TW; mentions/hints of past emotional manipulation, gaslighting, Melanie being angsty and Fabrice being oblivious.
Wanted to write some Melanie x Fabrice, idk if this is gonna be a thing but who cares #BlackLove or whatever, this is my first time posting a fic to tumblr so be nice friends 🫂
"You must take me for an idiot, huh?"
Her eyes – which were usually a warm and welcoming amber – were now an electric red, her blemish free face was now washed over with wrinkles and lines as she glared and angrily scrunched her face at him. The vipers that made home atop her head hissed and swayed, like spectators to a fight they seemed to push her into violently reacting, and her fists were clenched so tight he was surprised she hadn't broken the skin of her palms.
This wasn't the charming bartender he had become accustomed to, the sweet woman with a beautiful face and darling blush, who kicked her feet and looked away whenever she felt bashful. This simply couldn't be the same woman who's snakes curiously peered at him, before happily rubbing their heads against his hands as a form of acceptance.
He didn't see a calm beauty, with a smooth rich voice that sent shivers down his spine. Instead, he saw a rage fuelled, manic woman who was ready to end him where he stood. Her chest was heaving so hard that one may assume she was having an attack of sorts, burning beads of sweat ran down her face and body, and her bloodshot eyes were as glossy as they were piercing.
Fabrice took in a breath, "Melanie, of course not–" he attempted to clarify, though she wasn't hearing it.
"Then why," she began, her voice scratchy and rough, as though she were holding back a blood-curdling screech, "why were you doing that with her?"
Fabrice knew what she was talking about. Earlier that day, he had went to Evening Sounds in hopes that he could converse with Melanie a bit; the two hadn't made their relationship official in a boyfriend-girlfriend sense, but it was very clear that they were involved and they both had enough respect for each other to not see other people on the side. Being the naturally charming and handsome man he was, it wasn't long until a woman approached him. His first mistake was engaging with her.
He wasn't interested, despite not making it official by title him and his vipress lover were going steady, but he was still as charming and naturally sultry as he was with anyone he spoke to. This woman – clearly misinterpreting his regular dialect as romantic or sexual interest – was rather touchy with him. His second mistake was not stopping her.
Midway through his conversation with her about only Freyr knows what, he had noticed a loc of her hair was out of place, and this bothered the perfectionist to an instense degree. After dealing with it for a few minutes, he leaned over and brushed it away from her face, inadvertedly caressing her cheek. His third mistake was not realizing how that would be percieved.
Melanie had just so happened to arrive late when he had done this, and it took a lot of convincing from both him and Celine for her to not turn Fabrice and his female companion to stone on the spot. To say she had gone ballistic would be an understatement, she had gone downright mad, and eventually even Celine had to kick her own best friend out of the club due to the intense scene she was making.
Fabrice was aware of Melanie's past troubles with romance when he first started seeing her, he knew how seriously she took this sort of thing and knew that if he wanted them to work, he could no longer live his normal life of having multiple different women at once. Melanie simply wasn't that sort of lady, she was not for one night stands and was certainly not willing to be one of many. It was hard at first, he was just so used to having women on rotation that commitment was genuinely difficult for him, but after a few months of this, he truly believed he was ready to actually be more than her date. He was ready to be her boyfriend.
Though, based on the utter rage that was radiating from her, she was clearly not in the mood for love confessions, "you... you held her face lovingly, you may has well have pulled her close and..."
He stepped closer to her, flinching when her snakes suddenly lashed out in his direction, "no, I was not going to kiss her, it was just–"
"What? You just hold every girl you ever meet's face platonically, let me guess, you fuck 'em platonically too, huh?" Melanie yelled back, "you–you would have taken her home and–!"
In his own sudden fit of anger, he quickly yelled back, "do you think I'm some sort of nymphomaniac sex addict? If you really wanna know I was brushing her hair out of her face!"
"You don't brush hair out of the face of a girl when you're dating another!" Melanie stomped, her snakes hissing louder and more aggressively.
Fabrice simply couldn't get it. He was understanding of her paranoia to a degree, dating a man with a reputation of womanizing would probably put any woman on edge, but so what if he brushed hair out of her face? He clearly had no feelings for that woman, so it wasn't serious.
"She... clearly liked you," she then said, her voice now soft with an aching scratch, "she was blushing and giggling like she was having the time of her life and you... you entertained it," she then sighed, "I'm not gonna be played for a fool again Fabrice!"
Fabrice so desperately wanted to ease her mind, but she then began pacing around on the spot, aggressively rubbing her own head as the snakes' hisses became more akin to screams, "I'm not gonna let some man get in my head and make me feel crazy! I'm not gonna let some man make me look crazy and make me feel like I'm being irrational when I'm not! I'm not gonna let some man use my body and tear my heart into pieces whilst him and his other bitch laugh at me like I'm a moron! I'm not stupid! I'm not crazy! I'm not delusional! I'M NOT!"
With a belting scream, a bright green light shone from her, Fabrice knew this light. He immediately looked away, not wanting to become a marble bust. Luckily, it seemed her beam was pointed towards the sky, and after a few seconds Medusa's vessel fell to the ground, clutching her knees to her chest and falling into a fit of tears.
Hearing Melanie cry was awful, it was a choking sort of sob, as though she were forcing the tears out of her. Each little cough he heard made his heart break more, Fabrice walked beside her, and sat next to her. He pulled her in, gently hugging her side and humming a sweet tune to her – Melanie didn't push him away, instead she cuddled up to him, her tears soaking his silk shirt as delicate butterflies rested on her head.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered gently, her words being broken up through hiccups and burning hot tears, "I overreacted..."
"It's okay," Fabrice responded, caressing her side softly, "I should have established boundaries with her, I shouldn't have–"
"He hurt me so bad," Melanie blurted, "he broke me, he made me feel like I was nothing, I am nothing, he made me feel so ugly and worthless, I'm a manic person."
Fabrice's eyes lowered sympathetically, but he decided it would be best to let her talk, "I'm scared, I really like you but I'm so scared, I don't want to feel what he made me feel again – what he still makes me feel again – and when I get scared that you'll do that my head just gets filled with hisses and screaming and I feel so utterly scared... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be assuming the worst but..."
Fabrice wasn't an aggressor, he was the epitome of a lover not a fighter, but as she regressed back into pitiful tears, he wanted so desperately to find whoever 'he' was and break every bone in his pathetic little body. Melanie was right, she had overreacted, she had turned something minor into a major blow-up, but he wasn't angry with her. He was more angry with the man that had made her feel so paranoid that something that small could have cause her to be so worried that he was going to harm her, whether it be physical or emotional. He was more angry at the man who had destroyed her ability to trust love so severely that the simple act of him being around another woman made her break inside. That didn't make her reaction okay, but he understood, and he wanted her to know that.
"I won't do that," he said quietly, "I won't make you feel like you're any of that, I care about you too much to, I'm not like him."
"I want to believe you," she finally said, her hiccuping calming down, "and deep down, I know you're being honest... but I can't, not right now."
With a smile, Fabrice brought her face up from his shirt to fave him, "and I won't make you believe me, instead, I'm going to prove through my actions that I'm not like him instead of my words," he then allowed his forehead to touch hers, "and I'm willing to wait for as long as you need until you're ready to believe me."
Melanie blinked, ever since her relationship with him had ended, the thing stopping her from truly moving was the simple fact that no man was willing to put up with her. She was damaged goods in their eyes, and what use was a girl that another man had already toyed with? Fabrice wasn't like that though, Fabrice – the flirtatious seducer with an inability to stick to only one woman before he met her – was willing to wait until she was ready to fully trust him with her love, and that made her feel so much more heard than any pep-talk could have.
She rested her head on his shoulders, her once aggressive snakes once again rubbing their heads in him. With a whisper, she was just barely able to crack a small smile, "thank you." Melanie said, feeling at least a little more at peace.
