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#being a team lead might have changed that
vividxpages · 23 hours
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。° ✮୨ৎ "lay it all on me" - Jace Velaryon x f!Reader ୨ৎ✮° 。
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words: 2100
summary: With the Queen and your betrothed Jacaerys’ delayed arrival, you are left in charge of the day’s council meeting. When one of the lords starts to speak of a possible bedding ceremony for your upcoming wedding, your thoughts begin to spiral badly…
warnings: the lords in Rhaenyra’s council being perverts and dicks, talks of misogynistic traditions and predatory behavior of men, sexism and misogyny, panic attacks, Jacaerys being a protective betrothed, angst, emotional hurt/comfort, crying, hopeful ending
a/n: I cooked this up so quickly, but I was very inspired yesterday - thank you so much to the anon who sparked a conversation about bedding ceremonies in my asks and with it, my inspiration for this idea! <3 this is for you :*
˚ ༘♡ ⋆。˚
When the messenger arrived at the council room and announced the delayed arrival of the Queen and her son, you had been optimistic for a moment.
Jacaerys and you, a team ever since your shared childhood and since recently betrothed with the blessings of his mother and family, had led council meetings like this together before and you were no stranger to the strategies and logistics of the war and Rhaenyra’s efforts in it. You just had not done it by yourself before.
You nodded in thanks to the messenger and turned back to the assembly of Rhaenyra’s lords around the table with a polite smile. It was only a matter of time until her and Jace would make their return from the dragon’s caves and until then, you’d do your best to begin today’s conversation.
“Well then, my lords.” You nodded to yourself and took a deep breath, looking into the round with openness. “I believe we’ll continue where we’ve left off yesterday? Is there any news yet of Daemon’s stay at Harrenhal? We could-“
“There is another matter of importance we thought we could discuss with you, my princess.” One of the lords interrupted you, a cool smile on his face as you leaned back in your seat. You cocked an eyebrow at him to continue despite your sentence being left unfinished. “Since the wedding with the prince Jacaerys will occur in the upcoming months, it would be wise to discuss the bedding ceremony sooner rather than later.”
Something in you went very, very still.
You blinked at him before you looked into the other men’s faces. They seemed to be in agreement of this rapid topic change. “The…bedding ceremony?”
“Yes, it is of grand importance to ensure the consummation of marriage between two newly-weds.” He explained to you, a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his old mouth. “It’s an old tradition and the lords and I believe it is best to follow it with the young and lovely union of the prince and you.”
You swallowed against the dryness in your throat, your hands suddenly clammy with unsureness. “I have not talked to Jace about such a thing. The Queen hasn’t spoken to me about it either. That’s…-What if me and Jacaerys are against it?”
A few of them chuckled as if you had made a good jest.
“My princess, is it not really a matter of choice, if you understand.” One of them explained to you before he suddenly turned away from you and addressed the others: “The wedding will be held here at Dragonstone as we know and I thought of a crowd of perhaps a dozen, mostly members of the family and this council, of course. After the celebrations, the prince will lead his bride away in the company of the Queen’s loyal and trusted advisors and then, the marriage will be consummated in a room large enough for the ceremony.”
You opened your mouth to object, but found your voice had simply vanished.
“Will there be sheets as proof in the morning?”
“I would actively support it.”
“There are clothes here at Dragonstone suited for such a ceremony, I am sure we will have them before the wedding takes place.”
“A purity test accomplished by a maester might be sufficient beforehand as well-“
You felt yourself drifting away from the conversation, one that circled around you and yet did not include you at all. Staring at the table in front of you, you felt your breath quicken as a distant howl swept through your mind, drowning out their voices as they went on and on.
In your mind, you saw yourself being led into a fully lit room. The dress you wore was thin and barely hiding your body, your arms protectively crossed in front of yourself as you shivered. The bed chamber was crowded all the way back to the tapestry of the walls with men regarding you coolly. Their hunger for the curves barely hidden underneath your dress was evident in their eyes, yet you had to walk on until you reached the middle of the room. Jacaerys was waiting, his own expression blank and without any emotion for you as he took your hand and led you to bed. There were a thousand eyes on you and you felt numb, your body screaming in protest, your mind begging you to shout at them to leave as Jace mechanically began to kiss your neck-
The wide doors of the hall opened and the men seated around you abruptly stood, their wrinkly hands brushing over their attires. The Queen was here.
You remained in your seat, your mind having drawn itself back to a hidden part in yourself, blankly staring at the fidgeting hands in your lap. When you felt a gentle hand on your shoulder, the touch so familiar it could’ve been your own, you closed your eyes for just a moment. Jacaerys had come with her.
“What is going on?” Rhaenyra demanded to know, walking around the big table as she took in your uncharacteristic quiet state.
When your betrothed raised your hand to his lips in greeting, you looked up and bit your lip at Jace’s worried expression. The taste of iron coated your lips and only now you realized you had bitten your lip so badly, it had started to bleed. The pain was almost a relief.
“Are you alright?” Jace murmured, his hand delicately cupping your cheek and making you shudder. Your eyes were glassy, your cheeks red from shame and suddenly, a strong urge to cry shot through you, so intense you barely could fight it. “What is it, my love?”
You shook your head, avoiding his searching gaze.
The shame burned hotly through you and you wanted to shrink into your seat until you could escape these old devils. One of them, who had started this whole discussion about the ceremony in the first place, cleared his throat. “Your Grace, we were discussing possible arrangements for the wedding of the prince and his betrothed. There have been no mentions of the traditional bedding ceremony yet and the lords and myself were worried that-“
Rhaenyra frowned with a disgusted curl of her lips. “A bedding ceremony? There hasn’t been a tradition like this in my generation. Why would we burden the next with such an old piece of the past?”
You could sense Jace tensing beside you, his face dark as he stared at the lord. Would he look at you like this too, when the happiest day of your life would end with having to sleep with each other in front of dozens? Your chest hurt as you struggled to breathe normally.
“The princess has expressed similar concerns, but there are ways…There could be a thin veil draped over the sides of the bed.” Another suggested generously and you felt your stomach turn itself over. “Of course, it cannot shield the pair fully from the observer’s eyes. They have to be in sight, so it can be assured that she’s-“
“There will be no bedding ceremony.” Jace cut him off, close to snarling as he flexed his hand on the hilt of his sword. He remained by your side, his stance protective of you and intimidating. “Neither my mother or myself have been consulted about this before and the fact that you’ve preyed on an opportunity to bring it up in front of the princess is close to treason. And yet you’ve dared to speak of such inappropriate matters in front of my betrothed, your future Queen? I could have you hanged by the cliffs of Dragonstone for such perverted behavior.”
“My prince, with all respect, it simply is tradition. It has to be guaranteed that on the night of her wedding, the bride is a maiden-“
The sound of your chair screeching over the floor broke through the room as you stood up. The sound of your own breath was too loud in your eyes, the lump in your throat only growing by the second. “If you would excuse me, Your Grace, I’m not feeling well.”
Jacaerys stood with you, but as he reached for your hand, you had already slipped away and quickly made your escape towards the wide doors, trying to breathe against the numbing panic in your lungs.
You blindly walked down the long corridor, ignoring the questioning looks of the guards standing on the sides. Would they be there as well, to witness yours and Jace’s union, eyes on your naked body when Jace had to deflower you in front of an audience?
You choked on a sob, the tears running freely down your cheeks now, the pain in your chest only expanding from keeping it inside for so long. You had never experienced a panic like this before, a powerful tide washing all rational thoughts away and sending your brain into overdrive.
Behind you, quick footsteps were approaching and before you knew it, Jacaerys had overtaken you and blocked your path, taking your upset state in with wide eyes. Your bottom lip wobbled dangerously and you came to a halt, noting how far and fast you had walked away from the council room.
“My love…” Jacaerys mumbled quietly and stepped closer and somewhere inside of you, a dam burst and he caught you as you fell into his arms, your body wrecked with heartbreaking and breathless sobs. He wrapped his arms around you, drawing you against his chest and letting you cry, his own heart aching at the stress vibrating through your body.
“I don’t want them to see…” You sniffled miserably against his shoulder, his arms tightening protectively around your waist, one of his hands resting on the back of your head and stroking your hair. “I want our wedding night to be ours, I don’t want them in the room with us, I don’t want any of it.”
“I’m not going to allow it.” He assured you calmly, suppressing his own anger for the sake of your peace of mind. Later, he’d had time to rage and forge the feeling into action, but now the only thing that mattered was you. “They have no right to make these rules for us. You and I decide, together, okay?”
You nodded, your anxiety slowly beginning to ebb away and leaving the council room and its members behind you.
“I am so sorry I was not there with you.” Jacaerys regretfully whispered against your temple, soothingly stroking your back as you rested your tear-streaked face against his neck. “I am not going to let this slide. And I am serious, my love, I promise you; there will be no bedding ceremony, I’m not going to let them expose you like this.”
You lifted your head to look at him, your eyes still shimmering with worried tears. “And what if we have to? I can’t do this, Jace, I would rather die-“
He gently shushed you and gently rested his forehead against yours, willing you to take big and deep breaths with him until you were breathing in sync and your shivering stopped. “We don’t have to do anything. You and I, we’ll be king and queen someday and I will not accept any disrespect towards you, not today or when we’re married, alright?”
You nodded slowly, exhaling deeply as you allowed yourself to sink against him, letting yourself be held and gently swayed from side to side. Slowly but surely, your heart stopped hurting and the clouds in your mind dissolved until you only felt him.
“Alright.” You whispered back after a while and his lips on yours, featherlight and oh so gently, were a relief after such moments of stress. When you separated and looked into each other’s eyes, you added quietly: “I want this, with you. All of it. I want our first time together to be special and a memory we’ll cherish forever.”
“And it will be, I promise.” He soothed you. “These old pathetic men will do good to remember their place before I’ll unleash Vermax on them.” He added jokingly and even managed to make you giggle a little bit at the mental image. “You know how Vermax adores you, he’ll eat them in one piece and spit them out, because they’re disgusting.”
You snorted tiredly and nuzzled his neck in affection, not ready to separate yourself from him just yet.
“My mother will deal with them.” Jace promised you darkly, a revengeful shimmer in his fierce eyes as he wiped the last of your tears away with his thumb. “And when she’s done with them, I will make sure as well they’ll remember who they answer to, my queen.”
He would deal with this.
And after he had put those foul men in their place, he’d make sure you’d be the happiest you could be and your wedding would be perfect and just the way the two of you had imagined for so long…
my taglist: @princesschimchim1325 @cecestea @jacesvelaryons @princessvelaryon @diannnnsss
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only-1-a · 2 days
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Imagining this within the first week of Charles and Edwin knowing each other. Charles has helped Edwin catch up on a BIT of what’s happened in the last 70 years, but Edwin can tell that Charles’ knowledge and strengths are not in history (finding out there was an even worse world war right after The Great War was certainly horrific though). So Edwin decides his best bet is to look in the public archives. Charles is sitting in the room with him absolutely bored out of his skull when he comments “Wow, you weren’t joking about not being great at people, were you?”
To which Edwin’s patience runs out, and he snidely responds, “Evidently not. If my researching the events of the last seventy years is so off-putting to you, then you can leave.”
Edwin was expecting some kind of token protest, but instead Charles just hops up, and says, “Cheers mate. See you.” Then LEAVES. Just like that. Edwin would like to be offended, but he supposes he did tell Charles to go. He just thought there would have been more to it than that? It almost feels…anticlimactic. At least he and Charles barely knew each other. Better to cut their losses now than get attached. Even as he thinks it he can’t help but feel maybe he was already growing attached.
So he spends the whole day digging through the archive and he learns so much about the past half century. It’s amazing and daunting just how much as changed. No wonder Charles hadn’t been able to go over even a fraction of it. It’s like the world is a completely different place.
He’s engrossed in his research when a head pops in through the door, and violently startles him with a cheerful, “Hey mate!” Edwin doesn’t have a heartbeat, but if he did it would be running a mile a minute from that fright. Charles is just grinning as he walks through the door. “I have to say, that’s my favourite part of being dead so far. I can just walk through walls.” Charles continues to chat happily, completely oblivious to Edwin’s shock.
Eventually Edwin gains enough of his senses back to interrupt Charles and say, “You came back.”
Charles just cocks his head, but he’s still smiling. “Yeah bruv. You’ve been here ALL DAY. The sun’s started going down. I know we don’t need to eat or sleep, but I figure you should take a break. Plus all the people playing football at the park left, so I got bored.”
Edwin doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He’s still working on the fact Charles came back. Charles hadn’t planned on leaving in any permanent way. He just went to do his own thing while Edwin did his. Yet instead of anything intelligent coming out of his mouth, he says “Football?”
“Oh c’mon! I know you had football even a thousand years ago. Yeah, I went to play with some other guys at the park across the street.”
Edwin snorts at that, and isn’t that a strange and wonderful feeling, laughing after all this time. He doesn’t even know if he did it often before he went to Hell, but here Charles has been making him laugh on and off for the week they’ve known each other. “Yes, we had football. You’ll have to explain how you managed to play a team sport without being seen by either team. You are right though. If it’s getting dark out, they’ll be turning the lights out in here soon. We might as well leave for the day.”
“Cheers. Mostly it involved messing with the ball so it went the wrong way when they kicked it. Oh! I kicked one over a fence. Do you think we can go grab it? How about your day? Learn anything exciting?”
Edwin leads them out, and now in a much better mood he shares something he thinks Charles will enjoy. “As a matter of fact, there was quite a lot about how music evolved, and styles from the Americas really took off since the 20s.”
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nekohime19 · 9 hours
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Neko Shadowpeach Au Guide!
I have so many Shadowpeach Au I can't even 😭
This post is mainly for me to organize myself bc I'm beginning to have a lot of ideas for Au, and a lot of Au in general and I need to write that somewhere or I'm gonna get lost.
But also it's to let you guys know about future Au I would probably write and see if you like them.
Of course if you guys have any questions about any of my Au's, even the unpublished one, feel free to ask.
alright here we go :
Published
Monkeys silly love life :
Summary : Macaque never met the great sage, nor the brotherhood, he simply lived like a hermit until his lantern was stolen by a thrall. He finds himself coming to Megapolis in search of his lantern, there he meets MK, his friends and one particularly insistent golden-furred monkey who seems keen on flirting with him despite the Lady Bone Demon taking over the world.
Fic : series of three fic on Ao3
Who said you can't flirt in an apocalypse?
Monkeys discovering the wide world of dating.
I know the world is ending but will you marry me?
Status : all fics completed
Vibe : fluff and humor
Heart behind the lie :
Summary : Sun Wukong's mind is severely damaged by the Lady Bone Demon's possession, leading him to act like a beast. Macaque being the only person he trusts in this state, he is designated as his babysitter. Macaque refuses at first but then finds himself needing magic to survive and decides to accept being a babysitter to better steal Sun Wukong's magic. He might became more attached than he planned for.
Fic : fic on Ao3 + being published on Tumblr with two chapters a day
Status : uncompleted
Vibe : emotional angst, feels and fluff
Publishing day : At least once a week
Mini Mac :
Summary : One day Sun Wukong discovers that a little black-furred monkey had been living in the walls of his stone mansion and decides to befriend him. Problem is, the little black-furred beauty is not keen on deepening his relationship with him, thus the sage has to gain his trust first.
Fic : one fic on Tumblr and Ao3
Status : uncompleted
Vibe : fluff, humor and very light angst
Publishing day : Two to three chapters a week
Bimawen :
Summary : What if Heaven actually gave weight to the title of Bimawen and treated Sun Wukong with respect, even if reluctant? Sun Wukong would have never gone on a rampage and quietly taken care of the horses. Years after Sun Wukong has taken his horsley duties Heaven found another celestial monkey, the Six-eared Macaque causing mayhem in the mortal world. The macaque is judged and if he wants to avoid his execution, he has to become the bimawen's assistant. The problem is the monkeys don't really like each other.
Fic : one on Ao3 and Tumblr
Status : uncompleted
Vibe : fluff, humor and feels / JTTW oriented
Publishing day : Once to twice a month (often more bc I'm inspired)
Share my glow (co-writing with Pen-Women)
Summary : Macaque never met Wukong in his life. He is known as the Shadow Weaver, a mysterious entity who guides the one lost in the night. His lantern is the last artifact LBD needs to complete her mech and take over the world. When his forest is frozen by the Thrall he has no choice but to follow a troublesome team of heroes with a particularly flirty Monkey King.
Fic : one in Ao3
Status : uncompleted
Vibe : fluff and angst / ABO
Publishing day : Once a week (every Sunday)
Unpublished
So here is are my ideas for different Au's! Of course, bc those are still ideas in working, summaries might change a lil bit when I actually write them. Idk if I'll write them all though. They're classed from the one I want to write the most after I'm finished with Heart behind the lie and Mini Mac to ideas in passing.
1) Love Addicts :
Summary : Macaque and Sun Wukong find themselves feeling miserable after season 5. MK lost his powers when he jumped in the pillar, and both monkeys can't help but feel guilty. Sun Wukong then stumbles upon an odd door in his treasure trove and discovers the existence of a bar selling love potions. Despite hating each other, both monkeys decides to drink one potion to recover some sort of happiness, letting themselves be in love for one week. They take another one after the end of this first week and soon become addicted to the taste of love, even if this love is fake.
Fic : will be on Ao3 (debating if I'm gonna add it to Tumblr)
Status : unwritten / I'm planning this one after Heart behind the lie
Vibe : angst, fluff and feel, smut
Die-Hard fan :
Summary : Sun Wukong took the throne of the Jade Emperor after the attack on Heavens orchestrated by the brotherhood. While at first were glad to be free of Heaven's corruption they soon began to fear the whims of their new ruler. Sun Wukong is a beast of pleasure who does nothing but indulges his needs, either in food or treasures, and kills those who doesn't agree with him. One day, he stumbles upon the most famous entertainer of the mortal world, the Six-eared Macaque, and became a die-hard fan. Now determined to be someone Macaque would like, Sun Wukong has to change all his ways and learns to be a good King.
Fic : will be on Ao3 and Tumblr
Status : unwritten / Planning this after Mini Mac
Vibe : fluff and humor
Monkey Cop Mania :
Summary : Both monkeys find themselves being transported to a movie-like dimension in which Sun Wukong is the insanely famous Monkey Cop and Macaque a world-wide known thief accused of murder. If they want to get back to their own dimension, they have to solve a murder and finish the movie's scenario. Problem is neither mystic monkeys turn out to be great detectives.
Fic : unwritten / will be on Ao3
Status : unwritten
Vibe : Humor and feels
Once upon a monkey
Summary : various long one shots of shadowpeach being in different fairy tales.
How to bewitch the witch : Wukong is the prince of the Sun Kingdom and falls in love with the cruel sea witch, Macaque, while said witch was destroying his wedding with the mermaid prince, Azure. Once Azure returns to his kingdom and their wedding falls void, Wukong does everything in his power to court Macaque. Turns out, courting a sea witch is quite difficult.
The strongest of them all : Macaque is a magic mirror with the ability to hear past, present and future terribly in love with his owner, the King Sun Wukong. One day Sun Wukong learns that he's not the strongest anymore, but that he's step-son, MK, is. Macaque, after listening to the future, fears for his King and tries to better the relationship between MK and Wukong.
Fighting Beauty : Macaque is prince Sun Wukong personal guard, in charge of guarding him until his betrothed comes to rescue him from the sleeping spell casted upon him. Things get awkward when Macaque awakens Sun Wukong on his first night on duty. Sun Wukong, impatient as ever, decides to slay the dragon himself and not wait on his betrothed, Macaque is dragged in the quest despite himself.
Midnight Illusion : Macaque is at day the mistreated step-son of the Lady Bone Demon, and at night the leader of the most fearsome thieves of the Sun Kingdom. He's unfortunately caught by the royal guard in the middle of a thievery. He's given two choices by the Sun King himself : either spend the rest of his life in prison, or spy on his own step-mother while also pretending to be the Sun King betrothed. Naturally, he chose the second option.
The Mage and the Monkey : Sun Wukong is cursed by the wandering mage, Macaque, after refusing to give him shelter on a stormy night. He's now the Monkey King, and he'll stay in this beastly form as long as he cannot find true love, according to the Mage, at least. But Sun Wukong is not one to stay idle, he finds the Mage huts after a lot of searching, and bugs him everyday to undo the curse. Macaque is tempted to accept, only because Sun Wukong is getting annoying.
Fic : unwritten / will be on Ao3
Status : unwritten / rough ideas really
Vibe : Humor and fluff and angst
Narcissist :
Summary : Sun Wukong was lonely. He felt like there was a wedge between him and the world, that no-one could ever understand him. Even his successor couldn't hope to breach his shell. Pushed by his loneliness, Wukong stole a forbidden book from the gods with the vilest spells written in it and bring his shadow to life.
Fic : unwritten / will be on Ao3
Status : unwritten / very rough idea
Vibe : angst, fluff and horror (Mac being an eldritch horror)
I'll add Au's to this guide if I have any more that I think of, but that's all for now.
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firebenders-are-cool · 6 months
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Years ago I came up with an ATLA fic idea for the earth avatar after korra and it was kinda good but I stopped caring about it. as I developed the plot and transformed my initial (flawed) idea, I got less interested in it because it was no longer the same idea. I basically wanted to write Trope A, didn't like that it was such a bad rendition of Trope A, fixed it, and got bored cause it wasn't Trope A anymore. I absolutely don't have the time (or desire) to go write it now (especially with avatar studios coming in hot with a new avatar), but damn I hope an alternate universe-me wrote it.
#atla#basically it was the same issue genji had and kyoshi had and all the fics have with not knowing who the new avatar is. Confusing two ppl#/not sure which is which#person A was abandoned at birth and given to family B#family B also had a child at the same time (gasp) which was person B#They grew up together in B's family. Both are benders#B was super clever and brave and maybe a bit headstrong but otherwise everything everyone expected of an avatar#kinda crappy parents of B are warned around age 14 or something that A and B could be dangerous together by Some Secret Source (villain for#and *insert political factors here* parents of B abandon them both.#[both A and B are mixed earth and fire nation]#A is a bit mellower and follows B's lead a lot of the time / doesn't mind not being the best at everything.#A and B go on adventures/solve mysteries on why their parents left both of them etc#that's like the first act and they find out one of them could be the avatar#they're poor btw. anyway#They of course make friends along the way (similar to aang's aventure-journey arc) and bam team avatar 3.0#except they don't know who the avatar is. gasp#so they look for people who might know how to find that out and they're like “it doesn't matter if it's you or me it's fine!” But ofc B#is really confident that it's them#blah blah they train and they find out Person A is the avatar. world crumbles#B is shocked and maybe there are issues beforehand yknow but A leaves for training and B is left in the dust feeling useless#Now abandoned by both family and friends in their eyes#B retreats and disappears for a few years as A trains. A does avatar things. B secretly gets involved with the Wrong Sort [villains]#maybe something spiritual? unlike lok2? who knows. Not me#leads up to A and B confronting each other and it's sad. A does not want this. B feels betrayed cause of x and y events#B obviously feels justified in their cause#*cue fight* but something changes w/ the villain and B's reality starts to crack#A convinces B that it's not all lost. Insert something about their parents again#gasp B's parents were threatened maybe. or not. Never decided#B starts to come around and together they kick ass. B has a LOT of community service hours to fill#protagonist to villain (maybe antihero?) to protagonist again
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nereidprinc3ss · 27 days
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hourglass
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in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.
18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k
It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.
About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)
About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.
You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.
“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.
“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”
A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.
“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.
If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.
The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)
“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.
“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”
“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”
“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.
You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.
“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.
“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”
“You want to kiss me?”
“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.
As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.
It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.
You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.
“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”
Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.
At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.
“Incentive for you to come home.”
Nearly three months since that night.
At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.
Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.
So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.
When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.
Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.
Realized it was not at all a joke.
In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.
Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.
Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.
He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.
“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.
I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.
All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?
The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.
That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.
Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.
He didn’t want to see you.
He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.
But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.
So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.
Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.
And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.
Surely you’re hallucinating.
Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.
He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 
But it's him.
You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.
“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.
“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.
Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.
“I know.”
He knows?
He knows?
You scoff.
“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”
The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.
It chills you.
Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.
He is so different.
Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.
Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.
He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.
You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.
He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.
“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”
A silent moment passes.
You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.
Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—
And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.
“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”
The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.
“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.
“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”
“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.
A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.
You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.
“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.
Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.
You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.
Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.
“Is this what you want?”
There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.
“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”
For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.
Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.
He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.
A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.
Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?
In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.
You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.
He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.
“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”
He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.
“We don’t have to do—”
“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”
It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.
“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 
“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”
You sniffle and look back down.
“You can untie that for me.”
He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.
“Okay.”
A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.
Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.
You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.
“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.
“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”
But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.
You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.
Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?
You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.
“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”
Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.
“I can’t,” you admit.
“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”
You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.
Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.
Right. No shirt.
You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.
“I wasn’t expecting guests.”
The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.
It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.
Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.
“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”
It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.
“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.
“You want me to show you what I mean?”
If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.
You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.
“That’s new.”
You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.
He nods.
“A lot is new.”
It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.
“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”
Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.
“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”
Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”
This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.
“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”
But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.
You understand the feeling.
“I don’t need slow.”
You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.
“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”
“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”
Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.
“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”
Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.
The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.
“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”
You’re just as quiet, just as soft.
“Don’t, Spencer.”
He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.
“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”
But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.
Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.
“You don’t have to go that slow.”
A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.
“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.
Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.
More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.
“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”
“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.
“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”
It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.
But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.
His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.
Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.
The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.
He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.
You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.
“Is this okay?”
You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?
“You don’t have to...”
“But is it okay with you?”
Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”
Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.
For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.
These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?
All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.
His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.
The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.
“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.
Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.
“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”
“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”
He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.
“Yeah?”
“...Yeah.”
This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.
Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?
You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.
His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”
Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.
He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.
They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.
He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.
“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”
He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.
“What?”
Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.
“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”
Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.
And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.
He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.
You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.
But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.
You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.
It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?
He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.
“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.
“You’re still pretty.”
He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.
“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”
A moment goes by.
“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.
Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.
“Lie down.”
Oh. Right.
This.
You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.
Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.
“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.
“I...”
Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.
Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.
There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.
You swallow.
“I’m good.”
Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.
When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.
“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.
Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.
And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.
And you’re not even fucking yet.
“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.
Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.
Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.
“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”
Spencer. Your Spencer.
For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.
This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.
Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.
“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”
“Mhm.”
“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”
“’M ready.”
“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.
“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.
“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”
You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”
This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.
There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.
“Spencer.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.
“You don’t know?”
Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.
“Do you know how much I missed you?”
It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.
And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.
Spencer continues unprompted.
“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”
You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.
“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.
At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.
“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”
Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?
“You’re here.”
You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.
“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.
“I’m here,” he breathes.
There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.
Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.
“I’m sorry!” you squeak.
“Do it again.”
“Wh—what?”
“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”
Honey.
You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.
When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.
Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”
Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.
“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.
“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.
“Mhm.”
“Look at me. Look at me.”
It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.
You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.
No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.
“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.
Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.
Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.
It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.
Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”
You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.
He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.
“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.
You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”
His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.
When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.
“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”
It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.
“Am I going to hate you?”
Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.
“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”
He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”
This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.
The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.
Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.
“What happened?”
You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.
But it doesn’t work.
“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”
He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.
“What? Did you—were you trying to—”
His eyes widen.
“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”
The bruises covering his abdomen.
You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”
Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.
“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.
“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.
“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.
“You’re just going to leave again.”
And you’re losing to the tears.
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.
“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”
I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.
For now, maybe that has to be enough. 
You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 
Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 
“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”
You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 
“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”
Maybe it will never be like it was. 
But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 
You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 
You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 
The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 
But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 
You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 
2K notes · View notes
kisses4reid · 3 months
Text
understand? pt. 1 | ·˚ ༘ spencer reid ,,
summary - you’re a polyglot translator assigned to work for the bau in a cross-national case, and there’s a doctor who wants to impress you.
genre - fem!reader, SHE/HER r, fluff, meet cute, you know more than spencer and he’s attracted to that
warnings - you're both awkward, mentions of gross case file photos, little research about polyglots actually done so there are inaccuracies, cliffhanger for part 2.
w/c - 1.4k
a/n - thank you for the req anon!! there was multiple parts to this but i really like the first idea so that’s what this fic is about, might keep the other idea for later hehe. i did change some aspects. love you, thank you for the support <33 there will be multiple parts!!! stay tuned!!!
req - hi pia 💞💝🩷💓 how r u? i hope you’re feeling wonderful! this is my first time requesting smthg i apologize if i get something wrong! i’ve been having 2 thoughts about spencer x fem!reader, where reader is a russian translator and idk they meet cute or she has to work with the bau helping them on a case. just wanted to give these ideas to you, obviously feel free to do anything with them! i really enjoy your work and your writing is incredible! i have your notifications on so i am always reading whatever you post! have a great day pia 💝 lots n lots of kisses for u!
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This was not what you expected. 
You, a woman in your late twenties that spent most of her time in a room listening to voices and decoding foreign messages, didn’t know what you expected. But this: a scary boss, an italian old man, and a skinny college kid, was not it. 
“Y/n L/n? I’m Aaron Hotchner, the unit chief, and this is Agent Rossi and Doctor Agent Reid.” 
You nodded your head, thick hair covering your top eyelashes as you glanced at the men. Agent Rossi shook your hand, and Dr Reid simply stood and gawked at you. To be honest, it made you worried. You had been warned this was a close knit team, that they trusted each other more than anything and that you shouldn’t get attached to any of them as you’d only be assisting them for one case.
Maybe they just didn’t warm up to new people. 
“I’ll do your formal introduction to the rest of the team now, if you’re settled down.” He asks cooly. You like the way his voice rasps, it’s assertive yet comforting. 
“Yes, of course. I can’t wait.” You smiled reassuringly at the unit chief, not ignoring the raised eyebrow you received from the silent young man now behind you.
Aaron Hotchner, your new boss for the next week or so, lead you to a large room with a circular table sat in the middle. There were two other women, one blonde and one raven haired, and another bald man that glanced at you immediately after you entered. They smiled at you and trailed your steps to where you stood beside the unit chief in front of a large TV screen.
“Everyone, this is Agent Y/n L/n. She’ll be assisting us with the Becker case you’ve all been informed of. She’ll mainly be our translator and interpreter, but she’ll also be useful for cultural identifiers and anything that we wouldn’t notice otherwise.” 
You nodded along, never being a fan of introductions since you moved to America as a small child. 
“This is JJ, our liaison, Agent Emily Prentiss and Agent Derek Morgan.” 
The ladies smiled at you, in fact all of them did. They were surprisingly open to the fact you would be joining them, the fact made your shoulders loosen and a breath to be let out discreetly. 
Next, you were on a long plane flight to Maine with Agents you had known for little under two hours, conversing about victim profiles and motives. The table in front of the ladies and your boss was strewn with victim files and gruesome photos. And while you weren’t a stranger to the dangers and violence the job brought, you had gotten comfortable with only hearing about it and not seeing it. So you opted to hover around the table and stay silent, you weren’t a trained profiler after all, just a translator.  
There was a wave of cologne that disrupted your senses, causing you to angle your head back, only to be greeted by the tall doctor. 
You smiled softly, assuming the closeness was due to the aeroplane's arrangement. Also because you got the vibe that Spencer didn’t like you. 
“Are you okay? You seem uneasy,” he asked. It was the first time you heard his voice. And it was as adolescent as you imagined for someone so young, but it had a sophisticated edge to it, with a honey-like undertone. Finding things in voices as if they were perfumes was something you unconsciously started to do since working as a translator.
“I’m fine.” You grinned reassuringly, turning back to focus on the team’s findings. 
Spencer furrowed his eyebrows slightly and stepped away, sitting down beside Morgan who had taken a seat at the back. Morgan squinted at his friend, noticing the rare confusion splayed on his face as he stared in your direction. 
“What’s up? Pretty girl got your tongue?” Morgan removed his headphones with a cheeky smile displayed on his handsome face.
“For someone who specialises in languages she doesn’t talk much.” 
Morgan smirked, “Maybe not to you.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong though.” Spencer ripped his gaze off the back of your head.
“You’ve been staring at her since she walked through those doors. You were so distracted you didn’t even greet her this morning.” Morgan pointed out. Spencer tilted his head confused, a small blush creeping up his neck. “I watched the whole thing from the conference room, so did JJ and Emily.” 
The tall boy slumped in his chair and forced himself to look out of the plane’s window, avoiding a reply to Morgan as he knew it would only result in more teasing. You were physically attractive, everyone could see that, but the thing that caught Spencer’s attention was your intelligence. He was no stranger to being a polyglot, he learnt languages for fun, but you were simply next level. Morgan studied Spencer’s face for a second before raising his attention to your hovering state. “Agent Y/n L/n.” Morgan called, causing Spencer to widen his eyes and immediately adjust his slumped position in his plane seat. You turned your head in surprise, slightly confused why you would be needed anywhere else than the files you had been translating for the past two minutes. Your heels were silent against the carpeted floors, but Spencer could sense your presence anyways. 
“How many languages do you speak?” The stoic man asked, his eyes darting between you and the doctor below you. You were not short, your genes didn’t allow for it, but you had noticed you were only taller than JJ and Rossi in the team and it felt foreign to not tower over everyone. “Um, I speak 8 languages fluently, and 4 languages semi-fluently.” You stated, readying to turn back to assist the team before Morgan spoke up once again
“Did you know that pretty boy can speak Spanish and German?” 
Before Spencer could help himself, he corrected the man, “And Latin and Russian,” Spencer turned his head up to you, “But I can understand more.” 
You smiled, genuinely impressed and confused on how a man that young could learn that much. But to be fair, you were in the same boat. The nickname got your attention, locking it in the back of your mind to remind yourself that the people you were working with did in fact have senses of humour, and weren’t just heartless officers. There wasn’t any reason to think that though, as you had been cared for with respect and even Prentiss made a funny remark beforehand. It sort of felt like a family dinner you were intruding on. “That’s impressive, Doctor Reid.” You reply genuinely. 
“I mean it’s nothing compared to you though,” his voice was pitched slightly higher and his hands started motioning to nothing in particular, “your brain is constantly changing from high activity to low activity when you're translating from one language to another. Your language network, the lateral frontal lobe, is constantly lighting up and dimming down depending on what language you hear, ordinary people’s language networks only turn on and off.” 
Morgan smirked and glanced up at your intrigued and surprised expression. You nodded, a small blush coating the tips of your ears as you responded, “Thank you.” You didn’t really know what else to say, which is funny for someone who understands so many languages, so you simply smiled and turned back to the table. Spencer slumped again, watching you walk away and asking himself why he would inform a pretty girl about her own brain, when she most definitely already knows about it. 
“Don’t worry too much, Reid.” Morgan called, grabbing Spencer’s attention. The boy raised a brow, not understanding. “She digs it, I can tell. But she’s just like you, knows how to speak in a million ways and still doesn’t know how to small talk.” 
You landed without any more awkward interactions, and got introduced to some sheriffs in Maine, one of them giving you a tighter handshake than the rest and a stare that could only mean unpleasant things. It wasn't something sexist or creepy that lingered in his eyes, it was more like hatred. Spencer took the sheriff's attention away from you after noticing what the whole team did, and asked him to show him the records they kept at the precinct.
Emily Prentiss came up behind you and placed a hand on your upper arm, squeezing it like she understood what you had thought you'd seen. Out of everyone else in the team, she would understand the most.
taglist (open!!): @jeffswh0re @reap3erslov3 @candyd1es @0108s22m @aurorsworld
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leilanihours · 4 months
Note
Anything with Kate Martin pleaseee!
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# GOLD RUSH
pairing: kate martin x teammate!reader
word count: 1780
warnings: none !
summary: kate being the cutest most adoring girlfriend ever while you get ready on live.
⭑ from lani: this was heavily inspired by this video bc kate actually might be the cutest human to ever walk the earth ty
masterlist !
"WHAT IS UP guys, welcome back to yet another game day prep," you greet to the camera propped against the mirror in front of you, "today we are going up against lsu, so there's gonna be a lot of tension in the arena today."
user1: hi y/nnnn
user2: is caitlin there?
user3: team lsu lol
user4: y/n what shampoo/conditioner do u use??
it's become a tradition for you to go live and do a little "get ready with me" on the most highly-anticipated gamedays, as you wanted to get fans excited for the face-off.
the first one you hosted got lots of love, viewers falling in love with your bubbly personality and witty remarks to your teasing teammates.
you were currently in your hotel bathroom, one you shared with your teammate, gabbie marshall. but all the girls have borderline separation anxiety, leading to half the team hanging out in your room as you all prepare yourselves for the game.
"are you on live?" you hear a voice whisper. turning your head, you see kate peeking hers into the bathroom a small smile on her face.
"yeah," you reply sweetly, "you wanna say hi?"
she nods, immediately sliding the door open to join you.
"looks like we have a special cameo today, folks, y'all got lucky," you laugh
"hi, live, how you guys doin?" kate says.
as you begin doing your skincare, you see kate take a seat on the closed toilet in the corner, carefully observing your routine.
"you okay, babe?" you ask with a grin once you notice her puppy-dog like stare. the nickname slips from your lips like first nature, appearing cordial to the camera but the two of you know the hidden meaning.
user1: help kate looks so starstruck wtf shes adorable
user2: omg wait i use that same moisturizer
user3: "BABE"?
user4: not kate just sitting on a damn toilet LMAOO
you and kate have always been close, ever since your freshman year at iowa. on the court you two bounce off of each other's energy constantly, frequently managing to raise the stakes of the game.
fans have noticed it too, of course, with proud taps after one of you makes a shot and suspiciously long post-game hugs.
the team is fully aware of your private relationship, respecting your wishes of secrecy. there have been pointed questions from reporters and interviewers, but you all know how to dodge a personal question one way or another.
a few minutes go by of you telling a funny story from the bus ride to the hotel, consisting of caitlin getting caught on video singing horribly off-key. with promises of posting the recording later that evening, you and kate both laugh at the memory.
as you start on your light makeup look, you begin reading some comments popping up on your screen.
user1: thoughts on reese and clarks rivalry??
user2: wheres caitlin and gabbie
user3: y/n can u say hi alyssa
user4: what are your guys' top 3 music artists
"'thoughts on reese and clark's rivalry?'" you read, "i mean, they've said it before, there's no bad blood between them, just some good old basketball competition," you state with a small smile as you start blending in a light layer of skin tint.
"yeah, i mean some light-hearted teasing and trash-talking always makes a game more fun in my opinion," kate chimes in, "especially when it leads to an increase in viewership."
"for sure, for sure," you smirk at her in the corner of your eye, sneakily suggesting your own dating rumors circulating before every game.
"'top three music artists?'" kate reads, "dude, mine changes 24/7 so i have no idea anymore."
"ooo," you contemplate the question as you look up in thought, "gotta be taylor swift...sza...anddd frank ocean? no, kehlani! wait actually-"
"i don't think you know either, y/n," kate laughs.
"oh whatever," you say, rolling your eyes playfully, "speaking of music, can you put some on?"
"i gotchu," kate responds, picking up her phone to connect to the bluetooth speaker on the counter.
soon enough, you hear the familiar tune of "gold rush" by taylor swift, a song publicly known to be your favorite (kate knows this, naturally, which is why she played it first).
once she notices your stretched grin and quiet hum to the lyrics, she mirrors your expression, feeling light in her chest at the sight of your happiness.
she stands up from her spot on top of the toilet seat, slowly coming up behind you to observe you even closer.
the two of you make eye contact in the mirror, immediately blushing and smiling like madmen. and, of course, nothing goes unnoticed by the live watchers so comments of you two rush in.
user1: aww the way they smile at each other im crying
user2: okay when is it my turn to get a gf like y/n or kate 😢
user3: not kate stealing my gf..
user4: they gotta be dating right??
you and kate scan over the messages, trying to keep a straight face as to not give away anything.
"kate can you do me a favor and get my setting spray from my suitcase? its in a clear bottle with a pink cap," you ask her, but shes too entranced by your beauty to hear.
"sorry, what was that?"
you giggle, "my setting spray please?"
"oh! okay, be right back, guys!"
you return your focus to your makeup and the song playing, the melodies too addicting for you to not sing along.
as kate comes back into the fairly spacious bathroom, you thank her for getting your spray, placing it on the marble counter. she reclaims her spot behind you, continuing to watch you work as if you were the most interesting movie she'd ever seen.
she wishes she could place her arms around your waist and rest her chin on your shoulder to whisper sweet words into your ear. sadly, for the sake of your private relationship, she had to settle for admiring from afar (which is really only like a foot away from you).
"y/n!" you hear one of the girls call out from the bedroom, "can i borrow your eyebrow gel? i forgot mine in my room!"
"sure, it's in here, come grab it!" you yell back. a few seconds later, jada comes sauntering into the bathroom, immediately taking notice of kate's presence and the phone displaying your every action.
"oh my gosh, heyy livee," she smiles, waving her fingers at the camera.
user1: omg jada ilysm
user2: still waiting on catilin tbh
user3: JADA!!
user4: my fav girls :((
as you apply small amounts of blush to your cheeks, jada stands next to you fixing up her eyebrows wih your gel. and, yes, kate is still behind the both of you. she has begun to fix her hair into her signature ponytail braid, quickly maneuvering her dirty-blonde locks with ease after working the style for so long.
"my teammates are so prettayy," she exclaims to the livestream once she'd finished with her hair.
"you're prettyy," jada replies, singing.
"pretty beautiful," kate sings back while you're simply giggling at the girls' antics.
you're too concentrated on curling your lashes correctly to notice that kate was specifically gazing at you with that last comment, nothing but pure love and admiration behind her words.
jada, who is now out of the frame and catching kate's longing stare in your direction, turns around to face her, mouthing: "you're so whipped."
kate playfully shoves her out the bathroom and returns to her former seat on the toilet.
"okay, guys, sorry we haven't been talking to y'all that much," you say as you step back from the mirror, "the last step of my makeup look is to apply some setting spray that, thankfully, the lovely kate martin has gotten for me."
"wait, can i do it?" kate asks, eager to help you out.
"yeah, come over here," you respond.
kate shoots up and over to you and takes the bottle from your hand. her fingers brush against yours for a split second, sending a tingly feeling throughout your body. at this point, you don't even need to put blush on, kate's subtle touches bringing more than enough color to your face.
"i'll tell you when to stop, okay?"
"okay, close your eyes for me," kate mumbles, putting a delicate hand on your shoulder.
obliging, you feel light spritzes of mist fall on your face as kate controls the bottle nervously, not wanting to mess up.
"don't hold back, i'll tell you when it's good, don't worry," you laugh.
almost a whole minute goes by, which slightly concerns your girlfriend.
"more??" she exclaims.
finally, you tell her you've received a good amount, opening your eyes to look at her. you're instantly met those blue eyes youve grown so fond of. and again, you can't keep the smile off your face when she maintains eye contact in an irritatingly addictive manner. you practically forget about the phone pointed on the two of you, stuck in your own worlds.
"gametime, guys, let's go!" you hear a voice echo, snapping the two of you out of your trances.
user1: OMG WAS THAT CAITLIN
user2: i know my wifes voice when i hear it
user3: are we just gonna ignore the eye contact between kate and y/n??
user4: yall r so delusional lmaoo
returning to your phone, you pick it up off the mirror and follow kate out of the bathroom.
"okay, guys, hopefully you enjoyed today's live," you cheer, "make sure to tune in to espn tonight to watch the game!"
you hear an overlap of voices, each one saying goodbye to the viewers.
"bye live! see you soon!" from kate.
"bye my lovely people!" from gabbie.
"mwah love you guys see y'all at the game!" from jada.
"go hawkeyes!" from caitlin.
you snicker as you watch more and more comments about caitlin pour in, your followers going crazy at a small glimpse of their favorite athlete.
as soon as you end the live, everyone begins rushing out of your hotel room and down to the lobby to wait for the bus. hurriedly, you grab your backpack and make your way towards the door, but an eager hand pulls you back.
before you know it, a set of soft lips is placed against your own and two hands are glued to your waist. instead of jumping in surprise, you immediately melt into the kiss, finding comfort in your girlfriend's familiar embrace.
"sorry," she blushes once you pull away, "been wanting to do that all day."
— leilani signing off ! 📁
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cutielando · 6 months
Text
sleepy | l.n.
synopsis: in which you always fall asleep everywhere
my masterlist
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You had a very good relationship with your sleep schedule. 
That was primarily due to the fact that with Lando’s schedule, having to fly all around the world almost every week, the constant time zone changes. You had to get some sleep any free chance you would get, no matter where.
Which is something Lando, his team and the fans around the world have grown to love. Every time the fans would see you in the paddock, they knew that pictures of you sleeping in a clearly uncomfortable position somewhere in the McLaren garage would surf the internet.
It was everyone’s favorite moment from the whole weekend.
“Y/N, it’s nice to see you again!” Zak greeted you once you had arrived in the garage with Lando for his home race.
“I couldn’t possibly miss this one” you said, hugging the older man and then stepping back to stand beside Lando again.
“We’re very glad to have you here. How’d you sleep last night?” he jokingly asked, making Lando chuckle from beside you.
It became a cute joke within the team, seeing as you managed to fall asleep every time, no matter how well rested you might be.
“Pretty good, but I can’t guarantee that you won’t find me passed out again” you laughed, knowing that it didn’t really bother anyone truly.
Lando talked for a little bit with Zak before leading you to his driver’s room.
When you opened the door, you noticed a new blanket and pillow that hadn’t been there before, which made you look back at Lando, raising your eyebrow.
“Where did those come from?” you asked as you picked up the blanket, immediately savoring the fluffy feeling against your fingers.
“Figured I would buy you a blanket for when you want to nap God knows where, just to make sure you’re comfy and won’t get cold” he explained, shrugging like it was not a big deal.
You pouted, the small gesture warming your heart.
“That’s so sweet, thank you baby” you put down the blanket and gave Lando a hug, pecking his lips before you let him get ready.
You walked around the garage silently, not wanting to get in anybody’s way. The race was about to begin and there was a lot going around, the place being as noisy as a garage could get before lights out.
And yet still, you find your eyes dropping down, sleep slowly threatening to blindside you and make you fall asleep.
But you had vowed to yourself that you wouldn’t fall asleep here, not at Silverstone.
It would prove to be harder than you had originally thought.
“Hey” Lando found you just moments before he had to get in the car, clutching his helmet in his hands.
“Be safe, okay? Come back to me in one piece and don’t forget to have fun” you said, helping fix the balaclava on his head.
He nodded, puckering his lips for his good luck kiss. Once you gave it to him, he put on his helmet and disappeared in the car, leaving you alone with his engineers.
“Hey Y/N” Jon said as he came to stand beside you, watching Lando now driving away from the garage.
“Hey Jon, how are you?” you tried to pay attention to everything he was telling you, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” Jon chuckled once he saw how much you were struggling not to pass out.
You nodded. “I did, it’s just something about the atmosphere at the races that lulls me right back to sleep. But I promised myself I wouldn’t fall asleep at this one” you explained, stifling a yawn.
Jon nodded, making small talk for a little longer.
Once the race itself started, you were bundled up in your new blanket from Lando, a pair of McLaren earphones on your ears and sitting beside Cisca, Lando’s mother.
You were trying very hard to follow the race, but the tiredness was creeping in more and more, until you found yourself resting your head against the wall behind you, letting yourself drift to a deep sleep.
When Cisca noticed that you were more quiet than usual, she looked over and saw how peacefully you were sleeping, albeit with your head in a very uncomfortable position.
Smiling fondly to herself, she slowly took your head in her hands and moved you so you were laying with your head in her lap. She absentmindedly weaved her hands through your hair while intently watching the race on the screens.
It wasn’t until the last 3 laps that you woke up, silently kicking yourself for falling asleep.
You looked confusedly around you, noticing Cisca above you smiling.
“Good morning, sunshine. Just in time for the last laps of the race” she explained, helping you settle back into a sitting position.
“I was out for that long?” you moaned, cursing to yourself that you missed the entire race because you were sleeping.
“Don’t beat yourself up dear, the important thing is that you’re here with us” she comforted you, rubbing your arm while averting her attention back to the screen.
You watched the screen intently, cheering and screaming once Lando had crossed the checkered flag in P2.
Both Cisca and Adam gave you tight hugs, congratulating the entire team alongside you.
You walked out of the garage with the two of them, your blanket still wrapped tightly around you as you walked towards the podium, your hands linked with Lando’s mother.
Lando parked his car in front of the number 2 sign, jumping out of the car and running over to where you were waiting for him by the barriers.
“I’m so proud of you!” you squealed as soon as he was within arms length, hugging him close.
“Did you sleep through the race?” he asked as he pulled up his visor, his eyes twinkling.
You smiled sheepishly, making him laugh loudly inside of his helmet.
“My sleepy girl” he mumbled, giving you a squeeze before moving on to hug his parents.
The next day after the race, photos of you sleeping in Cisca’s lap circulated on the internet, making you and your boyfriend laugh. 
Laugh because your habit had turned your relationship into a three-person relationship.
You, Lando and your sleep.
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markrosewater · 23 days
Text
The Nadu Situation
This has become a big topic in the community this week, so I wanted to add my thoughts to the discussion. My focus isn’t on the banning, but on the behind-the-scenes processes that led to it. I’m Head Designer, so I want to focus on the design elements of the situation.
When we make Magic there are a few things we do to try and make it the best it can be. First, we design in what we call an iterative loop. That is, we make something, we playtest it, we get feedback, we make changes on that feedback, and begin the next iteration of the loop. We try to get as many iterative loops in as we can before the set is locked (aka “no more changes”).
No matter where we set that line, there’s a last day to make changes. Moving that line earlier doesn’t change anything other than giving us less iterative loops to improve things. Also, we make lots and lots of last minute changes. The vast majority of them make the game better. I understand there’s more focus on the times we make a mistake, but it represents a truly small percentage of the changes.
Also, whenever we design a card, we ask ourselves, who is this card for? If we’re trying to make game play the best it can be, it helps to understand who will use the card, where they will use it, and what they will do with it. Obviously, in a game as modular as Magic, the players can often zig when we expect them to zag, but in general, this process leads to the best design.
We have two play design teams, one focused on competitive play and one focused on casual play. The competitive play design teams determines which cards they think have a shot at competitive play (remember we’re making predictions as where we think the environment might go,we don’t definitively know; we need to make an environment complex enough as to entertain tens of millions of players). The casual play design team then looks as the cards that don’t play a competitive role to see what casual role they can play.
With that said, let me respond to a few popular lines this week:
“Stop designing for Commander” - The nature of competitive formats is that only so many cards can be relevant. As you start making more competitive relevant cards, they displace the weakest of the existing relevant cards. That’s how a trading card game works. That means that not every card in a set (or even just the rares and mythic rares as the commons and uncommons have a big role making the limited environment work) has a competitive role. As such, we examine how they will play in more casual settings. There’s no reason not to do that. And when you think of casual settings, you are remiss if you don’t consider Commander. It’s the 800-pound gorilla of tabletop play (aka the most played, heavily dominant format). Us considering the casual ramifications of a card that we didn’t feel was competitively viable is not what broke the card. Us missing the interaction with a component of the game we consider broken and have stopped doing (0 cost activations), but still lives on in older formats is the cause.
“Stop making late changes” - Whenever you see an airplane on the news, something bad has happened. It crashed, or caught on fire, or had an emergency landing, or a door fell off. Why do we still make planes? Because planes are pretty useful and what’s being highlighted is the worst element. That focus can lead people to false assumptions. Magic would not be better if we stopped making last changes. A lot *more* broken things would get through (things we caught and changed), and many more cards just wouldn’t be playable. Our process of fixing things up to the last minute does lots and lots of good. Maybe it doesn’t get the focus of the screw ups, but it leads to better design.
“Everything needs to get playtested” - My, and my team’s, job is to take a blank piece of paper and make something that doesn’t exist exist. That’s not an easy thing to do. I believe play design’s job is even harder. They’re trying to make a balanced environment with thousands of moving pieces a year in the future. And if we’re able to solve it on our end, that means the playerbase will crack it in minute one of playing with it. One minute, by the way, is the time it takes the Magic playerbase to play with a set as much as we can. There are tens of millions of you and a handful of us. There simply isn’t time in the day to test everything, so the play design team tests what they think has the highest chance of mattering. They take calculated gambles (based on years of experience) and test the things most likely to cause problems. Will things slip through? There’s no way they can’t. The system is too complex to not miss things.That doesn’t mean we don’t continually improve our processes to lower the chances of mistakes, but nothing we’re going to do can completely eliminate them.
Designing Magic is difficult. Next year is my thirtieth year working on the game, and I think we have the most talented team we’ve ever had. Plus, just as we iterate on the designs in a set, we iterate on design processes of making Magic. How we make Magic today is light years different, and I believe better, than how we made Magic when I started. (”If I have seen further, it’s because I stand on the shoulder of giants.”)
One final thing. I’ve always pushed for transparency in Magic design. No one on the planet has written/spoken about it more than me. I truly believe Magic is better as a game because its players have the insight to understand what we, the people making it, are doing. We do ask for one thing in exchange. Please treat the designers who take the time to share with you the behind-the-scenes workings of Magic design with kindness. We are all human beings with feelings. There’s nothing wrong with feedback, but it can be delivered with common courtesy.
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Text
our leaves must fall before our flowers can bloom (teaser)
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genre: poly hockey team!ateez x coach fem!reader, enemies/strangers to lovers, athlete!au, slow burn, fluff, angst
length: 1.0k (teaser) + approx. 38k (full fic)
c/w: sweaty ateez (warning well deserved), lots of hurt/comfort, one of the slowest slow burns to slow burn, remaining tags to be revealed with full fic
synopsis: you become the new coach of the elite men's ice hockey team, the red devils. but with both yourself and the team carrying burdens of the past, you all find it difficult to see eye to eye. as you lead them to the championships in the korean ice hockey league, you discover that teamwork and trust is not as straightforward as it seems.
a/n: when i started writing this i really thought it wouldn't exceed 25k but here we are :D full fic will be released in about a week and i am so ready
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“she’s the new coach?” yunho frowns in confusion. “no offence, but we’re not a bunch of kids for her to practise being a soccer mum to.”
“she was the assistant coach for the grey eagles,” coach cho discloses.
“the grey eagles? the under-21 men’s championship team?” yeosang looks incredulous.
mingi sceptically comments, “the fact that we’ve never seen or heard of her before probably tells us enough.”
hongjoong’s lips purse sourly as he tries his hardest to analyse the situation with the professionalism of the team’s captain. but with the sudden change in coaches and the same critiquing doubts as mingi, hongjoong cannot help but feel his personal judgement webbing over his mind. over the team’s entire career as an elite ice hockey team thus far–five years, now well into their sixth–the red devils have only ever had two coaches. coach cho has been with them for the longest and whilst it took the team a while to eventually warm up to him, he has been with them for almost quadruple the amount of time it took to trust him.
the team’s alternate captain, seonghwa, speaks to you directly, “if you don’t mind me asking, why are you not playing as an athlete yourself? you’re clearly our age–nowhere near retiring.”
you knew from the very start that your age would make your credibility as a coach much lower, and your answer to seonghwa will not help your case either. “i stopped playing.”
“how come?”
the trigger of memories fills your nose with a sharp stinging smell. you blankly reveal, “i chose to stop playing.” you know exactly how it sounds like to somebody else, even more so to professional athletes. coach cho has also told you of the team’s hardheadedness and strong will when it comes to the passions of their career, so you are expecting the cold receptiveness that you are met with.
your response strikes the wrong chord within wooyoung. there was a point in his career not too long ago when the choice of continuing to play or not was at risk of becoming a forced decision. the way you answer so callously with those very words that had threatened to tear his world apart has his jaw grinding and eyes darkening, and he is not the only athlete in the arena who feels similarly.
“i would rather choose to die before i choose to stop playing. ice hockey is my entire life and without it, i am not living either,” hongjoong jabs and you cannot help but clench your fists because you know exactly what he means. still, you stay quiet as he continues, “sorry, but i can’t respect a ‘coach’ who chose to stop playing.”
at the captain’s words and subsequent move to leave for the changerooms, the rest of the team also gather their equipment and follow his steps. san’s feet falter in front of you, expression hesitant until he decides to voice, “our team needs a bit of time. it’s hard for us to warm up to…outsiders, and i know it might not mean much to say this but we have our reasons. don’t expect us to blindly trust you just because you’re a coach.”
the use of the word ‘outsider’ does not go unnoticed as you nod, “of course.”
san jogs off to rejoin the others and coach cho hums, “guess some things haven’t changed. they were just as prickly to me when i first became their coach.”
you raise an eyebrow, “prickly? to you?”
“yes, believe it or not,” he chuckles nostalgically. “we’ve come a long way because i’ve been their coach for years now. but it took me a while before i was able to break down their walls.”
you briefly mull over the information, then ask out of curiosity, “what would you have done if i didn’t sign the contract?”
“begged you to rethink your decision,” he jokes with a pleased chortle. “i would have to start looking for a different coach, i suppose. you were my only pick.”
“but why me, of all people? there are so many other experienced coaches that you can choose from.”
he looks at you, eyes glinting with intuition and confidence as he simply says, “you’re familiar with their playing style. they play just like you used to.” at your silent processing, coach cho probes, “why didn’t you tell them the real reason?”
you smile wistfully, “i didn't tell them because i’m not here to gain their pity.”
some of the boys’ voices grow louder as they emerge from the changerooms, changed into fresh clothes and their kit bags slung over their shoulders. you hear one of them ask, “captain, is she really going to be our new coach?”
they step out from the facility’s corridor and you accidentally make eye contact with hongjoong, yet neither of you look away. maintaining a steady gaze directly at you, he responds with a slight glower, “maybe, but she’s only the coach by title. i’m still the captain of the team, so let’s see who everyone listens to.”
as they exit the rink’s arena, you feel a fire of determination growing inside of you. you have won over your own demons and you have won the championships before–this is nothing in comparison. whether your next words are for coach cho or for yourself to hear, it does not matter.
“i may not play anymore but i was still once an athlete and no athlete has ever, in their career, wanted pity. i’m here to earn the team’s respect and i will win over them, especially their captain.”
you watch the swing of the glass door as it shuts behind the players, catching a brief glimpse of the trees lining the arena’s perimeter. it is the first day of autumn when you meet the red devils for the first time and outside, the leaves are beginning to change their colours.
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nincompoopydoo · 8 months
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*:・゚✧*:・゚  nincompoopydoo // WIZARDING WORLD MASTERLIST
theseus scamander
⋆ caught in a crossfire [series]: Theseus and his team of Aurors are tasked with a mission to take down a recent movement formed by dark wizards and witches with the intention to erase all muggles. The night takes a turn when you arrive at the scene unknowingly and it seems you’re the next target. ⋆ in search of a grecian beast: As you, Theseus, and Newt find yourselves on a secluded Grecian beach along the Aegean Sea, an endeavor unfolds to seek out a Hippocampus. However, plans don’t turn out as expected. ⋆ for old times' sake: Theseus attempts to convince you to leave your desk. ⋆ happy christmas, dung brain: you visit the Scamander household on Christmas, seeing Theseus after a long time and the two of you’re not sure what to do with all these feelings. ⋆ bertie botts: Theseus gets injured during a fight and you’re mad. ⋆ overnight shift [series]: you and Theseus were known rivals among the Aurors at the British Ministry of Magic. ⋆ false signs: unsaid feelings turn into what seemed as unrequited love to Theseus but it turns out you’re in love with him as much as he is in love with you. ⋆ tea at newt's: newt plays accidental matchmaker. ⋆ envy: you’re jealous, although you hate to admit it, of Theseus’ rather flirtatious assistant. ⋆ trespassing: trespassing during a mission leads to a life or death situation when you and Theseus find yourselves entangled with a dangerous dark wizard. ⋆ war and anguish: theseus returns home as a war hero but you’re engaged and he doesn’t know what to do with himself and his feelings for you. ⋆ crimson cheeks and ivory snow: you spend a snowy day learning to ice-skate with the help of your crush, Theseus. ⋆ behind the sofa: you rant to Newt about his brother’s constant teasing at the workplace which led you to seek a hiding spot behind the sofa when Theseus unexpectedly shows up at his brother’s place. ⋆ shadows on ancient stone walls: soulmate AU: Where the outline of your shadow is your soulmate.
newt scamander
⋆ scamander: you are constantly being used by a ‘friend’ of yours but when you reached your limits, Newt is there to comfort you.
james potter
⋆ healed [series]: you and James had been the best of friends since your Hogwarts days. Thus, you grew strong feelings for the boy, feelings stronger than just plain platonic although you knew about James’ extreme infatuation for the beautiful and intelligent ginger, Lily James. ⋆ you owe me butterbeer: you and James are best friends and you are constantly helping him get Lily’s attention, even if you didn’t like doing so, simply because of your crush on James himself. However, things take a turn and James catches on a little later that he may not truly have feelings for the redhead but instead for someone who has been there with him all along. ⋆ mistletoe and holy moly, are you trying to kiss me?: James is trying to get you to kiss him under the mistletoe.
sirius black
⋆ flowers: you’re the quirky and socially awkward girl that Sirius has a crush on but his flirting ways seem to not work on you. ⋆ prejudice: you’re a Slytherin who stood up for a Ravenclaw against your own housemates which caused you to be attacked. Having been sent to the infirmary, you’re met with the charming Sirius Black.
remus lupin
⋆ alive and true: having found a lost friend, living in the countryside of Yorkshire, feelings of once hidden affection start to bloom in the need to be alive and good things to be real. ⋆ war changes you: Remus comes to visit you at the Hogwarts infirmary involuntarily sparking some old feelings you might have had for each other after not seeing each other for so long.
fred weasley
⋆ good, pure, and beautiful: the Leaky Cauldron serves as a sanctuary to drink your problems away for the night but a certain ginger always seems to find his way to you. ⋆ sheperd's pie: you desperately need a break from studying for your upcoming OWLs which left Fred Weasley, your best friend, the responsibility of coaxing you to do just that despite you being quite headstrong. ⋆ near death: Fred Weasley dies. Nearly.
george weasley
⋆ where two lonesomes meet: in the midst of a Christmas market sits a bench where two walls meet. Here is where two lonesomes meet. ⋆ nature mourns with the mourning: you and George finally find solace after the Battle of Hogwarts. ⋆ five to four: you comfort George after the Battle of Hogwarts. ⋆ snowball fight at midnight, that's christmas to me: where George simply had the audacity to force you to a battle of snowball in the middle of the night, out in the cold.
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drefear · 1 year
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Daddy Issues
Best Friend’s Dad!Miguel x Reader
TW: smut, p in v, roughness, dirty talking, fingering, some fluff, some angst, teasing. 
might make a part 2, we’ll see. 
Nothing beat the way it felt to dance, nothing made you feel as alive. This was evident in the way you leaped across the stage and spun into a pirouette. You smiled and panted a bit and continued your routine, jumping into an arabesque as if you were in flight and completely weightless.
The applause filled the auditorium and you felt the out-of-beat rise and fall of your chest as you begged for air silently. You saw your father stand up with tears in his eyes and your best friend as well, who came to watch you for support. You’d finally gotten the lead in the show your dance school was doing, The Nutcracker , and being Clara was like walking on air. You ballet-ran off the stage and waited for the curtains to close, signaling the end of the show. You’d done it, and with perfect timing as you were about to graduate college and no longer have your dance team anymore, since you would officially reach the age limit in the fall of next year and auditions were in the winter. Your heart pounded as you saw Gabriella from the wings, happily waiting for you to come out and take your final bow, and then it was time. You milked the hell out of your curtain call, waving and smiling like a total idiot, but it was worth it. Everything had paid off to finally be at this moment.
But… they were gone? You searched for your father and Gabriella’s faces, but they weren’t in the seats they’d just been in. Did they leave? Maybe went to get the car before everyone rushed to the exits? You felt a little tinge of hurt in your heart, but you would try to understand. They came to watch and that’s all that mattered.
Feeling a tap on your shoulder as you masked your confusion on the stage, you turned to see the two missing familiars holding two large bouquets of flowers. You eyes welled with tears and you hugged them tight, crying happily as they wrapped their arms around you. The moment was perfect.
Well. Almost. There was only one person missing, one person who you already knew wouldn’t make it.
Gabriella’s dad, Miguel. He’d been one of your biggest fans since you and Gabriella became friends in middle school, about the time you began to blossom into the woman you were today. The two of you were inseparable from the moment you’d met, and soon, both of your families were just as close.
You’d been through everything together. Puberty, getting your periods, your parents divorce and your mom leaving, Gabriella’s mother passing away, everything. You two had even decided once you graduated high school, to go to college together and share an apartment.
Which is exactly what you did, and now you both were graduating. Gabriella was finishing her undergraduate for medical school, and you’d gone on to major in the arts, so you could become a professional choreographer. No one could get in between the two of you.
Except her father, you thought for a brief second before shaking the thought from your head.
No! That’s bad, very bad! You chastised yourself for your subconscious wishes.
Gabi’s dad was so nerdy as you grew up, doting on her mom every waking moment. You’d even gone as far as to call him a simp once, to which Gabi laughed about it for days. Your mom and dad barely got along at all through your childhood, so it was no wonder how much her parents loved each other was foreign to you, but things changed when you two became juniors in high school.
You’d had your first kiss, and Gabi begged for details in her room. The two of you sat up and talked about this boy you’d kissed all night, but she was definitely way more excited than you were. It just wasn’t what you’d expected, shoving his tongue into your mouth instantly and basically just pushing your head into his passenger window as you somewhat wanted to get away from him.
Plus, he wasn’t even that cute.
But Gabi hadn’t experienced anything around boys yet, and so you indulged her and made it seem way more romantic and nice than it was. Batting your eyes, you made smoochy sounds as she smacked you with a pillow and you both giggled.
“Girls, lights out.” You heard Gabi’s mom say and you furrowed your brows a bit at Gabi, who just rolled her eyes in response. You waited to hear the footsteps fade before you asked her what that was about.
“My mom and dad have been seeing this counselor. Something about the spark needing to be reignited, so now they go into the guest bedroom every Saturday to have sex.” She made a disgusted face and your eyes widened.
“They plan it?”
“I guess? It’s been every weekend now for like three weeks, and I’m going insane! Let’s sneak out and see a movie or something before my brain dies.” She moved towards her window and waved me over, but you glanced at her bedroom door.
“Wait, I gotta get my shoes from downstairs, I’ll meet you in the backyard.” You spoke and she gave you a thumbs up, before tucking out of her window.
You tiptoed down the stairs and into the living room when you heard it.
“Miguel- right there!” It was hushed, but you heard it clearly. Not being able to resist, you peeked into the kitchen where you’d heard the sounds and your mind was never the same. “What if the girls come down-”
“Shh, we’ll hear them, now focus on me, cariño.” He had his head tucked into her neck as his pants were pulled below his ass, showing his toned bottom as he fucked up into her. Legs wrapped around his waist, he was so much larger than her. How did you just notice this?
Your eyes fluttered downwards to where the two of their bodies met and you gasped. He was huge. Could dick even be that big? He was beyond anything you’d seen in the health textbooks or on twitter.
You stumbled backwards and immediately knocked over the lamp on the table, the house then suddenly becoming quiet. It was as if there was no air inside of your lungs anymore, freezing in place until you saw the swinging kitchen door begin to move, running faster than you ever have for your shoes and bolting back up the stairs. You jumped as you tried to get your shoes on as fast as possible and sat on the window ledge as you heard someone coming into Gabi’s room as you were about to climb down the gutter into her backyard. Looking up, your eyes met his.
His face was sweating lightly and his eyes were blown with lust, watching you like a predator. You glanced down where you’d seen what you should never have, and his pants were pulled up now, but the bulge was still prominent and hard. You gulped and practically fell out the window backwards as you collapsed onto Gabi, who was waiting for you.
“Go!” You whispered harshly and dragged her hand, “Your dad is right behind me and he saw me!”
“Shit, how?” Gabi asked and your mouth went dry, the scene replaying in your mind like a broken record that kept skipping to the same place.
“You don’t want to know.” You hushed and ran to her fence as the lights from the back door flashed on and you two were met with the large shadow of Mr. O’Hara.
“What are you two doing?” His voice was like a death sentence to the both of you, who were sitting in the grass now. You scrambled to get up and your hands were shaking. Nothing was processing in your head. Why were you so sweaty?
“We were just gonna jump on the trampoline, dad.” Gabi lied and you just nodded, eyes avoiding his as he walked closer and folded his arms. You looked at his hands, and you thought back to where they’d just been, rubbing Mrs. O’Hara’s clit. Your eyes flashed back down to the grass.
Your name broke you from your haze, Mr. O’Hara’s voice making your knees tremble a bit. “You don’t look well, maybe I should call your dad and have him come get you.” he spoke and moved to touch your forehead, checking for a temperature. You flinched and moved backwards.
“You know what, you’re right. I’ll walk home I think. See you tomorrow, Gabi.” You rambled and a hand caught your wrist.
“You can’t walk home now, it’s dark out. I’ll just call your dad-”
“He’s working late, can’t come out. I’ll just walk home!” You tried again, begging for whatever higher power could hear you to just let you die.
“No, I’ll drive you then.” He said and your fate was sealed.
You just quietly nodded as Gabi looked at you with a bad feeling showing in her emotions. You two were in so much trouble.
Sitting in the car, your knee bounced with anxiety.
‘Please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me, please don’t-’
“So, where were you two actually planning on going?” SHIT.
“Uh. Just to see a movie.” You mumbled, staring out the window.
“And why sneak out? You both know that we’d happily drive you, even give you some money for snacks.” His tone made your skin crawl, now recognizing it as the moaning and grunting you’d heard prior.
You cleared your voice and tried to not look guilty. “We, uh, didn’t want to… bother you guys.” You hoped he wouldn’t even hear you, would just let it all go.
“It’s never a bother, especially when it’s about your and Gabi’s safety.” He spoke and pulled up to a red light. The silence was drowning you, but it was better than answering his questions.
“Gabi said you two were busy tonight, so we thought it’d be better if we just snuck out.” You shifted your legs in the passenger seat, begging the world to strike you with lightning.
“Ah. So Gabi figured it out.” He said and the light turned green again. “Gabi’s mother and I have been married a long time, and sometimes we need to do things to keep-”
“The flame alive, yeah I know. Can we please not talk about this, Mr. O’Hara?” You begged, and your eyes met once more, making you blush wildly. You couldn’t help but remember the way he looked as he thrusted into his wife. You turned away fast so he hopefully wouldn’t see your red cheeks. “Gabi and I will never sneak out again, I promise, just please stop talking about this!” You covered your ears a bit. That’s when he put it together.
“Oh.” he just said and continued to drive, hands white knuckling the steering wheel. “I’m… sorry you saw that.” His tone was hesitant, like he wasn’t even sure what the words he was saying meant.
“Cool, yep, see ya tomorrow Mr. O’Hara!” You chirped and practically jumped out of his moving car as he pulled to a stop outside of your house, no cars in the driveway and no lights on. You ran to the front door and burst inside, locking it behind you and panting.
That night, you’d had your very first orgasm thinking about him fucking you like that and nothing was ever the same.
A year later, and Mrs. O’Hara was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and had only a few months to live. She pulled through to around a year and you felt your heart break the moment she was gone. Your mother had abandoned your father and you a little into your freshman year of high school, so you’d leaned on Mrs. O'Hara, like she was your own mother, learned her ways and how to be a good cook, and she taught you many things about life that you’d eventually need.
Gabriella and Mr. O’Hara were both devastated, and you could understand why. Nothing was the same for them. After the funeral, you, the O’Hara’s, and your father had a meal together, and that would be a weekly dinner from then on. Most of the time, she would cook for everyone when you all would hang out together, especially after your mom disappeared, but now with her gone, you picked up on cooking duties. It wasn’t as amazing as hers, but it fed you all and it was similar, so you kept up with it every week.
Flash forward to tonight, graduation looming over you like a rain cloud on a summer day. All of your grades were final, your dance team was about to disburse, and you’d be a woman of the world soon. Oh how the times had changed, and tonight was your official family dinner. Instead of cooking at home, your father insisted on you all going out to eat and your and Gabriella’s favorite restaurant.
And so here you were, sitting with that too tight bun still bobbypined and an easy-to-throw-on dress you’d yanked out of your closet in a rush to wear home after your performance. Gabriella held your hand as she chatted about what her and her new boyfriend were going to do after graduation, how he was going to med school with her and she wanted to get an apartment with him. You nodded, excited for her. You weren’t surprised, as she’d mentioned them moving in together multiple times recently, which would mean you'd be looking for a studio apartment soon. That was fine by you, since she’d still be in school and you were about to begin your own career.
The Latin food filled your senses as you enjoyed the food and light conversation. Gabriella spoke with her boyfriend to her other side and your father laughed with a glass of bourbon in his hand. You felt a hand on your shoulder from above and saw that looming figure you saw in your late night fantasies.
“Dad!” Gabi perked up and stood to hug her father, making you also stand to give him a polite peck on the cheek. As you leaned up to do just that, the corners of your lips brushed and your body froze, the feeling soft and… addicting. You snapped out of it almost as fast as you felt it and blinked a few times quickly to look like nothing happened, not meeting his eyes as you sat once more.
When you looked back to where he was hugging your father and shaking Gabis boyfriends hand, your eyes met and he was staring a bit. He sat next to you and you straightened up in your dress. This was new…
You’d done well at hiding your crush on him in the years, you thought. The first few months after you saw him and his wife have sex, you couldn’t look either of Gabi’s parents in the eye, but you’d gotten over it once you lost your virginity. ‘So that’s what it’s like’ you thought once you were done and the boy you were with was in the bathroom.
Dinner was served relatively quickly as you all ordered and drank. Your father had another bourbon neat, and Miguel had a Manhattan, as Gabi and her boyfriend each had a few vodka sodas, and you just slipped on your little tequila drink. It was a special for that week or something and had some sort of juice that made it look blueish purple.
Once you all had a drink in your each, you’d all begun laughing and chatting louder and as the night went one, you’d had a few more.  The live band started and you swayed a bit at the music. When you turned your head, Miguel was looking at you already with his arm behind your chair. You blushed a bit, warm from the liquor in your veins as he chuckled.
“Drunk? I thought you could handle more than that.”
“No no, I don’t… I don’t like to drink too much, so I’m already pushing it.” You smiled and glanced at your dad, who just nodded in agreement.
“My little girl did not get the drinking gene.” He added and sipped the bourbon he had. Gabi laughed and spoke up.
“Should’ve seen her in Miami on Spring Break! She was so drunk, she was dragging strangers to dance with her-“
“Gabi!” You chimed in and glanced at your father and  Miguel, the men laughing at your embarrassment.
“You’re a great dancer, even drunk!” She added and her boyfriend smiled at the memory as well. “How about we dance?” He nodded and pulled her hand to dance to the live music, enjoying the soft singing of the Hispanic music. You glanced at the dance floor and saw all couples, where Gabi now stood with her loving boyfriend.
“Go, find a partner!” You dad added and you shook your head. “Come on! A professional dancer who won’t dance alone?” He teased and you smiled again, just ignoring the comment.
“Here, I’ll dance with you.” Miguel stood and reached for your hand. You froze once more for that moment and nodded. “That way, you can still dance and not be alone.” He smiled wider and pulled you up, walking with you to the dance floor. You stood in front of him and heard the next song begin. Preciosa by Marc Anthony began and the beat made you move your hips gently, as he held your hands and followed your movements.
“They didn’t teach Latin dancing to you, did they?” He asked, a playful tone in his voice. You looked up with a small ‘no’ and he chuckled, moving you in close to his chest and putting one leg in between yours. “Follow my lead, and loosen your hips. No ballet here, amor.” The roll of his tongue on the ‘r’ made your hips stutter in their movement. You’d never been so nervous to dance. He held one hand up and placed the other hand around your waist, swiveling you and twirling you both as he moved with precision and ease across the dance floor. You felt the eyes of everyone around you, but you couldn’t care. This was a moment you knew you’d waited your whole life for, and this was probably as close as you’d get to being with Miguel, so you’d ignore everyone and enjoy it while it lasted. A smile tugged at your features and you let him lead you. He even lifted you at one point like you were nothing but a piece of paper, a feather.
When that song ended, Vivir Mi Vida played and the tempo became faster, making you both continue with hast and creating a bit of sweat on both of you. He took control of the dance and spun you around the dance floor, making sure no one got in either of your ways as you laughed with glee.
The night moved in a blur as you and Miguel moved like a couple who’d been together for years, two who moved as one.  A slow song played and the strum of the guitar moved your bodies close, making you lean back and forth intimately against each other. The song ended and you both realized there was very few people left in what once was a bustling restaurant, and when you turned back to your table, your father was handing the bill to the waiter. Miguel stopped and walked back.
“I told you I was taking care of it tonight.” He caught your dad’s wrist and took the check, replacing your father’s credit card with his, and giving it back to the poor confused server. They hurried away as your dad shook his head.
“Couldn’t let me have that, O’Hara? You and Gabi came to support my little girl, and you even swept her onto the dance floor and made her smile. Least I can do is buy ya dinner.” He laughed and Miguel smiled.
“Not a chance. She’s been a wonderful friend to Gabriella for years, and she’s like my own mija. Let me treat you all and celebrate her.”
The words echoed in your mind and broke down your wonderful night.
His mija? As in… his own daughter?
You cursed yourself silently and painting a fake smile onto your lips as you all got up to leave once he took back his card. Gabriella was speaking to you and rambling about the apartment her and her boyfriend were looking at tomorrow, but all you could hear was the white noise of your own thoughts crippling your ability to think.
You tossed and turned all night after hearing Miguel say those words and you pushed down the feelings you’d pretended were not there for years, as they threatened to roll over your being and blow through your eyes without grace. How could you let yourself think anything like that again?
A few weeks later and you sat with Gabi in her backyard, tanning in the chairs by her pool as you both heard a low “I’m home,” from inside. The back door swung open and you saw Mr. O’Hara standing there. He was silent for a moment before getting a bit irritated. “What the hell are you two wearing?” He barked, angered.
Gabi shrunk back. “Dad, what are you talking about? They’re just bikinis!” She tried to call him down, but he seemed to get even worse.
“Just- those aren’t even bikinis, those- that’s less than underwear, you both might as well be wearing nothing!” He yelled in upset, like a lion roaring in pain.
“Maybe I should just go.” You mumbled and his eyes snapped to you. Uh oh…
“Not a chance. Yours is worse than hers! You look naked!” He stepped towards you and instinctively you took a step back, behind the lawn chair.
“M-Mr O’Hara, no one can see us. We’re in your backyard.” You spoke carefully, trying to make it better. “So no one even saw us, right? We'll change.” You nodded, obediently as you grabbed Gabi’s hand and slipped back into the house, hearing him grumble to himself as you passed him.
“I’ve never seen him talk to us like that.” Gabi spoke, putting on a t-shirt. She sighed and pulled her hair up. “Not even when I had that hickey sophomore year!”
“Maybe he just had a rough day and that was the last straw?” You hadn’t changed yet, staring at yourself in the bikini in the mirror. It really wasn’t terrible, maybe a bit more of a cheeky back than a full one, the straps of your bikini fairly thin. Just a regular red triangle bikini. Maybe you’d just gained weight? You huffed, “my bag is downstairs with my clothes, I’m gonna go grab it.”
“Do you wanna just borrow a shirt?”
“I mean, maybe. Anything baggy, so he doesn’t freak out again?” You asked and glanced at her hamper of clean clothes.
“Yeah, grab whatever.” She waved you off and you reached in, grabbing a large t-shirt and a pair of soccer shorts. “I’m gonna go start making some dinner, come down when you’re done changing to help.” She spoke and walked out of the room. You sighed and pushed your hair behind your ears, sitting on her bed and holding the discarded bikini. Was he really upset? Well, maybe he was since he saw you as his own daughter. You begrudgingly got up and walked down the hall, passing by his office and spotting him.
“Come in here.” His tone was sharp, almost nerve wracking. You followed the voice and saw him with his arms folded over his chest, an irritated glare in his eyes. “I’m disappointed in both of you for thinking something like that is appropriate to wear.”
“Mr. O’Hara, we weren’t out in public, and no one else was around!” You answered, regretting your decision to stand up for yourself, as you notice the look in his eyes and realize you’re just digging your own grave.
“So you two weren’t taking a snapchat in those outfits? No videos or TikToks?” He asked, making you bite your tongue and avoid laughing at hearing him say that stuff.
“Maybe one tiktok…” You trail off and he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But, we didn’t post it, and I can delete it.” You justified and he nodded, concern still etched into his beautiful face. You take out your phone and as you begin to delete the video, his eyes narrow.
“...are those my clothes?” His head cocked to the side like a confused dog and you looked down, just as curious to see what he was talking about.
“No, they were in Gabi’s clean clothes.”
“Well, that’s my t-shirt from high school and those are my workout shorts.” His words made you quiet, forgetting about deleting the video. You blushed a bit and immediately starting searching for your bag, making a bee-line for the living room. “Oh my god, I’ll go change, I’m so sorry.” You rambled some flustered apologies before he could say anything else and ran off to the bathroom with the bag on your shoulder. Locking the door, you stared at yourself in the mirror. Could today get any worse? You leaned your head against the wall and kept your eyes shut, then took your clothing off once more to change into the clothes that actually belonged to you.
Tugging your skirt down to a suitable length incase Mr. O’Hara decided to berate your fashion choices once more, you glanced at something on the floor. It was another shirt of his, this time obvious by how large this one was, and the smell.
It was definitely something he’d just worked out in, having a particular musk to it, and the smell of his aftershave and body wash. It was him to a tee, and something in your body lit on fire just from the scent.
Without a second thought, you stuffed the shirt in your bag and exited the bathroom.
That night was filled with stifled moans and bitten knuckles as you quieted yourself while using your vibrator. His shirt stayed stationed in the hand you were biting down on, smelling his scent while you touched yourself until you were seeing stars and having trouble remembering your own name.
You hid that shirt the next day, stuffing it behind your pillows for safe keeping.
A day later, Miguel and Gabi had come over to watch some sport together. You’d never really been interested in sports unless Gabi was playing, but you enjoyed the company, so you often cooked for them all while they enjoyed the show. You mixed the guacamole as you heard someone walk into the kitchen behind you.
“Smells great.” Miguel spoke as he opened the fridge.
“Homemade chips, for the guac.” You nodded, still somewhat keeping it short with him after the prior day’s events.
“You can’t still be mad, right?” He asked and you turned to him fully, pausing the work on the mashed avocado and staring at him. He was holding two beers.
“I was never mad, but I still don’t get it.” You shrugged, “it just didn’t really seem like a big deal.”
“Really?” He seemed to get a little upset at that, placing the beers down and leaning on the kitchen island. “Because I think it was a huge deal. You’re barely an adult, you can’t be dressed like-”
“Like what? A woman? It was a bikini, it’s not like I was standing on the corner!”
“Watch how you talk to me.” He got cold and serious and your temper was flaring up.
“Why should I? You’re not my dad or my boyfriend, so you don’t get to tell me how to dress.” You shot back and he was quiet for a second. This prompted you to continue your winning streak. “And I don’t think you get to tell me what’s appropriate in front of people.”
“What are you talking about?” He hissed, taking a small step closer to you. “You don’t remember? When I caught you fucking on your kitchen counter? Cause I remember. Vividly.” You jabbed back and his eyes widened, the anger on your face apparent. Without another word, you stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs to your bedroom, slamming the door and sitting on your bed.
You shouldn’t have brought that up, you knew you shouldn’t have, but you couldn’t help it. Who was he to tell you what you could and couldn’t do? He was just your friend’s dad, he had no right to yell at you about how you dressed or what you did. It wasn’t his place.
“Honey?” Your dad said from outside your door and you got up, opening it for him. “Miguel told me that he upset you, so I told him that he and Gabi should go home for the night so I could talk to my little girl.” Your dad always called you ‘his little girl,’ no matter how old you got. Tears started welling in your eyes, and you didn't know why, but you started crying into your father’s chest. He hugged you in a tight embrace as you continued to let out the tears you didn’t know you were holding in.
Some time went on and after about a week, you’d gone to Gabi's childhood home to hang out and watch a movie while Miguel was out. It was perfect. You didn’t have to see him and you could have some one-on-one time with Gabi.
Until she fell asleep halfway through the movie. You sighed, getting up and getting a glass of water. The week had been stressful. Every free second you had, you were touching yourself to Miguel’s shirt, tracing your clit, biting your lip to avoid making sounds. Even just the memory of his smell made your knees wobble a bit and you held onto the fridge handle a bit tighter while getting the water. The front door opening signaled you that he was now home. Time to leave as fast as possible, you thought to yourself, and placed the full cup of water in the sink.
Before you could walk out of the kitchen, Miguel was in the doorway staring down at you. “I just got off the phone with your father.” His voice was monotone, which wasn’t abnormal.
“You can tell him I’ll be home soon.”
“Well, he had a few questions for me. About you.” He spoke and something was off about how he was speaking. Was he… taunting you?
You finally met his eyes and you were right, something was off.
“He said the cleaning lady found a man’s shirt in your bedroom.” Your heart dropped. No no no no!
“Oh.” Was all you could muster up as he watched your reaction. “He asked if you and Gabi had any new boys around, any new friends. He said you randomly started crying the other day and he was worried you might be going through some sort of relationship that he’s unaware of. So?” He asked and you just clenched your jaw.
“Mr. O’Hara, that is none of your-”
“Say my name,” he demanded.
“What?” You questioned, taking a step backwards.
“Say my name. You want me to treat you like an adult? Say my name.”
“Fine. Miguel, that is none of your business.” You barked at him, a smirk forming on his lips.
“I think it is my business, though. Since it’s my shirt.” He announced and your eyes swelled to the size of dinner plates. How did he-
“It was just so strange, how one of my shirts went missing, one I had been wearing the day I yelled at you about that bikini, and then suddenly your dad finds a shirt that matches the one I’m missing. Weird coincidence, hmm?” he folded his arms and you felt your body running cold. How could you steal from a genius and think he wouldn’t realize? “So let me get the facts in order. You watched me have sex in my kitchen, you stole my dirty clothing, and you pranced around my house in a skimpy bikini.” He spoke in a lower voice, as if he was just thinking out loud, and you noticed the look in his eyes was becoming hungry.
“Y-Yes ok I did that, I’m sorry. Don’t tell anyone it was yours!” You begged and he chuckled at you, looking to the side.
“I’m not telling anyone anything, but I have a question.” He paused and brought his thumb to his lip, as if thinking about something he was trying to word correctly. “What were you doing with my shirt?”
Your blood ran cold, the sound of your heart beating in your ears too loud to even think. He… wanted you to say it. Heat began to rise up your neck and cover your cheeks and ears with a tint of red.
“C’mon, say it.” His lips twitched to a smirk and you squeezed your legs together at the view you had of him. Dress shirt slightly unbuttoned, belt around those slim hips, slacks tight in all the right places from how muscular his thighs were.
Embarrassment filled your head as you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, and as you lifted them up his body, red rubies claimed your sight like they owned you.
“I-I… thought about you.”
“Be specific, amorcita, what about me?” He moved forward and tilted your chin up to keep eye contact with him as you spoke.
You gulped and closed your eyes, too humiliated to say what you were about to while seeing his face. “I thought of you and I having sex… touching me and stuff.”
“Eyes on me, mi corazon.” You opened your eyes and he was bent down to where he could kiss you. His breath smelled like mint. “Tell me more.”
“I imagined you on top of me, b-behind me… kissing me.” You trailed off as his lips ghosted over yours, then smiling and crashing together like a crescendo of a symphony. His hands gripped the sides of your body, picking you up and placing you on the countertop.
“You thought of me touching you here?” His hand trailed down your torso towards the front of your jean shorts, tracing where your pussy sat, hot and waiting. Your breath hitched as you nodded, and he smirked again. He liked the effect he had on you, it was obvious.
“Words, mi amor.”
“Yes, Miguel, please.” You spoke, your words shaky as he laughed at your shyness. “Where was that attitude from before? All that sass?” He whispered against your ear as he unzipped your jean shorts, pulling down the material to expose you more to him. His fingers rubbed against the lacy fabric of your panties, and you lost your mind for a minute, panting a bit just from the slight contact. “You’re that sensitive? Just from a little touching?” He purred and yanked your panties off as well, your naked core against the chill of the air sending a shiver up your spine. “Where’d all that shit you were talking from the other day go?”
“Miguel,” You beg and place a hand on his shoulder.
“Gotta open you up first, Princessa.” His words were low and rumbled in your body as he gave you pet names.
A finger slipped into you without issue, and your back arched into his chest as he massaged your thigh with the other hand. A moan erupted in your throat and he quickly took the hand on your thigh to cover your mouth. “Shhh, we can’t have Gabi finding us like this, right?” You nodded and practically saw your eyes cross as he pushed in another finger, beginning to feel full with just the two digits. He worked them back and forth in you as he placed soft kisses against your throat. Your whole body jolted, like an electric current was rolling throughout your body.
His fingers began to curl against that spongy spot that had you rolling your eyes back, letting out more muffled sounds against his other hand, his eyes hooded and watching you through his thick lashes. Like a predator, he moved them faster and you felt yourself about to teeter over the edge. His thumb brushed against your clit and you were sent into a full earth-shattering orgasm, gripping his shoulder for stability as he let you ride his fingers through it.
“Preciosa…” he mumbled and unzippered the dress pants, pulling himself out and watching your face change from blissed out to fearful. “Don’t worry, I’ll go slow…” he whispered and lined himself up. Pulling you to the edge of the counter, he pushed the tip into you and you closed your eyes, feeling the stretch of his size already. He moved slowly as you adjusted and once he was fully in, you hissed a bit. You both were completely breathless, like two wild beasts waiting to see who would make the first deadly move. “Look at me while I fuck you good, I want to see that pretty face while I’m inside you.” Keeping eye contact, he moved his thumb back on your clit, making you shake a bit and let out pretty little sounds again. He started to move at this, feeling so good and overwhelmingly full. It was as if you’d been speared onto something, he was impaling himself into you and you loved every second. You began to thrust back against him and he practically lost it then and there, watching you frantically chase your own high making him almost feral. He yanked you off of the counter top, flipping you over and pushing you down flat against it. Shoving himself back inside of you, he began a relentless pace, bruising your cervix over and over. As you got louder, he pulled your hair back to make you arch against his chest.
“Yeah? You like how I ruin you?” He taunted, slamming into you from behind and causing the sound of skin slapping skin to echo across the room. “This pussy is mine.” He growled and gave your clit a gentle slap, making you practically scream out.
“M-Miguel…!” You were panting from how he’d made you so breathless, so overwhelmed by him.
“Be quiet, or do you want Gabi to know you’re a slut for me? That you love when I fuck you better than anyone ever could.” He went on and you nodded along. He was right. He’d ruined you for any other man. You’d never be able to fuck anyone else without comparing them to him.
“That’s right, amorcita, moan for me.” He egged you on as he bottomed out once more, making your legs shake. He lifted one of your knees to lean on the counter beside you and pounded into you from a new, deeper angle, giving you chills. That was it, that new spot he’d found made you come around him instantly, muscles tightening from the orgasm. You felt someone warm fill you, and realized he had finished as well. Grabbing your face harshly, he pulled your face sideways to give you a rough kiss as he kept himself inside of you for a few more moments.
You gasped for air as you felt him slip out of you, his seed dripping down your leg a bit and making you hyper aware of what just happened. You both stood, half dressed and heaving in silence. Your eyes found his, and everything hit you all at once. Grabbing your underwear and jean shorts off of the ground, you rushed out of the kitchen and began getting dressed as you walked.
“Wait-” He called out and yelled your name, but you were fast and he was still tucking himself back into his pants. As you reached the door, there was a knock and you buttoned your shorts as you swung open the door.
A nicely dressed woman, beautiful and tall, stood there holding a jacket. The two of you stared at each other for a second before she looked past you and smiled.
“Ah, Miguel! I realized you left your jacket in my car.” She spoke, then looked down at you. “Is this your daughter?”
Tears built up in your eyes and you looked back at Miguel, shocked.
“You were on a date?” Your words could’ve been poisonous with how you spoke to him, because they stung him terribly. His mouth was parted, still in shock.
You’d had enough. Your body pushed past the woman’s and you ran down the street to your home, only a few blocks away. It wasn’t your apartment, but your dad should be home and you could just tell him you didn’t want to talk about it. He never pushed you.
Knocking on the door, he opened it and immediately was afraid.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to stay here tonight, ok?” You spoke and he nodded, hugging your crying frame. Tonight had been too much to think about, and as he walked you in, you finally felt the exhaustion hit you. You trudged off to your bed and fell asleep.
Part 2
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kissitbttr · 9 months
Text
a very tiny fic of frat!miguel pining on cheerleader!y/n in college. might expand, we’ll see ;)
-
fucking. frat parties, man,
you hate it. despise it even. what’s so good about them anyway other than the fact watching dumb boys in snapbacks making a fool of themselves with drinking games?
definitely not your scene, but unluckily for you—it has always been your friends favorite thing to look forward to,
“you need to cut yourself some slack babe. this party will do you good! i promise!”
rolling your eyes, you slip on one of your favorite heels before glaring at her. “doubt it but thanks for the positivity”
“maybe todd will be there and you guys will catch up?”
“like hell we will” you scoff, walking towards the dressing table to pamper yourself,
“that shit is history, he’s a fucking dead man”
a certified douche bag, that’s what todd is. dated him in sophomore year and the relationship went for about six months before calling it quits because he had his tongue down some other girl’s throat and he had the nerve to blame it on you,
you were pretty much done with men at that point,
“she’s right” one of your friends, gloria points out. “you guys forgot what that asshole did to her, hm?”
“but” one girl steps in. “people change, right?”
you and gloria exchange looks, biting back a mocking smile at how innocent and naive the girl sounds. however, you shake your head at gloria, telling her to hold it in.
“yeah, sure” you shrug at her question, busying yourself with makeups as the other girls from behind you continue with their chatting,
“what about miguel? that tall sexy one”
your hand freezes at the name, as a collective of ooh’s and dreamy sighs fall upon your ears. yet you dismiss it anyway,
“and what about him?”
lyla, the pixie haired cut girl chimes in. “wasn’t he the one who blew you a kiss during the football game? you know, when you were cheering”
it was the championship game, one after finals had ended. you and your cheerleading team were on the sidelines doing the stunts. one of the duties of being one was to cheer for your home team. being extra perky and all smiley,
he scored another touchdown within the last ten seconds, in which the crowd had erupted into loud cheers. this man sure got some speed on his feet,
you clapped your poms poms together, jumping in excitement while yelling out his jersey number. the rest of the girls are doing the same thing, some even louder than others. leading the crowd to loudly chant his last name,
miguel took his helmet off, smiling proudly at the full audience while bumping his chest with his fist. then his eyes landed on you, smile going wider as he watched you cheer for his team,
then he did it. blew you a kiss as he waved. mouthing a ‘that one’s for you’ before winking, in which you only rolled your eyes at the respond. you truly had no time entertaining another heartbreaker on campus.
that man maybe devilishly handsome and charming, but he also shared some highly disturbing amounts of girls in his dorm,
or so you have heard.
his friend jogged towards him, clasping his hand around miguel’s shoulder,
“new girlfriend, o’hara? or looking for a quick fuck?”
if it was any other circumstances, he’d punch him for saying that about you. but he was far too entranced by your beauty to actually give a shit. instead he smiled, eyes refused sto leave yours as he watched your body move.
“girlfriend. working on it, compá”
his voice is confident. almost like he’s sure that you’ll be his. and you will
miguel finds you to be far more intriguing than the rest. beautiful, top of the class, fucking funny too. ever since he had exchanged a couple words with you during one the class you both shared, you pretty much occupy his mind from there.
and he had watched you punch one of the guys at his party one time so safe to say you’re the reason why his dick is hard for the rest of the night
“not only that. he touched down and said it was for you, didn’t he?! ugh! i am so freaking jealous!”
it’s almost funny how hopeless romantic most of your friends are. i mean sure, you are too, who isn’t? but you would argue that if it wasn’t coming from miguel, those girls probably won’t be swooning like right now,
“you both are overreacting. he was just in the heat of the moment.”
“nuh uh” gloria shakes her head in disagreement, scoffing with a small smirk. “she’s right, that boy wants you. he wants you bad. like ‘24/7 deep dick inside your pussy and won’t let you walk straight after fucking’ wants you”
“a very… vivid detail, gloria…” you widen your eyes with a laugh while the other girls agree. “but okay”
“how do you even know that?”
“beck said so” she shrugs, making you look at her with a deadpan expression. “what? me and him went back to fucking, don’t judge me!”
a snort escapes your lips, tugging the lipgloss back out of your makeup pouch before unscrewing the tube,
“he’s like a total player, no? i don’t think i could get together with a man who sticks his dick into any hole”
“that’s not true. they’re just rumors”
“yeah, wasn’t dana the only girl he had ever dated?”
“no that was xina. dana fucked his brother”
“what?!”
“isn’t it the other way around?”
“i’ve never seen him with girls that often. your opinion could be wrong y/n”
you brush it off and let the girls gossip in the back. whether it’s true or not, staying away would probably better. after todd, you don’t think you can afford another heartbreak.
fucking. men
-
the party had started a few hours ago, and it’s packed. a lot of students come and start filling up the house, the sound of asap rocky’s ‘frat rules’ booming through the speakers.
it’s not even close to midnight but miguel already spot a few kids getting drunk and throwing up in the backyard making him winces in disgust. he has told a few of his friends to keep an eye for broken furnitures but he doubts any of them listen,
they’re far too busy exchanging saliva with some of the girls from the sorority,
“yo o’hara! beer pong later! you’re on my team!”
peter, one of his frat brothers yells. miguel looks over his shoulder to see him standing by the pong table with the others, he has his arm around a red haired girl’s shoulder.
miguel flashes a smile, head shaking as he fixes himself a beer from the keg. “count me out, parker. go find other team player”
“oh boo! you’re no fun these days, o’hara! don’t tell me you’re standing by to see if she’s coming?”
“wait, miguel’s crushing on someone?” the red haired asks
“i told you babe, it’s the girl from cheerleading team”
miguel doesn’t respond, because peter is right. he has been scanning over the room, pacing back to back to see if you’re here yet. a disappointment sigh leaves his mouth each time he fails to find you,
his frat brothers think he’s gone crazy. because why would he get himself so worked up over one girl when there’s dozens of others lining up to get dicked down by him? pretty ones even,
but that’s the thing, miguel doesn’t find hooking up to be something that needs to be praised for. why would he pat himself on the back for screwing half of the sorority sisters? or bet on who gets to be the lucky bastard to get into the quiet girl’s panties?
gross. that’s for sure. but it seems that his brothers think otherwise. he has no say in that, obviously. to each their own.
“she’s coming, dude. chill. you’ve been eyeing the goddamn door non-stop” beck chuckles, sipping on his beer can
he ignores him, clicking the tongue against his teeth. “you told gloria, right? to bring her here?”
“i did. so stop worrying. enjoy for a bit”
beck leaves him with that, not before bumping miguel’s shoulder lightly with his fist, leaving miguel with his brows furrowed and lip in a small pout,
‘where are you?’ he thinks,
“hey miguel”
a feminine voice pulls him out of the trance, in which he quirks an eyebrow and notices a short haired girl appears by his side, dragging her long manicured nails down his bicep,
“not interested” he shoots her a quick glare before averting his gaze back towards the door,
the girl pouts, taking the bold move by resting her temple against his shoulder in which he shakes her off causing her to gasp,
“the fuck o’hara?!”
“i told you. not interested. beat it” he downs his red solo cup before scrunching it, licking his lips. “go find another guy to bang”
she huffs at that, stomping her feet like a child like her parents refuses to give her candy,
“i mean it. move, i am not—“
“y/n! gloria! you two made it!”
that does it for him. soon as he hears your name falls from beck’s mouth, his gaze never moves quicker. seeing his frat brother by the entrance, greeting gloria with a kiss and you’re standing by gloria’s side with a small smile,
oh god, you.
who looks absolutely breathtaking tonight. adorned in a pretty pink dress that hugs your curves in the right way, your makeup is light and he’s thankful for that. long thick hair fall against your back, leaving your shoulders exposed,
simple yet look so expensive,
miguel pays no mind to the girl besides him, simply just walking away. he doesn’t even bother to acknowledge the people who congratulates him on the win as he strides closer to you,
“y/n y/l/n… what a sight for sore eyes it is to see you, muñeca”
a familiar voice saying your name makes your head turn, seeing who it is. the head of fraternity. miguel o’hara,
he has his arms crossed, causing his biceps to bulge a bit, making him look bigger than he already is. you eye the outfit he has on. a black muscle tank and grey sweatpants. chocolate hair tucked into a bright red snapback that he props on backwards,
he shoots you a flirty smirk, walking a little bit closer just enough to create a small gap between the two of you,
“miguel o’hara” you speak his name, faking a smile. “surprised to see you still sticking around here. i thought you’d be by your room already, pleasuring another girl”
he winces playfully, hand over his heart pretending to be hurt. “ouch, muñeca” a small chuckles leaves his mouth as he watches you roll your eyes, “always with the horrible assumptions. care to play nice this time?”
you glance at him with a scoff. “we both know that’s a fact. you always leave with a girl, don’t you?” you question, eyebrows furrowing as you tilt your head to the side,
he hums, scanning the room before looking back at you. “false. but i’ll let you believe what you want to believe, muñeca.”
you try to guess if he’s being sarcastic with it or actually telling the truth, and you swear it’s the latter. however, you refuse to fall for it,
“what do you want, o’hara?” you sigh, sipping on the beer gloria had offered earlier,
with a chuckle, he leans against the nearest wall, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. “is it a crime for me to talk to a pretty girl i have a crush on? is there any written policies about that?”
your heart flutters when he calls you pretty. not to mention, a crush?
yeah okay, you do find him extremely attractive and sexy. like, really really sexy. guilty as charged. but who doesn’t think so? his dashing smile and seemingly soft hair do make you a little bit crazy. he’s a total heartthrob on campus.
not only is he the vice captain of the football team but he’s one smart student. passes every class, rarely get a score below B’s. no wonder why teachers are chasing his ass for him to tutor some of the students.
and if that’s not enough, you know how much he loves to spend his time volunteering at local organizations, doing food kits for donations even providing a cost-free child care around the community,
he’s almost—too good to be true.
“i’m flattered, truly. but flirting won’t get you anywhere, mr.” you wag your finger side to side,
“seriously?”
“seriously”
“wow” he breathes out a sigh, faking a disappointment. “i got to try harder than that then”
a giggle leaves your mouth, head shaking. “my advice? stop trying, o’hara”
“i can’t do that, muñeca”
you tilt your head to the side,. “and why’s that?”
“i just told you”
“hm. surely there are other girls out there, o’hara”
“i don’t want them”
“persistent aren’t you?”
“kind of” he casually shrugs. “why, you don’t like it?”
“quite the opposite”
“and why is that entertaining to you?” he asks with a smirk,
“i like seeing men desperate. i like seeing them beg for something they know they can’t have” you bite down onto your lower lip. your respond is not meant to be flirty, but more of like a playful statement.
yet somehow, it triggers something in him. something good.
his eyes flicker down to your mouth, puffing out a deep breath. “shit, you’re making it harder for me now” he mumbles, tongue sticking out to wet down his lip,
“harder to what exactly?”
“to not want you” he replies bluntly, tone changes into a serious one. but it doesn’t come off as a lust or desperation,
your smile falters a little when you realize how serious he becomes. swallowing a lump on your throat, fingers digging into the skin of your arms. eyes are now onto his, and you don’t quite get why it feels so difficult to just look away,
“miguel i—“
“shit, i ruined it, didn’t i? eres un idiota” he curses himself with a grunt shaking his head. hands on his hips “sorry, i’m just— fuck you look so good right now muñeca and there’s like a million things going through my mind when i look at you—“
“miguel—“
“obviously i’m not going to tell you because it’s pg-13 all up in here” he points at his head. “and i don’t want to scare you—“
“miguel—“
“but i went past puberty so i’m not some kind of horny teenager that—“
“miguel! jesus, shut up!” you finally exclaim, and that does it for him. his movements stop when he hears you yell out his name,
clearing your throat, you regain your posture before setting the beer down on the nearest table,
“listen i—i just don’t know what to say after that” you begin with a nervous laugh, tucking a loose hair behind your ear. “you have a crush on me?”
his bushy brows dip into a frown. “didn’t i make it clear these past few weeks?”
“huh?”
“i brought you lunch, let you borrowed my favorite pen during class, i even asked your number through gloria but she didn’t want to give it to me” his shoulders slouch in disappointment. “i’ve had a crush on you since— I don’t know, too long. you’re a tough woman to please, muñeca. i give you that”
“that’s only one time! how am i supposed to know that you weren’t just looking to hook up?”
“ay dios mio! if i wanted to just have sex with you, i would try to get closer with you during a party! which is… technically what i’m doing right now but— that’s not the point!” he groans, rubbing his hands all over his face in frustrations,
“you seriously didn’t notice the signs?!”
“those weren’t fucking signs, dumbass. try to do more than being subtle, why don’t you?!”
“well it’s hard when you keep dodging me and rolling your eyes everytime i talk to you!”
“how can i?! when you slept with like half of the sorority girls on campus?!”
“how many times do i have to tell you that what you hear is not true? i don’t know where you got that from but i can assure you that i haven’t fucked anyone in months! and the idea of hooking up with random girls doesn’t sound appealing to me! want some prove? ask my brothers about that, go on! or ask beck, he’ll tell you the truth. that man is prone to never lying”
you go quiet. face softening a little,
“wait… then what about the girls i saw you walking with after a party?”
“to walk them safely to their cars or their dorm room. that’s it” he explains, watching the surprised look on your face.
“now.. how do you see me?”
you feel terrible for believing all those rumors first before actually knowing it’s confirmed or not. you are taught to never ever judge a book by its cover and you just did,
fuck you’re a terrible person,
“oh..” you mutter softly. “shit—i’m so sorry miguel, I didn’t know”
“it’s fine, don’t worry about it”
“what? no! i was acting like a complete bitch! ugh fuuuuck” you whine, stomping your heel on the ground as miguel watches in amusement,
‘you’re adorable’ he wanted to say,
“i feel terrible—no, i am actually” you grumble, “how can i make it up to you?”
a bright smile spreads across his face. “allow me to get to know you throughout the night? no funny business i promise”
his eyes are glinting with hope when he looks at you, feeling nervous that you might reject him but he’s not letting you see that,
you mirror his expression, feeling your cheeks warm by his question. “miguel—i’d love to but… no offense, i kinda didn’t want to go to your party in the first place, i only went because gloria asked me to and uhm.. i don’t know if i wanted to stay, actually—it’s not because of you but mainly because my social battery had died even before i got here”
“we don’t have to stay—we can go out. we’ll pick a place and go or you can pick, i’m down with whatever”
with wide eyes, you reply “what?”
“yeah. there’s a good diner i always go to when i’m craving for a good burger or a shawarma truck down the street. they don’t have tables and everything but we can order and eat in my car.”
“unless you have better options, it’s cool” he adds
you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach but it’s hard not to when he’s being extremely… attentive?
my god, is this actually miguel o’hara? the man who’s painted to be heartless and a player?
“mig- this is your party. you can’t just leave” you softly laugh. “we can catch up another time, i hate to be—“
“it’s fine, muñeca. this party is good as it can be without me. besides” he reaches into his pocket to grab his keys,
“i’d like to spend time with you.. is that… okay?”
he’s being careful with his words, because he doesn’t want to scare you off or come off desperate. the last thing he needed was to have you feel repulsed by him,
you give him with a soft smile, looking up at his ruby eyes with your pretty doe ones and from then on, miguel is absolutely sure that he’s in. so fucking in that he knows there is no way out,
it’s not like he wants it any other way
“that’s okay”
-
i was going to make her super mean and bitchy but i figured i’d use that for some other time,
also please tell me this doesn’t sucked. i hate for this one to flop because i might start to fall in love with these pairings
feel free to send your ideas and thoughts about these two
(i might actually write one where they both meet the first time)
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improbable-outset · 30 days
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Imagine being coworkers with Miguel O’Hara, the lead geneticist in Alchemax.
You are a research scientist, and because of the nature of your work, Miguel interacts with you on a daily basis. These discussions with you range from discussing experimental results or research protocol, and have led to a professional relationship built on mutual respect.
You even share moments in the break room and sometimes late nights in the lab together.
So, it was only natural that Miguel slowly develops feelings for you— feelings that he hasn’t fully recognised himself— and it takes a heartbreaking turn of events to open his eyes.
But everything changes one evening. Miguel is on his way to clock out when he walks past your work station. He notices you packing away your personal items in a box: notebooks, photos, your research papers. It’s clear that it’s more than just a usual cleanup.
When he asks you about it, you reveal the news to him that you’ve been accepted a position at a prestigious research institution on the other side of the country. Which means you’re leaving behind your close-knit team at Alchemax— and Miguel.
Miguel is devastated when the reality of your departure sinks in. Not only are you leaving the company, but you’re moving to an entirely different state, far away from him.
Now he’s faced with a heart-wrenching dilemma. Should he finally tell you, or remain silent?
If he does tell you now, it might seem like he’s guilt tripping you into staying and risk the possibility of complicating your departure. But if he keeps quiet, he’ll never know if you feel the same or if there could have been something more between you
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Chapter 1: The Manuscript
“He thought about how they said-
Since she was wise beyond her years everything had been above board. Now he wasn’t sure…”
series masterlist
pairing: Spencer Reid x BAU AFAB!Reader
summary: an unsub with a taste for couples and power imbalances leads Doctor Spencer Reid not only back into the classroom but down the hypothetical aisle with the BAU's newest Probie for an undercover assignment that may change his life.
genre: slow-burn romance?
cw: age gap (Spencer is in his 40s, reader is 24), a couple y/n’s (I’m sorry, I know I’m sick of it too.), fake marriage, possibly eventual smut in later parts we’ll see, female reader she/her pronouns, bad writing! lemme know if I missed anything! And as always, lemme know what you think!
wordcount: 1.3k
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“The professor said the write what you know”
Spencer sat at his desk, anxiously scribbling away at a case file that he knew he simply wasn’t ready to hand over just yet. Not ready to let go or say goodbye. The office was deserted with the exception of Emily still fussing around in her office like she always was these days, just like Hotch before her, and Gideon before him. Back in the days when he was the youngest member of the team— god how things had changed.
“Looking backward might be the only way to move forward-”
six months prior:
"Come on, Em. She’s too young. I’d hardly say she has any real-life experience, and as helpful as she’s been, she certainly doesn’t have the field experience. And you want to drop her into an undercover operation at a university thousands of miles away? I just can’t logically wrap my mind around how you think this is our best option,” Spencer sighed, anxiously pacing the length of Emily’s office. Maybe it was the lights, but more likely it was the outlandish plans being laid before him that were bringing on the all-too-familiar throb of a migraine.
Emily cleared her throat, glancing up at Spencer with a tight-lipped, not-quite smile. “If you would let me finish, I wouldn’t be sending her alone. I’d be sending her with you. The unsub—or rather, unsubs—are targeting couples where the man,” she pointed to him, eyes widening as if to say keep up, “in the relationship comes from a position of power above the woman.” She wildly waved her hand toward the door, motioning to the woman sitting just outside the office.
“You’d be posing as a professor, which technically isn’t anything new for you. Though we might have to rub a little dirt on your good name.” She shrugged, glancing back down to shuffle through the pile of files on her desk until she found the one she was looking for, holding it out for Spencer. “A handsome professor and his new, albeit young, ex-TA of a wife... forced to move after your relationship went public. Tragic.” She quirked a brow, offering Spencer a playful smirk. He did not return it, instead rolling his eyes as he thumbed through the file containing what could be his life for the next couple of months.
“Look, if we place you both at the university, she’ll fit in with the students, you’ll fit in with the professors, and now we have eyes and ears everywhere we need them. It’s logical enough, Spencer, and she’s already agreed as long as you’re up for it.”
There was a long pause as Spencer’s mind ran wild, figuring the probability of everything that could and likely would go wrong if he agreed to this plan.
“Look, we’ll even count this towards thirty days of teaching if that sweetens the deal at all?” Prentiss let out an exhausted sigh. Clearly, this was her only option, and everyone else, even the higher-ups, had approved this plan. It all now sat on Spencer’s shoulders. All he needed to do was agree.
“Fine…” he mumbled, his palm digging into his eye socket briefly trying to dull the growing pain behind his eyes. If Prentiss noticed, she chose not to address it. “Great! See, maybe it’ll be good for you? The faculty housing looks nice-ish..? And you’ve gotta admit, Y/N is sweet. I think she’ll learn a lot from you.”
Before Emily could finish her statement, Spencer turned on his heels, stalking out of the Unit Chief's office past the probie, her doe eyes fixed on him like he was a predator. Her gaze startled him in a way that sent him tripping over his own feet. He quickly righted himself, not daring to glance back at the younger agent on his way to the kitchenette.
An hour and several cups of coffee later, Spencer Reid found himself at the round table, sitting perfectly still as his breath caught in his lungs, watching the young woman in front of him sign her name on the dotted line. It’s official; Doctor Spencer Reid is officially a married man—sort of.
It felt so absurd, having to sign a marriage license. Though, logically, he understood. If they were using Spencer’s name and reputation as a backbone for this assignment, there should be a paper trail. At least when it came to this, he knew Penelope could fabricate anything and everything else they might need, but this silly piece of paper, declaring them man and wife—that was free and public information that needed to be real.
“So…” Y/N's voice was soft as it attempted to cut through the heavy weight of the awkward atmosphere. She fidgeted, tapping the pen against the table.
Spencer cleared his throat, eyes raking over her as the voice in his head told him once again that this was an awful idea, that she was too young, that she had no field experience, and there were far too many ways this could all go south. He tried his best to shake them off. “If you don’t mind me asking, I don’t mean this to be rude. I was a young agent—actually one of the youngest agents the BAU has ever had—” he caught himself in his ramble, his eyes searching her face for any kind of discomfort before blinking harder than necessary in an attempt to focus. “Sorry—uh, how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’ll be twenty-five in October… so twenty-four.”
"Right..." he chuckled, shaking his head, "that means...w-when you were born I already had two PhDs and was nearly finished with my third."
She groaned, a slight blush covering her cheeks as she fought the embarrassed grin threatening to take over her lips. “Doctor Reid—”
“Spencer.” He cut her off, offering a tight-lipped smile. “I—Uh… you can just call me Spencer. I don’t think couples typically use such formality when they’re addressing each other…”
“I guess you’re right,” she said, offering a little nod. “Spencer,” his name felt too personal on her lips, “I—” a rosy blush creeping up her neck as her mind went completely blank, every thought she’d ever had lost in the warm glow of his golden eyes.
As if on cue, Emily entered the room, a smirk on her lips as she observed the younger, seemingly awestruck agent gawking at her favorite genius. “Hope I’m not interrupting, but I thought these might be useful?” She shrugged, placing a velvet box down beside Spencer before sliding the other across the table to fall into the younger woman’s lap. “Congratulations. I now pronounce you man and wife or whatever they say—beware, Penelope is likely going to throw rice or glitter or whatever she found in her desk at you as you walk out of this room. You’ve been warned. And I’d say kiss the bride, but frankly, I don’t want to see that. Wheels up in thirty.”
With that, she offered the new couple a nod before retreating back out of the conference room, back to her office, leaving them to open the velvet boxes. The rings were simple, nothing too flashy, like something you’d expect a professor to be able to afford without breaking the bank.
“Right…” Spencer said, sliding his own ring onto his finger before rising to his feet, his fingers awkwardly clenching and flexing at the unfamiliar weight. “Maybe if we don’t leave together, Garcia won’t ambush us.” He turned towards the door, hesitating a moment to glance back at the woman he could now call his wife. “Unless—unless you’re ready to go… we could, uh, head out together?”
“Oh, yeah, of course!” Y/N nodded quickly, jumping to her feet as she organized the pile of papers back into their folders and into her bag. She crossed the room, stopping beside Spencer. She glanced up at him, her own ring feeling heavy on her finger as she hesitantly reached out, offering him her hand. He looked at her for a moment, his eyes going back and forth between her waiting palm and her eyes before reluctantly accepting the offer.
“Shall we, Mrs. Reid?”
“Now and then he re-reads the manuscript. Of the entire torrid affair~”
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Chapter II: Guilty as Sin
Thanks for being interested in my silly little concept 🩵
@flowerpott1978 @olives-and-sunshine
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woso-dreamzzz · 6 months
Text
Youth Team III
Hardersson x Teen!Reader
Part of The Big Adventures Universe
Summary: You have a bad game
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You stared down at your gloved hands with a frown, like you couldn't quite believe that you missed it.
You should have caught it but one of Scotland's strikers came barrelling towards you and trapped your hand between her shoulder and the goalpost.
Your fingers throbbed badly and you just managed to block another shot but by a bare brush of your gloves. Your fingers pulsed with pain and you grit your teeth.
It was official.
You were having a bad game, by your standards at least.
Letting one goal past you could take but two were unacceptable. Your saves were sloppy and your footwork even worse. Your defence was having an off day too so there was nowhere to hide.
The armband around your bicep felt like a weight rather than a privilege as you struggled to keep the ball out of your net.
By the time the first half finished, you were disappointed in yourself, a pit deep in your stomach. Letting two goals past you felt like the end of the world. It felt like everything was going wrong and it was all made worse when you tugged off your gloves.
Two of your fingers were purple and swollen.
It made sense why they were throbbing now.
They were both curled over as well and felt stiff. You try to straighten them out and wince, biting down on the inside of your cheek.
No.
This can't be happening.
You hide them under your shirt. If anyone saw then they would take you off. If they took you off then you wouldn't be able to redeem yourself.
Your mothers were in the crowd. You were wearing the captain's armband.
You didn't want Momma to see her daughter being taken out of the game.
You dig around in your bag, pulling out a popsicle stick that moster Frido gave you for emergencies and a roll of medical tape. You shove the stick between your two fingers and wind the tape around them, forcing them to straighten out.
They pulse in protest but you pop a painkiller and grit your teeth.
It's harder to play with two fingers in one finger hole but you're coping and no one seems to notice.
Your defence is still in shambles and you yell at them to get their act together. You're not really a yeller. You don't like to bark orders but you're getting desperate.
Usually, you can allow your defence to be a bit messy but you're not on form and you need them to start pulling their weight.
They don't and the ball skims your finger as you push it away.
"Organise yourselves!" You snap, your frustration bubbling up as your fingers throb in protest," Stop playing like children!"
This is one of the worst games of your life.
Your defence might as well be making daisy chains. Your midfielders keep losing possession and your forwards have grown complacent with your one goal lead.
You're not doing much better either.
None of your saves are smart. You're desperate to keep your measly lead even as your fingers throb and your armband feels tighter and tighter every minute you wear it.
The win leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when the final whistle is blown and you can't help but ignore your defensive line in an attempt to not blow up at them.
Your fingers look terrible as you shower and change, shoving your hand into your hoodie pocket so you don't have to look at your failure.
Your mothers are waiting outside in the car and the rain pelting the windows only seems to make your mood worse.
"A few close calls, huh, princesse?"
It's clear Morsa is trying to laugh this off but you don't want her to talk so you stubbornly plug your earphones in and turn them up until your mothers can hear it too.
You stay silent until you get home.
A win is a win but this is the last game of this international break and you can't help but feel angry at it all. Your flight back to Sweden is tomorrow and you've got two days of rest before you're back at training again.
"Have we got ice?"
It's the first words you've spoken since you left the changing room and your Momma raises a brow.
"Why do you need some?"
You show her your finger and the hasty splint you made.
"Princesse...What happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it," You reply, turning your head away so you don't have to make eye contact.
Momma looks like she wants to say more but she ends up just shaking her head and going off to find some ice.
Morsa throws your phone at you. "Call Zećira," She says.
"What?"
"Call Zećira. You're upset. You didn't play as well as you hoped. We can't help so call Zećira."
Morsa doesn't give you much of a choice and you dial the number.
"Hey, what's up?"
"Hi..." Your voice is moody and sullen as Morsa stands in front of you with her arms crossed.
"Well, that doesn't sound good. Rough game?"
You look down at your bruised fingers. "Something like that?"
Zećira hums on the other line. "Did you try your best?"
"I guess..."
"That's not an 'I guess' question," She chides," I'm not asking if you were the very best today. I'm not asking if you played in your best form. But, for how you were feeling today, did you try your best?"
"Yes."
"Then that's all that matters."
"How many did they score past you?" Zećira asks," Come on, how many?"
"Two."
"Two goals isn't much in the grand scheme of things. How many did Denmark get?"
"Three."
"You didn't lose," Zećira says," And you tried your best. What else happened?"
"I hurt my fingers. They're all purple and...I didn't get them checked out."
"Put ice on them and get them checked as soon as you're back in Sweden, okay? I've got money placed on those hands winning a World Cup. You've got to keep them safe."
That shocks a laugh out of you. "I will."
"Good. Listen, you're still young. You're allowed to have off days. It's okay."
You sigh. "Things were easier when it was just as in the park."
Zećira laughs too. "I hope you remember those times when you're lifting the World Cup as a captain."
You scoff.
"I'm serious," She says," Maybe not your first World Cup but definitely one of them. I can see it."
"Whatever you say."
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