maybe I want you to be mine.

I’m back baby cakes! More fics for ya’ll because I love you and I love Nodrian. this one kinda spoke to me even though it’s short. 596 words of hurt/comfort. This fic contains Supernova spoilers.  TRIGGERS: mentions of blood and accidental skin cutting, alcohol, one innuendo?

This is part of a larger series that can be read as individual fics or one big one. If you’d like to read them in order, please go to the second masterlist linked below.

masterlist We Rise with the Sun masterlist

Bonus:

i desperately need jessie mei li to be sophie beckett please 🙏

the sketch kinda got away from me, but im really glad i got to just let go and experiment with blending modes and just not take things so seriously for once.

maybe ill get around to cleaning it and make it into something more or maybe ill just leave it as is. (tbh my brain was turned off when designing the outfits so im not 100% about them and i might redesign that bit)

ANYWHO, @/netflix, PLEASE CAST JESSIE MEI LI AS SOPHIE BECKETT!!!

“Our child will always be a Bridgerton, but I should like them to know they are a Sharma as well” 💜🩵

the way this line lives in my mind rent free, like you don’t understand; the weight, the sentiments, the implications, in this essay i will—

in addition to the previous illustration, here are some cleaned up doodles drawn up IMMEDIATELY after the premiere of S3 part 2 to cope with the fact that we didn’t get to see baby Edmund 🥲

this was the coping song, trust, i was close to tears

Kate tells Anthony some very exciting news 🌷

Written in the summer of 2022, boarded from May to early August of 2024, and then sitting on my laptop until now, this animatic is labor of love and wish fulfillment. 💕✨

~~~

IT’S DONE. OMG IT’S DONE. IM FREEEEE and I can actually admit I’m really happy with the result. I learned so much from doing this one project and I think it’s definitely given me some of the artistic confidence I had lost over the last two years. 

My intention was to get as close as I could to this being like a “missing scene” from Bridgerton by studying writing to the cinematography and I’m so glad to finally put it out there. Enjoy! 💕

reupload, minor edits | originally written 2014

                I’m somewhat lifted from a lighthearted dream as the mattress to my left sinks and I feel him lean down over me, feel his breath against my hair. I peek my eye open enough to see that sunlight hasn’t yet crept through the blinds on the opposite side of the room. And above me, Aaron Warner–dressed, combed, and ready for workout. With the remnants of sleep still clouding my senses, I turn my face into my pillow and groan, the noise nearly drowning out his whisper.

“Good morning, my love.”

“The sun’s not up, so I’m not up,” I counter, my voice muffled into the pillow.

He chuckles and I hear his shoes fall to the floor as he kicks them off. Then his body is joining mine under the covers.

“I’m serious,” I warn him, my arms weeding around the pillow underneath my head in preparation of being dragged from my rest.

When he doesn’t respond or touch me, I turn my head back toward him. Blink several times to train my eyes to the dim light in the room. 

Warner lies next to me, hidden underneath the deep red comforter from the waist down, but propped up on his elbow and wearing a plain, cotton tee shirt. Affection wears him like an expression.

“What time is it?” I ask, careful not to look too long at the way that thin fabric stretches over his muscles.

“Half past five.”

I calculate the hours of remaining sleep I had that are now interrupted as I roll over onto my back and run the back of my hand over my eyes. My elbow brushes his chest as I do so.

“If you’re tired, love, you can sleep,” he says, but it sounds like pity. I shake my head but don’t get up. When I begin to stifle a yawn with the back of my hand, he shifts so that his left arm rests over my stomach. His head drops beside mine. I roll my head toward him. Try not to react to the fact that our faces are inches apart.

“I’ll get up if you give me a second,” I promise, stretching my arms above my head and kicking the covers to my feet. When I look back over at Warner, I still feel like I’m squinting at him, so I try a few more times to squeeze the lingering drowsiness out of my gaze. But his gaze on me is steady and intrigued, and he rests in the same position. Like a statue with his eyes trained forward, expression permanently caught between wistful and disbelieving. An expression which he only allows himself in the sacred seclusion of this room.

"God, you’re breathtaking in the morning,” he whispers, as if the quiet, morning air would steal his words if he said them too loudly.

And instantly, I’m caught. I pause my stretching and my gaze fastens onto his, hazy versus sure. His arm around me tightens until I find myself being coaxed onto my side toward him, until we’re so close that the tips of our noses tickle the other’s.

And aware of how my frizzy hair tickles my neck and the breath from my mouth must not be desirable, I scoff quietly. My gaze drops and then swivels, a trick I would have never dared around my parents or anyone of my past life, but the sarcastic eye roll has been a staple of mine after witnessing it from Warner and Kenji for so long.

I’m halfway through the remark, “Yeah, right” when suddenly I’m on my back. My wrists are enclosed by Warner’s fingers. My arms are above my head, Warner’s knees are resting on either side of me. My breath is stolen from my lungs.

The pure shock of how fast Warner moved renders me motionless as his frame leans tantalizingly over mine. All I can see is head and shoulders, but his gaze is so unwavering that I can only stare back, wide-eyed.

“What was that?” he finally whispers, dipping his head toward my neck. I swallow as I feel his breath warm a spot just below my jaw, and have to subdue the desire to wrap my legs around him.

“I rolled my eyes,” I say honestly, because with his lips so close to my skin, it’s all that I can think.

He freezes for a single moment before he erupts into chuckles and buries his face in my neck, letting go of my wrists so that he can lower himself on his elbows, pressing gentle kisses to my throat, up my jaw, until finally, my lips. My freed hands grasp his biceps right where flesh meets cotton hem. His lips part against mine and with the taste of his minty breath I’m reminded of my own and quickly turn my head. His lips seamlessly return to my neck, hunting lower.

My fingers follow the hard slope of his shoulder, over the juts of his shoulder blades. They gather in the fabric below his neck, like at any moment I could yank his shirt over top his head. Warner’s lips and tongue run against my collarbone, and he’s already pushing the material of my tank top off my shoulder to further his access lower. Both of us already pushing aside clothing.

“So about those workout plans?” I ask, surprised at the breathlessness in my voice.

reuploading, minorly edited | originally written in 2015

I am standing outside her door. The unfamiliarity of being recently freed from my cell and the threat of being discovered in the women’s wing after curfew has me looking over my shoulder as I hesitate. The length of the hallway that I can see is dark, motionless. Finally I rasp my knuckles on her door, quiet and firm. My heart fights to remain in my chest as I hear her footsteps hasten toward the door.

She throws it open and in the one second I see her face, I can tell I’m not the person she expected to see. I allow myself a single second to feel the rejection, but then the door slams closed and I'm sobered.

“Juliette?” I ask, casting a brief look over my shoulder again to make sure the door’s slam didn’t attract any attention.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses back, her voice muffled through the door between us.

“I need to speak with you.”

“Right now. You need to speak with me right now.”

I almost sigh, but I relieve myself of the time it would take to do so.

“Yes. It’s important.” The door remains closed.

I continue, “I heart Kent telling you that those twin girls would be in the medical wing tonight and I figured it would be a good time for us to speak privately.”

“You heard my conversation with Adam?”

Her voice grows slightly hysterical and I lose my patience, nearly interrupting her to explain, “I have zero interest in your conversation with Kent. I left just as soon as I heard you’d be alone tonight.”

“Oh.” She pauses for a beat, still not opening the door. I almost reach out and do it myself. “How did you even get in here without guards stopping you?”

The mention of the guards sends my gaze over my shoulder again. Restless to see her face, I say, “Maybe you should open the door so I can explain.”

Three seconds pass and neither of us has moved.

“Please, love, I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. You should know that by now.”

And then, miraculously, “I’m giving you five minutes. Then I have to sleep, okay? I’m exhausted.”

I can’t help but crack a grin at the compromise. “Okay. Five minutes.”

It takes her another full second until the door handle jiggles and half her face is visible from the emergency light in the hall. She shakes her head and I realize I’m still grinning, so I duck into her room and sit on the bed across from the door, the one separate from the other two twin beds against the adjacent wall. Her bed. When she closes the door, all of the light in the room is extinguished, yet all of the tension is trapped inside. Her footsteps move to somewhere across from me and then the quietness sets in. Within seconds, it begins to smother me: things said, things unsaid, her uncertainty of me, of this moment.

I organize my thoughts in my head and rotate the ring on my pinky as she shifts near-silently. I can practically see her pulling her legs to her chest or running her hand through her hair, but it’s so dark that I can’t tell what sort of fidgeting she’s up to. Also unwilling to break the silence, my fingers fall to the sheet underneath me. After nearly a week of threadbare and uncleanly blankets, this simple cotton spread feels like luxury. I take a second to imagine what it would be like to have Juliette against me under this blanket and forget the war going on above us. Her voice chases away the fantasy, but my fingers still run over the fabric smoothed over her mattress. “So… what is it? You just left earlier, in the tunnel. Even though I asked you to wait.”

I blink once, and then decide on a different subject. One that half my brain is already devoted to. “Your bed is so much more comfortable than mine. You have an actual pillow. And an actual blanket?” I look up at her and chuckle. “You’re living like a queen in these quarters. They treat you well.”

“Warner.” Just my name, though formal, makes my breath falter. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

The air in the room shifts again; I realize I can’t keep dancing around my purpose in coming. But even though I can feel the tug of her anticipation and impatience, I find the indecency within me to hesitate. Finally, after a sharp inhale that splits the silence: “I want you to come with me.”

She doesn’t respond immediately, and now that I’ve heard the idea out loud from my own tongue, I’m desperate to defend it. To defend us. To protect her. “When I leave tomorrow, I want you to come with me. I never had a chance to finish talking to you earlier and I thought asking you in the morning would be bad timing all around.”

“You want me to come with you.” It’s not a question.

“Yes.”

“You want me to run away with you.”

This time, I purse my lips for just a moment, praying for her to understand, before repeating, “Yes.”

“I can’t believe it. You really have lost your mind.” I come to realize that I’d expected an answer so like the one she gave, that an actual smile brims to my lips.

“Where’s your face? I feel like I’m talking to a ghost.”

“I’m right here.”

“Where?”

The bed creaks before she responds again, “I’m here.”

I join her on my feet and step forward, continuing, “I still can’t see you. Can you see me?”

“No,” she says, inches from my face, but the word is full of something other than truth. The waver in her voice clogs my throat. Just a girl, is what my father said to me. I remember the gun in my hand as I was told to point it at her. The ache in my chest at that moment was just a flutter of emotion in comparison to the inferno that torches in the realization that she is allowing me closer without trying to get away. Beckoning me closer.

I reach my arms toward her, needing to reaffirm that she’s actually here. My fingers brush her biceps, and I realize for the first time that the shirt she wears exposes her arms all the way up past her shoulder. The unexpected rush of energy that overcomes me makes me bite my tongue. It has only been a few hours since the last time her energy spun down my spine but I have already forgotten how potent it is. Distracted by the invisible flames flickering between our conjoined skin, I don’t realize that my hands have slid down to her waist until I also comprehend that she hasn’t tried to stop me.

We are both silent. Only my hands move. Her breath has ceased and mine is half way there as my fingertips find the skin underneath the hem of her shirt. Just then she sucks in a hasty breath like it hurts to use her lungs.

Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about what I came here to talk about. Another topic plagues my mind. “Is it even possible that you can’t feel this between us?” I whisper instead. My hands return to her wrists and the hum of electricity reignites, singeing my fingertips and causing my eyes to clench shut. I step forward as my fingers trace up the silhouette of her arms before coming to her shoulder. I find the strap of the tank top she’s wearing. My teeth catch my bottom lip as my fingers edge restlessly underneath. Push the material completely aside.

My fingers are still against her shoulders, waiting, waiting

waiting

for any response, but she gives no protest. I can’t make sense of her thoughts. I can’t make sense of my own. I can’t comprehend why I’m leaning down to her ear, past her ear, until my lips find the warmth of her newly-exposed shoulder. The swell of energy against my lips is intoxicating; Juliette takes preceden of all of my thoughts. I don’t want to be gentle anymore, but I can’t help but feel like I’m holding a glass figurine in my hand, fragile and priceless.

So I lean away again.

I still can’t see her face in the darkness, but now that I’m close, it’s easier to guess where the features are. So when I remove one of my hands from her shoulder, my index finger lands directly on her bottom lip, moist like she’d just been worrying it. My finger follows the curve of her lip, my limbs shaking from restraint and caution. And I’m waiting. Waiting for her to end it, waiting for her to shove me away and call me names and throw me out of her room and report me to Kent or whoever else she thinks could save her. But instead, her lips part against my finger and it takes all in me not to throw her onto the bed behind me. Instead, I return my hands slowly to her back, our stomachs nearly touching.

I am buzzing again as I lean down toward her ear, and whether it’s from her or my own feelings, I can’t tell.

Running away is the last thing on my mind now. All I can comprehend is her nearness, that she isn’t trying to end this, that she might have forgiven me. My chest is rising and falling quickly, and I don’t remember being this invigorated from a workout in my entire life. Finally, words find my lips.

“You.” I say it quietly. The word comes from somewhere beyond my voice box; it requires an entire breath to expel the syllable.

I have never found it hard to be direct with her before, but it takes all of my concentration for the next words to surface. Quietly, yet explosive with honesty that I hope she’ll recognize:

“You destroy me.”

I can feel the war within her, I can taste the exhalation running through her veins. I don’t know what she wants me to do, I don’t know what she wants me to say, I don’t know if she’s ever going to speak. She stands in front of me, so small yet so brilliant. I want her to go to bed thinking of me, and I want to be selfish and believe that she does so. I want her to tremble for me as badly as I tremble for her in the nights I wake up with a dream of her still imprinted on the back of my eyelids. I want her to know. And so I say so.

“Juliette,” The name is so familiar on my tongue that I’m not sure if I even said it out loud or not. “I want you. I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you.” My voice strains toward the end, so I swallow haphazardly then continue quickly, desperately, “It’s never been a secret. I’ve never tried to hide that from you. I’ve never pretended I wanted anything less.”

Then finally, her voice. “You—you said you wanted f-friendship—”