what are we shooting at in here?

Louis meows at your feet, winding through your legs as you water the plants that thrive in the kitchen. 

“Oh no you don’t, you already ate, big man.” He yowls in protest, but you ignore him. 

The jingle of keys hits your ears before his form fills the kitchen. 

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” He slips his jacket on, taps his pockets to make sure he has everything he needs. “Just a quick job, I’ll grab dinner on the way back home.” 

You smile into the kiss he gives you, squeal at the spank he lands before winking. He tuts at Louis and moves towards the door. 

“I love you.” He calls out. 

“I love you too!” 

-

He’s tired, achy from the job as he walks into the elevator. The hot shower he’ll take after dinner will be amazing. He can almost feel it, the loosening of his muscles, the warmth of her hands, he can’t help but smile as he finally opens the door to their apartment. 

“Sorry I’m late, took a little longer than I thought but the food is hot.” He sets the paper bags down, takes the containers out one by one and sets them on the counter. “They really loaded us up, we’ll have food for a few days.” he calls out. He groans reaching for two plates, loads them both up and sets the table. 

“Baby?” He calls for her again, “Come eat while it’s hot–” He sets the cutlery down beside the steaming plates. He frowns when she still doesn’t answer him. 

He finds her on the floor of their bedroom, clutching at the phone, staring into the empty air. 

“Baby? What's wrong?” Louis is curled up beside her knee, the phone beeps in her hands. 

“He’s dead…” Her eyes don’t move, they stare, unfocused, lost. She swallows thickly, drops the phone and finally looks up at him. “My dad is dead.” 

His stomach sinks, just as he sinks down to her level. She looks so young, so lost it breaks his heart. 

“Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” He takes the receiver from her hands, hangs it up and then takes her in his arms. He can feel how stiff she is and he understands, the shock of the news locks you in place. He remembers how he felt the day his mom went, the haze of it, the way the earth seemed to crumble under his feet. He’d been rudderless, lost for months, maybe years. 

“I don’t–I—” she licks her lips, “I haven’t even seen…” she mumbles, voice little, far away. He holds her tightly, presses his lips to her temple, ignores the pain in his back and rocks her gently. 

She pushes away from him for a moment, takes a deep breath and lets out a deep sigh. 

“I have to plan a funeral, and sell the house. God, I don’t even know how to plan a funeral.” She lets out a laugh, a sad, empty sound he recognizes only too well. 

“We can do it together.” He rubs her back, lets her work through the shock. Whatever she needs, he’ll do. After all, he’s done it before. 

-

It’s hard to deal with the numbness, it bleeds into everything. The shower feels like nothing, even though you can see the steam in the air, you can see it coming off your skin when Clint turns the water off. He says something, but you don’t quite catch it.

“Sorry, what?” He repeats himself, but you miss it again. Your ears are ringing, your body feels slow. He doesn’t get upset, doesn’t bother repeating himself. Instead he wraps the towel around your body, guides you gently into the bedroom and dresses you in your pajamas, like some lifesize doll. 

You sit on the bed, waiting, like a doll, to be moved and placed, to be made to walk and talk and do whatever it is you make dolls do. 

He lifts you softly by the arm, and guides you again to the kitchen. A bowl of food is set down in front of you. He says something again, this time you can guess what it is. It tastes like nothing. It feels like nothing, but you finish it anyway. 

He clears away the bowl when you’re done, and still, you just sit there. Louis jumps up onto your lap, you pet him absentmindedly, he can tell somethings wrong, you know it in your bones.

It feels like time doesn’t pass, nothing moves, until he guides you to the bathroom; until he helps you brush your teeth and tucks you into bed. He talks in the dark, and this time you catch a lot of it. 

Soft, scarred hands hold you close, his thumb wipes away tears you hadn’t realized were falling. His lips are dry, and soft on your forehead. 

“Whatever you need, anything at all.” He whispers, you nod. 

-

Things feel weird when you wake up, you’re somehow more tired than you’ve ever been, despite the time. He’d let you sleep in much later than you should have, given everything that had to be done. Louis is still there, your feline shadow, purring so hard you can feel it through the blankets.

You yawn as you dress, blindly reaching for clothes you don’t even care about. Clint is there in the kitchen when you emerge, he’s pouring you coffee, pressing it into your hands with a kiss. 

“I slept too long.” You drink it, barely tasting. 

“You needed it.” With another kiss to your forehead, he urges you to eat the breakfast he’d made. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“I know, but you should eat anyway.”

You don’t want to, you barely want the coffee in your hands, you’re drinking it more or less out of habit. You don’t argue with him though. 

“I don’t know what to do.” You pick at your toast, rip it into little bits and spread them around your plate.

“I know.” There’s a patient expression on his face, a calmness that you try to tap into but it isn’t calm you feel, it’s emptiness. 

“What do I do?” Something inside you cracks. Any hope you may have harboured of reconciling, or maybe fixing things, however small and unrealistic is gone. All potential for a healthy relationship with your father one day, extinguished. The sound of Clint’s chair brings your head up and then he’s there, scooping you up into a tight hug. 

-

Time doesn’t feel real. The moments are disjointed and chopped up. Peaceful nights with the love of your life, in your perfect apartment, a phone call, preparations for a funeral, talking with the bank. Clint had taken care of it all. He’d made the hard calls, he’d even gone through your dads clothes and picked the suit he’d be buried in. 

People you know, and people you don’t give you their condolences. They shake your hand, or wrap an arm around your shoulder, they apologize for your loss. You nod along. When did you get here? Clint stands just behind you, grounding you by extension. You look to him every once in a while for a lifeline he so lovingly provides. 

The mass feels both long, and short. A whole life boiled down to an hour. How you read the eulogy, how you wrote one you’ll never know. 

You don’t suppose any of it matters now. It’s done, and your father is in the ground. And you are, for all intents and purposes, an orphan.

-

The house sold, shockingly enough. And even more shocking, it had sold for more than you’d thought it was worth. Enough to pay the balance of the mortgage, enough to pay off your father’s outstanding debts as well as set you up with a decent little nest egg. Not that it mattered. It didn’t feel like anything really. Nothing did in the weeks after. 

It was still a blur; the funeral, packing up the house, settling back into your routine. Your boss at the video store had been sweet, and had given you all the time you needed to process and deal with the practical matters of a death. 

Even a couple of weeks after the actual death, time still feels weird, disjointed and unconnected. The days are like yarn, a spool of string crisscrossing through the apartment like a spiderweb. Other feelings have woven themselves through the fabric of grief. There is the main thread, the devastation of losing a parent; your only parent, as shitty as he was. Then there’s the loneliness of it all, the solitude of being all alone in the world, Clint not included. These things you could understand and identify, these feelings you could deal with.

The relief was harder. 

It had crept in while cleaning out all of the crap he’d hoarded, a little thought, a sigh of relief at never having to deal with any of his bullshit ever again. It had taken the wind out of you, needled at the space between your ribs enough to pull you out of his bedroom and into the kitchen in a cold sweat. 

That relief floods you again while in bed. Clint, the saint that he is, walks into the dimly lit bedroom with a steaming cup of chamomile. 

“I put a little bit of honey in it for you, but I can add more if it’s not sweet enough.” He sets it down on your nightstand, pressing his lips to your forehead and the love you have for him swells so suddenly. He’s been so caring, so patient and understanding, truly a saving grace. 

“Thank you babe.” He winks, “Get into bed with me.” 

“I will, let me just lock up.” 

You think about what your life might have been like had he never come into it. Where would you be right now? Probably sitting in your old room, dissolving in your own distorted, lonely world. The tea steams while you wait, warming your hands. It’s perfect, just how you knew it would be. 

He groans when he finally gets into the bed, tired no doubt from everything he’s been doing in the time since the phone call. You cuddle up to him, rest your head on his chest and relish the steady sound of his heart beating. You sigh, already calming down significantly. His heartbeat regulates your own, your breathing syncs up with his. 

“How you holding up Princess?” His hand squeezes your arm and it’s almost too much to take, how much you love this man. 

“I’m only coherent because of you.” You admit, his eyes are already on yours when you crane your neck to look at him. 

“I don’t know if that’s true, pretty baby.” 

“I do, I would probably still be dealing with the house, probably would have let the funeral home talk me into something insane–you did everything, Clint. You did it all, dealt with all of the bullshit, I don’t even know how to thank you for that.” He shakes his head, frowning. 

“You don’t have to thank me for anything, I did what you needed me to do and that’s it. There’s no doubt in my mind you’d do the same for me.” He cups your cheek, breathing the words onto your face and into your skin. You can’t really speak, it’s all too big. The loss, the period at the end of that chapter, the recurring realization that you have no one left but him. 

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.” He kisses your cheeks, tastes the tears fresh from the source. It’s not just the grief that makes you cry, it’s everything. It’s the warmth of the man who holds you so tightly, loves you so deeply. It’s the security you have in this aspect of your life at least, the knowledge that he’s with you through it, warts and all. 

“I-” You take in a deep gasp, “It’s just everything,” you choke out the words, throat aching through the tears. Your body is so sore from crying, from clenching up tight, making yourself small, maybe the sadness wouldn't fit if you were smaller. 

“I know baby, it’s a lot to deal with, and it’s so fucking fresh.” He squeezes tighter, keeping you together, mending more cracks in the veneer of you. You cling to him, desperate to feel anything but this blinding emptiness, this inescapable weight that’s pinned you down in the dirt. 

“I just want to forget.” You hiccup into his neck. He smells like the bodywash you bought him, like his own clean sweat, like home and love and the promise of a million nights cuddled together in bed. 

“I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but the pain won’t be this bad forever. Eventually, with time, you will feel like yourself again. It’ll be a little different but you’ll adjust and you’ll laugh, you’ll feel happy again. I promise you.” He holds your face in his hands, holds your heart there too. Your body blooms for him, unexpectedly, shockingly, annoyingly. 

You surge forward and press your mouth to his, a filthy kiss that he entertains for a moment before softly, but firmly pulling back. 

“Baby–”

“I need it.” You surge forward again, so hard that your teeth and his clink together. It hurts but the pain is good, his tongue is better. With a force you can barely understand, you crawl onto him, straddle him in your quiet bedroom and take the kiss. For a few seconds he lets you, your madness infects him–that and the fact that it’s been weeks since you’ve been intimate with everything going on. 

He groans when you bite his ear. 

“Baby, baby wait–” He speaks, but his hands grab at the meat of your thighs, slip under your panties to hold onto your ass. 

He says your name, loud enough that it shocks you into stopping. 

“Princess, we don’t have to do this right now.” He cups your face again, eyes soft despite how fucking hard his cock is underneath you. “I don’t want you to do this just because you think it’ll fix things, it won’t take the pain away. When we’re done he’ll still be gone.” It’s a harsh point, anger and grief swell again at the thought, at the reminder.

“I don’t say this to hurt you, I just want you to understand that nothing you do will fix anything. You have to sit with it.” You know he means well, you know what he says, he says out of love but that’s exactly what you need, you need his love, you need to be reminded that good feelings still exist, that this emptiness and loss won’t fill every single part of you forever.

“I’m not trying to fix anything, and I know I won’t forget, I just want to feel something other than this.” You hate that a tear falls, hate that you can’t even ask him to fuck you without crying about your dead dad. He says nothing for a long moment, the seconds collect and you think he might deny you despite how badly you need this from him now. 

Wordlessly he moves, gets you on your back and settles between your legs. 

His kiss is soft, but full of everything that you share. It’s sweeter than yours, softer than you need but he senses it; slants his head and licks into your mouth deep enough to pull a moan from somewhere in your throat. It's everything a kiss should be, passionate enough to warm the apples of your cheeks and chase away everything but the feel of it.

The layers separating him from you are a mere suggestion, every vein, every ridge of him only unravels your arousal, soaks into the gusset of your panties and soon, the crotch of his bottoms. The slip of it is so fucking good it makes you want to laugh. 

“Fuck me.” You pant into his ear. It will help you think, it’ll help me forget for a little bit, just a little bit.

He kisses you for a long time, excites you to the point of madness with his tongue and the bulk of him pressing against your soaked core, with his fingers creeping under your shirt and across your nipples. 

“I want your mouth—“ he cuts off your words, groaning with pleasure. He loves when you ask, when you tell him what you want; Clint loves it when you tell him what to do.

It’s a mad scramble the way he surges up and rips your panties down. 

He doesn’t even stop to strip himself before diving in, eyes focused, hands heavy. He holds you close to his mouth, a predator with freshly caught prey and it’s everything you need. 

He groans into your skin, slipping his tongue as deep as he can before honing in on your clit. You sigh, smiling at how fucking good he makes it. This is it, this is perfect. It makes you almost giddy, makes you laugh like a madwoman.

Your fingers slip through his hair, hold his face closer while you grind onto his tongue.

“Yes, god yeah, keep doing that—“ you bite your lip watching him, “more, I want your fingers too.” He nods, half moaning, half smiling while he continues his great work. He obeys, and two thick fingers slip inside, pressing on that sweet fucking spot. 

“Fuck—yeah baby, yes.” You pant, it’s building so fast, how can anything feel this fucking good with what you’ve gone through? It curdles, the pleasure slips out of your grasp despite how amazing it feels. 

A sob crawls its way out of your throat and his fingers still inside you, his tongue pauses its pilgrimage.

“Baby—“ His voice makes you ache with its softness, “why don’t we—“

“No, no, it’s good I promise, please.” You smile through the tears, urging him to continue. He watches you for a moment, quiet, focused on whether or not you’re serious or just manic. You’re not actually sure which one is real, the pleasure or the insanity, neither of which you could correctly map just now. You wipe away the tears and smile a watery smile. 

He must see something in your eyes that convinces him, he lowers his head and tastes you again. With his fingers continuing their movement, with his tongue gliding over your clit, up and down again and again, it built up quickly. You held onto the feeling, pushed away everything but the hot slip of his tongue 

“Yes, yes—“ you chant, following that current, that perfect tap of his fingers inside you. He groans against you, getting lost in the taste of you and when his other hand slips up to pluck at your nipple. The waves crests and all of the tension that’s been squatting in your neck and shoulders, in your lower back and your jaw all melts away. 

He doesn’t say anything when he’s at eye level, only presses his lips to your forehead, then your cheeks, following the trail of tears that continue to fall despite your wishes. 

You wrap your arms around his neck, clinging to him while you breathe him deep into your lungs. It has helped you think, the tears mean nothing. 

“More.” You whisper into his ear, reaching down to expose his cock. You grasp it in hand, stroke it just how he likes while he watches. He still doesn’t speak, only lets you guide him where you want him the most. 

The moan he breathes out when you pull him in, when he’s pressed up against you tight, molding you to accept him lights you up from the inside out. You kiss him, taking more of what he gives you so freely, willing the love you have for him to fill you up to the brim, so much so that there isn’t room for anything else. The tears still fall but they aren’t for anything other than him now, for how grateful you are that he’s with you, that he loves you this much. He kisses the tears from your face, keeps his rhythm and pulls you apart in all the best ways. 

You fall apart when he does, pulsing around his length while he pumps you full of his come. 

He takes care of everything after that too. Cleans you with a damp, warm cloth, presses the cooled cup of tea to your lips. He tucks you in beside him and turns the lights off. When you let go of the breath you’ve been holding, the tears have dried up, and he’s all that remains. 

-

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