The Angst Monster Tag - Tumblr Posts

THIS WAS SO GOOD!!! Rowan, my baby, you BROKE MY HEART 😭😭😭😭

I need a part 2!!! This writing was amazing 🤩

dial drunk

inspired by "dial drunk" by noah kahan. if you know the song, you know how much angst is about to happen. @backtobl4ck thank you for encouraging me ;)

Word count: ~1k

A/N: PAINNNNNNN. Frederick is very very proud of himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shifting flashes of red and blue police lights in his rearview mirror yanked Rowan from his half-unconscious stupor back into reality. The siren caught up with him seconds later, piercing through the fog of intoxication clouding his senses. Fuck, how much had he drunk? How many empty bottles littered the floor of his kitchen? 

Hadn’t he sworn, months ago, to lock the alcohol away? Hadn’t he promised someone he loved more than life itself that he would stop drinking to forget?

Even though he had, that someone had broken him so badly he’d gone for the liquor cabinet, grabbed bottles at random, and poured the alcohol down his throat until the burn faded into numbness and the agony of the evening faded into the liquor-induced fog. Then he’d climbed into his pickup and left–he had to get the fuck away, clear his head. Part of him wouldn’t care if he drunk-drove himself off the side of the road, if he crashed and burned and died a nameless drunk. 

Guided by the police cruiser behind him, Rowan pulled off to the side of the road and stopped, keeping his hands on the wheel. A police officer got out of the cruiser and walked up to his door.

“Open the door, son.” The officer’s deep, calm voice was familiar, even through the haze of alcohol and anguish blurring his mind. 

Blearily, Rowan threw his pickup into park, set the parking brake, unlocked his door, and opened it. “Have my li-licensh’ here, sir,” he slurred. 

“Rowa, I don’t need your license.” Ah fuck, just what he needed–Rhoe Galathynius finding his daughter’s boyfriend–ex-boyfriend now–drunk driving down Main to get the hell out of town after a breakup that shattered both of them into a thousand tiny shards. 

“Sh-sir?” Rowan was confused. 

“You’re drunk, Rowan.” Rhoe’s voice remained infinitely patient. “I have to take you in for the night, son.” 

Son. The endearment stabbed a barbed spear straight through the raw ruins of Rowan’s heart. Groggily, he shut off his engine, stepped out of the truck, and would have fallen on his face if Rhoe hadn’t caught him. 

“Here.” Rhoe steadied him. “Come on, son. It’s just for the night; you’ll be able to go home once you’ve sobered up.” Holding open the back door of the cruiser, he nudged Rowan inside. “You get one emergency call.” 

“Aelin!” Rowan blurted.

“What?” 

“Aelin,” he repeated, hoarsely. “My call.” 

Unidentifiable emotions flashed across Rhoe’s fatherly face. “Okay.” He handed Rowan his phone. “Go ahead.” 

Rowan tapped Aelin’s icon, heard her ringtone start to sound, and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. 

“Th-this is Aelin.” Her voice–raw, rough, and creaky the way it was after she’d been sobbing–crackled through the phone. 

“Fireheart?” Rowan choked out. 

Click. Beep. 

She hung up. 

Blindly, Rowan grabbed for his phone, but Rhoe held it out of his drunken reach. “I’m sorry, son.” 

“Please,” Rowan begged, tears spilling out of his eyes. “Le’mme try again, sir, fuck, I swear I’ll cooperate.” His voice broke. “She–I–I need–she’ll call back, I swear.” 

Grief and empathy shone in Rhoe’s kind eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry, son.” 

“Fuck!” Rowan buried his head in his hands. “Please!”

Rhoe’s strong hand rested on the younger man’s shoulder. “Why do you want to do this to yourself?” he asked, gently. Rowan could hear the muted pain in the older man’s words, the deep love Rhoe had for his daughter and for the man she loved, and he knew how much it must tear the man up to arrest his daughter’s boyfriend for drunk driving and then end up going home to a broken, emotionally bleeding version of his daughter. 

“S’done,” Rowan slurred, his vision blurring so badly he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep until the pounding in his head went away. 

Rhoe let out a soft sigh. “Stay here, son.” He left the back door open, stepped aside, and spoke to his patrol partner in a low voice for a few minutes. When he returned, he helped Rowan out of the cruiser instead of closing the door and heading off to the jail like Rowan thought he’d do. “I’m going to need your keys, son.” 

Rowan blinked. “Huh?” 

“Your keys.” Rhoe held out his hand, huffing out a short breath at Rowan’s complete confusion. “I’m going to drive you home in your truck, son, but I’ll need your keys to drive.” 

“Oh.” Fumbling a little, Rowan handed over his keys. Rhoe unlocked the pickup, helped Rowan up into the passenger side, buckled his seatbelt, closed the door, and went around to the driver’s side. A moment later, they were back on the road, headed towards Rowan’s house. “Sir?” 

“Hmm?” Rhoe glanced towards him, his face illuminated in the amber wash of the traffic lights. 

“I-I’m sorry.” Rowan closed his eyes and sank back into the passenger seat. “I’m so sorry.” 

Rhoe was quiet for a long few moments. “Lock the cabinet back up, son,” he finally said. “It won’t do anything good for you.” He reached Rowan’s house, pulled into his driveway, parked, helped Rowan out of his truck, and walked him into his house. “Son.” 

“Yeah?” 

Rhoe pressed Rowan into a brief, tight hug. “Don’t beat yourself up too badly.” He closed the front door, leaving Rowan alone in his house once again. 

Rowan made it into the kitchen, shuffling slowly with his hand on the wall to guide him and keep himself upright, and swore at the sight of the bottles on the counter and the floor. So many. Maybe that was partially because of his hazy vision, but still–so many. 

He left the kitchen. He’d deal with that mess…later. Right now, he needed sleep. 

He only made it as far as the living room couch before his legs buckled and he half-collapsed onto the couch, barely remembering to kick off his shoes before he flopped down on his side, closed his eyes, and tumbled into the sweet black oblivion of drunken sleep. 

The last thing he saw before deep sleep claimed him was Aelin’s heartbreakingly beautiful face, her stunning eyes lined with tears, her soft, broken plea for him to  “just leave” spilling from her lips. 

~~~

TAGS:

@live-the-fangirl-life

@superspiritfestival

@thegreyj

@wordsafterhours

@elentiyawhitethorn

@morganofthewildfire

@backtobl4ck

@rowanaelinn

@house-of-galathynius

@tomtenadia

@julemmaes

@swankii-art-teacher

@charlizeed

@booknerdproblems

@chronicchthonic14

@earthtolinds

@goddess-aelin

@sweet-but-stormy

@clea-nightingale

@autumnbabylon

@darling-im-the-queen-of-hell

@llyncooljones

@silentquartz

Emails I Can't Send-Rowaelin Fanfic

This is actually one of my favorite things I've ever written. It's based off of the song emails i can't send by Sabrina Carpenter. That whole album is so underrated - go listen to it! If you want, listen to the song while reading. The song is so so heartbreaking and I just had to write about it. :)

(I know I haven't posted in a while, so I thought this would be perfect because I love it so much. I wrote it back in August <33)

Word Count: 1k

Warnings: Language, some suggestive language

Tag List: @backtobl4ck, @aelinchocolatelover, @renxzs, @blue-bird17, @luell1q

__

The song had come from everything and nothing at the same time. She’d written it on a crumpled piece of paper, droplets of her tears weakening the page, at three in the morning. All of her hurt and pain and fear from that night put into a couple scrawling paragraphs. 

Now, standing backstage in the wings, Aelin took a deep breath. The crew buzzed around her, Lysandra last-minute checking her makeup, hair and outfit before she went onstage. “Are you going to be okay?” her friend asked, emerald eyes filled with concern. “I know it’s an emotional song for you to sing live, and…you know, Rowan’s out there…”

Aelin winced as the sound of her ex-boyfriend’s name sliced through her heart. It was a pain she was used but not invulnerable to. “I’ll be fine,” she said, more to herself than anything. Nevermind Rowan was seated somewhere in the audience with the rest of his band, and soon he’d be about to hear a breakup song about him…no, never mind that. 

__

Rowan was trying very hard not to think about what was coming next, about how the woman he loved with everything he had was about to be feet away from him. He’d never heard the song she was singing, very purposefully - whenever it came on the radio, which was every day, he’d cranked down the volume quickly. 

Rowan took a gulp of champagne and tried to think of other things. He and his band, The Cadre, had given a decent performance, performing their song K. It was a crowd-pleaser, one of their first hits about Gavriel’s wife, Krystal. He sat at the table with the band - his brothers, really - their partners, and Maeve, the band manager. 

Over the speakers, the host boomed; “Please put your hands together for Aelin Galathynius!”

__

Aelin took a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage, immediately hit with the white-hot spotlight. She stood in front of the standing microphone and smiled as the audience cheered.

“Thank you,” she said, her own voice echoing back at her through the earpiece. “And thanks to all the fans who got me here, performing at the Grammys. This is my new single, emails I can’t send.”

She tuned out the clapping and focused on the instrumentals leaking into her left ear. Nodding to Aedion, her cousin on piano, she took a deep breath. 

__

“It’s times like these, wish I had a time machine so I could see what you did October 13th,” she sang. “At 10:15, were you really asleep or were you lying to me and the family?”

Rowan’s stomach emptied out. October 13th, the night of Aelin’s album release party and one of their biggest fights. The night he’d lied, saying he was with Lorcan when he’d been over at Lyria’s, comforting her while she cried. Comforting Lyria over the record label rejection, when he should’ve been with Aelin, celebrating with her. 

He gazed up at Aelin, who looked heartbreakingly beautiful in a simple white crop top with princess sleeves and low-rise jeans, that showed off her muscled body in a stupidly perfect way. He couldn’t help but think of how he would peel those clothes off her if he hadn’t been such an idiot…get a grip, man. Creep. 

“There’s no us in us when I’m lacking trust,” Aelin continued, and he forced his mind into the present - even worse. Her expression was reserved as her eyes floated over the audience, looking or not looking for one person. “You wanna discuss, ugh, you disgust me…”

The words sliced through him. You disgust me. 

__

Aelin couldn’t tell if she sounded good or not, but she was getting into the mood of the song now. “Don’t make me cuss you out, why’d you let me down? Don’t say sorry now.”

Her voice was rising as she got to the climax of the song, the part she’d truly poured out of the sobs that had wracked her body that night. “And thanks to you I, I can’t love right, I get nice guys and villainize him,” she crooned. “Read their texts like they're having sex right now, scared I’ll find out that it’s true..”

As she sang, she closed her eyes and unlocked the gates she’d built brick by brick over the past five months, the pain and despair from Rowan flowing out her heart and into her voice. “And if I do, then I blame you for every worst that I assume; when I’m 45 someone calls me their wife and he fucks,” at that word, her voice broke in the crooning sort of way that she loves, “our lives in one selfish night.” The lyric, the story, the truth. 

__

Rowan was in heaven because the subject of his every desire was standing in front of him singing with the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard, and he was in hell because she was singing a heartbreaking song about him. 

“Don’t think I’ll find forgiveness as fast as mom did,” Aelin said, and that was the moment when her beautiful, beautiful eyes rested on Rowan. Electricity coursed through him as she did, and he held her gaze as if her irises were his last lifeline. The most heartbreaking and despairing expression flickered across her exquisite face and it was all Rowan could do not to leap out of his chair and hold her as she pointed an accusing finger at him and cried; “And God, I love you, but you’re such a dipshit.”

__

“Please fucking fix this,” Aelin neared-whispered as the song crested, the instrumentals fading and becoming sadder, more mellow. She blinked away the tears blurring her vision, Rowan’s piercing green eyes sending sparks through her body, “‘Cause you were all I looked up to.” and Lyria placed a possessive hand on her boyfriend’s arm, placing a kiss to his muscled shoulder, “And now I can’t even look at you,” and Aelin looked away and lowered her arm as the roaring of the audience overwhelmed the room.