You can erase someone from your mind. Getting them out of your heart is another story.
Chapters: 1/2
Fandom: The 100 (TV), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Wells Jaha/Raven Reyes, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Characters: Bellamy Blake, Clarke Griffin, Wells Jaha, Raven Reyes (The 100), Monty Green, Becca (The 100), Octavia Blake
Additional Tags: Memory Loss, Memory Alteration, Memory Erasure, if you've seen eternal sunshine of the spotless mind then you know what you're in for, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Memories, Strangers to Lovers, Out of order storytelling, ESOTSM au, confusing use of past and present tense, stick with me on that one, edited and re-uploaded
Back on my Bellarke shit, I have fully edited and re-uploaded the first chapter of my “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but make it Bellarke” fic. It still reads pretty close to the movie, but significantly changed enough that I at least feel more proud of it than I have for the last few years. Anyway, if you are also still hung up on Bellarke and want some more tragedy in your life, take an hour or so of your life to read. Let me know if you find some errors or inconsistencies, since this isn’t and has never been beta’d. Thank you, dear Blarkes.
Clyde Logan x Nurse!F!Reader
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU
Summary: Clyde Logan had suffered enough loss and misfortune to last a lifetime. When the opportunity to have unsavory memories erased arises, cherished memories of an unrequited love he holds dear are lost as well.
Warnings (In this chapter): Unrequited love, Angst, Hurt/comfort, Military stuff (i really truly know nothing and just assumed because that’s the way it goes, apologies in advance. No disrespect intended), Movie cannon stuff, Implied violence, Implied gore and injuries, Controlling/Manipulative relationship w/OFC, Lost memories, Reader/Clyde history told through memories, Alcohol consumption, Broken hearts
Wordcount: 3.2K
Series Masterlist
“Clyde?” You’d recognize his huffs and rumbles anywhere. Even after all this time, you could never forget.
“Yup.” His response was curt and restrained, even if you couldn’t see him on the other end of the receiver.
“Are you ok?”
“Yup. Jus’ wanted to tell ya about… Jimmy’s little girl. Named Sadie.” He was lying.
“That’s great Clyde.” You pitched your voice, a tone of happiness at his brother’s growing family even if you knew that’s not what this was about. Before you could ask him more, your name was called from the living room. “Listen, I gotta go.”
Quickly you hung up, looking down at the phone in your hand when he walked in. “Who was that?”
“Wrong number.” Standing from the corner of your bed, you straightened your clothes and looked up at him. He was perfect. At least that’s what everyone told you but he was just another in a line of distractions. He wasn’t Clyde.
“Ready for dinner?”
**
“Knock knock!” You pulled at the curtain just as she pulled off of Clyde. Straightening her clothes, she looked over at you with a look of satisfaction before announcing that she was going to stay.
“You must be JoEllen.” Your smile was genuine even if you’d walked in on a rather intimate moment. As intimate it was for a busy hospital. Extending your hand, her reluctantly extended hers quickly pulling away as if she didn’t want to risk infection, her eyes staking her claim.
Clearing your throat, you looked back to Clyde, bandaged but healing. The scratches on his flushed face now scabbed and dried, the wrappings on his arm still hiding the worst of it. “Looks like the bandages will come off today, the doctor will be by shortly.”
You never looked at him with pity, just worry and anger. He appreciated that. You knew him, knew what he experienced even before you’d met. He’d talked you ear off about happenings in his family that he had spent a bit of time researching. He always fell just short of calling it a curse, but you knew he wanted to because you understood him.
No, the look in your eye was similar to his, one that she would never understand. An endless loop of that day, minute by minute. Like a movie stuck on an endless cycle that never changed, no matter how hard you screamed at the scene in front of you or screwed your eyes up tight. The end was always the same.
The departing crew hadn’t made it too far when the coms sounded with alarmed voices calling for help. The blood drained from your limbs as you pulled on your gear, readying for the worst of it, hoping that he would be alright and alive.
You’d never forget the smell, the heat of the chard Humvee remnants, and the screaming as you shuffled carefully through the wreckage, med pack at the ready. Your eyes searching for him, any signs of him.
A deep voice barked right into your ear. He’d been found. Your legs burned as your boots dug into the ground, propelling you forward until finally you reached him. Ears ringing and voice yelled raw, your training kicked in. Hours later you paced the hospital, still covered in grime and who knows that as you waited for him to come out of surgery.
Eventually you were ordered away to clean up and collect yourself. When you returned he laid in bed hooked up to various machines, skin bruised and reddened. Bandages covering his arm and in a deep sleep. You had managed to sneak in after being told visitation was for family only. So you set to task, to get re-stationed at the hospital. The officers over you agreeing either out of pity or perhaps a need to stop your tenacious pestering. You were wearing their patience thin.
When his family arrived to visit, they wept and cursed. Hidden behind the white curtained wall you heard his brother mumble updates and stories at Clyde until one day Clyde responded.
“Got dang, Clyde!” Jimmy exclaimed, removing his cap to swat at his brother who laid blinking, taking in the room around him. “Nurse!”
“...Nurse?”
It’d been years since you’d seen him but your arms and legs went numb nonetheless. He stood there in the horrible white and black striped issued uniform of the Monroe County Jail. He’d filled out more since you’d seen him last, thick shouldered and hair long. You’d told him it suited him as you walked out for the last time, brushing it over his pinked ear as he fought tears that threatened to spill, words she told him to say stuttering from his lips. His amber eyes didn’t match the harsh words, but you did as he requested and left him to the life that brought him back into yours.
“Uh-nurse?” The baritone of his voice snapping you out of the unsolicited trip down memory lane, unlike him.
Clyde stared at you unsure, you were familiar but he couldn’t quite place where from. His memory was hazy but he chalked it up to his injury and frankly, time. Losing some recognition and time along with his hand, but there were moments when the back of his neck prickled and he knew he needed to know something, someone, and simply couldn’t.
The day nurse cleared her throat, eyebrows raised questioningly as she looked at you. A silent command to compose yourself. She introduced the man in front of you and his assignment for his duration of time serving as an inmate of the prison.
Pursing your lips, you nodded before extending your hand. Relief and appreciation but not recognition filled his eyes as he reached out, pressing his warm palm to yours. Paw just as massive as you remembered, even if he did not.
Warmth and excitement filled you, instantly doused with a wave of cold water and melancholy. You were a perfect stranger to this person who you had spent some of your most formative years with. Shared sips of harsh whiskey together, hidden in the shadows as you whispered jokes and juvenile stories. Excusing yourself, you padded off to get yourself set up for the day.
He watched you walk away, concerned at the look in your eye but quickly shook off the prickling feeling and scanned the infirmary, taking mental note of patient rooms, the blast doors Joe Bang had told him and Jimmy about, and hallway routes. It was fairly simple and straightforward he told himself, following the head nurse out of sight.
This had to work, Jimmy’s plan. The get rich scheme that would help him get out of debt he couldn’t quite remember accumulating. He was sure it was another part of the curse, the Logan Family Curse.
The sun crept over Monroe, darkness creeping over the sky as he laid in his cell and you paced the infirmary. He recognized you, he knew that. He had seen the way your eyes grew wide at the sight of him, frozen as if waiting for him to make the first move. Break the ice that had formed under your feet, but it eluded him until the feeling infiltrated his dreams.
Your night however was less clear, thankfully uneventful as well as you perused the internet trying to remember the letter from a few years ago. The letter that let you know Clyde had part of memory erased, had he had you erased as well? Given his reaction and lack of recognition, that seemed likely.
“La-la-LACUNA!”
You smacked the side of your head and by early morning you had found forums filled with questions and experiences in navigating memory erasure. The science was so unexplored and fringe that there were only first hand accounts and educated guesses based on the incomplete and ultimately unsupported data.
As you packed to head home, he lumbered by pushing the mop bucket ahead of him. “Mornin’” He stopped in front of you. “Morning.” A strained smile pulled on your lips, more out of courtesy and mild discomfort. Nodding you quickly rushed past him, waving at the day nurse before disappearing down the hall. You weren’t going to remind him, if he remembered you he’d need to remember on his own.
Driving you wiped the tears from your eyes. Memories of your time together accompanied every story and account you read in your research. Lifelong friends forgotten overnight, an unfortunate byproduct of bigger procedures where sides were chosen. Friends lost, now one sided strangers who were left broken and forgotten.
That’s what you were now. Forgotten, the last little ember of hope you held dying quickly with every spilled tear. A face in the crowd that he failed to recognize.
The romance novels you read called it an unrequited love, a love that was one sided. A love that reignited as soon as his amber eyes looked into yours. A love that could never be. You’d tried to find a version of him, one that filled the 6’3” void that lingered in the shadows. A black hole that obliterated your expectations and held all your secrets.
But, at least at first, when you kissed with your eyes pinched shut, you felt for his lips, for the brush of his facial hair or his smooth skin, depending on how you were feeling. You imagined carding your fingers through his hair and feeling the weight of him pressed into you. But it never felt right and as soon as your eyes opened, all thoughts turned to sand and slipped through the cracks.
“Babe, you okay?” He looked at you, but his eyes were wrong. He was too short, not the right build. He was not the man you’d tried to forget, he was new and unblemished by war, by your past, by another’s. He was the man you came home to every night, you shared your day with and listened to his. With time was no longer perfect, no one was, but he was here for you and you for him. Until one day you no longer wanted anyone.
“Huh-sorry. Yeah, I don’t think I can go to the race but you should go with your friends.”
“I thought you had the day off.”
You did but the last thing you wanted was to spend your day off sitting in the sun and breathing in car fumes at the Coca-Cola 600. Instead you would pay a visit to the Lacuna office, see if maybe they could help you. What exactly was the worst that could happen?
“I think we should break up.”
**
“Welcome to Lacuna!” The young blonde woman at the reception desk smiled, her eyes crinkled at the sides. Their offices were next to the fire station, blinds in the window yellowed and their walls paneled with wood, but the atmosphere was surprisingly inviting and relaxing, even if you were unsure of their legitimacy.
“Hello. Yes, I have an appointment with the doctor. Just a consult.” You reassured yourself more than her, she already knew. You were here out of curiosity because the man you once secretly loved had pushed you out of his life, erased his so-called true love from every part of his brain in what some thought was irreparable brain damage, and now had been thrust into your life a few weeks ago none the wiser.
You’d been a mess of clumsiness, a foul mood, and suffered from busts of tears as you drove home or had a quiet moment to yourself. Maybe they could help you forget your feelings. Just remove that little big significant piece that made your heart beat just a bit faster, warmed your skin, and if you were honest settled low in your belly when you caught his back flexing as he mopped the floor or ran his fingers through his hair and that one piece would slip back into place in delicious waves you wanted to reach out and thread your fingers through.
“Well, it’s not a minimal procedure, you see. We go in and extract the web of memories you have built that are tied to an event or a person. Whatever you want.” You watched the older man draw a crude diagram on the pamphlet. He gesticulated with a flat palm a few times, finally waving rather dismissively. He’d clearly done this quite a few times, no question too outrageous or ridiculous but he was also tired of answering them.
Before you could change your mind, your heart thumping wildly, you asked to start the process. A simple overnight procedure, they told you as they sent you home with a pair of wrapped pajamas to provide easy access to the technicians and their equipment that would be attached to your head, your skin. They also provided you with two little pills to help you sleep and relax.
“Just put anything that reminds you of that time in this box and we’ll take care of the rest.” The young receptionist smiled at you, handing over a cardboard box. It felt wrong, felt incomplete to take this from her, to do this. “W-what if I change my mind?” She blinked at you, in those moments you realized that this was not what you wanted. You did not want to forget him as he had forgotten you. You did not want to lose what little you had left of Clyde Logan.
“If you do not sign the paperwork, then we cannot continue, but once it’s signed and handed over, it can’t be canceled.” The words were measured and rehearsed, a thick finality to them that only served to stress the importance and the commitment. “Think of it this way. You can live with the pain of these memories or live the rest of your life free of them. Unaffected. I think the choice is quite simple.”
“Have you ever…?”
Your words threw her off, she paused for a moment as her smile faltered. But just as quickly as her rehearsed façade fell, it was back on her face. “N-no. I have not, but I’ve seen what the doctor does for others and I know it’s the right choice.” The words again rehearsed yet foreign to her, you could see it in her eyes.
“You know what, I’m going to take this home with me and read it carefully. I’ll call to let you know how I’d like to proceed. Okay?” You quickly grabbed the contact, pulling it to your chest before stepping just out of her reach. In turn, she snatched the pills and pajamas, nodding at you with a sweet “Okay” pushed through her teeth. As soon as you turned your back, however, she sat down and entered her own name into the system. A small gasp left her lips as the system returned with results.
Somehow you got home safely, your new home. Muscle memory not quite there but your new place where most of your stuff was still in boxes, where you had no memories tied to anyone or anything. A place for you, your plants, and space.
He hadn’t taken it too well, but he also understood that he couldn’t make you love him and that you felt taken for granted. You told him you needed your own space, your own time. That things didn’t feel the same and he deserved someone who could give him what you could not, because you wanted to give them to someone else. He didn’t need to know that last part and you didn’t tell him, but it was part of the truth you had to tell yourself.
You threw down the contract in your sink, deciding to burn it there and then. You needed to keep what he had forgotten, for your own sanity, for your own wellbeing. Quickly taking a candle lighter, you lit the edges, watching the fire consume the black ink and the alabaster paper. Curling black with orange edges, thin wisps of smoke swirled into the air as you thought of the forums and the accounts of broken hearted strangers alike.
By the dim firelight, hunched next to your sink, you pulled out your phone, searching the forums once more for any information. Any hope that you could… “Do exactly what?” you mumbled to yourself. What was your plan, what was the plan? Show up to work, which was prison, and make a grand gesture to jog his memory and then what? Schedule a conjugal visit or two? Have him bend you over in the supply closet as he professed his love for you? What if he hated you too? What if he remembered her and needed to find her?
What if he never loved you at all?
Phone slipping slowly from your fingers, you quickly stood. The contract now burned out, the flames running out of paper and fuel, leaving you in the dark.
Clyde laid in his bunk. There had been a few hang-ups, but shit happened. Just as Jimmy had prepared him.
He drifted in and out of sleep, trying to hold on to the day’s events and for some reason you. You, the nurse who had not been around today, had not been locked down while he was off pulling off a life changing heist. One that would set him up for life, would clear the debt that haunted him and loomed over his shoulder. Money that would help Jimmy and Mellie. Money for Sadie, money that would help him, change his luck, and could break the Logan Curse.
Pushing it all from his mind, he finally slept. Slept deep and undisturbed, serene dreams that were fuzzy around the edges. Things that were familiar and warm of the forgotten and the stolen, not in the sense of monetary or tangible things. But just as precious. There were moments that left a sour taste in his mouth, but the familiar crept back in, held him tight and kissed the cracks, healing the seams.
When he awoke in the morning he felt the tendrils of sleep, the dreams, slip away, The bits he struggled to hold on to, falling through his fingers like sand. His body remembered something, a heat in his belly and when he shifted, he felt himself a bit harder than morning wood should be, straining against the seams of his ridiculous uniform. He thought of you, not you now but of a different you. What he must have imagined was you but younger. It was too detailed and too specific to be the work of dreams and imagination, but they felt familiar and right.
“Ma’am, where is the other nurse?” The charge nurse raised her perfectly shaped brows. Always cautious of any inmates asking for questions, too many incidents in the past. “On vacation, much needed if you ask me.” She pursed her lips, allowing no room for more of his questions which he understood. Nodding, he continued his rounds with his thoughts occasionally drifting to you.
Clyde Logan x Nurse!Reader
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU
Summary: Clyde Logan had suffered enough loss and misfortune to last a lifetime. When the opportunity to have unsavory memories erased arises, cherished memories of an unrequited love he holds dear are lost as well.
Warnings (In this chapter): Unrequited love (kinda), Friends to lovers, Angst, Hurt/comfort, Military stuff (i really truly know nothing and just assumed because that’s the way it goes, apologies in advance. No disrespect intended), Movie cannon stuff, Mentions of PTSD, Implied violence, Implied gore and injuries, Controlling/Manipulative relationship w/OFC, Lost memories, Reader/Clyde history told through memories, Alcohol consumption
Wordcount: 4.3K
Series Masterlist
He stared down at the two pills in hand, rolling them in his palm before he slipped them past his lips and chugged ice cold water to wash them down. Setting the ceramic cup, with the little ducks in a pond on it, Clyde Logan picked up the pen laying next to it and signed the last page of the contract. Carefully picking it up and setting it on the counter in clear view of the front door.
The floorboards, if they could call that, creaked under his feet as he lumbered down the narrow hall of his trailer to the back bedroom. Passing a window, he stopped at the gentle rumbling of a vehicle outside his usually quiet dirt road. Spotting a panel van with two shadowy figures in the front seat, he quickly closed the blinds before continuing.
He pawed at the plastic wrapped dark blue pajamas issued to him, quickly pulling on the bottoms and matching button down sleep shirt. He took one last look at the box filled with his medals, pictures of her, pictures of his recovery, trinkets and tchotchkes scattered at the bottom alone with a bundle of letters from when basic training and his recovery. A few letters as well, some were unsent. Some clothing laid on top shielding these painful reminders from view, with a small wooden box laid on top, nestled in the soft fabric.
He blinked wildly, fighting the creeping sleep. His eyes screwing up tightly as he tried to fight the blurred vision. He yanked at the silver horseshoe ring on his finger, tossing it onto the pile. It clanged against the wooden box, as if reminding him that this was his last call before the big exit.
Quickly dropping to his knees, he retrieved the ring and the box. Pulling it open and plucking one of the small vials it held inside. It was filled with sand and rocks with a small piece of greenery long dried up and a small piece of paper with typed coordinates and a date.
He rolled the vial in his hand, feeling the cold glass roll in his fingertips before almost dropping to the ground. His inky locks shook into his eyes as he worked to hang on to the last bits of conscientiousness left.
Quickly he shoved the vial back in the box he dug into the pile, pulling the unmailed letters, neatly tied with string and frantically searched for a hiding place before settling on shoving them in his dresser, back behind the bottom drawer, which bounced back open a bit when he slammed it shut.
He hurriedly put the ring back on and crawled into bed, removing his prosthetic arm and only managing to perch it on the nightstand before his world went black.
Joining the army was never a cut and dry situation for everyone. Some people were running towards a brighter future, some were following those before them, and some were looking to leave it all behind.
Jimmy had Bobby Joe and a baby on the way, a promising career in sports, and is one of the most popular people in their town. Mellie was off to beauty school as well as taking additional accounting classes to open her own station at the local salon, hoping to work enough to open her own shop. And Clyde found himself at a loss, an outcast of sorts.
His sweetheart, JoEllen, and her parents gently nudged him. Always taking an opportunity to remind him that he needed to plan for the future. JoEll** would ramble on in thought about building a house, having his babies after high school, and how she’d always admired Bobby Jo.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. While he didn’t feel like he was living in the shadow of his siblings, people around him seemed to think so. Always talking to him with pity in their eyes and voices.
When the US Armed Forces came by West View High School for the yearly career fair, Clyde took the opportunity to sign up. He had walked up and down the short aisles, hearing adults pitch their jobs as mechanics, local florists, schools peddling computer tech courses, cooking schools offering people food and the world for an astronomical fee, and the good old armed forces.
He slowed as he walked down the aisle lined with tables for the Marines, the Navy, and the Army. A few other tables passed out brochures, held firmly in the hands of uniformed men with smart haircuts and polished shoes. The one that caught his eye was the Army, offering him career building skills, a chance to travel the world, and a deep sense of pride and purpose for his country.
A man in camouflage patted him on the shoulder as a video played behind him. An eagle over a flag fading to silhouettes standing on a horizon, backlit by a deep orange sunset. Clips of men and women running and jumping through mud and ropes, working together to scale walls, and driving in impressive vehicles. Before he could doubt himself, Clyde signed out the next few years of his life and if he could have right then and there, he could have signed away more.
Jo**l*n told Clyde she wanted to make their prom night extra special, now that she was going to be the girlfriend of an enlisted soldier. Making sure to pick out the most flattering dress she could, putting delicate butterfly clips in her hair, and heels that made her walk a little like a newborn deer.
Clyde had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life. He bought a corsage that perfectly matched her dress, which matched his bow tie and cummerbund. That night, like many of their friends, JoE**n and Clyde had their first night together in a motel room, rented special for the occasion. It was sloppy and quick, it hurt her just a little bit but he was sweet and attentive if not overly apologetic.
A few months later, he walked across his high school stage, parents, brother, and sister cheering from the stands, proud of him for completing his diploma. Before the weekend was through, he had a tearful goodbye from JoEllen and Mellie, a firm pat on the back from Jimmy and his father and the tightest hug from his mother before stepping on a bus to South Carolina.
Fort Jackson was huge and full of the most diverse groupings of people Clyde had ever seen in his life. There were more girls… women than he had expected, too. Before his first day was over, his hair was cut and he had a bunkmate who cried at everything.
The next few months were filled with drills, hauling his own body weight around, less sleep than he thought possible, so much mud, and building stamina.
The trailer lights flicked off, plunging the small clearing into darkness. The only source of light was now the moon.
“Should I turn on the headlights? I can’t see shit.”
“His file says he has motion activated lights, just get out and wave your hands.”
The two figures walked out of the van, pulling open the paneled doors as soon as the flood lights brilliantly lit the driveway. Grunting, they pulled boxes of machinery from the van, hustling up the porch and opening the front door, which had been left unlocked.
The floored bowed slightly under the combined weight of wires and metal supported by the muscle and bone of man as they quickly worked to get to his room and set up their gear.
Stopping, one of them observed a few framed pictures on the walls. Some with family and others with a different kind of family. One brought together through the bond of an unbreakable brotherhood and war. There were pictures of Clyde standing tall with men from his unit, wearing full tactical gear and standing in the sandy desert.
Others were clearly taken inside barracks or at a house party, always with the same people and one of him looking a little more comfortable with a woman caught their eye.
“This her?” The taller one shouted down the hall at the other, who was crouched down over the box Clyde had prepared earlier. Pulling out the clothing and casually discarding it to the side. He thumbed through the pictures and before walking to the other.
Holding up a picture of Clyde with JoEllen, he looked to the one on the wall. “No, but she fits the timeline. Take it down.”
“It’s the only one I see, should I look for more?”
“Nah, let’s get this over with.”
“You’re digging that wrong.”
“I think I know how t’dig a latrine ditch.” Clyde bared his weight down on his shovel. Pulling up the earth when he countered the weight with his own. He looked up to find you with a shovel in hand, ready to help.
“It’s not going to flow, it’ll stay stagnant and eventually splash back.” You shuttered at the thought, motioning with your shovel.
Stepping back he assessed his work and waved you away. Telling you to mind your own business and he continued to work at the ditch. When it came time to test the flow, there was considerable splash back that earned Clyde and you a few laps around the track.
He fully expected you to rub it in his face or tell him off, instead he found you ready to tell him about aqueduct water flow and the native soil. Tilting your hand to and fro as your body bobbed with each step.
He hung on your every word, much to his surprise, and found himself asking questions. The two of you were so engaged in your conversation, that you were reprimanded. Told to do another set since it seemed you both enjoyed a jaunty run. You ran that set in silence, parting as soon as you were dismissed. He watched your sluggish figure limp back to your barracks before heading back to his own.
The days that followed he hoped to see you again, hopefully have a conversation or two that didn’t revolve around latrine drains or running until the skin of your feet burned. But you never seemed to cross paths for long enough aside from the occasional run-ins on the track or at a distance during drills.
His feet now made of blisters and his fingers covered in calluses but he had successfully completed basic training. Within a few days he was shipped off to Fort Bragg where he met even more people from all over the country.
The air at Fort Bragg was just as stagnant and wet as it was at Fort Jackson, not that they were that far away from each other, but somehow worlds different. The closer tit got to deployment, the more overnight training drills his unit made. Soon they were set off into the wilderness for weeks on end, running in formation, practicing best case and worst case scenarios, sleeping on the cold hard ground, sleeping on the cold wet ground. Climbing, crawling, running, dodging, and marching.
Clyde sat patiently in the med center, applying pressure over his arm, keeping it elevated as he felt his heartbeat anywhere but his chest. He tapped his foot on the linoleum floor, keeping beat with the thumping that filled his ears when the curtain pulled back. You stood there, wearing your fatigues and reading his chart before looking up. A smile of recognition tugged at your lips as you pointed the tip of your pen at him, “latrine!”
His face pinked at the nickname, reaching his ears a bit as he gazed back at you. His lips parting into a toothy grin. “Latrine,” his voice a shy rumble.
“Fancy meeting you here, but not. Please don’t tell me you got this on latrine duty.”
He exhaled a small chuckle before explaining how he had hurt himself with a knife, not noticing how you leaned in a little closer as he spoke. “Why are y’here? This isn’t supposed-”
“Gah! This guy is just-” The bespectacled tech smacked the monitor in front of him. The screen pixelating before displaying properly. An affirmative beep sounded from the board. “Oops.”
“Oops?” The smaller tech looked over with wide eyes.
“No, nothing. He’ll be fine. T-This is fine.” He moved the mouse and clicked.
“Monday, around midnight.” Clyde hummed into the receiver. Jimmy on the other end, jotting down the date and time of Clyde’s return home. It’s a long flight back home, jus’ double check the flight number ‘fore y’come pick me up.” They said their goodbyes before hanging up.
Mellie and JoEllen had a homecoming party all set for Clyde. “It’s suppose t’be a surprise, but I know how much you hate surprises,” Jimmy told him. Giving him a much appreciated warning.
The pair had a BBQ planned for the weekend after he got back, giving him time to settle in back home before he was bombarded with visitors wanting to hear all about his exploits across the world.
He wasn’t much looking forward to that part or really any of it. Going back home to settle down with J**** and start a family. Maybe find work at the local water plant doing who knows whatever grunt work they had ready for him. Boone Country wasn’t exactly where he wanted to be. He wanted to follow y-
“Why the long face, latrine?”
You snuck up on him, deep in thought. He’d been holding off sharing his leave date. Knowing you’d be excited for him to leave and head back home, ending his second tour, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave y-
You passed the bottle back and forth. The bottle was small enough to sneak in your pants, running across base to scratch at the rough canvas of his tent. Leaning down you whisper screamed about where his head would be, “Get your tiny ass out here, latrine.”
Within seconds his figure lumbered out of the tent opening, pulling on his jacket and shuffling in his boots. “Will ya keep quiet? What do y’want?”
You slyly pulled the bottle from your waist band, shaking the amber liquid in the moonlight before he quickly shuffled over to you, grabbing you by the elbow and leading you to the back of the medical tents.
You settled in behind some crates, sitting on the ground, shoulder to shoulder. Popping open the cap, you held it up. “Cheers to you going home, relatively unscathed!”
“Don’t jinx me.” He took the bottle from you after you finished your swing, eyes pulled tight as the liquid burned a trail down your throat, the smoky flavor rushing through your nose.
He brought the bottle to his lips after throwing you a wink, coughing a bit as the burn of it. “This’ll strip engine grease.”
“Yup.”
You both did your best to stifle a laugh before you quickly shushed him. “So what are you going to do when you get back to Boone county?”
Instead of responding, he took the bottle from you, pulling a deeper swig than before. Eyes roaming your features he could see in the darkness. “Well, I don’t know. I don’t wanna work at the water plant or with the road crew.” He sighed like a frustrated bear, deep and rumbly working his jaw back and forth in thought.
“Let’s not talk about what you don’t want to do. Tell me what you WANT to do.”
He mulled at your question for a bit, chewing his lip as he struggled to see clearly. The floor beneath him eroded away the longer he sat in thought. The camo pattern of your clothes slowly blending into the sand around you as the canvas of the tents started to blow away.
“This is where I told you I wanted to make my own fortune and my own path. Maybe make a little business for myself and marry her because I was supposed to. I think I loved her but I knew I loved you too.”
Just then your laugh filled the air and you were struggling over his broad shoulders. “What’s this?”
“Nothin’!” His deep voice shook your chest as he quickly stood up, stuffing the polaroids back into the envelope in his hand. The lettering that was once crisp and perfect, now smearing and erasing. One of the pictures fluttered to the ground and you quickly snatched it up. Your face fell for just a second before you smiled and cocked an eyebrow.
“She’s cute!” You held out the picture, wanting to respect his privacy and hers now that you had seen more of her than she intended anyone aside from Clyde to see. Your skin burned hot, you knew he had someone waiting for him, but he never acted like he did. Not that he was fulfilling his needs with anyone that you knew of, but he never really brought her up. Clearing your throat, you gave him a swift and harder than it should have been pat on the shoulder before offering a “good for you” and quickly turning away.
“I saw how sad the picture made you, I should have said something.” Clyde took a tentative step towards you as he tried to run out of the tent, only to find himself in full gear in the back of a beige Humvee, his duffle bag at his feet. Over the coms static voices called out updates and observances. A heat suddenly enveloped him and pushed him over, tiny cuts piercing his skin before his world went dark.
You stood over him as he laid in white sheets, body draped in a blue and white gown. His mouth was dry and his eyes hurt at the fluorescent lighting above. “Clyde?” He tried to turn his head, but wasn’t able to and his hands were too heavy to reach out to you. Your voice floated in and out as his body tried to numb the pain. A sharp beeping sounded to his right, and more voices appeared, telling you to step back and away.
“No no no, she needs to come with me. Why can’t she come with me?” He moaned but no one listened until someone did. A man, the man from the medical place he just went to stood over him taking his blood pressure and sitting him upright.
“So the way it works is we map your brain, your memories and erase them. Delete them from the sections of your brain that light up.” He points to a lightboard behind him lined with giant slides of what Clyde assumes is his brain. “Will this damage my brain?”
“Well, yes. It sort of is brain damage.” The man chuckled darkly before schooling himself. A unit of soldiers marched behind him, taking the sides with them as they marched away. You poked your head in the room, “Clyde, I need you to hide me.”
“You shouldn’t do that. Don’t hide her.”
“But her I want to keep.” Clyde looked from you to the doctor in his white coat, back to you no longer in your fatigues, but in a sparkling dress with your hair done up. When he turned around Jimmy patted him on the chest.
“Congratulations, baby brother. Now remember to wrap it before you tap it.” Jimmy shoved a pair of condoms in Clyde’s hand and a box containing a small corsage that matched your sparkly dress.
You were confused and concerned, looking around you before turning to Clyde. “Are we going to prom?” The sounds of that one boy band he knew all the words to their songs because Mellie played their CD all day. He swayed gently under the twinkly lights, burying his nose in your hair. “I can’t hide y’here, this’ll go next. This has to go.”
“Go? Where are we going?” He pulled you towards the gymnasium doors. Pushing against the handlebar and pulling you though. It was quiet and serene around you, an empty room with so much potential. He stood proudly but knew he had to keep moving.
“Is this when you bought it?” He nodded, looking around at the empty bar. He walked over to the bar, pulling at the phone tethered to the wall and dialed your number. You peeked around his shoulder, smelling the soft fabric and resting your cheek against his warmth. He could feel you, until he couldn’t.
You picked up the phone, confused to hear from him. Apprehensive would be a better word.
“Clyde?”
“Yup.” He exhaled into the receiver, finger nervously tapping at the handle as his pink plastic appendage hung at his side.
“Are you ok?”
“Yup. Jus’ wanted to tell ya about… Jimmy’s little girl. Named Sadie.”
“That’s great Clyde. Listen, I gotta go.” The line went dead, the dull tone played right into Clyde’s ear.
She looked at him with nothing but pity and maybe a tinge of disgust. She couldn’t even look him in the eye and he knew why. She couldn't handle seeing him like this. Less of a man that she fell in love with, having to learn how to maneuver around this world with one hand.
“Clyde, it’s just your mood swings and all of this. What am I supposed to do? I can only do so much!” Her once brilliant eyes were now dim and exhausted behind all the hairspray and eye shadow, she wore her best fake eyelashes to let him down and leave his life.
“I would only be selfish if I made you stay with me.” And with that she turned around and walked out the door, at the bottom of the steps sat a shiny new mustang with a man with both hands and no PTSD or years of physical therapy ahead of him in the driver's seat.
Clyde watched as they peeled out down the road, the car becoming distorted as he shut his eyes. When he turned in the same room, she was back again.
Standing with her manicured nails on her hips, her voice muffled and far away as he looked on at a picture of the two of you back at Fort Bragg. Smiles on your faces as you were hanging off of Clyde’s back.
She threw a plastic cup at him. Grabbing the phone she dialed your number and thrust the phone in his hand. “You tell her to not come ‘round here any more, Clyde Logan Logan!”
“And then I did it, and I shouldn’t have but I did.”
He put the receiver down, watching it slide into a pool of goo before it melted away. The lights behind her shut off one by one, the space around them enveloped in inky darkness as it drew closer to Clyde, who shut his eyes.
“Clyde!” Your hand wrapped around his wrist as you pulled him to your chest. You fell on the dry ground. He grabbed your head, with both hands, looking right into your eyes. “Will this go too?”
“MM’I dunno. I hope not.”
“Are you trying to forget me?”
Clyde shook his head, explaining what he was trying to forget. Explaining, everything. You walked hand in hand down, pulling your feet from the ground that threatened to swallow you whole and through the tunnels line with construction equipment and vehicles. A man with short brilliant white hair walked beside you, talking animatedly as Clyde tugged you along, now dressed in coveralls and his hair hidden behind a green cap.
You came up to a hole in the side of the tunnel which led to a room filled with a series of pipes, next to the opening sat a giant vacuum. The man asked about some supplies to which Jimmy replied with a pull from his pocket.
Pulling you aside, Clyde brought his hands up once again, quickly lowering his left before holding the side of your face. He leaned in and brought his plush lips to your skin, his cap bumping against your forehead and falling to the ground. He mumbled apologies and regrets with every peck, covering your skin with his, tasting the salt of your skin.
You closed your eyes and leaned in, wrapping your arms around his waist as he methodically lavished you with all the unspoken apologies he never had the courage to say. The ground above rumbled with the cars of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, the wall you were now pressed up against vibrating with every pass of the horde above.
A sudden bang shook Clyde and pulled him from you, in a blink you were gone.
Beeping pulled the tech’s attention once again.
“What is it with this guy?”
Course correcting the program, he looked over the monitor to Clyde’s sleeping body. Watching as Clyde’s finger twitched, the faint outline of a ring visible. He narrowed his eyes at the sleeping figure before looking back at the monitor.
“There we go.” He grinned in satisfaction before popping another potato chip in his mouth.
Miles away, in your small apartment, you laid in a restless sleep. Sitting up, you reached for the envelope you’d received earlier that day. The tan colored paper was worn from it’s journey through the main. The corners slightly frayed, now aided by the pads of your finger.
You looked down at it, hopeful perhaps. The implications of the words hanging heavy on the light cardstock, the ink slightly raised over the letterhead but the message itself was flush and permanent in so many ways.
Fingertips traced the words again and again. You’d fallen out of touch over the years, avoiding each other until finally you were ghosts. Unknown now but the memory still living inside a part of both of you, now perhaps revived. At least you hoped so.
Words studied and committed to memory. Dissected over the evening and now as you sat in bed, reading them once again in the burnt yellow lamplight that only reached so far, fading into the darkness of the night.
Clyde Logan Logan has had JoEllen Bishop erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
tell me if it’s over
rap monster/v | pg-13 | currently ~3k words
Namjoon doesn’t know what to make of it. It wouldn’t be the first time Taehyung pulls a prank on him, funny or not, but the unfamiliarity is a little too convincing. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU.
here
"Look at it out here! It's all falling apart. I'm erasing you, and I'm happy! You did it to me first. I can't believe you did this to me. Brat! Did you hear me? By morning, you'll be gone! The perfect ending to this piece of shit story!"
-Sasori on Deidara getting his memories of their relationship erased
