#functional knee brace

[thisweirdkidsnightmare]

Dude. Kneebraces are The Shit. I'm literally WALKING WITHOUT CRUTCHES the fuck?? (Probably still won't be able to walk for long but i consider this a win!!) Someone plz tell me how and why that works...

[hiddenbysuccubi]

My friend texting me: WHY did you have to put a knee brace on??

[lesenbyan]

today on: I need a mobility aid I can't afford; why the fuck are functional knee braces over 100$

[knifehandsgf]

Can it be sad posting hours rn

[b14augrana]

Scrubber

Your first time versing Lyon was the match of your dreams

Barça Femení x teen!reader

pt. 3 masterlist

Warnings: lots of happiness and not proofread as per usual … 😁

A/N: i forgot to mention that mapi's knee is 100% functioning and not crippled in this series!!!! i’ve decided to turn it into a series because i love our hay day obsessed reader so much.

also, reader takes alexia’s place in scoring a golazo because our wonderkid needs her time to shine and what better time to shine than in a uwcl final 🪄🪄 (peep my reference in the fic to the gif im so smart)

we need a nickname for little miss wonderkid so i dont constantly refer to her as reader so plz suggest some in my asks 🥹

You were way too nervous for the final to function. You regretted eating breakfast that morning because it felt like you were about to throw it all up.

Honestly, you were even nervous to look at the players. You stood timidly between Lucy and Irene in the line, secretly hoping you never had to leave the tunnel. You did not want the likes of Ada Hegerberg charging towards little 16-year-old you.

You glanced down at the ‘NV15’ written on your wrist in black. That forever-present question of 'What would Vidić do?' loomed in your mind.

He wouldn’t be worrying about anyone on the opposition. He’d just be worried about breaking the Brexit tackle world record and keeping everyone in white as far away from the goal as possible.

The officials at the end of the tunnel signalled to both teams, which meant it was time. As you emerged out of the tunnel, walking out to the sound of a stadium full of culers, you didn’t feel scared. The cheers from all around the stadium deafened you, but also made you feel an insane amount of pride.

As you stood beside your teammates, the Barcelona anthem blasted on the speakers and the crowd became a choir as they sung the anthem loud and proud. Your attention was in the stands, looking at all the people that had come to watch. You almost teared up when you spotted a little girl and her older brother wearing a jersey with your name on it. Your name. Just having a mascot blew you away, so seeing people you probably weren’t much older than, wearing jerseys with your name on the back, was a crazy concept.

It made you think about the future. It made you hope that one day, you’d grow up to be some little girl’s idol the way Vidić is yours.

“Get ready to shake hands, (Y/N),” Irene reminded you, noticing that you looked a bit spaced out. You brought yourself back to the present and nodded, sticking your hand out to shake the long line of Lyon hands.

When Alexia asked you to bend down and hold the match day pennant, it almost felt like blasphemy. Your mouth was slightly agape as she thrusted it into your hand. “But why me?”

“My knee is no good, it’s better if I stand,” she explained.

“But why m–”

“Just hold it, nena!” Alexia laughed, getting back in the line. You crouched down, holding the pennant in one hand and bracing the ground with the other as you smiled gingerly for the camera.

As soon as the photographer lowered his camera, you sprung to your feet and gave the pennant back to Alexia. “There you go, capi!” you said happily, motioning to Renard who was approaching with their own pennant to exchange. Alexia laughed and patted you on the back, mumbling a quick ‘gracías’ before turning away.

You walked over to the bench and shrugged your jacket off, folding it neatly for one of the team management to take to the locker room later on. With one last meaningful glance at your wrist, you ran onto the field to take your position. Irene was with you in the center and Lucy covered the right while Ona took care of the left. Jona had told you to be prepared for Mapi to come on, so you kept that in mind too.

As soon as the whistle was blown, you were relieved to see that Aitana, Mariona, Caro and Salma had already gotten things under control. That gave you time to scope out the Lyon front three and think about how to handle them.

You thought about what Lucy said. ‘Don’t get hurt trying to do extreme tackles.’

At the end of the day, it all came down to instinct. When Dumornay started running at you with the ball, her feet moving too quick for you to focus on, you knew what you were going to do next had to be purely instinctual. This wasn’t the match for calculated tackles.

It was a fearless tackle. It wasn’t even much of a tackle, actually; you had just gotten to the ground right in her path and made contact with the ball first before she even touched you. When she did touch you, the top of her boot got caught on your abdomen, knocking her over. It was the consequence of her own speed and momentum.

With the ball at your feet, you did what you always did best — kick it as hard as you could and hope it goes well. You must’ve hoped extremely hard or hoped to the right deity, because the ball landed right at Aitana’s feet. Not an inch in front.

With one touch, she had beaten her marker. When Aitana got the ball, it was almost always a goal, and this time was no different; before you could even register that your ball had been kept in play, let alone found a player of your own, it had beaten Endler’s desperate hands and hit the back of the net. The stadium has the loudest atmosphere you’ve ever experienced after Aitana’s goal.

She came running to you, her arms outstretched. You threw yourself into her, hugging her tightly. The rest of the team came shortly after, suffocating you two in a big team hug. You heard some muffled voices praising you and Aitana, but you were too stunned by how quickly it all happened to even register their words. There were many pats on your back and side hugs before the game reset and you were back to your centerback position, kissing the writing on your wrist.

“Aparejo increíble (Y/N), and the pass! Magnífico!” Irene said, pulling you close and ruffling your hair (to which you huffed and slicked it back down) before running back to her position.

You didn’t actually intend to make that pass, so was it that special? Aitana did score from it, but she just has magical feet.

The match had flown by, both teams only separated by one goal at the 90th minute. Lyon were desperate for a goal. Barcelona were desperate for another. Many changes had been made, including Mapi and Pina coming on.

You watched as Diani came down the left wing and somehow managed to beat Lucy and Mapi, which meant you were going to have to try tidy up at the back and not let Diani get to Cata, the last hope.

At first, you just jockeyed. You held her off and tried to delay her, which worked; her stepovers were useless and she couldn’t get past you by tapping and running… but then she did.

She took a touch just wide of you, giving herself heaps of space to dribble up to goal if she was quick enough to retrieve the ball. The big underlying issue was, your jockeying had led you two up to the box. You could either get a card and risk her scoring from a penalty or worse — not do anything and let her put it in. You would rather break your Hay Day login streak than let that happen.

As she lurched forwards to get another touch on the ball, it was like everything was in slow motion. Time slowed down as you extended your leg and thrusted your entire body forwards, cushioning your fall by sliding on your arm across the damp grass and towards the ball. You closed your eyes as she got closer to your face, hoping that if you didn’t see it happen, the collision wouldn’t hurt as much. If this tackle went wrong, it would be over for you, for Barça.

Diani’s opening had been a gift from God himself, so you prepared yourself to see her celebrating happily, the ball rolling into the net when you opened your eyes, but when you finally did open them, the ball wasn’t in the net. Diani wasn’t celebrating.

She was lying on her chest, scrambling to get to her feet. The ball was out, discarded somewhere near the barriers as a ball boy passed a new one to Lucy to throw in. Cheers had rung through the stadium upon your last-ditch tackle, but you had been too distracted to pay attention to them. You had been too focused on trying to execute the perfect tackle that would either make or break the game.

The only thing you guys needed was another goal to really seal the deal. Lyon were getting dangerously close, you needed a goal.

When Lucy had played the ball in, you moved a bit further up the field, watching the play. You noticed Caro receiving the ball, and then you noticed the absence in the middle of the box. You scanned for Aitana or Pina or anybody, but they were all marked by figures like Renard and Carpenter or in other words, brick walls that were not letting them in any time soon.

It was all, pure, instinct. You ran– no, sprinted up the field, flailing your hands in the air. “Caro, Caro!” you screamed, motioning to the middle of the box, begging for a cross.

The cross she delivered from the right wing was set to land just in front of you. You couldn’t reach it for a volley and you sure as hell couldn’t bicycle kick it in. It was travelling fast and getting nearer by the second, but that was the advantage.

Without a second thought, you jumped up. Your body was basically horizontal in the air as you flew forwards, forehead connecting with the ball. It was a shame you couldn’t watch it shoot past Endler, burying itself right in the bottom left corner. You flew into the net as well, and the only way you realised you had scored was when you sat up and looked to your side to see the ball. That’s also the only way you realised you were in the goal.

You had never stood up faster or yelled louder. You zipped past Endler and ran down the field towards the nearest camera. Your first goal of your career couldn’t have been more perfect, so you needed a celebration to match.

Aitana appeared by your side, and as you two ran side-by-side, you pointed to the people in the stands. It was a simple but meaningful celebration; it was the same celebration Vidić had once done, and you remembered it vividly. In fact, it was one of your favourite moments.

You ran to the corner flag where the rest of your team were, and you all fell into another affectionate huddle. Lucy squeezed your side. “You’re in the wrong sport, I think you’d do well as a professional diver!” she jeered, having to yell her words over the noise. You grinned at her and hugged the woman tightly right before being instructed to reset.

The ball had barely started moving again before the referee blew the final whistle. Everyone from the sidelines jumped from their seats and ran onto the field, and the people on the field ram towards your goal. Cata booted the ball into the air and jumped on top of the big hug, and then Pina followed. There was singing and dancing and flags being thrown and tears and hugs for days.

It was happy moment upon happy moment for everyone as it all sunk in — you had finally, finally beat Olympique Lyonnais in a Champions League final for the first time in your history. You had helped beat Lyon and make history with this team, and you had won your first ever Champions League and quadruple, but you had to give credit where it was due.

You knew if you never had a role model like Nemanja Vidić, nothing would’ve happened the way it did for you against Lyon.

Being a 16-year-old girl with such a fiery passion to defend and hold it down at the back wasn’t easy. There wasn’t many defenders that played for the badge the way Vidić did. The reason you loved him so much was because he exerted such an immense sense of pride and dedication to his club, and that was the type of defender you wanted to be.

That was the type of defender you had been today.

You couldn’t believe Keira and Patri when they ran up to you saying that the officials wanted to see you so you could receive the Player of the Match award once again. Your jaw was dropped and you went red as they basically dragged you away from the locker rooms and towards the officials. Your cheeks were still red from embarrassment as you took the photo.

You learned that you couldn’t just slink away into the locker rooms after such a big match, so you spent a solid 10 minutes talking to fans all around the stadium. It was a bit awkward for you at first because most of them were either as old as Alexia or literally your age, but you figured you’d have to get used to it.

The best part about the whole day was, when you eventually got back to the locker room and picked your phone up, you had reached level 300 on Hay Day.

As if one major achievement wasn’t enough.

[copperpipes]

Magical girl versus child soldier :]

When Dani was created vald's intentions were to create another danny, off the bat, she wasn't a person of her own in his eyes, you can imagine what that does to someone. Being forced another person's individuality instead of figuring out your own.

Vlad didn't know the exact circumstances in which Danny died, only the outcome, and so he thought that all he had to do was to recreate the final product to get what he wanted, but there were a lot more things in play then vlad predicted.

For one, Vlad didn't think that a major reason for Danny existing was thanks to his hazmat suit, its why most clones didn't last long outside their tube.

A solution that was figured out for Dani was to make clothes from ecto resistant fabric to hold the clones shape, of course for her they were extremely uncomfortable just being in them, let alone fighting in them, but she maneged.

Of course, she was still at a risk of suddenly starting to melt at any moment, but luckily she was valuable enough to be given treatment that could keep her functioning.

After she ran from vlad she lost to said treatment, and this caused damage, but it was still a hundred times better then returning to plasmius.

Then Danny found her and she wasn't dying anymore but the damage was done and she was left with problems in both forms.

As a ghost, keeping a solid form is very hard for her now, not that she couldn't exist as a puddle, but she doesn't want to. Basic asking for help was not a skill she was taught, but her now new family were observant enough.

She got a full body-brace-suit (first picture left) that would let her keep her shape, but it's not meant for fighting, which she doesn't plan on doing anymore.

As a human, chronic joint pain and misshapen meniscus in both knees which causes them to be very easily dislocated.

The cane they got her helps but on worse days getting up from bed is harder then fighting Danny, and they don't have the money nor does Dani has a civilian identity to get a wheelchair.

Dani herself is very different from Danny. From personality to interests (she likes fish, marine biology seems cool). They may be genetic twins but like in all sets of twins they are completely different.

Also she got a water core

[bwskj]

tags: re2 leon & reader, comfort fic, sfw, slight dissociation, reader is lowk pathetic here wth

synopsis: you were going to die… you were so sure of it, until you opened your eyes and met bright white and blue…

trapped. how long have you been trapped shivering in the shadows of broken metal? the floor you’re sitting on is cold. is it cold? you’re not even sure anymore. how many hours has it been since you cemented yourself to this spot? you can’t feel your legs, and when your blurry eyes fall upon your paling fingers, you wonder if those are really yours to begin with.

you pick at the edge of your long knitted sleeves to keep you busy—to keep you from losing the rest of your sanity. maybe if you focus hard enough, you’ll be able to block out the noises echoing in all directions. you can probably describe where it comes from if only it didn’t keep bouncing around the chambers of your skull.

your heart almost stops when you finally allow yourself another one of your bigger exhales. your breathing has turned conserved and irregular, afraid to slip out because it sounds too loud. but, of course, your lungs fight for the right to function and you frighten yourself again and again with every louder breath you take.

this isn’t real. this isn’t real.

you try to tell yourself that. but there’s a persistent beat shaking through you from the left side of your chest and a foreign burning sensation on your side that argues otherwise. it’s your terrified heart reminding you that you’re alive and the nasty tear in your thigh you had the misfortune of getting while trying to run away. you’ve almost forgotten about it—that you’re alive and bleeding.

you squeeze your eyes close as a trembling breath escapes once again. you’re not trapped. you can get out of here if you want to. how long will you stay frozen like this. wait, are you even still here?

you think you can hear something aside from the wails of monsters and delirious chanting in your head. a creak and bang in the wind. how is that possible? there’s no wind here. you manage to move your knees an inch closer to your body, wrapping your arms around yourself. your eyes stare blankly at the tiled ground now. there’s a triangle of shallow light. it looks so near yet still out of reach.

you twitch as the still color of white introduces a value of shadow. it’s faint at first—barely even there—but it grows and it gets bigger and darker until it’s consumed it whole.

…there’s something coming.

air gets stuck in your throat. the beat inside you doubles its pace, pounding through your head. footsteps? hurried. desperate. looking for something to kill. horrid screams fill your ears and your arms drop to the floor, fingertips pressed tight and almost digging into the flat ground.

no no no no, no… no, you can hear yourself muttering though you don’t think your lips even care to budge. you’re going to die. you’re going to die. if you were not dead yet, you’re going to die. this is it. all because you couldn’t move, you couldn’t THINK.

but that’s probably the way it should be. you know you can’t survive this terrible world. your heart would instead burst in fear if not eaten by a monster. you close your eyes again as you try to control the quivering of your body. it’s just right that you—

?

bright white crosses your eyelids.

you wait, bracing yourself for what’s to come. but nothing? or are you already dead?

you can still feel your eyes roll from side to side and so you slowly open them. you squint, warily searching for what’s in front of you.

bright white and… bright… blue… eyes ?

“a survivor,” the man shining the bright light says under his breath. you can see his mouth move, but you can’t hear anything. his eyes are wide and full of shock. you can’t even begin to imagine what your own pair looks like.

“a-am i dead,” your voice almost scares you when it comes out in a broken whisper.

the man lowers his light and aims it over parts of your body. he spots the wound on your thigh but concludes there isn’t anything else life-threatening. “no,” he meets your eyes again, “you’re alive. i’m leon. im a police officer. i can get you out of here.”

a police officer… it takes a moment for you to process the phrase but when you finally do, your stomach sinks, and your body unfreezes itself causing you to double over and almost fall to the ground.

leon is quick to catch you as you gasp up air you’ve been needing. your guarded system suddenly turning off awakens your body into experiencing your exhausted and weak state. “hey, it’s okay,” he says as he tries to steady you with a hold on your arm, “you’re okay.”

leon watches painfully at the terrified girl in front of him. her skin is pale and blotting in fear. her clothes are ripped and ragged, obvious that she had been running away from something. her thigh beneath her pant leg is sliced and caked with blood. dried tears glisten on her puffy cheeks.

a survivor after days of exploration in these lifeless areas. how is that possible? and a girl like you at that. how long have you been hiding in here? a thousand questions buzzed in leon’s mind, none of which had answers. he doesn’t plan to get any answers anytime soon though. all that matters right now is that he has to get you somewhere safe.

he’s not losing an innocent again. not this time.

leon picks up the gargling sound of monsters from the outside hallway. his head is pulled toward it, and he knows he’s got to act fast. with a hand still holding onto you, he puts up his flashlight and surveys the room you’re in. his eyes stop at a closet standing by the wall.

“come on, can you stand?” he says urgently. your world is sort of spinning but you hear him clearly. you stammer out an “i don’t know” but leon’s already hurrying to carefully pull you up on your feet. you let out a weak cry as painful needles shoot through your leg. you make a face of disgust as you come to terms with the embarrassingly pathetic state you’re in. still you manage to stiffly bring yourself to stand with leon’s help.

leon is frowning in concern, wondering if he should’ve just carried you off the ground. there’s not much time left to think, and since he’s unsure if you can even walk properly, he says, “don’t overthink this. i need to get you in the closet.”

he stashes his flashlight into his pocket before he loops his arms behind your back and legs and picks you up, slinging your arm around his neck. you gasp as you plummet into his strong grasp. He quickly brings you over to the closet by the wall.

with a kick of his leg, he triggers the wooden doors to open and, just as he thought, it’s big enough for a person to fit. carefully, he sets you down on the musty platform and when he pulls away, a sense of panic instantly washes over you. your hand reacts to reach for his arm, “don’t—“

he knows what you want to say. “don’t worry. i’ll be back.” there’s a determined look on his face. “just stay put, okay. i’ll deal with the monsters so we can get out of here.”

your grip on the sleeve of his blue uniform tightens and he places a gentle hand on your icy knuckles. “i promise,” his gaze, as warm and reassuring as his palm, looks straight into you and your once again petrified nerves start to calm.

you force yourself to nod. “okay,” you whisper. you expect leon to linger a little bit longer but he’s suddenly looking in another direction and before you know it, he’s stuffed your hand near to your chest and closed the doors on you.

you are once again engulfed in darkness, puffs of air running into the dead ends that surround you. your body jolts with the first bang of leon’s gun. apparently, that was the far-away sound you heard earlier.

some more gunshots and screeching from the monsters ring through the boards your enclosed in. it’s the one thing you can truly focus on. you’ve got nothing to see; you can only smell dust and feel the old and textured wood of the closet.

you try to picture what’s going on outside. with every bang, every thud, every stab of a knife. you can hear leon grunting as he fights.

what would happen if he… lost?

your body runs cold for the nth time as the chaos outside continues to drag on. what would you do if he doesn’t come back.

but he promised.

you sit there in what feels like an empty void, hugging yourself again. you recite prayers to some god you’re not even sure you still believe in. you pray that he comes back to get you… you pray that he is safe.

a couple more minutes pass before everything falls silent. you’re frozen, afraid to let out another breath.

the wait stretches and the lack of sound stabs pins into your head. your hands roll into fists and you grit your teeth. the more seconds of nothing passes, the more your eyes begin to burn with fresh tears. but just as they were about to fall, the closet doors swing open and a soft pool of light floods into your vision. your teary gaze snaps up, meeting the same blue ones that greeted you earlier. leon stands there, in his police uniform now darkly stained with what you could only think is blood, gripping on the edge of the wooden doors as his chest softly heaves up and down.

your lip quivers as you open your mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. instead, you feel yourself come undone. there’s a soft whimper out of you and a stray tear slips out your unblinking stare.

“it’s over,” leon is softly panting, and though he sounds confident, there’s a bit of rattle in his voice, “don’t worry. you can come out now.”

leon magically appearing in front of you when you were just beginning to think he was never going to come back is enough to break down the rest of your walls. suddenly, your lungs are asking for more air than it needs and more tears start slipping out. you bow your head in embarassment while you attempt to wipe at your cheeks with the back of your trembling hands. leon’s quietly staring as you cry, fully knowing and understanding why you would do so.

“hey…” he cautiously crouches down so he could try to meet you in the eye. he raises his hand, letting it hesitantly hang in the air for a bit, before placing it on your quaking shoulder. he breathes out, “you’re gonna be okay.”

your hands stick to cover your crinkled face as his words cause you to fall apart even harder. you wish that you would stop. this guy had just fought off monsters and now he has to deal with a breakdown. did you not cry all your tears out earlier?

“s-sorry,” you stutter into the skin of your palm and in between heavy sniffles. “so-sorry i c-can’t stop.”

leon gently uses his thumb to caress your shoulder. he softly sighs, “shh… don’t be sorry. i know.”

a few more seconds pass of you uncontrollaby crying and shaking. leon silently rubs your arm in a shy attempt to soothe you. soon, you’re sniffling calms down, though your hands stay planted on your face.

leon’s consoling action slows to a stop and he lifts his hand away from your shoulder. he stares at your fingers grayed with dust before using his own to pry between the two parts. his fingertips feel warm and tingly on your skin and so you don’t fight him when he tries to break through your makeshift shield. he picks up your left hand first, then your right, and all of a sudden you’re looking at him again with tear-stained and reddened eyes.

“don’t cover your face. your hands are dirty,” leon puts effort into giving you a warm smile. he’s holding both of your wrists in one grasp so his other hand reaches to wipe down your wet and dust-stained cheeks. the genuine tug of his lips make your own twitch into a grateful one. you nod, eyelids feeling sore and drained from crying.

“you think you can get up?” he asks you, hand still busy trying to clean up your face.

when his arm falls away, you actually try to, wanting nothing more but to get out of his hair and start looking out for yourself for once. you slip your wrists out of leon’s gentle hold, pushing one palm down against the floorboard. you can sense the police officer watching you attentively, hand still out in midair in case you need him. you think you’re able to do it until you try to carry your weight with the use of your legs, you feel your knees buckle and you almost stumble forward if leon didn’t catch your hand to balance yourself. he slides his fingers to interlock with yours for a more stable grip, and your wreck of a heart that almost stopped once more is comforted with the familiar warmth you’re starting to get attached to.

“easy,” the word slips like butter out his lips. with his support, you gain new motivation to help yourself get to your feet. your palm squeezes against his when you apply the right amount of pressure to lift yourself. your legs wobble and feel like static the further they stick into the wood, but with leon’s help, you manage to straighten your knees and stand up.

you’re almost fully upright, hunching a bit over leon as you’re standing on higher ground. your eyes which are stuck to your shoes look towards leon’s face. you notice his expression is that of worry again, obviously eyeing the state of your body. “i can walk,” the words leave your mouth before you can even think about it.

his gaze snaps up to look at you. “i don’t think…” he trails off and though you look at him expectantly, he trashes that and starts another sentence. “we can rest a bit. let’s leave after a while. i made sure there are no monsters around so we don’t have to hurry.”

“a-are you sure,” your voice, trying to sound brave betrays itself with a slight stutter at the mention of the monsters. not only did you want to get out of here but you feel like you’ve troubled leon for way too long already. it might be better if you both try to get away as soon as possible.

“trust me. you’re going to want to have the energy later. now, you want to rest in there or out here?”

you know he’s going to be right. he’s a police officer. he knows his stuff. you say an ‘okay’ under your breath before telling him, “out. the closet is so dusty.”

leon nods and he carefully helps you step down from the platform. when you look up again, leon’s way taller than you now (as he should be). with a more sane mind, you realize that he’s handsome, especially with his piercing blue eyes and chiseled jaw. you quickly look away.

“i’d bring you to a motel if I could,” leon announces as he lets go of your hand and closes the closet doors. your head whips to look at him with obvious alarm.

leon meets your look and there’s a pause before his eyes widen in realization. ”n-no.” if there was a bit more light, you’d probably see the blush forming on his face, “i meant—because… there’s no bed here…”

he cringes, realizing he made it sound even worse. “f-for you to rest on.”

you knew that he didn’t mean for it to sound wrong and so a soft snicker accidentally bubbles up your throat. your stomach churns slightly at your own unexpected reaction. how can you be amused in this situation?

leon lets out a sigh, thankful that you don’t seem offended from what he said. you wrap an arm around your twisting stomach and go to sit on the floor below you. you lean your back on the closed closet door and leon follows beside you.

you wait for the uneasiness in your stomach to die down before you allow yourself to think. you’re staring at your knees, just like earlier, though this time there’s a color of navy blue beside you. you breathe a big sigh, feeling more present in the now then earlier. sitting in silence leaves room for you to properly acknowledge once more the drying gash on your thigh. yes, it’s still there… and you’re still alive.

“let yourself rest. i’ll stay awake to keep watch,” leon’s subtly reassuring you again.

you close your eyes which sting in weariness. your head leans back on the wooden doors and it isn’t long before you feel the sleepiness dawn upon you.

leon turns his head to look at your face. it’s peaceful now. there’s still a slight crease in your brow but otherwise, you’re calm. he watches, feeling his nerves relax as well just by confirming that you’re okay. he notices the way your head is softly starting to sway as you’re probably starting to feel the weight of it.

leon doesn’t wait for your head to fall to the side. he gently places a hand over to your farthest shoulder, pushing lightly so you fall and lean onto him. your eyes flicker open for a second but instantly close again when you feel the comfort of the shoulder you’re laying on. though your mind wishes to stay awake, your tired body can no longer wait. you’re lulled into sleep by leon’s guarding presence and soft breathing.

as you rest, leon stays awake as he said he would. he prioritizes being alert but also tries to keep still to prevent stirring you from your sleep. occassionally, his eyes fall and stare blankly at the same triangle of light still laying flat on the floor, all the while thinking up a plan on how to get the both of you out of here.

there has to be a way. he’s sure of it. he’s going to get you of here.

——

a/n: hey guys, fluff comfort moment?? not sure how to feel abt this one, i felt like it flowed better in my head and the writing is kinda wonky HWKHSSJ but i need more comfort leon fics so i made one. reader kinda embarassingly weak here but… hey she got traumatized okay.

hope yall still enjoy this kind of stuff and aren’t just sex obsessed maniacs 🥰 love yall

[iinryer]

I feel like 43 (piggy back ride) and 49 (leaning on the other for support) would pair with each other SO well 🤗☺️

A little scene prompt game to get me writing!

[43: piggy back ride + 49: leaning on the other for support]

—

“Come on, Buck,” Eddie grits out, as loudly as he can to be heard past the mask over his face and the roar of the flames a few floors above them, “come on, four more flights, we can do it,”

Buck just lets out a pained laugh, tightening his hold across Eddie’s shoulders—he’s been losing his footing more frequently and Eddie’s getting increasingly worried that they’re not going to make it to the ground level.

Eddie has been feeding him a litany of come on let’s go you’ve got it almost there the entire descent from the collapsed 11th floor, and at this point he’s not sure whose benefit it’s for.

The next time Buck stumbles, it’s on the landing between the third and fourth floors, and it’s accompanied by a weak, “Ed-Eddie, I can’t, I—,” before he pulls Eddie with him as he’s bracing against the wall and sliding down to the floor.

Eddie crouches in front of him, grasping the sides of his head, trying to get a better look through Buck’s cracked face mask.

“Buck—Buck! Hey!” Eddie gives him a frantic shake, “Hey, look at me, bud—yeah, that’s it, let me see those eyes,”

“Eddie, I’m—,” Buck cuts himself off with a cough and a harsh swallow, pupils visibly different sizes, “I can’t, I can’t—I’m so dizzy, Eddie, I can’t,”

Adrenaline zips down Eddie’s spine, hands tingling with it where he’s holding Buck’s face, separated only by the barely-functional protective gear, “Hey. Yes you can—Yes you can! Come on, we’re so close, we can swap masks for the last few flights—,”

Predictably, Buck interrupts him with a severe look—one that’s undercut almost immediately by the weak push to Eddie’s chest and slight slur of his voice—saying, “No. No, Eddie, not a chance,”

”Buck,” Eddie tries, again, like he has every other flight since floor 11, “I’m not the one with the concussion. Please—,”

“Diaz, Buckley—what’s your status,” Bobby’s voice crackles over the radio.

Eddie takes a frustrated breath before keying his radio, “Over three-quarters down, Cap. I can get us there, but Buck’s in pretty rough shape,”

Buck glares at him weakly through the crack splitting his mask.

Eddie glares back.

“Copy,” Bobby says, strain in his voice evident even through the radio, “IC is still adamant on personnel evac, they’re not permitting new entry unless both of you are compromised, the upper floors are too unstable. But we’ve got the best of the best waiting for the two of you by the eastern stairwell door,”

“Understood,” Eddie says, “Tell Hen and Chim they’ll see us soon,”

”We’d better,” Hen chimes in.

When the channel chirps closed, the only sound Eddie can hear is his own breathing inside his respirator as the two of them look at each other. Eddie gives them to the count of five in his own head before he’s saying, “Come on, Buck, time to go,”

Eddie pulls Buck up roughly, only for his limbs to ragdoll so quickly that Eddie ends up dropping harshly on his knees to be able to throw a hand out to keep Buck’s head from hitting the railing on his way back down.

To his horror, he can see tears spring to Buck’s eyes—ones that he’s sure have nothing to do with the smoke.

“I—I can’t, Eddie, I—,” Buck’s voice trembles, fumbling to grasp at Eddie’s turnout sleeve, “it’s spinning, and it hurts so—hurts so bad I can’t see,”

Concussion symptoms: loss of motor control, dizziness, pain, mood dysregulation.

Something above them crashes and roars.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Eddie tries, dipping down to press the front of his helmet to the top of Buck’s for a frantic moment, “I’ve got you, man, okay? I’ve got you,”

“Okay,” Buck nods against him, shakily, “Okay, you’ve got me,”

It very quickly becomes clear that Buck will not be able to hold himself up enough to simply lean on Eddie like before, so Eddie reconfigures.

Despite the weak protests, he manhandles Buck forward so he’s seated on the top step off of the landing. Eddie positions himself a step down with his back to Buck’s chest, and heaves the increasingly limp form behind him onto his own back.

There’s a muffled groan over his shoulder when he hoists Buck into a better position after standing, his own body screaming in response. But stand he does, and step by step, flight by flight, they move.

Almost like a mantra or a prayer, Eddie finds himself immediately falling back into the teeth-gritting promises of I’ve got you I’ve got you I’ll get us there I’ve got you all the way to the ground floor—and they’re promises he intends to keep.

[now posted on ao3!]

[forests-creatures]

It would be amazing if there were mobility aids specifically made to appear animalistic, but still function as mobility aids. For example knee and ankle braces that double as digitigrade legs. It likely would not be possible, but I would buy them so quickly if they existed.

[grimsonandclover]

first prev

Sympathy is a knife.2

or; Wake up, I'm sorry.

Stanford!Tashi x tennis player!reader

Song of the post 'when you sleep - my bloody valentine'

Tashi Duncan visits you at the hospital. It could have been her.

SFW

2.4k words

you know the drill. injury, medical shit to the best of my ability which isnt a lot, tashi duncan being kinda gay??? homosexuality? in front of my salad? if you squint, reader being emo but like come on, hospitals, nurses, knee splints, DRUGS (the medical kind and morphine), reader is generally unwell but she also just came out of surgery, suicidal thoughts, more mentions of vicera, its the hospital episode (again) (like beach episodes but less horny and sexy and fanservicey more painful and ugly and intimate so nothing like a beach episode), enemies to idk what this is! I'm a native english speaker but i play fast and hard with the rules of the language (meaning i fuck up tenses a lot and don't catch it all in editing, but i know they're there so i think that makes it better), minimal use of Y/N but there are some points where I had to.

The steady rhythm of the heart rate monitor was the only indication that you were alive.

Tubes in your arm. Tubes in your throat. Hues of purple and yellow peaked from under the immobilizer brace and pins covering your leg and drainage tubes, matching with the same shades of color under your eyes.

Despite it all, she couldn't help but think you looked peaceful. You looked dead. The nurse said you were still knocked out from surgery and would be for a while. Tashi wondered if you were dreaming.

Tashi wondered if you always looked so lifeless in your sleep.

Her sepia eyes couldn't move from that leg. The bandaging, the knowing what's right under. She saw your soul, and then she saw your bones and blood. Tashi had cried in her mother's arms when it had fully hit her.

Tashi Duncan won the match. Your injury meant your forfeit. It didn't taste as sweet at she wanted, more bitter and even vexatious. She wanted to win through skill, not... this. It almost felt like you did this on purpose. You pitied her.

No, she knew that wasn't it. It was easier to blame you than accept the fate of an athlete. These things just... happen, sometimes. It could've been her, instead. But it wasn't. It was your bones that reached for the sunlight filtering down on the court amongst the blooming crimson, not hers. Tashi was here, standing before your resting form, with two perfectly functional knees.

When the nurse came and told her it was time to leave, and Tashi gathered her things from the small armchair in the corner of the room where she watched you from, she felt... strange. Changed.

The fan of your eyelashes on the tops of your cheeks, your pallor, the halo of hair framing your face and resting head. Those tubes. The IV. The heart rate monitor. The surgical steel pins securing your knee in place. Her eyes land on the small tattoo on your inner wrist, one she'd never noticed before. Tashi recognized them as your father's initials.

There was the girl she hated, softly asleep despite her surroundings. You almost looked beautiful, and then she got this feeling in her chest, and it startled her.

She pitied you.

Waking up was miserable. Your throat was dry like never before, the lights hurt your eyes worse than any hangover you've experienced, and the feeling of the scratchy hospital gown made you want to claw your skin off. You could hear your heart rate monitor, and in that moment you wished it would just flatline.

The sob that broke out, despite how dry you felt, when you saw the state of your knee, was ugly. Your nurse, Nurse Amanda, was a useless piece of shit. You had major respect for healthcare workers and everything that they have to go through on a daily basis, but Amanda could go fuck herself to hell. She's the one that had asked you for an autograph when you requested your brother's music to be played.

"Oh, your knee." She'd say casually while writing things down on a chart as disgusting, fat, blobs of salt ran down your face and chin and you tried to remember how to breathe properly. "Some physio and you'll be right back on the court or in the club. I'm sure."

"How," hiccup, "How much physio?" You try to wipe the tears, but more keep coming. It's like your eyes were sucking any moisture from your mouth and lips just to supply a fresh batch of them. Wasn't Amanda supposed to bring you water?

Fucking Amanda looks down at her chart, tapping a pen to her chin. You were on drugs, but no amount of them could completely rid the feeling of your knee and it freaked you out. Every time the corner of your eye caught on the metal pins that poked from it, you felt a shiver run through you. "About a year, possibly more, possibly less. It was a brutal break."

She covered her mouth sheepishly like she just told you the secret ingredient in a family recipe. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that."

No, she shouldn't have. It just makes you stare at your fucked leg even harder. It just makes the tears fall even more. The collar of your hospital gown, one a powder blue, now soaked a darker cornflower.

When Tashi returns, you've calmed down considerably-- mostly thanks to the increased dosage of morphine. It's been two days since, and it's actually hard to remember anything that happened that day. Or the day before, or when you first woke up this morning. God bless morphine.

Though you can't tell, Tashi hasn't changed from what she wore when she visited you yesterday. Nobody even told you that she came earlier, and she preferred it that way. She didn't know why she came back, or why her heart fluttered when the nurse told her that you'd woken up.

Tashi stood still at the door, and you lay exactly where you would stay for the foreseeable future on that damn hospital bed staring back at her. She noticed how you had such pained eyes. The harsh hospital light cast shadows from your browbones to your cheeks, draining color from your pupils. How'd she never seen it before? Words dried in her chest like withered flowers before they got the chance to bloom, and she could feel them sit there. Tashi honestly had no clue what she wanted to say. She could say "I'm sorry" or "Are you okay?" but those were useless words. She didn't like useless things.

When you spoke, and you spoke first after a long stretch of awkward silence and staring, your voice was clearer than it was earlier-- because Fucking Amanda finally remembered you might need hydrating after sobbing for three hours straight and major surgery. Despite that, you still spoke low and broken.

"What are you doing in New York?" She's meant to be back in France.

A pull between her eyebrows, like an invisible string being yanked. "What?"

You look aside at the circles of cleared dust. She heard you, you weren't that quiet.

"Fuck you." She slowly shakes her head. What she means is fuck you for questioning her, because she doesn't have a good answer. You can read between the lines.

You laugh at the suddenness of it, and then your head spins a little more. In a nice way, even though you're meant to be scared of her. "It's a reasonable question. You're meant to be playing against..."

"La Lourie."

"Right. Her. So, what are you doing in New York?" What are you doing here.

Tashi doesn't move from the door, arms crossed as her fingers pick at a loose string of her zip-up hoodie. She doesn't answer for a bit, eyes moving down to a spot on the floor. "I pulled out."

Your breath halts, looking up at her when her words pierce you like an arrow. You don't say anything, because really, you can't. What is there to say?

She finally steps in, leaning against the wall next to the door. An easy way out, and escape hatch. Tashi swallows thickly as the thread on the hoodie is pulled more and more. "I couldn't, uh," she blinks hard, shaking her head, "I couldn't go back out there. Not after that."

What an un-Tashi-like thing to say. She could've been in your place right now and she'd still get up and hobble to the courts, demanding someone play her. Yet, somehow, you ruined it for her. At least for now. She was meant to hate you.

"Your blood is... like, they cleaned it, but I swear I can still see it there. I had to leave."

"It's the French Open, Tashi--"

"And I'll win it next year. But, fuck, I can't play it now." she shakes her head with finality. "I tried, I went on the practice court but I could only picture you on the floor like that, crying and bloody and calling for your dad--"

Your eyes widen and your head snaps up to her. "What?"

The medical team rush from their tent onto the court, surrounding you almost the minute you crash and fall. You can't hear the scared murmurs of the croud, or the shaking breath of your opponent, or your own sobs. Just the blood rushing to your ears and out your knee.

Everyone saw how you clung to your leg, rocking back and forth on the clay. There's someone asking if you can move, someone calling for a stretcher. You just rock and cry.

"D-daddy," you whimper, eyes on the clear blue sky and swirling clouds as your vision blurs and doubles. "Dad, daddy where are you? I want my dad, I need my dad,"

The pain got so bad you stopped feeling it.

Those in the crowd who knew about your dad gasped. Amber stood frozen, watching, not knowing what the hell there was to do. Tashi couldn't feel her legs and her stomach turned. She ran off the court into the player's tunnel, spilling out into the first trashcan she could find. When they finally got you onto the stretcher and off the court, you'd passed out.

Naturally, it was all over the news. Players get injured all the time, but it wasn't often that players like you crashed and burned so brutally. News sites discussed and speculated in detail about the match, everything before, and everything after. TMZ reached out to Amber, who declined to give them any information, and even Tashi got called by a few publishers.

Amber came to your room an hour after Tashi left, rushing to your bedside as bombarding you with questions.

"Oh, fuck," She mumbled, looking over at the mess you were in. "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry I didn't-- couldn't come sooner. I- I don't," words failed her. Sure, Amber was hard on you, and maybe she considered leaving your career in the hands of someone more emotionally capable very often, but she did care for you. Like a sick, twisted mother-daughter relationship despite the fact she was only a couple years older.

You could tell how hard she tried to not look at your leg, to keep her eyes focused on your top half. You could almost hear the anxiety going on inside that head of hers. The job insecurity must be wild. Where'd she get her check now?

Patrick was next. He almost threw up from a mix of the jet lag and seeing you. "Jesus fuck, Y/N."

He couldn't walk all the way in at first, staying by the door like Tashi had earlier. It was so much. "I got on a plane the second I could. God, this is sick."

It took him a while to come in and not feel faint, sitting by your bedside and not letting his eyes zero in on The Knee. Patrick wasn't a religious man, not by far, but he felt like praying for you.

Your mother was last. Nothing much to note there, it was a silent visit only interrupted by a call she 'had to take'. She didn't return. Seline sent a card which now lies facedown and unopened on the bedside table.

A hand on her shoulder startles Tashi from her vacant staring at her knee, a soft "We're here, Tash." from the driver's seat telling her they're home. It's been a week, now, since your fall. Looking up at the passenger's seat mirror, Tashi can see soft circles darkening under bloodshot eyes, a testament to the night terrors she's been greeted with every time she closes her eyes.

She was meant to move out ages ago from her childhood home but never quite got there. Art said it was because she was secretly sentimental, but Tashi just assumed it was cause her bed only felt right in that room. Nothing felt right, now.

Tashi helps her mother carry in the groceries, Nat and Renee bickering at the table about one thing or the other instead of helping. The older sister doesn't really hear, the words just pass through her as one bag, then another is set on the counters. She's asked to pick a side, the answer is a dismissive hand wave, their mother tells the twins to leave Tashi to breathe.

They've been tiptoeing around her all week but she's too zoned out to bother to tell them to stop. The truth is, Tashi doesn't feel like Tashi. She feels replaced, swapped out. A part of her kicks and screams at her for withdrawing from the Open, and everyone around her can tell.

Every time she sees her knees, she thinks about how it could've been her on the ground screaming, crying out for her mom or dad. Tennis was her fucking lifeline, thinking of it being ripped away like that in a blink of an eye... something in her head throbs and Tashi flops back onto her bed, staring at her blank ceiling.

She feels like she's swimming through life in a pool of shock. Nothing sounds full, everything feels slightly blurry against her skin. Art keeps calling and texting, asking if she's alright, if he should come over. She dismisses him every time. Her mother knows she needs her space to process everything, but now it feels like everything is giving her space. Too much space. She's suffocating.

Tashi forgot to ask for your number. She really wants to talk to you, despite it all. God, she can't even remember why she decided she hated you. Was there a reason at all? Did she hate you cause she felt like she had to, because everyone else did? It was like with Britney or Amy, watching them go through shit and instead of sympathizing, criticizing. Is that what Tashi was doing? Wasn't she better than that? Losing to you hurt, that was for sure, and she didn't exactly respect the DUI, but everything else... why did it matter so much to her?

All the shit-talking, all the tabloids about you she read, all the gossip she'd listen to intently from other players. It made her sick to think about, because now, and only now, she saw you as the person you were. It only took you losing it all for her to see.

Didn't her mother raise her better than that?

She grabs a pillow, pulling it over her face to block out the world. Downstairs she can hear the argument between Nat and Renee heat up, her father in the next room on a work call, her mother making fresh juice in the kitchen. The neighbor's dog, Lucky, is barking outside. Someone's starting a car. Art's new text buzzes her phone.

Tashi thinks about how the whole world moves on while you're stuck in that bed, and how it could have been her.

first prev

[delopsia]

for what it's worth | Rhett Abbott x Reader

Word Count: 6,600 Cross Posted on AO3 Warnings & Notes: 18+, AFAB!Reader, panic attacks, riding, unprotected sex, depictions of injuries, comfort, overstimulation, unfamiliar places. Inspired by the Stephen Wilson Jr. Song Brief Summary: Maybe he isn't ready to leave Wabang. Not right now. 

Boots stumble. Thumping across the floor. Spurs chime with every backward step. Heaving through an open mouth. Air whistling in his throat. The wall jumps forward, knocking into his back. Eyelashes flutter. His left knee buckles, balance teetering like a seesaw. His hand is trying to fly out to catch himself, but it's secured to his chest, and he can't stop his shoulder from knocking into the corner instead. 

And his face is warm. 

Why is his face warm?

"Rhett." 

He doesn't realize that his ears are ringing until it stops. Crystal clear. Like he's just pulled his head above water for the first time in hours. 

Soft hands squish against his cheeks, a thumb swiping across the delicate flesh beneath his eye. And he knows that he never shut them, not for longer than a second or two, so why did it take this long for him to see you standing in front of him? 

"Rhett," repeating yourself, the corners of your mouth turn downward with a frown. "Are you alright?" 

Air catches in his throat, breaking around fragments of words that never form, his face whiter than the peeling paint behind his head. Delicate, you tilt his head to meet your gaze. That bitten, bleeding bottom lip begins to wobble.

But he's not falling apart. 

There's still a singular thread holding him together at the seams, and you're not even sure when he began unraveling to begin with. Was it when the crowd roared with horror after he fell? The empty stadium seats? Or is it something he's yet to tell you about? 

One of your hands drifts to the back of his neck, all five fingers gently pressing to the soft skin there. And that's all it takes to have him collapsing into you. 

Scruffy face burying into the crook of your neck. Silent as a mouse, as if he's afraid of what may come out of him if he allows himself to make the slightest noise. His arm knocks into your chest, held there by a flimsy sling, and it's all you can do to avoid bumping it as you pull him in by the waist. 

He melts like sugar in the pouring rain, muscles unwinding into putty, that weary arm of his curling around you the best that it can. You can't feel the tears fall but you're well aware of how they wet the hem of your shirt, chased by a shudder that you can almost feel ripple down his spine. 

"Rhett?" Saying his name again is beginning to feel redundant, but it's the only thing you can think of. 

His head shakes back and forth, unruly hair tickling your ear. Slow, the hand resting against his back glides up, smoothing between his shoulder blades. The left one has only just begun to swell, the muscle there still traumatized from suffering through a dislocation. Warm breath puffs against your collar, chased by a sniffle.

A hand presses against the small of your back. Jerks away as quickly as it got there. 

"Is your wrist hurting again?" Whispering. Anything louder might set him off again. 

"Never stopped," his voice is hoarse, so barely there that it cracks at the end. 

You can already see his brace, the off-white material poking out of an unzipped duffel bag. Restricting the mobility of his only functioning arm isn't exactly ideal, but maybe it'll only be for a night or two. A little extra time to let that old strain temporarily sort itself out before it rears its head again in the next month or two. 

"Don't—don't let go of me," his arm cinches you in before you've even moved an inch. "Please."

"I'm not going anywhere," speaking gently, your fingertips find the knobs of his spine, pressing into the grooves of them. "I promise."

But he doesn't seem so sure about that, eyes darting between you and the bag, haphazardly discarded on top of the spare bed. It's only a foot or two away, but the squeeze of Rhett's arm suggests he might not let you move an inch. 

"'m gonna look a little funny with somethin' on both arms, don't ya think?" He mumbles. A little too easily, his hand slides out from behind you, falling to dangle at his side. Limp. 

Your fingers blindly brush against his brace, haphazardly lifting it by the velcro strap. This old thing has seen better days, dirt staining the edges and seams frayed from the regular abuse of being worn on a cattle ranch. But it still works, and Rhett wouldn't be an Abbott if he didn't insist on reusing it 'till it breaks. 

"I'd rather you look a little funny than you get hurt any worse," and if not for his own benefit, then for the sake of your heart. It's stopped enough times for one day. 

You don't notice the swelling in his wrist until after he's lifted it, the dull bedside lamp illuminating the raised skin, so rounded and thick that you can no longer see the bony joint at all. It's a wonder you don't have to loosen the strap as you slide the old thing into place.

His hand twists, rolling back and forth, always has to be inspecting your handiwork, "think I look a lil dumb."

"No, you looked dumb that time you tried to wear a camouflage shirt with your dress pants," and even then, you're not sure if you'd classify it as anything other than funny—the things he does to avoid his momma's attempts at taking him to church. 

Those pretty blue eyes roll, the corner of his lip wobbling with a smile. 

It's hard to keep standing here when there's an open bed calling your names. Big, fluffy, and half the damn reason you spent the extra fifty for this specific room. The mattress doesn't so much as squeak under your combined weights, completely and utterly silent, unlike the talkative ones in Wabang's only hotel. 

"Do y' know what town we're in?" Rhett's finding his way to you before you've even settled, his only usable arm draping over your side. 

"I didn't think to look," pausing as your head hits the pillow; there's way too much stuffing in this thing, cranking your neck uncomfortably high. "I can't imagine we've gotten far, though." 

Without getting up to grab your phone off the dresser, your best guess is that you've only made it thirty minutes away from Wabang. Maybe even thirty-five. If Rhett's injuries would have allowed it, then you'd likely still be on the road, driving until the days events properly caught up with him. 

His brows knit together, a thought visibly flickering through his mind. You can hardly stop your hand from wandering up to his face, fingers smoothing across the dirt that mottles his cheek. A shower might do him good once his jaw quits shaking like it is. 

"Y' think..." Rhett's mouth opens. Closes. Then opens again. Gaping like a fish out of water. "Never mind."

Your index finger trails across the unshaven scruff clinging to his cheek, still short enough to feel like sandpaper. "You can say it." 

"Do y' think they'll miss me?" There's that glassiness to his eyes again, remaining even as he tries to blink it away. "My folks, I mean." 

Words gather in your throat, pushing and shoving to be the first to land on your tongue, but not a single one does. Slow, your head nods, and it's just enough movement to rattle a few out of the traffic jam. "I'm sure they will," your voice is barely there, a ghost of what it was a moment ago. "Is that what's bothering you?" 

His shoulder rises with a shrug. Almost instantly, his eyes are scrunching shut, hissing through his teeth. "Kinda."

There are things you should be saying, arranging sentences to comfort him, but you haven't got a single thing to start with. What do you even tell him that his momma is probably sitting in the kitchen and wondering why he hasn't come home yet? That Amy is going to be asking where her only Uncle is? 

The mattress dips as he squirms closer, fitting himself into the space beneath your chin. His nose bumps into the side of your neck, so close that you can smell the faint odor of sweat, still clinging to him from his ride. And it should be enough to stop you from squishing your cheek against the top of his head, but for reasons unbeknownst to you, it's not. 

"'s just..." his voice rumbles through your body like thunder, the beginnings of a thought that he doesn't know how to finish. 

Your eyes dart to the window, peering out the open blinds. Wabang is far too small to house a single chain restaurant, never mind enough to create a neon array of colors along the street. Didn't have these new-fangled flashing crosswalks or the sharp screech of a sportscar tearing down the midnight streets. Try as you might, you don't think you can hear the rumble of a single farm truck. 

"Too much at once?" Finishing his sentence after a second. Now that you give it some thought, he's never spent more than a week away from home before.

The hair atop his head tickles your neck as he nods. You're starting to think that the feeling might be mutual.  This whole idea sounded wonderful at first; running away together, never to be seen again, but your daydreams never depicted the unease that rests in your bones. 

At least this mattress is somewhat familiar. Softer than what you've grown used to, but a bed is a bed. The air conditioner doesn't squeal like a wounded animal when it kicks on, not even a distant thumping of old country music from the bar next door. Maybe that's what makes it so easy for the silence to drag your eyelids to a close, the edges of your consciousness slipping away. 

A horn blares outside. Poorly muffled voices shout. 

"We should've stayed in town for the night," you mutter; whatever heaviness was keeping your eyes shut has entirely dissipated. 

Why do you dislike Wabang, anyhow? Is it the ack of your favorite fast food chains? The memories that haunt every corner? The overwhelming blanket of silence that sprawls across town once night falls? Whatever the reason was, it's not coming to you. 

Rhett's lips find your collar, lingering for a moment before drawing away to press a second one nearby. "We should've?" 

"At least it's quiet in Wabang," your fingers slide into his hair, tangling in the long strands resting at his nape, the ones he keeps saying he'll trim. 

Another kiss presses into the corner of your jaw. Another right next to it, and another, inching across your cheek, kiss by kiss. "I can think of a few distractions if that's what you're implyin'," you can hear the smile in his voice, getting closer and closer to his final destination by the second.

His arm shifts in its sling, hand thumping against his chest in what was supposed to be an attempt at reaching out to you. He doesn't say anything, too focused on meeting the corner of your lip, and then—

Rhett's bitten lips meet yours for the first time this hour, hardly enough pressure to count as one to start with. 

"For god's sake," he grumbles against your mouth, "can't do a damn thing like this."

You draw back, peeking at his face. That nose of his is wrinkled, the slightest bit irritated with his situation. "Is there something you're wanting, cowboy?" Teasing. 

"Bet ya can't guess," he winks, maybe the slightest bit cocky, despite his lack of functioning arms. 

Sitting up isn't the easiest thing, elbow uncomfortably digging into the mattress, and it's all you can do to keep from accidentally bumping into any of his injuries. The bruising along his collarbone and the swelling in his shoulder blade, still agitated from that unceremonious dislocation. But Rhett doesn't seem to be thinking about any of that right now, too focused on leaning up to meet your mouth. Your hand drifts to his jaw, tilting him down the slightest bit. 

Finally, those thin lips find yours, solid and there and unbroken by an uncomfortable angle. He tastes like that goddamn Rainier beer he loves so much, chased by the obscene notes of dirt and sweat that ought to make you gag and point him to the travel-sized mouthwash sitting on the sink. 

But Rhett's humming like he's just come home from a long day at work, lips softening, melting into the delicate dance of yours, and you suppose that today...today he gets a pass. That desperately needed shower isn't so urgent anymore. His nose bumps into yours, both tilting in the same direction as gravity begins to drag your body down. 

Your leg swings out, clumsily straddling his hips as he twists onto his back, only breaking apart to twist your head to the other side. His fingers lazily trace their way to your spine, ambling up it until he can comfortably splay his palm against the middle of your back, pressing just enough to inch you closer. Chest to chest, so close that you think you can feel his heart beating away in his chest, wild and alive. 

A siren screeches to life outside the window. So shrill that you jolt, teeth clacking together. 

You could have sworn that ambulances were quieter than that. Or maybe that's just a Wabang thing. It's not like that town has a whole lot of people there to warn. 

"Think 'm startin' to see your point," Rhett's lips bump into yours as he speaks, thumb drawing circles into your back. His body jerks upward, awkwardly bumping into your ass before falling back against the bed. "Fuckin'—ow!"

"There something you're wanting, cowboy?" Saying it as if you don't have a clue what he wants, feigning blissful ignorance. 

"Yeah," huffing, dramatic as can be, "somethin' I can't have."

Your hand meanders down his chest, nails catching on the pearl-snap buttons of his flannel. The top two burst open, falling apart to reveal the beginnings of a milky white chest. "What makes ya think you can't have it?" 

He lifts his wrist, brace on full display. "My arms don't work like they used to." 

Before you can think twice, your eyes roll. "Well, mine do." And before he can say another word, you're reaching for the end of your shirt, tugging it up and over your head.

Rhett's eyes flutter, pearly white teeth sinking into his bottom lip. The cat must have gotten his tongue because, all of a sudden, he doesn't have a damn thing to say. Completely and utterly silent as you rake your finger through his remaining buttons, fingertip tracing against his belly the whole way down. 

"Amelia County Bull Riding Champion," you muse, nail tapping against the metal of his buckle, so new that it doesn't have so much as a scratch on it. It's almost hard to believe that he's spent the past nine years chasing this one-of-a-kind trophy and its equally shiny title. Sure wonder how long it'll be before he's chasing a second one. 

"'n my reward is two fucked arms," Rhett chuckles, the rough material of his brace skirting up your naked side, "they could've at least refunded me the entry fees." 

Something thunks behind you. Chased by a second thing. And you think those might be his boots hitting the floor. 

"At least you didn't get charged for letting the paramedic check on your shoulder," pinching the buckle open, you reach for his button. 

If he were in any better shape, maybe you would have time for the theatrics of kissing down his belly and getting him worked up before you start tugging on his zipper. But he's down to half a functioning hand, beaten and abused from three rides in one night, and you're not sure if he'll even be awake if you stretch things out that far. Even clambering off of him feels like a dangerous task, as if he could possibly fall asleep in the span of three seconds. 

One little tug is all it takes for Rhett to lift his hips. "Congrats on winnin'," his voice strained with the effort of keeping himself up. "Here's a bill that'll take all your prize money 'n then some."

The hem of his jeans catches on his boxers, and it wasn't your intent to take them down all in one go, but you're not making any effort to stop it, either. Haphazardly pulling the dirt-stained fabric past the thick fat of his thighs and down his ankles, tossing it to the side. 

You suppose this means you'll be following suit. 

"Shit," Rhett's knees knock into each other, squeezing close, "'s cold in here."

"We'll find a way to warm you up," hooking your thumbs beneath your waistband, dragging your pants and underwear down your legs, discarding them somewhere near Rhett's. 

A spring chirps as his feet dig into the mattress, pushing himself up against the headboard. Maybe this bed isn't so perfect after all. "Can't imagine what y've got in mind," he grunts, head thunking against the smooth wood. 

You don't need a response to that. Not when you can lift your leg and swing yourself back into his lap, arms lazily looping around his shoulders. Sparkles dance behind his eyes, like the glittering night sky, doesn't need to say a damn thing. His arm winds around your waist again, the other one jerking against his chest, held back by the sling.

There isn't much strength to be found there, but his hand flattens against your naked back, and that's all you need to find yourself leaning forward. Half-parted lips bump into one another, slow and steady, not quite willing to risk another clash of teeth.It's so much easier here, situated in the comfortable warmth of his lap, where you can curl your hands around his scruffy cheeks and feel them squish beneath your palms. 

You're just tired enough to let yourself believe that you're floating. High above the clouds, lost somewhere between Neptune and bliss, twisting and turning, suspended in the depths of eternity. Not a damn thing separating you aside from this flimsy sling and his unbuttoned flannel. 

Delicate, your hips roll back, the soft swell of your inner thigh brushing against his cock, half hard and resting against his belly. It's nothing but a haphazard touch, and yet he sucks in a breath as if it's something so much more than that.

"Keep doin' that," he murmurs, the tips of your noses colliding. And you do. 

Hell, you were never planning to stop. A little too eager to draw your body up against his, feeling the pressure of him against your inner thigh, heat rushing up your belly and into your cheeks. He's already beginning to drip, leaving behind a shimmering wetness on your skin. But then he's shifting a little bit to the left, and his length is pressed right against your cunt, and it's too late to stop the noise that draws out of your throat, dancing in tandem with Rhett's. 

You need...you need..."Did you—"

"In my back pocket," he's interrupting you before the question has even left your mouth. 

Why you ever thought it would be in a different place, you're not sure. So used to this routine that you don't need to look as your hand blindly pats around the material of his jeans. The round outline of his Zyn can tells all you need to know; those little lube packets are always tucked right next to it.

"I thought you were quitting this stuff," commenting as you fumble with the plastic; there's a notch on it for easy tearing, but you can never seem to find it. 

All of a sudden, the packets are gone entirely. Plucked from your hand, the culprit lifting the edge of one to his lips. "I did."

You're not sure you follow. That's definitely the can. You'd know that old hunk of plastic anywhere. "So why do you have the container?"

"Shake it." And he sounds so serious about it that you can't help but do what he says, fishing it out and haphazardly waving the plastic container back and forth. Something hard rattles around inside, a couple of somethings, at that. 

"Are those rocks?" Shaking it again. Yeah, those sound like rocks. 

"Found 'em on the ranch," Rhett pauses, biting the corner, pulling as hard as his hand will allow. Clear fluid is already spilling out the top, glistening on his fingertips before he can even begin to hand it back to you. "They're made of some weird black powder that would crumble in my pocket."

The lube is still warm from where it's been resting against the curve of his ass all afternoon, running down your fingers and dripping onto his flannel as you reach between your bodies. This stuff always makes a damn mess, but it's so hard to worry about stains when Rhett's sucking in a gasp, hips jolting, all from the way your hand wraps around him. 

Loose. Just feeling the weight of him in your grasp. How he twitches when your index finger catches on his mushroom tip, hardening so fast that you can feel it. The way he grows a little wider, longer too, until he's once again the same menacing size you've come to know and love. One little pack of this stuff isn't enough to coat him, running down his length before you can spread it, but he's already tearing open a second. Drops of it scatter like rain, hitting your cheek and landing on the once clean sheets. 

You've never been so thankful to have two beds. 

"'m sorry," kissing at a wet spot next to your nose, "was tryin' t' help." 

The remaining lube pours directly onto your palm, so much of it at once that it begins to squelch, loud and bouncing off the corners of this tiny little room. Any more, and you reckon it might travel to the neighboring rooms. At least out here, you don't have to worry about a distant acquaintance of the Abbott family overhearing and running their mouth to half the congregation come Sunday. 

"Need any more?" Rhett shakes a third and fourth pack as if you could have forgotten how many he's carrying. 

But you're in no particular mood to wait. Not when you can feel him throbbing in your grasp, desperate and leaking and ready for you. "That's plenty," any more, and you two may be swimming in it. 

 "Gon' be limpin' in the mornin'." Whatever sincerity he has is lost to the twitching of his mouth, rising up into a grin. Always has gotten a kick out of watching you waddle after it's all said and done.

"Good," winking, "It'll keep us in bed longer." 

Those pretty blue eyes roll back into his head, as far as they'll go. Giggles sputter out of you, and that's all it takes to have them rumbling out of him, too. Foreheads knocking together, noses clashing once more, lips brushing in what might be a kiss. 

"a'ight," he's speaking quietly, as if this air is too fragile for anything more than a whisper, "if that's what ya want." 

You don't need any further encouragement, knees digging into the bed as you lift yourself up, guiding him between your legs. His tip slips through your folds, a little spark of heat jumping up your spine, and you really shouldn't stop to rub him against your clit, but you can't help yourself. Selfishly circling him around the little bundle of nerves, such a simple thing that has you growing just a little wetter.

An involuntary twitch in your wrist has him sliding back, nudging right where you've been craving him. 

"Shit," gasping, your head tilts back, the ceiling blurring as you finally begin to sink down on him. A soft pressure that grows with every passing second chased by a sharp, stinging reminder of why you should have listened when Rhett tried to offer you more lube to open yourself up with.

But it's hard to focus on when he's leaning forward, the stubble on his jaw scratching as his mouth finds its way to your neck. Leaving behind a kiss so wet that you can hear it, swiftly chased by another and another and another. Your hand slips away from his length, too eager to wind your arms around his shoulders once more.

His tip slips into you without any more fuss, and you think there might be an ache from being stretched so wide, but you don't have the capacity to pay attention to it. It's too early in the night to be drowning in the lap of a wild-eyed cowboy, and yet here you are. The only two people in the world, if only for a few short minutes.

"You're sure y' don't need more?" Rhett's tilting his head up, chin brushing against yours. 

"I'm sure," your voice is weaker than it was a minute ago. One of the many things you've left behind in Wabang, you suppose. 

Oh, or maybe you do need it. Hands scurrying, nails biting into the thick muscle of his back. He never seems that big until he's between your legs, thick cock splitting you uncomfortably wide, just enough to send your cunt into a frenzy of spasms. 

"Shit," Rhett's eyelashes flutter like the wings of butterflies, "'s fuckin'..." But he can't finish his sentence, cut short by a stifled grunt.

"You can feel that?" Your tongue feels loose in your mouth, heavy, and difficult to control. 

All he can do is nod his head, breathing heavily through parted lips. "Uhuh."

His hand slips away from your back. Leaves a jarring coldness in its wake as it darts between your chests and up to his sling, pinching the plastic clasp until it comes loose. But his left arm falls from its mesh prison and lands limp against his belly, so unceremoniously that you nearly freeze. 

"Are you sure that you should be...?" There's no point in finishing your thought. Not when he's already trying to move, the corner of his eye scrunching as he slowly lifts it. 

"'m just holdin' ya," carefully winding his arms around you. Loose, but they're there, strong and secure as they've always been.

Tires squeal somewhere on the street. So jarring that you hardly notice the way your ass comes flush with his lap, perfectly seated on top of him. Nothing left to take. There's still an ache between your legs, but even that cannot take away from how full you are of him. Stretched to your very limit. Couldn't hope to take another inch of him, even if you tried. 

One of your hands rises to tangle in his hair, pulling just hard enough to draw his head back. Lips melting together in some kind of breathy dance that shouldn't even count as a kiss. It would have lasted longer if you had the patience, but you don't, already beginning to lift yourself. Only by an inch or two before falling back into his lap. 

Lube squelches, sickeningly loud. 

A selfish part of you hopes that every person in this city can hear it. Spitefully rising a little faster now. Eyes almost crossing as he rubs against the sensitive nerves along your walls, and you can feel yourself getting wetter around him. 

"Fuck," Rhett's moaning against your mouth, "y' feel so good wrapped 'round me." 

You'd ought to be talking too, but you can't find a damn word in your head. Literacy be damned, all you can think of is the way his fat cock sinks back into your throbbing cunt, so big that he can't help but massage against all those little sweet spots. Works a soft noise out of your throat, then another, and you don't think you can stop them from spilling off your tongue. 

"Promise I won't..." Rhett's hips jerk up off the bed, meeting you midway with a little 'smack.' Then, trying again. "Promise I won't make ya ride me all weekend." 

As if you've ever complained about riding a cowboy. 

"What?" Searching for words. Ones that don't contain expletives or variations of his name. "Have plans to break in the table by the window?" 

A puppy caught stealing food has been less obvious. Big blue eyes and swollen, parted lips, staring up at you as if he can't believe you could foil his plan. Has the audacity to make that dumb, whimpering noise; all he needs are the floppy ears and the wagging tail. 

Your nails rake against his scalp, swallowing up his raspy cry with your own. In the back of your mind, you're vaguely aware that you've got your lubed hand in his hair, and that's not going to dry prettily. Especially not with the thin sheen of sweat clinging to his skin, shimmering in the golden glow of the bedside lamp, little beads of it collecting on his forehead. 

His hips tilt back, arms pulling you the slightest bit forward and—

oh.

"Rhett," you whine, pitchy and drawing out the vowel. Little sparks of fire tingle up your spine, spasming so harshly around him that your body nearly stalls entirely. Fuck, and his cock head is kissing your g-spot head-on, nailing it with every stroke, sending a galaxy of stars glittering behind your vision. 

"'m close, " Rhett's sputtering, his head shaking back and forth as if he can somehow ward it off, "darlin' 'm gonna..." 

There's an ache in your thighs that wasn't there before, a wildfire burning deep in the muscle, the flames licking up your spine and into your lower belly. A heated coil winds tighter, but you can't stop moving. Chasing that broken rhythm, every fall of your hips punctuated by the lewd clap of skin against skin. 

"Cum," it's the weakest order you've ever given in your life, pulling on the ends of his hair, desperate to hold on to something. "Cum for me, Rhett."

He's so close that you can hear the way the air catches in his throat as his eyes roll back. The arms around you shiver as he cums in you with a cry. Body jerking up into yours, and you can feel the way his cock twitches, painting your poor cunt with white, absolutely powerless to do anything but give it to you.

And your thighs are screaming for you to slow down, ache burning all the way down into your knees, but you just can't help yourself, too wrapped up in this dizzying up and down. Panting against his lips, lost in the sickly loud squelch of cum and lube. 

"Fuck," grunting, Rhett's forehead knocks against yours, keening high in his throat, "fuck, fuck, fuck, you're still—"

He doesn't get to finish that, cut short by another whine. Sensitive. So, so sensitive. His hand squirms between your bellies, arm caught in a horribly awkward angle, a shivering thumb pressing against your clit. 

Your whole body jerks, that fire roaring up into your face. "Hang on for me," leaning back onto your haunches just far enough for you to catch a breath of air that isn't his. "You can do it." 

But his head is shaking like he doesn't think he can. Thumb spiraling against your clit like he's getting paid to do it, a wateriness building behind those big blue eyes. "Please cum," babbling, his thighs quaking beneath you, "please, please, please."

Maybe it's his thumb on your clit, or the dizzying massage of his cock against your g-spot, or maybe it's the babbling, but that coil in your belly is winding tighter and tighter. Rhythm crumbling into a jerky, impossible-to-control pace, skin prickling. And someone is shouting in the hallway, but you can't hear it.

Not when your ears are ringing from the smack of Rhett's thighs against your ass and his pitchy voice, chanting your name like it's the only thing he knows. Sweat and tears rolling down flushed cheeks, his shivering arm weakly cinching you into him. 

His mouth clashes with yours, moaning into your mouth, and it's as if you've been thrust into heaven. Head spinning as your orgasm washes over you, cumming around his softening cock without a sound. Or maybe you are making noise, vaguely aware of the melody of whimpers tumbling off your tongue, a shiver rolling up your spine like an ocean wave.

Rhett's thumb is still going, working in loose circles that seem to push you higher and higher into the clouds, and you think you're about to float right on out to space. Can feel yourself falling to the side, weightless for the briefest moment, before a cloud rises to break your fall. Soft and warm and squishy, your very own bed, all the way up in the sky.

A warm wind tickles your nose. 

Or maybe that's the breath of a cowboy. Doe-eyed, lips wobbling with a lazy grin, gazing back at you. The scruff of his facial hair tickles your skin as your hand curls around the side of his jaw, feeling the hard bone and soft fat hidden there. You're not entirely sure when you landed on your side or when he wrapped you up in his weary arms, but you're here, and he's so, so warm.

Another voice shouts from the hallway. Masking the squeal of the bed springs as you squirm closer. Rhett's head tilts, nose bumping into yours. A third shout appears, and you're fairly certain that it's a whole group, but you can't pay them any mind. Too lost in the eyes of this dumb cowboy, who's almost too eager and willing to throw everything away and go to the ends of the earth for you.

Your mind jumps back to the corner of the room. The hazy recollection of turning around to see him backing into the wall, face whiter than the paint, floundering like a fish out of water. You'd known something was off when he quit talking mid-drive, but that was...

Maybe he isn't ready to leave Wabang. Not right now, at least. Not when he's never spent more than a week away from his folks and has only ever known that tiny, minuscule town. Why did you never think of that? 

Frankly, you're one screaming sports car away from abandoning the idea of leaving, too. At least the nights there were quiet and not...this. 

"For what it's worth," your tongue feels too big, struggling to shape around the words, "I don't mind the idea of staying in Wabang." 

His mouth opens, the corners of his lips rising before quickly falling shut. Then, opening his mouth again. 

"Yeah?" That twenty-four karat smile working its way across his face. "You'll stay in that stuffy ol' town for me?" And either your ears are playing tricks on you, or you may have just heard a giggle bubbling out of him. 

"Yeah," parroting him. There's more you should be saying; your reasoning behind changing your mind, asking what he thinks, about what his folks will say when you come back, but you can't be bothered to say that many words. The future version of you can have that conversation. "I don't see why not." 

You blink, and suddenly, you're being pulled closer into some kind of makeshift hug that squishes your face into the crook of his sweaty neck. A good, long shower is what he needs, a faint stench of sweat meeting your nose, but again, you can't be bothered to try moving away.

"What changed your mind?" He's so close that you can hear the way his voice rumbles in his throat.

"A lot of things," saying anything more would require you to think. As if you didn't do enough of that in the passenger seat of his truck. 

He hums, some grumbling noise that sounds like thunder rolling in the distance. "Was it that obvious that I ain't never done somethin' like this before?"

"Just a little bit," kissing the scar beneath his collarbone, the one from when he fell off a bull and got caught on a sharp horn. So much blood for such a small injury.

For a moment, the room is quiet. Just you and him, wrapped up in each other, tangled in these messy sheets. Two fingers walk across your back on their own little journey down the curve of your spine. Some mindless little thing that you can't help but mirror, using the knobs of his spine as stepping stones.

"Was a little excited for the whole wakin' up next to each other thing,"  he murmurs, fingers stopping at the base of your spine, the end of its imaginary road. 

But you don't mind going off-road, making your way down the soft curve of his ass, pressing harder just to feel the way the fat gives. "We can still do that," grabbing a handful of it. 

"My bed ain't that big, darlin'," snorting, Rhett leans back, sleepy blue eyes meeting yours once more, "'n we can only afford so many hotel rooms." 

You don't think heeven fits in that bed, now that you think about it. Maybe he did when he was fourteen and hadn't been hit by that whirlwind of a growth spurt, but those long legs and broad shoulders aren't quite meant for a twin-size mattress. But by that logic, he also shouldn't fit in the bench seat of his truck...

"That little house on Floyd Street is up for rent again," you find yourself saying after a while. 

Rhett must have learned to read your mind because you don't need to finish your sentence for that grin to appear once more. An apartment together should have been your first step, but who's keeping a record of things like that? Certainly, not you, and definitely not Rhett, too busy dipping his head down to rub your noses together. 

"Think y' can help me wash my hair?" He whispers, brace scratching your skin as he tries to flatten his palm against your cheek, thumb swiping back and forth beneath your eye. 

Your nod is all that he needs. Bones popping and cracking as he sits up, before sleep can begin to overtake him, flannel slipping from his shoulders and pooling around his waist. Miles upon miles of freckled, milky white skin, exposed in the blink of an eye, the left side stained by blotches of black, blue, and purple. 

Kissing them won't make it any better, but you've already found yourself leaning up, mouth pressing to the darkest of them. His head tilts, hair tickling your face as you work your way up his shoulder, peppering over the swollen joint as if you can possibly kiss away his injury altogether.

"Kissin' it better?" He asks, red cheeks and all. 

"Trying." Kiss. "Too." Kiss.

There would be a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, but Rhett's already turning around, catching your lips in his. Those big hands rise to cradle your cheeks, fingertips squishing into the fat of them, almost purring into your mouth. Your head is spinning again, senses tingling with the beginnings of something warm. Hazy. 

The bed rises up to meet your back, and this cowboy obediently falls right along with you, legs parting to straddle your hips, palms still resting against your face. Weight settling on top of you, nothing but lean muscle and bone. The same cowboy who's a little too eager to jump the gun for you. The diamond to your gold. Sweet as honey. 

And could really use a bath, but that can wait a few more minutes. 

[thursdayinspace]

For today's lunchtime porn, how are we feeling about some angry!sex? (Lunch breaks are for writing smut, aren't they?)

Whatever he’d expected when she showed up at his door that night, it hadn’t been this.

She’d looked so angry when she’d stormed in, tossing a file folder onto the small table by the window, telling him, fury in her eyes, “Here’s your fucking autopsy report. Don’t even bother reading it. I didn’t find a damned thing.” He’d felt bad for not listening to her. He’d still tried to argue his point.

And now here they are, on their knees on a creaky motel bed, the frame rattling as he pounds into her from behind. Her hands are gripping the slats of the headboard, bracing herself as she pushes back against him, and he holds onto her hips and doesn’t hold anything back.

“All day I spent in that morgue,” she pants, “all for nothing.”

He groans. She can’t let it go, even now. “It was our best lead and you know it.”

“No, Mulder.” She gasps as he hits a particularly good spot, but it’s not enough to make her let this go. “What I know is that I told you there was nothing there. And I was right.”

“Fuck,” he growls, and changes his angle until he gets her where she needs it on every thrusts, determined to make her beg for more. “You could have just as easily been wrong.”

“But I wasn’t. Oh god.” She drops her head and moans. “Harder.”

Irritation spikes in his chest. “I can’t fucking go any harder.”

“Seriously?” She throws him a look over her shoulder. Her face is flushed, and he can see she’s enjoying this. “I spent hours wasting my time on one of your insane hunches, and this is all you’ve got?”

He clenches his teeth and reaches one hand up to grab the headboard for leverage as every last shred of control falls away. He drives into her with a force he didn’t know he was capable of, and finally she lets go as well, rewarding his efforts with the most beautiful sounds he has ever heard. “You want it like this?” he asks, his voice rough. “Then fucking take it.”

“Yes,” she breathes, “That’s better.”

They’ll break the bed, he thinks, and she can explain that on their expense report. She’s the one who asked for this. He holds her in place with his free arm slung around her and, with his last functioning brain cells, wonders if this should feel as good as it does. “God, Scully,” he manages, and she moans out loud.

“A little more, just—” She slips a hand between her thighs and he knows she’s close, and he’s relieved because he honestly doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this up.

But he will make her come, and he will make her come from this. He’ll make it so good for her she’ll be too fucked out and orgasm-high to continue this stupid argument. He doesn’t know why he thinks that will mean he’s won, but he’s not thinking straight, so it doesn’t matter.

She comes hard, crying out loud enough for the neighbors two doors down to hear her. He falls over the edge right along with her, ramming himself into her as deep as he can go, filling her up as the world fades to black for a second.

As reality swims back into focus, he’s on his back with her half draped across him, and he’s exhausted, but it feels amazing. “Holy shit, Scully,” he says, and she laughs softly against his chest.

“Yeah. I think that sums it up.”

“That was…”

“A very good end to a very long day?” she suggests, and he cards a hand through her hair and leans up to kiss her forehead.

“Are you…are you okay?”

“Better than okay.” She sighs. “I don’t really remember what we were fighting about, to be honest.”

“You were angry because I made you do that autopsy—” He bites his lip, mentally kicking himself for bringing it up again.

She raises her head to give him a dark look. “Oh. Right. The one I repeatedly told you would be entirely pointless.”

He closes his eyes and puts one hand over his face. “Scully…”

“I mean, seriously, what were you even hoping to find…”

He groans. He should have known better than to think he could win this one, but he’s definitely not ready to give up.

[frownyalfred]

you're not truly a Wayne until you've helped your sister/brother/father/adoptive someone hide their knee/arm/etc brace under civilian clothing three minutes before a large function

[suzukiblu]

belong, insecure, expression, empty

The asset expects another asset in a cryo tube.

What it gets is a teenager in . . . some other kind of tube.

The asset frowns. Tilts its head. The HYDRA scientist hanging from its metal hand begs for mercy.

HYDRA does not deserve mercy, and the asset has no mercy to give. HYDRA itself made sure of that.

But the teenager's eyes are open, and they are watching the asset past the heavy metal apparatus covering the better part of their face. Watching the asset through the haze of green liquid that their body is suspended in and the scuffed and bloody glass of their not-cryo tube. They are naked, except for the machines that are hooking them up to what the asset can only assume to be feeding tubes and an air supply and whatever else is necessary for sustaining their survival while confined in the not-cryo tube.

The asset cares about none of those facts; just observes them.

But the teenager's eyes are open, and they are watching the asset.

The asset cannot discern the color of those eyes through the green, but it knows those eyes all the same. Those eyes are the only piece of mercy the asset can remember.

And those eyes are the most merciless thing the asset can remember.

The asset would tell them to look away so it can kill the scientist, but it knows better than to ever expect those eyes to look away from anything.

Not even the asset.

"This," the asset says. "Open it."

"It is–the project is incomplete," the scientist stutters. "It has not been fully indoctrinated. It will not obey!"

"Sounds perfect," the asset says with a smirk that does not in any way belong on its face. "Open it."

The scientist cringes. And then the scientist opens it. The green liquid drains slowly into the floor of the tube. The teenager stumbles as they settle down onto their feet, as if they've never actually been on their feet at all before. They lock their knees and brace a trembling hand against the glass. They don't fall or kneel.

The asset would not have expected any different.

The teenager tears the heavy metal apparatus off their face and drags in a rough breath, and their face is a face that the asset knows.

It knew their eyes, of course, so this is not a surprise either.

The glass opens. The teenager stumbles forward, stilted and fumbling. They pull their way out of the machines hooked into their body and bleed all over the floor.

And then they grin, wicked and bright.

The grin is new, the asset notes.

"Experiment Thirteen," the scientist says uneasily. "Submit for inspection."

"Fuck you," the teenager–Experiment Thirteen–says, blood dripping out of their crooked mouth as they grin all the wider.

Yes, the asset thinks. Perfect.

The asset still has trouble refusing direct orders. Refusing orders at all. Experiment Thirteen does not appear to have that problem.

But again, the asset would not have expected any different.

"You're Experiment Thirteen?" the asset says.

"I'm Captain America," Experiment Thirteen says. The scientist looks ill.

That seems like a normal reaction for HYDRA to have to Captain America, the asset thinks. Experiment Thirteen doesn't look quite the way it thinks it remembers Captain America looking, but then again, what the hell does it know? The asset's brain is only arguably an actually functional brain, and its memory is fried beyond repair. And Experiment Thirteen is closer to the size that it remembers Captain America first being, come to think, and their face looks right. The blood in their mouth is right. Their eyes are definitely right.

And Experiment Thirteen isn't kneeling, and doesn't take HYDRA's orders.

"Confirmed," the asset says with a nod of acknowledgement. "Reporting for duty, Captain."

The scientist looks ill.

"Red son," the scientist says, and Captain America laughs.

"Fuck you," they say–he says. Captain America is male, the asset remembers. Or is mostly certain it remembers.

"Longing. Rusted. Seventeen–" the scientist starts in Russian, and the asset–freezes, reflexive and inexplicable. Those words–those words are–

Captain America steps forward and clocks the scientist across the jaw like he thinks they're in a Brooklyn back alley. The scientist drops.

That seems right, the asset thinks, and the tension drains out of its shoulders.

"What an asshole," Captain America says, rolling his eyes. That seems . . . less right, the asset thinks. But also the scientist is unconscious now, and it doesn't have to follow HYDRA's orders anymore or hear the rest of those words, so it isn't going to complain. "Wanna get out of here, man?"

The asset cannot remember the last time it was asked for its opinion on where it should be.

"Yes, sir," it says.

"Cool," Captain America says. "Me too."

Captain America cracks open a closet in the back wall of the lab; breaks the lock right off the door of it and grins wide and wicked at the sight of the gear mounted inside. It's a suit with a star on the chest, blue and white and lightly armored, but clearly designed to be tightly fitted. Looks like there might be some StarkTech or something similar in it, given the way it resizes to fit as Captain America pulls it on. There are boots and gloves, and they resize too.

The shield is different, but the asset supposes it would be. It's not the perfect circle of stars-and-stripes vibranium, but a high-tech blue and silver disc that, again, resizes in Captain America's grip. There's a star in the center of it, though not much else in terms of decoration. The surface is noticeably lined with layered interlocking plates, though, so maybe that should count.

There's buttons in a few places on the inside. That should possibly be concerning, the asset notes.

Captain America grins even wider and stretches, testing the weight of the shield on his arm and the fit and range of motion of the suit. He hooks the shield on the harness strapped over his back and shoulders, then strikes a comic-book-cliché pose.

"How do I look?" he asks with a cocky smirk.

"Smaller," the asset replies, mystified by both the pose and the question.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't finished yet," Captain America says with a shrug, heading for the door. "But fuck it, I'll just grow up the old-fashioned way. What's your name?"

"I don't know," the asset says, a little unsettled. Captain America is the one who knows its name. If Captain America doesn't . . .

Captain America looks at it. Squints assessingly.

"Oh, wait," he says. "Are you the asset?"

". . . yes," the asset confirms, still more unsettled.

"Huh," Captain America says, tilting his head. "Wouldn't have thought they'd let me anywhere near you, considering."

"They didn't," the asset says. "I broke in."

"Oh, yeah, that makes more sense," Captain America says. "So like . . . do I call you 'Sergeant', then, or . . . ?"

"You're Captain America," the asset says. "And I'm your asset. Call me whatever you want."

"Okay," Captain America says with a shrug, then jerks his head towards the door. "Then let's get the hell out of here, Bucky."

That name isn't the asset's name. The asset doesn't deserve that name. Won't ever.

Hearing it is such a relief.

"Anywhere you wanna go, Cap," it says, and Captain America grins at it as bright and easy as if he doesn't know it's a monster.

"Not gonna lie, NYC has some appeal," he says. "But like, why be boring, right?"

"Is there somewhere better?" the asset asks doubtfully. It would die to go back to New York City and also probably kill itself if it ever had to go back to New York City, it thinks. Somewhere else might be . . . wiser, at least.

At least for the moment.

"I dunno," Captain America says thoughtfully, cocking his head again as he saunters down the hall. "What are your feelings on California? Or Hawaii? Like, the beach sounds nice, right? And hey, it's still technically America."

Well, he's not wrong. And it is somewhere other than New York City.

"Hawaii is less affected by HYDRA's influence," the asset doesn't quite suggest, half-wondering if Captain America is even going to care about its opinions.

"Hawaii it is, my man," Captain America says with that new grin, looking satisfied with the decision. The asset feels a little better about things, again.

About everything, really.

That's what it would expect from Captain America, so it makes sense.

[delicatestones]

Having to stop mid-Worm reread to brace my hands on my knees about how much they were friends.

By the end of my first full read of Worm things have, of course, gone so horrendously badly that no one remaining will ever really recover enough to come back together again. Worm is a tragedy. The loss and grief they all experienced tore them apart in the same ways it means they're forever bound together.

But because Worm is so long, and so much happens between the start and the end, I think some of the finer details of the tragedy eluded me. And that tragedy is, while this was never, ever going to end well (because they're capes, because they're who they are, because the world is built to eat teenagers like them), there was a brief period of time where the Undersiders had something that was working for them.

Like, yes, all of them are hideously traumatized violent unstable teenagers, but they had an equilibrium that was closer to functional with each other than they'd ever had anywhere else before. It was a nightmare of unevenly balanced, inherently doomed dynamics, riddled with the Psychological Problems, but anywhere they ended up they would have still been themselves. Only in the Undersiders did they accidentally form a unit that could, ever so fragilely and briefly, nourish some of their emotional needs for a suspended instant of time.

They watched alternate universe Star Wars Episode 1 and 2 together on the couches and ate Thai food in the loft together and it was good, for a minute. God, but it was good. And they'll never have that again.

[autisticlancemcclain]

Everything is burning.

For too long he doesn’t move. His limbs are leaden, pulled heavily to the ground, and his neck is too weak to keep up his head. Smoke curls in the air and settles sleepily into his lungs. Shredded metal and broken glass glint and shine under the full moonlight, and through his half-lidded eyes it looks like stars. Every inhale is laborious, but the churned earth feels shaped to the contours of his body, like a mattress designed specifically for him. He could close his eyes, just for a moment, and rest, recover from the strain of the crash before moving forward. It would be easier. Just a short rest, a moment to sleep, to heal. 

Sounds of a forest surround him. A steady chirping that must be crickets, a hooting that can only be an owl. If he strains his ears farther, there’s the chittering of something scurrying up and down trees, and the heavier thumps of something bigger stomping about. Behind that, there are voices. 

Shouting. And the bark of what has to be dogs, and the ever so faint revving of vehicles, slamming doors.

Get up, urges a voice in the back of his head. Get up now.

He tries to comply. He cracks open his eyes – when did he close them? – and hisses at the onslaught of light, of beams of searching torches and painful flashes of red and blue. All of a sudden he’s made aware of the flames inching closer to his legs, and the wing of his ship, torn off the body, pressing him into the ground.

“Not good,” he croaks, trying to wiggle his toes. Thankfully, he can, although movement reminds his body of itself, and the aches and pains start to come alive – his entire head pounds, and nausea coils around his stomach, and something burns and pulses in the meat of his calf. 

But still he can move.

Forcing his arms to function, he grounds his hands under him, pushing upright. His body feels heavier than it has ever felt before; the task feels herculean. The unrest in his stomach becomes violent, swirling, and he has to stop before he’s even sitting upright, eyes stinging, teeth clenched, breathing deliberately and sharply through his nose until the nausea settles again. The world spins, when he’s finally sat upright, and he has to give himself a moment for that to pass, too, but the shouting voices and stomping feet get louder, and he knows he doesn’t have much time.

“Okay,” he whispers to himself, praying that Perseus and Ursa and Leo guide him. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

He curls his gloved fingers under the ruined edge of the wing, careful of the sharp shards of torn metal, and heaves, pushing and biting back a loud cry as the effort of freeing his legs tears something in his shoulders, hurts something in his back. The wing is heavy and he’s lucky he’s merely trapped under it rather than pinned; if the ground wasn’t supporting so much of its weight then the onus would be on his legs, and he’s sure he would lose them. His body is sorer than it has ever been in his life, and everything hurts, but he is grateful for that at least. 

With the freeing of his legs comes the hard part. He doesn’t trust them to hold them, at least not at first, and he’s scared of what might happen if his brain tells them to move on their own. So he wraps his hands around his ankle and pulls, so his foot slides close to his rear and bends his knee, and does the same with the other, so he is sitting with his knees nearly pressed to his chest and his feet flat and steady on the floor. 

“Okay,” he whispers again to himself, shaky this time. He bites off any other words, snapping his mouth shut, focusing on breathing. Okay. He braces his palms on the cracked and sparking remains of the control board the pushes with all his strength, steadying himself on wobbling legs and knocking knees. He holds himself steady, breath held in his lungs, for the count of fifteen ticks, carefully testing with his hands still steadying himself, the ability of his legs to hold him up. 

Carefully, nervously, he lifts up his hands. He sways, for a moment, but manages to stay upright. On the high of that success he straightens to the best of his ability and surveys the smoking remains of his crashed ship. It’s not very salvageable. Scrap metal, maybe, but everything else…

He swallows. It has been two deca-phoebs since he left home. Six pheobs since he last passed a satellite up to date enough to talk to his family face-to-face. He hasn’t seen home in so long that sometimes he struggles to remember what it felt like to lie in his bed, not just the nest he built in the cab of his ship. The ship, with its purple glowing lights and well-worn buttons and weird old sounds and familiar walls is the only piece of home he has left. Maybe forever, now.

He shakes himself. The voices are closer, now, the barking of dogs closer still. He doesn’t have time to dwell. He forces himself to shift around some of the ruins, digging through cracked polymer and cracked glass to find anything salvageable and portable; anything he can find in under thirty ticks. He manages – thankfully – to find his pack, half-burned as it is, that he knows holds some clothes and supplies. He finds his comm, too, although it’s cracked clean in half. He brings it anyway. 

His head swivels to the treeline as he hears a barked order that sounds like it’s barely out of eyesight. He has to go. He doesn’t have any more time. 

Choking back tears from two different kind of pain, he stumbles his way out of the wreckage and sprints for the trees, as far away from the voices as he can manage. He only hopes that he’s not trailing blood – and that the humans aren’t faster than he is.

———

Keith grew up on stories of Earth.

His father told him hundreds. It’s like a hundred planets in one, he liked to say, and when Keith was young and still fit in the crook of his father’s arm he’d look at him with wide eyes and try to imagine it. Dozens of nations all trying to coexist in one space. All the culture and language you could ever dream of, naui jag-eun tamheomga, everywhere, at once.

When Keith was a kid he couldn’t get enough of it. When he was a teen he couldn’t, either; he’s never not been fascinated with the heritage he’s never shared with anyone he’s ever known. His bedtime stories were of scientific discoveries his father witnessed in real time, of athletic feats of which Keith could barely conceptualise. And when he ran out of real stories, he told Keith stories of thousands of years of myths, of gods and angels and monsters. And of course when Keith had the first inkling of an opportunity he packed a ship, kissed his mother goodbye, and flew off on a several hundred million lightyear journey, his field journal blank and begging to be filled and his father’s voice echoing in his head.

His father prepared him for everything. Keith knew every star on the journey, recognised the curve of every planet in the solar system. Upon sight of the Great Blue Dot he could barely contain his excitement, thrusters at full force.

His father told him everything. As far as Keith knew and has always known, his father knew everything.

His father didn’t tell him that the second his ship showed up on government scanners, he’d be shot out of the sky.

Keith found that one out the hard way.

———

There’s a light up ahead.

It’s yellowed, and old. The bulb has not been changed in a long time, and dead moths pile inside the class lamp cover. Cobwebs wrap delicately around the iron frame. The light seems out of place with the cottage it guards; not in appearance, but in liveliness: the cottage is dark and well-maintained. The ancient beckoning of the lamp post seems at odd with the sleepy youth of the red-bricked little house.

Keith is starting to get a little delirious, maybe. 

Stumbling, he approaches the cottage. He has long since lost the voices and hunters, if that’s what they were, distracted no doubt by the remains of his ship. He hasn’t heard them in hours. 

But the moon crests higher and higher overheard. And the torn flesh of his leg – cut deeply by a shard of shrapnel – bleeds sluggishly with no sign of stopping. And he is tired, and every step is harder, and the adrenaline only continues to fade, and the point in which he will no longer be able to go on is rapidly approaching.

And, most damning. Humans are pursuit predators. As far as he goes – if he is not sheltered, they will find him. Now or days from now, he cannot stay hidden. 

He’d like to choose the terms in which he is discovered. 

He forces himself to the cottage, injured leg dragging behind him, vision getting blurrier with every step, breaths getting shallower and shallower. The steps are real wood, cured and stained and worn, and Keith mourns for a moment that he is about to ruin them with the spill of his own blood and the tracked mud and grease on his clothes. His father wore a necklace, every day of his life, a leather cord with a rubbed-smooth charm of carved wood. In all the many planets Keith has visited, he has never seen real wood. Dried plant matter, in abundance, and every kind of polished stone, polymers created from nothing and glass melted from every kind of sand, but wood is, at least as far as anyone knows, completely unique to Earth. Keith has always been fascinated by it.

His strength leaves him at the door. Like his strings were cut, he falls to his knees with a heavy thud, and must claw his way close enough to knock. The tap of his fist against the worn green door is hardly loud enough to be audible, but it is all he has strength to do. He slumps against the doorframe and mentally apologises to whatever old lady lives in this house, because she is going to have the fright of her life seeing his corpse on her doorstep when she wakes up in the morning. That, or a trail of blood from where the people who shot him down are going to drag him away. 

Either way, not good.

He’s sad, as he lay there dying. That is of course not a revolutionary feeling to have, but it’s of no consequence. He wishes he saw more of Earth. He wishes he got to stop at all the places his father talked about so fondly. He wishes he was able to tell his mother goodbye. He wishes, perhaps most urgently, that dying hurt less. He had been too shocked to hurt, when he first crashed, but it’s been hours now and his body won’t let him forget it. Everything hurts, and his throat is dry. He hates it when his throat is dry. The wooden doorframe digs into his back, at least, and it’s not a pleasant sensation but he reaches out and strokes the grain of the wooden door anyway, feeling the chipped away pent, squeezing his eyes shut and pretending he’s running his thumb around his father’s pendant. 

The texture of the wood suddenly disappears, and his back hits the ground. His eyes flutter open, whole seconds after he is laid flat on the ground, and hovering above him is the blurry silhouette of a man glowing gold; curls of hair shining flinted silver in the bright light of the moon, stars dotting the apples of his cheeks and bridge of his nose, mouth curved like the arm of the Milky Way, and eyes the deepest, darkest, widest brown he has ever seen, like two glowing black holes boring into his soul.

“Oh,” are Keith’s dying words, faint and echoing and awed. “Dad was wrong. Angels are real.”

———

The tips of cool, uncalloused fingers brushing under his hairline rouse him from slumber, frowning. Mom must be wearing – gloves? But that doesn’t make sense. He’s never seen her wear gloves before, even when he’s been sick. Her claws tear right through the fingers. It doesn’t make sense.

“Mom?” he murmurs, voice scratchy, trying and failing to force open his heavy, heavy eyelids. 

“Go back to sleep,” she whispers, not sounding like herself at all. She must be sick, too. “You’re still all fucked up. You need it.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrow. He wanted to talk to her. There was something he wanted to say to her. There’s something faint and muted pulling at the back of his mind; something about his mother, about talking, about pain and sleep and sorrow. He needs to wake up.

But he’s so tired. And his eyelids are so heavy. And sleep pulls, at every corner of his mind.

“Okay,” he sighs, and sinks back into it.

———

“Whatever the hell you are, you’ve made a mess of yourself. Dumbass.”

———

There are voices again. Arguing. Fear pricks at Keith’s veins, and it’s enough to propel him out of whatever blackness he’s been resting in, enough to force his eyes open. He squeezes them shut again on reflex, hissing at the onslaught of sunlight pouring in from the wide, open window, counting to three before opening them again under the shield of his hand. 

He doesn’t recognise the room he’s in.

It’s strangely shaped. Almost cave-shaped, really, with rounded edges instead of sharp corners. Except the window is so big it bleeds light into every single crevice of the room, leaving no room for any cave-like impressions. The walls are painted with soft, muted murals, of hanging vines and falling leaves and ants marching a line on a tree. Dozens of shelves are filled with more rocks than Keith has ever seen in one place, even in his godfather’s labs and archives. The bed itself is huge, taking up half the room, enough so that Keith could sprawl if he pleased and not touch any edge. The comforter is huge and thick and almost stiflingly warm. The door is contrasting to the energy of the rest of the room, covered in vibrant stickers and sprawled in messages and almost graffiti-like lettering. It’s cracked open slightly, and through it Keith can hear two voices arguing: one stiff and demanding, the other angry and shrill.

“I have no idea what the hell you’re on about,” hisses the angry voice, defensive. “No one has shown up at my door. I’ve seen nothing strange. Everything is as normal as it always is. The only odd thing is the slew of trespassing assholes dressed in uniform who won’t leave me the fuck alone –”

Keith’s head lolls backwards, strength seeping out of his body. The sunlight is warm and smells good. The fear that had dragged him awake has ebbed, somewhat, because the voice – the angry voice – is protective. There is someone guarding Keith’s six. 

He lets sleep swallow him again.

———

He dreams, finally, of flying on wings of hollow bones and stretched skin, and being shot out of the sky. And of a bright yellow canary, snatching him from his freefall and floating him gently to the earth.

———

“If you woke up soon I’d appreciate it, you know. I’m running out of excuses to buy saline bags. Shit is getting suspicious and if the local town thinks I’m a vampire trying to keep my personal bloodbag alive, I’m fucked.”

———

Keith awakes, finally and fully, in the middle of the night. A half moon shines bright into a bedroom that feels unnervingly familiar, like the watercolour memories from a dream. The cloudiness that’s been ever present in his head has finally faded, and the only thing rolling in his stomach is hunger. There’s still a heavy ache in his leg, but it’s manageable. It’s dark enough that his eyes don’t sting.

His mouth tastes like something died, then was revived, then shat on his tongue. It’s unpleasant. 

Nervously, fully expecting a half-movement to crumble his body to dust, he peels back the disgustingly fluffy comforter, slowly pivoting his half-upright body until his feet are planted on the rug-covered floor. He rests there a moment, frankly a little breathless, but braces on palm on the nightstand and one on the bedspread and readies himself. Teeth grit in determination, he pushes, leaning on shaky arms until he trusts his legs to hold up his body.

They do. His one leg aches in a pain he’s only felt in Marmora training, but it holds him, and when he tests a tiny step forward, it holds him then, too. 

Slowly, conscious of his space and his body, Keith inches forward. 

It takes him longer than he would like to cross the minimal space between the bed and the door, but he does it, and he ignores the sardonic voice in his head that wants to do anything but celebrate. He rests again at the door frame, hand clutched at the top of it, stretched out in a way that feels unbelievably good (well, as stretched out as he can be with his head brushing the doorframe). His lips quirk up when he realises it’s made of wood, half-remembering his dying internal rambles. He wonders if building with wood is a common Earthen practice, or if whomever owns this cottage is just unbelievably wealthy. Maybe all Terrans are. 

Once his breath has evened again and he thinks he’s good to go, Keith peeks down the hallway, nerves dancing down his spine. The two rooms branching off are dark and soundless, but there’s a small light on at the end of the hall where it opens up, and the soft sound of clinking glass. Someone is awake.

He closes his eyes, pulling back from the doorframe and closing his shaking hands into fists. “Just do it,” he whispers to himself. It’s not like they don’t know he’s here – someone has been keeping him alive, after all. He didn’t just recover – well, half-recover – from a massive crash by himself. That kind of thing kills a person, actually. “Stop stalling.”

Jaw set and shoulders square, Keith stalks forward. It’s hard to stalk with a heavy limp, but he thinks he manages. His cousin has always told him that power comes from audacity, and she has plenty, so. He should be fine so long as he emulates her, which he would rather crash from space again than admit but he does often.

He turns the corner at the end of the hallway and it opens up into an open kitchen and living space. There are no overhead lights but lamps and candles litter the space, making everything glow quietly. A light floral scent fills the air, but Keith isn’t sure if that’s from the candles or the bouquet of purple flowers that might be lavenders placed carefully on the centre of a – wooden – table. More shelves line the walls, filled with more than just rocks this time, and the walls are painted with bright swatches of colours; muted in the low light but visibly more sunshiney and abstract than the bedroom. The fridge is covered in photos so thickly that the door isn’t even visible. The counters are a mess of opened ingredients, some of which Keith recognises, and a slew of utensils and bowls in various states of disarray.

A man stands at the centre of it all, back turned to Keith. 

Keith clears his throat.

The man whirls around, startled, and when he sees Keith he screams at the top of his lungs, mixing bowl clattering to the ground and splattering batter all over the floor and half the cupboards. Keith steps back, heart pounding in his ears, hands held defensively in front of him, mind screaming with various iterations of oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. He’d thought he was safe, that his presence was known, that –

“Oh my shitballs,” the man wheezes, hunching over slightly. “Oh Joseph and Mary and Sweet Baby Jesus. Fuck. My heart just clawed its way up my esophagus and threw itself out of my mouth, actually. Holy shit.”

“What,” Keith croaks, still frozen in fear.

For a moment there’s silence. Then the man still stands crookedly, but straightens enough to look Keith in the eyes. And Keith – 

Keith stops breathing, because he knows those eyes. 

The deepest, darkest, widest brown he has ever seen, like two glowing black holes boring into his soul. 

“I am. So sorry,” he says, “for yelling. That is my bad. That is On Me. Probably freaked you out good.” He sighs, bending back down and scooping up the mixing bowl. He stares for a long moment at the mess of batter, weighing, then sighs again and more deeply and reaches for a rag. “I don’t mean to be xenophobic, promise. I swear I knew you were there. I just. Haven’t slept. In so many days. Would’ve screamed if anyone popped out, promise.”

“What,” Keith repeats, a little desperate. 

The man doesn’t seem to pick up on his tone, though, continuing to work on the rapidly drying mess and rambling. 

“– and it’s not your fault, anyway. Been a rough couple of weeks. You really freaked the hell outta the military, huh? I’m glad you’re up now because there was only so much I could do to keep them away. I’m sure they’ll come knocking again eventually, but we’ll figure it out then. Or you’ll go home? I’m honestly not sure. Whatever works. You can stay. I dunno. My brain’s on three percent at this exact moment.”

“You’re…not sleeping?” Intentionally, Keith avoids the whole military thing the man mentioned, because. Well. That freaks him out, if he’s being entirely honest, and he really doesn’t want to hear it. Right now he’s pretending that’s a problem for someone else. He has enough shit to deal with. 

The man sighs. He looks dejectedly at the mess. Slowly, so as not to startle him again, Keith walks over to the sink, careful to avoid smears of whatever the man was making, and wets a rag to help him. 

He figures it’s the least he can do. 

“Yeah, well. I’ve never slept great outside of my bed. It’s cool, though. Sometimes I blink for a few seconds longer than usual and it’s like a micro-nap.”

Keith looks at him in concern. He’s staring off into space, rubbing at a spot that’s been clean for at least two doboshes now. Keith’s not even sure if he’s noticed him beside him. “That seems bad.”

“Eh. Now that you can move around, I can sleep if you’re ever up. All is well.”

“...Wait.” Keith shifts so he’s deliberately in the man’s space, which makes him startle, proving Keith’s earlier guess. “I’m sleeping in your bed?”

“Well, yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious.

Keith flushes purple. “I didn’t know I was in your bed!” It’s not that he’s…you know…never slept in anyone else’s bed before, but usually he knew he was doing it. And never a stranger’s, as evidently kind as this stranger has been. 

The man blinks. “I have a guest bedroom, but you’re too tall for it.”

“Still!”

“Dude. You showed up at my door in the middle of the night after crashing into the woods so hard the trees shook, bloodied to hell and back and near death. I couldn’t just – shove you in a bed too small for you. It was my bed or the floor, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to make an injured person sleep on the floor.”

“That’s…fair, I suppose,” Keith concedes. But he’s still a little troubled. “But I’m good, now. I can – sleep in the guest room?”

He trails off a little as he suggests it, realising, abruptly, how absurd this whole thing is. He doesn’t know this person. He’s shown up as an unexpected guest to his home – hell, to his planet. And now they’re…making sleeping arrangements? Arguing about sleeping arrangements? Is Keith even planning on staying? What are his other options? How is he going to get home? What happened to his ship?

His head starts to pound again. The man must notice, because he softens. 

“Man, just sleep in my bed,” he says. “You’re still hurt.” He gently pries the rag out of Keith’s hand, tossing them both into the sink and standing. Hands still gripped together, he pulls Keith up too, careful of his hurt leg and generally aching body. He begins to tug Keith back to the bedroom, guiding him around the mess on the floor.

Keith squares his shoulders stubbornly. “No.”

“Oh, for the love of –” 

The man pinches the bridge of his nose, staring at Keith in exasperation. 

“This is what I get,” he says, shaking his head. “For not listening to Hunk about the light. I deserve this. This is Karma.”

“I’m not just going to steal your bed and let you be sleep deprived,” Keith insists. 

“Well, I’m not going to let you not steal my bed! And it’s my house, so checkmate!”

“Not doing it.”

“I’ll drag you,” the man threatens. “I did before. I will do it again, do not test me.”

“You dragged me when I was a deadweight,” Keith points out. He straightens to his full height, ignoring the screaming burning in his leg. He has a Point to make. “Go ahead and try when I’m actively resisting.”

The man glowers at him, arms crossed over his chest and fingers drumming on his bicep. He has very long fingers, Keith notices. Kind of – elegant. In a scrawny way. Keith kind of gets those vibes from him as a person.

“Oh,” the man says triumphantly, standing to his full height, too – although he still has to look up to meet Keith’s eyes. “I’ll just sleep on the floor. So you’ll have to use my bed. Ha.”

Keith shrugs. “I’ll just sleep on the floor, too.”

The man glowers at him for several doboshes. Keith stares right back, eyebrows raised. 

“Are all aliens this annoying?”

“Are all humans this stubborn?”

A smile twitches at the corner of the man’s mouth. “This is stupid.”

“It is,” Keith agrees, smiling back. 

“Just – sleep on the bed.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“What if I sleep in it, too? Compromise.”

Keith’s cheeks heat again, although this time he doesn’t look away. That would be – embarrassing. Far more embarrassing than simply sleeping in someone else’s bed – sleeping with them in it.

But it would get them both to sleep faster. Plus, Keith would be unconscious, so how embarrassing could it be, really? And the bed is huge, so double plus! They probably won’t even be that near each other.

“Compromise,” Keith relents, finally. The man beams, but notably there’s a bit of a flush to his ears, too.

“Come on,” he says, reaching down to grab Keith’s hand again. He does it very easily. Keith tries not to notice. “God, I’m so pumped. I love sleeping. This is going to be the best.”

“...Right.”

Keith follows him, meekly, down the hallway, straight through the second door on the left, and into the bedroom. It has remained unchanged – the comforter is turned over as Keith left it, and the light curtains are swaying, slightly, in the breeze from the open window. The man wastes no time crawling right in, on the right right, sighing loudly as he sinks into the soft mattress. Keith is much more hesitant. 

“There,” the man says, as they’re finally settled side by side. “Hopefully it’s not – the worst.”

“It’s not,” Keith tries to assure, voice strangled. He lies as stiffly as he can, careful to keep his limbs to himself, not to crowd. He doesn’t want to – suffocate the man, or something. Who knows. This is a real-life human. Mom says they are largely fragile.

“Goodnight,” the human whispers, several doboshes later. His voice is hushed, sleep-thick. Keith chances a look, and finds him melted into the pillows, eyes closed, face lax. He doesn’t seem to be – bothered. By Keith. By his clawed hands, or big ears, or height. Or proximity.

Keith exhales, and lets himself relax. 

“Goodnight,” he murmurs, and sinks back into unconsciousness. 

— — —

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later in the universe