This is an attempt at writing one of Dawnbreaker's dreams about current timeline Zayne, based on the ending of Zayne's third anecdote.
I'm headcanoning (until we have more information) that the moments between waking and sleeping could be a moment where one consciousness can blur into the other??
I am seriously onto nothing I just wanted to write Dawnbreaker angst because I'm pacing around the room thinking about Zayne's anecdotes.
Zayne falls asleep on the couch, soothed by the flickering light from the screen that’s still playing the old medical drama. It’s an episode he’s seen before, one where a difficult surgery plays out until the very end. The patient almost doesn’t make it.
In his dreams, Zayne lives this scenario almost monthly. These dreams are the most difficult. Sometimes, stressful days in the hospital give way to relaxing weekends with the girl. Sometimes, they do not. These nights where he dreams of days without her are worse than those that pass without dreams at all.
Moments after falling asleep, Zayne becomes conscious in the other world. His mind is hazy, just waking up. He turns in bed to see that he’s laying next to the girl, tangled in her sheets and dappled with moonlight. He lifts a hand and passes it over her cool cheek. He runs his fingers through her hair.
When she blinks awake, an immediate smile comes to her face. She catches his hand and squeezes it.
“You aren’t Dr. Zayne, are you?” She whispers the question against his palm, so quickly that Zayne almost misses it. Unlike the first time she recognized him, her voice is calm and her eyes are gentle.
Zayne finds that he is in control of his own voice. “That’s right.”
It’s as terrifying as it is electrifying to no longer be a passive observer in his dreams. She can see him. He can speak to her. He searches her face for any indication of fear. Zayne is a stranger in her bed, and yet the girl continues to smile at him.
“Will you tell me who you are?”
Answering this question is more difficult. Zayne has no idea what to say. He thinks that some part of him must exist within the doctor as some part of the doctor exists within him. This could serve as a touchstone if only Zayne knew how to connect the threads for her. Finally, he opens his mouth to speak, only to realize that he no longer has control of his voice. Zayne sinks away, submitting to his former passive role.
The doctor startles. Zayne watches his hand clutch the girl’s arm.
“Zayne?” She reaches for his shoulder, pulling herself closer. “What’s wrong?”
“Another nightmare,” he mutters. The doctor pulls the girl into his chest, burying his face in her hair. His harsh breathing gradually slows. “I’m alright.”
Zayne pushes past his disappointment, desperate to enjoy the respite of his dream without thinking of what could have been. He counts the girl’s breaths, feels the doctor’s hands stroke her hair.
What might she have said if she learned the truth? Would she have pushed him away? The dream grows hazy once more, Zayne can feel it drifting away.
When he awakes, the sun has yet to rise. Zayne turns the medical drama off and runs frustrated hands through his hair.
For just a moment, he thinks, the girl was holding his hand, not the doctor’s. This thought is enough to push him through another day.
hello! I'm updating my taglist for my fandom accounts. I got some requests for a tags on my upcoming fictif stories so I made one form for all of my writing taglists to be in one place. if you are already on a list of mine don't worry about signing up again unless you would like to be tagged in another fandom's fics.
She found him in the library, where she often did, alone.
The Avatar of Wrath, for all the deafening thunder of his fiery reputation, lived for the solace found in quiet corners of the Devildom. He was most at home in the library or his room with a book, a cup of tea, and the hum of a fire to quiet his thoughts.
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family therapist strikes again
pairing: satan/mc (she/her)
word count: 1,725
read on ao3
want to be tagged when i post fics?
spoilers for after lesson 16!
She found him in the library, where she often did, alone. The Avatar of Wrath, for all the deafening thunder of his fiery reputation, lived for the solace found in quiet corners of the Devildom. He was most at home in the library or his room with a book, a cup of tea, and the hum of a fire to quiet his thoughts.
"Hello," she said, "I knew I'd find you here."
Satan gave her a gentle smile.
"I'm easy to find, if you know where to look." There was an intimacy implied between them; she always knew where to look.
The events of the week before had been taxing for everyone. The revelation of Lilith's human life and the repercussions of Lucifer's deal with Diavolo reverberated through the House of Lamentation like a bell had been rung, calling them to mourn their sister anew.
The elder brothers—Lucifer, Mammon, and Leviathan—sulked in their collective guilt while the younger brothers—Asmodeus and Beelzebub—worried after the recently freed Belphegor.
Satan, as always, was caught in the middle, twisting silently with complicated emotions. He’d escaped to the solace of the library, leaving his brothers to their grief. It had almost been prophetic of a Diavolo to assign him the role of the middle child. It suited him, the oft-forgotten fourth brother, as he was long-suffering despite his fatal sin.
“How are you?” She asked, sitting carefully on the arm of his chair. If he were in a better mood, she’d turn and rest her legs across his lap or drape an arm across his shoulders. If he were in a better mood, he’d loop an arm around her waist or pull her from her perch and into the large chair with him.
His hands remained firmly on the book in his lap. She kept her distance.
Satan turned, looking her up and down. His expression was soft but reserved, like he was holding back crashing waves with nothing more than an umbrella.
“Family therapist,” he accused.
She only shrugged. The joke held a piece of the truth. She’d been checking in on all of the brothers since the incident, offering an empathetic ear. And, on a grander scale, she was always attentive of the brothers’ feelings.
In the beginning, this had been a method of survival—she’d felt it prudent to avoid demons in poor moods for her own safety. Now that she no longer feared the brothers, she found that a lot was to be gained by allowing them to open up to her. She’d made herself indispensable to the Devildom, just by being a good friend to her hosts.
"Your friend," she reminded him, though she'd be lying if she said she didn't desire to be more. And there'd been whispers between the brothers that Satan felt the same.
They all cared for her, that was abundantly clear in the way they doted on her and fought constantly for her attention, but they were starting to catch on to the special care she gave to Satan in return.
Just before the incident, she'd finally made her pact with the Avatar of Wrath. The other pacts had been easy enough—any reluctance had been mostly for show—but Satan had been more sanctimonious about the ordeal. In private conversations, he’d expressed that he feared for the transmutation that their relationship would undergo by way of the pact. He was afraid of the commitment, too. Her reassurances had been enough, in the end, as well as the knowledge that she'd been afraid of the same things.
When the pact was finally formed, it was true that something had shifted between them. There was that same supernatural feeling of trust that she'd been imbued with, just like with the other pacts. There was that same intimacy, as well, when they touched foreheads and she got the tiny glimpse into his mind that such contact afforded her. There was something else with Satan, though, that took some time to appear.
By the time she'd fully inhabited the feeling, they were swept up into Lucifer's revelations and into Belphegor's escape from the attic. There was no time, with the brothers so out of sorts in the fallout, to wonder after the pit in her stomach.
Satan hummed noncommittally. Fear of his fatal sin kept him from allowing himself closeness to others, she knew this. Still, she pushed.
She didn't fear him.
Really, of all the brothers, she'd always felt safest with Satan. He was soft-spoken and stoic but he never came across as cold or intimidating. His characteristic silence came with a strong, calming aura. Silent moments by his side felt like taking refuge in the shade beneath a tall camphor tree.
"You know, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to," she said, "but I enjoy hearing your thoughts."
Satan usually responded to gentle prodding. He needed to know that she cared, that she wasn't just checking with him out of some sense of obligation.
"My thoughts are complicated."
She laughed. "Aren't they always?"
Satan sighed, dropping the book from his lap onto the table next to him. He surprised her, then, by taking one of her hands into his own. He was careful, balancing their interwoven hands on her knee.
He didn't like to be touched when he was upset, so, even though he'd initiated contact, she kept still so as not to overwhelm him.
"Tell me," she said, after a moment of silence passed between them. "Even if I don't understand, I'll listen."
He squeezed her hand and began, "You know that I wasn't born in the Celestial Realm like the others, right?"
"Right." She didn’t understand this exactly, but she knew enough to follow the threads of worry that extended from the event of Satan’s creation.
"That means that I never met Lilith. I know about her, but she was gone before I was..." He hesitated to say 'born.’ That wasn't quite the right word. He shook his head. "I have these bits of me that aren't me and all of those pieces remember loving her."
She held tight to his hand as he shuddered. Though she couldn’t quite grasp the way Satan had come into being, she knew that he struggled with feeling like some part of him would always belong to something or someone else.
It was where his anger toward Lucifer stemmed from, this feeling of a debt forever unpaid.
"Do you wish you had gotten to know her?" She asked, unsure if this was the right question but hoping it would keep him talking.
"Maybe." He frowned. That wasn't it. "I think... I resent the inauthenticity of the feelings."
The answer was so precise, so narrow. He'd pinpointed the issue exactly. She wondered how long he'd had to sit there, half of his mind occupied with a novel while the other half grasped for the perfect verbiage to wholly encapsulate his frustration.
“That is complicated.”
The problems that the demons had were far beyond her as a human, though this was something she’d never admit to any of the brothers out loud. She usually found herself unable to offer advice. This time, though, she had a unique perspective in that Lucifer had offered insight on this same issue.
While Satan was created from Lucifer’s wrath and bore the curse of this as his fatal sin, his positive traits were all his own. He was uniquely able to mitigate the effects of his flaw, and uniquely steadfast in his concern for doing so.
It was a testament to Satan’s will that Lucifer so often found it hard to relate to him. Those parts of Satan that held foreign memories weren’t so much pieces of Lucifer as they were the foundations of Satan’s own life.
These feelings for his sister and these echoes of the Celestial Realm were as much Satan’s as they were Lucifer’s—they were his birthright.
She took a breath, wishing she shared Satan’s grasp on language as she searched for the proper words to express all of this.
“You’re going to hate that I’ve heard about this from Lucifer,” she began, finding it easiest to come clean ahead of what she had to say, “but I know he worries about most of the same things you do.”
Expecting anger, she paused, waiting for Satan to object. Instead, his face remained fixed, his mouth a thin line, his brows furrowed as he listened intently.
It struck her, in times like these, how much the brothers trusted her. Against all odds, against everything they’d been taught to believe about humans, they cared for what she had to say.
“All of those feelings are yours, because they’re a part of you.” She spoke in a soft voice, hoping to convey that she believed this to be a good thing. “That’s enough. There’s no use ignoring the way you feel just because it doesn’t make sense.”
“Hm.” Satan was thinking, there was no use for words as he took in what she was saying.
“When I made the pacts, there was this sudden wave of trust and affection every time. Those feelings are real, even if they originated from some place outside of me.”
“Right.” He nodded, looking away. She could see the ideas shifting behind his flickering eyes.
She squeezed his hand, bringing him back to her.
“I’m sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, I just worry about you.”
“I know.” He laughed. “You’re the only one who ever does.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
He turned back to her, flashing an odd grin. “I’m not just taking your word for it.”
“Fine.” She could convince him that his brothers cared for him another day. It was enough, in that moment, that he knew she cared for him. That war had seen many a losing battle.
“Thank you,” he said. “For finding me.”
Satan wouldn’t admit it, but she could tell by his lightened mood that she’d gotten through to him. This was as close as she’d get to him admitting that she was right. The problem wasn’t solved, necessarily, but he could move forward with new, more hopeful datapoints to tangle with.
He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist.
“You always know where to look.”
-
i want to maybe do one of these for each of the brothers and i was going to write them in birth order but then a satan event happened. also my allegiance is to the smart, stoic ones. i mean, have you seen the way i write? like obviously. obviously!
comments/reblogs appreciated. pls yell with me about these men. <3
Suresh Desilva never imagined himself buying someone an engagement ring.
His dream life included an impressive law school degree and a cushy job in corporate litigation that allowed him plenty of money and time off to travel the world with whichever pretty girl he felt like bringing along. It was all going to plan.
That was, until he started seeing Catherine. And all the visions of wedding bells and picket fences that seemed to follow her around.
-
Pre-villa. Two proposals gone wrong.
-
pairing: Suresh/Catherine (MC)
chapter word count: 4,317
read on AO3
want to be tagged in future works?
Suresh Desilva never imagined himself buying someone an engagement ring.
His dream life included an impressive law school degree and a cushy job in corporate litigation that allowed him plenty of money and time off to travel the world with whichever pretty girl he felt like bringing along. And it was all going to plan.
That was, until he started seeing Catherine. And all the visions of wedding bells and picket fences that seemed to follow her around.
They'd met at a bookstore in the science fiction section. Classic meet-cute. Suresh had been there buying a novel as a gift for one of his nerdier friends from law school but seeing Catherine had made him want to pretend to care about the books she was browsing just to impress her.
He was smooth, asked her out in the same way he did with other girls, and she'd accepted his number despite a skeptical attitude. It had helped that he bought the book she’d wanted for her. Otherwise, she might not have looked his way at all.
Over coffee a week after the bookstore, Suresh learned that Catherine was a Junior Doctor, specializing in cardiovascular surgery. He was thrilled to have met someone as dedicated to their work as he was to his. A doctor and a lawyer, he’d joked, they’d make a great pair.
Suresh had always thought of himself as charming, but getting to know Catherine made him realize that he’d been doing things all wrong. He was charming in a one-size-fits-all way. He walked into a room like a forest fire, expected the world to bend to his will just because it always had.
Catherine, on the other hand, was a slow burn. A pilot light. Reliable but oft overlooked. A tiny flame just for those that bothered to venture close enough. She didn’t charm strangers just by nature of being, she charmed those she cared to charm with painstaking effort. Learning this, like everything else with Catherine, took some time.
She was busier than he was—a first for him, he'd always had girls on his schedule and not the other way around. Many of their dates happened on carefully planned coffee runs in between meetings (Suresh) and during rare lunch breaks from the clinic (Catherine), but they made it work.
It took a beat for Suresh to realize that Catherine taking the time to get to know him at all was a sign of interest and an act of service. Her schedule didn’t allow for frivolous dating and neither did her personality. He kicked himself for not realizing sooner and planned an elaborate dinner to celebrate the milestone of him overcoming his ignorance.
He asked her to be his girlfriend that night and she’d accepted on the grounds of a contract they drew up on a bar napkin. A contract according to Catherine, that is. Suresh refused to endorse the legality of her shoddy document, even though he agreed to the terms wholeheartedly. The bar napkin vows were simple. They would both put their careers first unless things became serious enough to revisit. They would both do their best to communicate problems as they arose. Most importantly, they were exclusive as long as Suresh wanted to be. Catherine didn’t have time to worry about whether or not he was being loyal to her, so she gave him an easy out. They would separate painlessly if they needed to separate.
It had pained Suresh to see such a manifestation of relationship anxiety from Catherine. But he understood her hesitation, humored her, signed his name along a dotted line drawn in pen.
Turned out, the secret to getting a guy like Suresh to want to settle down was an equal match. Catherine worked like a foil to Suresh in all the best ways.
His old tricks didn’t work on her, and her occasional coldness wasn’t enough to keep him at bay. Both of them, though, knew the value of something that took a bit of effort.
After they became official, the relationship took on a whole new form. Catherine slept over after dinner that night and they’d had sex for the first time. Subsequently, she began sleeping over regularly. Often she would visit him late—early, she argued—after long hours of hospital rotations. It helped that Suresh lived near by the hospital. Catherine enjoyed the plausible deniability of a good excuse.
Six months passed without either of them really noticing.
In that time, Suresh learned that he enjoyed the slow burn. He learned that he liked letting her surgeon-steady hand stoke the flames. He learned that things didn’t have to flare up and fizzle out after a thrilling chase at a bar. They could build and rest, wax and wane. Live, breath, settle in.
It frightened and amazed Suresh all at once the way this thing between them felt built to last. And despite both of their reservations, things were beginning to get serious. Which brought him to the engagement ring.
They’d just wrapped up a two week holiday in Bora Bora. And while the trip had been idyllic, perfect days and exciting nights, Suresh found that he was excited to return home to the routines he and Catherine had settled into parallel each other.
It was fast for an engagement—lightning speed for a playboy like Suresh—but he’d heard the old adage. When you know, you know. And, fuck, he knew.
He paid for wifi on the plane to order the ring. Smiled at the secret as Catherine dozed with her head on his shoulder.
-
Suresh had never taken anyone home to meet his family, but he invited Catherine to Christmas in Edinburgh without a second thought. It had been a month since their trip to Bora Bora and Catherine had yet to mention any holiday plans with her own family.
“Come home with me,” he said, muting himself on the call with his mum, “for Christmas, I mean.”
Catherine shrugged, looking him up and down from her favorite place on his couch. Sitting, like she usually did, with a coffee in one hand and a patient file in the other.
“I haven’t got any plans.”
Suresh beamed as he returned to the call with his mother. “Yes, Catherine’s coming.”
He was a changed man, holding her hand under the table as they ate Christmas dinner with his family. Proposing on Christmas was a cliché that Suresh couldn’t bring himself to stoop to, but he was tempted as he watched her chat with his little sister. Laughing behind her hand, trading jokes with his dad and recipes with his mum.
The ring was in Suresh’s suitcase. Gold with stark white gems. A classic, just like Catherine herself. He carried it with him everywhere, even if he wasn’t sure when he intended to use it.
“This food is amazing,” Catherine told Suresh’s mother, dabbing the corner of her mouth gingerly with a cloth napkin, despite there being nothing there. “You’ll have to teach me how to make it.”
“I’ll send you the recipe.” Suresh’s mom beamed.
As much as he loved Catherine in particular, Suresh imagined that his parents would have been happy meeting any of his girlfriends. He could tell that they were just excited to be let into his life. He’d been guiltily aloof since moving out for school. Not quite estranged, but something approaching it.
The scene before him was pure familial bliss, a perfect contrast to the mercurial years he’d spent alone, flitting between bright office buildings and pretty girls and exotic destinations.
He squeezed Catherine’s hand under the table. He loved her. He’d told her so, weeks before, but he was still in awe at how much he meant it.
He loved her.
“I’ve got to get better at cooking,” Catherine said. “My older brother loved cooking when I was younger, so my parents didn’t have as much time to teach me.”
“I’ll tutor you any time.” Suresh’s mum tipped her wine glass in Catherine’s direction. “The door is always open. You’ll need to learn before you’re married!”
Catherine blushed, shifted in her seat.
“Amma,” Suresh groaned, feigning annoyance to save Catherine but feeling warm inside even still. “Don’t be like that. I wouldn’t mind cooking for us.”
He cooked for them plenty already, loving anticipating one of Catherine's visits and providing a hot meal when he knew her hospital days were fueled completely by vending machine snacks and cold cafeteria sandwiches.
“Maybe Suresh can teach you.” His mum winked, not missing a beat. “I’ve taught him well enough.”
Suresh’s cooking ability was a side-effect of his older sister’s tendency toward feminism and nothing else, but he was glad for it in that moment. Aashvi had rebelled against the idea that she’d have to learn how to run a household just because she was a girl, so their parents thwarted her by becoming egalitarian. Suresh, just a year and a half younger than his older sister, had learned to cook right alongside her.
He was a better cook than Aashvi, now. And more tidy than his younger sister, Dayani.
Catherine, on the other hand, had been raised by parents almost too progressive for their own good. She hadn’t shown an interest in cooking like her brother, so she wasn’t taught. Most of her meals at home came from beginner-friendly meal subscription kits. And, even then, her abilities were questionable.
Suresh didn’t mind, though. Completely antithetical to his stoic nature, he liked the idea of caring for Catherine like his mother had cared for his father and sisters.
As Catherine helped Suresh’s mother clear the table, Dayani held back, giving Suresh a meaningful look as she pulled him aside. His younger sister was in high school, now, but he still saw a child whenever he looked at her. He wondered when she’d started carrying around an iPhone and sending memes to her friends via Snapchat rather than reading children’s fantasy books alone in her room.
“I like her,” Dayani said. That much was obvious, she’d been holding court at the dinner table all night, trying to impress Catherine.
Suresh pinched her cheek. “I know.”
“Whatcha talking about?” Catherine rejoined them, giving Dayani a sly look. “Any good gossip?”
“Desilva business,” Suresh said. He threw an arm over Catherine’s shoulders. “Maybe we’ll get married someday and let you in on all the family secrets.”
“Hah,” Catherine deadpanned.
“Until then…” Suresh mimed zipping his lips and throwing the key toward Dayani, who caught the invisible key out of the air with a flourish.
Catherine smiled. “You two are so cute. It’s a shame Aashvi couldn’t make it, I was looking forward to meeting her.”
“Right.” Suresh grimaced. His relationship with the older of his two sisters was much less fun. Strained at best, soul-sucking at worst. He hadn’t told Catherine much about it, but it was probably for the best that Aashvi hadn’t made it to celebrate Christmas with them.
She stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Maybe next year.”
“Ew,” Dayani joked, “get a room.”
Suresh laughed. “Will do.”
“Gross.”
The room in question was Suresh’s childhood bedroom, now made into a guest bedroom. The single bed had been upgraded to a double once Suresh had gotten a good job and a nice flat and his parents accepted that he’d probably not be moving back in for a very long time. He was grateful that he and Catherine didn’t have to squeeze into a twin bed or sleep on an air mattress in the living room like Aashvi and her partner had done in the past.
Though the bed was different, the rest of the room had remained pretty well intact. His posters from high school had been replaced with family photos—overflow from Mum's scrapbooks, surely. His bookshelves, though, still held rows of mystery novels and textbooks, as well as trophies from debate club and souvenir trinkets from various breaks visiting his parents’ families in Sri Lanka.
“Aw, you didn’t tell me we were staying in little Suresh’s room!” Catherine made pouty-eyes at him and exaggerated the sentence with a cutesy voice. She lingered at the bookshelf, ogling a framed debate club photo.
Suresh rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t sure we were.”
“You haven’t been back here much, have you?” She asked, voice approaching a more serious tone. Catherine was always just one errant thought away from a serious discussion. She didn’t have the time nor desire to keep her anxieties to herself now that she trusted Suresh to hold them.
He turned, knitting his brows at her. “What makes you ask?”
“Your family treats you a bit like a celebrity,” she said, “like maybe this is a special occasion.”
Feeling caught, Suresh took his usual tact for when he didn’t have the words to help her feel better. He pulled Catherine into a loose embrace, turned his voice to silk. His presence was soothing enough, so long as he wasn’t the reason for her fears.
“It is a special occasion, baby.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s Christmas.” Catherine laughed. “But, I mean.”
“No.” He pulled her closer, kissed above the neckline of her red sweater. “Because you’re here.”
“Ah.” Catherine hummed, leaning her head to the side to allow him access to her neck. Her pensive look remained when Suresh pulled back, though, so he resigned himself to the truth.
“I’ve never brought anyone home before,” he admitted, “I’ve never felt the need to with anyone else.”
“Oh.” Catherine examined him with a frown. The stethoscope was missing, but he half expected her to ask him to turn and cough so she could diagnose the root of his family issue.
“I didn’t know that,” she said, finally.
Suresh shrugged. “I didn’t want to make a thing of it, but—”
“That is the kind of thing you might make a thing of, though.”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“I’m not scared.” Catherine’s tone went defensive.
She was. And Suresh knew it. Catherine had very little experience with dating. She’d had a boyfriend in high school, but had spent most of her adult life single, sparing a Tinder fling here or there. She distrusted the notion of romance a little bit inherently.
Suresh had to remind himself not to take it as a personal indictment.
“You’re sure?” He asked.
Catherine nodded. Pecked his lips. “I’m sure. Thank you for telling me.”
“Always,” he said. He kissed her forehead, gave a convincing smile, took her to bed.
-
The next morning, Suresh woke up to find himself alone in his childhood bedroom. Catherine was a light sleeper and frequently snuck out of bed when she stayed over at his flat, but it was surprising that she’d felt comfortable to sneak away in his parents’ home.
Suresh got out of bed, throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt before venturing to the kitchen, where he hoped he’d find his missing girlfriend.
“Good morning!” Catherine called when she heard the door open. She was sitting at the dining room table, having a cuppa with Dayani. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You could’ve.” Suresh grumbled. He didn’t like being left out.
“I’ve only really been awake for, like, twenty minutes,” Catherine told him. “Have a seat, I’ll make you a cuppa.”
Despite her reservations the night before, Catherine seemed quite comfortable navigating his family’s kitchen. He grumpily obeyed, nodding at his sister as he took a seat across from her.
“Remember when you used to stay up all night on Christmas because you were too excited for presents to sleep?” Suresh asked, trying to lighten his own mood with pointless nostalgia.
Dayani laughed. “Used to? I was up all last night.”
“Glad to see that some things never change.”
Catherine returned, a new teacup in hand. She set it in front of Suresh, her eyes darting between him and his sister.
“My family’s the same as you,” she said, “my parents are always up at four in the morning to open presents. We all take naps after, though.”
“Oh I wish! Mum is the worst, she insists on making a big breakfast for everyone before presents.”
“Actually! Hold on, one second.” Catherine left the table, scurrying back to the guest bedroom without another word.
“Where’s she going?” Dayani asked.
Suresh answered with a shrug. “No clue.”
Catherine returned a moment later with a small box, wrapped in peachy, luminescent wrapping paper. There was a little paper daisy on the front in place of a bow. Looking proud of herself, she placed the box on the table and slid it toward Dayani.
“You can open that one now, if you like,” she said.
Suresh had brought a gift card for each of his sisters, having given up on pleasing both of them long ago. Catherine had signed the cards alongside him. He had no idea she’d gotten other gifts behind his back.
“That’s from me. I hope you like it. Suresh was no help.”
Dayani beamed at her, carefully removing the paper daisy and unfolding the wrapping paper at the seams. She really was on her best behavior, Suresh had never seen her so careful with a gift from anyone else.
“Oh, this is so pretty!”
“Let me see.” Suresh leaned over the table, trying to get a glimpse inside the box.
Laid carefully on velvet plush was a delicate rose gold necklace with a little Pisces charm. Suresh vaguely recalled telling Catherine that his sister was obsessed with astrology. It had been a passing comment, though, he wasn’t sure how she’d remembered.
“Suresh told me you liked astrology,” Catherine said, suddenly a bit sheepish, “I hope you don’t mind the Facebook stalking it took to find your sign.”
“It’s perfect.” Dayani fingered the charm, taking it in with greedy eyes before looking back up at Catherine. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” Catherine blushed, sparing a sideways glance at Suresh as if asking his approval.
He gave her an encouraging smile, again overwhelmed with affection for her. Beyond everything else, beyond the other things he liked about her, Catherine was always surprising him. It was like she was privy to some secret information about the universe, the way she always knew exactly the right thing to do.
“You’re all up so early.” Suresh’s mom strolled down the stairs at a leisurely pace, playing up the drama of her entrance. She was wearing her pajamas and a fluffy pink robe, but her makeup was done for the day.
“Amma, look at what Catherine gave me.” Dayani held up the necklace in its box for their mom to see.
While his mum and Dayani cooed over the necklace, Suresh rose from the table to slip an arm around Catherine’s waist. He whispered in her ear, “I love you.”
He couldn’t otherwise articulate all the feelings he felt for the moment—all the awe he felt for seeing Catherine’s skill for anticipating the needs and desires of others. The warmth and care he’d won from her extending now to the people in his orbit.
“I love you, too.”
“You didn’t get me a matching necklace, did you? With a Leo charm?”
“Nah, not your style.” She smiled up at him, kissed his jaw. “Sorry to throw you under the bus.”
“Eh, I deserved it.”
“Next time the presents can be from both of us.”
Next time.
Along with the necklace for Dayani, Catherine had also secretly procured an uncannily well-chosen bracelet for Suresh’s mother, a sturdy watch for his father, and something in a small box—wrapped with silver paper and secured with a paper star—for Aashvi. All of this was a sweet revelation when they finally exchanged gifts by the fire after breakfast.
Suresh overheard a conversation about the gifts between Catherine and Dayani as the two settled at the kitchen table afterwards. Catherine had offered to help Dayani with her Biology homework once her profession had been discussed.
“Could I leave Aashvi’s gift with you for the next time she visits?” Catherine asked.
She’d have better luck sending it by carrier pigeon, Suresh thought grimly. Aashvi visited home even less than he did.
“Um, you could do…”
“You ought to just let Daya keep it,” Suresh interjected.
Catherine looked up at him with a frown, reminding him that he’d yet to tell her anything about his relationship with his elder sister. It hadn’t felt worth mentioning until now.
“Or we can mail it,” he said, softening. “That’s easier.”
“Sure.” Catherine returned to her conversation with Dayani, but he knew from her expression that she’d tabled the discussion for when they were in private. He braced himself in advance for her reaction to his lackluster explanation.
It wasn't that he and Aashvi had experienced any sort of dramatic fight or falling out. That kind of direct communication was beyond both of them.
No, they'd drifted apart in their slightly overlapping college years and had just never found enough common ground between them since to mend the rift.
Besides this, Aashvi resented him for reasons beyond his control. And Suresh wasn't the type to accept blame that he hadn’t earned.
He could connect the dots well enough to know what she felt, though. Aashvi was independent like him and opinionated like him. She lived for her work just like he did. Suresh imagined she resented the way their parents expressed disappointment in only one of them for being distant and disinterested in family.
But none of that was Suresh's fault. He'd support her wholeheartedly if Aashvi would just bother to ask him what he thought instead of building up walls around herself. As it stood, they would probably never again be close like they were as children.
He could practically hear Catherine's side of the conversation already. She'd tell Suresh that it was in some way his responsibility to wonder after his sister. She'd say that he was being selfish by not defending her to their parents. That they probably got caught up in a silly misunderstanding somewhere down the line and he'd regret never clearing it up.
The worst part was that for all his aptitude in building strong cases, he didn't know how he'd make an argument against any of those points.
-
Suresh was right on the mark with his predictions for how Catherine reacted to his explanation. They were packing their things that night so they'd be ready to leave the next morning when Catherine brought up the gift for Suresh's older sister again.
"Are we really going to mail this, Resh?" She held out the box, dainty and sparkling. Suresh was tempted to tell her that Aashvi didn't deserve it. The gift in its delicate, shiny paper didn't mesh with the image of Aashvi in his mind, all her rough edges and calloused hands.
"You didn't have to get her anything," Suresh countered, avoiding her question.
It was unfortunate, sometimes, the hold that Catherine had on him. Just one disappointed look was enough to make him reconsider.
Suresh sighed. "Fine. I'll call her and ask for an address."
"You don't know where she lives?"
"She moves around a lot."
Catherine frowned, reaching for his hand to pull him to sit on the bed next to her. “Would you tell me what’s going on? You've bristled every time I've mentioned her.”
Where went his brilliant poker face around her?
Suresh wondered if he'd be able to get Catherine on his side. He imagined all the ways he could shift the story around, rearranging the points in his mind as if preparing to draft a legal document.
Finding no pockets of logic to rest his frustrations with Aashvi safely within, he sighed, giving up before he’d really put up a fight. "It's silly, really. I'll call her."
He made good on his promise the next morning, left alone in the bedroom again as Catherine bonded with his family without him. He’d almost be annoyed at how much his family liked her if he weren’t also wooed by Catherine’s mere presence.
Like he expected, the call went to voicemail.
“You’ve reached Aashvi Desilva,” a recording of Aashvi’s voice said on the other line, “leave me a message an’ I’ll get back to ya’.”
Even in her voicemail, she couldn’t be bothered to pronounce her words properly. She mumbled, still, like a child.
A tone sounded. Suresh had meant to hang up, but he hadn’t. And now he had to record a message, lest his sister receive a ten second clip of him breathing. Christ.
“Uh, hey Aash. It’s me.” He cringed, wishing he’d planned what he was going to say beforehand. “Just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. Give me a call.”
He hung up, tossed his phone aside to get dressed. With any luck, Aashvi would ignore his call and therefore shoulder the blame for their continued estrangement.
Suresh was buttoning his trousers when his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Suresh?” Aashvi’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. Maybe he’d caught her in the Christmas spirit.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, unconvincingly.
Aashvi laughed and her voice found a sharp note. There she was. “Did Dayani put you up to this?”
“No, I…” He trailed off, unsure where to begin.
Why did he have to make caring for her so damn difficult? This is why he couldn’t ask after her, she questioned his motives every time.
“Merry Christmas, Suresh. Is that all?”
“No.” Suresh straightened, leveling his voice as if treating this like a business call would make it feel less like pulling teeth. “I wanted to ask your address. To send a gift.”
“You don’t have to send me anything.”
“Just—“ He took a breath. It wouldn’t do to argue with her. “Just text me your address. Please?”
“Man, whatever’s gotten into you…” Aashvi trilled, giggling like any part of ruining Suresh’s morning was amusing. “Heart grown three sizes today?”
Suresh grumbled, "Something like that."
-
thank you for reading! please don't expect this to be on schedule, i don't even know where it came from. i blacked out at my laptop for three hours and woke up to find this. comments/reblogs appreciated <3
Harry and Rose get a second chance after the villa.
pairing: Harry/CMC Rose
chapter 1 of 4
chapter word count: 9,145 (i know)
read on ao3
Despite winning a reality tv show and finding herself in a committed relationship with up-and-coming star Rafi Sayed, Rose Prichard was all too excited to go back to living a regular life after Love Island.
Rose loved her job as an event coordinator for a non-profit, despite the long hours and meager salary. After winning the prize money and moving in with Rafi, however, she no longer had to choose between a job that she loved and paying bills on time.
It had been Rafi’s idea for Rose to move in with him. He’d suggested it the night they won Love Island—before they were even technically a couple—and Rose resisted for as long as she could manage. It was far too soon, she knew that, but they’d been so close in the villa that resistance seemed futile in the end. She broke her lease and moved in with Rafi two months after the series finale.
Soon after the move, Rafi booked a breakout role and the job called him away for months at a time. In the year and a half that they’d lived together, Rafi had only been home with her for six collective months sprinkled throughout. Rose enjoyed spending her time alone or with friends in his lush flat— their lush flat—while he was away filming. It was idyllic, cooking meals in the fancy kitchen, entertaining guests in the well-decorated living room, and bringing her work home to a cozy spare bedroom turned home office. She hardly missed her boyfriend at all. That should have been the first sign that something wasn’t right.
On paper, Rose and Rafi made no sense. She was a private person, maintaining just enough social media presence to assure her distant relatives that she was still alive and, occasionally, using her fame after Love Island to promote charity events. Rafi, even before his stint on reality tv, had been a frequent purveyor of tasteful Instagram thirst traps and lifestyle vlog content. He thrived in the public eye and it was part of his career. It had been an uphill battle for him to get Rose to trust that the two of them could be compatible.
Rafi had joined Love Island late, infatuated with the girl he’d seen on the show. Rose had been there since day one but had yet to be swept off her feet. Harry, the boy she’d been most interested in before Rafi, was indecisive and immature. Rose gave up on him before the third recoupling, ending up in a friendship match with Camilo until Rafi’s arrival.
Rafi was already committed to Rose before the two had even spoken. His beach hut interviews were convincing love letters to a woman he’d never met that charmed the audience and caused viewers to root for the couple even before their first date.
Though Rose was slightly overwhelmed by Rafi’s initial feelings for her, he was able to prove himself as a partner and deepen his feelings beyond a crush on a girl on the telly. The optics were good. Of Rafi’s crush working out so well, of Rose learning to appreciate and understand and then return his feelings. Of someone coming in so late and so quickly becoming part of a strong couple. When they won, everyone but Rose seemed to have seen it coming.
After the show, their relationship remained somewhat public, despite Rose’s protests. When Rafi got invited to red carpet movie premieres, Rose’s name was listed on the invitation. Rafi’s publicist also encouraged him to post pictures of him and Rose together. He talked about her in interviews, included short clips of her reading or working in his vlogs, and even once took a brand deal promoting an app for couples, using her name in the copy of the ad.
There weren’t fights, really. Rose expressed her need for boundaries, continued to share the bare minimum on her own socials, and declined every brand deal and interview she was offered. She’d ask Rafi for discretion and be disappointed when he could only provide so much.
Rafi was back home for a short stint between filming outside the country and a small press tour for his show when Rose hit a wall with him. He made dinner and opened a bottle of wine, she filled him in on gossip from work and her friends.
“Oh,” he said, sounding startled at his own abrupt change of subject. “I forgot to tell you. There’s a premiere for my friend’s movie in a couple of weeks. I’m gonna fly you there for the night so you can come.”
The verbiage bothered Rose the most. He wasn’t asking, he was telling. She took a sip of wine and gathered her thoughts before asking, “What are the dates?”
The charity that Rose worked for had its annual fundraising event coming up, an event that she had been working to organize for the better part of the past year. She wouldn’t be able to travel so close to that event, she’d be too busy. Rafi should know that.
“I don’t know, it’s a Friday. About a month from today.” Rafi smiled, reached to lay a hand over hers on the table. “It’s an artsy film festival thing, I think you’ll like it.”
Rose knitted her brows at him. If he was right about the day, he’d planned on attending an event outside of the country the night of her fundraising event. She gave him a moment of silence, hoping he’d remember and correct himself without her having to break the bad news.
“What’s wrong? Do you not want to go?”
“Rafi, are you messing with me?” She’d been talking about this event for months, complaining about vendors and guests and tablecloths almost every time she spoke to him about work.
“Why would I be messing with you? We’re going to a film festival. Four weeks from today. What’s wrong with that?”
“Friday, four weeks from today, is the day of my fundraising event.”
What Rose expected from this revelation was just a few meters short of overreaction. She expected a rush from Rafi to apologize, a hurried explanation. She expected him to get his manager on the phone and cancel with the film festival. Have his assistant send a fruit basket and flowers to everyone involved.
Instead, he shrugged, squeezed her hand on the table. “I’ll tell them you won’t be able to make it.”
Rose withdrew her hand from his grasp, cradled it awkwardly in her lap as if nursing a physical injury. She frowned, giving Rafi yet another chance to self-correct. He raised a brow but kept his movie-star smile in place. Nothing. Rose hated conflict, even when it was unavoidable.
“What about my event?”
Rafi offered no solution, shrugged again. “You know I hate those things, anyway. Networking events.”
“Networking events?” Rose closed her mouth tight before she could say anything that might put her relationship in jeopardy. She was hosting a fundraising gala with a silent auction. Attendees certainly could network, but that was far from the focus of the event. Besides, his film festival certainly was a networking event. She didn’t argue, didn’t say any of this out loud. She stood, cleared her plate and his.
“Thank you for making dinner.”
Rose took the plates to the sink and started doing the washing up, her back turned to Rafi so that she didn’t have to keep her facial expressions in check. Rose was a terrible liar.
She could feel his eyes on her, though, watching her work to produce even breaths.
“I forgot to tell you,” she said, keeping her back to him. “I have to run to the office tonight and get some last minute work done. We added a couple of new organizations to the guest list so I need to get some paperwork ready for them.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
Rose turned, facing him again. She decided that she didn’t care if he knew she was lying or not. “I’ve got meetings tomorrow.”
“Can’t be helped then.” Rafi shrugged. He was playing it cool, but Rose could see his shoulders tense as he took another sip of his wine.
“Thank you for dinner, again.” She kissed his cheek on her way to the door.
-
Harry had never expected Rose to pick him in the first place, so he wasn’t surprised when she’d ended up with someone else in the end. He wasn’t surprised when she won, either. Rose Prichard probably could have won no matter who stood next to her.
If it had been anyone else, his first instinct would have been toward anger. He’d never understood the phrase, ‘if you love someone, let them go’ before. But he adored Rose. He was happy for her, despite everything.
After the show, when life swept them up in separate directions, he wasn’t surprised that they stopped talking. If her social media was any indication, she was happy and busy. Harry didn’t resent their lack of communication or push too hard to keep her in his life, he accepted her shrinking away. Eventually, he unfollowed her on Instagram.
It was hard enough seeing Rafi on movie posters, he had to draw a line in the sand and move on.
Some things were easier said than done.
Harry wasn't sure if his eyes were working properly when he saw her again. The last time he'd seen Rose Prichard had been at the taping of the 'Islander's Tell All' part of the Love Island finale. She'd been with Rafi all night, then, and had barely spoken to Harry.
But there she was, more than a year later, in the flesh. And she was walking into his office building.
Since letting Love Island and all its trappings fade into his past, Harry had continued his original life plan with some slight alterations. He’d landed a job at a tech startup, after learning that he was better suited for back end stuff, programming alone in an office rather than trying to hold the world on his shoulders.
It was rewarding, doing something he was genuinely good at. Even if his life was less glamorous than he’d once hoped, he was happier for the stability and self-assuredness that he’d earned in the pivot.
Rose scanned a key card at his building’s entrance and Harry watched in horror and confusion as his past collided with his present.
The large office building was home to multiple companies that paid to rent spaces or entire floors. It was entirely possible that Rose worked somewhere in the building.
Without thinking, Harry jogged to the door. He’d been enjoying a leisurely stroll before, early enough to work that he could enjoy walking the long way from the parking garage across the street. Seeing Rose had jump-started him like the espresso he’d planned on buying from the café next door. He scanned his badge and slowed to appear nonchalant as he walked in, he held his breath as he brushed past Rose and they stepped into the same elevator.
She looked up, eyes widening when she registered his presence and then his identity. He remembered nights by the pool, making her compete in staring contests just so he could swim in her eyes.
“Harry?”
“Oh my god!” He tried to play it off like he hadn’t seen her, but he suspected that Rose might be able to see right through him. He found he didn’t care. Something in him wanted her to know that he cared for her, even at risk to his pride. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” she said. “Do you work here?”
He beamed. “I’m a programmer on the sixth floor.”
Rose’s eyes lit up and she laughed, shaking her head. Her hair had grown since Harry had last seen her and she was even prettier than he remembered.
“That’s so weird. My new office is on the sixth floor.”
She had to be joking.
“You have to be joking.”
Rose laughed again. “Nope.” She pressed the button for the sixth floor as if to prove her point.
“Huh.”
“Why haven’t I seen you before?” Rose asked, stepping out of the elevator with some hesitation.
“Ah, I’ve been working from home…” Harry adjusted his backpack strap on his shoulder. Though he’d grown more confident, Rose’s clear gaze still had a way of making him self-conscious. He waved the question away. “Do you usually come in this early?”
It was just past five in the morning and they were among the only people in the building.
Rose frowned, seeming to take a moment to think about her answer. “I’m just trying to catch up on some things.”
Harry recognized the crease in her brow and wished she wouldn’t lie to him. He nodded, though, didn’t push the issue.
Harry had thought about seeing Rose again a terribly vast, innumerable amount of times. His imaginings ranged from the dark, where she laughed at him for thinking he might have ever had a chance, to the sweet, where she told him that she’d left Rafi and wanted to be with him instead. Now, in real life, none of those fantasies served him. He had no idea how to speak to her after all this time.
“What, um, company do you work for?”
The sixth floor was home to multiple companies besides Harry’s, since half of it was dedicated to a row of self-contained offices that served as overflow for higher-ups from other floors.
“The same charity as before,” she said, hesitating to say before Love Island. Harry nodded to communicate that he understood the impulse and she continued, letting their shared history remain unspoken, “I was promoted recently, though.”
“Oh, congrats!” The elevator doors opened again, depositing them on the sixth floor. It seemed that one had been round to turn on the lights, though. It was still completely dark.
“Thank you,” Rose said. Then, “Christ, it’s dark, still.”
Harry laughed and flicked on the torch on his phone, lighting Rose’s footpath. “I’m not sure where the switches are,” he said.
She walked forward confidently, finding a switch on the wall directly opposite the elevator.
Harry turned the torch back off. “Do you come in early a lot?”
Rose shrugged. “The new job is busy.” She looked off toward the hallway and Harry got the impression that she might be trying to shut the conversation down. He missed where he was a few seconds ago, trapped in an elevator where she couldn’t leave him.
In a desperate effort to preserve the conversation, Harry asked, “What is it you do, now? For the organization.”
“I’m still in event planning, but I’m pretty much in charge of the whole gala now. They made a position just for me, hence the office down here. They didn’t have room to give me an office where everyone else is.”
“It’s cool that you’re still doing the same stuff. Like, everyone else from the villa is basically an influencer, now.”
Rose laughed, shaking off the compliment. “Not you, though.”
Harry ruffled his hair, blushing. He occasionally helped with Nicky and Seb’s podcast, but Rose was right, he preferred the path his life had been on before Love Island—computer screens and tech startups. He could do with a bit more money, but he didn’t really enjoy all the attention of reality TV long term. “You couldn’t pay me enough.”
“We have that in common, then.” Rose’s smile was as genuine as ever, radiating warmth. She was gorgeous, inside and out.
Harry almost didn’t want to ask. “How’s Rafi, by the way?”
“Oh. Things with Rafi are good,” Rose said. Harry watched her hand toying with a loose thread that sprouted from the handle of her cloth tote bag. “He just got back yesterday from a shoot in Canada.”
“That’s good, then?” Harry couldn’t help but wonder why Rose would be at work so early instead of sleeping in with her boyfriend if he’d just returned home from a long trip. He didn’t voice the question, but it hung in the air regardless.
“Yeah!” Rose dropped the loose thread, clasping her hands in front of her to keep them still. “It’s a shame I’m so busy.” She laughed again, still a little stilted, and gestured lamely down the hall. “My office is number six, by the way—has a nameplate—if you ever need anything.”
Harry took a step back, taking the hint. “Of course, it was good seeing you, Rose.” He hurried to his desk, but her name lingered sweetly on his lips.
-
Rose didn’t know what to make of seeing Harry again. It was strange enough seeing people from the show on Instagram—Harry was right, most of them were influencers, now—or occasionally hearing about them from Rafi, who was better at keeping in touch with everyone. Seeing Harry at work was beyond strange.
For almost one entire hour, she did her best to throw herself into her emails. It greatly impeded her, though, that she hadn’t yet slept. Because of the disagreement with Rafi the night before and her subsequent all-nighter, she was both incredibly tired and almost three days ahead of her normal work schedule.
When Harry had asked her why she was in the office so early, she hadn’t had the heart nor pride to tell him that she’d been there all night, only having left the office briefly to stretch her legs and grab a spare phone charger from her car.
Sighing, she stood from her desk. It was a large rectangular glass desktop on a stained wooden frame, identical to the desk in her office at home. Both had been gifts from Rafi to celebrate her promotion since he’d been abroad when the promotion was finalized. She remembered the bittersweet feeling of receiving the gifts but wishing Rafi was there to celebrate with.
Harry wasn’t hard to find. The majority of the sixth floor was dedicated to large tables of open-concept desks where robust computers could be given sufficient room to breathe.
Rose smiled when she saw him. He was completely absorbed in his work, wearing a pair of large blue light glasses and over-ear headphones, staring dead into his monitor.
“Hey,” Rose said, waving her hand to get his attention. He removed his headphones and grinned up at her.
“What’s up?”
“Just needed a break,” she said. “And, I mean, what are the odds of us both working here and coming in early today? I felt rude for running off earlier.”
Harry gestured toward a rolling chair opposite him and scooted his monitor to the side so that he’d be able to see her past it. “Have a seat, then.”
“I mean, if you’re not too busy.”
He laughed, shook his head. “Nah, sit down.”
Rose sat, feeling at ease already in his presence. She’d liked Harry in the villa because he wasn’t intimidating. She had been instantly comfortable around him then too.
“What are you working on?” She asked. Harry kept typing, looking back and forth from her to the screen without losing pace.
He said, “I have a coding test coming up, I’m going for a better position on the programming team here.”
“Oh yeah?”
Harry nodded, a blush spreading on his cheeks. “I’m the only person up for the position internally, so it’s pretty much a done deal.”
“I hope you get it, then.”
Harry stilled his typing and studied Rose. His face lowered into a slight frown as he asked, “Is there a reason you're here and not at home with Rafi?" He paused, catching himself, and quickly added, "I mean, not like it's really my business but if something is wrong, you can talk to me.”
Rose wasn't sure what compelled her to be honest with Harry. She hadn't spoken to him nearly since the villa. It wasn't as if she’d consider him a particularly close friend, or even a contender for becoming one, but that lack of closeness also created a lack of permanence to the conversation. If she really wanted, she could spill her guts and then avoid Harry for the rest of her life. It hadn't been so hard not to see him before now.
"I kind of ran out of the house to avoid an argument," she said, slumping in her chair. "I do actually have work to do, but..."
Harry folded his arms and leaned back, giving her his full attention. “So, you’ve been here all night.”
Rose nodded in the affirmative, caught.
“Don't you have work to do?" She asked, unsure whether she did so to dissuade him from pushing further or out of guilt at having interrupted him.
He shrugged. "I've pretty much got this in the bag."
"The confidence!" Rose giggled, feeling lighter at his easy reply. She liked that about him, too, even if it had been a little infuriating in the villa, the confidence suited him now that he'd grown up a bit.
He had grown up a bit, Rose noticed. He seemed more self-assured and quietly confident than he had before. If the villa confidence had been an act, this new attitude was completely genuine.
"So, the charity gala I've been planning, right?" Rose said, still not completely sure of her desire to vent to Harry but not unsure enough to fight the words from falling from her mouth.
"Right," Harry affirmed. He’d heard about the galas when they’d been a couple on Love Island, she’d been involved in their planning then, too.
"It's literally all I do all year. I plan this event, it goes great, then I start over and plan the one for next year. Like, literally once a year all of my work gets to pay off."
Harry pushed his keyboard away and folded his hands in front of him, making a show of closely listening.
"So Rafi and I were having dinner and all of the sudden, he's talking about this movie premiere he wants me to go to..." Rose huffed, speaking faster as the irritation came back to her. "Which, like, fine. But it's the same weekend as my gala.”
Harry made a shocked face, covering his mouth with a dramatic flair. "No! Really?”
"Yeah!" It felt good to have someone validate her feelings, even if that someone wasn't her boyfriend. "Right? He didn't even apologize or anything. He just said that I didn't have to go and laughed it off."
"Wait," Harry said. "So, he's not even going to go with you?”
"Yes!" Rose felt more justified in her anger by the second, realizing she wasn't completely crazy for how mad she was. "At this point, I'm not even sure I want him to come."
As she said that, Rose realized that it sunk to the heart of the issue. She didn’t want Rafi at the gala if he didn’t want to be there. A small part of her, though, panged at the thought as a slideshow of her time with Rafi passed her by. The brand deals she didn't want to take part in and the press events she loathed. Rafi’s career at the cost of her privacy.
The first opportunity had come to return the favor and Rafi had fallen completely flat.
-
When Rose had coupled with Harry on their first day in the villa, Harry had felt like he'd won the lottery. He was stunned at first that she was interested in him at all, but he'd have felt that way about any of the girls. She was way out of his league, and he'd made a joke to her to that effect on the first day. But as time passed and they were able to get to know each other more, he realized just how lucky he was.
Rose was radiant and kind. She was able to keep the peace with people around her. She rose above the drama in the villa easily and always managed to come out on top of things. She was funny, too, and smart. Conversations with her were fortifying to Harry in a way that seemed rare and precious.
After just the few days they had together as a couple, he could see himself really falling for her.
Then he'd messed it all up. He got intimidated, worried that she wasn't really as into him as she let on. He'd started to get the sense that she was further out of his league than he'd originally suspected, that she was starting to get tired of him.
When his insecurities got the better of him, Harry started entertaining other options. He flirted with girls he cared less about because they would hurt his feelings less when they moved on. It felt cliché beyond cliché, so he'd never admitted it to a soul, but he broke things off with Rose because he liked her too much.
She didn't know this, though, she thought that the breakup was mutual, that they both wanted to explore other options. If she was upset, she didn't show it, didn't even give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd made the wrong choice. He knew that she was being charitable and kind and thinking of others like always. She didn't want a disagreement, so a disagreement was avoided.
She had liked him, though, he’d realized all too late, and he'd blown it.
To add insult to injury, Rafi had stolen the show completely when he’d arrived.
Rafi made a spectacle of how much he liked Rose, throwing Harry under the bus while he was at it. Rafi was a real man, Rafi wouldn't take a diamond like Rose for granted, Rafi could show her just how made up his mind was.
It had made Harry want to leave the show early. But he’d stayed, made his bed, got nice and cozy in it.
He was happy that Rose was happy, but he’d never been Rafi’s biggest fan.
Now, hearing Rose complain about him so charitably after he'd done something so careless and needlessly mean, he had to hold back all of the harsh things he wished he could say. He’d always thought that Rose was too nice for her own good.
"Maybe he'll realize his mistake after you ran away in the middle of the night. Like, he has to, right?"
Rose shrugged, looking completely at a loss. "He doesn't pay all that much attention to my silly moods. He knows that if I really have a problem, I'll let him know."
Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really? You will?"
"Okay..." Rose blushed. "Point taken."
Harry wished that she'd be more assertive. So many mean people that didn't deserve to assert themselves so much did so all the time. People like Rose deserved to get their way more often.
“Look, maybe this isn’t my place but Rafi should already know he's fucked up. Like, you shouldn't have to tell him that the thing you've spent a whole year on means something to you." He leaned forward, speaking faster, hoping to keep Rose from interjecting before he’d convinced her of his point. He liked the feeling of having nothing to lose with Rose, being able to tell her exactly what he thought. “Like, what if he spent a year working on a movie and you wouldn't even go to see it because you had plans with a friend the night of the premiere?"
Rose blanched, seeming all at once to realize the extent of her own hurt feelings. She said nothing, let her shoulders sink with the weight of what she felt.
"Maybe someone should send him anonymous hatemail..." Harry spoke without thinking, blushing when he realized he was thinking out loud. Lucky for him, though, Rose found it funny. She shook her head at him but giggled despite incredulity.
"Please don't," she said. "Christ, though, maybe I’m more angry than I thought because I am tempted.”
"You should be! That was a dick move."
"God," she said after a moment. "You're right."
“Of course I am.” Harry chuckled, downplaying the moment to keep her from sinking again.
"You know, actually…” Rose smiled, a mischievous glint in her eyes. It was a good look on her, sweet Rosie almost never looked mischievous. "If he does decide to ditch me, I could use a date."
“Surely he won't completely ditch you," Harry said, brushing the insinuation off. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. "Come on."
"He might." Rose sighed, resting her chin in her hands, despondent. "He didn't even think twice before telling me that I could just go alone."
"God, what an ass." Harry paused, covering his mouth. "I didn't just say that."
A laugh slipped past Rose's lips at his serious reaction. Harry was relieved to see her laugh.
“It's totally okay, he is being an ass." She rubbed her face, collecting herself again, and added, "I'm sorry, by the way, if that would be weird... I just, I don't know."
"If what would be weird?"
"You coming to the gala with me. I didn't mean... You know."
Villa history hardly seemed like history, but Harry got her meaning. "No, not at all. I'd be honored to come.”
She smiled, radiant. Harry never realized before this that he could miss someone so much when they were right in front of him.
-
For the first time since she'd been hired at her organization, Rose left work early. She went straight home after lunch, practicing what she was going to say to Rafi the entire drive from the office. Harry was right, Rafi shouldn't have to be told how much the gala meant to Rose, it wasn't too much to ask for her to want him to be there. Or at the very least to expect some kind of remorse for not being there.
She knew he’d be home. During the weeks Rafi was off of work, he spent most of his time at the flat doing small press things over the phone and watching movies in his pajamas. Rose would almost envy all of his free time if she didn't love her job so much.
"Rose?" Rafi was standing in the kitchen, he called her name when she came in the door, surprised to hear her. "Put out all the fires?"
Rose resented the sardonic tone that crept at the edges of his voice. He had a bad habit of not taking her work seriously, of treating her just a bit like she was silly for working so hard when she didn’t need to be working at all.
She set her tote bag in a dining chair, keeping quiet. Rose didn't want to engage in an argument right away, even if she felt she had grounds to win it.
"I got a lot done," she said. "I want to talk, though.”
Rafi made a low noise in the back of his throat, a dismissive hum. “Aren’t you tired? You were out all night.”
He was right, she was exhausted. But as much as she wanted sleep, she didn’t want to do so before she’d at least attempted a resolution of the conflict. Part of her wished she'd taken a nap on the couch in her office. It wouldn't have been comfortable, but she might feel a touch more coherent if she had.
"You need your sleep, my love," Rafi said, his voice softening. He took a step toward her around the kitchen island and reached out to brush a strand of hair out of her face.
“Why don’t we talk after you get some rest? I promise it’ll go better if you’re not running on empty.”
Rose sighed, relenting almost immediately. As much as she didn’t want to have this conversation, she especially didn’t want to have it go poorly. She had a better chance of expressing herself properly if she was better rested.
“You’re right,” she said, letting him take her to bed.
-
The morning of Harry's interview, he was surprised to learn that he wasn't nervous. He was confident in the fact that he’d done good work. He deserved the job.
In his school years, working as an intern on the business side of things, Harry had always felt a little out of his depth. He’d never felt able to measure up to his coworkers or mentors, nor could he pinpoint what was missing. It was refreshing to be in a completely different position now, knowing he was the best man for his job.
As a celebration of his newfound confidence and an indulgence in a guilty fantasy, Harry bought an extra donut and cup of coffee from his favorite café on his way to the office. He took them straight up to the sixth floor and to Rose Prichard’s office.
When he reached her door, he realized that his hands were too full to properly knock. He laughed, gently knocking his head against the glass door to get her attention.
Rose’s smile when she saw him could have launched a thousand ships.
"What's this for?" She asked, letting him in and accepting the coffee and pastry bag as he offered them to her.
"It's a good luck breakfast!"
“That’s right, your interview is today, isn’t it?”
Harry loved that she’d remembered.
"Yes! And I'm, like, not nervous at all." He'd done a lot of practicing. A lot of late night hours in the office hoping to see Rose. When she didn't show, he’d at least been able to focus his energy on acing the coding test.
"You're gonna crush it." Rose took the lid off of her coffee, blowing it gently before taking a careful sip. “I don’t know why you brought me coffee as a good luck charm, but thank you.”
"Of course." Harry blushed. He liked doing things for her.
Harry took a seat on the small sofa opposite Rose's desk. In the time since he'd started working on her floor, he'd seen her reading or lounging on this couch just after the end of her work day. He'd wondered at first what she needed with a couch in her office, but it seemed that she got good use out of it. Her office was like a second home to her.
He wondered once or twice if she enjoyed being work more than she enjoyed being home.
"I meant to ask," Harry said, pulling Rose's attention back up from her computer monitor. She'd immediately returned to her email mid-conversation. She'd been a bit of a space case in the last couple of days, but her gala was approaching quickly and Harry knew she was constantly worrying about minor details. Harry knew she must be thinking about it all hours of the day. "How did the conversation with Rafi go?"
She gave Harry a guilty look and his heart sank. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“We didn’t really talk.”
“You didn’t…” Harry sounded more surprised than he felt. In the time that he’d known Rose, he’d never known her to be confrontational. She enjoyed keeping the peace, even if it meant swallowing her guts.
“I tried, but I was too tired that day to be coherent and then we only just brushed past it.” She resumed typing, keeping a level tone of voice as a show of nonchalance. “It just kept getting further and further away until it felt silly bringing it up again.”
“Are you still upset?”
She considered for a moment too long for the answer to be no, regardless of what she wanted to tell him.
“Rose.” Harry did his best impression of a stern parent. It didn’t suit him, but he persisted. “You’ve got to talk to him soon, doesn’t he leave for his trip this week?”
“Right.”
“Well there you are. He’s not going to fly back last minute if he doesn’t think this is important to you.” Harry kept what he wanted to say back. He wanted to remind her that Rafi should know better without being told. But he didn’t want Rose to think he was outright bashing her boyfriend by remaining so firmly against him. Even if Rafi objectively deserved the bashing.
“I’ll try to talk to him again,” Rose said. Harry wasn’t convinced.
“Promise?” He stood halfway to reach out to her, offering a pinky in a silly—but hopefully sincere—gesture of solidarity.
She rolled her eyes but locked her pinky with his. Her touch sparked electricity that traveled all the way to his bones. “I promise.”
-
Rose stormed into the apartment, dropping her keys and bag on the entry table with a clatter. She didn't want to lose any of the momentum she'd worked up in the car this time.
“We need to talk,” she said. Telling, not asking.
“What’s wrong, Rosie?” Rafi looked shocked, but he maintained a level voice. He was wearing nothing but a nice pair of silk pajama bottoms and had been relaxing in front of the TV when Rose barged in, flustered. All things considered, he was taking the intrusion in stride.
All in one breath, before she could even take a seat next to him on the couch, Rose said, “I’m upset about you not coming to my gala. Like, I know you have other things going on—which is fine. But you don’t even seem sad about it or sorry you’ll miss it.”
Rose stopped speaking just long enough to sit next to him on the couch, pulling one leg up next to her so that she could face him in her seat. She continued, “It’s really hurt my feelings, Raf. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it before, but…”
She trailed off, trying desperately to blink away tears. It had been made into a joke on Love Island that Rose cried easily and often, which made her all the more self-conscious now.
“Rosie…” Rafi reached for her, pulling her to scoot closer and lean into his bare chest. He closed his strong arms around her when she complied. Rose hated how her easy tears always toppled the balance of these types of conversations. How quickly the other party stopped taking her seriously when she started crying.
She didn’t want to be coddled, she wanted to be heard.
“Rosie, come here.” Rafi smoothed her hair down as she tried to collect herself, but her efforts were very nearly in vain. She felt hysterical.
“How long have you been holding onto this?” He asked.
The tears came faster. It had been almost two weeks since he’d told her about the film festival.
“I didn’t want to make it a thing,” she whimpered, feeling pathetic.
“It’s okay.” Rafi smoothed her hair again, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s alright, baby.”
The angry, frustrated part of her wondered if he was ever going to actually apologize or if he’d just continue to comfort her meaninglessly. He acted like she was upset at someone or something completely separated from him. Like he was saving her from her own sadness, detached from all meaning.
“Do you know what I mean, though?” Her rising anger kept the tears at bay long enough for her to speak again. “I feel dismissed.”
Rafi shook his head. “I know, but you’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
Frowning, Rose said nothing. She pulled back, daring him to say what she knew was coming.
“Well, if I’d known sooner how much it meant to you I would have been able to change things but…” He trailed off. She got the gist. This wasn’t his fault anymore. He’d surely have been more considerate if she’d given him proper notice.
Rose cut him off. “So that’s it, then?” Her voice was soft, not malicious even if she deserved to be.
“I’m sorry,” Rafi said. He tried to reach for her arms again but she shook him off. “It’s out of my hands!”
Rose recoiled, sinking into herself once more. Speaking her mind hadn’t fixed anything, but at least she knew that she had a right to be angry. She stood, took quick steps towards the door. “I’m going back to work.”
“You’re not.” Rafi gave an incredulous laugh.
“I am.” She punctuated the sentence with the rattle of her keys being retrieved from the entry table. “This was my lunch break.”
“Rose, please.”
“If you can’t change anything, fine.” She opened the door, took a step outside. “Forget I said anything.”
Rose shut the door gently behind her, wishing she had the strength of conviction to slam it.
-
When Harry's interview ended and he was told that he'd be moved to the better postion, he was first thrilled, then struck by an odd desire to run directly to Rose's office to deliver the good news. He hadn’t even called his mother yet but, there he was, taking the elevator back up to the sixth floor.
He arrived to find that the lights had been turned off and Rose was no longer there. It was odd for her, to be gone this early in the day.
Harry knew that he should hope that she was talking to Rafi, finally getting the apology she deserved, but he wished despite this that she was just taking her lunch or in a meeting, that she’d be back before the end of the day.
Without Rose to share his news with, Harry went back to the first floor. He’d taken the rest of the day off for the interview, since it was scheduled after his lunch. His second instinct was to step outside and call his mom.
In front of the office building, Harry dialed his mom’s cell and took a seat on one of the large, concrete blocks that replaced actual benches in favor of a brutalist, corporate aesthetic.
“You have good news?” Harry’s mom had texted him a sweet good luck message that morning. She would be happy with him even if he hadn’t been given the job, but he was filled with pride to tell her that he had.
“I got the job,” he said. He smiled down at the cracks in the sidewalk, warmth rising to his cheeks at getting to say the thing out loud. “I’m really excited.”
“I’m proud of you,” his mom told him. He was overjoyed. “Really, good job, son.”
“Thank’s mom.” Harry kicked his legs, feeling unusually boyish despite his grown-up accomplishment. He looked up at the sky, trying to take in the moment. So much of him had changed in the last few years. It was like he could feel his frontal lobe developing in real time.
He’d grown into a man his mother was unequivocally proud of.
Harry’s mom told him about what she was cooking for dinner and about some home-town gossip and Harry listened patiently, happy for the distraction from wondering where Rose was.
When he finally hung up the phone, he almost didn’t believe his eyes when he looked up and saw her. It was as if Rose had been conjured from his mind and placed in the street in front of him.
“Rosie!” He hopped up from the bench, waving to get her attention before she entered the office building. He wasn't sure why the nickname had come to him, but it felt comfortable, like he’d said it a hundred times before.
She turned and the corner of her mouth budged into a hint of a smile. “What are you doing out here?”
He held up his phone, shook it for emphasis. “Calling my mom.”
The realization struck her and she gasped, dropping all casual pretense for sincere excitement. “Ah! Did you get the job?”
Harry flushed, head to toe, warm with pride like he’d taken a shot of liquor. He was sure his cheeks were tinged with pink, but he didn’t entirely mind.
“I did.”
“Oh my god!” Rose beamed at him. “Harry, that’s amazing!”
He didn’t remember the last time he’d heard her say his name, but the sound of it made him dizzy. He looked down, kicked at the air in front of his foot. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m really glad.”
“I’m glad for you! Are you coming back inside?” She asked. “Or did you take time off for the interview?”
“They told me I could take the day.” Emboldened by his recent luck, he asked, “Have you eaten lunch already?”
-
Since she’d taken her lunch break to try to talk to Rafi, Rose knew that the responsible thing would be to grab something from a vending machine, go back to her office, and resume work. She found that she didn’t want that, though. In direct contrast to the last few weeks, where she had felt safest while locked away in her office, Rose didn’t want to go back to work.
She wanted to go to the Pho place Harry suggested for lunch. To stay with him for the rest of the day. She felt uncharacteristically carefree when she had his positive attitude to bask in, and a woefully neglected piece of her wanted to hold onto the feeling for as long as she could.
As a compromise—because Rose couldn’t abandon the gala as much as she wanted to—she invited Harry up to her office and they ordered Pho to be delivered.
While they waited for their food, Rose answered emails and called vendors. She had no extra time to spare away from gala preparations. Harry was patient, chatted to her about her work when she could spare the focus and played a game on his phone when she couldn’t.
Rose enjoyed Harry’s company, even if they weren’t speaking.
When the food came, they cleared space on Rose’s desk to eat. It was cramped, since she didn’t want to get hot broth too near her computer. They had to sit on the same side of the desk, elbows bumping for the fact that Harry was left-handed.
“We could switch sides,” Harry said, giggling at yet another accidental bump.
Rose shook her head, giggling as she scooted a tiny bit away. “No, it’s fine. I’m sorry my desk is only really built for one.”
“I don’t mind being cozy.” As if to prove his point, Harry bumped her elbow with his again, a playful jab. “But we wouldn’t have this problem if you traded me seats.”
“I didn’t know you were left handed.” She bumped him back. “Isn’t it weird how little we actually learned about each other? You know, on the show?”
In the nearly two weeks since they’d been reacquainted, neither of them had really mentioned the reality television shaped elephant in the room. It had been easy not to address their shared history, to let any past heartaches fade into the background. Rose wasn’t sure what made her bring it up, then.
Maybe it was getting harder to spend time with Harry without thinking about what it had been like to kiss him.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked.
“I didn’t really know you were left-handed, to start.”
On Love Island, they hadn’t been allowed to talk about certain things early on. Their conversations were kept infuriatingly shallow until the end, manufacturing an artificial sense of closeness between the finalists and keeping drama front and center. Rose knew the basics; Harry was from York, he’d still been a student then. They’d swapped descriptions of their family dynamics and anecdotes about their studies. Harry had once bragged about how early he woke up every morning to recite positive affirmations.
Plastic kiddie pool shallow.
“To be fair, I was too busy trying to impress you to open up much,” Harry admitted. Rose stared down into her bowl, too startled by his honesty to meet his eyes. “I mean, that’s how everyone was, though.”
“Right, we didn’t get into a lot of deep conversations until the end.”
“No,” Harry chuckled. “I mean, everyone was trying to impress you.”
Rose turned, knitting her brows at him. She’d never understood this impression people had of her time on the show—that she’d been particularly well liked or desired. On some level, something like that had to be true for her to have won in the end, but she’d assumed that the popular vote had been won in large part by Rafi’s charisma, not her’s.
“Everyone was trying to impress everyone,” she told him. “But things were weird there, we had to be these silly, exaggerated versions of ourselves in order to stand out. I don’t feel like I really got to know anyone until after.”
“Does that include Rafi?”
“I think so,” Rose admitted. “Not entirely a bad thing, but... I don’t know, there’s a reason reality TV relationships don’t usually work out.”
Harry paused, a crease forming between his brows as he seemed to see through to the heart of Rose’s sudden nostalgic turn. “Did you talk to him?”
Rose sighed, nodded. She’d suspected that her feelings about the argument with Rafi would catch up to her eventually, but she’d hoped to at least finish lunch first.
“Here’s the thing,” Harry said. “If you don’t want to talk about it again, we don’t have to. But if you need to vent, I really do care for you, Rose.”
She could only bear to let the sincerity of his statement linger for a moment before it was too much.
“It didn’t go well,” Rose said. She could start there, understated. “I mean, basically exactly what you predicted happened.”
“Meaning?”
Tears welled in her eyes already. Rose wished for the second time that day that her heart were just a touch further from her sleeve.
“He said that if he’d known sooner then he could have changed his plans, but…” Her voice cracked and she trailed off, looking away from him in an attempt to preserve her pride.
When she looked back, Harry’s face was twisted into a deep frown, barely holding back anger. Then, seeing her eyes again, his gaze softened into a look of deep concern.
“Can I offer some unsolicited advice?” He asked.
-
Harry hated to see Rose cry.
Only once in the villa had she cried in front of him, but her easy tears had been made into a running joke by the producers and the narrator on the show. Harry remembered hearing the narrator joke about it for the first time, how furious it had made him. That had been one of the first things that made him want to distance himself from the franchise entirely.
“If I grant permission I don’t think it’s unsolicited advice anymore,” Rose joked, a sad attempt at a laugh bubbling from her chest. “But go ahead.”
“I think you should consider what this means for the rest of the relationship.” He wasted no time getting to the point. In the time since Rose’s first argument with Rafi, Harry had been consumed with desire to fix things for her. But he had his reasons to hesitate to get involved. He didn’t want to seem like he was rooting for a breakup or judging Rafi too harshly, even if he suspected that Rose didn’t know he still harbored feelings for her. Here he was, though, past the point of no return.
He continued, “Like, if you think you can accept that your feelings were hurt and that he’s probably not going to fix this, then you can move on. But if you can’t…” The insinuation hung between them without Harry having to say the words. He didn’t want to tell her to break up with him outright. Even if that was objectively what he thought she should do.
He expected Rose to reel back or offer some kind of rebuttal or defense of Rafi. She didn’t, though. Instead, she twisted her hands together in silence for a moment. Then, “God, Harry, when did you get so wise?”
Harry blushed, surprised at the comment. He’d never once been accused of being wise. “Oh, you know…”
Rose took a moment, silently collecting herself, brushing her eyes with the backs of her hands. She must wear very waterproof mascara, Harry imagined, the corner of his lip twitching up at the thought.
“What are you smiling at?” She narrowed her eyes, but cracked a smile at the same time, only selling her attempt at annoyance halfway.
“Is your mascara waterproof?” He asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Very funny. Yes it is.”
Without thinking, he reached for her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You know, I hated how they made that a thing for you. On the show.” He pulled his hand back, cradling it in his lap as if to keep himself from reaching for her again. “It made me so mad seeing them trivialize your feelings the way they did.”
Rose gave him a doe-eyed look, like she didn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
“Oh, um…” She wiped her eyes again then looked around the room to avoid eye contact. He remembered how she fled from moments of sincerity in the villa. How much Rafi had been required to push her to make her realize his feelings were genuine. “I appreciate that.”
-
Rose had feared conviction like this when she’d first moved in with Rafi. The conviction that she should break up with him without knowledge of where she would go if she did.
She resented the fact that the name on the lease was his. Since he paid most of the bills, it meant that she would be the one who would have to leave. Even if she’d been the one that spent the most time in the flat, making it a home.
After her lunch with Harry, Rose told him that she needed time to think and to focus on work. Even though a tiny part of her wanted him to push back and not leave her to herself, Harry absconded without protest.
Rose thought about texting Rafi and preparing him for a conversation when she got home, but she couldn’t work up the nerve. She finished her work for the day, tried not to think about the conversation ahead, drove home without a plan.
As she walked up the stairs to the front door, her phone dinged. A text from Harry wishing her luck. She walked into the flat smiling, grateful for Harry’s support.
The living room was dark, though, and Rafi was gone. Because he wasn’t in town much, he didn’t drive, so there was no way to judge whether or not he was home by a car outside the building.
Rose went to the bedroom and her office, just in case, but he was nowhere to be found. She was halfway through typing a text asking where he was when she saw the note on the kitchen counter.
Rose,
I had to catch a flight, they need me on set early. I’ll call you when I get in tonight.
Rafi
-
so sorry this was way more self indulgent and much longer than it needed to be. cheers.
When sharing the villa with her cheating ex gets to be too much, Eleanor Jones leaves Love Island on her own terms.
(S5 CMC Eleanor x Bobby McKenzie)
This is a weird one, I know, but I was inspired by the social media careers of former reality TV contestants, wondering what it would be like if someone left the show during Ex in the Villa and ended up acquainted with some former seasons' islanders. This started out as a sort of meta commentary on S5 vs past seasons, but I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out. If you also miss Bobby desperately while reading the new season, this is for you.
hello! this was written for the LITG exchange for the lovely @sunshinejihyun. I hopefully incorporated two prompts here, so I'm really happy with how it turned out. especially having never written for Gary before. I think I might be a convert, though, writing Gary is super fun.
thank you so much to @justtuesdays and @sunshinejihyun for organizing the exchange, I had so much fun writing with ya'll and I'm so excited to see everything posted this weekend.
READ ON AO3
Bobby Mckenzie hadn’t set out to win Love Island. He hadn’t even really set out to be on Love Island. He never thought that he would meet someone like Margot. His first real love, his best friend, his favorite person, his best and worst breakup. He’d never imagined he could fall in love with someone over one summer, then be happy to see them with someone else the next.
Such was the way the cookie crumbled.
When he first saw Margot, he felt a sort of vertigo. Though Bobby wasn’t a serious person, he wasn’t the type to be a lovey-dovey hopeless romantic, either. He thought himself not quite a pragmatist, but something nearing it. Though he loved the idea of falling head over heels for someone, he’d never really felt any of those sweeping, tumultuous, unambiguous feelings.
Maybe it was the Mallorca sun in his eyes, maybe it was nerves from being on TV, perhaps the cameras pointed at him made him feel like the lead in a John Hughes movie. Maybe it was truly her. He’d never know, he’d given up trying to know.
Something made his heart leap when he first laid eyes on her. He remembered how his mind reeled to find a joke funny enough to catch her attention, remembered hoping she wanted someone funny. He needed her to love him too.
And she did, for a little while.
-
Gary Rennel set out to win Love Island.
“Go big or go home, right?” He’d told his Nan, folding and packing the same ripped jeans and button-down he’d worn to his local the weekend before. He was making a thing of signing up for the show, sound and fury for the sake of distraction. Nan was worried about him, he could tell. And the boys at work were relentless in their teasing.
“They’re doing a random draft for reality television, then?” Was the joke that his foreman made when he asked for leave from work. That joke became the joke, repeated almost daily by one or two of the boys. All of them asked the same: What was a normal, boring bloke like Gary gonna do on Love Island anyway?
Not win, it seemed. Come out the other end slightly more hopeless, slightly less lonely, a little less sane. Not even 25,000 pounds richer for his troubles.
When he realized he couldn’t be with the girl he really liked, he put one-hundred-and-ten percent into being in a couple with Lottie. He complimented her hair at the right times and backed her up even when he thought she was being catty. His efforts were not entirely wasted, they made it to the final together. When the show was over and real life crept in, they separated painlessly. He went back to work, and so did Lottie. No big fuss.
Gary hated when things were a fuss.
-
When Bobby broke up with her, he was surprised to find that Margot felt the same way. He was worried she’d be crushed, that he’d break her heart and feel terrible about it forever.
“I care about you so much,” she said, tears welling in her eyes already. He hated to see her cry. His sweet girl, not his anymore. “But you’re right, we’re so much better now just as friends.”
Bobby was used to being just a friend, so he expected that to sting. It didn’t, though, because she was right. They were better as friends. All he felt was relief.
“I care about you too,” he said. “Proper love you, like.”
“I know, Bobby.”
Those were the sweetest three words he’d ever heard her say.
-
It was Gary’s idea to get the group back together this time—and the impulse surprised him as much as the group text he sent surprised everyone else. It was the first anniversary of the final this week, they had to do something. He’d met up with the guys here and there and had dutifully attended the last silly, themed party Chelsea put together, but it had been at least six months since he’d spoken to any of his fellow former-islanders.
You would think that after a whole summer of sharing a bedroom they’d manage a few nights a year in the same postal code, but the likelihood of another reunion dropped by the minute.
At Chelsea’s party, Priya had joked that maybe the next time they would all get together would be for the winners’ wedding. The table toasted to the thought and to the happy couple.
Gary had spent many sleepless nights since then wondering if he’d imagined the pained look in Bobby’s eyes as they clinked their glasses.
It wasn’t that Gary wished he could switch places with Bobby in the villa. Love Island made him realize that he was a slow-and-steady type of bloke. He would have never been able to move at the lightning pace that the winning couple had.
No, he’d envied Bobby for the girl he was holding hands with, the way he helped Margot out of her coat at the door, the way she rested her hand on his thigh.
When Gary first met her in the villa, he hadn’t felt anything special at first. She was pretty enough that he stepped forward for her when prompted, but he wasn’t immediately shocked to his core with desire for her like Bobby had been. When she chose Bobby on the first day and stuck by his side, Gary couldn’t imagine trying to get between them, even when he started seeing her smile behind his eyes at night.
After the villa, Gary swore off social media. Partly because he wasn’t the type of guy to post #sponcon for vitamins and dating apps, and partly because he wanted exemption from all of the post-Love-Island-break-up-announcements. It wasn’t a secret that most reality TV relationships ended quickly, but the statistic was more heartbreaking when it applied to his and his friends’ relationships.
He was almost tempted to check Instagram before sending a text to the group chat, but he resisted. Everyone should know that he wouldn’t see anything online.
-
The breakup post on social media was brutal. Bobby knew that the public felt a sort of ownership over the relationships that came from Love Island. He also knew that, no matter how much he meant his statement, ‘it was an amicable breakup and we are still great friends,’ would always sound insincere.
All things considered, his Instagram followers seemed more outwardly devasted about everything than he did. He was relieved that the news was out and excited for the next chapter in his life.
Moving on from the breakup and moving on from his time in the villa became one and the same. He stopped checking his socials and allowed himself to ignore requests for interviews and participation in brand deals, letting his time with Margot and his time on TV fade into the background of his daily life.
He’d used his half of the prize money to start a café and it was finally making enough to do more than just break even on his expenses. He had that to be proud of.
By the time he and Margot got over the awkward period and were able to proceed as friends, the café was a marked success. He was proud of himself whenever she dropped by, and could tell she was proud of him, too.
When Gary blew the proverbial collected dust off of the former islanders’ group chat and suggested a year anniversary reunion, Bobby’s impulse was to ignore the text. He’d loved the people he’d met in the villa but, as time passed, he found himself more and more protective over the parts of his life that the villa had never touched. His café, his new friends, his privacy. He worried that bridging the gap again would undo all of the progress he’d made and break down all the boundaries he’d set up.
“Why don’t you invite them to the café?” The way she said it—like it was a no-brainer—made him consider. Margot had dropped by with a few cartons of strawberries and was tidying behind the counter as an excuse to stay and gossip. She’d been helping here and there, since Bobby had yet to hire any staff.
Bobby began washing the strawberries immediately. The shop was closed but he was behind on prep for the next day. “You think?”
“It would be nice to show off.” She picked up a dish rag and gave his arm a playful smack with it. “You deserve it.”
Bobby smiled, pride swelling in his chest at the thought. “I’ll think about it.”
-
Gary checked the address three times over and, yes, this was the spot. The cute little shop he passed by almost every weekend on his way to visit his Nan. He would have never known it to be Bobby’s café from the pastel signage and classy striped awnings. Hell, there were well-tended flower boxes in the windows.
That’d be her, he thought, Margot had the aesthetic eye of the two of them.
“Gary!” A familiar voice met his ears and twisted him around. He grinned, despite himself, opening his arms wide to greet her with a hug.
Margot was as radiant as ever, smiling at him like no time had passed at all. She had a way of making the people around her feel at ease, Gary very much included.
Gary squeezed her quickly and let her go, missing her warmth as soon as it was gone. It was almost a shame that wasn’t the type to come onto someone else’s girl.
“How are you?” Margot took a half step away and smoothed her blouse. The two of them were blocking the café door, but it didn’t matter—Bobby had closed it for their private event.
“I’m doing well, same old work, y’know…” Gary ran a hand through his hair, certain that he looked scruffier since the last time she’d seen him. He’d started going longer between shaves. Nan said he looked more grown-up that way, whatever that meant. “How are things with you? The shop looks great!” He gestured at the flower boxes. “This looks like your doing.”
“Oh, yeah…”
“Hey you lot!” Priya’s heels clicked against the pavement as she strutted toward the café. She raised her eyebrows somewhat suggestively at Gary but he ignored her—completely unsure what the woman was getting at. “Did Bobby lock you two out?”
“Nope.” Margot laughed. “Just catching up! How are you, love?”
-
Bobby thought that it might be hard to see Gary flirting with his ex, but—like everything else in this relationship—his reaction was a surprise. Bobby loved Margot and he loved seeing her happy. Even if she was laughing at another bloke’s funny story. Even if that bloke was Gary Rennel.
If he couldn’t be a good boyfriend, he was going to be a damn good wingman.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” Bobby said, raising his mug of steaming cocoa to the ceiling like a glass of bubbly. He made eye contact with Margot, winked. “To new beginnings,” he said.
The islanders raised their mugs and drank.
-
“Shame Lottie couldn’t make it,” Margot said. She and Gary had ended up on a bench seat and were isolated together when the main group separated into smaller circles. From the way she’d been speaking to everyone else, though, it seemed to Gary that Margot was keeping in contact with almost everyone but him. He’d be offended if he weren’t guilty of closing himself off from her.
“She’s doing quite well in the states.” Gary shrugged, putting on a show of just how little he was worried for his ex-girlfriend. “I’m sure she hardly misses us.”
She gave him a puppy-eyed look. “You don’t mean that.”
“I mean, she’s doing well. I don’t know, we hardly speak.”
“So that’s done, done?”
Gary wished he could wipe the frown from Margot’s face, there was really nothing about his relationship with Lottie to be frowning about. “Ah, that was just a villa fling.”
“Hm.” Margot gave him a good once-over like she was administering a visual lie-detector test. He passed. “Glad to hear she’s doing well, then.”
“It’s odd seeing everyone together again, no?” Gary asked. He watched Chelsea across the room, prattling on to Bobby and Noah as she gestured excitedly. She was surely suggesting tasteless decór that she thought would improve the café’s atmosphere.
“It’s a bit odd,” Margot agreed. “But nice. I’m glad you suggested it.”
“Yeah?”
She bumped his shoulder with hers, leaving her hand on his thigh where it fell for just a moment. His whole body burned at her searing touch.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
Gary turned, almost lurching away as he came to his senses. “I’m sorry to keep you from Bobby all night. I mean…” He felt awful for how close he’d been to her, how close he’d come to making a move on his friend’s girl. How she’d basically just come onto him.
He expected her to come to her senses, too. To remember herself and apologize. Instead, she looked at him like he’d gone mad.
“Bobby?” She asked, incredulous as if she’d never heard of the man. “What about him?”
“Aren’t you two…” Gary felt like maybe he had gone mad. He’d been there when Bobby and Margot won Love Island. They were running a café together, for christs sakes.
Margot’s eyes widened with surprise, then crinkled with mirth as she let out a laugh. “Oh, god. I’m so sorry-“ She set her cocoa down on the table for fear of spilling it as she giggled. “We broke up like months ago! Good terms, I mean…” She shook her head. “Great terms, even. I help with the café, like.”
“Oh.” Gary blushed. He knew he should have checked Instagram before catching up with everyone. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”
“I forgot that you don’t check your phone.” She laughed. “God, Gary.”
He scooted close again, no longer guilty. “It’s my fault for living under a rock, I s’pose.”
“That it is.” She let her hand fall back to his thigh.
Emboldened by his relief, Gary laid a hand over hers. “There something here, then?” He squeezed her hand, clarifying his question. She hummed, affirmative.
The two of them fell silent, smiling as they listened to the idle chatter of reunited friends around them. Gary felt like he was pulling off a heist. There he was, holding Margot’s hand, and the other islanders were none-the-wiser.
There were no cameras, there was no drama, no one would be tweeting about this moment later. It was all he could have hoped for.
