#i'm pretty confident i've broken it at least twice

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

i swear to god my little toe is one kick away from falling off

[pastafossa]

Haunted (Matt Murdock x TRT!Reader, Fic, SFW)🌧️

Right, so close to 3 years ago, I had an ask in my box: 'what would happen if TRT!Reader/Jane Hind lost her memory just before returning to Matt after her three months away', aka: just before point where they both confessed their love and got together in mainline TRT. So I wrote up a fairly angsty, no happy ending sort of fic about it, which you can find here. But there just felt like there was more to the story, and the idea of a sequel wouldn't leave me alone, so I've worked on it in little bits and pieces over the past few years and I'm finally ready to unleash that into the world now that it's been edited to my satisfaction.

This will have a happy ending and hurt/comfort, once we swim through a lot of Matt Suffering. <3 Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it.  He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow.  There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting.  Matt was alone.  You’d left him alone.  It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back. So… why did you feel so very sick?

Wordcount: 11, 805 words so, hilariously, about 3 times the length of Part 1

Warnings for this chapter: angst, alcohol, matt spiraling fairly badly, he throws some things, LOTS of TRT references and spoilers so I wouldn't do this one unless you've finished the Miami arc in TRT.

Sad Matt gif as a reminder that the angst is pretty heavy here because I'm really going to emotionally beat on this poor man for a bit.

At Ciro’s insistence, you gave yourself one month in Hell’s Kitchen. 

A month wasn’t much time, granted, but it would hopefully be enough to see if there was a chance of bringing back the memories you’d lost: memories of friends, of your life here, and of… of whatever it was that you’d had with Matt Murdock. Based on his grief over the loss of Jane Hind—not you, but her surely, the role, the mask you’d worn while here—his attachment to her had been deep and fervent, and those feelings appeared to have been at least partly reciprocated. The dangerously intimate photo you’d found in your memory box was all the proof you needed of that. 

Your past self had already been accustomed to his touch when the photo was taken, based on the way she’d allowed him to press his head tenderly to her temple, his dark eyes warm and fond as he'd smiled in her direction even if he couldn't see her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She should have been put off by the proximity, by such a blatant show of physical intimacy, but instead of looking distressed, she’d been relaxed and comfortable where she’d confidently tucked herself up against his side. Try as you might, you hadn’t been able to find any hint of discomfort, any clue that signaled the obvious affection she’d felt was an act, her shoulder angled in a way that made you think she’d wrapped her arm comfortably around his waist, her grin bright and so very real.

This couldn’t be you.

When was the last time you'd looked that happy?

When was the last time you’d let someone hold you close? 

And when was the last time someone had looked at you like… like they might… 

“Did I… love him, Ciro?”

“I believe that… you might have, yes. Him, and this city. That is why I encourage you to stay, for a time at least. See if the memories return to you. Even should you leave, it would be wise to know of the life you led here.”

Ciro had sent a check to your office, booking you for the month and clearing your schedule. Just like that, you were free to focus on looking for something that might trigger the return of your memories. Though what that something might be, you weren’t really sure. A more thorough examination of the apartment had been your first step. Unfortunately, there’d been nothing there that seemed familiar beyond the same cheap decor and calculated set pieces you’d always used. You’d quickly ruled those out. They were meaningless distractions meant to reinforce the lie of whatever pre-planned identity you’d taken on. In this case, that identity was Jane Hind—practical, professional, detached, likes sailboat paintings and the color grey. Based on the fine layer of dust you'd found coating everything but the kitchen counter and a neat stack of mail, no one else had spent much time here during your months away. That, at least, fit your pattern. You weren’t in the habit of making friends or putting down roots. There was no point in doing so when you’d just wind up cutting them loose and running again. 

What had unsettled you far more were the hints of connection you’d found quietly tucked away:

A fleecy stuffed bear holding a plush crystal ball, the threads connecting the two uneven as if hand-stitched. That kind of time and effort wouldn’t have been spent on anyone but a friend, and the bear’s prominent position on the counter lent it far more importance than any of the other decorations.

A tacky ‘Handsome Devil’ coffee mug, the curling red script and clichéd devil horns design bizarrely out of place amongst the rest of the plain white mugs in the cupboard. An identity like Jane Hind wouldn’t have been caught dead drinking from it, which meant someone else was here with enough regularity to have a mug of their own. Further digging revealed a second decorated mug, this one adorned with the name of the law firm co-run by Matt. You could have written off one mug, but two? Two was a pattern.

An entire drawer in the dresser devoted solely to a pile of dangerously soft shirts that clearly didn’t belong to Jane Hind, the fabric threadbare and worn. They looked about the right size to be Matt’s, though, the faint traces of scent a match for him. The fact that they took up an entire drawer indicated he’d visited often enough to need a space for his clothes. 

You’d… made space for him in your false life. That wasn’t something you did.

Or had you been the one wearing them? 

Maybe…?

You’d spent a long moment holding one of the shirts in your hand, rubbing at the fabric in hopes of stirring something. When that hadn’t worked, you’d even brought it up to your nose to inhale slowly, just in case the traces of scent brought some memory back. 

Clean soap. Salt. Copper. Faint cinnamon. 

All it had done was remind you of holding a grieving Matt in his kitchen after he’d realized your memories weren’t coming back. It was a gloomy enough memory, but ultimately unhelpful.

You'd tossed the old shirt on top of the dresser and moved on. 

While you didn’t know who exactly you’d been here in New York, the longer you searched, the more it became clear what had happened. You’d started to slip, your years of isolation forming a crack in your layers of armor. That fracture had allowed an attachment to form, an insidious connection worming its way in through the open gap like poisonous roots through crumbling pavement. You’d grown weak, and careless. There was no other explanation for why you’d broken so many of your rules, dominoes tipping one by one until it cascaded into a waterfall of mistakes. You’d slipped before, of course—loneliness was natural and expected, which was why you had so many contingencies—but you’d never let yourself get in this deep. Not until now. 

What you didn’t know was… 

Why?

Why here? 

Why these people? 

And why the fuck hadn’t you followed your rules and run? 

If there was an answer to be found in Jane Hind’s apartment, you couldn’t seem to find it, no matter how hard you look, no matter how many of her belongings you dug through. Even your memory box had failed you, the photo of you and Matt at the back of your stack of pictures an outlier you couldn’t explain, this fruit of an as-yet unidentified poisonous tree. You had no real leads, no faint ringing of memory to guide you beyond a vague sense that, somehow, this started with Matt. You didn’t even know where to begin. 

At least, not until some shaggy-haired guy named Foggy—what the fuck kind of nickname was that?—showed up entirely and rudely unannounced at your front door, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a bizarrely determined look. Despite your doubts, you reluctantly allowed him in. He made it pretty clear he knew you, and if you were lucky he could tell you more about your life here.

“So I know you usually skedaddle when things get uncomfortable, which I imagine they are at the moment. How long are you trying to stay?” 

“One month.” You shrugged casually, a cover for just how warily you were watching him as he paced in your—in Jane Hind’s living area. He knew far more about you than you knew about him, a reversal you were uncomfortably aware of. That vulnerability was almost enough to trigger a retreat beneath that cold, brittle shell you’d used long ago, though you quickly caught hold of that instinct and buried it back down deep where it belonged. Still, you couldn’t quite hide the cool clip to your voice, your walls firmly in place. “Leaving after that. Don’t see the point in staying if the memories are gone. Truthfully I’m not sure why I stayed in the first place, especially once it was clear I was getting attached. No offense.” 

“None taken, my hopefully-still-friend-when-your-memories-come-back.” He abruptly swiveled on his feet to face you, squinting at you thoughtfully. “How badly do you want your memories back?” 

You thought of out-of-place mugs and hand-stitched psychic teddy bears; of faint cinnamon and a worn photo frame; of the way you’d held a broken Matt in his kitchen until he’d carefully pushed you away and asked you to leave, his face closed off and distant despite the tears on his cheeks and yours. 

You’d… been someone here. Someone cared for. Someone whose loss was mourned.  

Even if you left, you needed to know just who that someone had been, if only so you could make sure this never happened again. Not until you reached your island in the sun. 

“Badly enough to stay for the month,” you said quietly. 

“Then put some shoes on. We’re going on a memory hunt.”

Over the next few weeks, Foggy took you all over Hell’s Kitchen. 

You visited Jane Hind’s office, abandoned warehouses, and empty rooftops covered in thick blankets of snow. He reintroduced you to Karen, to your upstairs neighbors, and to a bartender who didn’t seem all that inclined to be introduced to anyone. You drank crappy beer and slightly less crappy vodka, played pool, and went to the zoo to stare for far too long at penguins, which Foggy refused to explain no matter how much you pressed. He had you focus on sights, on smells, on sounds that might trigger a memory. He joked with you in between, and he was just funny enough, friendly and clever enough, that for the first week or so, you were consistently cracking a smile. Hell, you even laughed now and then, much to your surprise. He really did know you, enough so that you gradually began to relax around him, just a little. He was likely hoping the addition of a friend’s voice would bring back what you’d lost, especially when paired with all the other sensations. 

But no matter how much you both tried, your memories remained lost. 

God, you hadn’t thought this would… would hurt as much as it did. Yet with every day that you failed to find your way back to who you’d been, the more that fierce ache, that old longing inside you grew. Your smiles became brittle, your laughter fading, until both finally dried up like withered, crumbling leaves beneath a bitter frost. You couldn't help pulling away really, not when your soul curling up in the dark might protect you from the agony of knowing that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally found what you'd always wanted. How fitting that it had been ripped away from your bloodied, desperate hands like so many times before, one more square for the filthy patchwork quilt of shredded lives and possibilities you’d been forced to leave behind. What was worse: even your memories of that seeming joy had been stolen, too, leaving you with nothing left to carry but the tattered scraps of a ghost and the photograph of a stranger wearing your skin.

It shouldn’t have been possible to miss what you couldn’t remember. Yet here you were missing it all the same. 

It didn’t help that Matt was avoiding you in every way that mattered. You’d thought about calling him if only to ask him questions about your life here, but you could never quite work up the courage to do it. He must have felt the same since he hadn’t reached out to you, either. And why would he? He knew as well as you did that your memories likely weren’t coming back. It made sense to cut that connection, tear it away like a weed before the roots could do more damage—something you should have done sooner, for both your sakes. What you hadn’t expected was just how good he was at dodging you, somehow absent no matter how many places Foggy took you to, places he swore Matt frequented with you when you’d lived here, as if Matt’s mere presence might be enough to trigger some memory in you. Had he been that important? Either way, it didn’t matter. You hadn’t seen Matt once since you’d walked out, doing your best to ignore his hitched breath as you’d opened the door. You’d forced yourself to ignore, too, the broken, agonized sound of grief that he’d let out as you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving him alone. 

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it. 

He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow. 

There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting. 

Matt was alone. 

You’d left him alone. 

It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back.

So… why did you feel so very sick? 

Sympathy. 

That was all you were feeling. Matt was grieving a woman he’d cared about, one who’d died and left a cold stranger in her place. It was normal to feel for someone in that much pain, and no one should be alone while grieving. Maybe this was for the best. The sooner you were fully out of his life, the sooner all his friends and family could step in, and the sooner he could move on. He wouldn’t be alone, then. And even if he was, his loneliness wasn’t your goddamn problem. You had more than enough troubles of your own.

Protect yourself. 

Protect what you might one day have. 

All else was irrelevant.

You just… hoped he was doing alright. 

He did his best to avoid you, but that only grew more difficult once your ghost began to haunt his every step.

Even Josie’s quickly became off-limits—something he discovered one night when he stepped through the front door where he was promptly met with the familiar, comforting scent of you floating like a haze beneath the smell of cheap beer and sour sweat. His body went rigid the moment he recognized it, your presence across the room a sharpened knife that only widened the wound carved into him by your death. And if the scent of you was a knife, then your bark of laughter was a cruel twist of the blade, one that left him gutted and shaking there in the doorway. He drank in his apartment after that, waiting for that blessed moment when he would feel nothing, waiting for the very second the glorious shroud of night fell. Only then could he finally escape to the streets and drown himself in a far better kind of pain, taking his rage and his grief out on whatever piece of shit had the misfortune of falling into the Devil’s path. 

But Foggy seemed determined to shove the specter of you directly into his face. 

“You need to talk to her!” Foggy snapped, his voice only just shy of a shout. Matt ignored him as he headed for his office, desperate to retreat from your scent lingering on Foggy’s clothes. Foggy had taken you to a coffee shop that morning, one you’d frequented when you’d lived here, and now each inhalation was a vicious torment. It felt like breathing in shards of glass, the sharp pain of it throbbing with every stuttered, choked breath he drew in. If Foggy noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Christ, Matt! You love her and we both know it. If you talk to her, it might trigger something—”

“Stop,” Matt grit out, reaching up to scrub his hand angrily over his face. He stalked his way over to his desk, still desperate to escape somehow, even if it was into his work. “Just stop, Foggy. I did talk to her, and you know what happened? Nothing. She didn’t remember anything at all. She’s gone, and you dragging this out is just making everything worse for all of us.” 

“So what, you’re just gonna roll over?” Foggy scoffed, crossing his arms as he planted his feet in Matt’s doorway. “Are you sure you actually loved her? Because I’m pretty sure she loved y—”

Matt slammed his fist down on his desk, the furious crack of it echoing through the office like a gunshot as he shouted, “Don’t you fucking dare!” 

Tension hung thick in the air as Matt’s chest heaved, his teeth bared, blood and adrenaline running hot in his veins as if Foggy were some sort of-of threat. Everything in him shook with rage, or maybe unshed grief, the burden of them both impossibly twisted and tangled beneath the sea of his guilt and his self-loathing until he couldn’t tell which was which. He just couldn’t—how was he supposed to force it all down when Foggy had just come so close, so dangerously close to shattering what few pieces remained of Matt’s crumbling armor?

It was bad enough loving you the way he did only for you to slip through his bloodied, desperate grasp like whispering grains of sand. What was worse, this entire disaster was one of his own making, a series of mistakes whose snarled, winding paths led inevitably back to him just like they had so many times before in his life. This loss of someone who’d truly understood him, accepted him, cared for him had already broken something inside him he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repair. But that fracturing inside him would surely rise up to consume him if Foggy were right, if you’d truly cared for him that deeply before your memories were taken, so deeply that you might even have…

I miss you, sweetheart.

…loved him the way he loved you. 

Abruptly Matt’s surge of rage drained away and his head fell, leaving him feeling all the more empty and broken. He braced his arms weakly against his desk, drawing in a shaky breath as he forced himself to confess, his voice gone hoarse and ragged with grief. “I loved her, Foggy.” He lifted one shaking hand to his face. “God, I loved her so, so much. I can’t… I don’t know what to do without her now that she’s gone.” “I know, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “I know.” “I loved how she always smelled a little like coffee, and the way she always managed to wind up climbing into the oddest places for a case. She had one of the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard, but I swear she could use it to talk her way out of almost anything or to bring someone up out of whatever dark hole they were trapped in. She was… far kinder than she’d ever admit.” His lips quirked, but there was no humor in it, the expression miserable and gutted. You’d have likely argued with him about how kind you were if you’d been here. But there was no chance of that now, no matter how much the scent of you on the air told him otherwise. “Some days it felt like she was the only thing holding me together, like the only time I could breathe was when she held me in her arms. She was always there when I fell apart, or when it all… when it all started to hurt too much. And I tried to give her whatever pieces of me the Kitchen hadn’t already taken, to be there for her like she was for me, to keep her safe. We were finally going to make our relationship official when she came back, her and me, even if there’d… already been something there for a while now if I’m honest.” 

And it had, it had been there, this soft, tender thing that had developed slowly but surely between the two of you, a tangling that came by degrees rather than all at once. It had sprouted, grown, and blossomed so gradually that even now he struggled to point to any one moment where it had truly begun—the night he found you in the warehouse, maybe, or that first game of Devil Hunt, or when you’d both almost taken the leap before he’d realized you were drunk. But the question of where it began didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was there, something nameless yet still so good and warm and perfect, a connection nurtured in the low light and the blood-soaked soil of the Kitchen. You’d felt it just like he had, and you’d been willing to take that chance with him despite the baggage he carried behind him like an anchor destined to drag him down. You never would have agreed to kiss him when you came back otherwise. Now that chance was gone. 

“How much did she know before she left?” Foggy asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe. 

”She knew that I-that I wanted to be with her, but I never told her that I loved her.” Matt blew out a slow, heavy breath. “I was too scared of chasing her away, I guess. I thought maybe when she came back, if she still wanted me, I would… I decided that I would tell her. But I waited too long. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her. All because of me.” 

He finally lifted his head, tipping it at Foggy. Neither of them dared mention the wetness on Matt’s cheeks. Even speaking about this—about how much he’d loved you only for him to ruin it—was almost more than he could bear, the edges of the wound still fresh and raw. Then again, maybe he deserved that pain after how miserably he’d failed you, just like everyone else in his life. “I miss her. And what’s worse is even when she’s right there in front of me, she’s not. She’s not, Foggy. Because I-I fucked up. I’m the reason the woman I knew, the woman I loved, died. I’m the reason she’ll never remember what we had, why I’ll never hold her again, and why she’ll leave New York at the end of the month like she does whenever she’s afraid of forming a connection.” He let out a bitter laugh, waving towards the windows, towards the place you’d once held dear. “I couldn’t even keep her here before. She almost ran last summer and the only thing that stopped her was being kidnapped. That was what slowed her down long enough for our thread to turn red, not me. She won’t let that happen a second time, not now that she’s seen what happens to people I care about. Do you understand?” 

The door to Nelson and Murdock creaked open, Karen’s voice making its way in first. Her voice was followed only a moment later by another’s, one still so familiar. 

“—I mean, winding up in a pool while chasing a kid sounds about right for me, so even if I don’t remember, I won’t argue—”

“I had to keep you here somehow.” Foggy’s voice remained quiet, but there was no disguising the ferocity in it now, the fervent belief. “Get out of your own head and talk to her, Matt. Fight for her. She would want you to.” 

No. 

No, no, no.

Your body may have been here, whole and real, but the woman who’d known him wasn’t. The song of your voice, your sweet scent, the flames of heat and stirred air currents around you flaring into a familiar shape: all of it was nothing but a lie, a snare for his senses, a ghost of his own making, and he wasn’t about to be caught by it again. 

He darted back around his desk, shoving his way past Foggy on the way toward the front door, his heart racing. If he was quick, if he just put up enough of a front, he could get out before they trapped you here with him like they’d planned. He wouldn’t relive this grief again, he couldn’t, not without falling apart. The moment he’d had with you in his apartment had been enough agony for one lifetime. 

“Hey, Matt.” You cleared your throat, shifting awkwardly on your feet where you’d stopped by the front door. Your stance was cautious and guarded, almost wary of him. It was just one more reminder of how uncomfortable he made you now. “Are you—”

“Heading out,” he said stiffly, only belatedly remembering to trace one hand along the wall as if his heightened senses hadn’t given him a clear map of the room the moment his adrenaline spiked. That spike was a curse all its own. It made the scent of you so much stronger, the lie of it fresh and present as it twined around him. His chest hitched just once before he forced himself to breathe his mouth. But that route of escape had been cut off, too. All it did was shift his focus to the taste of you on the air, and the taste of familiar fabric once so tenderly given. 

You were wearing one of his shirts. 

He fumbled for his cane, his hands starting to shake before he finally found it where he’d left it against the wall. He couldn’t let you see him like this. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t remember him, nor was it your fault that he’d lost you. He’d done enough damage without adding a layer of guilt to what you were dealing with, too. But despite his attempts to hide what he was feeling, his face a hard mask, your fingers still brushed gently against his arm a moment later. It was an offer of help, or maybe an attempt to reach out, to slow him down, to connect. It was a kindness, a sympathy he didn’t deserve. Even now, you read him far too well, this touch the same as it had been that first night he’d met you when you’d gently brushed your hand against his arm. “Hey, do you need… I could walk you home.”

He shied away from your touch, finally managing to roughly unsnap his cane before going for the door. “I’m fine. I just—I have things to take care of. Excuse me.”  

He went straight home and showered, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, he couldn’t seem to wash the ghost of your scent away.

You slowly wandered around Matt’s office, taking it in. This was another place you’d supposedly frequented, a place that should have been familiar, and one you'd avoided until now.

Even though Foggy had assured you it was alright, it felt… almost wrong to explore a stranger’s space like this without them present. But you couldn’t help but brush your fingers across the battered desk and the small labels in braille you couldn’t read, run your hands along the chair for clients that you might have sat in once, and trace curiously the small seashell next to Matt’s laptop. The base scents of Matt were stronger here where he spent so much time, only partly erased by the smell of coffee and paper. The room was clean, cared for, and well-organized despite how rundown the office was. Important to him. You could tell that much, even if the scents and sights had failed to spark any memories.

Maybe… knowing his space wasn’t enough. 

This was about more than just figuring out who you were, now. For some reason, you needed to know who Matt was, too: this man Jane Hind had cared so much about and who’d cared so much about her. You told yourself it was practical. Matt was your best bet when it came to remembering who you’d been. But some part of you deep down recognized the lie. No, there was something in you inescapably drawn to him, a pull you couldn’t quite explain. Maybe that strange, unnatural gravity was what had started this whole mess in the first place. What was it about him that was so different, that had driven you to break every last rule you’d lived your life by for over a decade? 

And why… did you spend so long wondering if he’d ever climbed out his office window?

It had been twenty-nine days, and not a single memory had returned. 

Oh, there were beats now and then when you thought that maybe, just maybe something was coming back, but those moments were painfully few and far between. Even in those moments, you couldn’t say remembered anything, exactly. It was more a frustrating sense of deja vu, a fleeting little itch at the back of your mind like you’d forgotten something important, flashing road markers to warn you of the dark, empty gaps in your memory. That sense was probably driven at least in part by Foggy’s growing desperation as he frantically hunted for something that might trigger a return of your memories. 

But the rest of that feeling… the rest was all you. 

There was no denying a traitorous part of you wanted to remember no matter how ill-advised it might be. You wanted to remember this bizarre little family you’d stumbled into and then lost, just like in Los Angeles. You wanted to remember the love you’d had for this place, this city, this taste of mutual affection that had grown up around you after going so long without. After endless ages and ages of drought, of starvation, you hungered for even these bare crumbs of connection, something to tide you over until you found safe haven on the distant horizon. What a tempting thought it was to slither back into the life of this woman who’d been so cruelly murdered and replaced by a stranger wearing her skin.

Was this what a demon felt like when it took over a body? To walk around with someone else’s face, to speak with the unnatural voice of the dead, tormenting the loved ones that remained? 

That, ultimately, was why it didn’t matter what you wanted. Your presence in this city only spread rot and suffering. It would be better for everyone involved if you left like you should have long before now. Then they could all grieve without you tainting the very soil around them. 

Especially Matt. 

You’d seen him once or twice in passing as your time in New York wound down. Even at a distance, you’d marked the growing circles under his eyes, dark enough to be visible despite the glasses he always wore. The rest of him wasn’t doing much better. It seemed like every time he crossed your path, there was another bruise, another cut across his face or knuckles, a shifting canvas of pain painted across skin grown pale and drawn. He didn’t just look tired—that wasn’t what this was. This was something far worse, a haggard exhaustion, a weariness that couldn’t be solved with sleep, if he slept at all. This was someone being haunted. 

Probably because the ghost of Jane Hind kept crossing his path. But that would be solved soon enough. 

You’d already packed up your things, not that you had much to take. Just your bag and your memory box. You’d be leaving the next day. Foggy was still convinced he had a few more days, but you had other plans. You couldn’t give Matt back the woman he’d lost, nor could you give him a body to bury, a grave to lay flowers across, but you could give him what Jane Hind had carried with her until her dying breath. 

“I thought you might… want these before I left tomorrow,” you said quietly. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s a bag with my—with her things.” 

Matt took it carefully from you, the motion mechanical and stiff. He hadn’t really invited you the rest of the way into his apartment, the two of you now stalled out in the hallway just beyond the closed front door. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, either. It made it harder to read him, his face closed off and impassive, a wall of red glass placed firmly between you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen his eyes even once since that day you’d first come back, and you didn’t blame him. You didn’t like feeling vulnerable, either, though that was just a guess when it came to what he might be feeling. 

“It’s the shirts from her apartment, which I think are yours. And the stuffed bear.” You bit your lip and released it slowly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “And the… the mug, which Nelson said was yours, too. The one you used at her place. I also put the hoodie in there, the one she had with her while she was traveling. And…” You reached into your pocket, fumbling for a moment. God, you were bad at this, unsure of just how to do this without hurting him any more than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a concern you usually dealt with since your goal was almost always the exact opposite, a precaution meant to destroy any threads of connection they held with you. Unfortunately, he wasn’t giving you much to work with, though you didn’t miss his subtle flinch when you drew the key from your pocket. “I thought you might want this, too.”

You cautiously edged forward, daring to breach the ring of radiant heat that surrounded him, the closest you’d come to him in almost a month. He went stiff as you approached, his jaw growing tight as the gap between you both closed. Another step, and his head cocked as if he were listening to your footsteps, or maybe… maybe he was just waiting to find out what you had to give him. But he wasn’t telling you to fuck off or just set your gift aside, which was a good sign. So you hesitantly reached out and brushed your fingers lightly against his bicep, a signal so he knew you were about to pass him something. 

A breath.

He remained absolutely still amidst the sudden, crackling tension in the air as your fingertips skated gently down and around his forearm, stirring all the little hairs, his skin shockingly warm. All you’d intended to do to take his arm and guide it up so you could place the key in his hand, but you quickly found yourself distracted by a ragged scar along the back of his forearm, one your fingers seemingly made their way to on instinct. It was a deep scar, the original cut likely made by some sort of blade, the edges of it rough and uneven from messy stitching. Your curiosity got the better of you, so much so that you missed the way Matt had begun to hold his breath.

“Who fucked up the sutures on that?” You furrowed your brow, your thumb smoothly marking out the jagged line of it. “They did a terrible job. No offense.” 

Matt’s face fell and you only realized too late just who it was that must have patched him up. 

Before you could blink, he’d yanked his arm out of your grip as if your touch had burned him. “Don’t,” he grit out, his chest heaving as he put a few steps distance between you both. “You can—just put your key on the bench.” 

“How did you know—” “Because there’s only one thing left it could be.” 

You nodded weakly, taking a few steps back towards the little bench beside the door. That unfamiliar ache, that sense of wrongness was back, the weight of it settling uneasily in your chest like a stone until you almost wanted to retch. It didn’t help that Matt was just barely holding himself together while you were here. 

Best to say what you’d come to say and leave him be. 

You gently set the key down, and the quiet click of the brass against the wood seemed to echo in the hallway, a graveyard bell tolling with a looming sense of finality. What you were about to tell him would hurt, you knew it would, but maybe one day he’d find comfort in it. This—a sign of what she’d felt—was the real gift you’d truly come to give, the only true token of her you could offer. Your words, when you spoke, were almost as hoarse as his. “I thought you should know I… she wore it. The key. I asked them. She wore your key and she never took it off. Not once. Whatever you both had, she treasured it, and all she wanted was to get back to you. She didn’t leave you by choice, Matt. I hope that… that helps.” 

Of all the things you’d said and done, it was this that finally seemed to break him. His face twisted in a sudden wave of grief, and regret hit you all at once. You quickly took a step towards him, one hand out, though you weren’t sure what you’d do if he reached back—it wasn’t like you knew how to comfort him, and you sure as hell didn’t know if he’d tolerate you holding him again, nor whether he was someone that needed some sort of touch when he was hurting. But before you could take another step he’d flinched away from you, retreating quickly back into the darkness of his apartment, his voice ragged. “Just go. Get out.” 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, backing away towards the door. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”  

It shouldn’t have hurt as you closed that door one last time. But you cried all the same. 

Somewhere within the apartment came the sound of splintering furniture and a hoarse scream wracked with grief.

“Look, Nelson.” You tiredly adjusted the strap of your duffle bag over your shoulder, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of your nose as if it would stem your growing headache. “I know it’s a day early. But another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make a fucking difference.” 

“I don’t need another day!” he pleaded, his arms spread wide where he’d blocked your front door, ensuring you couldn’t leave your apartment until you’d heard him out. You’d had no idea he even had a key until today and, not for the first time, you cursed Jane Hind’s apparent lack of common sense. You did not give out keys, or at least, you hadn’t before coming here to this ridiculous fucking city. “Just five minutes. That’s all. I’ve got one last thing to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to try one more thing!” you snapped bitterly, dropping your hand. That anger was a good cover for the way something sharp and prickly had begun to catch in your throat, the incident with Matt still fresh in your mind. “I’ve tried for a month, and it’s gotten me nothing. Fucking-fucking bars and random rooftops and a shitty little duck, goddamn penguins and keys, and none of it did shit! Jane’s gone, ok? She’s dead. And I’m sorry, I know you all cared about her, but I’m done—”

“Have you climbed inside a thread?” 

“...What?” you asked in sudden bewilderment, your rage abruptly faltering in the face of pure confusion. “What the fuck does that even me—”

He let out a whoop, practically dancing on his feet. “Yes! I knew it! I can’t believe no one told you!” 

“Told me what?!” You chucked your bag back onto your couch in sudden exasperation. If this was thread-related, at the very least you could stay long enough to listen. “There’s nothing to climb!”

“Ok, so stick with me.” He rubbed his palms together eagerly, a bright light in his eyes. “Because I’m about to get really metaphysical.”

It took you what felt like hours to climb inside the shimmering honey-colored thread that lay between you and Matt—a thread that sang with his sorrow and your reluctant sympathy. 

It wasn’t right having your soul constricted like this, all of who you were narrowing down into something so small as you squirmed through a barrier that tasted and felt like dirt and earth, chasing after the sound of trickling water. There wasn’t supposed to be anything on the other side. It was an emotional connection, nothing more.

And yet here you were, standing in a place that had no reason to exist.

“Holy shit,” you whispered in amazement, spinning on your heels to examine your surroundings. “Holy shit, he was right.”

Despite the late hour, the air was full of a muted light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, tinting the world a hazy, eerie green. High up above you roiled thick, sullen black storm clouds, silent flashes of red lightning carving their way between swirls of charred smoke. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to see by.

And what you saw was heartbreaking. 

You stood in a dry, stony riverbed. The ground beneath you was cracked and brittle where the water had receded, leaving behind nothing but dust and broken branches. The river itself remained though just barely, the thin trickle of flowing water down the center of the riverbed a far cry from whatever immense force had carved its way through the landscape until the banks were a good ten paces from one side to the other. The terrain beyond the river didn’t look much better, wilted, drooping cattails dotted up the bank before giving way to endless forest that stretched farther than your eye could see. Like the cattails and scrub, the pine and fir trees stood withered and brown, casting their empty branches up toward the sky. 

If it had been beautiful here once, whatever had happened to you had destroyed that beauty. 

“Jesus,” you whispered. 

“Can you hear me?” Foggy’s voice sounded distant and far away, tinny like he was talking through a long tunnel. 

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“...Ok, if you’re trying to respond, I can’t hear you. But according to Matt, whenever you were here, it felt like memories. So poke around, see what you can find.”

You sighed and started down the riverbed. “Not super helpful, but ok. Let’s give it a shot.” 

The water was the most obvious place to start, and you made your way over to the thin stream that ran raggedly across the parched soil. Much to your fascination, you quickly discovered that what you’d thought was one current was actually two, one layered over the top of the other, each flowing in the opposite direction. The first of those currents hiding on the bottom was fairly calm, steady if a little restless, swirls of pale color that almost felt like curiosity, though how you understood that translation was a mystery. The second current seemed far rougher where it roiled atop the first, its section of the stream cloudy and thick with swirls of black and the red of an open wound. You hovered over the second current for a long moment, working up your courage, before you finally knelt and hesitantly brushed against it with one finger. It was just water. How bad could it be? 

The moment your skin made contact, your chest seized on a sudden swell of agony. Your mouth filled with the taste of grief, with the sound of an empty home, the lack of some familiar scent that meant affection and warmth and softness and safety, the ache of an old wound reopened just when it had started to heal. Alone, always alone, I deserve it, so many gone, he was right, when will I learn? There was no hope for comfort from that pain, no escape from the darkness into tender arms that could hold you just right when it all hurt. All you had to look forward to was more— 

You threw yourself backward, scrambling away from that terrible current as if what you’d felt might rise up and chase after you, snapping its teeth the whole way. You didn’t stop retreating until your back slammed against the dry soil of the riverbank. Only then did you stop, panting, your eyes wide in shock as you cradled your hand against your heaving chest. 

Emotion. It’s emotion.

That was what the water was. Matt’s emotion. Which meant the other current—one now shifting back to yellow despite a momentary surge of twisting, roiling black—was… yours. 

Right. So you could rule the water out. But if that was emotion, where was memory? 

Examining the rest of the river was the most obvious next step now that you’d ruled out the water. Based on what you could see, the original riverbed had been a mix of silt and stones of varying sizes, a firm foundation beneath a once-powerful river. Now, though, the grey, dried-out silt was covered in a strange sea of divots and dips, as if something—a lot of somethings—had been plucked up and removed. You traced one of the indents in the soil curiously, lifting your hand back up to consider the grit as you rubbed it between your fingers. Another glance around revealed the answer. 

The stones. 

There were still plenty of stones remaining in the riverbed, but the divots in the dry silt told you there’d once been far more. If that was what you’d lost, then maybe…  

You rocked up eagerly to your feet, pacing around breathlessly as you searched for a promising stone to start with. Eventually you made your pick, plucking up a stone just small enough to fit in your palm, flat and smooth save for a little groove in it as if someone had run their fingers over it endlessly. Strangely, it smelled like honey and herbs, the surface oddly warm against your hand like the brush of a thumb against your mouth. You waited for a long, impatient moment, and when nothing else happened, you tapped it a few times. 

Still nothing. 

And something inside you… cracked. 

“Fuck!” you screamed, hurling the stone back down the river in a sudden rage. The pain and the loneliness you’d been suppressing for the last month, the last year, the horrible, endless eternity since leaving your family in Los Angeles began to claw its way up your throat, the clouds churning wildly above you in response. A wild rain came next, each droplet sharp and cold and edged like the blade of a knife, bitter and biting as it beat against your skin. You grabbed another stone, one that tasted like shitty beer—Josie’s beer. You threw that rock, too, then another and another, throwing stones that smelled and tasted and felt like your shriek of laughter as he grinned and caught you against his chest, like torn flesh and a needle held by tender hands, like your face nuzzling fearlessly against Matt’s throat as he whispered comfort into your hair and held you close, like synced breathing and hearts and dances between binary stars as you both fell into sleep, fell into safety, fell into one another, phantom sensations that only made the fierce ache in you grow stronger because with every stone you snatched up it became clear that… 

You’d been loved. 

Not your identity.

Not the image you showed to the world. 

Not the walls you’d put up in front of him before he’d found some way past them. 

You. 

And he’d loved you with every part of him. 

You weren’t sure when you started crying, a violent, vicious stream of tears that was just as much a product of rage as grief. Here was someone who’d loved you fully, loved you despite every asterisk and bit of baggage and sharpened edge that came with being a broken hound, with being a former experiment still on the run. But you barely noticed your tears, spitting up at the unforgiving clouds and the howling wind, because you could howl, too, just as violent, just as much a threat as any storm in this place. “I want my fucking life back! I want him back!” 

You hadn’t wanted it before, or maybe you had and you’d just been too afraid to ask for it. But now? Oh, oh, now you were furious, furious and hurting and screaming, because you’d denied yourself connection all these years only to find it in the last place you’d expected. That was what this had been—home, family, love. That had to be why you’d stayed in New York, why you’d risked everything for these people, for Matt. You weren’t an idiot. You’d have run the numbers and the math, made your calculations.

You couldn’t bear to lose this. Not… not again. 

You threw stone after stone, hunting frantically as your fingers bled dry, desperate fury into the air, reddened drops disappearing before they ever hit the ground. The trickle of water in the center of the riverbed had churned itself into a frenzy, but you ignored it. There had to be something here that would trigger a memory, something that would let you remember being loved again, something big enough, important enough, so you grabbed and you grabbed and grabbed and grabbed and grabbed until at last, you found a stone the size of your fist. You snatched it up with a ragged sob, cradling it greedily against your chest as if doing so might let you carry it out of here, because you wanted it, you wanted him, wanted to remember more than anything in the world. 

“Let me have it!” you snarled, snapping your teeth at the howling winds of the storm as if you might catch this place between your jaws and tear it open until you at last found what belonged to you. “Give it back!” 

And with a blink—

He tore one of his bloodied gloves off, his hand shaking as he reached out to you.

You stilled the moment his fingertips brushed tenderly against your cheek, so very gentle, affection layered over blood and earth and hurt. And god, your skin was so terribly dry and cold, the beat of your heart uneven as it struggled to pump blood through your body, but he could feel you react to him, the barest parting of your lips as you dragged in a startled breath. He didn’t want to startle you further or risk you fighting him, so he let his voice drop into a whisper, soft as the brush of a feather.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

‘I heard you,’ he tried to say. ‘I heard you. I’m here.’

And your weakened heart… skipped.

He wasn’t sure if he reached for you or if you reached for him. All he knew was it was the sign he’d been looking for. In a heartbeat, he scooped you up off the floor, stealing you back from that dry, filthy cement and crusted blood that had tried to take you from him. He cradled your cold body against his chest, then, held you there where it was warm and where you were safe. You made the softest little noise, the sound choked and dry, but there was no disguising the heartbreaking relief in it. He pulled you in further, pulled you up until you were curled up in his lap, not an ounce of air left between your bodies, your head laying against his shoulder.

He would never let you touch the floor of this place again.

“D…” you mumbled, not one hint of fear in you despite what he’d just done, the blood on his hands and the burning heat of violence that still lingered in his bones. You wearily slid your head over, inch by inch, until you’d buried your face against the sweat-slick line of his throat, nuzzling in against him with a hoarse sigh that only made him hold you tighter. You inhaled slowly then, heedless of the blood and dirt and sweat that coated his skin, your fingers coming up to hook weakly in the collar of his shirt. “You came.”

And you… smiled.

He buried his face against your hair and let out a shaky breath. As he did, he dug down past blood and dust and dirt, dug and dug until he found the sweet, familiar scent of you, a scent he never wanted to leave him again.

The stone fell from your limp hands, a ringing in your ears you could barely hear beneath the sound of the water nearby, frothing and wild. 

The increased sensory feedback had been bizarre, and there was… there was no reason he should have been covered in so much blood, his body burning as if he’d been fighting before coming to you. But…  

“Hey, you in there?” Foggy called. 

“D.” The letter felt strange, and yet… natural, as you cradled it on your tongue. “D?”

And you knew what came after that letter, shaping the word again in your mind. 

You knew. 

You… remembered. 

“Always,” he’d said. 

“Always,” you whispered, casting your eyes up the riverbed towards another large stone. “Always, D.”

He didn’t know what you were doing or why you’d climbed inside the thread. 

“Always, D.”

All he knew was that it hurt. 

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”

He’d thought catching your scent, hearing your laugh, being forced to take back the key he’d given to you had been the worst of it. But no. It was far, far worse having to relive these memories of your time with him over and over and over without pause, his senses filled with you: with your touch, with your scent, with the taste of you on the air. He heard you whisper, laugh, and sigh; felt the brush of your fingers in his hair and your body shaking with laughter when he snatched you up during a game of Devil Hunt and the safety of you as you’d held him so tenderly after his fight with Foggy. All of it was a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d never get back. 

“Don’t you give up on me, Matt. Ok?”

He was in agony. There was no blocking you out like this, no escaping your memory no matter how much he tried to push back or retreat, until he wound up trapped and spiraling in his kitchen. 

“Kiss me when you come back.”

On and on it went, memories snapping at his heels until all he had left to hide behind was rage. He swept his arm across the counter, glass shattering as he screamed himself hoarse. Eventually he found himself backed up against the wall, sinking down as he hitched out something like an agonized groan, his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, please—”

“Adoringly yours, because I do adore you, you ridiculous man...”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Just leave me alone.”

“...Remember that. if nothing else.” 

In hindsight, it was a really bad idea to give back your key.

“Matt!” you shouted, pounding frantically on his front door. “Matt, let me in! It’s me, I swear, I can-I can—”

Silence. 

And you weren’t willing to wait any longer. This wasn’t something you could explain through the door, out here in the hall where the neighbors could hear. You needed to get inside. You knew he was in there somewhere. 

Red threads never lied.  

You wiped the blood away from your nose and took off for the stairs. It was only one flight up to the roof, and sometimes he left the rooftop door unlocked. Even if it wasn’t unlocked, you’d use the key under the mat. You didn’t remember everything. But you remembered that. And if the key wasn’t there? You’d break that fucking door down.

He sat unmoving in his meditation pose on the floor, the sound of your attempts to get into the apartment distant and far away. Meditation had been the only thing left he could think of that would allow him to escape the pain and the memories of you that had flooded his thoughts. Like this, with his mind and his focus withdrawn until it lay deep within himself, he’d hoped he’d be far enough away from the world that the ghost of you couldn’t reach. 

Yet even deep in meditation, his instincts were set off by the crack! of his rooftop door slamming open.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, his heart racing as he bared his teeth, his body prepared to face whatever threat had just broken in. The sensations of you, at the very least, had quieted during his meditation, which should have left him enough space for some small margin of peace as he threw himself into a fight. But that peace was nowhere to be found, because you were here again. 

He recoiled from that thought the second it crossed his mind. This wasn’t you, that much had become painfully clear. You’d passed away somewhere far beyond his reach, away from the home, the life you’d lived here. The woman that stood on his landing now was nothing but a ghost, a fading memory and a terrible reminder of what he’d had and lost, what he’d earned by daring to reach for something good. There was no undoing it, no washing away the blood on his hands. If anything, how he felt for you had doomed any hopes of you staying long enough for him to reform that connection with you. He knew how you operated—hell, you’d tried to run on that hot summer night so many months ago after seeing just how much he’d cared, even if you’d ultimately changed your mind. At the time, he’d thought it was Destiny, the hand of God ensuring you remained in the Kitchen where Matt could keep you safe from the Man in the White Coat, here in this place where you both might… might shape something good out of all the broken pieces you’d both been left with. He knew better, now. Even the hand of God couldn’t break the curse Matt placed on those he loved. You would leave, leave like all the others, and he deserved it. 

The only question that remained was why you seemed so, so fucking determined to make him suffer. 

“Matt.” Your voice cracked as you stumbled down the stairs. “Matt, I—”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, sweetheart?” he grit out, reaching up to fist his hands tightly in his hair. He’d never known you to be unnecessarily cruel, but there was no other explanation. “God, I-I can’t—you can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Matt, just let me—”

“Do you even care how much you’re hurting me?” He hitched out a broken laugh, something bitter and tormented, the sound absent all humor as you made it down the stairs. “All those months, all I wanted was for you to come back. I begged. I prayed to God, over and over again, that he would bring you back to me. And now that you’re gone, you just won’t leave. I can’t get away from you no matter what I do. Do you know what that’s like? To lose someone you love only for their ghost to haunt you every time you turn around?”

A soft intake of breath. 

There it was. Now that he’d said it, you’d leave. There would be nothing more frightening to the You he’d first known than a word like love. 

“I just…” His breath hitched again, something thick building in his throat. It was just another sign of his weakness, the same weakness that had gotten you killed. 

‘I warned you, kid,’ came Stick’s voice, so smug that Matt bared his teeth. ‘I fuckin’ warned you the night I opened up her eye. But you didn’t listen.’

He started to pace wildly, ignoring your voice as he hunted for some opening through which he could escape, flee from Stick’s voice hiding in the corners of his thoughts, from your ghost. With every step his movements grew more frantic, more furious as his rage built like a rising wave: rage at himself, at God, at the monster who’d taken your memories and the possibility of a life for you here with Matt, and at you, too, because you just didn’t get it. “I just want to grieve, and God can’t even give me that much, can he? Is that what this is? Punishment? Revenge? Congratulations. Job well done. You can go.” 

You tilted your head as you watched him pace, the same cock of your head you got when considering your potential routes forward. As far as he was concerned, the only route he’d give was a route out the door.  

“I don’t know why you came back, and at this point, I don’t fucking care,” he told you hotly, nothing but burning smoke and thick venom in each word. “We don’t have a red thread anymore. There’s nothing to keep you here. Leave. Now. I’m not asking.”

Your soft response was a single letter, one that struck directly at the open wound inside his chest. 

“...D.” 

He snatched up an empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter in a sudden rage, turned, and hurled it past you. 

You didn’t so much as flinch as the bottle came within inches of your head. Nor did you react to the distant shattering of glass, the sound of it barely audible over his anguished roar. 

“Leave me alone!”  

And then he froze in sudden horror at what he’d done, his heartbeat almost drowning out the soft sound of your steps. All he’d wanted to do was scare you away, frighten you away so he could break where you couldn’t see, because it had hurt, it had hurt to hear you call him—

Wait. 

You’d… you’d called him…

“My Devil Man, my Saint Matthew,” you whispered, the touch of your hands cool and endlessly gentle as you cupped his face. His skin was wet, damp beneath your thumbs as you swiped them across his cheeks, when had he started crying? You brought his head down until you could lay your forehead against his, the taste of salt hanging in the air. Your voice grew achingly tender, so longed for that he swayed helplessly on his feet, wanting nothing more than to be held like you’d held him so often before when he was hurting. “I’m so sorry, D. I’m so sorry I left you alone, sweetheart.” 

He closed his eyes tight, his breath growing shaky. You couldn’t know that he was two steps away from crumbling in your arms, fractures widening with every breath. He had no energy left to fight your touch, your misplaced mercy, but giving into the lie was another thing entirely. He couldn’t bear to hope again, not when it would crush him if he were wrong. “Foggy told you to… he told you to call me that, didn’t he? To see if you’d remember. But I can’t—you’re going to leave me, you’ll—” “Do you remember what I said before I left? Because I do.” You swiped your thumb gently against his cheek, your uneven breathing skipping and falling into rhythm with his as his hands shakily rose. They hovered hesitantly a few inches away from your face, terrified that you might vanish beneath his hands like a ghost. “I don’t leave my box behind, and I won’t leave you behind, either. I told you that you were stuck with me after Nobu. I meant it. It’s really me. I know you’re tired and hurting, sweetheart, but listen to my heart. What does it say? Truth or lie?”

…Steady. 

Truth.

Could it really be you?  

He held his breath as he dared at last to touch your cheek, stirring the fine hairs as he stroked his way along the familiar shape of your face, one he’d traced so often in his dreams. Your skin was damp with tears just like his, another sliding down to bump against his thumb as your lips quirked up into a brilliant smile. And the moment his trembling fingers passed your lips, you kissed the tip of each with a warm fondness, a mirror of that night you’d held his broken, torn body and he’d kissed your fingers and palm. 

“How much do you… do you remember?” There was a ringing in his ears as the world beneath him seemed to roll beneath him. “Everything?” “Not everything. Some pieces are still missing, with Foggy and Karen and my job, but I-I remember enough. I remember you, and what I had with you.” Your voice grew fierce and fervent then as you drew in a sharp breath, preparing yourself. “I remember you, D. And I remember that I love you. I love you, Matt Murdock, all of you, so, so much. And I will never leave you alone again.” You loved him. 

You loved him. 

The weight of it—being forced to let you leave the city, the ensuing months alone, the agony of the past few weeks thinking he’d lost you entirely, and now this, this, knowing you loved him like he loved you—hit him all at once, and with a sudden groan he started to drop. You caught him in your arms, the two of you sinking to your knees as you held him tight and he wound desperately around you in return. Only then did he start to fall apart in your arms, shaking in your hold, his grief, his hurt, his relief spilling out in choked gasps where you’d tucked his head down against your neck. He fisted his hands in your shirt as you both rocked, and a ragged moan tore free from him, spilling against your skin when you lifted your hands to trail your fingers lovingly through his hair. You knew, you remembered just how to hold him when he was hurting, a balm across every last wound. His shivering, touch-starved body remembered your touch, too, drowning beneath the sudden surge of good, warm, safe, soft after months of nothing but pain, so much so he couldn’t help but gasp out your name. 

“I’ve got you now, D,” you whispered, burying your face against his shoulder until he could feel the heat of your tears against his shirt, too. “I’m here, now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, Matt.” 

“I thought you were gone.” There was no way for him to truly sync his breathing with yours, not with the way you were both crying, but still his body tried on instinct, tried and failed over and over again. He closed his eyes tighter, burying his face deeper against your throat as he pulled you in even closer, until there wasn’t an inch of space between your body and his, where he could feel every beat of your heart against his skin, as if to make up for the way he’d almost… almost chased you away. “I thought you’d left me and I was alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, and that I didn’t-I didn’t go with you, but I couldn’t—I’m so, so—” 

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” You kissed shakily at his hair, his shoulder, and whatever other parts of him you could reach, your breath, your tears, your absolution washing over him like rain. “It’s not your fault, D. It’s not your fault sweetheart. None of this was your fault.” 

“But—” “Hey. Listen to me, before you get any further down in that hole.” You lifted his head from your shoulder, cupping his tear-stained face in your hands again. For a moment you both simply breathed with one another, your forehead to his, soaking in the contact, the affection that you’d both dearly missed and needed. “What happened to me outside New York, my memory loss… all of that is not your fault. It never was, D. There are-there are a lot of things we’ll have to deal with in the future, things I need to tell you. Consequences of what we’ve done, and—but this isn’t one of them. Never this. You’re what helped bring me back.” “How? I didn’t…” He let out a breathless, watery little laugh. “I didn’t do anything but try to chase you away.” “Some part of me couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I remembered, deep down, I think.” You gave an amused little huff. “And once Foggy showed me how to get into our thread, all your memories are what brought me back, helped me remember, because I could feel it, how you loved me. That was the key. Speaking of which…” You leaned in to nuzzle up against his cheek, your voice lowering to a whisper. “I think I made you a promise, you ridiculous man. And it’s one I intend to keep.” 

And with one small tip of your head, and a single slow breath… 

“Kiss me when you come back.” 

…your lips brushed against his for the very first time, tender and achingly soft, and so full of love that it would have stolen his breath away if he’d had any left at all. 

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d envisioned months ago just before you left, something triumphant and wild. Nor was it anything like the first kisses he’d imagined before that, the first kiss he’d thought this journey with you might lead to. And God only knew he’d considered kissing you for the first time more than was healthy.

Your first kiss with him was, instead, shaky and gentle, tasting of salt and tears and the fading shades of grief retreating like streamers of night before a welcome sunrise. Slowly, and then more surely, his lips began to move against yours, finally allowing himself to truly taste you for the first time, his eyes slowly falling closed as your fingers ran fondly through his hair, you, it was really you, you remembered. With a quiet moan, he breathed you in deep, calling your grace, your love deep into him until it settled there against his heart, knowing that, no matter what else might come, he would never lose it again, one of his hands rising to tenderly wind around your throat, his other hand finding yours so he could lace his battered fingers tightly with yours.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d expected, but it felt perfect all the same. 

Because all that was left was him… 

And you. 

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I've noticed that PJMs REALLY hate jikook and jkkrs, I've literally even seen some of them parrot taekook narratives and rhetoric about Jungkook not liking Jimin and such (which is crazy to me, why would they ever believe anything tkkrs of all people have to say about something related to JM!). Even though JJK1 was just announced, I've seen a whole portion of them raging about jkkrs suddenly today. They're also saying most of them are JK biased, but I'm pretty confident the majority of jkkrs are JM biased actually, and I thought that was well known. Do you think there's a specific reason it's like this? I feel like a lot of KTHs and JJKs are tkkrs, or at least have gotten along with them. But it's definitely not the same with PJMs and jkkrs.

***

Hi Anon,

Just as a general rule, I'm incapable of taking solo stans of any member seriously. There are some groups in k-pop where it makes sense to be a solo stan. But for a group like BTS, to be a solo stan is an automatic failed IQ and EQ test, in my opinion. And PJMs are no exception.

So, I kinda don't want to waste any time on this ask given the subject is PJMs / solo stans, but you sent this ask a while ago and I'm in a mood... I'll take a gander at it.

Why do PJMs hate Jungkook, jikook, and jokers?

The self-inserts who recognize that Jungkook is a real and constant presence in Jimin's life, and likely will always be. Jungkook is a person who many times occupies the space many imagine a spouse or significant other would take with Jimin. A lot of people in the fandom see this, including PJMs, and for the solo stans who love Jimin a little too much, Jungkook's very existence is a thorn in their side.

The psychos with zero sense of boundaries who have deluded themselves into thinking they get a say in determining what is best for Jimin. Some PJMs don't think Jungkook is a good friend to Jimin, much less a good spouse/partner. They find him inadequate of being paired with their god, Jimin, by their personal arbitrary standards. JK doesn't shower Jimin with enough attention, affection, deference, reverence, etc, by their own standards. They hold every slight or minor disagreement jikook have ever had, against Jungkook in perpetuity, because how dare he act like a teenage boy talking back to Jimin (or whatever) when he should be glad the mighty Jimin breathed in his direction?

The overprotective mother hens who feel powerless to hold Jimin antis responsible in their stan environments, so they transfer the blame to Jungkook. Some JJKs suffer from the above two mental ailments plaguing PJMs, and are objectively disgusting towards Jimin. Of course none of that is Jungkook's fault, but some PJMs choose to blame him for their behaviour anyway. This faction of solo stans (and shippers) who act like this are so pathetic, I won't waste any more time getting into it.

Jikookers get heat from PJMs because they celebrate a relationship that most PJMs view through the lens of the above three points. Jokers are automatically bad for wanting Jimin in a relationship that is obviously bad (see above), and what's worse is jokers don't really support Jimin enough (based on the standards set by solo stans...).

Some shippers (and jikookers) are vile fetishizers, and are legitimately hated by anyone with half a working brain, at least, and so like a broken clock that's right twice a day, PJMs sometimes sniff out the jikookers who honestly belong in a jail cell. Here, I say the hate is justified. But again, that's more the exception to the rule.

In terms of bias splits with jikookers, what I've observed is most are double biased with Jimin and Jungkook. Taekookers however swing more fully to being majority Tae-biased, and the fall out from the Taennie reveal more or less confirms that for me. The JJKs who get along with KTHs are able to do that better than with PJMs, because I doubt any of them see Taehyung as real competition to Jungkook. To be blunt. Jimin has always pulled in significant attention for his unusual tone and feather-light vocals, his dancing ability is peerless, and his personality endears him to everyone who comes across BTS. Jimin reigned supreme in Korea and internationally in terms of popularity since debut, and in the last 5 years, has shared this more with Jungkook, and to a lesser degree with Taehyung. With Tae, it's only since 2017 I saw an uptick in his popularity within the fandom and outside it, and his Chinese fanbase since 2018 has been a big reason for this, actively working to match his status with Jimin and Jungkook. But even then, at least in Korea, Jungkook's only real competition in BTS is Jimin, and so his solo stans have a harder time getting along with PJMs, than with KTHs. This isn't something I usually pay attention to because I'm not nearly as sensitive to it as solo stans are, but I've got eyes and can see.

Anyway...

With a group like BTS, there are certain people who are guaranteed to always be angry and/or miserable for as long as the group is active - and yes BTS as a group is still active in Chapter 2. These types of people include homophobes; the mantis who believe they know how to manage BTS better than BigHit; people who don't like ARMY or don't like BTS mentioning ARMY; and solo stans of every variety; among others. Anyone with any of these inclinations is bound to either stop following BTS and k-pop completely, or will end up as a full blown anti who spirals further into degeneracy.

I'd ignore them if I were you, though in Chapter 2 I can understand why this could be difficult to do.

[bringerofdeathandtheapocolypse]

I went on a tiny tangent that I figured deserved its own post so eh.

Team Natsu is probably one of my least favourite of the teams. I don't hate them but they aren't as interesting now as they used to be.

I enjoyed watching them when they had character arcs that I cared about. You know, Gray's unresolved trauma with Ur, Erza learning to be open with those around her, Lucy learning to stand up to her father. Those I enjoyed because they were good character arcs that actually got me feeling emotional.

Now, eh. Its kinda dropped off. Like Natsu has one of the most interesting concepts possible, He's a demon from the X300s who probably remembers dying to fire and is the younger brother of Zeref. Like that's such a cool concept. But nothing is done with it. Like yeah his relation to Zeref is brought up once or twice (which him using it against Alderon was definitely a smart move. Like I've said, he is smart but in his own way) but we never really address the whole, he's a demon thing again. Yeah Lucy rewrote his book but that doesn't magically make him human. And what exactly happened to the book? Is it tucked away in the guild library? His house? Dunno. Never mentioned.

My main issue with Gray is that he kinda just stopped with the creativity of his spells. Like maker mages can make whatever they imagine based around what they can do. (Lyon could make any animal, Gray any object and Rufus can combine an infinate amount of spells) Yet he sticks to the same 5 spells with some Devil slayer magic thrown in on occasion(which why is it canonically called Devil slaying magic when it slays demons. Why not just call it demon slayer magic?) Also I will say this over and over, I don't hate Juvia but I can't help but see Gray now liking her as him just being worn down. Like he was on and off constantly and its just.... Kinda uncomfortable.

I think I really dropped of the Erza bandwagon during the Alveraz arc after she destroyed an asteroid with only one arm that wasn't broken. Like that's one of the most op things ever and then her power level seems to have dropped slightly in 100 years. I know she's always been strong and such but that was a bit much for me (Alveraz was a pretty hit or miss arc anyway. Its not as focused as it probably should be and is full of too many fakeouts to keep the stakes high enough throughout. The good arcs are the ones where the stakes don't get absolutely hammered into the dirt with a metal stick. You know like almost all the arcs before it. All of them had some form of stakes that kept me on the edge but Alveraz ruined the stakes when anyone who was supposed to die didn't. Gajeel, Juvia, Makarov and Natsu all had last minute ass pulls to keep them alive or bring them back. (Natsu kinda makes sense since his life essence is the book Lucy rewrote and Gajeel I can give a slight leeway since he wasn't physically harmed and while Irene's spell was convient, it wasn't to do with Gajeel but Acnologia so I can forgive that. Juvia and Makarov rocked the boat though and that fake out with Anna and Ichiya was pretty cheap along. Lucy was never actually dead so that one doesn't count and Carla came close but she was suspended in time so I can believe that she'd live too)

With Lucy I'm half and half. I don't hate her (in fact I think she is pretty unfairly 'teased' a lot (Happy's weight comments come to mind when he's carried people who must weigh more than Lucy. He's carried Gajeel for one who I'm 100% confident is heavier than Lucy considering he is taller, more muscular and has a lot of hair. All things that would contribute to him weighing more than Lucy does. So really the comments are just not warranted or needed and its one of the running jokes I just can't get behind now like I did when I was younger) although 'teasing' seems to be common place for certain members of the guild considering Gajeel gets his own fair share of hurtful comments thrown his way. They aren't of the same nature, Lucy's mainly focus on her personality and appearance while Gajeel's are more focused on either his strength or his likes but still, both ways are mean) but like I don't have as much intrigue in her as other characters. Like she has a bit more to her than some other celestial mages (Sorry Yukino but the only time you are entertaining is in the twin dragons manga and anime only people will def not have read it. Make the dragon slayer side manga's into ovas or something you cowards) But like, I just don't get that excited overall with her.

Maybe its kind of telling that most of my favs are characters we rarely see. Like The sabers, the thunder legion, crime sorciere don't get as much focus after their original introductions. Like I'd love to see Gray interact with Bickslow or Freed at some point or Erza with Ever(even if it is petty fights, its fun to see) or even show Laxus interacting with his own team more often. That's what I enjoy most, the interactions so it kinda bums when we mainly stick to interactions with the main group. Its why I like the second split up in KOTSH because it actually has the characters work with someone else. (Shame we didn't get to see much of team ups like Freed and Gray) I liked seeing Erza being petty with Ever, Bickslow trying to protect Wendy only for her to insist that she protect him (the whole cow thing was funny) Gajeel and Juvia having drifted apart after bonding with others. It was fun and I wish to see more of it.

[extasiswings]

Kay first of all you didn't need to go that hard on your answer jesus christ lord THE CATHOLIC IN YOU DESTROYED EVERYTHING IN ME IM GONNA BE WEEPING FOR DAYS OVER THAT BLOOD ANALOGY. and second I wanted to ask because I'm new to the Fandom and everyone and i mean EVERYONE is so so confident about canon buddie and LIKE I've been played before dude I've been through this hell hole man YOU CANT GIVE ME HOPE NOW GUYS ITS NOT NICE TO PLAY WITH MY EMOTIONS LIKE THIS so like how certain are we that they're gonna make them actually be together? (By the way i love love love your tumblr and your WRITING DUDEEEE ITS SO PRETTY IT MADE ME WEEP)

Well, a) I've still seen a lot of pessimism, so I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone is super confident (however, I would say that the types of people who are confident about it is more relevant which brings me to...), b) ...look, here's the thing and I've said it at least once before so I hope that this doesn't come off as harsh or offensive in any way, but:

I've shipped a lot of ships in my time, and yes, some of those were slash ships. I've been actively queerbaited exactly twice (in the real, original meaning of the term, the ship being actively used for marketing and teasing and promotional purposes with zero intention of follow-through, not the nonsense that term has been twisted into now where people throw it around to mean "any time I personally thought these two characters should kiss and they didn't"), I've had ships that I shipped but never expected anything from because I was very aware of the fact that my desire to explore a certain dynamic did not mean that the writers were deliberately writing a queer story, and I've had ships that occupied a technically canon space (as in, actively kissed and had sex on screen and had confessions of feelings) but where characters were killed off before there could be legitimate follow-through and where the dynamic was retconned by word of God. The GREAT MAJORITY of the time when people online talk about being baited or let down by something not going canon and I go to the source material, I end up sitting there thinking "...okay, but this is at most a relationship (either between friends or enemies) with occasional garden-variety homoeroticism that people could read as queer subtext if they really wanted to, but it was clearly not intentional and was never going to be anything more than that." [This also applies to instances of, say, if a network or a show has zero queer characters, especially zero queer main characters, and/or if queerness within the show or on the network has never been handled well, there is no reason to believe that they are suddenly going to do an about face and make their main characters queer and in love, context matters].

Again, I'm not trying to be harsh, but I think that there used to be a much clearer divide between fandoms and creators and a much more prevalent attitude and recognition within fandom space that we can take crumbs and build castles (the given an inch, take a mile perspective) but ALSO that those crumbs are not necessarily representative of the reality of everything the writers or actors or producers of a particular piece of media were ever doing or intending. And I've noticed a big shift where it seems like now, as that divide has broken down, that has turned into, essentially "because I have these crumbs and they can be viewed this way, therefore that is 100% what was intended here, it was deliberate, it is the One True Correct Interpretation, and any attempt by the writers/actors/etc to clarify (or even pulling the gentle 'that wasn't what we meant but you are free to view it however you want') is a conspiracy against queer viewers." And that's just...not it.

All of that to say, I am personally confident in this particular ship going canon because I am reading the room and the very specific choices that have been made surrounding the development of these characters and of their relationship. As much as I like having fun and being a clown, I tend to be pretty realistic when it comes to when I am reading into things only what I want to see and ignoring everything that could contradict that and when the writing is on the wall and in this case...the writing is on the wall as far as I'm concerned. It's about the way they have never, since the beginning of S3, given any other path a legitimate chance. It's about the way they've doubled down at every opportunity they had to walk away from this. It's about the specific ways they chose to handle the demise of Eddie's relationship with Ana (from the implication in "make sure you're following your heart" that his heart was already somewhere else, to the shooting, to the guardianship scene, to having honest-to-god panic attacks over the thought of a future with this woman, to the specific language choice of her being the first woman that he's wanted anything to do with since Shannon), it's about the centering of Buck and of their relationship in at least one scene in every single episode since the shooting, even in an episode like 5x3 where there was very little time for it. Idk what to say, really, this just...feels different and there's only one logical place this leads and I trust the writers to follow that thread to its conclusion. Could I be wrong? Sure, I could be. But at least for right now, I don't think I am.

[And THANK YOU!]

[stitch1830]

So I've got a Kantoph one shot in the works, similar to the story line of Knocked Up, where Toph and Kanto have a one night stand and it ends up with an impending bundle of joy LOL.

This is an in-universe fic, Toph and Kanto are the Chief and Deputy Chief of the RCPD, and will lightly feature the Gaang :D It's pretty canon divergent, and has some crumbs of other ships, but nothing too big lol.

Below is a quick excerpt from the fic, but just wanted to show y'all that I'm writing it's just a bit slow with progress (I'm almost done, I'll say that LOL).

Anyway, hope you enjoy :D

.......

His kinder side became more apparent when a mission of theirs failed. They lost a lot of good benders that day, and while there were dangers that came with the job, it never got easier to lose colleagues, friends. She found him in her office after a press conference, sitting on the couch. Toph let out a tired sigh and opened the door. “Shouldn’t you be at home, Deputy?”

Kanto said nothing and kept his head in his hands. He was taking this worse than she expected, granted, this was his first casualty as Deputy Chief.

“Kanto?”

“It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not. Don’t ever think it’s your fault.”

“I led them into the trap,” he protested. “And I was their leader in that situation. Who else is there to blame?”

“How about the gang members that set the traps?”

Kanto shook his head. “It doesn’t—it’s not—”

“It’s not fair, sure,” she said. “But it’s not your fault, okay? You did what you thought was best for the situation and for our team. And when things went south, you adapted to try and save as many of our officers as possible.”

“But it doesn’t bring them back,” he whispered. “Lee and Laing. Or Jianyu. Xin was gonna be a parent, and now his kid is fatherless because I—” Kanto fell silent, his shoulders shaking as he sat on the couch.

Toph went to sit by him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We… we do what we can as the chief and deputy, but sometimes, not everyone comes home. We’ll just have to be more prepared for next time, and not let this loss turn us away. There’s still work we can do and people we can save.”

He nodded and let out a quiet sniffle. It was strange to witness Kanto this way. Toph was so used to his confident demeanor, his charisma and charm always apparent. But now, he was quiet, somber, and it pained Toph that he had to experience this. She didn’t wish for anyone to feel the hopelessness that they felt when they lost a team member.

Sometimes the only thing that helped was time and space. At least, that was the case for Toph. So, she patted his shoulder twice and said, “Stay as long as you’d like, Kanto. But be sure to get some rest, okay?”

But as she went to stand, Kanto grabbed the hand that was still on his shoulder. He clutched it tightly, and she felt him turn his head ever so slightly toward her. “Stay with me?” he whispered. “Please?”

When she heard his broken voice, she didn’t hesitate to sit back down next to him.

[itsadamcole]

you should be sad

fem!reader x adam cole

Reader and Adam go out for karaoke night, and she decides to sing a song about her relationship with Adam and his actions ...

word count: 2.2k+

warnings: mentions of cheating and an abusive relationship, angst

— this is based on the halsey song “you should be sad”. it’s one of my favorite songs right now honestly —

masterlist

~ potentially triggering content below - read at your own risk ~

***

You put on your sexiest dress. A tight, dark red satin number that hugs every curve of your small figure. The low cut neck reveals a decent amount of your cleavage and the dress pushes up the dress for you, so you’re not wearing a bra. The thin straps on your shoulders are sliver and they are sparkly. You wear a pair of black lace panties under the dress. Your Y/H/C hair is up in a curly ponytail.

Your boyfriend wears a black button up with dark blue jeans and dress shoes. His long brown hair is tied back in a bun.

You and Adam were invited to go out for karaoke with a few of the NXT wrestlers. Resident NXT power couple Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae were the ones who invited you and Adam.

Things weren’t what everyone believed they were when it comes to you and Adam Cole.

When out in public, everyone thinks you and Adam are the cutest couple. You laugh and smile when out with him. He holds your hand and sneaks kisses to your lips, cheek, and neck.

Behind the scenes, things aren’t what they seem. Adam has cheated on you with several other women. When he cheats, he blames it on you. He plays the victim. He tells you that if you satisfied him more than he wouldn’t cheat. Adam thinks you only know about three of the times he’s cheated but you know he’s cheated at least half a dozen times.

He’s never hit you though. He’s never been physically abusive toward you. Only emotionally and mentally.

You haven’t had it in your heart to leave him. You love Adam with your entire heart. You know he loves you too, even if sometimes he says he doesn’t.

Tonight, you are planning something though. You’re going to make it known how you’ve been feeling. To Adam, to your friends. You have a song in mind you’re going to be singing when Candice begs you to sing a song.

You and Adam arrive at the karaoke club. You wander around the club, looking for someone that you or Adam know. You spot Johnny, Candice, Mia Yim, and Keith Lee in a corner. You believe that the rest of the Undisputed Era are coming with their wives and girlfriends.

Good. Maybe they’ll start to keep their friend in check.

Candice says, “Y/N. You have to sing a song tonight. Your voice is beautiful and I could listen to it for hours. I have listened to it for hours.”

You laugh. While your boyfriend is NXT’s longest reigning champion, you’re a 4-time Grammy award winning artist. You’ve been friends with Johnny and Candice for years. They’re the reason you even met Adam.

***

“Y/N!” Candice says. “You came!”

You laugh and hug your best friend as you say, “I couldn’t miss my best friend’s birthday party! Happy 25th birthday, Candice.”

Your best friend giggles and says, “Thank you. Oh, by the way, remember that guy I was telling you about? He’s here, and he’s recently broken up with his girlfriend.”

You roll your eyes and say, “You’re not still on this. Plus, my career is finally taking off.”

“I know, I know,” Candice says, hooking your arm with hers. “At least meet him, Y/N. Please.”

You stare at Candice and say, “Ugh, fine. Only because it’s your birthday.”

Candice drags you over to the bar. She taps the shoulder of a man that’s standing at the bar. She clears her throat and says, “Cole. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

The man that Candice referred to as Cole turns around. You immediately meet his pretty blue irises. He’s almost clean shaven. His burgundy shirt match his maroon pants. The jacket he wears matches his pants.

Candice says, “Y/N, this is Adam Cole. Adam, this is Y/N L/N. The girl I was telling you about.”

“The future Grammy award winner?” Adam asks. “That Y/N L/N?”

You feel your cheeks heat up as the attractive man in front of you speaks.

Candice nods and says, “She’s agreed to perform tonight too.”

Your head snaps in Candice’s direction. You never agreed to that. You’re about to say something when Adam Cole says, “Well, I look forward to it. I think Kyle just got here so I have to go but Y/N. Come find me when you’re done so I can buy you a drink.” He sends you a wink and you watch as he walks away.

You find yourself staring at Adam as he walks off.

Candice elbows your side and says, “I can see the wheels turning. You’re actually thinking about it.”

“We’ll see what happens after my impromptu performance,” you say. “Thanks for that, by the way. No heads up?”

Candice says, “There’s a microphone right there. It’s a karaoke machine. Sing some covers or some of your original songs. You’ll be fine, Y/N. Break a leg.”

She walks off and you call, “I might break yours just for fun.”

Candice laughs and you sigh, getting set up for your little performance.

You sing a good four or five songs, ending on “Happy Birthday” for Candice.

The attractive man from earlier finds you after you’re done singing.

Adam says, “I can see why Candice called you a future Grammy award winner. Your voice is amazing.”

“Thank you,” you say, your face turning red as you look up at Adam Cole. You meet his pretty blue eyes and find yourself getting lost in them. Adam smiles.

He points toward the bar and asks, “How about that drink I promised you before the performance.”

You walk over to the bar with Adam.

That is how you met. That is how you got into this situation. You didn’t know then what would happen, and now you have a little bit of regret that you even agreed to meet Adam.

***

The rest of the Undisputed Era shows up and that’s when Candice says, “Okay, Y/N. Please come sing a song with me. Please.”

You smile and say, “Alright. Let’s go.”

Candice gets excited when you agree to go sing a song. You and Candice walk over to the booth to pick a song to sing together. Candice picks the collaboration between Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga. Rain On Me.

Someone hands you both microphones as Candice says, “I want Gaga’s parts. There’s no way that I can hit Ariana’s notes.”

You laugh and say, Alright. I don’t know if I’ll be able to either but I’ll give it a try.”

Candice walks up onto the stage and you follow her.

You and your best friend have the best time. You hit every single note. Once the song is over, Candice hugs you and everyone cheers. You say, “I’m gonna sing one more song. You can head back to the group.”

Candice nods and you walk over to the booth. You ask, “Can you put on ‘You Should Be Sad’ by Halsey?” The man behind the booth nods and gets the song set up.

Nervously, you walk up onto the stage. You glance at Adam and he looks like a proud boyfriend. Of course he looks like that. You wouldn’t expect anything less.

The song begins and you take a deep breath before you begin to sing.

I wanna start this out and say I gotta get it off my chest Got no anger, got no malice Just a little bit of regret

You make sure to stare down Adam as you sing. Candice looks at you then looks at Adam.

Know nobody else will tell you So there's some things I gotta say Gonna jot it down and then get it out And then I'll be on my way

Johnny notices how intently you’re staring at Adam and he says something to the leader of the Undisputed Era.

No, you're not half the man you think that you are And you can't fill the hole inside of you with money, drugs and cars I'm so glad I never ever had a baby with you 'Cause you can't love nothin' unless there's somethin' in it for you

As you sing, you begin to leave the stage, walking down toward Adam. A spotlight lands on you as you walk off the stage.

You approach Adam, who has a look on his face. You can’t tell if his face is full of anger or full of sadness as you sing. The look of proudness that was on his face earlier is gone now.

Oh, I feel so sorry I feel so sad I tried to help you It just made you mad And I had no warning About who you are

The group around you looks at you as they realize what’s going on. Candice is looking at you with concern and when she looks at Adam, anger rises inside of her.

I'm just glad I made it out without breaking down And then ran so fucking far That you would never ever touch me again Won't see your alligator tears 'Cause, no, I've had enough of them

As you sing the song, you feel confidence come over you. You realize that tears have started running down your face as you finish up the last few notes. Before you finish the song, you head back up to the stage to finish the last few lyrics.

Once the song ends, the crowd in the building cheers for you before you hand in the microphone before you walk over to the group. Candice looks up at you and asks, “Y/N, what’s going on?”

You are looking at Adam as you respond to Candice saying, “Ask Adam. Or better yet, ask the several girls he’s fucked behind my back.”

Candice looks at Adam and Johnny says, “Bro, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t know that you knew about all of them,” Adam says. “I was going to tell you.”

You stare at your boyfriend and you say, “That is such bullshit and you know it. Once is maybe a mistake. Twice isn’t. Four times isn’t and six times sure as hell isn’t.”

Candice says, “Six times? Adam, you asshole.”

Tears threaten to spill over your eyelids and you say, “I’m done, Adam. I’m so done.”

You gather your things and start to leave. Adam calls after you as you leave. You walk out the door and wipe away your tears.

“Y/N,” Adam says, panic laced in his voice. “Y/N, please. Please don’t leave.”

You groan a bit and you say, “It’s not just the cheating. You play the victim and you blame me for your cheating. You tell me you don’t love me. I can’t deal with this anymore. You’ve had your chance and you threw it out the window as soon as you decided to cheat on me with not one, not two, but six other women.” The tears have begun to fall as you continue to talk. “I don’t know how you can live with the guilt that you’ve broken my heart so many times.”

Adam can’t even look at you when you’re done talking. You’re breathing heavily, trying to keep your sobs back as you stare at the man in front of you.

Both of you are quiet. Adam avoids your gaze and you stare holes into him.

After a few moments of silence, you say, “You can’t even look at me.” You wipe the silent tears away as your voice breaks. “You can’t even say something to me to try and make me stay.”

Adam looks up at you and he says, “What do you want me to say, Y/N? The odds are that you won’t stay no matter what.”

“I’ve stayed through every time I found out you’ve cheated,” you say, your sobs making their way out. “I’ve stayed every time you’ve blamed me for your cheating. I’ve stayed through every time you’ve told you didn’t love me. I can forgive you, Adam. I have forgiven you before, but you think that I won’t stay.”

You watch as Adam’s face goes from panic to sadness. He’s finally realized how his behavior has affected you. It makes him mad that he made you feel like this.

Adam says, “Y/N, I’m so sorry. Please don’t go. Believe it or not, I need you in my life.”

You wipe your tears away and say, “I can’t deal with this anymore, Adam. I love you, but loving you hurts me.”

He says, “I can change my ways. I can be honest with you. You can even come out with me if you want to just to make sure that I won’t do anything.”

“I’m not becoming your babysitter, Adam,” you say. “I can’t watch over you to make sure you won’t cheat on me again. I’m your girlfriend, not your babysitter. If you want a babysitter then go back to Britt.”

Adam says, “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so sorry. Please.”

You give a shaky sigh and you say, “I’m giving you one more chance to show me you’ve changed, Adam. You get one chance. You hurt me one more time then I’m gone because I can’t keep dealing with this.”

He looks at you and says, “I won’t throw that chance away. Thank you for forgiving me and giving me one more chance.”

“Don’t blow it,” is all you say.