#Their dynamic is truly something else. I wish it could be better

[longagoitwastuesday]

Gushing about Gojo and Megumi and how they are or could have been everything to me I forgot to mention that I really really really love Yuuji. Like, a lot

[tls123]

Oh my god HOW DID YOU LIKE SVSSS!!!!!

i liked it more than i thought i would but overall less than i might have given the potential of the story, i think in general i really enjoyed the characters (mxtx never goes wrong with characters, she creates them in a way that makes me feel unhinged) and the world building but the pay off to the set up—which i really liked!—felt a bit........ i mean, just alright.

the dynamics too are pure mxtx, personally the bin/gqiu dynamic specifically really was the least interesting part of the whole story. to me!! but individually i loved both characters. my interest was just elsewhere because """elsewhere""" felt way more fascinating idk how to explain it

was very, very happy about the extra with airplane and the yue qingyuan / shen jiu one because that's exactly what i wanted more of in the story itself as well as just more shen yuan/qingqiu interacting with cang qiong mountain

maybe it's my orv brain but like i told jana a while back i think i would have enjoyed svsss way more if it was more about shen yuan (loner; hater; etc) suddenly finding himself among all of these people (disciples looking up to him; sect siblings relying on him one way or another; common folk admiring him; etc etc) and starting to.... live? again?

Shen Qingqiu hadn't noticed that, unconsciously, he no longer considered the disciples around him (...) to be mob characters the novel had described in a scant number of words.

^from volume one, he starts seeing them almost immediately because he's not actually that separate and he genuinely cares. all the time. about everything. even before that we get:

This was only a book, and all the people were constructs, imaginary characters. Logically, Shen Qingqiu was very clear on this fact...but when a character was actually being taunted and bullied right before his eyes, it was just flat-out unrealistic to expect him to be completely unmoved.

like why are you lying, shen yuan (<- svsss tagline if there ever was one)

just the idea of this really lonely detached guy finding a community, i know it's not the story mxtx was trying to tell but again, with the set up i really wanted to see it go in that direction.

there's one line from vol two where liu qingge goes "you fear becoming a burden to cang qiong mountain (...) but cang qiong mountain fears not your burden"

and basically what i'm saying is that i wish the story had been about THAT

(and also ning yingying's lines in that same chapter about shizun always taking on everything himself and why is it always you like that whole moment with the cang qiong mountain almost begging him to see that they care. idek what i'm saying but you know)

(also foaming at the mouth that we only got tiny tiny glimpses of shen yuan's life from before, those handful of times he mentioned his siblings i wanted to take a bite out of my kindle. tell me more!! dear fucking lord tell me more!! keep talking! elaborate!! he really felt very "kim dokja and his fourth wall" at times, sorry once more about the orv brain)

tldr: i guess i wanted a story about shen yuan/qingqiu but mxtx created svsss to be a story about bin/gqiu. and i just have to be okay with that.

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 7

in which spencer reid and inexperienced!fem reader sleep together for the first time

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: loss of virginity, oral f/m receiving, so much praise, pain during sex, unprotected sex, cr**mp**, bit of overstim, soft dom spence, if u don't like that freak shit (love and intimacy) this is not for u, spencer is a nerd, they're both nerds actually and that factors in heavily, you may get more from this part by FIRST reading how they met in this bonus chapter a/n: thank you all for being patient, ilysm, this was the most laborious thing i've ever done for no reason and also this part changed so many times and is not what i expected it to be so pls go in with tempered expectations and keep in mind that this story is more about the characters and their specific relationship dynamic than just being porn. i truly have no idea how you guys will react to this but i sincerely hope you love it and them like i do<3 also it's twice as long as the other parts so feedback would be very very appreciated! again i love u all and enjoy the penultimate part!

Spencer’s lips are on yours, and you weren’t expecting it—hell, you weren’t expecting him to be in your apartment. After all, he’d wished you goodnight and walked out only a moment ago.

“Spencer—wh—” 

But he’s insistent with his lips, kissing you bruisingly over and over like there’s nectar on your tongue and he’s parched for you. Still, he has enough decency to not completely ignore you, exhaling a quick excuse over your flushed lips. 

“I missed you.”

This time, though, you dodge his hungry kiss. Part of you thinks, as he watches you, eyes alight and breathing heavily, that he sort of likes your playing hard to get. It’s not something you do very often, admittedly. 

“We’ve been apart for like, maybe a minute.”

“I didn’t even make it to the parking lot.”

Your face heats.  

“Well you can’t just—you can’t just walk in like that! And I thought you said we weren’t supposed to mix fighting with pleasure.”

“Then start locking your door. And I thought you said we weren’t fighting.”

You roll your eyes in response, though your heart is still pittering in your chest. 

At least his hands move to your arms, stroking up and down relatively chastely—although he has this way of making everything seem intimate. Especially when paired with those amber eyes of his—glowing like a candlelight beacon in the window guiding you home. He speaks in low, appeasing tones and darts his tongue over his lips. 

“I originally said it’s a bad idea for couples to sleep together after an argument. But you know—makeup sex is ubiquitous across culture and time because it works. Anger and arousal trigger a lot of the same hormones, specifically norepinephrine which is involved in feelings of longing and—”

“Spencer.”

“You know what else?” He mutters in a way that feels dangerous. “It tends to feel better than regular sex.”

That earns a shaky exhale from you. Whether from irritation or arousal is anyone’s guess—probably a combination of both. 

“So you came back to fuck me?”

It’s probably evident to Spencer from your choice of language that this already isn’t going exactly as he’d planned. He doesn’t answer right away—just regards you, gaze bouncing between your two eyes like he’s trying to calculate your level of anger. 

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

You push him away and move to walk down the hall. 

“Maybe your window of opportunity has passed.”

A warm hand wraps around your wrist in the dark of the hallway and he pulls you back until you’re falling against something tall and warm and lean. The smell of polished amber and sandalwood overwhelms your senses. 

“What’s wrong, angel? What happened in the minute I was gone to change your mind?” His voice is scratchy like a favorite record. It’s the voice he could hold you captive with. The one you have a very difficult time saying no to. 

“I don’t know,” you mutter, unintentionally leaning back against him. “What happened to change yours?”

His response comes pressed against your ear, half-lost in your hair. 

“You’re upset that I changed my mind. I thought you wanted this, honey.”

“I do,” you admit, letting your head fall back against his shoulder and bringing his arm to wrap around you. “And if you hadn’t walked out earlier I would’ve done it. But… I’m tired of us doing everything on your timeline. You just… you expect me to be amenable to what you want, constantly.” His nose and lips press into your shoulder. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I’ve been begging you to sleep with me for I don’t even know how long. And you keep changing your mind, and I feel like you’re being really confusing about it. Obviously you don’t have to sleep with me, you never did, but I just feel kind of… jerked around. And you did it again tonight.”

A beat of silence. 

“I understand your frustration,” he appeases, securing both his arms around you. You cling weakly to his wrist, to his warmth, like he’s a tether in a storm. “Would you prefer to wait until you initiate it?”

“No. Yes! I don’t know,” you huff, disentangling yourself from his arms and continuing toward your bedroom. “Now I’m annoyed at you again.”

He follows you right through the door. 

“Just tell me what to do! I don’t want to be annoying.”

“I can’t. I’m being unreasonable.” You flick on your adjoining bathroom light and examine yourself in the mirror. Yeesh. The eye makeup situation is abysmal after all the crying that has taken place over the course of the evening. 

“So choose to be reasonable and tell me what you want from me. I’ll give it to you.”

You frown at your reflection, pushing your hair back and rubbing at some excess mascara. 

“No, you’re not understanding me. I’m not choosing to be unreasonable. My thought process regarding the situation is inherently unreasonable and there’s nothing I can do about it because it’s just the way I feel.”

“The feeling being that I’ve been too domineering over how our sexual relationship has unfolded?”

Spencer watches you in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed as you tip some makeup remover onto a reusable cotton pad. You try not to check him out as you nod, but it’s impossible—with his sleeves rolled up to show defined forearms cradled in capable hands, and his hair all messy. 

When he pushes off the wall you freeze, unsure of his next move—until he’s gently spinning you around and taking the bottle and cloth from your hands. 

“Maybe it would help,” he begins, soft as he focuses on the new task, carefully bringing the round to your right eye so he can remove the bleeding mascara. You allow your eyes to flutter shut. “If I remind you why I’ve been so hesitant.”

“Because you hate giving me joy.”

He laughs, nothing more than one huff from his nose. 

“You’re spoiled and we both know it.”

Point taken, as he gently wipes your makeup away for you. Your silence is his cue to continue. 

“Everything I said about worrying that you would regret choosing me is true. It was especially true when I thought you felt lukewarm toward me. And all of that confusing stuff I said in the phone is true too—having sex for the first time is incredibly intimate and weird and sometimes scary. If you’re not 100% sure about your partner, or if you think your feelings are unrequited, it’s hard to be completely comfortable in such a vulnerable situation and your likelihood of getting hurt or having regrets skyrockets. I know that from experience. I wanted better for you than what I got. Still, I know it was wrong to project my feelings about the significance of sex onto you. In that regard, you’re right. I was being domineering, and I guess… I guess to an extent I’m still deflecting. I shouldn’t be trying to pretend like it’s about you when in reality I mostly just didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to go through that again, and that’s okay, but I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was something you could have changed.”

You try to process that. 

“Go through what?” You whisper hoarsely. Something about having him at such close range while he takes such care with you feels whisper-y. 

“Sleeping with someone who didn’t love me back.”

Your reply is small. 

“Oh. Right.”

How could anyone not love him back?

Spencer’s reply is simple and kind, without a hint of, obviously you dumb bitch—which is pretty much what you’re thinking to yourself. 

“Does that make sense, lovely? Do you understand why I wanted to wait?”

He lets you ponder for a while in comfortable-enough silence as he finishes removing your eye makeup with a characteristically gentle hand. When you open your eyes, he looks genuinely content, screwing the lid back on the bottle as if he’s got an eternity to wait for your answer. 

“Yeah. That part makes sense. But why did you seem so… I don’t know, like, wishy-washy about it?”

Spencer’s eyes dart up to meet yours, brows slightly raised. Then a small laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside him. 

“Because I’m obsessed with you. I thought about you like that constantly. I still do.”

Your breath catches at the casual admission. 

“Oh.”

Spencer hums, setting the bottle down before tenderly thumbing away some excess mascara that he must have missed from under your eye. 

“You didn’t think it was easy for me, did you?”

“Well… kind of,” you admit, tracking his eyes until they meet yours. 

“Not sleeping with you has been among the hardest things I’ve ever done. Especially when you started begging me. That first time, when I picked you up from Penelope’s and you asked me why we hadn’t had sex yet…”

He trails off, still rubbing at your cheek as he loses himself in thought. 

Eventually, you grow impatient, prompting, “what?”

“It’s not a nice thought.”

“Well, you have to tell me now,” you insist. 

He half smiles, thumb straying to your lips. 

“It was just… you had no idea what you were talking about, and you were ready to throw a tantrum in my living room until I gave you what you thought you wanted. Part of me was imagining bending you over the couch right then, since you thought you were so ready.”

It feels like someone has snipped the pulley that keeps your stomach in place. 

“Spencer,” you splutter, convinced your cheek is tangibly heating under his touch as your head reels at the revelation that he could have such a deeply dirty and mildly sinister mind. 

“I told you it wasn’t nice.”

You swallow. 

“Is that… is that still what you want?”

His brows flicker again and he tucks hair behind your ear. 

“To bend you over my couch? No.”

Your face warms even more and you turn to leave the bathroom, sick of his teasing. 

“Okay, goodni—”

“Hold on.” Spencer catches you by your waist and pulls you back into him for the second time tonight. A dangerous smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I know what you meant. And no, I don’t want to bend you over my couch.” He laughs, slipping a hand under your shirt to rub your back. “You know what I want. I’m more interested in learning what you want.”

“I want…” Your eyes dance between his, and your heart flutters against the confines of your chest as you realize what you’ve wanted for so long is finally yours for the taking. “I want to stop talking about it.”

His expression neutralizes and you know it’s probably intentional to stop whatever feelings you assume him to be having color your decision. 

“Oh?”

“I just think we’ve talked about it enough.”

Before he can say another word, or ask you another question, you kiss him with such passion there’s no way he can doubt how much you want this. 

Only a moment passes before he allows himself to lean into it, cupping your face between reverent hands and taking control of the pace of the kiss, slowing it down until you can hardly breathe. Your little noise of want has him quickening the process, pressing against you until you’re walking backward out of the bathroom. It’s like the first crack in a dam. After that, everything becomes inevitable. 

Your knees hit the back of the bed and you sit down hard on the mattress, smiling up at him. You skim the front of his thighs with your palms as he smooths your hair.

Spencer groans, leaning down and kissing you til you’re on your back. 

“Don’t make that face.”

An affronted huff from you breaks the kiss up and he pulls back to study your expression. 

“What do you mean don’t make that face? I was just smiling at you.”

“I know you were. And you have such a pretty smile it makes me feel guilty about… defiling you.”

Your brows flicker up and your mouth drops open with an affronted scoff.

“Watch yourself. I’ll defile you.”

“You already have,” he admits with a half-laugh as he kisses you again. “My mind was never this dirty before we met.”

“Hm. Tell me you like my smile.”

He pauses and then chuckles dryly against your mouth. 

“I love your smile. You’re gorgeous. Any more demands?”

Pleased, you shake your head and pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. 

“Not currently.”

“Really?” he murmurs, trailing kisses over your cheek and down your jaw, “I’d do just about anything you asked me right now. You don’t want to take advantage of that?”

The sensation of his lips just below your ear threatens all rational thought in your brain, but you manage a reply with only a slight delay and a hint of a waver coloring your tone. 

“I shouldn’t have to demand things. You should just know to do them.”

His kisses drag lower, warm and unhurried and you’re trying not to let your hyper-sensitivity from going a week completely untouched show—but you doubt he misses the way your breath catches, or the barely audible squeaks, or the arch of your back or the tightening grip on his shirt. 

“Well, for future reference—” he nips at a sensitive spot and you gasp quietly, even as you tilt your head to offer him more access. More room to bite, if he so chooses. “—I happen to enjoy it when you make demands of me. Especially when those demands entail letting me call you pretty.”

“I’ve never not let you call me pretty before,” you huff. It’s a touchy subject, and Spencer can probably sense your hackles rising, but he has you right where he wants you and so he pushes anyway. 

“No. But you never believe me. We’ve had this conversation. You always act like I’m walking you to the gallows when I compliment you.” 

It’s hard to make a defense when he’s leaning his weight onto one arm so he can unbutton your jeans, when he’s looking down at you with sparkling onyx and scorched-earth eyes like you’re something to be consumed. But not violently, no—ardently. Like fruit heavy on the vine. Like you’re a religious rite to the devout and deluded. A sacrament.

But it’s not a blind passion. Spencer knows you; every inch of you and every loose thread on your soul begging to be pulled. He knows you and he still wants you like this. To be perfectly honest, you’d never thought you’d feel comfortable handing yourself over to someone like this—vulnerable and all your layers of armor shed. Never in your life would you have thought you could trust a person so implicitly that you’d hand them a knife and show them exactly where to press, that you’d say, I know once you open me and you see me you’ll not want to change a thing.

You adore him. Cosmically. Enormously. In every dimension. He’s lodged so deep in your heart you have no choice but to love him eternally. 

It’s deep in the midst of all these very profound revelations that you realize Spencer has stalled with your zipper undone. His hand has strayed to your hip, to sweetly push your shirt up and trace love letters into warmed and downy skin with his thumb. 

“I just wish you could see yourself how I see you,” he says softly, the weight of the truth a strain on his vocal cords. 

Sometimes, he is so kind it’s like a punch to your stomach. You’ve never been quite as kind as him. And nobody’s ever been as kind to you as he is. You’ve done nothing to deserve his kindness, but you know he needs a place for it, and you’re here with open arms. 

He studies you a moment longer, swallowing as his eyes trail over your face and lower. You want to reach out and brush strands of caramel hair out of his face, but he seems to be thinking so hard you’re hesitant to distract him. 

“I’ve never told you this, because I know you’d just shoot it down, but… you are genuinely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

Something twinges in the depths of your stomach—the darker shades who live there and exist solely to whisper not enough not enough not enough to you every minute of every day. 

But they’re simply not a match for the softness you find when you do reach out for his hair, or the way he looks at you. Spencer loosely wraps his fingers around your wrist—not a cuff, but an affectionate hold. 

“Do you believe me?”

There’s so much earnest hope in his voice it almost jars you. He so badly wants you to understand how feels about you—he’s been trying to tell you for months and all you know how to do is refute his praise and insist on your worthlessness. 

Ever since Spencer, you don’t see the faces on magazine covers or in superhero movies, no matter how mathematically flawless they are. Nobody gets close to being as beautiful as he is in your eyes. He’s in an entirely different echelon, and despite how you feel about yourself, you have to accept that he might feel the same about you. 

“I do,” you say, equally soft, and 100% honest. You believe that he believes it, and that’s enough. It’s all that matters. 

The shallow knit of his brow loosens. His lips ease into a suggestion of a smile. But it’s most visible in his eyes—the way smoldering coals reignite, melting the amber glass of his irises until they’re molten. 

The way he kisses you then, you’d think you’d lassoed the moon and pulled it down from the sky for him. But apparently all it takes to make him incandescently, contagiously happy, is to accept a compliment.

There’s a renewed sense of urgency on his breath as he kisses you deeply and quick enough your heart is racing. It only goes faster when he remembers his previous task and begins tugging your jeans down, but he doesn’t even bother to pull them past your knees before his hand is creeping up your thigh. Goosebumps race each other across your body as you try to remember what it feels like—what he feels like. But you can’t, even as his thumb fans over your inner thigh and pushes it open, gently encouraging you to give him more access to you. 

“You’re not wasting any time,” you breathe against him while he traces the edge of your underwear.

“Do you want me to slow down?”

Judging by the way the tips of his fingers only barely shy away from the fabric, he really wants the answer to be no. But you know in his searching gaze that he’d never push you. 

“No, it’s fine. As long as we… don’t go this fast the whole time.”

“We won’t.” The hasty words are of lower priority than the next kiss he plants to your swollen lips. “We won’t. I just missed you so much.”

“Yeah?” You giggle airily as he drags his fingers over your clit through the material, trying to ignore the way it makes your head spin. 

“Yes. Yeah.”

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him like this, so… desperate for you, as he drops his lips to your neck and presses barely-there kisses everywhere he knows you’re sensitive. Just the feeling of his breath against your skin has you shivering. His hand between your legs only brushes your most nerve-dense spot, but a few touches in and you’re already wound up, like if Spencer doesn’t give you more soon you’ll burst. And not in the good way. 

When he finally commits to actually kissing your neck, you squeak, warmth emanating from that spot just below your jaw all the way to your toes. The frantic energy of earlier is slowly melting away, and he loses focus with his hand, as it begins straying wider, stroking your hip, your inner thigh, your stomach. It’s like your nerve endings are on overdrive, delivering twice as much feedback to your brain as they normally would. Each touch feels like he’s conducting electricity over your body, like you’re a plasma ball. He’d probably like that analogy—you, a core of alternating voltage, and him, the conductor, tracing a path and giving all those electrons an easy release. If you weren’t so distracted, you’d tell Spencer you found a way to work Nikola Tesla into your mutual sex life, and he’d probably propose on the spot. 

But that electricity is building fast—even more so when he drags his lips down just above your collarbone. Your breath hitches, simultaneously trying to crane your neck to give him more room, and curl into him so as to escape the stimulation. Finally he pulls away, and losing the softness of his mouth while the air feels so cold against the places he’d kissed almost hurts. 

“You’re a mess,” he chuckles affectionately, raising his hand to brush hair away from your face before stroking the heated high point of your cheek. “What am I going to do with you?”

It’s teasing, but so low and gentle and honeyed it swirls your stomach. 

“Whatever you want,” you admit quietly. It’s a shy confession more than it is a salacious flirtation because he already has you. And you want nothing more than for him to act on that in any way he so pleases. Whatever he does, it will be careful, and kind, and because he loves you. You know that no matter how he takes you apart—he’ll put you back together again. 

“I don’t know if I can. You’re all jumpy.”

God, he has the prettiest smile—even when it’s twisted with sarcasm and a thin veneer of guilt, like he knows he shouldn’t be teasing and just can’t help himself. 

“I’m not,” you defend, face heating further. “I’m not nervous. I don’t know what it is.”

That sticky sweet tone is back, pooling in his eyes and dripping all over you like nectar as he languidly looks you over. 

“I didn’t say you were nervous. Just a little bit jumpy.”

It’s not accusatory—he’s simply stating a fact. Easy, gentle, designed to soothe. 

You shrug helplessly and chew on your lip, unsure of how he wants you to respond. It’s definitely true that excited as you are, you’re slightly on edge. You feel taut as a string on a guitar, tense and waiting to be yanked at any second. 

His expression is serene, and his thoughts inscrutable as he continues lavishing you with his eyes, down to where he’s lying over you and back up. His lips part, but he doesn’t speak for a moment as he formulates his words. 

“Can we try something? There’s this tantric exercise that might help you relax.”

Your brows draw earnestly and you nod up at him, not requiring any convincing even though you have no idea what he’s talking about. 

Spencer directs you to sit up, and you do—kicking your jeans all the way off so you can sit criss-cross with your hands braced on your ankles. 

He’s next to you on the bed, at a slight angle, one of your knees in his lap. You blink at him. 

“Now what?”

“Now you give me one of your hands,” he says, tone tinted with a hint of an amused smile, as if your impatience is funny to him. Of course it probably is. 

Frowning only a little, you unlock your left arm and hold it out for him, watching curiously as he takes your one hand between his and flips it palm-up. 

“Did you know,” Spencer begins, voice low and confidential, “that the fingertips are the second most sensitive part of the human body?”

“What’s the first?”

“Lips,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on your hand where he’s brushing the tips of your fingers light enough it almost tickles. “They’re both incredibly important for keeping you alive, which is why they’re one and two. But you’ll be particularly sensitive anywhere you’re vulnerable.” His words are trailing off as he brushes his thumb over your palm and to the delicate skin of your wrist. “Like here.”

His knuckles skim up your forearm, to the crook of your elbow. 

“And especially here.”

You’re fascinated as he traces back down the length of your arm and over your inner-wrist, feather light. Then up once more, with the blunted edges of his nails, and your breath catches. You’ve never noticed how sensitive such an innocuous part of your body could be, but it has your stomach flipping—more so when he looses a breathy laugh. “You know, some people are actually able to reach orgasm just by light stimulation to this area.”

Your response is just as airy—you don’t recognize your voice when it comes out like that, hanging in the pitch black between you. 

“Really?” 

An affirmative hum from him, as he lifts your hand and places an intentional kiss over your pulse at the bend of your wrist. Your chest aches and heat is pooling in your stomach as his gently trails them up the delicate skin of your arm. Maybe you should be embarrassed by the reaction you’re having—after all, it’s just your arm. But he treats every part of you like it warrants love and attention and intimacy. Even the parts you typically ignore. Certainly parts you never considered to be sexually or romantically relevant. It’s dizzying. It’s like magic. 

“Arms up,” Spencer finally directs, just as sweetly as he’s doing everything else, and helps you tug your shirt over your head. Every brush of fabric, every seam against your skin registers more than it normally would. Everything is heightened, and despite your state of undress you’re still warm. “Your neck is really sensitive, too. It’s the most commonly acknowledged erogenous zone.”

Erogenous zone. Of course this all comes back to biology. 

“Tilt your head for me, honey.”

Utterly entranced and useless to not abide by him, you do so. Spencer brushes your hair over your shoulder, and if the slip of it down your back weren’t enough, the graze of his fingertips against the nape of your neck has you shivering. 

The warmth of him at your throat feels completely brand new, despite having already had his lips there only minutes before. But now they ghost over your skin with a kind of novelty, and your own lips part in silent pleasure, head lolling to allow him greater access.

“Lie back.”

Without hesitation (but perhaps a bit sluggishly in your stupor) you obey, sliding down until you’re propped up only by pillows once more. Spencer takes his place propped above you once more, thighs slotted with yours as he quickly picks up where he left off. 

The sweet kisses are perfect and feel so much better than you’d ever thought to notice before—but at the same time your core aches and there’s that pressure building again that’s starting to get to you. 

“Spencer,” you try, and it comes out hoarse but you don’t care at all. “More.”

“You want me to leave marks?” 

And the offer is so tempting you’ll wait a few more minutes to ask for what you really need, nodding semi-frantically and ‘mhm’-ing desperately. 

As he gently latches onto a spot that will require concealer later but feels fantastic for now, one of his hands slips down your side, just barely letting his nails skim, and your back actually arches. It’s a shocking amount of stimulation for being nowhere near any sexual hotspots. That tiny caught breath dissolves as his fingers continue down just as lightly over your hip and thigh. Your muscles tense as you chase and run away from the feeling. It’s ridiculous.

There’s no point in trying to keep your eyes open now—they grow heavy and you let them fall shut as he sucks another love bite to your throat. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it? It’s kind of weird.” He says, voicing your thoughts as he eventually decides the mark will be sufficiently dark. 

“Yeah,” you agree, lacking all eloquence as he caresses every sensitive place you didn’t know you had and your hips writhe minutely in a little desperate dance of your own creation. 

“Most people aren’t aware of the potential of the erogenous zones that aren’t actual sex organs. They don’t pay attention to them. You know what else is an interesting function of erotic stimulation to areas that aren’t directly involved in reproduction?”

“Hm,” you hum as his hand skims to your back. You lean into it and he promptly undoes your bra with a single hand—a skill you’re not even sure you have. 

“It releases not quite as much oxytocin as an orgasm but more than sexual pleasure alone. So you’re less tense before sex than you usually would be, and you’re primed to build more trust and feel more connected with your partner during.”

God, he’s a nerd. And it’s so, so hot. 

You roll over on your back again and look up at him through half-lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth flickers as he takes in your expression, before trailing downward, following the path his fingertips make over your skin as they tug the straps over your shoulders. Trying to stop him, to be shy, would be a pointless venture. He’s seen you like this and you want him to see you again. 

A shaky exhale of his own brings a little smile to your face as he pulls your bra away and observes the newly bared skin with a hunger that you can feel. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, eyes cast pointedly down and thumb brushing over the side of your right breast. 

“You mentioned.”

“I’m not allowed to say it again?” He teases, leaning down to kiss you soft. Your lips curve against his. 

“You can say it as many times as you want.”

Spencer hums, finally thumbing over your breast’s sensitive peak. It sends a chill down your back and seeing as you’re already worked up to the point of near insanity, the pleasure from such a simple touch is much stronger than it would be otherwise. 

“Good. Because I missed you a lot.”

After that, he doesn’t waste much time—only toying with your flesh for another minute as he kisses you before his hand is skimming down your abdomen and dipping below the waistband of your underwear. 

“Please,” you whisper, tilting your hips toward him when he doesn’t move to touch you anymore. 

“Please what?”

“Spencer, don’t.”

He smiles at this, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as his hand travels lower. Fingers slip between wet folds and he begins making the lightest of circles over your clit. 

“You’ve probably been waiting long enough, huh? I should be nicer.”

Your answer is a breathy almost-whine as you seek more friction against his hand. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing down harder. The sensation sends sparks down to your toes and you attempt to clamp your legs shut around his wrist. “These need to stay open,” Spencer chuckles, “or else I can’t help you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The words are a sweet sing-song against your cheek as he kisses you there, before hooking his fingers into the fabric of your underwear and pulling down. You try to help wiggle out of them as best you can, gasping when he tosses them away and immediately returns his hand between your legs. He dips his head down, tongue lathing over your breast, and teases you with the tip of one finger circling around your entrance. 

“I need—”

“Shh. Let me worry about it.”

With that, he’s dipping his ring and middle fingers just barely inside of you to the first knuckle, then back out, before pushing a bit deeper, and repeating the cycle until they’re as far as they’ll go. When he slowly starts fucking you with them, still mouthing sweetly at your breast, you’re ready to melt. 

The room is quiet except for your breathy mewls, the lewd, wet sound of his fingers inside of you, and the blood rushing in your ears. Soon your breast pops from between his lips and he finds somewhere else to leave his mark. Spencer is turning you into a work of art, with his fingers, with his mouth. You don’t mind at all. You’d let him sign his name, if he could—but you doubt he’d let you get his name tattooed. 

Soon you stop fighting the perpetual tug of your lids down and let them flutter shut, loosing a freer moan as he brushes over that sweet spot inside you. Even when he’d told you how to find it over the phone, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like this—maddening enough to have your hips twisting again and that hot bed of coals in your tummy sparking. 

“Spencer,” you warn, leg twitching as he stokes the fire beyond the point where you can passively enjoy it. Either he’s got to slow down or he’s got to let you burn all the way up. You practically jump when you feel his tongue flick over your clit—you hadn’t even been aware of his shifting positions. Maybe you’re more out of it than you’d previously thought. Your eyes shoot open and he does it again. “Oh, fuck.”

The words are simple, quiet, and apparently that’s not enough. Before you can even process the sensation of the tip of his tongue on you he’s latching onto your clit, suckling in a way that has your vision momentarily going out. You cry out and kick involuntarily, hips jumping up, but he captures your leg and presses you down into the mattress so no matter how much you squirm and squeak you can’t get away. 

“Fuckfuckfuck, Spencer I wa—ah—sn’t ready—oh my god.”

He remembers his fingers deep inside you and begins rutting them and you hiss, inhaling sharply through your teeth before letting it all out in a tremulous moan. The orgasm is building up so quickly it almost feels like an attack on your poor body as you try to process it all to no avail. Every sound you make is a vulnerable mess of pleasure and pain, a clear fear of surrendering to something inevitable. Of course, it doesn’t really hurt at all. As usual, he’s blindsided you. Found you unprepared. You rake your fingers through Spencer’s hair, continuing on with your shaky moans that sound half-worried. 

“Oh, please.” Really, you’re just pleading to be put out of your misery. It’s in moments like this, as the black is creeping in around the edges of your vision and your thoughts become threads in the tangle of an existence knotting in on itself with no discernible end or beginning in your mind until everything is completely abstract, that you’re reminded why the French refer to orgasm as the little death.  

Your fingers lace tight enough in the wilds of his hair to pull, and he groans against you, and those vibrations are your undoing. You succumb to the dark momentarily but he continues a loving assault of gentle kisses to your clit—careful enough so as to be inoffensive even after the euphoria abates and you’re hypersensitive, still relishing soft strands of hair between your knuckles. 

You’re breathing hard as you blink your vision back, looking down at him as he looks up at you from his place between your legs and rubs the top of your thigh.

“I wasn’t ready,” you pant, lips flashing into a tired smile that doesn’t hold a candle to his own livelier one. 

“Took it like a champ.”

If you weren’t already so warm his sarcastic comment would inspire more heat in the apples of your cheeks. 

“Dr. Spencer Reid using sports idioms?” You smile as he climbs back up your body. 

“It’s unreasonably sexy that you said idiom and not simile.” He kisses you, grin mirroring yours, and you don’t complain about the slick still on his lips. “And look at that. Not afraid to kiss me when I taste like you anymore.”

“I remember what you said,” you whisper, eyes bouncing between his, glowing amber pools in the low light. The words echo in your head from the first time he’d gone down on you and you’d been hesitant to taste yourself. 

One day, I’ll make you come just like that again, and then I’m going to fuck you, and you’re really going to want me to kiss you then, angel.

“So do I,” he points out needlessly. “Eerily prophetic, hm?”

“I think you just like going down on me,” you laugh. 

Without the light on, his smile is just as brilliant as usual.  

“You might be right about that.”

Another interlude of quiet begins, but you don’t mind it. Taking this slow, as desperate as you’ve been for it, feels nice. Easy. Waves of burning need ebb and flow, but for now, it feels nice to be bathed in his candlelight gaze, know you’re loved, and nothing else. 

“What next?” You whisper after a long moment, lifting your hand to trace the line of his jaw. He leans into it slightly, lips brushing your palm. 

“That’s up to you, angel. What’s going to make you feel most comfortable?” 

Your bottom lip rolls between your teeth as you think and he tracks the movement, corner of his mouth twitching fondly. 

“It might help if you weren’t fully clothed.”

“I think we could probably do something about that.”

He pecks the tip of your nose playfully and then he’s pushing off the bed. Your brow wrinkles as you follow suit only partially, sitting up with your legs folded under you and pulling the sheets over your body to combat the chill and the vulnerability of being completely naked. 

“Oh, my god. You had your shoes on that whole time?”

“I got distracted,” Spencer defends, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to slip the loafers off. 

You clutch the sheet to your chest, watching the adorable way he pushes his hair out of his face as he rushes. He’s so clearly excited—it shows in the flush of his cheek and his even worse than usual coordination. 

“But on my bed?”

“I’m sorry,” he says without seeming very apologetic, leaning down to catch your chin between his thumb and forefinger and pressing his lips to yours. “I’ll pay to have your comforter dry cleaned. I’ll buy you a new one. I don’t care.”

“How chivalrous.”

“I am,” he insists against your lips, shaped by what is surely a boyish smirk. 

Unsurprisingly, you get lost in the kiss, dropping the sheet to hang onto his shoulders. Spencer takes advantage of the once-more revealed skin, rubbing your thigh with slow passes in a way that has you all lit up again already. It doesn’t help that his tie is skimming right over the recess between your folded thighs as he leans over your seated form, kissing you deeper as the moments pass. 

“You’re distracting me now,” you scold, but your voice is quiet and smiley as your noses brush. 

“Do you want to help me with my clothes?”

You nod, heart hatching like a cocoon and already slipping a finger into the knot of his tie so you can tug perhaps not gently enough. He chuckles, bracing himself with his fists on either side of your lap as you pull and yank until the fabric comes loose and you slip it from around his neck, flinging it blindly for dramatic effect. Then he slowly draws back to his full height, until you’re about eye-level with his chest. His gaze fixes on you, feverish and intent as he finds the buckle of his belt without looking. The slide of leather on leather, the jingle of the metal has the hairs on the back of your neck rising and you fight a chill as he pins you with his stare—feeling rather powerless as he towers over you, still essentially fully clothed while you’re completely naked. 

You probably shouldn’t be as thrilled by it as you are. 

Spencer tosses the belt on the floor and watches on, utterly charmed as you rise to your knees. His hands find your waist, steadying you as you begin unbuttoning his shirt with slow, careful fingers. 

“See?” You murmur bashfully. “Helping.”

His voice is equally as soft. 

“Very helpful. Thank you.”

The tension in the quiet room gets to be too much and you have to focus hard on the task at hand, failing to bite back a twisty smile. For once, he keeps his stupid perfect mouth shut and lets you push the fabric of his open shirt from his shoulders in humid silence. 

Your fingers skate down his torso and you watch the muscles tense. You wonder if he notices the way he pulls you slightly closer or if it’s subconscious as you both track the path of your hands. 

“Your button is on the wrong side,” you note, voice wavering slightly, once your fingers stall at the waistband of his pants.

Spencer chuckles. You feel silly. 

“Men and women’s clothing tend to have the buttons on different sides, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence, before the words come pouring out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m still a little bit nervous, I think.”

“That’s okay,” Spencer assures you, hands gliding up and down the soft lines of your waist. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. But I’m going to take really good care of you, okay?”

You nod, not looking away from the exposed skin of his torso. 

“And if at any point you need to take a break or stop, you’ll tell me.”

“I will, but… I don’t need to stop right now.”

“Then you can go as slow as you want.”

You swallow and take a moment to gather yourself before continuing on undoing his pants. With his assistance, you pull them down, and with them his boxers tug an inch or two lower, exposing a subtle v-shape before it disappears beneath the waistband. The fabric is obviously tented. A ball of nervous anticipation spins faster in your stomach, drawing all the heat in your body down between your legs. He’s pretty everywhere. You’d nearly forgotten. 

Spencer’s stomach tenses under your light touch as you drag your fingers down, down, just to the waistband. It’s then that you look up at him for permission to continue, and find his eyes already on you, heated and intense. 

“Go ahead, honey.”

Again you find yourself quite excited to touch him, but you start cautiously, simply letting your hand fall over the shape of him through the fabric. Even that has his chest rising and falling at a slightly quickened rate, and one of his hands finds your unoccupied one, twining them together. That small gesture inspires you to bolden your explorations, becoming more insistent in the way you palm at him. He feels big, which is a concern of yours. But you try not to let that intimidate you.  

Already he’s quite hard, you suspect from going down on you earlier (which is flattering as much as it embarrasses you) and your fingers graze a small wet patch of fabric. You fixate on the shaky little breath he releases as you push down his boxers with new fervor, and his cock springs up. 

He’s still perfect. 

You smear beads of precum down his tip, and he sighs, letting his head fall against yours as you both watch. A few coquettish pumps and he’s humming, kissing your face and dragging his lips down your neck where he makes a home for himself. Apparently the sight of your hand wrapped around him had been too much to bear. 

“So good. Missed this.”

“It’s just my hand,” you whisper, a little insecure that he’s maybe playing it up for your benefit. 

“It’s you.”

His voice is so breathy, you sort of have to believe him. 

“Can I…?”

Too nervous to voice what you really mean, you trail off, but it apparently doesn’t matter to Spencer. He lifts his head like he’s in a stupor but you’ve said something urgent. 

“Anything you want. You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay. Um…”

You let go of his hand (and his dick). Spencer automatically rotates to accommodate you as you end up on your knees on the wooden floor in front of him. 

“This is what you want?” He breathes, already pushing his fingers through your hair and gathering it back as you look up at him and nod. 

Very quickly you have him back in your hand, trying to remember what you learned from the few times you’ve done this. You start perhaps a bit softer, less eager to prove yourself than you have in the past—simply dragging him over your tongue before enveloping his tip in your mouth, and releasing with a pop. Despite being overtly, explicitly, and undeniably sexual, there’s something almost chaste about the way you handle him. It’s a (dirty) expression of love, and you think he understands that as he rubs at your cheek affectionately. 

Eventually, however, you get too excited, and you take him into your mouth in earnest, bobbing your head slowly and seeing how much of him you can take without gagging. 

Spencer makes the prettiest noises—they’re breathy, and not ostentatious, but he’s got such a nice speaking voice it’s like his gasps are bars in a song. You whine around him, wriggling your hips in a rather pathetic display, and then all too quickly he’s tugging your hair so you can’t keep him in your mouth. 

“What?” You ask, closer to pouting than you’d care to admit and voice slightly hoarse. “You said I could do anything I want.”

“Not if you’re that good at it. Come here.”

He helps you up and catches you in a deep, messy kiss before you’ve fully regained your footing, swaying against him, but he holds you fast, pulling away slow like strings of honey trail between your mouths. 

Spencer’s eyes are fixed on yours, lips parted in a sort of wonder before he glances down to your own mouth, wiping the shine from your bottom lip. Any moment you’re expecting him to say something, to tell you you’re beautiful or perfect or that he’s in love with you—but instead he just meets your eyes again, that same wonder-struck look on his pretty face. A tiny, breathy laugh forces itself from his chest like you’re a genuine miracle. 

You feel so observed—seen in a way you’ve never been seen, looked at closer than anyone has ever looked at you before. And he still looks at you like you’re the human embodiment of love, the closest mortal manifestation of the divine, Galatea come down from her marble pedestal. The way he looks at you has your heart pounding and your breathing hastened. Adoration has never been something so physical, so tangible, ever before in your life. Your blood hums at the frequency of his electromagnetic field—an energetic aura that surrounds each person and can be detected from several feet away, as he’d explained it to you. It originates from the heart and if you spend enough time close to  someone, syncs up the beating of your most vital organ with theirs until it’s a perfect match. Maybe that’s why, almost as quickly as your heart had begun to pound, it slows again, and you feel any reservation flush from your body like a fever. 

“Okay,” you breathe, cataloguing every angle and curve of his face to store with all the rest, all the moments that feel important. Of course, you’ll never remember them like he does yours. But you’ll be damned if you don’t try your hardest. 

“Okay?” Spencer asks. He understands the confirmation for what it is, and searches for signs of hesitation on your face while rubbing reassuring circles into your hip. You nod resolutely. 

As he lays you down on your bed, it feels like you’re entering some kind of altered state. Everything is muted and glowing with a watercolor aura in the dark and you really only care about the man on top of you and the way moonlight dances on his skin and the way he smells like smoky amber and rain. He makes sure the pillows are fluffed under you, before sweeping your hair from beneath your shoulders into a corona around your head. All the while his eyes are so soft on you, just like his hands, and his lips when he leans down to touch them to yours. 

One of said hands finds its way to your jaw, trailing down over your neck and collarbone, before settling over your breast where he swipes a thumb over your nipple, lightly, slowly, several times. 

Once again you’re struck with the odd feeling, even with his hand on you like this, that the situation isn’t sexual in the way you’d anticipated. It’s not pornographic, or even very dirty. Everything Spencer does, even as his hand sneaks down between your legs, he does because he loves you. 

“One more like this,” he mutters against your jaw after a moment. 

“Why?”

Your impatience yields a smile you can only feel against your skin. 

“Just want you relaxed and feeling good. That’s all.”

When you assent, his fingers are already slowly pushing inside you. 

It seems you’ve entered some sort of time warp as well, because you reach a gentle peak in what feels like record time, aided by his easy murmurings and saccharine praise.

“Perfect. That was perfect,” Spencer says with a kiss to your shoulder as he slides his fingers from you and you feel yourself literally dripping onto the sheets. “Can I ask you something before we get carried away?”

“Mhm,” you hum, sweet and compliant as pleasure dulls your inhibitions for the second time tonight and your head lolls into the pillows. 

“Baby,” he croons, voice soft as worn paper as your lids flutter and lashes brush febrile cheeks, thumbing over the heated skin. “Need you a little more alert, sweet girl.”

“’M trying,” you whine, though it’s half self-effacing laugh. Spencer chuckles too as you shake your head and take a deep breath, trying to reinvigorate yourself. “Okay. Go.”

“Well… we don’t have any protection.” Before you can groan, loudly, he hurries on. “And that’s… I’m okay with that, if it’s what you still want. I trust you. But there will come… a moment of reckoning. And I need to know where I should… reckon. So you don’t end up surprised.”

Now you’re really laughing—a giggly mess beneath him as your arms loop over his shoulders. 

“Stop it,” he whines, pressing his nose to your cheek as you turn your head in an effort to not snort at your boyfriend to his face. “That was for your benefit, you know. You get squeamish.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t take you seriously when you refer to it as reckoning.”

“Fine. I’ll rephrase. When I come, you essentially have two options. Inside, or on your stomach. Tell me where you want it.”

Your breath catches and your stomach does that tripping-over-itself thing again. 

“Um…”

Another fond half laugh, at your expense, is pressed against your skin. It’s enough to prompt you into answering—he doesn’t have to say anything to make his point about your being squeamish. 

“Inside,” you mutter, shy as you attempt to bring him closer so he won’t be able to look at you quite so closely. You wonder if he’s remembering the conversation you’d had over the phone last week—before he’d accidentally kind of broken up with you—about this very subject. You certainly are. 

“Okay. I want you to have everything that you want.” A few kisses to your neck later, between nips, he speaks again. “Just need to hear that you want this one more time.”

“I want this,” you repeat, obedient and honest, plain and simple. “Now, please.”

Spencer responds by first kissing you, firm and loving. It soothes you, and he punctuates it with a kiss to your cheek, before he’s reaching down and guiding himself between your legs. You feel surprisingly calm, more overcome with love and the light pleasure rolling down your back as he drags himself over your clit than you are by nerves. Still, you pointedly hold his gaze, not looking down in case you psych yourself out. He slots himself in place, tip resting against your entrance. 

“Remember, if you need to stop at any point—”

“I remember,” you cut him off hurriedly. 

Okay. So perhaps you’re still slightly nervous. 

He watches you, sympathetic though you’re not sure what for. 

“I need you as relaxed as possible, okay? I want this to be easy on you.”

You take a moment, scanning your whole body for tense muscles. When you feel sufficiently relaxed, you offer Spencer a small nod, and at that, he begins pushing into you ever so slightly. 

At first, it just feels foreign. He’s going so slowly, so carefully, you’re not sure he’s moving at all—until he finds resistance and the odd full feeling changes to a hint of burning stretch. Your hips jump and your breath catches, and Spencer stops immediately, relieving the pressure with a tiny shift in position. 

“It’s gonna hurt,” you realize, eyes darting between his like he might be able to tell you otherwise. You’d always been aware of the possibility, but you were holding out hope that you’d be one of those people who didn’t experience any pain their first time. 

“Just for a minute. Then it’ll feel good, angel.”

You swallow and nod. At the end of the day, you trust him completely. You trust him enough to let him hurt you. 

“Super deep breaths for me.”

He watches intently as you follow his directions, taking several deep breaths in succession, before he begins pushing into you once more. The pressure builds and builds until he pushes past that point of resistance, and it’s like he’s breaking you in two. 

“Ah,” you gasp, abs twisting as your body tries to escape the sensation without any input from you. 

“I know. I know, baby, that was the hardest part. Breathe.”

He drops his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles with light pressure to distract from the pain.

You nod, lips pressed together tight as the deep ache muddles your brain. It’s an insistent pressure against something does not seem to want to budge. It burns and stretches and is laced with sour, flirtatious pleasure so that you can hardly tell what it is you’re feeling. Mostly, you’re dizzy and hot.

“Relax, just like that,” he strains, looking down. “My good girl. We’re almost there, baby.”

Cries spill unbidden from your mouth and your eyes shut as he continues to open you up deeper, until finally, finally, his hips settle into the cradle of yours. 

Spencer sighs a curse under his breath, so quiet you don’t think it was meant for you. 

He’s inside of you. It’s bizarre. 

You whimper, and he snaps out of whatever revery he’d been in. 

“You okay? How does that feel?”

You take a shuddering breath, closing your eyes and trying to clear your head to no avail—your thoughts are like TV static. 

“I’m good. I need… I need a minute.”

“You can have as much time as you need. It’s a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” you admit, voice small and weak. 

“I bet,” he agrees, peppering soft kisses all over your face. “But you’re doing so well. Proud of you, brave girl. You’re doing so well and we’re gonna make sure it feels good soon, okay? Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will you please kiss me again?” you whisper, and Spencer’s brow knits with concern. 

“Of course, angel. Of course I’ll kiss you,” he says, and makes good on his promise with his lips on yours. It sweetens the ache. “I’ll do whatever you want. You can have anything. You’re so perfect.”

He kisses you again, just as lovingly, and soft, like you’re delicate. All the praise is only contributing to your lightheadedness, but you don’t mind at all. It feels good. 

“You can… you can move.”

“Okay. We’ll go really slow, yeah?”

He waits for your nod before his hips are pulling back and you arch at the odd sensation. When he pushes back in, eyes carefully locked on yours the whole time, you keen slightly, frowning and brain shorting out as it tries and fails to process this new feeling. 

“Uh-huh. You’re okay, I promise.”

At first it doesn’t feel good. It mostly hurts. But slowly, the pain begins to abate as you acclimate to having him inside of you, and he’s careful the whole time. 

“Spence?” 

“Hm?”

He sounds concentrated on the task at hand—you’re entranced by the sight of him above you, the parted lips, the unkempt hair over the brow furrowed in pleasure and focus. But he’s never too busy for you. 

“Does it… um—” you pause to hold back a whine—“what does it feel like for you?”

At this, he slows even further and chuckles—it’s a strained, slightly breathy sound. 

“For me?”

“Mhm.”

“You feel perfect, baby. You feel so fucking good.”

The slight fry in Spencer’s voice as he curses, which is a rare event in and of itself, flips your stomach, turns you on immensely. The idea that you’re giving him pleasure too—it’s almost overwhelming. That’s when it starts feeling good. 

“Oh—” you squeak, jaw dropping and bucking your hips inadvertently as the first bolt of true pleasure shocks deep in your core. He hums. 

“Yeah, is that it, sweet girl?”

But you can’t answer for a long moment. Your brain is melting as your legs lock around him. 

“Mm—it’s—it feels…”

“I know it does,” Spencer murmurs.

You whine and press your face into the curve of his shoulder as each thrust gently rocks your body. As the pace picks up bit by bit, you feel yourself clenching hard around him. His hips stutter and he hisses. 

“Ah. Can’t do that, lovely.”

“What? Did I hurt you?”

He laughs breathily. 

“No, you didn’t hurt me. You almost pushed me out. You have to relax.”

“Sorry,” you whisper. “’M trying.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I know you’re trying, baby, you’re being so good for me.”

Your nails skim his back—a small expression of a much larger desperation. Once he’s sure you’re relaxed around him, begins going faster. 

Your gasps and soft moans come more often now as he finds a steady rhythm and it feels so different when he’s actually fucking you. It feels like he’s everywhere. Every time your hips meet you feel the sweet shock of it in your teeth, your toes, the back of your neck. In the best way, you feel consumed by him. It’s not at all like you’d imagined, and it’s perfect. 

“Wait, Spencer,” you breathe, struggling to form the words. Immediately he stops again, lifting his head from your shoulder to examine your face. 

“What is it?”

He sounds just as wrecked as you feel, panting and strained and it feels good to hear. 

“I wanna watch.”

For a moment his eyes dart between yours like he’s trying to determine what you really mean—but you said exactly what you meant. Then he laughs, a huff of air from his nose as he presses his head to yours and gives you a quick kiss.

Your toes curl as he readjusts his position, holding himself a little higher and resting your heads together so you can both look between your bodies. 

“There,” he murmurs as he slowly begins to withdraw again. “Like that?”

But you can’t answer, because you’re too busy whimpering at the sight of him pushing into you. The feeling seems to increase tenfold as you watch it happen. Distantly you wonder how the fuck it fits. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Like that.”

Spencer takes this as a blessing to find a pace again, slower now as he seems to be just as enthralled by the sight as you are. 

“Give me your leg,” he rasps after a few moments like that, and you don’t know what he means exactly but you lift your right leg slightly only for him to press his hand to the back of your knee and push toward your chest, effectively opening you up and giving him more range of motion. It also enables him to fuck you even deeper. Again he slows, apparently savoring the feel of you yielding around him all the way down to the hilt. 

Black spots dance in your eyes as he settles at your deepest point—not pain, necessarily, just overwhelming sensation. Your jaw drops and you choke out a moan as he presses into recesses you didn’t know you had, as he shows you a part that you might have gone the rest of your life without knowing existed. He stops there, like that. Everything stops there, like that. If the cars on the road below ceased to drive, if the airplanes froze in the sky, you’d not be the least bit surprised. Somehow, you’ve unlocked a small eternity. There’s no sound but your joint heavy breathing and your heart pounding in your ears. The words just come bubbling up out of you in a little whine. 

“I love you.”

Spencer’s breath pauses for a moment before he’s letting it all out at once, brushing his lips up the ridge of your nose before they settle on your forehead in what seems like a permanent kiss. A few breaths in, you allow your eyes to flutter shut. Your heart rate slows down a touch, and you settle into the moment, never having been quite so content as you are like this—never having felt quite so adored and safe. 

“I love you,” he finally echoes, voice rasping, lips still pressed to your skin, still breathing against your hair. When he starts to move again, drawing back ever so slowly, you hiss softly. He raises his head from yours, and you look away from where he’s pulling out, meeting his eyes just in time for him to push back in, just as deep. They shine in the mostly-dark room and you moan unabashedly. It’s a high-pitched, sweet thing, nothing that will have the neighbors complaining—but so clearly true, from the depths of your soul, an expression of everything you’re feeling—not just the pleasure. 

Although that’s good, too, as Spencer shapes you to him again and again, the head of his cock kissing places nobody’s ever been and places you hope nobody else will ever venture to. This is all you need. Him. 

“Jesus,” Spencer groans, eyes fixed on your face as he fucks you slowly. But you can’t bring yourself to talk, too new to this kind of pleasure to find it anything other than mind-boggling and world altering. Your lips are still parted, allowing each sound to pass without filter. “Listen to you, beautiful.”

When he stops again, just to look down and marvel at you, you’re conflicted. On the one hand, you can taste the pleasure on the back of your tongue and he keeps taking it away when it’s so close. But on the other—you’re just as overwhelmed as he said you’d be. Your body has never had to process this kind of sensory information before, and you’re exhausted, but it’s so good. 

“Spencer,” you manage. He looks up, pupils blown and eyes lidded where they’d normally be wide. “Please don’t stop.”

He swallows, spurred into action again as soon as you say it. 

“Good?”

You nod and whine again as he picks up the pace bit by bit, remembering to push your leg back once more so he can get as deep as you need him. 

“So good,” you exhale at the top pitch of your voice. Your brows pinch and you release a fuller moan as Spencer finds a speed that’s fast enough to constantly feel good no matter where he is. You’re gasping for breath, back arching—and he finds a new angle, catching against the spot inside you that renders all those years of human evolution that gave you sentience and intelligence a waste. He chuckles airily at your series of series of affronted moans and halted gasps. 

“Right there? That's a good spot, isn’t it?”

“Oh, go—fuck, fuck!”

It feels so good it almost hurts, and your eyes are stinging to prove it. Your legs clamp tighter around him and you realize there’s a very lewd wet sound and you can’t believe that’s you. 

“Spencer, you’re—oh my god, I love you,” you whine, and it sounds like you’re pleading for your life. At this makes his own sound of pleasure, and hastens his messy circles on your clit as if in reward. 

But it’s too much all combined. 

Your hand claps to your mouth to obscure the loud, licentious moan that comes out—but Spencer immediately moves his hand from between your legs to grab your wrist and pin it gently to the bed, intertwining your fingers. 

“Don’t do that. Let me hear.”

You nod, and he lets go of your hand to return his fingers to your clit. If possible you get wetter around his cock—you can feel yourself gushing. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whine as if pained. 

“Yeah? Gonna finally let me feel you cumming, angel?”

He has a filthy mouth when he wants to. The words hit like high voltage to your core and the very pit of your stomach. You can’t even respond beyond a desperate sob. 

“Show me, baby. I’m right here. Let go.”

You cum around his cock with a broken cry and it’s like a purge of every drop of angst you’d felt over the past week or so—hell, it’s a purge of all the insecurities that had bubbled to the surface since you started dating him. None of it matters anymore. How could it matter when you have him? When you have this?

The orgasm washes you out like a tidal wave, taking everything with it. It’s strong, and it’s so good, so intense, your body is overwrought with sensation and it’s too much even though it’s perfect. Your brain is drawing a blank as it tries to react to the feeling, and it’s like every button on the damn panel has been hit. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” Spencer grits, and you feel it in the way he adjusts his position, shifting as he grips at the edge of the mattress for leverage and the thrusts become messier, needier. You gasp as his other hand tangles in your hair, turning your head to ghost your lips over his forearm. It’s not entirely surprising when his own lips find your shoulder—but the feeling of him finding his release just as his teeth sink into your skin does come as quite a shock. It doesn’t hurt, and you’re sure there’s no skin broken, but it’s an undeniable fact that he has grounded himself in the throes of passion by biting down on you.

Inside you, he feels hot. Searing, almost, as his spend tries to fill space that doesn’t exist. There is absolutely no room for anything else inside of you. Stars dance in your eyes at the overstimulation, but long after he’s finished he’s still fucking into you—albeit much slower and with far less technique. Spencer moans like a two bit whore, like he’s reached pain to a point of ecstasy, and to you it’s as good, as special as the singing of the planets. If he’s as sensitive as you are now, it’s no small feat for him to keep going on like this. It’s a testament to how much he doesn’t want it to be over. The pleasure is carrying him away, but you’re beginning to feel how soft you must be and how if he continues on like this you may bruise like an overripe peach. 

“Spencer,” you manage, skating your hand up and down his back in what you hope are soothing lines. “Baby.”

He whines as his lips detach from your shoulder, but his hips finally slow to a stop, nestled inside you. 

“Jesus, fuck, I'm sorry,” he breathes, opting now to bury his face in your neck (with significantly less biting this time).

You’re still reeling, toes still curled, still struggling to breathe as your head spins and spins and spins. His chest pushes against yours with every heaving breath, hot and heavy on your skin, and that’s the only sign he’s still alive until his hand eventually reanimates in your hair, scratching your head tenderly. 

For a span of minutes, you stay like that—silent, twined together like caducean serpents. His weight on top of you is perfect. This, the lack of differentiation between your body and his, is perfect. You don’t know where he ends and you begin and you don’t need to. It’s a blissful moment. 

“Hey.”

Spencer’s voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, lifting his head to look at you with flushed cheeks and messy hair and sparkly eyes. 

“Hi.”

He smiles. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“You too,” you murmur, moving your hand from his back and pressing your thumb into the hollow of his cheek. His eyes map the curves of your face as he pushes your surely askew hair back. 

“How do you feel?”

It takes you a moment to seriously consider his question, scanning your body for any undue pains, but for the moment, you find none, beyond a dull aching throb that you can manage. 

“Good. Tired.”

You wince at the uncomfortable feeling of him pulling out. Spencer hums sympathetically and presses a sticky kiss to your lips which makes it a little better, though you can’t ignore how uncomfortable all the previously pleasant wetness has become between your legs. 

“Here—stay here, I’ll get a wash cloth and—”

“It’s fine,” you insist, holding on even as he tries to roll off of you. “I just need… will you stay here for a little bit?”

“Of course,” he promises, now pressed close to your side and propped up on an elbow, “whatever you want.”

You lavish in his gaze, warm like a spotlight, as he strokes your cheek and plays with your hair. Very quickly you’re lulled into a doze, eyes fluttering shut. Minutes stretch. You feel drunk on waking dreams, and perfectly at peace. Safe. 

“Angel girl,” he christens you fondly. More than anything, it’s an observation, so lovely it sinks into your skin like a balm, soothing every tired muscle and little mark he’d made. Even half-asleep, it makes you smile. 

“You’re an angel,” you slur, reaching blindly for him, and he chuckles, catching your wrist and helpfully settling your hand on his cheek. 

“I thought you were asleep.”

You hum, “mm-mm,” looking up at him with just as much adoration as he has for you. Those cuddle hormones must be kicking in because soon you’re attempting to pull him back on top of you. He doesn’t quite comply, probably for fear of crushing you—rather he settles next to you, gathering you in his arms. 

Silence blankets the two of you, but it’s not unpleasant as you just watch each other with barely-there smiles curling your mouths. This kind of intimacy still manages to give you butterflies, even after everything else you’ve done. This kind of satisfaction, reverie in the sound of each other’s blood flowing and lungs filling. Setting aside words because you don’t need conversation as a pretense for wanting to be around each other anymore. You don’t need an excuse to look at him like this. You don’t need words any more than you need clothes. It’s enough to just be. 

“I love you,” he says, a soft reminder, and entirely redundant with the way he’d already been looking at you, touching you. 

“I know. I love you too.”

The smile flickers brighter on his face. 

“And thank you.”

Your eyes narrow minutely as you consider what he could possibly be thanking you for. 

“For what?”

“For loving me. And trusting me. It’s…” your heart squeezes as you realizes tears are pooling in his eyes. He takes a moment and clears his throat. It’s incredibly endearing. “It means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.”

You look down, thumbing at the sheets where you’ve hoisted them over your bodies. 

“You do realize how lame we are if we have sex and both immediately start crying, right?”

At this he laughs loudly but not loud enough to pop the little bubble you’re in, and you look up just in time to catch the brilliance of his smile, the way it changes his whole face and he becomes superhuman in his beauty, the lines that form by his eyes and the way they narrow and crystalline tears bead his lashes like precious gems. 

“Don’t cry,” he requests gently, hypocritically as your own eyes sting. The way his smile fades is like the sun setting. Gorgeous, like everything else he does. “You’ve cried so much, honey. Please don’t cry.”

You sniffle, gathering yourself. 

“I’m not. That would be pathetic.”

Spender leans forward to kiss you tenderly a few more times. Ordinarily you’d worry about coming across as clingy when you hold onto him so closely and so insistently like this, but for now you don’t care. Neither does he, it seems, as he seems unable to get you close enough. Eventually, you end up curled against him, head tucked under his chin and dozing on and off as he traces shapes into your skin. 

“What are you writing?” You mumble some time later, cheek smushed against his shoulder. He only responds with a soft hm, like he was lost deep in thought. You clarify, “it feels like you were writing something.”

“She Walks in Beauty.”

Your lips pull into a sleepy smile. 

“The Lord Byron poem?”

The first time you’d met Spencer, he’d inadvertently caused your painstakingly annotated copy of Lord Byron’s works to go flying all over a cafe, and then kindly helped clean up the pages and reorder them for you in record time. Among the poems had been She Walks in Beauty. 

“Yeah. I was trying to figure out when exactly I fell in love with you, and as someone who is deeply skeptical about love at first sight, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I keep coming back to our first conversation. I mean, I believe in genetic compatibility, and how that contributes to attraction and what we think of as chemistry, but—”

“Wait, what about our first conversation did it?” Your cheeks ache from smiling as you speak. “As I recall I was being a bitch and I was covered in coffee.”

He laughs dreamily, still tracing letters over the small of your back. You wonder what part of the poem he’s at now. 

“Yeah, mean to me and covered in coffee is pretty much exactly my type. But I think it was actually the annotations on that copy of Lord Byron’s works. They were so insightful, and personal, I—it kind of took my breath away, and I know I shouldn’t have read them all but I couldn’t stop. You were compelling, and charming, and funny and wildly intelligent and beautiful and… and I didn’t stand a chance.”

Everything aches. It’s a good ache. Despite being seconds from tearing up all over again, you snort. He never told you about that first day.

“You thought me writing ‘sister fucker’ in all caps every time he mentioned Augusta was charming?”

“Oh, obscenely so. But now that I’m looking back, I feel like… I feel like I can’t remember not being in love with you. I mean, I remember when I realized I was, and that was later. But it was like I met you, and then I was just… waiting for you to catch up.”

You grab his hand and interlace your fingers, watching the way the ambient nighttime light from the window and the bathroom dips them half in color. 

“We were pretty much on the same page. I was debating courthouse versus small intimate ceremony as soon as you left.”

You watch him watching your joined hands, features soft and relaxed, fiddling with your fingers absentmindedly as he speaks. 

“Definitely small intimate ceremony. I have too many friends who would kill me if they weren’t invited to the wedding.”

You giggle and pretend the thought doesn’t give you butterflies. You imagine a ring on your finger, the one he’s got between his own. Marriage had never been something you’d considered. Not when you had no reason to. It seemed like something for other people. But maybe one day, it will be for you, too. 

“Did you know Lord Byron had a daughter who is regarded by many as the first computer programmer? She wrote the first algorithm for a theoretical machine that was so complex it couldn’t be built with the technology available at the time. It was called an Analytical Engine.”

He sounds almost wistful as he gives you the utterly unprompted, but still welcome, abridged version of her life. The description is ringing a bell—but you can’t quite place her, sleepy as you are.  

“What was her name?”

“Ada Lovelace. She was exceptionally gifted. The odds of parent and child being so extraordinary in their respective fields are incalculable, but from a purely theoretical perspective, negligible. I mean, they’re both massive historical figureheads. That’s extremely uncommon.”

You adore it when he goes off on these tangents—the passion that stains his voice, the ardor that grips him until he has no choice but to tell you exactly what’s got him so excited. You could listen to him talk for hours. It means he’s here with you, and he wants you to love what he loves. 

Since he met you, that’s all Spencer has wanted—for you to love what he loves. 

You want the same. 

“Pretty name,” you murmur, eyes fluttering shut. “Tell me more.” 

-

part eight

[stephexmachina]

https://www.tumblr.com/stephexmachina/780723426815082496/tim-and-damian-need-to-go-back-to-hating-each <- could i very kindly ask you to elaborate ? im. Very Interested :P

so the short answer is that i need those two to be at each other's throats for my own entertainment 🙏😌

and the long answer is that i truly believe what's missing from the modern batfamily is the awareness that familial bonds are incredibly complex.

viewing someone as a family member does not automatically translate to being close to them emotionally. for many, many people, "family" means the opposite – it's something that binds you to people you wouldn't otherwise have chosen. the batfamily is NOT a found family because not all of the bats chose each other!! tim didn't choose jason or damian; dick only chose tim and bruce; cass only really chose bruce and babs; and damian took a long time to warm up to even dick. nevertheless, they have each other now, and they make the best of it.

that nuance is largely missing from rebirth. nowadays, someone is included in the batfamily and suddenly they have to have equally positive and meaningful bonds with everyone. two characters are family, thus in the eyes of the writers and the fans they must necessarily be ride-or-die. they have to willingly hang out together and enjoy each other's company. if they bicker it has to be light-hearted and they have to forgive each other afterwards. eugh.

and the thing is that this wasn't always the case!! the appeal of the preboot batclan to me was that their bonds weren't all homogenous. there was no central batfamily unit. take tim. he considered dick to be his brother, but the concept of brotherhood wasn't transitive – jason and damian weren't his brothers initially, they were the brothers of his brother, just as bruce wasn't his father but the father of his brother. those bonds came about much, much later.

damian, on the other hand, considered dick his batman before he truly considered him a brother – his understanding of family was firmly rooted in blood and heritage. cassandra was much closer to steph and babs than she was to any of her brothers, and dick was much closer to the titans than he was to either jason or cass. jason's hang-ups with his family predominantly revolved around bruce, who was unquestionably his father, and to a lesser extent dick, who was more or less his brother. the batfamily did not exist before jason died and it wasn't really something that factored into his thinking.

damian as i see him is significantly closer to dick than to anyone else in the batclan, and he is much closer to steph and duke than he is to jason, cass, or tim. and what interests me most about his and tim's dynamic is that it has always been a matter of competition. from day one they were vying for attention, acknowledgement, and security— particularly when it came to dick.

tim and damian will never be each other's favourite brother, and they shouldn't be. the most compelling thing about their dynamic imo is that they don't like each other, but they share a deeply meaningful bond with the same brother. and in two people with a history of viewing love as a finite resource, the fact of this commonality should realistically put them in direct opposition to each other. we saw a microcosm of this with the robin feud, and we're expected to believe it would simply get better with time, but i honestly wish it hadn't.

which isn't to say that i don't think tim and damian should care about each other!! in my eyes they care about each other the way you care about people who are yours, for better or for worse. but the fact of their being brothers is only one facet of their dynamic, not the determiner, and under certain circumstances it could even serve to drive them further apart.

[crescenthistory]

do you write headcanons?? if so, i would love to see your take on how the skittles would react to their s/o walking into a slytherin party looking SMASHING

i do! especially for the skittles, the lomls<3 i have never written for pandora before, but her part came so naturally to me and now i might be in love. so um, thank you for that revelation anon!

characters: barty, evan, regulus, dorcas, pandora

warnings: this will contain implied smut and suggestive material, so mdni please. drinking, hogwarts uni au, slight d/s dynamics if you squint. reader wears skirts/dresses, but no pronouns are used.

how would the skittles react to you entering a party looking your absolute best?

barty

would be by your side in a heart-beat -> no matter where he was in the room when you walked in, the second he spots you, his arm is slung over your shoulders

angles his upper body slightly away from you, though, just enough to look down and truly take in your form

"gorgeous, you shouldn't have"

"thank you"

"no i mean, you shouldn't have, now we have to leave the party before it's even started"

despite wishing to have you all to himself, if you wanted to stay he would be more than happy to of course. he considers it part of the foreplay.

and he would want to show you off 100%

not out of jealousy, but rather pure pride -> i mean look at you

barty doesn't strike me as the type of person who would be jealous over you looking good, it only makes him that much more smug. in fact, i think he would LOVE being able to parade you around, showing the world that this fine specimen is his

if you let him, he would drag you into some corner to properly greet you, making sure to leave marks on your necks where others could see -> again, showing off

will not hold back his flirtatious and even salacious comments throughout the night, especially if there is drinking involved

"you look good enough to eat" with a wolfish grin

"baby you have no idea what you're doing to me"

this man is not opposed to pda, so if you are, you will have to drag him somewhere private regularly, because any visible piece of skin will have his hand and preferably mouth on it the longer you stay, even if you are in the middle of a conversation with someone else

when the night is over, your outfit discarded on the floor and you're both satisfied with celebrating the night, barty would 100% try and put it on himself

especially if it was some miniskirt/minidress number

if he's lucky, you'll grow half as hungry seeing him in the little outfit as he was and pull him back into your grasp

evan

his eyes would find you from the moment you enter the room and would not leave you for even a second

evan is quiet and stoic in his lusting yearning, but that does not mean he is subtle. he's not wolfish with howling like barty would be, but there is something definitively animalistic in how he looks at you

it is a dark kind of look that both consumes and excites you, one where you – knowing him better than almost anyone – can tell exactly what he's feeling

anyone who was trying to converse with him before you entered are now essentially talking to a brick wall. his attention is elsewhere.

he drags his eyes up and down your form, committing the outfit to memory, how it looks against your skin, how it holds your form.

every single detail will be hoarsely whispered in your ear in reverence the second he gets you alone -> you will know exactly what did him in, exactly what you do to him

he's already planning out that interaction breath by breath to keep calm when you waltz up to him

if you take your place in his lap, his arms will be around you in a heartbeat, holding you as close as possible

if you try an tease him by standing above him, he will not hesitate to drag you down to him

feeling his hot skin on yours and seeing his hooded eyes up close would kill any part of you determined on teasing him

you're both in it for the night

regulus

would be absolutely dumbstruck from the moment you enter the room and his eyes lands on you

he had been watching the door anxiously waiting for your arrival, not finding the party nearly as enjoyable as he knew he would once it was filled with your laughter

reg was already imagining a night with you and your beaming smile and perhaps crude jokes, even if they were at his expense, excitement building while waiting for you

exactly what you wanted

when i tell you this man's jaw is on the floor when he catches your figure, all that composition and self-control thrown out the window as his eyes all but ravages you

if he was holding something before he saw you, he is definitively not anymore

after a moment of astounded silence as you just smirk and take in the look on his face, i think his legs would carry him towards you without thinking

his mind only catches up with him when he is close enough to smell your perfume, almost closing his eyes at the comforting scent

"you-" he tries, but sputters over his words, mentally kicking himself – how does the poet not know how to put his feelings into words?

then again, how he feels right now is beyond even the greatest philosopher, that he is certain

"i know baby," you whisper to him before dragging him into a deep kiss

right where you are stood, in the middle of a party with both of your close friends in attendance. a situation that might have otherwise mortified him, but now he can't do anything but groan in gratitude and pull you flush against him by the small of your back

one of his hands gravitates to the nape of your neck, fingers tangling loosely in the strands of hair he finds there

you smile against his mouth at the feeling of him reverent and pliant beneath your touch

this is exactly what you envisioned when you got ready tonight

dorcas

would look you up and down from where she's sitting by the entrance and say coyly "isn't that my skirt, l/n?"

to which you'd of course reply "absolutely. i wanted to return the feeling of seeing me in it. isn't it consuming?"

dorcas is the type to lick her lips and press them together to avoid a smile, but her hungry eyes can't be suppressed

the chase is what dorcas loves the most. there will be no dragging you off to deal with you in private. she will dance around you the whole night, riling you up with her words and actions as much as you're riling her up with your outfit

"all this for me, gorgeous?"

"i will show you exactly how much i love this little outfit of yours"

a hand on your hip with her thumb hooked underneath the hem of your skirt -> not noticeable to anyone as you stand side by side, but it burns embers on your skin

leaning in close to your face with a grin to listen to you talk, eyes anywhere but on yours

leaning in close to your ear, as if she's going to whisper something to you, but instead lightly grazing it with her lips -> or even teeth, if your jewelry allows for it

nails. they're always lightly scratching you wherever she's touching you, not enough to hurt, just the perfect pressure to make you shiver. a promise

you two are never without each other the whole night, doing rounds around the party

except for when a song you two have listened to when in private comes on, and you let your hands trail out of dorcas to walk backwards onto the dance floor and sway your hips to it

you twirl around, looking at her over your shoulder through your hair

dorcas would sweat

it wouldn't take her long to join you out there though, holding your body close to hers as her hands travels all around to truly appreciate your outfit

the world melts away and all you know is just the warmth dorcas provides, the tingling through your veins from alcohol and her attention and her soft lips on yours

luckily, dorcas was ambitious and cunning as per usual, and bribed her dorm mates to sleep elsewhere tonight because that dance floor would be moved upstairs not soon thereafter

pandora

would end up flustering you more in return with how she reacted to your getup than you were able to fluster her with it

i personally often headcanon pandora as ace in some regard, but i also view her as a very observant person who loves to play around with her friends and partners in different capacities

she is amazing with patterns, and when she sees your stunning outfit that reveals more than you normally would dare at a party paired with your sly grin, she understands what game you want to play

and pandora never loses

she would come up to you and greet you sweetly, a hug and a kiss on the cheek -> just barely avoiding your lips, missing them by a mere millimeter and pulling back before you can chase for more

absolute tease

she would drown you in compliment after compliment

specific ones too, she is never one to miss a detail, especially not with you

"those earrings are new, aren't they? you've never worn them around me before, they are absolutely gorgeous. they match your eyes and brings out that lovely smile of yours."

"you noticed?" you would gulp, her own grin just too large and encompassing for your heart to handle

"i notice everything about you, trinket"

oh yes, i think she would layer it on thick with nicknames you might have otherwise grown embarrassed from, but now, paired with the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice, only flusters you more

we're talking trinket, bunny, cookie, honey, beautiful, poppet, crystal, angel, etc.

it is when she adds the my before it that you're truly done for

"you are so gorgeous in this light, my crystal. green really is your colour, i've always known"

you would be the one to grow needy throughout the night, trying to get closer and closer to her, get her hands on you in any way

pandora would just smile wider, knowing she's got you in the palm of her hand - and that means she is the luckiest girl in the room

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Epilogue;

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

A/N: Cannot even describe what it feels like to finally finish something completely for the first time in almost a year. I feel weird and insecure about this ending, about the whole story in general, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think I'm okay with that. I'm also just happy it's done. Thanks for sticking with me :')

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Character Study, Infidelity, Cheating, This Is a Story About Joel Miller!, Self Healing, Mild Injury/Blood, Stream of Consciousness, Angst With a Happy Ending, Grief, Group Therapy

Word Count: 2.3K

Read on AO3

Epilogue;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized there is something within him…changing. 

More brown than purple—a comforting color. He has come here, to the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, to be reminded of something. 

The Omega that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. He feels certain he’s heard it before. When he looks at her, the burnished copper hair threaded with soft white, he sees something in her eyes that reminds him of another woman who he isn’t certain he didn't dream of, but who he’s sure he knows. 

Something like… a desperation, perhaps. Maybe that’s what he’s needing reminding of. Something that’d made him feel desperate. Something he’d tried and tried and railed against letting go of, and now that it was gone, he could not help but want back. 

Joel had done something to himself, let something go. A girl with green eyes and a terrible grief. A brother who would not speak to him. And a—

A what?

“This will be my last meeting,” the woman at the podium says. “I thought for a long time that I was here to cure my loneliness,” she laughs, a sound that confuses Joel. “I’m sure we all at one point thought the same. But I think I’ve let go of that arrogance. Or that wishfulness—who knows.” She sighs and it’s easy, light. “And I’ve realized… well, let me tell you now, the bitter truth about loneliness is this: we never escape it. We only learn to take short interludes from it. Distractions. But eventually… you always return. Eventually, it’s only you again, left to pick up the pieces. Work through it. There is no miracle move on drug that can truly cure a soul in grief. No false peddlers get-well-quick scheme. There is only ourselves, and our willingness to change because we want to change for the better.”

Joel pulls the scarf he’d found tucked into the pocket of his coat weeks ago. A woman’s soft garment, he’d had no idea who it could belong to for he hadn’t seen his wife in a long time.

He buries his face in the blue cashmere, unable to stop the odd, choking sound from gurgling up his throat, the scent of her turning in his lungs. A crushing sense of despair spinning the other way within him, some terrible vortex of an almost unbearable sense of loss and loneliness he’d thought he’d cured himself of. Something worse than anything he’d ever endured before. 

Joel had made a terrible mistake, all the remaining grief inside of him told him so. He couldn’t remember, but all he knew was that there was a fracture through the center of the man so that he could never ever be real again without mending it. It was impossible to explain, nor did part of him even want to, all he knew was that he’d suffered a loss so acute he’d ruined his entire heart and life for it. There were so many things he’d forgotten, how to cry, how to be brave, how to be real. 

A woman named Maria who reminds him of his brother calls for any other volunteers willing to share and with the blue scarf gripped in his fist, Joel takes his now familiar place at the podium. He remembers names and he shares and he’s sure he isn’t the way he used to be but on his way to someone else. 

He tells them the only tale he has to tell:

“I had a daughter a long time ago. Her name is Sarah. When she died, I did too. And sometimes, well… you can imagine, but it’s a terrible thing, walking around the world dead. It made my views on the whole thing—dying—change. You’d think it would’ve radicalized me, made me awake to the reality of what it really means to be alive. But instead…death was like…her death was like—I can’t even say—like a door. Like she walked through a door I couldn’t follow and so I tried everything, all the possibilities—I tried to walk through my own doors, even tried to follow her through hers, and nothing ever worked, and now I’ve spent my life since, in the wrong room. And now that I want to go back, to be alive again and make it right, I feel like I’ve lost the key, you see, and can’t find my way back out.”

There are so many strange and unknown faces in the crowd before him. They all blur together, morphing like the skin’s grown over bone wrong and distorted. No one wearing the one he’s looking for. 

“It feels like I’m cursed. And it’s so unfair. And so selfish. Everyone loses someone,” Joel says. “Why’d I have to let it consume me the way I did? Why’d I have to walk around dead for so long? How could I have gotten so lost and so trapped I forgot to live?”

But Joel feels certain now, that if he could only find that key, he’d be let out and alive again. 

Out of the basement of the church, he crawls, false and cowardly. And at the same time, with a lightness he hasn’t felt since before he’d put his own child in the ground, wearing the terrible exhaustion that comes from being so alone you can’t remember what it is to be otherwise. Starting along his walk home with a blue scarf draped around his neck; he walks places now, he knows someone taught him the simple joy of this, but he can’t remember who. 

Halfway through, middle mark to home and just past the watch shop, the rain begins. It’s cold on the come down and then slicing hot against his skin; butter knife meet soft, unsuspecting flesh.

He begins to stumble then, confused, north becomes south, the west falls away to nothing and the thought of an east facing wind losing itself to the ocean terrifies him. The sky is weeping. His mind spins like a typhoon. Joel Miller is lost. The rain distorts, he walks past a split maple—blood colored—lying in the front yard of someone’s home as if they’d forgotten they’d left it there. His feet continue but his eyes stay on the tree cleaved in half by who knows what—who could do such a thing?—neck turning turning clicking. The toe of his boot catches on a split in the pavement, and then he’s being felled just like the maple, falling, brow cracking sharp and split, too. Blood colored, too. 

When he finally makes it home, for a single unbalancing moment, he thinks the house he’s lived in for seven years looks entirely unfamiliar to him. There’s a hot slice of pain across his mind and pavement printed face. His memory, fickle and disturbed, broken. The wife he has been married to for those same seven years is not here. 

Suddenly, Joel begins to cry. 

Slow at first, like most good things start. One tear over that trough ledge, he thinks of children that are lost, then another and he gives it a moment, lets it make its slow and meandering way over skin to lose itself amongst his whiskers, hidden and fearful just like he is. He lets it go slow until he’s ready for all at once, and then he weeps in great heaving sobs. 

He makes his way into the dark, abandoned house and he thinks that perhaps not all has been lost. After all, he feels he’s finding himself in this moment, coming back to reality, waking up to memory. 

Laying in bed, curled and shivering, he pleads with that who-knows-what he doesn't believe in to let this terrible grief end. His crying is like a bloodletting. But what about tomorrow? When the girl is still gone and Joel is still alone. Then, he’ll only be able to remember the terrible alone-ness he’d endured and the sense of relief he’d felt only to lose it again. 

When he sleeps, he dreams of his daughter, he dreams of miracles and cheats, of a face he knows should be resting against his own pillow when he opens his eyes. He dreams of remembering. 

Finally, after years might have passed, throbbing head beating like hammer and anvil, he wakes to the odd but unmistakable sound of snarling, snapping teeth which are, so far as he can tell, his own. Heart pounding in his throat, his stomach lurches like he’ll be sick. He turns over in the uncomfortable, cold bed, legs swinging over the side to brace himself, and when he looks up, his wife sits just there in the corner of the room, watching him. 

“My, what drama.”

“Where have you been?”

“Busy, living.” The thought seems incomprehensible to him. “What have you done to yourself, Joel Miller?”

“I cheated. It didn’t work.”

“That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I got desperate. I felt so alone.”

“So you should’ve done what I did. Gone out and lived your life. How could you ever possibly think you could cheat yourself out of having to do that? Silly man.”

“I—I tried. I did. But I got confused…lost. I made a mistake. I thought I needed to forget everything in order for it to work.”

“Joel. Oh, Joel,” she sighs. “You’re floundering. Whatever you’ve done, it wasn’t right. Look at yourself. You’re falling apart.” She says it so matter of factly it shames him even worse.

“Maybe. Yes.” He feels a terrible rush of embarrassment.

“Remembering is the most important part. If you don’t remember the past, you can’t find your way through to the present.”

There had been many times in his life when Joel Miller had been thoughtless, selfish, a bad man. But taking you, leaving you—he remembers he remembers—nothing had ever been worse than this. A miracle move on drug…he’d been so wrong. So selfish, so weak. There was no miracle, no neat and quick logical cure. There was only himself, taking his courage in hand and letting go of that which no longer served him, preserving memory in a glass case and leaving it there to go on with the rest of his life, just as his wife had. 

He thinks of you now, and examines his own loneliness: the idea that to be a man, he’d had to hold his tears at bay, his lust, his feeling, that there was strength in his solitude that protected him from his past losses, his terrible grief, that weakness was a sin. It’s so obvious, and how could he have not seen it before, that none of that is true. 

He’d been turned back into himself by a girl made of his own heart, and then he’d let her callously slip through his fingers. What a terrible mistake. What a terrible thing to do to someone that would love you. What a terrible thing to do to yourself. 

For one last moment, he lets the old doubt and fear comfort his mind like a cloud, and then sudden as daylight, his memories settle, the certainty that he cannot not move forward if he does not live with the past as what it is. 

And the realization that he cannot live without you. It’s a simple, awful certainty. 

-

The girl who answers the door has red brown hair cropped short around her pointed chin, a splatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Green eyes that remind Joel of another’s. 

“If you aren’t here to fix it, I’m not letting you in,” she warns as if she knows him. 

But he promises her that he is, that finally, he’s realized what it is he needs to do to make it alright. 

He comes into the perfect room, and kneels at the side of your bed like a supplicant. 

You’re sleeping, frozen in your hibernating stillness, your nightgown slipping low over one full breast so that the soft peak is bared to him. Your knee hitched high, allowing him a view of your smooth, lush thigh. He pulls the duvet over your shoulder, backs of his fingers brushing the cold skin there. 

And you look so alone in your abandoned bed, bared and vulnerable. He breathes slowly for many long moments, watching the still planes of your face—there are no moving dreams behind your eyelids. Had he stolen those from you also? 

When your eyes snap open, it’s an immediate step into waking. No confusion, only the frightening dilation of your pupil and complete understanding in your gaze.  

Your eyes study his face carefully. 

“You hurt yourself.” A single fingertip pressed to the open wound at his brow. 

“Yes. Very badly.”

“I’m sick,” your voice is throaty and full. 

Heat-sick, heart-sick, all his fault.

And there exists now, something more powerful than logic or his past losses, his living writhing grief, which had cured his mind, his heart, that drew his eyes to your mouth. He had split himself open, it had been a bloodletting. He had cried, it had been a bloodletting. You hurt. He had hurt you. He needed to mend his errors. To be alive again.

This may seem like a small ending to you, but it is a large beginning. It’s the start of the rest of Joel Miller’s life, after all. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I made a mistake,” he says.

“It was never going to work.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You could see that, but I needed to live it to know. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“I know. I believe you.”

Sometimes it really is that simple. 

Joel rests his head in the cup of your hands and cries now because he can, because that, in and of itself, is a miracle. 

“Tell me what my name is,” he asks you.

“Joel.”

—And he’s real, then, loneliness cured.

End.

References; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, David Sheff Mad Men, (2007-2015) Asteroid City, Wes Anderson, (2023) Cool About It, Boygenius Fortnight, Taylor Swift Wrong Norma, Anne Carson The Devil You Know, Liz Carlyle

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Updates Blog!

[hoe4hotchner]

Unpaid Balance

Pairing: Debt collector!Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Words: 5k

Warnings: 18+, dark nature, the mob, Spencer is evil in a weirdly sexual way, hair yanking, maybe it counts a little as waterboarding reader's head is submerged in water for a second or two, fingering, kissing? Dom/sub dynamic, Sex is there but not described that well, Teasing, Hunter x prey dynamic, fear, fainting.

I think that's it but let me know if I missed something.

A/N: I'M BACK BITCHES!!!! I made myself so feral writing this, what the fuck. Also, Rossi makes an apperance :)

"You can't hide from me forever! There's nowhere to run." His voice echoed through the nearly empty warehouse, a chilling reminder of the footsteps that drew closer with every passing second. You regretted sneaking in here, realizing too late that hiding from him was the worst decision you could have made. His taunting voice carried a sinister edge, and you could almost picture the smirk tugging at his lips. All of this because you answered your phone this morning. You kicked yourself mentally for being so stupid, you knew better, but now wasn’t the time for that. You needed to find a way out of here.

It all started this morning. You knew time was running out. The stack of letters piling up in the mail painted a grim picture, one you desperately wished you could escape. The bank had sold your debt weeks ago to the most notorious collectors in the city, and how you'd managed to stay off their radar for this long was a mystery. But the moment your phone rang, dread settled in your stomach—you knew you’d messed up royally when you mindlessly answered the call.

"Ah, Miss (L/N), I'm glad to reach you finally." His voice was smooth, almost soothing, the kind of voice you could listen to for hours if the circumstances differed. But this wasn't a podcast, and Spencer Reid was far from a comforting presence. There was an unsettling familiarity in his tone, despite never having met him before. You knew exactly who he was and that was the problem.

"Well, If that's how you'd like to play-" You quickly cut off the call, knowing fully well that you were in deep trouble now. If only the bank had sold your files to anyone else, you would've been able to survive, but this was truly the worst outcome you could think of. Not even five minutes passed by before the buzzer rang. Panic surged through you, your heart racing faster than you thought possible. You felt sick, your vision blurring as his words echoed in your mind. It had to be him at the door.

With no time to waste, you bolted for the fire escape, scrambling down and out onto the street. You ran, pushing yourself to move faster, not daring to look back. But curiosity got the better of you. You glanced over your shoulder and there he was—Spencer, standing calmly at the end of the street, hands in his pockets, his black suit making him look even more imposing. He was too calm, given your desperate flight. He gave you a slight nod before getting into his car as if this were all just a game to him. Panic surged again, and you kept running, taking the first turn you saw, desperately trying to shake him off your tail.

Somehow the streets seemed empty, almost too empty, something was wrong and you knew it. Your steps echoed through the streets as you made your way further and further away from him, or so you hoped. Despite the sun brightly lighting up the sky, each step you took seemed to guide you further and further into darkness.

The sound of a car door slamming yanked your attention, and you knew instantly that Spencer was close. His disapproving tutting echoed down the street, a harsh reminder of your failed escape. Spinning around, you spotted his towering shadow cast ominously against the building at the next street corner. Without a second thought, you darted back the way you came, barely dodging an oncoming car. There was no time to heed the rules of the road—stopping could mean getting caught, and you weren't about to lose everything without a fight. Determination surged through you as you sprinted down the street, your heart pounding with every step.

Somehow, you found yourself in a narrow alley with no way out except to retrace your steps. Just when you thought you were done for, the sound of footsteps drew closer again. As if answering a desperate prayer, you spotted a tiny opening in the wall, partially obscured by wooden planks. It looked like a tight squeeze, but it was your only chance. You dashed toward the gap and threw yourself behind a dumpster, clawing your way through the narrow space. The rough edges of the broken planks scratched at your arms, sending stinging pain through your skin. You gave yourself a quick once-over, checking for any serious injuries, before realizing that you’d only traded one danger for another. You had squeezed into one of the abandoned warehouses near the docks, and now you were even more trapped.

You were far from home, no familiarity whatsoever in these corners of the city. The silence was loud, dripping water splattering onto the floor filled your ears as you scanned through the building to find a hiding spot. He couldn't be far away. You had a hunch that Spencer knew this city better than you, wondering just how many people had been in your situation before. How many people have experienced the sheer amount of fear that his voice shocked your system with?

Despite being nearly empty, there were still a few scattered remnants of activity: old wooden crates piled in one corner, a rusted metal shelving unit leaning precariously against a wall, and a cluster of large, dusty tarps draped over what looked like abandoned machinery.

Behind the crates, there was just enough space to squeeze into a narrow gap, shielded from view by the stacked boxes. The shelves, though unstable, provided a potential hiding spot if you were careful not to make a sound—one wrong move, and the whole thing could come crashing down over you. The tarps were the most tempting option, covering enough ground to allow you to slip beneath them and blend into the shadows they cast, but they blocked your vision. Each hiding spot had its risks, but they were your best chance to stay hidden in this desolate place.

You decided on the crates, quickly squeezing into the narrow gap behind them. The smell of dust and old wood filled your nostrils as you settled into the shadows, your heart pounding in your chest. You could just barely see through the slats in the crates, giving you a limited view of the warehouse floor.

Moments later, a figure appeared in the dim light of what must've been the main entrance to the building. He strolled in with a casual confidence that sent a chill down your spine, his silhouette tall and imposing. As he moved further into the warehouse, he began to whistle—a slow, haunting melody that echoed off the walls. The sound was unnervingly cheerful, completely at odds with the tension that crackled in the air.

"You can't hide from me forever! There's nowhere to run." His voice echoed through the nearly empty warehouse, a chilling reminder of the footsteps that drew closer with every passing second.

You held your breath, trying to stay as still as possible, peering through the slats to keep an eye on him. The melody continued like a twisted lullaby, it made your skin crawl. Spencer’s head swiveled slightly as if he was listening for any hint of movement, his pace unhurried as he drew closer to the crates.

Every instinct screamed at you to stay hidden, to remain perfectly still, but the fear gnawing at you was almost unbearable. Spencer’s whistling filled the empty space, making the warehouse seem even more desolate, even more inescapable.

Your muscles ached from staying so still, but you forced yourself to remain motionless, watching Spencer’s every move through the slats in the crates. His whistling continued, the eerie melody twisting in your mind. You tried to control your breathing, to keep it slow and quiet, but fear had a way of making even the smallest actions feel impossible.

Just as you shifted slightly to ease the tension in your legs, your foot brushed against a loose piece of wood. The small creak it made seemed deafening in the silence, and your heart skipped a beat as Spencer’s whistling abruptly stopped. The sudden quiet was more terrifying than the sound itself.

Spencer paused mid-step, his head tilting slightly as if he’d heard something. You could see his eyes narrowing, his focus sharp as he scanned the warehouse. You held your breath, praying he would dismiss the noise as just the old building settling. But instead, he started moving again, slower this time, his eyes sweeping the area around the crates.

Then, just as you thought he might pass by, Spencer suddenly changed direction, heading toward a spot where you couldn’t see him through the slats. Panic surged through you—if you couldn’t see him, you couldn’t anticipate his next move. You strained to hear, but the warehouse was filled with overpowering silence, your heartbeat thudding loudly in your ears.

You remained frozen, every nerve on edge, until suddenly you felt a hand seize a fistful of your hair. Pain shot through your scalp as your head was yanked back, forcing you to look up. There he was, his face inches from yours, his eyes dark and filled with a twisted amusement. The smirk you had dreaded seeing was there, curling at the corner of his lips as he stared down at you, triumphant.

“Found you,” he whispered, his voice low and menacing, sending a fresh wave of terror through your body.

Your breath hitched in your throat, panic flooding your senses, overwhelming every rational thought. The room began to spin, the edges of your vision blurring as the reality of your situation closed in on you. Spencer’s grip tightened, his smirk deepening as he watched the fear consume you.

Your heart pounded erratically, each beat growing fainter as a cold sweat broke out across your skin. The world around you faded, the warehouse and Spencer’s terrifying presence becoming distant, shadowy shapes. You could hear his voice, low and mocking, but it sounded far away as if submerged underwater.

Then, all at once, the fear became too much. Your body couldn’t take it anymore. Darkness crept in from the edges of your vision, and before you could register what was happening, your eyes rolled back, and everything went black.

“Guess it’s time for you to meet the boss,” he murmured, his words laced with cruel amusement as you started slipping. The last thing you felt was the cold, unforgiving floor as your body slumped forward, unconscious, completely at the mercy of the man who had hunted you down.

You were jolted awake by the sudden, shocking cold of your head being plunged into a bucket of water. Panic surged through you as you flailed, gasping for air when you were finally pulled out, only to be hoisted off the floor by two large men. Your body was weak, limbs heavy from fear and exhaustion, as they dragged you across the room. You blinked rapidly, trying to clear your vision, but the disorientation lingered.

When your eyes finally focused, you found yourself in a dimly lit office. The centerpiece of the room was a massive wooden desk, polished to a dark sheen. Behind it sat Rossi, the mob boss, lounging in a big leather chair that looked close to a throne. He was idly playing with the rings on his fingers, twisting them around as if deep in thought, though his cold eyes were fixed on you. His presence was commanding, exuding power with every casual movement. He leaned back, observing you with cold, calculating eyes.

Spencer was there too, standing behind the desk, his eyes not on Rossi but on you. He seemed relaxed, casually admiring the various knick-knacks that decorated the shelves behind the boss. But something was unsettling in the way his gaze kept drifting back to you, lingering a little too long. His dark eyes were filled with a growing hunger, a lust that made your skin crawl. As he licked his lips, you could feel his desire radiating off him in waves, and it made your stomach turn.

Rossi’s voice cut through the tension in the room, smooth and authoritative. He spoke about the debt you owed, laying out macabre options for repayment, each more horrifying than the last. His tone was casual, almost bored as if he were discussing mundane business rather than your fate. But despite his nonchalant demeanor, Rossi was not one to miss anything. He noticed the way Spencer's gaze was fixed on you, the way his lips curled in anticipation.

Without breaking his stride, Rossi’s sharp eyes flicked to the two henchmen holding you. “Take her away,” he ordered, his voice calm but commanding. “Lock her up in the back room.”

The henchmen didn’t hesitate, dragging you out of the office and down a dark corridor. Fear absorbed you as you realized what was coming next. As they pulled you further away, the last thing you heard was Rossi’s voice, low and authoritative, addressing Spencer.

“She’s all yours, boy.”

The words echoed in your mind as the door slammed shut behind you, leaving you alone in the cold, dimly lit room, with only the sound of your rough breathing to keep you company.

What felt like hours had passed since you were thrown into the dim, cold room. The only light came from a small, grimy window high up on the wall, barely large enough to squeeze through. Desperation gnawed at you as the reality of your situation set in. You couldn’t just sit here and wait for whatever plans Spencer had in store for you.

With renewed determination, you climbed onto the rickety table beneath the window and started pounding on the glass with your fists. The sound echoed in the small space, but the window refused to give. Frustration and fear fueled your efforts, each strike harder than the last until your hands ached and your hope began to weaken.

Then, just as you were about to strike again, a voice, smooth and taunting, cut through the silence. “You really think that’s going to work?”

You froze, your breath catching in your throat as you turned to see Spencer standing in the doorway. He leaned casually against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching you with that same unsettling, predatory gaze. His presence filled the room with an oppressive weight, and your heart sank as you realized how long he might have been standing there, silently observing.

Your eyes flicked to the open door behind him, Spencer instinctively followed your gaze, as you calculated the distance, wondering if you could make a run for it. But before you could move, Spencer’s lips curled into a knowing smirk.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, his tone laced with dark amusement. “The guards are right outside. You wouldn’t get two steps before they'd drag you back.”

He stepped inside the room, locking the door behind him with a soft click that sent a shiver down your spine. The sound was final, cutting off any last hope of escape. Spencer’s eyes were fixed on you as he slowly closed the distance between you, each step deliberate, predatory.

When he was close enough, he reached out and grabbed your chin, forcing you to look up at him. His grip was firm, fingers digging into your skin just enough to make you flinch. His face was so close you could feel the warmth of his breath on your skin, and the power in his eyes was almost painful.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he whispered, his voice low and dangerous, as if savoring every word. His thumb brushed over your lower lip, a mockingly tender gesture that only made the situation more terrifying. “You belong to me now.”

Until now, your fear and the dim lighting through the streets had kept his features in shadow, but with him this close, every detail became starkly clear.

He was tall, standing over you with an imposing presence that seemed to fill the entire room. His brown eyes, sharp and intense, locked onto yours with an unsettling focus. There was a calculating glint in those eyes as if he was dissecting every aspect of your fear and desperation. His stubble was neatly groomed, giving him a rugged, but carefully maintained look. It was clear that he put thought into his appearance, despite the rough edge it conveyed.

His hair was curly, styled in a way that looked effortlessly messy but was clearly intended to appear that way. It was a deliberate disarray, a chaotic yet tidy arrangement that only added to his imposing aura. The overall effect was one of calculated carelessness—a style that spoke of someone who was both meticulous and unapologetically confident.

You found yourself unable to look away, forced to take in every detail of his face as he studied you with that predatory smirk. The harsh lines of his stubble, the casual sweep of his curls, the sharpness in his gaze—it all added up to a man who was in control, a man who was used to getting what he wanted. The realization of how meticulously he crafted his appearance only heightened your sense of dread. This was not just a random enforcer; he was someone who took pride in his role, someone who thrived on the power he held over others.

"I… I'm not scared of you." You stuttered, although your heart was racing. You tried to appear in control of the situation, yet you weren't.

He leaned in closer, his breath hot against your ear. “You know,” he murmured, his voice a low, teasing purr, “it’s not just about fear. There’s something else I can sense.”

You shivered at his words, the combination of his tone and the physical closeness making your pulse race. Spencer’s thumb brushed lightly over your lips, the touch surprisingly gentle yet filled with a predatory intent. He knew exactly how to push your buttons, to make you squirm without ever laying a hand on you.

His lips curled into a smirk as he continued, his voice a seductive whisper. “It’s almost like you’re enjoying the attention. Isn’t that interesting?”

Your face flushed with a mix of embarrassment and confusion, the intense gaze from his eyes only amplifying your discomfort. His teasing manner was almost more torturous than if he had been more overt. The way he spoke made it clear he was playing a game, one where your emotional reactions were the reward.

Spencer leaned back slightly, giving you a moment of peace before leaning in again, his face close enough that you could see the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said softly, almost sympathetically, “this is just the beginning. I’m not going to make this easy for you.”

He stepped back, still holding your chin firmly but allowing you some space. The smirk on his face was unmistakable—he was reveling in the control he had over you. The room seemed to close in as you were left to process his words, the heat in your cheeks a testament to the psychological game he was playing.

He leaned closer, his breath warm against your neck. “You’re so easy to read,” he whispered, his voice low and seductive. “I can see the way you react to every little touch, every word.”

His fingers traced a slow, deliberate path from your chin down to your collarbone, each movement designed to provoke. The sensation was both electric and maddening, his touch lingering just long enough to drive you wild. He seemed to take pleasure in your reactions, savoring the way you tensed and shivered under his touch.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his voice a tantalizing tease. The question was rhetorical, meant to deepen your sense of helplessness. His eyes remained locked on yours, studying every flicker of emotion that crossed your face.

Spencer’s touch moved to your shoulders, his fingers grazing the skin with a feathery lightness that was almost unbearable. He was so close that you could feel the heat from his body, a constant reminder of the command he held over you.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against your ear as he continued to speak in that same low, seductive tone. “You’re not going to get any relief from me unless you let me see exactly what I want to see. Until then, I’ll just keep playing.”

Spencer’s smirk widened as he continued to test the boundaries of your resolve. His fingers, which had been exploring the more exposed areas of your skin, moved with deliberate intent. He leaned in closer, the heat of his breath mingling with the growing sense of vulnerability you felt.

His hand drifted lower, and you felt a jolt of anxiety as his fingers brushed against the waistband of your pants. The touch was teasing, a reminder of how completely he had taken control of the situation. His movements were slow and calculated, each brush against your skin designed to provoke a reaction.

You flinched as his hand inched past the waistband, the action crossing a boundary that made your heart race. Spencer’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he felt the fabric of your underwear beneath his fingertips, his touch both maddeningly faint and unsettlingly deliberate.

“Just a little closer,” he murmured, his voice dripping with dark amusement. “I want to see how much you can take.”

The sensation was overwhelming, creating a surge of conflicting emotions—fear, discomfort, and a desperate need for relief. Spencer seemed to revel in the control he had, his touch a constant reminder of how he could manipulate your reactions.

His hand lingered just enough to make you squirm, every brush of his fingers designed to heighten your sense of exposure. He maintained a close proximity, his face only inches from yours, ensuring that you were fully aware of his dominance.

As he continued his teasing exploration, his gaze never left yours, studying your reactions with a predatory focus. The psychological impact of his actions was evident in the way he played with your sense of control, leaving you trapped in a whirlwind of emotions and tension.

Without warning, he closed the distance between you, capturing your lips in a fierce, demanding kiss. His kiss was insistent, a claim that spoke of his control and authority. His lips moved over yours with a fierce hunger, as if he was trying to consume every part of you. The kiss was both intense and electrifying, a physical manifestation of the power he held over you.

You felt a mix of helplessness and intrigue as his kiss deepened, his dominance apparent in the way he controlled the pace and intensity. His hands roamed over your body with an assertive confidence, making it clear that he was in charge of this moment. The kiss left you breathless, your senses overwhelmed by the sheer force of his passion.

But as the kiss continued, something shifted in Spencer’s demeanor. His initial control and dominance seemed to give way to a more primal urgency. He pulled back abruptly, his breath ragged, eyes dark with a mix of frustration and desire.

In a sudden, almost desperate motion, Spencer seized you by the waist and threw you onto the bed behind him. The movement was rough, almost as if he couldn’t contain the intensity of his emotions any longer. You landed on the bed with a jolt, the impact leaving you momentarily stunned.

Spencer stood over you, his chest heaving, the earlier dominance in his gaze replaced by a raw, unrestrained desire. He looked down at you with a mixture of frustration and need, his body tense as he tried to regain control of the situation. The shift from controlled passion to uncontrollable urgency was palpable, leaving both of you in silence, the air thick with unspoken tension and the aftermath of the intense kiss.

He undressed with a practiced ease, his gaze never leaving you. The room was filled with a tense silence as he removed his shirt, then his belt, his movements methodical yet charged with an underlying urgency. His actions were slow and deliberate, each piece of clothing discarded adding to the intensity of the moment.

As he finished undressing, Spencer’s gaze remained locked on you, a mix of desire and dominance evident in his eyes. He approached the bed with a purposeful stride, his confidence unmistakable. The sight of him, now fully exposed and moving with a mix of control and raw desire, only heightened the tension in the room.

Spencer crawled onto the bed, his movements predatory and deliberate. He positioned himself above you, his body pressing down with a commanding presence. His touch was firm but carefully controlled as he began to undress you. His fingers moved with skilled ease, undoing buttons and slipping fabric from your body with a mix of precision and urgency.

Each movement was calculated to assert his dominance, his hands brushing over your skin with a mix of intent and intimacy. His eyes were focused, studying your reactions as he worked, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips as he took in the effect of his actions.

Despite the forcefulness of the moment, there was a clear sense of control in Spencer’s actions. He took his time, savoring the power he held over you, ensuring that every touch and movement was calculated to maintain his dominance.

“You look incredible,” Spencer murmured, his voice a low, sultry growl. His fingertips traced a deliberate path from your collarbone down to the edge of your waist. “Absolutely breathtaking.” He moaned.

“Spencer…” you began, your voice barely a whisper. “What are you—”

Before you could finish, Spencer silenced you with a fierce, demanding kiss. His lips moved against yours with a heated haste, his hands roaming over your body with a mixture of tenderness and assertiveness. His touch was electric, sending waves of sensation through you as he explored every curve.

When he pulled back, his gaze was intense, almost searching.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, his voice low and commanding. “I need to hear it.” Your heart pounded as you met his gaze, the vulnerability of the moment making it difficult to find the right words.

“I want… I want you,” you finally managed, your voice trembling with a mix of desire and fear. Tears threatened to fall from the mix of confusing emotions.

Spencer’s smirk widened, a satisfied glint in his eyes. “Good,” he said, his tone laced with satisfaction.

You responded to his touch, your body arching and shifting beneath him. The room seemed to vibrate with the intensity of your connection, each movement and kiss amplifying the sensation of being completely and utterly desired.

When Spencer finally eased himself into you, his movements were measured and deliberate. He looked down at you, his expression a mix of passion and concern. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice low and filled with genuine care. You nodded slowly unable to form any words, your breath coming in quick, shallow gasps.

He began to move with a steady rhythm, each thrust deep and deliberate. His eyes never left yours, studying every flicker of emotion that crossed your face. “You feel incredible,” he said, his voice a husky whisper. “I’m never going to get tired of this.”

As the rhythm between you and Spencer grew more intense, the room seemed to pulse with the energy of your shared experience. Every touch, every kiss, and every movement was charged with a profound sense of connection and desire. The air was thick with anticipation, and the world outside felt like it had faded into a distant echo.

Spencer’s movements became more urgent, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he watched your every reaction. His hands gripped your body with a mix of tenderness and need, guiding you through the waves of pleasure that were building with each passing second.

“Look at me,” Spencer said, his voice a low, commanding whisper.

You locked eyes with him, the intensity of his gaze mirroring the intensity of your emotions. The pressure inside you grew, a rising tide of sensation that made it hard to focus on anything but the overwhelming pleasure. Your breaths came faster, each gasp and moan a testament to the climax that was building.

With a final, deep thrust, the release hit you like a tidal wave. The pleasure surged through you, a powerful crescendo that left you gasping and trembling. Your body arched in response, the intensity of the moment overwhelming your senses. Spencer’s grip tightened as he held you close, his own release following closely behind.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, his voice soft as he pulled you into his embrace. You nodded.

As the room settled into a quieter, more intimate atmosphere, Spencer's intense gaze remained fixed on you. His breathing was heavy, but his demeanor shifted slightly, a subtle return to the commanding presence he had exhibited earlier.

He pulled back slightly, his eyes still smoldering with a mix of satisfaction and dominance. “Good,” he said, his voice a low, throaty rumble. “I’m glad you enjoyed that.”

You looked up at him, your breaths coming in soft, shaky gasps. The intensity of the moment was still fresh in your mind, but Spencer’s words brought a new layer of complexity to the encounter. His smirk held a touch of the predatory edge that had marked his earlier actions.

“Because,” Spencer continued, his voice taking on a more authoritative tone, “you still have a lot of debt to pay.”

His words hung in the air, their impact as sharp as the bite of his earlier touches. The shift in his tone was stark, the reminder of your precarious situation a jarring contrast to the intimacy you had just shared. It was clear that, despite the physical and emotional connection between you, the underlying reality of your debt and his control over you was never far from his mind.

“You think this is over?” he asked with a chuckle, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied your reaction. “This was just part one of the payment. You owe more than that.”

The reality of his words hit you with a mix of dread and resignation. The pleasure you had experienced seemed to clash with the reminder of your situation. Spencer’s dominance was evident not only in his actions but in the way he asserted his control over your circumstances once again.

He leaned in closer, his breath warm against your ear. “I’m going to make sure you understand exactly what it means to be in debt to me,” he whispered. “This is just the beginning.”

Thumbs up to you for making it this far ;)

[zepskies]

The Boys S4: Is it just me or...

Okay, anyone who knows me knows I love this show. And I don't mean to be overly critical, but...there's something missing for me in season 4. 🤔

Episode 4 brought me back in a bit more this week, but I have thoughts and just wanted to get them out. Which of course you don't have to agree with, if you so choose to dive below the cut. 😂

So here we go! Highlights and lowlights (and **spoilers**): ⤵️

Sorry in advance for my slightly stream of conscious-style thought process.

Lowlights (so far):

Kimiko x Frenchie: Violently pushing down something you built up for 2.75 seasons? Because "being more than that/family" can also be romantic? Why do you hate the fans, Kripke? 😂

The political "satire" is getting a bit old for me. A lot of the same jokes over and over. However, the problem of taking out Victoria Neuman is a very intriguing conundrum (and Bob Singer sweating over it while trying to keep supes out of the military/law enforcement is keeping me hooked).

THAT Rob scene: lmfao come on now. This was for gross shock value and nothing else. Even the exploding dick and Love Sausage in S3 served a narrative purpose. (But I enjoyed the footnote commentary while watching it on Prime: Rob B. apparently wants to remind everyone that he's a Shakespearean-trained actor. 🤣) I’m actually more disappointed that he didn’t have a more meaningful role in the show, because he really is a fantastic actor and I was looking forward to seeing what his character would bring. (Not that lmao.)

Overall, the season just feels...emptier than seasons 1-3? Maybe that has to do with the lack of Soldier Boy's gravitas as a new antagonist, and connecting the entire narrative and various conflicts of the season -- all while shedding light on the grisly past of Payback, Grace Mallory, and Stan Edgar. Stormfront also brought that ante up in season 2 in a similar way, all while shedding light on Vought's sordid history with the creation of Compound V.

We're missing the layers here in season 4. Now, this could just be because we haven't seen the full season yet as well, but that's what I see so far.

I think it also has to do with the odd dynamic the boys side is in right now. With Butcher on the fringe of the group, and the others splintered off on their own side plots, it feels like the supes' side of things are more...for lack of a better term, "unified" in the narrative.

Which I realize is probably to reverse parallel the state of each side in season 3. But it just feels "off" to me somehow, since we're supposed to be just as invested in the boys side lol.

Highlights:

Butcher and Ryan: Butcher's doing his best there now, and it soothes my heart.

Ryan's slowly seeing the consequences of his choice to join Homelander. In fact, I'm wondering where Ryan is in episode 4. Hiding in his room?

The Khan Worm that appears to be inside Butcher is both frightening and intriguing. I wonder if this is the key to saving his life? Or just another lovely side effect of taking V24 long term. 🐛

JDM (Joe) and Butcher: All their scenes were golden. And that subtle John Winchester reference? Being willing to train up his son to be a killer? Being able to grieve at his son's funeral, knowing he "saved the world?" *Chef's kiss* 🤌🏽

(And if Butcher or Joe end up being the one to break Soldier Boy out of his cryo coffin, my fangirl heart will freak TF out. 🤣)

The way that Homelander is noticing his age is fucking hilarious. Bet you wish you had that life longevity from your father/sperm donor, dont'cha? 😂

But also the way Homelander "confronted" his past in E4 had some truly WTF/Holy Shit™️ moments, in a good way. As in, I'm once again afraid of this unhinged psychopath--kind of way. 😅

A-Train continuing to struggle internally with the place he's fought so hard to keep in the Seven, versus recognizing the evil around him, his own complicity, wanting forgiveness from Hughie, and wanting a true connection with others (namely his family).

It's interesting that Hughie's mom is being brought back in at this time. And even MORE interesting that she seems to be the one who gave her ex-husband Compound V. Her story of why she left her family seemed so normal that I actually got a little suspicious of her. But now, even more so. 🤨

M.M. doing his fucking best. (Except for the way he suddenly had a change of heart about Butcher in E4. Not sure about that one.)

Tilda effing Swinton voicing Ambrosius. PLEASE. My Queen. 😭🤣🤣

I actually had more lowlights before I watched episode 4. There were some really interesting moments that literally had me gasping in shock (this time in a good way), more so than in the first 3 episodes. However, I still think seasons 1-3 were stronger from the get-go.

But even with my lingering reservations, now I'm actually more so looking forward to getting into the meat of the season in this second-half coming up. 👏🏽

[lochyratliffs]

for god’s sake can someone overexplain me “worship me but not worship me” dialogue? Was I the only one who found it too bizarre? Even more bizarre than “pleaser” explanation? Has Saxon understood the task of reinforcing boundaries idk why he still wants the “right kind of worship” to continue. Idk idk what do you foresee happening… they never talk properly again, Saxon uses better boundaries, Lochy completely retracts. Because there’s no way -worship me but don’t worship me- sounds like a good closure statement. If I were Lochlan I would have been highly confused, is Saxon putting the blame on him? But from his reactions it felt like he is the one feeling responsible and guilty.

YESS anon i also have questions!!! i'm opening this up to the floor so anyone with opinions please hop on here and help us out. this is just my read and i haven't gotten back to the last episode in my re-watch yet so i definitely need a refresh.

the way i see it... neither of them are being honest in that conversation. there is something far deeper happening between them in the subtext of that conversation, as evidenced in saxon pleading with loch to drop it, but then being unable to keep himself from looking to loch when timothy brings up the trauma in their family later.

saxon's only wish in the part of that conversation that happens out loud is to never think about it again, but there's a lot more happening in the part of the conversation that remains silent. saxon ABSOLUTELY HAS NOT come to understand the importance of boundaries-- he's experienced this thing that shook him to his core, and he's trying to go back to feeling good rather than trying to learn anything from the experience. we can assume based on this reaction that this has always been his MO -- deny, deny, repress, the episode is literally called "denials" and the saxloch storyline is in primary focus there.

you pointing out "the right kind of worship" is, i think, exactly what mike white was intending. there's a lot of viewers who watched this, wanting an easy out to stop thinking about it, who took loch's explanation as truth so they could move on. oh, this teenager is such a freak. oh, he's gay and his brother was naked and there. oh, he's a sex offender. meanwhile, they're in a batshit insane family dynamic where they have been (dare i say) groomed by their parents to genuinely believe they're better than anyone else who has ever lived.

so, we have point one: saxon has serious narcissistic tendencies. as the first-born son of an insanely wealthy white family, he's been raised to believe in his inherent superiority, regardless of what life tells him. he gets rejected by four women in the span of a minute? that's fine, he's better than them anyway. lochy finds it funny. saxon's sense of self remains in place. meanwhile, lochlan has lived his life in a love vaccuum as the youngest child and second boy (thank you rancidhomo for making me think about this) so he's looking for anything that will make his family, the people he's been told his entire life are the only real thing, love him. and that's his primary driving force. dad loves piper more than him and mom loves saxon more than him. who loves lochy?

so for their entire lives, saxon demands adoration, lochlan sees this as a way to be loved, and so lochlan delivers that adoration to saxon. if you want to get into the details, you can google "narcissistic supply" and think about how that applies to their relationship. i don't truly believe saxon is a diagnosable narcissist, but he definitely has those tendencies, like loch says, as does the rest of the family.

so that's their pattern, and when lochlan turns 18, it becomes sexual because saxon is sexual and saxon makes the decisions for him. i do think we're meant to assume that piper has a similar (but not sexual) relationship with lochlan, and that the way that saxloch develops over the week in thailand is because piper is distracted by the monastery. that's the root of saxon's jealousy/bitter comments about piper, because they've been playing tug of war with lochy ever since he was born.

speaking about closure, the theme of the season is a lack of closure. it's completely intentional that nothing really got resolved. we know this because mike white designed the season around the words the monk says at the beginning of the final episode:

“Our solutions are temporary—they are a quick fix, they create more anxiety, more suffering. There is no resolution to life’s question. It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.”

so, when we're talking about saxon and lochlan, sax chooses the quick fix, the temporary solution that causes more anxiety: he tells lochlan that he doesn't want to change anything about their relationship that led to the handjob, but he never wants to speak about it again. lochlan, please keep looking to me to make your decisions. please keep allowing me to strut, naked, around you. please let me feel superior to our sister by choosing me, always, over anything. this is saxon shoving responsibility off onto lochlan, because if he acknowledges his role in what happened, his sense of self will shatter completely.

what's kind of interesting is that while neither of them are being honest about their intentions or what led them to this point, they're, weirdly, being as honest about their roles in the family as they ever are? saxon admitting he sees and wants lochlan's worship, lochlan admitting he wants to please everyone at his own cost. and then, because acknowledging the truth of the Great Lie of the Ratliff Family ruins everything, they never speak again on screen. life has no resolution.

[nibeul]

there’s a lot of talk about Snow seeing Lucy Gray in Katniss which is true to an extent, but I think there’s a gaping flaw with a 1:1 comparison and it’s this: if Snow truly saw Katniss as Lucy Gray, then he wouldn’t have spoken to her the way he did throughout the series. elaboration under the cut because I have a lot to say

the most interesting thing about snow and katniss’s dynamic is that snow, on some level, respects her because he believes she is like him. Lucy Gray did not have that respect from him—he said it himself that he did not expect her to win the game, but that he hoped she would be successful enough that her appeal to the audience would boost his own standing:

“Coriolanus had never really considered her a victor in the games. It had never been a part of his strategy to make her one. He had only wished that her charm and appeal would rub off on him and make him a success.”

and another quote that makes his feelings toward her clear:

“Here in the capitol, it was given that Lucy Gray belonged to him, as if she’d had no life before her name was called out in the reaping.”

to Snow, Lucy Gray was always a means to an end. he loved her in the sense that he loved the success she brought to him, in a deluded manner where the power and her existence went hand in hand. Lucy Gray’s existence to him was as a tool and something to own, not as an actual person, and when we look at Snow and Katniss, that distinction isn’t there. here’s a quote from Donald Sutherland (Snow) that I find really interesting:

“Katniss Everdeen is the first person who has excited Snow, who has stimulated him. By the time you get into the, maybe the end of the second one, he's in love with her. Not sexually. No, my God, no, no, no, no: he recognizes in her everything that he could have been.”

In Peeta and Katniss’s relationship, through the eyes of Snow, Katniss is him, and Peeta—who is charismatic, knows how to play to the people’s heart, charms the capitol, etc—compares better to Lucy Gray. Yes, Snow places himself in the shoes of Peeta when he asks Katniss when Peeta realized her indifference (as he felt Lucy was indifferent to him), but it really goes the other way around. To Katniss during the first game, Peeta was a tool for her survival. For Snow, Lucy Gray was a tool for his.

despite this comparison, however, Katniss and Peeta are not what Snow and Lucy Gray could have had, but rather what Snow never was; even though the love between Katniss and Peeta was used as a tool of survival during their first game together, they continue to stick by each other and look out for each other as things get rough. Katniss is a survivalist, like Snow views himself, but she is also caring and loving and these are attributes that Snow never had (but someone like Sejanus did). Snow believes that humans are naturally violent, and he believes Katniss is like him, hence why he tries to prove that Katniss and Peeta are not in love at every step of the way.

when he is finally convinced of their love, he then views it as a weakness and punishes Katniss for it. it’s likely he hoped Peeta would kill Katniss, but I would also argue that he wanted Katniss to turn on Peeta too as he turned on Lucy Gray—another effort to break this love that he saw and warp it into something else. ultimately, we know this is unsuccessful, and I think that’s why the final conversation he and Katniss have went the way it did; he had lost at both games, the game of politics to Coin (briefly, though obviously we know he gets the last laugh with this one), and this game of love and identity to Katniss. Katniss is everything he was not, and it was at this point that he finally respected her enough to acknowledge that he lost.

[penvisions]

wish i never met you {a garnish one shot}

Pairing: Chef! Joel Miller x Professor! Reader (formally known as Bartender! Reader)

Summary: Fear of rejection and messing up so beyond comprehension makes you regret crossing the professional line and getting to know Joel as you do now.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: canon typical language, joel thinks he's the one in charge but we all know it's really reader, religious contemplation, mentions of past trauma, mentions of bad family dynamics, smoking, consumption of alcohol, menstruation, talk of menstruation, blood, cramps, muscle soreness, unorthodox pregnancy announcement, reader is a hot mess, allusions to adult content, allusions to smut, mentions of past p in v, might need to add more if i missed anything!

A/N: wrote this as part of a fun, silly fic title prompt game submission from a sweet anon. it totally inspired an angsty din piece at first that i have in my drafts but then these two slammed into my brain and hijacked the idea. i just love them, your honor. i have so much love for them. NOW I KNOW THIS SUBJECT MATTER ISN'T FOR EVERYONE, I REALLY DEBATED POSTING THIS OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS BC I KNOW IT'S NOT EVERYONE'S CUP OF TEA but i feel like this is a good trajectory for these two, truly. i'm so sorry if anyone disagrees with the direction i took this in and i hopei t doesn't take away from the original series for y'all

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

“No, fuck off.” Was the quick response to a wide palm caressing over your back. You were hunched over your crossed legs on the couch, aware of how bad the position was for your posture. But it was the only way to find any relief on your aching back. You had thought it was cramps at first, really, but then you realized all the symptoms of your monthly cycle fell in line with something else when the bleeding never started.

“Excuse me, darlin’? You sure you wanna use that language with me?” Joel’s deep voice was tinged with an edge, giving you the chance to retract your expletives. You were never so outright with your denial, never wanting to deny the man a few feet away. But the way in which you had expressed it to an obviously exhausted Joel was maybe too bold for the late hour. But you didn’t take it, instead repeating yourself.

“Kindly, fuck off. Don’t touch me.” You pulled away from him, hunching lower under his hand to break the contact.

“That’s not much better, ya know.” Joel’s hands shifted to his waist, a thick brow raised as he took in the sight of you nearly balled up, the faint light of the screen lighting up your face as you ignored him.

A harsh contraction of your muscles had you groaning out, “I wish I never met you.”

“C’mon now, you don’t mean that.” Joel huffed, trying to keep his calm, but you knew it was hard for him even if you really didn’t feel all that good. You never took your pain or frustration out on him like this, it was always soft murmurs of ‘hold me’ or ‘can I borrow your warmth’. Never the way you were reacting now.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into y-“ His mouth snapped shut, eyes focusing on the screen. On the words you had typed into the search engine. Normally he would tease you over the typos, your fingers not working as quick as you mind for all the grace and focus you normally had to expertly wield a sharp knife.

 Your heart thumped at the sudden silence. The fizzling tension that had filled the room.

“Don’t!” You gasped out, slamming the laptop closed and shielding the device with your body completely.

“Darlin’…” You swore you could hear the cogs turning in his head. Thinking back on the depraved as desperate way you had been seeking him out when he returned home from a late shift at the restaurant even despite the haze of sleep, in the mornings before you had to peel yourself away to go to campus, the photos you had brazenly sent him without warning that had him shielding or turning his phone over throughout the day. Thinking back on the way you had been inhaling food at any occasion, none of your normal contemplation or silence after what you considered a binge. Thinking back on the way you had begun to complain of your work clothing feeling wrong and too tight on your aching body as you dressed in the morning.

When he moved to sit on the other side of the couch, far too close for comfort, you shied away and pressed your back into the arm on your end.

“Not gonna touch ya, you have my word.” He raised his hands placatingly, his expression so soft that the tears burst from you without warning.

“You do-don’t wanna touch me. Not anymo-more.” Hiccups jolted your body, making the skin you were already uncomfortable in tingle. “I ruined ev-everything.”

He regarded you with a small frown, his plush lips pulled down as he clasped his hands together in his lap. Just as he opened his mouth to speak the words flew from you.

“I remember what you said, on the line.” You narrowed your eyes at him as they echoed in your head.

‘It had been a slow day, prep and cleaning taking over most of the evening shift. It had been back before you had taken on a role in the kitchen. Sneaking fries from the bowl of them on the expo line. They hadn’t been hot or even salted, but they were better than snacking on the fruity garnishes at the bar.

He had been passing the time with who you hadn’t known at the time was his brother, Tommy. Who had driven into the city to help take a look at the empty lot beside the restaurant, both of them contemplating the construction of a patio. But they had ended up in the kitchen, hunger too strong a call.

While Joel was on the line, Tommy was beside you, sneaking fries with a wink in your direction. But you ignored him, focused on looking through the catalogue of one of your vendors. Trying to make a seasonal menu. But your ears caught the harsh grunt of the man your eyes trailed over in the midst of busy nights.

“Wouldn’t do it, no.”

“C’mon, you seriously tellin’ me you wouldn’t baby sit for me if I were to gift you with a niece or nephew.”

“No, ‘m too old. Hire a babysitter.”

“You’re full of it ‘n you know it.”

“Brother, a baby is a lot of work. Now, your baby? Even more so.” Joel leveled his brother with a look that silenced any other argument on the matter.’

The moment he realized what you were talking about, his brows flew up into his hairline and he breathed out a hearty chuckle.

“Darlin’, I was just givin’ him a hard time. You gotta know that.”

“I didn’t know you.” You stood up from the couch, body protesting the movement. Cupping a hand over your mouth, you breathed harshly as you tried to tamp down a bout of nausea. “And now that I do, I’m gonna have to consider literally everything on my own and I’m gonna hate how much it hurts to not know you any longer. I wish I-“

“No,” He sighed, brow furrowing before he pinned you with a serious expression. “You do know me now and I wouldn’t turn my back on you, on this. I’m in it, pretty girl, no matter what you decide to do.”

When you whipped away from him, shuddering breaths wracking your sore body, the crack of your voice on a sob spurred him into motion. His arms came around you slowly, giving you the chance to retreat if it wasn’t something you wanted. But you let him, the feel of his chest warm and soothing on your aching back. The push of his soft stomach comforting. His chin hooked over a shoulder, and he spoke in such a somber tone.

“Darlin’, I always thought I was too old to do this again. But I haven’t crossed fifty quite yet and the thought of you carrying my child, of loving me and my child. God, I would give anything for it to be our future. To see you blossom into yourself more, to show our baby the same devotion you give to everything in your life, you deserve somewhere to put all your love.”

One of his hands moved over the one you had on your middle. Holding you so secure, holding you both so secure.

“Joel…it’s a lot. It’s….we’re not even-“ You turned in his arms, facing him. His beautiful, open expression so full of love and adoration, all of it for you. Your heart melted in your chest, dripping low to flutter in your stomach. You weren’t even overtly religious, left over from the trauma of your childhood. Of being forced to attend mass and important holidays alongside your grandparents. The denial of your father never urging you to seek out a higher power in replacement. But the thought of technically being single and going through something like this. It made you afraid.

“There’s a ring in my sock drawer. Got it the day of our first do over date. ‘s why I was so close to the campus. It’s yours. I’m yours. This could be yours. But only if you want it.” Joel’s forehead lightly thumped against yours as he pressed in close. His breath a warm wash over your face, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke.

Looking between each of his eyes, searching for any hint of hesitancy from him it was quiet. When you didn’t find any, you felt a smile pull at your lips as you nodded your head in affirmation. Wet laughter bubbling up as his lips pressed to yours, a smile of his own for you to feel on them.

“But I still expect you to propose, can’t skip any steps with me. I know you think you’re hot shit with being crowned the city’s most prolific chef of the year but I swear to-“

He cut you off with another kiss, his moustache ticking your upper lip as he nipped at your bottom one.

“I don’t wanna miss any steps with ya, darlin’. I’m here for ‘em all.”

It was hard to ignore the stirring of other feelings in your body, drowning out the aches and pains. But when realization hit you, you pulled back with wide eyes.

“We’re gonna have to stop drinking and smoking!”

“We?”

taglist: @tuquoquebrute @jessthebaker @littlemisspascal @76bookworm76 @hiddenbabynyc @clevergirl74 @anavatazes @samiamproductions @sarap-77 @honeyedmiller @undercoverpena

[canisbrutus]

*grovels on hands and knees*

Either Edgar or Casey hcs I need it I beg I beg I beg pls pls pls I love ur writing so good chefs kiss

allo allo o7 since i answered edgar already, time for casey.

Casey Harris ⚾

CW: mentions of/implied grooming. nothing explicit, but subject will be colored red if you wish to skip it.

The Basics:

puppies dog

look at him this man is practically a golden retriever in Frat form.

fun loving, and just as dumb; he's a simple guy with simple pleasures; mainly playing ball and hitting on girls.

generally speaking he was one of the nicer guys on the team, provided you weren't a Dick like jimmy and co.

a "stupid fucking ray of sunshine" depending on who you ask.

he just wanted to be liked, really.

above all else, praise is what kept him going; something he seldom got from his drunk father at home.

if only that didnt leave him... open.

(putting the rest under a cut because it does touch on a sensitive matter)

Extended Lores:

casey isn't the brightest, no.

he Did try for a long time to be, but it never really sunk in.

sure as hell wasnt easy with both ADHD and dyslexia kicking his ass.

eventually he did give up because he'd never be good enough for his miserable black hole of an old man academically, instead joining the sports team.

and there he found a 'better' father figure; one that actually seemed Interested in working with him towards his goals.

granted, burton's idea of helping involved steroids and calling him a sissy until he got swole.

and, well. let's just say i have my reasons for thinking burton isn't just interested in harassing the girls at the academy.

something about health class, i'm not getting into it because frankly its abhorrent, but something happened.

there will always be horrors but he always kept up a positive attitude; choking back whatever in favor of having a good time with his friends.

his friends, for the most part, being Dan and Bo, though he fraternized with all of the Jocks- Mandy included.

funny thing about dan, him and casey were actually very close in middle school.

upon entering the academy they briefly went separate ways due to the nature of their cliques, but casey missed him and didn't want his number one buddy to be 'lame,' so he ended up vouching for dan to join the football team.

also, dan was still pretty damn smart, especially with math and chemistry. who else was he gonna get homework help from?

(yes he did get math test answers from justin once, but only because hattrick usually puts a lot of Word Problems in his exams.)

speaking of that mission, since hattrick got fired before he could put out his last test casey Probably went and shook justin down for a refund.

he didnt get it, though, so he started beefing with the preps for a minute; usually via vandalism in the vale.

much to justin's displeasure, as you can imagine.

some flattery and perhaps a new pair of shoes gifted to the jock smoothed over that conflict, however.

this boy has potential for sure, but i dont think ive fleshed out the jocks enough to truly see his dynamics in full yet 💔 hums. i'll revisit him someday.

[hc masterpost]

[miupow]

[duality.] - huening kai. [PART 3] [TEASER]

[ kai kamal huening x fem!reader ] ❝Monday comes far too fast for your liking, and now you're in Hueningkai's bed. It was time to learn how much of a Not-Virgin he is.❞

WARNINGS: smut, NSFW, MDNI! (no smut in the teaser), hard dom!hueningkai, sub!reader, f2l, graphic depictions of rough sex and BDSM, spanking, pussy slapping, handcuffs and bondage, sex toys (paddles), degredation kink, pet names, sir kink, praise kink, condoms mention, unprotected sex, size kink if you squint, vaginal fingering, piv sex, possessive!kai, choking/breath play, hair pulling, fluffy ending hehe WORDS: (for the teaser) ~700

want to be notified when duality is posted? join the taglist for duality part three here!

You’ve never seen him this embarrassed before, avoiding your eyes with puffed-out cheeks and a pink face; it was a cute look on him. “I thought you knew I was coming.”

“Well..” he cringes, fiddling with the headphones still in his hands. His face looked even redder. “I… I kind of thought you weren’t going to.” 

“Why wouldn’t I come? I told you I’d be here.” you ask, cock your head at him, watch as he turns his console off and places his headphones down on his desk. He seemed nervous and disoriented, like he really wasn’t prepared for any of what he had talked about salaciously into your ear Friday night; you felt silly, suddenly, dressed up and standing expectantly in his bedroom. Maybe you shouldn’t have taken him so seriously. This didn’t seem at all like the man who had you pinned against a brick wall and begging for it just a few nights ago, and instead much more like the shy and gentle Hueningkai you knew much, much better. 

“I thought I scared you..” Kai admits with a fake, humorless laugh, his wobbly smile quickly folding down into a grimace as he sinks further into his chair. “This is usually the part where I scare people. They were only half-joking about the whole ‘running away screaming’ thing, you know.”

Your own frown deepens, unsure of what to do or what to say as you watch him pick at his sweatpants, continue to refuse to look you in the eye as he rocks himself back and forth with the swivel of his chair. “I mean, I’m not angry about it, obviously.” he continued, fluffy blond bangs hanging over his face as he stared at the floor. “That would be stupid. A lot of people don’t like this stuff, and that’s fine. I don’t want to force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. It’s okay if I scared you, it really is. I’m sorry I came on so strong Friday, it was a bad idea and I shouldn’t have done it and I was drunk–”

Kai looks up at you for the first time in a while, big brown eyes watery behind his bangs and breaking your heart– he looked so truly guilty, like he had been beating himself up over this for days. Like he had spent the entire weekend pacing and tearing himself to shreds just as you had. You wish he had said something sooner, so you could have told him earlier that he didn’t do anything that you didn’t like, that he startled you but in a way that awakened something in you that you didn’t even know that you had. You wish you had the courage to tell him that he could have done whatever he wanted that night and you would have let him, because while this new side to him made you nervous it didn’t scare you. Hueningkai could never scare you.

It hits you then that there really wasn’t another secret, darker alter to Hueningkai, some frightening Jekyll and Hyde dynamic that your friends had placed into your head. Kai was always Kai, your sweet, perfect, nervous, nerdy, awkward Kai, even when he was saying the nastiest things you had ever heard in your life, and you felt very terrible very suddenly that you had ever doubted your trust in him.

“You don’t scare me, Kai.” You say simply, because you couldn’t get yourself to say anything else. The genuinely shocked look on Kai’s face at your words makes your chest ache.

“Really?” He asks just above a whisper. “I didn’t scare you?”

“No, I… I liked it.” You admit, face heating up. “I liked it, and I want more.”

Kai’s big puppy eyes change in an instant; suddenly he was gazing up at you like a predator, big brown eyes slanted and dark, dripping with a hunger you were frighteningly unfamiliar with. The sudden shift takes you by surprise, ignites a delicious fire in your belly. “Okay then.” Kai says slowly, taking his time easing out of his chair. You don’t miss the big, dizzying bulge in his sweats when he stands up. “Then let’s talk.”

[local-lamppost]

Initial thoughts cause it's 4am

Spoilers

First off, wow... it's really good. I've been saying that if season 2 is as good as season 1 Arcane would be my new favorite show and we are on track. Anyway, just gonna list stuff until I can process/rewatch a billion times

Mel lived! I was so certain that they would just kill her off, make that Ambessa's motive (give Jayce a reason to keep fighting the Undercity) but it's much more interesting keeping her involved in the narrative. Love her trying to bother understand and undermine her mother. Those Black Rose guys best not have hurt a hair on her perfect head.

Speaking of. What in the Utena are these Black Rose magic people? I love the look of their magic. I wonder how they can corrupt people. Is it a spell? Do they slip them something?

Love how the divide of Jayce and Viktor was done. Jayce betrayed Viktor's wishes of destroying the Hexcore. Last season, Viktor wanted to forget about using the core to save himself after Sky and begged Jayce to destroy it when the core wouldn't allow Viktor himself to do it. In Jayce's mind though, the core is the solution to Viktor's problems. He didn't know it killed Sky or that it can influence Viktor, but all Viktor can comprehend is that Jayce didn't trust him. Didn't keep his promise. And this is fresh off of Jayce's season 1 antics against the Undercity, so Viktor's faith in his partner was already shaken. Viktor's also comfortable in his mortality/death, even though he wants to prolong it like every other human, but Jayce can't fathom loosing Viktor-the man who saved his life and made his dreams reality.

(Side note: Am I a JayVik shipper? I never considered myself one, but after writing this...)

JINX HAS A KID! I love this choice. Give Jinx a kid so she is able to learn what Silco and Vi had to go through with her, that no matter how big or dangerous a scheme to take this child into account. The confrontation in ep 3 really showed what Jinx will have to consider now that this kid's decided to adopt her as an older sister or something. Especially nice detail of how Vi-who has always had to consider the kids in her life-immediately stops fighting and starts looking for ways to keep the kid safe.

I was wondering how Jinx would loose a finger and Caitlyn shooting it off to save Vi is just- The fact that the only way these two can show they care about Vi when it comes to each other is by hurting the other.

Sevika's new arm is fantastic. It's a peace offering from Jinx, but also a way for Jinx to feel better (it was something she could fix). The mechanics of it are really fun. It reminds me of Kite's weapon from HxH with how it didn't always work/give her what she wanted in the fight. I especially love the victory rockets and built in theme song.

Ambessa is so interesting. Between her character song to the introduction of just what she is fighting against, I am very intrigued. She reminds me of Cersei Lannister, except she loves her kids as more than just extensions of herself (as of what we've seen, but I think that'll stick). Her using Salo to establish herself-which also keeps Mel safe by distancing her-but also dropping him in order to prop up Cait at her first opportunity is such a clever move. She truly is the fox and the wolf, but she is above all a mama bear.

Not much to say about Heimerdinger or Ekko yet, but I am definitely curious to see what they do about the wild runes with Jayce. The three of them have a fun dynamic, what with Heimerdinger still being peeved about magic/being ousted, Ekko hating topside and having a new reason to do so with them poisoning his tree, and Jayce being recently seperated and divorced from both his partners.

Vi is an enforcer. I didn't know how they were gonna handle this, but they did it so well. Of course she wants to fix things for the people her sister hurt. She feels responsible. She can say she doesn't blame herself, but how true is that? Why else would she be wearing a badge if not for her guilt? She is desperate to do something right and being an enforcer seemed to be a way to make Cait happy, get her gauntlets (what she believes is necessary to make any kind of change), and be first in line in the hunt for Jinx. She says that her sister is dead, that Jinx is a desecration to Powder's memory, that they are not sisters but isn't it supposed to be 'nothing is going to change that'? How much of all this is just something Vi is telling herself to keep going? Cait is her motive right now, but after ep 3 I definitely see why she starts spiraling.

(2 Side note: Her new best friend/drinking buddy is such a real one. They have a bender in the gutter together and now he's following her into and out of the enforcers. I wonder if he knew Vander? In any case, he is a delight.)

Cait and Vi kissed... CAIT AND VI KISSED! Then NOTHING HAPPENED AFTER! NOTHING! No immediate break up, nope.

So Cait. I love Cait and I am hyped for her arc this season. I am ready to fight tooth and nail for her. I am a Caitlyn defender. So what she's being manipulated into leading a military state due to her grief/unresolved anger/guilt/Ambessa being better at this than her, she looks amazing in her cape. It balances.

Seriously though, the writing for Cait especially is so solid. She is desperate to hold herself and her family together, to protect her city. She still wants to protect the innocent, to heal the Undercity, but her anger at a select few of those she wants to help is clouding the greater image for her. Vi seems to be acting as her better half, the side that cares for the innocent-the protector. Ambessa is the agressor, encouraging Cait to take drastic military action against the Undercity as a whole. Vi's disillusionment with Cait is due to the fact that Cait desire to heal, not harm, is what caused her to fall for Cait to begin with. To see more than some privileged topside enforcer, but a woman who genuinely cared and was willing to abandon her peaceful naivety to learn for the greater good of strangers.

I'll also point out that they separate when Cait starts blaming Vi for them loosing Jinx. Before, everyone but Cait put responsibility on Vi, she was supposed to be the one to help lighten the load and absolve some of the guilt. Now Cait is becoming another one of those who slam the blame on Vi. She changed. Why does everyone around VI change?

Can't wait for the next batch of episodes.

[nullindulgence]

i understand nagito, but it’s quite difficult to write his dialogue and his character. i wish i were more skilled in writing him…

as far as i know, with my brain fog as it is today, is that… (if i have anything wrong or there’s anything i’ve missed, please please tell me! i’m always incredibly eager to know more about nagito, as i relate to him deeply, based on what i know currently.)

sdr2 spoilers, tw for mentions of death, mental illness, and suicidal ideation

nagito’s FT dementia causes him to act in obsessive compulsive ways — such as him attempting to murder twogami, as well as him assisting monica in UDG (i did not finish this game, it was…not enjoyable for me.). i also think that him being on guard all the time because of his luck cycle, brings about further brain fog, which really, really just makes you feel like you’re rotting…

his experiences with his parents dying, being kidnapped, etc. have caused him to be terribly used to his cycle of good luck and bad luck, and also caused him to idolize these ideas of hope and despair. another reason he attempted to create despair in aforementioned events — to bring an equally powerful hope. i think that these experiences have also hurt him much more deeply than he would ever admit. he brushes off these experiences, and anything else bad that happens, because they’re just normal life.

i saw someone talking about how he envies hajime, and the other ultimates, for having the privilege to see death as a unique and devastating experience. i deeply relate to this. many people i know have died, and i often feel very guilty when i can’t feel much over it anymore. i’m sure it hurts me deep down, but i don’t feel it at all!

he believes that either you’re born special, with a talent, or you aren’t, and will not be special — i think that hajime’s existence challenged this fact, nagito thought him to be an ultimate at first, and this lured him in to knowing hajime, and starting to idolize him, but when he found out hajime wasn’t an ultimate…their dynamic is very complex! hajime, despite being a reserve course student, still had skills and other interesting things about him.

that’s another interesting thing about nagito! he seems to be so, so devoted to ultimates because of their hope role in his ideal, but he’s not TRULY interested in them, i feel — the moment he learns that hajime is the only one to not remember his ultimate, he kind of latches on. maybe it’s this idea of him helping an “ultimate” to remember his talent, a task that if he succeeds in, might give him a better view of himself that he, deep down, wants? wants to view himself better, i mean. doesn’t want to be how he is.

i feel like nagito enjoys being able to play “god,” in a way. he becomes very excited when talking about hope and despair, his luck cycle, and he seemed very excited over his plan — he gets to control something, or gets to feel like he’s controlling something, when his luck cycle has controlled his life since he could remember. also, latching onto this ideal of hope vs despair, good luck vs bad luck, gives him an idea of control. if he takes part in the despair to bring hope, it’s control.

more about ultimates — seeing them as symbols of hope, he idolizes them and objectifies them. i’m sure that this, combined with his lack of social awareness and knowledge of social cues, is why he comes off as so off putting. he can be blunt…another reason he’s difficult to write. he has so many inconsistencies, but they’re all very logical!

another inconsistency — sometimes he is aware socially, other times he’s not. or maybe sometimes he just doesn’t care. he’ll be blunt because he’s noticed something, he’ll say stuff that makes him highly suspect and not really care about that.

one thing i wonder though, is how he interacted with mahiru during chapter two, when he was tied up. i wonder if he requested a different food because he wanted to see how far an ultimate’s kindness would go when it came to someone as worthless as him, or maybe he knew she might pass the job off to someone else, which would possibly mean hajime. maybe it was both? maybe he did want hajime to see him, and he depended on his luck to bring hajime to him.

ah! another thing i forgot to mention. survivor’s guilt. i’m very positive that nagito has some survivor’s guilt buried deep within him. i feel like he would acknowledge it, the fact that other people died whilst someone like him is given the opportunity to live. i think he feels guilty that not only he has lived instead of them, but that he feels guilty that it means his luck cycle is still in existence, which means more hurt to the world and the people he cares about.

another thing i should note: nagito doesn’t close himself off emotionally. he just doesn’t acknowledge his feelings because sometimes, as i think, he’s too foggy to recognize them, and he’s learned to brush off the bad feelings, which also contributes to the “unpleasant positivity” he gives off. however, i do think that nagito has moments where he intentionally upsets people, so that their anger towards him will unite them as a group, even though it’s them against him.

nagito wholeheartedly believes everything he says, except for in the despair disease chapter. even the things that upset people! (unless if it’s from a book…i know he pulls shit from books lol.) he can be aware enough to know when to say what. (inconsistency again…sometimes he just says things because he’s not very aware. i notice that when he’s not aware, it’s usually in more calm situations, where his social unawareness would be seen as comedic. when it comes to trials and such, he’s locked in. insane, but locked in.)

again with the ultimates. this is a very very unorganized post…nagito wants them to like him, but he settles for them hating him, because at least he’s still acknowledged. i find that a very interesting parallel of how he treats reserve course students.

this part isn’t mine!! i saw it in an analysis video. but they say that another reason he’s so self deprecating, isn’t just because of the awful luck cycle, his ultimate being something out of his hands and something he doesn’t see as a talent (though he’s learned to utilize it, so that itself IS the talent,) but because of his short life expectancy. he settles for being hated because he doesn’t want to burden them, when he has so little life left to live.

another reason komaeda is so compulsive, i think isn’t just from the dementia, but because he WANTS to die. he doesn’t mind killing or being killed for his ideals. it makes him a martyr, in a way — in nagito’s mind, dying for the things he believes in the most, is the perfect way to go. he’s released from the cycle, his awful life where he’s only ever drifted by on a four leaf clover, and he gets to be in control in his dying moments. and if it causes despair, in his dying moments, he also gets to bring hope to worthy people who will continue to live.

another thing the analysis mentioned is that, in game and in udg, the line he’s willing to cross is different. in udg, he’s willing to participate in the worst event in humanity history (not the exact title…) but in-game, some despair doesn’t make for a good foundation for hope. they say this could be junko’s influence, causing him to be even more extreme in how far he’ll go.

i think i’m done rambling now…this is the analysis i kept mentioning: https://youtu.be/B8Q88U-_pYo?si=oMRUYQlOcSSkf266

give it a watch! it’s very interesting.

again, let me know if i’ve missed anything or gotten anything wrong. it’s been a while since i’ve really paid attention to sdr2, and i haven’t played through udg (urgh…)

[mrradmccoolman]

AHHHH sorry it's been so long!! welcome or welcome back to

ELLIOTT'S ANDERPERRY SONG ANALYSIS

today's song issss....

Spider by Momma

this one is very much a todd-centric song for me-- specifically focusing on his relationship with himself considering the way his family and the people around him treat him. the andersons are soooo unexplored in the movie and have such potential for a complicated and realistic family dynamic. i hope this analysis gives some insight into how i perceive both todd and the andersons as a whole-- i could go on and on about them, but ill try to keep this shorter for your sake!!

"blessed by every little universe" i see this lyric as how todd perceives his brother, jeffrey, to be. now personally, i see jeffrey as being a good big brother in general, who simply falls into the trap todd's parents and the people around him do-- they don't quite know what to do with him/understand him. (understand this is very much headcanon territory here; as i mentioned, todd's relationship with his family and brother is woefully unexplored in canon. many people see jeffrey as distant or even neglectful of todd, which isn't in any way a wrong perspective, but it's just different from the one i myself take :)) as much as todd loves his brother, he can't help but feel bitter sometimes at the way things seem to come so easily for jeff. one of the hardest things about having undiagnosed anxiety is that you truly believe everyone else around you is experiencing the same level of anxiety as you are, they're just better at dealing with it, and there's something inherently wrong with/weak about you that you can't. that was my experience, at least, and i think todd would feel the same way. not to mention jeffrey's various accomplishments; he's smart, well liked, sporty, and fulfills his parents expectations. things are surely more complicated than that, but todd may frequently feel like he's lesser than his brother, and of the two of them, his brother is blessed in every conceivable way, perfect to the point that his excellence extends to every possible universe with him in it. this lyric is also a parallel to one that todd uses to describe himself, which ill get into later.

"in a web, he's praying" this is another lyric i believe to be todd describing jeffrey. this means multiple things; it could be in relation to the religious aspect of welton/todd's upbringing, perhaps about how in jeffrey's personal 'web', he's meeting their parents expectations of faithfulness. it could also be about jeffrey praying for him; i think of a young todd praying to god to make him better, to fix him somehow. who knows if jeffrey or his parents actually pray for such things, but todd wouldn't put it past them. he wonders if jeffrey wishes for a better brother, one more talented, more outgoing, less like todd.

"big plans, an orchard i could call my own; a bed, a roof, my savings" in this lyric, todd refers to himself and his future with wry sarcasm when he says he has "big plans", because despite the adventurous future his parents have set out for him, he knows he cannot fulfill them. it's not just that he knows they won't make him happy; it's that he knows no matter what he does or how hard he tries, he'll be a disappointment to them regardless. therefore, his actual "big plans"-- or what he sees as the only things he'll ever manage to achieve-- are simple: somewhere to sleep and a roof over his head, perhaps on a farm somewhere where he works to pay rent (there's nothing wrong with doing so, but in his parents minds, to do so would mark him as a failure forever). his idea of his future is bleak and drab, because he doesn't believe he can amount to anything worthwhile.

"like a spider catching nothing" this particular lyric was what first made me think of this as a todd song, but i did some digging on the symbolism and found it fits even more. i like to look at genius lyrics sometimes when im not sure what a lyric means, just to gain some perspective, even if the way i personally see it isn't the way the artist originally wrote it to be. (that's the great thing about music!) i was curious what the artist meant with this line, but couldn't find anything on it, so i looked it up on its own to see if it was a thing people had written about and found this article. (just want to make it clear-- i don't know anything about this website or it's religious connections, but i did think the article was cool!) one of the ways it describes the symbolism of the spider really resonated with me in relation to Todd. it describes a spider's web as representing the mind and the string of consciousness, the complicated patterns being our thoughts. it also describes how presumably, early spiders were unable to differentiate between sticky and non-sticky webs, and so got caught in their own webs-- "unsuccessful spiders". it's with this perspective that i relate this line to todd. todd is so frequently anxious and caught up in his own thoughts that he finds himself paralyzed with indecision or making the wrong choice, too entangled in his own web to get free. what should be his safe space is instead another trap for him to spiral into, and what should be natural for him is instead the very thing that trips him up (social norms, relationships, self-esteem, etc etc). i use "should be" very loosely here because that's not necessarily true, but it's the way todd has been told he should be. he is an unsuccessful spider, catching nothing yet spinning web after web anyways with no end, getting entangled in his own trap. his web is a metaphor for many things: his anxiety, his self-esteem, etc.

"caught up in the highest corner of the room" while this line alludes once again to the spider metaphor, it also outlines how todd distances himself from other people, either by choice or circumstance. whether he wants to or not, he feels he doesn't belong/connect with other people, and sits on the outskirts instead. he doesn't know how to fit in socially even though he wants to build friendships, and convinces himself it's safer to stick to the sidelines anyways, even though it makes him unhappy. not only this, but it's hard for him to relate to other people. he feels like no one understands him. i think specifically back on when he first moves to welton, and all the poets are hanging out in his and neil's room. though it isn't conscious, he's excluded for the most part. the others can percieve that he's different than them and act accordingly. it isn't out of malice, but it still hurts him. it even takes neil quite a bit before he truly gets todd and how he feels.

"spun out and staying" todd is exhausted with being on edge all the time, "spun out", but he doesn't know what to do to stop it because nobody understands. he's alone and feels there's nothing he can do to change it, so he stays where he is because it's the only thing he knows.

"i'll watch, pretending that they're watching me" todd watches the people around him attentively, perhaps jealous of what appears to him to be ease at connecting with others. he observes them as examples of what a 'normal' person looks like and tries to imitate them. wistfully, he pretends people see him back, and are paying attention to him, even though he finds himself fading into the background.

"got good technique in faking; schooled in every little universe" lo and behold, it's the parallel to jeffrey i mentioned earlier!! todd is well-practiced in pretending things are fine, or at the very least, going under the radar. this could also be in relation to how he hides many aspects of his personality from the people around him; ex: when he receives a second desk set from his parents, even though he feels frustrated and hurt, he doesn't tell them how he feels. the "every little universe" part is a callback to the previous lyric; he feels so inadequate that he doesn't believe there is a universe where he manages to meet anyone's expectations.

"well-taught in waiting" todd is used to this sense of stasis, perhaps waiting for someone to notice or care about him, or for something to look forward to when everything feels so insurmountable. consider the dead poets society meetings, practicing with neil, writing poetry, etc. he's practiced in dealing with the things around him by surviving off of morsels of hope.

"no shine, heaven takes a lot of work; i've heard some people saying" while todd feels that friendships and success come easily to other people (for example, jeffrey) he thinks bitterly that for someone like him, it would take a lot of effort to meet the world's expectations, work that would not look pretty. he believes this because he's heard the people around him saying these sorts of things as he grew up, essentially saying he needs to shape up and do the work to be the man they believe he needs to become. in tandem, they imply that he himself is a lot of work, and/or hard to deal with. the lack of support and understanding he receives for his mental health really shows how other people would treat him, especially his parents. having a loved one with mental health issues is a learning process, one that im afraid nobody was willing to go through for todd until he meets the poets.

"they see what they wanna see" todd believes that no matter what he does, he will always be seen as a failure, as inherently wrong. nothing will ever change that, and he's exhausted with bothering to try, so he feels resigned to his reputation. no one will understand him, so why try explaining himself or connecting with others?

"i stick to diabolatry, it's my breed" diabolatry is defined as "the act of worshiping demons and devils." i see this as reference to both his sexuality and mental health struggles, both of which are attributed to the devil and satanic practices throughout history. todd and the people around him try to ignore these things about him, but deep down todd can't escape them; they're part of him. diabolatry is "(his) breed" because his anxiety, depression, and sexuality are part of who he is.

"planting empty seeds" todd is repeatedly told both through words and actions that the things he cares about are worthless and paltry, and that they won't result in success, which is what his family thinks matters most. anything other than what they expect of him is an empty waste of time that will never grow into anything substantial, so he shouldn't invest in it at all.

"everything is bad in me" the last new lyric, and this one is pretty self-explanatory. the whole song culminates in todd's ultimate belief: that he is the thing that's wrong, not the world around him. he expresses his frustrations, but when push comes to shove he knows that it's him that is the problem, and he's foolish for blaming anything else, but he can't help it. (of course, we know that's not true, but things aren't that simple for him.)

i hope you all enjoyed!! this was a fun dive into todd's character for me and an explanation of how it feels to deal with severe anxiety when the people around you don't understand/think you're just overreacting. it's something ive dealt with all throughout my life, especially from family, no matter how well-intentioned they were. let me know your thoughts!! :)

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