glass half full | xavier | drabble
“It was always going to be her, wasn’t it?”
Your voice slipped through the stillness of the apartment, soft but sharp enough to slice through the air between you. It lingered in the hallway like smoke, unshakable.
One foot forward, one hand still holding the edge of the wall. He didn’t turn at first—just stood there, his back to you, silent in a way that felt louder than any answer.
When he finally faced you, his expression was unreadable. Of course it was. He always was.
He parted his lips to speak, but no words came. Just a subtle shift in his jaw—a clench, a twitch. Hesitation.
So you stepped closer. “That’s why you’ve been leaving so often lately,” you said, barely above a whisper.
“Why you’re willing to throw yourself into danger without hesitation.”
“Because you still love her.”
Now, you stood right in front of him. Inches away. Just close enough to feel the way he tensed.
“Then what am I?” you asked.
Your voice was calm, but your eyes betrayed you. You could feel the tears brimming, but you held them back. You wouldn’t let them fall. Not yet.
Xavier didn’t speak. Not even a breath of denial. His gaze didn’t waver, but it didn’t soften either. Still clouds. Still distance.
You pressed again, a whisper cracking at the edge. “Why do you still keep me around, then?”
It was the smallest movement—a flicker in those pale blue eyes.
You always saw him, even when he tried so hard to be unseen.
You weren’t asking for him to change fate. You knew how cruelly and arbitrarily the universe worked. Knew that some ties were stitched into the soul long before choices ever mattered.
Because you were here. With him.
The one who shared coffee with him at 6 a.m. The one who stitched him up, not from battle wounds, but from the quiet ones no one else saw.
Because you loved him first.
And she didn’t even know.
“…Tell me,” you breathed, and your voice trembled this time.
A final plea slipping through the cracks of you.
His hand lifted halfway, like he meant to reach for you—maybe your cheek, your hand, anything.
But it hung there, suspended in indecision.
Caught between instinct and guilt.
And that—that was what broke you.
“I haven’t said anything until now… because I loved you.”
Your voice broke on the last word, cracking like porcelain under too much weight.
It trembled in the quiet, echoing off the walls that had once known softer versions of the two of you.
“I kept hoping,” you whispered, breath catching on a sob, “that maybe… maybe you’d see it.”
Your hand curled into your palm.
“That she doesn’t want you.”
The truth sat heavy in the space between you, too brutal to deny, too cruel to change.
The lady hunter he clung to in silence had already moved on—living out her days in sunlit contentment with your doctor friend, oblivious to the way Xavier watched her like she was a constellation he could never reach.
And you… you had been right here the entire time.
Loving him in ways she never would.
His fists clenched at his sides, the knuckles paling as tension rippled through his frame. You had never seen him look smaller, despite the quiet strength he always carried.
But it landed like thunder.
You stared at him, stunned—not by the confession, but by the ache tucked behind those two simple words. Like he’d been carrying them for a long time. Like they were too heavy to hold, and too late to matter.
You wanted to scream. To ask then why?
Why let you drown in your silence while he chased after a ghost?
Because there was grief in his voice too. Grief that didn’t belong to you.
And maybe that was the cruelest part of all.
It came out on a breath, a fragile exhale laced with quiet resignation. A sob followed, muffled as you bit it back, swallowing the rest of your heartbreak.
You stepped past him—slowly, deliberately—shoulder brushing his as you moved toward the door. Your voice barely rose above a whisper.
“I’ll come back for my things.”
That was all you could manage.
No accusations. No pleas.
Just an ending dressed in softness.
But before you reached the door, his hand shot out and caught your wrist.
Your name broke in his mouth—softer than you’d ever heard it. Almost reverent. Almost afraid.
You didn’t look back. Not yet.
You couldn’t trust yourself to.
Not when his grip was warm and trembling.
Not when it felt like he meant it, finally.
But meaning it now changed nothing.
His hand was firm around your wrist, but his voice wavered.
Like he was holding on not just to you, but to everything that might vanish the moment you took another step.
You stood there, your back to him, shoulders trembling.
He said your name again—quieter this time. “Y/N… please.”
The word sounded foreign on his tongue. As if he didn’t know how to ask for things he thought he’d already lost.
“I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” he said, and for once, his tone cracked through the calm. “I didn’t—”
He let go of your wrist like it burned him.
“I kept telling myself… it wasn’t fair to you. That I should pull away. But every time I tried—” His breath hitched. “You made it impossible.”
You turned to him then, tears clinging to your lashes.
His eyes were the color of sorrow, clouded and storm-wrung. “You were always here,” he murmured. “You stayed. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
You wanted him to say the words. To finally say what he truly felt.
But instead, all he gave you was this—
“I don’t know how to let you go.”
And somehow, that hurt more than if he had.
Because love was never the problem.
“That’s what they all say,” you whispered, voice thin and fraying.
Xavier stood frozen, breath shallow in his chest.
“That you didn’t mean for this to happen. That it just—got out of control.” Your voice began to rise, shaky and sharp. “There’s always a reason. A justification. A story that makes it hurt less—for you.”
The silence between you stretched, brittle and aching.
That part came softer. So soft he almost missed it.
But he didn’t. He heard it.
And it hit him harder than any accusation ever could.
You looked at him then—really looked at him.
Not like someone you loved.
Not like someone you were begging to stay.
You looked at him like someone you were done trying to understand.
“Do you know how stupid that makes me feel?” you asked, voice trembling at the edge of tears. “To be the one to see it? To sit across from both of you and smile like I didn’t feel the air thinning every time you looked at her?”
Xavier’s lips parted, but there was nothing behind them—no defense, no denial.
And the realization that maybe the worst thing he ever did… was say nothing at all.
And still, you waited. Not for an apology.
Your voice cracked—not out of anger, but desperation. A final plea, quiet and trembling, like a hand outstretched in the dark.
Xavier’s gaze flickered, faltered.
His mouth opened—closed—opened again.
But still, nothing came. Just silence.
Just the sound of rain starting to tap against the windows, soft and cruel.
He looked like he was unraveling from the inside out. Like the words were there, tangled somewhere deep in his throat, buried beneath everything he was too late to admit.
“I…” he finally breathed, barely audible. “I thought if I kept my distance, it would go away.”
He laughed, bitterly, at himself. “Not the feeling. Just… the choice. Like if I said nothing, I wasn’t choosing at all.”
His eyes met yours, raw and wrecked.
“But silence is a choice, isn’t it?”
And it was. The worst kind.
You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to.
He saw the answer in your eyes. In the way your shoulders dropped.
In the way hope quietly slipped out of the room, one breath at a time.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he whispered.
And maybe he didn’t. But he did.
He just didn’t love you enough not to.
“I have to see her,” you choked out between shallow breaths, the sobs rising faster than you could contain them. “Every day… at work.”
Your voice broke entirely then, cracking open like the rest of you. “She looks at me like nothing happened. Like I’m not falling apart every time she says your name.”
You wiped at your face with the back of your hand, but the tears kept falling, hot and relentless. “Do you know how cruel that feels?”
You laughed—a hollow, broken thing. “She doesn’t even know. She doesn’t even know what I’ve lost.”
Xavier took a half-step forward, his hands twitching at his sides like he wanted to hold you, to anchor you—but he didn’t move further.
And that—again—was the problem.
“She gets to have everything,” you whispered. “She gets your loyalty, your heart, your silence… and she doesn’t even know.”
Your hands clenched at your sides, not in anger, but in helplessness.
“I loved you loudly, Xavier. I was here. I chose you. Every day. Every damn day.”
Your voice collapsed into a whisper.
“And you let me stand in the shadow of someone who wasn’t even looking.”
The door slammed behind you, but you didn’t stop. You couldn’t.
Rain tore through the sky in torrents, drenching you to the bone as you stumbled down the steps and out into the street.
You couldn’t feel the cold.
Couldn’t hear the storm over the sound of your own sobbing breath.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Your vision blurred—tears and rain indistinguishable. The world moved too fast, too loud, too bright.
You didn’t see the car. Not until it was too late.
You stepped off the curb.
His voice cut through everything.
You turned your head, just enough to see him.
Xavier, sprinting after you, drenched and terrified, hand reaching out like he could will time to stop.
The impact was thunderous. A sickening thud.
Your body hit the hood, then the pavement. Hard.
Time fractured. Sound vanished.
Rain fell. Somewhere, people screamed.
Xavier was already on his knees beside you.
“No, no, no—Y/N, stay with me,” he begged, his hands trembling as they hovered above your face, not knowing where to touch without causing more damage.
Your eyes fluttered, unfocused, lips parting with a breath he didn’t know if you could finish.
“Why did you…” you whispered, voice too faint, too broken.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here, I’ve got you, just—just keep your eyes on me, please—don’t do this.”
But your blood was on his hands now.
And for the first time, silence wasn’t a choice.
It was all that was left.