Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot
Summary: But only fools try to fight quicksand.
Lyrics: All Too Well by Taylor Swift
A/N: If you see some weird transitions is because I was trying a little too hard on the poetry and ended up scratching entire paragraphs of it. So I just salvaged what I could and stuck it anywhere. Apologies.
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—Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
'Till you tore ill all up—
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Crumbling Earth
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When she leaves, she doesn't bother cleaning up the traces she left behind, and it's driving him insane.
He's going crazy.
He sees her shadow in every corner of his house. There's an invisible stain on the window frame where her elbows used to rest, a blurred shade that tricks him into believing she's still standing there watching every sunset. Her laugh is a constant echo that resonates at the back of his head, and he swears that the faint whistling of his bed sheets carry on the sound of her voice calling his name. He keeps finding scattered strands of blue all over the place: on the bed, on the bathroom, on the kitchen counter where lonely breakfast takes place and the long-vacant spot on his two-seat sofa.
He's at the point of breakdown, a step away from losing his mind.
—This isn't healthy.
Whatever this is, it isn't healthy at all, and he really needs to get away from it.
He needs to peel what still lingers of her touch from his skin and wash her scent off his pillows. He needs the air to stop burning his lungs and his heart to stop bleeding at her memory.
—Please stop bleeding—
He needs his life back, to find whatever is left of himself and piece it back together, to remember how to function without her and try to be the person he was before she came along.
It somehow proves to be inconceivable to imagine, impossible to achieve, inevitable to fail.
She brought him down like landslide and turned the firm foundation of his world into crumbling soil.
He's sinking, way too deep.
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But only fools try to fight quicksand.
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Somewhere along the way, they lost all sense of direction —He's a broken compass pointing south, and she's the North Star he's bound to follow.
But wishes upon a star don't always come true, fairy tales don't always have a happy ending and love don't always conquers everything.
At least for him, they don't.
.
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She's coping, if anything.
She adjusts to her new routine with the grace of a toddler wearing wrong-feet shoes: dark bitter coffee kissing her lips on mornings instead of his sweet gentle lips and the cold embrace of a thick winter coat in absence of the arms that used to keep her warm. Days come and go in a haze in which she pretends to still find the little things in life interesting; the exchange of seasons, the unpredictable weather, the birds that sing an obnoxious three-tuned song outside her window and the always busy guild life that he's no longer a part of. She develops a sudden workaholic tendency, good excuse to blame for the dark bags under her eyes and the clothes that hang loose on her body, as if nights weren't restless and food didn't all taste like cardboard in her mouth. Nocturne walks on sleepless night help her clear her mind, but she always finds herself taking a familiar path that leads to his apartment's window; the lights are always on, and sometimes she wonders if he's got company, awake so late at night. But that's an answer she doesn't want to find out, and soon he becomes a blur memory always present in her mind and the dim lighting on a window frame at long past midnight.
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Weeks turn into months, slow as they can be, but the wound doesn't quite heal.
Maybe some scars aren't meant to heal with time.
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One day, she comes across him.
He's holding a take away cup of coffee in his gloved hand, the chilly spring breeze making a mess of his onyx hair as the ends of his checkered scarf flutter carelessly in the wind. He sips on his beverage, firm lips pressing against the paper cup and cheeks red from the cold, a distracted gaze in his dark brown eyes that gives her the chance to flee and hide away.
She doesn't need this. Damn, she doesn't need this right now.
She doesn't need to be reminded of how nice it feels to run her fingers through his hair and the charming way he would flush pink at her boldness. She can do without reminiscing the drunken feeling of his soft lips tracing every inch of her skin, the warm touch of his hands, the way his eyes would glimmer with unspoken affection when they locked into hers —she doesn't need to be reminded of him, really.
She takes the opposite way —because running away is the only way she knows, because she worked too hard in building up her sand castle to watch it crumble under the dazzling sun and because if he took the trouble to rearrange his whole life for the express purpose of avoid ever meeting her again, she isn't gonna impose her presence on him.
She will go back to pretending he never existed.
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She can't.
She tried —she really tried— but it's not working at all, and she wonders if this is how she'll have to spend the rest of her days
—hurting.
She can't do this any longer.
A light rain starts to fall as she walks the empty streets in another sleepless night, puddles of water forming on the pavement and a familiar road illuminated by odd streetlamps. She's being hunted by his memory and the air is gradually becoming harder to breathe, barely passing through her lungs and almost refusing to come out. There's a monster stuck in her chest that's ripping her guts apart with pointed claws and sharp teeth, and she doesn't think herself strong enough to keep fighting it —she's exhausted, at the very verge of insanity and dancing by the thin edges of despair.
She needs to know.
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And maybe she should have left her pride at the door a long while ago. Maybe it doesn't make any sense to bang at his door past 2 am on a rainy night after not talking to each other for months and pretending that nothing ever happened between them. Maybe he doesn't want her anymore and she's just setting herself up for failure and self-embarrassment.
Or maybe she's got nothing else to lose after she lost him and what's left of her meager ego is really worth the gamble.
She doesn't know how she managed to gather the courage, but maybe she just —desperately, so desperately—needs to know if he still loves her.
He opens the door, tousled hair and a puzzled expression she can't quite decipher. He's saying something. He's talking as he pulls her in and closes the door behind her. She doesn't answer his questions when he sits her in the sofa a throws a warm towel over her damp hair —she's too busy getting lost on his stare and watching him frown with preoccupation, too engrossed in the feeling of his hands spreading her warmth as he gently rubs the towel against her skin.
He doesn't push for an answer. He never does.
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She's lying on his bed, wearing his old shirt and the covers pulled up to her chin, eyes wide awake. He… he's sleeping on the couch, and she doesn't really know what to think about that.
Is he being a gentleman? Is that his way to say I don't want you anymore? Did he just take her in out of pity? Is he just sticking to common courtesy because they are little more than acquaintances?
She doesn't dare to ask, and the monster in her chest bawls and tears another piece of her heart off.
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Before night turns into morning, she walks out of the room and takes him by surprise, slipping under the nest of blankets he made on the couch to lay beside him. He moves over to make room for her and wraps his arms around her to bring her close, nuzzling against the top of her head as she buries her face on his chest and clings to his shirt.
It feels right. Finally, it feels so right.
—Please don't let go—
"I'm sorry…" She breathes against his skin, and he doesn't know if it's just that overly wishful, self-deluding side of himself imagining the crack in her voice, but the words just drill into his ribcage and breaks him into a million tiny pieces before he can figure it out, "I'm so sorry… sorry…" She keeps repeating, and tough there's so much more she wants to say to him, the words just won't come out of her lips.
"Don't," He mutters, an unfinished sentence that he's not sure himself how to end. He wishes he could say something between the lines of 'It's okay', but he really doesn't know what he's reassuring her for.
Truth be told, he doesn't think that anything else matters anymore.
As the walls they built around themselves start to collapse one by one, she burst into tears —an emotional breakdown he's never witness in her before, and his heart shatters with the urge to set things right, to stop the both of them for aching.
He curls his finger under her chin, thumb pressing lightly against her lower lip as he pulls her face over and seals her sobbing lips with his in a tender kiss.
When she kisses him back, the whole world burns to ashes.
The sand castle crumbles.
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—'Cause there we are again
When I loved you so
Back before you lost
The one real thing you've ever known—
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A/N: Do I get lynched if I say this is the last chapter? Alright, I have a short epilogue but I'm greedy and I want your reviews. Persuade me.