#im still not doing so well but i think maybe i have a chance

[bbywriter]

quiet days | c. sturniolo

masterlist

summary: when you drown at the scene of a mass casualty incident, chris will do anything to make sure you live.

pairing: christopher sturniolo x fem!reader, doctor!chris x doctor!reader

warnings: heavy angst, drowning (oc almost dies), they’re briefly mentioned but matt and nick are also doctors in this lol, probably very inaccurate medical terms and procedures that i just learned through greys anatomy and reddit.

notes: hi guys<3 this was inspired by that one episode of greys anatomy where mer drowns, and also a finnick odair fanfic called ‘two souls, one heart’ by @wife-of-all-dilfs. this author probably has no idea i exist but she actually made me wanna start writing. check her fic out if u love heart breaking angst like me</3. also i’ve been in so many fandoms in my life lol can u tell?

please lmk what u think about this one, im rly proud of it<3

word count: 6.2k

—

Quiet shifts are no good. Sure, it should be a comforting feeling for a place like the hospital. The stillness of stable patients means nobody is on the verge of death, and everything has a chance to breathe. 

Nurses can chat quietly over stale coffee and residents finally sit down for a moment. The clock on the wall ticks cautiously, each second dragging its feet. Even the overhead speakers rest. But it’s quiet—the calm before the storm. Where everything slows down, and you should have been too…

“Baby, come sit,” Chris starts. He’s settled on the old lumpy couch of the resident’s lounge, his arms tucked behind his head as he talks to you with shut eyes. “I feel tired just looking at you.”

You glance at him and chuckle. “Your eyes are closed.”

“Yeah, but I can hear you walking.” He cracks one eye open to watch you pace back and forth across the room, then teases with a tired smile, “You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor.”

“You’re so dramatic,” you reply with a laugh, but you know he’s right. You should sit down and try to relax—but you just can’t. 

There’s a restless energy simmering in the air. It’s an unspoken rule every doctor knows too well: stretched silence always leads to chaos. You never say it out loud, that “it’s quiet,” because admitting it might summon the mess faster. 

But everyone feels it. The whole place holds its breath, bracing for the inevitable.

You linger by the doorway, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, half considering his advice. As if he can hear the silent battle unfolding in your mind, he lets out a sigh. “You’re gonna give yourself a stroke worrying about nothing,” he says, softer this time. “Maybe tonight’s just… easy.”

You want to believe him, but your gut just refuses. You’ve been through this before. Countless times. When the quiet lulls you into a false sense of security before havoc shatters it without warning. An ambulance could come barreling in any minute. Multiple traumas. Code blues. Someone crashing hard and fast.

And although you think that worrying could somehow hold back disaster—as if keeping your mind in the same state of adrenaline as a hectic day could trick the universe into giving you a break just this once—if you’d known your life would soon be pulled from your fingertips, you wouldn’t have been so stubborn to just sit down and hug Chris for five extra seconds.

He drapes his arm across the back of the couch. 

“C’mon,” he coaxes, offering you a spot in his cozy embrace. “Just for a minute. You’ll hear the alarm if something happens.”

You hesitate, biting your lip, but finally give in. With a quiet sigh, you cross the room and sit down next to him against the cushion. Chris shifts to pull you closer into his side, his fingers drawing soothing circles along the sleeves of your scrubs. 

“You work too hard, gorgeous.” He places a soft kiss in your hair, the scent of ethanol and latex lingering, but he doesn’t mind. “This place will run fine without you for a couple minutes.”

You roll your eyes, but the corner of your mouth quirks up as you look up at him. “Feels like it might fall apart any second.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Then let it. We’ll deal with it when it happens.”

Chris doesn’t give you a chance to counter him, silencing the reply you’re about to argue with a gentle kiss to your lips. You know the silent words he's trying to convey. 'You don’t need to worry, baby. I've got you.' 

When he pulls away, you can only smile at his reassurance. You sink a little further into his touch, letting the tension slowly ease out of your shoulders. How could anything ever go wrong with Chris by your side?

His hand moves up to your neck, his thumb brushing softly over your nape, and even if it’s just for a fleeting moment, it’s enough to let your guard down.

Mass Casualty: Train derailment—Charles River. Trauma incoming.

Quiet is shattered in an instant. 

Your pagers ring simultaneously and Chris stiffens beside you, his hand instantly dropping from your neck as both of you fumble to check the message. Eight words–like a punch to the stomach.

Chris mutters a soft curse under his breath, his relaxed demeanour evaporating as he locks into focus. He’s on his feet before you can even process it, grabbing his coat off the back of the couch. 

Adrenaline spikes through you. It cuts through the lingering warmth of his touch. You follow him without a second thought, leaving behind the couch’s momentary comfort and stepping back into the unforgiving pulse of the hospital.

He glances at you, eyes sharp and steady. “Mass casualty protocol?”

You nod, already switching gears, letting instinct take over. “We’ll be triaging in the ER. Let’s move.”

The halls are alive with motion—nurses prepping gurneys, interns sprinting to set up trauma rooms, senior attendings barking orders over the rising noise. You slip into the rhythm of it without missing a beat, your mind running through every checklist, every step you need to take.

As you push through the double doors into the ER, pieces of conversation hit you– “How many victims?” and “Bridge collapse?” and “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Despite the urgent orders being directed your way, Chris squeezes your shoulder to gain your attention. His tone is firm but calm. 

“You good?”

There’s no room for nerves, no space for hesitation. You’ve handled chaos before, faced down death too many times to count. You know how to keep your head above water, even when the tide threatens to pull you down. 

But you notice it the second he asks you—a feeling in your stomach. 

Mass casualty incident? Of course, nothing good could ever come from one of those. A train just fell off its tracks. People are hurt, injuries are inevitable. No instincts are needed to know that. 

But there’s something else. Something about this, about the sheer scale of it all, that feels different. 

It feels personal. 

And as much as your conscience screams at you to be selfish, just this once, to tell him you know something else is wrong, you go against it. Because you’re a doctor, and saving others will always be your highest calling.

So you lie. 

“Yes.”

A hint of a smile flickers at the corner of his mouth as he squeezes your shoulder once more, then takes off toward the admin desk. You direct a group of interns to prepare airway kits and trauma supplies, keeping your voice clear and decisive despite the unease gnawing at your instincts. 

You force yourself to take a breath, find your center. 

When you lock eyes with Chris one last time, there’s no trace of fear left—just focus. He gives you a nod of encouragement and then you’re both moving, splitting off into the storm, ready to do whatever it takes to keep these people alive.

———

Standing at the head of a gurney, one of your hands steadies a patient’s jaw while the other carefully guides an intubation tube past swollen vocal cords. Sweat gathers at your temple, but you don’t dare blink, not until the tube slips into place. 

“Tube in,” you call out.

The nurse standing by immediately starts squeezing the Ambu bag, forcing oxygen into Jane Doe’s failing lungs. Her monitor beeps unevenly, but it’s something. Airway secured. 

You barely register the sound of footsteps entering the room when Dr. Reid calls your name, his voice cutting through the tension. 

“___,” he says firmly. “We’re short on trauma docs at the scene. Finish up here, you’re leaving now with the next ambulance.”

The words barely register before you nod and strip off your gloves. The air stings slightly against your damp skin as you step back into the trauma center.  

It’s only been twenty minutes since the initial alert, but the ER is packed like you’ve never seen before. Patients have piled into every corner. Monitors are beeping in frantic discord. Nurses move quickly, calling out vitals and pushing meds in practiced chaos. 

The sharp scent of antiseptic barely masks the underlying tang of blood and burnt fabric. Overhead, the trauma board is a mess of names and injuries, constantly shifting as people continue to flood in.

And that’s when you see him. 

Beneath the TV screen, Chris’s sleeves are pushed up, blood streaks along his forearm as he finishes with another patient. You’re supposed to be heading to the ambulance bay, but instead, something tells you to weave through the maze of stretchers toward him—to quickly let him know you’re leaving, to say goodbye. 

He looks up just as you reach him, equal parts of exhaustion and relief flickering across his face. Before you can speak, his hand brushes against yours in a wordless acknowledgment, and then he’s steering you a few steps away. 

It’s out of the frantic flow of the ER. The noise still hums around you, but here, in the dim space between an empty gurney and the wall, it feels like you have a second to breathe.

“They need me on scene,” you say, voice quiet but steady. “I’m going with the next ambulance.”

His brows furrow for a split second before he nods. “Reid just told me the same thing,” he says. “I’m heading out with the next unit after you.”

The earlier feeling returns as a coil in your gut, but you don’t let it show. Instead, you reach for him, gripping his wrist for just a second before he pulls you in. The kiss is brief, a stolen moment amid the madness, but it grounds you both.

"Be careful please," he murmurs against your lips.

"You too." Your fingers tighten on his scrubs before you force yourself to let go. "I love you."

His eyes soften just for a second, just long enough for the chaos around you to blur.

"I love you too."

And then you’re gone.

———

The ambulance jolts as it pulls up to the scene, tires screeching slightly against the rain-slicked pavement. The moment the doors swing open, havoc rushes in.

The air is thick with the acrid scent of smoke and gasoline. It burns the back of your throat. Flashing lights of blue and red strobe against the darkness, reflecting off the twisted wreckage of the train cars. Metal rasps under its own weight, half-derailed carriages stacked like a horrifying house of cards. Some are overturned, others crumpled like paper, their insides spilling onto the tracks below.

The ground is a mess of shattered glass and personal belongings strewed among deep pools of rainwater and something darker—blood.

A relentless mix of crying, screaming, and distant metallic creaks fills the air, like the train itself is still groaning from the impact. Rescue teams work frantically under the harsh glare of floodlights, but this devastation simply stretches far beyond their reach.

You take a breath, pushing down the sick feeling in your stomach, and step forward into the disaster.

Amidst all of it, you spot him—a little boy, barely five, standing alone by the water’s edge. His tiny frame is shivering in the cold. The flickering emergency lights cast long shadows across his tear-streaked face, his wide eyes darting frantically through the chaos. His lips tremble as he sobs. He calls for his mom in a voice so small that nearly gets lost in the storm of sirens and shouting.

Your heart cracks in half.

You know there are people with worse injuries, people who need your attention more, but you can’t ignore him. He’s alone. He’s terrified.

You kneel to his height and set down your trauma field kit, keeping your voice soft despite the surrounding noise. “Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’m gonna help you find your mom, alright?”

He sniffles, lips quivering but silent as he rubs his sleeve against his face. Dirt and tears smear across his cheek. You extend your hand, and after a brief hesitation, his trembling fingers slip into yours. They’re ice cold, and it sends a new wave of urgency through you. You squeeze his hand gently to offer what little comfort you can. “You’re gonna be okay. Let’s get you somewhere warm, yeah?”

The boy’s teary gaze flickers between your face and the chaos behind you. His voice cracks, “Mommy’s still there... she’s... she’s hurt.”

“I know, honey, I know. We’re gonna find her,” you assure him, pulling your jacket off and draping it around his small frame. It’s too big for him, but at least it will keep him warm for now. The cold air bites the second it hits your exposed scrubs, and you can feel the chill in your bones, but it doesn’t matter. He needs it more.

Rubbing a comforting pat on his shoulder, you start to lead him away from the water. Your plan is simple, just a quick detour. You’ll bring him to a police officer, make sure he isn’t alone in all this, and then you’ll get back to the scene—

A sharp, desperate tug.

“No! Mommy’s still there!”

Before you can react, he wrenches himself free from your hold, stumbling toward the water. His feet splash into the shallows, the current pulling at his small legs.

Panic jolts through you.

“Wait!” You lunge for him, grabbing blindly—

Your foot slips.

The rain-slicked ground betrays you, and suddenly, the world tilts sideways. A sharp gasp rips from your throat as your body pitches forward. 

The icy grip of the river swallows you whole.

The water closes in around you immediately, dark and suffocating. The current tugs at your limbs, and no matter how hard you try to fight, the surface only seems to slip further away. Panic claws at your chest. A bitter sting of cold water rushes into your throat and your body feels heavy, your breath shallow. Chris. Where is he? What’s happening? Why can’t you breathe? 

Your limbs kick out, the instinct to survive kicking in. With every desperate movement, you reach for anything, grasping for hope. 

But it’s as if the water is alive, pulling you under with a cruel certainty. You cough and sputter and scream but your lungs only fill with fire at every gasping attempt to inhale. Why won’t it stop? The thought echoes in your head, drowned out by the deafening rush of water and panic.

The infinite stretch of space around you twists and turns, safety slipping further and further from your reach. Where are you? Where is everyone? Nothing makes sense. The world is suddenly so big, so unfamiliar, and you’re so, so small. The weight of the water is pressing down with a relentless, almost inviting force. 

And then, as if the time has paused for a moment, a chilling clarity washes over you. The panic and thrashing give way to a sudden stillness, and the water envelopes you in a quiet embrace. 

The calm before the storm. Where everything slows down, and now, you have no choice but to surrender to the repose. The chaos above is no longer your concern. This is it. There is no future. No hope. You’ve given up on the surface; it isn’t yours anymore. This is where you belong now.

The water cradles you gently, and you let it. It feels... peaceful, in a way. There’s a strange comfort in the silence, in the weightlessness. You can still feel your heart pounding, echoing against the cold emptiness. But your mind begins to drift, like a ripple in a still pond. It’s easier this way.

In that final moment, your waterlogged mind grasps for one last thought. Chris...

And for a fleeting second, you think you feel him—feel the heartbeat you once knew, far above you, just out of reach. But then the water blurs everything again, and the darkness transforms into light, bathing your surroundings in comforting rays as you sink deeper, farther into the depths.

———

Chris arrives at the scene just minutes after you, faced with the same chaos. The wreckage of the train looms in the distance, twisted metal and shattered glass are scattered like broken bones. 

Makeshift assessment beds now line the pavement, medics moving between them in hurried strides. The air is thick with the wail of sirens and the muffled cries of the injured. It’s overwhelming. Disorienting.  

But then he sees it.  

Your bag.  

Sitting under the glow of a streetlamp, untouched, your unmistakable pink bow keychain catching the light too perfectly. It almost looks staged, as if placed there deliberately, bathed in a quiet, eerie spotlight. His stomach twists. His breath catches. The chaos around him dulls for a second, because your bag is here—but you aren’t.  

He moves toward it, heart pounding, and that’s when he notices the little boy.  

The same boy from earlier. The one you had been with. He’s curled in on himself, still wearing your jacket, staring at the water with an unsettling stillness.  

Chris crouches beside him, voice tight. “Hey, buddy... where’s ___?”  

The boy doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t answer.  

Chris swallows, trying again, his pulse now thudding in his ears. “Were you cold, bud? You’re wearing her jacket. Do you know where she went?”  

Still nothing. Just a slow, deliberate glance toward the water.  

The air is knocked from his lungs and everything inside him sinks, dragged down by the sudden unspoken truth.  

“Doctor.” A voice suddenly cuts in from behind. 

Someone’s talking to him now. Their voice sounds urgent, persistent, but Chris pays them no mind.  

“Doctor, we need you to move. We have a body that needs to be assessed.”  

He ignores it. Ignores everything but the way the kid keeps staring at the water.  

“Sir.” It’s a Search and Rescue worker, and he tries again, more forceful this time. “We need you to—”  

Chris doesn’t hear the rest. He knows. He feels it.  

You’re in there. 

He has to get to you.

The second his feet leave the ground, he hears the shouts behind him.  

“Sir—wait! You can’t—”  

“It’s our job, let us—”  

But he’s already in.  

The cold hits him like a sledgehammer, shocking and brutal. The water swallows him whole, and for a terrifying second, he’s blind. He can’t see anything. Can’t hear anything except the pounding of his own heart and the muffled roar of the river.  

Where are you?  

His hands swipe through the dark, pushing against the current, but it’s impossible—he can’t tell which way is up, let alone where you are.  

Suddenly, there’s light. 

It flickers through the dark, cutting through the swirling murk in shaky beams. Shadows shift, water distorts, and figures drop in after him. Search and Rescue, their gear making them move steady where he thrashes. The glow from their headlamps bends and wavers, illuminating glimpses of debris drifting past, the restless pull of the current.

And then—they see you.  

Your body is caught on a rock near the riverbed, motionless.  

One of the divers reaches you first, maneuvering through the water with steady, practiced movements. Chris doesn’t hesitate. He follows, kicking toward you with everything he has.  

The diver secures you, arms wrapping around your limp form, and starts the ascent. Chris is right behind you, chest burning, lungs aching, vision narrowing to nothing but you.  

You’re so still.  

Too still.  

But he doesn’t let himself think. Doesn’t let himself feel anything but the drive to get you out. To get you to the surface.  

Because you have to wake up.

Chris doesn’t waste a second. The moment your body is out of the water, he’s running—sprinting—toward the nearest ambulance, shoving past anyone in his way. He pays no attention to the shouts behind him, the frantic orders being thrown around. None of it matters. He needs to get you out of here. Now.  

When he reaches the ambulance, the EMT doesn’t move.  

“Sorry, Doctor, I’ve got orders to wait for another patient,” he says, nodding toward the scene. “They’re bringing him over now. Took a pole straight through the ribs—”  

“Then that guy is already dead,” Chris doesn’t let him finish, voice cracking, chest heaving. 

His thoughts are clouded with fury—It’s like he doesn’t see you in his arms. Like he doesn’t know there’s no time to waste on a lost cause. 

Only, the EMT does see and does know, and it’s exactly these reasons why he hesitates once more. 

Chris almost skins him alive.  

“Let the next ambulance bring him. You’re taking us back to the hospital, or you’ll give me the keys and I’ll drive there myself.”  

He looks at Chris, then at you—lifeless, limp and almost blue in his arms. And maybe it’s the way Chris is shaking, maybe it’s the tears in his eyes, maybe it’s the raw desperation bleeding into his voice, but the guy gives in.  

The doors slam shut, and the ambulance speeds off.  

———

Chris loves being a doctor. He thrives in the chaos of the ER, in the rush of saving lives, in the certainty that his hands mean something. Every stitch, every chest compression, every decision made in a split second—it all matters. It’s exhausting, brutal work, but it’s his. And if he believes in fate, he swears he is meant for this, meant to help, meant to heal.

But none of that compares to his love for you.

So when he presses his hands over your chest and feels nothing, when his breaths fail to bring life back into your lungs, he decides that there is nothing he hates more than being a doctor. Not when such a title refuses to save you. Not when all the knowledge, all the training, all the years spent fighting to keep others alive mean nothing in the face of losing you.

Chris' hands tremble as he swallows down a sob, forcing a breath into his lungs. He’s done this a thousand times before—countless compressions on countless patients—but never like this.  Never while his vision blurs and his breath stumbles and his body shakes so violently he can barely keep count. 

Two breaths. Thirty compressions. 

He locks his hands together, pressing down hard over your chest. Again. And again. And again. Each push comes with the full weight of his body behind it, but your body remains still, unyielding. No fight. No jolt. No desperate gasp for air.

“Come on, baby,” he pleads, his voice cracking. “Stay with me.”

Your head lolls slightly with the force of his movements, limp in a way that makes his stomach violently turn. Your skin, usually so warm and full of life, is sickly beneath the ambulance’s harsh fluorescent light. Strands of hair cling to your damp forehead, and your lips, usually soft and flushed, are now a haunting shade of blue.

Two breaths. Thirty compressions. 

He tilts your head back again, pinching your nose and breathes into your lungs. Your chest rises beneath him, but when he pulls away, nothing changes. You’re still quiet.

"No–"

He starts again. Harder. Faster.

Two breaths. Thirty compressions. 

No response.

His own breath is ragged, his arms burn, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t. Because any second now, you’ll suck in a sharp breath, your lashes will flutter, and your fingers will reach for his, warm and real and alive.

Any second now.

“Breathe,” he begs, a tear slipping down his cheek. “Fuck, breathe, ___. Please.”

But you don’t.

Maybe he should just give you his heart—tear it from its place in his chest and press it into the hollow silence of your ribs. If that is the only way to bring you back—trading his own life to hear your breath again, to see your eyes open and feel your warmth against his skin, he will do it without thinking twice.

He doesn’t care if it means his own end, because knowing you were alive, feeling your pulse beneath his hands will make any sacrifice worth it.

Two breaths. Thirty compressions. 

A dull crack echoes beneath his palms, the sharp sound of a rib giving way to the pressure. His breath catches in his throat, silently waiting for you to gasp in pain. But there is nothing. The quiet feels heavier than any scream. And with that broken sound, he knows it wasn’t just your rib that has shattered. 

You are gone.

Two breaths. 

Thirty compressions. 

He sobs silently at the realization, no longer able to hold back his tears that begin to fall in an endless stream. 

This time, his touch is softer, gentler. No longer frantic, no longer desperate. The rhythm of his hands have faltered over your chest. No longer driven by a troubled need to revive you, but rather, by something tender. 

It’s selfish, born of denial, the way his steady palms manually force your heart to beat. How his mouth manually fills your lungs with air. But he will do it forever—replenish your every breath and feign every pulse, merge you both together and sustain you as one if it means you are whole again.

"You’re okay, baby," he whispers, his voice cracking, barely a sound. His tears slip silently down his face as his fingers gently sweep strands of hair from your forehead, the touch trembling with a love he couldn't hold back. 

He leans in, pressing his lips to yours once more—not to force air into your lungs, but to give you everything he has left. As if love alone could bring you back. A true kiss of life. "Don’t leave me."

———

The ambulance screeches to a stop once more.

As the back doors fly open, Chris is met with his brother’s eyes. A flicker of relief briefly stirs in his chest, but the way Matt’s face crumples in confusion at Chris’s pained expression instantly makes him want to cry again. 

Chris doesn’t have to say a word. Matt instantly knows. Knows something is very, very wrong. For the first time since you were pulled from the water, Chris feels an aching comfort. 

The burden is no longer his to shoulder alone. 

The EMT starts his run down. “Jane Doe, found unconscious—”

“It’s ___, Matt.” Chris’s voice is raw, breaking mid-sentence as he looks at his brother with pleading eyes. “I found her in the water.”

Matt freezes. Just for a second. Long enough for it to feel like slow motion when his eyes glance over your pale, lifeless form And as he watches Chris mount the gurney, his hands never leave your chest, still forcing compressions as the stretcher is lifted and they rush you inside.

Unconscious. Found in the water.

The urgency in Matt’s movements sharpens, every step fueled by a surge of adrenaline, unlike anything he’s felt before. Not because other patients are less important—he’s sworn an oath to treat them all the same—but this is you. Chris’s girlfriend. The girl who’s become a sister to him.

After all the patients he’s already lost today, he refuses to let you be another.

They push into the trauma room. The fluorescent lights overhead buzz faintly, but Chris barely hears them over the ringing in his ears. Reid, Matt, and one of your interns work in a blur, voices overlapping with rapid commands. The machines beep. Someone calls for a crash cart.

Chris doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Matt’s hands are on his shoulders, forcing him back. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“No,” Chris rasps. “I need to see that she’s okay.”

“She will be, Chris.” Matt’s voice is firm, unwavering. “But you’re not in the right headspace. I won’t let anything happen to her. You need to step out.”

Chris swallows hard, his fingers curling into fists. He’s losing you all over again, and this time, he has to walk away from it.

“Matt, I can’t leave—I need to—”

“Sturniolo.” Reid’s voice cuts through the panic, steady in the chaos. “Listen to your brother. Go change your clothes.”

He wants to fight. Wants to scream that he can’t just sit and wait. But then he looks at you. At the paleness of your face under the too-bright hospital lights. They emphasize the stillness of your body in a way that the ambulance lights made you look alive. His chest tightens, his throat burning with the threat of more tears.

He stumbles backward, his legs moving on autopilot until he’s in the waiting room. All he's left with is the cold of your lips lingering on his own—so different from the familiar warmth they held before you left. He clenches his jaw, nails digging into his palms.

All he can do now is wait.

And he does.

Days. Several 24 hour cycles. Thousands of millions of seconds. 

For the next week, Chris waits. Every minute is stretched out like an endless ache, his body hovering on the edge of exhaustion. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten right, hasn’t done anything but sit at your side, hoping, praying for some sign that you’re coming back to him. You’ve stabilized. Your colleagues say it’s just a matter of time. But as each day drags on with no change, the hope he clings to starts to feel fragile, like it might shatter at any moment.

“Nick and Matt are off today,” he says quietly, his voice heavy from the seat beside your bed. “But I think they’re gonna come by in the afternoon.”

He watches your face. It’s peaceful, and he can only hope that means you’re in no pain. But there’s no reply. There hasn’t been for the past seven days. 

He gently takes your hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. The warmth is there now, but the weight of it—limp in his grasp, the way your fingers don’t curl back in return—makes his heart crack. Another reminder that not enough has changed since the water.

“I need you to wake up, baby.”

He presses his cheek into the palm of your hand, cradling it gently with his own, your hand now sandwiched between his face and the steady strength of his hold. If he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that you're the one comforting him, that he’s the one being held in your arms.

“I can’t do this without you.”

No more tears fall. They couldn’t even if he wanted them to. He has already cried every last tear he has, and now, the pain remains only as a weight in his chest. His heart wrenches at the sound of his own voice. Broken and honest. He really can not do this without you. Life no longer has meaning.

He rests his head on your thigh, draping his arm over your legs. His fingers gently caress your hip while his other hand holds your wrist, keeping your palm pressed to his cheek. Anyone who passes by your room can’t help but notice the sight. It's pitiful—an embrace between a living man and his unconscious lover, waiting in a silent plea for her to come back.

“Come back to me, baby, please.” He turns his face to kiss your palm, pressing his lips softly against your skin. One last desperate attempt. “I love you.”

———

In the vast emptiness, there’s nothing. No sound. No light. Just a void that swallows everything around you, making it impossible to tell where the darkness ends and you begin. The cold envelopes you into a silence so complete, it feels suffocating.

The isolation is absolute. It’s not loneliness, because loneliness requires awareness. Here, you’re just lost. Trapped in a place that feels like it’s outside of time, where the world outside is just a distant memory. You can’t remember how long you’ve been here, or how you got here. You can’t remember the last time you felt warmth or light. You only know the relentless pull of the dark.

But then… a voice.

It’s faint at first, like a whisper across a windless field. Barely audible, but it’s there, tugging at the edges of the silence. You can’t place it, but something about it feels so familiar, like it’s a thread that belongs to you. It’s a lifeline, delicate but real.

“I need you to wake up, baby.”

The voice cracks, the sound trembling with raw emotion, desperation leaking through every word. It’s his voice. Chris’s voice.

It reverberates through the isolation, cutting through the layers of silence that have settled over you. For a moment, you don’t move, unsure of what it means. But the longer you listen, the more you realize: this voice is not just calling to you. It’s pulling you back.

“I can’t do this without you.”

Each word, each begging prayer, draws you closer to something—something warm and familiar and human. You don’t know how, but you can feel it. The weight of the isolation begins to shift, the oppressive quiet lightening just a fraction. His voice is the only thing you can feel. The only thing you can trust.

You don’t know if your heart is still beating, if it’s still alive, but his voice stirs something inside you. A faint echo of life. It pulls at the thread of your consciousness, urging you, nudging you forward.

“Come back to me, baby, please.”

The isolation isn’t gone, not yet. But his voice has cracked open a space in it, just enough for you to feel the warmth of connection again. The darkness is no longer whole, the quiet is no longer deafening.

And with that fragile sliver of sound—of love—you begin to realize you’re not alone. Not anymore.

“I love you.”

Those words, steady and strong, are the final pull. And with them, you feel the first true stirrings of movement. A heartbeat. A breath. A lifeline to pull you back from the endless void.

The warmth of his cheek is in your hand.

Chris feels it. It's faint at first, a gentle scratch of your fingers through his hair. The smallest movement, but it’s enough to make him freeze. His breath catches in his throat. His eyes widen in disbelief.

You’re awake.

He sits up slowly, hesitant, as if afraid he might disturb this fragile moment. His heart hammers in his chest, and he watches you with a mix of wonder and fear. Your eyes flutter open, soft and blurry at first, and then you lock with his.

“Fuck,” he chokes out, his voice breaking as his hands cover his face. A new wave of tears that he didn’t know he was holding back breaks free, his body shaking.

You call his name, softly, but it feels like the most real thing in the world.

“Chris…”

The sound of your voice, so tender, makes his heart lurch. His body trembles with the weight of everything he’s held in, all the fear, the doubt, the pain. He looks at you, his hand trembling as he reaches out, unsure of how to touch you—how to hold you—now that you’re here.

He finally stands, his legs weak, and pulls you into his arms. Carefully, gently at first, afraid you might shatter in his grip. But then he holds you tighter, pressing his face into the curve of your neck, his body shaking with sobs he can no longer contain.

You hold him, your arms wrapping around his back, feeling the tremors of his pain against your skin. And in that moment, you don’t cry because you’ve returned. You cry because you can feel his hurt, deep and raw, coursing through his body. It’s too much. It’s everything.

“I'm sorry, baby,” you whisper, your voice a soft echo against his trembling frame.

Chris pulls away slightly, just enough to see your face, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, his lips find yours in a kiss—deep and urgent, as if he needs to make sure you’re really here, that you’re not going to slip away again.

The taste of your tears, mingled with his, falls onto your lips, but you don’t mind. You need him to feel you. You need him to know you’re not leaving.

When he pulls back, he stares at you with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if he can’t comprehend what’s happening.

“I thought you died,” he says, his voice breaking.

Your heart snaps in your chest, and without thinking, you pull him back to you, crashing your lips against his again, more desperate this time. It’s a silent vow, a message you don’t need to say aloud: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

When you finally pull away, you look him in the eyes, your voice a steady promise.

“I will never leave you.”

Without another word, he pulls you into his arms again, holding you as if you are the very air he breathes.

“I love you,” he whispers once more.

And you whisper back, your heart full and alive, “I love you too.”

—

a/n: i’m sorry<3 thank u for reading<3 please lmk what u think!!!!

also idk if u guys care to know but another lias update: idk where to bring the story😭 i’ve written and rewritten the second part like twice now but im rly stuck w where i want the story to go. i’ll get to it when i get to it but for now we’ll have inspo for other things.

ok i love u guys<333

[skippingseaglass]

sword of damocles?

[lovesickeros]

☆ de fontaine

{☆} characters furina {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort {☆} word count 1.4k

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!

She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.

She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.

Furina is tired.

But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?

So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.

Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.

Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.

An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.

She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.

She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.

She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.

And Furina has always been good at lying.

It's the believing that's the hard part.

There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?

Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.

She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?

She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.

Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?

Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.

Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?

They were dying – that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?

"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"

Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.

Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.

Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.

Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.

"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.

But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.

They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.

She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.

If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..

Furina will make sure they do.

[sluckythewizard]

'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[thedevotionaltour]

i have to come up with three pitches for a publication for my artist book class and one of them i came up with like i was originally thinking a general broad kinda girls love fun mag thing but bc of rambling and thoughts i had yesterday i thought it might be fun to make a butch centric one but specifically for what i would deem as not the expected image of butch. very much for those of us who aren't so macho and masculine and tough. who lean a little softer. a little more effeminate. who get questioned on the validity of our butchness. more boyish. im not quite sure how to describe it but kind of in that realm. i guess perhaps in general an exploration of maybe in general venturing into just a more unexpected style of. bc you know even those who do appear that way can still have a behavior unexpected with such a look. i guess perhaps, overall, a more tender exploration of butch. so many people see quotes about how butches are quite tender people when you know them but i dont think they always know what that means or how it presents. very much a how i view myself as i often feel not up to par with butch expectations in a variety of ways, whether it be presentation or sexual preferences or interests or perception of self.

[aria0fgold]

So that's... the power of Luocha e1... I get it now. I am now a lil less salty from losing my 75/25.

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

hate how im now at a point where im legit like kicking my legs and grinning like an idiot over fictional characters SEND HELP

[vanishintoyou]

not my first reaction to this information as i learned it during the intermission of challengers (yes i finally went to see it) and i was having a lowkey breakdown through the intermission and the beginning of the second half a little bit but ummm: well of fucking course i literally dont deserve anything

[usagifuyusummer]

Is this what you meant @jjimene123, on the Timmy Turner and Pink Diamond parallels lmao?

Been thinking abt this quote from end of an era!! It makes me THINK

[kartana]

I have such a problem letting people go. I really don't want people to go.

[turtlemagnum]

i think it's really cool about how pretty much everybody who gets any significant amount of notoriety has people thirsting after them, even if they're not conventionally attractive or are even actively terrible people like serial killers or a tech CEO. just goes to show that attractiveness is subjective and there's always gonna be someone out there that thinks you're hot, even if you don't see it yourself. like seriously i've seen people hornyposting over mark fucking zuckerberg, that shit makes me feel so hopeful for me finding somebody who thinks im hot. if there are women that wanna fuck fallout centaurs im gonna find at least one that wants to fuck me, mark my goddamn words

[earanie]

.

[fxckinemo]

WELL.

[yume-no-miya]

look i love making sae be the one who's so in love and showering hajun with so much love and affection but it's much more fun to think that HE fell harder than her