#james.writes

[writing-not]

Picket Fence

A/N: No thoughts, only rant fic about being aroflux, especially on Valentine’s. This is purely self-indulgent. I wrote this in about three hours so...there’s that lol. Anyways, I hope you like it regardless. Oh btw, Arion is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, hope that’s clear. 

A/N2: Please excuse any grammatical errors. / Trystan Thorne belongs to Pixelberry; Arion is mine. 

Book: Crimes of Passion

Pairing: Arion dela Rosa & f!Trystan Thorne (Platonic)

Song Inspiration: I Don’t Wanna Fall in Love - Addison Grace

Word Count: 632

© 2023 writing-not 

Trystan Thorne’s eyes graze over their body; eager, but not enough. Arion lies in a sea of gnashing waves of white silk, hand to moonlit eyes. A storm rages outside; the rain banging its fists upon the windows of their apartment, ignored. It shouldn’t be. It should’ve been loved for what it was. It should’ve been known.

This isn’t about the rain.

“Leave me alone, Trystan.” Arion moans, rolling onto their stomach.

“And let this migraine take you? I refuse.” She replies pointedly, gesturing to the cup of chamomile tea in her hands.

Trystan steadily lowers herself on the panel of the wooden floor bed. She reaches for Arion but her hand abruptly stops, withdrawing back into her lap. For a moment she’d forgotten how they didn’t like to be touched; she scolds herself for it. And her worry grows.

Up and down, there and back again. Arion’s back arches as their breaths are muffled by a pillow squished between them and the mattress.

“Chocolate actually gives me migraines; have I ever told you that?” Arion says quietly. Trystan only catches their voice like the wind, gently yet out of reach.  

Trystan lets the minute escape and lets the moment play like a movie. (It might as well have been.) The porcelain cup she’s holding melts and becomes one with her hand as she forgets its presence, its warmth subsides like embers in a hearth. 

“And here I thought that you were some kind of impenetrable robot, but no!” She laughs, setting aside the cup on their nightstand. “You and I are the same after all, hm? Heart, bones, cartilage, and all. I’m surprised.”

“Is this supposed to be romantic?’

“Whatever you want it to be.”

“Haha, very funny.” 

Trystan slowly arches an eyebrow. “I mean it.”

Arion turns their head, half of their face still buried into the pillow. They also didn’t know. It was hard not knowing what they felt, especially on Valentine’s Day (well, even on any day really), given that their romantic attraction ever so fluctuates during the span of a day. In the morning they could fall head over heels for a long-haired man with a turtleneck on the train, in the afternoon they could despise love and all its oddities, in the evening they could feel nothing towards that ever-pervading emotion. It was all perplexing and ambiguous. Day by day, Arion falls into a spiral and it never ends. 

“Do I have to know?” Arion frowns, clutching the pillow closer to their chest. “Do I need to know?”

And Trystan’s heart crumbles. 

Arion purses their lips before responding. “Am I not a “freak” in your eyes as mamà says?” They kept a smile with no warmth. “She told me so after demanding a grandchild yet again. She told me I was selfish and cold. I did nothing wrong, Trys.” 

Trystan’s heart falls, it’s all it can afford to do. Falling. Falling. Falling. 

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes shift to the window, she looks to some kind of distance she tries to find; it doesn’t exist, neither does the answer. All she has is reassurance and hopes that it will be enough. (It won’t be but… she tries.) “For what it’s worth, whatever your mother told you earlier, she was wrong about all of it, alright? She didn’t deserve to tell you all those things.”

A tear falls from Arion’s eye. No reaction.

“What can I do for you now, hm? I’m right here if you need me.” Trystan whispers. 

They sputter before the words finally fall out. “I– Is it ok if you can just stay here. You don’t have to do anything. I just need to know that you’re here. You’re on my side.”

A look comes in passing.

Bedside, the tea sits cold.