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The soft pale light of the lingering sunset faintly filtered through the dark gauzy curtains in Elain’s room. Small pale beams of light flickered around the room as they bounced off the long standing mirror in the corner of the room. While her thin frail, obnoxiously long fingered, grotesquely monstrous, disproportionately gross hands repetitively smoothed over the skirt of her dress, Elain Archeron stared down her reflection in the mirror. With its unnecessarily intricately carved and diamond encrusted gold frame, the mirror was some god awful baroque monstrosity Freyre had put in the guest room that had been turned into Elain’s room. Elain hated the mirror. The mirror hated Elain. Every day while she was attempting to recover, rotting into ruin, wallowing, wasting away , that mirror stood in the corner of the room and mocked her.
Even now, as she looked at the way the reflection taunted her, showing her how ‘beautiful’, bloated, beastly, botched , she was, everything in her felt like it had been twisted into some tormentful shape, never to be the same again.
A small burst of pain flared to life as Elain worried at her lip, accidentally causing a small drop of blood to bead up, bright red against the light pink of her lips and brighter still compared to the light peach dress she had been stuffed in. Once more after adjusting the fabric of the dress around her, from the lay of the skirt to the way sleeves of the dress stretched around her shoulders, she gave the mirror a final glare before she steeled the nerves of her stomach and stalked to the midnight vanity on the other side of the room. Refusing to mentally match up with another mirror, Elain went straight to tossing the essentials from her vanity into the small shiny pale purse she would need to take with her to her “soft launch” (as Feyre called it) back into public and into society.
She still didn't feel ready for any kind of launch to anywhere at all, least of all in public at a 5 star restaurant with Feyre and her politician husband and all his close friends and family, but after seeing how poor Nesta was handled after the accident, Elain knew she at least needed to look like she was making progress, even if internally she was struggling, declining, drowning, dying , and still couldn't stand to look at herself, at her new body .
Elain glanced at the time on her phone before she quickly placed it in her bag, not wanting to look at the rest of the notifications, not when she already spent all day dreading what they were going to look like after tonight.
From “Elain Archeron out to make ex Grayson Nolan jealous with her new body.” and “Grayson Nolan’s ex-fiance's botched reconstructive surgery” to “From pastry princess to hot mess: the downfall of baking icon Elain Archeron'' and “Nolan was right to dump disfigured Archeron after horrible car accident”, Elain had pre-written everything that could be said about her and it still didn't feel like enough to prepare her for facing it. She didn't understand how anyone could just expect her to move on after the horror of the past eighteen weeks of her life. She had been newly engaged, ready to start a new life, just received a deal for a brand new baking TV show where she would be able to share how to make bread and baked goods from stuff people could easily grow in their own gardens at home, had been planning the spectacular gardens of what was going to be her future home, and she had been enthusiastically in love, until one drunk driver with a grudge against Rhysand Darling’s state management policies decided to make his anger known via his two sisters-in-law that he had only met the once. And so in one near-fatal car accident, Elain Archeron had lost everything, she had lost things she hadn’t even known to be appreciative of. After extended time in the ICU, having the realization that she would need reconstructive surgery for her body to even look just somewhat similar to what it was before, to Grayson, the betrayer and still the love of her life , dumping her because she ‘just wasn't the same anymore’, losing her home and network deal, gaining and losing a new love, a new hope, because getting together with her was a ‘mistake’, losing control over what was happening with her own body while it was recovering, and being atrociously infantilized by her whole family by Feyre’s whole family who had decided they knew best on how to help her heal, she was surprised she was still somehow functioning. She was still somehow surviving, despite everyone’s blows against her, despite everyone’s expectations for her recov-
A soft knock on the door startled Elain how out her thoughts, and she quickly turned in time to see Feyre - generous Feyre, strong Feyre, young Feyre controlling Feyre - peep her head through the door.
“Hey Elain,” came Feyre’s voice, soft, like she knew Elain was in a fragile freaking out, falling apart, fucked up state at the moment. Feyre was always perceptive like that. “Your dress for tonight looks really beautiful,” she slid through the crack in the door, “are you ready to leave? Everyone is waiting in the blue sitting room on the first floor, and the car will be by in 15 to take us to the restaurant.”. In a partially sheer glittery gown, a small crown of stars pinned in her hair, Feyre Darling -nee Archeron- glimmered like a queen of the night. Compared to Feyre, Elain felt like a bulging peach in her frilly floor length opaque gown.
“Uh-hm,” Elain’s voice struggled to start, unused all day as she silently spent all day finding fault with every new unrecognizable detail of her body, “yeah, I’ll just need another 5, since Nuala and Cerridwen were busy with Nyx today and not able to help me.”
“Okay,” Feyre let out a sigh as she reached out to pat Elain’s shoulder in an attempt at sisterly affection, “take your time.” She then pulled Elain into a hug as every nerve in Elain’s body tensed up, the press of Feyre’s body pushing the fabric of Elain’s dress closer to her body, pushing the fabric against the sensitive scar tissue. Elain felt like a live wire of pain, she felt like she was pushed out of her body, her mind and her flesh were two completely different beings, and here she was being forced to somehow endure the pain of both. As soon as it was socially acceptable for a hug between sisters, maybe a smidge sooner, Elain quickly pushed Feyre off and started smoothing her dress back into place, so that the folds hid the shape of Elain’s body outside of the outline of her waist and didn’t force Elain to pay attention to or acknowledge the changes to her body.
As Feyre slipped back out of the room to rejoin her family, Elain pushed the door shut and leaned against it. Everyone was going to be there, watching, judging, assuming, ignoring her. There were too many people in Feyre’s family and social circle that Elain was dreading to see tonight. Squeezing her eyes shut to prevent tears from welling up in her eyes, Elain pushed it all down, she had to make it through the night.
The whole start of the evening passed by in a haze. The longer she could avoid paying attention, the longer she could avoid thinking about every thing and every feeling, of the past present and future, torn away from her all at once, of having to think of what course the rest of her life is going to take.
In the blink of an eye Elain found herself avoiding eye contact with everyone by intensely examining the flower arrangement placed in the center of the table. There were still a few seats open at the table, some friends Feyre was hoping would still arrive, but Elain was still not paying attention. She was looking very intensely at the yellow tulip just slightly starting to droop, and she definitely could not feel the laser focused eye contact Azriel was trying to make from across the table. Every second felt like an eternity, slowly creeping along, as every inch of her skin felt tight and new, prickling as her skin folded and expanded around her underwear, as elastics pressed into her, she hoped her dress was enough to hide everything she was feeling.
She looked back at the tulip. To the soft delicate petals, slightly curled at the edges, needing some more water, needing some more sun. The small lines stretched across the surface of the petals like monochrome miniscule cracks in the glaze of old pottery.
The soft jostle of the high backed chair next to her pulled her focus from the flowers, she quickly glanced around the table to see that most of the seats were filled. As she turned to look at who would be filling the seat next to her, a burst of vivid red auburn hair filled her vision and she quickly found her face flushing as her eye twitched and she struggled to keep herself seated in her chair rather than storming out of the restaurant.
This was not Feyre’s first attempt to help Elain get back into the world after the accident, although this attempt was the most progress she had made so far, however, Elain found it difficult to be the others who had been there for those failed attempts.
She knows everyone meant well, but that did not make it any less uncomfortable, humiliating, shameful, infantilizing. She was being forced, pressed, pushed, prodded , to pretend that she was getting better, making peace with what had happened to her. Everyone, the doctors, friends, family, watched her, saying she needed time, that she would recover with time, that she’d be back to normal with time. Time time time time time time .
And then they had decided she had too much time.
And now here she was, once again forced next to the object of her first embarrassment since the accident. That someone managed to convince everyone that the way for Elain to get over being dumped in the wake of a life or death accident where everything about her and her life had forcibly changed was to be set up on a blind date that both recipients didn't even know was a date was astounding.
A soft, hesitant, “Nice to see you again Elain,” tried to force her back to reality, but instead, it was like a blinding fog had overtaken her.
She mechanically found herself going through the motions, as all she could think about now was how one day, she would get everything back, and no one would need to tiptoe around her, or treat her like she was a child who needed help in even the most basic of social interactions. She would be able to stand on her own once more.
She would be hosting a huge dinner herself, with elaborate desserts handmade by her with love and dedicated attention, flowers decorating the table, handpicked from her own gardens. Her husband with his red brown hair and his russet blue eyes would be helping host, leading her family, her guests, to the long intricately designed dining table in the private conservatory. She was so close.
Lost in the future, Elain barely registered as the evening came to a close, so used now to being ushered place to place at her family’s direction, her feet barely made any noise as they padded across the plush soft carpet lining the entryway of Feyre’s favorite home.
After-dinner drinks usually happened in the warm mahogany study, between Feyre and her chosen family, Elain took this opportunity to sneak down the hallway, eager to head up the stairs back to her room.
“Elain-” a voice, a familiar one, this time succeeding in startling Elain back to the present. Right as her left foot was about to stabilize her on the first step up the long grand staircase, Elain found herself slipping, flailing, flying, falling, right into the arms of Lucien Vanserra.
“Oh uh, thank you Lucien.” Elain quickly tried to right herself, anything to get out of his arms faster. Her peach dress tangled around her feet, the dress tightening as the tension pulled it against her body, stretching, straining, splaying . Her defense for the evening betrayed her as she found herself being held even more securely by the strong arms of Lucien. With his billowy white shirt, straight out of Elain’s teenage dreams of an Austen-esque romance. Her bland, banal, boring, brown eyes met his, one the most idyllic shade of brown, the other a golden prosthetic.
“No worries, actually uh-” for someone Feyre preached about as being so smooth and courtly, Elain found it extremely frustrating that Lucien seemed to put in the effort for everyone else except her, worthless, wimpy, wounded Elain.
She scoffed and finally succeeded in reorienting herself, wrenching herself out of Lucien’s arms, sliding her hands down the pleats of her dress for the millionth time that night, to make sure everything was in place before she would make her second attempt back up the stairs.
“If you have nothing else to say, have a good evening.” Elain hastily made her way up the first two steps, her hand reaching out to grip the golden wood banister, her footprints making gentle imprints in the dark navy carpeting leading up the staircase.
A hand gently placed on Elain’s cause her to stop.
“I just wanted to apologize.” Lucien’s eye glittered with sincerity. “I know we had a not ideal first meeting, and I know it must be so hard to be going through what you're going through.”
“How would you kno-,” at Elain’s words, Lucien raised a brow, his golden eye shining amidst the lights glowing on the chandelier above the great flight of stairs.
“Its okay to struggle, and you don't have to struggle without help.” He grabbed her hand off the railing and pressed a scrap of paper into her palm. “Call this number first, only if you want to, only if you feel ready. Then if you want, call me later, when you're ready, Feyre has my number. I'll wait. You have as much time as you need. I see you Elain Archeron,” a gentle smile grew on his face, “and you’re worth waiting for.”
A rush of cold flooded through Elain has he dropped her palm and walked away. It felt like she had been standing in the sun for hours, unaware of just how hot it was until she suddenly found herself in the midst of an endlessly dark winter.
As she looked at him as he walked away, Elain felt so much rage. How dare he. How dare he look so comfortable in his body. How dare he act like everything is okay. How dare he look at Elain like nothing changed. How dare he look at her like everything had changed, like he knew what she was feeling. She hated him so much at that moment. How could he, with his unhideable face, be so nonchalant, when Elain, even when completely covered, felt so exposed to everyone in her body all the time now. And how dare he be so happy. And have a laugh so beautiful, and have a radiant smile. When Elain was still stuck here, declining, drowning, dying . How could he be so charming, witty, clever , when Elain struggled every day to express herself beyond the sheer scope of the sadness she felt every day, when there are days where her body betrays her, when she can spend a day memorizing the way her arm looks, a sliver of a scar stretching up the back of her arm, and the next day it's like it rearranged itself, the soft flesh of fat a muscle seeming to take new form against her traitorous bones, new scars, stretch marks, freckles creeping up to the surface of her skin.
And how dare he be so kind to her, so kind that ever since that day in the hospital, she could envision being with him, see herself being happy with him, both of them, one day in the future, happy in their bodies, happy in their lives, everything come together, for him to be mostly there and Elain stuck only seeing the so far distant future is drowning still under the mystery of how to get there. How can she imagine ever being happy when the only vision she has of it is so far into the future everything in front of her feels like an endless abyss of despair and hopelessness.
Cool hands prodded at the back of her dress, silently asking her to bend forward, so that the laces could be untied, her pajamas were laid out on the bed next to her, ready for her to step into once she was freed from the confines of the dress. She vaguely recalls Feyre gently leading her back up the stairs to her room. As she fiddles with the soft scrap of paper that was so carefully pressed into the palm of her hand contemplating whose number it might contain, Elain lets Feyre help her into her pajamas before falling back against the bed and falling into a fitful sleep.
At this point it was routine. Every morning, while she stared at the scar stretched across her skin, awful, ugly, wretched , before she put on her clothes for the day, yearning for that day in the future where she didn't have to go through this every morning, wishing she could just wake up and have somehow gotten there already. She grabbed the small paper scrap of the cluttered vanity, staring at the sequence of digits scrawled across it. Who could Lucien Vanserra think she needed to call before him. At the start everyone had been so sure that she just needed someone, a new partner, someone to help her get over Greyson and herself. They were so sure it was Lucien. But clearly he thought something different.
Scowling as she caught a glimpse of her upper arm, Elain yearned for change for something different, she was tired of being stuck in this same distressing, miserable, endless pattern. Still in just her underwear, while she still had some motivation, grit, impulse, energy , left in her, she ran to the night stand, pulling her phone off the charger and quickly dialed the number and hit dial.
The ringing of the phone held Elain in suspense.
Her breath caught as someone picked up.
The feminine voice was tinny but clear as the person on the other end started “Into Dawn Therapy Clinic, this is Tashi speaking, how can I assist you today?”
Elain hung up the phone in a panic.
Setting the phone face down on the vanity, Elain started putting on her outfit for the day. Selected last night by Nesta, who was finally home again, Elain glanced between the sheer sleeves of the shirt and the reflection of her arms in the mirror again, she reluctantly shrugged the shirt on, picked her phone back up off the vanity, and called the number again.
- sometime in the future -
Elain paced around the bottom of the stairway in Feyre’s town house. She had ran over as soon as Feyre had called, Elain felt a little bit underhanded as she had asked Feyre to invite her friend over with the intention of cornering him. But ever since Lucien had given her a therapy clinic number all those many many months ago, he had been so respectful and had given her space. Too much space it was starting to feel like. The few glimpses she caught of him in passing no longer felt like enough, and she had a larger mission today. Elain was going to start being happy from today, or at least start building the foundation for it again.
She slid her hands down the fabric of her pleated skirt, fixing one of the pleats that had gotten scrunched together on the walk over before she went to fiddle with her hair, tucking a stray piece that had fallen out back into her hair tie before she went to mess with the case on her phone. She could hear murmurs of quiet conversation between Feyre and Lucien from the sitting room, and she was waiting for them to finish up. The pleasant sound of gentle laughter leaked into the room before the door to the sitting room squeaked and Lucien stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. His skin glowed in the gentle light of the room, his hair framing his face elegantly, as strands of it slipped from the loose low ponytail it was in.
Lucien let out a curt but kind, “Elain.” Nodding before he quickly turned to exit the townhouse.
Elain cleared her throat, hoping the start of her response was enough to keep Lucien from leaving before she could get her words out. She needed a second to form the right sentences, to make sure the words were correct. “You know, my therapist, she asked me to do three things this week that I think would add to my future happiness.” Everything was so condensed in her head, she was so worried about getting the words out, when they were adding so much pressure, pushing so hard against her skull. She reached up to pull the hair tie from her hair, to shake out her light tawny locks. “I started baking again the other day. It was so weird kneading the dough myself again. And tomorrow, well tomorrow I'm going to rest. But the day after that, there’s a garden I'm going to look at. Just for inspiration, I don't think I’m fully ready to start designing a new home yet. But I’ll be back out in the sunshine.”
Lucien had gone silent. Lucien had also gotten closer. There were still a few steps between them, but he was clearly giving her the power, the opportunity to make the next steps. So she did. She slowly reached up to brush a lock of hair away from his face. Her hands, her brittle, fragile, frail hands, her hands, her beautiful, strong, surviving hands , brushed against his cheek, and pulled his face close to hers. “The thing I want to do today. It's just a step. I'm not ready for the step after yet though. But I remember something you said to me a while ago. That you could give me time, if I wanted it, if I needed it, if you were something I was willing to want. And I am.”
Elain closed her eyes, unable to bear the look of rejection if it came.
“So, I guess this is me letting you know. That I need the time, but I want you. For as long as you're willing to wait.. I’m going to th-”
Elain was interrupted by the press of Lucien’s lips against hers. They were soft and gentle, and as he reached up to caress her face in return as he said back to her, “Take your time, I’ll wait.”
Elain felt so elated. As their lips slotted together once more, Elain noticed one thing; His lips tasted like sunshine and the future. A promise for tomorrow.
- even further in the future -
Elain quickly pulled out her heart shaped sunglasses and slammed them on her face as the bright light of the afternoon assaulted her face as she left the dim quiet office building. In her sunflower crop top and bright pink short shorts, Elain nearly skipped down the sidewalk to the parking lot where a convertible was idling out front, waiting for her.
The driver looked exceptionally handsome, with his long fiery hair pulled up out of his face, and as Elain hopped over the side of the car into the passenger seat, he leaned over to kiss her senseless.
“Good therapy session?” he asked, a beaming smile across his face.
“You know it. Good day at work?”
“Eh, not so great today. But you know what could make the rest of my day better?” He said, pulling back slightly to wiggle his eyebrows at Elain, his eye lighting up mischievously as he looked at her.
“What do you want, you absolute loon?” Elain giggled as he resumed kissing up the side of her neck, bending slightly to reach her in her seat.
A comfortable heat flushed against her skin as Lucien somehow pressed even closer to her to whisper in her ear before he continued kissing her. “You should let me eat you out today.”
Elain let out an unrestrained laugh. Her shirt slid up against her torso with the movement, making her already exposed scars shine in the afternoon light. Elain grabbed one of Lucien’s hands and pressed it against them. “Okay,” she giggled back. She was happy.