KSI [sidemen]

The State of You and I

Request: "Hi! I'm really craving some JJ cuddles, like when Y/N is on her period and he cuddles her... it's a shit request, but all JJ imagines are smut and i feel like we need something adorable. IM RAMBLING IM SORRY." / Semi-inspired by the song in the media.

+

"Fuck. I hate everything."

JJ hummed against the side of your head, and the sound rumbled through his chest and into your spine. His arms tightened around you, and he murmured into your hair, "I'm sorry, baby."

You groaned, unable to wish away the discomfort blossoming in your abdomen. And upon releasing yet another string of profanity, JJ's grip reinforced itself once more. He pressed a kiss into your hair, sweet and instinctive.

Naturally, you shuffled further back between his legs, forcing him closer against the headboard. He didn't object. This was where you felt safest, in his arms, overwhelmed by his warmth and the rise and fall of his chest and the smoothness of his skin. He smelled like a memory. Like his laundry detergent and his bedsheets and the inside of his car. You could never forget what those smelled like, no matter how long your "separation" seemed to be lasting.

Except, the two of you were doing a really shitty job of staying away from each other.

In a vain attempt to distract yourself from the ache in your stomach--and from the way that JJ was somehow able to magically remedy it better than even all the pills you'd swallowed--you asked quietly, "Do the boys know you're here?"

JJ took his time in answering your inquiry. He always took his time. It was one of the things that made you most skeptical. "No," he said at last.

"You didn't tell them?"

"It's none of their business," he corrected. Or, in other words, he knew they would object to his going to your house when you called. And they were right to object, if they were going to. You and JJ were taking a break; you didn't deserve his concern when you called him in the middle of the night to complain about period cramps on a whim, and you certainly didn't deserve his driving to your house just to hold you like he used to.

Or maybe you were reading too much into things. You wouldn't put it past JJ to truly believe that his friends didn't need to know what he did with his time. He thought that you didn't need to know, sometimes, but as his girlfriend of seven months, you'd always thought you'd earned that right.

You were tugged gently back into reality by JJ's whisper, steady and so beautifully familiar. "You took a lot of that medicine, yeah?"

Your head swiveled in the direction of your nightstand. The silver light that streamed in from the window as night bled reluctantly into the early hours of morning cast a glow just bright enough to make the the items sprawled across the little table discernible. The pill bottle laid on its side, wedged between the base of the lamp and a half-empty water bottle, and its lid had fallen to the floor.

"Yeah," you told him, your head fitting itself beneath his chin. His body was so familiar to you; you'd given in to your old vices. Eyes shut in the delight of a few seconds' bliss, you admitted breathlessly, "Didn't help."

As if he knew, JJ's left hand crept under your shirt to flatten itself across the expanse of your stomach just as the discomfort crept back into your system, and your body molded helplessly into his, desperate for relief. He shushed you gently, his other hand rising to brush rogue strands of hair out of your face, though you hadn't realized you'd made any noise.

"Maybe you're taking the wrong kind then, or the wrong dose," JJ suggested. And after a lull: "Medicine is supposed to help you, love."

"You're helping," you admitted, no longer concerned with trying to keep up whatever wall you and JJ had attempted to build between the two of you in these past weeks. You'd gotten better at dealing with things ever since JJ had come into your life, from illness to your short temper and huge amounts of stress, and maybe that's why you were so hesitant to let go of a relationship that was so clearly on the rocks.

Before you could think about it, your final statement for the night slipped out in a breath: "You're medicine."

JJ didn't bother to ask you about that. He knew that you were drugged up, knew you were in pain, knew you were beyond exhausted. Instead, he continued to hold you the way only he knew you needed to be held, fingers dancing lightly upon soft skin every now and again to remind you that he was there. And you fell asleep in his arms, uncomfortable, for sure, but at peace all the same.

+

When you woke up, you were wrapped in JJ's embrace, his face beside yours on your pillow.

Your body jerked away from his in shock, instantly disrupting the pattern of his breathing as he blinked himself back into consciousness.

The events from the night before overwhelmed you all at once. You remembered the cramps and the medicine and the phone call and the familiar cuddles.You couldn't really remember what you'd said to him or what he'd said to you or when exactly either of you had fallen asleep, but you contributed that to the hazy head you had to deal with; the room was spinning, and it certainly wasn't because of any medicine you'd taken. It was him.

Why had you called him? You were the one that had initiated this break anyway. You and JJ were both too headstrong to be compatible. You fought too much and could never agree on anything. Were you really that desperate last night that you couldn't soldier through a little pain alone? Or did some kind of subconscious motive creep out of the shadows in the lateness of the hour, possessing you to call JJ's number in that old, familiar fashion and ask him to come over?

JJ dragged a hand down his face, blinked away the sunlight that was now streaming through the window. "Y/n--"

"Why are you still here?"

You meant the question harshly, you thought, as your heart pounded rapidly in your rib cage at the thought of your vulnerability being so completely exposed. But the question did not sound harsh in the slightest, and the vulnerability you wanted so desperately to hide was laced in each and every word. You knew what you really wanted to hear.

JJ shuffled, uncomfortable on top of the duvet. After a long pause, he locked his unsure gaze with yours and cleared his throat in a vain attempt to rid himself of an early-morning rasp. "I mean, I just... I find it hard to say goodbye, sometimes, I think. Even in the state of you and I."

And you knew exactly what he meant. This separation thing wasn't working for the two of you, and probably never would, because you couldn't stay away from each other. You were both too stubborn, too opinionated and too keen to fight to be apart for too long. He was what hurt you and what healed you all in one. And maybe you weren't sure, yet, whether that was a good or a bad thing, but it was the way things were, and there wasn't much you could do about it.