#the qpr

[pigeonstab]

+ closeups

[tomchom]

LITTLE C!CLINGY…..Ohhhhh…you mean so much to me….

[ashintheairlikesnow]

🔢 for Kauri Jake and Antoni? I absolutely relate so much to Ant’s feelings regarding physical touch both platonic and sexual. Just interested to see what you would come up with! Obviously if you’re not comfortable with that then a comf piece would be amazing 🥺❤️

(the prompt was a 3-or-moresome. Antoni isn't going to be about that, so I am choosing the comf option! @winedark-whump asked how Kauri would handle being stuck in an elevator...)

-

CW: Claustrophobia, panic attack, comf, hurt/comfort, the QPR returns, traumatized whumpee

The doors open only with the maintenance man and the firefighter each pulling with their full strength at a side. The doors shriek in protest, separating inch by inch.

Antoni expects Kauri to come barreling out, but he doesn't. Instead, Antoni has to look down to realize where he even inside the small square.

Kauri lays on his side, his wild curls against cheap scratchy carpeting, his hands pressed palms against his closed eyes. Hitching breaths are shallow, hardly gasps, and the maintenance man doesn't know what he's looking at but Antoni does.

He thinks the firefighter maybe does, too, by the way his jaw tightens at the sight.

"Shit, it was only a couple hours," The maintenance man says, looking stricken. "Got it open as fast as I could."

"He fears to be closed in," Antoni says by way of explanation. The firefighter meets his eyes, briefly, with a depth of understanding that makes Antoni grateful for his silence but uneasy, too.

He steps forward, feeling the very slight dip under his feet as it accepts his weight. "Kasha? The door is open now. Let's go."

Kauri doesn't move.

"Kasha?" When Antoni crouches next to him, he can hear Kauri's whispers, thick around the tears. He reaches out and his palm rounds over the curve of Kauri's shoulder. It trembles under his touch.

"I hate the light, I h-hate, hate being alone in the light, I hate it, alone, alone in th-the light..." Kauri's voice is more whimper than whisper, really. A frightened animal. "I can't, I didn't do anything, I didn't, I was good I was good I was good-"

"Sssshhhh. I have you." Despite his prickling awareness of the watching men and his fear of what they might understand from Kauri's state, his terrified words, he doesn't try to force Kauri up. He leans forward and presses his hands over Kauri's. Lets him feel the warmth of human touch.

Kauri sobs, a broken sound that comes from so deep within him that Antoni wonders if it is Kauri that cries at all, or the remnants of Liam Harker finally making themselves fully known. Was Liam Harker frightened of small spaces? Or did that only begin when he had been wiped away?

"I have you," Antoni repeats, leaning over and pressing a kiss to his head. The florescents overhead buzz softly, all too familiar. The little box is cold - the heat isn't working in here. The walls of the elevator are a plain, flat white.

"I'm good, I'm good, I'm-... I'm good, I promise, I promise..."

"I know," He soothes, shifting to rub a hand up and down Kauri's back. His muscles shake under Antoni's light touch, and he finally leans fully over him, laying his body and his weight against Kauri's slight frame.

Kauri's shaking slows, and so does his crying. He keeps breathing in those shaking, shallow inhales, but some of the painful tension seems to break in him. He shifts, turning over onto his back and throwing his arms around Antoni's neck, weeping against his T-shirt. At first, it's a relief, until he hears Kauri cry, "I'm so sorry, I'll be good, don't leave me alone, please, please-"

"I will not. I will not leave you. I have you, Kasha, I have you..."

The fireman clears his throat, and Antoni looks up to see him speaking in a low voice to the maintenance man. Both of them look away when they see Antoni watching them.

He hopes to give them privacy. He worries it might be for other reasons.

He has to hold Kauri to get him to stand, pulling himself upright with Kauri's arms still tight around his neck. He feels half-choked but doesn't dare try to get him to let go. His skin prickles.

Then Kauri's legs wrap around him, ankles crossed, and he grunts, nearly falling himself before he manages to get his hands under Kauri's ass and thighs to hold him up. He's still weeping against Antoni's shoulders.

Antoni arms ache almost immediately, and he leans back against a wall, panting. But then...

"I've got him," Jake says, and he shifts Kauri from one set of arms to the next with an ease that shows just what all his working out has done for him - the muscles to hold a grown man like he weighs nothing.

"Jasha." For a second, Jake is holding them both, and Antoni closes his eyes. But then there is space between them again, and his breath comes easier, he feels the prickling of his skin start to fade. "The elevator broke-"

"Yeah, I saw the text. I'm sorry it took me so long, I was helping Krista out with a doctor visit." Kauri looks even smaller in Jake's arms, and buries himself against his bulk and warmth. "Let me take you both home. We'll come back for the car once Kauri's okay, yeah?"

Antoni nods, swallowing. He looks over to the fireman and maintenance man.

"Hey, look, we didn't see shit, okay?" The maintenance man offers, a little awkwardly. "I'll erase the security tapes."

The fireman nods. "Empty elevator. Good thing, too."

"Thanks," Jake says with real sincerity, and he moves back out through the empty lobby, Kauri in his arms, Antoni trailing behind him. Kauri still looks like a string pulled tight, about to snap. "You okay, Ant?"

"Yeah... Yeah. I mean, I am not, but..." Antoni sighs, taking a hand back through his messy hair. "Once our Kasha is, I will be."

[spiral-lantern]

Meeting at the library

[thatweirdnoise]

being so real now, i miss the platonic feel dsmp fics had like a bitch