#emotional repression

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

you sat on the bench on the rowboat, robin next to you, steve at the front, eddie and nancy across from you.

“we gotta go down there.. we can’t just-“

“you want to send someone down there?” steve cuts you off, scoffing as he looks at you then looks away, “it’s too dangerous, for anyone. no hero acts, no bullshit. just let me fuckin’ think for a second.”

you furrow your brows, inhaling as you look at robin, mumbling just loud enough for her to hear, “someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” she snorts, returning the mumble, “you’re tellin’ me.”

steve sighs, “if it is down there, what the hell are we doing then? after we find it?”

“we tell el.” nancy cuts in gently, “she’s the one who told us where to look, plus, if it’s down there, it might give us a starting point to find another way in.”

“i vote-“ eddie raises his hand, “-going with the option that doesn’t involve someone drowning in this godforsaken lake tonight.” robin nods, “agreed.”

steve looks between them, skipping over you and he nods, “alright. fine. since no one wants to go, i’ll go.” he mumbles more to himself and you stand up, “if you’re going to throw a fit about it, i’ll just go.”

steve’s head snaps towards you, “what the hell did i say? no hero moves no-“

“bullshit.” you cut him off, pulling off your sweatshirt, “yeah, steve. i heard you, but i can swim. i’ll be in and out.” you drop your sweatshirt onto the bench next to robin before you lean over the edge to look out over, your arm is grabbed. you look down at steve’s hand and up, “can you not?”

“this is suicide, y/n.” steve says lowly, eyes burning into yours. you narrow yours right back at him, “is it different if it’s you that’s going?”

steve doesn’t answer, but eddie behind him mumbles a low, “i could cut the sexual tension with this oar.”

steve let’s out a scoff, “fine, have your little moment, but if you drown, it’s on you.” he releases your arm and steps back. robin hands you a flashlight with a worried smile, and without another word, you dive in headfirst into Lover’s Lake.

in the water, it’s cold, dark. exactly as expected as you swim down to the lake floor.

above water, steve’s couched by the edge of the boat, eyes never leave the surface of it, not looking away for a second.

“she’ll be fine, steve. she was captain of the swim team.” robin assures, though her eyes never leave the surface either. nancy looks around, standing up to shrug her jacket off, “if she’s not back up in thirty seconds i’m going in.”

“no.” steve cuts in sharp as he shakes his head, “i will.”

no one argues, they all know something neither you and him will ever care to admit.

robin checks her watch, “Six.. five.. four.. three.. two.. one..”

nothing.

“come on you stubborn brat.” steve mumbles more to himself, hands gripping the edge of the boat tighter, “Come on.”

you cut through the surface of the lake with a splash and a gasp, “it’s- it’s there! water gate, it’s down there.” you start swimming towards the boat.

the boat fills with a chorus of relief. nancy closes her eyes, exhaling, “oh, thank god.” eddie throws his head back, “she actually did it.” robin lays her hands over her face and then moves, “come on.” she reaches out, “get in here.”

steve just stares at you as you swim up to the edge. he says nothing, just shakes his head and reaches out along side robin.

you extend your arm out to robin, your hand barely brushes hers before you feel something brush against your leg, “there’s something-“ that’s all you get out before you’re yanked under the water.

“y/n!?” steve yells, frantically splashing around as he reaches in the water to try and feel for you, “y/n!”

“oh my god! oh my god!” robin panics. nancy is right there by steve, and eddie is bouncing his leg, eyes wide as he frantically screams, “i told henderson this was a bad idea! i told him! i told you!”

robin shakes her head, sputtering until she can form words, “wh-wha- what do we-“

steve launching off the boat and into the water tells them exactly what they’re doing. he cuts through the water, fast and furious. your almost to the gate by now, kicking and trying to bend down to free yourself, but whatever has you, has you good.

your screams are muffled by the water, and you catch the faintest blur of what could be steve, right before you’re pulled through and dropped five feet into the upside down. you hit the ground hard, and then you’re immediately being drug, “nonono help!”

your arms flair, fingers digging into the muck of the upside down, and you can’t help but scream louder, “steve!” you kick the vine that wrapped around your ankle with your free one, “robin!”

steve falls out of the gate with a grunt, immediately pushing up when he hears your screams, “shitshitshit!” he takes off running, soaked to the bone, freezing, but none of that matters right now, “hold on! hold on!” he moves fast, getting ahead of it and he gives it a hard whack with the one thing he thought to grab before launching himself off the boat.

a crowbar. it’s not his bat, or an axe, but it’s working.

you let out a pained whine as the vine tightens with the whack, “steve-“

“i’m trying!” he snaps, hitting it again. he hits it harder, grunting as metal meets vine. the vine recoils, loosening enough for you to kick it off and push yourself away from it.

steve sees that and immediately moves, dropping down in front of you. his chest heaving, eyes searching yours, “are you stupid? i told you no hero moves.

you stare at him, still breathing heavy yourself, “I just almost died, and your first thought is to yell at me?” you scoff, “fuckin’ figures.” you push yourself to stand and turn to walk away. there’s a slight limp in your step but nothing major, but steve sees it.

of course he does.

“y/n.” he sighs, standing up, “wait, you can’t just-“ he cuts himself off, moving after you, “You have no idea where you’re going.”

“there’s always a gate at the byers’ house.” you stop, bending down to snap a piece of the metal pole from the one split sign, “right? i’ll find my way.”

“you’re not going anywhere alone down here.” his grip on the crowbar tightens, “i’m not giving you that choice, plus you could be wrong this time, just like you are every other time.”

you stop for a second, like you’re going to snap back, but you don’t. you just keep walking, jaw clenched, hand wrapped around the spiked metal pole, “if i don’t have a choice then you don’t have a choice with shutting the fuck up for once.”

steve says nothing, shockingly.

you don’t look back, you keep walking. a little ways ahead, you both stop, “which way do we go from here?” steve stays silent and you look at him, raising your brows, “well?”

he raises his brows right back, “oh, now i’m allowed to speak?” he scoffs, tongue running over his bottom lip as he looks around, “that way.” he nods to the left, “down that street until we get to the weird looking building-“

“they’re all weird.” you cut in, which makes him look at you like you said the dumbest thing on earth, “you know what i meant, so why even say it?” he rolls his eyes, “follow me.” he takes the lead and you watch him walk away, shaking your head as you reluctantly follow him.

he doesn’t glance back, he knows you’re there.

you’re a few feet from the weird looking building he was talking about, and everything goes quiet, too quiet. he holds his hand up, slowly bringing his finger to his lips as he looks back at you.

it’s silent for another moment and then you hear it, the distant sound of demobats swarming closer and closer, and then suddenly they’re right above where you’re standing still.

“gogogo!” steve grabs your arm and pulls you in front of him, pushing you to run, “move!”

you trip at the sudden push but you catch yourself and book it towards the building. steve is right there, or at least he was. you get to the building and look back and he’s whacking at two before he runs towards you.

for a second, seeing him in that situation scared the hell out of you. your mind ran ten million miles within a few seconds, what if he got hurt? what if he died, how would i explain that to the group? to dustin?

the sound of the door slamming shut snaps you from your daze and you move, immediately helping steve hold the door closed as the bats swarm in and slam against it. you both grunt, pushing all of your body weight onto it to keep it closed. when you finally have an opening, “can you push that book shelf over here? i got the door.”

you nod, pushing off the door and you move to behind the old bookshelf, the old wood skids across the floor as you push hard. when you have it close enough, steve comes to help, pushing it the rest of the way and then moves to get another one, “help me with this one, hurry.”

you just do it, and soon you’re barricaded in.

with steve.

you walk over, pressing your back against the wall, “I hate this.”

“yeah, no kidding.” steve doesn’t look at you when he says it, he keeps his eyes on the door like he doesn’t trust the bookshelves to do their intended job, “This place sucks.”

“wasn’t talking about the place.” you mumble, and that get steve’s attention real fast, “I’m sorry, what?”

you roll your eyes, “clearly, you heard me.”

“clearly, i didn’t.” he keeps his eyes on you, “so why don’t you explain, we have time, if you haven’t noticed. until they tire themselves out or get bored or break in, we’re not going anywhere.”

you slide down the wall, sitting on the floor. your tone is fully sarcastic, “perfect, stuck in a weird library, with murderous bats outside, and you. that the goddamn dream.”

steve’s jaw cocks to the side as he huffs out a laugh, “uh huh, yeah.. yeah, that’s the goddamn dream alright.” he walks over, purposely sitting down next to you, “so, since we have time, you can tell me what your problem is.”

you glance over at him and then back down, “i don’t have a problem.”

“don’t pull that. don’t start with the it’s not me it’s you bullshit. we’re not in a relationship.” he rests his head back against the wall, “that- i didn’t, jesus christ that sounded bad.”

“no, you’re right.” you look over at him, “we’re not, which means, i don’t have to explain shit to you if i don’t want to.”

“see, that’s where you’re wrong because you clearly have a problem with me, and i deserve to know what the hell i did to make you hate me.”

you don’t say anything for a second, you just smirk, unable to hold back an exhausted laugh, “oh my god, steve. that’s one thing, not everything is about you like you think it is.”

“i do not think-“

“yeah, you kinda do.”

“do not.”

“mm.” you flick your brows up, “whatever.”

“name one time.”

“right now, you think i’m being some type of way because i have a problem with you. maybe im being some type of way because i was drug through a freezing cold lake and dropped five feet and drug across rocks and god knows what else.”

he stares at you, “so i’m not.. part of the problem?”

“oh you are, it’s just.. not solely about you.”

“jesus fucking christ.” he scrubs his hands over his face as his head hits the wall with a soft thud, “so, you’re pissed about everything, and let me guess, you blame me?”

“never said that.”

“didn’t have to.” his eyes stay on you as you stand, “where- what are you doing?”

“moving away from you.” you mumble, grabbing your pole from the wall and walking over to the window. his eyes stay on you, jaw tight. he sighs to himself as he look down, “seeing anything?”

“you have two legs and a set of eyes, come see for yourself.”

he stands, walking over to you, “you don’t always have to be such a bitch all the damn time.” he leans in to look out the window, still not looking at you, “that’s what your problem is.”

you don’t say anything, you just nod once, “right, well, fuck you.” you turn and he grabs your arm to stop you, “don’t.”

“don’t what?” you snap, pulling your arm but his grip tightens. he keeps his eyes on you now, “don’t get pissed at me for calling you out on your bullshit. don’t dish it if you can’t take it.”

“who says i’m not taking it? oh, right, you are because you think you’re right about everything that comes out of your fucking mouth.” you pull your arm from his grasp and walk away, but he’s right there, caging you against the wall with his hands on either side of your head, “i never said i didn’t like when you were bitchy.”

you blink, “oh-kay.. i think, you breathed in a little bit too much upside down asbestos, there steve.” you pat him on the chest and go to duck under he arm but he’s drops it, stopping you from leaving, “steve.”

he keep his eyes on you, “my problem, is that i hate how much i want you.” he leans in a little closer, “when you’re running your mouth, barking orders, you make it hard for me to focus on anything other than wanting to shut you up in a way that isn’t suitable for anyone in this goddamn group to hear about.”

you swallow, eyes a little wider at his confession, “don’t.. don’t fucking do that.”

“do what?” he laughs, irritated, “be honest about something for once in my life?” he shakes his head, “i tried to hate you, i can’t have you, i shouldn’t want you. i shouldn’t think about you every damn second of the day, get.. jealous, every time robin says she’s going to hang out with you, i shouldn’t.. but i do, and i hate it, i hate you.”

you thought about him, too. waaay too much.

“i think the bats-“

“i don’t give a fuck about the bats right now, y/n.”

“we can’t-“ you pause, blinking as it finally registers, “this will fuck even more shit up, we can’t do this.”

he leans in, lips barely brushing your cheek, “so then tell me you hate me, tell me stop. say the words..” he pauses briefly, “..and i’ll stop.”

your hands flex at your sides, head tilting like you’re going to pull away, but the words don’t come out of you mouth.

“we shouldn’t fuck in the upside down.”

“there’s a lot of things we shouldn’t do down here.” his breath still brushing your cheek. you scoff, hands going to his chest and you push him back, “you’re fucking insufferable.”

he chuckles as he regains his balance, eyes staying on you. you wanted do grab him, pull him back in, “God, i can’t stand you.” yet, you don’t move. you keep your eyes on him, “you think this won’t make anything harder? messier?”

“the only thing that’s getting harder, is me. and as for messier, that’ll be you if you can shut your mouth for more than two minutes at a time.”

you stare at him, lips twitching but you bite back a smirk, “Oh. my god. i’m leaving. i’m getting out of this hellhole.” you go to walk away and he groans, “there you go, running from your problems again.”

you stop, and without thinking, you turn back around, walk up to him, fist his still damp shirt, and you yank him in, crashing your mouth to his.

he’s frozen for a second and then he doesn’t hold back. he spins you, pressing your back against the wall as his lips move with a desperate rhythm against yours, “about fucking time.” he mumbles in between kisses.

you tilt your head back, breaking the kiss. you’re panting through words, “still can’t stand you.”

“good, then turn around.” he spins you, pressing your chest against the wall and his hands slide around to undo the button on your jeans as his lips find your neck.

neither of you cares that you were covered in a layer of upside down and lake water. you only cared about one thing and that was finding out what it felt like when he was inside of you.

he ruts up against your ass, “fuck, you drive me insane.” he mumbles against your skin, nipping it with his teeth. you gasp, hips pushing back into him and then you realize what you’re doing and stop.

he grips your hips, “oh no, don’t stop now. keep doing that.” he pulls your hips back as he grinds against you, harder, needier.

you do it again, harder, trying to be a smartass, but it only eggs him on more, “fuck yeah, there we go.” his hands slip into the space between your jeans and skin to push them down over your ass, “i just know, you’re going to have the best pussy i’ve ever felt, mainly because you’re such a fuckin’ bitch.”

your breath catches in your throat at that, finger tips pressing into the wall harder, “jesus christ, steve.”

“didn’t even do anything yet, baby.” he breaths against your neck, undoing his own jeans, just enough to free himself from the restricting fabric, “what? my words doin’ something for you?”

“fuck off.”

“i will, with your help.” he drags the head of his cock between the folds of your cunt, “tell me you want it.”

an involuntary whimper slips past the seal of your lips, giving you away, “steve.”

“three little words, you don’t say them..” he drags himself against you again, “i don’t know what your feel like wrapped around me, and you want that, too. don’t you?”

“yes.” you breathe out, head pressed against the wall, “fuck, i want it.. so much, and i hate myself for it.”

steve takes that, and runs with it. he slowly pushes the head of his cock into you, groaning low as he thrusts in, bottoming out, “god-fuck, i knew it.” he groans, leaning forward, forehead pressing against the back of your shoulder.

your hands slide down the wall, pushing back to grind against him. he groans, breathless with feeling you around him, “keep doing that, baby.” he turns his head, his hand sliding up to push your hair from your neck so he can kiss and nip at it.

it sends a shiver down your spine and a moan slips from your lips, “i fucking hate you.”

“yeah? you keep saying that..” he licks and sucks a mark under your ear, pressing you harder against the wall, “but your body is telling me something else entirely different.”

you hated how right he was. your body was gripping him like it didn’t want to be without him. your head presses harder to the wall as he pulls out, almost fully and then he thrusts back in, earning a groan from the both of you.

his hand slides into your hair, tilting you head back, his other slides around and presses to the center of your midriff, “i wanna hear you, need to hear you.” his hips fall into a steady, frantic rhythm, “fuck, let me hear how much you hate me.”

your breath hitches in your throat, choking you on a moan, “f-uck, you’re such-“

“i know.” he cuts you off, “just shut up, i don’t want words from you right now.”

your jaw clenches, eyes fluttering closed as you move your hips back in sync with his. your hands brace against the wall and you don’t fight back the sounds as hard.

steve leans forward so his back is to your chest, pinning you between him and h the wall still. he turns your head with your hair, and he kisses you. it’s not gentle, it’s rough, teeth against teeth, tongue against tongue.

“fuck.” he groans, pushing his cock fully into you and grinding before going right back to thrusting. his hand slides down from your midriff, fingers finding your clit. you gasp, knees buckling but his arm slides around your waist, keeping you upright as his fingers draw tight fast circles.

“you’re close, huh? can fuckin’ feel you squeezin’ me.”

“fuck off.” you snap back, a breathless gasp slipping out which earns a wrecked laugh from steve, “doin’ that right now, sweetheart.” his fingers move faster and your hips push back once, hard, “fuck, steve, steve.”

“that’s it, say my name.” he kisses your jaw, hand sliding from your hair around to your throat, “hate how much i love hearing you say it.”

your body tightens around him, and you gasp. a whine quickly followed and your hips grind back. he groans low in your ear, “there we go, that’s what i wanted.” he presses quick, open mouthed kisses along your skin, thrusts staying the same, “come for me.”

your body obeys, the last line between you and your orgasm blazing like a live wire he made you step on, and he fucks you through it, “goddamn.” he grunts, hips stuttering once, twice, “fuck y-you’re gonna make me-“

he quickly pulls out, you whimper at the loss.

he pushes your shirt out of the way with one hand, and reaches down with the other to stroke himself as he groans, painting your bare lower back with white lines.

your forehead is pressed against the wall, eyes closed as you try to come down from what you just did. because you knew that this would either change things, or make them worse. there was no in between.

“fuck.” he breathes out, “you good?”

you nod, “mhm, great.” you glance back at him, “are you gonna..” you motion to your back, “or am i on my own for that?”

steve smirks, sighing as he rolls his eyes, but there’s no annoyance behind it, none real anyway, “right, yeah.” his hands find his shirt and he rips a strip off of it, wiping off your back and a much more gentle touch than he just had.

“there.” he tosses the strip down, tugging your own shirt back down into place, “now let’s get the hell out of here.” he pulls his own jeans back up as you slowly reach for yours. you turn as you button them, glancing at him and then the door, “we going back out that way?”

he keeps his eyes on you for a second longer than needed, “probably, unless we find another exit that isn’t also blocked.” he looks at the door and back, “you sure you’re good?”

you lean over to grab your pole that was forgotten on the ground, “yeah, just.. wanna get the hell out of here now.”

“right..” he runs his tongue over his bottom lip, “okay.”

you walk back through the old building, looking around and you stop when you see an opening, “if we climb, we can get out that way, shouldn’t be too much of a drop on the other side..”

his eyes follow to where you’re looking, “yeah that’ll work.”

things were different, not bad different. it’s mainly that neither one of you wanted to admit it, because admitting it, means you’ll have to talk, and you both also suck as communicating real feelings.

“we can push that table over, maybe lay another bookshelf on top?” you suggest, glancing at him and he nods, “yeah, here..” he walks over, “grab that end.”

you move the table and bookshelf in silence.

when you climb up onto the table, he looks up at you, “need a boost or do you think you can reach it?”

you reach up, fingers a few inches away from grabbing the opening, “i need a boost.”

he nods, instantly climbing up beside you, “here.” he clasps his hands together and bends down a little. you put your foot in his hands and nod. he counts you down and lifts as you push yourself off. you grab the edge and pull yourself up.

“it’s about..” you grunt as you slowly wedge your way through, “four foot of a drop.. maybe..”

“that’s not bad. are you- can you get through?”

“yeah, i’m almost-“ you loose your grip and you fall through, landing on the outside with a groan, “made it.”

“y/n? are you- shit, are you okay?” steve is already pulling himself up, and when he sees you, laying flat on the ground, “are you hurt?”

you look up at him, “no, i’m fine, just.. winded.” you sit up with a groan, “lost my grip.” you slowly move out of the way and watch as he pulls himself through, dropping down. his eyes scan over you, silently looking for any injuries you’re not telling him about, “should have just used the front door.”

“why didn’t we?” you question, brushing yourself off. he shrugs, “because we like to complicate things apparently.”

you don’t say anything. the silence is loaded enough.

“which-uh.. which way to the Byers house?”

he points with the crowbar, “that way.”

you nod, falling into step beside him. for a moment it’s just the sounds of the upside down and your footsteps.

“i didn’t-“ he pauses, rubbing the back of his neck, “i didn’t, hurt you back there.. did i?” he glances over at you and looks away when you look at him, almost like caring would be some sort of embarrassment.

“careful, you keep it up and i might think you actually give a shit about me.” you were joking, or trying to, but it wasn’t landing like it should.

he scoffs, shaking his head, “right, yeah.” he huffs out a dry laugh, “wouldn’t want that.”

will’s house comes into view and as you walk towards it, you don’t look at him when you speak, “no, you didn’t, by the way.”

steve glances at you, almost with a look of relief washing over his features, “okay.. good, that’s-“ he sighs, “okay.”

you make it to the house and the sight of the home makes your stomach churn, “this is so off.” steve nods, “always is. i hate it down here.” he glances at you, “we find the gate, and get out of here.”

you glance at him, nodding, “agreed.” you go to walk forward and you stop when he grabs your arm, gently. your eyes move from his fingers sliding off your skin to his face, waiting for him to speak.

he hesitates, looking around and then back to you, “when we get out of here, i’d like to.. talk, if that- if we can do that without ripping each others throats out..”

you stare at him, slowly nodding, “yeah, i feel like we need to.”

he nods once, “okay.” he clears his throat and looks around again, “it’s usually upstairs..” he starts walking towards the steps, glancing back to make sure you’re right there.

you are.

you follow him up the steps, glancing behind you every so often and the closer you get to one of the rooms at the end of the hall, you can feel the hum of the gate.

“here.” steve slowly pushes the door open, revealing a gate up against the wall, “we’ll probably pop back out in the lake. you go first. and when you get up there, swim towards the boat, i’ll be right behind you.”

you keep your eyes on him and then look at the gate, nodding, “you better be. i’m not explaining to dustin why you never made it out, so.”

steve cracks a smile, “wouldn’t want you to do that anyway, i’ll be right there. i promise.” he nods to the gate, “ladies first.”

you move, slowly stepping through the gate and you’re spit back out into the bottom of Lover’s Lake. your body tenses at the cold water surrounding you once again, and you give it a second before kicking off the bottom and swimming up.

you break the surface with a gasp, swimming in a circle, “steve!?” you blink water from your eyes, head snapping around, “steve!?”

he comes up a few feet away from you, “y/n!?”

“steve!” you start swimming towards him, and he swims to you. he wraps his arm around your waist, holding you close to him without even thinking, “you did it.”

you nod, arm treading water while your other holds onto him, “so did you.”

he stares at you, like he’s seeing you in an all new light, everything narrows down to you two, until voices cut across the lake.

“they’re dead. there’s no way they aren’t.”

“don’t say that robin, they’re.. okay, they have to be.”

“i’m gonna have to go with buckley on this one, something ate them, or they ate each other, no in between.”

steve groans, “fuckin’ eddie, man.” he shakes his head, “you good to swim?” his hand presses against your side more and when you nod, he nods, slowly letting you go, “okay.”

you swim towards the sound, cutting through the cold water, exhaustion slipping into both of you, but luckily, the boat comes into view.

the beam from the flashlight flashes over both of you and robin stands up so fast the boat nearly tips, “oh my god. they’re alive!?”

“they’re alive.” nancy sighs, “oh thank god. come on.” she waves you guys in, leaning over the edge, robin is right there with her. eddie stares in disbelief, “still going with they ate each other.”

“eddie!” nancy and robin say in unison. he raises his hands, “i’m not taking it back.”

you roll your eyes, glancing back at steve as you reach the boat. he nods, “get her in first.” he grabs the boat with one hand and slides the other to your lower back, boosting you up as robin and nancy pull you in.

eddie tosses you your sweatshirt, “glad you’re back though, for real.”

you nod, “yeah, me too.” you laugh softly glancing at him and then you move to put your sweatshirt on, looking over as they help pull steve up in. he sits down next to you, both of you dripping wet.

nancy sits back down, “let’s get the hell out of here.” she helps eddie row back to shore while robin sits down, slowly, eyes bouncing between the two of you, “so you’re not dead.”

“glad to know your eyes work, robin.” steve retorts with a snort, instinctively shifting closer to you. her eyes narrow, “sorry, let me rephrase that, neither of you killed each other..”

“robin.” you sigh, looking up at her, “let it go.” but your smirk that you fight like hell to keep at bay gives you away. her eyes grow wide and her lips part and she sputters quietly again, “i- you- i- yeah.” she nods, leaning back, “yeah.”

steve snorts and glances at you, leaning in to whisper just for you, “i think we broke her.”

you laugh softly, arms wrapping tighter around yourself as the night air bites at your wet figure, “Yeah, i’d say.” he notices the way you fold in and slips his arm around you, “i got you.”

robin notices, but doesn’t say anything. she smirks to herself, mumbling a low, “finally.”

steve rests his chin on your shoulder, “so, how about after this we go to my place, shower, warm up, and have that talk?”

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

But never like this.

You weren’t just persuasive—you were designed for temptation. Your words were nectar, your presence slithered like silk over flesh, and your smile made gamblers forget they were already bankrupt. To others, you were a seduction. To him, you were a mirror.

"You're looking for funding," Aventurine drawled one evening, swirling a glass of amber liquor. "Or a donor?"

You tilted your head, eyes gleaming. “Same thing, really.”

He laughed, teeth flashing. "And what will I get in return? A patent? A serum? Immortality with side effects?"

"An opportunity." You leaned closer, and the scent of sterile steel and crushed jasmine laced the air between you. “To bet on something bigger than stock markets. Evolution. Ascension.”

Aventurine’s pulse thrilled at the danger in your voice, the madness humming under your skin. You were chaos in a lab coat, elegant and terrifying. And yet, he couldn’t look away.

He’d seen people fake passion. He’d faked it himself. But the way your hands shook after injecting yourself with your latest serum—the tremor you tried to hide behind a flirtatious smile—that was real.

And when he caught you alone, vomiting blood into a sink lined with snake-scale etchings, he didn’t say a word.

He just stepped behind you, placed a steady hand on your shoulder, and said, “Let me guess. This version didn’t work either?”

You laughed softly. Hollow. Haunted.

“Still worth the gamble,” you whispered.

In you, he saw something more dangerous than deceit: conviction. You’d sacrifice everything—even your body—for evolution’s altar. And if he were honest, that terrified and thrilled him in equal measure.

So he stayed close. Not to stop you. Not even to save you.

But to witness you.

Because some bets? You take for the sheer thrill of the risk.

He knew what you were the moment you slithered into his office.

Not literally, of course. But in the way your eyes gleamed like distant galaxies, the way your voice wrapped around syllables with reverence and venom. You didn’t knock. You didn’t wait. You simply arrived, as though you’d always been meant to.

"You're the one experimenting with soul coils and regenerative genetics," Anaxa said, voice slow, curious.

"And you're the one who dissected a dying god for 'truth'," you purred.

He chuckled, brushing a stray hair behind his ear. "Touché."

The two of you danced in dialogue like dueling philosophers. He spoke of forbidden knowledge, and you offered him blood-soaked notes in return. You craved evolution—no, transcendence. You stitched together truths the universe tried to hide, wore perfume to mask the formaldehyde, and smiled with lips painted in venom.

You were beautiful in the way stars were—distant, deadly, inevitable.

He found you once in your lab, sobbing silently as you held a failing graft in your hands. One that had once been human. One you hadn’t meant to lose.

"You said you didn’t care," he whispered.

“I don’t,” you snapped. But your voice cracked like breaking bone.

He didn’t press. Just sat beside you, his gloved hand finding yours—blackened with ink, blood, and promise.

"You remind me of who I could have become," he murmured.

"Better or worse?"

"Neither. Just... inevitable."

From then on, he visited you often—not to restrain your madness, but to temper it. And when your eyes burned with divine hunger, he matched you stride for stride.

In the end, it wasn’t about love.

It was about understanding.

And that was rarer than either of you cared to admit.

Dr. Ratio admired ambition.

But your ambition unsettled even him.

Your lab was a cathedral of horrors and hypotheses. Tubes of unnatural serum lined the walls like stained glass; the stench of formalin danced with lavender oil to fool weaker stomachs. But Ratio wasn’t weak.

He stepped over your failed clones. He listened to your proposals with arms crossed and eyes narrowing.

"You altered your own neural framework to accommodate an artificial limbic inhibitor," he said flatly. "Is that… wise?"

"It stopped me from crying," you replied sweetly. "Or from screaming, depending on the day."

He exhaled slowly.

You didn’t manipulate him. Not successfully. But you tried. With every tilt of your head, every seductive breath laced in careful cadence. And Ratio let you—because he wanted to see what you’d do when it failed.

And yet…

When you fell unconscious after a particularly aggressive auto-experiment, he stayed.

Read your logs.

Held your hand through seizures.

And whispered, just once, “You fool. You absolute genius.”

You awoke hours later, blinking past synthetic retinas. You saw his expression soften—a fraction.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you murmured. “I chose this.”

“I know,” he replied coldly. “I just wish you hadn’t.”

He offered you funding. Mentorship. A place among the Intelligentsia.

But never affection. That was yours to steal, if you could.

And when he finally touched your face—one gentle, gloved thumb tracing the grafted seam of your cheek—it wasn’t as a lover.

It was as an equal.

“Promise me something,” he said.

“What?”

“If you must become immortal… don’t forget how to feel.”

You smiled, cracked and stitched together.

“I already did, Dr. Ratio.”

But you knew he would never stop reminding you.

the dreaming was unquiet.

not loud. not chaotic. not stormed with monsters or shattered glass. it was… off. like a string on a harp that had been tuned too tightly, straining for a note it could no longer hold.

lucienne stood at the far end of the great library, her gloved hand resting gently on a ladder that hadn’t moved in decades. she wasn’t looking at the books. not this time. they whispered, yes, as they always did—sighing with forgotten endings, with half-finished dreams, with echoes of voices that never woke up. but tonight… they whimpered.

the tomes shivered in their bindings.

the shelves ached.

something ancient was unraveling. she could feel it in the marrow of her spine.

“you should go to him,” the gryphon rasped from the rafters, his golden eyes reflecting starlight even in the shadowed high ceilings.

lucienne gave a small, humorless smile. “he already knows.”

he stood in the garden of weeping stone trees.

dream of the endless. lord of stories. the onyx sentinel of every sleeping soul.

his cloak dragged like ink across the frostbitten ground, each step silent, measured, heavy with some thought he would never speak aloud. his hands were folded behind his back. his posture carved from pride and iron. but his eyes…

his eyes had not moved from the sky.

not even when lucienne appeared behind him.

“there’s been another shift,” she said quietly, not wanting to break the hush around him too violently. “three more realms crumbled before the morning bells rang. the oldest paths are fraying at the seams.”

his voice, when it came, was slow and hoarse as ancient wind: “i felt it.”

he finally blinked, eyes lowering. the stars above him refused to twinkle. the sky had become too still. dream turned slowly, the heavy tension of his presence folding over lucienne like mist off a black lake.

“as though something older than even us is… faltering.”

lucienne adjusted her glasses. “there’s only one being who understands this kind of balance.”

silence.

then, pointedly: “her.”

his expression did not change.

but the dreaming shivered.

“no,” he said, cool and final.

“the cosmos doesn’t care if it’s difficult,” lucienne replied. “she was born of equilibrium. she is balance, personified. you once trusted her with your realm.”

he did not answer. not with words.

his shadow stretched long and sharp behind him, slicing the garden into unnatural geometry. the air trembled. his hands tightened slightly at his back.

lucienne took a small breath. “we cannot keep the dreaming intact if all else collapses. if she appears—”

“she will not,” he cut in.

but even as the words left him, the dreaming shifted beneath his feet.

the trees stilled. the air held its breath. somewhere in the distance, a child’s dream flickered out before it could bloom.

she was here.

you stepped through the fabric of the dreaming as though it were silk torn from the night sky itself. one moment, nothing. the next, gravity hummed differently. colors deepened. the very weight of the place changed.

you weren’t a goddess of light. nor darkness. not war or love. you were something much quieter, much more dangerous.

you were balance.

and the realms had cried out for you.

your realm had already begun to decay—fractures forming in the seams of reality, dreamers bleeding into waking life, the veil between existing and ceasing-to-be pulled thin and gasping. too many gods had died lately. too many laws unmade. too many stories left untold.

and always, the pull had drawn you here. to him.

to morpheus.

you found him in the garden, just as you’d hoped and feared.

he turned toward you with a slowness that should’ve burned the world to cinders. for a long, heavy moment, neither of you spoke. the silence was not empty. it was dense. ancient. sacred.

you remembered how he had once looked at you, like the only truth worth speaking aloud.

now he looked at you like a memory he’d tried to drown.

and failed.

“still brooding, i see,” you said at last, your tone a silk-gloved blade.

his jaw ticked. “you are not welcome in the dreaming.”

“i didn’t come for welcome,” you said, stepping closer. “i came because the realms are bleeding. yours and mine.”

he was taller than you remembered. not in body, perhaps, but in presence. the grief had deepened him. carved the angles of his face into something more brutal, more brittle. and his eyes… they were galaxies rimmed in frost.

“this realm is not yours,” he said again.

you offered a quiet, tired smile. “no. but neither is the fracture that’s ripping through it. and yet… here we both are.”

he said nothing.

you saw the pain he tried to hide behind the silence. saw the wall he’d rebuilt stone by stone. once, you’d lived behind that wall. once, he had let you in. and once… you’d left.

you’d had to.

if you had stayed, you would have destroyed both your realms.

but gods were never good at forgiveness.

lucienne found you both beneath the crystal canopy of twilight, locked in stillness. she cleared her throat gently.

“quarters have been prepared,” she told you with a polite nod.

“thank you,” you said, without looking away from him.

her gaze shifted to dream. “you’ll work together, my lord?”

his lips barely moved. “she will not disrupt the dreaming.”

you gave a low, soft laugh. “don’t worry, dream. i only disrupt what’s already broken.”

his eyes darkened. you felt the press of storms in your blood.

lucienne blinked. “very well. i’ll… leave you to it.”

your quarters were too still.

nothing moved inside them. no flicker of candlelight. no humming walls. only silence and cool stone and books with blank spines. you sat on the edge of the long, obsidian bed and stared at the floor.

your skin itched with magic. with memory.

you hadn’t seen him in centuries. hadn’t heard his voice outside your dreams. you’d imagined this reunion so many times, had played it out with fury, with grief, with longing. and yet now, the only thing you felt was ache.

not sorrow.

just ache.

that slow, tight coil of something unfinished.

he didn’t sleep. not that night.

dream stood in the throne room, unmoving, a statue in a sea of myth. the palace was quiet around him. even the walls held their breath.

his thoughts tangled like vines:

her voice.

her presence.

her leaving.

he remembered the moment she vanished from his realm all those years ago, no war, no goodbye. only a decision. she had chosen her realm. her people. her purpose. and not him.

and yet…

he had never stopped dreaming of her.

in another wing of the dreaming, you stood at your balcony, the wind teasing at your hair. the stars above shimmered—dimmed—and pulsed again.

you closed your eyes and tried to pretend he hadn’t looked at you like that.

tried to pretend your heart didn’t still beat in time with his name.

in the dreaming, two immortals slept without sleeping.

two gods burned without flame.

and the threads of the cosmos twisted tighter.

waiting.

eekkk im so excited to be writing this fic!! i hope it turns out well and that it's enjoyable. thank yewww for reading!

Fred Weasley never told you how he felt.

Not when you bandaged his hand after a failed fireworks charm in fourth year.

Not when Snape paired you together in Potions and you spilled Amortentia all over his notes - and he didn’t care, because your laugh sounded exactly like the fizzing of a sweet joke just before it exploded.

Not even after the war, when you’d grown into your own kind of brilliant, training under the best curse-breakers while he rebuilt the shop and himself at the same time.

You were always in his orbit. Close enough to touch. But never quite his.

He flirted with everyone. Everyone except you.

Because it would have meant something. Too much.

So he didn’t say it.

Not until the day the curse made it impossible not to.

The last thing Fred remembered before the spell hit was the sound of George saying, “You absolute idiot, don’t eat that -”

Then:

Snap.

Spark.

Dark.

Then:

Truth.

The owl arrived with an irritated rattle of wings and an urgent red seal.

You barely glanced up at first - still hunched over a centuries old scroll, ink smudge on your fingers, neck aching from the angle you’d been craning for hours. You were in the middle of translating an ancient ward-breaking glyph from a Celtic tomb, halfway between brilliance and burnout.

But then your eyes caught the Ministry mark.

You unrolled the parchment with growing unease.

“Urgent magical accident. Diagon Alley. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Spontaneous compulsion spell - patient unable to lie. Curse-breaker assistance required immediately.”

When you saw the name, you cursed under your breath - not because it was Fred Weasley.

But because it was Fred Weasley.

You muttered something unprintable under your breath, grabbed your satchel, and Disapparated without even changing out of your work clothes.

Wind whipped at your scarf the moment you reappeared on the cobbled edge of Diagon Alley. The early evening air was brisk, tinged with wood smoke and the sugary scent of something exploding several doors down.

You climbed the stairs to the flat above with dread curling low in your stomach. You hadn’t seen Fred in months - not since that mutual friend’s wedding, where he’d danced like a man trying to forget something.

You hadn’t forgotten anything.

The door creaked open before you knocked.

“Of course it’s you,” Fred groaned, flopped across the old settee with one hand over his eyes. “Of all the curse-breakers in Britain…”

You dropped your bag by the fireplace and gave him a once-over: flushed cheeks, twitchy fingers, and a slightly panicked glint in his eyes.

“You look like hell,” you said flatly.

Fred blinked. “You smell amazing.”

A pause.

Your brow raised.

“I - I mean -” He turned desperately to George, who was seated on the armrest with a half-eaten Cauldron Cake. “See? I’m broken.”

George choked on his cake, coughing through a laugh. “Oh, he’s so broken.”

Fred didn’t stop talking for the next ten minutes.

It wasn’t that he meant to - in fact, you could see the moment he realized he couldn’t help it, eyes wide with horror as each confession tumbled out of his mouth like a poorly warded truth serum.

“I used to doodle your name and mine in the margins of my Charms notes but made them invisible.”

“I definitely faked a nosebleed once to get you to fix it. You touched my face. It was a whole thing.”

“I flirted with Angelina to distract from the fact that I was in love with someone else. Obviously, it didn’t work.”

You stared at him.

“I -” he began, horrified, “I didn’t mean to say that. Wait. No. I did. I just didn’t mean to say it now.”

You slowly closed your diagnostic journal and looked at him - not the patient, not the prankster, but the boy you used to pass notes to in the library. The boy you tried so hard to ignore, even when he sat two rows over, turning your insides to jelly every time he laughed.

“Well,” you said, rising to your feet, “this is going to be interesting.”

The day faded into a dusky blue-gray outside, street lamps flickering to life below the window. You’d stayed longer than you meant to - partly for professional reasons, partly because Fred had finally stopped talking and fallen asleep, and partly because…

Well.

Because being in that flat again felt like stepping backward into something half-familiar and half-forbidden.

You moved quietly through the room, setting up the last of the diagnostic wards around his bed for overnight monitoring. A soft glow followed your wand tip, encasing the mattress in a protective shimmer.

That’s when you saw it - a photo, old and curling at the edges, tucked just under his lamp.

You reached for it without thinking.

It was one of those enchanted prints from Hogwarts: you and Alicia laughing on the lawn, books open but forgotten. Behind you, Fred photobombed with both thumbs up, mid-wink, grinning like he knew a secret.

He’d cut the photo unevenly to frame just you.

He caught you looking.

“I’ve had that since sixth year,” he said softly. “I never showed anyone. George would’ve never let me live it down.”

Your fingers lingered on the edge of the photo. Something in your chest tightened - an old, bruised feeling you’d never let surface until now.

You remembered that day.

You remembered the way Fred kept circling, teasing Alicia, always just barely brushing by you.

You thought it was a coincidence.

But now… now you weren’t so sure.

Truth, unfortunately, doesn’t sleep.

You’d only been back at the Weasley flat for one day and already regretted not charging triple.

The spell was something you hadn’t seen in years - an ancient truth-compulsion enchantment originally designed by paranoid Ministry officials during the early wizarding trials. It latched onto emotion. Instinct. Buried thoughts.

It wasn’t just a compulsion to speak.

It was a pressure point in the soul - twisting at instinct and memory, unraveling the threads people usually kept hidden. The deeper someone buried a thought, the faster it rose to the surface. Emotion made it worse. Shame made it impossible. The spell clung to those things like a bloodhound with a grudge.

In short: Fred was a live wire with absolutely no filter.

And he hated it.

Morning light spilled through the window of the flat like a spotlight on bad decisions.

You were in the sitting room again, running another scan - wand calibrated to a specialized focus stone, fingers ready, voice neutral. Fred sat on the edge of the couch, slouched forward slightly with the grim posture of a man preparing to embarrass himself in real time.

He was trying not to look at you.

Bad idea.

“Honestly?” Fred muttered as you hovered a spell-focus over his chest to measure magical resistance, “I can feel your hand through my shirt and it’s killing me. Thought you should know. For science.”

You didn’t blink. “Noted.”

“You’re very professional. That’s frustrating.”

“You can stop talking any time.”

“I really can’t,” he said miserably. “Also, your hair looks really soft today.”

You dropped the focus on his stomach.

He wheezed.

You stepped back calmly, scribbled a note, and pretended not to notice the color blooming at the tops of his ears.

By mid-afternoon, the flat had grown stifling - too small, too loud, too filled with unsaid things that Fred might accidentally say. You relocated to the front of the shop under the guise of needing open space for magical threshold testing, but really, you just needed to breathe.

George had roped Lee Jordan into helping restock a shipment of Fainting Fancies, while you and Fred camped near the warded entrance with a stack of charm protocols and a battered diagnostic wand that sparked if you angled it wrong.

It was mostly boring.

Until you added a layered pressure charm - subtle, but enough to press against the edges of his aura, and casually asked, “How do you feel under magical strain?”

“Terrible,” he said automatically.

You nodded, taking notes.

He paused.

“Also I think about kissing you at least once a day, and it’s so inconvenient.”

You froze.

Fred’s eyes widened. “That wasn’t supposed to come out.”

You didn’t move..

“It’s not new,” he rushed on. “Since sixth year. That stupid Amortentia lesson Snape had us paired up in? Yours smelled like ink and cloves. Mine smelled like you.”

You looked up sharply.

Fred winced. “See? This is awful. You’re going to run back to the Ministry and leave me to rot.”

You let the silence stretch for just long enough to make him sweat.

Then, finally: “I’m not leaving,” you said, quiet but certain. “But you do need to shut up before you give yourself a heart attack.”

“Too late. Already dying. Will definitely haunt you.”

You shook your head, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re ridiculous.”

He smirked. “But charming.”

“Unfortunately.”

That night, the flat settled into a soft quiet - the kind that only comes after a day spent pretending not to feel what you’re feeling.

You stayed in the spare room, door slightly ajar. Moonlight filtered in through the window, painting silver lines across your notebook as you sat cross-legged on the bed, journal open, mind racing.

Fred had always been flirtatious - you knew that. He’d turned it into an art form. But this… this wasn’t practiced lines or clever banter. It was too raw. Too uncertain. Too honest.

He wasn’t performing anymore.

He was unraveling.

You traced the edge of the page in your journal, half-distracted.

You’d written his name dozens of times today.

Across the hall, Fred lay on his back, arms folded behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it might answer all the questions he was too afraid to ask out loud.

Somewhere between blurting out his feelings and realizing you hadn’t run screaming for the hills, something had shifted.

You weren’t just a memory of laughter in a Gryffindor common room anymore. You weren’t just a ghost from a chapter in his past.

You were here. Now.

And the truth was out in the open.

Fred wasn’t sure if that terrified him or freed him - maybe both - but one thing was certain:

He’d waited years to tell you any of this. And now that the dam had cracked, the only thing he wanted was to keep going.

Even if it killed him.

The day had been nonstop mayhem.

One of the Pygmy Puffs escaped. George accidentally sold a pair of reversible boxers that swapped genders and houses. And Fred? He knocked over an entire display of Banshee Buttons with his elbow, triggering a five-minute wail so loud it shattered two Sneakoscopes and scared a tourist into buying one.

You barely had time to recast the floor-warding spells before locking up.

Now, hours later, the three of you collapsed in the flat upstairs. The lights were low, the fire warm, and half-finished bottles of Firewhisky and butterbeer were scattered across the floor like trophies. You were curled up on the loveseat. Fred sat on the rug nearby, back against the sofa, legs stretched out. George was perched on the windowsill, swirling a cocktail that glowed faintly green.

“This batch might actually kill people,” he said cheerfully. “Which means it’ll sell brilliantly.”

You raised your butterbeer. “To war crimes in candy form.”

Fred clinked his bottle against yours. “Cheers.”

You were all exhausted, a little buzzed, and laughing in that slow, golden way that only happened late at night, when the chaos finally settled and the quiet came.

Which is exactly when George decided to ruin it.

“So,” he said casually, not looking up, “how long did your little school crush on Freddie here last?”

You blinked. Fred turned his head toward you, eyebrows lifting.

You scoffed. “What?”

“Oh come on,” George said. “Everyone knew. Back at school - all those stolen glances over cauldron smoke. The time you tripped over your own robes when he winked at you in Transfiguration?”

“I tripped because Ron threw a Quill-Chewing Chizpurfle at my head,” you muttered.

George smirked. “Right. Sure you did.”

You rolled your eyes. “It wasn’t a big deal. Everyone had a crush on Fred back then.”

Fred raised an eyebrow. “Did they?”

You waved it off, too quickly. “It was school. We were sixteen. It didn’t mean anything.”

The silence that followed landed like a hex.

You didn’t notice it at first - not until Fred sat up straighter. His drink hung forgotten in his hand.

When he spoke, his voice was too quiet to be casual.

“I certainly didn’t have a crush on you.”

You blinked. “What?”

He looked at you - really looked - and in the firelight, his eyes weren’t playful. They were glassy. Raw.

“It wasn’t a crush,” he said again. “A crush was what I had on Angelina in fourth year. It lasted three weeks and ended when she jinxed my eyebrows off. I had a crush on that Slytherin in fourth year who looked like she’d stab someone with a sugar quill.”

He gave a single, humorless laugh.

“You?” He ran a hand through his hair, searching for words. “You were different.”

George, to his credit, said nothing.

Fred turned back to you. His voice steadied - low, but certain.

“I noticed you before you ever noticed me. You were the one person I couldn’t joke with the same way - not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t trust myself. Because you mattered.”

Your breath caught.

“I used to memorize where you sat in class,” he said with a crooked smile. “So I’d know where not to sit. Being near you made me forget punchlines.”

Your heart was thudding now, traitorously loud.

“And during the Battle…” His voice faltered. “I didn’t see you at first. And then I did. You were hexing a Death Eater - twice your size, might I add - with your arm bleeding down to your fingertips, and you still yelled at me to keep moving.”

His voice cracked on the last word.

“I thought I was going to lose you. And that night, when you limped past me holding your wand like it was the only thing keeping you upright - I wanted to say something. Anything. I even wanted to kiss you. But I didn’t.”

Silence.

Then:

“I’ve been in love with you for a long time,” Fred said softly. “And now this bloody curse is dragging it out of me like some sort of humiliating game and - Merlin, I wish I’d just told you before. When it was mine to give.”

You stared at him, the past rewriting itself behind your eyes.

George stood quietly. “Right. I’m suddenly feeling very much… like I shouldn’t be here,” he muttered, disappearing down the hall with his drink and saintlike timing.

You were still staring.

“I thought you were just… Fred,” you said finally. “Friendly. Charming. Untouchable.” 

He looked at you then - broken open, not smiling.

“You were always the untouchable one.”

The flat was still.

Outside, Diagon Alley lay hushed beneath a soft coat of snow, the lamplight glinting off frost-laced eaves. Inside, the fire had dwindled to embers, casting sleepy gold shadows across the floorboards. Fred was curled on the couch beneath a frayed Gryffindor blanket, hands wrapped around a mug of cooling tea.

You sat beside him - not touching, but close enough to feel the space between you hum with everything unsaid.

Neither of you had spoken much since George had retreated to bed with an overly dramatic yawn and an oddly well-timed exit. That conversation - that confession - still hung in the air like dust, impossible to ignore.

You could feel Fred watching you from the corner of your eye.

But you didn’t look.

Not yet.

You were flipping through your spell journal, feigning focus, when Fred flinched.

Your head snapped up. “What was that?”

He winced, one hand going to his side. “Just a flare. Feels like something’s… pushing out.”

You shifted toward him instinctively. “You didn’t say anything earlier.”

“I didn’t want to -” He stopped, then gave a crooked smile. “Didn’t want to interrupt the awkward silence.”

You rolled your eyes, already tugging the blanket aside. Your fingers brushed the hem of his shirt.

“Lift up,” you murmured.

He obeyed.

Beneath his ribs, magic shimmered faintly beneath the skin - a bruised glow ripping with each breath.

You pressed your wand gently to its edge. “This’ll tingle.”

Fred didn’t flinch.

“I trust you,” he said.

You froze.

Just for a second.

Those words landed deeper than they had any right to.

Whether Fred noticed or not, he didn’t let on. He just watched you - quiet, steady, while you worked.

When the charm finished settling and the light faded, you lowered your wand and leaned back with a quiet breath.

“Thanks,” he said, still watching you like he wasn’t quite ready to stop.

“You should’ve told me it was getting worse.”

He shrugged. “I figured if I ignored it, it might go away.”

You gave him a look. “Has that ever worked?”

He huffed a soft laugh. “No. But that didn’t stop me from trying. With everything else, too.”

The fire crackled. SIlence stretched - not uncomfortable, but fragile.

Fred set down his mug, slowly, like it had become too heavy to hold.

“I thought if I told you,” he said, his voice quiet and raw, “I’d lose you.”

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“Back in school. After the battle. Even when you walked in yesterday. I thought if I said something real, it’d break whatever version of you I still had.”

You stared into the fire. Your chest ached.

“But now…” Fred exhaled, low and shaky. “Now I think I’m losing myself instead.”

You turned toward him.

Really turned.

Fred Weasley - the one who always had a joke, a smirk, an escape route - looked worn thin. Like the weight of years, of unspoken truths, had finally caught up.

“I didn’t want it to be a curse that made me say it,” he murmured. “But it did. And now you know. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

You hadn’t realized you were leaning in until you noticed the shift in his gaze - down, briefly, to your mouth.

His breath caught.

So did yours.

And for one suspended heartbeat, you both leaned closer.

Heat. Tension. Gravity.

But then -

Fred paused.

Just enough to pull back.

“Sorry,” he whispered, his eyes dropping.

You eased back too, your heart aching and alive.

“No,” you said softly. “Don’t be.”

Because you weren’t ready. Not yet. Not tonight.

But your hands still tingled from touching him.

And your chest was still tight from almost hearing everything you’d once told yourself not to hope for.

The room went quiet again.

But this time, the quiet wasn’t empty.

It was full of maybe.

And maybe it was almost loud enough to believe in.

The library at Grimmauld Place smelled like parchment and ghosts.

Dust curled in the corners. Enchanted books drifted lazily above their shelves, still dutiful after decades of neglect. Overhead, the chandelier flickered with an eerie blue light, casting shadows that shifted with the turn of every page.

You and Fred sat opposite each other at the long oak table, a fortress of books stacked between you - most cracked open to smudged entries on psychological hexes, emotional compulsion spells, and ancient, half-forgotten curses. The kind of magic people whispered about, but rarely wrote down.

Fred’s hair was a mess, and his jumper had a new hole scorched into the sleeve from a misfired detection charm. He looked exhausted.

You weren’t faring much better.

But there was something about this - about being here, late, together - that made the silence feel full rather than empty.

You ran a hand through your hair and murmured, “Found something.”

Fred glanced up.

You slid a battered tome across the table. The page was marked with a shaky scrawl and a rust-colored fingerprint. The entry read:

Spell Type: Veritas Malefica

Often mistaken for a standard truth compulsion. Rooted in grief-based magic.

Enchantment reacts violently to emotional suppression - not lies told to others, but lies told to oneself.

Fred blinked slowly. “What does that mean?”

You swallowed. “It means… the more you try to bury what you’re feeling - especially from yourself - the worse it gets.”

He leaned back, the realization settling like stones in his chest.

“So I’ve been making it worse,” he said, voice hollow. “Every time I pretended it didn’t matter. Every time I told myself it wasn’t -”

He didn’t finish.

You looked down at your hands. “You’re not cursed because you lied to other people, Fred. You’re cursed because you’ve been lying to yourself.”

The silence that followed wasn’t sharp - it was heavy. Knowing.

Then Fred laughed - just once. Bitter and tired.

“Of course it’s emotional repression. I couldn’t have just accidentally swallowed a cursed sweet like a normal idiot.”

You almost smiled. Almost.

But then: “There’s something else.”

He looked over.

You hesitated, then pushed forward. “I think I’m the trigger.”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“Every time the curse flares - it’s when I’m nearby. When I ask you something real. When we’re close.”

Fred stared at you.

Still, you didn’t stop.

“I’m not saying I’m bad for you. I’m saying… I’m the one person you’ve spent years pretending you didn’t feel anything for.”

His eyes dropped away. “Because if I didn’t pretend,” he said quietly, “I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

You nodded. “I know.”

Silence settled again - quieter now. Expectant.

And then you said it.

“I liked you too, you know.”

Fred’s head lifted. His gaze found yours - sharp. Breathless.

You weren’t smiling. You were just honest.

“I used to sit two rows behind you in Charms and laugh at your jokes - even the terrible ones. I’d take the long way to class if it meant running into you. I noticed when you stopped joking with me after sixth year. I noticed everything. But you never said anything, so I thought…”

“That it wasn’t real,” Fred finished, barely above a whisper.

You nodded.

A beat passed.

And then - Fred said the thing that mattered most:

“I think that’s when it started. The lie. The one I kept telling myself - that I didn’t feel anything. That you were just… someone I missed a chance with.”

Your breath caught.

Fred leaned in, just slightly, voice raw.

“And the more I lied, the worse it got. The more I smiled and flirted and joked like it didn’t mean anything… the louder it got inside my head. Until the curse made it impossible to ignore.”

You didn’t speak.

And, for once, neither did Fred.

He just looked at you - unguarded. Quiet. Like he was finally allowing himself to be seen.

The silence between you wasn’t heavy anymore.

It was warmer now.

Not because anything had been fixed.

But because nothing was hiding anymore.

The day after Grimmauld Place, something shifted.

Not in a catastrophic way. No slammed doors. No shouting. No curses gone awry.

Just… distance.

You weren’t cold. You weren’t avoiding him - not outright. But Fred felt it. In the extra beat between your replies. In the way your laughter skimmed the surface but never quite sank. In how your hands were always busy - labeling jars, reorganizing shelves, rereading the same page for the third time.

And Fred - who had spent most of his adult life performing noise in place of honesty - didn’t know how to survive the quiet.

So he filled it.

Poorly.

By midday, he was back to tossing out jokes. Half-hearted ones. Ones with all the punch of a wet sparkler.

“Careful with that,” he said, nodding at a crate of Sneezing Sparkles. “Wouldn’t want you bursting into glitter again. Not without warning me first. I need time to emotionally prepare.”

You didn’t look up. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Fred winced. He couldn’t tell if you were irritated, distracted, or just… elsewhere.

He hated it.

He hated not knowing.

By the time you’d locked up for the night, the air between you was taut - stretched thin by all the things unsaid.

Fred lingered behind the counter, pacing. You were counting inventory. Precisely. Methodically. Like precision could protect you.

“You’re not… avoiding me, are you?”

You glanced up. “No.”

He nodded too fast. “Right. Cool.”

You went back to counting. “I just needed space.”

“From me?”

You hesitated. “From everything.”

Fred leaned against the doorframe, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Is this about what I said?”

You didn’t answer.

Which, of course, made it worse.

Fred smiled - the brittle kind, the kind that hurt to wear. “Because I can take it back, you know. If that’s what you need. The curse is still having a laugh - I’ll probably say something worse tomorrow. Might as well get ahead of it.”

You closed the ledger. “Fred -”

“No, seriously,” he cut in, too fast, too loud. “We’ll pretend none of it happened. I’ll go back to flirting and making things weird in a fun way. We’ll rewind. Reset. Or maybe -” He laughed, sharp and thin. “Maybe I’ll just stop talking altogether. That seems safer.”

You stared at him. “That’s not fair.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, voice rising. “But neither is falling in love with someone who’s not ready to hear it.”

The words echoed - harsh and hollow.

Fred froze, eyes wide, as if he’d just heard himself speak.

You swallowed. “Fred…”

“I didn’t mean to -” He stopped. Exhaled. Then, quietly, “No. I did. I meant to say it. I’m not sorry.”

You didn’t move.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he said again, softer. “And I hate that I didn’t say it years ago. Before the shop. Before the war. Before I was a complete and total jackass to you in school. Before I let a damn curse speak for me.”

The room went still.

And you?

You didn’t say it back.

Not because it wasn’t true. Not because you didn’t want to.

But because you weren’t ready.

The words were there - somewhere beneath your ribs, curled like a secret. But they hadn’t found their shape yet. They hadn’t learned how to stand.

And Fred - as much as it ached - deserved more than almost.

So you looked at him - open, aching, real - and said:

“...I can’t say it right now. Not like this.”

Fred didn’t speak. Just nodded. Once. Slow and sharp, like something cracking.

Then he turned away.

That night, the flat was quiet again.

But this time, it wasn’t full of maybe.

It was full of waiting.

The ancient ritual site felt like it was holding its breath.

A ring of weathered stones stood half-sunken in the frostbitten earth, their surfaces carved with runes long faded by time but not by meaning. The clearing was silent, save for the whisper of the wind through the bare trees - a hush that felt less like absence and more like reverence.

You stood with Fred in the center of the circle, boots crunching softly against brittle grass rimmed with ice. The winter air curled at your sleeves and stung your nose, but the real chill came from the magic itself - thick and waiting, like fog with a heartbeat.

Above, the sky stretched iron-gray, heavy with unshed snow. The clouds did not move. The world did not move. It was as if everything - time, wind, fate - had stilled to bear witness.

You turned to him, wand at your side. He hadn’t spoken since you both Apparated. Just stood beside you, solid and tense, like he was bracing for something he couldn’t name.

“This is the last chance to back out,” you said softly.

Fred shook his head, jaw tight. “I don’t want to be forced anymore. Not even into the truth.”

You searched his face, looking for doubt. All you found was exhaustion - and resolve.

“Even if that means you don’t say it again?” you asked, voice low. “Even if that disappears with the spell?”

A beat passed.

Then: “I’ll say it again,” Fred said, almost in a whisper. “I’ll say it as many times as you can bear. As long as you let me.”

It nearly undid you - the quiet certainty in him. The gentleness. How hard he was trying not to sway you.

You raised your wand.

Your hand trembled as you drew the final rune, its golden light blooming to life beneath your feet. A delicate warmth pulsed outward - soft, not showy. No sparks. No lightning. Just a subtle kind of release, like a breath held for too long finally leaving the body.

Fred gasped - once, sharply - and staggered a step back. Then stilled.

The pressure - that slow, suffocating undertow he’d learned to live with - had vanished.

No more tug beneath his magic.

No more invisible leash between his chest and his tongue.

It was gone.

And what remained was just him.

Unfiltered. Unbound.

Uncertain.

He looked up at you, and something in his face had shifted. Not dramatically - but undeniably. His eyes, usually full of mischief or guarded deflection, were open in a way you hadn’t seen before. Vulnerable. Luminous.

Like someone standing in the wreckage of something invisible but heavy - and trying to figure out what to do with the air that came rushing in.

You didn’t speak.

Neither did he.

Because the spell was broken.

But the moment wasn’t.

You didn’t want to rush it. Didn’t want to shutter the fragile, aching stillness. So you stood there, breathing the same winter air, magic still humming faintly beneath your boots, waiting to see what - if anything - would come next.

Nothing did.

Fred offered a faint, searching smile - one that didn’t ask for anything, only promised.

Then he turned, and you followed him home.

Back at the flat, the silence continued - softer now, but not without weight. You sat on the edge of your bed, coat still buttoned, staring at the floor like it might offer answers.

Fred had gone to his room without a word. Not out of coldness. Just… to give you space. To let the choice be yours now.

And that was what gutted you most.

Because for so long, he had been the one stuck between wanting and not being able to say it. He had been cursed, compelled, uncertain.

Now, he was free.

And you were the one who didn’t know what to say.

You paced the length of your room, again and again, like maybe motion could organize the ache in your chest. Like maybe you’d trip over the answer in your own footsteps.

The curse was gone. You’d done what you came to do. You’d given him back his voice.

So why did it feel like you were the one unraveling?

Because he hadn’t said it again.

Hadn’t kissed you.

Hadn’t needed to.

And still - still - you felt the gravity of him in every breath. Still, your bones ached with the pressure of something half-formed.

The truth?

You wanted to run to his door and say it first.

But you didn’t know how.

The words lived inside you now - no longer curled and waiting like they had been. They were restless. Rising. Trying to find shape in a mouth that wasn’t ready to give them sound.

You pressed a hand to your chest. It felt like mourning something you hadn’t even lost. Like standing at the edge of a choice so big, you couldn’t see where it ended.

Because the spell was broken.

But your heart was still spellbound.

And for the first time in all of this…

The choice - terrifying, impossible, real - was yours.

The snow had stopped sometime after sundown, leaving Diagon Alley blanketed in a hush that felt almost reverent. The night sky stretched out in every direction — wide, open, impossibly clear — the stars above pricking like tiny wounds in navy velvet. Below, the last shops were shuttering, the alley buzzing faintly with the warmth of distant laughter and clinking glass.

But up here, it was quiet. Up here, it was just you and him.

Fred stood near the edge of the rooftop, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat, his breath curling into soft clouds that disappeared into the night. He looked different now — not visibly, not in any way you could point to — but something in his posture had changed. It was like he’d dropped something heavy that had been pulling him sideways for months, and now he was learning how to stand up straight again.

He didn’t hear you at first. Or maybe he did, and just didn’t know what to say.

You let the silence stretch.

It was the first time in ages he wasn’t being pulled by magic — wasn’t under its thumb, its push, its pressure. For the first time, everything he felt was real. Every look. Every word. Every breath between us.

And that meant he had to choose now. Really choose.

You stepped closer.

He turned at the sound, his gaze finding yours fast — startled, raw, searching. Like he wasn’t sure what he’d see when he looked at you. Like part of him was still afraid you wouldn’t come.

But you had.

“Hey,” he said, soft.

“Hey.”

You moved to stand beside him, your coat brushing his, your fingers twitching at your sides with nerves you hadn’t expected. The wind had teeth, but you barely felt it.

The weight between you wasn’t a curse anymore. It was something else now. Something human.

“Cold up here,” he said, his voice too casual, too quiet.

You smiled faintly. “Didn’t think you’d mind. You used to say the cold made you feel alive.”

He huffed a laugh, something wistful and a little hollow. “Yeah. That was before I knew what feeling alive actually felt like.”

You turned to look at him — really look. “How does it feel now?”

Fred hesitated. Then, slowly, he met your eyes.

“Loud,” he said. “Like everything’s louder. Brighter. Sharper.”

“And scary?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. That too.”

You could see it — the flicker of uncertainty. He wasn’t hiding behind jokes or masks. There was no spell smoothing the way, no magic buffering the vulnerability. It was just Fred. Scared. Honest. Free.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you said. “I just wanted to be here. To see you. You.”

Fred blinked, jaw tightening. “But I want to say it.”

Your heart skipped.

“I’ve wanted to say it for a while,” he continued. “Even when I wasn’t sure if it was me or the curse talking. And when we broke it, I thought… if it was real, it would still be there. And it is. It is.”

He took a shaky breath. “I love you.”

The words fell out in the quiet like they belonged there. Like they’d been waiting for the right moment to land.

You didn’t answer right away.

You stepped forward, slow and steady, until there was barely space between you. Then you slipped your hands into his coat, fingers wrapping around his — solid, grounding.

“I know,” you said gently. “And I believe you now.”

Fred’s eyes filled. He laughed — a watery, disbelieving thing — and then leaned his forehead against yours.

“No magic,” he whispered.

“No magic,” you echoed.

Just breath and cold and stars. Just you and him and the night around you holding its breath.

And then, you kissed him.

Soft, certain. Real.

It wasn’t a rush or a rescue. It wasn’t a promise or an apology. It was a beginning — honest and slow, stitched together with everything you’d fought for.

Fred kissed you back like he finally had permission to feel — really feel. His hands rose to your waist, your cheek, your jaw, not desperate but careful. Like he didn’t want to forget a single detail.

When you finally pulled apart, just enough to breathe, your foreheads stayed pressed together. You could feel him smile, wide and shaky and undone.

“Still cursed,” he said, voice barely there.

You blinked. “What?”

He smiled wider. “Hopelessly. By you.”

You laughed against his lips. “You idiot.”

“You love me anyway,” he said.

You kissed him again.

Not because a spell told you to.

But because you’d fought for this.

And it was yours now.

in the shadowy depths of the night, you lie awake on the cold ground, an unsettling awareness creeping into your bones. the usual chorus of nighttime creatures is unnaturally quiet, amplifying the ominous feeling that coils within you. as you shift uneasily, your gaze lands on a familiar figure standing slightly apart from the group.

you swallow hard, a sense of unease prickling at your skin. “sanemi...” you begin, your voice barely rising above a whisper, “is everything alright?”

he lets out a scoff, a rough edge to his voice as he crosses his arms, “what do you think? monsters don’t take a break just because it’s night. you should be vigilant.”

you know he’s right; demons are always lurking. but it feels different coming from him, the way he scorns anything that resembles weakness. you can’t help but feel a mix of admiration and intimidation. “you should take a break too, you know. you can’t fight if you’re exhausted.”

sanemi’s eyes narrow, and for a moment, it seems like he might snap at you. but then he relaxes his stance slightly. “i don’t need your concern. i’m strong enough to handle myself.”

“maybe, but even the strongest need rest. it’s not a sign of weakness to acknowledge your limits,” you reply, deciding to challenge him. there’s a fire within you that wants to connect, to break through his hardened exterior.

“limits get you killed. this world won’t coddle you, and neither will i,” he shoots back, his voice low and fierce, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that suggests you might have made him think for just a moment.

“maybe,” you say slowly, “but pushing yourself too far can have its consequences too. you’re human, you know?”

“human?” he barks out a laugh, but it’s hollow. “what does that even mean anymore? i’m a hashira. we fight the demons when others run and hide.”

“yes. and you’re incredible at it,” you say, a genuine note of admiration in your tone. “but everyone—even you—needs a moment to breathe. you can’t fight the wind forever, sanemi.”

he turns, his expression softening just a fraction, and for the first time, you glimpse the weight he carries. “you think you know me?” his voice is quieter now, more contemplative.

“i know that you carry more than just your sword,” you reply, meeting his gaze. “you carry a burden that’s not yours to bear alone.”

sanemi looks away, eyes scanning the tree line as if he’s searching for something. “this isn’t about me,” he says, almost defensively. “i’m here to keep everyone safe. it doesn’t matter what i feel.”

“then why do you look so tired?” you press. “you don’t have to be alone in this. let someone in for once.”

he shifts uncomfortably, and you can literally see the gears grinding in his mind. “you think that i trust anyone?” he lets out a bitter chuckle, shaking his head. “trust is a luxury i can’t afford.”

“i thought trust was something built over time,” you counter, your heart racing at the thought that you might be getting through to him. “you don’t have to do this on your own. just—let me help.”

in that moment of sincerity, you see a glimmer of vulnerability in his fierce demeanor. “help?” he muses, his voice softening further. “you think you can help me?”

“yeah,” you reply. “i believe everyone deserves someone to rely on, even the strongest warrior.”

sanemi looks down, the firelight creating shadows across his sharp features. “don’t let my weakness drag you down. i’m not worth it.”

“you’re worth more than you know,” you insist, taking a step closer. “you might think you’re invincible, but everyone has walls. it’s brave to let someone see through them.”

he meets your gaze, and for a heavy moment, it feels like everything hangs in the balance. “what if i falter?” he finally asks, the slightest tremor in his voice.

“then i’ll help you stand back up,” you promise, resolve hardening in your chest. “you don’t have to do this alone, sanemi.”

he hesitates, searching your eyes for something—an answer, perhaps. then, with a deep breath, the tension in his shoulders eases, if only slightly.

“damn it, you’re infuriating,” he mutters, a hint of amusement breaking through his tough facade. “fine. just... don’t get in my way when it’s time to fight.”

you grin, sensing the tiniest crack in his armor. “deal. just let me in once in a while, alright?”

with a reluctant nod, a flicker of a smile ghosts across his lips, but it’s enough—enough to know you’ve made a small difference in the life of a man who so often stands alone in the tempest.

“Hey, doll,” he says softly. “You with me?”

You blink, then look down at the shattered glass and the crimson that’s started to bead along your wrist. “Oh. Yeah. I—uh. Dropped it.”

Bucky’s jaw tightens. “Looks like it.”

He reaches out, and you flinch before you can stop yourself. His hand hesitates mid-air, and that’s when you do what you always do — the thing that’s kept people from looking too closely your whole life.

You laugh.

It bursts out sharp and wrong, bouncing off the tile and metal. You sound like someone told a bad joke. Bucky’s brows furrow.

“Hey. That’s not funny, sweetheart.”

“I know, I know,” you say quickly, smiling like you’re trying to defuse a bomb. “It’s just—look at me, right? Can’t even make a sandwich without turning the kitchen into a crime scene.”

He doesn’t smile back. “You’re bleeding.”

You shrug, pressing your palm against the cut. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” His voice stays gentle, but there’s something in it—something steady and immovable. He grabs a towel and kneels beside you. “Let me see.”

When his fingers brush your wrist, you tense again. His warmth is too much, his concern worse. You can’t remember the last time someone looked at you like you were allowed to fall apart.

Bucky cleans the cut in silence. You watch him, jaw tight, fighting the impulse to make another joke. He’s so patient it’s unnerving.

“Doesn’t even hurt,” you say. “I think it looks worse than it is.”

“Doesn’t matter if it hurts,” he murmurs. “You’re still allowed to feel it.”

You roll your eyes. “That sounds like something out of a therapy workbook.”

He huffs a small laugh, but it’s sad. “Yeah, maybe. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

The thing that “happened” — the thing you won’t let yourself talk about — had nothing to do with the jar. That’s just how it manifested.

The real thing happened the night before. You were walking home when a guy grabbed your bag, shoved you hard enough that your knees hit concrete. You remember the sound of your phone shattering, the scuff of his shoes as he ran off. You remember the world narrowing to a tunnel, your breath loud in your ears, and then nothing but this weird, calm blankness.

You didn’t cry. Didn’t shake. You just picked up the pieces of your phone, tossed them in the trash, and went home.

And now, twelve hours later, you’re sitting in the wreckage of a kitchen trying to convince yourself the only thing broken is a jar of marinara.

Bucky finishes bandaging your hand. His metal thumb smooths the edge of the gauze. “Want to tell me what’s really going on?”

You blink. “What do you mean?”

He looks up, eyes steady. “You’ve been quiet since last night.”

You shrug, staring past him. “Just tired.”

“Doll.” His voice dips, the kind of low that doesn’t demand, just invites. “You don’t have to pretend.”

“Not pretending.” You smile again, but it’s brittle. “I’m fine, Buck. Promise.”

He leans back on his heels, studying you like he’s trying to solve an equation. “You know what you do, right? When things get too real?”

You frown. “What are you talking about?”

“You laugh.”

You snort. “That’s—God, that sounds so dramatic.”

“Yeah, maybe.” His tone stays calm, but it lands heavy. “But it’s true.”

He sits down beside you, back against the cabinet. You stare at the opposite wall because looking at him feels too raw.

“My ma used to say laughter’s the best medicine,” you mumble. “Guess I just took it a little too literally.”

“Or maybe you just learned early that crying doesn’t fix anything.”

That one hits too close. You swallow. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Barnes.”

He doesn’t apologize. “You think it makes you weak? Being sad?”

You hesitate, then whisper, “It’s useless. Doesn’t change what happened.”

“No,” he says. “But it lets you breathe through it.”

You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, eyes stinging in a way you hate. “If I start, I might not stop.”

“Then I’ll stay ‘til you do.”

That’s the thing about Bucky — he doesn’t push, but he doesn’t leave, either. He just… stays.

You feel his shoulder brush yours, solid and warm. It’s not the kind of touch that asks for anything. It just says I’m here.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The clock ticks. The fridge hums. The smell of tomatoes and dust fills the air.

Then, quietly, you say, “Someone tried to mug me last night.”

His whole body goes still.

“What?”

You rush to fill the silence. “It wasn’t bad. He just—took my bag. I’m fine. Really. See?” You wave your bandaged hand like it’s proof.

Bucky exhales slowly, like he’s forcing himself not to react too much. “Did you call anyone? The cops?”

“No. It’s not worth it. I’m okay.”

He turns to you fully, voice low. “That’s not okay, sweetheart.”

And that’s when it cracks.

Not all the way — just a fracture, small enough that you barely feel it until the air gets too thick and your throat burns.

You laugh again, the sound strangled and watery. “God, you’re looking at me like I’m supposed to cry or something.”

“It’s okay if you do,” he says.

You shake your head, smile stretching thin. “I don’t—know how.”

He sighs, then shifts closer, wrapping an arm around you. The metal one, cool and grounding. You stiffen at first, but he doesn’t pull back.

“You don’t have to force it,” he murmurs. “You just have to let yourself feel whatever’s there. Even if it’s nothing right now.”

Your hands twist in your lap. “I hate this.”

“I know.”

You breathe, shallow at first, then deeper. The sound that leaves you next isn’t quite a sob, but it’s close — a cracked inhale, a tremor. It surprises you more than him.

Bucky’s hand slides up to your shoulder. “There you go,” he whispers. “That’s it. Just breathe.”

And for the first time in a long time, you do.

It’s not pretty. It’s not cinematic. You don’t dissolve into tears or fall into his chest. You just sit there — shaking, blinking too fast, eyes glassy but dry.

He doesn’t tell you to cry again. He just presses a kiss to the side of your head and keeps his arm around you, like he’s anchoring you back to the world.

Eventually, you let yourself lean into him. Just a little. Just enough.

There can be a range of signs that may indicate that you repress your emotions. These signs can be grouped into particular behaviors, ways of thinking, and ways of relating to yourself and others.

Patterns of Thinking

You believe negative emotions are something bad, weak, or embarrassing.

You believe negative emotions should not be expressed.

You believe that you never struggle with negative emotions and describe yourself as feeling ‘fine.’

Patterns of Behaving and Relating to Yourself

You ignore and push away negative thoughts and emotions.

You avoid and distract from your negative thoughts and emotions by turning toward numbing and escaping behaviors such as drinking and using substances, binge eating, watching tv, playing computer games, or overworking.

You find it difficult to recognize and admit that things in your life are harming you.

You find yourself at times erupting because of built-up emotions.

You focus more on your physical wellbeing.

Patterns of Behaving and Relating to Others

You generally do not like to be asked how you feel.

You put on a positive front in front of others; do not express negative emotions.

You get along well with people but struggle with emotional intimacy and close friendships.

You feel uncomfortable with and struggle to tolerate people who are emotional and express negativity, and you try to shift focus to the positive.

Just because a person represses negative emotions does not mean their emotions disappear.

People who repress their emotions tend to focus on their physical health and seek physical health solutions for emotional health problems (Abbass, 2005).

Just like a physical wound may fester and become infected if left untreated, the accumulation of unaddressed emotions can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression. The increase in cortisol that comes with stress (Patel & Patel, 2019) can lead to changes in heart rate, motivation, and sleep (Cote, 2005).

As people who repress their emotions may struggle to cope, they may use unhealthy short-term coping strategies such as:

Overeating

Substance abuse

Medication noncompliance (Abbass, 2005)

There are links between emotional repression and the development of physical health problems such as:

Colds (Pennebaker, 1997)

Chronic pain (Beutler, Engle, Oro-Beutler, Daldrup, & Meredith, 1986)

Heart disease (Myers, 2010)

A lowered immune system that can increase the risks of developing other health conditions such as cancer (Weihs, Enright, Simmens, & Reiss, 2000)

Emotional repression may also restrict people’s ability to connect intimately with others in their life because of insensitivity to negative emotions and difficulty tolerating negative emotions and being around others when they are emotionally suffering.

Simultaneously, it may be difficult for individuals to be authentic.

They may resist opening up and being vulnerable to others, causing their relationships to be distant and avoidant.