#there's not enough space in the margins

[cyanbeetle]

I’ve tried like 500 times to articulate my thoughts about nonwhite superman and how much that adds to his childhood of loneliness and every time I hit a stumbling block because the topic makes me too insane to think but please hold my hand and imagine this little boy trying to grow up in rural Kansas and being the only person he’s ever known who looks like he does. This little boy who never has a proper answer when people ask where he’s really from, and even once he knows the truth of himself he can never safely share it. Please imagine him fighting every single day to belong and never being able to no matter how hard he tries because people will always find something questionable in the very way he looks. A lot of the superman mythos is dependant on Clark’s ability to assimilate but when you take that away what is left?? He’s just a kid fighting so hard for a belonging he’ll never have a hope in hell of being handed. Oh it hurts my heart

[every-eye-evermore]

THREE MY LOVE

id: page 26 of system collapse, covered in pink sticky notes with ink drawings of three. It’s drawn in an environmental suit with buzzed hair, a round face, almond eyes, short nose, and a scar across its nose.

The drawings show it awkwardly sitting with Karime and the colonists, looking into the distance with a distressed look, and holding a cup of Hot Drink, very unsure of what to do with it.

There’s also a closeup of its face trying so hard to look like a polite human person. Text around it reads “doing a very very good job” and “SO human!”

The second picture is the same drawing as the close-up, but rendered in a digital art program. Three has warm medium brown skin, brown hair, and a blue line in their hair, curving to follow their skull. The background is pink with pink hearts

/end id

[desceros]

I feel like Donnie would be mush for his teeny, itty bitty little baby girl.

someone has been peeking in my google drive again i see....

yeah i think he (rise donnie specifically since that's the papatello i'm working on) would be one of those dads who has a big talk about how he's so strict, about the intense regiment he has his kid on to maximize their development, and he's always the most annoying piece of shit at the PTA meeting. flex brag flex brag

but then his little toddler comes up to him on wobbly legs and puts her hands on his calf, tapping at him for his attention and looks up at him with paint all over her face from where she got into the art supplies at the back of the classroom and made a huge ass mess, and he just melts at her crooked little grin (bc dad is the favorite) and is completely incapable of chastising her in any shape or form

that changes when she grows up and starts to act so much like him that he HAS to be firmer with her. the first time he has to put her in time out they both ugly cry a lot

[mueritos]

being in a social work masters program as a marginalized person who is ages ahead in theory and experience in comparison to your (white, privileged, rich) cohort is a fucking minefield. solidarity for all and every other marginalized person in these fucking micro aggressive and liberal ass social work programs.

[diredeliverance]

"I never want to draw these Hot Topic motherfuckers again"

-me, an idiot, less than five minutes before looping the song again and starting something new

[brittlebutch]

need anyone attempting to have a verbal conversation with me to go ahead and brace themselves for a full five minute wait after their opener for me to figure out Anything to say in response <3

[swagyna]

the trending page literally says everything abt the state of pride

[inbabylontheywept]

my grandpa was a good man. and it really wasnt his fault - recreationally lying to kids is a proud family tradition - but he told me, once, that cutting a worm in half resulted in two worms.

i think he said it so i'd be more morally okay with fishing? i actually dont remember the context.

point was, he told me this, and he understimated (by a very large margin) how much i liked worms. i was a worm boy. very wormy. and after hearing that, i went home, and i dug through the garden, flipped over every rock, did everything i could to gather as many worms as i could, and then i uh.

i cut them all in half. every worm i could find. all of them. with scissors.

i then took this pile of split worms, and i put them in a box with a bit of lettuce and some water and stuff and went to bed expecting to double my worms overnight. i have math autism, so i had a vague understanding that if i did this just a few times in a row, i would eventually have a completely unreasonable amount of worms.

i was very excited to become this plane's worm emperor.

(i think i was...six?)

anyway, i did not become the inheritor of the worm crown. i instead woke up to a box of dead worms and cried. a lot. i got diagnosed with panic attacks as a teenager, but i think i had them as a kid, i just had no idea what they were. i was kind of processing that a.) i had killed what i had assumed was every single worm in my yard, and thus would have no more worms, and b). i was going to like, worm hell.

(six year babylon spent a lot of time worrying about god.)

so i kind of freaked out, and i climbed a tree, because god can only smite you if you're touching the ground (?) and i sat up there mostly inconsolable until my mom came out and asked, hey, what's up? what happened?

so i explained to her that i had killed all of the worms, forever, and was also Damned, and she took me to the compost pile, and we dug for all of five seconds and found like twenty more worms.

the compost pile was full of worms.

she then told me that a). there were more worms, and we could put them back under rocks and stuff and recolonize our yard and b). that one day, i would die, and go to heaven, and be able to talk to the worms face to face. that i'd be able to tell them all that i was very sorry, and that i killed them on accident, driven only by excessive Love, and that she was positive they would forgive me because worms have six hearts and no malice.

at that point, i think i was sixty percent tear-snot by weight, and i had no choice but to gather enough worms that i could hug them. which my mom helped with. and then after that she helped me put some worms back under each rock.

and for my epilogue: i spent a significant portion of my childhood in trees. and for many years after, even when my mom didnt know i was watching, i would catch her giving the space under the rocks a light spritz with the hose. not because she loved worms.

but because she loved me.

[femvaylin]

Having one of those moments where I desperately want to go home (place I lived for two years 2018-2020) home (place I've never lived in my life) home (my childhood home I can go back to anytime I like but it never feels like I expect it to) home (my mom's run-down apartment she lived in for one year in 2011) home (under the raspberry bushes in my grandparents garden)

[gallusrostromegalus]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[comicaurora]

I've been reading some stuff on punitive justice, and it made something click for me that I've observed a lot online but haven't been able to put into words before.

When someone does something wrong, that's bad, and the damage it does needs to be repaired while the person needs to try to do better in future to minimize repeating harm. We learn it in preschool - say sorry, don't do it again. If they keep at it, remove them from the situation where they can do the harm until they prove they're responsible enough to go back in.

So if it turns out someone DIDN'T do anything wrong, that should be a relief! There's no damage to fix, no internal errors to correct. Less work for everybody, literally no harm done. False alarm, all good.

The thing I've observed is, lots of people want them to have done something wrong. There's almost disappointment when it turns out there's no harm done. And I think that's because of this general undercurrent of punitive justice as morally righteous and desirable: someone does something wrong, you get to punish them. Turns out they're innocent? That's disappointing. Find another reason you get to punish them, or find another bad person you get to punish. But at the core of it is that desire to punish someone. Someone you can hurt in a way that makes you a better person for hurting them.

This particular brand of almost cannibalistic pseudo-justice is super common in tumblr, one of the most ostensibly liberal spaces on the internet; I see more borderline savagery in online discourse here than in the actually toxic parts of the internet that are just openly cruel for cruelty's sake. It's always thrown me for a loop, and has frankly also hurt me, because on the rare occasions I get personally dogpiled, it only actually stings when it makes me worry that I've legitimately hurt someone. If I did something wrong, or more realistically when I inevitably do something wrong, that would make it good and right for people to give me shit about it every day until I'm dead.

The thing that clicked for me most recently was this bit in Ijeoma Oluo's Be A Revolution:

Punitive justice is specifically, uniquely appealing to people who have suffered injustices. Of course it's the Tumblr zeitgeist. Everyone here is a marginalized person failed by at least one system. Punishing someone for perceived injustice is how someone the system has deemed worthless proves their value in blood, even if the person being punished hasn't harmed you directly - even if they haven't harmed anyone. "Righteous" anger isn't about the target in these cases, it's about the inflicter. This is how much my pain is worth.

And that kind of violent validation is so alluring and so very dangerous. It seeks an outlet, wearing the justification of justice. Who's in reach? Who's an acceptable target this week? What's a good reason to use?

Is there anything they could do that would make me stop?

[genspiel]

printed off some sheet music for a song i'd like to learn to play, but it turns out that the pdf's page size was unusual, so the whole base clef of the last line on every page got cut off........ =_=

[pallases]

GRRRRRRRR

[britishchick09]

the original 464 page rewrite and the 449 page version with 0.56 margins! ;)

a very special book with those margins:

[astrophileous]

A Well-Kept Secret

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Synopsis: While working on a case in D.C., Spencer didn't expect to hear a familiar name being mentioned as the sole surviving witness. Or, in which the team discovers Spencer's well-kept secret.

Warning(s): established secret relationship, mentions and/or depictions of death/physical violence/gun violence/injury/attack, signs of trauma, survivor's guilt, curse words, hurt/comfort, nudity but it's not sexual, allusions to sexy times, mentions/implied alcohol consumption

Word Count: 5900-ish

Author's Note: hiya! I decided to write this lil piece after seeing the fic challenge posted by @imagining-in-the-margins abt the family/found family trope. I had a lotta fun writing this one and I think it's got potential to be something more. So pls comment or message me if you wanna see me exploring with this idea (either turning it into a series of connected one-shots or multi-parters). Don't forget to like/comment/reblog and give me a follow :) I hope you enjoy! 💞

Criminal Minds Masterlist

When Hotch had notified the team to haul their asses up and drove all the way to D.C., Spencer never expected that it would also entail him having to suffer through a mini heart attack.

The series of attacks around D.C. had been dominating the 6 PM news segments in the entire country. What was initially perceived as a suspected sequence of robberies gone wrong--since the first two targets to have been hit were a bank and a prestigious auction house--soon turned into a nationwide panic as people realized that there was a bigger game at play.

After the third attack was found to have occurred in the headquarters of one of the top, up-and-coming renewable energy startups in the states, the D.C. police finally started to entertain the idea that perhaps they hadn't been dealing with their usual petty robbers at all.

And naturally, that was when the BAU had been called in.

As soon as the team entered the Metropolitan PD bullpen, they were struck with the smell of panic and the sight of chaos.

"Agent Hotchner?" A middle-aged man in a gray shirt and blue tie appeared in front of them. "My name is Detective Mills, we spoke on the phone."

"Of course, Detective." Hotch shook the other man's hand. "This is my team. Agent Prentiss, Jareau, and Dr. Reid. I have two others already at the latest crime scene. What can you tell us so far?"

"As you can see--" Detective Mills gestured towards the frenzied scene behind him, "--the entire D.C. area is going haywire after news broke out about yesterday's attack. The public is demanding the city to be put on lockdown, and I'm getting pressure from above as well. We received information that nearly half the city has called in sick today."

"A classic response to mass paranoia," Spencer noted.

"Well, paranoia or not, I just want to start getting some answers." Detective Mills began to lead the team further into the bullpen. "I have every pair of hands I could spare in this. If they aren't out there chasing leads, they're here interviewing the victims, friends, and families."

"Any luck so far?" Emily asked.

"Nothing more than what you've probably seen in the files."

Detective Mills pushed open the door to an office in the corner, away from the havoc in the center of the station.

"Lieutenant Jeffreys retired a couple of weeks ago. The lucky bastard." Detective Mills scoffed jokingly. "It's the most decent space I can spare at the moment. Think you'll be fine in here?"

"It's more than enough, Detective. Thank you," Hotch replied.

"What about the witnesses from yesterday's attack? Have you had the chance to interview them?" JJ asked as the rest of the team started setting up.

"Some of my men are with them right now. But I doubt they'll have anything useful. Just like the other two cases, the attack happened while most of the office was out. The rest left behind were DOA at the latest scene."

"They're rapidly devolving," Spencer pondered out loud as he skimmed over the case files. "They went from killing a non-compliant security guard during the first attack to executing almost every witness in the last one."

JJ raised an eyebrow. "Almost?"

"It says here there is one survivor." Spencer showed the word he had underlined in the case overview to JJ.

"Yes, there is," Detective Mills confirmed. "I had one of my men talk to her. There's not much she could give us. Thing is, she wasn't even supposed to be there."

"What do you mean?" Emily asked.

"She didn't work in that office. She was a consultant who just happened to be visiting. Poor girl's pretty shaken up. She hid in a supply closet the entire time. She was the one who found the bodies and called 911."

"So, the perpetrators never checked the rooms while they were holding the victims hostage?" Hotch questioned.

"Not according to her statement, no. See, I thought it weird myself. Do you have any idea why?"

"Not sure." Hotch hummed, deep in thought. "Perhaps our UnSubs didn't think to check because they didn't know someone was in there. Detective, you said all of the victims were the only employees of the company who didn't attend the event downtown, correct?"

"Yeah, they were the only ones who weren't listed as attendees. Why? Do you think those people were specifically targeted?"

"Unfortunately, we can't rule out anything yet this early in the investigation," Hotch said. "We need to talk to the witnesses to know more. JJ?"

"On it." JJ nodded. "What can you tell us about yesterday's sole survivor, Detective?"

"Not much. I didn't interview her personally, one of my men did. She works at a consulting engineering firm in town," Detective Mills replied. "I believe her name is... what is it called?"

When Detective Mills mentioned the name, Spencer's heart instantly crashed inside of its cage.

"What?" His hand had stopped scribbling on the board. In a matter of miliseconds, Spencer had crossed the room towards the doorway where Detective Mills was standing. "What did you say her name was?"

Dumbfounded, the detective stared at a dread-stricken Spencer before spelling out the name once more.

"Why? What's wrong?" Detective Mills asked in confusion.

JJ touched Spencer's shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

But Spencer, either too alarmed or merely choosing not to acknowledge both questions, asked instead, "Where is she? I need to see her."

"In the waiting room by the pantry--"

Spencer didn't even wait for Detective Mills to form his complete thought before dashing out. JJ exchanged a glance with Emily following Spencer's sudden exit, perplexed by his odd turn of behavior.

"I'll go get him," JJ announced before leaving the room, chasing after a flurry of wavy hair and a wool-knitted purple vest sprinting across the bullpen.

The roaring commotion inside the station was almost loud enough to rival the intensity of your racing thoughts.

Almost.

At this point, you didn't think there was anything you could do anymore. The vivid images from yesterday's attack were playing continuously in your head. There was nothing you could do to stop them.

Rubbing your eyes from exhaustion, you mourned the loss of sleep that you failed to get the previous night. As if the waking nightmares weren't torment enough, the images had somehow translated even more cruelly into your subconscious. You could barely close your eyes for three seconds without feeling like you had been brought back to that place.

Cold, cramped, and alone. Fearing for your life in the tiny supply closet that smelled more like death than bleach.

At the sound of the door opening, you quickly turned around in your seat to hide your face away from prying eyes. The last thing you needed at that moment was having a complete stranger seeing you fall apart in the middle of a police station.

But when the voice came carrying the sound of your name, it wasn't the voice of a complete stranger you had heard. It was a voice you knew more than you probably knew your own. A voice you loved and a voice you had longed to hear for the past gruesome twenty-four hours.

"Spencer?" You turned back towards the door, seeing the face you adored most in the whole world staring back at you.

"Sweetheart."

At the speed of a lightning, Spencer dropped to his knees in front of you and gathered your broken little pieces into his arms.

Spencer's touch was everywhere. Your hair, your neck, your shoulders. As if he was checking whether you were real. That you were actually there inside his arms, and you were not a simple imagination that his mind had conjured up.

Surrounded by the safety of his embrace, you could feel the shattered pieces of yourself beginning to mend once more.

"Spencer," you uttered his name again as you pulled away, still in disbelief that he was physically there with you.

"I'm here," he promised you as he cupped your face gently.

"Spencer, what are you... How..."

"My team is working your case. We arrived half an hour ago," he explained simply. "Sunshine, why didn't you tell me? I thought you were still in Alaska?"

You had previously apprised Spencer that you would be hard to reach during your trip since you would be spending most of your time at the power plant site where cellphone receptions were scarce. So when an entire day went by without him ever hearing from you, Spencer didn't have any reason to be worried.

Never in a million years would he have ever predicted that you'd be caught in the middle of a hostage situation.

That thought alone caused Spencer to squeeze your hand a little tighter than usual.

"I'm sorry, Spence," you said sincerely. "My trip ended earlier than planned. I arrived back yesterday morning. I actually wanted to surprise you last night. After yesterday's... incident, I wanted to call you, but my phone was shot--"

"Wait, what? You were shot?"

"No! No, baby. Not me. Just my phone," you assured him. "But that's why I couldn't call. I did attempt you once using this station's phone, but it went straight to voicemail."

At the new piece of information, the colors immediately drained from Spencer's face.

"That was you? Fuck. I didn't--I didn't know. I rejected the call because I didn't know it was you."

"Hey." You stopped his guilty rambling with a hand to his cheek. "It's okay. I'm okay. I'm just glad you're here."

And then, because Spencer needed to make sure that you really were okay, he pulled you back into his arms and held you even tighter this time.

"Uh, Spence?"

The sound in the doorway snapped you both out of your mutual reverie. You looked up to see a blonde woman there, staring in an equal mixture of shock and confusion at the sight in front of her.

Spencer begrudgingly untangled himself from your arms before getting up to approach her.

"JJ, do you mind if I do the cognitive for this one?" Spencer asked.

The woman--JJ-- shifted her eyes a few times between you and Spencer. "Um, of course. I'll just go and inform Hotch. Tell us if you need anything."

After JJ's departure, Spencer closed the door again to award you both a much needed privacy.

He grabbed a wooden chair from the corner and dragged it before sitting down right in front of you.

"I need to start the interview now, sweetheart. Think you're up for it?"

Your whole body went rigid for a matter of seconds before you forced it to restart again. It was gone as soon as it came, but Spencer noticed it just the same.

"Look at me," Spencer ordered softly, using his delicate finger to nudge your face up until he was looking straight into your eyes. "I know it's scary. I don't want you to have to relive yesterday either, but it will help us catch whoever did this."

"I've told the police everything I knew yesterday. I was hiding the entire time." Like a coward. "I didn't see anything. I don't have anything else that could help you."

"I know that, sunshine. But as I've told you before, our method is slightly different. We won't be just focusing on what you saw, but also what you smelled, or maybe even heard." Spencer took your hands then, squeezing affectionately. "I'll be here with you the entire time."

The nod you gave him was hesitant, but it was a start nonetheless. You listened intently to Spencer's words and closed your eyes just as he had instructed.

"We'll start at the beginning," you heard him say. "Why don't you tell me why you went there yesterday?"

"I, uh, received a call from my friend, Nick, after my plane landed. We had been communicating back and forth since his company seeked my consultation for one of their upcoming projects," you began. "I wasn't even supposed to work because I had requested the day off. But Nick said it didn't have to be a formal meeting, so I agreed to meet him."

"Tell me what you remember after arriving at the office."

Your mind traveled back to that specific time one day prior. You remembered walking into the place and seeing its unusual state of vacancy even though there was still a good half an hour left before lunchtime.

"I just assumed everyone had gone to lunch earlier and shrugged it off," you recalled.

Spencer nodded his head. "Did anything else strike you as out of the ordinary?"

"No? I don't... I don't know. It was only my second time being there, I'm not sure what was normal and what wasn't."

"Okay. That's okay. You're doing good so far, sweetheart," Spencer quickly interjected, trying to get you to calm down before your distress could turn into a full-blown panic. "Now, what did you do next?"

"I followed Nick into his office."

Nick was keeping his promise true. It hadn't felt like a formal meeting, just two old college buddies reminiscing about the past and discussing possibilities of the future that, of course, included the company's upcoming project which you would be working on with him.

"I excused myself to the bathroom at some point," you added. "When I first heard the commotion, I thought nothing of it. It's like the idea that a group full of armed men had taken over the building didn't even cross my mind. I mean, why would it? I was on my way back to Nick's office when I saw them."

You recalled turning a corner after exiting the bathroom only to see those figures carrying machine guns and shouting at everyone to get on their knees or put their hands above their heads. You remembered sprinting the way you had come from and opening the first door you could reach that just happened to be the supply closet.

"Let's go back to the moment you saw them," Spencer urged gently. "How many people were there? Do you remember any conspicuous detail? Maybe one of them had tattoos or spoke with an accent. Anything that distinguished them."

Taking a deep breath, you tried replaying those crucial seconds slowly in your head.

"There were four of them. I couldn't see much. They were all wearing identical black clothes."

Suddenly, an unexpected piece of memory rushed to the front of your mind. You opened your eyes in shock, meeting Spencer's curious gaze that had been kept intently on you the entire time.

"I think at least one of them is a woman," you told him.

Spencer's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"One of the guys said something about... fucking this place up. And then she laughed. I heard her. It was definitely a female laugh."

"Good. That's good."

"Yeah? Do you think it'll help?"

Spencer nodded assuredly, bringing his hand to leave calming strokes on your head. "I know it will. You've done a great job, sweetheart. I'm proud of you."

The praise Spencer gave eased the tension in your shoulders. As if having been granted fresh air after decades of confinement, you were finally able to let yourself breathe again.

Spencer continued his loving strokes on your head. Little by little, the weight of his touch melted the resolve you had built into a pathetic puddle on the floor. Without its mental shield protecting you, your tears sped forward, gathering in your eyes until they spilled on the vast path down your cheeks.

"Hey, hey." Spencer's voice was laden with panic after seeing you start to cry. "Sunshine, what is it? What's wrong? Talk to me."

"I-I just... God." You struggled to get the words out in between sobs. "I'm a coward, Spencer."

"What?"

"All of those people... They died because I was a fucking coward."

Your admission tore into the air before stabbing Spencer right through his chest.

"Sweetheart, you know that's not true."

"But it is!" you cried out, pulling away from Spencer's grounding hold around your shaking body in favor of your own arms. "I was a coward. I ran and hid because I was too scared to die. Too scared to fight. If I had just tried a little harder, I could've called for help. That way, maybe all of those people wouldn't... And Nick wouldn't..."

A haunting image flashed behind your eyes. The image of Nick's limp and lifeless body on the floor, among those of the others. You remembered crying next to him, punching his chest, body, and arm despite having seen the gunshot wound on his forehead. It took you another five minutes before you eventually managed to gather yourself together, found a phone, and dialed 911.

Not that it made any difference. They were all already dead.

Spencer could hear his heart breaking at the sight of you curling into yourself, recoiling from his touch because you somehow believed you didn't deserve his affection at that moment. If Spencer could just transfer all of your pain towards him, he would. Seeing you beat yourself up that way over something that happened and was done to you was the worst kind of torture he ever had to endure in life.

And Spencer had been through more kinds of torture than the general population in the world.

Deciding that he had seen enough of your self-deprecating torment, he reclaimed your hands inside of his palms and urged you to look at him.

"Are you hearing yourself right now?" Spencer asked incredulously. "How can you even think that way? Sweetheart, what happened to those people, to Nick, it is not your fault."

"B-but, if I hadn't run away--"

"Then you would've died, too," he cut you off. "Sunshine, there were four of them with machine guns. No one stood a single chance against them. Those people were there to kill. There was nothing you could've done."

It was a hard pill to swallow, but Spencer needed you to hear it.

He needed you to know the truth no matter how unacceptable it was.

"If you hadn't hid from them, we would've found seven bodies there instead of six. And I--" Spencer took a shuddering breath, "--I would've lost you."

Your shoulders deflated at his revelation. "Spence--"

"So please--" he searched your eyes then, using his thumb to sweep away the remaining tears under your eyes, "--stop holding yourself accountable. I promise I will do everything I can to find those people and make them pay for what they did."

Spencer's vow triggered a new wave of tears that compelled you to sink into his awaiting arms. He let you stay there until you had cried your tears dry. It was something he also secretly needed for himself after suffering through the short-lived horror over the mention of your name in relation to the heinous case. He just needed to make sure that you were okay.

A few minutes passed by with you in his arms. Eventually, Spencer had to tear himself away to finish his job. He asked you to wait as he wrapped up the transcript of your cognitive interview, along with his professional report over it.

"I need to run somewhere real quick. I promise to be back in a couple of hours," he notified JJ as he handed her the interview report. "Tell Hotch for me? Thanks."

Without waiting for his friend's reply, Spencer rushed back to the waiting room before leading you out to take you home.

Back at your apartment, Spencer guided you towards the direction of your bathroom as soon as you had stepped into the threshold.

"Are you trying to get me naked, Spencer?" you remarked playfully after he refused to let you take your clothes off yourself.

"Yes." The gleaming mischief in your eyes caused him to flick your nose lightly. "Just to get you ready for your bath. Get your head straight, will you?"

You scoffed at his back as he turned around to check the water temperature in the tub.

Once you were submerged safely inside, Spencer left the bathroom to give you some privacy. Meanwhile, he began rummaging through your drawers to pull out a change of clothes, a towel, and a clean sheet for your bed.

By the time you exited, Spencer had changed your bedsheets and lit one of your favorite candles on the bedside table. He asked you to sit down on the bed as he kneeled before you, helping you put on the pajamas he had picked out with little prints of sunflowers on them.

None of Spencer's touches were sexual. They swept over your skin with the care of an artist handling their most precious work. When his eyes found yours, you swore you could almost cry from the intense adoration that seemed to shine so brightly out of them.

As he guided you to lie on the bed, you were surprised to see him following suit. He got under the covers with you, pulling you close to tangle every inch of your limbs with his.

"I love you, Spencer," you admitted to his chest, heart heavy with the deep appreciation and overwhelming affection for the man beside you.

Spencer looked down at your confession, finding his favorite pair of eyes already looking earnestly at him. Instinctively, he reached for your chin with his fingers, tugging your face upward until he could capture your lips with his.

The kiss was slow. Careful. Filled with silent promises and discreet reassurances. When you both parted, Spencer didn't pull himself away. Instead, he let his forehead touch yours while his eyes stayed closed.

"Will you be here when I wake up?" you asked quietly.

"Yes, sweetheart. Now go to sleep."

Although the two of you knew his answer was a lie, you both chose to pretend otherwise. You knew Spencer still had responsibilities to fulfill, along with a promise to you that he intended to keep. You knew that when you woke up later that evening, Spencer would already be long gone, and you would be forced to bask in the traces of himself that he had left behind.

But for now, Spencer was still there, in the comfort of your bedroom, lying on the bed next to you. And that knowledge alone was good enough for you to finally drift further into the land of sleep, surrounded by the warmth of Spencer's loving embrace.

"I'm telling you," JJ insisted, looking at her entire team minus Spencer and Hotch. "There was definitely something going on between them. Why else would he request to take over the cognitive for me?"

"Maybe he was feeling generous," Rossi deadpanned, earning an unimpressed glare from JJ.

It had been a full week since the BAU team had arrived in D.C. to investigate the series of gun attacks in the city. Just the day prior, they had successfully made their fourth arrest, bringing this case to yet another satisfying conclusion in the eye of justice.

If nothing else was amiss, they should have been on their way back to Quantico in less than an hour. In the meantime, though, JJ felt obliged to gather her team members in the middle of the bullpen to share her suspicion about a certain scene she had accidentally caught on their first day working the case.

"Pretty boy did seem more emotionally involved in this case than he usually does, though," Derek pointed out.

"Right? Right?" JJ replied almost too enthusiastically. "Come on, aren't you guys at least half as curious as I am about who this mystery girl might be? Don't you wanna try finding out who she is while we're still here?"

They all stared at each other in hesitation.

"Or, we could just ask Spencer directly and let him explain?" Emily suggested, receiving incredulous looks from the other three in response. "Yeah, you're right. What did you say her name was again?"

"I don't remember," JJ answered.

"It must be listed in the files somewhere, right?" Derek immediately sprung into action, reaching towards the scattered case files that might contain the name they were looking for.

"Just to be clear, I am not taking any part in this." Rossi sighed.

"Got it!" Derek waved the offending file in hand, giving it to JJ, who instantly began skimming over it.

"Alright. Says here that her name is..."

JJ read the name aloud when unexpectedly, an answering sound sprouted from behind them.

"Yes?"

Every single one of them turned in shock at your voice. You smiled at their wide-eyed expressions, waving your hand a little awkwardly in the air.

"You!" JJ exclaimed.

"Me?"

Emily nudged JJ in the ribs, making the blonde woman wince.

"Y-you're the witness from the startup case, right?" JJ said, trying to rectify the situation.

"That's me."

"What can we do for you, Miss?" Rossi asked, stepping forward and away from the rest of the group.

"I'm actually looking for Spencer. Do you know where he might be?"

"Spencer Reid? You know Reid?" Emily asked.

Before you had the chance to reply, the man in question came strolling into the bullpen, rambling animatedly to Hotch who was walking beside him. The moment Spencer caught sight of you, though, he immediately abandoned Hotch's side and rushed towards where you were standing.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, of course," you told him, fitting yourself easily into Spencer's side as his arm went around your waist. "Hi, Hotch."

The older man called your name in greeting. "I got your message. You wanted to talk to me?"

"I wanted to ask you--well, all of you, actually--" you glanced around at the other team members, "--if maybe you all would let me treat you to lunch? As a thank you for your hard work on the case."

Hotch nodded in response. "It's fine with me. We don't have to be back until tonight, anyway. Everyone?"

Instead of replying to your offer, Emily voiced aloud the question that was circling everyone's mind.

"You know her?" Emily looked at Hotch before dragging her eyes away towards you. "And you know him? You know each other? How?"

You gazed up at Spencer's eyes, seeing them shining with the same mirth as the one you felt dancing in your stomach.

"I guess this is supposed to be the part where I introduce myself, isn't it?" You chuckled.

Extending your palm, you shook each of their hands while telling them your name, them responding back with theirs even though you already knew who was who long before you had even met them.

"I still don't understand," JJ admitted after you finished shaking her hand. "How did you know Spencer and Hotch?"

Once again, you looked into Spencer's eyes, a question bouncing around in yours. Spencer's nod of affirmation was the only go-ahead you needed.

It's time.

"I'm Spencer's girlfriend."

"She's my wife."

You turned your head towards Spencer in shock.

In front of you, Spencer's teammates were causing an uproar.

"Wait, what?" Emily stared dumbfoundedly.

"You have a girlfriend?" Derek asked in disbelief.

"You're married?!" JJ shrieked.

"Hold on a second," Rossi interjected, holding his palms out as if to tell everyone to stand down and calm themselves. "So which one is it? Girlfriend or wife?"

And that was how you found yourself sitting in the private VIP room of your favorite restaurant in the city with some of Spencer's closest people on earth.

"That's the craziest story I've ever heard," Emily pondered in astonishment.

Rossi, Derek, and JJ were all wearing an identical look on each of their faces after hearing the story of how you and Spencer met: by drunkenly getting married in Vegas after only knowing each other for barely one night when you both weren't even twenty-two yet.

"If someone were to tell me yesterday that there's another member of this team who also went to get married while drunk in Vegas, I would have never even thought of mentioning Spencer's name," JJ mused.

At your curious expression, Spencer explained, "Rossi also got drunkenly married in Vegas to his third ex-wife,"

"Why didn't you two get a divorce?" Emily suddenly asked.

It was something that everyone who knew about your situation with Spencer had questioned at one point or another. The real answer was because you and Spencer had both been reluctant to go through the nasty and lengthy legal process of getting a divorce. Therefore, you decided to part ways without doing anything about it, vowing to only track each other down if one of you ever needed to end the bond because of another impending marriage or any other urgent matter.

But that reason alone was usually not enough to appease people's curiosity. And over the years, you and Spencer had poked fun over that particular fact by coming up with the most outrageous lie you could muster up.

"She wanted to get a divorce," Spencer fabricated smoothly. "I persuaded her otherwise because I had this inkling that someday we were gonna fall in love."

Usually, any other people would coo sweetly at Spencer's statememt.

But these weren't any other people. These people were Spencer's family in more ways except flesh and blood, and even without their profiling skills, you knew they could see right through Spencer's little deception.

"That sounds like bullshit to me. Doesn't that sound like bullshit to you?" Emily asked, turning to JJ for support.

"Yeah, that was bullshit, alright," JJ claimed vehemently, prompting an innocent-looking grin from Spencer and a series of chuckles from everyone else.

"When did you two start dating, then?" Rossi spoke up from one end of the table.

"About two years after Vegas, right?" you estimated, to which Spencer nodded in confirmation. "He strolled into my place of work while he was on a case, and then he asked me out."

Derek sat up on his seat after hearing the new information. "Wait, when was this? Why didn't I know about this?"

"The beginning of my second year in the BAU," Spencer offered. "Elle knew."

"Elle? Elle Greenway? You told Elle but not me?" Derek looked offended.

Spender shrugged nonchalantly. "Elle was assigned with me that day."

"Unbelievable." Derek slumped back down in his chair. "Penelope is gonna freak when she finds out what she missed today."

"Penelope? Oh, she already knows," you told him.

That revelation earned a collective disbelief look across the entire table.

"Yeah... I, uh," you cleared your throat, "I actually just went shopping with her two weeks ago."

"You've got to be kidding me," Emily muttered.

"You told Penelope but not me?" Derek sounded hurt as he pointed his accusatory stare at Spencer. "You even told Hotch!"

"I didn't tell Garcia. She dug through my history and found it out herself. Had to bribe her with candies and chocolates for a whole month to keep her quiet," Spencer grumbled. "And I had to tell Hotch. We needed to add her number to my emergency contact list."

Despite Spencer's concise explanation, Derek still seemed unsatisfied by the whole ordeal.

"How long have you known?" he finally decided to ask Hotch.

"A while," the man answered from his seat at the opposite end of the table from Rossi. "They even babysat Jack a few times for me."

"I don't believe this," Derek scowled. "Pretty boy's got himself a girl for the last six years, and I never knew? Outrageous."

"Technically, we've been married even longer than that," Spencer responded, as if he was unaware of the imminent glower that Derek was sending his way. "Eight years since Vegas."

"That's longer than any of my marriage," Rossi remarked before sipping his drink.

The laugh that resonated upon Rossi's little comment elicited an affectionate smile on your lips.

"So, you live in D.C., then?" JJ asked, at last stirring the conversation away from the topic of your and Spencer's secret marriage-slash-relationship.

"I do, yeah. But most of the time, I live out of my suitcase," you answered. "My firm has clients all over the country. A few overseas, as well. I'm lucky if I even get to have an entire week to sleep uninterrupted in my own bed."

Even then, you truthfully quite enjoyed the work you had to do. You didn't mind having to travel some place new every other week. In fact, you somehow believed that your constant need to travel for your job, and Spencer for his, was one of the reasons why the two of you worked so well together.

Although people might think that two adults who had to travel for a living were a recipe for a disastrous relationship, you and Spencer had so far proven otherwise. Because of your respective schedules, you could sympathize more with the other anytime they had to go somewhere urgent for work. It only made you savor every single second you spent together because of how much precious each one of them became.

The rest of lunch unraveled with the same bucket of smiles, jokes, and laughter. It felt good to finally tell the few people who meant the world in Spencer's life the truth about your relationship. It was also a huge relief to see them opening their arms and welcoming you into the family without an ounce of hesitation.

"Hotch?" Spencer called out after everyone exited the restaurant. "Will it be okay if I stay in the city for one more night?"

"As long as you promise to be back for tomorrow's briefing," Hotch reminded sternly, but the meaningful look he passed over you before he entered his vehicle spoke of a thousand things left unsaid.

"It was so nice meeting you," JJ said as she took you in her arms. "And I'm sorry again about your friend."

"Thank you. And thanks for all of your hard work in catching those guys."

"Of course, it's what we do." JJ smiled as she pulled away. "Invite me and Emily the next time you and Penelope hang out, okay?"

"Will do," you promised.

You watched as every single one of them scrambled into the two black SUVs, waving your goodbye until the cars drove out of your sight.

"I think that went well," you commented before looking up at Spencer. "Do you?"

"I think it went as well as it could."

"So--" you began, circling your arms around Spencer's neck, "--we have more than twelve hours until you're expected back at Quantico. What do you wanna do?"

Spencer nudged your nose with his. "I can think of a few activities we can partake in."

"Really?"

"Really."

Just as he was a hairbreadth away from pressing his lips to yours, you suddenly tore yourself out of Spencer's arms.

"Like getting some frozen yogurts?" you asked giddily, smirking at the dumbfounded look that you managed to put on Spencer's face.

"Fine. Let's go get some frozen yogurts."

Spencer had to hide his amused grin at your elated squeals. He was more than content at that moment to let you produce those addictive sounds at the mere prospect of frozen yogurts.

But later that night, he had a whole different set of activities lined up to pull those same sounds out of you once more.

And it might or might not potentially involve an entirely different yet creative use of frozen yogurts as well.

Spencer simply just hadn't decided yet.

[writerunnamed]

note: This is something I've wanted to write for a while but I am well aware that not everyone will be into it. There are a few stories I want to tell that aren't the norm so I decided to start this nameless blog to tell them. I am not tagging anyone, if you find it then you find it. xo Joel(stepdad), significant age gap, female reader. 18+ legal, reader is 20 (warnings: pov sex, Joel spits on the 😸, boobie play, really inappropriate dirty talk, an unused sex toy [will make an appearance in another chapter], female masturbation, daddy kink, unfit parent) 5.6k word count

He takes up so much space, and it wasn’t just physically. He took up space emotionally, mentally. Mentally most of all. Your thoughts always drifted back to him. Cyclical. An elliptical pattern making him the top of every list you’d go through in your head. He seemed to know it too, in a stoic, quiet, largely unsettling way. Older, attractive men tended to do that. 

It started during that in-between time, when summer, losing your job, and having to move back home pushed you to figure out what the fuck you actually wanted to do with your life seemed to come together like the planets aligning. The precipice of a turning point, a ticking clock counting down the days until your childhood bedroom would be turned into a gym, or an office, or a guest bedroom. The lukewarm welcome from your mother would ice over and you’d really have to get your shit together. 

Your mother was what people who didn’t know her would call ‘a free spirit’, what you called her, was a fucking mess. 

Your earliest memories consist of having to remind her to buy milk or to pay the bill because the electricity had turned off while watching cartoons in front of the tiny, living room tv. You’d had to remind her, in not so many words, that she was the mother, and you were the child. 

To your friends, she was the cool mom. The party mom. Your house was the place to be because she didn’t ask questions, she left her cigarettes unattended and didn’t mind if a few went missing. She kept the bar cart stocked, even if there was nothing but flies in the cupboard and nothing but half-empty condiment bottles in the fridge. Your friends loved it. 

She flirted with the boys your age, she gave sex tips to the girls. 

You smiled when they congratulated you on having the cool mom, and when they all went home, you retreated and pretended to be happy. 

Joel settled her down. Met her in a bar and moved in quick. He came into the picture when you were fifteen and you were almost sure he’d be just like the rest of the lovers she’d taken over the years. You’d given the whole thing six months. Half a year for him to see what a fucking disaster she was. Six months to be a fucking creep, to cheat or get cheated on. 

The only differences you could clock at first were that he was self-employed, and marginally better looking than his predecessors.

He was firmer though, less malleable than the others she’d brought around, he seemed immune to her charms and that only inflamed her. It made her desperate for his approval and his attention. She would throw a tantrum, or play one of her mind games but he’d never rise to her bait. He was patient for the most part, until he hit his breaking point and his temper reared its head. A temper only she seemed to bring out in him. 

To you, it was pathetic. 

He didn’t try with you though, there was no flattery or strong hand, only a silent respect. In a sense, he treated you as the adult, and her as the child. It worked for you, if he’d expected you to call him dad he would have been laughed at mercilessly and he seemed to know this. 

The disturbing part was his respect and his healthy avoidance of you worked its own kind of magic. It made him an enigma, made you curious as to what he got out of the whole thing. A home, sure. A woman who was obsessed with him, yes. Sex–yes. You heard it enough for it to turn your stomach. By the sounds of it, he knew what he was doing.

The thought sickened the healthy part of your brain. The other part though, the part flooding your body with hormones, making it come to life with curiously intense sexual feelings, that part wanted to know what it was he was so good at. How could he pull those sounds out of anyone? It was easier to imagine him with some faceless woman. 

It was shameful to imagine yourself. 

The thought–although enough to fuel a desperate journey of self-exploration–always filled you with an insurmountable guilt. 

For those first few years you could barely look at him. Your mother took it as a healthy dose of teenage rebellion. That only aggravated you more. She never asked questions, never dug to see what the cause of your obvious distaste for her partner was about and so again, you retreated. He, however, kept to the outs of your path. He followed your lead, he let you control any and every part of all of your interactions. He didn’t ask questions. He kept the lights on. He kept the fridge full. 

He burrowed his way in, whether you liked it or not. 

When you turned eighteen, you moved out. He helped, did his ‘fatherly’ duties and moved you into the apartment, he urged your mother to take you on an extensive grocery trip, spoke to your landlord about the safety of the building. You supposed you should have been grateful, you should have said thank you, given him some sort of acknowledgement that you appreciated his help but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Instead you said your mumbling goodbyes, and promptly closed the door on them. Neither of them complained. 

The euphoria of venturing out on your own had lost its shine depressingly quick. A string of chronically unserious boyfriends came and went, the rent climbed higher than you could keep up with, and while already living paycheck to paycheck, you lost your job. Your cellphone had taken the brunt of your frustration at having to call your mother, begging her to let you come back home while you got back on your feet a little more than two years after you’d left. 

Your teeth gnawed at your lips, your fingernails dug into the skin around your cuticles in the attempt to keep your voice sweet and pleading, in the end it was his voice that you’d heard in the background, telling–no, commanding her to say yes. That he would be your champion twisted at your insides. Maybe a small, healthy part of you hoped he’d put up a fight, tell you that you were too old to be coming back home and that you had to figure it out on your own like an adult. 

A healthy part of you hoped that he’d save you again, only from yourself. Hanging up with a heavy, resigned sigh, you set about starting the trek home, ignoring the swirling mess of annoyance, confusion, and perverse glee in your stomach. 

-

The first few days were spent in a depressive episode, a seemingly inescapable loop of sleeping in late, leaving your room only when the house was empty to raid the kitchen for something to eat, scrolling mindlessly–blindly–on your phone and then staying up way too late only to do it all over again. 

They didn’t bother you, but if the annoyed sighs and narrowed eyes from your mother were anything to go by, the talk was coming soon. After the third day of the cycle, you circumvent it and wake up early-ish to shower and dress in something other than ratty old sweats long forgotten by an ex you couldn’t quite remember. 

You came down to find Joel sitting at the kitchen table. His eyes tracked the lines of you, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. 

Your heart leapt. He should have been at work by now. 

“Good morning.” It came out croaky, your voice almost reluctant to come out. 

“Mornin’.” His hair was slicked back, the gray almost sparkling in the golden light. You fiddled with the hem of your shirt. His eyes were so intense, you found yourself stuck in place, like a deer in headlights and that ever present, deep-seeded anger reared its head. It was irrational that he should frustrate you so much with his calm presence. 

“Coffee’s fresh, if you want some.” He jut his chin out to the pot, lowering his eyes to his paper once more. Once his gaze had shifted, you found you could breathe again. You mumbled a thanks and moved to pour yourself a cup, thankful, if unsure why, to focus on something concrete instead of abstract self-reflection.

“Your mama’s gon’ be late tonight. I thought I could pick up a pizza on the way home.” He says it offhand and again, your heart races. 

“Whatever.” You scrunch your face up in annoyance, it sounded like such a bullshit, teen response. He doesn’t comment on it, and that somehow makes it worse. You beat yourself about it as you root around in the fridge for the milk. The cereal you liked was in the top cupboard, and you’re not quite tall enough to reach it. 

You heard his chair scoot back and then suddenly he’s there, beside you, pressed up tight. You follow the long line of his throat as he stares up, reaching the box with ease while one big, warm hand lands on your lower back. He smells like the laundry detergent your mother insists on buying mixed with something else. Manly, smoky, with coffee laced through. Your cunt clenches nonconsensually as he stands there and stares down at you, his whole front pressed against your side, his hand still holding your lower back. Your mouth hangs open, stupidly, and he raises an eyebrow again forcing something to kickstart deep in your gut. 

“You okay there babygirl?” The endearment feels unwholesome.

It triggers something strange, strengthening the underlying conflict for him. There’s a lilt in his tone you don’t like, maybe because deep down you like it too much. Maybe you don’t want to admit that, or analyze anything about what the fuck is happening in your body. In your psyche. 

“Yeah.” You step out of his bubble, barely managing not to trip over yourself in your haste to get away and put a healthy distance between you. 

“Yes. Thank you.” You take a deep breath, pressing your lips together tight in what you hope to God is a neutral expression. 

He lets out a bemused huff through his nose, a mischief in his eyes shining out at you that you’ve never seen directed at you. You’ve seen it used on your mom. You’ve seen her go giggly and flirty whenever he looked at her like that. A half-formed escape plan starts to form but he saves you from the need, he puts his things in the dishwasher, and nods his head in goodbye. 

You practically hold your breath until you hear his truck rumble out of the driveway, and down the street. 

-

You manage to avoid him for a few days, staying out late catching up with friends, or feigning a need for rest. You’ve convinced your mother that your days are now spent job hunting, and for the most part they are. You leave in the morning, avoiding any and all contact and you get home late, creeping up the stairs much like you did in your teens even though you’d really never needed to. Your mother never enforced a curfew, and when Joel joined the picture, he didn’t pry. 

The luck didn’t last though, you got over-confident. He was sprawled out on the sofa, up uncharacteristically late one night when you padded through the house. 

“You’re up late.” You quickly check the accusatory tone, “Don’t you have to get up early?” Better, it comes out more concerned than annoyed and he nods. He wore a threadbare t-shirt, the fabric of it having been through the wash too many times to keep its shape. Light, gray sweats were stretched almost obscenely tight over his spread thighs, pooling at his crotch from being shoved up by the couch. 

“Couldn’t sleep. Come sit, we can watch some tv.” He pats the seat next to him and despite the deep desire to retreat into the Joel-free haven of your bedroom, you cannot seem to disobey him. 

You settle beside him on the couch, a little further away than was necessary. He chuckles softly. 

“I ain’t gonna bite you, girl. Not unless you ask nicely.” 

You pretend you don’t hear it, choosing instead to compartmentalize whatever game he’s playing and stare at the screen. He flips through the channels, settling on one thing for a few minutes before moving to something else until he finds a movie that’s already close to midway. There’s an electricity in the air, something about him galvanizing the space between you, charging it enough to make the hairs on your arms stand on end. You frown to yourself, barely paying attention while fighting an increasingly confusing mental battle. Why is it so hard to be around him? Why does he inspire such scorn? Is it scorn at all?

You rub at your eyes, scrubbing your hands down your face in a feeble attempt to wipe the slate clean. 

He’s just a man, a man your mother had chosen and for better or worse they seem to work. She is happy with him and he is seemingly happy with her, why then is it so hard to accept him for what he is? Something slithers around in your brain, something that laughs darkly, something pulsing through the network of thoughts and ideas that threatens to crack open your subconscious and throw it right in your face. 

“Well now, ain’t that somethin’?” You pull your hands away from your face to see a very explicit scene playing out on the screen. Heat floods every inch of your body. 

“Almost looks like she’s enjoyin’ herself.” He leaves it on, and you feel stuck, your body betraying you yet again to see the way the woman on screen moans wantonly while under a very handsome man. You let out a non-committal sound, teetering on the edge of madness. You scold yourself, you are an adult, an adult that has had sex before and this isn’t even real. 

“Looks like fake bullshit to me.” The strength in your voice lends credence to the illusion that you aren’t affected. He laughs, calm and completely at ease and that only pulls the anger to the forefront again. 

“They can’t show the real stuff on these channels. If it were real, he’d be doin’ what she needs.” 

“And what’s that?” It comes out before you can stop it. 

“Well,” He smiles to himself, winning a duel you hadn’t even known you were fighting. 

“If it were real, he’d be pressin’ on her clit, he’d be makin’ sure she felt every inch of him and make her take his cock like a good girl.” You let out a heavy breath, half shocked, half grateful it wasn’t a whimper. 

Warning bells go off in your head, just as a heartbeat starts in your cunt because you can see it. You can see him. His face twisted up in pleasure but cocky, his hips moving, his thumb dipped into your mouth and then swirling around your clit. He smiles at catching you looking at his hands and you want to yell at him. You want to smack him across the face and kick him in the balls for saying something like that to you, his partner's daughter, but you don’t. 

Your body almost catapults you out of your seat. Barely unintelligible words come out, something about needing sleep, about being tired and then you hightailed it out of there like a bat out of hell. 

The shower was cold enough to make your teeth chatter, but it did nothing to cool the heat blooming in your core and it was with a terrifying desperation that you ground against your fingers. The slick pooling at the mouth of your pussy was enough to feel even with the water washing everything away except your shame. 

You bit your tongue to keep from moaning out the taboo and entirely inappropriate name you were dying to say out loud. His firm thighs spread on that couch filled your mind, the calloused, work-roughened hands you could practically feel on your hips, on your thighs. You could feel them holding and spreading your legs open so he could make you make those same noises you’d heard over the years. Make you take it like a good girl, his good girl. 

You came with a shudder, sagging against the chilly tile. You warmed the water with a sigh, disappointed and ashamed with yourself, trying, and failing, to put the whole thing out of your mind. 

-

You doubled down on avoiding him after that. 

Your mother worked most of the time but when she was home, things were easier. He reverted to the healthy avoidance, the proverbial disinterest that she didn’t seem to have a problem with. You still heard them some nights, the bed creaking, throaty cries, deep grunts but now they haunted you in a different way. Now you heard his words on that couch and couldn’t help but picture all manner of unsavory things that both disgusted and thrilled you. 

Being unemployed didn’t help. There was nothing to keep you out of the house most of the day, and there were only so many places that would accept you looking for a job in person. 

There was only so much time you could spend with friends too, they had their own lives and jobs and relationships. Too busy to save you from unwanted free time. 

Old habits resurface, and you retreat within yourself while pushing yourself harder. A job would fix things enough to help, you could save up enough money to leave for good and take yourself out of the equation. 

-

The powers that be momentarily take pity on you, and after what seems like a lifetime's worth of job hunting you blessedly get a call back. It’s a part time job, but at this point beggars can’t exactly be choosers. It’s a steady, if insufficient source of income that hadn’t been available to you before. Determined, you buckle down, you channel every guidance counselor you’ve ever had and ace the fuck out of that interview.

It’s not taxing work, but you put your head down and focus with the hope that if you worked hard enough, if you made a good enough impression, made yourself indispensable they’d throw you enough shifts to make up a full time job. 

It helps. Time spent away from the house, from your mothers dried up welcome, from Joel altogether genuinely helps. You feel a bit lighter, less guilty, less prone to imagine the unimaginable. You find comfort in the absence of self-imposed temptation. There is peace in the mindless work, in the life outside of the house that no longer feels like a home. 

It's a double edged sword though, because at the end of every shift, the luck–the peace–runs out. If being at work and out of the house is a respite, returning home only thickens the tension. Time spent outside the house only sharpens the discomfort, clarifies the glaring wrongness of it all when you enter it at the end of the day. What it all is, you won’t name. That way madness lies. Issue is, with every interaction, with every chance encounter in the hallway, or living room, every second spent with him in the kitchen watching his lips touch the rim of his mug the thing inside grows. Parts of him fill the corners of your mind. The curve of his shoulders filling out the flannel shirts he favors. The fullness of his bottom lip when he purses them, something he does while squinting at the paper that you’re almost sure he isn’t aware of. His neck, his hands, the dimple in his cheek when he laughs at something really funny. 

These things jump out, innocent as they may be, but other not so innocent things start to creep in. The bulge in his jeans is a mental mine, it lies in wait and every so often when you think you’ve avoided it, it detonates and you catch yourself staring, both ashamed and so inappropriately curious it eats away at you like acid. 

What you needed was something to fill the emptiness, both emotionally and physically. So you did what any modern, adult woman would do; you bought a sex toy. 

Nothing too crazy, or expensive. After perusing the site for a while you finally settled on a plain, non-threatening dildo. Nothing too big, nothing noisy, just something to be able to focus on, something to use while imagining someone giving you what you need. You ignored that dark thing inside that hissed his name, shooed it away and ordered the package for express delivery. With your mom constantly working, and Joel keeping to himself you figured it wouldn’t be an issue. Neither of them would question a package addressed to you. 

You still aren’t sure whether or not you’d do it all over again had you known the Pandora’s box that little package would open. 

You all but rushed home after work. All day, you’d imagined the relief that toy would bring. You imagined yourself using it in the shower, steam swirling as you took your pleasure. You imagined yourself laying in bed in the safety of the dark, setting a towel down on your chair and riding it to your heart's content. 

Joel’s truck is in the driveway when you pull in, but it’s secondary to the excitement at the chance to sequester yourself with your new best friend and so when you walk into the house, you don’t give him much attention. Until he opens his mouth. 

“You got a package today babygirl. I put it on your bed.” He sits on his spot on the sofa, a funny little smile on his face. A bad feeling swells in your chest, and you look up the stairs before meeting his eyes again. 

“Thanks.” You drop your bag on the little bench near the front door, trying, and failing to keep the nervous feeling out of your voice. He nods, and you make your way up, stopping yourself from taking the stairs two at a time. 

Ice flows through your veins when you see the package is open. 

He’d opened your package, he knew what you’d bought. 

Blood pounds in your ears as you stand there, limbs cold and numb at the realization that he saw it. He saw it. He opened it, and he placed it here, on the very place you fantasized about using it. Sweat beaded on your brow, the bottom of your stomach fell out of your ass as you stood there, barely feeling the soft, worn carpet under your feet. 

“Little small, f’you ask me.” His voice at the mouth of your room made your head twist fast enough to hurt your neck. You hadn’t heard him follow you up the stairs, hadn’t heard him open your door and lean against the frame, arms crossed in haughty amusement. 

“Why would you open my package?” You clutched at it, as though he could forget what he’d seen if you held it tightly enough. 

“I didn’t open it on purpose, I’m expectin’ somethin’ and I didn’t read the name.” He pushes away from the door frame, making his way closer and it’s like the air thins as the space between you shrinks.

“I mean, I could tell you been frustrated, but this doesn’t seem like it’s gon’ help much.” He reaches out, and takes the package from you. You watch him do it, watch him, frozen as he plucks it from your hands and takes the toy out. 

“This all you can take?” He holds it, contemptuously–pityingly. 

You wanted to snatch it out of his hands, the dimming voice of reason urges you to push him out of your room and remind him that he needs to keep a healthy distance but you say nothing, you stand there, and watch him. He puts it all down on your dresser, before stepping a little closer, close enough for you to have to crane your neck up to look into his eyes. 

“No boyfriends around to give you what you want?” His hand comes up, the tips of his fingers sliding across the apple of your cheek, slipping down until his thumb pressed against the cushion of your bottom lip. 

“No one around to give you what you obviously need?” He steps a little closer, until your bodies meet. This is wrong, your mind screams it but your body is frozen under his eyes, under his touch. That part, the frozen part is cheering, it’s running victory laps as it floods your cunt with slick in preparation for something unholy. 

That same, writhing, traitorous thing whispers that this is your chance, the house is empty and your body obeys. You look your fill, you take in the curve of his nose and the furrow in his brow. His eyes are black as a crow's wing, lust-blown and completely focused on your parted lips and your shallow panting. 

Adrenaline spikes and you do something you cannot take back. You rise on your tip-toes and press your mouth to his. 

He hums into it, smiling and once again you get that feeling that you’d made the exact move he’d expected you to. A vague, but fleeting inkling that you were just a pawn on his chessboard. 

At any other time you would have stepped away and repented, ate yourself alive with guilt but his hands pulled you closer, his tongue swiped at the seam of your mouth and you opened up for him. That only made it all the more real, the taste of his tongue in your mouth, feeling his hands lower to hold onto your ass. 

The rational part of you shrinks down to nothing, and that other part, the wrong part–it swells and preens under his hands. He pulls away, and embarrassingly, you chase his mouth in a daze. 

“Oh honey, you’re just dyin’ for it aren’t you?” He herds you towards your tiny bed, the twin mattress that has been the stage for every taboo fantasy about this man, your stepfather. You shoo the word away with a shiver. 

“It’s wrong-” You almost whisper, but you don’t push him away, you let him lay you down in that bed and he laughs. 

“It is, isn't it?” He pulls at the hem of your shirt, you raise your arms for him and the picture of it is wrong, daddy taking off your clothes. The thought, the word,  should disgust you but it only pulls your hands to him. You join in, and pull his shirt up and off, biting your lip at the broadness of him. You take in each freckle, the sprinkling of hair on his chest, the dip of his throat calling out for your tongue like a siren. 

He presses his lips to yours again, licking into your mouth obscenely. Unseemly. 

“You been wantin’ this for a long time, haven’t you babygirl?” He pulls your bra off, and the shock of cold air hardens your nipples. He bites his lip to see it, unable to stop himself from flattening his tongue against a hardened bud. A sound you’ve never let yourself make out loud in this room fills the space between you and that slithering thing luxuriates. 

He moves, languidly, unhurried to the other breast and holds the plump of it in his big hand and sucks at the second bud, sucks as much of the peak as he can into his mouth, breathing through his nose while you slowly spiral into madness.

When he lets go, he presses a kiss to your nipple and his facial hair tickles your skin. 

He pulls your leggings off along with your underwear in one go and the reality of it all hits you when the air hits your soaked core. That’s when the urge to put a stop to it is the clearest, when he kneels between your legs and spreads them wide, stares at the place where he’s already filled a million times in your mind. The place that’s drenched at the mere thought of him. 

“Joel-” You start, but he pushes your legs up, folding you and then he lets a glob of spit fall from his mouth slowly, aiming it, a bullseye right on the lips of your cunt. It’s too much, too filthy and you let out a whimper. 

“I think you wanna call me somethin’ else right now.” He undoes his belt and his jeans, keeping his eyes on where his saliva slides down over the open mouth of your cunt, down towards your asshole. He pulls his cock out and part of you shatters. Your eyes flit to the toy sitting on your dresser, your eyes flit to the open door of your bedroom. 

“Don’t worry, your mama ain’t gonna be home for a while.” He smiles, conspiratorially. It's too real, it’s too hypnotic, seeing him there with his cock in his hand while your legs already ache from holding them up and open. He slides the blunt end of it through the mess he’s caused, through his spit and he groans at the sight of it. 

Your heart races so hard to feel him there, that you see the pulse of it in your vision. 

“Deep breath baby.” he warns before slipping inside the tight fist of your pussy, the size of him making you gasp. This is it, there’s no coming back from this and right now, with him seated deep, his groin pressed up tight and the tip of his cock kissing your womb you cannot even think of why you’d ever care.

This is where he's meant to be. This is where you need him. 

“Oh baby, that’s so good huh?” He thrusts shallowly, pulling out a little more than halfway before shoving his hips forward again. You don’t really know how to form words, you don’t know how to take in what’s happening. This is Joel, your step-dad, fucking you in the bed you grew up in. One hand sits heavy on your shin, holding it, the other slides up and holds onto your breast. 

“Look how fuckin’ wet this little pussy is for me,” he moans the words, “you like daddy fuckin’ you?” He thrusts harder and you moan despite the word hitting you in the stomach like a big drop on a rollercoaster. He shouldn’t say that, shouldn’t call himself that, not now. 

“No-” it doesn’t come out like you mean it to, it sounds wrong, like a caress. 

“No? But I think you do-” He leans forward, keeping his pace while pressing his chest to yours, his mouth all but lining up and despite your bullshit protest, you hitch your knees high on his ribs to make room because if he stopped you’d probably die. 

“I think you want me to be your daddy, don’t you baby, it’s okay, I want to be.” He speeds up and the sounds between your legs are so wet, so filthy. 

“You can say it, I want you to say it.” He holds himself up, his elbows caging in your skull and before you can complain or moan or cry he sticks his tongue down your throat again. Your hands finally join the fray and you wrap your arms around his neck, holding him tight to you. 

“Come on baby, say it for me, tell me how good daddy fucks you.” You moan, closing your eyes while your cunt floods him with wave after wave of slick, enough to drip down your ass and onto your bed, down his balls. Enough for it to soak the curls at the base of him. 

“Look at me when I’m fuckin’ you honey.” His hips speed up and it's hard now, his thrusts making your bounce, hitting a part of you that toy would never touch in a million years. 

You open your eyes, and look at him above you, sweat beading on his hairline. Never has he looked more fucking appealing than he does right then. The word is there, in your mouth and you know it’ll taste sweeter than anything in this world. 

The wrong thing wins.  

“Yes daddy.” You moan it, and the shameful thing sets off fireworks in your being, he smiles, and tucks his head into the damp crook of your neck, feeding his lovely filth right into your ear. 

“That’s my babygirl, that’s it, fuck baby you take it better than your mama.” Something inside recoils at that, but something else, another facet of that fucked up thing inside rejoices.

“Let me hear you say it again, say it when you come.” He licks a hot stripe up your neck. His words are a filthy groan, something to tuck away for later.

He reaches down, pressing his thumb to your clit just like he said on that couch and you keen, the slip and the pressure enough to toss you over the edge with an almost painfully intense orgasm. 

“I’m coming, daddy.” It’s a shuddering whisper as your cunt clenches around him. 

He moves quickly, kneeling between your legs to pull out and then he’s stroking himself over your cunt. It’s still pulsing when he paints it in his come. You catch your breath as he tugs at himself a few more times, milking himself against you with a disturbingly familiar groan. 

The fog clears altogether too quickly. The lights are too bright, you’re naked, and he’s still got his jeans around his thighs while the guilt creeps into your veins, replacing the euphoria. 

What have I done? What have you made me do?