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twstdaydreamer · 3 years

Text

“trail of a single tear”

Fandom: twisted wonderland

Word Count: 1,560

Pairings: lilia vanrouge x sick!reader

Genre: angst

TW: implied character death

The first blow for the angst train is here! Please proceed with caution and thank you for reading!

“All ever ask you is to stay awake. You did everything you can to stay awake even if it hurts you so much. Just for me. I’m sorry for being a selfish old man, little one. I…I’ll let you sleep now.”

“At last, I can have you for myself,” Lilia grinned mischievously as he glanced lovingly at you. “I fear you'll forget me because too many people love you dearly, little one.”

“I would never,” you giggled, fishing out your camera and taking a cute picture of him leaning against the window sill.

He blinked for a few seconds before a smirk curled on his lips. “Kufufu. Are you that in love with me, dear?”

“Eh. It would be a fine addition to my ever growing collection of pictures.” You replied cheekily. “...of you, of course.”

As you fiddled with your camera, his expression became serious all of a sudden. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Why, of course!" You cheerfully answered. You already prayed hard; you prayed hard every night. Although unlike the times you prayed for your life to last a little bit more, these days, you found yourself praying for your friends. You want them to be happy when the inevitability happens. You wanted him to be happy even after you die.

Well, as for yourself, you already felt contended. Others might curse the life you have if it happens to them, but to be honest, you really couldn't ask for more. Whoever divine entity controls this world, they already gave you enough blessings that you would consider yourself lucky.

All you wanted to do right now is to relinquish the remaining life they have given to you. To be by his side at your last moments, to cherish everything you still have.

That's the most important treasure you want to keep forever.

You two decided to embark on an adventure, one that would surely be memorable. You know the others wanted to come as well to spend time with you, but they respected your feelings that you wanted to be with him at your last…

You quickly shook your head. This isn't the time to think of depressing things!

"Is everything alright, darling?" You heard Lilia's voice called you outside of the confines off your tent. You excused yourself earlier, claiming that you have to change your clothes because you stink but the truth is…

"Yep! Just a little bit longer!" You replied, praying that your voice didn't quiver. Lilia noticed all things about you, but you still hope that he won't see that you're suffering too much now. He'll insist on going home and just rest.

No, you won't allow that. You promised yourself that you would make this trip successful and happy. You promised that you will make him happy, even if it's the last thing you will do.

"Do you want me to help you?" He asked playfully. "I can be very adept in doing so, little one."

"As if!" You couldn't help but to laugh despite the excruciating pain piercing your chest. You clenched it hard, relaxing your breathing.

"Kufufu, I've already seen it! Why, you need not to hide anything from me." Lilia teased and you felt yourself blush. Surely, it's not the first time he would help you change clothes, but that's beside the point here!

After changing your clothes to a more comfortable one, you joined him in the bonfire. The pain in your chest hasn't subsided yet, but it's better to leave the tent or else he'll really fuss over you and insist you rest.

The rest of the night passed by. The two of you make the most out of the moment; fooling around, taking pictures, playing games, eating whatever (aside from his horrible cooking, but Silver made sure that his old man didn't bring anything he made for your sake), and Lilia tells you different stories about him and the interesting people he met in his life.

You found yourself leaning on him, pressed gently on his chest with his arms wrapped around you. The bonfire continued to ignite as you began to reminisce the memories you had.

Then there was silence.

You felt contended in his embrace. His body was quite cold, as most faeries do. But you care less. You just wanted to be by his side.

"Whatever are you thinking, little one?" He asked, his hands gently brushing your locks.

"Nothing in particular," you smiled at him in reassurance. "I just...wanted to live in peace. Like this."

"We can live here, if you want. We will build a family here." He murmured, kissing your forehead.

To be with Lilia. To live happily ever after. To have a family with him.

It was your ideal happiness. It's so perfect. It's your everything. But that was so damn impossible.

Your time is about to end.

The time to part is inevitable, and it's coming. It's getting near. You can feel it.

"Lilia…"

"Yes?"

"Lilia…"

"Hmm?"

"I just wanted to call you." You said. "Lilia…"

You called him, repeatedly. You savor the taste of his name with your lips, never getting tired of it.

Lilia Vanrogue...the ever mysterious fae that was once an honorable knight, who became a parent to both a prince and a human child, then became a vice dorm leader of Diasomnia...and the very same fae that you love with all your heart. The only one you love more than your life.

You don't want to leave him, of course. You want to hold him forever. If only there's another way…

"You have to be happy, Lilia…"

"With you, dear, happiness is achieved."

"You know I'm not going to be with you forever, right? At some point..I-I have to r-rest, too." Your voice cracked, choking on a sob that threatens to spill on your throat.

He fell silent for a few moments, before a sad smile broke through his lips. "....I know."

You kissed his cheek before leaning on his shoulder. "Make the most of your life, Lilia. I know you still have a long life ahead of you. You will meet more amazing people out there. You could still find another happiness, possibly greater than I could ever give you. You still have Malleus, Silver, Sebek and everyone else by your side. Make more happy memories with them...even if I'm not there anymore."

Your chest pierced with another pain again. You gasped, feeling your heart getting wretched and twisted over and over again. You had become accustomed to the same pain, but it doesn't mean it hurt less.

"(Y/n)..." worried, he called you out, his hands grasping yours. Oh, how tempting it was to cast a healing spell on you. He had enough seeing you in pain. But human bodies cannot withstand the power of a fae, especially if the disease was already spreading in the body for a long time.

He feared that he might only speed up the process of your...departure should he interfere.

You faked a smile, hiding the excruciating pain that was slowly killing you. "I'm alright."

"..." Lilia didn't say anything, but he knew very well that you were lying. He was looking at you with all seriousness, and slowly, your facade started to crumble.

"It...it hurts." There's no point pretending. He knew. He knew very well that you were suffering more than one person can handle. But you hide it well. You hide it all this time. For his sake. It's always for his sake.

"I love you, Lilia." You cried, clutching his shirt until your hands turned white. "I love you so much. But, I'm sorry I can't stay with you anymore. The inevitable was...happening. And we don't have any choice but to accept it." You cupped his face and leaned in for a kiss.

Compared to the other passionate kisses you two had, this one was chaste, a pure one. When you kissed, you felt the bittersweet feeling of his immortality--the eternal taste of your love--it's not such a bad thing after all.

"I'll do what you desire, dear." Lilia smiled bitterly, his thumb wiping away the traces of tears in your eyes. "I will make the best out of my life. I will be happy together with everyone. I will treasure our memories for eternity. However, there was one thing I could not do."

Your lips trembled, forcing your eyes to shut as the pain worsened.

"...I will never stop loving you. I will never find another person who could give me the same happiness you provide me.”

You can't take this pain anymore. You wanted to sleep now. You wanted everything to end right now.

"I-I love you, Lilia." You continue to tell him. Never ending. Never getting tired until your gasping for breath. He pleaded with you to rest, but you resist. You have to tell him this. You have a feeling that this will be the last…

"Are…" Lilia trailed, pursing his lips. "Are you really tired now?"

Slowly, you nodded and smiled at him through blurry eyes. "Y-Yes. I'm tired. I want to sleep…" you said. "Is it okay? Will you be okay?"

He was silent.

"L-Lilia?"

He gently caressed your hair. “All ever ask you is to stay awake. You did everything you can to stay awake even if it hurts you so much. Just for me. I’m sorry for being a selfish old man, little one. I…I’ll let you sleep now."

Seeing the trail of that single tear fell from his beautiful eyes...is the most painful of all.

"You need not to stay awake anymore. Rest now, my dear."

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst lilia #twisted wonderland lilia #lilia vanrouge #tw implied character death #sora writes angst #lilia x reader

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barnesandco · 4 years

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AYESHA!! Can I request, "their entire body freezing for a second when their love kisses them?" For any character you feel inspired to write for!

The Pay Off

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: brief mention of therapy and allusions to Bucky’s recovery after Hydra.

A/N: This.. got wildly out of hand.... and really, really wordy. I love these prompts and I want to write all of them while my WIPs stare at me feeling betrayed.

Like sunshine honey, the woman who has been sitting two seats down from Bucky at the library for the past four months, with a smile the ambience of New York dawn aimed unguarded at the book in your lap. He’s spoken a grand total of 37 sentences to you in that time, each one laden with the weight of this new existence he is carving out for himself, softly, a breakfast knife through butter. Every interaction with you -- every stolen glimpse up from his own space magazine -- leaves his throat parched but prickling with that sensitive heat that makes him want to thirst more. Like the tingle of salt after ocean water.

Wetting his lips, he tries to refocus on the page in front of him. It details the scientific contributions of the Hubble Space Telescope, with a colorful side-box about the Nancy Grace Roman, who pioneered the notions of sending telescopes into space to unearth its secrets. The magazine is one from a neat stack to his right, a treasure of information he gathered to go through when he arrived today, but he isn’t making the amount of progress to finish reading by closing time.

Every Avenger has made a comment on getting a library card, to no avail. Sam’s information, Steve’s offer to do it in Bucky’s stead, Natasha’s suggestions of giving a fake name, and Wanda’s kind offer to come with him if he doesn’t want to do it alone, along with Tony’s centenarian-themed jokes and Shuri’s gift of a Kindle containing every book she could buy, have all been politely refused and tolerated in turn. Initially, it was because he likes it at the library. It’s the quietest place he has, and is coming to claim as another safe space. An escape. Now, however, there is a new variable he does not want to introduce to the team.

The woman who sits two seats down from him. You come her every afternoon, a book bag in one hand and a gigantic tote full of Lord-knows-what in the other, both dumped on the table before you go to find a book. He’s close enough to smell watermelons and strawberries, pink, sweet-summer things, reminders of a blueberry sky and sugary lemonade, memories he doesn’t remember having but can taste in the heavy air between them. It had taken him two weeks to discover that the scents were coming from the markers that he saw peeking out from the tote, stationary behaving the same way certain books do, enabling him to live a life he has never had.

Your life is a mystery to him, but he guesses at it, reading you. A rainbow of stray marker lines litters your hands almost perpetually, coming alive when they move rapidly as you check books, sometimes chuckling softly at a particular sentence. Once, he caught a Cheese Whiz stain on your cable-knit cuff, and at another occasion, saw you. Bucky is often overcome by the feeling of sonder at the realization that the clues he is gluing together make for a complex life, a marvel of an individual. There is guilt too, for his curiosity. But your eyes, even looking down, are captivating, and he is too far gone to stop.

The idea of asking you out, of engaging in conversation beyond the moments of stranger familiarity, scares him still. Last time you spoke was when you laughed aloud at the set of examples one particular student had given for an assignment on sensory details. Zachary, age 11, had written that cow poop was a smell he did not like, sending his library companion into brilliant, bubbling laughs that you cut off too soon when you remembered where you were. At that point, you had looked around to see if anyone noticed, and spotting him, offered an apology he had rejected, on the condition that you share the joke. And you did.

But initiating the moment takes something more than what he has right now. His hands, mismatched and cold from the table, empty and longing, shut the magazine.

-----

The courage arrives on a Thursday. An ordinary day, by all accounts, only Bucky is on his fourth week of actual therapy, and got to the library through the subway, instead of Steve’s motorbike. Small victories fill his chest.

Only, you aren’t there when he gets in, and he panics. Fear and disappointment wrestle for a spot in his belly, claiming a tie in knots and weights, as he paces through the aisles of shelves in what he hopes is an unsuspicious speed. Giving up hope, he’s returning to his seat, head bowed, dismayed, when something collides against his side.

It’s you. A hurricane of movement with a slushie in one hand, your eyes also on the floor, and you crash against him with a shriek too late to save either of you. The slushie, cold and blue, spills out and lands on both of you, as you tumble, hands on Bucky’s elbows while his are on yours as he pulls you down, and you land in a heap of ice-water and sticky saccharine snow, a warm weight on top of him.

The library goes silent, for a breath, and then, when the shock lifts, two librarians come rushing from around some hidden corners, by which time you and Bucky have composed yourselves enough to stand and start to apologize profusely in cut-off sentences and shaky stutters. The slush is sinking through his clothes but there is a flush in his cheeks, and somehow, looking at your beautiful face, he has never been warmer.

When the slushie has been cleaned up with rags -- his hand is starting to shiver -- he stands with more sorry on his tongue, but you say, with a grin, “I guess you really fell for me, huh?”

The quip is surprising, but he laughs. Looks between your now-blue blouse and his inky t-shirt, and makes the leap. “Maybe I can get you another drink to make up for it.” And the pleased shock on your mouth, lips parted slightly and breath still recovering, is worth every step and fall it took to get to that one line.

-----

It goes well. He won’t call it a date, in spite of everyone else’s juvenile cooing and teasing when he leaves the Compound on a Saturday evening in his car. It’s a 70s Mustang, body the color of his old Commandos coat, and the interior a shiny black lined with golden stitching and accents. Royal and his very own. Turning towards the neighborhood you live in, he recalls the months it took to restore the damn thing, the last weeks of which were spent practically living in the garage, breathing on the anticipation of this monstrous achievement.

Queens is neon lights and family-owned delis, the scent of tacos mingling with that of curries, and there’s a different language in each window front. You said you lived in an apartment a couple of stories above a Vietnamese bar.

You’re exiting just as he gets out of the car, and it takes a moment to catch his breath. In jeans and a silk shirt, you are the sun, and he cannot wait to get to revel in your warmth for at least one evening.

-----

It goes well. With the exception of nerves he can’t rid himself of but rather ignores, everything is perfect. You had enjoyed his handmade picnic in Central Park, and his disgruntled commentary on how things used to be when you got stuck in traffic on the way back. His imitations of Steve and Tony had you in stitches, after which you had fed him Doritos from a packet he did not know was in the glove-box.

Smooth sailing, soft as cream and just as gentle, the night, until you get back. It is late, and the lights are starting to flicker out of shop windows, and you go a little bit quiet, discontinuing the steady stream of chatter you have been maintaining with him.

Something is in the air. Something sparking with promise. It hushes your voices and tightens his throat and has his hand trembling when he opens his door and then yours to let you own. You stand in the pale glow of the corner streetlamp, and his hands are in his pockets like he’s sixteen again, wanting to kiss a girl but unsure how to go about it.

Fortunately for him, you’re not a girl. You’re a woman. Made from electric fire and whatever strength that holds the cotton clouds in the sky, luminous and wondrous.

“I know that was a bit more than a drink, so thank you for agreeing to this,” he says, meeting your eyes.

Your finger is tracing the face of your watch absently as you smile at him. “I had a great time.”

“Really?” Bucky blurts out, and then hurries to suspend the disbelief.

The answer you give him has his heart doing somersaults. “Yeah. I’d actually love to do this again if you feel the same.”

“Of course. Yes, obviously.” He puts a brake on his train of speech, explains as he walks a little closer to you, close enough to count your eyelashes. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been on a date in 80 years, and I’m a little rusty, but--”

Like the event that started it all, your first kiss is a crash. You lean up slowly and he has time to stop you but he doesn’t. He lets you kiss him and freezes, from head to toe, upon the feeling of your soft lips. Stopping within seconds, you lean back, sheepish, ready to back away and run, he’s certain. His head clears, he thinks a little straighter.

“Sorry, will you let me try that again?” He asks, clearing his throat, and you lift your hand to hold his.

The warmth of your hold envelopes the back of his human hand, and twists your grip so your fingers are intertwined, so much more surface area to gain heat and the motivation to seek further touch from. “If you stop saying sorry, sure.”

He closes his eyes before you do, and this time, the meeting of your lips is soft. A kiss, not a crash, an elegant collision of mouths and shared wants. In a few breaths of movement, as your other hand rises to his hair and his holds your waist, you come closer, and Bucky grows breathless. The kiss lasts for what feels like minutes too long and hours too short at the same exact time, as you break away with a gasp for air that has pride blooming under his sternum.

Eyes shining, he hopes he’ll get to do that again. As you kiss his cheek and turn to your door, he looks forward to sitting two seats closer to you on Monday.

#ayesha writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x reader fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction #ayesha answers

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