mumbled. “i can try, but—”
he pressed his lips against your forehead, lingering there.
“that's more than enough for me,” he assured you. “in the meantime… i'll save space for all of the paintings i'll make of you, my muse. one day, hopefully, you'll see yourself with the same adoration i do.”
and those words sounded distant; impossible, even.
yet he spoke with a conviction and a determination he didn't even use at work or in other serious matters.
a tiny flicker of hope ignited inside of you, and, if he kept trying, maybe it would burn as bright as the candles surrounding your close, almost intimate forms.~
𐙚˙⋆.˚ sylus! ꒰੭
becoming sylus' acquaintance wasn't as hard as one would think, or perhaps you got incredibly lucky.
he said you were lovely after he heard some of your bad jokes in a bar, and from then on, you had a huge and mysterious friend, a mechanical crow following you, and two crackheads spamming you with texts every day.
needless to say, you knew right away he was way out of your league.
he was hot as hell, tall, incredibly smart, rich, handsome, patient, gentle—
simply perfect.
and if you couldn't even get the attention of mere mortals, getting sylus' would be, undoubtedly, impossible.
so, to keep your own mind at peace, you decided to enjoy the friendship while it lasted, never once focusing on the what ifs or surreal scenarios.
so far, it worked out perfectly, but he made it a bit challenging whenever he acted too gentlemanly or way too nice.
for example, he took you on expensive outings, cooked dinner for you, or suddenly surprised you with gorgeous bouquets.
again, to protect your peace of mind, you chose to believe he was being kind and attentive, as the old-fashioned man he was.
a man like him wouldn't possibly like someone like you, so fantasizing was basically useless and self-sabotaging at this point.
however, when you thought you were strong enough not to get any ideas, this wonder of a man decided to take you on a trip; just the two of you.
restaurants, stores, bars, luxurious suites… separate, of course, gifts; everything you could possibly ask for, he'd provide.
you wanted to know why, naturally. friendships didn't usually involve this, but he'd just say you were special, and he wanted to do something worthy of your attention.
but the days went by, and sylus got closer, and closer, until one fateful night, you went back inside your hotel room and found a gorgeous dress in your size, as well as shoes and jewelry over your bed.
what was the meaning of this?
your hands trembled slightly as you picked up a small letter from over your pillow, immediately recognizing his handwriting.
it was an invitation to the rooftop bar in two hours.
your body and mind protested; what if the dress didn't fit? what if you looked like you were trying too hard, even when he was the one who bought the outfit for you? what was he trying to achieve?
in that instant, all of the thoughts you were trying to suppress finally broke through the barrier, bringing with them ugly, catastrophic ideas.
what if this was a bet?
what if this was his plan all along?
what if he decided to mock you for ever believing you were worthy of this level of attention, especially coming from a man like him?
your chest felt heavy, your eyes blurry.
you couldn't go.
you wouldn't go.
you locked yourself inside the bathroom and closed your eyes, wishing the hours could go by quicker, faster. that he wouldn't knock on your door, that he wouldn't text you, asking where you were.
on one hand, you had no reason to believe he would mock you. he had been very generous this entire time, and he never expected anything in return.
but, on the other hand, your brain couldn't process the fact that a man like him would take you out on a date, because this whole ordeal surely had to be one.
the sky outside grew darker, your hands were shaking, and your phone rang outside the bathroom.
once, twice.
then, silence.
five minutes later, someone knocked on the door.
“no, no, go away,” you mumbled repeatedly, hoping he would leave or think you'd fallen asleep.
but that wasn't the case, and when you heard his voice, you just couldn't ignore him anymore.
you stood up and took a deep breath before approaching the door, opening it with caution.
sylus was right there, looking absolutely dashing in his black suit and slicked-back hair. his crimson eyes softened almost immediately upon seeing you, a warm palm finding your cheek.
“sweetheart, what happened?” he quietly asked, concerned. “are you alright?”
“i— i'm fine,” you lied, looking down at your feet. “i just… didn't feel like going, i'm sorry.”
“no, something's bothering you,” he insisted, gently tilting your chin up. “talk to me.”
his patience was unbearable; how could someone like him care so much for someone like you?
before you could stop yourself, the words spilled out of your mouth, shaky and weak.
“why are you doing this, sylus?”
he blinked, confused.
his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“doing what, sweetie?”
“this! everything! whatever this… this is!” you gestured around wildly, stepping away from him. “the… the clothes, the shopping, the gifts!”
he studied your expression, his own softening immediately.
he understood where you were coming from, he could taste your pain and uncertainty from afar.
“because i want to,” he simply said, his voice calm and low.
“but why? what do you get out of this?” you rubbed your temples, genuinely distressed and confused.
he stepped closer, almost as if approaching a wounded animal, and leaned down so he could reach your level.
“you, hopefully.”
the entire world fell silent.
your eyes went wide, your head cocked to the side, your lips forming a perfect “o”.
“sy… you're not— this isn't funny…” you mumbled, shaking your head. “are you doing this because you feel sorry for me? are you? that must be it. that has to be it!”
yet his hands found your waist as he pulled you closer, making you gasp.
“i like you. i thought i had shown my interest the first day we met,” he softly said.
and if he recalled correctly, not only did he say you were lovely, but his voice was more like a purr than a casual compliment.
and, on top of that, sylus isn't one to praise strangers.
…and he paid for your bill, too.
your cheeks felt immediately hot, and you looked away.
“i— i didn't know! i don't like to assume, because… because—” your words died down as he gently held your cheeks.
“because you don't see yourself the way i see you,” he whispered.
your chest felt tighter than before, your hands holding onto his wrists.
“but… but look at you,” you protested, weakly pointing at him, then at yourself. “and look at me.”
“oh, i've been looking at you, sweetheart,” he chuckled, his eyes going up and down your entire body. “trust me.”
your breath hitched, your stomach twisting in knots.
“but—”
“unless you don't want this, i'm not letting you go,” he whispered, his gaze falling to your lips.
“sylus, i…”
“are you rejecting me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “it's okay if you wish to, but i need a proper answer.”
you hesitated.
you wanted him, but your insecurities were louder than your desires.
he noticed, of course, so he tilted your chin up.
“may i kiss you?” he asked, softly brushing your bottom lip with his thumb.
your heart was beating so hard, you thought you would pass out.
against all odds, your answer came out weak and shy.
“...yes.”
and before you could blink, his lips were on yours, hands pulling you closer.
your hands shyly traveled to his chest, wrinkling his perfectly ironed suit.
his tongue brushed against your lips, gently asking for permission, and you couldn't help but grant him access.
his hands moved down to your waist, squeezing softly as he pulled away.
“still unsure?” he asked, his lips brushing yours. “you can reject me.”
you shook your head, averting your gaze.
“good,” he whispered, pulling away completely. “now, go change into the dress i bought you. i've waited long enough to take you out on a proper date.”
“...okay,” you whispered, nodding shyly.
he grinned, pressing another kiss to your forehead before leaving.
“i'll be waiting for you outside, sweetheart.”
and he left, leaving you alone with your racing mind.
you had nothing to lose… or well, maybe some hours of your time if the date sucked, but other than that, you deserved to give yourself a chance, and today was the day to do so.~
𐙚˙⋆.˚ xavier! ꒰੭
xavier was an enigma.
you've seen him around a lot, and while he's charming in his own way, he didn't really… talk.
he was unreadable, really, and you thought that could be because he didn't know you back then, but now that you —somehow— became friends, nothing changed at all.
he was often considerate, yes, attentive, unintentionally funny, and surprisingly cuddly, especially after long days.
your days next to him could either be quiet and slow, or unpredictable and fun, and it slowly became a precious friendship you didn't expect, but treasured deeply.
now, the problem came when he started giving you… mixed signals.
he would blush if you caught him staring, he would nuzzle against your body unprompted, almost like a shy and unsure cat around his favorite human, and he would also become protective of you whenever you two went out.
your most vulnerable side told yourself it was just a kind gesture; something friends did.
but there was this tiny, hopeful voice bugging you; one you hadn't heard since you were very, very young, when having crushes and fantasizing was very normal.
what if he felt something for you?
…but how possible was that?
yeah, he was a bit hard to get to know, and he had just a few friends, but he was still undeniably attractive and very kind to strangers.
people looked at him, women looked at him, guys looked at him; he was simply charming and had eyes that could make someone sell their soul without hesitation.
and that, to you, meant that he was absolutely out of your reach, even when his actions confused you.
as the months progressed, he didn't get any better. he slept on your bed because, according to him, it made him rest better, and, recently, he'd started taking your hand while walking outside.
things felt more intimate, no matter how hard you tried not to think that way and make assumptions that could, potentially, ruin everything.
but he'd give guys nasty looks if they stared at you, and he'd pull you closer to his side, fingers intertwined with yours.
your heart was melting, but your brain was on fire.
what the hell was he doing, and why?
was he protecting you from the judgmental looks of others?
was it because he cared a lot, or out of pity?
you were going insane.
one night, you both came to your place to watch a movie and share some snacks. there was some tension in the air, since xavier had scared the shit out of a man who had been staring at you.
you didn't know how to react, quite frankly, especially not since xavier's hands had held your waist on the way home, refusing to let go of you.
when you sat down, he was looking down at his hands, while you awkwardly turned the tv on.
“so, about that,” you began, clearing your throat. “i… appreciate the gesture, xav. it was very nice of you to protect me.”
he perked up, those pretty eyes meeting yours through his eyelashes.
“but, uh…” you mumbled, your breath catching. “it's fine. i mean, it's not fine, but i've been dealing with judgmental looks all of my life. confronting them won't change their mindsets.”
xavier grunted in acknowledgment, before averting his eyes again.
“he wasn't judging you,” he whispered. “he was eating you up with his gaze.”
you sighed and smiled softly, shaking your head.
“i highly doubt that, xavi.”
he suddenly looked up again, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly.
after a brief pause, he finally spoke.
“you don't know how gorgeous you are, do you?”
…
your heart briefly stopped before beating faster than ever. you parted your lips to speak, but only a humorless, awkward chuckle escaped your mouth.
“what… what are you saying, xavier? that's not true.”
he moved closer to you, until his scent wrapped around you like a thick, impossible-to-ignore blanket.
“have i ever lied to you?”
“xavier—”
“have i?” he insisted, leaning in so that you couldn't possibly avert your gaze.
you swallowed thickly, clenching your hands.
“xavier, please. stop,” you mumbled. “if this is your attempt to make me feel better, it isn't working. knowing that men stare at me with… god knows what intentions doesn't make me feel desired or better about myself.”
he leaned back, his head tilting to the right. his eyes darkened just enough for you to notice.
“is that what you think i'm trying to do? making up the way men look at you, and protecting you out of pity?”
you wrapped your arms around your torso and nodded your head, making yourself smaller.
a flash of blond hair rushed towards you, and before you knew it, you were pinned down on the sofa, his body weight on top of yours.
some of his soft strands fell over your forehead, and his nose brushed against yours.
“you don't understand,” he whispered, palms pressed beside your head.
you managed a small gasp, your body freezing under him.
“w-what don't i understand?” you whispered shakily.
he looked down at your lips, then your body, and then up at you again.
“i won't let anyone else take you away from me,” he closed his eyes when he nuzzled your neck, taking in your scent. “i don't want anyone else looking at you the way i do.”
“xavier, no one is—!”
“they are, because you're gorgeous, and easy to love,” he quickly interjected, pulling back to look into your eyes.
your lips parted again, but no words came out.
you were speechless.
he was… jealous?
like, genuinely jealous and scared of other people liking you, when that had been a very rare occurrence?
but why?
“don't make me say it,” he mumbled against your skin, once again hiding his face in the crook of your neck.
you, surprising yourself, lifted your hands to cup his cheeks, forcing him to meet your gaze.
“say what, xavier?” you mumbled, needing to know the reason, needing your brain to stop rambling and for his words to make sense.
he sighed deeply, looking away for a second, before meeting your eyes again.
“…that i'm in love with you.”
lies.
he had to be lying.
you closed your eyes and shook your head, but his lips met yours in a desperate, needy kiss, as if it had a message to convey, or a point to get across without room for doubt.
his hands held your wrists gently, pinning them above your head, while his lips moved against yours.
he was pouring his feelings into this kiss, his tongue tracing your bottom lip, begging for entrance.
and god, you wanted to give in, but your insecurities were louder, and you pulled away, breathing heavily.
“xavier,” you whimpered, your brows furrowing.
“no, please,” he whispered against your lips, eyes half-lidded. “please, i can show it to you better than words ever could… only if you allow me to.”
however, you looked around and then back at him with a troubled expression.
this had been too sudden, too surprising. you weren't even sure of your own feelings, or if this would ever work out.
xavier, upon sensing your concerns, gently backed up and kissed your cheek reverently.
“not today if you don't want to,” he quietly added. “but i'll wait for you.”
your mind was still racing with thoughts, both good and bad.
but yet again, as xavier said, he'd never once lied to you.
he was very straightforward with his words, even when his feelings weren't clear to anyone but himself.
however, he left it very clear what his intentions were, and if he was willing to wait for you to make up your mind and… finally listen to that pesky little voice of hope deep inside your heart, then you'd grant him the benefit of the doubt.
so, with a soft and almost imperceptible nod, you allowed him to show you what no one else had before, no matter how enigmatic or unsure the path ahead seemed.~
𐙚˙⋆.˚ zayne! ꒰੭
the day he confessed his feelings, you felt as if you had stepped inside a different timeline.
it was sudden; slow, gentle, seemingly genuine, but ultimately shocking.
him; the doctor.
the role model with a perfectly constructed life, with many nurses and researchers going after his not-so-little butt, and with a face that could make the angels swoon…
in love with you.
needless to say, you went out of the cafeteria in a matter of seconds, utterly convinced he was playing with you.
he had to be.
maybe he saw you as an experiment; maybe he saw the “potential”.
maybe he was doing research on how many months it would take for a doctor like him to change your appearance completely against your will, all while using psychological tactics.
…okay, maybe that was a reach.
but it was still way more possible than him just being attracted to you.
so, as one does, you ignored him for days; not even bothering to pick up his calls or answer his texts.
your brain was wise, your mind was trying to protect you based on your past experiences or rather lack thereof, and you trusted your gut a hundred percent.
on the other hand, zayne was heartbroken.
he had built up the courage to open up his heart, to reschedule some appointments to have an entire evening just for you, and he had also taken you to his favorite café in town.
however, he knew you had run away because of your insecurities and thoughts, and not really because you were appalled by him.
or well, so he hoped.
he respected your decision after trying to reach out whenever he had free time, understanding you needed to process everything and come to terms with your thoughts.
but it was hard; it was the hardest thing he had ever had to deal with in his life.
when a week went by, you tried to put some distance between the two of you.
though you didn't expect to actually run into him as you went inside your favorite cat café.
there he was, kneeling down to caress a fluffy, fat black cat who was still asleep; otherwise, his hand would've been slapped away.
you froze in place, staring at him with wide eyes.
he, perceptive as always, met your gaze, his own eyes mimicking yours.
ten seconds went by in sheer silence, and you gathered the courage to turn around and flee, only for zayne to quickly run behind you, reaching out with something you hadn't heard in his voice before.
desperation.
“please… please, wait,” he called out, the cold air hitting his face the more he stepped towards you.
both of you faced each other, chests going up and down, lips parted to let out little clouds of air.
“may i talk to you?” he quietly asked, his gaze tender yet urgent. you averted your gaze, hands hidden inside your pockets.
your silence and stillness were enough of an answer, so he proceeded, his tone becoming softer.
“i did not mean to upset you,” zayne began. “i… i am aware we have been acquaintances for less than a year, but that day i deemed it appropriate to voice my feelings.”
you remained quiet before whispering.
“why?”
his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“come again?”
“why me? why? how or when did you realize you… you liked me?” you mumbled, pressing your nails against your palms, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to keep you from revealing your biggest insecurities.
his eyes softened, and he gently reached out to pull your hands out of your pockets and into his.
“you are everything.”
his hands were cold, but his touch was warm. his fingers squeezed yours, gently rubbing his thumb against your knuckles.
his eyes met yours, unwavering and sincere.
“you are kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. you make me laugh, you make me feel… at ease. and i find you breathtakingly beautiful.”
your breath hitched, your cheeks burning hot.
“i cannot think of a specific date, but i do remember feeling… abnormal flutters in my chest when you kissed my cheek on my birthday.”
you gasped softly.
that had been months ago.
“zayne…” you mumbled. for a moment, the icy walls around you started to melt under his warmth.
however, you came back to your senses when your mind started to replay all of the dismissals, the jokes, the judgmental comments, the disdain, all directed at you and your body.
you pulled your hands away and turned around, not yet leaving, but ready to if the situation became more vulnerable for you.
“you… you might be confusing sympathy with attraction, zayne,” you whispered. “it is your job to save people, and, subconsciously, you might be trying to… save me by being merciful.”
zayne froze, his hands trembling slightly before he clenched them into fists.
“...i do believe myself capable of discerning between desire and compassion,” he stated, his voice gentle but firm. “and i can assure you, what i feel is not pity, nor is it a way to feel better about myself.”
he stepped closer, his breath visible in the cold air between the two of you.
“i have felt unworthy of affection my entire life,” he suddenly admitted, reaching out to fix your coat with his slender fingers. “so i do understand why you would doubt my sincerity. however, i would like a chance to prove my honesty.”
“unworthy of affection…? but zayne, you're… you're you! you're perfect! have you not seen yourself?” you frowned, tilting your head.
how could he not see himself?
how could he not recognize that other people could find him absolutely easy to love?
how could—
…then it hit you.
you couldn't see yourself nor understand your worth either.
he offered a faint smile, the tips of his ears going red.
“perfect is not the word i would use, flower,” he whispered.
your heart fluttered at the pet name and how natural it sounded coming from his lips.
“but i, however, would use it to describe you. you are perfect in every way; there is not a day i spend without thinking about you, or… well,” he blinked quickly, fixing his glasses again, as if it were a nervous habit of his. “or without planning dates for when i finally clear up my schedule.”
your eyes widened, your knees feeling weak.
“dates?”
he nodded and stepped closer to you, closing the distance between you two.
“dates,” he confirmed. “if you would grant me the honor.”
could you…?
could you really accept and give him the chance he was asking for?
your lips parted to speak, but nothing came out.
zayne patiently waited, his hazel eyes never leaving yours.
you already knew how he felt about you, since he was very clear the day he confessed, and by accepting, you would be entertaining the idea of seeing how things progressed.
just when he thought you would reject him, you nodded.
zayne's breath hitched, his lips curling into the softest smile you had ever seen.
“thank you,” he whispered, gently taking your hand in his once more, pressing his lips against your knuckles, sending a shiver down your spine. “thank you, flower.”
you giggled nervously, your entire body feeling warm despite the cold weather.
“shall we go back inside?” you asked, glancing back at the cat café.
he nodded, intertwining his fingers with yours as he guided you back, his thumb gently caressing yours.
the black cat he was petting earlier was up and about, rubbing against the chairs.
zayne helped you out of your coat, his skin flushed, but his hands steady.
he was serious about proving his point, and, by now, the fog blurring your mind had dissipated.
he wasn't a man who would deliberately lie or play with your time, given he barely had time for himself.
and while you still had some doubts that wouldn't just disappear overnight, your previous… wild misconceptions about the man you called perfect without even noticing melted like ice against warm skin.~
They finally realized that we will not pay for the right to watch movies from years ago after striking down the youtube channels and videos that were posted time and time again.
I’m very happy to see that, even if it’s just about Barbie movies, that public outcry and protest (in the form of consistently posting copyrighted content and not consuming via purchase in this case) did do something for once.
'You think Leon is dead when he leaves you to save Raccoon City in 1998. Fifteen years later, he appears at your front door'.
You were eighteen when you fell in love with Leon Kennedy; he was twenty-one, bright-eyed, and freshly assigned to the Raccoon City Police Department. He used to pick you up after work, still in his rookie uniform even though he wasn't really supposed to wear it off duty, because he knew that you liked a man in uniform.
You remember weekends tangled in sheets, laughing about stupid things, talking about the future like it was an absolute.
“M'gonna marry you one day,” he’d whisper against your neck. “Just wait 'til I’m not a broke rookie anymore."
"You gonna be the sergeant?" you'd teased.
"Maybe," he'd quipped. "Maybe you'll be Mrs. Kennedy, heiress to the RPD."
You laughed, but you also kind of believed him.
Then Raccoon City happened.
“I have to go,” he told you as you watched the chaos unfold out the window of the safe house. You spun around to see your boyfriend had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, hair tousled from pushing his hands through it so many times. “I have to go and help those people—"
"And die? Are you fucking crazy?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to cry. "It's my job, Y/N."
You’d argued. You’d cried. You’d begged him not to go.
You beat against his chest as he held you still between his arms. "I can't just stay and watch people die when I know I could make a difference out there. Tell me you understand."
You knew that you were being selfish, that Leon really could make a difference by going out and joining the rest of the RPD against the outbreak. Still, you were too scared of losing him to relent.
"What about me? What about the promises you made me?"
Leon swallowed hard, face puffy with exhaustion and the agony of deciding between you and his moral calling.
"I'll come back. I've got too much to lose not to come back."
You had nothing left to say to him; he had his mind made up, and you knew. And so, he kissed your forehead, told you he loved you more than anything, and walked out the safehouse door.
That was the last time you saw Leon Kennedy. You lived your remaining teen years and your twenties imagining that he had died doing what he loved: the right thing. His parting gift to you was the safehouse that kept you alive, stocked full of essentials and secured like a fortress. In a way, you owed his life to him.
You were older now, living in a quiet apartment on the outskirts of D.C. whilst working a semi-meaningful job for the State. You’d built a life; albeit a small, careful life with walls so high no one could reach you. You hadn't dated since Leon, and people understood why: if the love of your life had died, why would you go on looking for another? You swore off that part of your life, imagined it was a closed chapter, and focused on more important things: your job, for example.
As was custom, tonight you'd brought home more work than was really necessary to keep your mind off the solitude that followed you around; this was a routine you had carefully curated over the past few years, which is why the knock on your door at nearly midnight made your stomach drop. Who the fuck visits unannounced at midnight? Murderers and perverts, is the answer.
With this in mind, you grabbed the baseball bat that you kept by the front door (you swore you were unaffected by Raccoon City, but little things like that proved otherwise) and opened the front door with the chain still attached.
"Can I help yo—" your own gasp interrupted yourself.
There he was: Leon Kennedy, dripping from his dark-blond hair, now streaked with silver. His face was sharper, scarred by a long line cutting through his left eyebrow, with fine lines littering his face. You knew he can't have been older than thirty-five, but God, he looked weathered: you supposed that's what happened when you tried to save a world that kept trying to eat you alive.
“Leon? Is that— is that you?” you'd squinted through the gap in the door, still clutching the bat.
He looked at you with the same eyes that he'd always had — sharp, striking — but they were much more hollow, like he'd literally lost the spark that used to define him.
“Hey,” he said hoarsely. His voice was deeper than you remembered— rougher, you thought. “I wasn't sure if I got the right address.”
Then, your knees buckled, and the world went black.
When you came-to, you were wrapped in a blanket on your couch with a cup of steaming tea next to you. You blinked, certain that whatever you'd just experienced was a dream and that you'd fallen asleep in front of the TV.
But Leon was still there when you looked up, wringing his hands anxiously on the couch opposite you and staring down at the carpet. Of course, Leon Kennedy would find a way through a latched door.
You shuffled slightly and his head shot up: his whole body went stiff.
"You ok?"
This simple question really pissed you off; you didn't even want to dignify it with an answer. You stared at him, chest tightening with fifteen years of rage, grief, and confusion.
“Am I ok?" You scoffed. "You died,” you hissed. “For fifteen fucking years!” You stood up from the couch and began to pace, throwing the blanket down.
“I know..." he replied calmly from the couch.
“You 'know'?" You laughed dryly. "No calls. No letters. No body— for a decade, Leon!” You were screaming now: "what the fuck do you think, 'am I ok'? You bastard! How dare you turn up after fifteen years? I moved on! I moved on and you're back to play the hero again!"
He flinched like you’d hit him. You watched his jaw muscles work as though he were chewing on guilt.
“I couldn’t contact you,” he said quietly. “After Racoon City… everything went to hell. I was moved into black ops— the DSO. They owned me. I couldn’t risk anyone using you against me—”
You let out a bitter laugh, tears burning your eyes. “So you decided for me? That I’d be better off not knowing if you were dead?”
Rain continued to pour behind him as you paced the apartment.
“I thought about you every single day,” he said, voice breaking. “Every mission. Every time I wanted to— to eat a bullet, I thought about you". He took a shaky breath. “I’m not the guy you loved, anymore, I know that. I’m… fucked up. I drink too much. I don’t sleep enough. I’ve done things that would make you vomit. But I had to see you." He stood up from the couch, "even if it was just once. Even if you hate me.”
The silence between you was suffocating: you wanted to scream at him; you wanted to slap him; you wanted to drag him outside and never let him back in again.
Instead, you fell back onto the couch that you'd woken up on and began to cry quietly.
“You should have told me,” you said, voice trembling. “You should've faked your death and not fucking just— just...coming back here. God, Leon. You have no idea what that's like: not knowing for fifteen years.”
His eyes were glassy. “I was trying to protect you. But I was a coward, and I was selfish, Y/N, I know." He moved forward silently; you saw him kneel in front of you through your tears. "I didn’t want you to see what I’d become— what I'd done.”
You wrapped your arms around yourself, fighting back more tears. “I waited for you,” you whispered. “For years. I kept our pictures. I slept in your old hoodie until it fucking... fell apart." You looked up at him and furrowed your brow. "And then I had to learn how to live without you.”
Leon’s face crumpled. He looked like he was barely holding himself together. "I didn't come here for forgiveness. I just… I couldn't break my promise. I said I'd come back. I said that I'd come back and I couldn't go on—”
The dam broke: you started crying — hot, painful, breathless sobs you’d buried for over a decade. Leon gave in instinctively and wrapped his arms around your waist. He held you so tightly it almost hurt, his face buried in your stomach as his own shoulders began to shake.
"I'm so sorry. God, I'm sorry."
He whispered apologies into your torso like a mantra, until you both stopped crying and you were too hot to carry on holding each other. You slowly peeled yourself from his arms.
"What now? What are we supposed to do now?"
Leon lowered his eyes and rested his head on your knees, still kneeled in front of you. You both knew the truth: the boy who promised to marry you died somewhere in Raccoon City, and the man holding you now was someone else— scarred, broken, and full of ghosts.
He lifted his head, finally. "If you want me to leave right now, I will. If you tell me to take out my handgun and shoot myself, I'd do it. Christ, I'd crawl through glass if you asked me to do it, Y/N." He swallowed hard as you looked down at him through puffy, hooded eyes. You couldn't help but let your thumb rub soothing circles on his cheekbone as he peered up at you.
"Or, I can commit one final act of selfishness and beg you to let me stay so I can make it up to you for the rest of our lives".
You sighed, all cried out. Still, you couldn't help the dry smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "I didn't think I'd ever see the day Leon Kennedy begged for anything."
He laughed and dropped his head onto your knees again. You let yourself play with the admittedly still baby-soft hair at the nape of his neck, littered with greys.
Quietly, you broke the silence. "What if I can't forgive you?"
Leon paused, then spoke. "I would be happy to spend a lifetime trying."
full shade, but this random resurgence of non mc hate towards authors i’ve been seeing lately is ridiculous. if you don’t like the concept, or insist it’s way too ooc of the boys, just block and move on 😭 ?? no one is forcing anyone to read the boys falling in love with someone who is not mc, and a vast majority of ppl who like it, or enjoy writing it, do it for a multitude of reasons.
like, maybe unclench a little and read fics that adhere to your tastes instead of complaining in other people’s asks
˖᯽ ݁˖· ─ Chap 8 - The One With the Wedding Video─ ˖᯽ ݁˖·
⁺˚⋆｡°✩ Summary ✩°｡⋆˚⁺
After years of enduring Naoya's cruelty in your marriage, one desperate push at the top of the stairs changes everything.
He falls, but he doesn’t die. He wakes with no memory of who he was, or what he did to you.
With his family desperate to hide the truth and preserve his inheritance, you become his caretaker… and his only anchor. The man who once made you flinch at the sound of his footsteps, now follows you around like a lost ghost, soft-eyed and uncertain.
You could tell him the truth. You could walk away, but guilt keeps you here, and love, eventually, makes it hard to leave.
‧₊˚✧ Warnings ✧˚₊‧
18+ MDNI, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Graphic descriptions of domestic abuse, Physical & emotional violence, Amnesia, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy angst, Slow burn romance, Non-con elements, Eventual smut.
TRIGGER WARNING - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! - TRIGGER WARNING!
TRIGGER WARNING - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! - TRIGGER WARNING!
The Zenin headquarters towered over everything around it, designed to be seen, and impossible to ignore.
Forty-six floors of glass and angular steel, a brainchild of architects who had been given too much money and not enough restraint. The whole structure was faceted, catching the light and throwing it back at the city in great, blinding sheets.
You could see it from blocks away. That was entirely the point. Everything about it announced itself before you'd had the chance to decide whether you wanted to look at it or not, jutting up into the sky with the overbearing confidence of something that never considered it might be an unwelcome sight.
You hated it.
You’d hated it the moment you saw it. This…garish monument to everything the Zenin family believed about themselves. A tacky declaration of wealth so total and so deliberate it had ceased to function as a building.
You thought of the old cities you loved, Rome and Venice, the Gothic cathedrals, the Renaissance chateau’s, buildings that had survived plagues and floods and the slow erosion of time and still stood proud. There was nothing of endurance here. Only exhibition. Only the Zenin family, pointing a very expensive middle finger at no one and everyone all at once.
The car eased to a stop before the front entrance.
A red carpet had been rolled out, running from the kerb to the revolving doors. The sight of made you slightly nauseous, because it meant they'd planned for this. They’d arranged themselves and their watching eyes before you'd even arrived.
You scanned the crowd gathered on either side and began the necessary task of sorting them into categories. The sheep were easy, lower staff, assistants, people who'd come because they'd been told to, and who would scatter at the first sharp look or bitten out word.
But the others. The ones stood at the edges, watching the car with an expression that was careful in its blankness. They were the jackals. They weren't here to welcome anyone back, they were here to take inventory, to catalogue every inconsistency, to carry whatever they found back to whoever had sent them.
Emiko had told you she'd managed the story, something about emergency surgery, his appendix, an extended recovery that had kept him home longer than expected.
It was a reasonable lie, reasonable enough for the sheep at least. But as you looked at Naoya sitting beside you in the back seat, hands wrung together in his lap, eyes moving too quickly over everything and everyone present, you felt the doubt settle in your bones.
He didn't look like the same person. That was the problem.
The Naoya who had walked these corridors before had not looked at things the way he looks at them now, constantly, compulsively, tracking every movement for potential threat.
He had always looked ahead, at whatever he'd already decided mattered, as if glancing around was beneath him. He had moved through spaces as though they existed to accommodate him, as though the people in them were beneath the investment of his attention.
That quality, that absolute, almost insulting self-confidence was what the jackals would be looking for. And it was exactly what was missing.
"Just don't speak much" you said, it was approximately the hundredth time you'd said it. "If you have to speak, keep it short. Don't explain yourself."
Ranta had already come around to Naoya's door. He stood with one hand resting on the handle, patiently waiting for your signal.
"You need to look… angry" you added.
Naoya turned to you. "Angry?" Something shifted behind his eyes, but it wasn’t anger, just genuine confusion. "Why angry?"
"Because angry men don't get asked questions." You looked back out the window, at the faces arranged along the carpet. "The less you say, the less they have to work with. Anger fills the silence, it's easier to believe."
His hands tightened in his lap. You felt your nerves beginning to fail, the sudden, almost overwhelming impulse to rap on the glass and tell Ranta to simply drive away almost compelling you to move. But there was no going back, not now, not with everyone watching with their questions and their suspicions.
"Naoya." He turned. "Look at me."
He shifted in his seat to face you properly, the building looming behind his head, and you held his gaze steady. "You are confident. You are in control. You are the head of this company and of this family, and every single person standing on that carpet knows it." You kept your voice level, each word chosen carefully. "Don't shift your weight. Don't stutter. Don't wring your hands, don't blink too much, don't flush, and whatever you do—" you looked at him, and tried to make it mean something "—don't cry."
His mouth opened, something in his throat worked. He looked, briefly, like someone who had just been asked to perform the impossible.
You reached over without thinking and smoothed the hair back from his face, you'd spent longer than you would admit getting it right that morning, pressing it into place. You moved to his tie, straightening it against his collar, adjusting the knot until it sat perfectly.
He began, almost immediately, to tug it loose.
"Don't" you straightened it once more.
He stopped. An endearingly sheepish expression moved across his face, and in another life, you might have smiled at it.
"We'll be okay" you said instead, and knocked twice on the glass.
Ranta opened the door and stepped back, and the world outside came rushing in, the ambient noise of the district, the particular charged atmosphere of a waiting crowd. Almost every face along the carpet tilted toward the car at once, craning their necks to peer inside.
Naoya went absolutely still.
You felt it, the shift in his breathing, the minute seizing of his posture, and leaned slightly toward him. "We need to get out."
"Who are they?" His voice was barely a whisper as he turned to look at you.
"They don't matter." You held his gaze for one more second. "Only you do."
Then you put your hand against his back and pushed. He swallowed and swung his legs out.
He looked at Ranta, who nodded once, the particular nod of someone who has always been steady in a crisis. Then Naoya looked back at the car, checking that you were indeed following.
You stepped out beside him onto the carpet and arranged your expression into something that you hoped gave nothing away, despite the fact that your heart was going at twice its natural pace and you were fairly certain you'd left your capacity for calm somewhere on the back seat.
"Confidence" you said, low enough that only he could hear.
Something happened then.
It crossed his face first, a flicker of something, a minute recalibration. And then his whole demeanour seemed to shift, a slow, deliberate roll of his shoulders, settling the jacket back into place, his chin tilting up by a fraction.
His hands moved to his cuffs, checking them with an idle gesture that communicated, without a single word, that he had all the time in the world, that the crowd waiting to receive him was welcome to keep waiting, as their time was worth a whole lot less than his.
You stared at him.
It was so entirely, recognisably him, or rather, the him that had existed before that you almost laughed. The sight of it made something ache in your chest though, leaving you wondering how much was performance, and how much was instinct?.
But at least the jackals, if only for a moment, were very still.
…
Without Ranta, you weren't sure you’d have gotten Naoya halfway through the revolving doors before he was caught out.
He was extraordinary, that was the only word that fit. He rattled off figures and updates and names of projects Naoya had absolutely no knowledge of, doing it in a way that required nothing further than a simple nod, yet still created the impression of a conversation so involved that it would be rude to interrupt
And Naoya, to his credit, and to your absolute relief, nodded on time, his expression perfectly arranged. He said nothing that couldn't be said with the set of his jaw or the slight lift of his chin.
When someone got too close, Ranta moved. Not so obviously that it could be read as deflection, just a smooth, unhurried repositioning, a hand half-raised to indicate a direction, a murmured word that made it sound as though Naoya's time was simply too precious for whatever this person had come to ask.
They all left looking vaguely apologetic. You watched it happen three times and still couldn't entirely explain how he did it.
He made sure to walk a half-step ahead too, just enough to lead without appearing to, calling the elevator before Naoya arrived, holding door before Naoya's even hand reached for it, so that the whole progression through the building looked like authority rather than a man being quietly lead through somewhere he no longer recognised. It was seamless, almost beautifully so.
But Naoya was coming apart at the edges.
You could see him cracking under the pressure with every floor you climbed, every office you passed, every head that swivelled and every pair of eyes that tracked him across the room. None of them were foolish enough to stare outright, but the quality of their stillness when he passed gave it away.
By the time Ranta opened the office door on the top floor, Naoya looked defeated.
You'd thought him having a top floor office was obnoxious the first time you'd seen it. The whole arrangement of it, the elevation above everyone else, the throne-room logic of it all. It had seemed then like the most Zenin thing imaginable.
But now, standing in the muted hush of it with the blinds drawn and no one who could walk in uninvited, you felt something close to gratitude.
"So many people" Naoya breathed, almost a gasp.
He'd gone to the far corner of the room, the furthest point from the door, and pressed himself back into it.
"You did well" you said, and meant it more than he would probably believe. "We can stay here now, all right? No one's coming in." You looked around the room, at the muted, barely there decor, and tried to keep your voice steady. "We can pretend we're home. Just you and me, okay?”
The line between his brows eased a little. His eyes closed, head falling back to rest against the wall, and for a moment the performance dropped away entirely.
"I want to go home" he said, he wasn’t pleading, just giving you the flattest possible report of his feelings. "Can't we just... can't we forget this?"
The thought had rose in you before, the same one that kept surfacing no matter how many times you pressed it back down.
"No" you said. "We can't run from it."
He nodded slowly, the way people did when they were forced to accept something they didn’t like, and pushed himself off the wall and crossed to the desk.
It was enormous, a dark colossus of cold metal and glass, the kind of desk that communicated power and wealth. But it was bare, almost unsettlingly bare. No stacked documents, no personal clutter, no evidence that anyone had ever sat here.
His nameplate caught the light, a glossy rectangle of metal with his name pressed into it. Naoya stood before it and ran the tips of his fingers across it slowly, as if trying to commit it to memory.
"There are no pictures" he said, quietly enough that it might have been directed at himself rather than you. His eyes moved over the desk's empty surface, the bare edges, the absence of anything that would have identified its owner. "Why aren't there any pictures?"
You looked. He was right, not a single photograph anywhere in the office, not on the desk, not on the shelves, not on the walls behind it. Nothing of you or him. Nothing of the family that had built this building and put his name on the door.
"I don't know" you said with a gentle sigh. “But we have to get to work now, Naoya”.
You weren't entirely well-versed in what he actually did here.
You'd never been part of that side of his life, but fortunately, you'd been present for enough of its overflow over the years to have absorbed a working idea of it.
You knew that the company had dealings in real estate and finance, and a handful of more discreet interests that were spoken of only in whispers. What you didn't know, Ranta would fill in. He always had.
You crossed to the chair on the visitor's side of the desk and dragged it round, planting it next to his, and noted that the visitor's chair sat noticeably lower than the executive's.
Not so much that you'd register it upon walking in, but enough that whoever sat in it would find themselves looking up, by some small but persistent angle, at whoever sat behind the desk. Enough to put them on the back foot before a single word had been exchanged.
You imagined every meeting that had ever taken place in this room, every man or woman who had lowered themselves into that chair suddenly finding themselves smaller, while Naoya looked down his nose at them with that expression of mild boredom he wore so well.
It was deliberate. All of it.
Naoya lowered himself reluctantly into the desk chair, and you settled yourself right beside him.
"Right" you said. "Let's start somewhere easy."
You leant towards the laptop that sat open on the desk. The login screen was already filled in, Ranta's doing, and clicked through to the directories without comment.
You'd thought about this on the drive over. About what to start with, what would be safest.
Anything from the last year was out, too recent, too liable to brush against memories you didn't want to risk surfacing here, not with people waiting on the other side of the door.
Deeper, older material was safer. Quarterly reports from three or four years back, when the company had been navigating a restructure he'd led. The contents would be remote enough to feel like learning rather than remembering, and the patterns of how the company moved would be clearer there than in anything more current.
You opened a folder. Selected a presentation file, an internal one, all clean graphics and bullet points. Functional and dry. The opposite of anything that might pull at the seams of him.
"This is from a few years ago" you said, keeping your tone light. "It's an overview, what the company does, who the main players are, the structure of the thing. Boring, mostly. But it'll give you somewhere to start."
He leaned in beside you. You felt the warmth of his shoulder against yours through the fabric of his jacket, you didn't shift way, though every instinct told you too.
You walked him through it slowly. The company sat at the centre, branching outward into its various holdings, property here, finance there, a logistics arm, a smaller division dealing in security that you skimmed over.
He nodded along, the way he had been doing all morning. There was something almost painful about how easily he was taking it all. The Naoya who had run this company would have demanded specifics, would have wanted numbers. This one simply absorbed what you offered him and moved on when you did.
You moved to a video next, a recording internal meeting from before he'd taken the top role, when his uncle had been the acting CEO for a period. You wanted him to hear the cadence, the way his uncle spoke, formality of these gatherings. Naoya needed to know how the room sounded before he had to stand in front of one.
He watched it with his chin in his hand, eyes narrowed, and you watched him watching it, looking for any flicker of recognition.
There was none, he was studying it the way you might study a documentary.
"That's your uncle, Ogi" you said quietly, when his uncle came on-screen. "You'll meet him eventually."
Naoya's brow drew together. "Are we…close?"
You took a breath before you answered, the Zenin’s didn’t know the concept of ‘close’, they knew ‘valuable’ and ‘worthless’. That was it, that was their language.
"You're family" you said simply, choosing the words carefully. "That's what matters. He'll expect certain things from you."
He nodded, but again, he did not press.
You moved on, through another short video, a clip of him from a panel he'd sat on at some industry function, brief enough to give him a glimpse of his own register, how he'd spoken in public, the particular arrogant expression he'd worn.
You felt him stiffen slightly beside you when his own face appeared on the screen, the sharp intake of breath, the way his hand on the desk closed and then uncurled.
"That's me" he said.
"That's you."
He watched himself say something, watched the way he give a short, dismissive smile to a question he clearly considered beneath him.
The version of him on the screen looked nothing like the man sitting beside you. The set of the jaw, the angle of the shoulders, the coldness in the eyes, it was all there and intact, the behaviour of someone who had never once doubted their place in the world.
Naoya stared at himself for a long moment.
"I don't like him" he said quietly, as if he were some separate entity.
You didn't know what to do with that. You paused the video and sat with it for a moment, trying to find the right thing to say in response to something so abstract.
"You don't have to be him" you said. "You just have to look like him for a while."
He turned his head and looked at you, the light in the office was low through the drawn blinds, gold seeping in around the edges where the slats hadn't fully closed, bathing his softened features in tones of honeyed gold.
"And what if I can’t?"
You didn't answer. You couldn’t. Because the only honest one was the one you had been pushing down all morning, all week, since the moment Emiko's had hissed down the phone. You didn’t want him to change, you couldn’t bear to watch him harden back into that cruel version of himself.
So you reached over instead and pressed play again, and you sat shoulder to shoulder with the man beside you and watched the ghost of who he used to be perform itself, and the silence between you held the answer you couldn't bear to say.
…
"All right. One more time."
You said it as gently as you could, conscious of how thin his patience had worn over the last hour, but it landed flat against the wall he'd built somewhere in his head.
The family tree was where he kept floundering. You couldn't, for the life of you, understand why. He had retained the broad structure of the company without much trouble, had understood the division names and revenue streams and the rough hierarchy of who reported to whom.
But the moment the conversation turned to the family itself, something behind his eyes simply… closed off. He remembered his mother and his father. He understood that Ranta was a cousin, somewhere on the periphery, attached to the main line by a thread he could trace if pressed to. Beyond that, it all dissolved.
And you needed it not to.
It would not be long now before he was made to sit at a dinner table with these people. Before someone he was supposed to have known his entire life would lean across a glass of wine and ask him a casual but pointed question, and the moment he hesitated, the moment he glanced sideways for help, they would have what they had come for.
You couldn't afford for him to confuse an uncle with a cousin. You couldn't afford for him to forget which of the women in the room had been a Zenin by birth and which had married in. The tree was simple, a handful of branches connected by marriages and births.
He should have been able to hold it in his head, but he wasn't.
"I don't want to" he said.
He folded his arms onto the desk and dropped his forehead against them, hiding his face entirely, a posture so unguardedly childish that something in your chest clenched at the sight of it. You reached over and nudged his shoulder. He didn't move.
"Naoya. We don't have time for this."
Nothing. Just the slow rise and fall of his back, a quiet, obstinate refusal.
"I want to stop" he said, and his voice came out muffled, slightly thick, the words pushed through the fabric of his sleeve.
"Naoya—"
"No more!"
The shout came up out of him like a bomb detonating.
He stood up so fast the chair rocked backwards beneath him, and his voice cracked the air apart with such suddenness that for half a second your entire body simply... stopped, every system in you cutting out at once.
Your shoulders drew in, your spine went rigid against the back of the chair, and your eyes dropped immediately to the dark glass surface of the desk because not looking was safer, a lesson your body had spent years learning. Your breath caught in your throat. Your hands went still in your lap.
Some part of you was already bracing for what came next, for the weight of the impact, for the angle of it, for which part it was likeliest to land on.
It didn't come.
The office door burst open, Ranta was there, one hand still braced against the frame, his eyes moving rapidly between you and Naoya and back again. He didn't speak immediately. He simply registered the room, registered your posture, the look on Naoya's face, and made a quick calculation.
"Oh — oh god."
Naoya's voice was completely different now. Stripped, suddenly, of whatever had risen up through him a moment ago, now hollow and horrified in the same breath.
His hand came down on your shoulder before you had fully come back to yourself, and your body did the thing it always did, and you flinched, eyes screwing shut, every muscle in you cringing inward.
"I'm sorry." His voice was urgent now, frantic at the edges. "I'm sorry, I — I shouldn't have, I didn't mean to...Y/N —"
"You need to take a break."
Ranta's voice came from much closer than you'd expected. You opened your eyes, and he was already standing beside your chair, somehow, his arm extended in the direction of the door in a gesture that managed to be both invitation and instruction at once.
His face was perfectly calm. That was something you'd been noticing all morning, this calmness was not an absence of feeling, but discipline, something maintained at a specific cost and deployed exactly when needed. "Step out for a minute. I'll take over here."
"I don't want her to go."
Naoya said it quietly, and when you looked at him, his eyes were on you and only you. They were wet, glassed over with something he was still in the process of understanding, guilt, you wondered, or shock at himself, or the slow, sickened recognition of what had happened to your body in response to his voice.
But your heart was still going too fast to breathe properly. Your hands were trembling in your lap, fine, helpless tremors you could not will away immediately.
Adrenaline had flooded you so completely that there was nothing of you yet that could be reasoned with, no part of your nervous system that had got the message that the threat had not, in fact, materialised. Your body did not know that. Your body knew only what it had spent four years memorising, dreading and healing from.
"Naoya." Ranta moved.
It was a small movement, just a shift of his weight, but it placed him neatly between the two of you, a shield between Naoya's reach and yours.
Something shifted in Naoya's face when he noticed it. You saw it. You’d learned to read his face, to catch the expressions that meant you should ready yourself for pain. The flicker behind the eyes, the narrowing. The hot, bright thing that sparked in him whenever he was crossed, whenever something or someone got between him and what he wanted.
Anger. Fury. Hatred.
It moved across his face for less than a second, but it was there nonetheless. Whatever softness had begun to grow in the gaps of his memory, the old Naoya was still in him, still capable of surfacing the moment he didn't get his way.
Your stomach churned at the thought.
"I'll go get us a coffee." Your own voice surprised you, it was steady, almost normal, only a hairline thread of a tremor running through the centre. You arranged a smile across your face, one designed to communicate that nothing was wrong, that you weren't running, that you'd be back. “Just… give me a minute. I'll come right back."
Ranta did not move from where he stood between you.
Naoya's eyes stayed on yours, but the anger had gone, or had been buried again, in its place sat something pleading, something afraid, and you stood up before he could speak, because if he asked you to stay one more time you weren't sure your body would let you leave.
…
"Here you go."
You nudged the small paper cup across desk toward him, the espresso steaming faintly through the lid, and tried very hard to keep the gesture casual, to make your re-entry into the room feel as ordinary as possible "Double espresso. The barista said it's their best blend, though I think he says that about everything they serve."
The barista, who you now knew was called Fumihiko. A piece of information that had been pressed upon you over the course of three terrible jokes, an extended unsolicited monologue on the merits of high-altitude Ethiopian beans, and one fairly heroic effort on your part to escape with the order before he could work up to a fourth punchline.
You'd left feeling vaguely as though you'd been mugged by his enthusiasm. The cappuccino in your own hand was excellent, you had to admit. He had not lied about the beans.
You turned to Ranta.
He was sitting, perfectly composed, in the chair he'd pulled up to the side of the desk, hands folded in his lap, watching Naoya with the expression of a man whose job was not to be noticed. He looked up when he registered your attention, and you held the second small cup out toward him.
"I got you one as well. I wasn't sure…”
He stood abruptly, his chair almost toppling, taking the cup from you with both hands and a small, deferential bow of his shoulders, his eyes briefly wide.
"Thank you, Mrs Zenin."
The flinch was small, involuntary. It was still a name that had only ever been said to you by people who wanted something from you, or wanted to remind you of something.
You arranged your face into a smile. "I wasn't sure if you'd want sugar, they've got some at the cart by the elevator if—"
"Double espresso is good" he said quickly, mercifully releasing you from the obligation of small talk. "Thank you."
You sat down beside Naoya.
You sipped your cappuccino slowly, letting the warmth of the cup steady the tremor that hadn't fully gone from your hands, and watched him over the rim of it.
He was leaning into the laptop screen in a way that he hadn't been when you'd left, his face, that face which all morning had been soft and uncertain and openly out of its depth, had gone curiously hard, jaw set, the way it used to be set when he was concentrating on something that mattered to him.
He didn't notice the espresso you'd placed at his elbow, he didn't really notice you sitting down. Whatever he was looking at had hold of him completely.
You leaned a little closer to see what it was.
You almost dropped your cup.
He was watching your wedding video.
Of all the videos, of all the files, of every safely abstract piece of footage stored on the company servers, this was what he had found his way to in the few minutes you'd been away.
The screen showed a wide pan across a vaulted hall, white and gold, flowers arrangements that had cost more than most people's cars adorned the aisle, and a younger version of you in a dress you had not chosen and a hairstyle that wasn't yours, standing in front of a man you barely knew, while several hundred people you had never met before that day watched from the pews.
Even now, you could see how thoroughly out of your element you had been. Wide-eyed, frozen, head turning incrementally as you tried to take it all in, the marble columns, the music, the crowd of unfamiliar faces, your hand resting on the arm of a stranger to you, both then and now.
And the Naoya, the Naoya you had married, stood beside you with the stoic, blank-faced expression of a man performing a function. You'd thought that he was nervous, that the rigidity in his face was just a man trying to hold himself steady through something significant.
You'd held onto that thought for a time, longer than was sensible. You knew now it had actually been boredom. To him it was just a formality being endured, a box on a list being checked.
He was speaking on the screen now. Saying his vows, delivering a series of declarations about loyalty and partnership and the unending devotion of his heart, and you knew, with a sickening certainty, that he had not written a single word of them.
He hadn't been the kind of man capable of those sentiments, even thinking them. Someone had been paid to compose those vows for him, a writer briefed on the brand of ‘love’ he was supposed to project.
The Naoya beside you on that screen had stood before the assembled witnesses and recited a love he did not feel for a wife he was not interested in, and the room had applauded. The memory made you nauseous.
"Why are you watching this?"
The question came out sharper than you intended. You'd meant it for Naoya, but somehow your eyes went past him and landed on Ranta, who returned the look with the faintest lift of the shoulders that read ‘he asked for it, I didn't know how to refuse’.
"I wanted to remember." Naoya didn't look up from the screen, he simply leaned in further, his face nearly close enough to the screen to obscure his reflection, eyes tracking you in your wedding dress with a focus that made your stomach turn over. "I wanted to remember what you looked like on our wedding day."
His voice was small, bereft in a way you weren't ready for.
"And I can’t…” he said. "I can't remember any of it. Not a thing."
You set the coffee cup down on the desk carefully. You didn't trust your hand with it any longer.
"Naoya" you said.
You could see it building in him, anger giving way to panic, and under it all, the deep, helpless sorrow of not remembering your own past. His hands had gone tight on the desk, knuckles pale, his jaw had set, and his shoulders had begun the slight, almost imperceptible draw inward of a body preparing to fight, or flee what it could not.
"It's all right…” you said. "You don't have to remember it. I told you before, our marriage wasn’t…” you searched for a word that was true and not damaging”...You married out of obligation, not love, this here…” You placed your hand over the image of you both. “This was just a performance, it’s not worth remembering”.
His head turned, his eyes, when they found yours, were glassy, the bright, wet shine of a man who had been holding something just beneath the surface had now run out of space to keep it there.
"But I don’t feel like that now."
His words left you breathless. You withdrew your hand from the screen and ran it through your hair, trying to still the faint tremor.
"I want to remember you. I want to remember… all of it, the good and the bad. I want to remember our memories, the things we did, the things we said, I—" He broke off and swallowed hard. "I want to know who we were."
You sat very still.
Something inside your chest had bottomed out, you were suspended in the moment with no clear sense of where the ground was.
He didn't know what he was asking for. He didn’t… He was sitting there with his glassy, earnest eyes asking for the return of the very thing that had hollowed you out, the very thing that you had spent these past weeks beginning to set down.
He was asking for the memory of his hand striking your face.
He was asking for the memory of the night you had locked yourself in the bathroom and waited for the sun to come up, counting tiles on the floor to keep your mind from turning over.
He was asking for the return of countless tears, of constant fear of-of- terror, sadness and…
He thought he was asking for a wedding.
Instead he was asking for every blow, every vile word, every chosen silence afterward. He was asking for every wound he had ever given you.
And the worst part was, he was asking for it with such gentleness. That was somehow the part that hurt the most. Because there was no version of this, in which you got to keep the version of him that you had now, without him remembering what you had been before.
You’d lose him the moment he found out. You’d run the moment he returned.
…
"Is this wise?"
It struck you as somewhat late for Ranta to be asking this, particularly given that he was the one who'd told you Naoya took his lunch in the cafeteria. Visually, it was the same lunch as everyone else, however it was ordered separately and prepared in a different kitchen. All consumed at one of the small corner tables where the rest of the staff could see him.
'He likes to survey his kingdom', was how Ranta had put it.
Apparently the appearance of accessibility had mattered to Naoya in the way most things had mattered to him, as a calibrated instrument of impression, deployed with intention, never the same as the thing it imitated.
"Well, this is what he usually does, isn't it?" you hissed back, keeping your voice low. “We’re trying to keep this as normal as possible”.
The cafeteria was packed. You could feel the room's attention even without looking up. You met more eyes than you could count, you were a fish, and the cafeteria was the bowl, and the rest of the building had simply come down to watch.
"Yes" Ranta said, leaning slightly closer, lowering his own voice further. "But he's still... altered."
His eyes flickered toward Naoya as he said it, you both knew that Naoya could hear every word of this. He was beside you with his elbow on the table and his chin angled toward the window, gaze fixed on the city laid out forty-six floors below.
He didn't turn his head, he didn't object. He simply looked out at the skyline he had once apparently enjoyed and let the conversation pass over him.
"He's doing well…” you said quietly, and watched the small twitch in his shoulders from the periphery of your vision, the slight downward tilt of his chin that told you he was listening more closely than he was letting on. "It must be… hard for him. But he's trying. He's trying very hard."
Naoya's hand, resting flat on the surface of the cafeteria table, drifted closer, his little finger finding yours. He didn't look at you, he kept his eyes on the window, as if the rest of him had nothing to do with the hand that had moved.
Ranta watched it happen.
You felt his gaze, felt the brief, careful judgement he made of your hands resting against each other, his finger curled around yours, and you felt, without needing to look up, exactly what passed across his face. Confusion morphing into pity. And underneath it, the resignation of a man watching something happen that he could not stop and was no longer sure he should try to.
The urge rise to pull your hand back, to break the contact, to spare yourself whatever conclusions he was drawing was immediate. Poor woman, poor stupid woman, going back, going back to him after everything...
Your face heated, and your throat closed, but you did not move. Naoya's finger tightened around yours.
"I just want to go home." Naoya's voice was low, pitched so only you could hear. He still hadn't turned from the window, but his eyes had dropped from the skyline to the place where your hands met, and his fingers shifted, claiming more, sliding his fingers between yours. "I hate it here."
Your chest pulled tight at the simplicity of it, at the notion that this man was sitting beside you saying the word home as though it were a place where everything was safe. You didn't know what to do with your grief, the grief of how late it was, the grief of how much time you had spent learning to live with the version of him that hated you so.
But at least he was still the warm, gentle Naoya for now. The thing you had been afraid of all morning, the slow seepage of the old Naoya back into the shape of him, hadn't happened. The flash you'd seen earlier in the office had not won.
There would be no cold drive home, there would be no slammed doors. There would be, when this day finally ended, only your home, and the film you'd left paused on the absurdly large television, and his hand finding yours in the dark.
You did not let yourself think about how long it might last.
"Okay" you said. "Let's eat. Then we'll go home."
"Mrs Zenin."
Ranta's voice had gone quiet, full of warning at the edges.
"Yes?" You turned your head toward him slowly, kept your face entirely composed. "He wants to leave, so we're leaving."
"But—"
"Stop."
The word came out level, almost gentle. You held his eyes long enough for the rest of whatever he had been about to say to die in his throat, and you watched him register that this was not something you were willing to negotiate over.
He held your gaze for another second, then his shoulders dropped a fraction, and he leaned back into his chair with the specific bad grace of a man who has been overruled by someone he had not previously credited with the authority to do so.
When you turned back to Naoya, he was smiling.
It was a small, private thing, a smile made for one person to see, and that person was you. Most of it was tucked away behind the tilt of his head, the angle he held his face at, but his eyes lifted to yours and the brown caught the cafeteria light like ambergris.
"Thank you, Mrs Zenin" he murmured, and this time you didn’t flinch.
…
You were almost finished eating when it happened.
You'd just set down your chopsticks and were reaching for your water when you heard the chair to your left scrape back a fraction, and a man you had never wanted to see again lowered himself into the empty seat beside you.
"Naoya."
He said it with the warmth of greeting and the sharpness of a knife.
You knew him. Of course you knew him. Nobuaki, whose face had been a fixture at every Zenin gathering you had endured and whose attention had cost you too much already. He was smiling, that ugly, slick smile that made your skin crawl.
"You haven't called" he said, the way everyone in this family spoke when they were testing a wound to see if you’ll flinch. “We’ve been worried.”
Lies.
Naoya looked at him, you felt him go still. You worried Nobuaki’s face had triggered memories you’d rather he not recall. He set his chopsticks down with a movement that took longer than it should have.
"I've been recovering" Naoya said, it came out clipped, exactly the way he would have spoken before. You felt a thread of relief loosen somewhere in you at the sound of it, and then immediately tighten again, because the man at the table was not going to leave it there.
He hummed softly as he turned his head slowly toward you. His gaze travelled across your face with that same old appraising lecherousness, and then dropped to where your hand still sat beneath Naoya's on the surface of the table. "I have to say, I'm surprised to see you here, though."
"Are you?” You matched his cadence, not giving him an inch to work with.
“Mm…” Again, that small considering sound, like he was tasting something. "Last I'd heard, you didn't really…” his smile widened by a fraction, almost delighted by what he was going to say next "mean all that much to—"
"Don't."
The single word landed with a confidence that shocked you. His smile didn't fall so much as frozen in place, and you stared at him, hard, every inch of your face conveying one specific instruction. Do not finish that sentence.
A moment passed, he had opened his mouth to test it anyway, the breath drawn in for a sentence he had decided he was going to deliver because the sting of being silenced by you in public was a cost he could absorb if it meant landing the blow.
But beside you, something in Naoya had shifted, he leant forward.
Not far, but the lean of it placed him fully into the Nobuaki’s space, looming forward, his weight tipping over the table.
Naoya did not look angry yet, but he had gone very, very still, the way a snake might before they strike, and his hand had withdrawn from yours and come to rest flat against the table between you and Nobuaki.
“What…” Naoya said, voice like warping steel "did you just say to my wife?"
Nobuaki tried to recover, suddenly registering the situation "I was only—"
"What did you say to her?"
It cracked through the din of the cafeteria. The voice that came out of him was the same one that had buckled your spine and sent your hands into your lap, but pointed outward this time, pointed in the specific direction of a man who deserved it, and the room around you reacted as one.
Three tables over, a woman flinched and looked down at her tray. The man at the salad bar with the long pretence stopped pretending and stared. The whole room went silent.
Nobuaki himself recoiled, his shoulders going up around his ears for a half-second before he caught himself, his face going pale.
You did not flinch.
The voice landed and your body registered it and it did not, this time, send you folding inward. Maybe because it wasn't aimed at you. Maybe because some part of you understood that for once, his voice was a shield and you were standing safely behind it.
Naoya stood.
He stood without taking his eyes from Nobuaki face, the chair scraping back across the cafeteria floor, and the silence that had spread out from your table to the corners of the room held. Not a single person moved, not a single conversation resumed. His hand came down and closed around yours and lifted it from the surface of the table.
“I suggest you don’t speak about her like that…” he hissed, each word slipping down your spine like ice as he loomed over the man, his eyes lit with a cold fury you knew all too well.“Ever. again”.
With that, he turned and walked, the whole of the cafeteria parting around you both like water.
You were almost running by the time you reached the doors, his stride too long for yours, his grip on your hand tight enough that your fingers ached. But you didn't speak, didn't try to slow him, didn't look back at Ranta who would, as usual, deal with whatever was left behind.
The doors swung shut behind you, the elevator already waiting to take you back up.
The two of you stepped into it and finally, you were alone.
He didn't speak in the elevator, even as the doors opened up onto the top floor. He didn't speak as he walked you the length of the corridor to his office, his hand still wrapped around yours, his pace finally slowing and the tension in his fingers loosening by the smallest degree.
But finally, when the office door closed behind you both and the world reduced itself again to this single quiet room, he let go of you.
He took two steps to the desk and then stopped, as though the energy that had carried him out of the cafeteria had simply run dry. He leaned back against the edge of the desk with his palms braced on either side of him and his chin dropped to his chest, and for a long moment he did make a sound.
"Naoya" you tested the air softly.
He looked up.
The anger that had carried him through had drained out of him entirely and what remained was something rawer and much softer.
"Come here…” he said quietly, hands lifting nervously towards you "Please."
You crossed the room. You weren't sure what part of you made that decision, but your body chose to move closer. You stopped in front of him, close enough that he could reach for you, which he did, his hands curling gently around the small of your back and drawing you in against him.
He did not crush, he did not grip, he simply gathered you, carefully, as though he were handling something as fragile as spun glass. His face dropped to the side of your throat, and he pressed there, and you felt the long, shuddering breath he let out against your skin.
You stood there, in the hold of him, and you felt your shoulders, very slowly, lower from where they'd been up somewhere near your ears.
Your hands, which had come up between you, settle against his chest and felt the warmth of him through the cotton of his shirt, the rise and fall of his chest, the slight tremor in his arms where they wrapped you in.
And for the first time in any of the careful, frightened, half-permitted moments of contact between you over these past weeks, your body simply give up its vigilance. You stopped scanning, stopped bracing, stopped holding your breath as you waited for the inevitable.
Your forehead came to rest against the line of his jaw. Your hands flattened against the front of his shirt and stayed there, fingertips pressing into the muscle of his chest. You closed your eyes and simply…existed.
He was murmuring something, you didn't catch it at first, they were spoken directly into the curve of your neck, but when you tilted your head a fraction you heard the rest of it.
"—let anyone speak to you like that. Not ever. Not while I'm here."
You felt his hand slide up the length of your spine and splay open between your shoulder blades. The other was still wrapped around your waist. He didn't move beyond that, he just held you, his face buried in the soft place beneath your ear.
You stood in the warmth of him and let yourself be.
And for one full, suspended minute, with the building pressing in on every side and the cafeteria still silent forty-six floors below, nothing else existed but the both of you.
I'm so sorry, I overwrote this a little 😭. I promise I'll reign it in next chapter.
DO NOT FEED INTO AI, OR REPOST WITHOUT CREDIT, OR ELSE I WILL CURSE YOU WITH FOOD POISONING AND MAKE YOU JACKSON POLLOCK YOUR BATHROOM!
And and then kyle takes pregnant reader to safety and john's wife divorces him and kyle and reader live a happily ever after.... right?
yes.
you dont try to contact John about the babies again. you have kyle and he loves you loudly.
you want to pretend the babies are his. that's what you start telling everyone. everyone that knew you were fucking a married man and just assumed you were pregnant with his kids.
but they're not Kyle's kids, not biologically. the more time you spend with him the more you realise you want your kids to call him dad.
you have no idea what you're doing.
but you go into labour. you call john, since they're his babies, too. you don't know you're on speaker, not until you're accidentally spilling the beans in front of his wife.
john hangs up. you dont hear from him until youre back to work, maternity leave over.
but kyle is by your side. he drives you to the hospital, holds your hand through labour. he's by your side when your babies cry for the first time, is there with you to take them home.
kyle makes it very clear he's not gonna leave your side. his kids or not, he loves them like they're his.
and, if you're up for it, he'll make more with you.
Overview: Elijah is a touch-starved guy with a crush on his friend Sylus, but can't be sure if he feels the same. Eli does have one more thing he's keeping from Sylus — he's actually trans.
Rating/Type: Explicit (18+); fluff, smut, angst
Length: 3.5k words (Part 1 of 3+?)
Content: Elijah's POV, "date" with Sylus, Eli invites him up, they have some awkward and flirty moments, Sylus stays while MC sleeps (non-sexually) (for now)
Warnings: Mild transphobia implied in MC's dating history
Other: I have 3 parts written but it doesn't feel done so maybe a total of 4 or 5 idk
AO3
~~~~~
“Wake up, kitten.”
Sylus' baritone voice roused Elijah from a light sleep. As he gained his bearings, he realized he had slumped onto Sylus' shoulder.
“Sorry,” he slurred, rubbing his eyes. “Guess I passed out.”
Elijah sat upright, recognizing his neighborhood outside the town car’s tinted windows.
“You had a long day,” Sylus responded, chuckling at his sleepy apology. “I wasn't going to wake you until I had to.”
Between a mandatory training and multiple missions, Elijah’s workday had been hectic. He had barely enough time to shower before Sylus arrived to pick him up. They planned on going to a music performance downtown, and Sylus insisted on a late dinner afterwards.
The whole affair was far too expensive for someone living on a Hunter's salary, but Sylus hadn't given him the option to pay for any of it. As always, he had his own stubborn justification. The orchestra tickets were free to him, and Sylus had chosen the restaurant — it was only natural for him to pay. The man had expensive taste, and the bottomless fortune to match.
The driver pulled into Elijah’s apartment complex. Sylus got out first and offered his hand, helping his sleepy companion out of the car.
“Thanks,” Elijah mumbled.
He tried to ignore the warmth he felt in his cheeks from the strong grip on his hand. Sylus walked him to the front of his building and stood by the door, the night breeze ruffling his hair.
“Thanks for inviting me tonight,” Elijah said, his eyes drifting to the ground. “I had fun.”
“You're welcome,” Sylus purred. “Thank you for accompanying me. The tickets were a gift, after all. It would be a shame to waste them.”
“Well, you didn't have to invite me,” Eli countered. “Or take me to dinner, but you did.”
“I like spending time with you, kitten,” he stated, a self-satisfied grin spreading across his face. “Isn't that enough?”
“I like spending time with you, too,” Elijah replied quietly.
He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, forcing himself to make eye contact. Sylus' piercing gaze wandered down, lingering on his mouth for a moment. Self-conscious, Elijah chewed his lip.
“Would you like me to walk you up?”
He gulped as he heard Sylus’ offer. He wants to come up this late? What does that mean? His heart raced as silence hung in the crisp night air.
“Uh… yeah, sure,” Eli responded, trying to keep his tone casual. “I'd like that.”
“Lead the way.”
Sylus stretched an arm around Elijah's shoulders, his touch comforting and confusing at once. He was unsubtle, but cryptic. In the six months Elijah had known Sylus, he hadn't deciphered what he meant by his touching, his teasing, his flirtatious pet names. Sometimes, it seemed like he wanted more, but he had never made his intentions clear.
Sylus is the boldest person I've ever met. If he was into someone, surely he would just say so, right?
Eli couldn't determine if Sylus was even attracted to men. Luke and Kieran would be the ones to ask, but Elijah was afraid to sour the friendship. Despite acting like Sylus’ adoptive family, the twins still reported to him as their boss — he couldn't risk them relaying it straight back to him.
Sylus’ hand moved to press against the small of Eli's back as they filed into the elevator. Well, he definitely touches me more openly than most straight men. The elevator reached his floor, and the pair made their way down the hall. Elijah scanned his fingerprint to open his apartment door. When he looked back, Sylus' expression was cool and unreadable.
“Would you like to come in for a while?” Elijah asked timidly. “It's a little messy, though. Been a long week.”
“Sure,” Sylus responded, his face softening with a smile. “I don't care what it looks like, Eli. You should know that by now.”
As they went inside, Elijah ran through the usual list in his mind. Backup period products? Stashed. Testosterone? Locked up. Everything else just looks like a regular guy lives here. With his concerns mostly allayed, he led Sylus to the couch.
He rarely had guests over, aside from Caleb, who had been by his side for every step of his transition. When Elijah was grieving, Sylus had lent a shoulder to cry on. Despite their rocky start, Sylus quickly became a source of unwavering support.
When Caleb came back, Sylus had asked about the nature of their relationship. Elijah confessed to a childhood crush on the handsome, talented, older boy who doted on him. Caleb was the one who helped with his homework, cooked his favorite foods, and even administered his shots until Eli felt comfortable handling the needles. It was only natural for his admiration to evolve as he grew up.
However, any romantic feelings Elijah once held for Caleb had long since faded. Sylus' response had been cryptic, as always, but Elijah could have sworn he heard relief in his voice. He would only ask that question for one reason, right?
Sylus encouraged Elijah to sit beside him, just as he had in the car. He obliged and scooted closer, a hot flush creeping up the back of his neck. Out of habit, Eli turned on the TV. He scrolled through the programs, unsure what to pick. When he glanced over at Sylus, he was met with a casual smirk.
“Whatever you like to watch, sweetie,” he said earnestly. “I don't mind.”
Elijah felt his face growing warmer as he broke into a sweat. Sweetie. Why does he call me that sometimes? And why does he always have to sound so damned sexy when he says it?
He nervously scrolled through the options, barely comprehending the words on the screen. The last thing he had watched was a drama he'd seen many times before — a good show, but the tone was a little sappy. He selected it anyway, starting from the beginning.
“Romance, hm?” Sylus remarked. “You’re getting more and more interesting.”
Elijah gulped, his stomach churning. Damn it. Now he thinks I chose that on purpose because I like him. I mean, I do like him, but-
“It was a joke, kitten.” Sylus' cool voice jolted him from his thoughts. “You don't need to doubt yourself."
How does he read my mind like that?
Sylus snaked his arm around Elijah's shoulder, making his heart pound even harder. When he glanced over at Sylus, the gem on one of his rings caught the light, glinting a deep blood-red. It was a piece of jewelry Eli had long admired. He gestured at the ruby, his pointer finger bumping Sylus' hand as he did.
“I like this one,” he announced, trying to ease the tension. “It's a pretty stone.”
“You like shiny things as well, don't you?” Sylus chuckled. “We have that in common.”
“Only one of us hoards them like a dragon, though,” Elijah teased.
Sylus let out a hearty laugh at the comment.
“A dragon, hm?” he echoed, sounding amused. “Look closer at it. I don't mind.”
Sylus held out his hand, giving him a chance to examine the ring. Elijah took him up on the offer out of curiosity, and as an excuse to touch him. Sylus' hand was warm as Eli worked the ring off his long, elegant finger. He handled it with the utmost care, recognizing that the cost of any jewelry Sylus coveted was likely astronomical. Elijah held it close to his face to appreciate the details.
A delicate scale pattern was etched into the dark gray metal. The ruby was dazzling, but irregular, as if it had been polished in its original shape rather than cut. Based on the intricate details and the clarity of the enormous gem, it was ridiculously expensive — likely commissioned by Sylus himself, hand-crafted by an artisan. Elijah noticed calligraphy around the inside of the band, turning it over as he read the tiny inscription.
“The Dragon’s Smoldering Heart,” Elijah slowly read aloud. “What’s that?”
When he glanced at Sylus with a quizzical look, he let out a low chuckle.
“The gemstone,” he purred. “It was so lovely in its natural shape that it felt like a waste to force it to be anything more conventional. I polished it as it was, and my favorite jeweler designed the setting. She's a fine craftsperson, no?”
Sylus' eyes were fixed on him, the same deep scarlet as the sparkling gem in his hand.
“Yes, it's… beautiful,” Eli replied absent-mindedly. He realized he was staring into Sylus' eyes, and quickly averted his gaze. “It must have cost a fortune.”
“A gentleman doesn’t tell,” he responded slyly. “It needed to be special to hold a dragon’s heart, after all.”
Elijah took Sylus' hand again, working the ring back onto his middle finger.
“I like rare, beautiful things, Elijah. The harder they are to acquire, the more satisfying.”
The tone of Sylus' voice set him off-balance. Elijah paused and looked at Sylus, but his face was as calm and unreadable as ever. He realized he was still holding Sylus' hand and quickly let go.
Shifting to lay his head on the armrest of the couch, Elijah curled his legs up and put his feet by Sylus' thigh. He turned his face towards the TV, hoping his blush wasn't as obvious as it felt. His folded legs acted like a barrier between the two.
After a while, he glanced up at Sylus, who had his eyes on the TV. Elijah longed to tell him the truth, to possess even a fraction of the unapologetic boldness Sylus exuded. However, the strange little friendship they'd cultivated felt too special to risk the wrong approach. A man who genuinely cares about me, who takes me out without expecting sex for his attention.
If Elijah confessed to how he felt, he would have to confess to the other secret he'd been harboring. The very idea made his stomach churn. We've known each other for months — the proper time to mention I wasn't born male is in the rearview mirror by now. What if he thinks I led him on? Sylus looked over at Eli, who quickly averted his eyes.
“Are you feeling alright, kitten? You’re all flushed.”
Elijah looked meekly up at Sylus to see genuine concern in his eyes. He swallowed hard, searching for something to say, but nothing came out. Dammit, my face is only getting hotter.
“Did I do something to upset you?” Sylus pressed.
Elijah quickly shook his head, but Sylus remained unconvinced. He furrowed his brows and let out a deep sigh, searching Eli’s face for a more honest answer.
“Let me get you some cold water.”
Sylus stood up and strode into the kitchen. With his back turned, Elijah wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his forehead and took a few deep breaths. How embarrassing to have him worry over me like this.
Sylus knelt down beside the couch with a glass of water. Elijah felt restless, his mind wandering with Sylus so close to his face. The backs of Sylus' fingers pressed against Eli’s cheek with a surprisingly cool touch.
“You’re all red,” he murmured. “Your face is burning up, sweetie. Are you getting sick?”
Elijah’s stomach flipped. He silently shook his head, unsure what might pop out if he tried to lie.
I'm not sick. I'm just a horny little coward. Please stop worrying over me.
Unexpectedly, Sylus pressed his hand against the inner crook of Elijah's elbow. Sylus' fingers were warm against his arm, unlike his burning cheeks.
“Doesn’t feel like a fever,” he muttered to himself. "And you weren't drinking tonight. Have you been pushing yourself too hard?”
“I don’t know,” Elijah said quietly.
Sylus' touch and scrutinizing gaze were only making the scalding heat in his cheeks worse.
“You don't know?” he chided. “That sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.”
“Maybe a little,” Elijah confessed, averting his eyes. “I get enough scolding from Caleb, okay?”
Sylus let out a little sigh, his voice softening when he spoke again.
“It’s late, Eli. You should get some rest.”
“No-” he blurted out anxiously, before tempering his emotional response. “Please don’t go.”
“What if I keep you company, hm?” Sylus cocked an eyebrow at him. “If I stick around, will you go to sleep?”
“Wouldn’t that be, like… weird?” Elijah asked timidly. “People don't usually…”
“We don't have to do what people usually do,” Sylus responded with a reassuring smile. “Why should it be weird?”
“Well, we’re not… uh…”
Elijah trailed off again. We're not… dating? Banging? There was no way to finish that sentence without confronting the unusual nature of their friendship.
“If you want me to stay, then it’s not weird,” Sylus concluded, cutting off the awkward silence. “I can let myself out once you fall asleep, and I can still get to my bike, since I'm already inside the building.”
“Yeah,” Elijah said hesitantly. “That’s true.”
“Then it's settled, hm? I'll stick around for a while.”
Sylus flashed a soft, genuine smile that made his stomach flutter.
“Okay,” Eli responded. “Yeah, I guess so. As long as you don’t mind.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to be, kitten,” Sylus reassured him. “Go and change out of your dress clothes so you can relax.”
He took Elijah's hands and helped him to sit up on the couch. After drinking some cold water, Eli grabbed some clothes that were cozy enough for sleep without being too revealing. He took them to the bathroom to get changed.
Elijah unbuttoned his nice clothes and wiggled out of them. The crumpled fabric fell to the floor with a quiet hiss. He looked in the mirror and instinctively ran his fingers over the old mastectomy scars below his pecs, a tiny smile tugging at his lips.
He rarely let anyone see them, but he secretly loved the way the two pale scars looked against his olive skin. Catching a glance of his bare chest in the mirror used to be something Elijah dreaded, but his heart swelled with pride every time he saw his scars. They were a reminder of his bravery, his triumph. Between lifting weights, hormones, and top surgery, he finally felt right in his body — sometimes even handsome. Now, if only the other guys thought it was enough.
Despite splashing his face with cold water, his cheeks were still hopelessly red. When he came out, Sylus was leaning on the arm of the couch with his long, elegant legs stretched out ahead of him. He had removed his tie and undone the first few buttons of his shirt. Elijah's heart skipped a beat as Sylus glanced over.
“Cute,” Sylus remarked, an affectionate look on his face.
Cute? That's definitely flirting, right?
Elijah looked down at his feet, unsure how to respond. Sylus closed the distance between them, hooked a finger under Eli’s chin and tipped his face up.
“Still red,” Sylus mused. “I’m sorry. I won’t say those things if they make you uncomfortable.”
He secretly loved Sylus’ compliments, but admitting it was another beast entirely. Sylus looked down at him with a pensive expression. Eli’s heart was pounding, but he leaned in for a hug anyway.
He wrapped his arms around Sylus' warm, solid waist. Putting his hand behind Elijah's head, Sylus held him tightly, his breath slow and calming. They had never pressed their bodies so closely together before. The feeling made Elijah's stomach flutter.
In a moment of bravery, he pressed his face into Sylus’ collar, taking in his warmth and his scent. Sylus used a few subtle fragrances Eli had become familiar with. On that night, his scent was rich and comforting — tobacco, musk, vanilla.
Sylus let out a shaky little huff, as if he liked the contact as much as Elijah did. The warm, sweet air from Sylus' neck made his head spin. When he began to feel his pulse throbbing between his legs, he forced himself to let go. Sylus cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks.
“Bedtime,” Sylus announced. “Do you want me to lay with you? Or should I stay on the couch?”
The question stopped Eli in his tracks. Stupidly, he hadn't thought of it before.
“With me,” he determined, ignoring his racing heart.
He crawled under the covers while Sylus sat on the edge of the bed to slip his shoes off. Elijah's stomach fluttered with nervous excitement when he heard the tinkling sound of a belt buckle. Sylus laid on his back, and Elijah rolled on his side to look at him.
“I hope this doesn't keep you awake,” Sylus murmured.
He ran his fingers absent-mindedly over Elijah's hand. Sylus' fingertips brushing his palm felt like a jolt of electricity, and Elijah giggled with surprise at the sensation. He glanced up to see a genuine smile on Sylus’ face. He looks so fucking handsome when he's undone like this.
“What is it?” Sylus asked curiously.
“Uh- nothing,” Eli stuttered, realizing he'd been staring blankly.
He looked down at Sylus' chest to escape his inquisitive gaze. His smooth skin was peeking out of his unbuttoned shirt, and his well-defined pecs looked even bigger up close. Oh god, I can see the outline of his nipples.
Elijah rolled onto his other side, trying to ignore the uncomfortable heat spreading down to his shoulders. Sylus moved closer, his warm palm rubbing Elijah's back. The gesture, intended to be comforting, instead had his heart beating out of his chest. He could feel his pulse thrumming in more places than one.
“You're such an anxious little kitten,” Sylus observed. “Do I make it worse?”
“Yeah,” he blurted out. “I mean- a little. Not- not in a bad way.”
“Talk to me,” Sylus purred, his voice growing slightly closer. “Why are you so anxious, Elijah?”
His chosen name slid off of Sylus' tongue like honey. In months of knowing him, it had never failed to make him melt. Sylus' firm touch moved to Elijah's upper arm, brushing past his exposed skin. He was always careful not to go too far, never touching Eli in a way that made him uncomfortable, but his body always whipped itself into a frenzy regardless.
“Is it because… you like me?” Sylus whispered.
He nodded, and then kicked himself for responding so quickly. He's going to see how desperate I am.
“I like you too, kitten,” Sylus reassured him. “I always have.”
Elijah was rendered speechless, his stomach churning and twisting. I have no choice but to tell him now.
“There's something I haven't…” he choked out. “Uh, something I need to tell you. About me.”
“Oh?” Sylus asked, curious but unconcerned. “And what's that?”
“It's… kind of big,” Elijah managed to say. “I'm, uh… I wasn't born as a boy. I'm transgender.”
The silence was deafening while Elijah waited for his reaction.
“Okay,” Sylus responded, his tone gentle and calm. “Thank you for trusting me with that part of yourself.”
Wait, what?
“I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner,” Elijah blurted out. “I'd understand if you didn't feel the same way anymore.”
Eli repeated the words he'd practiced a thousand times since his transition, cushioning the blow — reminding himself to be understanding, and reminding Sylus that he still had a way out. He had to pretend it would be okay to have Sylus change his mind, and not the soul-crushing impact he was bracing for.
“Why would that affect how I feel about you?” Sylus asked.
That's it? No running away? No prying questions about my body, my surgeries, nothing?
“You'll have to ask the other guys, I guess,” Elijah huffed derisively, before softening his tone. “I mean- sorry. That sounded bitter.”
He let out a squeak as Sylus pulled him into the crook of his body without warning. Sylus wrapped his long arms around him, nose buried in his short hair. Elijah shuddered at the tingling sensation that ran down the length of his spine.
“Stop apologizing to me,” Sylus whispered. “Those things aren't important to me, kitten.”
Those things? What, his partner's genitals? Those aren't important?
One of Sylus' hands ended up over Eli's heart. Nobody ever touches my chest. His pulse throbbed between his legs, his neck and shoulders flushing and increasing the uncomfortable heat under his skin. He had always been a horny mess, but in the years since starting testosterone, it was more pronounced. As Sylus cuddled him more closely, the outline of his dick pressed lightly against Elijah’s thigh, causing his breath to catch in his chest.
“Your heart is pounding.” Sylus' breath sent another tingle down his spine. “Relax, sweetie. You need to rest.”
“I'm, uh… I can't sleep like this. It's too, um… distracting.”
Sylus cleared his throat, realizing what Elijah was dancing around. He rolled onto his back, and Eli let out a sigh of relief before doing the same.
“Better?” Sylus asked gently, eliciting a nod. “Good. Now rest.”
“Thank you,” Elijah whispered.
He closed his eyes, allowing sleep to slowly claim him.
Synopsis: You were given a second chance at living, and maybe, just maybe, he was given one too.
Pair: Dawnbreaker!Zayne x NonMc!Reader
Warnings: Angst, infidelity (it's not them, don't worry), mention of death
Word count: 4.5K
Series Masterlist
The loud screeching roar blasted through the phone speakers, and Dawn's heart ceased to beat for a second.
No. This can't be happening again. Not again.
"What was that?" He waited for your answer, but the only thing he heard was your breathing and the sound like the air was cracking. A sound so familiar he could almost see the creature himself.
"Y/n! Run! Now, you have to run!" He shouted into the phone. His body shot out of bed in a second. He was already scrambling to the door with the phone still pressed to his ears.
He didn't know where to go. Didn't know exactly where you were, just that you were at a bar near the hospital. The only thing he knew for sure was that you were in danger and he needed to be there now.
He kept screaming for you and calling your name, but even the sound of your breathing was gone now. Left was the sound of screaming and chaos.
Dawn was running, heading in the direction of the hospital. He had always been calm and collected in situations like this. It was his life, a daily occurrence for the life he used to lead. A sound he'd encountered every night for the longest time of his life, but it was different now. Now, the person he needed most, the light that shone so bright his dreary life transformed into something he looked forward to every morning, was in the heart of it all.
He forced his body to keep going like a soldier marching to war, his legs were chasing each other, his eyes scanning his surroundings. He needed to be faster; he was looking around to hail a cab when he heard a female voice from the speaker.
His heart skipped a beat when he heard the high-pitched voice, hoping wholeheartedly that it was you, but when he listened closer, the hope faded away to unease and dread.
"What are you doing? Come on!" He heard the sound of shuffling and the pleading sound of McKayla. The sound of fabric ruffling, feet pounding against the pavement filled his mind.
He was listening to the words McKayla was saying to you, and by the time he was able to comprehend what was happening, his hands trembled.
Why was McKayla begging you to run? Why weren't you responding? What were you doing?
When the crashing sound of the phone hitting the pavement and the wailing of McKayla calling your name blared through the speaker, he knew immediately what you were doing.
You were running straight into danger.
He tried calling for you, but it was useless. His fear and anxiety were crowding his thoughts, drowning him and forcing him back to the dark and lifeless place he had been in.
He didn't remember how, but the next thing he knew, he was sitting in the back of a taxi heading straight to the scene. On his way to you.
The familiar atmosphere of antiseptic and bright LED lights had never felt so daunting to Zayne. He never noticed how the chair in front of the operating room tilted a bit forward and how it squeaked with the smallest movements.
McKayla sat beside him with her head in her hands. Her body leaned forward with her elbows resting on her knees. She was shaking with silent tears falling down her face; her strong hunter facade was nowhere to be seen now.
Zayne rubbed comforting patterns on her back to calm her down, but it didn't seem to register much with her. It was as if she was always thinking about something; the images of the scene stuck behind her eyelids.
He couldn't exactly blame her. When he saw you broken and shattered on the floor, his breathing had also hitched. It broke his professional composure for a second before it slipped back into place. He held McKayla together when the medical personnel took over and brought you into the ambulance. You were no longer responding then, and McKayla was fighting to be beside you the whole way.
Now, they were both sitting in blaring silence in front of the operating room where you were fighting for your life on the other side of the door. Zayne had called Dawn just moments after arriving at the hospital. They were rolling you into the ER with a sense of urgency, and after you came, the teenage girl you had saved. She was also injured, but it was nothing compared to the injuries you had sustained.
Zayne thought back to the moment he called Dawn as he stared ahead at the blinding white walls. McKayla was right beside him with a look of fear and guilt in her eyes as she waited with anticipation for Dawn's reply.
"Dawn, I'm sure you hea-"
"Where is she?" His voice was cold and firm. It was no longer the soft and laidback person that both Zayne and McKayla had come to know. Back was the tense and calculating man that Zayne had seen in his dreams.
"At the hospital. She's in the operating room." He hung up as soon as Zayne finished talking. He could see how McKayla gulped and blinked a few times, trying to keep her composure.
Zayne placed a hand on the small of her back and led her to a bathroom, helping her wash the dried blood on her hands.
"She'll be okay, McKayla." She has to be.
He was so lost in his thoughts that it took McKayla shaking his shoulder softly to bring him back.
"Are you okay, Zayne?" She asked quietly. The usual light in her eyes was still missing; only fear and worry shone from them now. He placed his hand over hers and gave a small nod.
"I'm okay. Are you?" At his question, McKayla avoided his gaze once again. There was something on her mind, something she wasn't telling him.
"McKayla. What is it?" He asked steadily but softly, squeezing her clenched hands gently to comfort her.
"Tonight I asked her…" She started shakily, eyes getting glassy once again as he took a deep breath before continuing.
"I asked her why she wanted to be a nurse. She said…she said that she was sick when she was a child. She said it wrecked her family and—" her voice broke as she tried to continue, and her hands shook in Zayne's hold.
He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her tight against him, "It's not your fault." He whispered and pressed a soft kiss onto her temple.
McKayla pulled back slightly and looked up at him with glassy eyes. "Zayne…she told me she wanted to be out of the bed for once and look…now she's back in it because of—"
"No." He cradled her face in his hands, fingers gently stroking her cheeks.
"What will I say to her family? To Dawn? I just—" He didn't let her finish and just pulled her into his embrace again, letting her sob into the crook of his neck.
Something McKayla said about your family was itching his brain somehow, but he didn't have the mental space to try to identify it. The sound of heavy breathing, along with frantic footsteps, reached his ears before he even saw him.
Dawn rushed in like a raging snowstorm, and the room temperature dropped slightly once he came into view. His eyes were bloodshot, hair a mess as he had run his fingers through it frantically.
Zayne got up with a deep breath and tried to put on the calm facade he always wore while talking with patients, but this time it was different. It was almost like he knew how it felt to be in that position. Seeing the one you love fading before your eyes, to hear their last dying breath pass their lips. A pain worse than death.
"Dawn…." He gently coaxed him towards a seat, but the hollowed man shook his head, eyes staring at the blood stains on McKayla's clothes. She was standing beside Zayne now, glancing at Dawn's expression, scared of what he would say.
"How is she?" Dawn spoke quietly, almost a whisper. He was afraid, afraid of the answer, of the truth that seemed inevitable to him.
It was stupid of him. Stupid for loving you. For thinking he'd actually ever get a happy life with the one he loved. He didn't deserve it, he wasn't meant for it, yet he stayed when you offered him a room filled with warmth and laughter. Stayed when you let him crawl into the space beside you and leaned into your touch when you comforted him, telling him he deserved all of this soft and gentle care. He should have known better. It was written in the stars anyway; all that he loves would get taken away by the same creature he hunted night and day.
"She…she sustained several fractures and has some internal organ damage. She's undergoing surgery. This could…take a few hours." Zayne interrupted his train of thought.
"Will she be okay?" His voice was cold and distant. The man before them now was not the man they had come to know. Back was the hollow soul that wandered through the night, vanquishing the creatures that repeatedly took away the light in his eyes.
Zayne couldn't possibly know the storm raging inside his head, but he could feel it, the aching pain in his chest. A phantom pain that had festered for so long, he didn't know when it started.
"Dawn, y/n is stron—" McKayla tried to coax him softly, but still the man shook his head with an empty look.
"Will she be okay?" His dimmed hazel eyes raised to meet its twin, though similar, it was not identical. Zayne saw all the signs of emotional distress in the soldier standing before him. The red-rimmed eyes, the slightly shaking hands and the faraway stare. He knew it well. Knew the sugar-coated words would not soothe his bleeding heart. Dawn needed the truth even if it'd destroy him; he was desperate for it.
"…We don't know yet." He said quietly, and though it was subtle, he saw how it made his breath hitch.
It was all familiar. The sound. The smell. The blinding light.
Your body knew where you were even before your brain realised it. The constant beeping beside you sent chills down your spine, with the implications that came with it. You knew it all too well and had hoped that you would never be here again.
A soft rustling sound slowly approached you. Taking a deep breath, you opened your eyes. Slowly, as if you were working up the courage to encounter the familiar white ceiling with the spot of water stain and a hairline crack that was almost invincible. It would be to anyone, but not to a person who spent years studying it in boredom. You had to face the reality you were in, you thought to yourself with clenched fist.
Her soft blonde hair and her kind blue eyes, the same ones that used to give you comfort, now only give you this wretched feeling. Cold sweat shot through your body, heart picking up even though the machine beside you didn't react to it in the slightest bit.
"Hey, how are you feeling today? A bit scared, are we?" The nurse gave you a soft smile and placed her warm hand on your shoulder. You remembered this. Her words, the look in her eyes and what was about to happen next. It was the last day before your life changed in the way you never thought possible. Before you met the man who taught you that you could go through anything in life when you had someone who could see you…truly see you, and stay beside you.
How are you here? This isn't your world. Not anymore. What about the life you had built back there? Was it all a dream?
The thought of it all being just something your mind created broke you. It forced the question of whether all of that was how your brain chose to deal with your misery-filled life? The tears started welling up, and your hands started shaking. Emily saw it all, the signs of you going into distress, and she knew how to soothe you. Just like she always did, she sat beside you and pulled you into her embrace. It would have calmed you, but the warmth of her touch and the weight of her arms were now a constant reminder that you were here. Here, in a world where your body was broken beyond repair. Where your tired and hopeless parents were sitting in front of your hospital room. Either because they were tired of sitting in here and breathing the stale air and seeing their half-dead daughter, or because they couldn't say what they truly thought in there, you couldn't know for sure, but you had long suspected.
Emily was soothing you from the fear of having a life-threatening operation, thinking that the reactions you were showing were the result of it, but her assumptions were completely wrong. The tears and tremors you had might have been because of it then, but now, it was much more than that. You tried to speak, tried to voice your confusion, but nothing came out. It was almost like you didn't have full control of your body. Stuck in a body that felt like it was no longer yours.
How could this be?
You lie there, paralysed in the body that you didn't have control over. You'd cry, but you couldn't even push out the tears. You were stuck in time, forced to replay the events of the darkest moment of your life.
The hours went by, and soon Emily left. It was just waiting time now. Waiting for the procedure, waiting for you to get better. Waiting for something that wouldn't come. Your parents were right outside your room, just waiting and hoping. They didn't know it, but you knew better. All this waiting and hoping, it was pointless. The results wouldn't be as they had hoped.
Had you come back here just to die?
You lie on your side with your eyes closed, your body asleep just as you remembered. You were too weak then, too weak to stay awake even though you were brimming with hope to get better. Now, with your new mind in your old body, you knew better than to fall asleep. The room was silent, curtains drawn. It was supposed to be peaceful, if not for the mutterings outside the room.
This was new. You hadn't heard anything then, but now that your mind was alert, you could make out the things that were being said. You could tell from the timber and pitch that it was your parents talking outside your room.
"I hope this procedure works out…" Your father said with a somber tone, maybe you weren't the only one that knew better after all. It was quiet for a few seconds before you heard the reply from your mother.
"…that so? Is it because you love your daughter or because you'll finally get to leave us with no guilt?" You've never heard her speak with your father like that before. Such a bitter tone, it made you wonder what was really going on behind the facade of the hopeful parents who always wished for the better health of their daughter.
"How—How could you say that? Of course, I'd want her to be better. She is my daughter." Your father, who was always strong and unnerved, who was like an anchor in the storm, was stuttering. You wished you could get closer to the source of the sound, to peek between the door and actually see what was going on, but all you could do was stay.
"Don't think that I'm stupid. I know who you were meeting wi—"
"It was a mistake. I didn't want to…I ended it. I'm here now for our daughter and for yo—"
"Until when? Until things get too hard and you need to find an escape again?"
"I have always done the best that I can for this family."
"…and what about our marriage?"
Your weakened heart dropped as if it had already ceased to beat.
You knew that things were difficult in your family sometimes, from all the stress and the pressure that came with having a frail daughter, but you never thought it would go that far. Of course, you have heard them argue late at night before, when you were hazy from the concoction of medicines in your body, but you'd thought it went that far. Your parents weren't picture perfect, and neither was their relationship in the last few years, but to think that he was unfaithful…and because he could no longer handle the pressure of having you as his daughter…
Silently, streams of tears fell onto the pillow. The last thing you ever did was…cry.
You couldn't help but wish for the familiar warmth that would've held you tight in a moment like this.
You couldn't help but miss him.
Hours passed, and the silence was messing with all their heads. Dawn stood like a reaper, as unswerving and still as a statue, while Zayne and McKayla sat waiting with bated breath.
Dawn's jaw was tightly clenched, his fists tightly wound. A soldier ready for battle, yet there was nothing he could do. He couldn't help you. Couldn't make your bleeding body heal, couldn't make the pain you were going through any less.
He wished it were him instead who was lying on that table, surrounded by white coats and sterile blades. Yet he was here, scared and useless. He'd begged, he'd have prayed, but no god would help him. Having been laughed at by the god of fate, it felt like no higher being had ever answered his prayers.
Zayne and McKayla had tried to coax him to rest, but he refused to even take a seat. He needed to be vigilant, to keep watch for you. He let you stray far once, and now you were in there, bleeding on the operating table. He had decided then that if you woke up, if only you came back to him, he would never let anything happen to you ever again. Not even the cruellest god could pry you away from his cold hands.
It felt like forever had passed when the door to the emergency room opened again. Zayne and McKayla sprang up from their seats like they were ready for action, and Dawn, as rigid as he already was, stood a bit straighter. None of you said a thing, but it was like you all knew that you had to brace for impact. The impact of losing you.
"How is she?" Zayne, the most sane person in the moment, asked with a steady voice. McKayla grasped his hand tightly, praying that the words that would come out of the doctor's mouth would not be the ones that she thought.
"She's…severely hurt, but she's safe now."
It was as if a knife came down and cut the string that was holding the tension of the room altogether. McKayla's knees gave out, breaking down into tears once again as Zayne wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him.
Dawn, who was as frozen as a statue, let out a soft exhale. A single breath that melted his body whole. His body slowly became unwound, stumbling back, he leaned onto the wall behind him. He had been trying to hold it together, to stay in one piece for you, but now it has all come undone.
The doctors must have said something else to Zayne, giving him the details of the extent of injuries that you had sustained, but Dawn didn't hear any of it. He was only focusing on the fact that you were here. You were alive…he hadn't lost you. By the time the doctor retreated behind the doors, Dawn was a heap of limbs on the floor. Sitting on the floor with his knees bent and his head between his knees, his chest heaving before the tears that had been locked in him all along came spilling out. The unbreakable soldier had been beaten to smithereens at your return.
McKayla and Zayne knelt beside him with their hands on his trembling shoulder, holding the pieces of the formidable grim reaper together.
Dawn's fragile heart broke once again when he caught sight of your condition. To see you unconscious on the bed with gauze and bandages wrapped all over your body, it caused him more pain than he's ever known. It was almost like a physical reaction. His hand softly rest over yours, careful not to put any pressure in fear of causing the slightest pain.
Ever since you came out of the operating room, Dawn has been stuck to your side and refused to budge for anything. He'd sleep on the chair beside the bed with his hand on yours when nighttime comes. He had left you to face the world alone once; he would never do that again. He was a soldier on duty, standing guard for what he valued most.
"Dawn, maybe you should rest for a bit. I'll—" McKayla spoke softly, not unlike the coax to a child.
"No. I'm okay. Thank you." He answered bluntly, his focus was entirely on you and the silent prayers for you to wake up.
Even though he didn't believe in any gods, he hoped and prayed that your frail hand would move against his once again. He thought back to the way it had always been when he reached for the familiar touch of your hand, the way you'd curl your fingers around his and tighten the hold. It never mattered if you were awake or asleep; whenever he needed the comfort of your warm hands, you'd always reciprocate. He thought of the countless nights he'd slowly slip your hand in his or when he'd unconsciously reach for yours when he felt unease from the overwhelming crowd, reminding him of how, no matter the occasion or reason, you'd always accept his hand with no delay and give him a gentle squeeze. It was your own language, a way of silently telling him that you were here. That you were right there beside him. Now, your hand lay limp in his, and he didn't know where you were.
After a while, Zayne and McKayla retreated from the room, sensing that he needed some alone time with you, even though you weren't able to respond to his touches. Once the room was left with only the sound of your heart machine beeping and the soft rustle of your weak breaths, Dawn crumbled against your body.
Half his body was hovering over yours as he whispered soft pleas to you. With his head pressed against your shoulder, he kept calling your name, hoping that you'd find your way back to him.
"Come back to me, my angel."
The room was dark and silent; the lights were off, and the only sources of light were the machines' dimmed screens and the city lights seeping through the window. Zayne had demanded that Dawn take some rest. He had tried to suggest that Dawn go home to freshen up, but when he saw the determined look in Dawn's eyes, he knew nobody could get him away from his post next to you.
It took a while until Dawn was finally able to fall asleep. He didn't want to lower his guard at all in case you needed him for something, but the exhaustion from staying awake for almost two days straight was getting to him. He couldn't resist it when his eyelids started to get too heavy to stay open, and his mind too dense to even process a thought.
He rested his head beside your hand. Dawn told himself it was because this way he'd know if you were waking up, when in his heart he knew it was because he could no longer fall asleep without your warmth near his skin. You were colder now, he thought. The hands that used to comfort and hold him tight when the night reminded him of too much pain were not as warm as they used to be. Nuzzling against your hands, he felt his consciousness slowly slip away.
Then all of a sudden, it was warm again. The lights shone through the window as you leaned against his shoulder, reading your book on a Sunday morning. You were smiling and kicking your feet slightly whenever the words caused some strong emotions in you. He always loved it when you did that; it'd make him chuckle lightly, maybe even tease you softly so you'd divert your attention to him for just a moment.
"Enjoying your book, sunshine?" His voice was low and soft, like a gentle nudge to the avid reader beside him. He wanted her attention, yes, but never to take her out of her happy place. It pleased him to see you so relaxed and carefree, especially knowing what you went through after losing your patient, Anya. He saw and helped you through it, and he never wants to see you like that again.
"Mmhm, I am. Also, when are you going to stop calling me that?" You beamed up at him. That sparkle in your eyes, it was his favourite thing. He'd go through war to protect it.
"Never. What's it about? You've been so absorbed in that one all week." He adjusted his arm so he could have your head leaning against his chest, almost like he was cradling you in his arms, if he didn't rest his hand on the back of the couch.
"Oh, I'm not telling you." You put the book up against your chest, giggling softly. Oh, he could have a heart attack so severe that Zayne wouldn't be able to do anything.
"No? Is it because the scenes are ero—"
"No!" Your hand shot up to cover his mouth, eyes widened, and lips spread wide to a grin.
"They are…juicy."
He narrowed his eyes playfully at her, slowly reaching for the book himself, only for you to attempt to escape him.
It was a battle of pillows and tickles until he felt a touch on his cheek. A touch so subtle, yet so real.
His eyes fluttered open, still feeling the fleeting touch on his cheek. Still disoriented from the stark contrast of the dream that reminded him of the fond memory and the dark, silent room he was in, he felt it again.
It was you.
Dawn sprang up from his seat, leaning over you immediately. His hand carefully cradle your hand in his, feeling that soft flicker of your fingers once again.
"Hey, sunshine." He softly called, brushing a strand of your hair away from your face. His fingers feathered over your bruised skin, gently rousing you back into consciousness.
Slowly, you opened your eyes, and it felt like Dawn could finally breathe again. His brightest light, his sunshine breaking through the horizon of his gloaming night. You came back to him, and this time, he'd never let you go.
"Dawn..."
I know guys...I know. What I don't know is if any of you would come back hehe. I'm so incredibly sorry. I literally wanna fall on my knees and apologise. I know I've made tons of apologies and excuses, but...here I go again. So, I've kinda graduated...? I'm currently doing my internship, I've been very busy, and the period before my internship was filled with anxiety, so I couldn't really write anything. Now, I'm writing during my lunch breaks or when I get some time off from my work. Anyways, I hope you guys like this one. As always, I love you all, and I truly appreciate you for reading my little writing here. <3
♱ summary: Your sister abandons her sons with a worthless brooch and broken promises. Twelve years later, you are desperate and bleeding, and you accidentally summon the archfiend trapped inside the brooch. He saves your dying nephews. Between magic and survival, between rose gardens and freedom, you learn some bonds transcend death and time.
♱ c/w: MDNI; non-mc reader; female reader; fairy tale au; mix of rumpelstiltskin/aladdin/beauty and the beast; historical au; fantasy au; sex worker!reader; archfiend!sylus; DARK ELEMENTS including: tw implied noncon (not with sylus), tw underage prostitution, tw underage pregnancy (not reader); mc is mei; reader has a sister; HEAVY ANGST (only in part one); angst with a bittersweet/hopeful ending; major character death/s; reincarnation; also inspired by sylus' third myth; most of the tags (dark) here will only be in part one, unbetad & unedited, 12k words.
♱ a/n: please mind the tags. the first part of this fic is going to be dark and angsty. the title is inspired by aimer's song hana no uta/花の唄 and partially by fate heaven's feel iii: spring song
♱ part one ➤ part two
♱ lads masterlist ♱ fairy tale aus masterlist ♱ AO3
I
There is a rose garden in Velmure that belongs to the merchant families on the hill.
You have never been inside it, but you know it exists because Amara brings home stolen petals sometimes.
Pink and white and deepest red, tucked in her pockets from the mornings she works in the merchant quarter.
She lays them on the windowsill of your shared room and they curl and brown within a day, but for those few hours they make the space smell clean instead of unwashed bodies and chamber pots and the acrid stench of poverty that gets into your clothes, your hair, your skin.
Your mother kept a rose cutting once.
A single pale stem in a cracked porcelain cup, roots suspended in water she changed each dawn. You remember watching her tend it, the gentleness in her roughened hands as she touched the thorns.
She died before it could take root properly.
The cup shattered three days after they buried her. You were six years old and clumsy with grief, reaching for it without looking. The cutting died on the floorboards in a puddle of cloudy water as you stared at it with teary eyes and helplessness.
Amara swept up the pieces without speaking.
Your father would be dead by the end of the week and neither of you knew it yet, though perhaps Amara suspected. She was always better at reading the signs.
He holds on longer than your mother, perhaps because he is stronger or perhaps because he is stubborn, but the outcome is the same.
The neighbours bring soup that no one eats and offer sympathy, but by the following Tuesday, a week after your mother died, the visits stop entirely.
People in the lower quarters cannot afford extended mourning.
There are living mouths to feed and rent to pay and the dead do not care whether you weep over them or move forward.
Amara understands this before you do.
She is ten years old and she sells everything.
The table your father built from scrap wood he traded for at the harbor. The cooking pot your mother brought from her village when she married him. The jade comb that belonged to her mother and her mother before her, its teeth worn smooth from generations of use. The bolts of silk your father imported from the Southern merchants, the ones he swore would make your fortune once the right buyer came along.
She sells it all to pay debts you did not know existed.
She keeps one thing.
A brooch, another one of your mother’s heirlooms.
A ruby set in tarnished silver, old enough that the origins have been forgotten. The clasp is sharp and catches on fabric and draws blood if you handle it carelessly. Your mother wore it once a year during midsummer celebrations and kept it wrapped in cloth the rest of the time, tucked in a drawer like a secret.
"We should sell this too," you say, watching Amara wrap it back in its cloth. "The jeweller said it might bring enough for two months' rent."
"No." Your sister’s voice leaves no room for argument.
"But we need..."
"It is ours." She closes her hand around it, careful not to be pricked by the clasp. "Everything else belonged to them, to the debts, to the people who are owed. This is the only thing that is really ours. We are keeping it."
She puts it in her pocket and that is the end of the discussion.
You move to a room in the almshouse in the streets behind the harbor, a space barely large enough for two sleeping mats and a small cooking area. It has one window that faces the alley, the glass is cracked and does not close properly, so wind comes through even when you stuff rags in the gaps. The walls are thin enough that you can hear everything from the rooms on either side, the arguments, the crying, the rhythmic creak of bedframes, the endless coughing.
Amara holds your hand on the first night and makes you a promise in the dark.
"I am not going to leave you," she says and her arms wrap around you and pull you against her chest, her voice earnest despite the way it shakes. "We are all we have now, just us. Do you understand?"
"Just us," you whisper into her shoulder.
"We are all we have," she says again, and it sounds like an oath. "Always."
You fall asleep believing her.
The lean years teach you what it means to be hungry.
Really, truly hungry.
The kind of hunger where you learn to make five copper coins last seven days through careful rationing and making choices about which meals to skip.
Amara works.
She is eleven, then twelve, then thirteen, and she works every hour the sun touches the sky and many hours after it sets.
She washes silk robes for the merchants' wives, standing at the public washing stones with her hands raw from the harsh lye soap they provide. Her hands are raw within the first week, red and swollen, knuckles split, fingertips cracked so deep you can see the pink beneath. The wives inspect her work with critical eyes, pointing out spots she missed or places where the fabric has been rubbed too hard. They pay her in copper that barely covers the cost of the soap.
She carries crates at the harbor where the trade ships dock. The work is brutal and the men do not want to hire a girl, but Amara is strong for her size and willing to work for half the pay. She hauls boxes of tea and spices and bolts of silk that smell like the East. She always comes home walking stiffly, her shoulders hunched forward, one hand pressed to her lower back.
She mends fishing nets for the old men who work the boats.This is the work she likes best because they are kind to her, these old men with weathered faces. They pay her in coin when they have it and salted fish when they do not. They tell her stories about the sea while she works, and sometimes she comes home smiling.
You help where you can.
You are small but you are quick, and quick has value in Velmure's harbor district. You run messages for merchants who need errands done. You sort through damaged goods at the market stalls, separating what can still be sold from what must be thrown away. You collect the roses that fall from the garden carts on their way to the merchant quarter, gathering petals for Amara because you know she loves them.
The work brings in copper, sometimes silver if you are lucky, but never enough.
Amara teaches you to read even though she can barely read herself.
She trades a full week's washing for a water-stained primer, the pages swollen and the ink faded but still legible. Every evening she sits with you by candlelight, sounding out the words slowly with her finger tracing each letter.
"You are going to be smart," she tells you one evening when you are struggling with a particularly difficult passage. She taps the page with one finger patiently. Her eyes are tired and she barely has any sleep but she is determined to teach you. "Smarter than me, smart enough to do something better than this."
"You are smart," you protest.
"I am stubborn." She grins at you, and for just a moment she looks her age instead of decades older. The grin makes her look like a child, and you suddenly remember that she is also a child like you, still just thirteen years old. "Stubborn and smart are different things. Smart finds a way out. Stubborn just survives."
"Then I will be both."
"Good. “ She taps the page again, more firmly this time. “Now read the next line."
You smile and read the next line.
You develop rituals.
Small things that make life bearable, things that belong to just the two of you.
Every Sunday at dawn, before the market crowds gather, you walk to the harbor together. Amara saves one copper coin each week for this. You buy two steamed buns from the vendor by the docks, the kind with pork and cabbage filling that are still hot enough to burn your tongue. You sit on the sea wall with your feet dangling, watching the fishing boats return, and eat your buns in silence.
This is your time, sacred and separate from the hunger and the work and the endless calculations about what you can and cannot afford.
Amara always gives you the bigger bun.
"Yours is smaller," you point out the first time you notice.
"I am bigger. I need less." She bumps her shoulder against yours. "Eat."
You eat, but the next week you try to give her the larger portion. She refuses. This becomes a small war between you, each trying to ensure the other gets more. Eventually you compromise by tearing each bun in half and trading pieces so you each have an equal share.
"There," Amara says, satisfied. "We are all we have. We share everything."
You laugh, and the sound feels strange in your throat, like something you have almost forgotten how to make.
On winter evenings when the wind howls through the cracks in the walls, you sit close together for warmth.
The cold is always brutal. Your room has one threadbare blanket and no fire. You cannot afford firewood and the landlord does not allow fires in the rooms to prevent the risk of the building burning down.
You lean against each other, shoulders touching, sharing the single threadbare blanket you own. Sometimes Amara tells you stories she remembers from your mother. Sometimes you read aloud from the primer, stumbling over difficult words. Sometimes you just sit in silence, listening to the wind and the distant sound of the harbor.
"What do you think about?" she asks you one evening when you have gone quiet for a long time.
"Different things. Better things." She squeezes your hand. "A place where we do not have to be cold. Where there is enough food. What about you?"
"I will be there too." Her voice is certain. "We are all we have. I am not going anywhere without you."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
The words become a mantra, a promise you make to each other in moments both ordinary and terrible.
When Amara comes home with split knuckles from a client who got rough, you clean the wounds with water you boil on the communal fire. You wrap her hands in strips of cloth torn from your own spare shirt. You sit with her while she stares at the wall, not speaking, just present.
"We are all we have," you whisper.
She squeezes your hand.
"All we have."
When you catch fever when you are nine and spend three days delirious, Amara sleeps sitting up beside your pallet. She bathes your forehead with cool water she pays precious coin to have brought from the well. She does not eat so she can afford the herbalist's remedies. She holds you when you thrash and cry out, murmuring the promise over and over.
"We are all we have. I am here. I am not leaving you. We are all we have."
You survive.
Amara had not doubted you would. She has a way of willing things into existence through sheer stubborn force.
You are ten when you realize Amara has stopped growing.
She is still getting taller, still changing, but something inside her has hardened into the shape of a much older woman. She moves with the weariness of someone who has lived decades instead of years. Her smiles come less frequently and the light in her eyes dim a little more each month.
Amara is sacrificing herself.
You can see it clearly now.
Piece by piece, bit by bit, she is trading parts of herself, her youth, her hope, her chance at anything better, to keep you fed and safe.
You want to tell her to stop.
You want to scream that she should save herself, that you are not worth this, but you are ten years old and you know that if you said this, it would hurt her worse than any client ever could.
So you become useful instead.
You take every job you can find. You stop asking for things. You make yourself as small as possible so you cost less to keep alive. You learn to read faster, work harder, need less.
If Amara notices, she does not say. She just pulls you close at night, her arms around you, and whispers, "We are all we have."
And you whisper back, "All we have."
You are eleven when you start to understand what Amara does after the sun sets.
She does not tell you directly, she does not need to.
You hear the fishwives whisper while you are folding their linens in the next room. Their voices are low but not low enough to hide the words. Whore. Harlot. You do not understand all the words, but you understand the judgment that sits heavy in their voices.
You see the way they look at your sister when she passes in the street, their eyes sliding over her with disgust barely concealed.
You notice the money that appears when there should not be any. You notice the bruises she tries to hide beneath long sleeves. You notice the perfume she wears that is not hers, cheap and too sweet, the scent so cloying it makes your nose itch. You notice the way she scrubs her skin raw in the public bath as though she is trying to wash away something else apart from dirt.
One evening she comes home later than usual with bread from the baker on the hill.
It is the expensive kind, with honey baked into the crust and sesame seeds scattered across the top, the kind you have only ever smelled from a distance but never had enough coin to buy. Now, the smell of it fills your small room.
You sit together on the floor and eat it without speaking. The bread is still warm and sweet and the honey is sticky on your fingers. You lick them clean, not wanting to waste a single drop.
Amara's sleeve has ridden up her arm and you can see the bruise on her wrist, finger-shaped, and another on her forearm that looks older and already fading.
She notices you staring and pulls the fabric down quickly.
"It is nothing," she says.
You set down your piece of bread. You reach across the small space between you and take her bruised hand in both of yours. You hold it carefully and you meet her eyes.
"We are all we have," you say. "Remember?"
Her breath catches.
"You cannot," she whispers. "You cannot follow me there. That is not..."
"I am not asking to follow. I am asking you not to carry this alone."
"I am the older sister, I am supposed to protect you."
"You are protecting me. You have been protecting me since I was six years old. I know what you do, Amara." You squeeze her hand. "And I am telling you that it does not change anything. We are all we have. Even if I cannot follow, I am still with you. You are not alone in this."
She pulls you into her arms, and she is trembling, you can hear her heartbeat against your cheek, hard and fast.
"I am so sorry," The words come out strangled and she presses her face into your hair."I am so sorry you have to know. I wanted to keep you safe from it. I wanted..."
"I know." You wrap your arms around her, holding her as tightly as you can. "I know what you wanted. I know what you are giving up, and I am telling you it is not your fault. None of this is your fault."
She cries and you hold her through it.
When the tears finally stop, you are both exhausted. You lie down on the sleeping mat together, your bodies curled close for warmth. Amara's cold, trembling hand finds yours in the darkness.
"We are all we have," she whispers.
"All we have," you whisper back.
After that night, things shift between you.
There is a new honesty now, a shared understanding. Amara stops trying to hide the bruises. You stop pretending not to see them. You develop a system.
On the nights when she comes home shaking, you heat water for her to wash with. You sit with her while she scrubs her skin. You hold her hand after, gently and patiently, giving her time to come back to herself.
On the nights when she comes home with extra coin, you let yourself eat a full meal without guilt. You understand now that refusing the food would only make her sacrifice meaningless.
On the nights when she cannot make herself go out, when the thought of another stranger's hands makes her shake too hard to stand, you do not judge. You just sit beside her and hold her hand and remind her that tomorrow exists. That she has survived every terrible thing so far. That she will survive this too.
"We are all we have," you say.
"Even here?" Her voice is so small, so childlike, she sounds like the ten year old girl who swept that broken teacup.
"Especially here."
The neighbourhood women start to respect Amara in a new way after you turn twelve.
They see how young she is and how long she has been doing this work. They see how hard she fights to keep you fed and housed. They see that she has not given up, has not disappeared into drink or powders the way some women do when the work becomes too much.
An old woman named Agnes starts leaving soup outside your door sometimes. The widow Maeve slips Amara an extra coin when she can. The women at the washing stones save the easiest work for her, the cleanest garments, the ones that do not require as much scrubbing.
They are all poor, they are all struggling, but they recognize one of their own, a girl trying to protect the most precious thing she has in a world determined to take it.
"Your sister is tough," Agnes tells you one day at the market. "She will survive this. She will survive anything."
You want to believe her.
You do believe her, mostly.
But you also see the way Amara is starting to go somewhere else. The way her smile takes effort and how she flinches sometimes when someone moves too quickly near her.
You are twelve years old and you are watching your sister disappear one piece at a time.
And there is nothing you can do to stop it.
The lover appears when you are thirteen and Amara is seventeen.
His name is Jian.
He is different from the start, and the difference is what makes Amara believe him.
He is wealthy, not merchant-class wealthy but comfortable, a man who works in the Eastern trade and has access to imported goods. He dresses well without being garish. His hands are clean, the nails trimmed, the calluses in places that suggest he handles ledgers instead of cargo.
He is kind to Amara.
This is what catches her first, not the gifts he gives her. His kindness and the way he speaks to her like her thoughts matter, like she is a person whose opinions have value.
Amara is beautiful.
This is not vanity or imagination, it is a simple fact.
Men have been watching her since she was too young for such attention, their eyes following her through the market. The establishment where she works most often keeps raising her rates because clients will pay whatever the madame asks.
You are pretty yourself.
People have told you this, but you are not Amara. There is something about your sister that draws eyes, something that makes people want to possess her.
And Jian wants more than possession.
You meet him on a summer evening when Amara brings him to your room.
She is nervous. You can see it in the way she smooths her skirt repeatedly, her hands fluttering without settling. This means he matters to her and that she cares what you think.
Jian bows to you when Amara introduces you, a gesture of respect that takes you by surprise.
"Your sister speaks of you often," he says. "It is good to finally meet you."
He brings food.
Fresh vegetables and cuts of meat and autumn pears not scraps or day-old bread, the only food that you and Amara can usually afford. He brings a blanket for you, thick wool dyed deep blue, and when you stare at it speechlessly he smiles and says every person deserves to be warm in winter.
He also brings books.
Bound volumes with sewn pages and intact covers, not the damaged castoffs you usually find in the trash. He asks what you are studying and when you tell him about the primer, he returns the following week with a collection of poetry and a history of the Western kingdoms.
"Knowledge should not be locked away," he says. "Take these, learn what you wish."
You watch the way Amara looks at him and your chest aches.
She is glowing.
After years of exhaustion and emptiness, she is alive again, and the transformation frightens you because you know how fragile happiness is and you know how quickly it can be taken away.
For the first time in years, Amara talks about the future, an actual future with plans and possibilities.
"Jian says he can buy out my contract," she tells you one evening, her voice hushed like she is afraid saying it too loudly will break the spell. She is sitting on your shared sleeping mat, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around them. "It will take time. The madame will not want to let me go. She makes too much money from my work, but he is saving. He promised."
"And then?"
"Then I will have a trade. A shop maybe. He says I am good with numbers. I could keep books for merchants, or I could do fine sewing, embroidery for wealthy families." She is talking faster now, excited. "Something respectable and safe, and you could apprentice somewhere, and learn a proper trade. We could have real lives."
"We?"
"Of course we." She takes your hand, threading her fingers through yours. "We are all we have. Remember? That does not change, even when things get better."
You want to believe it so badly it hurts.
You watch them together over the following months and you cannot find fault with Jian.
He is consistent. He visits regularly. He keeps his promises. He does not press Amara for anything she is not ready to give. He treats her with respect, speaks to her with affection, and includes you in their plans.
He describes a house with a red door and a small garden where Amara can grow things.
"Roses," he suggests one evening. He looks at her, his eyes soft. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "You like roses. We could plant them, as many as you want."
Amara's eyes fill with tears.
"Roses."
"Dozens of them, hundreds, every color that exists."
She laughs and cries at the same time, and Jian pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Over her shoulder, his eyes meet yours.
"You will have your own room," he says to you. "With a proper window and a door that closes. A place to keep all those books I keep bringing you."
"You do not have to..."
"I want to." You can hear it in his voice that he means it."Amara loves you, that means I want good things for you too. It is that simple."
You believe him.
This is your mistake.
You let yourself hope. You let yourself imagine it.
The three of you in a house with a red door. Amara finally free from the work that is slowly killing her. You with books and time to read them. Safety. Warmth. Enough food that you do not have to think about every bite.
You let yourself believe that maybe, finally, something good is allowed to happen.
Amara stops taking as many clients.
She is saving herself, she explains. For Jian. For the future they are building. She still works enough to pay rent and buy food, but she is more selective now. She refuses the rough ones, the ones who leave her shaking. She sets boundaries she has never been able to set before.
The madame at the establishment is not pleased, but Amara is beautiful enough that even working less, she brings in more than most of the other women. The madame tolerates it because losing Amara entirely would cost more than allowing her this small rebellion.
You watch her come back to life.
It is like watching spring arrive after an endless winter. She smiles more. She hums while she works. She talks about what kind of flowers she will plant, what colors she will paint the walls, whether the market is better on Tuesdays or Thursdays for buying fabric.
One evening she takes your hand and says, "In the new house, we will have a proper kitchen. I will learn to cook real meals, the ones Mother used to make. Do you remember?"
"I remember." You still remember the smell of them. The warmth. Your father’s laughter in the small kitchen in your old house and the way your mother hummed while she cooked.
"We will make them together. You and me. Just us. Like always."
"We are all we have," you say.
"Not for much longer." She squeezes your hand. "Soon we will have more. Soon we will have everything."
You lean against her and let yourself believe.
The establishment discovers Amara is pregnant in late autumn.
You are not there when it happens. You are at the market, trading your morning's work for rice and vegetables, when Amara's friend Cassia finds you.
"You need to come," Cassia says, her voice shaking. "They threw her out. The madame found out about the baby."
You run.
You find Amara standing in the alley behind the establishment with everything she owns stuffed into the same canvas sack you have carried since your parents died. Her face is blank, empty of emotion, and that terrifies you more than tears would have.
"What happened?"
"The madame found out I am carrying a child." Her voice is hollow. "She says pregnant women damage business. She says we owe her money. For the room. For the clothes. For breathing her air while I worked. The debt follows us."
The amount she names makes your stomach drop.
You reach for her hand, her fingers are ice cold.
"Did you send word to Jian?"
"I sent word this morning." She is staring at the wall across from you, her eyes unfocused. "He will come. He promised he would take care of us. He will come."
He does not come that day.
Or the next.
Amara writes letters on paper she can barely afford, ink she borrows from a scribe who takes pity on her. She addresses them to Jian's place of work, to the trade house where he said he keeps an office.
The letters return unopened.
The red wax seals are intact, unbroken. He has not even looked at them.
You watch the light drain from Amara like watching a candle burn down. Slowly at first, then all at once, until there is nothing left but smoke.
She stops talking about the house with the red door. She stops mentioning the shop he promised. She stops saying his name except in moments when she forgets and reaches for hope that is no longer there.
She sits with her hands on her swelling belly and stares at the wall for hours. You try to talk to her and she does not respond nor does she react if you try to touch her shoulder. It is as though she is not quite here anymore.
"Amara," you say one evening. "Talk to me. Please."
She does not answer.
"We are all we have," you try desperately. "Remember? You and me. We are all we have."
She turns to look at you finally, and her eyes are empty.
"I know," she whispers. "I am sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For believing we could be more than that."
Winter comes.
You find a room in the streets behind the pleasure district. It is smaller than your last place, barely large enough for two sleeping pallets, but the rent is cheaper and the landlord does not ask questions.
The neighbourhood is dangerous.
You learn this quickly.
Men who drink too much and get violent. Women who disappear and are found days later in the harbor. Children who vanish and are never found at all.
You start taking precautions.
You walk home before full dark whenever possible. You keep a gutting knife tucked in your boot, the one you stole from the fish market, small but sharp, enough to injure and give you time to rum. You make friends with the other women in the building, trading favours and information, who to avoid, which streets to never walk alone,where to hide if someone comes looking for you.
You bar the door at night with a plank of wood wedged beneath the handle. You check it twice. Three times. You do not sleep well. Every sound makes you jolt awake, your hand already reaching out to the gutting knife.
Amara is too pregnant to work.
The weight of the child, or children, as the old midwife who examines her suggests, makes movement difficult. She cannot stand for long without her back aching. She cannot lift or carry. She cannot do any of the work that kept you both fed.
You take over everything.
The washing at the public stones, your hands cracking and bleeding from the soap. The hauling at the harbor, crates that make your shoulders scream. The mending, working by candlelight until your eyes blur and you fall asleep with a needle still in your hand.
It is not enough.
You eat once a day and give the rest to Amara because needs to keep her strength for the baby. You skip meals until the dizziness becomes normal, until hunger stops being a sensation and starts being a state of existence you cannot remember being without.
An old woman named Aislinn lives in the room next to yours.
She is ancient, her face a map of lines and her hands knotted with age, but her eyes are kind and she easily notices things.
She notices when you go days without eating. She notices when Amara cries quietly at night. She notices when you come home limping because you twisted your ankle hauling cargo and could not afford to stop working.
She brings you soup sometimes. Thin but hot, made from bones she boils multiple times to extract every bit of flavour. She asks nothing in return. She simply appears at your door with the pot, hands it over with both hands, and then walks away.
"I had daughters once," she says one evening, handing you a bowl. "They are gone now, but I remember what it was like. Trying to keep young ones alive when the world is determined to take them."
"Thank you," you whisper.
"No thanks needed, child. Just promise me you will eat it instead of giving it all to your sister."
You promise, though you still give half to Amara.
The twins are born in early spring on a night when rain hammers the roof of your rented room.
Amara's water breaks just after sunset. The pains start immediately and she grips your hand so tightly you feel bones grind.
Aislinn comes when you knock on her wall, appearing in her nightclothes with her grey hair loose around her shoulders. She takes one look at Amara and starts giving instructions.
"Boil water. Find every clean cloth we have. Bar the door so no one disturbs us."
You do as she says. Your hands shake. The fire will not catch at first because the wood is damp. You have to blow on it and waste precious time waiting as the water takes forever to heat.
The labour lasts hours.
Amara screams until her voice breaks.
She curses Jian, curses you, curses the gods who let this happen. She begs for it to stop. She cries for your mother.
You hold her hand through all of it. You wipe the sweat from her face. You tell her she is strong, she is doing well, she is almost there. You lie when necessary. You tell the truth when you can.
Aislinn remains calm throughout, her weathered hands steady as she guides the babies into the world.
The first twin comes just after midnight.
He is loud from his first breath, wailing, his face red and furious. His fists clench and unclench like he is already preparing to fight.
The second follows minutes later.
He is silent and does not cry. His eyes open immediately, dark and watchful, as if taking measure of the world he just entered.
Aislinn cleans them and wraps them in the cloths you found, old shirts torn into strips, worn but still clean. She tries to place them in Amara's arms but Amara turns her face to the wall.
"I cannot," The whisper is broken. "Please. I cannot."
Aislinn looks at you.
You are fourteen years old and you do not know what to do, but you hold out your arms anyway.
She places the first twin in your arms. The loud one.
He is impossibly small. He fits in the crook of your elbow perfectly and weighs almost nothing. When he grabs your finger his grip is strong. He stops crying when you hold him.
Then the second, quieter but no less present, his unseeing newborn eyes somehow turn toward you as if he sees you.
You hold them both, one in each arm, and you think, I will die before I let anything hurt both of you.
Amara does not look at them.
"She needs rest," Aislinn says quietly as she squeezes your shoulder gently, "Let her rest. We can try again in the morning."
But morning comes and Amara still will not look at them.
The first months are impossible.
The twins need constant feeding, constant changing, constant holding. They cry in shifts so there is always one of them screaming. They sleep in fragments so you sleep in fragments. Minutes stolen here and there between feedings and changings and the endless cycle of need.
Amara cannot help.
Something broke inside her during the birth. She bleeds for weeks. She cannot stand for long without getting dizzy. She sits and stares at nothing.
You try to get her to nurse the babies but her milk never comes in properly. You have to supplement with goat's milk bought at prices that make you want to scream.
You ask her what names she wants for them, she does not answer.
You ask her to hold them, just once, she turns her face away.
You beg her to help you, she closes her eyes.
After a week, you stop asking.
So you name them yourself.
Luke and Kieran.
Names from one of the books Jian gave you, the ones you have already sold to buy firewood. Characters in fairytales, heroes who were loyal and brave and good. You hope the names will protect them somehow, give them strength for the hard world they were born into.
You work during the day while Aislinn watches the twins.
The old woman refuses payment, waving away your attempts with a gnarled hand.
"I am old," she says. "I cannot do much anymore. Let me do this. Let me hold babies and tell them stories. It keeps me feeling useful."
So you work the harbor, the washing, the mending while Aislinn watches the twins in your sister's place.
You work every job you can find. You come home at dusk and take over so Aislinn can rest. You feed them and change them and walk when they will not stop crying. Pacing the small room, bouncing them gently, singing songs you half-remember from your mother. Your voice is hoarse. Your arms ache. You fall asleep sitting up with a baby on your shoulder and wake when the other one starts wailing.
You are fourteen years old.
You fall asleep sitting up with a baby on your shoulder and wake when the other one starts wailing.
You are fourteen years old.
Your body hurts in ways you did not know were possible.
Your breasts ache from binding them too tight while you work. Your shoulders scream from carrying heavy loads. Your hands crack and bleed. You are so tired that sometimes you forget where you are, standing at the washing stones and blinking at the water until someone asks if you are well.
But the babies are alive, and that is all that matters.
Amara watches nothing.
She sits. She stares. She breathes.
You try to reach her.
"We are all we have," you say, kneeling beside her sleeping mat, one late evening after you have put the twins to sleep. You take her limp hand in yours, rubbing warmth into her cold fingers."Remember? You and me. We are all we have. Please come back."
She does not respond.
You try again.
"The babies need you. I need you. Please, Amara. Please."
Nothing.
"I cannot do this alone," you whisper and press her hand to your cheek. "I am fourteen. I do not know how to keep them alive. I need help. I need you."
She pulls her hand away and turns to face the wall.
Amara stops eating unless you force food into her hands. She speaks rarely, and when she does, it is only to whisper Jian's name, to ask if he has sent word, if he has come back.
He has not. He will not.
You know this, but you do not say it.
The twins are three months old when you wake to find Amara gone.
You know immediately something is wrong.
The twins are sleeping in their basket, tiny fists curled against their faces. They have started smiling recently and making small cooing noises.
Amara's pallet is empty. Her blanket is folded neatly at the foot, the way she always folds it. Her shoes are missing and her shawl is gone.
There is something on the table.
The ruby brooch, the one she swore would never be sold, sitting next to a note written in her careful handwriting.
Sell this. It should keep them fed until I send for you. I am sorry. I will come back. I promise.
You read it three times.
Your hands are shaking and the paper trembles, making the words blur.
We are all we have.
Except now it is just you.
You sit on the floor with the note in one hand and the brooch in the other. The twins are sleeping peacefully, unaware that their mother has left them.
You do not cry.
You cannot cry, because if you start you will not stop, and there are two babies who will wake soon and need to be fed, and you are the only person left in the world who will feed them.
You fold the note and put it in the drawer.
You wrap the brooch back in its cloth and place it beside the note.
You stand and start preparing the goat's milk for when the twins wake.
Days pass, then weeks, then months.
Amara does not send for you. She does not write nor does she come back.
But you keep waiting.
You take the brooch to three different jewellers over the course of a month, hoping one of them will tell you it is worth more than the others claimed.
They all say the same thing.
The stone is flawed, they explain, pointing to imperfections you cannot see without a glass. The setting is old, tarnished beyond easy repair. It might bring enough to feed you for a month, perhaps two if you are careful.
You do not sell it.
You cannot.
It is the last piece of Amara you have.
The only proof that she existed, that she loved you once, that the promise she made was real even if she could not keep it.
You tuck it back in the drawer beside the note and you raise the boys yourself.
You are fifteen when you realize you cannot do this alone anymore.
The boys are six months old. They have started sitting up on their own, babbling to each other in a language only they understand. They reach for you when you come home and then cry when you leave.
They are beautiful.
Luke is loud and always moving, grabbing at everything within reach. Kieran is quieter, more watchful, but just as curious. They are starting to look like people instead of just babies, their features finally defining themselves. Luke has your father's nose. Kieran has Amara's eyes.
You love them with a ferocity that frightens you.
But love is not enough to pay rent.
Love does not buy goat's milk or firewood or the medicine Kieran needs when he develops a cough that will not stop.
You have tried every kind of work available to you.
The washing barely makes enough to cover soap costs. The hauling has dried up because the men at the harbor say you are too small and too weak, and they would rather hire boys who can lift more. The mending, however kind the old men are, only brings in copper but never silver.
Aislinn watches the boys during the day but she is getting frailer. Her hands shake more often. She falls asleep mid-afternoon and does not wake for hours. You know she cannot do this forever.
Eventually, the money you saved runs out.
You sit on the floor one evening with the ledger you keep, adding the numbers over and over, hoping they will change. They do not change. In two weeks you will not have enough for rent. In three weeks you will not have enough for food.
You look at the twins sleeping in their basket.
Six months old and too young to understand or remember if something happens to you.
You make a decision.
The Crimson House is a three-story building with crimson shutters and lanterns that glow like coals after dark.
You have walked past it a thousand times. You know what it is.
Everyone knows what it is.
You stand outside for a long time before you can make yourself climb the steps.
You think about Amara.
You think about the bruises and the empty eyes and the way she scrubbed her skin raw trying to feel clean after she returns home each day.
You think about the promise you made to each other, the mantra you whispered in the dark.
We are all we have.
This is what Amara did to keep you alive, the price she paid.
And now it is your turn.
You climb the steps.
The madame is a woman named Luo, sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, draped in silk that whispers when she moves. She looks you over the way merchants examine fabric at the market.
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen," you lie. You are fifteen but tall for your age.
"Have you done this work before?"
"No."
"Good. Easier to train you properly." She continues her examination, tilting your face toward the light. "Pretty enough, not a beauty like your sister was, but still pretty and fresh faced. Men will pay for that. We can work with this."
She explains the terms.
Room and board provided on the upper floor. Clothes and cosmetics supplied. Training in the arts of pleasing men. All of it on credit. The debt starts today and grows with every meal you eat, every dress you wear, every candle you burn.
You will work to pay it down but the interest is calculated to ensure you never quite manage. This is how they keep everyone.
"I have children," you say before you can stop yourself. "Two boys. Babies. I cannot live here. I need to go home to them every day."
Luo's eyes narrow.
"Children are a complication."
"They will not be a complication. I swear it. I just need to go home to them after my work is done. I will be here every evening. I will work as many clients as you require. I will do everything you ask. Just let me go home to them. Please."
Luo considers this.
The calculation is visible on her face.
Women who live on-site are easier to control, but they also cost more to house and feed.
A woman who maintains her own lodging saves the establishment money, and desperate women work harder, take fewer liberties, and cause less trouble.
"You will arrive by sunset every evening," Luo finally decides. She grips your chin tightly, forcing you to meet her eyes. "You will work until dawn. You will accept every client I assign. You will not refuse anyone for any reason. If you miss a night, the debt triples. If you fail to satisfy a client, the debt doubles. If you bring your personal problems into this establishment, you are finished. Do you understand?"
"I understand." You respond, your voice distant.
"Sign here."
You sign your name in the ledger.
Your hand does not shake.
The training lasts for five days.
An older woman named Lira teaches you what to expect, how to move, how to breathe through it when it hurts. She is matter-of-fact and brusque but never cruel.
"You have to separate yourself from your body," she says on the second day. "Whatever they do, it is happening to flesh and bone, not to you. You are somewhere else. You are watching from a distance. You are untouchable."
"Does that work?"
"Sometimes.” She shrugs, but you see the pity in her eyes. “When it does not, you endure, that is all anyone can do."
She teaches you techniques. The ways to breathe, where to put your mind, how to make sounds that men want to hear even when you feel nothing, how to move so it ends faster, how to clean yourself after, how to hide the pain.
You think about Amara.
You think about the way she used to stare at nothing after coming home.
You think about the distance in her eyes.
This is what she learned. This is how she survived.
And now you will learn it too.
The first client is a merchant who reeks of wine and fish.
He is neither cruel nor gentle. He uses your body the way he might use a tool. You stare at the ceiling while he works.
You pretend you are somewhere else, somewhere far away. You think about the boys. About the way Luke smiles when you come home. About the way Kieran's hand feels in yours. About keeping them fed. About keeping them alive.
We are all we have.
The words echo in your head like a ghost.
This is what Amara did and now you have followed.
When the merchant finishes he leaves money on the table and goes without speaking.
You collect the coins and clean yourself and prepare for the next one.
The walk home at dawn becomes the marker of your divided life.
The Crimson House to your rented room, the woman men pay for, to the woman the boys know.
You shed one skin and pull on another in the space of twenty minutes walking through narrow streets that smell of salt and garbage and yesterday's fish.
Sometimes, you stop by at the baker on the way home. You buy two loaves of bread with your night's earnings. Milk when you can afford it. The baker knows you and what you do. You can see it in her eyes, but she does not say anything. She just takes your money, her fingers brushing yours briefly, and hands over the bread.
The boys are usually awake when you arrive. Luke cries because he is hungry. Kieran watches you with solemn eyes.
You pick them up, one in each arm, and hold them while you heat the milk.
This is your life now.
Two lives. Split down the middle. Night and day. The Crimson House and home.
The woman who endures and the woman who loves.
The months pass into years.
The boys grow from babies to toddlers, from toddlers to small children who run and play and fight and laugh. You watch them change, day by day, minute by minute, and you mark time by their milestones instead of seasons.
Luke's first steps at ten months, stumbling toward you with his arms outstretched and a grin on his face. Kieran's first word at eleven months, not mama or dada but "birb," pointing at something outside the window. Their first full sentences. Their first questions. Their first fights with each other that end in tears and reconciliation five minutes later.
You love them so much it hurts.
They call you Mama at first because you are the only mother they have ever known.
"No," you tell them gently, every time. "I am not your Mama. I am Big Sis."
"Why?"
"Because your Mama is someone else, someone who loves you but cannot be here right now."
"Where is she?"
"I do not know, but when she comes back, she will want you to remember that she is your Mama and I am your Big Sis."
They do not understand but they are young enough that repetition works, and eventually it sticks. You are Big Sis and the woman who is gone is Mama, a figure from stories, someone they wait for without really knowing who she is.
You wonder sometimes if Amara will come back and find her sons do not remember her voice.
You wonder if she will come back at all.
There is almost something with a client named Nishant.
He is younger than most of your clients, perhaps twenty-five, with a scholar's soft hands and a gentle manner. He pays Luo double to ensure he gets the full evening with you and no interruptions.
He requests you specifically every week.
He talks to you like you are a person whose thoughts matter. He asks for your opinions on the books he brings. He tells you about his work as a merchant's clerk, about his family in the provinces, about his dreams of eventually opening his own trading house.
He is kind.
He does not hurt you during the times when talk leads to what you are paid to do. He asks first. He checks if you are well and touches you ever so gently.
You start to look forward to his visits.
This is a mistake.
You realize it one evening when he smiles at you over a shared cup of tea and your heart does something it should not. A flutter, a pull, the beginning of a feeling you cannot afford to have.
You are falling for him.
Or you could fall for him, if you let yourself. If you allow the possibility and forget for even a moment what you are and what he is and the gulf between you.
You stop it before it can start.
The next time he comes, you are professional. You accept the book he brings but do not discuss it. Your answers to his questions are short and brief. You perform the services he paid for and nothing more.
He notices the change immediately.
"Did I do something wrong?" His brow furrows. “Have I offended you?”
"No."
"Then why..."
"This is what I am," you interrupt curtly. "This is what we are. You pay. I provide a service. That is all this can be."
"It does not have to be..." He leans forward, earnest and hopeful and his hand reaches for yours.
"Yes. It does." You meet his eyes and make sure he sees the finality there. "I have two boys to raise. They are my only priority. There is no room for anything else."
He stops coming to the establishment after that.
You tell yourself it is for the best and that you made the right choice.
You tell yourself the ache in your chest is just fatigue and it will pass.
Twelve years pass.
You are twenty-seven years old now and you are aging out at the establishment.
Luo reminds you of this regularly.
You have a year left, perhaps less, after that you are too old. The men want younger faces. You will need to find other work.
The debt remains.
Twelve years of work and you have barely made a dent. The interest accumulates faster than you can pay and you will die owing Luo money.
You do not tell the boys this.
You do not tell them that in a year, maybe less, you will have no income and no plan and a debt that follows you like a shadow.
You just keep working, keep coming home at dawn, and keep pretending everything is fine.
The twins are almost twelve now.
They are no longer babies or toddlers or even young children. They are growing into themselves, into the people they will become.
Luke is loud and fearlessly blunt. He says exactly what he thinks and cannot understand why adults dance around the truth. He makes friends easily and gets into fights just as easily, especially when someone insults you or Kieran. He comes home with bruises and grins and stories about how the other boy started it but he finished it.
Kieran is quiet and watchful and reads everything he can get his hands on. He remembers everything he reads. When he looks up from a page of a new book he is reading, the gravity in his face makes you ache.
They think you work as a serving girl in a merchant's house.
You leave at sunset and return at dawn and tell them you are cleaning or serving dinner or helping with the household accounts. They accept this because they are children and children believe what their adults tell them.
You will correct this lie eventually, when they are older and when you find the right words.
But for now, you let them believe their Big Sis does honest work for honest pay.
Luke runs errands for the dock workers, carries messages, hauls nets when they need extra hands. He is strong for his age, quick and willing. He brings home copper and silver and sets it on the table with pride.
Kieran helps the apothecary, sorting herbs, learning remedies, reading from the ancient texts the old man keeps. He is paid less than Luke but he is learning skills that might serve him better in the long run.
They should not have to work.
They should be learning to read and write properly, apprenticing to trades, preparing for futures that are better than this.
But they work because you cannot give them better, because the system is designed to keep you trapped. And no matter how hard you fight, how much you sacrifice, it is never quite enough.
You keep the ruby brooch in the drawer beside your bed.
You take it out sometimes when the boys are asleep and hold it in your palm. The stone is dark and the clasp is still sharp. It has drawn your blood more than once over the years.
Beside it is Amara's note, the paper has wrinkled and ink is fading from time and handling. You unfold it sometimes, smoothing the creases with your fingers.
I will come back. I promise.
Twelve years and you are still waiting.
You do not know why, but you cannot let go of the hope, thin and threadbare as it is, that someday the door will open and she will be there and everything will make sense.
You wait anyway.
That is what love does.
It makes you keep promises even after the other person has broken theirs.
We are all we have.
Luke falls ill on a Tuesday.
It starts with a cough, nothing unusual.
Coughs are common in the cramped quarters of the lower districts, especially as winter approaches. You make him drink willow bark tea. He hates it but he drinks it anyway, his face scrunching. You wrap him in the blanket Jian gave you all those years ago, the blue one, that has become faded now, threadbare, but still warm. You tuck it around him, smoothing it over his shoulders. You expect it to pass.
It does not pass.
By evening, his skin is hot to the touch.
By midnight, he is burning.
You sit beside his sleeping mat with a basin of cool water. You wring out cloths. Press them to his forehead. They warm within minutes. You wring them out again. Again. Again. But the fever continues to climb. Luke tosses and turns, crying out in his sleep.
Kieran hovers nearby, watching with wide eyes.
"Is he going to be all right?" he asks.
"Yes," you lie. "The fever will break soon."
It does not break.
You work that night at the establishment because you cannot afford to miss. The debt triples if you fail to appear. You work with your mind elsewhere, counting the hours until you can return home.
Luo notices. Always. She grabs your chin, forcing you to look at her.
"You are distracted.” Her eyes narrow.
"I am sorry. It will not happen again."
"See that it does not. Men pay for your attention."
You give them your attention. You give them your body. You give them everything they pay for, and when dawn comes you collect your coins and run home.
Luke is getting worse.
"How long has he been this way?" You kneel beside his mat. Your hand goes to his forehead. The burning is worse than before. You cup his face, feeling the heat radiating from him.
"All night." Kieran's voice is strained. He has not slept, eyes are red-rimmed. "I tried to give him water but he would not drink."
You try again. Luke turns his head away, delirious.
This is when you know you need a physician.
You count the coins you have saved. It is not nearly enough, but you go anyway, walking to the physician's house on the hill, the one who treats the merchant families.
He looks at you from his doorway, taking in your dress, your exhaustion, the desperation in your eyes.
"Twenty silver," he says, voice bored and crosses his arms. "For the visit and the medicine."
You have twelve.
"Please," you beg. "My nephew is very sick. I can pay half now and the rest..."
"Twenty silver. All of it. Now."
"I will have it in three days. I swear. I work every night. I can..."
He closes the door in your face.
You try two other physicians.
One will not even open the door. You can see him through the window. He looks at you then pretends he did not hear you knock. The other offers to examine Luke for fifteen silver but the medicine will cost another ten. Twenty-five total.
You do not have twenty-five silver.
So you go to the herbalist instead. She is kinder and does not look at you with contempt. She sells you a tonic that might bring down the fever, ingredients you recognize from Kieran's studies with the apothecary.
It costs eight silver, and now you have four left.
"Give him this three times a day," the herbalist tells you. "If the fever does not break in two days, come back."
You wipe his chin, his neck where it spilled.
"This will help." You brush the hair from his forehead, smoothing it back. It is soaked with sweat. "This will make you better."
Then you work that night, and the next, and the next. You work and come home and tend to Luke and work again. No sleep. No food. You work and worry and watch him burn.
Three days pass.
Luke's fever does not break. It climbs higher. You watch him burn, helpless, applying cool cloths that warm within minutes. The tonic is gone and you have no money left for more.
On the fourth day, Kieran breaks.
He has been so strong, so composed, helping you change the cloths, making Luke drink when he can, reading quietly in the corner to give you both something normal to hold onto, but on the fourth day, he looks at his brother's flushed face and snaps.
"He is going to die," Kieran whispers, sinking to the floor beside Luke’s sleeping mat.
"No. He is not." You believe it because you have to, because the alternative is unthinkable.
"He is going to die and there is nothing we can do." Kieran's voice breaks and he looks at you with tears in his eyes. "We do not have money for the physician. We do not have money for more medicine. We are just going to sit here and watch him die."
"Kieran..."
"We are all we have and it is not enough. It has never been enough."
You pull him into your arms and he sobs against your shoulder, eleven years old and terrified and so tired of being strong.
"I am sorry," you cry into his hair. "I am so sorry."
You hold him until the tears stop, then you go back to work.
On the fifth day, Luke's fever breaks.
You wake from a brief, exhausted sleep to find him looking at you with clear eyes. He reaches for your hand.
"Big Sis?"
You press your hand to his forehead. Cool. Still warm, but not burning. The fever has finally broken. Finally. You take his face between your hands, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his nose.
"You are all right." Relief floods through you. Overwhelming. Devastating. You wrap your arms around him, pulling him against your chest. "You are going to be all right."
Luke is weak, wrung out from five days of fighting the illness, but he is alive. He drinks the broth you make. He stays awake for short periods. He even smiles at Kieran when his brother sits beside him, taking his hand.
You allow yourself to believe the worst is over.
On the sixth day, Kieran's fever begins.
He wakes with the same cough.
By afternoon, his skin is hot.
By evening, he is burning just like his brother did.
No.
No no no no no.
You check your coin. Four copper pieces, not even enough for a single dose of the herbalist's tonic. Not enough for anything.
We are all we have.
The thought whispers through your mind like a curse.
We are all we have and it is not enough.
You work that night even though leaving Kieran feels like tearing off your own skin. Luke is too weak to tend his brother, too weak to do anything but lie on his mat and watch. You have no other choice.
You come home at dawn to find both boys feverish now. Luke's fever has returned, weaker than before but still there. Kieran is worse, thrashing on his sleeping mat, calling for you.
Seven days pass.
You do not sleep.
You work at night and tend the boys during the day, snatching minutes of rest when your body gives you no choice. Your hands shake. Your vision blurs. You stop eating because there is barely enough food for the boys.
Kieran is dying.
You know this the way you knew your parents were dying when you were six. The way the body changes when it is losing the fight. The way the fever stops being something the person is fighting and becomes something they are drowning in.
Luke watches his brother with terrified eyes. He reaches for your hand, gripping it.
"Big Sis," he whispers hoarsely. "Make him better. Please."
"I am trying."
"Try harder."
You have nothing left to try with.
On the seventh night, your hand finds the brooch.
You do not remember taking it from the drawer.
One moment you are sitting beside Kieran's sleeping mat, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow, labored breaths. The next moment the brooch is in your hand, the metal cold against your palm.
Amara left this.
Amara, who promised she would come back.
Amara, who lied.
Sell this. It should keep them fed until I send for you.
Your fingers tighten around it, the sharp clasp digs into your palm.
Why did you hold onto this useless thing for twelve years when you could have sold it? You could have used whatever money it brought for food or medicine or anything. Why? What was the point? What did it get you?
Nothing.
It got you nothing.
Amara never came back. She never sent for you nor did she keep her promise, and now Kieran is dying and this ugly useless thing is all you have left.
Pain.
It comes suddenly, making you gasp.
The clasp has pierced your skin and your blood wells up, bright red in the candlelight, and it drips onto the ruby.
The stone absorbs it.
You blink, confused, as the brooch suddenly grows warm in your hand, then it begins to glow, soft at first, then brighter, pulsing with a light that seems to come from within.
"What?"
The air in the room shifts.
Red mist pours from the brooch, thick and viscous, coiling up toward the ceiling. You drop the brooch, scrambling backward, but the mist does not dissipate. It gathers, condenses, takes shape.
A figure forms.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Long white hair that seems to glow in the dim light. Eyes the color of blood, fixed on you with an intensity that steals your breath.
You know immediately that he is not human, because nothing human could be so beautiful and so terrible at once.
You are hallucinating. You must be.
Seven days without real sleep, barely any food, watching Kieran die and your mind has finally broken.
"Well," the figure says, his voice is smooth as velvet and amused. "It has been quite some time since anyone summoned me."
You cannot speak nor can you move.
He tilts his head, studying you with those crimson eyes. Red mist still clings to him, wisps of it curling around his shoulders like smoke. He is dressed in white, expensive fabric that does not belong in your shabby room.
"Let me guess," he continues when you do not respond. "You have a wish. They always do."
Your gaze darts to Kieran, still feverish, still dying.
"I..." Your voice comes out as a rasp before you can stop yourself. "I need help. My nephew…he is dying."
The figure follows your gaze, considers Kieran with detached interest.
"Death is common. Why should I care?"
“Whatever you are, wherever you come from, you have power. I can feel it.” The words are more frantic now. "I am asking, no, begging, please. Save him."
Something flickers across his face.
"You are not asking what I am? Not demanding answers first?"
"I do not care what you are. I do not care if you are a demon or a devil or something worse. If you can save him, I will give you anything."
"Anything?" His mouth curves into a smile that is not entirely kind. He crouches in front of you, bringing his face level with yours. "Dangerous words, kitten."
The endearment should feel wrong, but it does not. It slides over you like silk, intimate and possessive in a way that makes your chest twist.
"Will you save him or not?"
He regards you for a long moment. You have the unsettling sense that he is seeing far more than you intend to show, past the desperation and the exhaustion, past the walls you have built, and straight into the core of you. Into the parts you keep hidden.
"Very well," His voice is soft. He reaches out, his fingers brushing your cheek, wiping away a tear you did not know you shed. "I will save the boy, that is your first wish."
"First?" you repeat, confused.
"I am an archfiend, bound to grant three wishes to whoever summons me." His smile widens. He stands, offering you his hand. "You have just used one. Two remain."
"I do not understand..."
"You will." He pulls you to your feet when you take his hand. "Both boys will live. I am feeling generous tonight."
"Both?" You look at Luke, still feverish in the corner. "But I only wished for..."
"Consider it an investment." He crouches beside Kieran, and the red mist flows from his hands, surrounding the boy in a cocoon of crimson light. "After all, you still owe me two wishes. I would hate for you to waste one on something I can provide for free."
The mist seeps into Kieran's skin. Your nephew gasps, his back arching, and you lunge forward without thinking, terror filling your veins.
The archfiend catches your wrist without looking, his grip firm but not painful.
"Wait," he commands, and the authority in his voice makes you freeze. "Let it work."
You watch, helpless, as the mist envelops Kieran completely. It swirls around Luke next, the same crimson glow, and both boys go still.
Too still.
"What did you do?" Panic claws at your throat. "What did you..."
Kieran's eyes open.
The fever is gone. His skin is cool, his breathing steady. He blinks up at you, confused but he is alive, healthy, and whole.
Across the room, Luke sits up, the flush gone from his cheeks.
"Big Sis?" Kieran's voice is weak but clear. "What happened?"
You pull free from the archfiend's grip and drop to your knees beside Kieran. You pull him into your arms, sobbing, all the fear and exhaustion and desperation pouring out of you.
"You were sick. You were so sick."
"I feel better now." He sounds bewildered. "I feel good."
You hold him tighter, one arm reaching for Luke, gathering both boys close. They are alive. They are well. Whatever that thing did, whatever impossible magic he used, it worked.
"Thank you," you gasp, looking up at the archfiend through tears. "Thank you, I..."
He flinches.
It is subtle and barely noticeable, but you see it. It was as though your gratitude makes him recoil as if struck.
"Do not thank me," he says, and his voice has gone flat. "I did not do this out of kindness. We have a contract now. Three wishes. You have used one. Two remain."
"I understand."
"Do you?" He moves closer, and you are suddenly aware of how tall he is, how he seems to fill the space despite the cramped room. "The contract must be sealed. Give me your hand."
You hesitate.
"The hand you cut," he clarifies. "I need to close the wound properly."
Slowly, you extend your hand. The cut from the brooch's clasp is still bleeding sluggishly, a thin line across your palm.
He takes your hand in both of his.
His touch is careful. He cradles your hand gently, his thumb tracing the edge of the cut without pressing on it. The red mist gathers at his fingertips, and he looks up at you.
"This may feel strange," he says, his crimson eyes locked on your own. "But it will not hurt, I promise."
He waits.
It takes you a moment to realize he is asking permission and if you consent to what comes next.
When was the last time someone asked?
You nod.
He brings your hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the cut.
The touch is feather-light.
It feels nothing like the rough, grasping hands you are used to, nothing like the men who pay Luo for your time, who use your body without thought or care.
This is different.
The red mist flows from his mouth into the wound, sealing it closed. You feel a warmth that has nothing to do with fever, a tingling that spreads from your palm up your arm.
It should frighten you.
It does not.
When he pulls back, the cut is gone. Your skin is smooth and unmarked, as if you were never injured at all. He releases your hand slowly, his fingers lingering for just a moment before letting go.
"There," he says, releasing your hand. "The contract is sealed."
You dumbfounded at this otherworldly creature with his white hair and crimson eyes and touch that asks permission.
"Who are you?"
"I have had many names. Most recently, I was Sylus." His mouth curves into that dangerous smile again. "And you are exhausted, kitten, when was the last time you slept?"
"I do not..."
"Sleep," he commands, and power rolls through the word like thunder.
Your eyes close without your permission. Your body sags and you feel him catch you before you hit the floor. The last thing you register is the strange gentleness of his hold as he lowers you to your sleeping mat.
Then darkness takes you.
And for the first time in seven days, you sleep.
♱ a/n: Sorry if the writing is not good, I got sick and was hit with another bad case of writer's block. Then we got short-staffed at work that I had to do several 16 hour shifts so I did not have enough time to recheck everything. I won't make any promises but I'll try to do my best to update the next part or finish the whole fic within the month then maybe finish warlord!sylus then take a break.
Anyhow, I hope you guys will still enjoy. I'll answer all your comments along with the comments on the other fics and the asks when I feel better.
Here's another revenge fic so here's one for you guys. Sorry it's not a supernatural one like the other, I tried but I didn't feel satisfied with how it turned out. I promise I'll write a happy fic later on but this one i've sat on for a while, now it's finally done. So yes. this is hurt with comfort. Enjoy!
Zayne x NonMC!Reader, Xavier x NonMC!Reader
TW: cheating, betrayal, infidelity, slight emotional manipulation, public humiliation, social isolation
💮Masterlist💮
Seven years earlier.
The dining hall closed at nine, and by nine-fifteen, you and MC were sitting cross-legged in your shared dorm room floor with two party sized bags of chips, a box of mini Oreos, and a six pack of energy drinks you were saving for long late night study sessions as stressful as this.
"Okay," MC said, pulling her hair with one hand and holding her notes with the other. "Explain osmosis to me one more time, but this time pretend I'm five."
"I did that already and it helped for one assignment. Maybe explaining it at a college level might be better."
She threw a chip at you. "Explain it to me like you're five. Dumbed down on both ends."
You caught the chip and ate it. "Water moves from where there's a lot of it to where there's less of it. It's trying to even things out. It crosses the membrane because it can, and because things in nature always move toward balance."
MC stared at you. "That took you four seconds."
"I've been trying to simplify it for you for forty minutes."
"Why didn't you just say that forty minutes ago?" She grabbed the notes and started scribbling. "Water moves toward balance. That's it. That's the whole thing." She looked up, grinning. That wide open grin that meant she was genuinely delighted and not just faking it. "You're would make an incredible doctor. Or teacher. Or, I don't know, whoever explains complicated things to idiots."
"You're not an idiot. You just need a different angle," you grabbed the last energy drink.
"Same thing, different framing." She capped her pen and flopped backward onto the carpet. "I'm going to fail this exam."
"You're not going to fail."
"I'm going to barely pass this exam."
"Probably," you agreed, she laughed, and you laughed. It was eleven-thirty on a Wednesday and you had an 8 a.m. lecture and you couldn't bring yourself to care about any of it.
This was the thing about MC, early MC, the MC you had chosen and been chosen by, she made time feel generous. Like there was enough of it. Like the night was long and the friendship was longer and nothing bad had happened yet.
She rolled her head to look at you from the floor.
"When we graduate," she said, in that dreamy, half-serious voice she got when she was tired, "we should work as hunters together. And we have to go on missions only with each other."
"We just started college and you can't handle a little basic science class."
"I'm manifesting." She pointed at the ceiling. "Same job. We'll be the most unstoppable duo in whatever department will have us. We'll cover each other's shifts and eat terrible vending machine food at 2 a.m. and complain about meetings together."
You looked at her, the determined certainty on her face, and felt the warmth of someone who makes you feel like the future is a place you'll navigate together.
"Okay," you said. "Same job."
She smiled at the ceiling. "See? Manifested."
You and MC had stayed friends since the first week of freshman year.
That was the thing people kept forgetting, or, maybe the thing you kept needing to remind yourself of. Because it still didn't feel real. Not a casual acquaintance. Not just a work friend.
Seven years.
You'd studied for the same exams in the same library, stress-eaten the same greasy food truck meals at 2 a.m., held each other through breakups and failed courses, reassuring each other that everything will be okay and work out somehow.
When you both landed your dream jobs as Hunters, you'd gone out and gotten embarrassingly drunk to celebrate. When you started dating Zayne, she was the first person you told.
"He's so serious," she'd laughed, spinning her straw. "I've known him since we were kids, I'm still not sure he knows how to have fun?"
"He's different with me," you'd said.
She'd smiled. "I'm sure he is."
It started small.
Something came up at the hospital. Can we reschedule dinner?
Of course. You understood. He's a doctor. You'll go to the new restaurant another time.
I'm sorry, I can't make your work thing tonight. Urgent case.
Fine. You went to the festival alone and smiled at everyone and said he sent his regrets.
I know it's your birthday dinner but the shift ran over —
Okay, that one stung. You'd been at the restaurant with your friends, one empty chair, Zayne's name on a reservation he'd made himself. You'd boxed up the food he would've ordered and left it in the fridge and told yourself this was what loving someone in medicine looked like.
You didn't know, then, what you knew now. You didn't know that on the night of the cancelled dinner, MC had posted a story. A glass of wine, candlelight, a caption that just said perfect evening.
You hadn't thought anything of it. Why would you? You hadn't known to look because this isn't something you'd thought would happen. Especially when it pointed to the people you loved betraying you.
You looked now. Three months of your camera roll. Three months of her Moments page. MC had deleted the posts, but nothing online ever truly disappeared if you knew where to look, and you were very patient and very thorough. You cross-referenced. You built a timeline with the same methodical focus that had made you good at your job and apparently blind to your own life.
I can't make it tonight — timestamped 7:14 p.m.
Her story, a restaurant you recognized, timestamped 8:30 p.m.
Running late, don't wait up — timestamped 6:52 p.m.
Her post, a walk along the riverfront, his coat recognizable in the background if you knew what his coat looked like, and you knew what his coat looked like. You bought it.
Emergency at the hospital — timestamped the night of your birthday.
Her story. Candles. Perfect evening.
You had eleven instances before you stopped counting. You had all the evidence you needed.
It was January. A few days after the New Year, when everything was still new and hopeful. Zayne sat across from you at the kitchen table, the one you'd picked out together. He said the words with that calm and caring tone that used to make you feel safe.
"I've developed feelings for someone else. I think you deserve honesty," he said like he was doing you a favor.
"MC," you said. His silence confirmed it.
You'd thought you would feel something explosive. You thought you'd curse him out, call him names, throw your drink, cry and beg. Instead you felt very cold and very clear, like a window that had just been cleaned.
You cut into your breakfast and spoke without changing from the casual tone in your voice. "How long?"
He at least had the grace to look uncomfortable. "A few months."
"While you were cancelling plans with me," you took a bite and looked at him in those eyes that made you swoon.
"I didn't… it wasn't planned —"
"You were literally cancelling plans with me," you countered, "to be with her. I'm not a newcomer to the concept of logic Zayne."
He didn't answer, he only stared at the breakfast you were still nice enough to make for him. After hearing enough of the silence you stood up, walked to the front door, and held it open.
"You're free to go. You did what you needed to do. Hopefully you said everything you wanted to say, because I will never be talking to you again." your tone was strict, like a mother whose son just confessed to doing something bad.
Zayne slowly rose from the table, his final meal with you left untouched, getting cold as he grabbed his coat and walked to the open door.
When he was on outside you looked at him one last time. "I hope that she was worth it."
You narrowly hit him as you slammed the door, but you didn't care. You didn't cry in front of him. You'd cried plenty in the weeks leading up to it, in the shower, in your car, in the quiet times between one cancelled dinner and the next rescheduled plan. You'd already done your grieving. You were simply done with everything.
Three weeks later, you heard through mutual colleagues that he and MC were official. You heard it the same way you'd heard everything about her over the past months, in fragments, in offhand comments, in the way all of your mutual friends suddenly stopped meeting your eyes.
People who knew the three of you looked at you with a mixture of different emotions and opinions. Some looked at you with pity, after all, your best friend dating your ex is a hard pill to swallow. Some thought that while you were a great girlfriend, MC and Zayne's childhood friend to official couple pipeline was just meant to be, something that was just meant to happen and you were getting in the way. Some walked on eggshells around you, not talking about anything related to MC and Zayne. Conversations around romance, doctors, best friends, were just a few of the forbidden topics in order to spare your feelings. Some even thought that you were the one that fumbled Zayne, that you did something to drive him away so bad he went for your best friend.
But it's okay. It's all going to be okay. You just had to be patient.
You waited six weeks. Long enough that no one could call it a reaction. Long enough that the two of them were comfortable going public. Cute and lovey-dovey photos together, the comments full of happy and supportive comments from people who had absolutely no idea.
Long enough for MC to DM you. I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. Can we talk?
That message alone ended any patience you had left in you. You left it on read, then you made the post.
It wasn't a rant. No all-caps, no insults, no emotional spiral. Not even an explanation on why you're posting it after months of you and Zayne broke up. Just a clean, organized thread with an easy to follow format. A screenshot with a date, followed by a corresponding piece of evidence.
March 14th: "Can't make dinner, something came up at work." [her story that night, restaurant, his jacket visible in the background]
March 28th: "Emergency at the hospital, so sorry." [her location tag at the park, two minutes from his apartment, 9 p.m.]
April 6th — my birthday: "Shift ran over, don't wait up." [her story: "perfect evening"]
Eleven more just like those. Simple and factually sourced.
Your caption read: I'm not angry. I just think people should have all the facts before they talk to me.
By morning it had been shared over four hundred times.
By afternoon, it was in the group chats of every employee at the Hunters Association, the alumni network of your shared university, even the nursing home you volunteered at were gossiping about it. Someone had sent it to a medical community forum with the caption "friendly reminder to respect your partners." Someone else had made a video reacting to it. The comments were not kind to Zayne.
His professional reputation held, of course it did, he was brilliant and everyone knew it, and no amount of personal scandal would change his outcomes data. He remained, by all clinical and professional measures, an excellent doctor.
But he walked through the hospital now and people went quiet. It wasn't personal. It just made him hard to trust. It's just that… if he could betray his partner who was nothing but good and loving to him, he could betray them to.
Zayne was aware of what was happening, and how it all happened.
That was the worst part. Not the public nature of it, not the comments or the shared posts or the way people's eyes looked away from his in the corridor, but the fact that he could not find the injustice in it. He'd spent three nights after the post went up searching for it, paging through the screenshots with the same methodical attitude he brought to his job. He looked for the falsification, the exaggerations, the emotional distortion that would give him solid ground to stand on.
He hadn't found it.
Every date was accurate. Every cancellation was real. The timestamps were legit and sent from his own phone, and the corresponding evidence was MC's own posts. Things MC had put into the world herself, things neither of them had ever imagined being weaponized and placed side by side like that, aligned and annotated and offered without comment to four hundred people, then four thousand, then more.
I'm not angry. I just think people should have all the facts before they talk to me.
He'd read that caption more times than he could count. He'd tried to find some kind of hidden meaning that would justify or exonerate him and MC. But no, it just showed him in two short sentences that you had felt so wronged and even inconvenienced by those around you, that you had to do this. You had documented something true and placed it where people could see it, and he had no recourse, because the only defense available to him was yes, but, and he couldn't finish the sentence.
Yes, but I genuinely didn't plan for it to happen this way.
Yes, but I cared about her, I really did.
Yes, but things between MC and I developed before I fully understood what I was doing.
The hospital had changed around him. Nothing in a dramatic, blow up in your face, kind of way. Zayne had anticipated drama, some kind of massive fall out or public condemnation. What he got instead was something more difficult. Colleagues who had been warm were now professionally courteous. Residents who had lingered after rounds to ask him questions now asked those questions, then left. The attendings' lounge felt different when he walked in. Like people had received new information and quietly updated their models of him.
Dr. Chen, who had mentored him for two years, whose opinion he valued more than almost anyone's, had said nothing to him directly. She had simply stopped suggesting him for committee positions. He'd noticed. He was fairly certain she intended him to notice.
Dr. Park had been less subtle. "You know," he'd said one afternoon, in the tone of a man who was choosing his words extremely carefully, "competence in one area doesn't exempt anyone from basic decency in another." And then he'd walked away before Zayne could respond.
The thing was, Zayne agreed with him. He couldn't argue that he'd been at least respectful and decent. He had not been either of those things. He's a brilliant cardiac surgeon and a poor excuse for a partner, and he'd told himself for months that the former somehow canceled out the other.
But the post had proven him, so, so wrong.
You heard the knock at 9 p.m. on a Saturday. You weren't expecting anyone. A co-worker had texted earlier about brunch tomorrow, and you'd said yes, and that was the full extent of your social calendar for the weekend. You set down your book, and picked up your phone to check the front door camera.
It was MC, she looked like she hadn't slept in a while.
You looked at the camera feed, thinking of your next move. She knocked again, harder and more frantic. You decided to entertain her for a bit. When you opened the door you casually leaned on the doorframe. Looking at her as if she was just some annoying neighbor.
"Can I help you," you didn't bother hiding the underlying irritation in your voice.
"The post," she started.
"What about it," she looked back at you stunned. MC really didn't expect this kind of reaction from you when she confronted you.
"You didn't have to —" She stopped talking, choosing her next words carefully, like this was a difficult topic for you to understand. "People are saying things about him. About both of us. Our colleagues, people we went to school with, neighbors…people who don't know anything about the situation —"
"They know what I showed them. And if they want to know more beyond that then they can do the research themselves."
"You made it look —"
"I showed screenshots," you said. "Of his texts. And your posts. I didn't caption them. I didn't edit them. What people concluded from accurate, unaltered information is not something I'm responsible for. I just got sick of the way people treated me and thought of me. All because Zayne decided he couldn't break up with me first before humping my best friend rabbits in the woods."
MC's jaw tightened. She'd always done that when she was trying to stay composed. You'd seen it during exams, during hard conversations, during the two times in seven years that you'd fought and had to work with each other the next day. You had known her face so well. That was the thing that sat in your heart like a splinter.
"We didn’t have sex…"
"Oh!? Really? That makes me feel so much better," it was the first taste of bitterness you tasted in your mouth during this whole ordeal.
"I know what I did was wrong," she said. "I know that. I'm not here to tell you it wasn't."
"Okay."
"I'm here because —" MC took a long deep breath. "I need you to understand that it wasn't nothing. It wasn't just… I didn't just decide to blow up your relationship because I felt like it. It wasn't careless."
"It felt pretty careless from where I'm standing. Carelessness of a friend and someone I was in love with. Carelessness from people who were supposed to never hurt me."
"Zayne and I have known each other since we were kids. We grew up together. Went to school together. We did everything together. And there was always something. There was always this thing between us that neither of us ever did anything about because the timing was never right, and then time passed and we both moved on and I thought I had it managed. I thought I'd made peace with us just being friends."
She looked at you, and her eyes were wet with unshed tears. "And then I saw him again every day and I realize it wasn't managed at all."
"You could have told me," you said. "When we met. When I started crushing on him like a giddy school girl. Before it became something. You could have come to me. I would have backed off."
"I know."
"I wouldn't have been devastated. But I would have… we could have…" You trailed off. "We were friends for seven years. You were my first call. For everything. My emergency contact that caused the emergency that we'd laugh about later."
"I know," MC said again, and her voice broke. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'm genuinely sorry. Not because of the post, not because of what people are saying. I'm sorry because I knew exactly what you trusted me with and I chose him anyway." She wiped her eye roughly, like she was annoyed at herself for it.
You didn’t know what to say then. You told yourself to ignore them and move on with your life. But you couldn't help but hear what she had to say. And now you couldn't find the words to respond.
"I would do it again," MC said. "That's the terrible thing. I love him. I love him in a way I can't explain and can't talk myself out of and have been trying to talk myself out of for so many years. I would give up everything for him. I don't need anything else if I have him." She laughed, a short unhappy sound. "And I basically did, didn't I?"
She gestured vaguely. At herself, at the space around her, at you. "I have Zayne," she said. "That's what I have."
She said it like it was enough. Like she had weighed it against everything else and arrived to the conclusion that it was enough. You looked at her for a long time.
I don't need anything else if I have him.
I don't need anything else if I have him.
I don't need anything else if I have him.
That one line echoed in your mind. It felt like a key turning in a lock that opened a door. That door lead to a room of all those feelings you thought you had satiated. The post wasn't enough. You thought it was, but it's not. The betrayal cut too deep and blead you dry.
What they did to you…it mentally crushed you. You couldn't trust anyone completely again. All of those friends that took your side, what's going to stop them from betraying you to? You couldn't fall in love with anyone without doubting yourself, without questioning if you were good enough to make them stay. You don't want to be the clingy paranoid girlfriend, but you didn't have any other way to be now.
Does your job cover long and extensive therapy? Probably. But you needed to sedate this, itch, this hunger inside of you first. You needed to feed whatever vengeful monster you had inside you until it was satisfied. Then therapy.
"I think," you said slowly, "that you should go."
MC opened her mouth, but closed it again. She'd expected more, anger, tears, more of a fight, maybe even a slap to the face. You were always a stronger fighter than her. That was what she'd come prepared for.
"That's it?"
"No. But I heard what you said," you told her pleasantly. "I appreciate you coming, and telling me how you feel. But it's late, and I'd like you to leave now."
She hesitated, searching your face for something. Whatever she was looking for, she didn't find it and she finally left.
You slowly closed the door and sat in your armchair for a long time after.
I don't need anything else if I have him.
"Interesting," you picked up your laptop and opened it. "Very interesting."
The promotion was the first thing you thought MC didn't need. MC had Zayne after all.
You'd always been one of the top performers your department. Competent, thorough, well-liked. You'd let your work speak for itself. You didn’t see the need to put yourself out there more than you already have. Until now.
You requested a meeting with Jenna. You brought documentation. You brought years of outcomes data, commendation and recommendation letters you'd never thought to use, and a proposal for a department restructuring initiative you'd been sitting on for eight months because you hadn't wanted to seem too ambitious.
You were very, very ambitious now. Ambitious for a new role that would put you right under Jenna. A leadership position over a team of your own, one with all new recruits.
The promotion was announced on a Monday in front of the whole department. MC looked giddy from the other side of the room. You had pushed and supported her in her pursuit to get this role. Dimmed your light to make her shine brighter. But when Jenna announced your name and welcomed you on stage, the look in your eyes alone made MC look like a lone twinkling star in the sky, while you shinned like the sun. After you finished accepting praise and congratulations from your peers, you heard MC had cried in the bathroom on the third floor. But you were just so happy, you couldn't muster enough energy to care.
Next were friends. Who needs friends when you have Zayne. Not MC.
You had approached Tara and Xavier first. They been you and MC's friend since becoming hunters. The bubbly, bright-eyed woman who organized the group dinners and the weekend hikes and the standing reservation at the karaoke bars. And the quiet gentle gentleman who always showed up at the right time when you're in need. You'd always liked Tara and Xavier, but you felt a strange possessiveness over MC. You'd never bothered to cultivate a deeper relationship with them, you and MC had each other, anyone else was casual.
You decided it was the perfect time to cultivate it now.
It wasn't manipulation, just being yourself with more initiative. You listened when Tara gushed about this new guy she liked. You were there with an umbrella when hers was broken by the aggressive winds. You treated Xavier to coffee at the shop that was very much out of the way on your morning commute. You treaded him to hot pot while listening to a very one-sided beef with a baker in his apartment building.
By the time MC noticed that the few friends she had were texting you more than her and making plans without her, it was too late to stop it. Far too late.
Soon the whole solar system of people who had orbited around MC had left her orbit, and now circled you. One by one, not because you stole them, you would never be so crass, but because you showed up and stuck around. Made yourself more valuable to them than MC did. All without putting any real effort, you simply were being yourself.
Who needs a third space when Zayne's house is right there. MC will be living with him anyway, why not speed up that process.
The arcade and bar on Juniper Street was a popular place in Linkon.
It was MC's place. Everyone knew it. She'd been going since before you'd joined the department, had a usual table, was on a first-name basis with the bartender, and everyone knew the games she always played in what order. It was the kind of place that felt like hers.
You started going on Thursdays. Alone at first. Then with Tara. Then with Tara and Xavier. Then others who had naturally drifted towards you. The bartender learned your name and your order, and had it ready for you. The hostess started setting up your table when he saw you come through the door. The manager started texting you about all the exclusive plushies when it came in shipment. All the regulars, young and old, loved seeing you. The local middle schoolers practiced hard to beat your high score in the games you dominated. It was your spot in every way but legally.
You heard that MC had gone in one evening, how she stood at the entrance for a long time, watching you make jokes with that bartenders while surrounded by her former friends before turning around and leaving.
You didn't feel triumphant. That wasn't what this was for. It was more along the lines of vindication. Like this was supposed to happen. You had to do this to get even, to make yourself feel better. If this made you a petty bitter bitch, so what? It's better than being a pathetic loser who just lets the cheaters get away with it.
You simply sat at your table with your people and your drink, thinking about all the work for your new job and for the first time since a Tuesday in January, you felt entirely at ease.
After all, MC didn't need those things. You did her a favor.
Zayne saw you one evening in the lobby of the hospital. It was the last time he saw you before he and MC moved to Skyhaven. After months of living with the silent public shame, the two of them decided starting over in a new city would be best. Zayne can work in another hospital, and MC can work in a different branch of Hunters Association. Plus their childhood friend Caleb would like having them close again.
It was late, after a long bypass surgery, the kind that took everything out of you and left you walking to the exit on pure muscle memory. You were at the front desk, laughing about something with the receptionist.
You looked like someone who had survived a battle and come out stronger. You glanced up and saw him. Your expression didn't change in any way. You simply met his eyes, acknowledged him with a small, civil nod, and returned to your conversation.
That was all. It lasted perhaps two seconds.
He stood there for longer than was acceptable before he stiffly walked to the exit. And upon arriving home he sat in his driveway for a while and stared at his steering wheel and tried to name what he was feeling.
It took him longer than it should have. Regret, he identified finally. Not for MC. But for you. For what he had done to someone who had held that door open for him and said I hope she was worth it, without raising her voice once. Who had documented his failures. To have the truth of what had happened to her exist somewhere outside of her own little world.
He won't give up MC. Never in a million years. But he can still regret his actions. His lies to himself on who he truly loved. His lies to you when all you did was cherish him the way he should have cherished you. The lack of patience out of respect for you as a person with feelings.
He knew you'd never forgive him. So he can only move on with his life, hoping he can forgive himself.
It happened on a Wednesday, which felt appropriate somehow. It was just an ordinary day, the kind nothing was supposed to happen on.
You were in the break room refilling your coffee when Xavier came in.
You'd always liked Xavier. And you technically weren't his boss, you were above him in rank, but he wasn't on your team. So you could freely spend time with him outside of work, just the two of you. You enjoyed going on missions with him, your combat felt so in sync it was almost supernatural. And sending each other pics of your late night junk food hauls felt as natural as breathing.
Xavier poured his coffee, stirring in the sugar, clearly lost in thought. You stood side by side at the counter in comfortable silence while you sipped on your own drink.
"You've been different lately," he said.
You glanced at him. "Different how?"
"Like you took up more space. In a good way." He paused. "That probably sounds strange."
"A little," you chuckled. "But I know what you mean. Thank you."
He nodded, looking at his coffee. Then, without any crazy fanfare, almost random in nature: "I'd like to take you to dinner. On a date. If you're open to it."
You looked at him wide-eyed. He met your eyes without any nervousness, no excessive hedging, no elaborate setup. Just that same calm expression he always gave you when it was just the two of you.
You thought about it honestly. The last several months had been about reclaiming the dignity and peace of mind that had been taken from you. You gained it back, not just with revenge, but with your professional standing, your social world, your sense of yourself in a city that had briefly felt like it belonged to someone else. You didn't let yourself be the loser in anyone else's story, and certainly not in your own life. You'd done that work. You'd done it well. And somewhere in the middle of it, without entirely noticing, you'd stopped feeling like someone who was recovering and started feeling like someone who was simply living her life.
"Okay," you said. You didn’t try to fight the smile that was spreading across your face.
Xavier smiled. That small smile that matched everything wonderful about him.
"Great."
"Great. We can talk about it later. Maybe tonight after another haul."
He picked up his coffee and headed for the door "Sounds good. I have a long list of places I wanted our first date to be." He paused. "For what it's worth. I've wanted to ask for a while now. I just waited until you felt like yourself again."
He left before you could respond.
You stood there for a moment with your drink going cold in your hands, and felt something move through you.
Something that felt like hope, and a brand new beginning.
The text came a year and a half after the post.
You were at the sitting on your couch, enjoying the night as you wind down from a day of hard but rewarding work day. The neighborhood kids had went inside as the streetlamps came on, the crickets chirped in the distance as flora and fauna settled for the night.
The gentle music that played through your speakers, drowning out the quiet hum of the dishwasher that washed the dishes from your dinner. Xavier rested his head on your lap, a combination of a nice meal and your fingers through his hair had him in a deep sleep. You didn't mind your legs falling asleep along with him, taking in all of the features of his face as he has his adventure in his little dream land.
You were watching his face scrunch up ever so slightly when your phone lit up with a notification you hadn't been expecting.
MC is to send you a text message.
You looked at the notification for a bit, hesitating, wondering if you want a part of your past disturbing your present. The last time you even saw her and Zayne were at an award ceremony for the Hunters Association a few months back. The awkwardness and hostility had faded and people talked to them freely. You didn't look their way much or try to talk to them, you didn’t see the need to. So you decided the text could be worth a read.
Hey.
I know you don't owe me anything. I know this message might go straight to the trash and honestly that's fair. I've thought about sending it probably fifty times in the past few months and talked myself out of it every time because I couldn't figure out what I actually wanted to say. My last "apology" to you wasn’t right. It was more about justifying to you why I did what I did and hoping you somehow understood and accepted everything.
I knew what I was doing. I told myself a lot of things to make it okay. That you two were happy now but it wouldn't last, that he would've ended it anyway. That you'd move on and we'd still be friends. And I knew while I was telling myself those things that they were excuses and wishful thinking. I just wanted to take back something that felt like it belonged to me. That I could really have my cake and eat it to. I reached for it without thinking about what it would cost you.
What I did to you was worse than what Zayne did, because I knew you. I knew exactly who you were and what you'd given me, and I did it anyway. You were always a better friend than I ever was, and I was lucky to have you in my life, and I ruined it.
I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm not sure I deserve it no matter how much time has passed or how much you heal. I just needed you to know that I think about what I did often. That I'm so so so sorry. Not sorry I got caught, or that I had to face consequences. I'm actually truly genuinely sorry. Sorry that I was someone who could do that to you.
You look good. You look happy. I'm glad.
— MC
You read it three times before opting to put your phone down on the coffee table beside you and sat with your thoughts for a long time.
She was right that you didn't owe her anything. You owed her no response, no absolution, no gracious closure speech. You were not obligated to wrap this up neatly for her benefit, to be the bigger person in a way that made her feel better about what happened.
You thought about the girl on the dorm room floor, manifesting a future in which you'd face everything together. That you'd have long happy lives in a life that just couldn't go on without each other. She'd meant it then, with every fiber of her being, she meant it. That was the sad part of it.
You picked up your phone. You typed for a while. Deleted it. Typed again. Deleted that too.
Finally you decided to keep it simple, and wrote: Thanks. Take care MC.
Once you sent it, you blocked her number and put your phone down. Xavier was watching you through tired, hooded eyes, his cheek still smushed against your thighs, blinking slowly in the low light.
"Are you okay?" He reached for your hand and interlaced your fingers in his. "Who was that?"
You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "MC," you said.
He nodded slightly and got his thoughts together. "Do you want to talk about it? I don't mind."
"No," you said quickly and simply. "I'm done talking about it."
You adjusted yourself , laying on the couch and molding your body against his as he wrapped his arms around you. His hand making slow circles along your back as he hummed you a soft tune.
Outside, the planet kept spinning as people went about their lives, their own little worlds. You did the same, sharing your world with someone who would give anything to be part of it in every universe, every timeline, and every version.
It's funny how the same people who complain about not finding enough fanfiction content are the ones publicly ranting about authors and mocking their kinks or their way of writing.
You wanna know why there's not enough content? Because creators are terrified of putting their free labor out there, only to have people like you critiquing their - entirely free and optional, mind you! - pieces when you could be scrolling instead.
"When the author writes y/n as-" grab a pen and do it yourself.
"It's just my opinion because I find it weird-" then think it, don't post it. Why are you so possessed by the need to publicly insult someone doing hobby work?
I swear, I just stumbled upon a post that had tens of thousands of reblogs and hundreds of comments where everyone just kept piling on fanfic writers. Whether it's a trope, or the use of some words, it doesn't matter: y'all really out there dining for free and then spitting in the chef's face.
If you can vent in several paragraphs, you can also just scroll and mind your business. I can't believe it has to be said that you're an asshole if you nitpick someone's literal fun.
