#took mild liberties with the prompt to suit them a little better because an I love you situation between them just would not happen

[sadserotonin]

[  INCOHERENT  ]: for whichever of the dummies you’d prefer

[  INCOHERENT  ]: while sick/feverish/intoxicated/otherwise incoherent, the sender tells the receiver that they love them.

Waiting for the best doctors in the country to be flown in specially to aid him should not have been such a grueling experience, but for Connor, it was hard to focus on much more than the bullet holes that had been ripped into him earlier that day. He hadn’t missed a beat between retaliating to the attack and settling himself somewhere safe to self-treat despite the tremble in his hand and the sweat sheening his forehead. There was something almost nostalgic about fashioning a tourniquet to save Edgar yet again, just in a different sense this time. But it was worth it now just as it had been then, and Connor made as much known.

Or at least he tried to. Further than spilling out in his native tongue, Connor’s words were fragmented at best, crammed between pained groans and involuntary chills. He wasn’t a man who easily reached for comfort but gripping Edgar’s hand seemed to ground his feverish skin from its boiling point, and he drank in the precious seconds he was spared to simply breathe. Losing the train of thought he was on a moment earlier, Connor found a moment of focus in the hazel of Edgar’s eyes to ask in English, “You’re okay, my love?” 

Whether he licked his lips from the unfamiliarity of the endearment or the faint metallic taste on them was unknown to even him. And though he waited for an answer to his misplaced worry, whatever Edgar provided was fleeting in the haze of his mind anyway. 

Connor knew very well that he was supposed to stay awake in these situations, but every last bit of strength left in him was busy relentlessly pressing his fingers against Edgar’s. He was tired. “Min kärlek…” he mumbled, belatedly realizing that he couldn’t expect Edgar to have actually retained any snippets of Swedish he’d playfully imparted in their sweeter, more relaxed moments between the sheets. “Min kärlek.”

His blink this time lingered longer than the last. As the darkness behind his lids beckoned quietly, he wondered, had he prefaced his question as well as he meant to? Had he reminded Edgar that he wasn’t to blame in any of this, reminded him why the outcome of Connor’s sacrifices were so important? Had he explained why he acted as he did with the right combination of syllables? The real important ones, those three foolish words that he’d never spoken to another soul before?

Connor would have to ask Edgar himself when he awoke. And he would wake, for leaving the man at his side alone was simply not an option. For now though, he would rest.  

[leiakenobi]

A Softer Side

Fandom: Suburbicon (2017) Pairing: Bud Cooper/F!Reader (no pronouns) Rating: Mature Word Count: 1.3k Summary: A morning after with Bud. Warnings: This is a very mild mature but there is some referenced sexual content so 18+ only pls!! A/N: Back in June I took some fic requests, and I wrote this one to fulfill a prompt for @budcooper​! The request was “wearing their lover’s clothes! (also, “can I get my shirt back? ’'no.”)” I took a few liberties with the dialogue, but I don’t think you’ll mind the direction I went, hehe. Many thanks for the prompt, lovely. 💜

Cross-posted to AO3 here!

——

You wake to the faint sound of rain, pattering against the window, and for a few delirious moments, you have no idea what time of day it is or where you are.

It’s a strange bed, a new bed, but with sheets comfortable enough that you vaguely remember waking up in them at some point earlier and nestling back into them easily, automatically—it was raining then, too, a fact which makes the present moment feel timeless and intangible and--

Oh.

Your eyes pop open and the details of the previous night begin to rush over you, helped along by the sight of Bud’s ceiling.

(It would be safe to say that you spent… some stretch of time gazing up at it last night, although in the moment, your focus was more directed toward tugging at Bud’s hair while he pressed his tongue inside you.)

It was raining when you got here, too—harder than it is now, hard enough that you had to stop Bud from putting his hands all over you so that you could hang your discarded dress up on a hanger over his tub to dry. But whereas it had been dark and bleak when you tumbled through his front door, a dull, gray light now shines in where the curtains fall open on the far side of the room.

Coupled with Bud’s empty side of the bed – vacated long enough that the spot is cold – and the smell of pancakes wafting in through the open door, you’re left to conclude that it’s well and truly morning.

And from the way your stomach has just started rumbling, it’s beginning to feel increasingly urgent that you get out of bed and greet the day.

You regret it almost at once, because the room is chilly and your dress is on the other side of the house and it wouldn’t really accomplish much in terms of keeping you warm and or cozy, anyway—that’s not what it was intended for.

(It was intended to make Bud’s eyes bug out, and in that, at least, it was successful.)

So instead, with very little forethought and absolutely no shame or hesitation, you take a peek through Bud’s clothes in search of something to pull on. It’s strange – it’s nice, but unexpected – to get a glimpse at a different sort of Bud through his wardrobe, a Bud that doesn’t just wear the pristine, finely-tailored suits to work every day. You try to picture Bud wearing only a ratty undershirt, try to picture him in pajama pants, and as you pull on a clean pair, you realize—that might be what he’s wearing to putter around in the kitchen downstairs.

Better go look.

Alright—he evidently didn’t bother with a shirt before coming down here (which you don’t mind), but the pants are faded and hang low at his waist in a way that you don’t think they did, at first. In a way that he’s let the elastic wear down rather substantially since buying them.

“I like seeing this side of you,” you say softly.

Bud turns around in a flash, wielding a spatula in his surprise. At the sight of you, though, his eyes soften, giving you a prolonged look up and down. “Good morning to you, too.”

Rolling your eyes, you retort, “I was getting to that,” moving across the kitchen floor as you speak. Bud holds out his free, non-spatula hand and catches your waist the moment you’re within reach, pulling you in until your pelvis slots against his. And there, with his eyes sharp and playful and his mouth tantalizingly close to yours, you say, “Good morning.”

He hums and takes a moment to look over your features. Goodness, with his dark eyes and lids half-closed, you’ve barely been touching him for an instant but you’d almost guess that he’s already thinking about--

“What side of me?” he asks, rather than kissing you or moving his hand or holding you tighter.

You’d already nearly forgotten—but Bud has always been fond of hearing precisely what you had to say about him, the uncensored and the shameless and, on occasion, the vaguely derogatory.

(No, the cleanshaven look did not suit him, and he deserved to hear someone say so.)

So of course he would make sure to coax your impressions out of you now.

Smiling pleasantly, you tell him, “The less polished side. Here I’d always imagined that you must own a matching silk pajama set for every day of the week or something like that.”

“Oh, I do.” In response to your raised eyebrows, Bud amends, “Well, not for every day of the week. But I do have silk pajamas. For sleeping.”

You’re so busy trying to conjure up the image – especially because you certainly didn’t find any of these sets during your cursory search through his wardrobe, you’ll have to look harder – that it takes you completely by surprise when Bud steals a quick kiss before releasing his grip on you to return his focus to the stovetop and flip the pancakes that he’d been in the middle of preparing.

Not burnt, but perhaps just a little on the side of too brown.

Still—as always, Bud seems to have a remarkable handle on all facets of the situation.

“So fancy matching silk pajama sets for sleeping…” You trace your fingertips along his spine. “And then what, these are your lazy slob clothes?”

He glances up from the pancakes with one eyebrow raised. “Those are at the cleaners.”

You giggle. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Bud sniffs. “I’d never really thought about it. I like to be comfortable sometimes. You’re not going to tell everyone at the office, are you?”

“Considering that that would mean having to let them know they were right about us, no, I wasn’t planning on it.”

The corner of Bud’s mouth quirks up, and to his spatula, he says, “I think it was Bobby who had his money on Marcie’s retirement party, wasn’t it?”

“No, he was holding out for the annual board meeting. Eric bet on the retirement party.”

“Oh, no.” Bud wrinkles his nose. “We can’t let Eric win.”

You grin, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. “I know. So I’ll keep the lazy slob thing to myself. For now.”

Turning on your heel, you make to stroll away, with some mind toward peering through his cabinets in search of a water glass. But an instant after you hear him turn the burner off, Bud captures your wrist, pulling you back to face him.

He’s wearing an expression that you’re not used to seeing from him, at least not when he’s talking to you about things besides accounts and briefs and whatever scam a customer is trying to pull over on the firm now. He looks guarded. “It’s not… I have to spend a lot of my time being a certain way,” he says carefully.

Your expression softens in an instant. “Hey, hey, I know that,” you tell him gently. Reaching up, you cup his cheek in one hand, unable to conceal the smile that spreads across your face when he meets your gaze so willingly. “It makes me happy. That you don’t have to wear suits and silk pajama sets for me.”

“Of course I don’t,” he mutters. Like maybe he trusted you to know, but he wasn’t prepared for you to come out and say it so matter-of-factly.

“Besides, it means you have comfy clothes for me to steal.”

Bud’s eyes immediately regain some of their playful edge. “Oh yes, speaking of which. I hope you don’t have any intention of liberating any of my belongings when you leave today.” His fingers curl into your sides, clutching his shirt tight as he speaks.

“What, these old things?” You glance down at yourself. “I’m afraid if you want them back, you’re going to have to work for it.”

His grip tightens. “Don’t tempt me before we’ve had our breakfast.”

But from the ease with which he presses you against the counter and leans in to kiss you, you’d venture to say that a little temptation is more than welcome.

——

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