Like Before
Just a small drabble with my oc Verun and a reversed!Julian. I have a lot of feels when it comes to Birblian.
1,089 words of angst and fluff, no warnings that I could think of 👌
Verun stepped in through the door, broken glass crunching under her feet. It seemed so simple, just a step through a door to a room that didn’t shift unlike everything else in the new world.
He sat at the bar, a mass of black feathers. But he was familiar to her, no matter what he looked like. He could- he could be a fish for all Verun cared, and she would know.
Her chest filled, like it was a balloon being forced to expand past what it was supposed to, until it was about to burst, until it hurt-
She nearly threw herself at him with a sob, forcing Julian to turn to catch her before she truly faceplanted into him. Her face pressed into the odd scaled skin of his chest, tears pouring down her cheeks as she tried to come closer, to hold onto him. It had been so long, she had missed him so terribly much.
“Verun…” He blinked at her, the smell of alcohol on his breath and his face looking so, so exhausted.
“Julian- oh Julian, I can’t-” She reached up to his face to kiss him, her lips barely cooperating as more sobs broke through her lips. “I found you, finally, I found you.”
“Is… is it really you?”
She nodded vehemently, taking his taloned hands in hers. As well as she could, she pressed her magic through to him, hoping against hope that he would remember the feeling of their joined magic twining together.
“It’s me Julian, I’m here. I’m here, I promise.” She leaned forward and kissed him again, unable to keep herself from doing so. She only wanted to be closer to him, she wanted to be enveloped by his arms again, the wings she saw hiding the two of them away from the wretched world they had been unable to stop. “I missed you so much, Julian. My love, my Ilya, I love you so much, I’ve missed you…”
“How…” He stared down at her between kisses, watching as she pressed closer to his twisted body. “How- how can you be s-so close-”
Verun let go of his hands and threw her arms around his neck, trying to be careful of his feathers. “Because it’s you, Ilya. It’s you, I can’t help myself with you.” She smiled so widely it felt like her face was going to actually split.
But he drew away, gently pulling her arms away from him until he could slip away, simply stepping back to push himself past the barstool he had been sat on. “Verun… no, no, you can’t-” He covered his face with his hands, his birdish feet clicking talons on the floor, on the broken glass.
“I can’t what?” She stepped towards him, hands outstretched to draw him closer. “Julian, please don’t run from me now. Please, I’ve been searching for you for so long.”
“You can’t love me.” Julian’s voice was a hoarse croak as he peeked at her from behind his hands. “I- oh, Verun, I’m nothing now. I’m not the man you loved, I’m not just Julian anymore, I’m a monster, I don’t- I don’t deserve you. I can’t- I can’t let you-”
She stepped forward and he stumbled back, nearly tripping over chairs and tables. He was so tall now, she had to lean her head back to meet his gaze properly. But she continued stepping forward as he stepped back, until he had backed himself into a corner - a corner that looked suspiciously like his old trademark haunt in the Rowdy Raven.
And then she pressed herself against his front, her hands brushing across the skin that wasn’t covered in feathers. He shuddered at her contact, and Verun pressed her forehead to his chest.
“You can’t let me what, Julian?” She took a deep breath, willing herself to not simply break in front of him. “You're not the one that decides my feelings, so don’t you dare tell me that I can’t love you when you look like this. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re the same Julian or not, because I still see you in there, no matter what you look like.”
He shuddered lightly, folding over himself as he tried to cringe back into the shadows of his corner. “Verun, please…”
“I love you, Ilya. Nothing will change that.” She looked up at him, taking one of his big hands and pressing the palm to her cheek. Verun kept her eyes on his as she kissed his wrist, his palm, before turning his hand over and kissing all the rough knuckles that he now had. “Even if you try to push me away, even if you try to hide yourself from me, I will always love you. Don't you understand that?”
He nodded once, shaky, but his body still didn’t relax. “B-but-”
“No buts,” she interrupted. “Unless we’re talking about mine, or your own. Then it’s acceptable.”
Verun could see the way the joke caught him off guard, lips trembling while he was caught between a laugh and a sob. Eventually he settled for a dry puff of breath, tears in his eyes as he stared at her.
She kissed farther up his arm, gently brushing his feathers with her lips. “Ilya… do you still love me?”
“Yes,” he blurted out, immediately. “I love you so much, Verun…”
“Good.” She sighed and turned her face up to match his, silently asking for a kiss. “Will you love me all the same as you did before?”
“If you want me to…” He looked uncertain, scared, but the moment his lips pressed to hers he let out a breath of something like relief, like he had been trying to hold back. “If I can.”
“You can. I believe in you, Ilya. All I can ask is that you try, for me.”
“But if I can’t? If I can’t love you like I did-”
“Then I’ll take anything you can give me, my love.” Verun cupped his face in her hands, pressing closer. “I’ll take anything, I just want to make you happy. I want to feel you close again, I’ve missed you so much.”
Slowly he sank down until Verun could softly fall into his lap, her form dwarfed by his size now as she curled up in the curve of his body. They murmured softly to each other, Verun starting to familiarize herself with the touch of his feathers, the way he shuddered when she gave even the lightest of touches. He was beautiful.