summary: This time of year was always a little difficult for you, but Damian was always there to bring you back to him. *Can be read as a standalone or as a sequel to Autopilot.
word count: 2,600~
warnings: hurt/comfort, dissociation, references to abuse & child abuse
I'm baaaack :D who missed me?
Manual Control — the direct operation of a device or system by a person, typically using physical actions like hand movements or other physical input.
“Are you ready to talk about it?”
Damian’s voice was quiet but firm. The consonants were smooth and rumbly in the otherwise silent room. It filled the air and sunk into your skin, easing your muscles.
You relaxed your shoulders. “We don’t have to talk about it,” you said while putting your gear away in your shared closet. Your movements were slow and deliberate, not for any particular reason other than your consciousness was hanging on by a tiny string that would break the second you weren’t intentionally grounding yourself.
You pressed your fingers into the Kevlar of your gloves before setting them down. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
Damian tutted. He was leaning against the closet doorframe, watching you intensely the way he always does when he’s worried. You could feel his green gaze following every microscopic twitch of your body.
“You came home late, shouldered past me, had a panic attack the second I touched you, and then proceeded to dissociate for almost an hour. I don’t consider that ‘nothing’.”
You made your lungs breathe in and out at a normal rate, keenly aware of the cycles of your own breath.
Everything you did was manual.
It was like moving through quicksand, or like in your dreams where you want your body to do something but it takes a second for your body to actually work. You could feel the tendrils of dissociation lapping at the back of your neck, threatening to send you back any second now.
That feeling always lingered after an episode.
You sighed, “I’m okay, Dames, promise.”
Your hands gripped onto a change of clothes but your muscles locked on the hanger. You willed every muscle to unlock, your fingers to unclench, and your other hand to help. The fibers of your muscles were sore and tense, as if they were replaced with stones.
“Incorrect,” he replied. “Try again.”
You hung your head. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
You swallowed down a grumble.
You knew he was just trying his best to be caring. He was worried. And the one way Damian shows concern more than all else is through interrogation. At least, that’s what you kept telling yourself. It never made this part any easier.
You wanted to just go to bed. The lingering dissociation was still clouding over your mind and wouldn’t leave until you slept it off. And it was painful, if not annoying, to fight it off.
You were exhausted. You had a developing headache from your prior crying, your lungs hurt from your panic attack, and your body ached in a way that it only ever did after your brain disconnects.
You breathed out again, feeling your lungs empty and refill again. You tapped your fingers behind your thigh, hoping Damian didn’t see it but knowing he was watching anyway.
He knew all your tells. It was inevitable with how long you’ve known each other. He knew the exact moment your brain disconnects simply by the faraway look in your eyes; he knew the tapping sequence you used to try to ground yourself; he knew to grab your hands the second you started picking at your skin; he knew how to squeeze you hands whenever your gaze couldn’t quite meet his.
So you already knew he was keenly aware of the growing mist over your eyes with each second that passed into the night. Why did it always have to get worse when you were tired?
“It’s October again.” Was all you said.
It was all you needed to say for Damian to understand. He nodded. “It is.”
You tried to will yourself to meet his eyes but your body only made it halfway before tensing and locking into place. You let it, too tired to fight it.
“I thought this year would be different.” You started, not quite knowing where your next sentence would land, but you felt your lips form each distinct syllable nonetheless. “It’s been years since I’ve seen him, and I’ve been really working on getting better. But…” Your shoulders sank.
You counted the stacks of folded t-shirts off to your side.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“I saw his truck today. It was even his. It didn’t have that stupid dent in the back. But it was enough to freak me out at the store.” You swallowed. “And then I heard this couple screaming in the parking lot.”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“I—“ You remembered to breathe in. “I didn’t know what to do. I just…”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“I watched him grab her.” Your nails pressed into the palm of your hand to keep the cloud away. Pain grounded you. You squeezed with each breath. “I watched him…hurt her.”
You felt the tear slide down your face before you could register that you were crying.
“It was like I was a little kid again. Helpless. Unable to stop it.”
You tried to force your hands to wipe away your tears but ended up haphazardly smacking your face instead. You cleared your throat and tried to swallow down your anxiety.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“I called the cops.” Your voice came out different. It was more distant, more even. You distantly knew that wasn’t good. It was the voice you got whenever you put a hard clamp on your emotions mid-cry, either because you were over it or because you were falling back into the mist around you.
Either way it didn’t really matter. Your body stopped crying as your hands fell to your sides.
“And I came home.” You shrugged. “Happy?”
You met his eyes for a brief moment before shouldering passed him into your shared bedroom.
You felt burning heat between your shoulder blades where you knew he was eyeing you.
Each footstep weighed down on you. You had to force each fiber of your leg to activate with every step, only to find yourself frustratingly locked in place once more.
You tried to play it off by fiddling with your phone on the nightstand. You watched your hands shake as you tried to plug in your charger.
“He can’t hurt you any more.”
Damian’s voice sounded so distant in your ears as your phone clattered onto the nightstand ungracefully.
You knew he was right, but your nervous system had a funky way of processing your emotions around this time of year. Anniversaries were always a means to backtracking all of your progress. No amount of therapy would change the fact that nightmares plagued your life each fall.
Damian was always such a grounding force, holding you against his chest each night as you clung to him, trying not to feel fists against your skin and boots against your back. He would whisper soft words in his native tongue while you wept, drowning out the sounds of screams from years past.
His hands would ease your muscles until you cried yourself to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake. Every year, he made sure to take off patrol more than normal, especially on days like today. He would call in favors with his brothers just to make sure you weren’t left alone, especially not after the other night when he found you trying to wash kitchen knives while half dissociated.
“You will never be in that house again.” You heard him say from far away. “You will never be that powerless again.”
He was never a man of many words, but when he did speak, it cut to the bone. It left no room for disagreement or nuance. And you were grateful for it.
You felt the floor creak under your feet as he walked towards you. He called your name softly, the vowels of your name catching your ears.
You tried to force your fingers to move, your mouth to respond, for your body to do anything, but it just stayed locked in place. He called again.
Damian was always weary to touch you in moments like these. Not knowing for sure how you would react. He would never admit it, but you knew it freaked him out how pliant you were, how you couldn’t control your body—couldn’t say no.
He didn’t like that very much, and he wanted to kill whoever took advantage of that in the past. He remembered you recalling fragmented memories of moments where you just…disconnected. Dissociating was much easier than being aware of what was being done to your body. You were the perfect victim. You never bothered to fight back.
Not like you could anyway.
He vowed to never, ever, touch you when you were like this unless he knew it would help. And even then, he felt disgusted. The faraway look in your eyes always made him want to puke.
The wall in front of you turned into hues of black as he stepped in front of you, careful not to touch you just yet so as to not spook you any more. You couldn’t meet his gaze even if you wanted to, your body was just too heavy.
You stared holes into his chest, trying to count the fibers of his cotton tee to stay aware, to cling on as much as you could. His fingers twitched beside his thighs as he contemplated. Then, your face lifted upwards until your eyes were forced to meet his.
You felt his fingertips on your chin, holding your head up himself, carrying the weight of your burden in his hands too.
“Are you with me?” He asked, eyes creased with concern so subtly that you wouldn’t be able to notice it had you not known him.
You didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. The words were at the tip of your tongue, screaming against your brain.
Yes. I am. See me. Please.
Yet, you just stood there, motionless.
You blinked as you memorized his eyes. You could get lost in his dark emeralds forever. You never understood how he could be so insecure about one of the most beautiful parts of himself.
Green eyes in a family of blues, a constant reminder of the pit that laced through his heritage. A constant reminder of why he was different, unwanted.
Damian hummed, eyes searching yours. His other hand came up to your shoulder and squeezed hard. The pain was shocking enough to blow away some of the mist coating your brain. His hand trailed down your arm, squeezing every few inches until he made it to your hand.
“You have to stay here, qalbi. Stay with me.”
You blinked harshly, trying to force the clouds over your eyes to go away. Your arm was burning where Damian touched. His hands were firm and warm, leaving tingles in his wake. He was manually reactivating all of your muscles one by one.
“Come on. Come back to me.”
You welcomed the sting; it meant you were alive. It meant you were coming back. It meant you could feel.
He squeezed each of your fingers one by one, massaging the tissue until you could feel each muscle fiber again. You slowly twitched your fingers around his, silently signaling that you were coming back.
He hesitantly released his hold of your chin, making sure your head didn’t dip harshly from the lack of support. You willed your head up as your eyes roamed for the first time in awhile.
“There you go.”
Damian kept squeezing your fingers, using both of his to hold yours. He had learned that your hands were the first to lose feeling, and the first to help you come back. Ever since, he always made sure to cling to you until you clawed your way back to him.
“‘’m here,” you mumbled, lips still getting used to the blood rushing back to them.
“Where’d you go?”
You shook your head slowly, feeling your neck creak from the new movement.
“‘’m here,” you repeated, which translated to doesn’t matter or, your personal favorite, you already know the answer to that.
He hummed, unsatisfied with that answer but resigned. Slowly, he guided your hand to his sternum, letting your fingers spread out against the black fabric covering his chest. Your muscles were jerky and uncoordinated, but his hand on top of yours smoothed each movement.
You felt his chest rise and fall rhythmically and you matched it subconsciously. His heartbeat thrummed under your fingertips—another sensation to ground you to this reality.
His touch spoke when he speech couldn’t. His hands told you reassurances and his eyes expressed concern. Your hand against his chest translated to I’m not going anywhere and his firm grip on your shoulder to stay with me.
Damian was never a touchy person while you both grew up, especially when he first transferred to your high school. But over the years, his initial abrasiveness seemed to smooth over with you. His brothers taught him that touch could be something sought after, something soft, something wanted.
Rigid side-hugs turned into hesitant gestures; jerky fingers turned into gentle ones as he learned a new kind of dexterity. While his touch was never as soft or warm as his older brothers’, it was almost endearing the way his hands were still learning.
Even so, you welcomed the rigidity. It was hard and grounding in time when softness would do nothing but lull you back into the darkness of your own mind. You were grateful for the way his fingertips prodded uncomfortably into your shoulder muscles because it was a sensation you could actually feel right now.
You both stayed like that for a moment. Not too long, since Damian has learned that lagging in a moment would send you back despite all the progress you made. But he stayed as you counted his heartbeats and not a second longer.
Your hand was lifted off his chest and onto his arm.
“What muscle is this?” he asked.
A hum died in your throat and you breathed out instead with a ‘puff’. Your cobweb filled brain creaked to life again slowly.
“Deltoid,” you responded, your syllables more sluggish than Damian would have liked.
He pressed your hand into his skin so you could feel him: your Dami. Then he guided your hand lower.
“Bicep”
And the game went on. It was a somewhat wordless exchange between two lovers as he manually brought you back into your body one gear and cog at a time. He guided you around his body to remind you that not only was he here, but that he was Damian, no one else. His body was his, not someone taller and broader with lighter colored hair.
He was yours; he was real; and he was going to protect you.
You were safe.
You let him guide your hand across the wooden furniture in the room, pressing your palm deep against the fixtures until the mist around your hands floated far away. You mapped out every bump and ridge to remind yourself what room you were in: a room that symbolized growth and love, not painful childhood memories.
You counted books on counter tops and felt the firm navy walls that surrounded you. Damian’s hands on your shoulders never lifted, a constant pressure keeping you attached to him.
When your footsteps felt balanced, your gaze felt lighter, and your hands felt like yours again, you all but slumped back into his chest, your body working once more.
“Thank you.” Was all you had to say for Damian to hold you firmly against him, back to chest. His arms wrapped over your shoulders as he placed a soft kiss into the crown of your head.
i can't muster up enough to make an actual fic but just imagine corbeau's wife getting kidnapped. some nobody who borrowed too much from Rust Syndicate and thinks he's hot shit because he somehow managed to capture the leader's wife while she was out shopping. its a stroke of luck!
so he calls corbeau from your phone while you're tied up in a chair, demanding that his debt be wiped away and the Rust Syndicate give him triple the amount. corbeau asks to speak with you before they discuss the terms. the kidnapper is all too gleeful and put the phone on speaker.
"hi sweetheart. you alright?"
"y'know I've had better days corbeau." the conversation is far too casual, but the kidnapper is blinded by greed to notice. "sounds like someone should've taken up my offer to go shopping with his wife."
"i'll make it up to you later my love. what time will you be home?" now the kidnapper is confused. what kind of ruthless husband is he?? doesn't he care that his wife is kidnapped???
"oh in the next hour. this guy sucks at tying knots," the kidnapper watches stunned as you casually stand up, the rope falling from your wrists. "i'm assuming dinner will be made by the time I come back?"
corbeau snickers on the other end of the call, leaning back in his chair as he hears the kidnapper scramble and plead. he hears a deep Pokemon cry on the other end; your Alpha partner Pokemon. and they don't sound happy.
"yes my love your favorite. don't get too much blood on your outfits."
corbeau casually hangs up the call just as he hears a scream.
Imagining Wanderer who has to leave you and Durin for a few days for some Akademiya assignments. You take this opportunity to spend time with Durin after his stay in Mondstadt.
You adore his human form. Durins letter to you both did not prepare you for how different he looked (but also the same?), but you welcome him back to your home. Durin goes through his first storm in his human form and hes obsessed with the feeling of rain hitting his skin.
You tell him to go back inside, worried and unsure if he’s even capable of getting sick. He grabs your hand, tugging you away from the awning. You can’t say no to him, you can’t. You end up running after him as he flies around the streets.
The next day, you end up getting sick. Durin’s learned a thing or two thanks to Lisa about sickness but he still panics, he thinks you might be dying. You laugh at his panicked state, that doesn’t really help him.
Wanderer comes home to silence. Unusual, he thinks. There was always noise from you somehow, that’s what his home sounded like. He walks towards the open space and finds you BUNDLED in blankets.
“What the..” his eyes drift to a sleeping Durin, head laying on the space beside you.
“What happened?” He drops his bag of trinkets on the table, scooping Durin onto his arms and placing him onto another couch.
“I got sick, he panicked.” you tell him, your voice pitched lower than what he’s used to hearing. The couch dips as he sits near you. Cold fingers brush against your skin.
“Are you feeling better? Did he actually help you?” He hears you laugh. “He tried his best.. Even made us tea. It was okay. Welcome home.” The last thing you see before you fall asleep is the small smile on his face and the soft run of his fingers through your hair.
Sparring — Kinich. kinich x gn!reader, possibly suggestive(?) at the end
“Got you.”
Your back hits the dirt with a soft thud, both wrists pinned above your head in Kinich's grip. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice your weapon skittering across the floor, settling uselessly beyond reach. If Kinich notices too, he doesn’t show it — his gaze is completely trained on you.
Even as you lay there for a few seconds, unmoving, your deep, labored breaths hardly even out, and your muscles continue to burn from the exertion. Yet, the hunter above you appears almost…unbothered.
If anything, he looks energized, a light flush dusting his cheeks as multicolored eyes stare into yours — the obvious contrast between your states makes you frown.
“Not fair,” you huff. “You don’t look tired at all.”
Kinich chuckles, an amused smile tugging at his lips. “And you look like you’ve been to the Night Kingdom and back,” he teases. You resist the urge to kick him.
“But I was closer this time,” you press, looking sulky. “We’ve been training for ages, I must have improved!” An unceremonious grumble leaves your lips.
Kinich thinks you look cute like this, your hair parted messily around you and an almost childish pout adorning your face. It reminds him of what little youth he was able to afford in his own childhood, but he quickly pushes that thought aside. It's easier to forget those things when he's with you.
“You have. You simply need to practice more,” he states, not unkindly. You’re about to complain that, at the very least, he could praise you a little more for your efforts, but Kinich is always one step ahead. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of your lips. That effectively shuts you up.
“You’re doing so, so well already,” he murmurs, voice barely a whisper (Kinich always seems to know exactly what you want, for some reason). You figure there must be a rather shocked look on your face, because Kinich chuckles smugly before fully slotting his lips against yours. This time, he kisses you with a little more fervor, grip on your wrists long forgotten as his gloved fingers glide down your body with familiarity, making you squirm.
It isn’t until you’re panting again that he finally pulls back, a knowing smirk on his lips.
why is there no wanderer x reader x albedo (with some platonic Durin on the side)? It’s lowkey my favorite ship and I’m kinda sad there’s nothing for it. Honestly, forget the x reader part, because where even are the regular wanderer x albedo fics? Why is it lowkey a rarepair?
