claws require brain power
well basically I've been obsessed with the concept art for miguel so it is heavily inspired by those (x). not my fault he looks so boyfriend
summary: miguel is on the edge of a burn out, and he's the only one not seeing it.
warnings: none too important I think, just miguel being really tired because he works a lot. swearing, one small (and cringe) innuendo.
tags: gn!reader, established relationship, angst, fluff, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort?, nerdy miguel<3
word count: 2.1k
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Miguel hadn’t slept at home in days; you had been fairly accustomed to him leaving in the middle of the night for safety matters in Nueva York and coming back early in the morning, but now that the threat was multiversal and now that he was the leader of the spider society, he didn’t even bother getting to bed in the first place.
He in fact barely even left the spider society; the rare times he did were for missions, and when he came back he didn’t even take the time to catch a break; he always had something to fix, something to build, a new suit to work on, a machine to program, meetings, briefings, then more missions.
You wondered how he still had all that energy and where it came from, and you wondered how he hadn’t burnt out yet.
Even the small naps he took from time to time – against his will, you had found him passed out on his desk one day, head resting over folded arms, mouth slightly opened, soft snores escaping – couldn't possibly make up for his lack of sleep, and even though his mutation may grant him more stamina and allow him to stay awake longer than the average human being, the dark circles under his eyes were the visual proof of his fatigue, and it was all you needed to try to drag his ass back home so he could get some rest.
You watched from a distance as Miguel was sitting on the floor, a monkey wrench in hand and a screw sitting between his lips. He looked focused, a small crease forming between his eyebrows as he tried to fix his machine – you had no idea what it was for, but you figured it must be important considering the significant amount of time he had already taken trying to fix it.
Miguel gasped in surprise at your contact, slightly jumping at the sudden feeling of your hands over his shoulders, your unexpected and unannounced presence tearing him out of his developing state of drowsiness.
“Shit you scared me” he grunted softly, grabbing the screw at his mouth before turning to look back at you.
"Sorry" you apologized, bending to leave a kiss at the top of his head, your thumbs rubbing where his suit was peeking out under the baggy clothes he had been wearing for probably way too long. His shoulders muscles were stiff and you felt them tense even more when he turned back to his machine with a small sigh.
You joined him and pushed the hammer and nails out of the way before sitting down next to him.
"When was the last time you went to the cafeteria for something other than the coffee?" you asked accusingly as you looked down at the empty mug beside him on the floor, your hand resting at the back of his neck, playing with the hair there.
He shrugged, still looking at the open hatch of the machine in front of him.
“A bagel won’t keep me awake” he muttered, his voice slightly muffled by the object in his mouth as he tightened a bolt, putting his tool back on the floor with a clinking before grabbing another.
“You still need to eat, you won’t get to finish fixing this machine if you die first” you scolded him as your hand left him, looking at him sternly.
He turned to you and let go of his screw before putting a hand at your arm, his tired eyes boring into yours.
“I'll eat, I promise, but I'll do that once I'm done. I’m really close to getting it, I almost have it solved.” he declared, tilting his head towards the machine as his grip around your arm lightly tightened.
You closed your eyes and nodded once before you opened your mouth to talk again, but Miguel had already turned back to work at his machine. You let out a small sigh and grabbed the screw he previously had at his mouth to fiddle with it.
"When was the last time you had a real night of sleep? Because I don't recall seeing you in our bed in what– almost a week at least?"
"Are we playing 21 questions?" he asked sarcastically as he turned to you again, clearly beginning to lose patience.
You paused and looked away from him, a small sigh leaving your mouth before you looked back in his direction.
"We're playing 'I'm worried about my boyfriend', it's a game where said boyfriend barely takes care of himself and drowns in work and in which everyone around him witnesses his vital needs getting neglected." you said as you didn’t even try to make it sound like a joke, just blatantly showing him how upset you were.
He pinched his lips before his gaze dropped to his lap.
“Miguel” you called. “Take a break. Please. This is a request for now but if you keep on being stubborn this is gonna become an order” you said as you shifted closer to him.
"I don't wanna fight with you. I really don't" you nodded as you put a hand to his shoulder.
"And you would lose, because you don't have enough energy to outbid, and it's gonna hurt your ego so it's best for the both of us if you just listen to me" you explained, a smile appearing over your face when he softly chuckled and shook his head. "Okay?" you asked raising your eyebrows, awaiting his response.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay" he nodded, his half lidded, tired and bloodshot eyes looking up at you.
"Good" you pinched your lips in a smile as you brushed away the shorter strands of his tousled hair falling over his forehead, before leaving a kiss there.
He tiredly smiled at you when you pulled away, leaning into your touch when your fingers ghosted over the light stubble on his cheeks that had grown over the past few days.
You shrugged. “I like it”
“I don’t.”
You chuckled at his harsh response, your hand fully resting at his cheek. “Come back home with me and we’ll shave it.” you shrugged. “After a well needed shower” you continued, teasing him as you pinched your nose and faked a wince, making him nudge your side as he huffed out a laugh.
“I know it’s getting critical, I just haven’t had the time for it” he said grunting as he got up from the floor. “Lyla even said 'I don’t have olfactory sensors but I know that you stink'” he mocked as he took a higher voice and imitated the sassy attitude of his AI, making quotation marks with his hands.
You laughed at the a-bit-too-accurate imitation and got up too when he offered you his hand to help you up.
"Come on, let's get you something to eat and go back home"
—
You were already sitting on your bathroom counter, razor in hand when Miguel came out of the shower, towel loosely hanging around his hips.
“Sure you don’t wanna keep it?” you asked teasingly, pointing at your own face to refer to his five o’clock shadow as he walked up to you.
“No. I don’t wanna look like Peter B” he grumbled as he joined you. You huffed out a laugh and caged him with your legs, bringing him closer to you.
He let his forehead rest against your shoulder, planting his hands at either side of the counter while you brushed his wet and dripping hair back, almost shuddering as you felt the gentle scruff of his stubble against your skin when his face shifted to your neck.
“Alright”
He tilted his head back up at you, the worn out expression over his face paining you.
You took a hold of his face and shaved him in silence, and you didn’t blame him for the lack of conversation and clever things to say. He probably had been dealing with a lot of stuff this week, trying his best so things wouldn’t turn out to be catastrophic so he probably wanted it all to be quiet now.
Following along his sharp and defined jawline, you shaved to the shape of his face, razor gently and thoroughly following each line, careful not to go too fast and slip and cut him.
“I'm so tired. Working twenty-four seven didn’t give me time to realize it but now it's crushing me” he mumbled, his voice barely louder than a whisper so his movements wouldn't be too harsh and wouldn't make you slip.
“I know. It all comes crashing down one moment or another” you said with an empathetic smile, rubbing your thumb over his left cheek once you were done with that area. He responded with a small hum.
It didn't take too long for you to be over with your task, and you put the razor down by the sink before grabbing the aftershave bottle, squeezing the lotion onto your hands and gently lathering it over his face, appreciating the smell you never realized you were that used to.
"Done. All clean shaven" you declared as he put his hands at either side of your neck, smiling tiredly before slotting his lips against yours.
"Thank you" he softly smiled.
"Come on, let's get you dressed and let's get you to bed" you called as you jumped down from the counter, exiting the bathroom as he followed you to the bedroom.
—
“You know, at this point you could build us quarters at the spider society” you chuckled, rummaging into the closet looking for the same kind of comfortable clothes he had been wearing lately.
“Don’t tempt me, I could make that happen” he declared as he shifted from his sitting position to lay down onto the bed with a grunt. “That’s actually not a bad idea”
You hummed in reflexion. “I could look after you, make sure you’re not doing too much” you shrugged as you turned to him to throw him a pair of clean boxers.
“Forget about what I said. ‘Don’t need you to try to babysit me all the time, I already have Lyla for that” he chuckled as he let the towel down to put on the clothes you were progressively throwing at him.
“Where was she to babysit you these past few days?” you asked as you joined him and crawled onto the bed.
“Had to turn her off. You, I can’t” he teased with a small smirk plastered over his face before putting his shirt on, grunting as you pushed him back down onto the bed.
“Asshole” you playfully hit his chest, leaning down next to him. "Right, you could only turn me on." You stared at the ceiling as you waited for any type of response, a chuckle, a small laugh, a nudge, but nothing came, nothing happened.
Your look darted to his direction, and you giggled as you watched him trying to hold back a laugh.
"That's a bad joke, for my defense I'm exhausted so it doesn't count" he shook his head, covering his eyes with his hand, desperately grunting.
"Yeah, right" you huffed out a laugh as you let your head rest over his chest.
The tension quickly diffused, the atmosphere getting calmer and the room getting quieter as you absentmindedly let the tip of your fingers trace patterns over his chest slowly rising and falling.
"Thank you" he softly muttered, breaking the silence, tearing you out of your thoughts.
"What?" you asked, confused, your fingers stopping in their trail.
"Thank you for dragging me out of there, out of this hole"
You paused and shifted so you could look back at him, propping your elbow next to his face, holding your chin in the palm of your hand.
"Miguel, you know I'll always have your back, right?" you rhetorically asked, your fingertips now tracing his face, all soft from the aftershave.
He nodded as his eyes darted to your face.
"Yeah. I know" he pinched his lips in a soft smile as he looked at you, fighting so his eyes could remain open.
You mirrored his smile, leaning over so you could leave a kiss at his lips, running your fingers over the side of his face one last time.
“You can rest now. I got you”
He softly hummed before his eyes closed under the weight of the responsibilities weighing on him, a small sigh of relief leaving him as your fingers raked through his hair.
It didn't take long for you to register he was asleep, his breath slowing down, the steady heaving of his chest and a peaceful expression over his face.
You couldn't bring yourself to move, couldn't bring yourself to leave him.
—
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Pairing: Jonathan Levy x Reader
Word Count: 4.6k
Summary: Jonathan wants to say you came into his life like a flower, but it feels too fickle, too unlasting. Instead, he thinks, you grew like a rose bush for him.
A/N: The Jonathan Levy era is here folks. Keep in mind this was written after watching only the first two episodes of the show. I am completely ignoring Jonathan's second wife and his cheating.
I don't own photos or characters. Divider from @firefly-graphics
Ava’s head is lying on your stomach. You’re lying on your back, your head in Jonathan’s lap. He’s against the headboard, trying to find the courage in himself to fully wake up Ava, and break your drowsy state. This is no way for the three of you to sleep tonight, there’s not even a pillow behind his back, and you’re surely going to freeze, just in a pair of shorts and one of his t-shirts.
You’re actually matching with him, pulling off the plain grey cotton better than he ever could. His book is long forgotten to the side, the sun having set a few minutes ago, all his will to get any more reading done that evening lost to the wind. There was a movie playing on his laptop, one that you’d set up for Ava. A movie Jonathan had paused when he saw his daughter asleep, your eyes hazy and struggling to stay open.
The lights had remained on, a half-hope of his that he’d finish his chapter and tuck his daughter into bed before drifting off himself in your arms. He knows now that that was a foolish hope. There’s no sight prettier than the softness of you in his arms, his daughter in yours, both of you in his. He feels strong, indestructible. Wants to take the two of you and let no harm ever come to you again, be it at the expense of his own safety. There’s a bubbling need for him to protect. Feral and unknown. You’d scoff at him if he ever told you this, tell him that his old man is showing and they don’t do things like that anymore, but he wants to think it all the same.
He lets his fingers follow your hairline, down to the curve of your jaw. The movements make you catch his eye and he’s filled with instant regret for even drawing a drop of your attention towards him like this.
You smile at him and let your eyes droop to half-shut again
Unlike Mira, who’d come into his life like a twenty-year hurricane, and left just as abruptly, you come into his life like you’d always been there. In many ways you’d had. Had been introduced as the daughter of his PhD supervisor, graduating with your Bachelor’s the same week he had stuttered his way through and promptly threw up after his field of study exam.
He wants to say you came into his life like a flower, but it feels too fickle, too unlasting. Instead, he thinks, you grew like a rose bush for him. When you had blossomed out for him in love, he knew, that this wasn’t a storm he had to ride out, one that would inevitably end for better or for worse, but that with a little care, a little attention and love, your adoration for him, your rose bush would be a permanent fixture in his life.
Your seed had taken root quietly. For many years, as he drifts in and out of your life, helping you secure a position with a supervisor for a graduate degree, visiting your mother every once in a while, smiling at you, when you shyly bring in a tray of coffee cups and sit quietly all through the afternoons he’s spent in your living room, you furrow your way into his chest.
Though you don’t make a sound, barely talk to him for the first year of his acquaintance with you, you’re working. Growing a myriad of roots, a complex maze that only you alone can make your way through. You do it so subtly, like the gentle flutter of your eyelashes. Always there but never noticed.
By the time you burst up in a little sprout, a promise of what is to come, it’s too late for Jonathan to weed you out. You’ve reached deep inside his chest and with your roots, you tug at heartstrings he didn’t know he had. You’re walking across the stage to receive your degree, when he notices you for you. Feels his heart quiver in a concerning way, thinks he’s hallucinated hearing your name called out, booming over the cathedral where the ceremony is held. But you’re very real. There’s an earthy, grounded freshness to you, an aura hanging around your body that Jonathan hadn’t noticed until then. It draws him in, leaves him thirsty for more as he hungrily drinks the sight of you, as your traditional academic robes billow with every step.
When you were graduating, he was steps away from becoming an instructor, his post-doc in its final stages. Tenure was almost on the tip of his tongue, if he kept his contacts, if his cards were played right. He just had to get to and then through associate professorship. Ava had just arrived, had disrupted his mind and his sleep schedule, had taken over the entire house with a seemingly never-ending load of laundry filled with baby onesies, toys scattered across the living room, a milk bottle always drying alongside all the rest of their dishes.
Needless to say, there was a lot on his plate. He shouldn’t have even been at the ceremony that day had it not been for the promise of the cocktail hour afterwards. But he was and his relationship with you changes irredeemably.
You don’t belong in his life, really. You’re…nobody to him, at least, you should be. The daughter of a mentor who supported him during one of the hardest periods of his life. The daughter of a mentor whom he gave a favour to and put in a good word with the department head, who had sat in on his defence. Jonathan really could just chalk you up to an acquaintance, had it not been for the way your seedling had made its home in his chest.
So, he runs to the campus floral shop, booming with business and buys you a mismatched bunch of flowers from the ones left over. He taps your shoulder and pulls you, beaming, away from all your friends. Your mother, he knows, is away in Europe at a conference, will be back next week and will celebrate privately with you. He’s tongue-tied as he congratulates you, his fingers have turned into knots as he struggles to hand you the flowers.
As a child you’ve probably been to so many of these you were most likely bored out of your mind through the commencement ceremony. Still, Jonathan thinks you deserve flowers. Knows that you’re fond of brushing past the big events of your life as if they were just another day, a day not worth noting in the album of your life as your eyes are already drifting on towards new adventures. He tries that day, to make you slow down, to breathe deeper, smile wider, take in the world around you without any responsibilities on your shoulders.
He also gives you his number, tells you to stay in touch and let him know if you ever decide to return to the dark world of academia. You laugh and give him a mysterious smile, not a yes or no. You don’t let him dwell too long on your smile, on the sudden glint in your eyes, before you ask him how Ava is doing, where her mother’s health is at, post-partum.
At the end, right before you’re pulled away again, he asks you for a hug and he’s oddly sentimental about the whole thing. It’s not like you were a child when he met you, but he’s seen you grow, has seen you take on the challenges of graduate school head-on and come out triumphant at the end of each one, if a little bruised or scarred. So, it does feel like the end of an era. The end of his time as a student, and a gaping, wild unknown territory of teaching, research, supervision in store for him.
Jonathan knows better than to ask you what you plan to do with the fancy piece of paper in your hands. Knows you must be sick of the question by now and that today was one of those rare days that was supposed to be reserved for only the present, the breaths between minutes.
He’s drawn out of his thoughts when he sees your eyes blink slowly, as if there’s molasses dripping from your eyelashes, drying stickily. You glance down at Ava, and he sees you brush the hair away from her face gently, tucking it behind her ear, and placing your hand over her eyes, so the frown can fade away from her otherwise smooth skin.
Reaching over, he dims the lights, and it feels like the room is lit by candles only.
Really, it’s just electricity, probably some horribly inefficient light bulbs that were killing baby pandas all over the world. He knows you’d like to light candles instead, knows you prefer natural light, and nice, comforting smells. When he had hugged you that day at graduation, you smelled like the citrus candle at the grocery market.
You don’t smell like it anymore though. Because you’d given up candles for him. For his inflamed, damaged lungs that struggled with the stale air of his favourite lecture hall. The one with the high ceiling windows, the seemingly never ending amount of chalk close to the blackboard, the projector always working.
Over the years, as he secures tenure and Ava grows up, your sprout grows, fresh green branches hardening into delicate twigs, jagged edges of leaves springing up in every available corner. But there are no flower buds yet.
You meet him for coffee, rant about the job market to him, appalled at how you could have two, top-notch degrees, stellar references, and several first-author publications, and still not manage to land an interview. He listens, hums and shows his support, tries to rack his mind for any of his friends who took a master-out and went into industry instead who could maybe line something up for you.
He takes you to museums and art galleries, to street food stalls afterwards and buys you greasy foods that don’t rest well with his stomach. Invites you over for dinner, watches fondly as you talk with his wife, play with his daughter. Comes to your apartment in turn, and meets your mismatched group of friends that you love fiercely and proudly. Considers himself blessed that he’s considered part of them, part of the people you deem worthy of your attention, your time, your cooking and wine.
His marriage becomes strained. He texts you more, sets up coffee, lunches and walks in the park with you more and more. Your chatter, your fresh, still hopeful outlook on life breathes air into his lungs, new life into his soul. He finds he can forget the growing pit in his stomach when he’s with you, the terrifying fear that if things don’t work out with Mira, if they don’t figure out how to heal, leaving Mira and being left by her is going to tear him to bits.
Instead, he laughs until he has to reach for his inhaler at your eerily accurate impressions of your shared acquaintances at the university. He tries new food with you and watches foreign films that are poorly translated through the subtitles. Exchanges books and gets into heated arguments, pushes you to use and maintain the skills you learned while writing your thesis as he vehemently stands his ground on the other side of the debate.
Six months after you graduate, you secure a job, and a well-paying salary, with a workweek that ends Friday evening, no ifs ands buts or doubts about it. Of course you would. Jonathan had no doubt about it. And if he’s honest with himself, on a Saturday evening cooped up in his office with a stack of essays to grade, he’s jealous of you.
The day he takes you to see that new space documentary at the movies, he gets a taste of a line you’ve never crossed with him. A line you’ve surely crossed with all your friends, except him. He notices that day that you’ve always kept him at an arm’s length away, that your friendship with him was different than his friendship with you.
And, fuck, does it hurt, does he hate how it makes his stomach twist.
Jonathan had just juggled the popcorn and the tickets, handing them over to the boy to be ripped when he felt you stall, stiffening up beside him. You don’t mention anything and he doesn’t ask. Just like how he never mentions Mira anymore and you never ask. You keep your conversation, your questions and attention, for little Ava.
But, instead of following him to the last door on the right, you stop at the third door to your left. You tell him you want to watch a movie instead, a cheap thing, with a cheap budget and mediocre acting at best. He wants to say that? You sure? But your eyes are glinting and he doesn’t want to prod.
Of course, the film is, objectively, terrible. You’re the only ones in the theatre so it doesn’t matter if he pokes fun, mocks the acting, goes discretely silent at the sex scene that really, shows too much. He’s grateful that you don’t notice how he blushes, how he wants to melt into a literal puddle on the floor. You’d surely think he’s an old fart, if it seems like he can’t handle a little full frontal nudity.
But you’re too astute of an observator, can pick up on the cues of his body better than he can, and you nudge him and with a little flick of your head, let him know that it’s ok to leave.
You notice how he blushed, how he wanted to melt into a literal puddle on the floor. You don’t care though. You don’t think he’s an old fart, and instead, walk behind him and throw popcorn at the back of his head until he looks at you with a glare.
That’s when it happens.
He hears your name called across the theatre, a rush of people piling out of one of the doors.
Mile-wide grin, square-set shoulders and clean-shaven. The man waves you down, and Jonathan doesn’t know where he wants to look at that moment. He follows behind you, the greasy bag of his popcorn brushing against the side of his pants and surely leaving stains behind.
This is Jonathan. He remembers you saying, turning towards him with a smile that has the promise of an apology behind it. Jonathan reaches forward and gives the so far unidentified man a handshake, maybe a little firmer than necessary. A family friend, we go way back.
Awkward would be one way to describe the way you talk with your ex. At least from your perspective, it really is awkward. Gauche, maladroit. It makes his skin crawl to see the way you look at him, the way you dig your nails into your palm. You hand over sugary-sweet smiles that Jonathan can see right through. It’s the synthetic sweetness of maraschino cherries, the taste of the fruit underneath, subtle and addicting, drowned out through chemicals and fructose corn syrup. High in calories, low in nutrients.
But Mr. Patagonia jacket doesn’t seem to mind this, thinks that the encounter has gone wonderfully, since he confirms with you if you still have his number and asks you to text him, for coffee or dinner sometime.
It hits Jonathan then, that the nauseating feeling crawling up his throat isn’t the popcorn.
You’ve never talked to him about this stuff. People with whom you wanted to be closer to than just friends, with whom you’ve wanted to cross that line with. It occurs to him that never, not once, have you ever shut down plans with him because you had a date. It was always that there was something at work, something at home, you were just too tired.
He’s not sure why it bothers him so much. You’re allowed to dictate your relationship with him, and matters of the hearts are intensely private affairs, not to be divulged with just anyone. So, it shouldn’t bother him. Surely, he doesn’t have the right to demand you divulge your love life to him, and he’s not going to even attempt to go there.
But, though he tells himself to calm the fuck down, he’s still bothered. Bothered by the fact that he’s never even met one of your partners. Ever. Not in passing, not in the evenings he’s spent at your house and the ones you’ve spent at his. You’ve always opened the door by yourself, grinning wide as you welcome him inside, and in turn, you’ve always come alone, with a bottle of wine.
Sorry about that. My ex.
Jonathan, still deep in thought, hums and muses that he seemed like a nice guy. He says it only out of politeness. He didn’t care for the guy the minute he gestured over for you to come over and didn’t tell you to stay put so he could come towards the two of you.
His eyes fall on you as he watches for a reaction to his words. Nothing. You don’t twitch an eyebrow or bat a lash. You make a low noise at the back of your throat and say that when he wants to be, he can be a nice guy.
“Hey, you,” your voice is raspy, quiet with the fear of waking up the girl curled into your body. It draws him out of his thoughts and makes him acutely aware that he’s been staring at the wall ahead of him with a horrible kink in his neck. He takes a deep breath and straightens up, his back cracking.
He peers down and it feels like he’s looking at two stars. “We can’t sleep like this,” he says just as quietly as you. All the other girls never loved Ava as much as you did, some didn’t even like her at all, had fled at the break of dawn from his bed when they saw the toys strewn across the living room. It makes his heart warm to see the way she’s fallen asleep on you now, how much she must trust you. “Ava’s gotta get to bed.”
You’re going to ask for five more minutes, and Jonathan already knows he’s going to give you ten.
“Five more minutes?” Your free hand comes to hold his, and you bend your head awkwardly to give Ava a kiss. “She’s so warm. Wanna stay like this forever.”
It was about six months after he finalised the divorce that Jonathan dared something beyond the friendly touches he normally gave you. In turn, you’d sit closer beside him when you were on his couch, pressed the length of your thigh against his and made his heart beat two times faster. Three months later, he kisses you for the first time.
He’s sitting on the floor with you in your apartment, hours into what should have been just one round of Dutch Blitz, when it happens. You’re glowing, triumphant and content with the rush of your latest win, when Jonathan realises that the only thing he wants in that moment is to feel your lips against his. Realises that he hasn’t felt a need this strong ever in his life.
He murmurs your name, catches your attention from the glass of wine you’re topping up for him, and you smile and give him a wink.
He pushes the cards between the two of you to the side and stands up on his knees, though they protest in old age. He’s mirroring the way you are now, and his hand comes to wrap around your waist, something he’s never done before, not like this. Not with the lights dimmed, soft music in the background and his heart beating the way it is. He hears the faint clink of the wine bottle hitting the glass tabletop, as your eyes fall on him and everything drowns out except for you.
It feels like he’s moving purely on instinct, not an ounce of logic is behind his actions. All his thoughts are you. The aching, soul-burning desire he has for you to be his. You’ve drawn closer to him, and right now you’re looking up at him through your eyelashes. He asks you if it would be alright if he kissed you, if it would be something you liked.
You brush the tip of your nose against his, repeating the action with your lips. Tantalisingly, as if daring him to do it, you tell him, demand him to kiss you. And he does. His lungs burn and he knows that this is it for him. That the feelings he holds for you are beyond love and adoration. They’re beyond words. They existed at the beginning of the universe, at the beginning of time.
Jonathan, in that moment, feels both the chest-crushing pressure of nothingness of before the universe, and the sudden breath in, the moment where nothing changes into now, the beginning of time and life itself, all in your arms. His knees are killing him, and he thinks he’s a little hazy-headed from the alcohol, but nothing’s ever felt this right as it does now.
He doesn’t think that he’s indestructible, that the world can bring him any harm. He is the world, the rivers and mountains, galaxies and stars and atoms and everything in between. He breathes life into beings and takes it away in the blink of his eye, in the soft caress of your hands against his neck.
Being in your arms, holding you like he is now, is a solace, a safe haven for him from which he never wants to stray from. His Garden of Eden, his paradise on Earth, his home. A home that he’ll never have the temptation of running from. Why would he?
Your rose bush blooms for him at that moment, takes his breath away. The seemingly inconspicuous, leafy bush, neither fruit tree nor weed, blossoms into love. If it was possible to ignore the space you had taken up in his body, it’s impossible now. He can’t see unless he’s looking at you, the flower you’ve grown into under the care of his hand, his friendship, his life. He knows that nothing else in his life will be worth as much as you are.
He’s stumbled upon an underwater cave of riches, of luxuries never seen before on land, and instead of ripping them from their home, into harsh light and to be battered over by greedy hands, he’ll make his home here. Will let the saltwater flow into his lungs, give his last breath away to the ocean, and never leave again.
In short, Jonathan realises that he loves you, that he’s loved you for some time now, and will never love anyone else other than you.
He’s not sure how to tell you all this. The sudden tornado of feelings you cause in his chest. So, instead, he pulls away, breathless, only to push his forehead against yours, to let his hands underneath your shirt and trace the knuckles of your spinal cord.
Kissing you wasn't an impulse at all. He wasn’t acting to fulfil a need, no matter how burning or life-threatening. Kissing you was pure logical decision-making. It was the next rational step in his relationship with you. It was like the exhale of his lungs after the inhale, the inhale to follow after the exhale. There was no second-guessing, no impulsive heat-of-the-moment movements, breathing was never like that, and kissing you would never be like that either.
You tell him, eyes glowing and filled with love, that you did like it, how he kissed you, and wouldn’t mind it if he did it again sometime.
He sits back, and pulls you with him into his arms. His back comes to rest at the edge of the loveseat behind him, his legs fall to either side of your body as his arms wrap around your shoulders.
He’s never letting you go.
“Ok, baby,” his hand comes to soothe over the side of your head. It’s been fifteen minutes and it’s high time that everyone gets to bed. “Honey, I’m going to take Ava to bed, alright?” Your eyes are fluttering, and he takes the pillow closest to him and prepares it right beside his leg. As he slips out from underneath you, you barely feel it, as your head falls onto the pillow seconds later.
He walks around and presses a kiss to his daughter’s temple before he gathers her in his arms. She’s half-awake, her voice slurred and dripping with sleep. When he asks her if she’s brushed her teeth, she tells him yes, that you helped her to do so, before the movie.
Jonathan falls a little more in love with you at that moment. For the common sense you had, for the way you could perceive what would happen once the three of you were cuddled up in bed, for the care you extend to his daughter as if she were your own.
Once Ava’s tucked in, sung to, kissed and loved, her night light turned on, he comes back to your shared room. He manages to catch you coming out of the bathroom, little flecks of water darkening the grey of your shirt.
“Sorry,” he feels shy with you suddenly, and shoves his hands into his pockets like a little bird tucking its head underneath its wing. You smile at him and walk towards him, your arms fall around his waist and smile up at him. He loves you.
“For what?” You press your nose against the side of his neck, briefly bite his skin, but change your mind halfway through and kiss over the spot instead.
He shrugs, “Waking you up.”
“It’s ok,” your hands come to the nape of his neck and you pull him down towards you. Your lips are breaths away from his. “I’ll thank you in the morning when I don’t have a kink in my back.”
The next rational decision is to kiss you. The world wouldn’t make sense if he didn’t. It took Jonathan a while to get used to the feelings that would rush through him when he kissed you. At first, he naively thought that they would stop after a while. Now, two years after that kiss, he still feels it, just as intense, just as life-changing as the first time. The only thing that’s changed now is that he knows that he has to prepare for them. Ground his feet, take in a deep breath, so he’s not as thrown off as he was that night.
Now, he pulls your leg to rest on the side of his hip, his other hand comes and rests on your upper thigh. You jump into his arms and he walks you over towards the bed, lays you down and hovers over you, his weight resting on his forearms right beside his head.
Jonathan loves you.
“I love you,” you murmur, threading your hands through his hair.
Jonathan smiles.
So, what's the verdict? More Jonathan Levy?
Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought of it, it means the world to me! Masterlist here.
Everything tags: @whats-belay
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Miguel probably laughs at you lowly while you’re crying on his cock, begging to come. Maybe he makes you sit on it, inch by inch because he’s so big that he can’t just push his way in, making you whimper when he hits your cervix while you drip all over his thighs.
Maybe he takes you from behind, and right after hearing you sniffle into the sheets where you were being pummelled into, he lifts you up by the nape of your neck. His sharp teeth bared at your skin as he asks you to tell him how it feels, his large hand pressing on the bulge where he can feel himself inside you.
Not touching you where you need him to, but resting his fingers there and waiting for you to respond to him when he asks, “feels good, yeah? Tell me, baby, need you to tell me. Then I’ll let you come, I promise,” and the pin prick feeling of his fangs starting to sink in has you coming undone anyway
pairing: miguel o’hara x reader
summary: confession time ٩( ᐛ )و
warnings: none.
a/n: I caved…
“Alright, hear me out.” “No.”
Miguel interrupts without missing a beat. You scoff as you watch him turn his back to you as he refocuses on the many projectors in front of him. “All that technology is going to rot your brain,” you mumble out under your breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. Anyways,” you curl your two middle fingers inward towards your palm as you direct a web to the floating island Miguel was on. “As I was saying, hear me out.” You hear a distressed sigh coming from the man in front of you but decided to brush it off. He was going to hear you out.
He remained silent, an indirect indication for you to continue your thoughts.
“Being stressed all the time is going to do no good for the spiderverse.”
“Arachnoid humanoid poly multiverse.”
“Yeah, that, so as I was saying… having one dinner wouldn’t doom the multiverse.”
Another sigh was let out this time, but this time it was out of exhaustion. He calls out your name causing your back to straighten as he finally turns to face you.
“The fate of the multiverse,” he begins before getting cut off by a web, coming from you, connecting with his torso and jerking him towards your direction.
He tilted his head at you once you stopped pulling him closer, leaving probably three centimeters of space between you two.
He wasn’t surprised by this action, no, you’ve done this multiple times. Pulled him too close for comfort, causing all logical thoughts in his brain to short circuit as it filled with thoughts of you.
You could hear his heartbeat. It’s one of the pros that come with being a spider person, your heightened senses. In moments like these where your own heartbeat was far too hard for you control you’d rely on his to calm you down, however it seemed to have done the opposite.
Why was it so fast?
Hearing your name managed to take you out of your momentarily dazed self.
“Is everything alright?” Miguel, whose body was practically leaning on yours, lightly shook you for he was disturbed by your suddenly quiet self.
“Yeah,” you replied far too quickly as you forced yourself to take a few steps back to create some distance between you two.
“Anyways,” you stuttered out, “I was just going to say how you always loose me whenever you start talking about the multiverse. Yeah, always manages to make my brain shut off.”
Miguel stared at you confused as you start to awkwardly ramble on about how the very premise of the multiverse is strange.
“And it’s so weird how technically-“
“Stop talking.”
You immediately close your mouth.
For the third time tonight, Miguel lets out a sigh as he closes the distance between the two of you. One second your mouth is opening to question why he’s taking more steps than necessary, and the next it’s occupied by the mouth of his.
When you don’t push him away and instead lean into his body, his hand travels up to your neck and his thumb presses against the area where your adams apple would’ve been to tilt your head up slightly more.
The one to end the kiss first is you, Miguel attempts to follow and close that distance once again but gets interrupted by the hand you put on his chest to stop him.
For a second Miguel starts to think he read the entire situation wrong. But you leaned into him so what does that mean-
“Miguel,” you begin saying softly and you looked up at him, “how did you know,” when he gives you a blank expression you let out a small snicker before continuing, “that I liked you.”
He tilts his head again as he looked down at you, “You thought I wasn’t able to sense your heartbeat? Cariño, even though I don’t have the spider sense that you have, my senses are still heightened.”
“Oh,” you say dumbfounded. Right.
“Yeah,” he says quietly as he tries to kiss you again.
“Wait,” you interrupt. “So, do you…like me too?”
“…We just kissed.”
“Yeah but, friends with benefits exist-“
Miguel groaned as you began to ramble on about how kissing doesn’t mean requited feelings, and while he understood what you were saying he’d much rather feel your lips on his than watch them speak about a scenario that wasn’t the case with this situation.
“Ok, then how about we get dinner.”
You widened your eyes at his words, a smile threatens to show on your face but you try to keep your composure, “…Ok. So…is this a date?”
“Yes,” he exhales, “Yes, it will be a date.”
“Ok.” You say excitedly before connecting a web with the ground beneath you two and jumping down, “See you in…?”
“Does thirty minutes sound good?”
“Yeah,” you start to smile, “yeah, thirty minutes sounds good.” You give him an actual smile before turning around getting ready to run through the halls of hq to tell Peter and Mayday all about this interaction.
“Ok,” Miguel says under his breath as he watches you leave.
“Why are you so awkward?”
“Lyla shut up.”
Oscar Isaac in The Two Faces of January (2014) dir. Hossein Amini
At the beginning of your relationship, Miguel was distant from you as you expected him to be. He didn't want to get close to you because he didn't want to feel the need to depend on you. He lost so much and he was afraid if he got close to you he'd lose you too. But as time went on he grew more attached to you. You were so kind and beautiful he just couldn't get enough of you.
But as he got more attached his fear of losing you grew and it got more clingy towards you, afraid if he let you go you'd somehow die on him. He didn't want to smother you of course and he kept his distance when he realized he was doing too much but you honestly didn't mind his clinginess. It always reminded you of how far you came with him and you felt loved.
Nights were the worst for Miguel though, he always clung to you when you both went to bed and if he woke up and you weren't in his arms he'd always check the bed and every time you were there. He'd reach his hand out to touch the fabric and your body was always there to meet with his hand. Then he'd pull you closer to him and he'd fall back asleep. He was afraid in the night someone would take you away from him, it was one of his worst fears.
Because of his anxieties, you tried not to get out of bed at night. If you needed to use the bathroom you'd try to be quiet to not wake him and freak him out. And you always succeeded. But tonight was different. You woke up and felt your throat was abnormally dry. You couldn't fall back asleep with your throat like this, it just wasn't possible. So you quietly got out of bed and headed to the kitchen.
As you were in the kitchen Miguel woke up. He felt you weren't in his arms anymore and he reached out to touch you… But you weren't there. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and continued to search for you, but still nothing. Then his eyes shot open and he noticed the empty spot next to him and the panic set in. He sat up and called for you, "Y/N?!" He yelled. His anxieties were telling him the worst, he was afraid someone kidnapped you or even killed you.
He hopped out of bed and pushed through the bedroom door, "Y/N?!?" He yelled again. You jumped as the impact of the door hitting the wall scared you. His body psychically untensed when he saw you in the kitchen with a glass of water in your hand. "Miguel? Honey, what's wrong?" You ask as you set the glass on the counter with a concerned look on your face. His body was visibly shaking and his breathing was hard. You walked over to Miguel and gently brushed your hand against his cheek. "I'm okay… I was just getting some water… I'm still here with you, don't worry." You say while resting your hand against his chest. You felt his heart beating fast and you frowned. "Go back to bed Miguel… I'll be there in a moment, okay?" You say with a reassuring smile. Miguel nodded and slowly walked back into the room.
You walked back to your glass and drank down the liquid. When you finished you placed the glass into the sink and walked back into the room. When you walked in Miguel was sitting up in bed and looking down at the bed in sadness. Your heart broke at the sight of him looking so defeated. You walked over to Miguel and ran your fingers through his hair.
He leaned into your touch and sighed. You crawled into his lap and straddled his hips. You pulled him into a hug and he wraps his arms tightly around your body. He rested his face into the crook of your neck and you rubbed your fingernails gently along his scalp and his back.
"I'm sorry…" Miguel mumbled. "You have nothing to be sorry for… It's okay to be afraid." You say while placing a kiss on his head. "Yeah but… I feel like I'm smothering you…" Miguel murmurs. "Miguel. Look at me." You say while pulling away and cupping his cheeks. He looked into your eyes and you noticed the tears in them, you frown even more. "You're not smothering me. I love being close to you and I understand why you're afraid. Nothing that you have done has ever bothered me." You say with a reassuring smile. Your words seemed to relax Miguel. He nodded and he blinked away the tears in his eyes. "Okay… Now, let's go back to sleep hm?" You say before placing a kiss on his nose.
As you were about to crawl to your side of the bed Miguel stopped you. One of the hands that were on your waist traveled up and cupped one of your cheeks. He then leaned in and kissed your lips and you returned the kiss with a smile. The kiss was gentle and full of love… Just full of love, nothing else. He pulled away and smiled at you. You smiled back before crawling to your side of the bed. You went under the covers and laid down, Miguel doing the same. He pulled you close to his body and held you tight and you returned the favor by wrapping your arms tightly around his torso. He sighed in relaxation and he felt comfortable and content with you.
"Te amo más que a nada mi amor…" Miguel whispered in your ear as you drifted off into sleep.
guys gals and pals if you’re ever feeling that maybe you should just settle remember hozier wrote the words “when my time comes around/ lay me gently in the cold dark earth/ no grave can hold my body down/ i‘ll crawl home to her”. if they wanted to they would ok.
Rose I She/her or they/them I 20 yo I Bisexual disaster I Only there to simp I ⚖ ☼
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