#That turned out to be a way longer answer than originally intended | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

spencessocks · 2 months ago

Note

bucky AND spencer??!!! are you my brain? my brain has a tumblr? but seriously im so happy you exist.

i was originally coming to say how in ‘through the silence’ the theme and the conversation could be the same (okay maybe just similar) with post prison spencer x reader and how he is trying to get back to reality and leave prison behind

love you xx

a/n: omfg what... im literally going to eat ur face... this sort of got a little longer than i intended and it took me a while because i was busy with work so im sorry!😭😭 but thank u so much omg i was reeling from this ask, ur so sweet and ilysm!!!

what remains

summary: after spencer returns from prison, the trauma he endured drives a wedge between him and the one person who loves him most.

pairing: postprison!spencer reid x reader

wordcount: 6.8k

warnings: sad spencer, sad reader, everyones sad, reader drinks like a sip of wine

the apartment is quiet when spencer walks in. it’s late—again. you don’t know where he goes, but he never offers, and you’ve stopped asking.

he drops his keys onto the counter with a dull clink, his shoulders heavy with exhaustion, and you watch from your place on the couch, heart aching at the sight of him. he looks different now. he's been home for months, but the man who walked through your door after prison isn’t the same one who left.

“hey,” you say gently, closing your book and setting it aside.

he glances at you but doesn’t hold your gaze for long. “hey.”

you swallow down the lump in your throat. “did you eat?”

“i'm not hungry.” his answer is clipped, automatic, the same response he’s given you almost every night since he’s been back.

you knew it wouldn’t be easy. that things would be different and he wouldn’t be the same. you had told yourself that over and over in the days leading up to his return, had braced yourself for the changes.

but you'd had hope—hope that, with time, things would settle. that he would come back to you—not just physically, but in the ways that mattered. that he would find his way back to the man he used to be, the man who used to curl up beside you on the couch, rambling about his latest case or a book he was reading. the man who used to laugh, used to smile, used to pull you into his arms like you were the safest place in the world.

but you had underestimated the impression this whole ordeal would leave on him.

it wasn't just in the way he carried himself, the way exhaustion clung to his frame or how the light in his eyes had dimmed. it was deeper than that. it was in the way he recoiled from touch when he used to seek it, in the way his voice lacked the excitement and curiosity it once held. in the distance that stretched between you, widening a little more each day, despite your best efforts to close it.

prison had carved something out of him, something you weren’t sure could ever be replaced. he had been home for months, but a harsh reality was starting to settle in you—that some wounds don’t heal the way you expect them to. some stay raw, lingering beneath the surface, invisible until they make themselves known in quiet moments—in the silence at the dinner table, in the way he avoids your gaze, in the way he flinches at your touch, in the walls he keeps building no matter how hard you try to tear them down.

he didn’t talk about what happened in there, and you didn’t press—even if sometimes curiosity clawed at you. but every laconic response, every empty stare, every night he disappeared without explanation told you more than words ever could. he was still there, trapped in a place you couldn’t seem to reach, and no matter how badly you wanted to, you weren’t sure you ever would.

you exhale slowly, measuring your words before speaking. "spencer, you know what i'm going to say." your voice is soft, careful, but it still makes him flinch, just barely.

"i'm fine," he mutters, turning away from you.

you hesitate, just for a moment, before the words slip out. a quiet, almost embarrassed whisper in the stillness of the room.

"will you at least sit with me for a little while?"

you regret the question the second it leaves your mouth, second-guessing yourself as soon as the vulnerability hits you. it sounds so small, so simple—sit with me, like it’s not asking for much, but in a way, it feels like you’re begging. you feel humiliation crawl up your neck.

"we don't have to talk," you add quickly, trying to soften the weight of your words. "we can just—"

"i'm tired," he interrupts, voice hollow. he’s already moving toward the bedroom, like he can't get away fast enough.

you stare blanky at him, his back already turned to you. you don't say anything. you can't. the words get stuck somewhere in your throat, tangled up with the shock and the sting of his dismissal. you just sit there, still as stone, the weight of his words settling over you like a thick, suffocating fog.

it shouldn't surprise you—this response, this distance, the way he shuts you out without a second thought. it’s been happening for weeks now, a slow unraveling of something that once felt unbreakable. and yet, it does surprise you.

because you still hoped—that he would just sit with you. that it couldn't possibly be that bad that your own husband couldn't sit on the the same goddamn couch as you.

you don’t know if your lack of response matters. maybe it does. maybe that’s why he hesitates in the doorway, fingers gripping the frame as if he's weighing his options. for a second, you think he might turn around, might give you something—anything. but then, just as quickly, he lets go and disappears into the darkness of the bedroom.

you sit there, motionless, as the door to the bedroom clicks shut behind him. the sound feels final, sharp.

the interaction plays in your head. "i'm tired."

the look on his face—or the lack of one. there’s nothing there. no fight, no frustration, not even the faintest trace of a desire to make things right.

you blink, once, twice, trying to shake the fog from your brain, but the shock is still there, thick in your chest. it’s like a pulse, steady and unrelenting, buzzing through your veins. you don’t know what to do with it. how to process it.

at this point, you can hardly recognize yourself. the person you used to be—before all this. you would have never let spencer walk away from that. you would’ve confronted him, spoken your truth, demanded that he listen. you were an opinionated person, it wasn't like you to let someone walk over you—spencer liked that about you. you would’ve never felt embarrassed by something so simple, so vulnerable, said to the man you loved.

the anger bubbles up, creeping through the shock like a slow poison, and suddenly, your skin feels tight. it feels wrong. how dare he? how can he just walk away, leave you in this empty room, in this awful, suffocating silence, after everything you’ve been through together?

surely, you wouldn't do this to him. that thought had crossed your mind before, only to be quickly pushed away by the reminder that you couldn't possibly know what he was going through—what he felt in that place.

but now, the thought clung to you, insistent, refusing to be ignored and with it came another. maybe he didn’t know how to let go of you—maybe he was too afraid to say the words, so instead, he kept hurting you without even realizing it. maybe he thought pulling away was easier than facing the truth. if the roles were reversed, you'd seek him out, wanting his comfort, his presence. so why wasn't he doing the same for you? why was he so unwilling to lean on you—when he had done it a million times before?

the pulse in your neck quickens, blood rushing, and you grip the edge of the couch, knuckles white. you don't even realize you're standing now, the instinct to do something, anything, pushing you forward. your breath comes quick and shallow as frustration and disbelief twist inside you like a knot that you can't untangle.

what are you supposed to do with this? what are you supposed to do when your own husband looks at you like you’re nothing—like you’re some kind of inconvenience he just can’t deal with tonight?

your body moves on its own, your legs carrying you to the door as if they have a will of their own—pyjamas and slippers be damned—the front door slams shut behind you with an almost violent finality. the apartment feels suffocating now, the weight of his absence, of his rejection, too much to bear. you need to leave.

you don’t bother to grab your phone. what would be the point? there’s nothing to say to him anymore—if he would even call. not when you’re standing on the edge of something you can’t even explain to yourself, a frustration and sadness mixing into something unrecognizable.

you walk fast, too fast, the cold air biting at your skin, and it helps. the briskness of the night, the sting of it, gives you a sense of purpose, something to focus on other than the gnawing emptiness inside you. you don’t want to sit in that silence any longer, don’t want to stew in your thoughts, trapped in that apartment where the echoes of your broken attempts at connection are suffocating.

jj’s place isn’t far—just a few blocks—but it might as well be a world away. the walk feels like an eternity, but it’s the only thing you can control right now. you don't have to think about spencer. you don’t have to think about him.

you find yourself at jj’s door, your breath coming out in white clouds, and for the first time tonight, you feel a brief flicker of something approaching relief. you knock twice, hard, before pulling back and pressing your forehead against the doorframe, closing your eyes, letting the coolness of it ground you. what the hell am i doing?

when she opens the door, her eyes widen at the sight of you, but she doesn’t ask. she doesn’t need to. she just steps aside, pulling you in with a soft, understanding smile.

“you okay?” she asks gently, though you know she already knows the answer.

you nod, but only because you don't trust your voice not to break if you speak. she doesn’t push, just closes the door behind you and leads you to the couch. you sit without a word, leaning back against the cushions, closing your eyes, and for the first time in what feels like months, you let yourself breathe.

jj moves toward the kitchen without a word, and you hear the familiar sound of glasses clinking, followed by the admittedly soothing pour of wine. she returns with a glass in each hand, her expression knowing. she hands you one and sits down beside you, settling into the cushions with the kind of ease that makes you wish you could do the same.

"talk to me,” she says, her voice quiet, but firm enough to break the silence that’s settled between you. it’s not a question, really—more like a gentle command, the kind that only someone who knows you can give.

you let out a breath, leaning back into the couch, staring at the ceiling for a moment, unsure where to even begin. everything feels like a mess. but her presence, her calm, makes you feel like you might find the strength to sort it out.

“spencer—" you stop yourself, the words catching in your throat. you shake your head, a laugh escaping your lips at the disbelief of your situation. "i don’t even know what to say anymore. i don’t know how we got here. it’s like i don’t even know who he is anymore.”

jj listens, her eyes steady, her hands wrapped around her own glass, but her gaze never wavers. she’s waiting. you know she won’t interrupt.

“i thought... i thought he’d come back to me, you know?” the words slip out before you can stop them, and the sadness that follows hits you harder than anything before. “i thought, with time, things would get better. that i could get him back, the way he was. but... it’s like he’s not even here anymore. i don’t know how to reach him. and when i try, it feels like he just shuts me out more.”

you swallow hard, feeling a sharp sting behind your eyes. it feels pathetic, but you can’t stop it now. you can’t stop the flood of everything that’s been building up, everything you’ve been trying to ignore.

“he’s gone, jj. and i don’t know how to be with someone who’s... not really here,” you say, your voice breaking on the last word.

jj doesn’t say anything at first, just lets you breathe, lets you sit with it for a moment. “i know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but he’s not gone. he’s just... changed. and change is hard. for both of you.”

you scoff softly, shaking your head. “i feel like i'm going crazy."

jj watches you carefully, her gaze unwavering as she processes your words. you feel exhausted—physically, emotionally—like the weight of the past few months has finally settled on your shoulders all at once.

jj studies you for a long moment, her expression unreadable. then, she exhales, setting her wine glass down on the coffee table. “you’re not crazy,” she says simply. “you’re grieving.”

that catches you off guard. you blink at her. “grieving?”

she nods. “yeah. you’re grieving the life you had before. the spencer you had before.” she pauses. “and maybe... the version of yourself that existed before all this.”

you open your mouth, but no words come out. you want to argue, to tell her it’s not that simple, that you’re not mourning spencer like he’s some lost cause, but—god—doesn’t it feel like that sometimes? doesn’t it feel like the person you knew, the person you loved, is slipping further and further away?

jj sighs, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “i know what it’s like to watch someone you love disappear into themselves. to feel helpless while they struggle with something you can’t fix.” her voice is softer now, careful, like she’s walking a tightrope. “it’s terrifying.”

your fingers tighten around your wine glass. “so what do i do?” the question comes out more fragile than you want it to, barely above a whisper.

she’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “you—" her words are interrupted by an abrupt sound. jj’s phone is ringing, sharp and sudden in the quiet of the room. you flinch, your heart leaping into your throat before you even see the name on the screen. but you already know.

spencer.

panic grips you, fast and unrelenting, and before you can think, the words spill out. “don’t answer it.”

jj hesitates, glancing at the phone on the coffee table. the screen glows with his name, the sound vibrating between you like a living thing. “he’s your husband,” she says gently, but her fingers hover over the screen instead of answering.

“i don’t care,” you whisper, shaking your head. “please, jj. don’t.”

she studies you, eyes flicking over your face like she’s trying to gauge just how serious you are. if she picks up, you’ll have to hear him—his voice, his clipped tone, his inevitable question: where are you? and what then? you don’t have an answer.

jj sighs, silencing the call but not declining it. the ringing stops, but the silence that follows is almost worse.

“you know he’s worried,” she says carefully. “you left without your phone. you think he’s just going to let that go?”

you squeeze your eyes shut, gripping your glass like it’s the only thing tethering you to the moment. “i don’t know,” you admit. “i just—I can’t do this right now. fuck.”

jj shifts closer, her voice calm but firm. “running won’t fix this.”

you let out a short, bitter laugh. “staying hasn't."

she doesn’t have an answer for that.

jj watches you carefully, then sighs. “stay here as long as you need. but at some point, you have to decide—are you going home? or are you walking away?”

your arm is moving suddenly, the wine glass at your lips. her words settle over you like a weight. and for the first time, you realize—you don’t know.

jj's phone buzzes again, and you flinch at the sight of spencer’s name lighting up the screen. the call goes to voicemail, and for a few seconds, there’s nothing but silence.

the phone rings a second time. you can almost hear spencer’s voice in your head, the exact tone he always takes when he doesn’t know what to say.

“I’ll answer it,” jj says softly, but the words feel like a concession rather than a promise. she picks up the phone, and her thumb hovers over the screen.

you don’t stop her, but you wish you could. you wish you could shut everything down, turn it all off.

“spencer?” jj says, her voice calm, controlled.

you close your eyes, hearing his voice crackle through the speaker.

“jj... is she there?” spencer’s voice sounds worn, tight with something just beneath the surface. you can hear the familiar threads of guilt and concern tangled in his words. “i—i don’t know where she went. she just… she left without saying anything.”

jj looks at you, her expression unreadable. you can feel the heat of her stare on you.

“yeah, she's here.” jj finally responds, her words careful. “but she's not ready to talk to you right now, spencer.”

a long pause follows. you can hear spencer’s breath, shallow, like he’s holding something back.

“i just... i just need to know she's okay,” he says, the frustration and desperation clear in his voice. “please.”

you wince at the pleading in his words. it cuts through you in a way you hadn’t expected.

jj looks at you, her expression unreadable, before she glances down at the phone again. you can feel the heat of her stare on you.

“she’s fine,” jj says, with a note of finality. “but I think you need to give her some time. she’s been through a lot, spencer. you both have.”

“time?” Spencer’s voice cracks. “jj, i don’t—“

but she cuts him off. “i’m not getting in the middle of this. just... take care of yourself for now, okay? you’ll talk when she’s ready. she’ll come back when she’s ready.”

the phone goes silent for a moment, and then the faint click of the line disconnecting. jj pulls the phone away from her ear and sets it down on the coffee table with a soft sigh.

jj sits back, her gaze still trained on you, like she’s waiting for something.

the silence in the room feels heavier now. It presses against your chest, and the weight of it makes your thoughts swirl faster than they should. spencer’s voice still echoes in your mind—i just need to know she's okay. you don’t want to admit it, but the desperation in his words cuts deeper than you anticipated. you don’t want to feel guilty. but it settles over you, thick and unavoidable, as you sit on jj’s couch, the comfort of her presence fading into the background.

“he sounded worried,” you murmur, more to yourself than to jj.

she nods, watching you carefully. “of course he’s worried.”

you press your lips together, exhaling slowly. “i didn’t think he’d care that much.” the words taste bitter on your tongue, because the truth is, you had wanted him to care. you had wanted him to call, to ask where you were, to prove—at least to himself—that there was still something left between you worth saving.

and he did.

he did.

but now, sitting here, away from him, away from that apartment, the weight of your actions starts creeping in, cold and insidious.

you left.

you walked out without a word.

you knew what it was like to feel abandoned, to reach for someone and find nothing but empty space. and now you’ve done the same to him.

the realization makes your chest tighten, and suddenly, the fight, the frustration, the resentment—it all feels distant, overshadowed by something heavier. something closer to shame.

jj shifts beside you, her voice quiet but knowing. “you’re thinking about going back.”

you shake your head quickly. “i don’t know.” but it’s a lie. you do know.

you inhale sharply, pressing your palm to your forehead, trying to ground yourself. “god, what am I doing, jj?”

“you’re allowed to feel this, you know,” she says simply. “you’re allowed to be angry. to be hurt. to need space.”

you swallow hard, blinking down at your hands. they feel foreign to you, like they belong to someone else. “i just—” you hesitate, voice cracking slightly. “i just got so mad. he was so dismissive of me, and i couldn't be there anymore.”

“i know.”

you stare down at your lap, your fingers tightening around the fabric of your sweater.

you shake your head, guilt curling in your chest. “but that’s not me, jj. that’s not who I am. i don’t just… walk away. i got angry and i overreacted.”

she sighs. “one moment doesn't define you. things are different now. you've never been in a situation like this before,” she pauses. “sometimes you have to walk away, to get your thoughts in order."

"it would've been worse if you blew up at him." she added.

"i think i still might." you said with a dry laugh.

jj smiled slightly, her gaze softening as she leaned back, “you’ve always been the one to hold things together,” she said, her voice gentle but firm, as if trying to remind you that it was okay to break sometimes. “but you can’t hold it all in forever. and sometimes… sometimes you need space to breathe, to think. you don’t always have to be the strong one.”

you let out a breath, unsure of what to say next. jj was always good at cutting through the noise, but the guilt still sat heavily in your chest. you couldn’t escape the feeling that walking away—no matter how much you needed to—had been the wrong choice.

jj watches you for a moment, then leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “listen, i know it feels like you did something wrong by leaving, but you didn’t. you needed space. that’s not the same as giving up.”

you nod slowly, staring down at your hands, but you don’t respond.

jj sighs, then reaches over and squeezes your arm. "look, if there’s anyone who understands why you did what you did, it’s spencer. he has spent his life studying human behavior—figuring out how they think and why they do what they do. spencer knows exactly why you walked out, even if he won't admit it. he knows it was about needing space, about trying to make sense of everything that’s been building up between you.”

she pauses, giving you a reassuring look. “this isn’t the end. this is just a bump in the road—you'll go back when you're ready, and you'll start working through it all."

spencer knows why you left.

the thought lingers, easing the guilt that’s been clawing at you since you walked out. maybe that’s why he didn’t come after you. maybe, in his own way, he understood that you needed this moment to step back, to breathe, to process.

you hope—no, you need—to believe that he’s coming to his own realization. that in the quiet of your absence, in the stillness of an apartment that no longer holds your presence, he’s starting to understand. that maybe, just maybe, he’s replaying every word, every moment, and seeing where it all went wrong.

you want him to recognize that pushing you away was a mistake. that shutting you out, closing himself off instead of letting you in, only built more distance between you. and most of all, you hope he understands now—truly understands—that love isn’t about shutting doors, but about keeping them open, even when it’s hard.

the irony of the situation dawns on you. sitting here, hoping he comes to the right conclusion on his own, won’t change anything. no matter how hurt or frustrated you are, you know one thing for certain—you aren’t going to push him away the way he did to you.

you glance at jj, her eyes soft with understanding, and suddenly, you don’t feel as lost as you did before.

“i have to go back,” you murmur, the words feeling right the moment they leave your lips.

jj studies you for a moment before nodding. “yeah, i figured.” there’s no judgment in her voice, only quiet support.

you stand, but before you can say anything, jj speaks again. “i’m driving you.”

you blink at her. “jj, i can—”

"it’s late, and it’s cold,” she interrupts, crossing her arms. “and i know you. you’ll spend the entire walk overthinking, or worse, you’ll turn around and come right back here.”

you open your mouth to argue, but she raises an eyebrow, daring you to fight her on this. you sigh, giving in. “fine. i'll still overthink in the car though.”

jj smirks as she grabs her keys. "yeah, but at least this way, you’ll be overthinking with heated seats and no risk of getting hit by a rogue cyclist."

you roll your eyes, but there's a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips. "alright, alright. guess I’ll overthink in comfort then." you step outside, the weight of everything that’s about to unfold on your back.

the ride back is quiet, the streets nearly empty as jj navigates the familiar roads. you stare out the window, your finger spinning your wedding band, mind racing with all the possibilities of what comes next.

you wonder how it will be when you walk through that door. will he be surprised to see you? will he be angry? will he apologize? the questions swirl in your mind, but you push them aside—you'll find out in a few minutes either way.

jj pulls up in front of the apartment building and turns to you, her expression gentle. “you don’t have to fix everything tonight,” she reminds you. “just… put all your cards on the table. don't sugarcoat anything.”

you nod, feeling a mix of gratitude and nervous anticipation. "thank you, jj," you say softly, giving her a small smile. "i don’t know what i would’ve done without you tonight."

she smiles back, her eyes warm with understanding. "you’ll be fine. just be honest, that’s all you can do."

with a final nod, you push the door open, the cold air immediately hitting you as you step out onto the sidewalk. your heart is pounding in your chest, each step towards the apartment feeling heavier than the last.

you twist the handle, it's unlocked, but you hesitate before pushing the door open, gathering your courage in the silent hallway. when you finally step inside, the apartment is quiet—but not empty. a single lamp illuminates the living room, casting long shadows across the walls.

and there's spencer, sitting on the couch hunched over with his elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

he looks up at the sound of the door, and for a brief moment, his face is completely unguarded. relief washes over his features, followed quickly by something that looks almost like fear. he stands immediately, his movements stiff and uncertain.

"you came back," he says, his voice hoarse.

you close the door behind you, still standing near the threshold. "i started feeling guilty." you sighed, jj's voice in the back of your head—just be honest.

spencer swallows, his gaze flickering to the floor for a moment before meeting yours again. "guilty?" he repeats, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant.

spencer exhales sharply, rubbing a hand over his face. “you shouldn't feel guilty," he murmurs, then shakes his head. "i mean, it makes sense,” he says quickly, his words picking up speed.

“studies show that guilt is often a response to perceived moral transgressions rather than actual wrongdoing. it’s the brain’s way of enforcing social cohesion—an evolutionary mechanism designed to maintain interpersonal relationships by making us feel responsible for potential harm, even when no actual harm has been inflicted.”

you couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of disbelief and amusement as he rambled on. it was as if, in the middle of all this, the man you once knew had momentarily resurfaced. even if what he was saying wasn’t at all what you needed to hear right now, a part of you couldn't help but recognize the familiarity in it—the way he always got lost in his thoughts, trying to explain things when he didn’t quite know how to connect.

he shifts on his feet, his words picking up speed. “and in this case, your reaction makes perfect sense. you removed yourself from a heightened emotional situation in order to regulate your response, which, psychologically speaking, is a far healthier alternative to reactive conflict. but then, the cognitive dissonance sets in—the part where your brain tells you that leaving contradicts your usual patterns of behavior, and that discrepancy triggers guilt, even if logically—”

“spencer,” you interrupt gently.

his mouth snaps shut, and for a second, there’s just silence. a flicker of something vulnerable crosses his face, and you realize—he’s rambling because he doesn’t know what else to say. because this is easier for him than actually talking about what matters.

you step forward, closing a bit of the distance between you. “i don’t need an analysis,” you tell him gently. "i just want you to tell me what's going on."

spencer’s gaze flickers for a moment, like he’s trying to find the words, trying to make sense of the situation. "i never wanted you to feel like you needed to leave," he says, his voice quieter now, more vulnerable. “but i didn’t exactly make it easy for you to stay.”

you lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, the weight of everything you haven’t said pressing heavily on your chest. "no, you didn’t," you admit, your voice just above a whisper.

his expression tightens, a flash of something—guilt, maybe—crossing his face before he looks away.

"i've been trying," he says quietly. "i have."

"have you?" the question comes out sharper than you intended, but you don't soften it. "because from where i'm standing, it feels like you've been doing everything possible to push me away."

spencer's gaze snaps back to you, a hint of defensiveness in his eyes. "that's not fair."

"isn't it?" you take another step forward, emboldened by the surge of emotions you've held back for too long. "you won't talk to me. you won't look at me. you won't even sit next to me on the couch. what am i supposed to think, spencer?"

he runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every movement. "it's not that simple," he says, his voice strained. "i want to be the person you remember, but i don't know if i can be that man anymore."

the admission hits you like a physical blow. "i'm not asking you to be exactly who you were before," you say softly. "i know that's not possible. i just... i need you to be present. to talk to me. to not shut me out completely."

spencer is quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on some point beyond you. when he finally speaks, his voice is barely audible. "i don't know how to explain what it was like in there."

your breath catches. this is the closest he's come to talking about prison since he's been home. you don't know if you should say something. you hold your breath, afraid that if you move or speak, he'll retreat again.

his eyes are distant, far away, and for a moment, you wonder if he’s even aware of how much you’re hanging on his every word. finally, he exhales slowly, his gaze dropping to the floor as if the weight of it all is too much to bear.

“being in there… it broke something inside of me,” he says, voice low and strained. “i kept thinking about what it would be like to come back, to be here, with you. and then i just—" he paused for a moment. "i had to do something really bad. i had to do things in there that… things i never thought i would do."

"i hate myself for it. every second of it." his voice breaks on the last word, he shakes his head, hands shaking slightly as he runs them through his hair, frustration and guilt radiating from him.

"i wasn't just a victim in there—i became someone i don't even recognize anymore. i did things that went against everything i ever believed in, everything i told myself i would never do."

he looks at you now, and you can see the turmoil in his eyes—the deep-rooted shame and the self-loathing that’s consumed him. "and now i’m back here, with you, and i don’t even know who i am anymore. i’ve become this person who did unforgivable things. you don't deserve someone like me, someone who’s capable of—of that." he gestures vaguely, as if trying to encompass everything that’s happened to him.

"is that why you've been pushing me away?" you ask softly. "because you think i won't love who you are now?"

he doesn't answer, but the way he avoids your gaze tells you everything.

"baby," you whisper, shifting closer to him. "nothing could change how I see you."

you take a slow, unsteady breath, searching for the right words—any words—but everything feels inadequate. how do you explain something that goes beyond language?

"god, spencer," you exhale, shaking your head. "i wish i was better at this. i wish i had the right words, i wish i was some kind of poet, and that i could say the right things to make you understand, but i'm not."

you finally close the gap between you two and take his hands, gripping them tightly, pressing them against your chest as if somehow, if he just feels the way your heart beats for him, he’ll finally understand.

"it’s frustrating," you continue, voice thick with emotion. "because what i feel for you—it’s bigger than me. it’s bigger than words. i can’t explain it, and i hate that, because i need you to know. i need you to understand that this isn’t something breakable, something you can ruin, something you can chase away just because you think you should."

he swallows hard, his fingers curling around yours, but he doesn’t speak. maybe he can’t.

"i swear, spencer, if there was a way to pull this feeling out of me and give it to you, i would. if i could make you see yourself the way i see you, make you understand that what you did—what you had to do—doesn’t make you unworthy of love, i would do it in a heartbeat." your voice breaks slightly, tears now lining your eyes. "because i don’t just love you. it’s not that simple. it’s not just some feeling, some thing i could ever put into words. it’s more. it doesn’t begin or end with what you’ve done, or what’s happened to you, or who you think you’ve become. it just is."

he lets out a shaky breath, his eye are now wet, shining under the dim apartment light, his lips parted slightly like he wants to argue but can’t find the strength to. because maybe, just maybe, for the first time—he’s starting to believe you.

"i just wish—i wish you could feel it," you murmur, voice breaking. "i wish you could step into my skin, into my heart, and know how much i love you."

you don’t realize you’re crying until he reaches up, hesitantly, brushing his fingers against your cheek like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he touches you. his hand is shaking, but he doesn’t pull away.

spencer’s expression falters, something breaking inside of him, and when he finally—finally—pulls you into his arms, it’s not desperate or frantic. his arms wrap around you slowly, almost reverently, as though he's trying to let the feeling of your love wash over him, to understand it the way you do.

at first, it’s just the slightest tremble in his shoulders, so faint you almost miss it. but then you feel it—the shaky exhale against your neck, the way his fingers clutch at the fabric of your shirt like he’s afraid to let go. and then, slowly, silently, he starts to break.

his breath hitches, and before he can stop it, a quiet sob escapes him, muffled against your shoulder. his body shakes, all the pain and guilt unraveling all at once, and all you can do is hold him through it. his hands grasp at you like you’re the only thing tethering him to the present, like if he lets go, he’ll disappear into everything he’s been trying so hard to contain.

you don’t say anything. you don’t tell him it’s okay, because you know he wouldn’t believe it. or maybe because it isn't. but it will be. you'll make sure of that.

your fingers thread through his hair, your lips press against his temple, and you whisper the same words over and over, a promise and a lifeline: "i love you. i love you. i love you."

you stay like that for a while, wrapped in each other, the weight of everything that’s happened still lingering in the air between you. but it’s different now. lighter, somehow. not because everything is fixed—there are still conversations to have, wounds to tend to, pieces of him he hasn’t shown you yet.

but for the first time in a long while, you feel like you’re on the same side again. you’re not standing in separate corners, silently blaming each other for things you can’t control.

the weight in your chest, the anxiety that has gnawed at you since that day you got the call about him being detained, begins to fade. you don’t need to fix everything tonight. you don’t need to have all the answers.

his breathing begins to steady, the tears slowing, but he doesn’t pull away. instead, he rests his forehead against yours, his voice a raw whisper as he says the only thing he can in this moment. “i’m sorry.”

you close your eyes for a moment, exhaling softly. “i know,” you whisper.

there's a beat of silence. "i've been having nightmares," he says, his voice so low you have to strain to hear him. "almost every night. that's where i go sometimes—i walk before going to bed. i walk so that i'm exhausted enough that my mind shuts down."

the sudden admission breaks your heart—but there's also a part of you that feels relief. relief that he wasn't turning to something worse or someone else to numb the pain.

"spencer, you could have told me." you said, fingers rubbings patterns into his back.

"i didn't want to burden you more than i already have," he says, shaking his head. "you've already been through so much because of me."

"that's not how this works," you say, squeezing his hand. "just forget all of that, okay? things will be different now. you not talking to me hurts more than that ever could."

he leans into you, his eyes closing for a brief moment. "i'm sorry," he whispers. "for pushing you away. for making you feel like you weren't enough. you've always been enough."

you lift a hand to his face, your thumb brushing against his cheek as you take in the exhaustion lining his features—the weight he’s been carrying alone for too long. slowly, carefully, you lean in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. just a warm, quiet reassurance that you’re here, that you’re staying.

when you finally pull away, his forehead rests against yours, and he lets out a quiet sigh, his breath warm against your skin. he looks at you, his eyes filled with a mixture of hope and uncertainty. "do you want to go to bed?" he asks, voice low.

you pause for a moment, you hadn’t realized just how exhausted you were until his mention of sleep. your shoulders feel heavy, and your body aches from the emotional toll it’s taken.

a deep, almost instinctual sigh escapes your lips, and you nod softly, “yeah."

spencer squeezes your hand gently and leads you toward the bedroom. the moment the covers are pulled back, you slip under the soft sheets, the cool fabric against your skin offering the smallest comfort after everything you've been through. spencer follows you in, his body warm and reassuring as he settles beside you.

he moves closer, carefully wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into him with a tenderness that makes your chest tighten. you rest your head on his chest, the steady beat of his heart grounding you. his presence, steady and constant, washes over you like a balm, soothing the frantic, scattered thoughts in your mind.

his hand moves slowly up and down your back, the rhythm soothing, and you realize just how much you've missed this—missed him.

you close your eyes, letting the weight of everything melt away as you drift closer to sleep. spencer’s voice is soft, a comforting murmur as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.

"i love you."

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #matthew gray gubler #prison reid #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid angst #postprison!spencer

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monster-disaster · 3 months ago

Text

[demon] Cillian

demon!Cillian x human!Reader Warnings: oral, not a full smut just a tease

Summary: Your pianist husband needs his muse.

A/N: It's a silly idea but I hope you will enjoy it!

The room is bathed in the amber light of the setting sun, casting long, warm streaks across the polished dark wood floor. Each ray glimmers through the floor-to-ceiling windows, sliding across the sleek, glossy surface of the piano's black lid. The grand instrument stands still against the view of Meriad in the background. Beyond the glass, the city stretches out with its towering buildings and the fiery hues of the evening light.

"What are you doing?" you ask when you finally break the stillness of the room. Your gaze is fixed on your husband standing a few steps away from the leather bench of the piano.

Cillian takes his time to respond, his focus lingering on the instrument for a heartbeat longer before his eyes flicker over to you. His arms remain crossed over his broad chest. The crisp white shirt he wears hangs loose at his neck, revealing a hint of his strawberry-red skin.

"Cancel the concert," he says at last, causing you to frown as his words sink in. His arms flex subtly under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. The motion draws your eyes for a fleeting moment as he adjusts his stance, turning slightly to face you more.

"I can't do that."

Well, you could, but there is no way you will when the concert is just a few days away.

"And why would I, anyway?"

Cillian holds your gaze. A flicker of something passes through his eyes but disappears before you can read it. "I'm not ready," he states. His words hang in the air while your mind races for an answer.

He shakes his head slowly, the movement making the tips of his screw horns catch the golden light streaming in through the windows behind him. "I need more time."

"You’ve had months," you remind him. Your voice is more harsh than you originally intended. "Just sit down and... play."

The demon’s frown deepens, his dark brows drawing together as if the suggestion itself is offensive. "It doesn’t work like that."

You wave at the piano, helpless. "Well, whatever your problem is, you have to get through it," you tell him. "I’m not canceling the concert, Cillian. It would ruin your career."

He exhales sharply. The sound is somewhere between a huff and a growl. He knows you are right. "I can’t."

Your heels click sharply on the hardwood floor as you close the space between you, pointing at the bench. "Sit."

The demon glares at you for a moment. His jaw is set so tightly that you can see the subtle shift of his features. The sharp lines of his cheekbones grow even more pronounced. His skin seems to stretch over the bone structure like a mask, and his eyes sink deeper into their sockets. The darkened hollows glint with something ancient and primal beneath his composed exterior. For just a second, you get a glimpse of his true face; the demon he is beneath the polished surface. Then, with another sharp exhale, he turns away from you as he lowers himself onto the leather bench, and when he looks at you, he is human again. Well, more human.

"Now, play," you say, resting your hand gently on the sleek surface of the piano. "Play something. Anything."

Cillian’s glare shifts from you to the instrument in front of him. His dark eyes run over the keys while his long, elegant fingers hover above them, twitching and fidgeting, but never quite making contact. There is a palpable tension in the air as he stares, lost in his own internal battle.

"Play one of my favorites," you tell him more softly now as you watch your love struggle.

You don’t need to elaborate further. Between being his wife and his manager, you’ve spent countless hours listening to him play, learning what pieces move you and resonate in you deeply.

For a long moment, he remains motionless as if weighing the request against his inner turmoil. Then, slowly, his fingers press against the keys, tentative at first as though testing the waters. The sound is soft and familiar, but as the rhythm begins to take shape and swell, a sharp, jarring tone slices through the melody, causing Cillian’s entire body to stiffen. A low curse escapes him, frustration radiating off him like heat, and with one fluid motion, he slams the keylid down. The sudden sound of wood against wood rings through the room.

He runs a hand through his dark hair, clearly irritable. "Damn it," he mutters under his breath. His eyes flare to that sharp, almost predatory intensity before fading into a simmering frustration.

"Let's try again tomorrow," you break the silence after a long, tense second. Your voice is soft and careful.

"It won't change anything," the demon replies. "Cancel the concert."

You sigh, your shoulders slumping slightly as the weight of his request presses down on you. "I can’t, Cillian," you tell him. "It would ruin everything you’ve built."

The silence stretches between you, thick and charged.

"You’ll figure it out," you say, reaching out to gently push his hair back from his eyes. "Come. Let’s have dinner and watch something stupid on the TV."

Your offer doesn't solve his problem, but it draws the smallest of smiles across his lips as his fingers link with yours, and without another world, he lets you lead him toward the kitchen.

"I have an idea." The soft, low murmur of your husband's voice cuts through the sleepy fog of your mind, delicate and distant. At first, it doesn’t even register. His fingers, light as feathers, trace along the line of your jaw, his thumb grazing gently over your lips. The warmth of his touch seeps through the haze of sleep, but your mind is slow to catch up.

"What?" you croak, squinting into the dark of the bedroom. His silhouette is little more than a shadow against the darkness.

"I have an idea," Cillian repeats. "But I need you for it."

You shift onto your back, the sheets rustling beneath you as you force your eyelids to stay open and yourself to stay awake. "You mean now?"

"Yeah," he says with a hint of eagerness threading through his simple answer.

Any other time, you would have grunted at him in annoyance and sunk back into the softness of your pillows, not ready to give up the warmth of sleep for anything, but you watched him struggle with his music for weeks, and you can’t bring yourself to dismiss the quiet hope in his words tonight.

"What’s your idea?"

You let him pull you from the bed without a word, your body still heavy with sleep. His fingers, warm and soft, guide you out to the living room. The grand piano stands still by the large window, its polished surface reflecting the faint light spilling in from the city beyond. Flashes of neon advertisements cast a colorful glow across the towering buildings and the streets below constantly in motion with the never-ending flow of traffic.

You stand there for a moment, the sound of your breathing mingling with the distant hum of the city while your husband leaves your sides only to close the lid of the piano before turning his attention back to you.

"Take off your clothes," he says, gaze drifting over the delicate fabric of your nightgown.

Your body reacts before your mind does; your skin tingles where his eyes linger. "What?" You can't help but let the word slip, caught off guard by his sudden request.

"I want you naked," he states as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

"Cillian," you murmur his name, suspicion threading through your tone, but there's no resisting the strange curiosity that blooms in your chest. "What's your plan?" But your fingers already move to the hem of your nightgown, tugging it off with a quick motion.

"We’ve been so caught up in my concert, in everything else, that we didn’t even have time for each other. Weeks without this…" He trails off, eyes never leaving your bare body. "I need my muse back." His eyes are darker now as he pats the sleek, black lid with a soft thud. "Come. Sit here."

A pulse of excitement tingles down your spine at his invitation and without a second thought, you step closer. "Are you sure about it?" you ask, casting a wary glance at the piano. You don't want to ruin it.

"Yep," he replies, popping the p between his lips while his hands find your hips, and before you can protest further, he hauls you effortlessly onto the instrument.

The sleek, lacquered surface presses against your skin, heightening your awareness of your exposed self.

"There," he murmurs, rich with approval as his hands linger on your thighs, steadying you. "Perfect."

The air around you feels thick and charged with an intoxicating heat that clings to your skin. The hard, unyielding surface of the piano isn’t exactly comfortable with your legs dangling awkwardly over the edge, brushing against the cool keys, but none of that matters; not the sharp corners digging into you or the faint creak of the instrument beneath your weight. Your mind is far too hazy with the thrill of this moment to care about anything else while you watch your husband lower himself onto the bench.

Seated there, he has a perfect view of the heat pooling between your thighs, laid bare for him and him alone. You can feel your cheeks flush under his scrutiny, but the vulnerability doesn’t make you shy away. Instead, it feeds the fire burning inside you, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

"Now," he hums softly under his breath. "Stay still, my love."

The first sound he coaxes from the piano is soft and delicate like a whisper meant only for you. It is slightly muffled, the closed lid and your body atop it tempering the instrument’s full voice, but the music loses none of its beauty. Each note wraps around you, seeping into your skin, and settling deep in your chest. Your husband plays with the same precision and passion that drew you to him in the first place, his hands gliding over the keys as if the piano is an extension of himself. For a long while, the world beyond the room ceases to exist, and even when only the final note lingers in the otherwise quiet air, you are still unable to remind yourself of your exposed, vulnerable position.

"You will be amazing," you murmur, breaking the silence after a long, long second. Your chest is full of wonder and pride as you watch his eyes lift from the keys to meet yours, locking onto you with an intensity that makes your breath hitch.

"And I'm not done yet, my wife." The grin that curls his lips is nothing short of wicked. It’s the kind of smile that warns of trouble and promises pleasure in equal measure.

You gulp, throat dry as his heated gaze pins you in place. "Should I get off?" you manage to whisper.

"No."

Before you can process his answer, he moves. The lid closes over the keys with a sharp click, and his long, skilled fingers find the plush softness of your thighs, squeezing just enough to make your breath hitch. A startled squeak escapes your lips as he pulls you forward, the motion causing the piano to emit a dull thud beneath your weight.

"Cillian!" you shriek, your heart racing. "What-?"

"Stay still, my love." His lips find your skin, brushing feather-light kisses over the sensitive flesh of your thighs. The heat of his breath fanning over your core makes you shiver.

Your head falls back with a throaty moan as his tongue eagerly swipes over your slit. The sharp jolt of pleasure shooting through your body makes your toes curl while Cillian's fingers dig into your soft flesh as he hauls you closer. The possessiveness and determination in his movement leave no room for escape, not that you'd dream of it.

"I’ve missed this," Cillian murmurs against your pussy. "My muse, my inspiration." His lips curl into a smile before his tongue delves between your folds again, exploring you with a hunger that steals your breath away. "How could I ever create without tasting you first?" His words are a mixture of devotion and wickedness, stoking the fire already burning inside you. His tongue glides through your wetness, collecting every drop with wet, obscene sounds that seem to echo in the quiet room. His mouth slurps and sucks on your arousal before his lips find your clit. The first flick of his tongue sends a shockwave through your body, and you arch into him instinctively, begging, demanding. He tongues you with maddening skill, alternating between gentle laps and intense suction that has your legs trembling.

"For weeks," he breathes against your sensitive flesh, pausing just long enough to tease you with his words, "I’ve been surrounded by noise; praises, and expectations, but none of it compares to this." His tongue traces circles over your clit, coaxing a sharp gasp from your lips. "You, my love, are the only symphony I need. My muse. My salvation." He feasts on you with an intensity that borders on worship. He plunges his tongue deeper, his pace relentless, as though determined to draw every ounce of pleasure from you.

His dark eyes flick up to meet yours, and for a moment, you forget how to breathe. There’s something primal in his gaze, a depth that seems to pull you under as if his very soul is reaching out to claim you. His eyes are sunken in their sockets, and you can see the simmering energy beneath his skin. His demon form presses at his human facade, begging to be unleashed.

His lips curl into a feral grin, sharp and wicked, as his tongue flicks over your clit again, drawing a gasp from your lips. "Breathe, my love," he teases. "I need you to last long enough to inspire me properly."

#monster romance #monster x human #monster x reader #monster boyfriend #teratophillia #monster fucker #terat0philliac #monster smut #demon x reader #demon smut #demon x human #demon x you #x reader #terato #monsterfucker #meriad

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ponett · 1 month ago

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Aside from some of the basic premise and the space elevator (I think I see that in the concept art), were there any other elements from Maretropolis you were planning to incorporate in Andromi? (Sorry if you've already answered something like this elsewhere.)

Boy this is a blast from the past lmao. I can't even remember the last time someone brought up Maretropolis.

For context for anyone who doesn't know, Maretropolis was an MLP fancomic I started working on aaaaallllllllll the way back in 2012, set in a sci-fi AU. It starred a Rainbow Dash who had gotten into a bad flying accident and had several of her limbs replaced with cybernetic prosthetics by Twilight, who's a roboticist in this universe. It sounds a little grimdark when I describe a My Little Pony character losing multiple limbs in a horrific accident, but the heart of the story was just that Rainbow Dash had lost her wings, so she would have to try and figure out her place in the world now that she could no longer fly.

I had brainstormed a TON of ideas for this, thinking it'd be like my magnum opus as an MLP fanartist. I channeled my love of sci-fi into all sorts of fun little ideas for how a version of FiM set in a giant sci-fi city would work. Sweet Apple Acres would be a vertical farm in a high-rise greenhouse. Fluttershy would take care of stray animals found around the city. There were these giant spaceport towers visible in the city, and I'm pretty sure I wanted to eventually depict a city on the moon that Luna ruled over. A lot of stuff like that. Surprising no one, there was also going to be a yuri element to it with a romantic arc for Rainbow Dash... though, believe it or not, she was going to fall in love with Pinkie, not Fluttershy, in this story. (I was already exploring FlutterDash over on Fluttershy Replies and wanted to mix things up with another ship I liked, rather than running two blogs about the same ship.) Rainbow would be unable to fly up to her cloudtop apartment after the accident, so Pinkie would let her stay at her place, and then one thing would lead to another.

The problem I quickly ran into, though, was that I just wasn't built to be a comic artist. I'm not that confident as an illustrator to begin with, and I work very slowly, so doing entire comic pages was an ordeal. I'd bitten off more than I could chew, especially with the elaborate city setting that would've really challenged my meager art skills at the time. Before long I switched my focus to making games, since that was my main career goal in the first place. I considered turning Maretropolis into an RPG Maker game or something, but the project just sorta quietly died as my interest shifted. (Especially after I got my C&D from Hasbro that ensured I would never make an MLP fangame again lmao)

Fast forward to 2014, and I started working on an original sci-fi game, Andromi. (Anyone not familiar with that project can read about it here.) And, yes, you're definitely right in noticing some similarities. It was never intended to be a direct retool of the story of Maretropolis or anything, but since Maretropolis was basically just me throwing a bunch of my favorite sci-fi stuff at the wall it was inevitable that I'd revisit some things from that earlier project. Naomi being a cyborg is the obvious one. But I had realized over time that my fun cyborg Rainbow Dash AU was really a story about physical disability, and in hindsight I wasn't sure if 18-year-old Bobby was gonna be able to tell a story like that well. So Naomi has basically nothing in common with Maretropolis Rainbow Dash's planned arc, aside from the fact that they both have cybernetic limbs. (And also, y'know, they'd both be sapphic love stories. But, again, it's me, so that goes without saying.)

And, yes, you're 100% right that I reused some visual elements from Maretropolis in the city in the background of this piece of Andromi art, mainly the giant spaceport towers. Though Andromi was intended to be primarily a small town sci-fi story, so I'm unsure how much of that city we would've actually seen.

There ARE some other story ideas that originated in Maretropolis before evolving into ideas for Andromi. But, well... I'd still like to do something with Andromeda and Naomi someday, so I'm keeping those ideas to myself for now.

#sabottori #ask

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kiame-sama · 2 months ago

Note

Maybe Humans had a good relationship with Yetis and Sasquatches? Sharing their secrets and special skills in return for sanctuary and protection from Monsters who intend harm upon them

Yeties and Sasquatches learned many ways to preserve food from drying, salting, pickling, smoking and fermenting as well as being able to purify drinking water by boiling, filtration and natural substances

Humans taught their Great Ape Cousins how to make their food last longer, especially when on the move, purifying drinking water, as well as sign language, codes and making traps to catch enemies

The three species were very closely bonded early on. As all three originated and evolved from select branches of the ape family, there was a kindred connection, much like how the Equine species bonded.

Sasquatch are more of the forest and jungle dwellers, the Yeti being the mountain dwellers, and Humans being plain dwellers. They formed close comradaerie and partnerships among the three species up until the species branched out to other places. After branching out, that is when magic really began to develop in species. Every species excepting Humans. Both ape species actually tried to keep their Human counterparts safe, but ultimately failed as more began to discover just how fascinating and attracting the Humans were. From there is became a losing battle for the Ape species to stay together, Humans being ripped away from their family groups to be pets or food and the few that stayed together fleeing before more could be taken.

It was Sasquatch that begged Papa Hades to take Humans under his wing in the first place, and he readily agreed.

Humans shared quite a bit of knowledge with the Yeti and Sasquatch, most of whom learned through observation, just as Humans naturally do. They kept a lot of Human crafts alive after the extinction even if they also forgot the origins of Humans as apes. Neither species felt complete after the death of Humans, all feeling the need to search for their long lost friends, even those that never met a Human. Like a piece of the trio was gone, and they couldn't stand being a duo species anymore.

Clay is a hybrid Yeti/Sasquatch. He is considered Yeti because he is much bulkier and taller than Sasquatch, who are the smaller of the two species. Usually Silverbacks are a Sasquatch only breed, but as he is outwardly built like a Yeti with the breed coloration of Sasquatch, he is considered a Silverback Yeti. He- like the other Ape species- feel a very sudden and very profound connection to Humans after rediscovering they are Apes too. Upon meeting The Human, he feels like the leader of a troupe who has just come across an abandoned infant with no mother. As the silverbacked leader, it is his duty to protect and teach this Human just as much information and skills as he learns from The Human. He also feels a kind of genetic responsibility to protect, as Humans never got the magic their other ape species counterparts did.

Many Apes of current day TWST feel responsible for the extinction of Humans, that they somehow stole the magic Humans would have gotten. It is now a heated subject on why Humans out of all species never got magic, and many eyes have turned towards the Yeti and Sasquatch people for answers they don't have. Current day Yeti tribes and Sasquatch troupes are the most vocal about The Human being returned to the other ape folk after Humans had been so brutally torn away from them by others. Their platform is gaining traction.

#kiame-sama #yandere #tw yandere #humans are extinct twst au #hae yeti #hae sasquatch

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bomber-grl · 1 year ago

Text

Leo Valdez x Child of Hypnos ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

Pairing(s): Leo Valdez x Gn!Reader

First of all, I’m surprised your paths even crossed 😭

I mean you’re quite literally the opposite of each other but I mean “opposites attract”

You two most likely met when annabeth would go to your cabin to get something from your sibling the head counselor

The two of you started getting to know each other mainly because of how, again, Leo’s type is someone out of his league

Ngl he didn’t really think of you much but in the rare occasion you’d be at the bonfire he tries to get close and even forces someone like annabeth or Percy to introduce him to you

One notable thing about you to him was the fact you were more awake than your siblings

You’d be found wondering around camp, the few times he saw you walking was when you got a snack then fell asleep on a bench

Most people just passed you like it was no big deal but he decided to get a water bottle and sit next to you

He heard you mumbling a bit about something and then he heard his name

He heard his name!!!

Well you began stirring under his gaze and got up while rubbing your eye

You didn’t even take note of him and layed back down on his lap

…. Aaaand that’s how it stayed for a few hours, he was even teased by passerby’s

We all know damn well it was the stoll siblings

Anyway eventually it got late so he carried you back to your cabin and left

Once he got back into his bed he couldn’t sleep whatsoever, still thinking of why you said his name

He sorta forgot about the whole ordeal until you came to his cabin and was made aware by his sibling

He went to the door and there you were… with baked good…?

You were barely conscious but admitted to having baked them with the help of Will (who gladly agreed)

You gave them to him for getting you back to your cabin safely and told him you’d be up for hanging out, but not too often, and preferably not during the day

Then you skidaddled

He kept thinking of it and he was so touched that he didn’t let anyone eat any of the goods😭

Anyway, your siblings were all out of camp one time (what a coincidence) so you decided to invite him over

The two of you ended up really talking while on your bed and you ended up telling him about you

He was surprised by your hobbies, art, reading and not so surprised by the fact you were introverted

He eventually asked how u were more coherent than any of your other siblings

-and you answered honestly

You really didn’t know, but even if you were seen as sleepy still, you really weren’t as much at least

It was just that you were really imaginative and would daydream more often than not

He was honestly surprised to actually have a real convo with you but he eventually began talking about himself too

The two of you spoke for a much longer time than originally intended and that turned into a sleepover

He really didn’t wanna end your convo but it was hard to deny the fact his lids were getting heavy

You reassured him to just sleep and eventually the two of you did just that

And what really surprised him? Was seeing you in his dreams

He was so shocked it was honestly funny 💀😭

He was weirded out too but he decided to go along with it

Honestly was kinda cool since you were able to talk while sleeping and still be well rested so

A win is a win

It was honestly surprising he didn’t immediately fall asleep when he entered your cabin but yknow

The two of you are closer than you could ever imagine, even if your most intimate (not in a 18+ way) was while the two of you were laying in bed

A lot of people were weirded out, especially since you were seen more around camp during the daytime and at bonfires due to Leo

But it was a good change

In times of when people are fighting or whatnot whether it’s in battle or capture the flag he love being on your side

Especially since you can literally make anyone instantly fall asleep without putting in the effort

Honestly really cool especially since he won’t have to retort to violence

Either way he really loves you especially when he’s not able to fall asleep, he can just fall asleep in your arms and go to sleep

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hey-august · 1 year ago

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How hard do you think it would be to get Buggy into lingerie? One one hand I like the “gender is a performance and I’m the STAR” angle people give him, making him someone who mostly presents as masc but may or may not have some corset style belt he likes to wear, even if it was originally intended for women, who paints his nails and does makeup and doesn’t care what anyone says….

But on the other I also like insecure Buggy who’s afraid of the idea of his partner seeing him in something lacy and sweet and somehow decide that’s the last straw for them and they are clearly better off with another man.

Or Buggy who likes the idea when his partner springs it onto him, but worries about looking like a very different kind of clown in a very unsexy, unflattering way.

BUT ALSO Buggy having some me time and turning himself this way and that way to look at himself wearing something luxurious, something red with lace and sheer fabric that hides just enough to be even more sinful than it would have been if he was stark naked. Hes playing with the pearls around his neck when he locks eyes with you , frozen on the spot. The terror that creeps up his spine quickly melts when your face breaks into an honest and adoring smile and you hastily lock the door behind you before making your way over to him. Luxurious lace and silk stockings on a man as fine as this are best appreciated up close after all.

🫠🫠🫠🫠 There is so much here and I adore it.

Short answer, I think it would take some time to build up to it through giving him gifts that keep getting skimpier and boosting his confidence. Keep in mind, words would only go so far, but showing praise and compliments through action would go further.

My longer answer is ~600 words and relatively sfw.

I also enjoy the headcanons for gender fluid / gender non-conforming Buggy, who definitely has some special unmentionables.

But Buggy’s only worn those items for himself, not for someone else. He likes how they feel on his skin - soft, smooth, and luxurious. In fact, one of his favorite ways to relax at the end of a long day is wearing one of his favorite sets and lounging in his room. He has a silk robe for chilly evenings, although he takes a moment to enjoy how his body reacts to the cool air coming through the cloth.

Those moments have only ever been for him. When you came along, Buggy spent less time on his private indulgences. The treasured items wound up in the corner of a drawer, out of sight but not entirely out of mind. While Buggy wasn’t comfortable wearing them as frequently, he found peace in running his fingers along the fabric. Tracing the embellishments, caressing the lace, and letting the smooth fabric slip through his calloused fingers.

One day you caught Buggy off guard, followed by you catching a wad of clothing in the face. It was reflexive. And it was his favorite piece - a red bodysuit with well placed mesh and lace that pulled the eyes to temptation, while opaque embellishments played coy.

Full of panic and eyes wide, Buggy claims it was a gift for you. He just didn’t have a chance to wrap it, but it was definitely for you. As you slip on the garment, you catch an odd expression on his face. Something soft that you can’t quite read. When you ask what he’s thinking, Buggy says that it’s flashy and sexy. It looks amazing on you.

The gentleness on his face seeped into the pirate’s voice as he spoke about the lingerie. You ask if he wants to try it on. The offer wasn’t to tease, but came from simple curiosity. Buggy declines quickly, saying it would look silly on him - not the fun kind of silly, but the ridiculous and cringey kind. His face turns red. Maybe he’s embarrassed, so you ask again. His harsh retort sounds more like anger, so you drop the subject.

In the middle of the night you wake up to an empty bed and a thin stream of light from the bathroom. Peering through the crack where the light escaped, you see Buggy adorned in the bodysuit that he claimed was yours. After seeing how it hugs and conforms to his body, there’s no doubt that the lingerie was never yours.

Buggy’s attention switches between the mirror and looking down at his own body. Switching between admiration and scrutiny. Again, his rough fingers follow a path along the delicate fabric. Following the valleys and hills of his body, wondering how the bodysuit would fit over different contours. Whether it would be more flattering than how it looks now.

To him, it looks fine. He looks fine. Average, at best. Buggy only wore pieces like this because of how they felt on his body. The sensations made him feel good. He appreciated how the garments looked, but on their own, not on him.

A creak drew his attention to the secret observer. You didn’t mean to lurk. To stare. But it was hard not to. You wanted to keep looking. You wanted to touch. To feel the warmth of his torso under the mesh. To trace the hem that sat so prettily on his hips and framed his rear. To see how the fabric would stretch and swell.

You could hardly put your reverence into words, but hurried kisses would be a start. Caging Buggy against the bathroom countertop so you could run your hands across his body would say more than words.

Any disagreement, any pushback that Buggy might have had, died under your worship. Crumbled as you pressed yourself against him. Dissolved on his tongue, replaced with your sweet taste. His feelings of insecurity were washed away by the pureness of your desire.

FWIW, I was imagining items from Thistle and Spire for this. 🩷🩷

#buggy x reader #buggy the clown x reader #buggy x you #x reader #buggy op #opla buggy #one piece buggy #buggy the clown #hey-august buggy short stories

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genericpuff · 7 months ago

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sorry if this has already been addressed, but why are the chapter numbers off on dillyhub?

Back when I started mirroring to Dillyhub, I decided to condense a lot of the episodes that were either extremely short to begin with or cut in half for time. Ex. Episodes 1 and 2 were condensed into Episode 1, Episodes 3-5 were condensed into Episode 2, etc. This was mostly to make the reading experience a little more consistent, especially with episodes that were split for the sake of lightening the workload for the week but thematically were meant to be presented as one single episode.

Pacing and reading rhythm are really important to me so I don't like cutting things off in weird places, if I ever do split an episode it's usually where there's already a natural enough conclusion that it can work on its own, such as the Alex episode which was originally split into two parts for Tumblr, but then condensed into one again for Dillyhub. To show you what I mean, here are the separate endings of Parts 1 and 2 that work on their own, but together in the condensed episode turns Part 1's ending into a setting transition and Part 2's ending into the "true ending" of the entire episode:

That doesn't happen too often nowadays though. If there are any production issues, unless an episode has a natural cut off point that can make it doable as a two-parter, I'll usually opt to just delay the episode until it can be presented in full the way it was intended to be.

Back when I started the comic though, I was still just messing around with things and putting out updates that were small but frequent, before I had committed myself to an actual posting schedule. That's why so much of the condensing on Dillyhub happened within the first stretch of the story, because so many episodes were only like 10-15 panels at the time (it's also why on Tumblr it takes nearly 20 frigging episodes for Kore to get home from the party/Hades' house LOL but on DH it's more like 12).

So yeah, it can sometimes cause issues like it did today with the elevator number sequence LMAO but for the most part, the episode numbers aren't really much of an issue unless you jump between both Tumblr and DH, in which case... yeah sorry about that LOL It's mostly just to clean up the episodes that were originally intended to be longer but weren't for some reason or another.

To put it simply, in the hypothetical scenario that Rekindled were a book, its episodes would be formatted more like the DH version than the Tumblr version. Hope that answers your question :'3

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore rekindled ama

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inkblackorchid · 1 month ago

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You mentioned in your last answer that you can never really tell how much you have left to write for Embers because the length keeps getting away from you. Out of curiosity, what to this point would you say is the biggest offender as far as “this ended up longer than I thought”?

I’ve had some duels I’ve written end up longer than I thought because it was just too easy to write banter between each move so the characters hammed up an already long duel but it was too fun to cut, and I’ve also had minor characters I only included to fill out a scene suddenly inspire entirely new subplots because they were so easy and fun to write

Basically, in a simpler way: is the story getting longer because of things being longer in the transition from outline to actual writing, or is it longer because as you are writing you are getting inspired to add more? I know how the creative process tends to look for me and I’m curious what you tend to run into more

My biggest offender for "this got way longer than intended" is the entirety of Fields of Arcadia, lmao. I love that story with all my heart now, but the original idea I had for it was supposed to be one, at most two extra chapters at the end of Be Careful. But the fic completely got away from me because there were a lot of things canon left unaddressed about the Arcadia Movement that I desperately wanted to take a stab at myself, so the ideas kept coming and I kept writing. Then the initial planning stages for Embers began, too, and suddenly, I realised FoA was going to have to set that up, which ended up making it even longer. And now it's kind of a centrepiece of my Aki arc, which. Well! Didn't expect that when I was initially workshopping the idea.

That said, I absolutely relate to the other things you listed, too. Duels especially also have a tendency to get away from me because I love mixing banter and snazzy cardplay descriptions, and before I know it, the chapter is over 20k words.

As for Embers, it's a mix of two things: One is what you mentioned—the story gets longer as it transitions from outline to actual writing, because I love my outlines, but they're never so strict that I don't let the scenes breathe a little longer when I feel like it. Two ties into the first one—where big setpieces and especially action sequences are concerned, I'm a logic freak. I like to set situations up in a way that leaves very little room for questions of how or why. It's a personal preference based on how I interact with literature in my free time. I like it when things make sense. Well, turns out, often, in order to communicate to an audience that can't read my mind why something makes sense, I need to write more scenes for it. Embers is the prime example of this happening over, and over, and over. These are my main two issues with the fic length getting away from me atm. Which is not to say that inspiration doesn't play a role (in stories like FoA it very much did), but this particular story has a solid outline that doesn't feel like there's anything I need to add to it anymore.

So there you go!

#yugioh 5ds #work: fields of arcadia #ask the orchid #embers is a story that refuses to stay short even more so than fields of arcadia did #which is saying something #hope that satisfies your curiosity!#orchid rambles #current wip

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faith369 · 1 year ago

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>>Cigarettes and Bourbon<<

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!bartender!reader

Warnings: nsfw (at the end), drinking, smoking, masturbation (Simon)

(Part 1), Part 2, (Part 3)

Simon looks at his hand, holding a cigarette, thinking about you. He wouldn't have let a stranger fix his wound, but he just got home from deployment, and the doctor's office is closed this late, and going to the E.R. for a cut would have been ridiculous. He tries telling himself it wasn't because he was charmed by you but more because he was tired from the jet lag but too pumped up with adrenalin to sleep, that was the original reason to walk into the run-down-looking pub, to wind down while nursing a glass of bourbon, not to find the bartender of the club a bit too attractive, while simultaneously asking himself why you're working in such a shithole. Simon only now notices that the cig in his hand is almost burned to the tip, so he quickly snips it away and leaves his balcony.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He tells himself that he's only here because the bourbon was good for the cheap price, while he pushes the rundown bar door open a few days later. As if he couldn't afford whiskey of higher quality. You don't see him right away when he comes in, being occupied with closing down the bar, but when the cold wind hits your back, you turn. Simon can see the surprise of seeing him again written on your face and in the tone of your voice as you greet him while he sits down.

“You are aware of the fact that we're closing” you raise a brow.

“You didn't mind me when I stayed longer 3 days ago.” You throw a glare at him and finish up wiping the counter before quickly walking to the door, to turn the open sign to closed.

Simon just quietly sits at the bar, letting his eyes move to your skirt, which seems to have slightly ridden up, exposing a little more of your pretty thighs than you probably intended.

"D'you want bourbon again?“ Simon answers your question with a small, almost invisible nod. “Why'd you come again?”. "It's a bar, and I needed a drink.“ “I think you're lying.” Despite your statement, you don't push him further and make his drink. You catch a glimpse of a cigarette packet in his jacket while putting the glass on the counter. Simon's soldier instincts almost come in when you bent over the bar to grab the pack of cigarettes and snatch them away from him, but sadly, his eyes were too focused on your chest. “Give it back,“ he grumbles as soon as he comprehends that you just basically stole his pack. "I'm letting you stay here longer; the least thing you could do is give me cig, and before you ask why I didn't ask, it is because I knew you'd say no.“ Simon doesn't respond and decides to drink his bourbon instead. He watches the way you wrap your lips around the cancer stick you just stole before lighting it. He was about to make a remark when his phone starts to ring, his captain's name illuminating the screen. “I have to go“ he says, gulping down the rest of the amber liquid and throwing you a 100-pound bill on the table.

Before hastily getting out of the bar, leaving you with the question of what the actual fuck his deal is.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The water drops falling from the shower hit Simon's head, pouring down his body. His hand searches the support of the wall while he is occupied dragging the other along his cock, imagining his calloused hands were your pretty mouth or pussy. He groans, moving his thumb across his tip, trying to get an idea of how your moans would sound if he'd push himself inside your cunt, trying to get an idea of how he'd make you cum until you couldn't give him anymore of your bratty comments. He slightly increases the pace of his hand, thinking about you naked in front of him. Soon the shower wall is decorated with the white strings of his cum. Panting slightly, coming down from his high, the water already rinsing away any evidence, he groans out a fuck while running his hands through his hair. He doesn't do shit like that, he doesn't jerk off, especially not when he is in a safe house on a mission, and he doesn't do it to the thought of you, a pretty little bartender he only met twice.

A/N: Did this instead for learning for my chemistry and physics exam hope you like it.repost and like -Love Faith <3

#cod mw2 #cod x reader #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost x reader #cod mwii #ghost fanfiction

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eternalwritess · 8 months ago

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jjk matchup exchange with @thecurrator

i match you with... 𝓢𝓾𝓰𝓾𝓻𝓾 𝓖𝓮𝓽𝓸 ██ 20% _ ████ 60% _ █████ 80% _ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 100% ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇ!

♥ You two technically met at Jujutsu Tech, as you went to the same school and passed by each other in classes and sometimes trained together. But you never truly had an exactly proper introduction, you just knew each others names, grades and that was about it

♥ You both got more formally introduced when you were both sent out on a mission together to exorcise a high level curse and on the way there Suguru didn't really like the awkward silence in between you two so he was the first one to speak up, asking you if you had been on any missions like this before

♥ You likely gave him a short answer and he pressed on, talking about how he was sent on missions like these quite a bit. He sort of ignored your 'resting bitch face' as trust him, he's seen worse on Satoru. He's seen even worse on Shoko when Satoru decided to do some dumb shit, so your outward scary demeanor didn't really affect him all that much

♥ Once it was clear that you weren't into talking all that much and didn't seem all that comfortable with him he apologized for talking so much and you two finally arrived at your destination. Turns out a few more curses had ended up spawning and the two of you ended up staying there longer than you originally intended to. Something that you and him were slightly upset about, but he didn't show it on his face

♥ On the way back he tried talking to you some more, you two were communicating during the fighting but it was short and snappy. So instead he ended up complimenting you and your fighting style, then giving you some tips on how to fight better

♥ He even offered to help you train if you were up to it, you thanked him for it and didn't really plan on taking him up on that offer until you both had to train together for an assignment. It wasn't anything with curse techniques but it was hand to hand combat which Suguru excelled at. He ended up beating you most of the time and ended up showing you things that you were messing up on, stance, balance, hand placement

♥ You and him ended up just working on your combat the entire day when he asked you if you planned on doing anything else after this. It wasn't in an 'asking you out' sort of way, more that he was just curious. When you responded no he nodded along and said that everyone was gonna go out later to hang out and was wondering if you wanted to come along with them

♥ You were gonna decline when suddenly you didn't have a choice as Satoru was already there and in both of your faces, dragging the two of you along somewhere. You all ended up going to some fast food place where you felt uncomfortable. You didn't really wanna be here and Suguru noticed that soon later

♥ He apologized for Satoru's behavior and said that he just does whatever he wants sometimes, not really listening to others and their opinions. He then mentioned something about him never growing up under his breath, that got you to laugh a little. The whole time you guys hung out he stayed close to you and slowly you began getting more acquainted with the group as a whole, getting more and more comfortable around them

♥ Hell Suguru even got Satoru to apologize for dragging you out, although it took a while, and a lot of mean comments back and forth. Which was nice to say the least

♥ He found out that you liked poetry once he saw you reading a book about it once and immediately asked you who your favorite poet was, he then explained that he also read a bit of poetry here and there but he's never really had all that much time since he came here, being a special grade and all

♥ For about an hour you two just sat there and talked about poetry rambling on and on about it and about your day, it developed into books and book recommendations and you found out that he read some fiction here and there but most of the books he read were about the mind and peoples thoughts

♥ From there on out you two were both truly friends, whenever he saw you he would walk up to you and just talk to you about anything and everything that he possibly could. You were a nice break from Satoru for him, and while he loved hanging out with Satoru it could be a lot sometimes, you calmed him down

♥ Sometimes you two would talk so long that it would soon turn dark and this you'd both just sit and watch the sunsets, and whenever you two woke up early in the mornings you'd watch the sunrise. It was during once of these moments when you were watching them he found himself watching you. The way your hair framed you face, the suns rays bouncing off of your skin, and thats when he realized that he was in love

♥ He ignored it, he planned on confessing yes but not now. Not until he was at least somewhat sure that you felt the same for him. Mostly because he didn't want to get rejected, and he didn't want to possibly ruin what you two already had, cause he did genuinely like you

♥ It took him a few days to work up the courage to do so and thankfully he did it before Satoru realized that he liked you. He ended up writing you a small poem just about things that he adored about you. He didn't know how else to confess, he also told you that he understood if you didn't feel the same way about him

♥ When he discovered that you did feel the same way about him he was so happy, he hid it though under a small smile and then asked you when you were open for a date. You both established a time and date for it to happen

♥ You ended up going to a small cafe where you both got some food and drinks. He paid for everything and then you guys saw that a good movie was playing and decided to go and watch it

♥ When Shoko heard that you two were dating she was happy, honestly she saw Suguru's crush on you coming from about a mile away

♥ Utahime thought that you two made such a cute couple, she was so excited over it and said that she hopes everything ends up working out between the two of you. She was also happy that Suguru got a significant other before Gojo

♥ Nanami thought that it wouldn't work out, especially with the risk everyone was taking with being a sorcerer and all, and while he briefly expressed it he never did anything to stop you two from dating

♥ Gojo was the last one to know and yes, he was offended. Going on and on about how you stole all of Suguru's affection from him and how'd he never forgive you for it (he was joking ofc)

♥ Your relationship dynamics are: friends to lovers, high school sweet hearts, and star-crossed lovers (maybe)

^_ .̫ _^

♥ You and Suguru talk, a lot. Just about anything really, your latest hyperfixation, a new poem that you both had read. Maybe a movie that the other saw. Maybe some stupid shit you saw one of the others do, you two are always talking though. That's a fact

♥ You observe what the group does quite a bit and watch as they get in trouble with Suguru. He tries to stop it sometimes but when he sees that you're just sitting back and watching it all happen he sits and watches it with you, and then laughs when things don't work out

♥ He does things for you a lot, helping you with your homework (if you need it), giving you small gifts, helping you make something, helping you improve you technique. He's constantly trying to help you, he just wants you to not be burdened by anything

♥ He also compliments your looks a lot and tends to give criticism when needed and he's pretty good at it too. Even then afterwards he'll help you work on anything and everything

♥ He spends a lot of time in your dorm just hanging out with you, it doesn't even matter to him what the two of you are doing. You could literally be saying, and doing nothing and he'd still savor every second of the moment with you

♥ Hidden Inventory arc... remember that star crossed lovers bit? Yeah this is where that maybe comes in so lets talk

♥ After he comes back from the mission you noticed that something was wrong with him, he was constantly spacing out and sometimes forgetting things like due dates, he stopped hanging out with you as much and obviously you were hurt by this. You also wanted to know what happened so you talked to him

♥ When you tried all he told you was the the Star Plasma Vessel, Riko Amanai, had died when it was his and Satoru's mission to protect her. That's all you really ever got out of him, anything else you wished to extract from him was soon impossible as when you'd bring it up he would excuse himself for missions

♥ Until one day you had him cornered, you could tell that he wasn't okay and that this death was still affecting him. So you tried asking him again, and again, and again, and each time it was like listening to a broken record.

"Riko Amanai, the Star Plasma Vessel died"

♥ According to him there was nothing more to it than that and only that. Nothing you ever did for him got through. You tried spending time with him again and he appreciated it, it was fun but it wasn't the same. He was spacing out like you, something that he didn't usually do and soon enough it just felt like he wasn't the same anymore

♥ You soon enough came to Satoru, you knew that he went on that mission with Suguru so you wanted him to tell you what happened, and all you got out of that was just that the death must've been affecting him pretty hard. But to not worry about it because he'll recover 'because he's the strongest, like me' were his exact words

♥ You didn't really get another chance to talk to him about it as the next time you heard anything about him it was that he had killed an entire village on non-sorcerers. Reason? Unknown

♥ Satoru was the one to tell you this, brief and hard. He didn't say much before leaving, you wanted to ask where he was going but it was pretty simple. To talk to Suguru, for a second you wanted to go with him but stuck it back out at your dorm wondering why he would do this

♥ You got your answer when you met him next, he wanted to get rid of curses, and to do that he needed to get rid of the source. Non-sorcerers, humans, people

♥ Maybe the worst part of it all was that he seemed better than he had since the mission, maybe better than he had his entire life. Either way, it was scary, and you were mad. So, what next?

#matchups #match up #matchup #jujutsu kaisen matchups #jujutsu kaisen #suguru geto #jujutsu geto #jjk geto #geto suguru #matchup exchange #jjk

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fallingforfictionalcharacterss · 2 years ago

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Heyy! I just wanted to say I LOVE your writing and read your fanfics all the time!! I just wanted to ask (if you are not busy) could you write a fanfic in which reader and Draco breakup but reader realises they made a mistake and want Draco back? Thanks for all the other amazing writing you have xx lots of love <333

Thank you so much for your request! Writing this was quite a challenge for some reason and I still don´t know how I like the outcome, but I really hope that you´ll enjoy reading.

By the way, I most likely won´t be uploading something in the next few weeks (as if I had a regular schedule for this anyway) because I´m going on vacation. So for the next two weeks, I´ll be lying at a beach in Thailand (for the first time in five years, I´m super excited) but I really hope that after this I´ll be inspired and write some new fics for y´all.

Secrets

Warnings: break-up; it´s pretty much an emotional rollercoaster

You raised your upper body slightly, resting its weight on your forearms, as you watched the figure sitting at the desk, his back turned to you, with narrowed eyes.

“Draco?”

The blond boy just hummed in response.

“When will you be done with this?”

“Just a little longer, love.”

“But that´s what you already said an hour ago.”, you said, letting out a dramatic sigh.

“It will take how long it will take, (Y/n). After this I´m all yours, I promise.”

“Pff, that´s what you always say.”, you huffed. “Until something else comes to your mind which is much more important than me again.”

“There is nothing more important to me than you, my love. You know that.”

“Oh yeah? Is that so? Because right now, you aren’t even looking at me.”

Draco groaned in defeat as he put down the quill and turned around in his chair to finally face you. And even though he held an annoyed frown on his face, originally intending to scold you, his expression softened rather quickly when he saw you lying on his bed in one of his sweaters, looking at him with doe eyes. Even though you were trying to hide it, Draco just knew you for way too long to miss the disappointment in your eyes. And while Draco Malfoy wasn’t one to care much about the feelings of others, when it came to his beloved girlfriend, he just couldn’t bear to see even the slightest hints of dejection.

So he quickly scribbled down one last sentence onto his parchment, before finally closing the book he had been hovering over for the last few hours, and with a few large steps, he walked over to his bed, letting himself fall down right next to you. The moment you felt the mattress lowering, you quickly shuffled over, huddling into the embrace of your boyfriend. Draco put an arm around you, as you rested your head on his chest.

“Are you happy now, love?”, he asked, letting out a low chuckle as you nodded eagerly. You could feel the vibration in his chest going through your entire body, making chills run down your spine. “But you know I can´t stay long, don’t you? I still have stuff to do.”

You pouted.

“Stuff, what kind of stuff?”

When Draco didn’t answer immediately, you glanced up at the boy, noticing how with a blank expression, he stared into the void.

“Draco?”, you asked in a soft voice, making the boy beneath you jolt.

He looked at you, seemingly confused for a second, before he got a grip on himself again and cleared his throat.

“Nothing- Nothing important. I´ll just… I´ll meet up with Crabbe and Goyle. We… still have… It´s some Quidditch stuff, you know? Nothing interesting.”

You frowned.

“Six years and I still don’t like these guys. I mean, the others are all so nice. Pansy and Blaise… But these two? I don’t know what you see in them.”

Draco raised an eyebrow as he glared down at you.

“You made it very clear that I shouldn’t criticize you for the choice of your friends early on. So do me the same favour, love, alright?”

You nodded in defeat, but you couldn’t help but add: “But you have to admit that they are… well, not the sharpest knife in the drawer to say the least.”

A small grin sneaked on your boyfriend's face again.

“Probably can´t argue with that. Merlin, I feel like a troll could beat them in their exams if it would try very hard.”

You let out a small giggle, making Draco´s grin only widen.

“So why don’t you just ditch your troll friends and spend the evening with me?”, you asked, glancing at Draco through your eyelashes hopefully.

But the boy just shook his head.

“Believe me, love, there´s nothing I´d rather do, but you know just as well as I do I can´t.”

“I know.”, you sighed. “The team would be lost without you, wouldn’t it? And I obviously can´t take that responsibility.”

“The team?”, Draco frowned, before he seemed to remember. “Oh yeah, of course. We can´t let those filthy Gryffindors win the cup once more, can we?”

You looked at Draco doubtfully. Because even though his words were making sense, by the way, his voice sounded and he avoided your gaze, you knew he was lying to you. Which unfortunately happened rather often since the school year had started.

You didn’t know what had happened over the summer holidays before your sixth year at Hogwarts had started. But you knew that ever since then, Draco had changed. At first, you had suspected that it had something to do with you and your relationship – for a frightful moment, you had even suspected that Draco might had fallen out of love with you or had someone else - but soon you had realized that Draco didn’t only behave differently around you, but in general. He was thin-skinned and easy to distract, and even though he spent much more time studying and practising Quidditch, his grades had dropped drastically and even though you hated to admit, Draco was a worse player than he had ever been before. From time to time, you had the feeling that the only moments he could truly relax were when it was just the two of you. Draco and you by now knew each other for way too long to actually hide your feelings from one another and most of the time it was useless anyway because you could read each other like a book. You loved how much your boyfriend was able to calm down when he was around you, however, you would have certainly preferred it, if he would have just told you what it was that was troubling these days. But even though you had encouraged him many times that he could talk to you and you had promised him that whatever he would tell you would stay between just the two of you, Draco had stubbornly denied to tell you anything at all. At some point, you had just given up trying, not because you didn’t want to know or because you didn’t care, but because you felt as if the most that you could do for the boy you loved was just to be there for him and give him the safe space he apparently needed so bad these days, making sure he knew that he could always talk to you but also not pressured into anything. You trusted Draco enough to believe that he would come around by the time he was ready to tell you, and until then, you had decided that you would just enjoy the moments you still had left with him, just like the one you had now.

So instead of pushing him any further, you just pecked his jawline, before nuzzling only deeper into his chest.

“I have no doubt you won´t. They won´t stand a chance against you this year.”

“Especially if my beautiful girlfriend will be in the stands cheering for me.”

“I´ll make sure to bring my pom-poms.”, you chuckled.

“I don´t care about those things. Though I´d really like to see you in one of those uniforms someday.”

You let out a laugh.

“Oh, I bet you do. But you should be focused on the snitch. Not on me.”

“As if I ever could take my eyes off you. No matter what you are wearing.”

“Don´t you dare to put the blame on me for last year´s disgrace, Malfoy!”

“I would never even dream of doing so, my love.”, he smiled, as the boy only pulled you closer, making you smile against his chest.

You weren’t quite sure how much time had passed, but Draco and you were still lying in his bed. Your head was still placed on his chest, but by now, you faced the ceiling, while Draco had wrapped an arm around you. A comfortable silence had spread across you, while you had put his large hand into your smaller ones, absentmindedly fiddling with the rings covering his delicate fingers. Your fingertips were tracing the lines in his hand, making Draco shiver under you, before turning it around, dancing over the back of it. You followed the lines of his veins, clearly visible under his pale skin, before you reached the button of his white shirt. Draco´s breath slowed down more and more, and his right arm, which was tangled in your hair, slowed down his movements more and more, while the blond boy´s mind slowly but steadily drifted away more and more. You smiled to yourself, as you played with the button, opening and closing it a few times, before suddenly, you stopped short. Because at the upper edge of the slit in Draco´s sleeve, you made out some lines of dark ink, a harsh contrast on his fair skin.

“What is this?”, you asked, as you curiously tried to tuck the sleeve up a bit. “Did you get a tattoo and didn’t tell me?”

Draco blinked down at you in confusion when your words made him snap out of his haze, but the moment he realized what you were talking about, he quickly pulled his arm away and jolted up, making you fall from his chest and yelp in surprise.

“Draco, what the hell?”, you laughed as you looked at the boy who was staring at you with widened eyes.

Your boyfriend took a deep breath and forced a wry smile at you.

“Sorry, love. I almost fell asleep. I just startled.”

You shrugged and smiled at him, not holding it against him.

“So tell me. What´s that?”, you asked again, nodding in the direction of Draco´s arm.

“Nothing. It´s nothing.”, Draco responded, feeling clearly uncomfortable as he avoided your gaze.

“There are pretty many things that are nothing today, don’t you think?”, you asked as you watched him gulp nervously.

“I just don´t want to bore you with unimportant things.”

“Oh please. As if you would have ever cared about this. You´ve always been ranting for hours about stuff that I don´t care about. I still remember a certain speech of almost an hour when Potter conquered you in potions at the beginning of the year.”, you huffed.

Draco narrowed his eyes.

“So suddenly you don´t care about what I´ve got to say anymore at all?”

“That´s not what I said.”

“In fact, it was.”

“No, Draco. What I´m trying to say is that I don´t mind if from time to time you also talk about things that I´m not as involved in as you or that I don´t understand. As long as it is important enough to you and you want to talk about it with me, that´s enough. Because I love you, Draco. Merlin, I love you so much you could give me a four-hour talk about flobberworms and I would gladly listen to it. And if it´s only to hear your voice. So go ahead and tell me.”

The corner of Draco´s mouth twitched up slightly.

“Well, I´m not sure if I can go on for four hours, but it´s that weird little creature that bit Crabbe in one of the lessons of this incompetent disgrace for the wizarding world calling himself a teacher, who also…”

“You know I´m not talking about the flobberworms.”, you interrupted Draco.

“But you said you would listen to me even if I would just talk about them for hours. And I thought a little personal anecdote would…”

“You´re distracting, Draco.”, you cut your boyfriend off once more. Under different circumstances, you would have probably found it funny or adorable how desperately he tried to distract you, but right now you were way too worried about the boy in front of you to continue playing his games.

“What do you want to talk about then, my love?”

“How about what´s on your arm?”

“That shouldn’t be any concern of yours.”

“Well, it is.”

“It might be, but you told me that I should tell you what I want to talk about and this certainly isn´t one of those things. Flobberworms on the other hand…”

And at this very moment, you were just done with Draco´s childish behaviour.

While the boy genuinely tried to keep on chatting about the most boring creature to ever exist, looking anywhere but at you, you quickly bent forwards, grabbed Draco´s arm and pulled up the boy´s sleeve. The second Draco realized what you were doing, he pulled away immediately, but it was already too late.

Even with the white fabric covering the black ink on his forearm again, your eyes were still fixed on the place, you had spotted them seconds ago.

Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest and let out a nervous chuckle.

“Merlin, (Y/n), if I would have known you want to rip off my clothes so badly…”

“What is this?” Your voice was surprisingly calm for what your eyes had just spotted and for what your mind was just about to process. “Draco, what the hell is this?”

“It´s nothing, love. You really don´t have to think about…”

“No, Draco. Not again. Tell me what this is. Tell me...” Your voice started to crack. “Tell me this isn´t what I think it is.”

“Well, if you already think you know better, who am I to tell you differently?” He sounded defiant, but just like you, Draco couldn´t hide the vigorous shaking of his voice.

It had been only a second, most likely only the split of it, that you had exposed the dark lines covering the inner side of Draco´s left forearm, but the picture was burned into your mind, nevertheless. Every delicate feature of the snake winding elegantly around the skull, the black appearing even darker on Draco´s pale skin; a piece of art looking way too pretty on him for the fact, that this little thing had just shattered all your hopes and dreams in no time.

“But you… you have to. Tell me I´m wrong, Draco. Please.”

The whisper almost broke Draco´s heart, yet he seemed to remain unfazed by it. He still didn’t look at you, because if the boy would have seen the tears shimmering in your eyes, it would have made everything just so much worse.

“I don´t even know what´s on your mind, (Y/n). So how can I tell you, whether you´re wrong or right?”

Obviously, he knew what you were thinking. He always knew. But for now, this seemed to be the only way to delay the inevitable.

“Don´t… don´t make me say it. I can´t…” Your voice broke once more.

“Well if you can´t then we don´t need to talk about it anymore as well, do we?”

Finally, Draco glanced up at you. When he saw you blinking vigorously, trying to prevent the tears in your eyes from falling, he automatically extended his hand to touch you, to offer you some kind of comfort, but you shied away from his touch, lowering your gaze. Draco flinched as if he had burned himself. You could only imagine the hurt lying in his eyes now, but at this moment, you didn´t really care. How could you when the guy you had always loved more than anyone else had betrayed you in the worst way possible?

“Love?” Draco´s voice was gentle, way too gentle to come from a boy who has chosen a life of fear and death. “Love, please talk to me.”

Your gaze was fixed on your lap, your hands played with themselves nervously.

“You said we shouldn’t talk about it. So I don´t think there is anything left to say, is it?”

“I… I didn’t mean it that way, (Y/n). You know that.”

“Do I, Draco? How would I?”

“Because it´s me. Love, you know me better than anyone else does. If there´s anyone out there who understands me then it´s you.”

You glared up at the boy in front of you, eying him suspiciously.

“How dare you say that? How dare you to say that I know you? That I understand you? I don’t recognize you, Draco. I always trusted you. I was always by your side. And you used me like this. Lied into my face all the time. So how can I think that I´ve ever truly known you?”

You expected Draco to object. To tell you that whatever had happened to him; that he had no choice. That this wasn´t who he wanted to be. That you were actually the only one who knew who he truly was. But instead, he just huffed.

“See, that´s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

Your face fell.

“That´s what you think?”

“That´s what I think.”

You nodded as you straightened your back and wiped away the tears. A useless act you realized, since new ones were falling steadily. But you ignored it.

“Then there´s nothing left to say I guess.”

“That´s not what I… (Y/n), listen. Just lie back and calm down for a moment and then you´ll see that none of this will affect you and when you aren’t so upset anymore then we can go back to…”

“No, Draco. We won´t. None of those things. I… Honestly, I don´t even want to hear what you got to say anymore. And I certainly don´t want to calm down. Because there´s nothing to be calm about. And nothing that won´t affect me. And if you…” You gulped heavily. “If you think I´ll stay after you did this. After you lied to me. You are mistaken. I won´t stay. Not in this stupid bed, not in this stupid room and certainly…” The words almost got stuck in your throat as you choked out: “Certainly not with you.”

You wished you could just storm out of the room and slam the door dramatically, but you were still tangled into Draco´s damn sheets, which were way too soft and smelled way too much like him. That smelled way too much like home. So you just shuffled away from Draco awkwardly to the other side of the bed. Draco watched you. His face showed no emotion, as you kicked the blanket away that was still wrapped around your legs before you headed towards the door with large steps. You wished Draco would call you out. Tell you that all of this was just a misunderstanding. A bad dream. Something you would figure out together.

And he held you back indeed.

“(Y/n)?”

You had almost reached the door when his voice made you freeze. This was it. The moment he could take everything back. The moment he could fix it. Where he could save your relationship. Save you.

“You won´t tell anyone about this. Will you?”

And just like that, even the last sparkle of hope for a happy ending for the both of you was stifled. You let out a dry laugh, a sound neither Draco nor you were used to hearing from you.

“Why? What would you do if I did? Would you hurt me, Draco?”

Silence.

“Would you do it? Would you… If that´s what you needed to do to keep your secret, would you hurt me? Would you… would you kill me?”

When you glanced at Draco and returned his gaze, you tried to read what was on his mind. There was a small voice inside of you that told you that his eyes were begging you not to leave, telling you that he would never hurt you, that after all, you were the only thing he really needed in his life, the only one he genuinely loved. But when the boy still didn’t answer and just pressed his lips together, you came to the realisation, that all of these assumptions, all the things you thought you knew about Draco, were based on a lie.

You didn’t know how long you had been standing there, staring into the eyes of the boy who you had thought loved you unconditionally until you realized that Draco wouldn’t give you an answer. And especially not the one you were hoping for.

You nodded slowly, finally managing to tear your gaze apart from the blond Slytherin still sitting on the bed, you had been cuddling in carelessly only minutes ago.

“At least I know now.”

And with that, you turned around, leaving the dorm and everything you had ever been hoping for behind you, once and for all.

If somebody would ever ask you, what time of your life had been the worst, you would probably tell them about the days after Draco´s and your way had parted. Because while all you wanted to do was curl up in your bed and never leave your dorm again, the school made that impossible. And with the classes came the questions. It just seemed to be incomprehensible to everyone, how (Y/n) (Y/l/n), the girl who was known to had softened the heart of the Slytherin prince, and Draco Malfoy had parted ways. One day, everything had seemed so perfect and the two of you had seemed to be so much in love, and the next day, the both of you acted as if the other one simply didn’t exist, claiming to not care, while in fact, everyone saw how much you did care. And obviously, everyone wanted to know how it had come to this unforeseeable event. And while people barely ever dared to talk to Draco, especially now that he seemed to be more thin-skinned than ever, you were much easier to approach, and people were literally bombarding you with questions. People you didn’t even know were coming up to you with inappropriately intimate questions about your relationship with Draco, or more precisely, the ending of it. At some point you snapped, hexing some giggling Gryffindors with the Bee-Sting Jinx, causing their skin to swell and giving it an unsavoury pinkish tinge. Until that very day, the girls hadn’t left the hospital wing yet, and you couldn’t exactly say you were sorry to hear.

Who you couldn’t get rid of that easily, however, were your own friends. Especially Pansy stuck to her guns, trying to get you to finally reveal what had happened between Draco and you. You couldn’t blame your friend though, since she had been the one staying up several nights ever since Draco and you had broken up, providing you with some hot chocolate and the most heart-wrenching romance novels, while you were crying at her shoulder. But even Pansy couldn’t get you to tell her what had happened that day in Draco´s dorm.

You had been debating with yourself forever about whether or not you should tell anyone what you had witnessed that day, and until now, you hadn’t come to a conclusion yet. At least that´s what you told yourself. Because the truth was, you knew very well, that you wouldn’t tell a soul, what Draco had done. And not because you were scared that Draco could actually hurt you. In fact, you were quite sure that no matter what he would try, nothing would hurt more than his betrayal. No, the reason why you wouldn’t give away what you knew about the blond boy now, was rather the complete opposite of the idea that you could actually be scared of him, yet it was just as simple as this. Because the truth was no matter what Draco had done and no matter what he would do in the future, you were still completely and utterly in love with the boy. And you also knew that this would never change. And even though you knew that – regardless of your feelings- breaking all ties with Draco was the right thing, that didn’t mean that you simply didn’t have the heart to tell anyone that Draco Malfoy was by now a Death Eater and just like that destroy his future and most likely getting him a ticket to Azkaban without a return.

In one of your several sleepless nights you had debated with yourself that Draco wasn’t even of age yet and that he had probably been pushed into all of that and no one would actually send him to Azkaban, but then again, if You-Know-Who would find out that Draco had been exposed, he would certainly find a way to get rid of him, as a punishment or to simply prevent him from spilling some secrets. Sure, Draco was probably already in a more than dangerous situation anyway, but you had the feeling that exposing him would most likely only make things worse. And while you had also considered asking Professor Dumbledore or Professor Snape, who had always been the closest to Draco out of all the professors, for help, you had quickly realized, that the Headmaster wasn’t as powerful anymore as he had used to be and you were also quite aware of all the rumours surrounding the Head of the Slytherin house. And if Professor Snape was actually still loyal to You-Know-Who, once again, this would only make things worse.

So all there was left to do, was to keep your mouth shut and trying to avoid Draco as much as possible. Because while all the comments of the other students were pretty annoying, whose presence hurt you more than anyone else’s, was Draco´s. And while you had always known what had been going on in the blond head for the past few years, by now you had absolutely no idea. Most of the time, he ignored you, not even seeming to even notice your presence, but from time to time, you caught him, staring at you from across the room with a blank expression on his face and something in his eyes, that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. But that might had also been due to the fact, that neither of you could bear the glances of the other one for more than a few seconds and whenever your gaze met his, the both of you quickly looked away again, trying to ignore the stinging in your heart whenever this happened. Luckily, you didn’t meet Draco often these days. He often skipped the meals, and even to most of the classes he rarely appeared anymore. And while you were mostly lucky about the fact that you didn’t stumble across the Slytherin that often these days, there was still a small voice inside your head, worrying about Draco´s concerning behaviour, wondering how he would be able to pass the exams at the end of the year and how long he would be able to go on at all, with the little he ate and apparently also slept, concluding from the dark circles under his eyes.

Your friends however pointed out, that you didn’t look much better either. The breakup tugged on your nerves much more than you wanted to admit, and you also slept bad these days, and while you regularly appeared to the classes and meals, in the classes, you barely even listened to what the teachers were saying, mostly staring at the blank spot where Draco was supposed to sit and during the meals you mostly just shoved the food on your plate around unenthusiastically. Your thoughts often drifted to the blond boy, making you forget everything around you, just like you did now.

You were sitting at the Great Lake with some of your friends, who were, now that you had finished your homework, happily chatting about all different kind of themes. You on the other hand were just staring at the lake absentmindedly, doodling onto the parchment in front of you, which was already filled with the few sentences that you had scribbled down as a poor excuse for your homework. Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t even notice how a tall figure approached you until he stood right in front of you and cleared his throat.

You flinched and glanced up quickly, the confusion on your face slowly giving way to a small smile.

“Hey, Blaise.”

“(Y/n).”, he grinned, giving you a short nod as a greeting. “Do you have a second?”

You put the parchment on your lap aside and shrugged your shoulders.

“Sure. Why don’t you sit down?”

“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you alone.”, he said, glaring at your friends that eyed the two of you curiously.

You let out a sigh, before you got up.

“Wanna go on a walk then?”

Blaise just nodded again, before he walked towards the lake, not even looking back at you once.

You quickly said your friends goodbye, before with some quick steps, you caught up with Blaise again. For a few minutes, the two of you were just walking next to each other in silence, until the Slytherin boy finally cleared his throat.

“So… How are you?”

You glanced at him suspiciously.

“Why do you ask?”

“It´s been a while since we talked. I mean, we don´t see each other that often anymore since Draco and you…” He trailed off, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

Even though Blaise and you weren’t as close as Draco and he was, you knew for sure that Blaise wasn’t a man of many words, and the fact that he actively had been looking for you and was bringing up such an uncomfortable topic on his own made you suspect that there was more to this conversation than met the eye at this moment.

You sighed.

“Just spit it out, Blaise. What is it?”

“Listen, I know it´s none of my business what happened between Draco and you and I…”

“That´s right, this is absolutely no concern of yours.”, you interrupted him, before he could say anything else. “So why do you still bring it up then?”

Blaise raised an eyebrow at you.

“For real, (Y/n)?”

You rolled your eyes.

“No, I´m joking. So just tell me what you have to say.”

The Slytherin stopped in his tracks and turned around to you.

“For Salazar's sake. Draco misses you, (Y/n). He´s absolutely miserable since the two of you have broken up and it absolutely sucks to see him like this.”

You stared at Blaise with slightly widened eyes, surprised by that -for the quiet boy quite unusual- emotional outburst. For now, however, this was only the second most important thing about your interaction with the Slytherin. Because what stuck way more with you was what Blaise had said to you. Because if Blaise was actually right, Draco felt the exact same way about your breakup as you did. And while you could feel your heart stinging in your chest at the thought that your actions might had hurt the boy you still loved so much, the reasons for your behaviour were still much more important to you than the consequences, weren’t they? And for now, cutting off as many strings between Draco and you was for you the only reasonable reaction to the fact that he had not only irrevocably turned to the dark side, but had also kept this not exactly insignificant detail as a secret from you. Because if you wouldn’t have taken any consequences from this, if you would have just kept going, ignoring the fact that you didn’t even know anymore who the person claiming to want to spend the rest of his life with you was, what would that have said about your relationship to Draco and most importantly about yourself as a person? So even if the fact that your actions might had hurt the blond boy and with that hurt you even more than they already did as well, you knew that your decision had been right. You couldn’t be in a relationship with a person who you weren’t even sure if you knew them properly and ending things was the only logical conclusion. But how were you supposed to explain that to Blaise?

“Listen, Blaise, it´s not like I wanted this. Not like I have fun doing this. But it´s the right thing. After what Draco has done…”

You didn’t finish the sentence, staring at your feet instead.

“What could he possibly have done wrong that you are so upset with him?”, Blaise asked, sounding genuinely irritated. “On the same day in the classes everything still seemed to be alright and only a few hours later you act as if Draco has murdered your favourite owl.” He stopped in his tracks and glared at you. “Hold on, he didn´t, did he?”

You couldn’t help but let out a small laugh as you shook your head.

“No, he didn’t.”

Blaise let out a sigh of relief.

“See, it can´t be that bad if you´re still laughing about it.” He remained silent for a few moments, but when you didn’t answer and just shrugged your shoulders, he continued: “I know Draco can be difficult from time to time, (Y/n). But what I know just as well is that he loves you and that he would never hurt you on purpose. So maybe it was just a misunderstanding or he just…”

“Oh, trust me, there was not much room for misinterpretation.”, you interrupted him bitterly.

Blaise shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“If you say so. But maybe it would still help you to talk to him once more. Or at least listen to what he has to say to you.”

“As if he would have ever tried. He´s ignoring me ever since.”

“So do you.”

“I have every reason to. Trust me, Blaise.”

“Maybe Draco just wants to give you some space. And when you´re ready, he will gladly come up to you and maybe you can work it out then. I´m sure of that.”

You remained silent. Blaise let out a sigh.

“Just think about it, (Y/n).”

You nodded in response.

“I will.”

Blaise gave you a wry smile.

“That´s all I can ask for for now, I guess.”

“Trust me, it is.”

The Slytherin let out a low chuckle.

“Alright then my job here is done, I guess. I still have Quidditch practice anyway. See you around, (Y/n).”

You returned his smile half-hearted.

“See you, Blaise.”

The Slytherin had already turned away from you, when suddenly, he stopped, looking back at you once more.

“Draco loves you, (Y/n). He´d do anything for you. You just have to ask for it. And if he… If he would be up to something stupid…” Blaise looked at the ground, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “Draco knows right from wrong, even if he doesn’t always admit it. So if he has gotten himself into something, I´m sure he has a good reason for it. And I also know for sure that you love him way too much to let him go through this alone.”

And with that, the tall boy finally turned away completely, leaving you alone by the shore, looking at the water, as your thoughts were murmuring in your minds just like the waves in front of you.

The following night, you didn’t sleep as bad as you had ever since you had left Draco in his dorm that day, hunted by his face in your dreams just as much as when you were lying awake, but you simply didn’t sleep at all.

After a few sleepless hours, before you were even realizing what you were doing, you snug up to your wardrobe, pulling out the sweater you had tucked in there carelessly the day you had returned from Draco´s dorm for the last time. When back then you had noticed that you were still wearing Draco´s clothes, you had ripped it off immediately, stuffing it into the deepest corner of your closet. And until that very day, you had refused to take it out there again. But for some reason, tonight you just couldn’t resist.

When you were lying in bed again, the sweater covering you like a blanket and inhaling Draco´s scent that by now already threatened to vanish, Blaise´s words echoed through your head. You knew that Draco and Blaise were good friends and that Blaise probably actually just hated to see his friend suffer after you had broken up with him, yet his last words made you suspect that maybe Blaise knew even more than he had told you. But then again, he hadn’t said anything that hadn’t gone through your mind as well over the last few days. While in the second you had seen the dark mark placed on your boyfriend´s arm, you had felt nothing but disappointment and betrayal. You had been wondering how Draco had still been willing to join the Death Eaters, after everything You-Know-Who had done to this world – and also to his family. Because after all, Draco´s father was sitting in Azkaban because he had been caught as a part of the very same group his son had now joined as well. As you had thought about it later once more, however, you couldn’t had helped but wondering whether it had actually been Draco´s free will to follow in his father’s footsteps. And after your talk to Blaise, you were wondering even more about the blond boy´s motives. Because while it was quite possible that for Blaise the pieces had just fallen together just like they had done for you, it was also possible that he knew something more about what exactly was going on with Draco. This thought however was almost just as hurtful. Because that would mean that Draco would trust his roommate more than he trusted you. And if you were honest, this had probably been the worst thing about the situation from the very beginning. You had always known that Draco had always been fascinated by the dark arts and that his family had taught him some values and beliefs that were in your eyes very extreme, to put it nicely, but you had never actually minded. Because you knew a side of Draco, that he rarely showed to others. He had granted you a look behind the walls he had put up, and what you had seen there had been what you had fallen in love with. And what you still were in love with. You thought you had known all of Draco, all his dreams and his fears, just as he knew all of you. And to discover that there was a part of him that he had intentionally hidden from you, simply broke your heart. At what point in your relationship had you lost his unconditional trust, his willingness to tell you everything? Had you ever even had it at all? Or had everything been a lie since the very beginning? You shook your head, trying to get rid of those unwelcoming thoughts. No, you knew Draco. Better than everyone else. And if there was a part of him, that you still had yet to discover, you were more than willing to do so. You knew that no matter what, things would never be the same as they used to be, but how they would develop was in your hands. And even if for now you weren’t quite sure yet, how you wanted things to turn out, you knew one thing for sure: No matter what the future would hold for you – you wanted to go through it with Draco.

Quietly, you got up from your bed and slipped into your shoes, before you sneaked to the door of your dorm.

When the cold air of the night hit your skin, you shivered. Still, you continued your way, sneaking up the stairs of the tower, placing your feet carefully to prevent the old material from creaking. The wind was stronger up here on the platform, pulling at your hair and your clothes. But you barely even noticed it, your gaze fixed on the tall silhouette leaning against the bannister. You couldn’t help the small smile that crept on your face when you took a step closer.

“I knew you would be here.”, you spoke up.

Even though your voice was soft and barely audible over the howling of the wind, the shadow flinched and turned around quickly. When his gaze met yours, you thought to see his eyes lighting up for the split of a second, before his face went blank again.

Draco´s expression didn’t change as he watched you walking towards him with narrowed eyes, until you had finally reached the railing, leaning against it right next to him, while you returned his gaze without blinking once.

“What do you want?”, he finally raised to speak. His voice sounded strange. It was the same tone he always struck when he was talking to people he considered beneath his dignity, yet you could hear it shaking slightly.

“I was looking for you.”

“You found me now, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“So, what now?”

You bit your lip, glancing at the boy, who was glaring at you with piercing eyes.

“I want to talk.”

Draco huffed.

“Now you suddenly want to.”

“I do.”

“But maybe I don’t want to. It was the same with you when I tried to talk to you, wasn’t it?”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Can you blame me?”

Silence.

“So?”

“Why do you even care? You were the one who left, remember?”

You took a deep breath. You could argue that Draco had been the one who had started what had led to the end. That it had been the only right thing to do. That he had been the one who had let you go. But you knew that starting this argument wouldn’t bring you anywhere at that point. And after all, Draco was also somehow right.

“I… I didn’t think about anything else ever since.”, you finally admitted in a low voice.

“So that´s why you´re here? To sooth your conscience?”, he spat out.

“No, I´m here because just because I left that day it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you anymore!”

Draco´s eyes widened slightly at your confession, one that you both had already been aware of, but also one both of you had been too proud to admit.

“Why would you?” His voice now sounded raspier than ever, and you could see that Draco´s eyes were slightly glossy. “After everything that happened. Why would you still care?”

You took a step closer to Draco. Your hand on the railing now covered his. The boy flinched, his gaze flickered to where your hands were touching, probably remembering painfully what had happened the last time your hands had been intertwined, but he didn’t pull away.

“We´ve been together for such a long time, Draco. I fell in love with you years ago and no matter what we´ve been through, I never stopped. And I… I don’t think I ever will. Even if I wanted to. So if you want me to, I will be with you. And we will get through this together. No matter what it takes. We… I trust you with my life. With everything I have and I need you to know that you can do the same. So if you tell me what is wrong, I will help you. I promise.”

You saw the corner of Draco´s mouth twitching up at your words. He removed his hand from under yours, as he closed the remaining gap between the two of you until your chests almost touched, and cupped your face with his hands. As the blond boy smiled down at you, you felt your heart skipping a beat. While your yearning over the past few days had almost eaten you up, only now that you felt his closeness once more, you realized what exactly you had been missing. And you swore to yourself that you would never let it go ever again that easily.

Draco bent down and pressed his soft lips on your forehead, making you melt into his touch even more. Then he pulled back slightly, looking at you with a softness in his eyes that you had barely ever seen before, even after all those years.

“I know, love. I know the things you would do for me, and I want you to know that I would do just the same for you. And that´s why I am so sorry. For the things I have done and the things I am about to do. And mostly…” He gulped heavily, his eyes scanning every feature of your face, taking in even the smallest details, before he continued: “Mostly I am sorry that this is never going to happen. Because I can´t tell you what I am up to. I can´t get you involved in any of those things. It doesn’t matter if you want to go back to what we were, because we won´t, (Y/n). That´s the end.” Draco took a step back, his hands slipping from your cheeks, leaving behind nothing but the coldness that was embracing you now instead of him. “I´m truly sorry.”

And with that, Draco turned around, leaving you on your own, staring at the place he had stood only seconds ago in disbelief, making you wonder who you hated more at this moment. Him for being the one to leave you this time or yourself for actually letting him go.

If you had thought that you had been at your worst after you had left Draco, you had been wrong. Because now that he had been the one leaving you behind, you felt a thousand times worse. You spend your time staring into the void and now, you weren’t simply ignoring Draco anymore, but tensing up to an unknown level, feeling the tears pricking in your eyes that had failed to do so back on the Astronomy Tower. Because while back then you had barely understood the entire situation, by now the realization slowly started to sink in. You still didn’t know what Draco was up to or what had happened to him in the past, but by now you were absolutely sure that Draco was still the same guy that had meant so much to you from the second you had placed your foot in his train department back on your ride to Hogwarts in your first year. Obviously, many things had changed since then, but the strong connection that you had always felt between Draco and you was still there. And to know that you yet couldn’t be with him for whatever mysterious reason, just made it so much harder for you to deal with the situation.

By now you just felt as if the entire world was against you and you just hated everything and everyone around you, blaming your surroundings for the fact that Draco had taken your opportunity to fix the worst mistake you had ever made in your life away from you again. And so when Blaise approached you one day, asking you how you were feeling, the poor boy was utterly confused when you glared at him with defiance of death, telling him that he should have never suggested talking to Draco and trying to fix the situation, because after all, now you knew for sure that everything was over once and for all and would never get better ever again. And when you stormed away, you were so caught up in your own thoughts and self-pity, that you didn’t even notice how Pansy joined Blaise, who still didn’t quite understand what he had done wrong, and the both of you were watching you walking away with a blank look on your face, with your eyes being glossy nevertheless.

“I really thought they would figure it out.”, Blaise said helplessly.

“You´re not the only one.”, Pansy sighed. “There must be something we can do about this. It´s unbearable to watch them like this.”

You stared at the school grounds underneath you, lying there in silence. The wind howling around the Astronomy Tower wasn’t nearly as strong as when you had been there with Draco, but over the last few days, it had gotten much colder. A shiver ran down your spine. You weren’t sure whether it was because of the cold or the memories that were flooding your mind every single time you got up here. Probably both.

You tried to recall the feeling you had had when for a wonderful moment you had thought that everything might work out after all that night. You remembered the warmth of his hands cupping your cheeks, the feeling of his lips pressed against your forehead, the overwhelming affection you had felt when Draco had looked into your eyes. But even though not much time had passed since then, you already felt all those feelings fading. And the more you tried to recall them, the quicker they vanished. And you already feared the moment, all of this would be nothing more than a distant memory, something you knew had happened to you at some point in your life, that by then would feel like the one of a stranger; a story you would know but would have anything to hold onto except for the knowledge that it did happen. You closed your eyes, trying to savour the warm feeling flooding through your body you had always felt when some grey eyes had been smiling down at you.

“You shouldn’t be up here on your own.”

You spun around quickly, looking into the very same eyes that you had just tried to remember so badly. For a second you thought that this was a sick game your mind was playing with you, to regain a shimmer of hope before suffocating it once more, but if it would have been that way, the smile Draco held on his face would actually reach his eyes and he wouldn’t hesitate to approach you, like he did now.

Finally, he made a few steps towards you, walking up to you slowly, until he had reached the banister. Draco kept his distance from you, as his gaze wandered over the land under you, just like yours had done only minutes before. You turned around again as well, eying Draco carefully from the corner of your eye. From the way his jaw clenched, and he was playing with the rings on his fingers, you could tell that he was nervous. Trying to build up the courage to finally speak up. You felt the corner of your mouth twitching upwards involuntarily. You just knew him far too well after all.

You didn’t know how long you had been standing there in silence, staring at the castle´s ground, before Draco finally spoke up.

“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

You nodded, even though you weren’t sure if he could see since his gaze was still fixed on the landscape in front of you.

“I think we both did.”

Draco let out a small chuckle before he shook his head.

“No, (Y/n). You´ve done nothing wrong. Merlin, I think you couldn’t, no matter how hard you tried.”

“Don´t challenge me, Malfoy.”, you responded.

But the moment the words left your mouth, you regretted them again already. It just reminded you too much of your silly bickering back when everything had been just fine. Which it wasn’t anymore. So you also shouldn’t be joking around like it was.

“We both know I would fail.”

You just shrugged your shoulders in response, not willing to give in to the warmth that flooded through your body when you heard that familiar smirk in his voice.

After a few more moments of silence, you sighed and took a step back from the railing. No matter how much you wanted to stay with Draco right now, no matter how every fibre of your body was screaming at you to not walk away but only get closer to the boy you still loved with all your heart, you knew that this was probably the worst thing you could do. And the only right action right now was to leave the tower and Draco behind, as long as you were still capable of doing so.

You cleared your throat.

“I assume you came here to be alone. So I don’t want to bother you any longer.”

But before you had even turned around completely, Draco´s voice held you back.

“You don’t bother me, (Y/n). You know you never do. Besides... Actually, I was looking for you.” You froze in your steps, trying to prevent your heart from going crazy inside your chest. It didn’t work. “I… I talked a lot with Blaise and Pansy lately, you know?”, he continued. “And I figured out that maybe… I wasn’t quite fair to you.”

No, he hadn’t been. But neither had you been.

You forced yourself to smile.

“It´s okay, Draco. I don’t need your sympathy. I´ll be just fine.”

This was a lie. And the blond boy knew it just as well as you did. Still, he just nodded.

“I know you will be. But…” Draco took a deep breath. “I won´t. Not without you.”

And with that confession, all the walls the two of you had built up around you, tumbled down just like that. You turned around to Draco again, who was standing there, looking defeated, shoulders sloping, and his gaze fixed on his shoes. His lips were trembling dangerously, in a way you had never seen before.

That was all you needed. With a few quick steps, you closed the gap between the Slytherin and you and wrapped your arms around him. It took Draco a few moments to return the gesture, but when he did, he held you impossibly close, as if he never wanted to let you go ever again. And in this moment, he didn’t have any intention to do so indeed. You buried your face in his chest, inhaling his familiar scent and enjoying the feeling of comfort his embrace granted you.

“I´m sorry, love. I´m so sorry.”, Draco mumbled into your ear, his face hidden in your hair.

“It´s okay. It´s alright.”, you whispered repeatedly, clenching onto him, holding Draco up, just like he did with you.

Finally, Draco loosened his grip around you slightly, not much, but just enough so he could look down at you.

“I promise I will tell you everything there is to say. And I will answer all your questions. But just so you know – I never wanted this. None of this. And the least of all I wanted to hurt you. But I guess I failed.”

You could feel a tear dripping down your cheek, and Draco brushed it away with his thumb gently, making you smile through the haze of tears.

“It´s not only on you. I… I shouldn’t have left that day. That wasn’t fair either. But it´s just like I promised. I will stay with you and we will get through this. Together.”

A small smile appeared on Draco´s face.

“So no lies anymore? No secrets?”

You nodded.

“No lies and no secrets. Promised.”

And when Draco pressed his lips on yours, it felt like no time had passed since that day that you had been laying in his dorm, cuddling and whispering sweet nothings into each other´s ears. Just like that, the whole world was falling into place again, as if every problem had just disappeared the moment you finally felt the lips of the boy you loved endlessly again.

When Draco pulled back, you could see the boyish smirk on his face, you had missed so much ever since the school year had started. His fingers traced over your lips and cheek, before brushing a strand of hair out of your face, making you giggle.

“Merlin, have I missed that sound.”, Draco grinned, before pressing a small kiss on the tip of your nose, making another small laugh erupting from you.

Your fingers were buried deep in Draco´s soft hair, drawing some small circles on his scalp as you got lost in his grey eyes, just like he did in yours.

“Draco?”, you spoke up after a while again.

The blond boy just hummed in response.

“There is one thing I still have to tell you.”

“And what would that be, princess?”

“I lied to you earlier once more.”

Draco raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“I said that I would be alright. That I would be fine without you.”

The boy in front of you tilted his head and looked at you with narrowed eyes.

“You did indeed. Pretty hurtful, if you ask me.”

You chuckled. “I know. Sorry.” But then you grew serious again. “That´s it. That was the lie. I wasn’t okay when you were gone. I felt absolutely miserable. And I… I don’t think that I´ll ever be. Alright. Without you, I mean. I love you, Draco. And I don’t want to be without you.”

A small smile appeared on Draco´s face. But not the cocky grin you were used to, but a real smile. A vulnerable one.

“Love, don’t you ever think for a second that I feel any different about you, alright? I love you, (Y/n). More than you can imagine. And I can promise you, that I will never stop doing so until the day I die. And beyond that.”

And that was true. Draco loved you just as unconditionally as you loved him and the both of you knew that. Maybe it was true. Maybe sometimes you only knew what you had lost when it was already gone. But maybe only like that you would also learn to fight for it to get it back once and for all.

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#draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco x female reader #draco x you #draco x y/n #draco fluff #draco fanfiction #draco fic #harry potter #blaise zabini #pansy parkinson #slytherin #fanfic #fanfiction

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burberrycanary · 9 months ago

Note

For the fic commentary game...I want to ask about so many lines, but ok. I've narrowed it down to three from Lost Vocabularies..., so you can pick—I'd be so interested to get your author's commentary on any (or all) of them! 💛

He will never forget nine months of stock prices from 1950.

(this is the one I'm probably least likely to get an answer to, which is fine, but I'm so very curious about what Steve did during those months in the past, and a girl's gotta try! 😜)

2. But he sure as hell doesn’t want them back, not so long as Bucky is willing to carry them, whatever they mean to him now—though Steve doesn’t like to think how Bucky must have found them and when.

(Basically, I just like to make myself sad about Bucky Barnes, so hey: talk to me about the dog tags!)

“Why were you always signed up for something? You already took more vocational classes than about anybody.”

[…]

“Trying to impress my dad,” Bucky admits on a slow breath out. “But not in the way he wanted. ‘One of the laborin’ Barnes with a proper education,’ he liked to say. ‘Bastards won’t know what hit ‘em.’ He wanted me to live out that better American life he was chasing. Be respectable.” Bucky gives a faint dry laugh. “Sorry Pops.”

(I know this is more than one sentence...but I'm just endlessly fascinated by Bucky's (and Steve's) pre-war life and especially Bucky's relationship with his parents and how he feels about them now, after everything. So, if you'd be willing to elaborate on that snippet up there (I'm particularly intrigued by But not in the way he wanted), I'd be ecstatic!

(📦&🧼&◼&⬜-🔪)

Crying into our beers over Bucky Barnes should be the name of our band. 😭🍻😭

The dog tags were such a distinctive element in TFATWS that I knew I wanted to use them in this post-Endgame fix-it series that ended up sprawling out to a bigger scope than I originally intended. But the first question from canon to consider is: whose dog tags are they, anyway?

In the surgery flashback from CATWS, we see that Bucky is no longer wearing his dog tags, which means they were taken away by Hydra. And this makes sense since Hydra was starting the process of completely stripping away Bucky’s identity. What Hydra does with Bucky’s dog tags depends on what kind of organization Hydra is, culturally and administratively. While you could write any number of stories here, especially since Bucky, as a specific known recovered asset, isn’t what the Japanese scientists in Unit 731 called “maruta” (“wooden logs”) or what the CIA-run black sites in West Germany under Project Bluebird called “expendables,” you could argue that Zola might keep Bucky’s dog tags for any number of reasons: spite, gloating, pride, or a perverse attachment to his greatest success. But the most rational course of action would be to destroy anything that could identify Bucky as a well-known American soldier—because this era of American history shows you could get away with not just murder but crimes against humanity as long as you played by certain bureaucratic rules. And this is the organization that Peggy Carter built, canonically, and the era that Steve returns to in Endgame—"the dark and bloody heart of the twentieth century [that] beat and maimed all the unsteadiness out of Bucky’s hands long ago."

I’d argue these aren’t the dog tags that we see Steve wearing when he wakes up in the fake recovery room, which would have been replaced as part of the attempted deception, but instead the ones that he was wearing when he went into the ice, which would’ve been returned once the jig was up:

Hanging around Bucky’s neck on a bright beaded chain are tarnished dog tags with the raised text turned, here and there, the pale green of copper eaten away by time.

I’ll admit I did look up the composition of WWII dog tags and scanned through some research papers on the corrosion levels in metal equipment used in the Arctic before deciding that I could just take a little literary license here and have Steve’s old dog tags be thematically “tarnished,” which in the text is explicitly tied to the theme of things being transformed over time, but the word also carries the connotation of something that’s sullied. For the dog tags, both meanings hold.

My backstory headcanon is that Sam, who was the executor of Steve’s will and his chosen next of kin, invited Bucky to go through Steve’s surprisingly few personal effects for anything he wanted to keep before Sam donated the rest to museums. All Bucky took was the last, unfinished, mostly empty, little notebook and Steve’s old dog tags, which he restrung on a new chain. That’s it. That’s what Bucky is left with as a stranger in this strange land of the present.

In the first glimpse Steve gets near the end of Still Left with the River, he interprets Bucky wearing his old dog tags as indicating that Bucky never stopped caring about him, which is true—Bucky kept on caring a whole hell of a lot. This is Steve’s “it taught me to hope” moment in the text that helps push him toward being honest with Bucky about how he feels after several decades of alternating between pining and grieving, pining and grieving. How many times has the worst already happened between them?

There is always an end to the line where the same big black pit is waiting. And eventually Bucky won’t crawl back out.

But the dog tags are deliberately ambiguous as a symbol, since they equally represent the grief that we see Bucky struggle with in TFATWS. They are Bucky’s chosen gesture of mourning when Steve buries himself in the past. It’s telling that even after Steve returns, Bucky doesn’t take the dog tags off or offer to give them back to Steve again. Whatever they mean, they’re Bucky’s now. And Bucky on some level continues to mourn a faith between them—ineffable and up to that point mutually committed to despite the worst the world could do—that Steve broke when he decided to go back to the past and which returning doesn’t unbreak. Because that’s the problem: “Time only moves in one direction.”

(“There’s a creepy stone somewhere that says otherwise.”

“Exactly.”)

Significantly, over and over, these fraught identification tags are described as occupying the space between Steve and Bucky:

Tipping Steve’s chin up with his thumb, Bucky kisses the blazes out of him while the old dog tags swing a little on their glinting new chain in the space between them.

How Steve left is still very much between them throughout this whole series.

The scene where the dog tags are revealed as Steve’s is significant:

...Steve’s old dog tags swinging in the space between their bodies; then the warm tender weight of Bucky’s forehead, pressed just off-center against his chest, overlapping with the light touch of metal and the pooling chain; [...] Bucky pressed close, and his face hidden.

The contrary actions of Bucky pressing close but still hiding is how Bucky has chosen to deal with the complicated emotional situation Steve has put him in—the combination of intimacy and distance that shades through most of this series. Bucky is trying to both protect himself and give Steve a good-faith chance to do better. Bucky’s strength and generosity win out in the end, because that’s who Bucky is at heart: the bigger person in a way that has nothing to do with being tall or strong or healthy. But part of the problem of any post-Endgame fix-it is that no one fight or confession or “being shoved in a closet together” shortcut could solve these emotional sticking points.

Steve really did that. Whatever his reasons or motivations, which this series digs into a lot in the subtext, in the moment Steve meant it. And there’s no way to undo the choices that have been made, not without recourse to an ethically flawed concept that’s the opposite of living: because trying to undo past losses is exactly what Endgame gets wrong by attempting.

Fuck Endgame: the only way out is through. And by “through” I don’t mean Steve passively playing white-picket-fence house with Peggy through the ugly back half of the 20th century and then getting some sort of science-fiction second chance for a life with Bucky, once all that’s over. That’s doubling down on the flawed ethics of Endgame.

Life is a process of making choices, over and over. And living with the consequences. How you live with them is another ethical choice you get to make, over and over. That’s the constant and inescapable ethical action inherent in being alive.

This series is deliberately full of minor characters with losses just as profound as Steve’s: loved ones gone, former ways of life lost, all the small gathered-together pieces that we each painstakingly build into a life vanishing, whether bit by bit or calamitously all at once:

Her face lights up. “Thanks, I make them myself. I’m thinking of going to fashion school, maybe. Textile design. I’ve already died—fuck being scared, right?”

Between war, the Blip and the Return, she has lost every member of what was once a huge family. And life just keeps going on.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Fuck being scared.”

Or:

“Been walking since Greenwood Cemetery. I can’t get to where any of my people are buried so you know what I’ve decided?”

Steve gives a hum, meaning what’s that?

“I’ve decided to collectivize. Every grave on earth with the first name George is my boy’s. I’ve claimed every Elizabeth—in all forms—and Rachael, Robert and Joseph. Never cared for my husband’s people so I don’t bother with them. But I’ve got some favorites down in Greenwood picked out for my boy. ”

“I’m sorry for your losses,” Steve says, quiet, and thinking briefly of his own most recent dead. He doesn’t add, I know what it’s like to let grief triumph over reality. “So you visit.”

“Every day that I can. Lots of graveyards in this city. But Greenwood is nice. All the flowers and so forth.”

This is a story about grief.

Steve is trusted with great power to help set right wrongs the Avengers did during Endgame, setting all these other timelines on roads to destruction to save their own. And in the face of the temptation of that great fantastical power: the possibility of easy facile answers to unsolvably hard problems about change and loss so many people equally have to confront and hurt over and struggle with—all the time, right now, forever, constantly—Steve Rogers falters:

Preemptive—that idea is never going to seem right to him. But isn’t that what he’d tried to do when he’d stayed in the past? Get the preemptive good life by side-stepping the possibility of more loss? Because, for him at least, one way or another everything that mattered would have already happened.

And still the same old story at the bottom of whatever idealized notions got papered over top: trading other people’s lives for your own security.

He’ll never know whether, if his plan had worked, he would have stayed in the past for good.

And now he’s got to live with that.

If the dog tags in this story stand for anything, it’s living with the consequences.

You can make mistakes. We all do, individually and collectively. But there’s no undoing the past—not even in the MCU’s confused theory of the multiverse. All you can try is to do better: to make right what’s been put wrong as much as you can; or find things that are good and help them be better for more people.

There are deliberately four apologies offered in Lost Vocabularies: two from Bucky and two from Steve. But this is the climactic and closing apology that echoes the same language used to introduce the dog tags into the narrative:

Pushing Bucky back, he touches the tarnished dog tags where the raised text has turned, here and there, the pale green of copper eaten away by time.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, meaning a whole lot.

Bucky’s response, “We got here,” deliberately sidesteps the question of forgiveness and is designed to be read in two ways. The first reading challenges the relative significance of the past—we reached here however that happened—while the second rejects the past more completely: all we actually ever have is right now.

The thing is, Steve has been angry his whole life and he’s trying so hard to be a little more grateful for a change.

He’s been doing better and he’ll keep on trying.

But there’s still just so much to be angry about everywhere he looks, from the past all the way through to this moment, burning up in front of him right now: this crawling-forward world that should be better, and isn’t, and won’t be unless people step forward to shoulder the hard slow work with no one to punch and no climactic battle you win or you lose.

This sort of work requires the splendid terrible patience of the tide eating away at a face of rock: mighty and irresistible, but wearisomely slow.

You gotta do the work. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

A Man Takes His Sadness Down to the River (The Consolation of Philosophy)

#thanks for the ask!#stucky meta #meta #river!verse #the existential loneliness of steven g rogers #bucky barnes needs a hug

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