#Sex Clinic Near Me

[eleganceclinicsurat]

Elegance Men's Health Clinic: Male Infertility doctor

Elegance Men's Health Clinic in Surat is renowned for its specialized care in male health concerns, particularly male infertility. Led by a team of expert male infertility doctors, the clinic offers comprehensive and personalized treatment plans to address a variety of male health issues. Utilizing advanced diagnostic tools and state-of-the-art medical techniques, Elegance Men's Health Clinic is dedicated to improving male reproductive health and overall well-being, ensuring that each patient receives the highest quality of care and support throughout their treatment journey.

[nereidprinc3ss]

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough. 

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was. 

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 

[reasonsforhope]

"In short: Thailand's Senate has approved a bill legalising same sex marriage in the South-East Asian country.

It will afford same-sex couples practical benefits such as being able to have children through IVF and make emergency medical decisions for their spouse.

What's next? The first weddings may take place later this year, 120 days after the law is announced in the Royal Gazette.

Thailand has become the first nation in South-East Asia to legalise same sex marriage, with the country's Senate approving the landmark bill this afternoon.

The legislation was expected to pass after it cleared the country's House of Representatives in a near-unanimous vote in March.

Despite Thailand's bustling gay bars and prominent transgender community making it a mecca for LGBTQ+ tourists, until now local same-sex couples there have been unable to marry.

The law will take effect 120 days after its announcement in the Royal Gazette, so the first same sex weddings may take place later this year.

Couples who have been waiting years have hailed the move as a historic moment that will afford them rights only reserved for spouses.

A Lifechanging Law

Photos of Anticha and Worawan [including the article picture], dressed in floor-length white gowns and trailed by rainbow flags, getting married at Bangkok's first Pride Festival two years ago went viral, but they are still not legally married.

Now they will be able to change that, and Anticha Sangchai is elated.

"This will change my life and change many Thai people's lives, especially in the LGBT community," she said.

"It is a historical moment and I really want to join with my community to celebrate this moment.

"I want to send a message to the world that Thailand has changed. Even though there are still many issues, this is a big step for us." ...

There were an estimated 3.7 million LGBT people in Thailand in 2022, according to LGBT Capital, a private company which models economic data pertaining to the community around the world.

For the young couple from Bangkok, being able to marry also has very real practical implications.

If they want to have children through IVF, Ms Sangchai says they will need a marriage certificate first.

"I am quite concerned about the time because we are getting older every day, and the older you get the more difficult it is to have a healthy pregnancy," she said.

"So we've been really wanting this law to pass as soon as possible."

Cabaret performer Jena is excited Thailand's laws are finally catching up with the nation's image...

She too had worried about the practical implications of being unable to marry.

"For example, if myself or my partner had to go to hospital or there was an accident that needs consent for an emergency operation, without a marriage certificate we couldn't sign it," she said.

She now wants the government to move forward with a law to allow transgender people to amend their gender on official documents." ...

An Economic Boost?

Thailand has long been famous for LGBTQ tourism and there are now hopes this new law could allow the country to cash in on the aging members of the community.

Chaiwat Songsiriphan, who runs a health clinic for people in the LGBTQ community, said laws preventing same sex marriage were the last barrier holding the country back from becoming a gay retirement hub.

[Note: They do not just mean for rich westerners; Thailand as a gay retirement hub would probably appeal most to and definitely benefit LGBTQ people from throughout Asia.]

"Thailand has an LGBTQ-friendly environment since Thai culture is quite flexible," he said.

"One of my foreigner friends, a gay friend, told me that when he's in his country he has to pretend to be straight … but when he comes to Bangkok he said you can be as gay as you want.

"When we talk about retirement or a long-term stay for the rest of their lives, what people need is … food, good healthcare services, transportation, homes.

"I think Thailand has it all at a very affordable price."

He said it could help give the country a desperately needed economic boost.

"This will have a lot of benefits for Thailand's economy because when we talk about retirement it's people literally bringing all the money they have earned for the rest of their working lives to spend and invest here," he said.

He said he, like the rest of the community, was thrilled by the news.

"It's not about a privilege, it's just equality," he said.

"We are we also humans, so we should be able to marry the one we love.""

-via ABC Australia, June 18, 2024

[drdemonprince]

I grew up with abstinence-only sex education, and it did a real number on me. But I’ve shaken off enough of my old cultural programming to realize that the transmission of bacteria and viruses is a thing that sometimes just happens when animals come together, no matter how stringently we might try to prevent it.

I have gotten urinary tract infections when a stray microbe found its way into my urethra after sex. Lube and bodily fluids have disturbed my vagina’s pH and caused a yeast infection many times. So has wearing a bathing suit for too long without drying it, yet another “risk” worth the pleasures of swimming along the sea wall.

Once or twice I’ve had an outbreak of cold sores, just like 80% of humans. If I’m like most people, I probably caught oral herpes when I was very young, sharing a sippy cup or rolling around at a sleepover.

None of this makes me disgusting, irresponsible, evil, or dangerous to others. It just makes me a living creature that exists in close contact with other creatures. I believe I have a responsibility to get tested regularly, to alert people who have been close to me when I get sick, and to use preventative measures like condoms, PreP, vaccines, toys, and masks to prevent the spread of infections as best I can. But I never imagine I can lead a life without risk — or that such a life would even be desirable.

There is no such thing as completely “safe” sex. A friend of mine can’t use condoms because they give her bacterial vaginosis. She chooses instead to fuck raw and take PreP and get anything else she catches treated. A guy I know who masks and tests religiously caught COVID while fisting someone (with a gloved hand!) at an air-filtered party. HPV is so prevalent that most sexual wellness clinics don’t bother testing for it, and can’t do much for a patient if they do have it. Our bodies are teeming at all times with various endemic viruses and microbes that we will never have the power to purge.

Then there are the possible costs of not having sex — vaginal atrophy, pelvic floor weakening, reduced access to endorphins, loneliness, touch starvation, the despair of harboring dreams that one never dares try. I can’t decide for anyone else which dangers loom the largest, but for me a gonorrhea shot is a fair trade for the hours of leg-cramping, bed-staining, hypno-kinky sex that led to it. There’s no guarantee that the next time I have sex it will be anywhere near as much fun, but the potential keeps me throwing the dice.

I hear quite frequently from sexually inexperienced Autistic people who crave an intimate connection, but desperately wish to remain responsible and “safe.” They want there to be a set of iron-tight rules they can follow that will guarantee they remain a virtuous person who never hurts anyone’s feelings, and never catches any sexually transmitted infection.

I understand why they want someone to impose order onto an unpredictable, terrifying world. But I can’t give that certainty to them, nor can anyone. All I can suggest is that they be honest with themselves about what they want, inform themselves of the costs and benefits to pursuing their desires, and then venture forward — proudly welcoming the correct risks into their life, rather than trying to avoid any risks at all.

Life is nothing but a negotiation of risk. If a person has gender dysphoria and they want to combat it, they must risk a transition they could one day regret. If an abolitionist wants to take a stand against the police state, they must plan for the possibility of arrest or political repression. When we open our hearts to love, we expose ourselves to grief — our partners will keep changing and growing, sometimes away from us. Each step that we take forward in life closes off potential paths. There is no avoiding this.

Instead of chasing after the false promise of “safety,” trying to remain completely insulated from harm and challenge forever, we must get better at admitting risk into our lives.

I wrote about all about the messy business of risk mitigation, and how the pursuit of perfect safety is used to justify isolation, theft of bodily autonomy, and political repression. It's free to read (or have narrated to you by the app!) at drdevonprice.substack.com

[jji-lee]

damn your friends for being broke, damn them for taking those extra shifts at the clinic, and damn them for being right about mark lee being a good distraction. it's not that you had begun to like mark but you'd like to call it maybe the start of a friendship. the main issue with him was the intolerable noise that he made next door, and thank god to his crush, those noises had stopped, so truthfully nothing was holding you back from being nice to him now.

that's why even though romeo, well longlee now, had just made you feel like an idiot, it wouldn't hurt to go and spend time with a friend, even if it was mark lee. so you slipped on some pajama shorts and the hoodie that mark had gifted you, confidently walking up to his door and knocking loudly.

your confidence lasted approximately 10 seconds as the door opened revealing a surprisingly very hot mark lee. okay, you're not blind, of course mark has always been attractive, but right now, basketball shorts and a white tank top, hair still wet from the shower, mark looked beyond attractive. you cleared your throat hoping mark hadn't caught you gawking at him, but when you looked up at him, his smug smile spoke for itself.

"enjoying the view?"

you snapped out of your haze, rolling your eyes at his question.

"in your dreams lee, now let me in it's chilly out here."

as you entered mark's living space it was almost exactly what you expected, empty. the walls were bland and white, only a couch and coffee table in his living room, his kitchen basically nonexistent, did he even live here?

"stop judging, this areas for my one night stands only, nothing special."

you shivered, this was where he made all that disgusting noise. no wonder it was so loud! his living room wall was the one connected to your room! wait he wasn't expecting you to sit on that couch, god knows what has been done on that couch. you swallowed hard preparing yourself to sit in an area that could've touched mark lee's bare ass.

"fortunately for you, we're not gonna be spending time here, come, follow me."

he reached for your hand, pulling you away from the living room. thank the heavens, you weren't going to be sitting anywhere near where mark does the deed, but wait, where was he taking you? your eyes widen as you realized he was dragging you into his room. you snatched your hand away taking a few steps back,

"no way i'm going into your bedroom mark lee, who knows what goes on in there!"

he chuckled at your reaction, holding his hands up defensively,

"i have a 'no girls' policy for my room, it's 100% sex free, promise!"

he stuck his pinky out towards you, attempting to seal the promise. why is he letting you into his room then, he must really like this girl if he's breaking his 'no girls' rule just to get some romance tips. you swatted his hand away,

"fine, but you try anything and i'll kill you, i know how to fight mark lee!"

he grabbed your hand again dragging you through the doorway of his room,

"sure sure, whatever you say y/n. see? perfectly normal room."

mark's room was the exact opposite of what you had just seen. it was simple yes, but it felt warm. the lights were dimmed, and his curtains were wide open showing an amazing view of the city, maybe you should open your curtain more often, but what really caught your eye was the desk in front of his bed.

there was a huge monitor sitting in the middle of the desk, a picture of him and his friends as the screensaver, with 2 large speakers on each side of it. he had 3 pairs of headphones lying around, and a shelf above the monitor with little action figures he seemed to have been collecting throughout the years. next to his desk was the most beautiful guitar you'd ever seen, black with a large flower carved into it's side.

you walked towards it, crouching to get a better look,

"can i touch it?"

mark rushed to your side, grabbing the guitar,

"uh yeah, here, come sit, and i'll put it on your lap."

you complied sitting on his bed, feeling the weight of the guitar as he placed it on your lap, you ran your fingers through the carved design,

"it was my mom's, it's a lily, the flower, they're her favorites."

he smiled to himself, watching as you inspected the guitar,

"oh mark, i'm sorry, i didn't know, about your mom i mean."

you got up to put the guitar away, feeling like you were holding something a little too personal to mark's,

"what? OH, no no! my mom's not dead, she's just overseas, she gave me the guitar before she went away!"

he helped you put the guitar back in it's stand, laughing nervously at the misunderstanding. you reached up to slap his arm, making him flinch

"stop talking about your mom like that! you're gonna make people think she's dead!"

you backed away from mark choosing to sit back down on his bed. he scratched the back of his neck,

"i mean, i don't usually talk about my mom to people, sooo..."

you smiled to yourself, glad he was beginning to feel comfortable around you, wait why were you glad? one heartbreak from a guy you've never seen and you're starting to smile at the idea of mark lee?

"well, since we're opening up then, i've had a pretty shit day."

he sat on the bed next to you,

"wanna talk about it?"

"hmm maybe after a couple drinks, you got any tequila?"

he snorted, shocked by you request,

"your day was that bad?"

you pursed your lips, letting out a breath you didn't know you were holding,

"lets just say, today's lesson is: what not to do if you wanna win over your crush."

𖦹 .ᐣ.ᐟ₊ ⊹ cryptic crush — [20] rizz

previous — masterlist — next

notes : haha what were the flowers that mark failed to give y/n... we should've know y/n drunk flashing was gonna catch up to her

taglist : @sunghoonsgfreal , @dalsosapple , @nanaxwi , @neverbeurs , @miichellehciim , @h-aechanie , @hizhu , @mystverse , @ppeachyttae , @jae-n0 , @onlyhyunjin , @alethea-moon , @onyourmark-99 , @sunnystarred , @p-d1ddy , @hisrkive , @flwrs4marklee , @haechskiss , @rutheaflowers , @busy-daydreaming02 , @byeonwooseokabs , @bunniin , @odxrilove , @candied-czennie , @injunnie-lemon , @sunflowerhae , @nosungluv , @222brainrot , @vklve , @aerivrs , @slayhaechan , @aek1ra , @honeynanamin , @roseangelxfuma , @starfilledgaze , @meowtella , @grassbutneo , @hyuck-me , @lovm4rk , @minkyuncutie , @babystrlla , @tynlvr , @jakesbubu , @ddieumi , @yutasputa69 , @mrkleelvr , @spiderm444rk , @zzurao , @haechoshi , @brii-sunwoos-version , @nneteyamss ,

[maroonsweetpea]

This may make some of my newer followers disgusted by me but I feel like this perspective should be addressed. I have had problems with hypersexuality since genuinely as long as I can remember. Like, I'm talking about six and seven years old. Before I even understood what was wrong with me. I'm not going to get into details because the truth is that the details that I have are blurry at best and any attempt I have ever made to uncover more has only led to panic attacks and alcohol relapses. At around 13 I discovered porn online. Not like I didn't know it existed, but, I had never interacted with that kind of content previously. I had a serious porn problem until I discovered radical feminism, honestly. It opened my eyes to what should have been in front of me. Things I knew deep down but wanted to forget because it's okay if I'm imagining it happening to horrible me, right?

And, I'm not talking about the most baseline forgivable. I mean hard kinks. I mean that I was self-destructive to the point that I begged my boyfriend to go farther than he seemed to want to at times. And I honestly wanted to die and for him to be the one to kill me. When I was being choked I feel like I was going to reach the gates of Heaven. That peace was nearing because death is the ultimate freedom. I was so masochistic. I was such an alcoholic, dealing with anorexia....what I have never been clinically diagnosed with but I could only describe as violent OCD. I thought I could control what terrified me by playing pretend. Needless to say it did not work and it did not help in any capacity. But, if you asked me back then I would have told you it did. And I would have mostly believed that.

I channeled all of these problems into sex. It was all I could think of. I masturbated CONSTANTLY. It's like I was on fire all the time. The online communities I lingered on and even some female friends irl to this day told me that it was completely fine and healthy to cope with these problems, especially the childhood....whatever with things like CNC. That it was just my old man that didn't do it correctly. I think about a lot of this almost daily and guilt isn't a good enough word to describe it. If there is a word beyond that or shame I don't know it, but, I feel it. At this point in my life my sexuality.....is almost a dead weight. A big part of me thinks I will never be cured, that my need for pain and my need for sex will trickle back the same and I'll explode.

I say all of this not for pity points, but because I think that fucked up women deserve to have a place here and for things like this to be discussed more openly. People can't be born pure and many people learn by terrible mistakes. Or maybe I'm the odd man out. Either way.

[transhuman-priestess]

Sometimes the struggles we go through to be ourselves can be as rewarding as the end result.

A pretty breezy one here. Only content notes are surgery mention and needle mention. No gore to be found, no sex neither. Just good ol' fashioned yearning.

This is definitely a bit of a right angle to my usual stuff. There's no horror, it's light on dialogue, but its in a very similar space to a lot of the other stuff, just a different way of going at it.

Daughter of Elysium

I scheduled the surgery without telling my parents. They wouldn’t understand.

When I came out as trans they were supportive, in perhaps the slightly awkward way that cis people tend to be when they want to be accepting of things they don’t understand. This was different though.

I sat in the waiting room of the clinic in Montevideo, lined with faux wood paneling and sleek glass. Peak 2010s architecture. An older building, but the clinic’s reputation spoke for itself. There was no way I was going to get this procedure done in North America. Too expensive, too niche.

Too many hoops to jump through, too. Go see this doctor, talk to this therapist. Walk with these crutches. Practice with this fake charger for a year. Bullshit, all of it. I just wanted to be me.

So I saved money where I could. I slept in the heat of the Californian summers, kept the lights off early in the winter, rode the train to work, ate cheap meals, canceled all my subscriptions, lived in a 300 sq foot apartment in Watsonville.

3 years and $100,000 Californian Dollars later, I got on a train in Santa Cruz for a 3-day journey to Uruguay.

It was late June, a few days before the solstice. This far south of the equator that meant the sun rose late and set early. It was early morning, a quarter to 7, and 5 hours ahead of California time. I was used to being awake at night, but that only made the early sunrise more disorienting.

“Lewis, Kara,” a thrill of adrenaline rushed through me as the receptionist called my name. After reciting my birthday to confirm my identity, I was taken back to preop. I changed into a surgical gown and then lay down on a gurney while a nurse ran an IV to my arm and started saline. I thought about asking what happened once the arm was removed, but I figured it wasn’t worth the explanation.

For the next 10 minutes I stared at the clock. I hadn’t brought anyone with me. This was something to do for me, by myself. No partner, no friends. I had brought a bag with one change of clothes, my passport, and my phone. I thought about calling my friend Cory, but decided against it. No sense in getting anyone worried. As far as the outside world was concerned, I was on vacation.

I guess that wasn’t too far from the truth.

At 7 sharp, a couple of orderlies came in, checked my name and date of birth, and released the brakes on the gurney. They wheeled me out into the chilled hallway, and through the double doors into the operating room.

Inside the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and several techs were waiting. A nurse placed a mask on my face and told me to count backwards from ten. A sweet, chemical smell filled my nostrils, and the world faded out.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time I’d had surgery, so the novelty of coming up from the anesthesia surprised me. Rather than the slow, heavy feeling I’d expected, it was like waking up from a nap. Disorienting, but in a cozy way. Nothing hurt. I hadn’t expected that. Probably the painkillers were still feeding in.

I tried to open my eyes, but my lids only twitched slightly. I heard one of the nurses say “You’re awake! The doctor will be in to see you soon. Everything went well, congratulations.”

I tried to reply, but my jaw moved jerkily and I had trouble forming words. The result was a disjointed grunt emerging from my mouth. But I could tell that I had a mouth, which was good.

The nurse left. I could hear his shoes squeaking off into the distance. As they faded, the thrum of the HVAC replaced it, and an occasional mechanical whirring near me. My eyes were still closed, and for the first time I noticed the green letters in the corner of my vision. Instinctively, I tried to look at them, but they moved with my eyes. After a time I was able to make them stay put long enough to look at them.

ARLINGTON ROBOTICS SYSTEMS

BANGOR, WASHINGTON, CASCADE REPUBLIC

I managed to open my eyes after a few minutes. At first it was all much too bright, everything blown to white, but after a few seconds my vision dimmed to a comfortable level. I focused on a tiny hole in the floating ceiling above. After a moment, I managed to zoom my vision in.

I marveled for a time at the detail in the ceiling. This mass-produced object, fiberglass and paper, contained so much beauty. How many times had I stared a ceiling like this without noticing?

The doctor came in and reaffirmed that everything had gone well. She told me that rehab would start in a few days, once my new body’s systems stabilized and adjusted to neural commands. I tried to smile but couldn’t manage to get my face to move right.

The doctor chuckled and plugged a display into a port on the back of my new neck. She held it up to me, and I watched as the words “What is this for?” appeared on it. She explained that until my vocal rehab started to kick in, this display would help me communicate.

She told me to raise my arms out to my sides. I struggled with this task for a moment before finally managing to do so. For the first time I got a look at the body I’d picked out from the inside.

Gray plating, seams that slid over each other, an unapologetically mechanical body. I’d wanted that. They’re getting good at synthetic skin these days, but I wanted to distance myself from humanity. There was nothing wrong with humanity, but it never spoke to me. I’d always been somewhat apart.

* * *

I slept most of that first day. The next day they let me eat. The bioprocessor seemed to be working, the staff said, but I should keep it light, and stick to carbs rather than fat and protein until the new tract could build up a sufficient biome to support those.

Odd as it sounds, it was 36 hours post-op before I realized I hadn’t peed. The charging station that I hooked into took care of filtration and detox of what little biomass I had left. I felt suddenly elated. I actually tried to get up out of bed, and promptly tripped over my own foot, smashing my face against a wall.

The nurses rushed in, worry on their faces, but I couldn’t stop laughing, and that’s when I heard my voice.

It wasn’t like my old voice. It wasn’t cold and computerized, but warm, and rich, like an old Roland Jupiter, full of dense harmonics, singing highs, and comforting, enveloping lows.

Soon I was sitting on the floor, sobbing. My eyes didn’t water anymore, but I still went through the motions. I held my gray plastic hands to my face, and touched them to my cheeks. I felt the subtle vibrations as motors moved my eyes around. I had never felt so happy, so myself. So real.

* * *

After a week I was able to clumsily walk around the hospital room, and they moved me to the recovery house. I met a few other converts there. There was a girl named Morgan from Seattle, a guy named Case from Kansas City, a few others. I mostly kept to myself.

I started speech therapy shortly after the move. Lots of reading convoluted sentences, but also singing, reading poetry, even some play-acting. I grew to love my voice. It was obviously synthetic, but that only made it feel more like a part of me.

Motor therapy was interesting. They asked me if I played any instruments. I told them I played bass. The therapist walked to a closet and returned with a bass made entirely out of carbon fiber. I asked why they made it from that, the therapist told me I’d see shortly, and handed me the Bass.

I immediately gripped the neck with far more force than I’d intended, denting the frets and the strings. I said I understood now.

Time flew. The solstice came and went, and by August I could speak clearly, play “Highway Star,” and wash my own chassis without damaging it. I could dress myself. I could walk without tripping over my feet.

On an evening in early August, I bade farewell to my fellow converts at the recovery house, and made my way to the train station. I could have taken a cab, or the bus, but I opted to walk. It was 8 miles and took all night, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Never tiring, stopping for food to recharge myself here and there at convenience stores and night markets.

I settled into my roomette for the trip back to Santa Cruz, looking out at Montevideo Bay. I saw my reflection in the window of my train, and for the first time, really took it in, with eyes that were my own.

[shalomniscient]

woah…..that zoya post…………now make them kiss (pretty please 🙏)

this took centuries. im so sorry

breaking point || zoya x reader [NSFT][MDNI]

cw. medical talk (or attempts at), kind of graphic descriptions of injuries (?), power bottom reader and service top zoya, unsafe sex in the sense reader wants to be dicked down so bad they diss condoms (practice safe sex gamers), fingering, creampie

notes. i dunno i just think zoya would like a partner with a little fire to them yk?? reader is just internally very horny for zoya but would not admit it even upon threat of death. also head in hands this is so disjointed im so sorry

taglist. @sinsmockingbird for when you awaken my liege

As an ER doctor, being able to keep a cool head even in intense situations is a priceless skill. You clarity and calmness could be the difference between a life saved and a life lost. Thankfully, you and your sister have always been good at being clinically cold—but even you both have your limits. For Iron, it was when she was forced to amputate her arm.

For you, it's watching a few legionnaires haul their Commander into the ER, barely conscious and looking half-dead.

"Trauma room 2, now," you snap, tossing your clipboard aside and pulling your coat tighter around yourself. Of course this had to happen on the one day Iron was in Eastside picking up supplies. Your mind races as you march alongside the legionnaires as they drag Zoya—hardly responsive, head hanging low, pallor to her skin—onto a cot. Your nurses swarm you like a well trained unit, moths to a light, awaiting your orders. You suck in a breath, let each molecule of air settle in your cells, before you dive headfirst into action.

"Four units of O-negative, and two large bore IVs," you command, your voice even as you move to stand next to the cot. The wound on her abdomen is substantial, and for once you're grateful for her frankly ridiculous fashion choices since it lets you save time on cutting her clothes off. Your gloved hands reach up to cup Zoya's pale face, your eyes cold as you look down at her. "Get the OR prepped and call anesthesia now."

"Zoya," you say firmly, gently shaking her head. "Oi, brute. Can you hear me?"

The commander remains silent, and you frown. Perhaps the situation is worse than you thought. One of the legionnaires, just a girl, shifts anxiously next to the bed. "Boss got hit by a Mania weapon," she explains, her voice trembling as if she's near tears. "It was supposed to be for me, but—"

"Do you know what kind?" you cut her off, and internally you flinch at the way she recedes from the iciness of your gaze. But she shakes her head, and you bite your tongue. The pieces of the diagnosis align in your mind's eye—Mania weapon, unknown effect, caused severe lacerations and subsequent hemorrhaging. High possibility of additional Mania contamination within her bloodstream, although as a Sinner risk of further complication on that avenue is reduced.

You draw in another breath. Okay. You can do this.

"You owe me for this, brute," you mutter, before you kick the locks off the cot wheels and start pushing her to the OR. The double doors greet you like the gateway to purgatory, and you push everything beyond your clinical expertise to the furthest recesses of your mind.

Under the bright OR lights, your form casts a long shadow over Zoya's still one. You exhale.

"Let's begin."

You only finish six hours later.

Your scrubs are stained red up to your elbows, and you can barely feel your feet after being on them for so long. But the heart monitor beeps steadily, and it is the only sound you want to hear now. You thank your nurses and tell them to get some rest. Once they're out of sight, you stumble back and lean against the wall, your eyes slipping shut.

Your hands are shaking.

You exhale. You're barely aware of the fact that you're sliding down the wall until you end up on the floor, the coldness of the tile seeping through your scrubs. The surgery hadn't been easy. Fishing remnants of Mania crystals out of flesh equally as red is always a challenge—often, the patient doesn't survive. Corruption sets in quickly, and all you can do is hand them over to Iron to nip the bud before it blooms.

But you saved her. She's alive, breathing, stable, so why does your heart tremble in your chest? Why does the sight of her blood on your arms make you sick?

Deep down, you know why. But the words knot on your tongue and catch against your teeth every time you try to say them. So instead, you settle for something else. A different emotion, but no less potent. And you pretend that the rush you felt that other day was nothing more than loathing. And whatever it is you're feeling now is just irritation that you had to spend 6 hours stitching her abdomen back together.

"Stupid fucking brute," you mutter to yourself, resting your head on your knees, pulled close to your chest. "Going out and getting yourself hurt like that. Aren't you supposed to be strong?"

You sit on the cold tile for a while, before forcing yourself back onto your feet. Your eyes roam impassively over Zoya's sleeping face, and you can't help but think how... soft she looks, peacefully asleep like this thanks to the anesthesia. It almost makes you want to reach out and stroke her cheek—but you don't, and instead turn on your heel and walk right out of the room.

After all, there’s no point lingering on pipe dreams.

"Doctor!"

You sigh, feeling a headache build between your temples. You turn to the nurse, scowling. "Yes?"

"The, um... the patient in trauma room two is awake," she answers nervously. "And she's trying to—"

Whatever your poor nurse is trying to say is cut off by none other than said patient striding down the hallway, unbothered, even as five of the other strongest nurses you have try to hold her back. She simply drags them along with each confident step. Also, she somehow managed to get her clothes back? You mentally add another thing to your to-do list—you'll have to have a stern talk with whoever manages patient belongings. Zoya stops in front of the front desk and eyes you up and down, and you shoot an unimpressed glare right back at her.

"What do you think you're doing?" you ask flatly, and Zoya shrugs.

"I'm here to say thanks," she responds, and you blink. That... wasn't what you were expecting.

"Oh."

"I'm also going to leave," she adds, and then you scoff, feeling the moment crumble in an instant.

"In your dreams. You're not due to be discharged for three more days." You round the counter to stand defiantly in front of her, and she raises a brow. Around you, your staff shift nervously. If Zoya decides to force her way out, there really is no one who can stop her.

"I'm perfectly fine," she counters, placing a hand on her hip. Your eyes flick down to it, and yes—the glaring wound in her side is healed up, almost beautifully. Such are the 'benefits' of being a Sinner. But you shake your head nonetheless, stubbornly digging your heels in. If Zoya is an unstoppable force, then by God will you be the immovable object.

"You're fine when I say you're fine," you roll your eyes. "Now do I have to put you on a leash or are you going to go back to your room on your own?"

Something flickers in Zoya's eyes, and she makes a derisive noise that has your brow twitching. You can feel your blood starting to simmer just beneath your skin. Really, one of these days she's probably going to give you an aneurysm.

“Hmm, how about this, then? You check me over, and if anything isn’t in already healthy condition, I’ll stay,” Zoya offers, and you cross your arms.

“And if not?”

“Then I’ll leave,” she answers coolly. “Deal?”

Your head throbs. “Fine. Just get in the triage room, I’ll make this quick.”

You stalk your way to the room, Zoya following on your heels like an obedient dog. Like this, it is she who casts a shadow on you, with her once again ridiculous height. It makes you want to see her on her knees.

You banish the though away as quickly as it came and sit Zoya down on the cot. She leans back on both her palms, relaxed as ever, watching as you flit about, pulling on gloves and putting on your stethoscope.

“Breathe in,” you order, and she does. Her lungs sound clear, which is good. You don’t hear the light chime of embedded Mania crystals, which is a relief. Your hand trails down her back before moving to her front, ghosting over her abs.

The injury that had left her bleeding all over your floors is practically gone now—only a thin white line proof it was ever there. You brush your thumb against the scar, and you feel the way her muscles tense beneath your touch.

You do your due diligence, pressing along her abdomen as part of a standard checkup. It’s a perfectly normal procedure to check for organ size, pain and abnormalities, but the thought that this is Zoya you’re touching almost makes your hands tremble. And the way she’s reacting—tense and breathing deep with each inhale—is certainly not helping.

Once you finally finish the exam, there’s a distinct charged feeling in the air. You glance up at Zoya, and her eyes are dark; just like the way they were back then. It makes you swallow reflexively, your blood feeling almost unbearably warm beneath your skin.

You’re still close to her. Your hands are still on her abdomen. You should pull away, but you don’t really want to. A part of you doesn’t even think it can.

“Did I pass, princess?” Zoya breathes, her warm breath fanning across your face. Your eyes narrow, and you look directly into her dark ones like a challenge.

“It’s doctor.”

She smirks. You want to kiss it off her. “Whatever you say, princess.”

“Fuck you,” you snarl, ready to pull away, irritation overtaking the lust in your system before Zoya grabs both your wrists and keeps you close.

“Fuck me yourself,” she whispers, dangerously close to your lips, both an invitation and a challenge.

A better doctor would’ve stepped away. Good thing, then, that you never were the best, because you meet Zoya’s challenge in a kiss that’s more teeth and tongue than anything else. Zoya grins against you, slipping off the cot to tower over you. Her hands move your arms around her neck as she walks you backwards, all while her tongue plunders your mouth.

Zoya pushes you against a wall with enough force to make you gasp, air rushing from your lungs. Her lips and teeth descend on your neck as her hands travel down to your ass, squeezing once before they find your thighs, guiding them to wrap your legs around her waist. You sigh in pleasure at the kisses she presses against the skin of your neck, one of your hands winding in her silvery hair while the other digs into her shoulder to steady yourself.

You’re now completely held up by her, but the fear of falling doesn’t cross your mind even once. You’re pretty sure Zoya can keep you in place by just pinning you to the wall with her hips. You grind your front against her pelvis, and you both groan at the friction against her growing bulge. Zoya’s fingers find the waistband of your scrubs, and she tugs them down roughly.

You tighten your grip in her hair at that, and she hisses in both slight pain and pleasure. “Careful,” you mutter to her, “you’re not allowed to rip them.”

Zoya scoffs against your neck but nonetheless obeys, and you sigh when you feel her knuckles rub against your clothed clit. Zoya exhales as she feels your wetness seep through your panties and onto her skin.

“So fucking wet, princess,” she coos into your ear, dragging a finger along your slit. She presses lightly on the ruined cloth, delighting in the way it sticks to your drenched lower lips. You nip at her jaw, a scrape of your teeth along the defined bone, and Zoya takes the hint.

Her fingers push your panties to the side, and then sinks knuckle deep into your cunt.

You bite down on her shoulder to muffle your moans, your pussy fluttering around the intrusion. Fuck, her fingers are so thick—she’s hardly done anything and you’re already so close to your peak it’s embarassing. Your legs tighten around her waist as she starts pumping her fingers in and out of you, the wet sounds of her working your cunt open echoing in the room. Her thumb presses against your stiff clit and you squirm, burying your face in her neck and panting for breath.

“Gonna cum, princess?” Zoya asks, a breathless edge to her voice. “You’re—fuck—getting tighter, baby.”

“Keep going,” you snap, somewhere between a snarl and a sob. Your entire body is trembling. You seriously might kill her if she does. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Zoya growls, and pistons her fingers even faster all while her thumb draws harsh circles against your clit. You babble whispered praise into her neck before one final, perfect stroke against that spongy spot inside of you had you creaming all over her fingers. The gang leader grunts as she feels your tightness bear down on her, and wetness seep into her palm.

You pant against her neck as you come down from your high, legs twitching. Zoya withdraws her fingers with a wet squelch, and you shudder. But she doesn’t set you down, not just yet, and you know why—or rather, you can feel why. You pull back, leaning your head against the wall, and all while keeping your eyes locked with hers, let your hand brush against the tent in her pants.

Her hips jerk at the sensation, and you smirk. She’s just as pathetically desperate as you are. You brush your hand up and down the clothed length once, then twice, before finally tugging the zipper and her boxers down just enough for her cock to spring free.

Shit, you feel yourself get wetter at just the sight. Her cock slaps against her stomach, painfully hard and big enough that you’re glad she had the control to finger you open first. Zoya growls again when you pump your hand along her length, gathering sticky pre-cum from her drooling tip and laving it down her hardness.

“Wouldn’t happen to keep condoms in here, would you?” she asks, her voice deeper than usual. You roll your eyes at the question.

“No, we don’t keep condoms in the triage room,” you answer, shifting your hips so her cock now rests against your soaked lower lips. “But we do stock morning after pills.”

Zoya’s eyes flicker dangerously, and she grips your hips tight enough to bruise. “You’re playing with fire, princess.”

“Shut up and fuck me,” you retort, moving your hips up and down and letting her cock slide between your pussy lips and bump deliciously against your clit. “I’m on the pill anyway.”

Zoya buries her face in your neck and growls, then angles her cock with your entrance and slowly pushes in. You have to bite your tongue as she enters because fuck, she’s so fucking big. You can feel the way you cunt stretches to accomodate her size, more than it ever has for anyone else and you whimper reflexively.

Zoya squeezes your hips apologetically, kissing your neck as she keeps going. “Gotta relax, princess, c’mon, just relax for me…”

You do your best, and the moment she bottoms out it feels like all the breath has been forced from your lungs. Gravity ensures you have a particularly deep seat on her cock, and it leaves both of you breathless. Zoya meets your eyes, and slowy, she starts to thrust, drawing back before snaping forward in a smooth rhythm that soon has you seeing stars.

She fucks you against the wall with as much force as she can muster without being too loud—the rest of the hospital is just outside the door anyway. She smothers your moans with a kiss, hungry and demanding, her tongue tangling against yours. With each rut of her hips her cock bullies your g-spot and you can feel the knot in your stomach tighten once more.

“‘m going to cum,” you gasp out, eyes fluttering shut from pleasure, “‘m gonna cum, Zoya, please—“

“Go on, then, princess,” she encourages, her thumb starting to work your clit again. “Cum all over this cock like I know you want to.”

You writhe against her, your cunt squeezing her length like a vise. Zoya grunts at the sensation, her thrusts starting to get choppy as she rockets to her own high. Her lips travel from your own then down to your neck, her teeth ghosting the skin there. With one last drive of her hips she buries herself deep inside you and spills her hot cum into your eager cunt, while her teeth sink into the junction between your shoulder and your neck.

Your eyes roll back into your head at the feeling of being filled by and of her, your insides being painted white as she dumps rope after rope of cum into you. Fuck, you’re going to be dripping into your panties for a while after this, but you can’t bring yourself to care as nothing but sheer pleasure courses through your veins.

You don’t know how long it takes before both of you wind down from the high, but Zoya’s still hilted inside you, and a part of you doesn’t want her to leave. You’re both a panting mess, and Zoya draws away from your neck with a breathless sigh.

“So…” she begins, and you can barely manage a noise in response. “I take it I’m clear to be discharged, doctor?”

You only answer her with a quick smack to her shoulder that has her chuckling.

(But you agree, on the condition she comes back for regular check-ups. Zoya has no problems with this arrangement.)

[artdcnaldson]

Ok so I’m coming around with the cheating fantasy (sorry im on the vanilla side) I gotta ask, how do you think the trio would snake back reader to their quad? The scenario is that at stanford reader had a relationship with the trio, broke up after a couple of years due to possessiveness, jealousy and borderline toxic behavior from all 4 of them. I can def see reader, after some years removed from them, a new boo and a ring on their finger, fall victim to Patrick first, him convincing reader to at least hear the trio out, the trio causing some chaos to readers engagement, all trying to get reader back to their fucked up little quad

GODDDDD I love the toxicity so badly fuck!!! I need more of this so fuck it. give me an au name we’re running this bad boy into the dirt if we have to

You run into Patrick at your second bar of your bachelorette bar crawl— with a short white dress and a little cheap tiara and veil and a sash that says Bride to Be in silver sparkles.

You choke down your shot when you notice him, eyes wide as you get fucking yanked into flashbacks of Patrick and Tashi and Art and all the shit you got into at Stanford. Good… and very bad.

You try to ignore him, but he’s not going to let that slide. He sidles up beside you at the bar, smiling wolfishly, like he wants to just eat you up.

He’s standing too close, leaning in so you can hear him over the loud music of the bar— his breath is warm and tickles your cheek as he tells you how good you look, that he’s missed you. His hand settles on your arm and he’s so warm.

“When’s the wedding?” He asks.

“25 days,” you reply. “At the botanical garden near his hometown.”

He thinks you sound a little dreamy about it, like it’s a fairytale. So he picks at it, needs to make it unravel. “Have you fucked?”

Your eyes go wide, you frown in annoyance, maybe a little bit of amusement, he thinks. “Patrick—“

He shrugs. “Well, I just remember how particular you were in college. Just want to make sure you’re marrying someone who knows how to take care of you.” Your mind unconsciously feeds you the memories in tiny flashes— how nice it had been to be their plaything, to be taken care of. Falling apart as Patrick’s cock bullied into you, or as Art buried him head between your thighs, or around Tashi’s fingers or strap.

Pillow princess. You had always been taken care of, at least sexually. They liked keeping their sweet girl satisfied in that way, even if the other areas could fall flat.

“Particular,” you echo. “You know most people have very fulfilling sex lives with just one partner.“

He grins, shrugs. “Well, you’re not most people.”

It pisses you off. And you’re losing the nice buzz you’d gotten from that first bar. You grab a stupid glowing shot off of a girl carrying a tray, throw it back with a huff.

“You don’t know anything about me, Patrick.” You meet his gaze, raise a brow.

“We dated for— what?— four years? I know plenty.” He pauses, leans closer. Impossibly closer. “I know how you act when you love someone, when you really love them in your fucked up way you do and not the bullshit romcom act you’re putting on for him. I know the kind of sounds you only take when you’re taking two cocks at once. Does your…” he trails off, looks at the stupid shirts your bridesmaids are wearing further down the bar. “Ben. Does Ben know that?”

You scoff, brush past him with hot annoyance in your belly. This is your fucking night— for fun and getting shitfaced with your friends before you get married and Ben doesn’t let you go out as much anymore. Before you have to carry his kids and lose yourself to a newer, boring version of yourself everyone would just call mom.

Whatever. Ben makes you happy. You don’t want to reach 30 and still be clinging to a toxic four way relationship from college. That would be clinical. You had been happy for three years away from them— you weren’t their girl anymore.

So why are you relieved when Patrick follows you into the alleyway between this bar and the one next door. When he pins your wrists above your head against the scratchy brick wall and tells you to stop him if you don’t want it.

“I don’t want it.” You say, weakly, while your lips instinctively seek out his. “I don’t… I don’t want it.”

“Don’t want what?” Don’t want this? Don’t want Ben? His lips brush against yours, teasingly, almost like it hadn’t even happened and you sigh.

“I just… I don’t—“ and you’re kissing him, messy and hungry and so fucking perfect. You’ve missed Patrick’s kisses— the intensity and need. Ben doesn’t kiss like that. Actually you can’t stand the way Ben kisses sometimes— like you’re already an old maid with no sexuality at all. Like he’s already planning the affair he’d have with his secretary in a few years.

Patrick’s hand slips between your thighs and you nearly sob with relief. He knows your body so well, he knows you so well. He makes you cum with no effort at all, gushing onto his fingers.

He tidies your sash, straightens your veil hairclip. He sucks his fingers between his lips, cleans them off. “Your bridesmaids are going to miss you,” Patrick says plainly. Testing you.

“Do you? Miss me, I mean. And I mean me, not… not that you miss fucking me.”

“We all miss you, baby. You know how crazy seeing your engagement photos made us? Fucking crushed us.” He kisses your forehead, so tenderly that your heart starts to stutter. You want to say something, but you don’t know what there really is to say. But Patrick gets it. He always does. “I hope Ben makes you really, really happy. You deserve better than just settling.”

You nod, but it’s all so confusing. Ben makes you happy, doesn’t he? You weren’t settling, were you? He was a good guy, a sweet guy, and you loved his family.

But was he the one person you wanted to spend your life with? Could one person really be all you needed?

You walked back into the party and got another drink from the bar, almost waiting for Patrick to come back in and whisk you away.

He never did.

[stxrshxpxd]

“that’s my girl!” part 4

masterlist

pairing: dr house x reader

word count: 1k

prompt: it seems house can’t go very long without getting his hands on the reader and she is starting to wonder what’s going on between them

“This looks like a mild case of mono to me,” I said with a warm smile to ease the worry of my patient. I dropped my hands from the swollen lymph nodes in his neck and pulled my rubber gloves off as I wheeled my chair away from him. I went to speak again but was interrupted by the door swinging open. I turned around quickly to find House leaning against the door frame.

“I need you,” he said.

“I’m busy.”

I turned back around to face my patient, but House refused to leave of course.

“Sore throat? Pulled muscle? Scraped knee?” he asked belittling.

“House.”

“I need you,” he echoed.

“You said.”

“Emergency consult.”

I took a deep breath which I sighed out, and decided to quickly finish up with my patient. I knew there was no consult but I also knew he wouldn’t ever back down.

“The symptoms should be going away on their own in a few weeks. Just make sure to get as much rest as you can and drink lots of water. But if you’re not getting better by the end of next week, don’t hesitate to call. Thank you for coming in. Now, excuse me, I have to assist Dr House here.”

At last House got what he wanted when I followed him out into the hall and walked with him.

“Are you asking patients to call you now? That’s a bit desperate. I didn’t think he would be your type.”

“You’re exhausting,” I breathed.

“See, I thought your type was a bit more intelligent and charming. Maybe with a limp-”

“You obviously don’t need me for a consult,” I cut him off, trying to get to the bottom of what he wanted from me, while I still walked with him down the hall.

“Now if I so obviously don’t need you for a consult, why did you follow me?”

“I would much rather just aimlessly walk with you than do my interesting, fulfilling job,” I said sarcastically.

“It’s funny how you’re using that silly tone while telling the truth,” House said and steered us to my right. I rolled my eyes excessively but couldn’t think of what to say. House smirked at me.

“My patient,” House began again and opened the door to the next exam room, back first. “25 year old female, bratty, hot for her boss and in denial. What would you say that is? Daddy issues?”

“I have actual patients waiting in the clinic,” I informed him and went to turn around but House caught my waist with his large hand and kept me from moving.

“I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want my hands on you,” he muttered with a gleam in his eye and head tilted as he stared me down. My heart was beating hard and I flexed my jaw, staring back up at him. He took my lack of a response as a yes and pulled my waist towards him and into the room.

Next thing I knew I was backed against the closed door with House’s tongue exploring my mouth and his hands under my shirt. He cupped my breasts in his palms and I exhaled a soft moan, which was cut short by the three hard knocks near the back of my head. House breathed out a frustrated sigh and kept his forehead against mine and our lips just barely touching.

“Unless L/N’s got a runny nose, this is not a medical exam. Quit hogging the exam room and do your job, House,” Cuddy’s strong voice broke through the door and I chuckled at her putting all the blame on House. But he didn’t smile. He kissed me again. It was softer this time and it felt odd, me having been pulled out of that lustful surge by Cuddy’s knocking. When House pulled away again I blinked back at him a few times, trying to determine what was going on between us. That vulnerability I had felt radiating off of him the other day after sex was back.

“What is this?” I asked finally.

“Oh, here we go,” House responded with mock annoyance at my need for emotional clarity and rolled his eyes, building his walls up again. I laughed breathily.

“Falling in love isn't a weakness, you know,” I said to his back which had turned to face me now.

“Falling sounds like a weakness to me,” he joked back and I noticed he wasn’t denying the love part. But he was deflecting. I squinted my eyes at him as he turned back around.

“Fine. Write me a poem about rising into love and we’ll take it from there.”

I left House like how he had left me so many times before. With a witty end to our conversation, patting his chest and turning my heel without looking back. I thought I would feel on top of the world but I had to take a moment when I stepped out of the exam room and I listened closely to the silence from inside. I felt oddly guilty for my snarking at him, but I forced myself to walk on.

[sendpseuds]

“Christ, Spencer’s still exists!?”

It has been many years since Obi-Wan has found himself at the mall, and if it weren’t for fear of incurring the wrath of his ex-wife, he’s fairly certain he never would have returned to this godforsaken place.

“You know what Spencer’s is?” 

Korkie’s voice is incredulous, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at Obi-Wan with his mother’s arched eyebrow like his father can’t possibly have knowledge about anything even mildly fun or cool.

Obi-Wan wants to roll his eyes.

Instead, he digs his nails into his palm.

Before you I was fun.

Before you I was cool.

“Of course I do,” he replies with a haughty huff, trying to swallow the defensive feeling in his throat, “When I was your age we would actually hang out at the mall.”

Korkie laughs.

Not kindly.

Suddenly, Obi-Wan feels even less cool than he had a moment before.

“You know,” Korkie muses as they near the novelty shop in question, his voice settling to a low note Obi-Wan isn’t sure he’s heard the boy hit before, finally settling into all the terrible changes and challenges of being a teenager, “Mom never lets me go in there—”

Translation: Here’s your chance to be the fun parent. The cool parent. 

It’s the oldest trick in the book, and frankly, he expects more from his own son, but they’ve got a long terrible day of ex-wife-mandated back-to-school shopping ahead of them and Obi-Wan thinks he’d rather start the nightmare with a smiling teen than a sulking one.

“I am curious,” Obi-Wan says, completely bypassing the comment about Satine. If he’s taking his son into what is, essentially, every teenager’s first sex shop, he’s at least going to make it his idea, “I wonder how much has changed.”

The excited smile on Korkie’s face looks a whole lot like victory.

“You can’t tell your mother.”

“Never,” Korkie promises before rushing ahead and into the dimly lit store.

Somehow, decades later, this place looks exactly the same. 

Dark.

Disorganized.

Debaucherous.

So very dark.

The front of the shop is littered with graphic t-shirts and novelty items — party games, gag gifts, and kitschy decor — the merchandise growing more and more adult the further back the display is. Obi-Wan is sure there are fuzzy handcuffs and dildos back by the Playboy posters and lava lamps but he remembers what it was like to be a teenage boy and Korkie’s going to learn about all of it sooner or later.

[And Satine is certainly not going to teach him about it if the boy’s recounting of her almost horrifyingly clinical sex talk is anything to go by.]

Korkie runs his hand over the orange owl on a black Hooter’s shirt and now, Obi-Wan does roll his eyes.

When the boy looks up, the mischievous smile on his face immediately transforms into a seething scowl.

He’s getting quite good at that look.

He looks so much like his mother.

“Don’t follow me, Dad!” Korkie bites out, scoffing loudly when Obi-Wan holds his hands up in surrender, turning on his heal and disappearing behind a shelf of alien-themed housewares.

“Yeah, Dad,” an unfamiliar voice says from somewhere behind him, the man’s tone low and teasing, “Leave him alone.”

Obi-Wan turns and finds himself pinned in place by eyes as blue as the Bad Bitch neon hanging beside him.

The beautiful young man standing behind the counter is wrapped all in black, ripped jeans slung low on his hips, plain black t-shirt beneath a leather harness, the sort Obi-Wan has never seen anyone wear outside of a porno and certainly never in public. Dyed black hair is growing out blonde at the roots and there’s a scar through the eyebrow that isn’t pierced and the way his stunning smile only grows makes something stir in the pit of Obi-Wan’s stomach.

I used to be cool.

I used to wear risky clothing and a ring in my ear.

I used to pop pills and smoke cigarettes.

I used to be young and hot.

Now, I’m just Dad.

“Well, that’s a surprise,” the stunning creature working at Spencer’s says, his voice lower than it was a moment ago, those wild blue eyes unabashedly tracing up and down Obi-Wan’s body with an amused grin, placing both his hands flat on the counter and hinging forward at the hips, arching his spine in a way that makes Obi-Wan sway forward, his eyes falling to a pair of perfect pink lips, imagining the metal piercing hard and cold between his teeth as they part to speak.

“I think I’d rather call you Daddy.”

[part two]

[summercourtship]

78. "Don't fucking touch what is not yours"

Jonathan finds out Eddie and reader had sex and decides to arrive conveniently when Eddie is at the apartment, forcing him to hide while Jonathan fucks the reader (knowing Eddie is there and saying stuff to rile him up)

Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Reminds me a bit of a dream sequence idea I had for earlier in the fic where Edward fucks the reader while Jonathan watches but its like… clinical. IDK, there's a reason it didn’t get used, it’s not a good idea. The ideas you have while ovulating are not always the best in the long run. this one was... interesting to write lmao. i don't think it's particularly in character but i also am incapable of writing truly perverted stuff (maybe one day i'll do it.... i have the ideas and then when i go to write them they become so sanitized lmao)

warnings: possessive behavior, voyeurism/exhibitionism, not super explicit, minimal proofreading lmao | word count: 850

A knock at her door spurred Edward into motion. Even if it was just a delivery person, he didn’t want to risk being seen and quickly slipped into her bedroom while she somewhat flailed about trying to figure out what to do (it was endearing, at least). He shut the bedroom door carefully, not wanting to make any noise that would alert anyone to his presence. Then, slowly, he pressed his ear to the door, listening and waiting. 

Sometime between when he had left the couch and shut the door behind him, she had answered the front door. He could barely make out her voice, though it seemed tense- whether that was because she was anxious about someone finding Edward or because of who was on the other side of the door, he was unsure. A lower and softer voice answered her before becoming louder- she had let whoever it was into the apartment, which was enough to clue Edward in to who had showed up unannounced.

He listened to them talk, straining his ears as he was unable to make out what they were saying. Then footsteps started to approach down the hall and Edward was once again forced to move, scrambling to the only option available- the small closet in the corner of her room. The door had just snapped shut when the bedroom door opened and Jonathan Crane entered, pulling her behind him. She looked around, her eyes clearly searching the room for Edward before focusing back on Jonathan before the latter became suspicious of her distraction.

Jonathan took her by the arm and pushed her onto the bed, and Edward was suddenly very grateful that he hadn’t opted to hide underneath it. 

He would like to say that he kept his eyes shut, that he willed himself to ignore everything that was happening just a few feet away from him. And he did close his eyes for what felt like an eternity as he listened to the sounds of Jonathan kissing her, to the rustle of clothing being removed, to the noises he knew she was biting back for his sake. 

The sounds by themselves would have been enough to arouse him, but knowing that the whimpers and half-muffled moans were coming from her was enough to send him imagination reeling, which in turn created a fairly obvious problem in his pants that he wouldn’t be able to deal with discreetly anytime soon. Any attempts to will himself into an unaroused state failed, her near constant sighs enough to keep his blood pumping. 

When he finally gave in to himself and opened his eyes again, he could see her through the slats of the closet door, laying on her bed, shirtless with her breasts on full display. Jonathan was perched over her body, holding her arms above her head as he kissed her hungrily. Edward watched, trying not to focus on the way her hips ground up against Jonathan’s thigh, nestled between her legs.

Her eyes slid to the closet door, heavy and unreadable. He wondered if she could feel his eye contact, burning a hole in the wood. Then, as if realizing that she was looking at the closet for too long, she quickly returned her attention to the other man. But it was enough, and Crane slowly turned his head to look at the closed door. His pupils were blown, his face flushed, and his hair wild. 

It was silent for a moment until Crane tilted his head to the side. 

“Are you going to watch me fuck her, Nashton?”

Edward was very still. Jonathan didn’t look away, still looking back at the closet door with an unreadable expression. As he continued speaking, he began to run his hands down her torso.

“Are you going to watch me take what’s mine? Because she is mine, and you know that.” Jonathan’s hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs swiping over her nipples. All Edward could think about was how his hands had been in that same position not an hour ago. “You’re just going to stand there and watch me fuck her until she can’t even remember who you are, until all she knows is my-” he pinched her nipples between his fingers then, her back arching slightly as she stuttered out a gasp- “cock.” 

He continued down her body, his hands resting on her underwear.

“Or at least until you learn that you don’t fucking touch what’s not yours.” Crane’s voice was low, the words a warning. Then, he yanked her underwear down her legs, leaving her completely naked to both his and Edward’s stares. 

“You belong to me.” Jonathan had leaned down to hiss in  her ear, but Edward heard it clearly and knew it was for the both of them. A warning, a reminder. 

But then Edward thought of her last night. Legs around him, riding him like he held the key to her salvation. Her eyes, looking into him with an intensity he only saw in himself when he decided to watch back his own videos. Her mouth, hot and wanting, willing and accepting. 

Last night, he thinks when her eyes slide over to the closet again, she belonged to him. 

[s-4pphics]

a lil meanmechanic!ellie and snobbybitch!reader hc list bc i’m clinically ill and my dark thoughts always win i was gonna write a lil fic but i got tired lol long day 

but hopefully thisll suffice for now😚idk how many imma make for them but the sex gon go crazy

wc;cw: 930 real short n sweet, slutty rude annoying rich!oc, i’m not kidding she’s a bad person, more monologues when will it end, oc is horny and a top letting y’all know rn, imma make this toxic🤭

your shiny brand new pink bentley just stopped working! what the fuck! 

after your dad gifted you your third new car, he instructed you to pull up to the swarovski store and pick up your sparkly limited edition lavender tinted lux chrono watch…. and this happens!

how the fuck were you going to get your new watch without transportation?!

you pulled your phone outta your chanel bag and googled car stopped help…

call a tow truck?!

don’t people just buy new cars when they stop working?! 

you dialed the first number suggested online 

“YELLO!” a friendly gruff voice came through the phone

“ummm, hi, my car stopped working— “

“okay, great! where’s your car located?”

“it’s uh.. near this mall complex.” 

“…okay. i mean…. i mean what’s the address?”

…. you don’t fucking know, you’re stranded!

after spending the next ten minutes asking strangers where the hell you were, you irritatingly whined the address to the man on the phone

why does nothing go your way?!

“okay great! we’ll be there in about an hour to get it!” 

an hour?!

but your swarovski watch—!

“hello?” 

“…yeah, whatever.” you said, hanging up.

this is fucking stupid!

after an hour of angrily pouting in your front seat, you saw a red truck pull up behind you in your rearview 

fucking finally!

you got out your new baby and saw—

oh, fuck

oh fuck!

WEEEEEEWOOOOOOWWEEEEEE—

your brain was sending off red alarms!

behind the man, there was a girl in overalls and a wife-beater, dirty sneakers(yuck!), and a bandana on to keep her sweaty hair outta her face

and your mood immediately got better! 

she’s sexy she’s sexy she’s sexy she’s sexy—

“um, hi! ‘m joel! you called for a tow?” 

oh yeah

“y-yup! that’s me! my cars over there,” you pointed in some random direction as you stared at the girl 

“….okay, uh, we’ll get that loaded and we’ll head over to the repair shop!”

“uh huh,” you were so dazed as you watched her biceps ripple as she got some paperwork outta the car 

“….right!” and he walked away

she’s coming over oh god she’s coming over!

“hey. this your car?”

“mhm!” 

you looked at her name tag 

ellie

hm…wanna fuck?—

“cool. just need you to sign here. we’ll do the diagnosis when we get to the shop—“

you didn’t even care about what the fuck she was saying

you wanna eat her out so bad and buy her whatever she wants 

you work so hard, baby, lemme take the stress away! 

“…are you gonna sign…or?”

you were too busy looking at her freckled face and scarred eyebrows to notice she was holding a clipboard out to you 

how about you sign these damn wedding papers! 

“sorry!”

“it’s cool…yeah, just sign at the bottom.” 

she pointed at the dotted line with her calloused finger and you almost sucked it into your mouth! 

turn her out turn her out!

she finally met your eyes 

you wanted her clit in your mouth—!

“um… you can hop in the truck and we’ll head over, it’s like.. 20 minutes—“

“great! let’s go!”

ride my face!

when you arrived at the dealership, you got…. uncomfortable. 

why was it so loud and… grungy looking?

the nice man that answered the phone—joel— guided you into the garage and ushered you to sit on…. dirty chairs and you wanted god to strike you down now

“we’re gonna take a look at your car! it’s in pretty good condition so it shouldn’t be long!” joel screamed at you from the garage exit

you sat and nodded and 

you looked so outta place in here 

pastel colors, shimmery necklace and bracelets, heels!

you stood out like a sore thumb!

rusted, eggshell walls, dimly lit, dusty floor

you wanna leave so bad what the fuck—

“hey!” 

sike you wanna stay ellie’s so fucking fine—

“your car battery’s connection is loose, we’re gonna replace it—“

“today's my birthday!”

you were biting your lip and looking at her with glossy lust filled eyes and you wanted your head between her thighs—

“….’scuse me?”

“it’s my birthday!”

“happy….. happy birthday?” 

“thank you!” now lemme give you head—

“uh huh….. so, the replacement battery is gonna be $60, i can ring you up right now so you're not waiting when your car’s charged.”

you followed her to the desk and….

her fucking back and her shoulders and her ass—

her back her back! you wanna scratch it and make her scream!—

“cash or card?”

“card. my black card!” she needa know you’ll buy her everything—

“….right. go ‘head and swipe.”

you wanna swipe your tongue on her pussy!

but you swiped your card 

and you also reached in your chanel and grabbed a couple hundreds out

“here you go! for your troubles!” 

“what.”

“you fixed my baby! you should get a huge tip! like a really…. really fat one!

lemme give you this tip!

she must’ve noticed your tone, nastily sweet like honey, because her eyes widened before she let out a shocked scoff

you have her you have her—

“are you kidding me right now?” 

what. 

“hm?”

“i’m askin’ if you’re fucking serious? we don’t accept charity.” and she got up

and she looked mad

what the hell?

“w-what! no, it’s not like that— “

“yeah, whatever, your car will be ready in 20. you can take your money and get the hell out.” 

and she stormed off with a slam of the back door. 

…..

oh my god?

…

you want her even more now! 

[winkliee]

therapy

shinobu x reader

warnings: cunninglus, fingerfucking, semi-public sex, mentions of depression, love confession, dom shinobu

dividers by @/cafekitsune

after your breakup with your toxic boyfriend, you had sunk into such deep depression, that if you friend didn't find you and slap the sense into you that day, you wouldn't have been alive to see today. she gave you a contact of a psychiatrist, dr. shinobu kocho, and after a lot of pestering could finally send you there.

it's been six months of you visiting her, and even though you didn't need therapy anymore after having recovered almost completely, you still paid regular visits. you didn't really care about the amount of money you were spending, but shinobu was kind enough to not charge you anymore, since now you two have become really good friends.

but for you, she had become someone even more special.

it had become difficult to go even one day without her, you needed to see her pretty face and the genuine smile she gave you, while fluttering her naturally long eyelashes.

before long, you knew you had hopelessly fallen for her.

"but it's not like she likes me," you would think to yourself, "i'm damn sure a pretty girl like her must have a partner."

you thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to confess your feelings today. if she doesn't like you, you will continue as being friends. you packed her favorite flowers, and off you left for her clinic, both anxiety and excitement clutching at your heart.

but you never thought that the love confession, which turned out to be mutual, would escalate into this.

right now, you were sprawled on shinobu's table, legs wide open, as shinobu ate you from behind, while you tried your best to lower your moans.

"pretty please," she said with her honey sweet voice, "do you want others to hear us?"

you clasped your hand over your mouth anxiously, knowing well that there were other patients waiting outside for checkup too. tears stung your eyes as you closed them, letting yourself drown in pleasure.

"did your ex ever pleasure you like this baby?" your eyes went wide how shinobu was speaking and eating your out now, as if her sweet behaviour is a complete facade. "i bet he couldn't even come near to what i am doing," she said, inserting two fingers in you at once, making you squirm and moan out quite loud.

"ah ah, darling, there we go," she whispered sweetly from behind as you came down from your high, almost falling asleep from such an intense orgasm, as she licked you clean, before kissing your inner thigh.

"we might as well get used to this, shouldn't we?"

thank you for reading. likes and reblogs are appreciated.

[crossdreamers]

A transgender Norwegian sexologist on how to celebrate the transgifted

Not long ago the non-binary general practitioner, sexologist, professor emeritus and Norwegian nestor in clinical sexology, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, was interviewed by Blikk magazine.

They made some important points about the development of the language and narratives used to describe gender variance:

According to Pirelli Benestad, for a long time people only used the term 'transvestite', and then came 'transsexual'.

The 'transvestite' term

'When I came into the picture in the early 1970s, it was important to maintain a sharp distinction between transvestites and transsexuals.

'Being transsexual meant that one wanted to "change" gender from the gender one was assigned at birth. While wearing dresses and stockings, or flannel shirts and jeans, was portrayed as something that some enjoyed on Saturday night.

'Transvestism, dressing and behaving like the "opposite" sex, did not challenge the heteronormative gender system in the same way, and many transvestites assigned male at birth had both wives and children.

'The distinction helped that the wives could still keep their husbands, even if they had a penchant for expressing themselves as women from time to time. Double-role transvestites, who acted as both men and women, was a term used at the time,' says Pirelli Benestad....

Pathologization of gender variance

Until 2018, gender variance, whether you considered yourself a binary or non-binary trans person, was a diagnosis of illness, Astrid Renland writes.

'When I looked up the encyclopedia to find out more about myself, it said that "transvestites had a morbid urge to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex." It was deadly poison for those who were less robust than me, because it said here that we were sick,! says Pirelli Benestad.

'But I myself and many with me knew that we were not. We felt that it was about something more profound, something that touched our gender identity.'

The forced binary

'I use to say that trans people are indigenous people without a country, and the land we were allocated by the majority population was pathologised, says Pirelli Benestad, who links it to the fact that cis people have dominated professional development in the trans field.

'The trans field as a field consisted exclusively of cis people in both research and clinical treatment, so trans people were assessed according to cis people's gender norms. One was either male or female.'

According to Pirelli Benestad, this contributed to transgender people having no choice but to define themselves as the "opposite". The minority had to express itself and appear as the gender majority did.

'Many trans people are binary, but also among those of us who were previously described as transvestites, there were some who felt that they had to follow the either-or gender norm. It is "natural". If you were born a man and felt like something else, you had to be a woman. There was no language for anything else.

A language for the nonbinary

'But already in the mid-1980s, I documented together with Berthold Grünfeld [Norwegian doctor, specialist in psychiatry and professor of social medicine at the University of Oslo] in a research project on heterosexual transvestites, that gender identity could be fluid between experience yourself as a man or as a woman,' says Pirelli Benestad...

'We ourselves have developed concepts and built up specialist expertise which we have given back to the cis world,' says Pirelli Benestad, who points out that much of this work has been done in collaboration with their colleague and wife, professor and sexologist Elsa Almås.

'First we used the term near-binary to describe the distinction between cis and trans men and trans women, then we formulated terms such as bi-gender, gender fluid and gender cruising,' says Pirelli Benestad.

The transgifted

In addition to "coining" new terms, they have introduced new words such as gender enthusiasm, gender talent and transgifted as a counterweight to the pathologization of the trans population, Astrid Renland writes.

- When you create space for people to let loose and show the talents they have for gender and identity, then people become much freer and much more beautiful, Pirelli Benestad asserts.

PHOTO: Professor emeritus Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad (left), together with her colleague and wife, professor and sexologist Elsa Almås, introduced new words such as gender enthusiasm, gender talent and trans gifted as a counterweight to the pathologization of the trans population .Photo: Reidar Engesbak/BLIKK.

Google translation of the original article.

"Den rødeste kluten", by Astrid Renland, Blikk

E.E.P. Benestad MD: From gender dysphoria to gender euphoria: An assisted journey