You Don't Get To Say Sorry

you don't get to say sorry

Hide your tears, little peacock.

x : TO LOVE, TO CHANGE: *+ﾟ

in which: you tell veritas you love him. he gets upset with you.

warnings: contrary to what the synopsis implies, it's fluff, i promise. 1k words, first time saying ily, slightly cranky reader, no mentions of reader's gender, dr. ratio being so in love he becomes so soppy and lovestruck. confessions.

a/n: there's a phenomenon that happens whenever i write for dr. ratio, and it's that my heart literally lunges out of my chest and begins typing at the keyboard for me. i should get it checked out. anyways, this is to preemptively celebrate his release!!

“Why- why are you mad?” You exclaim, watching the way Veritas crosses his arms and pouts with the petulance of a child. His gaze has strayed away from your eyes, and all you can do is sit in his lap with your arms hanging at your sides, brain tirelessly racking for all the reasons that you could have angered him.

He doesn’t give you any clues, displeasure brewing in his eyes instead.

“Is it because I said ‘I love you’?”

The purple haired scoffs and sticks up his nose, hair bouncing with his actions whilst you jostle slightly on his legs from the quick action. As much as you love his side profile, you’d love it even more if he spoke to you about what is bothering him.

During this moment, the world stills. You think he’s genuinely mad, and Dr. Ratio’s fury-driven state is not something you should take lightly. Really, you’ve seen it multiple times, and though it has never been directed at you, you hope it never will be. Which is why you sit on his lap now, tensely anticipating his response, and for the answer as to what you did wrong. 

“I was meant to say it first,” he grumbles, losing the arrogance that fills his tone whenever he speaks, air filling with sincerity. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I was meant to be the one to say ‘I love you’ first.”

Your confusion is tangible at this point. Audible, if you will, because it rings like cicada sing. “Are you being serious?”

“Deadly.”

“You- why, then couldn’t you just have said it?” You sputter, slapping his defined deltoid, concern slowly melting into frustration. “Need I remind you that it was me who confessed to you first as well?”

“Yes, and it was positively the best day of my life.” He says that like it’s a simple fact. No sentiment, no heartfelt declaration, just another logical statement straight from a textbook of his life.

They say to be loved is to be changed, but no matter how much you love Veritas, all he knows is how to be an astronomical pain in your ass. Does he know how scared you were for his answer? You thought you did something unforgivable, or that he didn’t love you enough to respond in kind, or worst of all, that he wanted nothing to do with you anymore?

However, he's acting petty because he was not the first one to say those three words? You frankly don’t know why your heart beats for him as strongly as it does. In fact, you want to whack him over the head with his own codex.  

Placing your hands firmly on his shoulders, you shuffle out of your position from his lap, planting your feet onto the ground. “Oh, you are so infuriating! Pretend I never said anything, I’m going back to my office until you-”

Not even two steps away from him and a hand clasps around your wrist to drag you back to where you started: on Dr. Ratio’s lap. His arms come to wrap around you like chains, leaving no room to wrestle him out.

“I never said you could leave. Especially not after telling me you love me,” he grumbles lowly into your collarbone, breath tickling your skin.

“I’m starting to regret it.” 

“Can’t you at least say it again?”

“I don’t want to,” you grumble, arms snaking up to rest around his shoulders. “You don’t deserve it.” 

“Well, that’s a little harsh. Is this how you treat the ones you love?”

“You haven’t even said anything back,” you pinch his skin. “Talk about harsh.”

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asks with a fond chuckle, not missing the opportunity to leave kisses in a trail along your skin, making his way up your neck. Then, when his eyes meet yours, you almost crumble in embarrassment at the memory he’s injected into your mind. 

You push him away and raise a hand to shield your eyes from him, clearly reliving a haunting memory. “Please don’t remind me.” 

“Y’know, it’s not everyday someone gets to scold me and be right. If you weren’t so beautiful, I wouldn’t have let it slide, but it’s not everyday a gorgeous genius falls into my lap with guts to challenge me.”

“I was… agitated that day, so stop talking about it, please. In fact, for my sake, please just forget that moment. Completely.”

“Forget about it? Completely?” The scholar asks with genuine shock lacing his tone. “I fell in love with you in that very moment, how can you expect me to stop talking about it? You rendered me a fool in love and expect me to not think about the very moment it happened? Sweetheart, it was a pivotal moment of my life!” 

“Not pivotal enough if you can’t even say ‘I love you, too’.”

“On the contrary, I have loved you longer. I yearned for you in wakefulness and in my dreams. I wished for you to look my way, and when you did, I never wanted your eyes to stray from me. How heartbreaking it was when they did.” His hand has snuck under your shirt now to rub circles on your skin. If he detached from you, he fears you’d slip away from him, and the worst thing you can give him is space. “Do you know how it felt chasing after you because you were the only one out of my reach? For three years, the only thing I wanted was to be yours. You made me an idiot.”

Stunned by his confession and the weight of it, you let him continue, sharp tongue softening. The only motivation you offer is a hand coming to cup his cheek, tucking aside his bangs so you can see his expression in its entirety. 

His gold eyes shine when they look back up at you. For the first time, you feel like you’re seeing the parts of him that Veritas hides from everyone else. 

“I love you.” He continues with heart wrenching devotion. “I’ll continue loving you until the streams stop, the rivers freeze, and the oceans dry. With three hundred thousand, eighty-three thousand, five hundred and seventy-one discovered planets in the cosmos, that phenomenon will approximately take-”

You seal his lips with yours in a gentle kiss, cradling his jaw and swallowing his words. Like wax to fire, Veritas sinks into you, completely helpless against your affections. 

But, oh, you love him, and nothing else in the entire universe matters.

© EARTHTOOZ 2024, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

KISS ME ONCE AGAIN ── silver x gn!reader, 1.6k

silver has always taken his time with you.

he has never been able to tell you why. lilia says that it is just the way he is, ever since he was a boy. he plays by the rules. he goes by a routine that is, as much as possible, not too affected by his strange sleeping habits.

it is why he goes through the meticulous steps of courting you, offering you flowers and gifting you with thoughtful trinkets and even writing letters for your family while your worlds remain separate. it is why it had to be you to take the first step and kiss him one night during a star-gazing date because gods damn it all, you’re sick of waiting.

( silver laughed and laughed that night as you apologised for your callous actions; because you were so cute, because he was so in love, because it all felt like a dream come true when he allowed himself to ignore tradition to cup your cheeks and pull you into another kiss. )

silver discovers very early on that even when he takes his time, it's all still overwhelming. like a dream come true, he used to tell lilia in bouts of deliriousness when he's still caught between dream and reality and his mind is too muddled with sleep to care about embarrassing himself in front of the fae who had raised him.

like a dream come true.

but what is his dream, exactly?

a cottage deep in the forest of briar valley, with ivy growing up the walls and over the red-tiled roof. soft, packed dirt with growing flowers of all kinds, spring blossoms of pink, yellow, blue, red, protected by a low wall. there are no horrors with dripping ink and dragging claws, no glowing emerald eyes or scaled wings. just grass and flowers and sky and nothing.

no. not nothing. because there's you.

"i just cleaned, so remember to take off your boots by the door!" silver hears you call out from inside the cottage. his chest quakes as he lets out a ragged breath, his bag dropping as he rids himself of the extra weight.

the floor below his dirty boots is clean slate compared to the cluttered kitchen to his left and the living area to his right. silver sees the same threadbare couch by the stone fireplace, cluttered with throw pillows and blankets and an unfinished knitting project. the couch is old. used. loved. there are some closed doors beyond the stairs, but silver doesn't have to check to know what lies behind them. his old childhood bedroom where lilia used to tuck him in. a bathroom that has been flooded one or more than a few times when he got too carried away with playtime. the small study where he used to have his lessons on reading and writing.

there's something about the sight of his childhood home that sets silver off, as if he’s caught in crosswinds, but he fumbles his way inside anyway, toeing his shoes off out of ingrained politeness. his footfalls feel heavy and light all at once against the wooden floors as he walks — almost as if by habit — to the kitchen where he had heard your voice come from.

"there you are," you beam at him, putting a kettle of water on top of the same stove that silver had watched his father cook his meals so many times. your brows furrow when you notice the strange expression on his face; the emotions whirling in his aurora irises like a hurricane and the trembling of his bottom lip.

you frown, wiping your hands on a cloth rag. "silver? what's wrong?"

silver lets out a ragged breath, his hand shaking as it comes up to cradle your own as you cup his face in your palm. what is wrong? this is all he's ever wanted, isn't it? a life with you in the woods he had grown up in, free of worries and dangers and hurt and anger. he's built a home with no fear, no yelling, no uncertainties. just like the life lilia always wanted to give him.

it's a dream come true.

"you're a dream," silver whispers when he realises, his hands coming up to cradle your face in turn. he's shaking, he knows that even with his mind whirling, but he just can't help it— he has to touch you, make sure this isn't— this isn't a nightmare—

no. no, no, no. malleus wouldn't do that. this is his dream. this is what his heart has always yearned for.

"my dream."

"well, aren't you sappy today?" you muse, lips quirking up in that soft smile that silver oh so adores to kiss. "what's the occasion?"

"i—" silver opens his mouth, but no words come out. what can he say? what can he do, knowing that this is all he's ever wanted, but this is a dream. this is a dream and you're not real but gods, does silver want you to be.

a beat passes, and your smile turns sad.

"you know, don't you?"

silver feels his heart ache. he wants to tell you no. no, please keep this veil over my eyes. pretend i don’t know this isn’t real. please. please.

you reach out, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear with such tenderness that silver feels like crying. “you’ve always been so smart, silver.”

“i’m sorry,” he allows himself to say, because this is the least he owes you— this perfect imitation of you that his mind, malleus’s magic, has managed to conjure, because in the short time you’ve known him, you’ve managed to ingrain yourself into every fibre of his being so that even under this spell, all silver can dream about is you, you, you.

silver doesn't want to wake up. he doesn't, he really doesn't. there's something in him that pulls at his heartstrings, tugging at every vein and nerve as if begging him to stay, please stay. there must be a reason why you're always falling asleep, why this had to happen. just stay. this is a dream come true, why would you want to wake up?

“you’re still there,” silver says in a voice so small, it feels like he’s a little boy again, crying and clinging onto lilia like the fever that sticks to his skin and reminds him of his mortality.

“you’re still there, and i’m here.”

his childhood home is small, but within the cottage and with your hands cradling his face, the thick walls feels unnaturally closer, like something is breathing on the back of his neck. he’s reminded of you, somewhere in night raven college, trapped within your own dream. do you think of him, he wonders? has he become your new dream, just as you have become his?

will he ever see you again?

silver can't bear the thought of you somehow waking up from your dream — a matter of when rather than if, because silver knows that you've always had a knack for getting out of impossible situations like this — and realising that he had left you alone to stay in this eternal sleep, with this dream– this illusion of what could have been.

“i have to go,” silver whispers, and his heart breaks because this might be a dream, but it’s still you. how can he tell you he’s going to leave? he can’t do that. he can’t break your heart like that, he can’t—

"i'm sorry. i'm sorry— i'm so, so sorry.”

he expects you to stop him. what do the stories say about dreams where you’re supposed to be kept unaware, blissfully oblivious to the fact that this utopia is not your reality? silver expects this dream version of you to pull some sort of trick to lure him back into your trap—

but instead you just smile softly, reaching out to stroke his face, "how lucky i am to have someone like you love me."

silver hears something crack, resonating in his soul. is it the chains of malleus’s magic breaking its hold on him, or the last pieces of his heart shattering at last? he doesn’t know.

maybe it’s both.

but whatever it is, silver knows he doesn’t have much time. his hands cup your cheeks, pulling you close to him with the desperation of a dying man.

he feels you gasp against his mouth, lips parting and allowing his tongue to slip inside. he maps the cavern of your mouth as if immortalising it in his mind, like he’ll never see you again after this— because that is very well a possibility, no matter how he tries to ignore it.

silver kisses you like it’s his last day in this godforsaken world, because it might as well be, and great seven, he should have done this every time he kissed you. he should have kissed you first. he should have kissed you every moment he could instead of taking his time because now he can hear the sand running in the hourglass, and he’s blind to how much time he has left, and he just wants to see you in the flesh again, please, please, please—

the two of you part an eternity later, but it still feels much too soon. there’s so much love in him, and too little time, and silver feels like drowning.

"wait for me," silver pleads. he'll make this dream come true, he swears. he’ll give you all the love he has in this wretched body of his, and then some. he’ll never sleep again even, if only to make this dream come true.

"i will," you whisper breathlessly—

—and with a bittersweet smile and a final, fleeting kiss to his lips, you let him go.

© trappolia 2024

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