Fire and Smoke - Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Chapter 86

The hours that so slowly follow might count as some of the worst hours of my life. And there are quite a few of those. These ones, though, are painful only because of how long I am forced to lie there, on the formerly unassumingly mediocre couch, trying to push away the lingering feeling of nausea at the back of my throat. No matter how I turn or lie, my tired eyes just do not seem to be able to stop gravitating towards that solid oak door. The birthplace of my uneasiness. I'm on one side of the solid door, and they're on the other.

There are no sounds heard from anywhere except for my occasional shifting on the couch. my ears are perked but the place I can't decide whether or not I want to hear sounds from stays ominously silent. I don't know if I expected them to argue loudly, or what. Naturally, it seems as though they're asleep, as anyone should be at this time of the early morning. I'm still slightly unsure of whether he can sleep, or even needs to sleep. I know she does, but so rarely could. Once she needed me to lie next to her to be able to drift peacefully away. It seems as though those times are over.

Uselessly I lie. My eyes scan the room over and over although I already have committed every corner of this room to memory. I curl and uncurl my toes, unhelpfully being made to remember the way Wanda would lie where my feet are, her soft hair tousled up against the pillows as her cheeks would be softly flushed with color. She'd fix me with sleep-filled eyes, her irises so large it would almost look like her entire eyes were green. Now there are only two slightly worse off for wear-looking socks meeting my eyes. I shift for the hundredth time.

The shadows move and slowly make their inevitable journey across the room. I'm so tired but my mind doesn't want to let me escape. And so I am forced to lie there, pretending this is not the weirdest fucking situation ever. My body is in a state of juxtaposition between two very strong pulls; that of fight, of bouncing off the couch and barging into her room and then... doing something, anything. And the other other pull named flight. Easy, safe. Ignore. Escape. Flight.

The longer I lie and try to pretend I am comfortable and getting some sort of rest, the worse I feel. Although I must be resting my body somehow, it feels as though I am in actuality draining it of energy, oddly enough. The hours tick by and I don't give in to either pull. My hand is loosely wrapped around the ceramic mug that has now grown cool, the liquid inside it old. But I can't let go of the fact that she made it for me. Although I pushed her away, she still made me tea. A small, little gesture, but a gesture nonetheless. I shouldn't read into it, but it's all I want to do. Overanalysing has always been my forte. I turn to my back, sighing.

Her other gesture is the one I can't literally wrap my fingers around. Why would she have kissed me? Absentmindedly I let my fingers brush against my cracked lips, remembering the way her kiss felt. If I close my eyes, I feel her again. Hesitant, scared, determined, desperate. Needing. For a moment, thinking it was me she was in need of. I don't need to ask myself why she did it. In my heart, I know the why. I just wished she knew the why. I thought she would have remembered. her hands grasp at the base of my neck. The moment only exists in my head, but it doesn't stop it from being so vivid I can easily convince myself she's here now.

All the while, I realise I had been hanging onto the small glimmer of hope that eventually, I would have been brave enough to kiss her and that she would somehow let her wall crumble, letting her memories freely flood through the cracks invading the parts of her free of me. And then I would have her again. Now I got my kiss, but I didn't get my Wanda. He did. I'm lying on this stupid couch like the world's biggest fucking simp and he's lying in there with her.

I huff loudly and swing my legs over the couch, sitting up. Enough. One of the pulls finally overcomes my inability to act. My head spins from low blood pressure and I make a half-hearted note of eating something soon. Ish. Used to the feeling of my vision darkening around the corners of my eyes, I let it settle for a moment. The blackness eventually retreats until I feel safe enough to risk standing up. Slipping my feet into my old boots, I quickly tie my laces and then I slip through the slightly loud front door, out into the night. Flight.