Stay With Me//Ed Sheeran Oneshot

Stay With Me

//

Alcohol makes people into the exaggerated versions of themselves. It peels away the rough edges and smooths them out, puts a clear covering in place of our skin so we can see down into our bones. Ed was a perfect example of that.

Alcohol put a transparency over him and it made everything visible, and I knew that. And oh, how I loved to take advantage of it.

Nearly a year, going on two, after we'd broken up, I found him at the bottom of a bottle, in a local pub, so drunk his eyes were hazed over and he didn't even recognize me.

"Hey," he had called when I had my back to him, avoiding him to the best of my ability. "If you, if you uh, want a drink I can-"

I turned around and met his soft face, sweaty and with circles clinging underneath his eyes, but he had never looked so beautiful to me, because it was him.

I choked out the syllable of his name under my breath and then withdrew it in the same exhale, realizing that his eyes told me he knew no familiarity. Nothing clicked.

They were hollow, he was empty.
"Of course," I slurred, and he waved for the bartender, and I let him because my set of morals is a crooked one, because I'm selfish.

And I let him take me home, in the back of a taxi cab, his hand creeping up my thigh and my palm where it shouldn't have been, because I was convinced that this drunken stupor was better than feeling the regret that I had been.

I let him lead me to his bedroom, a path I was all too familiar with, and I let him make love to me like we had back when we were together.

I let him kiss me and tell me he would see me in the morning, and God, I wanted that to be true. I let him hold me while I slept, and I let myself sink back into that familiarity hoping that if he held me tight enough it would put back the pieces we'd shattered.

That was the thing about Ed, he could break my heart a million times, and each time, I'd pick up the pieces and put them back in his hands.

It was low and pathetic and desperate of me I know, but there was something about him that I couldn't replace with anyone else, no matter how hard I tried.
As he slept I felt his warm breaths on my shoulder, his lips barely brushing the skin of my neck, and it felt almost like it had before he went off on tour and we had to end things.

We were both doing the same thing, really. He was sleeping with every girl he could get his hands on and a drink in, and I was going home with every guy who called me 'darling' like Ed used to.

It was emotionless sex, it was a night and no morning.

I knew better than to stay and wait around for him to wake, rub the hangover from his eyes, and open them to see me in front of him, the girl who'd made him into this version of himself.

He would feel guilty, he would take my hand in his and kiss it and apologize as if his very life depended on it, he would beg and plead me to come back, I knew he would.

I also knew that I wouldn't be able to fight it, he was very convincing, but I couldn't do the same thing that had broken me once.

I pried myself up from his inked arms as gently as I could, and he made an annoyed little sound into the pillow that made my heart break, it was almost like he knew. If I was going to come back into his life, and try again, it couldn't be like this.

I kissed him on the forehead as his hand opened and closed, his arm falling back to his body, wrapping around himself like it would keep him whole.

"I love you," I whispered, and then collected my clothes, leaving the room, opening the front door, closing it, and as soon as my breath hit the night air, the tears started, as I walked to call my friend to come pick me up, at 4 am, she knew damn well what had happened.

I loved him, I still do love him, we just can't stay together, not while he's drinking himself into a coma and sleeping with every girl who flicks her hair off her shoulder like me, and while I search for the ghosts of his lips against mine in the mouth of everything in the bar with a Y chromosome.

And so I left him, for the second time in my life, and it broke me more than before. I thought maybe being with him would help soothe the burns he left me with, but all it did was ignite them, make new ones, making me remember why I ever loved him in the beginning.

But he didn't know it was me, and so I'd prevented him from hurting, which was all I was really wanting to do anyway, I knew I couldn't stay away for too long, I just needed to gather myself.

I would probably be at his doorstep in the morning, the ghost of a stranger he knew better than anyone, because I'm not strong enough to stay away but I'm too weak to stay.

//

Ed's POV

I knew it was her. That's why I ever bought her a drink in the first place. I knew. How could I not?

She's the girl that I think about at the worst of times, at my peak of happiness and my saddest moments. I'm not over her, I'm not sure if I'll ever be. But I knew it was her.

I know things about her, that are so deep in my veins that the alcohol in my bloodstream cannot drown them. The way she smells soft like vanilla and home, the way she flicks her hair, the curve of her lips.

I knew she didn't think I was sober enough to know it was her, but I was. I could be halfway falling as I faint from alcohol and know that it was her if she caught me. I let her think that I was a vacant soul, anyway.

I let her come home with me, I let her hands and mouth wander, because I am the proud owner of a very twisted set of morals. I let her make love with me, like she was just another pretty face, I let her think I was an empty receiver, because I'm a selfish bastard.

I let her lay with me, so it didn't hurt, I held her like I could stop the inevitable. I let her get up, I let her kiss my forehead and I did not flinch, I let her leave. I let her leave.

It's clear it's not love, this whole game I'm playing night after night, it's not love but I need it. I'm too emotional, and I know it and so does she. I read too much into these things, and I'm starting to hate myself for the fact that I can't forget her.

So tomorrow night, she'll be out of this town, I'll be on a plane somewhere, where I'll touch down, get a good night's sleep, and then get ready for the next night of regret and shallow sex. I'll keep searching for the echoes of her fingertips where I know damn well I won't find them.

My head already hurts and I know when I wake up, I'm going to have possibly the worst hangover in history, but maybe she'll come back.

I keep hoping and hoping, waking up to a person less than I went to bed with, but deep down, I know it never works.

//
Thanks so much for reading! My other oneshots can be found here: holysheerios.tumblr.com/fics