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hom3landr · 2 years ago

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Cuddle List Prompt #29

-Putting ear over their heart

Disclaimer: I meant this to be fluff but it’s mainly angst.

You hurt.

That’s all you can process right now. You can’t pinpoint the type of hurt. You don’t know whether it’s a sting or a throb. You just know that it hurts.

—————

You’re moving.

You can feel it now, that flip in your stomach you get whenever you fly. Is that what you are doing? If you’re flying then that means…

—————

Everything hurts again and you are still. You can focus on the pain now. You can unravel it. If you can find the source, you can figure out what happened. The world is dark, your eyes too heavy to open. Every breath feels like a marathon. You hear a woman’s voice and then a man’s and something tingles in the back of your brain. You try to focus on the noise until…

—————

OUCH

It’s not the pain this time. Your eyes open and the light feels like agony. You shut them, preferring to retreat to the black abyss that has cocooned you. In the split second, before the darkness wraps around you like a blanket, you see a figure draped in

stars

That’s your last thought before you are gone again. You miss the sight of stars.

—————-

Your hands are warm. At least…you think they are your hands. It’s hard to pinpoint anything anymore. It all seems to fade the moment you grasp onto something. No…you’re sure this time. Your hands are warm. You celebrate this simple thought. Your hands are warm.

—————-

The light is back, stinging and burning. You don’t run away this time. What is one more hurt in the wake of everything else? You stare at the white nothingness before you. Except it isn’t nothingness. You squint your eyes. It’s ceiling tile. This thought fills you with more pleasure than it should. The ceiling tile is real…which means you are real. You try to wiggle your fingers but there still seems to be a disconnect. Your hands aren’t warm anymore. They aren’t warm but there is ceiling tile. You think you’d prefer the warmth.

——————

You don’t remember closing your eyes again. Yet, in the second it took to blink, the world is dark again. You can still make out the ceiling tile. Your hands aren’t warm but you can feel the softness of the blanket under them. You try to turn your head. You want to see where you are. Your body cooperates but there is a price. Your old friend pain is back with a vengeance. Still, your tired muscles shift and creak, and you feel like you’ve made real progress.

Stars

The stars are back but they are real stars this time. You feel like you could reach out and touch them. You think your finger twitches and…there it is. There’s the warmth you’re craving. You relax into it. You relax into it so much that you don’t even notice the voice calling your name until you’ve drifted back out into the dark.

——————-

John

The name pops into your jumbled mind. You aren’t sure what it means. You can tell by the way that your chest aches that it’s important.

——————-

Your whole body is warm now. It’s warm, warm, warm. It’s warm and soft and…loud? That isn’t right. Your body isn’t loud. The noise is under you. It’s under your ear and it echoes in a steady thump thump thump. You don’t want to move but you have to try. The first step is to open your eyes.

So you do

The first thing you notice is that you aren’t facing the tile this time. You just see blue, endless blue. Except…it’s not just blue. Your brain is still slow and groggy. It takes you a moment to realize that you’re looking at fabric. The fabric is textured, and there’s a faint pattern running throughout. You want to touch it but you still can’t quite figure out how to make your arms work.

In the back of your mind, you can hear it.

JohnJohnJohnJohn

You don’t know what it means. You want to know what it means. You have to know what it means.

You can pinpoint the pain now. It’s in your chest, it aches and burns when you breathe. It throbs. You want it to stop but you also cling to it the same way you’d cling to a piece of shipwreck if you were drowning.

You realize the warmth is coming from the blue figure. Your brain attempts to fill in the blanks. It’s moving…no. It’s breathing. You’re in bed and there’s someone warm beside you.

That’s where the noise is coming from. You can hear it. You know what it is now. It’s a heartbeat.

You’re in a bed, there’s someone warm beside you, and you can feel their heartbeat. You like this. It’s like a game. You have to figure out all the clues before the darkness comes back again. So far, you’ve solved three.

The synapses in your brain fire and you convince your neck muscles to tilt up until you can see the face of your mystery companion. Your eyes skim over every feature, logging it so you can recognize them if you ever need to find your way back. They’re very handsome. That’s the first thing you notice. Your heart gives a little twitch in your chest. How did you end up with such a handsome man in your bed? You add to your tally.

You’re in a bed, there’s someone warm beside you, you can feel their heartbeat, and they are handsome.

You wonder who he is. You wonder how he ended up here. Is he hurt too? He doesn’t look hurt. He looks like the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

“John” you whisper, your voice cracked and raw from disuse. You don’t know why you say it but it sounds right. The figure twitches and bleary eyes open.

There’s blue, always more blue, this time looking right through you. His face can’t show exhaustion, his indestructible body is impervious to the physical ravages of grief and little sleep. His eyes can. His eyes hold all of that pain and worry. He doesn’t feel fear often but he’s grown familiar with the feeling ever since he started carrying his heart outside of his chest. He wants to melt your bodies together and keep you safe so you could fill that empty neediness inside of him.

It only takes a second before he’s breaking through the haze of sleep and holding your face in his hands so gently that you might as well be made of glass. He whispers your name like a prayer. You’re still not sure where you are or how you got here. You are still piecing your own identity together in your mind. But you let him hold you so close, his hands shaking with restraint. If he held you as tight as he wanted to, he’d end up shattering you with his love.

You’re still…rattled, to say the least. You feel like you have one foot in reality and one that’s still slipping back into the dark. You know this man now. You know he’s yours. You don’t remember much else.

“Took you long enough,” John whispers, his lips twitching into a wry smile that contradicts the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He thought he’d lost you.

You wish you had a cheeky reply to give him. You don’t. You have no idea what to say.

“What happened?” You rasp. You faintly remember flying and then pain…and the darkness. For a split second, you regret asking because John’s face twists into such an expression of fury that you half expect to burst into flames by sheer proximity.

“We were flying and I stopped because you wanted to look at some ruckus happening down below. When I got closer, you were distracting me and when I heard the gunshot I didn’t…” Every word is a struggle. He can’t bear the responsibility. He can’t make himself admit that you had been shot while he was supposed to have been protecting you. He twists it and shifts the burden to you. If you hadn’t been distracting him then this wouldn’t have happened. Still…it eats and eats at him.

You remember now. There had been a fair in Central Park. John had been flying you back home and you begged him to stop. You wanted to watch from above so he flew you closer so you could see. He was complaining and you were teasing him…and then there was nothing but pain.

“I’m sorry,” you admit, not for distracting him but for leaving him alone for so long.

“The bullet managed to shatter some of your ribs and collapsed your lung. They took out the chest tube yesterday” He provides, still haunted by the sight of you. He could see all the damage done to your body but he was helpless to fix it. He’d felt so…weak watching the doctors work to save your life while he could only stand and watch.

You suddenly notice that you’re both lying in a hospital bed. John is tucked around you protectively in the small space. It can’t be comfortable for him but he doesn’t seem to mind. What does shock you is the location you’re in. You recognize it instantly. You’re home in John’s penthouse. Vought must have set you up here, no doubt because of John’s insistence. He needed you with him at all times. He didn’t want you waking up somewhere cold and impersonal. He never liked hospitals, they remind him too much of the lab.

“How long have I been out?” You ask tentatively, not sure if you want the answer.

“You’ve been in and out for about five days. Today is the first time you’ve been lucid.” He answers, his fingers stroking your face as though he can’t believe you’re real. You want to ask if he knows who shot you or why. Was it intentional or merely an unlucky misfire into the air? You can feel the question on your lips but the exhaustion in his eyes stops you.

Trying to move is agony but you fight through it so you can fit yourself even more snugly against his body. You lay your head on his chest and there it is again. The steady thump of his heartbeat warms you more than any blanket ever could. It reminds you that you are safe.

You’re in a bed, there’s someone warm beside you, you can feel their heartbeat, they are very handsome, and you are safe.

You chuckle softly to yourself. You’ve solved it. You’re home.

He doesn’t ask what you find amusing. He’s too busy getting drunk off the steady beating of your heart, the warmth of your skin, and your lovely eyes that he had feared might never look at him again. He inhales your scent like a drug.

“I love you,” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer. You don’t need him to. You can hear his answer in his heartbeat.

#homelander #x reader #homelander x reader #homelander fanfiction #tw injury #injured reader #this was a cuddle prompt #alas brain said make it sad

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