#i think i have a thing for knuckle cracking | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shaiyasstuff · 2 days ago

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delayed beginnings | sylus | sequel(?)

synopsis : You and Sylus have spent years as strangers in an arranged marriage, living separate lives without much thought for each other. But when he unexpectedly shows up at your doorstep, the distance between you starts to blur. Through late-night conversations, playful banter, and quiet moments in your art room, the tension shifts into something else—something almost easy. As the walls of duty and indifference begin to crack, you find yourself actually enjoying his presence.

content : arranged marriage au, non-cannon!au, sylus x non-mc, artist!reader, fluff, just married life i guess?

writer’s note : AHA surprise! Didn’t think there’d be a sequel did you? Enjoy some classic fluff with husband sylus

This was originally supposed to be a rewrite, but then I thought, meh let’s give it a sequel but make it better hehe.

When Sylus had said, “Mother wants to have dinner with us,” you’d imagined an evening at home.

A quiet meal, maybe something you’d cooked yourself—intimate, simple, manageable.

Not this.

Not a private jet cutting through clouds, bound for Frankfurt, just to dine with his parents.

You glance across the cabin at him, your fingers curled loosely in your lap. “You know,” you murmur, “we could’ve just said no.”

Your voice carries a hint of nerves, subtle but not lost on him.

He quirks a brow, his lips curling into that infuriatingly smug smirk. “Are you scared of meeting my family?”

You scoff, looking away toward the window.

“Pshh. What? No…”

The lie is flimsy at best.

Because it isn’t his mother you’re worried about. You know her to be warm, even if a little mysterious. She’d called on your wedding day—apologetic, gracious, her voice genuine as she regretted missing the ceremony.

You’d told her not to worry, that it had all been a formality anyway.

But his father… his father is another matter entirely.

There’s something about the man that reminds you of a headmaster from an old boarding school—stern, unreadable, with eyes that seem to find fault even when there’s none to be found.

The kind of man who finds smiling a chore.

Sylus must have caught the tension creeping into your silence, because a moment later, his hand finds yours.

“It’s going to be alright,” he says softly, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “I’m here.”

You turn toward him, caught off guard by the quiet reassurance in his voice. He’s not teasing now. Not posturing.

Just… present.

Your smile comes a little slower this time. “I can do this,” you nod, more to yourself than to him.

His smirk returns, playful again, but there’s a fondness tucked in the corners of it. “Funny. You go toe-to-toe with critics over your art, but my father’s the one who has you rattled?”

You swat lightly at his shoulder. “This is different!”

He chuckles. And you can’t help but join him.

Still, as the laughter fades, you sigh and glance down at your dress. “Why are we dressing up just for dinner anyway?”

He clears his throat. “You know how my father is.”

You hum in acknowledgment. No further questions.

Your gaze drifts back out the window, the lights of distant cities winking below.

It’s been years since you last saw his family—long before the wedding, which had passed in a blur of legalities and practiced smiles.

A formality, you’d both agreed. Something to check off the list.

And yet, here you are.

Sitting beside the man you married, flying across continents to dine with people who barely feel real in your life.

You let out a soft laugh under your breath.

“Something funny?” Sylus asks without looking up.

You shake your head, the smile still tugging at your lips.

“Just thinking how strange life is. We said vows written by someone else, and now we’re here—years later—actually doing the whole family dinner thing.”

He doesn’t respond at first. But when you glance over, you find him watching you with a thoughtful expression.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Life’s strange.”

—•

The hallway is long, dimly lit, lined with portraits that seem to follow your steps as you walk beside him.

“Now that I think about it,” you muse, “I’ve never even been here. And we’ve been married for…?”

Sylus casts you a sidelong glance. “Believe me, sweetie, I don’t come here either. Only reason we’re here now is because Mother wouldn’t stop pestering me.”

You snort, your heels clicking softly against the marble. “Still. It’s nice, I guess. I’ve missed seeing her.”

He hums in agreement.

Soon, the two of you come to a stop in front of tall, ornate double doors.

The dining hall.

Sylus glances at you, and for a brief moment, you see it too—his own hesitation.

You offer him your hand again.

And without a word, he takes it.

—•

The doors open with quiet grace, revealing a dining hall bathed in soft golden light.

The long table gleams beneath the chandelier, its place settings pristine, untouched. But it’s not the elegance that draws your attention.

It’s her.

Sylus’s mother rises from her seat as soon as she sees you, her eyes lighting up—not with politeness, but familiarity.

“There you are,” she says, voice warm, rich with a kind of fondness that surprises you. She crosses the room with easy confidence, stopping just in front of you.

You don’t have time to speak before she wraps you into a gentle embrace, arms firm, comforting.

“It’s been too long,” she murmurs. “I’ve missed you, my dear.”

You blink, caught off guard. You hadn’t expected such warmth… not after all this time. Not after how quiet things had been since the wedding.

“I—missed you too,” you say quietly, surprised to realize you mean it.

She pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, studying you with that knowing look only mothers seem to possess. “You’ve grown into yourself beautifully,” she says, brushing a stray hair from your shoulder. “But then, I always knew you would.”

You smile, soft and a little stunned. “You remember?”

Her gaze softens even further. “Of course I do. You were the only child brave enough to look Sylus in the eye and scold him for knocking over your crayons.” Her laugh is delicate, amused. “You were what? Five?.”

Behind you, Sylus sighs. “Must we bring that up?”

His mother waves him off, though her eyes never leave yours. “I remember thinking then—‘That girl will either be his ruin… or the one thing that softens him.’”

You look over at Sylus, who’s watching the exchange in silence, his usual mask of cool amusement tempered by something more reserved. He doesn’t interrupt. He lets her speak.

His father rises slowly at the far end of the table, far less warm in his welcome. “You’re late.”

Sylus’s voice is dry as ever. “Blame the weather. Or the wine. Or her.” He nods toward you.

You roll your eyes, but the tension eases as you both move to take your seats. His mother gestures for you to sit beside her, and it’s only once you’re settled that you notice Sylus has taken the chair on your other side.

Surrounded.

Yet… not uncomfortable.

Dinner begins with small talk—wine is poured, delicate appetizers placed before you. But soon, the conversation finds its way back to you.

“I saw your gallery feature last month,” his mother says lightly, sipping her wine. “That portrait in crimson and ash—you named it Restraint, didn’t you?”

You glance at Sylus, surprised.

She noticed that?

“You saw that?” you ask, turning back to her.

“Of course,” she replies. “I keep up with what matters. And your work always mattered to me.”

Something shifts in your chest. A quiet warmth.

Sylus watches you both with an unreadable expression, wine glass resting loosely in his hand. “And here I thought you two would pretend not to know each other.”

“Oh, please.” His mother rolls her eyes. “She was practically part of the family long before the two of you signed any papers.”

That earns a soft chuckle from you, and even Sylus’s lips twitch with amusement.

His father clears his throat. “The past is the past.”

But his mother just smiles at you like it isn’t. Like it never was.

Dessert is served—an elegant affair of dark chocolate and tart berries—and the conversation shifts again.

“How are you finding marriage, dear?” she asks, tilting her head. “You’ve always struck me as someone who likes her solitude.”

You pause, not quite sure how to answer. But before you can find the words, Sylus speaks for you.

“We’re figuring it out,” he says, his voice calm. “It’s… not what I expected. But maybe that’s a good thing.”

You turn to him, startled by the honesty in his tone. He meets your eyes with a look you can’t quite read.

His mother hums thoughtfully, as though she was waiting to hear something just like that. “You’ve always been terrible at letting people in, Sylus. Maybe she’s the exception.”

The silence that follows isn’t awkward.

It’s thoughtful. Quiet. Full of things neither of you have said yet—but maybe will, in time.

As you leave the dining hall, his mother walks with you to the doors, her hand resting lightly on your arm. “Come back soon,” she says. “Next time, I expect to see your work in my studio. I still keep that sketch you gave me, you know.”

You blink. “You… still have it?”

She smiles. “Of course I do. It was the first time I saw you draw from your heart.”

And with a final squeeze of your hand, she lets you go.

In the hallway, the two of you walk in a comfortable silence.

“You drew a sketch for her? Why didn’t I know this?” he asks after a beat.

“You never asked,” you reply softly.

He glances at you, the corners of his mouth quirking. “She likes you more than she likes me.”

“Who doesn’t?” you tease.

He chuckles under his breath, then shakes his head. “You’re full of surprises.”

You glance sideways at him, a smirk tugging at your lips. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

For a moment, the tension between you fades into something lighter. Something easier.

And when he reaches for your hand again as you step outside into the night air—you let him.

Not out of obligation.

But because it feels like the first time you’re finally walking forward together.

“So,” you begin, as the two of you make your way back toward the jet, your heels clicking lightly on the tarmac. “Are we really just heading home after that?”

You throw him a look, mischief glittering in your eyes as you arch a brow.

Sylus lifts an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curving into a lazy smirk. “Did you have something else in mind?”

You tap a finger to your chin in mock thought. “Well… you’re flying back to Madrid in a week, right? Seems like a waste not to make some memories before you go.”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Just watches you with that unreadable look of his, thoughtful and sharp. Then, slowly, a small smile tugs at his lips. “Say the word,” he murmurs. “And we’ll go.”

Your grin breaks across your face before you can help it. “I want dessert,” you declare. “In Italy. That little place in Rome you wouldn’t shut up about.”

He chuckles under his breath. “Ah, that place.”

He gives a casual shrug, as if flying across countries on a whim is the most natural thing in the world. “Italy it is.”

You bounce slightly on your heels and take his hand, pulling him toward the jet. “C’mon then, jet boy. I want gelato.”

—•

Once you’re safely boarded, you sink into the plush leather seat with a sigh of satisfaction, stretching your legs out with a dramatic groan. “This is nice. I think I’ll ask my dad for one of these.”

Sylus casts you a side glance, his tone deceptively nonchalant. “You can just use mine.”

You blink, turning to face him fully. “Seriously? You’d let me?”

He shrugs as if it’s obvious. “Why not? We’re married.”

Something about the way he says it—quiet, simple, unguarded—catches you off guard. The words settle in your chest, heavier than you expect.

Your lips curve into a small smile. “Thanks. And as your very responsible wife, I promise not to fly too often.”

He lets out a soft huff of amusement, shaking his head as he leans back. “There isn’t anything I can’t afford, sweetie,” he drawls, turning toward you slightly. His eyes glint, and the smirk returns—more teasing now. “Feel free to be a little reckless.”

You roll your eyes, reaching out to nudge his shoulder. “You act like we’re not from the same social circle, show-off.”

He chuckles, low and genuine. “True. But I do it better.”

You snort at that, crossing your legs and letting the warmth of the exchange linger. Outside, the sky deepens into a velvet blue, the hum of the engines soft in your ears.

—•

Rome welcomes you under a blanket of moonlight, the city glowing faintly in the distance as you step into the cab.

It’s almost midnight, and the buzz of adrenaline from the spontaneous trip has begun to fade, replaced by a quieter contentment.

Somewhere between the winding streets and the lull of the cab ride, your head finds its way to Sylus’s shoulder.

Sleep claims you gently, your breath evening out as your body leans against his.

He glances down at you, surprised at first. But then… he smiles.

It’s small. Private.

The kind of smile he only ever lets slip when no one’s watching.

He shrugs off his coat and drapes it over you, careful not to wake you, his arm sliding around your shoulders to steady you as the cab hits a bump in the road.

You shift slightly, unconsciously pressing closer to him.

For a long moment, he doesn’t move.

He just watches you—your lashes resting softly against your cheeks, the way your fingers curl slightly in your sleep. His thumb brushes the edge of the coat where it rests against your arm.

Three weeks ago, this would’ve been unthinkable.

But now, with the quiet weight of you against him, the scent of your perfume lingering faintly in the air… he finds himself wondering if this—this softness, this closeness—is something he’ll miss more than he expects.

He glances out the window at the flickering city lights, his fingers still curled gently around your arm.

And for the first time in a long time, Sylus feels at peace.

—•

“What do you mean it’s closed?”

Your voice pitches higher than you’d like, something between a groan and a shriek echoing down the quiet Roman street.

Sylus lifts a brow, amused. “There’s nothing we can do, sweetie,” he drawls, far too entertained by your disappointment.

You let out another groan, slumping slightly as you stare at the shuttered storefront. “I wanted to make cute memories with you,” you mutter, mostly to yourself.

But of course—he hears it.

“Aw,” he coos, that signature smirk sliding into place. “Kitten, are you afraid you’ll miss me when I’m gone?”

You whirl to face him with an exaggerated gasp. “Me? Miss you?” You snort, crossing your arms. “Puh-lease. Keep dreaming.”

Still, your words don’t quite hit with the same bite they used to. Not anymore.

Because deep down, somewhere beneath the playful eye-rolls and dramatic sighs… the truth sits quietly.

You will miss him.

Three weeks isn’t a lot. But it’s been enough.

Enough to soften edges. Enough to blur lines. Enough to make you wish—just a little—that time would slow.

Sylus is still watching you. But this time, there’s something gentler behind his gaze, like he can sense the shift in you. He doesn’t tease again.

He just steps closer, then reaches out and pulls you in by the shoulder.

The gesture is sudden, firm, but not unwelcome.

You blink up at him, startled by the proximity—by the warmth of his body against yours.

“Come on,” he murmurs, voice lower now. “I’ve got an idea.”

You don’t resist.

You let him guide you, slowly easing into the space between you, your shoulder brushing against his chest with every step.

“Where are we going?” you ask, quieter now, your breath visible in the cool night air.

He gestures down the narrow cobblestone street, the lights of the city casting soft golden halos around each lamppost. “I used to come here often for business,” he explains. “There’s a café down the street—tiny place, nothing fancy. But it’s open 24/7.”

He glances down at you, a faint smile curving at the edge of his lips. “No gelato. But I can at least get you cake.”

You let out a soft laugh, the disappointment already fading. “I guess that’ll do.”

And as he walks with you, his arm still casually draped around your shoulders, you realize something.

You might not have gotten your gelato.

But you’re still making memories—with him.

And maybe, that’s more than enough.

The café isn’t much—tucked between a florist shop and a closed boutique, its weathered sign faintly lit by a single flickering lamp. The inside is dim, warm, quiet.

There’s only one other patron, dozing into a cappuccino near the back. A sleepy barista glances up, offering a polite nod as the bell above the door chimes.

Sylus lets you step in first, his hand lingering at the small of your back. The scent of espresso and vanilla hangs in the air, clinging to soft jazz playing from an old radio on the counter.

You shiver slightly from the night air, and without a word, Sylus slips his coat off and drapes it over your shoulders.

“You’re cold,” he says simply.

You glance up at him, lips parting to protest—but the words don’t come. Instead, you pull the coat tighter around yourself, surprised by how natural it feels.

“I could’ve handled it,” you murmur.

“I know,” he replies, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.”

You don’t know what to say to that. So you don’t.

The two of you settle into a booth by the window, city lights spilling through the glass, casting soft shadows across the table. The street outside is quiet.

Time feels slower here, like Rome is holding its breath just for the two of you.

“What’ll it be?” Sylus asks, flipping open a laminated menu.

You eye the dessert case. “Something sweet. Preferably something that makes up for the gelato you promised.”

He chuckles. “High expectations for a midnight snack.”

“You promised me cute memories,” you remind him, lips twitching into a smile. “I’m simply holding you accountable.”

He raises both brows, mock serious. “Understood. One life-altering dessert experience, coming right up.”

You end up with a slice of tiramisu. He gets a black coffee and something called ciambellone—a soft, sponge-like cake dusted in powdered sugar.

You both dig in quietly for a while, the hush between you not uncomfortable at all. Just full of the kind of peace you rarely noticed missing until it shows up.

“This is nice,” you say softly, cutting into your cake. “I can’t remember the last time I just… sat like this. With someone.”

His gaze lifts to meet yours across the table. “You don’t do this often?”

You shrug, eyes dipping to your plate. “It’s easier to be alone when you don’t expect much from anyone.”

A beat.

And then, he speaks—quietly, but without hesitation. “That’s what I thought too.”

You glance up at him, surprised by the honesty in his tone.

“I didn’t think this marriage would become anything,” he says, not looking away. “Didn’t expect to like talking to you. Or listening to you. Or… this.”

He gestures vaguely between you. The silence. The café. The unexpected comfort of your company.

Your chest tightens, warmth spreading slowly under your ribs.

“You could’ve said something,” you whisper.

“I’m saying it now.”

He leans back, sipping his coffee, his expression unreadable. But his eyes—they’re steady, fixed on you like you’re the only thing in the room worth watching.

“You said you wanted memories,” he adds after a moment. “Then let’s make them. Even if there’s not much time left.”

You stare at him for a beat, your fork stilled halfway to your mouth.

“I don’t want a countdown,” you say softly. “I want… something I won’t forget.”

Sylus holds your gaze.

And then, with a small, almost uncharacteristic gentleness, he reaches across the table and brushes a crumb from the corner of your mouth with the pad of his thumb.

“You won’t,” he murmurs.

The world feels quiet. Suspended.

Neither of you says anything after that. You just sit there, eyes lingering longer than they should, hearts a little too loud in the silence.

And for once, it doesn’t feel like a temporary moment.

It feels like the start of something else.

The café door clicks softly behind you as you both step back out into the night.

The streets are nearly empty now—Rome hushed under the weight of stars and streetlamps. The city feels softer like this, quieter.

As if it, too, is learning how to breathe slower.

Sylus walks beside you in silence, one hand tucked into the pocket of his coat, the other brushing against yours with every step. You don’t move away. Neither does he.

It’s not awkward. It’s just… still.

The kind of stillness that says more than words ever could.

You hug his coat a little tighter around your frame. The scent of him—subtle spice and something cooler, more distinct—lingers in the fabric. It feels oddly intimate, having him draped around you like this.

He glances over at you, his expression softer than usual.

“Tired?” he asks, voice low.

You shake your head. “No. Just… content, maybe.”

He nods slowly, his gaze returning to the path ahead. “I never thought I’d see you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Peaceful,” he says after a pause. “Like you belong here. Like this… fits.”

You smile faintly. “Maybe it does.”

Another quiet beat passes.

Then you speak, your voice just above a whisper. “You’ve changed.”

He looks over, surprised by the words. “How so?”

“You’re softer,” you say, not teasing. Just honest. “Not weak. Just… more real.”

He lets the words settle for a moment before responding. “Maybe I was always like this,” he murmurs. “Just didn’t have the right person around to see it.”

You glance at him, startled.

His gaze doesn’t waver. And there’s no smirk this time. No sarcasm. Just Sylus, standing under a dim streetlamp, looking at you like he means every word.

The moment stretches, full of everything neither of you can quite say out loud.

“You’re going back soon,” you say finally, your voice smaller than you mean it to be.

“I am.”

You nod, swallowing. “Right.”

He slows slightly, and so do you. The distance to the cab hail is short now, but neither of you seem in a rush to reach it.

“I don’t want this to feel temporary,” you admit.

He exhales, quiet. “Neither do I.”

You glance down at your shoes, then at the pavement. Anything but his eyes. “Then what do we do?”

He steps in front of you, stopping you gently with a hand at your elbow. You look up, startled to find him watching you so closely.

“We stop pretending it was just convenience,” he says. “And we stop wasting what time we have left.”

His words are steady, but you hear it—the fear beneath them. The vulnerability. He’s not just trying to stay in this moment. He’s trying to hold onto you.

You breathe in slowly, the night air cool in your lungs.

Then, without a word, you reach for his hand.

He laces his fingers through yours without hesitation.

And the two of you keep walking—through Rome’s sleeping streets, side by side. No rush. No finality. Just this quiet, imperfect closeness between you.

A beginning made from something that was never supposed to be more than an arrangement.

And now, it’s something you don’t want to let go of.

—•

“I’m actually going to miss you.”

The words leave your lips softly, without teasing, without sarcasm. Just the quiet truth.

Sylus stands in front of you, suitcase in one hand, his coat folded neatly over his arm. The sunlight from the window pools around him, soft and golden, casting gentle shadows across the room.

His usual smirk is there—of course it is—but today, it’s gentler. Dimmed at the edges by something else.

Fondness.

He doesn’t need to say anything. You see it in his eyes.

You know.

The last week had passed too quickly, slipping through your fingers like sand.

He sat with you in your studio as you edited your music, quiet and focused.

Occasionally, he’d glance over and murmur something about how serious you looked.

“It’s oddly attractive,” he’d said once, earning a swat to his arm and your face burning red as you mumbled a protest.

He’d only chuckled.

There was the baking experiment too—if you could call it that. You doing most of the work while Sylus tried not to set the kitchen on fire.

He claimed victory for “not ruining the eggs.” You claimed victory for not kicking him out halfway through.

Still, the laughter had lingered long after the cookies cooled.

And that last art exhibition.

Not yours this time, but a friend’s.

He wore black—sharp and quiet as always—and stayed close to your side as you spoke passionately about color theory and composition.

He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t even pretend to understand.

He just listened.

And when you turned to him with flushed cheeks, halfway through a rant about symbolism in modern surrealism, he only said, “You light up when you talk about things you love.”

And maybe… he meant more than just art.

Now, standing here in the doorway, you take in the way the light hits his profile.

The way the collar of his coat is slightly crooked, how his fingers tighten briefly around the suitcase handle.

You felt your heart beating a little too fast and your throat feeling a little too tight as you try to find something clever to say.

You don’t.

“So… this is it, huh,” you breathe, more to yourself than to him. Your fingers fidget with the edge of his shirt that he let you keep.

Your voice wavers—not enough to break, but enough for him to notice.

He does.

“You’re not gonna cry, are you?” he says, smirking just a little.

You shoot him a glare through glassy eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

But he steps closer anyway, his free hand reaching out, fingers brushing beneath your eye. “I’ll call,” he says softly. There’s a pause—then, quieter, “Promise.”

You nod, your smile wobbly but real. “You better.”

For a second, neither of you move. The space between you is warm, intimate, alive with things unsaid.

Then, before you can overthink it, you lean up and press a gentle kiss to his cheek.

It lingers longer than it should.

When you pull back, he’s watching you with something unreadable in his eyes. Not distance. Not detachment.

Just… you.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he murmurs, adjusting the strap of his bag.

You nod again, more certain this time. “I’ll be here.”

He starts to turn, then pauses in the doorway.

“Try not to burn the house down without me.”

You roll your eyes. “I won’t, unless I decide I wanna do a Sylus cosplay.”

“That was just one time,” he retorts.

But his smile lingers. So does yours.

As he walks out the door, the air feels different—not empty, not final. Just… waiting.

Because whatever this is—whatever it’s becoming—it isn’t over.

Not even close.

—•

Week one was surprisingly easy.

He called the moment his plane touched down, his voice a little too casual, like he hadn’t been waiting just as eagerly as you had. But you could hear it anyway—the softness hidden beneath his usual drawl.

“Miss me already?” you teased, resting your chin in your palm as you leaned against your desk.

A low grumble rumbled through the receiver, but it couldn’t hide the faint smile you knew was tugging at his lips.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he muttered.

You grinned. “Too late.”

The video feed wobbled slightly as he shifted, revealing a sleek, modern apartment behind him—sunlight pouring through tall windows, spilling across dark floors and expensive furniture. The skyline of Madrid glittered faintly behind him.

He turned the camera around briefly, showing you the view. “This is my place,” he said, like it wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll bring you here one day.”

Your breath caught—not because of the apartment, but because of the way he said it.

So effortlessly, so naturally. I’ll bring you.

You only nodded in response, a small, fond smile tugging at your lips. “I’d like that.”

He tilted his head, watching you for a beat too long.

Then, predictably, the moment passed.

“Alright,” he said, smirking. “Business calls. I’ll see you soon.”

“See ya,” you murmured.

He gave you a final look—half fondness, half trouble—before the screen went dark.

The silence in the room felt softer somehow, touched with something that lingered.

You exhale, turning back to your easel.

The canvas waits, colors half-mixed on your palette, brush still resting where you’d left it—abandoned mid-thought when his call came through.

But now, something’s shifted.

Your fingers curl around the brush, and with a soft breath, you begin to move again.

Strokes bloom across the canvas—deliberate, fluid. The paint feels lighter in your hand now, each color falling into place more naturally than before.

There’s a softness to this piece. A gentleness you hadn’t expected.

You don’t think. You just feel.

The quiet hum of the city filters in through your window. The sun has started its descent, casting warm golden light across your studio, just enough to set the edges of your work aglow.

The silence is full, but not lonely.

And as the painting comes together—layer by layer, emotion by emotion—you find yourself smiling. Just a little.

Your thoughts drift back to his voice, that lazy smirk in his tone when he said, “I’ll bring you here one day.” The way he’d said “See you soon” like he meant it.

You glance at the almost-finished piece, head tilted.

It’s not just a swirl of color anymore. It’s something real. Something tender. Something that carries his presence, even when he’s not here.

Your brush pauses at the bottom right corner.

Then, with a quiet breath and steady hand, you sign it in clean, graceful strokes:

Promise.

And this time, you don’t paint to let something go.

You paint to hold something close.

You hang the painting up to dry as you smile, “See you soon, idiot.” You mutter to yourself, heading to get a shower.

—•

Week three. He called again.

You were just leaving an art exhibition downtown, the night air crisp against your skin as you stepped onto the sidewalk.

Streetlights painted golden halos across the pavement, and traffic hummed faintly in the distance.

The call came in right on cue.

“You heading home?” Sylus’s voice was a familiar comfort in your ear, low and smooth with a hint of fatigue.

“Yeah,” you said, adjusting the strap of your bag as you tucked the phone closer. “Long walk though.”

“I’ll stay on the line,” he offered easily, like it was second nature now. “Unless you’d rather be alone with your thoughts.”

You smiled to yourself. “No complaints here.”

You let the silence linger between you—comfortable, not rushed—until your voice broke through again.

“So, how are things over there?”

He let out a dramatic sigh, and you could practically see the smirk on his face. “The usual. Bossing people here, bossing people there, call you, then back to bossing.”

You laughed, shaking your head as your heels clicked down the street. “Tragic.”

“It’s exhausting being brilliant,” he added.

“No one asked you to be dramatic.”

“But I do it so well.”

You were just about to tease him again when a soft sound made you pause—a small, high-pitched mewl.

You stopped mid-step, your eyes drifting down to the sidewalk where a tiny black kitten sat curled near a lamppost. It blinked up at you, red eyes gleaming faintly under the light.

You blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”

“What is?” Sylus asked.

You crouched, shifting your phone slightly to angle the camera. “This.”

You flipped to the front camera and showed him the kitten. “Tell me this doesn’t look exactly like you.”

There was a beat of silence. Then,

“…Hm,” he muttered. “It does resemble me. But I’m obviously better looking.”

You snorted, rolling your eyes. “Debatable.”

“Careful, kitten,” he warned playfully. “Mocking your husband’s good looks could be grounds for divorce.”

You looked back down at the feline, who was now stretching one paw toward your shoe.

“Hey, little guy,” you murmured, voice softening. “Wanna come home with me?”

On the other end of the line, Sylus’s tone changed—just a little. “You’re not seriously bringing it back?”

You smiled, sensing something beneath his voice. Not judgment. Not disapproval.

Jealousy.

Tiny. Stubborn. Undeniable.

You raised an eyebrow. “Jealous of a kitten?”

“I just think it’s suspicious how fast you’re offering your heart to a stranger,” he said coolly.

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head as you reached to scoop the kitten up carefully, tucking it against your coat.

“I’m gonna need some company when you’re not around,” you said gently.

There was a pause.

Then, quietly—“You miss me that much?”

You looked ahead, heart tugging at the tenderness hiding beneath his question. “You already know the answer to that.”

He didn’t say anything. But you could hear the smile in his silence.

You glanced down at the kitten, who was already purring against your chest.

“Well,” Sylus finally said, voice warm now, “I guess he’ll have to keep you company until I come home.”

You smiled, eyes softening.

“He’s just temporary,” you whispered. “You’re the one I’m waiting for.”

—•

Week five. You were in your art room.

The scent of paint lingered in the air, and the soft hum of a half-finished playlist played in the background, but your focus was elsewhere—fractured, restless.

You’d been trying to work all evening, paintbrush in hand, canvas in front of you. But every few minutes, your gaze flicked back to your phone on the nearby stool. The screen remained dark.

He’d said he would call.

He always did.

You sighed, brush pausing mid-stroke again as you stared at the unmoving phone.

“He said he’d call… he would, wouldn’t he, Mephisto?”

At your feet, the small black kitten raised his head and let out a soft mewl, tail curling neatly around your ankle as if in answer.

You smiled faintly and leaned down to scratch behind his ear. “That’s what I thought.”

Mephisto blinked up at you with those vivid red eyes—so unnervingly like Sylus’s that sometimes you wondered if the universe was playing a joke on you.

The name had been his suggestion, of course.

“It’s a fitting name for a feline that resembles your husband,” he’d said over the phone with that smug, teasing lilt in his voice.

You’d snorted, called him ridiculous, but named the kitten anyway.

Now, with Mephisto curled at your feet and the evening stretching long, you let out another sigh and dipped your brush into fresh paint.

Tried to return to your canvas. Tried to focus.

But it was no use.

Every shadow felt a little too quiet without his voice in your ear.

Every silence a little heavier than usual.

You weren’t used to waiting—not for people, not for promises. But with him… you found yourself hoping anyway.

Because he always called.

He said he would.

And you wanted to believe that still meant something.

You were still staring at your phone when the doorbell rang.

It startled you—just a little. Mephisto perked up too, tail flicking as he padded after you through the hallway. You weren’t expecting anyone.

Wiping your hands on a cloth, you moved toward the front door, curiosity prickling in your chest.

A small package sat on your doorstep, neatly wrapped, the kind of precision only someone meticulous—and annoyingly confident—would bother with. There was no sender name on the label. Just your name, written in a familiar, slanted scrawl.

Your breath caught.

You didn’t need to open it to know.

Sylus.

You brought the package inside, setting it gently on the coffee table as Mephisto hopped up beside you, immediately attempting to chew the corner.

“Not for you,” you murmured, brushing him away gently.

Inside the box, nestled in folds of dark velvet, was a hardcover sketchbook—leather-bound, the cover etched with delicate, swirling patterns.

Expensive, beautifully made.

The kind of thing you always admired but never thought to buy for yourself.

And tucked between the first two blank pages was a single note, handwritten in his unmistakable style.

“For the nights you can’t sleep, and the moments you’re thinking too much. I figured if I couldn’t be there to distract you in person, I’d give you something that could.” —S.

You stared at the words for a long moment, your fingers brushing lightly over the paper.

It wasn’t just a gift.

It was a presence.

A reminder.

A reassurance.

Your chest tightened—not painfully, but warmly, a soft ache blooming beneath your ribs.

Mephisto meowed beside you, pawing at the edge of the sketchbook like he, too, approved.

You smiled, small and genuine, and sank back into the couch, still holding the note in your hand.

He hadn’t called.

But somehow, this felt louder than a voice on the line.

“Idiot.”

#lads #lads x reader #lads sylus #love and deepspace sylus #lnds sylus #love and deepspace #l&ds sylus #sylus x non mc #sylus x y/n #sylus x you #sylus qin #sylus x reader #sylus #lnds x you #lnds x reader #lnds #lads x y/n #lads x you

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l0s3rd0wnt0wn · 21 hours ago

Note

I imagine Robin Reader with the same style as Moon Girl

MOST DEF!!!

Robin!Reader is probably the cutest of all the Robins. She's energetic, bubbly, and excited, but don't let that cute smile fool you; she's mean. I think Robin!Reader's main weapon would be electric brass knuckles made by her personally, and our little Robin is pretty flexible and athletic, making her a great fighter. She doesn't take fights seriously, cracking jokes whenever she can: "Yeesh, I’d rather go to a Weird Al show than listen to another pun at his funny." He hates you as Robin so much, and Robin!Reader has a crazy rivalry with Deathstroke!Reader. Whether they're in the same AU or two different people entirely, it's like the song "Girl" from Charli XCX; both match each other in fighting skills and personality, bouncing well off each other, but they can't seem to get along at all. "At least I'm not flat-chested like you. No wonder why boys friend zone you; you're like their little sister." Deathstroke!Reader is brutal, but when they go low, you go lower. "Well, at least I don't dress like a hooker to get some guy's attention; your daddy issues speak for themselves." And now they're both on the ground pulling braids and ruining silk presses. Think of Panty and Stocking, except they don't have their sister moments—it’s just fighting. Maybe you both need to work together for a mission, and everyone sees how good you are together, but at the end of the day, the hatred never dies. Since Reader is a Robin, she's her own super or speedster. Cassie is your super; she's the one carrying you around since you can't fly, holding you close to her chest to get the other Young Justice members jealous. Tim isn't a fan of this at all; he's using your cape to block you from her and everyone else's advances. You're his little bird, and he'll do whatever it takes to protect you, even if it means going into Bruce's secret stash of Kryptonite for Conner's little crush on you—more like obsession, really. He uses your heartbeat to fall asleep at night. Bart is too sweet, and the two of you are on the same wavelength at all times. No matter what, he feels like he’s found his soulmate, platonic or romantic; the two of you just click like Lego pieces. But he'll go crazy if you have that same click with anyone else. In the Justice League, you’re their emotional support Robin. Hal's down in the dumps thinking he’s a bad Lantern, and you pick up on it real fast during a mission: "You're so strong, Mr. Lantern! I could never think of something like that!" Now he's thinking about making you a sidekick. Diana? You're a strong young woman, and she adores you. Next thing you know, you're on Themyscira, and you're their new princess. You're a busy little Robin!

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ferigrievous · 2 days ago

Text

ATSUMU MIYA HCS ⋆˚࿔

chews gum like its a personality trait. keeps like three packs on him at all times

will 100% make fun of someone for doing something dumb and then do the exact same thing 5 minutes later

bites his nails when he’s nervous but will never admit it because he ends up cutting them all short afterwards

used to call people stupid nicknames as a joke but now he cant shake the habit even post timeskip

will never admit when he’s lost an argument, he’ll just move the goalpost

the most annoying person to watch a movie with for most people because he’ll talk through the whole damn thing

“i’m just sayin’, if i was in that situation, i wouldn’t have died.”

if he’s texting and they stop replying, he will 100% double and triple text

asks for a sip of your drink and drinks half of it

also wont share his drink

says he doesn’t care about looks but spends like a fucking hour styling his hair and then messes with it every five minutes

if he’s eating something and it tastes bad, he wont make it known but will ask someone else to try it just to see their reaction

will never back down from a dare, even if it’s the dumbest thing imaginable

doesnt actually mean to flirt he just thinks he’s being nice but people keep taking it the wrong way

snores like a fucking lawn mower and osamu has tried smothering him in his sleep multiple times

has a bad habit of cracking his knuckles every ten seconds

never reads the instructions and then builds/cooks the thing completely wrong

if he’s losing a game he doesnt put much effort into (anything but volleyball) he’ll cheat because it ��doesn't mean anything to him’

will talk the maddest shit ever and drop a “just saying!”

lowkey actually sentimental but no one ever finds out because osamu would grill him for it

never actually folds his clothes properly because he doesnt gaf if something is wrinkled

unironically taps his foot when he’s impatient

will complain about something and then do it anyway

the worst loser but an even worse winner because he will not let you forget

will talk himself up and then immediately do something embarrassing

secretly loves being babied but will never admit it

such a mama’s boy its not even funny

if he doesn’t know the answer to something, he will make one up confidently, and is so good at lying that he actually ends up convincing people

such a chismosa like actually

will text “wyd” and then disappear

acts like a player but is actually a ride or die

“bro i just got a feeling about this” (he is wrong)

overthinks texts for hours and then sends the dumbest response anyway

#⊹ ࣪ ˖ greywrites #⊹ ࣪ ˖ headcanons #haikyuu #atsumu miya #haikyuu headcanons #haikyū!!#miya twins #miya atsumu #atsumu #atsumu x reader #miya atsumu x reader #haikyuu fluff #hq x reader #hq fluff #haikyu x reader #osamu miya #miya osamu #inarizaki #anime

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del-stars · 17 hours ago

Note

yes, you do need to write bitchkiller licking the blood off of each other's knuckles. Or anywhere. Just deathstar and blood.

i misinterpreted licking knuckles but here u go

barty x sirius | explicit | 524 words | @ecstarry

“You’re a fucking freak.”

Sirius moans around the fingers in his mouth, batting his eyelashes up at Barty.

It really wasn’t supposed to go this way— none of it. Sirius came over to pick up a few of his things, now that he and Barty were officially broken up, which had turned into them fighting, of course, which had turned into Sirius screaming some not-so-nice words about Barty’s mother, which had turned into Barty’s fist colliding with his nose. And Sirius might have a tiny, little, small thing for blood— and for Barty, with Sirius’ blood on his fingers.

“I just punched you in the face.”

Sirius hums, tracing his tongue up the crack between Barty’s pointer and index, savoring the metallic taste on his tongue. Barty’s voice has got that edge to it, that tone of perverted curiosity that pokes out whenever he wants to do something fucked up to Sirius. He won’t say it, but he’s into this.

With his own fingers wrapped around Barty’s wrist, Sirius draws his hand out of his mouth, letting Barty’s fingers rest on his bottom lip.

“You’re a masochist,” Barty says, teasing, except his eyes are fixed on Sirius’ wet lips.

“You like it.”

They’re on the edge, which is how this goes: Sirius, seducing, until he can get Barty to buy in to whatever insane fantasy he’s decided he wants to explore. If he watches closely, Sirius could see the switch flip in Barty’s gaze, from his perverted curiosity to his unbridled want. It happens, this time, when Barty drags his fingers up through the trail of blood still leaking from Sirius’ nose. He drags them back and forth across the space between Sirius’ lip and nose, letting the blood gather. His other hand comes to Sirius’ waist and, not gently, he shoves his fingers back into Sirius’ mouth.

“There you go,” Barty says, voice gruff. “Take it.”

Sirius will think about this later— or maybe he won’t. James would tell him that there’s a correlation to be made between Barty’s act of punching him and the rabid horniness that immediately overtook Sirius, but James is not here. And he never needs to know that this happened— a quick spell to fix his nose and something to clean his face, and nobody will ever know.

It isn’t right, keeping this sort of thing from James again, except Sirius doesn’t really have time to think about that when Barty is tilting him backwards and using the hand that’s not in Sirius’ mouth to take out his cock.

Sirius is good and quiet as Barty jerks himself off, hands fisted in the sheets at his sides. He’s good and quiet as Barty kneels over him, staring at Sirius, covered in blood and cum. It’s only then when the embarrassment and shame take over, only worsened when Barty slides off the bed and leaves Sirius lying there.

Barty doesn’t come back. Sirius does a scourgify on his clothes, then fixes his own nose in the mirror. He leaves, swearing he’ll never tell anyone that happened, and he’ll never see Barty again.

Only one of those he can keep.

#bitchkiller #grimkiller #deathstar #barty x sirius #sirius x barty #my writing #minific #sirius black #barty crouch jr #marauders #harry potter

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ariadins · 2 days ago

Text

“the weight he carries”

warnings: mentions of stress and burnout, emotional vulnerability,crying,mild angst with comfort & etc

The front door slammed shut so hard the walls seemed to tremble. You barely had time to set down your book before the sound of heavy footsteps thundered through the house.

Rafe was home. And he was angry.

You knew that kind of anger. The kind that simmered just beneath his skin, that made his jaw clench so tight it could snap. You didn’t have to see him to know—his presence alone was suffocating.

You followed the sound of his footsteps toward his office, the only place he ever retreated to when the weight of the world felt too heavy on his shoulders. The door wasn’t locked, but you hesitated for a moment before pushing it open.

He stood with his back to you, his fingers pressed into the desk so hard his knuckles turned white. Papers were scattered everywhere. A glass of whiskey, untouched, sat beside a stack of reports. His tie was loose, his shirt slightly unbuttoned, his hair disheveled like he’d run his hands through it a thousand times.

“Rafe?” You spoke softly, your voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

He didn’t turn right away. His shoulders rose and fell with deep, uneven breaths. You could almost hear the battle inside him—rage fighting exhaustion, frustration swallowing control.

“I don’t want to talk right now.” His voice was hoarse, edged with something vulnerable he was trying desperately to hide.

That only made you step closer. “I don’t care.”

Finally, he turned. His eyes, usually sharp with arrogance, were dull and tired. The anger in them was fading, replaced with something heavier—something that made your chest tighten.

You reached for him without thinking. Your hand pressed against his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath your palm.

“Rafe…” You trailed off, unsure of what to say.

His lips parted like he wanted to respond, but instead, he exhaled shakily and collapsed into his chair, burying his face in his hands. His broad shoulders hunched, his whole body sinking as if he was caving in on himself.

You didn’t hesitate. You stepped between his legs, running your fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. His breath hitched. His arms came around your waist, and before you knew it, he was pulling you onto his lap, burying his face against your neck.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered, his voice raw.

Your heart ached at the way he held onto you—like you were the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” you murmured, running your fingers through his hair. “I’m here, Rafe.”

His grip on you tightened. “It never stops. The meetings, the expectations, the pressure—” His voice cracked, and for the first time, you felt it. A single tear against your skin.

Rafe Cameron never cried.

But tonight, he did.

And you held him through it.

You pressed soft kisses to his temple, his cheek, anywhere you could reach. “You’re going to be okay.”

He didn’t argue. Didn’t fight it. He just exhaled, his body slowly relaxing against yours.

And then, as his breathing evened out, as the tension left his muscles, Rafe fell asleep in your arms.

Safe.

Finally at peace.

©ariadins — storytelling in motion.

#rafe cameron #rafe obx #outerbanks rafe #rafe outer banks #rafe x you #rafe fanfiction #rafe x reader #rafe imagine #rafe fic #obx x reader #obx #obx fic #obx season 4 #obx fanfiction

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cool-fancier · 2 days ago

Text

Underground Heat

Synopsis: In the brutal underground fight scene, you risk everything—your body, your pride, and your secret love with global superstar Rosie. One fight could cost you everything.

Word count:1.1K

A/N:Hey guys so sorry for not publishing anything , things have been hectic but this is just a small thing to get into it, if you have any requests please do tell.Thank you.

The green room is dimly lit, the flickering fluorescent light above casting shadows over the cracked walls. The air is thick with sweat, adrenaline, and the faint metallic scent of blood from past fights. You sit on the worn leather couch, rolling your wrists, stretching the tension from your muscles. You should be focused.

But you’re not.

Your eyes flick to the doorway, where Rosie stands, arms crossed, her silhouette framed against the dim light from the hallway. Her blonde hair falls loosely over her shoulders, her hazel eyes locked onto you with a mixture of worry and something deeper—something unspoken.

“You ready?” she asks, her voice quieter than usual.

You smirk, cracking your knuckles. “Always.”

She doesn’t smile. Instead, she steps into the room, closing the door behind her.

"You don't have to do this," she murmurs.

You exhale, rubbing a hand over your face. "You know I do."

Fighting is in your blood. It's your survival. You've clawed your way up from nothing, built a name for yourself in the underground world where only the strongest make it out. Walking away isn't an option.

Rosie knows this. She’s known it since the night she met you—since the night she found you in a back alley after a fight, bleeding but victorious, and kissed you like you were something worth saving.

But knowing doesn’t mean she accepts it.

She moves closer, standing between your legs, her hands resting on your knees. The warmth of her touch bleeds through your skin, grounding you.

"Just win," she whispers. "Come back to me in one piece."

Your fingers curl around her waist, pulling her the rest of the way. “You doubt me?”

A small, breathy laugh escapes her lips. “Never.”

Your grip tightens, your forehead pressing against hers. Then, before either of you can think too hard about it, your lips find hers.

The kiss is slow, desperate, tinged with the fear she won’t say out loud. Your hands tangle in her hair, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss until the rest of the world fades away.

A knock on the door shatters the moment.

Your team.

Rosie steps back, her expression carefully composed, but the fire in her eyes remains.

As you stand, rolling your shoulders, she grabs your wrist one last time.

"Be careful," she says.

You flash a grin, though you know it won’t ease her worry. “I’ll see you after.”

And then you’re walking away, stepping toward the fight, toward the chaos. Toward what you do best.

— — — — — —

The underground arena roars. The crowd is packed, bodies pressed together, shouting, fists pounding against the steel cage. The air is thick with smoke, sweat, and the metallic tang of blood.

You step into the cage, rolling your neck, eyes locked on your opponent.

Vera Ivanov.

A name that carries weight in the underground world. She’s tall, muscular, with ice-blue eyes that show no fear. She’s been on a winning streak, and by the way she looks at you—like you’re just another body in her way—it’s clear she expects to keep it.

Not tonight.

The ref barely finishes the introductions before the bell rings.

Vera explodes forward, throwing a wild right hook. You duck, slipping past her, landing a sharp counterpunch to her ribs. She grunts but barely flinches before launching a knee straight into your stomach.

The impact knocks the air from your lungs, pain blooming through your core. But you don’t stop. You clinch, driving your own knee into her side before twisting, shoving her off balance.

She staggers, but only for a second.

Then she’s on you.

A brutal left hook crashes into your jaw, sending white-hot pain flashing behind your eyes. You barely register the next hit before she slams you into the cage.

The crowd erupts.

Your team shouts something, but it’s drowned out by the roaring in your ears.

Vera pulls back, aiming for a finishing strike—but you move.

You drop at the last second, sweeping her legs. She crashes to the mat, and you’re on her instantly, landing a vicious elbow to her temple.

She growls, twisting, grabbing your arm—and suddenly, you’re the one on your back.

Pain explodes in your ribs as she drives her knee into your side, her fists raining down. You twist, barely blocking a blow that could’ve ended you.

Your breath is ragged. Your vision blurs.

But you refuse to go down.

With a burst of strength, you shove her off, rolling to your feet. Blood drips from your brow, your body screaming in protest.

She’s grinning.

You wipe the blood from your lips, smirking back. “That all you got?”

She lunges.

You meet her head-on.

The next few minutes are a brutal war—blow for blow, pain against pain, until neither of you can afford to make a mistake.

Then she does.

She overreaches on a right hook, leaving her side open.

You react on instinct.

A knee to her ribs. A hook to her jaw. A final, brutal takedown.

She hits the mat hard.

You don’t hesitate. You lock in a rear-naked choke.

She struggles, thrashes—

And then she taps.

The bell rings.

You win.

But the victory feels distant. Your body is wrecked, every nerve screaming. Blood drips from your split lip, your ribs aching with every breath.

You stumble out of the cage.

And then everything tilts.

Pain crashes down all at once.

— — — — — —

You barely register your team’s voices as they lead you back to the locker room. The moment you sit on the table, your body gives in.

And then she’s there.

Rosie.

She doesn’t speak as she grabs the first-aid kit, kneeling between your legs, her hands gentle as she presses gauze to your brow.

"You’re a fucking idiot," she mutters.

You chuckle, wincing. "You love this idiot."

Her lips press into a thin line, her eyes stormy with emotion. She hates seeing you like this—bruised, bleeding, one fight away from something neither of you want to name.

She doesn’t speak.

Instead, she steps closer.

Between your legs.

Her hands rest on the table beside you, trapping you. Her breath is warm against your skin, her body close enough that you can feel her heartbeat.

The air thickens.

Your pulse pounds—not from the fight, but from her.

She leans in, her lips barely grazing your neck.

A shiver runs through you.

Your hands clench, fighting the urge to pull her closer, to kiss her until you forget the pain, the blood, the war inside you.

Then—just as quickly—she pulls back.

Her lips ghost over your ear.

"Next time," she murmurs, voice like silk, "don’t make me watch you almost die."

Then she’s gone.

And you’re left there—aching, breathless, craving more.

#blackpink x reader #blackpink #blackpink imagines #blackpink scenarios #blackpink x fem #blackpink x you #blackpink fanfiction #blackpink x fem reader #blackpink rosé #rosé x fem #rosé blackpink #park chaeyoungxfem #roseanne park #rosé x reader #park chaeyoung #wlw post #wlw x reader

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reallygroovyninja · 3 days ago

Text

The Breakup

Clarke's finger hovered over the call button, hesitation flooding through her. She glanced at the clock - 10PM in California meant 1AM in New York. Was it too late? Lexa always told her to call no matter when, insisting that she'd always pick up. But things had changed between them over the past few months. The distance between the two coasts had created a chasm even their daily calls couldn't bridge.

She tapped the familiar icon on her phone, the rings seeming sluggish, amplifying her nerves.

"Clarke?" Lexa's husky voice was thick with sleep. A pang of guilt hit Clarke for waking her girlfriend.

"Hey," Clarke started softly. "Did I wake you? I can let you go back to sleep and just talk tom-"

"No, no it's okay. Is everything alright?" Lexa's tone shifted to concern. Even half asleep, she was still taking care of Clarke.

Clarke sighed, tears pricking unexpectedly. "Not really. I just..." Her voice caught. She couldn't bear to say the words out loud, couldn't voice what she knew they both were thinking. That long distance wasn't working for them. That as much as they didn’t want to admit it, they needed to have a heartbreaking discussion about the fate of their relationship and what came next.

The deafening silence on the line said it all. Clarke imagined Lexa on the other end nodding slowly, both reluctance and grief etched on her features even without seeing her face. Here came the conversation Clarke had been dreading for weeks. The distance seemed destined to end them despite their best efforts.

Clarke gripped the phone tighter, her knuckles turning white. She squeezed her eyes shut as the first tears escaped down her cheeks.

"I miss you," Clarke whispered, the words cracking with emotion. She missed everything - Lexa's smile, her laugh, the feeling of her arms wrapped tightly around her. Video calls and phone conversations were no longer enough. Not when there had once been lazy Sundays tangled together in bed and long walks hand-in-hand along the Potomac River without the pressure of time difference schedules.

"I miss you too, Clarke," came Lexa's shattered reply. Miles away yet connected by the slim electronic lifeline, Clarke could picture Lexa's stoic armor falling away, eyebrows knit together while she held back her own tears.

"But...I think we need to talk..." Clarke forced herself to say. The seven dreaded words no one in a relationship ever wants to hear. But the distance had strained them to a breaking point - separate cities, increasingly separate lives. As much as Clarke wanted to cling to what they once had, it didn't exist anymore.

"I think you're right," Lexa's voice wavered slightly despite the even tone. She had always been able to read Clarke so well. They had both known a reckoning was coming, as much as their hearts silently raged against the mere idea.

Clarke took a shuddering breath, wiping the tears from her eyes. She focused on the painting leaning against the bare wall of her apartment, grounding herself for the devastating but inevitable conversation about to unfold.

"I just...I feel like we're drifting apart," Clarke whispered, giving voice to the fears that had been plaguing her for weeks. "Like we're becoming strangers."

She heard Lexa let out a shaky breath. "I've felt that too. At first, I thought it was just starting new jobs and getting settled in our cities, but..."

"But it's more than that," Clarke finished for her. Long distance was supposed to be temporary - they had clung fiercely to that belief in the beginning. That after a year apart chasing career dreams on opposite coasts, they'd reunite and start building a life together again.

It had seemed possible when granted with everyday moments like Lexa's small, sleepy smile in the morning or the brush of her fingers along Clarke's arm. Things video calls failed to replicate at their now fractured foundation.

"Maybe if the distance was less..." Clarke's voice trailed off wistfully, knowing not even the entire breadth of the country could be blamed alone. Something else had fractured between them too. The easy affection, unquestioned devotion, shared dreams for the future...all casualties gradually inflicted not solely by physical separation but a growing emotional chasm too.

"I want this to work, I do." The catch in Lexa's words splintered Clarke's heart further. "I love you, I'll always love you. But wanting that doesn't change what's happening between us."

A lonely tear trailed down Clarke's cheek. The hardest relationships to end were often the deepest loves too.

A sob caught in Clarke's throat as the weight of Lexa's words sank in. She loves me. Present tense, not past. And yet...it still isn't enough.

Clarke blinked back the threat of more tears, trying to swallow the sadness rising within her. "I know," she finally managed to say. "I love you too." She poured every ounce of feeling into those four words, hoping Lexa could still sense her heart even so many miles away.

"But you're right," Clarke made herself continue after a painful pause. As agonizing as this conversation was, she owed Lexa the truth of her feelings, no matter how much the reality hurt them both.

"The distance, stretched over months...we can't pretend it hasn't changed things." Once upon a happier time, Lexa had felt like her anchor amidst any storm. But now Clarke only felt her absence, like a ship adrift without its mooring. "We've both got separate lives now. I barely know what's going on in your world anymore...and you in mine."

Silence stretched between them - Clarke picturing Lexa sitting on her sofa, shoulders slumped forward, dark waves of hair curtaining her face. She ached to brush those strands back, let her fingertips graze Lexa's cheek, re-memorize every beloved detail of her features.

Finally, Lexa's somber voice came, quavering on just two shattering syllables. "So...what happens now?"

The question neither one wanted to ask but had to, the one that would inexorably lead to goodbye. Because the only thing worse than the painful realization they had been growing apart would be denying it while staying together in name alone.

Clarke's breath caught in her throat at the question. What did happen now? The obvious answer loomed before them - the necessity of ending things if they were both feeling the relationship fracture.

And yet...the years of history they shared made the notion nearly unfathomable. How could she just cut the tether they had created day by day? Lexa had been her first love, the one who unexpectedly burst into her world and changed her entire concept of relationships.

Clarke pinched her eyes closed, forcing aside the fresh swell of tears. She focused on steadying her uneven breath, trying to calm the storm inside her heart.

"I don't know," she finally admitted, the words barely a whisper. Because the truth was she wanted Lexa in her life in any way possible, even if that meant redefining the parameters of their relationship. The title seemed insignificant compared to keeping Lexa's steadfast care and understanding rooted in her world.

"Can we just...talk? Not make any big decisions now?" Clarke asked hesitantly. She knew the sensible decision loomed before them, but the reminder of Lexa's love made her long to cling to these last lingering threads between them. Surely there was still something worth saving if they both still felt such depth of emotion?

The extended silence magnified Clarke's nerves. Would Lexa agree they owed it to their history to try talking first? Or had the distance grown so vast already that she would insist on a clean break? Clarke held her breath, praying Lexa's heart would echo her own in those agonizing moments.

Clarke heard Lexa take a shaky breath on the other end of the line. When she finally spoke, her voice was gentle but firm.

“I think if we’re both feeling things changing between us, then talking more right now might just prolong the inevitable,” she said quietly.

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears spill down her cheeks. She had feared Lexa would say that but still couldn’t stop the renewed ache in her chest.

“This is so damn hard,” Clarke whispered brokenly. “I can’t imagine you not in my life anymore.”

“Me neither,” Lexa replied, and Clarke could hear the barely contained emotion in her words. “But with how things are now...I think some space would be best. For both of us.”

Clarke nodded before remembering Lexa couldn’t see her. As rational as the suggestion was, the thought of losing even their nightly calls felt unbearable.

“Maybe one day, when enough time has passed...we could try to be friends?” Lexa offered tentatively. “But right now I think a clean break is what we need to heal.”

Clarke swallowed back a sob, wiping fiercely at her eyes. She had to be strong now, with Lexa’s emotions likely just as fractured.

“You’re right,” Clarke forced herself to say. As agonizing as this was, she knew Lexa enough to recognize the wisdom in her suggestion. “I’ll always be grateful for our time together.”

She left the ‘I love you’ unspoken this time, the finality of this goodbye conversation settling around her shoulders with profound weight. The first crack in her heart split wide open, and she could almost hear Lexa’s fracturing too through the phone pressed to her ear.

"So I guess this is it then," Clarke said softly, the words barely making it past the lump in her throat.

She was met with deafening silence on the other end of the line. Somehow Lexa not responding hurt more than if she had simply said goodbye and ended the call. Clarke could practically see her love struggling to maintain composure, emerald eyes glistening with restrained tears.

"Lexa?" Clarke prompted gently when the quiet stretched on, laced with unspoken hurt.

"I'm still here," came the whispered reply, Lexa's voice finally breaking on the last word.

Clarke's heart shattered at the sound. As stoic and measured as Lexa tried to be, she had always worn her emotions when it came to them. Another reminder of the profound connection now rupturing.

"I wish we had a choice other than this," Clarke admitted sorrowfully. She knew Lexa was right - some space was the only path forward - but every fiber of her being railed against losing her best friend and closest confidante.

"Me too," Lexa echoed thickly.

They fell silent again, thousands of memories passing almost tangibly between them through the phone line. Lazy mornings under the covers, hands clasped as they explored new cities, the brush of lips upon meeting at the end of long days...all memories now piercing them with bittersweet nostalgia.

Finally, Lexa cleared her throat. When she spoke, steel resolve underpinned her words despite the wavering grief.

"Be well, Clarke."

Not goodbye. Just a simple wish for happiness in their new separate worlds. Fresh tears flooded Clarke's eyes but she managed to echo it back, the closest they could come to closure.

"You too. Take care of yourself, Lexa."

A soft click echoed with finality. And just like that, she was gone.

#a repost of the breakup

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neithriddle · 5 hours ago

Text

I screamed for the 99% of the chapter and I am not ashamed to announce it 😩✋🏻

the nineteen-year-old son who believes—without proof, without logic—that the curse is not lifted but only transferred, living on in him like an echo down a long hall.

Maggie stop, I know you are playing with our feelings and he isn't really sick 😭(What if the real sick person in this story was Sunshine? 😱)

“You think you have the gene,” you realize, horrified. “You forget things. Your hands shake. And that’s why you’re leaving Los Angeles and avoiding your family, and that’s why you’re marrying Becca—”

“Stay the fuck out of my head,” Aegon says, the first time he’s ever spat his venom at you, and his knuckles are unbruised and yet it feels like he’s hit you, a crack in a wall, bones that split and arteries that hemorrhage.

I mean as much as I am on Sunshine's side I also understand Aegon, in the sense that as much as Sunshine may like him, I too would be annoyed if someone tried to insinuate and try to make comments about my life.

"Then it will be a relief,” Aegon says softly. “And I can always come back.”

A fan of William Afton, i see 👀 jokes aside i am really hoping that is the case🙏🏻

“What about me?” you ask, your voice splintering. “If you’re sick, you’re just never going to see me again?”

Aegon smiles faintly, sad, resigned. “I would rather you remember me the way I am now.”

Stop he is making me cry, don't talk like he's about to die 😭😭😭

“Can we just be us again?” Aegon asks, and now he’s calm, gentle, exhausted. “We have a month left together. I don’t want to waste it.”

My baby, he is just tired, maybe LA is really a curse for him 🫠 i wanna hug him

But you don’t care what he’s saying, because Aegon pulls his black aviator sunglasses out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and slides them on and beams at you, and you hear the words as if he’s spoken them aloud: You are so bright, sunshine.

My boy and his girl 🥹

“Hey,” Aegon says, taking a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet and waving it around so Josh can see before dunking it in the tip jar. “She’s quitting. Call someone else.” And then he pulls you, grinning and exhilarated, out of the Cold Stone Creamery and into the August air, moving swiftly beneath a cerulean sky full of cumulus clouds, 90-degrees and diesel fumes.

“Aegon, I can’t quit yet, I still have to pay my rent—”

“I’ll pay your rent,” Aegon says. He stops when you are under the shade of a palm tree and stands there with you in the oasis. His Sebring is parked illegally in a fire lane; it is adorned with a new malady, a massive dent in the bumper. “You’re going to have costume fittings and table-reads, and you have to learn the script, and you’ll have appointments with hair and makeup, and you’ll have a personal trainer, and promo obligations…you won’t have time to work.”

I'm crying they seem more like a married couple to me than him and Becca 😭

“You didn’t force them to hire me, did you?” you ask, the effervescent high dissolving away. “You didn’t threaten to blacklist them with your whole family or anything, right? Because I don’t want this if it’s not real.”

“What?” Aegon says, mystified. “No. No, I swear, I wouldn’t do that. And I don’t think it would have worked even if I’d tried. First billing is a huge deal. Not even Taylor Swift has managed to buy herself a starring role in a movie yet. They liked you. They wanted you.”

I'm crying, she was having flashbacks jahdhahaha

The hope quivers in your voice. “I’m going to be an actress?”Aegon smiles.

“You already are one.” He takes off your red apron and your grey hat and stuffs both in a nearby trashcan.

STOP THAT'S SO CUTE 🥹🥹🥹

“You aren’t bringing Jace to the Maroon 5 thing tonight, right? Because it’s in your best interests to appear unattached."

Yes, sure Aegon, that's exactly why Sunshine shouldn't bring Jace, not because you'd be jealous like at the gala. 👀

“Yeah. Being ostensibly single makes you confident and alluring and mysterious. Dragging along your mop-haired boyfriend makes you look like a high school kid at prom.”

He just can't stop himself from dragging Jace thought the mud 🙂‍↕️

“And how does dragging along my sulky, disillusioned Targaryen agent make me look?”

“Like a star,” Aegon replies simply.

I can't disagree with him 😔✋🏻

“Maybe whatever’s wrong with you isn’t Huntington’s. Maybe it’s something else, like a vitamin deficiency or a thyroid disorder or lupus or fibromyalgia, or diabetes from all the super unhealthy food you eat. Maybe it’s something a doctor can fix.”

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?” Aegon says; and he kisses your cheek and climbs into his Sebring and speeds off towards the interchange of the 110.

He kissing her cheek to change subject, I am seeing slightly progress or am I tripping and delulu (especially after the double dsq of Ferrari) 😩✋🏻

“You think it’s charming.”

Aegon smiles at you. “I do.”

Maggie i know you will rip my heart out into the next chapter, I just can feel it in my bones 😭

Aegon has a hand on the small of your back, and you think: I want it to be like this all the time. I want it to be like this forever.

ME TOO SUNSHINE, ME TOO 😭

_____________

Bestie I know you are gonna make us pay rent in tears with this, but this time let them have a happy ending 🙏🏻😭

A Curse [Chapter 9: Hollywood]

A/N: We're in the home stretch now, besties! Only 3 chapters left until the curse is lifted 🪄

Series summary: You are an aspiring actress. Aegon is a washed-up and disenchanted agent…at least until he sees something special in you. But within paradisical seaside Los Angeles you find terrible dangers and temptations, secrets and lies. Maybe Aegon’s right; maybe the City of Angels really is a curse.

Chapter warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), age-gap situationship, Maroon 5, illness/death, angst, ice cream, Sunshine makes her red carpet debut! 😍

Word count: 6.5k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @lauraneedstochill @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @neithriddle @ecstaticactus, more in comments! 🥰

🏝️ Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🏝️

Time machine, walls like glass, the dial turned back to 2009. It’s Viserys’ funeral, and no one can even pretend they’re sad. They stopped being sad years ago, and only relief is left. No more long nocturnal hours of the deathwatch, no more hushed sympathetic updates from the hospice nurses, no more unrecognizable white-haired organic matter contorted in his hospital bed. The chains are broken and they are free, all except one of them, the nineteen-year-old son who believes—without proof, without logic—that the curse is not lifted but only transferred, living on in him like an echo down a long hall.

It’s 2005, and Viserys has turned mean: paranoid, volatile, lashing out with fury at his increasing limitations as his brain is hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin, like a cored apple. He roars and he throws things. He forgets his family are not torturers. Alicent could shut him away somewhere, but she doesn’t, the guilt would eat her alive; and so while nurses are present at the Malibu mansion around the clock, the Targaryens are not spared his wrath. One night Viserys breaks a window and wields a shard of glass like a dagger, and when the nurses flee screaming, Aemond stops Alicent from entering the room and goes in himself to clean up the mess. Someone has to.

It’s 1999, and after years of anomalies that nobody knew were symptoms—mood swings, muscle weakness, difficulty making decisions, balance problems, memory lapses—Viserys has been diagnosed with a disease that must have been lurking in his forebearers for generations, unbeknownst to them without the longevity or genetic tests of modern medicine. And like so many absent husbands and fathers who experience a revelation of their impending doom, he is determined to make up for lost time. He bakes with Alicent in the kitchen. He walks with Helaena in the garden. He stops condemning nine-year-old Aegon for long hours spent with his favorite toy, a charcoal gray Nintendo 64, first edition; the Fire Orange console won’t be released until the following year, part of the Funtastic Colors series. And now that it’s too late, Viserys’ children learn to love him.

Viserys takes Aegon’s hand and asks the boy to show him how to play Nintendo 64, here at the very start like a mirage, already beginning to disintegrate around the edges.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Thursday, August 7th. You don’t have an appointment to see Aegon, but you’re here in Elysian Park anyway. You park on the curb and sweep out into the gilded morning glow, already mid-80s and rising, wrinkled goldenrod-yellow sundress that you left in the drier too long, flip-flops, bare-faced. You barely slept and ran out the door as soon as you clawed your way out of brief, fitful dreams, autumn leaves and endless corridors through apple orchards, distant stars and deep water.

At his desk, Brandon is on the phone and making notes with his flower pen. He gives you a smile; you can only manage a quick wave. You continue into Aegon’s office, where he is engrossed in Mario’s expedition into an ice world where snow falls in unhurried, harmless white spheres. The music is pleasant, but the pools of frozen water are so cold they burn. Mario is making his way towards a block of ice in which a star has been hidden, accessible by navigation through narrow tunnels. Aegon, his green Nike Killshots propped up on his cluttered desk as usual, is surprised but not disappointed to see you.

“Hey, sunshine!” he says, still clicking the buttons on his transluscent orange controller, still swiveling the joystick. “What are you doing here so—?”

“Your dad died of Huntington’s disease.”

He freezes, and on the television screen, so does Mario; a malevolent snowman entity appears and hurls snowballs at the abandoned avatar until he is dead. You wait for Aegon to say something—no, that’s not true, no, you’re wrong, no, that would be a death sentence—but he only sits there, jaw fallen open, eyes filling up his face…and then he jolts to his feet and goes for the door.

You whirl around to watch him leave. “Aegon��?”

He stops in the doorway to the lobby and calls out: “Brando, you’re done for the day. Bye.”

“Oh for cute!” Brandon replies. “Let me just send an email to that moving company and then—”

“No, now. You’re done right now.”

Brandon sounds perplexed. “Okay, literally right now, you got it.” You can hear him gathering up his things, the jangling of car keys, the snapping shut of a laptop, and you remember all the hours you’ve spent gazing into a small rectangular blue-light screen as you combed through Aegon’s filmography, inspired potential that came to a collision of a stop in his mid-twenties. From the threshold, as he waits for Brandon to leave, Aegon watches you with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes thrashing with dark choppy waves like the riptides of the Pacific. You stare back thunderstruck, and only now do you realize how desperately you were hoping you were mistaken.

Out in the lobby, the front door of the half-duplex opens and closes, and now you and Aegon are alone. He walks back to his desk—loose papers, manila folders, framed photographs, that ever-present bowl of Honeycrisp apples—and drops into his chair, drags his fingers through his slicked-back hair, gazes vacantly at the mint green wall and sighs deeply.

“Who told you?” he asks, like hardly anyone knows, like the few who do wouldn’t have said anything.

“Nobody,” you say, startled. “I just kept guessing different diseases, and I didn’t think it was cancer, and…and…Aegon, Huntington’s is genetic.”

He looks up at you. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”

“Have you been tested? Because if one of your parents had it then you have a fifty percent chance of inheriting the gene.”

“No, I haven’t been tested.”

“Why not?!”

“Because I just haven’t, okay?”

“Have your siblings?”

“Yeah, and they’re all negative. But I didn’t take the test.”

“I think you should take the test, Aegon.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you should know!” you burst out, and your hands are trembling like his do sometimes, dire adrenaline in your bloodstream and your voice frayed like someone has taken a razor blade to it. “Because if you’re negative then you’ll be relieved, and if you’re positive then you can…you can plan for it, you know? And there are treatments that can help manage the symptoms! I looked it up, I spent like four hours last night on Wikipedia—”

“But no one can stop it,” Aegon says. “They can’t even slow it down.”

“Aegon, you can’t run away like that when you don’t even know for sure if you’re sick!”

“It’s actually really common for people in my situation to not want to take a test.”

You speak without any awareness of what you’re going to say. “I would take care of you.”

“You think I want to hear that?!” Aegon shouts. “You think I want to imagine you being there when I lose the ability to walk, and speak, and feed myself, and remember who the fuck I am?”

“I would do it,” you insist. “You believed in me. You helped me. I would help you.”

He shakes his head and glares at you, his eyes going slick and glassy. “You have no idea what you’re offering.”

“Your family has money, they can afford the best doctors and nurses. You wouldn’t be a burden on any of us, but we’d still get to be with you—”

“I saw what my dad dying did to my mom,” Aegon says bitterly, hatefully. “First he was himself, mostly. And then he was depressed, and then he was angry, and then he became a monster. He’s the reason my mother still has nightmares. He’s the reason Aemond lost his eye. You don’t do that to people you care about. You don’t inflict that on someone you love.”

“But what if you move to Texas and you’re fine, and you don’t have Huntington’s, and you don’t die and nothing terrible happens to you?!”

“Then it will be a relief,” Aegon says softly. “And I can always come back.”

“What about me?” you ask, your voice splintering. “If you’re sick, you’re just never going to see me again?”

Aegon smiles faintly, sad, resigned. “I would rather you remember me the way I am now.”

“Afraid? Avoidant? In denial?”

“Just get out,” he snaps, rubbing his face with his palms, wincing like he’s in pain.

“Aegon—”

“No, you don’t know what it’s like to watch someone die of this!” he roars, slamming his fist on the desk. Documents rustle; photographs fall over. “And if I don’t want a diagnosis, if I don’t want to live staring down the barrel of a gun, then that’s my fucking right and you don’t get to say I’m a coward for it!”

“You’re already living like you know you’re dying,” you moan, you plead. There are tears flowing down your cheeks and turning to salt on your lips; your face is hot with blood. “You don’t have anything to lose.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“But you’re making all these choices for the wrong reasons, and you deserve to know the truth, and if you take a test then you can make an informed decision about what you want your life to look like—”

“I would never pick you,” Aegon says, flat, direct, gutting. “So get that out of your head, because it’s not happening.”

You gaze at him helplessly. “Then what are we doing?”

He shrugs, like this is an idiotic question. “I’m your agent. I’m helping you get jobs.”

“That’s not what this is!” you sob. “It’s always been more than that, it’s been more than that from the very first day! Why did you sign me when no one else would? Why were you feeding me boneless spare ribs off your fork? Why did you throw me that apple?!”

Aegon is incredulous. “Why did I fuck you in this office, why did I fly to Minnesota to have dinner with your awful parents? Because I wanted to. Because I really like you, and I think I’ve been honest about that. But that doesn’t mean it’s serious.”

Never serious, you remember miserably. That’s how Aegon had described his affairs. “Does Becca know you could have Huntington’s?”

“No,” Aegon says. “But if she did, it wouldn’t change anything. She would still want to get married.”

“She would want to take care of you.”

“Yes, exactly. She would be upset for a while, yeah, but she…she needs someone to need her. Her parents were doctors, and they weren’t abusive or anything but they were gone all the time, and the house was like a museum, and now she’s…I don’t know, I guess she’s obsessed with creating warmth, and for Becca warmth means homemade bread and bento boxes and dogs and getting my suits tailored for me, and me being her full-time project…I think a part of her would enjoy that. Having me to herself, finally being the center of my universe. And when I get really bad, when I’m…” Aegon swallows noisily. “When I’m dead, she can move on. She can find someone else to marry and she can have kids, and she’ll always have that trophy on her shelf: I was a Targaryen, I was the perfect long-suffering wife. And Aegon loved me more than any of the others.”

More than me, you think. And then a ricochet of Aegon’s words: I would never pick you. “She’s not mad at you? Because of what we’ve done?”

Aegon chuckles uneasily. “I mean, I’m sure she’s not thrilled about you still being around. She’s been a little temperamental, she’s been suspicious. Right before we left for Minnesota, I woke up from a nap and she was swabbing my cheek for an STD test, can you believe that? But she knows this is temporary.”

What had Becca said the day she pushed you just outside this office? And if he was going to leave me, he has better options than you. You nod like any of this makes sense.

“Can we just be us again?” Aegon asks, and now he’s calm, gentle, exhausted. “We have a month left together. I don’t want to waste it.”

“Okay,” you say numbly.

“Don’t forget about the music video premiere tomorrow night. And I haven’t heard anything from the vampire movie people yet.” Then he adds: “That doesn’t mean you didn’t get it.”

“But it’s not a good sign.”

Aegon tries to soften the blow. “They might just be thinking it over. They might still be scheduling the callback for the other actress.”

You—unsteady, dazed, despondent—stare down at the scuffed wood floor and try in vain to smooth the wrinkles out of your sundress. “Sounds like we’ll both be leaving Los Angeles soon,” you tell Aegon; and then you walk until the walls disappear and only the city is left, sun glare, humming air conditioners, dogs barking, children laughing, engines revving, the immense metallic shadow of Downtown on the horizon.

At home in your apartment building, just as you are about to scan your keycard to unlock the front door, you hear Baela and Jace talking inside. The television is on and the microwave is purring—maybe Jace is making one of his favorite snacks, corn dogs or pizza rolls—and their voices are just barely distinguishable.

“What am I supposed to say to her?” Baela asks, sounding distressed. “That I’m officially too rich and famous to need a roommate? I can’t just kick her out. It would break her heart. She’s so sweet, and I know she’s trying really hard but it’s just…well…”

“No, I get it,” Jace replies. “She’s chill.”

“It sounds like her parents are going to make her move home soon anyway, unless she lands a big part, and…you know…I don’t really see that happening.”

“Yeah.” The microwave beeps and someone pops open the door to retrieve the contents.

“So just please don’t say anything, okay? And when she’s gone in a few months we’ll start looking at apartments in Venice or Santa Monica…”

You put your back to the hallway wall and wait long enough that they won’t think you’ve overheard anything, listening to the sounds of cars whooshing by outside, people coming and going from the places where they belong in the world, and you wonder what that feels like.

~~~~~~~~~~

You stay up too late watching YouTube videos of people with Huntington’s disease, and so the next morning at Cold Stone Creamery you are in a haze, dull throbbing headache, eyes bloodshot from crying, and the frat bro you’re making a Gotta Have It-sized Cookie Mintster for probably thinks you’re high but it’s the opposite: you’ve never felt lower, you’ve never been adrift like this, and you don’t know what to do next. You can’t unknot the threads fate has tied to Aegon. You can’t imagine a life for yourself back home. You can’t remember why you ever thought you’d be able to build something here in the City of Angels, glittering and golden and ever-rushing towards perfection, those who fall behind drug under the wheels.

“Can I get some gummy bears on that?” the frat boy is saying, but your gaze catches on someone behind him. The little metal bells on the glass door jingle and Aegon scrolls inside, khaki cargo shorts and a wrinkled short-sleeve white Oxford thrown over a pink tank top, and he’s traded in his Nikes for flip-flops, and his hair is gelled back from his face so you can see him clearly, vividly, and he leans against the window with daylight flooding in all around him and grins at you.

Why…?

“Can I please get some gummy bears?” the frat boy asks again.

Your manager Josh is blending up a strawberry banana smoothie and glowering at you. “Yo, what is wrong with you today?!”

“I got the part?” you say from behind the counter.

Aegon nods. “You got the part.”

You scream and sprint to him, and when you throw your arms around Aegon he catches you, laughing and warm, and right now his hands are perfectly fine, steady and strong as they cradle the small of your back, the arc of your neck.

“Where the hell are you going?” Josh snaps from the blender. The frat boy, still waiting for his Cookie Mintster, is glaring at you impatiently. “I didn’t say you could take your break yet!”

“Aegon, I can’t quit yet, I still have to pay my rent—”

The hope quivers in your voice. “I’m going to be an actress?”

Aegon smiles. “You already are one.” He takes off your red apron and your grey hat and stuffs both in a nearby trashcan. “Are you parked around here?”

You point to your Honda Accord, 2003, Desert Mist Metallic paint that gleams under the sun. “I’m just across the street.”

“You aren’t bringing Jace to the Maroon 5 thing tonight, right? Because it’s in your best interests to appear unattached.”

You raise an eyebrow, teasing. “Unattached?”

“Yeah. Being ostensibly single makes you confident and alluring and mysterious. Dragging along your mop-haired boyfriend makes you look like a high school kid at prom.”

“And how does dragging along my sulky, disillusioned Targaryen agent make me look?”

“Like a star,” Aegon replies simply.

“I’m not bringing Jace. Or anyone else besides you.”

“Great.”

“Can we drive to the premiere together?” You don’t want to be away from Aegon; you are a little petrified of the fanfare that awaits you in Downtown tonight. You have no idea what to expect.

“Yeah,” Aegon says, outwardly casual, unmistakably pleased. “I have a driver booked. We’ll swing by your apartment in the limousine around 7 p.m.”

“Why aren’t we taking the Sebring?”

“Because people don’t drive themselves to premieres, sunshine,” he says, like he’s explaining to a child an obvious and fundamental truth: the sky is blue, the Earth is round. Then he gestures to his white convertible and its sizeable new dent. “And also I keep running into things and I don’t want you in the car when I’m driving.”

Because his hands shake? Because his reflexes are slowing until they inevitably stop? “Maybe you’re just stressed because of the wedding,” you say softly.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Or it’s psychosomatic. You expect to see symptoms, so you do. But really you’re fine.”

Aegon sighs as wind blows eastward from the Pacific Ocean. He wants to change the subject. You can’t stop yourself from talking. “It’s possible.”

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?” Aegon says; and he kisses your cheek and climbs into his Sebring and speeds off towards the interchange of the 110.

~~~~~~~~~~

You told your parents you needed a dress for Clara’s bachelorette party so they wouldn’t yell at you when they saw the charge on the credit card. You will have to devise a new strategy for future purchases; you are running out of wedding-related excuses. The gown is electric yellow and less formal than the one you wore to the charity gala, sufficiently frivolous for a music video premiere, a V-neck and a high-low hemline. Your hair is down and your eyeshadow warm and smokey: Gilded Ganache and Semi-Sweet by Too Faced, Night Star by NARS. You drench yourself with sugary Shimmer Mist from Bath and Body Works, then realize that was probably a stupid idea. But there’s no time to try to scrub it off; Aegon has texted you that he’s five minutes away.

You click out into the kitchen in the yellow heels you found at T.J. Maxx. Jace is sprawled on the couch and bobbing his head as he sings along to a Charli XCX song pulsing out of his iPhone:

“You wanna guess the color of my underwear,

You wanna know what I got goin’ on down there…”

Baela, who had been getting a can of La Croix from the refrigerator, turns and is startled when she sees you. “You’re glittering. And that looks like a prom dress.”

You scrutinize yourself, suddenly self-conscious. “Is it bad?”

“No!” Baela cries, overcorrecting, not wanting to hurt your feelings. “No, it’s so cute. Jace, isn’t it so cute?”

“Totally,” he says from the couch, not looking at you.

“No contrast, huh?” Baela muses, glancing at your shoes and clutch purse.

“Doesn’t yellow go with yellow…?”

“Of course it does.” She beams, too broadly. “Have fun tonight! Walk really slowly on the red carpet. It will feel ridiculous, but that’s how they get good photos. And cycle through four or five different poses. Count to ten in your head and then switch to the next one. And don’t smile too much! You’ll look creepy and your cheeks will get tired and go numb and you’ll start twitching. Do a small smile and then laugh a lot when the interviewers make their dumbass jokes. It’s good television and they’ll like you and give you more airtime.”

You try to commit this to memory. “Okay.”

“Here.” She gifts you an ice-cold can of La Croix, coconut flavored. “Drink this on the ride over, then make sure you have a lot of water at the premiere. Stay hydrated. Keeps you peppy and glowing.”

“Okay,” you say again, a good little foot soldier.

Baela gives you a quick hug goodbye; but you catch the way she frowns at your carefree hair, the deep but not-so-revealing V of your neckline. Maybe she’ll reconsider the implants thing, Baela’s face reads. You can feel cold beads of sweat bleeding from your ribs, your spine. Then you are out the door, descending in the elevator, trotting onto the sidewalk to find the limo already waiting there, black and sleek under a sky that is slowly sickening from midday blue to dusk embers. The windows are tinted so dark you can’t see anything from outside.

“Hey, sunshine,” Aegon says as you slide into the back where he is waiting in the suit he wears to auditions and film shoots and, apparently, premieres: skinny black tie, slightly rumpled and untucked white shirt. He sees the La Croix. “Don’t you not like that?”

“My roommate gave it to me.” You set the can, wet with condensation, in a cupholder. Aegon hands you an iced vanilla latte to replace it. And as you buckle your seatbelt and the limo driver coasts east to hook into the 110 and then heads dead north towards Downtown, Aegon pulls a tiny spiral notebook out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket and reads off names to you: people who were involved in the production of the music video you filmed over a month ago, people to praise, people to thank. You’re trying to listen to him, but your thoughts are fuzzy and your heart is racing.

“What’s wrong?” Aegon asks, and you return to him and smirk guiltily.

“I’m sorry. I’m just nervous.”

“Why? You’re not nervous when you’re acting.”

“Because I’ve acted a million times, but I’ve never done a red carpet before. Not even a mini one like this. What if they ask me something I’m not expecting and I freeze up? What if I accidentally offend someone? I’m always saying things that make people think I’m stupid.”

Aegon laughs lazily, peering through the window as the freeway takes you through Vermont Vista, Broadway-Manchester, Florence, blurs of houses and palm trees and graffitied concrete barriers. “Yeah, you are always saying ridiculous things. But that’s who you are, and it’s charming.”

“You think it’s charming.”

Aegon smiles at you. “I do.”

You stir your latte so the ice cubes clink together and you make a jittery little sound, half-sigh, half-whimper. Aegon puts a palm on your bare thigh, pushing the hem of your dress just above your knee; his hand is warm, and gentle, and heavy enough to ground you.

“You’re shaking,” he says, alarmed.

“Yeah,” you admit. “I’m fine. I think it’ll stop once we get there.”

Aegon lifts his hand away—no! you think, pathetically—and then unbuckles his seatbelt and crawls over to the window just behind the driver’s seat, which is all the way down. The limo driver is in his fifties, salt-and-pepper hair and a full beard, classic rock radio station. The opening notes of Dani California pump out of the speakers, the bass reverberating through the leather seats. “Hey,” Aegon says to the driver, thumping his fist on the window slot. “Roll that up.”

“Yes sir,” the driver assents immediately.

“Don’t park or unlock the doors until I tell you to.”

“Yes sir.”

The dark opaque window closes, the driver disappears, and Aegon comes back to you. He takes your half-finished latte out of your hand and places it safely in a cupholder.

You’re smiling as you ask: “What are you going to—?”

He reaches beneath your dress—tulle ruffles the color of unclouded daylight, or lemons, or butter, or sunflowers—and his fingertips know where to go, their corporeal memory is perfect, and they apply divine spiraling pressure over your panties, silk to leave no lines beneath your dress; that’s a trick Baela taught you. You gasp and clutch for the back of the seat, sweated skin on black leather, your spine arching, your blood cascading south as the freeway runs northbound.

“Are you nervous now?” Aegon whispers; and his words are taunting but his voice is hushed, and he’s in front of you, leaning in so close your lungs are filled with him, Juicy Fruit and sunlight and the heat and the city, and his other hand turns your face away from him so he won’t ruin your makeup. Instead of your lips, his mouth finds your throat and collarbones, and he kisses you there as his fingertips press down more forcefully beneath your dress, so insistent, so hungry, and you are blinded by the realization of how much you have craved him, how desperately you miss him each time you’re apart, and only being with him feels like this, you don’t belong anywhere else, and your chances to touch him are vanishing like sandcastles turned to ruins by the surf.

He’s getting married in a month.

But he’s here now, and you want him.

He’s choosing Becca.

But his hands are choosing you, and his lips, and the outline of his hardness that you can feel when he leans against your thigh, nudging your legs further apart, and surely even through the silk he can feel how wet you are.

“You shouldn’t have taken your seatbelt off,” you say breathlessly. “That’s not safe.”

Aegon laughs as if this is a ludicrous concern, and maybe he doesn’t think that dying in a car accident of a fractured skull or an aortic dissection would be the worst thing in the world. “Don’t worry about me.” He breezes the fingers of his left hand through your hair, nuzzling you, inhaling you, saccharine sweetness and young frenetic nerves, endorphins pouring from your bloodstream.

He’s good, he’s very good; but for you it can take a while, and how far is the limo from the premiere venue? “I’m not going to be able to finish—”

“Yeah you are,” Aegon says, drawing back to look at you, his eyes locked with yours; and you moan as his fingers move the strip of silk aside and sink into you, and you are filled with him as his palm keeps up the euphoric friction, and then it collides with you—knuckles, gravity, riptides, fate—and it takes everything left in you, worn wrung-out scraps, not to cry out, because you’re not alone now, and you’ve never truly been alone with him when this happens, and you know you never will be. The sweetness and the bitterness are coiled up together like threads of fabric, like the lines of a family tree.

You are still panting as Aegon sweeps his left thumbprint just beneath your eyes, clearing away the eyeliner and mascara that has begun to run as your eyes water.

“Don’t cry, sunshine,” he murmurs, concerned.

You chuckle shakily. “I’m sorry. You know I get like this.” When it’s good. When it’s with you.

“Are you still nervous?”

“No,” you answer truthfully.

“You’re going to do great.”

“What should I say?”

“Whatever you want,” Aegon tells you. “Be yourself. Be real.” Then he kisses you on your lips only once: feather-light, immaterial enough to not mar you. “Oh, we have to clean up,” he realizes, panicked, and he hasn’t thought this through.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

You open the can of coconut La Croix that Baela gifted you and soak a handful of napkins that Aegon gets from the driver. You erase the evidence between your legs as best you can; Aegon cleans his hands and gives himself a generous squeeze of hand sanitizer from a tiny travel bottle in your clutch. Then he uses the corner of a napkin to dab away stray flecks of mascara on your cheeks. You check your face in the mirror of your makeup compact: dewy, but acceptable. Natural. Lived-in. Aegon rearranges a few wayward strands of your hair. You slurp down the rest of your vanilla latte. The limo is rolling to halt. You reach for the door handle.

“No,” Aegon says, stopping you. And he gets out first and then waits for you, hand open, until you emerge from the limousine and into a new world: flashbulbs, video cameras, microphones, assistants dressed in black, screaming Maroon 5 fans. Aegon fluffs the train of your electric yellow gown and then leads you into the chaos.

The music video premiere is being held at the historic Broadway Theater. The red carpet rolled out for the occasion, in a nod to the name of the band, is not a bright bloody red but a deep maroon. People are shouting and waving at you, and you have no idea what’s going on; and yet in your ribcage your heartbeat is slow and measured and strong. Aegon has a hand on the small of your back, and you think: I want it to be like this all the time. I want it to be like this forever.

Now a young man in a teal suit is rushing up to you and Aegon has disappeared to the sidelines, and the man is telling you that he is from E! News, and although he says his name you immediately forget it. You don’t panic; you smile softly and try to listen through the noise of the crowd. Now Maroon 5 has arrived and is posing for photographs as the fans screech and beg for autographs.

“So how’s your day going?” the man from E! News asks, a microphone held to your lips.

“It’s been so exciting, this morning I got to quit my job!”

The man laughs hysterically. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’ve been working at an ice cream place for months, but not anymore!”

“And do you have a passion for ice cream?”

“Not really, I just had to pay rent, you know?”

“Girl, do I ever!” the man says, still laughing. “What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?”

You smile sheepishly. “Vanilla.”

“Oh, so you’re a vanilla girl, huh?”

“I am, I really am, and I know the joke. But vanilla can be great! It’s a classic, and it’s sweet and uncomplicated, and it’s not trying to be anything it’s not. It’s pure. It’s innocent.”

“Oh my God, that was poetry! I might have to give vanilla another shot. You’ve convinced me.”

“Cool,” you say. Aegon is watching you from behind the video camera that you’ve just noticed; he is nodding, he gives you a little thumbs-up.

The man from E! News asks next: “So, ice cream expert, if I was an ice cream flavor, which one would I be?”

You ponder this. “Well someone once told me that interesting adults like strawberry, and you seem really interesting, so I’d say you’re strawberry ice cream.”

“Adorable,” the man sighs, marveling at you. “What are you going to be up to now that you aren’t working at the ice cream shop anymore?”

“Well according to my agent—and I have the best agent in the world, he’s absolute magic—I just got my first starring role in a movie.” The E! News man shrieks in excitement. “And I can’t really tell you anything more about it just yet, because I don’t know what I’m allowed to say publicly, but I’m so so so excited and so grateful, and Los Angeles is an incredible place. I’m in heaven and I’m thrilled to be here with you tonight.”

Another E! News correspondent, a woman in a salmon-colored dress, dashes in to join the conversation. She has blindingly white veneers and so much Botox she can’t move her forehead. “Could you tell us what it was like working on this music video?”

“It was an amazing experience,” you say; and in this moment you believe that, and Dan doesn’t exist, and neither does the bathtub scene that almost happened, and neither does the terror that threatened to consume you before Aegon smothered the flames. Now, Aegon is watching closely as Dan navigates the red carpet. They make split-second eye contact, Aegon glares fiercely, Dan keeps a wide swath of space between you and him as if you are radioactive, a silent poison that cooks malignancies into blood and bones. “We filmed in this gorgeous mansion in Beverly Hills, and everyone involved in the production was so imaginative and professional. I got to wear outfits designed by Schiaparelli and Rodarte, oh, and Phoebe Philo, and the actor playing my awful ex-boyfriend was fantastic, and there were these weird exotic cats that kept trying to bite me…”

You keep talking and interviewers keep descending, appearing out of nowhere, and then you are posing on the red carpet—you even take a few awkward photos with Maroon 5, none of whom remember who you are—and to your surprise, several fans even ask you for an autograph. Without thinking, you add a tiny sun after you sign your name each time.

“There, a little bit of sunshine,” you say to a preteen girl who beams up at you. “Not that you need it, look how brightly you’re shining!”

As you are about to enter the theater, you glance back to see where Aegon has gone. An interviewer has entrapped him, although Aegon clearly resents being caught on camera. He’s a good sport though; he forces a smile and answers the questions. He’s being asked about you.

Aegon says: “She has a great attitude about work, and about life in general. She’s very talented. And obviously she’s beautiful, so…yeah. I feel really lucky to have found her. She’s usually the best part of my day.”

“And are we going to see you in any upcoming films?” the woman from Entertainment Tonight asks flirtatiously. “We all know you have the chops!”

Aegon throws his head back and cackles. “No. You wish. Okay, thank you very much for your time, I’ll talk to you afterwards.”

“Thank you, Aegon!” the interviewer calls out, waving, and you think: He really could have been a star if he never left acting.

You and Aegon sit together at the screening, and he keeps feeding you pieces of popcorn—your lips brushing his fingertips, salt stinging on your tongue—and you have to resist the urge, no, the gravity, the effortless instinct to rest your head on his shoulder. Maroon 5 do a panel after the music video and take questions from the audience. They manage a few comprehensible responses.

Afterwards, Aegon doesn’t take you straight home to Harbor Gateway. He doesn’t take you to his office in Elysian Park either. Instead, he tells the limo driver to follow the 101 northwest to Hollywood, and he drags you out into the cool indigo night—veined with florescence and neon—and onto the intersection of Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard at the genesis of the Walk of Fame, a trail of 2,800 stars carved into the sidewalk, into eternity.

Aegon stands on a star of this earthbound constellation and says: “You’re going to have one of these someday.”

And here under the aisle of a streetlight with Aegon smiling like that, kind and radiant, you could almost believe him.

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