#bogard op | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fanaticsnail · 10 months ago

Text

The Break is Never Easy

Masterlist Here

Word Count: 5,175

Synopsis: You were invited as an artist to showcase your work at the bi-anual ball thrown for the marines. A decade has passed between you and your severance from your ex-fiance, old flames reigniting as tension builds throughout the night.

Themes: Marine!Bogard x Artist!Reader, right person wrong time, dance series fic, lost love, love reignited, angst, domestic angst, military themes, death suggested, love found once more, dancing, miliary ball/gala.

Notes: This fic is dedicated to the beautiful @i-am-vita, creator of the banner for the storyteller au collaboration for Mihawk's Sapsorrow. Bogard’s angsty chapter for the dance-fic series is all for you, dear!

Tag List: @sordidmusings @gingernut1314 @feral-artistry @writingmysanity @since-im-already-here

"You had my heart // I had yours too // My fight’s withdrawn, believe me // The break is never easy"

Staring at the ornate canvas encrusted in gold, you allowed a warm smile to rise against your lips to highlight your face with its mastery. This, your prized creation in the entirety of your collection, was the reason you had been invited to showcase your artistic skill within the ballroom of the upper class admirals within their bi-anual commemoration ball.

The imagery within the oil painting showcased the grief of war: the violence within battle, alongside the families they left behind as they ran off to rid the world of the ravenous plague of piracy. A valley of skulls littered alongside the crystal shores of a cove you knew well in childhood; the woman within held resemblance to yourself, distant enough to not draw similarity within the crowd; the version of yourself a decade your junior as she clung to her marine lover.

Her back had been riddled with bullets, the blood cascading down her back, as she shielded her Marine lover from their incoming carnage. Holding the woman by the waist, the expression of immense bittersweet adoration and sorrow, resembled the younger version of your ex-fiance.

Crafting this depiction of war caused you to experience the pain over and over again, feeling the exact moment your heart shattered into a million pieces as he left you. The words he spoke to you, the tone he used, the feeling of his hand caressing your cheek to wipe your tear stricken face of the falling droplets of sorrow - all depicted in the utter chaos within the portraiture.

You raise your glass of sparkling wine to your lips; the amber hue bounding from the glass as you take a small sip of the liquid within. The beading of the bubbles tickled against your tongue, the bitterness of the tannins dancing with the sweetness of the juice as it trickled down your throat. Feeling a presence beside you, you withdrew the glass from your lips and crossed your arms.

“Is this one of yours?” the familiar brogue of the man who stole your ex-fiance from you caused your spine to tingle and the bile coat your tongue with its flavor.

“Does it surprise you to be informed that it is?” you retorted, refusing to break eye-contact with your painting to spare the gentleman at your side the luxury of a glance. The warm chuckle felt oddly comforting despite your disdain for the gentleman. His voice held a brutish warmth within, almost pride in standing next to such an accomplished artist within their field.

“Not in the slightest,” he confessed with the small shake of his head. At this comment, you turned to face him. Your dress danced at your feet, the slit from ankle to thigh flashing a moment of exposed skin to him as you drew yourself closer to the man who stole your love from you. He extended his right hand to you in a gesture for you to take it, an action you reciprocated by placing your right hand within his palm.

“In fact, love,” he uttered, drawing your hand up to his lips and brushing them against your knuckles, “I have never been more proud to be proven wrong.” He withdrew your knuckles from his lips, the tingling sensation of his stubble remaining behind as he released your hand from his.

“Wrong in what capacity, Vice-Admiral Garp?” Your narrowed eyes held your question with more venom than what you had originally intended, the sting of the break festering beneath your skin the longer you stayed within the aura of your painting. The dryness of his humorless chuckle stung against the rapidly reopening wounds of your sorrow; both of your attention being recalled to the painting of the defeated woman within the arms of her Marine lover.

“Artists serve a purpose in war,” he commented, bowing to the painting before turning and bowing further to you, “And I was wrong to trigger such a break in union from my right hand and his bonnie lass.” Upon hearing those words, you felt the swell of vindication in your blood swell to your heart and mind.

If you remained the person you were ten years your junior, you may have yelled, screamed, hit, slapped and gnashed your teeth at the highly decorated vice-admiral at your side. In your decade of severance from your lover, you had learnt to navigate the upper class and to smolder the flames of your raw emotions enough to articulate your meaning verbally alone.

“How honorable of you to repent a decade in the latter to the event, sir,” you nodded, your lips curling up in a smirk hidden by your chin’s tilt. Rising from your stoop, you held the brutal gaze of the vice admiral and remained unflinching in your resolve, “May the next time you assume weakness amongst the arts, you think back to this moment and make the wiser decision.”

“Aye, that I will,” he nodded, a knowing twinkle held within his intense and wild eyes, his decorum faltering as the beast within him lurked beneath, “And should Bogard ever attempt to push back on a hard boundary again, I may yet acquiesce to his request.” The sting of the name of your ex-fiance had your blood swelling, the hurt remaining and resurfacing the longer you stood next to Vice-Admiral Garp. You stepped toward him, your body smothered by his great height, but unwavering in your resolve.

“May your heart be open to receive such pushback, Vice-Admiral,” you nodded, awaiting dismissal from one so high in the commanding chain against a meager civilian.

“Rest assured, bonnie,” he stepped closer to you, clapping a hand over your shoulder in a gesture of familiarity, “It will be.” At that, and a brief nod, you both departed from your proximity to the painting while watching eyes held firm to your departure from the shadows of the corner of the room.

Bogard held onto your every word; his heart swelling at every syllable departing from your lips. He had not heard a whisper of your voice in over a decade, the silence plaguing him with each moment that passed in your absence. His eyes stuck to your frame at your departure from his commanding officer, and captain, Garp. The way your dress swelled at your feet, the way the hem cascaded down the exposed skin of your back to the hue of the material illuminating beneath the lights.

After all this time, Bogard’s heart belonged to you. His soul screamed at him to rush forward and hold you in his arms, smothering you with open adoration and affection; regardless of who’s eyes were watching. The unspoken concept that was holding him from sprinting to your side, was the mystery surrounding your correspondence to the letters and calls he attempted to reach you with.

He had stretched his resources until they snapped, breaking off relationships with communicators and transponders that held only silence in response to his heart dissected upon the pages of the parchment paper sent to you. For the first three years of serving Vice-Admiral Garp as his right hand man, he was an emotionless drone and lackey. His only outlet was sketching and scribing his mind to you and sending you his thoughts from the corners of the blue sea he had found himself traveling within.

Nothing. Not a semblance of a whisper of a word. His heart was met with a cold, hard nothing. No simple “okay,” no complex hatred and rage scrolled onto a tanned page of scrap paper. Nothing. In that uncertainty, he had no idea how you would respond to such a swell of affection.

Have you moved on? Were you married? Did you have a beau or a spouse? Did they court you the way he did? These questions remained unanswered, even as you reached for another glass of sparkling amber wine and drew up your emptied former glass to place on the tray. He had to know. Moving forward from the shadows, he glanced up at the painting his superior and the former holder of his heart were glancing at.

His breath was stolen from his lungs as his eyes met the painting. The imagery was so intensely intimate, he felt a blush begin to litter his face with its warmth. He didn’t know how to feel, angered that his likeness was depicted in such a way, or proud that this moment of time was artistically captured within the brushstrokes within each injury depicted within. It was beautiful.

Each movement within the piece had his heart cracking like porcelain meeting concrete at a harsh velocity. He could see your heart, your soul; his ex-fiance and holder of his affection depicting such unjust injury upon the canvas.

You smiled at the attendees. Young marine cadets who sparked and jittered in place with their hands clenched and nervous had your heart swooning in memory of the man who held your heart in your youth. The small string orchestra swelled their melody, your body swaying in response to their bow-strokes and finger-picks almost against your will.

Several members of the attendees had joined the circular dance floor, swaying jovially to the rhythmic beat and swell of the melody with precision. You smiled a vocalless laugh in encouragement of a pink-haired cadet out of their depth dancing with a skilled marine dancer, Vice-Admiral Garp also spinning a widow on the dancefloor within his skilled arms. Although you had reservations about the vice-admiral, you did appreciate the intention behind the break he caused with your beloved.

He wanted to protect you in a multitude of ways, your youthful wonder being your downfall in assuming the best in those around you. Your artistic soul was not meant for war, no matter the individual who held your affection. But in time apart from Bogard, your heart began to harden and turn wrathful. You changed your familial name, fled to a new beginning to make something of yourself as you processed your grief.

With no name nor family to hold you back, you thrived in your artistry. Your popularity gained and nurtured you with each piece created by those rallying to your support. The first item you produced with a piece of your soul scribed within the canvas was the piece you were staring at with Garp moments prior. In the silver healing of your scars, you silently thanked Garp for prying you apart from your beloved Bogard to allow you to depict such pain upon the page.

As the serenade concluded, you applauded the musicians with your hands and a joyous cheer flung from your lips. You also applauded those brave enough to dance, nodding to Garp in respect with a small smile he reciprocated.

A presence fell to your side, the familiar cologne drawing up to your face and alerting you of his presence before he had even spoken a word. You tensed, your newly emptied glass clutched firmly within your strong grip before an attendee wordlessly collected it from your fingertips.

Neither of you could find the words to articulate to one another, feeling the tension gathering between your bodies with each inhale and exhale you took silently beside each other. You refused to be the one to break the silence. He was the one to end your union, he should be the one to apologize.

Bogard did not know how to approach your silence: the same silence he was met with for each letter he sent to your residence depicting his heart; piece by piece. He wanted so desperately to cast all decorum and title aside and simply escort you outside and fall to his knees and beg for an answer to a single question be asked within the pages.

Questions you had no knowledge of. No parchment paper, scrap nor call had found you on the other end of his many stretches from his base to your home. How could it have? You had changed all you were to become who you are. No name tied you to your history, abandoned alongside your heart cast aside by Bogard now standing beside you.

“Would you care to dance?” he asked after clearing his throat, prompting you to turn your chin towards him to meet his darkened eyes.

After all this time, his aura still held the same pull it always had. You felt your soul call for him, your body almost moving against its will to be pulled into his arms. You curtseyed deeply, prompting a small click of his tongue and turn of his head in displeasure.

“I would be honored,” you uttered monotonously, extending your right hand to him for him to claim within his left. Your breath hitched at the contact, prompting you to mentally scold yourself at such a response.

As your eyes met, you almost looked past the man he was now to the boy who held your heart a decade ago. His eyes held a similar reflection, meeting with the person you once were behind your eyes. Refocusing both your gazes on one another, you were met with an unfamiliarity you had no map, nor compass, to navigate.

The hazelnut glow of his eyes still held you breathless within their depths, as much as your parted lips held his similar focus. He led you onto the dancefloor, the music swelling as he began to twirl you within his arms in front of his superiors, colleagues and underlings. You had no idea where to begin the unspoken conversation, feeling almost awkward within his arms the longer the silence was held between you both.

Being the first to break the silence, you held your gaze firmly against his after huffing out a breath of frustration. Smiling, you darted your eyes between focusing on each of his, feeling incredibly exposed beneath his focus.

“Are those new medals, sir?” you asked him, gesturing with your chin to his left breast pocket.

“Sir?” he asked, his left hand gripping yours a little more firmly before relinquishing its intensity on your hand while holding firmly against your hand. “My darling, I don’t know what you-...” his words rushed out of his lips without restraint, a small cough from his throat refocusing his mental state with a deep inhale and exhale.

“It has been a few years since last I held you in my arms,” he nodded, ushering you out to the side of him before twirling you within his arms. Your back fell flush with his torso, his every essence overwhelming you with emotions you thought to have buried a decade ago. “I have earnt a few titles over the years, yes. I appreciate you taking the time to notice.”

“Of course I would notice, Bo,” you answered him with as much hase as he did earlier, taking a moment to collect yourself as he swayed you within his arms. You briefly shook your head, allowing him to wield you as an extension of himself with another twirl; this time ending with you facing him. “I always notice.”

He hummed in response. There was no way he could ask all questions plaguing him for each swell and step of the melody from the orchestra. In lieu of interrogation, he opted to focus on you externally. He focussed on the ornate way your hair was drawn up, the way you held your face beneath its painted and accented appearance, the way your dress clung to your body and held an illusionary barrier between tastefully covering the necessities while leaving little to the imagination for what falls beneath.

Both closing your eyes, you fell almost organically against one another. The automatrons beneath your inhibitions had your chests pressing against one another, your foreheads holding a similar fate with their proximity. As soon as his forehead was pressed against your own, you felt the person you were a decade ago resurface and lean towards him.

“You-...” his voice fell short, the stutter and waver in his voice had your heartstrings tugging like a wolf leashed beneath its owner's muzzleing. Opening your eyes, your brows arched up in the center as they fell on Bogard’s lengthy eyelashes. You witnessed his eyes darting beneath the small shield of flesh, dreamlike in its make while searching for a word or phrase.

“We were perfect, weren’t we?” you smiled through your sigh, his eyes opening to meet yours at your words, “We were the right people for each other, but the wrong time. You were a Marine in the prime of your life, while I was an experience-.”

“-You were everything to me,” his voice cut your sentence like shattered glass through tender flesh. The raspy tone of his voice matched with the intensity of his eyes had you truly wanting to believe his words. Your breath hitched, unable to find stability within the large gathering of people on the dancefloor.

Bogard continued to lead you through the dance, silent and brooding through each twirl, spin and sachet. His questions continued to swirl behind his lips, his brow furrowing and deepening the more the dance continued to leave his questions unanswered.

“You never gave me a whisper of where you were, what you were doing, if you were okay or struggling,” he began, his heart pouring from his lips in a hushed whisper, “You were to be my wife. My love, I would’ve never accepted the promotion should I have known the agony I would endure at your silence. I would have become a sword for hire, a bounty hunter-.”

“-And I would have never asked you to make such a sacrifice, my heart,” you confessed, feeling the music begin to decrescendo its swell and teeter off, “I loved you, and you held my heart within your hands,” you drew yourself closer to him, feeling the final dip in his movement before he drew you into an embrace against his body, “You were my love to lose, and I will be forever grateful to be a chanel for your affection.”

Applause resounded within the hollows of the room and reverberated from the dome of the room. You broke from Bogard’s embrace and bowed to him, and he to you.

“We would have been best side by side,” he confessed, his lip stuttering beneath his words, “I would have had you with me. My light,” he continued, stepping towards you and reaching to reclaim your fingertips to brush against him, “My heart. You were mine-.”

“-I was yours, Bogard,” you nodded with a false smile to mask the pain resurfacing, “And now our light is gone, and the break was not easy on either of us.” You stepped away from his outstretched hand, subtly shaking your head at him and attempting to stop the rapid rise of familiar sorrowful emotions within your heart.

Taking your bottom lip beneath your top teeth, you held your widened eyes fixed on his to warn him not to pursue you in your retreat before you left the dancefloor - a warning he refused to follow, even if it was commanded by the most superior officer in the chain of command. He had lost you once, and the memory of you was once again slipping through his fingers in each moment he watched you turn away from him.

“Let her be,” Garp’s voice broke him from his silent brooding, Bogard’s jaw clenching as his teeth ground behind his firmly clasped mouth, “Just let her be for a moment before you chase her.”

“Sir?” Bogard asked, his brow arching up at his superior officer in question. Garp’s stern expression began to falter beneath his hardened exterior. A grin rose to his lips, his eyes holding a foreign twinkle usually reserved for the pursuit of a particularly difficult adversary.

“She is a rare soul to walk among us mere mortals,” he confessed, his eyes fixed on the retreat of your body as it disappeared through the threshold of the exit, “And she needs to be treated as such.” Turning to his underling, Garp clenched his firm hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze beneath his wide grip, “Allow her the luxury of navigating her own feelings first before you confess your own to her.”

Bogard nodded, his broad hat covering his eyes to shield the emotions gathering behind them. He could see how you were struggling beneath your learned hardened exterior, truly unsure as to who the person you had become really was after all this time. All he knew within his soul was you were his, and he is still yours.

Upon exiting the central floor your dance was held upon, you breathed in a heaping gulp of air unoccupied with the sting of unnatural perfumes, colognes and lotions within the dancefloor. You hang your head back, lulling it upon your shoulders within the solitude the gardens provided for you.

“May I join you?” the familiar voice of your ex-fiance asked you, prompting you to both repress a groan of frustration within your lungs while your heart cried out in affirmation of his presence. Your internal conflict did not provide you with any resolve within your being, prompting you to provide a half-hearted shrug and a nod in response.

Stepping closer beside you, he felt uneasy in your radiance. He took the opportunity in your own internal argument to look over the way your dress clung to your body. Raking his eyes slowly, he drew them up from your shoes, to your calves, to the split in material against your thigh which prompted his breath to hitch. He slowly withdrew his gaze from the small glimpse of flesh to your hips, chest, exposed neck and face - your brows continuing to be knit with a mixture of confusion, rage and sorrow.

Before he could utter a single word or compliment your way, you spoke with your sharpened tone, causing him to stumble in his own mind.

“What do you want from me, Bogard?” you asked him, turning to face him with your heart weighing heavy within your chest, “I gave you everything. I gave you my youth, my body, my time, my heart, the prime of my life - leaving me in this shell of the person I once was, no longer an object of desire-.”

“-You never answered a single letter,” he interrupted your train of thought, prompting your frown to deepen in the centre of your forehead, “I sent you mountains of wasted paper for you to not return a single scrap of a word, nor semblance of a phrase. I would have appreciated a simple reprimand, a crude expression telling me to leave you alone-.”

“-Bogard, need I remind you that you left me?” your voice elevated to a small and firm argumentative tone, your jaw clenching with your every word, “You left me. You left me on that island with a simple relaying of the word from your commanding officer. One that he relinquished tonight, in fact: ‘Artists have no place in war. I shall leave you now so we are not burdened by the loss of one another’,” you mocked him, stepping closer to his body diminishing within the shadows.

You allowed a dry and humorless laugh to escape your lips as you stepped closer. Allowing a moment of tension to continue to swell between you, you snarled at him with your eyes narrowed.

“Did you enjoy my painting of us?” you asked him, your brow and lip twitching in anticipation for his response. You expected anger and wrath at the depiction of his likeness within the canvas, his passionate ignition of flamed fury directed at you. In its stead, you received a small whisper in response.

“I saw your heart reflected on its page,” he uttered, stepping closer to you with his head bowed, “A heart I have tried so desperately to reach in the decade that has held us apart.” Your heart fluttered with its rage within you, desiring to both shove him to the side and leave, but also draw him close for an embrace.

“After all this time, you continue to chase me?” you spat at him, your heart now elevated to a heightened pace of anxiety and a rush of rage, “Tell me. What do I have that a flurry of others do not? What do I have that another cannot return to you? That another that would be more suited to provide for you, could not? Tell me, Bogard. What do I have to offer you-?”

Bogard stepped in, claiming your waist within his left hand and holding you flush against his chest, while his right hand claimed your left cheek within his gentle caress.

“You still hold my heart,” he whispered, his breath dancing on your lips on each syllable, “You rule my heart,” his words drew you in, your eyes swelling with the emotions of your youth. “I would build a citadel around your leadership, as queen of my heart,” he continued, his eyes dancing between your own. Your breath hitched as his eyes met with your parted lips, his own parting as his body swelled to join yours all the sooner.

“You command my every being, in all these years apart,” he continued, reaching his right hand up and weaving his fingertips within your hair, anchoring the heel of his palm against your jaw and forcing your eyes to meet with his, “I never stopped loving you.”

At that, his body surged forward; his lips claiming yours beneath his in a slow and firm movement. Your eyelashes were immediately flooded with silent tears spilling from the corners and littering your cheeks. Your soul yearned for him, surging your body to react to his touch with your own desperation.

You had never stopped loving him either.

Hooking your arms around his neck, you pulled him into yourself with your heart pulsating with a dangerous rapidity for each second you continued this embrace. He ushered you over to the darkened corner of the wall, coaxing your body to respond further to his ministrations within the shadows to hide from prying eyes. His tongue darted out to dance with your own, a groan siphoned from his lips as you reciprocated his advances.

You unhooked your arms from his neck, choosing to grip at his collar beneath your fingertips and drawing him impossibly closer to you. The ruckus from within the halls had you pay no mind, too swept within the arms of one another to have a thought or care cast at its elevation. The music swelled within the room, Bogard continuing to operate with his lips collecting each scrap and semblance of affection you allowed him to skillfully claim.

It was as if the pain of the decade ceased to exist at this moment. The two of you pictured the life you would have had within the arms of one another: marriage, stability, equality, relationships being at the forefront of this illusionary divergence.

At the booming voice of Vice-Admiral Garp within the ballroom, addressing the soiree of Marines within, Bogard broke his lips away from yours while panting desperately against your lips as he listened to the orders of his superior officer. At that break in caress from the word of Garp, the illusion shattered and you were swept back to your position as the ex-fiance to the right hand of the Vice-Admiral.

Bitterness swelled within your heart, you opting to push Bogard away from your arms as his attention was pulled elsewhere. His eyes quickly darted back to you upon this action, your own eyes refusing to meet his as you wallowed within your own disgruntled fury.

Bogard felt a similar choice was to be made, akin to the decision he made a decade earlier. He could choose to rejoin the ceremony at this stage, leaving you out here to wait for him to return - should Garp let him; or to remain out here with you. You: the light of his life, the person he gave his heart to in youth - and its current owner as queen over his body.

As he felt you pull away and begin to shepherd him to return to the halls, his eyes snapped as he made his decision.

“I lost you once,” he uttered, his hands grasping your hips and holding you firmly in place, “And I refuse to lose you again.” At this small utterance, you would be a fool to admit anything other than the swell of your heart within your chest and your eyes softening at such a notion. Putting aside your own selfish desires to keep him further with you, you shook your head and reached up on your toes to place a chase kiss against his cheek.

“I will still be here if you choose to return to me,” you ushered him with a small smile, “And if you don’t, I will not hold it against you this time.” He leaned forward, the tip of his broad, gray cap circling the crown d your head as he placed his forehead against your own.

“I will never break from you willingly again,” he confessed, his tone holding all of the emotion resurfacing from the decade taken from him, “Nor would I ever allow the light to leave us. You have my heart,” he nudged his nose against your own, “And I desire nothing in return-.”

“-Should you desire it or not,” you spoke over him, ensuring your voice was heard over his inner monologue, “My heart has been with you from the moment we first met,” his eyes met with yours as you continued, “And was only returned to me when you shattered it upon your departure.”

He claimed your lips beneath his, feeling the roll of your raw emotion within your lips the longer he held you against him. Breaking away, he gazed intently into your eyes and uttered his final confirmation.

“No matter how long it takes: I swear to remake your heart and treat it kindly should you offer it once more.”

“My heart is yours, Bogard,” you sighed in response, the swell reigniting within your chest as you allowed him to cradle you against himself. Ignoring the calls and words of Vice-Admiral Garp within the hall, addressing the marines and tailoring their awards to them without his right hand beside him, Bogard was intent on showcasing how deeply he loved you regardless of the time that departed.

Garp continued his relay, his eyes darting to meet with the image of an entanglement with his right-hand man and your body pressing romantically against one another with a twinkle in his eye. He remained relishing in the fact he was able to right the mistakes of his past and reset it to shepherd it into a promising and fruitful future; Bogard finally able to meet with his bonnie lass once again and treat you with the utmost respect you deserved.

He refused to come between you again, swearing at that point to never offer an ultimatum to an underling in return for their loyalty.

#one piece #opla #x reader #opla fic #one piece live action #bogard x reader #bogard #op bogard #one piece bogard #one piece bogard x reader #one piece dance series #Spotify

80 notes · View notes