ONLY YOU, DARLING, ONLY YOU
inspired by “Dark Red” by Steve Lacy
It’s almost 1 AM when Y/n pushes open the apartment door with shaking hands. She doesn’t slam it. That would feel too final. But the click of it shutting behind her is loud in the silence she leaves behind.
She doesn’t make it far. Just three flights up, barefoot, breath clouding in the chill air. The rooftop.
The wind bites her arms. Her heart’s still racing from the fight — if you can even call it that. It wasn’t screaming or slamming doors. It was worse.
The quiet kind. The kind where the person you love pulls away and you can feel them slipping through your fingers like water.
She isn’t expecting him to be there.
But of course, Wilbur’s already on the rooftop.
Sitting on the edge with his knees pulled to his chest, his fingers curled around a glass bottle that’s sweating in the cold. He doesn’t look at her at first — just stares out over the city, the lights below reflected in his tired eyes.
“You were leaving.”
His voice slices through the dark. Soft. Accusing. Hurt.
She doesn’t answer. Not right away.
“I needed air,” she finally says.
He turns then. Slowly. His eyes land on her like a storm building.
“Don’t lie.”
She shifts her weight, hugging herself. “You were ignoring me, Wil. What was I supposed to do? Sit there and pretend everything was fine while you shut down again?”
“You were going to leave me.”
That’s not a question. It’s a fear dragged out into the open.
“Wilbur—”
“Something bad is about to happen to me.”
The words fall from his lips like he’s been holding them in all night, and now they’ve clawed their way out. “I feel it. In my chest. In my fucking bones.”
Y/n’s breath catches.
“And it’s not just anxiety or paranoia or whatever label people want to slap on it. It’s you.” He looks at her now, finally, and his voice trembles. “It’s the thought of waking up and you’re not there. Of losing you.”
Her eyes sting. But she stands her ground.
“You keep pushing me away. How am I supposed to hold on when you won’t let me in?”
Wilbur’s quiet for a beat. His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle. Then, without looking at her, he speaks again — softer this time.
“I think of you so much, it drives me crazy.
The wind kicks up, tousling his hair. He finally stands, shaky, like gravity hits him differently all of a sudden. And when he walks toward her, it’s slow, careful — like she might vanish if he moves too fast.
“Every hour I’m not with you feels like shit. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus. Everything I do, you’re there. And it terrifies me.”
He stops a foot in front of her.
“Because if I’m this far gone and you leave…” He breathes out hard. “It’ll destroy me.”
“Wil—”
“Don’t give me up.”
His voice cracks. “Please. Don’t give up on me. I know I’m a mess and I get cold and weird and hard to read but I love you, and I would do anything—anything—just to keep you.”
His hands come up, hesitant, then cradle her cheeks like she’s something fragile.
“I belong with you.” His thumbs brush her skin, eyes locked on hers like this is his last chance.
“Only you. My girl. Only you, baby.”
Y/n’s heart feels like it might explode. She didn’t expect this — not from him, not tonight. But now it’s here, raw and bleeding and desperate in the way only Wilbur can be when he finally lets himself feel it.
She closes the space between them, grabbing the front of his hoodie like an anchor.
“I don’t want to give you up,” she says, voice shaking. “But I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re not.”
It’s a promise. One he folds into a kiss, soft at first, then messier, rougher, full of everything they’ve been holding back.
And when he pulls away, he doesn’t go far.
Foreheads pressed together. Breaths mingling.
He whispers like it hurts to say:
“Please don’t leave me.”
Y/n cups his face now, grounding him.
“I’m still here.”
His eyes flutter shut, and he exhales shakily, like he can finally breathe again.
“I’ll get better,” he mumbles, barely audible. “Just don’t give up on me. I don’t want anyone else. Ever. Not in this life. Not in the next. It’s always been you.”
And then softer, almost reverent:
“Only you, darling. Only you.”