#on the verge of being on a date

[the-bi-fangirl-biatch]

is this a marvel sci-fi tv show, or a fucking ROMANTIC COMEDY

[phantom-of-baker-street]

Remember there was an announcement for the 30th anniversary?

Well somebody found it funny at sunday magazine to put us in a suspenseful state and that in the end it was just for a collaboration yup you hear it a F*CKING collaboration that's all... 😞

[wayfinder-family-lover]

Your sky bl boys distinguished, functional, disaster chart based on my hc

Some more thoughts:

Yeah I believe in my heart that fahrak are greyaroace4greyaroace (also rak is pan and fah bi), both are sex and romance favorable. Therefor they have no idea that their relationship toward love and sex are actually not like everyone bc they are just THAT attracted toward each other and they have no negative feelings over it. For me they only experience it for few people and mostly each other, actually I think while Fah had experience romantic attraction toward his ex, he didn't sexual one (also I'm aroace so I love seeing more aroacespect relationship even if this one is basically an allo one)

I put Teerak in functional bc I feel overall he is pretty functional, sure he can overthink making him have few disaster moments but I think he did try to do his best and it's not as much as Fah lmao. For me Rak is in between functional and disaster but a little bit more in functional

Actually for me Real is demi gay, but I thought it would be fun to have everyone in their own case so I choose to put him in gay

Honestly I would have put Hia in functional too, but few last episodes make me realize he is disaster lol

I actually think Lee is pan but I forget to change the section in bi/pan and then got lazy

Leeghlai are the superior queers and you can't change my mind, Fah, Real and Hia are actually lost without Lee

[elliesbelle]

lol

[thatoneluckybee]

words cannot express how much i despise these types of shows

[peteytheparrot]

i heard youve started playing hades,,,, you should totally play Pyre its by the same devs and its super good (you also mentioned i think that u wished hades was more like a dating sim and pyre is kinda like that??? or at least its more heavy on the visual novel aspect and you can slowly learn more about the characters and get your heart ripped out by them) its soooo so good the characters n music are good and the art is good its overall super good game ooo you wanna play it so bad ooooo /silly /not forcing you to or anything just wanted to suggest it lol

Idk video games scare me tbh I haven’t played much of Hades I’m mostly just in it for the lore and the hot people 😔😔 I might check it out though! (And video games just give me bad headaches and make my eyes hurt so I can’t play them for that long ☠️)

[im-still-watching-anime]

whyyy do some people flirt by treating you like a child

[itshomobirb]

ok thinking more about things. it's kind of whack to me that the normal ranges for tsh are like 1-3, and then i test at 6, and then my pcp says, "hey our practice generally doesn't treat hypothyroidism until ur tsh is over 10." like. huh??? my test pops way out of range, but you wanna wait until my thyroid craps out enough to be over 3x worse than the normal range????? i come to you with all these symptoms and high tsh and you're like "hmmmm we should wait and retest labs in like 3 months, maybe it'll spontaneously resolve." ??????

putting brief weight talk below the cut

bro ok this could partially be blamed on me taking way too many antihistamines for so long (which fucked up my hunger cues while i was on them), but ive gained 20 lb since june. this is already after i gained weight after starting t and my pcp was like "hmm we should keep an eye on that." nearly 40 lb later and oh okay we're not treating ur thyroid 👍 like ok yes weight doesn't indicate health, health at every size, i agree. the issue is why am i gaining so much weight in what seems to be not that much time. cough cough. maybe it has something to do with my thyroid? and maybe we should treat it? cough cough. <- said in an exasperated tone

[axelotyls]

grrr at this point idc if i fail finals i just want it to be OVER with

[gatorinator]

The problem with having scrupulosity/religious ocd is that you always want to make the right choice/do the right thing/CTR and all that jazz. Which is great until your having a moral crisis on whether you should wait in a possibly 30 minute line to get JDawgs or go to institute (which also offers dinner but you missed it bc you went to the gym later with your sister so you were already running late). And your standing in a crowd of like a hundred people and your about to have a full panick attack.

[reginaofdoctorwho]

wish i knew someone with enough tech knowledge to hack into my ex's phone :(

[sukumna]

⊹₊⟡⋆ 𝟗:𝟏𝟕 𝐏𝐌; GOJO SATORU

gojo was so tired of being the strongest. so tired of pretending nothing ever got to him.

his body felt like it could break at any moment as he made his way back to his apartment, every step heavier than the last. the mission had been hell. his body hurts in places he didn’t know existed. his usual cocky stride was gone, replaced with a stiffness that made him feel like a damn robot.

when he opened the door, he didn’t expect to see you.

you looked up from the couch, frowning at him. “satoru?”

he blinked slowly, trying to shake off the fog.

“did we have a date planned?” he asked. his voice was rough, barely more than a rasp. he hadn’t messaged you, hadn’t checked his phone—hell—he didn’t even know if he’d eaten in the past few days.

you didn’t get angry like he expected. no eye rolls, no snarky comments, no judgment like his previous relationships. instead you just stood up, and moved towards him with that careful, knowing grace. almost as if you could sense he was about to crumble.

“c’mere.”

he didn’t hesitate, stepping forward until he felt your warmth at his side. you guided him with a steady hand towards the bathroom. in that moment gojo felt as if your touch was the only thing melting him up when all he wanted to do was collapse.

his whole life, people had leaned on him—looked to him for strength. with you he here taking care of him, he felt like is was finally his turn. you treated him like he was human, not some untouchable weapon. and that’s what made him feel like maybe he wasn’t just a tool, maybe he mattered outside of his strength.

once you helped settle him on the toilet seat gojo gently held yours hips as you stepped between his legs and gently removed his blindfold. he sighed and leaned into your stomach when you scratched his scalp.

soon the soft splashing of water filled the room as you. he watched you everything you did with low eyes. if he wasn’t so tired he would’ve had had his hands all over you.

when you turned back to him your hands reaching for the hem of his shirt—he didn’t protest. you just gently slid the fabric off, your fingers brushing his sensitive sides.

you cupped his checks and tilted his face towards your own. “did you eat today?” your voice was so quiet almost completely drowned out by the sound of the tub.

he chuckled into you hand but it didn’t carry the usual lightness. “don’ remember.”

you sighed, shaking your head as you pushed his soft locks off his face. “you never take care of yourself toru.”

his lips curved into a half-smirk. “that’s what I have you for, huh?”

you didn’t laugh, didn’t tease him back like you usually would. instead, you just gave him that look—the one that made his chest tighten. the one that saw through his tough exterior without even trying.

“get in.”

he sank into the tub, the warmth cascading all over his sore muscles in a way they made him groan. a shaky breath escaped his lips when you places his head in your lap from your place on the edge. and finally, with silver strands sticking to his forehead, bags underneath his eyes, head in your lap—gojos body finally relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever.

he was on the verge of sleep when he felt you stand.

his fingers twitched over the rim of the tub. “stay.” it wasn’t a command, wasn’t playful. just quiet. unsure. like he was afraid to ask.

you paused for a moment, but then you stripped and stepped in behind him, the water shifting with your weight. when your arms wrapped around him, pulling his back against you, he felt himself melting into the embrace.

your fingers slid back into his hair, massaging gently, your nails grazing his scalp in a way that made his whole body relax under your touch. you other hand was drawing small shapes into his chest.

no one had ever touched him like this. no one ever cared without expecting something in return.

“toru,” you whispered, lips brushing against his temple “you don’t have to do everything alone.”

his fingers curled around your wrist, holding you close, as if anchoring himself to you. “don’t go anywhere,” he whispered.

you pressed a soft kiss to his hair. “I won’t. never.”

his world had always been too loud. too fast. too demanding—but with you here, everything slowed. everything quieted.

he let himself sink into it—let himself need you. and, for the first time since he could remember, he felt was it was like to be loved unconditionally.

[ceilidho]

sundog

prompt: Simon comes across a girl when she's recently been evicted and takes her back to his place, despite her reservations (nsfw, 8.5k) [based on this old post] [on ao3 here]

-

The circumstances of your life change so abruptly that you lose sight of it for a moment. 

Then, you’re out on the streets with the clothes on your back and a suitcase packed so full that a sweater sleeve sticks out where the zippers meet. The locks to your apartment have already been changed. You know because you tried them anyway, desperately hoping that the eviction notice taped to your door might have been misplaced.

Evidently not. The keys don’t work. You contemplate chucking them on the walk out, but instead you keep them close like a talisman of protection, though it’s failed to live up to its purpose so far. 

You’ve got it under control for a day. If by ‘under control’, you mean experiencing a full body panic attack in the locker room of the twenty-four hour gym down the street from your old apartment. The staff gives you uncomfortable looks when you come in on the verge of tears with your suitcase rolling behind you, but they let you in because your membership is up to date. If you can count on anything in life, it’s consumerism. 

That doesn’t last long though, mainly because a locker and a wood bench won’t cut it in the long term. You sleep in the back of the local library until a stern-faced, if pitying, librarian threatens to call the cops on you. Pity isn’t sympathy, evidently. 

Gym management threatens to cut the lock on the locker you’ve been using as temporary storage space. Matter of fact, they say, you can’t be using the locker room as your quasi apartment between the hours of nine P.M. and seven A.M. just because everything else in the city is closed. Go home, they say. 

What home, you don’t say, before packing up your things and heading out on your way. 

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s capitalism. 

You didn’t think this kind of thing could happen to someone like you. Someone like you being an ordinary person. Homelessness always felt like a far away concept. But the world is cruel and life is brutal. What you didn’t realize before was that, at any moment in time, you’ve been closer to poverty than wealth, and here you are now, sitting in the park with your suitcase between your legs, the sun rapidly setting behind you, your phone at ten percent battery, and nowhere to go because your family is, frankly, nonexistent, and your friends, for lack of a better word, have almost entirely washed their hands of you.

Sorry, they’d say, the frown emoji expressing something like pity at a distance. We don’t have a couch to spare. 

I can sleep on the floor, you’d texted back. They’d gotten cagey after that. People like to be wanted only to a certain extent.

You can feel the panic rise up in you, too big to contain. It comes out in the form of blubbering tears and snot running from your nose. Big, hiccuping sobs. It’s not pretty. Passersby avert their eyes for the most part, save for the ones that eye you with something bordering on perverse delight and that’s what finally makes you get up and speed walk away, lest they feel compelled to approach you. 

But even in the tailwinds of summer, it gets cold outside at night. Worst of all, as the evening grows dark, the streets empty out until you can’t help but feel like a beacon with your little rolling suitcase. It clatters against the sidewalk as you try to hoof it down the street, looking for any shop still open to loiter in. Most close after nine though. You’ve googled homeless shelters, but the sheer anxiety keeps you floundering around up and down the streets instead.

It feels beyond helpless. You’re in a state like you’ve never been before, crying under a streetlamp because you needed a moment just to get your bearings. 

What you know now is that this world is a house of false bottoms. You thought the circumstances of your life could never change. You were never well to do, but you were doing well. The sight of the unhoused sitting with their backs to the brick and mortar stores on your walk home or congregated in a park in the middle of the city with their tents and shopping carts used to fill you with immeasurable pity, maybe even a quiet moment’s reflection; now, you see them as kin. 

Easy, isn’t it? To slip between states. To go from solid to liquid to gaseous. Easier than you ever could have expected. 

When it starts to rain, you almost close your eyes in relief. Anyone could’ve predicted this. 

You almost don’t respond to him at first, keeping your eyes trained on the sidewalk to avoid any bumps. Also, it never pays to look up at a man barking at you, especially not when he’s barking something like, Girl or Bird, turn around. 

Then he says it again, closer this time, and you’re forced to look up, if only to see who’s approaching you. Your suspicion melts away to distrust at the sight of the man stalking towards you. Distrust with a touch of trepidation—maybe outright alarm. Surely no man his size wearing a balaclava tucked into a hoodie straining around his arms would have innocent designs on you. 

He’s one of the bigger men you’ve ever come across. You look across the street to see if there’s a bar missing its bouncer, but all the shop fronts are dark like the ones on your side. 

You don’t bolt at the sight of him, but it’s a near thing. He appears from nowhere, and yet there’s nowhere for him to hide. Not with the size and breadth of him damn near taking up the whole sidewalk. His demeanour and stride evoke such a sense of authority that at first you mistake him for a plainclothes man, and wouldn’t that be just the icing on the shit cake of a week you’ve been experiencing. But something about him says otherwise. 

“Plan on catchin’ your death out here?” he asks, and you shiver. Not from the cold, but from the sound of his voice. 

You’re not used to talking to strangers. A month ago, you would’ve ignored the man lambasting you for being out in the rain; maybe crossed the street and hailed a cab instead. You don’t have those kinds of options anymore. The only thing left in your repertoire is to shout back. 

“I’ve got mace!” you yell out, your voice a hoarse rattle carved out from hours spent crying. 

“That’ll do ya fuck all out here,” he says, a touch condescendingly. “You lost or somethin’?”

“I’m not lost,” you sniff, rubbing the snot away from your nose with the end of your sleeve.

“Then get home instead of roamin’ the streets. You’re askin’ to get snatched up, bird.”

The threat of that has been lingering in your head these past few days, even stretching back to the very first moment that you noticed the sign on your door, but now it has its intended effect. You shake. 

“I can’t,” you whisper.

“Bloody hell,” he sighs. “Why the fuck not? Need someone to call you a cab?”

“I got evicted. I don’t have a home,” you say, and sniffle when your nose leaks again. Saying it outloud brings tears to your eyes again, a pressure building behind your orbital sockets and down to the tip of your nose. 

You must look like the saddest thing in the world standing there in the rain under the dim light of the streetlamp, the pole looped with graffiti and old gum. When the man berating you for being out in it takes a step forward, coming into the light, you can finally make out the bored depths of his eyes. A deep brown. Entirely unimpressed with the picture in front of him, maybe even a bit peeved. 

Your socks are wet and your shoes squelch when you take a step back. You pull the sheer sweater tighter around your frame, but it does nothing to protect you from the damp, frigid air. 

“You been out here long?” he asks, taking another step closer. Not tentatively either. His gaze sweeps over you proprietarily, taking stock; his arrogance comes as an afterthought. He’s not rubbing it in your face that he can do whatever he likes—he just does. 

You wheel your suitcase around in front of you to put something between the two of you. “…Just today. The gym kicked me out.”

You sound petulant, words chewed between your lips and teeth; begrudgingly admitting to the various pitfalls of your existence. All the bad luck. It’s shameful to admit to losing complete control of your life. 

“Haven’t ya got any family, girl? Friends? What’re they letting a girl like you stay out on the streets for?”

You could be sick on the pavement. “…That’s none of your business.”

His eyes go flat at that, unimpressed. “You always this nasty to people tryin’ to help?”

And you’re not. That’s the part that grates the most. You’re all soft underbelly; no bark, no bite. It’s inconceivable that this could’ve happened to you—inconceivable because your head is filled with false promises and mythologies. The myth of exceptionalism. This happens to other people. Not good girls that go to college and get their degrees and find a stable job. 

They’ve pulled the rug out from under you so fast that you haven’t even toppled over yet. That’s how quick it all happened. 

“What help are you?” The bite comes out of nowhere, fueled by bitter humiliation and resentment for the predicament you’ve found yourself in. “Are you gonna put me up in a hotel?”

“Think I’m made of money, bird?” he asks rhetorically. 

“You’ve probably got more than I have.” 

Now you’re weepy again at the thought. Down to your last hundred dollars and you’re in between jobs at the moment. It might’ve been easier to haul yourself out of poverty if applying for jobs didn’t require a mailing address. That’ll be your first priority once you find a place to live. But conversely, how are you meant to find housing with no proof of income? Landlords laugh in your face before slamming the door shut. The conversations are circular, but they always come to a grinding halt; that’s the only thing you’ve learned to expect. 

The worst part of this whole conversation is that it doesn’t follow any of the scripts you’ve previously memorized. When have you ever had to deal with a man interrogating you about your place of residence? It makes no sense. 

It’s inconceivable to imagine that this is happening to you, but it is. Life comes at you hard, with a razor’s edge. Sharp enough to cut, to lacerate. 

“You need a place to stay,” he states bluntly. 

“It’s fine. I’ll—I’ll find something.” 

“You could come home with me.” He says it so bluntly that for a moment all you can do is blink. Surely you misheard him. Surely a man of his size and breadth, dark mask obscuring his face, wouldn’t be daft enough to ask a woman he found on the street to come home with him.

The offer, as well-intentioned as you hope it is, puts you on edge. “No, that’s…that’s alright. I don’t want to…put you out. I was going to look up nearby shelters.”

“Shelters’ll all be full this time of night,” he says. “Never been on the streets?”

You clenched your teeth, nerves starting to get the better of you. 

“I can go to a church,” you say, voice terse now, frayed with nerves. 

He snorts. “Haven’t been to one in a long time, but pretty sure those close too, pet. It’s late.”

You sway on your feet, the suitcase at your side the only thing keeping your knees from buckling. Dead ends everywhere you turn. You’ve always thought of yourself as resourceful; that if push came to shove, you’d figure your way out of any sticky situation. That smacks of arrogance now. All your suppositions are dissolving right in front of you, your own self-image along with it. 

A heavy foot stepping into a puddle brings you back to focus. The masked man is closer now, within arm’s reach. Your heart jumps into your throat. He towers over you, monolith man; big as a sequoia, or other deadland creatures that vanish out of sight when you catch a shadow out of the corner of your eye and whirl around to look it dead on. 

“I can’t go home with a stranger.”

You know you’re not supposed to put your faith in strange men. Bad things happen to girls that go around trusting any man that offers up their help. 

The fist in your chest loosens infinitesimally when the man reaches up to pull the mask off his head. He’s every inch the brute you imagined in your head—blunt chin and crooked nose, a nasty scar running up his lip. There are scars all over his face, in fact—bisecting his left eyebrow and down his cheek. The blond hair on his head is slightly grown out, like he’s used to keeping it neat and tight but it’s been awhile since his head has seen a razor. His beard grows in a bit patchy, the burnish gold of a five o’clock shadow.

You frown. “Is that supposed to make me trust you?”

“Well, now we’re not strangers, are we?”

“That doesn’t—that doesn’t change anything! I still don’t know you.”

He shrugs. Takes a step back. “Suit yourself then. No skin off my ass.”

Your stomach roils, anxiety coming back with a vengeance. You hadn’t noticed it recede since the man started talking to you, but you notice its return. When he makes a move to turn back around, you lurch forward, your hand extending out and fisting in the side of his shirt. He pauses, then looks down at you. 

“…Where else am I supposed to go?” you whisper.

He tilts his head. “Could sleep on a bench in the park.”

You glare at him through tear-soaked eyes. “That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. You’re shit out of other options at this time of night.”

“So, what? Now it’s-it’s my fault or something?”  

His eyes don’t exactly soften, but they lose their hard edge. 

“I’m not gonna ask twice,” he says. Not cautioning you, just stating a fact. “You coming or not?”

Disaster seems like a given at this point. At least you could pick your poison. 

Words are beyond you though, so you just bite your lip and nod, eyes downcast now. 

What else is there for you to do but follow him after that? You trail along after him like a sad, wet cat left out in the rain. 

He finds her wandering the streets with her pretty little suitcase rolling over every bump and crack in the sidewalk and there’s no fighting the urge to drag her home. 

She doesn’t look like a runaway. Just a poor thing down on her luck. Her cheeks practically glisten with her tears when she looks up at him with her big, pathetic eyes, and it makes his cock plump up against his thigh. 

That’s not what this is about though. Simon presses his hand against his dick to rub out some of the ache while she flutters around the bedroom and reminds himself of that again. He didn’t take her home to maul her like a dog. He dragged her back to his flat because she looked wounded and scared out of her wits. 

He can be good every now and then. 

“Sit down, will ya?” he grunts, tugging her down onto the couch when she flits across the room to grab more of her shit out of her suitcase, glancing down at him apprehensively on her way by. She yelps when he sends her sprawling onto the couch. 

His flat isn’t much. A one-bedroom above a laundromat; eggshell walls and torn up baseboards because he hasn’t gotten around to fixing the place up. It’s better than sleeping on the streets though, he knows that much. 

Simon’s no stranger to that; if being in the military taught him anything, it was how to survive regardless of circumstances. In the weeks after his medical discharge—his knees beyond busted, basically bone on bone, and even these days, though he works more to have something to do than to earn a living, they still scream at him when he puts too much weight on them—he wandered aimlessly for a bit, crashing on Gaz’s couch for a bit and sleeping on benches for a spell after that before finding his footing again. 

Simon ignores the way that she yaps at him though, used to tuning people out. He flicks on the television and flips to a show that looks vaguely entertaining before getting up and ambling over to the kitchen. 

“D-do you want me to help?” she asks from the kitchen, tripping over her words in her haste to get them out. 

She reeks of the need to please. Desperate; cloying, sickly sweet like flowering dracaena. It clings to her like a perfume, silk-wrapped and packaged just for him. It could give a man like him indecent thoughts. His thoughts already tend towards the impure. 

He must eye her like a ravenous animal because she flinches suddenly under his gaze, eyes flicking away nervously before meeting his again. Good girl, Simon wants to say. Eyes on me. 

“Sit down,” he barks instead, and relishes in the way she sits back down with her hands tucked under her thighs. 

She’s really a pretty little thing. A shame that he found her out wandering in the rain, out where any man with worse intentions could have stumbled across her. The thought alone could drive him to violence. Again he stares at the back of her head and the slope of her shoulders, evaluating. His bloodlust dulls to a simmer. It pounds in his ears like a dull drum, but at least now he can hear again. 

Anyone else could have found her first, but they didn’t. He did. That tempers the homicidal impulse thrumming in his blood. She’s in his flat now, freshly showered and skin still damp. When she looks over her shoulder, it’s him she sees. 

Poor bird with her clipped wings. She’s not in danger of flying off anytime soon. The thought placates him. Tucked away in his cage, he doesn’t have to rend anyone limb from limb.

It’s been years since he traded in his fatigues for a hi vis jumpsuit, but some days he misses it so acutely that his hands shake and his vision fades in and out. This is one of those days. He toys with the idea of reaching out to Price in the morning to learn more about her, but then discards the idea. Better if it comes straight from her.

Besides, he doesn’t like asking for favours anyway.

“Name’s Simon, by the way,” he grunts, nostrils flaring when he sees her flinch at the sound of his voice. “Riley.”

“Oh,” is all she says. He waits a beat.

“Gonna give me your name, bird?”

She does, voice squeaky like it’s said under duress. That pisses him off more. 

He's not much of a cook, but he can whip up something quick, so he tosses one of his frozen meals into the microwave and sits her in front of the TV while she shivers and shakes on the couch.

They eat in silence, the TV on in the background. It’s the only noise besides the soft sound of her chewing. Simon can tell she’s gone hungry in recent days by the voracious way she eats, unable to keep herself from shovelling the food into her mouth. She seems almost embarrassed by it after swallowing her last bite, looking over at him from the corner of her eye like a guilty dog. He ignores it, keeping his eyes on the TV instead.

He can tell she wants to say something. A shit childhood and two decades in the military have left him with the ability to sniff out tension, and it comes off her in waves. After putting her plate on the coffee table, she sits back against the couch and squeezes her fists over her lap. Gnaws her lip and casts furtive glances in his direction. When the tears build up on her waterline, his cock twitches. 

“What?” he barks after the umpteenth sniffle, twisting to face her. 

“I—um—I just wanted to say thank you,” she whispers, her head still tilted downward, trying to make herself small enough to go unnoticed. 

Simon stares down at her, unblinking. He half wishes she’d cry a little more, just a few tears to soothe the beast in his chest. It’s better for her that her eyes remain dry. He doesn’t think he could hold himself back if one slipped down her cheek right now. He’d have to grab her by the nape of her neck and twist her over the side of the couch, shove down both their drawers and feed his cock into the warm, wet slot between her legs. Pummel her little cunt until his spend leaks out in thick, viscous globs, until her thighs shake so violently that only his hands on her shoulders and his shaft shoved deep in her pussy keeps her upright. 

He can almost smell it from between her legs, throbbing with gratefulness. He stares down unabashedly at the spot between her legs. Let her say something about it. 

“Don’t mention it,” he says instead, tilting his head when her tongue peeks out to wet her lips. “‘Was nothing.”

“No, it was really nice of you,” she insists, speaking more forcefully after gathering up some of her courage. “What if I…—you took a stranger into your house.”

That gets the blood pumping. “Gonna gut me while I sleep, pet?”

It’s half deranged that his cock chubs up in his jeans at the thought of his little bird with a knife in her hands, hands dripping with wet, dark blood. He shifts, readjusting himself so the metal teeth of his zipper don’t bite into his dick. 

She frowns. Endearing. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Not really good at looking after yourself, are you?”

“I am—it’s just…” tears build up on her waterline again, “it was one thing after another. I couldn’t get it all together.”

Pity isn’t an emotion he’s accustomed to feeling. Simon’s not even sure if that’s what he’s feeling now. It’s more like the bastard child of pity. 

He lets her off to bed with a warning not to fuck with anything in his room. She skitters off quickly after that. Her cute little ass follows her into the room until she shuts the door behind her, hiding it from view. He huffs. Being good never gets him anywhere.

He lets her run away though because he can’t tarnish everything he touches. Some things deserve to stay polished. 

Instead, he brushes his teeth and washes the last of the dishes before turning in as well, getting a clean sheet out of the linen closet to drape over himself. The couch isn’t nearly long enough for him to stretch out on, not like the king sized bed in his room; there’s already a spring poking him right in the middle of his back.

Sleep won’t come easy tonight. 

Simon wakes up on the couch with a kink in his neck. He lays there for several minutes gritting his teeth until the worst of it passes. When he sits up, his back cracks and pops, joints loosening only reluctantly. His age is getting away from him again; the wear and tear on his body finally starting to catch up. There’s only so much abuse he can put himself through. 

The morning races on outside his front door and he has work to get to, but his body orients towards the closed door of his bedroom almost without his say. It creaks as it swings open. 

In the slowly dimming haze of sleep, he must have subconsciously thought he dreamt the night before because seeing the girl from yesterday curled up in his bed halts him in his tracks. Her suitcase is open on the floor beside the bed. She must have changed into her pyjamas after slinking away last night because he doesn’t recognize the little cotton shorts hugging the swell of her ass and the shirt riding up over her belly button. 

Despite the perfunctory morning jerk he gave himself just ten minutes prior, his cock twitches in his work pants, gaze locked on the underside of her ass, the flesh peeking out from beneath her sleep shorts. 

The hunger ebbs out of a deep, cavernous hole in him. A heavy, oppressive heat; lust so gnarled and twisted that he hardly recognizes it. He can see it play out in his mind—crawling over the bird’s prone form and turning her over onto her belly, his knees on either side of her legs, cloaking her. Tugging down the zipper of his pants and wrenching those slutty shorts down to mid-thigh before burying his shaft in her hole. Little bird that followed him home, sleeping in his bed. She should thank him for his help with a wet hole. 

Simon takes a step into the room and then stops. He won’t—can’t—

His teeth grind together from how hard he clenches his jaw. 

He stands in the doorway and watches her sleep in his bed for longer than he should. Only when he feels something ugly well up in his chest does he finally bark out her name, snorting softly when she jumps and nearly falls right off the side of the bed. 

“Get up,” Simon grunts. “And make yourself something to eat. I’ve gotta head out.”

He walks away before the befuddled look on her face makes him crack a smile. 

She tiptoes out a few minutes later, still in her PJs. Her wary glances tick him off. For the effort it’s taken him to keep his hands to himself, he deserves more than her shifty looks, scoring him like he split her little peach open in her sleep.  

Breakfast is an uncomfortable affair. It’s partly his fault, but he doesn’t apologize for it. They eat in tense silence until it’s time for him to head to work. 

“Don't think about leaving—any of my shit gets nicked and it's your ass.”

He leaves her with that warning, slamming the door behind him.

Your heart goes quiet at the dawning of your new life. 

Adjusting to your new reality takes a bit of effort. The first few days with Simon feel tenuous at best. You worry constantly about doing something wrong and finding yourself back out on the streets. You’re thankful to the point of pandering, apologizing for any sudden move or sound that you make. You can tell it annoys him. 

The real work is recontextualizing your perception of yourself. The world feels strange now that you’re outside of it; alien somehow. You used to think of yourself as somehow inextricably woven into the fabric of society. The thought of losing everything never even occurred to you. It never even presented itself as a possibility. You worried about homelessness the way people worry about quicksand—in some nebulous way touching on the real without being absorbed by it. 

And now you are cut from another cloth altogether; abruptly, without any warning. You used to feel like one with the rest of the world, a kind of kinship based less on parentage or ancestry and more on inner nature. Weren’t you the same as any of them? But now the drapery has been pulled down and you know—you are not the same. 

Your future used to shimmer under the surface like a bioluminescent fish, but now it’s just a ghost.

He tells you to stay put when he goes to work so you do, spending the days puttering around the apartment, watching TV, and cleaning. There’s not much else to do. It’s almost a relief, to be honest. You’ve spent so much time without a place to call home that the second someone offered you one, the outside world became anathema in your head. You couldn’t step foot out of the front door even if you wanted to. 

Tears well up at the smallest thing. You blubber over not being able to work the coffee machine in the kitchen. When the sound goes out on the TV, you cry so hard that it leaves you woozy. You’re lachrymose, downtrodden. Soul a startling verdigris; your waterlines might as well be white with encrustations of salt. 

He must notice the dark cloud following you from room to room, but he doesn’t bring it up. You’d find it tactful, but you know him a bit better than that. 

Then Simon brings home a cat after his shift one day and you don’t know what to say to that.

Thank you doesn’t seem to suffice. I love it doesn’t cut it close. The truth of the matter is that words only ever approximate the feeling; they can get close enough to give you a glimmer of what’s stashed inside, but you can’t pry them all the way open. So you take the off-white cat from him when he practically tosses the poor thing into your arms, and stare up at him wide-eyed, eyes already watering for reasons once again unbeknownst to you. 

“Thank you for taking him home,” you say, already on the verge of tears.

He stares down at you, unblinking. You’re learning to read into his silences though. 

“Don’t expect me to take care of it,” he says instead of accepting your thanks. “If you can’t handle it, it’s going back outside.” 

You hold the cat tight to your chest, staring up at him with horror until the little beast nearly scratches your eye out in an effort to squirm out of your arms. 

At first, you’re not sure what to make of it. It can’t be a peace offering because, apart from the rare occasions where you manage to get on his nerves (not wholly impossible, but you’re learning how to stay on his good side for the most part), you and Simon get along pretty well. You coexist, at least. He cooks, you clean. 

It’s likely a distraction, you finally realize, something to keep you from moping around the apartment all the time, listless and directionless. Despite the fact that you’re no longer in any immediate danger now that you have a roof over your head, misery still clings to you like a second skin. The relative safety of Simon’s flat has actually only given you a chance to really properly mourn the loss of your former life. 

Training the cat to wear a harness without tipping over (the little drama king) and taking him on his first walk outside (just a little turn around the block, though you half jump out of your skin whenever you cross paths with another person) gives you enough of a sense of purpose to propel you through the next week. 

You can tell that Simon thinks the cat is more trouble than it’s worth, especially when it decides to fixate on the one person in the flat that doesn’t pay it a lick of attention, but still it makes your heart melt to see it curled up by his side when you watch TV together at the end of the night. 

“Is this normal for you?” you ask, hands folded in your lap.

His gaze doesn’t move from the television screen. “Is what normal?”

“Taking in strays.”

He snorts, then takes a second to answer. “No.”

You wonder if he intends to sound as caustic as he comes across. The truth is self-evident though. Words only mask the real, and the real in this case is that Simon Riley is a man that feeds and takes home strays. He can grumble about it all he wants. It’s a bit demeaning to think of yourself that way, but once again, the truth is what it is. 

You study him from the corner of your eye until bedtime rolls around again. He’s become the most interesting thing in the world to you, through every fault of his own.

If he didn’t want you to fixate on him, he wouldn’t have left you home alone with nothing else to do. 

“Bird!” Simon roars from the other room. “The cat’s pissed on the floor again.”

You spring out of bed before Simon has a chance to toss it out onto the balcony. 

It feels temporary up until the first time you use Simon’s address on a job application. It stands out stark on your phone screen, black on glowing white. You’ve always preferred it to dark mode, though that preference has fluctuated in recent weeks as you’ve spent more and more time on your phone. 

This is the first time staring at the screen without blinking for a prolonged period of time that hasn’t left you with a throbbing migraine. 

He tells you to stop bothering him with stupid shit when you ask him if it’s alright to use his address. That answers that. Guilt lingers on the periphery of your mind the first time that you do, but then the application is submitted. An innocuous grey box that redefines your whole world in a way that [Thanks for applying!] doesn’t seem to encapsulate. 

Your old friends come next. They come back one by one, guilty, furtive looks aplenty. You Facetime the one who wouldn’t let you sleep on her couch while sitting on Simon’s bed. When she asks you about your living situation, all you tell her is that you found a roommate. It doesn’t feel right to give her more information than that. What has she done to deserve your honesty? 

You manage pleasantries and a half decent conversation, but truth again lingers at the back of your mind. The unspoken reality that this person—someone you trusted—could’ve been there for you in your time of need but chose to look the other way instead. Like taking you in would’ve been some big, terrible thing. 

The body forgets everything except what hurts it. The body remembers nothing except what helps it survive. 

Gratefulness lodges into your heart like an arrow shot from a castle’s ramparts intent on your demise. You could pull it out from the other side and succumb to blood loss, or you could push forward, lay siege to the man hidden inside its walls. 

And you do. You want to show him every grateful inch of you. Even when it only results in more upset. Simon comes home to the smoke alarm blaring and a small fire in the microwave before he bans you from the kitchen altogether. You only cry for an hour in the bedroom with the door shut before he drags you out to takeout on the table in the living room. It’s an improvement. 

“I’m sorry,” you sniffle into your veggie burger, on the verge of tears again when you glance into the kitchen to see most of the mess still there. 

“It’s fine.”

“I just want to—I wanted to make it up to you…for taking me in.”

“You don’t owe me shit,” he says brusquely, dismissing you. His tone tells you to drop it, but that seems as likely as you growing wings and flying away. 

“Yes, I do. You let me stay here when I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“If you want to make it up to me, take care of the cat and stop leaving your shit all over the bathroom. Found your knickers on the floor after you showered yesterday.”

Your face goes hot at that. You have nothing else to say. 

Your attraction is a banal consequence of living under the same roof as him. There are only so many times he can come up behind you while you’re making your morning cup of coffee and swipe your mug before taking a sip from over your shoulder, barricading you against the counter. Acutely aware of the size of him with the way he’s pressed up against you. 

You lose your train of thought whenever Simon wanders into a room. He lumbers in like a beast, steel-toed boots covered in mud and dust, ignoring the way you scold him for walking around the apartment in his shoes. Just cocks an eyebrow and stares down at you knowingly, like he can see right through you, knows that you’re only squawking and flitting around to hide the way your thighs rub together. 

“It’s my fuckin’ flat,” he says instead of pointing out that your pussy’s wet because she knows there’s a man in the house that could take care of her proper. You know it too. 

“I live here too, you know,” you huff. “I can’t wash the floors every time you come home.”

“Thought I was doing you a favour letting you live here.”

His words would fill you with righteous indignation, but they don’t because his actions don’t line up. You study him like a moth under glass, enthralled by the parts of him that used to frighten you. 

It’s more than that though. He’s wedged himself into the hurt place in your heart, holding it up like Atlas. 

You really do think that there’s something so special about him that you’ll never be able to articulate. Simon is everything you didn’t know you desperately wanted. The longer you live with him, the harder it is to deny how much you need him. 

You will show your gratitude though. Every tender, aching morsel of it. 

The little peach she grinds on his thigh is wet and ripe. Simon doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t need her gratitude; if he wanted it, he would’ve taken it already. But he doesn’t shove her out of his lap either. It’s not his problem if she thinks it’s necessary or not.

Maybe it’s not solely for his benefit, he concedes when she winds both arms around his neck and pushes her supple tits into his chest, climbing over his lap until her pussy is pressed right up against the cock fattening up in his jeans. She whimpers like she’s in pain. 

Must not come a lot; he knows she at least hasn’t in recent days. Simon’s always been a light sleeper—he’s sure he would’ve heard any desperate attempts to get herself off in his bed, the springs creaking under her weight, her hushed, bitten off moans leaking out from under the doorframe. The thought riles him up more than he thought it would. 

Still, Simon doesn’t lift a hand to help the poor bird in his lap as she grinds down on his length. His arms stay stretched across the back of the couch, hips canted just enough to give her a perch and nothing more. 

She gasps every word into his ear, voice all pitched and breathy. “Ah, ah, ah—thank you, thank you, I…—can I please have it? Please, please let me, Simon, pleasepleaseplease—”

It feels like everything they’ve been through so far has been leading to this. He’d smelt it coming like blood in the water. 

All week, his bird has been sitting on her hands and trying not to give herself away. Cloaked in a nervous, frenetic energy. Anticipatory. She’d doe-eyed him the night before and begged him to sleep in the bed with her instead of wrecking his back on the couch, but he’d ignored her in favour of watching Argentina decimate Croatia in the semi-finals. It must have not sat right with her though because she’d been broody from the moment he left for work until he got home, steering him into the kitchen and practically hand feeding him before coaxing him into the living room to watch a movie while she cuddled up beside him.

That hadn’t lasted long. 

“What’s gotten into you, pet?” Simon asks, hardly dissuading her when she presses petal soft lips to his jaw and nuzzles, breathing heavily. His heart swells. Desperate little slut. 

“Took care of me,” she mumbles, almost slurring her words. “Always taking care of me, Simon.”

There’s no denying how hard it makes him to think about being her protector. The littlest things make her smile. Even the bloody cat had her trailing after him for a week straight after the fact, eternally underfoot. Always trying to curry favour. Eager to please. 

Her worship leaves him unbalanced. Unstable even. A train careening off its track, the massive weight of catastrophe right behind it. The sense that life will never be the same after this. His surface level indifference is underscored by steeled self-control. He keeps his arms on the couch because he knows the second he puts them on her, it’s over. There’ll be no holding him back anymore, no possibility of him ever letting her go back out into the real world. Lock jawed, teeth sunk into her tender underbelly. 

“Told you, you don’t owe me nothing,” Simon murmurs, curling his hands under her ass. 

“Then—then…—I don’t know, pretend it’s just for me.” It’s a joke because they both know it’s not just for her. When her eyes sparkle with amusement, his cock throbs.

He lets her ruck the shirt over his head and struggle with his belt until she manages to unbuckle it like he has no say in the matter. She’s far less considerate with her own clothes, shucking them off and nearly ripping her knickers in the process, which almost prompts him to take her by the wrists and slow her down. He likes the lace and frills. 

It’s a fight to fit his cock into her hole, as slick as she is. Coin slot tight; he almost breaks and tells her to take it easy when she reaches behind her to line his shaft up with her entrance and sits down, just barely stretching around the mushroomed head of his dick before wincing, tears springing into her eyes. 

Simon does break when she tries to sink down another inch, thighs shaking violently. “Right, get off—you ain’t ready for this.”

“I am!” she insists, face screwed up in a scowl and a bead of sweat dripping down her temple. “Just—I can do it, Simon—”

“No, you can’t. You’re rushing and hurting yourself—”

“Wait, okay, wait, I can…just give me a minute, okay?” she begs, and he doesn’t tell her that he’d give her all the time in the world. Stay on this couch until the flesh fell off his bones. He’s waited so long; what’s a little longer? 

Besides, the sight of her stretching herself out with her fingers is reward enough. She whines into his shoulder and shudders when she has to force another finger in before she’s ready. Too eager. It could give a man a complex. His blood is already scorching him from the inside out, too hot for his veins.  

He considers helping her out, but watching her writhe and struggle in his lap is far more enjoyable. 

He stopped paying attention awhile back, too focused on cupping her tits and running his tongue around the budded areola, sucking her pert nipple into his mouth, but she couldn’t have gotten to more than three fingers before running out of patience and lining him up again. This time, she sinks a bit deeper on the first stroke, still choking on her breath but forcing herself to take a bit more. 

“You’re alright—you’re alright,” Simon murmurs, stroking a hand up and down her back while she impales herself on his length. She’s still too tight to take him comfortably, sweats and shakes over him. He pinches her nipple to distract her from the pain and smiles when she yelps. 

She melts all over him, slick drenching his shaft and lap, her tongue lapping at the sweaty skin of his neck. Honeysuckle fragrant; the sweetest thing he’s ever known. Silken, tight. Fits like a glove around him. 

He could lose himself in her. Piston into her until the thought of where he begins and where he ends dissolves into the tight warmth between her legs.

His bird is a greedy girl. She uses him like a toy to get herself off, bouncing in his lap and mewling into his ear everytime his cockhead nudges against her cervix. Too big to fit all the way in. 

“You do this a lot, pet? Fuck every man that lends you a hand?” he pants, taunting her.

“No!” she snarls in his ear, feisty and sharp-toothed. Her nails dig into his back, scoring white lines into his skin. The shiver that wracks him is so violent that his arms tighten around her waist reflexively, making her gasp. 

It doesn’t matter whether she does this often or not; the only thing that matters is that he’s the only man that gets to fuck her from here on out. Still, winding her up is half the fun. 

“Perfect girl,” Simon chuckles, breathless. “Made for me. Got m’self a pet right off the street.”

And he did, didn’t he? Went wandering out into the night and came home with a bird fluttering her wet little wings. 

His conscience is clean. He could’ve tied her down, kept her right where he wanted her (in his bed, his flat, the yawning cavity of his chest—) but his self-control remains unparalleled. Tough as nails. Strong as steel. And now look at what he has as a reward for his patience—a fever-hot cunt around his cock and delicate fingernails scratching the base of his skull. 

A pretty bird that’s made his chest a cage. 

The world goes vertical, horizontal. Fluid; sliding away from him. Something crashes in the background, so far off in the distance that he can hardly make out the sound. 

He opens his eyes to find the ceiling staring back down at him, and then her face, hovering over him on the carpeted floor, her hands kneading the muscle of his chest. Her brows are drawn tight now, pinched. She stares down at him, past him, gaze like a transparent veil. 

“Gi’me…gi’me…” she pants, barely able to pull herself off his cock. 

He has to dig his fingers into her ass and pull her off, ignoring the way she whines and begs him to fill her back up. Ignores it because he knows what’s best for her; knows how to take care of what he owns. 

When he bucks up into her, she chokes, fingers nearly yanking his chest hair out. 

“Fuckin’ hell, that’s pretty,” he breathes. Snaps his hips up into hers again, relishing in the way she squeezes tight around him, almost to the point of pain. 

His pleasure always comes jagged though. Whether the ache of his joints or nails tearing up the skin of his back and chest. Vicious and messy—how he likes it. She gives him everything he could want and more. The hand dug into his chest right above his heart could pierce right through the flesh and tear it out.

He pulls her all the way off his cock just for the pleasure of hearing her beg him again, then pulls her up his chest and eats her out until the beast in his belly calms down. 

He yields to her whining only after a good few minutes. Soft bastard. Drags her back down until her soaked hole mouths at the head of his cock and he thrusts back up inside. Home. It’s his now, whether she likes it or not. Simon guesses he’s lucky that she wants it too; if he had to convince her, he would, but her desperation is just another gift for him to savour. 

“Squeeze me good, bird. Say thank you—” thank you for taking me home, thank you for keeping me– almost spills off his tongue, but he reigns it in. She knows what to be thankful for. 

“Nngh, Simon,” she sings, fucking herself on his cock. The sweetest sound he’s ever heard. 

Simon’s never felt bigger than under his sweet bird. Thighs spread so wide around him that he knows she’ll ache in the morning. Brutish hands groping her thighs and waist and tits, rough against the softness of her skin. Stuffed full of a big cock, not even to the root; she bites right through her bottom lip when Simon pets at the thin skin stretched around his cock, her gaze wounded, overwhelmed. 

Nearly blacks out at the thought of cramming a finger up there too. Only faint concern for her well-being tamps down the urge. 

“Come on, fuck—that good, pet?”

“R-right there, oh god, ohgodohgod—”

He lets her ride him until she comes, until he comes, until his spend is blistering hot in her cunt, drooling down the length of his cock, frothy white with her cream and his come. 

It’s a sight to look at. Gets him right in the chest. Nothing like times of yore; this is something with meaning, with feeling. When he lifts her off, his seed trickles out of her soft hole in white globs and makes his chest ache. It doesn’t matter whether it takes root or not. All that he needs is already here. 

Beautiful and rare as a sundog; haloed by light. All this time, he dared not think this could be it. 

He thinks he’ll love her with the same ferocity Icarus had on his descent.

She shivers when he traces his fingers up her spine. “N’more. M’tired.”

“Wasn’t gonna, pet.”

The bedroom then. She twitches in his arms when Simon carries her to bed and pats his chest approvingly when he slides in beside her. 

He could’ve told her that it’d end up this way. He smiles indulgently when she shifts and splays over his chest, her nose nudging his nipple. Already fast asleep. 

In the morning, you sit across from him, half a grapefruit in a bowl in front of you and a mug of coffee, black. 

“I think I want to go back to school,” you say, apropos of nothing. The spoon clinks against the inside of the bowl. 

“Yeah?” he says, only half-listening. 

“I can always get a part time job on the days when I don’t have class. I never liked my old job anyway.”

“Do whatever you want,” Simon grunts. “Not my problem.”

Under the table, your cat’s tail curls around your ankle while he waits for you to sneak him the scraps. 

You smile.

[clockwayswrites]

An abundance of birbs part 33

Masterpost Please no editing or concrit, I know I have missing or swapped words, but I am super fuzzy from this headache. It will get a good edit before ao3. <3

“I’m hiding in here from your children,” Danny said as he came into Bruce’s study. He had a tray of tea and snacks in hand, so he must have been sent up by Alfred.

“That’s more than fair, considering,” Bruce said with a little smile.

Danny just sighed as he set the tray down. “You have video, don’t you.”

Bruce nodded. “Jason sent one and Tim the other. They’re very moving.”

“Yes, Jerry’s love for me is eternal, clearly,” Danny drolled.

“If only Jerry’s father would approve of the union,” Bruce said.

Danny gave a little hum as he poured the tea. “Alas, Damian does seem very resistant to the idea, if the lecture he gave Jerry is any indication. Cream, sugar?”

“A little cream, thank you,” Bruce said and got up from his desk. “And Jerry was being very forward so the lecture may be a little deserved, but who can blame him with those wings.”

“Mister Wayne,” Danny said with an exaggerated gasp, “are you you saying that you’re enamored with my wings?”

Bruce reached out and brushed his fingertips through Danny’s wings. He could play it all off, of course. It could just be part of the rest of their banter. But did he want to? He’s enjoyed having Danny around. The man seemed to just fit with the family. Overall, the children certainly seemed to like him. And, well, Bruce found that he quite liked Danny too. Maybe it was time to take a little risk.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Though the wings are hardly the only thing about you that I’m enamored with.”

Danny blushed so quickly that Bruce was honestly a little concerned bout Danny’s blood pressure. “I—um, oh?”

“Is it that surprising? You’re kind, intelligent, considerate. You protected my children and even before that were gentle and understanding with them. You have a sense of humor and seem able to handle just about anything,” Bruce said, which was almost an understatement with what Danny has been through lately. “And, more shallowly, you’re very attractive, with or without the wings.”

“That—I—oh come on, you of all people can say someone else is attractive!” Danny sputtered.

“Oh?”

“Have you not looked in a mirror recently? You’re the type of person that ‘devastatingly handsome’ was coined for,” Danny said with a gesture at Bruce. “Which is something that I just said out loud. I don’t suppose you want to fire me so that I can run away to a remote island somewhere?”

Bruce chuckled. “Fortunately, I don’t have that sort of power over your job. All that would fall to Lucius.”

“Fortunately?” Danny repeated.

“Umhum. It means that there’s no company policy we’re breaking if we were to date. And there’s no pressure for you to say yes if you’re opposed to the idea,” Bruce said. He very much wanted to make that clear. “And between the press, my reputation, the large family, and the recent rogue attack I know there are a number of reasons to be opposed to the idea.”

“Bruce,” Danny said before Bruce could continue, “are you trying to talk me into dating you or out of it?”

“I well…” Bruce cleared his throat. “I don’t want to assume anything or imply that I am some sort of catch because I hardly am. I am a stubborn man. I have… a rather deep seated anxiety that verges on paranoia at times. It has and can make me overbearing when I try to protect the people I care about. I come with six children, almost as many pseudo children, and a frankly terrifyingly competent butler who is like a father to me. Every relationship I’m in and not actually in ends up in the paper—”

The spiral of words—of reasons he wasn’t good enough for someone like Danny was cut short as Danny pushed himself up on his tiptoes and across the coffee table to press his lips to Bruce’s. Bruce sighed softly into the kiss as it put sudden stop to the unwanted thoughts. Danny left his hand on Bruce’s cheek as he pulled back a little.

“Too forward?” Danny asked. His words and eyes alike were filled with nerves.

“Not at all,” Bruce said quickly. He followed his words up with a quick kiss as proof. “I am sorry about rambling like that. As I said, deeply anxious.”

“Anxious is okay. You’re aware of it. I’m not exactly a paragon of mental health either. I’ve been going to therapy since I was eighteen,” Danny said. His thumb gently stroked Bruce’s cheek. “First off, fuck the press. I can deal with it. Second off, your family is huge and wonderful and not at all something that would stop me, not unless they hated me.”

“They certainly do not hate you,” Bruce assured him.

“Third off,” Danny continued with a little smile, “I guess the anxiety, which we’ve covered. And fourth off, I am also very stubborn and have no problem telling someone to budge off if they’re being too much. So, yeah, we might have lines to find out and some of those we’d find out be crossing them and fucking up, but that’s just part of dating, isn’t it? If any of them become lines that we can’t deal with, well, we’re old enough that I would hope that we could end things maturely.”

“I have a very good track record of remaining friends with my exes, for better or worse,” Bruce said.

“Better or worse?”

“Harvey Dent, as one example.”

“Ah,” Danny said with a little nod. “I’ve heard that he’s been doing better at least?”

“That or he’s planning something big,” Bruce said with a sigh. “But I even I know I should stop talking about an ex with someone that just kissed me.”

“Generally a good rule,” Danny agreed with a little smile. “Does this mean that we’re going to try dating?”

“If I didn’t talk you out of it,” Bruce joked.

“Like I said, I’m stubborn,” Danny pointed out. “But as much as I adore them, I expect at least one dinner out with no children once my wings are gone.”

“Deal,” Bruce agreed easily and leaned down to give Danny a proper kiss.

---

AN:

I didn't plan for the kiss to happen here, but I'll take it!

[jenomi]

when you first started dating jeno, he would be really shy on facetimes/video calls with you. keeping the phone camera at an appropriate distance from his face and keeping things very demure.

but after months of dating and many many calls, jeno has gotten very comfortable. he would bring his face close to the camera and smile or do silly faces into the camera. it always makes you laugh and you would tease him for being annoying. but when he's abroad and he would bring the camera close to his face, it made you a little sad because it made you miss him more than ever.

when he's up close to the camera, you can see all the features of his face that you love the most. the mole next to his eye, the mole on his nose, the light in his eyes, his smile lines, his nose scrunches, his neck... the feeling of missing him so deeply would be so strong, that it would bring you to the verge of tears. you even cried on a call with him once, sobbing in between your words, "i just miss you."

a similar feeling was happening now.

"babe, back up from the camera, i can't do this right now" you say teasingly (but also seriously cuz you could cry right now).

"why~" jeno says bringing the camera even closer to his face.

you fall silent and decide to just appreciate his face up close like this. jeno smiles and chuckles lightly at your lack of an answer.

"i wish i could time travel so i can see you right now instead of in a week," you mumble and pout.

"maybe you should close your eyes for a second and pretend i'm there."

"no," you deadpan.

"come on, just for 30 seconds." jeno nags.

you roll your eyes and go along with jeno's antics. but suddenly, you hear a knock on your door which makes you jump.

"omg that scared me," you whisper, "someone's at my door."

"this late? keep me on the line," jeno says with concern.

you trod over to your door and look through the peephole on your door. your gasp is audible from your own phone as you quickly open the door to see your boyfriend standing on the other side of your door.

your jaw drops before you throw yourself at your boyfriend.

"wow my girlfriend can time travel" jeno smiles as you kiss all over the face you've been loving only thru a screen for weeks.

⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

a/n: i saw a compilation of up-close jeno that inspired this but i lost the video </3

[pathologicalreid]

falling flat | s.r.

in which you call Spencer for help with a flat tire, and he comes to help with your car troubles - and then some

margovember

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: fluff content warnings: allusions to the reaper, car trouble, blood, tetanus vaccine, kindergarten teacher!reader, flirting, protective!spencer, takes place following 5x22 "the internet is forever", hastily edited word count: 1.87k a/n: rahhhh an old prompt from may 2024 that ended up working for a margovember request rahhh.

The absolute last place you wanted to be was on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere Virginia, with a flat tire. You weren’t entirely helpless until your tire jack broke, sending metal flying everywhere and cutting your hand open.

You slumped down next to your car, pulling your phone from your pocket before calling the first people you could think of. Every single one of them ended up going to voicemail. Some of them didn’t even let it get past the first ring before declining your call—traitors.

With your thumb hovering over the call button, you thought of Spencer. He had a PhD in engineering, but you weren’t entirely sure that would come in handy in this instance. It was late, almost midnight, and you weren’t even sure he’d answer.

At this point, what choice did you have?

As the phone rang, part of you hoped he wouldn’t answer. When he asked you about it the next time you saw him, you’d wave it off as a butt dial and he’d be none the wiser.

“Hello,” he said through the phone, leaving your plans quashed.

This was awkward, you had been on four dates with the guy over the span of two months, and now you were calling him in the middle of the night. “This isn’t a booty call,” You blurted, cringing inwardly and banging your head back on the passenger door of your car.

Spencer laughed lightly, “I didn’t think it was, what’s going on?”

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” You asked, his job had a lot of long hours, and you didn’t want to bother him if he was catching up on sleep. If he was even home, “Wait, where are you?”

There was a rustling on his end of the call, “No, I wasn’t asleep, I’m at work. We just got off of a case.”

You let out a sigh of relief, at least you weren’t being a total nuisance. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. I just… my tire blew out on the highway and my jack broke and no one else is answering their phone,” you told him, verging on rambling.

“You’re kind of cutting out, where are you?” He asked, he sounded concerned, and if there was a moment where you weren’t sure you still had feelings for him, it was fleeting.

Looking to either side of you for a mile marker, you stood up, looking at the ground so you didn’t step on any metal, “I don’t really know. There aren’t any signs, I’m somewhere on 28, I think?”

Spencer cleared his throat, “Do you have your location on your phone?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have enough service to check it,” you said, all you could see were trees.

You could hear him talking to someone, holding the receiver away from his mouth, “That’s fine, I’ll have someone look, just stay on the phone.”

It would seem that dating someone in the FBI does have its perks, “Oh, cool.” You overheard Spencer explaining your situation to someone, hearing the other person in the room say something about Reid’s girlfriend and you couldn’t help but smile. The two of you were very unofficially official.

“Hey, I’ll be there in half an hour,” An elevator dinged in the background. “Is that alright?”

You hummed, leaning your hip against the front of your car. “I mean, I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Another ding of the elevator, “Will you do me a favor?”

In exchange for this? You’d do just about anything within the realm of legality, “Name it.”

“Get in your car and lock the doors,” he responded. “Turn your hazards on because right now you’re a sitting duck. If someone doesn’t see your car, they could hit you.”

As a favor, he was asking you to make sure you’re safe, “Okay, I’m getting in now, should I leave the car running?”

You heard the sound of a car lock disengaging through the phone, “As long as the cooling system on your car is in good shape, it shouldn’t be a problem to leave it running while you wait. Just remember what I told you about the hazards.”

Nodding despite the fact that he can’t see you, you got in the car, turning the key in the ignition before pushing the button for your hazard lights, “Okay, I’m in the car.”

“I can’t drive and be on the phone at the same time, but I’ll be there soon. Don’t unlock the doors for anyone except for me,” he told you, and you thanked him for his help before hanging up and settling yourself in your driver’s seat.

You pulled the hoodie you kept stashed in your car over your head, your school mascot—a panther—proudly displayed in the front, and made sure your car doors were locked. If you said you weren’t a little unnerved, you’d be lying to yourself.

Spencer had a worrisome job; it was something you were aware of before he ever asked you on that first date. It became alarmingly obvious to you when he revealed that he’d been shot a few months prior, which was an appropriate second-date conversation with an FBI agent. It made sense to you that he’d be concerned about you, in your idle car, on the side of the road, but you wondered if there was a case that he was thinking of. Someone with a flat tire who had met an untimely demise.

Shuddering, you turned up the heat in your car, flipping through radio stations until someone knocked on your window. You jumped at the noise, hitting your head against the roof of the car before looking outside to see Spencer. Sighing in relief, you unlocked your car door, and he opened it for you, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Is your head alright?”

You peered up at him, casually leaning over your car door. “You cut your hair,” you observed. You’d seen him just last week, where his hair still touched his shoulders, and now it was considerably shorter.

Self-consciously, he reached up a hand and thumbed one of the tendrils, “Yeah, it just got too long—and heavy.”

Resisting the urge to ruffle his hair, your head bobbed, “I like it. Did you do it yourself?”

“You can tell?” He asked, following you around the back of your car to your busted tire. Spencer sets his tire jack down before looking back at you, putting his hands on his hips.

Grinning at him, you shrugged, “I teach kindergarten, I’m basically a professional at noticing DIY haircuts.”

On a towel that you had previously set out, the two of you sat along the side of your car, and you tried to ignore the fact that Spencer still had his weapon holstered. It made sense, he’d come straight from work, but you wondered if there was a reason he didn’t leave it in his car. “Where’s your lug wrench?”

“I can change it myself,” you insisted, “I just needed a different car jack.” You gestured to the pieces of yours that were now all over the side of the road.

Alarm flashed on Spencer’s face, “Nothing fell on you, right?”

You shook your head, “No, just a cut from the metal.”

Holding out your hand, you let Spencer take a look at the cut on your palm. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

Blinking rapidly, you frowned at him, “Uh, when I was in college?”

“That might need stitches,” he responded, letting you take your hand back. “I’ll change your tire, I don’t want you using that hand for anything,” he informed you, pushing the hydraulic jack beneath your car.

Butterflies swarmed in your stomach as you watched him take your old tire off, muttering under his breath about how your old jack was practically an artifact, seeing how it literally fell apart under pressure. “How was your case?” You asked softly, fully aware that you were likely opening a can of worms by asking about work.

Spencer’s movements faltered slightly at your question, “It’s closed. We were in Boise,” he answered tactfully, leaving out any case details and cluing you into the fact that he didn’t want to talk about it. “What are you doing out here?”

You sighed, leaning back on your hands and watching him work, “I had a meeting with the other schools in our conference. It’s annual, and this year they happened to pick the school furthest away from mine.”

“Well, I suppose it worked out well that your tire blew out so close to me, then,” Spencer said, swapping out the busted tire for the donut and looking over at you. There was something nervous in his eyes, and you didn’t know if it was related to work or you.

Humming, you tried to watch the tire rather than just watching him, “Is there something bothering you?”

He was tightening the lug nuts on the spare tire, “Are you driving home after this?”

You furrowed your brows, “Yeah, where else could I be going?”

“It’s almost a two-hour drive to your place from here,” he reminded you, his tone laced with concern. “You won’t get home until almost one in the morning,” the displeasure in his voice was plain, but you don’t have anywhere else to go. “Plus, you really shouldn’t travel that far on a spare tire, they’re not made to travel far distances.”

Crossing your arms in front of your stomach, you let your shoulders slump forward, “So, what do you suggest I do? Get a hotel?”

Spencer mumbled something inaudibly, trying to finish tightening the bolts on the tire before sighing, “You can stay with me,” he blushes, a swipe of pink across his cheeks.

Your lips parted in surprise, “Uh, I don’t… I’m not…” you faltered. Utterly failing to come up with a good enough reason to tell him no, “I don’t want you to feel inclined. This isn’t what I was looking for when I called you for help.”

He let the car down, staying quiet while the two of you cleaned up, and Spencer swatted your hand away when you tried to pick things up. “So, you can come back to my place tonight. My work-issued first-aid kit has your name all over it,” he told you, eyes flickering down to the cut on your hand.

“Okay,” you breathed, unable to conjure a reason to refuse his hospitality.

He was grinning at you, hair just barely brushing his eyebrows, “So tomorrow, maybe we can get coffee and drop your car off to get a new tire?”

You smiled back at him, “That sounds great, date number five.”

“You know where you’re going, right?”

“Yeah,” you’d been to his place once to pick him up, “Hey, Spence?”

He turned around, fishing his car keys from his pocket. He looked ready to respond to you, but you pressed your lips to his before he had a chance to speak.

You kissed him softly, whispering against his mouth, “Thank you for coming.”

He chuckled lightly, gently resting a hand on your waist, “Thank you for calling.”