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lunar-years · 2 months

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oh, ”Stay awake.” for the prompt list if you want?

uhhhh. Undoubtedly this was not the fic fill you were expecting for this prompt. i used it very loosely and I am truly sorry for this result...something consumed me.

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Roy sits on the balcony of his posh fucking rental, staring out at Marbella’s shore. He’s got private beach access here, a boardwalk that leads to the sand and then down to the swirling deep blue, where a person can float and maybe, if they're lucky, forget themselves for a while in its depths. But the waves are too high to swim today, and anyway, it’s getting dark now.

Beneath him, there’s a massive pool he could swim in instead, if he wanted. Dive in and spend a moment breathless beneath the water. It might do him good, that chance to briefly cut off the oxygen, to move around for a bit underwater, then feel the relief of the first lungful of air when he breaks back up through the surface. He’d do it, if he wasn’t feeling so fucking…stuck. Stuck to this chair, stuck to his stupid life. In need of permanent fissure, that's him. If he could only force himself to walk down to the pool, he thinks, and not look back. Maybe he could drown himself in it, and make it look like an accident.

He's twirling an engagement ring around in his right hand that's meant to be on Keeley’s ring finger.

The diamond is light pink and oval and massive, set into two narrow, curved bands of smaller yet still brilliant diamonds. It’s fucking perfect for Keeley. Showy, but not grotesquely so. Colourful and chic. Fun. Roy had it custom made for her. Let the jewelry consultant talk his ear off about settings and carats, then signed his name on the dotted line for the most expensive options on the list.

Fuck, he’d even showed it off to Rebecca, weeks and weeks ago, before he booked this trip. How fucking embarrassing was that? He’d only just gotten it in from the jeweler, the rock freshly nestled in its deep red velvet box. His boss cooed over it convincingly and agreed that yes, it looked just the ring for Keeley, and yes, the subtle pink hue was awfully inspired, and yes, Keeley would undoubtedly love it. Roy had left her office feeling rather proud of himself, totally oblivious to what she’d probably been trying to tell him between the lines, given the way her eyes went all narrow and her forehead pinched tight right after he’d told her where he was planning to propose, and when. The extravagant trip he envisioned that would end with him down on one knee.

Rebecca had blinked at him and clucked, with a smile like plastic, Wow. Well, I imagine that will come as quite the surprise! Which at the time felt like praise for his careful planning skills and in hindsight seems more like her small way of warning him. Like she’d known all along Keeley was going to say no.

Had everyone? Roy had only told Rebecca and his sister about the ring, but maybe everyone else had guessed it, or assumed it was coming. Assumed, possibly, how it would end, because who in their right mind would want to marry him? He was just the sort to do something this pathetic, to propose in a last ditch attempt to save what was already broken. Maybe they all saw it. He swallows down the rising, unpleasant rush of bile in his throat and thinks back to Keeley spreading stories about him around work, how clingy he was and how needy and how he never left her alone. So this wouldn’t be the first time everyone else knew more about his relationship than he did.

For one fleeting, wild moment, he envisions himself flinging the ring right off this balcony and watching it make its way, impossibly, all the way out to the sea. Gets brief satisfaction at the thought of the ocean swallowing it whole, entrapping it below the waves where he never has to think about it, or look at it, ever again. In his hand, the ring stills its incessant twirling and Roy crushes it under his fingers instead, pressing it so hard against his skin he’s sure it’s going to leave a mark on his palm, and hopes, ludicrously, that it will somehow be permanent. A reminder.

Behind him, inside the villa, Keeley’s asleep on the bed he had covered in rose petals while they were at dinner. Roy thinks he might stay up all night, sitting out here as it gets too dark to see the water below, just to avoid the awkwardness of joining her. Or is he meant to sleep in one of the guest rooms? What, exactly, is the protocol for when your girlfriend turns down your proposal but tells you she does in fact still want to be with you, marriage conversation aside? He’s the only person he knows that that’s happened to; he hasn’t even read about it books.

Roy’s spent the past three weeks alone here, missing her terribly. Has he now ruined their one glorious weekend together on the first night, before it’s even properly begun?

She’d flown in just that morning. Roy took a car to the airport to meet her, feeling jittery and excited in equal measure, happier than he’s felt for days. It had been a long fucking three weeks on his own, hardly able to find time to even FaceTime with her, what with how busy she was with her new firm. The whole time, her parting words before he left her for sunny Spain—You never know, maybe the time apart will do both of us good, babe—looped through his mind on constant repeat, curdling in his gut like sour milk.

Realistically, he knows they’ve been on two separate trajectories for a whole now, like rockets shooting off to two different edges of space, nothing but gulf and galaxies between. This weekend was meant to be their way back to one another, the anticipated culmination of their big compromise: Roy would still go to Marbella, alone, and Keeley would make the time to come join him halfway through, just for the few days she could manage with her new job.

His original proposal plan, the one he told to Rebecca involving a gorgeously romantic six-week couples retreat, had gone out the window the moment she’d turned this trip down, but even so, he’d adjusted it accordingly. Fitted his plans around hers, because that’s what suitable, well-adjusted couples did, wasn’t it? Convinced himself he could be flexible. Convinced himself he could wait. It just needed to happen, he just needed to present her with this ring, and she just needed to slip it onto her finger and say yes—and everything that felt wrong would be fixed.

He’s a fucking idiot.

He should have seen this coming. Even their reunion had felt off. She’d stepped through the baggage claim pulling her cheetah-print suitcase behind her, and subsequentially dropping it at the sight of him in order to run over and leap grandly into his arms. When they kissed, it felt just as good as it always did, like puzzle pieces sliding into place, soothing over the open wound inside of him he hadn’t quite realized he’d been nursing, all this time. But the wound didn’t close just because she was there. As soon as she stepped away again, retracing her steps back to retrieve her suitcase, the gulf only seemed to widen.

So then he'd taken her back to the villa, carrying on about the itinerary he’d spent the first half of his time here perfecting. He’d show her around the place first, give her time to get settled, and after that they’d still have plenty of time to get ready for dinner. He’d booked a private dinner on the water. A romantic, candlelit feast of seafood and drinks and dessert, after which he’d just go for it. He had what he wanted to say all lined up in his head: I love you Keeley. I want to spend forever with you. Then back to their room, which by then would be decked floor to ceiling with rose petals and heart balloons and champagne, ready for their exuberant return.

The first part went even better than planned. As soon as they made it through the front door, Keeley pounced on him, locking her fingers against his back, wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling him closer with all the hunger and passion and desperation they’d had in the beginning; that thing he’d been chasing for months. Passion got pushed aside when there were emails to check and businesses to run. Sex became a bit of a chore, maybe. But not now. Not anymore.

She let him carry her bridal-style to the master suite, setting her reverently down in the king-sized bed, stripping her adoringly, in between frantic kisses. They fucked hurriedly, Keeley’s suitcase abandoned in the entranceway and all thoughts of unpacking and giving a tour through the house abandoned with it. Then they fucked again, with much less haste. Like they’d finally managed to convince themselves the moment wasn’t about to be ripped away from them and were now letting themselves enjoy the thing proper. She was here now. It was all going to be fine.

After, though. Lying tangled up in the sheets, sweaty and naked and satisfied, Roy said something innocuous about getting up in time for a long shower together before they had to ready themselves for dinner, and the mood in the air shifted. Keeley frowned, “Oh I don’t know babe. Can you still cancel it? It’s just…” she exhaled and flopped her head back onto the pillows, hair splaying everywhere, “I am so fucking tired. That plane was an absolute misery, there was loads of turbulence and this one crying baby who I seriously think might have been possessed by some sort of crying demon, and…God, it really was awful. Also, before I left I had a meeting with my new employees. They hate me, Roy, I really think they hate me. How am I supposed to run a firm if all of my employees hate me?”

She stopped just long enough to breathe, or maybe she’d caught the look on his face. “Sorry, I know I swore not to talk about work on this trip.” A quick peck of her lips to his cheek, a little plea for forgiveness. It felt cold. “Just us for the rest of the weekend, I promise. So…dinner. What if we order in, just for tonight? We’ll spend the whole evening in bed, it’ll be fantastic. We can take a lazy nap, and then eat whenever we wake up, fuck again, midnight skinny dip in that fucking amazing pool out back—"

Of course she didn’t know about the candles and rose petals and the ring burning a hole in the safe deposit box in the closet, but Roy still stiffened. “No, we can't nap. We have to stay awake,” he bit out quickly. “We have to go to dinner. It’s already set up.”

Keeley kept talking mindlessly, even as Roy’s brain seemed to be burrowing itself in the sand, taking his sanity with it. “Well can’t you just call and postpone it? We can do the fancy dinner tomorrow, babe, once I’m more rested.” She was smiling. Her face seemed to say, this isn’t a big deal, babe.

But it was. Because Roy didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. He loved her today. He wanted this to happen today. The room felt unstable, like the bed was spinning in the opposite direction of the walls. It felt like something was slipping from him that he couldn’t name, even now. He was desperately trying to grasp at it with too-slick fingers even as it evaded his hold. “It has to be tonight, Keeley. There’s a different dinner planned tomorrow,” he snapped.

She stared at him in alarm.

“I have different dinners planned all weekend. I’ve put a lot of time into making this fucking—nice for you. For us. I’ve had a lot of time to put it together, since I’ve been here all the fuck alone.” It was much harsher than he'd intended, but he couldn’t take it back once he'd said it, and he didn't try to. The thing he was trying to save dipped further from his grasp. Keeley’s mouth snapped shut. The words hung in the air between them, heavy in the silence.

“Fine,” Keeley snapped back, eventually. Even her voice sounded more tired than angry, and the guilt gnawed at his chest. “Heaven forbid I want to relax on my bloody holiday. We’ll do it your way, then.” Then she rolled off the bed, shoving aside the sheets as she untangled them from her form, then angrily stomping towards the ensuite.

He made to get up and go after her, but she looked back at him with steely eyes, stopping him in his tracks. “I’m showering, Roy. Alone.”

Of course it went terribly, after that. How could it not? He should have called the whole thing off, should have agreed to lounge around and eat takeaway in bed and do nothing but fuck in the pool. He should have forgotten about the ring for the evening.

(He doesn’t think it would have made any difference. That’s almost the worst part.)

At dinner, the tension between them dissipated on the crests of bottomless cocktails and conversation. On laughter. Keeley looked fucking incredible in a flowery sundress. The food was divine. And the first thing they did was apologize for biting one another’s heads off, agreed that it had just been a long day. A mutual peace offering. Roy fingered the ring in his pocket until the time came to sink to his knee.

When he did, her face shattered. Not in the way he’d wanted it too, the way he’d pictured. Not the kind of shattered that happens when the joy gets so full it could burst. No, this was the same kind of shattered way she’d looked at him when she told him she couldn’t spare the time to spend six weeks with him in Marbella. Like she pitied him, almost. Like she was hoping he’d stop or say it was all a joke. That he’d take it all back.

“Roy,” she started softly, already shaking her head.

Already shaking her head.

“I love you, Roy,” she promised, eyes glistening. The words were a buzz in the background.

(The worst part, by far, is how much he loves her in return. He loves her so much he doesn’t know quite what to do with it. If a proposal isn’t the right place to put it, where is? He doesn’t understand why the love can’t fix them. Why it isn’t enough.)

“We’re not ready for this,” she continued, openly shedding tears by then. Somewhere off to the side, their waiter was probably alarmed, holding the cake with congratulations! swirled onto its plate in dark chocolate that Roy had paid extra for, unsure what to do with it, waiting for instruction. Roy was too humiliated to check for certain. He was still down on one knee. It was starting to throb. Carefully, he raised himself back up.

She was watching him with a look of great remorse as she repeated, “We can’t get married right now, baby. It isn’t…I don’t think it’s the answer, yeah? Maybe eventually, but not now.” It sounded exactly the way we’ll be fine had sounded the day she’d packed up her office in Richmond. Like they definitely wouldn’t be fine. Like her answer to marriage wasn’t not now but quite possibly never.

He’d nodded. He’d lowered himself back into his chair, feeling clammy and numb. He’d waved the waiter over to close the bill.

Staring out at the sea that’s gone dark, he tucks the ring back into his pocket with the startling, crippling, clear realization that he's got to break up with her. He feels like his heart has been wrenched out of his chest and stomped on, then shoved back in for him to live with. He feels like she’s right, and it wouldn’t have worked even if she’d said yes.

He’s such a fucking mess, he thinks, and she deserves better. She’s on top of the world, and here he is dragging her down into the water. Maybe they both know they’re broken beyond repair, just waiting for the other one to call it off. He’s not sure he can do it. These days, he misses her even when she’s in the next room.

Fuck.

He slides open the door to the balcony and steps back inside after one last glance at the ocean, which he can hear even if he can’t see. Fuck the guest bed. He makes his way into the bedroom and crawls in next to her. A couple more rose petals flutter to the ground.

“Roy,” she breathes, as soon as he’s settled himself under the thin sheet, the air too hot and humid, even with the AC cranked, to sleep under anything heavier. Her voice is quiet and sad and cracked and small. It sounds like she’s been crying the whole time he’s been outside.

He shuts his eyes and says, “I’m sorry,” to the air. He doesn’t know quite what he’s apologizing for. Asking her to marry him? Assuming she’d say yes? Even just thinking about breaking up with her just now? Her, the best person to ever happen to him? The best anything, end of. He draws himself closer and wraps his arm around her torso, just to feel her—her skin, the smell of her hair and the dip and fall of her stomach as she breathes in and out.

It’s its own familiar kind of self-torture, holding something in his hands as he loses it slowly. Like the last year of football, magnified by ten. Waiting for the final hammer to fall as he cradles the thing he loves in the palm of his hand and feels it drip through.

“Are we still okay?” she whispers, cupping her fingers over his own clasped ones. Maybe he’s not the only one desperately clinging on.

He tells her yes, but the truth is that he doesn’t know.

The deeper truth, the one he can’t face, is that he doesn’t think so.

He thinks it’s already over.

#ring description is based on blake lively's engagement ring which really is perfect for keeley :)#roykeeley #ted lasso #roy kent #keeley jones #pre breakup breakup fic tbh #hurt no comfort #angst #marbella #I'M SO SORRY #my writing #my fics #proposal fail #writing games #asks #i promise you my last fic from this prompt game is going to be the 'jamie gets whumped' fic yall (and me) deserve.#<333 #ship post

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the-obnoxious-sibling · 6 months

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Hello,

I found your takes very interesting and I would love to discuss them a big more.

Your analysis of the Shanksbuggy break up is really great based on what we have (Buggy pov of what happened) but I also want to add that they are teenagers that just saw one of the most important person in their eyes died. Obviously they're not in the best position to have a very clear discussion about future and it's even worse if you add to the mix the tendency of Buggy to jump to conclusion and the love of mystery of Shanks. And I also think in a way it a discussion about grief and mourning and how different people have different reaction to it.

I also have some hypothesis about why they changed their opinion about separating each other because they don't have the same dream.

- The first one is what happened quickly after their discussion: Buggy eating the devil fruit. The fact this incident is what Buggy uses as an excuse to explain his hatred of Shanks is obviously now a lie to himself but there is probably a part of true in that this incident changed their relationship and makes them more codependent due to Buggy's inability to swim while living on a boat. There is also probably a discussion to have with the quite weird relationship of Roger's crew and devil fruit (The fact that no one except Buggy have one).

- The second one is the circonstances of them leaving the crew. When discussing their plan, they speak about Leaving the crew and building something in a way which is very similar to a child leaving their parents house to go study or work. It's an active decision. (Even if Buggy's action at the time is closer to a teenager running away than a future adult 😅). But that's not what happened in the end, their departure from the ship is a decision which is forced on them and with quite a traumatic end. It willmakes sense then that they stick to each other.

- The third hypothesis is that they become teenagers and they went from best friends to lovers.

(Sorry I did end up writing a lot) 😅

hello! don't apologize for writing a lot, i am a big fan of writing a lot myself! …as you’ll see in this post. >>;

and you're very right, these are good points to bring up that i haven’t really gotten into before. grief, and the ways their circumstances changed (or might have changed—as you’ll see, i’m not totally convinced about one of your hypotheticals) after that first conversation. let's get into it!

grief.

the context for their fight, and the grief they must be feeling in that moment, is definitely worth taking into consideration. there's something of a truism that you shouldn't make big decisions in the first six months to a year after suffering the loss of a loved one, because during that early mourning period you simply aren't thinking clearly. you may make hasty, impulsive decisions that you'll regret later, or the additional stress of attempting to take action while emotionally burdened will cause things to go wrong. it's better, we tend to agree, to wait.

if buggy is asking shanks to go to laugh tale right now, that’s a textbook hasty decision, and one likely to go poorly if acted on. (i’ve stated my opinion to the contrary in tags before, but that is just my opinion.) and buggy’s rejection of shanks’ offer also seems impulsively made! a knee-jerk reaction to getting an unexpected response, that could also be the influence of grief though buggy is pretty impulsive in general so who knows.

in contrast, shanks deciding not to go to laugh tale ‘for now’ can be seen as recognition that it would be better, smarter, to wait.

at this point, i’d like to point out that we don’t know what life was like for buggy and shanks between dropping oden off at wano and this conversation in roguetown. as far as we know, nothing of significance happened after the roger pirates disbanded—emphasis on as far as we know. we don’t even know if buggy and shanks spent those months together, or if they met by chance at roger’s execution!

all that to say: we don’t know what the status quo for these two looks like in this moment. is shanks asking buggy to come with him asking him to stay together, to continue as they have been, or is this yet another impulsive decision? are they both trying to take action too quickly?

i think this was definitely a bad time to be discussing these topics—but there might not have been another time available to them. we know there were a lot of pirates in roguetown that day—and a lot of marines, too. there may have been an urgency to this moment that we can’t appreciate right now, with the information we have.

changing circumstances 1: the chop-chop fruit.

i used to think it was curious that buggy was the only devil fruit user on the roger pirate crew, until i remembered what other crews around at the time were like. specifically:

whitebeard, himself a devil fruit user, is all about embracing weird outcast types and bringing them into his crew (and his family). so to people who were already devil fruit users, who consider becoming pirates because they’ve been shunned and cast out of their home and society, whitebeard’s gotta be the go-to guy. he already knows what it’s like! he must have extra measures in place to keep his sons from falling overboard! you’ll be safe with him!

kaidou, also a devil fruit user, loves getting devil fruit users in his crew. he’s not as friendly or paternal a captain, but if you aren’t interested in that energy—if you got yourself a devil fruit for power’s sake but found the downsides made it hard to be on your own—he’s a good option.

basically, i think most people who went into piracy in those days already in possession of devil fruit powers found themselves drawn to captains who had one too—understandably so, in my opinion. a ship where no one has a devil fruit, would they know how to look out for you? for all you know, they’re one of those superstitious crews who take the “ocean’s curse” line seriously! better to stick with someone you know has devil fruit experience.

buggy’s one of the uncommon few to eat a devil fruit after becoming a pirate. that whole crew was offered the opportunity to eat the thing, and he was the only one who dared—because the rest knew that it was a risky move at best, especially with an unknown fruit. the power you get might not be worth the cost, especially for someone who makes their living on the sea.

we forget this, i think because there’s so many devil fruit users in one piece, but devil fruits are hard to come by! we’re seeing a small sliver of the population who managed to get their hands on one and then managed to survive the downsides. that the roger pirates ever found one was a rare thing. they didn’t even know for sure if it was real when buggy ate it!

all this to say, i don’t know that i believe the chop-chop fruit changes much about the shanks-buggy dynamic, except in the “he betrayed me!!” angle it brings to buggy’s future grudge against him. (not that i think this is what buggy considers to be shanks’ real betrayal. it’s just the one he can talk about without revealing his roger pirate history.) so buggy can’t swim anymore! so what?! neither can whitebeard! shanks, you better not look down on me for this!! etc, etc.

now, how much of that would just be talk from buggy? (i.e., claiming ‘you better not look down on me, i don’t need your help’ but clinging to shanks’ arm the second a wave looks like it might crash over the deck?) probably a fair amount! but i don’t think that’s a significant change in behavior from buggy, his words and actions often disagree.

changing circumstances 2: roger pirates disbanded.

it is one thing to boldly claim as a child that you’re going to be a great pirate captain, and quite another to actually do it. it probably helps to spend years on a great pirate captain’s ship, to see how he does it, to eventually start to wonder to yourself, would i do it that way, if it were me in charge? but even then, when you’ve been quietly thinking about it, maybe announcing your intentions a few times, setting aside the most important things to take with you on the day when you finally leave, on the day when you’ll finally feel ready to leave—

all that is very different from being told that everyone is leaving. that you don’t have a choice about when to go. that there will be nowhere and no one to return to if it turns out you weren’t ready to be on your own after all.

as i mentioned earlier, we don’t know what the time after the roger pirates disbanded was like for shanks and buggy. were they relying on the kindness of near-strangers, people who half-remembered them as members of roger’s crew from their first trip through the GL? were they lucky enough to be the last ones let go, at a trusted island in that early part of paradise? did shanks have enough understanding of conqueror’s haki at that age to get his ship through the calm belt when the news about roger’s arrest went out, or did a ship traveling into east blue end up with a stowaway or two?

any way you look at it, i have to imagine being a teenager alone (or nearly alone) on the grand line must have been terrifying. who wouldn’t think back on childhood dreams of independence and wince at that poor child, who didn’t know how good they had it? after going it alone against your will, who wouldn’t cling to a familiar face?

circumstances change 3: relationship upgrade.

kind of in line with the above: after being thrown into the world alone, unexpectedly, who wouldn’t cling to a familiar face? or… more than cling? 😉 but seriously, i’m a bit of a pessimist about this hypothesis. i think it can make sense, it just also makes me sad.

because if shanks wants buggy to come with him because they’re romantically involved, i think that would make buggy less certain of his place in shanks’ life. crew is crew forever! even when you leave the ship, you’re still a part of its crew deep down. a kissing relationship, though… that can go away easy as the wind. if shanks wants him around to kiss, what happens if they stop kissing? does shanks stop wanting him around?

but also: does buggy want to be around shanks, if he only wants buggy around to kiss? isn’t buggy a pirate worthy of shanks’ respect?! didn’t he grow up on the same ship, learning the same lessons? why shouldn’t he be captain of his own ship?! why is he even kissing this idiot in the first place?!!

of course, shanks doesn’t mean it to come across this way. when he asks a buggy he’s involved with to come with him, he means that he loves buggy and would miss him if they weren’t on the same ship. but you know how buggy always hears the worst possible meaning to any sentence spoken to him.

#asked and answered #my meta #jyanadavega #one piece #shuggy #shanks #buggy #sorry this took so long! i wanted to give this response as much consideration as you did your ask #and work was… so rough last week. hard to think good thoughts.#anyway you’re very right about grief playing a big role in the roguetown split #though i imagine much of that year post-disbanding was spent working through that grief in theory… the reality HAD to hit different #& in the last section i say ‘kiss’ but. feel free to substitute whatever verb you like. the essential meaning remains the same.#*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*the roger pirates disbandment #*the chop-chop fruit

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