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masterocelot58

Jun 5

amoristt

to be human again || 3

「 ✦piotr rasputin (colossus)/reader ✦ 」 tags: sfw // hurt/comfort, rescued trope

a/n: yeah you already KNOW what it is !!!!

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--- Something else happens that day. At night, actually. Piotr can’t explain it, he isn’t even sure if you could, either.

The glorious sun has long since tucked itself into the beds of the horizon and gave way to the endless dark sky. The mansion is quiet as he languidly strolls through the halls, still riding the high of earlier that afternoon, and he tries (fails) to make it not outwardly obvious that you have clouded his thoughts since the day you arrived.

It’s only natural. It’s a good thing, really, to be so attentive. To wonder what your favorite meal may be so he can surprise you, or wonder about your favorite weather. Whether you were a morning or night person.

What your powers were.

Yeah. Attentive. That’s what he tells himself at least. After all, look where it’s gotten you. All wonderful progress, a greater step taken by the day. You were unrecognizable from the broken little body he’d hauled from that facility so many weeks ago. If only you could see that, too.

The carpet swallows the weight of him as he silently treks up the stairs, around the bend, and routes himself to the hallway his room belonged to. This is his second trip now, more monitor than tenant, only just then shaking off the strange nag to double check the integrity of the night before he truly settled down. All the same as the first, the mansion is quiet. And now that he’s right and satisfied with that answer, there’s a steaming cup of tea on his nightstand, a book left open waiting to be read.

You accompany him every step he takes, eating up the vacant space of his mind. Mostly this morning. A smile over your face, the first time your voice had left you without a shake to the tone. There was a real you parting through all that thick, fearful smog. A blurry reflection in the water that seemed to grow clearer by the day.

Lost in thought, the hallway dark with the lateness of the night, he almost missed the fracture of a shadow among the darkness amidst the low lights. He freezes, but he knows who it is before the alarm could truly strike him.

You’re standing in front of his room. Not moving, facing the tall wooden door like you could somehow see through it. For a moment, he almost wonders if you can. X-ray vision wouldn’t be so uncommon. The doors cracked open just a fraction, but you don’t attempt to open it. From here he can’t see your expression, but something in your posture feels… Vulnerable. And just as he’s about to call out to you, worried perhaps something is wrong, he watches you lift your right arm. It hushes him. Balling your hand into a fist, hovering mere inches before the thick wood, unmoving once more.

Though you make no sound, Piotr senses it anyway. A cry for attention.

You were coming to visit him.

But the tightness of your fist never raps away at his door. You don’t quite manage to close the gap. Hesitation sticks around for far too long and he swears he could see the internal battle, the way you try to work through all the chaos inhibiting that mind of yours.

Now, Piotr is no stranger to your night explorations. He lets you think you’re sneaky. Lets you meander about under the cover of dim lamps and the comfortable blanket of silence. You scamper the night away like a mouse, finding all the cracks and crevices, all the places you could see yourself trusting enough to relax in. He hears it- he swears he can feel it- like somehow the mansion was a part of him, breathing as one, feeling as one.

Of course, naturally, he wished you would sleep better. It was the most important factor for healing after all. That and making sure you met all your daily nutrition, but he digresses. You were doing well enough, and you were eating hearty breakfasts and protein rich dinners. Compared to when you’d first arrived with near narcoleptic sleeping patterns, this was just a part of the journey, he was sure.

There had been an undeniable rush of excitement that ran through him the first night you found the courage to saunter out of your room. So much so, that he abandoned his better senses and left his book behind to greet you at the end of the stairway. Every intention within him had been to encourage you. A tour of the mansion, maybe. But the moment he threw his door open he was met with the immediate and brutal reality that was you hauling ass back to your room so quickly that all that was left of your trail were the echoes of your footsteps.

So, no tour. And the next night he heard you toeing your way about, he kept himself tucked in bed. Really, even the knowledge that you’d grown comfortable enough to even want to explore was enough for him to be satisfied. The tour could always come later. You were making wonderful progress- no reason to ruin that now. No matter how much he anticipated it.

Now, at least, even though you remained glued to the sidelines, you were present.

Tonight throws him off, though. Tonight you sought him out entirely out of your own accord even when you lacked the true strength to fulfill the deed. You reel back, ready to knock, and Piotr’s heart does an involuntary flip. All the times you’d gone out of your avoid him and yet here you were. For a moment he waits to hear the soft sound of your knuckles against the door, even disappointed that he wasn’t within his room to answer you, but the sound never comes.

And then your hand falls limp to your side, unballing, loose where it hangs. Shame, or guilt, becomes a palpable pressure that weighs on your shoulders as they slump down. He doesn’t need to see your face to see the drawn lines, the downcast expression. You merely stare down at your feet before taking a meager step away.

Ah. It all made sense now. That nagging, incessant urge to double check what he’d already routinely accomplished- the universe needed him to see this moment. Bear witness to the fact that you were moving far further than he’d believed whether he was there to see it or not. You were flourishing right before his eyes, yes, the universe surely had wanted him to see this, to see you, and appreciate all that had come to pass. To feel the fruits of his and your labors. A gift. A reminder.

The brief thought crosses him that this may not be the first time. He wonders how many times you’ve been out here like this, standing before his rooms, unable to bring yourself to just bridge that divide. The amount of times you’d let your eyes fall to the rugged floor as you crept back to your room, leaving no trace, more ghost than person.

Piotr can’t let this moment go to waste. He swallows once, evens his voice, and calls out to you.

“Good evening.”

You nearly jump clean out from your skin. He forgives it, doesn’t take it personally either when your large doe-like eyes swallow him whole. Moonlight pours in from the window, the outline of you nearly glowing, expression reading nothing but pure bewilderment. He even forgives it when you can’t seem to gather yourself enough to respond. Instead you merely gape at him much like a child caught red-handed.

One careful, tentative step forward, Piotr wishes to close the divide. Shockingly, you don’t take that instinctual step back.

“Cannot sleep?” He asks, voice carrying through the gap while you wring your fingers together in front of you. Your gaze falls to the floor. Then, in some sort of haphazard shrug, your shoulders languidly rise and fall sluggishly.

Now there’s a line to toe. On one hand he could send you back to the safety of your room. You’d meander away and shut yourself out, stay up til the sun breached horizon. On the other hand, and it's a risky hand…

Piotr takes a leap of faith he hopes you’re prepared for. Pushes just a bit- after all, he liked to think he had a knack for these types of things, knowing when the right moment to nudge someone in the right direction. The idea was that should he be the hand that extends, you’d take it, act on your wants, courage or not. So he approaches you, this tiny little thing damn near statue-still before him, and stops just before you. You don’t shy away. He takes that inch and runs for the mile.

Piotr reaches over your head and pushes his door open.

“I can stay up with you.” He starts, gentle as a breeze. “You may come in, if you need.”

In total honesty, there’s a nagging suspension that you’d pivot on your heel and dash back to your room. That or shrug him away, opt instead to exploring the mansion all in your lonesome. Without waiting for an answer, he keeps his cool, lets the ball roll through your court as he passes you by and strides inside. The tea waiting for him is still, in fact, steaming. It’s a beautiful sight. His book calls to him like a spectre in the night, laying open on his comforter.

All forgotten when he hears the quiet pitter patter of your feet following him in.

Oh, god, how it makes him feel a million shades of giddy. How every agonizing stretch of silence, of each moment rejected, came to fruition and he only hardly found the will to mask the joy within that calm, all-knowing exterior. Casually he sinks into one of the two arms chairs facing the massive window, the only divider a quaint table. Over his shoulder he notes you just… Waiting. Standing there awkwardly half taking in the contents of his room and half unsure of what to do with yourself now that you’ve taken this plunge.

If there’s one thing that Piotr’s noticed, it’s that the more you opened up, the more you seemed to become this amalgamation of gauche and anticipation. Every emotion a broadcast- like someone who never learned the art of a facade.

You look almost comically small in his room. You look uncomfortable. Vulnerable, and for a brief second, Piotr thinks maybe this had been a bad call. Whilst you busy yourself wringing your hands and slouching your shoulder to fold in on your own frame, he thinks perhaps he’d pushed you a bit too far from the island. Or, god forbid, took advantage of your uncertainty.

Straightening his back, he calls out to you from his spot when you seem to intentionally refuse to meet his gaze.

“Would you like to sit?”

The steps to the chair across from him are few, but you make the space feel as though it's a mile. Every inch forward is tentative. Every breath is guarded, always as though you're waiting to turn tail and run at any given moment. Regardless, you make it, and you too let yourself curl up in the chair all shifty-eyed and cautious. Knee’s hiked up to your chest, chin planted firm over the caps, doing all you physically can to block yourself in. Or, block Piotr out.

It strikes him that this may have cost him something. That if you had followed him simply because you felt like you had to, or out of fear, passivity. This could certainly come with repercussions. Hindsight is a strange thing. Makes him second guess himself, the monument of a man he is. Maybe the right thing to do would have been to let you go along with your night, even if it meant sinking further into your isolation. Let you come to him (as if you hadn’t already) and ask for more.

Quote literally anything else except invite you in your moment of weakness into his damn bedroom.

He almost throws the whole moment away and admits he’d jumped the gun. But then, you sigh deep and long. Chest rising, falling, slow and sure as the sound evens out. Tension huffs out from your shoulders. Eyes fall half lidded, always finding the window.

Relief.

A winding smile forms over Piotr’s lips. It looks good on you- relaxation- even if you never truly allowed yourself the means to really get comfortable. A dozen times over he’d seen this process from start to finish, but somehow here, with you, it felt different. Felt pure. Right.

“What troubles you?” He asks, voice carrying through the silence, far too casual for someone who was so familiar to the onslaught of struggles you’d been battling since day one. And though he expects silence, you surprise him all over again, speaking for the second time today, albeit plain, and timid.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Why is that?”

A slow, languid shrug. Then hardly audible, you murmur, “...Worried.”

“You are worried about something?” Of course you are. He isn’t a fool- of course you’re still riding the fence stuck somewhere between distrust and foolish hope, desperate to believe this was all real. Smart enough to know it may not be. It seems your eyes grow further away by the second as you stare outside.

Still though, you answer. “Yeah.”

“What worries you?”

Another empty shrug.

It’s like pulling teeth, trying to gather answers from you that aren’t these vague motions or one-word responses. Even so, this is good. Piotr reminds himself of that every time frustration knocks at the door. This is great, actually, and far more than he initially believed he’d get. Presence alone had been the goal which you met with flying colors.

After all, you’d confided in him. Talked to him in unpracticed sentences, remembering what it was like to hold a conversion. So he pulls those teeth one by one and leans back in his chair, following your line of sight to the starry sky. A thousand questions beg to be answered- most notably the glaring obvious: what powers do you possess?

He refrains. He has to. That sort of question would have to come at a later time. For now he pulls another tooth.

“What is most worrying?”

Your voice is farther away now. Disconnected. Your expression matches, void of anything specific beyond true neutrality. “Going back.”

That bothers Piotr. Thick brows pull together in a tight knit, he can’t stop himself from cocking his head. “You are not going back.”

“...None of this feels real.”

“It is very real.”

“...”

Piotr notes that you’re still breathing good and slow, even despite your concerns. He sighs. “You must not live in past. You are here, now. Safe.”

It doesn't comfort you. But, it draws you in. Quick as it may, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, you turn to find his glance and you… You’re there. Right there, focused, searching for the cracks on his facade. Crickets chirp. The moon and stars spark with twinkling light. There is no hesitation to be found in Piotr words, nor his resolve, even when he can physically feel you mapping him out. He lets you, hopes that you’ll finally realize there is no end game.

Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t.

Regardless, you turn your attention back to the outside world. You watch the trees, the breeze, for the thousandth time. Another long, drawn breath escapes you and carries away most of the tensions with it.

Piotr has a selfish thought, then, because he is human after all. He thinks to himself, you are so beautiful, like this.

But then he shakes those pestering thoughts away before they get the chance to truly take root. Only to rear their heads a moment later as you settle even further into the chair, letting your legs fall to the side. Then, as if kissed by an angel, your eyes slip shut.

It takes all but a few minutes for you to doze off into a gentle slumber. In a single moment, he rejoices in the notion that you’ve finally accepted him. Deemed him safe, fit to watch over, to share your fears and uncertainties with. The ground beneath your unsteady feet. There, in the quiet, he makes your peace his own. The weight of what may be the world slips from his tired shoulders. Though his tea grows cold, the twirl of steam long since diminished, he hardly minds.

For a long while, Piotr stays just like that. The moon glides over the long, drawn sky, hiding in the few pockets of clouds rolling by. A part of him wishes this moment could linger forever, but time is hardly understanding, and when he can no longer spare anymore slumber, he brings himself to his feet. You are impossibly small, and curled into the crook of the chair. Picking you up into his arms is like handling the finest of china, slipping one arm under your upper back and the other below the bend of your knees. Although he’d like to credit himself a gentle handler, he’s almost sure that the reason you do not stir is because you haven't slept quite this deeply in some time now. Every breath is full, every exhale is slow.

Your room welcomes you like an old friend. As he lays you upon the nest of blankets, he thinks of the first time he’d carried you, this frightened, beaten thing too afraid to even breathe properly in his presence.

Now sleep murmurs from your lips, and you subconsciously curl into the softness of the sheets. Now, as he stands in the doorway and glances over his shoulder one final time, you are bathed in beautiful moonlight. He sees it- a glimpse of the future. A life you deserved so close within reach, the person he knew you could become.

Selfish thoughts return. They demand, even, until Piotr forces himself out into the hall and shuts the door behind him.

The next morning, Piotr wakes with the full moon just before dawn. There’s no profound reason he rises, just simply stares up at the ceiling in darkness until he forfeits the remainder of his slumber. 5 AM, the digital clock reads. That cold cup of earl grey stares back as he sits, swings his feet around the bed. An early start to his day could do him well, he thinks, and a nice hot shower confirms it in the end.

Downstairs, breaching the kitchen and pouring the contents of the cup down the drain, he lingers in the soft flicker of a lamp resting beside him on the counter. He gazes out the massive window overlooking the long, green yard. Watches the sky turn from deep black into the faintest blue. At first, the only movement to really capture his attention is the intricate dance of fireflies- but then, off to the far, far right towards the grand doors of the mansion, he notices movement.

There you are.

You’re simply standing there at the front steps, face tilted up towards the sky.

Everything seems to seize up all at once. A moment captured in a bottle as he realizes the doors had certainly been shut as he may his way to the kitchen. Something coils in his lower belly, a feeling he truly can’t stand. Uncertainty.

How long have you been out here, like this? When you had been sleeping so soundlessly not mere hours ago? Lingering out in the chill of night, feeling the cold over the skin and through your hair.

Piotr runs through your conversations. He combs every word and peeks between the lines. Had it changed something within you? Or had you simply realized this was not the place you’d want to call home? A part of him worries you’d thought you were better off alone, trusting no one other than your own self.

A part of him could not blame you for such a thing. Months of sleeping between blinks, months of watching you struggle to even allow yourself to breathe properly. The potential was there and sure, you were coming around by the very day, but Piotr would be lying to himself to say he didn’t feel the draw. This incessant pull you fought time and time again.

If you truly wanted away from all this, from him, he would let you, because it’s your life. Because he could not force this on you.

Because you were not his prisoner.

Doesn’t stop the knee-jerk reaction, though. Nor does it ease the twist in his stomach as you take a tentative step forward to the second step, and then the third.

He tells himself to trust this. To trust you.

But the faucet continued to run until water has gathered at the rim of the cup and spills around his hand like a waterfall.

The universe rewards his patience yet again. With a broad yawn, you stretch high and wide, and then paw tired from the corners of your eyes. You walk right back into the mansion. Heavy doors open, close, and Piotr scrambles to turn off the running water in time to watch you patter into the kitchen.

He witnesses the exact moment you realize he’s there. He witnesses the freeze, the bristle, your doe-like eyes blinking up at him from the illuminated entrance. For a long couple seconds neither of you speak. For the first time, Piotr can not conjure up anything beyond silence.

“Oh,” you murmur, wringing your fingers together. “...Sorry.”

The trance breaks. Piotr turns, sets his cup in the sink. “Fresh air is good for you.”

“For waking you up.”

That actually makes him laugh. A deep chuckle rumbling in his chest as he opens the fridge and rummanages through. “You did not wake me.”

“Then… I’m sorry for keeping you up last night.”

“That I forgive.” He drags out his usual suspects: eggs, bacon, bread.

He can feel you standing there in the doorway while he cooks, unsure what to do with yourself, lingering like a ghost caught in the frame. Still though, he’s pleased as punch you haven't left. He glances over his shoulder and motions for you to sit at the table, and of course, you hesitate. A quick flicker of your eyes he followed to the table then back up to his own. Then you shuffle forwards and hop into the seat on the far edge.

It’s impossible not to smile as he works. He can hear the weight of the seat shift under you as you get comfortable, hear the sound of your boney elbows knocking against the wood of the table whilst you lean forward. A palpable silence mingles with the sizzle of bacon, but it’s hardly uncomfortable. He doesn’t ask if you’d like a plate, just simply sets it down in front of you and watches the way you pick at it.

If the chair groaned under the weight of you, his chair damn near screamed under the weight of him. Old wood supporting him, the legs creaking to accommodate. He clears nearly half his plate before you’ve even started to pick away at your eggs. He hates to nag, but…

“You are not hungry?”

“I am.” A soft pause, the faintest sound of your fork poking the plate. Every word that leaves you is guarded, low. Monotone even when he knows you’re feeling anything but. “...Thanks for making this for me.”

Piotr nods and smiles. Finally, as if the acknowledgement had been the permission you seeked, you pluck a long strip of bacon and pop it into your mouth. Slow, careful, you almost seem to have to force it down.

“If you are not tired, I can show you the rest of the mansion.” It’s a simple offer, one you could easily refuse. You blink up at him, then gaze back down at your meal. He swallows, then adds, “It would be good for you.”

“Why.”

It catches him off guard, and he leans back in his seat. “You are one of us. One of many. You should be familiar with your home.”

Home makes your expression deepen just enough to notice. The lines settle, not quite a frown, nowhere near a smile. Sometimes it kills him in a way, watching you refuse the extending branch. Sometimes he wants to reach out and take you by the shoulders, shake out all those doubts and nightmares until you’re empty.

He sighs, leans back in his chair and shakes his head.

“You must let this pain, this… Fear, go. I know you are afraid. You think this is set-up, or this is not real. When I first became X-Man, I was afraid also.” You perk at his words, eyes widening just a fraction. “Even I was afraid. Even when I am made of steel, and can take hit, I was afraid. Trust is a frightening thing, yes?”

Your gaze falling downwards is the only confirmation he needs.

“But listen to me. You are strong. Even stronger than you realize. You are not broken thing you think you are. And I- We, are not enemy you think we are.” Slowly, he leans back towards you. “You must stop telling yourself that you are alone.”

For a moment he thinks you may be ignoring him. Nothing but an empty stare into the food growing colder by the second. But then, he sees how the light reflects in the whites of your eyes. How your nose grows tinted red, how your lower lip quivers. It takes everything in you to swallow down the boulder in your throat, but you do. And you nod once. Twice.

Piotr lets you gather yourself. When you’re whole again, you blink away the wetness of your lashes and stare up at him.

“You can, uh…” Another hard swallow as you speak, voice warped with the strain. “You can show me around. After I eat.”

“Good,” He breathes. “Good.”

When you take another bite, it isn’t missed on him how you don’t hesitate. You sink your teeth into your toast and chew like it’s your last chance. Real hunger cries with demands and finally you indulge. Every nibble, every swallow, is success in his eyes.

Soon the rest of the house would rise with the morning sun and the halls would light to life. He would show you the rooms you’d already explored, this time washed in light, and you would act as though it was the first time. But at this moment he too lets himself indulge.

Especially now, as he sat beside you in the dim light, now enjoying the mundane comfort of the crunch of toast, quiet scuffing of silverware on a platter, and the harmony of crickets baying within the stretch of lawn beyond the window.

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