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Hi! Kitty here :] Writing sideblog of @darkkitty1208 (yes, that one really awkward fanfic author). Banner art by the amazing and wonderful @stephen-strange-is-my-fav 💖

[kittyswritingcorner]

hi & welcome!

This is my writing sideblog! Main is @darkkitty1208 :D You can check out rules for requests and such on my pinned intro there.

This blog is more an archive for my works and a place to update my writing process and such. It's also gonna be way, way more organised than my main XD

Tags!

#kittyswriting - my writing and fic tag for when I post my stuff! :D

#writing - tag I use to tell how my writing's going or some other writing-related, relatable-to-writers stuff :P

#kittysharessnippets - WIPs and/or snippets!

#milestones - writing milestones & the like :3

Might come up w more along the way but I think these work for now :D

[kittyswritingcorner]

offer me that deathless death

Summary:

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

Word Count: 1,079

Rating: G

Characters/Relationships: Stephen Strange

Tags: Character Study, Vignette, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Angst, just a series of vignettes cycling through his backstory with my usual flavour of grief and ptsd

A/N: Missed days 7, 8, and 9, but fortunately am back for a fill for day 10 of @febuwhump 2026, with a prompt I am almost entirely sure is made specifically for me: god complex.

AO3

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

He’s fourteen and standing over a field of ice blanketing a frozen-over lake. It’s a white Christmas this year, and on Thanksgiving his father had been merciful enough to have kept dinner warm and civil the entirety of the night. He had spent Christmas morning surrounded by colourful teared gift wrapping spread like a mosaic around the floor. All this to say, the year has wrapped up nicely; a present tied with ribbon and a bow resting atop it. He is more than pleased. 

Donna and him had been planning this day for weeks—she had begged him to teach her how to skate for longer. He grins as he watches her steady her feet underneath her, adjusting to the shape of her ice skates. She is a natural at this, he thinks, and tells her so, and if they do just a few more years of this, then she would be brilliant. 

He hears the ice crack before he sees the fractures spiderwebbing across the surface. He sees Donna’s eyes when she realises what’s about to happen, knows that it’s reflected in his own, when the ice finally gives under her feet and she is plunged into deep, cold water. He knows somehow that she is screaming but does not hear it; not even a gurgle as the water fills her quickly and relentlessly, nose and throat and lungs until her body is one with it. He is fourteen with frozen feet and watching his little sister’s youth disappear into icy cold water because death only takes from those who deserve it the least. 

He is eighteen and sitting upright in his bed, clothes drenched in sweat and blankets kicked to a corner of the bed. He hasn’t been fourteen in some years but some days his body feels as small and frozen as it was that day on the lake. Donna died whole and unscarred and without a drop of blood but in his dreams his hands are stained red. There’s immortality in understanding that a dead body floats in him. 

—

He leaves home as soon as he steps into adulthood because too much of everything feels recurring and the faces around him are always ashen, frozen in mourning; cold the same way Donna’s body had been when death took her. The grief follows him along anyway. 

In medical school he learns the brain decides to live 10 minutes after the heart dies. Why that is, remains a fascinating riddle to him. 

Science is a field that explicitly sets aside emotions. He analyses dead brain matter under a microscope and tries not to consider it as anything but dead tissue, tries not to imagine some magical way to breathe life back into its individual cells. He analyses the sample as nothing but pure material, instead of matter and what once was spirit altogether. 

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

—

Victor had been angry when he died, because Stephen had left and never turned back. Not for him, or for their parents when they eventually arrived at their deathbeds. Death is not what bred bitterness into him; that’s all him. He is the one to welcome the loneliness and let it bleed into his bones. 

—

There is a hardened bullet buried in the patient’s brain and it is leaking toxic metal into the cerebral spinal fluid. Rapid-onset central nervous system shutdown. Nicodemus West had called the wrong time of death. 

Time is critical in any surgery, but more so on a dying patient. Some risks are usually worth taking when death is on the line. 

Alright, that’s an excuse—he knows he’s showing off. 

There is some twisted part of him that delights in the thought of a successful surgery, the thought of bringing a patient back to life with only his hands and some medical equipment. That part of him delights in the shame colouring Nic’s face. The same part, he finds, that delights in the idea that death is something he can control. 

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

—

The crash happens on a rainy night, on a wet road, with his car sliding off a cliff overlooking a body of water—forgive him for not knowing the vague taxonomies of water—and he thinks of Donna as he plunges into its depths; he’s glad for her when he realises it’s almost too cold to feel any of the pain. 

—

Mortality is a privilege, he thinks, and one he has considered many times to exploit. He has lost everything; what’s surrendering life? Whatever god exists out there has forsaken him, left him as a boy on a snowy day on a frozen lake. 

He doesn’t know why he’s holding on, still. In years to come the question will still burn him; what is he even fighting for? 

—

He first hears word of Kamar Taj from a man named Jonathan Pangborn. Whatever miracle saved him from the life of a crippled could surely save his hands. Whatever is left of his savings is spent for a plane ticket to Nepal. He spends his first day wandering aimlessly under the heat of the blistering sun, the question burning in his head; what is he even fighting for? 

He learns about magic that same day, and his whole worldview gets turned upside down. 

—

He saves reality with a green rock and pure spite. He does not know how he had gotten himself into such a mess. Life has taken the strangest turn—one second he’s on Mount Everest trying to open a tear in the fabric of reality with an ancient ring, and the next he’s wielding a centuries old, supposedly powerful stone to save the universe from eternal darkness. 

Truth be told, he understands, at its core, why Kaecilius chose to do what he had done. If he is a lesser man, he would’ve resorted to such a thing as immortality, too. It’s not as terribly tempting, now that he’s had a taste of it. Death is what gives life meaning, The Ancient One had told him on the brink of her own, watching the might of Zeus strike through the night sky like a thousand fractures on ice—spreading in slow, inevitable seconds. He thinks he knows death intimately enough. 

It’s the closest he’s ever gotten to understanding what it feels like to be a god. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

tipping the scales

Summary:

He doesn’t call it survivor’s guilt. That would imply passivity, as if survival simply happened to him, despite all odds. As if he hadn’t chosen it, engineered it, carved it out of inevitability. He survived because he decided who wouldn’t.

Word Count: 2,026

Rating: G

Characters/Relationships: Stephen Strange, Peter Parker, Mentioned Wong, Original Character

Tags: Therapy, Survivor Guilt, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Grief/Mourning, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, Stephen Strange-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Endgame, Pre-Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Stephen Strange Has Nightmares, Not Beta Read

A/N: A totally-not-late fill for day 5 of @febuwhump 2026, prompt: survivor.

AO3

There’s a small moment Stephen never talks about. It comes right after, when the dust settles and the world exhales, Earth’s mightiest blinking in the sunlight at the end of a long, hard-fought war. The dawn of a new beginning. Tony Stark died during a sunset—some attempt at allegory by the universe, the way this is one of the recurring variables within the timelines where he had died. They had kneeled and watched as he died with the sun. 

And there is this feeling—a split second where he feels the universe sliding into place around him with a finality, the story clicking shut, neat and brutal and complete. This is the final end to end all endings, the one he had orchestrated. And few had survived out of it unscathed, if at all. For better or for worse, he had survived out of it. He hadn’t, in a handful of those timelines, and he would trade that over the death of anyone else, but the one timeline where the universe survives is the one where he does, too. 

He doesn’t call it survivor’s guilt. That would imply passivity, as if survival simply happened to him, despite all odds. As if he hadn’t chosen it, engineered it, carved it out of inevitability. He survived because he decided who wouldn’t. There is a juxtaposition to be made here—in the grand scheme of things, this is the best possible outcome. Those who had survived outweighed those who hadn’t, and this scale is what is counted as victory in their book. It is what he chooses to tell himself, anyway, and what he tries to convince others of through their own blinding grief. 

For the greater good, he had put it. As if he had any right to decide what that meant for them all. 

“No, this is definitely textbook down to the T,” Vivian tells him when he speaks about some of this, one session. “You feel guilty.” 

“Who wouldn’t?” 

“That is survivor’s guilt, believe it or not.” 

Stephen just leans back in his seat and watches the view outside the window. It’s a lovely office, scarcely but stylishly decorated, and the view outside isn’t bad, either. Calming, which he supposes is expected from a therapist’s office.

“Tell me about how you’ve been sleeping.” 

“You mean about the nightmares?” 

The nightmares are to be expected, naturally. He wouldn’t be the only one, after having survived what they had. Most nights he spends in his astral form, usually reading or meditating—his body does well enough with the physical rest, but the problem is his mind. A handful of times Wong reprimands him to get some actual sleep, dragging his astral form back to his body by force. 

It’s not as though he’s actively avoiding sleep, either—sleep eludes him, most nights, and astral projecting is a convenient way to rest his body. Insomnia is an inescapable, chronic condition; he had medicated in the past, but discovered that, if anything, they amplified the night terrors. There is no easy way to go about this. 

The truth is, trouble sleeping isn’t new to him. He’s had trouble sleeping for longer than he can remember—the real problem is waking up. Waking in the morning is the most difficult thing of all. 

When he wakes up with a gasp, tasting iron on his tongue, visions of lifeless faces floating behind his eyes, the word that he thinks of is inevitable. He would sit at the side of his bed, elbows on his knees, hanging his head. He would watch as his hands shake, and he would not wait until they stopped trembling, because they never do. 

Inevitable. This is how things are meant to end. 

“It’s manageable.” 

“Manageable,” Vivian repeats, flipping to a new page on her notebook and doodling. She doesn’t take notes, Stephen discovers—she doodles aimlessly throughout the session, most times to avoid direct eye contact. He’s not sure what that says about him, if it says anything at all. 

Stephen turns to watch her for a moment, considering. “Aren’t you supposed to help me talk, or something? Isn’t that how these things go?” 

“You’ve been talking.” 

“Yes, and you’ve been sitting there mostly in silence, with the occasional monosyllable and, if I'm lucky, a full sentence or question.” 

“I get paid whether I sit here in silence or not, whether you talk to me or not. But silence is preferable to being bullshitted, if I had to pick how to spend an hour.” 

Stephen just keeps looking at her. There’s been this consistent coil of anger in him, this irritability he doesn’t quite know the source of. “Fuck you,” he says. 

Vivian finally looks up and meets his eyes. They watch each other for a moment, Stephen challengingly and her… mildly. It almost reminds him of Wong. “I think,” she says, “the real trouble isn’t sleeping. The real trouble is being awake.” 

“What would you know about that?” 

“I think every second you are awake is agony to you. I think every moment you spend conscious, you are reminded of what you’ve done. You are back in a reality you have destined the world to live in. You are consumed by guilt because you think what has happened is something you have done, like you have condemned these people to their fates. But you forget, underneath all that guilt, is your own grief. I think the real guilt is that you are grieving, even if you think you don’t deserve to be. And that,” Vivian turns back to her pad, “That’s textbook survivor’s guilt.” 

“Hm,” Stephen hums after a moment of surprise, lip twitching in a not-quite smile. He turns back to the window, a little impressed. “Not bad,” he says through the sudden dryness in his throat. 

Vivian is Wong’s idea—he had just pulled Stephen aside one day, and his face had been stern, but there was something else there. “You’re self-flagellating,” he had said. Stephen had been in the middle of layering new wards over the current ones placed over the Sanctum—unnecessary, but one can never be too cautious. He had realised he had been essentially running around and finding things to distract himself with. 

“What the hell do you mean?” 

“When was the last time you ate?” 

“I—” He frowned. Time slipped easily from him these days, and his memory wasn’t as reliable as it had been. 

“Stephen,” Wong had said to him in a particular voice, “If you wouldn’t talk to me, then talk to Vivian, at least.” 

“Who’s Vivian?” 

And that’s how he ended up here, in Vivian’s simple little office. He had seen her once or twice, on Kamar Taj grounds—had interacted with her, even, but only ever rudimentarily. He had also seen the way she fought; she is a skilled combatant, he can tell, using her own size to her advantage. Her moves are sharp and quick and calculated, gliding and dodging with ease. Her hits are fast and brutal, quicksilver smooth and carrying more strength than you’d expect—you’d never see it coming. The few sparring sessions he had seen her perform in, her opponent tended to underestimate her. It made sense; she’s small, she’s a woman, she’s black. But the moment she readies her fighting stance and makes her first move, you’re over. 

Apparently she's a practicing therapist, too, which came as a surprise to him. He had known, of course, that sorcerers have lives outside of their mystical duties—he himself still keeps ties with some of his older connections, helping them with the occasional input for their research and the like. It’s not like the Mystic Arts is all he has to live for.

“Tell me what to do about it,” Stephen says in the present.

“About what?” 

“The guilt. Tell me what to do about it.” 

Vivian looks at him again, and she has this look in her eyes sometimes where it’s almost as though she can see right through him, like she can read all the emotions showing—and not showing—on his face. 

Oh, you think you see through me, do you? Well, you don't. But I see through you!

“How are things with you and Peter?” 

“He drops by sometimes. We chat.” 

“How is he?” 

“Grieving,” Stephen answers honestly, “But he’s not saying he is.” 

Vivian nods. “And you’ve been there for him?” 

Stephen stays silent. Vivian watches him some more, then flicks her eyes back to her doodling, hand tracing idle circles along her notes. 

“You ask me what to do about the guilt,” she says, “What you mean to ask is, how can I compensate for it? What can I do to feel less guilty? How am I meant to fix this?” she continues to doodle as she speaks, and Stephen follows the movement of her hand. Aimless circles. “That boy’s been through what you’ve been through, Stephen. Be there for him. After this session,” she says, then rephrases, “I have an assignment for you.” 

“I get homework out of therapy now?” 

“Some patients do.” 

“I’m a special kind of patient, then. A special kind of fucked up.” 

“Your assignment,” she says, “if you choose to accept it, is to get Peter to talk to you. To tell him you’re there if he needs you, and to answer his questions, if he has any.” 

“He needs his space to grieve,” Stephen reasons. 

“Some people do, maybe,” she allows, “But I think, in this case, it would help him as much as it would help you to have someone in the same boat to help each other along. To patch each other’s holes to stop the sinking.” 

He thinks about that for a moment. He doesn’t know if he can—sometimes, he can’t bear just looking at the boy. At what he’s done to him. But he remains silent, and nods acquiescingly. 

—

When he finally talks to Peter, they do it haltingly, hesitatingly. Stephen tries his best to seem open, to offer a space to talk. Vivian is right, it’s the least he could do. 

“I… I do have a question, if that’s okay, sir?” Peter says. 

“Doctor,” Stephen corrects, “And yes, of course.” 

“Doctor, yeah, sorry,” he says. “I was just— I was just wondering, you know, I feel like… We kind of went through all that, right, and then suddenly we’re back right here like nothing happened. I feel like—” Peter swallows. “It’s not like I’m not grateful that we survived. I just— everyone expects me to act like everything’s back to normal. But it’s not. And you— I don’t even know half the things you’ve probably seen and been through, how do you…” He pauses for a moment, mouth half open, “How do you do it?” 

“How do I do it?” 

“Yes. How do you just move on, like that? How are you meant to… to carry on, even after it all?” 

“I don’t,” Stephen answers honestly, “I can’t. None of us can.” 

Peter doesn’t seem to have expected this answer. “You don’t?” 

“No,” he says, “Peter,” he lowers his voice. “These things… You can’t move on from them. They stick with you, for as long as you’ll live. You have to learn to carry them with you, to continue living on with and around it. You ask me how to carry on, and the truth is, I don’t know. I’m as lost as you are. But life goes on, and you have so many years ahead of you, so live them to the best of your ability.” 

Stephen lets out a small oomph, completely unprepared for the sudden tackle. After a while, he returns the hug, smoothing a hand down the boy’s back. Peter is so young. 

When Peter pulls back, there’s a subtle sheen to his eyes. “Okay,” he says shakily, “I’ll… I’ll try. Thank you, sir.” And then he catches himself. “Doctor, I meant doctor!” 

Stephen laughs, shaking his head. “That’s alright, Peter.” He smiles, and Peter smiles back at him. Maybe there is some truth to his words—maybe there is a way to carry on forward, after all. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

connection

Summary:

The first time he felt it was on the chase for Mob.

Word Count: 3,288

Rating: T

Characters/Relationships: Dimple/Reigen Arataka, Background & Cameo Characters

Tags: Consensual Possession, Banter, Post-??? | Confession Arc (Mob Psycho 100), Feelings Realization, implicit references to suicidal ideation otherwise unspecified, suggestive talk, Not Beta Read

A/N: Fill for @febuwhump 2026 day 6: soul bond.

So this concept is totally out of left field for this prompt, but I figured, whatever. Possession is sort of like soul bonding, right? And technically Reigen *is* a little whumped up here, so it counts. Surely.

AO3

The first time he felt it was on the chase for Mob. 

He hadn’t even had all his faculties at the time, during the storm, delirious out of his mind with blood loss and concussed all the way to next week. Dimple managed to somehow push him back upright—and when or how he had been knocked out, he was still quite blurry on—with pure, sheer will and the last reserves of his strength alone, wherever he had managed to draw that from. 

In the split second where he slipped back into consciousness, before Dimple took complete control of all his limbs, there was a spark, of a kind. Like some dormant thing living in him had ignited alive, a piece of puzzle or a missing cog finally sliding into place with an internal click. It was some indescribable feeling; an all-consuming tidal wave of yes, something that just felt right, like a flash of overwhelming elation when he and Dimple became one. It had felt natural, to feel Dimple’s bright, green presence invade his head, as if the spirit belonged there all along. 

And then when it was over and the storm subsided, and Dimple slipped out of his mind, his body was awash in a feeling of loss. Of something like wrongness. It was easy to brush away, in the face of everything else, and he redirected his focus instead on finding Hanazawa and Mob’s brother in case of need for medical aid—and while he was at it, preferably get some himself. 

It was in the hospital bed some time later that Dimple found him again. 

“How are the boys?” Reigen immediately asked him when the nurse left the room. 

“Blondie—more like baldie, really—is next room over and snoring his head off. Seri-chan’s keeping an eye on him. Shigeo must’ve done a number on the boy. Speaking of, he and his brother are back home. Apparently the kid got himself into a car crash.” 

“What?” 

“Shigeo. Apparently he got hit by a car and it triggered the whole thing.” 

“What?” he shrieked again. 

“Oh, relax. The wound in his head was sealed off, don’t worry. Doesn’t even bleed anymore, you’d think it wasn’t even there to begin with if it weren’t for all the blood on his uniform. Must’ve been some psychic bullshit,” Dimple told him, which did not quite ease his worries, so he would have to call Mob in a bit. Maybe not for a while, though. Maybe not… so soon, after all that. He grimaced internally. That had been one hell of a roller coaster, back there. 

“Okay,” Reigen said, lying back against the cot’s unbelievably uncomfortable pillows. Hospitals, he was reminded, were the absolute worst. “And… non-physically?” 

Dimple grimaced aloud at that. “Yeah, he’s getting there. Was still kind of teary the whole way back to the Kageyamas, but he’ll be fine.” 

Reigen hummed in understanding. Mob’s a strong, kind boy. He probably wouldn’t get over it anytime soon—if ever—but he could trust Mob to pull himself back up, even after all of what happened. Reigen, though? Well… He supposed he needed to be strong, too. Shigeo needed his mentor to rely on. 

“Anyway,” Dimple cleared his throat. Reigen was sure he didn’t quite have one, but he’s talking about the same spirit that likes to conjure limbs for no purpose other than theatrical gestures and theatrical gestures alone. “I uh… came to apologise. About earlier. You know, the whole possession thing. It wasn’t cool that I just—took over your body like that, without asking. I mean, not that I was gonna use it for personal benefit or anything. Not that I can do much with it, anyway. But still.” 

Reigen let out a breath of laughter, waving it off. “Nothing to apologise for,” he said, “Extenuating circumstances and all that. If I were you I’d’ve done the same. Especially if it were Mob I found on the ground."

“Yeah, well, trust me, the kid’s a lot of things, but easy to possess isn’t one of those. You’d be damn near suicidal to even try.” He bobbed in the air a bit at this, considering him with eyes far graver than his tone. “Speaking of which,” he said. “You never told anyone.” 

There was an unmistakable skip in his heartbeat. The heart monitor picked it up. “About what?” 

Grave, grave eyes. “I saw your shoes.”

“Ah,” Reigen said, keeping his face carefully blank. He gave a small, dry laugh. “That… wasn’t…”

“You know you can talk about it, right? I mean, you know. I’m probably not your first choice for talking about any kind of personal shit like that, but… I’m a pretty good listener if I want to be, so you know.” 

“No, no, that’s—” Reigen waved his hand in a gesture of denial, “It’s not anything like that. That was just—That’s just so I could run better, is all.” 

Dimple’s lips thinned a little. “Right,” he said. Those eyes were still watching him. They were inscrutable. This was not a good area of conversation—he needed a diversion. And quick. 

“Still, though,” Reigen’s smirk was slow and, he admitted, must look goddamn obnoxious. “Misguided as it was, that was pretty considerate of you to say, for a self-proclaimed evil spirit.” 

Dimple huffed indignantly. “Well your little stunt back there definitely proved you’re the century’s best fucking psychic, too, so how about that, asshole?”

Reigen laughed at that. “Touché.” 

They looked at each other for a moment, there, a natural lull in conversation befalling them.

"You good?" Reigen asked him after a while of this, aiming for casual. "You look a little... faded, there."

"Asks the guy who ran straight into a psychic tornado," Dimple snorted. "You're one to talk. Is it the concussion?"

"'M not the one who just came back from the dead," he retorted with a shrug, "Well, sort of. You're still not quite... yanno." Alive, he wanted to say, but sluggishly swung his hand in a vague circle about the air instead. Dimple didn’t say anything to that for a while.

And then, "It would help if I had a body to possess. To conserve energy. And it keeps me anchored or whatever."

“Right,” Reigen said. “Well, seems it’s your lucky day. I’ve got a body right here.” Did Dimple’s ruddy cheeks get a little ruddier at that, had he imagined it? Surely that was the case. “Come on, then," he beckoned him in. "Get in here."

Clearly Dimple hadn't expected Reigen to offer himself so easily like that, and Reigen would have snorted if not for the fact that he wasn't quite sure himself. Why did he offer Dimple to possess him, then, just like that? That had been a blatant display of trust, hadn’t it, and he wasn’t quite sure where they stood with each other, really, but he could trust Dimple, could he? 

“...You sure?” Dimple asked him with some hesitance. It took only a moment of himself weighing the pros and cons before eventually shrugging it off and throwing all caution out the window. Oh, fuck it, he thought. Might as well. It’s the least he could do for Dimple after basically saving his ass back there.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. What’s the worst that could happen? “Just promise me you won’t run off with my body and… I don’t know, start a cult or something.” 

Dimple snorted again. “Oh, I’m past those days,” and then lower, “for the most part.” 

He didn’t get time to come up with a rejoinder for that when there’s suddenly that tingle again, the one he had felt when he woke up from the ground, a flood of green in his vision. Something settled in his head, making space to shove itself in. There was that light feeling again, like something that belonged inside finally slid into place. 

“God, that feels weird.” In honesty, it felt good. And that above all was weird, was it? 

He heard Dimple’s laugh in his head at that, his amusement twining with Reigen’s and feeding into each other. He didn’t say anything when he felt some of the pain from his wounds ease off and then disappear completely, and perhaps that was something to be terrified of, that that’s a thing Dimple can manipulate his body to do, but as it stood, Reigen wasn’t terrified. He learnt pretty early on that for all the way he acted, there wasn't much at all about Dimple one should be terrified of. 

And then there was the feeling; the one he felt the first few initial seconds after possession. Was that another thing Dimple was capable of manipulating his body into feeling? He didn’t get to contemplate that any further, because with the lack of pain and the crashing exhaustion, his limbs began to relax as he slipped into painless, blissful sleep. 

They never really talked about it again after that. 

Though it did change a couple things. Most of their banter didn’t carry as much strain anymore, for one thing. For another, there was the possession thing. Dimple would possess him from time to time, whenever convenient, often when a case or emergency requires it. The first few times had just been for necessary purposes, like when Mob or Serizawa aren’t around to pull his ass out of danger. Though at some point Reigen had caught him staring a little too intently while he was chowing down a MobDonald burger, one afternoon, and there was this kind of curiosity in his eyes, so he had beckoned the spirit over and offered a bite, except that would only be possible if Dimple possessed him. 

There was some resistance—how do you even stuff all that in your mouth without gagging, all that grease is gonna give you a heart disease—but then the curiosity won over and he had, literally and figuratively, eaten his own words. So modern fast food doesn’t taste so bad, go figure. 

Gradually Dimple would start possessing him for mundane, less life-threatening reasons, too. Possession was a casual thing, after that. Dimple always asked for consent beforehand, but then at some point Reigen had made some offhanded remark about Dimple having full permission to do it without asking because he does it often anyway—unless he plans on starting a cult again, which had made Dimple huff and puff indignantly—so he had just stopped asking altogether, after that, for the most part. 

And every single time, without fail, there was that feeling. Every. Single. Time. 

Dimple brings it up one night, while they were lazing about—or, well, Reigen’s lazing about on his bed while Dimple floats up there with his legs kicked back against an invisible surface and hands behind his head—in Reigen’s apartment. That’s another new development; sometimes, after a day of spiritual work, Dimple would follow him home, or come along with him—and occasionally Serizawa—for drinks in some hole-in-the-wall, or to dinner in his usual ramen place, instead of following Mob back home. Today is one of those days, and he would never admit this, but he appreciates Dimple’s company. Silence has never really done him good, and his shoebox of an apartment is claustrophobic on top of that, so having another presence around is nice. 

They were making desultory talk about whatever came to mind—recent exorcism cases, Mob’s upcoming graduation, Serizawa’s progress with the company, Tome’s obvious crush on that one girl that kept making her bug-inserted chocolate. 

At some point Dimple says, “So there’s something I need to tell you.” 

It’s quite out of the blue, so Reigen looks at him curiously with an arched brow, stretching languidly against his sheets, hand stopping mid-spiral in the air. “Okay,” he says carefully. Dimple has this frown on his face, like he’s practiced saying this a couple times but is struggling to find the words now. 

“You know how we, uh…” Dimple rubs the back of his non-existent head, silent for a moment. “When I possess you,” he begins again, “do you feel anything… unusual?” 

“Unusual, how? I haven’t got much data for comparison, mind.” 

“I meant—you know, like a click,” he snaps his fingers, “Like a buncha lights you didn’t know were off suddenly all flicked on, or whatever.” 

“That…” Reigen sits up. “Huh. Is that s’posed to be unusual, or something?” 

“Yeah,” Dimple says, “Sort of. Can I—?” 

“Go for it.” 

A flash of green, a jolt of cold and hot, and then that sudden, shuddering thrill. 

“That,” Dimple breathes out, using his voice. “That right there—that’s what I’m talking about. Did you—did you feel that too? That’s not—that’s not just me, right?”

I… Yes, Reigen says to him mentally, I thought… I thought that’s just how it is. 

“Well,” Dimple lays back on his pillows. “Listen. That’s the thing. I mean, I’ve been around for a hell of a long time, and I’ve possessed a few more than the average spirit has, trust me. And that—that’s never happened before.” 

Wait, seriously? Reigen thinks. With anyone?

“Yeah, basically.”

Not even that… What was his name? The security guard. 

“Yoshioka?” Dimple frowns with his face, “No, no. Never.” 

But you sure as hell possess him a lot. 

“Well. Me and him have got a whole other deal going on. Purely transactional.”

He feels Dimple slip out of his body with another flash of green, and he brushes off the sense of wrongness that immediately sets in at that. Is that another thing that doesn’t happen to Dimple’s other vessels? To Yoshioka? 

Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t quite find out, because keeping his thoughts in a direct line of order has never been his strong suit, so his mind latches onto something else Dimple had said. 

“Transactional?” Reigen arches a brow. “What’s he get out of it?” 

Dimple, now in his original form, floating a good head above Reigen, smirks salaciously. His voice is a low timbre when he says, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

He doesn’t know, exactly, what pushes him to say it. But before Reigen can stop himself he is suddenly saying, “And if I do?” 

He realises a split second afterwards what he had just said, panicking momentarily at the widening of Dimple’s eyes—or, well, his equivalent of it, at least; he’s still not clear on spirit physiology despite years of experience—but then Dimple’s expression turns into something… interested. Intrigued. 

So maybe…? 

“If I do…” Reigen repeats, pushing on, “Would you show me?” 

Dimple opens his (equivalent of a) mouth to say something, but then he seems to be at a loss for words. 

“You’re surprised,” Reigen realises. 

Dimple sputters. “Well, it’s not like you’ve been returning any of my advances.” 

“...Huh?” 

“Wait,” Dimple says, “You seriously didn’t…?” 

“Wait wait,” Reigen is saying, “What do you mean advances?” 

“Reigen,” Dimple says, “I cannot emphasise how obvious my advances have been. And it’s been going on for some time now. Tome-chan pulled me aside the other day and told me to stop traumatising the team. You’re telling me you didn’t fucking reali— You’re telling me they’ve been going over your fucking head? All this time? What the hell.” 

“So wait,” Reigen says, “So when—on the trip, on the way to the hot spring, that one time, when you offered to give me a test of courage, you were—that was…?” 

“Me making a pass at you, yeah,” Dimple says, in disbelief. “You only caught onto that now?” 

“Well how was I supposed to know?” He responds defensively. “You’ve been pretty much dragging me since day one. You make it some personal mission to piss me right the fuck off every chance you can get. I thought you hated my guts, until, you know, recently.”

“To be fair I do that to everyone.” 

“So what, being an asshole is just your cover?” 

“Pretty much.” 

Reigen laughs at that, long and loud and hysterical, sliding a hand over his eyes, down his face. “Christ, you’re unbelievable.” 

“Says you.” 

He smiles, shakes his head ruefully. “Says me.” 

Dimple is smiling, though. Reigen smiles back. Dimple clears his throat. 

“The answer would’ve been yes, by the way.” 

“Hm?” And then it hits Reigen what he meant. “Oh.” 

“But there’s—something else.” 

Reigen gives him a questioning look. 

“Listen, uh,” Dimple looks unsure here. Unusual look on him, Reigen thinks. “So when I said the score between me and Yoshioka is that we keep it purely transactional, I meant that. But we sort of—broke it off, a while back. Just mutually agreed to call it off, ‘cos we needed other things, and all that. But you and me—I mean, if we’re really doing this, I…” More of that uncharacteristic hesitance. “I’d like it if it weren’t just that, between you and me. If you get what I mean. I’d really like it if… if maybe it could mean something else entirely.” 

Reigen’s breath catches. Dimple is… Is Dimple asking for what Reigen thinks he’s asking? 

“I mean, I—I get it if not, you know, we can keep it casual and all that but—” 

“Yes.” 

Dimple is struck to silence for a moment. “Yes to keeping it casual?” 

“No, I meant—yes to it being a little more than that,” Reigen says, “If you’re amenable.” 

Dimple floats closer, and there’s something strangely beautiful happening to those lips, something Reigen has fought hard for some time not to acknowledge its beauty. Dimple is smiling. “More than,” Dimple murmurs, and Reigen is smiling back. 

He is drawing closer now, closer than he usually would allow himself to be. Closer still. 

“Hey,” Reigen says lowly, “Can I ask you something?” 

“Yeah.”

“When was the last time someone kissed you? Not when you’re in somebody else’s body, I mean. I meant… When was the last time someone kissed you?” 

Dimple’s lips parted. “Been some time,” he answers, “Why?” 

They are closer now than they were before, hovering mere inches over each other.

“I’d like to be your first in a while.” 

Dimple nods eagerly. “Okay.”

And then they are kissing. It is by all means not an amazing kiss, or an expert one, and it lacks any of the finesse that someone more experienced would have, but it’s a good kiss. It’s an exploring kiss. They take their time feeling each other out, and it is this gradual build, this slow ascend up a staircase, and suddenly he feels Dimple pulling his face closer and—

A shiver goes down his spine. There are electric pinpricks spreading all across his skin like a physical thing crawling along him. It is leaving him breathless the longer they keep this up. It’s a familiar feeling. 

He realises with a jolt that it’s that feeling. The same one he feels every single time Dimple slips into his mind, every single time his presence entwines with Reigen’s. 

Reigen pulls back for breath, shocked to find himself panting, to feel his heart thudding wildly. “Did you know about this?” he asks, because he knows Dimple knows what he’s talking about. Knows Dimple feels this thing, this unimaginably wonderful thing, too. 

“Heavily suspected, once or twice,” Dimple replies gruffly, before he’s latching his lips onto Reigen’s again. It is an addicting thing, kissing and being kissed by him.  

Reigen pulls back again. “Do you—Do you know if this means anything?” 

Dimple seems to be equally affected, eyes searching Reigen’s. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Can we kiss again?” Reigen immediately nods, and they do just that. 

In the morning he won’t remember if they ever stopped kissing, but he knows the feeling never quite fades away. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

aftermath

Summary:

They have this sort of ritual, every time a battle ends—an unspoken, mutual agreement to just be in each other’s spaces, basking in the assurance that they are alive and well despite all the odds.

Word Count: 885

Rating: E

Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Tags: Explicit Sexual Content, Intimacy, Post-Battle, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, Ficlet

A/N: Last Christmas I jumped my friend @janora00 with a prompt request -- that is to say, I asked her for a prompt so I could spontaneously write her a gift fic lol. Of the two options she had provided I chose "unmade bed", and she had wanted something spicy but I have instead written... something south of that. Alas. I'm pretty sure this is 80% hurt/comfort, but what would you have expected from me, anyway? XD

Here it is, about 2 months later, posted for you all to read as well! :)

AO3

The moment the portal closes behind them, they are carrying themselves across the worn rugs and into the Sanctum bedroom, too exhausted to do much more than strip off everything and leaving them in careless, uneven heaps around the room before collapsing haphazardly onto the bed in a pile of exhausted limbs. They lay there side by side with uneven breaths, face turned towards the other. 

The bed is unmade from this morning, when Wong had pulled them off of it—completely unaffected by their nudity; the only semblance of modesty they were allowed was the blankets—to an emergency downtown. The interdimensional breach had been a sudden and unexpected one, a visible suture in their reality where the lovecraftian creatures spilled endlessly out of, and Stephen is beginning to think New York getting an invasion every other week may be the new normal. 

Truth be told, he doesn’t remember much of the fight—only the sharp spark of magic as he wields it with his fingers, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the taste of blood on his tongue, Tony’s voice cutting through the pandemonium in raw panic—but he remembers the way Tony had ran towards him after it was over, the way those eyes looked wild and worried, the frantic hands hovering over him. It had been a close call, but one he ultimately survived, and that’s all that really mattered. It’s clear to him that Tony is shaken by it, however. Perhaps even more so than he is. 

“Hey,” Stephen says, reaching out for Tony’s hand across the wrinkled sheets. Tony’s eyes were wide and assessing, cataloguing him from head to toe at the limited angle their positions allowed—there is the exhaustion, though, clear as day. “I’m alright, Tony. I’m right here.” 

“I know,” Tony says. “I just… I know.” Tony shuffles nearer. He feels strong arms gathering him onto a broad chest, and Stephen reciprocates easily, winding an arm over Tony’s back to pull him closer, folding himself into the man. “It’s just… I realise sometimes how easily I could… How often it is that… How any day I could suddenly…” 

Stephen unceremoniously reaches for Tony’s hands, tangling their fingers. “I know,” he says, “I know.” 

They lay there, feeling the rise and fall of each other’s chests, the slowly evening heartbeats. They have this sort of ritual, every time a battle ends—an unspoken, mutual agreement to just be in each other’s spaces, basking in the assurance that they are alive and well despite all the odds.

Tony’s softly tracing a bruise over his collarbone, pulling back to eye the new few cuts already scabbing over. Whatever injuries that were serious had been quickly dealt with in the Medbay—they are lucky the worst of it had just been the gash on Stephen’s shoulder, wrapped tightly with crisp white bandages. Tony eyes it carefully.  

“I need something,” Tony tells him, and immediately Stephen understands what he means.

“Tell me,” is Stephen’s response. “Tell me what you need.” 

“I need…” Tony swallows, face moving closer. “I need you. I need to feel you,” he says, and there is, indeed, a shaky tread of need in his tone—Stephen is already nodding, already parting his lips to welcome the kiss that follows. 

This is who they are, at the end of the day. Stripped from the robes and the armour, who they are has always been just this. Tony and Stephen, two people who find each other and live with the fear of losing the other, every day. Tony’s body is warm, still—he remembers how it feels this morning, and that feels like a long time ago, but his warmth is always something Stephen can rely on. They slide wonderfully against each other like this, tessellating perfectly—no words are ever needed to communicate what their bodies need. This is a language they speak without the need of them. 

The familiar hunger builds in his stomach. Tony is deepening their kiss, desperately mapping his mouth with his tongue, pulling them flush together. Their breaths are ragged, the only sound between them. Stephen lets out a muffled moan when Tony wraps a hand around his cock, already half-hard, thickening by the minute. He pumps once, twice, before lining up his own member against Stephen’s. The weight of it, the way he can feel Tony against him, leaves him shuddering head to toe. 

Tony reaches for the lube in their bedside drawer, frantic. Stephen can only cant his hips desperately as he waits until Tony gets his hand finally—finally—wrapped around them both, slick this time. They move as one, and he fucks into the chasm of Tony’s palm and whispers his name like a prayer. Tony is watching him, and there are a million things he isn’t saying in those deep, brown, beautiful eyes but Stephen knows it all the same. 

They cum like that, spilling over each other’s chests with a mutual groan, sealing each other’s lips together. 

Basking in the afterglow, Stephen turns and meets Tony’s eyes. He reaches a shaking hand to cup his jaw, smiles when Tony softly circles his wrist, thumb rubbing gently over the scars. “I’m right here,” he whispers hoarsely. 

“Yeah,” Tony breathes out. He smiles, soft and sweet, “Yes, you are.” 

[kittyswritingcorner]

left in the wake

Summary:

When Bruce’s mother died, he had been covered in her blood and brain parts.

Word Count: 670

Rating: G

Characters/Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne

Tags: Ficlet, Blood and Gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Emotionally Hurt Bruce Wayne, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, except there is very little comfort XD

A/N: Fill for day 4 of @febuwhump 2026, prompt: blood stains. First foray into the DC fandom -- figured a small angsty ficlet is a good place to start? Kindly enjoy my humble offering!

AO3

When Bruce’s mother died, he had been covered in her blood and brain parts. It had been all over his shirt, because he had been right behind her when the bullet shot, ringing all through the alley and up along the brick walls. It had torn into her head, through one side and out the other within a blink. A perfect headshot. She had been shielding him, one arm stretched over him before she fell limp to the ground, life dying out of her eyes. Some nights, those eyes would haunt him. 

His father had been shot through the chest, and they had both laid unmoving as Bruce kneeled in their pooling blood. It soaked through his trousers, his shirt, the strong, metallic smell sticking itself to him. He had been frozen, at first, in disbelief. He hadn’t known what to do. He hadn’t screamed or cried or did any of the things any other person would’ve done. After a while, however, came the shaking. He had trembled and trembled for what felt like hours. 

When the police came, the shaking hadn’t stopped. It persisted all through his ride back to the Manor—his father’s house—and persisted still throughout the entire night. He hadn’t slept a wink. In fact, he hadn’t slept at all, the first three or so days after their deaths, until Alfred must have slipped an ambien into his drink. 

They told him, some time later, that his parents had died an instant, mostly painless death, like some sort of reassurance. The bullets were perfectly aimed, they said; there couldn’t have been a way to save them if they tried.

He hadn’t ever told anyone about the third bullet, the one that had been shot right before the gunner had fled the alley. It had missed, digging into the pavement two inches from his feet. 

He also hadn’t known what to do with his clothes. They had been soaked through with blood—Alfred would wash it all away. In the end he had shoved them into the back of a drawer in his closet and never opened it again. It was some years later that Alfred finally found it, digging it out of where it had hid for years. 

“Master Bruce,” was all he could say as he held it, and Bruce just stood frozen, watching him.

“Please don’t throw it away,” he told him. It was the only thing he could bring himself to say. Those were his parents’ blood; in some twisted way, it was the only real thing left of them, aside from their bedroom in the Manor, left mostly untouched after that night, and the scattered pearls in the alley, lost in the winding sewers underneath the city. He couldn’t throw it away. 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said again, but this time in a different voice. There was an inscrutable look in his eyes as he watched Bruce, hands clutching the blood stained clothes. Those hands, they did not shake; they never did, even in the worst of situations. Always steady, like Alfred’s presence had always been. 

“I—” he tried, but could get nothing more through the sudden spasm in his throat. He realised too late that there was a trembling in his fingers, crawling up his arms, and soon it took over him completely. For a moment he was back in that alley, kneeling in front of his parents’ motionless bodies, reliving that moment all over again. 

He choked when Alfred moved forward, hesitating, before suddenly he was being held. Alfred held him, as he shook and shook and shook. They lowered to the floor, and all he could do was hold on, clutching at the man’s sleeves. A hand stroked up and down his back, and Alfred was instructing him to breathe, was trying to ground him, was speaking with his steady voice and holding him in his steady arms. Bruce listened with half an ear, folded over. 

After a while the trembling subsided, but the hand didn’t stop its stroking. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

sick days

Summary:

On sick days, Stephen remembers his mother. 

Word Count: 1,200

Rating: G

Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Tags: Sick Stephen Strange, Sickfic, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Soft Tony Stark, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Wong is a good friend, Stephen Strange Has Issues

A/N: Fill for day 3 of @febuwhump 2026, alt prompt: Flu. This one's for @harpywritesfic, who loves a sick miserable Stephen as much as I do. As always, many special thanks to my very special beta and lovely friend, @janora00 💖

AO3

On sick days, Stephen remembers his mother. 

Or, well, the days when she had been a mother to him, anyway. That Beverly Strange was different. Stephen remembers these were the days before the grief of Donna’s death consumed her, and like a knife she had turned that blame on Stephen, which in all fairness wasn’t unaccounted for. They were better days, days that existed in the realm of before; before she had turned to liquor for comfort, before she had turned into a stranger, before the disease took her for good. 

He can vaguely recall being a young boy, swaddled in blankets and soaking sweat into his bedsheets, sicker than he’d ever been, how her gentle hand had felt as it brushed against his forehead; a sweep of cold relief against his overheated skin. She would sit by his bedside and stroke his hair, gently dabbing his sweat-soaked face with a damp cloth. And her soup—he could never forget the taste of her chicken soup, the one that she had always made when either of them were sick, the one that always warmed him inside and out, the homemade kind that he or anyone will never be able to perfectly replicate. 

These are the memories that drift in his feverish mind that moment, the cool tiles underneath him a grounding anchor to reality. It takes a while for his sluggish brain to remember he’s in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, back against the tub. He’s not so sure how he got here, just that he feels too weak to move anywhere else. He drifts there for a moment, not really knowing how long—he’s been experiencing intermittent waves of hot and cold all afternoon, but they seem to wash over him continuously now; chills going up and down his spine, all through his aching muscles. There are spikes penetrating his brain, pain pulsing in his temples. He tries in vain to will together some strength to stand, at the very least, but finds that he cannot. 

After a while he realises someone else is in the bathroom with him, a palm pressing against his forehead. 

“Jesus, baby,” says a familiar voice, “You’re burning up.” Both palms are cradling his cheeks now, and he makes a soft noise at that. “Wong told me to come over.” 

It takes a while to find his voice, to push it through the surprising dryness. “Traitor,” he mutters, “I told him I’m… fine,” he manages. 

A snort. “Sure you are.” 

“He needs to tend to his duties.” 

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. To babysit your sick ass.” 

Stephen scowls at that, but he doesn’t exactly have full faculties of his facial muscles at the moment, so for all he knows it might just be a slight twitch of his face. The hand is feeling along his cheeks, which must be more than a little warm. 

“Let’s get you up and into bed, baby.” 

“Can’t,” Stephen says. Another chill goes through him, and he shudders at it. 

“I know,” says the voice understandingly, “Me and Red are gonna help you up, ‘kay? Come on.”

His arm is slung over broad shoulders, and that, along with the cloak supporting his weight, manages to lift him off the floor, before he is being led out the doorway. 

“You should’ve told me,” the voice—Tony, he remembers now—says, “I would’ve come.” 

“I don’t need any help,” he protests. 

“Sure. You’re doing just fine back there, sitting miserably on the bathroom floor.” 

“I was,” he counters, somehow managing to open his eyes to slits, peering up at the man through his bangs. “Doing fine,” he clarifies. The look on Tony’s face betrays his tone; there’s an obvious crease of worry digging between those brows, and this time Stephen does manage a successful scowl. Tony just searches his eyes, and the soft sincerity there makes Stephen look away. 

Slowly they make their way to the bed, and Stephen has no choice but to let Tony tuck him in. The cloak bundles him up, a little too tightly. It doesn’t budge despite his noise of protest. 

“Wong told me you’re a flight risk, but considering your state I doubt you’d even be able to walk on your own. But just in case,” Tony says, “Cloak here is putting you in blanket jail. Isn’t that right, Red?” 

The cloak tightens around him in response. 

“You’re suffocating me.” 

“That’s just your clogged nose.” 

“This is murder.” 

“Oh, stop it, you big baby. Just rest, alright?” Tony drags a nearby chair beside the bed. “I’ll just be right here.” 

Stephen huffs as a last attempt at saving his dignity, digging further into the bed despite himself. The combination of fatigue and—he is loathe to admit—the comforting weight of the cloak lulls him into an obliterating, all-consuming, full sleep.

—

He grapples back into consciousness with some struggle. He must have dreamt of something, and it comes back to him in hazy sense-memories: gentle fingers, the heat of steam rising from a bowl of broth, the waft of scent; a blend of something warm and salty and herbaceous. Absently he registers several sensations; the damp, lukewarm cloth over his forehead, the blankets over him, the soreness of his throat. The cloth lifts, is dipped into what he assumes is a bowl of water. He hears it drip as it’s being wrung, feels when it returns, gently draped over his forehead. 

Something here feels familiar. He puzzles over this, trying to put his finger on it.

“Ma?” he croaks out. 

“What was that, baby?” mumbles a voice that doesn’t sound like Ma, but it can’t be anyone else. Stephen doesn’t remember anyone else having ever spoken to him quite so softly. 

“Ma,” he rasps again, and there are blessedly cool, callused fingers sweeping across his cheeks now, up along his cheekbones, higher still to brush away his bangs. Stephen is sure of it now. That hand couldn’t belong to anyone else; it is so gentle. 

The tears come completely unbidden. He tries to open his eyes, but is too weak, they are sealed shut, too heavy to lift open. There's a gentle shushing noise above him, whispering little reassuring words. 

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Shh, I’m right here.” 

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs, “‘M so sorry.”

That hand smooths over his heated face, his tear-streaked cheeks, soothing away the tears. "Nothing to be sorry for,” the gentle voice says. 

“No,” he murmurs, because that isn’t true, he has everything to be sorry for. So many words he meant to say, so many apologies he owes. He’s a burden, he’s a failure, he’s failed her, he’s failed everyone, he could’ve saved her, it was his fault, and he’s sorry, he’s so so sorry, is all he can feel. He doesn’t know if he says part of that aloud, or if he says anything at all. He’s not quite aware of what’s leaving his mouth.

The shushing doesn’t stop, and Stephen leans into the voice, leans into the fingers carding through his hair. He presses a cheek against the pillow, feels it soak his tears, and slowly drifts back into the delicious, magnetic pull of sleep. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

break of dawn

Summary:

Ruh roh! Stephen has a little meltdown in bed. What now?

Word Count: 4,429

Rating: E

Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Tags: Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, Gentle Sex, Flashbacks, Stephen Strange Has PTSD, Vulnerability, Scars

A/N: Fill for day 2 of @febuwhump 2026, prompt: old injury. Many thanks to the two best betas a writer could ever ask for, and two incredible, infinitely supportive friends whom I love and adore, @harpywritesfic and @janora00! 💖 Jumps riiiight into action (wink wink) so putting everything under the cut.

AO3

“Fuck, you gorgeous thing—” 

Tony makes quick work of yanking Stephen’s shirt up over his arms, and they are more or less half naked now, or at least getting there, but it’s proving exponentially harder to focus the longer Tony keeps his mouth on Stephen’s—and that in addition to Tony’s better dexterity than his, Stephen is left a little less clothed than him. He had wondered for some time what kind of kisser Tony would be, and wasn’t quite surprised to find out that he is in fact a great one at that, given his reputation, but he didn’t quite calculate to what extent that went. 

Tony kisses ferociously. He kisses Stephen with this violent sort of hunger, completely taking charge of his mouth and sending all thoughts out of his head except for the delicious feel of that tongue slip-sliding over his. The word he’s looking for is intense. It’s intense, being kissed by Tony Stark—and that is another thing, the way they are kissing each other but it feels like Tony is kissing him, in the sense that the action has a direct object, that it is very much a transitive verb, that Stephen is receiving the act, that Tony is kissing him and he is being kissed by Tony—and Stephen is sure he can get off on it alone. 

Insofar as they’re concerned, this is the farthest they’ve ever really gone, in the past two weeks, besides the hormone-fueled make out sessions and a bit of the occasional groping. The most they’ve done during this… whatever the right word is to call what they are to each other—prior to this moment—has just been some desperate fumbling, mostly clothed besides their dicks sticking out while they literally ate each other’s faces off, humping each other like labradors in heat, like it was high school all over again. Though he wouldn’t know about that—he hadn’t ever felt quite this way with anyone in the scant sexual encounters he’s had as a young Nebraskan boy stumbling into pubescence, though he couldn’t speak for Tony. They hadn’t really shared much in the way of their sexual experience and history with each other, on account of the fact that they’d been too busy climbing down each others’ throats any chance they got. No matter, Stephen often thought, they’d work their way around it soon enough. 

And then there’s now. 

The going full naked, that is a first. He doesn’t exactly know how they get from point A to point B, but one second they’re stumbling through the doorway of Tony’s bedroom, ripping each other’s clothes off, mouths holding onto each other like lifelines, and the next, he’s being pushed back against the pillows of Tony’s obscenely large bed. Damn billionaires, with their ridiculously soft pillows and beds big enough to fit the entirety of Texas. 

He can feel the hard jut of Tony’s erection through those trousers—and holy mother of Christ, who the hell are his tailors, and he better have paid them generously because dear lord did those trousers do favours for the man’s ass—pressing against his hip. He can feel his own hardness straining against his jeans. Tony is wedging a hand between them, draping that glorious body of his over Stephen’s and pressing him down, fumbling with Stephen’s zipper. 

Stephen isn’t quite as successful in his own attempts in getting Tony naked, he’s realising now as Tony starts pushing a hand down Stephen’s crotch, rubbing over his briefs and pulling a restrained groan out of him—but manages to pull Tony’s shirt off with clumsy, trembling hands. 

“Get these clothes off you,” Tony says hoarsely, tugging his jeans and underwear down around his thighs—Stephen kicks them off impatiently. 

Too late he remembers the scar that lives underneath; a distinct, crescent scar that dug itself into the flesh of his hip, spanning from the jut of his pelvis and curving down, just skimming past the edge of his underwear’s hem. It is an ugly, gnarly thing, easily hidden by his usual robes, but there is virtually no way to subtly conceal it now, even in the room’s dim lighting. He has the front row seat in watching Tony’s reaction as he notices it, his smile dying at the sight of it. The man just stares, and Stephen can’t bear to see the look in his eyes. He has to shut his own momentarily at the slamdunk of utter shame that floods him, lips thinning. 

“It’s fine,” he says after a while, as if Tony asked, fumbling to pull the blankets over to cover himself with trembling hands. 

“Hey, no,” Tony says, “Let me. It’s okay.” 

Tony eases those hands away and slowly pulls the blanket off, then takes a moment to admire his thighs. Slowly, almost as though telegraphing his intent, he lowers his head down and plants a wet kiss over the raised skin that sends a shiver all up and down his body. Then all of a sudden there is a tongue dragging itself over it and— 

“No,” Stephen gasps, scrambling away. He turns his head to the side in shame, not wanting to look at Tony’s face. He is gripping the sheets, he realises. It’s just that—the warmth of that tongue felt not dissimilar to when his skin had been sliced, that time, and for a vertiginous moment he had been back in the Dark Dimension, standing before Dormammu’s fiery head as he rained torture upon Stephen over and over again. His breathing is not quite right. 

“Hey,” Tony says, in a tone that sounds like he’s talking to a skittish horse. “Hey, easy there, gorgeous.” 

“I—” Stephen is saying, and he hears it but he can’t quite feel the words leaving through his numb lips, “I’m sorry.” 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Tony murmurs earnestly, and he is watching Stephen now. Cautious. He doesn’t put a hand on him, instead hovering over Stephen with grave eyes. “This still okay?” 

“I—” Stephen swallows. “Just—” 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Tony says, “It’s okay. We don’t need to keep going, if you don’t want to.” 

The thing is, he does. He does want to. His traitorous cock had somehow survived through that whole… whatever that was that had happened, standing at half mast. One glance at Tony’s own groin tells him Tony’s own cock hasn’t gotten any less excited, either. 

Tentatively, Tony reaches a hand to skim lightly over his cheekbones, eyes watching him closely for every reaction. “Do you want to stay?” 

Stephen swallows past the tightness of his throat. He wills the quick thud thud thud of his heart to calm, keeping his breaths even. “Yes,” he says. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” Tony assures. 

“No, I—I want to. Keep going, I mean.” 

A slight quirk of his lips, and then Tony says, “Okay. We’ll go slow.” He dives down to press a kiss at the edge of Stephen’s lips, so Stephen turns and meets it. A callused hand feels up and down his arm, another gently placed over his nape to pull him closer. Experimentally, Stephen presses forward, kissing harder, and his response is equivalent; Tony presses back and returns the kiss in equal measure. Interesting. 

They’re beginning a slow grind now, and Stephen quietly asks, “Your pants,” to which Tony nods and pulls them off, so they’re both naked. He works a hand between them both, lines their cocks together and begins a steady stroke. The kissing starts again, heated but just teasing along the edges of it, carrying substantially less intensity than when they first started. He can hear the rasp of Tony’s breathing, and knows that his own is ragged. They’re being so quiet. Stephen nearly breaks the silence with a particularly loud gasp, but he buries it instead into the crook of Tony’s neck, driving his hips up desperately. 

“Close,” Stephen murmurs, a thread of sound. 

“Me too,” Tony whispers tightly. The eye contact alone is such an erotic thing, the way Tony keeps his eyes on Stephen the whole way through like nothing else is worth his attention. At first Stephen thought it must be because he wants to make sure they don’t get a repeat of earlier, but now he’s not so sure. There is something else in those brown eyes, as they watch him, something he can’t quite put his finger on. 

His orgasm, when it comes, is slow and lasts for eternities. It completely unstrings him, the way it milks him dry, every pulse of cum drawing out of him until his balls are empty. He can only gasp and writhe and shiver through it. Tony husks a quiet “Fuck,” above him before he jerks once, twice, and tumbles over the edge, groaning low in his throat. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he says, droopy eyes meeting his before those lips are back again, kissing breathlessly. 

Tony wipes them down with the blanket, and slowly folds Stephen into him, and they lay there in post-coital bliss together. He must fall asleep, then, because he remembers nothing more that night. 

—

Stephen wakes at dawn. He drifts there in not-quite-slumber, memories of last night slowly trickling back into his brain. He doesn’t know how long he lays there until the body beside him stirs, and suddenly sleepy eyes are blinking awake, blearily turning to him. Those eyes are watching again, like they had just last night.

Being watched by Tony Stark is not something to be taken for granted. The man has the attention span of a guppy; you would think he isn’t absorbing the amount of minute details he does, at the rate he does, what with the way his eyes would flit all around the room, never staying on one thing for too long. But to have all of that focus honed solely on you? It isn’t something Stephen should be taking for granted at all. 

After a while he gets up to retrieve something in his bag shoved in the other side of the room, taking his time rummaging around. He returns to the side of the bed, feeling Tony’s eyes on him as he sets two bottles of pills on the bedside table. He sits on the rumpled sheets.

“The zoloft is a garden variety antidepressant,” he explains when he can find his voice again. “The klonopin is—it’s for regulating… controlling certain… responses. Short-circuits the neural pathways that re-insert your brain in… trauma response,” he continues steadily, keeping his voice level and intent. Tony is just looking at him. Stephen doesn’t quite know where to put his eyes. “I have good days and bad days. Some days it’s easier to control these responses than others. But I—” he swallows, “But I... I know I should’ve told you earlier. I understand if this changes things. I understand if…” and he trails off. 

Tony is still just looking at him. 

After a while, Tony gets up, and leaves Stephen sitting there. He wants to say, wait, I know what this looks like, I know you think you’re dating a crazy person, but I promise I’m not that fucked in the head, but that would be a lie. He wants to say, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I would’ve if I had the chance, the right opportunity to, but that would be a lie, too. 

This must be the last push for Tony. This must be the last of the line of things to convince him why dating Stephen Strange is the mother of all bad ideas, why he should probably stay away from him for the rest of his life, or at least keep a good five mile radius from him at all times. The silence behind him is Tony silently putting his clothes back on, zipping up his pants, saying, Hey so maybe the next time you want to get in somebody’s pants, you should tell them they’re sleeping with some headcase who might have a goddamn meltdown over your boner first. 

But then not a moment later Tony has returned, and he brought something with him. He must have been rummaging through his own bag earlier, while Stephen let himself spiral through all the worst assumptions. 

He set a bottle of klonopin pills, half empty, right beside his own on the nightstand. He slowly comes to a crouch between Stephen’s knees and watches him watch the bottles of pills. 

“Oh,” is what eventually comes out of his mouth, which is probably a very inadequate response, but he really could not come up with anything quite more eloquent at the moment. Tony gives him a sort of fond, rueful smile, but it’s far from a happy one. It looks almost sad. A hand settles on one of his knees now and rubs the bare skin there with a gentle thumb. 

“Does this change anything?” Tony asks, barely above a whisper. 

“What?” 

“About what you think of me. Does this change anything?” 

“No,” Stephen says firmly, “No, of course not.” 

“Good,” Tony nods decidedly, and his voice matches Stephen’s now. “Because it changes nothing about how I think about you, either. It changes nothing about how I feel about you. It changes nothing about us. Do you hear me?” 

Stephen swallows again, nodding slowly. “...Yes,” he manages through a suddenly tight throat. 

Tony is still watching him, just quietly observing, then takes one of his trembling hands in the two of his and holds it to his bare chest, where the arc reactor had been. He could see the small, angry lines of his hands against the small, angry lines on Tony's chest, see the history written there, see that this is a part of them, a kind of pain that is only theirs. 

“We all carry our scars, Stephen,” Tony says, and his tone of voice is this low, soothing timbre that Stephen used to think is patronising, like Tony is pitying him, which angered him greatly, but he has come to learn that it is anything but that. It is in fact some cocktail of a couple other things; some peculiar kind of sorrow, for one thing, some kind of deep empathy you reserve to those you care for the most. A sort of understanding, for another. And, lurking somewhere in the corners is a gentle, amused exasperation. Like this is something Tony is fondly exasperated about him, come to expect from him. It is possible the name of this tone of voice is love. 

“It’s what makes us who we are,” Tony continues, and Stephen lays his palm flat against the plane of Tony’s broad chest, lets himself caress the scarred skin. “This?” Tony nods his head at the pills, “This changes nothing about us. For better or for worse, it is a part of us, and not one we can change. This is not something you can magically fix. This is not something that needs fixing,” Tony raises Stephen’s trembling hand, the one he is holding, and kisses his open palm, holds it there as he murmurs, “There is nothing wrong about you—about this—as much as there is nothing wrong about me.” 

“Well,” Stephen murmurs back, “There is something a little wrong about me.” 

Tony laughs quietly behind his hand, and there is that fondness again. The sound of love. It is possibly the loveliest sound he’s ever heard in the world, Tony’s laugh. It is nothing that should exist in this universe, the sheer beauty of it. 

“Then that makes the two of us,” Tony smirks. 

Truth be told, when he first got into therapy, he thought it would be some magical all-cure for everything that is wrong with him. Like his therapist somehow had an arsenal of ways to fix him right up, like finding Kamar Taj and learning the Mystic Arts was like. Well, sort of, anyway. 

He had this mental image of him being rolled into surgery, his therapist carving out his skull and considering his brain, the inner workings of it, digging her expert hands inside to scoop out all the grim and dark and awful things that make him so fucked in the head. All the long, inky black, stringy substances of it, pulled out of him with a pair of forceps and expertly cut out with a scalpel. And then when it all has been surgically removed from his body like a cancer he would wake up in a hospital bed feeling more normal, more human than he had ever been, surrounded by all the people he loves, massive grins on their faces as they say, “You’re fine now, you’re okay, you’re all cured, we love you,” and that would be the fairy tale happy ever after ending.

But as it turns out, reality is not so simple, even in a world where magic exists. As it turns out, his therapist is as much a human as everyone else, as much a human as he. Her degree in psychology does not give her the godly abilities to suddenly disappear all his problems or bend reality to his convenience. She just has the means to help him out, cheering him on by the bleachers. Or coach him, really, as he fucks up the game that is his life. 

And Tony was right when he said the thing about there being no magical way to fix him. There is no cure to the things that make you who you are. There is no cure for being, despite everything, human, who falls and who breaks and who fucks up just like everyone else. 

“It was from Dormammu,” Stephen suddenly says. He thought maybe saying the name aloud again would do something, twist him down paths of darkness like it had last night even though Tony does not deserve a second episode of My Amazing Meltdown, but as it stands, he feels nothing. Nothing, as in the feeling of being devoid of all feelings. He feels numb, is all he can feel. “The scar, I mean.” 

“Dormammu,” Tony repeats, “Now that is a bad guy name. A real Dark Lord of Evil Ancient Darkness kind of name.” 

He snorts at that, and pauses here, and wonders if he is really going through with this. Not even Wong knows the whole of it, just the parts he gleaned from the way Stephen behaved or responded to certain things. And Vivian, bless her, she had only known the broad outlines of what happened from the few scattered sessions where he was even willing to talk about it. 

And now there’s Tony. Something about Tony makes it so easy to talk to him. Tony can easily bust through his carefully built walls like a raging bulldozer, trample all over the lines he draws on the ground that nobody passes. He can strip Stephen down to his bones, all his raw, vulnerable humanness on display, like nobody had done before. 

He has never thought he needed to let his guard down like this, never thought he’d find anyone he can trust to put all his defenses down and be completely, wholly, utterly himself with, whoever the Stephen Strange that lives inside of him is, underneath it all. Probably some mangled, twisted man. A lost cause. Some gruesome, gnarly nightmare of a being beyond human recognition, like one of those lovecraftian horrors he often fights that would spill out of interdimensional breaches. 

But Tony doesn’t seem to mind that one bit. 

So he tells the story of Dormammu, how he had been summoned by Kaecillius and his zealots and the kind of trouble that put them all through. He tells Tony about the first time he picked up the Eye, about the first time a man’s death was on his hands—not the first life lost because of him, but Donna is a story for another time—and what he doesn’t tell is how he had avoided walking through that hall where the body had been the first few weeks afterwards, or how he had had to wash off the bloodstains Master Drumm had left on the foyer. He tells Tony about taking on the mantle of the Master of the New York Sanctum, about the The Ancient One and her passing. He tells him about facing death in the eyes and striking a bargain with it. There are details he leaves out, about how his body had been broken and mangled and hurt and burnt and cut and tortured beyond repair, and then stitched painfully back together in one blinking second only to repeat the sequence over again in an agonizing loop. Instead he tells Tony about defeating death and saving the world from eternal darkness—you better be goddamn thankful for that, universe—and then about returning, and about Mordo. 

“Well that’s an asshole thing to do,” Tony tells him, when Stephen finishes the part where Mordo parted ways from them. He has been mostly quiet, listening to Stephen talk his way through everything in a halting, hesitant pace. “That’s not fair at all.” 

“I do understand where he’s coming from,” Stephen admits. “Mordo has… certain ideas about how things should be. About how the universe should be for it to work, and the means he has to take for it to be that way. Not unlike Kaecillius.” 

Tony just hums vaguely, either in understanding or acknowledgement or something else, he’s not quite sure. 

Stephen had maybe expected Tony would be the vocal kind of listener, who would pitch a comment or question or two while he talks, and had been entirely prepared for it even, but the man can in fact be completely silent like this, and Stephen knows behind those infinitely, infuriatingly keen eyes, he was quietly observing, too. And then there is the other thing lurking in the back of those eyes, the gentle thing he sometimes could not bear to look directly at, because it always makes his chest constrict a little. 

“But anyway. The hip. It’s… the worst of the scars left with me, after… the loop. The worst visible one, at least.” 

Tony hums again. “How’d you get it?” he murmurs. 

Stephen tries to remember that one. That is one of the array of new things he had to adjust to after the loop; remembering things. Before he had been able to rely on his photographic memory to store away important little details, but these days he hardly even remembers how he had started his day, how he even woke up that morning, or what he had done the first few hours afterwards, or even what he had done the previous days and weeks prior. Sometimes it would happen that he is doing something—the kind of thing you could do on autopilot like reading or cleaning or, in his case, practicing spellwork—and he would be completely absorbed in his work for a while before he would snap awake as if he had been asleep, and he would wonder where he is and what he is doing and how he even got there to begin with. There are entire chunks of the day that he would forget, entire chunks of his life he struggles to remember.

“I…” Stephen settles back a little awkwardly, considering his words. “I have… sense memories. I don’t remember how I got this scar, and I don’t really remember how I got most of my scars anyway—” except for his hands, which has always been a reminder of his past, who he was, who he would still be if he hadn’t been so goddamned stupid and reckless and selfish and— “but… Dormammu is creative in his ways to kill a man. To incinerate them quickly or to drag it out; flame, glass, strangulation, impalement, you name it. He never used the same methods in the same order, twice,” he explains.

Tony has fallen silent again, just looking at him with those watchful eyes. It’s funny, how long he had avoided looking directly in those eyes, when they had first met. He thought it was because they were infuriating eyes that belong to an even more infuriating man, but he knows the truth of it now; he had been afraid. He had known, in some capacity, that Tony attracted him, and the realisation of that had confused and scared him. He had never fallen for a man before, never felt so strongly about them, didn’t know that was even a possibility for him. But here he is, looking into the deep, magnificent eyes of the man that goes against everything he stands and believes in and is somehow so much like him in so many ways. Sometimes he swears he can see all the way to the back of those beautiful brown eyes. 

“Heterochemia,” Tony says after a while of this, just them staring into each other’s eyes. 

“What?” 

“Did you know your eyes do this thing where it shifts colours in different lighting?” 

“Well. Sort of. I mean, yes, I know. What does that have to do with…” 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Tony tells him, and Stephen’s breath catches a little. He was not expecting that. They are closer now. “And I just can’t imagine—I just can’t imagine why anything in the universe would want to destroy such a beautiful thing.” 

“You’re being objectifying. I’m more than just my looks,” he says, but the prickle of heat across his cheekbones is betraying him. Tony chuckles a little; that low, fond sound. Suddenly his jaw is being cradled by both of Tony’s hands, so gentle it makes the thing he had thought dead in his chest begin to ache and pound, and they are definitely, impossibly, much, much closer now. 

He thinks maybe Tony would say something more. Something brainlessly sweet and romantic or some other sappy thing he always seemed to be in endless supply of, but instead Tony just kisses him. 

If Dormammu had been like tasting death, this—Tony’s lips on his—this is like tasting life. There is life, living there in the corner of that mouth, and Stephen deepens their kiss to chase after it, to dig into it and find more. 

“Thank you,” Tony murmurs into his mouth when they part—or not quite part, with their lips still brushing each other, “for trusting me. For telling me this. But maybe next time, do it a little more clothed, because goddamn if you know how to distract a man. Not that I’m complaining.”

And somehow, then, life tastes so much sweeter.

[kittyswritingcorner]

close quarters

Summary:

After a mission gone awry, Tony and an injured Stephen are stuck under a cave-in, and are forced to be in close quarters with each other as Stephen slowly bleeds out. 

Word Count: 3,223

Rating: T

Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Tags: Hurt Stephen Strange, Injury, Cave-In, Stephen Strange Whump, Near Death Experiences, hey so ive got 20 minutes left to live but before that lemme confess my homosexual feelings to you as i slowly bleed out in your arms

A/N: First fill for @febuwhump 2026, alt prompt 1: environmental whump. Special thanks to my lovely, hilarious, inimitable beta and a brilliant human being, @harpywritesfic 💖 

AO3

“There’s gotta be a way out of here,” Tony pants, faceplate retracting. He observes the wall of rock before him, trying to find the slightest of crevices. “We are not going to just sit here and wait till Cap saves our asses.” 

“It’s our best bet,” Strange says, watching him, sitting where he is against the cave-in’s wall of stone. “My slingie’s not anywhere I can find it. Your suit took significant damage. Both our comms are non-functional. Dislodging any of the rocks is not an option—that might just lead to another cave-in. Waiting for the team is our best bet, Tony.” 

“No,” Tony insists, frantic now. He feels along the massive boulders blocking their way. “I still have some thruster power left, maybe if I float up there and have a look, I’ll find a way to make a gap—” 

“And send the whole thing crashing down on us? Oh sure, why don’t you just move that rock over there, or maybe that one, see what happens.” Tony clenches his jaw, grinds it. Trust Strange to be a real beacon of hope during a situation like this. “Look,” Strange continues in a different voice, “We can’t afford to be reckless now. We can trust the rest of the team to continue the fight—we were already at an advantage, earlier, they just need to push back a little and—” His breath stutters here, and Tony whips his head back in alarm. 

“Wizard?” He frowns. “Something the matter?” 

“I’m fine,” is Strange’s immediate, tight reply. “I just— I might’ve taken a hit. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Jesus,” Tony mutters, making his way over. He hadn’t noticed with how dark it is here, and the cloak having concealed practically Strange’s entire torso, but Strange seems to slump at an angle, favouring one side. All of a sudden his refusal to do anything but sit there completely immobile seems a lot less like apathy, and a lot more like something else. He crouches beside the sorcerer to get a better look. “Let me see,” he asks. Reluctantly, the cloak pulls back, and Tony gently places a hand against his side. It comes off warm and wet. “Jesus,” he mutters again, sharper. 

“It’s fine,” Strange snaps. Tony presses against it again, getting the smallest of flinches, feeling something else underneath; a rhythmic tremor in the muscle, subtle but unmistakable. 

“You’re going into shock,” Tony realises. Stephen’s eyes shut tightly, breath audibly ragged, now that Tony’s close enough to hear it. 

“I’m—fine.” 

“No you’re not, for fuck’s sake. And you call yourself a doctor.” Tony tries to take a closer look at the wound with the dim light from the arc reactor. Not good. “Okay, I’m gonna need to move you. It’s going to help, but it’s also going to hurt, so tell me if it gets too much, okay?” 

“Okay,” Strange rasps, actually complying. 

Slowly, Tony shifts him to lay down. Strange seems to be trying very hard not to make any noise—he’s pretty sure the average person would be screaming and writhing in pain by now. He makes sure to position Strange in a way that slightly elevates his legs, while ensuring his injured side isn’t too aggravated. Strange’s hands are clenching painfully. 

“Little help here, Red,” he says once settled, hastily grabbing the edge of the cloak. It bundles itself up as he presses against the dark gash, hard. Strange bites his lip to stifle a groan, and something about that makes Tony’s insides clench. The man hardly ever shows any outward signs of pain—to see him actually hurt like this makes Tony want to fly back out there and rip out the heads of those purple-blooded creatures. He allows himself a brief mental image of himself tearing through its flesh, down to the bones and ligaments as it screeches and writhes in pain underneath him. 

“Okay, there. We’re going to try and stop the bleeding—hey, no, stay with me now. Strange, you can’t fall asleep. You need to stay conscious, okay? At least until the others find us. Strange, hey, come on.” 

Strange nods his head incrementally, just a jerk of the chin. “Fuck,” he pants. 

“Yeah,” Tony says, breathless all of a sudden. He’s pleased to note that the tremor in Stephen’s body is slowly subsiding. “They’re going to find us, okay? Wong is out there, and I’m pretty sure he’d tear through hell and back just to get to you.” 

“He’s… I don’t know if they saw where—we were cut off,” Strange says, “Tony, I don’t know if…”

“Hey, no, come on. Stay with me. They’re going to find us, okay? They will.” He tries to calculate how much time Strange has left: rate of blood loss against time since they’ve been trapped. The rest have about a half hour window here to find them—surely they’ll make it in time? 

“Tony.” 

“Yes?” 

“Tony?”

“I’m here, right here. You gotta stay conscious, Gandalf, come on.” 

“I’m… trying.” 

“I know. Look, you’re coming to the party this Friday, right, remember? My birthday. Everyone’s coming. You could do your magic tricks. Balloon animals, and shit.” 

“I can’t actually make those. Balloon animals.”

“Sure you can.” 

“No,” he says, smiling weakly. Tony smiles back. “Listen,” Strange is saying, and his voice is frayed. Tony shuffles closer, pressing against the wound. Strange lets out a small wince at it. “Listen,” he says again, “I might not make it out, Tony.” 

“You can’t say that.” 

“I can. I’m not afraid of death, Tony, I’ve—always known the risks, going in,” he says, “I estimate twenty minutes.”

“I was going for half an hour.” 

“Well, one of us is a little less optimistic and a little more pragmatic.” 

Despite it all, Tony snorts. “Always gotta be an asshole,” he says, shaking his head, “even half an hour to death’s door.” 

Strange tries a laugh, but ends up wincing in pain. “Twenty minutes,” he repeats, “I… lost quite a lot of blood.” 

“You should’ve fucking said something.” 

“Yeah. I… might not have realised how bad… until it was too late,” Strange replies, and there’s a sleepy slur in his voice that jolts Tony. 

“Hey, hey, come on, no, you gotta stay awake. Let’s just—let’s talk about shit, okay? I oughta say something stupid soon, you are gonna want to be awake to hear it.” 

“You’re not.” 

“What?” 

“You’re not stupid. You’re one of the most brilliant men I know.”  

“Jesus, you really are dying, huh?” 

Strange laughs again, and at first Tony thought it was a choke or some sort of convulsive cough or something far more concerning. But his laugh, strained with pain as it is, sounded… warm. 

“Yeah, no, I’m brilliant and I know it. Genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, remember? Part of the package.” 

“Yes,” Strange slurs. 

“Hey, stay awake. You wanna know a story? I can talk about that one birthday party where I got completely obliterated because I ran a bet with this guy, told him I can drink him under the table, right? Now at this point I’ve built up quite the tolerance, that’s kind of what getting yourself sloshed every other night does to you, so I was pretty confident. But here’s the thing about trying to drink a literal viking under the table, you fucking can’t. Pretty sure this guy can hold his liquor better than even Thor.” He laughs. “I woke up in the morning under a table with various articles of clothing around me. It’s not as bad as some of the other guys in the party, all of us were just draped against various furniture in various states of undress—pretty sure one guy was literally half naked and fell asleep hugging a houseplant—but I still had to be in a board meeting that morning, so I showed up late looking predictably like something the cat dragged in, and then immediately tried to bury, sporting the hangover of the goddamn century.”

Strange attempts what could’ve been a soft snort of sorts, but instead only manages a short gust of breath. “Idiot.” 

“I thought we’ve established that I am in fact a genius.” 

“Those two things can coexist. You are brilliant, but you can also be so…” Strange trails off.

“Hey, no, stay with me now. Stephen. Come on.” 

“Yes. ‘M awake. I… What’s happening?” 

“I was telling you a story about that time I tried to drink a viking under the table.” 

“Mm. Viking. Interesting.” 

“Yep. Now you tell me a story about a wild birthday party. You ever got one of those?” 

“Not really.” 

“Come on, never partied so hard you woke up on the floor in just your underwear?” 

“Not on my birthday, no.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“I never celebrated my birthdays,” Strange admits. “Never did since I was little. Eugene thought they were frivolous.” 

Tony just watches him. Is he just imagining it, or is Strange getting paler and paler by the minute? His face is stretched white across his cheekbones. Fuck, they’ve got to find them soon. Any time now. “Who’s Eugene?” 

“Eugene is… nobody. Forget it,” he says, “Tell me… another story.” 

“Right, okay,” Tony says, racking his brain. “Another story. Uh. Well.” 

“I… don’t think I can… stay conscious for long…” 

“No, hey, come on, don’t sleep on me now. Come on, Stephen.” 

“I… can’t. I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” 

“Tony,” Strange is saying, “Tony, I… I need to tell you. Before it’s too late, I need…” 

“Tell me what? Come on, what is it?” 

“I’ve always thought… Always thought you…” 

“That I what? Always thought I had a nice ass? Come on, I know you check me out from time to time. Admit it, you’ve got the hots for me, wizard.” 

“No,” he says, voice fading a little. “No, it’s… more than that. I’ve always thought you were… were…” 

“Stephen,” Tony says, desperate. 

“I’ve always thought you were beautiful…” 

His eyelids finally flutter close, and his head can’t stay upright anymore, lolling to the side and rolling over his shoulder. 

“Stephen? Fuck! Stephen, don’t do this, don’t fucking do this to me, fuck—” He grabs ahold of Strange’s shoulders and shakes them, who cares if it hurts, and he realises he is shouting in panic but also in rage and frustration, because why now? He thought they had all the time in the world, why now? “No! Stephen, come on! No, no no no! Fuck you! You didn’t just fucking—” 

He tries desperately to feel for a pulse, where is it, why can’t he find it, and he presses close to feel his breath, but there is nothing but stillness. There is a distant roar, some hoarse animal cry, and he realises it is his own scream, wrenched out of his throat, crashing against the walls around them, crumbling the rocks and shaking the foundations of the cave, only then he realises there is light, blessed bright light as the ceiling suddenly tears off above them, familiar faces hovering near and nearer. They’ve been found, but it’s too late, it’s no use— 

He is slicing through the sky at breakneck speed not a second later, using whatever reserves of power is left of the suit, Stephen’s body clutched tight against his chest and the cloak a flurry of red around them both. 

—

Stephen had been patched up in the Medbay after the battle, and he hadn’t been lying about the blood loss, and the wound was a horrible thing that tore through his flesh and would surely scar, but he came out alive and that is all that really matters. He also attended the mission debrief they had about two days later, Wong at his side, even though he’s pretty sure Stephen shouldn’t even be out of bed and not resting. 

And the debrief went like always, Steve droning on about incredibly boring, do-gooding shit he only keeps half an ear on and both sorcerers chiming in on how best to deal with future interdimensional breaches, then the occasional input from other members. Tony said his part and tried not to stare, he really did, but then suddenly his eyes strayed to the side against his will, and they had met Stephen’s, and he realised Stephen had been watching him, too, and it was that look. He couldn't unknow that look. They were the same watchful eyes as the ones that looked straight at him in that cave, the same ones that he looked at as Stephen spoke those gently rasped words. 

I’ve always thought you were beautiful. 

And somebody must’ve called Stephen’s name, then, because the man turned his head away and never looked back. 

So that was that. Whatever had happened, whatever things Stephen meant to say to him, they were left in that cave with the rocks and the dark. They never brought it up again, and suddenly everything went back to the way they were before, and really, what had he even been expecting? What had he thought would happen, afterwards? 

But then Friday comes, and it’s his birthday, and every year he wonders how it is that he’s still alive after a lifetime of constantly working against that. Well, he’s not the only one actively knocking at death’s door, apparently. 

He’s embarrassed to admit he spends the first few hours of the evening watching the front door, waiting for a familiar dark head with streaks of grey. Will he even come? Tony had invited him, but the sorcerers aren’t really the type to hang around with them much. Stephen hardly ever shows up at team gatherings, even if he had been invited. But still, there is a part of Tony that holds out hope that he’ll show up. 

And he does. 

Bringing balloon animals with him. 

It is cradled in a pile in his arms, little dogs and cats and horses and snakes, squeaking as they slide against each other. Tony can’t help it, he laughs, hard and long, because god if that isn’t such a ridiculous sight, and Stephen is balancing them all precariously with a pleased look on his face, he must have involved some magic or something, and Wong’s face, oh god Wong’s face, he’s looking at Stephen like he’s resigned to this fate of being publicly embarrassed every time he brings Stephen out to literally anywhere, and Tony just can’t stop laughing, he is in tears by the end of it.

The balloon animals are shared evenly to everyone in the party, and finally Stephen presents Tony with a little red dog. “Happy birthday,” he says. Tony grins as he accepts it, and Stephen grins back. 

Then the evening goes on, and Tony plays his part as the host, laughing and talking and sipping occasionally at his drink. At some point he loses sight of Stephen, excuses himself and extracts from his group, and finds the man standing out in the balcony. 

“There you are,” he says as he slides the balcony door shut. “Thought you left. Was quite the entrance you made there. Thought you said balloon animals aren’t your specialty.” 

“I may have learnt a spell or two.” 

“Yeah, you must know a heckton of weird spells. Hey, I’ve got some magic tricks up my own sleeve. Ever opened a bra one-handed? Enough practice from sneaking in the back of movie theaters.” 

Stephen snorts. 

“So anyway,” Tony says, leaning on the railing with him. He considers the man. Lowers his voice. “You remember it all, then?” 

Stephen turns to look at him, then, and those eyes. Tony can’t help but be a little mystified by them, sometimes. They’d catch against the light, and the colours would shift, and nothing in the world is quite like them. He searches them, and Stephen’s face is open, and there is something in that look, something he wants to believe, and he’s sure he’s got the same look all over his own face. 

“In the cave,” Tony says, then stops. He could say a million things here. He could say, what did you mean? Or even, I can’t look at you the same way after that, I couldn’t unsee the look in your eyes, couldn’t forget them. Or maybe, did you mean it? You called me beautiful. I don’t know why. You called me beautiful, even though you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid my eyes on. But instead he says, “You said you’ve always known the risks, going in. What did you mean?” 

“What did I…” Stephen frowns, appearing to have a hard time remembering. And then, “Oh,” he says. “Well, I just meant that…” He tilts his head a little in thought, seems to be considering his words. “When I learned the Mystic Arts, I did it with the expectation of… fixing myself. But I was faced with a choice, which was that I either get my life back, or I fight to defend our reality, and become a sorcerer of Kamar Taj. And I knew choosing the latter would be putting myself in the line of defense against reality’s worst enemies. That’s what I meant. It’s not so different from you putting on the suit.” 

“Yeah, well.” And he doesn’t really know what else to say. “Maybe. I mean, it’ll get us all eventually, anyway.” 

“Death, you mean?” 

“Yeah. Pretty dark conversation we’re having here, about death and all. Considering it’s my birthday party. We should go back to balloon animals.” 

Stephen chuckles a little, and it is this rumbling, soft sound that makes something seize in Tony’s chest a little. He is reminded of the cave again, Stephen’s weak attempts at a laugh, remembers how it sounded… warm. It sounds warm. 

“Death is…” Stephen says, and now those eyes look far away. “...not unfamiliar to me.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Well, it gets boring after the first or second time.” 

“Do I even want to know?” 

“Nope. You’re right, let’s go back to the balloon animals.”  

Tony’s the one to laugh this time, and Stephen watches him. There is a crinkle at the edges of those eyes, a wry tilt of his lip, and Tony is struck with the sudden need to kiss it, because all he can think of is how beautiful Stephen looks, like this. How beautiful this man is. 

I’ve always thought you were beautiful. 

“Fuck it,” he murmurs, and dives forward. He kisses Stephen hard and inelegantly, and Stephen makes this soft noise in the back of his throat that sends a jolt of something down his spine, and lower still. Stephen is kissing back. Tony twines his fingers into the hair at the back of his head, tilting it just so, and Stephen seems to like that, seems to kiss him deeper—

“Hey, when can we slice the cake? Come on, Tones, everyone’s— Jesus,” Rhodey says as the balcony door slides open. 

“Fucking hell, Rhodey,” Tony whips his head to him. 

“Woah, sorry. I mean, about time, anyway, right?” Rhodey smirks, hands up in surrender. He winks. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” And then he disappears behind the door, sliding it firmly shut. They both stare at it, silent. 

“Well.” 

Then suddenly Stephen bursts into laughter, and Tony joins him, and well, what do you know. Turns out this is definitely one of his best birthdays. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

for old time's sake

Summary:

Shigeo comes home from college. He goes stargazing with Ritsu.

Word Count: 1,487

Rating: Gen

Characters/Relationships: Kageyama Ritsu & Kageyama "Mob" Shigeo

Tags: Stargazing, Sibling Bonding, Fluff, Older Kageyama "Mob" Shigeo, Older Kageyama Ritsu

A/N: Here is some older!kagebros I wrote for the birthday twins @zelldotcom and @jazzy0clock a long while ago!

AO3

“Is this really the right way, Nii-san?” 

“Yes,” Shigeo huffs out for the upteenth time, “I know where I’m going. Just trust me.” 

They’ve long since abandoned the forest trail, boots dredged in muddy dirt and leaves clinging to the hem of their trousers. Shigeo hikes his backpack higher up his shoulder, hesitating momentarily before directing them to a small clearing beyond the trees. Ritsu has caught one or two desire paths along the way, neither of which they’ve followed through, but Shigeo seems sure of where he’s going. 

The late evening breeze rustles the leaves overhead. The moon is shy of hanging high in the sky, greeting the soon-emerging firmament of stars; Ritsu watches as the last dapples of daylight dance over the surface of a lone puddle through gaps in the canopy overhead, then lifts his head skyward and trusts Shigeo’s moving figure in his peripheral to drag them along. It feels like they’ve been walking for ages now. 

“Are you sure—” 

“Ritsu,” Shigeo interrupts him, not unkindly, and Ritsu clicks his jaw shut. “I said I know a place. I said you could trust me. I’ve been here several times now, to—wind down, mostly. I know where I’m going.” That explains the empty patches on the ground. The random craters. Signs of destruction. Like the wind somehow managed to knock down sections of the forest, sweeping trees off the ground and pulling them out from the roots in its sheer wrath. “And besides,” Shigeo shrugs, “If we get lost, I have you. You always figure out the way back home.” 

And then Shigeo’s moving again, searching for something past the branches and leaves and trailing after it. Ritsu only gets a moment to be stunned—a warm curl of nostalgia in his chest—at the words before his feet pick up after him, catching up to his older brother. 

His profile is cast in the pale light reflecting off of a nearby stream. Ritsu is struck, not for the first time, by the knowledge of how much his brother has grown. He stands a few feet taller than he used to, the soft curve of his jaw cut into a sharp edge. His features are sharper, too, the last clinging baby fat on his cheeks carved into something frighteningly mature. 

“Remember when we were children,” Shigeo says conversationally, and that’s another new thing; Shigeo being conversational, “and we got lost in the forest that one time?” 

Ritsu can recall the memory vividly. “Yeah.” 

“And you got us back home.” 

Ritsu hums. “I did.” 

“You followed the moss, because—” 

“They always grow on the north side, where the sun won’t hit them directly.” 

Shigeo passes him a sidelong look, lips half-quirked up. Ritsu returns it with a small, crooked smile of his own. He stops to help heft Ritsu’s weight up a fallen tree trunk with a firm hand, joining him back down to the ground and steadying him. The Body Improvement Club has definitely done its job well. 

“I’m not worried about getting lost, is what I’m saying,” Shigeo tells him. 

“Well, we have our phones now,” Ritsu shrugs, “Doesn’t Reigen have a tracker on yours?” 

Shigeo doesn’t say anything to that, but Ritsu thinks he isn’t imagining the amusement in his face. His growth shines in moments like this, subtle as they are. 

I want to take my emotions more seriously, he remembers Shigeo confessing, and it hadn’t been a fruitless endeavour. 

Before long, Shigeo stops in front of a structure—an abandoned greenhouse, Ritsu guesses, with wide clouded glass walls and questionable integrity. 

“Is this the place?” Ritsu says, taking in his surroundings. Shigeo nods at him, and there’s a hint of delight in his eyes. Ritsu hasn’t seen that look in a while, rare as it is, but he hasn’t seen Shigeo in a while after he’s gone to college, anyway. 

His older brother’s slowly growing into himself, showing more parts of him and his emotions than Ritsu ever thinks he has, and he wishes they aren’t so far apart these days so he can see how it all develops. He wishes the universe would stop putting this distance between them. Not when they’ve only just begun to rekindle. Not when they’ve only just let all that was repressed flood out and run their course, when they’ve only just gone through the rockiest parts of their diverging roads and wind back down into a singular path. Not when Ritsu has only just started picking up and putting together whatever they had left of what they were before. 

It always feels like time is never on their side. It’s a fragile thing, this thing they have between them. Shigeo is and always has been his brother, and Ritsu knows that’s what ties them tightly together despite it all, but he also knows they—their shared camaraderie, their bond, the brotherly affection shared in the quiet moments, hesitant and delicate but genuine all the same—have changed, over time. Perhaps it’s selfish to think things could stay the same. Perhaps it’s selfish to wish growing up didn’t mean changing. 

Shigeo tries the door, lop-sided on its hinges and scraping unpleasantly against the ground as he drags it open just enough for them to slip inside one after the other. The moon has risen this time around, and it brightens the clear sky and streams moonlight down through the aging glass, streaked with dust and debris and unkempt foliage.

He thinks, as Shigeo squints up at the low glass ceiling, that they can make this work. That things haven’t changed much, after all. That, even if they had, then perhaps that’s okay, too. 

“Through there,” Shigeo suddenly points upwards, and Ritsu’s eyes follow the direction. There’s a skylight. 

“Nii-san,” Ritsu frowns. “You want to get on top of this thing?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re serious?” 

“Yes, Ritsu.” 

“What if we—it might collapse, and—we might—”

“Do you trust me?” 

Ritsu blinks at him. 

“I don’t trust this whole place not to come down,” Ritsu says instead. 

“It won’t,” Shigeo tells him, “You said you wanted to go stargazing. We’re going stargazing.” 

“Up there?” 

“Yes.” 

“But the whole place might colla—” 

“Ritsu,” Shigeo levels him a gaze. It isn’t serious, really, but there’s a weight to it that stops Ritsu in his tracks. “You trust me, right?” 

Despite better judgement, Ritsu doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” With my life, he wants to say, knowing that hasn’t always been the case. Not with this much certainty, at least. 

Shigeo nods resolutely. “Then we’re going up there.” 

Shigeo looks around, spotting a small, plastic stepping stool. He drags it over and plants a foot on it, shaking unsteadily as he climbs his way up. Ritsu isn’t sure what to do at first, but jumps into action as the thing tips precariously to the side, Shigeo wobbling above, and lands on his knees just in time to hold it still. 

“Jesus, Nii-san,” he mutters. His jeans are ruined. He’s going to have a hard time scrubbing away the dirt. 

Shigeo ignores him, instead using the newly acquired height to give the skylight a good few shoves. The old coppery latch finally gives way and the skylight swings open with a pop, hinges squealing, thumping onto the other side and sending dust and leaves and bits of dry soil raining down.  

Shigeo gets on his tip toes, reaching up with strong arms on either side of the roof—again, Body Improvement Club has definitely done its damn wonders—and lifting his weight up to climb up and out. Ritsu hears him huff out a breath or two before a hand stretches down in offering. When Ritsu doesn’t take it, Shigeo’s head pops into view with a questioning look. 

“This is crazy, Nii-san,” Ritsu says. Shigeo just stares at him expectantly. 

With a sigh, he eventually steps up the stepping stool, muttering prayers under his breath as he wobbles, and grabs at his brother’s hand who lifts him up with some struggle. 

Once they settle down, and so has his anxiety, Ritsu has to admit—it’s a breathtaking sight. The sky is clear, the moon is bright, and they’re far out enough that the city’s light pollution doesn’t reach them to drown out the few specks of glittering stars. Ritsu admires the view with open awe. 

“So,” Shigeo says after a moment of this, their elbows meeting in a light nudge, and Ritsu looks at him with a raised brow. “Worth it?” 

Incredulous. 

“You’re unbelievable, Nii-san,” Ritsu says, but he’s smiling, and so is Shigeo, and now they’re laughing and Ritsu thinks, yes, this is how things always are. This is how things always will be between them, despite it all. 

For once, Ritsu thinks, as he watches a star shoot across the dark sky, their joined laughter leaving a stir of warmth in him, the odds are in their favour. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

sense of vulnerability

Summary:

It happened because Stephen was being careless. 

Word Count: 2,367

Rating: T

Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange

Tags: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stephen Strange Has PTSD, Tony Stark Has PTSD, Stephen Strange Has Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Not Beta Read

A/N: This was meant to be a short scene in an otherwise longer fic but i went 'fuck it' and just turned it into a oneshot.

Also. My writing's been a little too "clean" lately so I've decided to just make something messy and word-barfy because I can. Who gives a shit about proper beta work. We die like literally everyone. Enjoy your time with these trauma-ridden boys!

AO3

It happened because Stephen was being careless. 

It was new, this thing between Tony and him. New enough that Tony hadn’t exactly known the full scope of Stephen’s… for lack of eloquent wording, problems. And the nature of them. He was still riding the euphoria of their new… thing the first few weeks they officialised it between them, and everything was so good he had even forgotten once or twice to take his meds, because he hadn’t felt the need. Not with Tony around. So good, in fact, that every night it had been so easy to let his guard down by increments until he no longer felt the need to be careful. Whether that meant he let the exhaustion bleed out of him the moment he hit the mattress or they fucked themselves into complete bliss until he passed out right then and there, right where he was on the bed, instead of his usual careful arrangement of pillows to prop him up. 

He didn’t exactly know what it was about that—the added level the pillows provided for his head, for some reason, drove most of the nightmares away. They came rarely whenever he slept propped up—most of the time lying flat was when they’d come for him, and he wondered about that for a long time. 

When he mustered the courage to ask about it to his therapist, one session, she had just said it had to do with your body feeling vulnerable. He supposed that made sense, how your body would be more open to threats when lying prone or supine and unsuspecting. It was unfair, that everyone else could sleep however way they wanted, and people like him had to shield themselves with thick blankets and a bank of pillows, but it made sense. 

He had let himself spend every night of that first few weeks—or as many nights as their lives allowed, as the way the lives they led only ever allowed so much—in bed with Tony, had let himself bask in the joy of being in somebody’s arms, whom he loved and loved him back. It was still a foreign notion to him, the idea that he could have this, but once he knew that this was his, that this was something that was meant for him—it was all too easy to hold on. It was all he ever wanted, all he could do to swear to not ever let go. It was, of course, quite a lapse in judgement on his part. He had thought he’d gotten over that kind of naiveté, after Christine, but he had been wrong. He had been very wrong.

That was the thing about letting yourself be happy; life, and reality, had always punished him for wanting that. For having it, now. What sort of right, what kind of audacity—who the hell did he think he was to even think he deserved that? In hindsight, he really should’ve seen it coming. 

So yes, when the nightmare came, it was because Stephen had been careless. It had been a while since something like that happened, too—it was like his mind had been building up to this moment, had been lying in wait like a predator for the perfect opportunity to strike him down when he was at his most vulnerable. It sank his claws in him, vicious and unrelenting, in vengeance for him ever daring to be happy, and the visions he was subjected to was worse than the last. Worse than his usual, even. 

He woke up with Tony’s head hovering over his own, frantic. When it blurred into focus he realised it was wrought with worry—and something like fear. There were hands pinning him down, and he struggled against them, and Tony’s muttering a litany of words that made no sense to him; things like, “Hey, hey hey hey baby wake up,” and “Stephen, Stephen, honey, I’m right here, it’s me, it’s me, come on, baby.” Then he registers there’s some horrible sound. This loud, raw, roaring thing in his ears, something harsh and hoarse, and he realised too late that he was screaming. He was screaming loudly, the sound was coming from him, wrenched from deep in his chest, and his throat was aching with it. 

He knew by now what was surely to come after this, and no, no no no, this couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t let Tony see this. He needed to get away, and fast. Tony still had him pinned on the mattress, so Stephen shoved him off. Tony landed maybe off the bed, and perhaps it was too brutal a shove, but Stephen could hardly think straight—he needed to get his pills. They were in the bathroom, he needed to get to the bathroom. 

He stumbled, half-tripped over somebody’s trousers on the way to his bathroom, threw himself in and yanked open the mirror cabinet to take his bottle of pills. His hands, his damned damned hands—they were trembling so bad, it was hard to get any sort of grip, and soon the trembling caught up with the rest of his body, and he barely managed to pop open the bottle before it slipped from his fingers and stumbled onto the sink. It rolled, fell, the pills scattering all over the floor, all because of his damned, useless fucking hands, and he shook and shook and didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what he could do. 

He could ride it out. It had been a while since he’d had to do it, but he could. He knew he could. But this was—it had been so long since it had been this bad, bad enough that his legs were giving out, and he found himself on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, shaking beyond belief. 

He realised too late that there was a hand on his shoulder, and it was grounding but it was unwelcome, so he shoved it away. It relented, but it came back to force a pill between his lips. His ears were gaining function again so he heard Tony saying, “Swallow, baby, swallow,” and Stephen didn’t think he could, but Tony managed to push the pill between his chattering teeth and nudge a glass of water for him to drink—wherever that had come from—and he obeyed because it was all he could do. 

He knew he was thrashing, knew he was being uncooperative. “Get away,” he muttered, “Get away get away get away.” 

“Not happening, baby,” Tony was saying, “You gotta breathe, okay? Come on. Breathe with me. I’m gonna hold you, okay?” and he didn’t know, didn’t know if that was okay, but eventually he was nodding mindlessly, and Tony was pulling him into his strong arms. Anchored him there. He was laying Stephen’s head on his shoulder, and he was guiding him to breathe, but Stephen was shaking so badly, and his lungs burned because the air wouldn’t enter. He felt like he would die, like this. How was he meant to survive this? He was going to die. Was he going to die? 

“Shh, shh, breathe with me, baby. Come on, breathe. In—and out, in—out, come on.” 

Stephen tried to follow the grounding sound of Tony’s voice, his soothing stream of instructions, the heartbeat he feels beating steadily against his own frantic, hammering one. When the meds finally took effect, that helped. He didn’t know how long he sat there, cradled in Tony’s arms, shaking and shaking, and it may have been hours until the trembling began to ease. It may also have been mere minutes. Soon enough, his limbs began to weigh down, getting heavier, and his body came back to itself. The trembling of his hands eased into its normal tremor, and the rest of his body slumped in exhaustion. It wasn’t the bad kind of exhaustion, either, almost felt golden in its relief, and that must be the work of the meds. Better than any kind of magic, Stephen would know. 

Slowly he became aware of his surroundings. They were on the cold bathroom floor, leaning against the equally cold tiles of the wall. Tony’s hand was rubbing soothingly down his back, and the shoulder under his cheek was wet with, he realised in horrification, tears. Tony was making shushing noises at him, and that was—the word was mortification, swallowing him whole. The realisation of what had just happened was mortifying. The humiliation was exquisite. 

“I’m—” and there came out a horrifying sob, “—sorry, I’m sorry, I—” 

“Shh, no such thing. Don’t you dare apologise. Come on, baby, just breathe.” 

The next sob that came was small and weak. That was somehow worse. He clenched his eyes shut, swallowing the shame, then opened them and managed to look up at Tony’s face, and then felt the colour drain from his face at the dark bruise on his cheekbone. 

“You’re—”

“It was my fault,” Tony whispers, “my fault, baby. Not yours. I didn’t realise what was happening and I shouldn’t have held you down like that. It wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry about it, okay? Everything’s alright.” 

Stephen shook his head, sniffling. “‘M sorry,” and he sounded small, even to his ears. “‘M so—sorry.” 

“Shh, shh.” Tony’s hand was stroking his hair now, and Stephen buried his face in the crook of Tony’s neck, trying to quieten his sobs. The shame of it all was still eating at him, but it was a background noise now to Tony’s quiet words of reassurance. 

At some point Tony moved them back into bed. He didn’t know how or when that happened—that tended to happen, after something like this. Or, well, it tended to happen without anything setting it off, even. He’d just lose chunks of time. Sometimes entire chunks of the day. 

He was still more than a little shaky, a little rubbed raw. The remnants of it were still whizzing through his bones. He’ll have to sleep it off. Tony had the right idea. Suddenly he finds himself folded under the covers, and Tony was wrapped behind him. Tony was pulling him close, his chest flush against Stephen’s back. 

For a moment, Stephen lay there, not knowing what to say. He closed his eyes, let the shame of everything crash through him, the white-hot knife of humiliation. He let himself feel every inch of that knife slowly enter him, let it twist inside. 

When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, because he feared any louder and his voice might crack. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

He felt a whisper of a kiss brushed against the back of his head. “It wasn’t too difficult to figure out.” 

“You didn’t ask me what they were for. The pills.” 

“You seriously don’t think I know what the benzos are for?” 

Stephen let that sink in for a moment. He thought about the way Tony handled the situation, earlier, the soft, calm way he spoke, like they were just having a conversation. Like it was a completely normal thing. The way he knew what he was doing, the right way to do it, like he knew what needed to be done. Stephen turned around to face Tony, the beautiful face he ruined, choking momentarily at the guilt. Tony stroked his cheek gently. 

You seriously don’t think I know what the benzos are for? 

He thought about it. He supposed that made sense. Not a hard get, at all, indeed. 

“You didn’t tell me either,” Stephen eventually pointed out.

“Yeah, well.” Tony shrugged, and didn’t elaborate further. Stephen understood. 

After a while, Stephen asked a hesitant, “Was it Afghanistan?” 

Tony breathed out a quiet, “Yeah. There’s that. And then some.” He shrugged again, that careless, casual motion that he did when he tried to downplay things. “It’s funny, actually. It wasn’t even the whole kidnapping or having a hole in my chest that hit me hard. I guess watching someone die does that to you.” 

Stephen hummed in understanding. Tony had told him a little about Afghanistan, back before they'd even gotten together, when they were still easing into uneasy camraderie—it wasn’t the whole of it, Stephen’s sure, but Tony’s mentioned the broad outlines, at least. His family name written across a missile, waking up with a magnet in his chest, Ho Yinsen’s death. Funny, how someone’s death was not something that happened to them, but was something that affected everyone else in their lives. 

Death is what gives life meaning, The Ancient One had told him, and at the time Stephen had just thought, bullshit. Death was an unreasonable, unjust thing. It was a selfish thing. The Ancient One had thought he wanted to control death because of his arrogance, his need for control, but in truth, it was his fear. It was the fear of a young boy who had watched his little sister’s last breath bubble up the surface of a lake, heard the earth-shattering crack of ice, who stood frozen and unable to do a thing. It was the same fear that made him swear the hippocratic oath, made him hesitate before taking risky surgeries, made him fear the sight of blood on his hands. Death is what gives life meaning, she told him, and Stephen had thought, absolute fucking bullshit.

“Survivor’s guilt,” Stephen provided. 

“You don’t get to backseat therapy me when you’re equally as fucked up about that shit, you hypocrite.” 

Stephen laughed. He laughed far too loud, for far too long, and Tony looked halfway amused and mostly concerned. Damn Tony, this brilliant, ridiculous man, and his verbal restraint equivalent to that of a howling labrador. He shuffled closer to press onto Tony’s side, and Tony’s strong arms automatically wrapped around him. Tony shifted for a moment to make sure Stephen’s head was safely propped up—and oh, what had he done to deserve this man? Did he, even?—then again to move them into a more comfortable position. 

“Go back to sleep, mkay?” Tony kisses his forehead gently, strokes his back. “I’m right here. I’ll be just right here.” 

Stephen nods, eyes already drooping. 

[lhazaar]

look…………….. write as much shitty fic as you want. nobody can stop you. you’re learning constantly and it’s better to write hackneyed implausible ridiculousness than it is to not write at all out of fear of fucking up. you’re good

[darkandstormyslash]

There was an experiment a professor did. I think it was pottery students. He did an experiment of “quality” vs “quantity”. One half of the class he told; you have to make as many pots as possible. Good pots, bad pots, shitty pots, whatever. The more pots you make, the higher your grade.

The other half of the class were told, “you can make only one pot”. But that pot had to be perfect. The quality had to be high; the highest quality pot would get the best mark.

But when it came to the grading, they noticed something weird.

All the best quality pots were in the ‘quantity’ group.

The guys who were literally churning out pots, trying to make as many as possible, not concentrating on the quality. But every pot they made, made them better at making pots. By the end of the month (I think it was a month) - they had some pretty awesome pots coming out, because they enjoying finding all the ways and all the things they could do to make all their pots. Where as the ‘quality’ guys had spent their time reading up on pots, and technique, and researching and planning; which was all great but they’d had no further practice at actually making pots.

The best way to get really good at something, the only way to be really good at something, is to make lots of shitty attempts at that thing several of which will fail. If all you create are perfect things then you won’t improve, because how can you improve on perfect?

tl:dr MAKE YOUR SHITTY POTS.

[kittyswritingcorner]

slow and steady

Summary:

It’s not love at first sight. Not exactly, at least.  OR Serizawa falls in love with Reigen through the seasons.

Word Count: 4,457

Rating: T

Characters/Relationships: Reigen Arataka/Serizawa Katsuya

Tags: Fluff, Developing Relationship, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Vignettes, listen this is just 4k of plotless romancey bullshit idk what to tell you. are you an adult in need of plotless romancey bullshit to soothe the loneliness of your love life? are you in a mid life crisis and find yourself in need of a fucking break? do you go by the name reigen arataka? then this fic is for you!

A/N: Special thanks to the lovelies @soholdmetightao3 and @blackiearry who volunteered for beta help! 💖

AO3

It’s not love at first sight. Not exactly, at least. 

Serizawa remembers the first time they met—unconventional, but so were the rest of the years of his life, which is something that comes with having unconventional abilities—and the emotions he felt for Reigen then were frighteningly similar to when the president first lended him his umbrella—which is torn to shreds, now, burnt away like the last of his admiration for the man. But there’s something about Reigen that Serizawa knows is nothing like the president. 

And he’s proven so, months into working in Spirits and Such. 

He can put his finger on it now; Reigen is just much too human. There’s just something so painfully different about the way Reigen holds himself, behaves, is. Where the president is always put-together, strikingly neat and poised with perfect rows of white teeth and sharp appraising eyes, Reigen is sweaty and awkward and clumsy with wild gesticulations of his hands and crooked teeth and an odd, unconventional sort of charm. 

Serizawa still looks up to him, of course—Reigen is, after all, a man of many skills that Serizawa lacks, and then some—but it’s hard to put him on the same pedestal as the president when he’s spent enough time around Reigen to figure out his ticks and tells and the little idiosyncrasies that make Reigen himself. The president always seems infrangible, too high up in the sky to ever be perceived as just a human being, but Reigen is solidly on the ground next to him. Reigen feels plainly real. 

And that’s when it started. 

Serizawa doesn’t think he knows how, exactly, though he knows there were signs—however notices them only in hindsight. They’re little things between the daily mundane, like his chopsticks trembling whenever Reigen’s knee bumps against his own under their usual table at the corner of the ramen restaurant they frequent, sweat decorating their foreheads and broth stains clinging to their collars. Or the flutter in his chest when Reigen smiles gratefully at him when he serves him tea in the morning. Or the swoop of his stomach when they pass paperwork and their fingers inevitably brush together. Or the way his eyes linger too long on the line of Reigen’s neck down to the tantalising, exposed bit of clavicle when he loosens his tie and undoes a few buttons of his dress shirt before a physical exorcism. 

It doesn’t stop there.

Sometimes he finds himself speaking a little lower when they’re out drinking, purposefully, just so Reigen would lean in the slightest bit closer to his side of the bar to listen better. Sometimes a client gets a little too comfortable with Reigen and Serizawa has to consciously tamp down the spike of jealousy that rears its ugly head in him before he throws them out the window. Sometimes it feels like Reigen’s under his skin, shoved himself into his mind, and Serizawa finds he can’t force him out. 

He’s always thinking about when they’ll next meet, what restaurant Reigen would take him to for their after-work not-dinner-dates, the kinds of conversations they’ll have, one-sided or not. He thinks about the way the sun frames Reigen’s head like a halo when the office is quiet. He thinks about Reigen’s hands moving with careful, practised precision during his massages, working each muscle with deliberate care. 

Reigen, Reigen, Reigen. Always him. It feels almost natural for him to ease his way into Serizawa’s heart like that. 

This—this growing inevitability—and the way it only seems to grow out of his control, sharp and keen and bright enough it might split something open in him and break a new thing out; longing like a furnace, the sort of gnawing that he knows when sated will only serve to stoke it further, whet it sharper—it isn’t something Serizawa had ever expected. 

But he knows one thing for sure: falling for Reigen happens slowly. 

—

1. Spring

They’re out on a case. 

Reigen is muttering something about how he should’ve had the foresight to check the pollen count for the day. He’s rubbing his nose aggressively with a handkerchief. Every time he pulls back it turns a darker shade of angry red. 

Serizawa observes their surroundings, scanning for any signs of a spirit. If the frantic notes he scribbled while Reigen was on the phone earlier are in any way accurate, the client mentioned seeing a silhouette in his garden while looking out of his porch in the evening, notes that he hears “suspicious” noises throughout the night, and wakes up to most of his garden wilted and destroyed. The client’s convinced it’s the work of an evil spirit. Reigen’s convinced it’s an average garden vole, he tells Serizawa when the client hangs up, but he brings Serizawa along just in case.

He was right. It’s an angry, chittering thing when they find where it’s burrowed itself in a tunnel in the soil, and it’s angrier when they trap it in the cage Reigen’s brought with him. 

“Right, then,” Reigen says, holding the cage at arm’s length and keeping a wide berth from its occupant’s frantic clawing between the wiry mesh. “I guess we can call this a job well done,” he announces with a nod of finality. 

But that’s when Serizawa feels it. He hadn’t felt anything when they first arrived at the scene, but there’s a tingle now. The slightest scratch of… wrongness, he supposes. Reigen moves towards the gate, but Serizawa stops him short. 

“Wait,” he says, grabbing ahold of Reigen’s wrist. Reigen looks down at his hand, then blinks up at him in confusion. “I feel something,” he explains, focusing his energy towards the source ahead. A gathering of shrubs. Laser-focused eyes. “Stand behind me.” 

Reigen obliges without protest as Serizawa guides him by the hand to stand behind his back. When he lets go of his wrist, Serizawa hears him clear his throat. 

“I uh, definitely felt it, too,” He sniffs, deliberately casual. “But if you insist on dealing with that, then by all means, go ahead! I’ll stand back and watch you work. Of course I can definitely rid of it myself, seeing as it’s a low-level spirit, but with powers like min—” 

“Reigen-san.” 

“Right,” Reigen’s jaw clicks shut. He can practically hear the flap of Reigen’s hands. “Of course. I’ll stop talking. Go on.” 

Serizawa can’t help the private smile that works its way to his lips at that. He raises a hand, feels the static gather to the tip of his fingers as he channels his aura, and closes his eyes in concentration. He tugs, coaxing the spirit to come out. Then he waits.

Sure enough, Serizawa opens his eyes just in time to see the apparition—red-eyed but faceless, wriggling, angry, threatened, frightened—unearth itself with a crackling screech. It lunges up and towards them with inhumane speed, but Serizawa is quicker to slash it with a wave of his hand—faltering only momentarily when he feels the nervous clasp of Reigen’s fingers on his shoulder—in a blinding blast of polychromatic light, and from its center-point the inky black of the spirit bursts and pops into nothingness with a final fizz. 

From it a strong gust of wind blows out and ruffles their hair, their clothes, brushes sharply between gaps. A wild swath of leaves and petals fly along with it. He hears a muffled sneeze. Reigen’s hand leaves a lingering warmth on Serizawa’s shoulder as he makes quick work of shaking out where the leaves and petals have stuck to him, but mostly to no avail. 

Serizawa uses his aura to brush most of the ones on him away and is about to ask permission to do the same for Reigen when something catches his eye. There, buried amongst the shrubbery that only moments ago he’s sure had not much to note, were bright yellow blooms a similar shade as familiar strawberry blonde. 

He plucks one from its bed—he doesn’t know what kind of flower it is, but he thinks Reigen might if he asks, plant expert that he is—and holds it up to Reigen’s head, observing the way it would blend almost seamlessly in his scruffy crown. Reigen’s still patting down the rest of the leaves from his head and muttering little somethings under his breath when Serizawa finds himself carefully tucking the small flower over Reigen’s ear, brushing away a stray leaf near the shell of it. He’s as surprised as Reigen is at the action. 

They both freeze. Lock eyes. Serizawa holds his breath, fearing it would come out a squeak. 

“It—” He sputters a little. There are pink peonies, blooming on the skin of Reigen’s cheeks. He thinks the sight of Reigen’s perplexed face turning that lovely shade up to the tip of his ears—contrasting wonderfully with the flower adorning it—is worth the rising embarrassment. “I thought it’d look good. In your hair, like that.” 

Reigen’s flush deepens. Soft pink to deep scarlet. Serizawa’s sure from the burning of his own face that it’s perfectly mirrored. 

“I-it does?” 

He nods, once shakily and twice firmly. “It—yes,” he confesses, “Yes, it does.” 

Reigen’s beet red. Serizawa’s face burns impossibly hotter. 

Reigen doesn’t move the flower where Serizawa’s placed it when they speak to the client, or on their way back to the office. But he does, though subtly, when a client walks in for their scheduled appointment. 

—

2. Summer 

It’s not the first time Reigen’s taken him and the kids—and Dimple, he supposes, uninvited but always welcome, tagging along behind Shigeo-kun like he always does—on a beach outing in what he calls a “company retreat”. He may rattle off about the benefits of team building and bond strengthening between coworkers when he suggests the idea, but it goes without saying that everyone knows that’s not fully the reason he pitches these trips. 

They’ve rented out a car for the day. The kids decided to carpool; Reigen doesn’t share much detail about it but Serizawa pieces as much from Tome’s loud, staticky voice from his old flip phone’s speakers. 

So. Him and Reigen are the only ones in the car. 

Reigen insists on driving. He does so slowly, in fits and starts. Serizawa, sitting nervously on the front passenger seat, briefly wishes he had a driving license—his mother has been giving him some driving lessons, but he’s still too anxious to take the test. Maybe this is his needed push? 

He catches a slice of his reflection on the rear view mirror. Eyes the bit of Reigen’s forehead he can see off the side, the little crease that’s wedged itself between them. One of Reigen’s hands relents its death grip on the wheel to turn up the radio—it’s playing a foreign pop song he recognises from his trips abroad during his days in Claw. It’s a catchy tune; the obnoxious kind that loops in your head for days on end. He remembers Hatori used to play it repeatedly in his earphones during their downtime, loud enough he can hear bits of it. 

He hums the tune now, lowly and under his breath. Mumbles the few lyrics he remembers. When his eyes flick back up, the divot between Reigen’s furrowed brows has eased a little. 

"You know this song?" Reigen side-eyes him, not unkindly. 

Serizawa hums affirmatively. "I do." 

"I didn't know you listened to foreign songs." 

That pushes a sheepish chuckle out of him. “I don’t,” Serizawa admits, “Not often, anyway… But I’ve heard a lot of them from my trips abroad.” 

“You’ve been abroad?” 

“During my time with Claw,” he says carefully. “We, uh… Tend to fly across different countries, to expand or maintain connection… or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I just followed the Pr— Mr. Suzuki around and kept guard during meetings.” 

Reigen is uncharacteristically quiet, though listening attentively. He nods slowly, eyes on the road but occasionally meeting Serizawa’s in sidelong glances. 

“They were always business trips, but there are days where I’ve had to leave Mr. Suzuki’s side—usually during confidential meetings, I think—and we’d get the time to just… explore. It was… pleasant, mostly. I got to see the world.” 

“Wasn’t it hard to adapt?” 

“Well—yes, sometimes. I still can’t adjust my tongue to some of the food. And my english isn’t very good, though I was never expected to—speak much. Otherwise everything was just…” He shrugs, “provided for me.” 

Reigen hums. "I'd love to travel, too, one day. Maybe you can be my tour guy." The focused frown is gone. In its place is a cheeky, boyish little smile Serizawa’s grown familiar with, devoid of the customer service front he plasters in front of clients. It’s a small, irresistibly endearing thing. 

"Sure. I'd love to visit some places again," he admits, "Preferably without the intention of world domination this time." He chuckles. Reigen’s smile crinkles his eyes softly. "I'd love to travel with you. There’s lots of places I know you’ll love. And food I think you should try.”

He thinks the flush on Reigen’s cheeks then is unmistakable, but Reigen plays it off by turning the air conditioning up and mumbling complaints about the heat. 

Eventually they arrive at the beach. The kids tumble out together in a merry band towards them just as they finish setting up a spot near the shade, but close enough to the shoreline. Their greetings are short. Reigen gives them a talk about the dangers of sunburn. Everyone grumbles when they put on their sunscreen. 

Shortly after, Tome and Shou run headfirst into the water, yelling about a bet on whoever stays under for the longest, and Serizawa thinks it might’ve been a bad idea to introduce them to each other. Ritsu, Teru, Mob, and a floating Dimple watch, exchanging conversation, before eventually joining them, too. 

Reigen moves to lounge on a deck chair, groaning like an old man as he settles down. Serizawa takes the one beside him. They enjoy the shade. 

“This is nice,” Reigen comments after a while. 

Serizawa sighs a contented hum of agreement. He turns to watch Reigen. 

There’s not much to note from his bare torso, but Serizawa finds himself drawn anyway. He observes the few fading scars littering his skin, likely from rougher cases, and tries not to stare at the bit of fat gathered at his sides and the pudge around his tummy and… fails, tremendously. He imagines what they’d feel like in his hands. He wonders if they’d be soft. His face burns hot. At least he can blame the sun. 

What catches his attention the most, however, is the soft smattering of spots blooming from the bridge of Reigen’s nose, delicately along his cheeks, down his neck and along his shoulders. 

"You have freckles,” Serizawa points out.  

Reigen pauses at that. "Oh.” He looks over his shoulders where freckles span along the skin. "Yeah, I do. I just haven't been in the sun as often lately so they're not as visible.”

They’re pretty, he wants to say, but holds his tongue. Instead he swallows and turns away, resisting the urge to openly admire them.

Then he hears a loud thump against the sand in the distance, followed by Tome’s louder voice scolding Shigeo-kun to “Get your head in the game, Mob-kun!”. Apparently they’ve moved to volleyball. 

“Alright,” Reigen suddenly says, smirking that boyish smile, taking his sunglasses off. “It’s time to show them some special moves. I was on the volleyball team back in highschool, you know?” 

“Really?” 

“Yep,” he says, standing up, chest theatrically puffed out, arms akimbo. “For about five minutes.”

Despite that, Reigen strides forward with confidence as he calls out to the rest of the kids and joins them. Serizawa is content to just watch. 

—

3. Autumn 

Autumn rain seals summer away like an envelope, tucked with its sunny days and the last of its heat safely inside until her time returns. The trees blush hearthful hues, born butterfly wings, fallen leaves crisp under his dress shoes as he walks down the well-worn streets of Seasoning city. The sky bleeds glossy red and gold, an early greeting of colder days, the first lines of winter’s song. The chilly breeze forces his use of a scarf. 

Autumn rolling in also meant another thing. 

October tenth. 

It’s a party they’ve planned for ages—with Tome as their main organiser, who’s very set on her decisions and is very particular about some details, which Mob and Serizawa and a begrudging Dimple could only acquiesce to lest they wish to face the full wrath of her—and one that, Serizawa thinks, proved mostly successful. 

Reigen falling face-first onto the cake was definitely not part of the plan, but not an unacceptable deviation. Except, perhaps, for Reigen. Who cried all of during the party but would definitely deny it when the kids—and Dimple—especially Dimple—would inevitably tease him about it sometime in the future. 

All things considered, it went well. And Serizawa’s happy for him. 

Once it all wraps up and the kids are out the door, Serizawa lingers to help with cleanup. Dimple floats about them and makes the occasional teasing remark as they scrub frosting off the floor. Eventually he gets bored and takes his leave, saying he’s got movie night with Shigeo-kun and his little brother to catch up on. 

“Right.” Reigen takes in the office once they finish. “No more frosting anywhere? I keep finding them in random places. How did it even get that far under the table? That doesn’t make sense.”

Serizawa stands up and brushes his knees, looking at the man. 

“Ah, you missed a spot, Reigen-san.” 

“Oh—?” He looks around. “Where—” 

Serizawa pulls out a handkerchief, one his mother gave him during earlier days of him working in Spirits and Such. Reigen turns to him in confusion. He steps nearer, silently asking Reigen permission with his eyes. Reigen nods after a couple blinks of surprise. 

“Here,” Serizawa hums, and wipes delicately along the crook of Reigen’s jaw. There’s a hint of stubble there that makes his stomach flip. Reigen must’ve missed it while shaving. “And here.” He raises his hand, softly pushes away the blonde strands on Reigen’s forehead, wipes at the bits of frosting. A scar lives underneath, hidden from plain view. Serizawa halts his ministrations and finds himself gently tracing it with a thumb, tucking the handkerchief in his palm. 

He’s quiet for a moment. Reigen, too, falls into contemplative silence. 

“How’d you get this one?” he asks, not unkindly. Gently, even. A touch curious. 

“That’s…” Reigen chuckles almost sheepishly. “Remember when Mob… Remember the earthquake? The tornado?” 

“Hm.” 

“Yeah.” Perhaps he’s imagining it, but Reigen seems to lean into his touch a little. He doesn’t dare move his hand away. “There was a… not a boulder, exactly, but like—a large rock. About this size—” Reigen measures a size with his hands. It’s a concerningly big rock. “—and it uh, landed here.” He places two fingers where Serizawa’s thumb is still studying the raised skin. 

He looks down to meet Reigen’s eyes, searches them. He’s not sure if either of them are breathing. Reigen’s lashes look thicker at this angle. “I should’ve come with you,” he murmurs. I shouldn’t have let you go alone. I could’ve protected you. 

Reigen shrugs, letting out a breath of laughter. “There’s nothing you could’ve done,” he says matter-of-factly, “And it’s—happened. For better or for worse. And it couldn’t have ended differently, either way, I think.” 

Serizawa wants to argue that he could’ve done something to protect Reigen better. That Reigen could’ve chosen not to throw himself into danger like that to begin with. But he doesn’t have it in him to say the words when they’re like this. When he can see the small flecks of black in Reigen’s dark brown eyes and he’s hyperaware of the shared air between them. When he wants so badly to plant a kiss on Reigen’s scar and run his fingers over his hair and soothe it all away. 

Serizawa draws in a breath, small and thin in his chest. He wants, so, so badly. 

“Hm,” Serizawa hums, regarding the man still, and figures he’s closer than appropriate. He pulls his hand back. Moves to give them some distance. Reigen doesn’t say a word as they part. Nor does he move where he stands. 

Serizawa offers him a smile. “I hope you enjoyed the party today. Happy birthday, Reigen-san.” 

There’s that crooked, boyish smile again. “I did, thank you.” He chuckles. Then, with a tilt of his head and a familiar question in his eyes, “So… drinks?” 

Serizawa nods. His smile widens of its own accord.  “Yeah. Let’s.” 

—

4. Winter 

They say falling in love with someone makes your heart beat faster. Skipping a beat, thundering in your ears, thumping in your chest—Serizawa only ever feels those things when something bad happens. 

When he’s around Reigen, it’s almost as if his heart slows down. That the constant weight on his shoulders eases off him and his body is allowed to fully, properly relax. When he’s around Reigen, all that matters in the world narrows down to his boyish grin and his soft crow’s feet and the warmth of his hand clasped assuredly on Serizawa’s shoulder. 

Which leaves him as Reigen stumbles his drunken way forward down the snow-blanketed road, catching himself on a nearby utility pole. Serizawa’s reaction is slow in his own inebriated state, and the breath of relief he lets out comes out in foggy condensation. 

Two figures stumbling side-by-side in the white horizon, lit dimly by the orange streetlight and the moon above. 

“I think you’ve had too much to drink, Serizawa,” Reigen says airily between fits of giggles. His face is flushed. Serizawa wants to cup his ruddy cheeks between his hands. 

“And I think you should slow down a bit before you fall forward, Reigen,” his mouth decides to speak before he can stop himself. “You really should’ve stopped after that first drink.”

Reigen clutches imaginary pearls with a dramatic gasp of feigned offense. “Are you, Serizawa, accusing me of being a lightweight?” 

He cracks an amused smile. “I think that’s the case, yes.” 

“How dare you,” Reigen lightly jabs him. “Don’t make me regret making you Deputy Director, mister.”

“I would never,” he retorts, and Reigen’s laugh is bright and bubbly. Drunken. Beautiful. 

“Whenever did you get so—bold?” 

Serizawa stumbles closer. “You bring it out in me.” 

Reigen’s nose wrinkles at that as if he’s said something ridiculous. Though there’s a smile lingering in his lips, nevertheless. 

They make it a few steps forward before Reigen has to lean on another pole, and this time he levels Serizawa with an odd sort of look. 

“Don’t tell Mob.” He makes a shushing gesture. Serizawa isn’t sure what he means until Reigen reaches into his pocket to pull out a cigarette box, shakes one out, and produces a lighter after he tucks the box back in. “I only smoke when I’m drunk, promise.” 

His fingers are clumsy as he attempts to light his cigarette. It takes several tries and some muttered cursing. The joints of his long digits are rosy, darker at the tips where he knows the cold must bite through the skin. Serizawa wants to lend him his gloves. Wants to rub Reigen’s hands warm for him. Wants to soothe the cold away with his lips, press kisses over his knuckles. Wants to shove the cigarette aside and tuck his hands securely into Serizawa’s coat pockets. 

This feeling, the winding one in the center of his chest, is warm and fluttery and tightening further each moment.

“You make me want to do stupid things, Reigen.” 

The liquid courage has definitely loosened his tongue, he thinks. 

He can feel his heart in his chest. It’s beating calmly. 

“Yeah?” Reigen pauses, lit cigarette a hair's breadth away from his parted lips. He pulls it back only slightly to say, with a curious tilt of his head and a growing smile, “Like what?” 

Serizawa wants to kiss him. 

“Like this.” 

He surges forward and, in a drunken haste, steals the cigarette from Reigen’s fingers and stomps it on the ground. 

He cups Reigen’s ruddy cheek with a gloved hand. Watches his eyes turn wide, flickering wildly before landing on Serizawa’s lips. 

He pulls close, closer, and Reigen meets him halfway until their lips connect in one bursting, nerve-wracking moment. He can feel Reigen’s hand fluttering about him, hesitating before it lands on his shoulder, drawing them flush together. Serizawa angles his head just right to deepen the kiss, feels the way Reigen’s lips part with a gasped breath—he takes his own, because it seems they both wholly forgot to breathe at all—but diving right back in the next second. Reigen’s hand trails up to his nape—those lovely, long and thin fingers carding up his hair and pushing insistently against the back of his head, and it’s all Serizawa could do to dip it obligingly— 

The streetlamps along the road within their immediate radius burst and engulf them in darkness. 

Reigen parts from him in surprise, and he can see the slight motion of his head turning this way and that in the dark. 

And then he hears laughter. “You—” 

“Me.” 

Reigen’s laugh is infectious. “You just—” 

“Yeah.” 

“And—” 

“I think I’m in love with you, Reigen.” 

Silence. He breaks it when the anxiety rises in his throat. 

“You don’t—need to say it back, I just—” 

Reigen reaches up and pulls him by the scarf until their lips meet again. This time they take it slow, a press of lips against lips. It isn’t rushed. It’s soft. Gentle. Perfect. 

The world is quiet here. Nothing exists apart from them. A rush of dizziness, a swell of fondness. Serizawa has imagined kissing Reigen a million times before but nothing could hold a candle to the real thing. 

When they part again, Reigen leans his forehead on Serizawa’s, noses brushing, eyes closed. Serizawa watches the way his lashes flutter. 

Their frost breaths mingle. There is something light and giddy in Serizawa’s chest. Everything but Reigen is distant. 

“I don’t know if I’m ready to say it yet,” Reigen confesses, “But trust me, Serizawa, whatever you’re feeling—” A breath, “I—I feel it, too.” He pulls back to smile. “Just… wait for me. Will you?” 

Serizawa considers him. Reigen looks lovely, even in the dark like this. “Of course.” He wants Reigen to know there is devotion in his every word. “I’ll wait. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.” 

[darkkitty1208]

Thank you for 100 ao3 user subscriptions :)

[kittyswritingcorner]

killer slugs and other promises

Summary:

“I’m on my way,” he tells him, “Just got on the train. Are we still doing movie night?” “Of course,” a yawn, and the contented sigh that trails after is so inexplicably Reigen that it triggers a flutter of affection in his chest. “Unless you’ve chickened out and decided Slugs: The Movie is too much for you.” OR Serizawa comes home for his and Reigen's usual movie night.

Word Count: 1,240

Rating: Gen

Characters/Relationships: Reigen Arataka/Serizawa Katsuya

Tags: No Plot/Plotless, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Short & Sweet

AO3

It started raining sometime during Serizawa’s social studies class, and it rains still once he steps out to head home. He counts himself lucky to have had the foresight to bring an umbrella with him. Though he’s not dependent on it as he was with his last one—which he thinks is either burnt to a crisp or lost to god knows where, torn as it is—the current umbrella was a gift from his mother and has provided some comfort in especially taxing days. 

It’s purple—the expandable kind you can collapse and tuck away somewhere. He hunts for it in his school bag, shakes it out with some difficulty, and a gentle click at the handle lets the canopy unfold before him with a puff. Once he holds it above himself, he’s off. He twirls it absently above him and watches the rain pattering from above fly over the edge as he walks down the road, giving courteous nods and waves as he watches his classmates walk by with passing smiles all the while. 

Thankfully Reigen’s apartment is only a train ride away, and the station isn’t too far off from his night school. Some of his classmates trail behind him—heading in one direction—and he makes small talk as they wait for the train to arrive. It takes maybe a few minutes, cutting a conversation about their recent lesson on quadratics short. 

He gives Reigen a call when he slips into the train. 

“Hey,” he says as soon as Reigen picks up. He’s habitually shuffled into a seat at the far corner; comforting, tucked here, a shadow of the security his room had been, but he tries not to ponder that often. He tends to tuck thoughts like that into the furthest corner of his mind. How ironic. 

“Hey,” comes Reigen’s voice, but there’s a layer of weariness there. Serizawa chooses not to point it out. 

“I’m on my way,” he tells him, “Just got on the train. Are we still doing movie night?” 

“Of course,” a yawn, and the contented sigh that trails after is so inexplicably Reigen that it triggers a flutter of affection in his chest. “Unless you’ve chickened out and decided Slugs: The Movie is too much for you.” 

That pushes a chuckle out of him. He never really understands what Reigen finds so appealing about low-budgeted bad horror movies, but he lets him pick out a classic gross-out horror flick from his stack of DVDs every other evening anyway. “I’m not sure what about slugs would scare me. They’re pretty slow.” He leans back in his seat, fiddling the handle of his wet umbrella where he holds it up, tip planted on the ground, and being mindful not to let it wetten his slacks. He leans the handle against the edge of the empty seat beside him. “I could probably outrun them.” 

Reigen makes a small, odd noise. He likes to make lots of those. “Oh but that’s the tricky part; these ones’ve got paralytic mucus. And these scary little mouths with sharp little teeth that’ll chomp your fingers clean off.”  

“That sounds scary,” he says plainly, trying to envision it. 

“Isn’t it?” They share a chuckle. “I swear you need to watch it. This movie’s so stupid. You’ve got flesh-eating slugs, a brilliant amount of completely unnecessary b-movie gore, some over-the-top screaming—what more can one ask for? You’ll love it, I swear.” 

Serizawa hums. “Seems very promising.” He can’t help but smile, even if Reigen isn’t there to see it. “I can’t wait to see what Slugs: The Movie has to offer. I’ll see you in a bit?”

“Alright,” Reigen says softly, and Serizawa presses the phone closer to his ear in hopes he could feel the inviting warmth of him. He thinks he can hear it, in a way, when Reigen says, “See you.” 

He hums again just before Reigen closes the line. Tucking his phone back in his pocket, he leans back in his seat to watch the world pass by outside the windows across him. Clouds decorate the sky, which bleeds shades of red and orange. The sunset always reminds him of Reigen. The smile refuses to leave his face. 

—

Serizawa reaches Reigen’s just a few minutes earlier than he usually does. Reigen lended him a spare key sometime after they’ve started dating—or whatever it is that they had between them, because neither of them have ever officially confessed nor have they decided to put a definite name on it, but Serizawa’s just content with taking things on their current pace and seeing where they go here on out—and he produces it where it’s kept in the inner pocket of his bag to gently unlock the door. 

The sight that greets him is expectedly Reigen’s, now-familiar, dimly lit apartment. He’s sitting on the couch bundled in a thick layer of blankets, head tipping precariously forward, eyes drooping. He catches himself and jerks upright at the click of the front door. He turns to Serizawa, wiping the sleep off his eyes, blinking a lot. Moments pass in silence like that as Reigen takes him in. 

“‘Tsuya?” he mumbles. 

“Hi,” Serizawa greets back, giving the laptop sitting in front of him on the coffee table a sidelong glance. How typical of Reigen to be working even when he’s closed up shop. “Client?” 

It takes a second to register, and then Reigen is nodding his head. After a while of this he turns to the screen sluggishly, clicking away suddenly at something before slamming it shut. He announces, eyes darting back up at him, “She can wait.” 

Serizawa offers a smile. “If you’re tired we can watch another time. Head to bed early.” 

“The client can wait but those slugs damn sure can’t. We’re watching,” he says with finality. 

Letting out a breath of laughter, Serizawa shrugs. It’s all he can do to concede to Reigen’s wishes. If he wishes for slugs, Serizawa will let him have his slugs. “If you say so. I’ll have to change and have a shower first, and then we can watch your slugs.” 

A nod. Reigen says, “Alright. Off you go, then. My slugs are waiting, remember.” 

He laughs at that as he leans his umbrella by the corner and slips out of his shoes, making his way to the bathroom. 

He makes quick work of showering and changing. He’s been here often enough to know where Reigen keeps all his meager belongings, to know his way around the place. He’s awfully fond of Reigen’s citrus-smelling shampoo. There’s a second toothbrush on the cup by the sink, purple beside Reigen’s pink. The mirror always fogs up after a shower so he swipes a streak over it when he grabs for the purple one. 

He steps out with freshly changed clothes, toweling his curls. Apparently Reigen hasn’t moved off the couch. In fact, he’s made himself comfortable—blanketed form draped over it in a burrito bundle and hair falling over his face, off in dreamland. There’s amusement and something else set aflutter in his chest as he observes the steady rise and fall of his drawn shoulders.  

He pads over quietly, leans in to brush Reigen’s bangs away from his eyes to look at the gentle lines of his sleeping face. Lovely. As he brushes a whisper of a kiss on Reigen’s forehead, he thinks: perhaps the slugs can wait, after all. 

[ironstrangeprompts]

Prompt #1682

Stephen won't pull Tony into the mirror realm out of respect for his fear, so when they're about to be made on a stealth mission, he does the only think he can think of to obscure Tony's face without drawing suspicion- he kisses him.

Suggested by Anonymous

[kittyswritingcorner]

CW for use of slur and suggestive around the end. Not beta read. Mature audiences, please.

~

"They're onto us," Tony mutters, stealing a surreptitious glance at the table behind Stephen. "Maybe. Probably. Oh shit. Definitely."

Not so surreptitious, then—even with the nondescript baseball cap pulled low over his head. The man should've gone with sunnies instead, dammit.

"Then maybe you should stop looking at them," Stephen says pointedly into his cup of tea, keeping an ear out on their suspects' conversation. It amuses him endlessly how openly these people converse about under-table arms-dealing in such a public space.

After a while of this Tony shifts slightly in his seat, looking at him.

"Perps are heading for the door. We should go after them," Tony says, and now he's openly staring at them.

"Wait," Stephen hisses, "Not immediately, they'll notice."

"Right, right, I knew that," Tony says, planting his ass back down where he's lifted it nearly halfway off his seat.

Stephen lets out a long-suffering sigh. "You are horrible at undercover missions."

Tony arches a brow at him. "I'm not the one wearing a bright red scarf." He gestures at the offending object, eyes widening when it flutters subtly in response.

"The cloak wouldn't let me leave otherwise," he explains.

The other eyebrow joins its twin on Tony's hairline. "Seriously? It can do... that?" The hand gestures vaguely at the cloak again.

"Evidently. Believe it or not. Shall we?" Stephen raises from his seat, and Tony follows suit, leaving a fifty on the table. Which is entirely too much for a cup of tea and coffee.

They step out of the coffee joint side by side, making fake conversation about one thing or another like a pair of old friends catching up with each other. Tony spots their guys just about immediately and manages not to be too obvious about tailing them, and Stephen makes sure to lead them along, maintaining a distance.

They follow them down the road, and it isn't until they turned the corner into a grimy alleyway does Tony—the idiot—wordlessly drop the act, breaking into a sprint to catch up with them and suddenly coming face to face with a group of thugs looking just about ready to throw some fists.

"Hey, it's the same guys from the—"

See, the thing is, Stephen could easily pull them into the mirror dimension here. Hell, he could portal them out just as quickly, or even make the cloak's insistence to never let him go anywhere without it to good use and fly them over to that fire escape overhead. But he doesn't, really. For one, there's Tony's fear of magic, so he wouldn't do that to the man. For a second, there isn't any point in the matter, anyway. The thugs have seen their faces, and Tony's is a recognisable one even if he tries.

So he does the next best thing: he shoves Tony up the nearest wall, leans in close, and kisses him.

Well, kissing him would be the eloquent way to put it. The less eloquent way to put it would be shoving his tongue down his throat. Tony's mouth opens up willingly against his after a brief moment of surprise, and Stephen accepts that as invitation. Tony’s clearly playing up the act here, because he's kissing Stephen with as much enthusiasm as Stephen is kissing him. It seems to work. One of the thugs mutters an appalled "Jesus Christ," under his breath, turning to look away. Otherwise they leave the both of them alone, opting instead to continue their earlier conversation in low tones.

Stephen tries to keep track of their conversation, and this is incredibly invaluable information, because they're laying out the grittier details that they haven't dived into back at the café, but it's hard to focus when Tony's warm body is pressed against his like this, hand coming up to cup the back of his neck to pull him closer.

He lets out an indecent sound when Tony moves to tilt Stephen's head to the side by the chin, licking into his mouth. Surely it's all an act. Tony's hand is straying down to his hips, cupping his ass through his jeans. It's all part of the act, Stephen is sure, so he kisses with all he's got, pushing their hips together in retaliation. The noise he earns makes him smile slightly into the kiss in satisfaction, and Stephen isn't sure anymore if either of them are acting at this point.

At some point, the perps decided they've had enough of this, so they file out of the alley wearing varied expressions of disgust, giving them a wide berth. One of them mutters, just audible enough for the two of them, "Damn faggots, ain't even seven yet. Christ."

Stephen ignores them, leaving small pecks on Tony's lips between deeper kisses, and once he no longer hears the stomping of their boots, he pulls back.

"I think we're clear," Stephen whispers once he’s sure, scanning their immediate vicinity to check any lingering suspects, finding none. Only then does he raise his voice to normal volume. "We've got enough intel, I say we head back and—"

He doesn't see it happen, but the next second Tony has him by the collar as he's roughly turned and shoved back onto the wall, and now he's the one being pinned. Those chapped lips find his again, and it starts off chaste, but then Tony decides to just dive in hungrily, and Stephen is right there with him.

At some point they've abandoned all pretense and started just making out like mentally deficient teenagers right there in that dirty alley, right beside the garbage bin, groping and grabbing wherever they can, and somehow it's the hottest thing that's ever happened to him. Tony nudges his legs apart to shove a knee in between, and Stephen makes something south of a moan at that, but it was more of a thready, trembling groan of need, low in his throat. Some sort of animal sound. He's breathless by the time Tony pulls back.

"You," Tony breathes into his lips, "better finish what you started, Strange." He grinds once, mockingly, against Stephen's groin, and Stephen chokes. "But first," Tony pulls back completely, a halfway smirk on his face as he wipes Stephen's glistening bottom lip. Stephen barely manages to keep his knees from buckling. "We've got a mission to finish."

He adjusts himself, and then he saunters off, hands in his pockets, looking nonplussed despite the hardness Stephen sure he felt poking at his hip earlier.

His own is straining painfully against his jeans, denied relief. Fuck. 

[kittyswritingcorner]

Now on AO3!

[fir-fireweed]

Y’all! The Em Dash has finally delivered a public statement regarding the AI allegations.

And it’s glorious!

Read the full article on the McSweeney’s website here!