『 R E Q U E S T S , C L O S E D 』AnimeCharacters x Reader

25. Rogue Cheney x Reader | A Million Words that Sheen His Lips

→ character : Rogue Cheney | Fairy Tail

→ requested by : egg_yeol

→ 04292017

→ wherein you're given one of the biggest surprises of your life, though rogue's stammered profession of love will forever hold the title of "Most Surprising." 

[a/n]: i'm kinda having some sorta semi writer's block because i don't feel as inspired but eh i'll work through it ((i also may or may not have been listening to break out on nightcore fuck i remember how much i loved that opening))

fuck i used to be able to keep up with it what happened fuck, ((also that last part got really rushed i'm so sorry))

xx

It was quite a shock, really, to see Natsu Dragneel, rumored dead for enough years that you've filled your mind and your pockets with things that don't remind you of him anymore- alive, breathing, as fiery (both literally and figuratively,) as before he withdrew into disappearance.

Quite a surprise to all of the Fairy Tail members alive, ones you've grown so poisonously fond of, ones that left their guild and your feelings broken, abandoned in the dust one evening when the rumors flooded your ears.

When it doesn't suffocate you to think of them anymore, and you're bearing a different insignia, loyal to a different guild, are you able to breathe without guilt again. You're clinging to different boys with different laughs and different kinds of magic, but they still make you feel an identical warmth when they pat your shoulder and deliver effortless praise. You hope they don't rinse, wash, repeat, because your emotions have been bleached to brightness under the curtain of your painful tears on many, many nights.

When your eyes and Natsu's collide in a second of unrefined mistake, he doesn't smile or wave hello like he did in the crispness of your shared childhood, instead his fists tighten and he chooses to gift the smile to Lucy instead, with each and every ray of genuineness he owned.

You're okay with that, and at the same time you aren't.

xx

In the end the experience is rather ordinary, nothing your cultivated expectations have expected. There are only scars and bursts of dust, and in the splitting glances performed on reflex, the wounds and the emotions push against the walls of your mouth, threatening to revive and pour, but they never do.

You're okay with that, and at the same time you wished for one smile from Natsu, or even a greeting, no matter how awkward, because you hoped your childhood wasn't rid of its color and its laughter along with the times.

You go home with magic well-spent, body well-drained, psychological punishments well-suffered. You don't follow Natsu where he's going, instead following the black and the swishes of Rogue's cape, a bit unfamiliar, because you've always been so used to the edges of Natsu's scarf tickling the red-dusted skin of your cheeks.

You don't really know what you want to feel, because you've been believing in your adeptness at leaving the past in dusty boxes that you don't know what to do when the boxes tip and the memories slip out of their superficial restraints.

You let Sting and Rogue's words guide you, a modest conversation about the usual, lacking the laughter required for liveliness, but it's okay, because it's better than the screams ricocheting inside your mind.

(You thought you were over this, over Natsu's betrayal all those years ago, you really did.)

xx 

"You never told me that he was back, that most of Fairy Tail's best members were back," you spit at Rogue, though it's more your self-loathing than actual anger. Rogue never transfers from his indifference, as if he was expecting this; "I just felt stupid being the only one surprised."

Rogue makes no move to reply, and his guilt settles alongside him as you both take a seat on a bench. There's a few inches of uncertainty and uneasiness between him and you, and his hand itches to hold yours.

"Since when?" you asked him.

"Sting heard about it first, it was a few days before the Grand Magic Games," there's something that flashes in your eyes, and Rogue doesn't know what it is, "I assumed you'd known about it long before we had, since you used to be well-acquainted with Fairy Tail and all. . ."

"You already know I don't want anything to do with them anymore."

"Yeah, I know," he says, and it feels empty, like the space that's keeping him from embracing you.

xx

You don't remember much from that time, long ago, like an era that's ancient enough to earn its place in passionately-written paragraphs on yellowing books. All you remember are laughs and stumbles and cicadas in the summertime, the continuous happiness supplied to you every waking day when you opened your eyes to Natsu greeting you with his toothy smile and his fingers held behind his back.

You remember chasing him through forests, through games that are more laughing than competition, through meals that are eaten much too quickly, and much too excessively. You remember days blanketed with soft colors and a fond happiness and spots of sunlight that dance in circles. You remembers nights wrapped in dying fires and promises of a future too far ahead and too absent in strife that only naive children could dream of.

It was perfect, really.

You remember one day, waking up to a darkness that, too, was waiting for the brightness of Natsu's grin to overwhelm it, but he never showed up. You thought it was strange, of course, but you assured yourself that maybe he was running a little late, another brawl with Gildarts, another failed stunt with Erza.

You waited; waited until the orange and the red and the yellow of the sunset bled into the darkness of the night, Natsu was nowhere to be found, and your laughs are pushed back down to the bottom of your stomach to boil in the grief.

Natsu doesn't show up the next day, either. Or the day after that, or the days that follow after, that only exhaust you.

You're left alone, damned, and you're left to collect the brokenness of everything with fingers that still hope for a change. One by one, the promises get broken slowly, painfully, and the days go on.

You never see Natsu again.

xx

Rogue collects you into his arms even before you realize the tears that have slipped in your ignorance. It's only when you're rocked against the firmness of his chest, the steadiness of his heartbeat, do you realize what's spilled, and what can't be collected again.

It's only when Rogue kisses you, in the alternating lights of the afternoon, on a bench in a quiet park, where the only voyeurs are a pair of blue songbirds on a branch- it's only when you can feel his lips speaking a million words onto yours do you realize you don't need to regress to the platonic affection in Natsu's smiles to be happy again.

So you kiss him back, you hug him back, for whatever the fuck it was worth.

It's much different than the string of memories of your childhood, your happiness with Natsu, there's no laughter, no soft colors, no forests; instead you have the warmth of Rogue's arms around your own, and the soundless poetry of Rogue's infatuation on your mouth.

You like it much better this way.

And when Rogue concludes his poetry with a grunt, you're left breathless, filled with a love you've desperately needed.

"I love you."