rainyzae

[rainyzae]

Child Caleb tutoring a child MC: What's two plus two?

MC: Math.

Caleb: ...I will accept that answer.

[rainyzae]

━ ❝ OH, IT'S MINIKUNA ! ❞

✮₊‧⁺...content: heian era!sukuna x wife!reader, fluff, mentions of childbirth, sukuna is an overly proud father, sukuna is whipped for his wife

✮₊‧⁺...lunar's note: based of this little blurbie and this one too !! needed some fluff with kuna bc he would love having a baby girl idc what anyone says !!! also i did my best describing the birthing process in a time accurate period but it's definitely a bit inaccurate because...i have never had a baby LOL

no one has ever seen sukuna ryomen, king of curses, wince before.

not until today, at the wrath of his pregnant wife who somehow got a hold of his fingers instead of his hand.

one of the nurses did warn him to not give you his finger and to ensure you always hold his hand. but by the gods, he swears you almost ripped his finger off.

it's cute to him, however, when you attempt to curse him out.

'gods, sukuna, i despise your entire being!'

'i know, my wife.'

'i should've never let you get me pregnant, you animal!'

'you begged for it, my wife.'

'i am never letting you bed me again, use your hand for the rest of your existence!'

'you can't keep your hands off me, my wife, no need to lie.'

but the sigh of relief, the way you instantly look down and coo once the sound of wailing filled the air...it makes him melt just a little bit.

he can't deny, seeing you in pain made him heated. it took everything in him not to kill every midwife, nurse, and lady-in-waiting in your birth room for not being able to make this process completely painless.

except chiyo. he would have to reward your personal physician for preparing you so well for this...

what did the old hag like again? wines, meats, gifts for her grandchildren back at home?

hm, yes, that would be great for her. of course, he'll say it was from you. the king of curses shows gratitude for no one.

he's pulled out of his thoughts at the hushed whispers once the other women exam the baby before following your unspoken request to hold your child.

"d-do you think lord sukuna will harm our lady for this...?"

"i hope not, surely he can make an exception, t-they both are still young and can always try for more!"

"but he's the king of curses, t-there no way he won't have a reaction!"

before he can demand what they find so important to discuss in front of you, chiyo hushes the girls with a wave of her hand, ushering the girls to help wipe off your sweat, tears, and clean off the baby—gentle like it's the finest glass, she instructs—before turning to sukuna with a knowing smile.

"well, your greatness...congratulations on having a healthy and gorgeous little girl," she hums, wiping her hands with a clean cloth before going to rinse her hands to help stitch any rips and clean you up.

the room falls silent aside from your soft little coos and the wails of your daughter as you brush the wet, fluffy hair on her little head.

all the women in the room continue to work, but it's clear they are silently waiting for his outburst.

everyone knows that a proper heir to any throne is a boy...but now, sukuna's first born child is a girl.

but rather angry, yelling, and threats to your and your child's life, the room is filled with Suku's booming laughter, which practically shakes the entire room.

instead of an enraged expression, pure delight, and excitement are painted on his face as he sits next to you on the soft cushiony bedding on the floor, his hand caressing the rounded cheek of your newborn.

"so, you've given me a girl," he hums in delight, all four of his eyes narrowing. "this will be the one who takes over my throne once i decide to step down?"

this thing, this tiny, itty bitty baby...came from you both? it's almost laughable how small this baby is compared to his hand, that something so little could be related to him.

she's...nothing short of perfect. "absolutely divine...she will not just be beautiful like her mother, but as powerful as both of us."

he's so proud of you and your child. he would shower your daughter with riches, love, and anything she could ever want and ask for.

but, he couldn't lie.

she's a damned fat baby, big head and all.

"sukuna, watch your mouth!"

he can't help but laugh, not realizing his thoughts came out of his mouth. "what, it's a good thing! means she's healthy," he boasts with a grin, leaning down closer to see her better.

"she looks strong already. as soon as she is able, i will personally teach her how to be a truly malevolent little princess, how to properly slit the necks of her enemies, how to—!”

oh, he is so excited, it's adorable.

“sukuna, shush, i just gave birth to a child with a massive head like yours, give me a moment," you say with a light laugh, your smile still reaching your clearly tired eyes.

“…apologies, my wife.”

chiyo can't help but laugh with you she finishes applying the healing ointment on your lower body, using a bit of her cursed energy to speed up the healing process to help you skip any serious pain.

after all, nothing but the best physician for you in sukuna's palace.

"always such an excitable boy, my lord, ever since you were a young man," she hums, helping one of the midwives properly wrap your baby in the soft, clean cloth.

"be gentle with her," you instruct him, gently moving your arms toward him so he could take the little bundle. he's...nervous, but he hides it well.

you place your daughter in his arms and he looks down at her, suddenly conscious of how loud he's breathing. she's got his hair, still a bit wet but soft and fluffy. it's pink, just like his.

a pleased rumble vibrates his chest, and he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

but then...her eyes open.

both sets.

he almost didn't notice it at first, they're just so small, but they're there. the same color as yours, pretty and big, filled with so much life.

his eyes burn, vision getting blurry. no words come to his head, he can't think of anything to say. he's so caught up in his thought he doesn't even notice chiyo ushering the other girls in the room out and shutting the door before quietly tending to you with water or food.

she knows that look, you do as well. she's been around longer than uraume to know her master, knowing the king of curses since his young years as the unwanted child of the village, abandoned by his mother for his 'horrid' appearance.

she was lucky to have found him before the villagers got to him, torches, axes, pitchforks and daggers in hand to take care of the child who they believed to have brought misfortune to their home.

getting him to safety was one of the best decisions she'd ever made, king of curses or not. no child deserved to be abandoned like that. and now, he's seeing himself in that tiny little being in his arms right now...chiyo can only imagine what he's feeling.

so, out of respect, she keeps her gaze averted, pretending she does not see the misty gaze he gives your daughter. this is a moment for you and him, and she does her best to make all her movements as quiet as possible.

all sukuna can think about in this moment is how he used to be just as tiny as this. he was just as vulnerable in his mothers arms. he couldn't talk, couldn't speak, couldn't fend for himself.

yet, his parents looked down at him just like this and decided he was an abomination and didn't give him a chance.

but now?

sukuna knows he would never, ever let anything happen to this little bundle in his arms. he would rather destroy the entire planet before letting anything happen to his baby girl. no one would make his little one suffer and live to see another day.

he flinches just a little, feeling your soft hand rubbing his bicep. "it's okay, my love," you softly coo at him, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye before it had a chance to drip down his cheek. "she's going to grow up feeling loved and cherished because she's got a great father."

"hmm..."

a smile crosses his features as he looks back down, looking at the squirming baby so makes a little noise before calming down when he strokes her little, chubby cheek again to keep her from crying again.

"and she's got a great mother. she'll be the most wonderful princess in all of history," he says with a toothy grin, chest rumbling with a laugh.

"aww, my love, that's so sweet..."

"seriously, though, how in hells did you squeeze this thing out of ya? thing's got the head of a watermelon."

"sukuna, give me back my baby, and chiyo? get this man some food to stuff in his mouth before he says something to warrent the rage of a new mother."

all rights reserved © lxnarphase | do not repost, copy, translate, or alter my work

[rainyzae]

Hi Jade! Can I request Spencer and Nurse!reader? Maybe they meet when he’s wounded/she’s patching him up?

(Yes I’m a nursing student I promise we aren’t all mean girls 😔)

ty for requesting!! ik ur not all mean of course!!<3 —you meet the cutest FBI agent ever and tend his wounds. fem, 1.5k

One of the small pleasures of your job is when the patients are cute. Not many people come through as handsome as this one. You’re professional nonetheless. 

“What am I seeing you for today?” you ask, holding your hands behind your back. 

Your patient, charted as a Dr. Spencer Walter Reid, twenty nine years old, gives you a tentative smile. “Someone hit me really hard.” 

You can see the bruise forming against his temple. “Yes, I’d say so. Did you know the assailant?” 

“No, but it’s handled.” His smile turns to a grimace. “Uh, I get these, like, debilitating migraines, and I feel like I have one coming on.”

“A head injury could trigger that,” you agree, holding your hands out in front of you, little torch in hand. “Can I have a look?” you ask softly. 

When you’ve been a nurse for some time, you start to categorise people into boxes. All kinds of boxes for different things, but Spencer Reid gets a tick for a few things straight away: shy, pretty, and sensitive to touch. He must not get touched much, or he’s had a bad experience with strangers. He did just get hit in the head, you allow, brushing a sweet, mousy curl away from his head and holding it out of the way as you shine a light into each of his eyes. He flinches hard, but his pupils react as expected. 

Whoever hit him managed to break the skin, upon closer infection of the injury. The skin has turned purple at the edges of his cut. It’ll be a big bruise in just a few hours. 

“Spencer, please tell me if I hurt you, honey,” you say, voice still soft. If he’s got a migraine coming, he won’t want your usual overloud distinction. 

“It’s okay. It hurts, but not more or less when you poke it.” 

“You have a laceration, yeah? It’s about three centimetres long, but deep. I can close it with a butterfly stitch, if you’re okay with that.” 

“Yeah, please. Um, about the migraine–”

“Do you want a tramadol, honey? I think you deserve one.” 

“I can’t have narcotics.” 

You pull back and straighten the hair you’d displaced. “That’s okay, it just means you can’t have the strongest stuff. Most people try to avoid them anyhow. How about tylenol, would that be alright? Or do you avoid painkillers in general?” 

“Tylenol is fine as long as it doesn’t have the codeine with it.” 

You give him a gentle nod. “I’ll make sure it’s the right one. You can even see the bottle, if you like. Would you want them before or after the stitch?” He probably knows, but you add, “It’s not a real stitch. But it might feel tender when I’m poking around.” 

“Anything. Whatever you want to do first.” 

His eyes squeeze closed. You give him a frown he can’t see, and rest your hand on his arm. “Is there someone here with you?” you ask him.

“My friend is coming, I think. There was a lot going on.��� 

“That’s okay. I’m not sending you home until I’ve fixed you, Dr. Reid.” 

He smiles, even with his eyes closed, but doesn’t say anything more. You wash your hands and find your bandages. A butterfly bandage, a sterile wipe, and a square piece of gauze to cover it cleanly. His eyes are opening again when you return, ushering him gently down the bed so you can sit on his right side near the injury. 

“What do you do for work?” you ask him. 

“I work for the FBI.” 

“You do?” You tear open the sterile wipe and again pull the curls from his forehead. “This might sting. Please tell me if it hurts too much.” 

“It’s not the cut that hurts.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say sympathetically. Migraines are a tricky business. If he’s already having one, you probably can’t do much to get rid of it, but that doesn’t mean pain relief won’t help. “I’ll do this as quickly as I can.” 

He’s quiet. You wipe around the laceration with careful, concise movements. The cut looks clean enough when you’re done, and it’s so small you won’t irrigate it. 

“Are you an agent?” you ask. 

“Yeah. Special supervisory with the BAU. The, uh, behavioural analysis unit.” 

“Oh, I know,” you say, putting the wrapping and the dirtied wipe into your cardboard bowl. “I think I’ve seen it on TV sometimes, you guys can track the serial killers and stuff?” 

“Mostly that, yeah. Uh, sometimes we find trafficking rings or missing kids. Sometimes we manage hostage situations. It depends on the level of the crisis.” 

“So you’re the big gun.” 

“I guess so. I’m not actually good with a gun.” 

“No one has to be good with a gun to change the world.” You pull the butterfly stitch from the packaging and pick at a finicky end. “I hate guns.” 

He sighs. “I do, too.” 

“They make my job hard. It’s not nice, seeing what they can do to people. It’s awful, really. Spencer, I’m so sorry, honey, I’m just gonna put this on here, it might feel uncomfortable as I pull the sides together.” 

“It’s okay.” 

You pull the plastic of the butterfly stitch on both sides, cinching his cut together promptly. It looks better now you can’t see the inside. 

“I’m gonna cover this with the dressing now. You don’t have to keep it on if you don’t want to, it’s a pretty small cut, it was just deep. I’d recommend you try to keep it dry for two days, really, you should keep it covered, but it’s up to you. And if anything happens, if it gets infected, you can always come see me again.” 

You’re mildly flirting, then. Just because he’s nice and shy. It might be a little cruel of you to proposition a man when he’s roughed up, though. 

Spencer, luckily, understands that you’re not trying to harass him. “Thank you.” 

You stand, peeling the plastic from the bandaid and exposing the sticky backing. Slowly, you stroke his hair back from the wound and line the bandaid up. He shivers under your nails. 

“So sorry,” you say, laughing under your breath, “it’s my nails, huh?” 

“It’s okay.” 

“You’re a great patient, Spencer. I’d give you a sticker if I could, I’m not kidding.” 

“You’re a great nurse.” 

“Thank you.” You smooth the edges of the bandaid down for good measure and step away from him to assess him. “How’s that migraine?” 

“Getting worse.” 

“You have them often, you said? Treated or untreated?” 

“Psychosomatic, apparently.” 

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Has your doctor talked to you about CBT?” 

“Some. I don’t really… want it,” he says awkwardly. 

“That’s okay. If it’s psychosomatic as they believe, it might get better with time. How’s the stress in your life?”

“Stressful.” 

“It must be hard, the FBI, everything. Life is hard enough. Stopping serial killers must weigh on your heart.” You smile carefully. “Was there anything else you wanted to bring to my attention? Any other injury, anything that needs urgent care?” 

“I was mostly worried I had a concussion.” 

“It doesn’t seem like it. You’re not nauseous, are you?” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

He gets this awful, sad look on his face, it really isn’t nice to see. People come in by themselves all the time but it never gets easier to handle. 

“Are you alright?” you ask, taking his arm into your hand. 

“I’m fine.” 

He had the look of someone who’s always fine. Luckily for him, it’s your job to take care of people, to make sure they’re more than fine. “Okay. I’m gonna get you something warm to drink. Do you like donuts?” 

“Uh–”

“I’m getting a feeling about you. Chocolate frosting, I bet.” 

He smiles, startled and pleased at once. “Yeah.” 

“Okay, I’m gonna get those for you. A drink, a donut, and some much needed Tylenol. You can lay down if you like.” 

He nods but doesn’t move. 

As you’re leaving the room, you cross paths with a handsome man with dark skin and a bright smile. Must be something in the air today, you think. 

“Reid, you okay?” you hear him say. 

“Fine.” 

“You’re pink.” 

“What?” 

“You’re blushing. Oh, you had the pretty nurse, didn’t you?” 

“Shut up,” Spencer whispers sharply. 

“You can ask for her number.” 

“No I can’t, she’s working.” 

“But you want to,” his friend surmises. 

You bite down a smile, giving your head a shake as you go. You need to get a move on. Spencer needs a hot drink, a donut, Tylenol, and a pen. It should be okay if you’re both feeling up to it, right?

[rainyzae]

Shy!reader and post prison Spence - the first time he calls her a pet name? I love that your Spencers always use “honey” or “dove” or “love” and we know she’d be a mess.

P.S. completely agree with how much I love the gentleness of your characters. The way you write Spencer in love is literally my favorite

ty for requesting <3 fem

“Are you sure it’s okay?” 

Spencer holds a hanging strap. You hold your own, core tense with the movement of the train. “I think I would’ve mentioned it before you got on the train if it weren’t.” 

You nod, glancing around the traincar at the other passengers. There's a stout lady wearing a large fluffy sweater, turquoise with two white kittens at her chest nuzzling one another in knit. A man with three bags of groceries sits just beside her. Further down, a teenage girl listens to music through leaking headphones, her phone reflecting blue light on her cheeks. 

“But are you sure I won’t be an imposition?” 

“You aren’t usually. I guess we won’t know until we get there.” 

“Maybe I should just find a hotel for the night.” 

“Y/N, I’m kidding. You’re not an imposition, it won’t be a problem. There’s enough room at my apartment for you to stay however long you want. Between all the books, that is.” 

It’s just not something you pictured asking him for. Your kitchen flooded in your apartment and the landlord had to put you up in a hotel until he could get someone in to make sure the stove wasn’t about to explode or catch light. But the idea of a hotel is rough torture —somewhere unfamiliar, living out of a suitcase, surrounded by people you don’t know without a door that locks properly. Spencer caught you sweating over it at your desk, pulling the story from you in reluctant drags with a hand on your shoulder. 

It’ll be okay, he said, you can just stay with me. 

Which is relieving and somehow a new can of worms to deal with. At least at a hotel there was no chance of seeing Spencer in a towel. Spencer seeing you in a towel, in your pyjamas, without your formal office protections. 

The worst part is the excitement. 

Terrified he’ll see it on your face, you stare at your shoes next to his. Spencer… Everyone told you he was a dork. When you joined the team in his absence, not once did you get the impression that the man who’d be coming back was like this. You feel like he’d been infantilised. Which isn’t to say he isn’t a dork, he is, he tells you the strangest things, facts or statistics to accompany each topic of the day, and he has all the manners and chivalry of someone who knows what it’s like to be as painfully shy as you are. But he isn’t shy. 

Autistic, he’d confided once. Probably. I’m better at dealing with it now. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“Nervous.” 

“I know.” He grasps your arm as the train screeches on tracks, turning a tight bend. You’re grateful, but immediately flushed with heat. 

“I don’t want to embarrass myself.” 

“You couldn’t. I think I know you too well already.”

“You’ve known me for less time than the rest of the team, but you were the first person to offer me a place to stay.” You clench the rickety handle of your suitcase. “Thank you.” 

“That’s okay, angel.” He says it simply and softly, like you really are an angel. Something breathless to wait with. 

Angel, you think, heart skipping a beat, pulse slow and then suddenly ramped. 

His arm slips behind your back. “I don’t want you to stay in a hotel if it’s going to scare you. Besides, it’ll be fun. Like a sleepover.” He laughs. And you, despite your flush, heat sinking across your chest like a bruise, manage to laugh back. “I’ve never had one before.” 

“What?” 

“Never had a sleepover. I didn’t have any friends in school, and I haven’t had a girlfriend stay the night before.”

You look up at him with wide eyes, expecting a retraction. Not that you’re my girlfriend, not that you’re anything like that at all. 

He smiles at you. “Should we get takeout?”

“What were you thinking?” 

“There’s an Indian restaurant between the station and my apartment? We can stop in. Or we can order something to come. Or I can cook, if you want home cooked.” 

“No, it’s fine, you don’t have to cook–”

His lips turn to a quizzical pout. “I don’t mind.”

You want him to call you angel again. You want him to take you home, make you dinner, and you want to sleepover. Like a girlfriend, you want to wake up in his bed. 

“Sorry,” you breathe, “I think I’m just tired.” 

“Are you sure?” You nod. “Alright. I was worried you didn’t like the pet name, but your pupils dilated when I said it–”

You can’t escape him. One hand in the hanging strap above, the over on your suitcase handle, you have no choice but to stand there with his arm around you to keep you from falling, face so hot with it that you’re sure you’d be feverish to the touch. “It’s fine,” you say, too afraid to look at his face that you end up staring at the nice shape of his throat, his black and purple tie. “Call me what you want. Um, I think we should get Indian.” 

“Good choice, angel.” 

[rainyzae]

𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

You begin to have intimate dreams about your roommate, Spencer. [9k]

c: pining roommates, dreams, tipsy non-confessions, spencer being a sweetheart. fem!reader. this fic was requested! 

｡𖦹°‧⭑.

i. a dreamt bruise 

“What are you doing?” 

Your chest lists slightly forward as a body warms your back. Arms wrap around you, solid but gentle, arms you’ve been held by a thousand times. 

You cover them with one of your own. “What does it look like I’m doing?” you feel yourself ask. 

The room is golden, gaussian, better now he’s behind you.

“I don’t know, dove. That’s why I asked.” His voice is soft in your ear. His hair presses to the side of your face as he hugs you —you’ve never felt love like this. It’s palpable. It’s in his hands. 

Nobody’s called you dove before, but he is, he has. It might feel strange if it weren’t for how softly he said it, affection in the very marrow of the word, warmth of it kissing your cheek as he holds you. He says ‘dove’, and it feels like he loves you. Feels like you’ve done something beautiful to earn it, but that’s the beauty of it: you didn’t do anything. 

The room turns narrow, sunlight on the dining room table of your apartment. A table usually crowded thickly with books, or your work. A space has been cleared away and filled with pieces of a jigsaw. 

“I thought you were going to do this with me,” you say, dragging a piece across the table with your fingertip. 

“Maybe later.” 

“You can’t stand there all night.” 

Are you sure? you think he says, but things are hazy, and he’s turning you toward him suddenly, you’re standing, the puzzle forgotten. “How’s your bruise?” 

“What?” you ask, almost sleeping as a big, kind hand drags up the front of your shirt, holding it to the underside of your breast. 

“Does it still hurt?” 

His thumb brushes over your contusion, skin on your side, your back. It’s tender. Any breath is lost, any sense of breathing at all. You’re not a girl so much as something being touched with care, warm joy and love and a contrasting ache wedged under your heart as he draws a circles into your skin. 

He hums sympathetically, the weight of him ebbing as he leans away, letting your shirt fall back into place. 

The dream stretches on for a lifetime, the two of you standing in your living room, dining table behind you, couch and TV opposite. Your life in one room, his life, his books, his furniture, but your home. You know it all well, just, in the light, you can’t see the stitching. 

He takes your face into his hand. Nobody’s ever touched you like, turned your face up like they were moving through honey, staring at you with eyes that shade of brown. Brown, brown… so big. So melting. 

Spencer holds your face gently. 

His nose touches yours. He tips his forehead into yours, his breath skimming lips he’d just warmed as he says, “Don’t worry, alright? You’ll be okay. Just take it easy,” he says, the last of his pleading lost to your mouth. 

You wake up with a caught breath. 

Your eyes are glued together, eyelashes threaded, gummy. You turn into the pillow beside you, slightly deflated and cold where you’d turned away in the night. 

The room is dark when you manage to pry your eyes open. You close them just as quickly, begging your body to sleep, to plunge back into the dream. Just five more minutes of golden colour, hugging your pillow, love in somebody’s hand, in Spencer’s hand… five more minutes…

Your eyes open again. 

Spencer’s hand on your cheek, guiding you carefully upwards for a kiss. 

You raise your hand, feeling along the swell of your bottom lip with your thumb and index finger. They tremble with the weakness of having just woken up. With having something torn away from you. 

What was that? you think, the hook of sleep lodged in your throat as you struggle to sit up. Your face tips forwards heavily, but your back doesn’t hurt like it tends to in the early mornings before work. There’s no ache there —your body slept well. You use your hands as anchors and drag yourself foot first from the bed. Your sheets fall to the floor with a quiet shush. 

It felt so real that for a moment you’re wondering where Spencer went. 

He was touching you, he was caressing your waist. You rush to the door of your room, every night left ajar, pushing it open and beelining for the bathroom. You flick on the light and stop in front of the mirror, staring at yourself, wondering if you’re foolish enough to do this, before peeling your shirt from your stomach to analyse your bruise. 

It’s not there. 

You turn and contort yourself to catch the light. Maybe it was further back? But no… there’s no bruise, nothing for Spencer to check. Your torso is a stretch of unharmed skin to run your hand down without pain. 

Your head whirs. 

From somewhere in the apartment, Spencer puts down a mug. You flush with heat at the realisation that he’s home, and panic flares when his footsteps move in your direction. Your bedrooms are on opposite sides of the apartment, and there are two bathrooms —the bath and toilet near your room, and the en-suite to his room— meaning Spencer’s coming to see you specifically. 

“Hey, Y/N?” he says. 

It’s been a few days since he was home, and you aren’t just roommates, Spencer’s your friend. He sounds happy that you’re awake, pausing at your bedroom door. 

“I’m in the bathroom!” you say, your dry throat turning your voice to fractures. 

“I just wanted you to know I’m home. Are you working?” 

“It’s Saturday.”

He laughs. “Oh. I know, I forgot. Well, can I make you breakfast? I was gonna have oats and sliced bananas and stuff.” 

“Okay.” You clear your throat. “I’ll be right there.” 

“Sorry,” he says, like he’s just remembered where you are. “This is harassment. I’ll be in the kitchen.” 

You wash your face and brush your teeth. You head back into your room to change from your pyjamas into loungewear that’s just as soft. The flavour of your dream follows you around, you’d like to call it sweetness, saccharinity, but it doesn’t fit the bill. The feeling you’d woken with wasn’t a sugar high but contentedness, like a warm evening meal. You’d felt utterly sated, your arms reaching out for a body that wasn’t there. 

A heaviness takes your heart. Suffocating longing, you carry it to the kitchen with you to find Spencer’s already made you a cup of your tea. He’s warming oatmeal on the stove, blueberries and bananas on the countertop. You sit at the island. You should hug him. If you hadn’t dreamt of his hands on your waist what felt like mere moments ago, you would’ve. 

“Did you go shopping?” 

“I did, I went to Leaven last night. You were already sleeping at ten.” He peeks at you from over his shoulder. “Long day yesterday?” 

“I get too tired by Friday,” you say, averting your gaze to stare down into your mug, steam twirling up to kiss your chin. 

“No, I get it. Me too. Are you feeling any better today?” 

You were sick when he left. “I’m fine.” 

“Okay, good. I’m gonna put the blueberries in with the oatmeal, is that okay?” 

“Sure.” 

“Okay.” Spencer’s gaze lingers on you. He turns back to the counter. 

He cuts two bananas. You realise he has strawberries, too, watching as he cuts them, wetness leaking from their punnets where he must’ve rinsed them in the sink. He slices out the stems and cuts the strawberries in clean halves like hearts. 

“I missed you,” he says. 

You can’t read his tone, but you aren’t cruel, even feeling shy as you are. “I missed you too. How was the case? Everyone made it home in one piece, right?” 

“Everyone’s fine. Emily got into a car accident and it was pretty bad, but she’s okay now. Recovering from her concussion at home with Sergei.” 

That’s good. You’ve met Spencer’s boss, Agent Hotchner (very scary), and Emily, JJ, and Penelope (who aren’t scary at all). You’re glad to hear they’re all okay, because they’re good people, and they risk a lot to keep others safe. You forget sometimes how much Spencer puts on the line whenever he leaves. 

You poke at him for details of the case, though legally there are things he has to keep from you, and you don’t mind either way. Nothing personal can crop up while talking of murder, and for now you’d like the conversation to stay far away from you and your bed and your sudden dream. 

You assume you’re safe, but then Spencer mentions the bruise one of the sergeants got from their weapon’s kickback and you’re flushing nervously all over again. 

Spencer grabs two bowls from the cabinet, dark brown ceramics he got from Koreatown, the perfect size for each helping of oatmeal. The purple from the insides of the blueberries bleed into the oats as he pours.

He lays each bowl with a curve of banana slices, strawberries, and covers half with a drizzle of dark fudge sauce. “Salt?” he asks. 

“Yes, please.” 

Spencer grabs two spoons from the cutlery drawer. He grins when he finally turns, bowls held aloft, making his way to the stool beside you. He puts his own down first, then the cutlery, standing ever so slightly behind you as he lays your breakfast down in front of you. “What have you been doing while I was away?” he asks softly. 

You can’t look at him. Can’t think. 

What are you doing? 

What does it look like I’m doing? 

I don’t know, dove. That’s why I asked. 

You lean away from his presence, desperate to have him follow, and ashamed. Spencer’s a friend, a good one, he’s kind and loving and handsome beyond description, but you’ve never thought of him like that. Each time your mind slips wondering what he might be like in love, you’ve let the thought go. But now... 

You shrug, grabbing your spoon. “Not much, Spencer. This looks amazing, it’s really pretty. Thank you for cooking.” 

“No problem. Are you sure you’re feeling better? You don’t look so good.” 

You take a quick bite of oatmeal, the spoon scalding your tongue, “Ah,” you say, breathing harshly around it, “I’m fine. Woke up a little wrong, that’s all.” 

Spencer sits in the seat next to you with a soft smile. “Good. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” 

Oh, no, you think, reading way too much into how he says it. No, no, no.

—

ii facts 

We should explore the city, Spencer declares after breakfast, before we forget what it’s like to be outside!

You were outside yesterday before you got home, and everything sucked as much as it usually did —it’s the weekend, and the point of it is to stay home resting and or lazing, but you wouldn’t usually say no to Spencer so you can’t now. He can’t ever know about your dream, so he can’t know how you’re feeling, so you have to be the friends you’ve always been. 

Spencer analyses people for a reason, but you have practice. You’ve successfully hidden what it was that morning that made you feel cagey and tender. He knows something is wrong regardless. He attempts to fix it the best way he knows how: Spencer talks. 

“Cheese production globally outshadows coffee, tea, tobacco, and chocolate, over twenty two million metric tons of it every year, with almost half of that made in Europe alone, which is only a half million metric ton more than what’s being eaten. The average American eats forty two pounds of cheese a year, but I don’t really like cheese that much? So I’m bringing the average down. Besides, every time I eat cheese I get strange dreams.  There’s actually a chemical in cheese called tyramine which is linked to nightmares. Hey, you okay?” 

“Cheese gives you weird dreams?” 

“Why, have you been eating a lot of it lately?” 

“No,” you say resolutely. “I hate cheese. I’ve never eaten cheese before.” 

“That’s a lie.” 

“Let’s get donuts.”

Spencer is easily swayed. You glance around the square for the McDonald’s and follow that to the street with the bakery, landmark to landmark, until the smell of sugar and oil is strong enough to follow. “Do you wanna know something about donuts?” he asks, crushing in behind you as you pass through the heavy wooden door of the bakery and join the line. 

“Sure.” 

“They were first called oily cakes.” 

“I knew that,” you say, “you’ve told me that, Spencer. That’s the first fact anybody thinks of.” 

“Okay, don’t be rude,” he says, giving you a playful poke in the ribs, right into the bruise that isn’t a bruise. 

You look over your shoulder at him, catching his eye. You share a long look that’s daunted on your part and confused on his, brown eyelashes tangling in the corners the longer he looks at you. “What?” he asks, squinting. 

”Nothing.” 

“Okay,” he says, his voice lowering, quiet to match the hush of the bakery and its humming fridges, “don’t tell me. I’ll work it out eventually.” 

“Dude!” 

“What?” he asks with a laugh. 

“Boundaries!” you laugh back. “Stop trying to figure me out.” 

“But there’s something to figure out?” 

He’s evil when he smiles like that. His pride is adorable, giving his sweet face an even fresher look. You’d pinch his cheeks if they weren’t already pinking in the October cold. His scarf hasn’t saved him, his coat buttoned tightly no match for the winds. Not to say it’s a bad day. The weather is fine if you keep your fingers in your pockets and your nose in the depths of your coat. 

“What do we want?” you ask rather than answer. 

They have white icing, chocolate with sprinkles, jelly middles, smiley faces. They have donut holes by the bag. “Hazelnut spread,” you say, pointing at the side of the case. “That looks good.” 

He enters in conspiratorial whispers with you. “Apple cider doughnuts with cinnamon sugar,” he says, pointing at the row below. “What about a double chocolate chunk cookie? They look good. Hey, there’s cake in the fridge.” 

You let him lean into your side. His hair kisses your cheek.  

“Pick whatever you want, okay?” he asks, offering a smaller smile than before. “I’m buying.”

“You can’t, Spencer Reid, I want so many things.” 

“It’s fine, I missed you, I dragged you out when you wanted to stay in bed.” He stares at you. “Let me,” he mouths. 

You ignore the hot twist of your stomach and nod. Okay. 

Spencer buys the baked goods you’d admitted to wanting and the three others you’d eyed, as well as a cookie and two fat slices of red velvet cake. He asks you to carry the box while he pays. The woman behind the counter gives you a knowing look and a flick of her head, as if to say, Lucky you. You can’t quite smile back, distracted by the insinuation. You haven’t thought of it before, but you and Spencer, naturally, look like a couple. You could easily be one. And the idea that she thinks so fills you with a shocking amount of smugness. 

You and Spencer head home before dinner. On the walk back, he pulls the cookie apart and offers you half. 

—

What if, when you fall asleep tonight, you dream of Spencer again? 

You lay on your back with your hand on your chest, drawing circles. The cold of the evening is explained by the rain lashing your window, distant winds coming forceful now. A thunderstorm. You tap the middle of your chest in an attempt to be idle, rather than restless. 

It isn’t a dream you’d like to have again, you decide. Spencer had been soft. You’d been familiar with each other. 

What would it really feel like to have him touch you like that? Is Spencer confident, when he’s comfortable? Is he imposing? 

My stomach, you think slowly, is never going to stop spinning. 

“Y/N?” Spencer asks. 

You can hear him all the way from the kitchen. 

“Yeah?” you ask, raising your voice so it carries. 

“Can I come and sit with you?”

It’s an odd request. You know Spencer’s like you, no social butterfly, quiet and content to spend time by oneself because being with others hasn’t always been an option. He isn’t timid, however, and his asking shouldn’t shock you, but it does. “Sure,” you say, shifting onto one side of the bed. 

Spencer arrives at the ajar door and lets himself in. He carries two bottles of water and a heat pack, which he likes to use when the weather allows it. A creature comfort, you assume. Something soothing and constant, like the sound of a fan at night, or rain on a window. 

“I can’t sleep,” he says, “which doesn’t make much sense.” Spencer sits on the empty side of the bed, his lips pulled into a grimace. “I like the rain.” 

He’s more handsome when he’s smiling, but there’s a charm to him as he passes you a bottle of water and crosses his legs. The plaid slacks he’s wearing are rough with age, dark blues that seem black in the low lighting. 

“Maybe it’s because of work,” you say. 

“Maybe, but I’m pretty used to getting woken up.” 

“Right. It’s not easy, though, the stuff you do. It would keep me up at night if I did your job.” 

“I think sometimes doing my job is the only reason I can sleep.” 

“It's hard. Sounds hard, Spence.” You relax into your pillow, turning to see him. Spencer’s eyes run along your hip for a millisecond, just long enough to remind you that he’s a boy, that he could see you in a different light. 

“It’s okay,” he says. 

“Was it hard, this time?” you ask. 

“No,” he whispers. “I don’t know, it was bad when Emily got hurt, but she’s so stubborn. If Morgan didn’t strap her down she would’ve kept going like nothing happened.” 

You and Spencer have lived together for so long that you remember a time before he even knew Emily. You answered his ad in the paper —you hadn’t realised people still put ads in the paper— looking for a roommate. His apartment was already furnished and he didn’t want to change much, but the second bedroom was spacious and the bathroom could be monopolised. As a girl, you’d been a little dubious reading about a single male looking for any gender, but his self-description was inviting. Twenty-two, just finished a doctorate, working for the FBI and expected to be away from the state at least once a month. 

You’d met Spencer and felt even less intimidated. He was awkward and dorky but friendly, too, with his glasses he apparently didn’t want to wear, but would eventually give in (before choosing contacts), and his big red sweater fit for a grandpa. “I can make more room for you but I can’t get rid of the books,” he said, “so I don’t expect you to pay a neat half.” 

How could you pass it up? 

“I can’t believe I’ve never met them,” you say. 

“Do you want to?” 

He sounds so surprised. “They’re your friends. I’m your… friend.” 

“You’re my best friend. I’ll arrange something, or try to. It’s hard to get us all in one room when that room isn’t the conference room,” he says. 

“You look nice in a t-shirt,” you say, not thinking as the words come out. 

Spencer leans in to whisper, “Thanks. You like this one?” 

His t-shirt says, I may be NErDy, but only periodically. The NErDy is made up of elements from the periodic table. It’s a bad pun. 

“I love it.” 

He reaches for you. Tentative, he squeezes your elbow. “Is there something wrong? All day it’s like… I don’t know, did something happen when I was gone?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

“But…” 

“Please,” you say, as he catches the last bit of light from the hallway, every eyelash illuminated for the counting. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Spencer. But thank you.” 

He, in a move that’s almost uncharacteristic, pushes your arm into the mattress and leans over you. “I wanna be the first one to know when you do wanna talk,” he says firmly, holding your gaze. 

How’s your bruise? 

You nod mechanically. Spencer recedes. “Okay, good,” he says, grinning. 

“Good,” you echo, thinking of Spencer in the dream, his hand on your hip and climbing up your sore ribs. “Let’s watch TV.” 

—

iii. scared of snow 

“You’re being weird.” 

“I’m not,” you refute. 

“You are.” 

Spencer frowns at you, a show full downturn of the lips. A dusting of snow lands in his hair and you both look up to catch it, a drift of it from the marquee as you pass. You don’t remember when it started snowing, but it feels like it’s been coming down for days. It’s in his eyelashes. Your sleeves are wet with it. 

“The snow’s making you strange.”

You hold out your hand with fingers parted, feeling his laugh travelling down his arm and into yours as he takes it, intertwining your fingers tightly. He doesn’t feel cold. 

“It’s making you strange,” you mumble. 

You and Spencer walk down a cobbled road. Snow crunches under your shoes, turned to slush in the high traffic spots by vendors booths left curiously empty of shopkeepers, though their festive wares still line the insides, carved cuckoo birds and metal ornaments, glass balls made to be personalised for mantles. You can smell orange oil and chocolate fudge, crepe carts and churros and cinnamon, and then suddenly any hint of your olfactory sense is gone. 

“It’s so quiet.” 

“It’s the snow,” he says, pulling your arm against his chest as you walk and walk, your footsteps the only sound. “It acts as a sound absorber when it’s fluffy like this. The sound waves get caught.” 

Caught. You think, or say, not sure if it makes it out of your mouth. 

“Like you,” he says, stopping in the middle of the road. 

“What?” you ask. 

Snow lands in his eyelashes. “You’re caught,” he says. 

You wake up thinking his hand is on your cheek. Like a nightmare, you start, still picturing his lips moving around the words. Caught, you think again, heart a hummingbird in your chest. Your mouth is dry. The heat is up —Spencer must be home again. 

You suck in a deep breath and sit up, curling over yourself protectively. 

You dream about Spencer more often than ever, and half the time they’re normal dreams, which is to say, they follow no rhyme or reason, with no discernible plot. Spencer loses all his teeth, or he takes you to the movies to see one of his long Swedish films, or he’s an afterthought, a bystander. The main plot of your dream doesn’t involve him at all. 

But the other half of the time is ruining your life. You dream of Spencer holding your hand like you had been, or touching your shoulder. Never again do you dream of that tender bruise, but Spencer lifts your shirt in other scenarios. He pulls your pyjamas off, his hand inching between your legs but never touching, or he helps you out of your bra. And every time you think, why is this happening to me? Perhaps a sex dream could be explained away by want and Spencer’s proximity, but all these constant intimacies weigh heavy in your head. 

You head to the shower and picture Spencer helping you out of your bra, and all of you goes hot, so you turn the water to lukewarm and stand until you’re cold to the point of misery. You clamber out and shiver into a towel, then your robe. 

Spencer’s humming in the kitchen. 

You honestly wish that the dreams made you like him less, that the sound of him might send you running back into your room, but you poke your head out of the bathroom and wait until he enters the living room. He sees you waiting, his face splitting into a smile. “Hey, good morning, did you sleep better?” 

You can’t explain the discombobulation of your dreams. Spencer had become convinced you have insomnia. You may have let him assume. 

“Slept fine,” you croak. 

“Okay, well get dressed and I’ll make you some coffee.” 

“‘Kay.” Your stomach pangs with nerves seeing him, reminded of tonight’s big event. “Are we still, uh, on, for tonight?” 

“Nervous?” he asks. 

You feel like you're about to be a fish in a pool of sharks. “Of course not.” 

 “Yeah, still on, even JJ.” 

Awesome. Spencer turns around to make you your cup of coffee and you go to your room, dressing quickly, two pairs of socks. You tone your face and moisturise, fanning yourself slowly. You don’t hurry to the living room, but you aren’t slow, and it’s not Spencer, you tell yourself. Not Spencer. You’re just craving the warmth of a cup of coffee. 

You spend the morning together on the couch. Spencer reads and occasionally chats to you about whatever tome it is that specific half an hour. You make sandwiches at lunch time, he showers in the early evening. You get dressed and primped while he’s gone, and at 6PM, Spencer knocks your bedroom door to ask if you’re ready to go. 

“Could I fake an illness?” you joke nervously. 

Spencer’s hand falls on your handle. The door is ajar as usual, but he doesn’t tread any further inside. 

“Come in,” you say. 

Spencer takes a single step inside before stopping. He looks you up and down without the hunger you crave from him, a more clement, familiar appreciation to him as he says, “You look pretty.” He traces your arm, leaving the skin tingly in his wake. “Really pretty.” 

“Thank you. I didn’t want to overdress.” 

“It’s perfect, don’t worry. And no, you couldn’t fake an illness. They all know when I’m lying, especially Hotch. And Emily, actually.” 

You squeeze your hands together tightly at your stomach. “I don’t know why I’m sooo nervous.” You lick your lips. “I feel like I can’t stop fidgeting.” 

“They’re used to it, I promise. They know that they’re gonna make you nervous, but they’ve sworn to be on their best behaviour, and besides, you’re not the only plus one. JJ’s bringing Will, and Morgan’s bringing his sister, I’ve only met her once. The focus won’t be all on you.” He lowers his voice. “After two drinks they forget they’re supposed to be scary.” 

“What if I say something extremely stupid to your boss and get you in trouble?” 

“What are you going to get me in trouble for?” 

“I don’t know. What if I accidentally tell him that that sick day you took a few weeks ago was to help me make brownies?”

“Everyone lies about sick days.” He deliberates. “Maybe not Hotch. But I’m pretty sure he knew I was lying, and it’s explainable. I felt… irate.” 

You raise your eyebrows. “What?” 

“Staying home with you made me feel better. Which made me a better worker the next day, it’s fine.” His phone rings from somewhere in the apartment. “That’ll be JJ. Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Yeah?” He grins. “Okay. You’re wearing a coat, right? It’s cold. The forecast says snow. It’s thirty degrees out.” 

You layer a coat onto your jacket and a scarf to make him happy. You and Spencer get a taxi, black leather gritless under your hands, though you squeeze the seat like it’s gonna stop the car the whole time. Spencer doesn’t talk much, but he looks at you unapologetically, and he smiles, and the quiet is as severe as it was in your dream that morning. If this were a dream he’d be leaning over to cradle your ear. He’d ask in whispers if you were alright, and he’d let his hand rest kindly on your knee. 

“What?” you whisper. 

His lips part like he might answer. The car comes to a crunching stop outside the bar, and whatever it was he was going to say is kept for later. “I’ll tell you after,” he says. 

He pays for the taxi before you can work it out and you say thank you to the driver. The sidewalk is clean, broad, and glowing with the last bit of light. The sun sets behind you. The bar beckons in front. 

Your fear is daunting. 

You have years of practice fooling Spencer. You know that he knows your tells, so you’ve changed them, and Spencer cares about you enough to ignore obvious truths if he thinks you might not want to share. His colleagues, FBI agents trained to detect deception, are going to take one good look at you and know you’re lying about… this. 

You’re plagued by dreams of Spencer, but nothing can touch the real thing. 

You feel the space between you like it’s aflame. Spencer checks you’re with him and opens the door. 

The bar is busy even for a Saturday. You aren’t expecting the volume, the boisterousness of the patrons already slumped together over tables and waiting at the bar to get their drinks. It’s smaller than you’d pictured too, but its size is made up for with a patio at the back, smokers haunting the door, wary of the cold. 

You know what his friends look like already, yet seeing them in person is odd. Hotch is taller than you’d thought, Emily more startlingly pretty. JJ’s frowning, and her partner Will looks like he’s about to fall asleep despite a lazy grin. 

Hotch notices you first. He taps Emily on the elbow, who pauses in a thought to follow his gaze. Her face breaks into a smile, and if you weren’t in love with Spencer Reid, you might take a tumble for his pale coworker. 

“Hello,” Spencer says, ushering you to the table with an arm behind your back. 

“Hi,” you say. 

“He-llo,” Emily says, leaning into the table, a strand of her hair dangerously close to a short glass of juice. “I can’t believe we’re finally seeing you in person. I’m Emily.” 

“Y/N,” you say. 

“Aaron,” Hotch adds. (Aaron! He’s far more intimidating casually than as a boss, it seems.)

“Derek was just here,” JJ says in way of greeting, while Will drawls from over her shoulder, “I’m Will, it’s nice to meet you.” 

Spencer pulls out a chair for you and promptly sits in the one beside Emily. “Sorry we’re late. I forgot my wallet and we had to go back up to the apartment and the cab I called got so angry about it that he left.” 

You slide between the table and your chair, looking to Spencer for guidance, but he’s distracted taking his coat off and you have to look at Aaron instead. 

His smile is immediately knowing. Read for filth in seconds. “We don't bite.”

“Not so early in the evening,” Emily says. 

You take a shuddering breath, thankful they can’t hear it over the sounds of the bar. 

—

“I’m caught!” you exclaim. 

Spencer hugs you under the arms. “I know,” he says gently. 

“Caught!” 

He holds back a laugh as your arms react, practically flung behind his head in a hug that threatens to cut off the oxygen supply to his brain. “I think you’ve caught me, instead,” he says. 

You laugh in his ear. There’s gin on your breath and the sweeter smell of orange juice. It’s not bad, but weird to know it’s from your mouth. Or not weird. It gives Spencer a feeling like seeing the soft curve of your hip when you’re lying on your side. Like watching you bite your bottom lip when you’re distracted by the TV and worrying to yourself, which you do more often than not lately. They’re private things that Spencer shouldn’t know about. 

“I’m not trying to,” you say, and Spencer can smell the shot of vodka you did too, which is less pleasant. “Not trying to catch you. Not… I’m sorry.” 

“What for?” 

“It’s hard to explain.” 

Over your shoulder, Spencer spots Hotch’s entertained gaze. All the team has done since you sat down together was pick on Spencer and his obviousness. Boyfriend? they’d asked you. Looking? Sights set on someone? All while JJ nudged him under the table. 

Things are falling apart now. JJ’d departed to hold Emily’s hair back, and Will with her. Hotch caught the eye of a woman across the way, and they sit chatting amicably at the bar with more peanuts than drinks. Derek, when he did appear, stayed for an hour with Desiree, recounting to you his most embarrassing stories of which Spencer had taken care to shield you from, and laughed at his subsequent blush. 

He never wanted you to know about his run in with anthrax, and he especially didn’t want you to know he’d been stripped nude afterwards and hosed off like a muddy dog. 

You’d turned to him with wide, worried eyes. “You were poisoned?” you’d asked. 

It’s stuff like that that makes this difficult. 

“I don’t know if you know this,” he says now, rubbing your back, “but I’m good with difficult concepts.”

“I did not mean to be like this.” 

“You didn’t eat much.” Spencer helps you stand on your own two feet. “They kitchen’s still open. I can get you food, how about a burger? Or we can go find you something.“

“What kind of burger?” you ask, poorly concealing your excitement. 

Spencer gets you back to the table. “I’ll be right back.” 

“Wait, don’t go.” 

“I’m gonna get food. Do you want fries?” 

“Spencer, what if I throw up?” 

Spencer shrugs. “I can rub your back?” 

“I don’t want to throw up.” 

“Then drink that,” he says, sliding his glass of coke toward you. “Alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach and increases the production of stomach acid. If you drink,” —he flinches as you knock the cup back— “slowly you can dilute your stomach contents without upsetting it. Slowly,” he says, squeezing your hand, “I’ll order food.”

“No, wait.” You drop the glass and grab him. “Please don’t go. I don’t want to throw up by myself.” 

“You won’t throw up.”

“Please,” you say, holding his wrist in both hands, your eyes shiny. “Spencer, don’t go.” 

“I won’t.” He doesn’t know how true it is and then suddenly he’s sat down. He won’t go. He wouldn’t leave your side ever again if that’s what you asked of him. 

He puts your chairs together, entertaining your tipsy thoughts with light conversation and the occasional slight of hand. You have an aura about you, like Spencer’s doing more than close-up magic, hanging on his every word. Your nervousness had you gasping like a fish, not so subtly downing one drink, then another, but now that you’re feeling the effects of them (and a few extras), the tightness you’d held in your fingers is gone. You’re leaning against the back of the chair with all the ease of you on the couch at home, but the easy fondness you’d usually wear while he speaks is replaced by a bright and shining awe. A sweetness like he’s remarkable. The soft line of your lips and your widened eyes. 

You’re not the sort of drunk that leaves you listless and ready for bed. This is giggly and fun, and so long as you don’t push it you’ll be alright. It wasn’t enough alcohol to leave you inebriated all night, anyhow. In a few hours the giddiness will wear away, leaving you with a headache and a deep longing for your missed dinner. 

“I’m glad you didn’t let me fake food poisoning,” you say. 

“Is that what you were thinking? That’s a terrible excuse. You need something with sudden onset symptoms, like an asthma attack, or pneumonia. An acute illness.” 

You take his hand. “I love that you know that stuff.”

Feeling as in love with you as ever, and sorry for you drunken state —he could’ve stopped you, he just didn’t think— he folds your hands together, both of his, rubbing the hills of your knuckles with his thumb. Your hands look right together. 

That’s what Spencer likes to think, anyway. 

You slow like you’re tired, hand lax in his grips. Your mouth opens but nothing follows, no sigh or gripe or conversation. 

“You okay?” he asks softly. 

“I think I’m having one of those dreams again.” 

“You’re awake,” he says. 

“I don’t know about that. They’re all like this.” 

He hums, smoothing his thumb down the back of your hand. “If this were a dream, you wouldn't have control over what you’re doing. Why don’t you do something you wouldn’t do in a dream?” 

“Like what?” you ask. 

“There’s a ton of stuff you can’t do in dreams. People find they have a poor memory, but I can’t ask you to recall anything. You might not remember regardless. How about temperature?” he suggests. “Most people can’t feel warm or cold in their dreams. Do you want to feel something cold?”

You watch him for a few seconds, your eyebrows pulled together unhappily. “Your hands are warm,” you say. 

“Right.” He suspects they’ll feel warmer in just a few seconds when the hot flush in his face manages to work its way down. “I’m warm. So are you.” 

“Sometimes I feel like you’re warm in the dream, though. You make me feel warm.” 

“It’s remembered, maybe.” 

You don’t look any happier. “Sometimes I wish I could stop having them, but…” You duck your head. “Sorry, Spencer.” 

“What are you sorry for?” 

Your head ducks lower. With a start to his chest, your shoulders shake, like you're inhaling the first half of a sob. 

“Hey, hey,” he says, reaching for your cheek, ducking his own head to see you, “what’s wrong? It’s okay, you don’t have anything to be sorry for!” he whispers emphatically. “You have nothing to be sorry for, why would you think that?” 

“I keep having these dreams, all the time, and– and I– I’ll mess everything up. Everything we have, I’m going to–” You hiccup, eyes turned glassy, imploring him to forgive you for something you haven’t done. “I don’t feel good.” 

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he says, his hand sliding back to your ear, down to your neck, “you’re just drunk. You’re confused.” 

“But the dreams–”

“What dreams?” he asks gently. 

You blow out a daunted breath. “Where you love me.” 

“I do love you.” 

“But more than this. You love me more than this,” you say, shaking your head. “I really don’t feel okay… Do you think we could go home?” 

You’re so sorry and frowny that Spencer would attempt, in all his unfitness, to climb Mount Everest for you should you ask. “Yeah, we can go home,” he says, rubbing your arm up and down and up again, a line of affection from shoulder to wrist. “I’ll take you home. It’s okay, Y/N. You don’t have to be upset, I shouldn’t have asked.” 

He’s not sure what he asked, really, but the answer upset you. His heart’s racing like he just sprinted the length of the bar and you’re close to tears, this strange weepy sullenness about you as you say, “It’s okay. Let’s just go.” 

—

It’s cold to be sitting out by yourself, though the snow stayed its hand another night while the temperature fell again. Your coat poses a weak defence against the chill, nipping at your nose, burning the insides of every breath, and your feet are stiff like ice in your shoes. Yet, the idea of returning to the apartment is a leaden stone in your stomach. 

Spencer could barely look at you that morning. You hadn’t given him much of a chance, slipping out of the apartment with little more than a call to say you’d be back later. Your groceries freeze in a paper bag by your feet. 

You’re not too embarrassed about getting tipsy. It was drinks with Spencer and his friends, not dinner. Emily had been twice as drunk, and Derek had encouraged you to drink with a round on him. You’re mortified, however, by what you’d said. Your memory is clear enough to know you’d told Spencer about your dreams. 

He’d been confused at the time, but he’s a smart boy. He’ll figure it out. 

“This headache,” you mumble, tipping your head into your hand morosely. You rub your brow, fingers against the ache, the cold getting worse. 

Why did it take a dream for you to realise you had feelings for Spencer? And why did you have to realise at all? If you’d never had that dream, never had that phantom bruise, his hands careful and caring and touching up to the band of your bra, you wouldn’t know now what it is to want him. The dream gave you a bruise, and Spencer presses against it real or otherwise every time he looks at you. You were wrong thinking that it never happened; it’s still there, a purple lash against your ribs. 

Every time he makes you breakfast, or he texts you from a different state, or he sits down on the couch just to talk to you. Every time he says something smart, or he tilts his head back as he laughs, or he draws a smiley face on the mirror by the door–

“About those dreams?” 

You rub your eyes hard. Of course he’d come to find you. “Please don’t.” 

“Please,” he says. You see him through your fingers. His thick scarf is unravelled at his neck, his hair ragged around his face like he’s been raking it repeatedly behind his ears. 

You straighten. 

“I don’t get it,” he says, “you’ve been dreaming about me? Why is that such a big deal?” 

“It’s embarrassing.” 

“I dream about you all the time,” he says. “We’re in each other's lives, we live together, it makes sense that your hippocampus would use me. You have a lot of memories with me.” Spencer crosses his arms in front of you. “It’s freezing.” 

“I’ll be home in a bit.”

“I’m not gonna go back without you,” he says, like that’s a given. 

You move across the bench to make room for him. Spencer sits. 

You settle. The occasional bus trundles past, a limited rota for an early Sunday morning. Spencer shoves his hands into his pockets. His lips are already turning blue. 

“I know you know what I mean,” you say. 

Spencer presses his knees together. “Even romantic dreams where I’m… where we’re together, it’s all easily explained away by brain science. You can’t control what you dream, and I’m not going to hold you to it.” 

Silence, silence. You tip your head back to see a horrible grey cloud closing in on you both, the sun a white and gauzy memory behind it. Spencer’s right about control, but he doesn’t get that you like them. It’s not fair to him that you’ve somehow rallied a second life when you’re sleeping, where he’s your mind’s puppet, hugging and holding you, pressing his cheek to the side of your face. Saying things you wish he’d tell you now. 

“Well, I like you.” 

“What?” you ask, coughing. 

“Not to make things awkward or anything, but I like you. Romantically.” Spencer’s voice takes a sharp veer into high-pitched freneticism. “Does that help at all?” 

“What?” 

“It’s far more embarrassing that I like you on purpose than your accidental dreams, right?” He thumbs at the inside of his wrist. “You don’t have to say anything, or think anything, and I’m not going to change, but I have feelings for you.”  

You feel like you’re standing at the top of a very tall building. “Oh?” 

“I kind of thought you knew.” 

“How could I know that?” you ask, cringing as a cold gust of air bites at your face. 

Spencer takes his scarf off and pushes it into your hands. “I don’t know. I guess we know less about each other than we thought.”

The way he says it. 

Spencer wraps his scarf around you when it’s clear you aren’t going to do it yourself, and he touches your cheek briefly, a brush of his fingers like he thinks he’s doing something he shouldn’t be allowed to. 

“I dream about you all the time,” he says quietly. 

A bus passes by and shines headlights at your feet. The wind blows, your ears roar, and just above you, in a cold front to mark the season, snow begins to fall. 

You look up simultaneously. A snowflake gets caught in Spencer’s eyelashes. 

Just one. 

“This is so weird,” you mumble. 

Spencer wipes at his eye. “Could you tell me why?” 

“I had a dream just like this.” 

He laughs warmly. “Of course you did. Forget all reason, then. You’re prophetic.” 

“I don’t think I could’ve predicted this.” 

“Why? It’s only snow. Virginia gets an inch of snow most Decembers.” 

You laugh. In a dream, this is where you and Spencer would kiss or hold hands, or rest your cheek on the other’s shoulder, but neither of you are brave enough. And, as the snow turns to a sleet below freezing, you can’t ignore the cold. 

—

iv. the end 

The longest anyone has ever slept in recorded human history is eleven days. Two hundred and sixty four hours, or nearly sixteen thousand minutes, just shy of one million seconds of sleep. 

The first pillow was invented in Mesopotamia more than nine thousand years ago, in a time where the amount of pillows a person had directly correlated their personal riches. The history of pillows is tumultuous and eclectic. Headrests made of wood, stone, or jade. Curved neck holders worn soft with use. 

And, of all Spencer’s gifted facts, you find yourself circling back to the same one as you wait for him to wake: most dreams are no longer than twenty minutes. However, it’s important to note that the longest dream ever officially observed was in 1994, when a man managed to be in REM for just over three hours. You’ve had dreams that felt like they lasted for hours, but likely took place for just twenty minutes. If you could dream for three hours a night, you could live an entire life of longing in a pocket of time. 

Thankfully, you have no need to hide from reality anymore. Spencer sleeps beside you and you don’t want to sleep, you just want him to wake up. 

“Good morning,” you whisper, drawing your fingertip across his cheek to encourage the hair that’s fallen there back in line. 

He doesn’t stir. It’s alright, you hadn’t meant to wake him. 

“I love you,” you whisper, shuffling across the sheets to feel the heat and weight of his body against your own. He doesn’t move for a while, snoring gently, his breath kissing the top of your head as you burrow into the slip of space under his chin. Then, as if he were awake, he wraps his arm around you and drags you in further. His face angles down and his nose finds your forehead, and a hum of what you’d personally say is content kisses your brow. 

You tuck your hand behind his back and rub a circle. 

Spencer didn’t last long after the initial realisation of requited feelings. In a day he’d asked if you wanted to be his girlfriend (vaguely apologetic, still worried about scaring you, though you’d already come clean about wanting him as you’d warmed your cold hands by the stove). A week later he kissed you on a date outside of the cosiest Indian restaurant in Washington, D.C, and things have been nothing but smooth sailing from there. 

Now, when he’s feeling romantic, he brings home butter chicken and turns your face up for kissing, fork in hand. Every night before bed, he tells you to have good dreams, a self-satisfaction in his eyes that you dearly love. 

You knew he was a dork and you liked him because of it, but the sheer increase in him is amazing. Yesterday he sent you Close to You by Carpenters over text claiming they wrote it about you. When he got home, he tried to make you dance with him in the living room. After two or three kisses, you’d let him pull you to your feet. 

Spencer has turned loving one another into an everyday spectacularity, and not some mystical dream you ached for. 

He squeezes the skin of your shoulder as he wakes. Heavy in the hands of sleep, Spencer rubs the tip of his nose to yours, nudging your face up, and waiting there with your lips a few millimetres apart as he finds his bearings. You don’t open your eyes. There’s no need. 

“Time?” he mumbles.

“I don’t,” —you clear your hoarse voice, his hand flattening protectively behind you— “know, um. Maybe seven. The sun was rising…” 

“You could have woken me up,” he says, and kisses you slowly. It’s almost gluttonous, how he does it. Not chaste at all. His hair falls into your face and tickles your cheeks, his nose smushes your own with his easy depth. 

You hold his face and kiss him twice, following a line under his chin, where you pause, smelling yesterday's cologne on his skin. “I was hoping I’d fall asleep again,” you confess. 

“Oh, no, don’t do that.” He scoops you against him and turns onto his back as you laugh. “Angel. Let’s stay up now. Let’s just… stay here.” 

If you stay here he’s going to waylay you with a smattering of his voracious kisses, and he’s going to turn you on your back and kiss your neck. He’ll touch that place on your ribs where you’d once dreamt a bruise. It’s a secret you couldn’t keep. He likes to kiss you there when he remembers, but most of the time his hands run along it without mention. A slow caressing. 

You push your face against his shoulder and sigh as his arms close in around you. With a little effort, you get your arms around him in turn, and you hug him for as long as you can stand the pins and needles in your fingers. 

“You smell so good,” you mumble.

He pats your back absentmindedly. 

Today, you’re going to make Spencer oatmeal with banana and chocolate. You’re going to shower, maybe together if the small space can handle it, laughing at the soap in his eyebrows and the way he squeals when you touch his hips. You’re going to drape yourself across his lap as he reads, and he’ll lean down to kiss the tip of your nose or some other strange part of you unused to affection. The top of your ear, the palm of your hand, maybe the crook of your elbow. He’ll ramble through dinner or creep up behind you to sniff your shoulder, and it’ll all be choices you’ve made. Nothing left to want or wanting, but being in love while wide awake. 

“Are you tired?” you ask him. 

He takes a deep breath of your hair. “No,” he says, drawing a light line up your side, “I’m okay. There are worse faces to wake up to.”

You try not to fluster noticeably. He’s always been a good roommate. You’re still getting used to the boyfriend part, the intimacy of being complimented, but Spencer seems to have slipped into the part easily.

“Sorry, that was mean. There’s nothing I’d rather wake up to.” 

“Thanks,” you mumble. 

You’re tired, suddenly. The minutes pass in heavy blinks —you don’t want to sleep now that he’s awake, but being here with him is warming you from the inside out.  You doze and wake and Spencer doesn’t say a word. His breaths come evenly against your cheek. 

Eventually, he clears his throat, asksing, “Did you dream at all?” His voice is hewn. He rubs your chest, right over your heart.

”I’m not so sure that this isn’t one,” you say, your heartbeat a crawl under his touch.

“That’s corny.” 

“Mm, the Spencer in my dreams is usually kinder.” 

“Does he ever get to hold you like this?” he asks, letting his hand fall from your chest to wrap it back around you again. 

You take a sleepy breath in. “No,” you say slowly, “he doesn’t.”

｡𖦹°‧⭑.

thank youuuu for reading!! please like comment or reblog if you enjoyed!! thank you❤️

this fic was requested! I usually link to the request I was sent at the top, but I lost the post for this one, but this is what the request said: 

“hi angel! i have a request for roommate!spencer where r has a very romantic dream about him and starts avoiding him because she's really embarrassed but spencer is so confused as to why his roommate suddenly can't even look him in the eye. maybe one of them realizes their feelings aren't entirely platonic in the end? love you!!!”

thank you original requester! 

[rainyzae]

Sylus is for the ones who want security

Sylus is for the ones whose feet always seem to find the cracks in the pavement, who always seem to stumble over themselves as they try desperately to make something- a name for themselves, a conversation, a new relationship, a stronger existing one, anything- only to fail again and again.

Sylus is for the ones who find themselves holding up their hands as they watch them shake. Why you? Why was everything always on you? Why did you always have to make the effort, the connection, the fake-happy face to appease someone, just so that they might love you?

Sylus is for the ones who truly try, but have longed since reached the breaking point. Don't worry darling. Hide the cracks. If they're hidden, you surely can handle a little bit more disappointment. A little bit more 'being alone' no matter how hard you try. A little bit more on focusing on everyone else's needs while neglecting your own. Why are you breaking? Why are your pieces on the floor? Chin up, darling. It's only for a while longer. How much longer? Well, how much more do you have left to give?

Sylus is for the ones who sit wondering why. Why is there suddenly the foreign feeling of care, of love, of endearment? When everything has been 'nothing' for so long, how are you supposed to cope with 'anything' at all? Much less 'everything'? The stack of bills are paid, the cupboards no longer have ramen, rice, and beans. The texts come frequently, and your phone rings randomly whenever you cross someone's mind. When have you ever crossed someone's mind? And the clothes bought for you fit like a glove.

Sylus is for the ones who have given everything all of their life, who have found themselves desperate for connections that no one wants to make with them, who give their everything in exchange for more anxiety and demands at their expense.

Sylus is for the ones who want security.

[rainyzae]

This cowboy lives in my head rent free

[rainyzae]

⊹ FOR SURE

RELATIVELY STABLE AND TENTATIVELY ABLE TO SAY FOR CERTAIN WHETHER THIS UNCERTAINTY IS FOR SURE

wc: 2k

cw: sad and probably ooc dazai but he’s my husband so i actually know how he falls apart, pretty straightforward references to anxiety+dissociation, references to self harm+suicidal ideation but nothing graphic, angst+hurt/comfort, dazai cries and then you feed him that's all

reid: a little spur of the moment something i started when i wasn’t feeling so hot a bit ago. ethel cain’s cover of this song has altered the course of my life anyway enjoy me projecting

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

He was quiet when he got home, which is uncharacteristic, unless he’s scheming. But there was no glint in his eyes and no menace behind his grin, only exhaustion. What’s more is there was no downcast expression, no particularly sluggish movement to suggest he was upset; granted, he would regularly go on performing his usual persona even if he was upset. He was always all moving puzzle pieces, all thick mask and mystery.

It’s a good thing you’ve learned to read him so plainly.

You owe it to the little shared space you’re in, wrapped in a blanket on the couch, reading a book of his as he shakes his coat off and tosses it across the small dining table with two chairs side-by-side at it instead of across from one another. Dazai usually hangs his coat up on the rack by the door, slips his shoes off mindlessly and comes to flop his entire body weight on top of you, but tonight he pulls his laces undone and leaves his shoes tucked neatly against the wall, walks by the back of the couch to press a ghostly kiss to the crown of your head, and heads straight to the bathroom, which he locks himself in.

You swallow as you hear the shower start. You had specifically picked out an apartment with a standing shower, no tub, when you moved in with him. You’d emptied it of razors a handful of times and you probably would a handful of times more, and you kept all of both of your medication in your bedside table. Still, you can no longer quite focus on the words in front of you.

So, you flick the television on. A little more noise in your brain helps tune out the shower that’s just that—a shower. He showers, most often, because he’s feeling strange and not because he needs to feel clean. Maybe he needs to feel clean, but not in a way that a shower will allow. He does it anyway. You wait.

When the water turns off and he doesn’t immediately bounce out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, singsonging which leftovers you should heat up for him, you turn the TV volume down a few notches. When it’s been five minutes or so, you find yourself in the kitchen putting day-old bibimbap in the microwave. When it’s been ten, you’re knocking on the door.

"Osamu?" Your voice is soft as your knock. "I waited for you to eat." Dirty trick, you know. But you also know he won’t otherwise; not on a night like this.

You hear a bit of shuffling before the bathroom door creaks open. His eyes are red, his nose flushed, and he’s rubbing his face with the corner of his towel like he’s just awoken from a nap. He’s got no bandages on. He nearly whispers, "You didn’t have to."

"Wanted to." You work the towel from his hands as he turns the light off. He’ll hide behind the darkness if nothing else, but it’s alright; you’ll let him. You pat water from his shoulders before you sling the towel around him like a cape. You whisper back, "I’ll get you clothes. Please get silverware, yes?"

You don’t give him much of a choice, but he’s in a state where he’s pliant enough to listen to corporeal orders. Getting silverware will be a marginally easier task than dressing for him right now.

After pulling a sweatshirt and pair of pajama pants out of your drawers—they’re his, or maybe yours, doesn’t really matter; what does matter is they cover as much skin as possible—you return to him on the couch, two bowls of cooling bibimbap with chopsticks stuck in them on coffee table. He’s got as much of his bare body under the towel as it will allow.

When you set next to him and peel the towel back he looks nearly catatonic. It spurs tears to your lash line, but you hold back. "Arms, please."

He shoves himself into the hoodie, tousling his wet mop of hair in the process, and takes the pants from you, which he stands robotically to step into. When he sits you wrap five fingers across the top of his flannel-clad thigh and press a short kiss to his cheek.

As if sparked by your touch, he curls himself into you.

You’re quick to receive him; you unlock his hands from where they latch behind your neck, gently, like everything else, and you lean back, back, until your head is hitting the pillow you were lounged up against earlier. His fingers scramble for somewhere to land; you will his weight down onto you, his shoulder and hip to tuck beside yours on the inside of the couch, his free arm and leg to sling across your body and his sweet face in the side of your neck. The water from his hair soaks through your shirt. You don’t care. You feel his breath; your fingertips trace circles along his spine, and your outside hand comes to tangle up with his. Eating will have to wait.

You don’t waste time asking if he wants to talk. If he did, he would’ve started by now.

So you focus on his breathing, and how lucky you are to have it ghosting along your collarbone. He’s gray, then white, then gray, then blue in the light of the TV as his thumb moves across the back of your hand, stiff, like it’s just been freed from paralysis.

You wait for his breath to shake; you know it will.

And he knows you know, because he squeezes your hand in a pulsing rhythm like a heartbeat. He hates this. He hates that you've seen him crumble so many times that you know exactly what he needs.

You say it so softly, again, almost a whisper: "I've got you, my love."

He doesn't want you to say it's okay or let it out or talk to me; this is another thing you know very well. He feels like he's floating away from what little sense of self he has to begin with and it's not okay, and he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't want to be told when to cry or not, but he does need reminded that you're here, and you're real, and so is he, and so is this thing that both have; you'll grab his ankles and pull him down out of the air. You always do. You always do.

So he cries anyway.

It's like hearing a foreign language leave his mouth. There's something so assured about Dazai even while he believes he's all smoke and mirrors and seeing—hearing—his voice jump between heaving breaths and cracking sobs has always jarred you in some way. Moreover, now that you're so attuned to the way he breaks, it fills you with a tired anger that you can't place on anything concrete. It's a frustration you're glad to shoulder with him, but a frustration no less. You would set fire to everything you could touch, strangle it all to death with your bare hands, if it guaranteed his peace. But you know he wouldn't want that, not anymore; you quell the rage inside you between strands of his hair, fingerpads combing over his scalp with all that anger channeled into love, pure love. For as terrible and rotten as he's convinced he is, he's truly turned you into something softer than you thought yourself capable of being.

You feel his heart racing double-time against yours; you briefly wish you had no chest, no ribs, no physical form to separate you from him, so that your heart could cradle his, give over to his troubled body the time of the breath yours breathes.

He's all jagged edges right now and you're holding him like he's made of cotton. It makes him worse, momentarily, and he tears his hand away from yours; he knows wrapping around you like this, like a boa constrictor around its prey, will make his arms lose feeling but he does it anyway, like he's worried you'll go up in a cloud of dust if he doesn't hold onto you tight enough. He knows it's probably uncomfortable for you, too, laying back on his knotted fingers while he shoves every piece of himself as close as he can get to you, but you don't say anything, don't even make a sound when he hyperventilates into your shoulder and pushes out pathetic whimpers between his stuttering. He knows his face is twisted into that expression he long ago deemed too ugly to look at in the mirror. He gasps like he's underwater, and you just press your cheek to his temple while you lose track of if the wetness on your shoulder is from his hair or his eyes. It doesn't matter. You love him so fucking much.

He weeps against you with his constraint surrendered, loud but muffled by your shirt, at least until whatever movie was on is over. When he finally lifts his head, your eyes flutter open. You hadn't realized you closed them.

You tilt to look at him; the seam of your shirt collar is imprinted into his cheek. His bangs have dried wildly; you push them away from his eyes which are raw with sorrow, and Dazai's hands unclasp from behind you, settling back to how they first were with one curled up into the couch and the other interlaced with yours. He's devastatingly beautiful. You can't help the ghost of the sad smile you wear; it's because he's so gorgeous, and also you want to let him know you're content to be here—not content with what's upset him, not at all, but content to pick him up and help him haul himself forward. He does not reflect the smile back to you. You don't blame him.

"Let's eat." You leave the please unspoken, but it hangs there anyway.

"It's cold," he complains, still distant, but with a glimmer of a pout you think may be him. He's not getting out of it, though.

You sit him up, keep him close to your side and pick up a bowl; it's indeed cold, but you take a bite anyway, as if to show him it's not so bad. When you hold sliced carrot and broccoli to his lips, he looks at you like you're trying to feed him dirt, but opens his mouth anyway.

And it may as well be medicine going down. Not that he particularly cares for reheated and recooled leftover bibimbap, but your fingers being at the other end of the chopsticks makes it appealing. More than appealing. Delightful, even. He never really understood how things like food, music, or art could be healing until he met you and you doodles silly pictures of him on slow Sunday mornings, sang old love songs to him while you shooed him away from the stove as you cooked dinner, fed him leftovers in your shared home, on your shared couch, surrounded by all the things that were both yours and his, sweatshirts, books, blankets, chopsticks alike.

And he tells you that in his own way.

"Heat it up again for me? Please?"

He speaks the plea this time, and you grin—not sad this time, but wholly, as he relights slowly in front of you. And as already established, you'd do anything for him.

"Mhm."

"I love you," he blurts. Tags it on. You stand, gathering both bowls, still grinning.

"I love you." No question about any of it. You press a kiss to the crown of his head. He unfurls the blanket from where you'd slung it over the back of the couch earlier, picking up the remote to flick through the channels, finally breathing steadily as he waits for you to return from the kitchen. Your kitchen, his kitchen. He hears the microwave hum, in another room, not on another planet. He knows he'll be alright.

[rainyzae]

please please if you come across this post at least reblog it so maybe it'll reach people who can donate, i don't know how to properly write the most convincing post to get people to share and donate but interaction on all my other posts for Seraj have stopped. what do i have to say??? Seraj spends so much time and effort campaigning for the survival of his family, we can not afford to let him down. he is supporting a family of 9+ people and he has helped other displaced people in his community many times. he had to take a short break a few days ago because of the mental effort it takes to fundraise online. it is not easy to depend on strangers on the internet for your and your family's literal survival. i'm trying to help take some of that pressure off him. i will make as many posts as needed until he reaches his goal. it's been OVER A YEAR since the beginning of this stage of the genocide and we cannot look away now.

Seraj needs to reach 19k on his Chuffed TODAY. This is extremely attainable, only $250 to go.

he needs to reach 25k by October 15 and i believe this is doable, but only if people actually contribute.

$18,750 / $30,000 (final goal)

verification and other details explained here

[rainyzae]

a/n: college au where inumaki uses sign language because of vocal chord damage

From across the room, Inumaki catches your eye.  He’s been trying to catch it all night; you’ve noticed how he hangs in your peripheral, how he passes behind you with a hand on your hip and disappears into the party before you have a chance to stop him.

This game of cat and mouse has been going on for months now. Teasing touches, late night texts– it’s clear what both of you want, even it’s remained unspoken.

Toge brings a flat palm to his lips and then slowly brings it to his cheekbone, never losing eye contact with you even as the party’s surges on. He takes a long sip of his drink, trying to hide the curve of his lips behind the red rim as he waits for you to move. When you don’t, he does it again with a softer expression, eyebrows pinched upwards as if asking ‘please.’

You don’t say goodbye to your friends; you just wind your way through the crowd until you’re breast to breast with the man in question, hand on his bicep. His body is surprisingly firm despite his smaller stature; when you squeeze, you can feel him flex under the touch.

“What’s up?” you ask. The party has you acting drunker than you really are- bolder than you really are. He watches your lips just like he does for everyone else, but this feels more intimate. The flick of his tongue over his lips as he reads your lips -completely with the flash of his tongue piercing- is almost hypnotizing.

He signs the same thing again. Hand to his lips, then cheek.

He’s never used it with you before.

“What? I don’t know what you mean.”

Toge huffs, shoulders bunched near his ears, taps again. Hand to his lips, then cheekbone, like it’s obvious what he wants. Like it’s been obvious.

“I don’t-”

Before you can continue, he grabs you by the small of your waist and pulls you in, firmly pressing his body into yours with a subtle grind of his hips. His head is tucked into the nape of your neck, breath humid and hot against the shell of your ear.

“Kiss me.” his voice, all grit and dips, rumbles just loud enough to be heard over the music. You’ve hear his voice before, mostly through laughter, but the deepness, the richness, makes your knees weak.

You move in tandem, both turning your heads slightly until you connect. The hot press of his tongue into your mouth tastes like honey whiskey.

[rainyzae]

"who are those for?" you ask, nodding towards the flowers cradled in nanami's arms. the bouquet is artfully wrapped, looped with ribbon to keep the stems from spilling out, each bloom nodding under its own lush weight.

he blinks, barely visible behind his glasses.

"you," he says.

you laugh.

nanami doesn't.

your laughter fades away, a star beneath the morning sun. "wait," you say, putting down your book. "really?"

he nods stiffly.

"i just didn't think you were the type," you say.

"i'm not."

"but—"

"but for you," nanami says mildly, "i can be."

[rainyzae]

sukuna is this bad boy womanizer that claims that he'll never settle down, and then you happen and BAM. he's in your shared kitchen, heating up a bottle for your baby so you can get a bath and a glass of wine

he's like. wait how the fuck did THIS happen?

[rainyzae]

*Myshka is left safely at camp before any trips to the Hells

[rainyzae]

E-Ming, the "Deadly" Scimitar 🤭🦋 | Heaven Official’s Blessing S2 Ep3

[rainyzae]

bombshell!reader getting caught sleeping over at spencer's before making their established relationship public & the team still thinks spencer is uncomfortable with r's approaches. 🤭

Spencer bought you pyjamas. You're sick with secret pleasure at the fact, staring at yourself in every passing window and reflective surface. They're simple skinny knitted sweatpants and a matching hoodie, and it's not necessarily something you'd buy for yourself, but why would you ever complain? Spencer got you new clothes as a gift with no occasion or motive; you'd marry him now if you thought he'd say yes. 

Too bad he's still sleeping. 

You turn away from his kitchen window back to your cooking, an oiled frying pan sizzling hot on the stove, eggs browning at the edges as Spencer likes. Two twin mugs of hot coffee steam on the counter next to two plates of crispy bacon and toasted english muffins, deconstructed breakfast sandwiches. You're ninety percent sure he likes breakfast sandwiches. 

It's odd knowing enough about Spencer to fancy yourself in love with him, but being in a relationship that's so new that there are a thousand gaps. You know how he likes his eggs but not his bacon. Does he like melted cheese? Does he drink orange juice this early?

You'll have to ask him. If he's brave enough to ask you to stay the night, you can ask him about breakfast. 

It's getting way too hot in the kitchen. The opened window isn't cutting it. You hook your elbow into the hem of your hoodie and pull it over your head before folding them to set neatly aside. You feel cooler in your vest, if a little exposed. Good thing it's just you and Spence—

A knock rattles the door. "Reid, you home?" 

Well, I brought that on myself, you think with a laugh. You take the eggs off of the heat and wipe your oily fingers clean on a dish towel as you meander to the door. It's too early for running. 

"Hello, Derek," you say, opening the door with a put upon casualness. He blinks at you. He's wearing gym clothes, a sleeveless t-shirt and tight sweatpants. You wolf whistle before he can say hello himself. "Looking good. Early run?" 

"You're kidding," he says. 

"Am I ever? You look great! Did you want to come in– woah!" 

Deft-fingered hands pull you out of the doorway and firmly behind it. Spencer steps into your place, closing the door to a slit. "Hi, Morgan." 

"Reid. You're both kidding." 

"I don't know what you mean." Spencer rakes a hand through his sleep mussed hair. You try to ignore how much you enjoyed him moving you around. 

"Reid, I just saw her!" Morgan laughs more happily than incredulously. You can't see him but you can picture his smile and his slightly slouched posture, his arms crossed over his chest. "Since when do you guys bunk up? You're a jerk, you know that? I'm always telling her to stop bothering you, but now I'm thinking you like being bothered." 

"I never asked you to do that," Spencer says weakly. 

You nudge Spencer aside gently, popping your head back into Morgan's view. "My AC broke, my apartment's a hot hell. Reid let me come over." 

"Oh yeah?" Morgan asks, rolling his eyes. "That why he tried to hide you? What's so secret about broken AC?" 

"He's a genius, he's not perfect. I'm sure he was just trying to protect my decency. I'm not dressed for company." You put a more than friendly hand on Spencer's back, the dip of it like a tempting line under his thin sleep shirt. You want more than anything to dig under his shirt and feel along the curve of it. You'd pictured it this morning, eating eggs and drinking coffee under his arm, your fingertips tracing the short wall of stretch marks he has just above his coccyx.  

Spencer rolls with your lie as well as he's able to, which, having been caught off guard, is not very well at all. "Right. She's not wearing a bra." 

You snort. Morgan laughs and almost turns around to walk away. 

"Did you want breakfast?" Spencer asks weakly. He sounds resigned to his fate. Skewed, he uses the hand furthest away from you to reach behind his back and squeeze your hand in a swift apology. 

"I'll pass, man." Morgan pulls his cap down a touch. "Sounds like you're having breakfast fit for two." 

[rainyzae]

maybe a bombshell!reader where she is OBSESSED with touching and making out with glasses!reid and he is so confused why she is always all over him. i think bc he never went thru that horny teenage phase, or even the "honeymoon" phase of a relationship, he doesnt quite understand why she is acting that way (not that he's complaining)

tysm for requesting ♡ fem, 1k

There's something soft under Spencer's cheek. His lashes brush against it like the wing of a trapped butterfly as he wakes, his fatigue a weight on his tongue. He wonders where he is for a worrying moment, hand stretched out to feel the couch cushions beneath him. 

The sounds of you reach him from down the hall. The crinkling of your coat set up on a hook near the door, the squeak of your shoes on hardwood, and the familiar lilt of your voice as you sigh, speaking to yourself in quiet tones, "Unlucky." 

He rubs his eyes and sits up. "What's unlucky?" he asks, his throat burning. He must've been sleeping open-mouthed, which is perfect. Attractive, he thinks scathingly. He's less annoyed and more disgusted when he feels the dried drool in the corner of his mouth. 

You don't answer him. Spencer forces his tired eyes to work, sitting up on knees on the couch to try and get a look at you. He can't see into the kitchen from here, to his dismay, but he can hear the contents of your fridge door clinking together. 

You turn the corner with a bottle of water in your hands. When you see him waiting for you your smile bumps up a notch, pretty to cataclysmic, world-ending and life-ruining, all manner of awful as you hurry down the hall in your socks to kiss him. 

Why you'd want to is anyone's guess. He can imagine how he looks, curls matted at the back and frizzy at the sides. Spencer can't help cringing as your fingers weave into the hair at the nape of his neck, your lips a soft pressure against his for a few more blissful seconds. 

You pull back concisely. "You fell asleep?" Your hand comes up, your thumb rubbing gently at his nose bridge. With your other hand, you press the bottle of water to his shoulder. "With your glasses on?" 

He nods in defeat. If he didn't look like a mess, if he hadn't face planted into your fancy couch in his rumpled jeans, even if he were at his best, he's still hopeless, because they messed up his contacts again. You're vocally fond of them even if he hates them. 

"I remember the first time I saw you without them," you say, your kind thumb moving to rub a fond quarter circle into his cheek. "You were," —you steal a kiss, your nose pressed to his, pulling back and pushing in between words— "chasing the tail of that movie star." Kiss, kiss. He loses his grip on the water in favour of your arm. "You looked," —your kisses turn melty warm and impossibly softer— "so, so shy." 

You pull away to card his hair back. Not particularly gentle but never cruel, you rake his curls out of his face swiftly. "How come you never get shy with me?" 

"Don't pretend I never did," he says. It's embarrassing but it happened. 

"Fine, you did." You tuck his hair behind his ears. "Not as often as everyone thought you would." 

"You were kidding. Or, I confidently thought you were kidding. I could write it off as a joke, pity–" 

His timidity with you rose and fell and rose again. These days it simmers, waiting for you to surprise him or tease him or do as you're doing now, rounding the couch to push at him until he sits. You ease into his lap, mostly off of him, a knee to his right and a knee between his legs as your arms circle his back. He's quick to hug you rather than have you slip backward out of his arms. 

"I never pitied you," you say, kissing him again, no signs of stopping. "Don't say that. It's not true. I saw you were a catch before anyone else did, that's all." 

Spencer can't argue with you. He's honestly not interested, distracted by your weight and the heat of your lips as they part against his. To go back and tell the Spencer from a year ago that his bombshell of a coworker, the one who flirts with a sticky charmed smile, who sits on the lip of his desk making eyes at him, and who never takes the easy blows, wasn't joking? It would stunt his brain. It might send him into a cardiac episode. 

To tell him that she's in his lap more often than not? 

Spencer's lucky to be alive. He laughs as he thinks it, his stomach stirring while you scratch carefully at his scalp.

"What?" you ask, voice a stretched murmur, close enough to husky to wind him. "Tickles?" 

"No," he says, "nothing, it's nice." 

He's greedy and a total amateur, pulling your face back down to his in hopes of sparking another heavy kiss. You're enticed for a bit, but Spencer knows his laugh is bothering you, so he steals a last rough kiss before dropping his forehead into your cheek. 

You pet his neck softly. "What, Spence?" 

"It's just unreal, sometimes. It's weird." He can't hide, his glasses jabbing into his eye.

When he lifts his head, you breathe out a laugh and take the glasses from his nose. You fold them, set them carefully on the couch beside you, and meet his gaze fondly. Your lashes kiss in the corners with your smile, pretty lips a balmed pout. He can feel the waxy transfer your kisses have left on his own lips and the skin around them. You're enthusiastic. 

"What's weird?" you ask. 

"How much you like me." 

"Have you ever heard of the honeymoon phase?" 

"The romance feeling very intense at the start of a relationship until we're used to one another," he answers. 

"Right. Well, I'm used to you. I intend on honeymooning with you until you die. And you're in your prime, sweetheart, so…" You lean in with your head tilted heavily to the side, pausing with your lips only just touching his. "You'll have to get used to it," you whisper, waiting. 

Spencer kisses upward slowly. You sigh into his mouth, double when he paws at the small of your back and squeezes you close to his chest, thankful you took off his glasses. 

[rainyzae]

God bombshell x reid kills me I want them to just be together so bad but the slow burn is so good

Would you happen to have anything in mind for a situation where spencer starts to see that her feelings are genuine and he can envision actually being with her?

thanks for requesting my love! ♡ fem reader

Your arrival is marked by a bunch of different things. The smell of your perfume, the clack of your shoes. The clinking sound of your two tennis bracelets as you lift your hand, and the scratch of your fingernails in his hair. He shivers at the soft touch, worse as you lean down to talk in his ear. “Morning,” you say cheerily. 

It's a quick ordeal. A swift scratch and you pull away. 

You've done affectionate things like that before. Hugged him when you thought he needed it, kissed his cheek to say thanks. When he was in the hospital after Tobias, you held his hand the entire time. He's always thought you felt sorry for him —you've made it clear that you think the team could be better to him. If it weren't for you, he probably wouldn't believe it himself. 

But something about your scratching rings a bell in his head. 

It's just so… girlfriend-y. 

He lifts his head from his desk to watch you walk to your own. Hotch won't abide you sitting together anymore on account of you letting him chat as much as he likes without chiding, but you're not far enough to escape his attention, either. Spencer's gaze follows your arms as you shrug from your jacket, and your neck as you lean back and let out a sigh. 

He gets up. 

“Did you sleep okay?” he asks worriedly. 

“Slept just fine, honey,” you say, brushing down your blouse. “How about you? Headaches any better?” 

“They're fine.”

You touch your cheek gently. “... What are you looking at me for?”

“Nothing,” he says quickly. When a rare insecurity flashes in your eyes, he adds, “You look really pretty today, that's all.” 

“Oh.” Your lips perk into a big smile, charmed and charming. “Thank you, Spencer. You look handsome, too. Your hair’s growing.” You bring a hand to his face, not hesitant, but waiting permission, and when he lifts his chin a touch you rake your hand through the hair at the side of his head to tuck behind his ears. “What are you thinking? You'll grow it out again, or cut it short?” 

He's probably gonna do whatever he thinks you'll like, and he's smart enough to guess. “Grow it out?” 

Your delight is not subtle. “It's so soft. I love it. I love your curls.” You glance past him to the landing. “Hotch is looking at us. I'm gonna pretend I didn't see him.” 

“L/N.” 

“Or hear him.” 

“Reid,” Hotch tries. 

Spencer turns on the spot, baffled. You're told off often for flirting with him, but everyone jokes that Spencer is the unwitting party. Hotch gives him a reproachful look that seems to say, stop.

And the second bell rings. Not only does your affection go beyond the boundaries of a friendship, and act outside of playful teasing, Hotch sees it as a mutual partnership. As an equal back and forth. 

Well fine. If this is real, and he's apparently going to get in trouble for things now, he has to just– just do it, right? “Did you hear that?” he asks, laying the mock confusion on thick. 

Your laughter is immediate, loud and sudden and beautiful. You grab his arm and hide your head as though that might obscure the sound of your giggling, your perfume like a wave that hits him smack in the chest. He grins down at you, hand flying automatically to your shoulder.

A boyfriend-y touch, he'd say. 

Spencer could be your boyfriend. He could. You press your forehead to his chest to ride out your laughing and he can see the two of you together, not just a silly daydream but the real thing. 

“Don't be mad,” you're saying as you lift your head, your hand spreading over his arm, familiar in its gentleness. “Hotch, come on! I didn't see him at all this weekend, and he looks so nice today. You know he looks nice today, give me a break.” 

Your voice is shaped by your fondness for him, for Hotch, too, and stretched like a sheet of silk. Spencer doesn't think he could want you more. 

“I'm furious,” Hotch says plainly. “I want to see you both in my office. Preferably now.” 

You wait for him to go back into his office before giving Spencer a small, sorry smile. “My bad, handsome. That one's on me. Take you out to lunch to make up for it?” 

“How about I take you out to lunch?” he asks. 

“But you didn't do anything.” 

“Is that true?” he asks, giving you a nudge. “Come on. He's gonna yell at us about last Thursday's paperwork, you know, the Kentucky stuff.” 

Your eyes widen and your lips part, but you recover, sewing your arm through his as you lament, “Noooo, I forgot about that. He's gonna fry us alive.” 

You don't sound particularly upset.