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thoseofgreatambition · 7 years ago

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lycanthropy pt. 4

PT 1 | PT 2 | PT 3

PT 4 | THE END | 2.3K

paring: remus x reader

warning: angst, depression

a/n: sorry this took so long! i’m still getting in the groove of writing a series consistently. but i hope y’all like this!

It was a strange feeling, bartering with yourself like this.

You muttered under your breath about what you’d be doing today-- which was a fairly simple thing, but it still was hard to drag yourself out of bed.

You were going to quite your job as an auror.

Very simple.

Very easy. You’d joined, to follow in Alice’s footsteps, but Alice was gone from you.

There was no one left to fight.

There was nothing left to fight for.

You slid into your clothes slowly, and splashed some cold water on your face-- hoping that it might help you look a tad less morose, but nothing could do that for you anymore.

You were too far gone, at this point.

Everything was gone.

You kept your head down while you walked to work, and hardly noticed Arthur as he trotted over to you once you had finally made your way into the Ministry of Magic-- “Y/N! How have you been?”

There was a twinge of annoyance, you just wanted to be left alone. However that was quickly smothered by guilt. Arthur and Molly had always been very kind to you-- something that wasn’t necessary considering how much older they were. “I’ve been better. How is Molly?”

It was almost heartwarming to you, despite your own heartbreak how much his face lit up at the simple mention of his wife. “She’s wonderful! She’s recovered very well after Ginny was born.” you could see the joy on Arthur’s face at finally having a daughter, and it was the only thing that had made your lips twitch upwards in a very long time. “I wish I’d brought my pictures with me today-- I ran late, Ronnie’s been a bit colicky lately so I was trying to help...” as he patted his hands through his different cloak pockets you let out a small laugh, though that quickly died at his next words.

“May I show them to you tomorrow?”

Ah-- you were probably going to have to explain this to a few different people, weren’t you? Not just your boss.

“I won’t be here tomorrow Arthur. I’m resigning.”

He stared at you dumbfounded, brow furrowed in confusion, “Why?”

Why?

Your lips pursed into a thin line. There were tons of reasons. You didn’t think there was much of a need for an Auror who was too tired to get out of bed, for the first place. It didn’t seem like there was anything to fight for at this point. Your friends were dead, your boyfriend was as good as, and your web of loved ones had reduced to essentially your father and a few aquaintances you had in the Wizarding World.

More importantly though-- the idea of getting up five days a week, and fighting for good seemed so impossible. Laughable even.

Sure, the war had been won-- but was it really a victory when about three quarters of the players were dead?

It didn’t feel like it.

You frowned up at Arthur, “I just don’t have it in me, anymore.”

“If it’s about Remus--”

“It’s not about Remus.” even you were surprised by the amount of anger in your voice, and you sucked in a long deep breath, “I apologize, Arthur. But it really isn’t about him. I’m glad to hear that Molly and the babies are doing well. Give her my best, alright?”

Quick to extricate yourself from the conversation you gave Arthur a clap on the shoulder and quickly strode off towards your department. Heart in your throat you told yourself that as long as you could get through the next hour, you could stay in bed for as long as you wanted.

That was the only thing that seemed to work on you as of now.

Remus was a bit disbelieving when he got Molly's letter, saying he ought to go and visit you. It said that Arthur had seen you, you’d quit, and that you’d looked rather morose and ill. All of those things seemed so unlikely to him. For one-- you loved being an Auror, more than almost anything. When you’d passed your exam you’d come sprinting into the room where he’d been napping and flung yourself on top of him to announce the good news.

Morose seemed slightly more likely-- after what happened between you and him, though hopefully he could have a talk with you and it would all get sorted out.

He took a long breath before he apparated back to your old shared apartment, and immediately found himself becoming more love sick than he was usually. Your breakup had been hard on him as well-- he’d always hoped for something better once the war ended, that you two might end up together.

The image of you two married with kids came to him once more, until he quickly shook his head. That couldn’t happen anymore.

This was the best for you.

Looking around, he saw that things were not as he remembered them in his old home.

There was a film of dust on everything, and Remus could see handprints on what you did appear to use. The dishes in the sink had piled up and he noted that the shelves that you typically kept food in only had bread and rice. “Y/N?”

You slowly left your old bedroom, and Remus’ eyes widened at the sight of you. It’d been about five months since he’d seen you last at the funeral and you’d easily dropped at least ten pounds.

Judging by what food you had, he doubted that it was voluntary.

For the slightest moment he saw a spark of hope and love in your eyes, before you squashed it like a bug.

“Why are you here?”

Your tone was courteous, but still cold.

Remus blanched. “Molly said you weren’t doing well. Why’d you quit your job? You love being an Auror.”

Your lip twitched upwards– a dark smile, “What’s there to fight for?”

He took a step towards you– wondering why he might have left if it would cause you to do this. “You can’t just let me leaving do this to you.”

Like that, you snapped– you cackled, you laughed in his face until your side hurt. “Are you really that dense? Are you so fucking self absorbed that you think I chose this? That it’s all for you? Everyone I’ve ever loved is gone. Not just you, Remus.”

It was a dagger to his heart, and Remus stumbled backwards– a hand reaching behind him to brace himself on the couch. “I lost them too–”

“I know you did. But you know what else? I always knew you were going to leave. That’s who you are. You’re a martyr, Remus. You leave when you get scared and say you’re protecting people. You tried it with me in Hogwarts– same with your friends.” it was like you were gaining energy, your skin was flushing from sallow to color once more. “You’re a coward. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come back, play the concerned hero and leave me again when your conscience demands it.”

There was a devastating moment, as Remus tried to think of something to say– but it was like you’d reached into his body, plucked out the darkest thing about him he knew deep down and ripped it out.

“Get out.” your spine was straight, your jaw was set– “What I do is my business. Fuck off.”

“I wanted to protect you.” Remus felt like a child, who was trying to defend his actions even when they were wrong. “I love you.”

There was some emotion he couldn’t read on your face, something that both seemed to mend his heartache and break him all the more. “And I love you. But I won’t be the wife of a martyr.”

The silence was deafening, and Remus couldn’t make himself look away from you. He’d never seen someone look at him the way you did right now.

He said something he regretted, the moment it came from his lips. “I never asked you to be.”

It seemed that you had the retort on the tip of your tongue.

This was it.

This was the end of it all.

“And if I had half a brain I’d never say yes if you did.” your voice was soft, as you walked over, a paradox if he’d ever heard one. You easily kept eye contact with him while Remus desperately wished he could look away from you before you swallowed him whole. “Lemme guess-- Molly told you I was sad and I quit, didn’t she? And you in the goodness of your heart agreed to visit me. You thought that you could talk to me about our breakup, and about what everyone would have wanted for me, and I’d come ‘round to see it your way, right?”

His silence answered everything.

“You can’t fix me, Remus. I am not a mug you dropped and all you’ve got to do is wave your wand, say ‘reparo’ and have me fixed.”

“I didn’t mean to--”

“I don’t care what you meant to do. If all you took away from dating me for years was that you were the reason I quit my job, and I’m upset, then you didn’t know me at all.”

You stood so close to him he really could kiss you, something that he was still worried might happen when he came over today initially, but that fear was no longer there. You looked ready to hex him if he so much as touched you. “Do you not think I ever loved you then?”

“No I know you love me.” his eyebrows furrowed in confusion at your words, and then you went in for the kill, “But it’s like I said before. I don’t care. I’m not going to be with you again. You’re a coward, Remmy. Now get out of my house.”

There had been plenty of times where Remus had felt like he shouldn’t have been dating you. Like he didn’t deserve something. Where he felt so very humble that it saddening.

That had always been due to his lycanthropy though, not because he’d ever thought himself to be a coward.

Now though? He was wondering why the hat had put him in Gryffindor.

Without a further word, Remus gave you the smallest of nods and apparated away from you. You shook just a bit-- so tired, so angry, so broken. Walking over to your bed, you sat down and waved your wand, muttering a few spells to fill up your old Hogwarts trunk.

You knew what needed to be done, and you felt a wave of peace wash over you at the thought.

It was about the middle of the night, when you apparated to your childhood home, and dropped your trunk on the floor. “Dad?”

Concern was in your father’s voice as he walked out of his workroom to the living room where you stood before him-- wane and wilted. “Y/N? What’s wrong, dearie?”

“I don’t--” your voice shut off as your lip wobbled. You were so tired. You hadn’t thought that you’d need to do this until you saw Remus just before but it seemed like along with your heart he’d taken the last bit of your strength in what it had taken for you to chew him out, and right now you just couldn’t do it. “I don’t want to be a witch anymore.”

For a long moment, your father looked at you in surprise and seemed unable to comprehend what you were trying to say. He remembered how overjoyed you were when you got into Hogwarts, this seemed impossible. “You’re a lovely witch. And you’re doing good there too-- aren’t you an Auror?”

“I quit.” a sob racked your frame, “I don’t want to be a witch anymore. I can’t do it. Magic’s ruined everything-- I won’t do it anymore--”

Your father pulled you close and smoothed out your hair, not sure of what was going on but quite sure that his only child looked more scared and upset than he’d ever seen her before. Just looking at you filled him with pain, “Why don’t you stay with me for a while-- your old room is still all there-- everything you left here. It’s all the same. You can stay with me for as long as you’d like.”

Finally, when you nodded your father pressed a kiss to your head, “Good-- why don’t you go shower and get some rest, alright?” Silently, you pulled away from your father-- one more nod coming from you as you fell silent. In the dying light of the fire, you looked more like a shell than a person.

Later, in a few days, your father found your wand in the garbage can, right before the truck came to pick everything up. You were barely speaking now, and he’d watched you almost reach for your wand countless times to perform a spell, only to clench your fist and let your hand fall.

He remembered you crying once as a girl-- after you’d accidentally shattered a large mirror with what he later realized was magic pouring out of you when you’d become so distressed during an argument he was having with your mother.

He’d asked you why you’d done it-- was it to get them to stop fighting?

Your little hands had trembled, and you’d shook your head-- so sincerely confused that he had insisted you weren’t punished beyond helping to sweep up.

“I couldn’t help it. I tried to keep it in and it got worse.”

Back then, he hadn’t understood what ‘it’ was.

Now he knew that ‘it’ was ‘magic’.

Which left a better question-- how much longer would it be until your magic spilled out again?

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supergirlimaginesfic-blog · 7 years ago

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Lena Luthor x reader (I think I was made to love you; tell me it’s true)

Request: " you touch her , I kill you " and " you act like you're the bad boy , but you're not " with lena

a/n: y’know what this apparently calls for?? PINEY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO LOVERS TIME. BECAUSE I’M IN THE MOOD FOR LIKE, the smallest amount of angst and I just wanted to suffer through it. Because like, imagine Lena interacting with someone who has just as much of a guilt complex as she does... HOPELESS.

I was definitely in some sorta mood... really couldn’t tell you why. I shall take this prompt and run with it! It’s a little cute and dumb. I was like, probably at the half-way mark of this before I looked at it all and went wtf are you even talking about? LOL, but I’ve finished it, so I’m definitely happy about it. I figured there’s not enough campy, YA-esque romance stories starring you as the useless protagonist, so I just HAD to do this... there was no other way lol. This one’s a bit of a monster. Hope y’all like it, and I hope the wait was worth it!! Thank you so much for reading :D

- - - - -

Throughout most of your formative years, you were always underestimated. Your teachers would first look at you on the first day of school every year and even at your young age, you could tell they were eyeing you with some level of wariness and suspicion.

You’d always taken great pleasure in proving them wrong, proving to be not the troubled delinquent they thought with unfailing frequency you would surely be, nor no more than the above-average student either.

You simply just were, and for so often in your life you merely drifted through and participated when it was really demanded of you.

As such, your parents and whoever else decided to give a damn whenever they so happened to remember you would comment on your penchant for underachieving, would state their desire for you to do more, to do better, and this was a surefire way to antagonize you more than you’d care to show.

It was the principle of the thing, really - to think they’d know you well at all to make such valuations like that, as if they had any real sway in shaping you into the person you are now; that annoyed you to no end.

The only thing you could say with confidence that any significant person in your life contributed to your personality was your disgruntled irritation at most figures of authority.

You attributed your affinity for letting most things simply wash over you to them as well - you’ve spent a good portion of your life letting half-baked words of love and affection fall on deaf ears, the pressure and expectation of achievement and this sole importance it held with your parents, and their legacy, and the shame that you weren’t as invested in doing good for the family as they wanted you to be was just begging for you to deflect with cynicism.

You wouldn’t say it made you apathetic, you would rather say it made you jaded and pragmatic. If you could achieve things in a way that was the total opposite of your current disposition and act out of the sheer force of spite rather than deflate with self-sabotaging indifference as is your natural reaction, you would certainly have chosen that instead.

All things considered, this surely lent itself to the ever-evolving mystery that was your entire relationship with Lena Luthor, and you always wondered just how it was you landed yourself into a role in her life; even more so, you wondered just how it was you even got to call yourself anything of hers at all.

Lillian hated the idea of you, that much was clear to you as you grew into your teenage years, and you think this was part of the allure of you that drew Lena in instantly.

Despite this, you didn’t mind at all, even when so often people using you for whatever reason or another that aggravated you, you could say with startling certainty that you have not once in your life harboured anything close to animosity when it came to Lena.

Somehow, it was just different when it came to her, and though you knew you started off a little bit as a pawn in her teenage rebellion, it came to the point where you ended up being so much more than that anyway, and that’s what counted to you.

You always knew where you stood with Lena, and you appreciated that. For all her antics and her mind games to vex her mother, you still knew who you were to her, and you took comfort in your part.

You’d spent most of your afternoons with her the summer before she left for boarding school, watching as she swung herself on the swing at the park and leaned backwards to look at your mildly confused expression.

She laughed when she called out to you, telling you to join her and watch the clouds do gymnastics as she flew upside down.

You grinned then, not able to resist the amusement evident on her face so you sat yourself on the other swing and pushed yourself, rushing for momentum to catch up with her height, but she was always just a little bit higher than you.

Your protests and grumblings chased after her; her wonderful, youthful laughter ringing through the park at your grievances and sure, you may have stared a little bit too long at her head tilted back in glee, laughter tumbling from her lips like an untamed musical score.

You hadn’t admitted it then, but as much as the rippling, afternoon sun warmed your skin, there was something about her smile that did the same to your heart.

She was infectious, and you smiled whenever Lena laughed, and back then that didn’t cause you much alarm.

And so it was, somewhere along the way you gave Lena much of your heart, and whatever she felt, you felt too. So when she cried that last week of August before the inevitable week of radio silence enforced by her mother as the last-shot attempt to reign Lena in, you got a little misty-eyed too.

She’d hugged you at the park that last day and held onto you like no kids your age should have any right to; with the level of desperation and unnamed fear in her eyes that now, you think was unfair for her to ever know then.

She stayed in your arms and sniffled into your sweater, tears wetting your shoulder as you kept her there and stood only at a slight loss for words. And with the expected passion and fervency of any daughter of a Luthor could muster, she demanded your staying presence in her life, made you promise explicitly to keep in touch, and she in turn would write to you always and, you’d better write her back!

Lena had asked, and she’d cried, and she’d muttered soft mumblings that were muffled by her tearsoaked solace in your shoulder, and you think that alone was her covenant.

She’d asked you and made you promise, as if you would make any other choice that would lead you away from her; you matched her ardour with your own promises, and reassured yourself as you reassured her.

Even after you watched her walk away to the big Luthor manor on her own - knowing you couldn’t accompany her - you felt a little bit taller, a little bit like a giant, and you’ve resolved that it made a little god out of you.

You puffed your chest out and walked back to your house with your head held high, only letting it fall when you laid to rest, and only in some muted prayer as you ducked your head at your desk that night, already writing the first letter to her in the dimmed lighting of your bedroom before she was even gone.

(You couldn’t sleep; you couldn’t fall asleep without writing first, and you think in a way, it felt a lot like talking to her before you closed your eyes, and you quite liked that very much.)

So that’s what you did; you wrote to Lena everyday. For every day of your high school life, as inconsequential and trivial as the day could have been or for as eventful and triumphant, you told her everything, refusing to forget anything.

But as much as she was just as happy to reply to your bulk of letters in one giant reply of her own, you think she may have been holding back, and honestly how could you have blamed her?

Somewhere in your sophomore year of high school, you stopped hearing about all the other girls at Lena’s boarding school or of her excitement of the things she’s learning and found yourself reading her description of the sky as she saw it at that very moment, somehow able to hear her voice and how her mouth might have ticked upwards in a little smile as she wrote about the pretty colours of dusk, or like how quiet her voice gets when she’s on the tail end of some poetic rumination and it’s one of those things you let slide, opting not to tease her about the things she says this time.

She talked about what was around her often, and you took notice of the way she nearly stopped describing her own life or her experiences in a way that was once candid and earnest that she did when you were together, but you figured that was just growing up.

You liked the way Lena described her world; you thought as you read her gradually contemplative paragraphs that she’s really grown up, and you were happy for her.

In junior year, you got a letter from her - the first one in two weeks - and it stuck with you as a defining moment for reasons you hadn’t understood then and are only beginning to realize now; it was a distinct turning point in your young life, and it was just one of many crossroads in your path in which you could have walked the other way, but did not.

You had become privy to the demands of life; you understood that life had its moments and you were demanded to be present for them - with this knowledge, you were still just as excited to be receiving anything from Lena at all as you were the very first time you’d gotten your first letter from her.

In her letter, she’d described a book she was reading for her English class, and said nothing much of it apart from mentioning how she thinks you’d have loved that book, that she knows you wouldn’t be able to stop talking about it even after you’d left class, and it was in that moment - with all the years you’d spent in high school - it was in that moment when it really struck you just how much you missed Lena.

So it went, you wrote to her and she wrote back. You graduated senior year and you were set to go off to National City University. You’d left home without much fanfare - it was what was expected of you, after all, and you spent the drive there with your parents in silence and spared one quick goodbye before they left you to your own devices seemingly for real this time.

Throughout your time in high school, you wrote to Lena every day. You told her nearly everything you were willing to admit - there were some letters you just didn’t send; they didn’t feel right, there was something missing, always it felt like the entire thing was off, and it was another day passed until the next time you’d get to hear from her.

You didn’t think you’d forgotten to mention anything, but you felt a lack of something integral in the words you were saying, and you’d stopped trying to figure out what exactly it was and just didn’t say them at all.

As often as she’d write to you and reply to your long-winded ramblings and excited rants, you think she may have been holding back, and could you really have blamed her?

You were holding back too.

You tried not to think too much about how much less Lena seemed to be when she wrote to you. You don’t think about how quickly the thought comes to you that you could read her so easily in the words she’s written and the things she hasn’t said.

You tried not to think about how it might have been a long time coming, how it may have started somewhere in high school, and you really think to sift through your hundreds of letters from her to define the exact moment she started seeming dimmer, but you don’t do it.

Somehow, with those flimsy sheets of paper in your hand, she seemed heavier, and you didn’t know how to broach that with her... so you didn’t.

You didn’t hear from Lena about her relationship with Jack Spheer - who were you to demand that expectation from her?

You loved Lena enough to take what she’d give you, and you’d never asked much from her.

You heard it first from a gossip column; oddly enough, you stumbled upon it in your Twitter feed seemingly accidentally, and you felt neither the sting nor the ache of ignorance; it just was what it was.

It was in one letter you figured it out, screaming out at you from within her neatly scrawled sentences.

Lena told you excitedly with the same determination and invincibility of sheer will you’d only seen in your childhood and so seldom the past few years of your young adulthood that she was going to find the cure to cancer, and that a boy named Jack was working with her to do it - it was at this very moment that you finally understood that she was in love.

You got it, dear god, did you get it. You remembered your fondest memories of Alicia, a past girlfriend from your second year of university who asked nothing of you but for your own happiness, whatever it may have been; she compelled you to become a better man.

She made you feel both parts resolute and infinite; you could have walked to the ends of hell and back just to be good for her.

For the entirety of your relationship with her until the very end, Alicia made you feel impossible. She made you feel like you could do anything. And in the irony of it all, you couldn’t be what she needed you to be.

She taught you everything that you didn’t know had to be taught; she showed you how to fight well and how to make up just as well. She taught you how to apologize and how to comfort someone who didn’t cope in the way you were so familiar with. She taught you things you just couldn’t know on your own, and you figure that’s just why you’ve come to the end of your learning with her.

You’d hoped you taught her just as much - she’d said rather often how you were a stabilizing force in her life. She was a girl who loved life and she never kept anything to herself; whether it was her love, her goodness, or her fury, everyone around her would feel it and know about it.

Alicia was a girl who was so into her world, and she loved everything with unparalleled passion as much as she fought with that same level. You hadn’t thought much of it then, but in retrospect, you think you grounded her. You calmed her in a way she may have been wary of before you, but you think now, she can take that bravery with her long after you.

You loved her, and you broke up mutually one late Thursday night, crying in each other’s arms and flitting back and forth from ending it to just hanging on a little bit longer, back to ending it again.

Hours had passed and you both finally accepted the end for what it was; it was too late for her to go back home and neither of you were quite ready to say goodbye - you let her sleep in your bed while you curled up in the loveseat at the corner of your dorm until morning.

And so you thought, if Alicia did the impossible and showed you that you were a man who could be a worthy partner, that you could be someone who was just as meaningful as an individual as well as a second half of a relationship, that you could be expected to do things that weren’t in your own interests and not at all feel as small as you often did when you were around your family, then Lena Luthor could very well cure cancer.

In no uncertain terms, you thought about how fantastic it was that she had something, that she was revived with the excitement you were convinced had been lost to her, and at the same time you tried so ardently to ignore how messy and selfish you truly were in your reluctance to concede to her statement, that she was going to cure cancer.

You tried in vain to ignore how the simple innocence of her admission felt a lot like a stab in the gut - there’s meaning in her words where it may not have been intended to be at all, maybe you were reading into your feelings too deeply and were overreacting to her seemingly flippant behaviour at the veiled confession.

Any way you put it, you were still the world’s biggest asshole for reacting like shit when Lena, your first and longest friend, tells you she’s going to cure cancer, and you were the world’s biggest asshole because the only thing you took from the pure goodness of her noble intentions is that she was in love, and you wondered why you were being such a dick about the whole thing.

You tried so hard to ignore the ugliness of your feelings; how mixed and troubled and menacing they were. You tried to ignore the poetic implications of Lena’s words and thought nothing else of the matter.

You wrote your letters to Lena, and she wrote back to you. You became less excitable about your routine of checking your mailbox, thinking you would hear less from her then.

And even still, surely as your luck would have it, it would be that very moment in life where she’d begin writing more to you unprompted and with growing frequency again, and who could have blamed you if you were just the slightest bit happy to fall into your anticipation of her letters - that she actually wants to talk to you and is seeking you out?

You passed your classes with high seventies, maybe mid-eighties if you were really trying to work hard, you had your casual dalliances with girls who expected nothing much from you, and with whom you expected nothing less.

It was easy, and it didn’t require much thinking on either of your ends and there were very minimal feelings to be dealt with. All the girls were such pleasant, different characters, ones who you knew for a fact will find an equally lovely person to take home to their parents eventually; and you took comfort in that, in the definitive lack of commitment.

You found the years you spent at university flew by somehow, even with your degree in hand, graduated with honours from the English program at NCU, you couldn’t truly wrap your mind around the fleeting reality of time.

It all came to a screeching halt when Lex Luthor was finally put up for 37 consecutive life sentences for his incessant rampage against Superman - mass casualties of citizens lined up to fill vacant graves. Metropolis had become a city fraught with an internal war, and everyone had something to say about the political, cultural, and emotional implications of the entire debacle.

You heard nothing from Lena throughout the ordeal. You thought you ought to reach out to her, and how badly you wanted to say the right thing - how much you’d scrapped, drafted, rewritten, and tossed out your endlessly rephrased sentiments of the same iteration: I’m here for you if you need me.

How utterly small and useless it seemed - the mere simplicity of your words and their very real, profound candour felt nothing more than a Hallmark greeting card whenever you felt resolved to send it to her... and you hated it.

More and more time passed you as you struggled with something of significance to tell Lena in the face of her darkest hours. You’d stopped getting letters from her a long time ago, and it was entirely out of the question to just text her your heartfelt sentiments right under your previous thread of text messages that saw you two bickering over the question of peanut butter and bananas as an actual sandwich.

You thought it was beyond reason to send her an email, how impersonal and disturbingly intrusive you ought to be to send such a personal, earnest remark to her inbox - so you didn’t.

Eventually, you opted for the most singlehandedly stupid solution you could have possibly chosen and resolved on saying nothing.

You, selfishly, thought to yourself that Lena should know you well by now, that she should know that you would be there for her and that you’ve always been there for her and surely, always will be, and that you weren’t going anywhere if she needed you.

Lena, being tasked with the impossible task of mindreader from your emotionally stunted, painfully useless ass, said nothing in return, and you took the easy way out and took this nothingness as affirmative to the truth that she didn’t need you.

You don’t bother her then; whatever you heard on the news is what you got, just like anyone else.

Lena Luthor was nothing more than a familiar stranger to you. And still, you think that’s no better than anyone else in National City either, how they all seem to have some opinion about her - you were no different from anyone else.

You thought you were definitely to blame in some small part to this great disservice to the world - you asked for this after all. You were the one asshole who reacted nothing short of affronted and childishly at Lena Luthor striving to cure cancer. It was you and you alone who channeled your inner monster and couldn’t find it in your heart to just be happy for her that she finally had someone, finally had something when you barely had your own shit together.

You carried that with you alone, as you should - no one should have to know about the guilt you felt about robbing the world of Lena’s love, her passion, her dedication, her heart - they need only know about your complicity in its taking.

Lena may not have needed you then, may no longer have need for you, but the real fact of the matter was that you should resolve to stay far away from her, to shut yourself away and temper the wrath of your greed - this was the very least what she deserved, and it was entirely what you deserved.

It didn’t make it any easier, or difficult; it shouldn’t make you anything at all. It was merely what set you on the path to finally doing something good for Lena for once.

You gleaned what objectivity you could possibly tolerate from the news; she relocated to National City and took over as the CEO of LuthorCorp. You thought nothing at all about what this meant for you - it means nothing, it means nothing, it means nothing.

You thought you did a pretty good job of convincing yourself - you only experienced the irrational, truly terrible idea of dropping by her office only once every so often, and you felt the impulse to send a letter to her new office even less frequently.

You masked the magnitude of each of your follies whenever the mere contemplation of visiting Lena again, of seeking her out on your own volition reared its ugly head and demanded your action. You did anything to forget the fact that you once knew her at all; you found it in the form of self-sabotage and a deep, senseless brooding that should have no right being appealing in a young 20-something man, yet you found it attracted a certain type of girl.

You fell into your old habits of university; just as much, you turned a blind eye from the bar TV relaying the latest LuthorCorp - now L-Corp - gossip, put your headphones on to tune out the droning of inane accusations coming from the loudest voices of National City’s citizens for this news hour.

It was just over a year into your imposed self-exile of sorts when the unthinkable happens, and Lena shows up to your work much in the same way she entered your life - tearing up the fabric that is all the things you thought you knew and creating new worlds where there weren’t any; impossible but real.

You’re alone at the front, your manager being the only one who was with you at work but he was off doing his own thing since there was really nothing to do around the store.

This time, you had no excuse to not talk to Lena - after all this time and you were still very much the same; speechless and rendered useless by the girl standing in front of you.

You think she’s grown into her personality; she’s really matured into something great, and you marvel at just how little you really do know of Lena anymore.

There’s a confidence about her, a certainty that is unwavering and sure, and you realize it’s the same fortitude you’d always seen in her and that which you really loved about her.

All things considered, she still seems hesitant when you lock eyes again and she’s the one who breaks the silence.

“Hi,” is all she says.

Somehow even in her stumbling over a singular word, in her hesitancy and her shakiness, you think it’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever heard.

You not so much feel as you hear the ricocheting of your blood tumbling against every immobilized limb of your body, your blood trumpeting underneath your skin as everything crashes down on you, and you can only widen your eyes just the slightest bit more in shock and stand there as you continue to do absolutely nothing.

Lena opens her mouth and begins to say something, but stops herself before she says anything and there is question clearly written on her face now when you’ve still yet to say anything at all to her.

“You know, yeah, this was definitely a bad idea, just forget-” she turns to walk away and she’s made several steps before your reactionary gut instinct to the idea of Lena leaving again is to tell her no this time.

“Wait, no-” you choke out clumsily on top of a bated breath. “No, that’s not- how did you know where to find me?”

Easy steps first, you think. This is territory you could both work with.

Lena gives you a small, meaningful smile - there’s the slightest flash of a grimace there and you barely have time to wonder about it.

“It would be too forward to admit I’ve had to seek you out with a little bit of help, wouldn’t it?” she mutters as she ducks her head in embarrassment.

That particular trait is new; you’re absolutely baffled seeing Lena so bashful.

“I, uh-”

“I suppose I should have figured,” she states in amusement, more to the effect of self-deprecation than at your expense.

“No-” you rush to interrupt her. “No, it’s just... really? Why me? Don’t you have... things... to do?” you finish uncertainly.

She gives you a look and furrows her eyebrows in a way you think looks vaguely disapproving. It takes her another prolonged moment of regarding you carefully before she answers you.

“Really? ‘Why you?’ Do you really want me to answer that right now, (Y/N)?”

You blink silently at her response before you let yourself smile just a little bit, huffing at her quickness.

“Nah, I guess not.”

The conversation splinters into silence again and you and Lena do nothing but watch each other, simultaneously waiting for someone to do something and also content to just soak each other in.

You see her eyes fall onto the tattoos on your biceps and upper arms, and when you watch the trail of her gaze, there’s a look of question on your face.

“So, uh...”

“I know this is probably completely out of the question and I have some audacity to even ask you this but I’ve started now and I can’t just stop so I’m just going to ask it, I’d really like to catch up with you,” Lena spills out in one breath.

Your eyes widen again at her admission, and with all that you’ve gleaned from the exceedingly unpredictable turn your day has taken, it’s taking you even longer time to process your options.

“Is that- you wanna do that?” you muster.

With me? goes unsaid; you barely resist and only do because you’re beginning to realize how needy and obnoxious you sound.

Lena gives you a look that clearly says ‘of course, I asked didn’t I?’ and you wince internally at your ineptitude - even now, Lena still has you the same she’s always had, as you’ve always been with her.

“You’re my only friend in National City, if I can even call you that at this point...” she says instead as if it were explanation enough, and you think in a way it really is - you give nothing away in your expression that could tip her off to something akin to pity; she doesn’t need that right now.

She gives you an apologetic smile as you watch a mistiness pool in her eyes, and the nagging, muted thought in your head that’s screaming at you that this is Lena needing you now, she’s reaching out, isn’t she?, marches to the thunder of your riotous heartbeat.

“Of course you can,” you say, and then, “nothing’s changed.”

You shift your eyes to anywhere but Lena, stubbornly refusing to meet hers when you feel the heaviness of her gaze on you.

You steal a glance and see the softness her expression has taken. In that moment, you really see how much she’s grown. You’ve spoken to Lena somewhat consistently for several years, but you haven’t properly seen her in just as many.

Her face is slightly more defined, taking a certain sharpness where her cheeks were once a little chubby. There’s still the eternal inquisition in her eyes despite the vaguely dark circles below them, and you think the years have been so good to her.

Her voice is quiet, seeming to mull the idea over thoroughly in her head as she parrots you.

“Nothing’s changed...” and then, “you’re still you,” she states more to herself as an after thought.

You feel something in your chest dip, suspended and holding on to nothing but the threads that have kept you together all this time.

You’re both silent for another pause longer, watching and testing and risking.

Whatever moment you two are in, Lena is the first to break out of the reverie and even shakes her head imperceptibly, snapping into the pretense of composure.

“Right, well, I should give you my number then. All my contact info has changed, though I won’t bother to give you my work one.”

She takes a napkin from the counter and scrawls her number with a pen she’s taken from her bag - you watch her and have to tear your mind away from the notion of Lena writing to you and how different she must have looked then than she does now.

You instead wonder what it is you’re supposed to do with this information. You use the number, naturally, should be your first thought, but instead you’re left malfunctioning to the highest degree.

“Do you have my number?” you ask her suddenly - the question is reasonable enough.

“No, I don’t,” she mutters sheepishly.

“Well how is that going to work out?” you reply as you roll your eyes good-naturedly at her. You move to take a napkin of your own and write your number on it.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Lena says as she watches. “You don’t have to use it, I just wanted to give you that option.”

“Nuh-uh,” you say decisively as you take the napkin in your hand and wait for her to take it. “We won’t be doing any of that- you’re going to be just as hopeless about all this as I am. I see you trying to put all the pressure on me.”

You can’t help but smirk as you watch her reaction morph into something of alarm.

“No, that’s not- that wasn’t my intention,” she sputters. “I just... I wanted to make sure you knew you still had an out and you can take it whenever you want.”

You regard her seriously now, the implication of her remark sobering you.

“You’ve said that before, you know that?” you say, and then, “You don’t need to be so easy on me, Lee, I can make my own decisions.”

“You’re right... I’m sorry, it’s just been so long, I don’t know how to... be anymore.”

You scoff in agreement, “you and I both.”

Lena smiles at the remark and you feel a little bit lighter.

“So, we’ll just handle this then. Give it a few days, give it another go after patting ourselves on the back for this first of many stumbles. Ball’s in the middle of the court, we’re just gonna have to pick it up.”

“Of course.”

You both know you’re overdue for a conversation, and if you were being truly honest with yourself, you felt no matter how much you denied it or tried to deprive yourself, your curiosity for Lena’s life was always rooted in your profound care for her.

“So, I should get going.”

“Yeah,” you nod with the sneakiest hint of reluctance - you hope you’re not too obvious about it.

“I’m so glad to see you again, (Y/N).”

You give her another smile, definitively aware of how genuine and unrestrained it feels than you think it’s ever been.

“Yeah- yeah, I’ll see you around, Lena.”

You spend the rest of your remaining hours at work wondering just what the hell exactly happened, and what possibly did the universe have any business to do with pitting you and Lena together again?

You almost forget that you not only saw Lena again, in person, but that you also exchanged numbers as if nothing interrupted your last year of absolutely no contact with each other - if not for the inexplicable heaviness of the phone in your pocket that’s demanding your attention, telling you something is missing, you wouldn’t think this entire day was real.

You gingerly take the napkin with her number on it into your hand and study it like a missing artifact from the past, dug up from the grave you thought you’d effectively buried it in and to see it make another reemergence into your life.

There’s history there, and it’s yours, and you feel like nothing will be the same after this day.

You think back to your earlier conversation, the first time you’d ever talked to each other in a year, and you think, ironically, Lena wanted to give you an out but all she’s done is captivate you again as she always has.

The entirety of your night, you remain at a total loss, sitting in a meditative contemplation as you stare blankly at your TV.

For all your talk with her earlier, you hadn’t realized then the magnitude of the conundrum you built for yourself. You’re torn between the reality of Lena finding you again, of her seeking you out, of her needing you - you wonder if it makes you an asshole to let yourself care for her, or if it makes you an asshole to do as you’ve always done and to shut her out for her own good, to protect her from you.

I’m a big boy, I can make my own decisions, you repeat your previous words mockingly. You’re an idiot. How is it that you think you’re going to walk around and decide things for Lena when you’re the one telling her to not do that?

It’s all messy, you realize. For all your gross, petty handling of Lena seeming to have a life outside of you, of having someone else who meant more to her than you did, that alone is reason enough for you to distance yourself from her. But in you punishing yourself, you face the very real certainty of letting her down when she needs you.

When it comes down to it all, you’re either a self-fulfilling prophecy and watch as you possibly disappoint her over an extended period of time, or you get to be the jerk that breaks her heart just a little bit by abandoning her.

You wonder then about just how good of an idea it is to entertain this new development your life has taken, to just let it happen and not think too much about it. Thinking, as is so evident now, takes you nowhere, and so you brace yourself for impact.

You’ve already inputted her number into your phone, now all you have to do is message her, and you’re in the midst of a very weak opener of “hey how are you” when you realize at some point, both of you are going to have to talk about all this, you’re going to play catch up and you’re either going to dance around the subject or you’re going to keep avoiding it until it eats one or both of you alive.

It’s only a mild freakout you’ve induced in yourself, you toss your phone away like the truly offending object it is and cower into the other side of your couch as you mull over another hazy future that you really wish you could see clarity in.

Even with all your need to complicate things, to overthink and to brood and to martyr yourself, Lena always makes things simple, always does things that in spite of everything you may think or do to suggest the contrary, makes everything feel so easy.

It’s she who messages you at around 11pm that night, not too late to point to the startling realness of a vulnerable hour, not too early either to seem too eager - enough to give both of you plenty of room to make your mistakes and have your incoherent screaming before you compose yourselves again, and she’s asked you about a time and place you’re available if you wanted to chat over coffee.

So you do what’s necessary in your natural, instinctive compulsion to be whatever it is that Lena needs you to be, and right now that is to be the person she meets with for coffee.

It’s elementary enough in its request, and you almost forget the deeper implications of this meeting right up until the point you sit across from her in your uncomfortably stiff chair and she says nothing but, “so, tattoos now?” in question and somehow, it’s enough to open the floodgates of everything you both missed throughout the years leading up to this point.

Admittedly, you chug your coffee in a relative desperation, and you regret the thing entirely when you start buzzing with pent up energy as if the fact that you’re having an actual face to face conversation with the girl who, for the longest time, was nothing but a pen pal and a vaguely familiar face to you wasn’t enough to cause some hysterical distress in your mind.

If Lena takes notice of your nervous shifting and general internalized freak out, she says nothing and instead looks at you periodically in silent question, both parts asking you wordlessly and wondering how much you’re able to take and when to raise the white flag.

You’re both in new territory, testing the waters of whatever this is between you, navigating the reality of life after your no-speaking sabbatical and also seeing each other fully and truly for the first time in a significantly long while.

It’s moderately easy, but it’s new, and you’re both gentle enough with each other and are forgiving of each other’s slip us and the justifiable tension.

You think you’ve taken a sledgehammer to the progress made in conversation when you ask about Jack, Lena telling you she’d ended the relationship before she got to National City, right when her family life went to shit, and you snap your mouth shut and try not to watch her reaction.

She’s calm enough, wistful but not entirely regretful, and the sadness there is something you think you’ve seen before - the inadequacy of not being able to provide, to not be the person one needs you to be? You see it in the mirror all the time.

You merely soften at the contemplative expression her face has taken, the shadow of whatever guilt or bitterness you once harboured completely shut out when you understand just how much you feel for her, and you know without a doubt there are all the strings of what ifs that are still coursing through her mind, forever an alternative universe and never a real happening.

She asks about you, then; are you seeing anyone? It’s casual, but there’s a weight there you refuse to acknowledge. She knew about Alicia, but not enough in depth and you try to remember if you’d held back then or if you’d simply just missed mentioning most things about her to Lena.

The conversation diverts soon after, perhaps a bit too eagerly, and you both discuss work without mentioning the big stuff, like Lena’s brother or why exactly it was you’d lost contact with each other.

Eventually, enough of these coffee dates repeat themselves. A lot of the time, your interactions with Lena involve learning new things about each other that vary from small surprises to mind-boggling revelations.

Lena is absolutely dumbfounded when she finds out one day that you smoke - casually, you emphasize; you’ve quit cold turkey before and you don’t need to smoke, you just do (to which she’s even more utterly bewildered and you just shrug with a small laugh) - you learn that she has some life or death reliance on caffeine and you more often than not comment on her nearly hourly need to have a fresh coffee, to which she just purses her lips at you and stubbornly steers you two into some cafe to get her fix.

You wonder just how it is Lena’s convinced you to join her at one of her L-Corp galas, but you do, and you’re dragging your feet about it just a little before you’re genuinely enjoying yourself as you watch her interact with and very clearly be superior to the businessmen she speaks with, and you have a little bit of fun pulling their leg and making teasing underhanded jests at them that could be seen as innocent enough, though Lena knows better and gives you a warning look and a shadow of a smile every time.

You’ve grown into the role you have in Lena’s life; somehow, you seem to have lost sight of what it is exactly that made you so sure that distancing yourself from her was the only plausible choice. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you still have the nagging thought that you don’t really deserve this, that you don’t deserve to feel happy around Lena, that you’re merely obliging in your loyalty to her and that should be it.

Sometimes, you think she can feel you pulling away, and she gets that look on her face that reminds you too much of what you so often felt like when you were much younger, how so often the quality of ignorance took stock in your child mind and made you wonder why you weren’t enough for the people who should have loved you unconditionally.

So you temper the wailing nature of your musings for a moment longer, enough to reassure Lena in some half-assed way that she’s okay, it’s not her and it’s just you being all up in your own head.

You don’t think much about it - you really don’t want to think more about it, lest you really fall deep into shit - but you think Lena’s a lot touchier with you; you don’t recall her being so with you or in general when you were younger.

You wonder what changed, and you try not to think about what or who it might have been that inspired this new characteristic in your old friend.

True to your unfailing track record of being shockingly terrible at handling your emotions, the first time Lena ever puts her head on your shoulder when you’re watching a movie at your place is to just stare at her from the corner of your eye with rapt intensity, long enough for her to turn her head and look up at you, and see the look of utter shock on your face.

Somehow, your mind thinks it’s a great idea to scoff nervously and roll your eyes, and even though you’re trying to reign in the smile that’s threatening to form, Lena just huffs and rests her head more forcefully on you as if to make some point, and you actually laugh this time.

She does that often - you react absolutely moronically to something she does (anything, really) that threatens the very fragile grip you have on your composure around her, and she makes a point to do it even more, and you begin to understand that pushing each other’s buttons is just a little game you two have come up with.

If there was any doubt in your mind that Lena is truly something special, all pretense is eradicated entirely when she lets herself be pulled into your idea of an easygoing night out - rounds of drinks and good conversation in between watching a game at the bar near your apartment.

You feel like perhaps you really could not have chosen a more obnoxious place to be, it’s entirely your fault if the sports bar is full of young varsity athletes and bro-types, and it is entirely on you when Lena inevitably gets hounded at some point even when you try your best to dash any of the stupid looking boys’ ideas with her, if the way they were eyeing her was any indicator.

You realize the folly of your misgivings the moment you step out from the bathroom and see one of them talking with Lena, his arm nearly on her as he leans close to her.

She doesn’t look too bothered, just a mild annoyance despite the politeness her face seems to have taken. Her forced smile tips you off though, and when the boy doesn’t relent, he puts his hand on the back of her stool so that he’s practically looming above her, and she leans further away from him.

You stride briskly to them and make a show of taking your seat on the stool beside Lena, turning your entire body so you’re facing both of them. You clasp your hands in front of you and rest them between your legs as you lean back slowly, making sure the boy’s attention was drawn to you and how your face is nothing but an unimpressed, uninhibited expression of repulsion when you level his stare.

“Problem?” you finally say with a tick of your eyebrow.

You glance over to Lena quickly before you peel your eyes lazily to the intruding boy again.

“Didn’t realize this was a date. Could have fooled me, seeing as though a woman as fine as this shouldn’t be seen out in public with a shmuck like you,” he says with the terribly unironic voice of an intoxicated frat brother.

You shrug noncommittally, making a pointed effort to ensure all your movements convey the total inconvenience this boy’s hassling is causing you and Lena.

“Well, I don’t know about that. Lena here makes her own rules. Far as I know, she’s made it pretty clear she’s said no to you but you don’t seem to be taking a hint. But I guess that’s to be expected from a shmuck like you,” you reply slackly.

The boy puts his foot on the footrest of Lena’s seat, his leg moving inches close to her and she actually recoils at his movement, trying to move farther from him.

“I don’t know why you have to make this so hard, buddy,” he says slightly delayed as he shifts and almost falls into her. “I just wanted to talk, is all- don’t you wanna do that? Ditch this guy, we could have more fun, I promise-”

Suddenly, you raise your voice and enunciate every word menacingly, “you touch her, I kill you.”

Your voice is loud enough that several patrons turn to the commotion and the bartenders eye you two tensely.

“One more misstep, and I haul your ass outside to handle you properly.”

He glares at you one last time before his friend pulls him away by the scruff of his shirt, practically stumbling back to his table and you think at least his friend has the decency to look slightly embarrassed.

You watch them return to their table and you keep your scowl fixed on them. You see them look up again and they divert their eyes immediately, attempting to turn their backs to you and huddling away from you.

Content that you’ve finally made your point, you scoff and snap your eyes immediately to Lena, immediately your face softens and takes an expression of concern and you don’t even get to ask her how she is before she’s asking you the same thing.

“(Y/N)? Are you alright?”

“Me? What about you? Do you wanna get out of here?”

Lena looks at you guiltily and ducks her head a little, “honestly, yeah, I think so.”

You say nothing else as you leave your bills on the counter, opting to leave any change as you walk Lena out by your side.

The walk to your apartment is spent in relative silence. You shift your eyes to look around you and tap your belt to feel your knife and sheath still there. It’s not needed, however, as you make your way to your floor, only acutely aware of the fact that you two have just silently agreed on your apartment as your destination.

Still, you two have opted to continue having drinks on your couch in defiance of a moderately soiled night.

It’s in her second glass of wine that either of you finally mentions anything about the night’s occurrences.

“You act like you’re the bad boy, but you’re not,” Lena says, her speech taking only the slightest slur that’s entirely endearing to you.

“Yeah, well, I realize that could have been a bit of a dick thing to do. I probably could have just reasoned with the guy, but I don’t think-”

“I’m not talking about just tonight,” she says with a marked decisiveness. You wonder if she might be a little tipsy, but you’re proven wrong when you realize Lena is just as sharp as ever.

“I’m just saying... you always have been, that’s just you. You have this, this attitude. Not an attitude actually, just... just this mentality that’s always in the back of your mind and it makes you think you have to be a certain way. You’re not the bad boy- you just think you have to be and so that’s what you become.”

“I don’t know if I follow where you’re going about all this, Lee-”

“You sell yourself short too often, do you know that? For as long as I’ve known you, you always have,” she turns to face you and you move your head to look at her.

“You’re talented and you’re grounded and you’re one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met... You have one of the kindest hearts and I think deep down, you’ve got a poet’s soul.”

You look at her in silence, still not sure you know what she means by all this.

“I just know you. But I also want to know why you feel you have to hide behind whatever bad boy caricature this is that you’ve made for yourself. You’re a good person, (Y/N).”

“I’m damaged goods, Lena,” you reply.

There’s an expression of question on her face, prompting you to continue.

“There’s a reason why I haven’t kept a relationship that lasts longer than milk does,” you comment half-jokingly.

“You’re not- have you even tried? Do you even want to?” she asks, and you don’t question Lena’s sobriety anymore when she looks back at you with startling focus.

“For whatever reason you think it is that girls haven’t stuck around, whether you force it to be that way or not, it’s not just because there’s something wrong with you. Maybe it’s because they don’t know a good thing when they see one, maybe it’s because you don’t see the good in you. You’re not damaged or broken or whatever else you may think because of it.

“You are, though, when you punish yourself and feed into this self-sabotage I know you always have and push people away who don’t want to be pushed away. You deserve good things but you don’t let yourself have them.”

You match your gaze to Lena’s and remain speechless, watching the furrow of her eyebrow as she regards you in silence.

“I loved you, you know. You were my first friend- you were my best friend. Even when we may have fallen apart from each other sometimes... even when I needed someone to talk to when everything with Lex was happening... maybe I might have shut you out, I don’t know... but not hearing from you hurt. I forgave you a long time ago though. I think I always will.”

You stare stunned at Lena, your jaw slightly slack as you try to process everything she’s said.

“I didn’t know what to say,” you mutter quietly, entirely lost in the stunning revelation of Lena’s words.

“Yeah... me neither,” she amends.

“I missed you a lot,” you say after a moment of silence. “Like, a lot. More than what my young mind could have put words to back then. I still probably couldn’t explain how much I did.”

You ponder your oldest memories, the ones you’ve kept forcefully stored away in the deepest recesses of your mind in the name of ‘coping’.

“It was a lot though- enough to be scared by it. There were so many... there were just a lot of feelings I had. I was scared- I was scared of what I was feeling and I was scared of watching how I was becoming less important in your life.”

You see the shift in Lena’s eyes, how much softer and defeated she looks, and you rush your words in assurance.

“No, but it was really stupid and selfish to even think like that. But, I don’t know... it’s hard as a kid. You get a lot of these grand, unheard of feelings that you’ve never experienced before and you have absolutely no damn idea what to do with them. And the thing is they stuck, Lena. I think I knew I loved you long before I even knew to call it that. And then we got a little bit older and tried holding onto something that is constantly evolving and changing and it grew and changed with us, and life gets in the way and it is what it is, but we had something different. We had it and had no idea just exactly what it was except that we did have it, and I didn’t learn how to handle my shit and I still haven’t learned how to.

“I was scared of all the change and I was scared that I was losing you... so I just forced myself to push you away because I was deluded into thinking it was my choice. I thought I’d be protecting you, but I was only trying to save myself,” you scoff sardonically at yourself, inhaling deeply as you ignore the incessant pounding of you heartbeat against your chest.

“You could never lose me,” Lena says softly. “You never did.”

“I didn’t know that,” you mutter defeatedly.

“Do you know that now?”

You merely glance at Lena, a tight-lipped, apologetic smile forming in reply and Lena takes it for an answer.

“Why did you even say yes to that first coffee date at all? If you don’t think you deserve to be happy?”

“Who says I’m not happy?”

“Just answer the question, (Y/N).”

“Because you needed me.”

“So I did. What if I still need you?”

“Then I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, don’t do it just for me.”

You take a deep breath, looking away in some last ditch attempt to run away but you’re pulled back into Lena, Lena whose eyes look imploring and she’s watching you like everything rests on whatever sentences you decide to utter next, and you think in a way they really do.

You shift on the couch so you’re facing her. Suddenly, you become very aware of everything - you feel the presence of your entire body, the simultaneous heaviness and lightness of it; you notice the verdant iciness of her eyes, mesmerized by the lack of definition you could ever hope to name that very colour and are only left with one notion: divine.

You become very aware of the tragedy of her beauty; how entirely breathless she’s rendered you as you watch her love you still, love you still even when your best intentions only left her in hurt, love you still even through the ugliness, the helplessness, the lack of knowing.

You become aware that even in this lack of knowing, she has been the only consistent in your life even when you so blatantly refused it for the gift that she was, she has been the only clarity you’ve had in your life even if it took you so long and so many detours to figure it out.

You steady your gaze as you look at her, the entire weight of the universe suspended between you as you sift through these delicate moments.

“I convinced myself I didn’t deserve you. I felt like I could only be justified if you outright said you needed me. But that’s the coward’s way of doing shit. I shouldn’t have left it all up to you. I should have tried harder when you did need me. I should have put my pride aside for once. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. But that’s what I did, even when I did every single thing I thought was right to make sure I didn’t do exactly that.

“I’ve made some stupid mistakes and did things that could have been costly- things that could have ruined my life... but I’m hoping they haven’t ruined too much now. No matter how I’ve acted or whatever I’ve said or haven’t said, I have never once regretted loving you. I just wish I knew how to love you properly... to love you the way you deserve.”

“You’ll never know unless you try.”

“Will you let me?”

“If you really think you still have to ask that after all this...”

“No, Lena, I need to know this-”

“Yes, (Y/N). Even if I could help it, even though I can’t help it, I want you to try and I want to try too.”

“Okay.”

You and Lena are facing each other, Lena sat cross legged in front of you as you lean your side into the back of the couch.

“Okay,” you repeat again. You turn to face the TV and Lena repositions herself so she’s comfortable when she moves to put her head on your shoulder.

“Can I kiss you?” you blurt suddenly, feeling just a little guilty about jostling Lena in your abruptness.

“Yes.”

You stare at her when she looks up at you, and you feel entirely blank - there is nothing, and you feel nothing, and you’re a wholly mindless state and you just are, and you know you feel yourself closing the distance between your lips and hers and even when you feel her pressing against you, there’s nothing.

It’s when you close your eyes and start seeing without looking; when you take that first deep breath in that kiss and feel her so close to you - closer than you’ve ever been, that’s when you finally realize it’s real.

It’s at that moment everything becomes solidified in reality, the exhalation of breath that you make in profound wonder at the very fact that you’re kissing Lena - it’s then that you’re beginning to understand what it was you were missing for such a long part of your life.

This is your reality now, and for so long, it seemed nothing but an endless musing of some universe not meant to be yours.

You kiss her, and you feel yourself get pulled in, or maybe she’s melting into you, and that touch of contact on this groundbreaking new territory is historic and momentous.

Your breaths are shaky, you admit - you think you’re even being a little sloppy but Lena sighs into your lips, and it’s when you two eventually pull away and open your eyes that you feel like you’ve learned something new for the first time.

Lena’s eyes look a little glassy, something so mystifying there like a deep body of water long after it’s been disrupted and it’s just the after-echoes of the ripples lingering; you don’t know how it is you never really noticed how much you could see there, how much Lena said with so little.

Her jaw is slack like yours, both of you looking at each other and you wonder what it is going through her mind right now.

You wonder if she feels anything that you feel; like having just read the last page of your new favourite book and you’re left contemplating how you never once suspected it to be so life-changing, save for the little hints left between the sentences.

Lena, you realize, is your new favourite thing - something you never once suspected except in retrospect, yet something you were meant to love all along. She is your meant to be, your has been all along, your until we no longer can.

“That felt nice,” is all you provide, and you can be absolutely relied on to articulate the most insightful comments, undoubtedly.

Lena, for her part, laughs wonderfully at your remark - the special kind you’re reminded of from your countless afternoons at the park, and you think how astonishing and extraordinary it is to feel relief in its whole, unadulterated form.

Like a new chance at life, you grin, turning to face the TV again to figure out what trivial thing exactly is on at this very moment, taking in another deep breath to regulate the erratic short-circuiting of all your mental and physical functions.

“Nothing’s different, but everything’s changed,” Lena says quietly as she nestles into you and drapes the blanket over both of you.

“No, it’s always what it has been. We just had to figure it out.”

“No more hiding, okay? We actually have to talk now. We can’t just fix our problems by not talking.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re right.”

Neither of you say anything else after. You watch whatever channel it is you’ve skimmed and landed on. It’s as seemingly mundane as it could possibly be - you’re not at all surprised Lena breezes through most Jeopardy questions, but Wheel of Fortune is something you two bicker over and you think she’s loathe to admit you’re pretty good at it.

For all the guessing and wondering you’ve done throughout your life, it’s not so anticlimactic to be sitting in silence with Lena after a night out and sharing your first ever kiss with her.

For as long as you’ve known her, you’ve loved her, and you don’t need to integrate her into your life - she’s always had a place with you, and she has staying power.

You think by the way she dozes off on your shoulder after her third and a half glass of wine and snores lightly that she might think something similar - that you’ve always been a part of her, something familiar and inevitable.

You think finally, you’ve allowed yourselves to admit that very sentiment and not feel anything but a comfortable steadiness about it - finally, you can say you love her; simply, entirely, and surely.

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