#I have no idea if this makes sense the brain fog is really bad today

[stupidlittlespirit]

as a stanley girl, there is SO MUCH MORE ford content. and it's 100% because he is "more handsome" (read it as the journal 3 passage where he writes "what is a silver fox??? people are calling me that......"

I also have another take: I think it also has to do with their body type. ford doesn't have a protuding belly and looks slimmer, while stan has a big belly, doesn't hide it, and when he does, he explicitly tells it's a girdle. cowards. afraid of this old man's delicious stomach 🫦🫦🫦

This is actually a really interesting point that I hadn't considered before.

I'm going to use this as a chance to analyse because I think it's quite interesting and I can't shut up about these old fuckers. Sorry.

And by the way, Ford repeatedly being referred to as being 'hot' always made me laugh because they're literally twins and it would piss me tf off if I was Stan.

(I am also speaking in big, broad brush strokes about the way in which they're received by the audience and portrayed in the show here, by the way. Very generally.)

The main difference between them I think is that Stan is portrayed as someone who 'didn't take care of himself' because he smoked heavily, drank, and was generally portrayed as quite 'grimy'.

But I would hasten to add that being homeless and having a rough life will make you like that to some extent, and that's not an effect of 'not taking care of yourself' so much as it is one of having to survive in any shape you can.

To be clear, I'm not saying you're bad or 'grimy' if you are/have been those things, I'm saying people often portray or view you as such when you've really just had to adapt and be like that to survive. You'll develop certain ways of being because of the people you're around (who usually tend to be hardened themselves) or even the people that you're not around, in the sense of social isolation. You'll probably drink or smoke or do drugs to cope, and all of those things age you dramatically. As does stress and trauma. You don't have anywhere to shower or stay clean. You don't have anywhere to get healthcare. You don't have anything. You lose access to so much that most people take for granted.

In terms of physicality:

Ford had to work out and try to take of himself to an extent because he needed to stay on the run and was moving around a lot. I hold this hc that interdimensional travel takes a HUGE toll on the human body and, like an astronaut would, it was imperative for him to stay in good shape or else he physically wouldn't be able to go on. He also had the astronomical intelligence level to craft food sources or find alternatives, and would have help from other beings along the way. I don't for a second think he survived entirely on his own and we do know that's true because he tells us so in the journal.

Stan survived in a very different way. He did survive totally alone. He had no one at all. He was likely depressed and being homeless meant he had no money, so, for example, he would have lived on a shitty diet of whatever he could get his hands on. When you're dirt poor, calories matter. Like, a lot. He never would have known where his next meal was coming from. He'd have been packing on weight with dogshit food and he'd have had to do it fast, but then you grow into bad dietary habits and it becomes harder to shift off when you become stationary or more consistent in income.

So he would have gained weight and kept it on like a life preserve, but he also wouldn't have had much need to work out to get rid of it once he was more settled, plus depression in general can add to weight gain, too.

Both of them are portrayed as quite stocky guys, as well. They're very broad and chunky in general, so their body type is kind of inclined to hold weight like that too.

Personality wise, Ford has traits that are probably seen as more 'admirable' or attractive by a general audience, in the sense that he is intelligent (booksmart, at least) and driven, he's noble in his cause and he's successful. He's portrayed as being 'proper'.

Stan, however, is portrayed as having traits that are inherently negative such as that he's dumb (he's not, he's very street smart and that IS intelligence, don't let anyone tell you it isn't!), he's a criminal, he's rough around the edges and coarse, he's kind gross, he's a failure, etc. He's portrayed at large as a Loser. His redeeming quality is that eventually, he's considered loveable.

I think it's the combo of their looks/bodies and their personalities seals the deal for a lot of people. One is seen as slim and smart and successful, whereas the other is fat and 'grimy' and a cantankerous ass.

We don't have to like someone to fuck them, but generally we do need to be attracted physically to them to fuck them.

Ford is seen as unlikeable in personality, whereas Stan is seen as unlikeable in looks. Stan is just emotionally more redeemable because we see his redemption and more of his backstory. Ford is just considered by a lot of people as big and sad and fuckable lmao

I, personally, don't think that when you truly look at them both in the light, that you can boil them down to those few traits. They are very complicated and layered, and while they do retain those points, the above is kind of 'how do they seem at a passing glance' or 'how do they seem from an immediate attraction point of view'.

Anyway, I do agree that Stan's body type and personality is viewed less favourably to Ford's because he's put forward as being grotesque, and for one thing, fat is generally accepted as something that equals being gross.

That's not to say I'm waving a stick being like 'waaah this was done on purpose it's fatphobic that they made Stan like that', I think their designs are purposeful but that they're done like that to show to an audience that Stan has lived a sedentary life since he stopped being homeless whereas Ford has been in motion constantly for 30 years.

I have no idea about how character design works, I'm thinking about how they'd look if I were writing about them as my original characters and I needed to portray their personalities/lives to my audience without showing them too much of their backstories up front.

Anyways, I think they're both dreamboats. Fat or thin. Don't give a fuck. I need them.

[varjopeura]

.

[jotun-design-party]

Hey I was wondering, by your example of the harmful design does what if! Loki sort of follow this harmful trope? I know this is based on aos loki but just as an example that kind of thing.

And also I’ve seen a lot of jotnar portrayed with minimal clothing and mostly only armor in like canon media not just fanon and I thought that was purely because they are more immune to the cold and don’t need to try and get warm but I may be mistaken. Are you saying that is also harmful or just if it is sexualized?

These questions are purely just to understand your meaning and not to be critical or anything! Thanks so much! This event looks super fun!

hi, yes! good [timezone.] no worries, i'm very happy to answer questions & please forgive if my syntax is weird today, i have a chronic disability which causes some brain fog during flare-ups so my sentence structure might not be the most elegant. i WAS given a superpower to counter this (a disability which, for our purposes here, i will sum up as "it makes my vocabulary big") but for the sake of clarity i'll be responding with a bit of a shortened version of all of my thoughts so that it makes a little bit more sense. i can go more in-depth at a later time if needed

under the cut, summary:

What If jötnar are not nearly AS bad as a lot of the jötun art i've seen in fanon and canon so it gets a very hesitant green-light from me. and also the issue with putting jötnar in minimal clothes is that artists still tend to choose to dress them in clothing items that are associated with racist and offensive depictions of real-life people

+ some of my personal ideas about what jötnar might wear

the jötnar in What If do rely on some of the same antiblack and anti-american indigenous stereotypes that we see in the comics but their designs aren't NEARLY as caricature-y as the comic book designs are and they do a better job at making it look like something an alien would wear. still bad, but not NEARLY as bad as the comics, i'd give it a very hesitant green light

the main issue with jötnar being depicted in minimal clothing is that oftentimes, the artists choose clothing specifically related to these racist stereotypes to evoke imagery of the Assumed lifestyle of both the jötnar and the real life people who are affected by the stereotypes. this is an obviously satirical example because my brain isn't working well enough to think of a more genuine one, but it wouldn't be a problem if someone drew their jötnar to be running around in heart-print boxers pin-up posing, you know? the issue is largely that people make the choice to draw them in long sheer skirts draped with gold like orientalist stereotypes of women, or in loincloths and furs and bone piercings in their noses.

basically there are all sorts of ways to visually get across their cold immunity, and have them dressed minimally, without putting them in skirts and loincloths and stuff

----- the stuff down here ⬇️ are just my personal thoughts and dont have any bearing on the actual contest, just some of my ideas that you can read for fun if you so desire

and this is definitely more of a personal thing, but i don't Personally think it makes much sense to have jötnar dressed in minimal clothing even if they are immune to the cold. this is just because, snow still melts haha. so i don't think it makes too much logical sense to have them barefoot and without any sort of cloak to protect them from the weather. plus, light reflects off of snow and is known to give people sunburns, ao i like to cover up their skin too <- this however is all optional. it's fiction and it doesn't need to be really very practical it's just the sort of thing i enjoy thinking about so i wanted to share my thoughts

i defo do not have the spoons to bust out a thor mini so you're just going to have to use your imagination but this outfit i drew them in is also like all kinds of impractical for a human or an asgardian to wear in the snow :') i mean can you imagine going out into a blizzard wearing latex and an underboob window? i imagine that thor would be wearing fur-lined leather coats and thick pants and three layers of socks and heavy duty boots next to this bitch ⬇️

this isn't my definitive loki design though. i have a lot of thoughts bumping around in my head and art that i havent posted (and probably won't post) and this ⬆️ was just a quick example i busted out to give a visual difference

[bells-of-black-sunday]

As a mun, what inspires you about Tarhos and Haru? What are some of their dynamics that you love?

I know I've briefly touched on this, but it's because they're just people. One of the main things that I really liked learning about from my research into the time period Tarhos is from (and while yes I'm not historically accurate or so adjacent with him) is that people were always just... people. From British propaganda during the industrial revolution you'd think the medieval period aka the "dark ages" were bleak, depressing, if you weren't rich you were hating yourself and hating life which like today yes it is true some people were depressed back then.

But... people will make their own happiness and judging how people lived back then from modern standards will always make things bleak. And that's pretty beautiful right? I like that the most about them two in his main verse and Haru's medieval/d.bd- Both of their circumstances are utter shit, you have Tarhos who was enslaved as a child and barely earned his freedom before he got corrupted by a weird spider god and Haruko who was taken from his home across the sea and enslaved as a concubine who meets him by chance and finds a way out there only to be pulled into the fog when his husband is. But they're still finding their own happiness.

They'll joke about their situation, refer to themselves as animals in a pet-name way (dove, old dog, etc.) and just try to keep as much domestic life as they're allowed. Haru spins and does the more "womanly" chores around the camp like the other knights wives and pulls Tarhos and his friends aside at night to be human together. They're always finding their own happiness even in the bleakest of situations and it's really fun to write. And of course in their other aus there's things that I love too like darkin Tarhos's and his dynamic is really interesting.

Haru in that au is a lot more violent that Tarhos is at times and he's a literal being that feeds off of blood and has an eternal hunger for it due to being a God made by a forgotten empire and thus lost his meaning so even if he wanted to die he couldn't. Haru has no idea what the darkin are beyond what Tarhos has told him, but he is still the only god that answered his prayers and he'll worship him like the divine being he once was. Then modern is just really sweet and domestic, they're having their issues right now, but honestly modern Tarhos is just really shit at communicating and they both need therapy real bad. The joust au Egg's been implanting brain worms in my head for turning into something really sweet as well, their one good ending in a medieval setting-

I don't know, there's just so much to enjoy about people being people. But- if anyone who follows me doesn't already know who Haru or Egg are, they're over at @witchcraftandburialdirt. They are genuinely one of the sweetest people I have ever met and I know I'm biased because they are my themfriend™/romantic partner/t4t alliance/whatever, but their writing is incredible and they have d.bd aus for both their muses as well. And I will never not sing their praises, because they are such an inspiration for me art wise in every sense of the word.

[motsimages]

Well, I'm going to start stretching my brain this morning with some thoughts I had yesterday due to whatever the fuck is happening with my body lately and the medication I'm taking.

I guess and hope there is research on this, if I'm thinking about it after a couple of bad days, scientists and doctors should have at least considered the possibility, but it is worth a thought out loud anyways for the masses.

It's basically two things: 1) metabolism and calory burn when you are sick and 2) medication and its association with different molecules of your body that can affect its effect.

Sometimes when you are sick, you are weak and cannot move much or do much and you are also not hungry and it makes sense. But sometimes you are very hungry. It could be the anxiety of the bedridden experience, but couldn't it be that a body in pain and healing is actually working extra work? Like maybe you are there like "how am I so tired and hungry, I've done nothing today?" when in reality your body is climbing the fucking Everest and well, the metabolism is following along. Like maybe walking 10 km is not as exhausting or demanding to the body than certain recoveries (imagine a big surgery, for instance).

Some medications, if you read what they are made of or the molecules they have, they suddenly include terms like "fat-soluble" or "glucose something" and while it may be just a thing, I'm guessing that if a drug bonds with fat molecules, it may actually require fat to work better, or worse, and if you eat fat foods while you take the medication it can improve or worsen the experience, depending on the bond. You know, kind of like "don't eat grapefruit with this because it reduces the effect". Like, these days I've been craving meat, but also yesterday I suddenly took some candy and ended up devouring a full bag of candy and started feeling that my brain fog dissipated. And I wonder if it is because the medication I'm taking drains my glucose levels maybe and so it could be advisable to not only say "take these pills" but also "and as much sugar as you can for as long as the treatment works because you'll need it".

I understand that sometimes it all requires an extra effort on the part of the patient, and that not everyone can do it. But I feel like doctors sometimes just prescribe medication as the magical solution (which is also what many people want, let's all be fair here) with little to no explanation as to what the drug really is or how to make the best of it. Sure, it has the list of side effects, if you don't feel well you'll check it. But the general info is still not reaching people.

I am more or less interested in medicine and drugs, I want to know what I'm taking and I check it but even I struggle to understand some of the things because well, I'm not a chemist. But some general idea of the drugs you are taking should always be included when they give them to you. "Take this, it will help with the swelling and the pain. Know that it is actually a hormone derivated drug and that it takes energy from the cells that carry fat/sugar/vitamin, so make sure to get an extra supply of that these days". People would also understand better the changes and the expectations, I feel.

[tiannasfanfic]

You Belong with Me: Part 1

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader (Smut)

Summary: Christopher Smith can have some pretty dumb ideas sometimes regarding dating and romance. For his latest ploy in getting your attention, he drags Adrian Chase into playing the ultimate wingman. (Crossposted to AO3)

Rating: Explicit 18+

Author Note: Afab reader with non-binary pronouns. An alternate take on the Fake Dating trope. Sorry if it doesn't make much sense. I spent all day yesterday in bed and the brain fog is still pretty bad today while editing. This will be a two or three parter, kind of a slow burn.

CW: Light teasing and smut; dry humping, kissing and masturbation.

Word Count: 2,363

When Peacemaker explained his plan to finally get the woman he liked to notice him, Adrian Chase was very doubtful about it.

“Dude, I’m telling you, it’s a foolproof plan!” Chris insisted.

Adrian still wasn’t so sure. He stared at his best friend with an expression of confusion mixed with doubt.

“Run this by me one more time,” he finally. “How is me asking Y/N out, which is who you like, by the way, supposed to get them to like you and go out with you instead?”

Chris rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“For the millionth time,” he started explaining, voice tight with strained patience. “You always bring anyone you date over to my place a lot to hangout because you want us to be friends too, right? So, you get Y/N to go out with you, start bringing them over a lot like you normally would, they’ll get to know me outside of work, realize how great of a guy I am and then BAM! We switcheroo and I’m the one dating Y/N instead and you’re off the hook!”

It barely made any sense to Adrian, but he caved because it was Chris asking him. Ultimately, he never told Peacemaker no, no matter how insane the thing he was asking for was.

Considering he knew this wasn’t a real date for him, Adrian had no problem finding the courage to ask you out. He did this a few days later after a mission while you were taking inventory on the remaining ammo.

“Hey, would you want to go out with me sometime?” Adrian asked, the question falling the easiest it ever had from his mouth. “Like, as in a date?”

He expected you to say no, like most women did. He figured that he’d have to turn on the charm and work for it.

Instead, you got the biggest grin on your face.

“I’d love to!” you said without any hesitation, looking excited.

It made his heart dance a little. He didn’t know why.

Later, when he told Peacemaker you said yes, Chris clapped him on the back and Adrian felt slightly sick to his stomach. He also didn’t know why on that one either.

The evening of your first date came. Adrian was a ball of nerves on his way to pick you up, but relaxed once you were in the car. You always had that effect on him, ever since say one. Your presence calmed him down. The two of you talked all the way to the Mexican restaurant he was taking you to, the conversation flowing easily like it always did.

“I gotta say, I was really surprised when you asked me out,” you said after the two of you ordered.

“How come?” he said, diving into the chips and salsa on the table.

“I figured awhile back that you wouldn’t,” you said, shrugging. “So, I’ve been working up the nerve to do it myself.”

Adrian looked at you with a confused expression.

“To ask yourself out?”

“No, to ask you out.”

The next few minutes Adrian spent in a wild coughing fit with you clapping him on the back. Your words made him choke on the chip he was eating.

It only went downhill from there.

Which is to say, it went amazingly well for Adrian.

After your confession, there was a brief period of comfortable silence before the conversation resumed. He found out the two of you shared even more interests than he previously thought. In general, you were into most of the same things he was but had different likes and dislikes about them than he did.

As the evening went on, both of you began to get more flirty, playful even, but it stayed just this side of too inappropriate.

When he took you home, you gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek outside your door.

“I’d invite you in,” you said as you parted from the hug. “But I’m not going to tempt myself.”

“Tempt yourself?” Adrian asked, confused since he’d been inside your apartment before. “What do you mean?”

You didn’t answer, you just smiled mysteriously and kissed him on the other cheek, which made him blush, then went inside.

Despite the circumstances surrounding the date, Adrian went home feeling like he was on cloud nine. He even hummed to himself as he got ready for patrol, a bit more upbeat than he usually was. Thinking about you gave him something to direct his excess energy towards once he hit the streets on patrol. Normally, he liked to keep his thoughts occupied while on patrol. It helped him focus better on what was physically going on around him. But on slow nights like tonight, it gave him something to occupy his mind.

Eventually, his thoughts came around to how you looked at him when he walked you to your door. The urge to kiss you had been undeniable. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. While Chris had told him that he may need to date you for a while before you succumbed to his charms, which meant doing all the things people who date does, Adrian was struggling with that now. He didn’t know why, but he was having second thoughts about this whole thing.

That’s what was on his mind shortly after midnight when he got a text from you.

Hey you. How’s patrol?

Sometimes you texted him late at night when you couldn’t sleep, so this wasn’t unusual. Over the last couple of months, it had actually become quite common. You explained it once, how you had periodic flares of insomnia that sometimes got bad enough you’d go days without a full night’s rest. Adrian was usually the only one up when this happened and, once you had figured that out, you’d started texting him. He never minded talking to you. In fact, it always made his heart skip a beat when your name popped up on his phone.

Boring as fuck. Absolutely nothing is going on.

Isn’t that a good thing though? Means no crime, right?

In theory, yeah, but in practice it’s sooooooo fucking dull. Like, I’m five seconds away from staring a game of Russian Roulette with myself.

Lmao! Don’t do that. What side of town you patrolling tonight?

Northeast, over by the ATV dealership.

Ah, that sucks. If you were on this side, I was going to suggest stopping by. I can’t sleep and am bored as hell too.

Adrian thought it over for a moment then shrugged.

Fuck it, sure! I’ll come by. Nothing is going on over here, so I’ll head that way.

After picking up the Sebring, Adrian headed for your side of town. He left his car a few streets over, did a quick patrol of the surrounding neighborhoods, then headed for your place. The back fence was easy for him to hop and soon he was knocking at your backdoor. Adrian switched his mask for glasses soon after arrival and you both settled on the couch.

“Hey, I got a question,” Adrian said after he’d been over there awhile. “How come you said you couldn’t invite me in earlier, but now you can?”

You chuckled.

“I was wondering when you were going to ask about that,” you said. “That’s because earlier it would’ve tempted me to break the only rule, I have for myself, but now it won’t.”

“Oh,” Adrian said, nodding. Then realized that didn’t make any sense. “What rule is that?”

“To never have sex on the first date,” you said.

Adrian stared at you.

“Why in the fuck would you have a rule like that?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Fortunately, you didn’t seem bothered by the question.

“It was as good of a rule as any,” you shrugged, laughing. “After I had sex for the first time, I realized it wasn’t that big of a deal to me, so I wanted to have one rule to kind of keep myself in check.”

After he thought about it for a minute, it did make sense.

“I see,” he said, nodding. “And since there is usually an expectation for sex from the other party, it’s better to remove the temptation entirely.”

“Exactly,” you said, nodding.

“And don’t worry, I definitely understand the blanket policy,” Adrian continued. “You’ve got to do it with everyone, even people you don’t want to have sex with like me.”

You stared at him.

“When did I ever say I don’t want to have sex with you?”

Adrian stared at you again.

You smiled.

He opened his mouth to say something but found that on top of not knowing what to say, he had also forgotten how to talk entirely. He ended up sitting there with his mouth hanging open.

That didn’t matter though. Soon you were straddling his lap with your lips on his, making talking unnecessarily. He only hesitated for a moment, just long enough for all thoughts to fly out of his head, before kissing you back. His hands went to rest on your hips, squeezing and kneading them as he felt your hands slide up his shoulders to the back of his neck.

While Adrian had imagined what it would be like to kiss you, the reality of it was far better. It was just that right blend of soft and rough that Adrian loved and was able to match easily. He groaned softly as he felt your teeth gently nipping along his bottom lip, one arm slipping around your waist to pull you even closer. It was an instinctive move, and also pulled your groin directly against his. You gasped into his mouth and rolled your hips forward, making him groan deeply in his throat.

Adrian became very aware of how hard he was getting in his suit. Normally, this would be uncomfortable, but the pressure and friction you were providing gave him some relief. You felt good, even through the heavy padding of his suit in that area. While keeping his arm around you, he moved his hand down from your hip to your ass, helping you guide your movements over his throbbing dick.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, and Adrian pulled back slightly. You opened your eyes to look down at him with a confused expression.

“Aren’t you violating your rule?” he asked, panting a little. “I don’t want to be the cause of you breaking your own rules.”

“The date technically ended as soon as you dropped me off and left,” you said immediately.

That was a good enough loophole for him. Adrian attacked your neck with his mouth.

Another thought didn’t occur to him until a few minutes later. By that point, your shirt had been flung somewhere into the room, his gloves were on the floor, and his glasses were on the end table. He hadn’t taken your bra off yet, instead he was kissing and licking the top of your breasts just above the fabric line. He still had your ass in a death grip with one hand, pushing you down as he rolled his hips up into you. He grunted softly against your skin, hearing you gasp just before you pushed yourself against him on your own. One of your hands was at the back of his neck and your fingers gripped into him, like you were trying to push him further into your chest. This ramped Adrian up even further and both of his hands went up your back, starting to fiddle with the clasp of your bra as he let his lips graze down over your nipple through the thin fabric. You gasped, hips rolling forward into his again…

And, of course, this would be the exact moment Adrian remembered how much Chris liked you. He remembered what all this was actually for, a rather elaborate and stupid plan to get you and Chris together.

Adrian also realized at this point that, if he didn’t get to keep you after of all this, he wanted no part of it anymore.

“Shit, wait, stop,” Adrian said, panting heavily as he reluctantly pushed you away.

“What’s wrong?” you said, sounding breathless, and looking concerned. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Normally the idea of you hurting him would’ve made him laugh his ass off, but right now the concern you were showing made his dick throb under you even more.

“N-no, um,” he said, not sure what to say that wouldn’t give away what was really going on. He knew by now he had a weakness for lying, so he needed to keep it simple and as truthful as possible. “I-it’s just still e-early for me to q-quit patrolling. I-I normally go until f-four or five.”

It wasn’t technically a lie. Normally he didn’t go home for several more hours. So that sounded plausible, right?

Apparently so.

“Oh!” you said, with a sheepish smile coming to your face. “That’s right. I’m sorry. I forgot you are technically still working.”

As you got off his lap, Adrian bit down on his lip, squeezing his hands into fists to keep from pulling you back onto him. He knew if he did that, there would be no stopping anymore.

“S’okay,” Adrian said, quickly standing up as soon as you were clear and adjusting his suit. “No worries. I kinda forgot myself there for a minute too.”

He heard you giggle softly and looked down at you. Your eyes were in the process of coming back to his face from his lower extremities, a playful smiling coming to your lips as your eyes met his. It was almost over right then and there. The look in your eyes made him tremble, but he quickly collected his glasses and gloves, then made a hasty retreat.

Instead of resuming his patrol like he said he was going to, Adrian went straight home. He had barely gotten in the door before he was stripping off the Vigilante suit. It didn’t take him long before he was sitting on his couch, naked and vigorously stroking his shaft as he imagined what it would feel like to have you bouncing on him.

(To be continued…)

[taechaos]

Silent Treatment

from Textbook Love drabble series

pairing: bully!Jungkook x nerdy!fem!Reader

genre: drabble, smut, college au

synopsis: Why did you reject him? He’s consumed by his thoughts and theories of your behavior because you didn’t say a single word to him. If your actions were anything to go by, which apparently speak louder than words, you didn’t even want him to touch you.

warnings: slight angst, drugs, arguing, dubcon, cunnilingus, mild degredation

word count: 4.2k

tags: @mwitsmejk @1-in-abillion @kooookie

a/n: the request (contains some spoilers). i'm gonna take a very short break from this couple to write other requests!! hope u enjoy 💗

The shift in the Spring weather is unpredictable. One moment it’s chilly, and the other sunny. Humans can only adapt so much, and it causes an outbreak of common colds. Most people recover easily, handy medicine soothing their sore throats, syrups suppressing coughs, and nose sprays ridding the blockage. You, on the other hand, are not that lucky. With a weak immune system, you’re very careful to not get sick, but there must have been a slip-up because you’ve somehow lost your voice after catching a cold.

You sniffle and cough, but you can’t speak. It’s advised to not exert your vocal cords in cases like these, and that is just so unfortunate for you. The last thing you’d ever want to do is spread your sickness to Jungkook, and that meant not getting too close to him; it meant no kissing. 

A very large white placard is spread out in front of you on the wooden table, and you’re plastering printed images of a specific global issue on it. You’re sitting on a bench with two of your friends as they chatter mindlessly while you work. Jungkook has a project about climate change due in a few days, and it’s supposed to be very important for his final grade. You’ve already written him a script for his presentation along with a stick prop to point at specific pictures. It’s fun, glittery and he’s going to love it. 

“Hey,” Minnie, your friend, calls for you, “we’re going to get some coffee from Starbucks. Want us to get you green tea?”

Soyeon laughs when your eyes light up; it’s your favorite beverage, and it’s supposed to help with your sore throat. They leave with a smile after you give them a hyper nod and you’re alone as you adjust your woolen scarf around your neck. You need to heal as fast as you can so you’re no longer missing your beloved’s affection.

Jungkook has been feeling more inclined to approach you without reason lately, but that doesn’t mean it’s a common occurrence. Getting teased by his friend, specifically Taehyung, about having a sissy crush on a girl like yourself angered him to no end. A hit always got him to shut up, but not for long. He’s walking your way today because there’s no one around to judge him for talking to you. 

You’re tearing a double-sided tape when he sits on your table, carefully avoiding your materials. Your breath hitches as his eyes gloss over your work in progress. “Working hard, I see,” he comments with disinterest. He doesn’t say anything about your efforts, but he’s impressed. The corner of his lip tugs upwards before he leans in for a kiss. You have enough self-control and concern for his well-being over your desires to lean back before your lips make contact. His face is close to yours as he pauses and slightly frowns before trying again. He receives the same results and finally pulls back. 

“You did well,” he frowns at you and speaks as if you’re a child, “I’m praising you.” Your eyes are darting back and forth awkwardly and you don’t know what to do other than sit in silence. You put your hands on his knees as a resort and his frown deepens as he watches you. “I can take a hint, you know. You don’t have to fucking ignore me.” He roughly shoves your hands and stands up before storming off with a scoff. You’re torn between following him and being responsible over your belongings. You can’t let his grades go to waste because of a small misunderstanding, so you decide to text him instead. There’s always a possibility someone might steal his project. Or maybe after he’s cooled off? You delay the message, but somewhere in your heart, you’re satisfied by his reaction because it’s clear that he wanted to kiss you.

Heavy footsteps clomp against the sidewalk before Jungkook slumps on the seat next to Taehyung. It’s an isolated area for smoking students at the back of the campus, and his friend group is no exception to this role. They’re taking drags of cigarettes individually as Jungkook glares at his boots. They’re chunky and a bold black, and his dark outfit paints him as the big bad wolf. It fits, because he’s ready to attack when he’s filled with so much resentment. Why did you reject him? He’s consumed by his thoughts and theories of your behavior because you didn’t say a single word to him. If your actions were anything to go by, which apparently speak louder than words, you didn’t even want him to touch you. It doesn’t make sense, but you also grimaced at him, but then why were you doing his homework? He’s feeling frustrated, and upset all the same.

“Someone’s troubled,” Seokjin points out with a mouthful of smoke. “Kookie?”

Said boy only grunts in response.

“Did the lousy girl finally see you for who you really are and leave you?” Taehyung doesn’t hesitate to mock him with a pout. “Tragic.”

“Shut the fuck up, Tae,” Jungkook spits and sends him a death glare, fire flaming in his fierce eyes. “Go actually talk to a girl or something, and leave me alone. I can’t take your shit right now.”

The low blow doesn’t affect Taehyung in the slightest as he holds up his hands in defence with comically wide eyes. “Relax, tiger.”

“Moving on from Tae’s inability to talk to girls in broad daylight, what’s up with you Kook?” Namjoon butts in, earning a fake cough from the receiving end of the insult.

He pauses for a moment before babbling, “I hate those bitches. My mother for one, couldn’t stand wearing clothes whenever she saw a dude. Moving on from guy to guy, unless they’re a fucking asshole. What do they want? Why are they never fucking satisfied?!”

A moment of silence passes among the huddled friends before Yoongi breaks it with a joke, “Who’s the lucky girl?” It doesn’t land as Jungkook deeply sighs in response. “Did she cheat on you?” he tries again.

“No,” he murmurs.

“Then…?”

“She… I don’t fucking know, she gave me the silent treatment. She leaned away from me too,” he shakes his head with a quiet groan, “it just doesn’t add up. I got mad and left.”

“No way that could’ve ended up badly,” Taehyung chuckles but purses his lips when he’s sent another dirty look.  “How long was the interaction anyway?” 

“Like 30 seconds.”

“Are you coming out tonight?” Yoongi asks and puts out the burning tip of his stick. “Could help you feel better.”

“And we’ve got molly,” Namjoon adds.

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”

Alcohol’s effect on a person differs in moods, and Jungkook is usually a horny drunk. Being a sad drunk is a first for him tonight, but he’s just so confused. It made his heart drop when you outwardly refused his advances and anxiety blossomed in his chest, which he has no idea how to deal with. It kicked in fight or flight instincts, and he just… hated the idea of you not loving him, even if it’s momentary. He can’t bear staying in a situation that makes him feel so insecure, and that feeling is supposed to be left in his childhood. You just about brought out the worst in him without doing anything. 

You didn’t do anything.

It’s 10PM and he’s waiting on your usual good night text that he never responds to. It’s so pathetic, and he hates himself for being so used to your affection that it worries him when he’s deprived of it. He’s never doubted your love for him, but his insecurities are churning his gut. It’s an overflow of all of his pent-up emotions, and he can’t handle it.

“Here,” Taehyung pops in out of nowhere, clutching a pill in his hand. There’s a bottle of water in the other as he holds them out for Jungkook to take. “Stop moping and get laid.”

“I’d say the same to you, but you’d probably start crying during sex,” he mumbles and uncaps the bottle before throwing in the pill and washing it down with the water. “Thanks.”

“See that girl over there?” he ignores him and steps behind his miserable friend to point at the owner of the sultry gaze directed at Jungkook from the bar. “She wants to fuck you. Or maybe me, but I’m passing her onto you.”

“How kind of you,” he sarcastically replies.

“Uh-uh, so you’re gonna be in ecstasy in about 10 minutes. Don’t fuck this up.” He slaps his shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen. It’s a lonesome party because not a lot of people are allowed in when drugs are involved. Causing a ruckus, receiving a noise complaint and then getting arrested is out of the question. 

He isn’t interested in sex with a stranger - not today at least -, but he hopes for it to change as he waits to approach her. Maybe drugs will rile him up enough to have fun with someone else and rid his mind of you. It’s an annoying itch on his brain, so he rests his head against the couch to comfort himself with the soft fabric. He’s sleepy from the beer he drank earlier, and he doesn’t know how time goes by so fast when he closes his eyes.

A few minutes must have passed, because he’s starting to feel dizzy in his seat. A smile carves on his face as his mind grows slightly fogged, and he opens his eyes to find the girl quietly chatting with a friend. When she glances at him, he beckons her to come over. She mouths a “be right back” to her friend before strutting in his direction.

“Hey,” she smiles down at him before sitting on the couch. She’s aristocratic, chic and pretty. “Sorry if I weirded you out earlier.” Her voice is sweet like honey, and her words flow out of her tongue so naturally. A dream girl, really, and Jungkook is starting to get horny.

“I don’t mind,” he reassures with a subtle seductive tone, “what’s a girl like you doing with this crowd? You look too innocent.” He wraps a finger around a strand of her hair and twirls it. It feels strange.

“My friend sent me here, told me to watch over someone,” she lowly speaks. “I’m Soyeon.”

“Nice to meet you, Soyeon,” he breathes before crashing her lips with his. His hand reaches down to grip her thigh, tongue poking out to swipe the sticky gloss. It’s flavored, and it tastes of strawberry. When she kisses him back so slowly, innocently, it turns him on so much. His pants feel tight around his crotch as he runs another hand through her soft hair. Compared to him, she’s passionate whereas he’s sloppy. He’s starting to get dizzier, and it feels so fucking good, but he hates it.

There is not a single reason for him to not enjoy this, not when his mood is lifting so high. The hand on her thigh lands on her cleavage instead and she’s so submissive and shy, but something’s off. He groans into her mouth before biting her lip, ripping a whine out of her. Why does she sound so sexy and annoying?  

He pulls away from her before sighing in irritation. “Fuck, I can’t do this.” 

“Did I do something wrong?” she asks worriedly.

“No, just, fuck.” He starts laughing before rubbing his palms on his eyes, “I really want to fuck, but I just can’t.”

“We can just chat,” she softly suggests. “What’s your name?”

“Jungkook.”

He removes his hands from his face when she goes silent. Her eyes are wide and she’s gaping at him… guiltily? “Crap,” she hisses quietly, “I was supposed to make sure you were okay. My roommate is like, super in love with you and asked me to come here.”

He says your name in a question, wondering if it’s you. When she nods, he asks for your dorm instantly.

“She’s in room 124… Why?”

When he stands up, there’s a sway in his posture but he recovers quickly. There’s an involuntary grin on his face as he thanks her ignorantly. He’s out of the villa in a rush, and he has the overwhelming urge to just run. The campus is a bit far away from the house, but he doesn’t care as his footfalls echo in the dark streets. He has so much energy to waste, and with his current stamina, he’s confident he’ll find you before dawn. It’s stupid but it’s fun, and he doesn’t care for catching his breath as the corner stores pass by him in a blur. 

Throughout the two hours of his reckless jog, where he mixed up directions multiple times, his mind is starting to clear up little by little. He’s happy because of what Soyeon told him, and he feels relieved upon seeing the familiar college building. He’s not allowed in dorms at this time, but he’s done this too many times to get caught. Except he was drunk in those instances, and being on MDMA was different. Sneaking past security was tough because he couldn’t bring himself to tiptoe without making so much noise. When they glanced at him, he thought it to be the only choice to just run past them. He’s in the elevator by the time they catch on, and the numbers look wonky in his eyes but he presses the button for the right floor. 

He’s shifting his weight repeatedly in an attempt to contain his excitement; he wants to see you so bad. The moment he hears the ding of the elevator, he’s running past the halls and stops upon seeing 124. He has to squint, but he knows this is your dorm. 

You wake up with a silent gasp when there’s a pound on the door. You clutch your sheets in fear until someone starts to sing your name. “Jungkook?” you mouth to yourself. You stand up and look through the peephole and there’s a man on the other side who’s bouncing on his feet impatiently.

“Open up,” he sings loudly. You’re worried when you swing the door open and yank him inside so he doesn’t wake up any other students. You try to talk but only a wheeze comes out, so you switch on the light to see him instead. The brightness hurts your eyes as you close them for a few seconds. “Well, well, well, look who we have here…”

He starts to circle around you slowly and stumbles behind you. “Sending people to spy on me after rejecting me like that.” His words are slightly slurred and you turn around to face him with a pout. You point at your throat to give him a hint, but his eyes don’t waver from your pleading ones. “What are your intentions, huh?” he weakly pushes you, “Sending me mixed signals. Who- who do you think you are?”

You hold his hands and place them on your neck, trying to communicate with him by mouthing, “I’m sick,” but he only chuckles. He seems sickeningly joyous, but he’s not over his anger. “Still not going to talk to me? What did I even do?”

You deeply inhale from your nose because he’s not paying attention to you. You’re frustrated with yourself until he yells, “WHY WON’T YOU TALK TO ME?” The surge of serotonin, his state of euphoria is crashing down on him the more you ignore him. He had believed the drug would only make him happy, but it intensified his sadness and anxiety just as much when he saw you. It helped him forget you in a social circle, but you confused him so much after he was reassured for so long - coupled with your silence, he’s raging.

“Why are you ignoring me?! What did I do that was so bad that you can’t bear talking to me anymore? You told me you loved me, please,” he chokes and tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “I-I’ll make it up to you, I’m so sad right now. Just say something…”

You’re watching him in shock and a hint of fear from his fluctuating mood. You want to cry at how pitiful he looks, but instead you aim to grab a piece of paper from your bedside table. He misreads your actions and pushes you against the wall. “Stop this. Stop!” He has your arms pinned and he’s trying so hard to intimidate you so you give in. A dry sob leaves you because he's going mad, but then he has a sudden epiphany. “Maybe you’ll love me again if I fuck you hard enough and engrave it in your brain that you’re mine. Yes, yes!”

He starts unbuckling his belt and you immediately try to stop him; he’ll get sick! He shoves you again and pulls down his jeans before mashing his mouth against yours. All of your efforts have gone to waste when his tongue forces its way down your throat. There’s no point to denying him now, so you hesitantly kiss him back. You’re so guilty, and he’s so careless as he roughly pushes his hand down your white cotton shorts. You’re wearing a navy blue sweater to match so you don’t get cold in the night, but the shorts are meant to prevent a fever. What’s the point now, then? He hasn’t even read your texts that you only remembered to send before sleeping. He missed a whole paragraph of your explanation and confronted you so angrily.

“I’m going to fuck you all night,” he growls against your lips, “then you’ll remember how much you love me.” Your moans are quiet and hitched as he presses down on your clit through your panties. His other hand is on his cock as he strokes it eagerly, ready to get inside you. “I missed you so fucking much in one day,” he whispers in a croak. Hearing it makes you feel even warmer inside as you nudge his hand to urge him to enter you. “You missed me too, huh?” he takes notice of your neediness. “Shouldn’t have fucking brought it upon yourself then.”

He removes his hand from your shorts and taps your thighs before demanding, “Jump.” You bite your lip in consideration until he taps them harder and you quickly wrap your legs around his waist. Your shorts are relatively short, resembling loose boxers, so when your back is pressed against the wall he only pushes them and your underwear to the side before thrusting into you. A scream gets caught in your throat, and you forget all about your aches as he roughly fucks into you without caring for protection or lube. It stings only slightly, but the pleasure in feeling so full of him outweighs the pain.

Jungkook is moaning and groaning as he bruises your thighs in his hold. Your panting is all he can catch, and though the feeling of you is an amplified sensation because of the drug coursing in his system, he wants to hear you chant his name as well. “Still quiet?” he tuts and carries you to your narrow bed and you cling onto his shoulder while trying to catch your breath after the sudden attack. “Your cunt is throbbing though,” he says as he pulls out of you and drops you on the bed. He manhandles you by flipping you on your stomach and holds up your ass. He finally takes off your bottom clothing, but he’s slightly dizzy as he yanks them off your ankles. He spreads your thighs apart and you’re on your knees with your head against the mattress. “I wonder why that is,” he says before slapping your pussy, making you whimper quietly. “So wet, yet you don’t even make a sound. Some whore you are.” You purse your lips and muster a whine, but it’s interrupted when he pistons his cock inside you without warning. Your sounds are hoarse as he pounds into you from the back, hands kneading your ass to the shape of his hands. He gives it a spank as he moans loudly; the new position makes it feel so much more intense, and Jungkook loves it. His ears finally get to hear your pathetic mewls as he thrusts so deeply inside you that your vision blurs with tears and your eyes roll to the back of your skull. You feel like a doll that can’t speak or move, and he’s evidently enjoying it going by his rushed pace. You’re challenging him with your silence, and he loves proving himself.

All of a sudden however, he stops moving. You look behind you with a pout and he quirks a brow at you. You grit your teeth because you know he's waiting for you to tell him to continue, or rather daring you to do something. A sudden surge of confidence overcomes you and you gently slam your hips against his, fucking yourself on his cock with your eyes screwed shut.

“Yes, baby,” he strains, “show me that you're still my good girl.” At his encouragement, you meet his thrusts faster and you're seeing stars at how amazing it feels. You want to be his good girl so bad, and you arch your back to savour the pleasure. “Your pussy is mine, all mine,” he affirms to himself and stills your hips to turn you around without removing his length. His fingers are digging into your flesh and your tits bounce under the fabric as he rams into you restlessly. Your mouth is open in a silent scream and he can barely make out your pupils, the whites of your eyes stirring his climax at how attractive you look under the poor lighting. “I love you so fucking much,” he cries, “say it back, baby.”

You try to, but you can only dryly cough. “You fucking bitch,” he hisses at your defiance and pulls out of you to pump his length. He’s close to his release, and he pushes up your sweater to see your hard nipples that make him salivate. He crawls to slide his cock between the valley of your breasts and it hurts when he harshly pushes them together. “Stick out your tongue,” he commands in a whisper, and you do so while panting like a dog. Every time he thrusts upwards, the tip of his head grazes your tongue and leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. He’s massaging your tits as he stutters between whines, and eventually his load spurts out to land on your chest and cheek with a particularly loud groan. His cum surges down his shaft as he rides out his high with the last slow thrusts. 

“Oh fuck,” he sighs airily and collapses next to you in the tiny space available. You clumsily turn on your side to give him more room and he pecks your swollen lips. He zips his pants back up and you’re still naked from the waist down. You’re staring at each other adoringly in the romantic, fragile atmosphere; another first.

“I love you,” you croak finally. It’s quieter than a whisper, and it makes you cringe at how hideous you sound; it’s painful as well.

His face lights up once he registers your words before noticing the tone. “What happened to your voice?”

“Sick.” You can’t bring yourself to say anything more as you snuggle into his side and he instinctively wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“Shit,” he murmurs, “why didn’t you tell me that sooner, idiot?”

You slap a hand on his front pocket where his phone is, and he hastily takes it out to see a bunch of notifications from you. “You sent it at night, you’re still the idiot.” You giggle and roll your eyes. “A promise is a promise, though,” he purrs before cupping your bare heat. “I did say I would fuck you all night.” You widen your eyes when his head lowers down to face your sopping wet cunt, and he slowly licks up a stripe over your soaked folds, making you shudder and grip his hair. He’s leaving kitty licks all over your sensitivity, the tip of his tongue lightly brushing against your clit every now and then. Your hips lift involuntarily, and he finally takes your clit in his mouth and sucks on it loudly. He slurps your arousal before spitting it back on your hood, and you can only squeak in response. Your hazed mind only tells you that you want more, and he doesn’t fail to provide.

Two fingers enter your clenching hole, and he’s scissoring your walls as he messily eats you out. The pleasure from earlier returns all too soon and you know you won’t be able to last long. His lids are hooded when you glance down at him and the way he’s looking at you makes it even harder to resist your orgasm. The knot in your stomach picks back up right before unraveling and your moan is raspy as you start twitching under his relentless mouth. He grows gentle and leaves kisses all over your vulva until your body falls limp on the sheets.

After another round of penetrative sex, the two of you fall asleep from exhaustion in your bed. It’s a first for the both of you, and Jungkook decides in his drunken mind that tonight won’t be the last. It feels so intimate when he cuddles you, and you won’t ever forget his love confession.

The next morning is not so pleasant however, as Jungkook wakes up with a loud sneeze and in his now nasal voice says, “God fucking damn it.”

[silkylious]

Limbo (Bakugo Katsuki x Fem!Reader)

Pairing: bakugo katsuki x female reader warnings: heavy angst, eventual tiny bit of fluff at the end

omf this request is so nice i feel so bad that my writing is literally garbage in this, but thank you sm for requesting this!! <3 and im so sorry if i didn’t do your request justice (i legit hate my writing here :’))

To say the state of your relationship was unbearable would be the euphemism of the century.

Your thoughts often ran amuck, always hopelessly crawling back to that one despaired curiosity; wondering if he shared the same sentiment about your wishy-washy “friends” status as you did. He probably didn’t. That’s the seemingly unshakable brick wall that would inevitably dead-end your lovesick daydreams, each and every time. Though when his roughed-up hands linger on your skin a millisecond too long, when his steeled stare melts, hard rubies morphing into blazing lava pits, threatening to mar your very heart and soul with their scorching intensity –you’re not exactly certain you’d mind that– that’s when a flicker of something ignites within you. Hope, longing, doubt. Whatever it is, it terrifies you. Because you’re agonizingly aware of what that entails. He’s got you hook, line and sinker, but torturously he refuses to do anything with that. Almost like pulling someone in for a hug then abruptly and without explanation stopping midway, he keeps you at arm’s length. Not too far, not too close. And how that cycle destroyed you.

Katsuki was the type to jump into action and ask questions later. Except a lot of the times when these questions pertain to his own emotions, he didn’t even try to answer them, opting to shove them to the corners of his psyche, collecting dust, steadily accumulating until they become too much to ignore and he (sometimes quite literally) explodes. It’s a vicious loop that he could never break away from, he’d even come to find a sordid comfort in it. His coping mechanism was by no means healthy, far from it, but he’d grown familiar to the toxicity.

Katsuki couldn’t make heads nor tails of his feelings for you. Whenever he impulsively threw himself into the lion’s den that was your affection, caught in the moment, in the glimmer of genuine adoration in your eyes, he never came back the same. A piece of his heart would irreversibly split off and reside in the palm of your hand, he was scared that nothing would be left of it, that he wouldn’t be able to regain his bearings until it was too late. You so effortlessly juggled with his feelings, all with a single smile, it scared him that you had so much power over the fluttery sensation in his chest and yet, in the moment, it felt good. It felt so good to indulge in whatever fucky feeling was messing with his head, to let you hold him in the depths of obscurity with all prying eyes shut and what little words exchanged hushed. It felt so alleviating to feel skin on his own (for once not in battle), gentle, comforting but not coddling. It was unspoken between you that you were both more than friends. You knew it, he knew it. Neither of you ever mentioned it. What neither of you knew, however, was how far the other’s feelings ran.

But as high as your silent love made him feel, he crashed back down into the concrete when he was left to his own devices. Without your intoxicating scent, distracting touches fogging his rationality, Katsuki had all the time in the world to overthink. And overthink he did. His pride picked apart the delicate flowering in his heart, ripping it petal by petal until nothing was left but a garden of beautifully withered leaves, a condemnation to what he considered a weakness.

Katsuki was a taker by every sense of the word. Basking in your wispy adoration, only to brush you aside in favor of focusing on academics once he’d had his fill of your love. It was sickening.

Maybe it was the fact that you hadn’t outright confessed to him, maybe that’s what soothed the overbearing guilt that crawled up his throat whenever he saw that dejected face of yours, the one you made because of him. If your feelings for him ran deep, surely you would have said something by now, at least that’s what he thought. Or more precisely, that’s the excuse his mind conjured up in hopes of easing his conscious, trying to convince himself that self that yes, he was hurting you, but at least he wasn’t hurting you that bad. He was infinitely aware that this doesn’t put him in any sort of moral high ground, nor does it justify his actions, but, again, it was a last-ditch effort to relieve his anguish if just by a little bit, even if he knew that excuse was bullshit.    

Surely he knew, there’s no way in hell someone as hawk-eyed as him didn’t notice the tyranny he held over the porcelain pitter-pattering of your heart, didn’t notice the fleeting, love-filled glances you sent his way. This was getting ridiculous, you were starting to believe he was taking some twisted sense of pleasure from your heartache, but he wouldn’t do that, right? He didn’t derive some sick kick out of having you indefinitely under his thumb, at his beck and call… right? A few months ago, you would have answered those uncertainties with a resounding “No!” defending his cruel behavior till the bitter end. But now…

Now you weren’t so sure.

And yet you still found yourself in his dorm, on his bed. It was supposed to be another study gathering, but one thing was glaringly missing. Y’know… the gathering. Kirishima was out training and he hadn’t bothered to invite the rest of his brain-dead, self-proclaimed squad. And that’s how you found yourself alone. With your best friend and secret crush. Just dandy.

Your hands were restless. Pulling at the seams of his blanket, cracking your own fingers, picking up your pencil for a brief moment of concentration, answering one or two questions only to drop it back on the mattress again and fidget some more. Katsuki wasn’t fucking blind, and your unease was ticking him off. Though he surprisingly hadn’t said a thing about it just yet, he was clearly nearing his wit’s end. His silence didn’t prevail for much longer, the meek sigh and not so subtle glance you chanced his way being his tipping point.

“What.” It came out as a statement, a demand rather than a question. What was he demanding? He hadn’t thought of that yet, his temperamental limbs already taking the wheel and pressing on the gas without a destination in mind, just being short fused for the sake of it. Was it even his place to be making demands in this situation? Katsuki knew the answer to this one like the back of his hand, a solid no.

“What…?” You really had no idea what Bakugo was expecting with a question like that. He still had the audacity to roll his eyes.

“The hell’s got you so jumpy?”

“It’s nothing…” It was a lot more than nothing, that’s for sure.

“Don’t lie to me, (name). What the fuck is up with you?” Ah, there it is again. That look. His words were as cut-throat as ever, and his mouth was still pulled into that seemingly permanent scowl. But his eyes conveyed something that was whole worlds asunder from his harsh tone. Golden brows furrowed as they usually were, though unusually upturned just the slightest bit. You despised that look. It ensured that you’ll forever be caught in his grasp, forever there for him when he never spared you the time of day.

Your lungs constricted by a force of gorgeously wretched agony. Katsuki wasn’t fair when he bared his soul to you like this, it filled you with such fervent euphoria that torrefied its way through your being, singeing your veins with luminous infatuation. And it hurt. Because you knew he’d cage himself right up as soon as the moment of vulnerability perished.

A crystalline sheen permeated your vision. This wasn’t going to end well.  

“I said it’s nothing,” Your voice raised. You hadn’t meant for the words to be as frosty as they came out, but it seemed like your subconscious was utterly done with the tedium of heartbreak he keeps putting you through.

“What is fucking wrong with you? I was literally just asking why you were being so goddamn obnoxious today and then you go and make a big fuckin’ deal out of nothing!”

“Well, maybe I’m just fucking tired of giving you everything I have and getting nothing in return, Katsuki!”

Your chest rose and fell with each scalding breath that entered your lungs. The blood through your veins was pumping. Never had you been confrontational, and your sudden outburst wasn’t exactly welcome to your system. You wanted to vomit. This was not how you wanted things to turn out, you absolutely needed to leave, distance yourself from the emotional strain he was inflicting on you.  

Without taking notice of the panicked glint in the cherry red of his irises, you bolted out of the suddenly claustrophobic room, leaving Katsuki to stare at his agape door before flickering his unfocused attention to your supplies still laying on his bed.

Katsuki erupted time and time again, with you being as patient as a receiving end could ever be. It’s specifically because of your godly patience that he never considered what he would do once you erupted.

With your back sliding down your dorm room door, and little friction stopping your descent, you wondered and maybe even wished he’d call after you, come banging on your door with bristling apologies on the tip of his tongue. However, the jarring reality was very clear to you. You’d decided on that day, with your head buried in your tear-stained pillow, that these were the last tears you’d ever shed on him, that you were going to put him through the same wringing hell he’d put you through.

You were going to ignore Bakugo Katsuki’s existence just like he’d periodically ignored yours.

The following week had been bleak at best and excruciatingly bitter at its worst for the both of you. It was so strange having to adjust to the absence of the other, even if your company more often than not had been a quiet one, it was company nevertheless. The most grueling part though, was your shared friend group. They’d noticed that something was obviously awry, but since neither of you said a thing about it, they decided it would be best if they didn’t either. The awkward dead silences during lunch were still purgatory to behold. But after a few more slow paced days, the sun seemed to shine bright again. For you, that is.

You didn’t realize how much of your schedule revolved around Bakugo until he was completely out of it. How much time you spent with him, dreading him, thinking about him… him, him, him. He’d consumed your thoughts from the first sparks of dawn till the hallows of dusk. You had so much free time now that he was out of the picture, it was crazy. The more time you spent on yourself, on your hobbies, getting to know other classmates outside of your immediate friend circle, the duller the ache in your chest. Until it was but a static buzz. Yet you couldn’t deny that, with time, your fury had mellowed out, leaving behind a cold loneliness you couldn’t elude whenever your aimless stare landed on him, almost like it was drawn to him by muscle memory.

He was the exact opposite.

You’d think the throbbing within him whenever you finally gazed his way then instantaneously looked in the opposite direction would knock come modicum of sense into his stubborn head. But nope. And seeing you thrive without him only cemented what he already knew. He really was no good for you. So much so that it barely took anytime for you to readjust to the lack of him in your life, and not only did you adjust, you were the best he’s ever seen you both mentally and academically. In the first week of you ditching him completely, his bruised ego kept him for reaching out to you, but now, seeing that elated grin on your face –the one that had been gradually dwindling over the past few months– he didn’t want to take your newfound happiness away, he’d figured he’d done you more than enough harm already.

Heart heavy with reluctance, Katsuki made the decision to give up on your relationship. Deciding to wordlessly cheer you on from the sidelines and watch you bloom, flourishing into the person he robbed you of being for a chunk of your life, though whenever your spring hit, it would be without him. Until some day in the future where his pride wasn’t as suffocating, where he could genuinely, wholeheartedly repent his grievances and only hope for your forgiveness.

Kirishima never took Bakugo for a quitter, hell would freeze over before he even thought such a thing. So this was certainly a shock. What was even more shocking ­– and overwhelmingly concerning– was the fact that Katsuki had willingly, on his own accord confided in him, and he’d, in his own roundabout way, taken accountability for being a gigantic douche to you. As much as the redhead respected his friend’s decision to stay clear of you, he couldn’t help but wish you’d just talk to one another for once. Kirishima really was a saint, having to listen to two idiots ramble about how much they miss the other.

“Listen, man. I know you feel bad and all that, but maybe you should just talk to her? I’m sure she’d like some closure on this just as you do, even if that doesn’t mean things will go back to the way they were.” Eijirou tried to reason, praying to whatever higher being out there that Katsuki would just get the fuck over himself and communicate with you.

“Fuck no. That’s not fucking happening, shitty hair,” Kirishima rolled his eyes at the oh so affectionate nickname, thoroughly done with his best friend’s melodrama. Welp, I guess there’s only one thing left to try. He heaved internally, mentally and physically preparing himself for Bakugo’s tantrum.

“Well, you know that if you won’t talk to her, others will, right? I heard some guys saying they’re gonna ask her ou–”

“Shut the fuck up! I don’t give a rat’s ass who asks her out!” He definitely did. Eijirou hid his smile. Checkmate.

“Whatever you say, dude.”

Later that day, three distinctly powerful knocks woke you up. Needless to say, you didn’t think that night would end up with you and Katsuki staring each other down, seated on your bed at one in the morning. Words got stuck in his throat, so he just… noiselessly watched your face, as if trying to telepathically ram his constipated emotions into you, in hopes that you’d make sense of them. Obviously, that didn’t work.

“Did you come banging on my door at one in the morning just to stare at me, Bakugo? I mean I know I’m pretty but still–”

“Shuddup.” Not really the best thing to say to you after weeks of radio silence. You were about to make another salty remark, but he opened his mouth first.

“I fucked up,” The fact that he was acknowledging he was at fault was… something. But that wasn’t nearly enough to pay off the debt off turmoil he’d caused you.

“No shit.” You replied without missing a beat. The ice that tinged your words caught him off guard, but he really shouldn’t have been surprised. He sighed, knowing he’d have to strip himself of everything, including his pride (especially his pride) down to his very core, to have a go at a second chance.

And so, he did.

He poured his everything out for you to observe, without an ego film distorting his words. Syllables reeked of muted agony, he really had rid himself of anything and everything that wasn’t his deepest soul. He finally offered you himself just as you had done countless times before. Katsuki swore that his heart would –and always has been– explicitly yours, he’d roar that fact at the constellations above if you so wished him to. And while it would take a while to heal from coruscating blisters he’d inflicted, you were more than content mending and welting your heart with his.  

[sentakushimasu]

if i can't taste your lips just let me taste blood

pairing: bakugou katsuki/kirishima eijirou summary: work studies are meant to be educational, not fatal, but bakugou and kirishima are trapped with a growing puddle of blood and no way to get out genre: hurt/comfort, whump word count: 2.6k warnings: blood, hospitals, bakugou trying to articulate emotions title from: we are the dirt - it's never enough AO3

When Kirishima came to it was with a lot of confusion and pain. The first thing he noticed was the searing pain emanating from his abdomen that blurred and subdued his other senses. The second thing he noticed was that it was really dark.

Dark to the point where he wasn’t sure if he was opening his eyes at all, unable to figure out where the hell he was or how he got there.

The pain, however, was very clearly not a fixture of his foggy and disoriented brain. It kept getting worse, the burning sensation reaching all the way down to his feet. In the haze of pain he couldn’t pinpoint any actual injury, only able to tell that there was something really heavy pressing down on his midsection.

The whine he let out was involuntary, but if he was alone he was going to make as many pathetic noises as he wanted.

Only, he wasn’t alone.

“Kirishima? Kirishima, are you awake?”

That was Bakugou’s voice, but Bakugou never called him by his name, and especially not with the worry that currently saturated his tone.

Kirishima grumbled and tried to push the weight off him. It was so heavy, borderline crushing him but he couldn’t get it to move. What he assumed were Bakugou’s hands swatted his away from whatever was pinning him down.

“Fucking hell, would you stop that?”

Kirishima squirmed again, trying desperately to get even a little bit of the weight off him. “There’s something on top of me-”

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re bleeding.”

“Hmm? Sorry,” Kirishima floundered until his fingers connected with Bakugou’s wrist, looping around the limb. “You can stop, I’m alright.”

“What the fuck? No. You’re fucking bleeding everywhere.”

Bakugou’s face came slightly more into focus as Kirishima’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He kept looking between Kirishima’s abdomen and his face. He looked worried, and if Kirishima didn’t value his life he would dare say that Bakugou was scared. He was still in his hero gear, the stupid theatric spikes framing his head, a distinct trail of blood marring his features as it trailed down his face from his hairline.

“Are you hurt?” Kirishima couldn’t help but ask.

“What? No.”

“You’re bleeding,” Kirishima supplied helpfully.

Bakugou narrowed his eyes and turned back to the wound, applying more pressure. “Not as much as you.”

Swallowing the whine in the back of his throat, Kirishima decided to actually start a conversation with his friend. He had no idea how long they would be there and he wasn’t into spending that uncertain length of time in tense silence with Bakugou. “What happened?”

“Work study. Big villain attack so Endeavour sent us out as backup. One of ‘em cornered you in here so I came to tell ‘em to fuck off but you were on the ground and when I exploded the asshole, the fucking ceiling caved in.”

“At least I’m not stuck in here by myself, hmm? That would be unfortunate.”

It was supposed to have been a joke, something to lighten the mood between them but Bakugou’s expression remained firm as he offered no reply.

“How bad is it?”

Bakugou paused, the silence hanging heavily between them. “It’s fine, you’re gonna be fine.”

Kirishima just hummed. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Dark spots peppered his vision and he was beginning to realise how tired he felt. He knew Bakugou was fighting a losing battle.

“I’m not fucking lying, okay? You’re going to be fine.”

“It’s okay, Bakugou. Can I just ask you to do something before I die?”

“You’re not going to die, you asshole. Fat Gum is going to come for you, you know he’d never leave you here.”

The exhaustion was creeping in with the tingling sensation in his arms and legs. He was so cold. He had half a mind to ask Bakugou to set off some explosions and hopefully warm the air. But they were trapped with potentially limited oxygen and Bakugou was too smart to ever risk that. “Is he going to be fast enough? You said there was a villain, he’s probably too busy.”

“Shut up!” Bakugou snapped, his expression and tone immediately softening as the harshness registered. “You’re not dying today. Or tomorrow. Or any day that I’m alive to see. I won't let you.”

Kirishima closed his eyes, letting himself imagine what it would be like to die with Bakugou by his side. A cruel part of his chest tightened as he imagined asking Bakugou to hold him before he passed out.

The taste of blissful unconsciousness lay heavy on the back of his tongue as he spoke. “Will you stay? I don’t wanna go alone.”

“You’re not going fucking anywhere, and I’m not gonna leave you.”

“I think I’m dying, Katsu.”

Kirishima could see the way Bakugou flinched at the use of the nickname. He would have apologised for being so informal but he was tired and he didn’t have the energy to be sorry for trying to feel close to Bakugou in his last moments.

Perhaps the reaction had been to the idea of Kirishima dying, but that seemed less likely. Bakugou was persistent in reminding everyone that he didn’t care about anything or anyone other than becoming number one. Kirishima had always admired his determination but right now he just wanted to pretend that Bakugou cared about him.

Falling in love with Bakugou Katsuki was probably the dumbest decision of Kirishima’s life but he would never live to regret it. Not while Bakugou stayed with him, trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound that was likely severe enough to render Bakugou’s efforts useless.

The older boy didn’t look at him. “You’re just delirious from the blood loss, you’ll be okay.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because you’re fucking bleeding out!”

“Yeah,” Kirishima mumbled with the limited energy he had left, “but why is it suddenly a big deal? You've said repeatedly that you don’t care about anyone else.”

“I lied,” Bakugou hissed through his teeth, his jaw clenched with such force that Kirishima was worried the bone would shatter under the pressure.

Kirishima’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion. Well that made no sense.“Why would you lie?”

“Because I love you, goddamnit! So you’re going to stay awake and we’re going to get out of this and go on a date or some shit, but we can only do that if you stay awake, okay?”

Oh. Kirishima tried to speak, but his tongue felt like a lead weight in his mouth that he couldn’t lift no matter how hard he tried. The fog was pressing in on him much harder now.

Bakugou’s voice was muffled by the fog as he spoke again. “Fucking say something. I just confessed my feelings for you, you don’t get to fucking ignore me now.”

Kirishima was aware that he should be worried by the way it was taking more and more of his energy to keep his eyes open, but he couldn’t find the strength to care about anything other than the fact that Bakugou just said he loves him.

“Kirishima?”

“No- No, fuck, no, Kirishima you have to keep your eyes open!” Kirishima hadn’t even noticed they’d fallen shut, but he couldn’t seem to open them again, despite how much he wanted to stare into Bakugou’s red eyes forever.

Kirishima could feel something tapping on his cheek, shaking his shoulder. Bakugou’s voice was so broken and raw when he spoke his plea. “Kiri, please.”

That’s weird, Bakugou never says please.

As the last shreds of consciousness left him, Kirishima swore he could hear muffled yelling somewhere close to his head, he couldn’t make out the words.

But it didn’t hurt anymore.

-

Kirishima didn’t expect to wake up.

It was as simple as that.

He had been bleeding badly enough that Bakugou hadn’t even let him look, and had seemed genuinely worried and afraid for his friend’s wellbeing. So at that point, waking up was a feat on its own.

Waking up without being in excruciating pain was something else entirely. He just felt floaty and not real. But he definitely wasn’t dead because he was uncomfortable and the lights behind his close eyelids were way too bright.

“I would try to send you back to the dorms but I know you won’t listen to me even if I erase your quirk and drag you kicking and screaming out of here,” Aizawa’s gruff voice said from a place Kirishima couldn’t pinpoint. There was a lot of aural input that just dissolved into directionless static.

“I’m not leaving him.”

That was Bakugou’s voice, with its hard edge and underlying fire. It cut through the haze of Kirishima’s lingering unconsciousness, it didn’t have the same fuzzy edge to the syllables that Aizawa’s voice had.

Aizawa must have clicked his tongue before speaking again in his monotonous drawl. “You need to rest too. That concussion isn’t going to go away on its own.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bakugou bit back.

“Then, pray tell, what matters more than your health?”

“He does.”

He wanted to fight against the stupor, to reach out and smack Bakugou upside the head. His friend was concussed, and chose not to rest, in favour of keeping a bedside vigil. At this point, it was the only thing that was convincing Kirishima that he didn’t hallucinate what Bakugou said before he passed out.

Not that it made much sense.

“Kirishima would want you to take care of yourself.” Kirishima is going to shake Aizawa’s hand the second he can muster up the energy to do so.

“Kirishima also wanted to die of blood loss and traumatise me instead of just staying awake, so I’m not going to listen to what that asshole wants.”

“You know as well as I do that the doctor said he probably won’t be coherent until tomorrow morning even if he does wake up tonight. I can drive you back to the dorm and pick you up before visiting hours.”

Kirishima could practically hear Bakugou shaking his head. “I’m not leaving him alone.”

“He won’t be alone. Fat Gum and I will be here all night.”

Bakugou’s next words were haunted, hollowed out to fit an emotion Kirishima had never heard from the older boy. “He asked me to stay with him.”

“And you did, you saved his life,” a third voice added. Kirishima was cognizant enough to be able to recognise it as being his mentor.

“Go to bed, Bakugou,” Kirishima mumbled, scrunching his eyes up tightly as consciousness fully came back to him. He wished someone would turn the light off.

“Kirishima?” There was too much noise in that moment for Kirishima to figure out who had spoken, but he suspected that all of them had something to say about his return to wakefulness.

He tried to lift his hand, hoping to cover his eyes from the bright lights of what was undoubtedly a hospital room, only to find it pinned in place.

Opening his eyes to the onslaught of light revealed that his hand was being firmly held in Bakugou’s. Okay, forget his previous claims, he was definitely dead. Or, at the very least, having the best dream of his life.

Kirishima groaned. “You guys are loud.”

“Sorry, kid,” Aizawa said in his usual grumble. His chair was the furthest away from Kirishima, sitting all the way in the corner of the room. He looked the same amount of disheveled as he usually did but his posture held a weird tension that Kirishima wasn’t sure he had ever seen before.

“How are you feeling?” Fat Gum asked, he was out of his hero suit which, to Kirishima, looked very odd.

“Pretty okay, all things considered,” Kirishima said, directing his gaze towards his friend.

Bakugou was the most noticeably different. His hair was scruffy and matted with blood, a stark white rectangle of gauze taped to his forehead, a few little strips holding a cut on his eyebrow together. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t let go of Kirishima’s hand either.

Feeling particularly spontaneous, probably due to the bucket full of pain meds that were undoubtedly currently in his system, Kirishima gave Bakugou’s hand an experimental squeeze.

Bakugou stiffened but the tension quickly left his body as he squeezed back, turning to meet Kirishima’s eyes and give him a soft smile.

Their exchange was silent but they said all they needed to.

I heard you.

I love you too.

Kirishima tried to adjust himself, to get a better look at Bakugou’s injuries. Only to promptly collapse back onto the hospital bed as pain blasted through all of his senses.

“Idiot,” Bakugou hissed.

“Take it easy,” Fat Gum said, “you were in surgery for a long time, you don’t need to be pushing yourself.”

Still trying to breathe through the pain, Kirishima opened one eye to look at the pro hero.

“Surgery?” he managed to grit out from between his clenched teeth.

Fat Gum’s eyes softened as he looked at his mentee. “We found you both not long after you lost consciousness, but you were in rough shape. You’re going to need to take it easy for a while.”

Kirishima groaned. “That sounds boring.”

“Not as boring as an extended recovery period because you refused to take care of yourself,” Aizawa chided.

“True,” Kirishima said. “What time is it?”

Fat Gum was the one to speak this time. Bakugou stayed remarkably silent. “A little past midnight, you spent six hours in surgery and we’ve been waiting for you to wake up for about two hours now.”

“And Bakugou isn’t in bed?”

“Nope. We tried but he won’t budge. Better to let it happen at this point.”

Kirishima rolled his head to the other side, narrowing his eyes at Bakugou and the older boy’s stony expression. “Go to sleep.”

Bakugou met his gaze with his usual stubborn fire. “You first.”

“If you stay, will you sleep?”

Bakugou nodded.

“Aizawa-sensei, can he stay?”

Kirishima had expected Aizawa to argue, but he was just met with a soft “okay”.

Whether it was the cocktail of medication or the trauma his body had suffered, tiredness hit Kirishima like a wave. As his blinking slowed down, he swore he saw a soft smile grace Bakugou’s lips before his other hand reached up to brush Kirishima’s hair out of his face.

“Goodnight, Kirishima.”

Kirishima just hummed, too tired to speak.

-

Kirishima woke up the next morning with Bakugou wrapped around his arm that was free of tubes and wires, snoring softly.

Carefully picking up his other hand and ignoring the presence of the IV in the crook of his elbow, he began to thread his fingers through Bakugou’s messy hair. The older boy didn’t stir, a true testament to how exhausted he really was, especially considering on any other day Kirishima could breathe sideways and Bakugou would all but leap to his feet.

Instead, Bakugou’s hold just tightened slightly as he mumbled something in his sleep.

A quick glance around the room told Kirishima that Aizawa was asleep in his chair in the corner, his face buried in his capture scarf, surprisingly sans his usual yellow sleeping bag. Fat Gum was nowhere to be seen but judging by the empty chair with a blanket on the seat and jacket draped over the back, he couldn’t be far away.

There was a weird bliss to the quiet atmosphere of the hospital room. The soft morning light filtered in through the window as opposed to the harsh lights of the night before.

The pain meds took away from the discomfort of being in a hospital, and with Bakugou clinging to him like he was the most important thing in the world was something Kirishima could easily be convinced was a dream, a fantasy conjured by his unconscious mind.

He could get used to this.

[myhockeyworld87]

Ruined - Jamie Benn - Part 7

Word Count: 6,020

POV: Reader

Warnings: Language, NSFW, Smut

Notes: We’re getting closer to the end. Just one more part left to go. This has been such a fun series to write for you guys. Hope you enjoy these last two little bits. As always I love your feedback, your reblogs, your tags and your likes! Happy Reading!!!

MASTERLIST

Sidenote: Also (Y/NN) = Your Nickname (Y/LN) = Your Last Name

You weren't sure what time it was, all you knew is that moonlight was streaming through the windows, which meant the storm must have passed. The one thing you did know was why you woke up. It would actually be quite comical if it wasn't giving you such intense pleasure. You were curled into Jamie's side, his cock now hard inside you. Every so often his hips would flex into yours, hitting the spot you loved so well, which is what jolted you awake. At first, you thought he was purposely trying to wake you up with how he softly rocked into you, but then you heard his light snore and realized he was asleep, which is what made the whole thing laughable. "Mmm," Jamie moaned out, as his cock moved deeper into your core. His facial features were so relaxed, that you knew he had to be dreaming as he fucked you in his sleep.

 You dropped soft kisses to his chest, in hopes of waking him gently, yet they worked to no avail. Part of you was curious how long this would keep up before he would either spend inside you or wake up, though there was the other part that was too turned on to wait and see how it would end. Your unsated appetite won out finally, and you reached up to capture his lips. His mouth was slightly parted in sleep, so it was easy to dip your tongue inside and tangle with his. At first, his eyes remained closed, as he kissed you back and you were having trouble determining whether he was awake or not, but then they slowly opened as you pulled back from the kiss; his lips chasing yours. You watched the whole scenario play out across his face, his mind slowly coming into focus and realizing that you were in his bed, to the look of pleasure from being buried deep inside you, to utter shock that he was fucking you without any conscious thought. "Jesus," he hissed out, then went to pull out of you, only you locked your leg around him and pulled him closer to your body.

 "Don't stop, Jame."

 "I..um…" he was still in a brain fog, his body running on pure instinct at the moment as he thrust in and out of your aching pussy. You kissed him again, halting any words that he wanted to say. You knew just how close he was to cuming, as he'd worked himself into a frenzy even in sleep, but you weren't quite there yet. Jamie somehow sensed this. Running his hand between your bodies so that he could toy with your clit.

 It was your turn to moan with pleasure, as he rubbed your little nub back and forth. It didn't take long to get you to that edge, the one that would have you soaring and screaming out his name. Your pussy started to quiver as the orgasm hit, and with a few well-timed thrusts, Jamie was following you down that blissful path of ecstasy.  

 You both lay there panting, his eyes searching yours curious to your reaction of what just played out. "Did we just? Was I..?"

 "Yes, and yes, you were asleep," you laughed.

 "Oh my god, I thought I was dreaming."

 "Well, I don't have to guess what it was about." There was a teasing note to your voice, which made Jamie relax a bit. "I'm just hoping it was me that was in that dream."

 His face took on an all too serious look and you regretted the words you just jokingly said. "It's always you, (Y/N). It's always been you, though I'm glad it's now a reality."

 "Me too, Jame," you breathed out and you really were glad that this right now was your reality. Emma had been right, you needed to find out if your girlhood fantasies of your first time had been just that or if it really was everything. Now you knew for sure that it was everything and so much more. The only scary part was hoping Jamie wouldn't hurt you again. You pushed past the part of your brain that wanted to dwell on that thought and tried to focus on the here and now. "What time is it?'

 "Um…" he peeked his head above you to look at your side of the bed, where you assumed a clock was. "Just after one."

 "Mmm, good. Then let's go back to sleep."

 His lips came down to give you the sweetest kiss. "I'll try to keep my lustful dreams under control and not wake you up." There was a little smirk on Jamie's face and you were glad he was finally able to laugh about his little wet dream turned reality.

 "Hmm, I'm not opposed if it happens again."

 His eyebrows shot up, before you kissed him one more time, then snuggled back into his embrace. You were asleep within minutes.

 This time you weren't woken up by Jamie and his hard cock inside you. Instead, it was the light from the bright shining sun. You checked the time for even though you didn't have to be in the office until later today, you didn't want to get too carried away with Jamie and end up being late. Thankfully, it was only seven, which meant you had plenty of time for what you had planned. You looked over at Jamie, peacefully sleeping, though still in a state of arousal and you wondered if he was having that same dream from before, as his cock was pressed up against his stomach. You wet your lips, before pulling back the sheet farther so you could dip your head down to his erect member.

 Darting your tongue out, you licked up the length of his shaft before twirling it around the head. Jamie moaned out in pleasure, his body coming alive with just that brief contact. Your hand went to the base, as your mouth sunk down to devour his cock. Jamie's hand threaded into your locks and now you knew he was fully awake as you worked him in and out of your mouth. You peeked through your lashes to look up at his face, his pupils blown wide both from sleep and the things you were doing to him with your mouth. "Mmm, fuck baby that feels so good." You pressed your tongue against the underside of his cock, a move he'd always loved when he was younger and apparently still did, as he bucked his hips into your mouth. You worked faster, bobbing up and down on his member, taking him all the way inside so he's hitting the back of your throat. "(Y/N), I'm gonna…" he groaned and you knew he was close, you could feel it. His hands were trying to get you off his cock, but you want to taste him, feel him lose control because of what you were doing just the way he did to you last night. It's when you cupped his balls that he went over the edge, spurts of hot cum shooting down your throat as he screamed out your name. You licked him clean, before taking the back of your hand and wiping your mouth.

 Jamie's was already reaching for you before you could do anything more. He had your body sprawled on top of his, and his mouth was kissing you, probably tasting himself on your lips. "I'm never going to let you leave if you keep waking me up like this."

 You kissed him back hard, before pulling back to stare into his large brown eyes. "Sorry hun, I've got patients today, so you have to let me go." Jamie's hands were roaming up and down your spine and you felt yourself melting back into him, which can't happen because you do have patients to see today, though not that many.

 He cupped your ass, squeezing the globes and making you moan. "I can be your patient if you want."

 "Oh, so you want to play doctor huh?" you asked resting your head on your hands which were laced together on his chest.

 "Mmm," he hummed. There's a little smirk that crosses his face and you can see he's intrigued with the idea. To tell the truth, so are you, but not this morning. Your legs are a bit sore from their workout last night and you still need to get to Jessi's to get your things. Reluctantly, you lift yourself off of Jamie and out of bed. "Where are you going?"

 "To the bathroom," you say rather sheepishly and pad your way into the en suite. Jamie stayed in bed and you know he's hoping that you'll be back for round three or does giving him a blow job make it round four. Either way, if you get back in that bed you may not get out, because being with him is everything you knew it would be and so much more, and that scares the hell out of you. This is all moving much faster than you anticipated but is that a bad thing. It's just so much easier because there's this familiarity between the two of you. You're trying not to overthink everything as you wash your hands in the sink, it's only then that you look up and see yourself in the mirror. "Jamie Randolph Benn!" you yelled.

 Jamie came running from the bedroom, naked and out of breath. "Are you ok?..."Did you fall?" he asked because you never called him by his full name, well maybe one time when you were really mad you did and you're pretty close to being that upset at the moment.

 "No, I'm not ok…" you told him motioning to your reflection in the mirror. "Did you..are these…" you're sputtering your words because really you're not sure what to say.

 "Hickies?" He supplies the word you couldn't seem to push past your lips. There's a smirk on his face and he looks quite pleased with himself, but he's also a bit red in the face at leaving marks on your body. God, that hasn't happened since you were in high school.

 "How am I suppose to go to work with these?" Your hands are trying to rub them out, get some sort of circulation so that the blood will flow a little better, and lessen the marks, but you know they're not going to go away magically. "What are my patients going to think?"

 "That you made someone very happy last night and that maybe he did the same for you?" Jamie slides his arms around your midsection in an attempt to soften you. You're not truly mad, so you relax against his chest, as he props his chin in the crook of your neck.

 "Well, that's true." There's this shy smile playing on his lips again and you have the urge to kiss him senseless, but then you'll end up with more of these marks on your body and you can't have that, there's already three that you're going to need to cover with makeup, plus another that you can hide under clothing. Thank god, for good concealer. "Last night was actually amazing." You thread your hands with his around your middle, loving the feel of his arms wrapped around you.

 "Then why don't we go continue it this morning." His cock has recovered from earlier as you feel its semi-erect form pressing against your backside. He's kissing your neck and then your shoulder blade and the image in the mirror of the two of you like this is making you wet again.

 "Nope," you say, then pull out of his arms, but he's already grabbing you back towards him. You go easily. "I need to shower, Jame. I'm a sticky mess, and I need to go to Jessi's and get my stuff."

 "You could shower here, with me." He's back to kissing you again and it's so distracting. "It would save on water." He kisses your collarbone. "And it would be faster." Your lips are next and you're beginning to cave, as he dances you back against the sink counter.

 "Ok," you finally give in, knowing that you have plenty of time, but not for the three-hour session you can tell Jamie has in mind. "But we have to be quick."

 "Mmhmm, sure," he tells you, before lifting you up on the counter and spreading your legs. "Just let me get you a sticky mess one more time before we rinse all this off." He winks and drops down to his knees before diving right into your pussy. Before you know it, you're coming apart sitting on his bathroom sink and then again one more time when you're in the shower, which was supposed to save time, but instead takes twice as long then if you were by yourself.

 "Jame, where's a brush?" you ask after he toweled you off, and was now drying himself.

 "Right-hand side."

 You're brushing your hair and you swear you hear something downstairs but you know Jamie locked the doors, so you must be hearing things. It's not ten seconds later, that you hear someone shouting for Jamie. "Hey, Chubbs!" A voice yells and you look at Jamie through the mirror to see if he knows who it is.

 "Shit! I forgot Tyler and I were supposed to work out." Flying back into the bedroom, you start searching for Jamie's sweats that you had on last night. "Be right down Segs," Jamie screams back. He's much calmer than you are, as you whip his sweatshirt over your head.

 "Where did you throw my panties?" He shrugs as he puts his boxers on as casual as if there isn't one of his teammates downstairs waiting for him. "Nevermind. I'll find them later." You grab the sweats and pull them on.

 "Mmm, commando huh?" You shake your head and roll your eyes at him, all while throwing your wet hair in a messy bun.

 "Would you go down there before he comes up here?"

 "He's not going to come up here. It's Tyler. He knows better than that." Which means he knows Jamie has a woman up here, so there's no way of getting out of Jamie's place without Tyler seeing you.

 "Just go, I'll be down in a second."

 Jamie comes up behind you, grabbing you quickly and kissing you. "Stop worrying about Tyler," he tells you when he finally ends the kiss because he knows you and knows that you just feel like you were caught by your parents instead of one of his friends. "I'll see you in a few seconds." You went back to the bathroom, to make yourself a bit more presentable, so you didn't hear the interaction between the two.

 Tyler was at the bottom of the stairs when Jamie got there. "What took you so long man? You got someone up there?" Jamie answered with a broad-ass grin that gave him away, without him even saying a word. "No shit! It's (Y/N) right?"

 "Of course, it's (Y/N). You know there's no one else for me." Tyler knew this but needed verbal confirmation from his best friend, before slapping him on the back.

 "Congrats bud, I don't know how you did it."

 "Fuck man me either." You chose that moment to head down the stairs.

 Jamie has his back to you, so it was Tyler that saw you first. "Hey Doc," he greeted you, with a little wink and your cheeks felt like they were on fire. You could see him take in your attire and the fact that you were wearing Jamie's clothes, which told him you'd spent the night, even though he didn't need to see your outfit to know that.

 "Hi Segs," you said using the nickname Jamie had used moments ago.

 "So…you kids have fun last night," he teased and now it just wasn't your cheeks that were turning bright red but Jamie's as well.

 "Shut up," Jamie told him, as he curled you into his side.

 "What? I was just asking. You know trying to be polite and all." No, he was fishing for information and you were not going to bite on that hook and supply it to him.

 "I really have to go." You told the two.

 "I'll grab my keys and run you over."

 "Jesus, Chubbs she only lives two doors down. I think she can make it there without you driving her."

 "Hardy har," Jamie faked chuckled. "I need to take her to Jessi's to get her purse, asshole." Tyler's face formed an 'O' comprehending why Jamie was offering to drive you.

 "It's ok. I can just run into my house and get my spare set of keys. You boys go workout." You made a move out of Jamie's embrace but he tightened his grip, pulling you so that your body was facing his.

 "You sure?"

 "Yeah, it's no biggie. I need to change and stuff anyway. I'll just stop on my way to the office."

 "I could take you now though if you want." Jamie insisted and you knew he was reluctant to let you go, probably scared that you wouldn't come back.

 "Jame, it's fine."

 "Yeah, Jame," Tyler mocked. "She's fine. You can watch her from the front porch while I make the protein shakes. I mean someone has to make them." Jamie glared at him.

 "You're lucky I'm in a good mood, or I'd kick your ass when we get on the ice."

 Tyler made a pretend scared face. "Oh, look at me shaking." He headed towards the kitchen and you had a feeling Jamie was going to check him into the boards hard during drills for that. "See ya tomorrow, doc."

 "Bye Tyler," you called then headed for the front door. "Why will I see him tomorrow?"

 "Oh, annual team picnic. I thought I told you."

 "You did, it slipped my mind." You probably would've remembered the minute you checked your schedule on your phone, which you needed to get. "What do you want me to bring?"

 "I want your cake," Tyler yelled from the room over and you heard him snicker.

 "You're not getting her cake," Jamie emphasized the word her and you realized they were no longer talking about the chocolate cake you took to Jordie and Jessi's. You buried your head in Jamie's chest.

 Tyler couldn't resist egging Jamie on. "But it's so sweet and moist and…"

 "I swear to god, Seguin, if you finish that sentence, you'll regret it." You tugged on Jamie's arm and headed toward the front door, hearing Tyler cackle as you made your way there.

 Jamie grudgingly opened the front door then for you to leave, stepping outside with you.

 "So, will I see you later tonight?" His hands were at your sides, sliding up and down under your shirt so he could feel your skin once last time.

 "I think that can be arranged. I'm thinking pizza, maybe a movie, maybe a little something else." You knew you were teasing him but then again after last night, it was going to be torture for you as well.

 "Sounds like heaven. My place or yours?"

 "Your place, there are still boxes everywhere in my house." It wasn't quite perfect yet, and it seemed like it wouldn't be for quite some time with how much you were over at Jamie's now. "I'll call you on my way home."

 "Ok." He pulled you closer to him, dropping kisses to your forehead and nose before, stealing your breath away with one to your lips. Thank goodness you both lived in a secluded neighborhood, and there weren't cars driving by watching this public display of affection.

 You ended the kiss sooner than either of you wanted. "I really have to go."

 "I know. I'll see you soon." He pecked your lips again, as you took a step back from his embrace, yet not completely out of it. "Tell Jessi I said hi."

 "I will." You gave him just one more kiss. "See you tonight." You started to walk away, your hands still laced until they were stretched so far you had no choice but to let go, only Jamie pulled you back one last time, his mouth hot on yours.

 "Bye baby," he finally breathed out and let you go. You could feel his heated gaze on you across the expanse of the lawn as you headed back to your house. This time you punched in the right code, opened the door and gave Jamie one last wave before heading inside.

 You threw on some makeup and then headed to Jessi's, where you knew that it would take longer than fifteen minutes, as she wanted to know exactly what happened with you and Jamie. Needless to say, she was ecstatic that the two of you were willing to give your relationship another chance. After an hour with Jessi, you took off for the office, telling her you'd see her tomorrow at Jamie's house for the Star's picnic.

 Fortunately, work went extremely fast and before you knew it, you were seeing your last patient for the day. After making a few last minutes notes, you headed to the hospital. Another doctor had done morning rounds, but since you were in the vicinity you decided to check up on some patients, including Noah. He was your first stop and you could hear laughter coming from his room, as you reached the nurse's station. "Someone sounds like they're in a good mood today." You commented to Shelly, one of the nurses that day.

 "Noah has a special visitor today." Laughter again filled the air, only this time you recognized more than just Noah's. "One of the big-name hockey players is there. You probably know him, or will soon enough." Oh, you knew him alright, had actually just left him earlier this morning. "I'm having a hard time keeping the other nurses out of Noah's room. I don't know how you do it being around all those gorgeous men."

 You gave her a little wink, as you headed to Noah's room. "It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it." Shelly was right, there were three other nurses in Noah's room watching him play a video game with Jamie. "Well, someone seems to be doing pretty well today." It was kind of funny to watch the nurses scramble out of the room as if they'd been caught drooling over a hockey star.

 "Hi, Dr. (Y/LN)," Noah said with a huge smile on his face. "Look who came to see me. It's Jamie Benn, the Jamie Benn. You know from the Dallas Stars." He was rambling and it was really quite cute, but what was even more adorable was seeing Jamie sitting there having a blast with him.

 "I see that. Hello Mr. Benn. I'm surprised to see you here."

 "Hey (Y/N)…I mean Dr. (Y/LN). Thought I'd stop by and visit one of the Stars' biggest fans." Jamie winked at you and your heart melted that he would be so considerate to drop by and spend time with Noah.

 "Jamie brought me a signed jersey and a puck, oh and the latest Xbox system too." Had you not already consigned yourself to giving your relationship with Jamie another chance, this alone would make you do it. The man knew the way to your heart. He could buy you all the flowers in Dallas and they would mean nothing compared to what he'd just done to brighten this little boy's day. "Oh, and he said when I get out of here, I can watch him play. Like, go to a real game and everything."

 "Only when Dr. (Y/N) gives you the ok," Jamie added, scoring yet another point in his favor. At this rate, he'd be the Conn Smythe trophy winner of your heart in no time.

 "Well, if you keep healing as well as you are, you'll be at that game in no time. Now, do you have a minute so I can check you out, and then I'll let you get back to that game." You examined him rather quickly, but everything seemed to be healing perfectly. Another week or so and he would be out of the hospital, though it would be quite a bit longer before he was heading to a hockey game. "Alright, well I'll check back in with you on Monday. Now, make sure you don't go easy here on Mr. Benn."

 "I won't. See you soon."

 You stepped out of the hospital room, only to hear Jamie tell Noah he'd be back in a minute. "Hey (Y/N), we still on for tonight?"

 "Of course," you told him; how could you not be after everything he did for Noah. "Jame, I…I don't know how to thank you for everything you did for him. That was…" You felt yourself getting choked up. Last night, you told him that you were willing to give him a shot and now today you wanted to jump in with both feet first, because damn if you didn't feel like you were falling in love with him.

 "It's really nothing. I honestly didn't think you'd be here." Did he think that you wouldn't find out? If so that made you just love him a little more. "He's a good kid, and it was a sucky thing that happened to him. You're the one who did all the hard stuff."

 "Don't discredit what you did. It means a lot." He slid his hands to your waist then, yet stopped for fear you'd not approve. Instead of reprimanding him though, you looped your arms around his neck. "And I plan on showing you just how grateful I am when I get to your place."

 His eyebrows picked up, making his eyes like huge silver dollars. "Well, I won't argue with that." You kissed him quickly there in the hospital hallway before you could change your mind and you knew that not only Shelly, but the other three nurses had to see you, but you didn't really care.

 "I've got a few more patients to see then I'm heading out. See you soon."

 "Yeah, I'm just going to play one more game, then I'm going too." Pulling him down, you pecked his lips one last time, before letting him go. "I'll see you at home, babe." He released you then headed back into Noah's room, as you made your way down the hall to stares from all the nurses. You simply shrugged then kept on going until you were at the next patient's room.

 Two hours later, you were standing on Jamie's front porch ringing the doorbell. "I thought I said to just come in, the door would be unlocked," he told you as he opened the front door, yet made no move to let you in.

 "I know you did, but it…" you didn't finish the rest as Jamie's hands slid down the globes of your ass to grab it. "Jame," you shrieked and jumped into his arms exactly as he planned. He lifted you so that you had no choice but to wrap your legs around him, then he kicked the door closed.

 "I missed you," he told you before his lips found yours and he carried you into the living room.

 "You just saw me a couple hours ago."

 "Mmm…doesn't mean I can't miss you." He was kissing you again as he sat down on the couch and really who were you to complain about it when you'd been missing him as well. Which is how you found yourself kissing him back. It was a half-hour before Jamie's stomach decided that food took precedence over making out. You ordered pizza just as you promised Jamie that morning, then put on a movie, which ended up being background noise as neither of you could keep your hands off the other. It was just like being back in high school all over again. Only this time, there was no one to interrupt you, as Jamie led you upstairs to his bedroom, where you spent the rest of the night and the next morning in a mess of naked bodies and tangled limbs.

 It wasn't until late in the morning that you finally headed back to your house to get ready for the picnic. Jamie had called you three times, while you got ready asking when you'd be back over, but you didn't want it to seem like you'd been there all day and all night, even though you had, so you waited until a few teammates had shown up before heading over. There were actually more people there than you thought, and you had a hard time finding Jamie when you first got there.

 Jessi spotted you first. "Hey (Y/N)," she said embracing you in a big hug. "I'm actually surprised you weren't here when I came."

 "Thought I'd let a few people get here before, so it didn't look too bad."

 "If you're worried about his teammates, don't. They're all really great." She must have sensed there was something more, because she added, "And they won't care that you're dating. Actually, they'll all probably be as excited as I am for you two."

 Her words made heat rise to your face. "I'm just worried being the team doctor and all. Plus, I don't even know if we are dating. We haven't really talked about it."

 "Oh, you're dating. He practically said as much when I asked him."

 "When did you talk to him?" You had to know since Jamie hadn't said anything to you and the two of you had spent the last sixteen hours together.

 "When I came here early, hoping that you'd be here and I could drill you both together." Jessi was grinning ear to ear though you knew behind that smile she was dying to play twenty questions with you and Jamie together. You'd have to ask how Jamie faired on his own. "The man is smitten with you, (Y/N). I've known him for a long time and I haven't seen him this happy…ever." It had honestly been a long time since you'd been this happy as well. She grabbed you in a hug then whispered to you. "Stop worrying. Jamie's not going to do anything to screw this up. Trust me." Strangely, you did trust her and would definitely miss her when she headed off to Vancouver.

 "Thank you."

 "And quit worrying about the team. They all love you and it's not like there's some rule against them dating anyone in the organization. I know for a fact Tyler's dated one if not two of the ice girls, before what's her name." Why did that not surprise you. Jessi looped her arm through yours then. "Now, let's go find a drink. I feel like drinking tonight." Which is exactly what the two of you did. The shot of tequila Jessi made you do at first, definitely had you relaxing a bit more. You met almost all of the guys; who were all incredibly sweet as were most of their significant others. The only reason you said most was because Sara was there with Caitlyn in tow. Their disdain for you was quite obvious, as you saw them whispering anytime Jamie was around you.

 Jamie, for his part, kept things at a lower key, thank goodness. His touches were subtle, just a hand at the small of your back every now and then, or entwining your fingers together every so often when he thought you needed a small reassurance with one of his teammates. Just those tiny gestures sent chills up and down your spine. Though you both kept the PDA to a minimum, Jamie was still attentive, always making sure that you had a drink in your hand or something to eat.

 The party was in full swing within a few hours of starting. You made your way to the downstairs powder room, only to see one of the younger players, Hintz you thought, push through people to get there first. You didn't need to have the letters MD behind your name to know that he'd had one too many shots and was currently throwing up the contents of the barbeque as well as the alcohol he'd drank into Jamie's toilet. Hopefully, the kid had good aim, as you did not want to be cleaning up that mess later, for though you'd taken an oath to treat the sick it did not include wiping up puke from the bathroom floor. Giving him an IV full of fluids in the morning was more your speed.

 You turned on your heel and headed upstairs to Jamie's en suite. The second floor was much quieter than the downstairs as no one seemed to be venturing up there. You were just heading out of the bedroom when you heard voices outside the door.

 "I'm not really sure why you dragged me here to this party Sara." You'd recognize Caitlyn's whiny voice anywhere.

 "I thought you were interested in Jamie."

 "I am…I mean I was…but he's not even paying attention to me." You could almost see her arms crossed as she pouted even though you were on the other side of the door. "Who cares. Everyone knows that he doesn't eat pussy. He's probably lousy in bed." You clamped your hand over your mouth to stifle the laugh that threatened to bubble out. Jamie most definitely went down on women, in fact, it was just this morning that he had eaten you out not once but twice.

 You should've made yourself known, but instead, you listened as you heard Tyler's girlfriend respond. "That was just some silly tweet from years ago. He's probably changed since then."

 "It doesn't really matter either way. He seems to only be paying any attention to that doctor." She fairly spat the word doctor out as if it had some disgusting taste on her tongue.

  "I'm telling you Tyler told me himself that Jamie is just using her." Wait, what had Sara just said? That Jamie was using you? "Jamie told him yesterday that he's just pretending to be into her so that he can get her fired. He even went to the owner to talk to him about it." Bile rose in the back of your throat and suddenly you wanted to join Hintz in offering up the contents of your stomach. Was Jamie really just using you again? Had the last forty-eight hours all been some elaborate scheme just to get you out of the Stars organization? Jessi had mentioned earlier that there weren't any rules against dating but maybe she'd been wrong. "He told Tyler that he was just going to do what he did in high school to get rid of her." Well, he'd certainly done that, only this time he'd slept with you more than once before discarding you. How could you have been so blind to trust him again?

 "Really?" It was Caitlyn's question but the word was also running through your brain. Would Jamie really do this?

 "Yes, really! Now come on, let's go back downstairs so you can flirt with Jamie." With a click of their heels, the two set off.

 Tears started to roll down your face, just as they had all those years ago. Only this time you angrily swiped them away. You tried to tell yourself that it didn't hurt, that you'd guarded your heart against a moment just like this, but as the tears seemed to keep flowing you had to admit that it felt just as bad at this moment as it did fourteen years ago. Wrong again. It felt worse. For somehow in just this short amount of time, you'd let your heart get attached once again. You needed to get out of here. You couldn't be in this house any longer. Everything was a blur as you flew down the stairs and out the front door. You didn't stop for anyone or anything as you headed for the safety of your home.

.

[willadisastercry]

More than ‘just a little tired’: aftermath turned aftershocks part 3

tw: discussion of sever burns and re-burning, lots of pain, also lots of heavy emotions, ptsd symptoms towards the end

Keith is in a lot of pain from just having his wounds cleaned but complications arise that make the relief of the pod that much further away. Tensions are still high and everyone’s emotions are running rampant as they are forced to watch their friend be in so much distress, their friend who never let on when he was anything other than angry, who is now crying and begging for it all to stop. Keith is desperate, his stoic facade has shattered but his body refuses to pass out and they still have to separate him from the bits of the suit that remain...

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

(( haven’t edited yet so ignore for now if it’s riddled with errors or some parts make zero sense lol, enjoy!!! ))

The infirmary was both eerily silent and brimming with commotion, nearly devoid of any conversation or background noise at all aside from muted whispers and the gentle clink of tools as the sound of Keith’s pain filled every dreadful square inch and left little space for much else.

Shrio was still perched on a stool with both hands clasped securely around the one of Keith’s that was accessible, the other hanging over the edge of the table limp and unmoving. 

The older boy spoke calm reassurances to him in a low voice, the sentiments themselves not so much soothing as the steady cadence of them were.

It was clear he was still suppressing every wince and grimace though his resolve to remain unbothered seemed to be weakening as he fatigued further. And so Shiro’s gentle tenor worked to ground him as his wherewithal plummeted, the neutral pressure on his hand giving him something else to focus on and keep him from panicking while he lay somewhat paralyzed.

He hadn’t moved much as they cleaned his back up after they gave him the muscle relaxant, not that he could if we wanted to, not when his whole body felt about as solid as jello. The only movements possible were occasional reflexive twitches or sudden bursts of shuddering breaths that had whoever was poking his back pause to give him a minute to steady himself.

That was until the team had separated him from as much of the under-suit as they could with just tweezers and saline... because about 30% of what they’d sectioned off around each wound was still attached and not coming free no matter how hard they pulled or however much saline they poured.

It was then with everything cleaned away that they saw how severe it was, how little of the blur of soot around each blast could actually be cleaned away because it wasn’t his skin that was charred, it was the suit itself.

They couldn’t fix that with tweezers but they had to remove the melted material so the pod didn’t heal around it somehow.

Keith’s attention was admittedly elsewhere when the disorienting haze of pain granted him a few moments of clarity once he realized the only hands still touching him were Shiro’s.

It took him a while, but he was able to cut through the fog enough to vaguely tune in to what was going on around him. He has missed the beginning of the conversation that Shiro was having but it wasn’t hard to piece together what was happening.

“The process should be relatively seemless if I use this—“ Coran noted grimly as he presented Shiro with a scalpel that had a cord attached to the end of it “—the scarring will already be minimal given the pod’s capabilities and the fact that these are mostly second degree, but in order to remove the bits that remain I must burn number four again to sever what joins his flesh to the undersuit...”

Shiro had figured as much and so had Keith.

Well no, his addled brain hadn’t figured much of anything coherent in a while, he just wasn’t surprised to hear that it was the only solution.

Keith wouldn’t consider himself as handy as Hunk or Pidge but he knew his way around tools from having a bike and living on his own for so long. And he couldn’t come up with anything else on hand other than a hot knife that would do that kind of job either.

He also didn’t really care how they did anything anymore. He didn’t have the energy to when all he wanted was for this to be over.

Exhaustion seeped into his bones like radiation, clogging the channels in his marrow where his blood should flow and making his entire body feel so very heavy. It was the kind of weight that lulled you into a deep sleep, yet Keith remained awake, his nerves fried and his mind wired.

Shiro sighed, bowing his head to catch Keith’s pleading eyes one last time before nodding, giving Coran the go ahead.

It’s not that Coran was hiding the tool from the other paladins or what it did, that much was sort of obvious. It’s just that the question didn’t concern them, the decision wasn’t theirs to make. Shiro was their unofficial health proxy now that they were in space and called these kind of shots for all of them, but that was especially true for Keith since he’d already sort of been doing so back at the garrison before Kerberos.

The paladins were of course privy to deciding what happened to their own bodies regarding altean remedies or lesser pod stays since some of the options are pretty out there and if they aren’t absolutely necessary, then they aren’t mandated. But all decisions were passed by Shiro who ensured that their younger counterparts were entirely clear on what they were or were not agreeing to before Coran or Allura did anything, given the situation allotted time to take such measures.

This is one of the rare instances where Shiro had little choice in how to handle the matter. There was only one option and Keith would continue to suffer if he wasted time worrying about what none of them could control.

And it wasn’t even that he was too out of it to know what this meant and be able to deliver the green light himself, the fear on his face when Coran said ‘burn’ was more than apparent. But the kid was so goddamned rational about things no one his age should be able to rationalize that it was clear he had already evaluated and come to terms with the predicament in those brief moments of hesitation before Shiro agreed.

His eyes fall closed again and Shiro thinks he can hear the screams already.

The gravity of the decision seemed to dawn on everyone else a beat later, an anticipatory silence replacing the anguished weight that hung on all of them seconds before.

Everything moved slowly for a moment, the rise of chests halted, the chitter of mice quieting while they searched the princess’s face for answers until reality crashed back down on the castleships’ inhabitants like the tidal surge of a hurricane. The green tinge on Hunk’s face deepened several shades and Allura absently slid a waste bin closer to him, her movements robotic, like she wasn’t all there anymore. Pidge’s sobs from her helpless position on the adjacent cot were almost as painful to hear as Keith’s.

The only one to contest the idea was Lance, the sheer horror of what was about to happen registering on the blue paladin’s face like it was a death sentence for his friend.

“No, that’s torture! You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea, it’s barbaric, it’s—“

“Lance, calm down.”

“I will not calm down! Don’t you see how insane this is?!”

“There’s nothing else we can do. Don’t you see where the hell we are? We’re in space. We are light years away from human healthcare, we kind of have to work with the resources that we have!”

“But there has to be another way! I don’t understand why you’re not trying to figure something else out first... haven’t you hurt him enough today, Shiro? For fuck’s sake, aren’t you supposed to be his br—“

“Do it—” Keith punches out in a harsh whisper, effectively silencing the argument “—j-just do it already.”

His voice was gravelly and weak from all the shouting, his waning energy evident in the exasperated punctuation of his words. He’s fairly sure he won’t remain conscious long enough to be truly traumatized by the a procedure and was growing more irritated the longer they delayed it.

Keith appreciated that Lance had a conscience but also knew full well that he was stuck on the agony he was emoting since he usually never emoted at all, and probably not imagining just how awful it must actually be if he was advocating that more pain be inflicted so the sweet relief of the pod came sooner.

Lucky for him, Coran seemed to grasp the concept well enough on his own.

“Alright my boy, as you wish... Allura you might want to grab something for him to bite down on.”

What remained of the upper half of his under suit lay on him in tatters, his back bare except for the front section beneath him with strips of black littered over the table and floor. There’s a square of material missing on his thigh but the rest of the bottom portion is pretty much in tact.

The wounds looked worse free of all the blood and shredded bits. Like so much worse. But Keith didn’t have to see or be told how horrible it looked, he already knew that however bad it appeared, it hurt a thousand times worse.

“I have a topical anesthetic here that should numb the surface tissue but I’m afraid I can’t make any promises about nerve pain that might go deeper... it will still hurt a great deal.”

Talking was hard. He didn’t have the energy to stay awake let alone speak, but since his body was denying him that mercy, he figured forcing himself to communicate might speed the process along.

“Kay... s’fine,” was all he managed in response, his head swimming slightly as he forced the words out.

Allura’s face came into view then, smiling with so much sadness behind it as she lowered a hand to Keith’s flushed and tear stained cheek, gently coaxing him into opening his mouth.

He was sort of confused as to why until she brought a small hand towel folded in a tight roll up to his chin. His eyes widened a bit but he hummed in understanding and parted his blood encrusted lips so she could place it between his teeth.

They hadn’t had a chance to fuss over the gash on his face with everything else they were focused on but he was also very much laying on top of it. The cut itself also didn’t appear to be giving him much of an issue, but the fact that he was resting his cheek in an ever dampening rag as it caught his blood was woefully uncomfortable, the swelling laceration under his eye endlessly agitated with every reflexive jerk.

The sight might’ve been more alarming if his back wasn’t so horrific.

Shiro searched Keith’s lidded eyes when Coran pressed a button that had the tool whirring to life with a warm orange glow before he set it aside to warm up. They were sluggish and bloodshot and slow enough in meeting his gaze that would’ve had him majorly concerned should he not already have dozens other reasons to be.

“The spray might sting a bit at first... just bear with me lad.”

Coran’s voice was pinched and level, his statements clinical and his hands deft.

He’d already gathered that Keith didn’t need things explained before they were done like Shiro who needed to feel like he was in control of his own body when being tended to, or Pidge and her unwavering need to know absolutely everything ever, or Hunk and his already debilitating anxiety regarding the unknown.

No, he was like Lance who didn’t want the details, didn’t need to know what was happening or when. In fact, he reacted worse when he knew.

Keith needed things done without preamble. It didn’t matter how much it would hurt, he just needed it to hurt before the anticipation that it was about to could consume him. And Coran would do whatever he could to ease the red paladin then, so if that meant working fast than he would work fast.

“Nngh...” Keith choked out against the towel, nearly gagging on it when his entire body jerked as soon as Coran started spraying despite the medicine running through his body to specifically lessen reactions like that. But the man didn’t slow once he started, not even for Keith’s muffled pleas.

The spray did in fact sting. It stung a lot.

His head flew back and his eyes screwed shut as he struggled to breathe through the application, jerking despite himself each time the liquid landed on his raw and burning wounds.

The cloth trapped between his clenched teeth had him sputtering on the spit in his mouth and he almost welcomed the fear that flooded his body when his throat closed to keep from inhaling it.

“I know, bud... looks like just a bit more and then hopefully some relief.”

Shiro looked so young when he was like this, the knitted worry lines on his forehead almost out of place for the age he looked then. Keith didn’t like seeing him like that, it’s what he looks like when he’s having a rough day with his ptsd, so he closed his eyes against the tears that were brimming in the corners of them and took in long, purposeful inhales while Coran finished up.

He felt it as soon as the anesthetic started working, a discernible cold partially quenching each tiny inferno that was at the center of his injuries. It didn’t do much more than place a lid on the fires, not putting anything out completely but it was something and had him sagging into the table at the small bit of respite.

“I’ll be right here the entire time, okay? Coran will try to be as quick as he can but you can do this Keith, you’re strong, I know you can do this...” Shiro rambled, his timbre still subdued and settling.

It was nonsense. It was absolute nonsense he was babbling but the older boy’s voice never wavered and the constant presence of it hung on Keith’s battered body like a warm blanket, soothing the biting chill of anticipation that spread over it before the endless waves of agony started all over again.

“It’s going to be okay, bud.”

Keith clung to his words like they were a broken board from a sinking ship, the only buoyant thing in sight that could keep him from sinking right down with it.

“It’ll be over soon...”

He felt himself physically calming the longer he spoke until suddenly his chest didn’t feel as tight.

“...and then you can rest.”

Because he believed him. He believed that Shiro wouldn’t tell him he would be okay if it wasn’t true.

“We’ll get you set up in the pod...”

And for just a second, he actually believed it would end, that it wouldn’t last forever.

“...and then you’ll start to heal...”

The breaths he took were urgent, almost greedy as he relished in the temporary peace from everything. From the pain, from his anxiety, from feeling so fucking helpless.

“...just a little longer. I promise.”

Shiro made a point not to make many promises to Keith, even if he never planned on being anything other than good on them. He knew that too many had been broken for him to trust a vow like that. The words were empty, just another tool for people he trusted to bait him with before they left.

In Keith’s experience, everyone always left.

“I am going to begin now, remember to breathe lad...”

Before Keith had been holding back most of his exclamations of pain, biting his lip or cheek and setting his jaw to swallow them back before they escaped.

He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that made that impossible now, maybe since he knew the pain would be insurmountably worse or maybe because his body was too tired to expend that kind of energy anymore, either way the only thing muffling the sounds then was the towel keeping him from biting clean through his tongue.

The way his back arched when Coran brought the scalpel down looked like it shouldn’t have been possible in his condition. Keith didn’t know it was possible either but wasn’t too focused on the logistics with how intensely his lungs were screaming as he realized he could no longer move air in or out with how shocking the pain was.

It was like he’d been electrocuted, his muscles spasming and his nerves glitching in override.

“Shit, someone help me hold him down... come on damnit, hold him still!” Shiro ordered when it was apparent that Keith was incapable of controlling his reactions as Coran kept at it with the tool.

The movements were violent and quick, more convulsions than Keith’s own will, but they happened with each slice which made it difficult for Coran to work, so Hunk and Lance repositioned themselves on either side of the table and pinned his chest down wherever was most absent of injury while Shiro kept his head still and attempted to talk him through it.

Allura wasn’t having much luck in soothing Pidge either who was hysterical with her hands clamped over her ears. The guilt she felt over being the reason Keith was now in such intense pain was overwhelming and the princess was deeply concerned that she was going to make herself sick or reopen her only somewhat mended wound.

“Huh, huhh, huh... AHGh!”

Coran ignored how his fingers were blistering from working around the red paladin’s struggles.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry...”

Apologies were pouring out of Shiro like his own blood would.

But Lance didn’t buy them. He couldn’t grasp how their infallible leader missed someone being injured this severely.

And for it to be Keith of all people.

He’d spent half of his young adult life on his own, looking out for himself, no other support. He wasn’t used to having a team to look out for him especially since the last time anyone had was when Shiro had taken him under his wing. Shiro who had pretty much promised not to give up on him only to leave for Kerberos and never come back.

And what’s worse, as if anything could get worse at this point, was that Keith genuinely hadn’t wanted their help. He would’ve insisted he was okay whether or not his injuries were known regardless, but Shiro overlooking him in the heat of the moment had only fueled his warped view on taking care of things himself. It made him think he didn’t deserve any help, like he was being selfish for even suggesting he might not be okay when Pidge was also hurt.

It wasn’t true. But Lance knew that Keith couldn’t always decipher those kinds of things, the subtle messages in tonality that other people would’ve instantly picked up as, ‘no, I don’t actually hate you’ but completely eluded him.

Because Keith was extremely literal. He was also a self sacrificial idiot. Kinda like Lance. Not the literal thing, Lance almost never spoke literally.

But Shiro knew that, he knew that Shiro knew all of that about Keith and yet here they were.

His eyes were glossy and he was livid. It didn’t make any sense. They were supposed to look out for each other. It was Shiro’s whole philosophy and here he was, a complete hypocrite.

Pidge let out a strangled hitch then that broke Lance’s focus on analyzing whatever the hell had gone down on that mission.

The guilt was raging an almost identical fire in her chest, licking at her lungs like there was lighter fluid on them and threatening the sinews that had just barely latched across the chasm in her abdomen.

Hunk wished he could cry, wished he didn’t have to be so close to the terrible mess that was his friends’ back or the sounds he was making.

He didn’t know how many more he could stand to hear. How many more times he could handle the pang of terror in his chest when one escaped the lips of either of his friends.

Anytime anyone was hurting he felt like he was too. Like he had an access pass to their pain or some wicked ability to envision exactly how it must feel. And between Keith bucking beneath his hands and the guttural groans smothered by the towel, Hunk’s stomach was flipping dangerously.

Keith’s strained huffs had turned into hysterical shouts.

“Coran,” Allura deadpanned, her voice low and deadly.

They’d started off with a sort of restraint but it hadn’t taken long for them to raise in volume. He hated it, he was too tired to be so vocal and his throat was aching, but he couldn’t help it.

If it was up to him he would’ve just relaxed and taken it. He was used to simply enduring in the moment and compartmentalizing as he went. He had no experience in allowing such real reactions, in being so vulnerable against his every will.

Taking it silently would’ve been just as painful, there was no changing that, but maybe then he wouldn’t have had to see everyone so upset.

But he couldn’t relax. And he couldn’t use his twisted reason to logic himself out of it.

“This is cruel-I can-I can ease his suffering with my powers, move aside and let me—“

“Princess.”

Coran sounded distressed, almost pained. It was the first hint of emotion he’d shown since they’d dragged Keith into medbay.

“You couldn’t heal him without going into a pod first or it would start depleting the quintessence of your life force... we don’t have time for that, you know what my answer is—“

“But it’s worth it! Just a second, even just a touch would make the world of a difference, please—“

“Allura... come on, let him work.”

Lance looked angry still, and Shiro wasn’t sure he blamed him anymore, but the princess’s voice was shaking and his hand on her arm was pulling her away from Coran gently.

And she let him, the sob that erupted from her throat startling everyone. But Lance was there, the usual smirk he wore when speaking to the princess noticeably absent as he braced his her shoulders because they were shaking too.

Shiro is pressing Keith’s chest down flat where Lance had been after he Coran hissed at the heat of the tool while he continued to thrash.

The energy in the room was so dark and heavy it was almost sinister.

But the worst part was seeing it on his face. The desperation in his expressions was gutting. It felt like a sort of betrayal, which in a way it was, but so was the alternative.

Shiro tried to keep up his rambles of assurance but found the sentiments catching in his throat.

It had become wildly apparent that they were more comforting to him than they were to Keith, but he repeated them still, the same nonsense over and over again like a prayer. The swipe of his metal thumb clearing the endless stream of tears out of his eyes was the only constant other than the sound of his own screaming sobs.

And the pain.

His sobs and the pain.

It was blinding and it was everywhere. He couldn’t get away from it. Couldn’t get away from himself or the terrible sounds he was making.

All of it was suffocating. The fire poker dragging against his already charred skin, the hands holding him still, Shiro’s words, his own cries, all of it.

The air was filled with a bitter and nauseating heat, the smell of his own flesh burning permeated it and made him cry harder.

He wanted to throw up, wanted to pass out, hell if he died right there he wouldn’t have even minded.

He just wanted everything to stop.

He didn’t think he could stand much more of it but his body wouldn’t give in. His screams had morphed into one piercing and continuous wail as every limit he had was tested and shattered.

Keith thought he could handle pain fairly well, but this was absurd. This pain was otherworldly.

It’s only when he spits the rag out for the millionth time and begins chanting his own prayer that Shiro really wavered, his hand halting abruptly as he went to put it back between his teeth before they tore through his tongue the next time Coran moved his tool.

But Coran had taken the glowing metal away for a moment and was fiddling with something, so when Shiro leaned in to replace the cloth he could finally make out what he was saying.

“...D-d-d-da-dad... pl-please, dad... dad m-make it st-stop... dad...”

The words were slurred and barely audible with how wrecked his throat was, but there was no denying it.

“Oh, Keith...” Shiro breathed before his jaw was working to muffle his own pitiful sounds.

He was in such a delirium that he was calling out for his father, the man who Keith hadn’t called out to in years because he was dead. He’d left him in the most final way someone could leave.

Shiro didn’t know how many promises his death might’ve broken, just that the words Keith was uttering were what finally broke him.

Allura’s cheeks were still wet with tears but stepped forward anyway and moved the towel back into place, her hands running through and smoothing down Keith’s wild locks all tossed out of place from writhing.

She bent down to speak softly into his ear, Shiro didn’t catch much over the ringing in his own while his eyes locked into place on the towel in his mouth and the blood staining his chin and neck, though he thought he heard something about him being strong, him doing so well...

“Shiro.”

The hand on his arm didn’t make him jump because he couldn’t feel it. The room was expanding and he was shrinking because Keith’s whimpering was beginning to sound like the despairing cries before someone or something died in the arena.

The arena...

His eyes open wide and flit around wildly, the room abruptly fitting back to size.

“Huh?”

Shiro was good at snapping himself back to reality when he needed to, good at functioning at half capacity just to see through whatever he was in the middle of until it was safe to let the lights of the arena bleed into his present.

Not that acknowledging his memories was ever safe. And not that reliving them in his cabin was any safer.

Just easier.

“What is it?”

“I’m starting again...”

He hadn’t noticed that he’d backed up into Pidge’s bed or that her tiny hand had wound its way into his.

“...and he’s asking for you.”

“Right.”

His voice was sturdy again, hands no longer trembling. He could do this.

The whirring of the tool sounds too much like his metal arm, it glows orange instead of purple but that doesn’t seem to matter because it’s cutting into Keith’s skin all the same and the screams that escape his mouth cut into Shiro just as bad.

But he pushes it all away. He can unpack the emotions that rise up with it later but Keith needed him now.

The initial twitches that wracked his brutalized frame when Coran brought the tool back down had Allura turning away and the smoke that rose up with the first slice had Hunk clamping a hand over his mouth and nose. But the princess’s hand never stopped brushing through his hair and Hunk kept the grip on his shoulder firm.

They could feel his muscles loosening, could feel the power of each jerk dwindling.

And then they watched with heavy consciences as even his steady cries quieted, his body finally waving the white flag.

“I’m sorry...”

Shiro chanted it so many times that the syllables blended together and turned into something else altogether.

Keith’s breathing was more erratic than it ever had been and it didn’t seem like he could see straight anymore so Shiro lowered his forehead to Keith’s and draped his metal arm over his neck.

Both were damp with sweat that created condensation on his hand, his hair wet with it and plastered all over, but Shiro couldn’t find it in him to care. He needed him to know that he was there, that he hadn’t left.

“I’m here, Keith. And I’m sorry...”

But his cheeks were flushing with something other than straight up exertion. And Shiro felt it, felt his hand go cold while all the blood raced to his head. He knew what was happening but he wasn’t worried.

He was relieved.

“I’m so sorry...”

The rag falls out again because his jaw had gone slack and his eyes were rolling to the back of his head. Shiro didn’t move to fix it.

His breathing still irregular but falling into a more even rhythm.

Lance looks stricken and Hunk is rather green when they let go and step back.

Pidge had finally found the ability to relax abs was slumping into the bed, eyes glued to Coran’s hand who was still not done.

Still not okay. Still not in a pod, but no longer in pain.

Hunk took exactly one deep breath before devolving into tears. He was done being strong, but Lance never seems to get the luxury and was pulling him into a hug that didn’t have him standing any straighter or have his chest working any less, but it was something.

Coran’s hands move slow and he doesn’t seem to feel the red welts on his fingertips from wrestling with his tools. But he looked more at ease with Keith blissfully unconscious, like he was breathing again.

Shiro was still holding Keith’s hand. It was ice cold and looking sort of blue with the white blotches dotting it. He leaves his other hand on his neck where his skin is hotter, figuring if the cool metal could be useful for anything other than killing, it might just be that.

Lance eyes the distance in Shiro’s gaze, the rigidity in his movements, and he thinks he understands. He thinks he can overlook his anger to remember that the guy is still human.

He’s almost scared that he was speaking out loud when Shiro rakes his grey pinpoints around the room, not appearing to actually see any of it before passing over Lance’s briefly. Hunk has his head burrowed in his chest as he fights to regain his composure but he musters up a small smile for him despite being otherwise occupied.

It’s a peace offering. A sad one at that, the corners of his mouth barely perking up, but it’s something.

Shiro wasn’t sure if he returned it but his heart felt lighter once Lance did that.

The energy in the room was still buzzing but it was less stifling, not as heavy as it had been moments ago.

The artificial sunlight starts to turn purple again and he can hear desperation mix into the buzz and for a second Shiro is worried that Keith has woken up. In a bit of a panic he drags his gaze back down to find his eyes still closed and his face still scrunched up like he hadn’t escaped the pain entirely with sleep.

But that was infinitely better than him sounding like them, the dying things he was hearing.

He vaguely wondered if the medbay was a safe enough place to let the purple flood in and ultimately decided that it didn’t matter.

He’d staved it off long enough, was strong for Keith when he needed him to be.

And so he lets himself drift.

[nightashes]

And We Were Roommates

A/N: A gift for @who-said-i-was-asleep for the @sanderssidesgiftxchange. I hope you enjoy!!

Summary: Virgil is tired. So very tired. Luckily, he has the best roommate in the world. Who also might have a crush on him?

Warnings: food mention, creepy face mention

writing masterlist - ao3 version

***

The wood of the bunk was kinda weird. Virgil thought to himself as he laid in bed, staring at the grain of the frame above him. If he squinted and tilted his head just right, he could make out the image of a face. It was kinda unsettling, the way it stared back at him with it’s eyeless visage. It caused a shiver to pass through his bone-weary body. Virgil knew his exhausted mind was making it seem worse than it actually was. But his eyes were heavy and his brain was foggy. And the last thing Virgil wanted to see, as he struggled to calm his mind enough to rest, was the image of a haunted face made up of the sketchy lines of wood grain. 

Virgil rolled his head to the side to escape the stare. The clock greeted him, blinking unforgivingly back at him. Six o’clock. Virgil slapped his hand against his forehead and let out a curse in frustration. Great. Another sleepless night. And another day of fighting to stay awake during class. Just perfect.

Above him, he could hear the beginnings of movement. His roommate climbed down from the top bunk. Virgil watched him attentively, what must it be like to be able to just sleep when you were supposed to? Logan stared back, no doubt noticing the growing bags beneath his eyes. 

“You know, Virgil, your curses in the morning work better than any alarm clock I’ve ever had.”

“I hate you.” Virgil only half joked.

“Another sleepless night?”

His answer was a groan of pain and exhaustion. He pulled his comforter up and over his face, hoping to hide from a world that could be so cruel as to deny him rest.

“Do you want to skip our morning class again? Try and get at least a couple hours of sleep?”

“I can’t miss any more, I’ll fail.” He mumbled from beneath the blanket. 

“I’ll grab you something to eat.” Logan shuffled off to dress for class. 

Virgil laid there listening to the sounds of his roommate. Silently, in his mind, Virgil conversed with his body. It’s time to get up, he whispered to his legs that refused to move. Leaving the safety and comfort of his bed seemed to be impossible at this moment. Perhaps a compromise could be reached?

He rolled out of bed, taking his comforter with him, and flopped onto the floor into a messy pile. He laid there, breathing in the stench of old carpet. This is fine, he thought, he could live here happily, on the floor.

“I’ll be back with food.” His roommate called. The door clicked shut and Virgil was left alone with the floor.

Coffee. He needed coffee. Virgil departed his friend, the carpet, with a reassuring pat to the polyester fibers. The room tilted as he stood. His head whirling from the movement. He steadied himself against the wall and breathed in deeply until his vision cleared. He slipped on a sweatshirt as the chill began to seep into his bones. His hands buzzed from exhaustion as he shuffled over to their busted second-hand coffee maker. It did not glitter but it sure did produce the finest gold, a hot cup of coffee.

He sipped at the steaming hot liquid, as he stared out the window, slowly forcing his mind to clear. It did not work.

Today was going to suck.

He took another sip.

Virgil slipped on a pair of shoes and groggily tied up the laces. His fingers fumbled as his hands buzzed, jittery and fatigued. Logan returned with a white paper bag of fast food. He passed Virgil a steaming breakfast burrito.  Yummy.  The idea of food was not a welcome one at this moment. Not that he wasn’t hungry. He was. But it just felt like too much. Still he forced himself to take several small bites. The taste was better than what his mind had expected. And once he got into the rhythm of eating, it became a little easier. He could do this.

They departed their dorm together and walked across campus in silence. Virgil hummed along to the tunes blasting through his earbuds, desperately clinging to the energy that the noise provided. Lost in his own little world, he tried to imagine a different one. A world without morning classes or sleepless nights or deadlines. A world full of pillowy clouds to drift to sleep on. He thought that would be quite a nice place to live. 

Logan was attempting to read as he walked. His gaze flicking furiously from the page to the sidewalk and back again. Virgil wasn’t sure how much Logan could retain anything reading like that. But then again, it was Logan. If anyone could manage it, he could.

The TA greeted them as they entered the lecture hall. Virgil led the way to a seat in the back. No way was he sitting up close while this tired. He plopped down into a chair and allowed all the tension to drop away. He was here now. All he had to do was make it through this class and then he could try and sleep after.

The hush of chattering voices began to die down as the professor took command of the room. Her voice was soft and monotonous. The sounds of her chalk scratched against the blackboard. Virgil could feel his eyes begin to droop. He shook his head, forcing himself back to attention. He fiddled with his pen. Trying to move enough to keep his body awake, while also making sure to not draw the attention of his fellow classmates. 

In the back of the class, he fought against his own mind. The fog that filled his head and softened the voices of rationality. He struggled to keep his eyes wide and open. He pinched at his skin, as if this were a bad dream that he could force himself to awaken from. But the room was warm from the packed bodies. It was warm and it was quiet. The lecture was a lullaby, a meditative chant that softened his gaze. As the hour ticked on, Virgil lost himself to the fog of sleep. He could feel his head bobbing. And then he lost his sense of presence.

Virgil drifted in consciousness. He knew a little about where he was and what he should be doing. But his body and mind were out of his control. He floated through the haze of thought. And in that classroom he slept.

The sounds of chatter jerked him back to awareness. Class. He was in class. He frantically swiveled his head, taking in as much as he could. What had he missed? Had anyone noticed him sleeping?

People were packing up their books. They were getting ready to leave. Class… he had missed the entire class. Virgil thumped his head against his textbook.

“You mustn't be too hard on yourself, Virgil. You were here, you were marked present. That’s all that matters right now.” Logan reassures him, closing up his own two notebooks. Wait, why did he have two notebooks?

Logan passed one of them to Virgil as he finished collecting his things. “Ready to go?”

Virgil stared down at the notebook in his hand. He flipped it open. It was full of lecture notes. Not just from today. The dates… they were from everyday that he had skipped so far and then today as well! 

“What is this?” Virgil asked dumbfounded.

“You expressed displeasure at the idea of failing. This will help. It is everything that you have missed so far.”

“You copied your notes into a separate notebook?”

“Well, no. I formatted these slightly differently and included certain contexts that you would need after having missed the lectures… It should help.”

“Logan, this is incredible.”

A blush of pink dusted the cheeks of his roommate. “It’s no big deal. I just thought it would help.” He cleared his throat and cast his eyes about, “No one should miss out on the chance to learn, afterall.”

Virgil smiled at his roommate. “I was going to take a nap before my next class. But later on, maybe we could study together? If you want that is. I mean it’d probably be easier to just study on your own and I know I’m really behind-”

“Yes.” Logan interrupted the torrent of thoughts spilling from Virgil’s mouth. “I would love to go over the notes with you.” 

He paused as if just realizing he had used the word love. Logan quickly tacked on: “I have a passion for teaching is all.”

“Of course,” Virgil rolled his eyes at the awkwardness. Logan was such a dork when he was flustered. Wait? He was flustered! Did this mean that… Logan liked him? Virgil cheeks flushed at the thought. “Uhhh… I’ll see you later?”

“Later then.” Logan stiffly departed the hall, leaving Virgil alone with a whirlwind of thoughts. His roommate had a crush on him? His roommate had a crush on him! 

After passing out in their dorm for his afternoon nap, Virgil spent his next class with one thought and one thought only running through his mind. Logan had a crush on him. Logan: who had gone out of his way to take notes for him. Logan: who was one of the smartest people he had ever met. Logan: who had blushed! 

Virgil wasn’t really sure what to make of it. All he knew was that with every passing minute, he was getting closer to their study date. Well, not a study  date, more like a study session. Wait, was it a date? Could it be a date? Did Logan think of it that way? No. Certainly not. He had been flustered by even the insinuation of romance! But maybe… Maybe it could become one… eventually?

And that is how Virgil found himself, pacing their dorm clutching the gifted notebook to his chest, and worrying his lip, as the time for the study session drew ever near. Logan arrived only a minute late. He was weighed down with books from the library and he smiled tiredly at his roommate. Despite this a soft blush was present on his face.

“Hello, Virgil. Are you ready? I got some extra books that might help.” He plopped himself down at his desk, swiveling the chair to face outwards. Virgil followed suit, still clutching his notebook to him.

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do this. Ummm… how was your day?”

“Adequate. A small mishap in labs, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” Logan rubbed at the bridge of his nose. 

“If you're tired. We can do this later. You know I would understand.”

Logan’s gaze locked onto him. “I want to do this.”

The heat in Virgil’s cheek was like a warning bell. He was in dangerous territory now. His heart was being stolen by a nerd in glasses. What a way to go!

“Alright, let’s do this!” Virgil smiled brightly.

They worked their way through the gifted notebook. Going over all the notes that were provided there. They stopped whenever Virgil found himself confused. Logan assured Virgil that no question was too small. And then he would beam at Virgil whenever he finally understood it. It made Virgil feel like he could accomplish anything. Virgil’s favorite part was when Logan would pick up a book to rant in depth about his favorite parts. His passion for academics was like a blazing fire. It flooded Virgil’s stomach with butterflies and made his heart race with the knowledge that he was falling hard. Eventually, they began to lapse into silence as they slowly got further into their own readings. 

Virgil was going over today’s lecture notes again. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the person beside him. The notes were written in a tight script. It was precise and easy to read. A sharp contrast to Virgil’s own chicken scratch. He traced his fingers over the blue ink. Virgil didn’t think Logan would be one to write with colored ink, but Logan enjoyed the color blue. The thought drifted into his head again. Logan liked him, right? 

Virgil flipped a page.

Virgil liked Logan. 

He really really did.

He should say something right?

Virgil looked up, the words forming on his lips, only to find Logan slumped over his desk. His face pressed into his arms, his glasses askew and digging into his skin. There was the smallest trail of drool beginning to form at the corner of his lips.

Virgil chuckled.

Now Logan was the bone-tired one.

Virgil stood from his seat. He carefully and gently removed the glasses from his roommate’s face. Pulling the blanket down from Logan’s bunk, Virgil draped it across his shoulders. And with a flick of the switch, the room is darkened.

Virgil readies himself for bed quickly and quietly. As he lays down in his bunk, he watches Logan at the desk. It couldn’t be comfortable to sleep at a desk. But selfishly, Virgil enjoyed seeing his crush asleep beside him. 

He whispered into their darkened room, “Goodnight, Logan.” And promptly fell asleep.

taglist: @stop-it-anxiety @hexatrash @ollyollyoxinfree @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @leiasolo77 @arya-skywalker @alexxadontplaydespasito

[creativekat]

PTC : part ii

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x Fem!Reader

[ gif by @pascalsky​ ]

Word Count: 1,563

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: unintentional body piercing play

A/N: The response to the first part of this story was so overwhelming and we can’t thank you enough! @the-purity-pen​ and I are having so much fun writing this! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged on the next one! THANK YOU! Also, you can read Part One here!

It was Friday afternoon and you found yourself at the local grocery store. Often you went daily to pick up the few things you needed each night for dinner, but on Fridays you liked to shop for the whole weekend. That way you had time for any home projects and grading that you had to do. The problem was you weren’t quite sure what you were in the mood for which led to you wandering the aisles, picking things up here and there. 

You had just turned into the aisle with canned fruits and vegetables and were considering getting some canned peaches to make a cobbler when you heard a familiar voice call your last name, “Hello, how are you?” 

You turned to see Marcus Moreno walking toward you. You couldn’t help but smile, seeing him wearing jeans and a tee-shirt, “Did you play hooky from work today? Your secret’s safe with me, if you did.” Then tentatively you added, “And, if I’m supposed to call you Marcus, you should call me by my first name.” You gave him your name and a slight smile. You couldn’t help but notice how well his jeans fit him, not to mention how the t-shirt lovingly clung to his upper body. You suddenly became very interested in the label on a can of pineapple.

Marcus repeated your name softly as if committing it to memory. The way it rolled off his tongue made your heart skip a beat but you were busy occupying yourself with the can of pineapple. “No, no hooky today,” he laughed and the sound was so pleasant. It was different from the nervous man that had sat across from you to discuss his daughter.

Maybe it was the change of scenery or the fact that neither of you needed to be “on” while grocery shopping. “Missy is having a sleepover this weekend so I gotta stock up on some junk food,” he told you and shook his head. Somewhere deep in his mind he was mentally cursing himself for allowing a sleepover of five preteen girls to happen in his house. That definitely would have been better territory for his wife.

But Missy was making friends and that’s what mattered to him. He knew she felt left out of so many things whether it was because she didn’t have her own powers or because of being the leader of the Heroics’ kid. So her having friends that wanted to sleep over was a big deal. You were glad to hear that Missy was having a sleepover. You remembered going to a few when you were her age. You never hosted, but not because you didn’t want to, but because your parents wouldn’t allow it. Looking back their reasoning made sense, but at the time it had just felt like another punishment for being different. 

You looked up from the pineapple label and smiled sympathetically, “You have my sympathies. What do you have planned for activities?” Keeping a group of pre-teen kids from getting bored, even in each others’ company would be important. When they got bored, they got creative. And that was when bad things happened. “I can give you some ideas if you want. I was a pre-teen girl once.” You bit your lip and looked away, slightly embarrassed at the fairly obvious statement. 

His eyes scanned the aisle a bit, feeling like the conversation was going a bit stale. “Fruit in a can or fresh fruit? What’s your preference?” he asked as he leaned forward to grab a can of apple pie filling that was right next to you. As he leaned over, his voice was soft and velvety in your ear. 

You glanced at the can in his hand, “For pie? Depends. Have you made pie before?” You didn’t want to make any assumptions. Just because he was a man didn’t mean he wasn’t skilled in the kitchen. You pictured him standing at the counter, mixing up some delicious concoction, biceps moving as he stirred, and your mouth watered at the image. Your cheeks burned instantly.

“Yeah but,” he paused to read over the can, trying to ignore his desire to look you over. “It’s been a few years. I’m not much of a cook,” he mumbled with a nervous chuckle before turning to put the can in his cart. He turned back and moved closer to you and you felt a spark of desire run down your spine. You swallowed hard as he reached around you again, quietly apologizing for the intrusion.

But his eyes on you made him miss which can he was aiming for. His hand swept at the empty spot on the shelf and ended up knocking off three other cans in rapid succession. “Shit!” he cursed under his breath as his hand reached out, his powers manifesting to stop the metallic can from falling. 

You sucked your lip between your teeth fighting the urge to gasp or making any sounds revealing the pleasure his power had just elicited in you. Not only had his magnetic ability affected the cans on the shelf but it had pulled at the nipple piercings concealed beneath your shirt as well as the silver barbell that decorated your clitoris. Your nostrils flared with the effort to suppress the moan that nearly escaped your lips. 

Marcus looked at you questioningly at your obvious stress, but you merely smiled in return, your eyes blazing with unanticipated need. When you finally found your voice, it was higher than normal, “Something tells me you know your way around. A kitchen, I mean.” Your face bloomed with heat and you finally had to turn completely away. You leaned into your cart, faking the need to rearrange the items in your cart. 

Holding the caught can in his hand, he watched as you turned around towards your cart. He took a moment to straighten up at your words. “Uh, yeah a bit,” he said as he turned and put the can he had caught but not really wanted back onto the shelf. “My wife she, uh, she did most of the cooking and I know Missy misses it so I thought maybe a little cooking activity for the sleepover could be fun,” he rambled. When you didn’t turn around right away, he furrowed his brows and moved closer to you. “You okay?”

Your breast and clit still tingled from the stimulation they’d just received. But, of course, you couldn’t tell Marcus Moreno that. Taking a moment, you breathed in slowly through your nose then exhaled through your mouth. Finally you turned to face him, a smile on your face, “Oh yes, I’m fine.” After a moment of thought, your eyes brightened, “You could have them make their own personal pizzas!” Now that you were face to face again, you were reminded of just how handsome he was. 

Marcus was eyeing you, trying to figure out what had you so flustered. He cleared his throat and nodded at your admission of being fine. He figured he’d have to take it for what it was. But the way you brightened actually took him by surprise. You were standing a lot closer than he realized and for a moment his breath was taken away.

His brain fog finally cleared and he nodded slowly. “Personal pizzas? You think they’d like that?” he questioned and you were more than happy to give a strong nod of an answer, trying anything to quelch the burning deep in the pit of your stomach. 

Unfortunately, you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking, again, about the brief moment of pleasure he’d given you. Your mind ran with the thoughts of what other things he might be able to do. Distractedly, you grabbed a couple cans from the shelf and placed them in your cart causing Marcus to smile. You glanced down at what you’ve just dropped in there and cringe “I bet you thought people only used mincemeat at the Holidays." 

You looked at him, feeling like he could see right through you. After all, you were acting bizarre. He gave a small forced smile, trying to hide how confused he was at this interaction but laughed off your comment anyways. “It’s delicious,” he commented as he watched you. “Do you, uh,” his hand came to rub furiously at the back of his neck.

“Do you have any free time this afternoon? To, uh, I don’t know, help me find a recipe that would be easy for them?” his head dropped down as he asked but he pulled his hand from his neck and looked up at you with earnest puppy dog eyes. He figured since you were a teacher, you’d know what would be easy for their age group to follow as far as instructions.

Your eyes widened momentarily in surprise, but then you smiled, “Uhhh … I think so … I mean, yeah, I can clear my schedule.” You didn’t want to seem too eager to spend time with him. He was still Missy’s father. But, he was asking for help. There wasn’t any need to read too much into it.  You arranged a time to show up at his place and tried not to stare as he walked away. Once he was clear of the aisle, you reached into the cart and put the disgusting can of fruit back on its shelf.

[starkerdestroyedmylifee]

Thief

Peter tries not to feel the weight of his backpack as he makes his way up from the lab. He really does. But, it’s heavy. 

‘Well, of course it is.’ 

Peter curses himself, popping up each step and hoping- praying- he doesn’t bump into anyone on the way. It’s still heavy, though. Even with his super-strength; heavy, and metal, and not his, because he really, really shouldn’t have it.

At all.

When the day had begun, Peter’d played the part of ‘devastated mentee’ to a T. His eyes had been puffy, exiting his aunt May’s car, rubbing his runny nose on the cuff of his suit.

No, not his suit.

Some store-bought thrift that didn’t quite fit his shoulders. A black jacket with fabrics frayed at the base, and dress-pants not quite long enough. Pepper had offered paying to get something tailored, but Peter’d declined quickly. It didn’t feel right, taking money from Mr. Stark’s fortune, even beyond the grave. They hadn’t known each other well enough. Which is odd, considering he’s currently attending said man’s funeral.

Peter tries not to linger on the fact that he’s technically (Technically meaning actually) stealing from Mr. Stark, and instead makes his way through the crowded living room. The majority of guests seem to be winding down now, what with Tony’s eulogy all said and done. Only soft, meditated tones, and consoling hands on shoulders, and Ms. Pepper Potts- smiling politely, but dead on her feet- striking up some conversation about sewage. He meets her gaze, and the weight of his backpack is bone-breaking.

She doesn’t walk over to him, thankfully. Of course, he’s just another kid wrapped up in her late husband’s antics. The invitation sent their way had been courteous at best, but worded as something that was supposed to happen, despite being a bit inappropriate. Peter’s a stranger, after all. And, what happens when you invite strangers into your house?

They steal your stuff.

Still, Ms. Potts nods his way. Soft; disinterested. Her gaze quickly slides over him, onto another guest far more deserving of her attention. Despite this, Peter’s back goes rigid for the few seconds spent on him. He holds his breath- freezes- before letting it out in relief.

‘This is horrible.’ Peter thinks to himself. ‘I’m literally going to hell for this.’ 

It doesn’t matter at this point. Not with his mind fogged in an overwhelming cloud of grief, or his eyes still stinging from such a heavy cry, or his throat burning from yet another wave of anguish. ‘No,’ he decides, tapping his aunt’s shoulder. ‘It doesn’t even matter at this point.’

He feigns a stomach ache, by which May thinks he’s playing sick to escape the depressing atmosphere of his idol’s funeral, and drives him home before Happy can so much as woo her to stay at his place.

Up the stairs.

Through the hallway.

Into his bedroom.

He shuts the door. Crumbles to pieces. Because-. Because, he finally starts realizing what he’s just done.

‘Oh, god. Oh god, this is so much worse than I thought it would be. This is- This is literally the worst idea I’ve ever had. Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

Peter can’t help his hands from shaking as he lifts the metal helmet out of his bag. It’s cold against his skin, which only makes his mouth go dry. Mr. Stark used to wear this. He used to wear this, and it’d been cold. Heavy and cold.

“...I really fucked up.” He says out loud, which only seems to solidify it.

Well, he can’t take it back now. Not if Pepper ends up noticing that it is gone. A monument. A goddamn trophy of Mr. Stark’s. One of his earliest models, with the classic red spray and golden faceplate. Christ, if he’d wanted it so badly, why didn’t he just buy a replica?

Because it wasn’t the same.

It isn’t the same.

But, damn it all, it’s also not his. 

Peter had just wanted something to remember Mr. Stark by, and-. God, that helmet had called to him like a siren. 

‘Mr. Stark would want you to have it.’ His brain had supplied.

Which-.

Uh.

No.

No, he would not want a literal child hanging onto his legacy like a fucking baseball card, instead of in a museum, or some well-maintained pedestal, or in a safe to be preserved for the next thousand years. Tony had been over the top like that. He liked to think his work was worth something. It was meant to adore.

The thought of Peter one day throwing it on top of his dirty laundry made him want to cry.

“Oh, god. Oh- Oh, shit. Okay, Peter. This is-. Oh, shit.” He tosses Mr. Stark’s helmet on the bed, and really does almost cry. A High-Tec, revolutionary piece of hardware, worn by Earth’s savior had just been thrown on his rumpled bedsheets, and goddamn fucking shit Peter is definitely- definitely- about to have a panic attack. He throws his arms up.

“That’s it.” Peter rambles sharply. “I’m screwed. I am so screwed, because I-. Oh my god, is it chipped? Of course it’s fucking chipped, Peter. It-. It’s Tony’s. Of course. Oh my god, I’m going to jail.” He peeks out the window, half-expecting to see cop cars at the entrance of his apartment complex. “Why did I do this?”

That’s the big question. Up until this point, Mr. Stark had only ever been an idol. Then a mentor. Then a father figure.

And, then-.

Okay, no. Peter is not going there. He paces around his room, onto his walls, the ceiling, hanging off his fingertips before plopping back onto his bare feet. He sighs, cursing, before making his inevitable journey back to the helmet.

Picking it up, his senses note a slight rise in temperature. It’s still cold, obviously. His room is well-heated though, unlike the lifeless cellar they’d had it cooped up in just hours before. Which makes Peter feel a little better about things- he smiles, tilting it this way and that. ‘Ha! A real home.’- before noticing a patch of crumbs on the helmet’s jaw from when he’d eaten Cheetos on the bed, wiped his fingers against the sheets, and seamlessly forgotten to throw them in the wash.

Peter almost faints.

Luckily, they’re easily wiped away by some bed-side tissues (Peter tries not to remember what he uses said tissues for. He’s already mortified by his poor treatment of it.) He sits on the bed with a huff, settling Mr. Stark’s tech in his lap like a pet. Peter runs his fingers over it apologetically, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing feels like enough. He sighs, lowering his head.

“I bet you think this is pretty funny, huh?” Peter supplies, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, it’s not… It’s a little funny, but only because I know you’d probably have some quippy one-liner set up for me.” He falls onto his back, bringing the helmet to rest against his chest. Breathing out through his nose, he raises the metal mask just above him, so he can stare up at it. His bedroom light catches the surface of gleaming red, and Peter feels like a dirty slob just touching this rare treasure.

“Something like…” He pauses, thinking for a moment. “‘Oh, Peter. Looks like you’re a head of the game…’ That was really bad.” He chews his lip. “‘Sorry, kid. I want you to fill my shoes. This is a little much.’ God, no. That doesn’t sound like Mr. Stark at all.” Peter turns onto his side, letting the helmet lay against his pillow. They stare intimately at each other. ‘They’ being Peter and a lifeless curve of metal. He pulls the mask a bit closer.

“‘Woah there, Spiderman. At least buy dinner before you take it to bed.’” Peter turns his face into his pillow, groaning pitifully. 

“Why are helmet jokes so hard?” He pauses, mulling his complaint over. “Okay, that one wasn’t bad.” Like that, Peter angles his face to check on the helmet, and looks to see its reaction. Which creeps him out, of course. Alright, so maybe there are even more implications to stealing his idol’s helmet then the fact he stole it. Maybe it’s just bad to have an inanimate object symbolic of Mr. Stark around him.

‘No shit.’ Peter thinks to himself, drawing a hand down his face.

Still…

He places a finger along the metal mask’s faceplate; feels the cool of its surface, the crisp curve of each indent. It’s nice. Really, really nice. Which is exactly why he has to pull away and face the wall of his room.

‘Nope. No chance. Time out, Peter.’

He closes his eyes, counting back from one hundred. He does it seven times. Eight. It doesn’t matter. Peter turns around to face it again, and does exactly what he’d been doing before. His fingers map out the metal slabs, just imagining what it must’ve been like inside.

‘It probably smells like him.’ Peter’s brain coos.

‘What? Like booze, and sweat, and morning breath? Is that what you’re tempting me with?’

‘Yes.’

It doesn’t smell like Mr. Stark, for the record. It smells sterile and lifeless and unworn, like someone went and purged it of everything Tony. Which, Peter assures himself, is completely, totally fine. It doesn’t bother him a bit.

Not one bit.

Not when he slips a hand inside and feels the strange padding used to cradle Mr. Stark’s head. Or when he pulls it out, not devastated to find the man hadn’t shed any hair. Nope. Not even a little. Because that would be weird, and a little obsessive. A lot obsessive. It’s not like Peter could clone Mr. Stark if he had any kind of DNA. It’s not like Peter wants to.

He checks his alarm clock, the same one still ticking five years after the blip; 10:47.

Not crazy late. On the contrary, it’d be amazingly early for the hyper-active teen to turn in just yet. That’s what he tells himself as he reaches over his night stand, tugging the string of his lamp light. The room goes dark and Peter tries (Read: fails miserably) to fall asleep. Looking his crime in the face anymore than he already has to is punishment enough, at least for today.

He tries to ease his muscles, but they just won’t let up. There’s a weight in his bed that he’s not used to, and it sets all his human nerves on edge, even with his Spidey-senses dormant. Peter should put it in the closet, but he can’t bear the image of allowing it to collect dust. On the contrary, the thought leaves him choked and wanting a glass of water he doesn’t have the energy to grab. The idea of mistreating anything Tony Stark-related has the young vigilante in shambles.

Which is why he soon finds himself rotating around to face the helmet in his bed. Even through darkness, he can make out a sharp outline of lunar beams streaming in through the window. It’s soothing. It’s reprimanding. Peter sniffs, blinking away what feels like an ocean of tears.

“I’m sorry…?” He offers shyly. His tone breaks, shoulders bunched, brow pinched with a grimace only offset by the flush of his cheeks. ‘At least here,’ Peter thinks to himself, ‘I can get some kind of closure.’ 

Which is exactly what leads him to kiss the metal armor.

Soft, across where he’s sure Tony’s lips would be located. It’s quick. Innocent, really. If things weren’t so different in the 21st century, people might mistake it for a platonic peck. Because Tony- brave, wise Tony- was like a father to him, in the only way he understood a father could be. It’d been so tender, after all. With those sweet, thin fingers caressing, not pulling, and palms that cradled, not smooshed. Nothing demanding. Nothing sexual. Just a good ol’ fashion kiss, which lasts no more than a few seconds.

Peter promises himself it isn’t anything else. It’s a platonic kiss on the lips. Which is a thing. It is, but other people might make it out to be something more. Someone like MJ would probably cackle her ass off if she knew he’d given the mask a kiss, as short as it is.

The few that follow after are a bit longer.

By the time Peter finishes, he’s relaxed in the worst way possible. He feels groggy, worn at the lips, and shitty as all hell because that last kiss had definitely been excessive. 

And, okay.

Peter has a massive crush on Mr. Stark.

It’s terribly obvious. And tragic as shit, since the man is dead. Despite reminding himself, he can’t help but cling onto that damn feeling of metal on chapped, teenage lips. He feels sleepy, and he suddenly doesn’t want to be. It feels immensely inappropriate falling asleep next to a helmet he smooched to pieces.

Like sleeping next to Tony in Peter’s perverse, miserable fantasies.

Where Ms. Potts is away on business, and Mr. Stark is oh-so alone, and oh-so desperate for some kind of bodily touch. Where Peter is his sexy young intern, who has the confidence to wear feminine lingerie under his work clothes, and doesn’t mind brushing hips. They could make hot, passionate love in the lab for all he cares, and Mr. Stark would call him Baby, and Peter would call him Daddy, and it would hardly be funny to say in the moment, though he might snort when thinking over it later.

Best of all, Tony likes Peter best in his fantasies.

Parker is his favorite.

It’s only ever fantasy, though. Peter knows better than to indulge it.

In a conflicting fit between putting the helmet away, or pulling a sheet over top, or entertaining the notion of sneaking it back in place before anyone notices it’s gone, Peter decides to give the mask his bed while he sleeps on the floor. He’d much rather give Mr. Stark his best than chance disrespecting the man’s memory in favor of comfort. He obviously can’t be trusted, getting too close to Tony-related objects.

Laying on his bedroom floor twiddling his thumbs, Peter can’t help but wonder: What has my life come to?

[set-phasers-to-whump]

burned

prompt: burned

whumpee: neal caffrey

fandom: white collar

hi! this fic does kinda mess with the meaning of the prompt...i went with “burned out” as a kind of interpretation bc i wasn’t feeling plain burns...anyway this might kind of suck but maybe it won’t? idk. enjoy??

Neal doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last slept. A few days, he figures, but that’s as precise as his burnt-out brain will allow him to get. He feels dead on his feet, but he’s doing his best to make it seem like he’s fine. 

“Morning, Peter!” he calls out to the agent, hurrying into the elevator behind him. “Beautiful weather today, huh?”

Peter looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Since when do you talk about the weather?”

Since I’m pretty sure if I stop talking I might fall asleep right here, Neal thinks. “Can’t I appreciate a little sunshine?”

He hopes it’s sunny out. Truthfully, he’d paid zero attention to the weather on his way to work this morning. It had been enough of a thing just getting his arms and legs to move when and where he wanted them. 

“You can,” Peter replies, as the elevator arrives. “Just didn’t seem like a very Neal topic of conversation.”

He shrugs, breaking away from Peter to make a beeline for the coffee machine. As he well knows, the coffee is fairly terrible, but it wakes him up marginally, so that he feels almost alive when he sinks down into a chair along with his fellow members of the White Collar division, listening to Peter give a morning briefing about their case. 

Neal doesn’t pay much attention. He knows this case inside and out, has been studying it virtually nonstop for the past...however many days it’s been since he last slept. He can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop working on it. Something about it begs his full attention, and he knows part of it is just the constant desire to have Peter approve of his work, but there’s something else about it, too, something uniquely compelling, and he can’t bring himself to stop working on it, no matter how hard he tries. 

He can, however, not pay attention when there’s a whole room full of people talking about it. 

“Neal?”

He’s thinking about the strange lack of suspects, the high-profile witness…

“Neal. Neal. Hello? Neal.”

Finally, he snaps out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

Peter shakes his head. “Never mind.” 

Neal tries his best to pay attention to the rest of the briefing, but it’s nearly impossible. The coffee is already wearing off, his eyelids feel like they’re made of lead, and his sluggish mind is currently only capable of focusing on one thing, which happens to be his own thoughts about the case, and not whatever it is Peter’s saying. 

The briefing ends, and Neal moves to stand up, sitting back down into his chair when a wave of lightheadedness hits him, at the exact same moment that Peter says,

“Caffrey. You stay back a minute.”

Neal looks up at Peter, who is now standing over him, looking very menacing. 

“What did I talk about in that briefing?”

He rubs a hand down his face, tries to focus his eyes, tries to focus his brain. He has absolutely no idea what Peter had been talking about. 

“The case?” he suggests, yawning with a force that makes his ears pop. He wishes his coffee cup wasn’t empty, wishes he had the strength to go refill it. 

“Nice try, Neal. What about the case?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters, sensing there’s no way around this. 

“Why not?”

He doesn’t want to admit it’s because he’s too tired to think. Doesn’t want Peter to know how much he’s been focusing on this case, which in the grand scheme of cases isn’t even that special. He doesn’t want Peter to know that he’s beyond exhausted, completely burnt out, and seemingly incapable of stopping to rest, for reasons unknown even to himself. 

“I was thinking about something else,” he says.

“What were you thinking about?” Peter asks, and sits down in a chair next to him. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing in particular. Just not very focused this morning. Sorry.” It’s as close to honest as he thinks he can get. 

“Can you look at me?”

What?

“Neal. Look at me.”

He raises his eyes, staring at Peter’s chin. 

“In the eyes, Neal.”

Very slowly, he meets Peter’s eyes, which scan his face with an intensity that really makes him want to look away. 

“Did you sleep last night?”

Neal looks away then, embarrassed at having been read so easily. 

“Neal. Have you slept at all in the past 24 hours?”

He shakes his head, blinks hard to force away the tears that, for some inexplicable reason, are forming in his eyes. He is so unbelievably tired, and he wants to sleep, kind of, and if he says that, Peter will just ask, why don’t you sleep? But he can’t sleep, he’s thinking too much to sleep, needs to solve this case too much to sleep, has to solve this case to prove something that he doesn’t have a name for, to himself, to Peter, to someone…

Peter’s hand is on his shoulder, steady and warm. Neal wants to lean into it, wants so desperately to stop, just for a moment, and rest. But he can’t. He pulls away, stands unsteadily, hand braced against the table when black spots dance in his vision. 

He makes for the door, at what he assumes is a normal pace, but by the time he gets there Peter is blocking the way. 

“I can’t -” he starts. “Can you move, Peter, please?”

Peter shakes his head. Neal wants to push him out of the way, but senses that’d be a bad idea. “Please just move.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on with you. Why haven’t you been sleeping?” Peter asks, and his voice is horribly gentle and concerned and it makes the tears rise in Neal’s eyes all over again, and he can’t do this, he can’t - 

Peter’s hands are touching his arms, and there’s a silent kind of question there that Neal can’t bring himself to answer no to. He takes a shaky step forward, and then Peter’s arms are around him, and he can’t remember the last time he was hugged like this, and before he can stop himself or think the better of it he’s crying, really crying, face buried in Peter’s shoulder, and Peter is letting him cry, Peter is holding onto him, and then he’s gently sinking them to the floor, which is very welcome to Neal’s exhausted body. Peter’s hand moves in gentle circles on his back, and he’s saying things that Neal can’t quite hear, but his voice sounds kind and comforting, and Neal focuses on it for all he’s worth.

He has no idea how long they stay there, but at some point, he just stops crying. Peter lets him pull away, until Neal’s sitting back on his heels, feeling strangely more awake. “‘M sorry,” he says quietly, voice still thick with tears.

“What are you sorry for?”

He almost doesn’t speak, again. But he’s already cried on Peter’s shoulder, and it doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that. 

“I...haven’t slept in god knows how long. A few days? At least? And I don’t...don’t know why, it’s this case, but it’s not even that special, but something about it...I don’t know, I just...I just have to solve it, and I can’t stop thinking about it and I can’t sleep until we solve it…” he trails off, lost for anything else to say. 

“Neal,” Peter sighs, equal parts exasperated and fond. “We can solve this case.”

Neal shakes his head. “I need us to solve this case. Not just have the possibility to. I don’t know why, I just...need us to solve it.”

“And we will. But how are we supposed to do that if you’re too burned out to even pay attention during my morning briefing? I need all the members of my team at 100%, Neal, and like it or not, we’re only going to be able to solve this if you get some sleep.”

He...hadn’t really considered that. Hadn’t considered that his well-being might affect the other members of the team, might affect the outcome of the case…. He’d thought it was worth exhausting himself, if only to let himself figure this case out faster, but he has to admit, Peter may be onto something.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” he confesses. “I was just so focused on solving this case myself...I didn’t think about anything else.”

“You can’t let yourself do that, Neal,” Peter says, standing up. He extends a hand down to Neal, who takes it gratefully, leaning on Peter for support when they’re both back on their feet. “Not just because it makes our work harder, but because it’s hurting you. Regardless of whether or not having you exhausted makes us a worse team, it means you’re hurting. I don’t want you hurting yourself for a case, no matter how important it might be for you.”

Neal feels himself hovering on the edge of tears again, a combination of his reaction to Peter’s words and an effect of the sheer exhaustion weighing down on him. Before he lets himself get all weepy again, though, he takes a deep breath, and focuses as best as he can. 

“Thank you, Peter,” he says, hoping that his sincerity comes through the tiredness in his voice. 

“You can thank me by letting me drive you home,” Peter says firmly, checking his watch. “El’s at work, but she’ll be back around four-thirty. I’ll be back after five. And in the meantime, you can lie down on our couch and sleep.”

Neal is slightly baffled by this, but too tired to question Peter as the agent leads him out of the room. The Burkes’ couch sounds nice, if a little odd - why not his own couch, at his own house? But the Burkes’ couch is easy to fall asleep on, anyhow, and in a place that makes him think of family and safety and warmth...if Peter wants to take him there, he’s not going to object. 

Peter drives them to his and El’s house in a comfortable silence. Neal leans his head against the window, breath fogging up the glass, mind for once not on the case. There will be time to solve it later, he thinks, and wishes he had realized that sooner. He’d just been too caught up in it, too focused, to let himself rest. But now that that rest is being forced upon him, he’s realizing how badly he really wants it. 

A few minutes later, he’s lying on the Burkes’ couch, a warm blanket thrown over him and Satchmo asleep on the floor next to him.

“El will be home -”

“Around four-thirty,” Neal interrupts Peter, words slurring as sleep begins to take him over. “And you’ll be home after five.”

His eyes are closed, but he imagines Peter waving goodbye from near the front door. “Sleep well, Neal,” Peter says, and the door closes and locks. 

For the first time in days, Neal sleeps.

thanks for reading this!!! like i said i have no idea if it sucks ass or not but idk i cannot deny it was like real cathartic or some shit like that to write...whatever lmao. hope you enjoyed anyway!

[whenisitenoughtrees]

the point in just drowning another day

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

Patton is struggling far more than he wants to admit, both with his loneliness and the crushing weight of the mistakes he's made, and it's sending him spiraling. It doesn't help that apparently, his amphibian traits are here to stay.

Content Warnings: depression, mild body horror

Word Count: 6,900

Pairing: Moceit

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

It is a grey day today.

He hasn’t had one in a while, but he’s sensed it approaching for the past few days, so he supposes it’s his own fault that it hits this bad; he willfully ignored all the warning signs, pushed aside his fatigue and his slowly souring mood, telling himself that he was alright, that he was being silly, that the feelings would pass. And now, the world is grey, the colors leeched from it like a black-and-white film, and a weight sits heavily on his chest, making every breath a struggle.

He needs to get up. He knows this. Knows he should have been up hours ago, that he should be making breakfast, eggs and sausage and pancakes, should be smiling and happy and ready to greet the world. The others are probably waiting for him, wondering where he is, why he’s not there.

Only, they’re not. And he knows that too. For the past month, family breakfasts have dwindled to a rarity; Roman spends all his time in the Imagination, Virgil almost never leaves his room for anything, and whenever Logan makes an appearance, it’s only to grab food and leave, heading back to his work and his planning with barely a backwards glance. Too often, he prepares meals alone and eats them alone, at an empty dining table, the room silent except for the fridge humming in the background. The house is empty and still, and he sits alone with his thoughts and the knowledge that he has failed all of them. That he has no one to blame for this but himself.

If he had been less strict, could this have been avoided? If he had been more open to others’ opinions, open to change? If he had been better at understanding Virgil, less eager to shut out Logan, more perceptive of the issues that Roman tried so hard to hide?

He’s losing his family, has already lost them, inch by creeping inch. And it’s all his fault, and the morning dawns grey and cold, and no matter what he tells himself, he cannot persuade his body to leave his bed.

It’s not that he’s comfortable. He’s not. His mattress feels too lumpy, his blankets too hot, too stifling, and his pillow too soft and yielding. His skin itches, too, itches like it is trying to crawl off his bones, but he can barely make himself move at all, cannot stir from his curled up position. One hand lays near his head, in his line of sight, and one by one, he twitches his fingers, raising them off the mattress before letting them drop again. He tracks the motion, almost fascinated by the way his muscles shift, as much as he is capable of being fascinated by anything right now.

Something about the hand looks odd. It feels odd, too, large and clumsy, almost disconnected from the rest of him. He thinks he should probably be alarmed by this, but he can’t work up the energy.

He needs to get up. He knows this. The hours are slipping away. Soon, it will be too late for breakfast at all.

He lies there and thinks instead. Thinks of all the harm he’s done lately, to Thomas and to the rest of them. Thinks about how Virgil has pulled away from him, how he skipped over Logan’s contributions, somehow convincing him that he doesn’t care about him. How he’s been fighting so hard against the idea that Deceit and Remus could help Thomas at all, how he labelled them as the things that make Thomas bad, only to find out that Janus, at least, has been advocating for Thomas the whole time, and if that is the case, perhaps Remus, too, is not nearly as terrible as he’s always believed.

He thinks about the bitterness on Roman’s face as he sunk out. The disbelief in his voice, the betrayal, the pain. He thinks about the fact that he hasn’t seen Roman since, that Roman has locked the door and refuses to answer, no matter how much he pleads and apologizes.

He lies there, carried by the grey day haze, and thinks that apologies don’t really amount to much, in the end, because apologies don’t fix anything. They don’t reverse time, don’t repair shattered trust or heal deep wounds. At best, they are a bandage, helpful when the injury is small but utterly ineffective otherwise, and these wounds are like vast chasms rending them all apart.

Patton thinks that he might be the bad one. Bad for Thomas. Bad for his family.

So maybe, he should just stay here. Should stay in bed, away from everyone, at least until he figures out what to do, how not to hurt them anymore, but really, wouldn’t they be better off without him as a whole? Without him there to impose his rules, his black-and-white mentality that has done so much damage? He has tried so hard, these past few weeks, to adjust his worldview, to make room for change, but how much does it really matter when he has already broken so much?

Not that he has much of a choice right now. He can’t get up.

So he lies there. Minutes blend into hours blend into seconds, and he has no idea how much time passes. Surely it is afternoon by now. He hopes everyone found something to eat.

His skin itches.

He’ll be fine, eventually. He is well aware of this, well aware that grey days pass, like melting snow revealing blooming spring flowers. Except, not like that, not exactly, because these days, the melting snow seems to reveal nothing but cold, hard ground, frozen through. But it is easier to walk on ground than through snow, easier to smile and laugh and pretend that everything is alright, to tell yourself that everything is alright, when you don’t have to fight just to walk, to keep your balance.

It’s repression. He is well aware of that, well aware of the consequences, of the toll this takes on him. He does listen when he is told about these things, even if it might take longer for the message to sink in, for the rest of him to catch up to what his brain already knows. But he can’t deal with his own problems right now, not until everyone else is alright again, and really, most of the time he thinks he’s got a lot of nerve to have problems at all. He’s the one who hurt them, so what right does he have to be acting this way, like he’s the one with a broken heart?

The grey thickens. Tears blur his vision. He feels like he’s inhaling thick fog, like every breath comes in hard and labored.

He could stop breathing, if he wanted. He’s not human. He doesn’t need to breathe to exist.

It’s tempting. Tempting to just… stop. To discorporate his human form, to spend a few days as an automatic function, to spend a few days without remembering, without worrying, without the guilt that is a constant weight on his shoulders. But it would be a reprieve he’s done nothing to deserve.

His skin itches.

He doesn’t expect the knock at the door. Under any other circumstance, he might jerk in surprise, but his body is held fast as if by molasses. So he lies there, looking at the door through half-lidded eyes, and wonders if he’s supposed to answer. He doesn’t think he can, doesn’t think his mouth will cooperate long enough to form words, and his tongue lies thick and unwieldy behind his teeth. If he doesn’t say anything, will they leave? Assume he’s sleeping, perhaps? Or will they come in and see him like this, miserable and drowning and unable to do something so simple as sit up in bed?

He doesn’t know which option he likes less.

It doesn’t matter, though, because the door cracks open, bright light spilling in from the hallway, and he has to squint at the figure silhouetted there.

“Patton?” someone asks. Janus’ voice.

He doesn’t reply. Can’t. Maybe if he says nothing, he’ll leave it be. He’s not up for a debate, or for wading his way through another moral quandary. Janus seems to like both of those things, and lately, Patton has been more than happy to engage with him, to draw out sharp words and sharper smiles and occasionally, genuine laughs that do something to his stomach. Janus has been the only one willing to spend any time with him at all, these days, and he cherishes those moments, gathering them up like fallen leaves and clutching them to his chest as a reminder that he still has a purpose, that he can still make this right.

But not today. He can’t do this today.

Janus steps into the room, closing the door behind him, and the vague hope he’d mustered deflates, like a sad, punctured balloon. That’s what he feels like right now. A sad, punctured balloon. A sad, itchy, punctured balloon. And Janus is going to see that he feels like a sad, itchy, punctured balloon, and he doesn’t know why, but the idea sends an ache radiating through his chest.

“I could sense you lying to yourself,” Janus says, but his voice is far softer than his words would imply. “Are you alright?”

He blinks, slowly. He supposes that it’s fairly obvious how he feels, fairly obvious that he’s not alright. And even if it weren’t, Janus sniffs out lies like a bloodhound on a trail.

“Feel not great,” he manages. It takes a monumental effort to force the words through his lips, and they hang heavily in the air, thick and distorted. “Sorry.”

Janus crosses the room and kneels on the floor next to the bed, holding steady eye contact. His eyes are mesmerizing, one brown and one gold, both staring with an intensity that Patton wishes he could find it in himself to return. His expression is cool and blank, but a small divot presses between his eyebrows, and if Patton had the willpower, he might try to smooth it away.

He doesn’t, though, so it’s a moot point.

“You don’t need to apologize for the way you feel,” Janus says. “It’s alright to be sad.”

He understands that. He does. They did a whole video about it, once, back when things were so much simpler, the stakes so much lower. Back when he still felt secure in his ability to guide Thomas well, to help him be the good person that he knows he is.

But how can he explain that he doesn’t feel sad? That he feels nothing but grey and empty, disconnected from himself and his body and his emotions, left with nothing but constant ruminations on the past and all the ways he’s messed up. Even his guilt feels distant, like it’s surrounding him but unable to touch, kept at bay by the grey cloud swarming his thoughts and dulling his vision. He wishes he felt sad, wishes he felt guilt, that steady companion, wishes he could feel anything at all. But he is an empty container, filled by nothing but swirling grey smoke, no substance there at all.

And he can’t get up.

Janus lets out a slow breath, brow furrowing even further when he doesn’t respond. He reaches forward and takes his hand where it is lying on the mattress, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles in a soothing, repetitive pattern. It would feel nicer if he took off his gloves, if he allowed skin to skin contact, but Patton won’t push for that, wouldn’t even if he had the strength to make the words leave his mouth.

He’s not sure what he did to deserve any comfort at all. Especially not from Janus, who perhaps has the most right out of anybody to hate him, after all the years he spent pushing him to the side and calling him evil, who he still hasn’t properly apologized to, not really.

Perhaps he’s here to see if he can get him out of bed. Breakfast has long since passed, but perhaps there’s still time for a late lunch, if he could muster up the motivation to prepare it. And Janus does represent Thomas’ self-preservation, so it would make sense for him to want to make sure that all of the sides are doing their jobs.

But for a long time, Janus says nothing at all. Just holds his hand, lightly traces patterns into his skin.

“Is there anything that I could do to help?” he asks eventually, voice low and earnest. It is almost enough to banish the grey, if only for a moment, because it has been so long since any of the others trusted him enough for this question, trusted him enough to help him or to ask him for help, and he wants to say yes, wants to ask him to spend time with him, to watch a movie, maybe, or cat videos on the internet, because nobody’s done that with him in weeks, and he’s so, so lonely.

But then he remembers why he’s lonely, why they’re avoiding him, and the grey filters back in. Because it’s his fault, and if he cannot face the consequences of his actions, then what good is he as Morality?

So he makes a noise, one that comes out halfway between a grunt and a whine, and hopes that’s good enough to appease Janus’ question, to make him feel that he’s done his duty.

Janus frowns at him, and his hand stills. Patton expects him to pull away, but instead, his grip tightens slightly, and he tugs Patton’s hand toward him, inspecting it. Patton watches, vaguely confused, as his frown deepens, and he pushes back the sleeve of his pajama shirt to look at his forearm.

“Patton,” he starts slowly, “are you aware of…” He trails off, gesturing, and Patton stares at him, trying to read his meaning in the lines of his face. It’s something he’s concerned about, clearly, which makes Patton think he should be concerned too; maybe even alarmed, seeing as the point of contention seems to have something to do with his arm. He can’t work up anything more than a mild curiosity, but that is enough to get him to angle his head to look at what Janus is referring to.

At first, he doesn’t notice anything wrong. He feels an odd dissociation from the entire limb, as if what he’s seeing isn’t attached to his body, much less something that should concern him. And the more he stares, the more unreal it appears. But eventually, his gaze drifts to what Janus likely believes to be the issue: his skin is covered in mottled patches of green, each blemish appearing stretched and dry and flaky. They itch, too, itch just like his entire body has been itching, and if these blotches are the cause, his entire body must be covered in them. As if in response to his consideration, the itching, scratching sensation increases, almost enough to motivate him into movement.

His body is so heavy, though, and his mind so sluggish. This seems like something he should care about, something that should scare him, and the fear is there, he thinks. But it’s lurking beyond the grey fog, and it can’t touch him.

“What is it?” he murmurs, or at least tries. It comes out sounding more like, “Whazzit?” but it’s intelligible, at least.

Janus runs a finger down his arm, a feather-light touch that sends shivers down his spine.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks.

Patton stares. What is he supposed to say to that? He doesn’t much care to know about anything right now; all he wants in this moment is to bury himself in the covers until this horrible emptiness goes away.

Maybe it will be gone by dinner. Maybe he could make dinner. Make dinner for people who aren’t going to eat it. Stick it in tupperware in the fridge and let it go bad because nobody but him is eating it.

“Itches,” he says, his eyes slipping closed. “Don’t feel good.”

As he says it, the grey slides away a bit, as if it were waiting for such an admission, and the overwhelming influx of sensation catches him off guard. It’s more than just an itchiness; it’s a tightness, too, like his skin is a bit too small for him, and he is struck by a need to squirm and scratch. Something is wrong, he realizes, and the fear that is creeping into the corners of his mind is worse than the grey emptiness, because even though his brain has begun to process the world again, his limbs still feel too heavy to move, his chest too constricted to bring in enough air.

He whimpers. Janus sucks in a breath, and he opens his eyes again to see that he’s changed position, has shifted to sitting on the edge of the bed rather than kneeling on the floor, and is leaning over him, arms hovering above his body but not touching.

“I’m going to help you sit up,” Janus says, “unless you have any objections.”

Patton does not, in fact, have any objections. The grey is receding far faster than it came on, leaving him at the mercy of all the fear and sadness and guilt that he’s been contemplating, and with each passing second, his panic grows, because his body is not cooperating with him in the slightest and something is wrong.

Janus gently pulls him upright, and he slumps forward, all of his weight crashing onto Janus’ chest. Janus appears to take this in stride, wrapping his arms around him in a hug that Patton would very much enjoy if he could return it, but his arms refuse to listen to him, hanging by his sides like limp, bloated noodles.

“You don’t currently feel like you have an outlet for your emotional distress,” Janus says starkly, bluntly. “You’ve been repressing it in an effort to focus on fixing your relationships with the others, but the fact that that is going nowhere only worsens your state of mind.” He pauses. “The last time you experienced an instance of  severe emotional distress, you turned into a giant frog. It is… possible that after that display, Thomas now associates you with… amphibian-like traits, shall we say, to a degree, just as he associates me with snakes.”

His breath catches, and the memory comes flooding back in full force. The terror, the awful sensation as his body transformed, as his mind worked at a fever-pitch, desperate and confused until he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, until he resorted to such terrible tactics to try to work everything out, until he lashed out in anger and pain and hurt Thomas--

He can’t hurt Thomas. He can’t. He can’t do this again. He won’t let himself do this again.

The itching increases, like millions of tiny needles being jammed into his skin over and over again. He needs to calm down, he knows, because if he’s going to stop this he has to be calm, but the grey has abandoned him to his emotional turmoil, and he tries desperately to press it all down, because he knows that repression is bad but it has to be better than this, better than turning into a monster again--

“I think some healthy, open-ended discussion would do you some good,” Janus continues. “So, not that I care at all, but if you wanted, we could-- Patton? Patton, you need to calm down.”

He’s trying. He’s trying, but he can’t, and it’s too late, because he can already feel it happening, can feel his body begin to twist and warp and change no matter how hard he tries to stop it, no matter how hard he tries to ground himself, to keep himself human. And Janus is saying something, something loud and urgent, but his voice rings and echoes and Patton can’t understand a word of it.

So he closes his eyes and stops fighting it. There is a single, gut-wrenching lurch, and his hands hit the bedspread as he fumbles for balance, and then everything is silent. He should open his eyes, should face the music, but he doesn’t want to see Janus’ expression, whether it be anger or fear or disgust or scorn. And he doesn’t want to see the mess he’s surely made of his room, the destruction, like last time, doesn’t want to open his eyes and find that he’s looming over everything else, that he’s cracked his ceiling and crushed his bed.

“Oh,” Janus says. His voice is still oddly echoey, and Patton can’t interpret his tone at all. “Oh. Well. Ah, I totally expected this. Definitely. Um. Oh, gosh.”

Is he flustered? Surely, that can’t be right. He’s pretty sure that Janus doesn’t do flustered. But he has to know, now, has to look, so he opens his eyes.

He expects to be looking down. Instead, he finds himself looking up. It is Janus that towers over him, rather than the other way around, Janus that towers over him with unmitigated shock written on his face. Patton blinks, just to be sure that he isn’t seeing things, and as he does, his brain helpfully provides him with a million other things that are wrong with this picture; the ceiling, for instance, is miles above him, and his bed is as vast as an ocean.

He tries to speak, tries to ask what’s going on, but all that emerges from his mouth is a shrill squeak. He attempts to stand, then, or at least sit up, but every effort sends him sprawling on all fours, his limbs clunky and uncoordinated and unfamiliar. His panic mounts as he finds himself unable to do much of anything at all, and he flails, trying to attain some amount of control.

“Oh gosh, okay,” Janus says, and leans down. “I know this is scary, but you’re fine, I swear. Actually, honestly swear. You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

Everything clicks then, and Patton goes still, staring at his own limb stretched out in front of him, long and thin and green and four-toed. He’s a frog, he realizes. A tiny frog. His whole body feels so odd, so different, out of place and completely foreign, and it’s because he’s a frog. Not a weird, giant, humanoid frog monster, but an actual frog.

He focuses back on Janus and squeaks again. For some reason, Janus’ right cheek reddens.

“Fuck,” he mutters, glancing away, and Patton would chide his use of language, but he’s pretty sure by now that he can’t talk. “Okay, um, you’re not cute at all, so don’t even ask. But this is definitely not normal, and it will definitely last for a very long time. Accidental transformations always do.” He frowns, tilting his head slightly before shaking it. “You know what I mean. Which is to say that I myself am occasionally a snake, so I know what I’m talking about.”

He blinks. He didn’t know that Janus could actually transform into a snake, though now that he reflects on it, he supposes that there’s no reason why not. It makes him wonder just how much more he doesn’t know about him. How much he never bothered to learn.

Okay, so. He’s a frog now. A small, squeaky frog. So, this is a lot better than he thought it would be. And Janus is implying that this will wear off eventually, so he can just… stay here, right? Stay in bed, not bother anybody else with this? Wait until he changes back? Bit by bit, the fear drains out of him, leaving him exhausted. And with the fear gone, the adrenaline dissipating, the grey creeps back in. Not as bad as it was before. But enough so that remaining in bed for at least the next few hours sounds very, very appealing.

He looks up at Janus, his eyelids drooping, and tries to convey that he can leave now, that he’ll be fine with just… sitting here for a bit, on his covers, until everything goes back to normal. However long that takes. However that’s supposed to happen. He should probably be more worried about how to reverse this, but now that the terror of the moment is over, he finds himself willing enough to allow things to happen as they happen. He’s not sure he could marshal the energy to force himself to change back even if he knew exactly how.

“Wait here a moment,” Janus says suddenly. “I’ll be right back.” He stands and sinks out directly, and Patton watches him go, vague disappointment filtering though his mind. Sure, he didn’t want Janus to think that he is obligated to stay with him, to deal with the mess that he is, but some part of him had hoped that he would stick around anyway. The grey seems to lift, a little bit, with someone else by his side, seems to shy away from the warm presence of another person’s voice.

Minutes pass. Or perhaps it’s hours. He has long since given up keeping track of time, and in the middle of a bed that is far, far too large, in a body that is entirely familiar to him, Patton feels himself begin to drift.

But then, Janus comes back, rising up in the middle of his room, a laptop tucked under his arm, several blankets thrown over it. Patton rouses himself with some effort, staring as Janus approaches, gently placing the laptop and blankets on the bed.

“I thought we could watch a movie, if that’s alright,” Janus says, and pulls a DVD case apparently out of nowhere, holding it up for inspection. It’s The Aristocats, the title written in swirling golden letters, and Patton can’t help but let out a croak in surprise. Janus shrugs, glancing away.

“I figured you would like this one,” he says. “I mean. Disney and cats. So.”

The right side of his face once again flushes a bright, cherry red, and even like this, even in this fugue-like state, Patton is absolutely touched. Not only that Janus cares enough to remember what he likes, but also that he wants to spend time with him? That he would drop any other plan he might have had to watch a movie with him, presumably to help him feel better?

He didn’t know that frogs could cry. But tears well up in his eyes, and he blinks them away.

“Just an idea,” Janus says, his eyes going wide. “We don’t have to. We could pick another movie! It would be such a problem to pick something else!”

No!

Patton wants to scream, wants to shout, because he’s misinterpreting his tears, because in this moment, Patton barely has the strength to want anything at all, and yet there is nothing more that he wants than to watch this movie with Janus. But he can’t speak, can’t make his vocal cords produce anything more than squeaks and croaks, so he pushes past the grey to do the only thing he can think might work.

These limbs are unfamiliar to him. But he knows a few things about frogs, knows how far they can jump. So jump he does, surprising himself with the power in his own back legs, and launches himself at Janus, who flinches, stumbling back, but too late to prevent Patton from sticking his landing, right on his cheek.

“Oh,” he says, stammering. Patton is certain that he has heard Janus stutter more today than in all the years he’s known him. “Um. What?”

Patton takes a moment to breathe, and to comprehend the fact that his feet are literally sticking to Janus’ skin. He adjusts himself, settles in more firmly, and then lets out a loud, intentional croak.

It’s all he can do. He just has to hope that Janus understands, understands that he doesn’t want him to leave, that he doesn’t want him to change a single thing.

“Oh,” Janus says again. He takes great care not to move his mouth much, takes great care not to dislodge Patton, and it would be enough to coax a smile out of him, if frogs could smile. “Are you… is this alright, then?”

He croaks again, and the muscles in Janus’ cheek twitch as he resists a smile.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get it set up, then, shall I?”

And he does, popping the movie into the laptop’s disc tray and wrapping himself in soft blankets as he settles against the headboard. He arranges the blanket in an odd way, creating a series of folds on his shoulder, and it is not until he gestures at it that Patton realizes that it is meant for him, that Janus purposefully made a place for him to sit. He jumps down, almost falling before he steadies himself, barely preventing his limbs from tangling with each other, and snuggles into the soft fabric, reveling in the way it brushes against his skin.

The grey is still present, still pervasive, filling him with an emptiness, with a void. But the void itself has filled a bit, filled with warmth, with the knowledge that Janus is doing this for him, even if he doesn’t quite understand why.

The movie begins to play. He turns his attention to the screen, and even though his mind wanders, slips away at some points, he does feel a little bit better, a little more present, a little less like he wants to stagnate in his room forever.

Janus is quiet throughout the first stretch of the movie, though Patton can sense him shooting him glances every now and again. But as Duchess meets O’Malley for the first time, he speaks up, face forward, eyes fixed on the screen.

“The first time I transformed was confusing,” he murmurs, as if to himself, though surely, he hasn’t forgotten that Patton is there, that Patton can hear him. “Thomas was so young, and I didn’t know what was happening. The scales had been appearing for a while, but I never thought that I could change so completely. It was a moment of emotion, frustration at not being heard, when Thomas got in trouble that a white lie easily could have prevented. One minute I was having a meltdown in my room, and the next I was a snake.” He chuckles a bit, as though the memory is fond, though it doesn’t sound that way.

How much distress was he in, Patton wonders? How confused was he, how scared, his body warping and changing and no one at all there to help him?

“This is all to say that I’ve since learned to control it. I’d demonstrate, but I hardly think that turning into a snake while you are a very small frog would put your mind at ease.” Janus sighs, fiddling with the bottom of his capelet. “But you can learn to control it, too, provided that these traits stick.”

Patton wishes he could say something, anything at all. But his voice is gone, twisted so that small sounds are the only thing he can produce, so he stays quiet, listening to Janus talk. In a way, it’s a blessing, the inability to respond. None of the impetus of the conversation is put on him, so he feels no pressure to muster up replies that would surely be lackluster, given his emotional state, or lack thereof.

“But that’s not really the point right now, is it?” Janus says softly. “The more pressing concern is why you transformed this time. You must have been on the verge of it for hours, subconsciously holding yourself back from it.”

He shifts. He’d woken up itchy and uncomfortable, his mind buried in the grey and unable to do anything about it, unable to move at all, much less rouse himself into action. He hopes that this won’t happen every time he has a grey day. He can’t afford to lose time like this. There’s too much to do, and though grey days are bad enough on their own, he can force himself to work through them, sometimes, when the haze isn’t too strong. He can’t do that if he’s always turning into a frog when he gets overwhelmed.

“I do hope you know that your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s,” Janus says, and Patton stiffens. “To be sure, you messed up, and the others have every right to be upset, but I challenge you to find any one of us that hasn’t accidentally screwed everyone else over at some point.” He pauses. “Or even on purpose. Which you are assuredly not guilty of.”

The words buzz in his head, vibrating in the fog, and Patton’s not entirely sure that he understands what Janus is saying, not entirely sure that he has the energy to try. What do intentions matter? Messing up is messing up, and even if he didn’t mean to, he’s hurt everyone in the mindscape. If it wasn’t anything to be upset about, he wouldn’t be upset, would he?

“And of course, it’s not like they’re to blame for this at all,” Janus continues. “It’s not like they’re being immature, hiding away in their rooms and refusing to confront their problems.” He shakes his head. “Patton, you have to understand that it is not your job to ensure their emotional competence. All you can do is try your best, and if they refuse to meet you halfway, that’s on them, not you. You shouldn’t blame yourself when you’re obviously doing everything you can to own up to and fix your mistakes.”

Patton croaks, the denial ripped from his throat. He’s never seen it that way, didn’t think that he could see it that way, but Janus’ voice is streaking the grey through with yellow and gold, forcing him to confront the root of the problem in a way that he never has before.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person,” Janus says. “You’ve learned that by now, learned that Thomas himself is nowhere near flawless. But that applies to you as well. You’re allowed to make mistakes, to learn and grow from them. No one should expect you to be right one hundred percent of the time, and that includes both yourself and them.”

Once again, his eyes well up with tears, and this time, they drip down, splattering onto the blankets.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Janus murmurs, voice entirely too knowing, entirely too understanding, and Patton doesn't know that he can handle the depth of this empathy. “You deserve to have the support that you’ve been trying so hard to provide.”

He falls silent, then, the movie still playing but long since forgotten, and Patton has to take a moment to absorb what has just been said.

He’s not too hard on himself. He can’t be. Everything he’s said and thought these past few weeks has been true, completely and utterly; it was his mistakes that drove the others away from him, and it is his responsibility to correct those mistakes. And if the others don’t want to see him, don’t want to talk to him, then that’s fine. It’s their right, and he doesn’t blame them at all, can’t possibly blame them when most of him believes that they’re right to do so, right to avoid him, because after everything, he can’t possibly deserve--

Oh.

But Janus says he does deserve it. That he deserves help, that he deserves support. Who, then, is right?

“Think about it this way,” Janus says, as if sensing his struggle. “If your positions were reversed, if, say, Virgil had messed up and everyone was avoiding him, would you think that’s what he deserved?”

Well, of course not. Everyone deserves love and support, even when they make mistakes, because--

Oh.

The realization comes crashing down with the force of the loudest thunderclap, and something deep within him twists, wrenches at his heart and at his stomach, and all the breath is knocked out of him as he suddenly finds himself falling forward, landing hard on Janus’ lap, arms and legs achy and all too human. Janus yanks his arms out from under the blankets to catch him, his lips parted in surprise.

“But I hurt them,” Patton says, the words ripped from him as if by force, desperate, like the world might just crumble into pieces if he doesn’t get an answer. “I hurt all of them, so much.”

“And their hurt is valid,” Janus says. “Each one of them is entitled to their anger and their pain. But Patton, so are you.”

He bursts into tears at that, the dam breaking at last, and he lurches forward, flinging his arms around Janus’ neck and burying his face into his shoulder where the blankets have slipped away. Janus makes a startled noise, and then brings his arms up to embrace him, holding him tight and close as he runs the gamut of all the emotions he has been pushing back.

“You’re loved,” Janus says. “They all love you, even though it may seem otherwise right now. They love you, and they’ll be ready to show it again, in time.” He pauses, and his next sentence carries a strange weight, a slightly different tone, a reticence and a rushed eagerness all at once. “And I love you, Patton. Please don’t forget that.”

He sniffles. “Even though I’m getting snot all over you?” he asks into his shirt, and Janus laughs, startled.

“Even so,” he answers. “It’s snot an issue.”

Patton gasps, thrilled despite himself. He still can’t bring himself to display the reaction he would normally have, but he manages a weak smile. “Pun,” he says, voice still muffled by fabric.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Janus says. “I would never in my life crack a pun. Lies and slander.”

Patton pulls back a bit, enough to see his face, and is shocked to find that he is crying too, though he looks much more dignified than Patton is certain he does. For a moment, his heart fills with an overflowing, overpowering love, and before he can think better of it, he leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Janus’ breath hitches, but Patton doesn’t back down, staring him straight in the eyes.

“I love you too,” he says, and in the moment, doesn’t know exactly how he means it. Just that it’s true, and right now, that is enough. “Thank you.”

He pours all of the sincerity, all of the emotion that he is capable of right now into the words. He needs Janus to understand how much it means that he is here, with him, willing to help him and to hold him.

Janus stares at him with something like affection and something like awe.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “Not for this. Never for this.”

And Patton sighs, shifting position until he is leaning against Janus’ chest, tucking his head under his chin and turning his head so that he can see the movie. It’s almost over by now, Edgar receiving his just desserts.

“I still don’t feel great,” he murmurs, because he doesn’t. Better, now that he’s let his emotions out, now that he is human, now that he has someone with him, holding him, caring about him, loving him, but the grey still hovers around him, still lands heavily on his chest and in his head. If human contact were enough to solve it all completely, that would be a wonderful thing, but the greyness isn’t so simple, isn’t so easily banished. He doubts he’ll be able to gather the energy to make dinner tonight. He may not even feel better by tomorrow morning.

But Janus is with him, supporting without judgement, and that makes all the difference.

“That’s alright,” Janus says, kissing the top of his head. “You don’t need to be. Would you like to watch another movie? And by that I mean actually watch, not leave it on in the background as we discuss deep, abiding emotional issues.”

He manages a shaky laugh at that. “I’d like that,” he whispers. His voice emerges hoarse and thick, and it takes too much effort to get the words out. “Could we do Tangled?”

“A terrible choice,” Janus says, and summons the DVD with a wave of his hand, reaching around Patton to place the disc in the laptop. The title screen begins to play, and he adjusts the blankets so that they are both fully covered, and Patton curls into his side as the narration starts.

He still feels bad, and he knows he has so much more to work through. But the deep, aching loneliness has abated somewhat, and he knows that the greyness will fade away too, eventually. Until then, he has Janus here, with him, wrapped up in soft blankets, a comfort movie playing for both of them, and confessions dancing in the air between them, spoken but not quite elaborated on, not yet. And that’s alright, because there’s time, because the sun always shines brightest after the rain has passed.

He sighs, snuggles in closer, and allows himself to simply be.

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