tayvis oneshots ★

tale as old as time • part three

this is a continuation of the previous two chapters, tale as old as time.

tw for suicidal ideation... :-)

this one is a little darker, so i express my apologies to those who don't want to read it (which is totally understandable). also, i decided i'll  post this oneshot (now a three shot) on ao3 so if you see it there, that's me!

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Present day...

Hearing Travis approach the door, Taylor quickly reached her arm out from under her pillow to quickly grab the book from her bedside table. She'd rather he think she was reading in here, rather than the reality, which was wasting away in bed at 3pm doing absolutely nothing.

"Hey baby," he said once he'd opened the door, as he walked to the side of the bed and perched on the side.

"Hey," Taylor smiled, looking up from her book.

"What you up to?" he asked casually.

"Just reading," her eyes flitted to the open book in her hands.

"Mmm," Travis nodded. "Hey, so, I wanted to just talk to you about something," he started apprehensively. Taylor nodded. "So, I was researching depression-"

Taylor clicked her tongue and put her book down, "I'm fine, Travis."

"You're not!" He shot back, silencing Taylor. "You're- you're not."

As tension seeped into the room, filling the quiet, he continued. "I was researching depression, and I think I found a few things we can try, okay? Please just be open-minded about this. This is all to help you, remember that." He paused and pulled out his phone. He wrote a fucking list. "Okay so, initially I thought this was bullshit but I realised of course it works, exercise! We don't have to, like, do anything crazy. Even just a small walk around, like the backyard, even. Or we could go to the gym room and mess around in there, I don't know, whatever you want to do, really. What do you think? If you don't want to, that's fine, there are a few other ideas."

Taylor tried to steadily inhale as her eyes filled with tears. He made a list of ways to help her.

"Baby," he scooted closer, bringing his hand to the side of her face. "Why are you crying? Are you okay?"

Tears streamed across her face, she turned her head to bury herself in her pillow. His hand moved to the back of her head.

"Taylor," he whispered.

But she just cried. She couldn't believe how much he loved her. For the past couple months, she'd been the worst girlfriend anyone could ever imagine. Only sleeping during the day, always in a bad mood, barely helping out around the house, just completely isolating herself from not only everyone else, but Travis too. And what was his response? Approaching it with such an unbelievable amount of adoration and kindness that she couldn't even fathom. He put in all this effort and she, for some reason, couldn't return any of it for him.

Travis reached over and pulled her up so that she was sitting and he could hug her. "Shh, you're okay Tay," he comforted. He rested his chin on top of her head, stroking her back and squeezing her slightly. "You're okay. I love you."

"I'm sorry," Taylor sniffed. "I'm just tired and haven't cried in a little while, I'm sorry."

"You have to stop apologising for crying," Travis released her slightly to look at her face.

Taylor sighed and shook her head slightly, she was apologising for so much more than crying.

"Do you want to talk? About that?"