PrettyGirlsInc

“Hey, sweetheart,” Wilbur whispers in your ear, leaning forward further to place a kiss on your cheek. 

“You scared me!” you say turning around and hitting him in the chest. His hair is just a bit overgrown, bits at the neck sticking out into an almost mullet, that prominent white streak running through all the brown. He hasn’t shaved in a bit leaving stubble on his face that made him a bit hotter than you’d like to admit. You pout nevertheless.

“Thought I would be a nice surprise?” he hums, leaning down to kiss you on the lips. He steps forward until your back is pressed against the lip of the counter, his hands returning to your hips but this time holding tighter. “Besides you’ve been working so hard don’t you deserve a break?” 

“Wil,” you shake your head, patting at his chest for him to step back. You knew what break meant but you still had two hours of your shift that you did not want to spend limping, now was not the time. 

“Mm,” he hums, pressing his lips against yours again. He smells a bit like cigarettes as you gasp against his mouth, the kiss growing a bit more depraved. His hands slip under your cashier polo, fingertips pressing into your perfect skin, hands then moving up to grope your breasts. He loves the way it makes your breath get caught in your throat. 

“Fine,” you shutter, feigning a glare at him that couldn’t hide the flush across your cheeks. “You win, Wil,” you huff, looking up at him, a smirk on his lips as his hands retreat.

“I always do,” he kisses you again, his stumble scratching against your face. You take his hand, pulling him to the small bathroom in the back because you at least had class. As soon as the both of you crowd the space he presses you back against the wall, making sure to lock the door. He’s quick to undo your belt. 

“Your irresistible, sweetheart, how can I not have you?” he nips at your neck as you lean your chin up to allow him more space. You bite your lip as he busies himself with kissing your neck, finding that perfect place that makes you squirm. 

“Your unbelievable,” you breathe out. 

“Shut up,” he says with a smile, standing up to look down at you “You know you like it right, darling,” he bites a bit harder, reaffirming those red marks across your skin, clear proof that you are his. You whimper, putting a hand over your mouth to muffle the sounds. You yelp when he moves you until you’re leaned over the sink, your ass pressing back against his crotch. “Gonna let me fuck you, sweetheart, gonna let me make you feel good?” 

“Please, has to be quick, Wil,” 

“Can’t go over your fifteen-minute break time?” he teases as he pulls down your pants and underwear. You listen as he undoes his belt. It’s a familiar sound that has you squirming, pressing back against him. When his hands touch you again, they run over your ass before returning to your hips. “My good and obedient, slut,” he hisses into your ear before quickly filling you with the familiar stretch of his cock. 

You gasp, your hands searching for purchase until they find themselves gripping the side of the sink. He didn’t leave you time to adjust, fucking into you at a brutal pace that left you breathless. You moan hopelessly, biting your arm to muffle the sounds. Each slap of skin is another mind-numbing wave of pleasure down your spine. 

“Fuck,” you gasp out before again attempting to muffle the sounds from your mouth. He chuckled, grunting as he felt you flutter around him with each thrust. He was completely addicted to you and your body.

“You can take it,” he says, panting. His grip on your hips only tightens as he makes his movements rougher. His fingertips press in bruises as he uses that body of yours. You took him perfectly and he loved every desperate sound from your lips. You arch your back into him as you feel that knot building in your stomach, your body almost tingling with each of his movements. 

You try and communicate but find yourself barely able to breathe, only able to focus on the feeling of him ruining you, bringing you up to that edge unfairly quick. You whimper as he doesn’t relent, pleasure only growing.

“Come on, my love,” he says, the movements of his hips becoming just slightly off. You nod, moaning as you get closer and closer. He feels his own climax grow near, his pace becoming more depraved, less focused on you and more so on him. When you come undone around him he follows soon after, leaning over you but pressing deeper inside as his cum fills you. You pant trying to catch your breath. 

“You're so good to me, baby,” he huffs before slipping out of you. You indulge him and remain leaned over the sink as his fingers push his cum back into you. “Fuck,” He pulls back up your pants and underwear with a hum. You end up in his arms, both of you leaning against each other. He kisses the side of your head, then your ear, then your forehead. 

“Boss says you can go home early,” he whispers. 

“You know we both need the money,” you whine and he shakes his head looking down into your eyes. 

“So I'll punch you out when you leave,” he winks and you rest your forehead against his chest as his hands come up to rub at your back. He whispers again “Now you go home and keep my cum inside you until I can fill you up again, okay, sweetheart?” and you feel your face flush. 

“Fucking perv,” you laugh before checking to make sure you didn’t look too horribly like you just got your back blown out without much success. Your hair is out of place, the collar of your polo crooked, and some quickly forming hickeys on your neck. 

“Still think you are fit to stay and work, baby?” he asks from over your shoulder and you glare at him in the mirror. He still looks perfectly put together, handsome as all fuck. 

“I’ll see you at home,” you murmur, turning to leave before he presses you against that door once again. 

“I want my goodbye kiss, darling,” and you roll your eyes before kissing him again, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. “I love you,” he hums. 

there’s loud giggling coming from deep in the house.

honestly you didn’t realize how much you missed it until just now, just realizing how lacking it was, how quiet the house was without wilbur’s loud footsteps and constant bumping around.

“Aurora-“

you call gently, just as wilbur rounds the corner, his hair a million different ways and a smirk pulling at his lips.

“Speak of the devil.”

you say lowly, hoping that the only person who heard it was wilbur and not his twin that is two steps behind him, constantly colliding with the back of his legs.

“Mama,” she buries her face into your legs until you kneel down, moving the mop of curly hair out of her eyes when she speaks again. “Can Papa stay?”

it’s a question, not a demand.

“Oh,” wilbur says quickly, panic evident in his eyes. this is definitely not something he was prepared for, “Darling-“

“Baby,” you coo, the spoon resting on the oven, “We have an early morning tomorrow-“

“and-“ wilbur’s knees crack as he kneels on the tile of the kitchen, his hands a claw as he tickles her belly, “someone has to get some good sleep because someone has a birthday tomorrow. I wonder who that could be-“

she giggles, her hands go into wilbur’s hair as she gently pulls at it and he continues to tease her:

“who’s birthday is it tomorrow? Hm, I can not for the life of me remember-“

she giggles, climbs onto his knee and pulls at the corner of his eyes, pulls at the corner of his lips until he’s smiling:

“it’s mine, Papa!”

he gasps:

“it’s yours?!” he shakes his head, “absolutely not. you’re my baby you aren’t allowed to get older-“

you have to turn away. it’s too sweet, reminds you of when things were briefly okay-when wilbur was home and didn’t have dark bags under his eyes, when he would actually come around and help-those long nights out when he came home reeking of cigarettes and in stained clothes, how your voice cracked as you begged to not be a single parent (or at least, what felt like one)

Wilbur’s eyes flash to yours as he stands, Aurora thrown over his shoulder. his voice drops as he leans in, and you try to ignore how you can feel his hot breath against your ear:

“i’ll leave soon. i’m sorry-“

suddenly meek and mild, not the wilbur who made himself known, had no problem with that-

“Papa,” Aurora sticks her head out from behind his back, “Stay for supper? it’s just me and mama-“

his eyes snap to yours. his, wide with worry and like a deer in headlights, trying to not fuck up this co parent thing.

“Baby-“

“Mama,” Aurora pleads, “Please?”

her eyes are wide and sad and they suddenly look very much like Wilbur’s

“Well,” your eyes shoot to wilbur’s, “If Papa doesn’t have any plans-“

Aurora doesn’t hear that part. hears exclusively the yes that she got and squeals as wilbur tries to steady her on his shoulder.

“hope you weren’t busy.” you smirk. you’re teasing, obviously, as you stir the pasta on the stove.

“Go wash your hands, sweetheart.” Wilbur says gently, sets her on the floor and watches as she runs towards the restroom, still squeaking.

“Nah.” He shrugs, leaning over the stove now, finally answering. “i had a frozen pizza with my name on it but honestly-“

his hand dips into the pan on the stove, where there’s some sauce the chicken lays in. his finger connects, drags through it and brings it to his mouth with a happy sigh before you can smack his hand away:

“no, no.” he finally says, wipes his finger on his worn jeans, “this was much better, anyways.”

“what, freezer burned pizza doesn’t cut it these days?” you tease back against your better judgment, “you’ve changed.”

He laughs and the side of his eyes crinkle and the bags under his eyes are more evident and you try to shake it off before you can over think it.

“Look-“

Aurora comes back into the kitchen, all but stomping as she gets to the table:

“Mama,” She pulls her chair back, “Papa can sit next to me. I’ll get him a plate!”

You turn the flame off the stove and reach over, grabbing a plate and handing it off to Aurora, who tangled her hand into her father’s and drags him to the table with his plate.

dinner isn’t even as uncomfortable as you imagined. you imagined him clearing his throat, desperately looking for something to say, or having to take an emergency phone call to try and make himself leave early-

instead, he listens contently to every word aurora says. gasps at the appropriate times when she tells stories, knows when to gently remind her to focus on trying to eat; he falls back into the routine you two had like no time had passed. it was comforting, in a way, but knew the familiar ache would come back when he left

instead, you ignore it for your daughter. try to push it down and make it a problem for tonight-already knowing sleep won’t be on the agenda anyways, so this is something you can overthink again and again until your forced to pace in your kitchen by the light of the stove-

“I mean,” wilbur clears his throat, “it depends on what your mama thinks-“

“Hm?”

you try to not make it obvious you weren’t listening, lost in your own thoughts.

“I said,” Aurora huffs, “Papa should stay and read me a bedtime story! for my birthday, mama!”

wilbur looks sad in his seat. like it hit him that he’s doomed to a lifetime of day before or day after, always belated birthdays with his daughter, always an excuse or a reason-

“Sweetheart-“

you can tell by the way wilbur speaks he’s setting it up to gently let her down, to try and slowly pull the dagger out of her back

“that sounds like a good idea to me,” you stay instead, “I think you have a new book Papa would like too-“

wilbur’s head snaps up so quick at your voice you’re briefly afraid he’s going to break his own neck.

“M-me?”

his finger is hard against his own chest, his voice borders on shock or disgusted, you aren’t sure which one yet-

“Put your plate in the sink, Rory.” you say gently instead, “And then you can show papa your book.”

she squeals as she hops off the chair, drops the plate and goes back to wilbur where her fingers tangled into his and she pulls him away.

enough time has passed and the house is quiet enough you can hear the sinks steady stream of water fall from the faucet, a leak you can never remember to fix, that you finally figure you should check to see why it’s so quiet.

your hands play with the bottom of the old shirt you wear, suddenly aware of the old clothing and how dirty and stained it is-how for a while, wilbur would be dressed up when he got home, when things were briefly okay-white button ups untucked out of jeans after a long shift, the buttons undone on the sleeve and how they were crookedly shoved up to his elbows-

a deep breath, insisting the worst-a toddler meltdown, wilbur frustrated and near tears or him just gone, somehow escaped through the front door as you devoured the silence of a dinner you haven’t had in years

instead as you nudgethe bright yellow door open, you find wilbur-

the bed is far too small for him; his feet dangle off the edge of them and you know his neck and back are going to hurt the next day now-but instead of a meltdown he lays on his back in the too small bed and on his chest, a little head curled under his chin with the blanket drawn up to her own neck, eyes closed and fast asleep but wilbur still gently flips through the book, his voice low and steady as he reads gently in her ear-

“you’ve always had some special talent for being able to put her right to sleep.”

he laughs, closes the book and sets it on the nightstand where a picture of the three of them at a pumpkin patch years ago lays-Aurora on your hip, wilbur’s face pressed against yours and silly smiles on your faces, cheeks pink from the wind blowing-

“i’ve always said i was boring,” he sighs, ruffles Aurora’s hair gently, “Guess that confirms it.”

“come on,” you roll your eyes, “I have coffee for the road for you. Just how you like it.”

he hesitates for a second. a careful kiss to the crown of auroras head, before he starts the gentle dance of untangling himself from her. limbs appears slowly; an arm, a leg, a torso-Aurora never stirs; a heavy sleeper like her father as he ducks out of the room.

in the kitchen you carefully pour black coffee into a to go cup, making sure the temperature is right before putting half a packet of splenda (the yellow package only, the one you keep far in the back of the cabinet for him, for these rare visits, in hopes he’ll come back) before securing the lid and handing it over.

wilbur takes a sip, savors it as he groans and closes his eyes, really enjoying every sip.

“I needed that, darling.” he sighs, “thank you.”

darling hangs in the air and you try to not let it overpower you. try to not let him see the pink that climbs up your face with the old familiar name

i miss you, you think. the bed is too big without you. instead it comes out; “Any plans for the night?”

he takes another long sip of coffee before answering: “nah.” and he leaves it at that.

you snort, “i have a pack of 25 multi colored balloons that need to be blown up if you’re bored.”

you’re teasing. it’s obvious, at least you think. previous birthdays where wilbur would be poured over the scratched up table in the front room, slowly, carefully, blowing up balloons until he collapsed back in the seat always insists this is the last year he would be doing this. you tried to bite back the sting when you think that time actually was the last time.

“Yeah,” wilbur nods, locks his lips: “sure, i’ll do those real quick-“

“Wil,” you scoff, “you don’t have to-“

he throws back the last of the coffee, shakes his head: “it’s the least i can do. always your least favorite part. i’ll be quick, and then i’ll leave, i promise.”

out of habit when he says promise your pinky goes in the air and as if he’s never left, hasn’t stopped doing it, his pinky immediately wraps around yours, shakes once, falls

“where the usually are, yeah?”

wilbur asks but doesn’t give you time to answer before he digs through the drawer, comes out with his victory, the small plastic bag of balloons.

wilbur sits on the couch, gently blows them up, acts like he doesn’t hate it as you carefully unfold the banner of letters that read out happy birthday in various pastel colors as you struggle you hang it over the picture window.

“why don’t you let me do this?”

you feel wilbur’s hand on the small of your back before you can even register his voice.

“remember,” he said gently, his voice low like he’s afraid he’s overdoing it, “before-you’d wrap the presents and i’d hang the banner-“

“because i could never reach the top-“

you both finish at the same time.

your hand is still in the air as you turn to face him: “and you always insisted on playing the beatles version of happy birthday as we did it. again and again-“

“i know,” he smiles, “and you’d always swear you couldn’t sleep the next three nights because it was stuck in your head.”

“that’s right.” you’re finally laughing, leaving out how you haven’t listened to that song in years now, “again and again-“

gently, he grabs the side of the banner out of your hands and has a hand on your hip as he gently supervisors you walking off the ladder before he takes your spot.

when he turns around you’re back and he knows from the old box in your hands immediately what’s next:

“the usual place?” he says gently, instead of the old comments he’d usually spit out; ‘again?’ or ‘this is so fucking stupid. she doesn’t want these pictures out’

you pass him the first photo, the frame half broken and super glued back together,permanent fingerprint stains on it that you can’t get out no matter how long you scrub or soak it-

“she was so fucking tiny.”

if you didn’t doubt yourself, you’d think wilbur’s voice cracked, bordered on a whimper as his fingers danced over the silhouette of her in the frame. the day you brought her back from the hospital; wilbur’s clothes are wrinkled and the bags under his eyes are big, even though his eyes are downcast and he’s looking at the tiny pink bundle of blankets in his hand with such a proud smile

“you were so afraid you were going to drop her,” you finally say as you set the final photo out, “i’m surprised i got you to take that picture.”

he carefully sets it on the table like he’s afraid it’ll break, but you realize it’s angled towards him as he sits back in the chair and brings a balloon to his mouth

“you can help me bake the cake,” you say gently as you sit on the armrest of what use to be his chair, “if you aren’t busy.”

your hand rests on his shoulder, plays with the tip of his collared shirt that’s wrinkled:

“might as well stay.” you try again. “p-please. Aurora”you shake your head, “aurora would be thrilled to see you.” you get out.

stay you think let’s get this right i can get this right

he nods slowly: “i’m here.”

I’m wandering around, and this is a forest, but not one that I’ve ever seen. It’s unfamiliar. And I see him, and he’s not the same. He is still tall, with curly brown hair falling just above his eyebrows- but he has a stark white streak in his hair and a calculating gaze. And yet, he knows me. I can tell by the way he examines me, and by the way I move without any hesitation towards him.

This is not me. I am doomed to watch, but not to act.

I can barely make out his voice, and it sounds far away, as though I am submerged and he is still trying to entice me. I say this as, despite his familiar face, I can tell this man is not the same.

This is not Wilbur.

And then my lips are moving, without my control, and I am saying something about second chances.

I do not believe in second chances.

He starts to move his mouth more, and I can’t make out anything he says due to the ringing in my ears. He moves closer to me, pointing an accusing finger at me as his brows furrow in frustration. I move closer as well, not by choice, feet carrying me to the verge where I am nearly nose to nose with him; I take my hand, and with the full pressure of my arms, shove him backwards. He scarcely stumbles, but it appears as though the act was enough to infuriate him. He rushes forward, and I am knocked to the ground, left to fend for myself against this man who is undoubtedly larger and stronger than I am.

My eyes fly open and I scream, hands reaching to grasp at the sheets of my bed, breathing unsteady as I look around frantically. Sweat is beading down my forehead, soaking my back.

“Wilbur?” My voice is frantic and my mind is hazy, reeling from the horrific nightmare I just had.

“Hey, hey! I’m here.” And I feel him reach out to hold my shoulders, in the darkness, and I flinch, breath hitching.

“Snap out of it, baby. it’s okay, it’s just me.”

And his voice, unmuffled, is enough to convince me to relax. I know this is Wilbur, and I am okay. But there is a spark of uncertainty in my body, something that tells me something is not right.

I haven’t had a nightmare since I came to this island.

Something is not right.

I go to sleep just fine the next three days, and I am convinced the nightmare was nothing, despite its unnerving realism. But I am wrong.

I lay in bed, pressed against Wilbur, and I was asleep in no time.

This time, I find myself in a damp cavern. And I see him, quickly. He is there. Wilbur is there. In this tiny cave, and he looks wrong. 

“Wilbur?” I hear myself ask. And it is clear this time. Everything is so much more clear this time. I walk forward, not on my own accord; yet I walk.

And he is digging his hands into his hair and pulling, and his voice is strained as he mumbles incoherently, whipping around to face me.

“Darling,” and there are dark circles under his eyes. I do not flinch. This me has seen this before.

“Wilbur,” I say, voice taut with worry. “You promised you wouldn’t.” Promised he wouldn’t what? I am left floundering at my own goddamn words, and yet I maintain eye contact with him as he steps towards me, hesitantly, and reaches a hand towards my cheek, cupping it gently. This is wrong.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, you just need to- to stay here, okay? I don’t want to be left without you, now do I?” And I feel fear. This is not right, Wilbur should not scare me.

And something even more wrong happens when everything goes dark and I am somewhere else- no, the same place- I can’t even tell. The front of the gave is blown out, a gaping, jagged hole that is so wrong in my visage. And I am on the ground. And everything is blurry. I can see debris to my right. To my left. I can’t move. Everything hurts.

I think simply because it’s all I can do as my mind feels foggy. Am I dying? I wonder, and conclude that this me is dying. Yet this all feels so vivid.

It’s hellish.

It’s even more hellish when I glance at the ground, barely able to tilt my head and see a small pool of blood. My own blood. Why am I bleeding?

“Wilbur?” I call out, and my voice is hoarse, exhausted. There isn’t much more I can take. This me. 

Silence follows my call of his name, and, against my own will, I groan out in pain, rolling onto my stomach and attempting to push myself up on my elbows, hands curling into fists as I moan in pain. I am on a mission. But to do what? Mustn’t I be allowed to die in peace?

As I crawl forward, I turn my head and see it. I see him, and he is sprawled out on the ground, and there is so much blood. I want to vomit at the sight, but I crawl closer, whining at every movement. There is no choice here. I am trapped.

I reach him, and he is barely alive, a gaping wound in his abdomen is the first thing I notice as I collapse next to him, right into the pool of his blood. My breathing is ragged, I feel it, and he smiles as he looks at me.

“I’m not one for ‘till death do us part.’” He says, the weakest I’ve ever heard him; trench coat falling off his shoulders as he smiles. “I prefer the Romeo and Juliet approach.” 

I crack the smallest smile. How? How am I smiling? “That’s a horrible model. They’re a satirical take on foolish love.”

His eyes are getting heavy as he sighs, and I feel mine are too, the throbbing pain throughout my body becoming stronger as I feel the sudden urge to close my eyes.

“Nothing about our love is foolish, darling.” He manages once more, and his eyes close soon after, a smile plastered onto his face even in death.

I followed soon after.

It does not end.

I wake up, and I see the man I love- Wilbur, but I can tell immediately it is the Wilbur from the first nightmare; I can make out a white streak in his hair despite the dim lighting in this bedroom, and he is staring at me in fear, grasping onto my shoulders, eyes wide with concern.

“Snap out of it, c’mon.” He says to me, in an almost soothing tone. That’s what Wilbur said to me. But this isn’t Wilbur, Is it? I am panting, and sweating. This is not real, I’m sure of it. Wilbur doesn't have a streak of white in his hair. He is not deathly pale. He lives with me in a house of spruce wood, and he has a daughter and a garden.

I look around, and this is not our room in the house by the river. Tallulah is not here. Wilbur is not here. But he is. Maybe this is a cruel prank, as there is no strange fuzziness that I feel whenever I dream. This cannot be me. It can not.

“Wilbur?” My voice is a hesitant question, one void of relief. I swallow thickly, eyes locked on his own as he stares back at me, deeply concerned.

When you return, new gloves on your hands, a stew has been made. He’s standing there, facing away from you, the perfect uniform unspeckled by dirt or melting snow. He is as impressive as ever, a commanding presence that leaves your fingertips buzzing. He turns at the sound of your crunching footsteps and you meet his gaze the same way the deer had met yours. There is brief recognition, just enough to make your heart race, to feel the tip of your nose as warm instead of cold. He nods his head with a small smile. 

“Everyone thank, y/n, for the deer,” his hand raises to point, a lazy extension of his arm to you. “Enjoy a warm meal for once,” and his words are that soaring arrow, the turn of his heel without any of the steaming food in his hand is the action of ripping it out. Voices cheer, creating a steady static of sound as you watch him walk away to his own pitched tent. A warm bowl is placed in your grasp as your eyes stay in that place he used to be, lingering there until the smell of the food tempts you more than that afterimage of him. 

You eat slowly, venison earthy in your mouth paired with potatoes that warn of those last measly bits of rations. It’s good, better than good. For a moment, you feel like everything may be fine, survivable, this winter something that will pass us by and this paused war something that will be swallowed all the same as this food. You sigh out and feel lighter. It’s getting dark when it begins to snow again, you wonder if he’s eaten anything? If not the stew what would he have? Wasn’t he starving like the rest of you?

It eats at you, worry that aches more than the cold in your joints. You think of gaunt cheekbones during a speech, hands shaking with notes, and that man destroying himself for others. It settles with the snow on your unmoving limbs. You shouldn’t care this much. You shouldn’t be filling a bowl, shouldn’t be walking towards his tent, and you shouldn’t be pulling that flap open with a shakey hand, and yet, you find yourself facing him and his shocked expression as your sudden intrusion.

“President?” The honorific left you in an awkward way, it got stuck in your mouth on the way out. You choked when you met the sight of him, him standing looking down at a map spread out in the middle of the room on a makeshift table, a few buttons on that uniform undone yet not shed to conserve warmth. His gaze when it met yours was that of a honeyed summer, sunsets that stretch out across the sky. He is warm, sickeningly so. His eyes on you feel akin to basking in the sun, and in the dead of winter, you are all too content to soak it in.

“Yes?” he says, a word that leaves him softly and yet sobers you all the same to your disruption and to the warm stew still in your hand. 

“I-” you start, stuttering again with a wince. “You didn’t get any food at dinner, So I, I brought you some,” You give a sheepish smile and set down the bowl beside that map marked in red, scribbled on, and crossed out. You shiver, allow the cold to bite until you meet his face again, the puppy-dog look he’s giving you making your stomach turn. 

“I didn’t want to take food from the people who needed it,” he says, his eyes half-lidded, dark, flickering in that lantern light. 

“You can’t lead if you aren’t eating,” you look away from him “and we all need you, so you need this,” you whisper the last part before escaping from the small space with your face hot. The cold is quick to make this clear to you, tease you with windchill and a bout of dizziness. You take a few steps, fighting back against those gusts. 

“Y/n, wait,” he calls, his head peaking out, wind whistling as you turn. This moment is that horrible letting go of the arrow repeated again, it's the finality from brushing shoulders to knowing each other's names, it’s your arrow that strikes his heart unbeknownst to you. He ushers you back and you obey, follow him into that tent with your head held low. When you turn, find him fastening that door shut to keep whatever warmth he can from being stolen, you flush. He turns, a perfect sight of wind-chaffed cheeks and parted pink lips. 

 “I, uhm, I should have thanked you, I mean personally, before” he gestures between himself and you. It was then that your heart first ached for him, really ached. He laughed lightly and retracted back to his place on the other side of the table. He laughed again, a quiet rawness that left his mouth, his lips cracked from the dry cold, and yet the sound still soothed you. It told you to press on, warmth across your body. A part of you begged to cull distance, to tuck yourself into him if only to seek out his body heat. You think his arms wrapped around you would erase all thoughts of casualties, of war-torn faces, and of that deer. It’s indulgently delusional.

“It was nothing,” you say, knowing that the deer was anything but. He looks hesitant as you realize the food is now being held in his large hands, that he’s eating, and something about it stirs you. His eyes look up through his hair only to meet your own. You couldn’t help the way you moved in turn, averting your gaze to become glued to the ground instead of his face. 

“Thank you,” he says again and finally you retreat successfully, darting through the storm to your tent to curl yourself up with the butterflies in your stomach. 

You dream of fields full of wildflowers, a picnic with Wilbur across from you, his head tilted up to the sun. You wake to the unfortunate numbness in your toes, a familiar feeling that has you groan, and curl tighter around yourself. You dress quickly, rubbing away at dried mud and not bothering to look at the state of your hair. There wasn’t enough time for wishes of beauty and yet you still let yourself entertain the worry its absence brought you. 

You are sent to hunt again, given that same bow, and a kiss on the forehead from a soldier that begs you kill again. You nod, crease your brow, and tromp back out into the snow. You can’t make yourself pretend you aren’t also seeking more of that general’s attention. It’s days of the same routine with moments of a friendly nod from the man who somehow always catches you coming back to camp empty-handed. It’s a week until you succeed again. It’s another deer. This one is a buck, you think, as it stands larger up on a hill. He looks out, ears twitching, and you realize your time is as limited as it always is, the atmosphere volatile. 

You pull back with two fingers and you look up at pride, that deer that stood tall with the imagined weight of antlers atop his head, of beauty. When you let go you close your eyes as you always do, and when you snap them open you find him dead, shot through the eye. It takes you far too long to drag it back, and when you do you are met with cheers, that soldier from before pressing a kiss now to your cheek. You find Wilbur leaving his tent to investigate the commotion. He stands tall, concerned for a brief moment as he scans those faces so strangely adorned with smiles. He finds you in the middle of it all, dripping with wet snow, hair frozen in icicles at the end, mud and blood smeared on your face and you are only looking at him, not at the crowd of people or the deer being pulled from your hands to be made into food.   

And maybe it’s embarrassing, maybe it’s like being caught red-handed, or just maybe this is the start of something, a stir that you can’t ignore. 

He asks you to join him in his tent, two chairs found somewhere set around that table, two more bowls of stew made with fresh meat, and no more blood on your face. You allow yourself to look in that small pocket mirror you’ve kept stowed away, allow yourself vanity for right now if only to make the heaviness of his gaze feel less critical. You smooth down your hair, wipe your face with a rag, and you feel pretty.

He looks prettier than you never the less, as his hands bring that spoon to his lips. It feels strange to be here, intimate in the way there is a candle lit between you two, an uncovered flame that dances the same steps of trepidation in the cold air that you are carrying out in conversation. 

“Do you worry of the war?” you ask, implore, because there are no better questions than that of the looming threat. Your mind must be as heavy as your heart, always. 

“Every moment,” he says and it suffices as an answer in the way it crawls from his mouth as a plead he doesn’t want help with. You flutter your eyelashes, blink away any fear you harbor in your body, and still his hand finds yours. He reaches out across that table that has seen the plans of battles passed and yet to come and grazes his calloused fingertips across your own hand like it's the simplest thing in the world. “We will win this, you can leave the worrying to me,”

“Must you do everything alone?” you ask and his thumb grazes across your skin, his own hand warm. A grin finds its way to his face, something that betrayed the thickness of the air. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks, letting the words crystalize as a cloud of water vapor in the still-freezing air despite the flush on your cheeks.

“To lead? Yes. To take care of yourself? Absolutely not,” you lock eyes with him and he tilts his head. 

“I’d say one of those is more important,” he says.

“And I’d say you are weighing the wrong one over the other,” you challenge and it’s strangely tense as you pause, bite your tongue, and are quick to look down at your food that is growing cold. “I’m glad you are eating,” you say and at that moment he is mortal, human, looking at you with soft eyes, unspoken affection that you would not allow yourself to name. He is no longer the leader, the president, a name that weighs too heavily on his shoulders. He is so suddenly the image you’d admired from afar now so suffocatingly close. He is Wilbur, someone who must be reminded to eat, who hasn’t yet let go of your hand, and who, in this dying light, looks small. 

The night lapses into itself until you are without him again, curled up in your own sleeping bag shivering, and replaying a night of conversations that have gone past. It’s then you wish for his warmth, for bodies pressed against bodies. It’s a desire you do not allow yourself to fuel, and yet the next day he hovers near you. He seeks you out himself, pulls you to the woods to practice shooting, and you think you must be ablaze with the heat in your cheeks. 

He sets up a bottle, retreats to press himself against your back, and steadies you with large gloved hands. It’s less the actions and more the feeling of his hot breath fanning the shell of your ear as he directs you to raise that gun. He reaches with you, bodies overlaid. 

“Fire,” he whispers as snowflakes gather in the curls of his hair out of the corner of your eye. The end of his nose was red and his glasses were fogged up with the hot breath that was escaping past the scarf you had wrapped around his neck. You were quick to pull the trigger of that heavy gun, obey his orders and sublimate yourself to the air of authority in that familiar voice. The sound rang in your ears for a moment then fell away to him looking down at you with a grin. 

Bullseye. A broken glass bottle. 

“Are you impressed?” you joke, prod, your desire for praise outweighing any rational thought or action. He untwists himself from you, steps back, and looks down again just to face you.

“Quite, maybe you don’t need training?” he offered, no such desired praise crawling from his lips. 

“Thought my proficiency with a bow would have told you enough,” you say softly, leaning into the levity of the moment, the warm sight of the upturn of his lips as it contrasted with the wind nipping at the tips of your ears. You shuffle, the snow crunching your boots. 

“Guess I didn’t really think this through, hm?” and you want to say something dangerous, reply, tease, and draw out a reaction at the expense of your better judgment. A branch breaks far away and Wilbur lifts his head to stare out like a startled animal. You keep your gaze on him, the bob of his Adam’s apple, the angle of his nose, and still those snowflakes gathering in his brown curls. 

“Maybe you just wanted me alone,” you say and his attention rears back to you, snaps to you the same it had that broken branch, surprise clear across his features that so quickly bloom with a blush. You are terrified as he opens his mouth and struggles to find the right words. He is speechless, that leader of a nation stricken silent by just an utterance from your lips. He leans down, gets so impossibly close, and shares your oxygen, a feeling so intimately warm when it is this cold. 

“What would you say, if that is, the reason for this,” he implores and you want to scream as a shiver runs down your spine that is, for once, not caused by the temperature. 

“I would hope you would kiss me,” and yet he doesn’t kiss your lips. He instead presses them to the apples of your cheeks, to your forehead, to the tip of your nose, and then, finally, to your lips. Its soft wordless worship, it’s suffocatingly intimate, the shuttering inhales as he catches his breath. You bare your heart as he had his own, and you can’t stop yourself from being terrified of what will come after. His hands trail up, cradle your face, and hold you like something has never been more precious. 

“I am being selfish to have you like this so soon, my darling,” you kiss him instead of replying, instead of fueling his own self-doubt. You drink him in, move your lips in a way that speaks of pining returned, of months of staring now unwasted. You keep him, allow yourself this, and attempt to absolve him of his own guilt. 

“We can be selfish together,” you breathe, “I think we deserve that, I think you deserve that,” and you resist the urge to beg.

“And yet don’t you deserve something proper?” he ponders, his hand brushing down your face, wiping at the droplets of melted snow “Once we have food, I will take you on a proper date,” and you laugh. You don’t tell him you would let him ruin you, that you are scared you already are even when it’s just this. His lips meet yours again nevertheless and this time it states of new beginnings and waning control. 

The two of you find yourselves connected. A relationship that terrifies you both being kindled by that very same fear. Passion swallows that carefully kept peace, burns and engulfs you both into this intertwining of souls that lacks a steady footing. 

It’s fast to when you find yourself attached to his hip, him much the same, never complaining about the proximity. You are warm and he’s been cold for so long. You indulge each other in late-night conversations and feed each other's insatiable desire for intimacy, shared oxygen and ever-present skin-to-skin contact. He never prods for more than you are willing to give and after a month you can’t imagine a night spent alone, a day spent without his company.

So you spend most nights in his tent, overlaying each other on two cots pushed together, though it doesn’t work very well it’s enough to rest. He savors the weight of you on top of him, finds it grounding, your head rested on his chest or your leg laid atop his own. He pulls you there now, straddling him in an awkward way. It’s late and the camp is silent as you lean down to whisper in his ear but he speaks first. 

“Thank you,” he breathes out, his mouth finding its way to your neck, to creating bruises just below where he knew they would be hidden by your clothing. The phrase confuses you even as the action of unwinding like this is familiar. He leans back again and you resituate, resting your head on his chest, listening idly to the beating of his heart. “I’m sorry if I ever feel like a burden,” he says quietly. 

“You never do,” you whisper, pulling more blankets over the pair of you and settling yourself into his side. “I wanted you before you probably knew I existed,” you confess and he chuckles. You wish you could see the smile on his lips but your eyes have yet to adjust to the dark, leaving you with the outline of him. 

“Then I’m glad I found you before you changed your mind,” he says and you kiss at his jaw, stubble brushing against your skin. All of him feels like an indulgence, a vice you will never earn. 

“I don’t think you realize how much people adore you,” you say and he huffs. 

“Until they realize I’m a mess a-” You cut him off with your finger to his lips and a gentle shush. He is frequently critical of himself even as he hands out compliments to others so passively, he can’t extend that kindness to his own talents nor his mistakes. 

“Don’t talk like that, s’not productive, Wil” and you can feel the soreness of your limbs calling to sleep, the slow shutting down of your body. You ignore it, for now, push past your own exhaustion.  “I’ve never met someone like you, someone with so much passion, so much to bring to this world.” you pause and find his head tilted to see you as much as he can in the darkness of the tent where your face is obscured from where it is still half laid upon his chest, rising and falling slowly with the pace of his breathing. “Wilbur, people surround themselves around you because they can see what you can’t,”

It’s still winter when Wilbur asks you to teach him how to hunt and you don’t have the strength to say no when he flashes his perfectly poised puppy dog eyes. It wasn’t a skill you thought he needed nor one you thought you were especially qualified to teach, and yet, here you were following the tracks of a bunny. Wilbur is not the quietest, his footfalls heavy even after you’ve urged him multiple times that this matter is delicate. He is also not the best with a bow and arrow but he tries in an attempt to entertain you. 

“Steady,” you say as he pulls back, a shaky hand attempting to aim at a blissfully unaware rabbit. “Breathe, Wil,” you say and you can watch as he relaxes just slightly, one of his eyes shuts to get a better look. When he lets go the arrow misses by only a few inches. The rabbit scurries away, the white of its fur conceling it back into the snow. You can’t suppress your giggle. 

“Am I hopeless, darling?” he asks and you smile at him, his cheeks flushed as he looks away embarrassed. 

“I wouldn’t say you are hopeless,” you drag out and he rolls his eyes. You blink, suddenly stunned by how mundane the moment feels. His brown eyes fall back to you and the adoration you find there shocks you further, though you do your best to conceal it. “Just need some practice,” 

“At least I have the best to teach me,” he praises, leaning to you and pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. It makes your face feel hot. It’s only been two months and yet your head has not stopped spinning, every action of his still making your heart race. Maybe it’s unhealthy, the bond so quickly foraged, the way the two of you so desperately leaned on one another, but it was making this winter survivable. 

“The three rabbits we have should be okay, if you are cold?” you ask and he hums, arranging the bow out of his hand to free it so it can hold yours. You squeeze his hand as soon as it’s intertwined with yours and the chuckle that leaves him is music to your ears. A part of you still can’t believe he holds you like this, like love is something so easily found in this situation. “It’s no deer but it’s food,” you tease. 

“They won’t complain,” he says and you know he is right. 

“I know, I think some of them worship me for the deer,” you joke and he nods. His gaze falls down on you, memorizing every complexity of your face. 

“They should worship you if my poor attempt to hunt is anything to go on,” he says and you roll your eyes. He had gotten one of the rabbits, albeit poorly, it was still impressive for his first time hunting.

“Can’t be good at everything, Mr. President,” you say, giving him a wry smile. 

“Seems like it,” he replies and you can’t help but laugh, bump your shoulder into his as the both of you trek back. “I’ll get the hang of it if we keep practicing,” he mumbles and you giggle again as both of you walk into camp, passing off those rabbits to people waiting to begin cooking. It wasn’t every day you caught something, it wasn’t every day you hunted, and yet they believed in you the same, always assuming you would come with prey. You give a bashful smile and Wilbur pulls you to sit near a fire, to wait for that food even if it will be a while. The moving flames warm your numb face.

In the end, it’s a common dish, more stew. You both don’t complain. You force yourself to eat there by the fire, listening to the idle conversation, but not adding anything. It’s a gentle silence from you that is occasionally observed by Wilbur shifting his attention but never making you speak. 

The first day it is warm again, the unthawing of your skin brings nothing but settling dread of a war effort relit. The camp bustles with the cleaning of rifles, the counting of ammunition, and the organizing of medical supplies. When you see Wilbur’s worried brow, you can tell he feels the same. It’s in the way his hand finds yours in every moment he can, squeezes tight, and then only lets go as he stands to speak, breathing that fight back into them with words so carefully crafted. He has spoken these same words to you in the last days of snow, whispered them with his hand slung across your waist, spoke them to a growing audience of you and singing birds, and now he shared them with all those soldiers they were written for. 

You don’t listen, not in the same way everyone else is. No, you nod as he hits those beats he was so worried about, be attentive to the changes in his tone, and you notice as his hands begin to shake, the moment of realization when the speech went past careful words and became what is was, another declaration for war and violence no matter how much he detested it. He smiles all the same as people cheer, he takes your hand and you sheepishly stand beside him, though you know it’s nothing concrete. 

“Don’t hate me for this,” he leans down and whispers in your ear. You cock your head to the side, confusion clear on your face as he smiles. He squeezes your hand again, you look at him, are forced to look at him as he practically vibrates with the adrenaline from a speech now slowly passing him by. When he kisses you your eyes are wide because as much as the two of you were not trying to hide your relationship it was never like this. It's a short firm press of his lips against yours, another declaration, this one to you alone, it is wordlessly ‘I love you’, words that would remain unsaid even when acted out a million times over. 

When you follow him back to his tent, you want to yell for reasons you can’t place, a hot ball of stress wadded up in your chest, but when he turns and faces you it lapses, that anger swallowed by adoration because he’s still blushing.

“Will you fight with us? Will you stand beside me?” and it is a rush out of his mouth, its mixed syllables and stumbling.  

“Yes,” you say and it feels like informal enlistment, the draft is his will of who he wishes would fight beside him. You would never have been able to say no, wouldn’t have been able to muster the strength to shake your head when he was giddy like this, high on attention and brighter horizons you still weren’t sure would come. You had seen this war, had been in this war already, and yet he invited you again. 

He kisses you, clinking teeth and excitement, he doesn’t let himself think of what the war really means. 

The threat looms, as it always has. In a week you would learn war again from wherever Wilbur would let you, even if you were sure you had enough of war from before winter. When he bounds up to you with a bouquet of wildflowers one afternoon as the spring day begins to heat up you can’t help the tilt of your head. He looks like an excited puppy as he hands you the small assortment with a grin. Your heart flutters as he presses a quick kiss to your cheek. It’s affection that violently contrasts with the coming battle and yet you lean into it, bask in the gesture longer than you should. 

“These are so pretty,” you say as you look at the fresh blooms, some not all the way open, picked hastily out of excitement that now seems to radiate off the man. You take them carefully into your hand and try and think of something you could use as a vase.

“I promised you a real date,” he starts and your eyes widen as you are quick to shake your head, whine out his name. “Love, please,” 

“Wil,” you drag out.

“It’s already set up, please just indulge me,” and he’s flashing those brown eyes, pouting his lip. You can’t help but groan knowing you already have no choice but to agree.

“But you didn’t-” you start and he finishes the sentence before you can. 

“You’re right, I didn’t have to, darling, I wanted to,” and with a sigh you take his hand, let him lead you to a small picnic, a mostly untattered blanket laid out on freshly green grass. You can’t help but look at him with tears in your eyes. This was not something awarded to you, this kind of care that sunk into your bones, ate at you from the inside out. He ushers you to sit with a goofy smile and when you do you are wiping stray tears to keep them from falling down your cheeks. 

“Thank you,” you say quietly and he’s quick to replace your hands, ease those tears himself with calloused fingertips. 

“Why are you crying?” he asks gently, words that fall from his lips out of worry. 

“It’s just-” you take in a deep breath, composing yourself “It’s too nice, I-” and he shushes you, asks you not to pretend like this kindness isn’t everything you deserve. Your heart flutters and you can’t help but kiss him. You kiss him knowing what is coming but wanting, desiring selfishly to stay here, at this picnic, where nothing yet has been ruined except for you. He returns the affection eagerly. 

He takes out food from a basket that you don’t know how he found. It’s things he's prepared, foraged food and fresh bread. It's the bottle of wine that he pulls out that makes you widen your eyes. It’s a luxury you haven’t known for so long and so when he passes you a glass of that maroon liquid you take it and stare. He smiles at you, something soft as the sun warms his skin. 

“You can enjoy yourself,” he says and your gaze falls to him, bewildered by all of this. He sips from his own glass of the alcoholic liquid. You follow in kind, feel as the liquid warms your throat on the way down, it’s bitter and just almost sweet. You crave his closeness and so you move until your head is laid in his lap, his shadow blocking out the sun. His hands push hair from your face, trace the line of your jaw. You don’t know what to say and you wish you were content enough with the silence. 

“Will you still want me?” you say because your brain is quick to doubt. He creases his brow. 

“What are you talking about?” he says and you resist the urge to whine. You close your eyes, unable to face him as you speak. 

“When everything starts again,” it’s a topic you’ve both been grazing by, hiding from the soreness of what is to come. “I know you said you wanted me there but I- I’m just a distraction, I don’t wanna be that,” and you are facing him as leader instead of as lover. 

“I need you here,” he’s quick to speak, to overcome your own words with his own. “I need you here beside me, I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” and you nod, shaking away the fear he’s lying with your clenched shut eyes. When you open them he’s still there, your head still in his lap, and your heart now beating in your throat. You both won’t say it, not yet, terrified it would scare the other away with just those three words. 

That night he pulls you closer than usual, not able to stand the distance between skin, and the proximity is as suffocating as it usually is. On his table is that wine bottle filled with the flowers gifted now flaunted.  

The next afternoon you find him in your new uniform, the one ordered to be made by Wilbur due to the one hole in the collar of your former uniform, it feels stiff, unearned. He smiles when he sees you in it and beams in a way you hadn’t expected. It’s all warm, heat that is stored under the layers of professionalism and the guise of being a soldier. He smiles when you walk into his tent and stands to greet you. 

“They did a good job,” he hums, his hands cupping your cheek, always so adamant for his hands to be on you in some way, for touch, the present comfort of skin-to-skin contact. 

“Do you think so?” you tease, poking his nose with a small giggle. He shakes his head, running his hands up your face before letting go of you completely. You bask in his attention, soak in the warmth across your cheeks and the uneasiness of the affection in your stomach, it doesn’t settle like it should. 

“You know I do, darling,” he says and you try to not melt because there are more important things to do. You croon your head up to him, eye contact that feels smothering. Tomorrow is when that call back to fighting must be answered, tomorrow is a day of battlefields and bullet shells, tomorrow is making you feel sick even though it has yet to come. He sees the words begging to leave your mouth, the way you seem to lean forward in anticipation for something still hours away.

“Tomorrow,” you begin. You feel the word slip past you to only reduce to that simple utterance of the future even though it was such an insurmountable thing. 

“Tomorrow,” he repeats it back because of course he knows what your fear feels like, it’s the same taste plaguing his mouth echoed back. You don’t know what to say, find it to hard to speak, to recognize the grief forming in your gut for people not yet lost, for peace still yet to be broken. 

“I’m scared,” you state the obvious. 

“Everyone is, even me, maybe me most of all,” he says the words softly, not ones that are made to ease your terror but to bring it company. You nod, solemn.

“It’s just, I’ve done this, I’ve done this” you repeat yourself, tamping down the memories of this. You shake with them, tremble in the presence of the idea. Your stomach burns, a gash, a scar unseen that talks to that terror, makes it so painfully real. “but-” you stop and he nods.

 “I know,” is his response, care that feels so strangely muddled by his own fear, his own worries. Time passes between you two until his hand is reaching down, a familiar action that finds your own hand, he squeezes. “I think we are going to win, darling, and I promise I won’t let you get hurt, not when I know what I have to lose,” and you know he can’t protect you, not in the way he is claiming he can, but again, you nod. You sublimate yourself to that fantasy of untouchable. Your hand releases his and reaches out nervously, flattening down his own uniform whose colors match yours. He lets out an exhale, a breath he’s been holding this whole time. There is more to say but you can’t find it within you to open your mouth. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. 

The gun weighs heavier in your hands now than it ever did, dark metal made hot by the sun. Spring is slowly cresting into summer, and the war effort is not slowing but ramping up with the temperature. You sigh out, wipe at your brow, as you look across a wide field waiting for the enemy. They have remained intangible to you, always at an arm's distance, a safety net created by Wilbur that made you leave before you could be injured. It was frustrating, to march back with men and women who had fought, who were injured, while you were untouched. It was unlike before winter when you sustained injuries you would not speak about. 

There was a night of shed clothes and Wilbur’s fingertips gracing your body, tracing over a scar still so sore, angry, and jagged. He didn’t ask and so you hadn’t answered. You hadn’t offered up information of days spent in the medical tent shaking with fever and of whispers from the nurse that you would not make it through the night. You didn’t tell him how it felt to have a knife lodged into your side. You had shuttered as his hands grazed over the uneven skin and kissed him as if it would ease the memory, make him forget. 

You wish that pain made you feel strong but all it did was make you feel small. Somehow the distance from the action, from the chances of that same wound being repeated, made you feel worse.

Now you look again across the field to see rising smoke and small figures walking closer. It’s watching a storm roll in knowing that casualties will surely come as a consequence. People just like you, alive now soon to be still and cold later. Wilbur comes up behind you, you know it’s him by the heavy sound of his footsteps, the way they drag across the dirt. You look at him, your view of his uneasy expression and a head framed by the blue sky, he bites at his lip. 

“Is everyone prepared?” you ask, eyeing the fidgeting of his hands. His gaze finds yours, irises pools of brown and honey where the sunlight reaches down to lighten them. 

“As much as they can be,” he leans down, and presses his face into the crown of your head, breathing you in, his hands placed steadily on your shoulders. You know he is going to tell you to leave before he says it because as much as he wants to be close to you he also would crumble if you were ever hurt. He would blame himself. These are things that you know. He steps back slowly and you are compelled to speak. 

“Let me stay this time, all the way back here, please,” you say and you see the way he stiffens, a knee-jerk reaction of no almost slipping past him. “I want to help, I’m a good shot,” 

“I know you are,” he supplies but you watch as his eyes run over you. “If you stay here,” he offers and you are quick to nod. He leans forward, kisses your forehead, then your eyelids as you laugh, then he quickly kisses your lips. It’s a routine, the love that he litters across your face. You smile at him all the same, laugh lightly at his antics, and then your eyes find his dark circles, cuts across his face, and the wrapped state of his hands. 

“Do you need to go now? Do your job, Mr., President?” you tease him and his smile is gold. 

“I do, but,” he chews at his bottom lip again “I need you to promise me you will stay here. That you will leave if we get pushed back,” his expression is serious, severe in a way that you've only ever seen when it’s about this horrible war. 

“Please,” the word is quiet from his mouth. You nod and lie through your teeth. He kisses you anyway, presses his lips against yours in a way that he allows to be slow, to take the time that he doesn’t have to spare. He squeezes your hand, the one not holding a gun, and then he turns to leave you alone with the heavy guilt of your lie on your chest. You would fight today, fight for everything he was a beating image for, and you would see him again when it was over. You watch him walk until you can’t see him any longer, him disappearing into the crowd of untrained soldiers, faces of friends obscured by distance swallowing him. 

When it all comes down to it, sweat beading down your face, hair plastered to your forehead, and looking down the sight of that gun. The sounds echo to you across the field, yells and gunshots and metal crashing. Screams are what make your body run cold, your hands shake, and you thank god you are not close enough to see the blood that you don’t know how you were ever accustomed to. You aim carefully, pull the trigger, and allow the distance to strike you apathetic to where that bullet lodges itself. A body falls all the same, a limp and unmoving shape painted into that scene of bloodshed. With each shot from your rifle, the pit in your stomach grows. You see the innocence of that deer, that died so long ago now, and the pride of the buck that was flaunted to no one until it was spilled into the snow. When you see them fall back, blue, red, and white uniforms move closer, and deaths become more concrete. 

You run, do as you were told even though you said you would stay, keep fighting. You run back to the camp and find yourself with shaky hands and a gun still hot from firing. Your heart is racing as you search for anyone left waiting. You find yourself in the medical tent, almost able to ignore the ache of the memories from the last time you were there. When your wild eyes meet the familiar nurse, she pales.

“They are losing, w-what do we do, th-they are losing,” you say, a rush of words that leave you in gasping breaths. You see the way the nurse’s brow furrows, she walks closer slowly. Her eyes check you for injuries, linger at your side, then at the absence of a head wound causing your pure panic. 

“We wait for them to come back, sweetheart,” she says softly, her hand finding its place rubbing at your back. 

“B-but wh-what if,” you stutter.

“They will come back when they need us. You have to trust the President. Help me set up more beds, okay?” and you nod instead of speaking, instead of asking more questions. You follow directions, set up cots and medical supplies until you hear them outside, hear the stomps of heavy feet, groaning, and shouts of names that are never yours. The nurse looks to you, a silent plea for help as the injured find themselves piling up, laying in cots to wait or to die in pain. You stare wide-eyed at a woman your age, bleeding, blood on her hands, uniform cut open, a knife still sticking out of your side. You can’t move, can only see your face on hers until the nurse is brushing your shoulder, startling that sight back into obscurity.

You bustle around alongside the nurse, clean cuts and do your best to stitch up wounds that are too deep to close themselves. You don’t let the blood bother you even as your hands smell metallic and begin to be stained pink. You don’t stop even as you become lightheaded, dehydrated, and starving you push on because you did not keep your silent promise, You fled, ran away instead of having the nerves that would have allowed you to stay put, you followed Wilbur’s orders. 

You didn’t think of how your presence here would mean your absence would be felt elsewhere. 

When he finds you, Wilbur has tears running down his face. You see him for a flash of a moment, standing from your place beside a cot where you have placed a cool towel on a woman’s forehead. He wraps you in his arms before you can process his sudden appearance and you can hear his labored breathing as he holds you tighter than he ever has. Guilt finds you as its victim again. 

“I couldn’t find you, I thought, I thought you had- you had- or they had taken you or-” he panics quietly, worries spoken in a hush as he refuses to let go of you. You look anxiously around at the beds full of the injured, at the nurse still wandering between patients. You should have found him first, it’s a horribly selfish thought. 

“I-” you start though you don’t have the words to defend yourself, to explain. “I- I was helping with-”

“I know, I know, I just- I thought you were dead, my love,” he finally pulls away from you, studying your face as you study his own. The tear tracks break up the layer of dirt on his skin. There is blood splattered across his face, speckled on his uniform that is no longer left pristine. You reach up hesitantly, brush your fingers lightly across his face. You try and ignore the blood seeping out from him from a cut in his shoulder, a wound exposed through a hole in the thick fabric of his jacket. 

“I’m okay, see, I’m okay, I ran just like you told me,” and he nods, pushing his forehead against your own, and sighs out the tension in his body. “Let’s go to your tent, Wilbur. I’ll bring something to clean you up?” he nods again, but he doesn’t move to leave, his eyes still running up and down you, his hand still grasping yours. He reassures himself over and over that you are fine, that you are in front of him, that you are breathing not dead in the grass with all those other familiar faces, but he can not shake it. He can not forget every time he saw someone like you and thought that you were dead, thought that it had been his fault, thought that he had let you slip right through his fingers. 

“Wil?” you whisper and he looks at you, really looks at you. His face falls then as his breathing evens slightly. 

You hum and grab his hand lightly before getting enough supplies to treat his wounds, he follows you without complaint. You lead him slowly to his tent, pulling open the flap for him. It’s as good as it can be, mud tracked on the tarp of a floor and other messes littered through the space. He sits on the edge of his cot silently as you pull up a chair to sit across from him. He flinches when you press a cool washcloth to his face, begin wiping away the dirt and blood with languid drags of your hand. 

“Just me, you’re okay,” you breathe out as you run that rag featherlight across his skin, applying pressure where it is needed. When you are carefully undoing the buttons of his uniform, peeling back bloodied clothing to reveal a wound so much worse than he let on you try and not to show surprise on your face. You try and be professional, in a sense, as you clean and dress it, the same work you’ve been doing all day. 

“You should have gone to the medic tent sooner, Wil, this is,” he winces as you dab antiseptic over the cut. 

“Needed to find you,” he whines lowly “Couldn’t think about anything else but you dead or you-” he begins to panic again, fear bubbling over into rushing words and more uneven breathing. 

“Shhh, s’okay,” you coo, leaning forward, kissing at the now clean skin of his forehead before again resting your head against his. You take in a deep breath and listen as he follows suit without the direction to do so. “Everything’s okay right now,” you repeat, your voice steady and another slow inhale and exhale. He leans back with you, though you keep your eyes closed, and keep taking steady breaths. You feel his hands reach out, trail up your arms, and fingertips then trace your collarbones before again his hands find your face. You meet his eyes. He holds you, feels as you move with life under his touch, and he relaxes. You have questions on the tip of your tongue, a bombardment of them begging to leave your mouth, but it’s not the time, not when he’s like this. 

“I need you to stay still while I give you stitches, Wil” you mumble, unentangling yourself from him, your hands guiding his own back to his lap. 

“I’m sorry,” he starts, resigns himself. 

“Don’t be,” you are quick to say as you pull the knot tight in the thread with your teeth. You begin slowly, creating sutures with the precision of a day's practice. You listen to his sharp inhales, and glance as he winces but remains still. Seven stitches later and you are carefully tying off the wound and wrapping it. 

Your hands smooth over the bandages unstained, fingertips brushing over the rough fabric, and a beat allows you peace of mind. Your actions mirror his own, a craving for the reassurance of the survival of the other, shaking hands hovering over warm skin. It’s a different kind of intimacy not derived from pleasure but from contact to seek out the other as clean and well and alive. It’s unique to the situation, sustained by mutual dread and the circumstances of war. You retreat your touch all the same.

“All done,” you say and he hums, something low in his throat that resists becoming a whine, becoming desperation that doesn’t have an answer. You flounder as you lose what is clear to do in this situation. So you busy yourself, repacking up the supplies instead of facing the aftermath of a battle you didn’t see. When you finish, you stand from the chair and place it back by the table along with that medical kit and various bloodied rags. You consider leaving, darting away from this emotional burden instead of facing it, and you shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t.

“It was horrid,” he says, his voice small, barely a whisper. You look at him over your shoulder and his eyes are glued to the ground. For a split second, you morbidly consider your own absence, and then you peak outside. It’s dark now, the camp having fallen silent and still. “I don’t know if we can keep fighting like this, keep losing people to this magnitude,” his words sit heavy on your chest and you can’t lie, you feel the same. In this small space, it feels hopeless, your eyes tracing his bandages, wounds clear and on the skin. 

“But it will be okay, right? I mean we, we aren’t going to lose?” and you meet his gaze, the one of his worried brow, of biting the inside of his cheek, of doubt that leaks out and swallows you. It’s cruel to ask him that. 

“It’ll be okay,” he says quietly, and you leave the tent without another word even though it’s unfair. You slink back to what used to be home, a pile of blankets, a bed unmade in a small tent whose littered holes have joined into each other, holes that now show the night sky peeking through, twinkling stars that do nothing to console the tears from your eyes. The rest you find alone is unsatisfying, it lacks warmth not that of the sticky humid night, it lacks the softness of hands up your sides, and it lacks a presence to keep you from the buzzing behind your eyes. You fall asleep only once the crying has made it too hard to stay awake. 

The morning comes with dew in the grass and a familiar face saying your name. There have been many faces, many people whose names never stuck. They were friends of Wilbur’s met in winter when survival had been more important to you than camaraderie. Wilbur had been an indulgence ill-advised by your will to survive but tempted by your want to live, by desire that struck you selfish enough to hold him close, a spark that the hunger and cold could not stomp out. 

“Y/n?” It’s strange to hear your name spoken by anyone but Wilbur, but you blink away the sleep from your eyes, focusing until the young man becomes more than a messy blur of blonde hair. 

“Hello?” you ask hesitantly, sitting up with a sigh. 

“Wil, he sent me to get you,” he says, his voice soft, a quality you don’t quite recall it ever having. “He needs to see you for like, President shit,” you exhale as the boy gets more snappy, more like the distant memories you had of the blonde. 

“I’ll uhm, I’ll head over there soon, his tent?” you ask and the boy shakes his head, blue eyes closing with the motion that he exaggerates. 

“He said the woods, said you would know,” you nod and he hovers for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Do you know?” he questions and it’s almost more than you can choke down. The woods, the same clearing of poor thought over training and stolen kisses, the same clearing of a date you hadn’t yet repaid,  the same clearing of a speech he had repeated endlessly to you there, a speech now losing words in your memory, the same clearing, the same woods, the same expanse of nature that saved you, brought you a deer whose death led to more life, more Wilbur, and a reason to keep pushing. 

“Uhm, yes, yes,” you say, shaking your own head to try and dispel your tendency to drift from the present “W-what’s your name again?” you ask him and he tilts his head, and for a second you expect outrage. 

“Tommy, Toms, Wife-haver,” he points at his chest, puffing it out in another exaggerated motion. You smile at the boy, relax, at the show of pride and youth and innocence, things lost so quickly still embodied and celebrated by him, Tommy, in front of you. He leaves then, allows the sunlight peaking through the flap to be culled though the light is still littered in torn circles shown down. You let out a heavy sigh before picking up the pieces of yourself, dressing in something comfortable that eases the ache in your heart. 

You walk slowly and brush your fingertips on green leaves that are so unlike the dead branches piled with snow imprinted in your memory. When you see him he is looking out into the trees dancing with the gentle breeze that picks up occasionally into gusts that blow his hair and the loose fabric of his white button-up shirt. His boots are untied, laces left to drag in the dirt. He isn’t in uniform, no layers of armor in the form of a title displayed by clothing, of epaulets of gold or high collar. It’s a way you are graced with seeing him often, undershirt and tousled hair, it’s an intimacy he extends to you now extended to the late morning light. 

“Wil?” you say his name, let the wind take it further than you are willing to speak it. He turns, eyebags and all, a smile still finding his face as you walk closer. You keep your distance, wrap your arms around your torso as you wait for words to leave his mouth, as you wait for the horrible way you feel to fade, as you wait in fear for what comes next. It’s a sickness in your stomach, a thrum in your heart, and a frown upon your lips. 

“Good morning,” he says just as softly, as noncommittal. It pulls you to him, stepping closer to tamp down more green grass under your feet. You stray until you are inches from him, a distance that is bearable but burning nevertheless. It’s now you can see bandages laid by you, a messy job, a wrap now spotting with dark red. It’s weakness peaking out just barely and yet you find it as easily as breathing. 

“Yesterday,” you begin. 

“Yesterday,” he repeats, an action mirrored from days ago, fear of the future folding into trepidation of the present. 

“I needed distance,” he nods as you speak “I’m not like you, I mean, I can’t pretend this doesn’t affect me in front of people, I can’t pretend that all those people I helped aren’t in pain right now, I can’t shut my brain down, and I just couldn’t bare to look at you and see all of it right there in front of me, every bloody wound, cold hand, and fucking shot I took,” it’s everything you couldn’t even bare to think suddenly leaving you as words inflicted upon him. You want to rush out apologies but he’s hugging you, wrapping his arms so tightly around your body it’s uncomfortable, and yet you wouldn’t dare move for fear he would let go. 

It’s then the cruelty of your words comes over you, a chill down your back. 

“It’s not your fault,” you say, hiding your face in his neck, breathing him in, savoring the warmth of his skin against your face. Your words go against what you’ve just said, pointed blame you placed in his hands with your heart. You can’t deny the tears welling up in your eyes or the croak in your voice; His arms don’t loosen. 

“It is,” he says quietly and it’s almost enough to feel held. “You don’t need to be what I am. I am supposed to be strong, darling, you don’t owe that to anyone.”

“I owe it to you.” It’s a hesitant utterance from your mouth then swallowed down as his grip around you waned.  “I owed you not leaving the tent, I owe you softness. I owe you being a good soldier. I owe you being a good partner. I ow-” He pulls away and places a large hand over your mouth. The space your voice filled becomes the soft far-away sound of a bird singing as he stares at you, meets your gaze in a serious way. There is no levity to escape to, just the aftermath of something the two of you can’t tiptoe around anymore, and he’s right there in front of you but you miss him. You miss him horribly, he is that ache in your chest that only knows how to intensify. His hand lowers slowly from your face, it finds your hand, and squeezes lightly in a way that is familiar, it’s an action that feels like home, that he has made feel like love. 

“This isn’t a transaction,” his other hand runs down your face, and you want to cry. It’s two deeply flawed people entangled in each other, and you don’t know how to make this healthy, how to resolve your own doubts, but what would you do without him? “You don’t owe me anything, you don’t need to feel guilty for taking care of yourself.” and it’s simple reassurance, it’s a softness in his eyes, it’s everything he is laid out in front of you. 

“I love you,” he says for the first time out loud no matter how many times he’s said it in his head, no matter how it’s been shown in his actions, it’s said now, heard not felt, confessed. “I really love you, I love you so much it terrifies me,” You cry then, allowing those tears begging to fall to trail down your cheeks slowly. He’s quick to wipe them away and ease you again. 

Your hands grip him, pull him closer until you are intertwined in one another for the second time. Your shoulders gently shake as you silently cry and hide your face in the crook of his neck. He presses his nose into the crown of your head, rubs gently at your back, and takes in steady breaths until your own mirror his. It’s desperation, clinging to one another, shedding miscommunication in a way that is physical, that lacks the complexities of speech. 

“I love you too,” you say trying to not make that phrase seem like an ending, like the last line that must leave your mouth. It blooms in your chest as he hums in acknowledgment. 

“I want-” he begins and it’s already so much, to want, to desire more “I want a life with you,” You let out a shuttering breath thinking of dreams of more picnics and softness that can extend to everything derived from butterflies in your stomach and what was a crush, far away adoration. It’s a phrase you both never would have said in the winter, when this relationship was cradling embers, feeding oxygen until that charcoal glowed enough to burn. Now the both of you were on fire, flames unburdened. 

“After we win,” you say, taking a step back to search his face, to memorize again the curve of his cupid’s bow, the eyelashes under his eyes, and moles littered across his skin. You both take in a deep breath, and you watch him nod. 

“After we win,” he whispers back, his hand finding the back of your head, digging into your hair. He pulls you closer with his other arm and his lips find yours in the expanse of a gasp. His touch is demanding yet everything you’ve ever craved from the man, it’s the warmth of the sun in the winter and the gentleness of a knife. It’s a promise he’s ruined you, become all-encompassing, and yet you aren’t terrified yet comforted by leaning into him, digging deeper.

The war rages on.

Wilbur can’t keep you as close as he would like, can’t leave you stranded at camp waiting for him to come back, and he couldn’t have you just beside him risking the cold fate of death. You pushed and he collapsed, gave in to your wish to fight again with a rifle from away. For a while it helped, battles were won not lost, and people felt hope again. It was a sick feeling that pushed you all further, that had people begin building on the land, planting flowers in the valley, and beginning to understand that camp as home. It was what you were fighting for, a life that would drain of violence and grow into days spent with your feet in the river. 

You told him you would build in that valley, the one that shared so much joy and pain, a small house to share surrounded by trees that brought privacy. He had smiled, something quick and high-strung. You spent the days that you did not hold a gun in your hand sat in that field, looking up at the blue sky and flurries of clouds. You dreamed of the future, a version of you under that very same patch of sky without the fear of the next day being your last. You dreamed of sweet tea on your tongue and Wilbur’s voice in your ear. You dreamed of deer out the window of a cabin, eyes meeting without the anxious thought of an arrow. You found yourself with a sunburn and memories of a life you were not sure you would ever have.

It gets worse before it gets better. Wilbur talks less, silence finding him time to think not worry. His arms hold you closer at night, fingertips that dig into flesh and leave more bruises than the battlefield. It’s quiet desperation that he doesn’t allow to touch you, his own worries sinking back into him, pulling him down into himself. There is no amount of softness to ease it, and you almost always wake alone. 

It’s not just silence but frustration that turns to anger. It’s a boiling point mirrored by the growing temperature of the season, 

It’s late and the heat has not been broken by the night, sweat still beads on your skin. You can’t sleep, tossing and turning alone on that cot in his tent. You find yourself leaving that place as lonely as it felt, wandering out in thin clothes you usually wore just to sleep. Your bulky boots are left untied on your feet, out of place without the matching uniform. 

The camp was dark, littered with dying lights and quiet conversation from tents that flicked with oil lamps. There was the occasional bout of stifled laughter that stirred you as you guided yourself through paths of stampled grass. Above you, there was the wide open sky speckled with stars and twinkling horrible bits of hope. You didn’t mean to find him, you hadn’t left your shared tent with the intent of seeking him out and yet there he was. He was stuck looking down at information received from the other side, things that would not change no matter how long he looked at the scrawled warnings. 

You debate saying nothing, turning tail, and hiding back by yourself in that tent that far too often only sees your face. He startles as you accidentally drag your feet, those heavy shoes giving away your location. He doesn’t relax in your presence.

“Sorry,” you begin and he looks back down. It’s tense when you wish it wasn’t, and beyond your better judgment, you gravitate to him as you always do. 

“You should be asleep,” he says. 

“I could say the same thing, but I know it’d be a waste, Wil.” There is a tension in those words, a craving for something manifesting itself as simmering anger that leaves the air thick. You blink, think again then of words shared and repeated between you too. 

“After we win,”

It spoke proudly of a future to be realized, and yet it left you both in limbo, in waiting, in soon not now. He looked at you, narrowed his eyes, and then let out a breath he seemed to have been holding. You watched as his shoulders fell and he seemed to crumble down into a man again. You think he wants to speak, you watch as he moves to do so, and then freezes again. You can only imagine an apology, can only know how much you don’t want to hear one. 

“You don’t need to be here,” he says and it stings. “This,” he gestures to those messy notes covering a messier map. “This is my job, darling, it’s not yours, I know I’ve been distant and it’s been on purpose because as much as I need you, I know you don’t need to be sucked into this aspect of war, of planning, of guilt,” the last part comes out quieter, but it’s more than he’s said in a week to you all at once and still it is not enough. 

You can’t help but think of the guilt he must be consumed by, remember snapshots of that feeling in the medical tent. It had felt like humid air that could not be sucked down, a heavy horrible growing feeling in your lungs that only grows larger, that consumes and consumes. Is that all he knows? Has he learned how to tame that hungry thing that only knows the desire to ruin you more? You think of the feeling that made you flee from him, turn tail, and run. He didn’t have that option. 

“So you have to do all of it alone?” you say.

“What is my other option? To drag you into this further than I already have?” and it snaps from him with that anger back and biting, drowning our all sense of guilt because it will always be easier to burn. 

“I’d rather have you drag me in than not talk to me,” you say trying to control your own words, trying to stay level. 

“So I can watch you fucking fall apart once you hear about what’s going on when you aren’t looking? Do you want to know how many people die? Do you want to know how little supplies we have left? You want to carry the same weight? What would be the point?” he hisses and it hurts. It hurts more than you would like to admit and yet you stare there, look at him, look at the man that bears the curse of leader, of general, of president. He has not sated any of those consuming emotions, he has not muzzled the guilt that covers his words that only escapes due to the tense sting of irritation. You take in a shuttering breath and the summer night inhales with you, a gust of wind that evaporates that sweat from your skin in a temporary moment of reprieve from the heat. 

“That’s not fair,” you say, allowing it to leave you in a lapse of the silence that comes after, he lets that quiet return without complaint. “Wilbur, you can’t make that decision for me, do you think I stand by you because it’s easy?”

“I don’t know why you stand by me.” he says and it rears to the reality, of self-doubt and the root of anger, hurt. 

“Because I love you, because I am hopelessly in love with you, and I don’t know how to show you that when you push me away,” and there is still a steady distance between you too, a drawn-out few feet that is almost never there. You bite your tongue, look away and to the distant field moving with the flashing of lightning bugs. 

It’d be easier to walk away.

Abandon him again, just like before. 

“I’m tired,” he says and it comes as an excuse. “I’m sorry,” 

You huff. The moment runs long. You wonder how many hours it is until the sun will rise, will cleanse these bad feelings only to have the dark dig them back up once given the chance. When Wilbur speaks he doesn’t make eye contact with you.

“I’m scared that if I let you involve yourself with this mess of a war I will lose you. I can’t be without you, I can’t stand the idea of being without you and yet I’m terrified of your presence,” he says and it is horribly heard. You cull the gap, wrap your arms around him, and try and ignore the sound of him softly crying. It’s not weakness, you want to tell him that, but all you can muster is the further constriction of your grasp. 

“I won’t leave you, I couldn’t,” you say and he is shaking his head against your shoulder. You wouldn’t leave him, couldn’t have walked away even if you begged your body to. You were stuck now, for better or worse. 

“We both know that would not be up to you, my love,” 

“Like hell it won’t,” you say with a pained laugh. He can’t help but kiss you. It’s a desire that changes its form, no longer wanting pain but touch. It leaves you in the weeds, entangled. You don’t know if it’s right and yet you return that passion because it’s him. Wilbur groans into your mouth because his hands have found your hips, can feel the curve of your body under the thin clothes you wear. You love how it feels, to be his again, refrain. You think the heaviness can be shed, you think you can crawl from this chrysalis, you think it will be okay because soon that’s all you’ll know how to be, because the war will end, because he loves you. 

You both stumble to his tent, feeling like teenagers with muddled inhibitions.

“I love you,” he says kissing every newly unveiled part of your skin, he can’t say it enough. It’s love that consumes him and sets flame to every rational thought that begs to come to fruition. His mouth is hot.

“I love you too, more than anything.” you say breathlessly and it doesn’t matter that it’s been said before. It could be confessed a million times and never lose the weight of the words. His tongue is heavy on your skin, it’s pleasure that rises up your spine and makes your chest fall out. You look up through half-lidded eyes and he is a mirage of good. He is intangible love and light and it hurts to look, the same feeling of looking into the sun. You crave him, you despise it. You need him like oxygen and you have no inkling to hold your breath. 

It ruins you all over again, cannibalism of your soul, and yet your eyes roll back and it’s the best you’ve ever felt. 

You wake and he is still there. 

You can feel his chest expand, can feel his breath on the back of your neck, and you know that, in some capacity, it will be okay.

His distance lessens, he tells you of his day, all the good and bad. You learn how to swallow that information, how to hold him in a way that it is adequate to ease the pain of war. He learns your limits, falls silent when the downturn of your lips grows too much. Summer makes your heart ache, the trill of cicadas and the streaks of falling stars on nights you wait too long for him to come to you. 

You lay in that clearing, this time at night, the act ever present in your life. You allow the grass to hold you, lick at your skin with wisps of prairie. You listen as frogs croak and bugs buzz hopelessly in the dark. It grounds you, whisks away your mind from spilled blood or carefully taken rifle shots. It makes you feel whole again even in the absence of anyone but yourself. You light your own happiness in solitude, share it with Wilbur and whisper details of the night he does not have the energy to focus on. 

The enemy catches your joy and crushes all hope under the dying light of a sunset. 

You press your back against a hill. You hold that rifle close to your chest, an extension of every bad part of you. A loud sound rings in your ears, bombs that have gone off, wreaked havoc on the soldiers now splattered across your face, and taken down walls you all built with calloused hands. You think it must be immoral what they’ve done, blow your home to smithereens and spare parts, kill soldiers not in their uniforms. It’s shock that has taken you, left you shaking, and yet still. You wanted to beg your legs to move, to run, to flee finally from the very ground threatening to swallow you, and yet your body will not respond. Your eyes search, dazed, the destroyed land and the uprooted dirt stained with scorched grass. The sky breathes a red setting sun, pink and orange struck above you. 

Another explosion sounds off, booms in your chest from the ground shaking with aftershocks, rubble falling down to rain upon your skin. You yelp and cower down further, the sound brings the attention of a nightmare not yet realized. Hands find you, fingerprints of violence pressed into your uniform in drying blood. His touch digs into your ankle and jerks you back towards this assailant. 

“Let me go, please, just let me go,” you scramble, blurred vision and panic not letting you see that elusive enemy. The very air is full of smoke, of metallic blood, and you scream. You run your throat dry and push and pull. The whole world rushes up to meet you, hands sinking into dirt, and propelling yourself away from the enemy, crawling desperately. You kick at the still-unseen soldier and when your own hands find your gun you are so quick to turn and aim. 

“Don’t fucking move,” you spit as you widen your eyes, take in the sight of a man who almost killed you while you take in labored breaths Your wild gaze traces the sharp edge of a knife in a white-knuckled fist, and when eyes meet eyes it’s horrible because it’s human fear you are met with, the same live feeling stored in your chest merely staring back. His expression is as terrified as yours. 

You shouldn’t let him go, you should have some sense of vengeance for the blood on your hands that was not spilled by your violence but an extension of his. You should be furious that he touched you, that the dagger in his hand held an intent that did not come to fruition leaving a weapon that will always crave the taste of your blood. That knife falls to the ground nevertheless and begging becomes folded over this time without words. Your finger finds the trigger without the strength to pull it. When he runs you take no move to aim your gun at his retreating figure, he disappears into that visceral field of death, smoke that swallows him. 

You make a pathetic sound, gasping for air that is as disgusting as before. It fills your lungs and reminds you of small victories, of not dead yet. You stumble to your feet to press on. You step over bodies until the faces morph into one mass of loss, names unlearned and voices never heard by you now silenced forever. 

There is nowhere to go, only ruins of a home that never got to know peace, land that was supposed to be beautiful, dreams of tomorrow, of soon, of after we win crushed.

This was home, L’manberg. 

 You walk on footpaths, mud that formerly swallowed shoes in the cold, and you search for movement. You walk until you find his tent now reduced to a smoldering tarp, bullet holes, and ruined maps. He doesn’t crawl out of that wreckage and everything around you remains quiet except for moans of far away pain and cracks of licking flames. 

You remember the first time you saw Wilbur, love at first sight, for you. He didn’t notice one soldier among hundreds, and yet, you had looked at him like he had hung the moon. He stood and spoke, in an undamaged uniform, light reflecting off golden accents. His words filled you with unfounded hope, a wild buzzing that fueled your crush. 

You remember the first clumsy night spent in his cot together. The way his arms didn’t know where to rest, where you would allow him to touch you. The blush that had fallen across his face when you breathed out everywhere. He had been easy to fluster, to overwhelm, and yet at times that night felt burned in your skin, hickies never quite fading from the expanse of your neck.

You remember him from this morning. Bedhead still a top of his head, a white shirt with a stretched-out collar loosely hanging off his frame. You can see the mug of disgusting coffee beside him as you watch his eyes scan over the same map for the hundredth time looking for a way out, a way in. You coaxed him back to bed with a giggle, a kiss to his ear. He had groaned playfully and for once your chest did not feel heavy.

Home.

The crushed tent blooms into a million memories of fading touches and hunger pains. 

“y/n?” your name startles you. You turn and find Tommy, dirt-smudged across his face, part of his blonde hair stained with dried blood. You can’t help the smile of desperation that leaks onto your face. You wrap your arms around him, cling to him like a lifeline as you resist the crawling urge to cry. 

“Tommy,” you say his name, the one you’ve finally learned, his arms awkwardly come up to give you a weak embrace. You take a hesitant step back and he gives an equally awkward smile. 

“Uhm, I’ve been out here looking for survivors,” he says quietly and you let yourself mourn the things he’s seen, mourn that it was him to see them. You want to whine, be angry, to scream because he is so young. “Everyone, everyone that made it is in a small camp just that way, I can walk you there?” and there is no joking, no usual taunt to his words. You nod anyway, and you don’t ask about Wilbur because you are terrified to hear the answer, so you keep his name in your mouth, a weight ever-present on your tongue. 

You two walk in silence though you never stray far, adamant to stay close, steer him away from bodies lying still. He occasionally throws stray jokes into the wind, laughs that never quite have the audacity to bubble up from your throat. It’s dark when you see the flickering light of fire through the trees, and he takes the time to announce himself, throwing on a brave face. You force a timid smile, your eyes glued down on the ground instead of baring to look at all those soldiers now deemed survivors. There is a warmth that meets Tommy’s antics, undesernable love for lightness.

Wilbur’s name stays in your mouth, waits to escape past vice-trap lips, but once you ask it you are convinced it will be true. You stare at dull flames, flicking light of dying hope. There is no one there to promise you it will be okay, no one to stand and speak of a brighter future. You find yourself on your feet in front of all these people, and you want to be Wilbur, to be strong, to be a leader. Then there is a hand on your shoulder, arms that wrap themselves around you tight. It’s panic for a moment that overwhelms you, that reminds you of hands on your ankles and the steadying breath of aiming a rifle. He smells of cigarettes, a nasty habit born of stress that you didn’t have the heart to reprimand him on. The reunion repeats a moment in the medical tent from weeks ago, a wound that is still fresh, but this time you don’t have the strength to keep it together, you are lucky you can force yourself to not cry. 

You lean back into him without a word, have hands that come up and grip his arms for dear life. His breath fans across your neck as his forehead is pressed into the back of your hair. The moment runs longer than it needs to in silence, in the distinct absence of words. When Wilbur whispers in your ear it's a croak. 

“I knew you would be okay,” he says like it’s a past mantra from the expanse where you were missing. He repeats it quieter and pulls you somehow closer. You can feel eyes on the pair of you that make you stifle slightly, and wince as the president professes worry. You turn until you can face him, resting your eyes on his hollowed-out cheeks and intense gaze. He kisses you as soon as his eyes have the chance to fall down to your lips.

It’s more desperation than he was willing to let on with his words, leaning just almost to something frantic, worry fuels the firm press of his lips to yours that is so quickly devolving into the messy stealing of oxygen, of shared saliva. You squeeze his hand and catch your breath. 

“Can we go somewhere more private?” and the request leaves you feeling small, removed. He is quick to nod, to walk until the light of the moon is all that is left. He walks until he is in a prairie, wildflowers faded in the night, and your hands are still interlocked. You listen for the crackling of the fire and only find the sound of wind through leaves. He kisses you again, and crowds in your space until your back hits a tree. 

“This isn’t what I meant,” you whimper but don’t move to stop him as his lips attach themselves to your neck. 

“I know, sorry,” he says panting, stopping the teasing of his lips but not moving away. He can’t bring himself to pull back, risk that close proximity never gracing him again. You don’t resist when he continues his ministrations, and moves his lips down to your collarbone. “Is this what we need?” and you shake your head. 

“I need to breathe for a second,” you say and he stands fully, towers over you. You find his hand, squeeze and he squeezes back, a learned routine grounding you. His hand is warm, he’s alive, and tomorrow is still waiting for you both. “I never want to be without you like that, I thought they must have killed you, and I couldn’t ask, I couldn’t ask” You meet his brown eyes that are so dark like this, that are pools of adoration. 

“I know. darling, I know. I wanted to look for you myself,” he presses his nose into your hairline, and you can feel his lips ghosting against your forehead as he speaks. “I’m so happy, I’m so happy I still have you, so proud you got through that,” and his praise makes you hide your own face in his chest.

“Don’t leave me, just let me stay beside you, fight beside you,” you beg and he regretfully finds himself nodding. He could protect you like that, he could keep you safe. He kisses down from your forehead, returns himself to sucking bruises against your neck, and moves his hands to your hips. The night smells of honeysuckle, a sweetness reflected on your skin. You whimper, allowing want to manifest itself in the sounds from your throat and the hitch in your breath. 

“I’ll keep you safe, keep you right here where I want you,” and his hands are still holding you, moving up under the hem of your dirtied shirt, the one stained by every nightmare you’ve seen in the day. It’s shed before him, the scar on your stomach silvery as he runs his hands on familiar skin. There is peace in the practice of worshiping the known, the curves of your body that have so often been graced by the palms of his hands. “So perfect, so beautiful,” he mumbles. 

You unbutton his shirt carefully with hands that are steady instead of shaking under his watch. You pull it off him, kiss at the scars across his own skin, ones treated by you and whose stories you’ve never heard. He flushes under the attention that is everything he gives to you without a single request. 

The summer’s heat beats under your skin as he swallows the sounds from your mouth, it’s quiet and suffocating, it’s needy and horribly dependent. 

Tomorrow comes and drags into the next week. You relearn hunger pains caused by the smithereens of rations and the night sky unabashedly above you as you sleep. You don’t leave Wilbur's side, and you learn the frontlines even though your aim only worsens the closer the enemy is, the more you can see the whites of eyes or the smattering of freckles. He is always there before anyone can hurt you though, always pushing you out of harm's way or in some cases taking the pain himself. It hurts after every battle to clean wounds that should have been yours. Patching him up becomes a routine practice, something slow and repeated. It’s comforting to know you can fix him, undo the wounds you blame yourself for. He enjoys the attention, the hovering of featherlight touches. It’s one of the only times you can find the comfort of just his company uninterrupted. 

You’ve both built a makeshift tent on the outskirts of the camp, it was a day's effort that now blessed you with shelter, cloth walls that kept the intimacy of mending each other between you both. You look at a particularly deep gash with a whine in your throat, a replaying of that moment, him instead of you. Blood drips down from the cut that grazed the top of his shoulder. You don’t let the sight debase you as much as it wants to. 

“You need to let me fight some of my own battles,” you say with levity, a joke that is anything but joking. It’s easier to say it when you don’t let it be serious, an all-consuming conversation. 

“I am, I’m just not letting you lose them,” he kisses the tip of your nose with a slight wince due to the movement. 

“Shhh, don’t move like that if it hurts you,” you can feel the flush in your cheeks as you speak, somehow still flustered by the man even now with him shirtless in front of you in a clinical way, your hand gently placed near an open wound. Your eyes widen when he moves again, presses his lips now against yours, and kissing him comes as easy as breathing. You pull away after a moment with a furrowed brow, a weak attempt to scold the man when you are anything but angry that he wants you like that, that still something as simple as kissing makes your head spin. “I really wish you wouldn’t defend me like this, in a way that makes you get hurt when I have barely a scratch on me,” 

He doesn’t have the will to defend his actions, nor to rehash this conversation when it’s the one you whisper to him every time your hands are delicately patching up the wounds the day litters him with. You let out a sigh as your gaze meets his, you don’t have the strength either. Tomorrow is another day, another argument lost, and another battle to wage. Times like this, of soft flickering candlelight and night uninterrupted by the sounds of gunshots, were precious, and you didn’t want to waste that time dredging something up that he’s already made up his mind on. You hum instead, leaning forward until your forehead is rested against his bare chest. 

He takes in a deep breath, you can feel as his lungs expand. His hand finds yours and traces patterns on your palm. It is again, the known, the slow matching of the both of your breathing until there is no doubt to either of you that you are both alive, both well enough. 

“I don’t wanna be bad for you,” you say and he shakes his head, you can feel it in the movement of his body. 

“You are the best thing I’ve had since the war began, my beloved. Christ, you’ve been the only reason I remember to even eat some days,” and you laugh, a cruel sound because it denies all those heavy feelings the space to breathe. “If protecting you is all I can do to thank you I’d say I’m not doing enough,” You shush him with a groan and yet you don’t lean away from your place pressed against him.

“Just, just don’t die for me okay?” you say and he hums. 

“I don’t plan on leaving you anytime soon,” You pull away finally and look into his brown eyes again. He is Wilbur, for you, so presently the man you love not the one you follow into battle. 

“Good,” you whisper. 

He keeps well on his promise, the intention to not die. You feel like he is taking fewer risks, fewer nasty cuts and bruises for you to dote over each night. Still the routine remains but shapes into something less devastating more so the careful cleaning of grazes and the act of putting food in front of him and on top of that cursed map. It’s something repeated, an action of care that comes easy.

It’s a day when no battle comes to greet the morning air that you drag him to that shaded grove where you want the house to go. You speak excitedly of the future like it’s a promise that it will come, like you can speak it into existence. 

“We can have a garden here and a porch to sit on and-” you continue as he laughs at your giddiness. It was your way of making sense of all this, of making the guilt and doubt of war bearable if only you keep your sights on the horizon not the ground. He entertains you all the same, speaking of details of your future home, big wide windows and a study.

“And it will be all ours,” Wilbur says because this is still a matter of land when it all comes down to it. He sits with you in the middle of all those trees, his surroundings just as familiar. He kisses you, soft and slow. It feels like the domesticity you are dreaming of because it lacks any context of haste. He cups your cheek and leans back, eyes fluttering open.

“I love you,” he says, a phrase that still hasn’t become commonplace making it weigh as heavy as lead as it leaves him. His eyes search your face as still you flush under the blue sky of late afternoon. 

“I love you too, for all it’s worth in words,” you say and he smiles, crowding you and kissing again until you must gasp for air. This field will be your home, this grass your backyard, and he will be here still, as warm as ever. The sunlight brings a comforting heat to your skin as he seeks to remind you of nothing but that love he professes endlessly.

It’s more weeks of fighting that somehow leaves you unfazed. You wake to the sounds of drums and the absence of a body wrapped around you. It wasn’t unusual, the war so often demanded early mornings and Wilbur never wanted to drag you to those anxious preparations. The night before Wilbur had spoken of peace treaties, of winning, really winning. 

“I hear whispers of the enemy giving in, considering a peace treaty,” he says, pulling you back against his bare chest. You craved the proximity like this but you couldn’t help if summer nights made it harder, skin adamant to be as sticky as the air. 

“Really?” you had asked and his chest vibrates with a hum. 

“You are the only one I’ve told, my love, but I want to believe it's true.” he says.

 The memory comes to you and, for once, you rise easy. You button up your uniform and pull on those high boots without the insidious weight of a surefire loss. You felt hope, again, burn in your chest like it had when you first heard Wilbur speak, like it had in all those people before the camp was blown to smoke and ash, like it had every time you allowed yourself to still dream of a simple life in that cabin still unbuilt. 

You sling a gun over your shoulder, a dagger in the sheath of your belt, and you go to find him. You think not of coming death but of when this will end. It is easy for you to seek him out, finding him with the ever-present worry across his face looking down at that wretched map you assume is burned into his eyelids by now with overlapping scrawlings of strategy. 

“President?” you tease and his rigidness flattens slightly as he looks at you. Wilbur then comes closer and eases his face down until it’s buried in your hair. There are cigarette buds you can see out of the corner of your eye littered on that table. You hum, relax yourself into his grip, and wish silently that he would stop smoking if only so he would stop smelling of it, but he is allowed vices when reality has been so cruel. “Is it still looking good?” you ask him and he pulls away to look back at the map. 

“Better than it has in weeks,” he says and you smile, can’t help but smile. “Darling,” he insists but you can’t wipe the expression from your face. It makes you feel dizzy to believe that this could be over soon, that there ever could be a day without spilled blood because as much as you’ve dreamed the day would come, part of you never believed it could. You don’t want to curb your expectations, you want to scream, you want to shake the man in front of you around, and, fuck, you want this war to end. 

“I have a good feeling about today,” you say and he shakes his head in a way that is not punitive but reminds you he must focus. “When will we get into formation?” you ask and he waves you away saying to come back in 30 minutes. You wander the camp and note every smiling face as birds sing the songs of the morning and the rising sun. You scrounge up food, enough for both of you as you filter your way back to him sharing more polite upturns of your lips with those people preparing much the same as you are. 

He doesn’t have the heart to complain when you place some bread and an apple in front of him, so he eats in contemplative silence. 

“I think this will be it,” he says and you reply by knocking on the wood of the table with a cheeky smile. He is thankful today for your desire to keep him from spiraling into the type of doubt that only finds him before they must line up, and make ranks. When he finally finishes eating, you both stand. You gravitate to him, brush off crumbs of that bread, and straighten every bit of his uniform that your eyes deem crooked. 

“You should stay back today,” he says and you are quick to glare. 

“And miss the end of this fucked up thing? Wil, I can’t” you say and he looks down and away. You tilt his face to you until you make eye contact again. “I have given so much to this country, I need to see it through,” and he understands, you know he does because at times L’manburg feels more like Wilbur’s passion project than a country. You look over him and find no more mistakes, no more things to anxiously straighten or flatten down. 

Everyone marches forward in silence until the frontline is formed and found. You all are a crowd of unchained desperation, all buzzing with the idea of this finally being over. You don’t look at the face of the other side, you keep your hand in Wilbur’s, you keep taking steady breaths, and you notice the inklings of panic in your body. 

These two sides stare at each other knowing only the sickness of war and a thirst for blood, part of you knows still that this is the final battle, it’s something in the air that feels like the twist of a knife, tension running thinner and thinner. You make a surprised sound when Wilbur pushes you behind him and strangely you find Tommy’s eyes to your side, and feel the palpable fear stored there. It’s so sudden that something shifts in your chest, that hope blown out like a candle, the smoke of dread filling your quivering lungs. Your heart is beating in your throat as you hold that gun close to your chest. You count sensations, you try and come back, the coolness of the metal of the gun, your shoes tied tight, the stray buzzing of a bug past your ear. Wilbur is speaking, you can hear the timber of his voice but your ears betray you or maybe it’s your frazzled nerves not allowing you to focus, to comprehend any of the words leaving his mouth. 

“Wilbur,” his name leaves you as an afterthought, a small squeak of wait. 

The line swells forward without you, around you they push, and you can’t snap into it. You feel sick and dizzy when Wilbur turns back, sees you frozen, so horribly frozen, and is then swallowed by the crowd, his brown eyes disappearing behind the heads and uniforms of soldiers. Tears well up in your eyes as you try and muster the ability to be strong, to aim that gun, and kill people like they are prey, like they are that deer. The world rushes up to meet you too quickly and maybe it was due time you lost, took some pain that Wilbur could not harbor. 

You make a strangled sound as someone finds you, a face you don’t get to see long enough to memorize. All he becomes is the close lean-in of brown eyes as he sinks a knife into your stomach. Your scar acts as a blueprint as that wound seems to be repeated. The pain is searing and familiar, the way he drags it up is a ripping feeling in your abdomen, the action of gutting a live animal. You choke as blood so quickly invades your mouth, metallic and sharp, it sputters out from the corners of your lips. The horrible human presence then fades, and you don’t remember when you found yourself sinking into the grass of the field. All you know is the sounds of gunshots and the warmth gathering on your skin, blood pooling then spilling over.

You whimper, try and move, get up and flee. 

You manage to sit up, then fall back as your head spins and the pain fades to a thrum. You are drunk on blood loss, disoriented by the chaos that deems you just a body. People pass your struggle, red, blue, and white uniforms that walk on without a glance. You cry out, choke, and spit out that viscous red as you get to your hands and knees. 

It hurts. 

It hurts more than before. 

The ground begs for your collapse but you dig your hands into the strands of grass, compel yourself forward. You can’t die here, you can’t, you won’t. Tears run steadily down your cheeks and you think of the energy being dispensed to cry to no one. Your arms give out, and you fall forward but scramble again to moving. 

It hurts, it burns, it aches more than your heart, that hole ripped into your stomach, and yet you’ve done this before, been injured with the intent of bleeding you dry, so why does it hurt? Why is it so hard to be alone this time where the absence of care had existed then? 

Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur. 

You hope he doesn’t miss you. You hope that they win this. You hope he gets to live in that cabin you both dreamed of. You hope he finds someone else. You hope and hope and hope and you can’t keep up your weight anymore. The hope does nothing to fuel your effort to live, it instead cradles that weakness, and tells you it is okay. 

“Wilbur,” his name is now spoken out as you roll over and look up at the sky that is painfully blue, absent of any clouds. The sun beats down and licks at your skin until it offsets the cool feeling running over you. You close your eyes. 

He’s there, behind your eyelids, pressing his hands to your stomach and kissing your forehead. He’s there whispering in a panicked tone as his arms scoop under you. You don’t know where the fantasy of being saved meets the reality of bleeding out. You open your eyes to the same blue sky, to the same stillness as the sounds from the rest of the world fade away and you are left in the obscurity of now silent pain. It’s growing duller and maybe you should be terrified of losing it. 

Then he is there, really there, and the pain returns because he’s nursing it. 

“Hey, hey, hey, love, come on look at me,” he is strung thin, candle burning on both ends, and you must be selfish to be anything but okay right now. You force yourself to look at him, at the curls atop his head, the moles of his face, and the deep brown of his eyes. 

“Wil,” you hum, eyes closed then open then closed. Everything feels slow, faded at the edges, and yet he seems so vivid. Your hand reaches up, and you don’t remember finding blood to touch until you are smearing it against his face with stray fingertips that feel the roughness of his 5 o’clock shadow. 

“Hi, darling, hi,” he says, his voice wavering as his head looks back and forth, as he looks for a way out, away from this. His hands then press down on that wound and you groan, something that summons itself from your numbed silence. You gasp and wrap your hands around his wrists as he tries to slow the bleeding. “I know, I know, It’s okay,” he says as the words leave him in his own sounds of gasps. 

“Hurts, to, h-hurts” you babble because you must speak, must fill his silence to numb that pain again. You whine, blink away more tears until you find his face. A stray smile passes your lips as you stare at him, drink him in. “Wil,” you say. 

“We gotta get you up, okay?” you shake your head and still your hallucination seems to repeat itself. He lifts you easily with a care that makes your head spin. You groan as he walks, as the movement causes more blood to leak out of that horrible wound. You think of how it must stain him, ruin his uniform. You wonder how long it has been, how quickly did everything change from the front line to your body in his arms?

“Please, hurts, please, Wil,” you say, words so quiet as they fall from your lips. You peak at him through eyelids that have never felt heavier, rest calls to you as a weight on your chest, a demand to sleep not a request that bubbles out. You whine again, can’t resist the unseemly sound of weakness. You see in blurry backlit the act of him looking down, of his furrowed brow and frowning lips, of haloed hair and dark eyes. “Ju-just tired, wanna go home, and sleep,” you mumble and he’s shaking his head, a bleeding together change of light in your vision. 

“No, No, gotta stay awake, remember?” he says, his voice croaking. You nod and yet the desire to fall away grows no less, even as his begs wash down upon you. “We are almost back, almost to the nurse, come on, y/n, just talk to me okay?” he says and you hum, something high-pitched and wrong from your throat. 

“I- I w-what do you want me to talk about?” you ask, blinking your eyes in a desperate fleeting attempt to focus. 

“Just about you, darling, just talk about you,” and he is walking faster now, even as the jerkier movements burn you. A tear runs down your cheek, and stings as it flushes your skin down. 

“I love, I love lilies of the valley, th-they used to be all over the meadow and,” he’s moving quickly and you see tents passing down as you go down paths you don’t remember. It’s all fuzzy, all disjointed shapes and the curve of his face. “There were so many of them in the b-bouquet when you gave me flowers” you choke out and he hums.  

“I love autumn, n-never got to spend autumn with you, it’s been so little time,” you say and are surprised as he lets out his own desperate sound. It’s only been a few months, almost a year, milestones neither of you ever got to celebrate because passing time was so often a sentence of either starving or battles to be waged. 

“I know, I know, that’s why you gotta stay right here, my love,” he pleads as his eyes flick down the discoloration in your skin. He shakes you, just slightly an action that makes you cry out in pain but, god, he needs to know you are still here. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, darling, tell me about autumn, okay, what are we gonna do together?” and he’s imploring for more because he needs it, he needs you. You smile, something lazy and wavering that tells of no pain because you can’t feel your hands nor your feet. 

“S’gonna be cold,” you say and its voices now suddenly talking, one making your chest rumble. Then it’s a familiar place, a cot and roaming hands and lamp light. It hurts to look around, to see in passing the panic still so adamant on Wilbur’s face. So you close your eyes. 

You think of Wilbur, of autumn, of pressed and dried lilies of the valley. It's all cold, all removed. You can feel the dryness of the flowers under your fingertips, can imagine the feeling of fall rain across your skin. It makes you feel clean. You imagine the cabin just out of reach, of days spent in flowy clothes and of layers made for nothing but warmth. There isn’t anything left to fight for, you imagine days that are slow and dragging, Your head in Wilbur’s lap as he reads a book, as he does anything but work. You can feel hands on you still but the strength to open your eyes doesn’t come. 

“Please,” Wilbur pleads, his hand in yours. His skin is so warm, he is so warm. You squeeze his hand, one last weak extension of I love you.

You can feel a breeze on your skin, you can feel Wilbur’s lips grace your own, and you can tell it’s over. There isn’t anything left to fight for. It doesn’t hurt anymore, all aches and pains eased. You hope you’ve done enough. You hope that tomorrow is a better day. You hope he can live that day without you. You hope and hope and hope. 

The war was over as you took a final breath, one last slow rise then a permanent fall of your chest. Wilbur is holding your hand as it grows slowly cold. He sits with the muffled buzz of celebration that lies outside the medic tent and he tries to think of a speech. He tries to think of any words that would leave his mouth that could be fully celebratory. 

You look to be resting, an expression so perfectly peaceful and unburdened. He wants to be angry that he let this happen to you. He wants to be irate that the war took even with its dying action. He is inconsolable in every moment that there is no longer the heavy feeling of being watched. When he no longer has to be strong he so quickly resorts to being weak. 

Your funeral takes place a week after L’manburg becomes a sovereign nation. Attendance is sparse. It finds itself during the quiet evening on the first day that feels like autumn, a chill in the air. The leaves are just turning orange, warm golden light filtering down on your face making you seem almost alive again, Wilbur spends so much of that ceremony with his gaze glued to your chest, to your hands, to the closed state of your eyes wishing for a sign that you were going to crawl out of that coffin, that fate would grant him you again as an apology. He is, for once, not in his uniform, but instead, he is in a loose sweater to compliment the cooling weather. Before long he is called to speak to that small group of people, faces he recognizes and ones he swears he’s never seen. The walk to the podium, closer to you, is the hardest thing he’s ever done. 

There is a long dragging moment where he takes your hand, rubbing against the back of it with his thumb, warming the skin that is now so horribly cold. He counts the flowers in your hands, in your hair, surrounding your body in that haunting mahogany coffin. He places his own among the myriad, a lily of the valley that has yet to droop too much, that looks fresh. 

“I think a lot of people will remember them as the person who killed deer in the winter, I think a lot of them will have never learned their name or anything but how their face looked as they threw food in front of us like we weren’t all starving,” he says it all without the strength to really project his words, some people chuckle lightly and more just listen. “I will remember them as warmth,” he choked slightly at the words, wiping at tears that fell from his eyes for the millionth time this week. 

“I will remember them as asking me to eat when taking care of myself was the last thing on my list of things to do. They wanted-” he starts but feels sick “They wanted to live, they wanted peace, and they died right before they ever got to have it,” and it’s a truth he’s been struggling with, it’s a painful thing. 

“It’s not fair they don’t get to see all of this, and yet we have to keep moving, keep making this place a home again.” he shakes his head, looking to the sky that is being painted pink. “I just ask you don’t forget them even when you are happy or at peace or-” he takes in a shuttering breath “This should have been theirs too,” and he can’t find it within himself to speak more, to hold back the sobs begging to wreck him. His shoulders begin to shake as he sits down and no one else stands to speak. The procession grows so hauntingly silent except for the sounds of Wilbur’s stifled crying, his hand so firmly over his mouth. 

♡♡♡

I love my boyfriend, I really do.

“(y/n), are you sure you don’t want to come to tomorrow night’s gig? We haven’t seen each other in so long, and I miss you so much..”

“I know, honey, it’s just I’m so caught up with work and I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to even come. I’m really sorry.”

But there are some lies here and there I have to slip out.

Wilbur sighed on the other side of the phone. I buried myself deeper into my pillow, hiding from the world with thick duvet covers.

“Okay, well… I’m getting off the plane right now. I guess I’ll call you tonight or something. I don’t know.” His words were laced with hurt and a sense of betrayal. I clenched my jaw to prevent the sobs aching in my throat.

“Y-Yeah, I’ll see you. I love you.” I mumbled.

“Love you too.” With that, he clicked off of the call. I dropped my phone onto the floor of my bedroom, sitting up to look around the mess of the room I’ve chosen to sulk in. It hasn’t been a good few days, or rather, weeks, recently. I lost my job, the appetite to even eat, to get up and go outside, hell, I don’t even remember the color of my carpet floor since it’s just a layer of clothes I’ve yet to wash.

Wilbur has been too busy on tour for us to regularly call and check in on each other, so it’s been better to keep quiet about what I’ve been going through. The last thing I wanted was for him to be all worried about me when he was supposed to be out there living his dreams as a famous musician playing for countries of many. Recently, he’s been touring in my country and he just landed near my hometown. For months we talked about seeing each other again, and how the distance has been treating us poorly. It ruined our sleep schedules sometimes, but it was all worth it just to spend a few hours together.

I clutched my pillows tightly, burying my face from the world around me. I disappointed Wilbur yet again. Just last month we were fantasizing about this moment.

“I wish I could spend a week in your hometown, love!” He sighed dreamily as he spun around his office chair. I giggled, working on an assignment while listening to the man rant.

“Oh, yeah? What’s so exciting about my hometown?” I asked. I glanced up to look at his webcam, as he stared with ecstatic eyes.

“Well, you, of course. But I wanna see where you grew up, the people, what kind of food you ate— The history! Oh my god, especially the history.” He exclaimed. I shook my head, amused by his antics.

“You’re adorable,” I mumbled.

“Hm?” He hummed, but it was obvious that he heard me with that slick smile.

“You know you are, you cheeky bitch.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as I let the tears stain my pillowcase, letting the sobs agonizingly echo throughout my apartment. I had no energy, not even to love and support my boyfriend. Nothing made me more than feel like the biggest disappointment in his life. Slowly, I drifted to sleep with only the thoughts of Wilbur me shunning me after this occupying my mind. How the next time we’ll see each others faces, he’ll only have his eyebrows knitted closely together while avoiding all eye contact, fidgeting with his hands as he talked.

I’ve ruined this relationship, and I’m scared that I may ruin him too.

I was woken up by the sound of my door creaking open. Immediately I jumped up, clutching my blankets tight to my chest. I backed up against my bed’s headboard as I tried to make out the tall figure standing at my doorway. As my vision started to refocus, I noticed the familiar pattern of curls on the top of the figure’s head.

“W-Wilbur?” I meekly croaked.

The figure stepped forward. I turned to the side to turn on my lamp, and once I turned back around I finally saw his face. His gorgeous, gorgeous face here in front of me. He wore a puffy sweater with a button up underneath. His hair was a mess, and since he’s been traveling for a while he had a slight stuble. But was most noticable was that face of concern. That face that screamed “Oh my god, are you okay?” That face that looked around my room, and most likely my apartment, to see just how much of a mess I truly was.

“(y/n), oh sweetheart, I’m sorry I scared you…” He said, speaking softly as he cupped my cheeks. I placed my hands over his, staring deep into those forest brown eyes.

“I-I…” I was speechless. “H-How did you get in..?” I asked, tilting my head a little. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes as they darted across the room. My embarassing state was finally revealed in person, and I felt nothing but shame.

“Remember when we were in call one time and you told me about that spare key you kept in the plant in front of your door?” He explained. He quickly took a hand away from my face to show the key. “I remember…” He smiled.

Fuck, that smile.

That damn smile.

I threw my arms around his neck, holding him tightly as I sobbed into his neck. His hands found themselves around my waist, holding me as close as I can as I let out weeks worth of pain in his embrace.

“It’s okay, (y/n), I got you, I got you I promise…” He whispered softly in my ear,

“I’m sorry—” I choked out. “—I’m so fucking sorry…”

“Why are you sorry, darling?” Wilbur asked. “There’s no reason to be sorry, I promise, sweetheart.” His sweet words pulled on my heartstrings like a puppeteer.

“I-I kept secrets from you. I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t know how you would take it…”

“My sweet girl..” He mumbled. He gently pulled himself off of me, examining my face such as my dark eyebags and chapped lips. “How about this, love. I get a warm bath started for you, and while you relax in the bath I’ll clean up your apartment then we can order food to eat together while watching your favorite show. How does that sound? Does that sound good?”

His features were soften and glowing under the warm light illuminating his face. I gave one more look around the room again. Dishes were scattered everywhere and pens and books were everywhere on my desk.

“You’re gonna clean my place..? That’ll take a while, and I don’t want you to be tired for your concert tomomrrow.” I worried. He shook his head.

“That’s not important to me. What’s more important is seeing you well taken care of. That’s what matters to me sweetheart. I could have a concert tonight and I would still drop it all for you.”

As if heaven sent me an angel, he gave me a smile almost as beautiful as Aphrodite’s as my heart ran marathons for the man before me. My hands that were behind his head twirled at his hair strands.

“Promise me, baby?” I asked gently.

“How about I show you instead?”

And with that, he picked me up bridal style, twirling me around before crashing his soft pink lips against mine. I hugged him as tight as my strength could muster, smiling into the kiss.

Despite some arguments in my brain, in the end I could really understand one thing about Wilbur.

This is what he was made for.

♡♡♡

-

he stomped away from her on the rooftop as she followed after him.

"i told you to leave me alone," wilbur grunted, trying to speed walk past her with his long scythe trailing behind him. "is that so difficult to understand?"

"i just- i just wanna talk-" she panted, trying to catch up to him. her white dress flowed beneath her, but wilbur tried not to think about it too much.

"no." he made a sharp turn to fully face her, making her nearly bump into him.

her frown was illuminated by her golden halo, making her hair look almost cloud-like. her eyes glimmered like the entire sun was like a clown nose on her face, despite them arguing in the cold of night.

she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. her halo also lit his face up, and she saw the permanent frown and scrunched up eyebrows under his dark hood.

"why not, wilbur?"

he looked at her like she asked if the moon was real.

"you ruined my job. again." he punctuated his sentence with her name, saying it like he was curling at the nasty taste of it.

he always hated her. there was no mistaking it. he hated the way she giggled and danced around just because she could. he hated the way she spoke, always sounding so bright and happy and fucking naive. he hated her big white wings and her shiny halo.

"there you go talking about your job! like its all that matters to you," she yelled over the continuous honking cars beneath them. "do you even care about anything else in life?"

they weren't even supposed to interact, her being an angel and him being the prince of death. but he was always out doing his grim reaper duties, and she couldn't help but stop him.

he just wanted to follow orders from mumza- the queen of death. every single day that he existed, he had to take the lives of those who were ready. it ate him alive, but it was his only purpose.

"i can't care about everything else in life if i have to care about everything else in death," he grumbled under his breath, making her go silent. he liked her silence, loved it even, because that meant she couldn't criticize him for everything he did.

he would tell her about how angry the job made him. that if he could just switch spots with his brother, the stork, he would be the happiest being in hell. that he hated being the grim reaper almost as much as she hated him.

but if there was anything he really hated, it was opening up to people. and vice versa.

the last time he remotely opened up to someone, it was his mother, and he barely remembered the conversation. it was all the way back when he was welcome to smile. all he could recall was it being something about love, whatever it meant.

"will you please leave me alone now?" he sighed, rubbing his hand in his eye. he watched her eyes go from their usual large state to becoming droopy. she silently nodded her head.

"sorry. goodbye, mr. grim reaper," and the title tore him to shreds. it angered him, over everything else, that all he would be to her was an evil being.

yet, he watched as she jumped from the rooftop, fluttering her wings until she flew away. as she looked back over at him, he couldn't place the odd feeling left in his stomach. if it was guilt or hatred, he would never know.

he would continue to travel, picking up the souls on his way. she always thought he was lucky for being able to travel wherever he wanted. she always wanted to befriend the humans- in fact, she wanted to befriend everyone, but she found it impossible when she was constantly being held back.

he arrived back to hell's palace, a bag in one hand, and his scythe in the other. his head drooped down, avoiding any unnecessary eye contact with the other demons.

that hope would be short lived, however, as a demon took his shoulder as he walked.

"wilbur!" he spoke cheerfully, as if he wasn't living among lava pools and ash.

"quackity," wilbur responded in the same, monotone voice. it made the demon groan.

"quackity-" he mocked, changing his shape to an exact replica of wilbur's. mimic demons, they were called, and they were able to take form of any other being, even adorning their voice. it came in handy for most demon's entertainment, but it certainly didn't faze wilbur.

he stared into the mimic of his face, hating what stared back at him.

"oh come on. that usually works on people," quackity frowned as he twisted himself back to his natural state. he began poking wilbur with his blackened hands. "just give me a little giggle, wilbur."

"no." he'd said the word so much that it rolled perfectly off his tongue. "and for fucks sake, please put on a shirt."

quackity laughed loudly. "we're in hell, wilbur! its hot as- well, hell down here. don't tell me you haven't thought about walking around shirtless either." he paused, putting his hands on wilbur's dark outfit, "or.. hoodless.."

wilbur glared with an unamused look on his face, shrugging quackity's touch off of him and trying to continue walking along his path. walking away from conversations never worked to end them, yet he still tried it.

it would be the second example today that his tactic never worked, because quackity continued to walk along with him into the palace.

"what's the catch today?" he said it like it was a cheer. "did you get the big numbers? beat your high score yet?"

he would say he could feel his blood boil, but the flames in hell already did that.

"no. i don't keep track," he explained simply, pouring his bag's content into the soul sorter. it went to the fates to decide whether the soul was good or bad. simply enough, the good souls would be transported to heaven and the bad ones would stay. sometimes he imagined them debating over a soul's purity. the sound of screams every time he opened the bag would never become easier to stomach.

"bummer," quackity hummed. "why don't you try to make the job a little fun?"

"because i don't want to, okay?" he raised his voice. this time, quackity caught the memo and stayed quiet, except for a "shit, okay." under his breath.

wilbur walked along the palace's stairs, leaving quackity alone in the lobby without another word. this time, walking away from the situation made it stop. the third time really was the charm.

he set his hood down to his shoulders with a sigh, being able to fully see the gold and red palace for what it was. all of the vibrant and bright colors that quite literally clashed with the flames. it was scary and huge, but it was home to him. it was all he'd really known.

he went up to his room, laying on his bed with a groan. sometimes he wished his bed was quite literally made out of feathers, because his back always ached. tommy always said it was because of his "fucking posture", but wilbur knew he had no room to talk. just the thought of him jumping into a big pile of fluffy feathers made his bones ease a little more.

he would spend the night rolling around in his not-feather bed, having issues with his sleep. it was such a frequent problem for him that it was barely even a problem. just how he existed.

and, meanwhile, she would spend her "night" (in quotations. it never got dark in heaven.) staring up at the sun, wondering what sort of buttons she could've possibly pushed with wilbur to make him hate her. it was a recurring thought, but it kept her up too frequently.

the worst part about waking up was simply that. waking up. wilbur would roll out of bed, fluff up his hair a little bit, put on the same clothes, and be going. he went through the same routine every day and he hated it. but at the same time, if anyone disrupted his routine, he'd be angered.

"wilbur!"

and his routine was ruined.

"morning, tommy," he muttered, wiping the sleep from his eyes with a yawn. he couldn't be bothered to be angry this early, and definitely not to tommy. "aren't you supposed to be in heaven right now?"

"i'm on break," tommy said in a matter-of-fact tone. he stretched his arms and his wings with a groan, leaving some stray yellowed feathers behind. "delivering babies to peoples' doors is quite the workout."

wilbur barely registered his words, staring idly past tommy. his eyes wandered more on a decoration on a table behind him. he didn't even notice that tommy had continued speaking until he put his hands on his hips and sighed.

"yeah. both mum and dad really like me!" tommy spoke, ruffling his hands through his hair until he realized his goggles were in the way. the mention of phil darkened his mood.

"mum told you to stop calling him 'dad'," wilbur spoke monotone and simple, as usual.

and as usual, tommy groaned at wilbur's monotone voice and simple words, slouching down. "she also told you to stop being so fucking gloomy."

wilbur felt the need to do a lot of things; one- hit tommy with his scythe, two- tell tommy what a privileged asshole he sounded like, and three- do both at the same time. but wilbur had an okay-ish perception of tommy, growing up alongside the boy took a lot. but as annoying as the boy was, he was wilbur's company. even if he would rather swallow his scythe than to admit it aloud.

instead of acting on his mental list of intrusive thoughts, wilbur only sighed. he didn't bother to pick the conversation back up, his eyes wandering to the decoration again. had they always had that there? it looks off-centered.

"well," tommy noticed wilbur's spacing and patted his shoulder as he walked towards the stairs. "good luck today."

wilbur stared blankly through the fringe of sweaty hair on his forehead. inside, he was trying to form whatever a smile was. "thank you, tommy."

he watched as tommy jumped down the stairway, yellow tufts of hair flying with him. he heard a shout from down below, "and don't forget to fix your posture!"

wilbur scoffed in response, sounding more uninterested than he intended to, but ultimately pulling his shoulders back. a new day! a new window of opportunity! is what wilbur would think, if he wasn't wilbur.

he grabbed the railing of the stairway, his pale thin hand contrasting with the gold. he stared at his feet the entire time stepping down. he'd already forgotten about "fixing his posture".

he made his way down the lobby, not getting a chance to speak to his mother due to the abundance of demons lined up, trying to tell her that she was making a mistake. it was typical, but it still left bags under her eyes. wilbur only gave her a timid wave as a greeting before exiting through the palace's doors.

he dragged his tacky shoes through the red dirt beneath him, watching as tiny rocks rolled along his feet before stopping. he almost ran head first into the elevator due to how long he kept his gaze down, but luckily he saved himself from the mental embarrassment.

he stepped inside, proving his identity to the machine far more times than he needed to. mimic demons would always try to steal his finger print to use the elevator and get themselves back onto earth, but it was never successful. he had a keycard, just in case the identity proving didn't work. tommy had the same.

as the doors parted and he made a careful step out, he did his daily greeting to the guard (his daily greeting being a casual glare and a furrow of his eyebrows) and used his scythe to poke himself out.

from the surface, it would simply look like a boulder being turned over. but as wilbur stepped onto the grass, he took a moment to breathe. the air on earth was far better than the smoke in hell. he would spend a great deal of time taking a couple deep breaths, appreciating the silence, oh the lovely sound of absolutely nothing-

"wilbur! there you are!"

he almost screamed. instead, he only turned to the source of the way-too-cheerful voice, saying her name in utter disbelief. "what are you doing here?"

he didn't speak as if he were asking a question. he wasn't actually interested in why she was here in the grass with her elegant white dress and her annoyingly wide smile, using her wings to shield herself from the sun, even if they were translucent.

"i was waiting for you!" she squeaked, getting up from her spot in the grass and practically skipping up towards him. she had what looked to be a gardener's nightmare in her hands. "this is for you!"

before he could say another word, she pushed his hood off of his head. she had to use her wings to reach the top of his hair, but she was still able to run her hand through his brown waves. and as she giggled, she placed her makeshift flower crown on his head.

she pushed herself away- still hovering on her wings, and took a long, meaningful look at him. "you look great!"

"i feel disgusting," he said with anger, taking the weeds out of his hair and stuffing them sloppily into his bag. "why did you do that."

she looked at him with a frown, but still tried to make herself sound happy. her halo flickered softly. "it.. it was supposed to be a gift for you."

"yeah? well i hated it," he squinted his gaze down at her, and she could feel herself shrinking the more and more he looked.

she stayed quiet, the halo above her head still flicked on and off. she looked at him with nothing but a frown, lowering herself so that her feet hit the ground.

what she failed to notice was that he unfurrowed his brows ever so slightly upon seeing her upset.

"let me just get going, okay?" he spoke, trying to make his voice a little bit softer but still keeping the agonizing punch in there.

she spoke quieter now. "i have one more thing for you."

wilbur flinched, fully expecting a glitter bomb to come out of her pocket. but to his surprise, it wasn't.

she pulled out a pack of gummy worms, handing it to him with a pitiful smile on her face. he took it, examining it slowly.

"why is it open?" he took another look at it and realized it was almost half empty.

"umm.. i got a little hungry waiting for you," she mumbled, playing with the hem of her dress. "you were taking a little bit long."

"and speaking of which, i've been talking to you for a little bit too long," he retorted, crumpling up the bag of gummy worms in his palm. the sides of the bagging were practically fighting with the cage he made out of his fingers.

he began to walk in the opposite direction, debating in his mind exactly how long it would take to make his way out of the field and to the nearest trash can. she quickly followed behind him, almost tripping on herself in the process.

"hey- i didn't expect a hello from you, but a thank you would at least be nice!" she yelled as he speed-walked away with his grumpy walk and stone shoulders. "i'm talking to you!"

"and i'm not," he grumbled, fiddling to put his hood back onto his head as a way of closing himself off.

"just-" she flapped her wings, trying to be alongside him. "just have some gummy worms, please?"

he glared, slightly squinting from the piercing light of her halo. "maybe later."

"right now."

as much as he didn't want to, he stopped dead in his tracks. his stare was hurtful and his hand clenched onto his scythe. that was the most demanding he'd ever heard of her.

there was a voice in his head telling him to leave, to just let her have the last word and be gone. but he felt like he couldn't move.

"excuse me?" he only said, scrunching his eyebrows up.

"i want you to have them right now," she enunciated her words, crossing her arms and trying to copy his expression. she was fighting her usual bright smile under her pursed lips. "in front of me."

he blinked, almost starstruck. "why?"

she seemed nearly surprised at his one word question, her stern voice softening slightly. "you look like you haven't been taking care of yourself," as she spoke through a pout, he could feel his face warming up, like tiny little punching bags beneath his skin. "i wanna make sure you're eating."

he hated the feeling of his cheeks going warm. he slept in hell, obviously he knew what warmth was. but for some reason it felt even weirder when it was behind his skin. he cleared his throat with a cough.

"this? you think this is healthy?" he held up the crumpled, half-empty bag, speaking with his forceful actions.

she went quiet again, only speaking loud enough for him to hear. "i couldn't afford anything else at the gas station."

the feeling of warmth in his cheeks soon boiled over into anger. "you couldn't afford anything else?" he repeated in disbelief, "you are quite literally an angel! you're invisible to the human eye! it is so easy for you to steal."

"but i don't wanna be a bad person!" she copied his raised voice, standing on her tiptoes as almost a challenge. "i leave money in the cash register for the man. you know, he's really struggling. he could use the money. his name is robert, i think-"

"i don't care!" wilbur screamed, cutting her off completely. she flinched at his voice, feeling overwhelmed tears start to prickle from her eyes. she hid behind her wings, afraid that he might do something drastic.

he felt his shoulders shrink at her reaction, but ultimately grumbled and opened the pack of gummy worms. he hesitated, holding out the candy in front of him.

she opened her eyes from her flinch, and saw him sniffing the gummy worm. a smile spread across her face. "you just.. take a bite out of it."

"i know," he muttered. he was already mad enough that he had to eat it, he didn't want to be instructed on how.

"oh.. okay. i mean- i just kinda assumed that you didn't know because i don't think there are gummy worms in hell. they'd get all sticky and stuff. at least, that's what i've heard. are there really no gummy worms in hell?"

he looked at her with no amusement on his face. she looked right back at him, however, wanting an answer to her long winded question that was somehow said in a singular breath.

"no… no there aren't," he spoke slowly, raising an eyebrow at her. "are there gummy worms in heaven?"

why was he making conversation with her? he should be out collecting souls right now, not talking about stupid little gummy worms with this stupid little angel. he mentally slapped himself in the face, cringing with a shake of his head.

"no, there aren't," she batted her eyelashes like she was trying to think for a moment. "but phil sometimes gives me money for gummy worms. i share it with the others!"

he was barely registering her words, his mind still clouded with the mental boxing match he was having with himself. he was being stupid. not even the mention of phil was able to knock him from his thoughts.

"hey," she waved her hand in his face, acting as the referee and stopping his boxing match. he was almost at a knockout. "you've been making that face for a while. do you not like gummy worms?"

wilbur didn't know how to really respond to the question, having never even tried gummy worms before. he looked back at her. she had her full attention on him, waiting for another answer that he would hopefully not blunder.

"it's.. it's fine."

he definitely blundered.

he ignored it, not ready for a round two fight, and put the gummy worm in his mouth.

she leaned forward. "how is it?"

it was about the best damn thing he's ever had.

"it's.. okay, i guess."

"great!" she jumped- fucking jumped. "im sure you have to be on your way for your very important job-"

he completely forgot about his being the grim reaper, straightening up suddenly with widened eyes and tightening his grip on his scythe. he cursed under his breath, running towards the direction of the city.

"hey, i didn't finish!" she called out, catching up to him once more with flaps of her wings.

"i can't talk. you've already made me late enough," his hood almost fell off in the wind with how quickly he was running. "fuck, mum's gonna be pissed."

she would, in fact, not be pissed. she was always far too busy to even greet wilbur or tommy, and they hadn't done any sort of domestic activity in what felt like an eternity. he tried to convince himself that he didn't care, that she was just busy with being the queen of death, but it was extremely lonely.

there wasn't any time for them to really speak. they were both always busy and family meals were long forgotten. in fact, wilbur had never eaten in front of another person before. the most he'd done was eat some boring, rotten food while sitting on his floor with tommy- and even then, he was only picking at it idly with his fork.

he found comfort in eating alone. there was no one there to judge him or to argue. it was just him, his thoughts, and the literal grayed out food they had in hell. but there was something always so reminiscent about having food with another person, even if it was just something like dessert.

"oh," she sighed, moving her wings idly. she watched as he ran away without another look. her arms swung at her sides in an almost confused fashion. "okay. um- hope you like your gummy worms! bye wilbur!"

at least she didn't call him mr. grim reaper again.

he didn't care, anyway, just trying to get to work on the job he obviously hated. but when he stopped to catch his breath, he couldn't help but stare at the pack of gummy worms in his sweaty palms, the colorful designs contrasting his dull looking hand.

he looked around. it looked like there were no cheerful angels in sight, so he figured himself to be safe. he popped another gummy worm into his mouth, scrunching his nose at the taste of something so impossibly sweet. it was a pleasant change from the tasteless foods in hell, and the addictive sweetness coated his tongue for a while.

he stuffed the rest of the pack into his bag, appreciating how empty it was without the souls inside it- a temporary feeling.

wilbur already felt like he'd wasted enough time, and got to work. bringing people to death's door wasn't exactly the easiest job.

he started with a car crash, wincing at the amount of shattered glass and blood everywhere. he fell sick to his stomach with a nasty feeling bubbling up in his throat. all those years dealing with death and it still never got easier to see the causes.

he held his scythe up slowly, shutting his eyes in a flinch. he thought of a thousand things all at once, trying to focus on one. they have to die. i have to put them out of their misery. they're dying because they have to, not because i chose to.

he took a breath, feeling like needles were going up his nose and into his lungs, and swung the weapon down.

it sunk through the person's body without struggle, opening up a passageway for him. he removed his scythe carefully, as if it would hurt them.

he sat on his knees next to the car. although his body was phantom-like against the gravel, he could still feel the roughness under him.

he held a cold hand to the person's back, trying to ignore how it looked to see the life drain from under their eyelids and filter out onto his palm. as soon as he could no longer feel a nauseating pull on his hand, he lifted it gently. he watched as the soul threaded directly off the person, catching onto his fingertips.

he didn't bother to take a closer look at it. the last thing he wanted was to remind himself that these people were actually human. he only took it in his palms, mushing it until it turned into a small circular shape. he put it in his bag, not caring to look at what else was in it.

wilbur would continue to follow through with that sequence throughout the day, as he usually did. scythe, hand, soul, bag. when he was growing up, mumza told him that he would be used to it in no time. but as "no time" passed, he still felt like throwing up after each day.

he made his way down the elevator, his shoulders stinging with the weight of his bag. the souls were practically weightless, but gathering so many into his bag made it sag down. he held his scythe with two hands, his arms being too sore to function properly on their own.

tommy was waiting for him at the steps of the palace, ignoring everyone lined up at the doors. his elbow was on his knee, and his face was being held up in his palm. he had been playing with a stone, trying to break it with his fingertips.

"wilbur," he automatically sprung up upon seeing his brother. he used to go in for hugs, however stopped shortly after wilbur started discussing how much he hated them. "mum wants to see you. says its important."

wilbur took time to react to his words, feeling like his bones weren't his. he only hummed an, "oh. okay," as he made his way up the steps, his feet barely dragging behind him.

"wait-" tommy called out, making wilbur almost freeze on cue. "i was.. i was wondering if you wanted to hang out by the fountain.. of wishes. the one up there. like- like we used to..?"

wilbur's breath stalled, stopping in his lungs. he'd barely even remembered it, but was holding back a smile at the memory.

that smile became easy to suppress as it slowly disappeared. he remembered all of it.

"mum doesn't want us talking to phil," was all wilbur muttered. he finally took a breath, his chest rising and falling with a sigh. "sorry."

"its not like that anymore!" tommy tried, throwing his hands up in the air in an almost child-like fashion. "they've changed, phil especially! i talked to him the other day, and-"

"mum doesn't want us talking to phil, tommy," he enunciated it slower this time. watching tommy's shoulders shrink, a sinking grayness fell over his face like a cloud was above him.

"yeah. okay," tommy sighed with a shake of his head. he played with the calloused skin on his fingers. "you're right."

wilbur stood there for a great deal of time. as much as it physically pained him, he felt a trapped sensation in his chest.

"tommy?" he spoke softly, barely enough for the both of them to hear. "you're a good kid."

he left before tommy could respond, expecting the boy to make some stupid remark about how soft he was turning. tommy didn't react that way, however. he stood alone on the steps, taking breaths watching as wilbur walked away.

wilbur made his way past the screaming, impatient people. he was always hateful towards loud noises as they made his skin crawl. he thought maybe that was the reason he hated the angel's voice so much.

there he went again thinking of that stupid angel. if he'd given her any more room in his mind, she'd have to pay the rent.

shaking his head from stupid thoughts, he called his mother's name, gaining her attention.

"wilbur," she spoke softly, her voice too tired from all the demons and ghosts she spoke to. her black hair hung over her face messily, but it was covered by a large lacy hat. "how are you?"

wilbur knew she wasn't actually curious about how he was feeling. it was just a filler for the missing years of his childhood.

"i'm doing well," a lie, "tommy said you wanted to talk to me?"

he saw his mother's face light up, as if she'd just remembered something blatantly obvious. wilbur could imagine her thoughts- "oh, thats my son, i forgot."

she fished for something on a table near her large throne. it looked more shiny than any angel's halo. damn it, why was he thinking about her again?

"here," she handed an envelope to him with her large hand. he hesitated in taking it. "the messenger said it was for you. you don't usually get mail, so i figured it was important."

wilbur stared at the wax seal, the intricate pattern almost painful to stare at for too long. "are you sure this is for me? im not-"

"im so sorry, wilbur," her eyebrows disappeared into the shape of her hat as she put a hand to her black gown. "i have to get going talking to these people," she motioned to the line in front of her. "i also have a super busy day. i have to-"

"its fine, mum," he cut her off just as she did to him. he couldn't feel any remorse for his lack of formality. "you're.. doing great."

he spared himself from the long speech his mother always gave about how busy she was. it was always a drag to hear. tommy said it was her way of indirectly apologizing for not giving him family meals- but wilbur always thought that if he was right, she would directly say it.

in all honesty, however, he missed being able to sit next to someone and eat something.

the black lipstick on her face formed into a smile. "thank you, wilbur," she sighed, her body already facing the demon she was talking to last. "and tell me what the letter is!"

"i will," another lie. he was really great at them because she could barely ever hear them.

as he was going to the soul sorter, he turned the letter over in his hand, squinting at the written address. it read, "hell's palace (if it's real! i've never been there but i've heard about it!) for wilbur!" with a bunch of hearts and smiley faces. wilbur felt himself go sick to the stomach, nearly tripping on himself.

it was probably that stupid angel trying to give him a pity letter that he didn't want. he scowled at the thought as he emptied his bag into the soul sorter.

that dumb little angel, who did she think she was? did she genuinely think that wilbur would soften up to her because of a little letter with hearts all over it?

but as wilbur was coming up with more mean adjectives, items had been rejected from the soul sorter, and fell out.

it was her flower crown and gummy worms.

wilbur felt his angered expression slowly fade away like sand in an hourglass. he stared at the objects on the ground by his feet.

he was reminded of her soft smile as she put the flower crown on his head, her gentle touches to his hair like he was delicate. or how she forced him to eat fucking gummy worms because of his health.

he could feel the tiniest sliver of a smile peeking out from the corners of his lips. no, what was he doing? that angel was always so judgemental of him. from the moment they first met, she was always criticizing his job and she was always being rude to him.

but, she still cared about him.

wilbur didn't know how to react to that thought. his stomach felt like it was clawing its way out of him, and that weird, warm feeling came back to his face. he hated it.

he bent over, picking up the flowers and gummy worms. he held them in his hands and under his robe, just in case someone saw him holding them.

he quickly went up the stairs, cutting the corner to his room so that no one saw him. he set the flowers, gummy worms, and letter on his desk, his hands propping him up. he stared, yet again, at the objects until he realized- he hadn't even opened her letter yet.

he took a sharp inhale, his fist pressed so hard against the table that he didn't even register the fact that his hands were shaking. he leaned back, taking the envelope with him.

sure enough, it was from her.

"dear wilbur!

hi! i hope this delivered to the right address. i thought mail would be easier in the afterlife, but it really isn't. i hope you're okay!! i hope you didn't hate the gummy worms too much and that you are taking care of yourself! get plenty of sleep please.

i was writing to ask if you wanted to meet me for ice cream! i asked phil, and he said that ice cream would melt in hell too, so i wanted to have some with you. i can show you all the good flavors and everything.

it would be tomorrow, i've listed the time and address below. i hope to see you there!

ps. you better come with a full eight hours of sleep!"

he read over the letter at least a thousand times, his eyes glazing all over the hearts and smiley faces that she used to punctuate each sentence. he felt like he was going to throw up his ugly, beating heart. he didn't know if he should write back or even show up.

it would be his first time properly eating in front of someone in a while, and the thought made him nervous, almost.

as if to taunt him, tommy burst into the room, the sudden loud noise making wilbur scream. he hid the letter on his desk behind him.

"woah," tommy put his hand up to almost shush wilbur, as if he were some wild tiger. "calm down, man."

"sorry-" wilbur straightened himself up, coughing out of awkwardness. he felt his skin melting off of him, and he wanted something to make the tense air easier. "tommy, can you cover for me tomorrow?"

oh god. was he really that desperate to start a conversation?

tommy's eyebrows disappeared into his golden tufts of hair, a confused look grazing his face. "you want me to what?"

"cover.. for me?" he couldn't even believe the words he was saying. "i have a.. thing tomorrow-" no he didn't. he wasn't gonna go. "and.. i need someone to do my job."

"what thing? its not like you have a.." tommy's words trailed off as he stared at his brother in terror. "do you?"

"do i have a what..?" wilbur spoke with confusion as tommy gawked at him. he stage whispered, as if someone were watching.

"do you have a date?"

wilbur's chest bloomed with an awful sensation, his heartbeat picking up and pounding against his ribs. "what? no, i-" he felt like his mouth was stuffed with tar and feathers. "no, of course not, tommy."

"okay! okay," the boy held his gloved hands up in defense, backing away from a powder keg in the form of his brother. "but, whatever it is, how do i cover for you?"

wilbur dropped his tensed shoulders. "you always talk about how easy my job seems, right?"

"what?" tommy screeched, his gold wings flinching with him. "but- but you're the prince of death and i'm the prince of life! how am i supposed to do that?"

wilbur felt his stomach churn at the comparison. he hated the way people would always say "the prince of death" like it would curse the next seven generations of life. his eyebrows furrowed like caterpillars above his eyes.

"then at least pretend that i'm working," he muttered. "it's gonna be easy. i'm sure mum won't even notice."

tommy's lips shifted as he bit the inside of his cheek. he knew wilbur was right. mumza barely said hi to him too.

"okay," tommy sighed as his shoulders fell in defeat. he pointed a finger at wilbur, "but you owe me big time!"

wilbur nodded in response, shooing tommy away with a flick of his hand. tommy listened (although not shutting the door properly), and left his brother alone in his room. the letter was still hidden behind him.

he sighed, feeling his lungs shrink intensely. he had no clue what to do or how to pull it off.

wilbur went to sleep earlier that night, trying to fulfill her promise to get eight hours of sleep. when he woke up, he could feel his bones almost moving on their own. it felt odd to not have the burden of being the soul taking grim reaper.

he looked at himself in the mirror. he looked nothing short of depressing.

he walked over to his closet, sighing as he was face to face with the same rotten black robes he wore. people always trashed on tommy for owning the same white, red sleeved shirt, but wilbur wasn't any better with his duplicates.

he groaned, his head falling in a near defeat. though, he could see a small glint of yellow. hesitating, he picked it up, taking off his cloak to put it on.

it was a really old sweater that phil got him many years ago. back before everything went down the gutter. he ran his thumb down the frayed material. by some miracle, it still fit him.

he looked at himself in his mirror, scowling when he saw who stared back. he looked nothing like how he usually did, and that slight bit of color changed him. the yellow fabric, even when old, still popped out more than his pale skin did.

still, something felt like it was missing. his glasses, maybe? he set the frames on his scrunched face, pushing it up his nose with the back of his hand. that didn't seem to work.

he looked over at his desk, his bottom lip plumped out as he thought. he gave a long stare to the flower crown, feeling his chest tighten and warm with a disgusting feeling. he picked up the flower crown- more delicately than he'd like to admit, and placed it on his tufts of brown as he stared at his reflection.

his mouth hung open. he looked completely different now. there were so many colors and shapes for him to process. and were the dark spots under his eyes really that prominent?

although, even with the wave of confusion, it felt almost comforting. he tried his best at a smile, but shook his head. too far.

wilbur shuffled through the underworld quickly, trying his best not to be seen- and especially not by quackity.

"tommy," quackity stage whispered, gaining the boy's attention. "what the hell's he doing?"

tommy took his place beside quackity, looking to where he was pointing. he scowled. "dude, i kid you not, he's got a fucking date."

quackity scoffed a laugh before looking at tommy. his face was still scrunched in disapproval, his wings idle behind him. quackity’s expression dropped. “wait- you’re serious? he’s actually got a date?”

“that’s what i’m thinking!” tommy’s voice screeched suddenly. he looked and sounded like a bird. “i’ve never seen him wearing something so.. colorful. and look at his fucking posture!”

they watched in amusement as wilbur jammed his finger on the elevator button, trying to get the doors open as he looked around frantically. he hadn’t even noticed, but his shoulders were in fact more pushed back.

he stared at his reflection in front of him, bringing a hand into his hair to even it out. flowers were still scattered around in his hair and it was as if he were producing a trail of petals behind him. he let out a groan as the doors finally parted, and he stepped in.

“who is it with?” quackity asked, holding his chin. his other hand was dug into his pocket. a small, rectangular figure lining the fabric. “do you know?”

tommy turned to quackity with a serious look on his face, as if he were speaking about a universe killing secret rather than who wilbur was eating ice cream with. “you didn’t hear it from me,” he emphasized his words, “but i keep overhearing this angel talking to phil about wilbur. its weird- especially when you think about how phil and wilbur think about each other.”

tommy grimaced at his own words. he could tell how much it cut the mood. it was practically taboo to say wilbur and phil’s name in the same sentence- let alone even mention phil in the underworld. even with tommy trying to get them to forgive each other, the thought of them ever eating at the same dinner table was unfathomable.

quackity interrupted the tension filled silence by asking the angel’s name. tommy gave it without a second thought, but eventually had to repeat it for quackity to properly hear. they were stood outside the pit of lost souls, a place that the forgotten demons would go. they served no purpose in hell as long as they were somehow remembered by someone on earth. it was always a loud area, having literal burning souls inside.

“huh..” quackity hummed, repeating the angel’s name again. “you think they’ll become a thing?”

“no, definitely not,” tommy huffed, laughing as if quackity was telling a knock-knock joke. “he’s too grumpy to actually function around another being.”

“i say give the guy some slack! he deserves at least a chance," quackity protested. "twenty bucks."

"you're betting on his love life?" tommy asked, but quackity stood still with a smirk on his face with his hand out. "fine. deal."

as they shook on their bet, tommy grumbled, his wings tensing up with him. a plan was forming itself in quackity’s mind, his hand patting the lining of his shorts.

“he’s probably up there making out with her right now.”

wilbur, in fact, was not. he was standing on the distant sidewalk, watching her from afar. she sat on the concrete with her legs crossed, looking like her mind was in another galaxy. wilbur on the other hand, stood with his clammy hands at his sides. his palms never sweat as badly as this, and it was making him unsettled. he tried his best to wipe his hands off on his sleeve, but it only made them damp and warm. he sucked in a breath, ignoring it and walking up towards her.

when he caught her eye, her never-ending smile only widened. she stood up to properly face him, looking at him from the top of his flower-ridden hair down to his shoes. “wilbur?”

“hi.. hi-” his voice cracked, and he tried to cover it up with a fake cough. now his throat wasn’t working. “um, i didn’t know.. i wasn’t sure if.. i-”

“you look really nice!” she interrupted, saving him the embarrassment. he let out a mix of a smile and a relieved sigh, muttering his thanks. “and it looks like you actually slept.”

“i did,” he mumbled, adjusting the collar of his bunchy sweater. suddenly, he could feel every texture touching his body. “eight hours.. just like you asked..”

“it wasn’t so difficult, was it?” she giggled, and the noise stabbed wilbur a thousand times in the stomach.

“actually, it was,” he bit the inside of his cheek, rocking back and forth on his heels with nervousness. “my bed is a literal stone. i wish it were made out of feathers.”

“maybe your dream will come true some time! come on, let’s make a wish,” she tilted her head, closing her eyes and putting her palms together. “i wish wilbur’s bed was made out of feathers!”

“..is that gonna work?” he tilted his head in her direction.

“hm.. i don’t know. but i always like to try it,” she hummed with satisfaction, putting her hands back at her sides. “can i tell you a secret? i’ve always wanted to visit the fountain of wishes.”

the name rung a bell all the way in the back of wilbur’s mind. he remembered his father telling him stories every night about the fountain of wishes. he scowled at the thought of hin. phil would tell wilbur that his only wish was to meet a beautiful woman, but look where that got him.

“what would you wish for?” he asked, trying to shift the gears of his mind.

“i don’t know,” she said, contently, leaning forward to grab his hand. “maybe i’ll think of something later.”

wilbur flinched, something she didn’t see because she was dragging him into the store. he wondered if she could feel how damp and warm his palms were, but it looked like she didn’t mind. for some reason, their hands seemed to magically fit together like puzzle pieces.

his mind was churning again, thinking about the unknown feeling running through him. he felt suddenly aware of everything around him, and it was awful. yet, she kept giggling and smiling like it was just another day. he envied her power of optimism, even if it was the same thing he disliked about her.

uncomfortably, his mind felt as if he was put in a room of a thousand people, contributing and understanding each one of their conversations. as overwhelming as it was, it was how his brain regularly worked. how he somehow managed to get even an ounce of sleep every night, he'll never know.

his thoughts were unraveling before he could roll them back up, feeling tired of aimlessly following the long film of this and that and-

"do you have a favorite flavor?"

it all snapped away.

"uh- um, well, um-"

how was she able to do that?

"oh, right," she giggled. somehow, in the thousand person room that took place in his mind, her small laugh was the only thing bouncing off his skull. "you've never had ice cream before."

unable to process the sudden quiet of his mind, he simply shook his head. "n-no, i haven't."

"try this!" she held out a scoop of her favorite flavor and wilbur stared at it like it was a cure to the common cold.

shakily, he took it. even if it only existed as a transparent-phantom thing, he was surprised that it didn't slip out of his sweaty hands.

"do.. do i bite-"

"just give it a small lick. i know it'll be cold, but it'll taste good," her words felt like a small promise to him, the most comforting thing he'd heard in a while. yet, it was like talking about the weather to her.

god, what was the feeling? he couldn't exactly pinpoint it at all.

he followed her directions, scrunching his brows in a slight concern as he stuck his tongue out. she was right, it was cold. terribly cold. he thought his tongue would get stuck to it like in the old christmas movies tommy forced him to watch.

and yet, it tasted terribly good. it was such an unfamiliar feeling on his tongue, but it somehow had a certain kick that he enjoyed.

he smacked his lips a couple times, and nodded slightly, mumbling his words. "y-yeah, i like that one."

"great!" she spoke, going over to grab the ice cream scooper. the real thing stood still on the table, but the translucent version was in her hands as she scooped up some of the flavor. as long as she put it back in the right place, nothing would be messed up too badly.

as she finished up scooping her cone, she sighed dramatically. "oh gods, i forgot to get cash."

"you don't need to give him cash, angel, he won't even notice."

his tongue went numb- not from the ice cream, but from the small nickname he'd given her.

it was a small gesture, and he could probably play it off, but it stirred his intestines until he felt like throwing them up. he'd never willingly give someone a nickname. ever.

and the worst part? she noticed.

"did you call me angel?" she stopped her fit of panic over invisible cash to look at him, the corner of her mouth lifting in an asymmetrical smile.

"well- yeah, because you're.. you're an angel," wilbur stumbled, unable to pull something out of thin air. he's lied many times. to his mom, to tommy, to quackity. but for some reason lying to her didn't feel right on his tongue. "a-and you.. have a halo.. and stuff.."

she noticed how he fiddled with his fingers, and decided to spare him of the embarrassment by switching the topic to her day. she seemed passionate with talking about every small thing she'd done, and wilbur admired her attitude.

wilbur prided himself in his writing. his pen and paper were like a magical escape from his burdens. he had a specific way with words that would always get him praised by his parents when he was younger. but despite that, he was completely lost on a word to describe his feelings.

she dragged him back outside without a care in the world, looking around like she owned the place. she pointed to a bench, talking about how it was her favorite bench (to which wilbur began to wonder how one could have a favorite bench), and began guiding them towards it.

in the midst of her excitement, however, she made a wrong step on the curb and yelped. wilbur noticed this quickly, bringing a quick hand to her waist to catch her.

"woah, are you alright-?" he brought her back up carefully, checking to make sure that her and her ice cream were still intact. he checked both off in his mind.

"yeah- yeah i'm fine-" she muttered, and it was the first time he'd ever seen a glint of gloominess on her face. "sorry- that was embarrassing-"

"no need to be embarrassed," wilbur's tone was calm. not a monotone calm, but an assuring calm. one that was stranger to her too.

his hand remained still on her waist, his fingers trembling in such small beats. “wilbur?” her gaze slowly met his, and she could see a small droplet of worry beneath the pools of his irises. “can i tell you something?”

he nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowing in such a concerned manner that it almost cut his forehead in half. with his hand still on her waist, he guided her carefully to the bench.

she looked at the pavement, her words coming out in a string of small mumbles that made him feel like they were the only two beings ever. just him, an angel, and a bench. “i don’t.. i don’t usually tell people this,” she fiddled with the hem of her dress, her wings draping over the back of the bench. “but.. the- the way i-i d..”

wilbur stared at the angel- the carefree, optimistic, happy angel; while she broke down bit by bit. he felt like he was almost breaking the law, that he wasn’t allowed to see such a sight. but most importantly, he felt like he needed to help.

he was always gentle, there was no denying it. he spent a lot of time as a child examining bugs (which he called “friends”) and making sure they were okay. and the urge to care for anything in need grew with him, even as everything else changed.

he noticed that his hand was still on her hip, and he drew her closer to his body. the small gesture made her startled, but she quickly grew accustomed to his touch. she felt safe, and wilbur knew that.

she took a deep breath, and spoke. “we were playing a game of hide-and-seek,” she whispered, “i-i was always clumsy, everyone made fun of me.. nobody..”

her words trailed off again, and wilbur felt his heart aching. “nobody..?”

“nobody really.. liked.. me,” she huffed, her face turning away from him. he could tell that she didn’t speak about this much. “everyone hated me, actually. like you do..”

his heart was wrapped in thorns.

it was the clearest thing she’d said. like she had so much time to think about it and deduct it. he wanted to say something, wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and scream at her. but he didn’t. he couldn’t- he felt paralyzed.

“i guess i tripped and fell or something, a-and i-” a bile swelled her throat. “it hurt. a lot. i was- i was screaming and crying for help b-but everyone ignored me. except for..”

her head lifted as she looked at him. it was the type of look in which he could study each pigment on her face, and he’d be able to use the rosiness of her cheeks to paint a breathtaking portrait.

“except for you.”

she smiled. and even through tears, her expression lit up the earth.

“me?” he whispered softly.

immediately, she nodded. she was so close to his face that she could see a tiny cut to the right of his adam’s apple. she suppressed a giggle as she thought about him struggling to shave, making all sorts of faces into his mirror.

“i was so scared and alone.. and then you came along with your big scythe and your scary hood. and you plunged your scythe into me chest- gods, i was so scared,” she giggled briefly at the thought, but her expression was genuine. “but you gave me peace.”

she leaned closer, wanting to wrap her arms around him and die a second time like that. but she knew he’d hate it.

“it was all i wanted in that moment.”

his eyes were droopy, staring from her left eye, to her right, and down at her parted lips. she was nothing short of beautiful. looking at her for that long felt like a mere privilege, forcing him to be speechless.. he squeezed her hip tighter just to hold her.

“i.. i wanted to thank you..” she whispered, so quiet that her vocal chords barely buzzed.

in his peripheral vision, he noticed how her eyelids fluttered softly. his sight blurred as she leaned in closer, and-

“but you always hated me.”

she leaned back in the seat, and wilbur’s disappointment split him in two. she was right there- right fucking there, but she was so out of reach. the only barrier? his own loathing. the irony of hating his hatred felt like a stab wound to his thorn-crowned heart.

and the worst part; she was unphased.

wilbur gulped as a stack of words piled themselves in his throat. that nasty, overwhelming feeling running through him again. “angel, i-”

“so, what’s your favorite color?” she asked in a light tone, licking at her ice cream.

a wave of dismay washed over his face. he couldn’t think. “t-teal?”

“really? i wouldn’t have guessed that,” she swung her legs beneath the bench, clearly unbothered by wilbur’s confusion. “you don’t really dress like a teal-lover. do you think the moon is real?"

what?

"no, bad question. hmm. what’s your favorite band?”

his heart fell into the pit of his stomach, thorns poking at his sides creating a terrible sting on his abdomen. he opened his mouth to speak- maybe cry and release his feelings; but nothing came up. not even an answer to her stupid question. it was nauseating.

she began talking about the sort of music she liked, but none of it struck his brain. he felt sick. he wanted to scream and sob and punch something. but he sat still like he was posing for a renaissance painting.

“hey, that reminds me,” she stood up abruptly, pointing her finger upwards, despite going unnoticed by wilbur. “i gotta get cash for the ice cream man! i’ll be right back.”

he didn’t even realize she spoke, even when she was repeating his name and trying to get his attention.

why was he disappointed at the lost opportunity? why did he want to curl up in a ball and tug his hair out? what was that stupid feeling that was haunting him all afternoon? it was tearing him apart limb by limb. what was the word, what was-

oh.

oh.

it was love. he loved her. it was as simple as a four letter word.

the last time he told someone he loved them, he was begging his father not to leave. as he watched the man- the god- his father walk away, he realized that the word meant nothing. it only brought him pain; and if he didn't love, he didn't have to feel that agony.

his stomach turned, breathing becoming alarmingly shallow. too many memories flushed his mind, and his throat tightened.

"hello? wilbur?"

"don't come back." he stood up suddenly, ice cream falling to the ground next to him.

"what?" she flinched, staring up at him with terror on her face that he didn't even read. he was so blinded by his anger. the light of her halo flickered.

"i said, don't come back." it was almost a subconscious thing, how he lifted his hand into his hair and threw the flower crown onto the sidewalk. right next to his ice cream.

his throat burned harshly. all of his muscles tensed up in such a way that definitely wasn't healthy. he could barely even hear his own words through the pounding in his ears, and he most importantly couldn't hear her heart ripping in two.

"wilbur-"

"stop. stop this. stop following me everywhere, stop- stop acting like you care-" his hands balled up into fists at his sides, "stop everything! i never want to see you again!"

and that was all that was needed for her to turn around and fly off, and that was all that he needed for him to realize what a complete moron he was.

his walk home was nothing short of shameful. and this time he walked through hell with messy flower petals in his hair and a stupid yellow sweater and dumb tears in his eyes.

he didn't realize that quackity, a man who was about to lose twenty dollars, was watching him from afar. he cursed under his breath, biting his bottom lip until his hand brushed against his pocket.

tommy's keycard.

-

he looked at himself in the reflection of a lava pool, making all sorts of scrunchy and over dramatic faces. he experimented with the way the hood fell over his hair and how it made his furrowed eyebrows look.

he made his way to the elevator, admiring how the scythe looked when he tossed it around in his hands. and when it asked for a confirmation of identity, he pulled out the keycard, swiping it before anyone could see.

he'd continue to try to do tricks with the scythe until he got to the top, waving a hand to the guard until he realized he had to stay in character. his lips suddenly pursed and his eyes became hooded.

to his delight, an angel was there waiting for him.

"wilbur-" she stood up suddenly, her hands shaking at her sides. the light in her tear filled eyes was nearly gone, the glow of her halo barely there. "i wanted to a-apologize-"

"come with me," he spoke, as monotone as he could. his hand reached out towards her, and she hesitantly took it.

with uncertainty written all over her face, she spoke nervously. "where.. where are we going-?"

"i want to make up for what.. happened.. last night.." he muttered, dragging her underground.

she held her flickering halo carefully as they zoomed to the elevator, watching him jam the buttons with his finger. she'd never seen someone so eager.

as soon as the doors parted, he forced her inside with such an anticipation she couldn't pinpoint. it made her feel uneasy, how weird he had been acting.

"wilbur?" her voice came out as more of a squeak, taking his other hand in hers. she looked right at him with swelled eyelids. "this.. this isn't a trick, is it?"

his eyes widened, eyebrows unknotting a crease on his forehead. "what?" he practically laughed, "why- why would it be a trick?"

"i don't know.. you just seem.." her voice wavered, eye contact faltering. "nevermind, it's stupid."

"look at me, love," the nickname was.. new. "i don't want to hurt you. i'm gonna make everything up, okay?"

she hummed an agreement, eyes fluttering to make contact with his. his face was soft, just like the other night. but something seemed missing.

"i wanna show you everything about my home," the excitement in his voice was almost raw. "i live in a palace, did you know that?"

"i didn't," she smiled, a forced one. "are you gonna show me around?"

at that, the elevator's doors opened, and she was hit with a sudden wave of heat that nearly made her fall over.

and he almost didn't catch her.

tears started to swell up her eyes as she clung onto his arm, nails digging into broken fabric. soft yelps came out of her mouth.

"love, are you alright?" he spoke worriedly, and the amount of emotion in his voice made her even more lightheaded.

"i-i am-" she whispered, getting back onto her feet. "its just- y'know- what.. what i told you last night..?"

he nodded his head, a soft "oh" coming out of his mouth. but it didn't seem like an ounce of actual empathy lied behind his eyes. a tint of red glazed it instead. she felt odd.

did he not remember? or did he choose not to?

when she was able to walk properly, he led her around. if it wasn't for the burning pit in her stomach, she'd be extremely excited. but she had a feeling that something deeper was lying under the lava pools.

"this is the palace," he sighed, gesturing to the building. "isn't it cool?"

"it is.." she muttered. this awe, she could not fake. the large, intricate structures of gold and red and the occasional fire bounced off her glassy eyes. "can we go inside? maybe you can show me your room-"

"i.." he stiffened up suddenly. "i don't think that's a good idea."

"oh.." she muttered, trying to read his firm facial expression. but she couldn't.

a thick silence fell upon them. the only noticeable thing was how her halo flicked on and off with inconsistent beats.

"hey, i have to.. do something.. how about you stay here until i'm finished, okay? maybe you can talk to my mom or.. or talk to the hellhounds," his voice was unconvincing, but she still nodded, even as disappointed as she was.

and she watched him walk away, turning the corner away from her. she couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of disgust rummaging through her. the constant stares of demons around her didn't make anything better.

her feelings were mixed. maybe he's having a good day or- or maybe he's really considering peace between them.

but what if it really was a trick?

her soft facial expressions fell into her lap, weighing her options. she always sought to find the good in people, always trying and trying to think positive. but even after she revealed everything- everything she couldn't admit out loud, he turned her away. and there was no right explanation for that, no matter how beautiful his palace was.

she straightened up, fists clenched at her sides. she wasn't going to take it. after going through so much of his hatred for so long, she didn't like him practically making fun of her death. she hated it.

she was going to look for him and tell him all of her raw feelings.

as he rounded the corner, his back hit the wall and his knees failed. his breathing was labored as he ran a blackened hand through his changing hair. he could feel the skin literally crawl off of him, and he was delighted to have his normal look back.

quackity sighed against the wall, catching up to his quickened breath. "now all he has to do is find her. and they're forced to make up. and i win my twenty bucks," he muttered under his lips. "god, quackity, you genius."

his laughs felt amazing to churn out. pretending to be wilbur was exhausting him to the core, but it was worth each and every penny of the twenty dollars he'd be receiving soon.

but, through all of his buzzing victory, he didn't notice an angry little angel looking for a certain grim reaper. he didn't notice her stomping around with her fists clenched at her sides.

and he definitely didn't notice her tripping and falling into the pit of lost souls.

-

wilbur's day went on horribly.

he didn't get any sleep. not that this was any different from usual; but this time his night was spent tossing and turning in his stone bed trying to think of how he was going to talk to her.

his bones ached when he got up, and no amount of stretches could heal the knot in his neck.

work was even worse. especially considering the fact that everytime he heard some sort of high pitched noise, he'd think it was a little angel fluttering her wings at him, and then he'd be able say the speech he had written up in his mind.

he was regretting his word choice of "i never want to see you again" on top of his regret for the rest of his blown out word vomit.

but as he walked from the elevator to his palace, he couldn't help but hear a sort of cry for help. and it sounded oddly similar to the angel's.

"wilbur? w-wilbur.. i know- i know you hate me but this- this hurts -"

was it?

"its not fffunny anymore- i know you got your kick out of tricking- me- but this is- ow!"

it couldn't be.

"i won't bother you again! i promise! just please- let- let me out of here- help me.. please..? it's- it's -"

he'd been hearing her voice in his head all day in somewhat intervals. but this felt more real, more raw.

he stumbled on his feet. he knew where it was coming from. he heard noises of desperate cries from it everyday, but the thought that this might be real? it scared him to his core.

worry rushed over him quicker than second thought, and he rushed over to the pit of lost souls in a panic. hoarse, raspy screams of "angel!" flew out of his throat as he scrambled to climb the volcano-like structure.

-

she still had a lot of questions for wilbur.

not the type of, "what's your favorite color?" or "what's your favorite band?" questions. more like, "wilbur? hello? please help- this hurts- are you still there?"

and she was starting to lose hope in the fact that those questions might be answered.

one things for sure; her curiosity will be the death of her.

unless he's got the courage to do something about it.

11.4k || 8.12.23 || masterlist coming soon <3

taglist (dm or send an ask to be added!) — @sixofshadowandbone @theoneandonlyyeti @harbingerofheartbreak @starsyoubreaklikesugardust @mcr-pr-fob @sapphic-soot @flynn-thebin @puppyburbites @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @merakiaes @aimi-chann @axthrial @lololol00 @deadphantomsociety @hometown-smile @qweengigi @kisstheskin

It had been a few days since that phone call. Currently, you were in a limo driving to the Gala that your boss had thrown you into. Look—maybe being around assholes and supporting an organization that you literally had been excavating their dirty details on—wasn’t your idea of fun. But the four hours spent here equaled one week of paid overtime. You could handle four hours and then go home to your boyfriend and ravish him.

Your outfit was a tad itchy but otherwise tolerable. It was mostly the unfamiliarity with the type of style. The corset snatched your waist and the sleeves reached halfway down your forearm. The metallic lining was soft and elegant. 

You had tried talking to Wilbur about attending the gala—or as least as an outfit consultant. (Wilbur seemed like the type to know what was appropriate for such events.) Regardless—he had been so busy that he only really had time to text you good night most nights or send you a funny clip.  

Speaking of Wilbur—he had been a tad distant lately. He said it was stuff with work and while you trusted him completely—it was still a bit hard, considering your conversation with Siren. You weren’t upset—you weren’t—but the loss of the relationship left something feeling numb in your chest. 

Originally you had cried a little—you had wrapped yourself up in a blanket with a tub of ice cream, a spoon, and some regency drama that made you cry a little harder. 

But that was Sunday. Today was Thursday. And Thursday you were sexier than Sunday you. (especially with your outfit) The hypersexualizing of yourself gave you some false confidence to carry on through your night. 

The limo pulled to a stop and you thanked the driver. The Gala was being held in the Pandora’s Vault—A museum dedicated to remembering civilian victims of hero battles—but because of the Gala, a new wing was being opened featuring the history of superheroes and their deeds, which is where the gala was being held. 

A service worker with dark hair and a flower growing behind her ear pointed you in the right direction and another checked your name for the list. The one marking your name down handed you a little beaded bracelet.

“What is this?” you asked.

“Consider it a ticket that you can be here.” They said noncommittally. A third helped you find your table. Three reporters and the CEO were already sitting down. You thanked the employee and took your seat at your name card. 

“Are you the intern?” One guy asked. 

“No, I’m from Todd’s branch, he sent me here to be of assistance.”

“With a name like yours, I had thought you would have been prettier.” 

“I honestly don’t know how to respond to that.”

The four went on about work things and continued to ignore you. Honestly, fine. You were here for the fun shit that lower-middle-class people couldn’t afford. Like that cheese fondue and chocolate fountains and that tray of finger sandwiches… 

You walked over there as casually as you could and grabbed a tiny plate.  As you went through the mini snack buffet line, some middle-aged man bumped into you.

“Sorry, sorry.”

You looked up only to be greeted by Mayor Schlatt. 

“Oh—uh, Hello Mayor.” You said in an effort to conceal the absolute anarchy that was your emotions right now. 

How Schlatt was still mayor was a fucking mystery to you. The guy was usually so drunk he fell off the stage during his own freaking speeches, and the only thing he seemed good for was being a figurehead. But every election year, his charisma won him the title again. 

“Hey- whoa wait, you look familiar.” The Mayor said squinting at you. 

“I work at a news station, you might have seen me on TV.” This wasn’t false, if you ever were on screen it was usually about stories about lives in the community. However, it wasn’t often that you got recognized. You were usually doing voiceovers and research in the background. 

“Oh shit—It’s you—that reporter—“

“Yeah, that’s me.” You said awkwardly. Great. Now the alcoholic mayor knows your name. This was totally getting brought up the Wilbur once you got back. 

When you turned away from the table, you noticed many people had turned their heads away from your direction, as if avoiding the fact that they had been staring. Some people whispered to people around them and random people began to make quick glances at you. 

Okay. That was weird. Probably because you were talking to the Mayor then. Yeah, that had to be it. However, wherever you walked, the crowd parted ever so slightly. Weird.

Time to check out the exhibit then. You wandered around and saw a few statues in honor of the Dream Team, a few in honor of Rewind and Supreme—But they all seemed fake and superficial. The video recording and the informative excerpts seemed incredibly biased. But the worst of it was that you felt paranoid. The more you wandered through the exhibit the more eyes you felt on your back. 

You started making your way towards the restroom—surely you won’t feel watched in there. As you walk into the room, it is mostly a massive mirror with sinks and stalls behind you. Your chest heaved. You certainly felt better in here but the few people walking in and out of the restroom watched you uncomfortably. 

Maybe your class status was that obvious? No that couldn’t be it. Why would the mayor remember your name? You looked at the mirror and splashed some water on your face, doing your best to avoid touching your eyes. The amount of time you had spent alone on the matching design around your eyes to your outfit was not worth retouching. 

You took a deep breath and ran your hands under some cold water.

“I am perfectly fine. I will be okay. This too shall pass.” you recited in an attempt to calm your increasingly paranoid mind. It seemed to work, and you switched the faucet off. You shut your eyes and inhaled. Just breathe. Inhale, exhale. You opened them again and felt a little better. 

Then you noticed one lightbulb in particular short circuting above the mirror. You didn’t think much of it until you heard the sounds of a commotion outside the restroom. You furrowed your brow, Oh the event must be starting. Then you heard a scream and the sounds of shattering glass. 

Oh dear god. maybe it might be best to stay in the restroom. The rational part of your mind said. The curious one simply urged you forward.

You were a journalist for a reason. 

You crept out of the restroom and poked your head around the corner. There in the center of the room was the entire Syndicate, all four.

At the front stood Zephyrus, his dark wings flared in an obvious sign of don’t fuck with me. To his right stood the Blade, the boar skull as threatening as ever. Behind Zephrys, Stood Apollo the K95 mask and eyes glaring at the crowd. 

To Zephyrus’s left stood the one who had mangled up your heart and stomped on it in his boots, Siren. His grin looked just as carnivorous as you remembered it. 

“Don’t panic dear citizens.” Siren’s honey voice flowed out. “We have every right to be here as the heroes do.” The crowd seemed to ease a little but they remained on edge. “Now, who’s going to tell me where they are hiding~.” The crowd shifted—the heroes were actually here tonight? 

The Blade seemed to be observing the room, picking each and every person apart in detail. After a moment he stepped into the crowd, blades drawn, and stalked through the parting crowd, as if searching for something.

“Oh come on, surely one of you knows where they are?” Siren said playfully, but you knew his question was nothing but playful. 

The Blade continued scanning and then he stopped when looking in your direction. He muttered something into his mic, and almost immediately, Siren stopped his taunting of the crowd and whipped his head up in your direction. You scurried around the corner and immediately went back towards the restroom. Nope, not today. Not dealing with this today. 

As you stepped back inside your chest heaved. surely he didn’t see you from that far across the room—that was just ridiculous. You recognized the sound of footsteps approaching and quickly ran and stood on top of one of the toilets and locked the stall door. You were not getting caught by the entire Syndicate today. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. 

The door creaked open and the heavy steps of the Blade and his twin swords tracing the tile were your only signal. Then he started talking.

“—yeah I’m absolutely sure I saw them. I’m looking now.” He huffed and an inaudible voice responded panicked. “Yes I know—Its a setback—continue as planned, I’ll take care of it, you have my word.” The voice seemed semi-appeased and then cut off. You immediately held a hand over your mouth to conceal your breathing. 

The Syndicate was looking for you. And they were going to ‘take care of you?’ If taking care was anything like Siren’s definition, you were fucked. Probably more in the figurative sense than literal. You had a boyfriend to think about. 

Oh god, your boyfriend. Wilbur. Dear Prime he was going to be so worried about you. Whatever happened, you were going to get back to him. You were going to crawl into his arms and pretend that none of this ever happened and you were going to quit this job. 

Surely there were other career opportunities? You could work as a writer or go freelance—Or you could work at that cute little Aquarium that Wilbur had taken you on a date to—you could lay with him in the tunnel that cut through the water, the one where all the fish swam over you and you watched the stingrays swim past—he would hold your hand and you would look at your perfect pretty boy with the dimples and his stupid hipster glasses as the blue-green light washed over the two of you, Oh god were you ever going to see Wilbur again?

“I know you are in there.” The Blade’s voice echoed around the tile. “We have to go.” You didn’t respond. You heard a sigh. “Look I will give you to the count of five to get off that toilet seat and unlock the door, otherwise I’ll break down the door, grab you and go.” 

You had half a mind to say “But what if I’m pissing—“ before you heard his counting. 

“One.” You bit your lip, The Blade wasn’t one to bluff, and he didn’t make threats—he made promises. 

“Two.” This time you heard doors pushing open.

“Three.” He was two doors away from you.

“Four.”

“Wait,” you said. he paused. “What is going on? I’ll unlock the door but please tell me.” You heard him sigh. 

“If you value your life, you will open the door and I’ll explain on the way.” You hesitated but cautiously unlocked the stall door.

“Please don’t make me regret this.” You asked. The Blade huffed and picked you up, threw you over his shoulder, and headed back out the door. He immediately began walking towards the exhibit. “You know I can walk myself.” You deadpanned. The Blade simply muttered something.

“I’ve got them. I’m taking them out the west exit. Hurry—you got five minutes.” then he turned to you. “This whole place is a demolition project. And I’d rather not deal with Siren’s bullshit today.” You felt your face go pale.

“Um sorry, I think I misheard you—did you say, demolition?”

“Yeah.”

“…but what does that have to do with me being carried like a sack of potatoes.” The Blade huffed.

“Fastest way to get you out of here safely. Besides, I don’t feel like having Siren up my ass about this.”

You rolled your eyes. Siren. You wanted nothing to do with him right now so maybe getting evacuated by the Blade instead was a stroke of luck on your side. 

He charged through barriers at a pace much faster than you would have been able to keep up with. Well, maybe it was good riddance. The sooner you were out of there the better. The blade ran through an emergency exit, one clearly marked ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED, but no alarm sounded. 

“Daedalus is helping.” the Blade supplied. He proceeded to put you down in the alleyway. and muttered into his comm, “They are secure, Rosethorn you take it from here.” The Blade turned to you. “This is where I leave you. Rosethorn is coming to get you further away from here but first…” He grabbed the bracelet from around your wrist. “I’m taking this.” 

“I would ask why but I’m thinking a question like that would delay whatever nefarious plot you lot have planned.”

“You are thinking correctly.”

“I expect answers from one of you at some point.”

“And you will get them.”

“Just not now?”

“Just not now.” The Blade confirmed. You sighed. 

“All right—go.” You waved him off. The Blade nodded and entered back where he came. Not much later, the villain Rosethorn showed up. Her tree bark mask and wild dark curly hair had flowers blooming all up in it. 

“Well, aren’t you in a pickle.” She said half-jokingly. 

“I still don’t know what is going on.” You said.

“I know—I wish I had time to explain it, but time isn’t on our side. C’mon, I gotta get you far away from here.” She held out her hand and you grabbed it. You followed her as she zigzagged through alleyways. Her hand was warm and honestly, the first welcome touch you had experienced in about a week. Going from inconsistent sex with Siren, and then Wilbur, and him being unavailable the past week, it actually shocked you how touch-starved you had become. 

You had just gotten to a corner in an alleyway before you heard a loud BOOM echo throughout the city. The walls of the buildings around you shook, and you could see an orangy light reflected through the walls. You looked at Rosethorn panicked. She wasn’t looking at you, but she seemed to be wincing from the sounds coming through her comm. 

“Yeah—No I have them—they are fine—Did you all make it out okay?” She paused. “Okay good—Apollo, Nemesis needs you—go find her—Blade did you plant the—okay. Oh shit—Okay okay I’m coming—On my way.” She turned you. “I’m so sorry. I have to go.” 

“Yeah, I get it.” You said. “It’s okay, go help your crew.” Rosethorn stopped and put her hands on your shoulders.

“Are you okay?” God damn it. You felt your eyes water in response to the question.

“Ask me that later?” You asked trying to hold it together–your voice was not going to crack.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll send someone else once we have our shit together—for now you are out of the blast range. Sit tight.” She patted your head. You mustered up a smile and watched her reach toward a potted plant hanging from a window. A vine grew and wrapped itself around her arm before pulling her up. You watched her go until she was around the corner. 

You sat down on the grimy alley floor. God this sucked. One night was wrecked once again by Siren. 

C’mon, that's not his fault and you know it. your mind chided. 

Does it really matter?

We need more time to get over this. It’s okay to feel things but there isn’t much we can do about it now. What can we do right now? You looked up. You had no clue where you were, but you also had your phone on you. 

You could text Wilbur. Your mind supplied and you hesitated. Did you really wanna give your boyfriend a heart attack by text? Like, “Hey Wil, I was at a gala and it exploded, I got carried out by the most physically threatening of the syndicate but I’m okay now!”  

Yeah… Maybe not the best plan. You buried your head into your arms and tried focusing on your breathing. The place you had just been in had exploded, you could hear police sirens getting closer to the scene and ambulances. God–was everyone in there dead? You were just been in a room full of people, full of lives that were just snuffed out like it didn't even matter. You wanted to cry but you weren't out of the woods yet. Your adrenaline was spiking and you couldn't bring yourself to cry right now.

The sounds of police chatter and sirens pulling up what the only thing echoing throughout the buildings. You heard footsteps coming from behind you and immediately stood up and got onto the defensive. You may be having a crisis but that just meant you weren't in the right headspace to consider going down without a fight. 

You heard the footsteps coming from behind you and you immediately ducked and spun around before punching the person in the gut. 

“Ow fuck!” You looked at the person (who was now doubled over on the ground) and at first you recognized the curly brown mop on their head–

“Who–” You started before they looked up and you were met with the blue scarf around the guy's face. “Prime, Siren–you could have warned me it was you!” 

“You have a killer right hook you know that?” he said still doubled over in pain on the ground. 

“You scared me half to death!” you protested. 

“No–I deserved that–just give me a minute-” He said. You pinched the bridge of your nose. A piece of your mind celebrated for having punched the guy–justice for being a dick it said gleefully, and you couldn't stop the tiny satisfied smile on your face. Eventually, he got up.

“Thats gonna leave a bruise,” he said in an attempt to break the ice.

“Yeah, I bet–are you going to conveniently fill me in on what happened or am I supposed to connect the dots myself?” You asked folding your arms. Siren frowned and looked in your direction. He seemed to remember what he was supposed to be doing. 

“Why were you in there.”

“I got invited?” You said a tad sarcastically. “Which I think is a more accurate reason than why you were there–because I’m fairly certain you weren't invited.” Siren ran a hand through his hair frustrated. 

“You had no business being there–I worried you were–”

“Worried I was what, Siren.” 

“Worried you were dead-–is that a solid enough answer for you?” he spat back at you. You paused and took a step back.

“I’m sorry I made you worried.” You said steadily. “But it's not like you have any reason to be worried. No feelings involved right?” The venom in your tone was lethal. 

“Not right now–you almost died, do you have any idea–”

“No– I don't because no one will tell me anything.” you snapped. “So, sorry for not having any fucking clue.” 

“You know for someone so smart you can really–”

“What, I can really what.”

“Quit cutting me off.”

“Quit lying to me.”

“Lying to you?”

“Lying to me!” you snapped. “You keep lying by omission by withholding information from me, and I am sick of it! You lied and now all those people are dead or worse-”

“Well, they aren’t dead if that is what you are worried about.”

“Please–It exploded Siren–not even the foundation is still standing.”

“Even if they were dead, which they aren't, by the way, The Heroes Association wouldnt even care.”

“How does that make you any different?” You said quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“You say you want to get your point across but you do it at the expense of others—that many people did not deserve to die for the price of equality.” 

“You don't get it—everyone in there has wanted the syndicate dead.” Siren said defiantly.

“Oh wow—so someone wants you dead so you kill them first?”

“Every single one of those people have literally put donated money to the Hero’s Association to get us killed. I’ve seen the files.”

“Why didn't you just send me those? I could have done something with them!” You pleaded.

“And then what would have happened? People these days are so desensitized that it would not have mattered what you put into your report—no one would have cared to do anything—especially because the rich could have paid to get it removed. They throw enough money at anything and it will go away—and that means you too.”

“What the fuck does that mean.” You growled. You were so angry and worked up you couldn't see anything but red.

“You sent that sample to your boss—why do you think it came back warped and destroyed? Why do you think the CEO of your company invited you tonight—instead of hey, I don't know—your higher-up Todd?”

“How do you know it came back destroyed.” You said 

“We’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while now—and so have the Hero's Association. That destruction was for you—we’ve been trying for months to keep you safe—and somehow—you end up right in the trap they have been setting for you.” He ran another hand through his hair. “They wanted you dead.” He said, the bitterness leaving his mouth.

“I—“

“What nothing to say for once?” he taunted. 

You looked back up at him, this was getting too much. First, the guy practically burned the relationship to the ground and now—

“What did I do wrong.” You asked pathetically.

“I can’t— wait what?”

“I—you—You are mad at me. What did I do to upset you.”

“Upset me—?”

“Upset you!” You snapped back stabbing an accusatory finger in his chest. You could feel tears forming in the corner of your eyes but crying would be held for later. 

“First you don’t talk to me for eight freaking months. Not a note, not a message. Not even a raised eyebrow. I already thought I had pissed you off when you had to take me home that night but there was nothing stopping you from using your voice to tell me to walk home myself.”

Siren pursed his lips.

“Then, the first time I reach out to you--In eight months—you have such a stick up your ass that you give one-word and clipped responses like you have to watch what you say around me because if you said what is actually on your mind you would get your ass kicked.”

The tears were threatening to fall down your face now.

“So when I ask you, to try and do one actual halfway decent favor for me—and actual favor—You can't deliver on that favor.” 

Siren winced.

“And instead of telling me like a rational adult—like I thought you could be capable of, ‘oh hey I tried doing the one thing you asked of me but we came through with these problems x y and z’ you instead decided that I didn't deserve to know that I was walking into a fucking death trap.”

The tears were actually falling down your face now.

“And you treat me like I’m stupid—Well sorry I can't see every fucking outcome—Guess that makes me an irredeemable moron right? I’ll do better next time—because even the stupidest of idiots would have figured out long ago that you were never going to give me information in exchange for sex. Anyone would have asked to hear the files first—or see them before the sex and then exchange it for the sources..” Siren opened his mouth to say something but you were running on anger and pent-up bitterness from the past week. “Well, that makes me two things, a whore and an idiot right?”

Siren’s mouth was agape. 

“I didn’t say you were an idiot—“

“Oh well, you sure as fuck implied it!” You snapped back. “So—yeah, upset you. And everyone thinks I’m dead—including my place of work and I can’t go back because they send something worse after me to make sure the job is done—did I get that right?” You asked miserably, your voice cracking on the final line. “So not only am I unemployed by circumstance, It’s all my fault any of this happened because I was being naive.” You turned away from him. “It was stupid to hope any of this could have possibly changed anyways-so hey! you are right on one count!” The sarcastic bitterness was off-put by the tears rapidly falling down your face.

“I’m just a stupid naive reporter who fell in love with you and got my heart broken along with my job and the only project I’ve been working on in my spare time for the past 2 years”

“…No, hey you aren’t—“

“Don’t bother.” You muttered wiping the tears off your face with your wrist. “Sorry for misunderstanding the relationship we had. I get it—it’s over—And if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go.” You said with enough bitterness to spoil any hope of forgiveness on your end. 

“hey—whoa, wait—“ Siren sounded panicked.

“No.”

“I’m sorry, okay? Please—“ he pleaded.

“Bit late for that.”

“—Let me walk you home at least.”

“Fuck off.” 

“Look—at least I can keep you safe from—“

“Siren, I wouldn’t trust you with my name, much less my safety.” You said angrily. “Now if you fuck off, I’m going home.”

“Wait.” 

You froze in your steps. Was he actually using his voice on you? Your rage bloomed and began burning you from the inside out. It was white hot and consuming your very being. 

“Please, come here.” You felt yourself turn around and walk towards him. You refused to look at his eye line. This asshole could rot for all the pain he was putting you through. 

“I’m sorry.” He said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t think—You, have every right to be pissed off at me and I—oh god—and I’m making it even worse aren’t I?”

You didn’t dignify his question with a response. You’ve said everything you needed to, and now he could suffer in your silence. 

“I am, aren’t I?” he asked running a hand through his hair. “First with Tommy, now with you—god I’m such a—“ You stared up at him. 

“Who is Tommy.” You demanded. Siren paused—caught. You eyed him, closely. You could tell earlier in the dark but now that he was closer, he looked familiar, like someone you knew…

“No one.—Tommy? I didn’t say Tommy—Whose Tommy?” 

“Oh no, I heard you.” You said, looking him up and down, comparing things in your mind. “You said Tommy.” 

The soft curly brown hair, the jawline, the dimples that drove you insane, the callouses on his fingers, the curve of his smile—and now Tommy? The same name as Wilbur’s younger brother? You stepped back a little, and softly asked, as if scared of the response you were going to get. 

“…Wilbur?” Siren’s mouth opened and closed looking like a goldfish.

“…No?” His response wasn't enough for you, Your brow set in determination, and you reached towards his voice modifier and unclasped it. Siren backed away a little but didn’t stop you.

“Is that you Wil?” You asked softly. You felt so fragile. Siren winced and then ran a hand through his hair. He opened his mouth and the voice that left his mouth wasn’t Siren.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. 

It was Wilbur. Your sweet loving and perfect Wilbur—He pulled the voice modifier back and reclasped it.

“Look I’m sure you have questions and you definitely deserve some answers and some freaking space, but my house isn’t that far from here, and I don’t think you should be walking home alone to your apartment tonight.”

You can’t help but raise a brow as the next man meets you with a smile. You recognize him, regretfully, the proud grin not something you could ever easily look over. He was a man of accomplishment and rumors. Wilbur was a man you did not ever think you would be meeting like this. 

“Mr. President,” you hum, forcing a matching smile onto your face. He is a beau, a beautiful visage of brown eyes and dark curly hair. “and to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” You drift up your fingertips to flatten down the ruffles of his shirt. You stare for a moment at the gold accents that perfectly complement the red and dark navy of his uniform. Unscratched golden buttons and epaulets make the man seem far more put together than you ever heard of him to be. You had heard rumors of drunken nights, a controversy that spread through the whispers of gossip and to your waiting ear. 

“The pleasure is all mine,” he purrs as the two of you take your proper places, feet apart, his hand on your hip and yours on his shoulder. He interlinks your fingers and finally, the music once again comes to life. You are embarrassed at the way the golden light of the room makes him absolutely breathtaking, highlighting every one of his perfect features and making him seem more god than mortal. “I’ve been watching you all night, my love, just as every other man here with half a brain,” 

“You’ve never been so forward, general,” you say teasingly, fluttering your eyelashes at him as he spins you. He was never supposed to speak to you like this, the same way as those other men, like he wasn’t untouchable. Your heart races as he reels you back in, hand now more firmly pressing into your waist. The weight of it sends you off into a spiral of less-than-holy thoughts, things that were not to be discovered now but pondered in the privacy of your bedroom. 

“Have I not?” he feigns surprise “I thought my lingering stares all night would be enough to clue you in, my dear?” you can’t help the flush that finds its way to your cheeks as the ending of your brief dance together grows closer. 

“I’m more used to hearing of men’s interest in me through marriage proposals,” you say and watch as his face scrunches up. 

“And is that what you would rather?” he asks you, leaning closer with a smile. “That I speak with your father?”

“I guess not,” you hum back as the music demands you leave each other. You slip from him then, lose him in the chaos of changing dance partners, but no longer can you focus on the act of pretending to be interested in the various men with the same story. You shouldn’t be thinking about Wilbur, drunken president and well-spoken poet. Yet you keep meeting his eyes from across the room, finding any chance to stare at the back of his head or feel your heart flutter as his brown eyes crinkle with a smile when they meet yours. You excuse yourself with a wave of your hand, slink to the edge of the room, and further still. You collapse into an empty table, sitting in a chair with your forced slowed breathing. 

You felt insensible, made small by the magnitude of your desire for the man. The urge to tuck the affections away rises more and more as you sit alone. You were not meant to think of anyone like that, not meant to love so quickly, trip over yourself just for a man, especially not one like him. He is that culmination of forbidden, a bad man even if celebrated for wins in war. He did not know decorum, not manners, not in the way your father would demand. He wasn’t just untouchable, he was implausible.

“My love?” and you know it is him before you look. Love is not in your nature but when you meet his doe eyes you let yourself dream that it could be.

“Have you spoken to my father?” you asked him, pushing down your feelings with an inhale through your nose and an inquisitive look. It's the correct thing to ask when just his current proximity now, alone, is vulgar in the eyes of high society.

“You told me not to,” he says, sitting down in the chair closest to you. It’s dimmer here, his face more angled. The pair of you are hidden for now, free to break as many customary rules as either of you wish, and yet a voice in the back of your mind is screaming that you must remain cordial, traditional, and distant. 

“and are you taking orders from me now?” you taunt and the sound of his laugh is music to your ears, the sweetest melody ever awarded to you by any such man vying for your attention. 

“Would it please you if I did?” he asks leaning towards you. You can’t help the butterflies his question brings you. 

“No,” you whisper and he doesn’t retreat from your space, remains close as wandering eyes do not seek you both out for once. 

“Excuse my words then, my dear, but you are incomparable to every lowly person here,” he says and you flush again, hiding your face away from his view by tucking it against your chest. “Don’t hide from me, darling,” 

“It’s unfair to say that,” you whisper and he laughs lightly. 

“I would disagree, all these men here to see you and you want to act bashful now? You must know they find you irresistible,” embarrassment grabs you then, so suddenly as praises flow from his devilish tongue. 

“And how do you find me, President?” you lock eyes with him and force yourself to feel confident under his half-lidded gaze. It’s prodding, unseemly to say, and yet it leaves you all the same, begging him to confess his attraction to you.

“Divine, the envy of angels,” he purrs. You blink at him in surprise, still ever thwarted by the affection of his sentiments. 

The two of you spend the rest of the night together, dancing idly away from the others, sharing a conversation that does not demand the weight of a title. It's unseemly, against what you've been taught, but he speaks of books he has read recently, shares tales of the world away, and horrible moments of a war now won. When the night grows tired, steps more often than not clumsy he walks you to your parents with a hand hovering on the small of your back. 

You watch as he slips your glove off with his calloused fingertips, a dragging action akin to undressing you with his eyes. He presses his lips against the back of your hand in a gesture that makes your body thrum with excitement you almost can’t make yourself conceal. It’s inconceivable, the gasp that comes from your mother is proof enough of her disapproval. His eyes look up at you through dark lashes and you can’t find the strength to be angry with the spectacle he’s made of the pair of you. You pull him closer quickly and whisper in his ear in a breathless way, one last desperate attempt to keep his attention past this shared moment. 

“Don’t let this be the last time I am graced with your company,” you say, hushed, keeping the words hidden from your waiting family. He steps back from you with a small smile and a nod to your father. 

You wait to hear from him again, a week passes before a letter is handed to you. You give a quick thank you before retreating to open the parcel alone. It smells of him, like wood and smoke, like the stuffy air that follows you into your dreams and feeds your want like oxygen to a flame. 

×

It's warm, underneath the mask and the costume. Makes him sweat and his mouth dry but all he can focus on is your form, slouched over the kitchen table. Books and papers spread out over the table, with you writing over some with a loose grip and droopy eyes. Part of him wants to kiss the side of your head and take you to bed, his hands holding your knees and back while you tuck your face into his shoulder. He also wants to stick the knife he's twirling deep in your guts, twist it until you stop screaming and all you can do is cry and look at him. Look at him and die.

He waits till you look close to passing out, head slowly falling before snapping back up several times, waits till you sigh and continue the attempt at homework.

He dials the phone number. Watches as you startle completely awake, rummaging through the mess of books and assignments until you find the culprit, not even bothering to check the caller ID. And he hears your voice Crack a little in greeting, "he-" and he smiles a little when you yawn in the middle of your sentence, "Hello? Who's this?"

He doesn't know what to say, "sorry, I think I might have called the wrong number." He doesn't make the move to hang up though.

He hears and sees you hum and you look up to the ceiling, scratching at your forehead, "well, I hope you find who you're looking for." And you hang up the phone, sitting up in your seat. He brings the phone down from his ear only to re-dial, swallowing.

He gets to see your shoulders jerk back in surprise when the phone starts ringing again. He can't help the adrenaline building in his chest. He needs to chase you down, taunt you, make you scream his name, carve you as his. His third victim of the night.

"I think you got the wrong number again." You say, looking down at your homework, checking the phone number this time.

"I did, but I was hoping I could talk to you." The knife sits heavy in his grasp, he could almost feel the metal humming with excitement. Maybe that's just him.

"I wouldn't mind talking, I just got a lot of homework to do." You bite down on your bottom lip, scanning the papers. He could just barely make the cover of the book when you close it and make room for another. Biology.

"Maybe I could help." He has before, wasn't even too long ago. You struggled often with the terms, and that'll fuck you up in the long-run.

"I'm not sure that you could, you can't even see what I'm working on." You've abandoned the books and papers now, leaning against the back of your seat. Staring at the ceiling.

"If you'd talk me through it, I could."

"So generous, what, you're gonna tell me how to solve for x?" The way you smile while covering half of your face makes his heart beat faster. He can't wait much longer. He has to have you soon.

"Solving for x isn't going to help you with your evolution paper." Your smile drops, back straightens up while you look around. It's dark outside, so dark, you'd never see him but you look right at him. Even if unknowing, you did and his heart skips a beat. He wants to hear your heart skip like his too. Beating fast and full of fear.

"I'm- I'm not working on an evolution paper- who is this?" He can't help the small laugh that bubbles out of him, he feels high. High on a power trip, high on the genuine fear building inside of you.

"Except you are, have three books open and everything. Think you need help more than I do."

"This isn't funny." Your face scrunched up, he could guess fear or maybe confusion. Frustration.

"I never said it was." He moves out of his spot from the window, making his way to the back of the house. The thing about you is that as a college student, somehow you're the one at home while your parents are out, having fun. If you'd only gone with them.

He makes it to the back door where he can see a light turned on in a bedroom window, opened for the breeze to come in. He smiles to himself. "I just wanted to talk." His eyes glance to the glass door, seeing your figure hunch over the table, arm wrapped around your torso.

"About what?" You ask and he sighs this time.

"Nothing in particular, just wanted to talk." He ends up biting on the blunt part of the knife, hauling himself up to the window by the bricks and the chair he found conveniently placed there. When he makes it into the bedroom, he could see this is definitely yours. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

"I-" he could hear you scoff from the phone and downstairs, "yes, actually I do." He moves from your bedroom to what he assumed was your parents.

"Then why don't you have any pictures of him in your room?" He could hear the sharp intake of air, could hear the way you haul yourself out of the chair.

"I'm calling the cops."

"You don't want to do that." He warns, moving around the room and tracing the decor with the tip of his knife.

"Why not?" He could hear your voice break a little and he's not ashamed of the way his cock twitched in his pants. The whole thing made him want to hang up and just chase you down, pin you to the ground and- and-

He could already see it, red spilling out of you and staining the floorboards or the carpet. Your mouth gaping open in a permanent scream. He felt like he could come in his pants right now.

"Would hate to see your parents' guts all over the kitchen. Weren't they getting home in an hour?"

There's silence over the phone.

And when you speak, your voice is small, trembling, "what do you want from me?"

"I just want to talk to you."

For the most part, that is true. He's always wanted to talk to you. Listen to you more, hear what kind of sounds you'd make. How you'd sound writhing beneath him. Saying his name. He wants to hear you. Feel you with his bare hands. You were supposed to be the first victim, actually. But then the big, frat party happened and you held his arm while you kissed his cheek. Thanking him for watching your drink.

"And you can't talk to me, face to face?" You tried to sound tough. He can hear it, the way you pulled every ounce of strength to talk as if this wasn't the scariest thing happening to you as of yet.

It's cute.

"You want to see me?" He asks, flipping the knife in his hand.

"I want to know who I'm talking to." He clicked his tongue and then peeked out of the room, you still haven't checked the upstairs.

"Go to your room then, I'm still looking for that boyfriend you claim to have."

He hangs up the phone this time, shoving it into his pocket beneath the long fabric. You won't find him there, and he wishes he could hear your heart pound inside of your chest, beating so hard because he lied. He could be anywhere in the house and you have no way of knowing. He licks his lips. Is this how a god feels?

He hears each step you take, hears you falter as you reach the door. If he remembered right, the door had been closed before he left. But then he hears the door closing, without any of the footsteps going inside. Seems like you didn't want to see him at all.

He moves quickly then, out of the bedroom where he sees your back turned towards him. Yet, he sees the bumps rising on your skin, sees the hair rising up. Even your body knows how much danger you're in. His little prey to catch. His mouth salivates faster.

You don't even get to turn around fully, fingers already reaching to call the cops when he snatches the phone out. Your surprised gasp turns into a scream when he throws it behind him, brandishing the knife in its place. You don't hesitate to run towards the stairs. He gives you a split-second before he follows after, already feeling the need to sink his knife into your skin, catching your mouth in a gasp. Make you say his name before you die.

He calls your name in a song, singing for you to turn around while you trip on the stairs. You barely make it to your feet in time when he reaches the bottom, his gloved hand barely grazes the skin on your arm. It sparks something inside of him to move faster, running after you. Though it only does so much until you hit the lights, ducking around the corner and flat out disappearing on him. If he remembers right, after this hallway, it's a straight shot to the kitchen and backyard. He smiles under the mask.

"Listen, if you want me to leave you alone, you'll have to talk to me. But I get it, you don't love your parents enough, would rather let them take the fall-" and he hears a grunt, moving forward enough to miss a whole chair. His heart beats faster. You tried to hit him with a chair?

"Leave my parents alone." You hissed, backing away from the now broken chair. Your fists are closed and leaning on either side of the walls. You're already tired. Perfect.

He doesn't say anything, looking from the pile of wood and nails and fabric, to you. He pushes the wood to the side slowly, making a show of how easy it is for him to step over the mess. Watching as you backed away and backed up till you darted for the stairs again. He runs after you, feeling the burn in his lungs and his legs but it's addicting, these feelings. He can't ever get enough.

He reaches for your ankle, finding purchase to pull you down but then you just kick him away, scrambling up the steps. He makes it to the landing, just in time to see you enter your room, striding over to hold the door open when you try to lock it. Trying to run past him, he only catches you, shoving you back. Your legs hit the desk and you can only gasp whenever he has you pinned against your desk, pressing himself fully against you. The tip of his knife just barely touches the skin of your collarbone but it's all the same. All it takes is a second and he can have you bleeding out and dead within the hour.

The both of you breathe heavy, with him holding the back of your head with one hand and the knife in the other. He can feel the burning touch of your fingers latched onto his arm. Just like that night at the party.

In the split second that he thought he would be spilling your blood, he's gasping for air. "Got you." And you swallow.

"Are you gonna kill me?" He can see the tears pooling in your eyes, glittering in the dark as you ask him. To be honest, he did. He wanted to. There was something else that he wanted to do right now.

"Got something better in mind?" He asks, ignoring the very temptations that brought him to this moment.

Your lip trembles, your head moving in his hand as you nod. The tip of your tongue reaches out to wet your mouth and he can't help the trance it puts him in. Call him weak, he doesn't care. There's just about a thousand other ways, thousand other things on his mind.

"Are you going to call the cops?" You shake your head no. He chews on the inside of his cheek, looking through the mask and at you, so quiet, so patient and ready for whatever he had to say. He makes up his mind. "Keep your eyes closed."

Your eyes don't close immediately, but after looking him in the eyes and despite finding nothing, your eyes flutter shut and he could still tell your eyes were darting from side to side. And for a moment, he only admires. How wet your cheeks are with tears, how shiny and pretty they look. How your skin might look so beautiful with a few lines carved in. He breathes in. He'll be here all night. But like he said, your parents come home soon. He doesn't have the time he thought he had.

He slides the mask off, the air much cooler now that it wasn't so trapped under there. He leans in, pressing his hips closer to yours and he groans at the pressure, his nose tracing the skin of your throat. His tongue darting out and tracing the lines there, tasting the sweat he finds. He hums when he hears you gasp at the touch. His eyes are wide open, and he can't help it, the way his hips roll into yours and your fingers drift from his arms to his shoulders, the nails digging into the fabric.

He can't help himself, chasing the pleasure, chasing you. He leaves plenty of hickeys, sucking them into your skin, leaving as much claim he can without yet fucking his cum into you.

He trails his tongue from your exposed collarbone to your throat, soaking up the shudder you couldn't hold back. With him pressing a kiss until he licks over your jaw, he reaches for your mouth and finds you eager to kiss him back, mouths sliding against each other. He swallows the noises you leave out, unsure if you meant for him to hear or anything, but all the same, it makes his cock twitch while it's pressed against your lower half.

He reaches closer and licks into your mouth, itching to get even closer till he can only peel back your skin and crawl inside, till the both of you blend as one and the separation alone would kill you both. He doesn't know this feeling as well. He wants to know more. He wants to keep kissing you.

He pulls away, though, and he finds it surprising he enjoys the aftermath, the way your head is completely resting in his hand and your eyes stare at him, half-lidded. Panting.

"You were supposed to keep your eyes closed," he mumbles, taking a free hand to swipe the drying tears away from your face. "Can't seem to fucking listen, can you?" It's no use, you already saw his face. However, he can't help but pinch your cheeks between two of his fingers, watching as you let him.

"Are you going to kill me?" The repeated question only solidified the answer in his head.

"Depends, how much do you want to live?" And with that, you surged forward, sitting up on the desk and lifting your shirt off your torso, tugging on his costume. It's a tussle of clothes coming off and occasionally you leaned forward to steady yourself, kissing him with a newfound urgency. As if you'd die if you stopped.

Admittedly, he doesn't think he'd kill you now. At least not tonight. He didn't say that though.

While you wrap your arm around his neck, he doesn't notice when your cold fingers slip down his pants until the jarring touch grazes his cock. One of his hands shoots straight to your wrists, his mouth dropping into a moan, singing your praises as you kiss him with more fervor. He doesn't think it could get better until you whisper for him to go sit on your bed.

With his legs spread, the costume gone and his eyes staring at you, you step around the discarded clothing, keeping your stare leveled and pointed even when you kneel before him, unzipping his jeans.

"Have you done this before?" He can't help but ask, wondering how many guys have sat in his spot on your bed with their hickeys dotting your skin.

"Wanna be specific?" You ask, and with more care he'd ever give himself, your hands wrap around his shaft and he can't help the hiss as you lean over to drag your tongue over the head.

"Am I going to be your first?" He grits out, hand reaching out to hold your wrist before you could swallow him down.

You blink at him, then a slight tick upwards from your lips. "Am I yours?" And before he could process that bombshell, you shake his hand off, sliding him into your mouth and he could- he could die.

The warmth of your mouth was almost too- too much. Your tongue bumping alongside the head of his cock as you bobbed your head made him bite his tongue, groaning. But he was hopeless whenever you started to swallow him down. He tried to hold tight on your bed-frame, the sheets anything but his hips still jerked up. Choking you, and making you slide off of him with a cough. "A little warning, next time." And without much else to say, your mouth enveloped him again. He wasn't going to last much longer.

And before he could come, he made you pull off, pulled you up by the throat to make you stand and kissed you, and could just barely taste himself. Kissed you and kissed you until you had to pull away.

"Before we start, where am I coming?" He held onto your chin, leaning close enough to where he could breathe the air you were. Could almost taste your lips again if he twitched.

"Where do you want to?" And just like that, he was grinning and pulling you back to the bed, pressing you into it. Pressed his hands on either side of your head and kissed you deep, kissed you until he couldn't breathe properly. Till he had to breathe through his nose and fumble his way between the two of you.

The gasp he caught in his mouth mirrored yours, the feeling indescribable. Couldn't help the way he took your hand and laced your fingers together, rocking into you as you cried from the intrusion. "I'll make it worth it." He whispered, taking the back of your thighs and lifting them a little more, finding more room to thrust and the way your head tilted back, leaving room to crane his neck, kiss the skin by your ears and whisper filth, sing your praises.

Moment by moment that he was inside of you, he couldn't help but want this all the time, hoping there wasn't a day in his lifetime that there couldn't be this. Where he couldn't have this with you. Hoped and wished he could have you.

Wasn't that the idea in the first place? To make you his?

And when his high neared closer and closer, he tried to help you as much as he could, reaching a hand between you two and listened to the way you sang for him. Until you came first, your walls clenched down around him and caused spots in his vision. He quickly followed suit, pulling out in time to cover your stomach in his cum.

It's silent after, mostly panting between the both of you. He catches you off guard, leaning back to lap at your stomach, leaving it clean and keeping eye contact while he moves up to give you a kiss. He pulls away, listening to you breathe and weakly clinging to him when he moves to get up. "We need to talk about-" he cuts you off with one more chaste kiss, tonight, oh he's more than aware of that. He's more than aware of what happened tonight. He wonders if you'd be up to recreate it in the future. He wasn't planning to leave you alive but he's glad he is now.

"I'll call you." He moves to leave when you reach out, grabbing him by the throat.

"If you call me later without cleaning up the chair downstairs, I will kill you." And to add salt to injury, you look him over and smile. He doesn't mind the kiss on the cheek before you push him off the bed. "Parents will be home in twenty, you better start now."

You don't say anything when he steals one more kiss from you.

He walks out of the house nineteen minutes later, downstairs free from any indication that he tried to kill one of the residents. The costume is stuffed in a grocery bag and one hickey freshly bitten behind his ear. And when he sniffs his shirt, it almost smells like you. He smiles.

The breeze ruffles his shirt and hair, chilling him instantly. Someone runs right into him, hardly apologizing and he recognizes the asshole.

Glancing to the bag in his hand, he turned down the corner of an apartment building, walking all the way down till he reached an opening point, right where the asshole lives. The smile on his face twitches into a grin. The night is still alive and he could still take another prick out.

You sincerely regret covering for your coworker. The campus library has a consistent, albeit small, staff. You work the same days every week; Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The head librarian, Theresa, was more than willing to give you extra shifts whenever you needed. The library was where most of the richer students’ parents donated, and you were insanely lucky to get your job there. As a result of the consistent schedule, you work with two people regularly; Henry, who shares your major, and Janine, who’s one of the sweetest people you know. The rest of your coworkers, you knew exclusively through Theresa and her insistence of having staff get togethers at any opportunity.

There’s Chastity, who lives on your floor, and her girlfriend Kate. You got a front row seat to their first kiss after three months of egging them on with Janine at Henry’s 20th birthday. There are three more workers that work during the week on alternating shifts to you; Sam, the newest member of the term; Hae-Won, the only person who had worked there longer than you and Theresa; and Wilbur.

Wilbur, who was currently your new coworker as you started working five days a week. Hae-Won’s mother was sick, and Theresa had begged you to cover for them while they flew interstate to go take care of her. You’d been working at the campus library since you were a freshman, and they’d always been good to you. You had agreed, and now you were needing to rush from class to the library after every single one of your lectures. Sam, Henry and Theresa had all assured you that if you were late because of class you wouldn’t lose your job, but you felt bad leaving them with all the work.

Wilbur has barely spoken a word to you since you’d started working the same shifts. He’s not rude or angry, just quiet as far as you can tell. You like him. You both keep to yourselves, and Wilbur doesn’t snitch on you for smuggling your sandwiches out of the office when you browse the stacks during your breaks.

He doesn’t get mad at you for being late when you are, and he always puts stuff on the top shelf whenever you ask. He’s soft, and incredibly smart. You learn about him through hushed evenings in the office, both of you dead on your feet after you’ve locked the doors, neither of you wanting to leave quite yet. The low light gives his eyes an amber glow the same colour as sun as it peeks through the slats in the blinds of the office, surrounded on all four sides by large windows. The fishbowl, the kids call it when they come in on Friday afternoons. Not quite, you think. You’re both too boring to be fish, you make a joke when you hear a young boy say it. Wilbur gets a look in his eyes that he keeps for the next hour until you confront him. “Sometimes people don’t look a fish ‘cause they’re interesting,” he all-but whispers when you ask, eyes aglow and top row of teeth pulling on his bottom lip. “Sometimes they’re just pretty.”

You get to know Wilbur over campus coffees, and handmade bookmarks inspired by the paperbacks he checks out every week. Through his handwritten post-it note on the corner of the main monitor at the front desk, a stack of books with a cat perched on top, his writing slanted but mainly kept between the spines of each book. A request for a novel you’ve never heard of, but vow to search for. Theresa is the one who handles incoming books, but that’s not going to stop you from finding it yourself.

You begin to find those sticky-notes around more and more. There’s one resting on top of your backpack for you to find as you return from the bathroom. That’s a pretty skirt, the first one says. You should wear your hair like that more often, one three days later on the stack of returns he’s asked you to reshelve. There’s one a week after that forces a smile on your face. This made me think of you. It’s resting on a tiny journalist style notebook, one where you flip on the top. It’s got a quote from your favourite novel on it, and you slip the sticky note inside it gingerly, tucking it into the front pocket of your backpack. That afternoon during your lunch break, you go to the craft store instead of staying in and get yourself some post it notes. Yours are in the shape of a lemon, and when Wilbur goes into the fishbowl to grab his stuff once your shift is over, he finds one stuck to the side of his bag. Two words, ten numbers, all in your handwriting. Call me.

So he does, he calls you that very night. Despite the late time, you guys stay on the phone for nearly three hours. The next shift you two share, you tease him. “I thought you were meant to be the quiet type,” you giggle as his ears turn pink, him intentionally facing away from you to shield the smitten grin on his face as he pretends to write something on the staff calendar. “You had a lot to say the other night.”

It continues that way for a while, nightly phone calls in which you finally get to hear him talk unabashedly about the things he’s interested in. He’s in a band, he confesses shyly one night when you’re both on the verge of sleep. You don’t reply for a second, and he thinks you might have dozed off. You pipe up after a moment, voice heavy with sleep and Wilbur thinks he can’t possibly like you more. “Your first gig’s Saturday, right?” He nods, even if you can’t see him. You keep going anyway. “I’ll be there.”

He wishes you hadn’t told him, because he spends the next three days stressing. Performing always makes him a little anxious, a healthy amount of butterflies, as his friends say. But this is too much. He changes his shirt three times on Saturday night, twice because he wants you to like it, and another time because he sweated through the third one. He blames it on the intensity of the lights, when the drummer asks him if he’s okay, but they can all see the way his eyes are locked onto your frame, tucked into a little corner of the underground bar they’re playing. They play for about forty minutes, and you’re a little embarrassed to admit that you’ve never heard a single song they did.

Wilbur goes into the little backstage area after their last song, and his bandmates will swear he’s never moved so fast in his life. He’s chugging a bottle of water while trying to wrestle his guitar off his back, his glasses fogged up from the sweat covering his face. there are a few bothersome strands sticking to his cheeks, but he doesn’t care about that. He just wants to see you.

He gets to your corner and the table is empty. No, the table has things on it. Your chair is empty. There is something on the table. He reaches it and flops down into the chair you were just sitting in. A waitress brings him a glass of lemonade that you ordered for him and he gulps it down gratefully. He allows himself a few moments to bask in the post-show high. You might not be there, but that only brought his mood down slightly. He did it.

He is a little hurt that you didn’t stick around, but it’s nearing 10 and he knows you have a test on Monday. He takes another long swig of his drink, and reaches blindly for the one other object on the table; a paperback novel. It’s his favourite. He didn’t even remember telling you it was his favourite, but somehow you knew. His heart hammers inside his chest and he has to remember how to breathe for a second. He’d looked everywhere for that, even going as far as to see if he could order it online.

He flips open the cover, just to check, and he finds a scrawled message beneath the title page. Heard you were hoping to get your hands on one. I hope you enjoy. You’ll have to tell me all about it.

And he does. It takes him less than a week to read the entire book, and he comes to you on a random Thursday, eyes sparkling with a glint you’ve only ever seen that one night he was performing, and he leans over the front desk where you’re standing and before you can even process it he’s taking your head in his hands and pulling you into a firm hug. You’re not as tall, so you’re on your toes as you lean over the desk, struggling to wrap your arms around his torso as he hugs you.

And then he’s talking, loud and clear, and if the library was open people would be giving him dirty looks for how unashamedly he’s speaking to you. You revel in it. He keeps his hands enclosing yours and you lean over the desk to get as close to him as you can, wanting to absorb every single word out of his mouth. Wanting to breathe it in and keep it between your ribs.

Eventually he lets you go to go do some work, but you decide at that moment that you never want him to shut up again.

So, he doesn’t. With constant encouragement from you, Wilbur becomes more outspoken. Of course, there were the phone calls, but he was still reserved in person. He seems to take up more space over the next few weeks, unfurling slowly like an old painting, perfectly preserved with so much beauty to show once he was out in the open. It starts as small things, the way he calls out to you across the library after closing instead of approaching you to tell you softly. You’re almost in mourning, feeling like you’d lost that closeness with Wilbur that only you seem to have. The notion that once you put something out into the world it no longer belongs to you. Not that he ever did, not like that at least.

You’d feel like that and then Wilbur would do something so small, so sacred, that your heart would ache. Whispering jokes in your ear, fingers brushing yours when he passes you a book he thinks you’ll enjoy, grabbing onto both of your hands when he got so excited about something that he needed a physical tether to you to stop himself from floating away, into the air that he was now filling so wonderfully.

The others started noticing it too; Theresa mentioning to you how much more confident he seemed after he’d left the room, Sam, who brightened now that Wilbur seemed to return his enthusiasm, even the bassist of Wilbur’s band, who you ran into at a coffee shop, said he was different.

His band got another gig at a bigger bar, and of course you were invited again. This time you planned on sticking around for the whole thing, letting him wrap you in a sweaty hug once he ran off stage. “You were so good,” you gush, your breath on his ear sending shivers down his spine. His hands ghost up and down your arm, and you can’t bring yourself to let go of him. “But, Wil. Seriously, enough is enough.”

He pulls away just enough to get a clear picture of your face, shadows covering one side, the dim lighting in the venue not doing enough to take away from just how pretty you look.

“You guys need to start playing songs I know the words to.”

Your fake annoyance makes him laugh, one of the most genuine laughs you’ve ever heard from him. Warm, and thick, like caramel. Like his eyes when the two of you are huddled together in the fishbowl and he’s laughing, like there will never be enough time to spend with you. Because there isn’t.

His hands stop in their motions, and he notices your bare arms. “You’re freezing, lovely. Here.” He steps away from you and shrugs off his button up, leaving him in just a white-sleeved tee as he guides your arms in. The sleeves cover your hands and he goes as far as to roll them up delicately. His face is an inch from yours as he unwraps his hands from your wrist, and your fingers toy gently with a stray curl that bounces when you release it from your grip.

This time it’s you who takes Wilbur’s jaw in your hands, fingers running over his stubble. He’s drunk, hasn’t had a drop of alcohol the entire time, but well and truly intoxicated as he pulls you into him again, nose pressed to your hairline. “I’m so proud of you.” You mumble into his shoulder, and for a second, time is frozen.

You’re both brought out of it by rousing cheers from Wilbur’s bandmates, the guitarist and drummer both bullying Wilbur for not introducing you to them earlier. The bassist greets you warmly, and the three of them try to convince you both to go out for a drink. Wilbur’s the one who ends up ushering you out, arm around your shoulders as he placates his bandmates. Throwing a “We’ve got an early morning tomorrow at work,” over his shoulder as he steered you towards his car.

He’s only half lying. You do both have work the next day, however the library’s closed and Theresa’s hosting a party to thank everyone for their hard work. It starts at two, so you’re revelling in the fact that you get to sleep in. That doesn’t stop you from inviting Wilbur up to your apartment, though. Nor does it stop the two of you deciding to watch a movie together on the couch in your living room. It doesn’t even stop Wilbur from whispering to you while the credits roll. “You look so lovely tonight.” You flush, tearing your eyes from his face, looking down at where his hands are on your waist instead. “Can I kiss you?”

It definitely doesn’t stop you from nodding your head emphatically, your hands delving into his hair as he presses his lips to yours for the first time.

He tastes like spearmint gum and the mango of your lip gloss, his hands steadying you both and gripping onto the couch cushion. He pulls away just enough to murmur, “You’re wonderful,” and suddenly you’re so happy you’re laughing. He laughs too, taking your head in his hands until you’re kissing him again, and when he leaves nearly two hours later he’s gripping your hands so tight your breath hitches, promising he’ll see you at the party later.

God, fuck this. He cried on your shoulder after breakups, told you every embarrassing thing that has ever happened to him, and knew every horrible secret you cared to share and after everything, you were still both friends. It was something you forced yourself to accept, adhere to, and it was painful when he was talking to someone, hard to be pushed aside in favor of spending time with another, but it was what you had gotten used to. You were not used to this, fake dating, fake kissing, fake everything. How were you meant to accept whatever artificial show he was going to put on when you still desperately wished it was going to be real? 

How could you survive this? Some elaborate plan to numb out whatever happens?

You could set up good boundaries, get through this easily with invisible walls, and not fuck up your friendship along the way. It could all go back after, back to lingering one-sided stares that were enough if you could keep him. It couldn’t be that hard to ignore your crush for a weekend when you’ve been pushing it aside for months, years even. What boundaries could you even set to keep this realistic but at a distance? The idea of him touching you at all in a romantic way already made you want to bang your head against your desk. 

W̶e̶ d̶o̶n̶'t̶ t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ e̶a̶c̶h̶ o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶.

Fuck, you shook your head. You stand from your chair, moving to lie down on your bed, maybe get some rest before you have the worst weekend of your life. Yet your brain keeps buzzing, trying to ration a way to remain comfortable, and have the future look less miserable. It just needed to look real.

Don’t touch me if there is no one around

W̶e̶ t̶r̶y̶ a̶n̶d̶ a̶v̶o̶i̶d̶ k̶i̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶?̶ (that wouldn’t work,)

We don’t talk about this ever again

We keep all of it to a minimum.

This was going to be just fine, just three days, and then that’s it, you get to keep going on with suffering in silence. You sigh out again, push yourself further into the blankets on your bed and allow sleep to take you. When you wake up, unfortunately, it’s all not some bad dream, a crazy scenario you’ve concocted in your brain to cope. No, when you open your shared messages between you and Wilbur there are the texts. You pack quickly, picking out clothes you wore on dates, nice enough but not showy, perfect ‘hi I’m your son’s partner now and no longer his weird clingy friend’. It all makes you feel sick to your stomach, thoughts and scenarios filling your mind all just to feed your dread. You run your hands down your face, consider again, banging your head against your desk instead of accepting whatever this weekend was going to be (At least it’d be over quicker.)

You can’t stop circling back to the mirror, looking close at uneven skin, flattening down clothes, and obsessively running the lint roller over everything you knew was going to be ruined anyway. It’s meticulous, something to block out all your worries by busying your hands that only ends in those anxieties getting worse. You allow yourself to daydream this was real, an actual instance of remeet my parents because we are dating now. Your anxieties of the culmination of trying to impress not the afterbirth of biting more than you could chew. When he texts you he’s outside you quickly begin dragging yourself and your bag out to the inevitable, your keys jingling all the way as you lock your door. You know that once you turn around, it’s over. So you smile, turn on your heel, and pretend this is something fun. He’s waving at you from his place standing next to your shitty car with a bag in hand. His enthusiasm is stifling. 

“Hi, Wilbur,” you say, not able to summon the same excitement when all you can feel is creeping nausea now that you are here looking at him. He continues to grin anyway as you both place your things in the trunk, him more so haphazardly. You watch as he climbs his way into the passenger seat, feel the way a lump grows in your throat, a feeling that resembles the one you got when he said he had a girlfriend years ago, the same feeling you get when you close the door after being around him, the same feeling that cements you to your act of watching blankly as he shuts the passenger side door. Starve out the thought. Forget this. Move on. This is fine, it’s all fine. 

“Hello to you too,” he says simply when you finally open the door and crawl your way inside, quickly turning on the car to start the AC. It hums to life and only then do you allow yourself to turn to him.  

“So let’s start with this,” you take in a deep breath “Why would you ever tell your parents we are dating?” you look at him exasperated. He fumbles for an answer for a moment, you see that hesitancy that hovers as he clearly doesn’t know said answer, or maybe just doesn’t know the truth that he wants to tell you.

“Listen,” he starts and you know whatever he is going to say is gonna be bullshit which, coincidentally, makes the words that leave his mouth all the more confusing “You were who I thought of first and you already know my parents.” 

“I know them as your friend, Wil, I’m really not excited to be lying to them about us dating,” you pout for a moment and the car somehow feels smaller as you revel in his gaze on you. You shake away your thoughts, movements feeling a bit frantic for a moment as you try and recenter yourself, you already agreed. “Let’s do boundaries first, okay?” you move on. You ignore the stinging realization that, yes, you were who he thought of first. That had to count for something. right? but you knew your wishful thinking was only going to make this all the more painful.

“What are you comfortable with doing? We have to at least make it believable,” he asks, biting at his bottom lip before looking away from you. It’s despite your better judgment that you give into your habit of staring at him. He looks nice today, freshly shaven and with almost a new haircut, just grown out by a few weeks. His question leaves you feeling a bit lost. You weren’t really comfortable with any of it, wish you had said fuck the favor, but here you were fumbling to make sense of the ground rules you had thought of yesterday. 

“We never talk about any of this ever again, you don’t touch me when no one is around, and we try to keep all of this to a minimum,” you say and he nods with you, giving you a look that almost seems calculated. It’s not like your ‘rules’ were good, but here you were, floundering with your metaphorical life jacket. 

“Seems good enough,” he laughs lightly as you flick on the radio and jump slightly for a moment as Bon Iver begins to play. It reminds you in that lapse of a second, of drives with him and panic attacks. An apology is quickly mumbled as you change to the radio, turning the volume down until it acts as background static. 

“There is really nothing you want to add?” you ask him with a tilt of your head, feeling less rigid as the silence in between both of your voices is now filled with the low-playing music. You want him to add something, crave any of this feeling more concrete than just your bullshit boundaries. You can practically hear him thinking as you pull away and begin the drive to his childhood home.

“No, I think I’ll be fine, love,” you flush at the pet name thankful you can keep your eyes ahead on the road. He called you things like that often, words that slipped past his lips like sweetness he wasn’t aware he was expressing. You had gotten good at ignoring it but now it felt different. There was some added weight to the endearment. Nevertheless, you guys talk about random things, you listen as he rants on about topics and facts you would have never known about without him. He explains what he’s doing on Twitch and on Youtube. You liked when he talked more than you would ever be willing to admit. It was calming, helped you now to ignore the fact you were driving to quite possibly the last time you would be able to be around him like this. You stopped yourself from letting that thought swallow you. Don’t allow yourself to think of past car rides that felt as final as this one. He talked of Wikipedia pages, youtube analytics, and music. It all made you feel normal until you are on his street. When the two of you pull up to the small home you are thanking god that he allows the pause in the car to linger, doesn’t jump to get out, but sits there with you and the repetitive drone the the pop music playing from the stereo. 

“What now?” you ask and he turns to you with a small smile. Let the show begin I guess. At least it won’t be hard to feign attraction or the blush that has already risen to your cheeks.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, instead of anything else he could have said, and you widen your eyes “Just to get it over with?” he explains and you try not to think of it like kissing you is something repulsive. 

“What?” you immediately answer. He smiles, again, and flashes those brown eyes in a way that claims his own innocence, absolving him completely. He moves in his seat, resituating like that question had not just fallen from his lips. 

“We, as a couple, can’t just not kiss, they wouldn’t believe it, if we do it now, without an audience, it will be easier later,” he explains and he is right, annoyingly so, but you think of the broken rules already, don’t touch me if there is no one around sounding off in a whisper, and you nod. You had been thinking about the idea of kissing him, had been thinking about it for years but now that it was here you froze. Your eyes flicked down to his lips, still curled up in a smile as he awaited your reply. Fuck this seriously fuck this, jesus christ. 

“You’re right,” you look up at his eyes again and he for a moment looks just as anxious as you do, something that flashes in his eyes almost imperceptibly. His hand comes up, pushes your hair back before he’s slowly leaning forward over the middle console.  He is cupping your cheek, his swooped dark lashes falling shut as you can’t help but be freaking out. His lips softly press against yours, something completely sweet. When he pulls back a moment later you watch the way his eyes fall down to your lips, stop and stare if only for a second. It makes your head spin. He gives a lopsided smile before he's clambering his way out of your car, and you are pretending like kissing Wilbur was just kissing Wilbur. The world hasn’t ended and the small supernova he created in your chest didn’t collapse, yet. He knocked on the driver’s side window as you attempted to cull the butterflies filling your chest.

“Let’s go,” he whisper-shouted as you got out of the car. You pushed him away with your hand as he gave you your bag. His footsteps were heavy behind you as he raced to catch up then linked both of your fingers together. It was childish, the way this still made your heart race, consider if your hand was weird and clammy, and flush maybe a few shades darker than you thought was possible. You don’t register he’s knocking until the doors open and his parents are pulling you in for a warm hug. Wilbur’s hand leaves you as you wrap your arms around them, and sink into the familiar family. People you’ve known for so long.

‘What wonderful news!’ his mom is saying, telling you all sorts of things about how glad she is that he ended up with you, how she had been waiting for so long for him to say something. You try and ignore it. The ‘waiting for him to say something?’. You don’t dare look at Wilbur after she says it. His dad is watching as you melt under the strange genre of compliments before Wilbur is having everyone head inside. 

He’s smiling the whole time as he hovers close to you, always touching you in some way that made your head spin. He talks about mundane things, his life reduced to what he’s doing in the studio, what his friends are up to, and nothing about the relationship you both apparently share. His hand is on your shoulder, on the small of your back, pushing your hair behind your ear. He’s all over you, touching you like it is the simplest thing in the world, something he’s practiced. They must think you aren’t talking enough, but everything is so soft, it makes you feel sick. You are stiff, struggling with the affection and hoping you just look like you are nervous to be like this around his parents and not like this is the big lie it is. When all of you end up in the living room he is sitting quickly on the loveseat and pulling you by your hips backward into his lap. 

“Christ,” you yelp out as he laughs lightly. “A bit of a warning next time?” you say but he just smiles at you, that stupid grin with his stupid crinkly eyes, and he snakes his arms around your waist to hold you closer to him. He’s warm pressed against you, something that makes you relax into his touch. It’s strangely comfortable even with your frayed nerves.

“We’ve been together three weeks now,” you hear him say as you try and tether yourself to the conversation.

“Mhmm” you hum, looking back at him to avoid looking at his parents. His eyes flick to yours for a moment, and you don’t know how to pretend to have your heart skip a beat and yet it does. You look to his mom, feigning a sweet smile instead of the grimace wanting to dawn on your face. “We are- we’re trying to take it easy,” 

“You two are so cute,” his mom says are you lean back into him, you want to disappear. Wilbur laughs and you can feel it against your back as he presses a chaste kiss to your cheek. He’s then quick to move on the conversation, let his parents talk about their lives, and explain at length the updates they want to do to the small house. Even if you know you shouldn’t get used to this, the manufactured closeness, you sink back into Wilbur’s arms, breathe a bit deeper, and find yourself falling asleep to the sounds of everyone talking. 

You wake slowly in a dark room you know you didn’t fall asleep in. It’s Wilbur’s childhood room, the one you two had spent hours in together, sitting doing nothing or playing Minecraft or just talking. It’s moments you can see in the space, residual happiness that still permeates past the present. He lingers in every single part of this room, the scratches in the paint, posters of bugs, and his name next to yours in the corner. It’s a bittersweet memory.

“We are going to be friends forever, even if you move for uni, or become famous, promise, okay?” You ask him and you are a bit more tipsy than you thought as the words slur together slightly. He still laughs, watching as you write your name in a corner of his wall. “Proof,” you say with a small smile, gesturing for him to do the same. “Please,” “I think I need to drink more,” he says before taking the pen from you, brushing his fingers and yours, and writing his name next to where you already had put your own to entertain you. “But there,” You look from his name to him, he’s pretty, blinking at you in confusion as you stare at him, beaming. His hair is a bit messy, curls undefined, as he grabs the bottle of vodka again. The moment drags on. 

You crawl out of his bed, feeling raw, looking at those two names hurts slightly, more than you want to admit. It’s a reminder that even then you knew if anyone of you was going to leave the other it would be him. You pad your way out of the room anyway, go down the stairs, and find yourself in the kitchen fetching a glass from the cabinet to fill with water. You pass all those family pictures, and you can see it’s still light out, the sun fighting to stay up, painting the sky light pink. Wilbur and his dad are sitting outside talking, a conversation that files in mumbled and unintelligible. You close your eyes and drink from your glass as the sad nostalgic feeling doesn't leave you but becomes stranded in your chest. He could leave you. You had no claim to him, and he had no valid reason to keep speaking to you. All you had was that drunk scribbling of two of your names and the hours of memories strung between. He had become great, adored, and you were stagnant. Yet, here you were. Pretending to be his partner because you would do anything for him, even if you would rather die than tell him that fact, rather die than admit to the open air that no matter what happens between you two you think there will always be a part of him settled inside you. It was admitting every ugly pathetic feeling you surrendered yourself to just by being here.

“Glad to see you are up again,” his mom makes you jump slightly, “thought you died for a second there, sweetheart,” I flash her a nervous smile. Fuck. I drink at the glass of water greedily, hoping that the cool liquid with ease my anxiety. “Hope we didn’t bore you to sleep, honey?”

“No, you didn’t, I guess I just didn’t sleep that well last night,” she smiles at you with a warmth she always had, something you don’t think she could control even if she wanted to. 

“Then I’m happy to see you got some more sleep then, hun,” She watches as you drink more of your water, the silence between you too not quite uncomfortable but confused as you both search for a new ground in your relationship. She sighs, looking out at Wilbur as he begins to talk loudly about something, the tone of excitement clear even while muffled. “He’s always been sweet on you, I was so relieved when he said you both were finally dating,” The words sink in, burning you slightly as you watch his animated movements. ‘Finally Dating’. She said it like it was something that was inevitable. You wish it was true, that this care was really being extended to you. 

“Y-yea,” you said quietly knowing anything you said here would leave you feeling guilty. You are lying to her willingly just to please Wilbur and sink into your staring role. 

“You would get a kick out of some of the things he said when he was younger, would come home and only talk about you for hours,” she goes on “I hope he treats you well, I’m really not worried about how you will treat him, you’ve always been an angel,” You give her a small smile, force it on to your face. “Goodnight, honey,” She walks back to her room quietly as you stand there frozen. You shouldn't have agreed to this, he didn’t like you, not like that. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You stood there frozen with that glass in hand as it felt like the whole world got further and further away. You are blinking, realizing your breathing is uneven, and placing that glass in the sink. 

You retreat from the kitchen and go back to Wilbur’s room. Thank fuck he’s not here. You can feel the tears welling up in your eyes, even if you aren't quite sure why. Pathetic, you feel pathetic, and you shouldn’t have said yes, and this is day one of three and you are crying already. It’s the names that you see out of the corner of your eye that make you stop, pause again, to take in a deep shuttering breath. Lean on the past, of writing sloppily while drunk, of not remembering anything else in the morning. He’s opening the door before you finish, and you are quickly wiping at your face. 

“Oh, you’re awake again,” he starts, not looking at you until he’s already shut the door “Hey, are you okay?” He’s perceptive, has always been, but it’s not like you did a good job of settling yourself in the first place. You rub at your eyes before folding your hands in your lap. 

“I’m fine,” you reply quickly “I’m sorry for falling asleep,” Your voice sounds a bit skewed, more scratchy than usual, but if anything, it’s passable. 

“You’re alright, probably made it easier for them to believe our relationship anyway without you being so fidgety,” He smiles at you, making the words feel light instead of scolding, though you can see the part of him that is hesitant, something being held back. He floats around the room, picking out clothes from his bag as he readies himself for bed, he’s outgrown the space. His closet was just a bit too short for his height, the rug is now a nuisance where he no longer remembers where it started and ended on the wooden floor, and the guitar in the corner was gathering dust. It’s something that feels innately sad, the way he doesn’t even fit perfectly in his own bedroom anymore, no longer resembling the boy from your memories that lived and breathed here. You wonder how you look, sitting on his full bed just as you used to, hours spent with your legs crossed. He trails his way out of the room and you finally move, fetching your own pajamas, and changing after him. When you come back he’s laying there on his phone with a small smile on his face. 

“Ready for bed?” you ask before realizing there was only that one bed. When you had sleepovers as kids his mother had always set up something for you, blankets and a pad that made the wooden floor more bearable. You hadn’t thought of that until now, the expectation of needing somewhere else to sleep having disappeared with the apparent relationship status. 

“Are you okay with sharing the bed? I know it’s small but-” he scoots over with a sheepish smile. I reprise my fantasy of banging my head against a desk. 

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

This was not the minimum, you stand there, thinking about his arms once again wrapped around you, feeling the heat radiate off his skin, thinking of gentle kisses pressed into your hair, the back of your neck, down. You run your hands down your face.

“We can figure something else out?” he says and you must be red. No this was fine, this was great, this was wonderful and good and-

“No, uhm, it’s fine,” You stay there, looking at him before he pulls up the duvet and waits for you. ‘He’s always been sweet on you’. You crawl into the bed, facing away from him, tense. You pull that blanket over you, feel the warmth contained under it, and sigh. You can hear him behind you, breathing steadily as he scrolls on his phone. He’s not touching you, you making yourself smaller just to avoid it. Your quickened heartbeat is damning, you can hear it in your ear that is pressed against a pillow, the sound of the blood rushing. Every shift of the bed makes you lock up further.

“You can relax, darling,” he whispers as his hand reaches above you, pulling at the string of his bedside lamp. It leaves the two of you in darkness as you listen to his phone clatter onto that night stand. 

“I am relaxed,” you reply. 

“You never are, I’ve known you long enough to know that.” he chuckles and when his arm pulls you by your waist closer to him you resist the sounds that want to leave your mouth. “It’s not like we’ve never slept in this bed together,” Your whole body is pressed against his now, his arm slung over you. “You used to get so cuddly when we got drunk in here, and I’d wake up before you to save you from feeling embarrassed,” Christ.

“Well, that’s-” you let it run over you “embarrassing,” for lack of a better word. You used to drink enough that you could forget how nervous you felt when you were around him, there was a period of time when any sort of close proximity made your head spin. You didn’t remember these nights, just hoped you never said or did anything stupid. Clearly, you had. 

“Sure,” he says laughing softly, you can feel it in his chest. “I always liked those nights the best, but maybe I was just a bit touch-starved,” he huffs. A bit touch-starved, that’s one way to put this, whatever this was. His body shifts, his arm still keeping you comfortably pressed against his chest. 

“and what about now?” you ask, feeling like you were watching a storm brew, egging it on. 

“The same as then,” he says quietly as the conversation lulls. His breathing slows further, fans across your neck. What the fuck? It’s placating in a horrible way of how will I ever sleep without this? You love the sound, achingly so, every quiet inhale the twist of a knife. It was too much, too much to smell him, to feel him pressed against you, and pretend like he is yours when he is never going to be yours. You close your eyes, tight, begging to sleep if only to leave this moment behind you, and keep going forward. It happens eventually, restless sleep takes you away. Leaves you with dreams of sweetness, kisses that linger longer, lives that intertwine further again. 

When you wake up, he’s still there, your head is now resting on his chest as it steadily rises and falls. His hand is running through your hair as you keep your eyes closed. His fingers scratch your scalp slightly before twirling strands around his fingers idly. It’s disgustingly close, stifling, and abominable. You resist the urge to hold your breath and he lets out a heavy sigh before he is carefully moving you off of him and slipping out of the room. The world keeps moving as you lay there, turning onto your back to stare longingly at the ceiling, finding familiar shapes in the raised paint, the same things you saw every time you woke up here and devoted yourself to looking at the ceiling until it became some great story, a distraction. 

He must hate you. Must know about your hopeless crush and take some sort of sick fascination in making you squirm, playing with your feelings until you break, an ant under a magnifying glass. You need to leave. Get out before it hurts too much to stay. You can hear soft talking from downstairs, smell food being made, and it all makes your stomach turn. The door creaks open. 

“Good morning,” he says, still in those loose clothes he wore to sleep. He looks perfect, something about the uneven way the oversized shirt’s neckline has fallen or the slightly frizzy state of his hair. “We are making pancakes when you are ready to come down?”  

“Okay,” you reply, ripping your gaze away from him because it’s unfair and it’s so much easier to look back at the ceiling. The door clicks shut and you can’t make yourself move. You need to get up, be normal, act like you are dating Wilbur all over again, and let him touch you and hold you like it doesn’t set all your skin on fire just to fucking think about it. You reason with yourself. You can go on a drive after breakfast, get away for a second, breathe. You can do this. Pep talk yourself into being doting and affectionate. Fuck him. You stand, go to the bathroom and brush your teeth. 

“Good morning, sweetheart!” his mom calls to you from the dining table reading a newspaper. 

“Morning,” you reply with a sweet smile before turning to Wilbur who’s standing by the stove with a spatula in hand though you swear he has never been good at cooking. He’s looking at you, worry in his eyes. You can see it, have seen it more times than you can count. So you walk up to him, reach on your tiptoes to press your lips against his quickly, and pretend this is easy. He doesn’t react for a moment until you are pulling orange juice out of the fridge and filling a glass. He’s being scolded for burning a pancake by his father and it makes you smile to know you were the cause. 

You sit at the table and scroll through notifications on your phone as the sounds of birds outside singing filter in through an open window. You tap on Twitter and cringe slightly at your timeline that has somehow been filled with fan tweets, people saying they miss Wilbur or anything else they can think of. His fanbase was always something you were weary of, it happened so quick, from youtube views to twitch streams. You didn’t understand it, Wilbur kept you away from it aside from showing you music projects he was proud of and explaining his roleplay character to you. He talked idly about it like it was the most normal thing in the world, having thousands of people watch you play a video game. 

It was something you made yourself purposefully removed from until he followed you on Twitter and suddenly it was all just there, spread out in front of you. People messaging you about Wilbur, likes to your tweets that were not your close friends. Every worry he had articulated was justified in text posts and images of his face. He had unfollowed you, said nothing of it, and eventually things went back to normal but you never tweeted again. You just used the account to keep up in a small way with all of it. You jumped slightly as he sat down a plate in front of you, brushing his hand on your shoulder. You mumbled a small thanks before he went to get his own food. 

You weren’t really hungry, your appetite having died sometime between your arrival here and now. The pancakes looked fine, probably tasted fine, but you found yourself cutting them up and pushing the pieces around the plate, watching as syrup and butter sunk in and disintegrated the sharp shapes into mush as you prodded. The conversation moved on without you until he’s saying your name, asking if you are done, and taking your dishes away. He doesn’t comment on your lack of eating and it eases you to not have to explain. You retreat upstairs, hide in his room again, waiting to tell him you needed to go on a drive and leave if only for a second. Breathe. 

You last five minutes before you are slipping out without a word, saying nothing except the jingling of your keys because it was too hard to be here. It was hard to wait, sit like a dog. So you are desperately trying to tie your shoes and not interrupt the bustling kitchen.

“Y/n?” it’s Wilbur, right behind you. 

“I need to go out and get something,” you blurt and he tilts his head. His parents are there behind them, watching as you whisper now. “I’ll be right back,” You lean up, and kiss him again with all the strength left in your body, a hand that lands on his chest for a way to be okay, to steady yourself. It wasn’t worth the way it made you feel just to do the dance, go through the stomach-turning motions. 

“I can come with you,” he says and you can’t say no to him, never can. You nod almost imperceptibly, watch as he quickly slides on shoes, and grins.

“We’ll be back,” you say with a forced smile, not that you think any of them could notice it. As soon as the front door shut you shoot him a look. He doesn’t notice it, he can’t stop smiling. “I just needed to go on a drive, I- I don’t really need anything,” you say. 

“So you didn’t want me to come with?” he flashes you a hurt look, that smile falling from his face so quickly because of you. 

“Uhm, no, it’s fine, we used to do this all the time,” you did. As soon as you learned to drive it happened so often. You both wanted wide open fields and sky. It was always just a text away, he would accompany you when all you wanted was to listen to soft music and talk. So many conversations happened on back roads while you were scared your car would breakdown. It was always the same CD, the only one you had, even if you suspected he might hate it by now. 

“I’m so tired all the time,” you say and he hums as Bon Iver plays quietly in the dark car. It’s only on because it was the only CD you kept in your car, something to numb you out. It’s raining and you are parked in some random parking lot, watching together as raindrops fall quickly, and splash against the front windshield. You feel like you’ve been suffocating recently, and there hasn’t been time for this. He’s been busy with his girlfriend. You are happy for him, have told yourself that a million times, but this is the first time you’ve seen him in a week. “And I have to do this for the rest of my life,” you mumble.  “Go to work?” he laughs slightly. You nod, pull your legs up on the seat, and rest them against the wheel careful to not honk. He always said you were strange for sitting like that but you think it was just a way to make anything feel different. You wanted a new angle. You look at him and watch as the light on his face moves with displaced raindrops. “Yes,” you laugh, something wet leaning to the sound of choking “I wish this was a world I felt like I could be happy in, do something creative for the rest of my life, and not get yelled at by others for not being convenient enough.” When you look at him again, he’s staring forward.  “It’s not all like that,” he says.  “Sure feels like it,” you say thinking of the horrible shifts you’ve been having. People yelling at you. You shutting down.  “Everything in life I mean, maybe you have to have a job you hate just so you can go experience the world, fall in love, see new places, it’s all just give and take,” he says and you smile, looking at his reflection in the glass windows as he spares you a look you don’t dare meet.  “Alright, big guy,” I push his shoulder and laugh. 

He got to do something he loved, music and writing for that minecraft server, something creative. The music mostly, you know that he loved it. You had watched him learn the guitar and been on the ground floor for experimental songs as he got better. You were still pathetic, some shifts making it more obvious, when all you could do was go home and look for any way to forget the repetitive cycle of your life. You put that CD on, For Emma, Forever Ago, and it’s familiar the way the music makes you feel raw. It reminds you of him, closeness in this stupid car, and secrets whispered to each other like currency. 

He seems tense when you glance over at him, no words to add or subtract from the silence. 

“I miss doing this with you,” he says, finally, and you hum, not trusting your voice as you muster yourself back together. 

“You’re always busy, couldn’t ask you to step away from your job just to drive around in my shitty car,” you say it feebly because you don’t want to say it. You don’t want to talk about this. 

“I could try and make time, we can schedule it on my calendar,” he says and you laugh. 

“Wow! I’m so excited for my scheduled time with my best friend!” you joke “That’s belittling,” You turn to him to see him over-exaggerate a wince. The conversation then folds into itself, is swallowed by the guitar strumming that always made you cry when you were alone. It’s empty side roads now as you drive. It’s familiar nothingness that consumes you instead of the feeling that is growing in your chest the longer you are around Wilbur like this. You didn’t want to feel like this. 

The tears well up in your eyes slowly as your breathing begins to quicken. You pull over because your vision is blurry because you can not be so selfish as to put him in danger with you and drive like this. It feels like suffocating and he’s right there watching this time. There have been so many countless times you found yourself at the side of the road sobbing because everything is too much. The drive to work is so familiar it’s just shapes and turns and shapes and sometimes the space left open in the passenger seat of the car, a loneliness that follows you, sucks all the air out.

He’s here now though, that seat is horribly un-empty and It’s worse. He’s rubbing his hand on your back, touching you. It feels like static is biting at you everywhere he is, your body reeling with his unwelcome presence in anticipated pain. 

“Breathe,” he is saying and he’s touching you, he trying so hard to comfort you by touching you but it’s so much. 

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

“Please, stop,” you hiccup, gasping for air, as you dig your fingernails into your palms. His hands retreat so quickly it’s as if he has been burned. You fumble for the radio, and turn the knob to desperately silence the songs. Shut the fuck up, get yourself together, shut the fuck up. The silence grows and grows until it becomes ringing in your ears. You still can’t breathe until you are gripping the steering wheel. 

‘we try to keep all of this to a minimum,’

You look at him and his furrowed brows, think of him leaning over the center console, kissing you like it’s something casual because he made it something casual. It’s just gonna become another ghost of this fucking car. Another thing that makes your stomach turn and reminds you how much you fucked all of this up by saying yes. So you start driving home, periodically wiping at stray tears, hiccuping, and taking shuttering breaths as Wilbur searches for the right words that never come. You turn the knob again, let that album fill the space. It drowns you out and makes your eyes focus on the road. The pain turns to a steady ache keeping you present enough. 

It’s silent when you slow the vehicle to a stop, and mute the music so it’s just the sounds of soft breaths until he is pushing the passenger side door open. He doesn’t come around to the other side, doesn’t wait to go inside, and you consider leaving. Sit there in your car and consider driving away, leaving Wilbur with the consequences of his ‘partner’ leaving him alone, his ‘best friend’ so eager to not see him that they abandon all of their things. Yet, you find yourself inside, eyes searching for him to confide in because you have no one else. Fuck. At least this is on your terms. You lay against him on the couch, his arm slung around you like the past hour or so never passed. He’s tracing shapes into your skin, the back of your hand serving as the best place for morse code, of I’m sorry repeated so many times it turns into something else, something entirely more desperate. But for a moment, it’s just him, his hands, his rising and falling chest, and not the end of this. Not the end of fake dating or your friendship, just nothing but the two of you sitting beside each other. 

“I’ll be right back,” you say with a small smile before rushing up to his room, rubbing at your hand, and feeling the way your body grows cold where it is no longer pressed beside him. You can’t be mad at him, he doesn’t know how much this hurts you. So you sigh out, sitting on his bed until the door is squeaking open and he’s there, again, just when you don’t want him to be. He closes the door slowly. 

“Let me fix this,” he says as he’s walking towards you. Let me fix this. The words bang around in your head as he’s standing there in front of you practically breathless. He looks devastatingly pretty, it makes your stomach turn as he blinks, begs you to do something, say something,

“You agreed to my rules,” you say instead, tearing your gaze from him not willing to bring up the fact he hasn’t been following said rules.  “One of which is that we don’t talk about this ever again, that it just happened and then we move on and we act like it didn’t, so can we just get through this?” you are trembling slightly, your hands balled up in your lap “There is nothing to fix,” and when you look at him he’s frozen, his lips slightly parted, and he looks hurt. 

“O-okay,” he stutterers, and the catch in his voice is so unfamiliar. It aches, something inside of you wants to lean in, give in, allow his fingers tips to depress your skin. “My parents made dinner and I got your favorite wine, was supposed to be a nice surprise,” he whispers before he’s walking out and you want to puke. 

“Wait,” and he stops at the door, his hand on the doorknob. “I’m sorry,” it tumbles out of you. 

“I was just gonna tell you a joke, love, try and lighten the mood,” and he’s leaving and you know he’s lying. You can feel it, the itching feeling because you know him so well, know him to a sickening amount recognize his stiffness as a lie. You wish you didn’t, wish you could push down the fact with a fake smile as you go down those stairs knowing that no matter where you go in this small house he will find you eventually. He didn’t need to be there to haunt you though. Let me fix this, the shape of his lips, his hand running through your hair, his lips pressed to yours in that cramped car. 

“Take a seat, sweetheart,” his mother says, you sit down beside Wilbur, place the napkin in your lap, and pretend like the conversation is easy as you drink from that wine bottle by pouring that burgundy liquid into a glass. It’s nice, it’s easier like this, just like when you were younger, to flatten out those edges of affection with the alcohol, drown your crush with the burn. You can look at him, grab his hand under the table and kick at his feet with a giggle because you feel lighter. His parents ask if you two are planning to move in together and you don’t know if the correct reaction is to laugh and yet you do. A laugh bubbles it’s way out of you even as you cover your mouth with your hand.

“No,” he looks at you “Not any time soon, anyway,” he smooths out the small amount of tension. The conversation lulls nevertheless and Wilbur is saying you drank too much, signing to the empty bottle and your lack of eating anything sufficient today, your plate once again mostly untouched. You see their worried looks before he’s shuffling you upstairs, steadying the both of you when you wobble slightly. 

“This is so embarrassing,” you say as soon as you are sitting on his bed, some of the syllables are tied together. He looks at you with furrowed brows and a deep sigh. 

“They’ll get over it when we ‘breakup’” he makes quotation marks with his hands as he looks through your clothes and you whine, low in your throat, the ever-impending end. He fetches the sweatpants you slept in last night to wear again but he’s handing you one of his shirts. You don’t notice, just nod and follow his orders, get ready for bed, and return. He looks at you when you enter, his eyes lingering for what felt like forever. You point at the names on the wall, the ones written in a few years old handwriting that you can’t stop staring at. He’s nodding, laughing slightly as he recalls that memory. 

“Don’t leave me after this,” you say with a slight pout not really knowing what this is. Is it tonight, embarrassing him in front of his parents? Or is it just this, the favor. 

“Can’t, we have that promise, the names”  he says. You nod and stumble towards the bed. You want him closer. It's a stray desire that you’ve lost the ability to tamp out, suffocate. It’s your turn to break the rules, right? And wouldn’t that only make this fair? So you are crawling to him, tucking yourself into his arm, and laying your head on his chest to listen to his surprisingly fast heartbeat as his hands avoid touching you when all they’ve done this weekend is touch. 

“You are doing it again,” he hums, and his voice sounds strange, strained as it rumbles from his chest. 

“Hm?” you ask, nuzzling yourself further into that smell of him as his hands come up to rub against your back. His touch makes you melt, keen into his touch. 

“Getting drunk and-” he starts, He feels guilty. 

“Cuddly, touchy, bleh,” you finish his sentence for him. 

“Yea,” he breathes out and you laugh a breathy sound. 

“Y-you’ve been touchy all weekend,” you mumble from your place hiding in his chest.

“Well, that’s beca-” you cut him off.

“s’my turn to be touchy,” you reply, weakly getting up slightly just to look at him. His curly brown hair, perfect cupid’s bow, moles, dark eyelashes, and dimples as he laughs nervously. You lean in with no one to watch, his parents probably winding down for bed in the room over as you press your lips against his, the curtain falls. It’s messy, you more sloppy than calculated as he hesitantly kisses you back knowing that it’s the last thing he should be doing. This isn’t part of that favor, not part of the elaborate act. You feel like a live wire as you dig your hands into his hair, making yourself known by undoing those curls. You lick into his mouth, let yourself be uncoordinated and desperate for once because part of you knows you aren’t going to get this again. 

You pull away, and lean back on your knees, gaping for air as he stares at your swollen lips, blown pupils, and hovering frame. He knows he hasn’t earned this even as his nerves feel frayed. And you need to make this into a bad thing, need something to undo the knot in your stomach, need to feel slightly sober. 

He stares at you still, silently. Then he’s moving you, pulling you against his back just like the night before. You would forget this, probably, had forgotten all those other times of you pressing yourself against him while drunk, seeking out warmth and touch that he was always readily willing to give. It had never been this though, never been lips meeting his own, desperation he couldn’t allow himself to match. It was fine, it would be fine. You shift and turn until you can look at him again. He meets your droopy gaze hesitantly. 

“Why’d you tell them we were together,” you mumble into his shirt talking about his parents and why you both were like this in the first place.

“I was under pressure,” he can feel you laugh against him. 

“So you said my name? You could do so much better,” you say, your laugh turning into something cruel about yourself. “So many people you know that are perfect and get your job and treat you well and have time and a future ahead of them,” You blink away your dizziness. “Not me,” you mumble, pushing yourself again into his touch before your breathing is beginning to slow. Wilbur is in shock at your words, but you didn’t know that. 

You woke up with a slight headache, nothing you couldn’t handle, but you didn’t really remember going to sleep last night. You remember dinner and Wilbur helping you up the stairs you were still sure you probably could have gone up yourself but then it all kinda falls away. It wasn’t too troubling, except for maybe when you thought about how you got to be wearing his shirt or having him hold you like this. Your face is pressed into his chest, his heavy arms wrapped around you as if you were something he needed to protect. 

He wasn’t awake yet, Wilbur still softly snoring, a sound that sometimes resembled a purr if you listened close enough. The events of yesterday seem duller now, still embarrassing, but far away. You were an emotional wreck but he didn’t need to see that, he had been privy to it enough when you were both younger. It made you feel guilty, that you gave in to that part of you that so craved him in your mess of a life more than he already was. 

It was over today anyway, all of this, of him holding you, of fake kisses, of proximity that made you feel sick to your stomach. You get up carefully and tiptoe out of the room to shower. When you get back he’s swiping on his phone in bed, probably facing various inevitabilities of fame. You think of how he can even be here, how many people he’s been blowing off this weekend, just to watch you cry in a car and get too drunk to go up stairs. He doesn’t register the door opening, seemingly having just woken up. There is the steady hum of the fan and the soft sound of the door shutting when he does look at you.

 You freeze for a moment. He looks sad, something that feels distant in his eyes as you place his folded-up shirt on the desk. You had debated keeping it, forgetting to give it back and stuffing it in your bag just in case. Just in case the two of you never talk after this. Just in case. He looks away, and you begin packing, settling your various belongings into their places in your bag. You get done rather quickly, getting your phone charger and placing it in your pocket when you look at him again. This feels final, like an end to something more than just this act. You knew this was going to happen. 

“I’m gonna go,” you start “I just- I have to work tomorrow and it’s gonna take half the day just to unpack after this trip so-”

“You could at least have breakf-” and he sits up, looking at you with those brown eyes. 

“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” you confess, cutting him off “I can’t be here anymore and I shouldn’t have ever agreed to do this but I did so,” you sputter. 

“What are you talking about?” he asks, though softly, it still makes the air get caught in your throat as you choke on some words. 

“This!” finally, you gesture to him and you “I can’t keep doing this, faking that, it-” and suddenly it’s all rising within you and you want to cry. You want to cry. The feeling overwhelms you as it finally crashes against your skin after days of pooling. Your bag is already packed and on your shoulder and you could just leave. “It fucking hurts, Wilbur.” it tumbles out of your mouth “Why do you want to play with my emotions? Why would you say my name of all people? Do you want to hurt me that bad, am I that much of a joke to you?” It’s harsh and you know it’s not all true. You huff out the words anyway and he’s standing now and you’ve taken a step to the door. It occurs to you then, that you were being loud. That the secret of the weekend just passed your lips in more words than one. Then you are thinking of last night and ‘let me fix this’. He’s walking towards you, mouth bobbing open and closed as you watch him think, his eyes darting around the room until they find yours. He looks like guilt incarnate. 

“I deserved it,” Wilbur says, hiccuping occasionally resembling a drunk cartoon character more than a man, a situation that would be funnier if he wasn’t crying. He was allowed this, you thought, he had just gotten broken up with. You had found him, snuck up through the back door when he stopped answering your texts, just for him to be drunk on the floor. Your worry wasn’t completely misplaced though.   “No you didn’t, Wil, you’re just drunk,” you say quietly as his head has ended up in your lap, your hands playing with his hair. You weren’t used to seeing him like this while you were sober, it was overwhelming. He was unfiltered, depressed, and all too quick to punch down at himself.  “I was so-” he trailed off “it was my fault”  “Wil,” you say again. You move your hands away, him without your touch, and he whines, looking at you. “You can’t be thinking like that,” You frowned at him and he just stared. You understood those feelings and you think that made it worse. It’s thoughts you’ve had countless times in a different light, repeated instead as it’s your fault, you aren’t good enough for him, a constant burden, that you are horrible, and that no matter what life was not going to get better if it was you behind the wheel, “Yea,” he says, instead, conceding and fluttering his eyelashes. You see the guilt that seems to lighten, his eyes feeling less heavy. It’s as if something has clicked and all he wants to do is look at your face. His eyes don’t leave you the rest of the night as you fill the silence with stories to distract. 

‘Please,” he says, his voice that of begging. “I-” and you step back again, so close to reaching that door. “Please, that’s not what this is,” but it’s not I didn’t know, it’s not I’m sorry. It’s guilt without the words and you want to scream, to cry, to run. He’s closer with raised hands, the etiquette of a spooked animal. 

He’s leaning forward and it’s just like that ‘let me fix this’ that passed his lips the day before and was never answered.

He kisses you, his hands pulling you closer by the waist. His lips ask for permission silently, like searching for it until it comes in the form of you kissing him back feverishly. It’s suffocating, so much more than it had been in the car or any other time you forced yourself to not mind the feeling. Your hands push back against his hair, struggling to find their place at his neck as all of this settles in your racing heart. He stays close, keeps his forehead pressed against yours as the two of you share oxygen. 

It feels overwhelming, so you press back again, part your lips to be softer, give more. He’s addicted to it. So he pushes further, and begs for forgiveness with his hand on your jaw, fingers parting under your ear. It makes your chest ache, feels like holding your breath underwater as you lean into everything until he’s stepping back with a shuttering breath. The silence then falls, cuts itself between the both of you. 

“I’m sorry,” he starts and you take it, that apology that doesn’t bloom into anything but. “I didn’t- I didn’t know how to tell you, didn’t think I ever would tell you,” he explains. 

“Why?” you whine out because it’s been so much of this, the loneliness that bites, it’s been so long that you’ve been begging for this, him kissing you like it was all he ever wanted to do. 

“because I didn’t want to do that to you?” he whispers and you don’t understand. Then you know, can hear him talking of self-hatred. Of ‘i deserved it’ that becomes worse without anyone there to make it stop. You can hear yourself talking about how you could never be him, be on stream in front of that many people. It all folds together into pining. “Didn’t think you would ever feel the same after everything and this was some desperate attempt to get it out of my system,” and he is so horribly wrong for that, but it aches again anyway. 

“You are so stupid,” you say, shuffling yourself until your face is pressed into his chest. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” you shutter, unable to look at him as the confession breathes past your lips. It’s been years of please, let me and it was both of you. He doesn’t need to say it, repeat the sentiment back, for rather he is holding you close. His large hands splayed across your back and pulling you tightly against him.

“We are stupid,” he says with his chin resting atop your head. He takes in a deep breath. “I still don’t know how to do this, how to navigate something like this with you, darling, not when I am so-” he cuts himself off and it's true of the weight on both of your chests because what does this mutual attraction mean anyway? 

“more fake dating?” you joke and he chuckles but it fizzles too quickly when he’s pulling back to look down at you. The room shifts. You still feel your stomach turn, butterflies fill all that space that was previously empty. “I- I’m willing to put in the time,” you whisper as if that is what this moment required, it leaves you in a tone that bleeds coming pleas.

“I just don’t know if I have the time,” and it falls over you like cold water. That joke of scheduled hanging out from the day before is far too true. “I didn’t want to put us here that’s why I never said anything, I didn’t want to get somewhere where my job was gonna ruin this.” and he stops because he’s looking at you, because you are there in front of him crying. You are losing him anyway. You wipe at your face and try and collect yourself.

“o-okay,” you say because by no means is this okay, but you still have your bag on, you still could just leave, get out of here, escape the dying feeling of his touch. 

“I’m sorry-” he starts.

“I know,” you whisper but you pull the straps of your backpack closer, you get away from him. “That doesn’t make it any better, Wil.” He steps towards you and your hand is on the doorknob. 

“Please don’t just leave, darling, please, we can talk about it,” he speaks quickly, trying anything to make you walk back towards him, anything to allow him that apology. “I want-”

“We said we wouldn’t talk about any of this,” you start thinking of those boundaries and rules put in place to help you keep him and your sanity. They’d all been broken in one way or another, distance ruined by his prodding touch, gentle lips. 

“Don’t do that again, don’t push me away,” he’s saying. 

“You chose me to do this because you are selfish, Wil,” you can feel yourself on the precipice of crying, just almost there. “I agreed because I don’t know how to say no to you, because I would do anything just for the promise that you will remain in my life even torture myself by fucking kissing you and you-” you look away from him.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I was selfish, love, but I never wanted to hurt you,”

“You hurt me all the time,” you huff, exasperated and tired “You are so busy and I know that’s not fair of me to blame you for that, but I can’t find it in myself to try and be in your life because it must be such a waste to spend your time on me,” you are crying now, tears running down your cheeks. You can’t find it in you to push him away when he’s wiping away those tears. His hand is carefully easing away the redness of your face. “How can you even stand to be around me?”

“I want to give you that time, wish I could spend every minute with you,” he says softly. It doesn’t ease you, not in the way he wants it to. It brings up again passing time, sentiments of soon and never to be. 

“Then why?” you start “Why can’t we have this?”

“I want to try,” he says and you stop. “I want to be with you, but I am terrified.” the confession makes you clench your eyes shut, try and stop time from marching forward because you don’t want to face any of this. He’s going to tour and be busy and have a life so much grander than yours. “I don’t think I could handle losing you, not when it would be my fault,” You think of those names in the corner, that promise to be friends forever. You would do anything for him, travel the world, let him pull you to the end of the earth to just be graced by the fact you would be together. 

“You won’t lose me,” you whisper and let yourself fall to him. The distance between you wanes until you are kissing him again. It’s tender but devouring, through confessions of please, don’t let this be it “I want to try,” you say the words slowly, opening your eyes to look at him. He smiles weakly, rubbing his thumb across your cheek again. “We can just try,”

He kisses you again instead, the tremoring of his feelings falling in, secrets unfolded. He grins into the kiss, bites at your bottom lip, and lets himself savor what he never thought he was going to have. He lets your hand grip his shirt, promising in touch to hold his heart gently. It’s joy that finds his lips as they move against yours, it's suffocating in the best way. 

“What are the rules this time?” he pokes, leaning in to breathe in your air, if only to satisfy that continued urge to be closer. You think of all those rules, of being friends forever to keeping all of that affection at a minimum. You’ve broken all of them. 

———

He walks. For a long time in his life, it was all he ever did. He would walk and walk, never really needing to stop. Walked until there were no sidewalks, until there was only dirt. Till he tilted his head up and was unable to recognize the stars above him. And then he’d continue. One foot after the other.

There was never a reason to stop walking, other than to stop and feed but that was getting rarer and rarer. Starving himself wasn’t ideal but with how often he walked and how often he would walk miles without noticing it, his head somewhere else. In a different time and under a different set of stars. But starving himself was the only right thing to do, nowadays. Sure, the hunger was unbearable… if he was focused on the present.

And then… one day while he was walking, it's late at night and he entered a new town, one he hadn’t been in before. He doesn’t know why, why he stops walking for the first time in a week, why he stops and turns his head but when he does, the wind is knocked out of him, his chest tightening in knots when he sees your face.

His first victim, the first drop of blood came from you. Your death solely defined his role as a monster. It was his one regret out of all of this- becoming an eternal nightmare, cursed forever to starve and ache and burn under the heavens while everyone else lived and breathed and loved and died. Becoming this only happened because he was too weak to stay away from you, starved himself of his nature, starved himself of you.

Your death had been the nail in the coffin.

And yet.

There you stood, in an old diner, taking orders and serving drinks and meals. A smile on your face while you did it. Talking and walking and breathing and… alive.

And he hasn’t fed in a while. Couldn’t bring himself to, stuck in the useless cycle of why bother? And he could feel it in his throat, the unbearable itching, the burning. The empty pit in his stomach. It almost was too much, all of these feelings and seeing your face. Seeing you and hearing you and only able to feel the hunger consuming him. He fled the scene, hiding behind a building, and sucking down on the rats that didn’t scurry away fast enough.

An older woman had opened the door next to where he had slid down. “Oh, there you are, Wilbur, I told you not to come through the back again, there’s rats out here darling.” He ends up realizing she’d mistaken him for her grandson or someone else, but she drags him in anyways. The rats had been enough to curb the hunger, and he let her take him inside of her home. She gives him free reign of the bathroom, handing him clothes that weren’t torn to shreds by the course of time and the elements.

When he looks in the mirror, he finds a creature of extreme camouflage. A monster that blends in so well, you’d almost be entranced by the sight of him alone. The clothes are loose, they hang off him like he has no meat, and to be fair, he doesn’t have a healthy diet, but they fit well enough. And when he helps her into bed, tucks her in and closes the door behind him, he thanks her quietly and hopes her grandson makes it home safe so she won’t be alone in the morning.

Standing outside, freshly scrubbed and in a set of clothes that don’t belong or smell like him, he feels like an imposter, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if you will. He looked closer to normal and human, to something less dangerous than before. He doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He finds himself heading to the diner again, unable to help himself. Were you a hallucination? Were you a dream, a mirage in the distance with his hunger caving his mind in on itself? A horrible trick to get him to slip up and fall at the hands of a well-sharpened stick?

Didn’t matter because before he could begin to think of an escape route, a bell slams against the door-frame as he steps through, the lights sting his eyes and he barely manages to seat himself in the corner with the light bulb out. It’s just a shade darker but that’s all he needs. And before he could register it happening, he sees your face, the light framing your face as if an angel to take him away. He can hear your voice clearly, asking him about his night and such as you pour him a glass of coffee. The steam rises as you nudge it closer to him. “Need anything just call for me,” you wink, tapping at the name tag pinned to your shirt. You are the one and the same in every possible way, and it's haunting.

He leaves after a few minutes, sure that had he been alive, the only thing he would hear is his heart pounding in his chest and the blood rushing to his ears but the worst part, is that he could only hear yours. Everyone else has been drowned out by how loud you are, how noisy your life is. It’s as if you’ve built a neon sign pointing at yourself, calling out for every bloodthirsty being to come and claim your soul. Maybe that’s just him. Maybe this is his personal hell. Maybe he was supposed to live through this and find it painful.

He knows he’s a sick bastard, but he didn’t know how sick he was until he returned the next night.

×

He returns for a week straight until another vampire catches him before going in, taking him to their place and telling him he needs to go eat, to change clothes, and to do something because he’s attracting a lot of attention for someone laying low.

So he shackles up with him, gets clothes with him less he wants to get caught wearing something from thirty years ago. Time is fast, these days, you can’t blame him for not paying attention to the fashion.

The eating part is hard. Because every bone in his body, every inch of his skin wants to see you. Wants to taste your blood, the sick part of him wants to know if you’d taste just as good as you did the first time. He wants to know what’s changed and what hasn’t but so far the only thing that’s changed is that you’re alive and you don’t know him at all.

He could survive it, he survived your death, he could survive your rebirth.

That is, until you caught him behind the diner, blood smeared over his clothes and six feet from the back door. He insisted on no doctors which frustrated you, he could tell, but despite the freezing temperature his body is always set at, you drag him inside. Unaware of the dead body tossed carelessly in the dumpster behind the two of you.

You sit him in the bathroom, wiping the blood from his face and demanding that he take his shirt off of his body. You even turned around, a dangerous endeavor with a creature like him. Alas, he just fed so he… felt normal. Enough. Normal to pretend that he’s a human for a brief moment and normal enough to pretend that he doesn’t want to tilt your body into his, to nudge your head to the side and kiss it like he used to. To smear praise and worship over your skin, to taste the salt off your skin and hear you call his name.

It’s times like these that he reminds himself, he’s not alive, you’re not you, the one he knew, the one he killed, and that you’re waiting on him.

You take great care of looking him over, checking for any open wounds and despite not finding any, you bravely asked if taking his pants off would be too much. He almost felt dizzy.

He puts his shirt back on and lets you tug him back to his corner, pouring him a coffee and letting him be with a soft touch to his shoulder, throwing a stern look over your shoulder as you tended to your other regulars.

He tries drinking the coffee, just to try, just to feed into his delusion if not a little bit.

He found himself back in the bathroom ten minutes later, gagging as the coffee forcefully left through his throat. It burned his mouth and throat as he sat back on his heels, trying to steady himself. You come in seconds later, brushing his hair back and feeling his forehead. The sensations are nauseating and making him lean into your touch, into your body. His nose is pressed against your apron waist as you try to talk to him.

After unsuccessfully trying to get him to call someone he knew, which, wasn’t that a funny new thing, calling and phones? He tried to laugh, though he could only let out a pathetic sigh, feeling weak.( And he fed on some poor stranger. He’s a monster, and not even a good one, at that.) But when you finally realized he wasn’t going to be any help, you heaved him out of the bathroom and took him to the back, sat him against the wall. You crouched in front of him, pushing his hair out of his forehead and looking him over, “I have one more hour and then- then I’ll. I’ll- fuck, I’ll figure something out but you’re sick and you should get checked out by a doctor or something.” And when he could only respond with a noncommittal hum, you sighed, your head dipping down.

Picking yourself back up, he can barely watch through the slits of his eyes your disappearing figure. He tried to call your name, in the language he once knew, but his mouth barely opened. And when he blinked his eyes open again, there stood the other vampire in the area. He pulls on the collar of his shirt, tugging him forward and onto his knees. “You trying to get us killed, there are hunters-” he cuts himself off, looking around, before he stares him in the eyes. “Listen to me. We’re getting you to my place, fixing you up, and you’re gonna get out of here, no more lolly-gagging and no more dilly-dallying, do not pass go and do not collect 200-” he speaks while he’s slinging him over his back. Assuming he checked for nobody watching the two of them, the vampires make an escape.

He wants to know what you think when you go back there to get him, already to go home and relax or whatever humans do nowadays, and you find him gone. He wants to know what you’d think, what you’d say. He knows it’s bad. Bad to be this obsessed already but you haunt him, every night he could dream, those he just recently found out he could have, you’d be in there. Sleeping until you’re not, smiling at him with this emotion in your eyes, fingers stroking his cheek and jaw and running your hands through his hair.

When the other vampire drops him onto the couch, he throws something squishy at him. He smells it before he even opens his eyes. It’s blood.

He just had some.

“You’re malnourished, unsocialized. You need to talk to people, yes, but they need to be like us.” The very helpful vampire grounds out. Like us, dead, crystallized in a beautiful tomb of eternal suffering. Monsters till the end of time. While he tears the corner of the blood bag open, he tries not to think about how refreshed he feels. He tries to not think too hard about how he would never enjoy blood like he enjoyed yours. It’s the only semi-clear memory he has of drinking blood from people. They’re few and far in between instances, and he doesn't like it. But it happens. And the only time he ever enjoyed it, had been— horribly— yours. The sweet and nectarine taste, soothing his throat, the high he’d been on, how full he felt- of course, that all attributed to the fact he practically mauled your throat and drained you till you died in his arms.

This is his defining moment as a monster.

×

Of course— he would’ve left immediately, he had some blood, felt normal enough, changed clothes and when he looked in the mirror, he looked more human than he had the last time he checked.

And when he was asked what his name was by the vampire, he didn’t think about it for long, choosing to stick with what he knew. “Wilbur,” he said, turning to the window. They’d gone so high up, he wondered when did the humans ever begin to fly, how did they get here? He was curious but as he pulled away from the window and dragged to a shop, for the purpose of an ID- he doesn’t know why, he’s left to fend for himself.

He begins walking again, and against the wishes of the very same vampire who’s clothed, fed and identifies him, he knows where he starts to walk.

“Your name is Wilbur Soot,” he recalls the vampire telling him, “you’re just passing through, making his way home. And if someone knows about, you know- your condition, show them this.” He looks down to the business card the vampire had given him. “They’ll help you. This is all I can do for you.” He walks and keeps putting one foot in front of the other until it takes him to a diner. Your diner.

×

“You scared me last night,” you murmur to him, reaching over to give him a one-arm hug with a tray stabilized on your other hand. “How did you even leave?” He knows, he just doesn’t know what to tell you. After following you to an empty table, you make your rounds to the other customers before you return to him. “Did you at least see a doctor?”

He licks his mouth before looking up to you, finding it easy to lose himself in your eyes, your expression. Eyebrows pinched together from concern and a frown as you continued to wait for an answer.

“I… I didn’t eat enough and the coffee just didn’t sit right, I suppose.” He wonders if you believed him.

“You supposed? There was literal blood when you were puking.” Your name is called and you call back over your shoulder. You press your lips into a firm line, staring him down. He wonders, if it helps that after aching for you for so long, he would be satiated for the rest of his life, enough to leave you behind and truly keep you safe this time. “You’re fine now?” He nods, he’d never be fine. He’ll be a monster longer than you’d ever be alive, but for your sake, he nods. You tap your fingers on the tray as you quickly think, “we’re not done talking about this,” you warn him, pointing a finger at him in warning as you walk away from him.

And well, his heart almost leapt out of his chest, bloody tendons connecting it to him, but safely tucked away in your hands, he could see the metaphorical lines thin themselves out as you disappeared behind a door.

He comes to grips with himself and realizes he doesn’t think he’ll ever be satiated. Not when you care so freely, not when you are breathing and living and existing again. Not when you pass him by and squeeze his shoulders as you go.

He knows for a certainty he’ll be alive for many more centuries, he’ll stay this way, needing the living’s blood to make sure he doesn’t wither away. He knows that for an absolute certainty… but he doesn’t know if he could survive the separation from you again.

yes, it was a hyperactive imagination that went off in your head. you prepared yourself to be laughed at and made fun of. the secondhand embarrassment already settling in your stomach, the feeling all too familiar when you think about your loveless life. you wouldn’t lie, it felt silly when thinking about a fan fiction come true.

yet, here you were with a handheld sign from paper. it read: “will gold, i never had my first kiss! will you be it? (im 22 btw and you can decline).” it was so odd, and it made you laugh nervously from the look of it. shyly, you folded it and tucked it in your jeans; the thought sent you in a spiral before you decided to finally go to the venue.

an hour early and a line started outside, but it only grew more as soon as you set foot to join them. as surprising as it was, you found yourself at a decent area in the venue—a really good area—your waist pressed against the stage, a little off to the side but a good view.

it took minutes for the building to get warm as people crowded in, and you felt yourself get pushed until you were secured in one spot. the pre-show adrenaline starting to exhilarate and you missed it. the lights turned off, then the stage lights turned on.

crywank walked on stage, and you screamed your heart out the moment it hit you; you were finally at a concert you’ve been waiting for since months ago. as much as you loved the supporting bands and the view of the members, you felt your stomach drop the moment you saw mark get behind the drums.

blood rushed through your veins, sweat dripping down your forehead as lovejoy walked on stage. the feeling of your throat all scratched up and your voice going hoarse, oh you’re going to lose your voice by dawn for sure.

“how are we feeling? good? that’s grand!” any word wilbur has spoken was replied by shouting and cheers.

you never cheered so hard in your life than ever before. but as the final songs were going to be played, you were reaching for your phone but ended up pulling out the paper. everything seemed to still as you realized this may be your only chance.

unraveling it and holding it up, you screamed his name with pride. joe looked at you, carefully approaching with a confused stare before a smile tugged on his lips; or was is it a grin? you could not tell the difference anymore. you watched him walk up to wilbur, tapping his shoulder then pointing at you.

the moment will looked at you, making eye contact with you then looking at the paper. he squinted at first before he quickly became bashful and red, unsure if his clammy hands were from nervousness or adrenaline.

“do you have your id’s?” he asked while pointing at you.

your smile fell for a second before you grinned widely, nodding frantically to grab the id you slipped into your other pocket. “yes! yes, i do!” you yelled, hoping that he heard through the screams.

he walked up to you. “give me a moment, i’m trying to have a serene moment guys.” he spoke as the crowd laughed.

kneeling down, he grasped for your id. his gaze flickered between you and the card he held. you never felt so much anxiety until now, as it felt like a dream just to be in this situation, and that you had his full attention.

“fuck it, why the fuck not?” he laughed sweetly, handing the microphone to joe.

the situation was you were on the ground floor and he was on stage, no barrier for him to hop on. wilbur’s solution? he reached for both of your arms, his hands having a tight grip on your forearms as he pulled you up.

you had dropped the paper long before. one of your knees rested on the stage platform and the other dangling off the edge. with one hand, wilbur reached up to cup the side of your face. just now you seen how utterly beautiful he looked up close, his eyes staring intently at yours. sweat beaded down his forehead from the heat on stage, then he smiled at you.

“are you sure, sweetheart?” his voice came as amber honey, and suddenly the crowd never existed.

it was just you and him existing in this moment. the warmth of his palm pressed against your cheek as he caressed the skin under your eye; then you nodded.

“i need to hear a yes, sweetheart.” he added more sternly.

“yes, i’m sure.” you replied through a soft whisper.

then he closed the gap. you tasted each other, lips molding like as if it was meant to be. your teeth clashed against his as you felt him hum against you, leaning more into you just to taste your cherry lips. he liked cherries, and you were intoxicating.

the moment you parted was only to gasp for air, and he smiled widely down at you before helping you back down to your feet. reality came back as the people around you cheered, grasping on to your shoulder to congratulate you in some way.

will spoke into the microphone again, laughing before he found his words and he pointed at you. “i need your number.” he was dumbfounded and starstruck on stage, a flushed smile as he shook his head. “we’re not done after that kiss, what the fuck was that?” he joked but came back with his phone. “c’mon, we don’t have all night.”

immediately, you gave him your phone number. unbeknownst to you, the sign you made for this moment to happen was now crunched under your foot.