#I might pause my fiancé's intro to the show for us to watch this

[nehswritesstuffs]

I've been putting off and putting off and putting off looking at the opla trailer bc I want to go in as fresh as possible to the effects (I know I can't avoid the stills, which have me salivating) but I finally broke down now that we're, like, three days out and my dudes it's two-thirty in the morning and I'm sobbing like a little fucking baby what is my goddamned life

[nalgenewhore]

evil woman - two

TW: Drug Use, Drug Abuse, Addiction, Cheating 

It had been a couple weeks since Aelin’s birthday and Elide could count on one hand how many times she had been outside her apartment. 

She had opened the door for Rowan and that was only because he used his key and practically force fed her. 

Now he was aggressively washing dishes that he deemed too ‘dusty’, as she had only ordered takeout, not finding it in her to cook for herself. It just reminded her of how they used to spend evenings in his kitchen, far too happy and deliriously in love. Those were the good days, where he woke up with clear eyes and music flowing from his fingertips, the ones where he would pluck gentle melodies on the beat-up guitar he refused to give up, insisting that it was his lucky charm and had been there from the start. Elide would laugh and smile, tricking herself into thinking that this time it would last, this time would be the one where he realized that the other side of him was hurting her and would tell her that he was home forever. 

Those good days started slipping away from him and Elide spent her time hoping for another one. 

The bad days got worse and worse and became bad weeks, then bad months. He would stay out all night, would ignore her calls and texts, turned off his location. That old guitar went back in its case and shoved into a storage unit. His eyes became glazed with a cocktail of substances and Elide couldn’t remember the times she waited up with him, the times she stuck her fingers down his throat, how many times she held him as he sobbed, holding back her own tears as he shook and sweated on the tiled floor of their bathroom, the times she put up with the slew of nastiness he spewed everywhere. 

It shamed her. How long she had stayed, how long she had let her life go this way. 

That day she hopped on a plane to surprise him had been her last attempt at waiting for him. She told herself as she packed a bag, that if nothing changed, if he was still like that, she would leave that frozen montage her life had become and be able to breathe again. Be able to be happy. 

It was a blessing disguised as heartbreak. 

“Ro,” she said, “the dishes are clean.” 

“They aren’t.” 

“Yes they are, why can’t you just-” 

“Relax? Or be like you, lazy and uncaring?” His voice was harsh and cold and she didn’t know it would hurt this bad to have those words thrown at her. 

Elide raised her chin, staring down her nose at him, refusing to let him see the tears that threatened to well in her eyes. “Go home, Rowan.” 

Rowan’s icy fury cracked and a puff of air escaped his lips, “I- I didn’t mean that, Ellie, it wasn’t about you.” 

“Go home” she repeated, standing and walking past him to her room. Her door slammed shut behind her. 

Elide sat herself on the edge of the bed, looking down at her hands. She heard a shuffling noise and then Rowan’s voice, “I, I’m sorry, El. That wasn’t my place. There’s food in the fridge and I’ll call in the morning, alright? Bye.” She didn’t say anything, too stubborn to speak to him.

There was the sound of receding footsteps and then the door closed behind him. 

Elide let the tears slip down and after a moment or two, her sadness and desperation turned to white-hot anger. 

He had ruined everything. 

He wasn’t even around anymore and still, he was this huge shadow hanging over everybody’s head. He was the monster hiding in her closet, he was the demon that made her cower under her duvet. 

After her anger left her, she felt hollow and decided that she should probably eat something so she moved out to the kitchen, opening the fridge and finding it in herself to smile at the food Rowan had left, all of her favourites. 

She took a seran-wrap covered plate of pasta and threw the plastic into the trash, placing the pasta in the microwave and viciously stabbed her finger into the numbered buttons. Elide walked to her living room as the food was being heated, a note on the coffee table catching her eye. 

It had Rowan’s scratchy scrawl and she flipped it open, scanning the words. 

Ellie, 

I didn’t want to tell you, but L’s doing an interview tonight @ 7 with NTNS . It’s the first since the breakup, I’ll be watching so if you don’t end up doing so, I can tell you what happened. There’s food in the fridge and water in the jug. 

-R

A niggling voice told her not to watch it, to take her pasta and get back to bed, but enough was enough. 

She wouldn’t let him have this hold over her anymore. She’d told him he ruined her and now, now it was time to heal. 

Crumpling the note in her hand and letting it fall to the ground, she sat herself on the couch and picked up the remote, the channel already set to the show hosting the interview. 

Her breath hitched as the intro music played and Lorcan walked out across the stage, a smile, something completely unnatural and forced, splayed over his lips. Despite the lie he wore, he looked good, but then again, he’d looked good at Aelin’s and nearly every time she saw him before that. 

The audience cheered and clapped for him and it nearly made her see red. He did not deserve their applause, did not deserve their praise. 

She forced herself to breathe, This anger will only make it hurt more, breathe. 

Elide closed her eyes, imagining that she inhaled cold, blue air and exhaled hot, red air that took away her troubles. When she opened her eyes again and they focused on the TV, Lorcan was sitting in the chair, leaning back, his legs spread open. “Yeah, thanks, it’s good to be back,” he said. 

The host nodded and then his face grew grave, “Now, Lorcan, all of your fans, we’ve been wondering, how’s this past year been for you, after your break?” 

Elide saw the way his eyes shuttered, saw him shift like he was about to lie, but then, “Um, I’m not gonna lie to you guys, it’s been tough, really tough. I struggled a lot and I think it’s, ah, it’s starting to look up so…” 

“Well, that’s great, we’re all super happy for you, it’s been a rough-go lately, what with your ex and the cheating scandal-” 

“You know, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here tonight,” Lorcan interjected, running his hand through his hair, a nervous habit of his. Elide resented that she still knew his tics and habits. 

The host nodded, his face portraying slight surprise, “Of course, the floor’s all yours, Lorcan.” 

“So as you all know, my fiancée and I broke up about a year ago,” three-hundred and twenty seven days to be exact, “and there were a lot of rumours going around and they’re partly my fault because I didn’t deny any of the claims which led to people taking them as the truth.” He took a large breath, “They aren’t true. I was the one in the wrong, I was the unfaithful one, on multiple occasions, not the other way around. I hurt her, more than I’ve ever hurt another being, and she had had enough.” 

The audience and host gasped as Lorcan nodded, confirming the words he said. 

Elide was frozen on the spot, not able to move as he admitted everything, on live television, with thousands of viewers. The microwave beeped, but still, she could not move. 

Lorcan went on, “That moment of her leaving, I think that was really rock bottom for me. I’m ashamed that it took her reaching her breaking point for me to realize this mess that was my life. So,” he said, bobbing his head in a sort-of nodding manner but not quite, “I got sober and started to try and fix things.” 

“Oh, you guys are back together, that’s wonderful-”

Lorcan let out a harsh laugh, “Oh, gods, no. No, she’s not really the type of woman that gets her heart broken and comes crawling back,” he paused for a moment, “and I wouldn’t want her any other way.” 

The host tilted his head to the side, “Some might say it’s better to forgive and forget.” 

“Hm.” It was clear Lorcan did not agree and Elide had to stop herself from laughing. “It’s, it’s not as simple as that. It’s not a fairytale romance, it’s gritty and painful and she’s still hurting because of it. It wasn’t exactly easy for her either, this past year.” 

“Well, you know,” the host started, spreading his hands and Elide just knew she wouldn’t like what he was saying, “there is a risk in all relationships you enter, it’s not like you meant to hurt her. And she left you.” 

Lorcan frowned for a second, his hands curling into loose fists and she sat up, her eyes widening and she silently begged Hellas to control him, to not let his spitfire temper catch a spark. “I don’t really think that my intentions mattered because I did cause her pain, regardless of what I wanted to do. It’s not hard to leave when you’ve been driven out by your partner. The blame lies fully with me.” 

“Do you think there’s any hope for you two?” 

He sighed heavily, tilting his head to the side, “I-I don’t really know. I’ll always love her, but obviously, it’s not up to me. If it was, I would undo everything I did and we’d have never broken up.” 

“I think I can say for everyone here at NTSN and, I’m sure, our lovely viewers at home, we wish you the best of luck, Lorcan.” Elide hated the host’s voice, slick and oily. “Now, I know you had something you wanted to share with us, something about new music?” 

Lorcan nodded, “Yeah, ah, it was originally just a passion project I wrote in rehab and when I got out I played the song for my friend and she basically told me she would skin me alive if I didn’t write her an entire EP so here we are.” There was a grin tugging at his rosy lips, a twinkle of something playful in his eyes and Elide just knew the friend had been Aelin. 

That little spark in his dark eyes had her remembering, remembering everything good about them. How on rainy mornings when neither of them wanted to get up, he would hold her tightly against him or how they would stay in the shower until the water ran cold, too busy to notice when they were caught up in each other. Late at night, she would find him in the kitchen, shirtless as he made waffles or maybe French toast if he was feeling jumpy. Lazy afternoons spent basking in the sun and then he would jump up, his fingers itching to create something beautiful. 

He called her his muse, his inspiration. The only thing keeping him going, he told her. Everything, everything… was all for her. 

Blinking back tears, she focused back on the screen that showed the love of her life because despite herself, despite every single thing that had happened, that would never go away. A part of her soul would always be his. 

The audience was clapping as he was handed a guitar and spent a couple moments tuning it before he picked out a gentle, lovely, melody and sang. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

Lorcan quelled the shaking in his hands as he passed the guitar off, offering a fake grin and nod to the cheering audience. They had eaten up the song, chanting Encore when he let the last note ring out and the cameras cut for a commercial break. An attendant came to grab the guitar he had never touched a day before in his life. It didn’t sound right, hadn’t sounded right any time he’d played it. 

Aelin, Fenrys, even Rowan, who hadn’t forgiven him, Rowan, who had crossed his arms and glowered at him every time they saw each other, told him it was perfect and that she would love it. But Lorcan knew it wouldn’t reach perfection until he played it on that beat up guitar, his and her initials carved into the neck, until she told him it was. 

“In five, four, three, two…” the lights came back on and he plastered that uncomfortable smile back on his lips, nodding as the audience cheered and the host praised him. 

“I’m going to have to say that may be my new favourite song of yours, that snippet you played was beautiful, just beautiful. Now, um, when you reached out to us for the interview, you told us you had some rather important news to share?” 

His heartbeat quickened and his hands became clammy. Lorcan nodded, swallowing past his tight throat. “Yes, I, ah, I wanted to share with you that this album will be my last. It’s been a journey and it’s time for me and my music to say goodbye.” 

The audience and host gasped theatrically, “Surely you’re not talking about retirement?”

“It’s been a long while since I’ve been home and I realized that everything I need was right where I was. I’ve been chasing something for a long time and I never knew what it was until I lost her. It’s time for me to say goodbye and let a new kid dazzle you all.” 

Forty-five minutes later, Lorcan was standing on his balcony, his forearms braced against the railing as he watched the busy streets of Orynth move. His hands shook and he wished for something, a drink or cigarette, anything to take the trembling away. He gritted his teeth and sipped from the glass of water next to him, hearing his phone blow up as it had been all night after his retirement announcement. 

His phone started ringing with a ringtone he didn’t remember so he picked it up, not recognizing the number calling him. He accepted the call and held it to his ear, “Hello?” 

“Hey. It’s... me.”

+*+*+*+*+*+*

im not even sorry 🤷‍♂️ thank u @westofmoon​ 4 helping me bounce ideas n stuff 💛💛💛 and @shyvioletcat​ for being my lovely lil beta again!! 

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