he's wrapped so tightly around her she isn't sure where she ends and he begins. - dimitri i/jude, nonlinear one-shot. no caps. For leeshy. happy valentine's day.
st. valentines day
x
he's her downfall.
x
she slips underneath the warm, rose-scented bathwater and thinks 'i should come up, i need to breathe' but he sits on her chest and fills her lungs and wraps himself around her neck like a python and there's no room for air. there's only him.
x
her death is ruled suicide, but in every way he's the one who kills her.
x
when she turns twelve years old, she flaunts herself around on the beach. seagulls cry in the distance and she can hear the sound of ocean waves roaring and her brother's best friend talking, but she pays no attention because he's an idiot and she's got better things to do.
she works the crowd, charms like no one's business, and has them all wrapped around her tiny little finger ten seconds into the party.
except.
dimitri ceasar coyne senior smirks at her with an arched eyebrow and raises a glass of some clear liquid jude is smart enough to know is something much stronger than water to his lips.
he knows the game she's playing, knows it better than she'll ever know it.
because he's the gamemaker, the one who was playing this game before she was even thought of.
and without even realizing it, she starts playing for him.
(that's her first mistake.)
x
he shoves her hard against the wall, his fingers grazing the top of her thigh. "you're not ready for this. not ready for me. you can't handle me." he spits, even though he's already pressing himself against her, already ripping her dress into shreds.
jude smirks, lifts her hips to his, rakes her nails down his back. "i think i can keep up," she moans as she thrusts her hips up against his, creating a tantalizing kind of friction that leaves her soaking wet and aching for him.
"you're a child in all senses and purposes, jude-anna." he scowls, grabbing at her ass to pull her against him even harder. he lifts her up and her legs wrap around his hips. He begins rocking his dick against her core, dry fucking her through her thong and his trousers. only giving her a little taste.
but one tiny taste is never enough.
"i can handle you." she repeats, her eyes dark, challenging.
he doesn't bother pulling his pants off completely. He simply unzips and drops them to the ground. Sliding her thong out of the way, he thrusts hard into her. his lips are at her ear as he does so and he says the only thing he's going to say to her for the rest of the night.
"i'm going to destroy you."
his lips brush against the shell of her ear and he pounds into her, fucking her the way those little boys she's used to wouldn't ever even be able to imagine.
something so twisted shouldn't sound as sexy, as seductive as it does.
x
he leaves her. leaves her often, leaves her too long, too often. leaves her aching for him, gasping for him, reaching out blindly for him in the middle of the night.
her demise is a slow one, but a steady, sure one.
x
there's something about her – something. something that beckons him, compels him. something that keeps him coming back.
something he has a desperate need to destroy.
x
it's between the fourth and fifth time that he's left and come back that she realizes he's wearing her down. that she's tired and she doesn't want to do this anymore, but that she can't stop. can't make him leave; can't make him stay.
he's got complete control of her and all she can do is lie on the floor with her eyes closed and try to breathe and let him do what he wants with her.
she is his, in every single way.
she hates him, but she hates herself more.
x
when the entire wizarding world finds out she and dimitri i, who is twenty years her senior, are fucking, she's not surprised by everyone's reactions. everyone but one person.
because she expects her mum to call her dimitri's whore, and she expects declan, her twin, her flesh, her other half, to wear this deep look of sadness and confused as he stares at her, trying to see who she's become. trying to understand who she is now. he doesn't.
it's dimitri coyne ii, the son of the man she's been fucking – the son who dimitri i never wanted – who surprises her.
"be careful. don't let him break you. that's what he does, you know? he takes perfectly good things and he breaks those things." he only glances up from his vodka once, and when he does he meets her eyes. there's a serious look, a warning look. like he's one of those objects that have been broken by dimitri i.
and he is. but she is too.
So jude smiles, but it's sad and her eyes are sad, and she's sad. everything about her is sad and tired and she stands up from the table and walks away and dimitri ii hears her murmur "too late" as she passes by declan.
dimitri stares at his glass for a moment, before glances up at declan.
"i shouldn't be jealous of her. he's going to destroy her, already has destroyed her. i shouldn't envy that. but he goes back to her, he wants her, even if it's completely twisted and horrible. he doesn't regret her existence and i shouldn't be jealous of that."
three words remain unsaid, but hang in the air.
but. i. am.
x
when he leaves her the third time, she tells herself, promises, 'i won't let him back into my door.' but then he comes back and knocks her all her walls down, unlocks all of the chains wrapped so tightly around her heart with one simple "hello."
(it's the italian accent, she thinks).
x
he kisses her.
kisses her jaw, kisses her neck, kisses her.
charlie's in the next room, and she can hear the faint sound of him singing, the quiet hum of the chords of his guitar. charlie understands, she thinks. understands her, kind of, sort of. maybe not completely, not wholly. but enough to know to run a warm bath when dimitri leaves and to stay out of the way when dimitri's there.
charlie doesn't judge her, even when she gets an abortion because dimitri demands her to. because the baby that could have grown, developed, turned into something beautiful; that baby would've had charlie's ginger hair, not dimitri's emerald green eyes.
and dimitri, he was furious with her.
jude had never seen him so livid.
and he had given her an ultimatum.
"it or me." then he just looked at her, like he was seeing through her. "you know what you have to do."
and she's sick with herself, because she did know.
she got the abortion and she feels empty now, more so than ever before. she feels sad and depressed and she no longer has that fire in her. her lights are dimming and he is winning the game, but she couldn't bring herself to care any longer. can't bring herself to fight back.
so she lays there and she lets him touch her and kiss her, and she reacts physically in an automatic way. but there's nothing emotionally. her mind is blank.
x
she sits in the bathtub on valentine's day with charlie, sinks under inch by inch. doesn't say a word and he doesn't either. they just sit quietly, and she knows he wishes she were dani and he knows she wishes he were dimitri and they're both sad and empty.
x
he loves her, he really, honestly does love her. he's in love with her in every single way. it doesn't seem like it, but he is.
but that's the problem, isn't it?
dimitri coyne i is in love with her and he doesn't want to be, and he is in complete and utter control and he doesn't show it to her, never shows it to her. he keeps it on lock, keeps his poker face in tact.
x
charlie gets out of the bathtub, goes to get another bottle of vodka from the kitchen downstairs. jude is alone.
she sinks underneath the water just a little bit.
always alone. always being left.
a little more.
she thinks of dimitri, thinks he's probably with another woman tonight.
the water's above her mouth. charlie's not back yet.
she thinks about declan, about dimitri ii. about her mum and her dad, wonders where the latter is, wonders where the former is. she thinks about charlie.
she closes her eyes and goes under completely.
"you know what you have to do," dimitri had said to her. and he was right. she did.
she can't live with him, but she can't live without him.
the solution is simple.
x
he sits up, glances around, sometime in the late night. he's in her bed and they're both naked, and she's still asleep. it's only four am.
in the corner of the room, the radio is on, playing a soft love song.
he looks down at her, and he thinks for a brief moment "i could stay. i want to stay."
but alarms go off in his head and he knows he can't. he's a prisoner, a slave to his own control.
so he collects his things and kisses her forehead and whispers something she'll never, ever consciously hear him say.
"i love you."
then he leaves for the fifth time.
x
dimitri ii stares down at her grave, shakes his head, fights a current of sadness trying to pull him under.
"declan and i are getting married," he tells her. "i know, i know. took us long enough. we've only been together for seven years."
there's silence, as if he's waiting for a reply. a reply that never comes.
"i miss you, you know. declan does too." he says quietly, his fingers slipping into his pocket where a flask is hidden. he fingers the metal of it, considers pulling it out, considers drinking from it.
but he doesn't. he doesn't need to.
because he didn't have his father in his life. his father didn't want him in his life. his father didn't wreck him, didn't suck everything out of him. dimitri thought he did, at one point. and there was a point where he was jealous of jude, because dimitri i wanted her around.
but now he feels nothing but relief.
his father spared him the way he never had the control to spare jude, the way jude never had the control to spare herself.
x
she can't live with him, she can't live without him.
this is her solution: if she doesn't have a life to live, she won't have a problem.
x
glass shatters on the floor and charlie screams and cries and begs her to wake up, and he pulls her from the tub, and he presses his lips to hers in an attempt to give her some of his breathe, but he's too late and she's gone.
x
"my mum gave me my father's wedding ring, you know." dimitri murmurs, staring at a grave three years old. "for the wedding. i don't want it, though. i don't want it." his voice takes on a tone of desperation.
before he knows what he's doing, he rips the ring from his pocket and throws it, throws it as far as he can.
"i don't want it, jude. i don't want him. I'm not jealous anymore, jude." he drops to his knees. a hallow, bitter laugh makes it way through his throat.
he stares at her grave stone for a long time before he stands up and walks away.
x
she can hear the ocean again, can hear the seagulls crying, the waves crashing against the sandbanks, the sounds of kids running and laughing, chasing after her. she can hear the sounds of her childhood and she feels free.
x
"swim. you could have swam."
dimitri i stands up from her grave and walks away from jude for the last time.
x
she's free now.
and yet, he's still wrapped so tightly around her she isn't sure where she ends and he begins.