#koeln writes

[telmes]

i thought maybe we would kiss tonight

notes: amenath in a city that isn't paris.

excerpt:

This city is alive, loud, its heartbeat tangled in neon lights and uneven pavement, in the laughter of strangers slipping between the spaces they leave behind. "You used to hate places like this," Amelie says, amusement coiling at the edges of her words. Nathalie exhales, slowly. "I still do."

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

people say i'm jealous, but my kink is karma

note: day 27 for @mlbfemslashfebruary. amenath/morning. it is the 27th in my part of the world. also the title is from chappell roan. :) warning for implied sexual content.

(ao3 link!) also found after the read more.

excerpt:

“I should go,” Amelie says without looking up. Her voice is raw, splintered. Nathalie exhales, a slow, measured thing. “I know.” And yet neither of them move.

They’re mirror shards, shattered and gleaming, trying to press themselves back together into something whole.

The pieces don’t fit together as seamlessly as before–not really. Emilie is gone and the void she left behind is jagged and aching, an open wound that will not heal.

Nathalie doesn’t know how she ends up in Amelie’s arms–doesn’t know who reaches first, whose hands grasp desperately at cloth, at skin, at the trembling edges of something unspeakable. She only knows that they’re here, that the night presses thick around them.

That grief makes them fevered, unsteady.

“She would hate this,’ Amelie whispers, breathless, into the night, her hands pressing into Nathalie’s ribs like she wants to count them, like she wants to carve her way into something that belongs– belonged? –to Emilie.

“I know,” Nathalie says, and yet she pulls her closer anyway.

It’s not about love. It’s not even about want. It’s something deeper, something raw and terrible. It’s in the way Amelie tilts her head back and gasps like she’s drowning, with the way Nathalie’s fingers press hard enough to bruise skin, to puncture, to claw into. It’s in the way they take take take, like if they could just devour enough of each other, then they could feel whole again.

Emilie is a ghost shoehorned between them, lingering in every touch. in every breath. She’s in the way Amelie’s fingers knot in Nathalie’s hair, in the way Nathalie’s lips trace along Amelie’s throat like an apology, a prayer. They’re both reaching for something that doesn’t exist (anymore), hands outstretched to the empty air, trying to mold themselves into the shape of the absence that Emilie left behind.

“She was always selfish,” Amelie says, voice breaking, and it’s a horrible thing because she sounds so much like Emilie in that moment that Nathalie wants to press a hand over her mouth and pretend pretend pretend.

The night swallows them whole, their bodies tangled and twisted; heat and grief and everything unsaid bleeding together until there’s nothing left but ruin, until their names are just echoes of something lost.

Emilie would hate this.

But Emilie’s not here and only the broken pieces remain.

And they’re trying—god, they are trying—to make themselves whole again.

—

Morning comes like an intruder.

Nathalie wakes first, disoriented by the cold. The space beside her is empty, the sheets still warm, still holding the shape of Amelie’s body. But the warmth is fading, and she knows—she knows—Amelie will be gone when she opens her eyes.

She’s right.

The room is quiet, save for the muffled sounds of Paris beyond the window. The curtains shift with the wind. Amelie’s perfume lingers, heady and floral, but already thinning, already slipping away.

Nathalie presses a hand to her temple, to her lips, as if she can hold something of last night in place before it disappears entirely.

She finds Amelie in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee she hasn’t touched. Her hands are wrapped around it like an anchor, like if she lets go, she will drift away.

“I should go,” Amelie says without looking up. Her voice is raw, splintered.

Nathalie exhales, a slow, measured thing. “I know.”

And yet neither of them move.

The weight of last night sits heavy between them, stitched into the bruises on Nathalie’s ribs, into the crescent-moon imprints of Amelie’s nails against her wrist. There are no words for it—no way to explain the way they tore each other apart in the name of something already dead.

Emilie is still gone. Nothing has changed.

Amelie’s fingers tighten around the mug. “Did she ever—” she stops, swallows hard. Her grip tightens. “Did she ever talk about me?”

Nathalie doesn’t answer.

Because yes, Emilie talked about Amelie. Both with fondness and frustration, with the sharp edge of sibling rivalry that never quite dulled, even after the years. Emilie talked about Amelie like she was a mirror she didn’t always like to look into.

Amelie exhales, almost a laugh, but it sounds more like a sob. “Forget it,” she mutters, tired, impatient. “I already know the answer.”

She moves like she means to leave, like this moment is already slipping through her fingers, like she never meant for it to last longer than the night, but Nathalie catches her wrist before she can.

Not a plea. Not an apology.

It’s just contact. Just something to hold onto for one second longer.

And for one second, Amelie lets herself stay.

[telmes]

and yet

notes: three people orbit around each other through grief.

excerpt:

He exhales like a man drowning. "You shouldn't" She smiles, tired, knowing. "And yet." She tilts her chin up, and he bows his head, and they meet in the space between sorrow and surrender.

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

thank you for the flowers

notes: adrien's love language is—

excerpt:

"happy mother's day, (nathalie.)" he says, and the words hang between them like a struck bell.

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

nobody does it like you do

notes: happy belated sangrestes day. this is sort of sangrestes i think.

excerpt:

Emilie laughs, bright and delighted. "See? Even your saint of an assistant agrees with me." She stretches, the silk of her dress pulling taut across her ribs. Both Gabriel and Nathalie still at the sight. "I'm bored. Entertain me."

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

thank you for being mine

notes: :)

warnings: explicit sexual content.

excerpt:

emilie is here now, breathing now, pressing into nathalie like she can't bear the space between them, like she needs to be touched, needs to be taken. and nathalie has never been strong enough to deny her.

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

sorry for wanting more

notes: little fic based on @stopaskingmetowearthatwig's comic "please take me dancing tonight".

the google docs title for this fic is chapinath sweaty emoji

warnings: implied sexual content.

excerpt:

"Nathalie," he says, her name hanging heavy in the air between them.  She can't look at him, not really. Not when his eyes burn through her like this, something endless, something that could consume her whole. "Look at me," he commands.

(ao3 link!)

[telmes]

thanks for strangling me to death, i guess?

notes: the Wish need you to do it physically for it to work. huh. warning for character death and strangling.

excerpt:

And yet, she exhales, slow and shuddering, barely there, her last act of defiance nothing more than a tired, resigned little whisper: "God. I hope this was worth it, Gabriel."

(ao3 link!)