by the water

when she pulled back and moved away from him, he could’t help but to wonder why. she was leaning into him moment ago, and now if felt like there was a wall between the two of them. she was looking at him like she didn’t even know him, like she was… disappointed. he thought that things would be like old times, that she would hold him close and they could enjoy this moment together. now even though they were a couple inches away, it felt like they were miles apart. he pulled back his arm and rested an arm behind his head instead. he tried to study her face once again and she just looked numb to the whole situation. it was like she didn’t mind this space between the two of them. all he wanted was for things to e back to normal, but maybe she didn’t want things to be back to normal. maybe she really wanted him to move on, and maybe she did as well. as much as he didn’t want to, maybe he should have. his heart was here, but his heart wasn’t wanted anymore. she was pushing his heart away and he didn’t know what to do anymore. 

she was explaining her condition and he was so thankful that all of this was just temporary. he could remember when she couldn’t speak correctly and he sat right there in that chair next to her. when he wasn’t working, he was there. hell he even slept over here when his mother was worried about him staying there so long. “i could still read them to you until you get back to normal, no worries.” he said with a little shrug of his shoulders. maybe she didn’t want him there, he’d understand if she didn’t. he didn’t have much time on his hands anyway. they had him running all over the hospital helping everyone out, thankfully now he was getting paid for it. her eyes turned away from him, and he slowly got out of her bed since he assumed that she didn’t want him there. her whole mood changed and it was like she was giving him the cold shoulder. again, he a bit awkward about all of this. no one was smiling, no one was laughing, which was strange for the two of them but this was now supposed to be their new normal. 

as he finally got out of her bed, he ran a hand through his hair and went to slip his shoes back on so he could head out. there wasn’t much else to say here, especially since she didn’t seem to want him around. “i… uh i’m just gonna head out. you wanna be alone, i get it. i gotta get back to work anyway.” he said with a little shrug of his shoulders before giving her a little wave. “i’ll see you around, and if you still want me to read you that book, just give me a call.” 

as much as she’d tried to repress her memories of the hospital and how miserable it always made her, the emotions were brought to the forefront of her mind immediately and she realized it was impossible for her to try and forget this  ━ especially because she no longer had jon at her side, which made everything exponentially wrong. her old nurse, betty, quickly took back over her care once it became apparent that she wouldn’t be leaving any time soon, and mari was thankful to at least have one familiar face. it helped that betty knew everything about her and jon, and how it had all unfolded, so she answered all of the subtle questions mari asked about him without so much as a second thought. she managed to gather that jon wasn’t seeing anyone new, and that he was doing well in his new position at the hospital  ━ two things that made her happy, though one was more surprising than the other. it had been no wonder that jon was excelling in the hospital, especially without her there to consume his time, but she had trouble believing that there was nobody new in his life. 

betty offered, a few times, to ask jon to take over a vitals check for her if mari wanted him around but didn’t know how to ask. it was kind, and she did want him around, but she didn’t know if she could do that to him again. he seemed to be doing okay without her, and she didn’t want to put him in that position, especially because he was too gentle and too sweet to do anything but be kind to her. then she’d just be setting herself back by remembering all the reasons she never fell out of love with him in the first place, and would be making him uncomfortable. 

avery finally settles himself next to her, blush rising from his chest onto his cheeks. “thank you, for doing that. you didn’t have to, but i’m so grateful you did. i.. our own little girl. and.. she knows who i am, or at least parts of me.” he’ll take it. he can’t believe that a few hours ago he was in another state, didn’t even know of this baby, contemplating on coming over here or not. he wanted to see mariana, he know he needed to, but didn’t want to burst into her life and mess it up once again. he’d left her before, why should she let him back in? countless nights he’d spent up writing letters to her he’d never sent, knowing that asking her for a long distance relationship was too much, and another shot was even worse to ask for. but now, he can’t help but want it. he wants them, together, maybe even her and the baby violet. traveling with him, seeing him play. he doesn’t want to miss another moment of this little sunshine’s life, but he knows he’s got other commitments, like an upcoming tour in a few months. “you like the hair?” he’d always teased her about growing his hair out, and this year he finally did. while on tour, he decided to stop cutting his hair and letting it flow to his shoulders. it felt nice, right even to have it. he felt more like himself, though that could just be the hair-driven confidence speaking. “i’m sure i’m a right mess right about now, after the plane and the drive here.”

“she’s… i know i just met her but i love her…” he presses a kiss to the baby’s forehead before standing and putting her in her pack and play, draping a small blanket over her. his green eyes stay held on her for a moment longer before he turns around, back to the woman who was once his. the mother of his child. the once love of his life. he hadn’t moved on, hadn’t had time to even think about it. but maybe she did. maybe there was someone else in the picture. someone who got to hold his baby and see his baby, love his lover because he was too selfish to be there. he couldn’t help the way his mind wandered to the what ifs and what could have been. if only he’d stayed home. they’d be happily raising this beautiful baby girl together in their own place. “how have you been?” he asks instead, settling on what’s happening now. what he can change. what he can do to be a father to his baby. a lover to the woman of his dreams, the woman he’d wrote countless songs about and belted lyrics for time and time again on stages in front of thousands. “you look amazing. really. you don’t even look like you had a baby. you look as amazing as the last time I saw you.”

“you were only trying to help.” he sighs, free hand running over his face. “I’m not.. I’m not mad at you. just frustrated that i wasn’t here.” he says softly, patting the seat next to her. “come here, please? i miss you, and i’d get up but someone’s awfully comfy.” he offers a small smile, trying to prove he isn’t mad at her. he really isn’t. he knows if he was in her shoes he would’ve done the same thing. it wasn’t fair for him to expect her to include him in her life. especially after he’d ended things. it was mutual, at least it seemed that way. they’d agreed long distance wasn’t for them, and he’d be back in a year. they could try again if they wanted to but if not, she knew avery would always love her. he didn’t write song after song about a girl with beautiful brown curls because they were catchy. no, he wrote them because he meant every last word and loved her with every bit of his heart. “i wasn’t there to sign her birth certificate.. can we fix that? can I… i want to be her dad, not just her father.” and his words were meaningful. he wanted to be more than the man who helped create her. he wanted to be a part of the little girl’s life. he was ready for the changes it meant. 

if his heart wasn’t fully broken before, it was now. just seeing her break down crushed him. in all of their time together, he hadn’t seen her cry like that before. sure he knew how to comfort her, but this was a whole new situation. not only that, but they weren’t together. he couldn’t pull her close to his chest, kiss the top of her head and make her feel better. “stop… c’mon mar.” he muttered as he got up to clean her face a bit and to help her stop crying. would she even want him to help her? she was the one that pushed him away. she was the one that didn’t want him near her and told him that they should part ways. his eyes went a bit wide when she said she couldn’t read anymore, since now he felt like an ass for bringing a book. he didn’t know, but there he was almost rubbing it in her face that she wasn’t able to. he set the book on the side away from her and finished cleaning all of the tears that were streaming down her face. 

“alright, move over.” jon muttered as he kicked his shoes off and moved to lay in her hospital bed with her. he used to do this all of the time, and honestly he missed it. hopefully she didn’t think it was weird, but at the end of the day, they were friends first before anything. he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulled her close to his chest and gently started to ru her back. he wanted to calm her down, and hopefully it would work. “you’re my best friend, mar. that means i’m gonna sit here with you, until you feel better.” he could push his feelings aside this time and just make sure that he was alright. part of him just wished he could fix all of this. he wished he could study with the doctors and bring her some sort of good news, but he wasn’t allowed to poke his head in too much. thankfully he was allowed to read a couple of files and work on some cases that weren’t too serious, but he knew they would never let him touch mari’s file. 

“i can read to you if you want. i can make all the voices and everything, it would be pretty funny.” he said with a chuckle in hopes to at least get her to smile a bit. would her vision come back? he had no idea. maybe when she felt better it would, he didn’t know since this recently happened. “i don’t wanna get rid of you.” he muttered as he caught her eyes. “i’m gonna be here, i promise. even if you don’t want me to, i’m gonna check in because… i just gotta make sure that you’re alright.” he said as he shrugged his shoulders a little bit. 

maybe she shouldn’t have let jon so close again. it seemed like every time she tried to pull away from him, every time she tried to remove herself from his life for his own good, he somehow managed to reverse it all and put them back to where they started... or, maybe, back to where they belonged. she couldn’t deny that she was in love with him. of course she was. and she would never, in good consciousness, be able to say anything otherwise, so she would instead choose to say nothing at all. and so she didn’t. she was silent when he moved his way into bed with her, she was silent when he got his arm around her and pulled her close to him, and she was silent when she gave into the desire deep in her heart and buried her face into his chest, her good hand moving to wrap around his torso and grasp at his scrubs. the only noises she was making were a few little sniffles as she got the last of her tears out, but--like always--being this close to jon calmed her down more than anything else could. 

but then he was saying it. he was her best friend. best friend. the words made her stiffen a little bit, because even though it was her own idea to break up with him, and her own idea that he should be with someone better for him, it stung more than she thought it would to realize that maybe he did. she was his best friend now, and that was it. she wasn’t his girlfriend, she wasn’t his soulmate, she wasn’t anything special anymore. he probably didn’t even love her in the same way anymore. she forced herself to pull back and to let go, unable to sit that close to him with the image of jon and some other girl in her mind. the book was a friendly gesture, an olive branch, just like him trying to comfort her. plus he worked here, and it was his job to take care of the patients. she wasn’t special anymore.

avery sits himself down carefully, as to not jostle the baby too much. she’s resorted to chewing on her hand and while normally the thought would repulse avery, its incredibly endearing coming from his little flower. her button nose too cute for him to not adore, he was convinced she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. “you… you know i would’ve come home.” he says softly, “you know that, don’t you? if you would’ve told me. you should have told me. i.. i missed seeing my daughter’s birth, holding her, changing her first diaper…” he couldn’t help his anger beginning to boil over. “i know you thought you were doing what’s right, but it wasn’t fair to me. to keep her from me. she’s just as much my baby as she is yours. how will i explain to her that i wasn’t there when she was born? that i wasn’t there through any of the pregnancy? i.. i never had a chance to.” he glances up, only now noticing her tears. he’d feel bad if he didn’t have his own welling in his eyes. his first child, here in his arms, but he’d missed the chance to experience so much. “i could’ve been there.”

avery follows her inside, looking around a bit. it was just as he’d left it. well, for the most part. there were baby toys and a blanket on the floor, a swing in the corner, but save that, it was as if he’d never left. never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d come home to this. it was a blessing, he knew, for her to have a healthy little baby with her being sick. he’d never felt so happy in his life. playing sold out stadiums and signing autographs were nothing compared to this moment as his shaking hands take the baby- his baby- from her hands. he cradles her, keeping her head supported as he smiles down at the infant. “my god, she’s gorgeous.” avery coos, green eyes welling with tears of joy. “my sweet little violet.” he can’t help the laugh that bubbles from his lips as she smiles up at him, reaching for his hair. “i- i don’t know what to say. i..” he never wants this moment to end, never wants to let go of her, never wants to spend another moment away. this is what it was all about, the moment he’d been unknowingly waiting for his entire life. he felt whole, like nothing in the world mattered quite as much as his bouncing baby girl.

it broke jon’s heart to see her like this. it always did. seeing her all laid up in the hospital bed looking so defeated when he knew how strong she was. he would never wish something like this upon his worst enemy since he saw how something like this just took the spirit and life out of someone. he had this hope in the back of his mind that if she stayed out of the hospital long enough, that the two of them would be able to get back together. the reason why she broke up with him in the first time was be cause she was so sick and she didn’t want to break his heart. little did she know that she was breaking it so much by doing something like this. she would be out and healthy, he had this job, nothing could go wrong in his eyes. now she was laying here back in her bed looking horrible and he just saw his dreams shatter. she looked worse then the last time she was there, and although he didn’t know much about her condition he just hoped that it wasn’t getting worse. a beautiful soul like hers shouldn’t be trapped in here like this. he just hoped that one day she would be able to live once again. he wanted her to smile, to laugh, and he missed seeing that the minute he walked into the room. 

he couldn’t help but to notice that she seemed upset over the fact that he bought her a book. honestly he thought she would love it since he did it back when she wanted nothing to do with him and it brought back some good memories. she loved to read, so it puzzled him why her eyes were welling up with tears and why she looked like she was about to cry her heart out. maybe he shouldn’t have brought her the book. maybe he should have just walked by and not have said a word. his heart pulled him into her room, and there he was, looking at the girl that he loved. “no worries.” he said with a little smile before running a hand through his hair. he didn’t know why he felt so awkward around her, but maybe because in this situation he would be pulling a chair over to the side of her bed, taking her hand and telling her that everything would be alright. here he was standing in front of her like his legs were frozen. he knew none of her family was coming in, they never did and he wanted to keep her company. at least for a little while before he had to go back to work. who knew if she even wanted him there, but he didn’t mind staying. 

“i could get you some jello if you want? the red kind?” he could remember bringing some to her room all the time when she didn’t want any part of him. he’d barge in with this smile on his face and try his best to get her to smile as well. it was hard at first, but then she smiled like it was no tomorrow. he loved seeing her smile and laugh, since it was like they were saved especially got him. she wouldn’t do it around the other nurses, especially the doctors and it made him feel amazing to say the least. he pulled over a chair like the good old days, but didn’t put it as close as he usually would to her bed. anyone would ask if she was alright, but he knew she hated that question. not only that, but he didn’t know if she would tell him the real answer. she would probably say yes, and he wouldn’t ask anymore questions. as he leaned back in the chair, he looked around a little bit before finally looking back at her. before they were lovers, they were best friends. he could tell her anything, and she could tell him anything as well so hopefully she would be able to open up to him a bit. “c’mon… what’s up?” he muttered as he looked at her. “i know you don’t wanna be here, just tell me what happened… you know you can talk to me.” 

she was trying so hard not to break down at the moment. she never let herself cry, and she didn’t want to now. not in front of jon, not over this. but everything was still so overwhelming. so much had happened in the last month, between losing jon and getting out of the hospital only to come back in weeks later... it was too much, even for her. she didn’t have anyone on her side, it felt like, and even though it was her own fault for isolating herself, it still hurt. and jon... jon, the only person who she felt like ever truly cared about her and loved her, he was still there in a chair at her bedside, even after everything she’d put him through. the guilt that was coursing through her was enough to make her break down into tears, but she held it together with every last ounce of power in her.

“what happened was... i should have known. i should have known that it was coming but i ignored all the signs because i was scared.” she admitted. it took a lot to make mariana ever admit that she was scared of something, but here she was. “i didn’t want to come back here and--” the ‘and see you’ hangs in the air between them. sure, she didn’t want to come back to the hospital because it meant she was getting worse, and not better, but the tension between them and everything that they left unresolved still hung in the air. she knew he could feel it just as much as she could. “so i was stupid and i was ignorant and i ignored it until i had a fucking stroke and now my brain--” she chokes on her words, a sob getting caught in her throat. she has to look down at her lap because she knows the tears are coming and there’s no way to hold them in or stop them now. “and now my brain is swollen, and i can’t read anymore, and my fucking arm, and i ruin everything i touch. i’m a fucking plague jon, don’t you see it? even my own body wants to get rid of me!”

it was strange that introducing his new boyfriend to teddy had elijah more nervous than the first date actually had done. teddy was his best friend, after all, and truth be told his opinion was enough to make elijah think twice about a person. “ yeah? ” a slight smile started to turn over his lips at the other male’s words, fingers slowing their anxious tapping against the side of the chair. “ because i know i rushed into this, like, even for me. ” he added with a sheepish grin at the other, as if impulse control had ever really been his thing. which it wasn’t. perhaps that was why teddy’s opinion was so important to eli, though it didn’t quite feel like it fully explained enough as brown eyes searched over the male’s expression before resigning to the fact that, for a change – he was actually rather difficult to read. “ if you didn’t like him you can tell me, you’d get to say ‘i told you so’ if it’s all screwed up in a few weeks? ”

he wants to look up at her, look up and compliment her because she’s as gorgeous as ever but there’s a blubbering baby that’s a spitting image of him that he can’t ignore. he’s never been the best at math, but this wasn’t hard. baby a few months old, plus nine months of pregnancy, that all meant the baby was his. he knew too well that mariana would never have cheated on him, and even if she did, the baby was far too much his resemblance to argue over. the baby was his. this sweet little bundle of joy slobbering all over the place was his baby. “she…. she’s mine, isn’t she?” he asks, gesturing to the child. “I mean, she’s got to be, right?” he’s assuming its a girl based on the pink outfit, but hell, who knows. he wants to be angry. angry that he missed out on the entire pregnancy. angry that he never even got to see his own baby be born. angry that she was keeping this from him. but he’s not. he’s got this overwhelming surge of joy at seeing the tiny baby and knowing its his to love and be a part of. that is, if she’ll let him. 

based off of the second bullet HERE 

a year is a very long time, but to avery it seemed like nothing. sure, his entire life had changed, but it didn’t seem like it was that long ago that he was in this town, meeting the other for dinner and a movie, spending nights tangled together under blankets and spending every moment they could engrossed in one another’s presence. it had to end, they knew distance wasn’t for them, and avery was off to open up for a band that was touring world wide. so now he’s back from tour, and when the other opens the door holding a baby of only a few months, he can’t help the way his eyes go wide. “holy shit.”

 open to:  m/nb ( & totally females, he’s gay so platonically but still bring them to me ! )

     “ you didn’t like him, did you? ” eli did his best to keep his tone light and cheerful as brown eyes shifted across to his friend. over the years he liked to think he’d grown rather good at reading the other’s expressions, that as close as the two of them were he knew what the other was thinking rather easily – it is why he had wanted them to meet his new boyfriend, because their’s was the opinion which mattered to him. though that appeared to have gone less well than hoped as a small sigh escaped his lips. “  – alright, i can take it, what’s wrong with him? ”