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izzysink · 16 days ago

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𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐣𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝒋𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒙 𝒅𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒂𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡: 𝟹𝟸𝟹𝟺 ✎ 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠: 𝑢𝑛𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 ✎ 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

✎ The Morrígan is the irish-celtic shape-shifting goddess of war and fate, she hovers over the battlefield as a crow or raven.

✎ Danu is the matriarch of the Irish Pantheon, yet not much else is known about her or her “realms” - I didn’t do tons of research on these gods + goddesses so if I get something wrong please tell me!!

✎ Lugh is the Celtic god of sun and light.

𝑅𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 - 𝑦𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑒!

𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔:

✎ Fiadh - 40

✎ Reader - 17

✎ Saoirse - 16

✎ Niamh and Roisin - 10

Set during the end of the giant war and before trials of apollo - if i make a part 2 were just gonna pretend toa doesn’t exist. Jason and Piper don’t have a romantic relationship, we’re keeping it platonic besties. I probably fuck with the timeline a bit so pls don’t bite me. IMPORTANT!! I haven’t finished hoo but i wanna write for Jason and i'm physically incapable of writing modern aus so I'm guessing who is where in the final battle; CHB = Percy, Jason, Piper, Leo, all cabin counselors, Romans, Greeks, ATHENS = Annabeth, Nico, Hazel, Frank, Romans, Greeks.

Please correct me if i am wrong 🌝

Also! The reader is born and raised in Ireland, I don’t really describe her that much but she’s not completely undescribed soooo, no use of Y/N apart from once, I actually gagged when I wrote that I’m so sorry but girlie has to introduce herself yk?

Also we're not gonna mention how I haven’t finished hoo. I don’t wanna hear it okay 😩 I Also made a little bit of the final battle with Gaea up as well, but let's face it I'm only here for the romance 💋 - yes i am ignoring the weird catapult octavian uses bc im not writing that thing, I’m also ignoring him. anyways;

𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦!

When you first heard of the possibility of other godly children in America, you weren’t too keen on the idea of revealing yourself and your friends to them. There weren’t any demi-gods in britain, a mystery your mentor and leader of the small camp you call home, Fiadh, a daughter of Danu who took you in along with the twenty something other celtic demi-gods residing in the camp on the east-coast of Ireland. Fiadh, with her wild hair and mother-hen demeanor had become a mother figure over the years, more so than your own godly parent.

She had tried to find any semblance of a community in Britain or northern Europe, and had even dispatched you to look in eastern Europe - your grandma was a Bulgarian immigrant in the 60’s, and you’d grown up visiting places like Moldova and of course Bulgaria in your early childhood before monsters had started to become an issue - to your behest, you thought that revealing yourselves to another pantheon was too great a risk, and a danger the bubble of protection your camp provided. The only signs of any other pantheons Fiadh had found were whispers of Egyptians and a norse murmur in Scandinavia.

You never knew why Fiadh even wanted to have contact with other demi-gods, was she not content with the community she had spent her life building? The community that had saved so many lives?

That was before Long Island.

Being a daughter of Morrígan, you have the ability to shift into a raven, though it’s not done easily at will. Morrígan is a triple-goddess, a figure composed of three deities, all three are Morrígan but are not each other, confusing right? Imagine having three mums all in one. Parent-teacher evening is a nightmare. Badb (part of the Morrígan trio you call mum) is known to have hovered over battlefields as a crow or raven, and even to cause fear and confusion among soldiers and to turn the tides to her favoured side.

It was a balmy august day at camp when you felt a violent tug in your gut. You had been playing tag with the younger girls - Niamh and Roisin, 10 year old twin daughters of Lugh. you had paused in your chasing of the two almost immediately. You had felt this a year before, in August as well. You had changed into a raven instantly and had to be kept in a bird cage to stop you from flying away - you had been sat inside with Fiadh when it happened thankfully, as you were drawn by an unexplainable force to fly away, you had slammed into windows and completely trashed the main cabin before Fiadh had finally put you in the cage. That was awkward. Especially when you felt yourself turning back two days later, and had to squawk like crazy to make Fiadh release you before you were crushed by the cage.

Two days was a concerningly long time for you to be stuck like that, you had only ever shifted to a raven for a few hours at most, and the longer you stayed in that form, the more you felt your human self slip away, your earthly concerns and memories had floated above you like through a pane of glass, there, but just out of reach, replaced with a purely animal way of thinking and the desperation to fly west. The relief you had felt when the window opened and you felt your little boned body begin to swirl with magic, your human form coming back, was unprecedented.

So it was understandable that you were a little bit panicked when you felt that same sensation begin to bubble in your gut. You hadn’t even tried to shift since last year, fear consuming you whenever you attempted. You tried to run to the main cabin, Fiadh was probably making lunch with a few of the other kids, but it was too late, your body shrank and your hair morphed into feathers, your mouth became a beak. Your senses doubled and tripled, overwhelming you as you flew uncontrollably west. You tried to fight it, flapping in circles as the girls gaped up at you from below. Eventually you relented to your body, the mental struggle of fighting your instincts too much for you to resist.

Later, Fiadh told you of the aftermath, Niamh and Roisin had burst into the main cabin, panicking as they told Fiadh what had happened only minutes prior. The next few days were spent in disarray as efforts were sent out to find you all over Ireland, all coming back empty handed with only a few scratches and monster encounters to make up for it. Your best friend at camp, Saoirse, hadn’t slept at all, spending the most time out on the hills to find you, and had almost died searching the north forests.

You, on the other hand, had flown across the Atlantic ocean to America. Joy.

When you arrived where your instincts had pulled you kicking and screaming, it was a battlefield. literally. Hundreds of kids in purple and orange shirts fought monsters, though they weren’t like the ones you knew. The battle was surrounded by forest, you could see a summer camp a little ways away as well, and the coast was a mile or two from the main battle.

The massive revelation of the existence of other demi-gods, because they had to be, you could feel the godly power from where you perched in a high tree a good ways away, didn’t connect with you until much later, in the moment however, it just felt right, as if you always knew, as if you were meant to be there, to observe and be a part of this place in history. Oh Fiadh would be thrilled.

You stayed mainly out of the cross-fire, watching without taking it in fully yet astutely aware of what was happening, the demi-gods were losing strength, more and more kids were being injured or killed by the army of monsters every passing hour. Your fluttering heart sank to your feet, well, claws, an agonised screech escaped your throat, grief and desperation for the strangers to win clawed at your heart, you prayed to your mother, begging for a blessing on these children.

That was when you saw it, a massive, bronze, dragon flying up with a goddess in its maw. A boy rode on its back, and shockingly, a blond boy flew up beside him carrying a girl in his arms. You were drawn to the trio in the sky, gliding over to hover above. The girl, whom up close you noticed to be beautiful, with choppy brown hair she pulled off amazingly and who had an almost magnetic aura, spoke to the goddess. You could feel the magic in the words from where you circled the group, she was powerful. Though you were close you couldn’t hear what they were saying very well, though you understood when the goddess, the leader of the monsters, you instinct told you, fell asleep in the dragon's clutches.

The boy riding on the back of the dragon wore suspenders and a tool belt that looked stuffed full, he had an impish face and you guessed he would usually be a jokester, but his expression was anything but. You could see the tense stares between the trio as they argued for a few moments over something, before the blond boy and the girl flew back down. You stayed with the boy, a silent companion for a boy you didn’t know. Blood pumped in your veins as you circled the duo, something big was coming.

The dragon exploded.

Heat burned your small body as you went limp, falling rapidly through the sky. The boy fell beside you, unconscious and singed, his face twisted in agony as his clothes caught on fire and his arms covered in burns.

Pain flooded your senses as you fell in sync, a tug in your gut alerted you to the magic swirling in your bones. Shit.

You don’t remember anything after shifting back, only pain and the distant sound of you screaming in panic as you fell. The boy disappeared from beside you, but you didn’t notice. Now that you had shifted back to human form, burns riddled your arms and legs and you felt yourself becoming light headed. You don’t remember touching the ground, because you didn’t. Strong arms wrapped around you as the last wisps of consciousness fall away.

↜✿↝

When Jason saw a girl falling out of the sky right after he saw his best friend explode, he was more than a little confused. Although he hadn’t even had the chance to process Leo’s death, he knew he couldn’t let someone die like that if he had the ability to stop it.

Since the Apollo cabin was already flooded with injured demi-gods, and he didn’t even know who this girl was, he brought her to the main house instead, where the cabin counsellors and the seven were gathering to discuss post-battle. Jason knew she wasn’t Greek or Roman, she wasn’t wearing a camp shirt, and except for a small dagger tied to the belt loop of the denim shorts she wore, there was no indication of her being a demi-god at all.

He held her in a princess carry as he walked across the clearing in the middle of the cabins, most of the monsters had left once Gaea was killed, and now everyone was sat in a post-battle haze, nobody really noticed the son of Jupiter carrying an unknown girl, and he was grateful for it to be honest, he had enough on his plate without people crowding him.

↜✿↝

It was silent around the pool table, nobody had touched the snacks, and even the usually loud and rambunctious Stoll twins sat glumly. Will Solace was with the rest of the Apollo cabin in the med cabin, and Annabeth, Hazel, and Frank were in Athens, but apart from that everyone else was there, including Chiron and Diyonisus. He stubbornly kept his gaze away from the empty Hephestus cabin seat.

Heads turned to him as soon as he walked in the room. Chiron spoke first, “Jason, my boy, it's good to see you well, who is she?”

“I don’t know, she fell from where Festus exploded, she needs medical attention,” Jason said, Piper got up from her seat, “I think there's some nectar in the mini-fridge, are you sure she’s not anyone we know?”

“I don’t think so,” Jason responds as he sits you down gently on an armchair, you’re still blissfully unconscious, a good thing, for if you were awake you would be screaming in pain. Clairisse spoke up from her seat at the table, “well, this is great, Gaea is dead, prophecy fulfilled, and now we have a mystery girl on our doorstep, were not even sure if she’s a demi-god,”

“She probably is, there's a dagger on her belt.” Jason said, “the least we can do is heal her, she’s got some nasty burns and she’ll wake up soon anyway, i think she just passed out from stress.”

Clarisse looked at him sideways, “and when did you become a doctor?”

“Calm down, children, Piper, if you could give her some nectar, I would appreciate it,” Chiron leveled his gaze at Jason and Clarisse, “now is not the time for infighting, we have yet to hear from Athens, and we find ourselves with another pantheon’s ward,”

Percy whistled low, “you mean she’s norse or something?”

“Of a sort, yes,” Chiron agreed, “though I’m not sure how she got here of all places.

Jason heard a gasp as he turned his head, you had woken up, you hissed in pain as Piper fussed over you gently, handing you a square of nectar, you looked at it oddly before eating it anyway, not fully awake or lucid to really question it. Blinking rapidly, you came to fully, and stared at the table of demi-gods confusedly before opening your mouth to speak, “Where-where am I?” Jason almost swooned as you spoke, your accent washing over him like a tidal wave. Now that you were awake, he looked at you more closely. You wore denim shorts and a plain t-shirt, as well as white trainers and lacy ankle socks. You had your hair tied up in a half up half down style - though it was messed up and pointing in a couple directions from falling through the sky, with a bow pinned to the back of your head. And you were cute.

Oh.

“Camp Half-Blood, a camp for Greek demi-gods,” Chiron said, calmly wheeling over to you in his chair, “my name is Chiron, who are you?”

You blanched, “Greek? And you’re American- not that it’s a bad thing just, am I in America, right now?” Chiron nodded affirmatively. “Fuck- sorry, just… oh yeah, um, I’m Y/N, daughter of Morrígan, do you know how I could get home?” that brought Jason out of his trance, he had zoned out listening to your voice, not really paying attention to the words, he could listen to you for hours. Chiron spoke again, “more importantly, how did you get here? I’m assuming you’re from Ireland?” he waited for you to agree before continuing, “were you sent here?”

“No,” you shook your head, “I got pulled here by magic and stuff, it’s kinda hard to explain.”

“I’m rather good at understanding things,” Chiron winked at you conspiratorially. The humor made you relax more, tense shoulders loosening and your muscles unwinding. You smiled at him, Jason almost died, was he okay? He shouldn’t be like this so easily. “My mother, Morrígan, is known to have hovered over battlefields as a crow or raven, being her daughter, I can turn into a raven at will, but it’s not very easy and I haven’t done it since last summer since I got stuck as one for a few days, earlier today i shifted without meaning to and i was sorta dagged here by my instincts to watch.”

“You mean to tell us you flew across the Atlantic ocean in a few hours?”

You shrugged noncommittally, “I guess,”

Piper spoke up from beside you, “do you remember anything from the battle?”

You leant back in you chair as you thought, your brows furrowing, and it was all Jason could do to try and resist the urge to smooth the expression, “not much, i kinda become a bird when i shift, and my mental capacity gets smaller, but i do remember a dragon, and i saw you fly up with the blondie over there.” Jason blushed, and Thalia, who was sitting quietly and observing, gave him a knowing side eye.

Piper's eyes widened, “if you fell when Festus exploded, did you see where Leo went?” she grabbed your hand, imploring you with her eyes. “You mean the boy on the back of the dragon?” Piper nodded furiously as Jason got out of his stupor and paid attention, this may be their only lead to find Leo. “I remember falling with him, but he disappeared after i shifted back, i don't know where he went after that,”

Chiron butted in before Piper could hound you for more information, “I think our guest has had enough questioning, the med cabin is too full to house her, but I think she can stay for a few nights until she can fly home, does anyone volunteer their cabin?” Jason wanted to volunteer, and he almost did before Thalia butted in and saved him from the embarrassment. “The hunters of Artemis would be happy to lend her a bed for a few days, she can join our team for activities and chores while she’s here as well.”

You nodded in thanks as you stifled a yawn, blinking sleep from your eyes to keep yourself awake, “is that bed available now? If it’s not too much to ask,” Gods, why was Jason like this? He didn’t even know this girl and he was already blushing like a schoolgirl with a crush. Thalia nodded, “of course!” and went to help you out of your chair and support you by pulling your arm around her shoulder, heading for the Artemis cabin. Jason found himself oddly jealous of his sister, he wanted to help you to your bed, he saved you so he should- Gods he needed to stop, he’s being so pathetic.

Chatter picked up in the room as soon as you left, and Piper stood next to Jason where he was leant against the wall, arms crossed. She smirked at him knowingly, “she’s cute isn’t she?”

“What?- no, I mean, yes, she's pretty cut- pretty, um-” Piper burst out laughing at his expense while he turned into a blushing mess, how could she? After all he’s done for her? “You should talk to her when she’s fully awake, I’m sure she’d love to meet her dashing savior,” Piper grinned at him devilishly as he gave her a flat look.

Meanwhile, you were lying in a bunk bed Thalia had lay you down in, and panicking. Did you seriously call that boy blondie? Gods, what were you going to do? Why did he have to be so cute? And embarrassingly your type. Saoirse was gonna have a field day when she found out. Tall, strong, blond, ugh! What’s a girl to do?

↜✿↝

It's been a day or two since the battle, and Camp Half-Blood was slowly fixing itself, the kids in Athens had returned, and the med cabin was clearing out except from a few dire injuries. You had been helping to rebuild a couple of the damaged cabins, and you’d even made a few friends. The Romans and Greeks seemed pretty chill about another pantheon of demi-gods existing, which was a relief, and you’d learnt the story of the seven from multiple other people, which made you even more desperate to find the blonde boy who saved you. Since that day, he had seemingly disappeared. You never saw him at the campfires, and you never caught him during the day either; you still haven't thanked him for his catch, and to be honest you kinda wanted an excuse to talk to him as well.

Which was why you were grinning ear to ear when you spotted him sitting by himself at the tree line, you had been on a midday walk when you saw him, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. You made your footsteps louder as you approached to make sure he didn’t spook when you sat down. popping down next to him, you hugged your legs to your chest and put your chin on your knee. “You know, you never mentioned your name,” you said cheekily, looking out into the forest with him. He jumped, perhaps he was less spatially aware than you thought. “Oh. its uh- Jason,” he stumbled over his words as he registered your presence bedside him, tortuously close. “Well then, uh- Jason, thank you for saving my life, I really appreciate it,” that made him relax, the tension melted off his broad shoulders like candle wax, “it's just Jason,” he chuckled, “and you don’t need to thank me, it was just the right thing to do.” you gasped playfully as you replied, “my, so noble my savior, I suppose with that I’ll leave you to your brooding,” you went to get up, but he grabbed your hand desperately, “no! Stay, please?” electricity sparked where your hands joined, magic swirling around the two of you knowingly, a magnetic force of attraction pulling you together like thunder and lightning “of course.”

𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑤𝑜?

𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠! 🤍

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astralnymphh · 7 months ago

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The Sweeter the Wheat

# pair: post-seattle!jackson!ellie x reader

## summary: There is no better birthday gift than loving her.

### reader discretion is advised: romance angst, fluff, bit suggestive towards the end, alcohol consumption, jesse is alive (he thought ahead this time), loser!ellie, sometimes!awkward!ellie, sometimes!cheekyandflirty!ellie, reader is sickenly envious and a bit nosy, but aware, ravenous and tipsy makeouts, sappy shit. #### a/n; listened to "to all of you" by syd matters + "cardigan" by taylor swift while writing parts of it.. got a love/hate relationship with this fic but it slaps i guess

SPRING SUN

“At least we got back before her birthday. Psh—‘magine that sweet tooth havin’ to commemorate her twentieth with nuts and jerky.”

Jackson tholes the bright spring against countless heavy hearts, numb from the death groans of winter. Under the melted snow, came old meadows, but nobody returned to comb through them. Only to pluck them bare of flora for a sole reason—a sole person—and not in the name of beauty.

Some meadows were stabbed through. Pierced into, made into a final home for the dearly departed he.

Time slipped slowly.

“Huh?”

Jesse sits at the tail of the bar, mumbling somethings that fly right past your ears. The diner is packed and the jukebox softly plays, but that of joy and conversation rules, so all nearby speech that is spat has become hodgepodge, herding your brain to run where the world is quiet. Given that, and the subtle significance in the day around you, you feel less than yourself. Immaterial.

There's a rightful wager that you didn't hear Jesse at all. Something about birthdays, maybe.

You pull yourself from the stars with a head-shake, having to retire the tiny notepad in your clutch. “Sorry, I completely tripped out just then. Why are we talking about birthdays—whose birthday are we.. talking about?”

Jesse appeared to be in doubt that your star-scaping moments were over; his features contorting more and more into disbelief as you gave him that barely curious squint. Poor him for having to be offended for somebody else.

A special somebody else at that!

His drawl comes in handy, “Come on, man. Four years strong and now you wanna forget that girl's birthday?” a voice so versed in pettiness, you could smack it right from his clever, grinning lips.

At whim, you almost do. But then his words fall into perfect place; that subtle signifigance makes all the more sense.

Spring: dappled in sunlight and vigorous in the trees, seems lovelier than it would in March or May. Seas of crimson and clovers thrive in the middle of April, and so does the red in her hair—soft, auburn tines—and the meadows in her earnest and shiny eyes. Recently dim, bruised and disheartened. But there, and unplucked at least, above the freckles you least regret missing when vengeance and a clue drove her out of this large, timber sanctuary. Home.

Every year on this day, the sun is relentlessly beautiful. No wonder, you think, now that you remember.

It's Ellie's birthday.

“Shit,” you curse, chewing at your guilty lip. “Is Ellie hiding out today as well? Haven't noticed her walking the thoroughfare at all.” Through the idle-talk, your hands find stray porcelain to retrieve and pile in the sink, scoffing at the liters of coffee that inevitably go cold in forgotten mugs.

“Do you notice anything working behind that counter?”

“Duh, dipshit,” you spout, back-talking him shamelessly, “I noticed you ambling towards the window earlier and knew my ears were in for a grating punishment.” Minding your eyes on nothing but the various plates you grab, the clutter clears fast. Like a damn robot.

He raises his hands in defense. “Hey, not my fault patrol’s been on cruise control this week.” With a part of the counter graciously tidied by your speedy work, he reclines in the barstool and claims that space with his lower legs, off to the side. Blissfully permission-less. “Can't say the same for here, though.”

You draw in a prefacing breath, tilting a cup at him. “You could if you hel—”

“No chance.”

“Fuck you, Jess,” you reply wielding a nickname given for occasions of defeat, little knives glaring from your eyes. “Thought this friendship had a no-questions-asked sort of thing. You've disgraced me.” Cueing that age-old love for drama, you gild the lily; mock a drama-queen. Hand to your heart and a pout to your mouth.

Hating Jesse is out of the picture, and hate is an easy pill to swallow. Sure, you two bark blank insults from time to time, but it's all in good humor. You just get each other too well. A hitch fated to click. A shoulder to violently sob into.

Jesse tuts at you, rolling a smug pair of eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Diners just aren't my thing, as infected aren't yours.” He reaches and grasps his mug of coffee that'd been basking there ever since you whipped up his usual, content in keeping his gob flat for the ‘noon.

And you're content in the casual peace and company. Always are. It coerces you to fulfill orders quicker, you would say. Here you stand, in perfect function, machine of the cogs.

That's how all days streak by here. A warm sun arises, and the hustle and bustle of human nature crowds every faded red booth in here, as your kin would have you sustain, and you sustain it fine enough. Even with the latching, mostly silent presence of your best bud Jesse to keep boredom a stranger and insanity a myth. Peckish lips, thirsty throats; everybody. All famished faces of Jackson, satisfied in the wake of your work. All, save one.

Ding!

At the entrance, you hear the jingle of the tiny, golden bell topping the door, and it doesn't intrigue you to investigate. Everyone is a frequenter, and you're basically omnipresent; sensing who it is and where they're routed to before they even sit. Call that perfect function.

Abruptly, the vintage magazine Jesse blankly browsed through is smacked back in place, and his throat clears. “First customer to break the hour-long streak. Let's see who—” he trails, and a dramatic pause thickens the air. Surprise loudly ensues. “Oh, ain't that funny. Look what fate dragged in.”

“Is it not a regular?” you ask, and at last perk your chin up. Intrigue clasps you now, as Jesse thought it atypical enough to point out.

Turns out, it isn't a regular at all.

Fate was a scary portrayal, as fate—and unfinished threads—would have you snuck into a corner and stranded for her to find. Plaid and blue, stood Ellie, lost as a doe in tangled woods, yet tall with purpose in front of that swinging glass door. From here, you notice her right arm supported in a white sling and twisted into her chest, right off the bat, as you did the night of return. Changes were made, obviously, sprigs of marker detailing the canvas-color of it, no doubt produced by those pesky kids in-town. Her tattoo is sorely invisible behind the bandages too; you've always liked that thing.

She's a bona-fide crush. A red-headed angel.

There and then, you recall why your heart reawoke into a prance that night she returned head to toe in dry, aged blood. You felt the revival of an inner-warmth, tracing fingers over the stitches in her back as she hunched in repressive quietude. Felt the moon evaporate off your skin, felt her wrist tensen in your palm as you dressed the wounds in hers. Felt the elusive moment staying became going, as it wasn't right.

You went straight home and threw right up, that very night. Her cold, marred skin was as deathly-like as the skin of a corpse. And you trailed your fingertips, all over it.

Strange. In a week, her flesh has been suppled of life. Hale, blushing and glowing as in younger days.

In your heart: a tremor. It reaches up every time you swallow, and blooms its beat, pounding at the pit of your throat. You don't feel real, you feel light, you feel fright. You feel the past, waking from a slumber in you, emerging breathless beyond the surface. So many things.

You feel fourteen again.

“Guess her ears were burning,” mumbled Jesse, polite enough to not transform your shared scrutiny into a scene, only so he could leave it in your hands. His head carefully turns, speaking softly, “You spoke to her at all, recently?”

“No,” a weighted breath departs you, and your shoulders repose. “Only the night she returned, while I tended to some of her travel wounds. Conversation wasn't easy to digest.” Shunning her very blatant presence, you pick your wash rag and begin again, foraging distraction.

“Bet not. Shit got hectic on the route Tommy picked,” he hums, and his eyes pursue once more to secretly follow her walking the opposite direction. Eyes you expectantly the second she slips into a booth. “Gonna take her order?”

You glower at his smug stare, knowing full well he intends to badger you into jumping the gun. Well, you're employed to do that, but, fuck fate! “Uh, duh? Di—”

“—Ipshit. Stop stalling.” He aims his hand, escorting you. “Birthday girl awaits.”

“Yeah, hold that smile. See what happens later.”

“Mhm.”

EXTRA SYRUP

Spectral hands suffocate your heart, and now your chest is tightened. Gut nervously sickened. There, she sits, seemingly absorbed by the air, and the sun that ripens with it. Thumbing at her nails, but not anxiously. Blowing at her lip, but not boredly. Hair dark ochre as the earth, yet fiery as the flaxen ray that pours into it. Tucked into a neat bun, as it was in December, January, and every paving year before. You like her hair that way.

She halved it up when Joel passed, and Seattle howled her name.

A lot about Ellie changed, really, but that is the perennial nature of water. Ellie is Neptune; a late-teenage girl experiencing a crucial shift into a new, individual season. Ones so seldom—they're cataclysmic, but temporary.

So much of her is eclipsed to the naked eye. Buried to make burrowing space for others. Just not you, it seems.

Every now and then, she glances as you intricately work your way over, a fist cupped to itself as if it alone safekeeps her deep and untold intentions; the warrant for sitting there. And you too, glance when her eyes smoothly retreat, dedicating pockets of this single, cherished minute to drink in little glimpses of her face. Trying to read her, read the shapes on her face if they indicate trouble, or truce. Last time you talked, you declared your resentment for being left worried and sleepless in Jackson.

Was it out of love?

Through the fair-haired light, that scar-heavy look on her features has noticeably abated, recapturing the tender warmth that gave her face the kind, puppy-browed ambiance you hesitated the world for. Gently laid brows, scarred the same as ever.

Those fucking freckles, too; a constellated map. Hidden miles and miles away for one sun and moon too many.

Not a mile bridges you both apart now, not anymore.

“Hey, Ellie,” you chime in, frail in respect of the one-mind conversation her idle stare partakes. Just her, and the spring sun. Sweet wheat skin is taken from its aerial shine as her head heeds your voice, a loose twine of auburn falling from place.

Your somber greeting fine-tuned the focus in her eyes, softening into a shape less spacious, more devoted.

And though away from underneath the boughs of sunlight, her eyes found a disembodied source. Dried moss, gleams into a violent sea glass, pupils taking in how you hold that notepad firm in thumbs and pointers.

For the first time in an age, you too, have changed.

The corners of her lips crease into her cheek. “Hey,” her reply mirrors the breathiness of yours, and her left arm low-arcs up to rest on the booth seat, body facing you head-on. Totally relaxed. “How come you didn't mention the job switch? Was lookin’ for you,” she asks curiously, a tinge of that sweet-talk peeking through her wide grin.

Now that you've stepped closer and garnered her attention, you can see and feel every notched nicety of her face on yours. You can only imagine how a swollen, sliced lip feels, and the continual migraines a fractured nose brings. Weeks of healing have swept by, but her afflictions in particular weren't petty.

“Guess it felt irrelevant to bring up when you got back. But you're here now, and you found me. So?” your tone edges on.

“Well, yeah,” she chuckles. “Did you not miss me?” She feigns offense; brows quirking and her tone pitching slightly.

You did.

A sigh starts in you, “Hard to not miss and worry for somebody when you picked up their slack in every patrol dating way back.” Barely nipping what you really felt with a snarky tease. “Oh shit, that rhymes,” you glance off and whisper to yourself, still loud enough to inspire mirth.

And it does; her forehead pinches and her voice rises in mirth, laughing casually and shifting in her seat to lean one elbow upon the table. “Ha— yeah,” she admits defeat. Ellie is undeniably cute when she does, always shrinks into herself and sinks into thoughtful conference, thinking of something—anything smart to knock you back into that corner. “Guess you're right. Hm, always were on my ass about that, huh?”

You tut, “Mhm. Missed my scolding in Seattle?” crossing a leg and bearing weight upon it.

“Nah,” she confesses briefly, and you barely believe it. Wringing in doubt at that sly smile she tries to conceal from you. “I learned my lesson this time.” Ellie glances up, a prayer written on her face asking you to hold your scolds. “Trust me.”

“Hurt enough this time?”

“Fuck you!” She punts you playfully in the ankle and begins a laugh again. “You’re not allowed to point that out!”

That was the way of things; Ellie would charge into a fight wearing her life on her chest, slackening the rules, and you had to reel her in. Tug the leash. It had you suspecting her to have a foolproof reason as her backbone, like she was daring the devil with eyes fearlessly open. Steadfast intent. She would lure runners to her, grapple them from you, or push you away beyond safety. Leave you to watch an animalistic vigor fill every bind in her body until you're convinced she’s either coming out bitten or scathingly torn.

You wish she saw how worrying she truly looked; a sweet face splattered hair to chin in the blood of infected, catching her breath and shaking the arm of the croaking infected she just slaughtered off her ankle. Being way too blithe-hearted for the sacred sake of everyone involved.

“Don't worry about me.”

One day, when she asked you with her solemn eyes to be afraid, you thought she finally trusted you to handle yourself past her overprotective nature. Then, one clicker got too close for comfort, and she retracted the pact of fighting equally. Losing more than what her blade owes the earth would prove her fears to be a product of her unsacrifice.

Ellie figured it was half the reason you quit patrol duty, but not that it was fully the reason you anguished over her leaving for Seattle later on; her appetite for violence.

She accepts it so easily. But even when you had sworn she had place in something as simple as retiring from patrol and nothing else, she smelt the sugary scent of a white lie. Joel did it before. She never accepted it under a gentle radar. Instead, it had her wondering if she had upset you, if you would forgive the crimson melodrama and still take her up on breakfasts at ten when she returned. Regardless if you painted the full picture in the end, apologies spilled alike to winded waters out of this girl; sorry that she still could not stomach you tagging along for vengeance. Never-ending sorries, and you lapped each one up. Brought gaping arms around her and absorbed all the ugly and hopeless sounds. You wanted to prove her fears wrong, but perhaps it was time fear let you be the lamb. Live and let live.

Then, Dina would step in, and Ellie would be wrapped around her finger in sudden laughter. Happy and unhurt. Couldn't even remember what occurred before her sun entered the room, and dried those tears.

Crimson melodrama is all you preserved when abandoned, and is all you could look at her with when in longing.

The winter dance had your guts up to your throat.

Seattle, inexplainable.

You don’t hate Dina; your envy lies with the disconnection of it all.

“What do you recommend?” she questions, and her eyes anticipate you to be the ultimate apocalyptic-dining expert. Locked and attentive. She then begins to shake her head in gesture, planting the menu down. "I don't— I don't usually go to these kinds of places, so.. What do you think?" she awkwardly giggles, tapping the menu's plastic sleeve.

Tension presses a smile onto your lips at her inelegance. "Nobody does, not even people who went to these places before the outbreak," you opine, swapping the notepad to one hand and sliding into the booth. "It's okay. I mean.. hmm, what do you prefer? Sweet or salty?"

Her eyelids flick down, fingers coming to lace together as her eyes traverse the options. "Uh, I guess I— wait, wait," she interrupts herself. A swift finger draws you to look down at the menu, "You guys make pancakes here?" green eyes gaping at you with pupils more voracious than her stomach—or her sweet tooth.

"Yeah."

"I'll have that then."

It was a steadfast verdict. The sweet honey pancakes, she shall have, at the cost of a couple minutes and a couple ingredients. But it isn't traditional for birthdays, so you weigh in. “Just pancakes? I mean.. Faye is back there if you want something a little more celebrator—”

“—I'm not really a blow-the-candles-out and make-a-wish type of person,” she corrects you, brows cinched in as she rambles. Then, her free hand scoots the menu forward. “But you already knew that, you just insist otherwise,” she chuckles, unable to meet eye and eye.

True. Your soft insistence dawns from wanting nothing less than heaven inside everything for her, and maybe a dash of that sweet-sweet crush on her. But, Ellie is so staunch in being the humble girl that doesn't glorify every recorded happening with string lights and a wish hurled into the uncaring universe bent upon nurturing demised, late lights young girls reach for. She kept everything low-key: a small garage get-together on her last birthday, the one before that, and the one predating those two. Alcohol in your palms and movies playing back to back. Budding distorted laughs and tumbles into each other. Birthday things.

The remnants of her fifteen-year-old mind hangs aimlessly inside that museum. Dangled and stretched into archaic bones. On the day of return, she arrived happier than a sunflower drunk on the sun. Broad smiles and whatever else.

Wasn't for long.

“Forget you're so down-to-earth and reserved about all the fun things,” you snarkily deliver, retiring that still empty notepad behind your back. Memory shall serve. “Will that be it then?”

“Are you saying I'm not fun?”

“I'm saying you need more of it.” You emphasize with a tiny bounce-up on your calves, tilting your head north. Though, nothing she uttered was wrong and so your voice silkily drones on, “And that.” You act the lack of a ruder way to insinuate. “But yeah, okay. One order of pancakes coming up.”

“Cool, I'll uh—have a 'celebratory' drink in the meantime?” She nudges the menu towards you once again, irises pulled thin on themselves. Thoroughly staring; your reflection in a bead of black.

You have to laugh, kindly laugh. “No alcohol here, dumbass.”

“Oh. Right.” Her doe-stare only crescendoed from there, shying away at the result of her asking. Something reluctant is lodged in her pale throat, stumbling out only when it feels imminent as you turn away. “D-Do you wanna chat, afterwards? There's so much bullshit surrounding Seattle I have to catch you up on and I-I didn't before, so.."

Swinging your head back, you gauge that mercurial girl there. Tripping up her request like it couldn't escape hibernation from her head any quicker than insult does.

Faye shouldn't mind. “'Course, I was left to wonder about everything since that night anyway.” Your boss might even encourage it; knowing that your long-standing crush for her—heartbreaking to fathom, beautiful to feel—never swept you from rambling Ellie into some fairytale, so she would use it to psych you into asking her out. Jesse, too. Damn the nosy ones!

But it's the one thing that keeps you worried now.

“Cool, cool. Oh, hey, add extra syrup will you?”

What does Ellie think of you?

“Mhm,” syrup is nowhere as sweet as your hum. “Got it.”

Does she think of you at all?

MOUTHS ALL-CONSUMING AND DEPRIVING

Minutes in, minutes out, wallowing at that ruby-red booth fed the realization to Ellie that the nerves feeding off her anxious chest could not combat conversation alone. She needed an aid. Liquid courage. Velvety smooth and robust.

Fortunately for betting gods and heaven-watching anyones, leftover whiskey from the last bonfire made stock in her cloistered, chaotic cabinets. So it founded no surprise that it whirled to mind after the celebratory-drink fact; leading you here, in her bedroom, on her bed. She pours whiskey into stubby glasses, One for her, one for you, and a lucky extra two for further along this unexplored line. Nothing overflowing limits.

But, oh boy, did it make you all lovey-dovey.

Her lips move and they dance over words, but all you hear is your own enamoration of how heart-shaped they are. You see, but fail to hear and comprehend. Floating aimlessly into those freckles, again. Something a fourteen-aged, sanguine mind would do.

Ellie was relaying Seattle to you, she prefaced. Prefacing didn’t aid you in paying attention, though. Today is not your sharpest, it dates to be your most absentminded. Not your usual, at all.

Nods are swayed to every shock-value word that you manage to understand, but the star-crossed rest, you miss, and replace with whatever story her pupils trace. They flit to read your face after each end of her sentences, so it has you thinking too much of her time has slipped without the company of a listener, and now that her time slips into you, she can use it to stretch your expression with whatever witty remark she makes.

She did one day blurt that your laugh compliments your smile—or however that fucking flirt threw it over the crackle of that bonfire.

In fact, when you begin to let parts of her body neck-down from her face distract you, only then do you decipher how much she has grown in a month.

She pitches her drink to sip, and your eyes are hot on that glassy trail, artistically concerned with the way she swills down whiskey: fluently gulped, throat bobbing, the scar on her lip licked clean. Her brows too, have thickened, much so as her leathered skin, her callouses. She traces her thigh in circles repeatedly—a fidgety habit—and her lips purse and tug and wrinkles hug and press said lips when they are prettily wide.

Every high noon or low point of her body was different, and you have missed a great many things you care too much about to not appreciate every brink and midst. You don't want her to be lost to otherworld winds without studying her presence harshly. She is in your scrutiny, now more than ever.

“So, do I get to see my pancakes yet, or?”

“Oh, oops.” You snap out of your woolgathering, wagging your head left to right. Then briskly as you assented her invitation, you slide your knees under you, reorganizing your seating. “Can't blame me for being so invested in your epic tales. Could totally be a comic narrator for the school in town.”

Ellie had already been sat skyward. Sprawled at one leg and tucked at the other, arm in her lap, where her whiskey is nestled. “Oh, sure,” she says with a sarcastic edge. “Those kids are a bunch of little shits. They would probably interrupt me with fart jokes or make actual fart sounds than sit still and pay attention for thirty minutes.”

“Hmm,” you hum, short and atonal, peeling the corner of the plastic lid back. “And who do you think taught them those terrible jokes, huh?”

Soft lids narrow together to sharpen her gaze; glaring at your clever comment, lips propped slightly open. “Terrible?” An offended, toothy smile pulls on her lips. All sentences she could possibly muster up come crashing into each other; an agglomeration, “I—They aren't bad jokes—and they're puns, really, so they're actually pretty fuckin' smart,” she boasts with brows raised. “And It isn't my fault that every annoying kid picked them up and started repeating them.”

It most certainly is her fault. Hell, even you catch yourself reciting them at the crest of nightfall, giggling into your palm. Although, why she's trying so rigorously to plead her pun-enjoying case to you, might just be funnier. “Are you seriously trying to explain puns to me?”

“God,” she surrenders in a chuckle, and bows her head to introduce another quick sip to her parched lips. Ellie then eyes you for a blank second thereafter, tugging the plump of her lower lip through her teeth. Like contemplation has her hindered.

Around you, the lungs of the garage’s foundation inhale, and exhale; creaking and settling.

She dashes a huff. “You basically asked,” Ellie reminds you, her tone and eye-roll implying obviousness. “Can I eat my pancakes now? M'hungry.” Her face sutures into a pseudo-frown and encloses herself to a crisscross, impatiently behaving.

Now, as for the pancakes. Fluffy, biscuit brown, star-shaped, bountifully rivered in unrestricted syrup, topped off by a definitely-melted, humbled ingot of butter. Needless to say, you're pleased by what boredom and intact cooking-books taught you, and she hasn't even seen them yet.

The ask for a carryout-container was already in order the moment you set pace for her table, because you wound up in a near-catastrophe as she sought you out around the kitchens like a lost pup and maundered right into you. Thank patrol for instincts; it's the one thing you held an undying clutch to. And the sweet pancakes you proudly plated, making refuge on the counters as you cross-examined Ellie in case you injured her arm more.

Lucky girl was all fine and peachy, of course.

She only knocked you two right into that near-injury mess to invite you here. Persuasion sat readily in her throat incase you questioned her motives—most of her ideas turning out to be a little friend-group antic, never anything serious or singular—but you agreed to it in double-time.

“Think you might just be one of those kids at this point.” You gingerly tweak the rim of the plate you kept the pancakes on and lift it outside the container, planting it between all four knees.

“Eh, you're not so innocent yourself,” Ellie contends before she even casts her first peek at the hillock of starry sweetness, totally taken aback when she does. “Holy shit,” she awes, just as if she were a young teen again, “Are you kidding me?”

Labor-intended nights never slip soft through the gaps of your fastened fingers, not even days where your work period is abridged, but hey, strange, space-brain girls are far beyond ordinary exception. Hell, Ellie is vital! Commemorating the red angel you worship in the patterned and soapy act of cooping up on her bed, toasting to the moonlight and letting her talk your ear off for old times' sake is your approach to telling her you love her.

“Know I'm not a pancake-connoisseur, but I gave it a unique whirl. Just for you.” You held a fork out, gracing her with first honors. “Don't blame me if it gives you a stomachache,” your forewarn is a doubtful one; in your mind, morningtime will arise with an extra punch to her gut.

Ellie, however, stares right into the baying eyes of a challenge, snatching the fork from you. "Hey, if it's good enough for my tongue, then it's good enough for ma' gut!" and promptly after exclaim, gashes and tears her fork into the sweet, airy texture of the pancake, popping it past her sweet, berried lips. “Mhh—and I will blame you. So you end up feeling sorry n'take care of me.”

God, whatever souls you would sell to spend paradisal afterlife with this fool. Talking with a gob flush of the birthday project you're humiliated to be proud of. You scoff, “Asshole,” lightheartedly scornful as can be, and it snaps something to mind. Head tilting eye-to-eye, “Dina wouldn't be the one to?” you ask, right after she swallows.

That particular question seemingly struck a chord as her brows cinched together, eyes dropping with allusion. “No,” she says meekly, soft in the sound, but you can tell it came up heavy. Shadowed by a sigh, and an untimely chuckle. “Do you want to know?” She throws on a shrug that ripples through her head, sending it to hang lopsidedly. As the stout willow grows.

“Guess so,” you agree temperately, not wanting to seem too eager—even though with this topic, you just might be. Camouflage those old, foul feelings of envy. “Did Seattle have you kicking more ass than just Wolves and infected? Couldn't have been a very romantic tr—”

“Dina's pregnant.”

Silence carves it's way after that. Thick, tense and unyielding. You had words lined up but like a shot in stark night they've just—vanished, sunk back into the chamber. Nothing prepared you to hear that, “Pregnant?” lowering a hand to your belly where you swear your heart has pummeled to.

Ellie glances up, once at your widened face and once at your hand. A bite of humor works it's way above her chin; smugly smirking. “God, don't tell me you're pregnant now too.”

“What? No!”

Damn idiot. Should punch her right in the—nevermind.

Ellie is way too quick to make serious things unserious. “You're a damn menace,” you unapprovingly giggle.

“Am I?” Amusement raises her brows, tearing into the pancake with her fork for another bite. “Cause you seem to like menace.”

You adjust onto propped elbows, “Do I?” playing all nonchalant. “I mean, what do you mean by that?” your voice dims, expending for the small space that separates you and her.

“Mhh,” she contemplates with a purring sound, and shrugs. “Dunno.” Ellie retreats those eyes downward where you won't compel her to smile. You can tell she battles the letch to look up again, which—as proven in her case—doesn't fucking work. She shoots up carefully, and it's a conflicted gaze this time. “Not with Dina anymore, though. That’s the other thing.”

And we're back.

Having reconciled the chance, you retrace. Look at her with somber concern. “Did something between the two of you happen?” It's a gentle question, reinforced by the bulletproof stare you offer her to unwind in.

The air in her voice softens, “Sort of,” and the meridians of your body then become easier to look at as she continues, wrinkles in her brows. “Said some things I shouldn't have, and we.. figured it best to leave it at that. For now.” her explanation sounds desolate and attemptless, like she has sat in shadow and vigil accepting this fact and has given up on hope. Crestfallen and quieter; this isn't like her. Bent at her wrist, dangling that glass above her crisscrossed lap like a sad child pokes at the food on their plate.

“For now?” You hate that you pry, but that sick greed in your gut from times before haunts with a hunger for knowledge. Your envy that is enlightenment. Still, you hesitate to seem nosy, wanting nothing than to possibly just console your friend in need. “What's holding you back from.. calling it quits? The pregnancy?” You crane your body upright slowly.

“Just still feelin' bad.” Her fingers begin a tap-dance at the glass' rim. “I'm an asshole.”

You duck at the neck, searching for her downcast eyes. “Come on, El. I've only ever seen you rant and rave at middle-aged grumpy men and infected, no way it was that bad.”

“You weren’t there,” she insists otherwise with an earnest voice, inciting a refreshed sigh as she swigs her whiskey.

“Well, what did you say?” You are relentless. No, normally you would not condone it, but tonight, tongues are loose and boundaries are blurry. You miss your happy girl. “I could talk to Dina, if it helps.”

“Wouldn’t change shit.”

“If you love her, you would try.” Even if it sickens you.

Ellie slots her drink in her lap, and grouches. “Dude.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and stifles a groan, frustrated. It draws out in words without proper footing, “It's weird. We just don't know what to say to each other—I don't know what to say to her, it.. it's just how it is—it was a mutual agreement. None of your business, really.”

Her own tongue is a very obvious byproduct of nerves, whiskey, stress, by and large a lot of things. Being goaded, definitely.

How it is, is how it will be.

“She broke up with me.”

You didn't mean to goad her, but curiosity—and a kiss of alcohol and envy—ate your refrain. The lack of any eye contact or movements to stray from you thereafter her word is telling enough. That it aches her head, and a cold, guilty sweat crosses over your skin. It was a stupid thing to blurt. You feel fucking stupid for even saying that.

Fuck.

Her dry sniffle is noisy on your shortcoming, and has you scrambling to think. “Sorry, just been worried for weeks.” But you shrink into a ball of abraded arms and legs, conserving yourself into a shy, spotted egg of curiosity that clads no hatching cracks to be convicted of. “Thought you two finally getting together would be the dream to end all dreams.” What the fuck do you know anyway?

Her eyes watch through you, into you like water; she notices, and the pancakes are slid to the side. Shuffles of fabric clamber closer as she eats the inches between you two, her breath brushing your forehead. “Hey, hey. I didn't mean anything by it. It's fuckin' great that I got somebody I can drink with and mope to. Really. Just been shitty all around—Tommy? Fuck, he's been the worst lately.”

Everything ascends in temperature once her hand plants on the side of your neck, every nerve petrifies; unheard-of touch. She can feel the gasped tension in your throat, thumbing the muscles down.

“Don't worry about it,” she says, and her saying that amuses you.

A moth-eaten phrase in particular is what was said. You scoff at it, plopping your legs back out. “Dude.” You bite a smile into your lips. Sucks that such a hackneyed thread of words does so; you're really chewing back the urge to call her any byname of dumbass, per usual. But damn that sincere face on her face that sweetens the teasing deal for you. You settle for low-hanging fruit. “You always say that, Ellie.”

“Ugh,” she seconded a scoff back at you, grimacing coyly. “Don't you start.” Ellie drags her hand off, not intending for it to land smack-dab on your thigh. It takes her a second to register the sound, the texture, slinking her hand behind her when you say nothing.

“Start what?” you stutter a laugh, bringing your thighs together.

“Nothin,”

“Don’t bullshit me, WIlliams.” To educe her, you dig your foot into her side, poking her. “Does it have anything to do with only me being here and not anybody else?” You lean into her.

Ellie does too, an exact mirror of you. “No..” The only thing that contrasted you, was her hand again, seeking what was left behind on your thigh. “Just wanted to see you first,” her lips barely move besides a slick smirk. Voice tiptoeing through the air, the noise-level two clandestine lovers live at, in secret song.

“You fuckin liar. No hang-outs for weeks before you left and suddenly you want to see me?” You call bull when she relucts to raise her hung head, witnessing the corners of her lip curl. Her head twists away more, and you spearhead the first, little move: tuck that irkful strand of auburn with a single finger. “C'mon.. what is it?”

“Stupid,” she blatantly spits, and at last confronts your face with her puckish one—glimpsing down, and up, and down. Watching her grip flex into your leg intermittently, chewing her lip. “Mhh, maybe 'm starting it.”

Ellie is heart-poundingly close; her breath is now yours to breathe. You whisper, “Maybe you are,” perking yourself right up to her cheek, unnoticing of the ardor her eyes spin over your face. Unsure where to stare. You pretend the pressure on your thigh flies under the radar, too, and that your heart isn't in the middle of a love-logged swell, and your cheeks aren't tender from smirking at the feeling of it perched there. Love-struck death befalls, if else confessed, so you tease, tease, and tease to stomach your excitement. “Maybe, you're stalling on those pancakes because they actually gave you a stomachache. You feeling good?”

Her bitten lips part, and the next sensations you feel—are transcendental.

Wisping whispers so hot, and intoxicating on your skin, you fail to catch her hand coming up from your thigh to clasp your face, or that hers has shifted in front of yours. She breathes out, “Won't you shut up already?” through lips pulled into a smirk, and rushes to press it fondly against your mouth.

You wince—somewhere between an electrified gasp and a reaction of delight—into the kiss she stole, and it only beckons her to starve more for you. The heat of her whiskey breath pours into your mouth, and you drape your eyes closed. Scoring these seconds by, she spends them concentratedly rolling the skin together, others pushing and shying from the kiss, until she stills and bleeds out the pressure in a slow, wet smack. Hazily eyeing you for a response.

Once you feel her no more, your eyes blurrily creak open, and the corners of her lips at soft upturn greet you. Single creases at either side, the few freckles above them outspread.

Judgement renounces you, leaving you with pathetic pickings for reply. You aren't sure what she wants—or needs you to say. “Ellie?” daintily, a mumble flows onto her lips, and is far from a frail sound of concern. Intrigue encapsulates you.

What does this mean?

You think you know, but self-reason has always proven itself to be naive and too eager to trust.

By cruel emotion, she misunderstands you. “Sorry,” she pants out breathlessly, blowing the shape of it into your cleft lips and hovering right upon. Her fingers gouge the fabric clothing your chest, mangling it into her fist—an attempting grasp. This proximity is all she could ever dream of. “Is this okay?” Yet, dreams always sever at the apotheosis. So when she comes in for the second kiss, she wants no more for dreaming; the reality she yawns with hunger into, is insurmountable.

A dewdrop of something cold dribbles between you. Tears.

In turn, you misunderstand her. Using your own stubbornness to create an enigma. To think, that out of the blue, all of this would transpire? After endless wishes unanswered? You doubt it.

You love her, but you refuse the reality of it happening upon you.

Separating from the plush, licked skin of her lips fleetingly, you speak. “Is this you being drunk?” Only to be drawn back in without her processing your words right away, and then drawn back out. Intricate intimacy.

“Please,” Ellie begs, “Answer me, before I feel like an asshole again,” and chuckles sobbingly before her teeth feel rapaciously empty, and cannot tolerate it any longer. Instinct, and teeth nip your bottom, vulnerable lip.

Neither of you could be totally drunk, having only drank a modest portion.

So this is raw.

Thinly pulled, she slowly stretches it across the air between, and watches it spring back beneath eyelids sunken low. The action entails nothing else for her to feed satisfaction from, already panting right in your mouth in search of more as soon as your tongue descries the answer. “More than okay,” you heave in a passioned breath along that all-consuming, deprived mouth. Your hand squeezes her fist confirmingly.

It quenches her lust to know, a hot-blooded, moaned and voiceless curse snapping into your mouth. “I fuckin' love you.” Her rage softens in meeker kisses, peppering them up to the corners of your lips until she pauses, and pulls herself away. Her eyes turn troubled and adrenaline-rushed. Stains of tears shimmer beneath, along new ones that begin to plunge, and for the first time ever, you know they're yours. But then the flesh between frowns, the mood shifting, and she croaks, “Am I.. an asshole?”

It breaks you to hear that.

You glare, and stammer, “W-What? You aren't.” Hooking dearly onto her wrist when her hand glides up to rest against your cheek. “Why?”

“Cause I sprung this on you, 'nd I don't wanna force you to..” Ellie cranks to a halt, mouth screwing shut like her thoughts were too much to bear hearing aloud. “Fuck,” she quietly spews, cowering her face near your neck.

“Said it was okay,” you coo, clarifyingly coo, raking your fingertips up and through the tied loops of her hair. “The only asshole thing you'd ever done was not let me come with you.”

“I know.” Her eyes search for uncomplicated plains. The sheets, her lap, your neck. A kiss is planted as she tips her head, the gust thereafter a warm reminder of her sorries.

“Thought you were going to die.” You awoken in violent patterns, cold nights restless in bed, tossing and turning. Waking and falling into daydreams of how Jackson would feel missing a cardinal component. A girl to rave against dying lights. Thorns scale your throat at the thought. “You're reckless, y'know?” you mean it as a gentle insult, chuckling as it leaves your lips, and sealing it into her scarred palm. Kissing reckless consequences.

Her lips loiter on the pulse of your throat. They drag, and they drag.. sloppily limping over your jaw as she makes her way to observe you in her palm, mumbling low, and gravelly, “How many times am I gonna have to say it?” Ellie deems it redundant to tell you that she knows again, resorting to her own little gentle insult, “Such a fuckin' sap.”

“Says you.”

Her hand is comfortingly warm; you aren't fain to break away. But her fingers are curious, thumb nearly making it into your mouth before she second-guesses herself, easing it at the verge of your lips instead.

A longing moment of Ellie staring at the way her thumb looks—a decoration to your mouth—passes, and she responds, “Still alive, aren't I?” to that loose thread of a plea you forgot you even said. It calls you right over, bidding you to look into her eyes again as space finds itself thinning again, her scratchy, band-aided nose caressing yours. “Dumbass.”

She chuckles into your mouth as you chuckle into hers, cutting yourself off with a kiss that ebbs, and flows. Suckles, and smacks, snaking her tongue in for a change. That sweet, sweet wheat. Saccharinity you can't explore anywhere else other than the outline of her mouth. And you—of grunted volitions in her chest—take exploration further, replacing the grasp of her shoulder with the coursing of fabric, sliding under the hem of her shirt and palming the skin there.

You feel her skin breathe, her belly breathe into your hand, and a content wrinkle pinch between her brows. Her skin, is as soft as nothingness.

“You're a dumbass.”

Air clings to your cheek as her hand reaches around you, pressing fingerprints into the base of your head as to prop you for her delightments. Ellie is no amateur, enjoying you as if she knew you were hers without explicit pledge.

“Sure, babe,” she scoffingly counters, and pulls her tongue out of you, lips messiy shining. She scouts you out; lays eyes on your expression with undertones of satisfaction and presses an appetent bite right back into your damp skin, grunting into the filthy kiss.

Your mind is one-pathed right now; in the most maddened form, you crave the story further down her throat. In that warm space, is air thinned and balmy with the scent of alcohol and syrup. In those whimpers, is the sincere confession she held tight in throatly gloaming, all those intimate times before. In all of your yearnings, your lips never parted for more.

Two holes that want to consume each other.

Weeping, wailing, tormenting in an empty forever.

“Fuck you, Ellie,” you cathartically sob into the humid cavern of her, a hint of wanton—and other repressed things, taking form. That hand under her shirt wanders from her navel and tweaks the button of her jeans, pressing your body against all of her like it hurt to be inside your own, singular body. Overcame by a need you could not chew out.

Ellie cuts the kiss, quick to soothe the movement with her hand pressing down and collecting yours. “Hey, hey, too fast,” she laughs, distancing herself and giving you those eyes that could see you were overstrung, hectic to go somewhere you aren't prepared for.

She loves you, but that means appreciating you enough to wait until time is perfect.

Her head cocks, “Let's take shit slow, huh?” fingers weaving into the pliant gaps of yours and pulling your fist dear to her chin, kissing it.

You speak over the repeated sounds of her smooches, “Yeah, sorry,” cringing slightly at how fucking cheesy the scene became. But, when is Ellie not? Wonder clasps you now; intent to know what this makes out of the two of you, having held your feelings for forever. “Well, what does all this mean, then?”

“It means..” Ellie slants her body even more, stealing your wrist along with her. Planning something, no doubt. “You and me, breakfast tomorrow at ten, Tipsy Bison?” Her mouth stuck to the side of your hand like syrup, so firm in not letting you go.

It makes your ears simmer hearing her shamelessly set up a date, of all things she could have said. God. You errantly laugh, totally not giddy when her mouth starts sprinkling up your arm at an alarming pace. “Sounds more than good—hey! You slow down!”

Happy birthday, asshole.

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