#thunder badge

[k1spiegel]

who's that pokemon...!

[nevermatchandscpsradadventures]

So no one told you life was gonna be this wayyyyy~ [every time a character in MOTHER 3 gets struck by lightning gets shown in quick succession]

[blood-smiles]

𝐈’𝐃 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍

���𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄! 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐑 𝐗 𝐅! 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 . MDNI . gore . blood brought up very often. sexual assault attempt towards reader (not by yandere) . wounds

જ⁀➴ Your legs burned, limbs clearly unprepared as you sprinted out into the field like a wild gazelle. You hadn’t even begun to work, all you could feel was the sting in your chest, your heart brimming with adrenaline.

Your heart thundered in your ears, you could feel the vibrations of the organ in the right of your chest. Sweat dribbled down your back, mixing with the rain sprinkling from above, bullets zipped past your form just narrowly missing you by a silk thread.

You didn’t know where you were running to, you just were. You were quick and lithe, not a single bullet or stray piece of debris grazed you.

You slid to a stop, the muddy ground underneath your combat boots squelching under your weight. A man, clearly a soldier, judging by his camo uniform and badge, clutched his side while crying out in pain, he kicked his feet on the ground in a way to try and release some of the pain.

He got mud and rainwater all over you but that wasn’t important, you had to help this man, somehow. You studied his wound with the focus of a scholar, features taut with anxiety and the slightest hint of foreboding.

This was the hardest part of your job. Not the blood and bodily fluids, not the close monitoring of wounds, not the procedure but this— Knowing that the decision of letting this man live was in your hands, that a single mistake could send this man to his early grave.

You applied pressure with a cloth you had in tucked in your cargo pockets, your palm firmly pressing against the gaping hole in his side. 

You watched how the once white fabric turned a murky scarlet color, warmth seeped underneath your palm and soaked your hands.

“Don’t worry. You’re safe, you’re going to be okay.” You reassured the injured fellow, making sure to keep a calm, even tone of voice. 

You seemed sure and collected on the outside, like you had everything coldly calculated, almost as if you had already saved this man.

But the truth was far from it. You were a nervous wreck inside, tears pricked your vision, your throat burned and closed in with the need to weep for this man. Your knees were shaking even though you weren’t the one in pain, you allowed him to softly place his hand on your forearm.

“Please stay awake, I need you to stay awake.” You implored, your mind working like a tiny machine, an encyclopedia of methods and practices you had done in the past opening inside your brain.

You carefully planned your next action, his hand tightened on your arm, his dirty nails digging into your skin as he gave a weak cry, you pinched your eyebrows together in deep confusion.

“Sir. Sir? What’s happening?” You asked frantically, finally, panic seeping into your tone. He mouthed something, his whole body shuddering as he tried to muster the last of his strength to point at something behind you.

You read his bloody lips.

‘BEHIND YOU.’

You didn’t even have time to blink, because as soon as you opened your mouth to speak to the soldier, he was already dead.

BANG!

A bullet was planted between his brows, from

how loud the gun sounded it was like someone had shot him almost face to face.

Warm blood sprayed across your face, someone was behind you. Someone was behind you. Someone was behind you.

You breathed in, but you couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go anymore. You were stuck between the sword and the wall. Cornered like a lamb at the mercy of a vicious wolf.

The tears you had been battling against drained out your eyes, and as soon as the first salty droplet could hit the ground a boisterous sound filled your ears.

Before you could formulate your last words pain ripped through you endlessly, with no warning or hesitation. It shot you in the side, you could feel the foreign capsule burying itself in your guts.

The metal felt hot, god. It felt so hot. It felt like you were forced to touch boiling iron, but you weren’t allowed to pull away. There was nowhere way to escape the scalding heat of the bullet because it was inside you.

You had never screamed so loudly in your life, you hit the ground with an ear splitting wail, you curled in on yourself next to the deceased soldier. 

 IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurts

You let out a choked sob, something between a cry of pain and a scream. 

A grand man chuckled at your pain, you could see the vague outline of his body out of the corner of your eye. He was large, built like a ravenous wolf, his teeth were bared, sharp and crooked like daggers as he bent down beside you.

His cold hands took a careless grip on your ankles, a new feeling arose, fear. Raw, primal fear. 

His grip was so tight and hurtful that he might have shattered your bones without even noticing— But it wasn’t like he even cared.

What was he going to do to you? You screamed and kicked in desperation, his hands creeped higher up to your knees.

Were you going to die like this? Why? What did you do wrong? You did everything they told you to.

Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me?

Tears didn’t stop, the dam behind your eyes broke. The walls of the well had ruptured, it held years upon years of hate and suffering, and now that it had burst a tidal wave, one with the height of a tsunami had left nothing in its wake.

Your throat felt stuffed with rocks, your vocal cords strained inside you, clawing at the ground, soil settling underneath your nails.

You had tried to fight, you really did but blood was starting to settle in a pool underneath you. Your hair had chunks of dirt and blood, your skin had small cuts and was debauched by debris and flesh that wasn’t yours.

The clouds had parted, a single beam of light pushing through the skies and falling on the burly figure of a soldier with hair as golden as the sun.

Was that an angel? Was he here for you?

Peace at last, why did you feel peace? As soon as you caught a glimpse of those cold, steel blue eyes you felt.. free.

The fight inside had left you.

Like you could rest, maybe it was the blood loss getting to you. The ground underneath suddenly felt warm and comfortable, like the dreamiest of beds, the ones filled with swan feathers that only royals had the luxury of using.

Your eyes fluttered closed, a soft exhale leaving your lips. Blood and rainwater soaked your clothing, you lost consciousness with a small smile.

It was a blessing that you had closed your eyes, because at the least that had protected you from the carnage and absolute inhumane cruelty that would exhibited in front of your unconscious body.

The so called angel was no divine being, but the infamous lieutenant who had his sights set on you, perhaps too closely.

He didn’t hesitate to take the other man from his throat, his thick fingers wrapped around the rugged man’s neck, his nails dug into the thick muscles like the teeth of a bear trap.

The separation of meat from muscle was quick and brutal, Marcelle’s hand ripped the man’s throat out like tearing fat from a chicken leg. It was a disgusting show of force and power, and it was all done for some girl.

Marcelle’s chest heaved, pure rage ran through his veins like adrenaline, his nose was scrunched up like a rabid bear’s would. Someone had hurt you, the light to his darkness, the moon among so many stars.

They tried to tear you from his arms, tried to take advantage of your weak build and gentle heart.

Hate wasn’t an adequate word for what he really felt, it was an understatement of what was going through his twisted head.

The wolf-like man’s larynx dropped on the floor with a wet splat, blood rushed out of the exposed maw that once used to be his throat.

Marcelle was nowhere done with him though. 

A tactical knife strapped on his thigh was dislodged, then driven into the wolf’s stomach, the blonde pressed the blade so tight against his flesh that the peritoneum had been torn apart like a bag of candy on the hallow’s eve.

Guts spilled everywhere, slimy sausage shaped innards were the first to go, unfurling from his stomach like climbing rope.

Everything dropped down at his feet, contaminated filth mixed with blood and mud. Marcelle scoffed at how easy it was to kill this one, it wasn’t a big show of strength to pull this guy apart like tender teriyaki.

The mangled one lost his balance, falling onto his knees while choking on carmine, it sprayed everywhere along with chunks of meat, or what was left of it.

The blonde bear grabbed the disfigured man by his hair, then pressed a dirty boot onto the small of his back. He yanked with vigor at the other’s scalp while maintaining hard pressure on his back.

Then a sick crack came from the crumpled’s spine, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, swollen with blood and severed capillaries.

His spine had been severed in two, cleanly snapped like a toothpick.

The man bent backwards in the fashion of an arc, the cadaver looked like it was doing gymnastics, but really his body was so greatly damaged that his spine couldn’t maintain his weight, he was bent at such an unnatural extent it hurt just by looking at  him.

Marcelle kicked away the body and its innards, sending what was of a man into a puddle, leaving his organs and blood to mingle with the water.

He saw you, curled up like a kitten. But blood streamed out your side like a river, it wouldn’t stop, he panicked.

He dropped beside you, picking you up with the gentleness of what could only be compared to picking up an injured baby bird. He touched your face with the delicate touch of a feather, your face was dirty, streaked with dirt and crimson. 

He pressed his ear against your chest, the soft thump of your heart whispering that you had limited time.

His breath caught in his throat.

He was taught to never cry. That a man should never cry in the presence of anyone, but in this moment, this miserable and unfortunate situation he could do no less than weep.

All he could see was the tiny smile on your lips, your precious visage ruined by destruction of war. You didn’t stop bleeding, you can’t stop. His eyes watered, for the first time in decades he allowed himself to shed a tear.

“No.. No— You can’t.. You won’t leave me!” He yelled to your unconscious form, his dirtied hand grasping your limp one. He squeezed tightly, hoping that if he gripped hard enough you would react, that those pretty (e/c) eyes would look up at him one last time.

His distress was heard, a group of young soldiers trotted over to him, finding their great lieutenant distraught over the soon to be corpse of a nurse.

He hugged the body close to his chest, trying to share warmth to the wounded girl, his chin rested over her head, his thick fingers smoothing over her filthy hair, they weren’t sure if he was trying to soothe the injured woman or himself.

They came up to him, touching his shoulder and trying to reach the nurse in his arms. He didn’t take well to that.

He snapped at them, snarling like a furious bear protecting his young. He clawed at them, finding a discarded gun somewhere, it shook in his hands as he aimed at them. His finger looped into the trigger, only to hear a click.

Blank.

Blank.

Blank.

The gun was empty of bullets, so he took the next alternative, the only thing he knew to do, fight with his fists.

There was no one that could go up against him, they knew that Marcelle could divorce their head from their shoulders clean.

“You are not going to take her.” He rasped, putting himself between you and the men. Now they all looked like enemies, like big red training targets with white swirls. 

The cadets glanced at each other, just barely noticing the lifeless bodies surrounding the blonde and the wounded girl in his arms.

“Holy shit..” one of them murmured as he looked around, Marcelle had gone berserk, especially on this man at his feet, completely disemboweled— Where was his throat? 

He stared at the human remains on the floor, feeling the urge to vomit his stomach out right here and there.

A new voice pushed through, the head nurse shouldered men away as she jogged towards the pair of bloodied lovers.

“Look. I don’t care who you are or what your rank is—“ she began, walking towards Marcelle with no fear whatsoever.

“But that girl is going to die if you keep hoarding her like an aggressive mutt!” She yelled, beads of sweat collecting on her brow, she plowed through the mud and dirt just to make it to you.

Marcelle stared at her with a vacant look in his eyes, he didn’t have it in him to touch a woman with intent of harm.

His grip tightened as she approached, water dripped now his face, sweat and rain soaked his uniform. He wasn’t about to let her tug you away, over his dead body.

She tried to pull you away, her hands gripping your forearms as hard as she could but Marcelle’s hold was unrelenting and soon she would have to call herself defeated in the strength game.

“Fine. You can carry her.” She said with an edge to her voice, she took the collar of her uniform in her hands and pulled him up how a dog would pick up a puppy by its scruff.

“But she is going to to live and you are going to take her back now.” She demanded it like his first drill sergeant, he listened to that one order, he slowly ascended from the ground and followed the nurse.

He stared at your face the whole way he walked, his finger curved gently, his pad brushing away your hair behind your ear.

You’re going to be okay, you’re going to live.

His jaw tensed as a new wave of emotions ran over him, he couldn’t break down, not yet. He had to be strong for you.

He gently pressed his forehead against yours, his palm gently residing over your chest, feeling the soft thump of your heart under his hand.

He didn’t remember clearly when but he got ushered out of a room, he woke up in a sterile area surrounded by other people in what seemed to be a waiting room.

He vaguely recalled that he had to be restrained by four men, he got stabbed with a tranquilizer and that’s when everything went dark.

Where were you? His heart picked up in his chest, what had happened? Were you alive?

With a sudden movement he got up from his seat, a clipboard fell from his lap onto the ground. It held only a blank paper, with a single room number in it written in blue ink.

Marcelle had never ran faster in his life, he didn’t know or care how many people he knocked down as he sprinted through the halls. Nurses and doctors turned their heads at breakneck speeds as he zipped past them like a wild animal.

He opened your room door with a bang, sweat gathered on his forehead and his body burned, there you rested.

You, covered in bandages, body clean of dirt and blood, your hair looking soft like nothing had ever touched it. Soft morning light entered through the window, you glowed under the sun like a white dove.

You were hooked up to a monitor, constant beeping telling him you were still alive, it seemed you were breathing on your own, judging by the way your chest slowly rose and fell.

He was filthy with grime and sweat, he could never touch you, afraid he would taint you he stood back. He wanted nothing more than to touch your face, to see your smile again.

It wasn’t long until he was unceremoniously kicked out your room by your main caregiver. 

Marcelle came back the day after, and the day after and the days following that. He kneeled beside your bed like a puppy nudging his owner’s hand with its muzzle.

His hand gently held yours, he placed it over his head, on his cheek, just to feel your touch again. Just to feel the way your fingers would run through his hair again, to feel your fingers curing his wounds again.

He weeped more in that hospital than he had cried in his whole life. He was sure that he would drown in his own tears if he kept it up, he missed you so much, he wouldn’t leave your side for a moment.

There were times he would refuse to leave your room at all, security was forced to tranquilize him and at one point threatened to place a restraining order if he didn’t abide by their rules.

Then that day came, he sat by your bed, holding your hand to his heart, praying to whatever was up there to bring his baby back to him. 

He had never been a faithful man, but if that’s what it took to make you wake up, he would pray all day, everyday no matter the hour or situation.

The slightest twitch from your fingers made him jump, a glimmer in his grey eyes showed that he had hope. He stared at your hand, waiting for that little movement to come back.

Your eyelids moved, your facial muscles twitched, Marcelle stood from his chair abruptly, the furniture scratching the floor and making an unpleasant screech.

You opened your eyes, your beautiful (e/c) hues flitted around the room with confusion, the grogginess of consciousness filling you again.

You looked through your blurry memories, it felt like looking through frosted glass but you remembered a few things, the one that stood out to you most was the blonde angel.

There he was again. 

Why was he crying? You wondered, trying to sit up only to give up when the pain was too unbearable, the man pushed you back down, scolding you and forcing you back into the bed.

You recognized him, your first patient ever. Marcelle.

Just when you were about to speak he basically pounced, he hugged you like you would disappear in that moment. He felt warm and comfortable, you could barely bring your hands to wrap around him.

His shoulders shook with silent sobs, he couldn’t stop crying again, but this time it wasn’t out of sorrow but happiness.

You were back. You were alive and in his arms.

He pulled away, looking you in the face as if this was all a dream, he touched your every feature, trying to re assure himself that this was no fantasy.

“I love you.” Were the first words he said when you woke up, that might have sent you to another coma in that moment.

The blood from your wound had rushed up to your cheeks, you searched his face for any trace of a joke but then remembered.

Marcelle doesn’t do jokes.

He kissed your hand softly, tears still streaming down his cheeks. He couldn’t kiss you yet, you were healing and could catch sicknesses especially quickly.

So he would wait, wait until you were ready.

“I think.. I love you too.” You shyly smiled, fingers trembling with embarrassment.

To Marcelle, waiting would prove to be more difficult than he thought.

[rrysbabydoll]

♩ lana del rey — playing dangerous ♩

Pairing: Cop!Harry × Reader

CW: Explicit sexual content, D/S dynamics, consensual rough sex, spanking, power imbalance, light humiliation, crying, aftercare, and depiction of restraint (handcuffs).

Synopsis: When Officer Styles responds to a call about a drunk fight at a party, he’s shocked to find his usually sweet girlfriend caught in the chaos, so he decides to treat her like any other troublemaker.

It was almost 1:30 a.m. when the call came through Harry’s radio.

“Disorderly behavior reported at a residential party on Crescent Avenue. Possible fight. Officer requested.”

Harry sighed as he reached for the gear shift in his cruiser, rubbing a tired hand over his jaw and mustache. He’d been patrolling for hours, ready to clock out soon, but Friday nights in this town always had one last surprise.

He flicked on his siren for a moment, just enough to make his presence known as he pulled onto Crescent Avenue. The house was easy to spot, lights blaring, bass booming, people spilling onto the lawn in messy clumps. Harry parked across the street, his brow furrowed.

“Probably just a drunk mess,” he muttered, stepping out.

But the last thing he expected was you.

He recognized you immediately, even from the side, your little floral dress a size too short, your pretty lips in a pout, your cheeks flushed and tear-streaked. You were in a heated back-and-forth with another girl, waving your hands dramatically, while a group of tipsy onlookers watched.

You were supposed to be home tonight. His good girl. His quiet baby. Not… here.

Harry’s jaw clenched as he crossed the lawn. The crowd parted quickly, recognizing the badge and the low, commanding tone of his voice.

“Alright, break it up,” he barked. “Everybody calm down.”

You turned, wide-eyed. “Harry?”

He didn’t answer. Not with words. His expression was unreadable. Cold. All cop now.

You stepped forward, stumbling a little on your heels. “It’s not my fault—she started it, she pushed me and—”

“Turn around,” he cut you off sharply.

Your mouth parted in shock. “W-What?”

“I said turn around. Hands behind your back.”

You blinked up at him, frozen. “Harry—wait—are you serious?”

He didn’t flinch. “You wanna cause trouble like everyone else? You get treated like everyone else.”

Your stomach dropped.

You weren’t used to this side of him. Usually when he wore his uniform around you, it was a joke, a tease, something sexy and playful. But tonight, he wasn’t your boyfriend.

Tonight, he was a cop.

And you’d just gotten yourself in real trouble.

Your heart thundered as you slowly turned around, facing the lawn while your hands shook behind your back. You weren’t used to him like this, stern, distant, all authority. It made your lip wobble.

“Feet apart,” Harry said coolly behind you. “Wider.”

You did as you were told, wobbling slightly in your heels, and swallowed a sob. Worst thing was the quiet sound of latex gloves snapping on behind you. He always carried a pair.

“Harry, please,” you whispered, cheeks burning. “You don’t have to—”

“Quiet,” he interrupted flatly. “You lost the right to talk when you embarrassed yourself and me.”

Your shoulders flinched. That stung.

His large hands began the body search at your arms, fingers brushing down with professional, practiced motions. But even with the gloves, you could feel the care underneath, barely there, but still there. He was mad, but not reckless.

He moved down your back slowly, checking your sides, your waist.

Then lower.

Your breath hitched when his hands skimmed down your thighs, deliberate and firm.

“Any weapons on you?” he asked, voice low.

“N-No,” you whimpered.

He hummed, not believing you. His hands dipped under your dress, high enough to check your upper thighs. And when his palm brushed over the thin strap of your underwear, he paused just a second too long.

You heard him exhale through his nose, like he was trying to rein himself in.

“You think this is cute?” he muttered, almost to himself. “Little dress. No coat. Drunk in the street. Fighting some stranger?”

“I didn’t fight her,” you whispered tearfully. “She pushed me and I was just trying to—”

“You smell like tequila,” he cut in, standing again, his tone cold. “And you’re slurring your words. Don’t lie to me, baby.”

The word baby was soft, almost unnoticeable, but you heard it. It made you cry harder.

He grabbed your wrists and clicked the cuffs on, tight enough to sting. Your breath hitched.

“Ow,” you whimpered.

“You’ll survive.”

The metal was cold against your skin, biting as he turned you back around to face him.

Your tearstained face looked up at him, lower lip trembling, mascara smudged under your lashes.

“Please don’t take me to the station,” you begged in a tiny voice. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be bad. I swear.”

Harry didn’t answer. He just grabbed your arm and started walking you toward the cruiser.

You sat in the backseat like a criminal, wrists locked behind you, cheeks soaked, your little dress riding up as you tried to sit properly. The doors shut with a heavy thunk and Harry rounded the car without a word.

Your stomach twisted. He hadn’t said anything. He was really going to do it.

The car started and you panicked.

“Harry,” you choked. “Don’t—don’t take me there. I swear I won’t ever do this again. I didn’t mean to—I was just—”

Still, no response.

He kept his eyes on the road, one hand firm on the wheel, jaw tense. The mustache above his upper lip twitched as he clenched it, like it hurt him to ignore you.

You were full-on sobbing now. Small, pitiful hiccups that made your body shake.

“I don’t wanna be booked,” you sniffled. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this—please.”

Nothing. He didn’t even look at you.

He drove deeper into a quiet, empty side road, far from the station. You didn’t even notice, you were too busy crying, thinking he’d never forgive you.

Then, finally, the car rolled to a stop.

Your breath caught.

“W-Where are we?”

Harry didn’t answer. He turned off the engine. Silence filled the cabin.

Then, he got out.

The back door creaked open, letting in a burst of cool air. You looked up at him with wet lashes, confused and panicked.

“Out,” Harry ordered, voice sharp.

You hiccupped. “W-What?”

“Out of the car. Come on.”

He reached in and grabbed you by the upper arm, not harsh, but firm enough to make your legs wobble as he helped you stand. The gravel under your heels crunched as you stumbled slightly, arms still locked behind your back.

The area was empty. No streetlights, no cars, just the quiet hum of wind through trees. He’d driven you somewhere private. Somewhere no one could see.

You barely had time to react before he spun you around and pressed you up against the back door of the cruiser. The cool metal met your cheek as he pushed your cuffed hands higher on your back, making you gasp.

“You think that was funny?” he snapped. “That I’d find you at some trashy party? Throwing drinks? Acting like a brat?”

You squirmed. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“Shut it,” he barked. “You're gonna learn tonight.”

He stepped behind you, crowding your smaller body with his, the sharp edge of his badge grazing your shoulder as he leaned in. One gloved hand slid up under your dress again, rougher now, no longer pretending to search, fingers slipping up the back of your thighs until he found the lace edge of your underwear and ripped it off.

“Harry—!”

“I should drag you in, book you in front of my entire department,” he growled against your ear. “Let every officer see what a little mess you’ve been.”

“No!” you sobbed. “No, please—don’t…”

“Then shut up and take your punishment.”

He opened the back door and nudged you in. You climbed in awkwardly with your hands still cuffed, sniffling and shaking. He climbed in after you, pulling the door shut behind him so you were enclosed in darkness and heat and tension.

His voice was low, gravelly. “Stay on your knees.”

You scrambled to obey, heart pounding. Your dress rode up, exposing your thighs, your ripped panties twisted and damp from the rough handling. He grabbed your hips and yanked them back, your hands still pinned behind you, making it harder to steady yourself.

Then, without a word, he slid two fingers between your folds.

You gasped.

Even though your eyes were swollen from crying, your body was still soft and warm for him. Still his. Still needy.

“Fuckin’ dripping,” he muttered, jaw clenched. “Course you are.”

“Harry, please—”

“Not a word.”

He pulled down his zipper, and you heard the low sound of his belt unfastening. Then you felt the hot, heavy press of him against you. You sobbed again, overwhelmed, shivering, but part of you throbbed with need.

When he pushed in, you let out a broken moan.

He didn’t go gentle. Not like usual. His thrusts were rough and sharp, knocking your knees forward against the backseat. You were helpless, whimpering, tears still running down your cheeks as the cuffs bit into your wrists.

“Too much?” he snapped.

You shook your head quickly. “N-No—just hurts…”

“Good.”

He fucked you deeper, gritting his teeth as your body tightened around him. Your soft cries filled the cruiser, echoing off the glass.

“You ever embarrass me like that again,” he panted, slamming into you, “and I will book you. Let them throw you in the drunk tank for a night.”

You cried harder, your cheek pressed into the seat, hips arching helplessly. You couldn’t move your arms. Could barely catch your breath.

But you wanted it.

You needed it.

And he knew.

So Harry kept going. Punishing you with every rough, desperate thrust. But his hand still slid down eventually, brushing your clit, circling it gently.

Because you were still his baby.

Still his girl.

Even now.

When your legs began to shake, he leaned down, pressing his chest against your back as he hissed in your ear, “Come. Right fucking now.”

You came with a broken, breathless sob, legs giving out, body trembling around him. And a moment later, he groaned deep in his chest and followed, filling you hard, staying pressed close, almost like he wanted to shield you.

You were still whimpering softly, folded over the backseat, cheeks wet and dress rucked up around your waist. Your hands twitched in the cuffs behind you, wrists sore, thighs sticky and trembling.

Harry didn’t move right away.

His breathing was heavy, jaw flexing as he stared down at your fragile, bent form. He was still flushed from release.

“Don’t move,” he murmured lowly.

Then his hand came down hard on your ass.

You yelped, the sting biting into your already sensitive skin.

Smack.

Again.

Smack.

Again.

Three sharp slaps, firm and controlled, just enough to make you sob and jerk forward in his lap, thighs clenched and red.

“Let that sink in,” he growled, voice low and mean. “Next time you act like a little brat, this is what you get. Every single time.”

You hiccupped, tears spilling over again. “I’m sorry…”

“I know you are,” he said, a bit softer now.

One last spank. Gentle this time. More like a pat.

Then silence, except your breathing and his.

You felt him shift behind you, adjusting his uniform pants and zipping up. He stayed kneeling in the backseat with you for a few long seconds, eyes trained on your small, trembling frame, until the anger fully faded from his chest, replaced by something tender.

“Come here,” he said quietly.

You barely had time to move before his hands—now glove-free—were pulling you back into his lap, letting your sore body sink against his chest. Your cuffed hands still rested behind you, awkward and stiff.

He pressed a kiss to your temple.

“Gonna take these off, alright? Easy…”

He pulled the keys from his belt and clicked the cuffs open.

They fell away with a gentle jingle, and your arms dropped like dead weight. You sobbed, folding forward, resting your head against the warm backseat.

“Shh,” Harry murmured, catching your wrists delicately in his big hands. “Let me see ‘em.”

You didn’t resist.

He lifted your red wrists to his mouth and kissed them one by one. Slow. Tender. Reverent.

“Shh, baby. I’ve got you.”

Your wrists were red and sore, the angry grooves from the cuffs clear under the moonlight. Harry cradled them carefully in his big hands, rubbing his thumbs softly over the marks.

“Too tight, wasn’t it?” he whispered, kissing the inside of one wrist, then the other. “Didn’t mean to hurt you like that.”

You shook your head. “No—you didn’t. I deserved it.”

He hummed, brushing your hair back gently, inspecting your face, your flushed cheeks, the pout of your lips. You looked like a startled deer.

“You scared the fuck out of me, y’know,” he murmured. “When I saw you there, drunk out of your mind—baby, I could’ve arrested someone else for touching you. That’s how bad it looked.”

“I wasn’t gonna let her touch me,” you mumbled, eyes down. “But I shouldn’t have yelled. I know.”

“You shouldn’t have been there at all.” His tone firm. But then he sighed. “You’re my girl. You don’t need to go get attention like that.”

“I wasn’t—I swear, I was just mad you were on shift again, and I—” you hiccupped. “I missed you.”

That cracked something in him.

“Oh, baby…”

He pulled you tight into his chest, one hand cradling your head, the other still rubbing your wrists gently.

“I’m here now, yeah? I’ve got you.”

You nodded, lips wobbling again.

Harry leaned back against the door, letting you curl into him, your arms limp and sleepy now. His palm rested over your bare thigh as he whispered, “You’re alright. S’all over now.”

You let out a small hum, eyes fluttering shut as his fingers traced soft, soothing circles on your skin.

“And if you ever wanna act out again,” he whispered against your hair, “do it when I’m home. Not in public. Not like this.”

“Mhm,” you murmured. “Promise…”

He kissed your cheek, your nose, your temple.

“You’re still my good girl,” he breathed. “Even when you’re a little menace.”

You smiled faintly, snuggling deeper into his chest.

“Still your baby?”

He laughed under his breath. “Always.”

And in the quiet of that empty road, with your dress still askew and your body aching but safe, Harry held you like you were the most precious thing in the world. Like the rest of the night hadn’t even happened.

Just his baby.

His soft, silly, bratty baby.

And he’d forgive you a thousand times over.

[fairlyabookie]

the things you do that got them head over heels (pt. 2)

Part 1 here! feat. second years (I severely underestimated how many second years in the roster, so I'm splitting this up into parts!)

Azul - matching his wavelength

Azul’s mind works fast, and boy, does he work fast. The minute he gets working, no one can break his concentration. Many would question him, adding to the fuel of irritation just as he was about on a streak. Either people were on board or they’d have to get out of the way. One of the other, no one could stop him from going forward with his antics.

You, on the other hand, catch on fast; asking him the right questions, listening thoughtfully to his explanation, and lastly, understanding his intentions. His heart soared as you lay out your thoughts, your opinions, a refreshing perspective against the same old song of doubt and affirmations.

What he really needed from this endeavor was someone who could challenge him and take his opinion into account if they ever became so unkindly to his target audience - besides, he had to be more ethical with how he ran things in business. Commodifying individuals was ugly, but he had to hear them out at least. Once you had finished your train of thought, Azul couldn’t help but send a smile to your direction, already writing down a summary of your explanation on a sheet of paper.

“Thank you, [Reader], I shall consider your proposal.”

Ruggie - food

A simple platter of food, from a home-cooked meal or a to-go meal from Mostro Lounge, was enough to capture Ruggie’s heart - he’d accept with no hesitation, already scarfing it down the minute he saw the item. Sure, he’d have a whole carton of donuts, but nothing beats a delicious meal, one that was nutritiously filling for him, enough to satiate him, for the day, enough to leave a smile on his face.

He’d offer a portion of food for you, as a means of thanking you for the trouble of getting him food. As an extra, he’d even ask how much you paid for the food and the location of the restaurant so he could pay you back. Yet, you choose not to disclose; watching his micro expressions, from devouring the food to enjoying every morsel of it.

You encourage him to eat more, citing more to come in the future. The second year’s ears pull back, his eyes of glassy gray widening in surprise. He makes a protest, yet your fingers seal his lips shut. A smile lingers on your lips, one of sincerity and unfiltered kindness, a gesture that didn’t merit transaction but the generosity of one’s heart.

“Please enjoy your meal, Ruggie. You deserve it.”

Riddle - a ride with the horses

Riddle noticed you weren’t in the best of spirits, citing a poor performance on an alchemy assessment. From just that, the thought of hitting the books one more time tired you out, and Riddle knew just the thing to lift your spirits: a ride with the horses. Of course, he lets you choose your horse, while he went for Vorpal, the very horse he had been riding with since he became a member of the club.

Soon, the two of you embark on your steads in a grand pasture, the roaring wind teasing your hair in bursts as the horse matches their pace with Vorpal. In replacement of stress, exhilaration courses through your being, stress melting away each passing second. You peer over to Riddle, his gaze fixated upon you, sunshine gleaming into eyes of granite, slivers of gray and purple.

A mask of vulnerability, a disarming smile that left your heart thundering against your chest, even louder than the hooves against the pasture. You muster the courtesy to smile back, averting your gaze to your horse, your pounding heart lost in the chaos of galloping.

“This is refreshing, Riddle! No wonder you enjoy this so much!”

Floyd - fit check

Floyd’s phone chimes, a notification badge lighting up his phone. He doesn’t hesitate to unlock his phone, seeing your text message pop up with a picture. Oh, what did Shrimpy wear today, huh? A toothy smirk graces his lips as he sees your profile.

Standing before the mirror with your phone pointed towards your figure, Floyd had to hold back a wolf whistle - for modesty and professionalism, of course. He looks back and forth, and twice again for good measure, before whipping up a response.

Azul would certainly scold him for not doing his job, but Floyd didn’t care: you looked delicious. With just a sweeping glance over the photo, he could tell of the brands you were wearing, the way you appealingly styled your attire, and the way the colors complimented your skin, oh, would he love to steal your outfit for a day. He sends an extra message, one just to make sure you know you looked good.

“Whoa, you really liked it, huh, Floyd?”

[hamilando]

ੈ✩ Blue or Orange ? (smau) ੈ✩

pairing : lando norris x fem reader

summary : when the shimmer athlete meets the speed athlete

tw : fluff, a little chaos, suggestive

fc: Claire Wolford *she is so pretty-*

a/n : So this was requested anonymously, so if you are seeing this, Hope you like it 💫 AND before anyone jumps on me for using Daniel, it’s just one comment and the meme was started by him !!

·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ

liked by victoriakalena, chandidayle, kelsey_w, landonorris and 87,290 others

ynwolford Thunderstrucked Vegas 💫✨

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user1 the dream life ✊🏻

user2 THUNDER!! TA DA DA THUNDER !!

victorikalena leader ay-aye 🫡

liked by ynwolford

chandidayle serving serious looks ma’am

ynwolford only for you 🫶🏻

user3 drop. the. freaking. skin. and. body. routine !!!

user4 oh to be her 😮‍💨😮‍💨

kelsey_w the look is perfect !!

liked by ynwolford

user5 I AM SEEING HER IN THE VEGAS MATCH

user6 EXCUSE ME !? - can you take me 🥺

user7 bleeding blue and white 💙🤍

user8 why is lando norris in her likes ?

user9 her boyfriend 💔 user10 WHAT-!? user10 POOKIE IS TAKEN 😭🥹 user11 who is he 😤 user12 a driver 👀 user13 * formula one driver

landonorris BEST SISTER EVER ❤️

ynwolford BEST BROTHER EVER ❤️ landonorris bro 😑 ynwolrford yo u started it landonorris you looked pretty babes 🧡❤️💙🤍 ynwolford ☺️

liked by landornorris, mclaren, chandidayle and 137,283 others

ynwolford blue and orange ? 💙🧡 @ mclaren

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mclaren the color combination for the next livery ?

ynwolford cowboy style 🤠🤍💙

landonorris maybe you could cheer for me in those shorts ? 👀

ynwolford stop it you thirsty shorty landornorris you did not - ynwolford my kicks are taller than you landonorris yet still you do the splits for me -

user1 you two, there are kids 😭

user2 where the hell did lando pop out from ?

user3 when did the couple comments become so active 😭

chandidayle Y/N, please behave, there are kids

user4 THANK YOU CHANDI

georgerussell Y/N, could you please get us passes for the match ?

ynwolford dw! Tickets for you, Oscar, Alex, Max and Charles are in my bag ✊🏻

landonorris last time I checked, I was the one who asked you out

ynwolford last time I checked, you always have no pass entry AS YOUR GIRLFRIEND is a DCC 💪🏻 landonorris oh.

user5 I missed the silent relationship comments

user6 they are entertaining tho-

liked by chandidayle, landonorris, kelsey_w and 162,319 others

ynwolford and after 4 years, the Pom-Poms take a rest 🤍💙🤍💙

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user1 WE WILL MISS YOU 😭

user2 genuinely one of the best dcc!!

kelsey_w can’t believe we were together through it all 💙

liked by ynwolford

dcccheerleaders once a DCC, always a DCC 💙🤠🤍

liked by ynwolford

landonorris I am so proud of you love 🫶🏻

ynwolford thank you 😭

user3 for once his comment was normal -

user4 no horny comments today

landonorris but I am sad I won’t see you in those shorts

user5 there we go ✊🏻

user6 the way y/n just ignored -

user7 lando and her are probably doing dirty

user8 STOP TALKING ABOUT THEIR NIGHT LIFE

user9 yes! This is a child account 😙

carlossainz55 A great end to your career 💪🏻

ynwolford unemployed besties 🫶🏻

user10 she did not -

carlossainz55 that hurt 😞

ynwolford reality hurts my dear Carlos landonorris Stop Calling Him “Dear” ynwolford Dear Carlos 🫶🏻 georgerussell hi 👋 ynwolford dear George 🫶🏻 alexalbon hi 👋 ynwolford dear Alex 🫶🏻 landonorris STOP 💔

liked by landonorris, lewishamilton, georgerussell and 128,271 others

ynwolford and after 2 years, orange is the best 🧡

view comments

landnorris aw 🥺

landonorris cute 😤

landonorris pretty 😮‍💨

landonorris hot 🥵

landonorris mommy 😗

gerogerussell LANDO SHAVED HIS MOUSTACHE!?

ynwolford I asked him too 😌

alexalbon “ THIS MOUSTACHE IS MY BADGE OF HONOUR”

landonorris whatever the queen says 🤷🏻‍♂️

danielriccardio he doesn’t even grow pubes

ynwolford sadly, he does now 😔 landonorris HEY! cmon babe, you know you love it 👀 ynwolford the tree lando, not the jungle 🫷🏻

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[midnight-shadow-cafe]

Hello!! Sorry to bother you *again* buuuttt… *bink bink bink* I was wondering if you could perhaps write something about the boys reacting to afab/fem reader dressing up as their childhood crush? Hope this is enjj ok ugh information, and I feel so bad that I’ve asked you for something again so soon!! Sorrryy!!!

-Lunar🐱

Dream Girl

Pairing: Poly!141 x AFAB/fem!reader

Warnings: Light suggestiveness, pining, fluff, teasing, light language, reader wears outfits inspired by their childhood crushes, mild kissing, strong romantic tones

Author's Note: This was such a joy to write—thank you for the darling idea. I hope it came out as good as you hoped!!

Summary: On a lazy rainy Sunday, you decided to surprise each of her boys by dressing up as the women who stole their hearts during childhood. What starts as a playful gift turns into something a lot more tender.

Masterlist

MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+

The rain hasn’t stopped all morning. It taps softly on the windows of your shared quarters, a soothing rhythm that makes the whole place feel like a slow, sleepy dream. The air smells like coffee and warm laundry, and somewhere in the rec room, you can hear the faint hum of a kettle.

The boys are scattered, relaxed. Sunday is sacred—no training, no briefings, no missions.

You’ve been planning this for weeks.

A little mischief. A lot of love. And just enough nostalgia to knock the breath out of each of them.

You’ve already told them you’d be “trying on outfits” today. You left out which ones.

—

THE CAPTAIN AND THE CROFT

You walk into the lounge first, boots heavy, hips swaying. The tank top clings to you in all the right ways. Cargo shorts ride high on your thighs, and the toy gun holsters bounce slightly with each step.

John looks up from his newspaper—classic, worn, and full of half-finished crosswords.

His eyes drag over you.

He doesn’t say a word. Not right away.

You walk to the center of the room and strike a pose, one hand resting on your belt, the other adjusting your braid.

“Well?” you smirk. “Got any ancient tombs that need exploring?”

John exhales through his nose, the paper forgotten. “Lara bloody Croft,” he mutters, voice gravelly. “Are you trying to make me short-circuit, love?”

You grin and strut closer, dropping into his lap. His arms wrap around you instantly, hands warm on your bare thighs.

“I wanted to give you something fun. Something for you.” You lean in, lips brushing his ear. “Remember the VHS tapes you said you wore out when you were fourteen?”

His laughter is warm, chesty, completely smitten. “You really are somethin’ else.”

“Say it,” you whisper.

He grins against your cheek. “You’re my dream girl, love. Always have been.”

—

GHOSTS OF CHILDHOOD PAST

Next stop: the armory. You ditch the tank top for a bright yellow cropped jacket, a fake news badge clipped to your chest. Your hair’s styled in soft waves, and you carry a cheap mic like it’s a weapon.

Simon’s alone, gloves on, doing a casual clean of his knives. The fluorescent lights buzz quietly overhead.

You lean in the doorway.

“This is April O’Neil, reporting live,” you say, voice smooth. “Today we bring you exclusive coverage of the most mysterious man on base.”

Simon stills. Knife mid-polish.

Slowly, his head lifts.

You step forward, hips swaying, mic tapping against your chin.

He sets the blade down with exaggerated care. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m always serious, Simon.”

He stands fully now, towering and solid, eyes flicking over every detail of your outfit. His expression is unreadable—but his ears are red.

“April was my first crush,” he mutters, voice low, nearly reverent. “I wanted to be one of the turtles just so she’d notice me.”

You grin, hands curling into his vest. “You think she’d notice you now?”

He huffs a soft laugh and tips your chin up. “She’d fall to her knees.”

You blush, heart thundering.

And when he lifts the bottom of his mask just enough to kiss you—soft, slow, careful—you melt like butter in his hands.

—

SAVE THE WORLD, GET THE GUY

“Johnny,” you call sweetly as you step into the rec room again, “what’s the sitch?”

He looks up from the couch and immediately gasps like he’s seen a ghost—and maybe he has.

“Love, Jesus Christ,” he groans, sitting up straighter. “Is that—are you—Kim Possible?!”

You spin for him dramatically, gloves fitted tight, olive-green cargos hugging your curves. “Ron’s on leave. I’m handling missions solo today.”

He scrambles to his feet and rushes toward you, practically vibrating. “This isn’t fair. You know what you’re doin’ to me, lass.”

“Remind me?”

“You’re everything I wanted at thirteen and everything I want now in one body.”

You laugh as he sweeps you off your feet, spinning you like you weigh nothing. He presses you to the wall gently, nose brushing yours, forehead resting against you.

“Call me, beep me,” he whispers, voice low and hot, “if you wanna wreck me.”

—

PRETTY GUARDIAN POWER

You save Kyle for last—because his reaction is going to be the best.

You slip into the quarters where he’s reading, hoodie draped over his lap. He doesn’t see you at first.

Then you clear your throat and say in your brightest voice: “In the name of the moon, I will punish you!”

Kyle looks up—and freezes.

Full Sailor Scout getup. Skirt, gloves, red bows, fake tiara glittering on your forehead. You pose with your hands on your hips, your grin wide.

He drops his book.

“No way,” he whispers, eyes wide.

“Surprised?” you tease.

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack, babe.” He stands, walking slowly, reverently, like he can’t believe you’re real. “Sailor Moon?”

“I heard Sailor Jupiter was your girl.”

“She was. Tall. Tough. Gorgeous.” He stops in front of you, gaze warm. “But I think she just got replaced.”

You giggle as he lifts you into his arms, bridal style, spinning you toward the bed. “What are you doing?” you laugh.

“Dream-fulfillment service,” he teases. “Full package.”

—

Later, you’re curled up on the oversized couch you all had delivered after your last mission. You’re tucked between Simon’s solid chest and Kyle’s warm arm, your legs draped across Johnny’s lap. John’s hand rests on your knee, fingers brushing gently.

“You are ridiculous,” Simon mutters—but he can’t stop smiling.

“Ridiculously hot,” Johnny corrects, dropping a kiss on your ankle.

John chuckles. “I’m just impressed you remembered the details.”

“I remember everything about you boys,” you say softly.

Kyle leans in, his voice gentle. “You really wanted to make us feel special.”

“I always do.”

There’s a moment of silence. Warmth. Shared glances. Then, in perfect harmony, they lean in—kissing your cheeks, your forehead, your lips—until you’re breathless and giggling and entirely, completely theirs.

Hope you enjoyed! Please consider liking and reposting! -Midnight💜

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Stuck in the Moment

Fandom: Marvel (CEO AU)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Summary: It was just supposed to be a regular day at work. But a huge storm hit the city. The power goes out and you're stuck inside the elevator with an incredibly attractive man. So with nothing else to do, you two get to know each other while waiting to be rescued.

A/N: technically, CEO's son AU but whatever

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

You quickly close your umbrella and rush inside. Even with the umbrella and a raincoat, you're still partially drenched.

A storm has hit the city. You hear the occasional roar of thunder and flash of lightning, raindrops pelting against the pavement and windows of your work building.

You flash your badge and walk through security. You shoot a smile to Stan, one of the older security guards, "Keeping warm, Stan?"

"As best as I can, Y/N!" he replies, zipping up his jacket further up towards his neck.

You gather with the group of people in front of the elevators. Two doors open, and people start filing in. Both elevators fill up quick, so you decide to hang back and wait for the next one.

You hear someone approach you and they sigh. A soothing, deep voice follows, "Jeez. Did not mentally prepare myself for this much rain."

You turn your head, your eyes meeting striking blue ones. The owner of the voice is as handsome as he sounds. You chuckle and quickly look away, "I know. Even with my umbrella and raincoat, I still wasn't as prepared for this storm."

"I forgot an umbrella hence," he gestures to his drenched suit jacket.

You snort, "Gotta keep a small, compact one with you at all times around this time of year. Never know when a storm will happen."

"Definitely going to follow your advice," he says with a grin.

The elevator door nearest you opens and he gestures, "After you."

"Thanks," you reply, stepping inside and the handsome man filing in behind you. You press the fifth button while he presses the eleventh.

You can't help but comment, "You must be a high profile person if you're going to the top."

The man shyly shrugs, "I suppose," he nods to the fifth button, "You're in the marketing department?"

"Yup. I'm part of the social media team."

"Ah. You guys get to have all the fun."

You giggle, "It's not all fun, but, yeah, we do like-"

The elevator slows, but not because it's approaching your floor. The light's flicker and the elevator creaks to a halt. Your body sways at the stop. The lights flicker again and then you're engrossed in darkness.

You groan out in annoyance, "Oh come on!"

The man with you takes out his phone and turns the flash on. He faces it to the ceiling, illuminating the elevator, "You okay?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Same," he sighs, "Guess the storm created a power outage. Might be some time until the power comes back or until we're rescued."

"Great."

Your phone starts to buzz and you pull it out of your bag. You answer it, "Kate?"

"Hey! Are you at work already 'cause looks like the entire building is experiencing a power outage."

"Yuuup and I was unfortunate enough to be riding the elevator when the power went out."

"Shit. Okay, what floor are you on?"

"I think we're in-between three and four."

"Oh good, you're not alone!"

"Nope. I'm with-" you pause, and look to the man, "Sorry, I never got your name."

"Bucky."

"Hey, Bucky. I'm Y/N. I'd say 'nice to meet you' but I wouldn't call our current situation 'nice'"

He chuckles, "I get it and likewise."

"Who the hell is Bucky? I've never heard of a Bucky before."

"Not now, Kate. Anyway, I should probably save as much of my phone battery as possible. Keep me updated on the power and such."

"Will do! Stay safe and don't die!"

You snort, "I'll try not to." You end the call and look back at Bucky.

"Since you're probably like an executive or something, do you happen to have contact to any other higher ups about this power outage?"

He nods and gestures to his phone, "Getting several text messages from people. I've let them know we're stuck here and they've already contacted the fire department. But considering the storm and everything, might take them a while to get here."

"So guess we have to get comfortable," you set your bag down and slip off your raincoat. You set it on the floor and sit on it. Bucky looks at you with a cocked brow and you shrug, "What? The floor's wet!"

Bucky chuckles to himself and finds a dry spot in the corner. He slides down the wall to sit on the floor, "So, Y/N from Marketing, tell me your life story." You look at him confused and he shrugs, "Might as well get to know each other since we might be stuck here for a while."

______________________________

Within the first hour, learn that Bucky is the eldest sibling and he has a younger sister. His best friends are named Steve and Sam. He's a huge nerd that loves Star Wars and Star Trek. He went to Columbia University to study business, which is why he's now working here.

You told him about your childhood, that you and your best friend, Yelena, moved to the city for school and ended up staying. You express your passion for social media marketing and, ultimately, how you ended up working for Barnes Co., thanks to Yelena's sister, Nat.

"How long have you been working here?" Bucky asks you.

"It's going to be my two year anniversary in a few months."

Bucky slowly nods, "Can't believe you've been here for two years and I've never seen you around."

You give him a shrug, "It's a big building. Lots of people work here. Besides, you work with the higher ups, so I doubt you'd even see me around."

You take this moment to look over him with the minimal lighting you have. He clearly makes a lot of money from what you can tell. His shoes and suit are obviously designer. Hugo Boss or Armani or something. His watch is definitely a Rolex and probably costs more than your entire life.

Bucky shakes his head, "I know, but I do try my best to get to know everyone who works here. The company is what it is because of everyone who works here, not just the CEO, CFOs, and executives."

"That's nice to hear, Bucky. I mean, I knew that this company really values its employees, but to hear someone close to the top say so, is really reassuring."

He shyly chuckles, "Well, uh, yeah, um," he clears his throat, "So, uh, you seeing anyone?" he winces at how unsmooth that came out.

But you chuckle, "Are you asking me out?"

"Me? No, no. Just, ya know, we talked about our childhood, our jobs, only topic we haven't hit is our love lives. Besides, it'll probably a little bit longer until we're rescued. They're working on getting the people on the first two floors out first." Bucky does his best to be as nonchalant as possible and you find it so adorable. You never expected a guy like him to be a little shy.

"Riiiight. Well, I've dated, been in a few relationships, but nobody's really stuck around for long. Kind of getting tired of the whole dating game, so haven't really put much thought into relationships lately. What about you?"

He nervously rubs the back of his neck, "I, uh, hate to say that I dated around a lot when I was younger. Not super proud of myself for that. But as I grew older, started wanting a more stable relationship. Was in one for a long time with a woman. Thought we were going to get married and everything, but then I found out she stuck around because of my growing wealth so-"

"Yikes."

"Yeah. Went back to dating and sleeping around and it got old again quicker than before. I guess I'm kind of like you, focusing on myself and work. Doing my best to just survive in the world."

You slowly nod, "Well, what a pair we make, huh? I mean, look at us," you gesture to yourself and him, "Stuck in an elevator, sharing our life stories, getting to know each other. Honestly, thought a situation like this would be so much worse, but I'm glad it was you that got stuck with me in this situation."

Bucky laughs, "Same here."

"Buck?" you hear a muffled voice from the other side of the elevator doors.

"Dad?!"

"Yeah, you guys okay in there?"

"We're okay!"

"Good! The fire department's here. They're getting you guys out. Just hang tight!"

"Not like we can go anywhere!" Bucky replies and you laugh. He grins at you as you wait for the doors to pry open.

______________________

The entire building was evacuated. Several people stayed back to make sure everyone was safe. Nat and Kate stayed in the lobby waiting for you to be rescued.

When you exited the stairs door, they rushed over to you.

"Holy shit, are you okay?!"

"Yeah. Me and Bucky just hung out that entire time," you gesture to the man who follows behind you.

Nat looks over your shoulder and her eyes widen, "You were stuck in the elevator with James Barnes?"

"James?" you turn to face Bucky as he approaches you, "I thought your name is Bucky."

He nervously clears his throat, "Uh, well, kinda. Technically, my name is James Buchanan Barnes, but those closest to me call me Bucky."

Your realization has your eyes widen and you take a step back, "You're George Barnes' son."

He sheepishly waves, "Hi."

"Well...that's...cool." You didn't know what to say, honestly. You're a little surprised by the reveal. You quickly go through the info that Bucky shared with you in the elevator shaft. He never mentioned his dad or anything that could hint at the position he holds. He deliberately held that info from you.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Bucky says with a guilty expression on his face.

You shake your head, "No, it's-it's fine. I mean, I knew you worked a high position but didn't think...that high."

He snorts, "Yeah, um, I just hope you don't see me differently."

"Not at all. I met you as Bucky, the sci-fi nerd who sucks at flirting, so that's how I see you."

"Sucks at flirting? Yeesh, guess that's what happens when I haven't dated in a while."

You laugh, "Happens to the best of us."

"Son, you ready?" George Barnes approaches Bucky.

"Yeah," he nods to his dad and looks back at you, "See you around, Y/N."

"See ya," you give him a small wave and turn back to Kate and Nat. They look at you like you grew another head, "What?"

"The son of George Barnes, James Barnes, son of the CEO of Barnes Co., was flirting with you?!"

You scoff, "I wouldn't really say he was flirting with me. More like attempting to flirt. It doesn't matter. Not like he'd actually want to date someone like me," you shrug it off and pull on your raincoat, "Ready to go?"

_____________________

Everyone was working from home the following day to ensure that the building was safe to occupy when the power came back.

The weather is still poor but not as bad as the day before. Still, you decide to step outside, choosing a cafe to work from rather than your shared apartment with Yelena.

You’re answering emails while sipping on a warm beverage when you get a new message on Slack from James Barnes:

JB: You’re looking cozy over there in your corner.

You immediately look around and spot him on the opposite side of the cafe. When your eyes meet his, he gives a wave. He quickly gathers his things and you keep your eyes on him as he moves across the cafe to your table.

“May I join you?”

“If you’d like.”

He sits across from you and you lower your laptop screen, “Not gonna lie, kinda creepy that you did that, Barnes.”

He shyly shrugs, “I guess I really do need to brush up on my flirting hm?”

You giggle, “Yeah, I suppose you do.”

“Maybe I can practice with you?”

You give him a coy look, “I guess you can.”

[leriexoxo]

SKZ HEADCANON SERIES (18+)

Chapter 1: Bang Chan - The Rival Producer

OT8 SERIES MASTERLIST

This work contains mature themes, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Enemies. That was the word. And he wore it like a damn badge.

From the moment you joined the label as an up-and-coming producer, Bang Chan had been on your neck. Stealing your time slots, nitpicking your tracks, offering unsolicited feedback in the most condescending tone possible.

“You could’ve layered this with cleaner harmonies,” he’d muttered once, listening to your beat in the studio hallway. Not even a hello.

“Didn’t ask,” you’d snapped back.

“Didn’t need to.”

It was like that every time. Arguments that started professional and always slipped personal. Creative tension that turned into glares, sarcasm, and proximity that was just a little too close for enemies.

So when management scheduled a collaboration—his team and yours—you almost quit on the spot.

“Just don’t kill each other,” one of the directors joked. “Or do. As long as it charts.”

Three days. One studio. No distractions. And the second the door closed behind you, you felt it: that hum of electricity between you, always too close to catching fire.

⸻

DAY ONE

You wore headphones to avoid him. He clicked his pen loudly just to piss you off.

“You’re stalling,” he said at hour three.

You didn’t look up. “You’re breathing.”

He grinned like the devil and leaned back in the chair, his sleeveless hoodie showing too much muscle for your own sanity.

“Bet I could finish the hook in five minutes.”

“Bet I could finish it better.”

“Then do it.”

You did. And he hated how much he liked it.

DAY TWO

You were both stubborn. Stuck on a pre-chorus.

“Your synth progression is too muddy,” he said, leaning over your shoulder. His breath was warm on your neck.

You sat still. Tight. Unwilling to flinch.

“And your voice note sounds like it was recorded in a fucking microwave.”

His laugh was low. “Still gets more plays than yours.”

You spun in your chair and shoved him back, hard. “God, you’re so—”

“Say it.”

You didn’t. You stared at his mouth instead. It was parted, pink, glistening. And for a second, the silence buzzed louder than the track looping behind you.

Neither of you said anything after that.

DAY THREE:

You stayed late. Alone. Or so you thought.

He returned with coffee, and you hated how much you needed it.

“You didn’t have to—”

“Didn’t do it for you.” He set the cup down beside you, sat in the chair across the console. “I did it for the track.”

Right.

You played back the bridge. He closed his eyes to listen. You watched him. The way he moved. The tiny nods to the rhythm. The muscles in his forearms flexing with each tap on the armrest.

You couldn’t take it anymore.

“Why do you hate me?” you blurted.

He opened his eyes, calm. “I don’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“You just…” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, voice low. “You get under my skin. You don’t take my shit. You challenge everything. You’re loud. Arrogant. Brilliant. And it pisses me off how fucking attractive I find it.”

The room went still.

Your heart thundered.

Then—

“Say that again,” you whispered.

He stood. Walked over. Caged you in with one hand on the console, the other on the chair behind your head.

“You heard me the first time.”

You didn’t kiss him. He kissed you.

Hard. Fast. Like a storm that had been waiting three goddamn days to rip through the room.

Your hands scrambled up his chest, fingers curling into his hoodie as he lifted you from your chair and placed you on the edge of the console. Buttons clicked under your thighs. He shoved your laptop aside without looking.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he murmured, biting down on your jaw. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

You whimpered instead. Pulled him closer.

He grinned against your throat, teeth scraping skin. “That’s what I thought.”

His hoodie came off. Your shirt followed. Mouths clashed. His hand was under your waistband in seconds, fingers pressing, rubbing, teasing.

“You’re soaked,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “Fuck, I knew it.”

You gasped into his mouth. “Then stop talking.”

He groaned. “Careful. I bite.”

Then he was on his knees, dragging your pants down, spreading you with his hands like you were a masterpiece he’d been dying to ruin.

Tongue. Fingers. Moans you couldn’t swallow fast enough. He worked you open with precision—obsessive, hungry, like you were the only thing he needed to create tonight.

When he stood again, his lips were shiny. His eyes were blown wide.

You pulled him in by the waistband of his sweats. “Condom.”

“Wallet. Back pocket. Hurry or I’ll fuck you raw.”

You didn’t rush. He hissed as you rolled it on, watching you with that dark, intense gaze.

He lifted you up—hands firm, unrelenting—then fucked into you on the console. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t romantic. It was raw. Filthy. The kind of sex that makes the air taste different after.

“Louder,” he growled. “Let the whole floor know how much you hate me.”

You did. You said his name like a curse, then a prayer, then a plea.

When you came, it was with your back arched and his name on your tongue.

He followed, breath hot on your neck, chest heaving.

And when it was over, he kissed you again—softer this time. Sweeter.

“I still hate you,” you whispered.

He smirked, voice hoarse. “Sure you do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist: @tsunderelino @innieandsungielover @inlovewithstraykids @reignessance @jeonismm @sttnficrecs @herejusttemporary @krssliu @kenia4 @miilquetoast @thackery-blinks @leeminho-hall @suga-is-bae @butterflydemons @inejghafawifesblog @malunar28replies @minchanlimbo @mal-lunar-28 @breakmeofftbr @itvenorica124 @slut4junho @deepblueocean97 @thequibbie @yaorzu-blog @imagine-all-the-imagines @just-bria @mischievousleeknow @ifyxu @melanctton @thelostprincessofasgard @binniebb @sillylittlecat1 @darkwitchoferie @m-325 @headfirstfortoro @imseungminsgf @ihrtlix @vernorica123 @hwangjoanna @swordswallower2000 @niki007 @yxna-bliss @firelordtsuki @justwonder113 @mbioooo0000 @sammhisphere @nebugalaxy @cutecucumberkimberly @chancloud8 @sunflwerstar

[clementineinn]

listen to the bookman!

abstract: two BAU agents find themselves caught in a different kind of tension — not the kind that cracks cases, but the kind that lingers in glances and slips between the lines of shared quotes.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (usage of Y/N)

genre: fluuuuuff

word count: 8.5k

note: i've been writing sm, but i haven't posted anything bc lowk i feel like my stories suck lol, but i'm just gonna pull the trigger and post this one. it is fluffy, which, sorry, i can't help myself, but i do have some angsty pieces in the works! enjoy!

The rain had started just after nine.

Not with thunder, not with fanfare. No lightning stitched across the sky, no windswept leaves gathering like whispers in the gutter. Just the quiet insistence of it — that slow, silver curtain descending from nowhere in particular. It arrived without urgency, as if it had always meant to come, as if it had only been waiting for the world to quiet down enough to notice it. A soft percussion, delicate and steady, like fingers drumming idly along a windowsill — not to fill the silence, but to settle into it.

Each drop struck the windshield with the hush of intention, tiny cymbals against glass. They gathered at the edges of the wiper blades, collecting into trembling rivulets before slipping downward in uncertain paths, distorting the view beyond until the whole street looked underwater — houses sagging in reflection, lamplight warping into golden haze. Time itself seemed to slow beneath the weightless repetition of it. Not stopping. Just stretching, the way long nights tend to do when nothing moves and everything matters.

The wipers stirred only now and then, slow as breath, like they too had fallen under the spell of the storm. Each sweep was reluctant — a lazy gesture through the fogged glass that cleared a temporary view before the rain returned, gentler still, like it meant to stay. Outside, the town had curled into itself: porches darkened, curtains drawn, the world behind doors gone still. What little light remained flickered in warm, amber pools across wet pavement, refracted in puddles that looked deep enough to fall into and dream.

Inside the car, the rain made a kind of silence that had nothing to do with sound. A hush that lived beneath the noise, pressing in close, like a held breath waiting to be released.

Their SUV sat parked along a narrow, tree-lined street — the kind where the sidewalks cracked in quiet places and the air still carried the faint scent of cut grass and wet bark. The federal government plate gleamed dully beneath a film of rain and road grit, a muted badge among leaves clinging to the bumper like the last breath of autumn. The vehicle itself had become part of the scenery now: quiet, unmoving, patient.

The Bureau had been called in days earlier, summoned like a needle to thread together the frayed edge of a town unraveling. A string of disappearances — ordinary people, vanished in the soft blind spots of routine. No witnesses. No patterns that held. No certainty. Only shadows, and the kind of silence that pressed too close to the bone. And so tonight: surveillance. One house under suspicion. Two agents in the field. Spencer and Y/N, seated side by side in the long, slow hush of a stakeout that had yielded nothing but hours and the strange intimacy of shared breath.

It had been hours already — the kind of time that stopped meaning anything. The kind that crept into your bones and curled there.

Across the street, the suspect’s house sat inert, draped in a stillness that felt almost deliberate. Its windows were dim behind gauzy curtains, pale rectangles of nothing. No movement. No flicker of motion behind glass. Only a single porch light humming softly in the rain, casting its weak yellow glow over the sagging porch steps and the glint of wet shingles. A weathervane spun once above the roof — a slow, indecisive turn, more gesture than warning — then stilled again, as if it too had grown bored of waiting.

The rest of the neighborhood had long since folded into sleep. Porch lights clicked off, one by one. Televisions flickered behind drawn blinds, scenes playing to no one. Cars glistened in parked rows like resting beasts, their hoods wet and gleaming. Everything had gone hushed. Held.

At the far end of the block, a lone red bulb blinked on a motion sensor, pulsing faintly against the damp concrete of a driveway slick with rain. It flared, then dimmed, then flared again, like a slow heartbeat echoing down the empty street.

Somewhere deeper in the neighborhood — faint, almost imagined — a wind chime stirred. Not with wind, but with memory. A sound delicate and eerie in the stillness, like the echo of something forgotten.

It was the kind of street that, on nights like this, made even trained minds question what was real. The kind of quiet that softened the shape of fear. That made the air feel too gentle for anything to go wrong.

And yet.

They watched. Because danger never did ask permission. It simply waited, like they did now — cloaked in rain and silence, eyes fixed forward, hearts just a little louder in the quiet.

Inside the car, the air held the slow warmth of people who had stopped pretending they weren’t tired. It was the kind of warmth that built over hours — gathered from breath, from body heat, from shared silence that had nowhere else to go. It clung faintly to the glass, fogging in soft curves around the edges of the windshield, curling up along the side windows where no one had spoken for a while. The scent was a mix of things that didn’t quite belong together but somehow fit: the faint sharpness of old paper, the damp wool of Spencer’s sweater sleeves, and the thin, bitter ghost of gas station coffee steeping in the bottom of two stainless steel travel mugs in the console.

The dashboard lights glowed a dim green, casting soft geometric shadows over the interior — across the grain of the steering wheel, the uneven crease of Spencer’s slouched coat, the glint of rainwater still clinging to the doorframe. The SUV felt like its own small world now, floating somewhere just outside of real time.

Spencer sat in the driver’s seat, his posture relaxed in that very particular way of someone who never truly let his guard down. A worn paperback was open across his knee, its spine softened from too many readings, the corners curled. His fingers moved absently along the edge of the page, not turning it yet, just holding the weight of it. A pen was tucked behind his ear — not needed but always there. The sleeves of his cardigan were shoved to the crook of his elbows, revealing the pale, fine angles of his wrists, the delicate bones that made him look more scholar than federal agent. His coat was balled up behind him, crushed into the space between his seat and the door. It looked like insulation. Or a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed.

Y/N sat sideways in the passenger seat, curled toward the window like she’d grown into that shape — one leg folded beneath her, the other stretched lazily out, her socked foot resting against the center console in a quiet, unconscious nudge. Her boots were somewhere on the floor, long forgotten. The rhythm of her breath fogged the glass just slightly. Her head tilted, chin propped in her hand as she followed the rain across the windowpane — not watching the house, not really watching anything. Just letting the storm draw soft, meandering shapes down the glass, like an artist sketching something only she could see.

Outside, time moved on without them — steady, indifferent, marked by the soft blink of porch lights switching off and the deepening hush of a town folding itself into sleep. The world beyond the windshield turned in its usual way, unaware that anything was waiting.

Spencer turned a page.

The sound was nearly silent — just the faint rasp of paper moving against paper, the quietest breath of motion in a space that had forgotten what sound was. The overhead light remained off — too conspicuous, too artificial — but the dashboard cast a low, steady glow across his lap, enough for his eyes to follow the words without strain. In that dimness, he looked almost like a ghost of himself: all sharp planes and soft lines, caught somewhere between thought and presence.

He looked oddly comfortable for a man halfway through a ten-hour surveillance shift. But then again, Spencer Reid had never needed comfort to look at ease — only stillness. And this night, at least on the surface, had given him plenty of it.

Across from him, in the passenger seat, Y/N shifted.

It was the kind of movement that drew the eye without trying — slow, unhurried, the kind of stretch you made only when your body had started to mold itself into the shape of a seat. She drew her knees up onto the leather, curling into herself, not out of tension but out of familiarity. One hand rested lightly at the base of her neck; the other dangled off her knee, fingers relaxed, half-curled.

Her gaze still followed the long, translucent trails the rain carved down the glass — eyes tracking them like someone reading a foreign language slowly, line by line. Outside, the world blurred into shape and color: yellow porch light, dark trees, the soft distortion of reflections in wet pavement. But her eyes didn’t flinch from the blur. She just watched, quiet and still, like she might stay that way until morning.

They hadn’t spoken in some time.

But silence, here, was not a gap to be filled — it was a rhythm. A heartbeat. A third presence in the car, curling around them, holding everything that hadn’t been said.

Until—

“Any movement?” she asked, voice low — not tense, not expectant, just soft, like a thread being tugged out of habit more than hope.

Spencer didn’t answer right away. He glanced toward the house across the street, his gaze cutting through the layers of fog on the windshield and the distortion of raindrops sliding down the glass in lazy, luminous streaks.

Nothing.

No lights. No shift behind the curtains. No silhouettes pacing in backlit windows. Just the soft, constant hush of the storm and a porch that had grown too still to feel natural.

He shook his head, eyes drifting back to his page. “Nope. Not since the cat around eight-forty.”

That pulled a sound from her — not quite a laugh, more like a small, amused exhale. A puff of disbelief softened by affection. She turned toward him, one brow arched in gentle accusation.

“You logged the cat?”

Spencer didn’t look up. Just flipped a corner of the page with the back of his knuckle, as if this were the most obvious response in the world.

“He was orange. Limped on the right paw. Could be important.”

She smiled then — faint, but real. Not at the cat. Not even really at the joke.

At him.

At the way he said it with no trace of irony. At the way he watched the world like every detail might hold the thread that could unravel everything. At the way his voice had settled low for the night, mellow and worn like the spine of the book in his hands.

It was barely anything.

And still, she found herself holding on to it.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

But it wasn’t the kind of silence that demanded explanation. It wasn’t brittle or impatient. It simply stretched between them, soft and steady, the way old friends might fall into rhythm without needing to fill it with sound. The rain had become a background hum — steady, hypnotic — wrapping the SUV in a cocoon of warmth and fog. Every so often, the wipers traced a slow arc across the windshield, a half-hearted attempt at clarity.

Spencer flipped a page with the careful precision of someone who didn’t just read — someone who studied, who inhabited, who listened to the echo of every sentence long after it was gone. The movement was unhurried, like time didn’t touch him here.

Y/N leaned her head back against the seat, the curve of her neck exposed in the dashboard’s low green glow. Her eyes slipped closed, lashes brushing the skin beneath her brow. Not sleep. Just stillness. The kind that only found her when the storm outside was louder than the one inside her mind.

Then — a pause, a breath, a beat too long.

Her voice broke the hush like a pebble tossed into a still lake.

“What are you reading?”

Spencer didn’t glance up. Just lifted the book slightly, eyes still scanning the page.

“Persuasion. Austen.”

That made her lift her head again, brow raised, an amused spark catching behind her gaze.

“Seriously? I pegged you more as a Brontë man.”

“I like the Brontës,” he said easily. “But Austen’s prose is more psychologically nuanced. And Anne Elliot is arguably one of the most emotionally complex heroines in English literature.”

Y/N blinked once, slowly.

“Okay, but does she walk across moors dramatically in the rain?”

Spencer arched a brow at that, finally looking up, mouth twitching at the edge.

“You do know it’s raining right now, right?”

She smiled — wide this time, unguarded, the kind of smile that curled at the corners and didn’t rush away. She stretched her legs out, shifting in her seat until her sock-clad foot nudged his knee lightly — a small, familiar touch that didn’t feel like much until it did.

“Fine. Read me something.”

He hesitated, thumb holding his place on the page.

“From this?”

She gave him a look, dry and warm.

“No, from your weather log. Yes, from that.”

He didn’t ask why.

Didn’t smirk or prod or ask if she was serious. He just flipped back a few pages, slow and unhurried, his thumb dragging lightly over the paper as though reacquainting himself with the rhythm of the words before they even met the air. A quiet breath slipped past his lips — not a sigh, not nervous — something centered. Then he cleared his throat gently, and began to read.

“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.”

His voice was softer when reading — less clinical, less tightly wound than usual. Like the cadence of someone telling a story they remembered too well. It slipped easily into the space between them, filling it with something light but tangible. Familiar. Almost fond.

She smiled again, but this time it was smaller — quieter. The kind of smile that tugged at one side of her mouth, just enough to mean something, just enough to give her away. It wasn’t for him, not fully. It was for the moment. For the sound of his voice. For the line.

“And is that why you’re stuck in a car with me?”

Spencer looked over at her, gaze steady, not blinking. Not teasing.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt.”

Y/N gave him a look — half-amused, half-skeptical, but undeniably warm — then turned back toward the window with a faint shake of her head, lips still curled. Her breath touched the cold glass in front of her, fogging it just enough to leave a small, crescent bloom where her exhale had landed.

For a while, the only sound was the rain — a steady hush against the roof, soft and constant. Like the sky had decided to whisper all night and had no plans of stopping.

Time passed like that — not fast, not particularly slow, but in that strange, viscous way time has when nothing moves and everything feels like it might. The kind of time that didn't announce itself, only lingered in the stillness, tucking itself into corners: the curve of a seatbelt, the soft click of a shifting jaw, the rhythmic sweep of wipers.

Outside, the street held its breath. Inside, the car did too.

Spencer had already read two chapters. Probably more, if she was being honest. His eyes flicked across the pages with that impossibly fast rhythm she’d grown used to, but still found quietly bewildering. He turned each one with the same reverent calm, the motion so habitual it was almost unconscious — as if his hands knew the story before his eyes did. Not a single sentence read aloud since the last one she’d asked for. But the air still felt full of his voice.

The silence had begun to thicken. Not unpleasantly. Just noticeably. The kind of quiet that made you suddenly aware of the sounds your own body made — the shallow pull of breath through your nose, the slow shift of fabric over your knee, the faint, traitorous beat of your pulse.

It was sometime past ten.

Y/N had already counted the porch lights on the block — seven, two dimmer than the rest. She’d played a mental guessing game with the silhouettes behind living room curtains: game show, drama, rerun of something laugh-tracked. She’d reorganized the snack bag in the backseat by color, then by noise level, then by expiration date. Her left sock was bunched and bothering her, but not enough to fix. Her boot had begun to tilt inward from where it sat abandoned under the dash.

Meanwhile, Spencer remained exactly as he’d been: spine straight, expression unreadable, a small vertical crease between his brows — not from stress, but from focus. That peculiar kind of stillness that only sharpened his edges.

And it was all just a little too much.

She couldn't take it anymore.

“Okay,” she said at last, her voice slicing softly through the quiet — not a jolt, but a ripple. Like a pebble skipping across still water, breaking the surface just enough to catch his attention. “Let’s play a game.”

Spencer glanced up from his book. The low green light from the dash slid across the lenses of his glasses, catching on the faint smudge of a fingerprint. His pen was still poised between his fingers, tucked neatly into the crease of the page like a placeholder he hadn’t meant to use. He blinked once, slow, thoughtful.

“What kind of game?”

Y/N turned toward him more fully now, folding her leg up beneath her, sock brushing the console. She narrowed her eyes with a mock-serious squint, the dramatic tension undercut by the small smirk that tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Quote battle. You read a line, I name the book, and vice versa.”

Spencer tilted his head — that precise, birdlike angle she’d come to recognize as curiosity. He looked at her as if analyzing the strategic value of her challenge, weighing outcomes and probabilities in real time.

“What do I get if I win?”

Her grin widened, sharp and playful, lighting her face like something just a little dangerous. “What do you want?”

He blinked once — visibly computing, as if she’d just asked him to solve something unexpectedly complex. His eyes darted slightly, then settled.

“Control of your iPod on the jet for a week.”

“Deal,” she said immediately, hand flicking outward like she was signing a contract in the air. “And if I win, you buy me coffee every morning until next Friday.”

Spencer considered this with the seriousness of a man preparing to enter diplomatic negotiations.

“So… eight days?”

Her brows arched, delighted. “You already did the math?”

His mouth twitched — just slightly. “You challenged me.”

She gestured toward the book in his lap, chin tilted like a dare.

“Go on then. Hit me.”

He flipped a few pages back, fingertips grazing the dog-eared edges with the ease of someone who had memorized the landscape of a book — its weight, its breath, the way the spine folded in his palm like it belonged there. His eyes moved fast, scanning the text like wind moving through leaves. Then he found it. He cleared his throat quietly, a low sound that somehow deepened the stillness between them, and read aloud:

“She had the kind of beauty that hurt to look at—sharp, aching, and likely fatal if mishandled.”

His voice dipped naturally into the rhythm of the line — not performative, not dramatic, just soft and sure, shaped by memory and admiration. The words seemed to hang in the warm air of the car long after he stopped speaking.

Y/N squinted, angling her head toward him like she was turning a puzzle over in her mind.

“That’s not Austen.”

“No,” he said, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, equal parts pleased and impressed. “It’s Tana French.”

She hummed, a low sound of appreciation, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

“Well played.”

“My turn?” she asked, already shifting her weight, her voice curling with anticipation.

He nodded once, resting the book lightly against his knee. “Hit me.”

She didn’t hesitate.

Her voice was steady, quiet, but carried the weight of something familiar — a line so worn it gleamed like glass:

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

Spencer blinked. Once. Then again — not out of surprise, but recognition.

“Jane Eyre.”

“Too easy,” she sighed, the corners of her mouth twitching with mock disappointment. “Fine. You go.”

He thumbed through another page, slow and deliberate now, though his eyes still moved with that rapid, uncanny rhythm — like he wasn’t just reading but indexing, cataloging, selecting the perfect thread to pull. His fingers paused near the middle of a chapter, pressed gently to the margin like he needed to feel the weight of the words before he let them leave his mouth.

When he read, his voice was casual — too casual. That smooth, practiced kind of nonchalance that only ever meant someone was trying very hard not to reveal too much.

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

The words drifted out into the warm hush of the car like smoke — slow and curling, heavy with implication. And for a beat, they just hung there. Not long. Not really.

But it pressed.

Pressed into the stillness. Pressed into her.

Y/N turned to look at him — slowly, like she already knew what she’d find. Her lips curved upward just enough, not a full smile but something sly and edged with disbelief.

“Are you quoting Pride and Prejudice at me right now?”

Spencer kept his gaze trained on the page in front of him, but the corner of his mouth twitched — a single, unspoken tell.

“Would it be weird if I was?”

“Only if you keep using Mr. Darcy’s lines on me.” She nudged his knee with her socked foot — not hard, just enough to feel him there, solid and warm beside her in the dark. “That man proposed like he was submitting a complaint to management.”

That did it.

Spencer finally looked up — really looked — and smiled in a way he rarely did. Wide, teeth showing, the kind of grin that cracked across his usually composed face like sunlight through drawn curtains. His dimples appeared, sharp and genuine, softening the angles of him until he looked startlingly young. He wasn’t trying to hide it. Not tonight. Not from her.

“And yet,” he said, tone rich with mock solemnity, “he’s one of the most beloved romantic heroes of all time.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, letting the words tumble out on a half-laugh, half-breath, “everyone loves a man who can’t express emotion without sounding like he’s about to faint.”

Spencer tilted his head, still smiling, eyes never leaving hers.

“That likely depends on whether you’re Elizabeth or Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

She let out a laugh — not loud, not sharp, but quiet. Contained. The kind of sound that stayed close to the chest. The kind that wasn’t just amusement, but recognition. Affection. A small flare of something bright held carefully in her hands.

“You know,” she said, nudging his knee again — gentler this time — “this whole thing is starting to feel suspiciously like flirting.”

Spencer looked up slowly.

His smile stretched wider this time — all teeth and dimples, that rare, utterly unguarded kind of grin he only seemed to wear around her. It softened everything. His posture, his face, the ever-present weight between his brows. He looked… happy. Genuinely so. And that alone made the moment tip slightly, like the air around them had taken one breath too deep.

“Only suspiciously?”

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing in exaggerated thoughtfulness.

“Well, if it is,” she said, her tone lilting with amusement, “you’re doing it very… academically.”

“That’s the only way I know how.”

“I figured.” Her lips quirked, but there was affection behind it now — warmer, quieter. She shifted in her seat again, drawing her knees back up beneath her, curling into the corner like she meant to stay there. Her shoulder bumped the inside of the door; the toe of her sock pressed softly to the edge of the console.

“Next quote, Doctor Reid.”

He turned another page, but this time his fingers slowed at the edge — like they were no longer moving just to move. His eyes flicked down the page, scanning, not quickly now, but deliberately. He stopped halfway down, and when he spoke, his voice was lower. Smoother.

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.”

The quote settled in the warm dark between them like smoke. Light, but dense. Fragrant with intention.

She didn’t guess this one.

Didn’t even try.

Instead, she watched him — not startled or shy, just there with him in the moment, fully. Her gaze held steady on his face for a second too long, her expression unreadable but soft, like she was seeing something she hadn’t let herself look at before. Then she turned her head slightly, eyes drifting out the windshield toward the still-dark house.

Her voice followed a moment later — quieter now, but not hesitant.

“You always pick the romantic ones when it’s just me.”

Spencer didn’t reply.

Didn’t have to.

The words didn’t need answering. They weren’t a question. They were something else entirely — a thread unspooling gently in the hush between them, tying things together she hadn’t named until now.

They hung in the air — not heavy, not awkward, just suspended. Like a truth neither of them had to rush to touch.

And still, it pulsed there. Quiet. Unspoken. Real.

Outside, the rain picked up.

Not all at once. Not with drama or force. Just a slow thickening — a soft insistence in the air, the kind of weight that settled gently over rooftops and sidewalks until the world seemed wrapped in water. The drops came heavier now, tracing long, uninterrupted streaks down the windshield like tears that didn’t know they’d fallen. The rhythm changed — not frantic, but full. A lullaby in another room, low and constant, the sound of the earth exhaling.

Thunder murmured somewhere in the distance, too far to startle, too soft to fear. It rolled low and wide, more suggestion than presence — a storm that circled like a thought you couldn’t quite finish.

Inside the car, the change was quieter still.

But it was there — the kind of shift you felt more than saw. In the way her hands stilled completely in her lap. In the way his thumb lingered on the edge of a page, but never turned it. In the way he closed the book softly, without ceremony, and let it rest across his thigh like something that had given him all it could for the night.

The space between them wasn’t wide. It hadn’t been for hours. But now it felt different — a kind of nearness that didn’t ask for attention, only acknowledgment. A quiet hum building beneath the sound of rain, shaped like something waiting to be named.

Y/N stretched again, slow and languid, like the warmth of the car had melted into her bones. Her jacket was folded between her seat and the door, a makeshift pillow that carried the faint scent of wet wool and worn leather. One leg tucked beneath her, the other lazily extended until her knee nudged against Spencer’s on the console — light, casual, but not accidental.

“You look comfortable,” he said, voice low and edged with something that wasn’t quite a smile, but close. The corner of his mouth tilted up, that soft glint in his eyes reserved only for her.

She shrugged, gaze still half on the glass, where the rain stitched silver threads across the surface.

“We’ve been here for hours. I’m adapting. Survival of the fittest and all that.”

Spencer glanced toward the house again, letting the moment breathe.

Still no movement.

“It’s not like you to go stir-crazy,” he said, voice soft, shaped around the edge of a smile.

Y/N turned her head toward him, slow and deliberate, the overhead glow catching the curve of her cheek. Her voice was quieter now, touched with teasing, but threaded through with something gentler.

“Yeah, well,” she murmured, mouth curving, “you’ve been reading Austen aloud like it’s bedtime, and frankly, I’m beginning to feel a little wooed.”

Spencer blinked, caught somewhere between amusement and mild academic protest.

“Austen is statistically one of the most romantic authors in the Western canon.”

She grinned, shifting her weight just enough for her knee to bump against the console again — light and unthinking, like contact was instinct by now.

“That’s what I’m saying. I feel like I should be fanning myself.”

He turned slightly in his seat, angling toward her without seeming to think about it — the space between them closing in degrees, subtle and slow. His hands rested in his lap, but his focus was fully hers now.

“Would you prefer I quote something less romantic?” he asked. “Something clinical?”

She narrowed her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching as she stared him down.

“If you quote a math theorem at me, I’m getting out of the car.”

“In this weather?” he deadpanned, glancing meaningfully toward the rain-streaked glass.

“Dramatic exits don’t wait for ideal conditions.”

That pulled another smile from him — unguarded, his dimples deepening as his features softened in the glow of it. He looked younger that way. Brighter. Like someone who had just been handed permission to be seen.

And then, quieter:

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Her brows pulled together immediately, the shift in tone catching her with something almost like concern.

“You didn’t.”

Spencer looked down briefly, then back up, his voice a little steadier now — like it mattered to say it right.

“I just… wasn’t sure if the quoting thing was crossing a line.”

Y/N tilted her head slightly, eyes still on his face, watching him with the kind of attention that always made him feel like she saw more than he said. The light from the dashboard cut softly across his features — caught the edge of his jaw, the hollow of his throat, the almost imperceptible movement as he swallowed.

And still, her gaze didn’t waver.

She caught the flicker in his eyes — the way his gaze dropped for a beat too long, as if a thought had slipped loose before he could catch it. Just a brief shift, but enough. Enough to feel the weight behind the silence. Enough to see that he was second-guessing something, maybe everything.

So she leaned in. Not dramatically, not to close a distance, just slightly. The kind of movement you made when you didn’t want to startle a bird. Her voice was low when it came, warm and unhurried — teasing in that familiar, sideways way that made space instead of closing it.

“Relax, Romeo,” she murmured, the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth easy, natural, hers. “If I didn’t like it, I would’ve made you switch to case reports an hour ago.”

That earned his attention.

Spencer glanced over at her — and this time, he didn’t just look. He saw. Really saw her. Not as the agent beside him. Not as the person he’d been sitting with for hours. But as something else. Something specific.

It was the kind of gaze he usually reserved for the rare things — uncrackable ciphers, strange celestial maps, pages too dense for most to decipher. But it was softer now. Focused. Unflinching.

And all of it was hers.

Y/N held his gaze, still smiling, still pretending — barely — that her heart wasn’t crashing against her ribs like it had just realized it had skin to break through. She didn’t drop her eyes. Didn’t tease further. Just let the quiet bloom around them.

And then, a little quieter, more honest than before:

“You don’t do it with anyone else. Just me.”

The pause that followed wasn’t long.

But it held.

Not because he didn’t have something to say — but because she’d already said enough.

Then she huffed a breath and leaned back again, her body folding into the curve of the seat like she was trying to retreat from the tension she’d just sewn into the air. She reached for levity — not to deflect, but to steady the moment, to give it room to breathe. Her voice dropped just enough to sound offhanded, even as something more trembled just beneath the surface.

“You’re going to make someone very confused one day, Spencer. Using Austen as a flirtation tactic is very dangerous.”

He turned to her fully now, one brow arching with exaggerated skepticism, the edge of his mouth fighting a smile.

“Dangerous?”

“Highly.” She waved a hand vaguely in the space between them, her tone mock-serious, but her gaze held steady on his face. “All this charm and intellect and emotional repression—it’s a lot.”

Spencer laughed — really laughed. The sound burst out of him light and breathless, and it startled even him a little. He tipped his head back, shoulders shaking for a beat, that rare, beautiful sound filling the car like light through fogged glass.

“That’s… an interesting interpretation.”

She smiled too, lopsided and knowing. A little crooked, a little fond. The kind of smile that came from watching someone unravel gently, willingly.

“I’m just saying,” she said, voice softer now but still playfully edged, “if you keep quoting Persuasion at girls in the dark, someone’s gonna fall in love with you.”

This time, he didn’t laugh.

But the smile lingered — soft and shaped with something quieter. Something he didn’t need to dress up in humor or hide behind logic. It tugged faintly at the corner of his mouth like a secret wanting out.

He just looked at her.

And said, voice barely above a whisper:

“You say that like it hasn’t already happened.”

That was when the air changed.

Not in a loud, crashing way — but in the way the atmosphere does before a storm rolls in. The kind of shift you feel before you see. Pressure dropping. Something pulling low and deep in your chest. The hush before lightning splits the sky.

Her heart stuttered once — a quiet, startled rhythm behind her ribs.

But she didn’t move.

Neither did he.

They just sat there.

Knees brushing. Shoulders angled slightly toward each other. Breath held just below the surface. The thunder rolled again, low and blooming in the distance, but it felt closer now — not in the sky, but in the space between them.

And the silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It was brimming with everything they hadn’t said. Everything they almost had.

They didn’t speak for a while after that.

Not because there was nothing left to say — but because whatever had just passed between them was still in the room, still in the air, like dust lit by a headlight beam. It hovered. It clung. It needed space to settle.

And when the quiet returned, it wasn’t the same as before. It wasn’t companionable or easy. It was charged. Dense with possibility. Like a radio dial turned just off-center — all static and hum, vibrating with the shape of words that hadn’t been spoken but still somehow filled the space.

Neither of them moved.

Not at first.

The rain whispered steadily against the windows, carving glass into trembling river lines. The cabin of the SUV had grown warmer, breath-fog softening the edges of the world beyond it. The outside was blurred. The inside was bright with everything they weren’t saying.

Eventually, Y/N shifted — slowly, like she didn’t want to startle the moment. Like she was wading through it. A deer through tall grass.

She stretched her legs down from the seat, her sock brushing the base of the console as she moved. Not restless — just closer. Her spine curved slightly inward, instinctive, unconsciously tilted in his direction. Her hand dropped into her lap, fingers tapping out a rhythm that didn’t match the rain, didn’t match anything at all — except maybe the quick, uneven beat of her pulse.

She glanced sideways, not quite meeting his eyes, her voice soft — but edged with mischief, like a spark under velvet.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out like a thread between her fingers, the kind that unraveled slowly just to see where it led, “how long have you been using Regency-era romance as a seduction technique?”

Spencer blinked — once, then again, as though her question had short-circuited some internal circuit he’d previously thought infallible.

“Excuse me?”

She smirked, lips curling with the satisfaction of someone who’d just set off a particularly elegant trap. Her gaze slid sideways, head tilted, playful but precise — like she was enjoying watching him squirm just a little.

“You heard me. You’re weaponizing Austen, Reid.”

“I’m not—” He stopped, mid-breath, brows drawing together in a furrow of genuine confusion. His tone shifted, caught somewhere between defense and self-doubt, like he was suddenly evaluating all his life choices. “I’m not weaponizing anything.”

“You say that,” she murmured, voice softer now, eyes narrowing with mock scrutiny. She leaned in just enough to make it feel like a secret. “But you’ve been sitting over there all night quoting Anne Elliot like it’s nothing.”

Spencer’s hands lifted slightly, as if ready to explain himself with a logical breakdown and supporting footnotes.

“It was relevant to our conversation.”

“Mhm. Sure.” She nodded, slowly, exaggerating the motion like she was humoring him. “Totally casual. Just a normal thing you do with coworkers during a federal surveillance op.”

Spencer opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again — the movement small but visible, the rhythm of a man realizing too late that he’d walked right into a thesis statement he hadn’t prepared for. He looked at her, a little wide-eyed, somewhere between horrified and completely disarmed.

And she was still smiling.

That same knowing smile that always made him feel like she could see straight through him — not in a threatening way, but like a flashlight through fog.

She leaned forward slightly, elbow resting on the console between them like she was settling into a chess match she already knew she was winning. The space narrowed — not dramatically, just enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him, see the faintest shift in his expression as she moved closer.

Her voice dropped, teasing and low, her words brushed with deliberate mischief.

“Be honest—do you quote Virginia Woolf to Hotch when you’re trying to butter him up?”

Spencer blinked at her, visibly startled — then gave her a look so affronted, so utterly scandalized, it made her laugh under her breath. It was the kind of expression he reserved for things like inaccurate statistics or poorly alphabetized books.

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay,” she said, pressing now, enjoying the way the tips of his ears turned just a shade darker in the dim light. “So what’s my category?”

Her eyes gleamed as she listed them off, slow and deliberate, watching the way he tried not to react.

“Austen? Brontë? Bit of Plath if I’m cranky?”

He was trying not to smile. She could see it — the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the fight behind his eyes, the way his shoulders tensed ever so slightly like holding in laughter required muscle.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being thorough,” she corrected, tapping the side of her temple like it was all part of a formal diagnostic process. “Profiling, remember?”

He shook his head once, but it was hopeless now — the shape of his mouth gave him away. That soft, helpless curve he only wore when it was her.

And then, quieter. So quiet she almost missed it, but not quite:

“You say that like it’s a theory,” he murmured, “but it sounds a lot like hope.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

Not loudly. Not visibly. But it caught — sharp and low in her chest — and her whole body stilled for just a fraction too long, like something delicate had been named.

The space between them had grown impossibly small.

Inches. Maybe less. The console between their seats felt like a formality now — a boundary that had once meant something, back when lines were clearer. But those lines had smudged hours ago, and now the air between them pulsed with everything that had risen in the silence.

Every glance. Every quote. Every moment of not looking away.

Y/N blinked — just once — suddenly uncertain of her footing, like the room had tilted and she wasn’t quite sure what her next step would do. So she did what she always did when the ground started to shift beneath her.

She reached for levity.

“Alright, then. If you were going to write me a love letter, would it be annotated?”

Spencer huffed out a breath — something between a laugh and a sigh of relief, like she’d just let the air back in.

“Only lightly,” he said, the corners of his mouth curving again. “A few citations. Footnotes. Maybe a reference table.”

“Oh, good,” she breathed, the smile tugging at her lips returning with a softness that hadn’t been there before. “I love when romance comes with appendices.”

He turned toward her fully now — not just his head, but his whole body, his knees brushing hers again, their shoulders angled like a conversation only they could hear.

“You joke,” he said, voice lower now, intimate in a way that made the walls of the SUV feel smaller, closer, “but I could quote you half a dozen passages from 19th century literature that remind me of you.”

She blinked once. Quick. Like her breath had caught behind her ribs.

“…Name one.”

But he didn’t.

Didn’t flinch. Didn’t reach for the book. Didn’t chase the question back with logic or wit.

He just looked at her.

And the look was a thing unto itself — unguarded and direct, like a thought that had lived too long in the dark and was finally stepping into the light. His mouth parted slightly, like he might speak, but no words came. His fingers curled tighter around the edge of his seat, as if he needed something solid to hold onto.

The silence between them swelled, not awkward, not unsure — just full. Brimming. Close enough to touch.

And neither of them moved.

Because if they did — if even one of them leaned closer — it wouldn’t be silence anymore.

It would be everything.

Because the truth of it—that aching, unnamed thing that had stretched and shimmered between them all night—was louder than anything he could have quoted.

It hung in the air now, full and real, vibrating like a string pulled too tight.

The windows had begun to fog.

Not completely. Just at the corners, where their breath mingled in the air, warm and quiet. The edges of the world blurred out, as if even the SUV had started to breathe slower. Everything inside the car felt thick with weight—with them—their bodies no longer separated by anything that mattered.

Outside, the street was still. No footsteps. No shadows in the house across the way. Just the hush of rain, soft and constant, and the low purr of the engine like a heartbeat they’d both forgotten to hear.

It was too much. Too quiet. Too full.

So Y/N broke it—because she had to. Because it was either that, or let it swallow her whole.

“So,” she said lightly, trying for teasing but not quite reaching it, the word catching slightly at the edges, “was that the part where you were going to kiss me or just emotionally devastate me with more well-placed metaphors?”

Spencer turned his head.

Slowly.

Like he’d been waiting for permission.

Like he’d been still all this time not out of hesitation, but out of reverence—like he knew this wasn’t something you rushed.

“You talk a lot when you’re nervous,” he said, so softly it nearly dissolved into the air between them.

She blinked.

“I’m not—” she started, but her voice caught—right on the edge of certainty. She cleared her throat and tried again, masking the tremble with a crooked smile. “I’m not nervous. I just didn’t want to ruin your perfectly curated quote-to-eye-contact ratio.”

Spencer’s lips twitched.

But the look in his eyes didn’t shift.

It stayed steady. Bare. The kind of gaze that didn’t flinch from the truth anymore. It held her without demand, like he was showing her the most vulnerable part of himself and trusting her not to look away.

And she didn’t.

Couldn’t.

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t dodge. Didn’t retreat into metaphor or distraction or some clever turn of phrase.

He just looked at her.

The kind of look that reached deeper than words. The kind that unraveled things. The kind that said I see you — and always have.

“I’ve been in love with you,” he said, quiet as a breath, “since your first case.”

No dramatic pause. No swelling music. Just a soft truth offered in the smallest of spaces. No less earth-shaking for its gentleness.

Outside, the rain kept falling — slow and constant, threading silver down the windshield like time deciding not to move.

The windows continued to fog, blurring the world beyond them until it was gone entirely. Only the inside remained now. Only this space. Only them.

Inside the car, the world stilled.

Y/N felt it in her chest first — a quiet catch of breath that slipped beneath her ribs and stayed there, trembling. Something had shifted — tectonic, deep beneath the surface — and everything realigned around it.

Her pulse fluttered. Her fingers curled in her lap, grounding her in the fabric of her jeans, the grain of the seat beneath her. But she didn’t pull away. Didn’t look down.

She didn’t ask if he meant it.

She didn’t joke. Didn’t tease.

She just looked at him.

And the silence between them wasn’t silence anymore.

It was something whole.

She moved towards him, unhurried and certain, as though the moment had long since been ordained. There was no fanfare in the gesture, no trembling flourish — only the quiet conviction of a woman who had made up her mind. Her hand came to rest at his neck, her fingers light and reverent, and then — with the gentleness of breath and the steadiness of affection long harboured — her lips found his.

It was not a kiss of passion unbridled, nor of haste or vanity. It was a confession, tender and unspoken, offered in the only language she could summon. And he received it as such — returning the kiss with the astonishment of a man long denied happiness, scarcely daring to trust that it had come at last.

When they parted — for breath, for sense, for the sweet necessity of drawing nearer still — her hand lingered at his jaw, thumb brushing the fine curve of it with something very near reverence.

His eyes opened slowly, as though waking from some long, aching dream.

“I wasn’t planning on saying it like that,” he whispered, breathless.

A smile touched her lips — quiet, wry, and altogether disarming. “How were you planning to say it?”

He shrugged slightly. “I was… maybe going to write it in the margin of a book and pretend you found it by accident.”

Her laugh then was soft and genuine, surprised by joy. It caught in the air like a lark in morning light.

“You still can,” she said. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it. For dramatic effect.”

They remained there, foreheads pressed together in the hush that follows great change — the kind of silence that no longer feels empty, but earned. Rain murmured against the glass. The world around them faded to stillness.

And though neither dared to say more in that moment, it was understood between them — wholly and without embellishment — that the waiting was over.

And then — through the fogged glass, through the hush that had wrapped itself around them like a secret — a light blinked on across the street.

They both turned, instinct kicking in hard and fast, muscle memory overriding everything else. Adrenaline over romance. Duty over daydream.

Spencer reached for the binoculars. Y/N grabbed the radio. Their movements overlapped — smooth, practiced, nearly synchronized.

It was like slipping back into step. The rhythm of a thousand stakeouts before. The urgency. The protocol. The clarity of purpose. Familiar. Rehearsed.

But when her shoulder brushed his— 

when her fingers lingered just a moment too long on the gear shift— 

when he looked at her and couldn’t help the way his smile pulled, unbidden, real—

It wasn’t the same.

Not even close.

The rain had finally let up by the time they made it back to the precinct.

It was early — the kind of early that belonged more to the night than the day, sky still a gray-blue smear above the rooftops, low and hesitant. The pavement glistened, slick with the memory of rain, and steam curled in lazy tendrils from the sewer grates. Every surface gleamed like it had just woken up. So had they.

Y/N still felt the ghost of his lips on hers.

They walked side by side, steps in quiet sync. A little too close.

Their shoulders bumped once. Neither of them moved away.

She glanced up at him, trying — and failing — to bite down a smile. “You’re being weird.”

Spencer blinked, eyes wide in theatrical offense. “I’m being weird?”

“You keep doing that soft smile thing.”

“I always smile.”

“You smile in footnotes. This is new.”

He tried to school his face into something neutral. Failed miserably.

“Okay,” he admitted, voice low. “I don’t know how to do this yet.”

“Me neither.”

And then, grinning: “It’s kind of fun watching you short-circuit.”

He opened the precinct door for her with a small shake of his head, but his cheeks were unmistakably pink.

Inside, the station was half-asleep. Fluorescent lights hummed low. Agents drifted through the bullpen like ghosts with paperwork — coffee in hand, conversations murmured over case files, the scrape of chairs against tile. It smelled like burnt espresso and printer toner.

Emily looked up from her laptop as they stepped in, her brow immediately furrowing. 

“You two look… suspiciously chipper for a stakeout,” she said slowly, tone sharp with amusement.

From behind her, Morgan appeared with a mug in hand. “Right? You catch the unsub or just catch up on some really good conversation?”

Y/N paused mid-step. Spencer made a sound that could only be described as an intellectual cough.

“We—uh,” he started, eyes darting toward the coffee station like it might offer rescue.

“Read Austen,” Y/N said quickly, deadpan. “He read. I listened. Riveting stuff.”

Emily narrowed her eyes.

Morgan lifted a brow. “Austen, huh?”

Spencer nodded. “She likes the metaphors.”

Y/N shrugged. “They hold up.”

There was a beat of silence, heavy with implication.

JJ passed them on her way to the coffee pot, casting a glance sharp enough to cut paper.

“Cute,” she murmured, just loud enough to be heard — and kept walking.

Spencer looked like he might spontaneously combust. Y/N just smiled, hands in her pockets, a quiet glow still tucked behind her eyes.

Maybe they were terrible at hiding it.

Maybe they never really stood a chance.

But for the first time in a long time, she didn’t want to hide anything at all.

[uncuredturkeybacon]

𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚖𝚎 || 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚐𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

in which things get trust earned not given

part one - part two - part three - part five

The Vegas locker room smells like lemon-scented floor cleaner and industrial anxiety.

The Wings are sprawled across benches and carpet, legs stretched, headphones in, slides tapping rhythmically against linoleum. It's calm chaos — the kind only teams running on fumes and unsaid tension can cultivate.

You're standing near the staff rack with tablets and warm-up data, eyes flicking to Paige every few seconds. She’s got a sleeve on her knee, AirPods in, hoodie up, head down.

She’s calm. Locked in. But she’s also… waiting. For the part everyone dreads.

Chris.

“Alright, everybody listen up!”

Koclanes steps into the center of the room like he’s about to audition for a one-man show called Basketball Clichés and the Men Who Can’t Take A Hint.

He claps once. Too loud. A few heads turn. Barely.

DiJonai doesn’t remove her headphones. She just blinks once. JJ is dribbling a stress ball, staring through Koclanes with the deadpan of a seasoned freshman who’s heard enough motivational speeches to last a lifetime.

“Vegas is gonna come out swinging,” Chris says. “But I don’t want us thinking about the Aces as a team. I want you to think about them as concepts.”

That gets Arike to blink. “Concepts?” she mutters.

Chris points to the whiteboard.

“They’re aggression. They’re illusion. They’re gravity. We are anchors. We are sound. We are pressure.”

There’s a long pause. Myisha mouths what the fuck to NaLyssa, who just shrugs and closes her eyes like she’s trying to evaporate out of the locker room.

“We don’t just want to score tonight,” Chris continues, voice rising, “we want to transcend. We want to dismantle their idea of tempo and replace it with our own identity. We rip the roots out and replant the game in our image.”

He looks around for validation.

Nothing.

Luisaclears her throat. “Do we, uh… do we have a starting five yet, or…”

“Let me finish,” Chris snaps.

The room goes back to its default setting, mild disdain with a dash of I-can’t-do-this-again.

You’re still watching.

Not him. Them.

Because they’re not just ignoring — they’re resisting.

Chris claps again.

“I want Paige pressing Jewel early. Don’t let her get clean looks. I want Luisa to help strong side on Kitley, even if it leaves Nye open. Trust the gamble. DiJonai, you’ll be rotating with Myisha. Arike, I need you off-ball more tonight, but also more on-ball. Like… be water. And also like a wall.”

Paige slowly lifts her eyes, finally pulling out one headphone. “Did you say be water and a wall?”

Chris nods enthusiastically.

“Exactly. Duality.”

Paige stares at him. “That’s not what duality means.”

DiJonai mutters, “Man said play like an Avatar.”

You smother a grin behind your tablet. You finally step forward.

Calm. Measured.

“Coach,” you say. “Starting five?”

Chris blinks like you interrupted his TED Talk.

“Right. Yeah. Okay. We’ll go Bueckers, Ogunbowale, Carrington, Hines-Allen, Geiselsöder.”

He tosses a clipboard to the bench like he just dropped a mic.

“Get locked in. We take the court in ninety.”

He walks out. No one follows. The second he’s gone? The locker room breathes again.

Paige finally looks up at you. You meet her eyes. She doesn’t say a word. But you can see it written all over her face. Can you please talk to us now?

The tunnel is dim.

It always is. That deep purplish concrete corridor between bench and battle. No cameras. No microphones. Just thick, recycled air and the distant murmur of crowd thunder rolling toward you like a wave.

You’re standing with your arms crossed just beyond the rubber mat, clipboard tucked under your arm, badge lanyard wrapped twice around your wrist.

And Paige?

She’s pacing.

Slow, fluid steps in her pregame sweats, the jersey still hidden beneath. Hair braided tight. Elbow sleeve halfway pulled up. She’s breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. Focused. But not quite still. You wait until her third pass.

“Breathe,” you murmur.

She doesn’t stop. You wait for her to turn back again. This time she meets your eyes.

“I am breathing,” she says, too fast.

“Okay,” you say softly, “but not like someone who trusts her lungs.”

She snorts once — just air through her nose — but you see the tension finally crack. You step forward.

“Paige.” She stops pacing. You stop about two feet in front of her. Close enough to drop your voice. “You good?”

“I don’t know,” she mutters, voice quiet. “It’s Vegas. They’re loaded. Chelsea’s back. Kitley’s huge. Jackie’s always in rhythm. We’re underdogs.”

“You like being the underdog.”

“Yeah, but-” she falters, “-I need to be more than just… points tonight.”

You tilt your head. She’s not looking at you. She’s staring at her shoes. The way she used to after losses in high school. The way she would when she thought being enough meant being perfect.

“You’re more than just points every time you touch the floor,” you say.

She doesn’t move. You take a breath.

“You are gravity. You are vision. You’re calm. You’re why this team has a heartbeat.”

She looks up at that. Eyes soft. Tired. Still that flicker of fear behind them.

“But what if that’s not enough?” she says. “What if all that doesn’t win games?”

You step closer. Just enough to press a hand lightly against her taped wrist.

“Then we try again. But not alone.”

She exhales, looking down at your fingers on her wrist.

“I don’t think I ever told you this,” she says. “Back in high school? That first time you stood up for me against Coach?”

You blink. The memory flashes — a gym, a whistle, her limp.

“You didn’t have to,” she says. “But you did. And I think... I think that’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

Her voice drops.

“That I’d never want to play this game without you next to me.”

You blink once. Throat tight.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” she says, clearing her throat, stepping back just slightly. “Because I need you to remind me not to force a pull-up three when I’m cold.”

You smirk.

“And I need you to remind me not to throw my clipboard if Koclanes says we need to ‘be illusion and pressure’ again.”

That gets a full smile from her.

“Deal,” she says.

From down the hall, the PA system roars to life.

“And now your Dallas Wings stating five—”

The tunnel floods with spotlight shadows. Arena bass kicks up like a thunderstorm. You nod toward the court.

“Go get it.”

She hesitates. Then grabs your hand for half a second. Squeezes. And jogs into the light.

The ball flies in the air.

Luisa tips it backward, flicking it off the fingertips of Kitley.

Dallas possession.

“Luisa Geiselsöder wins the tip and we are underway from Las Vegas — Dallas looking to shake off a tough loss in Phoenix.”

“And keep your eyes on Bueckers tonight. Thirty-five last game, and already directing traffic.”

Paige curls off a pin-down from Myisha, catches above the wing. Dribbles left.

Chelsea Gray trails. Kitley sags under the screen. You’re already shouting from the bench — “Lift, Luisa!”

Luisa lifts to the elbow.

Paige swings it — pump fake — Luisa drives. Scoop layup.

2–0 Dallas.

You clap once, calling out, “Keep the action tight!”

Chris is pacing already.

“Run the—run the orbit set! Arike go backdoor!”

She ignores him.

Arike jogs up, takes Paige’s handoff, steps back.

Jumper. Bucket. 4–2 Dallas.

“Paige and Arike reading each other beautifully — no clipboard required.”

You signal — two fingers to your temple.

It’s the same sequence you walked them through in shoot around, stagger screen for Myisha, flare for Arike.

Chris tries yelling something. “Motion slice! Motion slice!”

No one responds. Paige gives a little head shake and calls your set with a tap of her hip. Execution? Perfect.

Myisha catches mid-post. Turns. Hits a cutting DiJonai.

Layup. 10–8 Dallas.

“Coach L/N’s fingerprints are all over this early offensive rhythm — watch how clean their off-ball movement is when Paige ignores the play called from the sideline and calls her own.”

“Sometimes leadership doesn’t come from titles. It comes from trust.”

Jewel Loyd gets hot — two jumpers in a row, both off Chelsea Gray assists. Kitley pulls Luisa away from the rim with hard screens.

Aces lead 14–10.

Chris calls timeout. He storms in.

“We’re not switching! We’re reacting too slow! That’s not the coverage we talked about!”

Paige’s towel is already over her head. DiJonai picks at her fingernails. You wait. When he’s done yelling, you squat in front of the players.

“We knew they’d heat up early,” you say. “Don’t chase. Show early help, recover with control. Force them left. Trust the wall. Switch only if you see Jackie call the stagger flare.”

They nod.

Paige lifts the towel. “Run triple-drag out of the break?”

You nod. “If they show two at the top, skip to Arike corner. Hit JJ on the lift if it’s not there.”

Chris walks off without saying anything. The girls just listen to you.

Triple-drag screen.

Vegas traps.

Paige waits a half-second longer than usual.

Skip pass. Arike. Corner three. Splash.

15–14 Dallas.

“That skip pass was gorgeous — the second the defense committed, Bueckers punished it.”

“That’s the kind of read you don’t teach. That’s instinct, and trust in the play call — not from the head coach, mind you.”

The quarter ends and the players come off. You’re already flipping through slides on your tablet. 

Chris tries to say something — “We’ve got to guard with more integrity—” — but no one’s making eye contact.

Instead?

Paige sits beside you. So does Arike. JJ stands behind you, reading the scouting sheet over your shoulder.

And in that moment, surrounded by the rhythm of halftime prep, warm Gatorade bottles, and sneakers squeaking behind the bench…

…it’s clear who they’re following.

The second quarter begins quietly. That dangerous kind of quiet—the kind that means something’s about to snap.

Jackie Young takes her first possession slow, pulling JJ up into a half-spin before dishing out to Jewel, who’s already gliding to her spot above the break. You see the release before Paige does. Jewel doesn’t even hold her follow-through.

The net doesn’t move.

24–21, Aces.

Chelsea Gray walks the next one down like she’s done this a thousand times. Stokes fakes a screen and slips behind Luisa, catching the pass off a bounce that’s too perfect to contest.

26–21.

The Aces are smooth. They look like a unit that’s played together. A group that knows exactly when to cut, when to clear, when to flash. Dallas, by contrast, is improvising—playing jazz off a conductor who’s too busy yelling metaphors to listen to the rhythm.

You lean forward.

“Next set—elevator screen. Paige trails. Delay to DiJonai flash.”

She nods once.

Chris shouts out “Dagger Slice!” like it means something.

It doesn’t. No one runs it.

Instead, the elevator closes around Paige, and she glides through like she built the play herself. She doesn’t take the shot—she sends it to Arike in the weak side corner, who fakes once and drives baseline, flipping it to Myisha mid-cut.

Layup.

26–23.

You glance toward Chris. His arms are out like he’s waiting for applause, but the players aren’t even looking at him. Paige walks by him on her way back to defend and doesn’t even slow down.

Vegas presses next possession. Chelsea traps the inbound. JJ hesitates and gets picked. Jackie scores on the break. Paige slaps her hands in frustration, but doesn’t yell. She just taps her chest, calls for calm.

The sideline’s tense now. Chris is clapping, shouting about "urgency" and "pressure.” You kneel beside the bench, point at the tablet and show Luisa where Stokes has been cheating left every time she thinks the switch is coming.

“She’s gambling. Sell the screen. Slip baseline instead.”

Luisa nods. “Got it.”

No big speech. No drama. Just a fact. A tiny truth. That’s the difference. Next possession, Paige sees it coming. She bounces it to Luisa with a perfect seal as Stokes lunges the wrong way.

Soft reverse. Bucket.

28–25.

But Vegas is still rolling.

Gray to Jackie. Jackie to Kitley. Kitley post-spin on Myisha. Hook shot.

30–25.

They’re not flashy. They’re clinical.

“Vegas is surgical right now,” one of the commentator says from the booth. “They’re forcing Dallas into short decisions, and if not for Bueckers' poise, this game could be pulling away early.”

“Chris Koclanes keeps yelling ‘Triangle Drag,’ but the players are clearly going rogue,” the other adds. “I don’t even know what Triangle Drag is in this context.”

On the floor, Paige isn’t trying to match buckets anymore. She’s setting tempo. Slowing things down. She waves Arike off a screen, motions DiJonai to curl from the corner, and hits her mid-air with a lead bounce pass through two defenders.

Layup. 30–27.

DiJonai jogs back and doesn’t high-five Chris. She points at you on the sideline.

That’s three direct plays called from your clipboard, not his. And they’ve all worked.

The Aces push back harder.

Chelsea Gray throws a no-look to Jewel, who’s dancing now. She steps back on JJ and buries another three.

33–27.

Paige holds up one finger. Not to Chris—she’s not even facing him. She’s calling your delayed curl for JJ.

You give her a subtle nod.

She runs it perfectly.

Paige dribbles into a double team, knowing it’s coming, drawing the defense just long enough for JJ to rise off the flare.

Splash.

33–30.

The bench is louder now. ZaZa jumps up and slaps the side of Luisa’s leg. Arike claps. Myisha turns to you between possessions, asking if she should front the next post entry.

You say, “Half-front. Show early help on Kitley’s shoulder and recover fast. They’re not swinging quick enough to punish.”

She nods. No hesitation.

The Aces don’t slow down.

Jackie gets to the cup again. Stokes sneaks in another offensive board. Aaliyah Nye hits a corner three after a miscommunication between DiJonai and JJ.

It’s 40–32 now.

Chris calls timeout.

This time, the players don’t even sit around him.

They grab water and circle loosely in front of the bench. You pull the tablet out, flip through three screenshots.

“Watch this,” you say, showing the gap forming every time Vegas runs dual screens on opposite wings. “We’re trailing too high. I need early weak side hedging. Luisa—step out sooner. Force the next pass wide. We can rotate faster than they can realign.”

The players nod. Paige leans in closer, pointing to an angle you circled. “That’s when they start the backdoor cut,” she says. “Right after the second dribble.”

You grin. “Exactly.”

No one looks at Chris. He’s pacing, sweating, muttering about "energy" and “lack of identity.”

But the identity is right here. You’re building it in real time.

Final minute of the half.

Paige hits Myisha on a duck-in.

Arike draws a foul. Hits both.

Now it’s 42–36.

Vegas misses one. Paige walks it down with eight seconds left.

You’re standing. You know what’s coming.

She looks left, waits until Jewel shades too far baseline, then fires a bullet pass to DiJonai in the slot.

Three. Pure.

Buzzer.

Halftime. 49–40, Vegas.

The Wings jog into the tunnel—not defeated, not lost. Still down. But steadier.

Paige looks at you once before disappearing through the curtain. She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to. You’re in this. Together.

The locker room feels like a submarine. The air’s pressurized. Every sound feels like it ricochets.

Most of the team is half-dressed. Towels around shoulders. Ice packs on knees. Arike's sitting on the floor next to her chair. Paige is at her locker with her head down, one leg up on the bench, stretching her hip. DiJonai’s sipping red Gatorade like it’s wine. JJ is already running a towel over her face like she wants to wash off the entire first half.

You’re by the door. Clipboard still in hand, half-covered in notes. And here comes Chris. Clapping. Too loud again. Always too loud.

“Okay,” he says, voice bright like he’s about to deliver a motivational monologue he wrote on the plane, “we’re right there. This game is about who wants it more. It’s about toughness. Togetherness. Grit. We’ve got the tools. But we’ve got to unlock them. You understand?”

Nobody responds.

He keeps going. “I’m talking eyes on the prize. Ears closed to doubt. Heart open to effort. You want to win this game? Start believing in yourselves. Stop looking for someone to do it for you.”

He paces.

“We are not reacting—we are dictating. They’re flashy. We’re force. They’re pace. We’re patience. They’re heat—” he points to DiJonai, who blinks up at him— “we’re pressure. We’re pressure and power. Got it?”

“...got what?” JJ mutters under her breath.

“Play with identity!” he shouts. “Whatever that means to you, channel it now.”

He claps again.

“Let’s finish our story.”

He walks out. The door swings softly behind him. Silence. For a few seconds, nobody speaks.

Then DiJonai sighs. “Bro said we’re pressure and power like we’re superheroes.”

“Was it even a plan?” Luisa asks.

Paige pulls her towel off her head.

Arike leans back against the locker and says exactly what’s sitting in the air, “Okay, cool. Now… can you talk?”

All eyes shift to you. You’re still by the wall. Still holding the clipboard. But you walk forward. Not rushed. Not trying to perform. Just ready.

You flip the clipboard around and show them a sketched possession map.

“They’re overcommitting on weak side switches,” you say. “That’s what’s getting us beat baseline. But if we can force them to switch high and trap hard, we can slip Myisha or Luisa right into the blindside.”

You kneel and draw the secondary path.

“This? This is space manipulation. They think they’ve figured us out because we’ve been running high curls and flares. So let them think it. Let Paige stall at the top, draw two, then let the interior reset. You just need to trust each other to stay home weak side.”

DiJonai nods slowly. “That’s why Jewel kept getting that top slot pass. I was rotating late.”

You look at her. “Exactly. It’s not effort. It’s angle.”

Luisa steps in. “So we bait them with slow help, then recover hard on the swing?”

You point. “Yes.”

“Got it.”

“Paige,” you say, turning. “If they hedge you again off the third screen?”

“I dump to Arike and crash opposite.”

“And if they tag Myisha early?”

“I reset corner. Run triangle delay. Let DiJonai flash backdoor.”

You tap the clipboard.

“That’s it.”

You glance around. Each of them is locked in. JJ’s standing now. ZaZa’s stretching. Arike cracks her knuckles. Paige is silent, but nodding, eyes locked on the clipboard.

You feel the room breathe for the first time.

This isn’t chaos. This is clarity.

The buzzer sounds once. Five-minute warning.

No one moves until you say, “Let’s go be the smarter team.”

That’s it. No chant. No theatrics. But they move with purpose.

Paige is the last to leave, brushing your hand as she passes.

“Thanks,” she says quietly. “For not wasting our time.”

The five walk out. Paige, Arike, DiJonai, Myisha, Luisa. Same starters.

But it’s not the same energy. They’re sharper now—less reactive, more anticipating. Paige is calling sets with her hands, subtle taps at the top of her thigh, slight gestures with her fingers. Not to Chris. To you.

You’re standing behind the bench, tablet held against your chest, nodding as she scans the floor.

Across the court, Jackie Young adjusts her ponytail and glances at Jewel Loyd.

They know this isn’t the same Dallas team from the first half.

You watch it unfold exactly as designed.

Paige holds the top after Myisha slips. The defense hesitates, expecting the flare. Paige doesn’t take it. Instead, she stalls, eyes on the help defender creeping toward Luisa.

Then she skips the ball baseline to Arike, who curls—not sharp, but delayed—letting DiJonai screen her own defender off instinct.

Arike drives. Two steps, body to body. Off the glass.

Bucket.

42–41. “Brilliant misdirection there. That’s a set you only trust if you’ve drilled it with discipline.”

“That’s a coach’s fingerprint, Monica. That entire possession was built on film review. Subtle but exact.”

You don’t react. Neither does Paige. You both already knew it would work.

Paige Turns into a Conductor

This is her stretch. Not scoring—orchestrating. She feeds Luisa on a delayed dive. Draws two and hits JJ cutting. Drops a bounce pass to Myisha under the rim, so clean it looks rehearsed. She doesn’t force a shot. Not once.

You catch her eyes once during a dead ball. You hold up three fingers, swipe diagonally. She nods. Next possession? Arike lifts. JJ slips baseline. DiJonai sets a ghost screen.

Vegas bites hard. Paige dumps it back to JJ. Short corner jumper.

Bucket.

52–51 Dallas.

“Paige Bueckers is playing a masterclass of unselfish basketball right now. Every read is decisive. Every pass has a purpose.” “Let’s be real — the Wings are tuned in to Coach L/N right now. That’s where the flow’s coming from. You see it in how crisp their sets are when she calls the plays.”

“And the chemistry between her and Bueckers? Elite. Paige doesn’t even look confused — she just responds. That’s years of trust built right into the system.”

The third quarter ends with a missed jumper from Vegas.

And as the buzzer sounds, the Dallas bench is electric. JJ slaps Paige’s hand. Arike’s grinning. Luisa flexes her fingers out, watching the replay on the jumbotron like she still can’t believe how clean that dish was.

You feel the shift again.

The energy. The belief. The unspoken loyalty that says, we go where you go.

But it’s not pointed at Chris.

It’s pointed at you.

The Aces are on their heels.

Paige just hit her third step back of the quarter — caught Gray flat-footed, rose up, net. Luisa is grabbing every loose ball like her life depends on it. Arike is chirping. DiJonai is snarling. JJ’s a menace off the switch.

And on the sideline, you’re standing tall with your arms folded, watching your girls go to work.

Nine-point lead. Four minutes left. The Vegas crowd’s gone weirdly quiet. Nervous.

Aces possession.

Chelsea Gray dribbles off a Jackie Young flare. JJ fights through the screen, forces a tough pass. Liz Kitley catches off balance, tries to swing it left — The ball clearly bounces off Aaliyah Nye’s knee. Out of bounds.

You immediately raise your hand. So does Paige. She’s twirling her index finger in the air, locking eyes with the bench. She wants the challenge.

DiJonai’s arms go up. “OFF HER LEG! CHALLENGE THAT!”

The ref points. Aces ball.

Your jaw drops.

And Chris? Chris turns toward the ref crew. Turns back to the bench.

Doesn’t even glance at Paige. Doesn’t even look at Nai.

Just raises one palm to his team.

“Trust me.”

Nai steps toward him. “CHRIS! CHALLENGE IT. THAT’S OUR BALL.”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t call timeout. Doesn’t move.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Let it play.”

You explode.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

Every head on the bench whips around.

You take two steps forward. Past the first seat, clipboard clenched in your hand, eyes locked on Chris.

“WHY DON’T YOU TRUST YOUR OWN PLAYERS?”

Chris recoils. “We don’t have the angle.”

“THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD HAS THE ANGLE, CHRIS.”

JJ’s standing now. Paige turns her back to the bench, jaw locked, pacing.

You keep going. You can’t stop.

“Paige is BEGGING you to challenge. Nai is yelling in your face. You don’t even look at them. You look at the GODDAMNED bench.”

“I made the call,” he snaps.

“You made the WRONG call,” you shoot back. “Again.”

The crowd is roaring now. You don’t even hear the whistle for the ball to be inbounded.

Chris tries to pull rank. “I’m the head coach. You don’t—”

“I DON’T CARE,” you say. “Your team doesn’t trust you anymore. You know why?”

You point toward the court, where the ball is being inbounded to Chelsea Gray.

“Because every single time they ask you to believe in them, you believe in yourself instead.”

He tries to say something.

But it’s too late.

“Oh, wow. Tense moment on the Dallas sideline — Coach L/N is absolutely letting loose on Koclanes.”

“You can see it — Paige called for that challenge instantly. DiJonai was screaming. That was clearly off Nye’s leg. That’s a momentum killer.”

“And it’s not just the call — it’s the message it sends. This is a team that trusts each other. Not being listened to right now is devastating.”

The Aces score on that possession. Chelsea floats it over Maddie.

80–71.

Next trip? Jewel Lloyd gets a clean corner look after a miscommunication. Splash.

80–74.

Timeout Wings.

Too late.

You don’t even want to be in the huddle. You sit on the far end of the bench, arms crossed, refusing to look at Chris. He talks, but no one listens. Paige takes a sip of water and stares at her knees. Arike shakes her head and mutters, “This is why we can’t have shit.”

JJ just keeps her eyes on you. Waiting.

The team tightens up.

You can see it — the frustration bleeds into shot selection, into defensive closeouts, into chemistry.

The Aces? They sense it.

Gray hits a midrange. Kitley gets a put back. Jackie Young hits two at the line.

84–82 Aces.

Dallas still has a chance.

Out of a timeout, Paige hits a pull-up over Gray.

Tie game. 84–84.

But with 41 left, Jewel Lloyd isolates. Hits a dagger off glass.

86–84.

Dallas comes down — Paige passes to JJ, who slips, recovers, finds Arike. Late clock. Arike forces a tough three.

Miss.

Foul. Kiah Stokes at the line.

Hits both.

Final score… Aces 88, Wings 84.

Chris is standing by the tunnel, trying to meet eyes with someone. Anyone. No one gives him a look. Paige walks straight to the locker room. DiJonai tosses her towel into the stands. You stand there. Motionless.

You were up by nine. All it took was one moment — one refusal to listen — and the team knew. They’re not losing because of effort. They’re losing because of him.

You walk in last.

The air is thick with sweat and something else — something heavier. Not grief. Not sadness. Just that raw, simmering tension of a room full of people who’ve given everything and watched it dissolve because of one man’s pride.

Players are scattered.

Paige sits on the lowest bench in the corner, head in her hands, jersey still stuck to her back, sweat drying uneven on her neck. JJ is across from her, chewing the inside of her cheek, arms folded. DiJonai’s on the floor, back against her locker, towel over her head, not moving.

Arike hasn’t sat down. She’s still pacing. Still muttering.

“Could’ve iced it right there… could’ve fucking iced it…”

Luisa’s untying her shoes without looking up. Paige is just staring at the scoreboard replay on the flatscreen across from the lockers, expressionless.

Koclanes walks in. Claps once.

“Alright,” he says. “Tough one.”

Silence.

You stay leaning against the back wall, clipboard untouched, arms folded.

Chris keeps going.

“I’m proud of the effort,” he says, tone too even. Too hollow. “We controlled the pace for most of the game. Executed in spurts. Need to clean up second-chance looks, and obviously some late-game fouls didn’t go our way.”

No one reacts. He’s just talking now. To fill the room.

“We’re still finding our identity,” he says. “Still molding the togetherness.”

Still molding the togetherness.

You glance toward DiJonai. She lifts the towel off her head just enough to roll her eyes.

Arike finally stops pacing. She turns, slow and sharp.

“You really just gonna sit here and act like that bullshit challenge call didn’t change the game?”

Chris blinks.

“I made the decision I thought was best.”

“Yeah,” Arike scoffs. “For who? Yourself?”

He opens his mouth. DiJonai lifts her head.

“Can I ask something?” she says, voice low.

He nods, cautiously. “Sure.”

“Did you even see me? When I was calling for it?”

Chris shifts. “I was scanning the floor—”

“No,” she cuts in. “Did you see me? Because I was standing there. Right in front of you. Begging. And you didn’t look once.”

He doesn’t answer.

Nai stares at him for a long time.

“Got it,” she says. Then looks down.

Chris tries again.

“We can’t let emotions cloud decision-making. I had to weigh momentum against risk.”

You speak now.

“Bullshit.”

His head jerks.

“What?”

You step off the wall. Calm. Cold.

“You weren’t weighing anything. You weren’t protecting momentum. You weren’t trusting your gut. You just didn’t want to be wrong. That’s all it was.”

“Watch your tone,” he says sharply.

“No,” you reply. “Watch your ego.”

You step further into the room. Past Arike. Past Myisha. Until you’re near the middle.

“You know what I saw tonight?” you say. “A team clawing their way back into a game with trust, chemistry, real basketball. I saw them fight for each other. I saw Paige run a masterclass. Nai defend like hell. Arike sacrifice for the right read.”

Your voice doesn’t rise. But it sharpens.

“And I saw you ignore them. Again. And again.”

Chris steps forward, defensive. “We lost by four. One call didn’t decide that.”

“You’re right,” you say. “It wasn’t just one call.”

You sweep your hand around the room.

“It’s been every decision you’ve made since camp. Every time you’ve ignored a read, shut down a voice, drawn up a play no one runs. You’re not losing games, Chris.”

Pause.

“You’re losing them.”

That hits.

Paige doesn’t move. But the rest of the team? You see it.

Heads nodding slowly. Eyes lowering. Chests lifting like a weight is starting to shift off their backs.

Koclanes glances around the room. No one meets his gaze.

He finally says, “We’re done here.”

And walks out.

The door shuts softly behind him.

For five seconds, the room doesn’t move.

Then Paige looks up at you. Quietly.

“Thanks.”

You shake your head. “Didn’t say anything y’all weren’t already thinking.”

JJ leans back against the locker. “So what now?”

DiJonai lifts the towel off her head fully.

“We run it our way,” she says.

Arike steps over, nudging you with her elbow.

“Yo, next time he says ‘togetherness,’ I might actually walk out mid-sentence.”

The room laughs. A little.

Paige stands up slowly.

“We’re not done yet,” she says. “But we’re done pretending.”

You don’t say anything.

You just nod.

Because the truth’s already landed.

The team knows who they listen to now. And it’s not the guy who walks in with a title. It’s the one who walks in with truth.

The cameras are already rolling.

A sea of reporters lines the front row — beat writers, national press, radio guys with iPads, bloggers holding phones on selfie sticks.

The PR rep looks like she wants to melt through the floor.

Chris Koclanes sits in the center.

You’re to his left. Paige to your left. DiJonai on the far end. She’s slouched back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, arms folded. Paige sits forward slightly, hands clasped. You don’t look at Chris once.

A reporter with a laminated WNBA Weekly tag raises his hand.

“Coach Koclanes,” he begins, “you had a chance to challenge but didn’t, and your team was up eleven. There was a clear out-of-bounds call that looked to hit off Aaliyah Nye’s knee. Paige signaled. DiJonai called for it. You chose not to challenge. Why?”

Chris leans into the mic. Smiles thinly.

“I made the decision in real-time based on our vantage point and momentum,” he says. “In the heat of a game like this, you trust your instinct. We didn’t have conclusive visual from our angle, and I didn’t want to burn a challenge that could be more valuable later.”

You watch Paige look down at the table.

The reporter follows up. “Did you consult with your staff or players before deciding?”

“I made the call I felt was best for the team.”

Another reporter raises a hand. This time he’s from The Athletic.

“This question’s for Coach L/N.”

You lift your eyes.

The reporter hesitates.

“Your sideline reaction to the no-challenge was… passionate. Can you walk us through what happened? And your response to Coach Koclanes’ explanation?”

You lean forward. Voice steady.

“You want the truth?” you ask.

The reporter nods slowly. You look out across the room. Cameras blinking.

“Chris didn’t consult anyone,” you say. “He didn’t look at his players. He didn’t look at his assistants. Paige was asking for it. Nai was begging for it. Everyone saw the ball hit off Nye’s leg.”

Chris shifts beside you.

“He didn’t challenge it because he doesn’t believe in shared input,” you continue. “He doesn’t believe in trust. Not from players. Not from his staff. Not from anyone who isn’t holding a clipboard.”

Murmurs spread across the room. Reporters writing faster. Chris starts to open his mouth. You beat him to it.

“You want to know what really happened tonight? This wasn’t about one call. This is the result of months of poor leadership. Months of confusing schemes, tone-deaf speeches, and ignoring the intelligence of the women in this locker room.”

You point, subtly, to Paige and Nai.

“These are brilliant basketball minds. They see things most people can’t. And they’re treated like pawns. That’s not coaching. That’s ego.”

Chris sits upright now. “You’re out of line.”

“No,” you say, “I’m finally in line, with the team.”

Silence. The press waits.

“I’ve tried to keep this internal,” you say. “I’ve tried to back him, even when it made my job harder. But this team’s trust is broken, and it’s not because of the players.”

Chris glares. “This isn’t the place—”

You cut in again. Cold. Controlled.

“You’re not a great coach, Chris.”

You pause.

“You’re not even a good one. You’re someone who hides behind jargon and shrinks from responsibility. And the only reason you’re still in that seat is because Curt Miller is your best friend and you’ve got front office insulation.”

That sets the room on fire. Gasps. Shuffling.

Chris jerks his head to the PR rep. “This is over—”

“No,” Paige says, suddenly.

Clear. Calm. Loud.

The room freezes.

She leans into her mic.

“Coach L/N’s not lying. We’ve been silent for too long. We’re being coached by a man who doesn’t trust us, doesn’t listen, and doesn’t treat us like professionals.”

Reporters are practically leaning out of their chairs.

DiJonai sits up now, too.

“And when we finally start to win? It’s because we’re following her. Not him.”

Chris is boiling now. “You don’t get to hijack a press conference—”

“No,” you say again, voice even lower now. “You hijacked a team.”

More silence.

“I’m not naive. I know I’ll be punished for this. I know what happens when assistants speak out against the network. But someone had to say it. Someone had to say it on the record.”

A reporter asks quietly, “Are you calling for his resignation?”

You look into the camera.

“Yes.”

Chris stands suddenly, slamming his hands on the table.

“We’re done here.”

He storms out.

The PR rep tries to end it too, but the room is alive now.

Cameras still roll. Reporters yelling questions. Paige and Nai stay seated beside you. You don’t leave yet. Because you’ve just told the truth.

And for once?

Someone finally listened.

It’s past 1 a.m. when you knock on her door.

Paige opens it in a hoodie two sizes too big — your hoodie, actually — with her hair pulled into a lazy bun, her face washed clean, soft and worn around the edges.

“You shouldn’t be walking around alone,” she says.

You smirk. “I’m not alone now.”

She exhales through her nose. Opens the door wider.

You step inside.

The room smells like the lavender lotion she travels with and the faint salt of postgame sweat. Her bag’s half unpacked. Her shoes are by the window. ESPN’s muted on the TV. A highlight reel loops over the box score. Paige Bueckers – 16 PTS, 8 AST, 2 STL.

You watch her cross the room and sit on the bed, knees pulled up. She doesn’t say anything for a moment.

So you speak first.

“You okay?”

She nods slowly. “Tired.”

You sit beside her. Not close, not far. Just… right there. You both stare at the muted TV.

“I meant everything I said,” you murmur after a beat.

She doesn’t answer immediately. But she doesn’t need to.

She leans her shoulder into yours. “I know.”

A long silence settles. Not heavy, just real.

“Do you think they’ll fire you?” she asks quietly.

“Maybe.” You look over. “Do you think I care?”

She gives a small, sad smile. “You should. You worked so hard to get here.”

“I worked so hard,” you say gently, “to stay near you. That was the whole point.”

She breathes out like it hurts.

You take her hand.

She lets you.

“You were on fire tonight,” you say after a long moment.

She lifts her eyebrows. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“You had sixteen.”

“And we still lost.”

You shake your head. “Paige. You were brilliant. You read everything before it happened. You trusted your team. You played through the noise, through him, through everything. That’s what leadership looks like.”

She looks down at your joined hands. “Yeah, well… didn’t feel like leadership when no one was listening.”

“They were listening,” you whisper. “To you. To Nai. To me. Not to him.”

You squeeze her fingers.

“Everything’s changing.”

She glances up at you. “Is that a good thing?”

You smile. Tired. Steady.

“It is if we’re the ones changing it.”

She lets that sit for a moment.

“I think I’d follow you anywhere.”

You blink. Swallow.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You look at her. Really look at her.

And you don’t say it — not yet — but it’s in your eyes. You always have.

She leans forward and rests her head on your shoulder. You wrap your arm around her back, tucking her into the curve of your body like she was always meant to fit there.

The TV keeps looping. 16 points. 8 assists. 2 steals.

But all you feel is the weight of her against you, the thud of her heartbeat syncing with yours.

She whispers against your chest, “Thank you. For saying it. For not letting him erase us.”

You close your eyes.

“Always.”

[prettygirl-gabi]

Protective Custody

Pairing: Paige Bueckers x Reader

Fandom: AU: FBI AU

Warnings: Trauma response, implied violence, stalking, protective custody, PTSD themes, emotional distress

Summary: entering witness protection, guarded by agent posing as wife.

A/N: please do enjoy….

🏷️: @paigeshirleytemple , @cowboybueckers , @unknowgirlypop , @yailtsv , @nicebellee , @sitawita , @thatonesuschix , @vamptizm , @elalfywhore , @starfulani , @authentic-girl03 , @paxaz535 , @azziswrld , @jadasogay , @paigeluvvr , @melpthatsme , @lessi-lover , @courtsidewithlani , @elswhore , @italyyy , @lightsgore , @private-but-not-a-secret , @aubreygriffin , @issilovesherself , @graceeeeeesblog , @sayurireidotcom , @zizi-bee-yapping , @latenighttalkinqwp , @fairyblossomsav , @iowahawkeyes22 , @kamspeaks , @tenaciousglitternerd , @jupitermoonbaby , @k1ttyluvcc , @evry1luvzzae , @liloandstitchstan

They say you never forget the smell of fear. But no one warns you about how loud it is.

The screaming. The sirens. The wet crunch of someone being tackled just a little too late. The way your own heartbeat can sound like gunfire in your ears when you’re crouched behind a dumpster, hands trembling so hard you nearly drop your phone trying to dial 911.

I never meant to be part of anything like this.

I was just trying to walk home.

Just a ten-minute shortcut through the alley I’ve taken a hundred times. Except this time… this time, someone else was waiting.

The details blur. Blood. A blade. A scream—mine, or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell. He said something to me, something I don’t remember except for the final words:

“You’re next.”

That’s when the officers found me, hunched behind the bins, barely breathing, mascara streaked like war paint down my face. Someone tossed a blanket over my shoulders. Someone else kept asking if I was hurt. All I could do was shake my head.

But the damage was already done.

That’s what brought me here.

The hum of fluorescent lights was the only thing steady in the interrogation room.

I sat hunched in the chair, legs bouncing, fingers trembling in my lap. My clothes still smelled faintly of smoke and whatever sterile detergent the police had shoved into the department’s spare sweats. My eyes were dry, but only because I’d run out of tears hours ago.

“Miss Y/L/N,” a deep male voice broke through the silence. “I’m Detective Rowe. I just need to ask a few questions about what you saw tonight.”

The moment the man stepped inside, something inside me snapped.

My breath caught. My chest tightened. The room blurred. And before I even realized it, I was screaming, kicking my chair back, stumbling into the wall behind me.

“No—no, no, please don’t—don’t let him near me! Get him away from me!”

Rowe froze, hands lifted. “Hey, hey—it’s okay. I’m not—”

“Get her someone else!” an officer called from the door. “She’s in trauma response.”

Within seconds, the door slammed open again.

And then… her.

The only woman in the building wearing a badge, with calm blue eyes that held steady like a shoreline.

“Agent Bueckers,” someone muttered, relief in their voice. “She’s the only one she’ll let in there right now.”

She didn’t hesitate.

Paige Bueckers stepped into the room, quiet and composed—but something in her expression shifted the second her eyes landed on mine. She crouched slowly beside me, hands empty, voice low and warm.

“I’m Paige,” she said gently. “I’m not here to scare you. I’m here to protect you.”

I clutched my wrist tightly, blood thundering in my ears. The fight or flight was still gripping every part of me—but somehow, she didn’t feel like a threat.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t lie.

She just looked at me with steady resolve and said:

“From this point on, you’re not alone anymore.”

The silence that followed her words was the first kind I could breathe through.

Not because the fear was gone. It wasn’t. It hung thick in the air around me, clinging to the fibers of my hoodie like soot. But Paige’s presence was different. Grounding. Like the weight on my chest had shifted just enough for air to creep in again.

“I’m going to sit,” she said calmly, gesturing to the other side of the table. “But if you want me to stay down here on the floor with you, I will.”

My throat felt raw, and my voice barely scraped out. “You can sit.”

She nodded once, deliberate and gentle, and moved to the chair across from me. For a long moment, neither of us said anything. She didn’t start pushing me for answers. She didn’t prod at my memory. She just waited.

And eventually… I spoke.

“He—he said I’m next.”

Paige’s jaw twitched just slightly. Her eyes never left mine.

“You’re not,” she said. “Because he’s not getting anywhere near you again.”

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to.

But even then, a small part of me wondered if that kind of promise could really be made. Especially by someone like her—badge or not. Still, she said it like she meant it.

Like she knew it.

After another beat, she stood again and offered me her hand. I hesitated, then slowly reached out and let her help me to my feet.

“There’s a room upstairs where it’s quieter,” she said. “No badges. No questions for now. Just… rest.”

They brought me to a room that didn’t feel like a police station. The overhead lights were warmer. The walls weren’t tiled or gray. There was a couch, a cot, and a small table with a water bottle waiting. I sat down numbly. Paige followed me in and leaned against the wall near the door.

“I’m guessing no one’s explained anything to you yet,” she said.

I shook my head.

“They’re still gathering evidence. The man you saw tonight—he’s not just a random criminal. He’s been on the FBI’s radar for months. Possibly years. He’s… smart. Slippery. And dangerous.”

I looked up at her. “But he knew my name.”

“That’s why you’re here,” she said. “You’ve become part of a larger case, Y/N. Whether you meant to or not. He chose you for a reason—and until we figure out why, we’re putting you under protective custody.”

I swallowed. “Witness protection?”

“Exactly.”

I curled in on myself a little. “What happens now?”

She hesitated for a second, then crossed her arms and finally told me the part that made my breath freeze all over again.

“We need to move you tonight. His last known patterns suggest he stalks before he kills. If he knows your name and where you live, he might already know your routine. That’s why…” She exhaled. “We’re assigning an agent to live with you. Someone to be with you at all times. Keep you safe.”

“Okay,” I said softly. “That sounds… smart.”

“And there’s more.”

I looked at her warily.

“Given how high-profile the case has become, we need this to be air-tight. You’ll be moved to a residential safehouse under an assumed identity. Publicly, it will look like you’ve relocated out of state… with your spouse.”

I blinked. “My… spouse?”

Paige nodded once.

“You and I,” she said, voice steady. “Are about to be wife and wife.”

I laughed. Or maybe it was more like a breath that stumbled out wrong. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” she said. “It’s the best cover. Married couples blend in better. Easier to explain two toothbrushes. Two plates. Someone being around constantly. No one suspects a couple. Especially not in the suburbs.”

“And you… volunteered?”

She looked away, just for a second. “I was the only female agent available. And… you trusted me in the room earlier. That matters.”

It did. I didn’t want it to, but it did.

“So what? We live together? Pretend we’re married and what—bake cookies and mow the lawn?”

“If we have to,” Paige said dryly. “But mostly, I’ll be guarding your life. You’ll be under 24/7 surveillance. I’ll take you to doctor’s appointments, the grocery store, everything. Until we catch this guy—or figure out what he wants from you.”

I rubbed my face, overwhelmed. “This is insane.”

She softened her tone. “I know.”

“And how long?”

“As long as it takes,” she said quietly.

I looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time. Tall. Calm. Almost unreadable, but her eyes… they held something different.

Something careful.

“I don’t even know you,” I whispered.

“You will,” she said. “And whether this is fake or not… I will keep you safe.”

By midnight, I was in a different car with tinted windows and an FBI escort heading toward a “temporary home.” A beige house with a white fence and two sets of keys: one for me, one for Agent Bueckers.

She carried my issued duffel bag inside without a word, her jaw set. I noticed her fingers twitch once when they brushed mine handing me the house key.

Fake wife. Real trauma.

And I was about to find out which blurred faster—the lie or the truth.

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

                 -Thank You For Reading!💚💙

                             -prettygirl-gabi✨️💗

[bullet-prooflove]

Risk Management: Charlie Reid x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989

Summary: Charlie realises the two of you have been keeping secrets from one another.

You are Charlie’s downfall.

He didn’t know it when you first met but he knows it now as he stands before you in the Intelligence Unit. You have a deer caught in the head lights expression on your face and he’s trying to figure out how he missed the big fucking elephant in the room. His gaze strays down to the badge hanging around your neck, the gold shield glinting in the light.

Detective… he deduces before you turn your head away, swallowing hard.

You didn’t know he was a cop either, he realises.

You were just two lonely people who ran into each other in a bar, shot pool and then had earth shattering sex.

It was supposed to be one and done but you’d left your number on a post-it with a lipstick kiss by his coffeemaker. He hadn’t meant to call but he couldn’t get that night out of his head, your soft skin underneath his rough palms, the taste of you on his tongue, the way you said his name as you climaxed, gripping his dick so tight you’d wrung every single ounce of ecstasy out of his body.

He’s had great sex before but this was something different, he’d known it the moment you’d run your hands through his burnished silver curls in the aftermath, lips brushing over the love bite you left on his shoulder.

You’ve been dating for over a month now, you staying at his place, him staying at yours and he still didn’t click on. He wracks his brains for signs, something that he’s missed but there’s nothing. No pictures on the wall from your academy days, no essence of anything that ever indicated you were a cop. He’s the same with his brownstone. His home a sanctuary away from all of that, somewhere he can put on one of his records and enjoy a top shelf scotch.

“You told me you were an loss prevention.” He accuses later that evening. The two of you are standing in his kitchen, both badges tossed onto the counter, your Glock alongside his SIG. He’s still wearing his glasses because you’re pounding on the door had interrupted him scrolling through your file on his tablet.

“You told me you were in risk management.” You counter and he sighs because in a way you were both kinda telling the truth, you just didn’t fill in the details.

That’s the thing when you’re a cop, you don’t tell other people you’re a cop, not in today’s landscape.

It would be easier to just cut you loose, agree to go your separate ways but the problem is Charlie, he’s in love with you. He has been ever since the day you came over with that soup your mama used to make when you heard he was sick. He’d spent the entire day draped over you like a weighted blanket, his head on your chest, listening to your heartbeat as the two of you watched old black and white movies like Casablanca and Brief Encounter. He thinks you might be in love with him too, which is the reason you came over here tonight instead of ghosting him like he expected.

“What are we gonna do about this Charlie?” You ask him, one hand on your hip as you look at him with those eyes, the ones he’s spent entire nights getting lost in.

Christ, he would give you the world if you wanted it, his clothes off his back, his heart torn straight out of his chest. You don’t realise the power you have over him, the lengths he would go to just so he could keep loving you.

“Nothing.” He says, his voice low and gravelly as his hands come to rest on the counter behind you, trapping you against it. His entire body presses against yours, chest to chest, hip to hip. He can feel your heartbeat thundering against his own, the heat between your legs as his hardening cock fits perfectly against the inner seam of your jeans. “Now come to bed with me, I missed you last night.”

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[insomniac-dot-ink]

It's Raining in Portland

PART I

It rained in Portland for 45 days straight. They say this might still be normal—even for the off-season. I’ve gone out wandering, as I have every day of summer since I was a kid. My house was empty and the days dragged. I insisted on my green rain boots with frogs on them, showing them off was as good as a downhill bike ride. My bike was broken by then. The other kids were sometimes around, but the days grew longer. They went off to summer camps and vacation and YMCA soccer programs and it was still raining.

I began to bring the lady things on the tenth day. The puddles were turning into little lakes and I needed to make sure to move the car every five days–so I counted. I found her the day Liz left for camp. She was lying face down in the old Target parking lot. Target was supposed to come back to the building but it never did and the place was good for wandering. She was filthy. Hair tangled, coat an unnamable color, gnarled long skirt, and skin rash-y and fever-bright. She was also beautiful, like a fairy tale princess. A storybook face.

The woman had to be middle-aged at least, a weather-beaten kind look about her and silver hair; her high cheekbones and vivid dark eyes captured the soul as my dad might say. She moaned the first time thunder cracked across the sky. She dragged herself across the parking lot and rolled over into a puddle. I circled the area, pointy stick in hand, peeking out behind trees and heel-toe-ing around the cement.

I kept my distance during the first few visits, pretending we were strangers on the bus or like my childhood cat when she followed you into the same room. The woman remained like a corpse on the ground.

The first present I gave her was a can of soup. Everyone needed soup when the weather was bad. I placed it above her head, inching as close as I dare and pushing the can the rest of the way with my stick. Her liquid dark eyes flickered up, searching and wide. She returned to lying face down on the pavement. I frowned. Sure, I didn’t expect a thank you, but still.

The second day I brought her one of my mom’s old raincoats. Everyone needed a raincoat in the freaking rain. I placed it on top of the untouched soup can and didn’t wait to let her groan or moan or look at me with her spooky eyes. I ran off.

When I returned, the campbells can was standing proud and untouched but the lady was covered in my mom’s bright orange raincoat. I bounced on my heels.

“Is it a good fit?”

She didn’t answer. 

I thought of telling someone about the lady in the parking lot. Afterall, she probably needed help and if she took the coat, she might need more. But I stopped in the same breath. Bethany and Liz were at summer camp, the sleep-away kind, and they are the only ones I would trust to not start tattling immediately. If anyone else came, an adult or anyone with a badge, they might start asking questions about my situation. Why am I out wandering? What am I doing all the way out there on my own? You have to cross the big highway to reach the abandoned Target and really it was such a headache to explain the drainage ditch-crossing.

The lady might get in trouble too. What’s with all the headless pigeons in the parking lot? They’d say. That didn’t have to be my lady, though. She just didn’t like soup.

We were on day 20 of the rain and day 10 of me bringing her things. I had to move the car that morning and Miss Maudlin was giving me the stink eye the whole time. I arrived early, bird-early since that’s when I’m supposed to move the car, and didn't even bother to pick up the sharp stick. The mud was thick as honey and the lady dragged herself to a different spot face-down next to the biggest puddle.

“Hey!” I called out like I always do. “Don’t get up or anything. I brought you some socks . . . sorry they’re not shoes or boots or whatever, but they’re dry. I bet you’d like something dry.”

I set the pair of my mom’s good woollen socks next to the soup and backed up, still feeling bad I didn’t have boots. Good boots made a world of difference—my frog ones were testament to that. The lady didn’t even look up this time. She just lay there. I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Are you asleep?” My heart squeezed in my chest. I was going to feel awful if I didn’t tell Miss Maudlin about the corpse-like lady and she became an actual corpse on my watch. Though, Miss Maudlin would be impossible about the pigeon-thing, I already knew.

I sat cross-legged under my umbrella and started munching on my oreos, waiting for her to moan or groan or twitch. “Do you want, uh, something other than soup? I realize I didn’t even leave you a can opener.” The corpse-lady made a valiant effort of acting like a real corpse.

I scooched closer. “I won’t be able to come around every day soon so you’ll have to speak up. Want some Oreos of your own? Blanket? I’ve got some bottled water too, so much bottled water,” I chuckled, “but you’re probably sick of water by now.” The hand at her side appeared to twitch and a part of me relaxed. That was a good thing. I could leave now. But the thing was, I didn’t really want to go. Miss Maudlin wouldn’t even be on her porch giving me the stink eye and I’d already been to the grocery store twice yesterday. I brought out my book.

“I have this summer reading—did you ever do summer reading?—I’m already finished,” I puffed out my chest just a little bit, not enough for the lady to notice, but enough, “but the IB teacher grades like a motherfucker, I hear,” I giggled. The lady’s hand twitched at her side but she didn’t say anything about the swear word which was good of her. “So, I’m, like, reading this one again before term starts.” Which was not entirely true, we wouldn’t be reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich until the second semester. She didn’t have to know that. The book was short and punchy and made me say things like, “well, at least I’m not eating rocks in a gulag this fine morning,” which was something. I situated my umbrella, opened the book on my lap, and began reading. At first, I read silently to myself, but the lady had stopped so much as twitching and it worried me all over again.

I flipped to the beginning and read out loud. 

Her big dark eyes dragged up from the pavement. They were red-rimmed and wide as coins. My skin crawled and I cleared my throat. “Did you like it? It’s my favorite of the books.” She, of course, did not answer.

I decided to finish reading the first couple pages to her because I started this whole thing and I didn’t want to bail just because her eyes were big and weird and staring. We got through the opening sections. I left, like I always did, when I got bored.

I avoided the parking lot for the next few days. I wasn’t really in a place to keep bringing her stuff she didn’t want, I told myself, and it had to stop raining eventually. After nearly a month of rain, I went to our basement and knocked hard on the door. I had another note in my hand, this one mostly about the lady and how super done with my summer homework I was, but I found the last three notes still jammed under the door. I glared at the folded pieces of paper until I gave myself a headache and shoved the fourth one in after it. 

When I went back to the lady, I brought the book and a cushion to sit on. Let her find the damn house empty. I sat on the kitchen chair cushion, letting it sink into the soggy ground and not really caring, and cracked open the book. The lady rolled over onto her back and her big dark eyes were focused on the clouds.

“PAGE FOUR,” I said loudly and began reading. Her eyes dragged over to me in a molosess-drip and I offered her a tin of oreos.

Over the last few days, I stuck to my summer reading list, but by the time the weekend arrived I decided there were only so many pages of eating rocks and being mad at guards you can stand. The lady was already out in the rain. I switched over to one of my favorite books. My friends would have made fun of me for a baby book, but I was sure the lady had never read The Tale of Despereaux, and everyone needed to read that once in their life.

She liked it, I thought. I was sitting, as usual, doing what I was going to be doing at home anyway, and introducing the mouse that got me through a lot of boring classes in elementary school. Her hand jerked out in a blur. I jolted and the woman had a bird by the throat. My mouth fell open. The pigeon.

Her teeth were sharp as fish hooks and gently curved. They dug into the neck of the bird in the same way I imagine sharks dug into seals. My mouth fell open. The woman gobbled down the head and belly of the creature and it didn’t have time to make a sound.

“Woah,” I said. In a flash, she tossed aside her meal. You have to admire anything with that kind of efficiency. She scrubbed her face down with the back of her hand, moaned, and rolled over a second time. I scooted to the edge of my cushion.

“Um.” I gripped the book in both hands, raising it like a shield. “Do, uh, you only do that to, uh, birds?”

I didn’t really give her a chance to answer to be fair. I ran off so quick I imagine a little puff of dust came out of my heels. I spent the rest of the day with the curtains down and the door locked like my mom wanted. 

And I would have stayed gone too. However, the next day I got up, got dressed, put on my rainboots, and went to the door. It was another grocery day. My umbrella was missing. My one good umbrella–that also had a frog on it–was gone, and it was still raining. Thirty days of rain and no umbrella!

At least I knew a little more about the parking-lot lady. This time, I brought her a good cloth napkin. Everyone needs a napkin no matter where they live. I should admit I arrived late, very late since I had to spend most of the day talking myself in and out of going. She ate a bird right in front of me! Raw! And probably wasn’t too fond of mice, I had to bet, so The Tale of Despereaux was really not going to be her thing.

Birds cawed and the setting sun broke through the haze. Bits of orange light turned the puddles into watercolor splashes and set the misty air all to golden dust. Some things can be too beautiful–abandoned Targets and grungy puddles cast in orange.

I darted between the pine trees, keeping my head down and eyes wide. Crows, not knowing to fear for their lives, pecked at the ground. The Target stood unlit and empty, surrounded by piles of trash like a noble dying king. There was no one else in sight. I crept toward the largest puddle, eyeing the ground and wishing my lost umbrella wasn’t green. It could have flown off anywhere by now and blended in with the trees.

The light drained out of the world and the first meager stars popped out. I recounted my steps, one, two, three, and swept the area. At least, on the other side of the lot my umbrella was resting at the base of the Target. The top was weighed down by water, and the handle sticking up like a new plant growth. I sped into a run. Without breaking pace, I grabbed the handle, flung the water out, and sprinted into the foliage. My chest heaved and I glanced around, maybe also to check if anyone had seen that.

A shriek split the air. I dug my heels in and teetered to a halt, animal fear shoving its way into my higher functions. Apparently, I was a freeze kind of girl between the fight-flight kinds. My heart pounded dangerously close to being a medical problem and my ears rang. The shriek had the quality of stone against stone, grating and sharp. Sweat dripped down my temple and a long, dark shape dragged itself across the ground in the corner of my eye.

I swallowed a painful lump. She heaved herself across the space and I wished for the life of me that she remembered those wool socks fondly. The lady moved more quickly than I imagined, belly scraping the concrete and face contorted. I took a step back, she really didn’t need socks, actually.

Out from under the long skirt and dirty coat and much cleaner and nicer orange raincoat, was a thick black tail the color of oil spills. Dark as night and shiny, little rainbows catching the last of the light, a muscled tail whipped back and forth. The mermaid dragged herself across the cement and my mouth gaped.

She moved in the way of dreams: unearthly and fast–much faster than expected. A puddle the size of a small minivan pooled near the base of the Target. The mermaid planted her hands on either side, let out a fantastic shriek, and stuck her head into the water. You’d think she’d give herself a concussion, bonking on the ground, but she plunged her princess-pretty face up to the shoulders. She was gone for only a second and then back yowling like a stray cat.

I didn’t run this time. I took one wobbling step back and then another, clutching the handle of my umbrella like a sword. A mermaid! The brightest part of my brain said. You’re about to be alone in the pitch black out here, said the other part of my head. 

The mermaid was crying, I think, crying very hard, when I left her.

------------

[theodorenmyth]

hiya, sneaking into your inbox to ask for a fluffy piece about mattheo sneaking out of his dorm at night to go cuddle with his snarky, prefect bf (also a slytherin) or them generally just sneaking around bc the relationship is relatively new and matty is super needy

Sleepy Cuddles

Pairings ; Mattheo Riddle x M!reader

Summary ; In the early stages of a secret relationship, Mattheo Riddle can't help but sneak into his snarky Slytherin prefect boyfriend’s bed for late-night cuddles. Needy, clingy, and absolutely obsessed, Mattheo refuses to let go—even when duty calls. What starts as a sleepy cuddle session turns into a battle of affection, stubbornness, and sleepy kisses, with Mattheo pressing soft kisses to your neck and jawline while you halfheartedly try to escape. Despite your protests, it’s obvious: you’re already wrapped around his finger… literally.

A/N ; hi I came back from the dead.. I missed u guys :3

Warnings ; none

Word count ; 2.2k+

The first time Mattheo snuck into your dorm, it was at least a little justified.

Midnight.

Cold.

Thunder rumbling low outside the castle walls. He’d claimed he "couldn’t possibly survive alone with all that weather threatening to murder him in his sleep."

You, being the soft idiot you were when it came to him, had let him crawl into your bed without a word.

But now?

Now it’s a perfectly clear night, barely a breeze outside, and the bloody idiot is shimmying through your door again like some overgrown, desperate cat.

You sit up in bed, squinting at the figure tripping over a chair and nearly flattening himself against your dresser.

"Mattheo," you hiss, dragging a hand down your face, "what the fuck are you doing?"

He straightens up, hair a mess, wand clenched between his teeth for Merlin-knows-what reason. He pulls it free with a sheepish grin.

"Needed to see you," he says simply, shameless as ever, like that explains everything.

You glare. "It’s one in the bloody morning. Tomorrow is patrol night, and if you get caught here, I lose my prefect badge."

Mattheo shrugs, moving toward you anyway. "Worth it."

"Mattheo—"

He flops onto your bed beside you with a dramatic groan, burrowing under your green Slytherin blankets like he owns the place. His hand immediately finds your waist under the covers, clinging to you like you're some sort of anchor keeping him tethered to this world.

"You’re so warm," he mumbles, already curling into your side, as if he hadn’t just committed a thousand violations of school rules and common sense. "You smell good too."

You thump him lightly on the head. "You’re impossible."

"Mm." He grins against your shoulder. "You love it."

Unfortunately, he’s right.

With a long-suffering sigh, you shift so he can tuck himself more comfortably against you. His hair brushes your jawline as he nuzzles closer, his fingers lightly stroking up and down your side, slow and almost absent-minded.

"You’re needy as hell, you know that?" you mutter.

Mattheo snickers. "You're lucky I'm only this clingy with you."

"That’s not reassuring."

"Should be." His fingers toy with the hem of your shirt now, tracing lazy circles against your skin. "Means you’re special."

You try (and fail) to suppress the heat creeping up your neck. "Says the guy who nearly broke my door sneaking in like a damn burglar."

"It’s not breaking if it’s romantic," he says smugly.

"You are a menace."

"I’m your menace."

You finally laugh, low and reluctant. "Unfortunately."

For a few minutes, it’s quiet. The castle seems to exhale around you, torches flickering in the corridors beyond your room. Mattheo’s breathing slows, matching yours, a steady rhythm that tugs at something deep in your chest.

And then, because he’s Mattheo Riddle and incapable of letting a peaceful moment stay peaceful, he mumbles, "You should let me move in."

You snort. "Move in? You have your own bed!"

"Your bed’s better. Smells better too." He inhales dramatically. "Like books and peppermint."

"You’re ridiculous."

"I’m serious," he insists, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at you. His hair falls into his eyes, soft and messy, and you hate how stupidly fond you feel.

"Mattheo—"

"Please?" His voice drops to a near-whine, shameless. "I’ll be quiet. I’ll even make the bed in the morning. I’ll..." he trails off, smirking wickedly, "repay you with affection."

You raise an eyebrow. "Affection, huh?"

"Endless affection," he promises solemnly. "Cuddles. Kisses. The works."

You roll your eyes, but before you can reply, Mattheo shifts closer, pressing a warm, lingering kiss against your jawline. The touch is soft, feather-light, and it makes your whole body tense.

Then he presses another kiss a little lower, right where your jaw meets your neck.

And another.

And another, softer still.

You feel your heart stutter like a traitor.

"You’re unbelievable," you murmur, voice embarrassingly breathless.

"You’re in love with me," he whispers, lips brushing your skin between every word. His hands tighten around your waist, pulling you closer until there’s no space left between your bodies.

"Debatable," you manage, even as your hand slips into his messy curls without thinking.

He leans in again, pressing a soft kiss just beneath your ear. "Very debatable," he murmurs. His breath sends shivers down your spine.

You shove his face away with a hand, earning a huff of laughter.

"Alright, shut up," you say, trying not to grin. "You can stay for a bit."

Mattheo beams, victorious. "You love me."

"You’re on probation," you correct, lying back and letting him tuck himself under your arm again. "One wrong move and you're back to your own bed."

"Sure, sure." His voice is muffled against your chest. "I’ll be on my best behavior."

A moment later, he adds, "Mostly."

You sigh. "You’re going to get us both expelled."

"You’d miss me," he says smugly.

"You have too much faith in your own charm."

"And you have no poker face," he shoots back, laughing softly when you flick his ear.

After a beat, he quiets. His fingers absently trace the stitching on your pajama shirt, slow and aimless, like he’s memorizing every thread. His hand feels almost reverent against your chest, grounding you, soothing you.

"You know," he says, voice low and strangely tentative, "I like this."

You glance down at him, hand still resting lightly on his head. "Cuddling?"

"Yeah. And you."

His fingers tighten slightly against your side. "Feels...good. Safe."

You soften immediately, cursing him and yourself in the same breath. You lift your hand, threading it deeper through his hair, feeling him melt under the touch like wax.

"I like it too," you admit quietly, your chest tightening with the honesty of it.

He tilts his head up, grinning that boyish, almost shy grin he saves only for you. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." He smirks, cocky again, but there’s a gentleness behind it now. "Means I can keep sneaking in then."

You groan. "I’m creating a monster."

"You’re just mad you love the monster."

"Go to sleep, Mattheo."

"Yes, Prefect."

He snickers against your skin, obnoxiously pleased with himself. But his breathing evens out soon enough, his weight warm and solid beside you, one leg tangled lazily with yours like he never plans to let you go.

You lie awake a little longer, staring up at the ceiling, one hand still tangled in his hair, the other wrapped around his waist.

You know you’re doomed.

Utterly, irreversibly doomed.

But somehow, with Mattheo curled against you like this—needy, reckless, yours—you don’t really mind.

In fact, you think you might love it.

The first thing you become aware of when you wake up is the distinct sensation of being completely, utterly trapped.

And no, it's not a nightmare. It's Mattheo.

His body is draped over you like a human blanket, arms wrapped around your torso in a way that suggests he never plans on letting go, and one of his legs is tangled in yours, pinning you to the bed.

You blink, squinting at the light creeping through your curtains. It's still early, and you can hear the faint echoes of other students beginning their own early mornings.

But here you are.

Mattheo Riddle has infiltrated your bed again. And there’s no way to escape.

"Mattheo," you croak, voice a little too rough from sleep. "You’re crushing me."

He makes an unintelligible noise against your neck, burrowing deeper into the crook of it like you’re the most comfortable thing in the world.

"Mattheo," you repeat, trying your best to shove him off, but he’s clingy as hell and stronger than you remember.

"Mm?" he hums, still not bothering to lift his head. "You smell good."

"What?" You sputter, utterly flustered despite the situation. "That’s it? That’s your response?"

He just sighs contentedly, pressing a lazy kiss to your neck like he’s done this a thousand times before. "Mm. You smell like peppermint and... books. My favorite."

You fight the stupid smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "You’re unbelievable."

"I know." He nuzzles even closer, pulling your arm tighter around him like he’s some kind of needy puppy. "Now stay. You’re warm. I’m tired."

You groan, pulling your other arm out from under his grasp to check the time. "Mattheo, please. I have rounds in less than fifteen minutes, and if I’m late—"

"I don’t care," he interrupts, voice muffled as he drapes himself more heavily on top of you. "You’re not leaving me."

You try to sit up again, but his body is like dead weight on top of yours. You give a half-hearted tug on his arm, but he doesn't budge. Instead, he lets out an exaggerated whine, squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face into your chest.

"Mattheo," you repeat, trying to wiggle your way out from under him, "I have responsibilities!"

"You’re not getting out of this bed." He lifts his head just enough to glance at you, his eyes heavy with sleep but mischievous all the same. "I’ll do anything. Just don’t go."

"Anything?" you echo, raising an eyebrow. "I could be late, you know. You’ll be late for classes."

He shrugs, unbothered, and his lips curl into a small, smug smile. "Nah. Who needs classes when I’ve got you?"

"Mattheo..." You huff, trying to pull yourself out from under him, but he's like a sticky spider, wrapping his arms tighter and tighter, refusing to let you escape.

"You're so warm," he mumbles, sounding far too pleased with himself for someone who’s definitely in the wrong.

You’re about to protest again when you feel him press a soft kiss to your neck, lingering a moment before nuzzling against your skin.

"What are you doing?" you ask, half-indignant, half-amused.

"I’m trying to convince you to stay," he mumbles, voice drowsy but still so damn smug. "It’s working, isn’t it?"

Your mind goes blank for a second as his lips leave another soft kiss on your throat. And then, another one just under your jaw. His lips are warm, soft, and... distracting.

"You’re impossible," you mutter, but you can’t stop yourself from shifting slightly, making more space for him, despite your best efforts.

"You love it," Mattheo says matter-of-factly. His hands sneak up to your back, pulling you closer until you’re practically sandwiched between him and the mattress.

"I’m serious, Mattheo," you say, your voice losing its sternness in favor of frustration and something else that feels suspiciously like affection. "I have to get up."

Mattheo glances up at you, looking far too content with his position. "You’re always so serious. Just relax. Let’s just... stay here a little longer." He presses his lips to your jawline, soft and slow. "I promise I’ll let you go soon."

"Yeah, right," you mutter, but you don’t move.

You can feel Mattheo smile against your skin, and it’s a feeling you know all too well—the warm, self-satisfied grin he wears when he knows he’s won.

And he has.

Again.

You sigh, finally giving in to the inevitable. "You're fucking impossible," you grumble, sinking deeper into the sheets, despite the nagging voice in your head that keeps reminding you of your prefect duties.

Mattheo hums happily, nuzzling into your neck again, completely satisfied. "I love you."

"I love you more." You shift, letting him pull you into a more comfortable position. "But I’m still going to be late if you don’t let me up soon."

"Then be late," he whispers, his voice full of drowsy amusement. "You can’t possibly want to leave me now."

The next thing you know, his lips are brushing against the side of your neck again, his kisses slow, deliberate, and so soft they make your heart race. One kiss lands just below your ear, and another trails along the side of your jaw.

"Mattheo..." you start, but your voice cracks. You have to swallow hard to keep it from betraying you, your stomach flipping.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes half-lidded with sleep, but the look on his face is soft and entirely too affectionate for your own good. "I’m not letting go," he says, voice hushed and serious now.

You know he’s joking.

Mostly.

But damn it, there’s something in his gaze, something warm and tender that leaves you speechless.

"I’m going to get in so much trouble," you mutter, knowing full well that you don’t really care.

"Good," Mattheo says with a sleepy grin. "You’ll be in trouble with me, and I can make it worth your while."

You roll your eyes, but it’s obvious you’ve already given up.

Mattheo presses a sleepy kiss to the side of your throat, so soft and slow you almost melt right then and there.

Then another, a little higher.

And another, just under your jaw.

"You're evil," you whisper, squeezing your eyes shut.

"Mm," he hums, sounding very pleased with himself. "Your evil."

You thump your head back against the pillow, officially resigned to your fate.

There’s no way you’re getting out of this bed without a serious fight—and honestly, you’re not sure you even want to.

Instead, you sigh, reaching down to pull the blankets higher around both of you.

"Five more minutes," you mumble.

Mattheo grins against your skin, victorious.

"Knew you'd cave."

"Yeah, yeah," you grumble, pressing a kiss to the top of his messy curls. "Shut up and go back to sleep, menace."

As Mattheo settles against you again, breathing deeply in contentment, you try once more to fight the pull of his affection, the warmth of his body.

But in the end, it’s no use.

You're already lost.

[bradleysass]

reporter - @into-the-jeggyverse - wc: 651

“Mr. Black!”

Regulus froze.

He turned, shoulders drawn tight beneath his coat. A woman in sleek navy robes with a press badge clipped to her chest pushed past a half-hearted security ward with a quick flick of her wand.

She smiled. “Regulus Black, isn’t it? Mind if I ask you a few questions? Just a minute of your time—”

“I don’t do interviews,” Regulus said curtly, already stepping back.

“But the fans are dying to know more about the man behind the legend,” she pressed, stepping in his path. “What’s it like, being married to James Potter? Is he as wild at home as he is on the field?”

Regulus’ stomach twisted.

She laughed at her own innuendo. “Is he competitive? Messy? Or does he practice catching things around the house just for fun?”

He didn’t answer. He was trying to breathe—trying to remember how to breathe through the sudden thundering in his ears. He hated this. He hated being seen. He was never meant to be a public figure, even in marriage. James understood that. James promised.

But the woman wasn’t done.

“Come on, just one detail. Where’d you two meet? Is it true he chased you for years? Or that he proposed midair? Was it a Quidditch ball or a ring he tossed you first?”

Regulus flinched, like she’d thrown it at him now. The crowd behind them blurred—cheering, chanting, whistling, calling James’ name like he was a god.

He was going to throw up. Or hex someone.

And then like magic James appeared:

“Oi! That’s enough!”

The voice cut through everything. James.

Regulus turned, relief hitting like a gust of wind.

James was still in half his gear—pads undone, gloves hanging from one hand, hair a chaotic mess from the wind and the win. He was flushed with victory and still flying high, but the moment his eyes landed on Regulus, everything softened.

He didn’t even look at the reporter.

He walked straight to Regulus.

“Sorry,” he said, not even breathless, not even pretending. “My husband doesn’t give interviews. He barely gives me answers, and I’ve been trying for a decade.”

Regulus’ laugh was small, but real. He felt James’ fingers skim the back of his hand, the smallest touch. The only one he needed.

The reporter opened her mouth again, undeterred. “James, just one—”

James turned, all charm now sharpened to steel. “No.”

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t loud. But it ended the conversation.

He reached for Regulus properly then, tugging him close by the waist, arm slung so securely it felt like armor.

“Let’s go home,” James murmured, forehead resting briefly against Regulus’ temple. “I left the champagne chilling and the bed unmade.”

Regulus didn’t reply. Just nodded. Let himself be led past the flash of cameras, the calls of teammates and fans. Let himself breathe again.

It was only once they were safely past the warded doors, walking the empty corridor toward the locker rooms, that he spoke.

“You unmade the bed on purpose.”

James grinned. “Of course I did.”

Regulus looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes. “I hate that they talk to me like that. I hate that they think being your husband means I owe them anything.”

James’ expression gentled. “You don’t. You never have. You know that, yeah?”

“I know,” Regulus murmured. “It’s just... overwhelming.”

James pulled him closer, walking slower now, dragging them both to a stop beside a bench.

He kissed Regulus’ cheek—soft, warm, grounding. “I play for the world,” he said. “But I fly for you. And I’d give up the whole damn stadium if it meant you never had to flinch again.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, but they were glassy. “You’re dramatic.”

James shrugged. “You married me anyway.”

A beat. Then Regulus said, “I’ll unmake the bed next time.”

James’ smile turned wicked. “That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”