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dilf-docs · 5 months ago

Text

Call It What You Want

husband!pedro pascal x younger!reader

summary: you and pedro are married, but you've kept it a secret up to the point you sometimes forget there's supposed to be a golden band on your finger. but then you both get cast in your first movie together. the chemistry is off the charts, and it starts to catch upon you: will the lines between shipping and reality finally blur?

warnings: 18+ (minors dni), age gap (ñom), smut, dry humping, oral (m. receiving) while pedro wears the skirt™️ (welcome to another episode of the writer's barely disguised fetish), p. in v., teeny bit of angst because i malfunction if i don't bring sad vibes to the function, the worst ever attempt of comedy witnessed by human kind, they're so down bad it hurts, jealous!reader, possesive!pedro, reader speaks spanish and may or may not have direct/indirect latino blood somewhere, use of spanglish but no translations ☹️ (boo go do your homework, citizens. that's what u get for making my dieter bravo fic flop BYE), i transcripted two real interviews for this so keep those likes, reblogs and comments up in the air where i can see 'em 🪓🪓

word count: 11,706 words

side note: hello! this is me, sliding my cv to become president of the pedro pascal fics. i'm kidding, just on duty to fulfill another request 🫡 believe it or not, i envisioned something like this but for myself IJBOL we have to keep the delusional levels UP!! i hope this meets ur expectations, it was fun to write :)

part: prev | masterlist | next

"Please welcome, the internet's newest darling, Y/n L/n!"

You walk into the set, cameras flashing bright and the band playing on the back. You hug Jimmy Fallon, and when he notices your body trembling he tells you everything will be alright. So did your manager before you stepped inside, but you can't help the nerves. You've never been this big before, and now it's all coming down together without letting you breath.

You take your seat and so does Jimmy.

"Hello, Y/n. This is your first time here, right?"

"Am I being too obvious?" you snort. The crowd laughs with you.

"Don't worry. It happens, especially when you're so young"

"Oh, please" you blush. "I can promise you there are kid actors who could handle this better than I am right now"

"Kid stars?" he lets out one of his famous cackles. "No need to be humble. You are great! Let's just talk about the year you've had: big breakout roles, ascend to fame, you're rocking it!" the crowd cheers, and you again turn into a flustered mess.

"Yeah, I suppose. It's hard to dimension when you've started as an extra for popular shows, to now being, you know, the main face of projects. But I could get used to it" you smile, "it's been a dream. I still can't believe it sometimes, look- I'm shaking"

The camera pans closer to the hand you're showing to Jimmy.

"Oh my God, even big stars like you get nervous"

"Big star? I wish I could feel like a constellation. I'm feeling more like a red dwarf star, baby"

The whole place bubbles in laughter. You feel better, your manager even giving you a thumbs up from behind the cameras.

"So, Y/n" Jimmy says once the laughter dies. "You just got casted in the upcoming Gladiator II movie, directed by Ridley Scott. How does it feel to be on your first big movie, alongside names like Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal?"

You try to steady your heartbeat. "First of all, I have to say, it's such an honor to work with Scott. I grew up watching his movies. Like, Thelma and Louis is definitely my go-to movie. So, like, getting paired with such a talented cast is as awesome as terrifying" you answer with a laugh.

"Talking about that, you see" he leans closer, like he'll tell a secret. "I've heard things about you and a certain future co-star of yours"

You shift your position on the couch, your ring(less) finger itching. You have to avoid breathing in relief when Jimmy pulls out a picture.

"Oh. My. God"

He stiffles a laugh. No way. Has the room's temperature suddenly gotten hotter? Why is your face burning?

"Will you tell us the story behind this?" he asks, the camera focusing on the picture in question. The audience laughs, and you pray to God this is a nightmare, because it's too much embarrasment for a human to bear.

"Okay" you clear your throat, coughing awkwardly. "For my 25th birthday, I uploaded a bunch of pictures on Instagram, including ones where I was a teenager" you begin to giggle, "So. Um, there was this one, you see, that's, me, in my childhood home's bedroom, and my fans were quick to notice the poster above my bed"

"You mean, this one?" and Jimmy points it out. You cover your face with your palms. "It's a... Narcos poster" the audience laughs as you get redder. "A Pedro Pascal's Narcos poster"

"I know" you groan. "Picture this: me 18, and while my friends had posters of their favorite bands and artists, I was so different because I had a whole ass poster of a crime drama show about the world's most famous drug dealer on my bedroom" you recall with a laugh. "It was hard to explain to my mom. I believe she thought I wanted to sign for the DEA or something. When I told her I was going to be an actress, she was so relieved! She said: Oh, well. You'll die, but of hunger! Not a bullet in your head, at least"

"Oh. I'm so sorry. You proved her wrong though!"

"I did! Don't worry, Jimmy. She's my biggest fan now" you look at a specific camera before saying, "Te amo mami!"

"I see you speak spanish. I sometimes forget" he comments. "You've got one thing in common with Pedro, it seems. Think that'll make working with him less awkward?"

"I just hope he forgives me or I'm capable of moving out of the country and changing names" you giggle. "Pedro, lo siento!"

"Well, that's Y/n L/n, everyone! Pedro Pascal's number one fan" you burst out laughing in shame. "More on her lastest movie after the break"

mandoshoney: tell me i'm not the only one who started shipping pedro pascal and y/n l/n PLEASE can't wait to get content of them interacting ㅤㅤann-gell: mandoshoney y/n's pedro pascal's controversially young gf era starts now! i wonder how the press tour for #gladiatorII will go 🤔 unhing3dprincess: i bet my grandma they are dating ㅤㅤstarlightt180: unhing3dprincess ptwt can never tweet like normal ppl…wdym you're betting your grandma?!!!?

You were never a fan of secrets.

But then Pedro waltzed into your life with his charming smile and iconic mustache, and before you knew it, you had married him off in some church in California one random sunday morning ("I love you so much, can't wait to marry you, cariño" "If you can't wait any longer, why not now?")

Flash forward, four years later, and you'd think such event would be plastered all over the internet. But there is a reason why only you, family, a selected number of friends and your agents knew: you kept it a secret.

To the world, he was Chile's most elegible bachelor and you were a young rising star. The public loved both of you for the same reasons: charming persona and acting skills. Yet inside the privacy of your home, he was Pedro and you were y/n, wife and husband; he was yours as you were his.

And of course, no marriage is perfect, and your first real challenge is rather funny: you both get casted in your first movie together.

It shouldn't be hard, but it is. Being inside the Gladiator II set during seven months, so far away yet so close at the same time, was torture. You were Rome's empress and he's Marcus Acacius, yet behind the scenes, the actual married couple were you both.

It was hard to pretend you didn't know what he looked like without clothes when he wore his bathing suit, or that you didn't know his favorite food when Paul asked, or acting like you weren't interested in dating when a local in Malta during your trip at the beach asked you out (he didn't know who you were. You were flattered when he called you pretty in such a hot European accent, but then Pedro appeared from seemingly "nowhere" and you remembered what your real favorite accent was. He immediately called you bonita after that)

It was so hard to keep hands to yourself when he walked by you, covered in fake blood. To not think about licking it all over and under his armour. So was to pretend the thought of dry humping him with his Roman skirt on wasn't tempting. Or that the urge to kiss him got harder and harder to fight each passing day, even getting to a point where you would envy Connie for being able to kiss your husband in the open more, a privilege you didn't have.

You were loosing your mental health here. But Pedro was no better.

It was so hard to see you, the Moroccan sun shining over your features like you were an angel. Otherworldly. That he'd see red when you'd finish filming a scene with Joseph, forcing himself to interrupt the small chat you'd engage in after. He too couldn't keep pretending he didn't want to tear off those silk dresses out of your body, and kiss you out in the open like Joseph did.

He almost failed once, cornering you in the hallway of the hotel you were staying. His hot breath lingered on your neck. I miss you, he had said. You felt his hard brush the inner of your thigh. We can't, you whispered in a dragged out voice.

It was hard.

So you gave him your used panties, and you swear you could hear him jacking off in the bathroom of his room, next to yours. He'd screamed your name, and your hand had found it's way to your dripping cunt, doing what he was supposed to do; touching you the way he did. And you came, drowned out moans against your pillow. But it wasn't like when he did it.

But God has heard your prayers.

For the first time in weeks, you're lucky. You find Pedro sitting alone in the cafeteria, his phone in hand. He's still wearing his armour and skirt, not bothering to change for the break. You aren't God's strongest soldier, but you're trying not to go down on him so badly right here and now.

"Hey" he raises his head when he hears your voice, smile adoringly. It only grows wider when he notices you alone. "Thought you'd never get rid of Paul. He's like, stitched to you"

"Same can be said about you and Joseph" you sit across him, and despite most of his tone being playful, there are still hints of jealousy behind. It arouses you deeply, and with this hot summer day above you, your skin isn't the only thing that's getting sticky.

"In case you haven't read the script, I'm his wife" you wink. "Sorry this is how you find out"

He laughs loudly, and God, how have you missed that laugh. Sure, it's been there when you've been out with the cast together, but it doesn't tingle your chest as when you're the cause of it; it feels like it's for you only, and that's what makes it special.

"I miss you so much" he whispers, his hand sliding across the table, finding yours. His thumb carresses your soft palm, and you melt under Pedro's tender touch.

"I do too" you sigh, but it's instantly replaced by what could only be described as a smug face. You lean closer, whispering on his ear, the warm meeting cold. He shivers. "Wanna know something?"

"I'm all ears"

"I just came back from walking. Guess what?No one is 'round here" you lean back against your chair, shit-eating grin on your face as all his body tenses up. "Made sure of it. The trailer zone is empty too"

Pedro gulps, his adam's apple bobbing as his eyes look at you.

"Y/n" calling your name as a warning.

"What? Can't a girl find ways to have her husband all for herself?" you snort. "Please say yes" you let go of his hand, but the free fingers now travel across his broad chest, taunting him. "C'mon, we both deserve a break"

He can't say deny you anything, can he? You know it, he knows it.

Before you register, his big hand engulfs yours as you run across the set. You giggle at his rushed steps, even more when you stand before his trailer and he's fumbling his slippery hands with the doorknob, sloppy movements erratic.

"But you told me to stop" you tease, and he doesn't even let you add more because he's pushing you inside, forcing you with rough calloused hands to a chair and then you to sit over his lap.

"Fuck, babygirl. I've spoiled you way too much" he groans against your lips. "Lo sabes, ¿verdad? Just can't say no to you"

Your eyes darken dangerously, the hunger on them mirroring his own.

"How could you ever say no to this?"

You press your chest against his broad one as your lip bites into his lower one, teasing. Pedro feels his underwear getting tighter when your tongue finds its way inside his mouth, even getting a glimpse of the taste of the strawberries you had earlier before.

He deepens the kiss, and when you pull away to catch your breath, he doesn't waste his lonely mouth and busies himself with the task of kissing your sun-kissed neck, licking and pressing his lips under your jaw. Pedro goes even lower, down until he's reached your collarbone, making you groan a bit under his wet sloppy needy mouth. He's enjoying how putty you are under his intense kissing, fingers in his curls, that have begun to damp under the ablaze of the small space and pleasure that fills the air.

"Kiss me again in my lips" you whine after a while of him teasing you with kisses that get only rougher. "Pretty please, papi"

You cup his face in your hands, and Pedro's back to kissing you in the mouth, tasting all of your insides as he hasn't had in what feels like a lifetime.

"Of course, baby. Missed this pretty mouth" he mumbles in between hot kisses, his now growing boner pressing into you.

"Baby" you giggle. The skirt he's got on may hide it, but your fingers refused to wait, pulling it up. His bulge presses against the shorts he's got under the skirt, and you can feel your pussy and mouth drool. "We have to do something about this big boy" your hands pull down the short, leaving just his underwear on. He's about to remove the skirt, but your demanding hands stops him. "This stays"

His brown concerned eyes make you laugh, but you don't give him time to think about it, rather grinding against his erection. Pedro's breath hitches when he feels your daring movements, bucking his hips against yours.

The friction is addicting, and he captures your lips once again to make you feel what he can't with words: how fucking good this feels.

You keep moving over his aching dick. Your husband throws his head back, groaning in pleasure at the way your hips move against him, knowingly. His hands find their way to your ass under the flowy almost translucent skirt you chose to change in, gripping the rosy skin tightly, hands almost covering all of it.

"You wore this for me, right, cariño? Knew I couldn't say no" he groans, firm hands on your cheeks, the grinding meeting his hips now harsher. "Less with you walking around with this slutty skirt of yours"

You make little sounds he's obssesed with, dripping out of your filthy mouth.

"Fuck" Pedro groans after a while, "I need to have you, mami. Missed you so much" eager fingers make it to your top. He growls, deep within him―guttural, ready to pull it off as he mumbles naughty wife when he realizes you got no bra on, chastising you for a "rushed" plan that seemed planned all along, when a sound cuts through the air.

You both stop.

The sound gets clearer.

It's a knock. A knock at his door.

A knock in Pedro's trailer.

And you are inside. Both.

While you're grinding him.

With his skirt on.

(It's time to build a bomb and kill yourselves off and whoever is stading behind that door)

"Pedro!" a familiar accent calls. Peudrou. It's Paul. "Hey, man. Just wondering if you are here"

He's debating on speaking up when he sees your red face and rising-falling chest before him.

"Answer" you whisper breathlessly. He tries not to groan when he fills you slip out of the spot in his middle while also trying not to think about murdering Paul as soon as he gets out.

Aside from the order, you're unexpectedly quiet, and Pedro quirks an eyebrow at you. He knows you better―you're his wife after all, and if there's something he's aware of, is your inability to loose.

"I'm here" tone clipped and annoyed. But no footsteps backtracking are heard: the Irish man is still there.

You bite your lip, watching the skirt with his legs spread, a sight too tempting. Also, he was still hard, as hard as the task to not go and keep doing your job.

Oh, fuck this shit.

Your devilish hand equals the grin in your face, fingers making their way toward his unattended bulge.

"What are you doing here?" Paul asks, but Pedro's attention has completely deviated, now focused on how they land right over his clothed dick, skirt pulled up by your other hand. "I thought you were at the cafeteria"

"Yeah?" but it comes out strained, yet the younger man doesn't notice or comment.

His hips raise when your fingers press his member, massaging it.

"Yeah" he uses a tone that equals a duh. "You texted me yourself"

Pedro rolls his eyes, wishing desperately he would go away, annoying him just as much as a fly hovering above fresh food. Talking about food, fuck, weren't you hungry? He tried to warn you, holding your wrist, but all resolve was lost the moment you looked in his eyes: he immediately pulled down his briefs, dick sprouting hard.

"Well, changed my mind" his tone falters in between words, member now free from the confines of his tight underwear.

"Are you tired, man? You sound tired" Paul comments on his tone. "Came to rest?"

You spit on your hand, and he gulps.

"Somethin' like that"

You start to jerk him off, leaving little wet kisses and licks just above his dick. Pedro's eyes are hypnotized, glued to every lick of yours across his girth, the spit making your movements smoother. Sexier. Fuck.

"Well, sorry to break it to you but rest time is over. They want us back on set now"

Your tight needy lips are wrapped around his his length and it's so hard to keep the talk normal when he justs wants to yell at Paul to fuck off. Your hand is there too; you are as of help as much as you aren't.

"I'll be there, Paul, just―Fuck!"

But his attempt to cover a moan doesn't go unnoticed.

"Are you alright in there?" he tries to enter, but Pedro locked the door. He's yelling he's fine, but Mescal doesn't sound convinced. "I can't go inside; it's locked. Are you sure you are okay, mate?"

"Didn't want you to take a picture of me drooling on my sleep" he manages to get out in a monotone voice. A real win if you take into account you've gotten to a point where you squeeze under his cock, massaging his balls.

"Smart move!" he chuckles from outside. "I guess I'll see you there"

Pedro covers a moan with his palm as he's throwing his head back in pleasure. He can feel his orgams looming over, minstrations growing sloppier around his pulsating cock, the need to fill your greedy evil mouth with his seed making him sick. He's a simple man: he just wants his pretty wife to fuck his cock silly and come in her mouth in peace. Is that so hard to get this days?

Paul seems to be finally gone as Pedro can't keep containing his grunts anymore, steps moving: until said steps sound closer again.

"Oh, I almost forgot, have you seen Y/n? I can't find her anywhere" it's coming. His orgasm is coming in the absolute worst moment. He can feel you gagging at his hard rock cock, hitting the back of your throat now. Still, your hands don't loose their grip on his cock and skirt, determination filling that sexy little body of yours. It was rather admirable the effort you were putting in this. "Think she went to the beach? She said she loved it. God, that little rebel. Anyway, if you see her, tell her-"

He leans his head back once again, seeing stars. No one knows him like his wife, truly.

The sight of you drooling from your chin, the wet sounds of him fucking himself onto your mouth as your spit-coated fingers pump his girth, you gulping down the precum from his tip, his fingers holding your face roughly by the cheeks...

"Yes, Paul, yes!" Pedro barks, barely hiding the moan that erupts from his ribcage, thick shots of his hot cum hitting your tongue and deep of the throath. "Fuck off and let me get ready"

"Jesus, mate, chill. I'm sorry. See you there"

And Paul Mescal's hovering fly ass is finally gone.

"Poor Paul" you say as soon as you pull off his length, voice raspy as you huff for air. Pedro lovingly cleans rests of your saliva and his cum from your chin as he chuckles at how much audacity, courage and horniness could fit in such a small young body. "You've ruined the friendship"

"You think?" he licks off some as you sit on his lap again, tongue directly on your face. You feel aroused again, but time's up. "It's your fault. That and this"

He points down.

"Just as you used that pretty head of yours to think of the trouble you just made, think of an excuse for Mr. Ridley about the skirt"

at0michips: wait wdym paul is sick??? ㅤㅤl-u-n-a-m: at0michips he's died vnightx: i'm wondering who'll do now the do you even know me interview with pedro now :( i was so excited!!! hope they don't cancel it :( ㅤㅤunhing3dprincess: vnightx i bet my grandma it's y/n ㅤㅤat0michips: unhing3dprincess why do u keep betting ur grandma omg 😭😭😭

"You know what I think would be fun?" Pedro comments while you wait for the interview's set to be prepared.

Tour press has finally begun. That meant you could go home for a while after the filming wrapped, just to be back for the promotion of the film. You were excited of course, the experience new and thrilling. After much needed battery recharging and husband/wife time, you were ready to take over the world.

But then Paul got sick.

Today's interview was scheduled to be him and Pedro, but since he was unavailable, they paired him with you, since you both spoke Spanish (which felt slightly racist in your opinion), and because Fred and Joseph were already paired up for the other.

You leave your coffee, knowing he's about to say something stupid or endearing, perhaps both, brown liquid probably spilling out of your mouth. Or worst, nostrils.

"Tell me"

"What if we left little hints that we're together?" his smile is one of mischief. "Like you could wear my cap, or I could wear a chain with your initial around my neck, like Ryan Gosling did at the Barbie premiere"

"Or as Taylor Swift sang" you counter. "But Pedro, dear, you're underestimating our fans. You don't think they'll match it sooner than we think?"

"Maybe" he agrees. That's just what I want. "What's funny is we're about to do a type of interview where we could blow our cover"

"Maybe" you repeat, "or maybe you don't know all about me as much as you think, Mr. Pascal"

He fake gasps, feigning hurt. "Is this a dare, Mrs. Pascal?"

"No" you try to be mature for once, cutting the banter as much as you'd like to go on and kiss him right there. "Also, remember to answer incorrectly sometimes, you know..."

"There's no way I'm letting you win though"

"Pedro, no seas necio!"

The producers arrive just in time to let you know it's ready.

"After M'lady" he's back to being charming as he is, not as husband charming but just Pedro Pascal charming. The nerve of this guy to do it in front of the LADbible crew.

"Whatever" you grumble, the nerves getting the best of you as you realize this interview may or may not give away more than you've been allowed before.

"Hello, I am Y/n L/n" you present yourself. Wow, the camera is really close. This isn't going to end well.

"And I'm Pedro Pascal"

Hearing his voice soothes you. It's okay, y/n, you got this. "And this is Do You Really Know Me- No wait, it's do you even know me. Okay, let's start again: Hello, I'm Y/n and this is-"

"I don't even know anymore" Pedro jokes, making you laugh. "Do you even know me?" he asks while looking forward, now making the crew laugh.

"This is Pedro Pascal, that'll do" you sigh.

"This is gonna be sad, she's not going to know any of these" he says, but in reality, he's mocking you, the mischief in his eyes glowing as he only looks at you tauntingly.

"Same can be said about you" you tease, "we're like a million years away"

"That's not true!" he gasps, "I watch your every move" punctuating each word. God, you try not to make a face. "I have Google alerts on you"

If he was gonna play, so were you.

"Glad to know I have you alerted" with the sweetest voice ever, seeing how his friendly façade falters for a bit at the tone you've used. You laugh, and Pedro takes the chance to laugh it off too.

After the introduction, they ask one of you to keep score, and you offer yourself because, well, you don't trust Pedro.

"I'll go first" you say. "Which was my first ever role in the industry? As an extra during an episode of Stranger Things, as a voice actor in A dog's purpose" you can't help but laugh, "or as a back-up dancer in Hustlers?"

"In Hustlers?" Pedro inquires in disbelief. "You're telling me you were in Hustlers?! I didn't even know you could dance!"

Lies. You and Pedro sometimes put some bachata and dance in the kitchen. God bless Juan Luis Guerra.

"Jennifer Lopez and I are practically besties" you answer nonchalant.

You know the answer. He does too. But he chooses the last one for comedic purposes.

"I'll go with Hustlers. Now that I'm looking at you, you do have a... dancer face"

"It's okay, you can say the forbidden word. I'll take it as a compliment" you laugh, "you're wrong, though. The answer is Stranger Things"

"No way!" and it sounds as if he genuinely didn't know. Good lying son of a bitch; Jim Carrey on Liar, Liar would've been proud.

"Yes. If you look in the background of season two, on this one episode where Nancy and Steve appear to have broken up during a halloween party, you can see me drinking from a cup on a corner"

"That's so crazy"

"Yeah, I was twenty already, yet playing a highschooler" you giggle. "Wow, time flies by. Anyway, we're both at zero. Your turn"

"What film did my dad not let me see at the cinema when I was, uh, ten years old?" Pedro reads from his card. "Rambo: first blood, The Breakfast Club, Day of The Dead"

"I'm going to base this in the year you were born. Okay, so 1975. Let's see" one of the things Pedro loves about you is that you're like a film encyclopedia, but right now, that'll cost him a point. "They all came out the same year, and they were also R rated. Hmmh, I'll choose The Breakfast Club"

Your analysis was just mindless bragging really. You knew the answer the moment he started reading the question, because the anecdote came during a time he heard you listening to the movie's soundtrack ("Did you know that my dad...")

"You complain about Paul all the time, but you're just the same" he comments. "She's a real competitor, people!"

You flush in embarrasment. "Okay, that's one for me. Next question" you read the card in your hands. "What pet do I own? An orange cat named Louis after my favorite singer, a fish, or a Shih Tzu named after my brother"

The orange cat lives with you both. You're curious as to how he'll answer.

"You aren't naming a Shih Tzu frickin' Fernando" he laughs, so loud, it ends up catching up to you and the crew. "I'll go with the cat"

"That's correct" you lament. "How would you know?"

As if the damn cat doesn't love him more than he loves you.

"I follow you on Instagram" he defends himself. Clever. "We are, um, what do you call it-"

"Oomfs"

"I'm not gonna try to pronounce your made up language. Okay, my turn. Which of these characters I've played in Saturday Night Live? Naughty daddy, protective mom, or weird uncle who has a creepy sneeze" he reads out loud in a confused tone.

This is easy. It was all over your timeline.

"Protective mom" you answer on a beat.

"This isn't fair, that was really popular!" he complains.

"It's still two for me and one for you" you mock. "Now, what is the nickname the internet has given me? I won't give you clues because it's an easy one"

"Easy? You said we were million of years apart and now I'm supposed to know?"

"Well, you seem to manage Instagram so I think you'll be just fine" you tease, and Pedro just wants to rip that smirk off of you. So he caves in first.

"It's people's princess"

"What?!" your eyes grow comically large, shimmering with betrayal as you shout with an incredulous tone. "I can't believe you know" more like can't believe you said it.

"You're royalty! How am I supposed to not know that, internet darling? Besides, told you: I keep my eye on you" and he winks.

This motherfucker. Oh, he's totally sleeping on the couch tonight.

"Talk about internet darlings" your snarky tone comes out, and Pedro knows he's pissed his competitive wife off. "I guess we have a tie. Your turn"

"What are the initials of my full name?" his brows furrow. "I forget. JBPP, JPBP, JBPP"

"José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" you recite. "B, of course"

"But that's too easy, everyone with Google knows it!" but then he's leaning into your ear, whispering in a very low voice to make sure only you hear. "I'll let it pass, though. Love hearing you pronounce my name, mami"

Your face grows obscenely red. "I'm back ahead. Let's see if you can keep up. Okay, here it goes" you read the card, "what is the director I've stated I want to work with? Greta Gerwig, Pedro Almodóvar, or Quentin Tarantino"

"Pedro Almodóvar, no? You said you were jealous I had already worked with him" he playfully nudges you. Too much contact, face hot again. Maybe in group interviews you'll do better, because right now, you're doing a rather poor job at controlling yourself, even as an actor; you can already picture your agent pulling her hair behind the cameras.

"It's Greta Gerwig, actually"

"What?! No way, you told me this!" he grumbles. "This game is rigged"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still jealous. I just think working with Greta Gerwig is peak womanhood, and I gotta live that. So, Greta, if for some reason this silly video gets to you, call me. I promise I'm not that childish"

"She is" Pedro slips in, "don't call her. So unprofessional" in a mocking exaggerated tone.

"Whatever, you sore looser. Me three, you two. Next!"

"Fine. Which of these songs would I have played at my funeral? My Heart Will Go On, Purple Rain, Nothing Compares To You"

He looks at you, silently pleading you to not answer correctly. Your competitive side screams in agony.

"I have no idea. Why do I feel you've already said it somewhere, though? I'll go with Nothing Compares To You, because the first its too corny for you and the second too epic"

He scoffs, amused at the fact that you did obey, but at what cost? Pedro's well aware his princess can get as competitive, if not worse, than Paul.

"You're saying I'm not epic enough for Purple Rain? Too bad, because that's the answer" you grunt, crossing your arms. "That's right, I am cool enough to have it played. I guess we're tied again!"

"No, you don't loose a point. It's still three to two. This just gives you the opportunity to tie"

"W-wait a minute"

"Settle down" you pat his thigh, "you can still try, handsome"

He gulps when your hand meets his skin, despite the layer of clothes. It's still something that gets him on edge, no matter the years you've known each other. And handsome? You came here for blood.

"Okay, here's your chance: what image of me became trending topic on twitter? An image of me eating a typical dish from my country, an image of me watching Deadpool and Wolverine with glasses while Hugh Jackman's shirtless scene reflects on them or C, me meeting Taylor Swift at the backstage of the Eras Tour"

"The typical dish is tempting" he muses out loud, "but I'll go with the Taylor Swift one because that sounds like something that'd trend"

"You're right" you throw your card. "I'm not complaining though. Best day of my life"

"Does this mean I'm winning?" he beams excitedly. "Oh, in your face Paul! I will finally win something!"

"Slow down, cowboy. There's still some left"

He purses his lips. "Let me have this one thing, would you? Guess not. Here it comes" he starts to read his card, "At school I competed in state competitions, in which sport? Soccer, lacrosse, swimming"

"Swimming" you answer hastily, trying not to think on Pedro wearing tight little swimsuits, as you've only seen him wearing swim trunks.

"Okay, that's dissapointing. Please continue"

"I participated in which play while I was in highschool? Hamlet, The Iliad or Much Ado About Nothing"

You doubt he remembers. The only time it ever came up, was when you visited your parent's house and a photography of you during said play was showed to him by your dad.

"The Iliad, right?" you laugh. The answer is wrong: It's Hamlet. "What? I swear it was that one! It's just you have very..." beautiful is at the tip of his tongue but he refrains himself, "...very greek features"

You can't help but laugh.

"Why of course! This is a face people go to war for"

"I agree" your heart skips a beat, "but I don't think I'll make it that far, if we talk about a war"

"You big fat liar!" you slap his arm playfully. "You've played all sort of characters, from soldiers of all nationalities and places, and like, superheroes, f*****g Joel Miller, even a DEA agent. You at least learned something!"

"Wow, slow down, this isn't a filmography recount" he jokes. Liar, you mouth to the cameras. "Okay, last one: I became a viral sensation for eating what type of sandwhich in LADbible's snack wars: BLT, PB&J, grilled cheese"

You remember the video fondly. Even your brother had sent it to you, along a text that said: Isn´t this your husband?

"PB&J, I win!" you cheer, instantly getting off the chair to do a celebratory dance. Pedro doesn't say anything, just throwing the cards away while the fondness of his eyes betrays him.

pyramiidsf: i want someone to look at me the way pedro looks at y/n mybritishstyle: guys they're just friends 😭 he's like that with all his female co-stars ㅤㅤann-gell: mybritishstyle me when i'm delusional af mandoshoney: where's that girl that's always betting her grandma??? SHE WAS RIGHTFLKRGJ

"Hello, I'm Paul Mescal. I'm here with my friends from the cast of Gladiator II" Connie and you both raise your palms to greet the camera, laughing when you realize you'd done it at the same time, "and we are going to play a game about how well we know each other for Vanity Fair" the irish man introduces the interview you're filming today.

"Did they prompt you?" Pedro speaks up, "or did you just make that up on the fly?"

You laugh a bit too loud, hoping they cut it off in the editing process.

Paul goes first, taking up a card with the first question written on it.

"Okay. Question: What's my least favorite day of the week?"

"Tuesday" answers Joseph once Paul is done reading. "Oh, you're writing it down?"

"Yeah" he answers.

"You just wrote Tuesday" Connie points out, Paul's card on his legs. You laugh along the rest.

"Yeah" he repeats laughing. "I actually, when you said Tuesday" Yeah, he said Tuesday Pedro adds on the background of laughter. "I was like...I'm gonna give everybody a point for that"

"I think I deserve a point for being observant" Connie complains.

Everyone gets a point and Paul moves towards the next question.

"What was the name of my character in Normal People?"

"Connell" both you and Joseph answer, looking at each other before squinting your eyes playfully.

"Callum" Pedro answers out loud at the same time, and you laugh. He clearly had slept when you played it for a re-watch last summer.

"No, you're out" Paul pokes Pedro next to him.

"Connel" Joseph repeats, and Fred agrees to the same answer.

Paul then asks Connie what's hers after he confirms you three.

"Connor?" she asks, confused.

"Incorrect. Three points" while pointing you three.

"You got wrong" he tells Pedro, "Callum's a different character"

"See? You just don't pay attention when you watch things" you blurt out, stopping yourself before adding the with me. It would be harder to come back from that, but so is this as everyone looks at you, even your husband, subtle panic in his eyes. Where the cameras this close? How long had you been silent?

"It's just, quick funny story" you improvise. "Pedro didn't know much about Paul's career, and as I am a fan, I took the time to show him and recommend him your stuff" Paul smiles. "Clearly, my fanatism didn't rub on Pedro but a girl can try"

He laughs, before saying "So the answer is Connell" and you try so hard to remain normal like the energy hasn't shifted.

"He only plays characters with the letter C in the name" Pedro jokes, chewing on a toothstick he seemingly pulled out of nowhere. More laughs follow, and you are so grateful for how he's handling your little metida de patada.

"What's number one on my bucket list?" he asks next, "and don't look at my answer"

The marker is the only sound to be heard, and then Pedro jokingly tries to take a peek.

"No peeking" Connie berates as Pedro laughs.

"You're not gonna be able to see that" Paul replies in an anyways tone.

You repeat the same joke, before Fred blocks you. "Not you too!"

Paul finishes after a while, Connie commenting it was long. Joseph raises his hand.

"Yes, Joseph"

"Is it to see the Great Wall of China?" he asks.

"No, but it's in that-"

"It's close, isn't it?" you interrupt.

"...family of thought" he finishes.

"It's to go and see something" Pedro points out.

"Okay. Rajasthan" tries Connie. "Go to Rajasthan, for a tour"

"Travel to South America" Paul interrupts with the correct answer, "I've never been to South America"

"I'm from South America" Pedro comments, never missing a chance to shout out his dear Chile.

Paul jokes about him getting three points while the rest of you laugh.

"I was born in South America. 17 points for Pedro"

"I want points too" you jump on the joke. "I know Spanish, so I can take you there and avoid you getting lost, mi querido amigo"

"But who was born there?" Pedro counters, "you get no points"

"I think Joseph is the only person who gets a point there" Paul adds, "because everybody just jumped on the bandwagon"

"He said to visit the Great Wall of China" Pedro protests, "which is nowhere near South America"

"It really is not" Connie agrees.

"Qué gente tan tramposa" you complain. "That's unfair. I remove my offer"

"Think about bucket list, and he came up with travel to bit" he tries to reason Joseph's point.

"And by the way, where in South America?" Pedro questions.

"Don't fight, don't fight" pleads Joseph, the calm one. Fred just sits there, enjoying the chaos.

"I want, any, I want to do a big tour of everywhere" Mescal defends himself.

Pedro doesn't back down. "'Cause it's very different"

Paul starts to get angry too. Jesus, men. Competitive men of it all.

"I know it's very different" making an annoyed face.

"Well, different is nice" you intervene, a hand placing in Pedro's left shoulder. "If you stop giving points for free, I'll come with you to the big everywhere tour"

"Alright" Paul agrees. "When's my birthday?" is the next question.

"February" all of you say.

Joseph struggles with the date first, saying seventh, then fourth. Fred tries with ninth, Pedro with eight, and then Joseph starts counting from one to two. Fred counts from eleven to twelve.

"Second" Mescal reveals. "Point to Joseph"

"Oh my God, you guys are good" Connie mentions.

"That's all my questions" and it's time to move on the next one: which happens to be your dear husband, Pedro.

"Paul is like" he brings up while the toothpick dances on his teeth, "Paul is motivated to catch up on points. He's coming for you" to pick on his competitive side as Mescal looks deep in thought.

"He's coming. He's coming" Joseph repeats as Fred laughs.

"What is my full name?"

"Oh! Pedro-" Paul tries in a blink. "Something, J? Jose? Juan?"

"Pedro Pascal, something, something" says Joseph.

"Nope"

"No?"

"Pedro Maria, Jose Maria Pascal" Paul struggles.

Pedro is about to answer when your voice cuts through the air.

"It's José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" you recite.

"It indeed is!" he says, smiling a bit too much. "She gets a point"

"Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" your husband repeats in a more english-friendly pronunciation, looking at the camera while toying with his toothpick.

"I said Jose, I said Jose" Paul protests.

Pedro shakes his head. "You said Jose, but then you put it-"

Connie takes Paul's side. "You did say Jose"

"But then you put it behind Pedro which eliminate- which disqualified you" he replies.

Paul gets angry. That sore looser.

"That's absolute bullshit"

"Don't worry mate, the game has just begun" you joke, making the man more irritated. "Think you can get ahead of me?"

"Joseph is still ahead, y/n" Paul counters, still irritated. "Besides, wouldn't it be cheating? You can speak Spanish!"

"So? Not like speaking a language allows you to know every person's name Paul" you mock. He just snorts, despite still being half angry. Pedro is allowed to continue, trying not to make a face at yours and Paul's banter.

"The question is, who is my favorite actor?" he reads. As the cast members laugh, he uncaps the marker with his mouth, and now you have to try not to make a face, thinking about those teeth sinking into your flesh.

Quinn raises his hand. "It's me"

"That you're my favorite actor?"

"Yeah. You said that to me once" the bald man sounds sure of it.

Paul tries to think in the background. So do you. How can you not know this? he must've brought it up at least once.

"Do you remember?" Joseph insists.

Pedro finally remembers. "I said you were- I said I thought you were special"

"Oh" he sounds rather dissapointed.

"And special can mean a lot of things" he jokes, laughing by himself. Fred laughs with you as Joseph makes a face, your laughter turning even louder when you notice Paul all moody, trying to get this point.

"Who's your favorite actor?" Paul asks, "I think we just have to shoot from the hip here guys"

"Marlon Brando?" Connie guesses.

"Is it Harrison Ford?" Fred guesses.

"Let's go with Harrison Ford just because he's my favorite actor..."

You can't believe you didn't know this. You've re-watched and watched so many Star Wars content together. He gives you a brief look, knowing you're embarrased at your lack of answer.

"As a kid?"

"He's most influent, yeah" Pedro agrees.

"What job did I have before I became a full-time actor?" is next.

"Dancer. You were a great dancer" Paul aswers. Both Fred and Joseph repeat it, adding he was specifically a go-go dancer.

"Oh, he is" you add. "Videos of you dancing are lovely. Ever thought of getting back in the bussiness?"

He laughs, what appears to be a light blush creeping up his cheeks.

"Sure, darling. When you ask me to dance, I'll be there"

Nobody comments on this, too busy waiting for Pedro to say yes or no to the answer they believe to be right. But he isn't saying it is. Now you remember why.

"Come on, come on, come on" Paul begs.

"Can any of you guys remember?" Pedro pleads.

They insist that he danced in Spain, then New York, then settle with Spain again, even Pedro confirming so. But it still isn't the answer written on the card, no matter how much the boys insist.

"Connie?" he tries. She just looks confused.

"The answer in the card is-"

"Waiter" you answer. "You were a waiter"

Now you have three points under your belt.

"Why do you always say the answer at last?!" Paul grumbles. "You are cheating!"

"I'm not" you laugh the accusation off. "You just can't accept I'm better"

"Si que lo eres" Pedro agrees. "Es divertido hacer que se enoje Paul"

"What did you say about me? It's not fair, you're probably sharing the answers!" he's still adamant on insisting with the supposed cheating issue, making you laugh.

Now it's Connie's turn, who starts with: "How many languages do I speak?"

You put a puzzled look.

"You speak seven, eight maybe" Joseph guesses. Pauls says she speaks french, "but most likely seven"

Pedro points his finger at him. "Once he gets going, he's on a roll"

"Joe's got it" Connie agrees.

"Paul, end this reign" Pedro jokes. He looks rather frustrated.

"And the bonus points" Connie offers. "Okay, bonus, what are they?"

"This is an emperor's reign" your husband adds.

Joseph answers: Italian. Danish. English. Swedish. French. Spanish. Norwegian.

Connie agrees she speaks Spanish, making you jump in excitement.

"Oh, I didn't know that!" you beam. "Wait, does that mean you did get what Pedro and I gossiped about you?"

"What?" Joseph asks.

"Nada" you quickly correct yourself. "Yo no dije nada"

"Not that much. I just speak a bit of Spanish. I mostly dominate my own language, German and English"

"You blew our cover!" Pedro nags, hitting your bare leg, yet its devoid of anger.

"He needs a bonus" comments Connie, surprised at Joseph.

"This is horrifying" Pedro says when Joseph gets another point and a fricking bonus on top of that. "This is a slaughter"

"Oh, for which film did I have a gym built in my garage?"

Both Joseph and Paul answer the question correctly, saying Wonder Woman. The latter is quick to state they both get that point.

"That's one for me" Paul says, then looks at you. "And none for you"

You stick out your tongue at him as Connie reads the next card.

"If I were to take this cast on a vacation where would I take you?"

"Ibiza" answers Joseph. Connie agrees in Spanish, with a cute and excited correcto.

Your husband feels the need to crack a joke at Quinn's expense.

"Somebody was paying attention to Connie Nielsen very closely during the shooting of this movie"

"Okay. What is my favorite curse word in Danish?"

"Fuck" Pedro tries.

"No"

"Nobody is going to get that, Connie" Paul bickers.

"Oh, I don't know any Danish" you lament.

"At least now you know how it feels" Mescal drops, making you snort. You playfully kick him on the ribs with your shoe.

"It's very simple" Connie gives as a clue. "It's the same word in every language"

"Shit" Paul tries.

"Satan" she reveals.

Everybody is laughing in confusion at that, saying there's no way you could use that.

"Vos Satan!" Connie curses.

Now it's Fred's turn.

"What is my weirdest on-set habit?"

"I haven't noticed you do anything weird on set" Paul tells.

"I have" Pedro interrupts.

They all get on a small briefing about what could it possibly be, that it was weird, and wasn't part of his character, as you ponder. It was funny before, but now Paul is behind you by a point. So think fast.

"Yeah. I would say being yourself" Pedro jokes, but surprisingly, it works.

"Me! Five points for Pedro" he celebrates as you all laugh. "Love Fred. Oh, Fred"

"Oh, oh, okay" he moves to the next question. "What is my favorite reality TV show?"

Joseph tries with Survivor and Paul with Alone. Truth is, you don't watch any show of said kind, only vagely hearing about Love Island.

"You and I have talked about reality TV" Pedro reveals, "It's just that we never identified one"

They keep guessing shows that sound like a foreign language to you.

"You know what's offensive? That I'm the second youngest of this cast and I have no idea what are you all talking about"

"She's not to be trusted" Pascal quips, "can't trust someone who doesn't appreciate the art of reality TV"

You huff, annoyed.

"Is it A&E stuff?" Pedro asks.

"Yeah, it's the competitive cheapskates" Fred answers. "It's people that really save money on everything"

Pedro gets the point because he mentioned the A&E bit.

"There's like this amazing guy that made a stew out of fish bones, and I just thought it was incredible" he shares. Then, moves to the next question. "What is my go-to crafty snack?"

Nobody remembers eating snacks on set, and Fred gives the clue that it's a drink. Joseph says it's a smoothie, and he does remember it but it isn't the answser.

"I'm thinking of something specific. That Emerge-C that you put in the water"

"Oh, that's very good" you agree, so does the rest, even discussing the best colors

"Who in the cast would I ask to bail me out of jail?"

Everyone even Pedro agree its him. Everyone gets a point, yet Joseph remains ahead.

It's Joseph's turn. "What is my favorite sport?"

"Skateboarding" Paul is so quick to answer, earning him two points for both being correct and time.

"What celebrity do I get mistaken for?"

"Daisy Edgar-Jones sometimes" says Mescal. Of course he had to bring her up.

"No, she gets mistaken for me" Joseph jokes. "Yeah, poor Daisy. But I'm writing it down"

"That was the two letters?" Pedro notices. Still, no one gets it.

It's fucking Justin Timberlake. You'd never guess that.

"What is my favorite film franchise?"

You've probaly named all the existing franchises to no avail. You think fo your dad, a huge geek, trying to remember if there is one missing.

"Oh- Lord of the Rings!" you both answer with Paul at the same time.

"C'mon!" his celebration is short lived when he realizes you tied to him.

"What is my favorite British slang word?"

Pedro says it can't be said, but Quinn insists they can, even adding it's his favorite one too.

"We can say bad words? We can say-?" but the camera beeps over it.

The answer is Bellend. What even is that? Joseph feigns sadness and Pedro keeps apologizing, even as you sit on the chair.

"Okay. I'm last"you wiggle your eyebrows with interest. "Let's see. Okay, first question: what did I take from the Gladiator II set?"

"You took something?" Joseph asks on disbelief.

"Why wouldn't I take something?"

"Is it like an item or memorabilia?" asks Connie.

"It's an item" you uncap the marker, scribbling down the answer.

"It's a short word" Fred points out, but still can't provide a guess.

"You took the rings home" Pedro answers. You snap your had on his way, probably obvious. "What? You told me" he says.

Of course Paul complains. "Hey, that isn't fair! He knew the answer before!"

"Well, if you payed more attention to me, you'd know it"

Lies. Pedro knows because it's sitting in the jewelry box inside your house.

"See? I do pay attention" Pedro playfully hits Mescal.

"I could pay you more attention" he looks at you.

"Alright, then do. Ready? Next question: what is my go-to movie? Oh, this is a good one. I'm always changing it, but most of the time I end up choosing the same one"

They all give you a puzzled look as you scribble.

"C'mon, guys! I've said it on interviews before too. Paul?" the man shrugs. "Thought you said you'd pay me more attention. Heads up, you're doing a terrible job so far!"

"Hey!" he protests. "It's not fair if the answer's changing. Give us a clue"

"You didn't give any clues to yours!" you giggle. "Besides, I don't want you to win"

"Hey, that's against the rules!"

"I'd say it depends on the season" Pedro speaks up. You quirk an eyebrow. "Like, if it's changing, I don't think your Christmas go-to movie is the same as your summer one"

"Actually" you smile fondly, "that is true. On summer, it's Mamma Mia. So I suppose, if you can't guess the one, that'll do"

"No" he smiles, cheeky. "I know it too"

"Yeah?" you challenge, "what is it, then?"

"It's Thelma and Louise" he answers, and your heart beats fast.

"How do you know?" Paul inquires. "Somebody was paying attention to Y/n L/n very closely during the shooting of this movie"

Ah, his joke from earlier. Joseph giggles behind him. Karma, he supposes.

"She said it on an interview, guys. C'mon, learn your sources!"

"Okay" you clear your throat. "What movie got me into acting?"

"Thelma and Louise" Joseph tries.

"No" you laugh, "you're just recycling the answer"

"Is it an old or modern movie?" Connie asks.

"Hmh, old" you pause, "just not... I don't know if you'll ever guess it"

"Is it a Pedro Almodóvar film?" you shake your head. "What? You're always mentioning him!"

Pedro looks into your eyes amid the others' discussion, and you can tell he remembers the conversation.

"There isn't one"

You smile, chest pounding at his soft tone.

"That's correct"

"A trick question?!" Paul yells. "I quit"

"When there's just one left?" you tease.

"Yes, because you've been hiding it all the time but no more" he counters, pointing both you and Pedro. You feel the space getting smaller, breaths going from even to noticeable. "You are sharing answers"

You try to make your breath of relief pass as a chuckle.

"I'm not even gonna win, relax. And drop the charges, please. Loose like a man"

"You didn't explain it though" Connie speaks. "What did Pedro mean?"

"While I have many movies that are inspiration to me, they aren't the reason I chose this path. I did it because I saw an Oscar's ceremony when I was 11" you explain fondly, feeling warm at the memories. "I still remember when they handed the award to Diablo Cody for best original screenplay. I don't know, man, it moved me. What it meant for young artists who came from nothing. I guess I wanted, one day, to be the one standing there, for other dreamers to see it's possible"

"Wow, that's beautiful" Connie says.

"Thank you" you get flustered. "Suppose it was worth it, you know, to do interviews about not really knowing my cast mates" and laugh.

"How does Pedro know, though?" Joseph asks.

"We talk a lot" you clear your throat. "Last one: what indie horror movie did I make a small appearence in? I'm feeling generous because it's the last so I'll give you a clue. It's a Stephen King adaptation"

Paul is the first to speak. "You where in a-"

"Yeah but it wasn't such a huge role. Don't make yourself any ideas"

"I have no idea" Connie surrenders. "Other clue, as in how many words?"

"It doesn't even have any words" you laugh. "You give up? It's 1922. Was an extra as well. Made me think Netflix had my name highlighted in the extra call sheet, because I did so many minor and background roles during that year. Grateful, though, because now I get to be Rome's empress and not fortune teller or highschool #6"

The interview ends, and the camera may or may have not captured the last seconds, Pedro's gaze fixated with you the entire time.

elysyannemimi: we all saw that right? GET PEDRO AND Y/N IN A ROMCOM ❗THEIR CHEMISTRY IS INSANE❗ at0michips: love paul and y/n so much 😭😭 gimme enemies to lovers RN ㅤㅤbobgirllll: at0michips wait what if paul and y/n are secretly dating 😳 ㅤㅤann-gell: bobgirllll quick question are u dumb unhing3dprincess: i bet my grandma they're married. it has to be. trust me ㅤㅤstarlightt180: unhing3dprincess BESTIE U ARE BACK

You arrived in London today. The premiere will be in a few days, and things have been, well, hectic.

Lux couldn't stop talking all the plane ride, but your mind kept going back at the email your manager had sent you before you had boarded the plane.

It's catching upon you, read the haunting message. Attached below, a TMZ article that claimed a regular church attendee had seen you both getting married. It also used a lot of the noise fans had been making on social media, connecting dots or just hyping up the undeniable chemistry. It ended with a little paragraph saying it was obvios, and they're just hoping you'd confirmed it.

You came to realize you didn't care about it anymore. Sure, the pushing around annoyed you, but the thought of still keeping your marriage under wraps feels pointless now. Why wouldn't you shout to the world how in love with your husband you are?

Yet, when you arrive at the hotel, you keep the same protocol of arriving after Pedro, who has already checked in with two keys, claiming its for him and his sister, while you ask for the key to Lux's actual room. After you swipe cards with her, you head over the room you'd be sharing with your husband.

His face appears in your frame, everything happening quickly.

"Get inside. Now"

Your body is dragged inside the hotel room, not even giving you time to swipe the key for yourself.

"Pedro!" you exclaim, between surprised and confused. "What the hell is your problem?"

"Did you read it?"

"What? The article?" your tone is filled with annoyance. "Yes, I did. Why?"

"What do you mean why?" he snaps, voice raising higher. "Don't play dumb with me. You know fans have fuelled the rumors, and tabloids have started digging every corner in fucking California"

"So, what? You're acting as if people finding out is the worst thing in the world" you roll your eyes.

"It is, yes!" Pedro bursts out, caving in to the stress.

It feels like you've been hit across your face.

"Excuse me?" you seethe, hurt etched all across your features. "Would it be the worst thing in the world to admit you're married to the person you supposedly love the most?"

"I love you, y/n. It's just-"

His voice softens, trying to reach for you, yet you pull back, his hand falling to his side in an akward manner. He sighs in frustration, running a hand through his hair as he sits on the edge of the bed.

"I love you" he repeats, sounding much more sure this time.

Your frame seems smaller as your voice comes out hoarse, filled with emotion, appearing to be in the brink of tears:

"Then why do you act like you're embarrassed of me?"

He hates himself for making you feel this way, making you think things that aren't true.

"I don't. Never" he emphasizes. Then, tries to reach once again when you move a little bit closer to him, recognizing that's your way of letting him know you're ready. "You're the most precious thing in the world to me, don't ever think the opposite" then he sighs, heavy. "I'm just scared"

You silently ask him to explain, rubbing his thumb soothingly across his tattoo.

"You're so young, and I'm, well- I know we're aware of it, but people are cruel and the press is ruthless. I don't want to see your name dragged across the mud because you decided to marry me. Your career is starting, and I'd never forgive myself is something happened to you because of me. Not trying to make this about me, yeah? But this industry is fucked up. You've work hard to get to where you are, and it'll be unfair if you'd loose it. I'm scared because us..." he wavers, words trailing off. "I want us to be. I wouldn't want to live in a world without you, i-it would kill me not to have you be my wife"

You desperately want to kiss off the worry on his face, but let him finish.

"N-not saying our love is weak, or anything! That a couple of opinions or tabloids will- you know? Just, I-I don't want them to break us apart. Mi vida, you're the light of my life. Please, forgive me, I-"

He feels his throat closing up, words failing to come out. You sense the grip on your hand to be stronger, immediately letting loose of it.

"Hey. C'mere" your voice is tender, allowing him to bury his face in your stomach as you comb his messy curls with your fingers. "It's okay, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere"

He lets himself melt under your touch, his mind loosing itself in the soft of your digits and your perfume up his nostrils. He's again breathing normaly, hands now hugging your waist.

"There you go. Better?" Pedro nods, still not being able to talk. "That's okay, take all the time you need. We have all day"

"Do we?" he raises his view, his eyes soft yet there is something else to the brown shade.

You hum as to nod. "We agreed to join Lux for dinner. It's barely 1pm"

"Tell me you're thinking it too" his voice cuts throughout the air, boucing off the tapestry on the walls.

You laugh, nervously. "I don't think I do"

"Hmmh, I see" he stands up, towering over you. "You sure you don't?"

"You sure you want this?"

Before you know it, his lips capture yours in a passionate kiss, cutting off all words to be said. What a waste of air, anyway. You are quick to reciprocate, whimpering against his lips.

Pedro picks you up like you're as light as a feather, his arms flexing as he carries you and places you on the bed, frame hovering over yours. He breaks the kiss to breath, but you're pulling him back in, his hold on your hips tighter and the wet spot in your panties wetter.

"Look at you, pretty baby. So needy" he whispers against your face, hot breath lingering above your lips. "And mine. Mía. Only mine"

"I am, yes. Yours only. Need you so bad right now, papi" you answer in a rush. "Now shut up and fuck me"

"Con gusto" he chuckles darkly, "gotta keep the wife happy"

"Happy wife, happy life" you recite, stripping him off of his plain shirt, revealing his toned torso, bulging biceps defined by the movements. You gulp. "Fuck, papi. Gotta thank Marvel for this. I love all of your versions, but I can work with this too" you dreamily stare at him, your hands cupping his face.

He strips the rest of his clothing, but a cute blush adorns his cheeks.

"Yeah, well, it's Scott's fault too"

Your impatient fingers reach the middle of your panties to rub your clothed pussy, letting out a sound that darkens his hazel orbs.

"Fuck that guy" you mutter. Pedro laughs.

"Thought you said you loved the guy"

"Until I learned what he said about your body" you groan, still rubbing. "Connie told me"

His hands now travel to remove your clothes, almost ripping them off.

"Who cares? I just want to fuck you now" he breathes out, practically drooling at the sight of your damp panties. "Lemme take this off too"

He unhooks your bra, seeing the hard nipples. The urge to lick them is so bad, but his desire to fill you silly to the brim is stronger.

You see his hesitation, which is why you grab him by the neck to pull him in for a kiss. He kisses back fiercely, labored breaths as he struggles to focus on your lips, his wet mouth darting to your jaw, neck and collarbones. His hands roam all over your body, needy.

"Gotta be inside of you, mami. Can't wait any longer"

"Then stop waiting" you plead, tugging at his boxers with urgency.

Seeing you so cockhungry, lips parted and pupils blown wide makes his hard dick twitch with anticipation.

He mutters a labored fuck, aligning himself to enter your sticky folds. Pedro enters your tight pussy with a low groan, burying himself deep inside of you, used to his length by now. You're basically begging for it, nails digging and eyes supplicating.

He can't deny you anything, can he?

A messy whine leaves your widened mouth as you adjust, pleasure mixed with pain.

"Mhmm" you moan.

"Mhmm what?" he mocks. "You asked for it. Now take it, cariño"

He thrusts deeper into you, watching in awe how his dick enters your pussy; it was always perfectly, your pussy made for him.

"You're drippin' baby" his rough voice caresses your cheek. He kisses the are, giving a lick to the sweat starting to form. "S'fucking tight too"

You move your hips towards him, trying to augment the friction. The overstimulation starts to cloud your sense, reducing you to a whiny mess as you grip his steady arms.

"I can't think of anything but you, baby" he confesses between grunts, "filling up your pussy to the brim, you dripping with my seed for days"

You moan at the filthy words.

"Love how you take my dick, amor" stretching you as Pedro moves in and out. "S'made for me"

"Yes" you moan, skin slapping sounds bouncing off the walls. "Fuck, I love your dick..."

His pace picks up, and it comes to a point where he's just fucking you silly, his grip on your hips surely to leave a bruise as you keep spilling obscene sounds of pleasure from your lips.

"Your pussy's mine, yeah? No one else gets to have you like this"

"N-no, just you, Pedro. My h-husband" you manage to squeeze, more moans vocalizing the pleasure you felt with each thrust, his big dick inside of you moving in a a steady rhythm, making your eyes roll back further and orgasm closer.

Your breasts bounce with each thrust, and he finds impossible to resist the urge anymore, licking the sensible skin and hard nipples, your hands moving to his back, scratching him harshly, both chasing your release.

"Please!" you whine out loud, not caring how desperate you sound.

Harder. Faster. Rougher.

But your husband knows you, so he indeed starts to fuck you harder, heavy breaths and slippy kiss noises hanging in the spaces between each thrusts. He pants with every motion of his dick, a knot forming on his belly.

"Shit, baby. I think I'm gonna cum. Gonna come so hard"

"Do it. I'm on birth control, remember?" you groan, feeling your high approach as well. "Fill me up, please. Give me all your cum"

Your bodies move as one, precise thrusts hitting exactly that sweet spot of yours repeatedly, chasing your orgasm. For a brief moment, your eyes lock with his and then he's saying:

"I love you, y/n. So much"

Your heart skips a bit, his dick twitching inside as his gaze glimmers with adoration and possesiveness, teeth grazing your skin with marks for him to call you his.

"I love you too, Pedro. More than you know"

A final thrust is delivered. Fuck, feels so good you think you hear him say. Just like promised, he fills you with his release, shots of his thick, warm cum inside your sticky walls. You follow soon, back arching, toes curling, and both head and eyes rolling back. Pedro falls on top of you, his broad body collapsing over yours, as you both pant hard, trying to steady your pulse and breath. He then removes himself and positions you to be the one on top now, lazily throwing the covers over your bare bodies. We need to shower, you said, but he argued you'd do it later before going out.

"I needed that" and you happily hum in agreement at your husband's dragged out words.

Your head falls and rises, with the movement of his chest, silence settling on the previously filled with sex noises room. That until he speaks up:

"One day, I'm gonna fill you up so good until you have my babies, mami" he murmurs, just then realizing what he said. But you snuggle closer, hand and legs drapped over his bare body. You look at him closely, seeing nothing but certainty on his eyes.

I choose you. I'll always choose you.

"Whatever it is with you" your nose brushes his, a small sweet kiss on his lips, "I want"

His eyes shine, probably with tears or the glow of affection.

"Let's do it"

"What?" you look into his eyes for any sign of doubt, bull all you see is love. "Pedro, are you serious?"

He nods. "Wouldn't you want that?"

You feel the corner of your lips pull up.

"Never have I wanted anything more"

poppysplayground: Y/N AND PEDRO RED CARPET DEBUT AT THE LONDON PREMIER OF GLADIATOR II WTF I JUST WOKE UP ptwt is in SHAMBLES mostannoyingbillioner: UM HELLO pedro showing up with two hot women on his arms LUX GIMME A CHANCE pompeiianbollockr: WAIT WDYM THEY ARE MARRIED?!??! ALL THIS TIME?@?#? HOW???! NEED BIGGER CAPS TO SCREAM I'M GOING INSANE at0michips: that article better come out now or i'll burn the TMZ building ann-gell: not me thirsting for a married man 😭😭😭 how they kept this a secret for so long?? we should've noticed ㅤㅤunhing3dprincess: ann-gell i did. knew betting my grandma was the way all along ㅤㅤpyramiidsf: i'm gonna start betting my grandma too

cr: divider @kodaswrld / gif @trashcora

#dilfistwrites #gladiator II #gladiator ii #gladiator 2 #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal x you #pedro x reader #pedro pascal fluff #taylor swift #reputation #call it what you want #paul mescal #call it what you want series

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lauraneedstochill · 1 month ago

Text

can’t pretend

pairing: Jack Abbot x resident!reader summary: He is puzzled with you first, then vexed, and he can’t understand his feelings. In an attempt to get to know you better (or maybe to get you out of his head), Abbot accidentally crosses the line. (or, alternatively: what if Jack met someone similar to him in many ways. traumatic past included) »»» part 2

warnings: <rivals> to friends to lovers, slow burn, mentions of blood and injuries / I’m hinting at the age gap but you can ignore it / some complicated feelings and a LOT of Jack’s thoughts (his poor therapist will need a raise); assault. ANGST. / words: 7K author’s note: this is my first fic for “The Pitt”. I binge-watched the show in 2 days and didn’t plan on writing anything but my inspiration decided otherwise. I’ve never had a beta reader in my life, please be kind. ♡

Early at dawn, the sky is just the right color — the darkness slowly dissipates, deep purple at the edges, black fading into blue. If he squints and looks above the roofs, he can pretend he’s looking at the ocean. He’s been toying with the idea for some time but it’s more of a dream, a comforting mirage: him getting a small house by the beach, waves crashing softly in the distance, clean blue water blending into the bright blue sky. He’d wake up to the sunrise, take lugs full of cooling salty air, walk in the sand that glistens under the foaming swash. He’d probably adopt a dog — someone to pass his days with, just so the silence doesn’t get too heavy, doesn’t weigh on him when he can’t sleep at night.

A passing car honks down the street, loud and sudden, and Jack flinches, opening his eyes. That’s when the perfect image always falls apart. He is afraid he will get lonely with just a dog and with nothing to do, he will be going up the walls, bored out of his mind. But he doesn’t know how not to be alone. And some days he wishes that he did.

The air in Pittsburgh doesn’t carry any scents at this morning hour, and Jack’s gaze wanders down to the tree leaves writhing in the wind. He absentmindedly rubs his wrists when he hears the door creaking behind him.

“You know, security is getting worried about you,” Robby chuckles, his steps slow. “I heard the guys making bets on how many times a week you’ll come here.”

“Says the man who likes to brood in my spot,” Jack huffs without looking at him.

“Me, brooding? No idea what you are talking about.”

Robby gets to the roof edge but stays behind the railing, leans on it and slowly stretches his arms. His tone lets empathy in when he speaks up:

“Tough night?”

The sky is overcast, a mush of white and grey clouds the blue barely peeks through, and Jack sighs as he turns away. “Remember you told me about the kid who OD’d on Xanax laced with fentanyl? The parents sat by his bed hoping he’d wake up by some miracle,” Robby only nods when Jack throws him a glance. “I’m dealing with one of those.”

They both lost patients before, and both know that it doesn’t get easier with time. You have to tuck your grief away to walk into the room with their loved ones, offer apologies that carry little meaning, take even more grief in because this isn’t about you and this loss is not for you to carry. But they do carry it — Robby memorizes lifeless faces, Jack never forgets the names of everyone he couldn’t save.

“Brain dead?”

“Yep,” Jack drawls, hands gripping the metal rails. “He’s got three sisters, and all three were begging me. And I stood there feeling absolutely useless.”

Robby watches as his friend’s knuckles turn white. “If you couldn’t do anything then there was nothing that could’ve been done. And I’m really sorry.”

If only words could bring people back from the dead, Jack thinks bitterly but doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t want to sour Robby’s mood. And he can’t help but notice — it used to bother him way more, it sometimes would eat him alive; now Jack is mostly numb.

“I’ll sleep it off,” he mumbles.

“Not staying for the welcoming party?”

It takes a few seconds for the reminder to pop up in Jack’s head: a new senior resident, today is her first day. After Collins took maternity leave, Robby spent hours on the phone, glasses pressed to the bridge of his nose as he flipped through the applications, always unsure, never satisfied. And then he got a call and drove across the city to another hospital to meet her in person — he came back beaming. Jack must’ve zoned out so he didn’t catch the details.

“Don’t think I have a very welcoming face.”

“Should’ve seen the guys she worked with. I thought her chief of surgery would literally fist-fight me after I offered her the job,” Robby cackles.

It stirs Jack’s curiosity a bit. “She’s that good?”

“I believe she is. Skilled, confident, haven’t heard a single bad thing about her,” and even though his voice is certain, Robby dithers, bringing a hand to the back of his neck.

“But... ? I sense a but coming.”

“No-no, she’s great, really, and I made up my mind. It’s just that… She comes off as quite stubborn, and I feel like she is used to flying solo,” his eyes dart to Jack. “Reminds me of someone I know,” a smile grazes his lips, an unvoiced comparison he can’t help but draw.

Jack doesn’t see it, his gaze set somewhere on the horizon. “We all have to be team players here, that’s how it works,” he says dismissively. “I’m sure she’ll learn.”

The streets are getting busy, filling with people talking, rushing, making endless calls — and with more honking and more sounds that all merge into one unpleasant noise. And Jack is getting really tired.

“I should go back. Don’t want anyone to scare her off,” Robby puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder, a friendly but firm grip. “I’d also rather not waste my time on scraping your frail body off the pavement. Let me walk you out.”

“Frail body? You are three years older, you bag of bones,” Jack quips, and they share a laugh, and it warms up his heart a little.

But the warmth fades as they get inside, into the weave of corridors, into the crowd of nurses and other doctors pacing, the lighting bright and harsh, the smell of antiseptics clinging to the walls like mold. And it is not as overwhelming as it’s tiresome; once he is out on the street, Jack takes a few deep breaths. It’s hardly a relief.

As he passes by the park, exhaustion already on his heels, he suddenly picks up a sound, something between a whine and a small woof. Jack looks around to find the source peeping out from behind the bushes — brown eyes, wet nose, grey fluffy ears, one marked with a white spot. When Jack takes a step closer, the stray puppy immediately runs off.

On his way home he gets some dog treats and throws them in his bag. He tries thinking of pet names but nothing comes to mind. And when he falls into his cold bed, thick curtains not letting any light reach him, he dreams of standing on a long road framed with grass, a murmuring of waves heard through the mist. But he can’t see the ocean.

It keeps raining, and they have to close the roof — “Merely a precaution, sir, we don’t want anyone to slip. I heard the weather is supposed to clear up in a few days,” one of the guards assures Jack. His mood these days is just as gloomy as the sky. But he’s a man of habit, so every time Jack wants to get out to the roof, he instead gets more cases, drinks more coffee, barely a few words squeezed in between that aren’t work-related.

At first, he only catches glimpses of you.

On the days when your shifts overlap, he sees you tearing along the hallways, your hair up and your face focused, removing gowns to quickly put on fresh ones, your hands either in gloves or carrying the charts. You don’t speak much, and very few times Jack gets to walk past you, he is slightly puzzled by this combination of quiet and fast-paced.

Your first week is nearing its end when Dana prompts Jack to make a proper introduction. She calls him uncooperative and calls for you herself when she sees you leaving trauma#1. You swiftly come by the nurses' station and glance up at the board — and then you finally face Jack, your gaze so piercing, it catches him off guard. He clears his throat and manages a greeting, a bit coolly.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Abbot,” you tell him calmly, offering a hand. And you don’t look away, and your handshake is firmer than he would expect. The next thing you are holding is another chart, eyes following the lines of words and numbers as you step away, Whitaker barely keeping up.

“She is so fast, she’s almost flying. Beautiful,” Princess notes approvingly, and Perlah hums in agreement.

Their voices snap him back into reality, and Jack inhales sharply, only now realizing his gaze is still on you. He looks down, pretending he needs to fix his watch. “What is this, a fan club?”

“Aw, no need to be so jealous. You will always be our favorite old white doctor,” Princess teases.

Perlah gives her a side-eye. “I thought Dr. Robby was our favorite.”

“Well, yes. But I have a soft spot for men in existential crisis,” Princess winks at him.

Perlah rolls her eyes. “They are all in existential crisis.”

“And I wonder why,” Jack deadpans, then picks a case just so he’s got an excuse to leave. And maybe an excuse to pass by the room you’re in, your gloved hands already stained with crimson.

He starts watching you more often, an impulse he can’t necessarily explain.

He’s careful, he’s not staring, but his hazel eyes always pick you out from the crowd. He’s taking mental notes: you lean on doors with your right shoulder when you rush in, you scan the injured head to toe in every case, hands moving quickly in tandem with your gaze. You never raise your voice but you keep eye contact — with the interns when you give instructions and with the patients to make sure they understand what’s going on. You are efficient with your work-ups, you’re the first one to come in and you stay late to turn your patients over to the night shift. You are meticulous and disciplined in a way he finds relatable; in three weeks' time there’s a foundation laid for him to grow respectful. But sometimes Jack can’t stop the thought: he is yet to see your smile. He is also yet to see you slip up, and that is bound to happen because no doctor is without fault.

A month in, he thinks you finally come close to failure.

A patient is wheeled in on a gurney, gesticulating, red in the face from how displeased or pained he is (probably both); still, as you talk to him, he makes pauses to listen. There’s blood on his chest and his speech is slurring, and Jack’s gaze follows you. From where he’s standing, he can see you clearly, so he can’t help but glance up a few times from his computer screen. It’s all the same routine and it seems to be working smoothly — but when he takes another peek, he sees you frozen.

Jack instantly draws near, alert and observing through the glass: the man is intubated, his shirt cut and chest bared — and with a nail sticking right out of where his heart should be. The monitors go off as the blood pressure drops. When Whitaker makes eye contact with him, Jack takes that as an invitation to come in.

“What do we got here?”

Whitaker looks half worried, half relieved. “Um-m, 41 years old male, nail to the chest, intracardiac. Prepped for the thoracotomy. Cardio is tied up with another surgery, and it’s at least 15 more minutes until we can get an O.R.”

Jack knows the patient doesn’t have that long. His gaze flickers to you but you do not meet it, and he can’t tell what you are looking at. There is no time to guess — if you’ve never cracked into someone’s chest, he’ll gladly guide you. And his guidance is assertive, if a little cocky.

“It’s not every day that you get to do a thoracotomy. And it can be daunting — also, pretty risky if you ask me—”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking,” you retort abruptly without even sparing him a glance.

And then you pick the scalpel and make the first incision, your hands steady and never hesitating, the confidence of a tsunami sweeping rocks away.

Jack has to take a step back because it would be childish to argue when someone’s life is hanging by a thread. And all his doubts are crushed before his very eyes the way ribs are under the pressure of a steel retractor you are holding, the metal sinking into flesh and blood to give you access to the heart. After the nail is out — long but intact, you deal with excess fluid and with the bleeding — and you are more nimble than he is, than he’s ever seen the other doctors be.

“Well, call me impressed,” Jack says earnestly.

The silence is a little awkward — a couple of seconds before you give reply: “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

He wonders if maybe his compliment might’ve come as patronizing. What he knows for sure is that you do not need his help. But when he backs away, he sees a glint out of the corner of his eye — dog tags left in the pile of the man’s belongings on the floor. Jack has the same tags hanging on a chain around his neck. He almost doesn’t feel the weight of them but the memories they bring are heavy — sometimes an image flashing through his mind, sometimes a nightmare stirring him awake. And mostly it’s the latter.

But today, as his shift goes on, he isn’t thinking of torn limbs and collapsing buildings and bombings that looked like firecrackers in the night. Those weren’t the reasons he kept going back — he never once craved violence, never really cared about the money. For him, it was the roar of the adrenaline and the belief that even amidst the death and ruins, he could make a change. He hasn’t felt that for a while: the rush, the determination, the power held in your hands when you are cutting into someone’s body, fixing the organs and sewing the skin together, bringing the life back in. He lacks that spark, he misses it, he wants to get it back. To prove to himself that he still can do that — or maybe not only to himself.

So now he isn’t watching you but studying, with a diligence of a man who once had to learn how to walk again.

He starts work earlier just so he can get more patients — but also to listen in on your case reports and trail your steps, peek into trauma rooms you run in and out of. He often finds himself holding back the questions: damn, how did you do that? How come you easily catch things others take so long to figure out? You take on complicated cases: a feeble woman who can’t hold her food down, her arms marked with a red rash; a young jogger who keeps fainting, short of breath; a man whose neck hurts, the pain radiating to his chest. And you examine them and pick the clues to solve the tangle of the symptoms — it’s Celiac disease, it’s kidney failure, it’s spondylodiscitis and you know exactly how to treat it. But Jack knows all these answers too. And even if they don’t click in his mind as quickly as they do in yours, it’s still a victory: he’s not as rusty as he thought he was, he is enjoying this. He can’t believe he almost let himself forget.

When he decides to try a day shift for a change, he’s met with Dana’s worried face, her wondering out loud if he feels okay. She then proceeds to ask the same question two more times, just to make sure.

“You on day shifts may be the thing that saves Robby from a heart attack, you know,” her face softens.

“Are you saying you guys get way more action than us night owls?”

Dana grins. “What, you are already reconsidering your choices?”

“Like hell I am,” one corner of his mouth hints at a smirk.

The day is busy, and he can barely catch a break, but it isn’t a chore: he’s equally enthusiastic about a road accident that left a guy with a skull fracture, an appendectomy, a stoned teenage with a knife stuck in his thigh, a street worker with a leg broken in two places. An hour before his shift ends, they get a lacrosse team of middle schoolers, and the staff shares an exasperated sigh; but not Jack. He fixes broken noses and split eyebrows and some nasty shoulder dislocations, then goes to talk to their coach — a woman in her fifties, robust and perhaps too loud with her scolding. But her blaring voice cracks as soon as the kids are out of her sight. At some point, Jack finds himself holding her hand in reassurance, and she jokes that she’d gladly marry him if only she didn’t have a wife. She also promises that all the kids' parents will give the hospital the highest ranking. And they do.

Jack clocks out when the sky is colored orange, the shadows bleeding on the pavement, and his limbs hum but this weariness is pleasant. He is content, he’s almost joyous — the almost comes from you having a day off. He got to work with so many people, why would your presence make a difference? Jack persuades himself it’s not the reason he takes a few more mornings.

But when he comes back the next time, and you’re already there, there is this weird feeling in his ribcage — a spill of heat, a flutter of his heart. He blames it on the caffeine. You stand with your eyes glued to the chart while Princess lets out a big yawn.

“If another lacrosse team comes in today, I might actually quit,” she laments.

“Send them my way,” you say with ease, without missing a beat.

“That’s ten people,” she punctuates, incredulous. “We got lucky they were just kids. Grown-up men who slam into each other while voluntarily chasing a ball scare me.”

“I’m not easily scared,” you carefully tap on the screen, scrolling through some case report, someone’s illnesses broken into signs and terms; but you do pay attention to what she’s saying. You glance up at the nurse, your voice kind: “If you ever need help, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

And then you look over your shoulder as if you can feel him watching — and it’s the same as the first time: your gaze startles him, like would a fire eruption or a ball lightning. But Jack’s greeting stays rooted in his mouth because Mateo sprints in:

“Hey, there’s something wrong with my patient’s veins, can someone take a look?”

And you are by his side and following him out of the hall in what feels like barely a second.

“I’m so grateful for you!” Princess calls after you. Then she spots Jack too, her face expression turning smug. “Oh, hello there, boss,” and she grins like she knows a secret Jack wasn’t let in on.

Turns out, Robby showed his gratitude by taking a sick leave, the first in three years (Jack would’ve sent him home himself if he heard Robby’s muffled coughing one more time). And it left Jack with way more shifts to cover. He readily gulps coffee from his to-go mug as he skims through the list of patients. The others join him soon: Mel smiles at everyone, the ever-optimistic one, Whitaker looks like hasn’t slept in months, and Santos teases him about something Jack doesn’t care to listen to. McKay is running late. Langton walks briskly to the nurses' station, taps on the tabletop right next to Jack.

“Ready to get back in the game?”

“I’ve been in the game for more years than you can count on your fingers,” Jack gives him a cold stare.

Frank sighs, his fingers drumming on the wooden surface, although he sounds barely concerned. “Love the positive attitude. Dr Robby surely won’t be missed.”

“As if you are such a pleasure to work with,” Dana cuts in, hands on her hips. “You guys should redirect that buzzing testosterone into your work. No one is getting paid for whining.”

“Preach,” Jack huffs as he steps away.

He stops himself from immediately going to check up on you. And twenty minutes later, he is glad that he did — you walk back, unruffled as you always are, Matteo tagging after you. His patient is an old lady with thrombocytopenia she probably ignored until it got too bad: there are bruises sprinkled on her arms and legs, a splotch of dried blood under her nose from how often it’s been bleeding. You gave her a platelet transfusion but you suspect it’s cancer; you order more blood tests and bring her a blanket before she even asks for it. Her eyes well up, voice shaking with heartfelt gratitude. And Jack has to remind himself that he can’t pick any favorites, he isn’t in it for the long run; but if he was to pick, it would’ve been an easy choice. And no one lags behind today — he’s got a well-coordinated team, like gears interlocking in a clock, the harmony built out of weeks of practice. They make jokes, share work stories and snacks; but every time Jack’s eyes get back to you, he can’t catch even a ghost of a smile.

He finds that you are very hard to read. And it unnerves him, maybe just a little.

He tries for his attempts to look brief and nonchalant — a kind word here and there, a quick approving look, a dry joke — and you offer nothing in return. As thorough as you are with diagnosing, you take no part in other conversations, you rarely take breaks or stand around. By the time the noon rolls in, Jack is fighting the urge to grab you by the shoulders: hey, take a seat and have something to eat. And tell me how can I cadge a laugh out of you, just one will be enough.

Dana waves a hand before his face, the phone up to her ear. “There’s been some gang fight at the North Side. Four victims coming in, two critical — one shot in the stomach, the other has his head smashed in. Don’t think they both will make it.”

Jack’s bet is on the first guy but it’s the head injury that’s fatal — the victim is pronounced dead, face so disfigured they’ll need a DNA test. Mel looks away in shock, and Santos frowns. Your stare is blank and unimpressed. You volunteer to take the third guy with a pelvic wound — he’s rambling incoherently, the tight bandage over his hip already soaked; you press your hand to it on the way to trauma. Jack leaves the worst case to himself.

“Who’s down for an ex-lap?”

“Can I run the bowel? I’ve never done it,” Santos asks, hopeful.

“Sure. Once we open the abdomen and remove the bullet, you can have your fun,” he offers, and she runs along with joy.

Although Jack can’t imagine a procedure less joyful. Yet, he is fueled by his new-found appreciation for his job so he walks her through the steps: identify the entry wound and cut in, look for the bleeding and what the bullet might’ve hit. It missed the liver by an inch; but to confirm the damage they need to evaluate the area by hand.

Perlah peeks into the room. “Is he stable?”

“Well, unless Dr. Santos gets too excited and makes a bow out of his intestines,” her hands stop, and Jack breathes out a chuckle. “I’m just joking, keep going. I’d say, his vitals do look promising.”

“Then you can keep him down here for a bit. We have a guy with a balloon in his aorta, he’s gotta go up first.”

Jack blinks at her once, twice, the meaning of her words settling in. “Did someone do a REBOA?”

“You bet she did. And it was awesome,” the nurse then scrunches her nose. “Apart from the amount of blood. And by the way, the fourth one only has a broken rib, so no miraculous procedures needed.”

He doesn’t find it funny and he can’t find the word for it: it’s something in between confusion and offence. As soon as Santos’s done with stitches, he strides out to find you.

His turmoil momentarily recedes when he sees one of the cubicle curtains stained, the deep red lurking through. Jack pulls at the material and barges in — and then he’s silenced at the sight. The area looks horrifying: bright streaks of blood left on the floor, the anesthesia trolley, the table with the instruments that you are now collecting, a few droplets smudged over your cheek. Before he’s even angry, there is another feeling — a thought, a pull: if only he could brush that splatter off your face, a few brief seconds for one briefest touch. Of course, he doesn’t.

Jack keeps his hands behind his back. “You didn’t think you should consult with anyone first before doing a damn REBOA?”

“Why would I?” your eyes are on the tools.

“Because it’s dangerous as hell and since I am the attending—”

“I do know protocol. But I also know how fast a human can bleed out. It was a truncal hemorrhage, and you were hands deep in someone’s abdomen. Was I supposed to wait?”

He wishes you were meaner, rougher, anything that would give him an excuse to snap. But you aren’t doing this to show off — your tone is measured and your reasoning is simple: a man was dying and you knew how to save him. Jack realizes it is the same logic he often uses. And he can’t tell what is it that bothers him so much. If Whitaker pulled off something like that, Jack would’ve chosen to commend him. The same goes for Santos, Javadi or King, for any other intern or resident that he can think of... Except, they would’ve asked for his opinion or his help. You didn’t even think to.

Well, Robby warned him you’d be stubborn.

“I want to be informed about any life-altering decisions. At least give me a heads-up so I am not blindsided when a nurse gushes over it in passing,” Jack insists, head tilted slightly so he can catch your gaze.

What he really wants is for you to look at him. You grant him that one wish.

“Will do,” you tell him simply.

But your eyes are still unreadable, a book written in a foreign language, a manuscript he doesn’t know how to decrypt.

And either out of incomprehension or rejection, his brain makes an assumption: maybe you believe that you are better, maybe you think the rules weren’t made for you. You never really gave him cause for rivalry — you are in your final year of residency, and Jack is put in charge. But you are so bluntly independent and reserved, his every try to understand you feels like leaping in the dark. Later that day he can’t help but glimpse into your file — there’s hardly anything of interest: you previously trained in a small clinic, in a nice neighborhood, your letters of recommendation all consist of praises.

What adds to his moroseness is that you fit really well with literally everybody else. Langdon tones down his sarcasm, listens to you like he only does to Robby. Santos discreetly brings you cases she needs advice on, McKay and Mel enjoy your company when you get a free minute. Whitaker seems to be your favorite although Jack isn’t sure why — he deems him soft and insecure; but Dennis does a better job under your guidance. On rare occasions when he’s got a day off, Javadi always takes his place.

Jack figures out everyone’s relationships by his fourth morning shift; he hasn’t gotten any closer to figuring you out. He’s fighting the grimace at how bitter his coffee is when Javadi pops out in the hall and you follow suit. He catches scraps of your conversation: something about a teen with a gashed forehead. Javadi rambles — until you ask her nonchalantly, unprompted. “You don’t like the sight of blood?”

“What? Oh no, it’s fine! I’m totally fine,” Victoria stumbles over the words, but her denial is too meek.

From how nervous she is, Jack guesses that she’s lying. He almost wants to laugh — before a thought comes to his mind: how come he never noticed her fear of blood?

“It’s just a little disturbing sometimes... But I only passed out, like, once or twice.”

“I used to be like that. Fainted many times during blood tests,” you tell her quietly while entering some data.

Jack is so caught in disbelief, he can’t help a glance in your direction. But your sincerity doesn’t seem feigned. Javadi gapes at you.

“And how did you... what did you do to overcome it?”

“I found myself in a situation where someone needed help and there was no one else around to help him,” you shrug. And Jack discerns the subtle reticence behind your tone.

It only spurs Javadi’s interest. “Was there a lot of blood? Like, a heavy bleeding, a deep wound?”

Your fingers freeze over the tablet screen, your facial profile not betraying your true feelings. But Jack swears he can see the tension crawling down your body. You don’t give the answer right away, you weigh the words carefully before you say them.

“A drug overdose, he still had a needle in his arm and I must’ve missed it. Took barely a minute of chest compressions for the needle to fly out across the room. It was a lot of blood to me.”

Javadi’s hopefulness grows dim. “Yeah, I don’t like needles too. I tried drawing blood a few times but the process kinda makes me nauseous, and I can’t force myself to —”

“It’s different when it’s someone you care about.”

Your comment slips out involuntarily — and immediately you look like you want to take it back. But you get it together and meet her eyes, your voice carrying just the right amount of firmness.

“Listen, I’m not suggesting you should torture your family members. But you may not always have attendings by your side or someone else to take your place in case you feel like fainting. If you fall, you can hurt your head, you can hurt a patient, you can disrupt a surgery when every minute counts. I think you have a good head on your shoulders, and I don’t want to downplay your efforts. But please, figure it out. Otherwise, you won’t make for a good surgeon.”

You reassure her you won’t tell anyone her secret. Javadi manages a small smile, a hushed “thank you”. It is a sweet moment, a heart-to-heart chat you bond over; it’s also three times more words than you’ve spoken to Jack in weeks.

But he accepts your silence — as a challenge.

Jack keeps an eye on you, now critical, resisting the gravitation that’s been attracting him to you. Although it’s hard to find the reasons to be hard on you. Whenever he has questions — or more so when he can come up with some, you give detailed replies, and he’s left with nothing to complain about. Your patient satisfaction score is high, you are never facile or reckless with your judgment; with how smart you are, you can give odds to many doctors, him included. And Jack knows he is older, with years of experience under his belt — but he can’t in good faith wish for anyone to go through the same things he did to gain the same knowledge.

On his second week of day shifts he is still clueless about what to make of you. And Jack tells himself that he is simply looking for a connection — except, all his attempts look like he is trying to pick a fight.

“This is a teaching hospital. You are supposed to teach them things,” he grumbles as he meets you outside the trauma room. You got a guy who came in spitting blood — post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage, and things went south pretty quickly. He started choking, crashed, his airways flooded with liquid; you had to intubate him blindly. Whitaker spent an hour by your side, his questions endless — to which you did give answers, barely ever breaking focus, but you only allowed him to use suction.

“He’ll learn plenty if he is attentive enough,” you say, throwing away the gown, trying to put some distance in between you.

Jack doesn’t like it, he keeps pace with you. “Whitaker needs more practice, as much as he can get. He’s not supposed to stand there like some deer who wandered into the yard.”

You whirl around, so fast that Jack comes to a stop when you are separated by merely an inch. And your gaze burns, like lava seeping through the mountain’s restrain.

“And I needed the patient not to die on the table,” you bite back, then breathe in — and then add more coolly. “Dennis will get his chance to shine.”

“And when exactly is that gonna happen?”

“That’s for me to decide,” you state, like you would do a fact that can’t be questioned. “Thank you for your input, Dr. Abbot, but I have to get back to work.”

You turn your back to him and leave him standing there, and Jack almost feels helpless. And that’s the feeling he can’t stand. It simmers in him, it must be the reason his cheeks suddenly feel hot.

Dana tsks as she comes near, her brows furrowed and face visibly concerned.

“You know how I’ve been calling Robby a sad boy? I’m gonna start calling you a pissy boy.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called,” he dismisses, a humorless escape attempt. But her fingers grab at his elbow, and he pauses with an annoyed exhale.

“I’ve been watching you hammering away at her for days,” Dana makes sure to lower her voice. “If she was a student, I’d maybe let it slide, but she is a resident, a senior one. And nothing I am seeing suggests she isn’t doing well.”

His eyes dart to her hand; then he glares stubbornly at her. She looks unfazed.

“Jack, you will take it too far one day — and you will regret it,” Dana tries to reason. “She is a good kid and she’s really good at her job. Just let her be.”

“Thank you for your input, Evans. I’d prefer to get back to work,” he frees his arm, and she allows it. But Jack can feel her worried gaze as he walks away.

He doesn’t come home until the twilight hugs the sky, until he feels like he’ll pass out on the next step. Jack wastes hours on attempts to wear himself out: he walks the entire park three times, peeping about in case the puppy comes again. It doesn’t. He stops by the bar he hasn’t been to in a few weeks, orders a beer and sips on it, his musings soon drowned out by the blasting music. The alcohol tastes weird, and the bass guitar gives him a pounding headache. He takes a walk instead of taking a bus home, two miles on foot in hopes he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

But the thought of you cuts into his mind as easily as a nail does into a human body, and it stays there, vexing and robbing him of whatever little peace he’s had.

He barely gets any sleep.

And his nights are dreamless.

It’s just another Friday, and these bring in a lot of drunks — from parties and family gatherings, from business meetings that ran late and tense until someone reached for whiskey. Jack stays behind for paperwork, a tedious pastime that keeps him pinned to an uncomfortable chair. He briefly takes eyes off the screen, stretching his neck — and then a noise catches his attention. It’s someone talking in a raised voice, someone who sounds too wasted to be reasoned with. Which sounds like a problem.

Jack finds the source with ease — the nurses all glance in the direction of the trauma room, and in support of their agitation Mateo all but flies out, his face hardened at the edges. Jack gets up and gets closer, his ears open and eyes watchful.

“Should we call security?” Dana asks warily.

Mateo brushes the suggestion off. “No, it’s fine,” — but it sounds like it’s not. “I just need a short break.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack interrupts.

And it isn’t a question but a demand for explanation Mateo can’t reject. He lets out a tired sigh.

“The guy got drunk and couldn’t hold his liquor, some passersby saw him sprawled out in an alley and called the ambulance. Came in with a nasty arm fracture. He’ll live though,” Mateo looks back at the room with obvious disdain. “Unfortunately.”

Jack promptly moves forward. “I will deal with it.”

“Hold on, Rambo,” Dana interjects. And she keeps her eyes on him while she talks to Mateo. “Did he get physical?”

“Nah, he’s too inebriated. Keeps trying to get up from the gurney but mostly he’s all talk.”

More can be heard from where they are standing — it’s some drunken yelling, a disarticulated chain of curse words. And then they hear something break, a dull sound of an object hitting a wall.

In a few seconds comes another one.

“I can’t just let him trash all of our equipment,” Jack gives Dana a pointed look.

She clucks her tongue at his persistence. “It’s not the equipment that I fear for.”

“Rest assured, Evans, I won’t give him another arm fracture.”

“I didn’t think you would, but now that you suggested it so easily—”

“Finally someone decided to take action instead of all this talking,” Perlah remarks, her gaze isn’t on either one of them. And Jack turns to follow it just in time to catch you running right into the room.

His heart falls. Why the hell are you even still here?

And it’s barely three heartbeats before a realization strikes: you can’t go there alone. He can’t let you.

Jack bolts to you without waiting for anyone’s permission. He comes in just in time to see you dodge the trolley the patient pushed at you — it slams into the wall and rolls over, the instruments scattering loudly across the floor. You don’t seem scared, but you are all tensed up, gaze fixed on the guy who’s screaming his lungs out.

“You won’t trick me! I won’t let you experiment on me!”

And you don’t look away once but you must’ve noticed Jack; your voice comes out low. “I think he’s having an episode. He needs benzodiazepines but I can’t get close to administer them.”

“And you should not,” Jack retorts, eyeing the guy with discontent. “You absolutely shouldn’t deal with him on your own. Not when he’s flapping around and yelling like a fucking psycho.”

“Silently watching him wreck the room didn’t seem like a good tactic either.”

In an instant Jack’s gaze is drawn to you, pulse racing as he is struggling to bite down his emotions: why would you put yourself in danger, why can’t you ever back down, why can’t he stay away? And unexpectedly you look at him, and your gaze isn’t a puzzle or a dare but an explanation: you can’t be mad at me for the thing you would’ve done yourself. I know you would have.

The room goes quiet but only for a moment — before another cry comes, and the patient lunges straight at you. Jack’s eye catches the movement, and at the very last second, he moves to stand in the guy’s way.

The drunkard crashes into him, hands swatting at the air, too uncoordinated to land a proper punch. And then all of a sudden he headbutts Jack. The pain is sharp, shooting toward his nose, but Jack manages to stay upright. He can’t see you stopping cold or the security approaching in a hurry and in worry.

Because Jack is only seeing red.

He breathes in through the mouth and grabs the man with both hands, rough and unflinching. Jack pushes him back to the gurney, then throws him on it, face flat against the pillow; his angry cries tone down to weak whimpers.

“Shut the fuck up. Stop moving,” Jack hisses into his ear.

He can taste the blood that oozed down to his lips and he can hear the sound of footsteps in the room. But he doesn’t let go.

Jack feels a hand on his shoulder — he turns to see one of the guards, Ahmad. “Man, let us handle this. C’mon, step away.”

Begrudgingly, Jack does. Ahmad quickly takes his place, he and two other guards strapping the patient down; Mateo wriggles in the middle to sedate the guy. He dozes off, a dark purple bruise already blooming on his forehead, drool at the corner of his mouth.

You are still standing at the exact same spot, but then your eyes land on Jack’s blooded nose, and you immediately fall out of the stupor. You rummage through the nearest drawer and get a few clean cloths, then call for Dana to bring an ice pack. The guards leave but Mateo hangs back; he pulls up a chair for Jack to sit on.

“Are you okay? Any headache or dizziness or—”

“I’m fine, no need to coddle me,” Jack waves off his concerns crankily. Mateo looks at you for some support.

“He needs a head CT,” you say, gaze glued to Jack. “Ask the radiology if they can squeeze him in.”

Mateo nods and takes off with no other questions asked. The silence is now laced with tension, and while Jack’s pain gradually subsides, his anger doesn’t. He’s not the one for chit-chats, and it’s not a 'thank you' that he wants — but an admission: he was right, and you were careless, and maybe this is the one time you can agree with him.

You lean over wordlessly and wipe the dried-up blood, pushing his head back to examine his nose. Your touch is light, fleeting, but his skin heats up under your hands. You take a penlight to check for septal hematoma; then your thumbs move from his cheekbones to his nostrils. Jack doesn’t wince or look away, eyes dark and boring into you, unblinking. You put a finger to his nose and move it slowly from side to side, watching closely as his gaze follows it.

And then you pull away, and something cracks in him, a line formed on the ocean floor after it’s shaken by an earthquake, a force that pushes waves to crash onto the shore. And all his feelings surge up, unstoppable like a tsunami.

You look for more cloths, and only with your back to him, you finally decide to speak:

“Doesn’t look like a fracture but—”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Jack bursts out, the stridency of his voice barely contained.

Your hands flinch at the sound. Jack misses it or maybe chooses to ignore it, too adamant in his displeasure, too wrapped up in it.

“Do you realize how dangerous it was for you to go here alone? What could’ve happened to you if security came late? Or do you just assume it’s not a big deal if you get hurt? Can you for at least a second consider the consequences of your relentlessness, can you imagine how dire they might be? And what it’s like for someone else to throw themselves between danger and you?”

But then you turn to him, and his tirade breaks off, the anger ebbing instantly as he sees your face expression.

It would be easy to assume he must’ve hit a nerve. Except, it looks way worse than that.

Your gaze is swept with pain, eyes wide and bright with tears you are holding back. An inhale quivers at your lips, chest heaving like you are scarcely managing to curb your feelings. Like there’s been a wall you’ve built meticulously over the years, and he didn’t just put a crack in it — no, he tore it down completely, drove through it with a bulldozer, only a mess of rubble left behind. And he knows that’s not something an apology will fix.

Jack feels the guilt already swirling in his chest as he sits straighter, eyes not leaving yours.

“Listen, I didn’t—”

“I heard you loud and clear, Dr. Abbot,” your voice is lacerating, a blade you’ve armed yourself with, steel that cuts him deep. “If my company displeases you so much, I will make sure to limit our interactions. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

You turn away, and when he sees you wipe your cheeks with one quick motion, Jack knows he is the only one to blame. But you don’t let him see your tears nor do you wait for him to talk again. You rush out of the doors, and the words he catches aren’t meant for him:

“Dana, please help Dr. Abbot with the ice pack.”

He hears her coming in and he’s almost ashamed to look — Dana meets his gaze with arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head in disapproval. She doesn’t say a thing and puts ice on his nose with a face that looks like she would rather punch him. Jack doesn’t even try to come up with excuses — he knows that he has none.

He fails to find you after the shift ends: you must’ve sneaked out to avoid him, and he can’t say that he’s surprised. Jack walks home in the rain, not bothering to open the umbrella, the street lights drowning in the puddles underfoot, the wind biting his wet face. He can barely feel it. And in the privacy of his apartment — a cold, half-empty space, walls void of any color — a thought that has been lurking in his mind finally takes shape:

Jack loathes being alone.

And he messed up so badly.

»»» part 2

🎵 the title is a quote from Tom Odell’s “Can’t pretend” (the song is just so Jack-coded to me! highly recommend you give it a listen. the small part from 1:29 to 1:49 gives me heart palpitations and is very fitting for this chapter lol).

by “rivals” I meant it’s all in Jack’s head, he’s silly like that 😩 you’ll learn about the reader’s past in the next chapter!

I didn’t specify how big the age gap is exactly. google search told me you get into residency when you are in your 30s, and Abbot is def over 40. but some like to imagine the reader younger, so I didn’t want to ruin that for you.

there are definitely some medical inaccuracies (pretty sure ex-lap isn’t performed in the ER) but I am begging you to ignore that.

dividers by me & plum98.

» I plan on writing 3 parts in total (a prayer circle for my inspiration to stay with me, PLEASE). of course, there will be smut... they just have to learn how to talk to each other first. » read on AO3 » English is not my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any major mistakes. reblogs and comments are very appreciated! tell me if you want to be tagged ♡

#the pitt #jack abbot #I’m so nervous about posting this I’m about to have a heart attack #lauraneedstochillinsteadshewrites #jack abbot x reader #jack abbot fanfiction #dr abbot x you #dr abbot x reader #dr abbot #dr jack abbot #jack abbott #shawn hatosy #the pitt fanfiction #the pitt x reader #the pitt imagine #the pitt hbo #abbotjack

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nereidprinc3ss · 1 month ago

Text

spring into summer

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

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

February 17th

You don’t know when you last blinked.

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

Spencer said you’d love this movie.

“You okay?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the right thing.

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

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

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

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

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

He’s warm. He keeps you safe.

March 9th

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

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

The ringing silence is killing you.

“Spencer—”

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

“I explained it to you—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why? Why would he do that?

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

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

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

You feel your throat closing as he stands.

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

March 13th

“Spencer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So you’ve told me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 26th

“Did you mean it?”

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

“Did I mean what?”

“When you said you loved me.”

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

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

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

“… Okay what?”

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

“Spencer.”

“What?”

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

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

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

“But you’re obviously upset.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, you are.”

Spencer blinks. “Oh.”

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

More buzzing silence.

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

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

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

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

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

“So you do remember saying it.”

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

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

“Noted.”

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

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

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

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

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

April 15th

“That tastes like lawn clippings.”

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

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

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

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

“Not ice cream.”

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

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

“How?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“… No. Yours isn’t even good.”

“Oh my god,” he laughs. “Come on.”

“Mm… okay.”

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

“We need to go.”

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

“And Kevin,” you agree.

“Oh. You don’t want to say hi?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I just—I’m not ready for that.”

“We wouldn’t have to tell anyone.”

“Can we please just drop it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thanks.”

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

The thrum of his heart could lull you to sleep.

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

April 29th

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

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

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

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

Later, you corner him by the coffee machine.

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

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

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

“Are you accusing me of something?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 3rd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your blood goes cold. “Spencer.”

A beat. “What?”

“You’re not staying behind for me.”

“I’m—”

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

“You just said—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 20th

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

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

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

“Anti-inflammatories.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

“Plenty.”

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

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

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

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

“What?”

“A kiss.”

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

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

“Yeah? Why not?”

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

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

“Hey, wait.”

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

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

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

June 6th

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

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

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

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Stop talking to me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He simply lets you go.

June 11th

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We are.”

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

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

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

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

June 30th

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Should we go?”

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

“So… you wanna wait?”

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

And with that, a silent treaty is signed.

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

“September 24th.”

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

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

“Eight months is quite a while, huh?”

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

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

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

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

“Very.”

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

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

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

July 13th

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

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

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

“Bed?” You whisper against his mouth.

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

Okay. “Couch?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re not ready.”

“Yes, I am, fuck, please, Spencer!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 3rd

Spencer corners you outside the bathroom.

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

“Who was who?”

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

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

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

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

“Why won’t you answer the question?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Spencer is so overreacting.

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

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

That only pisses you off worse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spencer comes out a few minutes later.

“They’re playing your song.”

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

“I can hear.”

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

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

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

Pointed?

Surely not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spencer?

Hm?

What am I to you?

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

Do you actually want me to answer that question?

You’d nodded.

Is the answer going to freak you out?

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

Spencer weighed something internally for a long moment.

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

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

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

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

Now, he’s asleep.

You trace the moon-glow line of his cheek.

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

God does not answer.

August 19th

Something is off.

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

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

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

Spencer isn’t doing anything wrong.

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

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

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

The last time you broke up, you realize.

That is a sobering thought.

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

There is an old, familiar pang in your chest.

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

He loves me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is wrong with you?

Why can’t you ever just be alright?

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

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

Something you’d learned from Spencer, of course.

Spencer.

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

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

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

For a few minutes, it works.

Then, for no apparent reason—it stops working.

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

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

You tap lightly at his door.

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

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

Glasses. Sweatshirt. Spencer.

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

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

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

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine.”

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

“It was just a panic attack.”

This doesn’t satisfy him.

“Do you often pass out from panic attacks?”

“Um… not never.”

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

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

“What triggered it?” He asks.

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” is all you say.

A pause.

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

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

“I… don’t know. I was overthinking.”

“Overthinking what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tell me why you’re upset.”

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

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

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

“No, no—look at me. Come on.”

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

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

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

“I’ll call room service,” he decides.

“I’m really not hungry.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He regards you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Spencer?”

“Hm?”

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

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

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

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

He hums.

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

You chew your lip. “Some of them.”

“Which ones?”

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

“I don’t know. We’ll find some.”

“I have a few in mind.”

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

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

You nod. “And I have a rule.”

He strokes your hair.

“What’s that?”

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

“Yes, ma’am.”

You tilt your chin up. He kisses you.

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

September 1st

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

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

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

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

“Or you’re being defensive.”

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

“Am I being accused of something?”

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

“No,” you huff after a weighty moment.

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

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

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

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

Fuck.

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

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

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

Which means you need to backtrack.

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

“I’m sorry.”

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

How can you make this go away?

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

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

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

“You should go.”

A beat.

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean, this?”

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

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

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

“You are such a fucking asshole.”

The words come out too hurt, too quiet.

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

“Go. Home.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing but stardust, now.

You blow across the silent black ether.

September 5th

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

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

“Sorry sorry sorry. I’m up.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m sure. Don’t get any ideas.”

You grin.

“Too late.”

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

“Easy. Six.”

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

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

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

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

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

“Nonono, I’m dead sober. Please?”

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

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

“What?”

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

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

“Nothing, baby. It was a joke.”

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

“Why would you joke about that?”

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

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

Why are you breathing so quickly?

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

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

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

“What’s wrong?”

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

“Nothing.”

“Don’t say nothing, you clearly—”

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

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

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

Immediately, something about Spencer’s demeanor goes cold.

“Did something happen?”

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

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

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

You watch it wash over him.

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

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

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

But he’s going to.

This is it.

The unforgivable thing.

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

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

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

“What did you say?”

His tone bites.

“We weren’t together.”

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

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

“When?”

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

“Spencer…”

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

“When?”

You try to inhale and choke on it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You only shake your head.

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

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

“I can’t,” you whisper.

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

“I just can’t.”

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

No solution.

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

So he gets up.

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

The tear in your voice is desperate enough you flinch.

But it gets him to turn around.

He looks exhausted.

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

You fucked up so badly.

How much more of you can he handle?

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

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

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

“I know you’re sorry.”

Your chin wobbles.

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

“You’re gonna leave?”

A beat.

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna come back?”

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

September 12th

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

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

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

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

But you have to try, don’t you?

“Spencer—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

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

The fabric of his coat bunches in your fist.

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

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

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

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

All this, with one please.

Spencer exhales. And he kisses you again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your mind is screaming, deafening static.

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

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

“You got up pretty quick.”

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

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

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

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

Because he knows. He knew the whole time.

He’s not sticking around.

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

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

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

“I don’t know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did I owe you that, too?”

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

Humiliated. Like usual.

Spencer is stunned into silence for a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

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

The stroking thumb stops, and then restarts.

“Okay.”

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

“What?”

He only shakes his head. Nothing.

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

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

No response. Back and forth.

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

“Angel.”

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

“Sorry.”

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

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

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

“… I know.”

“No, honey. I mean… it needs to end.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You falter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s not supposed to feel like this.

You shudder a cry.

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

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

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

October 29th

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

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

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

“It begins,” you mutter.

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

Your brow knits. “You’re not with—”

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

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

“What about you?” Penelope asks.

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

“What about me?”

“Are you hunkering down with anybody?”

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

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

“You didn’t tell me.”

You shrug.

“It wasn’t… official.”

“How long were you seeing him for?”

“It would’ve been a year next month.”

This time, she’s silent for too long.

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

She’s… looking at your feet.

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

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

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

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

Before you can, she speaks.

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

You flash her an alarmed look. “What?”

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

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

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

“When?”

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

“Penelope, it’s fine.”

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

You blink. Try to process.

“You didn’t tell anyone else?”

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

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

Heat blooms in your cheeks.

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

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

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

“Pizza!”

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

“Nice socks.”

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

“Sorry. I need to do laundry.”

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

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

He narrows his eyes thoughtfully.

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

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

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

It’s sort of a relief.

January 1st

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

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

“Bye, guys! Happy new year!”

You wave as the last stragglers head out the door.

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

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

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

He checks his watch.

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

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

“Neither?”

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

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

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

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

A stuttering inhale.

A moment that is just too long.

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

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

“You’re okay.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you come here?”

He appears. “What’s up?”

You point at the fan.

“I think somebody put a cup up there.”

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

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

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

“I’m sure he’d be able to tell you.”

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

“Kevin and Penelope?”

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

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

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

“Who’d you hear that from?”

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

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

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

“I did. Two, actually.”

Two dates? With the same person?

“How’s that going?”

He approximates a smile.

“You’re not being very subtle.”

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

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

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

“But you didn’t bring her tonight?”

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

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

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

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

“I’m being supportive.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Is that allowed?”

“You’re sure it’s not surveillance?”

“Yes!”

Even to you, you sound overly defensive.

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

“What about me?”

“You didn’t bring anyone either.”

“Well… I’m not seeing anyone.”

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

“Why not?”

“Do I need an excuse to be single?”

“Just curious. Is that allowed?”

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

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

“What is?”

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

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

“Oh. I’m… I’m… sorry.”

Spencer cracks a dry smile.

“You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?”

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

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

“That’s not what she is, honey.”

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

“Then what is she?”

He hums.

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

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

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

“Spencer…”

“What?”

“That’s… that’s not fair.”

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

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

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

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

“Why not?”

“Because… because we’re not together.”

“When has that ever stopped us?”

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

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

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

His throat bobs. “Come here.”

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

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

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

“Then we’ll stop.”

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

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

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

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

It’s basically tradition.

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

if u read this far WOW ily I hope u liked it :D I put blood sweat and tears into this bad boy. also shout-out @aliteralsemicolon for helping me so much with this fic she is a very helpful and willing consultant I think this never would've seen the light of day without her!!! ALSO THIS FIC WAS INSPIRED BY LIZZY MCALPINE’S SONG OF THE SAME NAME and each line corresponds to one of the dates of the scene!!! Read that here!!

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #spencer reid angst #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic

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thereoncewasagirlnamedjane · 11 days ago

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PAIRING | Robert “Bob” Reynolds x f!Reader

TAGS/WARNINGS | angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, non-sexual intimacy/nudity, Bob’s sadness and self-deprecating thoughts.

SUMMARY | Four times Bob lets his true feelings for you go unaddressed, and the one time he doesn’t.

WORD COUNT | 3.3k

NOTES | You know, I was actually gonna take a break from writing (again, I know, I’m sorry) but I somehow managed to bang this out today at work so here you go, my first ever Bob fic 🫶🏻 Happy Wednesday!

⋆ ˚｡⋆˚ NAVIGATION | | BOB REYNOLDS M.LIST ˚⋆｡˚ ⋆

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✧.* Truth Be Told

The first time he touches you, he does it almost without hesitation.

Normally, Bob makes a point to keep a respectable distance. He doesn’t touch anyone or anything without the most careful of considerations first—even though he wants it, craves it.

But when you’re this close, when you’re leaning into him instead of away, when you’re looking at him like he’s just Bob and not the same guy who almost let the Void inside him swallow New York whole, his hands can’t help but ache for you.

He’s restless with it, his palms itching as though something was missing. He wants to know what your skin would feel like under his fingertips, whether your eyelashes would flutter under his touch, and if you’d sigh just the way he would whenever he imagined closing the distance between you.

So before he knows it, Bob’s already reaching for you.

His heart leaps to his throat the moment he makes contact, turning his hand over, using the blade of his finger to brush away the crumbs at the corner of your mouth.

You look up from your plate, the box of pastries you’d bought for the entire team as an early afternoon pick-me-up still laying open on the table, your eyes widening a fraction when they meet his.

“You’ve got a little bit of…” he trails off, not really caring or even knowing what it is. Bob’s never had much of a sweet tooth, but right now, you smell like almonds and raspberry jam and a touch of something that’s uniquely you… and he suddenly wants nothing more than to taste.

“Oh,” is all you say, staying still as he lets his hand linger instead, his knuckles brushing along the curve of your jaw. You smile, your eyes softening, and for a fraction of a second Bob swears you lean into his touch. “Thanks, Bob.”

He nods, not trusting his own voice or the temptation of your name on his lips, before very reluctantly breaking the connection. His fingers are already twitching with the need to touch you again by the time he puts it back down onto the dining table.

And although you never talk about it, there is an easing of invisible barriers after that. Now that he’s had a taste, Bob can no longer resist the warmth of your skin against his—no matter how chaste or innocent the contact is.

“You’ve got an eyelash,” he’d say, pointing to his own face, his lips twitching with the fib, and you’d simply lean forward at the same time he did, allowing him to swipe the tip of his finger down your cheek. Trusting, unsuspecting, and oblivious to the yearning expanding like a balloon in his chest.

What if, one day, he could lean in just like this and let his lips find their way to yours?

Impossible, but a man could dream.

But sometimes there isn’t anything there at all, but he still dips slightly at the waist, beckoning you with his hand before removing the imaginary thing from your cheek, your nose, or the aching perfection that is your cupid’s bow.

And when you smile up at him expectantly, even when Yelena catches him in his little white lies one day, lifting a skeptical brow when she meets his eye over your head, Bob just carries on.

Truth be told, he can’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it.

—

The first time he ever holds your hand is on a Thursday.

It’s unseasonably cold for the time of year, and Bob’s shivering under his sweater. You have been sent out on an errand to restock the Tower with food and supplies, and Bucky insisted that Bob go with you.

“Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you out there,” Bucky said to you, slapping a hand down onto Bob’s shoulder before turning towards him, “Right?”

“Right,” Bob mumbled, feeling his cheeks going red because evidently his feelings were written all over his face, and now even Bucky, of all people, was taking it upon himself to nudge things along.

“Plus Bob can help carry your bags,” Yelena joined in, not looking up from the game of Scrabble she was playing with Alexei. “Dad, that is not a word!”

“Says who?” He said, gesturing to the gibberish he’d placed on the board, full of X’s, M’s, C’s, and V’s, but not a single vowel in sight.

Ava scoffed, her face scrunching up in both confusion and annoyance. “She can take care of herself. Just last week she kicked John’s ass—”

But then John nudged her, maybe a little too hard, almost sending her tumbling out of her chair. She glared up at him, before she caught the meaningful look on his face.

“Oh… yeah… erm, nighttime in New York is practically the Purge. Might as well take him with you.”

You gave them all looks of thinly veiled suspicion, but then you just shook your head and turned to Bob as you were winding a scarf around your neck. Smiling, you asked him, “Do you mind, Bob?”

As if he would.

Venturing outdoors is still rather daunting, which is probably another reason why the team’s been so eager to get him out of the Tower. The thought that someone might recognize him makes him sweat, despite the mid-morning chill.

And then the two of you approach a particularly crowded spot on the sidewalk, and Bob’s footsteps falter slightly. You stop as if you sense his hesitation, turning to him just before disappearing into the throng of New Yorkers. As naturally as breathing, you hold out a hand.

“Come on,” you prompt with a shake of your hand when he just stares for a few seconds.

Bob holds on quickly before you can change your mind. You tug him along, squeezing his hand tighter as you reach the thick of the crowd. Bob emerges on the other side of it with pink cheeks that should be almost numb from the biting wind, but instead they are warm with something else.

And even as the horde dissipates, the sidewalk opening up with more than enough space for the two of you to walk side by side, you don’t let go.

He catches your reflections in the glass windows of the nearby shops, you with your head turned away to admire the displays of a flower shop, but your hands still joined together.

Bob wonders what others think you are to him.

He wants them to know you’re special.

He hopes you know, too.

—

The first time he falls asleep next to you starts with him sitting in the dark of his room, his shoulders slumping a little further forward with each passing minute. The others have left on another mission without him, and Bob just wishes he could do something to help.

But he still can’t control his powers well enough yet; it’d be too dangerous for him to be out in the field with them. He understands this better than anyone—the last time he tried tapping into full extent of his Sentry powers, he almost murdered somebody (even if Alexei would argue that that person, Valentina, had deserved it), that god-like sense of superiority leeching ominously into his mind.

He is hopeful when Yelena says he’s improving, slowly but surely, tries to believe it when Bucky tells him that it will happen soon. He just needs a little more time.

But Bob can’t help but feel like a burden, someone they have to take care of rather than a part of the team. The voice in the back of his mind comes back, a few notes lower than his own, that slight taunting lilt of it latching onto the edges of his subconscious.

You’re worthless, Bobby.

You think they care about you?

You will always be alone.

It will always be just you and me.

He doesn’t know how long he's sat there like that, but the room remains dark now even though someone draws the curtains. Bob shrinks back, as though the beam of moonlight spreading across his lap hurts him, doesn’t even look up when someone calls his name.

“Bob?”

He sighs, closes his eyes against the habitual burn of shame, that familiar heat creeping up his neck. Because he’s never wanted you to see him like this—so sad, so pathetic, wallowing in his own self-pity.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You ask carefully, and he doesn’t know if it’s better or worse when he hears you kneeling on the carpet in front of him.

He shakes his head.

“Okay,” you tell him gently, patiently, so kindly, “do you want me to leave?”

Please don’t. Don’t ever leave me alone, he wants to say, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he just shakes his head again. Despite himself, he’s somehow relieved when he feels the mattress dip slightly next to him, the warmth of your thigh dangerously close to his.

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees in the periphery of his vision is your hand, lying face up on your lap. It’s an invitation that’s too sweet for him to deny, and he slides his hand into yours, watching with a strange mixture of disbelief and euphoria as your fingers close around him.

That you would still want to touch him after seeing him like this. That he would find such comfort in the simple meeting of your palms.

His chin lifts when you turn, your other hand coming up to tuck a curtain of his hair behind his ear.

“Is this okay?” You whisper.

Bob nods, and for one treacherous moment he lets himself believe that you unconsciously seek him out too, that your hands itch to touch him just as his own do for you. And then you’re gathering him into your arms, and he follows without hesitation, falling into your embrace and burying his face into your shoulder.

He doesn’t know when he fell asleep but when he wakes, you’re still there.

“Hi,” you breathe, as though afraid you’ll disturb this peace if you speak any louder. Bob doesn’t tell you that he thinks he’ll only find peace if you’re around.

“Hi,” he whispers back, a smile lifting his lips as though you’re breathing life back into him. “Thank you.”

You don’t even hesitate. “Anytime.”

—

The first time you undress in front of him is, well, it’s not like that.

Because the entire time, Bob is furious. He wants to break something, feels the frustration crowding his lungs and resists the urge to just scream it out.

The whole team had frozen when he appeared in the doorway when they got home, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of you. One of your arms was slung around Ava’s shoulders as she propped you up, and your other hand was pressed gingerly to your ribcage.

There was a bruise blooming along your temple. Your lip had split in two places, and there was dried blood along your hairline. He could smell fresh blood in the air, even though he couldn’t see any open wounds.

John took a step toward him, one hand up in what seemed to be a placating gesture. “She’s okay, Bobby.”

“Okay?” Bob asked shakily, “she can barely stand.”

“She made it home alive, that’s all that matters,” Yelena reminded him, and while it was somewhat reassuring, it did little to quell the fire in his throat.

“She just needs to rest now,” Bucky told him, inhaling sharply when Bob’s jaw was clenched so tight it looked like his teeth might crack under the pressure.

“I’ll be fine, Bob,” you said quickly, smiling at him through your pain.

That was somehow worse than your physical injuries. Bob wanted to know then and there who did this to you, because he would unleash the full and unrestrained wrath of his powers if it meant avenging you, consequences be damned.

For the first time, he wanted to see something burn.

Ava cursed under her breath when Bob’s eyes flashed gold, but then you were asking him, “Help me to my room?”

Just like that, his eyes returned to their natural blue, and the room breathed a collective sigh of relief.

And now, as he stands in your room, his hands are shaking as he pulls a clean set of clothes from your dresser. You limp toward the en-suite bathroom, leaning one hand on the counter and breathing deeply through your nose as you try to peel off your soiled tact-suit.

The second you let out a hiss of pain when the movement tugs at your stitches, Bob is at your side in an instant. He pushes down the panic clawing at his throat, the one that won’t quite settle down even though you’re right here, alive and breathing.

But he can spiral later; you need him now.

Bob gently, so gently, brushes your hand away so he can reach for your zipper. You make eye contact with him in the mirror, nodding, and he swallows the lump in his throat as he slowly helps you out of your bloody clothes.

“I’m going to be fine, okay?” You repeat and he just nods, his hands skimming over your shoulder blades, down your arms, as he helps you undress. His breath hitches as your suit falls into a heap around your feet, when he finds the square of gauze taped over your midsection with a spot of dreaded crimson seeping through. There’s a matching one on your opposite side. “It was a through and through. Missed all vital organs, the doctor said. It’s basically a flesh wound.”

“I should have been there,” Bob finally says when he finds his voice.

“Hey…” you turn to face him, “this happens. It’s part of the job.”

“I can help,” he almost pleads. He presses your hand to the side of his face, trying to hide the sting of tears. “If I’d been there, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. None of you ever would.”

He hates it, that feeling of helplessness as he’s forced to stay behind in the Tower. But what he hates even more is the thought that one day, you or Yelena or any one of the team could die out there—and he’d be here, safe and sound even though he was the strongest out of all of you, twiddling his thumbs waiting for you to come back.

“Don’t say I’m not ready,” Bob bites back a sob as he drops his forehead to your bare shoulder, “I’m ready. I’ll always be ready to protect you.”

He’s just found you.

He can’t lose you now.

“I know,” you turn around and your eyes shining just as brightly as his are. “And we’ll protect you, too. I promise.”

Bob’s never doubted you before.

He won’t doubt you now, either.

—

The team never leaves Bob behind after that, and when he first tells you what’s in his heart, it’s a quiet, almost unassuming thing.

He hadn’t intended to, although he’s always wanted to.

He wanted to tell you when you all boarded the jet, full of nervous but cautiously optimistic energy now that Bob was with you. He found his spot next to you, ignoring John’s teasing quip and Alexei’s beaming smile, his arm pressed to yours on the armrest between your seats.

He wanted to tell you just before stepping off the plane, when you gave him a reassuring smile and a confident nod, like you were saying you’ve got this. He wanted to call it after you as you rushed into the fray, weapons raised and ready, the others following closely behind you.

He wanted to tell you when he stepped in front of you, absorbing the impact of a bullet aimed straight at your forehead. It bounced harmlessly off him with a high-pitched ping, didn’t even leave a single dent or red mark on his skin, but you still gasped behind him and cried out his name.

But he couldn’t think straight in that moment, could only think about eliminating anything and anyone who’d try to take you from him.

He wanted to tell it to you on the plane ride home, when you brushed his hair back to double and triple check the spot where he’d been hit, undeterred by the splatters of someone else’s blood on his suit.

Bob thought about the man it belonged to. He hadn’t set out to kill anybody, but if that was the price he had to pay to keep you alive… well then, he’d pay it again and again.

“It didn’t hurt at all?” You asked. “Are you sure?”

He smiled, full of affection, exhaling on something of a laugh, “I’m invincible, remember?”

“That we know of,” you didn’t return his smile, “please, don’t do that again.”

Bob didn’t answer, because he knew he couldn’t promise that. Even if he could, it’s not like he ever would.

He wants to tell it to you when you pull him into your room the second you get home, standing close enough that he can count the stars reflected in your eyes.

He wants to tell you everything right now, everything he’s held onto so tightly all this time because he didn’t think that he ever deserved this.

Bob’s been made his whole life to think that this was never in the stars for him. The Void in his chest, the one that he manages somehow to keep at bay most days, still whispers it to him. Still sneers at him for even entertaining the idea he could ever have it, let alone with someone as good as you.

Then you kiss him. Just a peck, the briefest meeting of lips at first. You look up at him searchingly, waiting for him to push you away or say this is a mistake, but he would never. So long as you want it, he’d give you anything.

He’s the one to initiate your second kiss, more firmly this time, with the reverence of a man who believes he would never get to do this again. You wrap your arm around his shoulders, pull him closer and closer until your chests are touching.

“Invincible, maybe,” you whisper once you pull away, your voice wobbly as you breathe the words into the quiet space between you, “but not replaceable. Not to me.”

Bob feels something crack open inside him then. He buries his nose in the junction of where your neck and shoulder met, hot tears dripping down the delicate curve there and soaking into your shirt.

He wants more, to let his body tell you what he can’t yet bring himself to say, but finds himself almost afraid of it. It has been a while since he’s been this close, this intimate, with someone he genuinely cares about. Maybe even longer since he’s done it with a clear head.

But you seem content to just hold him, like that first time, as though it doesn’t make him near desperate with want and weak with affection all at the same time. And later, before sleep can claim the both of you, he carries you to the bathroom to wash up. The two of you stay in the tub long after you are clean.

Steam curls into the air, hot water rippling as Bob sits behind you, caging you between his arms as you lean back comfortably against the sturdy planes of his chest.

He says it to you then, murmurs into your skin that he’s found love here.

Bob almost can’t believe it when you say it back.

That night, he falls asleep in your arms again, the side of his head pressed to your chest, listening to the steady beating of your heart against his ear.

The darkness in his own begins to recede that much further with each reassuring thump, as though chased away by the dawning of the morning sun.

And you.

Always you.

FIN.

Notes: There’s been a lot of discourse lately about how Bob’s character is or has been written since Thunderbolts* came out. I only hope I did him justice somewhat; there’s so much we still don’t know about him. Choose kindness when interacting with each other. (I will not budge on the stutter thing, though. Note that having a stutter and the occasional nervous stammer in high-tension situations are not the same thing.)

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swordgrace · 1 month ago

Text

𝐨𝐡, 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬. (𝐈𝐈)

┊ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: after being pulled back from one of the latest missions to recuperate, you take advantage of the time alone with your boyfriend.

can be read as a standalone fic. read part one here.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: robert reynolds (sentry) / fem!reader.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 8.2K.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: light smut (mdni), mild angst, talk of insecurities, mentions of past abuse/addiction, lots of fluff, heavy petting, heavy kissing, sub!bob, praise kink, male whimpering, dry humping, body worship, extremely soft/gentle smut, fingering (fem!rec), mutual orgasm, aftercare.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: thank you guys so much for the love & support on the first bob fic! he is so fun to write for and I just adore him! If you all are interested in more bob content, let me know! thank you all for your love and support and I hope you enjoy! 🫶

When the rest of the team inevitably discovers your relationship with Bob, there isn’t a single surprised face in the room.

Instead, you’re met with plenty of understanding, snide remarks regarding how it was bound to happen, and mild shock that it hadn’t happened sooner. You’re grateful that it doesn’t become tense or awkward — everyone’s accepting.

There is always an element of danger, forming a bond with someone who’s life is constantly on the line — yours and his. This additional layer complicates things, but you’re learning, navigating it all, and so is he.

An incessant fear still gnaws at the recesses of your mind, the fear of losing him somehow, leaving your heart ragged. Bob is afraid of it too, much more than you — when you leave for a mission, it’s perilous, dark whispers nipping at his heels.

However, things are progressing — it’s a sluggish beast, recovering from immeasurable trauma, but he’s putting in the work. Even after so many months, there’s a stagnation he feels, as if he’s slammed into a brick wall, a plateau.

It’s to be expected, his therapist warns, and Bob doesn’t enjoy the feeling of little to no progress. Nevertheless, he swallows the discomfort and only lets it loose when most appropriate, long-winded conversation during his sessions.

He has you, though — his biggest supporter, a cheerleader encouraging him every step of the way without wavering. Sometimes, he feels unnecessarily clumsy, like a child, and he knows that he isn’t. However, you’re always the first to assure him that he’s doing well.

When doubt begins to fester, you extinguish it as best as you can, but it doesn’t always work out the way you intend. The Void is a patient creature, skulking about within the darkest parts of him, a predator preparing to strike.

Low days, high days; the low days eat him alive.

Bob wonders why you continue to stick around even after what you’ve witnessed; a blackness so encompassing that it nearly takes you, too. Though he's gotten better at managing it, it doesn’t lessen the burden, doesn’t take the sting away.

He’s taken to calling the “in-between” days even days, where he’s caught somewhere in the mix of it all, of despair and joy, of grandeur and melancholy. It starts when there’s word of a mission, he knows that you’ll go — he gets scared.

The nightmares still haunt him, lingering when he’s most vulnerable, but they become less frequent. More often than not, you sleep in his bed every night, limbs entangled, anchored to one another to make the pain lessen.

There’s something to brighten his days — your budding relationship, soft and effortless, a bond he cannot recall having with someone else. Yelena is protective, cautionary; he assures her that you treat him well, that you’re perfect.

Today is an even day, made lighter by the revelation that you aren’t going on this newest mission.

Admittedly, you’re desperate for a break, to savor time away from constant missions, publicity events held by Valentina for funding, fighting; you’re tired. As the opportunity arose to skip out, you seized it, and that meant spending more time with Bob.

Once the team is gone, the tower is blanketed by an unusual hush, save for the dismal sound of running water. He’s doing the dishes again, you realize, watching as the jet departs from the landing, soaring through the skies above New York City.

An impressive palette of hues paint the atmosphere, shades of violet intermingled with the glow of a waning sun, settling into a gentle twilight. When you wander back inside, you can hear him humming; tranquil, placating.

Slivers of sunset fall across Bob, turning his brunette tresses to a warm caramel, sleeves haphazardly tugged up toward the crooks of his elbows. It makes your heart lurch within your chest, skipping a beat, mesmerized by him; dazzled, really.

“Hey,” Greeting him with a smile, you inch closer, leaning against the edge of the granite countertop. “Do you want some help with those?” You gesture toward the pile of dirty porcelain.

Tension unfurls from within him as soon as your voice inhabits the space between, head craning over his shoulder to peer at you. He nods, stepping to one side, making room for you at the sink. “Sure.” He hums, passing off plates for you to hand-dry.

Busying yourself with such menial labor, Bob is preoccupied with you, stealing glances every few seconds, lashes fluttering. He notices the shirt you’re wearing, because it’s his, grey material sagging on your shoulders.

A warm scarlet invades his visage, creeping along his jaw, stretching against his throat. Having you here with him is incredibly soothing, and he’s happy to spend more time with you. Truthfully, if he could steal you away, he would’ve.

He’s discovering what he enjoys again, buried beneath the ruin of his trauma; and you make things so much easier. “What do you want to do tonight?” Breaking the bout of silence, you wipe off flecks of orange from a plate.

Bob gawks, uncertain of what to say. You don’t really have to do much of anything, as long as he’s with you. With a nonchalant shrug, the stack grows increasingly smaller, until there’s only a handful of crockery left.

“I’m not sure,” He admits, cerulean hues flickering over you again, flustered by the sight of you in his shirt. It was unexpected, but he wasn’t adverse to it, not in the slightest. “Is that my shirt?” Bob inquires, head canting to one side.

Caught, a familiar heat rakes over the nape of your neck, tendrils creeping towards your face. “It is,” Embarrassed, you chew at the inside of your cheek, knowing you should’ve asked beforehand. “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you if it was okay.”

Instantaneously, Bob is refuting your apology, afraid that he’s upset you. “No, no,” With a shake of his head, he smiles, an awkward chuckle slipping from his mouth. “I—I like it, I don’t mind.” He assures, and you feel relieved, lips twitching into a bright beam.

“Good. I like it, too.” Delighted, you fail to stifle your laughter, helping to clean the last of the dishes before you take the time to put them all away. Bob assists when you can’t reach something, hovering over you with a relaxed expression.

Slouched lounge pants complement his shirt, grey material swallowing you whole, still carrying the scent of him. Staying in the Tower often relaxed your dress code; Bob always thought you looked pretty in anything and everything.

When you weren’t looking, he was; azure hues never strayed far from you, his sun, emanating with a radiant warmth, chasing away the darkness. His gaze was one of longing, thinly-veiled affection, a security that he finds in you, you in him.

Fading sunlight turns grayed windowpanes to masterpieces, catching refractions of light, splaying out over the dark tile. Everything is bright, splendidly so; you’re bright too, beam glittering over your pearlescent teeth.

“I was thinking about watching a movie, maybe ordering something to eat,” It’s something idle to pass the time, but you’ve found that Bob finds enjoyment in it. “Does pizza sound good?” Your stomach snarls at the mere thought.

Bob barely registers your suggestion, too busy ogling you with doe-like hues and a countenance bristling with affection. He realizes how strange it might’ve been for you, his constant staring, murmuring an apology before he answers.

“Hm? Oh,” His throat stirs. “Yeah, pizza’s good.” Lips split into a smile that melts your insides, butterflies swarming within the pit of your belly, marrow turning molten.

“Hey,” You reach for him, hand gentle against his forearm. “Are you okay?” It’s something you’ve grown used to asking, practiced; it’s a habit, born of concern for him. Bob nods, visibly reassuring, the sincerity reaching his eyes.

“I like watching you,” There’s a peculiar softness in his admission, but he fumbles, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. “Not — Not like that.” He sighs, but you understand what he means, flattered that he’s drawn to you; it’s endearing.

“I know what you mean, Bob.” With a wrinkled nose, you step closer, hesitant to invade his space without permission. He savors the physicality of it all, growing accustomed to your touch — it’s always gentle, always accommodating.

Allowing you to thin the distance, Bob exhales when your arms curl around his midsection, musculature firm beneath your palms, through the material of his sky-blue sweater.

He always tries to hide his blushing, hands coming to cradle your face, foreheads dipping to ghost over one another. Every facet of your countenance is committed to memory — it’s a face he knows he won’t forget.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” It’s almost breathless, the way he says it, steeped in such reverence. He’s gotten better with the compliments, better at being a partner, a boyfriend. He’s warm to the touch, a kiss of fire to your flesh.

Flustered, you fail to dismiss his sweet praise, content to stand here in the kitchen like this; together. A shiver cascades down his spine, able to feel your fingertips draw patterns over his back, the sensation unbelievably soothing.

His lips caress against your crown, allowing it to linger, moments stretching into some blissful infinity. It’s his heartbeat you listen to, a melody that climbs in rhythm, quickening when his head lowers, dipping against yours.

“So are you.” Without pause, it earns you a small chuckle from Bob, whose heart gallops, sings to you when your mouth ghosts over his. Everything slows to a crawl, deliberation exuding from you, sluggishness intentional, meant to savor.

Just as his heartbeat begins to race, so does yours, ringing deep within your ears as you let the kiss continue, disarmingly gentle. He’s careful with you, cautious even when he doesn’t have to be, thumbs stroking along your cheekbones.

Absentmindedly, you find yourself smiling into the kiss, palpable, and he feels it too, unable to stifle the blush that flourishes within his features. Bob exhales, flesh beginning to sting with excitement, and he gingerly withdraws, visibly smitten.

Reaching for your tresses, he toys with your hair, satiny between his fingers. Wordlessly, he kisses your cheek, lips drifting over the bridge of your nose, over the corner of your mouth.

“That’s nice,” You hum, lulled into a state of serenity, delighted to be doted upon, showered in peppered affection. Bob knows that you’re just as starved for contact as he is, the pad of his thumb sweeping over your brow. “I’m going to order that pizza now.”

He’s nearly forgotten about it, hunger lurching within his stomach, growling at the thought. Before you untangle yourself from him, you rock up upon your toes, planting a chaste kiss against his mouth before reaching for your smartphone.

Bob never strays very far away when you’re together, the closeness comforting to him; and you don’t mind whatsoever. He lingers beside you when you’re on the phone, fingers idly messing with his sleeves, waiting for you to finish.

“It’s your turn to pick a movie.” He reminds you, curious to see what you choose. You have a unique taste — you like everything, and he tends to find something good in each film you’ve watched together.

Indecisive, you hum, wandering toward the lounge, couches forming an oval, centered around a massive screen. It’s typically used for analysis and surveillance, but you don’t mind hijacking it from time to time for entertainment purposes.

With a soft huff, you unceremoniously fall into the plush, crimson cushions, one leg folded beneath you as Bob sits beside you. “How would you feel about watching a drama? Something historical, maybe?” You muse, and he shrugs.

“I don’t mind.” Bob feels you reach for his hand, digits twining together. The consistent touch is something he’s grown used to, something he adores. He feels seen, wanted; his thumb traces across your knuckles.

Contemplative, you recline, partially slumped against his shoulder as you wrack your brain for something to watch. When you come up empty-handed, you clear your throat. “Would you rather listen to music?”

That suggestion is met with some enthusiasm as Bob nods, seemingly embarrassed. “I figured out how to make a playlist,” He wasn’t incredibly skilled with a smartphone, and watching him try to navigate it was amusing sometimes. “I made one for you.”

Incredulous, you sit up enough to tilt your head, flattered by the innocuous gesture. It’s unexpectedly charming, endearing — he’s a little flustered, but he doesn’t shy away from wanting you to browse the songs he’s chosen for it.

“You made me a playlist?” Others might’ve scoffed at the gesture, found it meaningless or juvenile — not you. Music was something that you often shared with Bob, a method of connection, of furthering your relationship.

Flickers of anxiety tick across his features, coupled with that of boyish abashment. A stifled hum escapes him as he nods, dark hues meeting yours, lips wobbling into a half-smile. “Yeah,” He clears his throat. “It’s just songs that make me think of you.”

“Do you mind if we listen to some of it together?” Unsure if he wanted this to be something private, you ensure to ask, and he’s willing to share. After he tells you he’s agreeable to it, your belly pools with a pang of heat.

Bob shuffles from the couch, finding the nook he’s crafted beside the window. There’s a variety of books haphazardly stacked atop one another, a side-table where his phone sits.

“It’s still a, ah — A work in-progress,” He clarifies, wandering back towards you, eyebrows scrunched together as he navigates through his phone. Rejoining you, he sits down, feeling your hand nudge against his ribs. “There.”

Connected to the Tower’s mainframe and subsequent speakers, he hits ‘play’, starting the playlist from the beginning. A softer folk song reverberates throughout the room, the melody reminiscent of a lullaby.

Songs that make me think of you; it means more to you than he fully realizes, the thought that each song was chosen with meaning, with intent. A hush fell between, a comfortable silence as you listened to the music, feeling his arm curl around you.

Tucking your head between his collar and jaw, you listen to the thrum of his heart, to the idle humming that occasionally slips from his lips. Draping an arm around his midsection, space becomes nonexistent, bodies flush together, basking in the moment.

Bob’s eyes flutter, pleasantly half-lidded, drinking in the physicality that you provide. Gooseflesh ices his spine as your knuckles graze in circles over his ribcage, cheek resting comfortably atop the crown of your head.

“This is the sweetest thing someone’s done for me,” A low utterance leaves you, cadence bristling with a kindly warmth, one that weaves around him. Each song had meaning — things he remembered about you, or the melody simply resonated with him, as you did. “Thank you, Bob.”

Flushed, he nodded, throat bobbing as he swallowed the growing lump forming, stuffing down his nervousness. There was no reason to be anxious around you, he knew this — it was his own thoughts that made him flustered.

“You mean everything to me,” Despite the twinge of shrewdness within his tone, he’s sincere, palm mimicking your action of tracing over his ribs. With a brief exhale, he gets closer, if that were even possible; you’re nearly in his lap. “I should be thanking you.”

A mirthful scoff huffs from your mouth, as if the idea of him thanking you is a preposterous notion. “No, you shouldn’t,” You murmur, head tilting just enough to plant a chaste kiss against his jaw. “I really like being with you.”

It’s a raw reminder of how incomparable you are in his eyes — glittering, radiant, perfect. Bob’s smile is small, but it grows in your presence, proximity having something to do with it. Digits idly sweep aside his hair, lingering behind his ear.

Somewhere in the darker recesses of his mind, scrambled memories float about; he recalls feeling like a burden, feeling unwanted. Bob winces, pain unfurling from his chest, scratched raw, but it subsides when he glances toward you.

Several of the music choices are merely classical compositions, sound strung together to create enchanting harmonies. You wonder how they remind him of you, what goes on inside of his head, how he sees you from his perspective.

“I hope you like it,” Some small sliver of him worries that it’s all too much — he’s being too much, but you seem elated. “I wanted to make it special.” His cadence softens to a lower timbre, one that he doesn’t use often.

Gooseflesh ices your spine, a twinge of want stirring within your chest. It feels detestable to desire him, as if you’re some pervasive force invading his space, but you can’t help it. With a smile, you shift against his side, distracting your thoughts with something else.

“I love it,” As the music crawls to a heartfelt ballad, you decide to stand, slowly untangling yourself from Bob’s embrace. He seems a little disappointed, but it’s fleeting when you extend your hand towards him. “Do you want to dance?”

He laughs as if the idea is silly, but he’s more embarrassed than anything else. “I—I’m not going to be very good at it,” Bob trips over his words, gaining footing toward the end. “If that’s alright.”

With a wrinkled nose, you reach for him, hands twining, digits threading together, two pieces of a puzzle. It’s a seamless fit as you coax him forward and off of the cushions. “I’m not any good, either. We can just sway.”

“Sway,” Bob chuckles, still clinging to timidity even as he moves off of the couch and into your arms. Hands find their place against your waist, a touch shy as your arms loosely dangle around his neck. “What now?”

“We move,” A grin splits your lips, and he’s still laughing, a soft sound that jostles his shoulders. He’s a little uncoordinated, but he’s adaptable, mimicking your movements as you slowly turn about the lounge. “See? You’re a natural.”

“I don’t feel like it,” Blushing, Bob nearly hides beneath his lashes, posture hunched, as if he’s attempting to suppress his own height. Though, he does like being closer to you, too. “It’s nice.” He murmurs, digits curling into your shirt.

“Yeah?” A sigh of a whisper fans across his jaw, your breath a sweet plume. He begins to relax, less rigid, beginning to sink into one another. “Spin me around?” Playful, you take one hand, starting to twirl, albeit a little graceless, as he lets you turn.

Bob’s smile is the widest it’s been in a long time, and he’s careful with you, so delicate for someone with his inhuman strength. He eases you back in, hands joined together at one side, and he spins you again, caged to his chest.

You’re giggling, he’s chuckling, too; it’s pure bliss.

There’s a constant hint of shyness that permeates his visage, as if he’s stupefied by you. He knows that sentiment won’t change anytime soon; you’re beautiful, and you’re home.

“I’m happy,” Bob blurts, lips parting to make way for a trembling exhale. It almost feels strange, as if his life isn’t meant to be this way — he’s not meant to be happy, not meant to feel worthwhile. “Almost forgot what it felt like.”

Steps cease, swaying coming to a crawl as you stop to muster up a response. It’s devastatingly poignant, his statement — and yet, there’s something saccharine about it, too. “Bob …” Brows knit together, lips twitching into an empathetic smile.

“I—I know you don’t want my gratitude, but you make me happy,” It’s as if the earth shifts beneath your feet, something monumental; you feel just as undeserving as he does, sometimes. “You do, and I want you to know that.”

Tears sting the corners of your eyes, vision growing bleary, a haze of emotion as you swiftly try and blink them away. “You make me happy, too — so much,” You murmur, forcing a laugh to dispel any potential sobs. “I’m proud of you.”

Proud of you; Bob wants to dismiss it all, tell you that there isn’t anything to be proud of, but the words fade to ash upon his tongue. He’s still learning, still healing, a heart and mind that haven’t completely mended.

He knows that you don’t care, you take him as he is — Bob, the Void, Robert. Even the darkest parts of him are ones that you care deeply for.

It was his turn to become blubbery, head dipping as he stifled the tears, a smile still tugging at either corner of his mouth. Wordlessly, Bob’s lips press against your crown, the kiss firm, lingering; it’s his way of thanking you without saying it.

Violet-bruised skies subside, falling subservient to an inky black, chasing away the last wisps of an orange sunset. The room darkens, save for the glow of the monitor’s massive screen and the pallid lights that shimmer near the floor.

Before your lips can search for his, there’s a buzz that hums throughout the room — the bottom floor. There’s a monotonous voice that alerts you to movement downstairs, and you realize that the pizza is here.

“Oh,” Bob hums, mouth agape as another chuckle escapes him. “The pizza.” Admittedly, he had forgotten all about the food, forgotten about the vicious snarl emanating from his stomach.

“The pizza,” Conceding, you click your tongue, peering up at Bob with a tender smile. He’s flushed, using his sleeve to rid himself of any stray tears, pearlescent teeth glittering through the dim light. “You okay?” You ask, and he nods fervently.

“Yeah,” His smile grows when you kiss his neck, unable to reach his jaw this time. Fire follows in the wake of such an innocuous gesture, and he gapes, wanting to feel it again. “I’m fine — I’m hungry, too.”

“Perfect,” Clearing your throat, you move towards the elevator, pressing the communication button beside it. “Have him put it on the elevator, Tower.”

There’s some strange intelligence unit that helps power the Watchtower — you’ve taken to calling it ‘Tower’. Bob is somewhat unnerved by it, but it’s helpful to have an additional layer of security. Though, the elevator is notoriously slow.

“Now we wait.”

Remnants of a pepperoni pizza lay scattered atop the granite counter in the kitchen, scent of melted cheese and marinara heavy in the air. Bob is licking the grease from his fingertips while you’re cleaning up, tossing the box into the trash.

He’s grown fond of junk food; when in the throes of active addiction, he rarely ate, wasting away whilst searching for drugs. Bob fills the cravings with everything he can, with a penchant for burgers and milkshakes, too.

“That was good,” He remarks, having eaten a majority of the extra-large pizza you’d ordered. You were content to let him, noticing the streak of red sauce that’s still on his chin. “Thank you.”

“You’ve got something,” Gently, you reach forward, rocking up upon your toes as the pad of your thumb wipes away any stray marinara. “There.” You’re smiling and he’s smitten again, a bemused huff escaping him as the kitchen turns sparkling again.

The two of you go to your room this time, as opposed to his. Bob prompts the change of scenery, curiously admiring some of your decor, a reflection of your personality. There’s a picture of the two of you that Alexei took, secretly, both of you two deer in the headlights.

As the door slides shut, you move to turn on the nightlight over your headboard. You never had much of a use for it until Bob started sleeping in your bed — you don’t mind it.

“You kept this,” Bob murmurs, gingerly handling the photograph with a shy smile. “I—I didn’t think you wanted your picture taken.” It’s a small detail he’s picked up about you, incredibly adverse to flash photography.

“I didn’t, but it’s of us,” With a beam, you begin to fix up your comforter, making sure the pillows are there, sheets corrected. “I talked Alexei into developing it for me.” You muse, sitting down along the corner of your bed.

He examines the picture, finding you to be flawless in all senses of the word. You look startled, and even still, it doesn’t detract from your beauty. “Do you think I could have one?” He asks, glancing from the photo to you.

A peculiar warmth snakes over the back of your neck, heating your skin as you nod. “Absolutely, and we can take a new one together, too.” You wonder if it’s more than just sentimental reasons; so he’ll remember you, if something happens.

“I’d like that.” Bob hums, gaze fluttering about your room again. He’s been in it a handful of times, but things are constantly shifting around. You’re often inclined to go to his room when it comes to this.

Fingertips trace over the picture once more before he places it back on your vanity, hands retracting to toy with the hem of his sweater. Bob glances toward you again, his shirt pooling around your frame, exposing a glimpse of your collarbone.

A sliver of flesh, and he’s reeling, mind beginning to drift off, wondering what you might’ve looked like without his shirt. It makes his flesh burn with a feverish pitch, as if he’s been swallowed by fire.

He’s been thinking about it more often — intimacy.

Everything seems murky, clouded still as he wades through the tides of his past, searching for memories fragmented after he consumed the serum. He knows that he’s had a past fling, but none of it held a candle to what he shared with you.

He knows that he yearns for you, a feeling so intense that it’s overwhelming at times, something he tries to bury; and that’s wrong. Bob doesn’t want to scare you off, and he doesn’t want to make anything awkward.

Sluggishly, he moves to sit beside you, feeling your fingertips lightly trace over his spine. The sensation is something he welcomes, attempting to relax; you can hear his heartbeat. It’s somewhat erratic, an uneven rhythm that pounds within your ears.

Quiet, Bob dips lower, nose grazing yours, able to hear the subtle hitch within your throat. The kiss is devastatingly gentle, as always; there’s something inviting about his mouth, sweet and cautious, usually a touch shy.

As lips linger and still, he draws away, gazing down at you as if he’s awestruck, the ghost of a smile haunting his features. Wordlessly, you ask for more, tilting in again until his head briefly jostles in a nod, a sharp inhale puncturing his lungs.

There’s a subdued fervor behind this kiss, as if the both of you are actively skirting around the elephant in the room, avoiding startling the other. Absentmindedly, your hands gently perch against his abdomen, muscles firm and marblesque beneath your palms.

Bob feels himself burning with affection, but it’s heavier, heady; he feels your hands, steady atop his midsection, and it’s enough to make his head spin. Your lips are saccharine, each kiss one of a prevailing tenderness, a softness that he savors.

Kisses intensify, born of ardor as you tilt your head, deepening your entanglement. A soft, keening groan reverberates within his throat, a noise that makes you writhe in delight.

Finding some sliver of courage, his own hands snake toward your waist, hesitant, caging you in against his chest. Your hands are all over him, lavishing him in sweet caresses, and he begins to squirm beneath you.

One palm splays over the small of your back, digits ghosting over bare flesh, beginning to glide beneath your shirt. He feels your mouth stutter during the kiss, breath sharp and punctuated, likely out of shock.

“Sorry,” Bob apologizes, fearing that he might’ve taken it a step too far, but you’re there to soothe him, visibly content within his hold. “I—I should’ve asked, before …” His heart threatens to beat right out of his sternum.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Reassuring, you wonder what he’s thinking about, teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek. “I wanted you to.” Admitting your growing feelings, you notice the gears turning within his head, darker hues sparkling through the faint illumination.

“You do?” Incredulous, Bob doesn’t pull his hands away, doe-eyed as you attempt to broach the subject of physicality. You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t love him, that much you know. “If we … Would it be okay if we kept going?”

The thought entices you, heart pounding away beneath your sternum, as if it might rip a hole through your chest. You want to tell him just how much you want to, but it’s better to approach this gently, slower steps, easing into it.

“Yeah,” Swallowing the nervous lump within your throat, you ensure that you’re both on the same page about this. “We don’t have to do anything that you aren’t comfortable with. Even then, I want to take things slow.”

Bob isn’t exactly discomforted by the thought of exploring the physical aspect with you, but he’s terrified of disappointing you, or not being good enough. It’s maimed him, darker insecurities, but he knows how much you care.

There’s a distinct lack of raw lust, instead instilled by a burning tenderness, a mutual yearning, souls and bodies interconnected. That’s how you know that you’re willing to be vulnerable with him like this, in a way that you never were with others.

He nods, lips twitching into a tranquil smile as he holds you close, and you reach up to caress his brow as you’ve done many times before. “You’re so pretty.” Bob utters, wide-eyed and wanton, eyelids fluttering beneath your embrace.

Fingertips skirt along his brow, until your palm cups his jaw, thumb tracing circles over his cheek. He exhales, tension unfurling from his shoulders as he lets himself relax, lets himself become vulnerable. “You’re perfect.” You croon, beguiled.

It’s you who closes the gap this time, lips softly tangling with his own. Passion festers, a present spectator the more your mouths meld together, seamlessly molding to one another.

Bob shivers when your digits toy with the hem of his sweater, the feather-light dusting of your fingertips brushing over bare flesh. He’s not used to being touched like this, with kindness, reverence; a low groan stirs within his throat.

Shy, he begins to urge you closer still, but you’re halfway in his lap. “Is this okay?” Bob mumbles between sluggish kisses, and you’re quick to nod, adjusting yourself until your thighs are firm on either side of his hips.

This all feels like some distant fantasy, one that might slip through his grasp at any moment. He’s blushing, features permanently stained with scarlet as he adapts to the new position, his hands still politely gripping your waist.

He doesn’t know where to start, but he has inklings of ideas, awkwardly fumbling with the hem of your shirt, his shirt, blanketing your frame. You’re patient, preferring to explore, drinking him in for the hundredth time.

Tilting forward, your lips meet in another kiss, deliberate, and you can hear his heartbeat climb with a peculiar intensity. Bob caresses your waist, fingers flexing against the cotton material of your shirt, feeling your hand nudge beneath his sweater.

As mouths clawed for one another, a gnawing ache began to fester within your stomach, manifesting as arousal that coalesced between your legs. There is little space between you, replaced with a heated friction that seeps into your bones.

Your palm is cold against his abdomen, his flesh running hot, a shiver coursing through him at the contact. The sensation is somewhat foreign, but he enjoys it, reciprocating the kiss with a sudden blaze of passion.

His hands are like hot brands as they trace your bare flesh, gathering the confidence to push beneath your shirt. You shudder, delighting in the lingering kisses you give one another, never devolving to anything rough.

Slowly recoiling from his lips, your hands find the hem of your shirt, beginning to peel it from your body. Admittedly, you’re just as shy as he is about it, and the process of undressing feels like some sacred ritual.

Bob swallows, countenance one of pure amazement and elation as you toss the garment toward the foot of your bed. “You’re so beautiful.” He whispers. There’s scars on your body, past experimentation, but he finds favor in every single one.

A simple, black-cotton brassiere conceals your chest, nothing extravagantly fancy. His hands smooth over your waist, one arm curling around you, drawing you closer. Quiet, he presses a kiss to your shoulder, over a small scar.

One of your hands shifts, coming to perch against the nape of his neck, digits idly carding through brunette tresses. Bob exhales, the sensation pleasant to him as he feels your lips pepper his jaw, each kiss one of pure ardor.

A hoarse, low whimper escapes him when you gently kiss his throat, feeling his hands caress over your body. “Is this okay?” You mumble into his flesh, feeling his head jostle in an eager nod.

Poised to continue, you lavish him in feather-light, sweet kisses, chest flush to his, other palm still firm atop his abdomen. His noises are endearing, eyes nearly closed, preening beneath the attention you give him, kissing your way along his neck.

Thrumming in your ear, his heart sings a melody, calls your name, feeling your hand peruse through his hair. Flushed, Bob wants to reciprocate and more, heat bleeding from his skin, like warmth oozing from a crackling flame.

Lavishing him in the affection he deserves, your mouth continues to explore his neck, dipping against the hollow between throat and shoulder. Every kiss is fire, and he is naught but ash, a string of groans leaving him.

Joined hands meet at the trim of his sweater, following after you as he rids himself of the garment, running abnormally hot. As the blue material crests over his head, you marvel at the sight of him, as if he’s carved from stone.

He’s indestructible, muscles taut and nothing short of impressive, prompting you to swallow the lump within your throat. He’s so handsome, endlessly shy, his visage smitten as your gaze meets his.

Bob smiles, scarlet-faced as he moves to cradle your face. He’s more relaxed than he thought he’d be, stomach still coiled into an excitable, anxious knot, flesh bristling as he kisses you again.

Bodies twine together, and you’re slotted in his lap, hips occasionally urging against his own. There’s friction present, hot and unfamiliar; he’s infatuated by the sensation. He feels your hand drag from his torso to chest, hovering over his heart.

It’s soothing, your presence; a sanctuary that he feels uninhibited within, where his confidence begins to take root. It’s faint, but he can feel his courage flourish when his mouth begins to descend towards your jaw.

Bewildered, you feel yourself gasp; a subtle, surprised noise that becomes lost in the entangled barrage of sighs. He’s agonizingly slow in the best possible way, gaze occasionally shifting to make sure that he isn’t hurting you somehow.

Bob simply mimics your actions from before, and it has a rather powerful effect, ripping a low moan straight from your diaphragm. The sound is pretty, gives him some encouragement to know that he isn’t completely hopeless.

“S’good?” He murmurs, and you can feel the little quirk of his mouth against your throat. You nod, urging him to continue, and he’s more than eager to do so, kissing a trail toward your collarbone.

His hands remain stagnant, one occasionally caressing along your spine, the other content to rest against your hip. You don’t mind it, reveling in the affection he provides you, deliciously gentle, in the way that you desire most.

A shiver passes through him, your digits idly carding over his scalp, threading within his tresses, the sensation pleasant. Cupping the nape of his neck, you exhale, a shaky noise wrought with exhilaration as he kisses toward your sternum.

He’s blushing again, heat radiating from his skin, hesitant to continue further. Every scar on your body is tended-to by his sweet kiss, as if he’s worshiping your flesh, something you feel marrow-deep.

“Do you mind if I …” A tremulous sigh escapes him, and he reminds himself that there’s nothing to be nervous about; it’s just you, he loves you. “I want to see you — more of you, if that’s alright.” Bob inquires, his timbre low, a touch skittish.

A molten warmth curls over you, festering throughout your entire body, as if you’ve been struck by a fever. His constant desire for consent is endearing, and you nod, crawling off of his lap in order to sit beside him, instead.

It’s been so long; he knows what to do, he thinks, but it’s overshadowed by this unforeseen pressure, impressing you. Bob knows it’s going to take some time for him to work himself up for the entire act, but he knows just how patient you are.

Shimmying out of your thin, pajama bottoms, you nudge the material aside, letting it pool on the floor below, left in your undergarments. His eyes are wide again, silently appreciating you, drinking in your beauty — he’s not subtle about it.

His hand flexes into the edge of the mattress, nearly ripping it apart, if he wanted to. Bob watches, mesmerized as you tilt forward, capturing his mouth in another kiss, one hand poised against his thigh.

He tenses, a soft groan pulled from his throat as each kiss seems to burn with a growing intensity. It feels incredible, to be wanted — to be desired by you, in all ways imaginable. As your other hand settles against his abdomen, his lips come to a crawl.

“Still okay?” Ensuring that he’s still wanting to explore, he nods, though there’s a bit of hesitancy present. “What’s wrong?” You ask, cadence soft and assuring, wanting him to know that his well-being comes before any physicality.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” The weight of his confession is somewhat relinquished, vocalizing his nervousness out in the open. You’re nearly slotted in his lap again, chest ghosting over his, caressing across firm muscles. “It all feels new; but I know it’s not.”

Through furrowed brows, you shake your head, fingers sweeping to stroke through his tresses. “You’re not disappointing me,” You murmur, lips curling into a warm smile. “It’s okay if it feels new. I don’t have any expectations — I just want to be with you.” With that in-mind, he begins to relax.

Bob nods, visibly flustered as he shifts beneath you, attempting to hide the evidence of rousing feelings. “I want to keep going,” He gushes, hands settling against your hips. “Just a little more.” The enthusiasm in his voice is charming.

“Define ‘a little more’,” You utter, gaze glittering with curiosity as you caress his jaw, thumb tracing circles into his skin. “This is new for me, too, but it feels comfortable with you.” Those words strike a chord within him; he’s safe for you, too.

A twinge of embarrassment settles onto his countenance, marked by furrowed brows and a halfhearted, anxious smile. “I want to touch you,” He decides it’s best to be forthcoming. “If that’s alright.” Bob murmurs, watching your lips part in surprise.

Touch holds a certain meaning — you know what he wants, and when it comes from his mouth, it makes your skin scream with heat. Even then, he appears a little shy, as if the admission of it somehow tarnishes him.

“Okay.” Conceding, you watch as he sits back just enough, politely adjusting you to ensure that you’re in his lap again. Your hands settle against his shoulders, taut and broad beneath your palms, flesh an open furnace.

Bob beseeches you for another kiss, something to distract himself with, one hand fumbling over your thigh. He wants to come across as confident, self-assured, but it’s harder than he thought it would be. He starts to relax when your digits idly massage into his shoulders.

Lower, lower still; you shiver when his hand ghosts over the inside of your thigh, touch incendiary, a brand etched into your skin. Each kiss makes your head spin, a dizzying feeling.

Between loving, sluggish kisses, he finds the confidence to skirt past the material of your panties, digits finding the warmth between your legs. A sharp gasp splits your lungs, and he almost thought he might’ve burned you.

If it weren’t for his arm keeping you aloft, you might’ve collapsed beneath his touch, melting away into wisps of ash. Each sigh was rapturous, wanton moans inhabiting the space between bodies, a feverish warmth crawling over your spine.

“Bob,” Stifling a whine, you kiss his face, mouth snaking over his jaw as he begins to touch you. His ministrations are slow to start, sheepish, trying to find his footing with the act itself. “Keep going.”

The sound of his name rolling from your tongue with such ardor makes his heart catch fire, a low groan stirring when you plant kisses below his jaw. Nimble digits find the apex of your thighs, gliding through your folds as he touches you.

The sensation clouds your vision with a haze, drowning in desire as his fingers idly stroke along your cunt, rhythm somewhat erratic. He’s trying to discern where you enjoy it the most, but it’s difficult, especially when you’re kissing his throat.

A low, husky groan fluttered from his mouth, a noise that turned your stomach to molten heat. “G—Good?” The words barely escape between his hand and your mouth, and you nod, forehead drifting to press against his.

Pleasure coils your stomach into knots, letting him touch you, explore as much as he wants. He treats you with such care, visage flushed, chest-to-chest, his heartbeat slow compared to yours.

Scarlet blooms against his features, perspiration building along the nape of his neck, in spite of the friction. Your body continues to urge against his, sending tremors of delight through him, the closeness nothing short of perfection.

Arousal seeps into his bones, visceral and raw as he urged his digits against your cunt, easing them backward in rhythmic strokes. His pace was jumbled, each touch wanton, exploratory.

As his fingers deftly caress your core, you lurch forward when they graze your clit, countenance contorted into an expression of desperation. “There,” You moan, feeling the little spike in his confidence. “Right there, Bob.”

Bob exhales, head jostling in a brief nod, faces flush together, allowing him to steal a kiss from you. He whimpers into your joined lips, coupled with the sensation of your hand caressing his tresses, hips grinding against his.

Listening to your encouragement, his digits seek the spot that made you shudder, and when he finds it fully, you’re sighing his name. It’s beside his ear, hot, fervent; he’s enamored, completely and utterly devoted to you in all senses of the word.

As his fingers carefully circle around your clit, you find it difficult to sit still, squirming atop him, which only furthers the existing friction. Bob steels himself, flushed and exhilarated, gaze wide and doe-like as your eyes momentarily find one another.

You’re everything to him — his world, center of gravity, light in the darkness. There’s a semblance of awe in his eyes, coupled with adoration, a budding desire.

With a soft whine, your hands relocate, back to caressing over his chest, abdomen, ribs; anywhere within reach. Lurching forward, you desperately seek whatever scrap of friction he provides, feeling the coil in your stomach begin to unfurl.

“You — You’re so pretty,” Bob sighs, and it makes your limbs crawl with heat. “Like this.” He’s stumbling over his words, but it doesn’t stop you from soaring, completely enamored with him. He feels strange, saying something like that, but it’s the truth.

“Doing so well, Bob,” You huff, “Don’t stop.” It emerges as a breathless plea, and he reels at the thought of you embracing him like that. The room is shrouded by tangled sighs, groans, whimpering; the temperature feels rather tepid.

Preening beneath your praise, Bob holds you close, delighted to know that he’s been the source of your ecstasy. Lips collide once more, the kiss bruising, devastatingly tender even through the constant flurry of passion.

Consumed by want, by the adoration you feel for him, your hips continue to urge into his hands, chasing after any lick of heat. Bob is more than eager to give it to you, grinding haplessly against the pearl of your cunt.

Close; you can feel it, your body screaming for a release that you haven’t had in what felt like forever. Unbeknownst to you, Bob is there too, pushed to the brink by the constant drag of your hips against his.

The touching doesn’t stop, trembling digits steadying as he circles your clit, rhythm somewhat erratic, but you don’t care. You’re nearly there, each kiss raw, eliciting amorous sounds from the both of you, tangled within one another.

He groans your name and it’s your ruin, toppling over the edge at that sound. Bob sputters, foreheads nestled together, your chest flush to his, fingers drawing circles into his abdomen. Muscles tense, clench beneath your palms, his head canting just slightly.

As his fingers still toy with your cunt even through your orgasm, you reach for his wrist, a gentle reminder for him to slow down. A gentle ‘sorry’ slips from his lips, hand ceasing as he withdraws, caressing your body, instead.

Attempting to catch your breath, you notice his flurry of embarrassment, visibly sheepish as your gaze drops toward his groin. “That was perfect,” You whisper, and he’s crimson. Tracing your fingers over his brow, you make sure he’s alright. “You okay?”

More than okay, he realizes, sticky with an amalgamation of perspiration and his own spent, watching with mild dismay as you crawl off of him. However, it gives him an opportunity to retreat to your bathroom for a few minutes.

When he returns, hunched and flustered, you’re laying in bed, wearing his shirt, no pants; his heart nearly bursts from his chest. Bob basks in the afterglow, crawling into bed with you as he curls inward, his larger frame engulfing you.

“I’m fine,” Bob assures, pressing a kiss behind your ear, arm looped over your middle. He feels you writhe within his grasp, only to turn and face him, smiling as if the world is right again. “Was that alright?” He murmurs, hoping for your approval.

“It was amazing,” Admittedly, you weren’t expecting his enthusiasm, but it all seemed to work in your favor, and his. “I want to touch you too, next time — maybe a little more.” It’s an absentminded remark, but it makes him blush.

“I—I liked that,” Bob sighs, feeling you perch atop his chest, lying beneath you as your fingers caress over his torso. “I liked touching you.” His confession is sickly-sweet, wrought with a tenderness that makes you melt into him.

Loved it, really; his arms cage you in against him, holding you, even if it’s you halfway on top of him. There’s a semblance of contentment he feels, closer to normalcy, closer to himself.

Smiling to yourself, you hear his chest expand with a yawn, rising and falling underneath your head. “You’re good at it.” Praising him with saccharine words, you watch as his visage brightens with mild glee.

He’s less timid; he’s still nervous, but it isn’t as outwardly prevalent. Bob turns just enough to kiss your forehead, nestling against you, his breath pluming over your features. A hush falls between, and he’s content to hold you.

Beneath your palm, his heart hums, the rhythm even, placating. You press a kiss to his collarbone, bare skin still fuming with heat, his warm breath tickling your cheek. “Are you tired?”

With a nod, Bob melts into you, chin tucked atop your head, arms tangled around one another. “Yeah,” He hums, gaze half-lidded. He wishes that he could stay up longer and talk to you, but he’s beginning to feel groggy. “I can stay up, if you need me to.” He offers.

“No, no,” You soothe, peering up just enough to fully glance at him, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “We should get some rest.” Typically, you’re always the one falling asleep first — it was reassuring that it was the other way around this time.

“I can hold you,” Bob murmured, knowing that it was often you holding him; he wanted you to feel just as loved as you made him feel, too. With a smile, you turned over, back snug to his chest, his arms caging in around you. “You’re cold.”

“You’re really warm,” With a cheeky grin, you feel his head nestle within the hollow between your neck and shoulder, perfectly slotted there. Reaching for his hand, you interlace your fingers together, resting together over your abdomen. “Bob?”

His eyes are closed, legs tangled within one another, as if he’s wrapped you up in the heat of his body, all coiled around you. “Mm?” On the cusp of sleep, he’s almost out, so comforted by your presence that it’s lulled him to slumber.

You want to say it — the monumental confession, the three words that change everything; it hangs upon the tip of your tongue, dangling there until you swallow it whole. You’re anxious that it might be too soon, or that it might scare him.

“Goodnight.” You whisper, and your response is a soft kiss, buried into the column of your throat.

#mcu #marvel #thunderbolts #thunderbolts*#bob reynolds x reader #bob thunderbolts x reader #bob reynolds x you #robert reynolds x reader #sentry x reader #sentry x you #robert reynolds x you #bob thunderbolts #sentry thunderbolts #thunderbolts x reader #marvel x reader #marvel fanfic

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sttoru · 9 months ago

Text

#𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔: “show me you’re shameless, write it on my neck, why don’t ya?”

cw. married!gojo satoru x female reader. smut, angst to comfort. cheating/infidelity. unprotected. crēampie. bréeding themes. soft angsty-ish sèx. petnames ‘baby, sweetheart, wifey’ not proofread !

satoru has never loved the woman he married. he’s never felt an ounce of attraction or affection towards her. it’s hard to be around someone who he’s supposed to love and cherish, when all he can think about is you.

it’s you he was supposed to end up with if it wasn’t for his damned clan. setting up an arranged marriage behind his back and only telling him last minute of their plans— a bunch of assholes they are.

satoru could’ve declined, disagreed, ran away. he had all the power to, but he had fully convinced himself that his actual soulmate - you - would never return his love, which is why he settled.

. . . he was proven wrong after it was already too late.

“i love you s’much,” satoru grits his teeth as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, his sweat trickling down his forehead. his hips move in a gentle rhythm, as tender as his arms are holding you. he never treated you roughly.

satoru wouldn’t do that to the love of his life. the one who he’s supposed to call his wife, his beloved. he’ll find a way to achieve his dreams. he’ll do anything to end up with you and escape this messed up arrangement.

but for now, he’ll love you like this. every day, behind the other woman’s back, for as long as he can.

“i love you too, ‘toru,” you sigh, tilting your head to give the white-haired man access to your neck. his tongue wets your sensitive skin before sucking on it. he’s claiming you as his— like he usually does whenever he manages to get ahold of you.

“say that again,” satoru whimpers against your throat whilst leaving soft kisses all over. the sounds of your bodies meeting bounces off the walls, the lewd noise of flesh hitting flesh is a melody that you both enjoy behind closed doors.

“please,” satoru pleads. you’re surprised by the vulnerability in his tone. he holds onto you - ruts into you - like he’s never experienced this before. his cock twitches and throbs within you, desperate to reach that aching release.

you swallow the lump in your throat. you feel bad doing this right on the bed that satoru shares with his wife, but you also couldn’t care less. “i love you, satoru, i really do,” you moan near his ear.

the sorcerer shivers at your pretty voice uttering those three words to him. his big hands hold onto your waist, fingers digging into your skin, leaving small dents. his breath hitches, “oh, fuck. y’do, huh?”

satoru curses as he lifts his head from your neck. the view of you beneath him while you take his dick all the way inside your sopping cunt is addicting. it’s also way too slippery because of the mixture of cum on your lower body and the sheets.

“ah,” you look down at the place your bodies meet the second you feel his cock slip out of your pussy. you reach a hand down and guide his tip back to your folds without much thought.

it’s a sight that makes satoru nearly bust a nut right then and there. “missin’ me already?” he tilts his head, that boyish smile on his lips reappearing again. his soaked, white bangs cover his ethereal eyes a little, yet you can still notice the playfulness in them.

“yeah, i do,” you sigh, whining a little as his cock slowly fills you up all the way again, “i always miss you, ‘toru.” you never fail to feel so full whenever you’re intimate with him— he’s big and knows just how to use that to his advantage.

satoru pouts at your words. he knows what you’re indirectly referring to amidst all the physical pleasure. he tries to make as much time for you as he can, without raising suspicion. though sometimes he fails to see you for days. balancing his work schedule, along with his many other duties and his private life was a hassle.

it’s frustrating when satoru is leading a double life, for both you and him. there’s nothing more in this world that he wants than to have you beside him forever. as his wife, not his secret lover.

one day, soon— he promises silently to himself and to you with a kiss.

“i’m sorry,” he breathes out, his thrusts resuming. two of his rough fingers roll your nipple between them, his tongue following to circle the sensitive bud while he drives his dick in and out of you repeatedly. “but i’m all yours tonight, yeah? only yours.”

you nod mindlessly. you trust satoru, he’ll figure this all out. for now, you’ll enjoy every single second you’re able to spend with him.

“mhm,” you hum before your eyes focus on his neck. you know he’s told you not to leave any marks on him, but tonight, you’re feeling shameless. your hand on the back of his head pushes him down until your lips touch his neck.

satoru’s eyes widen at your unexpected action. he can’t deny you anything, even if this is a risky thing to do. he moans when you suck and bite on his skin. you’re leaving hickeys he will have to hide from his wife.

“naughty fuckin’ girl,” he tries to groan, though it comes out as a choked up whimper instead. he bites his lip and his eyes nearly roll back when your legs wrap around his waist, all whilst you’re leaving those dark marks on his neck.

you softly giggle at your own bold move. satoru however, seems to enjoy this more than he thought he would. he allows you access to his neck while he focuses on his set pace.

“y’ just want me to get caught, hm?” the white-haired man clicks his tongue, his balls slapping against your ass, your juices sticking to his skin which makes the sounds of his thrusts even louder. lewder. satoru huffs, “want that woman to know jus’ how well i fuck you, sweetheart?”

you feel your body heat up, the knot in your lower tummy tightening. his increased dirty talk only could mean one thing; he’s close. and so are you. the pleasure of having satoru inches deep in your cunt after not seeing him for two whole days, is driving you insane.

“yes, fuck— yes,” you hiccup, feeling absolutely no shame at this moment. you don’t care how loud you’re getting, if satoru’s neighbours were to hear him have sex with a woman that’s not his wife.

the man himself doesn’t even seem to mind it either. not when he’s this close. he pants before pressing soft kisses against your forehead. the lingering feeling of your lips against his neck remind him of the hickeys you’ve left.

satoru moans against your hot skin. his dick twitches, his balls tighten and his arms wrap around you to cradle you against his bare chest. he’s going to fill you with his hot cum like you deserve. you deserve every single drop and he wouldn’t give it to anyone else but you.

“shit, g’nna cum,” satoru warns after a small whine leaves his throat, “take it, baby. don’t waste a drop, wanna breed you full.” his thrusts turn a bit erratic, body pinning yours to the mattress so you have nowhere to run. all you can do is lay there and take it— take his cum while you reach your own climax.

white dots appear in his vision as satoru releases rope after rope of hot, sticky cum inside of you. his hips are pressed tightly against yours— leaving no chance for his seed to trickle out of you.

the satisfaction that fills satoru’s chest is like no other. a small grin tugs at the corners of his lips as he leans his body weight on top of you slightly, catching his breath. your trembling frame rests beneath him while you’re trying to regain composure as well.

“there y’ go, atta girl,” satoru coos and kisses your forehead. he treats you so well, even after sex. he treats you like you’re his true wife. which you should be.

he rubs your sides with his hands to calm you down. his own breath is still shake as he looks down at you with a grin. a wicked idea pops up in his head once he sees the thick trail of cum that’s left on your slit after he pulls out.

“y’know how i told ya that i’ll make y’ my wife one day?” satoru hums, eyes focused on both your face and cum-covered pussy. he has told you before that he will find a way to officially make you his.

and he finally just realised the perfect way to do it.

“mhm,” you nod with a dazed look in your eyes. you wrap your arms around satoru’s shoulders and hug him, nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck. you can practically feel the smirk on his lips as his breath ghosts over your ear.

his hand travels down to your tummy, fingers splayed over the soft flesh; “good, ‘cause y’re gonna need to play the part for me already. gonna fill you up ‘til you’re nice and swollen with my kids, wifey.”

#sttoru writes.#jjk smut #jjk x reader #gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo satoru smut #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #jjk fic #satoru smut

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reiding-writing · 2 months ago

Note

hi!! can you write more of the banter between enemy!reader and spencer but like now he goes beyond limits and like tells her the team would be better without her in their lives or something drastic and then she either goes missing or badly injured by the unsub??

404. /spencer reid/

if spencer is going to continue shutting down all of your ideas for leads in front of the team, then you’re going to track the unsub down yourself. you don’t need his approval anyway.

s1!spencer x enemy!reader 5.8k angst. series masterlist. main masterlist.

CW | typical criminal minds violence, spencer is a real twat, details of kidnapping and grievous bodily harm, catatonic trauma response. imagine this like halfway through season one.

The moment you step into the precinct, you feel it in your chest—a tightness, a heaviness. It’s not just the fatigue of being called in at 3 a.m. or the smell of stale coffee and desperation thick in the air. It’s the kind of tension that says we’ve been chasing ghosts and getting nowhere.

You glance across the briefing room. The local PD is gathered awkwardly along one wall, arms crossed, faces pinched with defensiveness. They’re not happy to have the FBI here. You don’t blame them—getting sidelined in your own case is a bitter pill to swallow. But this unsub isn’t playing fair.

“This is the third victim in two weeks,” the lead detective mutters, flipping through crime scene photos projected onto the wall. “Each time, the unsub leaves a note. Always handwritten. Always addressed to us. Sometimes directly to me.”

Morgan leans forward, eyes narrowing. “He’s taunting you,”

The detective scoffs. “He’s gloating. This one said, ‘You didn’t catch me last time. What makes you think you’ll get it right now?’”

“Classic narcissistic behavior,” Elle murmurs. “But there’s more to it,”

Hotch’s voice is calm but pointed. “He’s not just showing off. He’s testing you. He wants to see if he can outsmart us next.”

You shift in your seat, arms crossed, gaze flicking from photo to photo. The unsub’s pattern is clean, almost surgical. No evidence left behind, no usable prints, no DNA. Victims all abducted within ten miles of each other, murdered within 48 hours, left posed—like the unsub wanted the scene to say something.

Spencer sits to your right, scribbling notes in that tiny chicken scratch of his. You pretend not to notice the way he looks over at you when you suggest a geographic clustering theory.

“I think we should be focusing on the clusters—if the unsub’s circling familiar territory, it could give us a window into their comfort zone. Maybe even a home base,”

Spencer doesn’t even look up. “Or they’re using the local geography as a red herring. Throwing us off on purpose. Which is more likely with his intelligence level,”

You grit your teeth. “Or maybe you just don’t like when someone else has a theory first.”

There’s a flicker of tension across the table. JJ coughs awkwardly. Spencer finally glances over, his eyes sharp behind his curls.

“Just trying to eliminate bias,” he says flatly. “You might want to try that sometime.”

It starts small. A glance. A jab. You throw it back, and the fire spreads.

—

You and Spencer used to be good at this—banter, playful jabs, mutual intellectual sparring. It was light. It was fun. 9 months of almost playful hatred. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being any of those things.

You know why, you both do. But you’re still too stubborn to actually address it. So now, every briefing is a minefield.

“He’s organised,” you say, tapping a finger on the evidence board. “He’s probably keeping souvenirs. There’s no way he’s not revisiting these crime scenes in some capacity,”

Spencer rolls his eyes. “That’s a reach. He’s already getting his fix from the letters. Revisiting is more common in disorganised killers with obsessive traits. But, by all means, let’s base our strategy on assumptions,”

You round on him, the heat rising in your chest. “You always do this—cut people down because they didn’t quote a research paper in their suggestion. Not everything is from a journal article, Reid. Some of us work off instinct

He doesn’t blink. “That’s a shame.”

The room stills. You can feel everyone watching you now—JJ's uncomfortable glance, Morgan’s frown, Hotch’s silent disapproval. Elle shifts like she wants to step in, but thinks better of it.

You clench your jaw. “Just because your IQ is the highest in the room doesn’t mean your word is law,”

“And just because you talk louder doesn’t make you right,”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Gideon’s voice cuts through the tension like a blade. “We are not here to flex egos. We’re here to stop a killer.”

You force yourself to look away, biting down on every retort itching to escape. Spencer doesn’t say another word either, but you can see it in the way he tightens his grip on the pen—he’s not finished. Not even close.

—

By midday, the briefing is over and you’re elbow-deep in case files, staring at photos of victims and crime scene reports that blur together. You’re trying to hold onto the idea that this is about the work, not about him, but Spencer’s voice grates in your head like static.

“Victim number two was killed in a different manner,” you point out, “which might indicate a loss of control or a change in the unsub’s emotional state,”

Spencer scoffs from across the room. “Or it might indicate that your profiling is, yet again, based on faulty interpretation,”

You look up slowly. “You’ve got a real talent for being insufferable,”

He shrugs. “Just pointing out the facts,”

“You’re not pointing out anything. You’re just undermining me. Again.”

He walks closer now, arms crossed, eyes full of cold disdain. “Maybe if you weren’t so obsessed with being right, you’d actually be useful,”

Your jaw clenches so tight it hurts. “And maybe if you got over the sound of your own voice, we wouldn’t waste half our cases cleaning up your messes,”

Spencer steps in even closer, and now it’s personal. “You’re reckless. Impulsive. You go off instinct like it’s a badge of honour when really, it just makes you sloppy,”

You fire back without thinking. “You’re emotionally stunted and completely incapable of functioning outside a textbook,”

The words hang in the air like a punch.

Silence spreads. The local cops glance over from their desks. One of them murmurs, “Damn,”

Then Gideon slams his hand on the table.

“Enough,”

His voice is sharp, final. “Both of you. I don’t care how long this has been brewing—this is not the place. You’re acting like children, and you’re making this entire team look like amateurs,”

You glance down, throat burning. Spencer doesn’t say anything. He’s stone-faced, but you can tell from the twitch in his jaw that he’s stewing.

Gideon’s not finished. “I don’t want to hear another word out of either of you unless it pertains directly to the case. Are we clear?”

You nod. Spencer doesn’t move.

“Are we clear?” Gideon repeats.

“Yes, sir,” Spencer mutters.

You don’t trust yourself to speak.

As you start gathering your files, Spencer’s voice cuts through the tension one more time—this time quieter, but not quiet enough.

“You know, we probably would’ve caught him already if you weren’t dragging us down.”

The words hit like a slap. You freeze.

The room goes dead silent.

Spencer looks away like he didn’t just say it. Like it didn’t just split something open.

You don’t respond. Not with words.

You finish collecting your files, slam the folder shut, and walk out of the room without a glance back.

—

You don’t say a word as you walk out of the precinct. You don’t slam the door or stomp your feet—there’s no drama, no outward explosion. Just a quiet, ice-cold silence that coats you like armour.

Let them think whatever they want. Let him think he won.

You move with purpose, jaw tight, eyes fixed ahead. You’re done trying to reason with people who have no interest in listening—especially a certain genius with a superiority complex. You tried to play by the rules, work within the team, but apparently the team doesn't think you have anything worthwhile to offer.

Fine. You’ll do it on your own.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket—JJ, probably, or Hotch, maybe even Gideon trying to pull you back into line. You ignore it. Instead, you pull out your notes, flipping through the photographs you took earlier, the ones the team waved off as nothing—redundant, too similar to previous kills, “unremarkable,” Spencer had called them.

But they weren’t. Not to you.

The unsub had made a mistake. A small one, but a mistake nonetheless.

In victim three’s crime scene photo, the position of the body had been ever so slightly rotated compared to the first two—enough that most wouldn’t care, wouldn’t notice. But the shadows were wrong. There was too much light coming in through a window that didn’t face the same direction as the other houses in the neighborhood. And the blood pattern—it had streaked upward at an angle.

Someone had moved the body. After the kill.

You’d mentioned it in passing. Spencer had dismissed it as “grasping at straws.”

Well, straws were all you needed.

—

You hole up in a dingy motel room a few blocks from the latest crime scene, spreading every case file and crime scene photo across the bed like a map to something only you could see. Your eyes flicker between documents, stringing together tiny inconsistencies—the make and model of the air conditioner in victim four’s apartment, the mismatched doorknob in victim one’s home, the off-center towel rack in number five’s bathroom.

The unsub didn’t just kill these people. He replaced things. Adjusted details.

Controlled them, even after death.

You flip back through the files, heart hammering now, and scan the addresses again. You map them out on the motel’s bedside notepad, drawing circles, checking distances between the apartments and the kill sights. Mixing and matching scenes chronologically or otherwise. And then you stumble on it.

A perfect crescent, not random but intentional. All ten locations arced around a center point—a forgotten stretch of suburbia with an abandoned cul-de-sac, a place zoned for housing development ten years ago that never got off the ground.

It’s the only place the unsub hasn’t struck yet.

It’s also the only place that could tie them all together.

You glance at your phone again. The screen is blank. No new calls. No new messages. Not from the team. Not from Spencer.

And maybe that’s a good thing. You don’t need him to validate you. You don’t need anyone.

You grab your gear, shove your files into your bag, and drive.

—

The cul-de-sac is quiet.

Not in the way quiet neighborhoods usually are, but dead quiet. No birdsong. No dogs barking. Just a biting, eerie stillness that settles in your bones the moment you step out of the car.

The houses are in varying states of decay—some half-built and gutted, others with boarded windows and cracked sidewalks. You grip your flashlight tighter as you move through the overgrown path between two units.

You keep your gun low, your ears straining for sound.

The data you gathered had pointed you to the house on the far end—the only one with signs of recent activity. The windows had been cleaned. The door, repainted.

You creep up the porch, careful not to make a sound. Your breath clouds in front of you, and the air feels colder here somehow. Heavier.

You reach for the doorknob. It turns easily.

Unlocked.

That should’ve been your first red flag.

The interior is dark, but not untouched. A table in the front room is neatly set for two. Plates. Silverware. A bottle of wine. It looks more like a dinner party than a murder scene.

You sweep the room, clearing corners, keeping your steps light. Nothing jumps out at you, but your gut won’t stop twisting.

Then you notice it.

On the wall.

A photo.

Your heart stops.

It’s you.

Snapped from the side, no more than a few hours old. Shot through the window of your hotel room, small map of the city in hand. The image is taped to the wall with surgical precision. Below it, a tiny note, one you have to walk right up to to read.

Congratulations.

You barely have time to react.

There’s a sharp sting in your neck.

You reach up instinctively, but your fingers are already clumsy. You turn, try to raise your gun—but the world tilts violently.

A face emerges from the shadows. Smiling. Calm.

“You should be more aware of your surroundings,” he says, almost apologetically.

And then everything goes black.

—

You drift in and out of consciousness. Time becomes slippery—your mind fogged, your limbs numb. Every now and then you feel something cold against your skin, a tug at your wrists, the uncomfortable pinch of something sharp near your ankle.

When you finally come to fully, you’re tied to a chair.

Hands bound behind your back. Ankles strapped to the legs of the chair with zip ties. Your head throbs, and there’s a metallic taste in your mouth—blood, probably.

The room around you is dimly lit. It’s not the main house anymore. You’ve been moved.

It looks like a basement. Concrete floors, unfinished walls, a single exposed bulb hanging overhead.

There’s a table nearby, neatly arranged with tools—not weapons. Instruments. Brushes. Tweezers. Surgical gloves.

You inhale shakily. You’ve seen what hems done with them before.

“You’re awake,” a voice says behind you.

You flinch as he steps into view.

The man is unremarkable in every way. Tall-ish, average build. Brown hair, clean-shaven. The kind of face you’d pass on the street and forget within minutes.

“You came here thinking you’d be the hero,” he muses, walking around you like he’s inspecting art. “They all do. You think your badge makes you invincible.”

You don’t say anything. You’re still trying to conserve what little energy you have, mentally calculating your options.

He crouches in front of you, smiling. “You found me. That makes you smart. Smarter than the rest of them, maybe.”

You meet his gaze, steel in your voice despite the pain. “They’ll come looking for me.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” he replies. “I’ll lead them right to you if I have to. Whether you’ll be salvageable though, is up for debate,”

He walks to the table, picking up a small silver scalpel, running a gloved finger down its edge.

“A portrait is a powerful thing. It’s like capturing a snapshot of a person’s soul. Of course no true portrait is taken without the proper preparations being put in place first.”

You don’t flinch. You don’t show fear.

You just stall.

“They’re going to kill you,” you say evenly. “The second they find out what you’ve done, you’re done.”

He tilts his head, amused. “Then I guess we better speed things along,”

—

The sun had long since set when the rest of the team finally packed up for the night. The precinct lights buzzed with the kind of fatigue only unsolved murders could generate. Tension still clung to every surface, like dust no one could wipe away.

You’d been gone for hours.

And no one noticed.

Gideon assumed you’d taken some space after the confrontation—he’d scolded you both sharply enough in front of the local cops to warrant that kind of retreat. Morgan figured you’d gone to cool off, maybe back to the motel, maybe to follow up on a lead solo out of spite. JJ worried but didn’t say anything, not wanting to stir the already tense dynamic. Elle even offered to call, but Hotch had waved it off.

“She’s probably just blowing off steam,” he said. “We’ll regroup in the morning.”

And Spencer?

Spencer hadn’t said a word. Not one. He’d returned to his paperwork, methodically scribbling notes, analysing patterns, and doing everything in his power to ignore the hollowness you’d left behind.

He told himself you were being petty. Immature. Childish, even. Storming off like a petulant child after a simple observation.

But by morning, the quiet had stretched too long.

The motel clerk confirmed you never came back last night. Your room key remained untouched. Your bed, still made. Your rental car, gone.

JJ’s face turned white. “She always checks in. Always.”

Morgan’s voice was sharper than usual. “She would’ve called if she was going somewhere. Even if she was pissed.”

Elle was already reaching for her phone, scanning through emergency numbers and local hospitals. “We need to start looking now.”

Hotch gave a tight nod, reaching for his radio. “She wouldn’t go dark this long, not in the middle of a case. Not without telling someone.”

Then Gideon walked in with a manila envelope in his hand, face grim. “We just received another message.”

Everyone stilled.

He handed it to Hotch, who opened it slowly, bracing himself. Inside was a note—typed, this time—and a single, polaroid photograph.

JJ read it aloud, voice catching:

“At least one of the FBI Agents you corralled to help was intelligent enough to track me down. Too bad they weren’t prepared for the aftermath.”

Hotch turned the photo toward the group.

You.

Bound, unconscious, head lolled to one side in what looked like a concrete room. Your face was bruised. Blood smeared your temple. Your hands were zip-tied behind you, your body slumped forward like a discarded puppet. The lighting was dim, shadows slashing across your figure like jagged teeth.

A basement. A storage room. Somewhere hidden, somewhere wrong.

JJ gasped.

Morgan swore under his breath.

Elle closed her eyes and muttered, “No…”

And Spencer—Spencer leaned forward slowly, brows knitting as he examined the image.

“We need Garcia to enhance it,” he murmured, already reaching for his phone. “Maybe we can track down the camera. Or a reflection. Or—”

“Well,” he added suddenly, voice clipped, “She obviously wasn’t that intelligent if she got caught,”

The words dropped like a stone in still water.

The entire room turned toward him.

“What did you just say?” Morgan snapped.

JJ’s mouth dropped open. “Spence—”

But it was Gideon who moved first, stepping forward, voice low and dangerous.

“Say that again,” he said, “and I will bench you for the rest of this case.”

Spencer blinked. “I didn’t—”

“No.” Gideon cut him off. “I don’t want excuses. I want action. You think you’re the smartest person in the room? Good. Prove it. Use your genius to get over yourself and find her.”

The silence that followed was heavier than anything anyone had felt since the case began.

Spencer stared down at the photo, jaw clenched.

And then, finally, he swallowed his pride and got to work.

—

He isolated the enhanced image on the screen of his tablet, pushing aside his guilt and anger like clutter on a desk.

Don’t think about what you said.

Don’t think about the way you looked when you walked out.

Don’t think about the fact that you might not be okay.

Focus. Analyse. That’s what he’s good at.

“Lighting first,” he said aloud, mostly to himself.

He zoomed in on the image, filtering the background. The bulb overhead was exposed, casting distinct shadows.

“That angle suggests a single overhead source,” he muttered. “No side lighting. Probably a basement. At least eight to ten feet deep underground.”

He paused, adjusting the contrast on the image. “There’s no natural light at all, which rules out windows. Walls are unfinished. Cinderblock. Mortar lines are tight… That’s not a pre-’80s build. It’s too clean,”

Morgan leaned in. “So what—newer construction?”

Spencer nodded. “Late 90s or early 2000s. This wasn’t improvised. It was planned. It’s structurally sound, like a finished or semi-finished basement that’s just… been stripped down,”

Elle pointed to the corner of the image. “What’s that? Right behind the chair,”

Spencer zoomed in again. “It looks like… rust. A drainage pipe, maybe. Industrial-grade. Not common in most basements unless there’s risk of flooding. That, combined with the cinderblock, suggests this could’ve been built in an area prone to high groundwater. Maybe even flood plains,”

JJ frowned. “We’re not near the coast,”

“No, but if you look at the housing map…” He switched to a digital layout of the neighbourhood. “This cul-de-sac was supposed to be part of a larger development. Half of it was never completed because the land didn’t pass inspection,”

Hotch narrowed his eyes. “He’s in one of those unfinished units,”

Gideon nodded once. “Then we start there. We canvass the entire development. We don’t stop until we find her.”

Spencer looked at the photo one last time. His throat was dry. His chest ached. He thought of what he’d said—we would’ve caught him if you weren’t dragging us down—and suddenly it sounded less like a petty jab and more like a curse.

He looked up at the team.

“I’m coming with you.”

Hotch nodded. “Good. You’re going to lead the search.”

—

The SUV was quiet on the way to the development site. No one played music. No one made jokes.

Spencer sat in the front seat, his fingers tapping a rapid rhythm against his knee. He was trying not to picture you in that chair. Trying not to imagine what the unsub had done in the hours since that photo was taken. But he couldn’t stop the images.

You, bloody and bound.

You, unconscious and alone.

You, thinking no one was coming.

He had no right to worry.

No right to be scared.

But he was.

The words echoed in his head.

“She obviously wasn’t that intelligent.”

He wanted to take it back. Shove it into his mouth and swallow it down until it never existed. But that’s not how words work. They cut, and they cling, and they stay.

When they arrived at the development, the team split up fast. Morgan and Elle took the north end. JJ stayed with local officers to coordinate grid sweeps. Hotch and Gideon led the way into the southern row—newer units, all empty.

Spencer broke off on his own.

He had a gut feeling. It didn’t feel smart. It didn’t feel strategic. But it felt right.

And for once, he let himself trust that instinct.

The fifth house in the row was quiet.

Too quiet.

The front door was slightly ajar. No visible signs of forced entry. No sound from inside.

The front door creaked open under Spencer’s hand. The house was stale with disuse—thick air and thin silence. He moved cautiously through the entryway, gun raised, heart a thunderous rhythm in his ears.

Every shadow stretched too long. Every corner felt wrong.

Footsteps pounded behind him seconds later—Morgan, Hotch, and Gideon falling in silently. Elle and JJ soon followed through the back, their weapons drawn, movements swift and precise.

Then—

A noise.

A soft creak.

Second floor.

Hotch motioned with two fingers, and the team surged upward.

They found him in one of the back bedrooms. The unsub.

He was standing in front of a half-boarded window, arms crossed, calm like he was waiting for them. No fear. Just smug, eerie satisfaction, the kind that made your skin crawl.

“You’re too late,” he said simply.

Morgan didn’t hesitate. “On the ground! Now!”

But the unsub didn’t comply. He moved fast—reaching for something under his coat.

Hotch fired first. A warning shot into the drywall, forcing the man to freeze mid-movement. Morgan lunged in, tackling him with a grunt. They struggled, fists swinging, feet skidding across the half-carpeted floor.

Spencer stood back, watching the scuffle like it was underwater. His fingers twitched against his sidearm, but he didn’t fire. Couldn’t. His eyes were already scanning—behind the man, past the empty bedframe, to the blood on the floor.

He wasn’t thinking about justice. He was thinking about you.

By the time Gideon and Morgan got the cuffs on the man, Spencer was already moving—down the stairs, through the hallway, toward the door at the far end of the house.

There was a lock on it. Heavy. Old.

Spencer kicked it once. Nothing.

Twice.

On the third kick, the door gave way.

The basement smelled like mold, metal, and something sharper—sweat, maybe. Or blood.

The light flickered overhead as he stepped inside.

And there you were.

Slumped in the same position as the photo, tied to a chair, your wrists bound so tightly they’d gone purple. There was blood at your temple. Bruises down your neck. A split lip. Dirt smeared your cheeks. Rips in your shirt.

But you were breathing.

Barely.

Alive.

He nearly collapsed with the force of the relief.

“Hey,” he said softly, kneeling in front of you. His voice cracked. “Hey. You need to be conscious right now,”

Your eyes fluttered, but didn’t open.

You didn’t speak.

Didn’t move.

Spencer's voice dropped lower, to fend with a failed attempt at lightheartedness. “You’re at a higher risk of permanent brain injury if you’re unconscious, and I doubt you need that on top of all of your other issues—”

His hands trembled as he reached for the zip ties, too afraid to touch you at first.

Morgan burst in behind him. “We need medics! Now!” he shouted up the stairs.

JJ’s voice echoed from above. “They’re already pulling up!”

Spencer carefully cut the ties, his fingers brushing your wrist. Your skin was cold. Too cold.

He looked at you again, eyes searching for any sign of recognition. A flicker of life. Of you.

Nothing.

When the medics finally came, they moved with military precision, lifting you from the chair, strapping you onto a stretcher. You didn’t resist. Didn’t flinch. You didn’t even blink.

“Low blood pressure. Likely concussion, threads pulse,” one of them said quickly, checking vitals.

They spoke in clipped medical shorthand as they wheeled you out. The words blurred in Spencer’s ears.

He didn’t follow.

Couldn’t.

He stood there, in that grimy basement, staring at the chair you’d been tied to. The blood smeared into the floor. The shredded zip ties left behind like bones.

He should’ve stopped you.

He should’ve known something was wrong last night.

He should’ve said something—anything—besides the venom he’d spat.

His hands curled into fists.

Upstairs, he could hear Morgan shouting at the unsub as he was dragged away.

“You think you’re clever? Huh? You think this makes you some kind of genius?”

The unsub just smiled. “She came to me.”

Spencer’s stomach turned.

—

Outside, the late morning sun was rising, casting long shadows over the front lawn as paramedics loaded you into the ambulance. JJ stood nearby, arms folded tightly, barely breathing.

Elle was silent, her eyes rimmed red.

Hotch was speaking with local police, organising statements and chain of custody. And Spencer stood off to the side, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, face unreadable.

He didn’t go to the ambulance.

Didn’t try to see you again.

He didn’t think he deserved to.

You were silent. Still unresponsive. Not out of stubbornness, not anger, but trauma. Something had shut off in you, and Spencer didn’t know how—or if—you’d be able to come back from that.

He hadn’t just pushed you away.

He’d left you alone long enough to almost die.

—

The hospital was a cold place. The sterile white walls seemed to hold no comfort, and the bright fluorescent lights buzzed incessantly, as if trying to shatter the fragile quiet of the room.

But the team couldn’t shake the relief.

You were alive. Not unscathed—far from it—but alive. The doctors assured them you would recover physically, though they hadn’t made any promises about the mental scars.

But there was a sense of something else in the air, something they couldn’t quite name yet.

Gideon paced outside your room, eyes shadowed by a tiredness that went deeper than just the case. Morgan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his face taut with unsaid words.

Elle was in the hallway, sitting on a chair with her head in her hands, her phone still in her lap. She hadn’t spoken much since they left the house. JJ hovered near the nurses’ station, keeping herself busy with menial tasks, but her face was pale—gripped by some invisible weight.

And Hotch, though outwardly composed, carried the same heavy air of guilt.

But no one felt it as sharply as Spencer.

He was pacing in the hallway, arms stiff at his sides, a muscle in his jaw twitching with every breath. He hadn’t said a word to anyone since they’d arrived at the hospital, and though he’d checked in with the doctor, he hadn’t really listened.

Spencer’s mind was still replaying the look in your eyes when you were pulled from that basement—the emptiness, the unspoken words, the brokenness. And for the first time, he was painfully aware of the distance that had been wedged between you.

The anger, the insults, the barbed exchanges—it hadn’t been just his defence mechanism, and he hadn’t realised how much damage it had done until now.

But now you were silent, and Spencer could feel the full weight of what he’d done pressing down on him like a vice. You were the one who’d been hurt the most—physically—and still, it was his words that had broken you.

—

When he finally pushed open the door to your room, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

You were propped up in bed, the sterile white sheets bunched around your body. Your face was bruised—still swollen—but your eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. There was nothing there. No emotion. No spark. Just an emptiness that he didn’t know how to fill.

Spencer hesitated, his footsteps slow and deliberate as he crossed the room.

You didn’t move when he sat in the chair next to the bed. You didn’t acknowledge him at all. Your gaze remained fixed ahead, unfocused, distant.

For a moment, Spencer just watched you. He opened his mouth to say something—anything—but the words didn’t come.

It was only when he spoke, his voice sharp and broken, that the silence shattered.

“What you did was reckless and idiotic,” he said, his tone colder than he intended. “You could’ve died. You left without backup, without even thinking about the risks.” He swallowed, forcing his words to keep coming. “You could’ve—you should’ve—asked for help.”

He paused, waiting for some kind of response. Something—anything—but there was nothing. You didn’t even blink. You just stared ahead, lost in the haze of your own mind.

Spencer’s fingers clenched into fists. “You think this is some kind of game? You think you’re invincible?”

Still nothing.

He leaned in slightly, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. “Goddamn it, I’m trying to help. But you need to stop acting like you’re the only one who matters here. This isn’t just about you.”

Nothing.

The silence stretched on, a taut wire between the two of you, the gap between him and you feeling like an abyss. Spencer couldn’t stand it. His gaze dropped to the floor, a wave of shame crashing over him.

He didn’t understand it. He didn’t know how to fix it.

For the first time in his life, Spencer Reid felt like he was completely and utterly lost.

—

The team began to gather in the waiting room outside your room, and no one spoke. Even the air felt thick, like the stillness before a storm.

It was Elle who finally broke the silence. “I can’t…” she trailed off, her voice catching in her throat. “She… she won’t even look at us.”

Hotch, though normally composed, looked exhausted. His hands were folded in his lap, his eyes shadowed by the weight of the situation. “She’s been through hell, Elle. We can’t just… expect everything to go back to normal.”

Gideon looked up from his place near the door. “No, it’s not that simple,” he said quietly, voice low but unwavering. “But I’ve seen this before. Trauma like this… it changes you.” He paused, eyes flicking toward the door to your room. “She’s going to need time, and we’re going to need patience. But we also need to acknowledge what we did wrong,”

The room grew quieter, each member processing the truth in their own way.

Morgan, who had been pacing with his hands in his pockets, spoke up. “Spencer’s not handling this well. But none of us are.” His voice was strained, but it held a sense of certainty. “We didn’t see it. We didn’t see how bad it was getting for her.”

JJ closed her eyes briefly, guilt flooding her expression. “We should’ve known. We should’ve stepped in. The way she and Spencer were fighting—it was too much. We should’ve told them both to stop before it got to this point,”

“I’m just…” Elle’s voice wavered. “I’m just so angry at him. How could he say those things to her? He was the one who pushed her.” Her eyes were wide, a mix of disbelief and hurt. “He acted like he didn’t even care, like she didn’t matter

Hotch sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. “We all failed her in some way.” His eyes flicked to Gideon. “And now Spencer’s struggling to process the fact that it’s his words that have hurt her the most,”

Gideon nodded slowly. “There’s no way to fix it right away. But what matters now is how we move forward. For her. Not for us.”

#enemy!reader ᝰ.ᐟ #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #mgg #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst

1K notes · View notes

briefinquiries · 10 months ago

Text

Tyler Owens x Reader: Where You Belong

Prompt: you're caught in the middle of a tornado, tyler's there in the aftermath.

Word count: 6k

Warnings: angst, blood mention

A/N: surprise surprise, & not what i usually write, but twisters has recently been consuming my entire life. so here's an angsty lil imagine of hurt reader being comforted by the wrangler himself.

You made it about fifteen minutes down the road before you realized that you’d forgotten your phone… Again.

After patting down your pockets and digging through your tote bag the best you could without crashing the car– you straightened yourself in the driver’s seat and sighed defeatedly.

Stupid, you thought. Although you weren’t really that surprised by your mistake. You’d never been particularly attached to your phone, and this certainly wasn’t the first time you’d left it behind.

But you’d been trying to be more mindful about remembering it. And just like that, Tyler’s voice popped into your head– no doubt scolding you for your carelessness. ‘What if something happened and I had to get a hold of ya?’

Thanks to another wild storm system brewing all over the midwest, Tyler was out chasing again today. And although you’d checked in on him earlier in the day, you knew there was always the possibility that things changed. Storms shifted– gained power, sometimes his team (although rarely) got things wrong. A pang of guilt spread through your chest at the thought– what if something happened to him out there and he needed to reach you?

You could turn back and get your phone, of course. But you were already so close to town. And all you needed was a bottle of shampoo and a birthday cake for Tyler. You could be in and out of Lawton in less than half an hour if you were quick– home before he even knew you’d left your phone behind again.

What could really go wrong?

…

“Talk to me, Dani– what do you see?” Tyler asked into the walkie. They’d been tracking a handful of storms for the past few hours– Tyler watching the clouds, and Dani studying the radar. Right now, there were two that had peaked his interest– One was formulating south, the other to the northeast.

“The storm south has higher wind speeds, but I think it’ll fade if it shifts. The other one has a weaker wind shear, but higher pressure. Either one has the chance to form or go, so I say trust your gut,” they answered.

Tyler shifted his grip on the steering wheel, studying the dark, circling motion in the distance.

“What’re you thinkin’, T?” Boone asked, camera trained on Tyler.

He sunk his teeth into his bottom lip– trying to focus.

“Less moisture, less potential for an updraft, but way higher winds if we go south. Northeast though… she’s already got the motion and momentum, she just needs the winds to shift...”

Boone stayed quiet– he knew that when Tyler talked out loud, it was generally rhetorical.

Tyler took his eyes off the sky to study the world around him for a moment.

“No pressure, T,” Dani said through the walkie.

“Yeah,” Lilly chimed in. “We just spent all damn day chasing these things–”

“South,” he said suddenly. “I say let’s chase south.”

…

Less than thirty minutes later, Tyler was standing in the middle of a wheat field with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face.

The storm had fizzled with the shifting winds, leaving them with nothing but a few scattered showers that mixed in with the sweat already pooling on his skin.

“S’alright, T,” Boone said encouragingly with a shrug. He clapped him on the back. “We can’t catch ‘em all.”

Tyler sighed before joining Dani where they sat on the edge of the truck, scanning for other potential storms in the area.

“What’s that there?” Tyler asked, pointing to what appeared to be a storm system heading west.

Dani frowned. “What the hell… I think that’s the storm from earlier– the one moving northeast.”

“So it shifted?”

“Shifted?” Boone said, lowering his camera for a moment to glance towards Tyler. “Where to? Can we make it in time?”

Tyler frowned, studying the movement.

“That’s strange,” Dani mumbled under their breath. With a few clicks, they expanded the screen, showing a wider radius.

“What’s strange?” Boone asked.

Ignoring him, Tyler scanned the system, trying to trace the path without actually calculating it. “You don’t think–”

Dani glanced his way. “Holy shit–”

“Hello?” Boone said. “Y’all gonna share with the rest of the class?”

“I think she’s headin’ for Lawton,” Dani finally whispered.

And although he’d been thinking it, all the color drained from his face when it was actually spoken out loud.

“Lawton?” Dexter asked, voice laced with concern.

“Oh shit-” Lilly whispered.

Lawton was the closest city to where the two of you lived– if it hit there, thousands of people could be in danger. And if it shifted again, even the slightest bit– it could head right for your small town instead.

Despite the humidity, everything inside of Tyler went cold as he imagined you at home– puttering around the garden, blissfully unaware of what might be coming.

“Will you uh, pass me– pass me my phone, Boone?” Tyler stammered, standing up from the truck bed.

Boone reached into the backpack scattered near his feet and handed over Tyler’s cell phone, placing it in his outstretched hand. Tyler muttered a quick thank you before walking a few strides away as he pulled up your contact information.

The call rang five times before making it to voicemail– your sweet voice asking him to leave a message and you’d get back to him.

“Hey, baby– it’s me. Call me back as soon as you can. Alright, love ya.”

He clicked the phone off before immediately trying again.

“C’mon,” he muttered as the line continued to ring. “C’mon, baby, c’mon,” he hummed nervously, kicking the grass with his boots when he heard your voicemail. “Hey– me again. Listen, I’m not trying to scare ya, but there might be a storm comin’ and I just wanna make sure you’re safe. Give me a call please.”

He paced back towards the group, sending you a quick text just for good measure as he did.

“Alright, what’s the plan here?” Dexter asked.

But Tyler wasn’t paying much attention as he obsessively dialed you for a third time.

“What’s wrong, T?” Boone wondered.

Without looking up from his phone, Tyler exhaled a frustrated breath. “She’s never got her damn phone on her– that’s what’s wrong.” The second he heard your voicemail for a fourth time, he chucked his phone towards his bag. “Damnit!”

Boone swallowed thickly. “I’m sure she’s fine–”

Tyler hung his head. After a moment, he nodded, although he wasn’t entirely convinced that would remain the case if he didn’t get in touch with you fast. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to breathe–

You were fine, he told himself. You were home, you’d hear the alerts if they were necessary, you knew to get into the basement.

Tyler took a long, steadying breath. “Dani, what’s the speed of this thing?”

“Uh, it’s moving– thirty-five miles per hour directly west. I think she’s gaining speed, though.”

“Alright, she’s fast,” Tyler remarked. “We have to be faster. Let’s head home, ladies and gents, we can take cover at my place once I know everyone’s safe.”

“You got it, T,” Lilly said.

“Stay safe everyone,” Dani replied as they all dispersed to their respective vehicles.

Tyler and Boone climbed back into the truck, tires screeching as they sped west towards Lawton, and home towards you.

…

You were inside the bakery on Lowell Street– Tyler’s favorite place for any and all pastries, when you heard the thunder.

Although thunder in Oklahoma wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence, it was enough to make you turn your attention outside, just to see what kind of storm you might be up against on the drive home.

“It’s gettin’ dark out there,” Gloria, the owner, said. She glanced at you over the counter and blew a strand of graying hair out of her face.

You nodded in agreement, jumping slightly when another crack of thunder rang through the air. “Sounds like it’s getting closer,” you noticed.

“I still can’t believe that boyfriend of yours goes out of his way to chase these storms. And his friends, too.”

You scoffed. “Yeah, me either. Bunch of adrenaline junkies.”

“Not me,” Gloria smirked. “We get enough chaos in this life, I don’t need to be chasin’ it.”

You returned her smile, recognizing that you might have more in common with the sixty-something year old baker in town than you did your own boyfriend. But you supposed that your differences were what drew you to Tyler. He was brave and thrilling and so alive. Although what he did scared the absolute shit out of you, there was nothing better than watching him exude excitement and just pure joy after he got home from a particularly powerful storm.

“Was he and his crew trackin’ anything out here?” Gloria asked, using the tube of blue icing to write the birthday message you’d requested on top of Tyler’s cake.

“Not here,” you replied. “He was south of OKC last I checked in.”

Which, you realized, had been far longer than you anticipated thanks to not having your phone. You mentally kicked yourself again for leaving it behind. If you’d brought it with you, you could have just given him a call now. Because unless he was smack dab in the middle of a goddamn tornado, he always answered your calls. Just a few reassurances from him could’ve calmed your fears about the storm brewing outside– told you that it was just a thunderstorm passing through.

Not every thunderstorm means a tornado, he had said, you didn’t even know how many times by now. And each time allowed you to relax a little. Because unlike your boyfriend, you didn’t enjoy weather in quite the same way. In fact, after an EF4 had ripped through your home when you were just a child, you did your best to stay as far from tornadoes as Oklahoma allowed.

“I’m sure it’s just thunder,” you began.

But before you could finish your sentence, you heard the sudden pitter patter of hail beginning outside. Gloria lowered the icing tube while you took another step closer to the window to peer out.

Dark, gloomy clouds swirled through the sky.

That was when you heard the sirens. Loud and clear, they echoed through your ears in a terrifying, grim warning.

…

As the storm tracked faster and faster the closer they got, Tyler’s first stop was your shared home just outside of Lawton.

He didn’t even bother turning the truck off before he was hurling himself across the lawn, towards the front door. But before he even looked inside, his stomach dropped when he noticed your SUV wasn’t parked in its typical spot.

Regardless, he practically ripped open the front door before running into the house, calling your name loudly into each room he searched, hoping that maybe you’d lent your car to your mom again– or magically parked it in the garage that was stuffed full of his gear.

But it was no use– you weren’t there.

He knew that for good as soon as he flung open the door to your shared bedroom. The bed was neatly made, pillows arranged perfectly– and your phone sitting on the nightstand table, plugged in and clearly far away from you.

“Damnit!” he yelled, kicking the door frame frustratedly. Chest rising and falling rapidly, Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think. Frustration and anger brewed inside of him, but he knew that underneath all of that was fear– for you and your safety. All he wanted was to have you in his sights again– although preferably wrapped up in his embrace, the only spot he could ensure you were safe... Where you belonged.

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. Tyler made his way across the room and picked your phone up from the nightstand. Your background– a picture of you and him taken during your trip to Texas last year, lit up the screen. Accompanying it were the slew of notifications you’d missed– the first was the severe weather alert, the next few were all the missed calls from him. But at the very bottom of your screen was a reminder notification– one that allowed him to finally exhale the breath he’d been holding since he burst into the house.

Get Tyler a bday cake.

Sliding your phone into his back pocket, he raced back down the stairs to find Boone standing on the front lawn.

“She’s in town,” he said, rushing towards his truck.

Boone followed close behind. “How do you know?”

“If nothing else,” Tyler said, climbing into his truck, “she follows her schedule.”

…

“Gloria, you gotta listen to me–” you pleaded, hurrying around the counter to grab her hand. “If the sirens are goin’ off, it means we don’t have much time. Does the bakery have a basement, or– or a shelter?”

Gloria’s watery eyes met yours. Your heart sank the moment she shook her head dreadfully.

“Okay,” you said shakily, trying not to panic. What would Tyler do? You looked around the bakery– with its old walls and sagging roof, you knew it wasn’t safe to stay here.

“Gloria, we gotta go,” you said urgently. “We gotta find somewhere safe to be.”

With that, you tugged her towards the exit.

As soon as you were outside, you felt the fierce wind whip your face, along with a few staggering pieces of hail. There was debris– leaves and sticks flying around in every which way, making it hard to see past what was right in front of you.

Although you were trying to be vigilant, you didn’t even see the scrap of metal fly by your face. “Shit!” you exclaimed, feeling it graze your cheek. Ripped skin was quickly followed by the feeling of warm blood trickling across your skin.

“Are you alright?” Gloria asked, grabbing your arm.

You used your free hand to press against your cheek before nodding. “We gotta get out of here,” you said.

But just as you turned to try and gauge your surroundings, hoping to come up with a shred of a plan, you froze at what was looming in the distance.

Winds whipped rapidly, the sky boomed, and a dark, wide funnel had formed– it’s tip already touching down on the ground. And it was coming straight for you.

“Gloria, we gotta go–” you cried. “Now!”

…

Tyler drove as fast as he could– foot nearly pressed down on the ground. He drove like his life depended on it. Because yours did–

The truth was– he’d never given much thought to losing you. He was generally too preoccupied with wondering what you’d do if you lost him. He was the one putting himself in danger all the time, he was the one forcing his way in the middle of these storms.

He didn’t know what he’d do without you– except be a shell of who he was now.

“Holy shit–” he heard Boone say from the passenger seat.

Tyler refocused his attention ahead, his eyes widening the second he saw what Boone was fixated on.

It was hard to miss the giant, fucking tornado barreling right for Lawton’s array of buildings.

“We’re too late–” Tyler croaked. “We’re too fucking late–”

“She’s smart,” Boone assured Tyler. “She knows where to go and what to do.”

Tyler’s knuckles turned white as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator and drove faster.

…

In retrospect, the laundromat probably wasn’t the best place for you to be. But there were few windows and the back room was lined with secure piping, all which jetted deeply into the ground, creating a solid anchoring point.

There were a few other people huddled in the same room, already low on the ground and clutching onto one another.

“Hold on to that!” you cried, practically pushing Gloria towards the corner of the room. She wound her frail arms around the piping before crouching down. You were right beside her, arms locked tightly on the piping as you felt the building start to shake.

The storm outside was deafening. Winds whistled and boomed. You were pretty sure the woman beside you was screaming– but you couldn’t hear her above the noise of everything else. You tried to be brave– the way you knew Tyler would be if he were here.

Once, about three years ago, an EF3 hit his parent’s ranch while the two of you were staying there for a long weekend. You remembered the way he stayed so calm, so collected through it all. After ushering everyone into the storm shelter, he wrapped his strong arms around you, anchoring you to him. The ranch didn’t shake like this though… And even though you’d been scared that night, it paled in comparison to what you felt now.

This building was weak– the structure was unsound. You had no idea how close the tornado actually was, but you knew this thing wasn’t going to stay put. It was just a matter of if the pipes went deep enough into the ground and if you could hold on to them. Because you didn’t have Tyler holding on for you this time.

You hoped he was somewhere safe– maybe tracking the storm that was about to kill you from a reasonable distance.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” you told Gloria, sweaty palms making your grip slip. “Just hold on–”

The building began to shake harder– the very foundation rocking beneath you. Shortly after, pieces of the roof began tearing off, exposing the thunderous storm raging above.

“I don’t–” Gloria cried. “I don’t think I can hold on!”

You tried loosening your own grip– hoping you could wrap your arms around her like Tyler had done for you before, or do something to help. But then you heard another ear splitting roar, and suddenly, the entire roof was being ripped off from the building. There was nothing you could do. You weren’t strong enough–

“Hold on!” you screamed, tucking your head into your elbow and squeezing your eyes shut. “Just a little longer!”

But as the words left your lips, even you didn’t believe them.

…

By the time they finally reached town, the tornado had already moved on.

Part of the reason why Tyler loved tornados so much was their power and speed. In his eyes– it was nothing short of an act of God to see what damage a simple funnel of wind could do in just a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds.

Until he was faced with the inevitable tragedy of it all.

Because it was one thing to see trees uprooted, or tractors rolled over. It was another to see an entire town had succumbed to a pile of debris– vehicles thrown this way and that– metal and siding and bricks scattered over every inch of the flat land– To know that people, his friends, his neighbors, you could be buried underneath piles of rubble– bodies broken and bleeding and hurt if they were lucky enough to be alive at all.

Tyler brought his truck to a screeching halt, not even hesitating before he was ripping off his seatbelt and hurling himself out of his seat. The second his boots hit the mud, he screamed your name as loud as he could.

Eyes whipping around, he tried to process the scene before him. But it was hard to gauge where anything used to be– there was practically nothing left.

“Tyler!” he heard someone scream in the distance. Head whipping to the side, he saw Lilly, waving her arms frantically.

For a moment, Tyler let himself get his hopes up. He raced across the distance between them as fast as he could, despite all the obstacles in his way. But when he finally reached her, he was devastated to see that you weren’t there at all. Instead, Lilly was staring at a vehicle, flipped over and crunched like it’d been hit head-on by an 18-wheeler.

And although it was damaged beyond repair, Tyler recognized it as yours immediately.

He felt his chest tighten. “Christ–” he stammered, unable to fight back the tears burning behind his eyes. He ran his hand through his hair before hunching over, hoping the motion would allow him to finally catch his breath.

“Oh God,” he panted. “God, no– please, no–”

“She might not have been in it,” Lilly said quickly.

But Tyler barely heard her. He was too fixated on the pounding in his ears–

A wave of hopelessness washed over him, flooding his insides. He was too late– he couldn’t save you– he was too fucking late.

“We’re gonna find her, T,” Boone’s voice was suddenly peaking through the fog.

“Yeah, we won’t stop until we do,” Dani added.

Tyler forced himself to take a few, steadying breaths. When he could, he straightened his back and glanced around.

His whole team hadn’t given up on you.

Neither could he.

…

When you finally gained the courage to open your eyes, you were met by a fierce brightness. You coughed– lungs heaving as you struggled to breathe.

“Gloria?” you tried to speak. “Are you okay?”

You were met by an eerie silence– the calm after the storm. Blinking harshly a few times, you tried to gather up enough strength to sit up. But as soon as you did, you had a chance to look around… And boy, do you wish you hadn’t.

There was nothing left– the entire town was gone… destroyed, buried in rubble and debris.

“Gloria?” you called, groaning as you pushed the thick layer of roofing off from your legs. You grimaced once you saw the deep gash down the side of your thigh, oozing blood.

Breath shuddering, you continued to scan the area– trying to wrack your brain for what the hell you were supposed to do next. The second you moved to turn your head, you winced, vision blurring. Slowly, you grazed along your forehead with your fingertips. When you pulled them away, you grimaced to see them coated in crimson liquid.

You stared at it for far too long– unsure what else to do. You were hurt– probably worse than it felt, too if adrenaline had anything to say about it. You didn’t know if you could walk on your leg, or if you’d pass out the second you tried to stand up.

You felt hopeless– completely and utterly alone.

Until you faintly heard the sound of your name being called in the distance.

It was enough to make you snap out of your trance, head whipping around to see Boone throwing aside a piece of siding. He called out a second time before turning and locking eyes with you from across the way.

“Boone,” you said under your breath, like you couldn’t quite believe he was real. Because if Boone was here– calling out for you, that meant Tyler couldn’t be far behind.

Boone yelled your name again before turning. “I found her!” he screamed, waving his arms. “Over here!”

You fought back the guilt you felt for still not finding Gloria and moved to stand on shaky legs.

“I’ll come back for you,” you promised her.

Wobbly and weak, you limped towards him, trying your best not to fall in the cracks and crevices beneath the debris. You looked down, intending to watch your step, but instead you caught a glimpse of your leg and all the blood now coating your entire thigh and calf. Just the sight of it made you lose your balance.

“Shit,” you gasped, as you landed harshly on the ground. You looked back up and saw Boone heading your way– only fifty yards or so from you. But then– right behind Boone, was a sight that made everything else melt away.

“Tyler,” you exhaled, like it was a prayer tumbling from your lips.

His long legs moved fast– practically running despite everything in his way.

He’d make it to you– he’d get you. But if you got up and kept moving… he’d get there sooner. So, with whatever you had left inside of you, you pushed yourself up. Ignoring the pounding in your head and the throbbing in your leg, you limped forward.

“Tyler,” you said again– not loud enough for anyone else to hear. It was like you just needed a reminder that really was right there. “Tyler–” this time, when his name tumbled from your lips, it came out as a sob– every emotion inside of you bubbling to the surface of your skin. Tears slipped down your cheeks, your vision blurred.

He was so close now– you could hear the rubble shift as he stepped on it.

He called your name… and God, if his voice wasn’t the sweetest sound you’d ever heard.

“Tyler–” you cried again, throat choked from dust and tears.

And then, just like that, his body was colliding with yours. Arms winding tightly around your shoulders, a familiar scent enveloping you, he cradled the back of your head with his hand, anchoring you to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his middle, face buried in his button down shirt.

“Oh, God,” he whispered above you, lips grazing the side of your head. “I got you,” he said.

You opened your mouth to speak, but no words came out– only a guttural, uncontrollable sob that made him hold you tighter.

“I got you, baby. I got you,” he whispered into your hair.

“Tyler–” was all you managed to choke out.

His thumb trailed up and down your hair, matted with mud and your own blood. “I’m here. I’m right here. I got you.”

He held you tight, steadying your shaky frame. It was like he was the one thing keeping you from completely falling apart. Which was why your body almost recoiled when he finally pulled away. You needed him wrapped around you like that forever.

You tried to resist, to pull him back, but you didn’t even have the energy for that. All you could do was stand there weakly while his wild, concerned eyes scanned the length of you.

“I’m fine–” you tried to say.

But he shook his head instantly. “You’re not fine. You’re hurt, we gotta get you out of here. Get an ambulance!” he yelled to Boone, who was lingering nearby, looking like he didn’t quite know how to help. Boone nodded instantly before hurrying off.

“Tyler–”

“Okay, I see the leg– what else?” he asked. “What else hurts?”

“My head,” you whimpered. “And my ribs–” you admitted, although you hadn’t quite managed to look at those yet. “But Tyler–”

Before you could finish, Tyler’s hand gripped the hem of your tank top, pulling it up slightly. You winced as the fabric brushed over your ribs. But when Tyler pressed a hand on the bare skin, you almost screamed out in pain. “Sorry,” he said gently. “I gotta look though, baby. I gotta check it.”

You nodded, fingers squeezing the fabric of his shirt as he did. The pain was excruciating– enough to make your already-dizzy head start to spin.

“I think they’re broken– at least a couple. Can’t say for certain.”

“Tyler,” you tried to repeat, tears still streaming steadily down your face.

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he said once he saw the shift on your face.

“It’s Gloria,” you finally spit out. “She’s out here somewhere, Tyler. We have to find her–”

Tyler’s gaze softened at your words. He pulled his eyes away from you long enough to quickly scan the scene.

“Did you see her? Or know where she went?”

You shook your head, more tears spilling down your cheeks. “No–” you cried. “No, I don’t know where she went. Tyler, I have to find her–”

“Easy,” he soothed, winding an arm around your middle so that he could brace the majority of your weight. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. We gotta get you checked out.”

“I can’t leave her–” you protested.

“Listen to me,” he said, voice gentle but stern. “You bleeding out on a pile of rubble isn’t going to help her, okay? Let me get you somewhere safe, Boone and Dexter can search for Gloria, alright?”

After a moment, you nodded solemnly. “You promise?”

“I promise, baby. Now c’mon.”

Before you could protest, you felt Tyler’s arm swoop around the backs of your legs, while the other supported your back. In an instant, your feet are lifted off from the ground. You didn’t have the energy to do anything but lay your head against his chest.

“There we go,” he soothed. “I got you.”

His thumb trailed along your back gently as he began navigating the pile of rubble around you.

You felt safe nestled against him– and for the first time since you’d emerged from the rubble, you felt safe enough to allow your eyes to fall shut.

“Hey, stay awake now, okay? We’re just a short walk to the ambulances– keep lookin’ at me.”

You tried– honestly you did. You opened them up, despite everything inside of you that screamed to close them. And then you fought like hell to keep them trained on Tyler– to study the lining of his jaw and the tan shade of his skin. But Tyler’s embrace was so warm, and his voice was just so soft. And you were so, so tired. There was nothing you could do when they fell shut again.

Tyler pleaded for you, but unconsciousness got there first.

…

Even after the doctors assured him you’d be okay– that it was just exhaustion and blood loss from the trauma you’d endured keeping you out for so long, he couldn’t settle down.

You looked so goddamn frail– so broken in that hospital bed. He couldn’t stand it.

It was nearly ten at night before the rest of his team packed up to head back home, making him promise to call them as soon as you woke up.

“We can stay if you want,” Lilly offered. There was no hint of sarcasm or malice in her tone. She was being genuine. Which was how Tyler knew he must have been an absolute mess.

“That’s alright,” he croaked, speaking for the first time in nearly an hour. Even he could hear the pain in his voice.

Boone clapped him on the shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Love you, man.”

“Call us if you need anything,” Dani said.

Tyler nodded, promised he would. But the only thing he needed was for you to wake up.

…

His watch read midnight when you finally stirred.

Tyler was sitting in a chair, pulled all the way up to your bedside, and was clutching your hand with both of his. He had his forehead resting against the hospital bed, but the second he felt movement, he shot up quickly, all the exhaustion fading instantly.

Your face contorted into a frown as you squeezed your eyes shut once, twice, three times before they fluttered open.

Scooting forward in his chair, he studied you as you glanced around– clearly trying to take in your surroundings and place where you were. The second you started to shift– like you were sitting up in bed in a panic, he squeezed your hand.

“Hey, you’re okay,” he said. “You’re in the hospital. You’re okay.”

Your head turned towards him, confusion and fear plastered all over your cut up, bruised face. Just the sight made his chest ache.

“You’re safe.”

You fell back against the pillow and nodded slowly.

“Tyler–” you began shakily, he could already hear the sob lodged in your throat. “I– I’m…”

“You’re okay, baby,” he assured you.

“No– I’m- I’m so sorry–”

He froze, brow furrowing in confusion. “Hey, what’s this? Stop- you got nothing to be sorry for, baby.”

“I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t hear the alert until it was too late. It was stupid– I just–” your face crumpled as you struggled to find words. “You always tell me not to forget it and I forgot it.”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “Don’t worry about that.”

“I just– I wanted to get you a birthday cake– I should have gotten it sooner, but I forgot– and…” your voice continued to crack and break with each breath you took. “I know you don’t love birthdays, but I love your birthday–” Tyler leaned forward in his seat, releasing your hand so that he could cup your cheek. He brushed a loose strand of hair from your face before his fingers traced your jawline delicately.

“I think your cake got destroyed.”

He couldn’t help the soft smirk that spread across his face. “I’d say that’s probably a fair assumption.”

“I’m sorry–”

“Hey,” he soothed. “Fuck birthday cakes– I didn’t want one anyway. I was thinkin’ we could get a nice pie this year. What do ya think? Blueberry? Peach cobbler?”

“But Gloria made it–”

Suddenly, your face fell and you were back to sitting up eagerly. “Oh my God, Tyler. Gloria– she–”

“She’s safe,” Tyler interjected quickly. “Thanks to you. Boone found her not far from where you wound up, clutching to some pipes. She had a few scratches, but that was it. She said the pipes were your idea.”

A rush of pride flowed through him as he beamed at you. His girl– getting people to safety in the middle of a tornado, despite how scared you must have been.

Your watery eyes met his, lip quivering as you tried to speak. “Tyler– I didn’t think…” he could hear the tears in your throat before you even let them out. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. God, I don’t know how we made it.”

Your voice broke on the last word, a sob escaping your lips as you doubled over. Instantly, Tyler was out of his chair and sliding into the tiny, hospital bed beside you carefully avoiding your cracked ribs and stitched up thigh.

Without even hesitating, you curled into his side, fingers grasping as his shirt like your life depended on it.

“Shh,” he soothed, hand rubbing up and down your arm. “You did make it. You and Gloria both. You made it because you thought on your feet– I’m so proud of you,” he hummed, pressing his lips to the side of your head.

He had no idea if you believed him or not– no idea if his words were sinking in at all. You clutched his shirt and cried against his chest– frame shaking with each breath you took. Tyler felt so helpless in that moment. All he could do was whisper reassuring comments and words of affirmation in your ear and hold you tightly against him.

After a while, your breathing started to return to normal. Your grip on his shirt loosened as you let out a sigh. “You came to get me,” you said quietly, voice sounding so tired– like it was moments away from drifting off.

Tyler pressed his lips to your hair, eyes squeezing shut. “I’ll always come to get you,” he promised.

You nodded. “I know.”

Tyler ran his hand up and down your arm a few more times soothingly. “The laundry mat was a good idea– especially with the pipes,” he murmured into your hair.

With what little energy you had left, you pulled away from him to glance up. With a raised eyebrow, you asked. “Does that mean I can be a tornado wrangler now?”

He smirked playfully. “That depends, do you want to be?”

You bit your lip, like you were really thinking about it. After a moment, you scrunched your nose up. “And face one of those things nearly everyday? Not a chance.”

Tyler smiled, pulling you gently against his chest– right where you belonged. “There’s my girl,” he said lovingly.

#tyler owens x reader #tyler owens x reader imagine #twisters imagine #twisters fic #tyler owens x reader fic #tyler owens imagine #tyler owens x you #twisters #tyler owens #tyler owens fanfic

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kiszjuli · 3 months ago

Text

𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 ──── [𝐋.𝐃𝐇] 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒

( 이동혁 ) ; 𝐟𝐞𝗺!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐥𝐞𝐞 𝐝𝗼𝐧𝐠𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐜𝐤

──── in which your parents had always told you to stay away from boys like haechan. boys with cocky smirks, black eye liner, bruised knuckles, and a reputation that came with warning labels. you never had a reason to listen until you were assigned to tutor him after school. it should have been simple. help him pass, get it over with. but there’s something about him that drew you in, and you didn’t want to pull away.

✦ drama, fluff/angst, slow burn(ish). forbidden love? ; tags. goodgirl!reader x badboy!haechan, suggestive, your parents are literal jerks, swearing, mentions of fighting, kissing !!, protective!haechan, corruption? but not really, lmk if i missed any ! ;

𓂃 w.c [ 15.3k / 22.7k ]

!! not proofread !!

▸ j.note ; i hadn’t planned on making this fic so long but emo haechan does something to me i guess. also pls pls give feedback i want to improve my writings in the best way possible and i know my writing needs a lot of work, so constructive criticism is encouraged.

▸ this is part one of two and part two can be found here .ᐟ

you had never been the type to chase trouble.

your life had always been structured, predictable, mapped out like a perfectly folded brochure of all the things you were supposed to be. the good daughter. the responsible student. the girl who never gave anyone a reason to worry.

your parents raised you with expectations as solid as the fence that surrounded your house. good grades, early curfews, polite smiles at dinners. you were the kind of girl who double-checked her answers before turning in a test, who texted home before she was even late, who never spoke back even when she wanted to.

it wasn’t that you minded. not really.

your life was safe—comfortable.

weekends were spent with the same close friends, at the same coffee shop on the corner, drinking the same latte every time and reviewing notes for exams that were still weeks away. after school, you went straight home, sometimes stopping by the bookstore if you had extra time, flipping through pages of novels where the main characters lived lives far more reckless than your own.

and you liked it that way. you liked knowing where you belonged, knowing exactly what came next.

because trouble was for other people. rule-breakers, risk-takers. the kind of people who never thought twice about consequences. people who didn’t care.

the kind of people like him. lee donghyuck—or as he preferred to be called, haechan.

lee donghyuck had always been a name whispered in the hallways, wrapped in either amusement or warning. he was the boy who skipped class but somehow still seemed to do well, the boy who wore silver rings on his fingers, black eyeliner and bruises on his knuckles, the boy who flirted with everyone but never let anyone close.

he was reckless in a way that made people watch him like a fire they couldn’t look away from.

and you? you were the girl who had spent her whole life avoiding flames.

—

science had always been your best subject.

there was something reassuring about it—formulas that always worked, reactions that could be predicted, rules that never changed. if you followed the steps, you got the right answer. it was logical. reliable.

but not everyone saw it that way.

from the back of the classroom, haechan let out a quiet sigh, loud enough that a few students glanced his way. he was slouched over his desk, barely pretending to take notes, the end of his pen tapping lazily against his open textbook.

“can anyone explain why increasing the concentration of reactants speeds up a chemical reaction?” the teacher asked.

your hand went up without hesitation.

“because a higher concentration means more particles in the same space,” you answered. “so there’s a greater chance of collisions between them.”

“correct,” your teacher said, nodding approvingly.

from the corner of your eye, you caught movement. haechan had lifted his head just enough to glance in your direction, his gaze slow and assessing. when you turned to meet it, he didn’t look away, but just studied you, the corner of his lips twitching like he was in on some joke you weren’t part of.

your teacher moved on, scribbling equations across the board, but haechan didn’t so much as pretend to care. he stretched, tipping his chair back onto two legs, hands folded lazily over his stomach, like he was just waiting for the bell to save him from all of this.

you turned back toward the front, exhaling through your nose. it annoyed you, yet you didn’t know why.

it didn’t matter, it had nothing to do with you.

he didn’t matter.

or at least, that’s what you had always thought until today.

—

you were halfway through packing your books when you heard your name.

“could you stay back for a moment,” your teacher said, just as the last bell rang.

you paused, glancing up as students shuffled past your desk, their conversations blending into white noise. you couldn’t think of a single reason you’d need to stay—your grades were perfect, your assignments were always on time, and you definitely didn’t cause any trouble.

but then the teacher said another name.

“donghyuck, you too.” you heard him correct the teacher of his name under his breath.

your fingers curled around the thick textbook you were shoving in your bag.

he was slouched at his desk, twirling a silver ring around his finger, eyes half-lidded like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. it took him a second to react, but when he did, it was with an exaggerated sigh, dragging himself upright like even this was too much effort.

the classroom emptied around you until it was just the three of you, the weight of the silence settling in as the teacher folded her arms over her desk.

“haechan,” she started, “you’re failing. if you don’t pass your next exam, you’re going to have to repeat this class. and you know what that means.”

he leaned back on the closest desk to the teacher’s, completely unfazed, crossing his arms. “that i get the pleasure of spending another semester with you?”

your teacher didn’t so much as blink. “it means you will not graduate with your class. you need this credit.”

that got a reaction. his arms uncrossed as haechan’s smirk slipped, just slightly.

“which is why,” she continued, turning to you, “you’re going to tutor him.”

your mouth parted slightly. “wait—”

“you’re the top of this class,” she cut in, before you could protest. “if anyone can help him pass, it’s you.”

you swallowed. the request made sense—on paper. but logic didn’t stop the heat of his gaze as it flickered toward you, as he finally seemed to take you in.

slowly, he let his eyes drag up and down, taking his time.

your unwrinkled clothes. your neatly done hair. the way you clutched your bag like it was a lifeline.

his lips curled at the edges, something amused, something almost lazy, and yet, you felt it. the weight of being looked at like that.

“seriously?” he drawled, tilting his head, eyes still on you. “her?”

your spine straightened. “what’s that supposed to mean?”

he smiled like he’d already won. “nothing, sweetheart.”

your teacher exhaled sharply, already tired of him. “this isn’t optional. you’ll meet and study together, and if i hear that you’ve skipped even once, i will not hesitate to let you keep your failing grade. understood?”

haechan sighed, tipping his head back like this was the greatest inconvenience of his life. then, with the ghost of a smirk still tugging at his lips, he muttered, “yeah, yeah. whatever you say.”

you could already tell. this was going to be impossible.

—

you walk out of the classroom first, stepping a little harder than intended. this wasn’t how you planned to spend your semester. tutoring some guy who didn’t even try, who slouched in his seat like he was too good for all of it, who looked at you like you were something to be amused by.

the hallway was mostly empty now, students already heading home or to their next activities. you were almost free, when a voice called out behind you.

“so, tutor, when do we start?”

you didn’t stop walking. “the library. after school tomorrow.”

haechan caught up easily, his pace unhurried, like this was all some joke to him. “ugh, the library?” he groaned. “how predictable.”

you glanced at him, unimpressed. “where else are we supposed to study? a convenience store?”

“actually, yeah.” he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, shooting you a smirk. “sounds more fun. we could get snacks. maybe a drink. aren’t tutors supposed to motivate their students?”

you exhaled sharply. he’s messing with you. you knew it, and yet, somehow, he still got under your skin.

“you don’t need motivation,” you said flatly. “you just need to study.”

“eh, debatable,” he mused. “i think what i need is a tutor who’s a little more flexible. less ‘strict teacher,’ more ‘cute classmate who wants to help me succeed.’”

you stopped walking.

haechan took a few more steps before realizing you weren’t next to him anymore. he turned, an eyebrow raised, just as you crossed your arms.

“okay, let’s get something straight,” you said, voice firm. “this isn’t a favor. i don’t want to tutor you, but i have to. and i don’t care if you think it’s boring or predictable, because it’s either this or you fail. so if you actually want my help, show up tomorrow. on time. otherwise, don’t waste my time.”

for a second, he just looked at you, head tilted like he was reevaluating something.

then, instead of answering, he let his gaze drag over you, slowly, like he was seeing you for the first time.

you stiffened under the weight of it, but refused to look away.

after a beat, he grinned.

“damn,” he murmured, almost to himself. “you’ve got a little fire under all that perfection, huh?”

you huffed, turning on your heel. “just be there.”

“yes, ma’am.”

you ignored him.

but as you walked away, you could still feel his smirk and stare burning into your back.

—

you barely stepped through the front door before your mom called out from the kitchen.

“you’re home later than usual.”

you set your bag down by the entryway, slipping off your shoes. “the teacher kept me after class.”

that was enough to get both of your parents’ attention. your dad looked up from where he sat on the couch, while your mom leaned against the counter, a slight crease forming between her brows.

“for what?” she asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

you exhaled, already bracing yourself. “she assigned me to tutor someone. he’s failing, and she thinks I can help him pass.”

your dad hummed approvingly. “well, that’s nice of you. who is it?”

you hesitated for half a second.

“haechan.”

the shift in the room was immediate. your mom stilled, and your dad turned completely this time, exchanging a glance with her before turning back to you.

“him?” your mom repeated, her voice careful.

“yes, him.” you folded your arms. “why does it sound like you already know who he is?”

your dad sighed, setting the paper aside. “people talk, sweetheart. he’s got a reputation.”

you rolled your eyes. “so what? he slacks off in class?”

your mom pursed her lips. “it’s more than that. skipping school, getting into trouble, hanging around the wrong crowds…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “just—be careful around him, honey.”

there it was. the warning.

and, of course, the assumption that you couldn’t think for yourself.

you sighed, rubbing your temple. “i’m not hanging out with him. i’m tutoring him. in the library. with textbooks.” you glanced between them. “pretty sure that’s not a crime.”

your mom didn’t look convinced, and your dad only leaned back in his seat, his expression unreadable.

“just don’t let him pull you into anything,” he said. “kids like that don’t change.”

you bit the inside of your cheek, a flicker of irritation curling in your chest.

they made it sound like you were helpless. like the second you spent time with him, you’d suddenly throw your whole life away. everything you’ve built for yourself.

you shook your head. “it’s not that serious.”

and before either of them could say anything else, you grabbed your bag and headed for your room, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary.

they were overreacting.

they didn’t know him.

and neither did you.

—

session one - monday february 23rd

the school day dragged.

it wasn’t any different from usual; classes, notes, the occasional group discussion, but today, there was a lingering awareness hanging over you. a ticking clock in the back of your mind, counting down to the inevitable.

you weren’t looking forward to tutoring haechan. but you had a job to do, and if he didn’t show, well… that was his problem, not yours.

by the time the final bell rang, you had already secured a table in the library, setting out your textbook, notebook, and a few highlighters. everything was neatly arranged. you had a plan, a structured breakdown of the material he needed to catch up on.

and yet, fifteen minutes passed.

then twenty.

you checked your phone, tapping your pen against your notes.

was he seriously going to ditch on the first day?

finally, you heard footsteps approaching, and then a familiar voice, drawling, “damn. you’re really taking this seriously, huh?”

you glanced up to see haechan standing there, hands in his pockets, looking completely unfazed. like he hadn’t just wasted almost half an hour of your time.

you exhaled sharply. “you’re late.”

“fashionably,” he corrected, dropping into the chair across from you.

you leveled him with a stare. “i don’t think that applies to studying.”

he shrugged. “guess we’ll find out.”

already, your patience was wearing thin. you pushed the textbook toward him, flipping to the section you had marked. “let’s start with reaction rates. you need to understand how—”

he wasn’t listening.

instead of looking at the notes, he was looking at you, head tilted slightly, a lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“you always sit this straight?” he mused, tapping his pen against the table.

you blinked, looking up from the textbook. “what?”

“just saying. you’re sitting like you’re taking an exam or something.” he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. “relax. tutoring’s not life or death.”

you ignored the heat creeping up your neck and flipped open your notebook instead. “can we focus?”

he hummed, like he was considering it. then, before you could continue, he leaned forward slightly, eyeing your arrangement of highlighters and pens.

“bet you highlight in, like, five different colors.”

you clenched your jaw. four, actually, but you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of being right.

when you didn’t respond, he grinned, undeterred. “does tutoring me ruin your whole ‘perfect student’ reputation?”

you inhaled slowly, gripping your pen a little tighter. “only if you fail,” you said flatly.

he let out a soft laugh, finally glancing at the textbook. “alright, alright. hit me with the science.”

you exhaled, pushing past your irritation. this was going to be a long session.

but one way or another, you were getting through to him.

—

the next hour closed and you left the library still irritated—but more at yourself than him.

why had your heartbeat picked up when he had leaned in? why had his teasing stuck in your head longer than necessary?

get a grip.

the school hallways were mostly empty by now, just a few stragglers grabbing things from their lockers or heading to practice. you stopped by your own locker, swapping out your books for what you needed, then headed outside.

the late afternoon air was crisp, the sky shifting into a soft orange glow. you walked home, already thinking about how you’d explain the session to your parents.

(you wouldn’t. you’d just tell them it happened and leave it at that.)

continuing your walk, barely making it past the school you hear a voice from behind you.

“yo, tutor.”

your head snapped up.

haechan. again.

he was leaning against a lamppost a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets, the same knowing smirk playing at his lips.

“we should celebrate.”

you frowned. “celebrate what?”

“me actually getting an answer right, obviously.” he straightened, stretching his arms behind his head. “c’mon, don’t be boring. you never just—i don’t know—do something on a whim?”

you had remembered the question he got right—which was simply the question you had answered yesterday in class. you narrowed your eyes. “if this is your way of trying to get out of studying next time—”

“relax.” he chuckled. “just messing with you. see you at our very serious study session next time, tutor.”

and with that, he strolled off like he hadn’t just left you standing there, your thoughts an even bigger mess than before.

—

session two - wednesday the 25th

you told yourself you wouldn’t get annoyed this time. you even mentally prepared for his usual antics before heading to the library.

it didn’t work.

haechan was late again. this time only by ten minutes, but still. he strolled in with an iced coffee in one hand, a lazy grin on his face like he hadn’t kept you waiting.

“you get extra credit for showing up on time, you know.”

“damn, should’ve known,” he drawled, sliding into the seat across from you. “maybe next time.”

you sighed, pushing the textbook toward him. “no distractions today.”

“that’s asking a lot.”

“it’s not.”

to your surprise, he actually made an effort. at least at first. he followed along as you explained reaction mechanisms, even nodded a few times like he understood. but the second things got even slightly complicated, he leaned back and groaned.

“why do i even need this? it’s not like i’m gonna be a scientist.”

“you need it to pass.”

“passing is overrated.”

“says the guy who’s literally failing.”

he just grinned, spinning his ring around his finger. “touché, sunshine.”

the nickname caught you off guard, making your stomach flip in a way that was foreign to you. whether he noticed your shift or not, he continued to use the name anytime he talked to you.

progress was slow, but you managed to get through two topics before he started messing around again, twirling his pen, asking dumb hypothetical questions that had nothing to do with chemistry.

“if i fail, do you fail too? since you’re my tutor?”

“no.”

“damn. no stakes for you then, huh?”

“just the overwhelming frustration of having to deal with you.”

“you wound me.” he clutched his chest dramatically, then smirked. “you sure you’re not starting to like our little sessions, though?”

you rolled your eyes. “go home, haechan.”

he laughed as he stood up, giving you a lazy salute before walking off.

session three - friday the 27th

miraculously, haechan was on time. but that didn’t mean he behaved.

“don’t look so shocked, tutor.” he plopped into his usual seat. “i can be responsible when i wanna be.”

“so, you just choose not to be?”

“exactly.”

today, he actually put in a little more effort, asking questions instead of just guessing his way through answers. you started to think, maybe this tutoring thing wouldn’t be a total waste of time.

and then, halfway through, he got bored.

“okay, pop quiz,” he said, snapping his book shut. “if you had to get a tattoo, what would it be?”

you blinked. “we are not doing this.”

“come on, humor me.”

“fine,” you muttered, flipping through your notes. “something small. simple. maybe a quote.”

“predictable,” he teased. “what if i said i’d get your name tattooed?”

you shot him a deadpan look. “then i’d question all of your life choices.”

he laughed, drumming his fingers against the table. “nah, i’d get something cool. a dragon or something. or maybe—” he wiggled his brows. “a chemical equation, just for you.”

“how generous.”

“i try.”

somehow, even with the distractions, he managed to retain at least some of what you covered. as you packed up, he tapped his pen against the table.

“hey, sunshine.”

you glanced up, not missing his smirk at your responding to the name.

“don’t miss me too much over the weekend.”

“leave.”

he laughed all the way out the door.

session four - monday march 2nd

you were already exhausted from the start of the new week, and haechan wasn’t helping.

“mondays shouldn’t exist,” he grumbled, dropping into his chair.

while you agreed, you had to keep him focused. “you still have to study.”

“brutal.”

you launched straight into the material, ignoring his dramatic sighs and complaints about how unfair school was. surprisingly, he focused for a solid thirty minutes—until he caught you tapping your foot.

“you’re impatient today,” he observed, tilting his head.

“or maybe i just want you to actually learn something.”

“i am learning. look,” he pointed at an equation. “i even remember this one.”

you checked. he was right.

“wow,” you deadpanned. “you have a functioning brain after all.”

“careful, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

despite yourself, you bit back a smile.

the session ended with him actually completing the assigned questions, granted, after a lot of coaxing. as you packed up, he tapped the table again, just like last time.

“see you wednesday, sunshine.”

this time, you didn’t tell him to leave.

you did however, roll your eyes as he walked away, still grinning.

—

session five – wednesday the 4th

it was one of those days.

haechan was late—again. not by much, but enough to make you grit your teeth when he finally strolled in, a bag of chips in one hand, looking like he had nowhere better to be.

“don’t look at me like that, sunshine.” he smirked as he slid into his seat. “traffic was brutal.”

“you walk here.”

“damn. caught me.”

you inhaled sharply through your nose, pushing the worksheet toward him. “just start.”

he did. kind of.

five minutes in, he was tapping his pen against the table. ten minutes in, he was spinning his rings. fifteen minutes in, he was leaning back in his chair with a yawn.

“haechan,” you warned.

“hmm?”

“can you at least pretend to care?”

he grinned, resting his chin on his hand. “depends. does it bother you?”

you shook your head. “whatever.”

“relax, sunshine.” he tilted his head. “you’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

you ignored the way heat crept up your neck. “just answer the question.”

he glanced at it. “mm… ‘catalyst slows down a reaction.’”

you shut your eyes, inhaling deeply. “no. it speeds up a reaction—”

“eh, close enough.”

“no, it’s not—” you cut yourself off, exhaling sharply. “are you even trying?”

“nah.”

that was it.

“then why the hell are we even doing this?”

he blinked at you, momentarily caught off guard. but you were already pushing back your chair, stuffing your notes into your bag with sharp, deliberate movements.

“if you fail, that’s your problem. not mine.”

you didn’t wait for a response. just walked out, leaving him sitting there—still smirking, but something in his expression had shifted.

session seven – monday the 9th

the session was supposed to be like any other. you’d prepared the material, you had everything set up, and you were expecting the usual. you didn’t expect haechan to show up on time—or at least not to show up with an actual sense of purpose.

he slung his bag over the chair and slumped down. his usual cocky grin wasn’t there.

“what’s wrong with you?” you asked, surprised at how… serious he seemed.

he didn’t answer right away, instead just staring at the notes in front of him with furrowed brows.

“this is dumb,” he muttered under his breath.

you raised an eyebrow. “what’s dumb? the concept? the subject? or… you?”

he flicked his eyes to you, but there was no usual smirk, just irritation. “all of it.”

you frowned. “this isn’t the usual ‘i don’t care’ routine. what’s going on?”

he didn’t meet your eyes, instead flicking through the textbook like he was hoping to find a way out of this.

“i just don’t get it,” he said, voice tight.

you sat back, eyeing him carefully. you were so used to him breezing through everything, acting like he didn’t care, so this sudden frustration was… different. it threw you off.

“you’ve got this. we’ve gone over it before.”

“yeah, well, it’s not clicking today,” he shot back, rubbing his temples like he was battling a headache.

you leaned forward, speaking more gently than usual. “haechan, this stuff isn’t hard. you just have to stop shutting down every time it gets tough.”

he looked at you for a long moment, eyes soft but frustrated. he clearly didn’t want to admit that maybe, just maybe, you were right.

“i don’t shut down,” he muttered. “it’s just… everything else is easier. this? it feels like i’m failing at something i can’t even explain.”

you blinked, taken aback. haechan never let anything get to him, at least not this much.

“okay,” you said, shifting your tone to something a little more reassuring. “we can take it slow. i’ll help you through it.”

but even as you said it, you knew it wasn’t just about the chemistry. there was something deeper in his frustration—something he wasn’t saying.

he sat back in his chair, massaging his temples. “maybe i just don’t get it because i’m not supposed to. i’m not like you, sunshine.”

“no, you’re not,” you said softly. “but i know you can get it. you have to try.”

there was a long silence between you, and for the first time in a while, you realized that your usual teasing, quick comebacks wouldn’t fix this.

haechan’s eyes met yours for a fleeting second, something raw in them. then, he sighed.

“this is stupid,” he muttered, but there was a softness to his voice. “i’ll try.”

and for once, you believed him.

—

days later, sunday dinner was quiet, just the soft clinking of utensils against plates and the low hum of the tv in the background. your parents had been giving you a look all evening. the kind that meant they had something to say but were waiting for the right moment.

you didn’t have to wait long.

“so,” your mom started, too casually. “how’s tutoring going?”

you didn’t even glance up from your plate. “fine.”

“fine?” your dad echoed. “that’s it?”

you shrugged, poking at your food. “what else is there to say?”

your mom set down her fork. “is he at least putting in effort?”

you huffed. “define effort.”

they exchanged a glance, the kind that made you feel like a kid again, like they already knew exactly what was going on.

“we just want to make sure he’s not wasting your time,” your dad said. “if he’s not serious about learning, you don’t have to keep doing this.”

“he’s… getting better,” you admitted, though you weren’t sure if it was entirely true. he was trying, in his own way, but it was a slow process.

your mom still looked unconvinced. “just be careful, sweetheart.”

you frowned. “careful?”

“boys like him…” she hesitated, choosing her words. “they can be a distraction.”

“he’s not a distraction,” you said immediately, but the way she raised an eyebrow made your stomach twist.

and then— “you’re not getting a crush on him, are you?”

you nearly choked. “what? no. why would you even—?”

“because it happens,” your dad cut in, giving you a pointed look. “you spend enough time with someone, and next thing you know, you start making excuses for them.”

“i’m not making excuses.” you leaned back in your chair, suddenly desperate to get out of this conversation. “and i definitely don’t have a crush on him. it’s just tutoring. that’s it.”

they didn’t argue, but the look in their eyes said enough.

—

session ten – monday the 16th

you weren’t sure why your parents’ question was still echoing in your head. it was ridiculous, really. you didn’t have a crush on him. just because he was annoying, and cocky, and had that stupid smirk that made your stomach flip sometimes—no. not sometimes. never. it didn’t matter.

but still, as you walked into the library, setting your bag down at the usual table, you felt weirdly… off. distracted.

you pulled out your notes, trying to shake the thought, but haechan just had to say something.

“damn, sunshine. you look tense. bad day?”

you jumped slightly at his voice. he was standing next to you now, one hand gripping the chair as he spun it lazily before sitting down. he was late, as usual, but this time you hadn’t even noticed.

“fine,” you said quickly, focusing on your notes.

“you sure?” he tilted his head, leaning forward on the table. “you look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

you did. but there was no way in hell you were going to tell him what.

“it’s nothing,” you said, too quickly. “let’s just get started.”

but as the session went on, you found yourself more distracted than usual. every time he leaned in, every time he ran a hand through his hair, every time he smirked at something that wasn’t even funny, you thought of your parents’ voices in your head.

“you’re not getting a crush on him, are you?”

no. you weren’t. you refused to.

but then he tapped his pen against the table, glancing at you through his lashes. “you’re really off today, sunshine. what’s up?”

and maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was the fact that you hated how observant he could be, but you snapped.

“you. you’re up. why do you talk so much?”

he blinked, clearly not expecting that. then, he grinned. “because you like it.”

“i don’t.”

“liar.”

you groaned, running a hand down your face. this session was going to be impossible.

—

session twelve - friday the 20th

you had a feeling he wasn’t going to show up.

maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t texted all day—not that he ever really did, but usually, there was something. some offhand comment about how he was so tired or how he was mentally preparing for another “brutal” study session. but today? nothing.

still, you sat at the usual table, notes spread out, waiting.

and waiting.

until finally, you checked the time and realized it had been forty-five minutes.

you scoffed, shoving your notes back into your bag with more force than necessary. of course he wouldn’t show up. of course, he’d waste your time like this.

this was exactly why you didn’t like him.

not that you had to remind yourself. but things like this. his impulsiveness, his lack of reliability, the way he did whatever he wanted without considering anyone else, made it so much easier to not like him.

except, if that were really true, you wouldn’t be this pissed off.

you stormed out of the library, typing out a single text before shoving your phone deep into your pocket.

“seriously?”

no greeting. no unnecessary words. just that.

and when he didn’t respond, you told yourself you didn’t care.

even though, somehow, he was all you could think about for the rest of the night.

—

the weekend was quite eventful.

saturday -

you weren’t mad.

at least, that’s what you told yourself as you pulled out your laptop that morning, trying to focus on the essay you’d been putting off. it had nothing to do with him. nothing to do with the fact that he’d completely wasted your time yesterday. it wasn’t like you cared.

but when your phone lit up beside you, your heart jumped a little too fast. you grabbed it instinctively. only to see a notification from your bank about your spending this month.

you exhaled sharply, tossing your phone aside. see? you weren’t waiting for a text. because you weren’t expecting one. because you didn’t care.

still, you had to physically stop yourself from checking your messages every hour, and by the time the afternoon rolled around, you were in a terrible mood.

saturday night -

“so let me get this straight,” your friend, karina said, stirring her drink lazily. “he didn’t show up. didn’t text. and…now you’re mad about it.”

you scowled, leaning back in your chair. “i’m not mad.”

she raised an eyebrow. “you sure? cause you seem pretty mad.”

you crossed your arms. “i just don’t like when people waste my time. it’s inconsiderate.”

“right.” karina smirked, tilting her head. “but it’s weird, isn’t it? because you weren’t even this mad when you thought he wasn’t taking tutoring seriously. but now? now he misses one session, and suddenly, it’s a big deal?”

you scoffed, rolling your eyes. “that’s not the point.”

“mhm.” she sipped her drink, clearly unconvinced.

you refused to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, but as you stared down at your untouched food, a thought crept into your mind.

was she right?

sunday afternoon -

you spotted him before he saw you.

standing by the counter at the campus café, looking as unbothered as ever. hoodie slightly loose around his shoulders, rings glinting under the dim lighting as he scrolled through his phone.

he wasn’t avoiding you, then. because avoiding would at least mean he knew he did something wrong.

the irritation that had been simmering all weekend bubbled over. before you could think twice, you were already walking toward him.

“oh, hey, sunshine.” he glanced up as you stopped beside him, smiling like nothing had happened. “you look cute when you’re brooding.”

you didn’t waste time. “you didn’t show up.”

he shrugged, slipping his phone into his pocket. “yeah. something came up.”

“something came up?” your voice was sharper than intended, but you didn’t care. “you could’ve at least said something.”

he leaned against the counter, studying you with an amused tilt of his head. “why? you miss me?”

your fingers curled into fists at your sides. because he was doing this on purpose. pushing, testing, waiting to see how much you’d react. and you hated that it was working.

“you’re unbelievable.” the words came out in a breath, laced with frustration.

and then you turned on your heel and walked away before you could say anything else you’d regret.

but the worst part? the absolute worst part?

he was still in your head, and you didn’t know how to make it stop.

—

session thirteen - monday the 23rd

for the next two weeks, you and haechan had to change locations as club was having their meetings in the library. you moved to a classroom near the library.

monday’s session wasn’t a disaster. in fact, it was almost… normal.

he showed up—five minutes late, but that was practically on time for him. he didn’t ignore the notes you laid out, didn’t spend the whole time spinning his rings or making dumb comments. he even answered a few questions correctly, which honestly shocked you.

“so you do pay attention sometimes,” you muttered when he got one right.

“wow, sunshine.” he grinned, resting his chin on his hand. “say that again. maybe i’ll start believing you actually like having me around.”

you scoffed, underlining something in your notebook just to avoid looking at him. “don’t push it.”

he chuckled but didn’t push. and for the first time since this whole tutoring arrangement started, things actually felt… okay. he was still distracting, still teasing you every chance he got, still doing that infuriating thing where he leaned back in his chair like he had all the time in the world. but at least he was trying.

and that was enough.

for now.

later that week, things changed.

session fifteen- friday the 25th

you were still in one of the school’s empty classrooms, finishing up some notes for yourself. it was already late when you heard the classroom door creak open.

too late for a tutoring session. too late for him to be here at all.

you looked up, expecting a janitor, maybe a teacher. instead, you saw him.

“oh my god.” your breath caught when you finally glanced up. “what happened to you?”

he looked…rough. a split lip, a bruise already blooming on his cheekbone, dried blood crusted near his eyebrow. his knuckles were bruising and stained with a little blood, like he’d been swinging at something—or someone.

“nothin’.” his voice was quieter than usual, the usual cockiness dulled by exhaustion. “just a bad night.”

“bad night? you look like you got your ass kicked.” you frowned, already standing. “who—why—”

“doesn’t matter.” he waved a hand, like he wanted to brush it off, but even that small movement made him wince.

you sighed, shaking your head as you grabbed your bag. “stay here.”

he didn’t argue as you left, and when you came back a few minutes later, first aid kit in hand, he still hadn’t moved. just sat there, fingers tapping restlessly against his thigh, like he was waiting for the fight to start back up again.

but when you stood in front of him, tilting his face up slightly so you could dab at the cut on his lip, he stilled.

“you don’t have to do this,” he murmured.

“you don’t have to get into fights.”

he huffed a quiet laugh, but there was no humor in it.

when you knelt beside him and took his hand in yours, he barely reacted, letting you clean the dried blood from his knuckles. his skin was warm under your touch, but you ignored that. just like you ignored the way his eyes were fixed on you, dark and unreadable.

for a while, there was only silence. the soft press of gauze against his skin, the quiet scrape of your nails as you brushed away the dried blood. and through it all, he just watched you.

like he didn’t understand why you cared.

“you’re not supposed to fix me, sunshine,” he said eventually, voice quieter than you’d ever heard it. “just tutor me.”

you didn’t look at his eyes. “maybe i just don’t want to watch you fall apart.”

his breath hitched slightly. and maybe you imagined it, but for the first time, the fight in his eyes flickered. just for a second.

he didn’t say anything else. but something shifted in that moment.

because later, when he went home, he touched the bandage you had carefully pressed onto his skin, fingers lingering there longer than necessary.

and even though he would never admit it. maybe not even to himself, that was the moment he started falling for you.

—

after that night, things feel different. you tell yourself they’re not, that nothing’s changed, that you’re just imagining the way your chest tightens when you catch him looking at you in the middle of a study session. but it’s there, lingering in the spaces between words, in the silence that lasts too long, in the way his teasing remarks don’t land the same way anymore.

the next session, he actually tries.

not in an obvious way—he’s still late, still sighs dramatically when you hand him a practice problem, still taps his pen against the table like he’s counting down the minutes until he can leave. but when you ask him a question, he answers. when he gets something wrong, he listens when you explain instead of brushing it off.

session sixteen - monday the 28th

“so, what, you’re suddenly serious about passing?” you ask, watching as he leans forward, elbows braced against the table.

he tilts his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. “maybe i just like seeing you all impressed when i get something right.”

you roll your eyes. “trust me, you’d have to try way harder for that to happen.”

but you don’t mean it. because when he mutters the right answer under his breath, brow furrowed like he’s actually thinking, something twists in your stomach. you shove the feeling down before it can take root.

—

then, he starts showing up.

not just to your tutoring sessions—those are still scheduled, still predictable, still something you can control—but to other places. places he shouldn’t be.

like when you’re sitting outside between classes, notebook open in your lap, the afternoon sun casting long shadows over the pavement.

“wow,” his voice cuts through the quiet, lazy and amused. “you really do study all the time, huh?”

you glance up, frowning as he drops into the seat across from you. “what are you doing here?”

he shrugs, peeling the label off his drink. “nowhere else to be.”

he stays. doesn’t do much—just picks at his rings, tosses casual comments your way, complains about the weather. at first, it’s just once. then it happens again. and again.

“you know you don’t have to sit here, right?” you say one day, not looking up from your laptop.

“i know.”

he doesn’t leave. and you don’t tell him to. maybe that’s your first mistake.

—

the evening air is crisp, biting at your skin as you step out of the library. you tug your jacket tighter around yourself, putting your earbuds in as you start down the quiet path leading off campus. most of the streetlights flicker on as it got darker.

you don’t hear him at first.

not until he falls into step beside you, hands stuffed into his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched.

“hey, sunshine.”

you nearly trip, ripping an earbud out as you whip your head to the side. “what the—why are you here?”

he doesn’t look at you, just keeps walking like this is the most natural thing in the world. “walking.” he motions in front of him.

“walking where?” you press, your suspicion growing.

he exhales, tilting his head toward the sky as if debating whether to answer. finally, he shrugs. “just making sure you get home okay.”

you slow your steps. something about the way he says it, like it’s just a fact, like it’s obvious, throws you off balance.

“i don’t need a bodyguard,” you mutter.

“yeah, i know.”

“so why—”

“just shut up and keep walking.”

the words should annoy you. they do annoy you. but something in his casual but firm tone, like he’s already decided he’s doing this whether you like it or not, leaves no room for argument. so you walk, stealing glances at him every so often, watching the way he shifts his weight, the way his fingers flex like he’s holding back something he’ll never say out loud.

“this isn’t a habit now, is it?” you ask after a few minutes.

“depends.”

“on what?”

“on whether or not i feel like doing it again.”

you roll your eyes but don’t push.

when you finally reach your place, you stop at the fence, hesitating. you should say goodnight. you should say thanks, maybe. but before you can decide, he’s already a few steps away, hands still buried in his pockets, gaze fixed ahead.

“see you later, sunshine.”

he doesn’t look back. doesn’t wait for a response.

but for some reason, you watch him walk away anyway.

—

you should be asleep.

but you’re not.

instead, you’re lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the walk home in your head like a movie you can’t turn off. like the flickering streetlights, the cold air, the steady sound of footsteps beside you—his footsteps—are all burned into your mind.

you shift onto your side, pulling your blanket up to your chin. it’s stupid. he didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything that should be lingering like this. all he did was show up. all he did was walk.

but still.

“just making sure you get home okay.”

he’d said it like it was nothing. like it wasn’t a thing.

but it was. wasn’t it?

you sigh, rolling onto your back again. your phone sits on your nightstand, screen dark, no notifications. not that you expected any. he’s not the kind of guy to text. but still, some stupid part of you wonders if he’s thinking about it, too.

not about you. just—about anything.

maybe he’s already asleep, completely unbothered, already moved on. maybe it meant nothing to him.

but then again—

“depends.”

“on what?”

“on whether or not i feel like doing it again.”

you close your eyes, exhaling slowly.

you don’t know what’s worse. the fact that he might actually do it again.

or the fact that you kind of want him to.

—

session nineteen - monday april 4th

you check the time again.

ten minutes late.

with an annoyed sigh, you tap your pen against the open notebook in front of you, debating whether to give up and leave. it’s not like he hasn’t done this before. showing up whenever he feels like it, acting like he’s doing you a favor by even bothering. but this time, it’s grating more than usual. maybe because things have been different lately—less antagonistic, more… whatever this weird tension is that neither of you have acknowledged.

and then, just as you’re about to slap your notebook shut, a chair scrapes against the floor.

“took you long enough,” you mutter without looking up.

“miss me?”

the smirk is there—you can hear it in his voice even before you meet his gaze. he leans back in his chair, stretching out like he has all the time in the world. no apology, no excuse. just him, always testing your patience.

you roll your eyes and push his notebook toward him. “just open your book.”

the session starts off okay, at first. he’s actually trying—not a lot, but enough. he answers a few questions, gets some right, listens when you explain the ones he gets wrong. but there’s something off about him today.

he’s restless. more than usual.

his fingers tap against the table, his rings clicking against each other in a way that makes your nerves buzz. he sighs every time you correct him, leans back so far in his chair that you’re convinced he’s seconds away from tipping over. but most of all, he’s not looking at you.

not in the usual way, at least. he usually stares—lazy, smug, like he’s waiting for you to snap. but today, it’s like he’s avoiding your gaze altogether. like he’s somewhere else.

“what is wrong with you today?” the words slip out before you can stop them.

haechan raises an eyebrow, finally meeting your eyes. “me? nothing. maybe you’re just extra grumpy today.”

you glare. “maybe i wouldn’t be if you were actually focused.”

he clicks his tongue, shutting his notebook with a dull thud. “yeah? and what if i don’t feel like it?”

your patience snaps. “then why are you even here, haechan?”

silence.

his expression shifts—just barely, but enough for you to see it. the way his jaw tightens, the flicker of something unreadable in his eyes before he looks away.

and then he speaks so quiet, almost to himself.

“good question.”

your breath catches. because suddenly, it doesn’t feel like you’re talking about tutoring anymore.

neither of you speak after that.

the rest of the session is stiff, words clipped and movements sharp. when it ends, he doesn’t throw a smug remark over his shoulder, doesn’t tease you like he usually does. he just stands, slings his bag over his shoulder, and walks out without looking back.

you stay sitting there long after he’s gone, staring at the empty chair next to you.

heart pounding for reasons you don’t want to think about.

—

session twenty - wednesday the 6th

wednesday’s session is quieter than usual. it’s like there’s a wall between the two of you—still the same awkwardness, but with more… space.

haechan is more focused than before, but there’s a distance in the way he engages with the material. no smart comments, no teasing, just a steady silence as he works through the problems. every time your fingers brush over his paper to point out a mistake, there’s a brief, electric pause. neither of you comment on it, but it lingers, like a promise neither of you are ready to make.

but by the end of it, he’s gone without a word. not a smile, not a look. just the door shutting quietly behind him.

—

session twenty one - friday the 8th

friday’s session is different.

when he walks in, there’s a heaviness about him, something off—his face is bruised again, his lip split like last time, hair slightly tousled, and there’s a subtle tremble in his step like he’s not sure whether to be here or not. his eyes avoid yours as he slides into the chair across from yours, too close to be casual but too distant to be comfortable.

the silence between you is charged from the start, but it’s not the playful tension you’re used to. it’s thick, raw, almost uncomfortable.

you can’t help but stare at the bruise blooming across his jaw, the scrape on his chin, and the other cuts scattered across his arms. the anger and adrenaline radiate off him in waves, but there’s something deeper underneath all of it—a tiredness.

you try not to let your voice crack, but the concern breaks through anyway. “what happened?”

haechan doesn’t meet your gaze. his eyes are dark, like he’s trying to bury something under all that nonchalance. “it’s nothing.”

you don’t believe him. obviously. not looking like that. “haechan, don’t lie.”

finally, he looks at you, and there’s something in his expression that makes you freeze—raw vulnerability laced with a bitterness you can’t quite place. “someone said something about you,” he says quietly. “something i didn’t like.”

you feel the weight of his words like a punch to the gut. “what do you mean?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper, but there’s no hiding the unease creeping into your tone.

he’s quiet for a long moment, his fingers tapping restlessly against the table as he thinks about how to phrase it. then, he just blurts it out: “i fought over you.”

it takes you a second to process. “what?”

he looks at you, this time, eyes searching yours like he’s looking for something. “they were talking about you. bad stuff. i couldn’t just sit there. i—” his words falter, like he’s not sure why he’s even explaining this to you.

you don’t know what to say. your heart beats harder, faster. “so you just…?”

“i lost it.” he’s not ashamed, not exactly, but there’s something about the way he says it that makes you feel like he’s letting go of more than just the fight. “i couldn’t stand it. i had to do something.”

and that’s when it hits you—the depth of everything he’s been hiding behind those sharp smirks and sarcastic comments.

without thinking, your fingers move—just a soft brush against his darkening knuckles, like it’s the only thing you can do to make sense of all this. you feel the heat of his skin underneath your fingertips, and the contact burns, even though it’s so small.

haechan’s breath catches. there’s a moment of complete silence, and then he slowly, so slowly, moves his fingers that were under yours.

you hold your breath, fingers trembling just a little. and then, as if testing the waters, he slides his fingers up to rest his hand against yours. you found your hand opening up, as your palms touched slightly. his finger tips grazing your with a ghost-like touch. for a second, neither of you moves. there’s a fragile, delicate tension that seems to freeze the room in place.

and then, without saying a word, he lets his fingers gently curl around yours.

it’s slow, tentative, like he’s afraid you’ll pull away. but when you don’t, when you let him, he doesn’t hesitate. his grip tightens just enough, not too much—just enough to say this matters.

your heart races, and your breath hitches, but you don’t pull away. you don’t want to.

you let your fingers slip into the spaces between his, moving carefully, slowly.

there’s no hurry. just the quiet sound of your breaths mingling with the subtle click of his rings as his fingers settle between yours.

his eyes drop to your hands, studying the way you fit together, the way your fingers slide against his, perfectly and effortlessly. it’s intimate in a way that makes everything around you disappear. there’s only the soft warmth of his hand in yours, the quiet thrum of something unspoken growing louder between you.

he leans forward slightly, his voice quiet, almost like a confession. “i fought because of you,” he says, the weight of his words settling between you two like a secret you didn’t expect.

you want to say something, want to ask why, but the words don’t come. your chest feels tight. why would he do that for you?

his thumb strokes the back of your hand, the motion slow and careful, and you feel the heat of his touch seep through you. “i couldn’t just let them say shit about you,” he murmurs, his voice raw. “no one talks about you like that and gets away with it.”

you finally meet his gaze, your chest tight with something you can’t name. he holds your hand gently, but there’s a possessiveness in his touch, something protective that you can’t quite ignore.

the air between you is thick, filled with the weight of everything unsaid. he doesn’t let go of your hand, doesn’t move away, and neither do you.

you’re not sure how long you sit there, fingers entwined, the world outside of this moment fading away. but somehow, it feels like everything has changed between you two in that quiet, intimate touch. Something that didn’t need to be spoken but felt.

neither of you moves, not yet. not until it’s time.

—

saturday -

saturday morning arrives with the lingering weight of haechan’s words from the previous session. “maybe we could grab a coffee or something. no tutoring… just…”

his voice still echoes in your mind as you get ready. you don’t know why it’s making you nervous. you’ve spent hours with him tutoring, in tight spaces, talking about everything under the sun, but this feels different. it’s not about grades or chemistry anymore. it’s about you and him—just two people.

when your parents asked where you were off to, you brushed them off with a simple. “studying at the café,”.

at 2 p.m., you arrive at the cafe a little early. your heart beats louder in your chest as you stand outside, looking at the door, unsure whether you should go in first or wait. but before you can make up your mind, haechan appears. he’s wearing a hoodie and jeans. his messy hair adds to the vibe—relaxed, but there’s an intensity in the way he walks towards you.

“hey,” he greets with that familiar teasing smile, but it’s less playful today, more reserved. he watches you for a beat, like he’s trying to gauge how you’re feeling.

“hey,” you respond, your voice steady but your insides twist with something unfamiliar.

the conversation starts easy, like a continuation of your tutoring sessions, but it quickly morphs into something more personal. you laugh at his jokes, and he cracks a few of his usual sarcastic comments. but this time, they don’t feel so cutting—they feel like an invitation, an effort to connect.

you tell him about your favorite subjects, and he talks about his struggle with science (which he completely tries to play off like he doesn’t care about). somehow, you both end up talking about your childhoods, your families, and some awkward high school moments. the more you talk, the more the layers fall away, and you realize this is more real than you expected. he really wasn’t some monster that everyone seemed to paint him as.

as you finish your drinks, there’s an uneasy silence between you two. haechan runs a hand through his hair, and you shift in your seat, unsure of what to do next. the energy between you both is charged now—unspoken words hang thick in the air, and it’s almost unbearable.

“well, sunshine,” he says, his voice softer than usual, “i guess I’ll see you on monday?”

you nod, too quickly, almost relieved to escape the pressure of the moment. “yeah, monday.”

you both stand, and as you turn to walk away, you feel his eyes on you. you can’t tell if it’s admiration or something else, but the way he watches you feels different now.

sunday -

sunday passes quietly, but the space between you and haechan feels wider, even though you just saw him the day before. you try not to think about the little moments—the way he looked at you, how close you both were, how much you wanted him to say more. but that’s the problem, isn’t it? you both left so much unsaid, and you can’t help but wonder what’s going through his mind.

he doesn’t text you at all. the silence is deafening. you tell yourself it’s probably a good thing; after all, you don’t need to overanalyze everything, right? but then again, why does it feel so heavy?

you end up spending the day at home, alone with your thoughts. the weekend was supposed to be simple, a break from the usual, but now you can’t shake the feeling that it’s more complicated than that. haechan has always been complicated, but now you feel like you’re standing on the edge of something, not sure whether to jump or step back.

session twenty two - monday the 11th

by the time monday rolls around, you’re feeling restless. there’s a shift in your mood. a nervous energy that you can’t shake off, and when you step into school, it feels like you’re waiting for something to happen. you can’t decide if it’s anticipation or dread, but either way, you’re drawn back to the tutoring session.

when haechan finally walks into the classroom, you can’t tell if he’s acting like everything is normal or if he’s pretending. he gives you a short wave, but it’s not his usual playful smile. it’s different now. there’s something more cautious in his movements.

you both settle into your usual rhythm—he’s late, of course, but he’s quieter today. you’re not sure if that’s because of the weekend or if it’s something else entirely.

the session goes well, mostly. it’s like before, in the sense that you both get through the work, but there’s an added tension. he looks at you a little longer than he usually does, his eyes scanning your face as if he’s trying to understand something. the usual teasing is absent today, replaced by a different energy—more subtle, more cautious.

by the end of the session, you can’t help but feel like you’re caught in this strange, unspoken limbo between what you both were and what you might be. you still don’t know where it’s going, but you’re both standing at the edge, unsure whether to jump or wait to see what the next step will be.

—

session twenty three - wednesday the 13th

it’s the final session before the break, and everything feels different. the air feels thicker, charged with something neither of you are saying but both know is there. you both sit at the desk, the tension palpable, but neither of you are focused on the notes in front of you. it’s like the classroom walls are closing in, and neither of you can breathe easily.

you keep glancing over at him, trying to stick to the lesson, but he’s just… there, too close, too present. the words he’s saying are just noise in the background as his eyes flicker over you every time you speak, his gaze heavy, simmering. you know it’s not just the subject anymore. something has shifted.

“you’re not listening,” you say, your voice sharper than you intend.

he looks at you, not surprised, but not unaffected either. “neither are you,” he replies, and there’s something in his voice that’s too calm. too knowing.

you press your lips together, trying to keep your composure. “well, you’re not even trying.”

he smirks, leaning back in his chair slightly. “again, neither are you.”

there’s a challenge in his voice, and it sets something off inside you. something snaps. you stand up more abrupt than you anticipate, trying to collect your thoughts but only feeling more overwhelmed by the space between you two. you feel like you’re suffocating under the weight of the tension, like there’s something about to break, and you don’t know if you want to stop it or let it happen.

you cross your arms, pacing around the small desk, trying to cool the heat you feel flooding your chest.

“why are you so difficult?” you murmur, more to yourself than him.

“because you make it easy,” he says, voice low, leaning forward, his eyes locked on you in a way that makes your knees weak.

he stands up slowly, the movement purposeful, and your heart skips a beat. the space between you is closing, and before you can make sense of what’s happening, he’s there, standing right in front of you.

his hand brushes against yours, and you feel it like a spark, his fingers just grazing yours before he holds your wrist lightly, tugging you closer to him. you can’t move, rooted in place by something deeper than just attraction.

and then he kisses you.

it’s a kiss that’s full of everything you’ve been holding back. the anger, the frustration, the need for something more that you don’t know how to name. it’s messy, urgent, like both of you are desperate to see how far you can go without letting go. your hands find their way to his chest, pushing against him as you kiss him back, just as hungry, just as eager.

you feel his grip on your wrist tighten, pulling you closer as his other hand slides to your waist. the kiss deepens, and the world around you disappears. it’s just you and him, the heat of his lips against yours, the press of his body against yours.

you can’t help but give in, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, your breath coming faster as the intensity builds.

and then, just as suddenly, it breaks.

you pull back, hands trembling, and you stare at him, your heart pounding against your ribs.

you feel guilty.

you glance away, trying to catch your breath, but all you can hear are the voices from the past—the warnings your parents gave you, the things they said about boys like him.

“boys like him are trouble.”

the words echo in your mind like a warning. trouble.

you can’t ignore it. your heart sinks, and a cold wave of uncertainty washes over you. this is trouble.

you step back, trying to create some distance, trying to make sense of it all. “this isn’t… supposed to happen.”

he stays silent for a beat, his expression unreadable. then, quietly, he says, “i don’t want to stop.”

you shake your head, backing away, but you can’t seem to find the words. everything’s spinning in your head. he’s trouble, but you want him.

“haechan,” you whisper, feeling a rush of heat rise to your cheeks, “i—this was a mistake.”

he doesn’t say anything, just watches you as you grab your things, your heart heavy in your chest.

you don’t know how to fix this, don’t know how to untangle the mess you’ve just made of your feelings. you only know that walking away is the only thing you can do right now, even if every step you take feels like it’s pulling you away from him and yet dragging you closer at the same time.

you leave without another word, but as you walk down the hall, your mind is still stuck on him.

this isn’t what i signed up for… but then again, maybe it was.

—

the following night is unusually still, and you lie awake, mind tangled in the events of the past week. your thoughts keep drifting back to him—the kiss, the way he pulled away, and the uncertainty that followed. you toss and turn, trying to shake off the feeling, but it’s like something’s pulling you in. just as you start to think you’re finally starting to calm down, a soft knock at your window breaks through the silence.

your heart jumps in your chest, and for a second, you freeze. there’s no mistaking who it is. haechan.

you rush to the window, heart racing, but you pause for a brief moment to glance at your door—your parents are just down the hall. still, curiosity outweighs caution, and you push the blinds up quietly, barely believing your eyes.

there he is, his silhouette framed against the dim streetlights outside, standing on the roof near your window with that familiar, confident smirk that sends a strange rush through you.

“how’d you get up here?” you whisper after opening the window, your voice shaky, heart still pounding in your ears.

he shrugs as though it’s the most normal thing in the world, but you can’t ignore the way his arm strains as he grips the window sill, his veins flexing beneath the fabric of his shirt. your eyes flicker down to his arms, and for a moment, you forget to breathe, your gaze catching on the way the muscles ripple as he pulls himself up with a small thud.

you wince, then immediately shush him, raising a finger to your lips in an exaggerated, playful gesture. “my parents are gonna hear you!”

he flashes that trademark grin, but it’s softer this time—almost sheepish, like he wasn’t expecting this much resistance. “sorry,” he whispers, giving you a quick, apologetic wink before pulling himself through the window with a bit more flair than necessary. you can feel the heat radiating off him as he steps inside, and for a brief second, you both just stand there in the quiet of the room.

there’s an awkward pause as he dusts himself off, glancing around your room as if trying to find a reason for being here, but then his eyes land on you. his expression softens just a little, that familiar cockiness fading away for a second.

“didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but… figured i’d take a risk. can’t sleep, you know?”

you laugh softly, a little nervously, though you can’t quite explain why. there’s something about him being here, standing in your room in the dead of night, that’s thrilling in a way you’re not ready to admit. “did you…climb the tree?” you ask, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“yeah,” he grins, his tone light, almost teasing. “it’s not that hard. plus, i thought i’d get your attention somehow.” he shrugs as if this is a totally reasonable thing to do. but when his eyes meet yours, there’s something behind them. something vulnerable, something unspoken.

“you’re crazy,” you mutter, but there’s no malice behind it. instead, your voice is soft, fond. you step back instinctively as he moves toward you, not sure if you want to step away or let him close the gap. you should be more concerned that he was here. if your parents found out, you have no idea what kind of reaction they’d have.

he looks at you for a moment, his gaze flickering over your face like he’s studying every detail. you can feel the tension building between the two of you, and even though you know you should step back again, you stay rooted to the spot. there’s a pull between you that neither of you can ignore.

“i just… couldn’t stop thinking about everything. about you,” he admits, the words coming out quieter than usual. he doesn’t sound like the usual confident haechan; there’s a vulnerability in his voice now, something raw that you’ve never heard before.

you blink, caught off guard. the air feels thick with unspoken words, and for a second, you’re at a loss for how to respond. your heart hammers in your chest, and before you can stop yourself, you move a little closer to him.

his eyes widen slightly when you step forward, but he doesn’t move away. instead, he reaches for your hand slowly, almost hesitantly. his fingers brush over yours, the lightest touch that sends a jolt through you. it’s so quiet, so soft, but it feels like the whole world has paused. you glance down at his hand—his fingers are rough, the veins on his arms standing out against his skin.

you look back up at him, meeting his eyes, and he squeezes your hand gently, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand in a slow, almost intimate motion. there’s a quiet understanding between the two of you, a silent acknowledgment of everything that’s been building between you.

“you’re here,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, but it feels like it carries the weight of everything you haven’t been able to say.

he gives a small, lopsided grin, his thumb still moving over your hand. “yeah. i guess i am.”

and then, without another word, he leans in, and this time, when your lips meet, it’s not chaotic. it’s slow, deliberate, like the two of you are finally giving in to something you’ve been avoiding. his hand slides up to your cheek, his thumb brushing over your skin as if he’s memorizing the feel of you.

the kiss is soft at first, tentative, but it deepens as the moments stretch on, his other hand moving to gently to him by your back, pulling you closer. everything else fades away. the hesitation, the uncertainty and you lose yourself in it.

when you finally pull back, both of you are breathing a little heavier, the space between you still charged with the emotions neither of you knew how to express. you glance at the door again, your mind briefly flashing to the consequences of this. but for a moment, you don’t care.

“this is… insane,” you whisper, your voice trembling just slightly.

he leans his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your skin. “i know. but i don’t think i can stay away.”

for a moment, you both just stand there, breathless, sharing the same quiet understanding. you’ve crossed a line you never thought you would, and for the first time, you’re not sure what comes next. but you know this: you can’t go back. not now.

—

after that night, everything changes. things between you and haechan aren’t just charged—they’re different. there’s no more pretending that what happened didn’t mean something.

friday the 15th

the next day at school, he’s there—leaning against his locker like usual, surrounded by his close group of friends, but his eyes are on you the second you walk in. it’s not just a glance this time. it’s intentional, like he’s waiting to see if you’ll look at him, if you’ll acknowledge what happened between you the night before.

your heart races, but you force yourself to act normal. your parents had been none the wiser about his late-night visit, but that didn’t mean you weren’t still thinking about it. thinking about him. you take a deep breath and head toward your first class, but just as you pass him, his fingers catch your wrist. it’s subtle, barely a touch, but enough to send a shiver down your spine.

“you’re not gonna ignore me now, are you?” his voice is low, teasing, but there’s something real underneath it.

“not here,” you murmur, pulling your hand away, your face heating up as you disappear into the crowd.

you glance around—people are watching. of course they are. it was unusual for a student like and a student like him to interact. let alone lee haechan and you.

but you can feel his gaze on you for the rest of the day.

after school -

he catches up to you before you can leave, cutting you off near the entrance. “so, sunshine, are we gonna talk about last night? or are you just gonna pretend i didn’t climb a damn tree for you?”

you roll your eyes, crossing your arms. “you could’ve fallen.”

“but i didn’t,” he grins, stepping closer, dropping his voice so only you can hear. “what, you worried about me?”

you are, but you won’t admit that. you sigh. “i don’t know what you expect me to say.”

his smirk fades just slightly, a flicker of something more serious in his eyes. “say it wasn’t nothing.”

you hesitate, because you can’t say that. you won’t lie. but you also don’t know what this is.

before you can respond, a voice calls your name from behind. one of your classmates. someone who shouldn’t be seeing you with him like this.

“i have to go,” you say quickly, stepping away.

he doesn’t stop you, but as you walk away, you hear him call out, just loud enough for you to hear—

“i’ll see you later, sunshine.”

and you know you will.

saturday night -

you get a text from him.

haechan: come outside

your heart leaps into your throat. you glance at your bedroom door, listening carefully. your parents are still awake. sneaking out has never been something you’ve even considered before, but now…

your fingers hover over your phone.

you: are you insane?

haechan: probably. but i wanna see you.

you hesitate. but only for a second.

and then, for the first time, you take the risk.

—

the door clicks softly behind you as you step onto the porch, the night air brushing cool against your skin. you shiver slightly, but you ignore it, your pulse already picking up when you spot haechan waiting just beyond the porch light’s glow, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie.

he steps forward as you approach, but then—he stops.

his eyes flicker down, lingering.

you suddenly realize what you’re wearing—silk shorts, the kind with delicate lace at the hem, barely brushing mid-thigh. paired with a thin, loose sweater, it’s nothing that scandalous, but under his gaze, you feel the heat creeping up your neck.

his tongue swipes over his bottom lip before he exhales, tilting his head. “damn, sunshine. if i knew sneaking into your thoughts at night got me this kind of welcome, i would’ve done it sooner.”

you cross your arms, giving him an unimpressed look despite the warmth spreading in your chest. “i wasn’t exactly expecting company.”

he hums, taking another step closer. “yeah? so you just wear this to bed every night?” his voice dips lower, teasing, but there’s something else there.

you roll your eyes, but you can’t ignore the way your stomach tightens. “are you done staring?”

his smirk deepens. “not even close.”

“why are you even here?” you sigh, trying to steer the conversation before you combust under his gaze.

his expression shifts slightly, something more serious flickering beneath the teasing. “couldn’t sleep.” he shrugs, eyes still on you but softer now. “kept thinking about you.”

your breath hitches. you weren’t expecting that.

you hesitate, shifting on your feet. “and what exactly were you thinking about?”

he doesn’t hesitate. “that kiss. both of them.”

you inhale sharply, your heart picking up speed.

he watches you carefully, stepping just close enough that you have to tilt your chin up to meet his gaze. “tell me i’m the only one who’s been losing sleep over it,” he murmurs. “tell me you don’t think about it too.”

you should brush it off. should laugh, roll your eyes, push him away like you always do.

but you don’t.

“…maybe a little.”

his lips quirk, but it’s not his usual cocky smirk—it’s softer. more real.

“thought so.”

before you can even react, his fingers find yours, brushing over your knuckles before lacing them together. it’s slow, deliberate—like he’s testing the waters, waiting for you to pull away.

you don’t.

he exhales a quiet laugh. “you’re in trouble, sunshine.”

you swallow. “why?”

his thumb traces over the back of your hand, and when he looks at you, there’s something almost fond in his eyes.

“’cause now that i’ve got you like this,” he murmurs, “i don’t think i can let go.”

—

you should go back inside. your parents are asleep just down the hall, and this is the kind of thing they warned you about. sneaking out into the night with a boy like him, hand in hand, heart racing in ways it shouldn’t.

but you don’t let go.

“come on,” he says, his grip tightening just slightly, like he’s afraid you might change your mind. “let’s go somewhere.”

“what? where?” you ask, but you’re already following him down the steps, his hand warm against yours.

he smirks, eyes glinting in the dim light. “trust me.”

and for some reason, you do.

—

the night air is crisp, cool against your skin as the two of you walk through the quiet streets. neither of you say much at first, just the soft scuff of your footsteps on the pavement, the occasional flickering of a streetlight overhead. it’s reckless, it’s stupid, but for some reason, it feels right.

he leads you toward a small park a few blocks away, one you haven’t been to in years. it looks different at night—emptier, quieter, like a hidden world that only the two of you know about.

“seriously?” you say, raising an eyebrow. “you dragged me out of bed for a playground?”

haechan grins, tugging you toward the swings. “come on, sunshine. live a little.”

you huff, but you sit anyway, the chains creaking slightly as you lean back. he takes the swing next to yours, feet planted on the ground, arms draped lazily over the chains.

for a moment, neither of you speak. the city hums softly in the distance, a car passing now and then, but here, in this little forgotten space, it feels like you’re in your own world.

then he breaks the silence.

“so,” he says, voice quieter now. “are you gonna tell me why you kissed me back?”

your fingers tighten around the swing’s chains.

you should lie. should brush it off, make a joke, something.

but instead, you glance at him, finding him already watching you, his usual smirk nowhere in sight.

“…i don’t know,” you admit.

he exhales a soft laugh, shaking his head. “wrong answer, sunshine.”

you frown. “oh? and what’s the right one?”

he leans in slightly, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him even in the cool night air. his voice drops, teasing but serious all at once.

“that you can’t get me out of your head, either.”

your breath catches.

you could argue. you could deny it. but instead, you just look at him, your heart pounding, and realize—maybe you don’t want to.

—

the morning after sneaking out with haechan, everything feels different.

your room is the same, the sun filtering through your curtains, casting warm streaks of light across your sheets. your parents are in the kitchen, the smell of coffee and toast drifting down the hall like any other saturday morning. nothing has changed.

except it has.

because your mind won’t stop replaying the night before. his voice, his hands, the way he looked at you under the dim glow of the streetlights, with that same dark eyeliner you’ve grown to like. the way he leaned in just close enough that you thought he might kiss you again but never did. the way your heart had pounded the entire walk back home, fingers still tingling from where he had held them, warm and steady.

and the worst part?

you didn’t want it to end.

you go through the day pretending everything is normal.

you do your chores, respond to messages, attempt to start your homework—but it all feels distant, like your mind is somewhere else entirely. every time your phone lights up, you half expect it to be him. but it never is.

and then, just when you think you might be going crazy, your mom’s voice cuts through the quiet.

“you’ve been distracted all morning.”

you blink, looking up from your untouched notebook at the kitchen table. your parents are sitting across from you, your dad flipping through the newspaper, your mom watching you with knowing eyes.

“i’m fine,” you say quickly, too quickly.

she hums, not convinced. “it’s not about that boy, is it?”

your heart stops. “what?”

your dad turns a page in the newspaper, not looking up. “the one you’ve been tutoring,” he says simply. “you know, the one we told you to be careful around.”

your pulse stutters. “it’s—no, of course not.”

your mom raises an eyebrow. “really? because ever since those sessions started, you’ve been acting a little… different.”

“and now you’re all spaced out,” your dad adds, still not looking up. “not getting a crush on him, are you?”

you scoff, forcing out a laugh that sounds almost believable. “as if.”

your mom exhales, satisfied for now. “good. boys like that, they’re nothing but trouble.”

your chest tightens. they don’t know anything. “so you’ve told me.” you sigh.

but instead of arguing, you just nod, mumbling something about needing to study before quickly escaping back to your room.

and the moment the door clicks shut behind you, your phone finally buzzes.

haechan: you up, sunshine?

you hesitate for half a second, holding back the small tug at your lips before responding.

you: yeah, why?

his reply comes instantly.

haechan: meet me? same spot.

your heart skips. you don’t even hesitate.

you: be there in 10.

—

the air feels heavier, like the wind is carrying something unspoken between you. you spot him before he sees you—leaning against the swing set, hoodie pulled over his head, one hand twisting a silver ring around his finger. he looks lost in thought, gaze fixed on the ground until he hears your footsteps.

his head lifts, and when he sees you, his lips twitch into a smirk—lazy, like he knew you’d come.

“thought maybe you wouldn’t show,” he says, rocking back on his heels.

you cross your arms, standing a few steps away. “why?”

he lets out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “figured maybe you started listening to your parents.”

you raise a brow. “you’re eavesdropping now?”

nah,” he says easily, stepping closer. “just know how people see me.”

you don’t respond. instead, you take a step closer, letting the silence settle between you.

“so,” you say after a beat, “why’d you call me out here?”

he exhales, tilting his head as he watches you. “needed to see you.”

the words come so easily, like he didn’t even have to think about them. like it was the most natural thing in the world.

your pulse stutters, but you keep your expression even. “and now that you have?”

he grins, stepping closer until there’s barely any space between you. “now?” his voice drops lower, eyes flickering over your face. “now i wanna know why you came.”

you swallow. why did you?

you should have ignored his message, should have listened to every warning sign telling you to stay away.

but standing here, heart pounding, heat rolling off him in waves—

you realize you don’t regret a damn thing.

“i wanted to see you too.” you say lowly.

—

after that night, something shifts.

it starts slow—an unspoken understanding, a magnetic pull that neither of you acknowledge but never fight.

one night turns into another. and then another.

sometimes, he climbs through your window just to talk, arms crossed against your windowsill, voice hushed as he tells you about his day. other times, he doesn’t talk at all, just pulls you close and kisses you like he’s afraid you’ll slip through his fingers.

and maybe you should be afraid too—afraid of how easy it is to let this happen, to want more. but you’re not.

—

you find yourself around him more at school, too.

it’s not obvious, not at first—just stolen glances across the hallway, his shoulder brushing yours when he passes by, the flicker of a smirk when he catches you looking.

but then he starts waiting for you after class, hands stuffed in his pockets, always acting like he just happened to be there. like it wasn’t intentional.

and you let him.

because somehow, being near him feels natural now. even with the tutoring sessions over. he seemed to be doing pretty well in science now anyway.

—

the nights are different. the nights are yours.

sneaking out is reckless, dangerous, a risk you wouldn’t have taken before. but now? now it’s routine.

sometimes, you meet at the park, swinging lazily under the glow of the streetlights. sometimes, he drags you into the city, leading you through neon-lit streets, hands brushing in the dark.

and sometimes—most nights, actually—he’s at your window.

it always starts the same way: a faint rustling, the quiet scrape of sneakers against bark, and then, moments later, his head poking through the window frame with a grin.

“you’ve got to stop leaving this unlocked, sunshine,” he teases, even though you both know you won’t.

and every time, without fail, you roll your eyes, but you don’t stop him when he pulls himself inside, muscles flexing, veins prominent under his skin as he steadies himself.

the first few times, you told yourself this was temporary—just a phase, just him being him.

but then there’s a night where he doesn’t just talk, doesn’t just steal a few kisses before leaving.

there’s a night where he lingers.

where his hands settle on your waist, where he backs you up against your wall, where the air between you is thick with something unspoken, something dangerous.

where he kisses you deeper, hands tracing slow patterns against your skin, like he’s memorizing you.

where you let him.

because at some point, you stopped trying to fight this. stopped trying to pretend you didn’t want it.

because at some point, you stopped caring that he was the kind of boy your parents warned you about.

—

it was one of the nights he had skipped into your room, you greeted him with a smile and things went from there.

his breath is warm against your lips, hands gripping your waist as he backs you into the wall.

he’s been teasing all night—touching you just enough to leave you wanting more, murmuring things in that low, rough voice that made your pulse stutter. but now? now there’s no space left between you, and neither of you are trying to fight it.

his fingers press into your sides, slow and steady, like he’s testing how much you’ll let him take. his lips brush yours once, twice—just enough to make you chase him before he finally kisses you like he means it.

and you let yourself fall into it.

your hands slide into his hair, fingers threading through the soft strands, tugging just enough to draw a quiet groan from his throat. his body presses closer, chest rising and falling against yours, the heat between you dizzying.

“you’re gonna drive me crazy,” he murmurs against your lips, voice thick, almost strained.

you don’t even get the chance to answer before he kisses you again, harder this time, like he’s losing whatever little patience he had left.

his hands slip under your shirt, fingertips skimming your skin, sending shivers up your spine. and you should stop this, should put some distance between you before it’s too late—

but then his hands tighten on your hips, and you feel the way his heart is racing just as fast as yours, and god—

you don’t want to stop.

“tell me to leave,” he murmurs, lips trailing along your jaw, down to the hollow of your throat.

you swallow hard, tilting your head back as he presses closer, as his hands continue their slow exploration.

“tell me you don’t want this,” he says again, but there’s no teasing in his voice this time—just something raw, something vulnerable, something almost pleading.

and you should. you should.

instead, your grip tightens in his hair, and you whisper back, “i don’t want you to.”

his response is immediate—his hands slide lower, pulling you flush against him, and he groans against your lips like he’s just lost whatever last shred of control he had.

“fuck,” he exhales, forehead resting against yours. “you’re really gonna be the end of me, sunshine.”

but he doesn’t stop.

and neither do you.

—

when you finally pull your mouth from his, his lips are swollen, breath uneven as he leans into you, hands still firm on your waist like he can’t bring himself to let go just yet.

you don’t want him to.

but somewhere between the heat of his touch and the way his body presses against yours, reality creeps back in.

your parents are just down the hall.

he shouldn’t even be here.

“we should stop,” you murmur, though the words barely make it out, still breathless from the way he just kissed you.

he exhales sharply, eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he tilts his head back to look at you. his pupils are blown wide, jaw tight like he’s forcing himself to pull back.

“yeah,” he mutters, voice rough. “yeah, we should.”

but neither of you move.

his thumb brushes against your side, like he’s memorizing the feel of you.

“sunshine,” he says softly, like a warning.

you know you have to let him go.

but when he leans in one last time, mouth hovering just over yours, you don’t stop him.

“just one more?” he murmurs, but it’s a lie.

one more turns into two, then three, then a lingering kiss pressed to the corner of your lips, like he’s reluctant to leave you at all.

but eventually, he does.

he steps back first, running a hand through his hair like he’s trying to ground himself, like he’s trying to pull himself together before he does something you’ll both regret.

“guess i should go before i completely fuck this up, huh?” he says, forcing a smirk, but you see the hesitation in his eyes.

you nod, but you don’t trust yourself to say anything.

he moves toward the window, but just before climbing out, he looks back, gaze flickering over you—your flushed cheeks, your parted lips, the way your fingers are still trembling just slightly.

and then, instead of saying goodbye, he just grins.

“try not to miss me too much,” he teases, but there’s something softer beneath the words. something real.

and with that, he’s gone, disappearing into the night like he was never there at all.

except—he was.

you press your fingers against your lips, as if you can still feel him there, and then, you smile.

it’s embarrassing, the way your stomach flutters, the way your cheeks heat up, the way you actually giggle like some lovesick schoolgirl.

you should not be this giddy over a boy like him.

but you are.

and you couldn’t find it in you to care anymore.

—

it was another saturday night, around 12am, your parents long gone to bed.

his hands are warm against your skin, fingers teasing under the hem of your shirt as he deepens the kiss, pulling you closer.

you’re not even thinking anymore—just moving, just feeling. stumbling over your own feet as he walks you back, laughing quietly when you almost trip over a pile of books.

“shh,” you whisper, barely suppressing a giggle.

he grins against your lips. “that was you.”

“doesn’t matter,” you breathe, fingers curling into his shirt, feeling the way his muscles tense beneath the fabric. “just be quiet.”

he hums in amusement, hands sliding up your sides, his touch slow, deliberate, testing. “you always tell me what to do, sunshine?”

“someone has to.”

“mm,” he leans in, lips brushing your jaw, hands slipping beneath your shirt, pushing the fabric up just slightly—waiting for permission.

you exhale, whispering a word of approval.

he doesn’t hesitate. he tugs your shirt up, just enough to expose more of your skin—

knock.

the door swings open.

“what are you doing—?”

you freeze.

haechan freezes.

your mom stands in the doorway, eyes locking onto the scene in front of her—haechan’s hands still on you, his hoodie discarded on the floor, your shirt lifted just enough to make it painfully obvious what was happening.

for a second, no one moves.

no one breathes.

haechan is the first to react, stepping back so fast he almost knocks over your chair. he runs a hand through his hair, like he’s trying to play it cool, like there’s any coming back from this.

you don’t dare turn around.

your heart pounds in your chest, face burning hotter than ever before. this time not with the same heat.

your mom inhales sharply, voice eerily calm.

“downstairs. now.”

the finality in her tone sends a chill down your spine.

haechan glances at you, expression unreadable, but you can’t look at him.

because this time, you’re really in trouble.

—

▸ j.note ; finally releasing this lmao it’s been in the sm basement for quite some time now

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