birds of a feather
adrian chase x reader
snapshots of your relationship with adrian told through the five love languages.
word count: 7.6k+
warnings/tags: 18+ only mdni, fluff, friends to lovers, kinda slow burn-ish, reader is afab, canon level violence, description of blood and injuries, hospital setting, hurt/comfort, language, no use of y/n, no explicit smut but there’s sensuality, kissing, touching etc
author’s note: i wrote a similar version of this for bucky over a year ago and thought it would be a cute concept for adrian too 🫶🏻
masterlist
Quality Time + Gifts
The first time you meet Adrian Chase is the first time in your life that you think the existence of soulmates may actually be plausible.
The idea crosses your mind before you ever see his face. Before you ever see his dimples, or curly hair, or his irises that quickly become your favorite shade of green.
The first time you meet him, he’s covered head to toe in black and blue armor. Not only do you not have any idea what he looks like, you also don’t know his real name or literally anything about him other than the fact that he shows up to Goff’s house, uninvited and unexpected, in an effort to help Peacemaker.
It doesn’t take long at all - mainly due to his inability to go more than five seconds without word vomiting - for you to learn he drives a Sebring that he refers to as the Vigilante Mobile and that he has no qualms about executing complete strangers.
Also, he’s a killer shot. And willing to take several punches to the face, stomach, and crotch from Judomaster to protect you - someone he’s never even met before.
Maybe you’ve been single for so long that you’re easy to impress. Maybe the bar is literally in hell for you.
No matter the reason for the inexplicable gravitational pull towards him, when Emilia asks you to go pick him up from the jail that he voluntarily got himself locked up in, you’re more than willing.
By this point, you and the rest of the crew have conducted enough research to know his true identity, so you recognize him as soon as he walks out of the building. You didn’t expect him to be wearing glasses, but he’s still easily recognizable from the picture that Economos had pulled from the database on his computer.
“Good with a gun, willing to get karate chopped in the nards for me, and looks cute in glasses,” you sigh to yourself before rolling down your window.
He comes to a stop a few yards from your car when he sees you looking directly at him.
“I’m here to take you home,” you tell him. “Get in.”
For a split-second, he just stares at you. Not in a way that makes you think he doesn’t recognize you, but in a way that makes you think he can’t believe that someone, anyone, is here for him. Then, he opens the car door and gets inside without saying a word.
You roll the window up, waiting for him to give you some kind of indication of where he’d like for you to take him from here. But he just stares down at his lap, brows furrowed beneath his glasses and lips contorted into a frown.
“He’s still alive,” he blurts out, his voice laced with what you can best describe as disappointment. Perhaps a hint of embarrassment. “I’m Adrian.”
Shit. Truthfully, you had been hoping that Adrian would be successful in taking out Auggie Smith. The Nazi POS being dead would give all of you one less thing to have to worry about.
“I think I might’ve made things worse.”
You exhale, debating your next words in hopes of not saying something that could make him feel worse. Sure, getting himself locked up for a chance at killing Chris’s father had been…irrational, to say the least. But he’d been manipulated by Adebayo, and it’s Economos’s fault that Auggie is in jail in the first place. None of this mess can be blamed on just one person.
“Okay,” you breathe simply. “This is all a giant clusterfuck no matter what, so…don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll figure it out.”
He nods, relaxing ever so slightly at the reassurance, though he doesn’t meet your gaze. He continues to stare down at his hands in his lap, the tension in his jaw still visible.
The smart thing to do would be to ask for his address and take him home. It’s getting late, you’re exhausted from the last forty-eight hours, and you don’t really fucking know the guy.
But something about him compels you to find an excuse to stay near him. For just a little bit longer - before you’re inevitably surrounded by Chris and the others again tomorrow.
So you say the first words that pop into your head.
“Are you hungry? Or did they stuff you full of Nutraloaf in there?”
His eyes shoot up to you. “Nutraloaf? I wish they had given me Nutraloaf. Nutraloaf would have been a fucking treat compared to the radioactive mush that they tried to pass off as Sloppy Joes.”
You snort, surprised by how quickly his mood seems to shift. “Damn. I was literally just going to suggest that we go get Sloppy Joes.”
“You’re craving Sloppy Joes right now? Are you pregnant? You really shouldn’t be fighting an alien butterfly species while pregnant. Did you get checked out to make sure that everything’s okay after we left Goff’s?”
“What?” You exclaim. “No. Jesus. I’m not pregnant. I was just….” You shake your head, putting the car into drive. “I don’t actually want Sloppy Joes. I was just trying to make a joke.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Well, that’s too bad. Not about you not being pregnant - that’s good, I guess. Unless you want to be pregnant. But about you not wanting Sloppy Joe’s because I actually am starving.”
You purse your lips to keep from grinning, forcing your eyes to stay on the road. You can’t help but think his rambling is cute.
“Well, it’s almost midnight. You’re gonna have to settle for McDonald’s.”
Twenty minutes later, you’re sitting in the parking lot of the closest McDonald’s eating greasy fast food together. Adrian is giving you a complete rundown of the entirety of his and Chris’s friendship in between bites of his burger - he’s currently telling you about how he had collected random old household appliances throughout the years that Chris had been in prison so they could shoot them and make them explode when Chris got out.
You chuckle at the mental image of them blasting old blenders to smithereens. “So like a rage room but for people who love firearms? That sounds like a lot of fun, honestly. Therapeutic, even.”
“Right?” He exclaims through a mouthful of French fries. “I said the same thing. Who wants to wear a hazmat suit and pay a bunch of money when you can just dumpster dive for broken appliances and throw hand grenades at them in the middle of the woods?”
“You go dumpster diving for the shit? That’s commitment."
“Well, some of it,” he shrugs. “Some of it is just old stuff that people leave out on the curb. But dumpster diving is fun. You should come with me sometime.”
Your phone vibrates at that exact moment, distracting you from the way that your heart skipped a beat at the casual invitation. You glance down, reading a message from Emilia displayed across your screen.
Take Vigilante home yet? We need you back here asap. There’s a lot of information we need to go through tonight.
“In fact,” he continues, oblivious to the fact that Emilia is asking your whereabouts, “tomorrow is trash day for the Bed Bath & Beyond that’s like five minutes from here. That means their dumpster is probably super full right now, if you wanna go check it out with me.”
Your phone suddenly feels as heavy as a brick in your hand. Your eyes dart back and forth between the message from Emilia and Adrian looking at you like a hopeful puppy in your passenger seat.
You know you should be back with the others already, but what’s one more hour? Besides, you need more time with him if you’re going to interrogate him on why dumpster diving is alright in his book but graffiti is deemed punishable by death.
“Fine,” you agree with faux reluctance. “I need a new humidifier, anyway.”
You think about the excitement on his face hours later when you’re finally falling asleep.
••••••
“Are you sure you don’t want to get in on the action?”
You don’t answer him right away. You’re currently trying to organize all of the shit that he’s handed you over the side of the dumpster into the backseat of your small sedan. A toaster, a vanity mirror, three blenders, an air fryer, and a mini fridge.
It’s cramped, but you’re determined to make everything fit.
“There’s loads of cool shit in here,” he calls from inside the dumpster. “Hop in and see for yourself.”
Finally, you get all of the appliances arranged just perfectly. Your efforts have you sweating through your hoodie in spite of the chilly night air. You huff, wiping your forehead with the back of your hand.
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m content to stand here and keep watch.”
His head pops up over the edge of the dumpster, his glasses lopsided and hair disheveled. He told you that, normally, he’d be in full Vigilante attire for this kind of thing. But he didn’t have his suit with him when you picked him up from the jail, and he has you to watch out for him this time, so he didn’t find it necessary to go all the way to his place on the other side of town to retrieve it.
“I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think there’s any humidifiers in here,” he tells you. The look of disappointment on his face makes you purse your lips to refrain from giggling.
As if you’re actually dumpster diving in the middle of the night for a faulty humidifier and not for an excuse to spend a little more time with him.
“It’s okay,” you sigh. “My car is full, anyway.”
He grips onto the edge of the dumpster and hauls himself over the side, landing beside you with a solid thud at the exact same moment that the flashing of red and blue lights in your peripheral vision catches your attention.
“Shit,” you breathe, eyes darting between Adrian and the cop car at the opposite end of the parking lot. He doesn’t appear the least bit panicked - in fact, he looks far too cheerful for someone who might be about to get arrested for trespassing.
He grabs your hand in his and begins pulling you in the direction of your car. “I told you dumpster diving is super fun.”
As soon as both doors are shut, you throw it into reverse and peel out of the parking lot. You consider it beginner’s luck that you aren’t met with any red lights and are able to make it to the nearest freeway before the cop can catch up to you.
Of all the ways you say your night going when Emilia asked you to pick Adrian up, dumpster diving at one in the morning and then running from the cops with a backseat full of stolen home goods was somewhere towards the bottom of your list.
But you aren’t complaining. It was a new experience - something to check off your nonexistent bucket list, you suppose.
“Thanks for coming with me, by the way,” Adrian says once you’ve turned down a backroad on the way to his house. “I used to invite Chris to come with me but he was always busy. Then he went to prison for four years. So I’ve always just done this by myself, but it was nice to have someone looking out for me for a change.”
His words are earnest and make your cheeks warm. You can feel his gaze on you but you force yourself to keep your eyes on the road in front of you. The butterflies in your stomach are raging hard enough without looking at him.
“I had just picked you up from jail. I needed to make sure you didn’t go and get yourself locked up again right away. But I did have fun,” you admit. “I’m glad that I could do my small part in contributing to this… bountiful harvest that you and Chris will blow up next.”
“Me and Chris?” He repeats, dumbfounded. You can’t help but cut your eyes in his direction now. The look on his face matches the confusion in his voice. “No, these aren’t for me and Chris. These are for me and you.”
You just fucking met this guy two days ago. You just fucking met this guy two days ago. You just fucking met this guy two days ago. You just —
But you can’t ignore the way your heart skipped a beat at his words. Even if you barely know him. You’d pick him up from jail, eat shitty fast food with him in your car, be his look-out while he goes dumpster diving…and happily blow up small kitchen appliances with him in the middle of the woods.
“If you want to, that is,” he adds in a smaller voice when you don’t respond right away. “If not, that’s cool, too. More for me, I guess.”
“I do,” you say, perhaps a bit too quickly. “I mean, yeah - that sounds fun.”
You pull into the driveway of his house, suddenly wishing for an excuse to draw out the night just a little bit longer when you remember all of the items in your backseat.
“Do you uh - would you like some help carrying all of this inside?”
You can’t help but think he looks almost excited that you’d ask. He perks up immediately, his eyes widening behind his glasses. “Yes. Definitely. But we have to be really quiet. My mom’s asleep and if she wakes up and sees that I’ve brought a girl into the house…”
He trails off, grimacing dramatically. You try not to let it show that you’re slightly surprised by the fact that he lives with his mom. You don’t mind it, you just weren’t really expecting it, either.
“What is it?” You prompt, fighting a grin at the expression on his face.
“I’ll never hear the end of it,” he says, shaking his head. “She’ll start asking a million questions. If you’re my girlfriend, why I haven’t mentioned you before, if you want kids, what your favorite kind of cereal is so she can buy some for you… just trust me. She’s fucking relentless.”
You snort a laugh before you can stop yourself. “Thanks for the heads up.”
The two of you manage to haul everything into the house in one trip, with the exception of the mini fridge - which you agreed to keep in your car until it’s time for you and him to take everything into the woods.
As quietly as you both can possibly be, you follow him into the basement. When you somehow reach the bottom of the stairs without dropping anything, he pauses before a door and places two of the blenders and the vanity mirror on the ground, and then fishes a set of keys from the pocket of his jeans.
Just as he’s about to insert a key into the door’s deadbolt, he looks back at you over his shoulder.
“Before we go in here, you have to promise me that you won’t tell the others about this.”
“This?” You echo, confused. What could possibly be in his mother’s basement that even Chris can’t know about?
“You’ll see. Just promise me it’ll stay between me and you. Even my mom doesn’t come into this room.”
“Uh - okay,” you stutter, equal parts intrigued and nervous. “I promise.”
Nervous? At the prospect of entering the basement of a man you barely know in the middle of the night while no one knows where you are? A man who just so happens to have murdered dozens of people?
You knew your self-preservation skills were lacking, but this a new low, even for you.
You’re mentally cursing the fact that you couldn’t be bothered to take ten seconds to text Emilia back with your plans for the evening when Adrian unlocks the door and pushes it open. He steps inside, and against your better judgment, you follow him in as he flips on the light switch.
You hold back a sigh of relief at the absence of dismembered bodies, though the relief you feel is quickly replaced by utter confusion.
Stacks and stacks of cash. Piles of white powder bricks - presumably cocaine and God knows what else. Weapons, firearms, combat gear, you fucking name it.
“What the fuck,” you breathe, taking it all in. Adrian is abnormally quiet beside you, waiting for you to say something, anything else. “Are you… building your own cartel? What the fuck is all of this?”
“What? No!” He exclaims, taking the toaster and air fryer from you to add them to the existing pile of appliances in the corner of the room. “This is shit that I’ve taken off of criminals - drug dealers, mostly. I don’t really know what else to do with all of it so I just store it here to keep it off of the streets.”
Your eyes settle on the massive amount of money and you wonder if you’re hallucinating. Emilia had told you that Adrian is a fucking busboy - and he lives with his mother, apparently. In his mid-late thirties.
Why the hell is he still living at home and working at Fennel Fields if he has all this money?
“Wait,” you say slowly, trying to make sense of what you’re looking at. “You’re telling me you’ve got - what - hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting in your mom’s basement?”
“Yeah,” he says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“And you don’t use any of it?”
He frowns as if you’ve offended him. “Of course not. It’s essentially blood money. No thank you.”
You blink at him. “So you’d rather just keep it piled up next to your collection of stolen blenders and air fryers?”
“Exactly.”
You cross your arms, tilting your head at him. “Please tell me how that makes any sense.”
He looks at you like you’re the one missing something obvious. “Because it’s from criminals,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Using it would make me complicit. Might as well start dealing coke out of my mom’s kitchen if I’m gonna spend their money. But when I take shit out of dumpsters, I prevent it from going into landfills. I’m helping the planet, if you really think about it.”
If you really think about it, his logic is flawed, but you suppose his heart is in the right place.
You shake your head, opening your mouth to question his rationale, when you notice an open door in the corner of the room. He must have left the light on last time he was down here, because you’re able to see inside enough for it to catch your attention.
There’s a sudden shift in his demeanor when he notices you eyeing the closet. “Oh, that’s nothing. That’s just—”
But you’re already walking towards the closet for a closer look.
“Beanie babies?”
Beanie babies. Shelves and shelves of beanie babies. Pandas, monkeys, penguins, a few flamingos and a shit ton of…ostriches?
He freezes beside you, his mouth opening and closing like he’s trying his hardest to come up with an excuse as to why he has so many stuffed animals in a utility closet.
“Those are… investments.”
“Investments?”
“The market for these babies is eventually going to bounce back, and when it does, they’ll be worth a shit ton of money. I’m sitting on a goldmine.” His voice is as confident as ever, though there’s still a hint of embarrassment on his face. It briefly crosses your mind that you might be the first girl he’s ever brought down here.
Childishly, you hope that you are.
“You know, I used to have dozens and dozens of these,” you tell him, stepping into the closet to pick up one of the little ostriches. “The ostrich was one of my favorites, actually. But then my family moved one time and they got lost.”
“You lost Stretch?”
You snort, somehow not surprised that he knows the plush by name. “Well, I didn’t. The moving company did, technically. Lost a whole tote of them.”
You place the ostrich back on the shelf, suddenly fighting the urge to yawn. You had too easily lost track of time with him, and you know you should go home. Whatever this little impromptu hang out has been, it’s already lasted longer than any legitimate date you’ve been on in years.
You turn towards where he is standing in the small doorway. “I should probably get going,” you sigh. “It’s late. Emilia’s already going to kill me for ditching them tonight—”
You start to squeeze by him when he grabs you by the shoulders, effectively stopping you in your tracks.
“Wait,” he says before you can ask him what he’s doing. Then, with one hand he reaches past you, retrieving one of the small ostriches from the shelf behind you. He looks nervous again as he holds it out to you in offering.
“Here,” he says simply as you take the Beanie Baby from him. “For picking me up from the jail. And being my look-out tonight. And for just… hanging out with me.”
You stare at the small ostrich in your hands, taken aback by the simple but sweet gesture. You can’t help but smile, your cheeks heating up - from the gift, and the fact one of his hands still rests on your shoulder.
“You don’t have to give me anything to thank me. Especially not for hanging out with you,” you tell him, hoping your voice doesn’t give away how much it means. “I really liked hanging out with you. I had a lot of fun.”
“Really?” The inflection in his tone tells you that he isn’t sure whether or not to believe you.
“Really, Adrian,” you assure him, hugging the Beanie Baby to your chest without thinking. “Maybe next time I’ll even get in the dumpster myself.”
His mouth falls open into a huge, disbelieving smile that brings out his dimples and the laugh lines around his eyes. “Seriously? That would be so fun. Next time we should totally check out the Target dumpsters. They’re a little riskier but they always have the best shit.”
After he’s walked you back to your car and you’re alone, you’re unable to stop yourself from smiling at the prospect of spending more time with him - even if Emilia has been blowing up your phone with increasingly irate text messages for the last few hours.
So fucking worth it.
Acts Of Service + Words Of Affirmation
As much as you would have loved to blow up toasters and blenders in the woods with Adrian the very next day, there were more urgent matters that needed attention first.
Such as the alien butterfly species that you’re all currently attempting to slaughter.
Attempting being the key word.
You’re significantly outnumbered. Chris had disappeared into the barn to take out the cow, leaving you, Adrian and Emilia to fend off dozens of butterflies by yourselves.
“Left! Left!” Adrian shouts, spinning to fire at something behind you. His aim is sharp, but there’s too fucking many of them. Too fast and too relentless. You barely have time to move before a bullet whizzes past you, hitting a butterfly clean in the forehead.
“I said left!” He yells again.
“I did go left!” You shout back, grabbing a knife from your thigh holster to throw at a butterfly barreling toward him.
He’s breathing hard, the corner of his visor cracked. You can see blood glinting along his temple. Your gaze trails downwards, inspecting him for further injuries. His suit is ripped down the side, giving you a clear view of torn, bright crimson skin.
“You’ve been hit!” You yell over Emilia’s gunfire, stepping closer to him. There’s still easily a dozen plus butterflies closing in on you, but all you can focus on is the blood pouring down his side.
“It’s fine. Just a flesh wound. I’ve had worse—”
Emilia screams your names.
Before you have time to react, something slams into you, knocking you flat onto your back.
For a second, you can’t breathe. The whole world goes blurry above you. You’re vaguely aware of Adrian yelling your name over the sound of more gunshots, but it’s quickly drowned out by an intense ringing in your ears. There’s a hot, sharp pain radiating from your chest - like someone pressed a branding iron to your skin. You press a hand where the pain radiates from, and it comes away wet and red.
Adrian’s voice cuts through the ringing in your ears before anything else, bringing you back to reality. He drops to his knees beside you, his gloved hand pressing hard over the wound. “Stay with me, okay? You’re going to be fine. Okay, wow, that’s a lot of blood - like a lot - but you’re going to be fine. I’m going to get you out of here—”
You open your mouth to tell him that you’re okay, that you can still fight, but the words catch in your throat. Everything starts to feel distant, like you’re seeing and hearing him through water.
“You aren’t going to die here surrounded by all of these creepy butterflies. That would be so gross. Just keep your eyes open. Just stay—”
He continues talking, fast and panicked, but you’re quickly losing the ability to make sense of his words as your eyelids start to feel too heavy to fight to keep open.
The last thing you see is the color teal before everything goes black.
••••••
At first, you can’t tell if you’re dreaming.
The lights above you are painfully bright. There’s a steady beep-beep-beep coming from somewhere in the room, but it’s muffled - like someone crammed cotton balls into your ears. It takes a moment for your senses to adjust. Once they do, you’re able to deduce that you’re in a hospital room.
The distinct sterile smell and the IV in your hand give it away.
“Well, well,” a familiar voice hums from your left. “Look who decided to rejoin the living.”
You blink a few times until the blur in front of you comes into focus. Adebayo sits slouched in a chair beside you, cell phone in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. She smiles at you but you immediately notice how tired she looks.
How long have you been unconscious?
“What…” Your throat is unbearably dry and your voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “What happened?”
Ads snorts, setting her coffee down and sitting up a bit straighter. “You got shot, dumbass. What do you think happened?”
“No,” you shake your head. Images start to resurface in flashes and you can feel yourself starting to panic. The beeping coming from the monitor that you’re hooked up to grows more rapid. You try to push yourself up slightly, but the pain in your chest makes you wince and you realize that’s not the best idea. “No, I know that. I mean, what about Adrian? He’d been shot, too. He was bleeding—”
“Adrian?” She exclaims, a mix of confusion and amusement on her face. “You’ve been out for two days and the first thing you ask about is Adrian? Didn’t you just meet the guy a few days ago?”
You glare at her, though it’s weak and probably lacks the intended effect. “Is he okay? What about Harcourt? And Chris? And—”
“They’re fine,” she assures you with a breathy laugh. “Relax. They’re all fine. Harcourt is in rougher shape than you are right now, but she’s going to pull through. And Adrian…” She trails off, not even trying to hide the smirk on her face.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “He has refused to leave. Would barely let the nurse finish patching him up before he was marching to your room. Been here ever since.”
You just stare at her, trying to decide if she’s fucking with you. “You’re joking.”
“Oh, I wish I was. He’s been living off of Swedish Fish and Cheez-Its from the vending machine. I finally convinced him to go home and take a shower and eat some actual food a couple hours ago, so…congrats, you woke the one time he hasn’t been here.”
You sink back against your pillow, staring up at the ceiling as her words replay in your head.
Didn’t you just meet the guy a few days ago?
He has refused to leave. Been here ever since.
Two days might not seem like much time in the grand scheme of things, but to sit by someone’s bedside while they’re in a coma? After knowing them for less than a week?
Maybe you should find it weird. The limited amount of time that you’ve spent together has involved gunshots and literal garbage.
But you don’t find it weird. Because you know that if the situation were reversed, you’d do the same. You’d pull up an uncomfortable hospital chair and stay until he opened his eyes. No matter how many strange looks Adebayo might give you over it.
You don’t have too long to dwell on exactly what that means, because the door to your room swings open a second later.
“Holy shit, you’re awake!” Adrian exclaims, practically slamming the door behind him and rushing to your bedside before awkwardly pausing like he isn’t sure what to do now. There’s something tucked under his arm - a folded blanket or towel, maybe. “Jesus, Adebayo, why didn’t you call and tell me?”
“Adrian, I don’t even have your phone number.”
“Chris has it. Because we’re best friends, obviously. You could have asked him for it—”
“Okay,” she sighs, gathering up her things as she stands. “I’ll remember to check Chris’ emergency contacts next time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to tell the nurse that she’s awake before they hear you causing a ruckus in here.”
She gives you a look that you can’t quite read before exiting the room, leaving you and Adrian alone.
Right away, you look at him, noticing a small cut and purple bruise along his cheekbone before dropping your gaze to his side, remembering how much he’d been bleeding before you were shot. He’s up and walking, obviously alive and well, but the memory still makes you feel nauseous.
“Heard you’ve been living off of vending machine snacks for the last few days,” you say with a shaky laugh. “You didn’t have to stay, you know.”
He takes a seat in the now empty chair that Adebayo had been occupying. “Of course I had to stay,” he says with an incredulous look. “It’s my fault that you’re in here in the first place. You only got shot because you were distracted by me. If I had been more careful, I wouldn’t have been grazed by that bullet, and I wouldn’t have been bleeding, and you wouldn’t have gotten distracted, and you wouldn’t have—”
“Adrian.”
He comes to an abrupt pause at the sound of you saying his name. He shakes his head, looking down at the folded blanket in his lap with furrowed brows and his lips set in a harsh line. For someone who claims to not feel emotions like other people, his face sure is expressive.
“It’s not your fault. At all. It’s no one’s fault. We were outnumbered. We all did the best we could. Getting hurt is just part of the job, sometimes. I know what I signed up for,” you say gently. “But still. I’m glad that you stayed.”
That seems to satisfy him enough to stop his rambling. He fiddles with the dark blue, plush looking fabric that rests in his lap and then holds it out to you.
“Brought you a better blanket,” he explains as you take it from him. “Those hospital blankets are basically giant pieces of sandpaper. It’s like they’re trying to punish people for getting sick.”
You laugh, the motion making you wince in pain again. Adrian may not be the best person to be around if you’re recovering from a gunshot wound and don’t want to rip a stitch from laughing, but it’s a risk you’re willing to take.
You rub the palm of your hand over the thin, beige colored fabric draped across your lap. He’s right - it’s a pitiful excuse for a blanket. You tug the cover off of you, tossing it to the bottom of the hospital bed and replacing it with the soft, fuzzy throw as Adebayo and a nurse enter the room.
Before she can even finish checking your vitals, Adrian begins asking her question after question about when you’ll be discharged.
“Do you think she’ll at least be out by Sunday? I’m just wondering because the weather is supposed to be really nice on Sunday. Sunny, mid-sixties. Perfect weather for blowing up—”
You give him a glare that very clearly communicates what the fuck shut the fuck up right now before I—
“….balloons,” he finishes when he notices the way you’re looking at him. “We just…really like blowing up balloons when the weather is nice.”
Adebayo is glancing between the two of you like you both need to be institutionalized. You doubt she knows anything about how Adrian and Chris spend their free time shooting AK-47s and hand grenades at innocent kitchen appliances in the woods, let alone the fact you and Adrian have plans to do the same.
If the nurse finds his explanation weird, she doesn’t let it show. “We’ll likely keep you another night for monitoring. If there’s no further complications, you could be released tomorrow. Hopefully in plenty of time for your…weekend plans.”
She finishes taking your vitals, redresses your wound, and tells you that the doctor will be in to see you soon before leaving you with Adrian and Adebayo again.
Adebayo looks like she wants to question exactly what the hell Adrian meant by blow up balloons, but she doesn’t. Instead, she offers to go get you some take-out from a diner down the road.
As soon as the door closes behind her, you look at Adrian with a smirk. “They might be reluctant to let me out of here if they know I’m going to go play with guns immediately after.”
“Fuck. You’re right,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, I’m just so excited about our date.” Then, realizing what he’d just said, his cheeks instantly turn pink. Yours instantly heat up, too.
“No, no. Not date. I didn’t mean to say date. I meant to say our… recreational destruction. Unless you want to call it a date. That’s fine, too. I don’t care either way. Date, not date. Whatever.”
The blush on his cheeks grows more vibrant with each word that spills out of his mouth. You’re grateful that the nurse had temporarily detached you from the monitors, or there would be physical evidence of whatever the fuck your heart is doing in your chest right now.
You give a small shrug, fighting the smile that tugs at the corner of your lips. “Recreational destruction, date… call it what you want.”
“I mean, if it is a date, we would probably go get ice cream or something afterwards. I guess. I don’t actually know, I don’t really go on many dates. I don’t even know if you like ice cream—”
“I do,” you interrupt. “Like ice cream, that is.”
He swallows thickly, at a loss for words for once. “Well, then we should get ice cream afterwards. Right?”
You nod, unable to stop the grin that spreads across your face. “Right.”
Physical Touch
Six months later ~
It didn’t take long for Sundays to become your and Adrian’s day.
Fennel Fields is closed on Sundays, so he’s always off of work. And you always make sure that your schedule is free to do…well, anything that involves him.
It started with making toasters explode in the middle of the woods. Every now and then, you still do that. Occasionally, Chris will join.
But one particularly rainy Sunday resulted in him teaching you to play Dungeons and Dragons in his bedroom, and the following week somehow ended up with you and him playing laser tag at an arcade.
Some days, you just read your book in his bed while he plays video games beside you. Well, you try to read your book - it’s easier said than done when he is prone to narrating every little thing that happens, but that’s okay. You don’t mind. You like listening to him talk. Which is a good thing, because he can talk for hours.
You quickly realized that it doesn’t really matter what the plans are. As long as you’re together, you’re having the best day of your week.
Like today. It’s thunderstorming and you haven’t left your house. He came over early this morning, complaining about his back. He’d gone out as Vigilante last night, successfully busting a fentanyl deal. Adrian walked away with minimal injuries, which is more than can be said about the other guy, but he definitely pulled something in his lower back while disposing of the body that easily weighed twice as much as him.
He sits directly in front of you on your couch. He has been alternating heat and ice since he got here this morning, but it’s done little to alleviate the discomfort. You offered to attempt to massage the muscles of his lower back, which he agreed to with little to no convincing. He shed his pullover and tank top while you looked through your bathroom for a bottle of massage oil, leaving him in only his blue jeans by the time you returned to the living room.
You’re sure you could have performed the massage by sticking your hands under his tank top, but you aren’t complaining. In fact, you say nothing at first, digging your teeth into your bottom lip at the sight of him shirtless on your couch.
“You should have called me first,” you sigh for probably the dozenth time since he arrived at your house a few hours ago. “I would have helped you. You know I worry when you go off on your own. And before you say it - I know you’re capable. More than capable. I just…” You trail off, squirting a bit of massage oil into your palm before emulsifying it in your hands. “Don’t like seeing you hurt. Not even a little.”
You place your palms on his lower back, working the oil over his muscles with pressured, circular movements.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” he apologizes yet again. “I overheard the guy talking at the bar and followed him when I got off work. I should’ve called you, but it was late. Figured you were already asleep.”
He exhales sharply when your thumbs press into the tight muscles just above his hips. The sound he makes isn’t quite a groan, but it’s close enough that you worry you’ve hurt him.
“Too much?” you ask, easing up a little.
“No. No, keep doing that,” he says quickly, his voice coming out rougher than usual. “That’s perfect. You can even go harder, if you want.”
You hesitate, your hands freezing in place. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He laughs quietly, tilting his head forward as your hands follow the curve of his spine. “Trust me, you’re not gonna hurt me. This feels way better than feathery soft bullshit. I can’t stand that. Well, usually. Unless it’s you. But I prefer this.”
Your hands still for a moment, surprised by what he just revealed. “You don’t like soft touches?”
He shakes his head. “Hate them most of the time. They feel weird and creepy, like my skin is crawling.” He shrugs. “But you’re the exception. I don’t mind any kind of touch when it’s you. In fact, you’re kind of my favorite person to get hurt around for that exact reason.”
You swallow thickly, continuing to work a knot just above the waistband of his pants, willing your hands not to shake. You hum a laugh. “You don’t have to hurt yourself, you know. If you want me to touch you, there’s plenty of much safer ways of making that happen.”
Touch isn’t exactly a foreign thing between you. You’ve both patched each other up more times than you can count at this point. Bandages, stitches, you name it. He’s fallen asleep with his head in your lap during movie nights countless times. Sometimes, you’ll absentmindedly run your fingers through his hair when that happens.
But those touches are usually with purpose - or they’re at least innocent enough. Unintentional.
This feels different.
You don’t pull away. You keep your hands planted firmly against his skin, your palms gliding upward in long, steady strokes before tracing back down the expanse of his sides. His muscles tense beneath your touch, goosebumps appearing across the exposed skin of his back.
You let your nails drag just slightly on the way down - not hard enough to really scratch him, but with just enough to see if he reacts.
And he does. A sharp inhale, followed by a sound somewhere between a sigh and a breathy laugh. You notice the way his head dips forward as if he’s trying to hide the shiver that runs through him.
“You can…you can definitely keep doing that,” he says after a moment, his voice a little unsteady. “If you want to, obviously.”
He can’t see it, but you smile to yourself. “I know,” you murmur. “I want to.”
You shift closer to him without thinking about it, close enough that your legs brush against him. You know you should probably stop, before either of you cross a line that you really can’t come back from. But he just told you that he likes when you touch him and how he likes to be touched and you don’t think you’ve ever wanted to touch anyone more than you do right now.
Before you can give yourself the chance to overthink it, you lean forward and press your lips to his back, just below his shoulder blade. Perhaps with a bit more pressure than you’d normally apply to a kiss like this, but you want him to know that you hear him. That you care about what feels good to him.
He goes completely still.
“Is this okay?” You ask, your voice barely above a whisper.
He nods right away. “Yeah,” he breathes. “More than okay.”
You smile against his skin and do it again. And again, and again. A little higher each time, until your lips are pressed to the base of his neck. He exhales, and you can tell by the way his hand is twitching on his knee that he’s fighting the urge to move.
One more kiss between his shoulder blades and he turns around to face you. With just mere inches separating your face from his, you see the dilation of his pupils and pink flush on the apples of his cheeks.
“How does your back feel now?” You hum.
“My back?” His eyes dart down to your lips before finding your eyes again. “Oh, right. Yeah, you’ve successfully made me forget all about that.”
You raise a brow. “And what are you thinking about now?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “The same thing I’ve been thinking about since you picked me up from that jail half a year ago. Same thing I thought about when we sat in a McDonald’s parking lot afterwards and then went dumpster diving. Same thing I thought about when we stood in my basement and I gave you one of my Beanie Babies the first night we ever hung out. Same thing I’ve thought about pretty much every single day since I met you, even the days we aren’t together.”
“And what’s that?”
You barely recognize your own voice.
“Just you,” he says simply. “Always you.”
For once, he doesn’t look like he’s joking. There’s no hint of a goofy grin, no trace of nervous laughter to deflect what he’d just admitted.
Your hand moves to his jaw before your brain fully catches up. “Adrian,” you whisper.
He gulps, but doesn’t pull away. “Yeah?”
You lean forward, closing the small amount of distance between you. His lips meet yours without any hesitation, his hands flying to your hips to pull you onto his lap before settling back against the couch. Your hands move to his hair, your fingers running through the short curls with enough force to pull a low, throaty moan from him.
The sound makes you gasp and your lips part just enough for his tongue to slip past. He tastes faintly of maple syrup and coffee from the breakfast you’d made him this morning. It’s eager, and a little messy, but it’s also everything you’ve wanted for the last six months.
When you finally come up for air, his hands stay firmly on your waist. Yours drop from his hair, settling on the planes of his chest, one just over his heart that feels as if it’s going to beat right out of his ribcage.
“Holy shit,” he breathes after a moment of stunned silence. “Why did we wait so long to do that?”
You shake your head, your forehead brushing against his. “That’s a really good question.”
“Can we keep doing it? Like every day from now on?”
His tone is so serious that it makes you laugh.
“Every day,” you agree. “Every single day.”
thank you for reading! reblogs and comments are very appreciated. dividers by @/saradika-graphics🫶🏻
