psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

she/her • brazil • 23 • multifandom • i post sometimes but reblog a bit of everything, honestly.

[mars-beauty]

i'm sorry but why is NO ONE talking about THIS?????

A MASS WEDDING BITCH I'M-

[lovebugism]

✶ --- ANTIDOTE !

summary: you and adrian get trapped together on a mission. he's convinced he's bleeding out, you're convinced there's something strange seeping from the airvents. you learn very quickly that your hatred for him is not as nearly powerful as your desire. (7k)

pairing: adrian chase / f!reader

contents: fem!reader, enemies to lovers, idiots in love, grumpy x sunshine, sex pollen galore cw for lots of swearing, mentions of blood and gore, smut!! ft. unprotected sex, injured sex, mutual dubcon? because of sex pollen?, sub!adrian 18+ MDNI!!

They called it The Veil.

They said that, whatever this strange chemical was, it corroded the brain like a virus. They said that it forced the infected recipients to act upon their darkest compulsions. Sometimes it was murder. Sometimes it was sex. Other times, it was something totally innocent, but always a little psychotic in its way.

The drug wasn’t deadly by any means, but inconvenient enough to give its creator, whom they called The Architect, some kind of voyeuristic high.

That was all Amanda Waller thought to tell you on the matter before sending you off on a borderline suicide mission. You’re almost sure she only gave it that stupid case file name because she had no idea what the hell she was talking about, or exactly who the hell she was dealing with. Which is precisely why your task force was sent to handle it.

“It’s a lot simpler than I thought, actually. She only wants one vial to test it, so…” Harcourt sighed deeply from the head of the long table. “In and out, fast and easy, and especially no mess… It needs to be like we were never there at all, understood?”

Adrian scoffed a breathless chuckle from beside you. “Well, I’m the man for the job, then— ‘Cause I know all about in and out, fast and easy… Am I right, guys?”

He glanced around the table, looking very obviously for approval. His smile flickered when he found no one was laughing with him. He cowered under your stoic gaze, swallowing hard and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s a… It was a sex joke…”

“Yeah,” you deadpanned with narrowed eyes. “I think we got that.”

Adrian thought it was kismet when the two of you got paired together, seeing as it was your first mission as a quote-unquote couple since the drunken makeout you shared in Harcourt’s bathroom some weeks ago. He was like a stray puppy that way — you fed him once, and he kept on coming back because he assumed that meant you actually wanted him.

You just thought it was a pretty genius move on Harcourt’s part, really. What better way to ensure a swiftly done mission than to put you in a tin box with the most annoying man on the face of the planet?

But what Waller failed to brief you on was that The Architect was a total fucking psychopath, far beyond usual supervillain standards. The layout of his warehouse was nothing like the one Economos had found — it was more maze-like, and descended nine floors into the ground, not quite unlike a replica of Dante’s fucking Inferno.

It wasn’t until you and Adrian were ambushed by a series of armed guards that you realized that The Architect wanted to be found. He wanted Economos to locate the warehouse, and he wanted Harcourt to think the mission looked easy. The Architect was looking for someone to play cat and mouse with, and you fell right into his trap. Like a total fucking idiot.

You and Adrian seek sanctuary in what seems to be the storage area. The windowless room is filled with cardboard boxes, all packed and organized on metal shelves against the wall that rise to the ceiling. It’s lit by a single white-green fluorescent light that clicks and buzzes every so often. The heavy door shuts behind you and locks with a heavy ca-chunk.

It does not open again.

Dead guards litter the hallway outside, and both of you wear the woes of battle over. The left side of your face is burning and throbbing with it. Metallic blood pools in your busted mouth and seeps from your bruised nose. A kick to the chest from a man twice your size has left you wheezing, and your ankle still throbs from where you’d stomped at him until his handsome face turned into a mangled, unrecognizable mess.

You’re still not sure how much of the blood stained on your jeans and fitted black t-shirt is actually yours.

Adrian got the worst of it, though — all of that and then some.

Along with various raging scrapes and blossoming bruises, he sports a number of lacerations on his lean body from a psycho wielding an army knife. Most of them are surface-level, and hardly any of them will require stitches. Save for the one just under his ribcage, maybe, that weeps and trickles like a waterfall of deep red crimson.

“Fuck!” Adrian whimpers as he stumbles to the opposite side of the room, wrenching off his mask with one hand and clutching his wounded side with the other. He leans his swaying body against the metal wall and slides slowly until he’s sitting down. Then he winces, swallows hard, and pulls his gloved hand away.

The leather of his suit is torn around the cuts on his torso. The teal blue stripes are tinted a darker purple from the blood. The deepest puncture at his side pounds like a heartbeat, and the sight of his open flesh makes his head spin.

Adrian cradles himself there once more and squeezes his eyes shut when the dim room starts to spin around him.

“Holy fuck!” he bellows in pain.

“Can you shut up!” you shout from the other side of the room, dragging in another rasping inhale. “I’m trying to hear!”

You turn away to press your ear back to the vault door. You find nothing but an eerie silence on the other side, save for the faint rattling of dying guards. It’s quiet. Too quiet. A quiet you’ve learned to be wary of — it’s hardly ever the end of a thing, but typically the beginning. The calm before the storm.

You just hope the rest of the team had heard your calls for backup before your comms got smashed to pieces.

Adrian winces and swallows down his strangled whimpers of pain. Being stabbed hurts, of course, but not quite as much as you being angry at him. He thinks it must be in his blood to obey you. The blood which rushes from his body like an open faucet now.

“Sorry. I’m just—” He drags in a wavering breath through his gritted teeth. “I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding out over here…”

“You’re not bleeding out,” you scoff, spitting dark blood from your mouth onto the tile floor below. “Jesus, you’re so dramatic…”

Adrian finds a strange comfort in your innate insensitivity. He always has. Every time you’re mean, it always feels a little like you’re flirting. Each of your hurtful jabs has a funny way of finding him like kisses on the cheek.

“Yeah… You’re probably right…” he sighs and tries to catch his breath. The air feels weirdly thinner now, though, and he convinces himself that the oxygen is running out accordingly. “Oh, fuck…”

Your head whips over your shoulder at his trembling tone. “What?”

“‘M gonna pass out…” Adrian slurs, squeezing his eyes shut when his vision starts to blur.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” you snap and storm the short distance towards him, the best you can on one good foot.

Adrian can hear the sound of your heavy boots against the metal ground, but they sound muffled and far away, like he’s hearing them from underwater. And when you crouch down beside him, you feel much further away than that, too.

He can still smell you, a delirious combination of rich copper blood and musky vanilla perfume, but he can’t see you behind the black evading his vision.

“Oh, fuck,” he echoes. “I can’t see…”

“Open your eyes, you idiot!”

Adrian realizes his eyes are closed, and they snap open in an instant, round and slightly glassy. He finds you much closer than he’d expected, kneeling at his side and looking almost worried behind the bruises and cuts stamped to your skin.

His gaze darts wildly around the room. Everything in it feels light years away, like he’s seeing it all in some kind of movie theater in the very back of his mind.

“I can’t see!” he insists dramatically, anyway.

You huff and roll your eyes, reaching over his battered body for the top pocket of his suit — careful to avoid his many injuries when you retrieve his glasses for him there. You shove the thing back over his face, stamping a bloody thumbprint on the bottom of the right lens. The left one, wounded in battle, is now cracked and splintered in the middle.

“Better?” you monotone.

Adrian opens his eyes wide only to squeeze them shut again in an utterly stupid-looking cycle, like he’s trying hopelessly to re-orient himself. His chest heaves under his fitted suit, each breath trembling through his gritted teeth. He’s very visibly hurt. The foreign look of panic pinching his face makes your chest ache with a distant worry.

“I swear to god, if you pass out in here, I’m leaving you,” you tell him.

His breath catches for a moment. His green-eyed gaze glimmers with uncertainty when they lock with your unsmiling ones. “…Seriously?” he murmurs.

You cave almost instantly at the look of puppy-like hurt twisting his features.

“No…” you sigh, still scowling, even as Adrian musters a trembling smile that looks more like a wince. “But if you die on me, Vij, I will fucking kill you. Do you understand?”

He goes to make a joke — about how in love with him you are despite always being so mean — but the words get lost somewhere in his throat before he can. He hardly notices when his eyes flutter shut and his heavy head starts to loll to his shoulder, until you grab him firmly by the jaw.

Adrian blinks like an owl when you grip his chin between your thumb and forefinger. “I said, do you understand?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but then he pauses for a few moments more.

“…Do you hear that?” he slurs.

“Hear what?”

“That.”

You hold your breath and strain your ears. Only then do you hear the quiet hissing sound coming from far away — not outside, but in here. It rumbles faintly in the walls, like an old A.C. clicking on with a heaving whoosh.

When your eyes flit up to the vents, you find a strange mist seeping from the rusted metal slats. Fine scarlet particles billow in wispy clouds on either side of the room.

The Architect surely knows you’re in here. You figure he must’ve been the one to lock the door behind you. Now, he’s just experimenting with you — like rats in a maze, or bacteria in a petri dish. You wonder if it was his plan all along to trap the two of you in here. You wonder if he’s watching you now, from some camera hidden in the walls.

Adrian’s glazed-over eyes swim with terror. “…What the fuck is that?”

“Cover your nose,” you tell him, wide eyes trained on the slowly sinking fog.

“What?”

“Cover your nose!”

You shield your bloodied one in the crook of your elbow. Adrian tries to follow suit, but finds his limbs have gone strangely heavy. His hands feel like they’re made of brick. “I can’t feel my arms—” he tries to whine. The complaint gets lost in his mouth when you cover it with your free hand.

His round, panic-stricken eyes flit between your worried face and the crimson mist rolling along the pristine metal floor. It feels strangely cold when it meets the exposed skin of his face, billowing in threadlike clouds over his legs and feet. He tenses and waits for it to burn, for it to pierce through his suit and skin like acid. It never does.

Feeling a little safer than before, he goes to take a much-needed breath in. He finds you’re holding him much too tight for that. Your scraped hand deprives his nose and mouth of any air, even when his lungs begin to scream for it.

He tries to tell you this, but the words turn to mush as they rumble against your palm.

“Shut up and wait,” you spit in a muffled scold.

The heavy red mist turns pink when it dissipates, then evaporates entirely a few dragging moments later. You wait a lingering beat after that, just to make sure it’s really gone, before letting either of you breathe again.

Adrian takes in a deep, ragged exhale that rattles through his aching chest. His pulsing rib cage stings when his stomach heaves, and he winces accordingly. He needs to catch his breath, but it hurts too much to do so — and when he holds it, his body only screams for it more.

You watch him writhe with an unenthusiastic stare. “You okay?”

His only answer is another gasping breath.

You sigh and stand to walk away. “Yeah, you’re okay…”

Adrian scoffs bitterly at your limping figure, holding tightly to his wounded side. “Trust me. I think I’m far from fucking okay—”

“You’re fine.”

“I got stabbed—” he shouts, then cuts himself off with a groan when he tries to sit further up. A wave of white-hot pain spreads from his ribcage to the entire left side of his body. He bites back a strangled cry and slouches slowly against the wall again. “And also, I’m pretty sure my lung collapsed after that asshole kicked me in the back…”

“So, you should probably stop talking then, huh?” you huff and press your shoulder into the heavy metal door.

“But I love this back and forth we have going, don’t you?” Adrian pouts. You roll your eyes and say nothing. He doesn’t let the silence linger for long. “Is that stuff gonna kill us, you think?”

“No,” you answer instantly, then doubt your confidence a second later. You exhale a wavering breath that you feel rattling in your lungs. “I— I don’t know. It’s still in the air, but it’s not as— as strong so… I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t feel it,” Adrian says, almost optimistically so. “Do you feel it?”

You think for a moment, then shake your head. “No…”

“Yeah, I… I kinda feel good, actually.”

Your eyes narrow in a disbelieving squint. “I thought you were bleeding out?”

Adrian tilts his heavy head to his shoulder and lifts his trembling fingers. The sight of his open flesh doesn’t get any easier. It’s still raw and still weeping, though a little bit less than before. The stinging pain has ebbed some, too, replaced now with something slightly more numb that he can feel radiating up and down the length of his body.

“Yeah, I think I still am…” he nods with a faint grimace. “But it— It feels a little different now, though…”

“…Different how?”

“Different… tingly,” he answers. “Like, you know how, back in the day, when you’d turn on your television and the screen would feel a little furry?”

“No?”

“Well, that’s what it feels like.”

You open your mouth to make fun of him. It’s instinct to at this point. But the words get trapped in your throat when you realize what he means — this strange tingling sensation that starts at the tips of your fingers and toes. It rolls through the opposite ends of your body, like your veins are made of live wires, until it meets finally in the pit of your stomach.

A warm feeling swirls there. Not painful by any means, or entirely foreign for that matter, but the chemically produced reaction still frightens you a little.

“Oh, fuck…” you waver under your breath as you limp towards the shelves at the other side of the room.

The fear flickering across your face fills Adrian with an immediate worry. It’s easy not to be scared when you’re around, ‘cause you never get scared. Ever. So, naturally, you’re sudden panic strikes him hard in the chest.

“What is it?” Adrian wonders aloud, wide eyes following your form behind his dirtied glasses.

You say nothing as you tear into the sealed packages with your bare hands. The sound of dull pops and harsh rips fills the quiet, windowless room. You find nothing in these boxes other than neatly packaged vials, filled with the same scarlet substance from before. You toss each one to the floor with an impatient huff — on an evident mission that Adrian doesn’t quite understand.

“What are you doing?”

“If The Architect stores his stuff in here, maybe he keeps the antidote in here, too.”

Adrian’s face screws. “Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” he tells you, not argumentative by any means, but trying to be constructive.

“I don’t see you offering up any ideas!” you shout back.

The venom in your tone makes him flinch. “I’m fucking dying!” he reminds you.

“Oh, my god,” you scoff a wheezing breath. “You’re fine—”

The argument dies in your throat when the familiar whoosh-ing sound returns. It’s followed quickly by a faraway hiss, and then by wisps of red fog from the vent above your head. You rush instinctively back to Adrian when the thin mist makes its swift descent, all but stumbling over your twisted ankle and toppling into his wounded side.

His pained scream gets buried in the skin of your palm.

Your face twists into a sympathetic wince behind your elbow. You can feel each of his distressed whimpers rumbling against your hand.

You try to ease some of your body weight off the boy below you. Your knee brushes against his parted legs as you try to rise into a crouched position. You freeze when you feel something hard between his thighs.

Adrian tenses, too, eyes wide behind his crooked glasses. He cowers under the glare you give him.

You don’t say anything until the red fog has dissipated into pink mist, and then finally into nothingness. Then you jerk away from him like he’s burned you.

“Are you hard?!” you exclaim, voice ringing through the metal room, as you stand upright on your sore foot.

“No!” Adrian shouts back, features screwed in a feigned offense. Your scowl never wavers. He swallows hard and shrinks under your towering form. “Yes…”

“What the fuck, Adrian?!”

“You know I like it when you’re mean to me! It’s not my fault!” he defends in a feeble whine. You roll your eyes and stumble away from him with a deep huff. Adrian’s face twists, mourning the closeness between you. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m not thinking straight! It’s the blood loss!”

“I can’t believe this…” you scoff.

“Aw, honey…” Adrian coos sympathetically. “I’m gonna be okay—”

“What? I’m not talking that, Vij!” you argue, spinning on your good foot to face him as you gesture wildly with your hands. “I’m talking about how we’re trapped in here, breathing in some goddamn chemical we weren’t properly briefed on! We don’t even know what’s going to happen to us down here! The Architect is probably watching us right now!”

“We’ll be okay, honey—”

“Stop calling me that!” you shout.

“But you like it when I call you honey.”

“No, I don’t!”

(You do. But that’s not the point.)

You take in a wavering breath. Your lungs fill with something heavier than air — something warmer and fuzzier, something that feels like static. The feeling makes you suddenly lightheaded, though that’s probably just all the shouting. (Adebayo always blames your frequent headaches on your quote-unquote yelling problem.) You figure that, along with the borderline beating you took no more than ten minutes ago, must be the culprit.

So you limp to the opposite wall and slide yourself into the furthest corner from Adrian, aching for a little bit of distance now. You bend your knees to your chest and tilt your head back until the crown of it meets the metal shelves behind you.

“You just stay over there, and I’ll stay over here, and…” you sigh a rasping breath. “The others will find us soon, and we’ll figure it out…”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere, right?” Adrian scoffs, then winces at the ache it puts in his side. “Ouch…”

You keep your eyes closed and your breathing steady, trying to keep the panic at bay while you wait for the strange feeling to subside. Only it never truly eases. It just keeps on building. Like a Fourth of July sparkler set aflame behind your ribcage, that flickers and fizzles without end.

You squeeze your eyes shut and pretend you don’t feel any of it.

“Is it starting to hurt for you?” Adrian’s voice pierces the heavy quiet, face screwed behind his crooked glasses.

“No,” you lie through your teeth.

“Yeah, me neither…” he says with a disbelieving waver, blinking hard to clear the haze. He finds your scraped features twisted into a pained sort of look as you swallow down tiny whimpers, bruised hands balling into trembling fists at your side. “…You okay?”

“I don’t know,” you pant, finding it suddenly very difficult to catch your breath.

Adrian perks with concern almost instantly as he shifts on the wall to sit further up. The worry pinching his chest hurts him far worse than the fresh wound at his side. “Are you in pain?”

“Just— Stop talking—” you tell him, much softer than the usual bite you use with him.

“‘Cause you look like you’re in pain.”

“I’m not, alright? I can just…”

You realize you’re holding your breath and opt to take in a much-needed inhale — a horrid idea in retrospect. ‘Cause it’s not the scent of dust and old metal that pervades you then, but something muskier, like oaky cologne — and something distinctly salty, like sweat and skin.

Everything smells like Adrian, and your lungs fill with it.

“It’s the chemicals, I think,” you tell him, jaw clenched tight. “I feel like I can smell you.”

“Sorry…” Adrian hums with a sympathetic wince. “I think that’s just me, actually… I ran out of soap this morning, so I had to use shampoo instead, and I don’t think it worked very well—”

“Adrian…” you caution in a strangled voice.

It’s the first time you’ve ever used his real name, and the notion isn’t lost on him. Instead, it finds him like a punch to the gut — a distant pounding he can feel in his most sensitive depths.

“Do you feel that, too?” you ask him.

He thinks for a moment and tries to guess what you might mean. The swimmy head? The sparkling chest? The swirling stomach? The throbbing between the thighs?

“Yeah…” he answers, quavering voice filled with a palpable panic. “Holy fuck— Are they spraying us with that weird chemical shit to make us horny? Are we gonna have to fuck each other to get out of here? You know, like those guys did in Saw?”

“What?” you snap. “Nobody fucked in Saw.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure they did—”

“Adrian…” you repeat in that same pitiful tone that makes him dizzy. You look like you want to say more, but can’t quite get the words out. Your face just scrunches together until you look like you might cry.

Adrian wants to comfort you. His entire being aches with it, and it hurts far worse than being stabbed. He’d crawl to you if he had the strength for it.

“Can you just—” Adrian swallows hard. “Can you just come here?”

Your heavy eyes flutter open, more glazed over than usual. You stare daggers at the boy across the room anyway. You find him still slouched against the wall, clutching his side and peering at you through his cracked lenses. There’s something strikingly soft in the way he looks at you, despite all the bruises on his face.

“…What are you talking about?” you ask.

“Nothing. Just… Just come over here,” he shrugs. “M—Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

Your eyes narrow into a challenging squint. “You’re such a fucking creep,” you scoff.

“Remember what Harcourt said? About how The Veil makes people crazy until they— act on their impulses or whatever? Maybe it’s like that now! Maybe we just need to be, you know, close. That’s all.”

There’s a hopeful glint in his dark eyes and a pleading twist to his features that makes your aching that much worse. You almost think you could cry if you’d let yourself. Instead, you just squeeze your bent knees together and pray the heartbeat between your thighs goes away on its own.

“I can’t…” you tell him after a few long moments of heavy silence.

“Can’t what?”

“Be close to you.”

Adrian swallows hard. He can’t tell if it’s a flat-out rejection or an attempt at self-restraint. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t know what I’ll do…” you confess in a pained whisper. “And I don’t wanna hurt you…”

Adrian shakes his head in response. He doesn’t think anything could hurt him more than the distance between the two of you now — not so cavernous in hindsight, but feeling close to it anyway.

“You couldn’t,” he promises, he pleads.

Your skin starts to buzz, like there’s fizzling electricity rushing through your veins instead of blood. You grit your teeth and ball your hands into fists until your nails dig burning crescent shapes into the skin. The pain does little to distract you from the tingling warmth that’s already swallowed you whole — or from the throbbing between your legs that beats out of sync to the thrumming of your pulse.

You wonder briefly if the pounding between your squeezed thighs belongs to Adrian’s heartbeat instead of yours. The thought alone makes the world sway beneath you.

“Fuck—” you hear yourself cry in a strangled voice as your half-numb limbs lift you from the cold, unforgiving ground.

You hardly notice the dull panging in your ankle when you stagger the short distance back to Adrian. You tumble gracelessly into his side, straddling one of his legs between both your thighs, as you cradle his bruised jaw between your calloused palms.

The thought to take a breath doesn’t once cross your mind as you pull him into a searing kiss. Adrian grumbles a quiet moan against you when you lick into his parted mouth without warning.

You exhale a heavy sigh as you relish the foreign flavor of him. You remember the boy tasting once of beer and salty chips and boy — now he tastes mostly of copper blood. Blood and something distinctly sweet, which you chase with your tongue just now.

Adrian keeps his head tipped back and his mouth open for you, letting you kiss him the way you want.

He reaches out for you with numb and heavy hands. His gloved fingers tremble until they find purchase on your thighs, adding to the bloodstains smeared on your dark jeans. He’d pull you closer to him if he had the strength for it, dig his finger into your skin until it left a mark. But now he just holds you there, and lets you make a mess of his mouth.

Your noses smush together at the intensity of your kiss. He can feel each of your exhaled sighs fanning across his cupid’s bow, and you can feel his muffled groans rumbling against your mouth.

You kiss him hard enough to bruise. Adrian finds himself praying that you do. He wants to be marked and stamped and burned by you. He wants a souvenir to remember this by.

But when you lean further into his chest, a white-hot pain sparks across his whole body, stemming from his bloody torso. Only then does he remember the stab wound he sports there. Warm blood seeps and stains the leather fabric of his suit, and Adrian pulls instinctively away with a hiss through his teeth.

“Oh, shit,” you pant. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay—” he shakes his head and leans in for another kiss.

You flinch back before he can. “No, I’m hurting you—”

“I want you to,” he pleads, round eyes darting wildly back and forth between your wet ones, half-hidden behind his glasses. “It’ll make us feel better, okay? I know it will—”

“I am not fucking you in here, Adrian.”

“W-What if it’s the antidote—?”

“No!” you interject with the stubborn shake of your head, voice breaking in a fragile protest. “No. Not like this.”

You’ve spent so much time making him chase you — so much wasted time that’s culminated in this. Some kind of chemically induced hook-up that neither of you particularly wanted or asked for, but was thrust upon you anyway.

You thought that when you finally let Adrian fuck you — because, let’s face it, you were always going to let him fuck you — that it might actually mean something. That he might actually want it.

Now, all you are is a means to an end.

So you’re not sure why Adrian still looks at you like you’re everything he asked god for, anyway.

“Please…” he begs in a broken whimper, bruised features twisting into a pitiful look. His hips shift beneath you, aching and desperate to feel you again, never minding the searing cut pulsing at his side. “Please, I need it— Fuck, I… I’m beggin’ you—”

His words find you like a punch to the stomach. You feel very suddenly like you’ve been starving for decades. The urge to take a bite out of him overwhelms you to the bone. Adrian lays his affection before you like a tablecloth, and what else are you meant to do, other than devour him completely?

You make quick work of undoing his pants, careful not to agitate the raging wound at his ribcage. The faint clinking of his belt buckle fills the quiet room, along with the sounds of eager, panted breaths. Adrian’s wide eyes dart from your bruised face to your impatient hands as they slip beneath the hem of his boxers, colder than silk against his burning skin.

He inhales through his teeth when your fingers brush the coarse thatch of pubic hair above his cock. He’s already half-hard and warmer than velvet when you grip him in a loose fist.

The breath leaves his lungs in a wavering exhale when you drag his cock from the confines of his briefs. It sits heavy on his right hip, glowing a faint pink color at the tip, with a singular vein that trails from the base to the head.

You can’t believe you used to laugh when Peacemaker would call him Thimble.

“I was a late bloomer!” Adrian would always say. “Excuse me for not hitting puberty until my mid-twenties!”

If that was the case, then you figure puberty must’ve hit him pretty damn hard.

You rise slowly to take your pants off and grimace at the distant ache in your ankle. Adrian’s gloved hands reach out to steady you on instinct, though the strength is still slow to return to them. He tilts his chin to keep your gaze when you loom over him, watching your anxious fingers fumble with the buttons of your jeans.

He curls his buzzing fingers around the hem, tugging them down your thighs, along with the black cotton panties you wear underneath. It leaves your lower half totally bare at his eye line. His head swims at the sight of your plush thighs, littered with leftover bruises, and the manicured hair just above your glittering pussy.

You descend slowly back over him again. Adrian swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He rests his tingling hands over your waist to keep you steady as you straddle his lean hips. You prop yourself on his shoulder with one hand and slide the other between your bodies, wrapping a loose fist around his stiff cock.

Adrian’s breath hitches in his throat. Your heavy eyes lock with his lidded ones, half-hidden behind the crack in his lenses, as you drag the bulbous tip between your drenched folds.

His chest deflates with a wavering sigh.

You feel like silk. Softer than silk.

“Do you want this?” you ask on bated breath.

Adrian can’t find the words, so he just nods rapidly in response.

“Tell me,” you command.

“Please,” he begs in a fragile whisper almost instantly. “Please, fuck me—”

His plea trails off into a groan when you pierce yourself on his cock.

A gasp gets caught in your throat when you sink down over him. You relish in the distant burn in the pit of your stomach as you stretch around his cock. The ache washes away as fast as it came, leaving a velvet-coated pleasure in its wake.

Your exhale leaves your parted mouth in a faraway whimper when he’s buried to the hilt. He’s in you and all over you, and still not quite close enough. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible. Enough to make tears burn in the backs of your eyes.

You rock your hips over his lap without warning. Adrian’s kissed lips curl into a tight line, trapping a moan there, as his eyes flutter shut and his head falls back against the metal wall behind him.

“Oh my god…” he murmurs within a dragged-out exhale. The boy babbles to himself while you sway back and forth over his thighs in a slow, methodical rhythm — careful not to hurt him more than you already have. “Fuck me… This is so— so fucking hot. Holy shit…”

Adrian swallows hard and forces himself to keep his heavy eyes open, to watch you as you work yourself over his lap. He tilts his chin to his chest and shifts his hips to have the perfect view of your pussy as it splits open around his cock.

Your inner thighs glimmer with the honey you drool for him. His stiff cock and chestnut pubic hair shine with it, too. The sight of him all slick with you makes him dizzy.

You keep one hand curled around his neck while your other trails between your bodies, down to where the two of you meet. You tilt your heavy head back when your fingertips find your clit, face scrunching when you rub yourself there with a lust-fueled fervor.

A coil tightens in the pit of your stomach. Your pleasure begins to crescendo all at once, and your weeping cunt clenches somehow tighter around him.

“That feel good?” Adrian pants, eyes darting attentively over your fucked-out features, half-blurry behind his fogged lenses. You nod wordlessly in response as a whine sounds in the back of your throat. “Tell me,” he begs. “Tell me I’m making you feel good.”

“Fuck…” you whimper in a strangled cry. “It feels so good, Adrian— Fuck.”

Your hips stutter over his lap, losing their rhythm as your body fights to find its own pleasure. Your drooling cunt pulsates around him, suckling his cock impossibly deeper inside of you. When you duck down to hide your face in his neck, to bury your pathetic whimpers in his sweat-slick skin, Adrian wonders what it’d take for you to stop.

If the rest of the time came rushing in right now to save you, or if The Architect himself barged in prepared to destroy you both — would you keep on fucking him, too far gone on his cock and totally dumb on the pleasure?

The thought makes his stomach swirl. He imagines you riding him for all he’s worth, crying as you squirm on his cock while all your friends watch, seeing firsthand who you belong to. It’s enough to make him burst inside of you.

“Holy fuck, you feel so good…” Adrian murmurs between choppy breaths. “’S gonna— Shit… You’re gonna make me— You’re gonna make me cum if you keep riding me like that… Fuck, yeah, honey… Just like that…”

His praise trails off into a groan.

Adrian tenses beneath you, choking on his moans, as you cum together in a tangled mess of battered limbs and broken whines.

His eyes squeeze shut behind his crooked glasses as his cock spits inside of you, jerking wildly in your fluttering confines. “Fuck—” he shouts in a strangled whimper, blinking away stinging tears as the pleasure erupts so suddenly within him.

Your orgasm finds you much more quietly than his, though it racks through your body in more merciless waves.

Your face screws in a pained look as your jaw clenches, biting back the moans that swell in your throat. The hand on your sensitive clit stills, far too sensitive to touch now, though it’s quickly replaced with Adrian’s gloved one.

The warm, textured leather at his fingertips rubs relentlessly at the swollen button until you’re crying at the overstimulation. The static shocks it sends up your spine contrast heavily with the warm feeling of his cum seeping out of you.

“Adrian!” you gasp as you shake violently in his hold, twitching against his chest.

Adrian grimaces when you press against the fresh wound at his side. It sends a sharp, searing sort of ache up and down the length of his torso. He pulls you closer with his free hand on your thigh, anyway — keeping you close while you moan his name in his ear like it’s the only word you can remember.

Even as your orgasm fizzles slowly out, you’re still left trembling — whimpering pathetic little Adrian, Adrian, Adrian’s into his burning skin.

Your hips come to a slow stop over his lap, too quickly and yet not soon enough. You pick up your heavy head and press your forehead against his own, noses knocking as you catch your breath.

The effects of The Veil ebb like a low tide.

The gravity of the situation hits you like a freight train.

You pull back from him, chest heaving, and lift your hand to set his crooked glasses back on straight over his nose. It’s a subdued sort of affection that he’s never seen from you before now.

“You okay?” you ask, panting.

Adrian says nothing for a moment, as his lips curl into a lazy grin. “Told ya it was the antidote,” he lilts.

Your usual scowl returns to you. You roll your eyes and lift yourself from his softening cock, feeling instantly empty when he’s gone. You can still feel his cum seeping out of you as you slouch against the metal wall beside him — half-naked, leaking, covered in a mixture of his blood and yours.

Neither of you says a word for several long moments. You’re not sure what to say, or how to move on from this — or if you’ll ever be able to.

“So…” Adrian starts, because he’s never met a silence he wasn’t able to break. When the feeling returns to his tingling hands, he tucks his soft cock back into his boxers. “How, uh… How was it for you?”

He tilts his flushed cheek to his shoulder to look at you. His eyes dart wildly over your profile when you keep a thousand-yard stare at the locked door across the room.

“I wasn’t at the top of my game. Just, you know, by the way,” Adrian continues with an awkward chuckle. “‘Cause I’m— bleeding out and all, so… We should— We should probably do that again sometime, right? You know, when I’m not dying…”

He gets no sympathy from you, though he wasn’t exactly expecting any.

He smacks his lips against his teeth when you say nothing, nodding to himself as he turns away. “Yeah, that’s… I think that’d be best, you know? So you can get, like, the full scope of what I’m capable of…”

Your chest deflates with a heavy sigh as you reach for the pile of clothes at your feet. You grit your teeth and power through the ache in your spine as you tug your pants and underwear back on.

“‘Cause I’m usually like a machine, you know—” the boy continues hopelessly.

“Adrian…” you huff with a shake of your head, grimacing when you lift your hips to slide your jeans underneath them.

“Like a sex machine—”

“Adrian.”

He nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a gloved knuckle, blinking hard behind the splinter in the left lens. “Yeah?”

“Please shut the fuck up.”

He frowns. “Is that a no?”

“It’s a ‘please shut the fuck up,’ actually,” you deadpan.

His rosy, kiss-bitten mouth curls into a smug grin. “So then it’s a yes?”

Your head snaps in his direction to flash him a hardened glower. His smile ebbs as he flinches softly beside you. You like him best this way, you think — utterly taken by you, but always a little scared in his way.

“If we somehow get out of here…” you start slowly. “And if somehow Waller doesn’t ship our asses to Belle Reve… Then maybe— maybe— I will think about entertaining the idea of you possibly taking me out on a date… Is that clear enough for you?”

Adrian blinks like an owl. “Not really, no.”

You roll your eyes and turn your attention to the hands buttoning your jeans. “It’s a yes, Adrian…” you murmur shyly, with an audible smile in your voice, though it’s long gone by the time you look at him again. “As long as you don’t die on me in here.”

“You wish,” Adrian scoffs with a lopsided grin. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy, honey.”

You shake your head, dismissing the soft way he looks at you, as you stand on a wobbling foot. “Contrary to popular belief, Vij, I don’t wanna get rid of you at all.”

(The 11th Street Kids rescue you an hour or so later, littered in blood and bruises from a battle of their own. They’re only slightly surprised to find you and Adrian in a worse off state, as they survey the windowless room with matching glances of confusion. It smells of dust and blood and very faintly of sex.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” Lee wonders aloud.

“Long story—” you huff.

“—Oh, we had sex,” Adrian answers at the same time, as mindless as ever. You turn slowly to flash him a disbelieving glare over your shoulder, and his proud smile ebbs. “…What?”

Harcourt’s face screws in a look of disgust. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here,” she deadpans and turns on her heel to walk away. You think you hear her murmuring under her breath as she goes. “About fucking time…”)

[fru1t4fr0gs]

All Mine, Forever

Pairing: Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: You're losing your mind. You've been waking up with blood and dirt on your clothes, and the lingering feeling of armor against your skin. Your windows are open. Your locks are broken. The police are no help, and it's just getting worse. You can't remember the last time you had a good night's sleep, and you aren't sure how much more you can take.

Adrian Chase loves his girlfriend. How could he not? You're the absolute best thing that's ever happened to him. Unfortunately, you don't actually know any of this yet. But you will. Soon. You're not sleeping lately, after all, and what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn't help you?

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, Swearing, Stalking, This one is dark guys!! Sleep deprivation, A little bit of intentional sleep deprivation, Obsessive!Adrian, Stalker!Adrian, Adrian breaks into your apartment, Guns, Mentions of murder, Thoughts of kidnapping, Manipulation, Adrian is a little bit of a perv, Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author's Note: I don't know what came over me. This one is a little fucked up. Or a lot fucked up. Stalking is bad, and this is fiction. I’m not trying to romanticise it! That said, please read the warnings, and let me know what you think! This will most definitely be at least a two-parter, so buckle in!

-

It’s late. The moon is full, the night is quiet, and Adrian Chase couldn’t possibly be happier as he lays beside his girlfriend.

You must have been scrolling through your phone or something when you fell asleep, exhausted from a long day and still fully clothed with one foot hanging off the bed. He wants to wake you up. Maybe trail his hands and lips over your soft skin until your eyes flutter open and he can help you out of those clothes. Maybe into pajamas. Maybe not.

But he doesn’t. Not now. Instead, he just lays there and watches you, curling a lock of your hair around his finger as delicately as he can. You hum, and he goes very still, body tensing. Coiling. Preparing to-

You roll towards him, and your head comes to rest in the crook of his arm. You don’t wake.

“Aw. Hi.” His smile splits his face, and it takes a whole lot of willpower to keep himself from sliding his arms around you and snuggling you as close to him as possible. Maybe…well, maybe he can just…

Slowly, carefully, his fingers slide up beneath your shirt, trailing over the warm skin of your stomach. Your nose scrunches, ticklish, and your body curls a little against his.

Still grinning, he turns his own nose into your hair, inhaling deeply. You smell as pretty as you look. He’s the luckiest guy in the world.

He risks pulling you closer to him, and you come willingly with a sleepy sigh that just might be the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. His eyes move across your room, landing on the gun on your nightstand. Not totally safe, especially if it’s loaded, but you’ve been so paranoid lately that he’s not too surprised. Hopefully you won’t change your locks again. It’s a pain in the ass to break the one on your window without actually breaking the window. Besides, you don’t need to be so overly cautious. He’ll take care of you, just like he always does. He’ll keep killing the guys who are creepy towards you. He’ll keep up with his patrols by your house. He almost wants to wake you up to tell you that, but he’s pretty sure you won’t be soothed by it.

You stir again, always so fussy in your sleep when he’s close to you. He likes to think you can sense him, somehow. That maybe something subconscious is alerting you to his presence, rousing you just enough to snuggle up to him but not quite enough for you to wake up all the way. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that your panic is because of him. Because you’re smart and you’ve seen the missing items in your home and obviously noticed the broken locks enough to keep changing them, but you’re safe. You’ll always be safe because he’ll always keep it that way.

His armor has blood on it. He hopes it doesn’t smudge on your face again. You always get so upset when that happens.

“I love you.” He whispers, nose brushing your cheek. Your own nose scrunches again, and he can’t help his grin. Fuck, if he could just kiss you, just once, he’d be the happiest man in the world. But you’d wake up, and probably freak out, and with his mask off and his face exposed that’ll be a whole new mess to deal with. He doesn’t know a whole lot about relationships, but he’s pretty sure this one won’t start too wonderfully if he has to tie you up and keep you locked in your own apartment until you calm down.

“But I gotta go, okay?” You don’t answer, but the feeling of his breath against your cheek and his voice in your ear is beginning to make you rouse. As much as it kills him, he has to leave, “I’ll be back tomorrow. Sleep tight.”

He risks a kiss to your forehead as he untangles himself from you. When you hum, and turn into the pillow, it takes everything he has to not climb back into bed. If he could just take off his armor, and slide beneath the covers with you, and hold you in his arms until the sun comes up with your warm breath against his skin and your body against his own…

No. He can’t. You’re not ready for that.

But when you’re sleeping, so soft and warm and sweet in his arms, he can pretend. So he’ll keep pretending.

But he isn’t a very patient man, even on his best day. Maybe… maybe he doesn’t have to pretend too much longer.

-

You wake fully clothed, on top of your comforter, with your mouth dry and the smell of pine and blood in your bed.

That smell. That familiar, bone-chilling smell, makes you scramble for the gun on your bedside table and bolt upright before your eyes are even fully open. A habit, now, built up since the first time you woke to a broken lock on your front door and bootprints staining your carpet.

Once, when you woke up like this, there was blood on your shirt. Another time, the window was open and you had creases on your cheek like you’d slept on something harder and firmer than your pillow.

You think you might be losing your mind. And, worst of all, you think you might prefer to be losing your mind. The alternative is so much more horrifying.

Your room is empty. The window is closed. The sun is creeping over the horizon, and your phone is dead.

Before, when this first started happening, you would take an extra few minutes to tremble and re-check the apartment. Maybe cry with a mixture of horror and frustration. Now, you know you won’t find anything. You know that sitting frozen in fear won’t help. It never does.

You just go through the motions, trying to remain as numb as possible. You set the gun back down on the bedside table, shuffle out of your clothes, plug your phone in, and do your best to drift off.

Your eyes are on the window, and as you finally start to drift off, you think you might glimpse a smudge of teal in the soft light of dawn.

-

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Are you still not sleeping?”

“Sleeping like a fucking baby, Dave.”

“You’re not going to be able to serve tables if you’re looking like you’re gonna pass out.”

You grit your teeth, and try for a bright smile. Judging by your manager’s reaction, it might not look entirely right.

“I’m fine.” You insist, folding up your jacket and trying not to shove it too hard into your little cubby. “Just…been a rough week.”

“You’ve been having a few rough-“

“And have I been bad at my job?” You finally snap, doing your best not to whirl on him. “Have I had bad reviews or something?” You don’t mean it to sound so much like a challenge, but you’re more than a little cranky.

“No.” He admits, frowning, “you’re fine. I’m just…oh shit, incoming.”

You know what that means. But, unlike Dave and everyone else you work with, the warning doesn’t make you prickle, or brace yourself. In fact, you feel your shoulders relaxing before you even hear his voice.

“Hey! Did you see that National Geographic special last night?” Adrian Chase, in all of his overzealous glory, appears by your side just as you begin to tie your apron around your waist.

And you did. Because you haven’t been sleeping. And the last time you did, you passed out on the couch and woke up in your bed. Tucked in. Fully clothed, and with the faint scent of blood and pine lingering in the air.

You’ve been up for two days, since then.

“The one about penguins, right?” You ask, and move over to the computer to clock in, trying to blink the exhaustion from your mind as your free hand continues to fumble with your apron.

“Right.” Adrian breathes the word, like your confirmation that you watched it is the best thing he’s ever heard, and you know without needing to look that he’s grinning. “Did you know they mate for life?”

“Mhm.” You punch in your number. Grab a pen off the counter. “The pebble thing they do is cute.”

“Hey, c’mere.” His words barely register in your mind through your haze of exhaustion, but suddenly his hands are on your waist. He spins you to him like it’s second nature, and you don’t even realize what he’s doing until you feel your apron cinch around your middle, surprisingly deft fingers tying the strings for you.

He’s close. When you look up, he’s still grinning down at you, white teeth and bright green eyes and fingers still lingering on your waist.

You know he likes you. You’re not an idiot. While he seems to shy away and avoid any and all physical contact with your other coworkers, he also seems to always be looking for a reason to touch you. It’s usually simple gestures - a hand brushing your arm as he walks past you in the dining room, a finger tapping lightly against your nose when he’s rambling about something, or even the way he stands beside you so closely that his shoulder brushes yours when you talk.

But he’s never touched you like…this. 

“Thanks.” You say, entirely unsure of what to do. He’s never been this…bold, before. He’s so close that you can feel the ghost of his breath on your lips.

“Penguins propose to other penguins with pebbles.”

You’re exhausted, and definitely still only half awake, but you can’t be imagining the way his green eyes darken as they move over your face.

“Yeah?” You’re so tired you wonder if you might be imagining this. Sure, Adrian likes you, but he also calls you his best friend all the time, so you’re not totally sure how he feels about you. Besides, the horror movie you’re currently living in isn’t exactly conducive to a new relationship, so you haven’t thought to pry into whatever feelings he might have for you.

If it weren’t for the thick fabric of your apron, you might feel his fingers curl against your waist. Barely there, but possessive.

“And then they mate for life.” His nose is so close to yours that they’re about to touch, if he leans any closer.

“You mentioned-“

“You have table twelve.” You jump back at the sound of the hostess’s voice, shaking off the…whatever that was, and running a hand through your hair with a noise of confirmation.

When you look back at Adrian, he’s still smiling. His eyes are still dark. Still locked right on yours.

And you’ve been convincing yourself that you’re imagining things for weeks, now. But it’s a little more difficult to think you were imagining that.

-

Adrian almost kissed you. He came so, so close.

And you were actually awake, this time. In his arms, right where you belong, talking to him about that nature documentary that you watched because he recommended it and looking up at him with your big sleepy eyes - you look too tired, lately, you should be sleeping more - and for a second he was positive that if he just leaned down a little more he could have kissed you. That he might have been able to slide his arms a little more tightly around your waist, and pull you to him, and feel your body against his and taste your lips in the way he’s been thinking about for so long.

But the first time he kisses you has to be perfect. Not at work, in front of everyone - he’ll kiss you in front of everyone a thousand times when you’re officially together. When you’re officially his and you actually know that you’re his.

So the moment ended. And now he’s watching you smile tensely at table twenty as they say something to you that you clearly don’t like, and he’s trying to see what they look like over the booth but he can’t quite lean over enough to-

“Sir? Sir!”

He blinks, and only then notices that the water glass he’s been refilling has overflowed onto the table to the point that the liquid is spilling over the wooden surface, onto the floor and right into the customer’s laps. But now you’re walking back to the computer, and if he waits too long you’ll go check on your other tables and you seem upset. And tired.

“Whoops.” He says simply, and places the too-full water glass down, eyes never leaving you.

“Whoops? What do you mean by whoops? We’re soaked! Sir, excuse me! Aren’t you going to clean this-” 

But Adrian is already walking away.

-

You look annoyed, and even more tired now. The night air is chilly in the back alley of Fennel Fields, and you didn’t bring your jacket. Maybe he should go in and get you his. Maybe he could wrap his arms around you, and use his body heat to warm you up. He’s pretty sure you won’t let him, but the brief fantasy of you melting into his embrace makes something warm tingle beneath his skin.

“Hi.”

You look up from where you’re sitting on a small pile of crates, and when you smile at him his stomach does a backflip and explodes into a thousand tiny butterflies.

“Hey.” You’re so sleepy. He’ll definitely be able to hold you later. You’re gonna conk out right when you get home. “Table twenty hated their ravioli.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” You sigh, and tilt your head up towards the dark sky. “But they also mentioned that I have a very ‘spankable ass’, so their overreaction to not liking ravioli isn’t so bad in comparison.”

If you were looking at him, you might see Adrian’s eyes darken. See the way his entire body tenses at your words, even as his voice remains light and easy.

“Want me to kill them for you?”

You snort. You think he’s joking. “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

And just like that, you seal their fate. And you’ll never even know.

He opens his mouth to speak again, and the ‘I love you’ is on his lips. It always is. He pushes it back, hides it away to keep you from panicking like he does all the damn time, but he almost kissed you earlier and he might be closer to blurting it out than ever.

“Do you know what kind of owl that is?” You ask, just as he hears a soft hoot in the distance. Oh, he loves you. He loves you so, so much. You’re tired and annoyed and you’re still asking him questions because you want him here. You want him to talk to you. Obviously, you love him too. Even if you don’t fully know it yet.

He smiles, and his heart does another backflip.

“Eastern barn owl.” He says, confidently, and you make a soft noise of acknowledgement. “Because of the long hoots.”

“Huh. Cool.” You look out towards the dark woods, and take a moment to listen. The hoots are not long. You don’t mention it. “Okay, I’ve gotta go back in there.” And yet, your eyes move to his. “Are you good? Anyone been a dick to you tonight?”

“Nope.” Well, they have. People have actually been ruder and shorter with him than usual tonight. But he doesn’t care. It doesn’t actually get to him, like it seems to get to everyone else.

You rise to your feet. Stretch. The movement makes your uniform shirt tighten, and his mouth gets a little dry. “Maybe we should pick up smoking or something. Then we’d get more breaks.”

“Smoking’s bad for you. Plus, too many smokers litter cigarette butts all over the place.” His voice must hold a little more disgust than he means for it to, because your eyebrow is raised when you look back at him.

“That really bothers you, huh?”

“Littering? Of course it does, it’s illegal.” His brow furrows, genuine confusion lacing his tone, but then you smile again and he forgets what he was talking about. God, you’re beautiful. Maybe it would still be a perfect first kiss if he just grabbed you and kissed you right here. Maybe you would let him. Maybe you’d even let him back you up against the wall of the alley and rip off your uniform and-

The door swings shut behind you, and he stares at it for a moment. Since he’s already out here, he should call Economos and tell him about that cute thing you did a minute ago. How you asked about the owl. That way, he can show off how much he knows about owls and brag about his girlfriend.

Instead, he forms a plan. A simple, easy plan. Maybe not the nicest thing he’ll ever do to you, but…

But if it works, you’ll finally be with him. And when you’re with him, he’ll make sure that you’re so unbelievably happy that you’ll forgive him. It’ll be worth it.

Just a little bit longer.

-

Two days later, your sleep deprivation and paranoia have become more debilitating than ever.

When you went home the other night, you tried to sleep, only to wake an hour or so later with another bloodstain on your t-shirt and a draft creeping into your room through the open window. The window you keep closed. And locked. You were warmer than you should be, despite the blankets on you, and you couldn’t fight the overwhelming feeling that someone was just holding you.

When you’d gotten up to close the window, you heard something rattle on your fire escape. Your panicked inspection of the rickety structure had turned up empty. You hadn’t fallen back asleep.

The next night, there was a crash outside as you started drifting off. Your lock was broken. You spent the night with your back against the wall, gun aimed at the door.

Now, you’re leaning a little too heavily against the POS system at Fennel Fields, trying to remember if the guy at your table ordered a vodka soda or a plate of mozzarella sticks, when the sound of your coworkers voice makes you nearly jump out of your fucking skin.

“Ugh. What a waste, right?”

Your head might move a little too slowly as you turn to her. You feel like you’re underwater, even as your gaze follows hers to where Adrian is loading up a bus tub. You can see defined biceps flexing as he lifts the heavy container, and furrow your brow as you look back at the girl beside you.

“Hmm?” If you’re not at a table, words aren’t necessary. Too much thinking involved.

“I mean, he could be so hot, right? All that potential hotness just wasted on a total weirdo. That jawline? Those muscles? And he just talks about spiders and acts like a total freak all the time.”

“I…” your frown deepens a little. Her words dig at you enough that your reaction actually surprises you. “I don’t think he’s that much of a weirdo.” Not in a bad way, at least.

“Well that’s probably good.” She finishes punching in her table’s order at the computer beside you, and adjusts her uniform a little. “I mean, he is like, obsessed with you. If the serial killer glasses don’t turn you off, you should totally go for it.”

“We’re friends.”

She gives you a look that you don’t feel like arguing with. Don’t even feel like fully interpreting. You’re light-headed. Your body aches with exhaustion, and that empty booth across the walkway is looking like it might be really comfortable. If you could just lie down and close your eyes for a minute…

“You don’t look so good.” She says, and when you look up you blink a few times to clear your vision. “Are you still not sleeping?”

“I’m fine.” You feel like you say that all the time, now. The constant tension in your shoulders isn’t helping. You jump at the smallest movements, now. You barely listen when people talk. You would give anything, anything at all, to just close your eyes and sleep. Even five minutes might help. Just five minutes of feeling fucking safe and not worrying about how or where you’ll wake up or if the fucking lock is broken or-

“Take a nap, babe. Try melatonin or something.” She says, so unhelpfully that you feel your jaw clench, and pats your arm as she walks away.

-

The shift goes by in a blur, and you’re fumbling with your keys by your car when Adrian finds you.

God, you’re tired. You are so, so tired it almost hurts. You probably shouldn’t even drive, but the idea of sleeping in your car is more vulnerable than trying to sleep in your own apartment and-

“Hey, you okay?” Adrian’s voice is by your ear, and it’s softer than usual. Despite your constant paranoia, you don’t even have it in you to jump.

His hand comes up to where you’re fumbling with your keys, like he’s about to help you with them, and you suddenly find yourself dropping them into his hands and thunking your head back against his shoulder, way more familiar than is at all appropriate for a coworker, friend or not. If you were any more awake, you might be embarrassed by the gesture.

“I don’t wanna go home.” You mumble, miserably, the honesty feeling like a breath of relief, and you feel him tense all over, if only for a second.

And then his arm sneaks around your waist, holding you up, and his nose turns into your hair. He’s warm, and steady, and his chest is surprisingly firm against your back.

“Okay.” He hums, still so uncharacteristically quiet. “Do you wanna come over?”

You shouldn’t. It probably won’t be safe for him, after all. Whatever is out there, whatever or whoever is following you and breaking your locks and moving things in your home and making you feel like you’re losing your fucking mind, they might hurt him. You might be putting him in danger.

But you’re not thinking straight, and his arm is solid and strong around your middle, and you feel surprisingly safe right now. For the first time in what feels like forever.

You nod. And you think, vaguely, you feel him smile as his arm tightens around you.

“M’kay. C’mere.” He murmurs, and you begin to pull away before he moves to wrap a hand around the backs of your thighs, scooping you up bridal-style against a broad chest.

“I can walk, Ade.” You say, unable to fight back a surprised laugh, and he matches the sound with a wide grin of his own.

“Nah, I gotcha.” He hoists you up a little higher as he carries you over to his car. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. You’re so tired you can’t think straight. This is definitely a stupid idea - you’ve never even been to Adrian’s place before, and as much as you like talking to him at work he could be a fucking serial killer for all you know.

And yet, the idea of going home alone is…terrifying. The idea of being awake all night again, of seeing things outside your windows and being so exhausted that you can’t tell if it’s some kind of hallucination or the real thing, is so frightening you just might be willing to risk ending up in some Silence of the Lambs situation with Adrian Fucking Chase.

“You don’t have to-“ you start, but Adrian has already opened the passenger door of his car, and is leaning over you to buckle you up. He’s humming. He smells like mozzarella sticks, cheap cologne, and maybe a little bit of bleach. It’s nice. Comforting, even.

“Seriously, I’m fine. You really don’t have to do this.” You try again, and he shushes you with a pat to your cheek as he moves over to the driver’s seat.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll take you home tomorrow. Just lemme take care of you.” He says, and you frown.

“Are you-“

“Shush.” He insists, and one large hand pats your thigh as he settles himself behind the wheel. “I’ve gotcha. For reals.”

And, as weird as it is, as ridiculous as this whole thing might be, you smile.

-

You fall asleep within minutes.

You fight it, of course. You’re so adorable, trying to focus long enough to talk to him as he drives, humming along to the music he plays and fighting to keep your eyes open.

But he blasts the heat, and he even stays as quiet as possible, until your eyes finally flutter shut and your breathing evens out.

You’re in his car. You’re so pretty he can barely focus on the road. When he pulls up in front of his place, you stir, but you don’t wake.

He’s waited so long for the day that he gets to hold you when you’re not sleeping. Gets to run his fingers through your soft hair without worrying that he’ll wake you. Even asleep as you are right now, it’s close. Because if you wake up now, you won’t try to run. Probably.

He carries you inside, and you still don’t wake. So cute. So perfect. So soft as he risks leaning down to brush his lips over your forehead. You’ve always been a heavy sleeper, never really waking too much when he first started breaking in. But now, now that you keep trying to stay awake all night all the time, it’s like you can sleep through anything. Through him snuggling you into his chest, or carrying you from the couch into your room…

He’s taking risks. He knows he is. What happens the night you do wake up? When you look up to see him holding you in his armor, and freak out? All of his plans for that day involve…shit, they mostly involve kidnapping you until you stop freaking out. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. He could take care of you more easily, without having to follow you around to make sure you’re safe. And he’ll get to see you more often. And maybe you’ll even like it, after a while.

But with that plan, you’ll be mad at him for weeks. Maybe even longer. And you just let him take you home. Just trusted him to take care of you.

No, he needs to wait. He needs to play this smart. He already feels so guilty for spooking you these last couple of nights, just enough to keep you awake until you nearly collapsed into his arms in the parking lot. It’ll be worth it, of course, but it doesn’t make him feel any less like a bad boyfriend.

You wake as he lays you down on top of his comforter, jolting up with surprise and all that familiar paranoia. All he can think is that you’re in his room, in his apartment, and you look like you belong here.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” He greets, fighting the urge to climb atop you and figure out how many ways he might be able to keep you awake, just for a little longer. “Want some pjs?”

You frown, taking in your surroundings, and seem to think through your situation. You’re in your coworker’s apartment, in his bed, without a car and still in your work uniform. You just so much as passed out in his arms, and allowed him to carry you to his car and up a few flights of stairs.

“I can sleep on the couch.” You try, and he shakes his head.

“Hey, it’s not weird. It’s totally fine.” He has to fight tooth and nail to keep the desperation out of his voice, shuffling through his drawers until he finds you a t-shirt and some sweatpants. “Plus, you’re all freaked out about something. That’s why you haven’t been sleeping, right? You can stay in here. I’ll protect you.” Yeah, he sees the irony, but so what? At least he’s not tying you to the bed or something. That would be fucked up. This is chivalrous.

You hesitate. Rub at your eyes. He sees the bags under them. Sees the gears in your mind turning. You might just be exhausted enough to push past all the social norms everyone seems to care so much about. All those annoying little things that tell you that this is weird that he can’t for the life of him figure out.

C’mon. Please, please, please….

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” You nod, making your decision, and gather the clothes in your arms. “Bathroom?”

He points you to it, and manages to keep himself from grinning until the door clicks behind you.

No way. No way he’s this lucky. Good things really do come to those who wait, huh? He should call Chris. Or John. But then again, they think you sleep over here all the time, so they won’t get it. And you’ll probably hear the phone call, and…

He shakes off the thought, changes into his own pajamas, and nearly climbs back into bed to wait for you before he realizes that he should probably hide the pictures of you in his room. The items he’s taken from your home. A pillow, a couple articles of clothing…

He’s just slid back under the covers when you shuffle out of the bathroom, and you look perfect in his clothes.

And you’re looking at him, in his simple white tank top and sweatpants, and your eyes have drifted down to his exposed biceps and he’s totally not flexing. Totally not.

“C’mere, sleepy.” He pats the spot next to him, and you come. You follow his order, and slide beneath the covers of his bed, and he feels like he might start fucking vibrating with joy.

You’re hesitant. Still a little weirded out, maybe. A little awkward with how you’ve found yourself in your coworkers bed, in his clothes, picking nervously at his sheets. The urge to wrap you up in his arms is so strong that he almost surges forward and does it, and barely manages to hold himself back.

“Is your door locked?” You ask, eyes flitting to the windows, to his bedroom door.

“Yup.” What would you do if he kissed you right now? Or leaned closer and inhaled the lingering scent of your perfume? He wonders if you’ll still smell like you in his clothes, or if the scents will mix together and create a new smell that’s uniquely you two. “Windows, too. Do you wanna watch a movie?”

You still look like you’re about to fall asleep sitting up. That’s okay. You might fall asleep on him, and wouldn’t that be perfect? Maybe he can get you to lie down, and slide atop you and trace his lips and tongue and teeth over every inch of your body until you’re-

“Adrian?”

“Hm?” Oops. How long has he been staring at you? Is he drooling?

“…yes? To the movie?”

“Oh, yeah!” He rolls over to the other side of the bed, scrambles for the remote to the little TV on his dresser, and uses the excuse to roll back a little closer to you.

Your shoulders touch. Your eyes are fighting to stay open. He’s too happy that you’re here to risk draping an arm around you, so he opts for focusing all of his energy into the feeling of the barely-there points of contact between your bodies.

All according to plan.

-

He’s not surprised that you only lasted five minutes into the movie before you fell asleep again. After all, you were so exhausted before that you basically passed out in his arms, back in the parking lot.

And now, before the opening credits of the movie were even over, your head fell heavily against his shoulder. He’d grinned, and took extra time to guide you carefully down with him against the pillows, making sure not to wake you. He has the practice, after all.

He brushes your hair back from your face, bolder now that he doesn’t need to be worried about you waking up and panicking. Now that he’s not in full armor, or covered in blood, or…well, in your apartment without your knowledge.

You don’t stir. He leans a little closer, tucks your body into his chest, and inhales. You smell so good. Like you’re his. You look so amazing tucked beneath the blankets of his bed that his mind is already racing with ways he might be able to keep you here forever.

You wake at the movement, just a little. Just enough to puff a breath against his shoulder and blink your eyes open. Just enough that every instinct in him tells him that he should jump out the window. But he doesn’t need to. You’re here, in his bed, warm and safe and in his arms because you chose to be.

“Ade?” You mumble, and the nickname makes him have to fight back a delighted laugh. Look at you, calling him by the nickname you use at work with your soft lips brushing against his shoulder. In his home, in his bed, right where you belong. Finally sleeping after you’ve been so unnecessarily paranoid for so long. You don’t feel safe, but you always have been. You always will be. At least, without the mask and the armor, he can show you just how safe he can keep you.

“Mm?” He hums, feigning sleepiness of his own, and pulls you closer like he might just be too tired to realize that he’s doing so. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s wide the fuck awake, and banking on the fact that you aren’t.

You fall right into it, the twitch in your brow smoothing as you seem to come to the realization that he’s only half-awake, too. That moving might stir him, and it’s better to just snuggle closer and drift off again.

It takes a while for Adrian to actually fall asleep, but when he does, the last thing he remembers is tracing featherlight touches over your back, wishing with all of his might that he could just tilt your head back and feel your body relax against his in every other way than falling asleep.

But for now, he’ll take this. Happily. For now, and like always, you’re his.

[ultimatesue]

For God so loved the world

[cassieyume]

png dump pt 4

~𝓕2𝓤 𝓷𝓸 𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓽𝓼 𝓷𝓮𝓮𝓭𝓮𝓭 ♡/↺ 𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓭!!~

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Not Quite Him - Chapter 11

Pairing: Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: You've regained access to the portal, which means Other Adrian should leave. He needs to go back to his own dimension. Of course he should leave.

But the problem is, despite everything he’s done, you don’t want him to. And he isn’t planning on going anywhere until you admit it.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Angst, Lots of Angst, Mentions of insanity (Other Adrian is trying but he still ain't all there), Mentions/thoughts of kidnapping, Mentions of past character death (other you), Smut!!!, Threesome, Unprotected PinV (wrap it before you tap it, folks), Posessive!Adrian, Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author's Note: It’s finally here!! This one has so much angst and sexiness and lovey dovey fluff guys, it might just make up for the cliffhanger. So uh…sorry about the cliffhanger…. Enjoy! And as always, your feedback keeps this fic going and makes my heart all happy and warm!!

(This is part of the Not Quite Him series. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to check it out!)

-

An hour later, the silence still hangs in the air like a living thing.

“I don’t get it.” Your Adrian finally says, and the genuine confusion in his voice nearly breaks something in you. “Why would he leave? I mean, you’re here. I’m here. Plus, we’re bonding. It’s two mes in one universe. Even evil me is kinda cool once you get to know him, right?”

“It’s complicated-“ you start, but Adrian barrels on. He does that, sometimes, when he can tell that you’re upset but isn’t quite sure why. He’ll usually talk until you stop him and explain what’s actually bothering you. You can’t right now. You can’t explain it. It…hurts. The inevitability of your next step is looming before you like an endless wall of pain, and you don’t want to look at it long enough to confront why it scares you so much.

Other Adrian doesn’t speak. He’s still looking at you.

“And so what if he’s evil, anyway? He hasn’t even tried to kill us yet. Plus, I don’t think I even told you this, but he’s been quizzing me on spider facts and I think if he sticks around long enough I can totally teach him-“

“Adrian, stop.” You snap, and he does. But he looks bothered. Really bothered. Confused in that way where he gets frustrated that he’s confused in the first place. And you just snapped at him. You never snap at him.

He reacts like he always has, in those incredibly rare moments when you’ve even come close. He immediately tries to fix it, still not understanding exactly why you’re feeling what you're feeling but doing his best to calm you down until you feel ready to explain it to him.

He moves forward, and tries to wrap you up in his arms.

“Hey, it’s okay. Do you wanna-“

“No, Ade. I don’t want to quiz you on animal facts, okay? Just-”

“Hey.” Other Adrian looks at you. At Adrian. “Stop.”

He’s not talking to your Adrian. He’s talking to you. He’s looking at you. Because he knows that, with all of your love and patience for the gaps in your boyfriend’s empathy, the last thing you ever want to be is short with him. When you look back at your Adrian, he still looks so frustrated by his own confusion that it makes you hurt even more.

It’s too much. All of this feels like too much. All of this love he feels for you… you don’t know what to do with it. For what might be the first time, you genuinely don’t know how to explain what you’re feeling to him. You don’t even know how to apologize for snapping at him a moment ago.

So you default. You go straight to physical touch - the most tried and true form of affection for him - with you, at least. You reach up, cup his cheek, and pull his mouth down to yours.

His brows are still furrowed against your forehead, but he kisses back just like he always does. Intensely. Eagerly. He pulls you into him, lips moving against your own and body pressing against yours in that can’t-get-close-enough way that always makes your heart melt a little.

When you pull back, his hand slides over the small of your back, thumb brushing soothingly over your spine.

“You’re sad.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re sad. I know when you’re sad. You’ve got that little twitch under your right eye.” He reaches up to tap the spot in question. “And your nose scrunches a little. Like when you’re mad, or when Chris says something to me that you don’t like.” He taps your nose, now. He’s spent so long studying you, and he’s trying so fucking hard, and the overwhelming adoration you feel for him in this moment is just making everything even more confusing. “Plus, my kidneys hurt. I told you that happens when you’re sad.”

“Adrian, it’s fine, okay?”

“Why are you sad?”

“I’m not.”

“Why won’t you tell me? You always tell me.”

You pull away from him. He lets you, but his fingers twitch at his sides and his eyes remain locked on your face.

“I just…I need some air.”

He moves forward. Other Adrian stops him.

You don’t hear what they say. You don’t hear the conversation. You glance at the back of the couch, then to the floor, and then finally find your jacket on the hook by the door where Other Adrian must have picked it up and placed it at some point. For some reason, that makes your heart crack even more. That small difference between them. How he’s so organized while you and your Adrian are so chaotic.

You throw your jacket on, refuse to look back, and leave.

-

“Okay, yeah. She’s gone. She left. I’ve gotta-“

Adrian’s arm darts out, catching him before he can finish making his way to the door.

Gone. Upset. Maybe even crying and outside alone in the alley near the apartment that he’s walked through a thousand times just to make sure it’s not too similar to the one his version of you you died in. It is. They all are. Every alley, no matter where it is, will always be too similar to that one.

The Adrian from this dimension responds to the movement with pure, protective instinct, grabbing his arm and beginning to twist it to dislodge his alternate’s grip. Adrian snaps to action, and slams his hand into his shoulder, twisting until he has the other man pinned.

“Let me.” You’re alone. You’re upset. Gone. Alone. Fuck. Fuck. It’s getting a little more difficult to cling to his sanity - he’s been so good at it, lately. He almost forgot how hard it can be to keep the darkness from fogging over his every thought.

Your Adrian twists again, knocking him off, and tries to punch him in the face.

And how odd of a thing it is, to be able to sense his next movement like it’s the purest instinct. Because it’s exactly what he would do.

Adrian catches his fist, but he doesn’t throw a punch of his own.

“Let me.” He says again, and he’s gritting his teeth so hard to keep himself from slipping away that he’s worried they might crack, but seeing you might make it better. He can’t lose himself now. He needs to be there for you.

The Adrian from here falters. Blinks.

“I don’t get why she’s upset.” He finally says, and his shoulders hunch a little. “She always explains it.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t get it, dude. She won’t explain it. She always explains it.” And there is real, genuine frustration in his voice.

And fuck, fuck, because now he knows. He sees it. He’s called this version of himself an idiot. A’ frog-catching fucking fanboy’. He’s convinced himself that he’s better for you, because at least he knows why you’re upset. Knows your emotions as well as he knows his own. Shit, he even knows them well enough to be able to play you like a fiddle, working you up until you’re frustrated and pissed enough to admit what’s actually bothering you to him before you even admit it to yourself.

But this him, your him, he doesn’t. He doesn’t get it. He genuinely doesn’t understand why you’re so bothered right now, and it’s driving him fucking nuts.

“I get why she’s upset. Let me talk to her, okay?” Adrian’s hand rests on the other man’s shoulder, as comforting as he can possibly make it. He wishes he wasn’t realizing all of this. He wishes there wasn’t so much love for you reflecting in his alternate’s eyes. He wishes this idiot would get distracted or seem unbothered or something to vindicate him in his ever-present desire to have you, in any way that he can, and convince himself that he’s the right one for you. That he loves you more.

The Adrian from this dimension frowns. Hesitates. Deflates a little more.

And Adrian sees, in this moment, that this other version of him does get you. Sure, he doesn’t seem to understand why you’re sad, or angry, or even upset. He tries to deflect by showing you tree frogs, or making jokes, or telling you a fun fact that isn’t anywhere near correct. But it works. Because he knows you. He knows it will make you feel better.

And maybe this version of you needs that, just as much as you need him to work with your emotions until you finally admit them. Maybe…maybe they both work. Maybe they’re both good for you, in their own way.

The way you’re so patient with this version of him. It’s not just patience, is it? It’s understanding. Understanding that he’s trying. He’s really fucking trying, and he’s frustrated as hell that he can’t figure it out.

Maybe it would be easier if Adrian didn’t see that, now. Maybe he would feel better about all of this if he could still convince himself that he’s the better version of himself for you.

“She calms down if you compare her to a manta ray. Or an alligator. She calls you a weirdo, but she calms down.” His alternate says now, jaw still twitching with hesitation, fingers still flexing at his sides like he’s about to shove him aside and bolt out the door himself. “If she calls you a weirdo, she’ll let you hold her. And if she doesn’t and she’s still pissed, sometimes you can just kiss her. But you can only do that if she’s scrunching up her eyebrows.”

He doesn’t understand your emotions, and yet he’s studied every inch of you. Obsessively. Lovingly. He still doesn’t get it, but he‘s tried. He’s still trying.

And he should leave now, but Adrian still asks, “what if she doesn’t do either of those things?”

“It usually works. But if not you just follow her around until she’s better. Tell her you love her a lot.” His eyes dart to the door. Back to the other man’s face. “I’m only letting you go out there because you’re me.”

“Yeah, I know.” He’s already making his way towards the door, but the Adrian from this dimension catches his arm.

And there’s the danger. The promise of violence and pain. The proof, once again, that even this dumbass version of himself is a trained killer. Possibly more of a psychopath than him, and that’s fucking saying something.

“If you hurt her, or try to kidnap her again, or do anything fucked up, I’ll kill you.”

For what might be the first time, Adrian smiles at his alternate self, and really, truly means it.

“Okay.”

-

You can’t…think. You can’t sort through any of this bullshit. You can’t place a single emotion shooting through your veins enough to actually deal with it and it’s driving you crazy.

You snapped at Adrian. You never do that.

Fuck.

“Hey.”

You whirl around at the familiar voice, and run a hand through your hair. It’s starting to rain. And sure, you live in Washington, where it’s always fucking raining, but still.

“Are you fucking making it rain?” You snap, the memory of the last time you argued with this Adrian in an alley rising to mind. 

“I…huh?”

“Every time we have a…nevermind.”

“You’re not gonna ask which Adrian I am?”

“I know which one you are. You’re not wearing glasses.”

“Oh, right. Still forget about that.” He leans against the alley wall, casual, and watches you.

“Go away.”

“Does he have an extra pair?”

“What?”

“Glasses.” He points to his eyes. Raises an eyebrow. “Almost out of contact solution. I was thinking of getting gold frames or something, like the ones I have back in my dimension, mostly so you can still tell us apart. But-“

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re leaving.”

“Why?”

“Stop doing that.” You grit your teeth, glare at him. “You’re leaving. You should leave.”

“You don’t want me to, and I love you. Why would I leave?”

“Should I make a fucking list?”

“Sure.”

“Stop that!”

“Stop what?” He pulls off of the wall, and begins to make his way over to you. You back up. He doesn’t stop. “You’re thinking too hard. You’re working yourself up. It’s not a hard decision, baby.”

“It’s complicated. It’s too fucking complicated.”

“Yeah? We live in a world where people fly and aliens invade. I came from another dimension, and me loving you is too complicated?”

“Stop trying to make this make sense.”

“Stop acting like it can’t make sense.” He’s getting frustrated. You can see it in the tension in his shoulders. The way his hands twitch at his side - the telltale sign that he’s anxious. Ready to jump into action. “You’re saying people can fly, aliens can invade, and we can jump through other universes like we’re walking through a fucking door, but you can’t love me too?”

“It’s not that simple-“

“It’s us!” He’s shouting at you. Adrian Chase doesn’t shout at you. When he does, it’s to get your attention to tell you about a new cool thing Eagly did in the other room. Or to insist that he’s totally not mad at all, and that he’s never even been mad before in his life, he doesn’t care that you watched that nature show without him why would he care?

He doesn’t shout. Not with this much anger and desperation in his voice. Not like this. The sound of it jars you enough to make you still, just long enough for his hands to wrap around your upper arms and keep you locked in place. Not threatening. Never threatening. Never even hard enough to make your honed instincts kick in. Just holding you there. Making sure you hear him.

“It’s us.” He repeats, firm, and there’s an intensity to his gaze that shudders your next breath. “And I’m not talking about her, baby. I’m talking about us. I’m talking about the you that held a knife to my throat the moment you thought this version of me was lying to you. I’m talking about the you who punched Chris Smith in the fucking face, and then cried in my arms and forgave me when I realized what I’d done to you.”

You don’t speak. One hand leaves your arm, moving up to slide over your cheek, and you feel the prickle of tears forming behind your eyes, threatening to mix with the rainwater already beginning to flatten your hair to your head.

“I’m talking about this version of you, who fell in love with this version of me. And I’m talking about the version of you who loves me, despite all of the mistakes I’ve made. Despite all of the differences between me and him. You love me. I love you. And we can make it work. We’ll figure it out.”

A tear falls. He sweeps it away with his thumb.

There’s a little scar on his cheek, just below his cheekbone - faded, small, and barely noticeable. But you know it. You know it like you know the slightly crooked fingertip on your Adrian’s left hand, where the bone broke and never healed quite right. Something you would never see, never think about, unless you saw it every day.

How long ago did you notice this scar? How long ago did it become so familiar to you?

“You want me to stay.” He says now, and he isn’t shouting anymore. The thumb that brushed away your tear sweeps over your lower lip, reverent and soft. “But I need you to admit it. I need you to tell me.”

“I…”

You shake your head. You start to pull back.

“Don’t.” And it’s a warning and a plea all at once. Danger and promise and hope. Because you can’t tell him that you love him. That you want him. But you can’t tell him that you don’t, and he isn’t going to give up. Not unless you tell him to.

The rain falls. Heavy. Cold.

“You kidnapped me.” You try, and it is such an obvious deflection that it’s almost fucking laughable.

“You love me.”

“You tried to trap me in an alternate dimension. You fucking lied to me.”

“You love me.”

“Stop fucking saying that!”

He’s back on you in a second, hands in your hair and arms caging your body between his and the brick wall behind you. “Admit it.”

You’re like a deer in headlights, frozen and trembling with anger and frustration and unable to speak. He’s so close. He looks beautiful. Water trails it’s way down his face, darkens his hair and makes his gaze burn even brighter as he looks down at you. You can think of four ways to dislodge yourself from his grip. He wouldn’t fight back. He would let you. He might even leave, if you made a single defensive move.

You kiss him, instead.

You crash together like a shipwreck, the heavy rain around you the ocean you’re destined to drown in together. His hands grip at you so tightly you worry you might break beneath them. Your own rip at every part of him you can reach until he grunts against your lips and lifts you against him with a sigh that sounds too much like relief.

“Say it.” He whispers against your lips, never once removing them from yours. “Tell me.”

And he hasn’t won. This wasn’t a battle, only a mimicry of one. When you confess the words to him, there is no victory to be had. It doesn’t feel like giving in. It feels like relief. Like you’re releasing a breath you’ve been holding for months, and he’s there to catch it for you.

“I love you.”

And still, his hands grip you tighter. Your back hits the brick wall behind you so roughly that the collision might concuss you if his hand didn’t protect the back of your head like it’s a second instinct.

“Say it again.” He demands, breathless, teeth scraping over your lip.

“I love you.” You sob, this time. Because it’s so much. It hurts and heals and rips you apart and pulls you back together all at once.

His feverish kisses slow, no less heated but taking on a soothing edge, and he pulls back to press his lips along your cheekbone, catching your tears with rainwater as his lips move down to your ear.

“I’ve got you, baby.” He whispers, and the tone of his voice pulls another helpless sob past your lips. “I’m here. I’ve got you. I love you.”

And he whispers it again against your jaw. “I love you.”

You cling to him like he’ll vanish if you so much as loosen your grip. He kisses the spot below your ear. “I love you.”

Down to your throat. “I love you.”

-

When you come back to the apartment that night, soaked with rain and eyes still red with tears, your Adrian is there. He moves forward without a word, wrapping you in his arms and burying his nose into the side of your head.

You don’t speak. You just pull his face back, and press your lips to his.

“Are- mm…” he starts, melting into your embrace without a second thought. He still starts to pull back a little, concern creasing his brow. “You’re crying.” His gaze lifts to the man behind you. “Why is she crying?”

“Adrian.” You draw his attention back to you, and his frustrated expression finally seems to melt a little as he begins to understand what you want. What you need.

“Okay.” He whispers, like he just looked into your mind and read every thought there. His arm snakes around your waist, pulling you into him as he leans down to kiss you again. “Yeah, okay.”

It’s weird. It’s still weird. In the beginning, you’re not quite sure how to…fit. Not just physically, but…lovingly. There is so much love in you, so much directed towards the two men before you, that you aren’t quite sure where to put it. It’s always been so focused on one person. On your Adrian.

And now, you’re pulling back from your Adrian and being pulled into the arms of his other self. That other self kisses you, slow and deep and reverent, and your Adrian threads his fingers through yours, like a silent, comforting reassurance.

“I’ve got you.” Other Adrian whispers against your lips. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

So you nod, step back, and pull your shirt over your head.

Your Adrian is there in a second, nosing against your cheek and sliding his large hands over your exposed skin like he’s been waiting to touch you his entire life. He’s always like this - no matter how many times you sleep together, he always seems to behave like it’s the very first time.

“You sure?” He asks, quiet. Meant just for you.

You nod. “Not sure…how. But yeah.”

He nods back, and presses his lips to the tear tracks still staining your skin. “Let’s figure it out, kay?”

And then he’s pulling back, and Other Adrian is surging forward to kiss you so deeply it steals the breath from your lungs all over again.

“I love you.” You whisper, somewhere between desperate hands and warm lips, and he groans as he lifts you off of your feet. There’s a desperation to his kiss, to the way he backs you into the wall as your legs wrap around his waist. His hands are in your hair, calloused fingers tangling in the still-wet strands as his palms cradle your cheeks. You gasp into his mouth, and the sound pulls a response from him that comes out as something between a moan and a growl.

He presses searing kisses over your jaw, down to the hollow of your throat, and grinds his hips against yours as he speaks in a breathless rasp. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” You whisper, and he moves up to kiss you again like he might be able to swallow the declaration.

Your Adrian catches your chin, and turns your head to face him, wrenching you away from the kiss and leaning forward to press his forehead to yours. Other Adrian’s hands tighten possessively on your thighs, mouth moving down your throat once again, and your Adrian just looks into your eyes so closely that you feel his glasses dig into your forehead. Feel his ragged breath against your lips.

“Now me.” He says, leaning closer until his lips brush over yours. His counterpart bites down, and your Adrian smiles wickedly as you whimper in response. “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.” And fuck, you really do mean it just as much. In all the times you’ve said those words tonight, not a single one of them has held any less meaning than the last.

To your surprise, he pulls back. His alternate’s lips leave your throat, and the smile they share is so sharp and hungry that it drops molten heat from your cheeks down to your core.

“Bed.” Your Adrian says, and Other Adrian nods.

He throws you onto the mattress so quickly you think you might actually be airborne for a second, bouncing against the comforter once with a breathless giggle as your Adrian climbs atop you, one hand moving behind him to tug his shirt up over his head.

He cages you in between his muscled biceps, tongue tracing the seam of your lips before his teeth catch your bottom lip in the way he knows drives you crazy, and you arch into him.

“Him first.” He says, and your eyes flutter open in surprise. “Kinda wanna see what it looks like. You okay with that?”

You can do nothing but nod, and he presses a final kiss to your lips with a smile and a little nod of confirmation before climbing off of you.

“This is so weird.” You breathe for what must be the millionth time, and Adrian laughs a little as he leans over and kisses your cheek from where he’s now settled behind you.

Your eyes land on Other Adrian. On the way his tight t-shirt still clings to his skin with rainwater. On the way he’s standing still like a wild animal preparing to pounce. The way his green eyes have become nearly black as they look down at you.

“Take off your clothes.” You whisper, desperate and demanding, and his lips curl into a smile that drips with absolute danger.

He shakes his head, slowly, and moves toward you.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” He says, low, and tugs you to the edge of the bed by the backs of your knees, “for so fucking long.” He kneels between your legs, deft fingers already beginning to unbutton your pants like the action is something he’s thought about every minute for weeks. “Gonna take my time with you, baby.”

You shiver, squirm, and your Adrian huffs a soft laugh behind you as his lips trail over your shoulder. His own hands slide up over your stomach, trailing to your back to unclasp your bra and slide it off of your shoulders. You would help him, but you can’t pull your gaze away from Other Adrian’s eyes, locked on yours as he slides his thumbs into the waistband of your underwear and pulls them down over your thighs.

When Other Adrian’s mouth finds the apex of your thighs, you jolt so hard with a surge of pleasure that your Adrian grips you tighter and shushes you with a soothing kiss to your neck. And as he begins to work you with a skill that should be fucking illegal, you find yourself clawing at your Adrian’s arm in your desperation to hold onto something solid. He groans at the feeling, freak that he is, and bites at your ear in response. His hips grind against your back, rocking you with the movement in a way that has Other Adrian moaning into you as his hands come up to grip your thighs and keep them held firmly apart.

“Oh my- fuck. Fuck, please.” You don’t even know what you’re begging for, but your head drops back against Adrian’s shoulder and, to your surprise, he nudges you off of him, catching your chin in his fingers and forcing your gaze back down to Other Adrian’s.

Your hazy eyes meet his, and his pupils seem to have completely overtaken his irises. His gaze remains locked on yours, fingers tightening against the flesh of your thighs until you’re almost positive he’s going to leave bruises. You hope he does.

When you do fall apart, it’s with a sharp cry of their name as your Adrian whispers almost nonsensical praise into the skin of your cheek.

It takes you a moment to even register that you’re moving, too exhausted and blissed out to think as you try to drag yourself back to earth, and then your head is resting against the pillows, and Other Adrian is above you, shirt gone, the skin of his chest warm against yours as his lips catch your own.

“You okay?” He whispers, already shaking with restraint as his nose bumps against yours. “You still want this?”

You just nod, breathless, and you think you might hear him whimper as you lean up into his kiss. His hips roll against yours, and your hands move down to tug his pants down and off with a noise so desperate it barely sounds like you.

“I love you.” He murmurs against your lips, one hand in your hair as his other moves between you to guide himself, and-

“Oh.” The word falls out as a sigh of something almost like relief as he pushes inside of you for the first time, slow and careful as he trembles with restraint above you. Trying not to move yet. Trying not to push too far, or too fast, or to overwhelm you.

“Holy shit.” He groans, forehead dropping to yours and eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck. Holy shit, baby…” he sounds like he’s fucking dying, hand moving up to brush the hair from your eyes, fingers curling against your scalp like he’s using you as an anchor to this world. “You okay? Tell me you’re okay.”

“M’okay,” you whisper, body adjusting to the feeling that is so familiar and yet so oddly foreign. He groans as he rocks his hips once, like he truly can’t help it, and your hands fly up to dig your nails into the overheated skin of his back. “Oh God. M-Move, please.”

And he does. And you match his movements with your own, rock your hips in time with his, and he buries his face in your neck and murmurs that he loves you against your skin over and over. One hand remains tangled in your hair. The other slides over your body like he might really and truly break if he doesn’t touch you as much as possible, finally wrapping around your thigh to pull you closer and change the angle until every breath comes out as a sharp gasp.

You’re already close, already clinging to him as he devotes himself to you with every movement of his hips, every press of his mouth against your heated skin, when you feel your Adrian’s lips on the other side of your throat. Feel him press against your thigh where it’s wrapped around his alternate’s hips, and the evidence of his arousal alone is almost enough to send you over the edge.

And then, without a word, his fingers slide between you, moving in small and practiced circles right at the spot he knows will make you-

You come apart with a sob. Your body tenses. Your nails dig into skin damp with sweat and heat. You think you might be crying because it’s too much but it feels so good you can’t breathe…

Other Adrian shatters with you, groaning your name into the flushed skin of your shoulder and pressing his body impossibly closer to yours.

“God, you’re amazing.” He whispers, nuzzling into the hollow of your throat as you both try to catch your breath. “You did so good, baby. So fucking good…”

When he pulls back, eyes raking over your face like he truly can’t believe what just happened, you find yourself reaching up to trace over the little scar on his cheek.

The exhausted smile that splits his face is so boyish and downright giddy that you match it before you can even think. He leans down, and kisses you so slowly and sweetly that it nearly brings you to tears again.

“Beautiful.” He whispers, almost to himself, and your smile widens.

“Hey,” your Adrian says, leaning over to press a soft kiss to your cheek. The Adrian atop you moves aside, and you make a soft noise as he pulls away from you, still oversensitive.

But there’s the Adrian you’ve known and loved for years, settling above you like he was born to be there, and you smile again and try to find words as he kisses your cheeks. Your nose. Your forehead.

“Hi.” You murmur, voice surprisingly hoarse.

“Hi.” He breathes, like that simple greeting was a thousand declarations of love all at once, and you love him so much it hurts.

“That was awesome.” He whispers, and you smile again as you reach up to card your fingers through his hair. “You’re so fucking hot. I mean it. I love you so much.”

You could love him for his earnestness and honesty alone. You lean up, kiss his nose, and watch him scrunch it up with a grin that feels like a ray of fucking sunlight directed at your very soul.

“Can I?” He asks, nosing at your cheek and sliding his hand down to your thigh, tracing the fingerprint-bruises his alternate left there not long before. “Do you think you can go again?”

You’re sore, and exhausted, and Other Adrian is pressing his lips to the back of your hand like he can’t bring himself to let you go yet, but you nod. You trace your hands over his arms, up to his shoulders, and finally cradle his cheek in your palm as you pull him down to kiss you. He wastes no time at all kissing you hard enough to make you gasp into his mouth, knee nudging yours apart as he settles himself between them.

“I gotcha.” He whispers, and as he pushes inside of you a whimper punches out of your chest that he meets with a groan of approval.

It’s different. They’re more different than you expected. There’s still desperation, still intensity and hunger and love, but your Adrian’s hands move over you in a way that is less roaming and more like he’s trying to touch all of you at once. His hips snap forward hard enough to make you jolt with a gasp, overeager as always, and he murmurs an apology into the kiss as he tries to steady his rhythm, trembling a little with restraint.

“Missed this. Missed you so, so much. Holy shit, you’re amazing. I love you so much. Feels so good…” you don’t think he’s even aware that he’s speaking, the words coming out as a rasp against whatever part of your skin he can reach. You love it. You always have. You love when his voice gets low and breathless like this, how his already nonexistent filter is thrown even further out the fucking window. How he kisses you and touches you like he might be able to absorb himself into you completely.

It takes longer this time, of course, and Adrian has to pause with a mumbled apology or two as he tries desperately to get you to finish before him. It’s a ritual for him - an unspoken rule since the very first time you hooked up, let alone made love. His hand once again comes between you, and he hums with approval as the noises he pulls from you get increasingly louder, more desperate.

“I wanna- fuck. Mmm, I wanna feel this all the time. Can I fuck you forever? Yeah, you’d let me. You’d…holy shit, yes. Right there?” His babbling only brings you closer and closer to the precipice, and he catches your hand in his own as it claws at his back to tangle his fingers with yours and press them into the pillow by your head. “So perfect. Best sound I’ve ever heard. Need to - fuck. Fuck, m’close. I wanna - nngh - wanna make you feel so good, holy fuck-“

When you fall apart for the last time, you’re almost too far gone to even make a noise, squeezing Adrian’s hand so hard you might feel bones creak beneath your fingers as he moans shamelessly loudly and digs his teeth into your collarbone, marking you with an almost feral growl of your name.

As you lay there, your Adrian pressing slow kisses to your bruised shoulder while the other leans over and ghosts his lips over your forehead and brushes the hair from your eyes, you can’t help but laugh.

“What’s up, crazy?” Adrian asks, smiling down at you, eyes full of a love so overwhelming you don’t know if you’ll be able to contain it.

“Mm, you’re crazy.” You mumble back, the words a familiar cadence on your lips.

“Yeah, I am. I’m your crazy.” He responds, just as familiar, and presses a gentle kiss to your lips. “What’s up, my crazy?”

You shake your head, and laugh again. “If this is how it’s gonna be, I’m never gonna walk right again.”

Adrian’s grin widens, and he laughs. The sound is always so bright, but now it’s low and subdued with exhaustion and digs its way into your bloodstream like a drug you’ll never get enough of. “Fuck yeah. You’ll still be able to fight crime all wobbly.” He nips at the hollow of your throat, and you can feel his manic smile against your skin as he nuzzles you with a playful growl, tugging your body closer to his until you’re completely enveloped in love and adoration.

The other Adrian smiles too, wicked excitement sparkling in his eyes, and leans in to kiss you so deeply that it’s almost fucking obscene.

Oh, you are definitely, definitely fucked…pun intended.

-

Morning comes, and Adrian wakes to the feeling of your breath against his skin.

The version of him from this dimension is wrapped around you, too, snoring into your hair and still mumbling occasional nonsense against your scalp. He takes a dangerous risk, driven by the intoxicating feeling of your bare skin against his, and pulls you a little closer to him, stealing you away.

“Mmh.” You murmur, and you may as well be writing him a sonnet with the noise as your arms tighten around him and you snuggle a little closer.

He could die like this. Just like this. Alternate self, alternate dimension be damned, he could die happy with you humming sleepily into the skin of his chest and your legs tangling through his to seek more of his warmth.

“Love you.” He whispers, though he knows you can’t hear him. It just feels too good to say out loud. Without the fear of you tensing up, trying to bury your own emotions down. With the knowledge that, if you were awake, you would say it back. In the soft, sleepy silence of this bedroom, Adrian can pull you a little closer to him. He can feel you snuggle into his chest. Remember the way you felt beneath him last night, the way your eyes glossed over with pleasure and love as he moved inside of you, as you fell apart with a desperate cry of his name.

“I love you.” He whispers again, into your hair.

“Mmmph.” You murmur, responsive even now, and his heart fucking explodes. You said it last night. You confirmed it. You love him back.

He has lived for so long with nothing but emptiness. Loss. Grief.

And the grief is still there. Of course it is. His version of you is gone, and he loved her so much that it really and truly broke him when she died.

And then, there you were.

Not the you that he knew, but his soulmate in a different form. His equal. His match in every way that mattered. And somehow, despite you having your own version of him and despite the jump into another dimension and despite nearly losing you again, here he is.

You’re in his arms. Peaceful. Soft.

And you aren’t the you he fell in love with so long ago, but he loves you. He loves you for your differences. For the way you’re still so similar at your core. For your ferocity. Your kindness. The way you feel so unbelievably perfect against him.

For a while, Adrian just holds you. Occasionally, he presses his lips to the top of your head. Inhales your scent. Listens to your steady breathing.

But his eyes are starting to itch, and his contacts aren’t going to last much longer. The extra fluid and backup pair he always leaves in his suit have long since run out by now, and if he’s going to live in this dimension he’s going to need to get more. But, in the meantime, he can probably find an extra pair of glasses in the nightstand if he just-

The ring blinks back at him from the bedside table drawer, the case is open. The sight of the diamond stamped in the middle makes his fucking blood freeze in his veins.

As if on cue, you seem to sense his sudden tension in your sleep. You hum something incoherent, and nuzzle your nose into his shoulder. You don’t wake. He can feel your lips against his skin, the contact warm and familiar and right. Too right.

His. You’re his. You should be only his.

The darkness doesn’t creep in, now. It floods him like a wave. It absorbs his heart into itself, fogs his brain like a poison.

He can take care of you. He can take you home with him. Emilia left the key card.

It would be so easy, too. He did it before. You were warming up to him before. With just a little more time, you might…

No. No, no no. You don’t want that. You don’t love only him. You would be miserable.

If he grabs you now, hand over your mouth and arms locked tight around you, he could get you out of the apartment before the other version of himself wakes up. He’d have to be careful. He’d have to be quick. He could-

No. Fuck. Stop.

The other version of him stirs, too. Snuggles closer to you and tugs you a little closer to his chest. Tugs you back to him. Mumbles something about spiders into the bare skin of your shoulder. The shoulder that he marked by his teeth last night. The shoulder that should be marked by his teeth, instead.

Darkness. Hunger. A need to grab you and claim you and make you scream his - his name - over and over again that is so strong his hands flex at his sides and he can’t think.

Carefully, he rolls back to his side, leaving the drawer open, and brushes his fingers through your hair.

Beautiful. His. He’s falling back into the darkness, that cold and desperate place that made him take you away the first time.

“Mine.” It’s so quiet that it’s barely even a sigh, too soft for you to hear. Your fingers still curl against his bicep, fitful. You’re perfect. You even want him in your sleep, don’t you? Sure, he’s holding you - the other him. But you’re touching him. You’re touching this version of him like-

Three minutes, and he could get you-

Fuck, no.

The idea comes to him slowly. So, so slowly. As he decides it, his eyes never leave your face.

He presses a gentle kiss to your lips, savoring the way you hum and curl your fingers again.

And then, he leaves. Pulls his clothes on, silent as a ghost, grabs the keycard off of the table, and leaves.

-

His own dimension feels so different, now. So…empty. The sky seems darker. The shadows longer. The air more stale.

No worries. He won’t be here long.

It takes him five minutes to find what he’s looking for. All he needs. He’ll buy more clothes. More of the day-to-day necessities. He doesn’t need anything here. He can leave this life behind. He wants to leave this life behind.

The ring he bought the other you is oddly similar to the one he found in the bedside drawer. Simple. Perfectly sized. If you think it’s weird, or don’t like it in any way, he’ll just get you another.

He’ll go back to the other dimension, back home, and he’ll take you out on a date. A real one. Just you and him, and he’ll even check with his alternate self and make sure you’re all on the same page. Like he said in that alley: people fly. Aliens invade. He loves you, and you love him, and you can marry him too.

At the last second, he digs through the bedside table, and grabs his extra pair of glasses. He can get more contacts, maybe. But for now, he can wear the gold rimmed aviators, so you can still tell them apart.

He takes one last look at the apartment before he leaves. The life he used to have. The pictures of the woman he loved on the wall. The clean, quiet shrine to a life of grief and loneliness.

And all he wants to do is go home to you.

Excitement prickles at the ends of his fingers like electricity. He’s already thinking about how he’s going to wake you up when he gets home. He could crawl into bed, pull you close, and even drift back to sleep with you curled in his arms. He could make breakfast. Maybe he’ll ask you to marry him right fucking there. He’s definitely more…patient, than his alternate self. Likes to plan more. Likes to think things through a little more. But the idea of waiting another moment to hear you say yes seems impossible right now.

He makes it to the bottom of the stairs, and goes still.

Keith Smith is there, backed up by his crew of racist demons, and he’s looking right the fuck at Adrian.

“Adrian. Fucking. Chase.” He says, dry and furious. The man who killed the woman he loves. Who nearly killed you, too. “Vigilante. Can’t believe we didn’t put it together before.”

Adrian smiles. And it is a dark, empty thing. He’ll kill him. Happily. And then he’ll go home to you. Ask you to marry him with bloodstains on his shirt to match the ones Keith left on you all those weeks ago.

The darkness is cold. Almost comforting, now.

“Hi.” He says, simply. Easily. Save for the hollowness in his tone, they could be two old pals bumping into each other on the street.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen.” Keith says, and Adrian raises his eyebrows in silent question. “You’re gonna tell us where that little zombie bitch is, and how we get to the dimension you’ve been hiding in with her.”

“Keep talking.” It’s a challenge. A direct, sharp reaction to the way he just dared to insult you. His voice is still bright, almost friendly, and dripping with danger.

“And then, I’m gonna finally fucking kill you. And then I’m gonna kill her. And whatever other versions of you two psychotic shithead monsters might exist out there.”

Adrian’s fingers twitch at his sides, and he palms a small knife in a move so swift and practiced that even Kieth doesn’t see him pull it from his pocket.

Right into Kieth’s neck. Easy peasy. Then he’ll take the assholes behind him, and-

He’s so focused on Keith Smith’s jugular, planning exactly where he’s going to plunge the blade, that the sudden prick in his own neck makes him blink with genuine surprise.

And then, everything goes black.

-

Taglist (CLOSED): @melsland, @sleepdeprivedfrfr, @argum3ntativedr3amgirl, @lolnothx06, @almostjollypizza, @papitas-con-sal, @xc15ck, @sweetpeapod, @le-lena, @slightlypossessed, @vigil-mort, @moonchild323232, @isuspectitwasthenargles, @adiviggf, @Ivspedri, @yeetomyhawpartner, @sithdaya, @stacyry, @spookysins, @quiff-n-queef, @hexadecahedron, @itsmekalou, @reidsgubbler, @elfgirl161616, @orchids-orchidseverywhere, @06stryker, @xthejazzdelorianx, @lushalternative, @weable, @ath3nasgard3n, @paperbackcranes, @212functions, @raggedy-bloom, @wordholic, @ghostheartbeat, @lostbee20, @solo-pitstop-vibes, @mirrorball-6, @madzmoxy, @knuckledickstiger, @she-sounds-hideous, @dionysuskid21, @mclaren2245, @sarahskywalker-amidala, @yagurlannastasia, @girxwrp, @l4vstrr, @alex278, @lettucel0ver, @m0th-h, @nuclearburger

[fru1t4fr0gs]

TAGLIST (Part 2): @strawbrysapphic, @ody-see, @clowninavan, @wind-canoe, @hm20394, @staple-your-mouth, @10ava01, @astonishedmspryde, @fangirl48, @lumbiiii, @fallout-girl219, @am-3-thyst, @roseodelle, @worstendingever, @kissmxcheekcheek, @ddawn111, @sadest-bookshelf, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @bbmgirll, @flame-is-a-fantasy, @kitkatq05, @kissmxcheek, @brwnsand, @breathingstarlight, @arjudy224, @catchmeupimgettingoutofhere, @aphexnut, @hyacinthus-big-forhead, @mystic-mara, @opossumclown, @girlisjustagirl, @lonelyheartsm, @woneiys, @mypersonaljunkdrawer, @anarchistcatowner1, @serendippindots, @jumilzz, @m4n-eat3r, @frenchievictim, @anuncalledbridge, @heartagram-ff, @sinnerdolly, @flirtysnakes

[rubylifes]

[flowersforbucky]

shut up

adrian chase x reader

while hiding in a broom closet with adrian, you shut him up the best way you know how.

word count: 1.9k

warnings/tags: 18+ mdni, smut, fingering, unprotected p in v, porn with a little bit of plot, reader is afab, no use of y/n, friends to lovers, semi-public sex, adrian is a weird little freak, sex in a small space

author’s note: just finished s1 and had to write something for him. i love him as much as i expected to. wrote this pretty quickly so i’ll fix any mistakes later :)

Right now, you’re debating on whether you’re going to kill Harcourt or kiss her on the lips when you get out of here.

Because she’s the one who paired you up with Adrian.

And Adrian - weirdly sweet and loyal, impossible Adrian - is pressed against you like a sardine in a closet barely bigger than a coffin, whispering like his life depends on filling the silence with random fun facts. Which is ironic, considering you’re supposed to be hiding and your lives actually depend on him shutting the fuck up.

Normally, you don’t mind his rambling. You actually find it kind of cute and endearing. It’s awkward, sure, but there’s something about the way that he blurts out every little thing that pops into his head that is admirably him. He can always make you laugh, even in the most stressful of situations, and normally you appreciate that.

But right now? In a warehouse crawling with alien butterflies that would try to kill you both without a second thought? Right now, you need him to stop rambling.

“…and if you think about it, closets are actually just tiny panic rooms without the—”

Your hand clamps over his mouth before he can finish whatever sentence was about to put you in an early grave. His eyes go wide, but he freezes when you shoot him a look that clearly says one more fucking word and the butterflies won’t be the only thing I kill today.

You should stop there. That should be enough. It would be enough for most people to get the hint to be quiet.

But not Adrian. No, he tilts his head and you can feel his lips twitch like he’s on the verge of muttering something against the skin of your palm.

So you do the only thing that you can think of.

You kiss him.

It’s fast and messy - more survival tactic than romance. But it works. His words die on your tongue, his whole body going still except for his lips that begin moving with yours when he realizes what you’re doing. Initially, your intention is for it to be short lived - just long enough to shock him into silence.

But then his hands dart to your hips, pinning you even closer to him within the cramped space. Without thinking, your hand cups the side of his face and the faintest groan rumbles from deep in his throat. You really shouldn’t let it continue, but this is the first time he’s stopping talking since you pulled him into the shoebox of a room to hide from the butterflies nearly twenty minutes ago.

At least, that’s your justification for not pulling away.

It’s embarrassing, really - how quickly it shifts from strategy to desire. One second, you’re kissing him because you don’t want him to get you both killed. The next, he’s sweeping his tongue along the swell of your bottom lip and you’re willingly parting your lips to let him in simply because you like the way he tastes. You like the feeling of his hands on your waist and the way the closet leaves very little room to do anything except lean into each other.

When the closet starts to feel like a sauna, you pull back just far enough to whisper, the tip of your nose brushing his, “Sorry. It was either that or choking you until you pass out.”

For once, he’s at a loss for words. Speechless. All he does is stare at you, pupils blown wide in the dim light, lips kiss-swollen and parted like you’ve knocked the words right out of him. Then he huffs a short, shaky laugh that ghosts across your mouth.

“That…” he whispers, voice strained in a way you’ve never heard from him before, “sounds equally as hot, actually.”

Of course he’d say that. Of course he would get excited by threats of strangulation. You want to roll your eyes, but you don’t get the chance, because he kisses you again before you can decide whether you’re annoyed or turned on by his honesty.

Adrian kisses like he fights - reckless, all-in, like he doesn’t know how to hold himself back. His fingers dig into your sides with enough pressure that you know you’ll feel tiny bruises later, but you don’t care.

You gasp when the back of your shoulder hits the wall, the sound muffled instantly as Adrian chases it with his tongue. The closet is too damn small - your elbows jam against shelves, your knees bump, and the weapons that adorn your suits clank together, but neither of you seem too put off by the less than ideal circumstances.

If you had any doubt about it, the bulge that juts against your stomach from behind the thick material of his Vigilante costume tells you that he isn’t the least bit bothered by the lack of space.

His fingers fumble clumsily with the zipper of your tactical suit, cursing under his breath when it catches. “Why are these things - fuck - so complicated?” he hisses, yanking impatiently.

The noise makes you snort against his lips, but then he finally manages to tug it down far enough to shove his hand beneath the fabric, the heat of his palm against the skin of your stomach is startling in contrast to the chill of the suit.

You shiver, and he stills like he’s worried he’s gone too far. You open your mouth to reassure him, but instead what slips out is a warning whisper. “If you don’t stay quiet, Chase, I will make good on my threat to choke you out.”

He gulps, his features contorted with an equal mix of fear and arousal. Then, without hesitation, he nods like a soldier receiving orders. “Hot,” he whispers breathlessly, before biting down on his lip to silence the groan that bubbles up when your hand slides down the front of his suit, over the bulge of his erection.

The space is too cramped to strip properly. He accidentally steps on your toes, then you nearly tear down a shelf, and when he finally gets your suit peeled halfway down your body, the both of you are panting so hard it’s a miracle the butterflies haven’t heard.

Then, his lips are everywhere. Your mouth, your jaw, your neck - sloppy kisses and nips that make it hard to remember why this is the worst possible time for this. One of his hands slips lower, tugging at the waistband of your suit until his fingers can dip beneath.

He freezes, like he’s not sure if he should, until you roll your hips forward in silent permission. That’s all the encouragement he needs. He groans low, drags his hand back up, and without warning shoves two fingers against your lips.

“Open,” he whispers.

You glare at him, but your mouth parts anyway. His fingers slip inside, thick and clumsy on your tongue. The taste is faintly metallic from his gloves, but you curl your lips around him and suck around the digits just to feel his knees nearly buckle against you.

“Holy fuck…” he rasps, pulling his fingers free, now slick with your spit. Then they’re sliding down between your thighs, pressing against your folds and circling your clit in a way that makes you bite back a moan. He grins like he’s proud of himself, then pushes two fingers inside you, stretching you around him as he muffles your gasp with his mouth.

Your hand finds the bulge straining his suit. He twitches against your palm, hips jerking like he’s barely holding it together. You manage to get his fly open, tugging him free. He’s hot and hard in your hand, and when you start to stroke him, his forehead drops to your shoulder as if you’ve just knocked the air out of him.

The two of you work each other like that for a while - his fingers pumping into you, your hand sliding slick along his cock - both of you shuddering, both of you kissing desperately to keep the sounds inside the closet. The movements are awkward and clumsy due to the limited space and the need to keep as quiet as possible, but you can’t help but think that’s part of what makes it so fucking hot.

You’re close to unraveling when he suddenly pulls away, chest heaving. “I need to - goddamn - I need to be inside you,” he whispers, almost pleading.

You nod without hesitation, not even thinking about the repercussions. Not thinking about what this means for the two of you after you get out of this fucking closet, not thinking about what a compromising position you’re in if you were to get caught - by the butterflies or your teammates.

You can’t find it in you to care. Right now, all you care about is fucking Adrian Chase in the broom closet of a butterfly infested warehouse.

He spins you around, pressing your chest to the closet wall, his body crowding yours from behind. One of his hands fists in your suit to tug it lower over your hips while the other steadies himself on your waist. You feel the blunt head of his cock jutting against the curve of your ass.

“Adrian—” you hiss, a mix of both warning and want in your voice.

“Shh,” he coos.

A small part of you wants to snap at him - oh, so now you’re the one telling me to be quiet? But your irritation quickly disappears when you feel the tip of him teasing your entrance.

He eases into you slowly, inch by inch, until you’re full of him and both of you are biting back moans. The space is too tight for much finesse - his hips slam into yours in quick, shallow thrusts, each movement messy and urgent. Your knees knock against cleaning supplies, and somewhere beside you a broom falls over - but you don’t care. Every stroke sends heat curling low in your belly, every muffled groan against your ear makes you clench tighter around him.

He moves in short, sharp thrusts, the tiny space making it impossible for anything but a frantic grind. Each snap of his hips drives you harder into the closet wall, the shelves rattling like they might give way. You’re certain the noise is going to bring the butterflies running to you, but you can’t stop yourself from pushing back against him, greedy for more.

His breath is ragged against your ear. “Fuck. You feel so good. I knew you would, I knew it—”

You would laugh at the desperate honesty if you weren’t so busy choking down a moan. His hand is clamped over your mouth, his fingers splayed across your cheek. Every time you cry out against his palm, you feel him twitch inside you. His other hand fumbles down your stomach, searching, until he finds your clit. The second he rubs over it, your body jolts forward, muffled cry breaking against his hand.

You clamp down around him, legs trembling, your orgasm rushing through you in waves so sharp you nearly sob against his hand. He curses into your hair, his rhythm faltering as you squeeze him so tight he can barely move.

Then he’s gone - completely unhinged, rutting into you with sloppy, desperate thrusts that rock the closet. He knocks something over with his elbow but doesn’t stop until he’s spilling hot inside you with a strangled groan muffled into your shoulder.

The two of you collapse against the wall, panting, bodies tangled awkwardly in the suffocating heat of the closet. For a long moment, the only sounds are your ragged breaths.

Finally, he peels his hand away from your mouth, flexing his fingers like they’ve gone numb. “So…” he whispers, voice still wrecked. “You’re definitely gonna choke me next time though, right?”

thank you for reading! comments and reblogs are very appreciated 🫶🏻 dividers by @/saradika-graphics!

[vigilantjames]

bucky barnes in his tfatws era is something difficult to overcome

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Not Quite Him - Chapter 10

Pairing: Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: Home in your dimension and still recovering from your injury, you do your best to adjust to life with two Adrians. They may not be trying to kill each other anymore, but the peace between them has only left room for a different kind of tension to build.

And everyone, no matter how strong their will may be, has their breaking point.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Smut, Oral (f and m receiving), Shower Sex, Threesome, OG!Adrian gets dominant as fuck I don’t know what happened, Possessiveness (because, you know, it’s them), Nerf gun battle, Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author’s Note: This is just smut and domesticity, baby. And, because it’s me and none of these dorks are allowed to be happy for long, we’ve got a little smidge of angst at the end. BUT before that sweet sweet chapter 11 angst, have some sexiness and cuteness. As always, please let me know what you think!! Your comments and feedback fuel me and keep me writing! You have no idea how much I appreciate you guys!

-

Two Adrians becomes almost normal, after a while.

Well, to an extent.

You’re in the shower a week later, washing shampoo from your hair and relaxing beneath a steady stream of warm water, when a gentle touch to your back makes you shriek and jump so high you nearly fall and bust your head open on the slippery floor.

“What the fuck, Adrian?!” Sometimes you forget how silently he can move, with that almost unnerving grace that seems to come so naturally to him.

He opens his mouth to speak, but a thought occurs to you, and you nearly move to cover your body as you look him up and down. Naked. No glasses. You swear, you’re days away from using a marker to write numbers on their foreheads.

“Hang on, which Adrian are you?”

He laughs, loud, absolutely delighted by the question, and that’s all the answer you need.

And yet.

“The one from this dimension.” You hear from the sink beside the shower, and your surprise nearly makes you slip again. This time, your Adrian catches you, moving into the stream of the shower and pulling you close enough to feel the laughter still bubbling up in his chest.

You wiggle in his arms enough to poke your head out from behind the curtain.

“Seriously?”

“What?” He shrugs, fully clothed and fidgeting with your toothbrush.

“Get out. I’m- Adrian, knock it off!”

“What? We shower together all the time! Quit being so squirmy.”

“I already washed my hair! Stop-“ you sputter a little as his fingers start to rub another glob of shampoo into the top of your head.

“I’ve seen you naked before too, you know.”

You’re still trying to bat your Adrian’s hands away. “Yeah, but not me, me!”

“Baby, who do you think changed your clothes when you were unconscious?”

Your Adrian’s fingers still on your scalp. Heat rises to your cheeks. Oh. You hadn’t really thought about that.

“Dude, you changed her?”

“Bloody clothes.” Other Adrian supplies easily, and you can tell from his tone just how used to your own version of him he’s become when he adds, “besides, I’m you, right? It’s not that weird.”

“It’s weird.” You try.

“I can’t patch her up through her clothes.”

Adrian frowns a little, but shrugs as he continues rubbing shampoo into your scalp. “Oh, yeah. Okay.”

You give up trying to fight him off with a sigh, grumbling something about weirdos and psychos as you rest your head against his shoulder.

He laughs, moving you until you’re both beneath the shower head, and nudges your face away from his skin as he catches your chin in a soap-covered hand.

“You gotta pay more attention. I could’ve been a crazy killer.”

“You are a crazy killer.”

“Mmhmm. But I’m your crazy killer. C’mere, squirmy.”

He kisses you, slow and warm and wet from the water still streaming down both of your faces. For a moment, you lose yourself in the pleasant familiarity of it all. Of his bare chest against yours, the hand not holding your chin sliding over your back, trailing down to-

“Your ass looks amazing, by the way.”

You squeak in surprise, already a little sick of them making you jump a foot in the damn air in the comfort of your own home, and pull back to see Other Adrian’s head poking around the shower curtain. He’s wearing glasses. His glasses, but not…his glasses.

He raises his eyebrows at your curious look, pulling the steaming frames off of his face. “He left them on the sink. Same prescription.”

“Dude, cool. I knew it.” Your Adrian says, even as he leans down to nip at your collarbone. You can almost feel his eyes rise over your shoulder, and he turns his head to bump his nose questioningly against the curve of your jaw.

“Do you want him to get in?”

You blink, pulling back to see if he’s serious.

“What?”

“I mean, he’s me. We can like, shampoo your hair together.”

“You already shampooed my hair.”

“Then you can shampoo mine. Or his.”

He’s serious. And so is other Adrian. And…

“It won’t be weird for you?”

The question is met with a grin. “Nope. He’s me, remember?”

And so, after your hesitant confirmation and the sounds of very enthusiastic undressing on the other side of the curtain, you find yourself in the shower with two Adrians.

You’ve showered with your Adrian a hundred times. Sure, plenty of those times have ended in sex, but that’s never really been the intention. He likes being close to you. The intimacy of laughing between kisses and building dumb little shampoo hairdos on each other’s heads. It’s the bonding that he loves.

This doesn’t feel like it’s going to end in playful soap fights. There’s an intensity in the air that makes the shower feel smaller. The water feel hotter.

Your first thought when the Other Adrian steps into the shower is that he looks just as insanely beautiful as your Adrian. Your second thought is that he is not your Adrian, and so this should be weird.

Right?

You’re tense, a shyness that feels incredibly unfamiliar when looking at that particular face creeping over you until you almost move back to hide your body from him. Almost chicken out of this whole damn thing.

“Hey.” He murmurs, voice soft over the pattering of the water on the tiles beneath your feet. His fingers wrap around your wrist, eyes locked onto yours as he brings your hand up to place it on his chest.

He’s warm. Water trickles through your fingers. Mats his hair to his forehead. This is real. Holy shit, this is real.

“This is weird.” You say aloud, and he smiles. Your Adrian kisses your shoulder.

“I know.” Other Adrian hums, ducking his head down a little until your noses brush. “I won’t touch you unless you ask me to.” His hand guides your own a little lower on his chest, the pads of your fingers brushing over the delicate ridges of unfamiliar scars. “But you can touch me. If you want to.”

The words make you shiver. They both feel it.

Your hand moves on its own, tracing the planes of muscle, and he shudders beneath your touch.

It takes everything in your power not to lower your gaze. To keep your eyes locked on the droplets of water trailing down over his chest. His stomach. His fingers flex at his side, like your Adrian’s do. Like he’s trying to keep himself still.

“Hey.” Your Adrian’s lips glide over the hollow of your throat, and you have to bite back a noise. The shower suddenly feels way too hot. It’s hard to breathe. “It’s okay. He’s me.”

“He’s not.” You say, and he just hums against your skin.

“Looks like me.” He murmurs, low, and his fingers trace along the edges of the bandages on your stomach. “It’s cool to see you touching him. Like looking in a mirror.”

You’re still a little confused by his fickleness when it comes to his alternate self. He’s still possessive, still always seeming seconds away from ripping you away from the other man, but that possessiveness has started bleeding into a sort of acceptance. A curious excitement, even.

Speaking of which, the evidence of that…excitement is pressing up against the small of your back, making it increasingly difficult to form a rational thought.

The Other Adrian’s hand comes up, cupping the back of your head and turning your gaze up to his face. He’s so unbelievably pretty like this that you nearly gasp at the sight. Water flattens his curls to his scalp. His green eyes are nearly black with want. Those eyes aren’t on yours, they’re on your mouth. The weight of his gaze alone feels like a kiss.

“What do you want?” He asks, voice low, and you don’t know. Holy shit, you don’t know.

You. Him. All of it. Holy shit, I want it all so bad I can’t breathe right.

“Kiss me?” The question sounds small. So unlike you. You are not meek. You don’t beg. You’re not helpless. And yet, now, you feel like you’re about to start trembling with a need so intense it might cripple you.

To your surprise, his gaze moves to your shoulder, where your Adrian is still pressing slow kisses to your exposed skin.

You feel a nod. A smile. A teasing bite that nearly makes you jump.

And then he kisses you.

It’s not rough. Not demanding or violent or desperate like the kisses you’ve shared before. This time, there’s a slow deliberation to the movement of his lips against yours. To the way he guides your head to the side and traces his tongue across the water gathering at your lips like he’s savouring every taste. He isn’t demanding anything from you. He’s pulling you apart slowly, carefully, like he has all the time in the fucking world.

Your hands come up to slide through his wet hair. His move over the curve of your waist, firm enough to make your knees weak, but soft enough to make you crave more.

You pull back for air, and your head spins.

“Does he kiss like me?” Your Adrian asks, voice like craving gravel against your neck.

“No.” You murmur, and the Other Adrian smiles, nudging his nose against yours in a gentle, almost playful little movement, keeping your head tilted back and your lips brushing his as you speak. “Its a little different. Just as good, but…different.”

“I can do other things different, too.” He murmurs, closing the distance to kiss you again. His lips slide over yours, and you can still feel the mischievous glint of his smile when he speaks against your mouth. “And maybe better than ‘just as good’.”

You hear a soft grunt by your ear, and suddenly your head is being turned to the side and a different pair of lips are crashing against yours.

His kiss is rougher. Deeper. His arms tighten around you, and you feel like you’re about to fucking explode as his hands slide over your stomach again, moving lower.

“I’m better.” He murmurs, and it’s in that tone that doesn’t quite sound like him. That new quiet, hungry voice. He tugs you closer, and your breath catches. “I’ll prove it. You want me to prove it, don’t you?”

“Holy shit.” Is all you can manage, as he turns you in his arms to press your body against the cool tiles, caging you in as his mouth absolutely fucking devours yours in a way that pulls an embarrassingly high pitched noise from your throat. When he breaks the kiss, he moves down to your neck, licking water from your heated skin.

“You were made for me.” He murmurs, and you have to bite back a whimper. “You know that, right? Every part of you was made for me and you’re all fucking mine.”

Any response you could have is cut off by the Other Adrian’s mouth on yours again, and it’s almost too much. Almost too overwhelming with how good it feels. How desperately you want it.

“My stitches.” You manage, more breathless than you think you’ve ever been, as your Adrian presses a little closer to you.

“I’ll be gentle.” He murmurs, blunt teeth scraping over your pulse point. “Or not. Fuck, you want this so bad you’re shaking.”

The Other Adrian kisses you again, harder and deeper than before, and you can’t hold back a moan against his lips.

“Fuck, yes.” He groans, and when your Adrian’s hand slips between you, long fingers finally finding where you need him most, you bite down so hard on the Other Adrian’s lip that he nearly slams you into the wall with how much harder he kisses you

Your Adrian’s hand, practiced and intoxicating and absolutely fucking perfect, takes no time at all to have you gasping with pleasure, breaking away from the kiss to try to hide your face in the Other Adrian’s shoulder.

“No.” The word comes out as a growl so sharp and deep that you feel it in your toes. He catches your hair, curling it in his fingers and wrenching your face back so his eyes meet yours. His irises are even blacker than before, and the sight makes you gasp. “No. Look at me.”

“Adrian.” You nearly choke on his name, their name, eyes fighting to keep from fluttering closed as he looks down at you with an intensity that makes your knees buckle.

Your Adrian groans against your throat, still working you in a steady rhythm, and pulls back to look at you with eyes that are equally fucking starved.

“Fuck, look at her.” He half-whispers, crooking his fingers in a way that has you seeing stars. “So fucking pretty. And she feels so good. So warm and tight and perfect.” He ducks his head, breath mingling with yours as he moves his fingers again and you cry out. “Made for me. All for me.”

When he pulls his hand back, you nearly weep at the loss.

“Your turn.” He says, and you’re too far out of your damn mind to even think about how strange that sounds. Or how unbelievably sexy it is.

The Other Adrian turns to you, and grins. Sharp. Dangerous. Full of promise and heat and a hunger so intense you think you might be entirely consumed by the look alone.

And then he sinks to his knees.

You nearly fall apart just from the sight of him lifting your leg over his shoulder, green eyes never leaving yours. Water mats his hair to his forehead, splashing against muscled shoulders as his hand guides you closer to him until your heel is digging into his back. There’s a determination in his eyes. A possessiveness in his touch that almost knocks you off-balance, and your Adrian lifts you against him as his lips brush over your own.

“Wait,” you gasp, jumping a little when you feel a nip at the inside of your thigh, stealing your attention from your Adrian’s kiss. Your hand drops down to tangle in Other Adrian’s wet hair, but you can’t bring yourself to even try to pull him away. He seems to realize this, and you feel him grin as his open-mouthed kisses trail higher. Higher. “W-Wait, shouldn’t we talk about- oh my fucking God!”

White-hot pleasure shoots through you so fast, so intensely that you nearly lose your balance, and your Adrian wastes no time lifting you a little higher against the wall to keep you from slipping.

“Shh, shh.” He coos, even as your nails dig into the bare skin of his back hard enough to make him groan. “I’ve got you.” He presses his nose against your cheek, hands tightening on your waist with a shaky exhale. “Holy shit dude, do that again. She’s gonna rip me to shreds.”

You swear your vision goes white as you claw at Adrian’s back. You worry you might draw blood. Judging by the way he kisses you with a breathless growl, you don’t think he minds.

Somewhere between him murmuring near-nonsense of praise against your lips and Other Adrian’s fingers digging possessive marks into the flesh of your thigh, you feel a hand catch your chin, forcing your eyes to meet his. The Adrian below you makes a low noise, doubling his efforts like he’s battling for your attention just as much as your own Adrian seems to be.

“Look at me.” Your Adrian says, and voice is so low, so rough, that he barely sounds like himself. “Look at me.”

You do, though he’s so close that you have to go a little cross-eyed, and then Other Adrian’s fingers join his mouth and you worry you might fucking black out.

His thumb slides over your lower lip, and then between your teeth, and when you whimper around the digit his smile is absolutely fucking feral. All darkness. All hunger.

“All me.” He whispers, and it almost sounds like he’s talking to himself. Reminding himself. “All of this, everything you’re feeling, all of it, it’s all me.”

Your nails dig in deeper. There is so much of that new darkness in his eyes that you can’t tell what’s making your body tremble anymore. You look down to the Other Adrian, and his eyes lock onto yours for a brief second before your Adrian uses his grip on your jaw to yank your gaze back to his.

“I said look at me.”

And that breaks you. Shatters you. Adrian kisses you through it, rough and claiming, and you think you would be screaming if the noises weren’t muffled by his mouth.

When you come back to Earth, breathless and a little boneless, Adrian is grinning against your lips.

“We’re gonna get all pruney.” He half-whispers, tone still a little gravelly as you feel his alternate press soothing kisses over your thigh. He’s murmuring something that sounds almost like the same nonsensical praise that was just whispered against your lips, but you can’t make it out. You’re still not quite connected to the ground yet, still high on bone-melting pleasure.

But when you move to wiggle out of their grip, your Adrian stops you.

“Nuh uh.” He kisses your nose, grinning like a fucking madman, and ducks down to kiss at your shoulder. Your collarbone. “My turn.”

Another pair of lips trail up your body as his trail down, and before long at all you find yourself locked into the same position as before. One version of your boyfriend kneeling between your legs while the other holds you up.

“Perfect.” Other Adrian murmurs against your ear, and his hand slides up to tangle in your hair as he skates his nose along your jaw. You feel him inhale, fingers curling a little tighter against your scalp. “You did so good for me, baby. So fucking good.”

The words pull another whimper from you, and you feel him smile against your neck as your Adrian traces his tongue over a fresh mark on your inner thigh before sucking a matching one into the skin beside it.

“Our water bill is gonna be so fucking high.” You manage, a little strangled, and you feel him laugh in that ‘a little too loud’ way he has against your thigh before his kisses trail higher.

“So worth it.” He says, and then his mouth is on you and Other Adrian is sliding his own tongue between your lips and you couldn’t respond if you tried.

-

Some time later, you fall back into bed, pajamas clinging to still-damp skin and legs still shaking.

“That was awesome.” Your Adrian says for maybe the twentieth time, and you can’t help but laugh a little as he crawls over you and combs his fingers through your wet hair. Both Adrians are still shirtless, having tugged on sweatpants somewhere between helping you into your own pajamas as your vision faded back from pure white. Your Adrian still hasn’t even bothered to put his glasses back on. “Seriously, it’s like I was watching myself touch you and still touching you. It’s like I can kiss you literally everywhere all at once. Plus, I totally wrecked you.” He accentuates this point with a playful, animal growl as he nuzzles enthusiastically into what must be a mark blooming on the skin of your shoulder, the movement pushing you deeper into the bed as his body envelops yours. You laugh, swatting at his back, and you feel him grin against your skin.

“She didn’t exactly seem bored with what I was doing.” Other Adrian’s voice holds that familiar hint of possessiveness, and while your Adrian rolls to his side to comb his fingers through your hair he busies himself with pushing your t-shirt up to trace his fingers over the still-healing wound on your stomach. They both keep checking it, like it’ll spontaneously start bleeding again at any moment.

“Yeah, but I made her all wobbly. And she definitely screamed way louder for me.” Adrian hums, turning his head into your hand when you reach up to brush the damp hair out of his eyes. After the way he just made you fall apart for him, whispering filth into your skin while his fingertips and teeth littered your body with possessive marks, it’s always a little odd to see him act so endearingly puppy-like in these moments. “Sorry dude, but I’ve got like, a PhD in her body.”

The Other Adrian’s smile just grows, a knowing gleam in his eye as he leans down to nip at your ear. “Well, practice makes perfect, right?”

“This is so weird.” You say again, but there’s no bite to it. The comfort of the room permeates your words, and your smile grows to match both of theirs.

“Kinda cool, though.” Your Adrian says, and you laugh again.

After a moment of surprisingly peaceful cuddling, your heart feeling more full than it has in a very long time and your entire body heavy with pleasant exhaustion, you dislodge yourself from the tangle of limbs and warm skin just enough to press a slow, soft kiss to the underside of Adrian’s jaw. Before he can comment or even pull you closer, you hook your leg around his thigh and roll atop him in a swift and practiced move that always earns you a delighted laugh.

You hear that laugh now as you lean down nip at his throat, trailing kisses over the warm skin of his exposed chest as he catches your hips in his hands, restless fingers dancing up beneath your shirt. You feel his breath hitch as you move lower, lower still, until you trace your tongue between the divots of muscle on his stomach.

“Fuck.” He groans, and you hum in response, letting the sound vibrate over his abs until you feel him nearly jolt beneath your lips.

And as your fingers move a little farther over the bed, and slide teasingly down over Other Adrian’s chest, you pull back just far enough to look them both in the eyes. Their pupils are blown. Your Adrian’s hand is in your hair, and Other Adrian looks like he’s about to fucking die at the sight of it. The line between jealousy and need is so blurred now that it may as well be nonexistent.

“My turn.” You say, grin wicked as you echo their words from before.

You don’t break eye contact as you slide his sweatpants down over his hips, the fingers of your free hand trailing down Other Adrian’s stomach. Your Adrian groans loudly enough to wake the neighbors, head dropping back against the pillows and fingers tightening in your hair.

You just smile, and take your revenge.

-

“What are you talking about? You love doing the dishes. You literally do them all the time!”

“I do the dishes because neither of you ever do the fucking dishes.” Other Adrian deadpans, and you frown as you feel your Adrian’s brows scrunch up beside you. “Seriously, how did you two live before I got here? This place was a fucking mess.”

He might be a little bit right - while you and your Adrian can dismember and hide a body without leaving so much as a spot of blood behind, you do tend to be a little…chaotic at home, and you can’t pretend like the apartment hasn’t been a lot cleaner since this Adrian moved in.

“We did the dishes. Plenty. We just had a…system.”

“Oh yeah?” He raises an eyebrow, looking pointedly between the two of you, and then to the pile of dishes in the sink. “What system was that?”

Twenty minutes later, the three of you stand in a circle in the kitchen, a nerf gun in each hand.

Other Adrian inspects his, turning the shiny plastic toy over in his palm with a deftness that is much more suited to the kind of gun he’s used to firing. “This is how you decide who does the dishes?”

“Sometimes.” Your Adrian says, already loading foam bullets into his own weapon. “It’s not like we can use real guns.”

“So you have nerf guns.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Should we be using real guns? We’d never get our security deposit back!” Your Adrian looks at you, loading another foam bullet. “Can you believe this guy? Like, how would I shoot you with a real bullet?”

You smile back at him, loading up your own ‘weapon’. “Okay, gentlemen. You know the rules.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know the rules?”

“First man down-“

“Or woman.”

“First man or woman down does the dishes. No cheating. And no barricades.”

“It wasn’t a barricade, it was a shield.”

“Fine, Captain Pedantic. No tossing the kitchen table down and using it as a shield.”

“Are you two fucking insane?”

“Yes.” You both answer, the word leaving you in an immediate and familiar harmony. You catch Other Adrian’s eyes, and grin. He’s fighting a smile. You’ve grown to love that look. Your Adrian is so open with every emotion he feels, whether it be wildly inappropriate for the situation or not. Sometimes you wonder if this Adrian was like that, once. If smiles and laughter came as easily to him as they do his alternate.

Whether they did or not, the cracks in his reserve still feel like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. They still make your heart beat a little faster. Make you want to chip away at all of that pain and loss and replace it with happiness and peace.

“Fine.” He caves, and you knew he would, but you still feel a little thrill of triumph. “I swear to God, if she rips her-“

“New rule! No worrying about me ripping my stitches.” You wave a hand over your stomach. “If I can survive the shower last night-“ and they both grin. Wide. Proud. You have to fight the rush of heat that rises to your cheeks at the memory “-I can survive a fucking nerf gun battle.”

“Survive is a pretty strong word for last night.”

“You know what I mean.” You’re still trying to convince yourself that last night was a mistake, a one-time explosion of pent up lust that shouldn’t happen again. Other Adrian clearly sees this, and is therefore still trying to make you admit that it very much wasn’t.

“I mean, there was a lot of writhing.”

“Adrian.”

“A lot of that too, but a little higher and breathier. Usually with a ‘please’ or a ‘don’t stop’ somewhere-“

“Three!” You interrupt, and cock your toy gun with a glare. He’s still grinning when your Adrian continues the countdown. His eyes are locked on you. Memories dance behind them, and your toes nearly curl at the hunger in his gaze.

“Two!”

And with that, you flick the lights off, and move.

-

Three killers stalk through the dark apartment that night, molding themselves to the shadows with weapons in hand, peering through the dark with an intensity that is absolutely insane considering the fact that the guns they’re holding in front of them were bought at a toy store.

But you’ll be damned if you lose this game.

The problem is that, while you might be able to navigate silently through the dark, Adrian has an infuriating ability to move so stealthily that he may as well be a fucking ghost. Judging by the silence you hear now, Other Adrian shares that skill.

You see nothing. You hear nothing. Even the darkness of the room seems to have wrapped them both within itself, shielding them from your own trained senses.

You dart from shadow to shadow, keeping your breathing steady and your movements as muffled as possible. Your ears strain for a hint to either of their locations. Your finger stays locked against the bright plastic trigger of your Nerf gun.

You hear a creak, so quiet that you would never have noticed the sound if you weren’t listening for it.

Got him.

You raise your weapon in the direction of the noise, half hidden behind the corner to the hallway, eyes darting around the room in search of a target.

Warm breath brushes against the shell of your ear. An arm slides around your waist.

“Boo.”

You jump, moving to spin around and face the man behind you, but that arm locks tight around your ribs before you can so much as exhale, pinning you in place against a warm chest. You hear a pop over your shoulder, followed by the thunk of a foam bullet hitting the wall and the soft rustle of someone skillfully dodging the attack.

You drop, one hand flying up to wrap around the barrel of the plastic pistol by your head as your leg swings out behind you, catching an ankle and knocking Adrian off-balance just enough for you to send him to the carpet. You spin out of the way, aiming at the shadow on the ground, and-

And the shadow moves just in time to dodge. Fuck.

Two bullets pop, only one of them coming from your gun, and this time you hear a frustrated grunt across the room as one hits home.

That’s a loss. Or, in your case, a victory. Now, you just have to get to the light to see which one of them it actually hit.

It’s as your fingers are finally finding the switch that you hear another soft pop. Feel the foam bullet connect.

When the lights do flick on, you spare a glance down. The ammunition sticks to your shoulder.

You turn with narrowed eyes, and petulantly fire your own weapon at the first Adrian you see.

It sticks to his nose.

He laughs, and the sound is warm and lovely, a little softer than your own Adrian’s manic cackle. He doesn’t even bother to pull the little bullet off of his face. “Sore loser.”

“I didn’t lose. He did.” You retort, fighting back a smile as you silence the Adrian in question’s laughter with a shot that sticks to the lens of his glasses. He goes quiet with surprise, just for a moment, before he’s laughing again.

“So you’re mad that I won?”

“You cheated.”

“Mhm.” He moves closer, and you watch something shift in his eyes. Something heavy and hungry and amplified enough since last night that even the hint of it makes electricity shoot through you. “How did I cheat, baby?”

You try to roll your eyes, but he’s already crossed the room. Already pulled the nerf bullet from his nose. He’s before you in a moment, hands sliding over your waist and fingertips whispering up past the hem of your shirt to tease over bare skin.

“Was it because I touched you when you were trying to focus?” He asks, casual save for the low tone of his voice. “Did you get distracted when you felt my hands on you?”

“Pretty sure you were about to use me as a human shield.” You try, but his eyes are suddenly so dark and his fingertips are dipping just-barely into your waistband and you can’t keep yourself from squirming a little.

“Is that what I was doing?”

“Stop answering my questions with more questions.”

“Or what?”

“Adrian.” You’re frustrated, but you can’t deny the heat pooling in your core. The way his touch is sending electricity through your entire body.

And then, like he’s been summoned by the mere use of his name, your Adrian is there, lips against your ear and his own hands sliding around you from behind.

“Hi.” He murmurs, close enough to send a shiver down your spine. Judging by the grin on Other Adrian’s face before you, they both feel it. “Fuck, I love when you say that. Say my name again.”

“You’re both fucking insane. And hornier than teenagers.”

“And you’re doing a pretty bad job of pretending you don’t want it just as badly.”

“Shut up.” Your half-hearted protest definitely seems a little weaker now that you can feel your Adrian’s lips against the hollow of your throat.

Other Adrian presses closer to you, sandwiching you between his chest and your Adrian’s behind you. His head dips down, nose brushing your throat. “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Fingertips skim your waistband again. Another pair of familiar hands are sliding up beneath your shirt. You are thinking about it. About the bone-melting feeling of one version of the man you love pulling you apart piece by aching piece while the other held you together. About the filthy words whispered against your skin, demands and praise echoing in your ears as you tried your best to keep from moaning loudly enough that the entire block would wake to the sound of it.

“What are you thinking about now?” Other Adrian asks, like he fucking knows, and the tone of his voice makes your knees weak.

His fingers skate over your lower stomach, sliding teasingly over the curve of your hip. Your Adrian’s arms tighten around you, but the possessiveness isn’t quite there. Not now. Now, it’s just hunger. Want.

“My mouth? His mouth?” Other Adrian continues, still so close it would take no effort at all to close the distance. God help you, you want to. His words make you shiver, and your Adrian presses another soft kiss to the side of your throat. “Cause I’m thinking about yours. Haven’t stopped since last night.” He leans closer, until each word is brushing over your lips like a kiss. “You just say the word, and I’ll bend you over that couch and make you-“

The knock on the door is the loudest thing you’ve ever heard.

You jump back in surprise, only for your Adrian to catch you. He smiles, releasing you with a playful lick to your neck, and you run a hand through your hair as you try to steady your breathing.

“You two are gonna fucking kill me.”

“Nah,” your Adrian says, looking about two seconds from pulling you back to him, “I love you way too much.”

Another knock, and you can feel the impatience behind it.

When you open the door, Emilia Harcourt is standing on the other side.

Her eyes, always assessing, always so aware, peer behind you.

“Christ, I thought Chris was joking when he said this place was a twenty-four-seven fuckfest. You look like you just-“

“Okay, none of that. Don’t need any more of that.” You cut her off, leaning against the door. She’s threatened to shoot Adrian in the face for oversharing about your sex life before. You’re pretty sure that she’ll pull the trigger this time if she hears them both ramble on about your recent…activities. For the sake of their own safety, they definitely don’t need any encouragement to do so. “C’mon in.”

She looks around the room as she walks into the apartment, eyes scanning the dropped plastic pistols and scattered foam bullets.

“This shit again? It’s like you’re fucking five. I thought Evil Adrian would at least be the mature one.”

“Since when did we all agree to call me Evil Adrian?”

“Since you kidnapped me, tied me up in your apartment, and tried to trap me in an alternate dimension with you.”

“You’re so fucking sexy when you hold a grudge.”

“Ooh, speaking of sexy,” your Adrian pipes up, and you almost hide your face in your hands. “Ems, you’ll never guess what we-“

“Don’t need to hear it.” She stops him, and he goes silent with a disappointed little frown.

“I was just gonna say we all-“

“Flagg found what he needed.” Emilia cuts him off again, and you’re not sure if it’s the words themselves or the way you freeze that makes Adrian finally go quiet.

The world drops from beneath your feet. The implication of that one sentence hangs heavy in the air.

“And what was that?” You ask, feigning a casual tone, but you don’t care. She knows you don’t care.

Because now there’s no reason for Other Adrian to stay here. Now he can go home.

“I don’t know.” She says, and she means it. No bullshit. No sugar coating. Still, there’s something flickering in her eyes when she looks at you. Something breaking through her usual tough exterior. Something like pity. You don’t like it. It makes the rest of this feel too heavy. Too real.

The last time you saw that look was back in the hospital, when you’d woken between bouts of fitful sleep to find Adrian back in your bed and Emilia sitting in a chair beside you, elbows on her knees and a frown on her lips. When she’d looked at you, there was the smallest hint of vulnerability in her eyes, something tired and worried hiding behind her steely expression. You couldn’t help but feel flattered.

-

“Hi.” You’d said, hoarse and pained.

“Your psycho boyfriend tried to bite a nurse.” She’d said back, blunt and simple, and your eyes had moved from the Adrian holding you to the one still sitting on the other side of the bed.

They both had bags under their eyes. They’d both been frowning in their sleep.

“Which one?” And there had been something in your voice, something confused and tired and guilty, that had made her eyes soften just a little more.

She’d just nodded to your Adrian. Your frown had deepened.

“They really freaked out, huh?”

“They might have tried to kill each other. And a couple of EMTs.”

Adrian’s arms had tightened a little around you. You felt a fitful puff of breath against your hair.

“Thanks.” You’d murmured, on the not-very-far-fetched assumption that she had knocked one or even both of them unconscious at some point during your struggle to stay alive.

The corner of her mouth twitched in a hint of a smile. “Anytime.”

-

“You don’t know?” You ask now, thrown off by her answer. “What do you mean you don’t know? You didn’t ask? Flagg didn’t tell-“

“Look, it doesn’t matter. I had a job. I did the job. I’m not here to argue about it, I’m here to risk fucking up that job again for your sake.” She snaps, and your frown only deepens. She’s even pissier than usual tonight. You wonder if the tension between her and Chris lately has anything to do with it. Whatever is between them has been fucking palpable since he got out of prison. Even Adrian has noticed how hard they seem to be pining for each other. And he’s…well, Adrian.

You’re about to open your mouth to confront her about it right then and there, but your argument is brought to a screeching halt when she pulls out a keycard.

“Just make sure to go when no one is there. And don’t fucking kill anyone.”

You stare at the card. Other Adrian stares at you. Your Adrian stares at Other Adrian. Emilia seems uncomfortable with the heaviness that’s suddenly settled itself over the room.

And, despite being in a room with two versions of Adrian Chase, everything is very, very quiet.

-

Taglist (CLOSED): @melsland, @sleepdeprivedfrfr, @argum3ntativedr3amgirl, @lolnothx06, @almostjollypizza, @papitas-con-sal, @xc15ck, @sweetpeapod, @le-lena, @slightlypossessed, @vigil-mort, @moonchild323232, @isuspectitwasthenargles, @adiviggf, @Ivspedri, @yeetomyhawpartner, @sithdaya, @stacyry, @spookysins, @quiff-n-queef, @hexadecahedron, @itsmekalou, @reidsgubbler, @elfgirl161616, @orchids-orchidseverywhere, @06stryker, @xthejazzdelorianx, @lushalternative, @weable, @ath3nasgard3n, @paperbackcranes, @212functions, @raggedy-bloom, @wordholic, @ghostheartbeat, @lostbee20, @solo-pitstop-vibes, @mirrorball-6, @madzmoxy, @knuckledickstiger, @she-sounds-hideous, @dionysuskid21, @mclaren2245, @sarahskywalker-amidala, @yagurlannastasia, @girxwrp, @l4vstrr, @alex278, @lettucel0ver, @m0th-h, @nuclearburger

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

dear lord, please take all life problems and responsibilities away from fanfic writers but also make them financially stable and happy with nothing to worry about so they can happily focus on writing and posting fanfiction. amen

[cursedartistnelari]

An appreciation post for my ice baddie

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Not Quite Him Masterlist

NOT QUITE HIM - Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: After following Chris Smith through a strange door leads to you getting knocked unconscious, you wake up at home in the familiar arms of your boyfriend.

But as clarity comes back to you, you start to realize that the man in your bed, the one holding you like you might run at any moment and kissing you like he hasn’t seen you in years…he’s not Adrian. At least, not the one that you know. And now that he has you, he's not planning to let you leave.

(Taglist is closed, I’m sorry!)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Drabbles

Alt!Adrian's relationship w/ Alt!you You Again How Alt!Adrian and Alt!You met/got together Angsty Alt!Adrian revenge rampage drabble Spicy Alt!Adrian drabble Halloween Special

Other

The amazing @jellybean000 made a playlist for this fic!

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Not Quite Him - Part 9

Pairing: Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: By some miracle, you managed to survive your encounter in the library. But now, finally back in your own dimension and recovering from the wound that nearly killed you, you’re faced with a whole new mess of problems.

Other Adrian is in your dimension with you. The portal is gone. Both Adrians are more than a little traumatised by your near-death. And, maybe most importantly of all, none of you have any idea where you’re supposed to go from here.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of injuries, Reader is on painkillers for a sec (waking up in the hospital), Mentions of death, Mentions of sex, Smut, A little bit of threesome action??, Both Adrian’s are overprotective as fuck, OG!Adrian is oblivious and inappropriate, Alt!Adrian is also inappropriate but he knows damn well what he’s doing, Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author’s Note: Finally, am I right?? Thank you guys for being so patient waiting for this chapter! I hope you love it! We’ve got angst! We’ve got some sexy action! We’ve got pining and fluff and Adrians arguing and Adrians getting along (worse) and just a whole lot of our boy Adrian Chase! As always, PLEASE let me know what you think!!

(This is part of Not Quite Him. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I encourage you to!)

-

This time, when you come back, it’s slower.

Your eyes crack open like they’ve been weighed down by fucking anvils. You don’t jolt. You don’t gasp. You just sort of…melt back into consciousness. The pain comes slowly, an ache spreading from your center through your entire body. It’s dulled, now, but it’s there. Very, very much there.

Your vision is blurry. Your mouth is dry. Something is beeping a little too loud, and your head hurts.

Other You was right. Coming back does suck.

When you make a miserable little noise, you’re surprised to feel it muffled by the soft fabric of a sweatshirt. That fabric shifts, just a little, and you blink as you turn your head up to look into familiar green eyes behind familiar, silver-rimmed glasses.

“Hey. Hi.” Adrian murmurs, voice hoarse and so much more quiet than usual. “Don’t move, okay? And don’t talk too loud. They’ll kick me out of the bed again if they see me here.” He looks exhausted. There are bags under his eyes that you’ve never seen before. You think you see the silvery streaks of dried tears on his cheeks. “The nurses get so pissed here. They say I have one more strike before I’m not allowed back in the room, but you were shivering in your sleep so I thought you might want me to hold you.”

You blink again, still a little delirious, and lean your head back into the crook of his arm. You feel a shaky breath against the top of your hair. Feel his lips press against the crown of your head.

Your hand feels warm. When you look down, you see Adrian again.

“You’re sleeping.” You mumble, still trying to blink away the fog.

“It’s not me.” He kisses the top of your head again, inhaling deeply in that way that is so familiar it doesn’t even register as weird or creepy anymore, and his arm twitches like he wants to pull you closer but he’s worried about moving you at all. “It’s the other me.”

“Other you.” You repeat, a little absentmindedly. His head is resting next to your joined hands. His eyes are closed like he might have fallen asleep watching you. He doesn’t look peaceful, but his features are relaxed. He looks…

“Pretty.” You murmur, and wonder if you said that out loud.

“Thank you.” Your Adrian says, and his fingers skate restlessly over your arm. “I mean, I’ll say thank you. He looks like me. We have the same face. It’s still weird to look at him. Kinda cool, though.”

You turn your head up to look at him again. You like that he’s holding you. His bicep is beneath your cheek, and the fabric of his sweatshirt smells like him and feels nicer than any pillow you’ve ever laid your head on.

“Hi.” You say, and smile.

He looks like he’s going to cry. He’s definitely been crying. You don’t like that at all.

“You’re on a whole bunch of painkillers.” He explains, and his smile looks so relieved and loving and still holds too many traces of fear. You try to reach for him with your free hand, and he stops you, warm fingers wrapping gently around your wrist and pushing it back down to the mattress.

“Don’t move. You’ve got an IV. They’ll kick me out if the bed beeps again. And then I can’t hold you anymore.”

Well, you don’t want that. “Okay.” You hum, and nuzzle your nose into his arm. He smells good. Like laundry detergent and that cheap cologne he likes and just a little bit of gunpowder and bleach. “You look scared. Did I scare you?”

“Yeah.” He breathes, and there’s a hoarseness to his voice makes him sound painfully vulnerable. “I watched you die.”

“I didn’t die.” You didn’t. You’re here now, right? Unless you’re in heaven. This might be heaven. Adrian is here and he’s warm and he feels nice. Like home.

“You got so cold.” He sounds a little distant, and when you look up at him you see something familiar creeping into his eyes. Something that doesn’t fit this version of him, but that you’ve seen too many times on his alternate self. “You stopped breathing. I keep listening to you breathe, now. I can’t sleep unless I feel it.” His hand moves up from your arm, and touches your cheek. Soft. Gentle. A hesitant, barely there little caress like anything harder might hurt you. “Please don’t stop breathing again. Ever.”

You lean your face into his touch, smiling again, and you see the corners of his eyes glisten as he looks down at you.

“Okay, I won’t.” And you won’t. If it makes him happy, and if it makes those tears go away, you’ll keep breathing until the universe itself crumbles to dust.

You feel the Other Adrian twitch. Feel his hand flex in your own. You look down at him, brow furrowing.

“I should wake him up.” You think you’d like to hear him speak. To look into his eyes. You want to see if that darkness is still there so you can try to soothe it away. He must have been scared, too.

Your Adrian smoothes your hair back. Kisses your temple. “Can I keep you, right now?” He asks, tone so much more tired and gentle than you’re used to. “Can I just hold you for a while and listen to you breathe? He gets pissed when I get in the bed, too.”

You don’t want him to leave the bed, so you nod. “Okay, weirdo.”

For a moment, you just lay there. Maybe it’s the painkillers, but this is definitely the best feeling in the world. Your body still aches, and you’re still very tired, but Adrian’s chest is rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He smells familiar. He feels familiar. He’s the best thing in the entire world. You love him so much you think it hurts.

“Hey.” You murmur after a few minutes of silence, voice muffled by his arm.

“Mhm?” He’s still quiet. His fingers are still combing through your hair.

“Will you marry me?”

His laugh is absolutely wonderful. Short and sharp and just a little choked, but genuine and filled with a love sweeter than honey. He doesn’t even answer in words, just an emphatic little nod as he pulls back to look at you. Oh man, those are tears again.

“Stop crying, please.” You try to reach up to wipe his tears away, and he catches your hand again.

“IV.” He reminds you, pressing a little kiss to your nose. “But I’ll stop crying.” He shifts his grip on your hand, locking his pinky with yours. “Pinky swear.”

“Thank you.” You lean up, and kiss his nose right back. He scrunches it up, smiling again, and the tears seem to have stopped for now. “Wanna tell me some owl facts?”

His smile grows, and he tucks you closer to his chest with one final sniffle. You hum, snuggling as close as all the damn wires and the tiny little bed with allow. “Yeah. Did you know owls have two stomachs?”

“Yeah?” Even in your current state, you’re pretty sure that’s not right.

“Yeah, it’s how they hoot so loud. And how they eat whole mouse skeletons.”

You fall asleep like that. To the familiar cadence of his voice. The feeling of his breath against your skin, his arms holding you as close as possible. It’s warm. Comfortable. Home.

Home.

-

When your eyes creak open again, it’s still night. You’re still wrapped up in Adrian’s arms, his nose pressed so tightly against your hair you can feel the rims of his glasses digging into your skin.

“Does he always do that?”

You look up, shifting your head at the sound of your boyfriend’s voice, coming from too far down the bed to belong to the man holding you.

“Do what?” You ask, and Other Adrian is still holding your hand, sitting exactly where he was before. His eyes are open now, looking at you, and his thumb is brushing absentmindedly over your knuckles.

“Talk in his sleep.”

As if to emphasize the point, Adrian pulls you a little closer and mumbles some kind of nonsense into your hair. You smile, unable to help yourself. “Yeah. He snores too.”

“Oh, I know.” Other Adrian smiles back, and his hand squeezes yours like you’re sharing a secret. “He won’t stop getting in your hospital bed. The nurses fucking hate him.”

“I love him.” You breathe, and there’s no malice behind it. No ‘I love him and not you’ to the statement. No point to be proven. You’re just stating a fact, plain and simple, and you feel Adrian’s arms tighten a little fitfully around you, like he just might hear you even through the barrier of sleep. A surge of affection swells in your heart, and you almost roll over to cuddle closer to him, wires and beeping hospital beds be damned. “There’s always so much going on in his head. I love that he always wants to share it with me. Even when he’s sleeping.” Or when he’s in the middle of a shift at work. Or when you’re trying to stealthily break into a building. There is no barrier in the world that can stop Adrian Chase from telling you what’s on his mind, and none that can stop you from listening.

The Other Adrian doesn’t seem too bothered by your words. In fact, he smiles a little. It’s sad, and you can see the lingering hint of jealousy in his eyes, feel it in the way he squeezes your hand like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but there’s no anger. No intense possessiveness. Just…acceptance. Maybe a little bit of longing. Maybe a lot.

“Where are we?”

His smile falters a little, like he knew this line of questioning was coming, but he still hasn’t fully prepared himself to respond. “Hospital.”

“Yeah, I figured that part.”

“In your dimension.”

“…Oh.”

“ARGUS has the portal.” He says, and the explanation sounds like a confession. You understand his meaning right away. He’s stuck here, now. Because he wouldn’t leave you. Not when he thought you were dying. “Your Chris Smith is in prison, too. He won’t let anyone see him.”

“Shit.” You mumble, and your first thought is of how much worse that has to have made everything for Adrian. Once again, you fight the urge to roll over, kiss him and hold him and tell him everything is gonna be okay because you’ll be damned if you don’t fucking make it that way.

But you can do that later. You will do that later. For now, you just squeeze Other Adrian’s hand.

And you look at him. Really look at him. He looks just as tired as the Adrian holding you now, but there’s something so much more…quiet about it. About him. Something reserved and injured and, if you had to put a name to it, fucking traumatized. You wonder if he’s let go of your hand since you got here. He’s still tracing his thumb over your knuckles like he’s trying to anchor himself to the warmth of your skin.

You’re still learning his eyes. The levels of darkness and clarity that come and go. There’s no darkness there, now. Just exhaustion. Worry. Pain. You have to stop yourself from pulling him to you. From trying to soothe that pain by kissing it away.

“You look weird without your glasses.”

He smiles, and it’s sad and relieved and filled with so much love all at the same time. He raises your hand to his lips, kissing the back of it and threading his fingers through yours. The way he tilts his head, cheek still pressed against your joined hands as he smiles at you, is so boyish and sweet that it thins the line between him and the Adrian you know until your heart aches. “I know.”

“You saved my life, didn’t you?”

His smile stutters, and he squeezes your hand once more before he pulls his head back, looking to your Adrian before shifting his gaze back to you. “We both did.” He lowers your joined hands back to the bed, searching for words as memories fill his eyes. “I learned how…after…”

A deep breath. A pull back to clarity. “I  knew how to slow the bleeding.” His eyes move back to your Adrian, who, as if he can sense the conversation happening beside him, nuzzles his nose restlessly into your hair again and mumbles something about crows. “I lost it, a little, when you…” you don’t think you’ve ever seen either of them at a loss for words before. Even this Adrian, who is so different from yours in so many ways, always has something to say. Even if whatever it is will infuriate you.

He takes another deep breath, eyes dropping to your still-joined hands. “He got you to the ambulance. They brought you back. They say it’s a medical miracle you lived.”

You sit there with that information for a moment. Let the weight of what happened sink into you.

“I think I met the other me.” You say, and his eyes snap right back to your face. “Or I hallucinated her or something. I don’t know. But she uh…kicked me.”

His brows twitch, and he looks at you like he’s trying to figure out if they upped your dose of painkillers. “What?”

His hand is warm in yours, calloused in all the same places as your Adrian’s. You look down at it, and now you brush your thumb over his knuckles. Soft. Gentle. The gesture makes something catch in his throat. “She asked me to take care of you, and then she kicked me through a door. And now I’m here” You try to explain, and it sounds so ridiculous when you say it out loud that you really do wonder if it had all been some kind of near-death dream.

He blinks, something like shock passing over his face. Then doubt. Then…hope. Grief. Love. All pulled together to twist his features into the saddest smile you think you’ve ever seen. He doesn’t let go of your hand, but his free hand comes up to wipe at his eyes. “Sounds about right.”

“Sorry for dying again.”

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob breaks from him, and he shakes his head before running his hand through his hair. “I forgive you. Just…don’t do it again, okay?”

“Okay.”

He leans over you, and you feel the warm press of his lips against your forehead. It’s nice. Very nice. You close your eyes, and barely notice your own contented hum.

“Go back to sleep.” He murmurs, breath soft against your skin. “I’ll be right here.”

-

You’re pulled back to consciousness by the feeling of Adrian’s lips against your own. Soft, familiar, and questioning. You’ve always loved how he wakes you with kisses. The way he always smiles when you stir, pressing closer like you’re giving him some sort of gift by returning his affection.

You do so now, and earn yourself that smile. He pulls back with one more gentle peck, and you only have a moment to look into his eyes, see the hunger and intention there, before he’s leaning back down and trailing his lips over your jaw.

“Be nice and quiet, okay?” He murmurs, voice low and gentle in that familiar way that is always saved for your most intimate moments. “I’m gonna make you feel good.”

You make a noise of confusion, and he answers the wordless question with a hum and a little nip to a particularly sensitive spot beneath your ear, fingers sliding along your thigh to push up the hem of your hospital gown.

“Adrian…” you murmur, even as your body instinctively relaxes beneath his. It’s late, and the room is quiet, but you’re pretty sure that if he isn’t allowed in the bed with you then you’re definitely not allowed to do this.

“Shh.” He shifts beside you, tracing a teasing pattern along the inside of your thigh, slow and lazy and calculated. He pulls back just far enough to press a kiss to your cheek. Then your nose. Your other cheek. “Gotta be quiet. Don’t wanna bring any of the nurses in here.”

His lips are back on your neck, warm and soft and intoxicating, and you can’t help but tilt your head back a little to allow him more access.

Fingers glide through your hair, and your gaze snaps to…Adrian. The other Adrian, looking down at you with eyes clouded over with lust as your own Adrian bites gently at your throat. You make a soft noise, opening your mouth to say something, but your Adrian moves up to silence you with another kiss.

“Shh.” He murmurs again, hand trailing higher, breath mingling with your own as he speaks. “It’s okay. It’s okay to want it.”

Adrian’s hand reaches the apex of your thighs, and your gasp is muffled by his mouth as his fingers begin to move in a steady, practiced rhythm, sending a wave of sparks straight to your core. He breaks away after a few moments, only to trail his lips back down to your ear. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, strained with desire and a hunger so deep you nearly moan from his tone alone. “I’m gonna show him how good I can make you feel. Do you want that?”

You open your mouth to speak, but another movement of Adrian’s fingers makes you choke on a whimper instead, hand flying up to muffle the noise with your hand. You nod, and feel him smile as he catches the lobe of your ear between his teeth and curls his fingers so deep, so deliciously, that you swear your vision blurs. You thank every star in the fucking sky for Adrian’s obsessive personality. For the time he took when you first got together to learn your body like a personal project. To figure out every movement, every touch that makes you fall apart.

The Other Adrian’s fingers wrap around your wrist, guiding your hand away from your mouth as he leans forward until your lips brush. The touch is soft, barely there, and he watches like a damn predator as Adrian curls his fingers again and you squirm.

“Stay still, baby.” He whispers, nose brushing against yours, lips hovering over your own. You lean up to kiss him, and he pulls back a little, thumb brushing over your cheek as he watches you, laser focused on every shallow breath. Every twitch in your expression.

When you gasp again, something in him seems to snap, and he kisses you so hungrily that you forget where you are. Your hand tangles in his hair, back arching off of the bed and sending a jolt of pain through your injuries. His hand pushes you back down, gentle but firm, and the noise that escapes him is so low and feral that it pushes every thought out of your head.

Your Adrian speeds up the movements of his fingers, biting down at the hollow of your throat hard enough to leave a mark, and you would fucking writhe if you weren’t held down by the other Adrian’s hands.

“That’s it.” He coos, as another crook of your Adrian’s fingers makes you grip his hair so tightly you would worry you’d pull it out by the fucking root if you could think straight. He groans, pressing closer, and you think you can feel his body shaking with restraint. “Fuck, look at you.”

“So fucking perfect.” Your Adrian whispers, breath hot on your neck as the other Adrian kisses you again, rougher now. Hungrier. “So fucking tight. Fuck, I love you so much. Louder.”

You moan against the Other Adrian’s mouth, and he growls in response as his hand tightens on your waist, fingers digging deep into your skin. Your Adrian nudges him to the side, crushing his mouth to yours and biting down hard on your lip. You whine, desperation clawing at you as you feel his near-manic grin against your mouth.

It feels good. So, so fucking good. Heat builds in your core, toes curling against the crisp hospital sheets as you grasp at whatever part of either of them you can reach. The pain is forgotten, pressure building fast as you-

You wake with a gasp, a jolt of pain shooting through you as you nearly bolt upright. The room is still dark, the soft glow of early morning sunlight trickling in through the window.

And both Adrian’s are awake. And both of them are watching you.

Your Adrian’s arm is still beneath your head, bicep acting as a makeshift pillow. His alternate watches you from the side of the bed, still in the same chair.

“Which one of us was that about?” He asks, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a knowing little smirk. His gaze is burning into you so deeply that it takes actual effort not to hide yourself from it. To keep your thighs from clenching together as you try to breathe through the lingering memories of the dream.

“One time she had a sex dream about the hamburglar.” Your Adrian says, like he’s being helpful, and you blink in surprise as your cheeks begin to heat with embarrassment. “I mean, I tried to tell her it’s not that weird. But he is a criminal, which is a little fucked up in my opinion. She said she didn’t want me to dress up like him for sex, though-“

“She said our name, dumbass.”

“I know.” He snaps, defensive, and he nuzzles the side of your head with almost absentminded affection. “Maybe she was dreaming about me in the hamburglar costume.”

“Okay, I wasn’t.” You turn your eyes to the other Adrian, frowning despite what must be a very bright shade of red staining your cheeks. “And don’t call him dumbass.”

“Would be hot, though.” Your Adrian says, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“What would?”

“Me in a hamburglar costume. You’d think that was hot.”

He’s not gonna move past the hamburglar thing until you acknowledge it, apparently. So, as you always do when he finds something to lock in on, you give it the moment of thought he clearly believes it deserves. At the very least, it’ll draw attention away from the dream you were actually having.

You turn to him, look him up and down as best you can in your current position. “Hm…I think you could pull it off.”

“Fuck yeah. You’re such a perv.”

“You’re the one who asked.”

“And he’s a criminal. We kill criminals. That’s like, triple perverted.”

“You’re such a weirdo.”

“Rabble rabble.”

“What?”

“Oh my God, you totally blushed. I bet it’s like Niagara Falls in your panties right now.”

“Adrian.” You’re trying so hard, so valiantly, not to laugh. But that’s the thing about Adrian, and one of the things you love so much about him. He isn’t even really fucking with you right now. He just sees the spark in your eyes, the hint of laughter building up after so much pain and hurt, and he’s pushing at it. So many people, even your closest friends, might get annoyed with him quickly, but you never have. You don’t think you ever will. No matter how goofy, unhinged, or just plain weird he can be.

When you first met, you laughed at a joke he made. It wasn’t really even that funny - just said at the right time in the right tone to throw you off guard and pull a giggle from you. He made that same joke every day for the next week, always turning to you the moment he said it. It took you three days of confusion to realize that he was just trying to make you laugh again. Trying to get you to giggle again. That’s why you love him. Your sweet, earnest, obsessive weirdo.

It’s when you turn to Other Adrian, as yours continues to chase your laughter with more teasing, that the giggle now rising in your throat is cut off by a rush of heat.

His eyes are dark. He’s still smirking, but there’s something cocky and very knowing in the expression that sends your thoughts right the fuck back into your dream. When you meet his gaze, his smile widens.

I know. That look says, that cockiness and confidence still so strange to see on Adrian’s face. You can’t hide from me.

You might be fucked.

-

Eventually, they release you from the hospital, and there’s not much left to do but go home.

Living with Adrian Chase is never boring. Living with two Adrians is…interesting. Healing from a mortal wound with two insanely protective versions of Adrian is…

Fucking annoying.

“Get. Off. The. Chair.”

“No.”

“I think I can grab her by the legs without hurting her.” Your Adrian says, standing on the opposite side of where his alternate self has his arms crossed over his chest, narrowed eyes fixed on you.

“Ade, if you try it, I will bite you.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop smiling like that.”

“Why? It sounds hot.” He flexes his fingers, a subtle twitch he has before he jumps into action, and you don’t need to know him as well as you do to know that he’s about to pounce on you.

“Look, I can fix a damn lightbulb. I was stabbed. I didn’t lose my legs.”

“You bled out.” Other Adrian says, and that stern expression still looks so strange, especially when you have your own Adrian nearly vibrating with energy and grinning like a maniac on your other side. “If you fall and reopen the wound you could-“

“It’s been two weeks. I won’t reopen the-“

Your argument is cut off by a squeak of surprise as your legs are swept out from beneath you, and you suddenly find yourself wrapped in your Adrian’s arms as he swings you off of the chair so swiftly and carefully that it barely makes the all-too-familiar pain in your stomach flare up. Still, you struggle and curse on principle as he lowers you to the ground, arms wrapping around you tightly enough to keep you still as his lips press against the side of your head with an exaggerated little ‘mwah!’. You would find the gesture cute on a regular day, but after two weeks of barely being allowed to sneeze without one of them freaking out that your wound will reopen, you’re getting pretty close to wringing his neck.

“You’re so fucking overprotective.” You grouch, and he pecks the side of your head again like you just gave him a compliment. “I wasn’t nearly this annoying back when you got shot.”

“You’re grumpy today.”

“I’m not grumpy. I’m pissed. And capable of changing a fucking lightbulb.”

“She’s just hard up.” Other Adrian says, blunt and confident, and you nearly growl with irritation at the smirk you can hear in his voice. That irritation grows when your Adrian pulls back, grinning wide and leaning close enough that he goes a little cross-eyed trying to look into your eyes.

“Yeah? Are you all pissy because the doctor said no sex until you’re better?”

“I’m not pissy.”

“Aww, you’re so pissy.” He kisses your cheek, still smiling. “Don’t worry. Once you can take the bandages off we’re gonna fuck like bunny rabbits. You know they have sex like, a hundred times a day?”

“There’s no way they do that.”

“They do, and we’re gonna. Other me can even watch, since he’s living here too and he’s me.”

“Oh my God,” you grumble, thunking your head against his shoulder. “This is so fucking weird. I swear, every day you both make it weirder.”

“You saying you want me to fuck you instead?” The Other Adrian is goading you, and you bristle even as both of their words make traitorous heat rise to your cheeks.

“Shut up.” You grouch, and Your Adrian misunderstands your reaction right fucking away.

“Don’t worry.” He hums, distracting himself with pressing slow kisses along the side of your neck. Despite yourself, you melt against him, and you’re pretty sure he must be feeling as pent up as you are, if the way he immediately pulls you flush against him is any indication. “You’re mine. All mine.” He nips at the hollow of your throat, and there’s a hint of a possessive growl in his voice when he adds. “Just mine.”

The Other Adrian clears his throat, and when you turn to him, you can see the hunger in his eyes. His gaze is locked on you.

You turn your attention back to the Adrian currently pressed against you.

“Hey, weirdo.” You pull back a little, catching his face in your hands and pulling it back from your neck. And there it is. That little twinge of darkness that’s lingered since your injury, coming and going along with his own special brand of manic excitement. He’s started losing himself sometimes, just a little, though it’s easily soothed away with a touch and firm reminder to focus. “Look at me, okay?”

He does, but the darkness just creeps in a little more. His hand comes up, gripping your chin and angling your head so he can kiss you so deeply your knees threaten to buckle. His tongue slides into your mouth, rough and claiming, and his other hand snakes around your waist.

“Mine.” He mumbles against your lips again, pulling you even closer to him. “All fucking-“

When a hand pulls him back, you have to blink a few times to orient yourself.

“You’re gonna rip her stitches.” The Other Adrian’s voice is low. His eyes are on you. Your Adrian’s hands haven’t left you.

The darkness in his eyes, and in the eyes of his alternate, makes you wonder, vaguely, if it’s mirrored in your own. A dangerous, violent thing, shared by the three of you like a lit fuse, building day by day and preparing to drag all of you down into it.

His gaze drops to your lips. Your Adrian’s fingers tighten on your waist, hand sliding from your jaw up to your hair like he might yank you close and kiss you again before the other version of him has a chance to even think about doing so himself. The tension in the room feels heavy. It’s suddenly difficult to breathe.

And then the door opens.

“We brought- oh, fuck! I told you we’d walk in on a threesome! You owe me twenty bucks!”

“Aw man, gross.” Leots’s voice sounds right behind Chris’s, and you pull away from both versions of your boyfriend as your cheeks burn with a combination of lust and embarrassment.

“We’re not having a threesome.” You say, defensive, and when you move to take another step back you feel Adrian’s hands tighten on you. Hard. Only for a moment, only long enough for you to catch sight of him blinking a few times, like he’s having a little more trouble breaking free of the spell than you are.

He releases you, and whatever was on his face is replaced with his usual, easy smile.

“Nope. No threesomes. She’s alllll mine.” He hums, pressing a quick peck to your nose. When you look up at him, his smile is sharp enough to send a shiver down your spine.

-

“Any updates?”

“Ems and Economos are still looking, but they’re both pretty sure we’re not gonna be getting access to that portal any time soon.” Leota’s tone is apologetic as she takes a sip of her beer, eyes moving from your face to the two Adrian’s sitting on either side of you. It’s Chris’s gaze, however, that catches your attention.

“Dude, can you stop staring at Adrian like that?”

“What?” Chris raises his eyebrows, defensive. “It’s just weird to see him so quiet, you know? He’s creepy.” His voice drops a little, and he leans toward you with a conspiratorial tone that you would mistake for a joke if he didn’t sound completely genuine. “He looks at me like he can read my fuckin’ mind or something.”

“I can.” Other Adrian says, just as serious, and your Adrian laughs. Loud.

“Wait, seriously? Can you?” He sits up a little, looking around like he’s trying to see if he should be in on a joke.

“No, he can’t.” You provide, shooting a glare towards the Other Adrian. B-drian? After all of this time, you wonder if you should give him a nickname or something.

“Okay, good. Because we haven’t had sex in forever, and like, ninety five percent of my thoughts are about fucking you now. I still feel like it would be fucked up if he saw that in his minds eye or-“

“Dude.” Leota makes a face. Adrian, of course, misunderstands it.

“No, seriously. The doctor says no sex or ‘vigorous activities’ until the bandages are off, but the other day she made this whimpering noise when she bumped against the counter and hurt her stomach and it sounded exactly like the noise she makes when I-“

Your hand flies up to cover his mouth. He scrunches his eyebrows in confusion, and licks your palm. You pull it back, and fail to hide your smile as you wipe your hand on the sleeve of his shirt. You honestly can’t count how many times you’ve done that before. Overshare. Cover mouth. Get palm licked. Like clockwork.

“Well hey, at least Evil Adrian doesn’t overshare about your sex life all the damn time.” Leota mumbles, cringing.

“Trust me, I’m familiar with the whimpering noise.” He says, leaning back a little more against the couch with a shit-eating grin. “Actually, I know how to make it a screaming noise if I-“

Your other palm covers his mouth, now. His grin only widens, and he bites it.

“Ow.” You grouch, shaking off your hand as you pull it back.

“Oh great, there are two of them now.”

“Wait, what did I say?” Your Adrian asks as you wipe your stinging palm on your pant leg.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Just overshared a little again.” Easy explanation, and he gets it immediately. He doesn’t really see what’s wrong with it, sure. You can tell that from his expression alone. You’re pretty sure he would tell a drive through employee about every sex position you’ve ever attempted together if the thought crossed his mind. But he still smiles at you like he does get it, and it makes you love him even more. “You, on the other hand,” and you turn to glare at the other version of him, eyes narrowed, “know exactly what you did. And it’s not funny.”

“What?” He says, eyes widening with exaggerated innocence. “I don’t get it, either.”

“Shut up.”

“Should I demonstrate?”

“Shut up.”

“Yeah, shut up.” Your Adrian’s arm wraps around you, and he tugs you a little closer to him. “I get to demonstrate. Not you.”

“That’s not the- oh my God. Okay.” You look to your friends for help, but they both seem too invested - and disturbed - by the conversation happening before them.

“Oh man, there really are two of them.” Chris says, eyes darting between them, and you offer him a wide smile.

“Pick your favorite. I’m five minutes away from killing one of them.”

“She’s pent up because we haven’t had sex in a while.” Your Adrian supplies, and the innocent honesty in his tone is completely genuine.

“Four minutes.”

“You know, because of the bandages. But when they come off-“

“Three minutes.” You try to nudge him, but his hand just sneaks up beneath your shirt to brush a gentle touch over the bandages around your waist. He does that a lot, lately. Like he’s reminding himself that you’re patched up and alive. You don’t think he even notices that he’s doing it anymore.

“Shit. We’re totally gonna have another van incident.”

You groan. Adrian grins. Other Adrian cocks his head to the side in that subtle, observant way he has, looking to you with a single questioning eyebrow raised.

“We um…didn’t know the comms were on.”

“Neither did Economos. And he walked in right at the best part.” Adrian’s voice pipes up by your ear, and you feel a flush rising to your cheeks as Ads cringes again and Chris laughs. As usual, he doesn’t notice, switching his attention to his alternate self and barreling on. “Hey, did your version of her make that noise, by the way? You know, the cute little high pitched sound like right before she-“

“You got liquor?” Chris asks, already rising to his feet. “I think we need shots.”

“I think I need a vodka IV.” Leota adds, and stands with him.

Other Adrian stands too, but his eyes remain locked on you. “Yup.” He says, and it sounds like he’s agreeing with them, but you know what he means. Your Adrian does, too.

“That’s so cool. We should-“

“We should go take shots.” You pat his hand, rising to your feet.

This, you decide then and there, might just be a very long night.

-

Hours, and many beers later, you find yourselves on the roof. Adebayo sits beside you, and the two of you watch in comfortable silence as your Adrian tries to show his ‘famous butt dance’ to Chris and his alternate self.

“You know,” you finally say, fiddling with your beer bottle as you watch him, “he read something about birds seducing other birds with dancing a while back.”

“Is that why he did that dance at you at the bar for like, twenty minutes that one time?”

You snort, and nod. Ads laughs, the sound as bright and genuine as ever.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe that worked. You know his mom brought that up when we were looking for you? Did you know about the picture thing?” And when you nod again, she laughs even harder.

“He’s so fucking weird.” And it might be the alcohol, and it might be the comfort of having your friends and Chris back, but you feel a little lovesick watching him now. Like you might just love him so much it’s going to overflow from your pores and drown you in this sweet, sappy feeling.

“Sooo,” and that sounds like Leota’s ‘we’re about to talk about the elephant in the room’ tone. You don’t like that tone. Especially when you’re a few beers deep and feeling more comfortable and happy than you have in what feels like forever. “What are you gonna do?”

Your eyes shift to the Other Adrian. He’s watching you. He’s usually watching you.

You realize now, as your eyes connect across the dimly lit roof, that you haven’t seen him buzzed before. Or maybe you just haven’t seen him this relaxed. His cheeks are a little flushed, and the smile he offers you isn’t dark or mischievous or knowing. It’s…genuine. Open. It lacks the little hint of mania ever-present in your Adrian’s smile, but everything else is so similar. If it weren’t for his lack of glasses or his fitted t-shirt, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

That smile.

It’s changed, since the first time you saw it. There was sadness in it before. An aching sort of longing. A devotion that crossed the boundaries of universes and fixed itself on you.

Now it’s…different. And you realize, as you smile back at him, that the sadness isn’t there anymore. You’re not quite sure when it happened, but he’s stopped looking at you like you’re a ghost. Like you’re the resurrected love of his life. Now, when he looks at you, it feels like… it feels like he’s really looking at you. That longing and adoration isn’t meant for a long dead version of you anymore. It’s for you.

You don’t know if that’s better or worse.

“I don’t know.” You finally answer, eyes moving from Other Adrian and back to your own. He’s grinning at you too, wide and open and familiar. The ache in your stomach, still lingering as your wound heals, seems to have moved higher, clenching around your heart and making it difficult to breathe. “I really, really don’t know.”

-

You wake to muffled sounds from the living room. 

It’s soft, at first. So soft, in fact, that you’re able to brush it off and snuggle a little deeper into Adrian’s embrace, chasing sleep with a heavy sigh. He curls a bit more around you, cuddly as ever, and…

And then you hear something like quiet begging. A muffled sob that sounds a little too familiar, and much too far away to belong to the man currently holding you in his arms.

A nightmare. The Other Adrian is having a nightmare.

You can feel your Adrian wake beside you, light sleepers that both of you are. His arms tighten instinctively around you, breath stilling along with yours.

“Hi.” You whisper, the silence of the room seeming to amplify the familiar little word.

“Hi.” He whispers back.

“I have to go to him.” You do. The knowledge feels more like an instinct than a decision. All the weirdness and kidnapping and infuriating bullshit aside, you need to go into that room and stop his pain more urgently than you need to take your next breath.

Adrian’s arms tighten a little more. He takes a moment, nuzzling his nose into your temple, before nodding and loosening his hold.

When you begin to wiggle out of bed, however, his hand catches your arm. He pulls you back to him, still half awake, and presses his lips to yours. One sweet, reassuring little kiss. A moment of acceptance. Understanding.

You smile. Your heart swells. You squeeze his hand once in a silent reassurance of your own before you make your way to the couch.

The other Adrian is shaking. You see tears on his cheeks. His fists grip the couch cushions so tightly that you can see the muscles in his arm straining with the force of it.

You reach out, not an ounce of the hesitation that should be there present in this moment. Your hand meets his shoulder, and his eyes fly open as his hand moves faster than should be humanly possible to catch your wrist.

And then his eyes focus, and you watch clarity return to them like the glowing light of dawn as his grip softens.

“Baby?” He whispers, the petname hanging in the silence of the room. When you first met him, you didn’t think it sounded right. That it didn’t fit you. Because not even a month ago, you would have been able to confidently say that Adrian Chase doesn’t call you that. The last time he did was forever ago, when you came into his work and he introduced you to a coworker as ‘Her? Oh, that’s my girl. My baby. The apple-pie-of-my-eye.’

Now, with all that strange and unfamiliar weight behind it, it sounds…not exactly right. Not yet. It’s still too new. Too strange. But it’s…something.

“No.” You whisper, and tug at your hand a little. He loosens his hold a little more, and you surprise yourself when you don’t pull away, instead sliding your fingers into his. “Not uh…it’s me. The other one, I guess.”

To your surprise, he smiles a little, tears still drying on his cheeks and fear lingering in his eyes. But there’s no realization there. No moment of him differentiating you from his you, like you expected.

“I know.” He says, soft and low, and you have no doubt in your mind that he does. He knew it was you the whole time. Since before you pulled him back to consciousness. Maybe even before that.

The realization makes you still, something heavy crackling in the air between the two of you. Something warm and strange and new. He looks at you like he feels it too, careful fingers releasing your hand and moving slowly up to your side. You remain locked in place as he pushes your shirt up, and brushes a featherlight touch over the bandaged wound on your stomach.

“You were…” you pause, suddenly unsure of yourself. It feels so odd, standing above him like this. The silence is so heavy you can hear the hum of the refrigerator in the next room. The fan creaking above you. His eyes are still on your bandages, thumb sweeping featherlight over the sensitive skin at the edges. “You were having a nightmare.”

His eyes meet yours again, filled with so many emotions you wouldn’t be able to pin down a single one of them if you tried. When you still don’t move, he slides his hand a little further around your waist, pulling you forward so gently you may not even feel the touch if you weren’t so hyperaware of every movement. Every breath.

It’s as if your body moves of its own accord, guided by that same unnameable force that’s keeping your eyes locked. Your knees hit the couch on either side of his thighs. In turn, his arms wrap around you, forehead resting gently against your own and thumb tracing soothing little circles against your waist.

Your throat feels dry. This moment feels too fragile.

“You were having a nightmare.” You repeat, and he nods a little. He doesn’t try for anything else. Doesn’t try to kiss you, or touch you any more than he already is, or ask you to admit your feelings for him. He just holds you, like he’s savoring the moment. Like he’s trying to absorb every second before you pull away from him again.

Your fingers come up to comb through his hair. It’s so soft, just like your Adrian’s. He smells the same. Gunpowder and laundry detergent and a little bit of bleach.

“Does he have nightmares too?” He asks, the words so soft. So, so soft.

“Yes.” It comes out as a breath. A memory of the last couple of weeks, when you woke to his arms tightening around you and a sharp breath against your hair. He usually talks to you when he wakes up like that. Usually goes into some odd mode of self preservation and tries to distract himself from what must have been some truly awful dream where you didn’t wake up. Where you lost too much blood and stayed gone. He’ll feel you rouse with him, hold you so tightly you can feel your stitches strain a little, and ask if you want to quiz him about the first animal that comes to mind. And you do. Every time. Because his voice cracks a little when he asks and it makes you want to cry with so much love and guilt that it hurts.

“You’re different.” This Adrian says, turning his face into your cheek so his breath brushes over your skin. There’s an intimacy to the gesture that hits deep enough to shake you to your core. The tension isn’t sexual, now. Not like those times in his dimension where he pushed your buttons until that taut string connecting the two of you was ready to snap. It’s heavy. Raw. Unnamable. “You’re softer. Kinder. You have…a light, I guess. Like she did, but it’s different.”

His thumb keeps tracing circles over your skin. You hold your breath, afraid that any movement might break this moment.

“I watched that light go out. Back in the library. It killed me all over again.”

“I’m sorry.” You say, and his breath catches. His fingers curl beneath your shirt. You feel his eyes close against your cheek, the brush of his lashes a gentle kiss.

“I love you, you know.” He murmurs. And he’s said it before, and he’s meant it before, but now it sounds like a confession. Like a prayer.

“I know.” You whisper back.

“I don’t think you do, baby.” His hand, large and calloused, slides under your shirt to the skin of your back. Still not pushing. Just touching you. Holding you. Every breath ghosts across your cheek, and you feel like you might start shaking. “I love you. You’re not her. And I know that. And I love you.”  And then his other hand comes up, curling a lock of your hair around his finger like it’s something more precious than diamonds.

The meaning of his words hits you like a bullet, making an emotion you can’t name rise in your throat. You’re not a replacement to him. Maybe you were, in the beginning, even if he didn’t realize it.

Not anymore. And he loves you.

“I…” the words die in your throat, and he shakes his head, pulling back to look at you as he smooths his hand over your hair.

“You don’t have to say it.” He murmurs, and the words hold so much weight. So much understanding. His face is so close to yours, and maybe it’s wrong that this doesn’t feel wrong.

You don’t realize just how close he is until his lips brush over yours. Still not pushing. Not even hoping you close the distance. Just feeling your breath mingle with his own, like that’s enough. Like it might always be enough, if it needs to be.

Your eyes threaten to fall closed. It takes too much effort not to lean forward. To feel his lips connect with yours. He’s warm. Here. Familiar and different in ways that make it so difficult to form a proper thought.

“Will you sleep in the bed tonight?” The question is spoken so softly that it comes out as a whisper. He’s still so close that it feels like the promise of a kiss. You want more. You shouldn’t want more.

He looks at you. Takes a moment. Nods.

And so he comes to bed with you.

He stands behind you when you re-enter your bedroom, and your Adrian is still awake.

“He…” you start, unsure of what to say, unsure of what to even think.

But Adrian Chase, your Adrian Chase, knows you. You know each other. He may not understand emotions very well, but he understands you because he’s worked as hard at that as he’s worked at turning himself into a ‘weapon of vengeance’. He studies you like an obsession that will never fade. And that obsession has paid off. Connected you to each other to a point where words don’t need to be spoken.

He just opens his arms, and you know him well enough to know what he’s asking. He wants to hold you, like he always does, but he sees that Other Adrian needs to be here. That…that you need him here.

You climb into his embrace, and he wraps you in devotion with a kiss to your forehead, letting you get comfortable beneath the covers as the Other Adrian lies on your other side.

“You should hold his hand.” Your Adrian says, and his tone is nothing short of earnest. “I mean, I would want you to. Especially because I get to hold the rest of you, you know?”

Other Adrian rolls on his side to face you, one arm beneath his head, and there’s a moment where you just lie there. Watching him as he watches you, with your Adrian’s arms around you and your back to his chest.

You reach out, and when you catch his hand, he breathes a sigh of something like relief.

As sleep begins to pull you under, you find yourself pulling his hand closer. You press your lips to the back of it, and he makes a soft noise as he shifts beside you, until you finally find yourself held warm and safe between both versions of your boyfriend.

And as fucked up as it is, as strange and unusual as it all is, it feels…right.

-

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[fru1t4fr0gs]

Not Quite Him - Part 8

Pairing: Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Summary: When Adrian finds you mortally wounded and left for dead in the library, mere feet from the portal that’s supposed to take you back to the safety of home, shit hits the fan. Both Adrian’s try to keep you alive. You try to stay alive. But with each passing moment, it becomes more and more difficult to keep yourself on the right side of life and death.

You can survive this. For him. For them.

…Right?

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of blood (A LOT of blood), Mentions of trauma, Mentions of death, Mortal wounds, Guns, Violence, Angst (so so much angst), Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author's Note: Part 8! So much tension! So much drama! So much pain! I’m so sorry! (but not really!). I hope you guys like this one!! As always, please let me know what you think! Especially at this part of the fic, your feedback helps me decide where to take things! Enjoy!!

(This is part of the Not Quite Him series. If you haven’t checked it out, please do!!)

-

You don’t know how long you lay there, hand pressed to the wound on your stomach as a steady stream of blood leaks from between your fingers. You’ve been injured before. Shit, you’ve nearly bled out before. More than once. You have plenty of scars on your body to showcase the amount of times you’ve flirted with death.

It’s never been like this.

It’s never hurt like this. It’s never been so dizzying, so nauseating, so…terrifying. Because you’re laying on the ground and the blood won’t stop. You can’t drag yourself to your feet and fight until you nearly pass out, like you usually would. You can’t brush this off until it becomes a real problem. It’s a problem now. It hurts so badly that you can’t think. 

And you’re scared. You’re really scared. Because this feels different than the other times. This doesn’t feel like a story to tell later, or something for Adrian to fuss over in the van on the way home while you insist that you’re fine. This…this is bad.

You can’t do anything but try to hold the blood inside of you. Try to blink through the dizziness. Try with everything you have to focus as a blur of teal slips in through the door.

And freezes at the sight of you.

You don’t even know which Adrian it is. Not yet. For a moment, you just look at each other, the silence of the room louder than anything you’ve ever heard. It’s so quiet, in fact, that you wonder distantly if you might be able to hear the sound of all this fucking blood actually leaving your body. Adrian is completely still, staring at you like he’s waiting for the hallucination to fade away. Waiting to wake from the nightmare.

And then the spell breaks, and he moves.

“No. No no no no.” He’s beside you in a second, gathering you into his arms and as his gloved hand cradles the back of your head, so so careful not to jostle you too much even in his desperation to hold you close to him. His voice is a little lower than the one you’re so used to. His movements are too practiced, like he may have done this exact same thing before. This must be the Adrian from this dimension. Look at you, being able to differentiate even at a time like this.

You can fix it. You can fix this. You just need to focus. You just need to fight through it. Right? You’ll be fine. You just need to…

“M’fine.” You try, and your voice is way too hoarse and there is just a little too much blood in your mouth to make that convincing. You’re not fine. You’re scared. You don’t want him to be shaking like this as he holds you. You don’t want to feel the memories coursing through him, see how his own worst nightmare is coming to life in his eyes again as he rips the mask off of his head to get a better look at you.

How sick is the world, that this is happening to him twice? The look on his face makes you feel more nauseous than the blood loss. You wonder if he looked like this before. If this was the last thing the other you saw. What a horrible sight, to have been her last one. Such a beautiful face twisted into so much pain.

You don’t want him to see this. You don’t want your Adrian to see this. Even now, instinct makes you want to protect them above all else. To hide like some kind of wounded animal so they won’t have to experience even an ounce of the fear and pain you’re feeling.. But where will you go? What will you do? You can’t…you can’t….

“Oh God. No. Not again. Look at me, baby. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just look at me. I-I can fix this. I can-“ His hand is on your stomach, covering yours like he might help to stop the flow of blood. It’s not gonna stop. You tried. It just keeps coming. You didn’t know you had this much blood in you. “You were supposed to be safe. You-fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Stay with me. Just stay with me.”

The sound of gunfire gets closer, but it’s beginning to sound a little distant. That can’t be good. You know the battle isn’t moving away. If anything, the popping of bullets should be getting louder, not more quiet. You have an overwhelming sense of something fading from you. Something vital that feels important. Every moment pulls it farther away. Makes it more difficult to grasp at. You think, if you lose it, there won’t be any coming back.

And then your Adrian backs into the room, two guns held in front of him. He fires two shots down the hall. You hear two thumps as people just out of sight go down.

“Sick! I got that guy in the-“

Your vision is a little fuzzy, but you register the moment he sees you. You hear one of his guns clatter to the ground. Hear a single word rip from his throat like sandpaper.

“No.”

And then he’s on you, another set of hands frantically covering your own and coming back sticky and red with blood.

You try to focus. You really do. When your Adrian looks at you, eyes barely visible behind his visor, there is a fear so deep and clawing there that it seeps into your very bones, and you nearly have to look away from him. It’s too much. It’s too awful. He should never, ever look that afraid. That amount of shock and horror looks wrong on the face of your beloved, goofy, crazy boyfriend.

Fiancée. If you manage to get through this, you’re gonna marry the shit out of him. And you’ll spend the rest of your life making sure he never looks this scared again.

“What did you do?” You remember his voice getting low, almost frighteningly so, when he thought the alternate version of himself might have been the one to leave the bruises and stitched up cuts on your skin. That tone had been jarring, but it was nothing like this one. There’s more fury in his voice than you’ve ever heard before, and he sounds so genuinely dangerous that your own skin prickles as if from some kind of primal instinct.

The safety clicks off of his gun, and he slams it so hard beneath Other Adrian’s chin that you’re sure it will leave a bruise. “What the FUCK did you do?!” You’ve never heard him shout like that before, either. Never heard him scream with so much anger. He’s about to shoot. You know that better than you know the sky is blue and that everything hurts.

“Stop.” It hurts to talk. Your lungs feel like they’re on fire. The other Adrian isn’t fighting back. Isn’t arguing. He’s looking right at you, eyes rimmed with tears and flooded with agony. You think, at this moment, if Adrian were to shoot, he might welcome it.

Your hand reaches out, and you try to grab at your Adrian’s arm. You feel like you’re underwater. You can’t let him pull the trigger. You can’t-

His attention turns to you so quickly it feels like whiplash. He puts down the gun, anger momentarily dropping away as he reaches to lift your head into his lap, and his free hand flies up to rip his mask off so quickly you think he might pull some of his hair out. So easily distracted when it comes to you. Two seconds ago, he was the most frightening thing you’ve ever seen, and now with one touch he’s cradling you like you’re the most valuable thing on this Earth. Fuck, you love him.

“Hey, hey. I need you to look at me, okay? You gotta stay with me. Please. Please. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.” His lips press against your cheek. Your forehead. He’s trembling all over. His begging is different from his alternate’s. A little more chaotic, just like the rest of him, and shakier. “I-I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m gonna make it better. You gotta stay with me, okay? You promised you’d stay with me forever. It’s not forever if you die now. You promised forever. You fucking promised.”

The Other Adrian reaches for you. He doesn’t speak, just reaches for you. Your Adrian picks up the gun with one hand and presses the barrel of it into his forehead, barely moving his gaze from you.

“Don’t fucking touch her. You don’t fucking touch her.” He barely sounds like himself, and yet his other hand is brushing the hair back from your face. The gesture is more frantic than gentle, like he’s trying to touch and comfort you in any way he can, but he’s in such a panic that it’s more muscle memory than natural.

“Don’t…hurt him.” You manage, trying to sit up and nearly sobbing with the wave of pain that washes through you at the movement.

“Don’t move.” Other Adrian says to you, completely ignoring the barrel of the gun still pressed against his skull. “Don’t move. I know…I know how to-“ His eyes are nearly black again. He squeezes them shut, and the deep breath he sucks in through his teeth is cut off with a choke as he tries to push the insanity aside. As he tries to focus enough to remember what to do. It looks like a physical struggle. Like the effort it’s taking to keep himself from sinking into the mindless darkness is overwhelming him to the point of pain.

It’s your Adrian that sounds completely out of his mind, voice nearly unrecognisable through panic and fury as he holds you so possessively that you wonder if he might start growling like some kind of feral animal. “You did this. You fucking did this-“

Other Adrian’s hand darts out, fast, and the sound of the gun firing makes your ears ring and your heart stop. You shout, pain suddenly secondary as you try to shoot up again, only to nearly go blind with agony.

The gun clatters to the floor. Something liquid drips down the wall from a broken bottle on a shelf. Other Adrian moves toward you again, shoving yours to the side without an ounce of gentleness or apology. The memories, the shock and horror clouding his vision before, seem to be on some sort of back burner now. There’s clarity there, but it’s forced. He’s fighting every second to keep himself together enough to think.

“We need to stop the bleeding.”

“Get the fuck away from-“

“Do you want her to fucking live?!”

“I-” you try, but more blood catches in your throat and you choke. Your Adrian scrambles to hold you again, grabbing at whatever part of you he can reach, and he’s crying. Oh god, he’s crying. He never cries, and now each desperate sob that wracks his body is making your heart break over and over again.

You reach up, and when you touch his face you smear blood on his cheek. A mark to match your own.

“Don’t die. Don’t die. Please, please, please don’t die.” His voice catches on a sob. You want to cry too. You try to reach for him again, but it’s too hard to move. His hands are catching yours, kissing your bloody palms and reaching out to touch your cheeks. Your hair. Anywhere he can reach to feel your skin against his.

And then the world goes dark.

-

“Come here often?”

You’re in your living room. No. Not yours. It’s too neat. The furniture is just a little different. You’re in the other living room. Other Adrian’s living room.

And that’s you. You’re sitting on the couch, feet dangling over the armrest and head propped up by cushions. Her - your - eyes are turned to you, hands folded casually in her lap.

“Oh, shit.” Realization feels cold. Come to think of it, you feel cold. Really cold. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

The other you shrugs, oddly nonchalant. “No, you’re not.”

You frown, and look out the window. There’s nothing there. You can’t tell if it’s even darkness or light. It’s just…nothing.

“Okay. So I’m not dead.” You try, and the other you smiles, shifting to sit up on the couch and perch cross legged on the cushions in a movement so smooth and familiar that it makes you frown a little more. What a weird thing, to see your own self in motion.

“Okay, I lied. You’re kinda dead.”

Okay. That’s not helpful. Definitely more than a little concerning. “This feels pretty dead.”

“Trust me. You’d know if you were dead dead.”

“Am I usually this…callous?”

“Nah. I am, though.” She cocks her head a little, assessing you. Looking you up and down. You know that you do that, too. You’ve just never seen it before. “Well, actually you are. You and I are pretty much the same.”

You’re not really sure what to say to that, so you just raise your eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You say back. That smile again. “I think I’m just…you know, dead. And you’re not. Not all the way.” A few expressions pass over your own face, and you wonder if that’s really how you look when you’re thinking about something. “We’re not exactly the type to come back in a white dress in a meadow full of daisies or whatever. Plus, life isn’t really like the movies. Neither is death.”

“This is pretty fucking confusing.”

Other You stands, and shrugs again. “So is death.”

“You’re being kind of frustrating.”

“I know.” She stretches, and rolls her shoulders just like you do. So strangely casual considering the circumstances. “I’m sorry my Adrian kidnapped you.”

“It’s okay. Kinda dicky of him, though.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty infuriating.” She looks at you, and raises her eyebrows. “But you love him.”

“I love my Adrian.”

“You can love them both. I do, and I didn’t even know yours.”

You frown. Try to piece that one together.

“Every version of you is gonna love every version of him. Vice versa. It’s just kinda…” she fiddles her fingers a bit in a vague gesture. “The way the world works, or whatever. We’re connected.”

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You don’t have to. You do have to get back to him, though.” This time, there’s a sharpness to her smile. Something so protective that it sends a bit of a chill through you. “Like I said, I don’t even have to know your Adrian to know that I love him. But I died in front of mine. Fuck if I’m gonna let you do the same thing to either of them.”

Something catches in your throat. It tastes like iron.

Your body jolts. The room pulses.

“You’re kind of an intense ghost.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m not a ghost. Maybe I’m just a hallucination.” She taps the side of her head.

“Yikes.”

“Well you don’t have to be a dick about it.”

You smile. She smiles back. The room pulses again. Your body jolts. The taste of iron gets a little stronger and now it hurts.

You reach down to your stomach. The source of the pain. Your hand comes back red.

“Ow.” You mumble to yourself. Well, literally.

“Not much longer now.” She says, looking down at the wound before raising her gaze back to your face. “Take care of them, yeah? I know you will. It’s kind of a constant.”

Talking is a little more difficult. The pain is digging a little deeper. “Huh?”

“Us. Adrian. Every universe. It’s kind of a constant.”

You blink, squeezing your stomach a little harder. The room pulses again. You think you can hear shouting. Crying. Begging.

The Other You cocks her head to the side again. It’s a little unnerving. “Anything else you wanna ask? Going back is about to suck.”

You try to think. Another pulse. Another jolt of pain.

“Wanna make out?”

The sound of your own laughter is weird, but not quite as off-putting as you would expect. “Shit, we really are the same.”

“That a yes?”

“Maybe next time you die.” There’s a sadness in her smile, now “Besides, if either of them found out that they missed it? Hell to pay. Might even end in another rampage.”

Another pulse. Your feet aren’t moving, but the Other You is advancing, and the door is getting closer.

“Did they get what they deserved?” You ask, surprised by your own question. The blood in your throat is trickling from the corner of your mouth, now. When you wipe it away, you don’t think it transfers to your hand. “For killing you?”

She raises her eyebrows. “You know him. What do you think?”

And then she kicks you through the door.

-

You come back to yourself like a bolt of lightning.

One moment you’re falling into the nothingness outside of the apartment, and the next, you’re in a thousand worlds of pain. You convulse, entire body on fire with agony and shock, and try to make sense of the world around you.

You’re in Adrian’s basement.

The portal is still active. There’s a trail of red flowing like a spotted path over the ground inside of it.

There is pressure on your stomach, stopping what must be a truly unbelievable amount of bleeding. Do you have more blood than most people? You must, right? You didn’t think this much could come from one person. You’re so, so dizzy.

A familiar voice is speaking. Hands wet with what can only be even more of your own blood are shaking against your cheeks. More hands are still pushing on your stomach. Those hands are shaking, too. Not quite as much, but every few moments you can feel a slight tremble in the grip.

Everything is blurry, and your vision is hollowed by darkness at the edges. But there’s Adrian above you, the rims of his glasses blinking in the light coming from the portal. And there he is again, a little lower down your body, pushing down on your stomach, no glasses and green eyes filled with an equal amount of bone-chilling terror. That same forced-clarity seems a little more faded now, like he’s beginning to lose his grip on it.

Your Adrian is the one cradling your face with shaking hands, and the rest of his body is completely still. His eyes are almost blank with shock. Something is creeping into them. Something dark and scary and too familiar - something like the insanity you’ve seen in the other version of him.

You try to say his name, try to blink away the black in the corners of your vision, and reach up with a numb hand to touch him. Blood is still smeared on his cheek. Blood is everywhere.

“We have to move her.” Your Adrian says, voice empty. Hollow with shock. “I have to get her to the ambulance.” His forehead comes to rest against yours. You go a little cross eyed as you try to look at him. “I’m gonna move you. I’m gonna make it better. Don’t leave again, okay? Don’t leave like that. You can’t- you can’t…”

The pressure on your stomach hurts. A lot. You hear the other Adrian mumbling something. He sounds so far away from himself. It sounds like he’s begging.

Oh, you know this. You remember this. Not too long ago, you told yourself you would figure him out. Figure out how to pull him back from that edge. You’re pretty sure he’s fallen over it by now, but you can still try.

“B…” huh. It’s harder to speak than you thought it would be. It would feel really nice to go to sleep right now.

When you reach out, you manage to catch his hand. The hold is weak and slick with blood. “Breathe.”

He doesn’t, but he does choke on a sob as he squeezes your hand. You wish he wouldn’t do that. You wish he wouldn’t cry. It makes your heart hurt almost more than everything else does.

A forehead presses against yours again. You feel a shaky exhale against your face. The rims of glasses dig into your skin, and it feels nice. Familiar.

“Stay with me. Please.” And that’s your Adrian. That’s him lifting you off of the floor, making pain rip through your body again as he shushes your whimper of protest and kisses your bloody cheeks. Begs you quietly to stay with him again.

“Don’t go.” He half whispers, holding you as close as he can without squeezing you too hard. His voice is quiet, but there’s a desperation in it so raw that it feels like a living thing. “You went somewhere. P-Please don’t…don’t go there again. Don’t leave me.”

“Okay.” You whisper, and you mean it. You’ll stay. You’ll sleep later. For now, you can fight. For him. You’ll keep your eyes open. You’re just so, so tired…

-

You hear gunshots. You hear a siren. You don’t want to sleep again. You don’t want to leave him. Not again. He’s crying. He’s looking at you. You can feel his tears on your cheeks like delicate raindrops.

An unfamiliar voice tells him to get back. To move away. You hear a gun cock. You hear panicked shouting. The hands don’t leave you.

-

The lights are too bright. You don’t like how he sounds when he cries. You don’t like that you can hear it twice over. But the hands holding yours feel nice. The lips against your forehead feel nice. He’s still talking to you, and you can’t make out what he’s saying, but you love the sound of his voice. You melt into it like the comfort of a familiar bed, allowing yourself to relax for just…

-

“I thought I kicked you out of here.”

You frown, back in the apartment. Looking at yourself again.

“Yeah, you did. Literally. Not cool, by the way.”

“It was supposed to be a little dramatic.”

“It was kinda cliche, to be honest.”

“Go back.”

“Working on it. I didn’t mean to come here.” You kind of told Adrian that you wouldn’t, didn’t you? The memory is a little fuzzy.

“Go back. You can’t do this to him again. You can’t do this to either of them.”

“I’m working on it.”

The Other You advances, and she looks pained. Angry, even.

“I died. You don’t get to.” She shoves you towards the door, and you stumble. There’s no pulsing this time. No sudden little bolt of pain. Something bright and white is creeping into the corners of the room, and you wonder what would happen if you reached toward it. The urge to do so is oddly strong. You almost do, in fact, but the Other You shoves you even harder, seething. “You’re going back.”

You catch the doorframe before you fall through it, glaring. “Yeah, I got that. You’ve been pretty fucking adamant about-“

This time, when she kicks you through the door, it hurts more.

-

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[mochidoodle]

the good ending ☀️

[earth2grl]

beware — adrian chase / reader

adrian chase / fem!reader. 18+. softcore smut, dubcon, stalking (?) idk he's a freak. tw: the lion does not concern herself with proofreading

you'd thought him sweet, at first. that maybe he could use a friend.

that's the problem with throwing a starving dog a bone. he'll always come back hungrier. take and take and take until your cupboards are bare.

for every moment you spend in his company, there's something increasingly sinister in the way he looks at you. only in a certain light, but definitely there. something frenzied. obsessive. a sort of intensity he hasn't yet earned.

you don't ask how he knows things about you he shouldn't. the names of your neighbors and your parents. what you had for dinner last night and the colour of your sheets. it's sick, but there's something easy about it — to know he's already done the hard parts — memorizing the small talk and a lifetime full of anecdotes. like spotting an animal in the forest and knowing it's already been watching you for hours.

maybe you're put together wrong. wired to feel comfort where there should be revulsion. fascination where there should be fear.

his looks don't help. soft lashes, big hands. sharp angles and kind eyes the colour of sea glass.

in the front seat of his car, he kisses you like he might never get the chance to again. teeth knocking in enthusiasm, spit soaking your chin. he can't seem to decide what to do with his mouth or his hands, so he does it all. paws at your ass and nearly chews through your bottom lip. winds his hand around to cradle your jaw as he chokes you on his tongue. you can't think straight for days.

two nights later, you catch a whiff of his grocery store cologne on the breeze from your open window. just past midnight, freshly showered and on your way to bed. fear sinks a stone in your gut.

you call his name soft under your breath. disbelieving.

he steps out from the shadows in the corner of the room on your second try of his name, smiling dopily. he's only ever unsettling when you notice the madness in his eyes.

"you shouldn't leave your window open like that, y'know. something bad could happen."

you picture him scaling the side of the building to creep in and suddenly feel sick.

"like what? you're gonna chop me up into little pieces?" you aim for humour and land squarely on paranoia.

he frowns — tuts at you, disapproving. "i wouldn't've made any noise if i was gonna kill you, silly."

"besides," he shrugs. "i could'a done that an hour ago when you were in the shower."

"here — like this-"

you go lightheaded as he takes a step foward.

he sidles up behind you — brings his hand up slow and drags a thumb across your throat. a cartoon slicing noise accompanies the movement, and you're keenly aware that you can feel your heartbeat in your molars. he bumps his hips into your ass and you squeak, stomach swooping, warmth pooling in the cradle of your hips.

your head spins. the burning in your stomach starts up again. that sick, hot combination of revulsion and lust. the thought that perhaps you've bitten off more than you can chew all at once.

so you take it in small bites.

spit up the bile rising in your throat and let him kiss you half blind, crooked glasses and flushed cheeks. push the thought aside when you realize you'd never given him your address. pretend not to hear when he tells you he loves you — calls you his best friend, face buried between your legs.