Aris Jones X Reader One Shots

Never Truly Hated

My ability to speak to Aris was decreasing by the day, my anger at the way he could lie so easily growing. He could die. He could go to hell for all I care.

He doesn't seem to understand that. He still looks at me with this longing eyes, his expression calling me. Telling me to just come back to him. To love him the way I used to.

He asked to see me. Just to talk. Just to figure something out.

I can't. I can't, and I won't, and I told myself that so many times. I said it as I went to sleep, whenever my eyes met his, whenever I heard his name, and all the time.

Unfortunately, I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot who felt so much for him. I’m an idiot who was curious as to what he possibly had to say to me. I’m an idiot so I did.

So, in the dead of night, I went to see him at the beach. To see what he thought was important enough to speak to me despite my obvious distaste for him.

“What do you want, Aris?”I asked shortly.

“No more love?”

“No. You lost that nickname when you lost me.”

“Fair enough,”He shrugged.

“What do you want?”

“I have to know if that's actually true.”

“If what's true?”

“If I really lost you. Have I?”

“I’m not in the mood for your nonsense tonight.”

“Are you sure you're just not in the mood to answer?”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at him, my lips pressed together as I was as cold as possible.

“You still look at me. And sometimes it's exactly the way I remember. With so much want. So tell me you don't? Tell me I’ve truly lost you forever, and I’ll never reach out to you again.”

His voice seemed honest, holding more truth than anything else he's ever said.

I also never knew he was a flawless liar until it was too late.

“You're awful. Absolutely awful.”

“I’m still waiting for you to say you don't want me. To swear you wouldn't want me if enough time passed. If I was close enough,”He whispered, stepping even closer. Meeting my eyes, he stared at me. Without a word, he gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear, causing me to take a breath before shaking my head to get over it, putting my hair back in that spot no matter how much I hated it.

“If I was with someone else, you wouldn't get mad? You wouldn't hate everything about that? You wouldn't wish it was you whose hand I was holding? Whose lips I was kissing? Whose body I had pressed against mine in the sheets as I kept her close to me? If I did everything I’ve done with you to another girl, you wouldn't hate everything about it?”

“It doesn't matter,”I said firmly.

Placing his hands to my cheeks, he held my face in his hands, his lips so tauntingly close to mine for just a moment. As he pulled away, his hands didn't leave me. Not once.

“You can say you hate me all you want. You can say you despise me. You can actually want me dead. But no matter what, you can never unkiss me. You can never unlove me. You can never take back every late night where you would tell me I was your everything. You can never have a first anything with anyone else. No first kiss, no first I love you, no first love, no first date, no first cuddle, no first sharing a bed, no first sweet names. I’ll be your first everything no matter what you do,”He whispered in my ear.

“That won't make my love for someone else any less real,”I insisted, doing my best to ignore the goosebumps on my neck.

“But you’ll never erase me. You can try. You can try and pretend it never meant anything. You can try and pretend one look doesn't say everything. That won't make it true. Because no matter whose hands touch you, no matter where, mine will always have been their first. You’ll always know that I’ll consume your mind until my name is all you can think about. It's why you’ve already rejected people with such good traits and looks. It's why nobody has caught your eye. Because those people aren't me, and your eyes always meet mine. Always,”He whispered against my lips.

“No,”I denied.

“Yes. It's why you haven't said three words that will make you leave you alone forever. It's why you haven't just told me you don't want me. Because you do.”

“I just want to not feel anything ever again.”

“Even if it’s with me?”

Feeling my face warm at the question and being aware he knew by his face still in my hands, I didn't bother to deny it. To say it means nothing. To say he means nothing.

“My lips have painted every inch of your skin. You know very well so many parts of you have always been adored by me. Have been admired and seen. Inside and out, you know nobody could ever see you the way I do. Vulnerable and strong, starving and fed, cut up and fixed, tortured and safe, I know every last part. And I love them. I love you.”

“What if your lips haven't painted me? What if they tainted me? Stained me so badly I can never scrub the marks of you off?”

“You’ll want them anyway.”

His response was so simple. So much less complex and thought out than any other.

Yet it seemed to be the one really getting to me.

“I don't not want you,”I whispered.

“I know.”

“I don't see you the same, but if I woke up next to you, limbs twisted together and your lips on me, I wouldn't hate it.”

“Then, come home to me? Let me hold you until I’m all you know?”

He has been all I know. For so long, he was the one that mattered more than anything. The one I gave everything to without a second thought. The one I called mine so much he was sure that would always be true.

And maybe it is.

“Earn it then. Earn me,”I bargained.

“How do I do that?”He asked, not a second of hesitation or unwillingness in his voice.

“Meet me here tomorrow night. Love me the way you used to. The way I know you still can. Look at me while I pretend not to notice as I watch the stars.”

“I’ll watch you forever. Forever and ever.”

He still has me. He always did, and the traitor definitely knows it.