#and we love to see someone commit to the bit

[aliteralsemicolon]

FUCKING FINALLY DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG I'VE BEEN SUFFERING IN SILENCE. And still suffering but not in silence anymore

I'd like to start by reminding you, Samantha, of how traumatic of an experience this was for me. And how you've now put me through it twice now. So I've been through this a total of three times. And it literally hurts worse each time. HATEE. I HATE YOU!!!

Spencer is looking at you like he loves you. He doesn’t know how to look at you any other way.  Sometimes you don’t feel like this. Sometimes it’s easy. That doesn’t make the guilt in the pit of your stomach any smaller when it’s not.  The only thing you know is that you’ll want it again. This is what you’ll want tomorrow morning, or in an hour, or the second he’s gone. You’ll want it so badly you’d humiliate yourself for it. And humiliation in front of him is a fate worse than death. So you find ways to want him in the present. 

It's personal because I feel perceived even though this isn't about me but you know exactly what the fuck I mean you [redacted]. PLEASE I'M SO SCARED RIGHT NOW I'M LITERALLY HAVING HEART PALPITATIONS.

That’s all you need—you just need him to keep trying.

You can't hear me but I'm still screaming. I literally can't even write down what I'm thinking and you know why but it's okay because you know what I'm thinking and you should also know to start RUNNING because I'm literally on my way to blow up your place of residence 💞

March 9th. I'm gonna highlight things and then you have to interpret them using your memory.

“Don’t twist my words. I do care about you. A lot. I just—when we started this a few months ago you knew where I was at with commitment, and we agreed we’d be honest and communicate about what we were feeling—and what I’m feeling is that I’m not ready for this to be more than what it is! You knew that was a possibility, I knew that was a possibility. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It just means I’m not ready for… for labels, or telling the team, or—or putting pressure on ourselves to try and be something we don’t have the time to be right now.” Spencer looks at you with something close to disdain. It’s sort of like a bullet to a flack-jacket—it won’t kill you, because you’ve made sure to protect yourself. But it hurts.  “I make the time. That’s what you do when you care about someone. I mean—where am I, when we’re not on a case? I’m here. I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be. Do you think I do that because it’s convenient for me? We have the same 24 hours. We have the same job. It’s not about time. Don’t insult me by saying that’s what this is.” “I’m not trying to insult you.” The words come out an unsure waver—but it’s not because you don’t believe what you’re saying.  I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be.  Why? Why would he do that? Spencer is not gracious in the face of your silence. Maybe he interprets your inability to put words together—the way you froze as soon as he casually admitted something that feels so oppressive and suffocating—I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be—as your silent way of admitting he’s right, and you don’t care about him.  But he’s not right. You just can’t breathe. Why does he care about you so much? Someone would have to be looking very closely at you in order to care that much. To think you’re worth the trouble. But you’ve taken steps, your whole life, to ensure that nobody will ever be able to see you close enough. If they did, they’d notice all the structural flaws. The deep cracks and the sagging floorboards and the mold you’ve been covering in paint.  You feel your throat closing as he stands.  Yes. Leave. Get out. Don’t look at me. 

So this is a theme with a lot of what I've just read and to save you a 50K word reblog, I'm only now highlighting THE MOST important bits to me.

Even now, even drunk as you are—a very small part of you knows this is cruel.

So like. You might already be aware of how relatable reader is to nobody in particular, but this is very real. Like the worst part is the self-awareness throughout the entire course of the relationship.

They believed—they believed when I said you’re my boyfriend. They didn’t even question it at all. Like, what? They thought I was good enough to deserve you.”

How it feels*

You want to say it before you can’t. 

Bitch. Biiiitttttchhhhh. BITCHHHHH. And then the next do OHHHHH the things I am planning for you. Good things are not in your future Samantha. There is no future in your future Samantha. POST NUT CLARITY (no nut version) IS SO. AND REMEMBERING IT ALSO. EVILLLLLLLLLLLL (I get her). AND THE WAY HE CALLS HER OUT ON IT OH MY GOD YESSSSSSSS. AND THEN THE WAY IT GOES HOT AND COLD. Like obv that's a recurring theme, but still it's SO. OH MY GOD. NONE OF THIS CAPS IS EXCITING I'M LEGITIMATELY YELLING AT YOU.

The whole ice cream scene. I hope you have a good memory bc I am NAWT repeating that 💙 and then after when

The rest of the day, you’re almost… clingy.

Vicious cycle I'm telling you...

He respects your wish for privacy, but leaves the bathroom door cracked. You’d never tell him how much you appreciate that. 

SCREAMED GET OUT OF MY HEAD. Acts of service, literally taking care of her while not making her claustrophobic

“I don’t know. I don’t want you to be alone. I’m… I’m considering sitting this one out, too.”

Too much, understandable reaction by reader. But then the way reader wishes she told him VICIOUS FUCKING CYCLE SAMANTHA*

 Over the phone he insists that you don’t come over. So you show up at his door and use your key.

Count 1: Ignoring his wishes despite lashing out when he ignores yours. Count 2: Going far beyond what's required to take care of him and being unable to handle him doing the same (as seen earlier). Verdict: Jail. Samantha. You're going to PRISSSSOOOONNNN.

Also the fact that she's basically high on cough syrup will never not be funny. The events the occur due to this were never funny I hate you. Also, once again, the fact that she only ever confesses her love when she's under some sort of influence. It would be funny if it wasn't real. Actually ykw reader's so real.

“I have been patient with you. You were taught that the people closest to you are going to let you down and hurt you. It is not your fault that those lessons are biologically ingrained into your nervous system. I understand that sometimes it doesn’t feel safe to let someone in, and you’re just doing what you think you have to do. But you are an adult. I’m done letting you use me as a scapegoat for your own attachment issues. I love you, and I care about you, and I’m never going to punish you for caring about me. I’m not going to hurt you for it, ever. But I am not your doormat. So I need you to understand that the smokescreens and the manipulation tactics are not going to work anymore. If you leave, it’s going to be because you are afraid. Not because I’m clingy or obsessive or exhausting to be around. You’re going to take accountability for what this is.”

Oh my god yesterday was not the worst day ever, today is the worst day ever. Spencer putting reader in her place is supposed to be hot and sexy and 😜 not...this. If this was irl he would be catching fists. This would be my final crash out before I killed myself on the spot and left him with trauma he can never fucking escape.

Then you think awwwww they're gonna be friends now. WRONG. NO. IT'S A TRAP. They can never be 'just friends'. It's literally two steps back straight into that same vicious cycle.

You yelp in surprise when he grabs your hair and uses it as a handle to direct your attention toward the sofa.

Just as good as the first time. Actually can I put in a formal request for you this use this as a prompt and give me another smut piece. Please. Samantha. For all your evil sins this should be your reparation. To me. Or you can just not also. But remember when you and Lia blew up my house...

He’s so fucking strange. You missed him awfully. 

It be like that fr fr. Also, have I ever mentioned that I love the way you write smut. Because it's not a fantasised version of smut, it's raw and real. It's awkward and intimate like real life sex. And I cringe while reading it in the best way possible. You know like. When you're hanging out with a couple and they're very like lovey dovey and you feel like you're interrupting and they should get a room? That's how it feels. Like it's just that real. You're using your evil which powers to emulate the feeling of real intimacy for me as a reader, in both first and second person perspective. And this shit would get you burned at the stake once upon a time btw. Then in that same breath, it is exactly a fantasy. Because it's never really as pretty as you write it. It's funny and awkward and intimate, but real life never really feels that pretty. What I'm saying is, Spencer Reid being real would fix all my problems.

as even when you’re the one on your knees, he worships you. Christens you his own little angel, angel, angel—whispered like he really believes it, like you’re a miracle. Spencer loves in a way that feels like soothing, that feels like an apology for all the bad things that have ever happened to you and a nullifying of all the bad things you have ever done. 

Also the yearning. You always get the yearning right. I hate you. God I hate make up sex. Because why is it so bittersweet even when things are going good. Like the whole act of it is just so heavy. There's just so much emotion. AND

Spencer continues with those murmurings, like spells—things nobody who knew him would ever imagine him saying. Things that have you making promises, breathing uh-huh’s, telling him you love him. Things that have your vision going black and your throat tightening around choked moans. He’s never had you this vulnerable before.

This whole paragraph. Idk. I can't explain. Just the part where Reader's making half-baked promised and Spencer's physically comforting her while fucking her. GOD. I hate you. Truly. You are one of my biggest opps. And the fact that even as it ends, there's just SO MUCH fucking emotion. But then it ends so sweet and light hearted. Idk the contrast is confusing me.*

“You are my person, and I need that to be clear. Is that okay with you?” His sincerity has stunned you speechless, and the proximity isn’t helping either, so you can only let your fingers catch on his lapel and nod—quick, eager little dips of your head. Yes, yes, you think. I can’t say it like you can. But yes. Please. That’s what I want. 

You’re like… a lens I see the entire world through. I can’t do anything, or make any choice, without thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you. When we’re not together, it feels like I’m waiting for my life to start again. Nothing really counts unless you’re there to experience it with me, you know? I think of you as… I don’t know. Everything. You’re why I know it’s all real. Why it matters.  It was so much, you had to hide in the curve of his neck. It made you nervous. The bigger it is, the harder it falls.  But, because it mattered so much to you—because he matters so much—you found the courage to whisper against his neck: Me, too.

One of my assignments this week is to talk about a recent piece of literature we've read that inspires us and invokes strong feelings. How the fuck am I supposed to stand in front of my class and say "I haven't been reading much lately but this one Spencer Reid fanfiction by nereidprinc3ss..." Bitch.

Let me be good enough for him. Let me be someone else. Anything. I’ll do anything, just—please. Take this feeling away. Make me into a girl who deserves this kind of love.  God does not answer. 

Samantha I am tired. I am on my last straw. "Why can't you ever just be alright?" Samantha Last name. Excellent fucking question. Better question: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

It’s not his job to fix you. That’s not what he’s for. 

Kill. Murder. Btw.

“Not yet. They’ll—it’ll change things. But… but maybe we don’t have to hide it quite as much.”

Oh my god wanting to keep it private because then you have more control....which is not what I'm saying this is. So.

Sometimes when you miss him it feels like a threat to your autonomy, and by extension, your safety. You sure as hell don’t know how to just admit this to him.  So instead you pick fights. Not as much, anymore, but sometimes when you’re in need of comfort and just can’t ask for it, you’ll start pushing your luck with inflammatory comments.

I'm trying I really am*

“You. This thing you always do. I do not have it in me to make you feel better about yourself right now.”

So remember when he said he'd always be there but then reader kept pushing and it's almost like she knew this would happen because she doesn't know when to stop pushing 😂 but she also keeps making it worse 😂

See, this is why—this is exactly why you’ve done what you’ve done, why you’ve been the way you have and treated him the way you did for so long. Because of this inevitability. Because of your nature,

Oh 😂 right 😂 so maybe reader should be more self aware 😂 and Sam maybe you should [redacted] 😂 Oh it gets worse 😂 great 😂

I know I encouraged it but for my sake of mind I have nothing to say to you. Except I'm glad you did it because it's pivotal for a writer to experiment but as the current reader I have nothing to say to you 💙*

“Please,” you whisper. A trembling breath. More than a plead for sex. You are asking that he be kind. Perhaps it’s more than you deserve, but you can’t do this if he doesn’t touch you like he loves you. Not with him. 

I can't talk about this either*

He needs you to be predictable right now. No sudden movements. No derailments. To the best of your ability, you are quiet and good and gracious and docile. 

It’s not supposed to feel like this. 

I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

Your jeans have ridden up. One sock is striped purple and green. The other, brown, dotted with horseshoes and cacti. They’re visibly too big for you. 

“Nice socks.” You sigh, pausing just a moment before you finish pulling your boot on.  “Sorry. I need to do laundry.” You stand, and Spencer opens the door for you. “What socks you choose to wear are none of my business.” Halfway inside, you pause, glancing up at him. “Do you want them back?” He narrows his eyes thoughtfully.  “That’s okay. I have a pair just like them at home.”

BECAUSE HE HAS THE OTHER HALF. Idk if it was intentional but the English subject enthusiast in my sees the deeper meaning.

The problem is that with the two of you, there is never any stopping. Not definitively. Never permanently. You can say it as emphatically as you’d like. You can even sort of mean it. But the cosmos has other plans. 

The push and pull in this section god it's everything*

Ok then everything is okay because they ended up back in the cycle. Which is not good. But it's good for me because you didn't write anymore of that cycle so I can pretend it's good without having to reap the consequences. And I really like that you stayed true to the title and the fic went from spring into summer. Literally full year. It was very poetic. As I've mentioned before, this is the most graphic piece of media I've ever consumed, more than gore, and it was spectacular. Don't ever do it again 💙

spring into summer

the highest highs and the lowest lows of your on-again off-again relationship with spencer reid, tracked through the seasons of a year.

18+ (smut, angst, fluff) warnings/tags: (spoiler tags at the bottom of post) reader gets drunk a few times, questionable consent (not between Spencer and reader), much codependence, softdom Spencer/sub reader, oral m receiving, finger sucking lol, deep pen piv/intense sex, mention of marks being left, praise tho dw he is soso nice and loves her, fighting/yelling/sex as reconciliation, general toxicity and lots of it DDDNE!! avoidant!reader, panic attacks, joke abt r being high off cough syrup when she’s sick and Spencer is taking care of her, implied trauma, IM MAKING IT SOUND CRAZY BUT THERE IS A LOT OF STRAIGHT UP FLUFF IN HERE GUYS PLS THEY ARE SO CUTE A BUNCH OF TIMES. wc 23k (!) longest nereid fic ever!also had to squish 167 lines together so the first half is a bit compact I apologize!! a/n: yeaaaah…. Thanks for being patient w me guys :”)) I miss posting sosososo much and I out genuinely probably days into this fic like once I was writing for 15 hrs straight. So. Yeah. I so so hope u enjoy and I love u miss u MWAH

February 17th

You don’t know when you last blinked. 

Flickering blue and white light washes deep into the backs of your eyes as you stare at some old film without watching it. A knight atop his steed warps and stretches gruesomely under your apathetic observation, and whatever noble speech he’s giving turns to monotone slurry before it hits your ears—old-fashioned English smeared in 1960’s transatlantia. A buzzy drone in iambic pentameter. The sluggish pound and gush, pound and gush, of a failing heart. 

Spencer said you’d love this movie.

“You okay?”

The question draws you from your fugue state, and you turn, eyes so dry they sting when you finally blink. He’s comfortable. You’ve been here for hours—enough time for his hair to tousle, enough time he decided to trade his contacts for glasses. When you look at him, there is only static. 

You must be having one of those nights again. Something in your body refuses to succumb to the comfort his presence should offer, regardless of how many hours you’ve spent together. Or days, or months. 

It’s awful because you fought to be here, sitting on his couch, sharing a blanket. You fought every instinct in your body for so long just to get to this point because you wanted it so badly, and now that you have it—now that you’ve had it, this weekend, and last weekend, and every weekend you haven’t been out of town on a case for months—you struggle to let it feel good. 

Spencer is looking at you like he loves you. He doesn’t know how to look at you any other way. 

Sometimes you don’t feel like this. Sometimes it’s easy.

That doesn’t make the guilt in the pit of your stomach any smaller when it’s not. 

The only thing you know is that you’ll want it again. This is what you’ll want tomorrow morning, or in an hour, or the second he’s gone. You’ll want it so badly you’d humiliate yourself for it. And humiliation in front of him is a fate worse than death. So you find ways to want him in the present. 

This is the right thing. 

“I’m fine,” you promise. His brow flickers. The knight’s shining armor makes a glare off the lenses of Spencer’s glasses. 

Before he can say anything, you lean into his side, dropping your head to his shoulder and settling your weight against him. Immediately he’s wrapping an arm around you like you knew he would, because he doesn’t have a choice. Not when it comes to you. You don’t give yourself time to feel bad about that. Instead, you press your lips to the bit of collarbone visible over the neckline of his shirt. A series of kisses litter the warmth of his throat. You take and take like an invasive species. A hand pushes into his hair. 

There’s hesitance in the way he kisses you back as you sling a leg over his lap. So you take more. You kiss him harder. You need his hands on you, you need him to hold you by your thighs or your hips or your waist like he’s not afraid. At least one of you mustn’t be so scared. 

Spencer only requires a few more moments before his will melts, and he grabs you how you knew he would. Like he’s going to make something of you. He’s going to make you his. He’s going to break you and put you back together stronger, and he’s going to tell you what you are. That’s all you need—you just need him to keep trying. This is a promise you need him to keep making. 

“Pause the movie,” you breathe into his waiting mouth. 

He’s warm. He keeps you safe. 

March 9th

The heat in your apartment kicks on with a rumble that seems to shake the whole place. It’s the first noise in minutes. 

Spencer is at your little wooden dining table, hair mussed, pajama pants rumpled, staring into a chipped mug half-full of black coffee. You stand in the kitchen, countertop digging into your hip as you watch him. Outside, the sky is still spilled winter ink. The only light comes from a lamp you’d bought with him months ago at an antique shop. The stove clock flicks from 1:31 to 1:32. 

The ringing silence is killing you. 

“Spencer—”

“I—” he stops and you watch his throat bob. “I don’t understand—”

“I explained it to you—”

“You explained what? That you—you don’t care about me as much as I care about you, and you want to be together, but you don’t want me to think of it as a real relationship, and you’re letting me know out of courtesy? What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Don’t twist my words. I do care about you. A lot. I just—when we started this a few months ago you knew where I was at with commitment, and we agreed we’d be honest and communicate about what we were feeling—and what I’m feeling is that I’m not ready for this to be more than what it is! You knew that was a possibility, I knew that was a possibility. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It just means I’m not ready for… for labels, or telling the team, or—or putting pressure on ourselves to try and be something we don’t have the time to be right now.”

Spencer looks at you with something close to disdain. It’s sort of like a bullet to a flack-jacket—it won’t kill you, because you’ve made sure to protect yourself. But it hurts. 

“I make the time. That’s what you do when you care about someone. I mean—where am I, when we’re not on a case? I’m here. I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be. Do you think I do that because it’s convenient for me? We have the same 24 hours. We have the same job. It’s not about time. Don’t insult me by saying that’s what this is.”

“I’m not trying to insult you.” The words come out an unsure waver—but it’s not because you don’t believe what you’re saying. 

I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be. 

Why? Why would he do that?

Spencer is not gracious in the face of your silence. Maybe he interprets your inability to put words together—the way you froze as soon as he casually admitted something that feels so oppressive and suffocating—I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be—as your silent way of admitting he’s right, and you don’t care about him. 

But he’s not right. You just can’t breathe. Why does he care about you so much?

Someone would have to be looking very closely at you in order to care that much. To think you’re worth the trouble. But you’ve taken steps, your whole life, to ensure that nobody will ever be able to see you close enough. If they did, they’d notice all the structural flaws. The deep cracks and the sagging floorboards and the mold you’ve been covering in paint. 

You feel your throat closing as he stands. 

Yes. Leave. Get out. Don’t look at me. 

March 13th

“Spencer.”

The name drips from your lips like melted sugar. Like a term of endearment. Just saying it makes you warmer. It’s maple syrup in your veins. You try to tug your dress down your thighs and stumble in place. The bartender holding your phone twists his wrist to speak into the microphone. 

“Hey, man. Your girlfriend is wasted. Cabs aren’t running and you need to come pick her up before she throws up all over my bar or wanders into traffic or some shit.”

“I’m not—I’m not wasted,” you mutter, pushing hair out of your face. Neither of them are listening as the bartender relays your location and assures Spencer that an eye will be kept on you until his arrival. As soon as they’re done, you’re leaning forward over the bar. “Gimme him,” you whisper-shout, making a grabby-hand. 

The bartender passes you your phone with raised eyebrows. “He’ll be here soon.”

“But he’s—he’s not on the phone?” You realize, closing your eyes and frowning as the heartbreak processes. 

“Nah. Drink this and sit tight. And don’t fuckin’ throw up. Please.”

You sigh and sip on a lemon water, smearing lipgloss all over the rim of the glass and wiping a dribble off your chin after you swallow. “Spencer’s my boyfriend,” you tell the man, dreamily. 

“So you’ve told me.” 

“He’s so handsome… and smart… and we’re in the—the FBI. Can you believe that?” You cackle and slap the bar top. Mr. Bartender only hums an uh-huh as he focuses on making someone else a drink. 

When Spencer does finally arrive, you’re elated. Glitter courses through your veins. More than that, you’re relieved—you catch his eye and light up, and when he makes his way through the throng to you, you’re ready to melt all over him. You haven’t spoken to him in days. 

“You’re here!” You sing, hooking an arm around his back and resting your head on his bicep, looking up at him with big, bleary eyes. Spencer supports you with an arm and doesn’t let go even as he’s fishing out his wallet to settle the bill you racked up. “Wait, Spence—we should have one more drink.”

He’s not looking at you as he speaks. “Absolutely not.” And then, to the bartender, “Thanks, man.”

“Spencer,” you begin again, savoring his name on your tongue and admiring his profile as he walks you out of the bar. “I told everyone I met tonight that you’re my boyfriend.”

“I heard,” he says simply, scanning the street before you cross. Presumably the wind is whipping at your bare legs, but you don’t feel it. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because…” you hum thoughtfully. “Because I like you so much. And I liked thinking about you being my boyfriend.”

He doesn’t respond. Even now, even drunk as you are—a very small part of you knows this is cruel. Just last weekend you’d let him walk out of your apartment precisely because you weren’t willing to label things. 

In the morning, that will still be true. But this is just play-pretend. 

“Also, because—isn’t it—isn’t it crazy, that you’re the nicest, prettiest, smartest, best guy ever, and they believed me? I showed them pictures and told them about your degrees and everything and they still believed me. They believed—they believed when I said you’re my boyfriend. They didn’t even question it at all. Like, what? They thought I was good enough to deserve you.”

The sidelong glance he casts you then is like a grappling hook, and you stumble into his side. His brows are knit over eyes that have gone glassy black in the dark, illuminated only by the shifting reflection of each haloed street lamp you pass. It’s hypnotizing. “You think you’re not good enough for me?” He asks. 

You hiccup and clap a hand to your mouth, stickying your palm with remnant gloss. “Oops. No. I mean, yes.”

He’s on the verge of replying when the smell of something fried and sweet has you perking up like a bloodhound. A blinking neon sign behind him catches your eye. “Oh my god,” you interrupt. “They’re—holy fuck, Spencer. That donut shop across the street—oh my god. We have to go. Please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?”

One thing about Spencer you know to be true—and, perhaps the characteristic of his that defines your entire relationship: he has a profoundly difficult time telling you no. 

Which is how you end up eating donuts in his bed. The ones you couldn’t finish end up in a paper bag on his bedside table—tomorrow’s hangover remedy—and you end up safely tucked under his comforter, in his shirt, smelling of his bodywash. His touch still burns everywhere, like the paths of his fingertips had etched glowing tributaries into your skin. 

All of this to say, you couldn’t possibly be happier with the way the night unfolded.  

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the complete black of the room after he flips the bathroom light off on his way out, but you manage to track him nonetheless. You relish in the familiar dip of the mattress under his weight, the careful tug of the blanket as he gets in bed with you. As he pulls you into him, without hesitation, it’s like ecstasy. Everything is okay again.

It doesn’t take long for you to get close to sleep—it’s been days since you’ve been able to. Just before you go under, Spencer secures you to him. He presses his lips to your temple. 

“I love you,” you mumble. You want to say it before you can’t. 

He strokes your hip. And then you’re gone. 

March 26th

“Did you mean it?”

You look up from the transcripts you’d been studying—the latest victims both had behavioral issues at school. Spencer is across from you, on the other end of the big glass conference table at the Memphis field office. Binders and notebooks and thick Manila folders form a sort of abstract frame around him as he leans back in his chair, gripping the plastic arms. His eyes are laser-focused on you. How long has he been staring at you, thinking about this?

“Did I mean what?”

“When you said you loved me.”

The door is closed and the blinds are shut. You almost wish this were more public so you could reasonably (and urgently) change the subject. Instead, you laugh awkwardly and cast your gaze sideways as if something in your peripheral vision could save you. “When did I say that?” 

It is very clearly the wrong question to have asked. Spencer blinks and looks down through the table at nothing, brows knitting slightly like he’s accounting for new information and adjusting his frameworks accordingly. You swallow. The trouble is, you remember saying it with perfect clarity. You’d just been hoping he would let you off the hook for it. 

“Okay,” he says, after a few eternal moments with only someone’s ringing landline in the office beyond to bridge the gap of silence. 

“… Okay what?”

He picks up his pencil without making eye contact. Twirls it between nimble fingers. Pulls his chair close to the table like he’s going to settle back into his work. There are times where he is capable of immersing himself in whatever he’s reading completely and immediately, but you know this is not one of those times. The petulant flash of his eyebrows, the chin balanced on his fist to hide his mouth. And that perpetually tapping pencil. For all his genius and every one of his quirks, you know he can’t focus on reading and fiddle at the same time. You’re not a profiler for nothing. 

“Spencer.”

“What?”

The immediacy of it is almost enough to have you wincing. 

“I… I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I asked you a question and you didn’t know what I was talking about, so it’s fine.”

“But you’re obviously upset.”

“I’m not obviously anything. You’re reading into it.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Oh my god. Says you.”

The pencil hits the table—as does the other hand. Spencer sits up straight and looks you right in the eye. Uh oh. 

“You responded to my question with another question to avoid giving me a real answer because you think I won’t like what you have to say. Am I wrong?”

Your face goes hot as your mouth opens and closes uselessly a few times. A moment passes and you hate watching that vindication, that hurt, freezing him over, more solid with each second you don’t speak. Mostly you hate that feeling in your throat—it’s either bile or the truth. You’re not sure which one will come out when you open your mouth. But you have to try. He’s backed you into a corner. You swallow. 

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, you are.”

Spencer blinks. “Oh.”

“Oh,” you huff mockingly, averting your eyes to the paper in front of you and strangling your pen as your cheeks positively burn. 

More buzzing silence. 

“Sorry,” Spencer tries, having softened considerably and now obviously remorseful. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. You don’t have to… say anything before you’re ready. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Still avoiding his gaze, you hum. It’s a manic, anxious sort of sound. The nail of your thumb wears away between your teeth before you switch to picking at the dead skin on your lip. Your foot bounces as you read the name of the victim over and over again, just to have something to do. Kelly Shelton. Kelly Shelton. 

You don’t realize he’s rolled his chair over to you until there’s a gentle hand around your wrist. 

“Stop,” he murmurs, not letting go even when you look at him indignantly. He produces chapstick from his pocket, because of course he does, and presses it into your palm. His eyes are so big and so brown and so warm, almost calf-like, that it’s very difficult to stay mad. “I’m sorry. That was unfair of me.”

“Yeah. It was.” You drop your eyes to where you’re fiddling with the lip balm. His hand still rests over your wrist. If he won’t let you pick at your lips, you’re at least going to chew on them—especially with the concession you’re about to make. “But… I mean… you held out for a while. I guess I’d probably be curious too.”

“So you do remember saying it.”

You look up at him with eyes that you hope effectively say don’t push your luck. At this, he has the audacity to smile—something smitten and stupid and cute. God, he really is easy on the eyes.

“If you tell anyone, you’re dead,” you warn, but it comes out all wrong when you’re fighting back a twisty grin of your own. “And they’ll never know it was me.”

“Noted.”

“Because I could really get away with it. Like, really. I know exactly how to throw off an investigation.”

“Easy, tiger. Put that on. I’m going to get you some water so maybe you’ll stop dessicating your lips.”

“Why are you so worried about my lips?” You ask his retreating back. 

Spencer barely looks over his shoulder as he clicks his tongue, like you should already know. “Vested interest.”

You slink low into your seat and try not to be flustered. 

April 15th

“That tastes like lawn clippings.”

You laugh at the face Spencer is pulling as he lets your gelato melt on his tongue. “No it does not! It’s so good! You seriously don’t like matcha?”

“Matcha is fine.” He points at your cup with his dinky wooden spoon. “That is grass.”

It’s the first warm night of spring, and you and Spencer weren’t the only ones who had an itch to get out of the house. Bars and restaurants have set up their sidewalk seating. Food trucks seem to dot every corner, and on this street alone there have got to be nearing a hundred people, milling about or seated, all talking and laughing. The two of you are ambling back toward his apartment. Efficiency has not been a priority of the journey. 

“The lady said it’s one of their most popular ice cream flavors. It wouldn’t sell if it actually tasted like grass. You’re just delusional.”

“Not ice cream.”

You frown and suck on the wooden end of your spoon, looking up at him through narrow eyes. His hair is getting long. “What?”

“It’s not ice cream. Gelato and ice cream are fundamentally different.”

“How?” 

“Gelato uses more milk, less cream, and usually doesn’t contain eggs. It’s also meant to be served at a warmer temperature. And they have entirely different regional origins. Thus, not ice cream. If your opinion is going to be wrong, you should at least try to get the facts right.”

Spencer is smiling at his cup when you shove against him. “If mine is so bad, let me try yours.”

“No,” he laughs, eating another pitifully small spoonful. “Because I know if you try mine, you’re going to realize it’s better, and then we’ll have to go back.”

“That is not going to happen. Just let me try! Please? I let you try mine!”

“Forced me to,” he mutters, smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth as he slows to a stop in front of a mostly-budded spindly tree. You stand toe to toe on the sidewalk as he scoops a bite for you and holds out the spoon. As soon as you lean forward to taste it, you realize he was completely right. His is infinitely better than yours. Spencer’s lips twist and his eyes sparkle at this recognition, and you’re pissed it’s so visible on your face. 

“You’re making me go back, aren’t you?”

“… No. Yours isn’t even good.”

“Oh my god,” he laughs. “Come on.”

“Mm… okay.”

You turn around, and immediately freeze. There, at the edge of the crowd of food-truck goers, you see a distinctly colorful and familiar silhouette. Penelope Garcia is facing away from you, but even from the back you’d never mistake her for someone else. Those metallic green platform heels had very nearly crushed your toes in the elevator just this afternoon. 

“We need to go.”

Spencer frowns when you turn right back around and he has to take a few quick steps to catch up when you feel no qualms about leaving him in the dust. “What? What happened?” He asks, craning his head to scan the crowd shrinking behind you. “Is that Penelope?”

“And Kevin,” you agree. 

“Oh. You don’t want to say hi?”

At first you think he’s joking. But when you feel his eyes on the side of your face for a moment too long, you meet his questioning gaze. “No, I don’t wanna say hi.”

A familiar pause. The one that always comes right before he starts a fight with you. “You don’t want them to see us together?”

You sigh. “I—no. You know I don’t want the team to know yet. And if Garcia finds out, it’s gonna be the whole team. They’ll just… they’ll make it weird.”

“I think you’re making it weird right now. We’re allowed to spend time together outside of work. I sincerely doubt that if they had seen us back there Penelope’s first assumption would be that we’re together.”

We’re not, you want to say—but you bite it back. Because, even if not by name, in effect you are. The only reason to remind him of that at this point would be to hurt his feelings. And you’re not cruel. Or at least—you don’t try to be. 

“I just—I’m not ready for that.”

“We wouldn’t have to tell anyone.”

“Can we please just drop it?” 

You didn’t mean to snap. Luckily your brisk pace has taken you far enough away that the ambient sounds of the city will surely muffle your voices before they reach your coworkers. 

Spencer is silent. Your gelato hits the bottom of a nearby trash can. 

Back at his apartment, things remain slightly tense. You don’t like it—his reticence, the physical distance he maintains. 

Spencer’s getting water in the kitchen when you wordlessly excuse yourself to his bedroom. A few minutes later, you emerge, padding quietly across the antique tile, and he turns around—eyes shamelessly scanning you up and down as he notes your lack of shoes. And pants, probably. 

“I thought you were planning on going home for the night.” He sets the glass down on the counter when you don’t stop coming. 

“Don’t feel like driving.” You wrap your arms around his middle and rest your cheek against his chest. “Can I stay?”

He’s quiet a moment. You don’t always reward him with overt, unapologetic affection like this. Especially not after the recurring what are we argument. “You know you can.”

“Thanks.”

After one more moment of hesitation, or reluctance, or something—his arms snake around you. You relax further into him, eyes fluttering shut. “I’m sorry about earlier. With Penelope.”

The thrum of his heart could lull you to sleep. 

“Me, too,” he murmurs—and there is something like grief laced into the words. You pretend not to notice. 

April 29th

“Sorry I’m late. Crash on the beltway,” you breathe as you blow into the roundtable room one morning, tossing your bag on the table and falling into a seat. 

JJ nods, leaning back in her chair. “Oh, yeah. Spence got delayed, too. Maybe it was the same one.”

You clear your throat and focus on flipping open a file. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Spencer is holding back a grin so bright that you can practically hear the crystalline twinkling as it fights to be freed. 

Later, you corner him by the coffee machine. 

“You have to stop doing that,” you mumble. 

He’s leaning against the counter, one hand in his suit pocket—your favorite suit of his—as he watches you smugly from behind his cup. “Doing what?”

The look you give him then could boil water. He maintains his innocence. 

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Yeah, asshat. Making us late,” you hiss, only after a proprietary scan to make sure nobody’s standing close enough to hear. 

“Friday is statistically the most dangerous day of the week on the beltway in terms of vehicular collisions. But there’s nothing I can do about that. You look nice today, by the way. Had a good morning?”

The audacity on him. Your face burns as you try to think of a retort, but all the signals have been intercepted—playing clips from your rather leisurely morning in a hazy highlight reel that is most certainly not appropriate for the work place. But he doesn’t let you flounder for long. Instead, he’s pushing off the counter and standing too close, just barely resting a hand on the small of your back as he reaches up to grab your mug from a shelf and you try not get dizzy from the proximity. 

“I’ll bring the coffee to you, sweetheart. Go sit down.”

The words, the gesture, are all too subtle for anyone else to notice. They turn you into a puddle of idiot. He’s never called you sweetheart. He’s never condescended to you like that before. You’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to like it so much. 

A few minutes later, the mug hits your desk. With ten words, he’d reduced you down to something shy and nervous, and you look up at him as he slides the coffee toward you like he might do something else crazy and unreasonably attractive. “Thanks,” you murmur, accepting the drink and exerting excessive willpower in order to turn your attention back to the computer screen. 

Rossi calls from the catwalk. “You do deliveries now? Fantastic. I’ll take a cappuccino.”

“Yeah. I’ll get right on that,” Spencer mumbles, and makes a beeline for his desk. You hope his face is red. Serves him right. 

The rest of the day, you’re almost… clingy. At lunch, you silently slide your chair over to his and begin eating without a word. It’s not like you have anything to say, really. You just crave the comfort of his knee against yours. When he fleetingly rests his hand on your thigh under the desk, for the briefest of moments, you’re far too pleased. 

Soon, JJ joins you, and then Penelope. But you don’t mind. Sometimes the nature of your relationship with Spencer and the secrecy of it all is a major source of stress for you—but today, it feels more like an alliance. Something special between the two of you that nobody else gets to share in. 

You keep casting glances at him, just for the pleasure of the view. Hoping he’ll be looking back. The third time you make eye contact, he shakes his head subtly and smiles down at his salad. You bite back a grin of your own, and try to focus on the story Penelope is telling. Sometimes, keeping secrets is fun. 

May 3rd

When Garcia said the case was local, you didn’t think you’d know the final victim. You didn’t think you’d have to watch her die. 

After the EMTs clear you, Spencer takes you to your apartment. You don’t speak a word the entire drive. Not in the parking lot, not in the lobby or the elevator or the hallway. You don’t speak in the bathroom when he quietly asks if you want help getting out of your bloodied clothes. Gently, tactfully, he coaxes a nod from you, and then he’s unbuttoning your shirt. It’s not your blood. 

The shower is started. Do you want me to come with you?

Another shake of your head. He respects your wish for privacy, but leaves the bathroom door cracked. You’d never tell him how much you appreciate that. 

After the shower, after you’re dressed, Spencer brings you tea and sits on the bed with you. At some point he changed from work clothes into pajamas he’d left here, even though he didn’t ask if he could sleep over. You’re grateful. Maybe he noticed that you’d left all the lights off, and he doesn’t try to turn them on. You’re grateful for that, too. 

“We don’t have to talk about it right now. But we can, okay? We can talk about it whenever you’re ready.”

Another morose nod. You stare into the amber depths of your tea. Not now. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. 

“I just wanna go to bed,” you whisper. All the screaming has shredded your throat. The words come out like rice paper. 

Spencer holds you until the room fills with milky grey dawn light. And though neither of you are speaking, he doesn’t fall asleep. You can tell from his breathing that he’s staying awake for you. 

-

You’re supposed to take a week off, at the least. This is not something you want. Being alone for eight hours a day sounds like it’ll be the opposite of helpful—but so what. You can handle it. When Spencer calls to tell you there’s a case—that’s when the panic starts to well. 

You pick at your lip, and then when you remember how he’d scold you for it, switch to pulling a loose thread on your sock, phone poised in your free hand. “I’ll come in.”

“You can’t,” he says, voice tinny through the speaker. “You cannot be in the field right now. You know that.”

You sit up a little straighter, nails biting into the skin of your ankle. “What am I supposed to do—just—just rot here for however fucking long you’re—you guys are gone?”

Spencer sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t want you to be alone. I’m… I’m considering sitting this one out, too.”

Your blood goes cold. “Spencer.”

A beat. “What?”

“You’re not staying behind for me.”

“I’m—”

“No. That’s not—that’s not what this is. That’s not what we do. You’re going to go do your job, and I’m going to stay here.”

“You just said—”

“I don’t care what I said! You’re not putting me ahead of the job! You’re not staying behind to check up on me. I’m an adult.”

“You don’t need to lash out. I’m just worried about you.”

“Worry about doing your fucking job. And don’t call while you’re gone.”

You hang up and throw your phone at the end of the couch. 

-

Spencer gets home at the end of the week to find his apartment broken into. The first clue was that the culprit forgot to lock the door after they used their key. The second and third clues were haphazardly untied and dropped in the middle of the living room. 

He finds you in the dark, curled up on his side of the bed under the blanket. Spencer drops his bag and rounds the bed to you, sitting on the edge and carefully taking your head into his lap, where, as if on cue, you begin to cry. For a long while, he doesn’t say anything—only pushes your hair out of your face with a gentle hand and fruitlessly wipes away tears. You’re not sure you’ve ever cried like this in front of him. 

Eventually, you try to breathe, pushing the heel of your palm into your eye as if you could forcibly hold the tears in. “I c-can’t believe that she’s gone,” you gasp. 

“I know, honey,” Spencer murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”

You sob harder. “It sounds so s-stupid, but I can’t—I don’t underst-stand how she’s dead! I saw her last week!”

“It’s not stupid. Human brains struggle with loss because we constantly function under the assumption that people are still there even when we can’t see them. Your brain is trying to contend with two incompatible realities, and it’s exhausting, and it hurts a lot. I know it does, angel.”

“I just—I saw it happen—I haven’t slept, because—” A cleaving cry pushes through your sentence, cutting you off. The air in the room is vacuous around your grief. 

“I know,” Spencer whispers again. His voice is so tender it bruises more than it breaks. “I know. I wish you hadn’t. I’m sorry.”

The fact that you went days without talking or even exchanging a text goes unmentioned. Your outburst goes unmentioned. Still, Spencer wishes you had told him what was going on sooner. He would’ve come back in a heartbeat. You wish that, too. 

May 20th

Spencer is sick. Over the phone he insists that you don’t come over. So you show up at his door and use your key. What is he going to do? Get up from the sofa and physically remove you? Not likely, in his state. 

As soon as you enter the apartment, you see his head poke up from the couch. Then he groans, hoarse and congested, and drops back down. “I told you to stay away. I’m still contagious.”

“I brought you three kinds of soup,” you say, completely ignoring his bid to send you away as you breeze into the living room and sit on the coffee table across from him, paper bag in tow. “But I think you should start with this one. It’s chicken noodle with garlic, ginger, and turmeric.”

“Anti-inflammatories.”

You give him a dazzling smile. “Exactly. So you’ll get better quicker. I looked it up.” Spencer smiles at this too. Despite the sallow skin and the darker-dark circles, the brilliance of it still has the ability to fluster you—so you move right along. “Um—I also got—I brought honey-herb cough drops, like the ones you keep in your desk. Oh! And this immune-boosting tea. I don’t know if it works, but it sounded good. And… I brought you orange juice for vitamin C—and, okay—you don’t have to try this, but it’s one of those, like, immune-boosting shots? It’s just a tiny little bottle of ginger and turmeric juice, I think. It’ll probably taste bad. But I got one for me, too, so we can take them in solidarity. And maybe then I won’t get sick.”

Spencer just watches you for a moment. You smile awkwardly and pick at a thread on your jeans. “Sorry, I know this is a lot. Sorry if I overdid it. I can go, if you want—I just wanted to make sure you had—”

“Stop. This is amazing. You’re genuinely like an angel. Thank you.” Spencer reaches out and sets a hand on your thigh. The idea that he wants to show you affection but doesn’t want to risk your health is so endearing that you can’t help yourself—you slide to your knees in front of the couch and wrap your arms around him best you can. He chuckles and hooks an arm around your back, rubbing a few short lines over your shirt. 

After a moment you pull back, and press a fleeting kiss to his warm forehead—but you stay kneeling in front of him for a bit longer. Unwisely close, most likely. His eyes are bleary, glazed with illness and watercolor soft on you. 

“What are you gonna tell the team if you get sick?” he murmurs, gaze tracing your face in gentle lines. 

You hum, wrapping your hand around his forearm. “We were doing mouth to mouth resuscitation?”

-

Turns out the immunity shots were a gimmick, because the next week, you’re sick as a dog. The team doesn’t ask any questions—it’s completely reasonable that Spencer could’ve infected you without getting his spit in your mouth. 

“Guess what?” You ask from his couch as soon as he opens the front door, making a beeline for the kitchen to set down his groceries. 

“What?”

“Penelope called me today asking why I wasn’t home. Apparently after work she stopped by to bring me soup. I told her I was at the doctor’s, and she was like, at six PM? And I was like, yeah, she’s a weird naturopathic doctor, and then she started naming all the naturopathic doctors she knows.”

“Technically you are at the doctor’s,” Spencer reminds you as he comes to sit on the coffee table, much like you’d done last week. “You still sound congested. Are you feeling any better?”

You lean into his touch when he checks your temperature with a cool hand to your forehead. “A little, maybe.”

Spencer frowns as he brushes his thumb across your febrile cheek, sporting that little worried line between his brows that you find so cute. “You’re not coughing. Have you been taking that cold medicine?”

“Plenty.”

A slow smile blooms on his face in spite of the concern. “Oh. So you’re high.”

“No!” You giggle, though you’re definitely a little loopy. “And hey—even if I was, that’s medical malpractice on your part. One, you should never share prescriptions, and two, you should never let the patient administer her own doses when she’s really sleepy and out of it.”

Spencer lets you grab his hand, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Can’t leave you alone for even a day,” he scolds through a grin that oozes affection. 

“You know what would make me feel better, Dr. Reid?”

“What?”

“A kiss.”

“Can’t risk it. The virus could have mutated. It might reinfect me.”

“It wouldn’t do that to me,” you promise. Spencer smiles even wider, squeezes your hand tighter. 

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Because we go way back. Like to last week when you got sick.”

“Right. You’re getting cut off the cough syrup, Typhoid Mary.” At that he tries to get up, presumably to go make you dinner—but you refuse to let go of his hand. 

“Hey, wait.”

Spencer, now standing and still holding your hand, looks down at you expectantly. Your head lolls on the pillow as you blink up at him. “Love you.”

He smiles, softer now, and kisses your wrist, right where the feverish blood flows closest to the surface. “I love you.”

After that, it’s hard to feel too bad. 

June 6th

“Can you slow down?” Spencer follows you into the bedroom where you immediately begin yanking open drawers and shoving clothes into your duffel bag. 

“No, because you’re going to try and fix it, and I already told you I don’t want—”

“Jesus Christ—I’m asking you to stop for one fucking second so we can talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I do. There are two of us in this relationship, and I want to talk about it.”

“And I just said I don’t.” Half the clothes you’ve accrued here are on his floor because they wouldn’t fit into the bag. Both of you stomp carelessly over them toward the bathroom. You’re grabbing products at blind from the medicine cabinet. 

“You are unbelievable. How many more times are you going to do this? How many times are we going to break up because you—”

You whip around, brandishing a toothbrush. “We’re not breaking up. We’ve never broken up because we have never been together. That’s the fucking problem—you always think everything means more than it does. You’re obsessive and clingy and smothering and so fucking exhausting to be around. If you want to talk about it, there. That’s why this is happening.” You shove past him and he tails you down the hall. 

“You’re pathetic,” he calls. “Truly. This is pathetic.”

“Stop talking to me.”

“You know what your problem is? You know why we keep doing this? You’re a coward.”

“Oh my god. Great, yeah, this again. Let’s have this conversation again, please.”

“If you don’t like it maybe you should fucking listen to me this time!” 

The yell rings. It might be hard for the average person to get him this angry. To you, it comes naturally. It comes like switching the shower water from hot to room temperature, washing cool down your neck and shoulders. 

“Goodbye.” You’re making for the door, and you get so far as to open it—but then, Spencer has his hand in a vice grip around your wrist, and he’s slamming the door shut. You startle, almost jumping back into him and then whirling around. He’s so close you can see the freckle in his iris. “What the fuck is your problem?” you shout—when he goes low, you go lower. “Let go.”

“I am not going to keep doing this with you,” he breathes, and his eyes are so dark, so full of gravity and swirling with anger—that for the first time, you actually sort of believe him. “I will say this one last time.” Your heart is pounding as his tongue darts over his lips. You’re frozen. Battered silence hangs all around, waiting to be broken and put back together for the umpteenth time this week. But he keeps his voice low. “I have been patient with you. You were taught that the people closest to you are going to let you down and hurt you. It is not your fault that those lessons are biologically ingrained into your nervous system. I understand that sometimes it doesn’t feel safe to let someone in, and you’re just doing what you think you have to do. But you are an adult. I’m done letting you use me as a scapegoat for your own attachment issues. I love you, and I care about you, and I’m never going to punish you for caring about me. I’m not going to hurt you for it, ever. But I am not your doormat. So I need you to understand that the smokescreens and the manipulation tactics are not going to work anymore. If you leave, it’s going to be because you are afraid. Not because I’m clingy or obsessive or exhausting to be around. You’re going to take accountability for what this is.”

Your wrist flexes in his hold. The words are like searing fire in your veins, in your whole body—burning you clean from the inside out. This is the worst thing he could have said to you. The worst thing he could’ve done while he made you look into his eyes like this. You’d rather be stabbed. If you could, you’d play dead. But you have a terrible feeling that he’s ready to stand here, watching you, for hours. For as long as it takes you to move again. 

“You need to let go of me,” you whisper. 

And he does. For a moment, you stand there, afraid to move, watching him wearily like he’s going to grab you and drag you deeper into some cave—somewhere he can wrap you in a web and keep you there to poke at forever. But he doesn’t. Not when your fingers twitch at the doorknob. Not when you twist it open. Nobody chases you down the hallway. 

He simply lets you go. 

June 11th

The team doesn’t know about your most recent split with Spencer. They never do. No matter how many times it happens, no matter how many brutal arguments you get into, no matter how many disgusting things are said, no matter how many of his dishes you shatter—always, without fail, the two of you will go to work the next morning, stand peaceably next to each other in the elevator, and your coworkers will remain none the wiser. How could they possibly suspect a breakup when they never knew you were together?

It makes you feel insane. It’s like the relationship is a shared hallucination, and the only person who’d assure you that you you’re not going crazy is the one person you don’t want to talk to. And, of course, it puts you into situations like this. You and Spencer have been tasked with going to the medical examiner. Just the two of you. Aside from the hum of the wheels spinning against the wide road and the purr of the engine, the SUV is silent. 

“Take a left up here,” Spencer eventually says. 

You shoot him an irritated glance from the driver’s seat that he does not reciprocate. “The GPS is on, Reid.”

“Yeah, but you have it on silent. You keep missing turns. It’s rerouted three times.”

You grimace, glancing between the road and the mapping system several times. “Wh—and you didn’t think to tell me?”

Spencer doesn’t respond. It’s probably for the best. 

Fifteen minutes later, car doors are slamming in almost-unison. LA is hot today—white sunlight bleaches the sidewalk and beams off the shiny car in death rays. You flip your sunglasses down over your eyes and breathe in the wind coming off the ocean, ruffling the towering palm trees and your shirt. You don’t wait for Spencer. All you can think about when you look at him is what he’d said to you against his door—how he’d laid out the truth bare and in turn made you feel stripped and humiliated. Little more than a specimen, belly up, for him to sink his scalpel into. 

“Hold on,” he calls from behind. For decency’s sake, you do. After all, he is your co-worker. You don’t take your hand off the knob as you watch him coming up behind you in the door’s paned reflection against a wide, aggressively cerulean sky. He’s got sunglasses on, too—too many layers of glass between your eyes and his. You wait for him to speak. He takes his sweet time. “We need to be functional.”

“We are.”

“We need to be more functional. No more avoiding talking on the job.”

You open the door, baptizing yourself in the freezing rush of lobby AC. “That was a you problem. I would have vastly preferred if you hadn’t spent the first five minutes of the drive not telling me that I was going the wrong way.”

“I know,” Spencer agrees, holding the door open above your head. “Sorry. You’re just… kind of scary, sometimes.”

A probable understatement. The corner of your mouth twitches as you flash your badge to the receptionist, and she picks up the phone to alert the examiner of your arrival. 

June 30th

The elevator door was sliding shut as you and JJ chatted about where the two of you were going for dinner—perhaps that new Mediterranean spot with the nice outdoor seating—and then, there was a hand. The door stopped and slid back open. Spencer clearly wasn’t anticipating that it’d be you and JJ, but only the briefest flash of hesitation is visible before he’s plastering on an awkward smile and stepping in. 

“Oh, Spence! We were just talking about going out to dinner—do you have plans?”

You bite your tongue at JJ’s invitation and stare at the glowing panel of buttons. Spencer falters—you can feel his eyes on you. 

“Uh—tonight’s not a great night for me, actually.”

“Are you sure? You cancelled on me last month. And the three of us haven’t gone out in a long time.”

That’s how you end up at a smooth wooden table in a stucco courtyard under a big blue umbrella, serenaded by the burbling of a central tiled fountain and some bouncy stringed instrument coming through a wall mounted speaker with JJ and Spencer. And then, because of course, JJ gets a call from Will—something about the kids throwing up—apologizes profusely, and then leaves. Leaves the two of you alone. Together. At a restaurant. 

Silence hangs from the umbrella. You get impatient under the pressure of it. “Wow. We’re already having so much fun.”

The sarcasm does not go over Spencer’s head. “In my defense, I tried not to come.”

You sigh, cheek squished against fist and studying the way sunlight bounces off the splashing water as you slurp forlornly from a straw. “Not your fault.”

“Should we go?”

You turn your attention back to him, squinting and nibbling at the end of your straw. “I don’t know. We already ordered.”

“So… you wanna wait?”

A shrug. “It probably won’t be that long.”

And with that, a silent treaty is signed. 

“You know,” you begin, fishing a strawberry from your glass, “JJ was right. I can’t remember the last time the three of us hung out.”

“September 24th.”

You nod. “Wow. So, like… eight months. We kind of suck.”

The reason you’d stopped going out as a group was as much the changing of seasons as it was the shifting in your dynamic with Spencer. Around that time you’d started to see him one on one a lot more. This truth goes clearly acknowledged, but unspoken, as he tracks a drip of condensation down your glass and then regards you with a cool sort of curiosity. 

“Eight months is quite a while, huh?”

You eye him right back and lean down to your straw. “Basically forever.”

Later, easy chit-chat dots the short walk to your vehicle—it’s been hours, and you haven’t run out of things to say. You could keep going, you realize once you’re standing next to your car. A month without his company, and you’re brimming over with stories and anecdotes you’d been saving for him. He’s the first person you think about when you hear a funny joke or learn something new. That doesn’t just go away when if you’re not on good terms. It simmers. Waits for inevitable release. 

The sky is a gorgeous cocktail of pink and purple and yellow. You tilt your head back and close your eyes, just briefly, breathing in, letting the setting sun soak through your skin. 

“Beautiful,” you observe once your eyes flutter open again, tracing the wispy edges of rose-colored clouds. 

“Very.”

You sigh, taking in just a bit more vitamin D—and then you’re looking back at Spencer. He’s already looking at you, gilded in the heavy aureate light. Studying, in that way of his.

“Are we good?” He asks, after a moment. 

You blink. And then you offer him a small smile. “We’re good.”

July 13th

The trouble of being friends with Spencer is this: once you allow yourself a taste, no matter how small, no matter how innocent—you’re overcome with the desire to bite down. You want him between your teeth and on the back of your tongue. Messy, starving, gnashing, you don’t care. You want and want and want. 

Victim number one of your relapse: the coat tree. It clatters to the ground and spills everything everywhere when Spencer stumbles against it, trying to walk backwards into the apartment after you blindly lock the door. Of course, he couldn’t see where he was going—he was too busy tracing the seam of your bottom lip with his tongue. 

“Shit,” he breathes, nearly tripping again as winter coats and scarves, dormant for summer, wrap around his ankles and threaten to pull him down. You giggle breathlessly, slipping off your own shoes as he kicks at the heavy fabrics like they’re going to bite. Then he’s pulling you back into him, deeper into the apartment, tongues clashing. It’s been a long time, and he’s demanding. Not that you mind—not at all. Though, when he pulls you the opposite direction of his bedroom—toward his desk, in fact—you’re certainly confused.

“Bed?” You whisper against his mouth. 

“Can’t. Rebinding books, they’re laid out on the bed while the glue dries.”

Okay. “Couch?”

Reluctantly, Spencer pulls away. You yelp in surprise when he grabs your hair and uses it as a handle to direct your attention toward the sofa. Also covered in books. It’s amazing, actually, the sheer volume of them when they’re not neatly tucked into the shelf. And he’s got them all memorized. You look back at him, a wave of renewed awe washing through your veins. He’s so fucking strange. You missed him awfully. 

Pressing close enough is impossible, then, as you kiss him hard. There is a blatant, unapologetic hunger in his touch which completely ignores the border that the hem of your short dress presents, grabbing the back of your thigh in a bruising grip. Your breath catches against his mouth at the way his fingers dig into you like you’re wet clay and he knows best, he knows how to make you into something better, as the slow ache crawls up the back of your neck and furrows your brow. Spencer’s not afraid to touch you. He knows exactly how to make sure he’s got all your attention.

Nobody else has ever been able to do that. From other hands, when you’re forced to go begging for the cheap version of what you really want, it’s little more than untrained violence. Spencer knows how to make it feel righteous. Nobody is ever him. That hand comes to slide up the front of your thigh, thumb skimming the hem of your underwear while he dives back into your mouth and you let yourself be completely washed out in the riptide of his desperate affections. All that you’d been missing for months—you want it now. You want to show him how much you missed him. 

“Spencer—” you gasp between kisses. He hums against your mouth, and you let your hand slide down his stomach to hook in his belt. “Spence, can I—please, baby—”

“You don’t have to beg me, honey. I’m gonna give you whatever you want.” Lips against your warm cheek, your forehead, as he lilts sweetly, breathily. “Anything.”

So you’re nodding, dizzy in your anticipation and your desire, wordlessly pleading for more of his mouth on yours while you take off a belt you’re intimately familiar with. The clinking metal wakes up a part of you that’s been asleep since the last time you’d had him like this. When you drop to your knees, he seems vaguely surprised, eyes soft and all love on you. 

“Really?” he croons, hand already at your temple, already smoothing baby hairs. Already being the person you want him to be, because he’s been waiting, because it’s natural. Your nod, your eyes, the way your hands find his legs—it’s all enough for him. You get what you want. 

The hardwood presses against your knees, shifting and squeaking beneath you. Spencer takes his time pushing your hair out of your face, gathering it between his fingers and holding it to the crown of your head with an impossible kind of tenderness as you move. He strokes your cheek, brushes his thumb feather-light over the soft line of your lashes, once, twice. The fabric of his trousers bunches in your hands where they rest on his legs—he’s so kind to you that it hurts, it makes you want to cry, it makes you want to stay here forever just so he’ll keep looking at you like that, so you never forget how his pinky feels against the nape of your neck or the heel of his palm feels against your temple as he plays and plays with your hair, as even when you’re the one on your knees, he worships you. Christens you his own little angel, angel, angel—whispered like he really believes it, like you’re a miracle. Spencer loves in a way that feels like soothing, that feels like an apology for all the bad things that have ever happened to you and a nullifying of all the bad things you have ever done. 

Afterward you press your forehead against his thigh, mostly to hide the welling of your eyes when there’s no longer any good excuse—partially as a kind of supplication. Never let me go again. Please. No matter what I say. I’m sorry. 

Spencer fixes himself, crouches to your level, drops your hair just to push it out of your face and make you look at him. Your chest rises and falls rapidly as your glossy eyes dart between his. But you don’t look away. You don’t want to. When a tear rolls down your cheek, he sees it, and there’s nothing you can do. And you realize you’re not sure you’d want to hide it after all. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he murmurs. “We’re okay. What do you need? What can I give you, sweetheart? Do you want to be done? Want me to move the books so we can sit down?”

“No, no—I don’t wanna be done. I just missed you so much. I was dumb before. I’m sorry.”

He softens impossibly at this, to the point where he’s hazy around the edges, melting into the warm ambient light. “You weren’t. You weren’t dumb. Come here, stand up. You’re never dumb—here, is this okay?” He’s sat you on his desk, shoving things aside to make room—casualties for a later consideration—and he’s already littering kisses over your neck. “I missed you too. I think about you all the time, angel, you don’t need to apologize, just… god, I missed you. Please let me touch you. Please.”

It’s hard to say no to that—what with the begging, and the pull of your lip between his teeth, and the heat of his breath fogging your brain. There’s not a lot of room to work with, but you manage to lean enough of your weight back that he can tug your underwear down your thighs. They end up on the floor, and you feel his hand sliding beneath your dress again, where you’re bare for him, and he doesn’t make you wait. 

“Oh my god, you’re perfect,” he mutters upon discovering just how ready for him you are. You hiss as he slips past the initial resistance. Spencer responds with his lips pressed to your head, but he shows no mercy with the slow rock of his hand, the drag against where you’re softest and where you need him the most, the exact right place to touch you. Your arching, squirming, whimpering, doesn’t deter him in the slightest. When your thighs clamp shut and you shift back, he follows you. When you look up at him, brow furrowed, lips parted—in disbelief but without the words to say it—he’s already looking at you. “I know,” he assures you. “That’s it, huh? Right here?”

Rapidly you nod. His exhale is almost one of relief. “Yeah,” he sighs, knowingly. Melting closer to kiss you again. 

It doesn’t bother him when your nails dig into his flexing forearm as you cum. Judging by the groan, you think he might like it. 

You’re barely recovered by the time he’s lining himself up to you, but you find your bearings quickly. It’s a slow, bated burn, when he finally does it. You’re both silent, tense, hardly breathing in anticipation. What has at times been a slip feels now more like an endless push—it is its own kind of back-arching, toe curling, deep-in-your-spine ecstasy, as he breaks you open slow. Your legs part wider for him, and your hips yearn to push against his.

His words burst forth with the same expelling of pressure, at the same time, as your first sudden cry. “Fuck, angel. Jesus.”

There’s a stinging point of light inside you that he’s pushing against. You close your eyes and watch it flash and spark. “Feels so good,” you promise, nothing more than a whisper. Whatever this is, this pain and pleasure, it’s landed you in some divine plane. You never want it to end. 

“Relax for me, honey. Let go a little.”

“I am, I am,” you defend on a quick exhale, looking down when he stops fighting to get in. “Please—why’d you stop? Please—”

“You’re not ready.”

“Yes, I am, fuck, please, Spencer!”

Something in you is desperate and starving and you need it now—you’ve needed it for a long time—but he doesn’t capitulate. Instead, he kisses you. Softly. Slow and sweet, like you have all the time in the world. You have no choice but to drown in it. It’s a short-circuit in your body when after a minute of this, after he senses the way you’ve dissolved, suddenly his hips are flush with yours. You gasp and a pencil cup clatters to the ground in your search for purchase. You’re little more than a pulsing, glowing star, lightheaded at the depth and the pressure and the way that band of resistance he’d pushed past aches around him in time with the pound of your heart. Spencer is leaning against you, gripping the edge of the desk behind you hard and breathing heavily against your neck. 

Words have every opportunity to pass from your dropped jaw, but you’re actually speechless. Your heartbeat is a white flashing in your eyes. The only verbal expression at your disposal: “Spencer.”

For a moment time suspends like that, and you wonder how the fuck you could ever have made any decision that would take you away from him, away from this. This is so obviously the only right answer. 

Slowly, he draws out, and you stop breathing. Come back. Come back. Your legs spell it out as they wrap around his hips. It’s just as slow on the uptake, and you loose a shuddering, rattling breath. Your body tenses and shifts, trying to pull you up and away from the feeling—but not because it hurts. It’s just so mind-numbingly fucking deep. Everywhere. The base of your spine, the tips of your fingers. Out. While you have a fleeting moment of sentience, you whisper his name a few times in quick succession. This successfully draws his attention and he lifts his head from your shoulder, pupils blown to hell as he’s already dragging back in. A too-honest, too-raw cry pulls from your soul, turns half disbelieving laugh as he presses against your deepest part and black spots dance in your vision. 

His eye darts to the way your knee pulls up, clearly beyond your control—the way your body tries to make sense of him, tries to respond to what he’s doing to you. You watch as it happens—that flash in his eyes. That shift into a kind of determination that always ends with you dead asleep on his pillow, face streaked with dried tears borne of sheer overwhelm. Spencer fits his arm around you and pulls you flush to him, the other hooking under your knee and holding you open. He sets a new pace, and it doesn’t take long to get you gripping at the back of his shirt and tearing up on his shoulder, making due with gasping sips of air and having completely given up on holding in the keens and the pleases and the occasional sob that to the trained ear sounds much like his name. 

You feel it coming—the searing heat, the pound of your heart, the drop of your stomach. It hits as hard as you knew it would. 

Usually he’s a little more talkative—but that comes later. With you pushed over his desk, and his arm around your chest, and his lips pressed to your ear. Blindly you reach back for him—you need him, you need something—and without question he catches your hand, pressing it hard into the dark surface of the wood. His thumb strokes at your hand, his fingers curl with yours, and Spencer continues with those murmurings, like spells—things nobody who knew him would ever imagine him saying. Things that have you making promises, breathing uh-huh’s, telling him you love him. Things that have your vision going black and your throat tightening around choked moans. He’s never had you this vulnerable before. You’re dizzy, drunk on it. This time when the end comes, it’s a heavy crash. It pulls you under. It does whatever the fuck it wants with you and tumbles you in its current forever because he’s not stopping, still slowly closing in on his own peak. There are moments where it goes beyond good. It’s just complete and utter sensation, on all fronts—thoughts come as colors and textures instead of words. You don’t even feel tethered to your body anymore, your grip on reality tenuous at best. 

Eventually all the crashing does end, and you whine brokenly, and he shushes you softly, and finally, finally, stills inside of you. 

Slowly, you come back to yourself. It’s dark outside, now. You can hear weekend traffic on the streets below. His apartment is clean (aside from the shit that got knocked over and the books on the couch) and it’s sticky summer warm, and it smells like home. It’s safe. And everything is okay. You don’t know if you’ve ever felt so okay in your life. 

Spencer adjusts his hold on you when your weight signals that you want to lie flat on the desk, face pressed against your forearm, catching your breath in the wood-lacquer darkness. He follows you down, arms braced on either side of your head. His weight on your back is a comfort, as are his lips at the nape of your neck. 

“Okay?” he murmurs. Two gentle syllables, marked with exertion. You nod against your arm. “Not ready to talk?” Another nod. Another okay. 

For a stretch of time, he’s pressed his face against the back of your shoulder. You’re still seeing dancing colors behind your lids. 

The twinkly laughter comes as a surprise. “I don’t know where to put you, baby. All the places for lying down are covered in antique books.”

There’s not much air in your lungs. You spend it on laughter.

August 3rd

Spencer corners you outside the bathroom. 

“Who was that?” He demands, eyes worrisomely clear on you, voice alarmingly steady. You glance around to see if any of your coworkers can see the way he’s practically got you up against the wall down the dark passageway. The way he’s looking at you. Like he owns you. 

“Who was who?”

“I’m not willing to play stupid with you right now. Answer me.”

It’s easier to hurt your feelings these days. They’re closer to the surface. Sometimes it makes things feel really, really good. Sometimes your eyes sting at the smallest of provocations—things you would’ve brushed off without a second thought a year ago. You meet his eyes and swallow. “You’re being a fucking dick.”

Spencer is unfazed. His response is whip-fast and too loud, even among the chatter and laughter and music and clinking glasses. “Did you sleep with him?”

“What? What is your problem?” you hiss, pushing Spencer just hard enough to get some breathing room. 

“Why won’t you answer the question?”

“God, are you—you know what? No. You are so fucking out of line right now. Fuck off.”

You leave Spencer in the hallway and emerge into the bar. It’s bustling tonight. The whole BAU is here, scattered around, but suddenly, you feel aimless. Your nervous system is rattled after being accosted as soon as you left the bathroom, on what had previously been a good night. So you stand there, looking around and fiddling with your bracelet. 

It’s one Spencer recently gifted to you. A simple, delicate chain, but clearly well-crafted. The clasp is the only real ornamentation—two interlocking circles of equivalent circumference. There is no tail of wider chain loops to create an adjustable size—it is exactly what it is, and it fits you perfectly. To some, it’d be an underwhelming gift. No lavish stones, no poetic engraving, no garish costume-jewelry gold. But it means more to you than you could ever explain to somebody else. More than you’d ever feel comfortable explaining to somebody else. Spencer knows that. Two interlocking circles. 

When he gave it to you, you had a panic attack. Jewelry felt like a big step. But you didn’t do your usual thing where you start a huge fight and then dump him, and he didn’t take offense to your overwhelm. He only comforted you, and when all was said and done, you held out your wrist, and he put the bracelet on for you, and kissed the back of your hand. You haven’t taken it off since. It’s quickly become something of a talisman—you worry at it when you don’t know what to do with your hands. Even now. When you feel like punching him in the face. 

Did you sleep with him? What an asshole. What a fucking asshole. Spencer grovels and simpers and promises he’ll never hurt you, and then he goes and does something like that. The him in question—the one who recognized you when you were ordering a drink, and who held you up for maybe five minutes—is nowhere to be seen. That’s for the best. The recognition was not reciprocal. But rather than humiliate yourself in front of this man who knew your name by admitting you couldn’t place his face, you’d played along. Laughed awkwardly at his jokes like you knew who he was.

You don’t get why Spencer is so angry. He’s not the type to get jealous just because you spoke to another man. Sure, the man was perhaps a little over-familiar with you. He was flirty.

But Spencer is so overreacting. 

Before you can stop yourself, you’re looking back in his direction. 

He’s still in the dimly lit hallway. He’s watching you, hands in suit packets, and for all that you’ve seen his face, all the times you’d swore to commit every bit of it to memory—you can’t read his expression. 

That only pisses you off worse. 

You pointedly turn away, carving a path through the Friday night patrons toward the jukebox. 

The machine takes your quarter, but there’s something of a queue, and you realize you’re in too much of a bad mood to stand around getting jostled by drunk people who are having way more fun than you are. 

That’s how you end up out front, letting the rough stone wall bite into your bare arm and watching the cars go by, surrounded by patrons who’d stepped out for a smoke. 

Maybe you shouldn’t let Spencer ruin your entire night because of some stupid outburst. But you can’t shake it. 

Is that what he thinks of you? That you sleep around? That you cheat? Sure, the two of you haven’t explicitly had the commitment talk. But you thought it was pretty fucking implied. 

The moon is a bright white spotlight overhead. Despite the season, a breeze nips at all your exposed skin, and you cross your arms against the chill. Earlier, in your classy-enough white minidress and blue pumps, you’d felt beautiful. Now you just feel gross. 

Spencer comes out a few minutes later. 

“They’re playing your song.”

You can tell by the way he stops a few feet away that his tail is between his legs. Your head rolls toward him. 

“I can hear.”

It’s true—the buzzy, bouncy twang is distinctive even through a wall, and every drum beat is clear as day. So is the cheer that goes around as a bunch of drunk Generation X-ers and millennials recognize the synth riff. 

Spencer narrows his eyes and searches for the words. “I can’t help but feeling it’s slightly… pointed.”

What? Playing a song called Love Will Tear Us Apart? 

Pointed? 

Surely not. 

You don’t bother using your words—the exaggerated faux-bafflement on your face gets the message across. 

Spencer nods, looking appropriately contrite as he steps closer. You let him. 

“You were right,” he murmurs, speaking just for you now. “I was out of line.”

“Oh, really? Thanks for telling me. I hadn’t noticed.”

He says your name gently. You shut up and cast your glare sideways, watching a crumpled plastic cup make its way down the sidewalk. 

“I’m sorry. I just—I know you’re beautiful. I know people notice you. But we’re not usually in environments where I have to watch it happen. Or… or maybe it just goes over my head. That’s entirely possible. Either way, I’m not used to seeing you get hit on, and I couldn’t tell if you knew the guy, or if… maybe you were just hitting it off, and—I—I panicked, because we’ve never really had that talk before. I know what you are to me. But I’ve never clarified what I am to you. I’m not going to push you on the labels thing. You know I’m not. We should be on the same page about this, though.”

You sigh. Fiddle with your bracelet and watch it glint. “Spencer, I swear that guy—”

“I don’t care about that guy. It wasn’t about him. I’m sorry. I just want you to know that regardless of what we call it, it matters to me that we’re not doing this with anyone else.” His voice takes on that intimate tone—just barely more than a whisper. You look down as he grabs your hand, and drags it back up to his heart. Your breath catches. “You are my person, and I need that to be clear. Is that okay with you?”

His sincerity has stunned you speechless, and the proximity isn’t helping either, so you can only let your fingers catch on his lapel and nod—quick, eager little dips of your head. Yes, yes, you think. I can’t say it like you can. But yes. Please. That’s what I want. 

“Yeah?” he asks quietly, mirroring your nod and fondness twitching at the corners of his mouth. 

What you want to say is, oh, god, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. It burns inside of me, all the time, and I don’t know what to do with it all. I love you I love you I love you. 

Instead, you say, in your smallest voice, “Yeah. Yes.”

The way he slips his hand behind your neck and kisses you against that wall, under the full August moon and between clouds of cigarette smoke, cools your blood. It’s the only thing that works. 

Later in bed, you watch him sleep, that same moonlight casting silver through his hair as you comb your fingers through it, again and again. 

Before he’d fallen asleep, you’d asked him a question that had been on your mind since the bar. 

Spencer?

Hm?

What am I to you?

It’d caught him off guard. He held your hand, pressed the circles of your bracelet just to your racing pulse on the underside of your wrist, and mapped your face with darting eyes, with an intellect that can’t read minds no matter how much he wishes it could. 

Do you actually want me to answer that question?

You’d nodded. 

Is the answer going to freak you out?

At this you’d shaken your head no—which was an assurance made in haste. But you were too curious. You needed to know. 

Spencer weighed something internally for a long moment. 

You’re like… a lens I see the entire world through. I can’t do anything, or make any choice, without thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you. When we’re not together, it feels like I’m waiting for my life to start again. Nothing really counts unless you’re there to experience it with me, you know? I think of you as… I don’t know. Everything. You’re why I know it’s all real. Why it matters. 

It was so much, you had to hide in the curve of his neck. It made you nervous. The bigger it is, the harder it falls. 

But, because it mattered so much to you—because he matters so much—you found the courage to whisper against his neck: Me, too.

It was a really scary thing to admit. Scarier than when you tell him you love him. He kissed you for your bravery. 

Now, he’s asleep. 

You trace the moon-glow line of his cheek. 

Spencer lies sleeping next to you like a Renaissance angel as hot tears burn a scar down the bridge of your nose, and you bargain with god. Let me be good enough for him. Let me be someone else. Anything. I’ll do anything, just—please. Take this feeling away. Make me into a girl who deserves this kind of love. 

God does not answer. 

August 19th

Something is off. 

It started when you and Spencer didn’t take the same car to the airfield. 

Of course, that’s not unheard of—but it is uncommon. If it’s at all possible, he’ll slide in next to you. Today he didn’t even wait—got engrossed in a debate with Emily and followed her right into an almost-full SUV. 

So you stood there, blinked, and climbed into the other car next to Rossi. You didn’t say a word for the whole fifteen minute drive, watching the muddy fields and warehouses roll by beyond the window. 

Spencer isn’t doing anything wrong. 

It’s just that it’s been nearly a week since you’ve spent a night with him. And it’s starting to make you feel restless. There have been crack of dawn doctor’s appointments, and nights where one or both of you are too tired to drive to the other’s place, and preexisting plans with other people. All valid reasons to raincheck. 

But you’re not used to sleeping alone anymore. It’s not what you do. It feels like a really big deal to you that you haven’t had a sleepover for so long, and he hasn’t mentioned it, or given any hint that it’s bothering him the way it’s bothering you. 

God, when was the last time you spent more than two or three nights apart?

The last time you broke up, you realize. 

That is a sobering thought. 

On the jet, it’s not much better. Again, Spencer doesn’t wait for you before boarding. You’re slamming the car door, and he’s already walking up the steps in animated conversation with JJ. 

There is an old, familiar pang in your chest. 

No. No, please—I’m past this. I’m too grown-up for this. 

He loves me. 

But there’s that old paradox, again. If nobody except Spencer knows that you’re dating Spencer—and he’s not acknowledging it—are you really even together?

By the time you get on, he’s at the table. The three seats around him have been filled. You eye each of your coworkers and try not to feel burning rage, because they didn’t do anything wrong. 

Instead, you sit on the far end of the couch, and you pick your nails. 

The whole first day at the precinct is pretty much the same story, though you’re able to engross yourself deeply enough into the job that it doesn’t bother you so much. 

It’s only when the day is over, and you’re showered, and you’re sitting on your perfectly made hotel queen bed, that loneliness turns into gnawing, tearing panic. 

You catch your breath as it hits you—as the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and dread washes out the shell of your body. It’s bad. Worse than you would’ve imagined. 

What is wrong with you?

Why can’t you ever just be alright?

You don’t know if the solution here is to go to Spencer or to remain locked in your room like a psych-patient in a padded cell. 

Panic makes you unreasonable, you think. Pushing off the bed to pace. Moving helps. Moving tells your body that you’re evading the threat, and the panic attack ends sooner. 

Something you’d learned from Spencer, of course. 

Spencer. 

Unreasonable, right. You’re not entirely dependent on him for your mental stability. You have developed implicit expectations, sure—you’re used to being alone with him every night, so you can talk about your days and drink tea and be close. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a routine you’ve developed, and one you’ve come to rely on. Surely it’d be disregulating for anyone if it suddenly changed without warning. It’s not because you’re obsessive, or sick, or overly-needy. And it’s normal for couples to take a few days apart. 

Not obsessive, not sick, not needy. It’s normal. This is normal. 

This becomes your mantra as you pace the patterned carpet, eyes closed, lips moving, like if you stop the panic is going to catch you and swallow you whole. 

For a few minutes, it works. 

Then, for no apparent reason—it stops working. 

And it’s like watching a dam explode from the valley below. 

For a second you don’t know if you should run to the bathroom and throw up or go to Spencer’s door, and then you’re questioning if it’s late enough to go to his room, if maybe someone on the team might be out in the hallway—but your brain is screaming, if you do not go see Spencer, you are going to die. Who gives a fuck about your fucking coworkers. 

You tap lightly at his door. 

He doesn’t answer right away, and the brightly lit hallway seems to stretch on forever. You’re so profoundly anxious that there is a moment of hysterical, perverse humor. Look at you. About to die in a hotel hallway, barefoot and in pajama shorts, if he doesn’t open this fucking door. And of course. Of course he’s not going to open it. This is great stuff. Really, awesome material. Perfect. 

Just as you’re gripping the door frame to stop the building from spinning, just as you’re really, seriously about to pass out—the lock clicks. The door opens. 

Glasses. Sweatshirt. Spencer. 

“Hey! I was just about to—” he stops. Perhaps notices your slumped posture, how you’re white-knuckling the door. Maybe the sheen of sweat on your face. “Hey, okay—come here.”

Spencer wraps an arm around you and helps you in, closing the door and then leading you to his bed. 

“You look like you’re gonna pass out,” he mutters, laying you down carefully—ideally to get the blood flow back to your head. You blink. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine.”

You say it because you’re embarrassed. Spencer says your name with an edge that wants the truth. 

“It was just a panic attack.”

This doesn’t satisfy him. 

“Do you often pass out from panic attacks?”

“Um… not never.”

Your vision clears. Your ears stop ringing, and you push yourself up to sit against the headboard. Spencer has a bottle of water locked and loaded, holding it out for you as soon as you’re settled. 

The way he’s watching you as you drink, with so much unabashed and scrutinizing concern in that knit brow, is almost too much. You look away and screw the lid back on. 

“What triggered it?” He asks. 

“I don’t know, I was just sitting there—I was literally just sitting there, and suddenly my brain was like, by the way, you have five minutes to live, and—and I don’t know. I tried walking it off and breathing and stuff. I’m sorry I came here. It’s not your problem.”

“You’re not a problem. This isn’t a problem. You should’ve come before it got this bad.”

When he sets his hand on your knee, you close your eyes and try not to let it feel like medicine. 

It’s not his job to fix you. That’s not what he’s for. 

“Yeah,” is all you say. 

A pause. 

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

It’s clear he’s putting the pieces together. You sigh and fiddle with the bottle cap. Untwist. Twist. Untwist. 

“I… don’t know. I was overthinking.”

“Overthinking what?”

You flash him a look, because he knows he’s pushing you—but he’s unrelenting. 

Spencer’s hair is a corona of unruly curls. He hasn’t shaved in a few days. You don’t want to have this conversation—you want to put your head in his lap and fall asleep to the hotel TV. 

“It’s stupid. It doesn’t make sense. I just—I don’t know, we didn’t talk all day, and—”

You take a quick, shuddering inhale, and close your mouth. Because you realize you’re about to cry. And now you can’t even soften the blow of your insanity—you can’t tell him, I know I’m being crazy, I know nothing is wrong, I know it’s okay for us to not talk for a day or to spend a few nights apart and it doesn’t mean you hate me. 

But you can’t say any of that. It wouldn’t be true, anyways. You don’t know any of those things. 

Spencer is observing you and you can’t tell what he’s thinking. You look down at your folded legs to hide your wobbling chin. 

There’s no hiding the plunk of a fat tear as it hits the mattress, or the subsequent bloom of saltwater grey turning the sheet into a ghostly, sad little garden. You wipe your face with a furious, punishing hand, and speak hoarsely. “Sorry.”

Spencer catches your wrist before you can take out your own eye. “Stop.”

“I’m fine,” you insist, snatching your hand away though you desperately crave the contact. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t know—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Everything is fine.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t—you need to stop doing that. Minimizing everything all the time. If everything was fine, you wouldn’t have had a panic attack and you wouldn’t be crying now.”

“Everything is fine,” you assert. Anger—not at him—begins seeping through your tone, burning you at the edges. “Everything is fine, but I’m obviously not, and I’m sick of getting so fucking upset about nothing all the time.”

“Tell me why you’re upset.”

“Because I’m crazy! Because we haven’t been together all week, and you didn’t sit next to me in the car today, or on the jet, and—and ever since I actually stopped holding you at arm’s length, I’m so fucking involved, and I care so much, and I knew this would happen. Before, it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t spend the night together for a week, because I wasn’t all in, and I knew if I was always giving you just a little less than you were giving me that the dynamic would be in my favor, and I would never have to feel like I was the unwanted one. But I can’t do that anymore, because—’cause I let myself care all the way, and I was so afraid of this happening, and it’s happening. I don’t have any fucking control over myself anymore. I’m so worried, all the time—it’s like, I have a doomsday clock inside of me, but instead of the end of the world it’s measuring how close you are to breaking up with me at any moment. Which is fucked, I know it’s fucked. I know I can’t read your mind, but I don’t have any perspective anymore. And the worst part is that it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know the more insane and hyper-vigilant and codependent I get, the likelier you are to actually break up with me. It was never a problem before. It was never this scary because if I was the one who kept breaking up with you it meant I was in control, but I don’t wanna break up with you at all. I’m terrified of it. But it—it’s like my karma, I—”

“Okay. Slow down.” Your head snaps up—wide, teary eyes on Spencer. You almost forgot he was there. “Breathe. Just—take a deep breath.”

Fuck. You drag your hands to your face, fully prepared to curl in on yourself and die rather than face your own humiliation. 

“No, no—look at me. Come on.”

“I’m going insane,” you sniffle as he peels your hands away and forces you to look at him. “I c-can’t say anything that will make me sound less crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. Your nervous system is just shot, and you’re probably exhausted. Did you eat? I didn’t see you have dinner.”

Guilty, you shake your head. You didn’t realize he was paying attention. 

“I’ll call room service,” he decides. 

“I’m really not hungry.”

Spencer ignores this and picks up the phone anyway. You sit back against the headboard and hug your knees to your chest, staring at nothing as he orders something you’ll like. Waiting for the click of the phone back in its cradle. 

When the call is over, there is tremulous silence. A tension you’re not sure how to go about breaking. 

Spencer does it for you—finding your ankle and carefully pulling your leg straight, so he can run the length of it back and forth with his hand. You watch it go, like waves rolling in and falling back on sand. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend enough time together this week. I missed you, too. I absolutely do not want to break up. Not one part of me wants that.”

“I should be able to know that without you telling me.”

“But you aren’t, yet. You’re going to learn.”

“But—until I do—you’re gonna have to—to reassure me constantly. I’m going to be exhausting and irritating and you’re going to get sick of me.”

He regards you. 

“It makes me really sad that you feel that way. I think you severely underestimate how much I like you.”

“Why, though?” Immediately you’re rolling your eyes and throwing your hands up. “See? Fucking right there. Already. I’m already doing it.”

Spencer is holding back a smile when you look at him. You shrink. 

“No, no—” he laughs, leaning in. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

You end up nearly lying down, with him over you. Breathing in his mint and eucalyptus bedtime smell. The smile fades slowly, as he thumbs over your cheek, your lips. Your lids flutter at the relief of it all. 

“I’m hoping… we’ll never have to do a week like that again. I didn’t like it very much, either.”

You lean into his palm, and don’t speak for a long while. 

“Spencer?”

“Hm?”

“Can—” you swallow involuntarily. You’re scared to ask. But you know what the answer will be. “Can we… I know I’ve messed up a bunch of times, but—can I be your girlfriend? We don’t have to tell anyone, I just… I want to be your real girlfriend.”

The slow blossom of his smile is like a swell in your favorite song as he grins down at you. 

“You’ve been my real girlfriend for a while.”

“I know, but… I want you to tell me that’s what I am. I want to know that when you think of me, you’re thinking about your real-life serious girlfriend.”

He hums. 

“And am I allowed to tell other people that you’re my real-life serious girlfriend?”

You chew your lip. “Some of them.”

“Which ones?”

He’s angling for something, and you know what, but you’re not sure you’re ready for that particular step. 

“I don’t know. We’ll find some.”

“I have a few in mind.”

“We can’t,” you murmur, hugging his arm to your chest. “Not yet. They’ll—it’ll change things. But… but maybe we don’t have to hide it quite as much.”

“Like… no running away when we see someone we know in public?”

You nod. “And I have a rule.”

He strokes your hair. 

“What’s that?”

“You have to always save a seat for me in the cars and on the jet. Always. Capiche?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You tilt your chin up. He kisses you. 

Now that you’ve got him, you’re not going to let go. 

September 1st

“You’re delusional. Truly, you’re acting insane.”

“For wondering why you had to stay three hours late at work to review one interview transcript you could’ve done during lunch?”

Spencer drops his bag onto a chair and rounds the counter, pushing a hand through his hair. You remain leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed.

“It is not that simple.” He insists. “You’re being paranoid and unreasonable. Again.”

“Or you’re being defensive.”

Spencer’s eyes narrow, like he’s just now seeing you for the first time since he got home. That is to say—his home. 

“Am I being accused of something?”

Words catch in your throat. Normally you’d hurl a ridiculous indictment as a matter of anything being possible—but not this time. It would be abjectly absurd to accuse him of cheating at anything other than cards. 

“No,” you huff after a weighty moment. 

“So what? What’s the point of this? I come home after staying at work three hours late listening to a man recounting in excruciating detail how he killed and ate an entire family because nobody else wanted to do it, and as soon as I walk through my own front door you start a fucking fight with me? Over nothing?”

The sudden slope in volume is startling as it rings off the walls like a gunshot. Rarely does he raise his voice before you have the chance to. 

For the few moments you’re stunned into silence, you take note of a few things you hadn’t before. The pound of his heart in his throat and just beneath his eye. Exhaustion evident in the strain of his voice and the mess of his hair, hanging over his face limp in some places and frazzled in others. The fragile glaze over his eyes, even as they widen and crackle with heat. It takes a lot out of a person to sit and listen to what he listened to for as long as he did. Even Spencer—even a man who can intellectualize and pathologize any human atrocity into microscopic pulses of electricity coursing through grey matter. 

It gets to him like it gets to everyone. You know that. 

Fuck. 

The most embarrassing part is that you started this fight because you missed him, and you still haven’t quite figured out how to not be afraid of that feeling. Sometimes when you miss him it feels like a threat to your autonomy, and by extension, your safety. You sure as hell don’t know how to just admit this to him. 

So instead you pick fights. Not as much, anymore, but sometimes when you’re in need of comfort and just can’t ask for it, you’ll start pushing your luck with inflammatory comments. You’ll trigger a meaningless argument. Spencer will eventually whittle your fighting words down to a simple, familiar truth. He will realize that this is your way of telling him you need something, and then you get the sweet after: where he rewards you for nothing, where he tries to apologize for a conflict you’d created with gentle touches and murmured words of comfort. Sun after a storm. It’s easy to accept affection and tenderness if you’ve intentionally scratched open all your old wounds—if you’ve earned it through trial by blood. 

Tonight, he’s not having it. You sense no reality where this ends with a sweet kiss and whispers so soft you can hardly hear them. 

Which means you need to backtrack. 

So you swallow your pride and your shame and your fear. Choke on it, really. But the words come out all the same. 

“I’m sorry.”

Spencer’s chest is still rising and falling quickly. The purple paisley silk of his tie catches your eye. It’s all astray. You want to fix it. He could breathe better if you took it off. And there’s no way he’s not bothered by his hair falling over his face. 

How can you make this go away?

Could it go in the other direction these quarrels sometimes do? Maybe it could end with you achey and tired in his arms, after he kisses the marks around your wrists, the little purple splotches on your hips and the starburst clusters of broken blood vessels on your thighs. Here, too, he’ll end up being sanguine—there’ll just be more steps in between. 

Just as you’re running scenarios in your mind, calculating outcomes and trying to chart the best plan of action, his tongue darts over his lips. It’s enough to stop you in your tracks. 

Why hasn’t his brow relaxed? Those eyes, still darting over your face with a kind of urgency—is that hunger or dissatisfaction with what he sees?

“You should go.”

A beat. 

This does not process instantaneously. You blink and shake your head as if you could clear it that way. 

“What?”

Spencer’s eyes are a forge on you, but he diverts them to the wall. Sparing you from the edge of a glowing sword. You don’t know how you’d prefer it—cool to the touch and sharp enough to cut, or soft and burning and prolonged. He’s probably decided he’s being civil. Doesn’t realize it lasts so much longer this way. 

“I think you should go home for the weekend.”

“Why?” It bursts from you, trembling and affronted. 

“Because I can’t—” he stops himself. Shutters his eyes and takes a deep breath that doesn’t seem to do much of anything. “I am not in the right headspace for this. I need you out of here.”

“What do you mean, this?”

“You. This thing you always do. I do not have it in me to make you feel better about yourself right now.”

It would’ve been quicker to just kick you in the stomach. 

For a moment you’re too stunned to speak as he blurs through a thick cloud of tears. 

“You are such a fucking asshole.”

The words come out too hurt, too quiet.

Spencer is unfazed—leans in closer as if to make sure you understand. Lowers his voice, and the tremor there is not the kind that comes from hurt feelings. You don’t know what it is. 

“Go. Home.”

It’s the kind of quiet that you’re afraid will culminate in a burst eardrum or something worse. He’s not like that, you know he’s not. Even at his worst. Even when you push him to his absolute wit’s end. But you can already hear it. Feel it. Ghost echos that have been rattling around in your head for years. 

A part of you—a rather large part—wants to cover her ears hard and sink to the ground, or otherwise apologize and beg him to love you again. 

But you are an adult. He’s asked you to leave. 

So you do. With an awful pulling in your gut and a hollowing in your chest like a sinkhole falling into itself. 

The static starts outside his door. The raking breaths. That awful warmth on the back of your neck and the greying of your vision. 

You stumble to the stairs and cover your face, letting the waves of panic wash over your shoulders. 

Was that a breakup? Does he still love you? Did he ever? If love can be so quickly taken away, was it ever really there? See, this is why—this is exactly why you’ve done what you’ve done, why you’ve been the way you have and treated him the way you did for so long. Because of this inevitability. Because of your nature, and what happens when a child tells himself he can enjoy a broken toy just the same as a regular one, until he keeps playing with it, and it keeps breaking worse and worse until it’s completely unusable. 

Something snaps inside of you. Gears grind and groan. The static doesn’t go away, it only gets louder, and it sounds a whole lot like his name over and over again—so you’ll just have to drown it out. 

-

It’s hot in this place, and it’s loud—so loud you can feel the throbbing techno beat in your teeth. The flashing lights wash over you like a tide of blood, rising and falling, filling your lungs. 

Whatever is coursing through your veins is not enough to dull the ache. In the middle of the dance floor, and you’re still thinking of Spencer. Spencer. Spencer. With every beat of your heart. Not enough alcohol. Not enough anything. 

It’s so hot in here—sweat drips down your spine and the room is spinning, but all the writhing, shadowed bodies prop you up as you stumble toward the bar. No chance in hell the bartender would keep serving you in the state you’re in, so you find someone to buy the drinks for you. 

And you fall, fall, fall—chasing some wicked, Cheshire gleam at the bottom of that glass, and the next, and the next. 

That gleam is, of course, an illusion. It will shine so brightly you can taste it. It will convince you to reach just a little further. And it will wink at you from the impossible end of a bottomless pit. 

You don’t care. You tip over the edge and let the darkness swallow you whole.

Nothing but stardust, now. 

You blow across the silent black ether. 

September 5th

You’re practically dripping from Spencer as he locks your door.

“Help me out, a little?” he grunts as you make no effort to support your own body weight. 

“Sorry sorry sorry. I’m up.”

He breathes a laugh and walks you deeper into the apartment. It’s a slow process. 

“If I set you down on the couch… are you going to be able to get back up?”

“I don’t know,” you sing-song, stumbling, giggling, and grabbing onto him tighter. “Let’s find out.”

Your ankles threaten to buckle all the way across the room, but he holds you fast. 

“Easy,” he murmurs as you slip your arms from around his neck and drop heavily to the cushions. You blink at him, exhausted, admiring the view. At some point, you’d managed to pull off his tie and undo the first few buttons on his shirt before he’d caught your hands and given you a warning look. Looking at him now, you have absolutely no regrets.

Spencer kneels in front of you, undoing the delicate ankle strap on your shoe. Your blood is pleasantly warmed as you let your head loll to your shoulder—warmer with every sweet way he handles you. Carefully. Like it’s an honor. 

After he slips the heels off, he presses a kiss to the top of each knee. You lace a hand through his hair. “Excellent view.”

There’s a lazy sort of smirk on his face when he tilts his head back up toward you. 

“I’m sure. Don’t get any ideas.”

You grin. 

“Too late.”

Spencer slides a gratuitous hand up your leg, fingertips just brushing the short hem of your dress, and raises his other. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Easy. Six.”

He snorts, pressing his face against your thigh, and you melt into a puddle of giggles. 

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! It was three. See—hey, you can make me say my ABC’s backwards, and I’ll walk in a straight line—”

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

Even that sweet, placating kiss to your thigh isn’t enough to temper the immediate and profound disappointment you feel at his proclamation. “What? Why?”

“Oh—why am I not going to sleep with a woman who couldn’t get up the stairs on her own?”

“Nonono, I’m dead sober. Please?”

He pushes off the ground, towering above you once more, and leans down to press a kiss to your lips. “Sorry. You’ll have to go find someone just as drunk as you.”

You linger there, your head tilted up, so he hangs in your silence, suspended less than an inch above you. 

“What?”

It comes out thin, with the crane of your neck. Quiet because your blood is frozen in your veins. 

Spencer pauses only briefly and then drops one more kiss to your mouth. At the contact your eyes flutter, in spite of yourself. 

“Nothing, baby. It was a joke.”

Then he’s up again, moving toward the kitchen. 

“Why would you joke about that?”

Spencer stops at the end of the couch and gives you an odd look. “Did it bother you?”

“Yes. Don’t—you can’t say stuff like that.”

Why are you breathing so quickly?

Now you’ve really got his attention. He turns fully back toward you, slipping his hands into his pockets.

Spencer doesn’t say a word. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. 

There’s a long stretch of silence. You can hear a faucet dripping and try to match your inhales to each plunk of water. 

“What’s wrong?”

One blink of hesitation and you realize your name is halfway signed on your own death sentence. 

“Nothing.”

“Don’t say nothing, you clearly—”

“Oh my god, I said it’s nothing. Just let it go. Jesus.”

And that final utterance, that subtle roll of your eyes, was practically a flourish of the pen. 

You haven’t gone the offense-as-defense route in a while. 

Immediately, something about Spencer’s demeanor goes cold. 

“Did something happen?”

The question is quiet enough to chill your bones and dry your throat. 

“Nothing. What? Nothing happened. I just don’t think it’s funny to joke about stuff like that.”

Fuck. Fuck. There may as well be a giant blinking sign over your head that says I’m lying. 

You watch it wash over him. 

The worst part is that he doesn’t say anything. He stands there for a moment—and then he turns, walking toward the kitchen again. For a moment, you’re frozen. Then you panic. 

“Spencer,” you call, and it breaks down the middle as you try to get up and sit right back down. He will not want to be followed. You take in a deep, grating breath, digging your nails hard into the sides of your legs and staring at the ground, willing the room to stop spinning. Willing your lungs to fill with air. 

Your entire body waits in suspense, taut like a steel guitar string, for shattering glass, or splintering drywall, or a slamming door, or something. It doesn’t come. He’s still here. You know he hasn’t left. 

But he’s going to. 

This is it. 

The unforgivable thing. 

Maybe five minutes later, you hear movement. When he reenters the living room, you keep your head down, tracking him only with your eyes. A yawning chasm seems to open up between your spot on the couch and where he stands, across the room. 

For a moment, neither of you speak—and then both of you try at once. More silence follows. You cover your face with your hands.

“We weren’t together,” you mumble into the cup of them. 

“What did you say?” 

His tone bites. 

“We weren’t together.”

“In your mind we were never together, so I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“No, we—we got in a really big fight—”

“When?”

You swallow. Because you work together, you should be familiar with this part of him—this relentless part, this I-will-run-you-into-the-ground part. But you’re not. 

“Spencer…”

Spencer recognizes this type of quiet. This quiet which means things can only be worse than they seem. The punishing anger is quickly slashed and bled until you feel it swirling around at your feet like water waiting to be swallowed down the drain. Displaced by massive grief, so heavy that you hear the break. The word is small. Too small to be a real question—it is a plea for mercy on a dying breath. 

“When?” 

You try to inhale and choke on it. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t think we were together—”

He snaps. “We are always together. You know exactly what we are. Take some fucking responsibility.”

“I didn’t mean to,” you whisper, desolate. “I didn’t.”

A tremulous pause. Your skin is crawling and you can’t get out of it. 

“What does that mean? What do you mean, you didn’t mean to?”

Snippets come from a reel you’ve been working hard to bury. The blisters on your palms burn. There is blood and dirt caked into the half-moons of your nails, too heavy and too fresh. 

A phantom ache has taken up residence in your bones. It throbs. 

You only shake your head.  

Spencer comes to you again. Gets on his knees for the second time this evening, sets his hands over your legs again in some backwards sort of supplication. Some bastardized retelling of a sweeter story from a few minutes ago. Like he’s pleading with you to recant, rewrite—to fix it so he doesn’t have to leave. 

“What do you mean? Just tell me what happened,” he begs. 

“I can’t,” you whisper.

“Why?”

The pain in his voice pounds at the base of your skull. 

Words dance on the tip of your tongue. Because there is too much I don’t remember. 

But something deeper in your gut keeps them tethered. Pulls hard. Shame, perhaps. There is no excuse for what you did. There is no explaining it away. No circumstance in which you are innocent. A girl goes dancing. Looking for something. She gets drunk. She chases the thing she’s looking for into dark corners and down alleyways. She needs to know what it is she’s chasing—she needs to hold it by the throat and squeeze, thumb against hammering pulse, until it doesn’t have so much power over her.  

She wakes up in a stranger’s bed. That’s the part of the story that matters. 

“I just can’t.”

The words are too quiet, but he hears. Your lungs burn in the pulsing silence that follows. 

No solution. 

He gives you a few minutes in the dark living room to change your mind, to say the right thing. It doesn’t come. 

So he gets up. 

“Wait, wait wait—” your heart is pounding as you stumble off the couch and follow him, barely avoiding tripping over your own feet. He’s at the door. How did he get there so quickly? You catch the wall just behind him. “Spencer, wait.”

The tear in your voice is desperate enough you flinch. 

But it gets him to turn around. 

He looks exhausted. 

The pallor of his skin—the shadows exaggerating where his cheeks sink in and where the troughs beneath each eye get darker in purple half moons.

You fucked up so badly. 

How much more of you can he handle?

Is this the one thing to push him over the edge, for good? 

“I’m sorry,” you breathe. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t—I can’t explain it, but it wasn’t right—I didn’t—” heat wells behind your eyes as you flounder and dig your grave helplessly, flexing and clenching your hands. “I’m never, ever gonna do that again. Something was—I wasn’t myself that night, and it’s not going to happen again, I don’t know why I did it. I was stupid, and I love you so much, and—please. Please, don’t go. I really need you not to go.”

Spencer regards you, gaze flickering up and down, swallowing. His eyes are all foggy and waterlogged. It makes you feel sicker.

“I know you’re sorry.”

Your chin wobbles. 

There’s nothing to fight with in his words. There’s nothing to scratch or kick or bite or cling to. 

“You’re gonna leave?”

A beat. 

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna come back?”

It hangs in the air between you for a very long time. 

September 12th

When you see him at your door a week later, you’re not sure what to say. Spencer has hardly spoken to you at work. It’s not that he’s been cruel, he just… he’s been distant. Understandably so. 

This lack of words, you realize very quickly, is not going to be much of a problem. 

What he wants to do with you does not require a lot of speaking. 

In fact, you start to suspect he doesn’t want to hear you talk at all. It would be hard to form words when he’s kissing you like this.

But you have to try, don’t you?

“Spencer—”

He pulls away, leaves you reeling and head sparkling with fresh oxygen. Disoriented. Desperate to have him in any way you can. A thumb presses against the seam of your lips and you open for him without hesitance. 

He has you against the back of your door, locking it with one hand and pushing down on your tongue with the other thumb. You wish you could do more than let it happen. Do anything but suckle like a lamb. Make him talk to you. Fix it while you can. 

But for the first time in a week he’s close and he’s looking at you like he wants you and you could cry. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he whispers, eyes darting rapidly over your face like he’s hungry for the sight of you. “You are going to listen to me. If I ask you a question, you can say yes, or you can say no. If we need to stop, or if something doesn’t feel right, you tell me. Otherwise, you don’t talk. Do you understand me?”

Your delirious nod is not enough for him as he slips his thumb from your mouth and grips your jaw, angling you carefully upward so as to look right at him through shuttered eyes. 

“Do you understand me?” He repeats lowly, and your breath catches. 

“Yes.”

Those eyes slow, taking you in, that gaze dripping from you like honey. Just barely, he strokes the line of your jaw. He ducks to kiss you again and this time it is not so urgent. 

“Do you want this?” Spencer asks just shy of your own mouth, soft without warning. 

The fabric of his coat bunches in your fist. 

Only if you still love me, you want to say. But you know why he doesn’t want you to talk. So you can’t say things like that. So he doesn’t have to tell you of course I do. Please spare me the humiliation of admitting it. 

“Please,” you whisper. A trembling breath. More than a plead for sex. You are asking that he be kind. Perhaps it’s more than you deserve, but you can’t do this if he doesn’t touch you like he loves you. Not with him. 

You are asking for him to fix something big, something thus far unspoken and which you don’t totally understand yourself. It’s too complicated. He shouldn’t have to do this for you. He doesn’t owe you anything. 

Erase it, you want to say. Make this feeling I can’t talk about go away. I know you love me enough to do it. 

All this, with one please. 

Spencer exhales. And he kisses you again. 

Of course, Spencer’s not good with enforcing rules. Not when you’re opening up to him in this way. Even now he looks at you like you’re a marvel. Touches you like you’re a miracle. As soft and as careful as you could’ve asked for if you’d used the words—he may as well be tracing love letters into your skin. 

All you can do is try and respect his wishes. You hurt him, badly, you know you did. Don’t add salt to those wounds. He needs you to be predictable right now. No sudden movements. No derailments. To the best of your ability, you are quiet and good and gracious and docile. 

But you are only human. Those times you gasp his name under your breath, he just holds your hand tighter. A plead or two are lost against his skin or into the sheets. He takes pity on you—murmurs gentle questions just to give you an outlet. Kisses your teary cheeks as you give your shaky answers. 

He loves me, you think, in absence of the words, over and over, until you feel it, until your whole body is buzzing with it. Until you’re buoyant and nothing is hard anymore. 

Afterwards, his stillness is what draws you back. His heart pounds against yours, he’s exactly the weight and the pressure you need. But he’s still. The momentum of the passion is wearing off, and you can sense it. 

So you allow yourself one quiet, distressed little chirp. One nervous bid for reassurance. Spencer comes to his senses and quells you with a chaste kiss. 

And then he’s out of bed. The weight of all the air in the room, the heavy cold, comes crashing down—pressing into your skin, your stomach, all at once.  

Suddenly you’re paralyzed, unable to look away from the ceiling as he dresses, grabs the glass from your nightstand and disappears into the bathroom. A few moments later he returns bearing a cloth and a full cup. The cup hits the nightstand. The edge of the bed dips. He slides one hand up your calf like always, and you acquiesce, letting the weight of your leg fall against him. A warm washcloth finds your inner thigh. 

Your mind is screaming, deafening static. 

“You okay?” Spencer asks gingerly after a few beats of silence. There is a hesitance, there. A feigned lightness, like he’s afraid of asking. Afraid of opening up this line of conversation and too good not to. 

Your tongue is heavy in your mouth as he cleans up any evidence of his having been here. 

“You got up pretty quick.”

More static. Something fights its way up your throat and you swallow it down. 

“Yeah. An old professor of mine is town. We have dinner plans.”

You don’t know what to say to that as he retrieves a few things from your dresser and returns. Normally he’d slide underwear up your thighs for you and pull a shirt over your head, but today you’re grabbing the garments from him before he has a chance. 

“I can do it,” you mutter, hurrying to yank the clothes on under his measuring gaze. Under other circumstances he might take offense to this. Might at least ask you about it. Now he only stands to give you space and pockets his hands. 

Because he knows. He knew the whole time. 

He’s not sticking around. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. Dust particles swirl through thick beams of molasses light, pouring in from the windows and warming rumpled sheets. How long was he here?

You hug your bare legs to your chest and settle your chin over folded arms, mapping dust like stars in a galaxy. “Why’d you even come?” you murmur.  

The world quiets down. Waits with you, holding its breath for his answer. 

“I don’t know.”

Light glares off the floor in a blinding white pool. Sends shooting pains into the back of your eyes as you fiddle with your own shirtsleeve. 

“Were you trying to… hurt me back, or something?”

“No.” The answer is firm and immediate. “No, I am not trying to hurt you.”

You say nothing. Wood creaks under shifting weight, but you’re not looking at him as he sighs. 

“You have to give me some time.” Your name on his tongue is reprimand, a thing he shouldn’t have to tell you. “It’s been a week. I don’t have any of this figured out. I’m not thinking straight.”

“You were thinking straight enough to drive over here and tell me not to talk while you fucked me.”

“I—” he sighs. At a perpetual loss with you. “I told you it wasn’t well thought out. I’ve been spiraling. All week. I’m not sleeping, I’m not making good choices. I mean—you—you fucked me over!” The words burst out, the way they do when he curses. “I haven’t had anybody to talk to about this. You are the only person. Do you see why that would be difficult? You hurt me so much and I miss you and I’m furious and you’re the only one I can talk to about any of it. That’s insane, right? I think you owe me some grace.”

“Did I owe you that, too?”

You gesture toward the unmade sheets and then bury your face against your arms once more. 

Humiliated. Like usual. 

Spencer is stunned into silence for a moment. 

“No. No, you didn’t. Did I—did I make you feel that way? If that didn’t feel right—”

“No,” you assuage tearfully. “I just wish you t-told me you weren’t going to stay, ’cause I wouldn’t have—I just can’t do that with you.”

“Can’t do what?” he asks, sitting on the bedside once more, hand twitching but ultimately leaving you be. 

“I can’t have sex with you if you’re gonna leave after. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t know that. But, like—you are the one person who can’t—I just really really can’t do that with you, because—” you stop yourself and change course with a shuddering breath, pressing your palms to weeping eyes. “I’m sorry. I know this is literally all my fault. I don’t get to ask for things. I know that.”

Fireworks dance against the back of your lids. Spencer is quiet. 

Then there are hands around your wrists. A thumb smoothing the delicate skin under your palm. You hiccup a gasping cry and melt toward him. It might be the most you get from Spencer, so you focus on the small touch until it burns. His voice is soft—a balm you don’t deserve. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” you sniffle, hands falling an inch, then two, as you go lax under his touch. “You don’t owe me an apology. Just—I can’t do that with you again until… until we have things figured out.”

The stroking thumb stops, and then restarts. 

“Okay.”

Finally, you open your eyes. Can’t make sense of the neutrality on his face.

“What?”

He only shakes his head. Nothing. 

Too tired to push him, you let your hands fall to your lap, and he keeps hold on your wrists. Sweeping. The lines he makes entrance you. 

“I’m sorry I put you in this position,” you whisper. 

No response. Back and forth. 

“I know you’re mad at me. You really, really have the right to be mad at me. I’m sorry for making you be nice to me. That’s so stupid, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for—”

“Angel.”

You bite your tongue and sink your gaze. What a ridiculous petname it is, now. How terrible of him to keep using it. 

“Sorry.”

Afraid to tell him he can leave, and too ashamed to let yourself enjoy his presence while it lasts, you remain in limbo. His silence does not tell you exactly how much he hates being here, but you think if the tables were turned, you wouldn’t be able to stomach it. Is it really better, his lingering, if it’s not because he loves you? With each pass of his thumb, you imagine him hating you more. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. 

“I’m not going to do this again,” he murmurs, jarring you from your obsessive contemplation. 

Now, when you look up, he’s focused on your wrist. 

“… I know.”

“No, honey. I mean… it needs to end.”

This sinks in slowly, with a heat in your face and the back of your neck and a sick tide rising in your stomach. 

The first thing you feel is panic. Drops of adrenaline in your bloodstream like you’ve just realized you’ll need to run for your life. 

“Why? Because—if this is because I said I can’t sleep with you until—”

“That was completely appropriate. You were right. It’s not good for either of us.”

“So why does that mean we can’t try again? I mean—I know you need time. You can have it. You can. We always do this, and then we get back together and it’s better. I already did the worst thing I could do—we’ll get better.”

The breath he takes is quiet, uneven and pronounced. The kind of breath you take when something hurts more than you thought it would. 

“You’re asking me to get over something I haven’t even fully wrapped my mind around.”

You falter. 

“No, I’m—I’m just telling you I’m going to wait, and you can have as long as you need—”

“Stop,” he says, more sad than angry. “You need to stop.”

“I can’t stop,” you whisper, closer to forlorn every second as you tear up and spill all over again. “I have to try.”

Spencer’s voice shakes as he speaks. “Do not do this to yourself. There is nothing you can say, alright? This needs to be over, so it’s going to be over. It’s not good for us.”

“But—but… you can’t just say it’s over, Spencer, we put so much—I’ve been trying so hard. I know I keep messing up, I’m sorry, I’m trying so hard. I don’t know what happened, I’m—I can do more, I know I can.”

“You can’t—this isn’t going to work. You can’t fix it.”

“But I love you. I want to be with you. I did it all for you, all the hard stuff, not for me, I just—I love you. I want you.”

You don’t realize you’re sobbing until he’s wrenching your hands from your face once more and pulling you into him. 

“I know you love me. I wish we were better for each other, angel, I do. But it’s not supposed to feel like this.”

It’s not supposed to feel like this. 

You shudder a cry. 

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to hurt you, really. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want that. You d-didn’t deserve it. I’m so, so sorry, Spencer, I ruined everything, I—”

“Shh. Just… I’ll stay for a little bit longer, okay? Just a while.”

And he does. Until the room goes dark, and the stars watch silently from above.

October 29th

It’s not going to be warm enough to enjoy the outdoors for much longer—but today, the beams of sun are still thick through the turning leaves, still gold when you close your eyes, and the sweet smell of autumn is enough to keep you out criss-cross on Rossi’s swing. 

The seal on the glass door suctions open and then slides shut again, and Penelope is joining you. You accept the mug of apple cider, holding it carefully in your lap. 

“What a gorgeous day,” she sighs, and you hum in agreement. “Probably one of the last good ones. I saw rain on the forecast later this week.”

“It begins,” you mutter. 

“Yeah. And I haven’t even found a suitable mate to hibernate with yet.”

Your brow knits. “You’re not with—”

She pauses mid-sip as you turn to look at her. Right—you weren’t supposed to have seen her with Kevin last spring. Your face warms and you try to play it off. “Oh, right. You guys broke up forever ago.”

To her credit, she doesn’t actually confirm or deny. Instead, a quiet settles. Or—a sort of quiet. Down the yard, in grass that is still lush and green, JJ and Spencer are playing some sort of game with Henry and Michael. One that seems to invoke a lot of delighted screeches from the young boys as they run around and fall over and get back up. 

“What about you?” Penelope asks. 

Apple and clove melt on your tongue and warm your throat. 

“What about me?”

“Are you hunkering down with anybody?”

“No,” you admit without fanfare. Garcia doesn’t respond—probably hoping to get more information out of you. You hesitate, and then go on. “I mean—I was seeing a guy. But it ended a little while ago.”

She speaks her pity gently, in a tone like the velveteen undersides of flower petals. 

“You didn’t tell me.”

You shrug. 

“It wasn’t… official.”

“How long were you seeing him for?”

“It would’ve been a year next month.”

This time, she’s silent for too long. 

When you finally glance over at her, she’s not looking at you, as you would’ve expected. 

She’s… looking at your feet. 

You glance down, ready to be very confused—and then you see the problem. 

Your jeans have ridden up. One sock is striped purple and green. The other, brown, dotted with horseshoes and cacti. They’re visibly too big for you. 

Quickly you try to tuck them further under yourself. But you’re sure it’s too late. 

You could explain this. You could say you forgot to bring socks on a case, and Spencer let you borrow a pair. 

Before you can, she speaks. 

“I worried that maybe you guys had split up.”

You flash her an alarmed look. “What?”

Penelope glances toward the house to make sure nobody’s about to come outside. 

“I mean… honey, you guys weren’t very subtle. I don’t think anyone who lacks my perceptive genius and emotional intelligence would have noticed, but I noticed. Like, I really noticed.”

You swallow, opening your mouth before you’ve decided your plan of action. Deny? 

“When?”

“Well, everyone always knew that you liked each other. But there was this one time—and this was a total invasion of privacy, and I will never do it again unless I have to—where, you know, you… weren’t answering your phone about a case, and I got worried, because no offense, but this team kind of has a track record when it comes to going missing, and so… I checked your location… and it pinged at Spencer’s apartment… who had just told me he didn’t know where you were. And then you both showed up. I’m so sorry, but in my defense, I was not trying to snoop—”

“Penelope, it’s fine.”

“Well—okay—and there’s this other thing that I haven’t told you about because it would’ve been mutually assured destruction, so I kind of don’t ask don’t telled it, which was… me and Kevin saw you guys on a date last spring. And me and Kevin were not supposed to be on a date. And you were not supposed to be sharing spoons—spooning, if you will—with Spencer. But I did see it. And I didn’t tell you and I felt really squicky about it for a long time and I’m sorry.”

You blink. Try to process. 

“You didn’t tell anyone else?”

“No! God, no! I like to gossip, I don’t like to ruin people’s relationships.”

“Who’s ruining whose relationships?” JJ asks breathlessly, carrying a tuckered out Michael on her hip and holding Henry’s hand as she approaches. Your head snaps up. Spencer is trailing a few feet behind her, eyeing you. 

Heat blooms in your cheeks. 

“Theoretical conversation,” Penelope supplies quickly. “Are we finally ready to harass Rossi about dinner?”

JJ looks anything but convinced—and in typical fashion, lets it go. 

“I think we are. What do you think Michael—pizza?”

“Pizza!”

Everyone cheers at that—aside from you and Spencer. Penelope hurries inside after JJ and the boys. Spencer lingers. You quickly try to get your shoes back on before he can tell that you’re wearing his—

“Nice socks.”

You sigh, pausing just a moment before you finish pulling your boot on. 

“Sorry. I need to do laundry.”

You stand, and Spencer opens the door for you. “What socks you choose to wear are none of my business.”

Halfway inside, you pause, glancing up at him. “Do you want them back?”

He narrows his eyes thoughtfully. 

“That’s okay. I have a pair just like them at home.”

This is the first time you’ve exchanged more than a few work-related sentences since he ended things for good. 

It’s sort of ridiculous, after all the melodrama. 

It’s sort of a relief. 

January 1st

Garcia’s New Year’s party was a success. There’d been the most FBI agents you’ve ever seen crammed into her apartment at once. There was a chocolate fountain, three kinds of champagne, and an elaborate charcuterie setup spanning nearly the entire counter. At midnight, you’d popped a confetti gun and blew into a noise maker and cheered and jumped around and hugged your friends. 

An hour and a half later, you’ve taken over as impromptu host—Penelope is decidedly out of commission, snoring atop her bed, still in heels and sequins. 

“Bye, guys! Happy new year!”

You wave as the last stragglers head out the door.

When you close it, and turn around: “Holy shit.”You wade through confetti and streamers and napkins, kicking a few balloons out of your way. Any flat surface is covered in sparkly plastic cups and champagne flutes. “We trashed the place.”

From the kitchen, Spencer chuckles. “It’s pretty bad.”

You frown when you notice him stacking plates. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. I told Garcia I’d handle clean up.”

He checks his watch. 

“The odds of being involved in a fatal car accident are up 208% percent right now, and they won’t be going down for a few hours. Plus, my own blood alcohol content is probably hovering around point zero four, which is well under the legal limit to drive, but I’d prefer for it to be zero flat.”

You shrug and make your way over to the record player, which had finished up A Night At The Opera a while ago. “If you want to ring in the new year by helping me clean, I won’t stop you. Blue or Abbey Road?”

“Neither?”

“Boring,” you accuse, and put on Coltrane. The jazz comes slow and crackly and warm through the speakers. 

Spencer steps aside as you enter the kitchen and hunt for trash bags under the sink—compostable, because it’s Garcia. 

When you stand back up, you’re unprepared for how close he’s going to be—barely an inch separates you and you stumble on your quest to pop backward. “Whoop—” instinctively, he reaches out and steadies you. You grasp onto his arms, eyes flickering up to his and laughing nervously. “Hey.”

Spencer’s gaze is warm and easy on you as he pulls a little smile of his own. “Hi.”

A stuttering inhale. 

A moment that is just too long. 

His fingers seem to relax against your arms, just fractionally, for just a split second. Like he could hold you. Like you could stay this way. 

“Sorry,” you breathe, releasing your grip on him and stepping back. 

“You’re okay.”

A lazy sax solo traces its golden fingers around your thrumming heart until your skin is buzzing. His eyes are the same color as the music. Just as soft. Just as leisurely as they vamp the distance between your own. 

Bio-derived plastic dampens under your fingers as you flee to the living room. 

The next fifteen minutes are spent kneeling in front of the coffee table, cleaning drips of chocolate and splashes of champagne, and trying not to think about the way his eyes caught on your lips. 

Spencer doesn’t miss you. Not like you miss him. Apparently he even went on a date a few weeks ago. 

And with the way things ended, you’re lucky that he doesn’t despise you. Being on decent terms should be enough. Letting your perpetually smoldering want trail its smoke under his nose isn’t fair. Not to you, not to him, and certainly not to his mystery girl. He’s trying to move on, and you don’t have the right to drag him down.  

But, just—that one little moment. One touch, and you’re totally thrown off your game. Now, you’re reading into the silence. You’re wondering what he’s thinking about you. If he’s thinking about you. 

Later—much later—the living room has been mostly cleaned. You’re taking the final trash bag to the kitchen when you notice something on the ceiling fan and pause, frowning up at it. 

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you come here?”

He appears. “What’s up?”

You point at the fan. 

“I think somebody put a cup up there.”

Spencer makes a face and reaches up to grab it. He reads the name Sharpie’d on the side and snorts, before showing it to you. 

Kevin, scrawled next to the worst smiley face you’ve ever seen. 

“How do you mess up a smiley face?” you laugh. 

“I’m sure he’d be able to tell you.”

You suck your teeth. “God—do you think they’re together again?”

“Kevin and Penelope?”

The trash bag drops to the ground as you flop onto the couch, exhausted. Spencer crushes the cup and tosses it in, standing just in front of you, studying you as he thinks. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t entirely surprise me. They’re pretty good at remaining inconspicuous.”

You hum, slinking lower in the faux-leather. Maybe some friendly chit-chat is in order. Friends ask each other questions, don’t they? “Speaking of inconspicuous relationships… I heard you went on a date.”

He slides his hands into his pockets and picks his words in silence for a moment—you hate that. You hate feeling excluded from whatever internal conversation he’s having. Knowing that he’s measuring how much truth he’ll dole out to you. 

“Who’d you hear that from?”

You track him with your eyes as he takes a seat next to you. 

“Did you?” you ask, ignoring the question—more focused on the stubbled line of his jaw. 

Spencer considers his answer for a moment, head reclined on the back of the couch, charting the glittery paper stars suspended from the ceiling. 

“I did. Two, actually.”

Two dates? With the same person?

“How’s that going?”

He approximates a smile. 

“You’re not being very subtle.”

“I’m just curious. You don’t have to answer.”

Spencer meets your eyes. Studies them in turns, like there’s a secret language etched into the fractals of pigment.  

“I like her,” he decides. And your stomach sours. 

“But you didn’t bring her tonight?”

Spencer rolls his head back toward the ceiling—and very nearly his eyes, as he dryly reminds you, “We’ve been on two dates.”

“If you like her, you should’ve brought here. You could’ve kissed her at midnight and sealed the deal.”

A ditch in the conversation. The perfect depth and width for hiding a body, as something in the air changes. Drops a degree or two. Thickens. 

“What are you doing?” he murmurs, looking back at you and finally putting an end to your game. Your face gets warm. Oops. Too far, maybe. 

“I’m being supportive.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Is that allowed?”

“You’re sure it’s not surveillance?”

“Yes!”

Even to you, you sound overly defensive. 

“Fine.” A moment passes. He’s staring at you, in this lazy sort of way. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You didn’t bring anyone either.”

“Well… I’m not seeing anyone.”

It’s embarrassing to admit. You pinch at the fabric of your skirt, worrying the glitter sewn into black like drops of silver. Stars, or beads of rainwater. 

“Why not?”

“Do I need an excuse to be single?”

“Just curious. Is that allowed?”

Evidently the look you cast him then is not as withering as you’d it to be. Not if he’s so unfazed. Still reading you like a familiar book. 

“God, this is frustrating,” he mutters, as if to himself, tongue darting over his lips and frowning like you’re a question he doesn’t have the answer to. Your own brow pinches, ready to be offended. 

“What is?”

“I just… I thought I’d stop wanting to kiss you by now.”

Behind the safety of a bone cage, tucked where he can’t see, your heart does a somersault. It probably shows in the way your spine straightens, the catch of your breath. 

“Oh. I’m… I’m… sorry.”

Spencer cracks a dry smile. 

“You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“Well—I don’t know. Because… I don’t know. it just seems like… the wrong thing to want. You have a girlfriend.”

The softening of his eyes, the tilt of his head, all spell pity. Like you’re naive. 

“That’s not what she is, honey.”

Honey. You try to remember to breathe. To think.

“Then what is she?”

He hums. 

“Not you. As much as I tried to tell myself that was for the best.”

Scratch somersault. Back handspring. Or maybe a round-off. You swallow. Pick at your nails. 

Did you think this into existence? Was all your desire really so loud?

“Spencer…”

“What?”

“That’s… that’s not fair.”

His eyes are melting glass on yours, voice lowered in a way you’ve sorely missed. “How so?”

It takes you a moment to remember yourself. “Because I’m—I’m trying to be better. I’m really trying. I don’t want anyone to get hurt ’cause of me. So if this girl likes you—”

“Angel. Nobody’s getting hurt. She knew I had someone else on my mind.”

“You can’t call me that,” you whisper brokenly. But he’s close enough you can feel his breath. You don’t know how he got close like this—when you gravitated toward him, charmed as a snake by a flute. When the inevitable outcome limited itself to brilliant, disastrous collision. “We can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because we’re not together.”

“When has that ever stopped us?”

All your air comes out at once. “This is so stupid.”

“You’re so pretty.” Delicately he cups your jaw. Strokes the tips of his fingers along the hollow of your cheek. “I was thinking about it all night. Noticed the glitter as soon as I saw you. Did Penelope do it?”

“Spencer, please.” Breathless. Pathetic. Desperate for him to put you out of your misery, one way or another. 

His throat bobs. “Come here.”

So you do. You lean in, one hand balanced on his knee, the other on his shoulder, and your lips brush so softly it can’t even be called a kiss. Still it sends a high-voltage shock through your whole body. He tastes like champagne as you kiss him deeper, as his hand wanders to the back of your thigh and hoists you across his lap. The other roots in your hair and your head spins. 

“Missed you so much,” he breathes into your mouth, not even bothering to pull away, or even to stop kissing you really. Mellow ivory and brass do a good job of concealing your soft breaths. Less so the undignified noise you make when Spencer shifts you roughly on his lap to pull you closer. 

“This isn’t a nice thing to be doing on ’Nelope’s couch,” you gasp between kisses, gripping at the front of his shirt like someone’s going to try taking him away from you. He alters his course from your mouth to trail down your neck. Lets fingers dip just beneath the hemline of your skirt until you shudder. 

“Then we’ll stop.”

Your jaw drops in a silent squeak as he nips at a delicate spot on your throat. 

The problem is that with the two of you, there is never any stopping. Not definitively. Never permanently. You can say it as emphatically as you’d like. You can even sort of mean it. But the cosmos has other plans. 

Outside, silent snow falls from a blue-black sky. There is nothing but the headlight glare from the occasional passing car. The popping and crackling of distant fireworks set off by the over-imbibed, ringing twelve o’clock in hours after the bloom of the new year. It must be midnight somewhere, you suppose. 

It’s just like you and Spencer, to be in the wrong place at the right time. It’s like you to slip through time-space cracks until you find each other in the accordion folds of the universe. 

It’s basically tradition.

spoilers: reader kinda cheats on Spencer but the consent there is questionable seeing as she was incredibly intoxicated

if u read this far WOW ily I hope u liked it :D I put blood sweat and tears into this bad boy. also shout-out @aliteralsemicolon for helping me so much with this fic she is a very helpful and willing consultant I think this never would've seen the light of day without her!!!

[lostinlovingrevery]

hihihihihi hello im a friend of cas' and i love your work :3333 could i perhaps maybe possibly request some cowboy!logan drabbles... it doesn't have to be smut or anything i just wanna kiss that man on the mouth with tongue :333 okay thanks i hope you have a really great day peace love and little donuts 💜

HELLO!!! Dear friend of Cas!!!! Thank you so much <3<3<3

I know you sent this the other night HOWEVER I DID have donuts before work this morning so!!!!!! your blessing worked!!!!

This is cowboy logan and i tend to be really horny about him HOWEVER I am including drabbles both fluffy and smutty below so enjoy. I probs should just make an individual post for each one oh well cash cash money smth smth free will

COWBOY LOGAN DRABBLES!!!!

(smut and fluff below)

Fluff

No More- angst/fluff

warnings: angst, some tension, it all works out <3

You hated every time he left.

The way he give you a kiss on the back of your hand and bid you farewell,

till next time, love.

How he could turn his back to you and walk away, climb on his horse and not even look back at you as he snaps the reins and ride away from your home.

You then spend your time alone, passing time doing your typical chores, and committing to new hobbies you didn't really enjoy all that much. You'd do everything you can to take your mind off him and when you finally realize that you won't stop thinking about him- you put your energy into what you'll tell him the next time you see him.

You were going to put a stop to his visits. No more showing up in the dead of night, no more giving your body to him every time he kisses you, no more letting him plague your every thought.

Then you'd hear his heavy footsteps on your wooden porch, the familiar sound of his spurs, the rustle of the layers he always wears. You'd forget every spiteful hateful thing you wanted to spew at him and run right into his arms, sharing a passionate kiss.

Then he'd pull out something from his pocket. It was different every time. A little gift, a token for you from his travels. It's ranged from everything to jewelry, to knick-knacks. He's given you a small, delicate yet beautiful sea shell. An old, restored compass. A small frame of your favorite flowers, pressed. He brought you books that you keep neatly stacked on your shelves, alongside your gifts that you treasure- even if you're angry with him.

You often wonder why he leaves. Aren't you good enough? He say he loves you, yet refuses to stay. Does he have others, that he says the same things to? Does he bring them gifts from your town?

Your mind would run wild with every possible situation, burning yourself with anger and jealously.

Yet, you still run into his arms. Every. Single. Time.

"Hello darling." He hums happily, pecking your lips again. A hand slipped around your waist to pull you close. You brought your hand to his cheek, examining a small scar. "It's nothing, don't worry."

"What did you do?"

"Just another little scrap, but it's fine." He says. "It's late, why don't we go inside. We can catch up in the morning."

You began to nod- only to remember your decision, how you won't going to let the charming cowboy into your life anymore. He noticed quickly the way your expression soured.

"What is it?"

"I don't think we should do this anymore Logan." You stepped back. Your hands came together, your fingers intertwining as you straighten your shoulders. and hold your chin up high.

He looked at you with a bit of confusion, raising a brow. His eyes trailed down you. "Why?" He stepped forward. "Why the sudden change in attitude sweetheart?"

"It just can't work like this anymore."

A heartbeat passed and a flash of anger came across his face. "There someone else?" He took a step forward, brows creasing together. "Another man?"

You squinted at him, your hands went to your hips. "Why would you care? It's not like you're here most of the time anyway."

A flash of guilt, before it returned to anger. "Is he here?"

You sighed. "No one is here Logan. There's no man. I'm sick of...this. I can't be sitting around my entire life, waiting for you to show up. I don't know what you're doing- where you are. I have nightmares of you ending up dead out there and I'll never know. Because I would just wait for you."

Silence filled the air, as you stared at each other. Logan's rage and jealousy melted away. Relief and concern filling him at the same time.

"Hey" His hand came up to your face and you shoved it away- refusing to let him charm his way back into your good graces. "Hey!" Both hands came to your face, pulling you closer to him. His touch firm, but gentle. "I've been doing it for you."

"What?"

"Been wanting to make sure I could take care of you properly. My girl only deserves the best." He purrs. "Been taking whatever job I could find. Saving up all the money possible so we- could live comfortable. However we want."

A soft gasp escaped you.

"Believe me darling I never wanted to leave you. You're all I can think about when I'm gone. I find things that remind me of you..." A faint smile grew on his face and he leaned his forehead against yours.

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" You whispered. A heartbeat passed.

"You'd convince me. To stay." He answers. "I know you would. Say you wouldn't need anything-"

"I don't-"

"I gotta take care of you darling." He says. "our future, whatever it'll be."

"You still should have told me. All this time I thought you were...just...." You sighed. You met his eyes, the hardness in your heart finally softening again. You considered his words- he could be feeding you a bunch of lies- but one more look into his eyes told you he was telling the truth. "You'd bring me a gift?" You smile.

"I did." He smirked. "Me."

"You-..." You trailed off. "You're not going to..."

"That's right darling. No more leaving. This cowboys heart is all yours."

A Small Crush - fluff

warnings: Violence, drinking, references to unwanted touch, logan being cute

He was a regular

Another patron in the saloon you worked in, tending to drunks, cranky and perverted old men, and the men and woman who worked their asses off and came by to relax.

He never chat much with anyone. Usually asked for a whiskey and sat alone at a table or at the counter. Waved off most who tried to pay him company- even the beautiful girls, and the escorts.

Occasionally he join a card game, sometimes get into a fight with someone who picked the wrong man.

He was a cowboy, and a loner. James Logan Howlett.

However he never passed the chance to talk to you.

He always paid you a compliment, a nice tip, and a pretty smile. Your friends teased you about him.

"Someones got a crush."

"He's just a nice man, that's all." You argued, hoping they don't notice the way you get flustered- how you face began to turn hot as you think about the handsome cowboy who's eyes sparkled when they looked at you.

It was random whenever he showed up, any day, any time. Sometimes will just take a quick drink, and sometimes he'd settle himself in the corner of the bar sipping on the large bottle of whiskey you left for him, and eating the meals you'd bring "on the house" to make sure he was fed, especially when he looked a bit peaky.

When you had the time, you'd sit and talked to him- ask him about his adventures. You loved hearing them- always wanting to leave the small desert town you lived in but never able to set foot out of it. He'd tell you about the trouble he'd get into- the ones that weren't so bad. He may omit a few details here and there- and you could always tell. You didn't care.

Whenever he was there- you always felt safe. Regular patrons began to recognize his intimidating presence and gave you less slack when he was around. One time one of the mine workers decided to smack your butt when you turned around to get the orders of a customer. Before you could even react the lone cowboy was across the room- tackled the miner over the table pining him to the floor and punching the living daylights out of him. It caused a chain reaction of course- and you managed to grab him and pull him out with you until the law came to break things up.

Despite the obvious tension between you both, the lingering glances, how your hand brushed over each his when you'd hand him something- sending a spark of electricity through both of you. Nothing ever happened. You waited for him- waited for him to ask you to dinner, lunch, breakfast- even a midday snack?

It was a late evening when something finally did.

Earlier in the day, the bar broke into a huge fight- Logan was the center of it. Some customer whistled at you- made a crude comment. Like before- Logan flew off the handle. Things got smashed, the authorities came- and you're left to clean the mess.

Your fixing tables and chairs, sweeping up the glass and various other messes when you heard the door creek open and heavy footsteps.

"We're closed!" You called out over your shoulder.

"That's too bad, was hoping for a glass."

You looked up, glancing to the door where Logan stood. He looked a bit sheepish, thumb tucked into his belt. He reached up and removed his hat. You smirked.

"If you can find one that's not shattered on the floor." You remarked, turning to sweeping up the shattered glass. You'll have to tell your boss- who was already fuming and told you to never let Logan back into the bar again- that he needs to order new glasses.

His footsteps approached you and you felt a hand on your back. You turned to look at him- and he held up a single flower to you.

A desert sunflower.

You smiled, taking it from him.

"It's not the best apology but..." A faint smile stretched across his face. "It's a start of one."

You looked at him. "It's promising." You grinned. He looked down, a bit bashful as you noticed the pink of his cheeks. He looked up at you, and reached for the broom.

You gave it to him, stepping away from the mess and allowing him to take over. You turned to the bar, ignoring the crunching of glass you hadn't swept up yet under your feet and began searching for something to pour whiskey into.

"So how did you get away?"

"Well..." Logan looked up, then looked at you, tilting his head towards the broken window. "After Roger threw Jim through it, I climbed out."

You blinked, and began to laugh shaking your head as you recall the chaos. "Y'know, Logan, you don't have to start a fight every time a man acts like a pervert." You crossed your arms, setting a bottle of Jack on the counter and leaning forward" I'm used to it- I can protect myself."

"I know." He smiles, dropping the broom to join you at the counter. "But....beautiful girl like you- man like me can't help it." He says leaning onto the counter, inches away from you.

You hummed, a pregnant silence filling the air around you. You took in the details of his face- like you have a million times before, noticing a deep cut on his cheek.

"Are you okay?" You asks in concern, your hand reaching out to touch his cheek- careful not to touch the cut, but tracing his skin underneath it.

"I've had worse." He smiles, his hand reaching up to curl around your hand, and he turned his head to kiss the palm of your hand, and then each finger.

Your heart started beating faster, butterflies raged in your stomach, each press of his lips sent a new tingle through your body.

"I don't like that you took a hit for me." You say softly.

He looked at you, a faint smirk across his face as his hand came up to take you chin between his thumb and forefinger. "I'd take a lot worse for you sweetheart."

Before you could respond, he leaned forward, catching you in a gentle kiss- giving you space to pull away, but you leaned in further. It turned heated, he tilted his head to lean further into you, licking your bottom lip, and slipping it between your lips as you parted them.

When you finally parted, breathless, your eyes met- and a small laugh escaped you both. You looked away, becoming flustered by your shared kiss. He brushed some hair behind your ear.

"Was that apart of your apology?" You smiled, looking up at him again.

"No, that was something new." He hums. You beamed, tilting your head to the side.

"Good, because you're not getting out of helping me clean all this up."

SMUT

Just a Maid - Smut

warnings: smut (obv), unprotected piv, creampie, logan is such a strange man

He thrusts into you, a breathy gasp escaping as you tipped your head back.

"Gotta be quiet sweetheart-" He purrs in your ear, "Don't want anyone hearing do ya? Or maybe ya do. You want them all to see me fucking you don't you?"

You whimpered, clinging to his shoulders as you wrapped your legs around his hips. He pressed against you, his body supporting you while his hands slammed into the wall on either side of your head.

It all happened so fast. You were up late- finishing the chores. One of the other farmhands was sick, so you did both hers and yours for the day so she could rest.

Logan, another hired help for the folks you work for - a rich family that your father owed a debt to, passed down to you when he died from sickness, had just walked in.

Logan tended to the cattle and sheep on the farm- And was often a topic amongst the women who worked here due to his rugged good looks, and bad attitude to anyone and everyone that interacted with him- including the bosses.

You never really interacted with him, the both of you too busy with your own work. The most you’ve done is bring food and water to the men, especially when it’s hot. The others went out of their way to talk with you- never Logan.

 But you've watched him. How he herded the animals out in the field- he was the best out of all of them. It embarrassed you to admit that you had a crush on him when he barely spoke a word to you- who wouldn't with a fine creature such as him?

Out of everyone that lived and worked on this land though- you definitely didn't have a chance.

He came in, expecting an empty barn to drink and smoke in- but you were there.

Not a word was spoken when he first came in. You both looked at each other. Logan had a look of irritation cross him, a small scoff escaping him as he continued into the barn- towards his hidden stash of jack. You rolled your eyes- annoyed that he was actively acting as if you were inconvinence him for being there when you were just working your ass off.

Time passed and you could feel his eyes on your back and the stench of cigars. Ignoring the feeling, you continued brushing the sheets along the scrubbing board. Soap came up to your elbows, and your skin was beginning to dry out.

"How long are you gonna keep doing that?" His voice finally interrupted the silence. You stopped, turning your head to speak over your shoulder.

"When I'm done." You reply, your tone was snappy. You were exhausted, knowing of the cowboys attitude and your little schoolgirl crush be damned- you weren't in the mood.

The wife of your boss had been around earlier- a real grade A bitch to everyone. She teased you about your dress- a simple milkmaid dress, as if you could afford anything fancy, about how you didn't have makeup, about your background, and even taunted your late father. All the while, you're washing her clothes, her sheets.

He was silent and you were glad he took the message until your heard footsteps approaching you.

"Take a break." You heard him as he stood behind you. His tone was a bit softer, but still demanding. You scoffed.

"I have to finish this first."

"They ain't gonna care-"

"Yes, they will." You respond with a firm tone. You scrubbed harder as frustration built up in you. Silence filled the room again. He said your name and asked if that was correct. A sigh, and you nodded. Didn’t even really know your name.

"I see you around."

"Me?" You laugh.

"You're a busy bee." He says, coming around to sit in front of you, a small groan as he settles down onto a haybale and leaning back, stretching his legs until his boot tapped against the washbasin you were using. "Always running back and forth, ordering the others around. They respect you."

"I've been here long enough for them to."

"Your old man worked here? Right?"

"Yeah." You nodded. "Died before you came around."

More silence, you saw him taking a sip from a bottle in his hand from the corner of your eye.

"You ever take a break?"

"I would if I could." You remark. "Mr and Mrs. Everglot keep me busy."

"That's for damn sure." He mutters. "They're a bunch of assholes."

You glanced up at him. "You think so?"

He quirked a brow, and nodded.

"Mm." You returned back to washing the sheets, the water splashed to the flower. The soap was beginning to disappear during the conversation.

"What?"

"Mrs. Everglot seems to like you." You say. "I see her talking to you every chance she has. Bats her eyelashes at you. Figured you liked her at least."

"That make you jealous?"

Your head shot up. He was across from you, leaning against a hay bale, a smirk growing across his face. You scoffed, shaking your head.

"No?" You say. "Why would I be? We don't know each other."

"Then why'd you bring it up?"

You sighed, "It's just an observation. I figured you one of the men who sneak into her room at night when Mr. Everglot is gone on his trips."

He smirked, eyes watching your every movement. How you seemed to become increasingly flustered as the conversation carries on. He knows exactly what you're talking about- however he has no interest in a woman like Everglot. She was annoying, a rich priss, flashing herself around him and the other men as if she had anything worth looking at.

"I heard her ripping into you earlier." He says.

You froze, not looking at him. Embarrassment filled you to the brim. As if you haven't been humiliated enough today.

He set his bottle down, standing up to walk over to your side, he squatted down to the floor, elbows resting on his knees. He reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear making you tense up.

"Take it easy darling." He says softly. "I ain't gonna hurt ya."

He cupped your chin, making you look at him. "You shouldn't take that shit from her."

"You think I want to?" You frowned. "I don't have a choice."

"Yeah you do-"

"No, I don't." You say firmly. You reached up to remove his hand. You stood up, squeezing the excess water out of the sheet, before draping it along the wall of a stall. "I have to finish the chores."

"Do you believe her?" He asks.

Your face felt on fire. "Logan- could you just leave me alone? Why are you even asking all this- you don't know me."

"Yeah I do. I've been watching you the entire time I've been here. " He says, stepping closer to you. That took you aback, your brows creasing as you looked up at him, "You're the only one worth her salt around here."

You shook your head and looked down at the floor crossing your arms, a tilt of your hip. "Why are you- I'm just a maid." You don't understand his sudden interest, why he suddenly insists on giving you a pep talk when before today neither of you barely said a word to each other.

"That's what you think you are? Just a maid?"

You looked up at him- startled by how close he was. You looked into his green eyes. The corner of his lip quirk upwards. He reached out and cupped your face again. Within seconds, it felt like your heart was beating out of your chest, and your legs were turning into jelly.

"I don't think so." His voice turns low, as he smirks and tilts his head. 

Before you knew it, you were pressed up against the wall with him between your legs, buried deeper inside you than anyone ever has been. 

You felt his heavy breaths with each thrust on your neck- before he began pressing kisses against your skin again, finding the crook, he bit down hard. You cried out from the pain, hands climbing into his hair and tugging at his messy, sweat covered hair. 

His hands came back down from the wall, tucking underneath your skirt to grab ahold of your ass, as he began pounding into your faster. Chuckling at the sounds of your whines and hiccups. 

“Haven’t gotten fucked like this before haven’t you?” He purred. “I can tell- a damn shame sweetheart, you deserve someone taking good care of you- You take care of everyone else around here.” His head fell to your shoulder, as he groans at the way you tighten around him. “Guess I’ll have to pick up the slack-” 

“Logan-” You whined,

“I know gorgeous- “ He lifted his head up, pressing his lips to your cheek. “What do you need?” 

“You-” You breathed out. He chuckled. 

“You already have me and you want more already huh?” He taunts with a cheeky grin. You jumped from a hard thrust and whine with a pout, “C’mere, I got you-” 

He captured you in a messy kiss, all tongue and spit and teeth clashing together. He spread his feet, angling himself against you as he thrusts in a steady yet rough pace that makes your eyes roll back and your thighs press into his hips harder. 

Your peak came, rolling through you in sharp waves that shook your body, sobs escaping you as you clung to Logan- listening to him while he talked you through it into your ear. His own demeanor became sloppy, voice becoming rough as he fucked your through your orgasm, before stopping and spilling inside you. You listened to his rough moans as he buried his face into your neck. 

After a few minutes, you dropped your shaky legs to the ground. He kept his arms around you, making sure you still had your balance. 

“You alright?” 

“A little dizzy…But yeah.” 

“Mm.” He brought his hand to your chin, tipping it up so you would look at him. “Right here, same time tomorrow. Got it?” 

“Um…” Your mouth hung open, unsure how to respond as you looked up at his face. “Okay…”

He smirked, letting go of you as he tucked himself back in his pants, redoing his belt buckle. He leaned down, grabbing your panties that were discarded to the floor. You reached out to take them- but he snatched them away from you. 

“Think I’m gonna keep this, alright darling?” He stuffs it into his pocket. He reached for your hand, taking it in his and bowing, kissing the back of it. “Make sure to get some rest. Don’t let Everglot talk to you like that again. We both know your ten times worth more than her and her husband.”

He winked out at you, before grabbing his beer and leaving you alone in the barn with the laundry you had washed. Unsure what just happened, as you felt his cum slowly leak out and down your thigh. 

Taste of Cigars- smut

Warnings: smut (obv) unprotected piv, smoking, F! receiving oral

“Hold this, don’t drop it.” 

He stuck the cigar between your lips, and you clamp down to hold onto it.

“Don’t bite through the damn thing darling.” He mumbles, watching you fidget with it. “There- like that. See?” 

You nodded, puffing on it a bit- only to go into a coughing fit and nearly dropping it. 

“How bout you skip doing that, we’ll give it a taste later.” He mumbles. He hiked your skirt up, spreading your legs open for him. “Look at that pretty lil thing- all ready for me ain’t she?” 

“Mhm…” You nodded, heat blooming in your cheeks. You sat back, your elbows supporting you as you kept your thighs spread for him. His hands brushed over your panties- watching the fabric become soaked with your arousal. 

He pressed against your clit, watching your body tense from his touch and smirked, finally kneeling down, pressing kisses to your inner thighs, and then against your clothed cunt. He peaked his tongue, tasting your wetness through your panties and groaning. 

“Taste so damn good sweetheart.” He hums, pushing your panties to the side. “Mhm. Like I said- Such a pretty pussy you got.” 

You whined, stretching your legs open further, desperate for his touch. 

“Hey- don’t drop that cigar-” He orders, his voice becoming demanding, changing from the rough sensual tone he was holding before. You rolled your eyes, your tongue pressing against the butt of the cigar, attempting to get a taste of Logan left behind. “No attitude-” He brought a hand down on your cunt- and you yelped. How’d he know?

A heartbeat passed, his fingers began brushing through your folds, inspecting them carefully. You exhale deeply through your nose, eyes falling shut as you tipped your head back. You let the smoke fall through your lips, careful not to inhale again. The taste warm, more pleasant than you thought it would be- but still carried a bitterness you weren’t used too. 

His calloused fingers before swirling over your clit, sending a new relief through you as you lazily leaned back onto the table, arms stretching over your head. You felt his tongue dip into your hole, a small moan escaping you as you grabbed the edge of the table.

His tongue and fingers switched places, as he placed it against your clit, and he entered a single digit inside you, curling it to hit the sweet spot he knows will send you into a crying mess- he loved doing it to you. 

“Mlogan…” You hummed through his cigar. A hand came down to curl into his hair, tugging him closer. He looped his arms around your legs, his tongue now the sole reason for your pleasure. He ate you out like a man starved- your arousal soaked his face and beard- but he didn’t stop until your body tensed up, lapping at your cum until you fell laxed against the table.

He stood up, pulling the cigar that was hanging off your lips and brought it between his teeth as he puffed on it. 

“Mm.” He nodded savoring the taste of the cigar- noting your own spit that cover the end, his hands coming down to undo his belt and pulling his cock out. “Thanks for holding onto it doll.” He says, his arms once again looping around your legs and tugging you to the edge of the table. 

His cock rested against your belly, and he angled himself to push through your folds- watching your twitch with each rubbing motion. He finally angled himself against your hole, and pushed himself.

“Oh!” You gasped.

“Relax-” He mutters through his cigar, as he pushed deeper into you. You pushed yourself up on your elbows again. Lips parted as your eyes became hazy- full of him. 

He smirked, hand came up to take his hat that sat on the table next to you, setting it on your head. “Why dont ya hold onto that one too sweetness?” 

You smiled up at him, your face dropping as he thrusts into you hard- pulling out to the tip, and back in. 

Immediately losing all strength in your body as he takes you, you fall back onto the table, moans escaping you as your body bounced with each of his thrusts. 

His jaw tensed, teeth gritting as he puffed on the cigar- billows of smoke escaping through his lips. He creased his brows as his hands moved to hold onto you hips, pounding into you at a messy pace. Watching his cock pushing in- as if your pussy was sucking him inside, clenching around him everytime he pulls out. 

His hand came up to pull the cigar from his lips, bringing it down to his hip as he brought his other hand to press against your belly. 

“Doing such a good job darling-” He purred. “Taking this cowboys cock real good.”

“Lo-” You whined. “C’mere-” 

He brought the cigar to his lips, leaning down over you- not ceasing in his endless thrusts. His chest pressed against yours, he rutted into you deep. 

“I want you close-” You whined. 

“I’m pretty damn close from where I’m standing sweetheart.” He chuckled through his cigar. He took a deep puff, removing the cigar from his lips and held it between his fingers- with the same hand, he grabbed your face- squishing your cheeks together. “Open up.” 

His lips touched yours as he blew smoke into your mouth, watching your eyes become glazy- a faint smile appearing across your lips. He licked into your mouth, before pressing open mouth kisses all along your neck, and down your chest. “Fucking perfect.” He hissed, feeling you squeeze around him tight. He sat up, cigar between his lips again as he tugged your skirt further up, exposing your belly. His hands slid over your skin- feeling every soft inch of you, groaning at just how perfect you are.

A few more deep thrusts, and you were creaming around his cock, thighs trembling as tears poured down your cheek. He watched you come undone, fucking you through your second orgasm until he reached his own. He pulled out quick, stroking himself to completion all over your belly, streaks of white painting your skin. 

Once he’s done, he admired the art he made on you- as you laid on the table, spread up, ruined- panting and sweaty. A smirk on his face as he blew out another puff of smoke. 

He stepped forward, stubbing the cigar against the table next to your hip. “So, how’d you like the taste of that sweetheart?” 

You sat up, your hair mussed and ruined, your lips puffy, your eyes heavy and glazed still. You nodded. “That one wasn’t so bad.” You muttered. He smirked. 

“Yeah? Well I got these other flavors,” He reached into his vest, pulling out a small tin. “Figured you could try those out with me too.”

BONUS!!!

a peek into a future chapter of Love and Bounties!!!!!

an absolute menace <3gan

[the-woman-upstairs]

Denis Villenueuve: I’m thinking we can tone down or excise the predatory, incestuous vibes between Baron Harkonnen and Feyd-Rautha, it’s not really necessary for the story anyway.

Austin Butler:

[mr-jammed-toast]

i think to start off we need to go back in time for a little bit.

even before nico had fully realized his feelings for percy, he already saw him as a hero. someone who always saves the day, someone who can do no wrong. and we see this expectation tragically go wrong when percy comes back without bianca. this gets even more justified when nico finally developed a crush on him. although nico had not entirely seen percy as a "perfect" person, he explicitly stated that he had always viewed him as someone higher, which is a very flawed perception of him-- which is also why part of nico's character development was dismantling that very perception he had of percy, dismantling the hero worship that nico had desperately clung to over the years.

then we get with will.

see, part of being in a committed relationship with someone is acknowledging and accepting their flaws. seeing them past their good qualities and embracing the ugly parts of themselves that they try to hide. putting will into a box where he is Expected To Be Perfect not only does harm to his character but also to nico as well, because nico himself has to realize that will isn't a perfect person, no matter how much he is attracted to him, no matter how highly he thinks of will. this is something he needs to acknowledge in order to maintain a healthy committed relationship with will

and im not joking when this literally gets addressed in tsats! yes, nico gets irritated and offended that will is being insensitive about the underworld-- in fact it is healthy that he is feeling that discomfort! we are seeing on paper that nico is starting to realize that will isn't always perfect, that they don't always agree on the same things. but that doesnt mean that they should break up, or they are a toxic ship. no! even if nico faces these conflicts and misunderstandings with will, he's still willing to communicate and overcome these issues because-- and just like what ive said in my last posts-- he simply loves will.

understanding that will isnt perfect is crucial to nico's character development and their relationship as a whole. in this essay i will

[theinfinitedivides]

watching Seok Jin's TDP's Q&A rn and the amount of proposals coming in for this man from every direction i'm cryingggggg

[yay-depression]

watched the red white & royal blue movie and… eh

good concept poor execution i think

[globaloppaaa]

2001 ─── ⋆. 𐙚 ˚

𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 𓎢𓎟𓎡 honey, what you running’ from?

yangjungwon x fem. reader

🎧 - 2001, FINNEAS

word count: 2.5k ⊹ fluff ⊹ jungwon being so down bad ⊹ comfort ⊹ reader is oblivious as hell ⊹ lowercase intended ⊹

a/n : i’m so down bad for him it’s not funny anymore. this is semi-proof read? dm me if there are any mistakes!

yang jungwon was always meant to be loved.

in the way that he held every door for every stranger who walked by, or in the tulips he’d buy his mother each week, knowing she preferred them over roses. He was loved in the ways that could speak deeper than “I love you.” Just a smile could brighten someone’s day.

Jungwon was meant to be loved simply for the way that he loved. For his genuine care in the smallest details, and how he wore his heart on his sleeve.

You’ve always known him to be this way, how he’d stay up late with you to finish an assignment, then bring you your favorite drink the next morning to wake you up. And if your drink wasn’t made right that day? He’d waste no time giving you his instead. You knew how friendly he was, and how comfortable he felt around others because of the fact he was so comfortable in himself. It’s almost a nauseating feeling, how you wished you could be a little more like him. How leaning against the lockers on one arm as his head dips close to yours doesn’t flutter his heart one bit.

“we still on for after school?” Your eyes find his, smiling back at his flashy grin.

“we always hang out after school won.”

“i just like to remind myself.” He chuckles, trying to ignore the way his name falling off your lips makes his body heat up. He closes your locker for you after you grab your books, following beside you as you begin down the hall. It doesn’t go unnoticed by lingering students how he always walks you to your last class of the day. This is typical Jungwon behavior, how he follows you to your room, brushing his shoulder with yours every so often. The class is already bustling with noise as he opens the door for you. You quickly turn to him, his glimmering eyes always shining a little brighter than the day before through his strands of blond hair.

“I’ll meet you outside in a bit.” you say softly, catching the way his eyes intently move back and forth between yours. They catch a hair out of place, gently lifting his fingers to move it behind your ear. “Mhm, Until then.” He agrees, winking before he’s off to his final lecture of the day.

You find it funny how much he’s risking to be around you so often, as the bell rings abruptly through the building. You can still make his figure jogging down the hall. He’s going to be late again you realize, knowing Jungwon couldn’t care less. He’s always put others before him and he’ll keep doing that to his grave, for it was simply the way he was.

If you asked Jungwon, he might give a different answer. Love might be something that radiates off of him, but it wasn’t something he shared so easily, not to his classmates or even his closest friends. Love was something he cherished, something he saved in hopes that someday the person he loved would return it.

Jungwon was in love with you, and terribly so.

Never did he bother to linger around anyone else as much, he never tried so hard to make someone see how much he cared. The attention you’d attract from curious glances of students excited him, made him feel like you could be together, like you were together. He’s made it so painfully obvious how every gaze you attract from another guy sets off a fire in his chest, how any moment away from you physically pains him. He never denies it when his friends make jokes about the two of you dating, though he never fully commits to accepting them either. Just shrugging it off while he changes the topic.

Jungwon knows how it would play out. He’d confess how he’s been in love with you for years, you’d reject him, and years of friendship would end within the night. He isn’t prepared to lose that, much less lose you at all. So he settles with the fact that he has you now. He doesn’t have to have you more, not even when he’s begging for it.

By the end of the hour he finds you outside, standing by his car just like you promised. Your shoe plays with a small rock, before the sound of his footsteps takes your attention. You give him a soft smile, like he was the reason for brightening your day, and he reminds himself he wouldn’t trade this for anything. Simply being your best friend was enough, at least to numb over his aching heart.

But in your smile lies a feeling. Something you’re not sure is new or has been suppressed for a long time. He’s seen the look on you before, never knew exactly what it meant but paid it no mind. And for a while you told yourself it wasn’t anything too.

It started about a year ago, when you woke up under the soft covers of his sheets. After a Friday all-nighter spent with him and his friends, you found yourself too exhausted to keep up with them by the early morning. How exactly you fell asleep, and more specifically how you got into his bed you didn’t want to think about. You didn’t want to admit the possibility that he carried you, softly laying you down while the rest of his friends cooing lovey jokes dissipated into the background. It made you embarrassed for him having to deal with that, but what was more confusing to you was that a part of you was disappointed. A part of you pushed down how you wished you could’ve woken up next to him.

You let it be then, but that feeling has its moments where it’s too strong to ignore. When he lingers close for a second too long. When you look for him first in any room and his eyes are already on you. Even after the countless times your friends have insisted that it means something. If not to you yet, it does to him.

“How long have you and Jungwon been dating for again?” You recall Giselle joking to you a few weeks back. On the outside her face remains curious, but her words are laced with a teasing remark. She waits a few seconds, watches the way you huff a sigh and roll your eyes, ignoring the twinge in your chest before she lets out a warm laugh. “you can’t tell me the way he treats you, let alone looks at you doesn’t mean something, babe.”

“He’s always treated me that way?”

“Which further proves my point, he’s so in love with you, I think you know it too.”

She’s said it so many times it feels like a well-oversaid joke, but that feeling comes back again. That ‘what if’ that sits in your core. What if she’s right? Would things change for the better? or for the worse? Does he feel the same way?

And would it really be so bad?

It’s then you catch yourself starting to believe that what she’s saying is true.

“Girl, you’re thinking about him right now!!” Giselle exclaims, taking you out of your thoughts. “friends don’t act the way you two do. Just accept that he’s in love with you, and that you love him too.”

Everything she says, and all the times before, really makes you reconsider just how much you’ve been avoiding these thoughts, and how much you’ve been holding back.

So the weeks go on, and once again you find yourself seated in the passengers seat of Jungwons car like always. You don’t angle your body towards him like usual though, where you’d usually go off about some deep, interesting topic. Your knees stay pointed towards the window, and your thumbs twiddle in your lap. He’s already done more than enough today, placing your bag in the backseat while still managing to open the car door for you to step inside. Giselles words skip in your mind like a broken record.

Jungwon notices, he’d be stupid if he didn’t. He catches how you’re quieter, thinking something might’ve bothered you in your last class. But even as you get to his place, ending the quiet car ride with more silence, does he start to suspect something. The worst idea that comes to his mind is that something happened between you and him. He prays it’s anything but that.

You step inside and immediately find yourself taking out your textbooks at the kitchen table. A formal spot, a place nothing strange or out of the ordinary could happen. Though you aren’t exactly sure what is ordinary about your friendship with Jungwon, or if it’s been anything but that. He locks the front door as he finds you inside. Not at the couch, nor heading up the stairs to his room like every other time you come over.

“Is everything ok?” He says your name, and you swallow hard at how it sounds so sweet coming from his lips. Has he always said it like that?

“All good, just have a lot of schoolwork.”

He knows something’s up, doesn’t know how long you’ll hold it in for until it seeps out of you. You always come around to telling how eachother feels, but this time it feels different. He takes note of the way your hands fidget for your computer as he reaches over to help you. The skin of his hand lightly brushes against yours, and you jolt from the spark it shoots through you. Did you ever realize he made you feel this way? He places his hand on top of yours to reassure you that whatever’s going on, it’s alright.

But it really isn’t alright, because as soon as your eyes meet you have to look away. Do his eyes always have that tinge of a sparkle in them? His lips have never smiled at you this way you swear, and it doesn’t help that his hair manages to fall perfectly over his chiseled face everytime. you avert your gaze, but only for a moment as his fingers gently pull your chin back to him.

“What’s going on?” Worry courses through his words. Whatever your behavior is begins to bother him as much as it bothers you, though you can’t quite focus with his hand caressing your face. You force yourself to pull away, sitting yourself onto the barstool and immediately trying to to direct your attention back to your work.

Only a few hours of silence feels like days as you both work into the evening. No jokes this time, no outbursts of laughter like usual. Uncomfortable to the point Jungwon has to do something about it. He moves himself from the table, heading towards the couch where he picks up the remote.

He’s clicking through the channels, and though the sound pulls you away from your work, you’re only thinking about his hands. How they’ve hugged you when you’ve cried, and caressed your head when he was proud of you. His hands are always on you, you realize, much like how he held your face only a short while ago. You’re not sure whether you’re scared by how much he’s all over you, or how you never actually want him to let go.

Jungwon lands on an old movie, something from 2001 you make out before you refocus on him, now looking back at you. He gestures his head over to the couch, and you feel bad enough for acting so distant around him all day, the least you can do is watch it beside him.

You’re sure to keep enough distant between the two of you. It’s nothing like how you normally go about movie nights, shoulders comfortably touching which eventually leads to you fast asleep against his chest. Now you’re on the opposite end of the couch, not even connected by a blanket.

It’s getting harder for Jungwon to keep his distance from you, he tries to shift closer and replace the tension that’s building between you, but with every shuffle of movement Giselle’s words replay in your mind.

friends don’t act the way you two do. Just accept that he’s in love with you, and that you love him too.

The movie is reaching its climax, and it’s then you turn your head to look at him. You hope he’s distracted by the film, but his eyes are already looking back at you.

“Wonnie can we talk.”

It’s more of a statement than a question, because you know he’s got something to say, something you think has been holding him back for a while now. You just aren’t sure if it’s you who’s been making him bold back, or if you were just the one holding back this whole time.

He sighs, melting at the way you say his name, and how you think it’s so casual to call your bestfriend that when your words are laced with honey. He’s tensing at whatever might go down next, what might alter the future of your friendship, or whatever the two of you have been. He shifts forward so he’s closer to you, giving a reassuring smile.

“You can talk to me about anything”

You swallow hard, noticing the way your hands are centimeters apart. You want him to hold you, you know that now.

“I think something’s going on with us.”

He chuckles, “yeah I think so too.”

after a minute or so of silence, you begin again.

“Is there something you need to tell me Won?”

“Just something I think you need to realize.”

Your breath catches in your throat when he says that, barely above a whisper. Somehow he’s less than a foot away, and his hand slowly reaches up to cup your cheek. almost instinctively you give in, leaning into his palm. His smile is so soft, he knows you can’t hold back from it anymore.

“Do you want me to let go.”

“Please don’t.”

His thumb strokes your face, eyes half-lidded as he comes closer. Your eyes close from the comfort of him on your skin, you don’t even give a second thought when he asks if he can kiss you. His lips press onto yours, and it feels too good for you to wonder what you’ve been running from for so long. Something about Jungwon with you feels so right and you’ve known it. Your hands grip his shirt, tugging him closer as his other hand finds your waist. With the way he isn’t fazed by the kiss tells you everything you need to know. Jungwon has always been like this for you, He’s always loved you. And it’s now that you finally understand you were always meant to love yang jungwon.

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[greengoblinswifey]

Moth to a Flame- Nicholas Chavez x Actress!Reader

summary— you find yourself entangled with your co-star, Nicholas Chavez, despite being in a committed relationship. The chemistry between you ignites on and off set and the lines blur, leading to a heated affair.

warnings— fingering, daddy kink, unprotected sex, creampie, oral, cheating(reader does), praise kink, degrading kink, not proofread i fear.

a/n: this is long asf but you’ll love it, read while listening to Moth to a Flame by The. Weeknd <3

On set, the tension was palpable. The cameras were rolling for season two of the show where Nicholas and you, as the main characters, were set to film an intense love scene. The script called for his character to finally confess his desire for you, despite your on-screen character’s relationship with someone else. Ironically, it wasn’t just the characters who were tangled up in complicated feelings. In real life, you and Nicholas had crossed the same line, and it made filming the scene that much more real.

Your boyfriend, Cody, who had always been a bit uneasy about you acting alongside Nicholas, was on set that day, watching the scene unfold. The moment Nicholas delivered his line with intense conviction- “I want you, fuck your boyfriend,” It was almost like a direct hit to Cody in real life. His fists clenched, and you could feel the heat of his glare even from where you stood.

The scene continued, Nicholas's hands on your waist, pulling you close as you kissed for the first time this season. The chemistry between you both was undeniable on and off and that only seemed to infuriate your boyfriend further. Before the director could call “cut,” Cody stormed forward, clearly upset.

“Cut!” the director yelled, trying to defuse the situation. You hurried over to him, placing a hand on his chest to calm him down.

“Listen, babe, take a breather, okay? We have to do this scene. It’s just acting,” you whispered, trying to soothe his frustration. You could feel Nicholas' eyes on you from across the set, jaw clenched in irritation. He hated seeing Cody upset, especially when it came to you which was very common.

“I don’t like it,” Cody muttered, his voice low. “The way he looks at you, the way you two are-”

“Go take a walk through the city, clear your head," you interrupted softly, trying to stay professional even though the tension was real. “It’s part of the job, okay? We’re gonna take a break.”

He hesitated, his eyes darting between you and Nicholas. But eventually, after a few tense moments, he gave in and turned to leave, though not without a frustrated huff. The moment he was out of earshot, you sighed, running a hand through your braids.

Nicholas approached you, his eyes dark with a mix of desire and irritation. “You okay?” he asked, though his gaze flickered toward where Cody had disappeared.

You nodded, but inside, the emotions were swirling. You were cheating on your boyfriend in the show, but the real betrayal lingered in the air, just beneath the surface.

In the next scene, the tension was still hanging in the air, and the director decided it was best to take a break. “Alright, we’re gonna pause here,” he announced. “Everyone take ten, grab some snacks, get some air. We’ll continue filming once we’re all settled again.”

You nodded, eager for a moment to escape the tension between your boyfriend and Nicholas on set. Heading back to your trailer, you sank onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling while sipping on coffee. Your mind raced, replaying the scene that had just unfolded. You had been thinking about leaving Cody for a while now, but his overbearing presence made it hard. You feared what he might do if you walked away. And then, of course, there was the media, always watching.

As you lay there, lost in thought, a knock sounded at your door. You assumed it was Cody, needing to cool off after his earlier outburst. Without even looking, you called out, “Cody, just take a walk. You need to cool off.”

The door opened, but instead of Cody’s familiar presence, it was Nicholas who stepped in. You sat up on the bed, surprised. “Oh, Hey,” you muttered, sitting up straighter as he walked towards you.

“Everything alright?” he asked, his voice low and concerned. He studied your face closely, his eyes filled with genuine care. You tried to give a nonchalant smile, nodding.

“I’m fine,” you lied, though it was obvious you weren’t. Nicholas’ gaze flickered from your brown eyes down to your lips, then back up again. He stepped closer, the space between you shrinking until there was barely any distance at all.

You both were inching toward each other, your breath mingling as the attraction that had been building between you two, both on and off screen, reached its breaking point for the hundredth time. Before you could think, his lips were on yours. The kiss was slow and tender at first, but then his hands moved up to cup your breasts, sending sparks through you.

You pulled away, breathless, your heart pounding. “What if Cody comes back? What if he sees us?” you whispered, half in fear, half in excitement.

Nicholas, with a wicked grin, leaned in closer, his voice a deep rasp. “Let him see. Let him see me make you feel good, in a way he never can.”

The room felt hot, the air thick with desire. Nicholas stood up and crossed the room to lock the door. The click of the lock made your pulse race. Then, without hesitation, he took off his shirt, revealing his muscular chest and defined abs. He looked absolutely irresistible, his body chiseled and perfect.

You couldn’t stop staring, practically drooling at how unbelievably hot he was. And as he stood there, looking down at you with smoldering eyes, you realized just how powerless you were to resist him any longer.

The tension in the trailer was thick, the heat between you and Nicholas undeniable. You wanted more of him, but the looming threat of Cody returning, or the director calling everyone back to set, weighed on your mind. Despite that, your body ached for his touch, and you couldn’t resist as he sat beside you, his lips crashing back onto yours.

The kiss deepened, your moans of his name slipping past your lips as he whispered against your skin, “I love when you moan my name.” His eyes darkened with desire as he added, “I hope that whenever Cody fucks you, you’re thinking of me.”

Your breath hitched as his mouth trailed lower, his hands already tugging at the low-cut top you wore. His lips found your breasts, his mouth warm as he sucked on your skin, sending waves of pleasure through you. “Nicholas,” you moaned, trying to stop him before he left any visible marks. “No hickeys, please-”

But he didn’t listen. He left two dark hickeys on your breasts, smirking as he pulled away to admire his work. “I hope when he takes off your clothes, he sees these,” he murmured, his voice low and possessive. “He’ll know you belong to someone else. To me.”

You shivered as his hands trailed down to your skirt, slipping underneath to find your lacy panties. His fingers rubbed you through the thin fabric, and you were already soaked. A soft moan escaped your lips as your hips lifted into his touch, begging for more.

“Does this turn you on?” Nicholas asked, slipping a finger past your panties and into your heat, teasing you. “Cheating on that little boy?” He held your face in his hand, forcing you to look at him as he asked again. “Do I turn you on?”

You nodded frantically, biting your lip before whispering, “Yes Daddy, you do.”

He grinned, sliding another finger inside you, his thumb rubbing your clit in slow, agonizing circles. You gasped, arching your back off the bed as the pleasure built inside you. “Such a good girl,” he murmured against your lips, kissing you deeply to muffle your moans. His lips moved to your neck, placing soft kisses there as he praised you. “You’re taking my fingers so well, you’re so wet, soaking my hand.”

Your breath came in ragged pants, your body trembling as the pleasure became overwhelming. He pulled his fingers out of you, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean with a smirk. Then he leaned down and kissed you again, letting you taste yourself on his lips.

He didn’t stop there. His fingers returned to your heat, sliding in and out as his mouth found your breasts again, sucking and teasing your sensitive skin. His thumb rubbed tight circles on your clit, pushing you closer and closer to the edge.

It wasn’t long before your body gave in. You came hard around his fingers, your moans muffled by his lips as he kissed you through it. “That’s it, baby,” he whispered, his voice filled with pride. “Such a good girl for Daddy, coming on my fingers like that. That’s my girl.”

He kept fingering you gently, easing you down from your high, until you were breathless and shaking beneath him.

Without a word, you slid down the bed, pulling at Nicholas’s pants with urgency. His eyes had been locked on you, heavy with lust, and when you finally freed his hard cock, you were mesmerized by how perfect it looked, thick, long and pretty with a pink tip. You wasted no time, taking him into your mouth, your tongue swirling around him as a deep moan escaped his lips.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his head falling back as you worked your tongue along his shaft. “You’re such a good girl, feels so good.”

You started teasing him, your mouth moving slowly, hands caressing his balls, but the teasing hadn’t lasted long. Nicholas grabbed your braids, gently tugging your head forward. “Suck my cock,” he demanded, his voice low and rough. “No teasing.”

You obeyed, taking him deeper, your mouth moving faster as you pleased him just the way he liked. His hands guided your movements, and his moans filled the air, telling you how perfect you were, how no one could ever make him feel like this. “You’re too good for him,” he said through gritted teeth, his breath ragged. “You belong to me, no matter who you’re with.”

The words sent a shiver through you, and you moaned around him, sending vibrations along his length. He gasped, tightening his grip on your hair. “Does he know you call me when he sleeps? Does he know where your heart lies?”

You couldn’t respond, your mouth full of him, but the moans you let out told him everything. You took him deeper, gagging slightly as he hit the back of your throat, and he cursed under his breath, his abs tightening.

“I’m gonna cum,” he warned, his voice strained. “I’m gonna cum in your mouth.”

You nodded eagerly, quickening your pace, and your hands massaged his balls as you took him as deep as you could. It only took a few more strokes before his hips jerked, and with a groan, he spilled into your mouth. His head fell back, and he moaned, “Such a good girl, my good girl. You did so good for me. You sucked my cock so well.”

You swallowed everything, licking him clean before pulling away, looking up at him as he watched you with hooded eyes.

Nicholas pulled you up from the bed, guiding you into his arms as your lips met in a soft kiss. His touch was gentle now, and as you nestled against his chest, he pressed a kiss to your forehead. His hand found its way to your hair, stroking it soothingly while you relaxed in his embrace.

“I don’t want to do this forever,” you murmured softly, your voice tinged with the weight of your emotions. The tension of sneaking around and the complications with Cody weighed heavily on your mind.

Nicholas held you tighter, understanding the unspoken struggle. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered, kissing your forehead.

Before either of you could say more, there was a sharp knock on the trailer door. “Filming’s starting again in five!” the director called from outside.

You sighed, pulling yourself from the warmth of Nicholas’s embrace. “I guess it’s time,” you said with a small, reluctant smile.

You quickly washed your mouth in the small sink, your mind already shifting back to the scene you had to film. Nicholas lingered for a moment, waiting for you to finish before stepping to the side to give you space. He couldn’t come out with you immediately, it would look suspicious, so he stayed behind, allowing you to exit first.

When you stepped back on set, Cody was already there, his eyes burning as he watched you. He hadn’t said anything yet, but you could feel the tension radiating from him, as though he suspected something. Nicholas emerged a minute later, casually strolling back to his mark, though you could see the edge in his expression as his gaze briefly flickered over to your boyfriend.

It was time to get back into character, but the lines between fiction and reality were blurring more than ever. Cody’s stare bore into you as if daring you to give something away, while Nicholas stood close, his jaw clenched, waiting for the scene to unfold.

The director called out, “Action!” and the scene picked up exactly where they left off. Nicholas, fully in character, glared at you with fiery intensity as he delivered his line, “I want you. Fuck your boyfriend.”

Before you could respond, he grabbed you, pulling you into a kiss that was far more heated than the script required. His hands roamed your body, squeezing your waist and chest, his presence dominating the moment. The kiss deepened, and as he moved you onto the bed, it felt as though the lines between acting and reality blurred. He seemed to glance over toward Cody, who was watching from behind the camera, but it was hard to tell if it was intentional or not.

“Cut!” the director shouted, stepping forward with a smile. “That was flawless, great job you two.”

Nicholas's lips were still hovering over yours, your breaths mingling as you both panted from the intensity of the scene. His hands stayed on your body just a little longer than necessary, and Cody’s eyes burned with suspicion from across the set. It was as though he could feel something was off, but he said nothing.

Later, the day’s filming wrapped, and everyone was heading back to the hotel. You, Nicholas, and Cody were all staying in the same hotel, which only added to the tension. In your shared room with your boyfriend, his agitation was evident. He was pacing, his expression dark and frustrated.

“What was that today?” he demanded, his tone sharp. “The way you two were all over each other. It didn’t look like acting.”

You sighed, trying to remain calm. “It was nothing, Cody. We were just doing the scene, it’s literally just acting. I don’t know what you’re talking about”

He wasn’t convinced. His eyes narrowed as he stepped closer to you, scrutinizing every word that left your lips. “You sure about that?” he asked. “Because it didn’t look like nothing from where I was standing.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but no words came out. Instead, you stepped away from him, shaking your head. “I’m not doing this,” you said, your voice steady. “I’m not about to argue with you over my job. You chose to be there.”

Cody’s face softened as he realized he was pushing too hard. “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to approach you again. “I just, I don’t know. I didn’t mean to make it a thing.”

But you were done with the conversation. “I don’t want to hear it, Cody.” The words were final, your back turned to him as you tried to distance yourself from the situation. Frustrated, his voice snapped at you, but then he stopped himself, muttering another apology. He moved closer, pressing his lips to your neck in a gesture meant to calm the tension. But as his lips touched your skin, you found yourself closing your eyes, not thinking of him, but of Nicholas, the way his hands had held you, the way his lips had lingered on your neck during filming and outside of it.

Cody’s hands slid down, trying to pull at your clothes, his fingers tugging at the hem of your top, but you stopped him before he could pull it off. The memory of the hickeys Nicholas had left on your chest flashed in your mind.

“I- I don’t want to have sex tonight,” you said abruptly, pulling away from his touch.

His frustration was immediate. He huffed and stormed toward the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. You could hear the water running. He couldn’t understand why things had suddenly shifted, why the desire had waned on your end. But deep down, you knew.

You knew you’d much rather Nicholas be the one to kiss your neck, pull down your top and take you right then and there. You were aching for him, dripping with arousal. You were determined to get a piece of him later that night when your boyfriend was asleep or hopefully out getting drunk.

As the night wore on, you waited for Cody to finish in the bathroom. You laid in bed, pretending to sleep, watching him through half-lidded eyes as he finally crawled in beside you, exhausted and oblivious. Once you were sure he was deeply asleep, you carefully slid out of bed. To test, you flicked your finger against his forehead, smiling slightly when he didn’t stir.

Moving quietly, you slipped into the bathroom and began your nightly routine, washing your face and applying your skincare and makeup. The rush of anticipation built with every step. You picked up the red lingerie, skimpy and barely there, hugging you in all the right places, and slid it on, admiring how it clung to your body in the mirror. Then, you wrapped yourself in a trench coat, keeping the surprise hidden.

With one last glance at your boyfriend, who remained fast asleep, you grabbed your phone and texted Nicholas. “Is your door open?”

His reply came quickly. “It’s open, princess.”

Your heart raced as you made your way down the hall, the soft click of your heels barely audible. Reaching Nicholas’ room, you opened the door slightly, peeking in before stepping inside. Nicholas was standing there, eyes darkening with hunger the moment he saw you in the trench coat. He crossed the room, meeting you at the door, gaze fixed on you.

Without saying a word, you undid the knot of your trench coat and let it fall to the floor. The red lingerie you wore underneath left nothing to the imagination. His breath caught as he took in the sight of you. “You look so sexy for Daddy,” he murmured, voice thick with desire.

Before you could respond, Nicholas pressed you against the door, his lips trailing down your neck as his hands found your breasts. You moaned softly, hands tangling in his hair, feeling the intensity of his need. He squeezed your breasts, murmuring, “You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy," you breathed, arching into him, “I’m all yours.”

His smirk deepened, his lips claiming yours as he pulled you even closer, his hands exploring every inch of you.

He lifted you effortlessly, and you instinctively wrapped your legs around him, grinding against the hardness pressing into you. His hands gripped your thighs as he carried you to the bed, laying you down gently before pulling his shirt over his head. You watched, breathless, as he slid his boxers off, his thick cock already hard and leaking, the tip glistening with precum.

Hovering over you, he began rubbing himself along your soaked entrance, teasing, dragging his length up and down your slick folds. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, voice husky as his eyes took in the sight of you beneath him.

“Just fuck me, Daddy,” you begged, voice desperate and needy.

Nicholas smiled, a dark gleam in his eyes as he reached for the straps of your lingerie and slowly pulled it off, baring your body to him completely. He kissed down your body, leaving a trail of heat in his wake until his mouth found your pussy. His tongue flicked against your clit, and you moaned loudly, gripping the sheets as pleasure rolled through you. He devoured you, lapping at your wetness, the sensations building and building until you were on the edge, so close to coming.

But just as you were about to let go, he pulled away, leaving you panting and needy. “I want you to come around me,” he said, his voice filled with desire. He reached for a condom from the nightstand.

“No condom this time,” you interrupted, breathless but firm. “I want to feel all of you. I want you to cum inside me.”

Nicholas’ eyes flashed with something primal, his lips curling into a smirk. He tossed the condom aside and positioned himself between your legs, rubbing his cock against your entrance, teasing you again. “You sure?” he asked, voice low and commanding.

“I’m ready,” you whispered, nodding, “I want it all.”

With a groan of satisfaction, he pressed his thick cock inside you, filling you inch by inch. You gasped as he stretched you, the feeling of him raw inside you sending waves of pleasure through your entire body. Nicholas began to thrust, slow and deep at first, driving you both wild.

As the heat between you intensified, you felt an electric thrill run through your body, urging you to crave more of him. “Daddy,” you breathed, your voice a sultry whisper, “I want more.”

With that invitation, he increased the pace, thrusting harder and deeper. The headboard creaked under the pressure, the whole floor probably heard, your nails dug into his back, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. You were lost in the rhythm, your breath quickening, each thrust sending waves of pleasure coursing through you.

You wrapped your legs around him tightly for a moment, pulling him closer before releasing them, spreading wider to accommodate him. The shift allowed him to plunge deeper, each stroke igniting a raw, primal desire within you. You gasped, the sensation overwhelming, and you met his movements with your own, pushing back against him as he filled you completely.

“Just like that daddy,” you urged, your voice thick with passion.

He picked up the pace, his thrusts hard and relentless, sending waves of pleasure crashing over you. Just when you thought you couldn't take anymore, he pulled back slightly, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. His voice was a low as he murmured against your mouth, “You’re all mine. You belong to Daddy now, you always have.”

A shiver of excitement raced through you, and he continued, “I want to hear you say it.”

“I’m all yours, Daddy,” you said, the words flowing from your lips as if they were the only truth that mattered.

“Whose pussy is this?” he asked, his tone commanding, eyes locked onto yours.

“Yours, Daddy. It’s all yours,” you replied, the thrill of submission making your heart race.

“Good girl,” he said, a satisfied smirk across his lips. “That’s my good girl.”

With renewed intensity, he rolled his hips beautifully against yours, the connection between you both electric. “I want you to cum all over my dick, raw, for the first time,” he urged, his voice thick with desire.

The feeling of him pushing deeper ignited a fire within you, building to a peak you couldn't hold back. With a gasp, your body responded to his words, pleasure washing over you in waves as you squirted, soaking him completely.

Nicholas groaned in response, his grip on you tightening as he felt the warmth of your release.

“That’s so hot baby, that turned you on huh,” he said, now chasing his own orgasm as your body lay shaking underneath him.

“Y-yes daddy,” you sobbed and he grinned, his pretty white teeth glistening.

“You soaked me baby, squirting on me like that, being a cheating slut turns you on?” His pace never let up but this time, he reached between your bodies and began rubbing your clit sending a pleasure you almost couldn’t take rushing through your writhing body.

A scream left your lips as you creamed and squirted again all over his cock, and he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Fucking hell baby,” he moaned and you felt his hot cum spurt inside of you. He continued thrusting gently, the pace almost loving as he allowed your grip to milk him of every drop.

Now a panting mess, he fell beside you and turned to face you. Your leg was draped across his heaving body and you stared at his beautiful disbelieved figure as he opened his mouth to speak.

“You’re going to be the death of me baby.”

[literary-dolly]

communication is key - pt.2

jason todd x fem!reader

word count: 4.9k (yikes) warnings: implied sexual content, a little bit of angst, jason panics a tad

Clearly Jason didn't learn from leaving his comm behind in your apartment - not when he leaves you behind in the Cave.

Part I

“We really don’t have to go and see it, you know? Like it’s really not that cool, it’s actually just a cave.”

Jason’s words do nothing to deter you as you tug insistently at his hand in yours, digging your heels into the floorboards in a feeble attempt to drag him to… well, you’re not sure. Admittedly, it’s your first time in Wayne Manor, but you can’t imagine the entrance to the Batcave is in his childhood bedroom. Naturally, Jason doesn’t move an inch, just staring down at you with a playfully irked look and a sadistic twinkle in his eye.

“Jay, come on, you told me we can only stay here until 10,” you plead, eliciting nothing more than a quirk of his brow, “It’s 9 now! I want to have a proper look.”

You had been desperate to see the Manor, and it had taken months of begging on your hands and knees to get him to finally take you. Unsurprisingly, he was still set firmly on the fact that you would not be meeting his family, especially after your shenanigans on the comms, and that had served as his excuse for the 3 months since. You were nothing if not determined, however – it was part of what he loved so much about you in the first place.

You’d set it up perfectly. There wasn’t a length you hadn’t gone to in an attempt to get exactly what you wanted. Jason’s favourite meal cooked and ready on the table as soon as he got home from Dick’s after going over a case, a new special edition copy of Wuthering Heights stashed on the bookshelf, you’d worn the sweatpants and vest combination that you knew drove him crazy without coming across as trying too hard.

He'd not even made it through the front door before he said it, barely even batting an eye.

“Nice try, but I’m not taking you to the Manor.”

Your jaw had flung open. It was almost offensive, just how quickly he could see through your efforts.

It hadn’t been enough to phase you, however, and you were prepared to go to the extreme. Every advance he’d tried to make that evening, whether it be a delicate kiss behind your ear or a hand pawing at your hip, you’d ignored pointedly. It was modern torture, as he would skim a hand up and down your thigh on the couch and you could do nothing but stay statuesque, staring forward at the TV without any indication that you had even noticed. Fuck the stupid sweatpants and vest combination.

He'd been smug at the start, the corner of his lip twitching as he’d felt your entire body tense, desperate to not give in to his ministrations. Jason wasn’t famed for his patience however, and it wasn’t long until he was huffing and puffing and practically whining for you to pay attention to him. He’d finally given in when he’d grabbed a handful of your ass and you’d done nothing other than stare at him; he’d scrunched his face together and slammed it down against your shoulder in defeat.

“Fine, fine, I’ll take you to see the fuckin’ manor.”

It hadn’t taken long for things to get, ah, heated after that. Yes, technically, it was blackmail – but you couldn’t spend so much time around the notorious Red Hood and not pick up a few quirks here and there.

The Manor was more beautiful than you ever could’ve imagined from the photos, with its sprawling hallways, crafted arches and crooning gargoyles. It was plain to see that it was cared for meticulously, every room garnished with lavish decorations – but that it was also lived in, from the odd sock sticking out of someone’s bedroom door to the worn oak flooring from years of people’s feet trapsing back and forth. It’s almost difficult to imagine Jason spending such a significant part of his upbringing here, that the maze of twists and turns could ever be committed to memory.

He'd postponed as much as he could, claiming he was waiting for the perfect time, and finally it had arrived. Bruce was away on business, having taken Alfred to accompany him, and the rest were out of the house until patrol this evening – Dick was working, Steph and Cass had gone to the cinema, Tim and Duke were occupied with God knows what at Tim’s apartment, and Damian was with Jon. The Manor was completely empty when you’d arrived, just as Jason had anticipated.

Which is how you end up where you are now, dropping to your knees with hands clasped together, begging Jason to take you to the Batcave as he tries his best to remain stoic. In a flash, he crouches to hoist you upwards, prompting you to let out a scream as he jostles you over his shoulder, relenting, and grumbles softly as he marches towards an old Grandfather clock.

“I just don’t get it,” he sighs, fiddling with the face of the clock until you can hear a soft click, and feel a rush of frigid air that makes your hair stand on end. He sets you down steadily, offering his hand out once again for you to take.

“You don’t get it because it’s normal to you,” you huff, making a start towards the cavernous stairway, “Most people don’t have a giant, military grade bunker underneath their childhood home.”

Jason continues to protest as you make your way down, but you’re too awestruck to even acknowledge whatever his complaint may be. It’s positively sublime, with its craggy ceiling that stretches out into the blackness further than your eyes can make out. The various cars, bikes and even the Batmobile lay dormant in a circle in the corner, only exacerbating the giddy feeling growing in your stomach.

You almost slip over when you see the dinosaur.

Jason seems to tense behind you, “Be careful, it won’t recognise you, so you have to move really slowly. Its eyesight is pretty bad.”

You can feel the blood drain out of every limb as you turn to face Jason in absolute horror. It’s frantic, as your hands grapple to cling onto his jacket, feeling as though your brain has just been tossed into a blender. It seems like a major oversight, failing to mention the live dinosaur that guarded –

You can hear a low, breathy chuckle from above you.

“You’re a dick!” You practically scream, slamming your hands against his chest in an act of defiance. He doesn’t falter, obviously, and instead just allows his laughs to ring out louder as they echo around the cave.

“Aww baby,” he coos, and there’s a shit-eating grin lining his lips, “I didn’t think you were so gullible.”

You offer him little more than a deadpan look, “Of everything I’ve learnt since we’ve been together, a live dinosaur is not out of the realm of possibility.”

With a hefty sigh, Jason commences his tour, showing you round every nook and cranny of the place. It’s fascinating, the technology lying dormant underground that you’re fairly certain could change the world given the opportunity. It seems such a leap from your own life, almost incomprehensible, especially as Jason lists off different features of the Cave with a dry tone and the heavy implication that it doesn’t impress him much. You’re reminded once again of how far-removed Jason’s life is from your own when he leaves the bubble of your apartment, the altered world he occupies on a day-to-day basis.

You noticed that he skirts away from the corner where various suits stand displayed up against the walls; you know better than to question why.

Eventually, he comes to a halt in front of the computer, stretching his arms out and beckoning you in with an impatient huff. You oblige, happily, and Jason tucks his head atop yours. The two of you remain there for a few moments, basking in the silence and bliss of each other’s company. Despite being in such an alien environment, the thrumming of his heartbeat is enough to remind you that home carves out a place in the shape of Jason Todd, wherever you may be.

“We’ve still got half an hour to kill,” Jay hums, and you can hear the mischief creeping into his tone, “Want to watch videos of everyone failing dramatically on the Batcomputer?”

“I can’t believe it’s called the fucking Batcomputer.”

“So fucking stupid.”

Jason releases you to begin fiddling with the controls as you glance around awkwardly, still struggling to fully comprehend the surroundings.

As he cues the video up, starting with a thumbnail of Tim, well, screaming as he seems to be falling from the top of a building, Jason turns to look at you with a sharkish smirk, “I’m gonna go get us some snacks. Don’t touch anything.”

He disappears quickly up the steps, taking them two at a time, and you realise as soon as he’s gone that its easier said than done. You take the opportunity to leer over the giant keyboard, inspecting all of the various buttons and their vague, nonsensical organising system.

It’s all very serene until the bats start to shriek behind you.

It sends you lurching forward in a panic, arms stuck out in front of you out of instinct, a pathetic attempt to try and cushion your fall. The screech of metal on metal is almost instant as you make contact with various buttons, and you can see the metal shields beginning to lock down on the side of the cave that backs into the Manor. It’s fight or flight that kicks in, as you attempt to sprint your way up the stairs before the metal gate can crash down over the doorway. It’s futile really, there would be no point in a security system that gave the perpetrator plenty of time to get in or out.

Your phone begins to ring as soon as the juddering of metal silences.

“Baby – and I mean this with all the love in the world – what the fuck did you press?” Jason’s voice is stern and swift, and it’s enough to make your own catch in your throat a little. It’s clearly concern that marks his words, but it does little to lessen their severity.

“Jay, I don’t… I don’t know…” You huff out, frustrated, “The bats… they scared me and then… Am I gonna be trapped in here?” Your voice begins to wobble, and you can practically feel Jason softening through the screen.

“No, baby, it’s – fine. But Bruce is the only one with clearance to take the Cave out of lockdown. Shit. I’m gonna have to –”

“What the fuck was that?” A voice rings out behind you, causing you to jump embarrassingly high.

Jason’s fury is instantaneous, “No, no, there’s no fucking way. Absolutely not. Are you fucking kidding me?”

It’s only when you spin on your heel that you see them, pooling in from the other entrance to the Cave.

It’s every single one of Jason’s siblings, likely filing in for the nightly patrol.

Dick’s face is the only one that lights up in visible recognition, the others staring at you either like you’ve come from another planet, or that they’re ready to jump you for being some rogue civilian intruding on their lair.

Naturally, Dick is the one to approach you first, calling out your name in confusion, “What are you doing here? Where’s Jason?”

“Are you shitting me?”

“That’s her!”

“Wow, Jason’s punching, seriously.”

“I’m not incorrect in believing that is the name of Todd’s partner?”

“All of you,” Jason’s voice isn’t even on speaker, but it bellows through the phone loud and clear enough to silence everyone, “I am warning you. Fuck off. Leave her alone.”

Dick pays no mind to Jason’s words as he wraps you in a welcoming hug, almost lifting you off the ground with the sheer force of it. You can vaguely hear the incessant shouting echoing out from your phone, clutched in a hand that remains pinned at your sides, and it’s enough to spark laughter in the other Bats that seem to have planted themselves in the general vicinity.

“Is it alright if I speak to him?” Dick questions kindly, “I might be able to help with whatever has happened to get us all trapped in here.”

You hesitate slightly, not sure who you’d be betraying more if you handed your phone over: Dick by exposing him to the wrath of your boyfriend, or Jason by forcing him to talk to his brother. Eventually, you sigh, planting your phone in Dick’s open hand with a wince, mentally preparing yourself for the tirade that is sure to follow.

“Hellooo? Little Wing?”

Unintelligible shouting bleeds out of the phone, Dick lifting it away from his ear ever so slightly with a shudder.

“No, I didn’t steal it from her. She gave it to me.”

More shouting.

“Jay, can you just tell me what happened?”

That quietens Jason a little, and you can envision his icy, biting words.

“Shit. We’re gonna have to call Bruce.”

“I KNOW, DICKHEAD!” – you can hear that one. More rumbling follows.

“Okay, okay, I’m putting you on speaker.”

Dick pulls the phone down in front of him, pausing slightly to give the rest of the brood a sympathetic smile before he presses the button.

“I swear to God if any of you go anywhere near her. Don’t even talk to her. If I find out you looked at her – I promise you, you will not be able to run quick enough to get away.”

It’s Steph that marches forward with a huff, attempting to snatch the phone out of Dick’s hand, “Stop being such a bitch, Jason. You’re not going to kill us because we talked to your girlfriend.”

“We should have been allowed to interrogate her long ago, Todd, for security purposes, of course.” It’s Damian that pipes up next, seeming to appear out of the shadows to grasp at the phone Dick seems to be struggling to hold onto.

Within seconds, it turns into all out warfare. Every single one of them, bar Duke and Cass who stand off to the side offering you very understanding smiles, is wrapped in a tangle of flailing limbs – and you can still hear Jason yelling out from the phone itself, taking the time to threaten each of his siblings personally. It’s absolute unbridled chaos; you can barely make out who is where in the blur of colours scrapping around in a heap. It derails so quickly when you spot a hand that you suspect belongs to Damian sticking up proudly from amongst the rabble, phone clawed between his fingers. Tim sends a well-placed punch to the crook of his arm.

The phone falls. It shatters.

Before even a second can pass, you hear the ear-splitting clang from the top of the stairs, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Jason tore through the metal with his bare hands with the force of the impact. Seconds later, phones begin to ring in quick succession: first Dick, then Cass, then Tim… none of them answer. Dick is the only one to even glance down at his screen, typing out a quick text before shoving it back in his pocket.

You take the moment to stare longingly towards the doorway at the top of the stairs. In spite of the egregiousness of the situation, you can feel the worry for your boyfriend threatening to overflow in your throat. You know deep down he doesn’t believe that his siblings would ever do anything to harm you (even if it is out of fear for their own lives), but you know him, you know he must be terrified right now. And with your phone now a destroyed mess on the ground, there’s little you can do to soothe it. It makes your ribs feel as though they are collapsing in on your heart.

When you turn back to face the rest of the Bats, the grins that mark their faces are downright evil.

“So, what do you guys like, do together?” Steph pipes up from her place in the semi-circle, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

It’s, quite frankly, a strange set up; you sit in the chair at the Batcomputer as the rag-tag group of vigilantes are scattered across the floor around you, legs crossed and slumped over enraptured by your every word. It had been at least an hour since your interrogation had started by all other than Dick, who had stepped to the side initially to call in a few favours for the Gotham patrol while everyone was incapacitated. It had started with all the basic questions about you: where you’re from, what you do for work, your parents’ names, your blood type, your weapon of choice. You steel yourself, knowing that the prying into your relationship was now only just commencing.

“Uhm… what do you mean what do we do together?”

“Spar?”

“Firing range?”

“No, it’s probably intel collection, right?”

You have to hide behind your hands to stifle a giggle, “No, we don’t really do any of those things. We, well, we have dinner together most nights. We watch films together. We both get on with our work at the dining table, sometimes. Occasionally, when Jason has the night off, we’ll go out on a date –”

You’re cut off by the roaring laughter that seems to overcome every single person sat in front of you, even Dick fighting a small smile.

“That’s all so like, normal,” Tim steadies himself with a hand on the ground, “I didn’t think he was capable of normal.”

The questions flow thick and fast after that, a torrent of voices calling out constantly like a gaggle of school children.

“What’s his favourite meal?”

“Lasagna.”

“Where does he keep his suit?”

“Lock box. Under the bed.”

“What colour is his toothbrush?”

“Red, obviously.”

“What’s the address of your apartment?”

You falter slightly at that one, pausing to throw everyone a sheepish grin. It strikes you all at once, the honesty of their questions – how little they really know about their brother outside of his vigilantism. Dick is the only one who seems to nod in recognition, the only one who’s known Jason long enough to have had a glimpse between the crack in his armour.

“You guys don’t know where he lives? Aren’t you all detectives?” You question, not meaning to come across rude, just genuinely surprised.

A few of them bite out a laugh at that, a few of them glower at you, but it’s Dick that speaks for the group earnestly, “Jason has put a lot of effort in to ensure he can only be found when he wants to be. Trust me, it’s not through lack of trying.”

The silence lingers briefly, hanging heavy in the air thick enough to cut with a knife.

“What do you do…” There’s a hesitation in Tim’s voice as it creeps out with all the wariness of someone reaching out to pet a rabid dog, “…when he gets, you know, angry? Aggressive?”

That throws you for a loop, and it takes you more than a few seconds to recollect yourself. It’s not that you didn’t know what Jason was capable of, you were under no illusion that the blood he came home stained with was the result of more than superficial spats. You know that he’s a deadly force to be reckoned with, that most consider him to be a hurricane striking through the land, as destructive as he is untameable. It wasn’t a part of him you would ever try to deny, not at the cost of removing such a big chunk of what made him the man that you love.

But, thus far, he had spared you from seeing it with your own eyes.

Sure, you had arguments, like every couple did. Angry words thrown back and forth to be regretted later on when you ultimately both skulked into bed together, tired of the hostility. On the few and far in-between occasions that it had gotten overly antagonistic, Jason would remove himself. Often without a word, he would pick himself up from wherever he was perched and walk out the front door. The first time he’d done it, you’d panicked, fearing that he was leaving you, but you’d soon realised that it was more akin to a self-sacrificing act of chivalry – the need to spare you from his wrath at his own expense.

“He doesn’t,” you start slowly, well aware of the eager eyes boring into every part of you, “He’s… that’s not who he is. Not to me.”

“And you accept the burden that accompanies a man like Todd?” There’s a snideness in Damian’s words that even in the past hour or so you’d come to realise were just a part of his nature, but it doesn’t stop the flash of red that clouds your vision.

“He’s not a burden,” you bite, relishing somewhat in the way they all seem to recoil in surprise, “Nothing about him is a burden. He’s the sum of many parts, and, yes, many of those parts are complicated, but that doesn’t make him a liability.”

The guilt settles in your stomach straight away, as you scan round at their dejected faces: yes, they could be cruel in their admonishments of Jason, his methods and who he is, but it strikes you like an arrow when you realise that they are a family. His family. They just want him to be a part of it.

They snap their heads up as you continue, clearly not expecting the words that follow, “He’s not perfect. But he’s healing – and it’s not an easy process. He’s hurt, and he’s scared but I know that he cares for you. It will take time, but he will come home if he believes that you will have him.”

It shocks you when Dick yanks you up out of the chair into an embrace, much more tender than the one he’d given you earlier. You could be wrong, but you’re fairly certain you can feel a wetness where his eyes meet your shoulder. He whispers in your ear, just low enough that only you can hear it, “Thank you. They needed to hear that. I think we’ve all needed to hear it for a while.”

When he pulls away, you turn around to stare at them all, shoulders hunched low as though they’re about to melt into superhero-shaped puddles on the floor. It breaks you to see them so miserable. Even though you’ve only known them for a few hours, they seem to have weaselled their way into the Jason shaped hole in your heart. You clasp your hands together, startling them from their various trances, and do your utmost to plaster an optimistic smile across your face.

“Right, well, Jason promised me some seriously epic fails, and I plan on cashing in on that if anyone wants to join me?”

It’s another hour until the telltale scraping of the metal barriers ascending into the ceiling echoes out across the Cave, causing everyone’s raucous giggles at CCTV footage of Bruce slipping in a puddle to soften to a murmur.

The thundering of Jason’s feet clambering down the stairs sends a jolt through your entire body, and you’re up on your feet by the time he crashes into you at breakneck speed. The feeling of his arms engulfing you is sickeningly familiar, even as you try to recover from having the wind knocked out of you. It’s hard not to get choked up as he whispers sweet nothings to you in his frantic low timbre, begging to know if you’re okay. You can only seem to respond by nodding or shaking your head into the crook of his neck. You’re not sure who the embrace is to comfort more – him or you.

You can feel the shadow that creeps up over both of you, and you’re startled but unsurprised when you lift your eyes up from Jason to meet those of Bruce Wayne, clad in a pristine business suit, staring down back at you. He doesn’t say anything, only offering an appreciative nod and a small smile. Unsure what to do, you nod back – both of you seeming to realise that an introduction between the two of you tonight would be far too much for Jason to handle. You focus your attention back to your boyfriend, who has turned to face his siblings with a blazing expression.

“I told you all. I warned you to stay away from her and you break her phone and –”

“We didn’t do anything!”

“It was an accident, Jay.”

“Maybe if your fat ass hadn’t gone to get snacks –”

Jason begins to lurch forward at that one, “I am going to hurt you so bad that you –”

You stop him with a delicate hand on his chest, prompting his face to snap down towards your own, “Jay, it’s okay. They asked me some questions. We watched some videos. They were lovely.”

“They didn’t make you uncomfortable? If they forced you to say anything, baby, I swear to God,” there’s a strain in his voice, and you can tell the evening has taken a toll on him. The way his fingers are twitching at his side, his lip rolling between his teeth; it feels as though you’re being hollowed, to see just how anxious the whole experience has left him.

“Sweetheart,” it’s barely audible, a promise shared just between the two of you, “It’s okay. I’m okay. You’re okay.”

Out of your peripheral, you can see the rest of the Bats beaming with pride at your defence of their actions as Bruce does the round to check on them. They’re clearly uninterested in whatever it is the man has to say to them, instead focussing in on the exchange between you and Jason. They look grateful, you think, and you find yourself hoping that it’s not too long before you get to see them again.

A British voice calls out from beside you, and you find yourself face to face with who could only be the infamous Alfred Pennyworth, pressing a soothing hand onto Jason’s shoulder. “Nobody would think it amiss if you went home for this evening, Master Jason, it seems that some home comfort would do you good in your current state.”

It seems to ease Jason a tad, as he rolls some of the tension out of his neck and shoulders. His gaze seems to linger on Bruce for a second too long, and Alfred picks up on it as you do.

“He knows you are thankful, but I shall pass it onto him, nonetheless. Go home, my boy.”

Wordlessly, you slip your hand into Jason’s and begin to guide him up the stairs. You pause at the top to offer a small wave to the rest of the family loitering below, and they all (even Damian) seem to return it fervently. Vaguely, you can make out Jason muttering some kind of profanity under his breath, but he makes no effort to make it particularly discernible.

By the time you make it to Jason’s old beamer parked out front, he seems to have settled a little, the weight that the Manor seems to place on his shoulders no longer leaving him buckled underneath it. You slip into the car without a sound, but he’s on you as soon as the slam of the door shutting rings out.

“Promise me,” it’s deadly serious as he says it, “Promise me they didn’t do anything.”

“I promise, Jay,” you stretch out a hand to cradle his jaw, relishing as he leans into the touch, “I actually had quite a nice time.”

His eyebrow quirks at that, and he scoffs, turning the key in the ignition, “I find that hard to believe.”

You move to rest your hand at the nape of his neck, curling your fingers into the short strands, “We can talk about it tomorrow, let’s just get home, yeah?”

He mumbles some kind of agreement before bringing your hand to his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to your knuckles as the car starts to move, “I love you, Princess.”

“I love you too, Jay,” you sigh, content, allowing your eyes to flutter shut as you lean back into the headrest, “Absolutely starving though. Waiter went to get snacks and didn’t come back for hours – the customer service was terrible.”

 “Is that right, is it?” You can feel the tension beginning to bleed out of him, his voice regaining some of its playful charm you adore so, “I heard the waiter was a little preoccupied.”

 “Oh, that’s true,” you pause with a grin, before adding, “I heard he fell down a manhole.”

The groan Jason lets out sounds almost painful, and he brings a hand up to pinch his brow, “Seriously? Of every video, they showed you that one.”

“First time I’ve seen you in action, I must say it was very impressive.”

“Are you going to keep chatting shit or put in the address for Bat Burger?” To most it would sound vicious, but you can hear the affection underpinning his words.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Do you think they have an option to avoid parked cars? You seem to enjoy crashing into them quite a lot.”

“This is why I never wanted you to fuckin’ meet them.”

The holy trinity of Jason Todd behaviour: crack a joke, have a panic attack, eat a burger

If you liked it, well, like it - a reblog is always appreciated. If you don't like it, leave me alone.

[tullipsoftheearth]

“I’m not sleeping over prank”

Ellie Williams x fem reader (established relationship)

AN: my first proper fic let me know if you guys like it :)

Friday night.

Otherwise known as: the weekly ritual where you and Ellie pretend to hate each other while sharing garlic knots and aggressively cuddling like codependent raccoons.

She was currently starfished across her bed, one sock on, flipping through your sketchbook like she had an arts degree instead of mild commitment issues.

She paused on a page. “You gave this frog a six-pack?”

You didn’t even look up. “He goes to the gym.”

Ellie blinked at it. “Okay, but like. Why is he hot.”

“Don’t sexualize the frog.”

“I’m not trying to. He’s just… objectively shredded.”

You rolled your eyes. “I fear you.”

She tossed the sketchbook onto your lap like it was cursed. “Anyway. What movie are we watching tonight? I want trauma.”

You shrugged. “Actually… I think I’m heading home tonight.”

Silence.

Not dramatic silence. Not slow build.

Immediate, soul-leaving-the-body silence.

Ellie sat up. “Wait. What.”

“I’m just gonna sleep in my bed tonight.”

More silence.

“…Why.”

You pretended to check your phone. “Dunno. Just feel like it.”

She blinked at you. “Are you breaking up with me.”

“Oh my god.”

“No, be honest. Is this, like, a soft-launch breakup??”

You bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing. “I just want a solo night. Do a face mask. Read. Maybe trauma dump into my Notes app.”

Ellie looked personally attacked. “You can trauma dump here. That’s what I’m for. That’s literally half my personality.”

You shrugged. “I want to romanticize loneliness for a sec.”

She squinted. “Is this about the mac and cheese?”

“…What mac and cheese.”

She avoided eye contact. “Nothing.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Ellie.”

“I may have microwaved the foil one. It sparked. I panicked and threw it in the sink.”

“You tried to drown it?”

“It felt right in the moment.”

You stared. “You owe me five packs of Mac and cheese and a new microwave.”

She scoffed. “This is deflection. You’re leaving me.”

You sighed dramatically. “I’m not—”

“No, you don’t get to gaslight me. It’s Friday. You sleep over on Fridays. It’s the law. You signed a girlfriend contract and everything.”

You were full-on grinning now. “There was no contract.”

“There was. It was verbal. And sealed with garlic knots and kisses.”

You finally let yourself laugh.

Ellie’s eyes narrowed. “Wait.”

You said nothing. Just smiled harder.

“Oh my god,” she groaned, flopping back onto the bed like you’d shot her. “You’re messing with me.”

“I was curious to see how unwell you’d get.”

“I spiraled,” she said, voice muffled into her hoodie. “I had a whole monologue ready. It was gonna be Oscar-worthy. I was about to sit dramatically on the floor and look out the window like a Victorian child.”

You leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re so dramatic for someone who acts like she doesn’t care about anything.”

“Shut up,” she muttered, but she turned her face toward yours like she wanted another kiss.

You gave her one. Just to be nice.

And also because you were wildly in love with her. But whatever. Not the point.

Ellie sighed. “You know this means war.”

You smiled against her skin. “Do your worst.”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “You’ll wake up one day and all your playlists will be replaced with Joe Rogan podcasts.”

You gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m petty and I have access to your Spotify.”

You pushed her off the bed. She dragged you down with her.

You both lay there, limbs tangled, absolutely not moving to go watch a movie.

“Can we still get pizza?” she asked, voice soft now.

“Obviously.”

“And you’ll stay the night?”

You nudged her side. “I was always staying the night.”

She exhaled. “Cool. Good. I’d pretend I didn’t care but I’d probably go sit in the dark and stare at the wall like I’m in an A24 film.”

You snorted.

That night, you stayed—of course you did—and she didn’t even try to steal the blanket. Which was her love language, really.

You didn’t say it out loud, but you kind of hoped every Friday stayed like this.

Weird. Warm. Dumb. Yours.

[alchemistc]

Inspired by Lou mentioning that we're getting B**** f*********

"Tell me about your old captain," Bobby says. It's not a question. It's not a suggestion - or if it is, Tommy doesn't have the ability to view it as anything but a demand.

Bobby's eyes catch the bob of his throat as he swallows.

They're in Bobby's office. Tommy's pretty sure he's been in this office twice since Bobby took over - he doesn't do things in any sort of official capacity, seems to hate the four walls and the door like a man with experience stuck in tight spaces.

"Off the record, of course."

Tommy's a grown ass man who's been through more Captains and Sergeants and other miscellaneous authority figures than Bobby can count on fingers and toes.

There's just something about Bobby that makes him feel wrong-footed. Like he's simultaneously the most comfortable he's ever been and the most terrified he'll ever be. Like he has to get this right.

"Sir?"

Bobby tosses a balled up piece of paper at Tommy's forehead. That's fair. That's absolutely fair. Tommy blinks, and the nerves sort of just... fall away.

"He was a homophobic, racist, misogynist prick and I still hate that I followed along like a little duckling."

Bobby purses his lips. Widens his eyes with brows raised.

The silence and the eye contact stretches.

Eventually, Bobby steeples his fingers, leans his chin on them. Stares. "We can circle back to the second part in a moment. I'm asking because I sent in your transfer papers last week."

There's that fear crawling right back in. He'd never even fucking tried it, under Gerrard. Too afraid to watch him crush that dream, too afraid to make a move for himself.

He'd mentioned flying offhand, a month and a half ago, a second serving of roast melting on his tongue while Howie stole potatoes off his plate.

Two days later Bobby'd pulled him aside and told Tommy he'd reached out to Harbor - that Harbor had an opening in air ops and he'd asked them to hold the position internally for an extra day or two. In case Tommy wanted it.

("I saw the way you look when you're talking about flying, kid. If I overstepped, tell me to shove it, but the 217 could use a man like you."

Tommy's had the words 'man like you' running on a loop in his head ever since.)

"Did they fill the spot?"

He hasn't let himself get excited about it. Hasn't told a soul other than Bobby that he's even thinking about it. He never would have done it without that push, and he's already gearing up to make himself not resent Bobby for even putting the thought in his head.

Bobby smiles. "They did."

Tommy would love it if the floor would open up and swallow him whole.

"Their newest pilot is going to be Thomas Kinard. Pending my approval, of course."

His heart does something strange in his chest. A squeeze, a jump, a flurry. He's gonna be in the air again. Going to have to use whatever's left of his mind to learn new birds, to teach someone else, one day. That's not as daunting a task as it would have been, a year ago.

Tommy squints, because Bobby looks entirely too pleased with himself for nearly giving Tommy a fucking heart attack. "What does that have to do with Gerrard?"

Bobby tips his head side to side, fidgets with a pen. Tommy never knows if that's a nervous habit or if he's so committed to the "fucking with you" bit that he's adopted a bunch of other people's tics.

"He tried to block it," Bobby tells him, a little solemn, finally. Tommy can feel his teeth clenching. His body tightening. His arms are crossed over his chest and he doesn't remember the act of raising them from the armrests. "I told him, respectfully, where he could stick it."

Bobby has this insane ability to ease a thousand worries with just a turn of phrase, a tone of voice. Tommy can feel the ire melting right off. "You already did it?"

Bobby huffs a soft laugh. "Professional disagreement. We don't see eye to eye on your talents. Harbor was fairly easily convinced, once I started listing them."

The lump in his throat makes it a little difficult to forge ahead. "Why'd you ask about him, then?"

Bobby's soft grin turns to a full on smirk. "Because I thought, given that this is your last week here, you might want to get it off your chest, Firefighter Pilot Kinard."

[heyhoeudoin]

TIMES SENKU TALKED ABOUT YOU

"I will always be by your side."

pairing: senku ishigami x fem!reader

words: 9.2k

genre/s: fluff, mystery, storytelling in the third perspective (special ep, s3, s4), slight angst

warning/s: she/her, swearing, ambiguous/not direct ending

synopsis: there is always someone next to senku, all the time.

masterlist ; loyalty built from love (part 1)

a/n: jokes on you guys, i was already writing a part two even before i got many requests for it. also, i wrote part 1 like months ago and it took months to write as well, so when i re-read it for part 2, part 1 was so ambiguously written good that even i have no idea what the hell i was going for.

also, don't be shy to give any comments, because i am reading those and i love them all <3

anyone could tell that senku misses you

like a lot...

to the point that he mentions you

a lot...

it was rather endearing to the people around him

it's cute that senku still remains the habit of talking about you whenever you're not physically with him

yuzuriha always liked that habit of his

she will never not be bothered by it, she's used to it after all

he would always at least mention you once a day

he just loves talking about you

it's really endearing and an adorable side to the usually unaffectionate friend of hers

"the first balloon that humanity took flight in was made of hemp cloth," shared senku as gen let out an awed noise. "the one massive ordeal to overcome is..."

"right..." yuzuriha raised her hand. "you need a crap ton of cloth, don't you?" she asked with a slightly painful look on her face, already knowing the work she's going to put into.

"oh, look!" senku pointed at yuzuriha with a devilish expression. "i totally didn't realize! we've got the crafts club here!" yuzuriha jabbed a fist at his chest.

senku and kaseki then got onto the floor and bowed, performing a dogeza. "the science team will commit itself to designing the passenger basket," senku explained in a robot manner.

"we'll make any tools you need," kaseki tells her, raising his head.

"can i leave the cloth making to you? to the yuzuriha crafts team?" senku confidently asked, raising his head.

yuzuriha nods as senku stood up and the two shared a high-five. "of course you can!" she exclaimed with a peace sign.

"i could've had y/n help you with this. well actually, i think she would've helped immediately without me saying anything, but..." senku trailed off, but yuzuriha understood what he's trying to say.

she placed a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. "i know, senku. it's fine! i've got it handled."

later on yuzuriha asked senku and kaseki to make a loom to get things going a bit faster and easier. as she waited, senku called, "hey, it's done." she turned around expecting a simpler loom, but it was not. she let out a surprised noise, falling onto the ground. a pleasant surprise, she was given.

"was this not what you were expecting, yuzuriha-chan?" kaseki asks, a bit worried.

"we didn't have much time," says senku, looking a bit worried too. "did you want an electric one? maybe i should've. y/n would have my head seeing i didn't immediately make an electric one for you."

yuzuriha hurriedly dismissed their worry. "no! no! i appreciate it a lot!"

"they're the senku department store's first high-end products. it might be a while before they start selling," says gen, looking at the racks that held an assortment of clothes and the people that looked around the new place.

"y/n would've love this," senku absentmindedly mentions. "she would've easily volunteered for that fashion show too."

gen turned to senku as if he grew a head.

"oh, also, hand them out to anyone who works," senku then tells gen. "we have a living manifestation of greed who'll buy just about anything."

that was first time gen heard senku talk about you as if he's some clingy boyfriend that misses his girlfriend, he thought he was finally going insane in the stone world

he genuinely would have never thought that senku's the type to be like that when it comes to relationships

which was already shocking in of itself

he truly never expected to have "senku" and "relationship/boyfriend/girlfriend" in the same sentence

are you two really just boyfriend and girlfriend though?

it doesn't seem right to call you and senku, girlfriend and boyfriend

it feels like the two of you have something more

ryusui never met you

of course because when the fuck would he ever

but he has been in the same room as you a few times

people from the "rich, noble, important" families would hold these galas for the "high-class", and you attended some of them for connecting purposes

he, on the other hand, attended most of these which made it possible for him to have seen you in person a few time

though, he never dared interact with you

he only stared at you from afar in awe

it was also an added bonus that because of one of these galas, your family ended up connecting with his family through buying yachts

though, other than that, the nanami conglomerate and the l/n family has no other connection than a business one

and so when senku mentioned your name...

he didn't know what to think when senku mentioned you as if you were an old friend

and judging by chrome's reaction, it seems that the scientist has mentioned you a few times already

"we're in the sky, protected by nothing but our own skin and flesh. you don't get this kind of extravagance anywhere else," he says, looking on the horizon they are given from the air balloon. "not this unique sensation."

"yeah," senku agreed. "y/n would love to be here right now, but sucks to be her for not being here." he cackled out a laughter as chrome turned to him and gave him a light jab.

"seriously?" he deadpanned, but then got distracted by a flock of bird, flying pass the balloon. "we're with the birds!" he exclaimed.

actually, did he even refer to you as if you were an old friend?

it almost felt like he referred to you as if you were dead...

and in a manner that only a really close friend has the rights to do

ryusui didn't believe that though

i mean, how could he?

you dead?

it's ridiculous (utterly ridiculous)

he can see the reasons on why senku has survived and thrived

he also knows the reasons on why you, too, are just as capable of surviving and thriving

so where are you really?

"it's as good as bread from a popular modern shop," senku says after taking a bite out of the stollen that francois just baked. "it'll last to the other side of the planet, and it's good as hell. a perfect food that i've been dying to have and we've got it now!"

"greed equals justice," is all what francois says.

"y/n's really missing out," senku absentmindedly called out. "she would've devoured these so fast, well, as much as her stomach can handle." he smiled fondly at the thought

gen turned to him and asked, "does she like bread that much?"

"loves them even more so than the average person," senku says with a tired expression from just thinking about it. "that girl dragged me around the globe just to have a damn bread tour."

francois wasn't sure if they had heard the scientist correctly

did senku just refer to you like you two are old friends?

you?

a member of the most powerful family in the entirety of japan?

the eldest of the said family?

the next in line?

the hidden treasure of japan?

it was strange

they were confused on why senku would have connections to you

and judging from gen's casual follow-up question, your name has been brought up more than once by senku

but it wasn't their job to be curious and to question the lives of others

their job was to serve ryusui-sama

and for the sake of the nanami conglomerate, ishigami senku is an absolute want

minami, being the journalist she is, are one of the only few people that knows you a bit better than most

after all, she was handpicked by the l/n family to be one of the few media representation for your first ever media debut

it was groundbreaking for her career

and it also broke the entirety of japan

you had revealed then that you will not be accepting any courting, and offers of marriage because you had already found the person you'd spend your life with

no one knew who you were talking about

she remembered the massive wave of investigation happening shortly after the publication of that interview done by... everyone, really

no one ever figured it out who this person was

...or is

maybe she's the first amongst reporters to finally figure it out

"at least let me take the first picture for memory's sake!" exclaimed minami with an embarrassed expression.

"perfectly fair," voiced ukyo and gen.

ryusui laughed, raising his hand in the air. "i'm buying the photo, model rights, and all!" he declared.

minami turned to him, angry, baring teeth. "why should the first photo be yours?!"

"what are you talking about?" he asked. "it's a record of the beginning of technological civilization. it should be senku, obviously. am i right?"

senku owlishly stared at ryusui and minami.

"an exhibit at the nanami museum, representing the history of the new world." ryusui walked over to where senku stood with all the other cameras.

senku stuck a pinky into his ear. "what are you talking about?" he asked. "if anything, the first picture should be y/n." a wave of silence rose amongst the revived people. they know fully well that what senku had said was absolutely correct.

but they also know that it won't be possible right now.

the scientist sighs, breaking the silence. "it's too bad she's frozen shut right now," he mocked casually with a teasing grin.

"i think you're the only one who can joke about her like that," gen commented with a slightly awkward chuckle.

in the end, senku had the honors of being the first person photographed in the stone age, posing the famous einstein pose and minami had the honors of photographing the first picture in the stone age

but that wasn't the only thing that she got from this

she's always listening, you know? and there was one thing that stood out from the banter around her

no one in japan would have the courage, the boldness to joke around your name like senku had just did

not to your face nor behind your back

and yet senku, being the man of knowledge he is, is bold enough to do so

why is that?

was gen right?

that senku really is the only person who can joke about you like that?

since the surrender of tsukasa, there were many rumors she had heard about the two of you and it was all the same thing

that you and senku have something going on

she refuses to believe those rumors

she's a journalist—she shouldn't be believing in those rumors!

her motto is to find the truth

and the truth she will find sooner or later (when she gets the guts to ask you)

when they found the oil, obviously they had to test it out

gen was the one conducting the test drive (because he's the only one with drivers license)

then taiju dropped by, getting a whiff of that oily smell

"hey! it's the love potion," commented taiju. "are you going to give it to someone, senku?"

the people there were confused on what taiju had meant. "what are you talking about, taiju-chan?" asked gen.

"you made some for me that day, remember?" taiju says as his mind took him back to the day it all started. "so that i would have the confidence to confess to yuzuriha. you also said it worked out for you and y/n because of it. it was the last moment we had before we all got petrified."

senku ended up cackling afterwards. "i did! i said that! i told you it was a love potion! you still believe that, you meathead?! that was gasoline!"

"what?! it was?!"

"also, no way in hell would i ever use something on y/n unless she forces me in another of her batshit insane experiments," senku deadpanned. "but if you think it smells the same with no prior knowledge—"

now, gen is totally one to assume

and what senku said kind of sounded like an implication...

in both that way and a completely different way

although, if it was that way then, knowing senku, he would have never mentioned it

so it was probably an actual batshit insane thing

why does gen feel like his image of you will be changed while they're here

a small moment of reference when yo was whispering some shit to gen, pinning senku as some sort of mad lad

well, he kind of is but...

"i'm pretty sure he's wack," whispered yo to gen. both sweating.

"nah, y/n's the one who's wack between she and i. i've still got my mind intact, just barely," senku retorted, looking back at the two.

when valentines came, gen had an interesting answer to his question

"ah, valentine's day," mused gen as kohaku repeated it, confused. "yeah, events are important. for the drago—i mean, for the morale."

senku and yuzuriha went out of the laboratory, handing out the chocolates. gen turned to senku with a question in mind. "do you give chocolates to y/n-chan, senku-chan?"

senku shook his head. "nah, y/n doesn't really like them," he answered which shocked gen. "she'd rather have things that she could wear or practical gifts."

see

look at that

that gave a lot to gen

senku practically confirmed that he gives gifts to you!

and also does so on VALENTINES

if that's not confirmation of being a couple, he doesn't know what is

but then again...

like he had thought before, it doesn't feel like the two you are just boyfriend and girlfriends

but what other kind of relationship would still condone in the valentines romance gift giving?

shouldn't there be some kind of answers by now?

then after they took the group photo with the finished ship

senku looked a bit... down? contemplated?

it was strange to see

why would he be feeling down?

it was quite obvious as well

"are you unsatisfied about the pictures, senku?" asked minami, holding her camera.

"nah, i don't care about that," answered senku.

"then what's got you so down, senku-chan?" asked gen.

senku stared off in the direction of where the tsukasa empire was with a somber look. gen immediately understood from that alone. "take lots of pictures when y/n comes back, journalass," senku told her as he walked off towards the ship.

everyone knew that you barely had any pictures

after all, you were called the hidden treasure of japan

you probably told senku how you felt about it, and he remembers

gen thought it was sweet

minami felt herself gushing about it

when ryusui called upon the people who were needed on the expedition, it was gen's turn to come aboard.

and, to be perfectly clear, tsukasa was left behind by choice because he felt obliged to protect the kingdom of science since most of the battle team were coming along to the perseus

"uh, you don't need me, do you?" asked gen, frantically. "i've got the strength of a bean sprout."

"we don't know what kinds of enemies we're going to meet. what good is a mentalist if they aren't there when that happens, dumbass?" explained senku. "i'd have y/n instead of you if she wasn't being frozen away like a piece of salami."

the modern people felt cultural shock at the casual way of senku playing around your name, but at the same time they feel that they should get used to it.

"ah so i'm just a second choice, huh?" mused gen as he trekked up towards the ship.

"of course you are," senku answered without thinking. "it's always y/n first to me."

the crowd who watched the take off of the ship awed at the display of loyalty senku accidentally announced. gen started grinning, knowing full well that he caused senku to slip like that. senku then grimaced at what he said even thought it's true.

maybe senku should dial back a bit...

ryusui also knows now that you're very much alive somewhere in the kingdom of science

he just doesn't know why you're not physically present

also, did his ears deceive him or did senku just practically confess his feelings for you?

but it wasn't that...

judging from the way the people present cooed at his confession and how gen was smirking like he set it up on purpose

was there something else between the two of you?

this time, it was yuzuriha who shared something about you

"these kinds of people are always dying to show you the machines they tuned the hell out of," says nikki, looking sympathetic.

"they won't let you go until their done," kohaku added.

"i'll be alright!" yuzuriha clarified, making kohaku and nikki shocked. "i always sat through senku-kun's five hour rocket lectures and stuff."

"we have a veteran here!" exclaimed nikki, still looking shock with kohaku.

yuzuriha laughs at that. "if you think i'm a veteran, then y/n must be something else! she always did listen to him..." she mused with a fond smile.

senku smiled as well from that comment.

yuzuriha may not be as close to you as she is to senku, but she completely adores you!

...after getting over the fact that you're the y/n l/n

you were like... any other person, just a bit clueless in other areas

actually, you were a lot like senku in a lot of ways

it's a good portion of the reason why the two of you have the relationship that you two have grown to have

this time, gen was the one to first mention you to amaryllis

albeit in a more... implied upbringing

despite not actually knowing if you two are intertwined or not

but he's very confident that you two are

"that kind of attack isn't going to work on senku-chan," he says. "he's already married, you know?"

and then he went scummy

to which kohaku shouted and hit at him for

and then she later scolded herself after forcing a kiss on senku to save her own ass

she kneeled on the ground and slammed her head on the floor in a dogeza position, facing the direction of ishigami village. "i am sorry, y/n. i will be held responsible for this action, and i will allow you to give me whatever punishment is deemed necessary."

senku sighed, sticking a finger in his pinky, looking exasperated. "y/n's reasonable, calm down, she won't be that mad." his eyes looking far away in the same direction as if thinking of something himself for you.

while senku was making conditioner for kohaku, he mentions you

"y/n's actually been nagging me about making hair stuff for a while now," senku commented while making the hair products. "she always had this specific routine for her hair."

amaryllis didn't know who you are. "is she the one who's married to him?" she asked gen.

"yes," he answered. "y/n-chan is a very powerful person. she's probably even stronger than the strongest soldiers here on the island."

"really?!"

senku glanced at the implied threat gen displayed with an unamused look, but let him does so anyways. it's true, after all.

when amaryllis tried to girlie-fy the boys,

"you know, y/n would actually be impressed that you could fake being a girl like that," senku mentions, crossing his arms on his chest after washing off the makeup on his face.

"really?"

"she'd probably even call you—in her words—a tall baddie." senku made a grimace as he said that.

then when the two girls and one boy dressed like a girl left, gen mentioned your name to start a conversation

"if only we have y/n-chan, huh?" gen comments.

senku shook his head. "nah, she wouldn't do that," he says. "although if she was here, she'd probably go all stealth instead."

"are they really..."

"i'm not answering any questions you have about them."

"so you do know!"

gen was inspecting the earpiece, amazed and shocked by how simple it can be done

and then, of course, senku mentions you

"it was y/n who actually taught me how to make that," senku commented. "i don't know why she bothered learning to make one when she could literally buy the best one, but she said she liked how simple and cosmetic it can be if made like this. though, i'm glad she taught it to me now because it certainly useful for this."

"of course this is y/n-chan's design, not yours," says gen, holding it up in front of him.

as senku looked through the pile of gold dust

as the pile of platinum grew

it was the first time he felt vulnerable since you had been frozen shut

he isn't one to be all emotional, but at moments like these... it really showed just how much care byakuya had for him

senku scoffs. "if y/n was here, she'd be bawling her eyes out," he says, his eyes a bit glassy himself.

"you counting seconds all that time, and your papa collecting sand for decades..." gen looked wistful. "you two are alike."

once the team were able to make the revival fluid, the thought of reviving their stoned comrades were first in the list

senku ordered kohaku to cleanly cut the greedy captain when given the chance

afterwards, ryusui's stone parts were delivered to them

"i've always known you're ridiculously rational, but... but still you're practically psycho at this point!" screamed gen after figuring out what's happening.

senku shook his head with a smirk. "nah, y/n's the psycho one between us," he corrected. "if she was given parts like these, she'd be experimenting, mix-and-matching them. i'd be the only one to get her to stop."

"every time you say things about y/n-chan that she's a psycho and all, it ruins the image i have of her and i can't help but not believe you," gen bluntly replied. "except you're the only one that knows who she really is, so i have to believe you."

senku cackled.

when kohaku was fighting against moz, all she could think about was how he's nothing compared to you

"i like strong girls, too, as long as they have a pretty face," he says as he took out the machete out of his weapon. "what kind of men do you like, kohaku-chan? how about me? i'm strong as hell."

the girl let out a sigh, then tied her hair up to her usual ponytail while crouching down. "strength is strength of mind," she states, making him slightly confused. "to be able to continue hammering a wedge for as long as it takes to carry out one's will. that's the kind of person i'm drawn to."

her pose changed to a battle stance. "well~ this is a problem, moz. you seem to be the exact opposite," she tells him. "and compared to him?" she scoffs. "actually, compared to her? you're nothing. literally. she's stronger than both of us combined, actually, stronger than anyone else on this island."

"i don't know who you're referring to, but you're cute, kohaku-chan. just not cute enough though."

did kohaku just imply something

AND

maybe come out of the closet?

maybe

maybe not

who knows

but she really wasn't lying

moz really is nothing compared to the people she admires and respects the most

as the parts of the gun was laid out on the table, the people from the 21st century had recognized it

of course they did, after all,

"this is what made men and women, young and old, all of humanity, all of homo sapiens, the apex predators. it's the invention of the gods and demons, and even then, humans who owns these rank higher than what we can see on the pyramid," senku states as kaseki finished the building of the gun.

"we, humans, may be on top of the food chain, but once given some source of power? we become our own enemies. and we all know who's at the top here in japan." he lets out a teasing smirk as some let out a sigh, knowing who he's talking about.

"tools are neither gods nor demons," ukyo says. "it's up to the person to determine how it's used."

"then let's be damn glad that our rulers didn't use these to become demons," cackled senku as he just had to make a joke.

both gen and yuzuriha let out a loud sigh.

ukyo decided to ignore the misplaced joke, and continue with what he was going to say anyways.

then later on when ryusui asked who would wield the gun...

senku turned his head towards the stoned yu. "if i had continued my gun lessons with y/n, maybe i can, but compared to the only police officer? yeah, he's better off with it." then he hummed, turning to his two childhood friends. "how about you two? any of you comfortable wielding a gun? i know you both got lessons from y/n also."

yuzuriha shook her head. "well, it's best to just leave it with yu... my lessons with y/n were more of for self-defense," she says.

"i also think it's better for yu to handle it. he's the professional," taiju says. "y/n tried to teach me, but i just always end up using my hands during the mock fights."

gen, ukyo, and ryusui turned to the trio in different waves of shock.

"i wonder how those lessons went knowing your non-existent strength, senku-chan," gen mused.

the scientist rolled his eyes.

it was actually pretty shocking to hear that the trio had gun lessons with YOU

like what an honor??

but it also makes sense for none of the trio to pick up on it since they've already had pretty different skill sets; a gun just didn't fit within it

it was also kind of scary to think about it

everyone knows that the l/n family are all skilled and powerful people

each person had a different skill set honed and trained to the absolute perfection, and that the regime it took to get there was of on a entirely different level

to hear that you had taught those three a small part of your regime,

just how hard was it?

it was an honor, but at the same time, no normal person can probably handle the regime of a l/n

when the team saw that the islanders were getting evacuated

it was a sign that ibara planned to petrify the entire island

"w-we're in huge trouble!" exclaimed suika in a panic.

"nah, just the opposite," senku says with a confident smirk. "when the going gets tough, the tough get going. we might be able to take all of it. the enemy, the kingdom, and the medusa!"

he starts cackling. "oh, y/n, you could've been so damn useful here, why'd you just have to go and get punctured," he sighs with a shake of his head.

ukyo looked at senku in nervousness. "why does it seem like you always have to insult her situation?" he rhetorically asks.

yuzuriha chuckles. "you'll get used to it," she says with a sympathetic smile. "it's his way of showing his love to her."

ukyo thinks that he'll never get used to it

he was one of the people that didn't know the dynamic between you and senku since your accident had happened right when the stone war ended

it's not like he doesn't believe that you two are together, it's just that he's the type to have to hear/see it to believe it

he still have that image of you in his head

that you're someone like tsukasa, except way dangerous and way scarier

it also doesn't help that you and your family are probably the only people that can get past his enhanced hearing

it's easy to say that he's afraid of you

which is why every time senku goes and makes fun of your accident, it gives him whiplash

this time yuzuriha was the one to think of you as she stared at the broken stone fragments of the master of the island

"it isn't over yet," she says. "we have to keep thinking, and keep going; that's what i learned from him... her... from them! we still have some adhesive senku-kun made for us in the kingdom of science." her eyes glistening as she darted from piece to piece.

you and senku are one of the most goal-oriented people she knows

senku will not stop until he completes what he needs to do

and you will not stop until you get what you want

it's almost scary

and when senku freed hyoga as their last resort

"we weren't cornered," senku tell ibara with a smooth confident voice despite the sweat dripping from his face. "we had you corner us into this particular room." with that, he dropped the glass of revival fluid.

of course, gen felt like he needed to mention you to get hyoga to fight for their side. "also, don't forget that if anything happens to senku, y/n-chan will have you head," he whispered out, loud enough for hyoga to hear. "i wonder what'll happen to you after seeing her dearly beloved bleeding out."

senku sighed and shook his head at the shit gen is saying, but he can't oppose to it because it's true.

the only reason hyoga was able to inflict a critical hit on you is because you were protecting tsukasa's sister. and so what if you weren't protecting anyone AND anger engulfed you?

it's safe to say that no one wants to feel the true wrath of a member of the l/n family, much less from you

"i'm alone," senku says out loud as he watched the sun set off in the distance. his back heavy from the phone, his body aching from tiredness, and his shoulder throbbing with dried blood. his eyes glistened in nostalgia as his memories of the early stone world passes through his mind. "again. i'm alone again..."

the phone rings, shocking him out of his pondering.

"can you hear me, senku-san?" called ruri from the other side. "how are things over there, senku-san?"

he stared at the phone in front of him. a smirk slipping through his lips. "no," he changes his mind. "i'm not alone this time." he then quietly added,

"i also have someone i need to go home to."

as the topic of ruri and the mainland was brought up while they ate, taiju had lots to say

"is this ruri girl chrome's girlfriend or ex or something?" amaryllis asked francois, excited to hear some juicy details about her new allies/friends.

"no, i'm told that she is senku-sama's former wife," they answered.

taiju looked absolutely shocked, shaking from the news. "what?!" he exclaimed, really loud. "when did you get married, senku?! weren't you going to marry y/n?!?!" he shook the scientist by the collar.

senku had his fingers in his ears the entire time, not phased, but annoyed. he's used to the loudness of taiju after all. "just for three minutes! we got divorced right away," he explained.

that only fueled taiju more, shaking the scientist once again. "what?! when did you get divorced, senku!? was y/n okay with this?!"

"okay! okay!" senku exclaimed as he took the hands off of his collar. "i just said we got divorced right away! also, y/n was fine with it! it was ages ago."

now, francois isn't one to oblige in gossip especially when it's related to you

but when taiju implied that you and senku are betrothed, they can't help but wonder

are you and senku really engaged to each other?

they had seen how normal engaged couples are, but the two of you don't seem to act like that

but then again, you're, y/n l/n and he's, senku ishigami

not one is normal

the small group now stared at the trashed upper control room located on the perseus

chrome was fuming. "those assholes made a damn mess! they didn't even know what they were dealing with! bastards!" he ranted as he stomped onto the floorboards.

"now's not the time to be getting all salty," senku piped up as he stuck a pinky into his ear.

"actually, i've never seen senku truly angry," taiju says, smiling at his comment.

"no, i get angry. i'm not a saint. i'm just too busy to," interrupted the scientist. "and y/n definitely seen me angry a few times."

later on, when they finally de-petrified kohaku and ginro

instead of giving ginro a hug, kohaku ran to senku, giving the scientist a hug

ginro was mad about it, but who cares about him and his pervy ways

kirisame was blushing at the sight of kohaku hugging senku. albeit, him not reciprocating that, but receiving it with a smile and soft eyes anyways.

"oh right. kirisame-chan, you think they're in a legit relationship, don't you?" gen says. "senku's actually in a relationship with someone else. kohaku's actually breaking a lot of rules doing this."

"i don't think that's what that hug is about," says amaryllis. "not between those two."

"it better not be," screamed gen, purposely gaining kohaku's attention.

kohaku broke the hug off with senku. "i almost died!" she exclaimed to gen. "let me be relieved of surviving!"

then she kneeled to the ground and made a dogeza once again at the direction of the ishigami village. "i also assure you, y/n, that that hug was nothing. i would never do you like that. i would choose you over him any day," she stated as senku rolled his eyes while both gen and nikki laughed.

"you got that right, kohaku!" nikki hollered.

later at night, once the team finished de-petrifying the islanders and the rest of their people, a party of celebration was happening at the deck of the perseus

ginro and suika found senku and his team down at the lower half of the control room where the comms are

as senku bluntly asked what ruri needed, amaryllis was shocked

"eh?? isn't this your first time talking to your former wife after all that's happened on the island?" she lets out.

"that's senku for you," is all kohaku says.

"who cares about the former wife, he's already got a current wife to think about much less than a former one," retorted gen, making kohaku hit his head.

"that's my sister you're talking about."

on a cliff, some of the battle team gathered

kohaku and kirisame stood in front of each other

ginro, kinro, nikki, and kokuyo were stationed at the side, as the audience

"now that we know why-man is our enemy, our job as the battle team is no longer to investigate," kohaku announced as the leader of the said team. "it's to train for the inevitable battle!"

ginro lets out a frightened screech. "we just defeated the petrification kingdom! this is even scarier!"

kohaku and kirisame took a stance, then lounged for each other. the two neck and neck in skill. those watching couldn't help but be in awe at the sight of the dance.

"they're evenly matched!" exclaimed nikki.

"they're both incredible," kokuyo lets out.

"you're strong," kirisame says in between strikes. "you were holding back the last time we fought, weren't you?"

kohaku scoffs. "i wasn't going easy on you. i would never be disrespectful. i apologize. i was simply not accustomed to moving around in a dress."

ginro then bursts out a scream that he held in during the entire duration of the spar, freezing the two girls in shock. he then also ran away.

kohaku shook her head at ginro. "i won't be able to teach you more than you already know since you and i fairly the same in combat skill. the only person who can teach all of us more techniques is y/n, and hopefully when senku heals her, she'll continue lessons."

"y/n? is this the person you were apologizing for?" asked kirisame.

"she's better than all of us combined," is all kohaku said as her gaze stared at the direction of the ishigami village with a sparkling look in her eyes.

a small blush slowly flushed on kirisame's cheeks the more she stared at the way kohaku looked.

it was quite an intimate look that kohaku gave

kirisame noticed it was the same one she had gave to senku

after building the windmill, chrome looked around and wondered for senku

it took a while for him to figure out where the mad scientist could have gone, but he finally found senku

opening the door to the mobile lab, chrome immediately asked, "yo, senku, what the hell are you doing all by yourself?"

senku managed to let out a chuckle. "working on an exhilarating craft," he managed to say pass his crusty lips.

"oh, shit!" chrome screamed at the shocking sight of a dehydrated and crusty senku.

senku downed a few bottles of water which made his complexion slowly come back. he lets out an exhale after drinking. "completely forgotten about hydrating. got too used to having y/n take care of that for me," he absentmindedly mentions.

senku and chrome continued to talk about the plans that senku had for later during the night.

chrome could tell that senku missed you

how could he not have noticed?

everyone practically knows also!

senku always somehow mentions you at least once a day

he never thought senku could be so damn clingy...

it takes him back to the times he witnessed the two of you intimate moments

they really need to come and revive you already

he could never get used to that empty space next to senku

later at night, a small festival was being held at the beach

the lights dimmed, gaining the attention of all

"do you hear me, all?" chrome exclaimed from the speakers. "we're gonna show you something that's going to leave the whole of treasure island speechless and wanting more! rainbow bridge, max level!"

a few seconds later, fireworks shot out into the sky.

senku stared at the night sky that bloomed an array of fireworks, imprinting their colorful displays for all to see. his eyes glistened with nostalgia, a memory popping into mind.

"hey, senku, do you think you could show these back in mainland?" asked kohaku who now stood next to him.

senku turned to her, the memory fainting away. "maybe, we'll see," he replies.

"would you change your mind if i mention that you could see these again with y/n standing by your side next time?" she retorted.

he hummed. "i was just thinking about her," he revealed, quietly. "the first time she saw fireworks, she was with me and byakuya. i could already see her whining about not being there for the first fireworks in this stone world." he scoffs, then lets out a sigh. "fine, we'll do it again at mainland."

kohaku smiled a teasing grin.

a little later, after the firework show, senku stood in front of the treasure tree. he heard footsteps behind him that got closer, and closer. "why are you here?" he asked without looking back.

"just an early morning stroll," answered kohaku. "is it not the same for you?"

"thousands of years ago, byakuya and the other astronauts set foot here for the first time in an utterly deserted new world," senku quietly says as his eyes glistened. "though they've long since turned to dirt, aside from a few fragments of rock."

kohaku scoffs as she quickly and easily climbed up the tree. "that's not true!" she exclaimed as she walked over to where the treasure laid. "you, i, and everyone else will someday die and return to dust, but their will is passed down, refined, and carried on into the future."

senku stared at kohaku who now stood at the small entrance way of the treasure. "isn't that what humanity calls 'science'? that's what you and y/n taught me, senku," she says, looking down at him.

he chuckled, feeling a bit lighter. "yeah, that's right. we're going way farther than those goofy astronauts. we're going to the moon," he stated. "and y/n will be stoked to hear it; she always did love the moon."

kohaku jumped down from the top of the tree, now standing on an elevated root. "it's not true that byakuya and his team left nothing behind. in fact, they connected everything for us," she mentioned.

senku didn't reply, but instead added, "typical, i mean, he's always done the connecting."

kohaku didn't understand what senku had meant when he said that

there are many things about senku... about you that she doesn't know about

some day, she'd like to know more about the two of you

the perseus landed

people started talking about the missing cracks

chrome immediately showed the medusa

"does that mean that mean she'll finally wake up?" tsukasa asked, stepping forward.

senku chuckled as he walked down. "yeah, let's get her out of that damn cold sleep already. our hidden treasure of japan, y/n l/n." the scientist may have not said anything else regarding you after that, but they all knew how much he wanted you to stand next to him again.

"we say cold sleep, but really, we just froze her..." commented gen.

"yeah, like an ice cube," cackled senku. "i bet you she wasn't even asleep most of the time, but suffering from the cold. she hates the cold."

gen sighs at yet another tease towards you.

"that's not the real problem though, is it? you can always trust a sailor's gut," ryusui piped up, then his eyes narrowed on the scientist. "when ibara jabbed you... senku, given how pragmatic you are, you would have healed yourself immediately with the dr. stone set. am i right? yet the crack in your forehead is still there. in other words, you didn't use it. you saved it for... y/n. why?"

"oh right, you don't know, ryusui-chan?" gen asked. "y/n-chan and senku-chan are intertwined. of course, he'd rather heal his y/n-chan over himself."

some people silently laughed knowing that it's true. ryusui, however, looked shocked. there were many implications, but never a confirmation. senku didn't say anything regarding his relationship with you, though, instead he had a different reason.

"actually, the medusa is out of battery."

that gained everyone's attention.

"that thing runs on batteries?!" exclaimed taiju, next to senku.

senku chuckled. "dunno," he says. "and we don't exactly have the luxury of smashing it open to have a look-see inside. but it is using some kind of energy. the one thing that could never happen is for it to make energy out of nothing."

he turned his head to a certain girl. "kirisame," he called out. "is the petrification beam's area specified in radii?"

"yes, why?" she answered.

"when i stoned ibara, i specified five meters. but the petrification beam barely made maybe a meter and a half."

kirisame looked taken aback. "that's impossible!" she argued. "it's never deviated in size..." then her eyes dilated as some form of realization dawned onto her. "...it's out of energy?" she lets out in shock.

here they are in the cave where you were put to sleep

senku, chrome, kohaku, taiju, yuzuriha, gen, ginro, kinro, ryusui, nikki, ukyo, and matsukaze

chrome lifted the lid of the makeshift freezer making the cold fog explode that slowly dispersed to the floor, revealing your pale cold body.

senku walked over to stand next to you. he stared at you as his eyes glistened with memories. he absentmindedly raised his hand to your face, leaving a lingering touch. his thumb caressing your cold cheek.

the small intimate moment of affection really caught ryusui off guard

senku's eyes always held conviction

after all, his eyes are the most transparent part of him

yet ryusui never saw it that soft and so full of love before

he honestly thought that gen was messing with him

but this?

seeing it for himself really changed everything

kohaku approached and stood next to senku, holding the medusa. the two turned to each other, their eyes making contact. no words were exchanged. senku gave a nod as kohaku then bent down and placed the medusa in the space of your clasped hands.

taiju walked over and took senku's hand and placed it on top of yours. "senku! hold y/n's hand with all you've got!"

senku looked taken aback. "what?" he lets out.

"i see!" exclaimed kohaku. "if you hold her really close to the device, it might give her just a little more of the light."

"that's seriously not going to make a difference," senku retorted, but a small smile formed on his face. "fine, whatever, and if i get caught in the beam, it'll heal my wounds and cracks too; perfect."

yuzuriha then walked over, standing next to taiju. she placed her hand on his shoulder, giving him a smile. then she removed it and placed it on top of yours. kohaku and chrome, too, placed their hand on top of yours.

"one meter, one second."

the green light engulfed you as your skin slowly turned to stone. the others pulled back their hands while senku immediately took the vial of revival fluid and pours it on you. the stone skin cracked and fragments fell, both stone and ice.

you sat right up as you screamed, "senku!" then you stood up and out of the freezer, tackling him into a hug.

"did they hurt you?" he asked as he pushed away and cupped your face with one hand.

your eyes widen as a big smile formed on your face. the others were confused by what senku had meant. "no, no, i'm okay," you answered as you placed a hand over his. "did they hurt you?"

"who cares."

"i do!"

you and senku then bursts out laughing.

"sorry, what just happened?" gen managed to ask. "what was that?"

taiju and yuzuriha were chuckling as well. "every time they reunite, they always reference steven universe," yuzuriha explained. "i think it was one of the first things that y/n watched with senku."

"that gem cartoon from the states?" gen asks, but then he immediately hums afterwards. "no, wait, that makes sense."

you turned your head to kohaku with a smile and soft eyes. her eyes glistened as she stared at yours. you extended your arms as she ran into them. nuzzling her nose into your chest while you tightened your hold.

a second later, you pulled back and turned back to senku. "so what's our situation now?" you asked.

"she only just woke up," says matsukaze in awe.

"i've heard around that that's how she is," commented nikki. "always working like him."

"although, i think that she's more serious and formal than him," ukyo mentions. ryusui nods his head, agreeing with ukyo.

"we're attacking the moon!" exclaimed senku with a not-so-serious face.

you owlishly blinked at senku, then a huge excited toothy wide grin formed on your face. "ah! no way really?!" you squealed as you clasped your hands together which caught the others off guard. "senku, darling, it's your dream!" you engulfed the man into a tight hug that lifted him off the ground. if anyone caught onto that affectionate name, no one mentioned it.

he pushed you away. "we've got company, y/n, calm down," he tells you with a lazy smirk on his face.

"who cares about the company!" you retorted. "tell me: are we blowing up the moon?" you asked looking like a child that just got permission to do something they've always wanted to do.

"what?! no!" screamed out senku. "this is a mistake. maybe i should make tsukasa the soldier for the moon."

"wait, honey, no! i'm kidding!"

"i take back what i said," ukyo says in absolute awe and shock with ryusui, nikki, and matsukaze also looking hella shocked.

"yeah, my image of her is completely ruined," mentioned gen.

it was then you caught sight of new faces. "oh, hello," you formally greeted with a short bow. "i don't think i've met you guys yet. although, your face is familiar. i apologize, but could you relay your name to me again?" you gestures your entire palm at ryusui.

the four felt a wave of whiplash at the sudden change in tone and demeanor of the person in front of them; a very important person they may add.

"h-hello, i'm nikki," she greeted, really nervously.

"ah, you're the woman on the phone. i'm glad to see another woman on the battle team." you smiled at her as she nodded, freezing up and pink dusting her cheeks.

"i'm ukyo," he says, raising his hand up.

"yes! the one with good hearing. i'm pleased to see you on this side now," you tell him as he gave a loopy smile, his cheeks a bit faint of red.

"ryusui nanami," he bowed, taking your hand into his and giving a light peck on it.

your eyes widen at the familiar gesture and at the name. "ah, one of the sons of the nanami conglomerate," you acknowledged, then you realized something.

"wait!" you turned around to senku. "you guys built a boat?! just how many things did i miss?"

this time, gen spoke up, "i'll tell you all about it."

"hello, gen," you greeted with a slight smirk. "you're not walking on eggshells around me anymore," you stated as you looked him, up and down. "what changed?"

gen shook his head as he chuckled. "senku ruined your image for me," he says, making you coo.

"aw, senku, you still have that habit?"

"shut up."

this is when ginro decided to speak up. "senku, i just figured it out!" he exclaimed, his face being way too overly arrogant. "you hurried back to y/n because you were worried she was going to spoil in the freezer, right? i know you hate all that mushy stuff, though!" his elbow jabbing into senku's neck.

"he's absolutely tackless!" says kohaku.

"well, if he just wanted someone super strong, he could've taken my top student—i mean, guard, matsukaze-kun." ginro really got carried away.

matsukaze stared at you

he was wondering why you were considered the strongest

he honestly thought it was that tsukasa man

that man was trained to the absolute limit, he could tell with one look

but you?

you didn't look like you were trained like tsukasa was

he stepped towards you and gave a bow, staying in that position. "my name is matsukaze," he greeted. "y/n-dono, if it would be all right, i would like to challenge you once you are well."

you looked at the new face in glee. "oh? then how about now? let's go outside," you tell him. "oohh~ this is fun! i never had anyone challenge me before."

"gee, i wonder why," mused gen, already knowing the outcome of this fight.

matsukaze now understands why you're the strongest here and not tsukasa

you had defeated him with a single finger

a single finger that you used on his forehead to stop his lunge and forcefully push him to the ground

your leaking bloodlust and monotone stare caused him to freeze on the ground, too speechless and afraid to move

you blinked your eyes and your demeanor changed, reverting to what it once was before the fight. "oh my, i apologize, matsukaze," you tell him as you extended a hand to him. "you challenged me," is all you say.

he politely took your hand as you helped him up. he bowed down to you and say, "i am defeated."

"you're a very capable man, and i'm glad to have new members for the battle team," you tell him.

ginro is now humbled

"since the device is out of battery, senku's crack will never go away now," says suika as she walked over to in front of him

"no!" you exclaimed with a huff as if you were child who were having a tantrum.

people slowly turned to you. senku sighs, feeling like he knows what you're going to say.

"i like the stone cracks!" you announced as you walked over to senku. you then traced the lines on his forehead. "it gives him character and he looks... really... good with them."

"y/n..." senku called with a warning tone. "did that freezer like give you a damn concussion or something?"

you laughed as you just give him a hug. you arms around his shoulders, your head burying into his neck. he sighed and hugged you back with one arm that rubbed your back in a comforting way.

this is when gen was like "why should senku-chan get all the fun?" leading to everyone else getting back their petrification cracks

you included of course, after you had stopped clinging onto senku like a koala

although some people didn't forget the small public display of affection you and senku shared, in fact, it really caught them off guard

ukyo, ryusui, nikki, and tsukasa aren't used to it

you were acting like a clingy girlfriend that hadn't seen her boyfriend in months

and senku is acting like a boyfriend who's nonchalant about his girlfriend's clinginess, but everyone knows just how much he missed you!

two people with the most specific personality and a reputation to uphold, and yet here they are soft for each other

it's strange

but at the same time, it felt right

ukyo was down at the control room, double checking everything in case the islanders from treasure island had touched anything else

he thought no one else was on board besides some who would drop of supplies then leave afterwards

but then he heard you

...and senku

he looked around and saw that no one was on the surface, so the two of you were probably below nearby, in one of the rooms

"what was with you awhile ago?" senku asked.

"what do you mean?" you asked back.

"you..." ukyo could hear the hesitation in senku's voice. "did you not think that we... that i—!" a tremble in the scientist's voice. "were you... unsure of ever waking up?" he finally managed to ask. his voice whispering by the end.

a pause. all ukyo could hear was the breathing and the beating of two people. he could hear the anxiousness from each one.

"senku..." you called, softly in a whisper as well. "you need to understand that..." your voice trembling. "that i wasn't expecting you to find the medusa that quick. those months in the cold dark, i was preparing myself not to see you again for who knows how long."

you inhaled a shaky breath. your heart beating rapidly. "i know that those few months were nothing compared to the time we were apart in stone, but at least we both knew that the other was alive—!" your voiced cracked.

"just when you and i were together again, the stone world takes it away once more. how cruel is that?" you let out a shaky fake laugh.

"i could have died in my sleep, senku," you croaked out to him, sniffling and trembling. your breathing became rigid as senku's became heavy. you were probably crying at this point.

both of your hearts were beating so fast as well.

"no," senku says with full on denial. "no, y/n, you would have not died. y/n, you would have not fucking died!" he screamed out.

"what do you know?!" you screamed back at him. "i was the one in that damn freezer. i know what my body felt like throughout those damn fucking months. you know how my—" you took a deep breath. "my body felt like it was on it's way to death!"

"hah~ shit," you exhaled a shaky breath. "maybe i have already died, and i'm just wishing that you were next to me." a thud to the floor then rapid footsteps, ukyo heard.

"y/n, y/n, shit— don't do this— fuck! i'm here, y/n, i'm real. dammit y/n—! i'm right here!" senku screamed out in reassurance.

then ukyo heard a desperate kiss shared between the two.

ukyo left the perseus in a daze at what he heard

he could hear the emotions the two of you felt during the entirety of that

it was strong

to the point that he could feel it as well

"ukyo-chan?" called gen. "did something happen on the perseus? why are you crying?"

ukyo raised his hand and wiped his cheeks. it's true, he's crying. "um..." he hesitated. "senku and... y/n-san are..."

gen widen his eyes then it softened. "let's leave those two be for now," he says. "it must've been hard for them both. i've never seen them apart from each other for that long."

ukyo fully believes it now

that you two are together

even before the kiss had happen

masterlist ; loyalty built from love (part 1) a/n: i'm actually not as proud of this one compared to part 1, but that last bit? yeah, i like it part 3 will happen when the next season comes

[cowboyschumi]

HEARTLESS

Summary: Lando Norris has entered his heartless era with no intention of leaving it anytime soon. Now he’s hunting for prey on Raya, and that’s where he stumbles upon you.

Author’s note: Y'all really thirst over Mister Norris, my god. English is not my first language. Enjoy the reading lovelies, interactions are much appreciated.

Warnings: Slightly suggestive, cheating mention, cursing ig. Tried to be inclusive, reader's gender is not specified.

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COWBOYSCHUMI | 2025 All rights reserved. Do not copy, translate, or upload on other platforms.

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Luisa was the best Lando ever had, everyone knew it including him, but he wouldn’t admit it out loud. The only ones cheering over their breakup were jealous, parasocial thirteen-year-olds.

But that was long ago. He moved on pretty quickly, not exactly beating the cheating allegations. Russian model this, Brazilian actress that… and it was all true. There was no denying. He was really enjoying his singleness, having a blast every heated Sunday. But beyond that? Nothing. He got scared easily by commitment or brushed off any trace of a slight chance of dating someone seriously.

He didn’t know why, this tendency to avoid and escape. Deep down, he knew he was hurt. Not hurt by someone else, though. He did it all by himself, ruining the only real thing he ever had. Fans who cared pointed it out: 'His spark is missing,' 'We miss silly old Lando!'

And after claiming he didn’t want to mature because he was happy where he was, he finally matured. Or at least, he pretended to, showing himself as nonchalant and bold. Expressiveness and cameras were just a performance, because in his daily life, he still acted like a teenage boy, eager to get laid

Anyone with an average experience on dating apps knew they were the worst—a way to boost egos based on looks, only to end up rejected and discarded. Raya seemed different, more polite, you guessed. You weren’t the dating type, but curiosity got the best of you. You wanted to know what the hype was about.

Lando, on the other hand, spent most of his day on that app. Every girl swiped right on him, but he rarely matched with someone he actually liked. He wasn’t too strict about looks, he was more of a 'the bigger, the better' type of guy.

Raya wasn’t Tinder. Access was limited, and confidentiality was a must. That’s why you were really surprised when you got in after an exhausting approval process. Your friends freaked out, screamed, and practically climbed the walls of your apartment—the excitement was real. Maybe even a little more than yours.

"Hand me the phone." I don’t even know all these people you’re swiping left and right on." Your patience was limited, and your friends knew exactly how to test it. They kept using your Raya like it was theirs while you minded your own business, eating ice cream. You had no intention of swiping, and the girls knew it, that’s why they took matters into their own hands.

"Oh. My. God. Shut up."

"That’s Lando Norris!" One of them immediately snatched the phone from your friend’s hands.

"Who’s Lando Norris?"

They looked at you like you had just committed a crime, or like they’d seen a ghost behind you. You weren’t sure if your question was out of place or if it was the fact that you had just spoken with a spoonful of ice cream in your mouth

"You’re kidding, right?" Finally, one of them spoke after a long, awkward silence.

FOMO—a word used by chronically online people to describe the fear of missing out, not knowing what’s going on, feeling excluded. That was exactly how you felt for not knowing who Lando Norris was.

"Formula One driver?" Now the phone was in your hands. You were reading his description with the screen practically glued to your face, like a mom who can’t see a thing unless it’s that close.

"That guy beat Verstappen a few times, right?" That was the only thing you could come up with, just from scrolling through Twitter and catching bits of the news. You didn’t know a single thing about the sport.

And sometimes, famous people liked that: their love interests not knowing anything about them, their jobs, the rumors, or the creepy facts.

Your Raya profile didn’t have anything special, aside from your picture-perfect photos. Celebrities didn’t actually care about you deep down—only if you fit their beauty standards. Being active and checking profiles wasn’t on your to-do list. It was just pure curiosity.

But somehow, you two matched. May the universe know under what circumstances and why.

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"When will I have the chance to meet you?"

His text was blunt, like you already knew each other. Maybe even a little desperate.

"What happened to 'Hello, how are you, my name is…'?"

You answered sarcastically, but truthfully. Not introducing yourselves was kind of rude. But you got the point, Lando didn’t care about who you were or what you had to say. The quicker you ended up in his bed, the better.

He laughed at your text, you had the kind of sense of humor he’d fall for. He wouldn’t lie, he enjoyed how obsessed girls were with him and how quickly the dirty talk escalated with just one message. But to his surprise, you weren’t that easy to win over.

"Haha, sorry. Is dinner fine with you?"

Wow, he was really a bad texter. The driest you’d ever seen, dare you say. Was it a guy thing or just a wannabe mysterious famous person thing? You hoped the conversation would be better in person because, damn, it’d be a shame if his pretty face had nothing to say.

"Send me the addy. I don’t need an F1 driver picking me up, I’d rather pass."

Your fear of speed was a thing.

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Lando was attractive. You weren’t exactly interested, but nervousness ran through your veins. Dates always did this over you—stuttering, sweaty palms, and way too much overthinking. You even considered canceling, but your friends wouldn’t let you.

You were a fashion design student, meaning you had some knowledge of trends and what suited your silhouette. Lately, silky long attires were your go-to for night fits; simple, elegant. You dressed for yourself, for comfort, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the attention and the flattering compliments on your fashion sense.

Monaco was small. Getting anywhere was a short drive, so the Uber didn’t take long. But as you stepped out of the car, your stomach twisted. The restaurant in front of you was huge, glowing with warm lights, yet no people coming in or out. The classic internet trap flashed through your mind—what if there was no Lando Norris waiting for you at all?

“Y/N?”

His voice sounded unsure. He was glued to his phone, shamelessly checking if you actually looked like the pictures he’d been thirsting over on that awful app.

You turned around slowly, mentally cursing yourself, and then your friends. And there he was.

He really screamed Formula One driver. The expensive car gave him away immediately. You had boots on, and he was wearing sneakers, making him not nearly as tall as you expected. You bit your cheek, trying not to laugh at the fact that you were practically the same height.

How were you supposed to act on a date with someone worldwide famous?

Lando leaned in to kiss your cheek, but you instinctively extended your hand for a handshake instead. The night hadn’t even started, and you already wanted the earth to swallow you.

“Shall we?”

He offered his arm, effortlessly charming. Gentleman, innit?

You hesitated before looping your arm through his, still not saying a word. But as you stepped into the restaurant, your stomach dropped.

The place was empty. No other customers. Just you and him.

Your face went pale because there was only one explanation.

He did not…

“Mister Norris!”

A well-dressed waiter greeted him with familiarity. They knew each other. With a simple hand gesture, he led you both to your table. The level of formality made you feel like royalty.

Dim lighting, soft music. A candle flickered in the center of the round table, it had the scent of chocolate, if your nostrils weren’t failing you. The ambiance was undeniably beautiful.

He really outdid himself.

You sat down, eyes narrowing at him. "You did not rent out this whole place just for us."

"Yeah, I did."

Lando chuckled, his smile boyish—like a kid caught red-handed. You playfully shoved his shoulder, you hated surprises and gifts in any format.

Your face burned red, so you instinctively hid behind the menu. Of course, he noticed. He found it adorable.

His foot lightly tapped yours under the table, trying to get your attention. "Are we playing hide and seek now?"

You sighed, setting the menu down just so he could see you roll your eyes. "What are you ordering?" you asked in a hushed tone, like it was some kind of secret, despite the fact that no one else was around.

Your elbows rested on the table as you leaned slightly toward him. He did the same. The tiny candle was the only thing between you.

There was no need for flirtation or innuendos—the tension was already there.

For you two, banter was enough.

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"So, fashion designer, huh?" He asked, cutting his food, trying to throw the conversation toward you.

"So, Formula One driver, huh?" You mocked him, mimicking his tone—because, seriously, that was the most basic question ever. Your background was more than obvious; it was explicitly written on Raya. But you got it—he was just as nervous as you were.

One thing Lando was sure of: you weren’t like his other dates. My god, you were hard to get. An hour in, and there had been no physical contact at all—just chatter, chatter. Not that he was complaining. You were an interesting and undecipherable human being.

"How many girls have you brought here?"

You loved making people uncomfortable with your questions, especially when you already knew the answer—you just wanted to see their reaction. Lando practically choked on his food at your out-of-the-blue assumption.

"W-what?"

It was hilarious how fast he grabbed his water, like he couldn’t believe how unfiltered you were. You repeated the question, and he had no choice but to answer.

"I don’t know… two or three?"

At least he was honest. Or tried to be.

————————————————————————

Dinner happened, to your surprise, quickly—because time moved fast when you were really enjoying yourself, losing track of it completely. Luckily, the Formula One driver caught up with your jokes, knowing exactly how to turn them back on you. Like an Uno reverse card. For you, there was nothing more intimate than teasing each other mutually and just the right amount. Some people couldn’t take a joke, and that was such a turn-off. But Lando simply got you.

Now, you were exiting the glamorous restaurant, shoulders covered by his huge coat. Your laughter was loud, and in just two hours, you had already built inside jokes between the two of you.

"Looking forward to seeing your replacement next Sunday if you catch a cold."

"And I'm looking forward to seeing your pretty face again."

He ended all the joking with a cheeky, flirtatious remark—he knew exactly how to make a girl’s legs weak using nothing but his natural charisma.

"You never shut up, do you?"

And then you did the unthinkable.

Without thinking twice, you pulled him in, your lips merging into one. Your heart was pounding out of your chest, finally releasing all the tension and need that had been weighing on you.

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The car you once eyed as luxurious was now the place where you were making out frenetically. The kissing was obscene, neither of you knew where all that passion came from, but it was addictive.

His firm hands gripped the fabric of your branded clothing, holding your hips in place, not wanting you to make any movement against his lap. It’d be the death of him—he was already suffering a nightmare between his legs.

Your fingers instantly got lost in his curls, tangling and pulling them mid-kiss. Lando’s mouth was practically fighting against yours, turning it into the sloppiest mess. Heaven had never felt this chaotic. You took your time exploring every corner of his mouth with your tongue, while his hands traveled deliberately across your body, wishing there was no fabric separating you two. His fingertips traced you as if you were as fragile as a sculpture, slow and delicate. You melted under his touch, squirming on top of him at the barest touch. It was inoffensive, yet he knew exactly how to caress all the right places.

A shiver ran down your spine as your body suddenly felt colder than seconds ago—a thin breeze brushed against your right thigh. He was sliding up your outfit, eager to go further.

"Easy, driver." A whisper escaped your lips, breathy from all the intense air-exchanging. Your lips brushed against each other, expectant but unmoving. "I know you like adrenaline and fast things, but not tonight."

Fucking on the first date wasn’t your thing, you had at least some dignity. This wasn’t just a hook-up; a few butterflies were already flying around in your stomach, and you despised it.

With half-lidded eyes, he looked up at you, locking gazes. His puppy-blue eyes were now dark with lust. His swollen, glossy lips formed a slight pout. If you kept staring at him—at his pathetic, needy, almost convincing face—you’d be stripping down quicker than lightning.

Trying to put an end to his little show, you placed a hand over his face and shoved him away, cutting off all dangerous eye contact.

"Not tonight gives me a free pass for a second date, according to my understanding." He contradicted you, attempting to sound smart with a cocky grin spread across his face.

"You really are something else, Lando Norris." You did your thing to keep him quiet, preventing any cringey pick-up line from escaping his lips, and restarted the make-out session.

He was relieved that you’d shut him up quickly, because the longer it went on, the more he felt like verbalizing the flying feelings in his stomach.

[cookies-after-dark]

ok but imagine pv smilk and reader having something going, relationship going steady, freak is on™, people kinda get the hint that this is a committed poly relationship

but! some poor soul makes a pass on the reader (thinking that the relationship is open and they're up for grabs)

you cannot tell me these two mfkers aren't the most possessive ass bitches (pv undercover) when it comes to each other and their partner (i'm hinting at possessive sex bro it would be so good)

pv 🤝 smilk

"that's my boyfriend and my partner and if u look too much im gonna bite."

they live in my mind rent free i need to write an eviction notice- i am so so sorry if this is nonsensical

(additional tags: possessiveness, unhealthy dynamics, beast x ancient

ships: Pure Vanilla Cookie x gender neutral!reader x Shadow Milk Cookie)

Okay so this ask resonated within my soul. I've wanted to write about just how willing Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk are willing to share the one that holds their affections, across many different dynamics (yandere suitors sharing vs. normal poly relationship between three mostly stable individuals, etc.)

But I really, really like the thought of the two of them just closing the relationship after they include you in it. Because I love to see Shadow Milk when he's a snarling, spitting animal and PV needs to be possessive over his belongings friends and family more because I said so and it brings me joy.

I think they both would handle it quite differently, their jealousy. Shadow Milk Cookie is all external force, his hackles raise when he sees another cookie rub their hands over your back when they hug you. Shadow Milk Cookie is insecure desperate and clingy enough to shoot first ask questions later if he feels you're drifting away from him.

You're not, you tell him that when he's curled around you like some type of hissing weasel.

He believes you, but he just wouldn't feel better if he didn't teach that other cookie a little lesson! One should know better than to enroach on his territory.

Shadow Milk Cookie feels nonthreatened only when it's Pure Vanilla Cookie (and his other Beast friends, as he has expressed to the two of you eagerly). He doesn't mind it, loves it even when he finds their scent on you as he wraps himself around you. It's quite comforting.

But a stranger's touch on you feels wrong, like a sin. Shadow Milk Cookie actually gets very antsy until he's at least sniffed out this foolish doughbrain and assure himself that this won't happen twice.

You and Pure Vanilla Cookie have helped a lot on this regard; Shadow Milk's wrath used to mean something serious. Well, relentlessly stalking a cookie and pulling meanspirited "pranks" on them still is quite serious. Baby steps, everyone!

Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, Pure Vanilla Cookie is not nearly as unhinged and unstable as his Beast partner is. In fact, I think it would take a much bigger push to feel like Pure Vanilla had to step in. He's patient, kind, and understanding.

But Pure Vanilla also feels jealousy, like any other cookie.

Pure Vanilla Cookie doesn't puff out his chest and start strutting around like a peacock when someone flirts with you. Actually, he thinks it's quite flattering that his partner is attractive enough for such a positive response!

(But if I just left it at that and didn't find some way to make Pure Vanilla Cookie's hackles rise then we wouldn't be here right now.)

I think the thing that gets Pure Vanilla's eyes to snap open is when someone persists with you. Fair enough, anyone with a partner would feel the need to smile a bit more tightly and wander over to put a comforting hand on yltheir shoulder while making subtle eye contact with the pursuer, it's totally normal!

Just a little sign, y'know? A quick nuzzle to your cheek will do the trick.

Unbeknownst to you - there's the faintest reflection of alitted pupils in Pure Vanilla's eyes when his gaze flits towards your increasingly unwelcome guest. Shadow Milk Cookie has been a really good influence, huh?

I think PV would process this internally, more than anything else. You notice he kind of anxiously prowls around you a little bit more, but he goes back to acting like his merry self a day or two later.

Although, his insecurities ring like a bell through his souljam, which Shadow Milk Cookie can feel. They're both watching you much more often than you would think.

And isn't that so sweet? So romantic? You have not one, but two ultra powerful cookies with stable emotions watching your every move, making extra sure that you're safe and sound in their arms, and their arms only! You're in good hands, here.

[prettieinpink]

LITTLE WAYS TO LIVE HEALTHIER IN 2025

INCREASE YOUR N.E.A.T. Neat stands for non exercise activity thermogenesis. So, basically any daily activities we do when not exercising or sleeping. It's important for you to have a high N.E.A.T because it can be the difference between having a sedentary lifestyle or being moderately active. 

Ways to increase NEAT is to do more heavier chores everyday (vacuuming, mopping, dusting), taking the longer routes when walking, stand for 10 minutes each hour, pace back and forth while calling someone, march while you’re brushing your teeth, etc. 

DRINK HERBAL TEAS. Herbal teas can help you in a variety of areas of life, and are a great substitute for other processed beverages. 

ADD SUNLIGHT IN YOUR MORNING. Exposing yourself to sunlight early in the day helps with resetting the circadian rhythm, which in return helps for waking up easier and going to sleep easier. 

EAT WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS. You’ll savour your food so much more and it’ll be easier to tell when you’re satisfied. 

CREATE A PLAYLIST FOR WHEN YOU WIND DOWN. Once you get into the habit of listening to this playlist, it’ll become like a trigger to your body that it’s time to sleep because listening to that playlist  should be followed by settling into bed. 

 REGULARLY GO TO YOUR GP. Especially if you’re feeling a bit out of it. It is always better to make those regular visits and catch something before it becomes out of hand. 

STOP WAKING UP SO EARLY. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but waking up at 5am is unnecessary if not required. While I do believe that waking up earlier does have benefits, that extra hour of sleep probably has more. 

IF YOU’RE STRUGGLING, TAKE IT SLOWER. In this day and age, we don’t have time to process a lot of things. Everything is so fast paced, that if we fall behind, we tend to feel less than. 

Especially if you’re someone who can’t keep pace with the crowd due to disabilities or mental health. Take things at your own pace, and do what you can will yourself to do. 

GET SPIRITUAL. Lots of studies show that people who commit themselves to their beliefs are a lot happier in life than those who don’t. This doesn’t mean that you have to commit to a religion yet, but I would explore your spirituality side and see what  resonates with you. 

WEAR YOUR SPF. Skin cancer is no joke, and our earth is only getting hotter. Protect yourself, including your body! 

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GOOD PEOPLE. People who radiate love and are always looking for the goodness around them, that rubs off on you and in return you’ll develop similar traits. Being with them will stimulate growth in all aspects of your life. 

I'm not telling anyone to ‘fix’ anyone, but it means a lot to other people if you can be that person in their life. It's a very rewarding and fulfilling lifestyle.  

TAKE MAKEUP BREAKS REGULARLY. Give your skin a break from products, and ideally take a week off each month to spend it makeup free. You’re saving time and your skin. 

ADD IN FRUITS, HERBS OR LEMON IN YOUR WATER. This will help with extra hydration and improve digestion. 

PRIORITISE FIBRE. As much as protein is good for you, fibre has just as much importance but it's not as heavily prioritised. Ideally, half of your meal should be fibres. However, that can be a hard change for some people, so start with having it on the side. 

It's great if you can incorporate ‘hidden’ fibre into your meals as well!

CURATE YOUR SPACE TO SUIT YOU. Add in little notes of reminders or quotes, place around photos or awards of your achievements, remove anything that impacts you negatively. You want the area that you’re in 24/7 to support that growth, not stifle it. 

Keep your area clean and decluttered as well. Try to minimise the amount of stuff that you have. You only need one of each thing, two is one too many. Having too much clutter affects the clarity of your mind.

it is numbered oddly because of the way I pasted this from google docs to tumblr. apologies!

[gay-dorito-dust]

Sibling shit Dante and Vergil defiantly did do: a volume by a stressed and perpetually tired you from dealing with twins who share a brain cell when in proximity to each other:

Dante would get bored of reading his magazines, go to vergil’s room, stand in the doorway until his brother looks up from his book only to see that Dante was flipping him off with the smuggest grin on his face before leaving the room.

Vergil retaliates by doing the same shit not even five minutes later by standing in front of Dante’s room, waits for him to look up from his magazines, only to flip him off with the most deadpan expression and stabbing him with a sword and leaving without a word.

You were there for both instances in a referees outfit and a whistle incase you had to facilitate a fight and keep count on who was winning, you weren’t helping but this was better then saying ‘I’m not your babysitter, please stop asking me to referee your fights because neither of you can count and leave me in peace from your chaotic bullshit.’

While they might not like what the other eats, but they will wholeheartedly eat the others food when extremely petty.

Vergil ate half of Dante’s pizza because he wouldn’t give his book back, grimacing at the greasy and fatty food but has too much pride and continues to commit to the bit.

Dante eats whatever the hell Vergil had -if he ever eats- whenever he felt like pissing him off, he does this shit for the love of the game and it shows very evidently.

Asking you who the favourite sibling is; NEVER GET INTO THIS WITH THEM, it’s never fun seeing a half demon sulk like a child when you insinuate that you like one more then the other, it’s honestly the most stressful thing you’ve ever been put through and the worst thing was; no one was gonna help you out of it, you were on your own. Using the ‘I like the both of you equally’ doesn’t work, it’s a cop out to them both.

If there was an instance you favoured Vergil over Dante, then Dante would pout and huff as he stands in the corner and loudly question what he did to deserve this cruel, cruel fate all the while looking over you at times to see if you’d come for him. He’s a loud whiner and make it everyone’s problem, probably overused the phrase ‘I dunno ask Vergil since you like him more then me’

If you favoured Dante over Vergil, this man was silent as his face gave nothing away, but his actions were like that of a little kid trying to guilt trip you into feeling bad about not getting them candy when you should’ve. He’s not sharing his books with you, he’s not sharing his makeshift study with you, he pretty much withholds everything from you until you retract your statement even if you haven’t said it aloud. Huff and puff too but don’t tell him that Dante does the same thing, just don’t.

These were two fully grown men, powerful men and yet whenever they were within the vicinity of each other, they were children again and whenever they couldn’t come to a conclusion, these two powerful men would come to you like a pair of little ducks who’ve imprinted on a random stranger.

You weren’t getting paid to basically babysit two overgrown half demons, it wasn’t your job description, but it might as well have becuase everyone should be fucking thanking you that these two weren’t brawling out on the streets. You were basically pulling them both away from each other by their coat tails and saying ‘come on, keep it moving, we’re not fighting here there’s too many casualties and we don’t get paid enough to make the reparations needed after one of your fights.’

You love them both, you really do, but the moment someone calls you when you were away saying ‘I know you’re on holiday but-‘ you knew Dante or Vergil or both were too much for that sorry soul to handle and you were forced to cut your vacation short and come home to reign in the chaos twins with a simple ‘what are you two doing!?’

They’re smart, charismatic, strong, the pinnacle of what a half demon should be and talented within their own fields, but they lack caution and care when paired together and that spelt out trouble for whoever was on the receiving end because after all they were two siblings who loved to fight one another. You could easily see the care in the other’s eyes, but knew they’d never say it, so they let the fighting talk instead.