#also william is there because i needed someone to um. point out that they're embarassed.

[romance-rambles]

modern clarence | true love's kiss

The one where you kiss the merman awake, and in return, he wipes away your tears. Meanwhile, William is both oblivious and confused.

2.3k, alternate scene in clarence's azure island route, angst + humor, reader is mc, series: none

WAITING IS A TERRIFYING GAME.

You take Clarence's hand in yours, desperately trying to think of anything but the half-coherent fears buzzing around in your ear. They whisper the same thing over and over again, deliberately circumventing the semi-comforting words of the young medic who had teased you earlier.

He is fine now, but what if.

What if, what if, what if—

Amidst the constant chanting, you make a note to throttle your boyfriend. Honest and deliberate communication can come afterwards, once he's realized how much he worried you. It's a good thing you've developed a habit of listening to your instincts—what if you hadn't been waiting for him on the beach? What if something far worse had happened to him?

Gnawing at your bottom lip, you curse his usual tendencies—so very Clarence that they remind you that this is the man you fell in love with.

"Wake up, or I'll go date William instead," you threaten, in a hushed whisper.

Your voice cracks early on, though it's not as though its trembling quality could lend itself to a threat anyways. Leaning over, you brush his wet bangs out of his face lovingly. Then, your hand slides down with a gentle carress and cups his cheek, wiping away the water dripping from his hair.

With color slowly returning to his lips, you can allow yourself to appreciate his handsome face in an effort to pass the time. Now, you can almost imagine he's asleep, much like the princess in Sleeping Beauty—quietly awaiting the true love's kiss that'll wake him up.

CPR, that is, you correct yourself.

Due to your mistake, your cheeks take to burning, as though the shame flooding through your system will temper your own tendencies. You dare not accept the reminder of the medic's words that your brain helpfully offers you. Instead, you barrel onwards, as if it never existed.

"Ten seconds," you murmur. It sounds like a promise. "I'll kiss the merman—ahem, perform CPR in ten seconds."

A bit too faithfully, unfortunately.

With a grimace, you squeeze Clarence's hand gently. The humor behind your blunder had briefly calmed you down, but as your countdown begins, you find yourself back at square one. You really will throttle him.

In lieu of reaching for his neck, you pull at his cheek gently, just enough that it soothes your worry. Not once does he stir—and perhaps that's what emboldens you. Slowly, the distance between the two of you shrinks, and you are so preoccupied by the almost hypnotic hold your repetition has on you that you don't notice.

But when you do—

I can count his lashes, you realize, blinking away the familiar burning sensation in your eyes.

By now, you've lost track of where you were—both in terms of the countdown and your surroundings. There are people on the beach, but, perhaps, having sensed your volatile emotions, they do not dare cross over to the little spot on the beach you have to yourselves. You start counting again, expertly dodging the temptation of kissing your beloved.

10, 9, 8...

When you reach the final number—zero, not one—you reluctantly let go of his hand. And, mirroring your other hand, the newly-freed one comes to rest on his cheek. The mole underneath his eye disappears under your trembling thumb.

When you hit zero, you finally allow yourself to kiss the merman.

SOMEONE IS KISSING HIM.

This, Clarence surmises even without opening his eyes. They're touching his face too, as if even the rarest of treasures are incomparable to him, even as they tremble against him. He knows, instantly, that it is you.

Who else would touch him so lovingly? And who else has touched him so lovingly?

When he opens his eyes, Clarence is rewarded for his guess by the sight of you leaning over him.

Your eyes are closed; unshed tears cling to your delicate lashes, quietly asking him to do something about them. There's little time to be flustered. Yet, paradoxically, it is the best time to be flustered. Your lips are soft and they taste of your favorite chapstick—the one you obsessively put on when you're stressed.

Somehow, though he doubts the formula changes every other day, it tastes sweeter each time he rediscovers it.

For a moment, he closes his eyes, lifting his hand up in the air, just above your arm. His cheeks are still warm, and his ears even warmer, when he rethinks his move and finally fulfills the request.

You open his eyes, startled by his gesture.

"Clarence?" you sputter out weakly, once you've established some distance between them both.

He has half a mind to point out the irony of the moment, before you go ahead and wipe your tears away. His gaze fixes itself upon your hands, clad in the same protective gear as his own. The warmth he felt from your touch would've had him believing otherwise, if he did not have his sight to fall back upon.

Hoping to find something to occupy himself with, he reaches for his glasses. They are, of course, not there—he'd replaced them for contacts before he went diving.

Thankfully, you seem oblivious to his blunder as you wring your hands, desperately looking for an excuse.

"That's, um—"

The black diving suit you're wearing contrasts sharply against the gold and orange of the evening sky. It was early in the afternoon when he dove into the waters, and then—the gears begin to turn in his head, reminding him of how he'd collapsed into your arms. Some leniency, he thinks, is deserved.

"CPR," Clarence says slowly, feeling a sharp twinge of pain in his head as he sits up. "Is that not what you were doing?"

You look at him, clearly bewildered. Soon, as scarlet blooms across your cheeks, you're diving into the crook of his neck with a groan. There's some kind of inside joke he's missing, but he can't find it in himself to worry about it too much.

"Don't," you say fiercely, "ever do that again."

As you adjust yourself against him, your body now pressed up against his, your grip on his diving suit tightens. Coherency leaves him that same moment—all he knows to do is wrap his arms around your trembling form and softly call out your name.

At some point, he'll tell you all that he's learned. About your mother. About the strange python he'd encountered, the one that seemingly shared his voice. But for now, it is just you and him, bathed in the rosy hue cast out by the sun, and—

"Thank you for waking up."

WHEN YOUR SNIFFLING SUBSIDES, CLARENCE begins to delve into the series of events that led him to stumble into your arms. You listen intently, only ever interrupting him to offer your own conclusions.

That is, until he admits he'd like to face anything and everything in his path with you.

Your sentiments are well-practiced; your only argument, compelling. It's true—you are his lover, and you do occupy an entirely different tier within his heart. There is no one else he'd trust more to watch his back. You cannot do that if you're not by his side.

You offer him your pinky and he links his own with it.

"Okay," he says softly. "I promise, my lover."

Your eyes narrow fondly at him. Slipping your pinky out of his grip, you throw your hands around him. It seems you're still shaken up by the experience, and Clarence—having already put himself in your shoes and concluded that he'd act no differently—can understand why.

"Okay," you repeat. You've both changed out of your diving suits, having exchanged them for your usual summerwear somewhere in between the two events. "I'm going to hold you to it."

"Alright."

His assumption that his agreement marks the end of their conversation soon turns out to be false. You hug him tighter, leaving your soft hair with more opportunities to tickle his cheek. After a momemt, you sheepishly admit:

"It, um, wasn't CPR."

Clarence can feel his cheeks warm up again. You're faring no better, though it'd be easy to miss with the way you're hiding your face. It's hardly the first time you've kissed each other—though the heightened emotions make for what is perhaps one of the most unforgettable ones yet.

"I know," he admits.

"Okay," you say, clearing your throat. The words come out rushed and awkward. He thinks back to when you rendered him speechless in the Student Council's clubroom and wonders how he could pull off the same thing. "Glad we had this talk."

When he can't think of anything witty to add to the conversation, Clarence simply admits the truth.

"I liked it," he says. You inhale sharply, and he thinks he might've pulled his objective off through sheer, disarming honesty. "Though, next time, I'd like to do it when we're both happy. I...know it's my fault, but—I dislike seeing you cry."

You call out his name, and next time comes faster than he was expecting.

PERHAPS IT'S DUE TO THE recent revelation you bestowed upon him that William can't help but take note of the distance between the two of you. Your hands are still intertwined, though, proving the truth behind what you'd said to him earlier.

He has—

He has a lot of questions. Like, actually, a lot. As in, actually, he'd spent the entire time preparing a quiz worthy of the Student Council President.

Because if it's true, then he's calling dibs on being the best man at the wedding. And William sure hopes it is because he's already made plans to become Uncle William to any of your future children, whether they're of the human or cat variety. The ship has sailed for yours and Clarence's current, combined brood of cats, but he'll try hard regardless.

His progress with Beanie was looking quite promising when he'd visited you before the trip, after all. He's tentatively excited about the play date he's scheduled for himself after the trip.

The only problem is, he can't really wrap his head around it. How? And why? Is Clarence even capable of seduction?

As he plops down onto the sand, now much cooler than it had been in the morning, William makes a show of scolding Clarence. The scary dark mage of the Student Council doesn't need to know that he almost burned a misshapened circle through the rug in his room. Besides, how often does he get the upperhand?

Never.

He nods decisively. Right, never.

Thanks to the setting sun, your faces have taken on a reddish hue. And while the fear of potentially losing Clarence—one he can relate to—has rendered you unable to speak without introducing a shrilly note to your voice, the guilt of leading you to that point has left Clarence unable to go a sentence without coughing politely into his clenched hand.

It must've been bad.

You must've been downplaying it when you texted him. It'd been a short message, straight to the point. For a moment, William almost convinced himself it was Clarence before he remembered that the president does not text without proper punctuation.

(And for a small, small fee, William thinks he could be persuaded to remember that scene a bit more clearly—so long as news of it does not reach Clarence's ears.)

"Alright," he says, temporarily putting his plans for a pop quiz on hold, "I think it's time we went back to the hotel. I'm exhausted, Clarence. Do you know hard it was to stare at my phone for so long?"

To William's surprise, his fellow Student Council member smiles faintly. It's a bit strange looking at him without glasses on, as if something is just undeniably wrong with the very fabric of time and space itself.

"Thank you, William," Clarence says, and the pink-haired boy is left to blink confusedly. Something really is wrong. "I'm sorry to have worried you."

"Worried?" he sputters out, his own cheeks growing warm. "I—okay, maybe I was a little worried."

"A little," you echo. Your intentions are hardly as sincere as your boyfriend's—and gah, that's still weird. "Just enough to want to go looking out for him in my stead, right?"

As the couple begins to smile, now looking eerily similar to each other, William hurriedly stands up. The colors of the setting sun don't cling to their faces nearly as much as they once did. Whatever awkwardness was between them seems to have vanished, almost instantaneously.

He can't help but think that his upper hand is no longer his.

"Anyway, I'm starving!" he says, pointing in the direction of a nearby restaurant. The two of you have already changed out of your diving suits, so he figures it won't take too long to get served. "Since this is all Clarence's fault, I think he should pay!"

The man in question chuckles and easily agrees to William's request. Then, as another reminder of his new relationship status, Clarence looks over at you, and William swears he can see hearts in his eyes.

Squinting, he wonders, Should I have been worried about you instead?

Clearly, something spooky had happened when his fellow student council member went to look at the totems. That means—and the pink-haired student shudders at the thought—there's clearly some truth to the legends. And if magic is real, then—

Maybe the dark mage of the Student Council is not Clarence, but you.

"Are you coming?" you call out, cutting through his thoughts. You and your boyfriend are both standing, with an expectant look in your gazes. "I thought you were starving."

He squints at you for a moment. At your kind smile and much gentler countenance, compared to the guy you've decided to date. So what if you tease him sometimes? It just means you feel close to him.

Yup, that sounds right. Having made his decision, he nods to himself and says:

"There's no way!"

When he finally joins his waiting friends and they ask him what he was mumbling about, he only assures them they have nothing to worry about.

#fics by aya #lovebrush chronicles #lovebrush chronicles x reader #for all time #for all time x reader #clarence clayden #clarence clayden x reader #lovebrush clarence x reader #lovebrush clarence #lbc clarence #lbc clarence x reader #rambles from here on -> #um. i can explain (no i can't) #I DON'T KNOW WHY I JUST WANTED MC TO BE SAD OKAY #she's already panicking when clarence wakes up then calms down because there's time to get out of their clothes #here? she's a goner. SHE'S GONE. he stays asleep/fainted for longer and she's kissing him thinking please please wake up #which is. why she's crying. that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it #also william is there because i needed someone to um. point out that they're embarassed. #was originally not going to make the “i kissed you” scene but. um #GAJSJSHSHS I JUST WANTED THEM TO BE EMBARASSED #btw i can't recall if. they have kissed before. but you can't tell me they haven't #i think all the boys are supposed to get their first kiss w the picturas but. it just does not make sense for clarence #considering the scene and the pictura #therefore he has definitely kissed mc before