Steve and Bucky remind me so much of a bonded pair of cats at the animal shelter that cannot be separated and have to be adopted together.
Whenever Steve's away on a mission, Bucky is inconsolable, hiding under furniture and impossibly wedging himself into tiny spaces, snapping at people who get too close, because Steve's touch is the only that he can genuinely trust.
Whenever Bucky's away in Wakanda, Steve cannot regulate himself whatsoever, pacing around nonstop and unable to make himself eat, sleep, shower, or do anything but focus on when Bucky is coming home, because he has lost Bucky before and he lives in a constant state of fear that he will lose him again.
They're always touching somehow, whether Steve is holding Bucky's hand or combing through his hair with his fingers, whether Bucky is leaning into Steve's side or clutching a fistful of his shirt. You will almost never see Steve without his shadow or Bucky without his guard dog. Whenever Steve leaves for his morning run (one of the only times he can handle being away from his partner, although he always returns as quickly as possible), he always wakes Bucky up to press a kiss to his forehead and softly let him know where he's going, because the first time he tried to quietly slip out of bed and leave Bucky a note, the other man had a full-blown panic attack at the thought that it might be a forgery and Steve might be gone, and Steve had come home to find him sobbing uncontrollably wrapped in urine-soaked sheets under the bed.
Nobody can look at those two together and deny that they need each other. The sheer devotion and longing and hope and adoration in their eyes when they look at each other is proof to anyone watching that their love is one of the purest things on this earth.
Warriors stumbled as he stepped out of the gate into bright sunlight. Twilight caught him by the shoulder and asked, “Alright there, Captain?” He nodded absently, focused on assessing the place (or time, really) where they had ended up.
The gate exited on the middle of a sprawling meadow. It seemed impossible that the Shadow could have reached the distant treeline already, but a scan of the surrounding area showed no sign of their quarry.
“We lost it,” Warriors huffed. Time hummed noncommittally.
Warriors had no way to tell east from west, but the hue of the light suggested the sun was rising, not setting. It would be many hours before night fell in this era. Something inside him withered at the thought. They had been dogging the Shadow’s heels for at least a full day now, too close to give up the chase for a rest. It had been early evening in the era they had just left. The late morning sun seemed to mock them.
Warriors gathered himself, banishing thoughts of soft pillows and blissful darkness, and asked, “Twilight, can Wolfie find the trail? It can’t have gotten too far ahead.”
Wind moaned dramatically, cutting off whatever Twilight had been about to say. “Do we have to? I’m tired. The stupid lizard can wait a bit, can’t it?”
Four agreed, “It’s been hours since we stopped for a break. If we keep this up, we’ll just wear ourselves out.”
Warriors glanced around and found the others nodding in agreement. Legend was massaging his hip with a grimace. Sky tried and failed to hide a yawn. Time met his gaze and raised a single eyebrow. “This spot seems safe enough. At the very least, we’ll see anything coming from a mile away,” he said.
“Fine,” Warriors sighed. “We’ll take a break.” Muted cheering met this declaration.
As the others made themselves comfortable in the grass and wildflowers, Warriors kept an eye on the trees. The Shadow had known they were following it, and there was a chance it would double back and strike while their guard was down. He wouldn’t let it.
As he turned slow circles, his eye was periodically drawn to his companions. Wild was clearing a circle in the dense flora so he could start a cooking fire without setting the whole meadow ablaze. Wind was talking Twilight’s ear off about something or other. The ranch hand looked about ready to fall asleep sitting up. Warriors remembered suddenly that Twilight had taken the third watch when they last slept, before this chase began. No doubt he could use the rest. Warriors had taken the second watch, but he wasn’t that tired yet. He could push through a while longer.
Twenty minutes later, Warriors had finally accepted that there wasn’t much point in standing to keep watch. The ground was level enough to see quite far. He sat in a patch of sprawling clover and tried not to imagine how it would feel to lie down in it.
The day was pleasantly warm. A cool breeze rolled over the meadow, carrying the scent of dozens of flowers. The humming of pollinators provided a backdrop of white noise. Warriors caught himself slouching and shook off the creeping drowsiness.
“Let me help you with your armor,” rumbled Time from above him. Warriors jerked his head up and found the older man settling down next to him.
“No need, I’d rather be prepared,” Warriors assured. His voice slurred just a bit. Time acted as though he hadn’t spoken, already loosening the straps of his spaulder. Warriors clumsily batted him away. Time let him, then leaned forward and resumed his efforts.
“You’re tired,” Time said. He set aside the spaulder and started messing with Warriors’s scarf. “You’ve been up for longer than anyone else, and you’ve not let yourself relax for a moment. We need you at your best, Captain.”
“I’m fine,” Warriors insisted, struggling to glare through half-lidded eyes. Truthfully, he wasn't tired—he was exhausted. Someone had to keep watch, though.
Time had unpinned and loosened his scarf while he was distracted. His baldric was also missing. Now the old man was running fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp in a way that was obviously calculated to lower his defenses. “You’re not subtle, Sprite.” Time only hummed.
The sunlight was red behind Warriors’s eyelids. He had somehow ended up horizontal. The clover was soft and cool beneath him. Sitting up sounded like entirely too much work right now.
“Easy, Captain,” murmured Time from close by. “I’ve got the watch. You can rest.”
Reverence is not a word that properly describes how Gyutaro feels about you.
To revere something, to respect and admire it, is not something Gyutaro ever really learned how to do. When he thought highly of someone, he admired and hated them in equal measure; hatred bubbling and boiling under his skin, melting away admiration and turning it into jealousy. When he respected someone, he did them the favor of being out of their way; respect beaten and bruised until the thing that made someone worthy of respect, also made them completely untouchable.
Gyutaro usually tarnished the things he touched. To keep his filthy hands away, to keep his unworthy eyes off–that was the only way he knew how to respect anything.
None of that applies to you, though.
Because unlike the few things he's revered in the past, Gyutaro can't keep his eyes off you.
His eyes–unworthy, unworthy, unworthy–stay glued to your figure, outlined by the warm light of a slow-burning candle. You're reading something. It must be an interesting story, because your gaze stayed routed to the bound pages in your hands, even as the minutes turn to hours. He isn't sure if you know he's there, but to disturb you in such a state–hair undone, candle bathing you in light and shadow in equal part, focus turning your friendly eyes to steel–feels like an unforgivable sin in this moment.
"Why are you so obsessed with her anyway?"
Daki's voice echoes in his head, a memory coming back to question him a second time. The first time, he'd just shrugged. Is that what this is? Obsession? Is he obsessed with you?
Maybe. A little. That isn't it though. That can't be all.
A low mumble catches in his throat, and you tear your eyes away from the book in your hands for the first time since the sun's gone down. It only takes you a moment to recognize him in the shadowed corner he's been perching in, but when you do, the air in the room noticeably changes.
"Gyu…" You pause, glancing between the book and him. "How long have you been sitting there?"
He just stares at you, unblinking. Partly because he doesn't know, partly because he wants to see how you handle the silence.
You just reach out to him, a silent invitation to come closer. His legs move without order–wretched, filthy, betraying–until he's leering over you, close enough now that you can see his spotted face in the candlelight.
"Hello." You say, smile soft and eyes fond. "You're back."
You always say that. Like you know he's made efforts to stay away. Like you knew he'd come back anyway.
Before he knows it, you're reading again, this time in his little corner of the room. He's curled up like a lazing house cat, his head on your lap, his hand on your thigh. You move the candle to the windowsill, and make peace with holding your book with one hand so the other can rest in his mop of messy hair. The quiet comes back, warmer now.
Gyutaro can't help it. Can't help this.
The soft push of your hands threading through his hair makes him sick. His hand clenches and unclenches the flesh of your thigh, wanting to keep you just a little more than he wants to tear you apart. Your touch feels like fire to him; alighting every piece of him that makes contact, and leaving warmth when you pull away. He hungers for you when you're gone, but he's on fire when you're here, and he doesn't know which is worse.
He does know that he can't go back to how things were before, though. Not after you. Not after nights like this.
Because even though his mind is telling him to leave, something else is telling him to stay.
He doesn't know what that something else is, really. He can't put a name to it. He doesn't know where it hides.
So, instead of leaving, he stays still. Savors your touch. Stares.
Your face is illuminated now by dying candlelight as well as cool moonlight through the window. Your eyes are steel again, flicking slowly from word to word, but they're a touch softer now. It's getting late. You never pull your eyes away from the book, but your hand doesn't stop raking through his hair either. He wonders if you can feel his gaze on you.
So what is it? His mind fills with thought, amber eyes almost glaring in their intensity. Admiration? His hand squeezes your thigh. Hatred? He squeezes harder.
He wants to be free from this feeling; fire on his skin, syrupy warmth pooling in his chest. He wants away. His grip gets tighter. He feels the heat of this, cloying and unforgivably close–but he can't leave. He wants more of you; to grab and keep you, to hold you like a precious treasure. He wants you to look at him. His hold is close to hurting now–just a little more pressure will bruise you. He wants you to look away.
He wants to be worthy of you–of this. But he's not.
He lets go.
He looks away.
The candlelight is dying.
The stars stare on through the window, apathetic to his plight.
Your hand in his hair stops moving.
"Gyutaro?" Your voice is a whisper in the wind, almost too soft to hear. He just hums in response, gravelly and unpleasant to the ear. "Are you alright?"
Your voice is silk and satin, and though his ears love the sound of it, his chest aches with the knowledge of the disparity between you, and his head is an endless echo of leave leave leave-
Then, when he's seconds away from leaving, escaping through the window to the cool, lonely air, your hand reaches down to cup his face in your palm.
He looks at you again, horrible demonic eyes alight with something like awe.
You've set the book on the ground next to you, a delicate frown on your face as you look down at him with what he very desperately wants to think is pity.
He knows better than that though.
He knows you better.
He knows that despite the fact that he doesn't deserve it, you worry for him.
You're doing it now, your eyebrows dipping as your eyes stare deep into his own.
"Gyutaro?"
"I… can't…"
Admiration? Obsession? Reverence?
"I can put my book away, if you'd like."
He can hear the unspoken offer behind the spoken one.
If you'd like more attention, I can give it to you.
The thought makes him sick. Makes him feverishly warm. Some part of him wants to scream at you–don't defile yourself with me, don't let me ruin you–and another part wants to pull you closer, closer, closer, until there isn't an ounce of empty space between you.
"Gyu…?"
His mind is screaming at him, demanding in two different directions.
More more more- unworthy unworthy unworthy- filthy, defiled, scum- more less more less MORE-
Then, suddenly, there's just you, and that look on your face.
Gyutaro has been acting strange all evening.
You are no stranger to him nor his moods, but he's rarely so desperately quiet. You can't remember the last time a whole night went by without some muttered slight against himself, or a compliment gifted to you with some sort of reverence–or, something like it. When you pulled him into your lap, it was a direct response to the thoughtful look on his face. Like he was lost. Like he needed something, but didn't know what.
You would've said something about his despairing grip on your thigh too, but then he let go and looked away, and you realized suddenly that perhaps the silence has gone on too long. Perhaps, worrying though the thought may be, there was a question hidden in the silence you'd waited too long to answer.
You are a breath away from saying his name again when he sits up abruptly, taking his warmth with him as he does so. You open your mouth to ask if he's leaving. Did I do something wrong sits heavy on the tip of your tongue.
Then, with the panicked rush of a thief in fear of discovery, he turns the tables on you, pulling you into his lap and cradling you as if you might break otherwise.
A breath passes where you are too surprised to move.
Gyutaro never seeks you out like this–he doesn't lean in to kiss you, he never pulls you into an embrace, he never even reaches for your hand–and now here you are, pulled quite suddenly into his arms.
When his hand shakily bounds for your cheek, hesitant and anxious, you shake off the shock and lean into his palm.
You allow your eyes to drift closed, and he allows himself the privilege of dragging a clawed thumb across your cheekbone.
"I… need you."
He says it like the words are barbed, and he's dragging them out of his throat syllable by syllable.
You open your eyes, and there he is again. Staring.
He's looking at you like holding you is a herculean task; like he has almost no energy left to pursue this any further. That's alright with you though; you're happy to have gotten this far.
A slow grin etches itself onto your face, and you reach up to cup his hand in your palms.
"I need you too." You say, quiet words rippling through him until he seems somewhat relaxed.
Gyutaro can't look you in the eye for very long–not when your shape is flush with his, and your hands are burning warmth onto his face, and he can feel your heartbeat through the arm he has hooked around your back–so he pushes himself one more time, and tucks your head under his chin. You shift to rest one palm against his chest. You take your other hand and intertwine your fingers with his.
Your hand on his chest satiates the screaming demand for your touch. The echo of your heartbeat drowns out his thoughts, if only for a moment.
He holds you like this for a while; long enough that you begin to doze off in his lap. When your eyes slip shut, and your body fully relaxes, he leans back to look at you again.
You're asleep. In his arms. The flame of the candle on the windowsill has long since burned out by now, and you're almost more beautiful in the moonlight then you were in the warmth of the candlelight.
Is this reverence?
The thought comes unbidden, but it's quiet in the sea of semi-satisfied voices.
Gyutaro doesn't know.
Maybe it doesn't matter, though.
Maybe, all that matters is that he's here. That you're here, cradled in his lap like a precious thing.
Admiration, aching, reverence.
When you wake the next morning, you're in your bed. The morning air is cool on your face, but the memory of Gyutaro's hands leaves patches of warmth against your skin.
When you sit up, you realize that your book is still on the floor near the windowsill, where a waterfall of candle wax stretches slowly towards the floor. The window is still open.
There is a flower on your bedside table–a lily, stem broken and petals disturbed like it was left in a rush–and you smile.
You hope Gyutaro comes back tonight, so he can see that flower pinned in your hair.
Pairing: Jennifer Jareau x Reader
Summary: Reader is crushing so hard on Jennifer Jareau that it makes them spiral and lose control, but JJ supports them through it.
Warnings: mention and brief reflection on childhood emotional neglect and abuse, cptsd!reader, dissociation, nonverbal/selective mutism, panic attack, freeze trauma response, racing thoughts, shut down, depersonalization
Tags: cptsd!reader, dissociation, nonverbal, selective mutism, panic attack, shut down, gn!reader, comfort/emotional support, age gap, older JJ/younger reader, smoker!JJ, no use of y/n, reader is a simping mess, comfort person JJ, favorite person JJ, caregiver JJ if you squint
Word count: just under 4k
Author's Note: This is something I needed to get out of my mind because I'm living through it. This is a very real depiction of how my mind and body function, and I'm genuinely scared to share it with people. Please proceed with caution. I have lived with my trauma, old and new, for years. I am not in danger; in fact, despite my fears, I am arguably the most supported and stable I've ever been other than *gestures broadly at the state of the world.* I do not want sympathy or pity. I want solidarity. I want people to know they're not alone. I want everyone to understand that they deserve patience, effort, compassion, and autonomy, not as a reward for good behavior, assimilation, or managing their symptoms, but because they were born.
I want to thank @moons-and-mobility-aids for the inspiration to write an honest fic about my disability, regardless of whether people consider the depiction to be in-character, as well as the wonderfully thorough tips about tagging.
You were surprised to learn that JJ smoked. She never smelled like cigarettes at work. She didn’t go for breaks with Emily and Tara. But here she was, a foot away from you, taking a drag and blowing smoke into the night air. A little secret you’d been let in on when you’d started hanging out outside of work. It had kind of just happened. You went from texting to swinging by her apartment before work to spending your days off together, a progression you both followed naturally through every new phase.
JJ was almost exactly 10 years older than you, and she’d taken on a mentor role, helping you find your feet, calming you down if you started to panic, reminding you of your value. It seemed like something she was willing to do with everyone, but you were the only one sitting on her balcony right now, wearing one of her shirts because you secretly liked the way she smelled. You secretly liked a lot of things about her.
So when she asked if you wanted to accompany her outside, you said yes. You always did. Watching her smoke made your stomach flip and your eyes practically turn into stars. You didn’t let yourself stare, but every so often, she’d do something that justified you looking for seconds at a time. You knew it was pathetic, and it certainly didn’t help that you were sitting on the ground on your knees. You always sat on the ground while she smoked, but tonight, you had wanted to lean forward a bit to see the sky, elbows resting on the little table that held JJ’s ashtray.
Except not even the moon and the stars could distract you. You had to look over. You had to see her, the moonlight across her face, her hair down and a little messy, wearing a soft white t-shirt and black pajama shorts, a cloud of smoke coming from her lips. She sat straight, her legs spread, arching her neck ever so slightly, and it was hard to keep your mouth from dropping at the sight of her. She made a cheap plastic chair look like a throne, and even though being on your knees was an unrelated decision, it seemed now like the only correct choice in her presence.
“You’re staring...” JJ finally broke the silence, turning her head towards you and raising an eyebrow with a small smirk, like she knew how even the smallest amount of eye contact would affect you without you having to tell her. Of course she did: she was a profiler.
“Sorry,” you said reflexively, looking away again. You didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. The truth was that she probably saw you as some cute kid with a crush, and it brought all your insecurities right to the surface because it wasn’t. JJ meant so much to you. You finally had someone who looked out for you. Being friends with her felt like being a freshman whose older sister kept their bullies away. She was like your guardian angel. You didn’t just want to wear her shirts because they smelled like her; it was because everything about her made you feel like you could be small for the first time in your life. But you never wanted to make her feel like an object. She was a queen. She was a god. She was your god. Not something to ogle at.
“You don’t have to be sorry.” The playfulness left her voice, replaced with concern. “Are you okay?”
You forced yourself to look up at the sky, fighting a battle with your mind as it fantasized about burying your face between her thighs, kissing her legs, licking and biting and - “Yeah” You cleared your throat a little, hearing how unnaturally squeaky you sounded. “Yeah, no, I’m good. I was just.. thinking..” You finished weakly.
JJ sighed, and you felt her body get closer. You were aware of it even when she was out of sight, all of your senses tuned into her. “No, you weren’t.” Her voice was sure now, not scolding you but refusing to let your lie go unchecked. “You’re allowed to stare at me.”
That made you laugh, catching you off-guard. She definitely knew. “No, I’m not,” you insisted, eyes fixed forward.
“Why not?” It was genuine, no games, no pressure. Her only intention was to understand you, like always, in a way that compelled you to tell the truth.
“Because it.. it makes me feel like a creep. Like I must be creeping you out.”
“Well you’re not.” Simple, straight to the point, the way she always was when you got in your head. “I've lived in this body my whole life. I know people stare. Besides, it’s you.”
“Right..” You mumbled, feeling yourself shrink. Of course she was justifiably confident. She didn’t need your adoration. It didn’t do anything for her. What could you possibly have to offer someone like Jennifer Jareau? ‘Besides, it’s you’ rung in your ears the way you had been trained to hear it. You’re so cute and naive and adorable, but not in the real way, in the I-don’t-take-your-feelings-seriously way. You didn’t want her to think you were cute and innocent. That’s not how you felt. That wasn't the whole picture of the love you had for her. But the defensiveness started another spiral because that was exactly what a young, emotionally immature person with a crush would say.
A cigarette was pressed into the ashtray in front of your face, and you watched the orange become grey. Then a hand touched your back, a silent check in, something you’d gotten used to in the last few months. “Talk to me.”
God her voice made your soul drop to its knees and pound its fists into the floor. No one could cut through you like JJ. Effortlessly. Unaware of just how much power you’d given her. But even now, you didn’t want to tell her for the simple fact that vulnerability was too scary. The closest you could get was a few words, muttered under your breath apologetically. “You’re really pretty. Sometimes I just get stuck.”
“That’s okay.” You knew she meant it, though part of you wondered if she really understood how difficult all of this was for you. Sometimes her calm demeanor made you feel even more like an out-of-control animal, spinning in circles and making a mess while she just watched you. Like she was good and you were bad, and you were supposed to become more like her. You didn’t know if you could be at this point. Because the idea was that you were supposed to be safe now, right? You weren’t surrounded by abuse anymore, coming home to it, a powerless child. It was in the past, right? But it wasn’t. It haunted everything; you saw it everywhere. No matter what community you found, you always felt like the outsider. They called it a self-fulfilling prophecy as if you had a choice, as if you were in control of the way your mind spun, as if anyone had ever bothered teaching you to regulate instead of leaving you on your own, flopping on the deck like a fish - “Hey. Are you still with me?”
You weren’t. You definitely weren’t. You were in the cut off space, when your body stopped letting you talk because every word would mean exposure, where your eyes felt like windows with blinds drawn. Thoughts telling you you needed to run, that she wasn’t safe, but JJ was the only thing that was safe right now. She wasn’t the danger. The danger was how much you wanted her in every way a person could want someone. The danger was how easily she could change your whole day because you had voluntarily handed her so much power over you. The danger was what would happen when she did hurt you and how aggressively your mind would break and your heart would shatter into a million pieces like a star.
“Okay, hold on.” You felt her body moving again, heard the sound of her settling onto concrete next to you. You were still bent forward, and it wasn’t comfortable or what you wanted anymore, but you couldn’t move. The whole system had shut down to keep you from becoming vulnerable.
You had no idea what was happening until her face came into view in your periphery, leaning her elbows on the table next to yours, mimicking your posture. “I’m right here,” JJ whispered. “We’re okay. I know you might not be right now, but this? You and me? This is always okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
Your fingers twitched, nails digging deeper into your palms at the raw need to be closer to her. A car honked in the distance, and your head snapped in the direction like a dog. It scared you, but it was enough to break through the fog so that you could move how you wanted, even if it was vulnerable and embarrassing and risked getting you hurt. Your body turned into JJ as much as it could, fingers curling around her shirt. “Whoa, okay, I’ve got you.” JJ adjusted herself immediately, taking your weight like it was nothing, one arm around your waist, keeping you from falling backwards, one hand sinking into your hair. “I’ve got you,” she repeated.
Now that you’d made it to where you were safe, the tears were starting, out of nothing more than the overwhelming relief of being where you’d wanted to be in the first place. Close to her. And you knew why it was so hard. You knew, even if you couldn’t remember, that you’d been alone, incapable of asking for help because you were so little, just left to cry and figure out what you did wrong. People told you it was your job to ask for what you needed, but you didn’t always know what that was. Nobody had taught you. And sometimes you did know, knew exactly how to make everything better, but your body wouldn’t let you get there. You could stare at it all you wanted, silently begging for it to move towards you on its own, but knowing exactly why it wouldn’t. You had always scared people out of helping you. Like you cast some kind of spell that made them a mirror of what was going on inside you. You were frozen, so they froze. All the pressure fell on you. All the answers were demanded of you. All the initiative had to start with you. And sometimes you just couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it.
The idea got stuck in your head, and you tried to communicate it to JJ, not wanting to scare her too. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it,” you repeated into her shirt, fingers squeezing the fabric a lot more urgently to cope with the effort of speaking.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. What can’t you do?” JJ spoke so slowly, so carefully. She didn’t sound scared, and some part of you remembered that that would make sense, that she’d seen worse. It eased some of the pressure.
“C – Can’t – Can’t hold it. Too heavy.” You tried to explain.
Her grip on you tightened a bit, pulling you a little bit closer. “Can I hold it?” Her lips were touching the top of your head now, and her ask was real. So genuine. Not can I hold it so that I get the validation that I’m a safe person. Not can I hold it while her voice shakes, and you know she can’t, but you let her because you can’t say no without the risk of danger. Not can I hold it because I’m stronger and smarter and more stable than you. JJ is asking for permission because she hears how fragile this is. She knows how to keep delicate things safe, how to hold them with care. She knows how to get down on the floor with someone instead of watching them suffer.
So you nodded. Your eyes closed, and you could see it, a ball of lightning sparking and crackling in your mind. Your forehead pressed into her shoulder as you imagined pushing the energy into her, away from you. “Careful,” you mumbled, the word sounding so childlike as it fell out.
“I’ll be so careful,” JJ promised, scratching lightly at the base of your scalp in an effort to calm you down. As you pushed into her, you could feel the exhaustion hit you, the tension and rigidity becoming heavy and loose as you sunk into JJ’s arms even more, grateful more than you ever had been for the strength she’d forged in her body. She wasn’t going to let you fall. “We’re gonna stay right here until you’re out of this, okay? If I need to carry you inside, I will. If you want to talk about it, we can. You can sleep here if you need to. But I won’t leave you alone. You don’t have to force anything. We’ll just ride this out together, alright?”
Now the tears were pooling in the corners of your eyes as you nodded. They fell unceremoniously, not in a big show, not all at once, so slowly, still being held back by a body that knew deeply and intrinsically that it wasn’t safe to cry in front of other people.
You don’t know how long you were there before JJ stood up, carrying you like it was nothing, and you were so drained that you couldn’t overthink it. You were too tired for the thoughts to surface. They all drifted by under the water in blurry shapes. You weren’t with them anymore. You were with JJ now, her arms keeping you from dipping beneath the waves, her feet moving you towards the shore.
Towards her bed. You had assumed she’d set you down on the couch, but she moved towards the hallway, into her bedroom. You’d slept on her bed before. Mornings in your room were painfully bright, so you’d find your way into hers, where the blackout curtains were already hung. It was so wonderfully dark in the nighttime, soothing your mind even more.
The mattress dipped just a little under your weight, firmer than yours. A blanket was pulled over you, fingers brushing your forehead somewhere far away. Everything was far away. It wasn’t sleepiness; it was gravity. It was humid, clinging to your skin. You couldn’t escape it; the only thing you could do was wait it out, staring forward at the same spot on the wall as it came in and out of focus.
You felt something shifting behind you. A voice through the fog asking if it could hold you. You weren’t in opposition to being held or touched, but you didn’t get excited either. Whereas an hour ago, your feelings for JJ were huge, now there was just nothing. No preferences, no opinions, no self. Two bodies on a bed in a room in an apartment in a city. Could be anyone’s life, really.
When you didn’t offer a response, JJ kept going. “You’re nonverbal, right?” She’d had some experience with you going nonverbal before. The first time it happened to you during a work day, she was the one who messaged Emily, working to form a plan and keep you involved while accommodating your needs. When you had thanked her, she’d texted back “I take care of my people.” It was one of the only times she’d acknowledged that you were hers, and it warmed you up even now. Enough to make you roll over and face her, immediately hit with another wave of exhaustion for your efforts.
“Can you tap my hand?” she asked quietly, her palm sliding towards you on the bed, facing up. “You don’t have to,” she reminded you. “I won’t be mad. But if you can, you can tap once for yes and twice for no, okay?”
Your fingertip found the edge of her hand, and you tapped once.
“Do you want space?” A simple question, but it pulled up another memory, one of her stories about Will and how he had always wanted space. It wasn’t a crime; in fact, you understood the need for space very deeply. You'd had plenty of partners whose energy stressed you out, plenty of times your body needed to remember it was safe, and that simply wasn’t possible with other people around. But JJ had become an exception. You never wanted space from her. Tap, tap.
“Can I hold you?” she whispered, almost sounding nervous, but you didn’t believe that.
Tap.
You fought the urge to tap as a stim, getting stuck on how badly you wanted her to hold you, but it would probably come across as a distance increasing signal right now, so you let your other hand fidget with the blanket until the moment her arm went around you, yours lying across her stomach, head on her chest. Safe. Home. “Is this alright?”
Tap.
JJ let out a content sigh, her body rising and falling underneath you like a gentle wave. You wished you could fall asleep here, but you’d never been able to sleep so close to someone else. Maybe someday you would, but not yet. For now, this was good enough. Carving out time to shut the world away, letting your body recover from the intensity of your feelings after they’d wreaked havoc in your mind. It was enough to feel her breathing, to be reminded with every exhale that she was real. All the past versions of yourself who had yearned for someone like her could gather around in this moment and know that it was possible for someone to love their mess, that this moment would be theirs someday. The kind of love that was held with two hands for fear it might be taken away. The kind of love people wish for after they’ve given up on being children, when they know wishes are ridiculous and impossible. The kind of love that changes everything because it means wishes can come true. Pure happiness and peace so powerful it reverberates backwards through time and shines light in the hidden places, that wakes you up to a deeper understanding of yourself, that calls you in to a higher purpose, that breaks you down to an animal. The kind of person that you would burn the world down to save because it could not be a world worth saving without her.
That was what JJ gave you with each breath. It was so much to give in something so simple. You wondered if she knew. You tried to explain it, filling her inbox with an overabundance of words that was only a fraction of your neverending thoughts, but it still never felt like enough. She was human, allowed to doubt herself, question her worth, stumble and lose confidence, and her willingness to self-reflect was something that you would not want her to lose, but in those moments, you felt like you must not have said it well enough. No one who could inspire so much relief in a person deserved to doubt their worth.
But of course she would. This world was full of need and pain and desperation that people like JJ wanted to make better. She drove people where they needed to go, gave them hugs on bad days, sat on the phone with them all night because she knew how hard it was to be alone. She chose to give when it was hard. When she had nothing left, she found a way to dig deeper where other people would give up and claim it’s impossible. And maybe it was all driven by a secret prayer that when it was her turn, those people would be there, and she wouldn’t be a scared 11 year old girl frozen in the bathroom door, forced to lose her sister alone and face that grief alone and parent herself alone, but did that matter? Did it matter where it came from knowing how many people she had helped? Was it so damning to dream of reciprocity? You didn’t think so. You couldn’t help picturing that girl, the one who lit herself on fire every day to save the world, the girl who was stronger than anyone would give her credit for because her version of strength was undervalued, though they certainly benefited from it. She deserved more. She was worthy of more, of all the love and adoration you could uncover.
So your fingers curled around JJ’s shirt as a silent vow to yourself that you’d always be there to give her the love she had given to everyone else, that one of the people she’d helped would stick around to give it back, that she would never be alone again. Even if other people existed in her life that she wanted more, you would always come find her when she didn’t want to be alone. You needed her, and you wanted her, and you loved her, and you wanted to love her. That was the only thing that made sense to you anymore. When you lost your mind and didn’t know what was real, the thing that brought you back to yourself was that you wanted to love her. Everything spun around that truth. That was the version of your story you wanted to tell, and that narrative was the anchor to finding your way back, an anchor so inherently connected to JJ that it was impossible to separate her from it. What words could ever be enough to express something so profound?
This would not be the last time you had an episode, whether it was about JJ or not. Your whole life would be like this. You were coming to understand that in the last few weeks, what it meant to have a disordered mind that you could not fix, to be changed by trauma in ways other people could never grasp. It terrified you, but as you laid here in the dark with JJ holding you, for the very first time you actually believed that you didn’t have to do this alone.
✅️ the captain is known colony-wide for never letting themself rest until every. single. task is done. when Celci yelling at them fails to work, Engineer follows them around with a cup of coffee and the face of a concerned grandmother 🙂↕️🙂↕️
💤 after.. everything.. both of them tend to have nightmares of the whole ordeal. Cap is happy to let Mark crawl into their bed whenever need be, and vice versa <3
💢 the Captain will *never* fail to remind Engi of their height difference. elbow on his head or ruffling his hair with a big grin, Cap's favorite sight is seeing him swat their hand away
💪 on the other hand, Mark is insanely strong compared to the Captain's scrawny ass. if he's feeling insane enough, he'll pick Cap up bridal-style and waltz around the Colony until he has decided he's gotten his revenge ,,
⭐️ both of them have this running gag of Engi pretending to be Actor!Mark and Cap acting disgusted when he tries to kiss them (bonus: for the love of fuck do not mention the Date around Engineer. the most jealous bastard ever he will mope in a corner for hours)
🛌 Captain is an early bird, who *needs* to get out of bed before the asscrack of dawn ("what will the colonists think?") and Engi, who is, again, much stronger than them, is happy to pull Cap in for early morning cuddles. much to their dismay <3
🌹with all the new flora being discovered on the planet, Captain makes it a habit to leave a vase full of fresh flowers on Mark's desk every once in a while. it starts out as sweet and romantic until they start competing for the better/prettiest plant. it stops as soon as Mark somehow plants a fucking tree in Captain's room
🧠 sometimes, when everything seems to be going well, there are days Mark will avoid the Captain. the crew and the rest of the colony are never sure why, but Cap will think back to the bright blue of the warp core. they will find him hiding with the colony children, hold Mark's hands and promise him that none of his past mistakes will ever matter again. that he is good and kind and worthy of redemption. and they kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and
GOLDEN BOY | currently 14.8k (likely to end around 25-30k), willmack, work in progress
Summary: AU where no one is a hockey player. Will and Mack grow up together in a small town until tragedy drives them away from each other. Mack goes on to become a famous musician and ten years later, comes back home to Will.
Blurb: under cut
In the eleven years Mack has been gone, Will’s spent plenty of time at The Tank not thinking about young Mack’s weekly patio sessions here. But tonight, it feels like all he can think about. Objectively, he knows it’s crazy that he’s sitting here on the patio of The Tank, in the same spot Mack would sing Golden Boy to him all those years ago, listening to a Mack song that’s now a Top 100 Hit. And he thinks that it’d be nice if he could think about that and feel proud of Mack, but mostly, Will just feels bitter.
Macklin Celebrini had been Will’s favorite musician first, before he had ever been streamable on Spotify, or gone on a national tour. He had been Will’s favorite artist before he had ever featured Beyonce on a song, or headlined at Stagecoach. He’d been Will’s favorite artist before he had ever sold out Madison Square Garden, or won Album of the Year at the CMA’s.
And then Mack had gone and done all of those things, and Will hadn’t been able to listen to a single note of Mack’s music since.
