you know that very specific heavy ache you get right at the base of your sternum when everything is too much and you've been a little too sad for a while? and the only thing that relieves it a little bit in the moment is a specific sort of pressure on it. not to mention maybe not having more than five hours of sleep in months making it constantly a little worse. that's the brand of comfort I keep thinking about (sorry ik its sad! lol).
IT IS SAD girliepop you ok ??????????? i gotchu though 🖤
Wordcount: 2.2K
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Let Him
One thought leads to the next, leads to the next, leads to the next, and leads to the next until you’re not even aware of where you are or how you got there.
You’re lost.
Lost in thought. In the quiet and the dark, just the sound of Joe pottering around as he’s getting into something comfortable after his shower. The floor lamp in the corner casts a dim orange light that’s low enough to not overpower the glow of the scented candle you’ve lit on the table.
Sometimes you think this is what people mean when they say they meditate. You just sit and think. Let your mind run away with itself. It’s a shame you only ever find yourself accidentally doing it when you don’t feel the best.
There’s a weird pressure tucked beneath the dip where your ribs meet. A strange, dense, stubborn weight that’s been there for weeks now. It shows up extra every time you sit still long enough to notice your own body properly.
Like right now.
You’ve not moved your body for so long, you stare at your legs and it almost feels like they don’t exist. Like they’re not yours. It’s sort of nice, focusing on other things like this. Nicer than being asleep, almost. No nightmares waiting to shock you awake here.
“Hey,” Joe lets himself fall into his sofa so violently, it would’ve tipped back if it’d been cheaper.
At the opposite end of the sofa you tense a muscle in your knee and your legs are suddenly yours again. “Hey.”
Your body gets a quick unseen scan from him: face, shoulders, fidgeting fingers, the way your eyes seem to be stuck to your feet on the coffee table. Joe does nothing with the information, which is honestly one of his more underrated skills. He knows that if he said anything he’d likely push the first domino in a long, embarrassing chain reaction that ends with you crying on your own in the bathroom and him not knowing how to help on the other side of the locked door.
Joe waits exactly three seconds before he pats the cushion next to him.
“C’mere,” he says as he nods his head back, waving you over. “You’re too far away. I can’t hear you think.”
You snort despite yourself and start a slow slide across the cushions, stopping just short of touching him. The ache in your chest flares at the movement, reminding you its there and that you should breathe slowly if you don’t want your ribs to hurt.
Joe doesn’t comment on your slight wince either.
Instead, he leans back, stretching his arm along the back of the couch in a way that’s half yawn, half an exaggerated performance that invites you to join in him being tired so you can slow blink together, and says, “Today was a long one, wasn’t it?”
You could delve into all the reasons why he’s right, but you decide not to.
“Yea,” you say through a half shrug, sinking lower into the sofa, both feet perched on the edge of the coffee table, the TV only just visible over your knees. “Got a lot done though.”
Joe hums as he reaches for the remote. “That’s good then.”
To be honest, for the past couple of weeks every day has been a long one.
It’s becoming a bit difficult to manage. You’re trying and for the most part, it’s working out. It’s just that your body is starting to feel heavy in strange places that you’re trying to ignore.
It’s why you’re glad for the distraction. For Joe’s eyes to be on something else than the side of your face. You watch as he flips through some channels until he settles on something slow and inoffensive you won’t get into, but it’s fine. The noise of it fills the room just enough to let your thoughts overtake you once more without pulling you away entirely.
“You gonna scare me again tonight?” Joe asks out of the blue, nudging his knee with yours. It takes you a second to understand what he’s saying, and when you turn your head to look at him, he’s smirking slightly. “Want to talk about what that was?”
You’d jolted in your sleep and had woken up with a loud gasp that had scared the living day lights out of Joe. Nightmare. Nothing crazy. You’d fallen asleep immediately after realising it wasn’t real, but Joe’d laid awake until the sky became a little brighter, adrenaline rushing from the shock until his alarm had gone.
“I already said, bad dream.”
“Your bad dream gave me a bad night.” Joe lightly jokes. He did have a bad night, but it’s whatever. He runs perfectly fine on barely any sleep anyway.
You huff a small laugh, “Yea well, you don’t have to hold onto me in bed, I–”
“Yes I do.” Joe cuts you off, sitting up slightly to reach for you with both his arms to pull you into him. Hugs you into his chest tightly as he lets himself lean back, taking you with him. You allow it. “’Course I do.”
A couple of kisses get pressed to the side of your face, and you just let it happen. When he doesn’t let go, you shuffle to get a little more comfortable and settle in, hugged into Joe’s front.
You watch the screen and try not to think about the tightness in your chest and the way your limbs sometimes don’t feel like your own when you feel a little too sad for too long. You try not to catalogue the way your breathing feels like hard work, and how it stays uneven, even when you try your best to count your way through ins and outs.
“Can I ask you something kind of stupid?” Joe mutters absentmindedly after a little while, and it pulls you back into the room a little. You realise he’s speaking against your temple, and you’d been unaware that was his mouth pressed into your skin up until then.
“You’re going to anyway.”
“Fair.” He tilts his head away from you for a moment and takes a moment to form the question correctly. “If someone invented a bed that was like… sort of perfectly designed for your body, maximum comfort, ideal pressure specifically for you, optimal spine support, would you use it and never have nightmares again? Or would you assume it was a trap?”
You laugh, a short, surprised sound. “Because it’s your mattress that’s causing nightmares?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe it’s not supporting you right and you can’t relax properly… keeps you tense. Would that affect your dreams, do you think?”
“Your bed’s fine. If anything, it’s this,” you move an arm and try to unsuccessfully break free from his grip, “…that’s trapping me.”
“I’m the trap?” he asks after a small gasp.
“You’re the trap.” You tilt your head to look at him, to show him your smile so he knows you don’t mean it.
Joe scrunches his nose at you and then says, “Fine, I’ll avoid you then–”
“Noo,” you laugh. You’ve had plenty of conversation about Joe’s tactile nature and your complete lack of it. “If anything, this helps me fall asleep.”
“Yea?” Joe checks, a little hopeful, placing his mouth back where it was before, lips touching your forehead. You easily let him. “S’nice?”
“’S a little suffocating but–” Joe tightens his grip in pulses to shut you up and makes you giggle. It feels nice to laugh, it eases your ribcage with every little shock.
The conversation drifts after that, looping around nothing in particular. He tells you about something annoying schedule wise, looking at the calendar he keeps stuck to his fridge with little magnets, almost all days taken up by big red crosses. He says he feels like there’s no time to that a breather, how life is so very difficult, but he does it in the exaggerated, performative way he saves just for you, complete with bad impressions and unnecessary detail. You contribute where you can, the ache humming quietly in the background, a bit less loud than before.
At some point, without really thinking about it, you turn in Joe’s arms so you’re chest to chest, both your legs a tangled mess half on the sofa half hanging off. You turn your head to face the back of the sofa, you weren’t really watching the TV anyway, and snuggling up like this, finding his warmth and burrowing into it, is more comforting than you thought it’d be.
Joe kisses your hair, doesn’t say anything and doesn’t look down at you with concern or curiosity. He just adjusts, angling his arms so they support you better. His forearms rests across the back of your shoulders and the pressure lands exactly where you need it.
You exhale, long and shaky, before you can stop yourself.
Joe hears it, but he pretends not to. Instead he asks, “Are you’re cold?”
“I’m not,” you say automatically.
He hums again. “Ok. I am a little.”
Before you can argue further, he reaches for a blanket and folds it open, big man hands doing it much slower and less practiced than you would have. He has to sit up a little to make sure it covers your feet as well as you shoulders and you help by tucking your feet up and under to keep it in place. The immediate warmth it traps surprises you, the fabric heavier than you expected, the weight of it adding to whatever Joe was already doing with his arms.
When Joe puts his arms back where he had them before, your breath catches.
This is it.
This is what your body has been quietly begging for without giving you the language to ask. It still hurts when you breathe in too deeply, but it’s dulled. The edges of it are smoothing out, a warm hand covering the bruise to protect it instead of poking it to see if it still hurts.
“Do you think you can nap like this?” Joe asks you softly, and suddenly you realise that all of this is on purpose.
Joe’s got you right where he wants you.
You can see it now, the way he’s carefully layered every action, every question, every giggle. The proximity disguised as convenience and a joke. The questions about his bed a way to get your mind off of your controled breathing. The blanket framed as a practicality for his sake. His touch and pressure offered without a single question that might make you tell him that you’re fine before bolting.
Joe’s not fixing anything.
He’s not naming anything.
He’s not asking you to unpack.
He’s not offering vocabulary you don’t have the energy to take in.
He’s just arranging limbs. Cuddling the girl he’s very fond of. Asking if she wants to nap on him whilst he unwinds from his busy schedule with some mindless TV.
You almost laugh at the realisation, this beautiful fucker.
“Would you mind?” you let yourself sink further into him.
“Have a little kip, ok?”
Joe’s hand flexes slightly, a reflexive response to your face that rubs into his front. His thumb presses gently, experimentally, just below your ribs on your back, like he’s testing the density of the moment.
Your breath stutters, and then slowly but surely, it evens out.
“Better?” he asks lightly, eyes still on the screen.
It’s a trick question, you’re very aware.
“Mm.”
“High praise,” he says jokingly, voice soft enough to let you know it doesn’t need a response.
Minutes pass. Or maybe longer. Time does that strange, stretchy thing that sometimes happens when your nervous system finally unclenches a little. You’re not sure if you manage to actually sleep, if your thoughts turn into dreams or just remain simple thoughts.
Joe starts idly tracing patterns over the blanket with his fingers, nothing recognizable just because he doesn’t need you to decipher anything. Just lines and arcs and occasional pauses, the movement slow and just to be enjoyed for its sensation.
You could stop him.
You could shift away, crack a joke, reassert the emotional boundaries you’ve spent so long reinforcing. You could name the thing and ruin the night and shed a couple of tears in the shower to reset yourself.
But you don’t.
You let him.
Joe’s hand stays where it is, steady and warm, applying exactly the right amount of pressure to keep you tethered. His legs remain tangled with yours, solid and unyielding in the best way. He’s absolutely trapping you, but he hopes he fills the space around you without crowding it. He remains wary of another jolt. Another painful breath that shocks you awake, but he hopes it doesn’t come. Hopes that whatever he’s doing helps enough to keep it from happening again.
You don’t feel trapped.
Let yourself be held.
Hope Joe holds you for however long you want him to out here on the sofa, and hope Joe holds you again when you eventually go to bed together in a little while.
The only reason you managed to fall asleep again so quickly last night was purely because of his hold.
When Joe eventually shifts and turns the volume down, careful not to jostle you, you pretend to be asleep.
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Wally, pissed: B, what the hell. I called you last night for some help and you ignored my calls! I had to ask Rayner's bitch ass to help me, what was so important my calls weren't?
Bruce: you didn't need me, your villains are childs play compared to mine, just needed to stop being lazy and relying on others to help you out.
Wally, eye twitches in my villains ain't child's play: okay, okay, so did you need help with your villains?
Bruce: psh, you wouldn't last a minute in Gotham against mine. I don't need someone I have to carry out of there.
Wally, slams fist on table that scared Clark: bullshit! You let children fight along side you, it can't be that hard.
Bruce: whatever, Allen never had an issue he couldn't solve.
Wally: because he had HAL! you moron!
Bruce: I'm not a mor—
Diana: enough! Settle this like adults or like men.
Wally: fine. I want to be a Gotham villain for a week, if you can defeat me I'll shut my mouth up and never complain about this again.
Bruce, has a file on how to defeat Barry: deal.
Two weeks later
Bruce, on a building with his head in his hands: how is he that good! I have a file on how to neutralize him!
Dick: that's on Barry... You do know speedster are different from one another.
Bruce: they are!? How!?
Dick: Wally can go through walls. Barry can. That's one difference.
Jason: and apparently he can make damn good pipe bombs, can I add him to the outlaws I need a good pipe bomber for the team.
Bruce: this is a nightmare!
Tim: could be worse, at least he's not destroying anything valuable and he's protecting citizens.
Stephanie: and his suit is serving cunt, get the penguin let him see what drip is.
Duke, yelling out: yo Walls! I'd love a hamburger!
Wally, zips in: here ya go bud. *Leaves*
Duke: god, can he stay, he so convenient.
Bruce: No!
Kate: boooo pussy baby man.
Damian: he can blow up stuff but I stab one person I'm ground for six weeks.
Dick: because stabbing the mailman because you think he's an intruder.
Damian: he looked sus! Chat defend me!
Barbara: chat says no stabbing.
Damian: tt.
Bruce, to Dick: how do I stop him! You have a file on him, tell me!
Dick: no, I won't. There's finally a hot redhead villain now, and I'm going to pull a you real quick and flirt with the sexy villain, bye! *Leaves*
Bruce: noooooo, you were my son! Diana gonna laugh at me!
Jason: auntie gonna laugh at you? Shit let me help make this more of a problem for ya.
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Just reblogged art of Astarion covering Tav's mouth to shut them up and now I have a mighty need to write about Astarion and Tav in Baldur's Gate, separated from the rest of the party for a reason or another, in a romantic relationship, coming across one of those person Astarion do NOT want to come across because of shit he did in the past, so he drags Tav into a nearby alley, pins them against the closest wall, covers their mouth with his hand and whispers, firmly: "Not. A sound."
And he's busy checking they don't get caught but Tav is just standing there, having no idea what's happening, but letting Astarion doing what he wants because they trusts him, and thinking to themselves: "Hm. That's hot actually."
You know that really lovely Batman sound where hes like “nightwing is the better version of Batman, I’d tell my son I miss him.” And all that? I’ve heard people still somehow hating on Bruce using that sound and being like “Should've told him that when he was with you- then maybe he wouldn't have left.” …. Like did you not listen to the entire thing? Bruce literally ends with “He doesn't need me bothering him. He doesn't need me at all.”
BRUCE BELIEVES HE SHOULDN'T BE LOVED AND THAT HE IS A PLAGUE ON EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE AND HIS PRESENCE HURTS AND RUINS DICK.
I hate it so much when people give Bruce shit like- this man hates himself. It is his core belief, its why he tries so hard to push people away- because those close to him are in danger- those close to him can die, and its because of him. He can hurt them. And he doesn't want that. He doesn't want the people he loves to be vulnerable with him because he believes he poisons everything and would hurt them while they're vulnerable. Bruce doesn't tell Dick all the stuff that he should because he doesn't truly believe Dick loves him, and he knows Dick is a good person, so if he told his son that he sees him as his son and loves him, Dick will feel a guilt to return that love and Bruce doesn't want that because then Dick is getting hurt by loving someone as dangerous and just bad as Bruce. Anyway, I love Bruce and please give him a fucking break especially when he is literally explaining that he loves and cherishes Dick.
