bite his tongue
Title: Bite His Tongue
Genre: Slice of life, Angst
Pairing: OC (Own characters)
Rating: PG13
Summary: Sometimes less is more. Sometimes promises aren't kept.
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He bites his tongue and suppress the profanity that rest dangerously at his throat.
Quite an eye roll - she’s at it again. The why’s and the how’s spew harshly in his face and the verbal fight starts again. Really the end emerges no winner so why do they always have to keep doing this? If she’s not tired, he sure as hell is.
“-Like I don’t fucking know what you’ve been doing, I honestly don’t understand why I still put up with all your crap.” She doesn’t yell nor scream, but her voice isn’t the least bit soft and it’s laced with much spite and sarcasm. Yes Lia, I would like to know what the fuck I’ve been doing besides rotting at home, waiting for you to come back from your little Broadway show. Dan thinks to himself angrily and the pressure on his teeth sinks harder. She goes on voicing about her regrets and pains and frustrations, and how Dan, you are just not listening! Lia paces back and forth from the kitchen (where Dan sits rather calmly on the dining chair) to the living room, packing the groceries with much angst as she speaks.
(He doesn’t listen, ha.)
Dan bites his tongue even harder, and he literally wills himself to not respond, because angry words are always a mess and the aftermath is worst - it’s always get uglyuglyugly. So no, Lia, I promise I’m not going to shout back.
Promise, Dan pauses at the word and wonder if the noun would roll off weird on his tongue should he spit it out. The scratchy, frustrated voice of Lia slowly drowns out and he let his mind wander free, and runrunrun, run away from all the chaos.
The first time he ran up towards Lia and caught her hand as he intertwined his with hers, she turned away shyly and let out a giggle. Dan’s heart skipped a beat because he never thought he saw any moment as beautiful, and then it hammers against his chest because he’s the reason why she’s reacting that way, and then he turned away and smiled. “Don’t let go,” Lia says and stares in his brown eyes after a brief moment of silence, and he gazes back intently, “I won’t. I promise.” Dan tightens his grip and Lia squeezes his hand.
Dan could see the stress eating Lia up alive because the shine in her diminishes, she keeps knocking into furniture and she’s biting her nails. She only bites her nails when she’s really nervous or she’s in terrible stress. “I hate how my nails are ruined and I can’t paint pretty colours,” she would say and a cute pout following thereafter, “But it’s a bad bad habit I can’t seem to get rid of.” Dan heads towards the stage and the minute her gaze fixated on him, she grins. But it’s jaded, and Dan sort of hates it. “You should take a break; I’ll bring you for dinner.” Lia smiled again, this time a bit lighter and her blonde tresses cascaded along her shoulder to her chest and waist as she bent down. “Just a while more, the teacher wants to run it through once more and we can call it a day.”
“You’re obviously worn out.” Dan’s eyebrows furrowed. Dan always thought whenever Lia was stubborn she was cute, because he could rub in with a grin and said I told you so but today, it was definitely not cute. “I can take it, really. I really like the theatre, and I’m starving too, I promise we’ll grab dinner after this, fifteen minutes top.” She smiled again. She beamed, because Dan was there (her pillar of strength) and Dan rolled his eyes. “If she says otherwise I’ll leave first okay?” She hastened her words and rose to her feet as the drama teacher calls for: all actors and actresses please gather! We are wasting precious time! “Promise!” She mouthed when she turned back and hurried along to the centre part of the stage. Dan rolled his eyes again then sat in the third row and watched.
Their first real fight was horrible, angry hurtful words hurled in each other’s faces, profanity spat and voices were raised tremendously. All in all, it was just one big mess. Lia slept over at her friend, Vanessa’s place and for the first few nights, and Dan was just angry and riled up with almost anything. He didn’t bother texting or calling Lia because how could she? How could she even let such dreadful thoughts warp her mind? The fourth day Dan pretty much sulked the whole day and realized how quiet the house was.
The fifth night it became much much harder to fall asleep. Slumber was just different if being through it alone. Especially when you’re so used to the scent of the other person, and their faces inches away, their warmth enveloping your body and-god, he missed Lia so fucking much. He misses her terribly and he’s extremely sorry for yelling at her, she bolted off raging, but she was also crying and god, she must have been so hurt. Who do you turn to when your pillar of strength is the one you had to walk away from? He felt lost and miserable; she’d probably felt the same, if not, worst. He wasted no time fishing for his phone and punched the dials rapidly, and on the third ring she answered.
Heavy breathing, silence.
“I am so sorry,” they both blurted out at once. He didn’t realize his voice cracked and hers sounded rough (as if after a cry) and they laughed after. It’s crazy how desperate they wanted and needed each other, and Dan asked Lia to come back home they’ll sort things out and he promised he’ll never shout at her again. He starts to cry because, how easy it was to have everything built crumbling down so quickly and he almost thought he lost her. “Don’t leave me please, don’t ever walk out on me please, I am so sorry.” Dan mumbled, tears choking his speech. Lia’s crying again (and walking back home) “I won’t.” She repeated three times then added, “I promise.”
“Dan are you listening to me?” Lia snaps and Dan blinks vacuously and stares at Lia.
“You never listen to me.” She scoffs then shuts the refrigerator door with much force than needed, grabs for her phone and bag then leaves the apartment (perhaps for a breather).
Dan’s releases the tension and stops biting his tongue and looks over at the door. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to feel; he lost his grip with Lia, she doesn’t take care of herself properly, and in their recent fights he did raised his voice.
Lia probably walked out on him a long time ago and never realized it, but is he supposed to chase after her (again)? He decides to head to bed, and sleeps alone, and it scares him a little that slumber isn’t so hard to do all by himself after all.
♕
END