Together.
Pairing: Rhysand&Reader (platonic relationship)
Summary: Rhysand lets you stay at the Moonstone palace after his sister's. Grieving makes sleeping harder for the both of you. He lost a sister and you, a friend. Holding onto one another makes the pain easier to bear.
Word count: 1.2k
Warnings: Grieving, discussing death (a friend, a sister, a mother), nightmare
Dividers made by @tsunami-of-tears 💜
You wake up in sweat, sitting up in bed to catch your breath. Your chest is heaving rapidly, and your heart is beating so fast it feels like it might just leap from your ribcage.
Your eyes frantically look around, trying to recall where you are, what time it is. The moonlight streaming from the light purple curtains situate you in time, it’s night time. You look around the room, picking out some clues through the darkness. On the nightstand there’s a hair brush, Rhysand gifted it to you for your 17th birthday. On the vanity stands a pair of sapphire earrings, Velarie, his sister, had given them to you last Solstice. It’s the last present you’ve received from her before…
Before she died.
Your chest feels hollow as reality kicks in, slowly making you come back to the present. You just had a nightmare, one you can’t remember clearly, but one bad enough to make you wake up in such a distressed state. You wipe the sweat off your forehead. The cold coming through the window seems to cling to you now, it seeps into your damp skin and gnaws at your bones..
You have spent these past months at the Moonstone palace, Rhysand has let you stay here after the death of his sister, Velia, your best friend since birth.
Your mother had met Rhysand’s mother at her shop, she had been doing business with the High Lord’s mate for centuries, offering her the best fabric qualities for good prices. Your mothers had gotten pregnant almost at the same time, so when you and Velaria grew up, you used to play together every time your mothers met. You and Velaria had been glued at the hip for as long as you can remember. Her extrovert demeanor was the perfect contrast to your more introverted one.
The happy memory of her quickly escapes from your head, leaving this deep and painful emptiness in its place.
Velia’s death has been sudden, unexpected. Life is unfair, so unfair. The Mother didn’t deserve to hold someone so precious in her hands, Velarie shouldn’t have been taken away from this world. You still need her, you haven’t got the chance to say goodbye. You still need answers, directions on how to deal with this pain, on how to fill this void she has left behind.
You aren’t a stranger to grief. Your own mother passed away nearly half a century ago. But you hadn’t gone through these painful times alone, Velaria’s mother and her family hadn’t hesitated to take you under their wing. Rhysand has always been like a second brother to you, he and his friends were always the knights in shining armors coming up to you and Velaria’s rescue whenever you two got into trouble.
Right now, though, you doubt anyone can ever rescue you from this loss. You hate to admit it, but the loss of your mother was nothing compared to the pain of losing Velaria. You knew your mother was sick before she died. In some ways, you had made your peace with her death before she even passed. You had said your goodbyes, did the things you wanted to do together before she left you forever… but you didn’t get that with Velaria. She just left, a cruel and gruesome death. Unfair. Rhysand has never wanted to tell you the details, his eyes turning haggard every time her name is mentioned.
A soft thud on your door makes you look up from the bedsheets. The door silently opens, and violet-blue eyes appear in the doorway. Her eyes Rhysand’s eyes.
Gods, will it ever stop hurting?
“I don’t know,” Rhysand answers, his voice still raspy with sleep, or perhaps he had been crying and unable to sleep. Both scenarios are possible. “Can I come in?”
You jolt slightly. You haven’t noticed your shields were down, your thoughts pouring directly into Rhysand’s mind.
You nod, not trusting yourself to speak without breaking down into tears. You lie back into your bed, patting the empty space beside you to invite him in.
Rhysand complies, lifting the sheets to lie beneath them. He rolls onto his side, his body a respectful, yet comforting, distance from yours. His eyes stay open, his gaze never dropping yours.
The shadows under his eyes match yours, the evidence of the weight grief has on you. Your knees come up to your aching stomach, arms wrapping around them to offer some kind of comfort. Rhysand doesn’t move, just stays still, breathing through the heavy atmosphere.
After some time, you can’t really tell how long because time has become a hazy notion since her death, Rhysand’s voice breaks the silence.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Tears of frustration flows from your eyes, your whole body starting to shake as emotions crash into you at full force. You haven’t felt that many emotions at the same time for a long time now, it made your stomach churn, nausea creeping up to you quickly. “I wish I could just forget about her,” You snap, not sure if you meant the words or not. “It shouldn’t have been her.”
“It shouldn’t have been anyone.”
“I’m so… I’m so mad at her, Rhys. It makes no sense,” Your palms come up to your face, pressing deeply into your eyes until it hurts. “I feel like I’m going absolutely crazy, Rhys. It doesn’t make any sense, nothing makes any sense.”
“I know, I-” You hear him choke on his words. Slowly, you feel your palms being moved away from your eyes. “If you’re crazy, then I think I’m crazy, too.” Rhys chuckles wetly, the sound is like a cry of despair.
You chuckle, too. The two of you giggling like two insane specimens, tethering on the brink of madness, holding on by just a thread.
“Sometimes,” You sniffle, trying to take your breath and calm yourself. “When I look up at the stars, I ask them to help me navigate through this grief. I ask them to help me forget about her, but do you want to know what they do instead?” You ask him rhetorically, your voice cold and laced with ire. “They just fucking shine brighter and look exactly like her eyes. They were so fucking bright and- Man, they look just like yours and- it hurts. It hurts so bad, Rhys.”
You were now back to sobbing uncontrollably, Rhysand only picks out a few coherent sentences through your sobs. “I don’t know how to do it, Rhys. I don’t know how you do it.”
“It’s hard. I don’t think I’m doing it any better than you,” He shrugs, scooting just a bit closer to you.
He opens his arms, a silent invitation. You don’t hesitate, and jumps right in. You face melts into his chest, the cotton of his pajama rapidly soaked with your tears. You hold onto each other like a lifeline, Rhysand’s own tears dripping down onto your hair.
“Let’s do this together, yeah? One day at a time.”
To make it through seems like an unachievable thing to do, but with Rhysand, one day at a time…
“Okay,” You sniffle, your mind quieting, letting the exhaustion drape over you. “We’ll try, together.”
Rhysand taglist:
ACOTAR general taglist: @mybestfriendmademe @lilah-asteria @acotar-lover @paige0103 @princesssunderworld