#intimately patching up wounds

[archiebaldo1414]

God daredevil is everything I wanted Batman to be oh my goddd

It’s so good FUCK

[bruisedboys]

john walker x thunderbolt!reader

john grudgingly patches you up after a mission — it gets more intimate than you both expect. post thunderbolts, no spoilers. 1k words

note: umm hi this is me forcing u to hear me out on him xx

“You’re not doing a very good job of that, Captain.”

John sighs loudly, his shoulders tense with irritation. “Shut up. And stop moving around.”

You grin to yourself. He’s fun to mess with.

“M’sorry, but your hands are really cold, John,” you tell him.

It’s true, they are, and he’s not being very gentle either. John wouldn’t have been your first pick for someone to patch you up after a fight, but you’d been unfortunate enough to be paired with him for this particular mission, and none of the rest of your team are back yet. You’re alone with him in one of the many bathrooms of Avengers tower. If you bleed out and die, you’re blaming it on his poor first aid skills.

“You wanna stitch this up yourself, then?” John asks you shortly. He’s got his big hand locked around your hip, holding you still while he stitches up the nasty gash spanning from just above your hip, up to the dip in your waist. His thumb presses into your hipbone. He’s not being rough but he’s certainly not being gentle — and while you’re not made of porcelain, you’d appreciate a bit of softness.

You shake your head. “No, thanks,” you sing-song.

John grumbles something under his breath that you can’t quite hear, but you catch words like useless and good for nothing. You don’t take it to heart. You’ve deemed him chronically grumpy, which he loathes, but you’ve decided it explains why he’s so mean all the time.

You let yourself fall back on your hands and watch him work. He’s standing in between your legs while you sit perched on the counter, your shirt pushed up over your ribs. He wasted a good amount of time letting you know how stupid it was of you to get hurt like this. After he was done grilling you, he grudgingly began to clean your wound, quite messily you might add. He’s halfway done stitching you up now, head bent over your ribs.

You think, secretly, that he looks quite handsome, concentrated like this. With his head bent over you, his hair all messy where he’s run his hands through it. You try not to think about how this position makes you feel. Sure, John’s a jerk, but you’re not blind. He’s handsome.

You realise suddenly that the silence is making you delusional, and you open your mouth to break it.

“Where do you think the others—“ you cut yourself off with a gasp when he pricks you hard with the needle. “Ow.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” John says quickly. He rubs his thumb over your hipbone twice, then lifts his gaze to yours.

“Sorry,” he says gently, wincing. “Accident.”

You blink at him. You don’t think you’ve ever heard the word sorry come out of his mouth since you met him. Not to mention the look on his face. Apologetic, gentle. Not something you’ve ever seen on him before. It suits him, but it’s still weird.

“It’s okay,” you say slowly. You shake your head, a little nonplussed. “It’s fine.”

John just stares at you. You stare back. Then he swallows. He must remember himself, then, because he goes back to frowning.

“Your fault,” he mumbles. He ducks his head again and gets back to work.

You want to ask how on earth that was your fault, but you’re too perplexed. If you’re not mistaken, you’re pretty sure John Walker was just soft on you. The absolute bare minimum, you know, but for John that’s like gifting you a bouquet of flowers and a kiss on the forehead.

You sit there, John’s hands all over you, and try to forget how he’d rubbed your hip, how he’d said sorry so quickly and so gently, how he’d looked at you like you weren’t just a thorn in his side, for once. You can’t forget it. How could you? It’s John. He’s not… soft. Like, ever.

You’re still thinking about it when the perpetrator in question finishes stitching you up. He snips the thread and straightens up. Your chest feels funny, like something’s tugging at your heart.

John lifts his head.

“You’re all done,” he says gruffly. He puts his tools down and tugs your shirt back over your stomach. “Try not to get so sliced up next time, alright?”

He’s back to sounding perpetually irritated again. Still, you find it difficult to ignore his hand on your waist as he smooths down your shirt.

“Why, ‘cos you care about me?” You joke weakly.

John rolls his eyes. He removes his hand from your waist to press it to the counter palm down, using it to hold his weight as he leans forward a bit. He’s not in your personal space, but he’s close enough, and the fact he’s standing between your legs doesn’t help.

“No,” he says in a low voice. “Cos you’re a nuisance to look after.”

You don’t know if he’s challenging you, threatening you, or if this is something else entirely, but you push yourself up with your palms pressed to the counter, leaning into his space. Whatever this is, you’re too stubborn to back down.

You tilt your head and plaster on a lopsided grin.

“Am I really?” You ask in a sweet, lilting voice.

John just looks at you. He’s closer now, so close you could kiss him, if you wanted. You’re not sure what you want, actually. But you can feel his body heat, and his broad shoulders block your vision of anything else, and he looks a bit like he wants to eat you. Or maybe kill you.

His hand creeps back towards your hip. He leans closer. Your heart hammers but you ignore it. John lowers his gaze. You’re pretty certain he’s looking at your mouth.

“You’re a brat, you know that?” He murmurs.

“Is that so?” You ask, feigning confidence. Really, your veins feel rampant with electricity. Your heart thud thud thuds in your chest.

“Mm,” John hums back. His thumb skips over the outside of your thigh. He’s breathing heavier than usual. You think you are too.

You don’t know why, but you reach up and touch his face. You drag two fingers over the rough stubble growing at his jaw. John shows no reaction on his face, though you notice his chest heaving so close to yours.

“Thanks for patching me up,” you whisper, so close now that your lips ghost over his when you speak. “You know, with how careful you were with the stitches, I’d say you actually care about m—“

John kisses you to shut you up. At least, that’s what he tells you afterwards.

-

thank u for reading! please consider reblogging if you enjoyed x

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FOR ORDINARY THINGS THAT FEEL INTIMATE *  inspired by this post. these don't have to be romantic - you can specify romantic or not when you send them. in essence, these are simply intimate, affectionate moments to share with someone you love and care about. adjust as necessary, send 'reverse' for the reversal of the prompt

[ lean ] sender rests their head on receiver's shoulder

[ shop ] sender and receiver go to the grocery store together

[ brush ] sender brushes receiver's hair

[ tie ] sender helps receiver with their tie, either by putting it on or adjusting it

[ necklace ] sender helps receiver with the clasp of their necklace from behind

[ zip up ] sender assists receiver with zipping up a piece of clothing

[ unzip ] sender assists receiver with unzipping a piece of clothing

[ shoelaces ] sender bends down to tie receiver's shoelaces

[ swipe ] sender notices a smudge of something on receiver's face and gently wipes it off

[ braid ] sender braids receiver's hair

[ jacket ] sender takes their jacket off and hangs it on receiver's shoulders

[ puddle ] sender hurries to stop receiver from stepping into a puddle

[ drinks ] sender brings receiver a drink from a bar/their kitchen

[ feed ] sender feeds receiver's pet/s for them

[ cook ] sender and receiver cook a meal together

[ feed ] sender allows receiver to try a bite of their dish, holding their fork out for receiver to taste

[ teach ] sender, an expert at something, takes time to teach receiver how it works and how they can get better at it, too

[ readjust ] sender comes up behind receiver and readjusts their stance (maybe holding a gun, holding a golf club, aiming for something, etc.) to help them

[ makeup ] sender fixes receiver's makeup for them

[ bathroom ] sender and receiver go to a public restroom together and have a normal conversation in between the stalls

[ aloud ] sender reads aloud to receiver

[ refill ] sender refills receiver's glass without asking

[ massage ] sender notices receiver looks tense, steps up behind them, and massages their shoulders

[ listen ] sender listens to receiver explain something they're passionate about

[ silence ] sender and receiver comfortably exist in silence together, both of them working or reading or focusing on something different

[ food ] sender brings food over to receiver's house

[ hum ] sender hums along to a song receiver is singing

[ see ] sender sees something that reminds them of receiver and texts them a picture of it

[ admire ] sender stares at receiver across a room, silently admiring and appreciating them from afar

[ win ] sender lets receiver beat them in a game

[ puzzle ] sender helps receiver solve/put together a puzzle

[ carry ] after receiver falls asleep in an inconvenient place, sender carries them to a bed and tucks them in

[ kneel ] sender finds receiver sick in the bathroom ("tossing their cookies"), and kneels beside them, holding their hair back and cleaning their face

[ clean ] sender helps bathe receiver

[ wash ] sender helps receiver wash their hair

[ patch ] sender carefully patches one of receiver's wounds

[swordgrace]

heyy, i LOVE UR WALKER FICS OMGG IM LITCH BLUSHING SMM!! I have a request of reader and john walker with angsty!bloody!injured sex plsss 🥹🥹 ik being so soft and vulernable with that white chocolate would be so UGH YES, bandaged soft sex would go elite tbh.

Thank uu 🫰🫰

╱╱ೃ 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘, 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: john walker x fem!reader.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3.5K.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: smut (mdni), porn with little plot, injured!john, switch!john, john walker’s praise kink, begging, light teasing, making out, grinding, groping, cowgirl position, top!reader, unprotected p in v sex.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: the ‘white chocolate’ part of this request made me GIGGLE — but walker is def a switch (will not accept other answers) !! thank you for this request, anon! I loved writing it & I hope you enjoy! 🫶

Dried crimson smatters his temples, stark-white gauze tangled around his midsection, patched over his thick bicep. Bruises flourish like violets over his abdomen, collarbone, and a particularly nasty one sits below his jaw.

A soured expression paints his features, planted firmly within the medbay, situated within a cushioned seat.

An accelerated healing factor cannot seem to keep in-stride with the myriad of injuries he’d suffered during the mission hours ago. Agitation coils into his shoulders, accompanied by embittered frown curls at the corners of his mouth.

He’s better than this, he thinks, a better soldier than the disorganized slop he’d become in the heat of battle. Though, it was all for good reasons — had he not stepped in, it would’ve been you.

John would’ve rather taken several beatings instead of letting you get hurt. Part of him felt righteous, vindicated in knowing that he took the fall to keep you safe; that was satisfying enough for him.

Nursing a wounded pride amongst the plenty of scrapes he’d received was arguably the most discomforting pain of all.

His head tilts back against the seat, blonde tresses disheveled and mussed, beard shadowing his features, creeping toward his throat. Eyes screw shut, a sharp exhale whistling from his lungs.

“How are you holding up?”

The softer cadence of your voice reverberates throughout the room, your own injuries superficial, menial compared to his. Illuminated by the backdrop of soft, orange light, John’s gaze finds you, ethereally pretty.

A scoff ripples through his throat, jaw taut with rigidity. “Great, fantastic.” He grouses, a hint of sarcasm etched into his words. “I can’t believe this.” Petulance bleeds through each syllable.

Argumentative, grumping John is the John you’ve become intimately acquainted with, but in private moments, between the hardened cracks, he softens up. It’s the John you’ve grown to love.

He runs his tongue over his teeth, pouting as if he’s lost a game. Sometimes it’s a good reminder that he isn’t invincible — isn’t as ironclad as he initially believed.

Adapting your approach, you try again, door hissing shut behind you as you take a few paces forward. “It’s only for a few days. Once you’re mostly healed, they’ll put you back on missions.”

Being out-of-commission angered John beyond belief — feeling useless, confined to licking his wounds like a whipped dog. He’s visibly agitated, frustration slithering over his flesh as if it’s a tangible thing.

A twitch settles into his jaw, cerulean hues trained up at the ceiling, groveling. It isn’t the physical pain that vexes him, it’s the mental, the feeling of being unwanted, not needed.

“They asked Bob to go,” John gruffs, disdainful as he shifts within the seat, palms planted firmly within his lap. “Bob — the guy isn’t ready for the field.” His anger bleeds through, oozing like a gaping wound.

“You’re going to have to let this one go, John.” Placating, you lower yourself to sit beside him, gaze wandering over the labyrinth of bruises scattered over his form, over tight linens.

A mirthless chuckle floated from his mouth, blonde brows screwed together, a visage of sheer anguish. “Right,” He quips, a low groan leaving him when he adjusts, sitting up a little straighter. “Easy for you to say.”

He gets mouthy when he’s upset — it’s unintentional, no malice behind it, but you’re quick to put a stop to it before it rages out of control. “I’m not the one you’re frustrated with.”

It’s a gentle reminder for him to check his attitude, before he says something stupid.

John huffs, countenance contorted into a look of surrender, and he concedes to you, too tired and too marred to keep it up. “I know.” He utters, craning his head to look at you.

Though, even when he’s wound-up into a knot of frustration, he’s still handsome, battered pride and all, sporting a cut on the bridge of his nose.

A low sigh slips through gritted teeth, and he feels your palm against his forearm. “Anything that I can do to help?” You ask, fingertips caressing gentle circles over the muscle there.

“Don’t think kissing it better will work this time,” John grunts, cringing at his own joke. There’s a peculiar sheen in his eyes, one that you’ve seen sparingly; he wants something. “Thanks.”

“You don’t think so?” Digits still over his arm, lifting to brush blonde tresses away from his forehead, skimming over a cut. He shivers at your touch, pretending that he doesn’t crave it, doesn’t need it.

Through gritted teeth, John attempts to come off as suave, collected; instead, he’s splintering at the seams, hoping you’ll dote on him a little bit. “No. Just need to sleep it off.” He fibs, looking anywhere else.

Wordlessly, you slip closer, noticing the way his jaw tightens, clenched so hard that it might snap into two. Lips brush over the bare skin of his shoulder, embracing a livid bruise, his flesh violet beneath your mouth.

John masks his noise of startlement with another haughty grunt, feeling your palm skirt over his thigh. Muscle tenses, firm and thick, the one part of him that isn’t completely shot to hell.

He sits rigid, as if he’s dismissive of the contact, but it feels incredible; your mouth is gentle, a careful juxtaposition to the wounds littering his form. You plant a kiss to his bicep, over a shallow, now-faded cut.

“Hey, you don’t have to …” John begins, but he cuts himself off when you’re slithering into his lap, body warm and pliant against him. He doesn’t protest, shivering as his hands shift to cup your hips, drawing circles over clothed skin.

He’ll never admit it outloud, but he enjoys being underneath you — enjoys it when control can be relinquished, and he doesn’t have to think.

Pupils dilate with a veiled surprise, lips slacking as he gazes at you, gaze glassy with a sheen of newfound desire. A pause keeps you from proceeding, palms cradling his grizzled face.

“If you don’t want to, tell me.” Saccharine, your tone oozes like honey, crawling over his bones, making him feel subdued, cared for. He isn’t used to being someone that’s loved by another.

Bravado and arrogance bleed away when you’re left alone together, as if he no longer has to put up a performance for you. He’s animalistic when he wants to be, but you’ve caught him being docile.

Hushed, John doesn’t move you away nor protest, head jostling in a brief nod before your mouth molds to his. The kiss is disarmingly soft, ripping every scrap of air from his lungs.

The way you kiss him is blissful, gentle; you’re taking care not to hurt him or cause any strain. You’re hovering, preventing your full weight from sinking down into his lap.

“I can take it.” John grits into your mouth, calloused palms sitting over your hips, urging you close. Gradually, you fully settle down, thighs pinned on either side of his hips.

A low, contented sigh escapes him when your hands stroke over either side of his jaw, digits pricked by his beard. The sensation feels nice; he feels wanted, secure.

“You’re so handsome, John.” The words float from your mouth, delicate; John feels his breath hitch unexpectedly, clinging tightly to you.

He feels as if you might slip through his fingers like grains of sand if he doesn’t cage you in, gaze half-lidded as you massage over his neck. The muscle in his jaw unclenches, relaxes.

“It doesn’t feel that way.” He mumbles, still smeared with dried blood, bandaged, feeling closer to a loser than to a hero. The soft pads of your fingers trace his collar, feather-light over bruises and scrapes.

Kissing his jaw, you feel him shudder beneath you, palms kneading into your hips. “You’re wrong,” The warmth of your sigh plumes over his skin, eliciting a sharp exhale. “You’re perfect.”

The validation he so desperately craves is presented to him freely, the praise; he’s like a dog wagging its tail for its owner. It feels good to be wanted by you — needed, craved, coveted.

A rumble forms within his chest, feeling your lips shift across his throat. Kisses string together over his jugular, climbing across his flesh, lavishing him in doting affection.

He hates how quickly it gets him hard, body betraying him instantaneously, growing erection beginning to push into your core.

One hand trails, caressing over raw, sinewy muscle, over the dusting of blonde hair that covers his chest, slips beneath the waistband of his tactical pants.

John’s brain hums with static when you touch him, tendrils of ecstasy shooting through his body. A low, husky groan tears through his throat, and he’s huffing like a bull.

Quiet, you cup the tent forming at his groin, pulling a low groan from his lips. “Jesus,” John huffs, breathing beginning to spike, tongue wetting his bottom lip. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“You aren’t stopping me.” There’s merit to be found in your statement, akin to a sultry murmur as you lightly grope at his clothed cock. Fingers flex over your hips, rough like leather, wanton.

“Nope.” He mutters, a half-sigh, squirming beneath your embrace. His mouth swiftly returns to yours despite the exhaustion that seeps into his bones, lips needy and possessive.

Kissing him ragged, your lips are unusually voracious, meeting his need with something sharp of your own. Still, you’re massaging over his cock, evoking another strained groan from him, lost within the labyrinth of his mouth.

His scruffy countenance melds with yours, bleeding heat, kissing you with enough vigor that it prompts you to steady yourself. Your heart gallops, races — it’s quick and erratic, beating in your ears.

Even when he’s pushed to the brink of fatigue, John is still eager for you, one palm sliding to grab at the swell of your ass. His hold is ironclad, bruising as he pushes one hand beneath your shirt.

The scratch of his beard has quickly become one of your favorite sensations, sharp and grating whenever your mouths connect. Nimble digits slide toward his belt, swift and needy, wanting him inside of you.

A ragged sigh snares within his throat, manifesting as a mere hum, body vibrating with exhilaration. His pearlescent teeth briefly scrape over your bottom lip, the kiss filling you with a mounting fervor.

“Want you to fuck me.” John gruffed, exhale splitting his lungs, pushing out through his nose. He was worn-down, vulnerable — made him drop the cocksure confidence, submit to you.

Bewildered, your visage contorted into a look of pleasant surprise, lips parting as you kissed his jaw, fingertips tracing over his abdomen. “Yeah? It won’t be too much?” You murmur, feeling his fingers push into your waistband.

“Yeah,” He grits as if he’s being restrained, pupils dilated, tongue lashing over his teeth. “It won’t be too much, I can handle it.” John quips, as if the mere notion of not fucking you is preposterous.

He’s battered, black and blue all over, still yearning; you’re more than happy to indulge him, breaking contact to slide out of your shorts. He’s watching you as if you’re some angel, taking his breath away, and you are.

Roughened digits tug at the soft cotton of your panties whilst you’re dismantling his belt, listening to the clatter as you unzip his tactical pants.

Despite the numerous wounds he’s nursing, John’s mind cycles out the pain, the aching — they become mere background noise when you’re clamoring back in his lap.

Dipping into his pants, you maneuver the black tactical gear aside, hand warm as you fist around the base of his cock. He groans, lungs stinging as he kneads into your bare flesh, reminding himself that you’re real.

Precum glistens against the flushed head of his cock, oozing still as you free from the confines of clothing. John gapes, brows pinched together, countenance one of an unbridled desire.

Lifting your hips, you drag the tip of his cock through your folds, slick from your own arousal. He licks his bottom lip, chest rising and falling heavily, succumbing to the pressure of anticipation.

“Christ, hey —” His hips stutter as you grind yourself against him, cock pressing with mild resistance over your cunt. “Stop teasing.” He nearly groans, palms strangling your hips, thumbs circling over your flesh.

“Say please.” As the words tumble from your mouth, John fights against baser instincts, knowing he’s still strong enough to manhandle you into submission.

He doesn’t fight you, because he likes it when you’re stern — it’s ridiculously hot.

“Please,” He huffs, cock still sliding over your slit, the contact making him writhe. “Please — damn, need you to sit down.” Through clenched teeth, he’s urging you down, visibly desperate.

Wordlessly, you sink down onto his cock, letting his length spear through you, perfectly thick as he fills you to the brim.

A moan rips through your throat, followed by a satisfied whine, hands flying to perch against his broad shoulders. You narrowly avoid his bandages, digits massaging into the juncture beside his throat.

“God,” You whimper, his cock kissing your cunt with such perfection; he feels incredible, and he knows he does, too. “You feel so good, John.” A soft sigh plumes through your lips, nails digging crescents into his skin.

Allowing yourself a second to adjust, you begin to move, rocking up and down, friction blistering between bodies. The nip of praise makes his head spin, jaw slackening as he helps move you.

With each deliberate bounce of your body, his length sheathed itself within you, the warm familiarity of it enough to make your body tremble in ecstasy.

The tightness of your cunt drives him to the brink of madness, huffing beside your ear, teeth grazing over your jaw. He’s growling, panting, his sounds mirroring that of a feral dog instead of a man.

Without warning, his hips buck into you, cock lewdly clashing into your cunt, the force of it enough to make your head spin. Clinging to him, you adopt a steady pace, body dragging out halfway before sinking down again.

The sensation of his cock filling you completely, nearly kissing your cervix, almost made you sob from delight. “So perfect for me like this.” You huff, watching his head roll back, jaw locked.

Lost within the labyrinth of ecstasy, you bounce up and down on him, assisted by his calloused hands grappling onto your haunches. He handles you carefully, caressing, getting off on your praise.

Lips momentarily collide in a messy kiss of tongue and teeth, the both of you clawing for one another, succumbing to desire. Throaty whines escape you, consumed by his kiss, one that ached with desperation.

“Jesus, you’re tight,” John groans, low and heady into the sweetness of your mouth, feeling one of your hands fist at his blonde tresses. “S’perfect, you’re perfect.” A half-growl snares within his throat.

He’s stealing glances at you through his lashes, and you’re beautiful, looking so pretty in his lap, riding his cock as if you’re made for him.

Each drag of your hips sends you easing back down onto his cock, walls rippling around him, milked by the arousal pooling between your thighs.

Mouths briefly connect; sloppy, needy kisses that make your thighs twitch. Your cunt clenches around his length, and every flush of your bodies sends him into some borderline frenzy.

A familiar coil of heat began to unfurl within the pit of your stomach, just as it did his own. A sharp inhale inhabits your lungs, one of a dizzying exhilaration as one hand shifts to cup your breast.

A shadow passes through his stare, one eclipsed by desire, sending pulses through your lower belly. Intermingled groans and whines flood the space between, skin crawling with heat.

Beneath your shirt, his rough palm kneads at your tits, thumb brushing over your nipple. He gauges your reaction through a half-lidded gaze, lips parted, visibly incendiary.

“F—Fuck, John,” With another moan, your pace ticks up in intensity, bouncing up and down along his cock, bodies flush. His cock throbs hot inside of you, noises lewd and crass. “So handsome like this.”

He preens, keening like a cat who’s caught the canary, one hand firm over your hip, massaging into the soft skin there. Dull ripples of pain ebb through his muscles, but he ignores it, focused on you, instead.

John shudders at the feeling of your cunt, tight and warm around him, clenching around his cock with each roll of your hips. Pleasure mounts within him like a white-hot coil, burning through his belly.

A slurred string of husky babbles come tumbling from his mouth, intermingled with a curse or two, hand groping at your breast. He’s got your shirt rucked up around your ribs, brows pinched together.

“Easy, easy,” John chides, afraid that he won’t be able to handle much more. Ecstasy builds, twined around his muscles, constricting him in some blinding haze. “Slower, honey.” He pants, staring up at you as if he’s seen a ghost.

With a disheveled nod, your head jostles, strands of hair floating beside your temples. His hand shifts to brush them aside, palm lingering beside your jaw, thumb tracing your bottom lip.

Your pace dissolves from excitable and swift to agonizingly slow, ensuring that he feels every drag of your hips, every ripple of your cunt. It makes you want to sob from the pleasure, nerves all set ablaze.

Each downward thrust is deliberate, his cock kissing your walls, nearly bottoming out inside of you. It makes you writhe, evoking a myriad of needy moans from your mouth, chanting his name like some incantation.

“S’good, that’s it,” He sighs with you, cupping your chin to coax you in for a hot, messy kiss. Your mouth is saccharine, tongues briefly brushing together, his hand still kneading at your thigh. “Just like that.”

The words stick low in his throat, emerging as a husky lull that travels over your spine in pleasant waves. Desire simmers within you, riding him with slower bounces of your hips, ensuring that he feels everything.

“Sh—Shit,” You whine, one hand digging crimson crescents into his unscathed shoulder, the other fisting at his blonde tresses. “John, you feel so good, m’close.” With another breathy moan, you plant a kiss to his brow.

He’s melting beneath you, huffing beside your throat, teeth momentarily snagging over your soft flesh. A string of breathy grunts rip from his throat, desperate as he gets closer to the edge with each thrust.

A pleasant burn stings the muscle of your thighs, exerting themselves as you continue to rock up and down within his lap, motions somewhat rhythmic.

Scarlet clings to John’s features, handsome and pink, jaw strained as if something might shatter. He’s grunting, warm baritone slipping off into a half-moan when you come down again, his cock pulsing, aching.

He looks whipped; between his battered, wounded state and the starstruck expression, he’s happy to be subservient to you, this time. One hand slithers between your thighs, thumb briefly circling your clit.

It’s as if you’ve been struck by lightning, nerves singed with electricity, body jumping as if you’ve been scorched. The sensation pulls tight within your belly, arousal seeping between your thighs, leaving a mess on his cock.

John is eager to please, thumb toying with your clit with each downward motion of your hips, rocking back and forth. “Christ, I’m gonna …” He pants, unable to keep himself from combusting into a thousand pieces.

A breathy ‘fuck’ tears through his mouth, cock repeatedly pistoning in and out of you, listening to your pleasured whines and sighs.

Tangled together, you’re crashing into your peak, voice a crescendo of delighted cries. As you slow your motions, you let yourself fall apart on top of him, messy and warm.

Everything is white-hot, blinding; it was a perfect storm of sensations, ones that made you delirious with desire, sobbing with ecstasy.

He’s cumming inside of you, mouth full with a groan, countenance contorted into a look of sheer bliss. Ensnared within a half-frenzy, he lets you roll another time or two, working you through your own orgasm.

His forehead tilts against yours, brow creased, visage unfurling with bliss, a sense of relief coupled with a twinge of pain. Muscle-deep bruises still sting, his wounds oozing with a dull ache.

Each breath sits ragged in your chest as you compose yourself, hands smoothing over his jaw, thumb caressing beside his chin. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?” You murmur, concerned.

John huffs, rolling back within the seat, nearly collapsing in a heap of exhaustion, caught within the afterglow. “No,” He sighs. “Even if you did, I wouldn’t let you stop.”

Slow, you plant a kiss against his mouth — passionate, threaded with tenderness. He exhales, pushing the air out through his nose, palms caging in over your hips.

The both of you stay like that for a time, interlocked until you’re moving off of him, thighs burning, quivering like leaves. “Still don’t think kissing it better works?” You muse, lips curling into a smile.

“It worked a little,” John grunts, zipping his pants back up and latching his belt. “Guess I’ll let you kiss it better more often.” He muses, standing up with a groan, body still recovering.

“Right, let’s get you to bed.” With a playful lilt, you’re finished dressing, tapping his ass with a gentle smack. He pretends that it doesn’t make his face burn or his cock twitch with want.

“Yes ma’am.”

[htchnr]

ミ★ old and weary ꜜ LOGAN HOWLETT.

𖦹 masterlist. 𖦹 buy me a ko-fi!

「 ꜜsummary,, his body isn't what it used to be, so you help him after each fight he gets into. you heal his wounds and heal his soul, day by day and kiss by kiss. 」

「 ꜜcontent,, old man!Logan ⋆ hurt/comfort ⋆ r's mutation is healing wounds with the direct touch of her fingers ⋆ blood ⋆ injuries with no mentioned severity ⋆ this tired old man needs a hug. ꜜwc,, 0,6k. 」

© 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐇𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐍𝐑. 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦, 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫!

your home's quiet at this late hour, only the low sound of the tv playing some show in the background. the distant sound of Logan pulling up outside in the limo makes your heart jump a little with a tired smile.

you set your sewing project aside — patching up one of Logan's shirts — as you move up to greet him at the door.

your smile falters as you're met with the bloody sight of Logan, his shoulders hung in exhaustion, his body flinching with each heavy step. he closes the front door without a word, letting you lead him up the stairs and to your spacious bathroom.

he sits down on the edge of the tub like clockwork, sore fingers already pulling at the buttons of his stained and torn dress shirt. you sigh, gently pushing his hands aside. you wordlessly take over, unbuttoning the shirt and peeling the fabric off his figure.

you sigh sadly as you observe the damage, cuts and scrapes spanning across his broad chest and shoulders; no doubt scattering across his back as well. Logan flinches beneath your touch as your thumb slowly smooths over the first small cut on his shoulder, starting the intimate routine of healing the wounds his aging body has trouble with.

he grunts as he feels the skin weave itself back together beneath the soft pad of your thumb, leaning forward to rest his head against your stomach. you lean down to press a kiss to the skin where the small cut once was, letting your lips linger for a second before your thumb finds another injury to smooth over.

the room is filled with Logan's quiet grunts and pants as you lovingly work away each wound; leaving only the dried blood behind as evidence. and after each wound is healed you press gentle kisses to the aging skin — a regular routine that slowly heals Logan's aching, old heart kiss by kiss.

you rest your cheek against the top of his head after healing the last wound, your body slouching beneath his hold from exhaustion. while you would always heal him, no matter what time or day; that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a draining routine — the healing taking every bit of your energy.

you tiredly pull away from him, his strong arms reluctantly letting you go as you wet a washcloth with warm water and soap. you could almost hear low purrs emitting from Logan as you drag the wet cloth across his scarred skin, gently scrubbing away at the dried blood.

you drop the dirty cloth in the sink, raking your damp fingers through his greying hair as he keeps his face pressed against your stomach. his rough hands are tucked beneath your shirt, fingers digging into the supple skin of your waist. " sometimes you're really like my big dog i used to have, he liked head scratches too. "

Logan doesn't say a word about your quiet admission when you bend down, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, your lips lingering before you rest your cheek a top his head. " let's get you to bed, " you yawn, your fingers scratching soft, soothing patterns against his scalp.

he hums against your stomach, the sounds low and rough. he lets you guide him up, his knees cracking as he stands up, leading him out of the bathroom and to the bedroom by his hand.

the moment he slides into bed beside you his shoulders finally relax, melting against you as he settles with his head on your chest and his face buried in the crook of your neck. you smile tiredly as you lace your fingers with his with one hand, the other rhythmically combing through his hair.

Logan lets out a long sigh, his heavy figure deflating against yours. " you know, sometimes i think he came back in the form of you, somehow always there to protect me. "

his fingers twitch around yours, his heart throbbing at your mumbled words. he scrunches his face, nuzzling impossibly close against you.

" goodnight, Lo, " you yawn, resting your cheek against his head. " 'love you. "

he tries not to tense against you at your words, not wanting to startle you wide out of your sleepy state. his eyes are wide open, blinking at the soft skin of your throat. the more he thinks about your words, the more at ease he feels. no longer do those particular words send him running, they anchor him.

he lets his tired and aching eyes fall shut, pressing a soft kiss to your skin. " i love you too, sweetheart. "

[yukioos]

DID I TELL U THAT I MISS U

SUMMARY: megumi fushiguro x reader // you tease and patch up your boyfriend, megumi, after he gets into a fight when trying to take a cursed object from a high school boy.

WARNINGS: not proofread, blood, reader n megumi are in a relationship

AUTHORS NOTE: hi guys! sorry i had super bad writers block. im still gonna try and continue my in-ho x reader series btw! i’ll start taking requests for satoru, yuji, and megumi btw! thank you for 700 followers ❤️ this has 0.7k words

you laid in your bedroom, plush chest against the bedsheets as you read a book. every now and then you would flip a page and rake your eyes over the words, but someone still lingered in the back of your mind.

megumi.

gojo sent him to take a cursed object, ryomen sukuna’s finger, from a high school boy. most of the time, missions were easy for him, but he didn’t come back in a few hours. what worried you even more was when gojo knocked on your door and told you he was going to go get some food. however, you could tell something was off.

he wasn’t as humorous, he seemed stiff and averting his gaze everywhere beside you. you cautiously asked him if everything was okay, and of course, he unhesitatingly nodded and grinned. after a little conversation, he walked away. there was a little, unnoticeable tug on your heart that made you finally place down your book and take a moment to yourself.

that one moment turned into a nap.

your eyes widened and shot to the door, where you heard two pairs of feet thumping along the wood. two familiar voices spoke, and you quickly jumped out of bed and trotted to the door. you slowly opened it and peeked your head out, seeing megumi’s pale skin stained with blood, and gojo carrying a pink-haired boy.

you stared at the dark red liquid dripping down his face and onto his uniform, but your teacher greeted, “ah! y/n, great to see you again! we gotcha some mochi, his idea, of course.” he wrapped an arm around the shorter boy’s shoulders, causing him to roll his eyes. he was just trying to help his student ‘flirt’ with a girl who megumi was already in a relationship with. gojo still had itadori slung over his shoulder. he gave the mochi to his student and continued, “anyway, i have to deal with this kid. i’ll give you two some alone time.”

he grinned and bumped his elbow into megumi’s and smirked. the younger boy grumbled and balled his fists up, staying silent and frowning until his teacher walked away. he finally glanced at your worried expression and held the bag out for you. you politely and quietly thanked him but paused.

“we should get you cleaned up, honey, you don’t look too good.” you gently rubbed his now scarred face with care and love, trying to wipe off some blood. he averted his gaze but his face suddenly began to feel hot, and he tried to hide his pink cheeks with the neck of his uniform. you walked to the infirmary and opened a door, then sat him down on a bed.

you slightly grinned at how he looked everywhere but you, feeling a bit intimidated. you complimented, “i’ve never seen someone look good even when blood’s dripping down their face, guess that’s changed though, huh? you still look pretty cute, don’t you agree?” beginning to wipe away the blood, you then disinfected the wounds, put ointment on them, then bandaged them.

he scoffed and stared at the ground, huffed then grumbled. damn, he was moody. however, the pink tint still peeked out from where he was trying to hide his face.

as you placed your hand on his cheek, he finally glanced back at your eyes. you kissed him on both cheeks then pushed your lips on one another, smiling into the intimate action. once you pulled away, his dark eyes gazed into yours, saying everything that he wanted to say but couldn’t. megumi wasn’t a man of words, as he told you when you first got into a relationship. he was confident, he knew his worth but just didn’t feel the need to say much, only when a hundred percent necessary.

but of course, he still tries to respond the best he can when you ask him a question.

“why’d you take so long retrieving ryomen sukuna’s finger from that high school?”

[rainrot4me]

Is it weird to say I wanna treat Brian/Hoodie all gently even though I've read your fics of him and how rough and mean he is /lh.. how would your interpretation of him even respond to that, gentle affection and intimate touch that ISN'T filled with a need to get off, just overall love and care for him.

✦ . jeff the killer

Jeff is used to violence. Roughness. Everything in his world is sharp. So when you sit beside him after a mission and slowly run your fingers through his tangled hair, it’s like tossing a match into a snowstorm.

“…You’re not scared of me?”

You kiss his temple. “Nope.”

“You’re weird.” But he leans in a little anyway.

He’s not sure how to process it at first. He might try to push you away with a crude joke, but the second you stop? He panics a little. Eventually, he starts pretending he doesn’t like it just to keep getting more.

✦ . ticci toby

Toby doesn’t do silence well—but you do. And when you pull him into a hug after a rough night, or press a cool cloth to his forehead after one of his tics flares up, he goes still. Like a wild animal caught in a muzzle.

“Why’re you alw-always so nice to me?”

“Because you deserve it, even when you think you don’t.”

He loves being babied when you do it sincerely. Praise and physical affection? Heaven. He may not say it, but he’ll bury his face in your shoulder and breathe in as if you’re the only grounding thing he has.

✦ . eyeless jack

He’s seen the worst of people—inside and out. The intimacy of medicine is constant for him. So when you clean his wounds, or cup his face despite the lack of eyes, it catches him off guard.

“You don’t have to do this. I can take care of myself.”

“I know. Let me anyway.”

You’re one of the only people who can touch him without fear. He doesn’t always show emotion, but if you catch him resting his head on your lap while you hum softly, just know he’s melting on the inside.

✦ . masky (tim wright)

Tim doesn’t like being seen—mask on or off. But when you trace the edges of his jaw, or hold him in the dark and whisper things like “I’m proud of you” or “You’re safe with me”, he cracks.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“You’re more than what you’ve done.”

He’ll deny needing it, but he’s touch-starved. Praise-starved. When you show up with a clean hoodie and hot coffee? His hands shake just a little. He’s not used to someone loving him without wanting something back.

✦ . hoodie (brian thomas)

Brian takes a long time to trust, and even longer to relax. You’d think he’d stiffen at affection—but once he does let you in? He melts under a gentle hand.

You massage his sore shoulders after missions. You patch him up, talk to him softly, and don’t push when he’s quiet. You don’t treat him like a monster. And that’s everything.

You kiss his hand.

He watches you for a long moment, then murmurs, “…You’re gonna ruin me.”

He returns the favor in small ways: your favorite drink left out for you, food prepped, the blanket already warmed in the dryer. Silently saying I love you too.

✦ . kate the chaser

Kate is always on edge. Aggressive, efficient, brutal in the field. But when you offer soft affection—stroking her hair after a fight, pressing kisses to her temple—she melts, privately.

“Don’t coddle me.”

“I’m not. I’m loving you.”

She’s quiet. She doesn’t pull away.

She won’t ask for care, but she needs it more than anyone. You helping her take off bloodied gear? Brushing dirt from her cheeks? Kissing her knuckles after battle? It calms her. Grounds her. And she’ll return the affection with a quiet kind of intensity that never wavers.

✦ . ben drowned

Ben doesn’t get it at first. He thinks you’re messing with him. When you rub soothing circles on his back or call him “sweetheart,” he short-circuits a little.

“You sure you meant to call me that?”

“You’re cuter than you think.”

“…You’re funny.”

Eventually, he becomes your shadow. He lays his head on your chest while you play games together, lets you fix his hair, and maybe even downloads stupid love songs because they remind him of you. (He’ll deny it.)

✦ . clockwork

Natalie is all sharp edges and guarded smirks, but she longs to be held gently. You touch her scars without flinching. You press kisses to her ticking eye like it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

“You’re too soft for this world.”

“And you’re softer than you pretend.”

She’ll roll her eyes, but her grip on your waist tightens. After the walls come down, she’ll initiate the affection more often—fiddling with your hair, curling into your side, letting you wash the blood from her hands.

✦ . laughing jack

At first? He’s amused. He calls your soft touch “precious” and acts like he’s above it. But when you clean his face after a messy job, and whisper “You don’t always have to be the entertainment,” it hits somewhere deep.

“You’re ridiculous. You know that?”

“So are you.”

He laughs, but this time, it’s soft.

He becomes fiercely protective of you. He doesn’t know how to say thank you, but you’ll wake up to gifts, sweets, and strange little doodles of you two dancing under stars.

✦ . slenderman

It’s hard to imagine being tender with something so ancient and inhuman—but you do. You rest your head against his chest despite the lack of a heartbeat. You touch his hand without fear.

“Your mind is too fragile for this bond.”

“Then let me break a little.”

He doesn’t show emotion the way others do—but he begins to respond. His tendrils wrap protectively around you at night. He communicates comfort through presence, warmth, and silent understanding. You become the only being who grounds him.

꩜ .ᐟ

[sushirrrry]

FRONTLINES - PART ONE. a harry styles x original character story. word count: 21,746 content warning: soldier PTSD, descriptions of injury, discussions of death, survivors guilt, war trauma, graphic details of WWII.

summary: a WWII hospital nurse and a wounded air force lieutenant form a bond in his recovery, stealing intimate moments that help them both heal.

author note - this is one of my favorite things I've ever written & I hope that you enjoy this as much as I've enjoyed writing it! this was going to be over 40k words, but I decided to give you two parts instead (that's more fun!)

disclaimer!! I have done a bit of research, but this is not a story based in reality or to be consistently based in research on 1940s England. so if there are some things that are not 100% correct, please know that it is just for fiction reasons.

so, with that, here is part one of Harry and Clare's story. enjoy.

____________________________

February, 1943.

England.

Harry came to his senses with a jolt that never quite made it to his limbs. It was a quick jolt – an electricity that urged him back into existence on Earth.

He was alive, that was certain.

His body was still, but inside, everything was moving—heart racing, thoughts spinning, lungs gulping air like he’d run ten miles. The ceiling above him was stark white, slightly stained in the corners, pulsing with the artificial flicker of overhead light. The air was thick with antiseptic and starch, too clean. It all felt too still. There was no wind, no sky, no engine hum. There’s pressure across his chest and an ache roaring in his shoulders, his side, his legs—everywhere.

His fingers twitched. Or maybe they didn’t. He couldn’t be sure.

His ears rang faintly, as if the explosion had followed him here. For a moment, he thought he was still mid-fall, that the burning smell clinging to his skin meant the wreckage was still around him. But no—there were sheets under him, not dirt. The heat came from bandages, not fire. And someone nearby was speaking.

“…waking up,” a man’s voice spoke off into the distance. “That’s something.”

“Shouldn’t be long now. Morphine’s wearing off,” said another unfamiliar voice, this one female. The sense of worry in her tone was there, but she held her own. She had seen this far too many times.

But then it was silence again. Or maybe it was just the roar in his own head.

He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry as paper. His tongue felt too thick, too numb. The only sound that escaped him was a rasp, almost like a growl. His limbs felt too heavy to lift. Every inch of his body ached—shoulders, legs, chest. His right side burned, not just skin-deep, but inside, like the muscles themselves were torn and blistered.

He opened his eyes as much as he could manage and blinked again, this time slower, and the world came into view in patches.

White walls. A window with blackout curtains barely cracked open. A curtain rail. A clipboard hanging from the foot of the bed.

He tried to sit up but the agony bloomed sharp and immediate across his ribs and down his side. His breath caught in his throat, and a low, involuntary noise rumbled from deep within him. A hand came to rest gently but firmly on his shoulder.

“Easy, Lieutenant,” It was the same woman’s voice this time; it was much closer this time. “Don’t move. You’re safe. You’re back in England.”

England.

The word hit him like diving into a pool of cold water. How long had it been since the crash? He turned his head just enough where he wasn’t in immense, shell-shocking pain.

In his short vision, she was a nurse. Early to mid-twenties, maybe, if he could guess. She had dark hair swept back in a twist, not a strand out of place. Her uniform was crisp, the navy collar straight, and her name tag flashed briefly before his eyes blurred again. She had a narrow face, pale from the overhead light, but steady.

She was in control of the situation as she moved around him now, knowing that he had woken up and may have to deal with questions and situations that were far too upsetting for most. She seemed to be the kind of person who could stare down chaos and not flinch.

“You’ve been sedated, quite heavily,” she told him briefly, checking on the bag of IV. “You were brought in from the field hospital in Calais. Can you tell me your name?”

His mouth worked, his lips were parting, but the words didn’t come easily as he blinked to try and make sense of what he needed to say. His throat burned like he’d swallowed smoke; he coughed then, everything hurt in a way that he hadn’t felt before in his life.

“Plane,” he managed out through the coughing, completely ignoring her question. “Went down. Over France.”

“Yes.” Her expression didn’t shift. Not with sympathy, not with surprise. Only the slightest flicker of her eyes betrayed her listening. “You were ejected midair; your plane went down. Ground team found you a few miles outside the wreckage.”

He let his eyes drift shut again. The memory was fractured with shards of color and sound. The red glow of the warning light. The wrenching scream of the fuselage breaking apart. Dean yelling. Bennett fumbling with the hatch. John screaming at them to eject.

“My crew,” he croaked, opening his eyes to try and get answers. “Where are they? Are they here?”

The nurse’s hands stilled as she tried to come up with a response that wouldn’t send him into a spiral – it happened quite often, upsetting them too quickly after they had woken up. That was the trauma of the war – it was the terrible aspect of life that had disrupted their lives.

“There’s no confirmation yet,” she told him in honesty, “You’re the only one they’ve recovered so far. It-“ She cleared her throat, “There was a lot of planes down, and many men were sent many places. It will take a while to get confirmations.”

He closed his eyes again, not from sleep this time but from something heavier. Something he didn’t want to face because that was how this war was.

Dean had a girl waiting for him in Bristol – he always carried her picture on him. Bennett used to whistle in the hangar like it annoyed everyone, even though they all secretly liked it. John could down beers and laugh with the best of them.

They couldn’t just be—

“They’ll find them,” the nurse reminded him. But there was no promise in her voice, only practice. Harry turned his face away as much as he could physically manage.

Silence settled between them; he didn’t want to be bothered, and she didn’t seem that she was going to give him the answers he was looking for. She moved around the bed, adjusting something at the IV stand. He heard the clink of glass and metal, the rustle of paper.

The movements were efficient, distant—like she was used to handling broken men in quiet rooms. The exhaustion that hit him was overwhelming, but he knew that when he closed his eyes he would just see the nightmare again and again.

“How bad is it?” he asked after a moment. She didn’t answer right away, just scribbled on the paper that was left by his bed.

“Well, you have burns along the right shoulder and ribs,” she told him; her eyes lifted to meet his. “Some deeper muscle damage in the thigh. More than likely a concussion from the fall. Fracture in your wrist. You’ll recover just fine, but you are quite beaten up.”

There wasn’t another beat before his eyes tried to meet hers: “Will I fly again?”

A pause.

“That’s not my call,” she said gently, but professionally. This time, he could tell that her empathy had been tested one too many times. “But you survived.”

As if that was the miracle it sounded to be.

Harry gave a humorless half-smile; it was then that he could feel he had a cut on his lip, probably along his eyebrow, as well. It felt foreign on his face. “Not sure if that’s lucky or not.”

The nurse didn’t answer; she didn’t say a single word.

Instead, she approached with a syringe, her touch brisk but not rough. “I’m giving you something for the pain. You’re shaking a bit. The adrenaline only kicks in every once in a while, but I suspect that you will be feeling it quite shortly.”

“I’m not—” But he was. He hadn’t noticed until her hand touched his forearm, steadying it on the small, bedded cot in the hospital ward. His skin felt too hot and too cold at once, fevered, electric. His breath came in shallow gulps.

She didn’t flinch, just pushed the needle in slowly. It was another thing he just chose not to feel, because it felt better that way. “It’ll ease off in a moment, just give it some time. You’ve had quite a long journey.”

“I don’t even know your name,” he swallowed, a bit of a slur in his voice as he felt the haze of the morphine already curling at the edges of his vision as he tried to focus in on her.

The woman gave him a quick, unabashed smile as she focused in on him. “Clare.”

He tried to hold onto that, Clare, but the drug moved fast, like warmth spreading through frozen limbs. The lights above him swam to create the blurriest lines in the worst way. His head lolled slightly to the side, and through half-lidded eyes, he saw her one last time.

She watched him fade, knowing that she had given him the relief that he was desperately asking for. Without another word, Clare let the air filter out of her lungs as she watched him fall into darkness. She was the only thing that didn’t hurt. For that, she was thankful.

+++

It had only been three days since the crash, though time passed differently in hospital wards.

Harry no longer woke in a blur of pain and morphine. He was more alert now, unfortunately more aware of every ache, every shift in the light, every passing moment that he wasn’t given any answers.

His burns were healing in increments he couldn’t feel, and the torn muscles in his thigh were no longer on fire, just throbbing due to the heavy medications they had him on. Still, he couldn't sit up on his own. His chest tightened every time he breathed too deep, and a nurse had told him – a blonde one with far too much joy, that his ribs were “knitting nicely.”

He’d snapped at her without meaning to. The guilt lingered, but not enough to make him apologize. He hadn’t seen that nurse again. In all certainty, he couldn’t stand the pity and the smile and the happiness that came with being alive.

The ward he was in only had twelve beds, though only seven were filled. It was one of the smaller military hospitals in the area. Most of the other men were in worse shape than he was—one with bandages wrapped around his entire head, another with a leg amputated just below the knee. Some slept all day, others groaned through their nightmares, sometimes waking up the whole ward in fits of screams and cries that were more than upsetting.

A few were like ghosts even while awake, eyes hollow, refusing to speak on what they had seen out there. Harry hated that he wasn’t the worst of them.

He hated the silence in the gaps between coughs and groans and footsteps. He hated the absence of his uniform and the new hospital clothes that they had put on his body while he was unconscious, removing his suit that was covered in blood and tears. Hated the sound of his own heartbeat, which was steady and undeserving, he knew. He hated thinking —

“Tea?”

It was a voice that came from his left – seeing a nurse standing there in her white. The navy collar around her neck, the pinned back dark hair that had felt so familiar to him. He had been startled slightly by the voice, but tried not to show it.

It was the night nurse again - Clare, he remembered. She stood at his bedside with a metal tray, a chipped mug in one hand, a folded cloth in the other. Her hair was pinned back again, and the shadows under her eyes were more pronounced tonight. He wondered if she ever slept, or if she just floated between wards.

“Only if there’s whisky in it,” he muttered, voice raspier than intended. He realized that he hadn’t spoken much, his throat feeling dryer than ever.

Clare didn’t smile, but one corner of her mouth quirked at the small bit of humor, barely there. “Not quite regulation, I’m afraid.”

She set the tray down on the bedside table and pulled a chair closer, settling into it with a sigh that sounded more out of habit than weariness. She didn’t look at him right away, just adjusted the angle of the lamp, the slope of his blanket.

Harry practically hadn't sleep here – he didn’t want to close his eyes. Most of the sleeping was due to medications. These nights were mostly spent sitting awake with his own thoughts, watching as the nurses would go from person to person, waiting for their medications or for something terrible to happen to bring in a bunch of soldiers.

All twelve of the beds hadn’t been completely filled since Harry had gotten there, which was a good thing, he supposed. But that may have just meant that they were dying out in the fields instead.

He could feel her watching him in the way trained people did—without making it obvious. She was checking his color, his alertness. The way his fingers twitched when he thought he was being still.

“Your color’s better,” he said, concluding his assumptions. “Are you sleeping?”

Harry shrugged in a nonchalance like he didn’t know how to respond, though it hurt to do it. “Enough.”

“You’re not feverish anymore,” she told him, nodding a few times. 

“Fantastic.”

That bitterness was back in his voice—he could hear it, taste it, but it still kept slipping out like a reflex.

Clare didn’t flinch at his roughness. She simply picked up a small cloth and dipped it into the water basin that had sat next to his bed, wringing it out over the tray. She was quiet for a while, the kind of quiet that didn’t demand conversation but made Harry guilty for snapping at her too.

Harry stared at the ceiling, trying not to think too much about it.

“Have they heard anything?” he asked, too quickly, too suddenly. “About Majors Rosenthal and Connolly? Or Tupolo?”

She paused; she knew from other nurses that he asked daily, almost multiple times a day, about his colleagues. About the men he had gone up in the plane with and hadn’t come down with.

“There’s been no word yet that I'm aware of.”

Her tone was gentle, but not soft. She didn’t look away. She didn’t coat it in false hope; he was happy that she didn’t lie to his face. That’s what made it worse.

Harry nodded a few times as he stared at the ceiling, feeling the water from the rag press against the cut on his brow. He felt the press of something sharp behind his ribs, too, and not the kind that came from injury.

“They were better than me,” he let out after a long moment. “More experienced. Dean could land a plane blind, and Bennett… Bennett’s the kind of lad who always has a cigarette, even when no one else does. He’s the one people follow,” He paused again, “And John was just a fucking kid.”

Clare didn’t interrupt as he started to talk about the men who he may have shared last minutes with. From the other nurses, they hadn’t heard much out of him, so his time to talk must have been at night rather than during the day.

“And me?” He let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I got ejected like bloody cargo. Popped out the side door and fell into a field while they went down in flames. And now, here I am.”

Clare was quick with her response, “You didn’t choose that.”

“No,” he snapped, eyes moving to look up at her. “But I survived it, didn’t I?”

His voice rose, just a little, enough to make the man in the next bed stir. Harry winced and turned his face away. Clare’s expression didn’t change, but she took the cloth from against his skin and rinse the muslin in the small basin. He exhaled through his nose, trying to push the anger back down.

“I keep thinking maybe if I’d stayed… if I’d tried harder to reach the cockpit, or—hell, if I’d stayed on the radio one second longer—”

“What was your duty station?” Clare’s initial attempt to change the conversation worked for a moment as he cleared his throat to give her an answer.

“Engineer,” Harry nodded, staring at the ceiling for a moment. “The – I mean, the last thing I can remember is we were shot from behind and the wing was damaged. We were falling out of the sky, but Bennett couldn’t – uh, he just couldn’t get the leverage to be able to land it, and – “

“You did everything that you could.” She told him in honesty, that’s what she had to say to these soldiers. There was nothing that could have been done – they were following their orders, they were young men in the world trying to make a difference and to fight for their freedoms.

“Did I?” He turned toward her, frustration lighting his eyes as he practically seethed at the question. “Maybe I would’ve burned with them. And maybe that would’ve made more sense.”

Clare met his gaze and held it; she didn’t shy away from making contact with him because that helped neither of them.

“And maybe it wouldn’t,” she told him, something in her eyes that made Harry close his mouth. “But you’re here. And that’s what we have to work with.”

Harry looked away first. When he did, Clare let go of the breath she held to stay strong.

The anger drained as quickly as it had come, leaving only the echo of it, hollow in his chest. The worst part wasn’t that he didn’t know where his crewmates were - it was that he couldn’t help them. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but lie in this quiet room surrounded by dying men and pitying nurses and wonder why he’d been spared.

Harry sat and wondered if they were out there laying in a field, dying. If they had someone to hold their hand and recite their last prayers to the almighty God.

Clare stood and placed the cloth gently on his forehead. It was cool, damp, soothing in a way that he wanted to reject, but didn’t.

“Most of the men who come through here,” she said, voice low to keep the other men from awaking around them, “They wake up disoriented, in tremendous pain. Screaming,” she cleared her throat “They don’t remember where they are, sometimes who they are - some don’t know their own names. You’re lucid. You’re angry. That’s not failing.”

Harry’s jaw was tight as he swallowed. “You sound like you’ve said that before.”

“I have.” Clare said, nodding. “It’s a reminder for the ones who lived. Thankfully, many have, but many are taking away the same nightmares.”

She took the mug from the tray and handed it to him. His hands were steadier than they’d been a few days ago, though the left one trembled slightly from the burns. The tea was always a bit of a trick to make sure that they were steady and there hadn’t been anymore shaking. He took the tea, even though it burned a bit.

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” he admitted after a long silence, possibly a bit overwhelmed with the situation. A bit muffed with how everything had turned out. He hadn’t had any information, or any way to get information. He didn’t know if they knew he was alive or dead – he didn’t know anything.

Clare pulled the chair a little closer, crossing her legs as she sat with him for a moment. “You rest. You heal.”

With a quick response, he shook his head, “That’s not enough.”

“For now, it has to be.”

The quick and emotionless duties of her responses were eerie in some ways. Now that Harry could sit here and look at her, he recognized how absolutely stunning she was – dark features, pink lips. Her eyes were cerulean, which popped against her dark hair that was pinned back.

But there was something about her that seemed troubled, almost just as stubborn and hurt as he could have been. Instead of making her night worse, he decided to possibly dive into the company.

As he took a sip of the tea, he looked over at her. “Is it hard?”

“What?” She asked him, checking over his paperwork that was next to his bed.

“This job. Seeing people like this.”

Clare didn’t answer him at first, because there really wasn’t a response to give. Hard was subjective; the job itself was easy because she knew how to handle tough situations, and she knew how to attend to the patients. But was it mentally draining, of course it was.

She glanced around the ward, her gaze briefly landing on the man two beds down who moaned softly in his sleep. That man had been shot in the head; he was barely hanging onto life as he knew it. He was only twenty-one.

“Yes,” she said eventually, giving him an answer. “But it’s harder when they don’t make it. Or when they do, but they give up.”

Harry didn’t reply, he didn’t want to look at her with that response, either. It felt pointed, almost like he was being punished for feeling sad. He sipped the tea—it was bitter and weak, but it grounded him.

The heat of the ceramic, the feel of his own breath fogging the rim, reminded him that he was real. That he was here. Not in the wreckage. Not floating over fields in a parachute. Not burning.

No, he was lying in a warm, hospital ward with a beautiful woman next to him as he had antibiotic medication soothing his burns. He took a deep breath in through his nose and settled against the pillow.

Clare stood again. She checked his chart, made a note, then paused. “Would you like me to bring you a book next time I’m on shift? To pass the time?"

He blinked at her, a bit unsure of where her question had come from.

“What sort of book?” He asked her, blinking a few more times to feel the tiredness in him.

“Hm,” she hummed, “You tell me.”

He thought for a moment, a bit of humor in his tone. “Nothing heroic. No war stories, please.”

She nodded, appreciating the bit of humor that he gave her. It had been nothing but pointed jabs and pessimism from him, but she could handle it. “Understood.”

As she turned to go, Harry called out, quietly, “Clare?”

She looked back at him, carrying the tray with her as she went. The man she was looking at was broken, he was physically and emotionally scarred, and she knew that there was built up anger and resentment. She didn’t hold that against him in the slightest bit; she knew it was just an uphill battle.

So, she gave him a bit of grace. She looked at the broken man giving him the grace and prosperity that he deserved.

“I’m not always like this, you know..”

She gave him a small, tired smile. Taking in a deep breath, she held the metal tray to her chest. “Neither am I.”

Then, without another word, she was gone. Her steps quiet on the polished floor, her silhouette swallowed by the dim light near the ward doors.

Harry lay back slowly, wincing as his side tensed. He stared at the ceiling again, but the pressure in his chest was softer now—less like a vise, more like a hand.

He thought of Bennett’s laugh. Of Dean swearing at the radio. Of the way the clouds looked from above, blinding and soft. Those were the most precious memories that he could hold. It was a euphoric feeling of being high above the cloud, through the clouds, being up that high gave you a sense of purpose.

But then there was the feeling of falling, then waking, and seeing her standing over him like a lighthouse in the smoke. What a way to awaken from the haunted visions.

He hadn’t seen the plane crash to the ground. But he’d survived it. And maybe, somehow, that would have to be enough.

Maybe, somehow, the others would have, as well.

+++

The next evening, Harry had been finishing up some of his supper – some meat, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots cooked in a sort of gravy sauce. It wasn’t the best meal he’s ever eaten, but it satisfied the pain in his stomach. He needed to continue to eat, or the medicine would make him sick to his stomach, he was told by the doctors.

But as he was finishing his meal, Clare returned with a book tucked under one arm. She had practically snuck it into the ward, keeping it away from the other soldiers and nurses, as if to make him feel special.

Harry noticed immediately. Not just the book—but her. The way she carried herself through the ward, less like a nurse and more like someone who belonged there. Someone who moved through pain without absorbing it. He didn’t understand it, not fully, but he was beginning to recognize it.

“Something told me you wouldn’t be one for poetry,” she said by way of greeting. She held out the book, letting the lopsided grin of hers take over her face.

He took it, eyebrows lifting at the cover. The Thirty-Nine Steps.

“Adventure. Espionage. No heroism,” she added, “Just as requested.”

Harry smirked faintly as he took it from her fingers. “I’m very glad you remembered,” he said to her, “I’ve been bored out of my mind.”

She pulled the chair closer again and sat, her posture a little more relaxed this time. It was getting easier to look at her without feeling like he might break.

“Thank you,” he said after a beat.

At this point, Clare looked around at his paperwork next to his bed – checking all the other nurses had properly done his medicines, changed his bandages, bathed him, and done right by him. “For the book?”

“For not treating me like a broken watch.” Harry pushed his tray away; Clare took it from his lap and set it down on another table as she noticed how he may have been in a bit more pain that day.

Clare smiled softly, her attitude may have been giving him the right to smile and feel better. “I wouldn’t know how to fix one of those, either.”

He gave a low laugh, but it turned quickly into a wince. His side still pulled tight if he moved too quickly. The way that his nose scrunched made her look worried, which was the most she had given to him empathetically. Clare breathed out, turning the conversation back to a different topic.

“I read that one when I was sixteen,” Clare continued, “My brother snuck it to me. My mother thought it was much too improper.”

“Because it had spies?”

“Because it had adventure,” she said, grinning now. “My mother was a schoolteacher. Believed anything fast and unrealistic was indecent.”

Harry opened the book with care but didn’t read any of the words yet. He liked the feel of it in his hands. Something to hold onto; it made him realize that his hands may have hurt a bit more than he had recalled from doing nothing with them. Something with a beginning and an end. Something someone else had finished.

He didn’t ask about her brother. Before he could speak again, the ward doors opened suddenly with pace and loud conversation that caught everyone’s attention.

A pair of orderlies wheeled in a stretcher, occupied by a soldier. The man on it was unconscious, his skin pallid, lips chapped, and a deep bandage wrapped around his upper thigh. One arm was splinted and strapped to his chest; his leg was covered in blood through the bandages.

Harry’s heart clenched when he watched the man be placed practically across from him.

“John?” he whispered before he could stop himself.

Clare looked up when she noticed that Harry’s demeanor had changed. “Do you know him, then?”

Harry nodded, stunned and unsure if his medications were playing a trick on him. “That’s- that’s John. Captain Tupolo. H-He was with my unit. He was our bombardier on the plane.”

The orderlies settled John into the bed across from Harry and pulled the curtain halfway; he was unable to see any longer, but his heart beat expeditiously. A nurse followed with a clipboard. There was quiet movement—vitals, tags, whispered instructions.

“Found him in a hedgerow,” one orderly muttered to another. “Alive, somehow. Someone must’ve moved him over there and thought he was a goner.”

Clare stood and crossed the room briefly, speaking in low tones with the nurse at John’s side. Harry tried to listen, but his ears buzzed too much, blood rushing with a new kind of urgency.

When Clare returned, her expression was cautious, but she gave him a smile.

“He’s stable, but in rough shape,” she told him gently, “Dislocated shoulder. His leg is badly infected and cut very deeply. But he’s lucid. He’s here.”

Harry exhaled a breath that he hadn’t been sure he had been holding in until it felt good to release. “Can I—”

“Soon. Let him wake fully.” Clare placed another quilt on the bottom of Harry’s cot, using her hands to make sure that he was comfortable.

She didn't sit again, and didn’t speak further, letting him sit with the information as she moved her way out of his space. Harry didn’t know what to do with the relief and the dread, crashing together like waves. Two men accounted for. Two still missing. He closed his eyes.

An hour passed. Then two. Another could have, but Harry had stopped keeping track. His sleep hadn't come.

Clare’s shift ended the next morning as usual, and another nurse took her place. But she’d left a note tucked into the book’s first page as soon as Harry had opened it when he was eating breakfast the following morning: If it gets too dull, tell me. I won’t take it personally. I’ll bring another one.

He read the first chapter, but his thoughts drifted. It felt silly to be reading about a world where this wasn't happening.

Across the room, John stirred on his own cot. A soft groan and a rustle of sheets made Harry’s eyes move towards the curtain that they had closed around him. Harry had learned that the worse cases got the longest curtain.

The nurse approached and murmured something before he realized that she was pulling the curtain away to let some daylight into the ward from the day, which allowed Harry see John for the first time.

“John,” Harry could see his friend, not far at all, right across from him. The man had been sat up, probably to keep the blood flow moving.

John’s voice came in a hoarse whisper as he really opened his eyes to see Harry sitting across from him; his eyes were swollen and he looked like he had a lot of trauma to the face, scrapes, brusing: “Styles?”

Harry snapped upright, then winced at the pain in such a movement.

“Bloody hell, mate,” he breathed, giving a humorless laugh before shaking his head, “You look like you lost a fight with a train.”

John gave a faint, broken laugh himself. “Takes one to know one.”

His eyes were sunken but sharp, and though pain was etched in every feature, he was unmistakably John. Harry wanted to ask a thousand things at once but didn’t know where to start – he didn’t know if he had any answers, or if he had anything further to discuss.

In some ways, he didn’t want to have John relive through moments that were probably horrifyingly troublesome.

“You’re here,” he said instead.

“Not for lack of trying otherwise.”

Harry stared, hands starting to shake as he had flashes of what had happened. “How the hell did you make it?”

“Got thrown clear when the fuselage split. Landed in a bog.” He paused, breath catching. “Stayed down. Played dead for a while because I couldn't move, could hear them around me. Some farmer found me and helped.”

“Jesus.” Harry breathed out, shaking his head. If that had happened, he had so much more hope for the other two.

After another moment, John cleared his own throat. “Figured you were gone, mate.”

Harry swallowed hard, holding onto the quilt Clare had put at the foot of his bed, but his hands were taped with gauze and he could barely hold anything tightly. “I thought the same about you.”

A heavy silence settled between them, almost like they both knew what the other was about to say. Harry made it there first.

“What about—” Harry started to speak but couldn’t say Dean’s name, Bennett's name was stuck in his throat, too. His throat closed; eyes welling up as he thought about the inevitable truth of possibly losing a friend.

John’s expression shifted but stayed rather bare.

“Bennett made it out. Got burns on his hands, think he had major damage to his skull. They airlifted him to another hospital up north. Some place near Leeds, I think. I heard that when I was being transported here.”

Relief and grief collided again, but Harry felt his mouth go dry. Three survived. “And Dean?”

John didn’t speak for a long time, but when he did, Harry heard the way that his voice broke at the first words.

“I saw it happen,” he said finally. “He tried to get the radio working again. Refused to bail. Last thing I heard was him shouting coordinates at me, but I –“ He paused for a moment, “I was pulled out before the plane exploded.”

Harry stared at the ceiling, blinking hard because crying meant losing. It meant he was giving up the façade the soliders built so hard to be respected for.

“I’m sorry, mate.” John said quietly; he had known that Dean and Harry had made their way through the unit trainings together, flying many trips. They had gone up multiple times in the year that they had been together – so, it hurt to know that one moment took Dean away forever.

Harry nodded slowly with his jaw clenched, thinking of the girl that Dean held with him in his pocket in a photo memory. “He was the best of us. I’m sure Rebecca got word, then”

“I’m sure she did.”

Silence. Thick, heavy, full of memories neither could voice. They didn’t talk again that night.

+++

The next day, Harry woke to find Clare back, sitting in the same chair with a steaming mug of tea and a handful of letters she was sorting through, looking for ones for him. When she didn't find any, she sat them down on the bedside table.

“You’ve got a roommate,” she said, nodding toward the next bed.

“Saw him,” Harry murmured out, a bit dazed. “Didn’t sleep much after.”

Clare studied him for a moment. “Must've been some relief to see him.”

Harry nodded, not knowing if he had much to say about it. It just made him think about other things. “Glad he made it out.”

Her eyes softened. She handed him the tea, watching as his hands still shook when he held it. “That’s something.”

He wanted to thank her again—he wasn’t sure why. Maybe for the way she didn’t ask too much but gave just enough acknowledgement for it to mean something. Maybe for always knowing when to sit in silence, or to let him grieve.

Instead, he said, “Do you always volunteer for the night shifts?”

She lifted her eyes to him, clearing her throat. “I don’t mind them." He could tell that there was something else there

“But?” He questioned.

Clare tilted her head. “But there’s a kind of quiet here at night that feels… honest.”

Harry sipped his tea - stronger today, which was good. “Is that what you look for?”

“Most days," she told him, shrugging with a smirk, "I'm not one for bullshit."

He considered her for a moment. The curve of her shoulders. The quiet steadiness in her eyes. There was something strong in her that had nothing to do with uniforms or rules. Something she carried into the room each time she walked in.

“You’ve seen a lot, haven’t you?” he asked her, feeling chattier the more she sat around him. Something about her made him want to know all of it.

Clare didn’t answer immediately. “I started as a nurse’s aide at seventeen. The men used to joke that I still looked like someone’s little sister.”

Harry's eyes traced her, really looking at her like he couldn't take his eyes off of her. “You don’t now.”

She raised an eyebrow, maybe feeling a bit of flush on her cheeks. “Is that a compliment or a comment on the war?”

“Both.”

She smiled again, but just barely, and stood. “You’ll need rest. The doctor wants you to try standing with assistance by week’s end.”

Harry groaned, feeling his eyes roll gently before he set his tea down. “Are they trying to kill me properly?”

Clare leaned in, adjusting his blanket. “No, Lieutenant. They’re trying to send you home.”

Her touch lingered briefly on his arm before she pulled back.

Harry watched her move to the next bed, speaking softly to John. The two of them exchanged a few words, and he heard Clare laugh—quiet, real. He hadn’t realized until that moment how much he liked that sound.

He lay back, the book still on his lap.

Dean was gone. Bennett was alive. John was here.

And Clare—Clare was becoming something he didn’t know how to name. A tether, maybe. A warmth in a room full of wounds.

He didn’t know what was next. But for the first time since falling from the sky, he wasn’t completely afraid to find out.

+++

It was nearing half-past nine on a grey, sluggish evening when Clare found herself seated at the far end of the nurses’ station, a cup of tea cooling beside her half-finished patient chart. Rain tapped softly against the windowpanes, a rhythmic background to the scratch of pens, murmured updates, and the occasional weary yawn.

The night shift had bled into day like watercolor over damp paper—blurred, endless, quiet in that strange, exhausted way hospitals always were after dawn.

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, the nape of her neck damp from the heat of the ward and tried to focus on finishing her notes for bed two—an older gentleman with a broken hip and an exceptional fondness for singing hymns at four in the morning.

Across the desk, Nurse Margaret tilted her chair back and fanned herself with a clipboard. “Lord, if I have to change one more dressing soaked through with iodine and self-pity…”

Nurse Ruth, sorting some medical supplies beside her, chuckled. “You mean the charming Mr. Abrams in ward six? He winked at me yesterday, said I’ve got the hands of a pianist and the face of a war bride.”

“You going to write him back when he leaves?” Margaret teased, giving a knowing eye.

“Oh, absolutely,” Ruth deadpanned back, “right after I put some bleach in my eyes.”

The small group of nurses laughed at that. Clare gave a quiet smile but didn’t join in. Her fingers remained poised on her own chart she was to complete for the doctors reference, her expression composed as her eyes fell over the name: Lt. Styles, Harry.

“It’s strange,” Ruth continued, sliding onto a stool as she tucked her ankles together. “Some of them flirt like it’s the only thing keeping them breathing. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I think it helps. Reminds them they’re still human. But it feels… I don’t know.”

“Like a game, maybe?” Clare offered softly to the conversation.

Ruth looked at her, surprised at her joining in. “Exactly. Like they’re playing dress-up in their own tragedy. To step away from the tragedy.”

Clare nodded once, not unkindly, her eyes drifting back to the chart. She didn’t say what she was thinking, that it didn’t always feel like a game to the men.

Sometimes, it was desperation disguised as charm. A last-ditch attempt to feel young, or funny, or alive again because they would leave here to go back to their units or back home to something that didn't matter anymore. Sometimes it was innocent. Sometimes it wasn’t. But always, it left a mark.

Margaret leaned forward, lowering her voice with a conspiratorial grin. “Speaking of inappropriate affections, has anyone noticed how Lieutenant Styles doesn’t respond to anyone except Clare?”

That earned a few lifted brows and a round of curious glances, maybe even a few gawks. Clare blinked slowly but didn’t lift her head as she tried to ignore the conspiracy altogether.

“Oh, come on,” Margaret continued, trying to push Clare, “I gave him his meds yesterday morning and he just nodded. Didn’t even thank me or give me the time of day. But you come near his bed and he sits up straighter than a schoolboy reciting Latin.”

“He’s quiet with everyone else,” Ruth said, more thoughtfully. “But he listens when Clare speaks.”

Clare gave a mild shrug, eyes still on the paperwork. “Perhaps he simply finds comfort in routine.”

“Comfort, sure. But the way he watches you…” Margaret trailed off with a knowing smirk.

“Like a man writing poetry in his head,” Nurse Helen chimed in from the corner. “I saw it myself last week when you leaned in to check his shoulder dressing. His eyes didn’t blink the entire time – it was like he was memorizing you!”

“I think I blushed for you,” Ruth added with a simple giggle; she must have been kicking her feet under the chair.

Clare rolled her eyes, but the flush rising to her cheeks betrayed her from keeping quiet or not saying too much. She closed her chart with deliberate care and sipped her now-cold tea. “You lot spend far too much time crafting romances out of fever dreams, it seems.”

“We’re overworked, underpaid, and in the middle of a war, Clare,” Margaret said breezily, shaking her hand at her. “Let us have our stories.”

“He’s a patient.” Clare defended, trying to brush off the stares and the eyes knowing that they would but placed on them more heavily now.

“Yes,” Ruth said, watching her carefully, tilting her head, “but he’s also a man. And you’re not made of stone, especially with a face like that.”

Clare didn’t answer right away – her facial expression gave it away, surely. Her gaze dropped to her hands, stilling on a faint smear of ink on her palm. She rubbed it absentmindedly against her skirt, then finally looked up.

“It’s not that I don’t see it,” she said, with a calm tone. “The way he watches. I’d have to be blind not to. But don’t mistake that for anything more than what it is.”

“And what’s that?” Helen asked gently – the other girls leaning in to listen to her answer, surely wanting a bit more gossip than there was to give.

“Recognition,” Clare replied. “Of someone who’s walked into the fire and come back. Someone who knows what it costs,” She stood from her spot, shaking her head as she did it. “He’s a hero, and I’m just making sure he feels recognized for what he’s done. Especially when many of them feel like failures.”

The room quieted for a moment at her words; maybe even a bit of guilt from everyone as Clare felt guilty for bringing the mood down, but the girls may have felt a bit guilty for making a joke out of their duties.

Ruth nodded slowly, tucking her hands into her apron. “That’s fair.”

But, Margaret couldn’t resist one more jab, albeit softer this time. “Still, if he asks you to run off with him to the coast, at least let us know so we can throw you a proper goodbye party to relinquish you from your duties.”

Clare smiled faintly at that, shaking her head. “If he ever manages to walk across the ward without tripping over his IV line, I may consider it.”

That earned another round of laughter, and this time Clare let herself join in with it.

Still, when she returned to the ward twenty minutes later, chart tucked under her arm, her gaze wandered to the almost inevitable site where, near the bed corner window, the one screened slightly for privacy, was Harry’s bed.

And, as usual for this time of night, he was awake. Propped up on one elbow, book in hand. He wasn’t reading, though. He was watching her.

Not in the way a soldier watched a nurse, waiting for meds or instructions or for some sort of reaction of feeling needed. Not even in the way a man watched a woman he found pretty. No—it was quieter than that. It was much more present than that – like she was the only thing in the room he didn’t want to miss.

Clare held his gaze for a second longer than she meant to, tilting her chin forward to suggest she had been going to him for a reason. Then she turned and walked toward him, heart tapping a little too hard in her chest, voice steady as ever.

“Lieutenant Styles,” she said lightly with a sigh, quietly to allow the other men to sleep, “don’t tell me you’re pretending to read again.”

He smirked, the edge of it sharp and crooked, just for her. “Not pretending at all. Just distracted for a moment.”

“I wonder by what.” She asked him, quietly moving to fluff the pillow that sat behind his back, making sure that his posture was not taking a beating for the way that he sat.

Harry’s eyes reverted to the book in front of him, nodding a few times as he allowed the smirk to stay present on his face, “I think you know.”

She rolled her eyes again—but this time, she smiled as she did. And he saw it.

+++

The ward was quiet, the kind of quiet that settled only in the deepest stretch of night—when the men who could sleep, did, and the others tossed in silence, chasing ghosts behind their closed eyes.

Harry was somewhere in between those moments – he felt that sleep was to take him, but he struggled with falling.

He’d dozed off around midnight, propped up slightly on the pillows Clare had fluffed for him, her voice still echoing faintly in his head. “Try to get some rest. I’ll be on until morning if you need anything.”

She’d smiled before drawing the curtain halfway shut around his bed, promising safety in that gentle, practiced way of hers. But sleep wasn’t a peaceful place. Not anymore, at least.

He twitched once, then again, face tightening as his breath caught.

There he was back in the sky—cramped in the bomber’s gut, metal rattling all around him. There was smoke… fire. His oxygen mask tight against his face as the machine shook and rattled and adrenaline struck through his veins.

Someone was shouting over the intercom—Styles? Tupolo? He couldn’t tell; his senses were heightened, but the adrenaline and pulse was louder. The plane bucked beneath them like a dying animal, the nose tipping unnaturally downward as he tried to hold onto the side to try and escape from where he sat, gravity pulling against him.

Then—an explosion. Light, hot and blinding, consumed everything.

“Engine two’s out! We’ve got fire! We’ve got fire—Mayday! We need to eject!”

Harry was trying to move – every inch of him was trying to get to Dean who was stuck in the rear, thrown backwards by the explosion. His harness was caught; he couldn’t remove it.

He was screaming.

The heat was everywhere; the sound was everywhere. The fuselage was tearing open above his head. Sparks rained down. Dean’s voice was screaming his name—no, not screaming.

Gurgling. Like something inside him had broken. And it had; a piece of the plane had him pinned to the wall, blood circling around his abdomen as he fought The numbness felt like he couldn't move, but he needed to. He needed to get out, he needed to move.

“Bail out, Styles! Bail out!” John's voice called over the sound of the plane falling from the sky. Falling deeper and moving faster.

His hands fumbled to get himself out of the door. His shoulder screamed in protest. The world tipped again, violently, and his body hit the fuselage wall hard.

Red. Everything was red. And then, nothing. Freefall. He was falling.

Cold air against his face.

A silent, endless drop.

Harry jerked awake with a ragged gasp, his hands clutching the blanket twisted over his chest, heart pounding like it was trying to break through his ribs. His shirt was drenched with sweat, his shoulder seizing up with pain from the way he’d thrashed. He blinked rapidly into the dark, half-lost in the nightmare still clinging to his skin like smoke.

He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His body trembled violently, his breathing sharp and fast and wrong.

“Harry—”

The curtain rustled and Clare appeared in a second, hair pinned up but a few strands loose now, face open with concern. She was still in her uniform, though the collar was unbuttoned at the throat almost like she had been taking a break before hearing his struggling.

She didn’t speak again at first, just came to his bedside and placed a hand gently on his arm.

“You’re alright. It was just a dream. You’re safe.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, voice quivering just at the thought of the sounds, the noises, the sounds, the feeling of it – seeing Dean’s face. “I—I saw it – I almost,”

“I know,” she murmured, holding his hand, softly coaxing him to come to a manageable place. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” His voice cracked, quiet and raw, his throat felt right as he tried to whisper but the feeling of tears releasing from the sides of his eyes only made him want to speak less. “Dean didn’t make it. I saw - I left him in there. I left him, Clare.”

Clare pulled a chair up to the side of his bed and reached for his hand, wrapping her fingers firmly around his. Her touch felt like the burning.

“You didn’t leave him,” she told him flatly, “You were ordered to bail. You survived. That doesn’t make it wrong. That makes you human.”

His hand shook in hers, jaw clenched hard like he was trying to force the rest of it down. His hands hurt, he could practically feel the burn on them from hitting the side of the plane on the way down.

“I hear him sometimes. Even when I’m awake. It’s like—like he’s stuck in the moment I lost him.”

Clare exhaled softly and moved to the supply drawer by his bed, retrieving a small vial and a paper cup with practiced ease. Like she had done this hundreds of times. “This will help calm your nerves. Just enough to let your body rest, okay?”

“I don’t want to forget,” he said as she prepared the dose, watching her with a calmer notion. The feeling of her there was calming, it was helpful to not be alone when he felt so incredibly alone.

“You won’t,” her words were gentle with him, “But you won’t relive it over and over like this either.”

She handed him the cup, the small medications. His fingers were still trembling, so she steadied his hand as he drank.

When he was done, she eased him back against the pillow, brushing the damp curls from his forehead. Her touch was tender, but not fragile—like someone who had learned to be steady because the world wasn’t.

“I used to wait for the telegram,” she said after a while, voice barely above a whisper. “Every day for two years. My brother went straight to Germany. I thought if I stayed busy, if I worked hard enough, it wouldn’t come.”

Harry’s gaze shifted to her face, eyes focusing on the way that she held stoic and cold. Like showing emotion revolving around herself would hurt him more.

“They found his body six months ago,” she said, swallowing hard, nodding – a dry laugh left her as she turned away from him for a moment. “Sometimes I still wake up thinking he’s on leave and just forgot to write. I just get so wrapped up in staying busy that I feel guilty that I forget every once in a while.”

He didn’t speak, just watched her in the pale moonlight spilling through the window, her profile etched in soft blue and silver from the outside.

“You and I,” she shook her head, “we didn’t start this war. But we live in the middle of it, and we carry what it leaves behind.”

She looked back down at him, eyes deep and steady and full of a wisdom he hadn’t been ready to hear. “That’s not weakness, Harry. That’s survival.”

His throat tightened at her words, blinking at her with a mindful watch. “How do you do it? Keep your hands from shaking?”

“I don’t,” she admitted to him gently, showing him the shake in her right hand. “I just have to keep using them, anyways.”

The medication had started to work, dulling the edges of his panic. Harry had started to feel his body ease, though the grief hadn’t left—it just wasn’t screaming quite so loud anymore. There wasn’t a voice anymore, but just a noble reason.

Clare stood and tucked the blanket back around him, tucking it into his legs to keep him warm in the cold ward. “Try to sleep now. I’ll stay until you do.”

“You don’t have to.” He told her, watching as she took another seat next to him. Her eyes looked at the book that sat on his bedside table, dog-eared on the places that he stopped.

“I want to.”

He didn’t argue with that. His eyes drifted closed, and for the first time in days, when he exhaled, it didn’t feel like he was breathing through fire.

Clare sat beside him, her hand resting lightly on the edge of his bed, not holding on, but certainly not letting go either.

+++

There was rain by the midafternoon, pattering gently against the long windows that lined the ward. Outside, the grounds were turning a muddy brown, leaves wet and heavy from the wind. Inside, the heat in the woodstove ticked, and the scent of antiseptic still clung to every linen.

Harry sat upright in bed, legs over the edge, his hands gripping the frame for balance.

Every inch of movement still hurt—just less than it had a week ago. It had been almost two weeks now that Harry was here. His muscles ached, his burns were starting to heal as best as they could in the short time– the ones that were down to the bone were struggling, but there was progress. His hips were starting to get sore the more he sat around, waiting for the muscles to heal

The burns along his ribs itched under the bandages. But the doctors had informed him that he could start to walk now. Stand without help, even if he had to hold the wall. He’d taken six steps that morning, and felt like he could have collapsed. It felt like a bloody marathon.

“I heard you made it to the door and back,” Clare said, appearing beside him with a folded blanket. He hadn’t realized that she was back so soon – the day must have started to really fade from him.

“You forgot to mention how bloody far the door is.”

She grinned at his nonsense. “You can take it up with the nurse who designed the floor plan.”

“I will. Just as soon as I can walk without feeling like a newborn deer.”

He looked at her, and wondered how he hadn’t seen it before. There was something different about Clare today. Her shoulders were drawn in slightly, her smile a little thinner.

“Everything alright?” he asked. He could see that there was a look in her face that may have been more somber than before.

She nodded. “Just tired, I guess.”

Harry watched her for a beat longer, then glanced at the book on his side table. He’d nearly finished it now—stolen chapters late at night, flipping the pages when his thoughts turned too heavy.

“You’re off tonight, yeah?” he asked; Harry was quite chatty in normal conversation, maybe it didn’t seem that way when he was in here. He didn’t really know what to say, but he felt a bit more normal today as he was able to get up and walk around.

Clare paused what she had been doing before nodding back at him with a pressed smile. “I am, for a few days.”

“Going home?” He asked her quietly, watching as she readied his medicines.

A soft exhale. “Um, yes, I’m – going to see my father, I guess,” she bit on her lip softly, “The first time I’m seeing him since George died,” she paused for a moment, “Just the two of us. Mum died of influenza years ago now, so I just imagine it will be difficult.”

He nodded, thinking to himself. Then: “Clare?”

She looked back over at him without another word, as his words had drawn her in.

“You said once your brother gave you that book. The first time you read it. You didn’t have to give it to me, you know.”

Her smile faded. Harry didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

“We were very close. Closer than most siblings, I guess. We used to sneak up to the roof of our childhood flat and watch the people pass below, pretending we could read their thoughts. He used to say the only thing worse than being ordinary was being forgettable.”

She folded the blanket with slow, deliberate hands.

“I think about him when the ward goes quiet,” she blinks at him before she writes something on his chart, “Reminds me quite a bit of you, actually. He was very cheeky.”

Harry let her talk, watching as she grabbed the stethoscope to listen to his lungs, moving closer to him before her eyes were naturally in front of his, “I see his face in every boy who flinches in his sleep. And every time someone dies, I wonder if he had someone like me with him when -”

Harry swallowed, his voice tight, nodding. “He did.”

She looked at him, startled at his confirmation – the positivity in his voice. It was new, so she blinked at him for a moment almost not catching his new comfort.

“I wasn’t there,” Harry said, “but I know he did. Someone held his hand. Someone stayed with him.”

The silence between them stretched, but it wasn’t empty. It was thick, humming with what neither of them had said aloud yet. He went to stand slowly, muscles protesting as he pushed himself off of the cot and pushed his shoulders back.

“Still hurts like hell,” he muttered, stretching out his back.

Clare stepped toward him on instinct, almost like she was going to catch him if he fell, “Careful—”

But the problem with that was that Harry was quite taller than Clare, not by too much, but she would definitely not be able to lift him if he fell.

He waved her off with a tired smile, shaking his head as his hair fell into his eyes. “I’m alright, love. I just needed to stand while you talked about him. Felt like… like I should.”

She nodded, eyes shining before she studied him for a moment.

“Since you’re up, do you want to sit outside for a bit?” she asked. “The garden’s just through the hall.”

Harry blinked, a bit confused by her question. “You’re allowed to take patients for walks outside?”

“No,” she said, he could tell there was a bit of nonchalance in her voice, maybe a bit of weariness, “But you’re not a patient. You’re a soldier with a limp and poor judgment, and I feel it's the least we can do.”

He smiled back at her. “And you’re clearly a very bad nurse for not following protocol.”

“I’m the worst,” she said, already moving to grab an extra blanket to place around his shoulders in lieu of a jacket.

They made their way slowly through the corridor, Harry bracing himself on the walls when needed, Clare walking beside him like she wasn’t watching every breath he took. When they reached the door to the small, enclosed garden, she opened it gently and helped him step out.

The air was crisp, earthy with rain. The garden wasn’t large—just a few benches, some ivy climbing the walls, a rusted fountain with no water. But it was quiet. And private. Clare moved them over towards where they sat on a bench tucked near the back, out of sight from the windows.

Clare pulled her coat tighter. Harry tilted his face toward the sky; there wasn’t a cloud above them.

“I forgot what clean air smelled like.”

Clare watched him, making sure he was okay to maneuver before she helped him down on the bench. They sat on the wood for a moment, elbow to elbow, while she heard Harry take a few deep breaths. It was enough for him, she thought.

“I thought about writing my parents,” he said after a while. “But I don’t know what I’d say. They sent me off a whole son and I came back a cracked one.”

“You came back,” she said gently; her frustration didn’t lie with him, but with the situation. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it, and she allowed his own frustration to take over when he was obviously thinking of what happened in the sky. “That’s what matters.”

“For what? John’s still stuck in that bed. Dean’s gone. I was supposed to get us back – I was supposed to fix the plane.”

“You think you failed them,” Clare said matter-of-factly.

“I know I did.”

She shook her head. “You can’t keep measuring your worth by who did and didn't survive around you.”

“And how the hell should I measure it, then?” He was quick with his quip, turning his head to look at her and catching a glimmer in her eye.

“By who you still are.”

He looked at her, jaw tight. He noticed that there may have been a tear in her eye, so he backed down a bit quieter. “I can’t be who I was before.”

“Good,” Clare said, nodding, scoffing a bit. “He was probably full of himself.”

Harry gave a surprised laugh, sudden and short at the way she delivered that with such wit.

“I mean it,” she said, serious. Harry’s smile wiped away. “The man sitting here now? He’s still carrying everyone else’s weight. Still angry enough to walk, stubborn enough to argue. Still kind enough to ask about my brother. That sounds like someone I’d trust.”

He looked down at his hands. The backs of them were still healing, one wrapped loosely where the burns hadn’t closed yet. Her eyes looked down at them as he did.

Harry drew in a breath as he kept his voice to a whisper, “Do you ever think about what happens after?”

She didn’t ask what he meant – she didn’t have to.

“All the time,” she said. “And it scares the hell out of me.”

Harry nodded. “I think about being normal again. About laughing and meaning it. About sleeping through the night. But it feels like something only other people get to have.”

They sat in silence, the quiet between them thicker than the fog curling in the cool night air. The sky above was smudged with stars, barely visible behind drifting clouds, and the damp scent of earth and smoke hung in the air. The bench beneath them was cold, but Clare hadn’t moved. Neither had he.

Harry shifted slightly, only then realizing just how close they were. Her shoulder nearly brushed his. Her breath, soft and steady, fogged in the space between them.

“Do you believe in second chances?” he asked, voice low for just her to hear.

Clare didn’t look away. Her eyes, always steady, were darker in the twilight—watchful and unreadable, yet somehow gentle.

“I don’t know if I believe in chances at all,” she said finally, shaking her head. “But I believe in choosing. When something feels right, you choose it. Even if it’s only once.”

His breath caught, barely audible. Their fingers touched. Not by accident - she had reached for him, deliberate but featherlight, the back of her hand brushing his like a secret passage that only they both could see.

“I don’t know where I go from here,” Harry said quietly, eyes fixed on the ground. “I feel like I’m still falling in the sky.”

“You don’t have to know yet,” Clare said to him, honesty laced like honey around her words. “You’re allowed to just… be here.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough.”

Her voice softened, almost a whisper. “Harry.”

It was then that he looked at her. Really looked – it was a look that she had never seen before on someone. Her hair had loosened from its pins in the breeze, strands clinging to her cheek.

There was a smudge of ash near her collarbone from lighting the woodstove, and her coat wasn’t buttoned properly. For once, she didn’t fix it. She didn’t retreat behind the neat uniform, the calm nurse’s mask. Out here, she was only Clare.

It was the only person that she wanted Harry to see. Not the broken nurse who was looking for sympathy, or the girl who was losing everyone in her life at rapid rates.

“What?” he asked, barely above a breath. She could see his breath in the cold fog of the air.

She reached up, her fingers brushing his cheek. Not the raw, healing side—she didn’t flinch or pity. She chose the other, smooth and still familiar, as if to remind him that he hadn’t been erased. Her touch was warm against his cold skin; he noticed the shake in her fingers as she lifted her.

“If you asked me to stay,” she murmured, “I would.”

His throat worked around the lump that rose there. He stared at her, trying not to fall apart from something as simple and devastating as that.

And then he leaned in. Tentative. Careful. Like she was something fragile and holy and he was still learning how to hold anything without breaking it. Their foreheads touched – it was a bare touch, a touch she could have passed off as intimate. A breath passed between them, then another. His hand found her knee, grounding himself.

He didn’t kiss her.

But he could feel it—that pulse beneath the quiet longing that both of them held between them. The terrifying, beautiful possibility of being seen and chosen anyway.

Clare’s eyes drifted closed, only for a second, just a beat. Then she pulled back, slowly, as if severing something delicate.

“We should go in,” she said, voice hushed but with need. She needed to move away, or she would do something she could regret, “Your doctor would have my head if I let you catch cold.”

Harry swallowed, nodding. His chest ached, but not from pain this time. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, and for the first time in weeks, he rose without stumbling.

And Clare didn’t step away from him for a second, holding around his waist to help with movements. His legs and his body just hurt. It was hard to maneuver, but it was good for him to move like this.

They returned to the ward in silence, the corridor dimly lit by amber lamps – most of the soldiers were asleep, they made sure of it. Harry walked more steadily now, the rhythm of his steps echoing off the walls. Clare didn’t offer to hold his arm once they got inside—she didn’t have to. Something between them had already shifted, quiet but undeniable.

When they reached his small space—a small, curtained-off space tucked just past the main ward—he paused at the threshold.

“You can come in,” he said, turning his head to look at her then.

Clare hesitated only a second before following him. The room was quiet, softly lit by the lamp at his bedside. Compared to the ward, it felt warmer. More human. Harry had started to collect a few books from a few of the doctors and nurses, they were stacked neatly on the side table. An extra blanket folded at the foot of the bed, one that Clare had brought the other day. A small radio Harry never touched.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and Clare remained standing as she held her hands in front of her.

“Stay a moment?” he asked.

She nodded, drawing the curtain fully closed behind her.

The corridor had been quiet, the bustle of the hospital dimming quite drastically. Clare had just helped Harry back into bed, his body still stiff with the slow, frustrating ache of healing. She fluffed his pillow with practiced ease, smoothing the blanket over his lap as the ward had started to feel cold since the winter months were upon them.

“Fuck,” Harry cursed under his breath, shaking his head as he winced at the feeling of his leg stretching out. “God – fuck.”

“You’re wincing,” she countered, rolling her eyes at his face, “and you’re too proud to – “

He opened his mouth to retort, but then it happened— the noise was sharp and clear, the rising whine of a siren split the silence, its cry climbing like a scream into the darkening sky.

Harry froze; Clare’s head turned quickly towards the windows with a breath let out. His fingers clenched the edge of the blanket. “Bloody hell…”

Clare snapped towards the window that sat near Harry’s bed, where the thin lavender light of evening had turned grey and dark even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. That should have been their first warning.

Air raids never happened in cloudy conditions.

“That’s the second time this week,” she said, breath catching as she tried to remain calm. “They must be heading toward the docks again.”

“Always the bloody docks,” Harry muttered, but his voice had thinned. He wasn’t there anymore—not really; his brain had started to feel odd, like parts of him were there and other parts weren’t. He was back above the Channel, the smell of smoke in his nose, the thunder of anti-aircraft guns all around, Dean slumped beside him.

The siren wailed louder, and he pressed his palm against his forehead to stop the noise – he needed all of it to stop.

Clare turned quickly, flicking off the bedside lamp to plunge the room into shadows. “Harry— Harry, please, look at me.”

His eyes were glassy, unfocused. Her heart dropped at the way that he looked at her. She stepped closer, taking his hands, grounding him to stare at her for a moment while she spoke to him.

“We’re safe here. The ward is reinforced, and if we must move downstairs, we’ll do it quickly. I promise. We – you, you’re safe.”

Then came a sound he hadn’t realized he feared until it filled the room—the long, low thrum of engines. Dozens of them. Close. The windowpanes began to tremble in their frames.

Harry flinched, his hands beginning to shake as he felt a scream so internal and loud and completely overpowering overwhelming his thoughts. “I can’t— Clare—”

Ruth appeared in the doorway, face pale as Clare turned around to notice that many people had started to gather. “We need you, now. Casualties incoming. Triage staff first – we must move quickly.”

Clare’s grip on his hand tightened. He shook his head, almost like a child. “Please don’t leave me here—”

“I have to go,” she said, heart twisting at the mere promise that she had stated to him just before this – she would stay if he asked her to. But she had to go. “But I’ll be back. As soon as I can. Lie flat and stay away from the windows, alright? I will be back.”

His lips parted to protest, but she’d already gone, sprinting into the dim corridor, her silhouette swallowed by the chaos. The door clicked shut behind her as she walked out of the ward, and silence swept in, heavy and total—except for the rumble of the engines above.

The lights flickered. Harry stared at the ceiling, each second stretching like wire pulled taut. Then, from across the room, a low voice began to speak out into the darkness. Harry laid as flat as he could, pulling the blanket over him to try and silence the monsters that lay beyond him.

“Our Father, who art in heaven…”

Harry turned his head. It was John, in the next bed, voice shaking but steady in its rhythm. “Hallowed be Thy name…”

The floor beneath them gave a subtle tremor, distant, but real.

They were bombing.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut to try and push away the thoughts that were racking in his brain. He could feel it in his chest again—the fire, the fall, the absence of Dean’s voice.

“Thy kingdom come…”

He didn’t pray often, but now, he mouthed the words too. Not for himself. For Clare. For Dean. For Bennett. For the kid in his squad whose name he never learned, only the way he cried for his mother when they dragged him from the wreckage with barely an arm attached to him.

Another boom sounded—closer.

“Deliver us from evil…”

Harry pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and took a shuddering breath. He felt like he was made of glass, every breath threatening to splinter him from the inside. Then he thought of Clare. Of her voice. Her hand on his and the feeling that it left; the burning sensation from her touch rather than from the sheer pain of trauma. Her eyes when she promised she’d be back.

The fear didn’t leave him. But it no longer had full control.

A few hours had passed; he hadn’t been sure of it. Harry laid awake under the covers, eyes heavy as hell, but refusing to shut completely. The bombing and the sirens had shut off; it had ended. They had made it through another night.

Clare returned hours later, past midnight, her apron streaked with soot and blood, her face pale but calm as she approached his bedside. She noticed that he was still underneath, possibly not seeing her approach.

Without a touch that may spook him, she spoke into the universe: “I told you I’d come back.”

And he, without hesitation, pulled the covers away from his eyes to see Clare standing there, and whispered, “You’re the only thing I believe in anymore.”

With tears in her eyes, her evening had been filled with different spectrums of emotions. Her eyes told a terror; Harry could see it from the way that she stood. Someone’s blood on her hands, her own hands still shaking.

Harry bit his lip as he looked at her but knew that words weren’t enough for her right now.

“Go get some rest,” he told her softly, knowing that it was the one thing she’d say to him. “You need to rest.”

Clare let a single tear run down her face, a sniffle followed as she gave him a tight smile, “I will.”

And with that, she turned to leave his small space– one day older, and another day further.

+++

It had been a few nights since Harry had laid eyes on Clare.

Most of the men had drifted into uneasy naps, the hush broken only by the hum of distant footsteps, the occasional clatter of a tray, and the low murmur of birdsong outside the tall windowpanes.

Clare had lingered after her rounds. Not out of duty, though she told herself that was part of it.

Harry had been awake all morning, his wounds no longer fresh enough to draw constant pain but still healing, still temperamental. He’d walked a full circuit of the ward that morning, joking gruffly with one of the orderlies, pushing through the ache in his thigh like it owed him something. He looked less like a patient and more like a man waiting for orders that wouldn’t come.

Now, with the curtains half-drawn and sunlight painting lazy patterns across the floor, Clare pulled a chair to the side of his bed. No chart in hand. No task pending. Just… company.

She didn’t speak at first. She didn’t need to.

Harry sat up slowly, back against the raised bed frame, and looked at her with that same unreadable expression he often wore when he was too tired to be guarded but too proud to ask for kindness.

The air raid had passed, though the ward still trembled with the tension it left behind. There were more men than before, and Harry had noticed that there was a lot more movement around the ward.

Outside, the clouds had begun to thin, but the scent of smoke clung stubbornly to the windowpanes, like something that didn’t want to be forgotten. Inside, the ward was dim again, lit only by a few low bulbs strung across the beams and the occasional flicker of light through the curtains.

Harry sat up in his cot, blanket gathered loosely around his waist, legs bent as he leaned forward over the small wooden crate they’d turned into a makeshift table. Cards lay scattered between them, worn at the edges from too many rounds. Clare sat across from him on a low stool, knees drawn together, her uniform sleeves pushed to her elbows.

Her fingers moved over the cards with quiet precision, shuffling them into a clean stack. He’d already lost two hands in a row.

“You’re ruthless,” Harry muttered, eyeing the cards she had just dealt him.

Clare gave him a half-smile, barely more than a twitch at the corner of her mouth. “Have to be."

But something was off. She wasn’t gloating like usual. Her movements were slower, less sharp. And though her posture remained straight, her eyes weren’t quite focused.

Harry narrowed his gaze. “Everything alright?”

She kept her eyes on her cards, lips parted as if to respond—but didn’t.

The silence grew, coiled between them like a thin thread stretched too tight.

Clare laid her cards down. Not folded. Just… placed, side by side with delicate care. Her hands remained on the table for a long moment before she spoke.

“There was a man,” she said, her voice low, steady. “The night of the raid. In one of the overflow tents.”

Harry didn’t speak, only let her continue.

“Shrapnel in the abdomen,” she added, swallowing deeply. “Deep. There wasn’t anything we could do.”

Her gaze drifted down to her lap, where her fingers had clasped together. White-knuckled as she recalled.

“He kept calling for his wife,” she said, her voice even, measured. As if she’d rehearsed it to try to keep herself composed. “Didn’t know where he was. Just… cried out for her. Like if he said her name enough times, maybe she’d appear.”

Harry swallowed as the images came too easily to him. Too vividly. He knew what that looked like.

“I told him she was on her way,” Clare said, quieter now, staring at her hands. “That she’d gotten his letter. That she was coming to take him home.”

She looked up, then, just a flick of her gaze toward the window, as if she could see that other tent from that morning. That man.

“He smiled,” she said. “Right at the end. He said she made ginger cake on Sundays and always wore a yellow scarf in the spring.” Her mouth twitched, something between a laugh and a breath. “He smelled like blood – I’m not one to get lightheaded, but I felt ill.”

Harry’s chest tightened at her observation, the way she spoke and he let her speak. He didn't interrupt, he looked at her with pity but the kind that made him feel worse for bitching the way he did.

“I don’t cry with patients,” Clare went on, shaking her head. “Not once. Not even when they scream. Not even when they’re alone.”

She paused, but it was then, a single tear traced the curve of her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. Her face remained composed, still.

“But he…” she murmured, her voice wobbly. “He was the same age as my brother.”

Harry reached across the crate slowly, deliberately. His fingers found hers and held them there, gently. No pressure, no urgency—just warmth in the palm of his hand. Contact.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough.

Clare didn’t look at him immediately. She was breathing through her nose, quiet and slow, as if trying to pull all the emotion back in before it escaped.

“I didn’t want to upset you,” she said, pushing the tear away, “I– I just needed to talk about it.”

“You didn’t – the war is affecting us all, I –“

She shook her head, almost feeling silly for bringing it up to him, “I just… I didn’t want to forget it happened.”

“You won’t,” Harry told her. “Neither will I.”

Another tear fell, catching on her chin before she pulled in a deep breath, as though that small moment of release had to be enough.

She turned her hand beneath his, palm up now, fingers curling lightly around his. Her eyes met his—tired, honest, but dry again.

Then she let out a shaky exhale and, with a soft sniff, picked up her cards.

“You’re still losing, by the way,” she said, her voice steadier, teasing just enough to make it believable.

Harry grinned faintly, the lopsided grin that she had come to know fondly. “Don’t rub it in.”

“I’d never.” She looked up from under her lashes.

“You bloody would.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Only if I thought you could take it.”

And for a little while longer, they played their quiet game, their fingers occasionally brushing across the table when they would go to pick up a card or set one down, the warmth between them chasing away just enough of the cold that lingered in the corners of the night.

“I didn’t plan on making it back,” he said, voice low. “For a while, I didn’t even want to.”

Clare blinked, then looked at him fully. His face was thinner now, sharper in profile, the hollows beneath his cheekbones dark from restless nights. But his eyes were clearer. Still tired, still storm-swept—but clear.

The color green was undeniable; something she had come to miss when she wasn't on shift. She loved the way the green danced over her when she walked, like his eyes were magnets.

“You’re not alone in that,” she replied softly.

He nodded once, setting down a pair of hearts. “I think about them all the time. The ones who didn’t come back.”

His hand, wrapped lightly in gauze over the knuckles, drifted to the side, where a book she’d lent him sat closed on the nightstand. He tapped it once.

“I write their names down sometimes. When it’s quiet. Not because I’m afraid I’ll forget—but because I already feel like the world has.”

Clare leaned in slightly. “You don’t owe them your silence, Harry.”

He gave a short, dry laugh. “No. But I owe them something.”

He looked away, toward the window, where darkness has started to overcome them, pressed against the glass.

“I’ve got a sister back home. Older than me. Sharp as anything. She’s got two little ones—Alfie and Beth. My niece is five. She sent me a letter written in pink crayon. Told me she thinks soldiers are superheroes. I didn’t have the heart to tell her we’re not.”

Clare’s chest tightened, not just at the way he opened to her but the way that he seemed to love to talk about his loved ones – something in him lighting up just at the thought of them.

“My mum’s been trying to keep herself busy. Sewing circles, church things. My dad’s a quiet man, but he’s proud – I can tell. When he thinks no one’s looking, he’ll keep my letters folded in his shirt pocket like they’re medals. Pull ‘em out and tell his mates all about my travels.”

There was a long pause.

Clare’s voice was barely above a whisper. “They’ll be so glad to have you home.”

Harry didn’t respond right away. His jaw flexed, eyes still fixed on some distant point outside.

“I’m not married,” he said finally. “No sweetheart. No children. And I still made it home. But the others… so many of them had people waiting. Wives. Toddlers. Boys who were just learning to speak themselves, really.”

Clare felt it then—his guilt settling over the room like dust.

“I know it’s not fair,” he continued. “I know it’s war. Goddamn random and cruel. But sometimes I sit up at night and think—why me? What did I do to deserve walking away when they didn’t even get to send a goodbye?”

Clare reached for his hand before she could second-guess it – she missed it between her fingers again, and even though she knew better, she was playing a game she wasn't sure she could win. She didn’t take it fully, just touched her fingers to the edge of his wrist, warm and steady.

“Harry,” she said, firm now. “You didn’t take their place. You didn’t steal their breath. You survived. And surviving doesn’t make you guilty. It makes you human.”

He looked at her. Really looked.

The hurt was there, but so was the gratitude. And something else—soft, unspoken. Like maybe, for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel quite so hollow.

He breathed in slowly. Let it out, breathing and taking in a breath. She hesitated.

“When my brother was still alive, we'd made plans. Where we’d travel, the books we’d read. The people we’d meet. Then he was gone, and the world felt smaller.”

He said nothing, but his hand turned slightly beneath hers, palm upward. This time, she took it.

“I don’t know if I believe in fate or destiny,” she said, quieter now, continuing. “But I do believe in timing. And in second chances. Maybe that’s what you have now.”

His thumb brushed over her fingers.

“What if I don’t know what to do with it?”

Clare gave a small, half-smile.

“Then maybe you take it one day at a time. Maybe you meet someone for a drink. Maybe you walk your niece to school and help your sister with her garden. Maybe you learn to live without apologizing for it, maybe you stay in London or see a new city," She swallowed, "Maybe you find yourself a sweetheart."

Harry leaned back slightly, as if the weight in his chest had eased just by her giving him choice and permission to move forward. The noise of the ward had returned, faintly—a distant conversation, a nurse laughing two rooms over.

But for a moment, everything else was still.

Clare reached for the book on his nightstand and opened it. Inside the front cover was her note—short, handwritten, her script looping in soft curves.

He looked down at the words, then back at her.

“Wasn't boring, by the way.” He told her, setting his cards down. “Was quite good.”

“Ready for another one, then?” Clare asked, setting the book back down.

Harry nodded with confirmation, giving her a faint smile. “Always ready.”

+++

It was late. The kind of late where the world went still, and the only sound in the ward was the rhythmic ticking of the clock above the supply cabinets and the soft, wheezy breath of a soldier two beds down.

Harry sat propped up in his cot, a dim reading lamp clipped to the shelf beside him. The book Clare had brought him weeks ago lay open on his lap, though his eyes hadn’t touched the words in some time. His thoughts kept drifting—to the war, to home, and mostly, to her.

Clare stepped into the ward quietly, her shoes silent on the polished floor. She wasn’t on shift. Not technically. But her hair was down and there was no clipboard in her hands, just a plain mug of tea and a knowing look.

Harry watched her approach like someone watching a secret arrive.

“You always drink a cup this late?” he asked, voice low so it wouldn’t carry.

“Only when I know someone’s still awake pretending to read, and I can sit with them for a bit.”

She offered the mug, and he took it with a small smile. “What gave me away?”

“You were on the same page when I checked an hour ago.”

He smirked, taking a sip of the tea. “Observant.”

“I’m a nurse. Comes with the territory. It's why you're getting better so quickly.”

Clare sat on the edge of the nearby supply bench, facing him. She didn’t look tired. Just quiet, thoughtful.

“I heard the brass came in today,” she said gently. “Paperwork’s through?”

Harry nodded, trying his best to put on a good face. “Yeah. I’m out in two days. Failed my physical test."

There was a long pause, then, like she was waiting for him to remember how good it would feel to leave, but knew how disappointed he had been in himself. Clare glanced down, twisting the ring on her finger that wasn’t for anyone. “You’ll be glad to get home, I’m sure.”

“Sure,” he said, a little too quickly, almost like he was lying to himself. Then, slower: “Yeah. I mean… it’s home, right?”

But the words hung there like something unfinished.

She looked up at him, keeping her eyes still. “You’ve got people waiting on you to return in one piece.”

“Haven’t seen them in… God, over two years now.” He gave a soft laugh. “They probably won’t even recognize me. Which might be for the best. No need to scare them off with all this.”

Clare frowned, her gaze flicking over the healing burns along his neck, the tension in his shoulders that came with healing.

“They’ll be proud,” she told him, honestly in her voice. He could see that she was trying to keep her hands busy, but didn’t know how to make it not obvious. “You came home, that's all that matters to them.”

Harry looked at her then, and something in his face shifted. That sharp, dry wit gave way to something bare and unsettled.

“Some of them didn’t,” he said, reminding her. “Men with wives. Children. And I’m the one packing my things.”

“Don’t do that,” Clare said softly – he could tell that he may have made a mistake in talking about men who had died, who weren’t there, “Don’t carry the guilt of being alive. You’ve carried enough,” she shook her head. “You don’t have to be brave in here.”

He was quiet for a long time, not knowing if he needed to respond, not knowing what he should say.

Then: “Feels heavier at night.”

She stood slowly, walked the few steps to his bedside, and sat beside him on the edge of the mattress. They didn’t touch. Not yet. But their arms were close enough that the warmth between them was unmistakable.

Harry’s voice was rough when he spoke. “It’s easier when you’re near.”

That silence again—thick and blooming with a charge neither of them could explain.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Clare said, but it was barely a whisper.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll want to believe them.”

His hand shifted slightly on the blanket, like he was fighting the urge to reach for hers. But she leaned in first—just enough that their shoulders brushed, their breaths mingled. Her perfume was faint but familiar by now, notes of soft lavender. Clean linen.

She turned her head and looked at him, mouth parted as if she might say something. But she didn’t. Her eyes stared at his parted lips as if remembering what it would feel like to reach out and touch them. She couldn’t recall the last time she was touched like that.

Harry leaned just slightly closer, to the point where their noses almost touched. Her hand rested on the edge of the blanket, fingers curled loosely, and for a moment he thought—hoped—she might reach for him too.

But she pulled back a heartbeat before anything could happen.

“I should go,” she said quietly, standing without another word as she smoothed down her apron.

“Clare—” he started, voice thick. His hand reached out to grab at her, but he wasn’t quick enough. A sharp pain in his shoulder radiated before he winced quietly.

She looked back at him, something complicated shining in her eyes. It was a goodbye that she wasn’t prepared for, but somehow, knowing it was coming hurt more.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

And then she was gone, the soft sound of her footsteps fading down the corridor.

Harry stared at the door for a long time, heart pounding like he was still falling from the sky. It was weird how it did that – weird how feeling that way could make him feel like living and dying and loving were all synonymous.

But was glad that his heart could feel, even if his brain struggled.

+++

Five weeks.

That’s how long it had been since Harry was dragged unconscious into the military hospital—burned, broken, half-lucid, and gripping the fading image of a smoking French sky.

Now he could walk without assistance, eat without pain, and sit in the quiet without flinching every time the wind hit the windows wrong. Physically, he’d mended well enough. But the wound that mattered most—the empty space left by Dean, the weight of a crew scattered like ash—was nowhere near healing.

Tomorrow morning, he would be discharged. He would be sent back to Manchester.

The orders sat like a stone in his stomach.

The matron had delivered the final orders that afternoon. He was being sent back home to Manchester—no reassignment, no further duty. His left shoulder was too damaged to meet active service standards, the muscle strain and scar tissue compromising his full range of motion. His service to the Royal Air Force was officially complete.

Honorable discharge, they'd called it. But it didn't feel like honor. It felt like being sent home from a war he hadn’t finished fighting.

He sat at the edge of his bed in his small private space, elbows on knees, listening to the clatter of dishes down the hall, the distant crack of a radio playing swing music somewhere. The curtain was half drawn, the soft light of early evening stretching golden fingers across the tiled floor.

A half-packed satchel sat by his nightstand—just a few changes of clothes, the worn book Clare had lent him, and a letter John had helped him send to Bennett’s hospital.

He turned the book over in his hands now, thumb brushing the corner of the faded cover. A Farewell to Arms. Ironic, really. He'd finished it two days ago and hadn’t stopped thinking about the ending since.

There was a gentle knock on the frame outside the curtain. His heart reacted before his voice did because he knew that someone had come to say their goodbyes.

“Yeah?”

Clare stepped inside, her cap slightly askew, cheeks warm with color. She was out of uniform now—just her soft cardigan and skirt, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

“I thought you might still be here,” she said.

“I haven’t been sleeping much.” Harry told her, putting down a few of his items that he had been holding to pack away.

She nodded like she understood, then smiled faintly. Her breath was deep as she tilted her chin up, almost like she was trying to keep it together. “I heard it’s your last night.”

“That’s what they’re telling me.”

She reached into her bag and handed him a parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine. “I brought you something.”

Harry stood then, taking it in his hands. He opened it slowly, careful not to tear it. Inside was a copy of A Farewell to Arms, a different edition than the hospital’s—hardcover, older, with a clothbound spine. He looked up at her.

“Couldn’t keep you reading the ward’s tattered one,” she said, shrugging. “Figured you’d need something to throw across the room when you get angry at the ending again.”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Still not over it.”

“I know.”

He opened the cover, looking over the edition that she had given him and caught sight of her handwriting on the inside flap. Neat, but a little slanted, like she’d written it quickly.

Harry— Until you find your next story. —Clare

His throat caught around something he couldn’t quite name, eyebrows narrowing at it before he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Thanks,” he said, quieter than he meant.

“I was hoping you might write to me.” She moved to lean against the nearby dresser, arms crossed, but not defensively. More like she didn’t know what else to do with her hands. “I’d like to know how Manchester treats you once you arrive home.”

He glanced up, studying her. There was something deliberately casual in her tone, but her eyes were shining slightly. She was trying not to cry. That alone undid him.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next,” he admitted to her before he let his shoulders settle.

Clare nodded, shrugging with a small smile. “You’re not supposed to know.”

“They gave me this medal,” he said, showing her the item that was tucked into his satchel now. “Told me I’d shown bravery. I think they needed a reason to sign me off and not feel guilty.”

“You were brave.” Clare told him – a reminder she would give him forever, if he let her.

“I was lucky. That’s all.” Harry ran a hand through his hair then, sighing.

“Sometimes,” Clare said, stepping forward as she adjusted the collar of his shirt that he had been given; something different than the hospital wear, “surviving is harder than dying.”

That struck something in him, deep and cold. The kind of truth you only recognize after war has carved a hollow into you, but the way that her near him felt electrifying. Clare gave him a look before going to tuck her skirt beneath her knees, sitting on the edge of his bed. He followed.

He closed the book and set it on his lap, then looked up at her. “I want to take you for a drink sometime.”

That made her smile, slow and uncertain and lovely – not wanting to make it obvious that it was one of the things that she had wished for.

“You’d come to London?” she asked.

“I’ll make the trip,” he said. “Promise I’ll wear a clean shirt and everything.”

“Well,” she teased, “now I’m tempted to see what that looks like.”

He reached for her hand. She didn’t hesitate to give it to him.

Her fingers curled gently between his, and for a while, neither of them said anything. The hospital faded around them—the clatter and coughs, the smell of antiseptic, the ghost sounds of war.

“I don’t want this to be it,” he said finally, ghost of a whisper on his breath as he held her hand on his lap.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Her eyes were filled with tears; knowing that the five weeks together were the ones that kept her the sanest.

“But it might be.”

She didn’t argue. Clare was never the sort to make promises she couldn’t keep.

“This past month…” she began, then stopped. “It’s been different with you here, you know.”

“Better or worse?” The lopsided grin was back; eyes searching hers when they turned to face one another.

“Both,” she said, smiling gently. “But mostly better.”

He wanted to kiss her – he had never wanted to kiss her more than he had right now. But the room felt too still, too full of goodbye.

So instead, he whispered, “Will you write me back?”

Clare let out a dry laugh, shaking her head as she tried to keep her tears behind her eyelids, unsure of how she was doing it up until then, “Of course.”

Then, as if something cracked open inside him, he added, “You’re the only reason I didn’t lose my mind here.”

Clare exhaled, and the breath trembled. “I think you’re the reason I’ve lost mine.”

It was then that she found the utter need for the push and pull to draw her into him. She searched his lips, parted slightly before she allowed her hand to fall on the back of his neck, drawing her lips to his. She kissed him then—slowly, properly, like the space between them had finally closed.

When she pulled away, her hands lingered at his jaw, and her voice was low. “Don’t let this war define you. You get to choose who you are after this.”

Harry nodded, his eyes locked on hers.

“And when you’re ready,” she added, her eyes still laying on his lips as their foreheads pushed together, “come find me.”

With finality, she heard some steps around his room – she moved to her feet to move apart as she smoothed down her skirt. She stepped back, her silhouette framed by the curtain’s edge as she turned around for one last look.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, Clare.”

She slipped out into the corridor, the curtain fluttering softly behind her. Harry stayed there long after she was gone, the book resting in his hands. He opened it again, rereading her note.

Until you find your next story.

He didn’t know where to start yet. But maybe—just maybe—it began with a letter.

+++

The train to Manchester had felt like it had taken one hundred years.

When Harry stepped off the train, satchel in hand, the air had smelled of coal smoke and cold steel, the same scent he'd known since boyhood. But everything else felt sharper, more fragile—like he was walking through a memory that hadn’t quite settled back into place. This didn’t feel like home anymore, it felt stranger than that.

His mum had cried as soon as she saw him. Not loud or dramatic, just a quiet kind of weeping, her hands wrapped around his face like she couldn’t believe it was real. His dad stood behind her, stiff-backed, his eyes red, though he never said why. When he finally clapped Harry on the shoulder, it was with the strength of a man who’d held back every emotion for four weeks too long.

His sister, Nora, had nearly tackled him, Alfie and Beth tumbling behind her like puppies, shouting “Uncle Harry!” and pulling at his coat like they thought he might vanish if they let go.

He’d sat at the kitchen table that night, the old kettle hissing in the background, and listened to them talk over one another. Every story, every small detail, felt like a lifeline anchoring him back to the living.

But underneath it all was the ache.

Because when Nora kissed her children goodnight, he thought about Dean, who would never see his own grow up. When his father poured him a glass of whisky, hand trembling just slightly, he thought of Bennett and wondered if he’d been able to write home yet. And when Beth handed him a drawing of the two of them standing under a rainbow, he had to turn away for a moment so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

He was home, he was where he grew up and his family was. But part of him still felt like he hadn’t landed. Not completely. Not until he made his way to London.

Not until Clare.

+++

Three Months Later.

May, 1943. London.

The train rocked gently beneath Clare’s feet, a lull in the evening rhythm that almost matched the flutter in her chest. She sat by the window, a coat in her lap for the chilly evenings, a letter in her gloved hands. She had read it more times than she could count, but tonight—on her way to see him—it felt different.

It felt real.

Clare had been able to take the train back to her flat in London for the weekend, getting a break from the hospital. She didn’t tell the other nurses about this particular meet up – she'd be teased endlessly, but she knew that they had an inkling when she started messing with lipstick in her bag.

London was a few hours away, and somewhere in the maze of its streets, Harry was waiting for her.

She found a compartment with a few older women and a quiet soldier who nodded once in her direction and returned to his paper. The train lurched forward, wheels shrieking against the tracks, and Clare leaned her forehead against the cool windowpane. Fields slipped by, blurred in the bit of drizzle, but her mind was miles ahead, already at the corner of a pub, searching the crowd.

The journey stretched long and winding, as though time itself resisted her reunion with him. The envelope was soft now, its edges creased, and corners worn from being tucked into coat pockets and beside her pillow. His handwriting filled the page in a neat, deliberate scrawl, like he had taken his time, like he wasn’t used to writing anything that wasn’t a flight log or a report.

He was writing something a bit more important to him than those.

- Postmarked - May 5th, 1943 – Manchester Lt. Styles, Harry E.

My dearest Clare,

I’ve been trying to start this letter for days, but nothing felt quite right. Every piece of paper that I started got crumpled and thrown away because I needed this to be perfect. I wrote quite a lot to my friends and family during training, but those didn’t mean as much as this does.

Manchester is colder than I remember. My mum won’t stop feeding me, but my sister and father are very happy to have me home. I can tell that they’re proud of me. Dad has been keeping me busy with putting me to work on fixing things that aren’t broken, but I know he cares and wants me to be better. The people in town stare at me like I came back missing a limb instead of just not going back at all. But you were right. I do get to decide who I am after this.

I’ve decided I’m the sort of man who keeps his promises.

So, I’m writing because I’ll be in London for a few days come next week, Thursday through Sunday. I’ll be at The Red Lion on Argyle Street Thursday evening, around seven.

If you don’t come, I will assume that what we had shared in those difficult weeks was meant to shape me for who I am and was just a small part of the story I’m supposed to be writing for myself. I will make ends with that, and I wish you all the best. You gave me hope, and I will forever be grateful for every conversation we shared. I will move on, and so will you, but I will always think of this chapter.

If you do come, I will know that everything I felt then was real, and that you felt it too. I will recognize that who I am now is stronger than who I thought I was then. I would love to see you again, Clare. I’ll be the one trying not to look like I ironed my shirt just for you.

I hope you’re well, Clare. Truly. I hope your hands are warm and you’ve found ways to sleep through the nights. I hope your laughter still comes easily after everything you’ve seen. You deserve to smile, and the world needs to see it now more than ever.

Yours, always,

H

Clare folded the letter slowly, sliding it back into her bag as the train hissed to a halt. Her breathing was uneven, as she thought of his hands scribbling against the paper, wanting to feel something so badly.

By the time the train hissed into King’s Cross, her limbs were stiff and her mouth dry from nerves. She navigated the narrow corridor and stepped off into the crowded station, swallowed by the shuffle of coats and caps, voices and suitcases thudding along the stone. There was something about London, even in the midst of a terrible war, it hummed with movement, life refusing to be quieted.

The streets outside were still wet from afternoon rain, puddles reflecting the glow of gas lamps and storefronts. She walked with purpose, her heels clicking quietly against cobblestones, heart hammering beneath her navy-blue dress—the one her friend had helped her choose, the one she hadn’t worn since before the war began.

The color matched her eyes, her hair pinned neatly away from her face.

When she reached the pub, warm light spilled from the windows, the sound of music and soft laughter carrying into the street. She hesitated at the door for just a second, smoothing the fabric of her coat, and then stepped inside. The pub was warm and crowded, the floor a scuffed checkerboard of dancing feet and shuffled boots. Men in uniform leaned over pints. Women in soft cardigans and bright lipstick sat in small groups or danced between tables.

Clare scanned the room, her heart suddenly thrumming too loudly to hear the music.

He was already there. At a table near the back, turned slightly toward the door, Harry looked up the moment she walked in.

His uniform was clean, pressed to perfection. His RAF jacket fit perfectly against his broad shoulders as he sat, hands around a pint almost like he was more anxious than her – there was no doubt, he was. His hair was combed back, though it curled a little stubbornly at the nape of his neck.

But then his eyes saw her; he didn’t move at first, almost like he had thought it was a dream. He stood when he saw her, slower than a man without pain but steady on his feet, and smiled—a little unsure, a little shy, but unmistakably him with the dimple creeping into his cheek.

He moved toward her, weaving between people without a word, the pint glass abandoned. Clare met him halfway, her pulse loud in her ears, breath catching just before she said his name.

“Clare,” he said, greeting her softly, saying her name like a prayer. It was the one thing that felt rooted in God.

“Harry.”

For a moment, neither moved. Neither of them could imagine a world where they saw each other outside of the bubble they had created behind the curtains of his hospital bed.

But, here was their moment – here was the moment that Clare had referenced in survival. Every moment that had led to this was a moment that Harry couldn’t have accounted for.

Then she crossed the room, and he pulled her into a careful embrace—his good arm around her waist, the other resting gently at her back. They stood like that longer than was proper, longer than anyone else in the pub noticed, hearts pressed close as if they were still in the silence of that hospital ward.

“I,” He stopped for a moment; the scent of her perfume was overwhelming in a way that he couldn’t have imagined, “I didn’t know you’d come”

Clare held onto his jacket, pressed in the embrace as she took in the smell of tobacco, the smell of soap and warmth of smoke that wafted from the material like he had smoked a full pack before she arrived in anticipation, holding onto him like she didn’t know how to let go.

But for a moment, it was quiet between them. Still. The kind of still that doesn’t feel empty, but full with things unsaid, things still blooming.

She only looked at him, really looked, and saw the faint shadow of the man he’d been in the hospital: pale, exhausted, trying to stitch himself back into something whole. That memory curled beside the man now standing before her, eyes soft, shoulders no longer burdened quite the same. He had color in his cheeks. He had a glint in his eye that hadn’t been there in the ward, when the light had felt too far away.

And she hadn’t realized, until this moment landing between his arms, how much she’d needed this. How much she’d needed him.

Not just the man she missed, but the very act of missing someone. Of longing. Of hoping. Of standing in a room of strangers and seeing one face that made everything feel… rooted again. Like something could begin, even now. Even after everything.

Across from her, Harry couldn’t stop looking at her — like if he blinked, the vision might vanish. His fingers curled tighter around her, grounding himself in the reality of her warmth. In the scent of her hair and the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled up at him like that.

He had been prepared for her not to come. When he had written that letter with equal parts courage and resignation, he realized that there was disappointment in life – he knew that more than anyone. But now, standing here with her hand in his and her breath still on his lips, he felt something collapse inside of him. A tension held too long. A question finally answered.

She came. She was here. She still wanted him — not the airman he used to be, but the man he was now. Scars and all.

They didn’t need to speak again just yet. There would be time for that. For stories. For apologies. For everything they hadn’t said in the soft ache of two months apart. But for now, they just stood — folded into one another like a secret, quiet and whole — while the rest of the world went on, none the wiser.

And Clare thought, as she let her head rest against his shoulder and he pressed a steady kiss to her temple,

So this is what it feels like… to be known, and still wanted. To arrive somewhere, and be seen.

She closed her eyes. She hadn’t known how much she’d needed to be held by someone who had missed her just as much. And she took a deep breath in that feeling, to know that there was something to look forward to.

Them.

[moonymarvel]

I was scared to take a breath, didn't want you to move your head... (Bob Reynolds x female reader *SMUT MINORS DNI*)

🂱︎ pairing: Bob Reynolds x Thunderbolts/New Avengers female reader

🂱︎ synopsis: You're upset after a recon mission with Yelena goes slightly wrong, and Bob jumps at the opportunity to comfort you. He suggests to put on a film, and in the cosy movie room in the dim lights it leads to the two of you to become closer and more intimate than you ever have before.

🂱︎ genres: fluff fluff! friends with feelings as @em1i2a3 calls it, friends to lovers.

🂱 warnings: SMUTTY SMUT SMUT MINORS DNI! unprotected sex, p in v, fingering, praise kink, mentions of anxiety, mentions of wounds/injuries, mentions of Bob's previous drug use

🂱 notes: this is a bit long lol I kinda didn't know where I was going with it at first whoops... inspired by the line of lyrics in the title from the Sombr song 'back to friends' !

You let out a soft groan as your weight shifted on your bed, your muscles aching, bones still healing, and your heart pounding.

You'd been on a recon mission with Yelena last night, when things went sideways and the getaway car you drove flipped on its head, rolling a few times as you and Lena had no choice but to jump out of the car.

You'd both limped your way back to the tower to meet the medical team, your arm around Yelena's waist holding her up. Your rib was fractured and you had bruising all over your body, but Yelena wasn't so lucky. She had jumped out straight into some concrete, meaning she had to be monitored for a few days in the hospital wing for head injury and trauma.

You were at least able to sleep in your own bed after being patched up, but you couldn't help but feel drowned with guilt as Yelena was bedridden for the next few days.

"Lena? It's me." You opened the curtain slowly, holding an assortment of breakfast foods for her. You made sure to give her a wide selection, settling on a bowl of oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter drizzled on top, a plate of bacon and eggs, and her favorite pastries from the bakery across the road.

"Oh thank god thought I was hallucinating the smell of those pastries--" She said excitedly, reaching her arms out to you fingers motioning to hand her the food.

She dug in hastily, and despite the events of last night she seemed alright, considering.

"Yelena I'm sorry. I-- I should've gotten us out of there earlier-- quicker." You said sat on the edge of her hospital bed criss-cross-applesauce pulling apart a spare pastry she insisted you have.

"Don't even worry about it. This is all just precautions, honestly these idiots don't know the extent of things I went through in the red room, these injuries are nothing." She said with that thick Russian accent, so nonchalantly talking about her dark past. You stayed silent, still guilt ridden and full of regret.

"Hey, y/n. It's okay, I promise." Yelena reached over to hold your shoulder, the edges of her mouth covered in crumbs.

"You got me back! And we were fine. So fine. Really." She added reassuringly. You nodded, and gave her a small smile.

"Now stop disrespecting Mr Krispy Kream and eat your donut instead of pulling it apart." She finished, and you let out a soft chuckle, grateful for her ability to make light of these situations.

You both continued eating, and when nothing was left but empty bowls and crumbs you got up and took the tray of food to the kitchen.

You turned the corner and saw a familiar figure hovered over the sink, sweatshirt rolled up to his forearms, hair messy and falling over his face.

"Good morning Bob." You say, making your way over to the sink behind him.

"Y/n! Hey, morning!" He replies, tone happy and light that you couldn't help but crack a small smile.

"I heard about last night... A--Are you okay?" He asked, hands busy with the dishes and covered in soap.

"I'm f-fine. Yeah. Could've been worse I guess." You reply softly, leaning on the counter, hand clutching your bandaged side. You wince under your breath, and notice the purple and red hues beneath your skin that cover your hand.

You look up and meet Bob's worried gaze, hair falling over his face as his attempts to push it away, which just resulted in him leaving bits of soap on his temple. His lips were pressed in a thin line, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"y/n, are you okay?" He repeated. He always did this, saw right through you and your excuses. You both have grown quite close since moving into the tower, as you both had insomnia and anxiety. You'd find yourself up at odd hours of the night, with only Bob and a good book keeping you company.

He knew you better than anyone else on the team, always somehow knowing exactly what you needed. On the other hand your presence calmed Bob, hushing the constant buzz that constantly filled his head.

After especially hard missions, you'd come back to the compound to Bob doing some cleaning up, and upon seeing your tired figure enter, he'd immediately get to work on making you a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

During larger gatherings or meetings you'd pick up Bob's nervous ticks, when he'd start pulling at the loose threads of his sweater, or start to rub his eyes a little too often, and you'd find yourself giving him a gentle nudge or a reassuring squeeze with your hand to calm him.

Bob would knock at your door to check on you on the days you wouldn't leave your room, and make sure you'd eaten.

You'd stand up for Bob when Valentina or anyone else was putting too much pressure on him, and made sure that he was on top of his medication and therapy exercises.

"y/n?" You'd zoned out completely, and Bob was now stood in front of you, blue eyes full of worry.

"It's my fault." You whispered.

"w-what do you mean?" Bob asked, wiping his damp hands on the sides of his trousers, leaving behind even more wet marks on his clothes.

"Yelena... It was a simple recon mission. I just needed to get her out-- now she's in the hospital wing-- I just feel-- like I failed." Your vision clouded slightly, and you looked to the floor to avoid Bob's gaze.

He studied you for a second, before he gently lifted your chin up.

"I saw Yelena this morning, she's alright y/n. She's going to be okay." His fingers were soft and tender on your chin, and you looked up at him through teary eyes.

"I don't want to be the reason anyone else gets hurt." You whisper, and you knew Bob understood.

He didn't say anything, but he pulled you in for a gentle hug. He was slightly wet from doing the dishes, but you didn't really care. You buried your head into his soft sweatshirt inhaling the scent of him, with a little bit of dishwashing soap, and let a tear slide down your cheek. Then another, and another.

"Shhh. It's okay." Bob whispered, head resting on top of yours, holding you tightly. He couldn't help but catch a whiff of your shampoo, the one you lent him once and he's been obsessed with ever since. It smelled of coconut and vanilla, and he's since associated those scents with you.

He just stood there with you, and time seemed to slow when he held you in his arms, the rest of the world melting away.

You'd pulled apart from him eyes slightly red and cheeks stained with tears, a little embarrassed at your emotional outburst.

"I-I'm sorry Bob. Oh shit, I got your favorite sweatshirt all drenched I'm so sorry." You added, wiping your hands over his shoulder as if that would dry the spots from your tears, only to feel his hard muscles underneath his sweatshirt.

"Don't worry, this sweatshirt's had it's fair share of tear stains before." Bob replies, a slight blush tinting his cheeks at the feeling of your hands on him.

"d-do you wanna maybe put on a film? Get your mind off of it?" He adds.

"Y-yeah... I would love that actually." You're grateful for a distraction, and you grab some tissues from the cupboard dabbing away the leftover moisture on your face. You hear Bob shuffle around the kitchen behind you, pulling out two mugs, some chocolate powder, and milk. You take it upon yourself to grab some microwave popcorn from another cupboard, Bob shyly stepping aside to give you room.

You microwave the popcorn as Bob finishes up the drinks, the two of you stood silent but comfortable as the hum of the microwave filled the room.

"The rest of the team are gone by the way, they're out on mission... so we have the movie room to ourselves if--if that's where you wanna watch a film." Bob adds, stirring the liquid chocolate and adding the toppings just the way you like it.

"That's perfect" You chuckle

"No Alexei speaking over the dialogue or Walker acting like he's some film critic." You add. He flashes you a shy smile, mugs of finished hot chocolate in either hand.

"Ready?" He asks. The microwave dings and you grab the bag out of it, filling the room with the buttery smell.

You follow Bob's lead into the large movie room upstairs, cluttered with pillows, blankets, and some large couches all pointed towards the massive screen.

After minutes of discussing what film to put on, you both settle on a comedy film neither of you had seen before.

You make yourself comfortable on the couch, pulling over some blankets and a small table to put your hot chocolate down on. Bob sinks into the space next to you, hot chocolate already half empty with a hint of whipped cream covering his top lip.

"How have you had that much already! The films not even started yet!" You tease.

"I was hungry!"

You laugh, and if Bob could bottle up the sound and play it whenever, he would.

You lean over, closing the small gap between the two of you. Bob freezes, unsure of what to do but scared that whatever he does will ruin the moment.

He's not sure what to expect, but your hand comes up to cup his face and your thumb lightly swipes the whipped cream off his top lip.

Your finger was soft, gentle, but he could feel the small calluses that littered your skin from years of hero work.

You had your eyes locked on his lips, and you could have held his face in your hand forever.

You pull away, and Bob clears his throat, snapping himself out of your mesmerising touch.

"T-thanks"

"No problem."

The film opening credits begin to play and you settle into your seat, the couch so perfectly comfortable and cosy that you relax in no time.

Bob sits awkwardly next to you, not quite as relaxed, as he remembers the feeling of your hand on his face and your finger on his lips.

About a third into the film, Bob feels the slightest weight on his shoulder, and looks over to you completely slumped over on him, a light snore escaping your lips. The popcorn bag had now fallen from your hands leaving a pool of kernels on the floor, but Bob doesn't dare move to clean it up.

"y/n?" He whispers softly. There's no reply. You were exhausted after all, and the couch's soft embrace easily lulled you to sleep.

You moved, and Bob tenses, you slide down from his shoulder and he has to reposition himself to make sure you don't wake with a crick in your neck.

As slowly and carefully as he can, he slides lower down on the couch, arm coming around your shoulder. He hesitates, arm suspended in midair as if afraid to touch you. That's when you nuzzle into him in your sleep, head rested on his chest, your hand landing on his stomach.

You looked peaceful, angelic, and if it mean't Bob had to stay in this position forever just for you to get the rest you deserved than so be it.

He finally settled his arm on you, drapping it over your shoulder and side.

Bob tried his best to focus on the film, but the blooming feeling in his chest kept peeling his attention from the screen. Bob could happily drown in the smell of your hair, and tattoo the feeling of your skin on his. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears, almost scared if he took a breath too deep or moved even an inch you'd wake and he'd never have the privilege of being this close to you ever again.

He spent the rest of the film breathing as shallow as he could, even holding his breath every time you stirred. This moment was sacred to him, holding you close as you were at your most vulnerable. He drew small circles on your back, relaxing into the rhythm of your breathing.

Little did you know that ever since you and Bob moved into the tower, he became your sanctuary, your safe space. He'd enter the room and you'd calm, he'd give you a soft smile and you'd melt.

The sound of the film's score woke you from your slumber, the credits of the film rolling on the screen. You realised your position, and how you were now laid diagonally on the couch on your side with your leg over Bob's lap, head on his chest, and arm across his stomach.

You looked up slowly, to see Bob eyes focused on the screen. He almost looked like a statue, with the contours of his features being especially obvious in the dim light. He was still, almost too still. Wait, was he breathing?

"Bob?" You spoke softly, lifting your head up from on his chest.

"y/n, y-you're awake." He turned to look down at you, still looking a bit tense.

"yeah sorry, didn't mean to fall asleep... shit that position must've been so uncomfortable for you I'm so sorry--" You sit up, immediately regretting it as he warmth of him by your side fades.

"N-no, please don't be sorry... I was perfectly comfortable, and I'm glad you got some rest." He added shuffling over on the couch to give you a bit of space, even though all he wanted to do was pull you close again.

"Damn. I don't think I've had a nap, in years..." you let out a small yawn and stretch your arms up, your shirt lifting giving Bob a peak of your midriff. He swallowed at that tiny flash of skin, immediately feeling guilty for looking.

"you okay? how was the film?" you asked. Bob seemed to be looking everywhere but you, suddenly extremely interested in the details of walls behind you.

"yeah I'm all good... erm- the film, yeah uh-- it was alright, not my taste-- maybe- erm I didn't follow it really--" His eyes keep darting around the room, as if afraid to look at you for too long. He runs a hand through his loose curls, a slight redness appearing on the tips of his ears.

"Bob. You didn't watch it properly, did you?" You interrupt his rambling, and looks as if he's just been caught doing something he shouldn't have.

You laugh, and there's that sound Bob wished he could bottle up again.

"Did you fall asleep too then? Maybe it wasn't a very good film." You add, looking over at the credits rolling on the screen.

"something like that..." He finally looks up to meet your eyes, and just from that quick nap Bob can already see you've perked up massively.

"So uh- how are you feeling?" Bob asks, leaning over to finally tidy up the spilled popcorn.

"Better. A lot better, thank you Bob." You join him, scooting over on the couch your thigh making contact with his as you both lean over collecting the pieces. Your hands touch as you reach for the same kernel, the contact sending electricity up your arm.

"Sorry." He says under his breath through a small chuckle.

"Don't be." You add looking over to him, your beautiful bright eyes piercing right through all the walls that protect Bob's heart.

You collect what's left of the mess and put it aside for now, not wanting to leave Bob's side just yet.

"Shit y/n, you're bleeding." You look down on your side and see red.

"Fuck, what time is it? I think I need to change the dressing of my stitches." You press a hand on your side, feeling the sting from the stitches below.

"The spare bandages are in my room, I'll just sort this and I'll see you in a bit." You get up, wincing slightly, hyperaware of the pain on your side.

"W-wait, I can help you." Bob is stood now as well, eyebrows knitted together in concern.

"Y-you don't have to do that Bob, you've done enough already--"

"No please, I want to help. Let me help you." His voice is soft, tender, laced with something deeper than just care. Your stomach grew warm at the thought.

"Okay... Thank you." You say quietly through a small smile.

You make your way down the corridor, Bob trailing behind you like a lost puppy dog transfixed on your scent.

You open the door to your room and rummage through the first aid kit you left next to your bed last night.

Bob is standing awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

"You can come in Bob" You say over your shoulder, collecting the bandages and anti-septic cream.

Bob steps into your room shyly, taking specific note of how the room smells like you. He looked around, observing the state of your room. Posters were put up all over your wall as if the blank white paint behind them frightened you, you had a stack of books balanced precariously on your bedside table, and you had a Playstation 5 by a stack of games in the corner next to the TV.

"Sorry, I'm in need of a tidy." You felt a bit exposed, and you would almost be embarassed if it was anyone else but Bob. But you knew he'd never judge you, never.

"No no, don't apologize... The room is so perfectly, you..." He trailed off, eyes wide reading the countless movie titles on the posters that cluttered your wall. He just missed the slight blush that appeared on your cheeks, that warmth in your core bubbling up again.

You settled down on your bed as Bob timidly took a seat next to you.

"I'm assuming you know how to do this, right?" You asked, you didn't doubt he knew what he was doing, but you thought you'd give him one last chance to back out.

"y-yeah... I had to take care of myself anytime I did anything-- stupid-- whenever I was on-- y'know..." He said, almost ashamed. While your heart dropped everytime he brought up his past, you also couldn't help but feel proud of how far he'd come, and how strong he is. He dropped his gaze down to his lap, looking guilty he brought it up at all. You took one of his hands and gave it a gentle squeeze, reassuring him that he would never have to be alone like that again.

"Sorry, um, yeah. I can do this." He looked up at you through his hair, giving your hand a gentle squeeze in return. You pulled away and put the bandages and cream between the two of you, and awkwardly turned so your back was faced to him.

"Um, can I lift this up?" Bob asked as he fiddled with the hem of your shirt.

"Oh, yeah of course... Um, it may be easier if I just take it off." You didn't give Bob enough time to respond, as you pulled your shirt over your head and held it to your front. Bob swallowed, grateful you were faced away as his cheeks burned.

"Sorry, was that okay?" You asked, realising you must've taken him by surprise.

"Y-yeah of course, as long as you're comfortable." Bob couldn't peel his eyes off your bare back, which moved everytime you took a breath. You had a long line of stitches that stretched down from your right shoulder blade all the way to your side, with other patches of bruising cluttering your shoulder and arm.

Even through your injuries though, Bob couldn't help but find you beautiful. You had freckles that looked like paint speckled on a canvas, with a few older scars that looked like shooting stars across in the night sky.

He snapped himself back to reality, taking the time to gently remove the dressing that had been stained red. The light touch of his fingers on your back made you shiver, the warmth in your stomach growing.

Bob did good work with cleaning up the bleeding, and reapplying a new bandage. The moment was quiet, but intimate, something heavy weighing in the air between you two.

"Thanks..." You said, looking over your shoulder at him. His hand was still on your back, large and warm, pressed on the bandage as if he didn't want to detach from you.

"You're welcome..." He said in a low, quiet voice that made the skin under his touch tingle. Bob's hand took on a mind of it's own as he trailed a finger across your spine, making your whole body shiver. You didn't say anything as he continued lining his finger across your back, like he was painting a picture.

"That... feels really nice..." Your eyes fluttered closed, sinking into his touch. You let out a relaxed exhale, all your pain going numb under the gentle touch of Bob.

Bob was quiet, transfixed, almost no longer himself. Maybe it was the Sentry taking over for a second, or maybe it was just Bob, finally giving into the desire he'd had for you for so long.

Then he did something so soft and tender that it broke the unspoken tension between the two of you. He planted a gentle kiss on the top of your shoulder. Then another on the top of your spine, and another right behind your ear.

"Bob..." You said softly, leaning into him, the feeling of his lips on your skin making you feel drunk.

The sound of his name snapped him out of his trance, eyes going wide and pulling away, leaving your back bare and cold again.

"Shit-- uh... s-sorry... I hope that was okay... I- I don't know what came over me." Bob was flushed, almost terrified at himself for getting carried away.

"N-no please... I-- I liked it.. I-- like you Bob..." You said laying out your heart to him.

You turned to him, still clutching your shirt to your chest. His hair had fallen over his eyes, his pupils blown. You saw a shimmer of something yellow in his eyes, something golden, for a split second, then it was gone.

"I want you, Bob. Only you" Your tone was soft, but desperate, your need for him growing.

"I want all of you."

"Y/n, you drive me crazy." And with that he surged forward connecting your lips with his. The kiss was hungry, but tender still, like he was drinking you up like sweet honey. His hand came up to cup your cheeks, your hands still clutching your shirt. He tasted like chocolate and butter, lips slightly chapped and hands slightly calloused.

You both twisted and manouvered around each other on the bed, as gracefully as you could and without hurting your injuries, never unlocking lips. He settled you down softly onto your pillow hands cupping the back of your head, positioning his body on top of you.

Your side stung just the slighest, but not nearly enough for you to want to stop the moment. Your hands found his mess of curls, letting go of the thin cotton shirt that separated your bodies.

Bob pulled away, breathless, resting his forehead on yours, his hand and forearm next to your head bearing his weight.

"C-can I-" He says fingers tangling with the bottom of your shirt. You nod, and he slowly peels the fabric away exposing your upper body to him.

"God... you're beautiful." His voice was low and husky, but the compliment was soft, leaving his lips like he's wanted to say that to you forever. One of his hands began to explore your body, starting from you stomach, up to your breasts. You were aching under his touch, and when his finger even slightly grazed your nipple you let out a soft moan.

"fuck y/n, do that again for me." And with that he latched onto your nipple, sucking lightly, other hand fondling the opposite breast. You let out another moan, louder this time, giving him exactly what he asked for.

Bob was careful not to touch any of your lingering bruises as his hand continued to roam your body, lips still on your nipple eyes closed shut trying to memorise the feeling. One of his slipped under your shorts, immediately finding your soaked center.

He came up from sucking on you starved for air, looking up at you with his stunning blue eyes. He wished he could frame the way you looked, bottom lip trapped between your teeth, hair falling perfectly around your face as you moaned his name.

His fingers made contact with the wet spot on your panties, softly grazing the top of the fabric.

"f-fuck Bob..." He'd barely even touched you and you could already feel yourself begin to unravel.

"Is this okay?" He asked, not in the shy tone he usually spoke with but a deeper, hungrier, more powerful voice.

"yes-- yes--" You answered between gasps and moans as he slipped his hand into your panties, finding your sensitive bud with ease.

"aw baby, so wet already." His voice rang with that same dark tone again, and you looked into his eyes and caught just a glimpse of the golden honey the flashed in the blue.

He dipped a finger in you with ease, and you let out a moan, pushing your head back into the pillow. This gave Bob access to your neck, immediately littering your skin with soft, wet kisses.

He pumped his finger in and out, while kissing you like you were holy. He added another digit, and the feeling made your hand fly to his head, and pull at his loose curls.

"Yes baby, that's it..." his husky tone made your eyes roll back into your head, feeling the tight knot in your lower belly become more intense.

He latched on to your nipple once more, sucking and biting just the right amount that the feeling teetered between pain and pleasure.

"F-fuck Bob-- I'm gonna--" He didn't need telling, he could feel you tighten around his fingers and could hear your moans growing louder and more intense. He continued on pumping his fingers, kissing up your chest and neck,

"I've got you baby, cum for me please." You didn't need to be told twice, feeling the knot come undone as the pleasure reached its peak. Bob helped you ride out the high, littering your neck with soft kisses in between compliments.

You heaved, catching your breath. Bob kept his fingers in you for just a moment longer, savoring the feeling of being inside you.

You opened your eyes to his blue ones taking in your beautiful form, still flushed and glistening from your finish.

He slowly pulled his fingers from beneath you, and lifted his fingers to his lips, and sucking them clean.

"fuck Bob." You moaned, already aching for more.

"I love it when you moan my name." He said in his husky voice before pressing his lips on yours, letting you taste yourself as his tongue explored your mouth.

His hand came up to your side, ever so gently and still very much conscious of your injuries, which was in complete contrast to how hungrily he was kissing you, and the pressure you felt pressed up against you.

You reached down, making contact with him through his trousers, making him break the kiss to moan.

"y/n-- I-- you don't have to do that." Bob said between breaths. He was big, and you could feel him aching beneath your palm.

"you--you're still hurt-- please- don't feel like you have to do anything f-for me--" He could barely get a word out, his eyes squeezing shut as he fought the urge to unravel at your touch.

"I want to make you feel good Bob. I want to feel all of you." Bob's eyes shot open at your words, pupils wide and blown, and with one swift movement, he had you on top of him, and sat up to meet your lips.

He cradled you with arms that felt like they were molded in marble, as he kissed you as if he were drunk on the taste of you.

You could feel him pulsing beneath you, the only thing separating the two of you being his sweatpants now wet with excitement.

You start to move, craving his touch and needing friction between your legs, when he pulls away suddenly, like he's snapped out of a trance.

"You feel any bit of pain, we stop. This isn't worth it if I hurt you y/n." He had a serious tone to his voice you'd never quite heard before, but it was laced with such protectiveness and care that you knew this man would go to the ends of the earth for you.

"Yes Bob... And don't worry, I'm not made of glass." You reply playfully, already missing the feeling of his lips on yours.

"Not glass, definitely not glass." He kissed you again, cradling your body flush onto his. You traced your fingers down his body, feeling the dips and curves of his frame. Your fingers played with the frayed hems of his sweater, ever so slightly making contact with the skin beneath. You physically felt him twitch.

You pulled the sweater off, to finally reveal the physique that can only be described as heaven sent. He was toned, strong, but not overly big, and still littered with signs of Bob and his past. He was beautiful, godly, but still warm and human.

"y/n? Is something wrong?" You'd realised you hadn't spoke or moved in a second, Bob's deep voice pulling you back into the moment.

"Bob, you're beautiful." Was all you could bring yourself to say. It left your lips almost like you didn't mean to say it, like it was a secret that you didn't dare share so you could keep him all to yourself.

Bob was speechless, but his smile grew showing the creases on his temples, and the sparkle of his eyes.

"and you're perfect." His lips were on yours again in no time, and he held firmly on your hip with one hand as he began lowering his sweats down his body with the other. It wasn't graceful, but with your help he was finally bare before you.

He was flushed at the tip, and so, so incredibly big.

He lined himself up to your entrance, and slowly, you lowered yourself onto him.

You went slow, feeling every inch of him filling you up. Your head dropped onto his shoulder, and he said small praises into your hair as you took him all in.

He allowed you a moment, even through gritted teeth as your walls were so warm and tight around him. When he felt you move and lift yourself up, only then did he start thrusting up to meet you.

"You're taking me so well beautiful..." He had one hand down on the bed for support, the other holding you as your hips continued to meet in the middle.

You felt him deep in your core and it wasn't long till your legs gave out from beneath you.

"Bob--" You barely got his name out between moans, feeling the waves of pleasure all over your body.

"I know baby, I know. Do it with me okay? Just hold on a little longer." He could feel you tightening around him, and hear your moans getting loader. He kissed your neck, and worshipped your body with his free hand.

"Please--" The feeling was overwhelming now, but he continued to thrust into you at an even pace. You knocked your head back when he made contact with your nipple, his mouth doing it's magic as his thrusts became harder, sloppier, hungrier.

"You've done so good beautiful, come with me now okay? You've done so good." His praises were more than enough to send you over the edge, and your moans were music to his ears as he released deep inside you. Throughout it all Bob watched you like you were divine, hyperaware of how perfectly the two of you fit together like this.

You collapsed onto him, and he slowly let himself fall back onto the bed, cradling you again gently. You laid in comfortable silence, still catching breath and calming down.

It wasn't long however till you felt a small tingle at your back, drawing your attention back to the whole reason you two were here.

"crap. I think my stitches broke again."

[sunsburns]

the sweetest taboo — arcane (league of legends) !

⟢ content summary. tropes & relationship headcanons with arcane characters

⟢ characters. vi, jinx, cait, ekko, jayce, viktor

⟢ authors note. love making cute little stuff like these, thx sm for this request anon <3

vi & enemies to lovers (imagine vi joined the firelights instead of the pigs)

you wanted to see her fall so badly.

from the moment ekko introduces you to vi, there’s no denying the tension between you. whether it’s a disagreement about how to handle a situation or something personal, you're constantly at odds.

every conversation feels like a challenge, and you’re always testing each other’s limits.

in every interaction, there’s a fight—both verbal and, occasionally, physical. she doesn’t pull any punches, and neither do you.

you and vi are paired up for a high-stakes mission that requires precise planning and execution. what could possibly go wrong?

vi, not used to following orders, pushes back against your every suggestion, questioning your methods and trying to take shortcuts.

you feel your patience wearing thin as vi constantly does things her way, disregarding your carefully laid plans. every decision becomes a battleground—she insists on rushing in without thinking, while you want to take your time and survey the situation first.

by the end of the mission, you’ve somehow made it through despite the odds—frustration, arguments, and near-failures (and death). the sense of accomplishment feels sweeter because you did it together, even if it wasn’t easy.

as the two of you spend more time together, you start to see past the tough exterior that vi puts up. In rare moments, she shows a vulnerability that surprises you. maybe it's in the middle of a fight where she hesitates, or maybe it's in a quiet moment when the chaos around you both settles, and you see her exhaustion—physical and emotional.

these glimpses into her real self make you start questioning the assumptions you had about her. is she really just a hothead, or is there more beneath the surface?

after a particularly gruelling mission, you both find yourselves sitting in silence, patching up your wounds. vi’s usually the first to crack a joke or make light of the situation, but tonight, she’s quiet. you notice her rubbing the scar on her arm, and you can see the tiredness in her eyes. for the first time, the animosity between you feels a little lighter. you don’t say anything, but you sit in comfortable silence, the distance between you shrinking.

you’re both forced to work together more often, and as time goes on, you begin to realize that vi’s brashness and unpredictability balance out your nature. when you argue, it’s less about who’s right or wrong and more about learning to adapt to each other’s methods.

slowly, you start realizing that you rely on her just as much as she relies on you—she covers your blind spots, and you bring stability to her chaos.

she jumps into the fray with reckless abandon, and you follow her lead—trusting her instincts for the first time. when the dust settles and you both make it out alive, you catch her looking at you with something unspoken in her eyes. she gives a half-smile and you cannot stop thinking about it for a few weeks.

you start noticing small things. vi isn’t as quick to argue with you anymore; in fact, she starts making little sarcastic remarks and playful jabs that are different from the insults you used to exchange. the teasing becomes more frequent, but there’s an undercurrent of something more intimate now. she might nudge your shoulder when she’s pleased with something you did, or shoot you a smirk when she catches you staring at her for a little too long.

jinx & fish out of water

even though you feel out of place in zaun, jinx instinctively feels the need to protect you. seeing how uncomfortable you are in the chaos of zaun, jinx acts as a shield, drawing attention away from you when things get dangerous, whether it’s with hostile locals or threats from other groups.

jinx might not be the most traditional teacher, but she guides you through zaun's tough environment. she shows you the ropes, from how to barter with street vendors to how to defend yourself if things get physical.

your differences are stark when it comes to how you approach danger. jinx is spontaneous and unpredictable, while you are more cautious, always thinking about the potential consequences.

this sometimes leads to tension, especially when you're trying to slow jinx down from acting on a wild idea, but it also shows how you balance each other out.

jinx’s chaotic nature is overwhelming at times, but it also brings out a side of you you never knew existed. where you once clung to stability, you now find yourself caught up in jinx’s wild adventures, learning to enjoy the rush and thrill of unpredictability, even if it scares you.

despite the wild, chaotic surroundings, you and jinx share moments of unexpected intimacy. whether it’s sitting side-by-side in the dark, sharing stories about your lives before the downfall of zaun, or lying next to each other after a rough day, these moments make you realize that you’ve found something real in the madness.

jinx expresses her affection in her own unique way. sometimes it’s in the form of an impulsive kiss or an unexpected act of care, like fixing your hair or bringing you something she thinks will make you smile.

ekko & second chances

the fight that tore you apart wasn’t just words—it was emotional, raw, and devastating. maybe ekko was so focused on his mission for zaun that he pushed you aside, saying something hurtful like, “this is bigger than you and me—you wouldn’t understand.”

the words lingered, and no matter how much you wanted to stay, it felt like ekko had chosen his crusade over you.

years later, you’re mid-mission in piltover, tracking a stolen resource. you hear his voice before you see him.

his voice is a mix of shock and disbelief when he realizes it’s you. you turn, and there’s ekko—older, sharper, with an air of maturity, but his wide eyes and hesitant smile are pure nostalgia.

ekko doesn’t immediately try to explain everything—he’s smart enough to know it won’t fix things overnight. instead, he focuses on showing you he’s changed.

when your equipment breaks during a mission, he’s already fixing it before you even ask.

he shows up to help, even when you don’t want him to. when you call him out on it, he shrugs and says, “you can hate me all you want, but i’m not leaving you to handle this alone.”

during a mission in zaun, you find yourselves hiding in one of your old hangout spots—a small nook under a collapsed bridge where you used to plan wild schemes as kids. it brings back old memories, and the two of you try not to comment how you do not fit in there anymore.

he gives you a makeshift communicator as an apology.

you don’t immediately forgive him, but you start to let him back in little by little. asking him for advice on a job, checking in on the firelight base every once in a while.

he let you stay the night, showed you to your old room and everything. and then you stayed the night after that. and the night after that.

when you’re working late on a plan, ekko shows up with food, claiming he “just happened to be in the area.” you roll your eyes but let him stay.

as time passes, you notice how he listens more—how he makes a point to ask your opinion and actually consider it. he’s grown, and it shows in the small, thoughtful ways he interacts with you.

during a dangerous mission, you’re cornered, and ekko jumps in to shield you. it’s reckless, but it reminds you of the boy who always put others before himself, even at his own expense.

ekko doesn’t make a big, dramatic declaration of love. instead, it’s quiet and vulnerable, like him.

“i didn’t just miss you,” he says one night, while you’re sitting on a rooftop overlooking zaun. “i loved you. i think i always did, even when i didn’t know how to show it.”

jayce & friends to lovers

inserperable. no other word to describe it.

people constantly assume you’re already a couple because you’re rarely seen apart. jayce just laughs it off, saying, “nah, we’re just close,” while you both ignore the way your cheeks heat up.

whether it’s work, errands, or grabbing food, jayce naturally gravitates toward you, like it’s second nature to have you around.

you’ve developed little routines together without even realizing it. maybe it’s getting coffee every morning from the same spot, trading lunch when one of you forgets, or walking each other home after a long day.

you two have endless conversations about everything and nothing. jayce loves bouncing ideas off you, and he’s constantly sharing his thoughts, whether it’s about a new invention or a random observation.

“does it ever freak you out how fast hextech is evolving? like, what if we accidentally invent something terrifying?” he muses while you laugh and call him dramatic.

your friendship is filled with countless inside jokes and nicknames that no one else understands. jayce loves seeing the confused looks on people’s faces when the two of you burst out laughing over something random.

jayce likes fixing things for you, whether it’s repairing something broken or building something new just to make your life easier.

he loves surprising you with practical but meaningful gifts, like a gadget he made specifically for your needs.

jayce has moments that feel a little too intimate for “just friends.” maybe it’s the way he brushes his fingers against yours when handing you something, or how he gets distracted watching you talk about something you’re passionate about.

jayce is the kind of guy who doesn’t immediately realize he’s in love. it hits him in the middle of a mundane moment, like seeing you laugh at something, and he thinks, oh. oh no.

he starts doing things he wouldn’t normally do for just anyone, like learning how to cook a dish you love or reading up on something you’re sincere about so he can talk about it with you.

he’s big on physical affection. even as friends, he was the type to give casual hugs or drape an arm around your shoulders. in a relationship, he’s almost always touching you—holding hands, leaning into you, or brushing hair out of your face.

viktor & academic rivals

he does not fuck with you at all at first.

viktor finds your work frustratingly impressive, often critiquing your methods to hide his own admiration.

the two of you are constantly debating and trying to outdo each other, whether it’s in experiments, theories, or even harmless bets (like who can finish designing a prototype faster).

he does warm up to you eventually.

not by choice, though.

it's because heimerdinger put the two of you as lab partners for a project.

mutual respect grows slowly, as viktor starts to see your perspective and vice versa.

viktor loves having late-night brainstorming sessions with you, where the two of you drink tea (or coffee, if the stakes are high) and talk until the early hours. he secretly enjoys how your conversations stray into personal topics.

he isn't one for grand gestures but shows he cares in small ways—like leaving extra parts for your inventions or staying up to help you with research, even if he’s exhausted.

he remembers every detail you mention, no matter how trivial. if you once offhandedly said you like a certain type of snack, he’ll "coincidentally" have it in the lab.

viktor gets quietly jealous when someone else praises your work too much, though he'll never admit it. instead, he'll just throw himself deeper into his own projects to "prove" himself.

you often lose track of time when working together, forgetting meals and proper rest. while viktor is typically the culprit of this, you will sometimes pull him away, insisting on taking a break. this becomes their unspoken routine, with you caring for viktor when he pushes himself too far.

if you openly compliment him—whether it’s his work or appearance—he struggles to respond and often mutters, "it's nothing," while his ears turn red.

when you catch him staring, viktor pretends to be deep in thought about something else.

outside the lab, viktor loves quiet evenings with you, reading books or sketching ideas while the other works nearby. it's in these moments he realizes how much he treasures his presence.

oh, and don't forget that he is incredibly sassy omg. like when the two of you get heated, things get heated.

[miracleocean]

☞ GRUMPY NIGHT

______________

( i have vision of JAson has a bulk body )

☞ After the long night of hell, the door swing open frustratedly with Jason’s body standing intimately. You flinched when he threw himself on the couch with a loud groan.

☞ All he NEEDs is rest and quiet, yet you still nag him about how the day is while patching up his wounds. He annoyed the touch from you, the soft touch or soft voice like a fly. It’s annoying.

“Can you stfu?”

“Excuse me?”

“I need to rest alone”

“But I just want to help”

“Do you know word ‘alone’?”

You know, he said out of his tiredness. He doesn't mean to. You want to be an understanding partner, but it doesn't mean you don’t a feeling. You are hurt and upset at his unwanted attitude.

“Fine”

You close the aid kits and push to him angrily, storm out from the room. He’s laying there with finally peace. He let out a a heavy sigh that he doesn’t know he held it. There is nothing better than rest alone. Jason thinks so.

Because Jason is resting on our bedroom, and you are angry at him right now. The couch is not the best choice nor the worst. Except those blood stains he left. Strangely, your size fits on the couch comfortably. Maybe it’s not that bad you think with your heavy eyelids.

Your dream is wide.

There is dreamless sleep before a big ass red bear in front of you. You and the bear are standing in the boxing ring with bear hands. there is no fucking way you gonna alive before the heartbeat. It's crushing you into a breathless hug.

"Ah!"

You left out a squeaky voice from the weird nightmare. your forehead is sweating. you still feel breathless and hot from it. Before you looked down what the hell was on you.

"Jason?"

The big man who x3 of your size stays quiet, but you know he doesn't sleep yet. His hands rest on your waist, and his face bury in your neck. Pull you closer so you can hear his heartbeat.

It might look cute, but it's too crowded, too hot, and uncomfortable to be trapped under the 196 pounds, trust.

You called him a few times before he left a grumpy noise.

"What?"

"Can you get off? It's too hot."

"Put banket away then."

"You're on top of it."

"..."

"..."

"Can you get ou--"

"No."

Your face frowned at his words before anything got worse. He kissed on your forehead, which stunned you from unusual softness.

Moment of silence. Before you break it.

"What's wrong with you?"

He knows you asked about his action at night. Jason isn't sure if his words have enough weight to learn you. He wants to say he is sorry, that he didn't mean to, how much it is empty, he needs his spoon back. But he is man of his pride.

"The bed is cold." What an ass excuse.

"Put the banket on then."

Jason pulled his head up and frowned at you like a spoiled cat before you chuckled at the sight.

"Come back to bed."

"You said you want to rest alone."

"You know I didn't mean to. You act dramatic."

You grasp with your hand on your chest. "Excuse me?"

"Excuse you. Now come back to bed."

You pout all the way the red eyed man carries you back to the room. He tries to kiss your pout away, but it doesn't work.

"Need a snack?" You looked at him with death eyes. He left a defens heavy sigh. Jason knows exactly what he needs to do.

"I'm sorry." You raise an eyebrow. "The bed is cold without you and... and I can't sleep without my pillow. Okay?" You are looking out of the man anxiety before revealing a smile that is relieved in his chest. "Much better."

Jason lays you on the bed again now that he is hugging you without complaining.

"Goodnight, love."

"Goodnight, pup."

i have future plan about angst but i good at fluffy tho. maybe i will do Bruce(s) next maybe 3P? (i actually don't care LOL)

[musingsofahufflepuff]

Bloody Lips and Bruised Egos

Mattheo Riddle x Theodore Nott; fluff/angst

summary: when Mattheo gets in another fight, his best friend takes it upon himself to patch him up. Theodore is just his best friend…right?

a/n: when i tell you i’m a feral, rabid animal for this ship, that doesn’t even begin to cover it. yes, there will be more. god i love gay panic

Mattheo hisses as the antiseptic hits his wound with just a bit too much force. The movements are clumsy and unpracticed but he grits his teeth through it anyway. In front of him with his eyebrows furrowed is Theo, intense blue eyes staring down one of the many cuts on his face. Theodore lets out a frustrated string of expletives in Italian, or at least, what Mattheo thinks are expletives. He’s not entirely sure. But what he is sure, Theo has clearly never played nurse before.

“Theo—”

“Merda! I’ve got it Matt.”

He continues to grumble under his breath as he tries to fix the blood he managed to smear across Mattheo’s face worse than the fight had.

“Hold still!”

“I am!”

But instead of being frustrated like he probably should have been, Mattheo was trying not to laugh at how seriously Theo was taking this. If anything, it was kind of cute?

“Teddy—”

“So help me God, Mattheo.”

“What! I didn’t say anything! Your bedside manner is atrocious, Theo. Have you never cleaned a couple cuts before?”

Theodore’s hand stops its movements, eyes flicking up to meet his from where they were focused on his cheek. Mattheo holds his breath as they stare each other down. Because damn it, no one can intimidate him like his—Theo can. Mattheo breaks the staring match as he shakes his mental slip of the tongue away, praying his cheeks aren’t on fire.

“This time is different,” Theo’s voice cuts through the tense silence, pulling Mattheo from his thoughts. He shoots him a questioning look, not even needing to ask how?

“It’s you, dumbass.” There’s his answer but it just leaves Matt more confused. Theo must have picked up on the slight tilt of his head, curls shifting on his forehead, because the taller boy sighs. “Maledetto idiota. I worry about you,” it’s punctuated with a flick to Mattheo’s forehead, making him blink and pull his head back in surprise. “Oh.”

Then like it never happened, Theo is back to cleaning his wounds, gentler this time. The touch is almost feather-light, like he’s scared of hurting Mattheo further. Theo works in silence until Mattheo speaks up again; his tone dropped down, no longer making an attempt at banter. Vulnerable.

“You didn’t have to do this y’know. I could’ve done it myself… or gone to Pomfrey.” His gaze is locked on his lap, head still tilted up for Theo to do his thing. There’s a few more beats of quiet and Mattheo doesn’t even have to look up to know Theo’s trying to figure out what he wants to say.

“You got these because of me. I should be the one cleaning you up.” There it is.

Brown eyes flick up to meet blue ones, so much passing between them without a word. “You didn’t make me deck that bastard in the face.”

Theo dodges the reassurance with a shrug. He traces over the worst of the gashes with his thumb, uncharacteristically soft. “I don’t think they’ll scar.”

Mattheo hums in response as he tries to push past the gushy-feely bullshit with some banter, “that’s good, wouldn’t want my face to get any uglier.”

Theo’s brows furrow again. “What are we doing Matt?”

Mattheo’s mouth goes dry, caught off guard by the question, “wha—what do you mean?”

“Are you just playing dumb? You know what I mean.” And damn it, Mattheo does know. The lingering glances, the sitting ever so slightly too close for two people that claim to hate physical contact, the late nights smoking together and talking about everything. Mattheo is intimately familiar with what Theodore is referring to. But he’d rather take another fist to the face than admit it out loud. And maybe part of him hoped his best mate felt the same and they’d never have to have this conversation.

But a quiet voice in the back of his head, the one he tries to shove away every single time it comes up, is glad Theo’s the one to say something. That maybe something can change and Mattheo can finally do the things he’s wanted to do. The things he’s longed for in the privacy of his four poster with the curtains drawn in the middle of the night. The things he’s yearned for since his stupid, stupid heart went and fell for the one person he couldn’t have. But instead of giving in, his walls come back up and he’s sliding off the edge of Theo’s bed.

“No, I’m not playing dumb, jackass. And next time, just let me handle the clean up. It’s not like I’m dying.”

Theo’s soft expression instantaneously evaporates, making Mattheo regret ever opening his stupid mouth. Hell, he wishes Theo would look mad, pissed, hit him, anything other than the cold, dead eyes he’s getting now. And he wants to apologize, he really does. But pride? ego? cowardice? holds him back.

So he does what he always does when it comes to Theo and this stupid little dance they’ve been doing all term. He runs away. And fuck, he really does feel like a coward. But he can’t—can’t what exactly? He’s not entirely sure.

Before he can make it to the door, Theo’s barking his name. “Mattheo! Wait.” And he’s barely given a moment to react.

Theo grabs him by the collar of his shirt and yanks him close. As their chests bump together, Mattheo’s eyes widen, heart thundering in his chest. The grip on his shirt slowly relaxes and is shifted to the back of his neck. Mattheo braces for a punch.

But instead he gets lips lightly pressing against his. And fuck he thinks his heart might stop. He’s experienced kisses before, heated make out sessions in broom closets and sloppy drunken ones at parties but nothing like this. This is gentle and tender and sweet in a way no one else has ever been with him. And he damn near melts.

His hands automatically come up to cup Theo’s face, a hint of scruff under his fingertips. Mattheo’s seen Theo kiss people before; passionate, like he’s trying to devour them whole, but this is different. He could have never anticipated Theo’s lips to be so soft, the movement like he’s scared Mattheo might break apart without warning. Maybe he will.

Before he can quite get addicted to this feeling—this sinful, heavenly feeling—Theodore’s pulling away. And it takes everything in Mattheo to not chase after his lips. Instead they stare at each other for a moment, breathing a little heavy and cheeks lightly flushed. Then Theo’s running a hand through his hair with a murmured curse under his breath and leaving the dorm. Taking Mattheo’s heart with him.

[sollattes]

your warmth

yandere!txt when you take care of them

warnings: yandere themes ofc, mentioned violence and kidnapping :)

! Choi Yeonjun

— before Yeonjun could even call out to you his vision suddenly became black and the last he heard was a thump. Once he regained his consciousness again, he noticed that he was not lying on the hard floor but instead, on the couch with damp towel on his forehead. He tried sitting up but there was a weight on his stomach preventing him from doing so, when he looked down to see what it was, he’s heart immediately warmed up to what he saw. There sitting on the floor was your sleeping figure leaning against his stomach. He carefully lifted you up to lie in his chest. While lying there with you he also noticed the now cold soup and tea on the coffee table. Yeonjun’s smile got wider, his cheeks now flushed from your efforts as the thought of you finally returning his affections made him giddy.

! Choi Soobin

— while cooking Soobing accidentally cut himself, the wound was quite deep and at least an inch long. Normally Soobin would’ve assessed this situation calmly but you suddenly sprung up from where you were sitting, the sound of the chair being dragged on the floor made Soobin flinch in surprise as he turned to look at you. He watched as you rushed to check on his wound and when you were done you immediately put the wound under running water, grabbed a tissue, then wrapped it around the cut before zooming off to find the first aid kit. Soobin watched you do all of this with adoration absolutely dripping from his eyes. When you finally found the first, you guided him to sit with you and began treating his wound. While blowing on his wound, he suddenly captured your lips into a passionate kiss to hopefully convey his unsaid affections for you. “Thank you.” Soobin softly said when he pulled away, still looking into your eyes then stroking your cheeks with his free hand.

! Choi Beomgyu

— Beomgyu had sprained his ankle while chasing after you when you tried to escape earlier. Then, at night while sleeping with in your bedroom with him, you noticed his ankle was swollen and glowing a painful red, so carefully you removed his grip from you and went to the bathroom. there you grabbed a medicated heating patch and an ointment. You went to the bedroom then slowly removed the comforter that was covering Beomgyu, with light hands you put the ointment on the areas where it was swollen then securely putting the patch, making sure to put it where it looked like it hurt the most. after making sure that everything looked okay you went back to Beomgyu’s then slept soundly without ever knowing that he was awake the whole time. without ever knowing that he was smiling and enjoying the whole time. without ever knowing that he held you tighter in your sleep while whispering sweet nothings to your ears.

! Kang Taehyun

— you noticed that Taehyun was distant these past few days, completely contrasting his usual clingy demeanor, you also noticed that he’s been taking more naps and massaging his temples more often. when the both of you were lounging in the living room, his head in your lap, his eyes closed but no intentions of sleeping. You reached for the vapor rub, put a little on your fingers then began lightly massaging his temples with your other hand alternating with massaging his scalp and nape. Taehyun was shocked with sudden light massages but he was too tired to care so he just laid there savoring your touches. while his eyes were closed he started to remember your first weeks with him. you looked at him with nothing but disgust and anger, you even recoil at his presence but now here you were initiating such an intimate moment and he couldn’t be more content with that.

! Huening Kai

— normal day Kai was clingy, cold stuffy nose kai was even MORE clingy but he couldn’t be with you since he was afraid of you catching his cold and the thunder outside was not helping with his situation. Kai was shivering in his sleep when you opened the door, carrying a tray that has his medicine, a medicated cold forehead patch, a cold damp towel, and tea. You gently tapped in shoulder to wake him up a bit. He was still drowsy and his eyes were barely open but he was awake. You then removed the previous patch in his forehead and replaced it with a new one. You picked up the towel then gently cleaned his exposed arms and face, after that you made him drink his medicine then washed it down with the tea you made him. “ Why are you doing this?” he asked with his hoarse voice instead of you answering you just shush him and slid under the covers with him. When you finally settled into a comfy position with him, Kai’s head on your chest letting him be the little spoon, was when you answered his question, “It was too cold to be alone tonight and i know youre afraid of thunderstorms.” Your hushed voice lulling him to sleep with a full fuzzy heart.

[lynnlovesthestars]

One and only.

Pairing: Astarion x fem!reader

Genre & warnings: smut and fluff, post act 3, soft Astarion, fingering, slight overstimulation and orgasm denial, unprotected sex, a lil of anxiety? and thinking but lots of love too, blood, biting.. I don't think there's more?

Words: 4.4k (damn i didn't think it was that long oof.

Healing is a slow process, but with you it's a little easier.

Astarion paced back and forth in front of the tent, weighing the words that were floating in his mind, the feeling that pooled in his stomach and shoved off the fear hidden in the back of his mind.

You were different because you cared about him. You reminded him every night before you'd close your eyes and fell asleep in his arms, and you respected him like none ever did. You reassured him whenever he'd ask you if you were still okay to wait for him until he was ready to try again with sex, and he was oh so grateful for it.

It's been around three years since you were free of the tadpole, you'd grown so much together: patching up each other's wounds while learning how to love. You taught him to be intimate without bedding you. You taught him how caresses could be so much more than sex.

He looked around the camp, you called your old companions for another adventure, helping you find a cure for vampirism, and they all eagerly accepted.

Aylin and Isobel were the only ones missing, literally.

You found a nice spot in the underdark, glowing mushrooms of pretty colors decorated all around you, and the circular cave was just perfect enough for the bunch of you.

You were fumbling around the fire, trying to roast a boar leg you got at a small merchant you found on the road.

Gale was trying to interfere with that boar leg cooking process, but you didn't want to hear him, especially after you had to live off his particularly unsavory stew for months, this time you were taking the metaphorical chef hat and feeding everyone with your newfound skills. Three years away from adventure had to be filled one way or another.

The camp was always lively, that's one of the perks of being so many.

Wyll was playing with Boo, while Minsc and Jaheira were playfully fighting over something dumb. Karlach and Halsin were fast asleep next to the fire, snoring loudly between Gale's words.

Lae'zel and Shadowheart were discussing as always and, though everyone was too distracted to hear him, Astarion was still mumbling to himself while pacing.

The dinner was great, you could see it in the eyes of everyone as they bit into the tender meat and shared stories. Minsc was deep into another tale of Boo, Jaheira and him as your eyes wandered to Astarion, which still hasn't had his dinner.

You couldn't see him, until you noticed that the oil lamp in your tent was on, and his shadow was fixing something around the tent. For what you knew he was moving the pillows scattered around, in a way that you'd be more comfortable while he fed.

They all knew at this point that you'd let him feed off you on daily basis, it started back while you were on your way to Baldur's Gate back then, and you took the habit so much that at a certain point you didn't even feel dizzy after he'd been done.

You excused yourself as you made your way to the tent, it was one of those nights where you needed an extra long hug, and a few kisses on the forehead.

When you opened the flap of the tent, he was still fighting with a pillow, trying to fluff it up just how he liked it, but failing. He was glad that he learned how to hide his emotions, shoving the tension down and away.

You kneeled next to him, placing a hand on his before taking the pillow from his grasp.

He followed your movements closely with his eyes, as you put the pillow on the floor.

He didn't know what he expected to see, but to watch you punch the pillow relentlessly, was definitely not on the list. Though after you were done, the pillow was somehow perfect. Was that how his pillow was always extra fluffy?

You gave him a soft smile before you tossed it next to the others, which you noticed were arranged differently, making something closer to a nest, than your usual layout.

You both didn't speak, you were so close that you'd know just by looking at your bodies, or the way your face crunched, and yours clearly said "cuddle".

In a matter of seconds, he pulled you in his arms before scooting closer to the pillows to rest there.

He loved the way you'd make yourself comfortable on his lap, how you wiggled for a moment before finding that nook where your head rested perfectly on his chest, and the way you would hum when you were happy with the position you chose.

He could live off just of that pretty sound that would come out of your lips.

You were so absorbed by the closeness that you didn't notice the barely perceptible hesitation in his touch, as he slowly turned your face to him, making sure you could hold eye contact for a moment.

The eagerness and the pure undevoted love were fighting with the fear, the fear of reliving those nights he tried so hard to forget, but at the end of the day, he needed you. He needed you more than he feared his nightmares, he needed to feel you around him, he needed to let you feel his love, his devotion, all of him.

If there was one person that he wanted to love so deeply, it was you.

So many times he thought of trying to have sex again just to see if he still was disgusted, but only with time he was able to realize that he wasn't disgusted by sex, he was disgusted of being stripped of his chance to back away. And the more he got to know you, the more he grew closer to you, the more he longed for you, in every way. It was no longer the need for release or just the fucking without attachments, he wanted to make love with you. He wanted to hear you moan his name like a chant, he wanted to feel your hands reach were no one was ever allowed to: tracing his back, on the dip of his lower back, around his hips, at the center of his chest, where his heart, your heart, resided.

There was no one else he desired like this, the idea of other people, or having other lovers but you, made him retch. He didn't want love unless it came from you, he didn't want sex unless it was you making him feel lightheaded. Of course it took him a lot of time to understand this, and a lot of work around his feelings, and his body, and you never shied away from any of his attempts to push his boundaries.

You helped him reshape the ideas of the smallest things, down to skinship.

Even after hours of brooding on how to ask you, he found himself speechless at the sight of your soft eyes filled with love, and the peaceful smile you gifted him. He was mesmerized.

It took him a second to just recollect, as he took his time ingraining in his mind that look he loved so much.

"My love" He whispered as he cupped your cheek, making you lean into his touch. "I've been thinking a lot" His thumb traced your cheekbone ever so slightly, drawing a delicate humm from you. He had planned a lot to say but as you leaned close, the speech was already out the window. So he just lowered you on the bed, and crashed his lips to yours.

It took you a second to process the unexpected movement, but a second later you were lost within his kiss.

Initially it was rough, the way he gripped on you, like an instinct that he could barely control, full of yearning and need, but slowly, the more you relaxed in his arms, savoring the taste of his kiss, the more he would slow down, like a love poem traced with his whole body.

His hands would graze over your hips, your shoulders, your neck, every bit of exposed skin was being caressed by his slender fingers, holding and molding your body like it was putty.

He rested his forehead against yours as he caught his breath, and allowed you as well. His eyes were closed as he was lost in your sweet scent.

It took him another long moment before being able to control his breath, regain his senses as his head was already spinning away.

"My love, allow me.." He breathed ooutsweetly as he latched his hand around yours, your fingers intertwining in his like an instinct. "Allow me to feel you." He placed a soft kiss on your cheek. "Allow me to make you mine" The words came out almost as a plea, like a starved man that was in front of a banquet and forced to resist the need. His lips traveled to your neck, resting where he'd usually drink from you.

"I'm already yours" You whimpered as you could feel his teeth graze, sending a shiver down your spine. You could feel the pit of your stomach bubbling with tenderness, as his eyes were rounder than usual, and his gaze was soft. Though there was a yearning feeling in the bottom, drowned momentarily by the adoration.

So many nights you had to leave the tent to take care of your needs, as you didn't want to burden Astarion with it. You wanted him to be fully there as he helped you release all that pent up tension, not just a shell of him. You craved his love, not his body.

You had to resist the very urge to push your hips against him, even though he was asking you already. You wanted to make sure he was truly okay before making any movement.

He groaned as he tilted your neck, pressing his lips right under your chin, and descending between your clavicle. He wanted to worship every millimeter of you, no skin would have to go unkissed.

"I want to make love to you, my one" He left a bite on your shoulder, no teeth were deep enough to draw blood, but definitely enough to steal a delicious mewl from you.

His words made your heart roar.

You raised your head enough to catch a glimpse of his eyes, now sultry, half closed as his lips still rested on your skin, dropping sweet kisses right where he was.

"Mh, you sure?" You asked as your body basked in the attention he was providing.

"Like I've never been before. I dreamt for so long to have you wrapped around me" He moved again, until your chests were against each other, and your noses were meeting. "I want no one else but you. I want to know what having the love of your life so close, so vulnerable feels like" He placed a quick kiss on your nose. "I just want to get lost in you, to hold you like I've never held anyone" his arm wrapped around your waist, holding you tight to him, like he wanted to merge your bodies. "I want to be one with you" He whispered as he closed his eyes again, inhaling your flowery scent mixed with his.

Your heart was pounding so loudly against your rib cage that you would have sworn he could feel it without leaning in.

You wanted to sound louder, but as your lips opened to say that yes, the sound came in almost a strangle

by all your emotions.

Astarion's eyes glimmered with a light you've never seen before resting there.

He was gentle as he undressed you, every inch that was being revealed to his eyes, was met with his yearning lips, drawing all sorts of pleading sounds from you. Your body was already shaking like a lire string as it was touched, and your lips chanting a melody for him.

His descent was agonizingly slow, but what struck you was how his movements were.

You knew he was well versed in sex, but the way he was caressing, tracing, kissing, biting, was the one of a man that was trying to listen to your reactions, to savor the tiniest sensations, to learn his lover, such a difference from the confident man that fucked you senslessly in a forest three years prior.

It was no longer about repayment for the feed or protection, it was pure undevoted love in each touch.

Just with those miniscule attentions, your heart was swelling for him, and little did you know that he was hitting him as well, all your emotions flowing around you in the small space of the tent.

Your clothes were soon on the other side of the floor and you took your time admiring him in all his beauty: the way his chest was rising, the way his skin was covered in small old marks, so carefully healed that you wouldn't be able to discern them unless you would be trying to remember his every pore.

"Gods i wish you could see yourself through my eyes right now" He sighed. "I've seen you naked so many times, but right now? No goddess could compare next to you" He kissed your navel delicately as his fingers were grazing your thighs.

You could feel your cheeks igniting at the praise. You wished for a moment you still had that tadpole eating your brain, just for a second to show him the true vision. His body was so perfect in front of you, the truly breathtaking view. You could have sworn he would have made such a perfect painting.

Before you could open your mouth though, he was praising you again.

"No words would be enough for me to explain how every curve of your body makes me ache for you, my one" He leaned forward, placing wet kisses from your neck, down to your hips, over and over again until his name was a broken mewl from you lips.

He stopped between your thighs, taking his time to spread you wide open for him. He kissed that spot that caught his mind right away, that perfect dip of your hips, where stretch marks were concentrated.

He hummed as he couldn't help but graze them with his teeth, stealing one moan that made him almost melt.

Then agonizingly slowly he kissed the inside of your thigh, trailing kisses until his nose brushed against your clit. You wanted to beg for him to eat you, but his head turned towards the other tight, repeating the tantalizing trail of kisses until he reached for your dripping cunt.

"You are so ready for me" He kissed right above your clit, teasing you more and more. "But I have to dine first" a finger gently traced the outline of your lips, taking his time before dipping it between your folds, and earning a moan. It was so long since someone touched you, you could feel your whole body clench at the smallest touch.

He kissed your thigh again, sighing at the softness of your skin. You were so wet he just inserted another finger in you and started pumping in your pussy, drawing those perfect moans from you again, music to his pointy ears.

Then as he added another finger, his teeth sank in your plush thigh. All of your senses jolted up, amplifying everything as he started drinking from you.

His slender fingers reached right where he made you cry in pleasure, as you slowly gave in to the lightheadedness.

As he kept feeding, he still worked you like he knew every movement that would make you whimper, drawing always so near to your orgasm before pulling away.

Moments later he finally let go of your thigh, his teeth slipped away from the pricks they had made home in, and licked away the rivlet of blood still spilling from the new wound, causing your body to arch even more under his tongue. You were so close, so desperate to come you'd chant his name like a prayer, just so he'd taste you.

Instead he pulled out his fingers, taking one at a time in his mouth and sucking your slick off of them.

"You are delicious, my love" He moaned as he popped each finger out of his lips.

You were on edge, so tempted to take control and ride his face until you'd come on his lips, but you had to restrain yourself, you wanted him to guide you through it, you wanted him to have full control of his and your body.

His tongue reached for the rivlet of blood on his lips before pulling you in his lap, your thighs wrapped around his hips like they were made just for that. You could feel his erection press against your folds as he pulled you closer.

His lips and yours clashed together in something that was akin to a slow dance, your arms wrapped around his neck, while his held you by your hips.

You could drink the sighs he was letting out, the smile he grew in that intimate moment, the reason why he wanted you in this position.

For months he tried to imagine how he wanted to make love to you, how he'd feel the safest, and his mind always came back at the idea of your chests against each other, your lips so close he could kiss you, but also where he could hear your moans the closest. How he wanted you to rest against him as he whispered how perfect you were for him, he wanted you. All of you. All of your warmth, all of your skin, all of your sights, he wanted to see how he was affetting you, and how you affected him. He wanted to lift your chin, to kiss your neck, he wanted the both of you to find respite in the tight hold.

Seeing you so close to him, so vulnerable just how much he would be, it was how he wanted it to go, cause this for him was like a first time. He wanted to be overwhelmed by you, as you consumed him.

He wanted to feel his home in you. In you and only you.

He took a moment, resting against you, clinging to you like you were going to disappear from his grasp.

"If you want to stop, you just have to say it, my star" You whispered as you rested a hand in his hair, drawing circles on his scalp as he breathed in your scent, that was slowly mixing with the smell of sex.

"No my love, I'm just bathing in you before doing anything else" He admitted, placing a kiss on your neck, where he was resting his head.

"I don't think I could ever exchange this for anything. No power, or castle could compare to the home I made in your heart". His words were warm, caring, just like scorching fire against ice.

"I love you" You murmured as you caressed his cheek, and brought him back to you.

"I love you too, my one" He kissed you slowly as he guided you up. Bringing you to rest your forehead against each other as you slowly sank on his length. A gasp simultaneously filled the tent, so loud it could wake up everyone, but you didn't care. The air was pulled out of your chests, as you clinged on each other.

You both waited a moment before doing any movement, both overwhelmed by the closeness and the pleasure.

You wrapped around him so perfectly, he could barely keep any control over his body, his mind or his lips.

"Mh so perfect for me" He whispered sultry, as he guided you through the slow movement, allowing him to bottom out before having your hips meet his again, stealing another breathy moan.

It was slow, tender, so much that you could feel your eyes become glassy.

Nothing could ever compare to the fire that was spreading around your body as he picked up pace, stealing everything from you. Your air, your whimpers, your heart, over and over again.

He wanted to savor every inch of you, he would allow himself to fill you to the hilt, as he threw his head back.

"M-mine" He lulled as he couldn't resist the urge to go faster, his body loosing control of his movements.

It became all so sloppy, ragged as he grasped at you ass, his nails sinking into your skin as he slapped his hips against yours.

"This is what you do to me" He rasped as he lolled his head back. His hair wild as some curls fell on his face. His mouth agape as he choked praises.

Sweet gasps echoed between the syllables of your name, as he submitted to the pleasure.

He wanted to scream, to let everyone know you were his and no one could ever coax those sounds from him like you did, so effortlessly.

Your fingers twirled naturally around his curls, pulling his head to yours as you deepened the kiss along with your movements, savoring the taste of his lips and sweat as you made him see the stars.

You drank each other's moans with your lips as you completely gave away to the pleasure, as you gave all of you to each other.

You could barely register who was directing, cause your bodies just felt like one. Molten lava simply mixing as it burned hot like the hells.

You were so close, your whole body shaking as you could barely form a proper sentence. "L-love y-you" You muttered though your tongue felt indescribably heavy and light simultaneously.

You were drunk on him, your eyes rolling back as he hit that spot that could make you come undone. He worshiped every inch he could reach with his lips, making sure your body was left with a memory of the night, of his trust, of his love.

"You fill me so well" you praised with the last bit of your sanity, stealing the most precious sound from his lips.

Euphoria washed over Astarion as he was high on the feeling of your pussy clenching uncontrollably around him.

He pumped in you insatiably as you could feel it build up, the familiar knot as your muscles tensed up, feeling the heat rise and your legs shake.

You were not sure what it was, maybe it was the moaned praises, or his touch, or the way his hair bounced as he sank in your, but you felt your body being stripped of all the flesh, pleasure taking it's place as your orgasm washed over you. Your head rested on his shoulder as he was still lost in you, so close to his own release.

You knew that the only sound in the camp was your skin slapping, and the lustful sounds you'd make for each other.

The frenzy turned into a slow-burning passion, his hips rhythmically pounding in you as his lips met again with yours in a matching kiss, your moans mixing in the middle as you could feel it again, your orgasm building so quickly you barely had time to process how sensitive you were.

You let go of his lips to admire how his mouth parted, a series of whimpered moans fell from his lips as you could feel every inch of you being dragged away in the second orgasm at the sole sight.

His hips stuttered once, twice, before the arrogant orgasm sent him to the moon, spilling all his cum in your warmth.

He stayed in you for a few more moments as he processed how elated he felt.

There was no one else in the universe that would make him feel so safe, so loved. He was gentle as he laid with you in his arms, drawing shapeless lines along your velvety skin.

He couldn't hold back the tears that were forming at the edge of his eyes, as he held this night so close to his heart. For him, this was his first time, and it was with you, his other half.

You noticed right away when the first few tears started tracing his skin. You were so afraid of his reaction that this was like a shock to you, in a way.

You prayed the morninglord he wasn't already regretting the intimacy, maybe he didn't feel what you felt: that sense of belonging, the overwhelming love.

You cupped his cheek as you caught a tear with your thumb. "Are you ok, my star?" You whispered as you took away another and another with tenderness that made Astarion even more emotional.

He slowly met your gaze, his eyes so soft and his lips curled in a tender smile as the droplets still descended down his cheeks.

"I'm perfect, my love" He rested his hand on yours, clasping at your fingers and bringing them away from his cheek.

"Why are you crying?" You offered a reassuring look, the one he learned meant that you were a safe space where he could speak his mind unfiltered.

"I dreamt of this nights for months, how I would ask you, and how I'd hope this would carry out" He exhaled for a moment as he toyed with your fingers.

"And none of those dreams could ever get close to this" His smile was getting wider, accentuating those lines you loved so much.

"I don't care for sex, unless it's with you. Unless it's loving you with every inch of me, unless it means undressing ourselves and being exposed in all our vulnerability. Unless it means I get to feel you become part of me" You were absorbed by his words and his eyes, that you didn't notice he let go of your hand to hold you closer.

"You are the other part of me", He let out shakily. "I might even say you are the best part as well." He kissed your forehead tenderly. "You are my one and only" He whispered at last as he dragged the blanket he had left on the side, on your bodies. You murmured something between a love confession and a praise as he lulled you to sleep in his embrace.

You were fast asleep as he finally remembered what he was forgetting.

He summoned a mage hand, trying to be as silent as possible. The ghostly arm reached under one pillow and pulled out the velvety box, before shoving it in Astarion's backpack and dissolving its form.

"Tomorrow" He noted in his mind. "Tomorrow I'll ask you"

[urlocalfeiner]

i've got my eye on you| neteyam sully

pairing: neteyam sully x omaticaya! fem! reader

trope: best friends to lovers

summary: neteyam came back from a raid and is injured, you help clean him up whilst he can't stop thinking about how perfect you are. when you finish healing him he wants to stay with you and helps with making more supplements as he carefully approaches the topic of finding a mate which leads to him confessing his feelings for you.

warnings: swearing, injuries, tooth rotting fluff, jealousy, light making out,

A/N: reposting because my account got deleted xo

masterlist!

recently, mo'at had been teaching you and kiri how to heal. the two of you had been helping heal the injured from the raiding parties. you enjoyed it- you liked helping people, it gave you a sense of purpose. but you did not like having to heal your best friend after he was stupid and followed his little brother into a raid and got hurt.

you and neteyam sat on the wooden floor of the healers hut, nobody but you two there as you patched his wounds up from the last raid that had occured. the only source of light coming from the dimly lit fire in the middle of the hut, no noise but the small hisses of pain from neteyam when you disinfected a wound. "sorry." you whispered apologising as he hissed once more, eyes on his muscular chest as you placed the wet cloth over the bloodied area- trying to be as gentle as possible. his eyes were trained down at you, watching as you healed him.

the tension between the two of you thickening by the second. "don't apologise." he gently spoke, you then looked up for the first time since you've been cleaning him up and met his eyes. how he was looking at you made your stomach twist into a small knot- he was looking at you as if this was the first time he had ever seen you, taking in all your features as if it was his last time.

the two of you stayed like this, just staring mindlessly into one another's eyes like you both were searching for an answer within the other. you felt heat creep up to your cheeks and looked away from him quickly breaking the intimate eye contact, "you're all cleaned up now, you can head back if you wish." you started to pack up the healing supplements and tools.

you expected neteyam to stand up but he stayed seated- eyes still focused directly on you. "do you mind if i stay?"

this made you smile lightly, "of course you can." you placed poncosh leaves into a mortar and began to grind them down with a pestle, you needed to make more to prepare for the next raid. but poncosh leaves are difficult to grind down, neteyam watched as you struggled to do so.

"here, let me help." he reached out placing his hands on top of yours which were holding the pestle, his touch sending shivers down your spine. "you need to grind it side to side, like this" he moved his hands moving yours side to side grinding the poncosh successfully, all you could focus on were how warm his hands were on top of yours as he guided them where to go.he took his hands off yours- you suddenly missed the contact, wanting his hands back on yours as you continued to crush the leaves doing the same motion he was helping you do moments ago. you finished crushing the poncosh, stopping your motion glancing up at neteyam as to ask if you did it correctly. "perfect." neteyam said but he was not looking at the crushed leaves in the mortar, he was looking at you. your face heated up once more, for the severalth time this night. oh eywa, this boy is going to be the death of you.

you grabbed a cloth, folding it as a comfortable silence fell over the two to you. until neteyam spoke up, breaking the silence. "i have heard people talking," he spoke fiddling with his fingers as you hummed in response. “that t’shæn is wanting to be your mate.”

your eyes perked up and eyes were wide open as you stopped folding the cloth and looked up at neteyam. sure you found t’shæn attractive but you could never picture yourself being his mate. “oh.” was all you replied with as you continued to fold the cloths leaving neteyam even more nervous, did you like t’shæn? did you want to be his mate?

“uh- do you want to be his mate?..”

“hmm, no not really.” neteyam felt a weight get lifted off his shoulders as you said that, he had been worried that you did.

“have you got your eye on someone yet?” he asked, praying to eywa for it to be him.

you didn’t really know how to answer the question, because yes, you did indeed have your eye on a man- that man being the one sitting in front of you asking the question. “yes, i’ve had my eye on someone for a while now.”

neteyam felt his heart pick up pace, maybe there was a chance it was him- but he knew if it wasn’t him he would know what to do. he couldn’t picture any other woman being his mate besides you. “who might this lucky man be?”

your eyes met with his, you opened your mouth to speak but quickly shut it- you didn’t know what to say, you were in a battle in your head wether or not you should speak the truth and tell him that the man you’ve had your eye on is him. “he’s a mighty warrior and an amazing hunter.”

“there are many fine warrior’s and hunters in the clan.”

you hummed, “indeed there are many, but he is the finest out of them all.”

neteyam was trying to think of who it could be, having a glint of hope that it is him. “is he kind to you?”

“he is very kind to me and others, he has a strong heart.” you were hoping he was getting the hints you were very obviously dropping at him, “i am not sure if he wants me though.”

neteyam internally scoffed at the idea of a man not wanting you, you were absolutely perfect. “any na’vi that would turn you down has something wrong in the head.” your cheeks and ears had a light blush on them from neteyam’s comment, he noticed this and smirked. he reached forward, placing his hand on your chin gently tilting it up so you could look at him. you were internally freaking out about the proximity of you and neteyam’s faces, you felt butterflies swarming in your stomach. “you are so beautiful.” he brushed a strand of hair that had fallen out of place behind your ear. you were speechless, your stomach was doing back flips left and right. “i’ve also had my eye on a woman for quite a while.”

“who is this lucky woman?” you breathed out, you swore that your heart was about to thump right out your chest.

his thumb caressed your cheek gracefully, his hands soft on your skin as he cupped your cheek. “she is a beauty like no other and a fierce warrior.”

“there are many beautiful women and fierce warriors in our clan.”

“there may be, but she is the most beautiful and fierce woman of them all.” he continued rubbing his thumb over your cheek. you felt entranced by his bright yellow eyes that were staring into your own, staring right into your soul as if they were to judge it for itself. his hand left your cheek and moved down to your chest, where your heart sat. “and she has a strong heart.” you looked down to where his hand laid then back up at him, eyes wide with excitement. “i’ve got my eye on you, y/n.”

“neteyam,” you now placed your hand on his cheek. “i see you.” neteyam’s ears perked up, a love sick grin appearing on his face. before either of you could say anything else he broke the gap between the two of you and placed his lips on yours. you were shocked at first but then quickly returned the kiss. it was soft and passionate, speaking all the unspoken words- neither of you had to say anything more or less as it said a million words. your lips felt like heaven on his, this is what he had been yearning for since he was a young boy.

your lips chased one other, both filled with desire. your hands made their way up to his braided hands as his slipped down to your waist, delicately holding them. the two do you broke away for air, slightly panting from the lack of breath. “i have been wanting to do that for ages.” neteyam said as he pulled you back into a kiss, you had no protects against it. his hands that were holding your waist pulled you into his lap, your legs straddling his as you deepened the kiss. neteyam let out a soft moan against your mouth as his tail wrapped around your waist. you broke apart once more, your foreheads resting against each other as you saw a smirk on neteyam’s lips. “so, who was the someone you’ve had your eyes on?”

you grinned playfully, “you may know him, his name is neteyam.”

his lips were grazing over yours, you could feel his hot breath as he spoke against yours. “he is a very lucky na’vi.” as he finished his sentence he lent in placing another kiss on your lips, he went to kiss you further but you suddenly stopped feeling the presence of something. leaving neteyam confused. “are you okay? did i hurt you?” you looked around the room searching for something, then you looked up- your mouth parted a small gasp leaving your mouth, a Atokirina was floating above the two of you. neteyam moved his head to where you were looking confusedly, but when he saw what you were admiring he grinned softly. you two truly were made for each other.

the two do you removed your attention from the woodspirite to one another, large grins on both of your faces. “eywa has spoken.” he whispered.

[haveihitanerve]

Headcanon that Bruce is 100% one of those “i’m not mad, I’m disappointed” types, and it absolutely kills his kids.

They hate it. Hate it with every fibre of their being. Because Anger, Rage? Those are emotions they understand. They know Bruce’s pain. Know his fury.

He gets mad, they rise fast. He strikes, they hit back harder. Using him as a punching bag just as much as he’s using them. Because they know pain, they understand rage. If Bruce raises his voice, they can ignite rapidly, even Dick, or Cass, by far those with the longest fuses, somehow, they find themselves screaming right back at him.

I can make this hurt. I can be mad too. Oh, I did something wrong? Well you did everything wrong. Ever. I can hit you where it hurts. I can make you bleed with words. Because I know your pain intimately and I can use that.

But when he’s disappointed?

Oh, nothing quite breaks through their walls and curdles in their lock protected hearts like Bruce’s disappointment.

Even to the kids who claim not to be his, it still hurts. Because its subtle, because its true, and most of all because its the same.

Bruce doesn't change much when he’s disappointed. He still says “i love you”, still tucks them in, still kisses their foreheads. He still patches their wounds and smiles at them.

But there's a level of detachment when he does so. A certain… absence. Of pride.

They feel his disappointment in them like a physical weight, tied to their legs, dragging them into the depths. The absence of Bruce’s pride is physical, and it hurts.

Because sure, he still tells them it’s alright, still assures them there's a tomorrow, a new day, a second chance. But they don’t want a second chance, they don't want to need one.

And Bruce believed in them. He thought they wouldn't. So when they do need a second chance… it drags him down, and takes them with him.

Because there is one person in their whole entire world who thinks the best of them, who believes they are the sun and the sky and all the stars and never doesn't trust them or thinks they can’t do something.

And when they fail? When they fall when they should've soared? It hurts. Like a punch in the gut. Because Bruce won’t say anything.

He’s disappointed, not mad. He’ll offer them a hand up. Say “try again.” But he won’t get mad. And they hate it. Because he expects so much from them, and they let him down.

And its not true, and he’ll never say that its true, but its the unwritten fact every child who yearns for the Batman’s praise must deal with.