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main blog @yeet-ya-chickenstrips | she/her | 21 | Mimi

[finn-writes-stuff]

Hello :) I must admit I've been binge reading your content. I was hoping I could request a Percy (Vox Machina) x gn reader where he gets very worried when reader either nearly sacrifices themselves for him or they take a risk that he didn't think was necessary? 10/10 worried perce is adorbs but i also feel guilty o.o 👉👈 ngl I live for when he be stressing and overprotective lmao. Poor Percy needs a vacation.

I Need You

Percy hadn't let himself care for someone this much ever since he lost everyone. How had you managed to change that?

Percy de Rolo x Reader

Fandom: The Legend of Vox Machina/ Critical Role

Format: Oneshot (1550 words)

Content Warnings: Fairly light descriptions of injuries, and an argument between Reader and Percy. Talk of potential deadly harm, as this takes place after a battle.

Gender Neutral Reader

Masterlist

Consider the image of Percy on vacation in one of those Hawaiian shirts and big sunglasses. Also I do not apologize for the amount of Pike. She is everything to me<3 -Finn

"Now, I know reckless in a fight," Pike said, carefully wrapping a bandage around the deep wound on your leg. "I have been reckless in a fight. But that? That was not reckless. That was stupid. And stupid will get you killed out there! And then where would we be?" 

You knew her well enough to recognize the concern under the scolding, even as she wrapped the bandage a little tighter than necessary to punctuate her point. You felt bad about letting her look after you even after she had burned the last of her spell slots, but she hadn't been keen on taking no for an answer after getting a look at the injury, dragging you to your room in the keep. According to her, it was a miracle you’d gotten back to the keep at all on that leg after the battle. Even when you insisted you could wrap it yourself, she waved you off. Too kind for her own good with a party like this. Sometimes she was the only thing keeping you all from running headfirst to your demises. (Or at least yanking you all back when you tried.)

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, Pike. I just couldn't let Percy take the hit instead, he didn't see it coming, he would be worse off than I am now." You smiled at the cleric, shrugging your shoulders sheepishly. Pike didn’t look all that impressed, but you knew she understood. 

His gun had jammed in the middle of the battle, a familiar flaw of its mechanisms. But instead of teasing your lover about it like usual, you had seen an attacker lunge at him as he let his guard down. He was a ranged fighter, nothing should have been allowed to get that close in the first place. Of course, he dropped his guard for a moment. In any other fight, he would have been fine to unjam his gun while ducking back from the battle. 

It sent an uncomfortable chill down your spine when you imagined what might have happened if you hadn't been so close. Throwing yourself in the way and fighting off the creature had landed you with a blindingly painful wound on your leg and likely a couple of bruised ribs if the ache that came with breathing was anything to go by. It had been stronger than you'd expected, and getting hit with the flat of a weapon may have been better than the edge, but it still hurt like a bitch.

"Both of you were being stupid. If I see that happen again, you'll have Grog patch you up instead. And he hasn't quite gotten a handle on his bedside manner, yet." 

Laughing hurt, but It was good to know Pike was relaxed enough to joke. Meant that you probably weren't dying. 

"Pike! Are they-" Percy bolted into the room, looking for all intents a wild man, before stopping in his tracks at the sight of you. A load of tension dropped from his shoulders, but only for long enough for him to register your injuries. You knew you looked pretty rough. In all fairness, so did he, his white hair shot through with wisps of gray from gunsmoke and the black powder always left on his gloves. He must have been running his hands through it, if it’s messy style was anything to go off of. 

"Hey, Percy," you said softly, doing your best to offer a reassuring smile. It must have been closer to a grimace with the concerned noise he bit off  in response. There was something a little heartbreaking about the open stress and worry in his eyes as he stepped forward, hesitating to touch you. He so often had his emotions in check, that seeing them so openly on display felt unfair to him. You grabbed his hand, squeezing it a moment, and the contact seemed to pull him back out of his thoughts. 

"By the gods, what were you thinking? Are you insane? You could have gotten yourself killed! Who just jumps in front of an attack like that?" He wasn't quite yelling, wouldn't yell at you in your own room, but the panic set into his voice was more than a sufficient substitute. 

"Percy, it's not like you were dodging it, you would have been hit instead." You made an attempt at answering reasonably, trying to calm his worries, but if anything, it only made it worse somehow. 

"Then you should have let it hit me instead of throwing yourself at a blade! If it had hit you at a different angle it very well could have gone straight through you! Were you thinking at all?" He had dropped your hand now, pacing a circle in your room. 

"I was thinking about how you were going to get hit. Is it such a crime to look out for you?" 

"At the cost of yourself, yes!"

"I'm not going to sit and watch you get hurt if I can do something about it!"

"And make me watch you nearly die instead?"

Pike spoke up before you could say anything, pushing herself to her feet. "Both of you. Quit it." She was obviously both annoyed and exhausted. You and Percy both wilted under her tone as she turned to look at you. "That was a stupid and dangerous move today. Don't pull that again. Percy, Don't yell at someone who saved you, you sound like an asshole. They need to rest, so shelve your argument for later." 

The wind had been taken out of his sails, leaving him standing back by the wall, thoroughly chastised. "I, yes, of course, Pike."

"Don't walk on that leg today, take it easy," Pike said, looking back at you. "I'll be back in a couple of hours to double-check on you, but I need some rest. I'm plumb out of energy." 

"Don't worry about it, Pike, I'll be alright. Thank you." 

"Good. Now both of you, if I hear anything about you two arguing again, I'm setting Keyleth on your case." With that, she patted your shoulder and swept out of the room. 

There was a moment of awkward silence, Percy glancing around your room rather than meeting your eyes. He seemed to be debating on what to say, or maybe whether to follow Pike out the door to be out of your hair. 

"Percy,"

"I apologize. I shouldn't have been so harsh with you. Especially not while you're injured. I didn't- I, well." Staring fiercely at his feet, his apology was stumbling. There was something endearing about it, in the way there always was when he extended a branch of vulnerability. "I was worried about you. Seeing you get thrown to the ground after taking a hit for me was...terrifying, to say the least."

"Oh, Percy," you sighed, beckoning him over. "It was pretty fucking terrifying to see you about to be hit, too." 

He walked up to you, stopping in front of you and kneeling down so as to look up at you instead of towering over you. "I...can understand that. I simply don't want you getting hurt on my behalf. Or at all, really."

"Wouldn't that be lovely? Being adventurers who never get hurt." You reached a hand out, resting it softly on his cheek. He leaned into your touch, and you could see through the worry to the affection underneath it. "I don't want you hurt either. If today didn't make that obvious."

"I know, dear, I do." He nodded, turning his head to press a kiss to your palm. It was achingly soft, like he was still afraid that you would break. You wouldn’t, but the gentle nature of his love still squeezed your heart. "Could I at least look after you while you recover? This is my fault." 

"Don't be an idiot, I moved of my own free will. But, I wouldn't deny some extra time with you. And I'll need the help if I'm supposed to stay off my leg." 

"We can discuss who's at fault tomorrow, love. Tell me what I can do to help?" There was an exasperated fondness in his voice, the familiar pattern the two of you always fell into. It was soothing after the sharp tension of before. 

"Just hold me? We could both use the chance to relax, I think." 

He let out a breathless chuckle, nodding and reluctantly pulling back from your gentle hold. He wasn't fragile either, not like glass ready to break. But you couldn't help but want to treat him with care, the same way he treated you as he carefully helped you lie down in your bed, shedding his coat to slip in beside you and draw you into his arms. 

There would be more fights to come, there would be more injuries and arguments, and worries. But if after them all, you could both be okay enough to end up like this, it would be alright. Your face pressed against his shoulder, his hands steady on your back. You could be safe here, together. 

As your heartbeats fell into synch, you gently pulled off his glasses, setting them aside. It made it easier to lean in and kiss him, slow and tired. 

"I love you."

"I love you too."

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Far From Me

Vax’ildan x Reader

Words: 2576

Part One

Summary: Vox Machina tries desperately to bring a fallen member back from the other side. Vax’s true feelings are shown in his desperation. 

Notes: I’m embarrassed by how long it has taken me to write this. (I’ve been working on these two imagines since season one came out guys) But here it is. Now, I don’t know every step so I kind of made the ritual to fit the story itself. It’s my version of the ressurection ritual. Don’t come after me please haha.   

-

“Pike!” 

The wounded cry rang through the dark. Vox Machina all tensed at the sound. 

Vex’s head whipped around, her eyes peering carefully into the dark. 

“Pike. Someone! Help me!” It called again. 

Vex’s stomach dropped. She turned to the others. “It’s Vax.”  

She sprinted into the dark, holding her torch out ahead of her. Her eyes scanned every surface in a panic. So focused and frightened, she nearly ran straight into him. At first, her eyes only saw his face and she nearly cried out. Blood smeared across his cheek and his eyes were filled with a deep despair. 

It took only a moment to realize that the blood was not his. 

In Vax’s arms was Y/N’s limp form. 

Vex’s gaze darted between the two. 

Y/N’s pale face. Vax’s shirt, soaked with red. 

“Where’s Pike?” He croaked. His voice was raw and broken from sobs. 

“She’s…” She motioned to the hall behind her where the rest ran to join them. “Vax, what happened?”

“We have to save her. We have to… I can’t… she’s not gone,” he rambled. His eyes found the light-haired gnome and he rushed to her, falling to his knees and presenting her with the body in his embrace. “Do something. Please. This isn’t right. She wasn’t meant to…” 

More, less coherent pleas fall from his trembling lips. The rest of the team stood over them with similar expressions of shock and distress. 

Pike, speechless, tried to assess the extent of Y/N’s injuries. 

“Vax, she’s-” She gasped tearfully.

“No!” He screamed. “No. We have to do something. I do not accept this. I won’t.” 

The cleric saw the desperation in his eyes and knew the truth behind it. She nodded.

“Not here,” she said. “We have to get her somewhere else.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Scanlan chimed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” 

They took off again, Vax still cradling Y/N against him. He didn’t stop when a new set of guards began to chase them. He was too frantic to be furious with vengeance. 

Percy and Vex, however, skidded to a halt. 

“We’ll hold them off,” Percy said. He loaded his weapon with a menacing click. “We’re right behind you.” 

“Besides,” Vex looked at the woman in her brother’s arms. She and Y/N may not have gotten along at first, but she’d grown to love the sorceress like a sister. Especially since she’d seen Vax’s feelings for Y/N from the beginning. Nobody was going to get away with taking that away. She aimed her arrow at the first guard. “I’m going to enjoy this.” 

-

They’re only refuge was a deserted shop several blocks from the armory they’d fled. Vax didn’t remember getting here. He didn’t remember running or kicking down the door rather than picking the lock. He didn’t remember his sister and Percy finding them in the chaos. Every thought was consumed by the woman in his arms. 

“That’s a lot of blood,” Grog said. His usual aggression was replaced with genuine worry for his friend as he recognized the grim expressions on the others' faces. “But you can fix it, right Pikey?”

Her blue eyes widened. “I-I-”

“Y/N is going to be fine,” Vax finished, clearing off a table and laying Y/N down. He didn’t look at the healer or anyone else. His eyes stayed glued to the pale, cold face before him. Vax found a cloth and wiped the blood from her cheek. 

The group around him remained frozen. 

“Somebody do something!” He screamed. 

Pike let out a nervous breath. 

Scanlan put a hand on her shoulder. “You can do this.” 

The reassurance pulled her back into the moment. She stood up straighter, took a breath, and shoved Scanlan and Keyleth out of her way. The cleric pulled a diamond from her pouch and laid it on Y/N’s unmoving chest. 

“We need to do this quickly and we need to do it now,” she barked. 

As the rest of the group scrambled to set up the ritual by Pike’s instruction, Vex approached her brother, gently laying a hand on his arm. He instinctively pulled away, leaning over the body before him. 

“We will get her back, brother,” Vex said softly. 

A tear fell into Y/N’s Y/H/C hair. Vax brushed a strand out of her face. 

“I didn’t tell her,” he whispered. “I-I didn’t tell her. I wanted to, but I was too late.” Finally, he looked up. Tear-filled eyes met his sister’s and he spoke through a broken sob. “I have to get her back so I can tell her.” 

“And you will.” Her voice held the assuredness he wished he could muster. 

With slow, guiding hands, she pulled him away from the table enough to give the cleric the space she needed. 

“Pike,” Vex nodded. “Do your thing.”  

The chaotic panic of the room fell into a deep, concentrated silence. The air tightened until Vax couldn’t breathe. 

“We have to call her spirit back to her body,” Pike said, hands splayed out over the diamond, which had developed a soft, golden glow. The light was small like a candle wick first taking flame. 

“And that will work?” Percy asked. 

Pike took a breath. “If she wants to come back, we have a chance.” 

“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Scanlan looked over her shoulder only to be shoved out of the way. He shuddered. Grog was right. That was a lot of blood. 

Pike didn’t answer. 

Scanlan asked again, almost shouting.  “What do you mean, ‘if’ she wants to come back?” 

“Her family,” Keyleth whispered. Her staff trembled in her hands. “She told me about her family. Her parents. They were killed in front of her as a child. Maybe she…” The kind-hearted druid couldn’t bring herself to finish. 

“Maybe she wants to stay with them,” Pike concluded. 

Vax’s mind went back to that night, the shooting star and Y/N’s drunken voice filled with a disheartened kind of sorrow. He thought of other nights, of other talks once she had opened up to the group. He knew how much she missed them. How she longed to see them once more. 

“But we’re her family!” Scanlan exclaimed. His distress seeped into his voice, almost making it crack. “She can’t go. She has to come back.” He leaned over Y/N’s body, fists clenched on the table beside her. “Do you hear me? You have to come back.” 

“I’m trying to reach her,” Pike said. 

Scanlan took out his lute. 

The gnome's fingers strummed the strings, not in his usual flamboyant fashion, but in a slow, swelling tune. He had no words, but he didn’t need them. The notes spoke for themselves. Sorrowful was not the right word for the moving melody, but there was a tone of despair floating beneath the waves. But upon every crest sang the main point of the piece. Hope. 

In the final moments of the song, Scanlan crouched by Y/N’s ear and whispered something no one else could hear. 

“You reminded me that I’m a good person,” he said. A single tear fell down his cheek. “I need you to keep reminding me or I won’t believe it. Please, come back.” 

With a final flourish of notes, his playing ceased and the room was silent once again. 

Vax was still frozen, his sister’s arm around his shoulders. He wanted to speak, to scream, to plead with the gods not to take you from him, but his voice was lost in a sea of panic swimming through his mind and drowning his chest. 

Please, he thought. Please work. 

“I-I can feel her,” Pike said, eyes screwed shut and brows furrowed. “But I can’t reach her. I need more help.” 

To Vax’s surprise, it was his sister who stepped forward when he was still unable to find his words. He tried. He desperately, desperately tried but all he could do was stare at the cold, limp body before him. Using what strength he could, he followed Vex on his knees to grab Y/N’s hand. His forehead rested beside it as Vex spoke. 

“You were never one of us,” she said. “You were the stray we picked up along the way. You were never meant to last for more than a week.”

Vax lifted his head. “Vex what are you-” 

She stopped him with a glance. Tears pooled in her eyes and her lip trembled as she continued. 

“That is what I believed when we first met. When I first understood your feelings for my brother, even before you did. I thought you were going to leave and I resented you for it. I resented you for the possibility that you would hurt him.” She stood at the foot of the table and took a breath. “But I know that I was wrong.” 

Vex walked around so that she was across from her brother, taking Y/N’s cold, unmoving hand into her own. 

“How many times have you saved my life with these hands? With your power?” She forced back a cry. “With your heart?” 

She remembered every conversation over the fire, while everyone else was asleep. She remembered how Y/N had stood up to her and Vax’s father. She remembered Y/N’s encouraging words and kindness after months of Vex’s hostility. 

“If you lock your heart away from the people you care about, you lock it away from yourself.” Y/N had said one night. Vex remembered wanting to hit her because she was right. “You deserve to let your heart be in the light, Vex’ahlia.” 

Vex continued. “Scanlan was right. You are part of this family. And you know how much I hate agreeing with that gnome.” She laughed through her tears. “Your journey with us is not over. Please, bring your heart to the light again.” 

The diamond’s rays flickered brightly, but only for a moment, and started to fade again. 

“No, no please,” Vex cried. 

Pike grimaced, reaching out her hand. “I’m losing her!” 

The twin’s eyes met with panic and growing despair. 

“It’s you,” Vex said. “It has to be you.” 

“I… I can’t,” Vax clung to the side of the table, fear shaking through his arms. The fading glow felt like daggers in his chest. The lump in his throat made it difficult to talk. His mind was clouded. 

“It has to be you,” his sister repeated. 

The light flickered out. 

For a moment, everything stopped. Time, feeling, thought. It all halted. It felt as though his heart, too, had stopped beating. 

Vax jumped onto the table, pulling Y/N into his arms just as he’d held her in that room. 

“No no no no no,” he didn’t have the energy to scream at first, his words coming out as breathy prayers. But, holding her closer to his chest, he finally found his voice. “Y/N! Don’t do this, please. You have to come back. You have to hear me say it.”

 It was like he was back there again, watching the light fade from her eyes, trapped in the dark. Alone. 

“I meant it.” Vax held her face in his hands, resting his forehead against hers. “I love you. I have loved you since that night when I took your hand. I have loved you in every step we’ve taken together, but now the path you walk is far from me. Please.” Vax pressed his lips to hers. If he could have given her the life from his lungs, he would have. “Return to me, love. Come back.” He kisses her again. “Come back.” 

A growing, bright beam overtook his vision. 

The diamond glowed once more. 

Pike let out a battle-like cry. Her blue eyes disappear beneath screens of light. The rays engulfed her body. 

Y/N lifted out of Vax’s arms. For a moment, he reached out, afraid to let go, but his sister’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

Bright, gold beams blinded the room. 

Percy lifted his arms to shield his eyes. Keyleth hid her face in Grog’s shoulder. Scanlan ducked beneath the table. The twins turned toward each other. 

Darkness returned, Pike gasping for breath, leaning on Scanlan for support. 

Y/N fell back into Vax’s arms, limp and cold. 

“Did it work?” Keyleth asked. 

Y/N remained still. 

The room was silent again. 

Pike closed her eyes, letting Scanlan pull her into his arms as he tried to hide his tears. Keyleth covered her mouth with her hand. Percy looked at the ground. Grog didn’t understand. 

Why wasn’t she waking up?

“Brother…” Vex said softly. 

A desperate, gut-wrench sob escaped Vax’s throat. He buried his face against her neck and held her as if she were his lifeline slipping away. 

Outside, a faint glint of a shooting star streaked across the sky. 

Slowly, you opened your eyes. 

“Why… why is everyone crying?” You coughed. 

Vax pulled back, a mix of disbelief and utter bliss overtaking his features. He held your face in his hands, feeling the warmth return to your cheeks. 

“Thank you, Everlight,” Pike sighed, gripping Scanlan’s hand. 

Vax brought you back to him, holding you tightly against his chest. Vex through her arms around both of you. 

“See,” Grog said. “I knew she’d be alright.” 

Everyone gathered around the table, encircling you with relieved expressions and tears turning joyful.

Scanlan sniffed and wiped at the moisture on his face. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.” 

It came back to you gradually. The pain of the blade, laying in Vax’s arms, falling into the dark. You gently pushed back from Vax. 

“Did I…”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re okay now.” He pressed his lips to your forehead. 

“I thought that I-” You took a breath. “I thought I saw my parents.” You looked around at the people you’d come to call family. “But then I heard music. I could hear voices, calling me back. And I felt…” You reached a trembling hand up to your lips. “I thought I felt…” 

You gazed into the eyes of the man holding you. 

His lips met yours with a soft, yet powerful, urgency. 

It gave you all the strength you needed. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer, your revitalized heart beating so hard you were sure everyone could hear it. By the time you pulled apart, you were both gasping for breath and beaming. 

“Fucking finally,” Vex laughed. 

“Uh, so do you guys, like, want the room?” Scanlan nudged your side, wiggling his eyebrows at you mischievously. 

“Like you wouldn’t find a way to watch,” you joked. You moved to stand but fell back against Vax. 

“Easy,” he said. “Don’t exhaust yourself just yet.” 

“Yeah, save that energy for other things,” Scanlan smirked. 

Vax gave him a silencing glare. 

“We should get out of here,” Percy said. He peeked out of the window and watched the guards they hadn’t killed rush by. “Else we’ll have to do that all over again.” 

“I’m with Percy,” Pike agreed. “She’s too weak for another fight. If we stay hidden, we can get to the next village by sunrise.” She looked at you and you nodded.

“I’ll be fine,” you said. Again, you tried to walk, your legs aching and trembling beneath you. 

Vax scooped you up in his arms and kissed you once more.

 “I’ve got you.” 

And he was never letting go. 

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Do Not Go

Vax’ildan x Reader

Words: 2349

Part One of Two

Summary: Separated from the others in a brutal battle, Vax tries to save you before you fall to your injuries. 

Notes: You guys knew this had to be coming eventually. I have so much angst planned for this man, it isn’t even funny. Also, I’ve never written for an animated character before (let alone one based on a DND campaign) so hopefully this goes well. I’m playing around with jumping around in a timeline, so bear with me. I love Vax so much. 

-

“This way!” 

“No, you idiot. This way!” 

“Close the gate!” 

“Hurry!”

The voices shot over your head like the arrows that were actually shooting over your head. Ahead, the large metal gate began to lower. 

Shit shit shit shit. 

The whole group ran faster. 

Scanlan and Grog got under first, Grog nearly smacking his head against the bars. Then Pike, then Keyleth. Vex ducked under the closing bars. You and Vax were only seconds behind. You stopped when you heard him cry out. An arrow grazed his leg, making him fall. 

“Go!” He yelled to you, voice urgent and out of breath. 

You looked at the closing gate and turned on your heel, sprinting to his side. You grabbed a hold of his arm and helped him back to his feet. 

“I’m not leaving you.” 

The gate crashed down with a dooming thud. 

“Vax!” Vex screamed, reaching her hand through the bars.

 Soldiers descended upon you. 

“We’ll hold them off.” He told her, readying his daggers for a fight. 

She remained, along with the rest of the group, eyes wide and panicked. 

Vax put a hand on hers. “We will find another way around. Go.” 

Vex’s eyes snapped to you. “Keep him alive.” 

All you could do was nod and she reluctantly pried herself away from the gate. The group disappeared into the dark hall. 

Vax watched them go, keeping his back to the soldiers. He turned his head towards you. “How many?”

You scanned the crowd before you. “Fifteen, give or take.” You shrugged. 

He smirked. “Better get to it then.” He whipped around, throwing one of his daggers into a soldier’s eye. 

Arrows shot past your head, nearly slicing your cheek. Three soldiers with swords charged you. You cast a bolt into two of them and watched them crackle into dust. The third swung at you. His sword only collided with your wrist guard, but the impact knocked you backward into another guard. A sharp, burning pain radiated from where you collided with him. 

“Son of a-” You gasped. 

He charged you again. 

You grabbed both of them and cast your personal favorite spell. They both collapsed with a painful scream. 

Vax finished off another soldier, his dagger cleanly slicing open the man’s throat. Five more rushed down the hall towards you. 

“I thought you said there were only fifteen!” He yelled. 

“I believe that’s our cue, darling!” You shouted over the clashing metal. 

Vax took your hand and the two of you started to run. You cast a handful of ball bearings onto the floor, buying you at least a head start. 

You sprinted around corners and ducked into dark halls, hoping to lose them. Finally, Vax found an open door and pulled you through. It opened directly to a flight of stairs. Neither of you caught it in time and you both tumbled down into the dark. You caught the door with your foot, thankfully, closing it so the soldiers wouldn’t find you. 

You landed on a hard, stone floor. Pain radiated through your body. You could hardly move. Even when Vax helped you to your feet, there was a stinging, awful ache in your back. 

“Right. A little light, love?” Vax said. You cast a small fire and lit up the space. It appeared to be a cellar. “Perfect. We can wait for the soldiers to pass and then we can go find the others.” 

“Vax-”

“We make a pretty good team, don’t we?” He chuckled. “I have to say, I’m impressed. The way you handled yourself was incredible. That spell? Those men didn’t stand a chance.” His lips formed a victorious smirk. 

“Vax…” Your voice was weaker now. 

His hazel eyes turned from amused to worried in an instant. 

You took a step towards him and immediately collapsed into his arms. 

“Y/N, what is it?” He asked. As his hands reached to hold onto you, he felt a wetness below your ribs. His hand came away bloody. “No. Gods, no.” He gently lowered you to the ground, pulling you into his lap. 

“I guess,” you gasped in an attempt to laugh, “I guess adrenaline has more power than I thought. I hardly feel-” You cried out as another jolt of pain shot up your spine. 

Vax’s face contorted as if he too were feeling your suffering. “It’ll be alright. We’ll use that  healing potion you bought from Gilmore and everything will be-”

“I used it.” You coughed. “I used it on Keyleth during our last battle, remember?” 

“We’ll figure out something else. We’ll…” His voice broke into a panic. 

You reached up and touched his cheek. Your fingers were cold. 

“Shh,” You soothed. “Can you just… hold me?” You managed a small smile and hoped that his beautiful hazel eyes would be the last thing you saw- just as they had been the first when you met.

-

The fire lit only a small circle. The trees loomed over you like tall, ominous shadows. You’d never been a fan of darkness. Too much could await you. Too much of the unexpected lurked in the pitch. 

There, in the dark, you could see them. Staring at you. The rest of the group seemed unaware, but you couldn’t help but stare back. You weren’t frightened, exactly. There was no malicious intent in their eyes. Instead, there was a curiosity that equally intrigued you. 

“Oh, stop it with the theatrics, will you?” Percy scoffed. “That’s Scanlan’s job.” 

“Yeah!” The gnome agreed, giving you a wink. 

You laughed and rolled your eyes. You took another swig of ale but nearly choked on it. 

A figure stepped out of the darkness. From his alluring presence to his smirking lips, you found yourself utterly entranced. 

“Y/N, this is Vax’ildan, but everyone just calls him Vax. Vex'ahlia’s brother,” Percy said. 

“This little mouse is Y/F/N Y/L/N,” Vex snickered to her twin. “She’ll be joining us, apparently.” 

The woman half-elf’s skepticism towards you hadn’t gone unnoticed. Not that you blamed her. Times like these, everyone had to look out for themselves. Honestly, the only member of the group enthusiastic about your joining was Scanlan and you were pretty sure he was trying to bed you. 

But you couldn’t take your eyes off of the dark-haired rogue. 

He looked at you intently and you felt the burning heat of blush rush to your cheeks. You gave him an unbearably awkward wave. Fates, what were you doing? 

“Hm.” He dismissed you with a nod and took his place beside his sister. 

-

“Do you remember?” You laughed weakly. “Do you remember how nervous I was? All of them were intimidating, but you frightened me the most. With your dark gaze an-and your smolder. You fucking smoldered at me!” Your laughing turned into violent coughs. 

Vax held you closer. 

“I remember,” He said. The reassuring smile he gave you didn’t reach his eyes. “Try and hold still. The others will find us soon. You’re going to be fine.” 

“Vax, I-” 

Footsteps thundered overhead and Vax’s body jolted and you slid ever so slightly out of his grasp. The sudden movement sent another fit up your back. You muffled a pained scream by biting your lip so hard it nearly bled. 

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry.” He muttered, arms wrapping tightly around you once again. “The others will be here soon. Pike will heal you. They’ll find us. Everything will be fine. They’ll find us.” His words were barely more than a whisper as if he were more reassuring himself than you. 

“It’s okay,” You said. You tucked a lock of his dark hair behind his ear. “I’m okay.” 

“Don’t…” He clenched his jaw to keep his chin from trembling. 

“There was a night- gods, it feels like it was yesterday-” You took a deep, shaking breath and tried not to wince. “There was a night in that awful tavern. Everyone had gone up to their rooms but us and we stood outside for what must have been hours. We talked about, well everything, and I can still remember your hand grabbing mine. I thought I’d surely stopped breathing.” You closed your eyes and smiled sadly. “I’m sure you don’t remember. The next morning we were both so hungover from all the ale and you didn’t seem to recall anything that had happened.” 

Vax felt a pang of guilt. That night, he’d let himself feel vulnerable in a way he hadn’t in years. It scared him. The next morning, he could hardly face you. He let you believe it didn’t mean anything. That the secrets you trusted him with were forgotten in a haze of the morning. It was one of his greatest regrets. 

“I remember.” His hand held yours and his lips pressed gently against your palm. “I remember.” 

Perhaps it was you who didn’t. Not entirely.

-

“Look there!” You exclaimed. You pointed to the sky so enthusiastically that you lost your balance and stumbled into him. You both, however, were too drunk to care. “Did you see it?”

“See what?” 

“The shooting star, silly! It was right there!” Your words were hardly understandable, but he still nodded, listening intently. “In my village, we used to say that shooting stars were souls being brought back from the dead.” Your goofy grin dimmed. “You know, for a long time, I’d see them and I would think that maybe, just maybe, those stars would be my parents coming back to me.” 

You felt his eyes on you and fell silent. You let your gaze fall back to the street around you. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“Nobody ever asked.” You shrugged. “And it’s not something I like to talk about, so…” You bumped your shoulder against his to try and play off the situation. “Unless I have a few drinks in me, apparently.” With a nervous laugh, you took another swig. 

The dark memory faded almost as quickly as it had come, thanks to the haze of intoxication floating around your head. 

Vax’s eyes didn’t leave your face as he took another drink of his ale. He’d lost count of how many he’d had, but he was fairly certain you’d had half as many. Yet drunken giggles tumbled out of your lips like flower petals in the wind and he couldn’t help but smile. 

“I used to be scared of you, you know. You and Vex,” you said. You laid your head on his shoulder with an absentminded snicker. “I’m still scared of her! But you,” you jabbed a finger at his chest, “you’re just a big softy, aren’t you? You act like you don’t care, but you do. I can tell.” 

You let your hand fall back to your side, but your head stayed on his shoulder. Both of you looked back at the sky. Something grazed your palm. Your breathing hitched. Vax’s fingers laced with yours and his warm skin sent shivers up your arm. 

Vax couldn’t move. Gods, he could hardly breathe. Just the feeling of holding your hand made his heart pound like it never had before. The urge to take you completely in his arms was fought only by the towering fear in his mind. He pressed his lips to your forehead and closed his eyes, trying to commit the feeling to memory before the darkness in him ruined it. 

He felt vulnerable when he was with you. Weak. He wanted to protect you. He never wanted to be without you. 

And that terrified him. 

You were right. He cared more than he cared too. 

-

You were growing paler by the second, which hardly seemed possible. 

Vax was covered in your blood.

The rest of the group was still nowhere in sight. 

“Vax,” You gasped. He lifted you slightly, holding the back of your head in his hand. 

“I’m right here, darling.” 

“I need you to tell them…” You winced. Just speaking was taking more energy than you had left. “I need you to tell Vox Machina that I- to tell them I-” 

“You’ll tell them as soon as they arrive and Pike heals you.” He didn’t let the hope in his voice falter. If he could convince you, maybe you could hold on just a little longer. 

Your expression saddened. “Tell them thank you. My life is richer for knowing each and every one of you.” 

“Please.” His voice cracked along with his heart. “Please, just hold on a little longer, Y/N.”

“Vax’ildan,” You used the rest of your strength to hold his face in your hands. “The things I should have told you sooner…”

“Y/N, I beg of you, do not go.” He held back a sob. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have a choice, my love.” Your words shot another arrow through his heart. Love. You weren’t afraid anymore. Your heart may be slowing, but it felt fuller than ever. “My Vax’ildan. How am I ever to repay you for what you have given me? For the love you have reminded me I am still capable of?” 

“Don’t leave me.” He pleaded. “You can make it. You’re so strong. Please. Don’t go. Please, Y/N, I…” His words caught in his throat. 

Your hands fell away from his face. Your head tilted back and one final breath parted your lips. 

Like that distant night, Vax couldn’t move. He was frozen, staring at your still body, and waiting for you to wake up again. But your skin was cold in his grip, slicked with your blood. 

“Y/N?” He put a hand on your cheek.

It was like ice.

“Don’t you dare leave,” Vax cried. “Don’t you do this. We need you. Please. Y/N.” He shook you gently. “Y/N, please!” His cry rang through the chamber. He pulled you to him, burying his face in your hair. He whispered against the coolness of your cheek. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

Everything fell silent, save for the sound of his sobs echoing back to him from every dark corner. Even the shadows seemed to mourn. 

[lanadelreyylover]

breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Munch!Leon Kennedy x Reader

Once he gets started, he won't let up

based on this request--to my requester, I hope I was able to breathe life into your fantasy, thank you so much for stopping by :)

a/n: I'm finally getting back into the groove of writing. tried to keep this short and sweet, I know my drabbles have been anything but recently. anyway...please enjoy and know that my inbox is always open if you have a wicked idea you'd like me to explore

It wasn’t long into your relationship with Leon that things started to get physical. One look at the man with the dress shirt he begrudgingly wore to work with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, or those suit pants that contoured his form a little too perfectly, and you were ready to pounce like a tiger on its prey. All it took was one movie night at your apartment where the two of you were snuggled up like bugs in a rug on the sofa, sharing the warmth of one blanket to keep the winter chill seeping through the windows at bay. 

A round of sharing each other’s saliva, hands roaming past the point of no return, and a clumsy trek into the bedroom on shaky legs. Things were bound to proceed as hot and heavy as they began.

After stripping you down to your underwear, Leon gently nudged you onto the bed, and your lips immediately missed the warmth and softness of his own as he stood above you just to sink down onto his knees a moment later to pull down your panties. With his hands on either of your thighs, he drove them apart, and then he took a second to manually adjust your hips on the edge of the mattress, setting you into place for him to begin his ministrations. 

He started with a long lick from the bottom of your entrance all the way up to your clit, the bud pulsing in anticipation. His tongue laid flat against it as he continued to lap like a kitten at a bowl of milk, small, gentle strokes to warm you up. 

Then, when he was satisfied with how wet you had gotten beneath him, how your hips were jolting, your body writhing like a live wire, he began to eat. 

You had never experienced a man who lived up to the name of the act, devouring your pussy like it was his last meal on earth and he had to make every drop count. He did it with such a ferocious hunger, you were certain it was more for his pleasure than your own.

He started by sliding his down your folds, licking the nerves on either side of your clit in between hungry licks at your seam. It made your body jerk, and your abdomen tense. Groaning against your pussy, he stuck the tip of the muscle past your entrance, tonguing your insides as if testing to see how far he could go. The sensation was euphoric, and your climax was nigh and fast-approaching. 

Early into your relationship, you were worried how this would go. With every man before Leon, it would take hours for you to finish, if you did at all. Even by yourself, with your own fingers, or the help of a battery-powered friend, your orgasm was as elusive as a butterfly, always out of arm’s reach. 

Whether Leon was experienced or whether it was written into his biology to know exactly which buttons to press, which spot to lick, you didn’t care. Just as long as he didn’t stop. 

And he didn’t. 

He continued to consume you after your first, second, and third climax, his tongue far from worn, his mouth far from tired. 

“Leon,” you whined, clawing at the sinew of his shoulderblades through the fabric of his t-shirt. Your fingers dug into his skin, pulled at his hair; you pleaded for some reprieve, though he didn’t overlook the lack of surety in your voice, and continued to work. The moans that escaped your throat were like the sound of a flare gun at the starting line of a race. 

In turn, the sounds he made against your pussy pushed you over the edge…yet again, until you were screaming out his name, and you felt as though you could either fall through the layers of cotton and fluff in the mattress, or ascend to the heavens to live among the stars behind your eyes.

After the waterworks of your last orgasm, you were probably drowning the man, though you’re certain, by the way he’s been dining on you for the last hour, he wouldn’t mind dying a hero’s between your legs. 

He retreated, an obscene sheen of sweat and arousal painted across his chin and mouth. His chest heaved with each labored breath he sucked in, his shoulders consequently rising and falling. Strands of dark blonde hair were sticking up in all directions, a tousled mess at your own hands. Surely he was done, you thought. That is, until he wiped away the moisture on his face with his forearm and lunged past you onto the mattress, his head propped up by a pillow, hands expectantly grasped on his abdomen. 

“Sit on my face,” he said, with a smile as big as the moon.  

taglist: @cakeofhorrors @rainyxie

[purplespiritimagines]

tamaranean! reader - bruce, dick, jason

content batfam x tamaranean! reader, gn! reader, alien! reader, affectionate reader, mutual pining, oblivious pining, starfire/koriand'r mention, sunshine reader, fluff, emotional intimacy

characters bruce wayne, dick grayson, jason todd, tim drake here, damian wayne here, duke thomas here, stephanie brown here, cassandra cain here

masterlist

bruce wayne

kori mention, diplomatic concern, social misunderstandings, emotional honesty, soft bruce, slow burn

Bruce’s first reaction to you is not distrust exactly, but diplomatic concern.

Not because you’ve done anything wrong. Because you are a powerful alien with combat training, emotional transparency, flight, super-strength, and very little understanding of Earth’s customs.

In Bruce’s mind, that adds up to about sixteen contingency folders and one migraine.

He treats your arrival like an interplanetary incident at first.

Polite. Careful. Controlled.

He asks questions like he’s interviewing an ambassador and assessing a threat at the same time.

“What are your intentions on Earth?” “What level of solar radiation affects your abilities?” “Are Tamaranean diplomatic customs likely to cause conflict here?”

You blink at him, then smile. “My intention is to learn, to protect those who show me kindness, and to avoid accidentally frightening your people.”

Bruce pauses.

Because that is… very hard to argue with.

He starts out keeping a professional distance. He watches how you interact with the others, how you respond to stress, how you treat civilians, how you handle being corrected.

And what he finds is that you’re not careless. You’re unfamiliar.

There’s a difference.

You ask questions constantly, not because you’re naive, but because you genuinely want to understand.

“Why do humans say they are fine when they are visibly wounded?” “Why is it rude to speak of sadness at dinner?” “Why does Jason say ‘I hate this family’ when his body language suggests affection?”

Bruce, exhausted: “That one is complicated.”

He tries to explain Earth customs in his usual stiff, practical way.

It goes terribly.

You ask why handshakes are considered acceptable but forehead touches are “too intimate.”

Bruce says, “Cultural boundaries.”

You say, “But your culture appears lonely.”

And Bruce has to go stare dramatically out a window for a while.

Eventually, he does what he probably should have done from the beginning: he goes to Dick.

Because Dick knows Kori. Dick has seen firsthand what it means for a Tamaranean to adjust to Earth, and Bruce trusts him to understand the emotional side of it better than he does.

Bruce asks for advice in the most Bruce way possible.

“I need information on Tamaranean integration into human social structures.”

Dick stares at him. “You mean you want to know how to make them feel welcome?”

Bruce says nothing.

Dick grins. “Oh, my god. You do.”

Bruce regrets everything instantly.

Dick tells him that Tamaraneans tend to be direct, affectionate, emotionally open, and deeply shaped by trust and sensory experience.

Bruce takes notes. Literal notes. Dick catches him doing it and immediately texts Kori.

Bruce does not appreciate this betrayal.

After that, Bruce makes more of an effort.

Not a loud one. Never loud.

He starts paying attention to what makes you comfortable. 

He notices that you linger near windows where sunlight comes in. So suddenly, certain rooms in the Manor have better curtains, warmer lighting, and less shadow.

He notices that you don’t always understand when someone is joking.

So he starts clarifying his own dry humour, even though it physically pains him.

“That was sarcasm.”

“I see. Your tone was very grave.”

“It usually is.”

“Yes. This makes you difficult to interpret.”

“Noted.”

He also begins teaching you Gotham etiquette specifically, because Gotham is not normal Earth.

He explains that most humans do not consider gargoyles a regular meeting place. Most cities do not have themed criminals. Most charity galas are not interrupted by hostage situations.

You listen very seriously. “So Gotham is considered… socially abnormal?”

Bruce, after a long pause: “Yes.”

You nod. “That comforts me. I had begun to fear all of Earth was like this.”

Bruce almost smiles.

Almost.

He is quietly fascinated by the way you communicate affection.

You say things so openly that it disarms him.

“You carry grief like armour.” “You love your children as if love is a battle you are always losing.” “Your silence is very loud tonight.”

Bruce does not know what to do with any of that.

His usual defences do not work on you, because you don’t push to win. You simply observe, offer warmth, and let the truth sit between you like a small flame.

That unsettles him more than aggression ever could.

He’s used to people trying to break through his walls.

You just keep putting sunlight near them.

At first, he reminds you that certain Tamaranean gestures may be misunderstood on Earth.

You accept this immediately and start asking before touching anyone.

“May I offer comfort?” “Would a hand upon your shoulder be welcome?” “Is this a moment where silence is preferred?”

Bruce finds this deeply respectful.

Also devastating.

Because one night, after a brutal patrol, you ask him the same thing.

“May I offer comfort?”

He means to say no.

He says, “Yes.”

You sit beside him in the Cave, close enough to be present but not close enough to trap him.

No interrogation. No demand. No pity.

Just warmth.

Bruce doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Then, quietly, he says, “Dick told me Tamaraneans value emotional honesty.”

You smile. “He is correct.”

Bruce looks down at his hands. “I’m not very good at that.”

Your voice softens. “I know.”

And somehow, because you say it without judgment, it doesn’t feel like an accusation.

From then on, he becomes protective of you in a very Bruce way.

Not possessive. Not overbearing. Just quietly, intensely attentive.

He makes sure you have access to language resources, cultural materials, safe spaces to ask questions, and someone to accompany you when Earth customs get too overwhelming.

He also has contingency plans for anyone who tries to exploit your unfamiliarity.

Someone at a gala calls you “exotic” in that gross, condescending way.

Bruce appears beside you like a shadow with a bank account. “That’s inappropriate.”

The person laughs nervously.

Bruce does not.

You later ask if he was angry.

He says, “Yes.”

“On my behalf?”

“Yes.”

You beam at him.

Bruce suddenly has to pretend to be very interested in his champagne glass.

Over time, he stops viewing you as a diplomatic concern and starts seeing you as a person trying to build a life far from home.

That changes everything.

He becomes gentler. Still awkward, but gentler.

He asks about Tamaranean customs without making it sound like an interrogation. He remembers important phrases you teach him.

His pronunciation is terrible. You are delighted anyway.

He once attempts a formal Tamaranean greeting before a mission because Dick told him it would mean a lot. He says it with the solemn energy of a man defusing a bomb.

You nearly cry.

Bruce immediately panics.

Dick, watching from the doorway, whispers, “Nailed it.”

At his core, Bruce understands displacement. Not in the same way, but enough.

He knows what it is to feel like your world ended and you had to become something else to survive.

So while he may not always understand your customs, he understands the loneliness underneath the learning.

And that is where the bond forms.

Quietly. Carefully. Like dawn touching the edge of Gotham’s skyline.

You teach Bruce that honesty does not always have to be a wound. Bruce teaches you that restraint does not always mean rejection.

And eventually, the Manor becomes less like a place you are being hosted and more like a place you are being welcomed.

Not perfectly.

This is the Batfamily. Emotional competency is a group project they are all failing upward.

But Bruce tries. And for him, trying is basically a love language written in invisible ink.

dick grayson

teen titans mentioned, starfire/kori mentioned, dick/kori history, romantic confusion, consent discussions, slow burn, mutual pining, oblivious feelings, dick falls first,

Dick understands you faster than anyone else does. Not perfectly, not instantly, but enough that when you arrive on Earth confused by its rules, its distance, its strange little social traps, he feels something in his chest go soft and familiar.

Because he knew Kori.

He loved Kori. He watched her learn Earth with fire in her hair and sunlight in her heart, watched people misunderstand her honesty, her affection, her warmth, her way of loving without shame.

So when you tilt your head at a handshake and ask why humans touch palms but avoid saying what they mean, Dick doesn’t laugh.

He just smiles gently and says, “Yeah. We’re weird. I’ll help.”

And he does.

Dick becomes your guide on Earth almost immediately. Not in a patronising way. Never like you’re helpless. More like he becomes your translator for all the tiny, unspoken human things no one else remembers to explain.

He teaches you that “I’m fine” often means “I am actively falling apart but would rather eat glass than admit it.”

He teaches you that sarcasm is sometimes humour, sometimes armour, and in Jason’s case, usually both.

He teaches you that hugs are welcome from some people, complicated for others, and that Bruce may stand still like a haunted coat rack, but that does not necessarily mean he dislikes it.

You take this very seriously.

“So when Bruce does not move, he is not rejecting affection?”

Dick pauses. “Sometimes he’s just buffering.”

You nod solemnly. “Like Timothy’s computer.”

“Exactly.”

He’s also the one who helps you understand Gotham specifically, because Gotham etiquette is not Earth etiquette.

Earth has coffee shops and crosswalks. Gotham has gargoyles, hostage galas, and clowns with felony punch cards.

You ask if all Earth cities are like this.

Dick says, “No, Gotham is just extra cursed.”

You look relieved. “That is comforting. I feared your whole planet required therapy.”

Dick laughs so hard he nearly falls off a rooftop.

Because of Kori, Dick recognises the signs when you’re overwhelmed.

The way your smile grows brighter but less real. The way you hover higher off the ground when anxious. The way you ask too many questions at once because you’re trying to adapt quickly enough not to be a burden.

He clocks it immediately.

So he starts building little exits into social situations for you.

At galas, he casually steers you away from people who are being condescending. At family dinners, he explains jokes quietly before they can make you feel excluded. On patrol, he translates Batfamily nonsense in real time.

“Jason means he’s worried.” “Damian means thank you.” “Bruce means good job.”

You frown. “He said, ‘Adequate.’”

“Yeah. That’s Bruce for ‘I’m proud of you and emotionally unavailable about it.’”

You begin to rely on Dick because he makes Earth feel less sharp around the edges.

And Dick is glad. 

More than glad, honestly. There’s a private, tender pride in being the person who understands you best.

Not because he wants to own that place. Because he knows what it feels like to be the bridge between worlds.

He knows what it means to stand with one foot in grief and one foot in belonging.

And he likes that, with you, he can be useful without performing. He does not have to be the golden boy, the first Robin, the emotional glue holding a collapsing family together.

With you, he can just be Dick.

Your friend. Your guide. The person who explains why humans keep saying “we should get coffee” and then never scheduling the coffee.

You are horrified by this. “So it is a false invitation?”

“Sometimes.”

“Richard, your planet is socially lawless.”

“Honestly? Fair.”

The problem is that Dick starts falling for you.

Slowly at first. Then all at once.

It starts with the way you listen like every word matters. The way you laugh with your whole body. The way you touch sunlight like it is an old friend. The way you call him “Richard” with such warmth that his name feels new in your mouth.

He catches himself watching you during training. He catches himself smiling when you enter a room. He catches himself wanting to be the first person you look for when something confuses you.

And that scares him a little.

Because he knows you trust him. He knows you see him as safe. He also knows you are still learning Earth customs, including romance, dating, boundaries, flirting, and all the messy little rituals humans wrap around desire.

So Dick does what Dick does best and worst:

He overthinks. Spectacularly. Gold medal, Olympic-level spiral.

He worries that if he tells you how he feels too soon, it might influence you. He worries you might mistake gratitude for love. He worries that because he’s your main guide, you might feel obligated to return his feelings.

He worries about Kori, too—not because he compares you to her, but because his experience with her taught him how easily humans can misunderstand Tamaranean openness.

He refuses to be someone who takes advantage of that.

So instead of confessing, Dick starts teaching you about relationships.

Very carefully. Very respectfully.

Painfully respectfully.

You ask him one night why humans seem to hide romantic interest behind teasing, delayed replies, and “accidental” touching.

Dick nearly drops his escrima stick.

Then he sits beside you and explains flirting.

Actual flirting.

Not the Steph version, which involved “vibes, crimes, and plausible deniability.”

He explains that romantic feelings can look different for different people.

For some, it’s physical attraction. For some, it’s emotional closeness. For some, it’s trust.

For some, it’s wanting to build a life beside someone, even in small, ordinary ways.

You listen intently.

Then you ask, “And how do humans know when they are loved honestly?”

Dick goes quiet.

Eventually, he says, “When someone gives you the choice. Again and again. No pressure. No debt. No trap.”

You remember that.

He teaches you about consent before he teaches you about dating. That matters to him.

He explains that affection should be wanted by both people, that partners should be allowed to say yes, no, not yet, or not like that.

You find this beautiful.

“Love with freedom,” you say.

Dick’s voice softens. “Yeah. Exactly.”

He explains monogamy and polyamory, casual dating and serious dating, crushes and attraction, breakups and commitment. He explains that humans sometimes date badly because they are afraid to ask directly for what they want.

You stare at him. “Your species is exhausting.”

“We really are.”

He also explains that some people flirt for fun, some flirt seriously, and some flirt because they panic and their mouth goes rogue.

You ask which type he is.

Dick chokes. “Uh. Depends who you ask.”

You smile, too knowing.

That smile becomes dangerous to his health.

The more he teaches you, the worse his feelings get.

Because you don’t just absorb the information. You reflect on it.

You ask what kind of partner he hopes to be. You ask what kind of love has hurt him. You ask whether he believes love can survive two people changing.

Dick gives you answers he hasn’t admitted to himself in years.

With you, conversations turn into constellations. One question becomes another. One truth becomes a doorway.

He starts to realise he isn’t just helping you understand Earth romance. He’s also relearning what he wants love to be.

Not performance. Not rescue. Not two people bleeding into each other until nobody knows where the wound began.

Something chosen. Something honest. Something warm. Something that looks a lot like you sitting beside him on a rooftop, asking about human courtship while the city glitters below like broken glass pretending to be stars.

The Batfamily notices, obviously. They are detectives. Tragically.

Jason catches Dick watching you laugh and mutters, “You’re pathetic.”

Dick says, “I’m being respectful.”

“You’re being constipated.”

“That’s not—”

“Emotionally constipated. Bruce disease. Very sad.”

Tim notices that Dick keeps volunteering to explain Earth customs to you and starts calling it “extraterrestrial pining with educational components.”

Steph calls him “Space Romeo.”

Damian tells him, “If your intentions are honourable, your hesitation has become inefficient.”

Dick puts his head in his hands.

Even Bruce notices, which is humiliating for everyone involved.

Bruce simply says, “Be careful.”

Dick answers, “I am.”

And he is.

That’s the whole problem. Dick is so careful with you that he forgets you are not fragile.

You are new to Earth, not new to feeling. You are unfamiliar with human dating customs, not incapable of knowing your own heart.

Eventually, you confront him. Gently, but directly, because you are Tamaranean and subtlety is a human disease.

“You speak to me often of romance,” you say. “But never of your own feelings.”

Dick freezes.

Absolutely caught.

Acrobat down. Send help.

He tries to deflect. You do not allow it.

“You told me love should offer choice,” you remind him. “But you have not offered me yours.”

That wrecks him a little.

Because you’re right. He was so focused on not pressuring you that he accidentally withheld the truth from you.

So finally, carefully, Dick tells you.

He tells you that he cares for you. That he’s attracted to you. That being around you makes him feel lighter. That he didn’t want to confuse you, or rush you, or make you feel like affection came with expectations.

He makes it very clear that you owe him nothing.

No answer. No romance. No returned feeling.

Just the truth, placed gently in your hands.

You listen, glowing faintly in the dark.

Then you say, “I know my own heart, Richard.”

His breath catches.

You step closer, but you still ask. “May I touch you?”

Dick smiles, soft and stunned. “Yes.”

When you kiss him, it is not because he taught you how humans love.

It is because he gave you room to decide how you love.

And that means everything.

After you get together, Dick is still your guide, but the dynamic shifts. Now it’s sweeter. More playful.

He teaches you about date nights. You teach him Tamaranean bonding rituals. He teaches you that flowers are a common romantic gift. You bring him a glowing alien plant that may or may not be mildly sentient.

He names it Bitey.

You are delighted.

He teaches you about anniversaries. You decide every meaningful moment deserves one.

First rooftop conversation anniversary. First successful sarcasm recognition anniversary. First time Bruce willingly accepted your hug anniversary.

Dick says, “That one deserves a national holiday.”

You still ask questions about Earth romance, but now they make him blush.

“So when humans say they wish to take things slow, what pace is considered emotionally honourable?”

“Depends.”

“And physically?”

Dick walks into a doorframe.

Jason witnesses it and never lets him live.

The best part is that Dick never stops being careful with your heart.

Not because he doubts you.

Because he values you. He understands better than anyone how bright Tamaranean love can burn, how fearless and full-bodied it can be. And he wants to meet that love honestly.

No shadows. No tricks. No gravity pretending to be choice.

With Dick, Earth becomes less confusing. With you, love becomes less frightening. And somewhere between rooftop lessons, soft laughter, and his hand finding yours beneath Gotham’s bruised-purple sky, Dick realises he didn’t just become your guide to Earth.

You became his guide back to joy.

jason todd

strangers to friends to lovers, wary-to-soft, slow-burn, battlefield trust, domestic realisation, romantic panic, mild emotional angst, soft jason todd, dick grayson appears, reading together, trust issues, canon-typical violence, jason's trauma implied, emotional repression, misunderstandings to due cultural differences,

Jason is wary of you at first.

Not in a dramatic “alien bad” way. Jason is no stranger to aliens, metas, magic users, walking gods, undead nightmares, and whatever the hell happens in Gotham on a Wednesday. He’s fought beside people who can bench-press tanks and people who can rewrite physics before breakfast.

So it isn’t your power that makes him cautious.

It’s the unknown.

It’s the fact that you’re bright and direct and open in a way Gotham tends to punish. It’s the fact that you look at people like you expect truth from them.

Jason knows exactly how dangerous that can be.

At first, he keeps his distance. Arms crossed. Helmet on. Voice dry.

“You always this friendly with strangers, sunshine?”

You blink at him. “Only with strangers who interest me.”

Jason does not have a comeback ready for that.

Horrifying.

You decide very early that Jason is worth understanding.

Not fixing. Not taming. Not softening into something easier.

Understanding.

And Jason clocks the difference immediately, even if he pretends not to.

You don’t treat him like a wounded animal. You don’t flinch at his anger. You don’t try to drag his trauma into the light like a confession.

You just keep showing up.

On patrol. In the Cave. At safehouses. At crime scenes where he expects everyone to second-guess him and instead finds you standing beside him, glowing faintly in the dark like the universe forgot Gotham was supposed to be miserable.

At first, Jason doesn’t trust it.

Of course he doesn’t. Jason Todd has survived too much to accept warmth without checking for a blade under it.

But you are stubborn. Tamaranean stubborn. Which is a whole separate category of stubborn, apparently.

He snaps at you once after a mission, something sharp and defensive, meant to make you back off.

You just look at him and say, “Your anger is loud, but it is not the truth of you.”

Jason freezes. Then, because he is Jason, he says, “That supposed to mean something?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Cryptic alien therapy. My favourite.”

But he thinks about it for days.

The two of you become friends slowly. Painfully slowly, by your standards.

Jason does not do instant trust. He does not hand over soft parts just because someone asks nicely.

So you earn each other inch by inch.

You learn the way he moves in a fight. He learns the way you draw fire away from civilians without hesitation.

You learn that when Jason says “move,” he does not mean “I command you.” He means, “I saw the shot before you did.”

He learns that when you touch two fingers to your heart before battle, it means, “I return with you or not at all.”

The battlefield is where the trust roots deepest.

Jason trusts competence before confession.

And you are competent. Terrifyingly so.

You don’t just fly into danger. You think. You adapt. You listen. You hit like a meteor with morals.

The first time you take a hit meant for him, he loses his mind.

Absolutely no chill. None. Zero. A historic drought of chill.

Afterwards, he corners you on a rooftop, furious. “Don’t ever do that again.”

You frown. “You were in danger.”

“I had it handled.”

“You were bleeding.”

“I bleed all the time.”

“That is not a strategy, Jason.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Points at you like you have personally offended him.

“That—don’t say things that make sense when I’m yelling at you.”

You call him out constantly.

Not cruelly.

Just directly.

Jason says, “I’m fine.”

You say, “You are lying.”

Jason says, “I don’t need backup.”

You say, “You are not so special that teamwork cannot help you.”

Jason says, “I don’t care.”

You say, “You care so much it has become inconvenient.”

He hates it. He loves it. He hates that he loves it.

Because everyone else either tiptoes around him or challenges him like they’re trying to win.

You don’t do either. You just tell the truth and then hand him a protein bar like you didn’t just punt his emotional defences into the sun.

Jason also refuses to let anyone make you feel wrong for being Tamaranean.

This is important to him. He sees people trying to sand down your edges, to make your affection smaller, your honesty quieter, your customs more “appropriate.”

And it pisses him off.

Someone at a gala tells you that you’ll “adjust eventually” and become “less intense.”

Jason’s jaw ticks.

You begin to ask, “Is intensity improper?”

Jason cuts in before anyone else can answer. “Nah. They’re just boring.”

The person laughs awkwardly.

Jason does not.

Later, you ask him if he thinks you should change to fit Earth better.

Jason looks genuinely offended. “Hell no.”

“But I misunderstand many things.”

“So? Earth misunderstands itself every five minutes.”

You consider this.

He continues, softer, “You can learn the rules without becoming smaller for them.”

That one stays with you.

Jason likes you as you are. Not despite the forehead touches, the dramatic declarations, the sunlight metaphors, the way you ask direct questions that make Bruce look like he’s being emotionally waterboarded.

Because of them.

He likes your honesty. He likes your laugh. He likes that you don’t apologise for taking up space. 

He likes that when you care, everyone knows it. There is no guessing game. No trapdoor. No emotional riddler nonsense. Just you, bright and impossible, choosing people with your whole chest.

And then one day, it hits him.

Not during battle. Not while you’re flying over Gotham with starfire in your hands. Not when you save his life or throw a rogue through a wall.

Nope. It happens in the kitchen. Because the universe hates him personally.

You are standing barefoot in one of the Manor kitchens, wearing one of his old hoodies because you got cold after patrol.

The sleeves are too long on you.

You are frowning intensely at a paperback he gave you, sounding out a sentence slowly because English idioms are still deeply unserious.

Jason is cooking. Nothing fancy. Eggs, toast, potatoes, enough seasoning to make Alfred raise one approving eyebrow.

You look up and ask, “Why does this character say his heart is in his throat? Has he swallowed it?”

Jason laughs before he can stop himself.

Not a snort. Not a sarcastic little huff.

A real laugh.

You brighten instantly, pleased with yourself.

And Jason’s entire world quietly breaks.

Because suddenly he notices everything at once.

How comfortable he is with you in his space. How much he likes hearing your voice wrapped around his favourite stories. How badly he wants to make you breakfast every morning. How the sight of you in his hoodie does something catastrophic to his ability to function.

And there it is.

Oh.

Oh, no.

He likes you. Romantically.

Cue panic.

Jason goes through all five stages of grief in approximately thirty seconds while flipping eggs.

Denial: No, he doesn’t. Anger: This is Dick’s fault somehow. Bargaining: Maybe it’s just friendship with a side of alien-induced cardiac event. Depression: He is going to ruin everything. Acceptance: Absolutely not. He rejects acceptance.

You ask why his heartbeat has changed.

Jason nearly drops the pan. “It hasn’t.”

“It has.”

“Nope.”

“Jason.”

“Must be the eggs.”

“The eggs changed your heartbeat?”

“Very emotional eggs.”

He avoids you for exactly twelve hours, which is a new personal record in emotional cowardice.

Then he realises avoiding you feels worse than panicking near you.

So naturally, he does the most desperate thing imaginable.

He goes to Dick.

Dick opens his apartment door, sees Jason’s expression, and immediately says, “Oh my god.”

Jason points at him. “Don’t.”

“You’re in love.”

“I said don’t.”

“You’re in love with them.”

“I came here for advice, not a musical number.”

Dick is delighted. Like, deeply and spiritually delighted.

Jason regrets every life choice that led him here. But he still asks.

Because Dick understands Tamaraneans. Dick understands Kori. Dick understands the difference between affection, attraction, cultural openness, and actual romantic intent.

Jason needs to know he isn’t misreading you. More importantly, he needs to know how not to hurt you.

That part makes Dick soften.

Jason acts rough about it, but his questions are careful.

“How do I know if they actually like me, not just… trust me?” “How direct is too direct?” “What if they think I’m rejecting their culture because I don’t always know how to respond?” “What if I screw it up?”

Dick gives him real advice.

He tells Jason not to assume your affection means romance. He tells him to be honest, because Tamaraneans value emotional clarity. He tells him not to make decisions for you under the excuse of protecting you.

Jason hates that one because it sounds suspiciously accurate.

Dick also tells him, gently, “They like you as you are, too, Jay.”

Jason looks away. “Yeah, well. Bad taste.”

“Or good instincts.”

Jason leaves before Dick can get too smug.

The confession, when it happens, is awkward and honest and so painfully Jason.

He doesn’t make a grand speech. He finds you after patrol, sitting on the roof of one of his safehouses, watching the sunrise paint Gotham gold.

You smile when he joins you.

Jason sits beside you, quiet for a long moment.

Then he says, “I need to tell you something, and you’re gonna let me finish before you say anything poetic that makes me forget English.”

You nod solemnly. “I will restrain my poetry.”

“Appreciate it.”

He tells you he cares about you. That you’re his friend, and he trusts you, and that matters to him more than he knows how to say.

Then he swallows hard and admits there’s more. That somewhere between patrols and arguments and you stealing his hoodies, he started wanting things he didn’t think he got to want.

You listen without interrupting.

Jason keeps his eyes on the skyline.

“I’m not asking you to feel the same. I’m not asking you to change anything. I just… thought you should know. Because you’re always talking about honesty, and apparently that crap is contagious.”

You are quiet for one terrifying second.

Then you say, “May I now say something poetic?”

Jason closes his eyes. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

You take his hand. “My heart has known yours for longer than your mouth has allowed truth.”

Jason groans, but he’s smiling. “Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of thing I meant.”

You kiss his knuckles.

He stops smiling.

Not because he’s unhappy.

Because every defence system in his body just blue-screened.

When you get together, Jason remains Jason.

He still grumbles. Still deflects. Still says romance is “not a big deal” while memorising every single thing that makes you happy.

He learns which Tamaranean gestures are romantic and which are familial because he refuses to accidentally propose marriage during breakfast.

He asks questions, privately, thoroughly, with the dedication of a man defusing a bomb made of feelings.

He also gets protective of your right to be yourself.

Not in a possessive way. In a “try to make them feel ashamed and I’ll ruin your week” way.

If someone mocks your directness, Jason’s expression goes flat. If someone treats your customs like a novelty, he steps in. If someone assumes you’re naive because you’re unfamiliar with Earth, Jason gets that dangerous quiet voice.

“They’re new to your customs, not stupid. Try again.”

You love that about him.

Jason loves that you never let him hide from himself for too long.

Sometimes he spirals. Sometimes he pulls away. Sometimes his old ghosts get loud, and he tries to convince himself you’d be better off with someone easier.

You shut that down immediately. “You do not get to decide my heart for me.”

Jason exhales, shaky. “Yeah?”

“Yes. It is mine. I choose where it rests.”

And wow.

He is so gone. Embarrassingly gone.

Dick was right. Tragic.

One of Jason’s biggest love languages is books.

He starts with reading to you.

At first, it’s because you’re still learning certain Earth idioms, and Jason likes explaining them.

Then it becomes a ritual. Late nights. Soft blankets. His voice low and rough around the edges. You curled beside him, asking questions about metaphors and old tragedies and why humans write so much about longing.

Jason says, “Because we’re dramatic.”

You say, “You especially.”

He says, “Yeah, walked into that one.”

Then Jason gets ambitious. He starts hunting down Tamaranean translations of his favourite books.

This is not easy. At all.

There are probably three people on Earth who can help, and two of them are busy preventing cosmic disasters.

Jason does it anyway.

He contacts Dick first. Then, through Dick, maybe Kori. Then, through several increasingly weird intergalactic channels he refuses to explain.

Tim catches him researching alien publishing networks at three in the morning and says, “Are you pirating literature from space?”

Jason says, “Go away.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Go away faster.”

Eventually, Jason manages to get Tamaranean translations made or sourced for some of his favourite books.

Not because he thinks you need them.

Because he wants to share the stories with you in a way that feels like home.

The first time he gives you one, he acts like it’s nothing. Practically shoves it at you. “Here. Thought you might like it.”

You open it and freeze.

Because it is not just translated.

It is translated carefully. With cultural notes. With poetic equivalents. With certain metaphors adapted so they make sense under Tamaranean suns.

Your fingers tremble on the pages. “Jason…”

He looks away immediately. “Don’t make a big thing out of it.”

“This is a very big thing.”

“It’s paper.”

“It is devotion.”

Jason’s ears go red. “Okay, maybe make a medium thing out of it.”

From then on, reading together becomes sacred.

Sometimes you read in English. Sometimes he listens while you read the Tamaranean aloud, your voice turning his favourite stories into something new and golden. Sometimes you translate passages back to him literally, and he gets fascinated by the differences.

Sometimes you argue over characters.

Jason is a menace in literary debates. You are worse. It is extremely romantic and deeply nerdy.

Dick finds out and nearly cries. Jason threatens him.

Bruce quietly approves.

Alfred starts leaving tea outside the library. Jason pretends not to notice.

But he does.

He notices everything when it comes to you.

That’s how he loves. Not loudly, maybe.

Not easily. But deeply.

Through trust earned in battle. Through honesty sharpened into care. Through books translated across stars. Through letting you stay exactly as you are.

Because Jason Todd does not fall in love with the version of you Earth might find easier.

He falls in love with you bright, blunt, fierce, affectionate, strange, and impossible.

And for once, he does not want to run from the warmth.

He wants to sit beside it. He wants to read with it. He wants to come home to it.

[purplespiritimagines]

the shape of safe - jason todd

request could you do a mini series or one shot of batfam finding out about your depression or you having a panic attack?

content jason todd x gn!reader, established relationship, graphic description of a panic attack, panic attack, dissociation, trauma references, aftercare

word count 3.9k

masterlist | jason masterlist

It started with the sound of glass breaking.

Not a window. Not a bottle. Nothing dramatic enough to justify the way your body reacted, really. Just a mug slipping from the counter because your fingers had gone clumsy around the handle, because your mind had been somewhere else, because the kitchen light was too bright and the rain against the windows had been too loud and the whole apartment felt suddenly tilted, as if gravity had changed its mind about which way was down. The mug hit the floor and shattered into white ceramic teeth across the tile, coffee bleeding between the pieces in a dark, bitter spill.

For half a second, there was only the crash.

Then your body decided it was in danger.

Your breath snapped in too fast, a hard, startled gasp that cut at the inside of your throat. The apartment blurred at the edges. The counter under your palm seemed to drop away even though you were still holding it, knuckles pale, fingers locked around the cool stone like it might keep you from being dragged under. You could hear your pulse everywhere: in your ears, in your teeth, in the soft meat behind your eyes. It was too big for your body. Too loud. A frantic animal throwing itself against the cage of your ribs.

You told yourself it was just a mug. You told yourself you were in Jason’s apartment, in the little kitchen with the crooked drawer he still hadn’t fixed because he claimed it had “character,” with the rain sliding silver down the windows, with the smell of old books and gun oil and the basil plant you had bullied him into keeping alive on the sill. You told yourself there was no blood, no smoke, no hands reaching for you, no voice telling you that you were too slow, too weak, too much. But your body did not care about logic. Your body had its own religion, and tonight, it worshipped fear.

The first wave hit like a fist closing around your lungs.

You tried to breathe around it and couldn’t. Air came in thin, useless ribbons. Your chest locked down harder the more you fought it, muscles turning to iron, throat narrowing until each inhale felt like it had to scrape through broken glass. You bent over the counter, one hand pressed to your sternum, the other still gripping stone, and the room lurched in a slow, nauseating spiral. Your vision splintered into details you could not hold together: ceramic shards, coffee spreading, rainlight on tile, your own foot too close to the mess, the edge of the fridge humming like an electrical wire inside your skull.

You did not hear Jason come in at first. The front door opened, rain whispered off his jacket, his boots crossed the living room, and all of it arrived through the panic as muffled, distant sound, like you were underwater and he was calling to you from the shore. Then his voice cut through—not loud, never loud, not when it mattered.

“Hey,” Jason said, careful and low. “Sweetheart?”

You flinched anyway.

He stopped instantly. You felt the pause more than saw it, a stillness blooming behind you. Jason Todd, who could move through gunfire like the world owed him room, went quiet as a shadow at the edge of the kitchen. No sudden motion. No grab for your shoulders. No demanding what happened. He took in the scene fast because Jason always took in a scene fast, eyes flicking over the shattered mug, your bare feet, the coffee, the angle of your body, the way you were gulping down air that didn’t seem to reach you.

“Okay,” he said, and the word was soft enough to be placed in your hands. “Okay, I see you. Don’t move, baby. There’s glass.”

Your brain caught on that: glass. Your feet. The floor. The danger that was real, small and sharp and ordinary, waiting under you. You looked down and immediately wished you hadn’t, because the pieces seemed too bright, too many, and your mind turned them into other things—bone, teeth, shrapnel, evidence. Your breath hitched, broke, collapsed in on itself.

Jason swore under his breath, not at you. Never at you. You knew the difference by now, knew the way his anger curved outward when the world touched you wrong. He moved slowly into your line of sight, hands visible, palms open. His hair was damp from the rain, the white streak at his temple plastered darker than usual, and his jacket dripped onto the floor behind him. He looked too big for the kitchen and too gentle for what he had been made into, all broad shoulders and careful eyes, a bruised saint with blood on his history and tenderness in his hands.

“I’m gonna get you off the glass,” he said. “I’m not touching you until you tell me I can. Can you look at me?”

You tried. You really did. Your gaze climbed from his boots to his knees to the wet leather of his jacket, but when you reached his face, everything slipped sideways. His features wouldn’t hold still. His eyes were green, then too bright, then far away. The room buzzed. Your fingers went numb.

“I can’t,” you choked, or thought you did. It came out small, torn into pieces by your breathing.

Jason’s expression tightened, but his voice stayed steady. “That’s all right. You don’t gotta do anything fancy. Just listen to me. I’m right here. You’re in my kitchen. You dropped a mug. Scared the hell outta your nervous system, dramatic little bastard that it is.” His mouth twitched like he was trying to give you something almost like a smile, something you could hold without having to smile back. “But we’re not in danger. You’re not in trouble. I’ve got you.”

Your chest cramped. The words I’ve got you should have helped. They did, somewhere deep down, but the panic was louder, a storm with teeth. Your lungs kept clawing for air. Tears blurred your vision before you realised you were crying, hot and humiliating on your face.

Jason lowered himself into a crouch a few feet away, putting himself below your eye level, making his body less like a wall and more like shelter. The sight of him kneeling in the coffee and rainwater without caring about his clothes did something terrible and tender inside you. He knew, you remembered suddenly. Maybe not this exact shape of fear, not this exact trigger or this exact night, but Jason knew what it was to have your body drag you back into a war that had already ended. He knew what it was to wake up with death in his mouth. He knew how memory could become a room and lock you inside it.

“Can I touch your hand?” he asked. “Just your hand. You can say no.”

You wanted to say yes. You wanted to say please. Your tongue felt too large, your jaw too tight. All you managed was a frantic little nod.

Jason reached slowly. His fingers closed around your wrist first, warm and calloused, not restraining. Just there. Then his thumb found the inside of your palm and pressed into the soft centre of it, firm enough to give your body a fact. His touch was steady. Not a demand, not a cage. A landmark.

“There you are,” he murmured. “Good. Feel my hand? Focus on that for me. You don’t gotta breathe perfect yet. We’re just gonna make the air a little less of a jerk.”

A broken laugh tried to claw its way out of you and got lost halfway into a sob. Jason’s thumb kept moving in slow circles against your palm. He shifted closer, still mindful of the glass, and slipped his other hand under your elbow.

“I’m gonna lift you onto the counter,” he said. “Glass is all over the floor and I’m not letting you step in it. You with me?”

You weren’t, not fully. You were somewhere between the kitchen and the panic, between Jason’s voice and the thunder of your heartbeat. But you nodded again because you trusted him with the parts of you that couldn’t answer.

He lifted you like you weighed nothing, one arm braced around your waist and the other under your thighs, careful and smooth. The movement made the room swoop, and you grabbed at his shoulder with a strangled sound. Jason froze for half a breath, holding you against him as if the whole universe had narrowed to not scaring you worse. Then he settled you onto the counter away from the spill, keeping one hand at your hip until he was sure you were stable.

“There,” he said. “Feet off the floor. No glass. That problem’s handled.”

Handled. The word slid through the panic like a blade through rope. One problem handled. One danger named and removed. Your brain wanted to spiral into a thousand other dangers, most of them shapeless, but Jason had pinned one down and killed it clean.

He shrugged out of his wet jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, then came back to stand in front of you. Not too close. Close enough that you could see the rain caught in his lashes, the small scar near his jaw, the pulse beating in his throat. He was breathing deliberately now, slow and visible, chest rising and falling like a tide trying to teach yours the moon.

“In with me if you can,” he said. “Don’t force it. Just follow when it feels possible.”

You tried to match him and failed. Your inhale stuttered, shallow and ugly. Panic punched up again, furious at the failure, and you made a helpless noise that sounded too much like pain.

Jason’s eyes flashed, not with fear but recognition. “Nope. Hey. No beating yourself up. That’s panic talking, and panic is a lying asshole with bad manners.” His hand returned to yours, palm against palm. “You’re not failing. Your body thinks it’s saving you. It’s just got ancient software and no damn updates.”

If you hadn’t been drowning, you might have smiled. Jason and his stupid, perfect mouth. Jason, who could make jokes at the edge of hell because sometimes a joke was a handhold, because sometimes laughter was the first crack in the locked door.

He pressed your joined hands gently against his chest.

“Feel that?” he asked.

His heartbeat thudded under your palm, solid and slow. Not calm exactly—you knew him too well to mistake control for ease—but steady. A living drum. A proof. You stared at where your hand rested against him, at the black cotton stretched over scarred muscle, and tried to let your body understand that this was now. This was Jason. This was not whatever your blood kept mistaking it for.

“Count it,” he said. “Don’t count your breaths. Count mine.”

So you did. Or tried to. One beat. Two. Three. The numbers kept scattering, but Jason did not correct you. He just breathed and let you borrow the rhythm. His thumb brushed the back of your hand. The rain kept tapping at the window, softer now, less like a warning and more like the weather. The fridge hummed. Somewhere in the living room, a floorboard gave its familiar little complaint. The apartment began, piece by piece, to become itself again.

Your breathing changed without asking permission. It didn’t settle all at once. It came in ragged negotiations, the body bartering with terror. The tightness in your chest loosened by a cruel inch, then another. Air reached deeper. Your fingers tingled painfully as sensation returned, pins and needles waking under your skin.

Jason noticed because Jason noticed everything. “That part sucks,” he said. “The tingling. Feels like your hands are turning into TV static. It’ll pass.”

You looked up at him then, really looked, and found his face drawn with something so tender it almost hurt worse than the panic. His brows were low, mouth set, jaw tense with the effort of not showing too much. Protective Jason was a dangerous thing on patrol, all red helmet and loaded silence, but here, in the kitchen light, he was protective in quieter ways. He kept his voice soft. He kept the glass away from your feet. He made himself into something warm and patient and impossible to weaponise.

“I hate this,” you whispered.

“I know,” he said.

“I hate that you have to see it.”

His expression cracked. Not breaking, exactly. Softening around an old bruise. “Baby, look at me.” You did. “I am not mad. I am not disappointed. I am not keeping score.” His voice went rough on the last word, and his hand tightened around yours. “You’ve seen me come back from nightmares swinging at ghosts. You’ve sat on the bathroom floor with me when the Pit crawled up my throat and made me feel like my skin didn’t fit. You think I’m gonna look at you having a panic attack and decide you’re too much?”

Your eyes burned again. “It feels like too much.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, honest enough not to argue with the feeling. “It does. That doesn’t mean it is.”

The words landed somewhere fragile. You closed your eyes, and the room tilted less violently this time. Jason stayed quiet for a while, only breathing, only holding your hand against his chest. He had never been good at empty comfort, never one for shiny lies or sugar-glass promises. He did not tell you there was nothing to be afraid of. He did not tell you to calm down. He simply stayed, and because he stayed, because he had survived his own impossible things and still come home to you with rain in his hair and gentleness in his palms, the panic began to run out of road.

When your breathing finally evened into something human, exhaustion rushed in behind it.

It was obscene how tired fear could make you. Your bones felt hollowed out. Your shoulders ached from clenching. Your mouth tasted metallic, and your cheeks were stiff with drying tears. You looked down at the floor again, at the broken mug and the puddle of coffee, and shame rose sharp and immediate.

“I made a mess,” you said.

Jason followed your gaze, then snorted softly. “Yeah, tragic. A mug died. Gotham mourns.”

“Jason.”

“I hated that mug.”

“You bought that mug.”

“I make mistakes.” He reached up and wiped your cheek with the backs of his fingers, so gentle it made your throat close for an entirely different reason. “Stay put. I’m cleaning it up.”

You wanted to argue, but the idea of putting your feet on the floor made your stomach twist. Jason saw the argument forming anyway and gave you a look that was pure Red Hood filtered through domestic concern.

“Don’t even start,” he said. “I’m wearing boots. You’re barefoot. This is not a democracy.”

That did pull a tiny laugh out of you, weak and watery. Jason looked absurdly pleased with himself, like he had just won a major battle instead of coaxing one broken sound from your chest. He got the dustpan and moved around the kitchen with efficient care, sweeping the large pieces first, then the smaller glittering shards that hid near the cabinet edges. He wiped up the coffee, checked under the counter, then checked again because his version of love had always been a little obsessive around the edges. Danger did not get to linger in rooms where you were trying to breathe.

When the floor was safe, he washed his hands and came back to you. “All clear.”

You stared at him, the massive shape of him in the warm kitchen light, the damp curls at his forehead, the old scars disappearing under his sleeves. “Can I have a hug now?”

His face changed so fast it almost hurt. “Yeah,” he said, voice low. “Hell yeah, you can.”

He helped you down from the counter, but before your feet fully touched the tile, he scooped you against him, arms wrapping around your back with that careful strength that always undid you. Jason hugged like he was building a barricade between you and the rest of the world. Not crushing, not trapping, just complete. His chin rested near your temple, and his body heat soaked through your clothes, grounding you more deeply than any counted breath.

You melted into him all at once, the last of your control giving way. Your hands fisted in his shirt. He smelled like rain, leather, soap, and the faint smoky bite of the city. He rocked you once, barely, more a shift of weight than a motion, and murmured into your hair.

“There we go,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You did so good.”

You made a small, embarrassed sound against his chest. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You survived your brain turning the lights off and setting off the fire alarm. That counts.” His hand moved slowly up and down your back, broad palm tracing the line of your spine. “Trust me. I’m an expert in brains doing haunted house nonsense.”

You breathed him in and let the warmth of him fill the spaces panic had emptied. It was strange, being held by someone who knew the monster by a different name. Jason’s fear came in green flashes and grave dirt, in crowbars and laughter and resurrection wrong enough to bruise the soul. Yours came in other shapes. Other sounds. But the body did not care about the exact story when it was drowning. It only knew the water. Jason knew the water, too.

After a while, he guided you toward the couch, one arm still around you as if he didn’t trust gravity not to get ideas. He sat first and pulled you down with him, arranging you against his side, tucking a blanket around your legs with a gruffness that would have fooled no one. The apartment had gone dimmer, gentler. Rain blurred the windows. The kitchen light reflected off the clean floor where the mug had been, no evidence left except the faint smell of coffee and the ache in your body.

Jason pressed a glass of water into your hands. “Small sips.”

“You sound like Alfred.”

“That is the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

You huffed a laugh into the rim of the glass and took a sip because he was watching like the water was a sacred mission. He had disappeared for barely twenty seconds and somehow returned with water, a soft hoodie of his, and one of the emergency snacks he kept in the pantry because he had learned, somewhere between dying and coming back and loving you, that bodies needed practical kindness after emotional catastrophes. The hoodie settled over your lap, warm from where he had held it. The snack packet crinkled when he opened it for you without comment, sparing you the indignity of fighting plastic with trembling hands.

For a while, you ate because he asked you to, and he pretended not to notice when your fingers shook. The television stayed off. Jason knew better than to fill the room too quickly. Instead, he sat beside you and let the quiet grow soft around the edges.

“I’m sorry,” you said eventually.

His head turned toward you. “For what?”

“For scaring you.”

“You didn’t scare me.”

You gave him a look, tired but unconvinced.

Jason sighed, leaning back into the couch. “Okay. You scared me a little. But not because you did anything wrong. I get scared when people I love hurt and I can’t punch the hurt in the face. It’s very inconvenient for my brand.”

The corner of your mouth twitched. “Your brand?”

“Big scary crime lord. Excellent thighs. Emotionally constipated but in a charming, marketable way.”

“Very marketable.”

“Exactly.” His smile faded into something quieter. “But you don’t apologise for having a nervous system. Not to me.”

You looked down at your hands. They had mostly stopped shaking. Mostly. Jason covered them with one of his, warm and scarred, knuckles rough from a lifetime of choosing fists when words failed him. He was still learning words. You could tell, sometimes, by the way he handled them like live wires.

“I know what it’s like,” he said. “Not exactly. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend my mess is your mess. But I know what it’s like when your body decides it’s back there. Wherever there is. I know what it’s like to be safe and still feel like you’re about to die.”

The honesty of it settled over you heavier than the blanket. You leaned closer, shoulder pressed to his ribs. “What helps you?”

Jason was quiet for a long moment. You wondered if you had asked too much, stepped too close to a locked door in him, but then his thumb moved against your knuckles.

“Depends on the night,” he said. “Sometimes space. Sometimes pressure. Sometimes I need the lights on and every exit clear. Sometimes I need someone to remind me what year it is, which is annoying as hell but works.” He swallowed, eyes fixed on the rain-streaked window. “Sometimes I just need somebody not to leave.”

Your chest ached. You turned your hand beneath his and held on.

“I’m not leaving,” you said.

He looked at you then, something raw and young flickering beneath all the armour he wore in daylight. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”

Later, he coaxed you through brushing your teeth and changing into his hoodie, which swallowed you in warmth and the faint smell of him. He checked your feet again, even though you told him you hadn’t stepped on glass, because Jason’s love was a locked door, a second sweep, a hand at the small of your back when the world got crowded. He cleaned the kitchen one more time. He turned off the big light and left the smaller lamp on because darkness after panic felt like too much too soon.

In bed, he pulled you into the heavy curve of his body, your back against his chest, his arm draped over your waist with careful weight. Protective but not possessive. Present but not trapping. The shape of safe, you thought, was not a place after all. It was this: Jason’s breath warming the back of your neck, his heartbeat steady behind you, the rain softening the city outside, the knowledge that fear could come and still not take everything.

“Jay?” you whispered.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Thank you.”

His lips brushed your shoulder through the hoodie. “Anytime.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.” His arm tightened just slightly, a promise made in pressure instead of words. “Me too.”

You lay there until your body stopped waiting for the next wave. Sleep did not come quickly, but peace did, small and cautious, padding into the room like a stray cat deciding whether to trust the offered hand. Jason stayed awake behind you longer than he needed to. You could tell by his breathing, by the way his thumb occasionally swept over your ribs as if checking you were still there, still breathing, still his to keep warm against the night.

Eventually, the rain thinned. The apartment settled. Your eyes drifted closed.

And when the last of the panic finally loosened its claws, it did not leave you empty. It left you held.

[purplespiritimagines]

still here - tim drake

request could you do a mini series or one shot of batfam finding out about your depression or you having a panic attack?

content tim drake x gn!reader, established relationship, graphic description of a panic attack, panic attack, dissociation, fear response, overstimulation

word count 3.6k

masterlist | tim masterlist

author's note based on my experiences, like 75% of the time i actually prefer to be held during a panic attack <3 not everyone is the same and everyone experiences panic attacks differently

The panic attack began, in the stupidest and cruellest way, with a spoon.

Not the gala, though that had set the trap. Not the camera flashes that had gone off like tiny white detonations every time Tim turned his head. Not the old-money laughter, polished and bright as knives. Not the hand that had stayed too long on your shoulder when some donor forgot the difference between friendly and possessive, or the way you had smiled through it because Wayne galas were their own kind of battlefield and everyone there wore armour made of silk.

No, you survived all of that. You survived the ballroom with its chandeliers dripping light like frozen rain, the press calls, the perfume-thick air, the endless introductions where people looked at Tim like an heirloom and at you like an accessory they were trying to appraise. You survived Bruce’s concerned glance, Dick’s quiet check-in, Damian’s blunt offer to make several people “regret their conversational choices,” and Tim’s hand at the small of your back, steady as a promise. You got home. You got out of your shoes. You stood in Tim’s kitchen wearing one of his old Gotham Knights hoodies, the sleeves swallowing your hands, while the city pressed its dark face to the windows.

Then Tim dropped a spoon.

It hit the tile with a bright, sharp clatter, nothing more dramatic than silver on ceramic, but your body did not understand that. Your body heard the sound and decided the world had cracked open. Something inside you lurched so violently that the air vanished from your lungs, as though a hook had caught beneath your ribs and yanked. For one strange second, the kitchen stretched away from you. The counters became too long, the lights too white, the shadows too deep beneath the cabinets. Tim turned toward the sound with an apologetic wince already forming, but his face blurred at the edges, smearing into the rest of the room like wet ink.

You tried to inhale and could not find the shape of breathing.

“Hey,” Tim said, and the word changed halfway through. It started as an apology and became something else entirely, gentler, lower, stripped of all the frantic intelligence he usually carried around like a live wire. “Okay. I see it. I’m here.”

You hated that he saw it. You hated how relief came with the shame, how part of you wanted to fold yourself against him while another part wanted to disappear through the floorboards and become something without nerves. Your heart slammed once, twice, again, not beating so much as throwing itself against the cage of your chest. Heat crawled up your throat. Your hands went cold. The room tilted, and you grabbed for the edge of the counter, but even that felt wrong, too smooth under your fingers, too solid for a body that suddenly did not feel real.

Tim did not rush you. That was the first thing your terrified brain noticed, some dim animal part of you registering movement and measuring threat. He did not close the distance in one quick stride, even though Tim Drake crossed rooms like he was made of urgency. He stayed near the sink, both hands visible, palms open, his dark hair still mussed from where you had pulled out the careful gala styling in the elevator. His bow tie hung loose around his neck like a defeated little flag. He looked tired enough to haunt his own apartment, but his eyes were completely awake.

“I’m going to turn off the big light,” he said. “No touching. Just the light.”

The switch clicked, and the kitchen softened. The overhead brightness died, leaving only the warm glow from the lamp in the living room and the thin blue wash of Gotham beyond the glass. The shadows loosened their teeth. You tried again to breathe, but it came in wrong, too high, too thin, scraping your throat on the way in. The sound scared you. The fear of the sound made the sound worse. Your mind, traitorous little cinema, flashed through every worst possibility at once: heart attack, choking, fainting, dying here in Tim’s kitchen because a spoon had fallen and apparently your nervous system was being dramatic for sport.

“I can’t,” you forced out. The words barely existed. They were more air than voice, torn and ugly and humiliating. “Tim, I can’t—”

“You can,” he said softly, and there was no false cheer in it, no shiny motivational poster nonsense. Tim knew better than to hand you optimism like a plaster over a bullet hole. “Not all at once. Just the next second. That’s all we’re doing.”

Your knees buckled before you decided to sit. Tim moved then, but only enough to slide a chair out from the small table with the slow, careful precision of someone handling a bomb. You did not make it to the chair. Your body folded near the cabinets, shoulder knocking lightly against the lower drawer, and the cool tile shocked through the fabric of your trousers. The floor felt too far away and too close at the same time. Your fingers curled against your chest because your hands had started tingling, pins and static blooming through them, and that sent another wave of terror through you so hard your vision darkened at the edges.

Tim lowered himself to the floor several feet away. He sat cross-legged first, then reconsidered and shifted so his back rested against the opposite cabinets, making himself smaller, less looming. His gaze stayed on your face without pinning you down. He had learned that after the first few times, after the early days of your relationship when he had tried to solve panic like a case file, bringing water, blankets, medical explanations, breathing counts, too many questions, too much frightened love dressed up as efficiency. He had apologised later with his forehead against your shoulder and his voice wrecked, saying, “I’m sorry. I treated it like a problem because I was scared, and you are not a problem.”

Now he breathed where you could see him. Not exaggerated, not theatrical. Just slow enough to follow if your body could remember how.

“Look at me or don’t,” he said. “Whatever feels easier. You’re in the apartment. It’s Tuesday night. The gala is over. We left early because I told Bruce I had a migraine, which was technically a lie but emotionally true, so I’m counting it as strategy.”

A broken little sound escaped you. It was not a laugh, not really, but it had the ghost of one inside it. Tim’s mouth softened, not into a smile exactly, but into the careful beginning of hope.

“That’s my favourite sound,” he murmured. “Even the haunted version.”

Your breathing hitched again, and the not-laugh vanished beneath the next wave. It rose like black water, sudden and total. Your skin prickled. Your heart was too loud. Your mouth tasted metallic. The apartment seemed to pulse around you, every hum of the refrigerator, every distant siren, every pipe knock inside the walls becoming part of one enormous, unbearable noise. You pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes because sight had become too much, but the darkness behind your lids was worse. It gave your mind space to invent monsters.

“I’m dying,” you whispered.

Tim’s face changed. Pain flickered across it, fast as lightning behind clouds, but he did not deny you too quickly. He never said don’t be ridiculous. He never made fear feel stupid for wearing the wrong evidence.

“It feels like that,” he said. “I know it feels like that. Your body is hitting every alarm it has, but alarms are not prophecies. Your pulse is fast because adrenaline is rude and has no social skills. Your hands are tingling because you’re breathing high and shallow. It’s terrifying, but it’s not dangerous. I’m watching you. I’ve got you.”

The words did not fix it. Nothing fixed it. That was the worst part of panic, the insult of it, the way it did not care about logic even when logic arrived with charts and citations and Tim Drake’s beautiful, sleepless eyes. But his voice gave you something to hold. Not a ladder out, not yet, but a rope in the dark. You wrapped your attention around it because everything else was spinning.

“Can I come closer?” he asked.

You could not answer at first. Your throat locked around the shape of yes. Tim waited anyway, patient in a way he was almost nowhere else in his life. This was a boy who had once run three investigations on forty minutes of sleep and considered that “suboptimal but workable,” a boy who could not let a mystery breathe for five seconds without dissecting it, yet here he sat on the kitchen floor, letting time pass because your nervous system needed the world to stop grabbing at it.

You nodded.

He moved slowly, crossing the tile like he had all night. When he reached your side, he did not touch your face, did not pull you in, did not do any of the things people did in films when comfort was written by someone who had never been trapped inside their own body. He sat beside you with a careful inch of space between your shoulder and his. Close enough that you could feel his warmth. Far enough that you could choose.

“Pressure, no pressure, or just nearby?” he asked.

Your hands shook against your chest. You wanted pressure so badly it hurt. You wanted to be held together from the outside because the inside had lost the plot entirely. Still, the word took effort, dragging itself out of you like it had crawled through glass.

“Pressure.”

Tim shifted. “Back, hands, or blanket?”

“Back,” you whispered.

He slid behind you, not caging, not trapping, simply becoming a solid presence at your spine. His chest met your back with gentle, even pressure, and he placed one hand flat between your shoulder blades, waiting. When you did not flinch, he added the other, grounding you with a steadiness that made your eyes burn. He did not squeeze. He did not rock you without permission. He just held, warm and real, his breath moving against you in a slow tide.

“There,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to match me. Just notice it. My breathing is boring. Deeply uninteresting. The most stable thing I’ve done all week, honestly.”

Your breath stuttered. His hands stayed steady.

“That’s it,” he said. “You’re not failing. This isn’t a test. There’s no grade, no secret bonus round, no villain monologue. Just you and me and the kitchen floor, which I cleaned yesterday, so we’re honestly thriving by Gotham standards.”

Another almost-laugh scraped through you, wet and broken. This time, it became a sob halfway out. Shame flared hot behind your eyes, and you turned your face away as if there was anywhere to hide from someone who knew the map of you this well.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”

Tim’s answer came immediately, quiet but fierce. “Don’t apologise for having a body that tried to protect you too loudly.”

That undid you more than anything else had. Not because the words were magic, but because he meant them. You could hear it in the gravel of his voice, in the way his hands spread a little wider across your back as though he could shield you from your own shame. Tim, who blamed himself for weather patterns if someone he loved got rained on. Tim, who could turn guilt into a second skeleton and live inside it for years. Tim looked at your panic and did not call it weakness. He called it protection, misfired but earnest, a guard dog barking at ghosts.

The sobs came then, not pretty ones. They shook your shoulders and made your breathing worse for a moment, but Tim stayed with you through the messy crest of it. He murmured small things into the dim kitchen, not commands, just landmarks. The floor is cold. My hands are here. The window is closed. The city is outside. You are inside. Nothing is coming through the door. I checked the locks. I always check the locks.

Of course he did. Of course, Tim checked the locks every night, not because he doubted the security system he had built himself, but because love made rituals out of fear. You had teased him about it once, leaning in the hallway with a toothbrush in your mouth while he tested the balcony latch. He had looked embarrassed for half a second before admitting, “I sleep better when I know.” You had not teased him after that. You had only nodded and said, “Then know.”

Now he lets you know, piece by piece, until the apartment begins returning to you in fragments. The tile under your legs. The smell of coffee grounds in the machine from that morning. The faint cedar of Tim’s cologne clinging to his collar. The warmth of his palms. The soft tick of the clock near the bookshelf. The spoon still lying on the floor across the kitchen, innocent and monstrous, catching a slice of lamplight like a tiny fallen moon.

Your heart did not calm all at once. It slowed reluctantly, suspicious of peace, each beat still too heavy but no longer catastrophic. Your breath found a deeper path, shaky and imperfect. In through the nose, sometimes. Out through the mouth, mostly. Tim did not praise you like a child for it. He simply noticed.

“That one looked easier,” he said.

You nodded because speaking still felt too big.

“I’m going to move my right hand,” he said. “I’m grabbing the water from the table. Left hand stays here.”

You nodded again. He reached away, and the loss of pressure on one side made your body tense, but his left hand remained firm between your shoulders. A second later, he brought the water into your line of sight and set it beside your knee instead of pushing it into your hands.

“No rush,” he said. “It’s available. Very low-pressure water. Chill guy. No expectations.”

Your mouth trembled into something closer to a smile this time. Tim saw it because Tim saw everything, and the soft relief on his face was so naked it made your chest ache in a different way. He looked younger in the half-light, all sharp cheekbones and tired eyes, the brilliant mask of Red Robin and Wayne heir and CEO-in-training stripped down to the person beneath: your Tim, who had learned to sit still in a crisis because sometimes love was not a rescue line dropped from a helicopter. Sometimes love was sitting on the kitchen floor until the storm got bored with ruining you.

After a while, you reached for the water. Your hand shook badly enough that Tim’s fingers twitched, but he let you take it yourself. You managed one sip, then another. The cold spread down your throat and into your stomach, making you aware of your body in a way that no longer felt entirely hostile.

“I hate this,” you said. Your voice sounded scraped raw. “I hate that it happens. I hate that you have to see it.”

Tim was quiet for a moment. Not because he did not know what to say, but because he was choosing carefully, sorting love from instinct, comfort from contradiction. He pressed his thumb in a slow, grounding line along the back of your hoodie.

“I hate that it hurts you,” he said. “I don’t hate seeing it. I mean, I’d fight your amygdala in a parking lot if that were medically useful, but I don’t hate being here. You don’t become less lovable when you’re scared.”

Your eyes stung again. “That sounds fake.”

“It’s not. I checked.”

That got a real laugh out of you, small and watery and exhausted. Tim’s answering smile warmed against your shoulder where he had tucked his face close but not quite touching. For a few breaths, the kitchen held only the aftermath: your tired body, his steady hands, the city muttering beyond the glass. Panic left slowly, like a tide dragging debris behind it. You felt wrung out, embarrassed, hollowed, but alive. Still here. Still held.

Eventually, Tim asked, “Do you want the couch, the bed, or stay here and develop a powerful emotional attachment to my kitchen floor?”

“The couch,” you said. “The floor and I are not there yet.”

“Understandable. Big commitment.”

He helped you up carefully, one hand offered and nothing more until you took it. Your legs felt unreliable, as if they had been borrowed from someone with less ambition. Tim did not comment. He guided you to the living room with the solemn care of someone escorting royalty, then bundled you into the corner of the couch beneath the weighted blanket you had once bullied him into buying for himself. He had claimed he did not need it. He used it constantly. This was one of your quieter victories.

He disappeared only long enough to retrieve the fallen spoon. You watched him pick it up, rinse it, and place it in the sink with exaggerated caution, as if putting a disgraced knight in the stocks. When he returned, he had changed out of his dress shirt into a soft black T-shirt, but his trousers were still too formal and his hair was doing something deeply unserious over his forehead. He looked like a prince who had lost a fight with a laundry basket.

“May I sit with you?” he asked.

You lifted the blanket. Tim slid beneath it, careful at first, then closer when you leaned toward him. The contact settled differently now. Less emergency scaffolding, more home. You tucked your face against his collarbone, and he wrapped an arm around you with a sigh he had clearly been holding back for the last half hour. His chin rested lightly against your hair.

“I’m sorry about the spoon,” he said.

“You’ve been waiting to say that.”

“I have. It was a terrible spoon performance. Zero stars. Deeply unprofessional.”

You hummed against him, too tired to laugh properly but warmed by the attempt. His fingers combed gently along your sleeve, not skin, because sometimes fabric was easier. Outside, a siren rose and fell in the distance, but it sounded like Gotham again instead of doom. The lamp cast a honeyed pool over the bookshelves, over the abandoned gala shoes near the door, over the two of you folded together in the small, stubborn kingdom of the couch.

“I don’t want you to think I’m fragile,” you said after a while.

Tim’s breath shifted beneath your cheek. “I don’t.”

“You looked scared.”

“I was scared because you were hurting. That’s different.” He paused, then added, quieter, “I think you’re one of the strongest people I know, but I don’t need you to be strong all the time to prove it. You’re allowed to fall apart in places where you’re loved.”

The words settled over you, heavier than the blanket, kinder than sleep. You did not know how to believe them fully yet. Maybe belief was not a door you walked through once. Maybe it was more like Tim checking the locks every night, a ritual, a practice, a way of teaching the nervous system that the world could be dangerous and still not dangerous here.

You tilted your head enough to look at him. His eyes searched your face automatically, cataloguing colour, breathing, tension, all the tiny details he used to make sure you were not slipping away from him again. You reached up and touched the corner of his mouth with two fingers.

“Stop running diagnostics,” you murmured.

His expression went sheepish. “Sorry.”

“You’re doing the eyebrow thing.”

“I don’t have an eyebrow thing.”

“You have several eyebrow things.”

“That feels statistically unlikely.”

“You’re dating someone who just got emotionally bodied by cutlery. Let me have this.”

Tim laughed then, quiet and real, and kissed your fingertips before lowering your hand back beneath the blanket. The kiss was soft enough to ache. Not a fix. Not a promise that panic would never come again. Just a small bright mark on the evening, proof that tenderness could exist in the wreckage without trying to redecorate it.

Later, he would make toast because panic always left you starving and nauseous at the same time. Later, he would text Bruce that the two of you had made it home and ignore Dick’s immediate reply of three heart emojis and a suspiciously timed “need anything?” Later, he would sit on the bathroom counter while you brushed your teeth, keeping up a ridiculous monologue about spoon accountability and whether Wayne Enterprises needed to invest in quieter kitchenware. Later still, when sleep came for you in uneven waves, he would stay awake longer than he should, one hand resting loosely near yours, not holding on too tight.

But for now, there was only the couch, the blanket, the softened room, and Tim’s heartbeat beneath your ear. It was steadier than yours. Not perfect. Not untouched by fear. Just steady enough to borrow.

You closed your eyes and breathed with him, not because he told you to, not because the panic had vanished like a monster slain, but because your body, exhausted little creature that it was, finally began to understand that the danger had passed. Tim’s arm tightened a fraction when he felt you settle. He pressed his mouth to the crown of your head, and in the warm hush of the apartment, his voice came low and certain.

“Still here,” he whispered.

You were. Somehow, beautifully, stubbornly, you were.

[stcrgazerlily]

━━━━━━━ DOUBLE RAINBOW

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: bf!jason todd x sunshine!reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: a rainy day forces you and jason to stay inside. you obviously spend it cuddling and kissing on the couch

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: domesticity!! fluff, jason is very much in love

<𝟑: part of the 1k event! ty for requesting jacy ilysm loml :), 500 words

Rainy days in Gotham have the ability to transform the apartment where you and Jason live. The light is soft and grey— almost shy. It filters into the living room until everything feels dimmer, giving it that washed-out look.

Jason isn’t the biggest fan of rainy days. Or well, wasn't. 

The kettle is hissing in the kitchen while you hum a popular song. Jason steps into the kitchen, slowly wrapping his arms around you from behind.

You laugh. “Someone’s feeling clingy today.”

He mumbles something, his lips pressed against the crook of your neck, sending tingles through your body. “This is about to be…” The kettle whistles loudly. "done!"

Jason picks it up before you can, slowly pouring the water into two colourful mugs. He’ll never say it aloud, but he loves those ugly things. It was one of your first dates as an official couple, when you took him to a flea market, and there they were. Bright, ugly odd patterns, and uneven surface.

The two of you slowly move toward the couch. You set down your mug while Jason takes a sip.

He sets down his mug as you inch even closer to him. “You won’t believe what I heard about Marcy in 2B.”

You perk up immediately. “Is this good gossip or life-ruining gossip?”

“Depends,” he says, trying to suppress a smile.

“Jason,” you say sternly. Or well, as sternly as you can manage.

“Remember the guy who kept stealing everyone’s packages?”

Your eyes widen. “The one with the suspiciously tiny dog?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about him?”

This time, Jason does smile. “Turns out the dog wasn’t his.”

You gasp dramatically, a hand flying to your chest. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“Jason Todd, don’t ‘yeah’ me. Elaborate.”

He chuckles. “Apparently the dog’s actual owner put flyers up around the building. Marcy recognized him from the security footage.”

You stare at him in disbelief. “I’ve never been more invested in strangers’ lives.”

He rolls his eyes. “You know all their names.”

“Duh, because we’re neighbors.”

“You made banana bread for the lady in 5A because her ficus died.”

“She was grieving.”

“It was a plant,” he deadpans.

“Plants are living things too, you know?”

He laughs and kisses you. You giggle between kisses, sneaking your hand under his hoodie until your palm is in direct contact with his skin.

Jason gets unusually quiet while watching the rain tapping softly on the window, your hand still touching his skin but he doesn’t make an attempt at moving.

“What are you thinking?” You ask softly.

He shrugs. "I used to hate days like this."

"Why?"

"No patrol." A small pause. "Too much time to think."

You don't respond, simply listen with your full attention.

Jason looks at you, a tiny smile gracing his lips. "Guess they're not so bad anymore."

He swiftly grabs your hips and straddles you on top of him. You smile and lean down again. Jason is exactly where he wants to be.

[daily-daydream]

A little fanfic idea, if you don't mind writing about. Might be a bit ooc since I don't know much about the lore or characters. Only from fics I know😅.

Basically Damian goes to see Jason at his apartment for something. He goes there and rings the bell but nobody opens so he decided to break in instead (night be ooc idk). But instead of Jason, he finds the reader (Jason's gf) sleeping on his bed. Damian assumes a homeless person broke in and the story goes from there. You can change it up however you like🙌🏻. Thank you!

Note: Omg so sorry I overlooked this in my inbox so long!!! This idea is so funny and this may be short but I had to do it/ don't take this too seriously, I took a more comedic approach

Not So Secret Anymore

"Todd!" Damian called for the twelfth time, pounding on the apartment door, growing more frustrated by the minute. Currently, he was tracking down a lead on a case and found connections to Red Hood's territory. Jason could give some valuable information if he would just open the stupid door! The lights were on inside, so he was clearly avoiding him for some reason. Rude.

"If you don't answer soon, I'll let myself in!" Damian waited a few more moments before giving a disapproving shake of his head and taking the stairs out to the fire escape. If he wouldn't let him in, then he would have to do it himself. Once he found the correct window, he opened it and eased inside Jason's bedroom, only to find it wasn't empty. Cozied up on the bed, you were fast asleep and unaware of the Robin who had broken in.

"Did someone break in?" he thought, already ready to defend himself. Red Hood had a lot of enemies, but you didn't seem like one. No weapon. No signs of a struggle. Not even awake.

The sound of the shower came from the bathroom, which explained why Jason hadn't heard him at the door or how he must have overlooked.

Damian's mind raced, trying to come up with an explanation. Could it be a partner? No, Jason was far too much of a loner to work with anyone else besides the Outlaws. An apartment mix-up? No, nobody was stupid enough to fall asleep on someone else's bed unless they were drunk.

So he came up with the only other reasonable explanation he could. Clearly, a homeless person had noticed the unlocked window and decided to rest inside the apartment, thinking it was empty. Poor woman. A heat wave had taken over Gotham this year, so you must have needed the air conditioning. He would have to contact Bruce about helping you find a shelter. Obviously, you couldn't stay here.

Rolling over, your eyes fluttered open, finding a young boy staring back at you.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded.

You shrieked, throwing a punch in his direction, which he easily blocked. The bathroom door burst open as Jason rushed out still in a towel, soap dripping from his wet hair, ready for a fight. "What's going on here?!" He scanned the room for a threat, only to find Damian standing in the middle of his bedroom, staring at you, who was equally confused.

"Damian?!" you asked in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"I asked you the same thing!" Damian narrowed his gaze, voice tinged in suspicion. "How do you know my name?"

"You're Jason's little brother," you retorted. "Why are you here?"

"Answer my question first!" Damian shouted.

"Everyone just be quiet!" Jason exclaimed. "What is going on here?"

Damian turned, clearing his throat a bit. "Todd, it seems this homeless woman has broken into your house. While I usually would contact the police, I think it would be best if we find a shelter as soon as possible to get her out of the heat."

Jason facepalmed. Oh great! The very conversation he had been avoiding for months now had to come up this way, didn't it? No use in hiding it for so long, but the last thing he wanted was his nosy family involved in his relationships. Especially Bruce. No date would ever happen again without constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering if a nosy Bat was watching. He was never going to hear the end of this, was he?

Staring a moment, you were caught between laughing and confusion all at once. "Uh...I'm not homeless."

Damian turned, voice accusing, "Then are you an assassin sent for Red Hood?"

Jason sighed, "Dami, she's my girlfriend, okay? We both came back from a run, and she needed a break. Must have fell asleep while I was in the shower."

"Impossible," Damian scoffed. "Why would anyone be dating you?"

Okay, now you did laugh. Jason rolled his eyes. "Wow, thanks so much. Didn't know you had so much faith in me," he answered sarcastically.

"I mean, your older brother here is much more romantic than he seems," you replied, flashing a smile at Jason. "Guess reading all that Austen gave him some ideas."

Damian made a look of disgust, muttering an ew under his breath. "Are you aware that he spends his time murdering criminals?" he questioned.

"Damian, that's how we met. I'm a vigilante as well, and we share the same...methods," you explained. "Actually, it's kind of a crazy story. We hated each other at first because we shared territory, until he realized why I was actually driving him insane."

Jason flushed but looked away. "Shut up," he muttered.

"That still doesn't explain how you knew who I was," Damian said, staring at you with suspicion.

"Jay showed me some family photos," you explained, shooting a look at him. "Even if he puts on this cold attitude, he only pretends he doesn't care about you guys."

Now it was Jason's turn to be accused. Turning, Damian glared at him, "How long has this been going on? Why would you hide this from us? We're family, we should know about this!"

"Maybe I just don't want you guys knowing about every little thing I do, okay? It's my life, and I've earned some privacy," he scoffed. "And it's been nearly a year."

"A YEAR?" Damian yelled. "How could you keep this an entire year!"

"It did take a lot of work on both our parts," you shrugged.

"Dami, please don't tell anyone about this until I'm ready-" Jason begged, only for his phone to interrupt.

Suddenly, Jason's phone began blowing up with texts, and so did your own from several numbers you didn't recognize. One was already asking what you preferences would be for an upcoming dinner. Huh?

Jason glared at Damian, "What did you do?!"

Damian smirked, "I couldn't simply ignore this valuable information and keep it from the family. That's what you get for ignoring my calls the past week about that lead."

Jason looked like he was ready to slam his head against the wall, sinking onto the bed. "Nooooo!"

"I mean, we had to tell them eventually, right?" you countered, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Looks like I'm part of the family."

"Welcome," he scoffed. "Trust me, this chaos was only the tip of the iceberg."

To Jason's dismay, the secret had to be shared now, but if dealing with his insane family was what it took to keep you around, then he would happily.

[shisuni]

ᯓ➤ teenage phase ⊹܀˙

← ʙᴀᴄᴋ. ⋮ ⌞ jason todd ✘ reader ⌝ .ᐟ .ᐟ

ৎׅ ׄ synopsis ⋮ Jason starts growing facial hair again and he doubts he's young enough to go through a teenage phase. Good thing you know how to shave. pls read a/n at the end before replying !!

aka ›››› “Look at that,” you murmur. “Sexy jawline coming back.” “Never left,” Jason says automatically with a shit eating grin.

Jason has started growing facial hair again.

It’s such a stupid, ordinary sentence that it almost feels like it belongs to someone else’s life. Some other twenty-two-year-old who wakes up in a cramped apartment with morning light slipping through crooked blinds and worries about things like razors and bad lighting and whether stubble makes him look older than he is.

Not him.

His face is a map of healed disasters—thin white lines cutting through his brows, the faint pucker near his jaw, the uneven texture along his cheekbone where skin never quite settled back into what it was meant to be. There was a time when even the thought of hair growing there felt impossible. He remembers the chemical sting, remembers laughter echoing too loud in a warehouse that smelled like rust and rot and something sweetly corrosive.

The Joker had called it “light acid.”

As if acid could ever be light.

As if anything about it had been.

After that, hair just… didn’t grow. Not where it should have. Not where other boys his age complained about patchy beards and uneven sideburns and the awkward in-between stage of becoming something older.

Jason never got that stage.

He went from boy to broken and skipped the mundane humiliations in between.

Until now.

At twenty-two, standing barefoot in front of the narrow bathroom mirror in his apartment in Gotham City, Jason Todd squints at his reflection and feels something dangerously close to disbelief.

There is hair there.

Not much. Not thick. But there. Real.

Dark stubble shadows his jaw, uneven and stubborn, catching the early gray light filtering in through the frosted window. He drags his thumb over it once, slow, like he expects it to come away empty.

It doesn’t.

The memory surfaces uninvited—your voice last night, half-breathless and laughing when you pulled him back just enough to complain that it was itchy, that it scratched when he was feasting on you like he hadn’t eaten in days. You’d swatted at his shoulder and told him to shave.

It hadn’t been an attempt to redirect your mouth onto him for once like he thought.

Not that time.

“Oh, god,” he mutters now, staring harder at the mirror.

He looks dreadful.

That’s the numb, dawning realization settling into him as he takes in the rest. The hollows beneath his eyes are darker than usual, bruised crescents that no amount of sleep seems to erase. His nose looks a little more crooked than he swears it did yesterday. His hair—thick, black, unruly—is sticking up at impossible angles like he lost a fight with his pillow and didn’t bother winning.

He leans closer.

At least his skin looks better.

That part softens something in him.

You had noticed it two nights ago when he complained, voice rough and embarrassed, about it feeling irritated again—too tight, too sensitive along the old scar tissue. You hadn’t teased him. You  just disappeared into the bathroom and came back with that stupidly expensive face cream you insist on buying, the one that smells faintly of lavender and something warm.

He grumbled the whole time.

You ignored him the whole time.

In the dark, your fingers had worked carefully over his face—gentle where the scars pull, slower along the places that still ache when the weather shifts. You’d murmured nonsense into the quiet, soft praise and softer affection, lips brushing his temple between instructions to stop fidgeting. He remembers the weight of you leaning over him, the warmth of your thighs against his hips, the way your thumbs smoothed over his brow like you were trying to iron out something deeper than irritated skin.

Jason had fallen asleep like that.

Just like that.

He doesn’t remember the moment it happened. Just remembers waking up tangled in you and the faint trace of lavender still clinging to him.

“I knew it was hair!”

Your voice slices cleanly through his thoughts.

He flinches slightly before catching himself, then groans under his breath as you pad into the bathroom behind him, bare feet silent against the hardwood.

You look like you crawled straight out of a dream.

Your hair is down and messy, falling around your shoulders in soft disarray, catching the light in uneven strands. You’re wearing one of his old shirts—swallowed by it—and a pair of his pajama pants that you bought him, the drawstring pulled tight and the hems cuffed four times so they don’t drag. The fabric hangs off you like you belong in it.

Like you belong here.

You slide your arms around his waist from behind without hesitation, pressing your front to his back, warmth seeping into him instantly. You get on your tip toes as your chin settles on his shoulder, cheek brushing the rough edge of his newly grown stubble as you peer at his reflection with open curiosity.

“Jason, baby…” you murmur, studying him in the mirror like he’s something precious and slightly ridiculous.

He snorts softly, but his hands come up automatically to rest over yours where they’re clasped against his stomach. His thumbs trace absent circles over your knuckles.

“You loooove it,” he says, stretching the word with heavy sarcasm, though there’s something almost hopeful beneath it.

You hum, pretending to consider it.

One of your hands slips free and moves up to his face, fingers squishing his cheek gently, testing the scratch of the stubble. Your nose wrinkles.

“Hmm,” you decide, lips twitching. “It's itchy. And the last thing I need is irritation down there.”

Jason exhales through his nose, long and slow, the sound vibrating faintly in his chest before it escapes him.

Mock-offended. Almost dignified about it.

“I don’t have a razor,” he says after another indulgent second of you squishing his cheeks like he’s something soft and manageable instead of what he usually is. His words come out slightly warped beneath your fingers. “And it’s a holiday… stores won’t be open.”

The apartment is quiet in that sacred, late-morning way—sunlight slipping through the blinds in thin golden blades that cut across tile and skin alike, dust motes suspended lazily in their glow as if even they have decided to rest. 

Somewhere outside, a car door slams. Distant chatter echoes up from the street. Gotham City hums in the background like a beast half-asleep, never fully docile, but quieter than usual.

“I use a men’s razor,” you mumble thoughtfully, as if you’re offering him a piece of gum instead of a shared blade. “Wanna use that? I can disinfect it.”

He stills.

It’s subtle—the way his shoulders lift and hold, the way his fingers pause against your wrist—but you feel it. You always feel it. There are certain silences in him that aren’t empty; they’re crowded. This is one of them.

“I…” he starts, and the word drags.

Jason Todd does not drag words. He fires them. He sharpens them. He uses them like tools or weapons, depending on the need. But now it comes out slower, almost shy, like something young and unsure has briefly surfaced beneath the hardened edges.

“I don’t know how to shave,” he admits finally, gaze dropping to the sink like it’s suddenly fascinating. “Even… before… uh. It didn’t really grow.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

He doesn’t have to.

The space after before is heavy, but you don’t reach for it. You don’t pry it open with sympathy or soften it with apology. You simply hum, soft and thoughtful, and unwind your arms from around him to open the mirror cabinet above the sink.

“Why now?” you murmur, mostly to yourself.

The hinge creaks faintly as it swings open, bottles clinking together like small glass wind chimes. You reach for the razor with easy certainty, as if you’ve already decided the answer to that question doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re going to do next.

Jason watches you through the mirror.

Why now?

It’s the same reason he’s gained weight—real weight, not the kind born of muscle and vigilance, but something warmer, something earned in kitchens and late-night takeout and meals he didn’t force himself to finish out of obligation. There’s a softness now at his lower belly, subtle but undeniable, a gentle curve where there used to be only rigid lines and constant tension. His shoulders still carry power, his arms still know violence, but his body no longer looks like it’s bracing for impact every second.

He thinks his body is learning how to be happy again.

Like an animal stepping cautiously out of a trap long after the jaws have opened.

Like soil finally allowed to grow something instead of just endure.

He doesn’t say that.

“Maybe it’s because you’re always slathering me in your fancy stuff,” he deflects instead, a quiet chuckle warming the edges of his voice as he flicks the toilet seat closed with his foot and lowers himself onto it. “It probably shocked my face back to life.”

You glance at him over your shoulder, amused, sunlight catching in the loose fall of your hair.

Jason sits there completely naked, utterly unguarded in a way that still feels new enough to be fragile.

The light doesn’t hide anything. It travels openly across him—over the scars that ladder his torso, the uneven patches of skin that never healed quite right, the pale lines and darker ones, the geography of damage that used to make him want to flinch away from mirrors entirely. There was a time he would have layered himself in clothing even alone, as if fabric could soften history.

But you didn’t run.

The first time you saw him like this, you hadn’t looked horrified or pitying. You’d looked curious. Careful. Your fingers had traced each scar like you were reading braille, mapping him not as something broken, but as something survived. You kissed him afterward the same way you always did—no hesitation, no recalibration.

If you didn’t run from that, he doubts you’ll run from stubble.

You step back toward him now, razor in hand, a small towel draped over your arm like you’re about to perform something sacred and slightly ridiculous. The scent of your soap lingers faintly, mixed with steam from the sink you’ve just run warm water into.

“C’mere,” you murmur. 

You nudge his knees apart gently and step between them, the casual intimacy of it making something low in his stomach tighten. Your warmth bleeds into him. He instinctively rests his hands at your hips, thumbs pressing lightly into the soft fabric pooled there.

“This feels like a trap,” Jason mutters, but his voice lacks conviction.

You smile down at him—slow, fond, almost reverent—and press your thumb to his jaw, tilting his face slightly so the light catches the uneven stubble.

“Relax,” you say softly. “I’ll take care of you.”

The words aren’t dramatic, and aren't grand. But they land in him like something holy.

He tilts his chin up, obedient in a way he never is with anyone else, trusting you with the vulnerable line of his throat. Your touch is deliberate but tender, as if you’re handling something both fragile and fierce.

You rinse the razor under warm water first, testing the temperature against your wrist the way you always do with anything that’s going to touch him. Steam curls faintly into the air, softening the sharp morning light and turning the bathroom into something gentler, almost hazy. When you open the shaving cream, the scent—clean, subtle, faintly medicinal—mixes with the lavender still clinging to his skin from the night before and fills his senses.

Jason smells like you. He thinks numbly.

“Hold still,” you murmur.

He huffs softly. “I am holding still.”

“You’re flexing.”

“I am not—”

“You are,” you insist, smiling a little as your fingers press into his jaw, encouraging him to unclench.

He forces his shoulders to drop.

Jason isn’t used to being handled like this. In training, contact is correction—forceful, precise, meant to overpower. In fights, it’s impact—bruising, brutal, survival measured in split seconds. Even affection, in most corners of his life, is clapped onto backs or ruffled through hair, rough-edged and fleeting.

But this?

This is his hot girlfriend taking care of him. 

You spread the shaving cream slowly, fingertips gliding over his jaw, working it into the uneven terrain of scar tissue and smoother skin alike. You’re meticulous about it, smoothing the foam into the curve beneath his cheekbone, along the sharp line of his jaw, over the stubborn patch just beneath his lower lip.

Your touch changes when you reach the scars.

Not hesitant. Not afraid.

Just attentive.

You adjust the pressure instinctively, tracing the raised line near his chin with your thumb before coating it gently. Jason watches your face instead of the mirror now. The focus there. The way your brows knit in concentration. The small crease that forms between them when you’re trying to get something exactly right.

“You don’t have to look at me like I’m hurt and you need to patch me up,” he mutters.

You glance up at him through your lashes. "I'm not. I'd prefer that right now. At least you sit still when I patch you up.”

He snorts quietly despite himself.

The razor touches his skin for the first time.

It’s a soft, almost inaudible scrape. A delicate drag that removes the shadow in a clean stripe, revealing pale skin beneath. You move slowly, rinsing the blade after each careful stroke, watching for any sign of discomfort.

Jason feels it more than he expected to.

Not pain—just awareness. The sensation of something being removed. Of change happening in real time. 

That sounds dramatic. He scolds himself in his own head. It's just hair. Hair he would have died to grow when he was seven and desperate to be tall enough to steal from the top shelf.

The warm water trickles down his neck in thin lines when you wipe away excess foam, your fingers following to catch it before it drips too far.

He swallows once when you tilt his head slightly to the side, exposing more of his throat.

“You trust me?” you ask lightly, but there’s something real beneath it.

He doesn’t hesitate this time.

“Yeah.”

The answer is simple. Immediate.

Your thumb rests just below his ear as you guide the razor along the sensitive stretch of skin near his jawline. The intimacy of it hums between you, quiet but undeniable. He can feel your breath ghosting across his cheek. 

His hands, which had been resting loosely at your waist, slide upward without thinking. One settles at your lower back, palm spreading there. The other drifts higher, fingers grazing the fabric at your ribs, tracing the outline of you through cotton.

You pause when you reach the faintly discolored patch near the corner of his jaw—the place where the skin never quite grew back the same.

“Does this one still feel tight?” you ask softly.

“Sometimes,” he admits.

You don’t comment on it. You just adjust the angle of the razor and move even slower, barely any pressure at all, your other hand steadying his face with gentle firmness.

Jason’s eyes close for a second.

He lets them.

There’s something almost reverent about the way you do this. Like you’re not just shaving him, but tending to him. Like this small, ordinary act is a way of saying: I see all of it. I’m not afraid of any of it.

When you finally finish one side, you lean back slightly to inspect your work, head tilting.

“Look at that,” you murmur. “Sexy jawline coming back.”

“Never left,” Jason says automatically with a shit eating grin.

You grin. “Sure, baby.”

You rinse the razor again, then shift to the other side, fingers brushing through the faint shadow still there. The bathroom is quiet except for the sound of running water and the soft rhythm of your breathing mingling with his.

He watches you again.

The way your hair falls forward over your shoulder and nearly brushes his chest before you tuck it back absentmindedly. The way you don’t seem to notice how intimate this is—how your hands cradle his face like something precious.

When you’re done, you wipe the last traces of foam away with the warm towel, pressing it gently along his jaw, then down his throat.

“There,” you whisper.

You smooth your palm over his cheek, testing it. Your thumb lingers at the corner of his mouth.

“Much better.”

Jason turns his face slightly into your hand.

The movement is instinctive. Almost feline.

He looks at himself in the mirror again.

The stubble is gone. The scars remain. The crooked nose. The tired eyes.

But there’s something different in the way he’s sitting. Less guarded. Less braced. Like he isn’t waiting for the mirror to betray him.

He slides both arms fully around your waist now and pulls you closer until your hips press flush against his chest. He rests his forehead against your sternum, exhaling slowly, breathing you in.

“You’re gonna make me soft,” he mutters against your skin.

Your fingers comb gently through his messy hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp.

“Thats the goal,” you say.

And for once, the idea doesn’t sound like a threat.

jason peter todd tag-list : @justamarsbar, @peridotnature854, @nayy-a, @that-willowtree, @kekeanna266, @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger, @theonlysakura, @givemefinganame, @theonlyshowgirl, @melllzz, @strawbrysapphic, @nightlights-and-twiklingstars, @tasia13, @foivetimesacharm, @noble-17, @celestialend,@superuddertrash-blog, @revesephemeres, @redhooduwu, @themessedupsonata

Im gonna be honest I had a shit day and this felt like the only was I could talk to someone lmao don't got any other method, don't take this as me coming back frfr cus people are mean here too

(｡ᵕ ◞ _◟)

© shisuni all rights reserved

[fluentmoviequoter]

robin's in a web!

Pairing: Tim Drake x fem!spidey!reader

Summary: Tim is aware that a vigilante known as Spider is beloved by New York, and that his girlfriend cancels a lot of dates. When he finds Spider unconscious in a Gotham alley, he begins questioning what he knows both about the vigilante and his girlfriend.

Warnings/Word Count: r's hero name is Spider, brief angst, injuries, banter, fluff, comfort, Spider-Man 2099 appearance & references. 3.7k+ words, requested

A/N: I have very little practice writing for Tim, so apologies if he's OOC! I love him, though, and I plan to write more for him in the future!!

Masterlist | DC Masterlist | Request Info | Taglist Sign-Up

“I,” you begin as you lean back to dodge a punch.

“Have,” you continue, twisting into a roundhouse kick that catches Hyena’s jaw.

“A… date!” you conclude.

Panting for air, you look down at the unconscious foe, tapping your toes against the bipedal killer. Sirens are approaching quickly, so you have to leave behind the villain you thought was from a time when you were lacking both common sense and spider sense. Now you have one of those. Most days.

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” you murmur, aiming your extended fingers toward the looming roof of the New York skyline. “Or bothering Firestorm?”

Swinging high above the crowded city streets, you shoot a web with your left hand as you unlock your phone with your right. Someone once told you texting and swinging was a bad idea, but you assured him you’d never crash into a building (like some people have). You’re very late, you find, as expected.

“Please don’t hate me,” you whisper as the dial tone trills in your ear.

“Hey,” Tim greets. He yawns, then asks, “What’s up?”

“I’m so sorry,” you begin, pulling yourself up to sit on a rooftop. “I got caught up at work and traffic heading out of the city is awful. I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

“No worries,” Tim replies. “Reschedule for, uh, Saturday?”

Dropping your head back, you close your eyes against the setting sun and think. There’s a fight in Hell’s Kitchen late Friday night, and a new ride is opening at Coney Island Sunday.

“Saturday works,” you answer. “I’m really sorry, Tim.”

“Hey, I get it,” he assures you. “I love you.”

You pinch your eyes closed tighter, guilt weighing down your chest. “I love you.”

“Oh, I found something cool to show you. I’ll come to you Saturday?”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Timmy.”

Tim pulls his phone from his ear and squints at the video that resumes playing. The spider vigilante stealing the hearts of New Yorkers has gained a lot of popularity on social media. Jason even stumbled upon a fanfiction someone wrote about the Spider beating Batman in a fight — he’ll never admit he read it, but if he did, Tim might have found it entertaining. He saves the video to show you the comments your neighbors are making, then turns his comms back on.

“Yo, Replacement!” Jason barks. “Stop flirting and give B some backup!”

“What makes you think I was flirting?” Tim questions as he stows his phone in his belt.

“Because we warned you against a long-distance relationship,” Dick answers. “And now every free moment you have is spent on your phone.”

“Your girlfriend is from a different planet,” Tim deadpans. “Hypocrite.”

“New York City is not long distance, Grayson,” Damian scoffs. “One can hire a civilian driver, pay a meager fee, and be in the city in less than two hours.”

“How do you know that?” Batman rasps.

“Uh… Raven informed me of the details,” Damian mutters. “Perhaps I should give my attention to Killer Croc.”

“Perhaps,” Bruce agrees. “And if you choose to take a trip to New York, don’t Uber.”

“Steal a car,” Jason agrees.

Bruce’s sigh seems to shake the very foundation of Gotham before he utters, “No.”

“I’m going to New York Saturday,” Tim offers. “We were supposed to meet tonight, but she got stuck in the city.”

“Again?” Dick, Jason, and Barbara, safe in the watchtower, ask.

“I’m not going to fault her for cancelling dates at the last minute when I’ve missed just as many because of this,” Tim counters.

“No, just…” Jason exhales heavily, then asks, “Don’t you wonder if there’s something she isn’t telling you?”

“I love her,” Tim defends.

“That’s not an answer, Tim,” Barbara points out softly. “It’s okay to want answers.”

“I always tell her it’s fine,” Tim replies. After a breath, he admits, “But, yeah, I’m getting suspicious.”

“She’s not the type to cheat on you,” Dick adds. “And as someone who has had my fair share of relationships while hiding part of my own life from them, I’d suggest you have a mature conversation before it’s too late.”

“Suspicious how?” Barbara inquires.

“I can’t justify asking her questions when she doesn’t know I’m Red Robin,” Tim decides, putting an end to the conversation. “When there’s something to talk about, we’ll talk about it.”

“Well, if you’re back on the clock, maybe you could come help me get out of Pammy’s vines,” Jason suggests.

“Call Harley,” Barbara jokes.

Jason’s voice is so soft it’s nearly inaudible when he says, “She sent me to voicemail.”

Surprisingly, the Friday night fight didn’t end in the bloodshed you expected. When the former mayor’s Fisk Shipping company was announced as one of the event’s sponsors, you expected the worse. But Hell’s Kitchen was quiet… as quiet as it gets, at least.

So, you stumble into your apartment just after 1 a.m., eager to get some sleep but excited to see Tim tomorrow. It’s been nearly three weeks since your last date. You had several scheduled in that time, but you were late to the first and he’d already left for a family emergency, then you cancelled the next two. The simple fact of living in a different city than Tim does complicates things, but the suit you don, and the powers and responsibilities you have make it even more difficult to maintain a secure relationship. Yet Tim has never been anything but understanding. That doesn’t make it any easier to sneak around and lie when you love him.

You’ve just pulled your mask off when a blue light flashes in the bedroom entry behind you.

“Shock it!” a familiar voice exclaims before the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor thuds.

“Hi, Miggy,” you greet without turning.

“It’s Miguel, kid,” he grumbles, pushing up to his feet. “Year?”

“Same as last time.”

“Any reason I should be here?”

Shaking your head, you move to face him. His mask is off, the gloves of his suit torn. The left side reveals a simple gold band on his ring finger.

“Actually,” you decide, putting on your best friendly smile.

“No,” he interrupts. “I don’t like when you do that.”

“You don’t like anything,” you argue. “It’s not going to put anyone in danger.”

“You saying that scares me.”

“I need some advice,” you confess. “I… I’ve been seeing someone, and I love him. I do. But I also really love helping people.”

Miguel drags a hand down his face, then asks, “This guy seem bothered by the constant excuses?”

“How do you know I give him excuses?”

Miguel simply looks at you, because he knows exactly what you’re dealing with. Even when he’s been around other spiders, there have been things he couldn’t — or simply wouldn’t — share.

“He’s really busy too, so I think he understands and it works out. So far, he hasn’t acted suspicious… not to my face at least.”

“There’s this novel idea where you meet in the middle,” Miguel says. “You tell him what he needs to know and ask the same in return.”

“What if… What if he doesn’t like what I tell him?” you whisper.

“Then you dodged a bullet.” Miguel shrugs and counters, “Maybe you won’t like what he tells you. But you won’t know until you stop letting your situation control you.”

“Right. Well, he’s coming here later today, so I guess I could consider your advice. Wait, why are you here?”

“No clue.” He points over his shoulder but doesn’t have to ask.

“Couch is all yours,” you answer. “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge or the Thai place around the corner is still open. Thank you, Miggy.”

“Whatever, kid,” he grumbles, rolling his shoulders as he walks out of your room.

You decide to take Miguel’s advice under consideration for a while longer. When you open your door to see Tim holding a bag of food and a box from your favourite store, you decide you would rather have the mature conversation in Gotham. That way, Tim doesn’t have to find his way home knowing that you have been lying to him for the entirety of your relationship.

“Are you free Friday?” you check after the door is closed and everything he was carrying is stowed on your counter.

Tim checks his phone quickly, then nods.

“Can I come to Gotham? I’ve been wanting to go to that diner again.”

“Sure,” Tim agrees. “They just added a new dessert menu.”

“I should move,” you sigh dreamily.

“Then who would give me excuses to buy overpriced chocolate on 7th Avenue?”

Wrapping your arms around his waist, you kiss his shoulder and whisper, “You could still do that for me.”

“How kind of you.”

Nearly a week after Tim had to cut your evening in New York short because his brother called, you make your way to Gotham. You’re three hours early, but it seems like a nice buffer to actually ensure you make your date this time. It’s getting late, but the heavy clouds above you blot out the sun, making it seem closer to dusk than it is.

Walking through Newtown, which separates one of the most crime-ridden areas of Gotham from the bridges, you look at the businesses lining the streets. It seems as if someone is trying to make this side of the city more welcoming than it once was. You pass by a glass blowing shop, then stop and incline your head toward the alley on the other side of the street. A familiar tingle buzzes at the base of your skull as your heart rate increases.

Carefully, you cross the street, as if you’re interested in the seasonal menu of a mom-and-pop ice cream parlor.

“No, no, please,” someone pleads in the alley.

“Just hand it over!” another voice demands.

A single glance around the corner confirms that you sensed something. Three large men have a defenseless girl who looks to be several years your junior pinned in the alley. She’s clutching her bag to her chest as tears streak down her cheek.

“Let’s do this one more time,” you murmur to yourself before slipping into the shadows.

When you emerge in the alley, you’re in your suit and looking to make this fight as short as possible. Without making yourself known, you shoot a web toward the man who appears the be the leader. It wraps around his ankles and allows you to pull his legs out from under his. His face collides with the damp asphalt, which muffles his pained groan.

“Who is that?!” the other man demands, turning and revealing a knife in his grasp.

The third man inches forward then, becoming visible to you. Riddler, you recognize from all the posters around Gotham. He narrows his eyes at you and spins the small cane by his side.

“I spin a silky web so neat, to catch the bugs I like to eat, with eight long legs I creep with pride, in dark corners I like to hide,” he calls. “What am I?”

The man you knocked down clambers to his feet and pulls a heavy crowbar from the wall behind him. Maybe, you realize, this isn’t a fight I shouldn’t have picked on my own.

“You are a crazed lunatic,” you answer. “I am a spider.”

The next web you shoot connects Riddler’s co-conspirators by the shoulders, temporarily rendering them incapable of fighting.

“Get out of here!” you tell the girl as you move toward Riddler.

She obeys your command and runs out of the alley. The odds of her sending someone to help you seem slim.

“You should go too,” you tell Riddler. “While you still can.”

“It is worldwide, but once only a spider could weave one,” he says. “Gotham is no place for spiders.”

The others separate themselves, and you rock your weight back onto your heels. Of all the times for Miguel to not show up unannounced.

The sun set hours ago, and Tim needs to get ready to meet you at the diner for your date. But Jason needed ‘a minute,’ so Tim is covering Newtown briefly. He leaps from one rooftop to another, slowing when he sees something in the alley beneath him. Tim drops to one knee and realizes that the lump he saw is a person.

He lands soundlessly in the alley and approaches the individual cautiously. When he’s close enough to make out details, he stops.

“What are you doing in Gotham?” Red Robin mutters, lifting New York’s spider vigilante’s arm, which falls uselessly back to her side.

He’s seen enough videos and read enough stories about the spider to know that, by all accounts, she’s good. But that doesn’t explain why someone who can carry their own against New York’s biggest and baddest is lying unconscious in a Gotham alley.

“That’s not good,” Tim muses softly when he sees blood darkening a sleeve of Spidey’s suit. “B, I’ve got a situation in Newtown.”

“I left for five minutes!” Jason groans.

“The spider from New York?” Tim begins. “She’s here.”

“Doing?” Bruce inquires.

“Nothing. She’s hurt, unconscious.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Me too,” Jason offers. “You need someone who doesn’t trust anyone about anything if this girl wakes up.”

“She needs to get patched up, not be interrogated,” Tim argues, pressing his thumb to the side of Spidey’s neck to check her pulse.

“If I’m lucky, there’ll be time for both.”

Your mask is firmly in place when you wake, but someone is prodding at your arm and the damp concrete that you landed on has been replaced by a dry sheet beneath you. You jerk upright, ready to fight Riddler and the two goons he had with him. They won’t get the jump on you again, and you know to protect yourself from whatever it was Riddler used against you. Though you remain unsure why he had a weapon that powerful and chose to mug an unarmed girl.

“Oh,” you mutter when you realize you are face-to-face with Batman and Red Robin. Glancing toward your now-bandaged arm, you see that Red Hood is lurking in the corner with his arms crossed.

“What are you doing in Gotham?” Batman demands.

Red Robin steps forward and lays one hand on your shoulder while the other circles your wrist. He directs your arm up, then toward your chest.

“Who are you?” Red Robin inquires.

You look at your wrist where he’d touched you, convinced you’ve felt his touch before.

“Um, most people call me Spider,” you offer, dropping your voice. “It was supposed to be Spider-Girl or something, but the whole thing never stuck.”

“What are you doing in Gotham?” Batman asks again. “Who brought you here?”

Red Robin moves behind you, rubbing the blade of his palm down your neck and to the base of your spine. You had no idea the bats had medical training. The idea of Batman sitting in a lecture hall makes you smile beneath your mask, but then Red Robin spreads his hand against your shoulder.

Suddenly, you’re no longer in Gotham being interrogated. You’re in New York, looking up at billboards in Times Square with Tim Drake lingering at your side and whispering comments in your ear. Red Robin’s touch seemed familiar because it is.

You glance at Red Robin, searching his face. What’s visible certainly looks like Tim Drake.

“You come into our city announced, pick a fight, and find yourself unprotected and vulnerable,” Batman says. “Justify that.”

“I didn’t pick a fight,” you defend. “I saved someone. It’s what I do.”

“It’s what you do in New York,” Red Hood interjects. “Why are you here?”

Glancing up, you realize that you’re in a real cave. There’s got to be a way out because there’s a way in.

Pretending to stretch your shoulder, you aim your hand toward the rafters and murmur, “Maybe I was never here.”

Just as a spider disappears from its web in a breath, you leave Batman, Red Robin, and Red Hood alone, with no idea as to where you are. They search the expanse of the cave, shine a spotlight along the rafters, but find no trace of you.

“Well, I doubt she’ll be back,” Jason decides. “Now that she knows we’re here and we want answers.”

“But why was she here at all?” Bruce wonders, removing his cowl. “Who took her down in that alley?”

“It’s suspicious,” Tim agrees. “Gotham isn’t exactly a destination, so I doubt it was a convenience thing.”

“She said she saved someone,” Jason remembers. “Any reports of crimes in that alley tonight?”

Bruce falls into his chair at the Batcomputer to check, leaving Jason and Tim behind him to speculate.

Tim’s phone chimes, and he reads the text from you quickly, then locks his phone. Then, when he truly realizes what you said, he opens it again.

“What?” Jason asks.

“My girlfriend cancelled our date,” Tim mumbles.

“The date that’s supposed to start in… seven minutes?” Jason sighs, then checks, “You suspicious enough to talk about it yet?”

“She’s been acting weird,” Tim says, moreso to himself than to Jason. “She’s been late or cancelling dates the whole time we’ve been dating. I never really thought about it, because I’d call them off last-minute too when Batman stuff came up.”

“Okay,” Jason drawls. “And?”

“But I’m pretty sure someone had slept on her couch before I visited her in New York last weekend and she didn’t say anything. And… and there’s something about the Spider.”

“Found it,” Bruce announces. “Store at the end of the alley has surveillance.”

He presses play on the video, showing Riddler and two unfamiliar men cornering a young girl.

“When did Riddler get a team?” Jason wonders.

“After Joker taunted him for working alone,” Bruce answers flatly.

The video shows the moment Spider steps out into the dim light in the alley and pulls the first man off his feet.

“Ooh,” Jason murmurs. “That hurt.”

“She saved the girl,” Tim muses when she runs out of the alley. “So, she wasn’t lying about that.”

They quiet as the video continues. When Riddler lunges toward Spider, she reaches both hands out and grasps his upper arm, flipping him over her shoulder. He pulls something out of his blazer pocket, slams it against her arm, and then Spider collapses. Riddler ushers the men out of the alley, though they clearly want to take advantage of her unconscious state.

“Wait, whoa,” Tim interrupts, slapping the back of Bruce’s chair lightly. “Go back?”

“Wondering when Riddler took up purse snatching?” Jason jokes.

Bruce drags the mouse until Tim tells him to stop. In slow-motion, they watch Spider grasp Riddler’s arm, then how she staggers back as she tries to fight off whatever he did to her.

“It’s a variant of the Joker toxin with traces of Scarecrow gas,” Oracle says through the comms system. “Other than that, her bloodwork looks fine.”

“He injected it?” Jason questions.

“He’s prepping for something big,” Oracle suggests.

“I know who Spider is,” Tim admits, staring at the paused video. Spider’s hands are on Riddler’s arm, one hooked beneath his tricep and the other manipulating his forearm. Tim has been in the same hold on more than one occasion, but he’s never actually been tossed like Riddler was. He had no idea before now that it was a possibility.

“What?” Jason exclaims. “Who?”

“I have to go,” Tim murmurs, moving toward the staircase that leads to the manor.

“Where?” Jason calls. “To do what?”

“Watch videos of Spider fighting that green guy in New York!”

Bruce turns and watches Tim go, then asks Jason, “Do you know who she is?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you should consider updating his world’s okay-est detective trophy.”

“Sure,” Jason deadpans, “I’ll get right on that. Maybe I’ll be the demon spawn a new sword, too.”

Tim spends the next twenty hours watching every video of Spider he can find online. Running on adrenaline and caffeine, he’s more convinced that he’s right about her true identity. So, he travels to New York and stakes out on the roof of a building that Spider seems to frequent.

Less than an hour later, you lands on the edge of a roof and straightens when you see you aren’t alone.

“Uh, hello,” you greet, waving awkwardly at Red Robin, who you’re pretty sure is also your boyfriend. “Look, if this is about last night—"

Red Robin interrupts you and says your name. Not Spidey. Your actual name. Tonight, he’s speaking like himself, not using that raspy tone you assume he learned from Batman. He sounds like Tim Drake, and your stomach twists at the idea this will be the last time you hear him say your name.

With a heavy sigh, you pull your mask off. “Tim, I’m sorry,” you begin.

“Don’t bother,” he interrupts, causing your heart to drop to your stomach. He pushes his cowl back and smiles, calming the building storm inside you. “Call it even?”

“You’re not breaking up with me?” you check, clutching your mask in your hands.

“Are you kidding!? The Spider and Red Robin are unbreakable.”

“The Spider and Red Robin just met.”

“I’m not breaking up with you,” Tim promises, taking your hand. “And I have an idea for how you can beat that Goblin guy.”

You open your mouth to ask how he knows about the villain and your fights but then remember you’re talking to Tim Drake. What little he doesn’t know he can find quickly.

“It’d be nice to have someone in my corner,” you reply. “Teach me how to fight Gotham rogues, too?”

“Sure. Then we can switch cities and freak everybody out,” Tim suggests.

You laugh, then lean forward and kiss Tim’s cheek before you put your mask back in place.

“Who are we fighting tonight?” Tim inquires.

“It’s been pretty quiet so far,” you say. “Oh, if you could figure out how to keep Miggy from spawning in my bedroom when he time travels, that’d be great.”

Tim nods, following you toward a fire escape, then catches your wrist to stop you and yells, “Time travel?!?”

Tim Drake & x reader Taglists🏷️ @fireriyu @lortheswiftie @noble-17 @kmc1989 @anonymousmuffinbear @outpostsworld

[lowkeyunprepared]

Thinking about giving Jason the silent treatment after an argument and him turning absolutely pathetic.

It’d probably be about him being reckless on patrol or something, usually that’s the only thing you two really fight about. He’s exhausted and you’re worried, so he gets snappy and defensive, expecting you to fight back. At first you do, but ten minutes into bickering, you just huff and turn around. With a quiet “you know what, Jason? Just do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore,” you head into the bedroom.

Cue the silence.

At first he tries to act like it doesn’t bother him, silent as well, but when he comes back from patrol the day after and the cold shoulder persists, he grows desperate. The usually comfortable quiet that settles between you after long days feels suffocating. He misses your voice, how you’d tell him about your day while making dinner, or complain about work. You decidedly ignore the looks he sends you, his eyes pitiably soft. He underestimated how much he needs to hear you talk to stay sane during the day; Beating up criminals was one way to stop his mind from spiralling, but you were his main way of coping.

“Princess, please,” he whispers at some point, next to you on the couch while you scroll through whatever streaming service you first landed on. Something in his tone makes you cave, the slight crack maybe, or the way his hands rub against his pants to get rid of the thin sheen of sweat that clings to his palms.

When you look back up again the instant relief that fills his chest is visible, he practically lights up. “I’m sorry for snapping, I know you care, I was exhausted. That’s not an excuse, sorry. Just don’t ignore me again, I can’t handle that.”

“Then take better care of yourself and don’t go out there acting like you have nobody waiting for you to make it back alive,” you grumble, glaring at him, although it lacks the heat now.

He nods, “I will, promise. Just keep talking, baby.”

The show you settled on to rewatch never gets played, Jason insistent on you talking to him until he has to go on patrol to make up for the hours he went without hearing your voice. He might call you while he’s out, addicted to the sound of you, and entirely dependent on you giving him the time of day.

a/n: i like pathetic loser boyfriend jason. he might be buff and hot but that man has zero game. he went from street kid to robin to dead to red hood. i think he’d feel incredibly lucky to have bagged anybody. so yeah, my headcanon is he wouldn’t be able to cope when you’d ignore him.

this is my interpretation of course, and i’m not as familiar with the canon as a lot of you probably :)

[leonsgfpost]

Synopsis: Another bad night for your man, but you know how to comfort him!

Tags: RE6!Leon x F!Reader, established relationship, smut, unprotected sex (don't do this, take care 🙏🏻), creampie, riding, pathetic men, whiny and crybaby Leon, mentions of dependence and post-traumatic stress, some angst, comfort and more!

Note: Hi!! I finally had time to finish this request from a while ago. It just wouldn't leave my head 😩 we don't talk about RE6!Leon enough, and I really need it. Pleasee ignore any mistakes and enjoy!💕💕

When you met Leon, years ago, you knew you were dealing with someone complex. You could see it in his eyes, which always concealed the seemingly endless pain in his life. When things escalated and the relationship became official, you came to know his wounds more deeply. The nightmares in the middle of the night, the cold sweat that trickled down his forehead when he remembered too much, or how there were times when all he wanted was to be with you.

You were the only thing that kept him sane. The only thing that kept him grounded. He felt guilty for wanting to merge his body with yours, for clinging to you until his last days. Could you blame him? He loved you like he'd never loved anyone or anything. The way you always took care of him when he was too depressed to get out of bed, how you washed his hair so gently, and above all, how you let him sink into you until he couldn't think of anything bad.

Tonight was one of those nights where dark thoughts clouded his judgment, and he couldn't stop the tears fall down for his face. His arms were tightly around you, his face buried between your tits as if letting go would mean the end of his life. Small, husky moans danced against your skin, muffling the occasional sob from Leon.

"You okay, baby?" you asked, trying to keep your tone sweet despite his length being buried deep inside you. You could practically feel his cock brushing against that delicious spot inside you with every movement you made on top of him.

All you got was a small nod, or maybe he was just rubbing his face against your chest like a big, old dog looking for love. He was a mess of tears and saliva, letting out long sighs of pleasure as he felt you ride him up and down, soaking him from base to tip. You went all the way down, until his swollen balls bumped against your entrance, then back up again, leaving only the dripping tip of his cock inside.

Your fingers brushed against his sweat-damp hair, pulling him close to your chest as you rode him slowly. His trembling hands roamed your back adoringly, drawing you closer with the need for there to be not an inch of distance between you. Your lips sought his, pouring all your feelings onto his trembling lips. He looked so fragile, panting into your mouth, his brows furrowed with pleasure and the need to silence the voices in his head.

"I love you, don't leave me..." He whispered, breathless. "Please, I love you so much, baby." Repeating his words with painful sincerity, he held you tighter, letting you bounce faster on him. His brain was completely melting, and long-forgotten tears slid down his rosy cheeks. He knew it was pathetic, but he couldn't help begging for more, pleading for you shamelessly.

His moans grew louder, more shaky, as his cock trembled inside your wet walls, making a loud, obscene squelching sound that echoed throughout the room. You were no better, the friction of your throbbing clit against his pelvis, lightly covered by pubic hair that created a path to his member, was driving you absolutely wild. That, and his wet, desperate kisses on your neck, were bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

"Look at me, please..." he begged, pulling you out of your trance. He knew you were close by the way your hot walls gripped him and the way your breathing became more frantic. "I want to see you—" he murmured, his voice hoarse with adrenaline. You opened your eyes, finding yourself confronted by a sight: his wet eyelashes fluttered quickly, his unfocused eyes showing only pure longing, and his jaw slack with pleasure. He was close too, just wanting to feel you come around his eager cock.

His hands released your hips to cup your hot face, his sweaty forehead pressed against yours to maintain eye contact. He was too busy admiring your beauty and how you crumbled around him.

Your body couldn't take it anymore, coming around his cock completely, soaking you both. Your eyes rolled back for a few seconds, feeling your walls tighten around him with spasms of pleasure. The thrusts were now slightly more frantic, wetter, helping you ride the waves of orgasm.

Leon's hips trembled helplessly beneath you, pulling your face closer to try and kiss you one last time before he came. But all he could do was groan against your mouth, breathing heavily as thick strands of hot, thick semen exploded inside you, making him forget even his own name for a second.

You moaned shakily as you felt him tremble inside you, emptying himself completely into your rubbery, sensitive walls. Your hips rubbed lazily against his, both of you panting into each other's mouths, still dazed from having come so hard. His semen, mixed with your release, began to seep from your pussy, dripping down base until it dripped onto his balls.

You leaned against his chest, and he hugged you, burying his nose in your tangled hair. His heart still pounded, trying to gather his thoughts.

"Thanks for...all." he murmured, his voice filled with the relief of being here with you. In your arms, he wasn't a tool, not an agent, he was just a man determined to love.

You were the cause of his happiness, his little paradise on earth, and he had no problem admitting it.

omg, i loove pathetic men, yummy 😋 and im so sorry I haven't been able to update often, im in the final stretch of my finals!! So i hope everyone is doing well and taking care ❤️‍🩹

All comments and likes are welcomeᡣ𐭩

(💌) bye, bye!

[yuriskity]

AKI HAYAKAWA AS YOUR BOYFRIEND

(implied afab!reader but can be read as gn, one mention of sex near the end, aki being a cutie pie boyfie)

web page border by @cursed-carmine !

WHAT IS AKI LIKE AS A BOYFRIEND ?

Aki is the kind who's silently devoted, he wouldn't gush or brag, and his love shows up primarily in routines, habits, and the way he always makes space for you in his life!

He's protective without being overbearing. If your in a relationship with this guy, it's clear he trusts you and respects your decisions, so when it comes to someone else flirting with you, he wouldn't care because he knows you wouldn't indulge it. Meanwhile if your in danger, THAT'S the kind of protective he is, in the sense that he will drop everything if you need saving.

He struggles to say affectionate things out loud at first, his compliments will come stiff and awkward, but Aki isn't the type of guy to just say things, so compliments still mean a lot to you, even though their a bit bumpy.

Once he's in love, he's in it fully. He doesn't half-commit to anything, especially not when it comes to something as intimate as a relationship (especially considering your most likely his first partner)

Aki has trouble believing he deserves the happiness he gets when he's around you, so a lot of reassuring will definitely be needed, especially around the start of your relationship.

WHAT IS AKI'S IDEAL DATE?

A perfect date for Aki would be something simple and quiet. Examples, cooking dinner together at home and watching a movie, a small cozy restaurant with not many people and gentle lighting, or walking through the city at night, linking pinkies.

He likes dates where conversation comes easy without interruptions like the bustling streets of the city or constant chattering.

When it's cold, and your both out, he'll offer you his coat immediately, secretly liking when you slip it in and get a whiff of his subtle cologne.

Speaking of scents, he loves when you sit close enough to him where he can smell you, just doing that relaxes him a lot.

Aki doesn't do spontaneous "let's go right now" dates. He'll plan, not extravagantly, thoughtful, planning things he's sure you'd like. He checks the weather, the time, how crowded a place might be.

In the early stages of your relationship, before you live together, he's showing up to dates 20 minutes early.

For dinner dates, as mentioned, he prefers smaller, less crowded restaurants, or cooking at home. If it's in a restaurant, he'll listen more than he talks, and will always remain eye contact when you speak. If you're unsure what to order, he helps without being pushy on getting a certain thing.

He definitely prefers cooking together compared to a restaurant but doesn't mind either.

He likes when your hands brush when you cook, it makes him a little flustered. And he loves when you taste his cooking and coo in content, it makes him prideful, the fact that you like his food.

WHAT ARE SOME OF AKI'S HABITS WHEN DATING ?

He makes you tea like it's second nature if he ever catches your eyes slightly drooping. If you like tired or God forbid, even upset, he'll do it, not even asking you.

He's a handy guy, and you find it very attractive. He'll fix things around the house without even mentioning it. Broken light bulbs? Replaced instantly. Loose cabinets? It's handled before you even realise it was loose.

He always wakes up earlier than you and gets so upset at himself when he wakes you by accident. He tries his actual hardest to try not to disturb your beauty sleep.

He keeps track of you a lot. Just to know your safe, he even insisted on a location sharing app.

He leaves notes sometimes around the house. Short and simple ones, usually like "I'll be home late, eat dinner." And he'll just stick it to the counter and dips to go to work.

WHAT IS AKI'S LOVE LANGUAGE ?

His primary is definitely acts of service. It's his strongest one by far.

Aki shows his love by doing things for you, he fixes, prepares, plans, and anticipates your needs before you even voice them.

He'll make you meals when you're tired, cleans without being asked, handles things so you don't have to worry!

He feels useful when he's taking care of you. It gives him purpose beyond devil hunting.

The sentence "I did it already, don't worry about it" is basically his love confession.

The other 4 love languages are still very much present in the relationship because Aki is just that superhuman perfect being.

His more secondary love language would be quality time.

He values your presence more than big gestures. Sitting together while doing separate things, cooking side by side, walking back to the apartment together while he listens to you talk about your day. In Aki's eyes, it's perfect.

Meanwhile, with something like physical touch, it's more lowkey. In public, he definitely isn't super big on PDA, the most your getting is a hand on your back, guiding you through the crowd, or linking pinkies. When Aki initiates touch, it's always sincere.

As for gift giving, he wouldn't do grand gifts. If he buys you something, it's because he noticed you needed it. A scarf for winter, new clothes, stuff like that. Sometimes he'll indulge you with something he'll think you'll like, but it's pretty rare.

His weakest by far is words of affirmation. It's not his weakest because he doesn't feel it. It's because saying it is hard for him.

Compliments come out short. "You look good." "I'm glad you're here"

Aki saying "I love you" takes time, when he finally says it, he means it fully.

Now Aki wouldn't mind whatever your primary love language would be. He needs patience, reassurance and he needs someone that understands that love for him, is often silent.

WHAT'S AKI LIKE WHEN HIS PARTNER IS SICK ?

Aki goes on caretaker mode immediately. Unlike the clingy puppy, known as Denji, Aki will not hug you while you sleep, because he doesn't want both of you getting sick. He needs to be healthy enough to take care of YOU to the best of his abilities and he really hopes you understand that.

He's so attentive, you wouldn't be shocked if he whipped out a whole clipboard to keep everything in track. Your temperature is checked regularly, water is always on your bedside, and gets replaced with fresh water every hour, medicine is given on schedule and when you sleep, he'll sit beside your bed and just watch.

If you ever apologise for being a burden, and having him take time off work just because your sick, he'll shake his head and insist gently that he WANTS to take care of you.

HOW DOES AKI KISS ?

As expected, he does it very soft and deliberate, kisses don't come very often, usually atleast once or twice a day.

Rare make out sessions start slow– a gentle press of the lips, to test before he leans closer in to indulge himself in you a bit more.

One hand is almost always resting at your waist or jaw, not really for a particular reason, he likes it this way.

When he's feeling overwhelmed after a long day at work, his kisses lingering longer, like he's trying to memorise you (he already has)

Aki also isn't overly flashy or aggressive when it comes to kisses, but when he's really in the mood, his kisses are deep and passionate.

His favourite to give you are forehead kisses, he'll give you one before leaving for work in the morning if your still sleeping. Meanwhile, his favourite to recieve are.... also forehead kisses! He likes how simple they are, and especially likes when your cuddled up to him, brushing his bangs out of the way to press a firm kiss on his forehead.

WHAT IS SLEEPING LIKE WITH AKI ?

First off, he's not big on cuddling when your relationship is still young. He's stiff, unsure where to put his arms or worried your in an uncomfortable position.

Once he's fully comfortable, he actually does enjoy cuddles a lot. He wouldn't verbally tell you, but you know, since when you do curl up next to him, he'll let out this relaxed sigh and pull you a bit closer.

He doesn't need to be glued to you to sleep, but he DOES need atleast one point of contact. Examples, your hand on his, your back pressed against his chest, your leg tangled in his, cuddling with you becomes part of his routine without even realising it.

Aki usually sleeps on his back, but if you're there, he automatically sleeps on his side, facing you.

If you fall asleep first, he watches you for a moment before settling in, he just wants to make sure your comfortable.

He's also very careful to not crush you while you sleep...

When it comes to cuddles positions, spooning is his go-to, he likes being the big spoon, his arms around your middle, hand resting on your stomach or hip.

Nights after he's had a rough day, he'll want to lay against your chest and just listen to your heartbeat. It soothes him a lot.

Does Aki snore?... yeah... very lightly though, when he's in a deep sleep or exhausted, he'll snores louder.

He'll definitely get embarrassed if he wakes you by accident thanks to his snoring.

Would Aki care if you snore?, nope, if anything, he'll find it reassuring, cause when he hears you snore, it means your still alive and breathing.

If you ever have a nightmare, he doesn't ask questions, he'll just hold you until you calm down, offering to make you something soothing to calm you down if you want.

Sleep is when Aki is the most vulnerable, being able to sleep next to someone peacefully is huge for him. It means trust and safety, and most of all, love.

WHAT ABOUT WHEN DENJI AND POWER MOVE IN ?

It's a bit difficult to adjust at first. Your once clean and well kept for apartment has now transformed into a stink bomb!

Power is the most difficult to get used to. She doesn't flush the toilet, barely takes baths, and throws vegetables around when it's served to her.

Denji on the other hand is more polite, but he himself is a rowdy boy, and sometimes indulges in Power's shenanigans.

At the start, your constantly working to keep the house clean, and Aki couldn't be more grateful to you. He knows its hard to get used to suddently having to share your home with strangers (atleast to you, they were strangers), and is apologetic about it, but he's thankful that you understand and even find them a bit amusing.

You've found that bribing the two (Power and Denji) with snacks and candy, have them working to the bone to serve you and the house, so you can take good long breaks.

Something that constantly irks Aki however, is when he's trying to have private sexy time with you. He could be in the middle of thrusting deep inside your sopping hole, and Power will burst in and complain about how loud you both are before slamming the door, nearly waking up the whole complex.

He'll try teaching the both of them the concept of privacy right after.

yaaayy i finally wrote for the goat.... he's so cute I love this dude.

[lanadelreyylover]

speak up

RE4!Leon Kennedy x Reader

You've always been on the shier, more anxious side, and Leon usually finds it adorable, except for in the bedroom. One evening, he comes home in an especially grumpy mood, exhausted from another day of work, and he's no longer charmed by that little quirk of yours

based on this request

taglist: @cakeofhorrors @rainyxie@venus-in-roses

“No, no,” he warns, clicking his tongue, shaking his head slowly. He’s too fucking tired to deal with you retreating into silence like this–a quirky habit of yours he usually finds quite adorable. But not tonight. “None of that. Tell me what you want.” 

You nibble at your lower lip, taking the plump pillow between your teeth, rolling it around. “Whatever you want, Leon, really I–”

He makes a sound, a cheap imitation of a gameshow buzzer. “Nope, try again.” His eyes are cut down to you as he brackets your body with his fists. Your legs are parted to accommodate his hips, and your thighs are starting to get sore from the stretch. 

“Come on, you have to tell me. I can’t read your mind, baby.” 

The man shot an entire magazine into a crazed cult leader and brought the president’s daughter back home, safe and sound, in the same breath. And he’s starting to lose his patience. 

“I don’t know what I like,” you admit, shrugging your shoulders against the mattress. Above you, Leon scoffs and rolls his eyes, playful and coy as always, but tonight it’s tainted with frustration, and that only raises your anxiety levels. “You always make me feel good, no matter what you do so…” 

Your voice trails off into a thick silence, eclipsed by the thump of your heartbeat in your chest. 

He sighs, collapsing onto the bed next to you, turning to his side, propping his head up on the heel of his palm. His other hand comes to your bare abdomen, fingers trailing up and down your skin. Then, it rises to your cheek, his knuckle lightly grazing the soft peach skin there. 

“You don’t trust me?” His lips pucker into a pout, the heads of his brows cinched together in dramatic concern.

“Of course I do,” you’re quick to rectify, not wanting Leon to sit with that thought for a second more. 

“Then what is it? Are you not comfortable with me?” 

“I am,” you say, lowering your gaze. “I am.” 

“But?”

When you fail to answer before the sand runs through the hourglass, Leon huffs, turning to lie on his back. “Then I’m not touching you until you tell me what you want. Simple as that.” 

“What?” It’s your turn to sit up on your elbow, gazing down at him. His lids are shut, faintly fluttering as he adjusts his head on the pillow beneath it like he does when he’s preparing to sleep.

“You heard me.” 

“But you had such a long day at work. I want to make you feel better.” 

He lifts the arch of his brows, eyes still closed. “Now you know how I feel.” 

You swallow hard, falling back onto the bed beside him, weighing your options like produce on a scale. Your pussy is aching, clenching around nothing but your own arousal, desperate to feel him inside you. There’s a tightly-wound ball of tension in your gut, yet you don’t know what would sate it. Maybe it’s your lack of experience dictating your desires, or the shame you anticipate would creep up your limbs if you voiced it. 

But you trust Leon, and you’re comfortable with him, like you said. So why can’t you just string the words together and breathe life into them like he needs you to?

“Leon,” you say with a shaky breath. 

“Baby?” He arches a brow at you, head reclined on the pillow, unmoving. 

“I want–” you choke down the lump rising in your throat. “I want you inside me.” 

His eyes open, cutting toward you. “That so?” 

You nod, the simple gesture enough to lure him back on top of you, arms bracketing your head once more. 

“Your fingers.” 

“Ah.” One of his hands remains by your temple, caressing your head, as the other slinks down your waist, between your legs, his knuckles nudging them open. They spread for him almost instinctively, barely needing any encouragement, and his fingers take no time slathering your arousal through your folds, around your clit in languorous circles, teasing your entrance. “How many do you want, baby?” 

“Two,” you squeak, the stretch of his middle and ringer finger sending an electric eel writhing through your veins. Icy-hot and magnetic. 

“And do you want me to push them in and out?” 

You shake your head. “No, keep them in, but bend your knuckles.” Inside you, he swiftly repeats the ‘come hitcher’ motion you perform with your own digits, and the pads of his fingers immediately press the sensitive spot behind your front wall. 

“I–I–” you gasp aloud, front teeth sinking into the plush flesh of your bottom lip. 

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” he goads, looking down at you from half-lidded eyes. “Tell me what you need.” His voice is so soothing, so lulling, you can’t resist. 

“Harder.” 

He obeys, bending his fingers inside you until you can no longer contain your pleasure, and your walls contract around him, the muscles of your abdomen tensing and releasing at an erratic pace. You cry out his name, the sheets beneath you now balled up in your fists. It’s the most intense climax you’ve experienced in a while, and your come down is violent and jarring, your insides throbbing as you fall back against the mattress. 

“See what happens when you use that pretty voice of yours?”

[hayajiku]

down to the marrow.

゛aki hayakawa had never disliked late nights at work until the days where you were waiting at home came about. somehow, though, they still managed to be some of his most precious times. ゛

➥ fluff. established relationship. you undress aki in a non-sexual manner. sleepy aki. aki needs a day off. he is so in love with you its sickening. word count of ~1200

aki hayakawa was no stranger to late nights spent working. three years he had spent acclimating to such a fact; having a job like his, there were days where he would return later than the initial clock-out time—an hour, a day, never at all.

only when he actually had something to come home to did this begin to bother him.

prior, aki had never minded being out late. though it was certainly exhausting, the occasional outlier among his days that had more or less all become sentenced to the same prison of loneliness and stark routine. some nights he would get home on time and, left with his thoughts for a few hours too long, only then felt his mind wander to the way he was living like a slave to the thing he wished to kill. many a time he had smoked a whole pack just to have something to do with his hands; he had diced onions for his one-serving curry into minuscule bits so he could focus on the practicality in his motions, the thing he justified this sad life with; he had sat by his lonesome on his balcony and stared at passing cars mimicking the stars above.

a year and a half ago, however, he had found you. a month or so ago, aki officially lived alone no more. thus he found himself growing more shifty when the day inched toward its end, eyes flicking to the door in short, frequent intervals. your face was constantly floating about the many thoughts within his head, a memory he held on to with his every bit of willpower—he would keep you in his grasp until his hands were mangled and torn, for no bit of flesh was more precious than the warmth you brought to his chest. he ached with it. he missed you, as disgustingly abnormal as that felt for him.

for once, aki had something in the near future. he had more to wait for than his own vengeful death, years ahead.

he never thought it would feel so good.

this newly acquired sense of comfort was his only motivation to remain upright as he tiredly unlocked the door to his—your—apartment. when he stepped in, his shoes thumped against the floorboards ever so softly—enough that you would only notice if you had been up and waiting (you were. though he did not know why, you always were).

“hey,” he called out quietly into the dimly lit space, flicking on the light in the entryway. “I’m home.”

“in here,” you responded from the bedroom.

aki was not prepared for the burst of tired affection behind his ribs when he saw you, snug and soft in pyjama pants and one of his hoodies where you lay on the bed. you propped yourself on an elbow when his steps echoed down the hall, and rose to your feet the moment he came into view. when he saw you, his shoulders unwinded just barely; his spine melted alongside that icy expression on his face.

he shifted forward, grabbing your wrist with a delicate sort of security and drawing you closer. he ducked down to brush his lips against yours—a greeting; a welcome; a reminder that you were something tangible rather than just another dream haunting him. you reciprocated, hand coming up to gingerly cradle his cheek—your thumb brushed the ridge of his jaw, and he could not help himself but sigh into your mouth. his brows furrowed, then relaxed all at once, as did his fingers where they had come to grip your waist.

he pulled back to loosen his tie and wearily shrug off his suit jacket. he did not comment when you began to help him shed the garments, pulling them off of him with quiet care.

aki was exhausted to the marrow of his bones.

his hair fell loose about his shoulders—he thought it needed a trim, especially now that he was no longer dealing with the fox devil, but you had once mentioned you thought it was ‘prettiest when long.’ at the time, he had huffed in embarrassment and shooed you away, but soon enough he noticed himself subconsciously avoiding a haircut. then consciously. it stuck.

“how was your day?”

“patrol went smoothly today,” he muttered. meanwhile, you pulled at the buttons of his shirt. “I…” thought about you, he wanted to say. instead, he let the words dissipate from his tongue and float out into the air with his next exhale.

he wondered, with how close you were, if you could breathe them in. “and you?”

you hummed, aiding him in getting the rest of his articles off until he was left in boxers alone. he was tying the drawstring on a clean pair of sweatpants when you remarked, “today was decent. nothing special.”

he grunted quietly, half acknowledgment and half dissatisfaction. “continue.”

he pulled you into bed with him then, bare arm sliding around your waist to shift you nearer. his eyes were already shut when you pulled him closer—after pressing a gentle kiss to your temple (then another for good measure), he settled his head in the crook of your shoulder.

“you’re tired, aki,” you muttered into his hair.

“I said continue.”

thereby, you did, whispering recounts of your hours spent apart into his ear. though aki looked like he could have already been asleep, he was aware down to his bones of every word and touch. the sound of your voice was possibly the most soothing thing he had ever experienced—it was the heat from a campfire warming frigid hands; rainfall after decades of drought, soothing every crumble and chip in his shattered shell; lullabies gracing ears that had only ever heard gunshots. every ghost of your fingers as they traced shapes about the blades of his shoulders was creating a map of your own journey in his flesh; it was the touch of life in the harshest of climates; it was a bloom of green among a canvas of grey, lonely concrete.

all the while, aki only pressed closer—like the string of fate hand wound itself around your huddled forms and just kept on tightening. his fingers slipped to the inch of exposed skin at your back, shirt rucked up from movement. his hands were warm. they were warm and gosh, they were reverent. aki always held you like you were something that had descended from above, calloused palms moving along your body like that in itself was some sort of blessing—like every word he failed to say was lingering in the grooves of his palm, calling out to you in touch.

aki ached for you to the marrow of his bones.

you were mid-sentence when he cut you off with the softest of mumbles. the words were felt more than heard, muffled against your neck, but it sounded incredibly akin to, “I love you.”

you paused—perhaps taken aback by the affection, perhaps waiting for a follow-up. none came but a the sound of his breath evening out.

aki slept that night, head on your chest, the beat of your heart lulling him deeper into rest. he lay there and dreamt of an eternity spent just like that—warm blankets and soft words, his hands on your skin, and trust burrowing itself deeper within you for every passing second you spent basking in the shared presence.

aki loved you to the marrow of his bones.

wrote this half asleep last night im sleep deprived my writing has not been good lately but I miss aki so here we go!!!!!!.!!/!/!./!/!

@sh0ot1ngst4r @azinniyaa @fiannee @bubybubsters @lizbix @mayyhaps @adoresia @xianji @cinnamxnangel @peachchae @rustymind @xo-nyx @reverd-ck @mikikkoo @ayahhtiicore @dawnsoblivion

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[ionlygaveyoumybody]

A/N: second Aki fic yippee yay

"Go on back to bed, my love"

Slivers of moonlight sneaked into the living room, softening the darkness.

Aki sat on the couch, arms crossed and resting on his knees. His gaze was glued to the floor. His breathing, steady, mixed with the everyday sounds: the hum of the fridge, the upstairs neighbors getting home, the cars driving by.

The sound of the bedroom door opening makes his ears perk up; he almost steals a glance back. Your footsteps, muffled by your socks, make their way to Aki. Silently, you take a seat beside him.

You nudge his shoulder and he looks at you with a tight lipped smile, a silent ‘I'm okay’. You take his hand in yours and kiss his knuckles.

“Can't sleep?” You ask.

“Just thinking... go back to bed.” He lies.

You rest your head on his shoulder and wrap an arm around his waist. “I'm gonna make some tea.” You finally offer, leaving for the kitchen—not before placing a kiss on his temple.

Aki lets out a deep exhale. He rolls his shoulders and grabs the remote, fiddling with the buttons before deciding to turn on the television. He zaps through the channels: “devil attack”, “devil strikes Tokyo”, “devil attack, 17 deaths.” He presses the off button maybe a bit too harshly. The heel of his palm digs against his cheek: he is tired, bored. Bored of this being his routine. Bored of not being normal. Bored of feeling so much responsibility, ache and grief. Still, his chest carries a pressure that will never cease, a reminder that he owes his life to others. To his family. To you. To Public Safety.

You make your way back, two steaming mugs in hand. You hand him his—the one Denji and Power scribbled “best dad topknot ever” over in sharpie—It always makes him snort a quiet laugh. You sit beside each other, not saying anything for a while. You don't need it. You know how it is, how your lives work. How messed up the world—your world—is. You see things no one ever should. You become familiar with the stench of corpses, human or not. You have to learn to stop feeling. You have to learn to stop caring. But you don't.

“Is this the new tea we bought?” Aki snaps you out of your thoughts, his knee gently bumps yours.

“Yeah. It is.” You nod. “We should buy it again next time.” He hums in agreement.

He leans in and kisses your cheek, then, after a pause, he kisses your jaw, then the corner of your lips, then the crown of your head.

“Thank you.” He whispers.

“For the tea?”

“No. Just.. I don't know. For being here, I guess.” The grip he has on his mug becomes a bit rougher. “Things have been hard… they've always been. But.. you make them easier. As corny as that sounds.” He eyes you with a smile, finding humor in his own words. “You make it bearable.”

You smile back, but your smile is not like his: it's not to save yourself from some never-coming embarrassment. Your smile is warm, almost a pout of endearment. Aki falls in love with you all over again every time you give him that look. You steal a kiss from his lips which he gladly returns.

—

“Let's go to bed... I'm getting tired.” He murmurs against your skin, standing up and placing his mug on the coffee table. He grabs your hand and helps you up, leading you to your shared bedroom.

He slides off his pants and you follow suit. He stretches his arm over his head, letting out a groan. You two slide under the covers, as if hiding from the world, and get impossibly close. You feel Aki's legs against yours, his skin is scarred and warm, some parts are smoother than others. His feet are cold. Aki rests on his stomach, giving your hands full access to trace aimless shapes and massage his upper back. He always waits until you fall asleep first, even if he insists he doesn't. You have caught him in the act many times before. He always just stares. You wish you could read his mind. What was running through his head. You wonder if you would even understand. The sudden sound of Aki's quiet snores pulls you out of your head. You admire how peaceful he looks. His slow breaths. His parted lips. You caress his brows with your thumb, smoothing out the remaining tension. Your mouth finds his back. It feels warm. You kiss up his neck and sigh against him, feeling goosebumps rise as your breath meets him.

You may not have a forever, or normalcy, but you have each other. When you are together, caring is not a curse. It doesn't hurt. It keeps you blissful—maybe even ignorant. Your love is more sweet than it is bitter. The world doesn't feel so heavy when two people are holding it.

———

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Tag; @succubussdreams