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thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels · 19 minutes

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I've let this wolf into my home (I feed it even when it bites)

Blood nose and a crooked tongue (I always wanted to be someone) - series masterlist here

pairing: tim drake x reader (gender neutral)

length: 1.5k

genre: fluff ??

warnings: you don't know red robin and timmy are the same person but he sure knows you, he's also so so awkward but he can't help it

a/n: alright alright alright here we go <3

The jingle of the coffee shop door opening startles you, your head snapping up from where you're sitting, slouched over in the corner. It's a 24-hour shop, yes, but who else would really be here at 3am? The barista behind the counter looks just as surprised, blinking rapidly and looking at the person who came in.

You, on the other hand, opt not to, sighing and looking back down at your table, instead. The coffee in your to-go cup is still hot, burning your fingers as you shift them over the label. It's bright, a cartoonish sort of thing that grins up at you like an old friend you should be happier to see. You've been getting this coffee for years. You're never quite as happy as you should be.

The chair opposite you makes a horrible sort of sound as it's pulled out and you look up to see who's sitting across from you. You purse your lips in annoyance while he just looks at you.

"All the other tables have just been cleaned. They're wet," he points out. You let your eyes flit around the cafe, the tabletops shining wetly in the dull glow of the lights, the disinfectant bottle still sitting abandoned on one of them.

"Lucky me," you bite back, taking a sip of your coffee. It's sweet - too sweet, but not enough to cover the bitterness of the burnt grounds. You always think that if you pile enough sugar into it, it'll mask what's wrong. You're never right.

The man sitting opposite you takes a sip of his own - he left it black, you notice. He grimaces slightly at the taste, but keeps drinking anyway. There's no effort there to pretend it's anything other than what it is - burnt, cheap coffee sold to him in a cafe full of ghosts, in a city that should be sleeping but never really does. It's interesting, you think, as you look out the window and into the dark street. You'd almost managed to convince yourself that you were really alone - that there was no one else in this world except you, until he walked in and broke the reverie of your 3am silence.

For what it's worth, Tim regretted it as soon as he'd walked in. He hadn't meant to stay, really - ending up in a part of Gotham he didn't often find himself in, in his civvies and in desperate need of a hot cup of coffee and a long sleep, he'd stumbled across the flickering, neon sign of a 24-hour coffee shop.

What good luck, he'd thought. Now, sitting across from you, there's a desperate little part of him that thinks maybe it wasn't just that - maybe it was intuition that drew him here. You don't know who he is, of course, all your previous meetings happening in the shadows of your home with his face hidden from you. Tim shifts in his seat, suddenly aware of how naked he feels, exposed to your wandering eyes.

And you do let your eyes wander, narrowing them suspiciously as you take him in. Tim feels a pang of guilt that surprises him when he thinks that this is probably how you've always felt with him - like a lamb with a wolf at your door. As you lean back in your chair, swirling your coffee and letting your gaze trail away from him and towards the window, he feels his shoulders drop in relief. He's not the only wolf in your living room late at night, he realizes. You've got teeth of your own that he'd just never noticed.

You're good at this, Tim thinks with a start - you've got a foot propped up on the window sill next to you, your head resting in your hand as you watch the street outside idly. Or, at least, it's supposed to look like that. He thinks that if he were anyone normal, he would believe it. But Tim has spent enough time as prey to know when someone's pretending to let their guard down.

He looks away from you almost forcefully, staring down at his cup and running his tongue over his teeth as he thinks of the burnt taste of it. He wonders if you were smart enough to put sugar in yours - wise enough to bury the bitterness with something nicer. It's something he always thinks he should do. He can never quite make himself.

"I'm sure those other tables are dry now." Your voice makes him flinch, a hard, forceful thing that cuts through the silence of the night that's blanketed the two of you. Tim looks around at the dull, streaky tabletops and shrugs.

"I'm already comfortable here," he offers. You cock your head to the side and look at him, but make no move to fight him on it. He thinks it's probably stupid of him, inviting a lion into his home like this. He wonders if you feel the same way every time he slides in through your balcony door.

There's a silence that, once more, overtakes the two of you as he shifts in his seat. Tim wonders if he should drink faster, if he should pretend to be finished so that he can leave. It's funny, he thinks, how he finally felt like he'd stopped running away when he started running into you. It's funny that, now, he's itching for it, his hands gripping his cup in an attempt to still his heart - his need to escape.

You look back at him just in time to see him squeeze a little too hard, the cheap plastic lid popping off and hot coffee sloshing a bit over his hands. A mild, bemused sort of look crosses your face as you watch him curse and splutter as the coffee burns his hands and spills onto the table. Then, without a word, you stand up and begin to walk away.

Tim, in the meantime, is rubbing his hands against his jeans, his eyes squeezed shut in mortification as he wonders how he ruined it all so quickly. Not for the first time, he wishes he was in the mask - thinks maybe the only way to hold onto you is to make sure that's all you ever see. But then your cup scrapes across the table and he opens his eyes to see you sitting opposite him again, sipping idly and watching. There's a stack of napkins that he swore wasn't there before and - oh.

"Thanks," is all he can make himself say as he grabs them, cleaning up the mess he's made. As he goes to pop the lid back onto his cup, he looks at the dark liquid inside and grimaces, deciding that maybe it's not worth it.

"It's shit coffee," you say, and he slams his hand against the table, crushing the plastic lid in the process. Truly, he's not sure if he's ever acted this nervous before. You pay it no mind. He thinks maybe he could take off his mask, just this once, and reaches up to his face in time to remember that he's already exposed to you. "You're better off finding something else… or just going somewhere else." Tim smiles, then, a charming sort of thing that has you narrowing your eyes.

"I dunno,' he says. "There's something I like about right here." You glance down at your own cup, at the label that you've picked and peeled off until it's unrecognizable, the colours torn and cracked.

"There's nothing good about right here. And things like that don't change." Tim looks at you for a long moment after you speak, letting the words tumble around his head before he stands, taking his cup and squished lid and pile of wet napkins with him.

"Well, I've never been big on change, anyway," is all he says as he walks away, dumping everything in the bin and letting the bell on the door jingle as he walks out. Looking back down to the table, you notice the card he's left behind - the Wayne Ent. logo flashing behind his name. Flipping it over, his number's been written in a hasty scrawl.

As you thumb a corner of the card, you wonder when he'd slipped it onto the table - when he'd written on it. Mostly, you wonder what kind of person he'd have to be to do it without you noticing. You trace the numbers with your finger and think that something, far in the back of your mind, is telling you that there's a familiarity about it all.

But what's familiar about seeing someone in a place where you never should? What's normal about that man, appearing like a ghost in the night and disappearing just as fast? As you pull out your phone to add his number to your contacts, there's a part of you that thinks maybe you should run away - that maybe you're not the only thing stalking the streets of Gotham this late.

#prev tags #so glad you liked it #<3 #smsn.rb

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thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels · 3 hours

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”You don't need to say anything.”

#smsn.dc #smsn.from the vault

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thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels · 23 hours

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Is there hope in us, still? (is there something worth believing in?)

let me wrap my teeth around the world - series masterlist here

pairing: poly marauders x reader (gender neutral)

length: 1.4k

genre: fluff, kinda angsty

warnings: slytherin reader, the good good post summer break mental illness, everybody's having some issues here, there will be a pt.2 next week to give it a happy happy ending but this isn't so bad, it has a hopeful ending on its own

a/n: wowie another one lol hope y'all enjoy <3

Sirius is hollow when he gets back from summer break - quiet and petulant in a way that doesn't suit him anymore, snapping at his peers and pulling away from people's touch. You can't blame him. Especially not when you're feeling the same. You're not quite as showy about it as he is, that constant, underlying desperation to keep it all hidden burning under your skin. Sirius's suffering is loud - loud enough that you always hope it will drown out yours. It never really does, as far as the other two are concerned.

He shoves towards the door when class ends, likely stalking back to his dorm to hole up for the rest of the evening. James sighs, a hand on Remus' shoulder comfortingly as the boy stares at the doorway where Sirius just was, his brow furrowed in that worried way that he's mastered.

"We're going to do some studying together in the common room later… see if maybe Pads feels like joining. You're always welcome to come along with us…?" James asks in that gentle way of his, patiently hopeful. You busy yourself with gathering up your books, knowing that if you look at him, you'll crumble. There is love in the way he looks at you, despite everything. You're sure that, if you take notice of it, it would be enough to condemn you these days.

"I'm going to do some work alone tonight," you say shortly, brushing past the two of them. Remus catches your arm as you try to leave, fingers wrapping around your wrist ever so gently. But when you pause, he lets go of you abruptly, like there's something wrong with his touch against yours. This is the beginning, you think. This is where I start to lose you.

"If you change your mind…" he begins softly. You nod stiffly.

"I'll let you know." James and Remus watch as you leave swiftly, Remus rubbing the palm of his hand against his thigh, as if trying to take back the contact he'd already made with your wrist. This is where it starts, he thinks. This is where you begin to realize that I'm better when I'm left behind.

Remus has to stop himself from startling later that night when he's woken up by a cold hand shaking his shoulder. You hadn't come to study with them that evening, which wasn't surprising, but it hurt something in Remus. James, especially, had deflated, his eyes dull and his hands fidgety while he tried desperately to finish his essay, his thoughts wandering to Sirius and the dark circles under his eyes, the paleness of his skin - and then to you, to the stubborn set of your jaw and the hard look in your eyes. Looking down at his own hands, he wonders what worth they have if he can't even save the people he loves.

Needless to say, the last thing Remus was expecting was to have you in his dorm in the middle of the night, one of Sirius's sweaters shoved hastily over your pajamas as you shook him awake. You place a finger over his lips when he wakes abruptly, climbing up next to him without so much as a word as he fumbles to find his wand on his nightstand, casting a silencing spell over the four-poster bed.

"What's going on, dove?" he asks, his hands itching to hold your face, to smooth his thumbs over the skin of your cheeks and soothe you in some way. But he resists - you're here, in his bed, looking at him like you need him, and the last thing he wants is to overwhelm you and have you scared away. The last thing he can bear to do is put his hands on you, his scars glinting against unblemished skin - something ruined touching something holy.

"I just… couldn't sleep. I'm not - I haven't been sleeping well these days," you respond, and Remus is sure that if he could see you clearly, if he weren't squinting at you through the dark, you'd be shying away, face tilted away from his eyes, away from any kind of vulnerability.

"Well," he says carefully, reaching out to put a hand on your knee. You don't pull away, to his relief. In fact, you relax a bit into it, letting your posture slouch. "Stay here then, yea?" Much to Remus's delight, that's all it really takes for you to move forward, pulling the blankets back to settle underneath them. He joins you, of course, settling in next to you and letting you decide how much - or how little space to leave between your bodies.

When you reach your hand over, cupping his cheek in your palm and smoothing your thumb over the skin there, he feels a part of him melt in the relief of it, a part of him that didn't realize quite how much he'd missed your touch - your love. He cups his hand over yours, tilting his head to press a series of kisses across your palm. When you continue to let him, sagging further into the pillows, he keeps going, trailing kisses up and down each finger and finishing with your thumb.

It's then that you pull him closer, tilting your own face up to place your own gentle kiss to his lips before thumping your head against his chest. He lets you, of course, keeping his hand tangled up with yours while the other wraps around you. Before you can sleep, though, he leans close to whisper near your ear.

"James has been wondering where the invisibility cloak disappeared to. I'm sure he'll be pleased to know you're the one who ran off with it." You can't help but smile at his words, your face still pressed against his chest.

"You have so little faith in me, Rem. Not everyone needs the cloak to sneak around in this castle."

"But you did steal it, didn't you?'

"…I'll give it back to him later." Remus huffs out a quiet laugh at your confession, pulling you closer and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

"You know he doesn't mind," he soothes. You squeeze his hand in thanks where your fingers are still interlocked.

"Goodnight, Rem… and thank you for this."

"No need to thank me, love. I don't mind at all."

Something clatters to the floor on the other side of the locked bathroom floor and Remus frowns, staring at it like he can burn a hole big enough to see Sirius on the other side - to make sure he's ok. James drapes himself over Remus's back where they're sitting on James's bed together, his arms wrapping tightly around his waist. Remus lets him, leaning back against him and feeling James sigh at the weight of it, a bit of tension draining from him.

"Were they really here last night? They really came and spoke with you?" James says, his face buried in Remus's neck, a desperate sort of lilt to his voice. Tell me there is hope, he thinks. Tell me I can fix this, still.

"You saw the note they left, love," Remus lets his eyes settle on his nightstand where you'd left the invisibility cloak, a note folded on top with a simple thank you written in it, a heart scrawled next to it that he recognized as yours. The whole thing almost made up for the fact that, by the time Remus had woken up, you'd already been gone.

"Do you think… things will be better now? At least a bit? Were things better last night?" James asks, his arms tightening around Remus's waist. Remus, in an act of reassurance, wraps his fingers around one of James's hands and squeezes gently as Sirius stalks out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and stomping away.

"I do think things are getting better. It's… slower than you and I would like, I know. But all we can is love them - and that, my dear Prongs, I know you can do." James grumbles something unintelligible at the compliment, his face still hidden from view. Remus is sure that, if he could see it, he'd be greeted by the flushed red of James's cheeks. He settles for bringing one of his hands up to press kisses across it, instead, content to bring a bit of hope back to the person he loves - to do something good with this body of his.

There is hope, he thinks, in this love they all share. There is something here to fight for, still.

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thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels · 1 day