#(He tries his best! He’s not perfect but that’s why I love him! And he’s a good kid okayand that! He’s just a fukin kid! He made mistakes

[eoieopda]

triple-dog dare | lsm

“Bambi.”

The sternness of his tone surprised both of you, so much so that when you snapped to look at him, both of you froze. Your moon-sized eyes were further proof that your childhood nickname still rings true to date, although your being the deer made him the oncoming car in this scenario. 

He didn’t love that analogy.

Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:

“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”

pairing: lee seokmin x reader summary: when you're left off the guest list to seokmin's parent's thirtieth anniversary party, you're content to keep your questions to yourself and stay home. seokmin, on the other hand, is not content. in fact, he pulls the one card he knows will always win. au: childhood best friends to lovers genre: fluff, angst, smut type: one-shot rating: 18+ only. minors do not have my consent to interact. wc: 13k cw: pov switches, complicated sibling dynamics (seokmin’s), there is in fact one (1) bed, halmonis gone wild, stupid childhood nicknames, fingering (v), oral sex (m receiving), multiple orgasms, implied penetrative sex (p in v). reader notes: afab, uses she/her pronouns, wears a dress/heels to the party, is implicitly an only child. the setting is intentionally ambiguous, so she's not implicitly korean and/or asian. there are no descriptions of body shape/size, complexion, etc. a/n: thank you to the incomparable @daechwitatamic for beta-ing this! it's been a long damn time since i've written anything, so this might not have seen the light of day without jo, the hype-man. on that note, i suck at summaries; just read the fic, lmao. svt masterlist. svt permanent taglist. multi permanent taglist.

For being the walking disaster that he is, there have been shockingly few moments in Lee Seokmin’s life where he’s needed to shove his oversized foot into his oversized mouth.

Prior to the incident at your apartment, the last time he’d embarrassed himself like this was when he’d asked his oldest sister, Soyeon, in earnest whether or not she was pregnant, only to learn that she was just bloated; and he’s just an ass.

To your credit, you’re far from cruel when he slips up, but that almost makes it worse. You visibly deflate when he asks his well-intentioned but ill-fated question, rather than letting him have it the way his two siblings would have done.

The day in question went like this:

He asked, “Did you reserve your room yet for the 31st? If not, we can double up. It’ll be a lot cheaper.”

And you blinked, stunned like you’d been slapped. “Have I what?”

It dawned on you both at that moment that, for whatever reason, his parents’ thirtieth anniversary party was in fact news to you. Two things then happened at once: you tried to hide your surprise and the twinge of pain that comes with being excluded; and he racked his stupid brain to find any explanation for why you had to feel either one of those things.

The best option he found was to gently toss his middle sister, Seonmi, under the metaphorical bus. 

“Seonmi’s been working on something special for them. You know how she gets,” he waved dismissively. “So obsessed with finding the perfect napkins — ” He wiggled his fingers for emphasis. “— and creating custom cocktails, that she misses the forest for the trees.”

You didn’t look convinced. Likewise, you didn’t look any less uncomfortable.

Fuck.

“I’m sure it was an honest mistake.” To drive his point home, he reached from his spot on your couch to give your knee a reassuring squeeze. “I have a plus-one, so it’s not like it’ll be a logistical problem. You belong there as much as we do.”

And he meant it, wholeheartedly. 

All his life, the running joke has been that Soonyi and Minseok Lee have four kids: two biological daughters, a younger son, and his otherwise unrelated twin, who spent more time sleeping on his top bunk than in her own home next door. 

The way he saw it — and the way he’s sure his parents would see it — is that no family gathering is complete without you. That’s a hill he’d die on if need be.

You shifted in your seat, which caused his hand to slip off your knee, whether or not you meant for it to happen. Glancing uneasily out your window, you worried your bottom lip between your teeth, mumbling, “I don’t know…”

Seokmin frowned. You didn’t see it, though, and therefore weren’t moved by it. Instead, you cycled through your anxious thoughts at high velocity. If he was still touching you, he’d be worried that your sparking brain might catch him on fire.

“What if it’s not a mistake? I mean, what if it’s a couples thing?” 

He couldn’t even classify these questions as rhetorical because he wasn’t meant to hear them in the first place. Though you asked out loud, each one of them was for your ears only. From his half of the couch — miles away — his frown deepened, unbeknownst to you.

“You know, Seonmi follows me on Instagram; she’d know that Kai and I broke up a few months ago. Maybe she doesn’t want me to feel awkward? Even if I went, and I didn’t feel weird about that, her expecting it to be weird might make it weird, right?”

Fuck.

You’d spiral all day if Seokmin didn’t stop you. As much as he loves how thoughtful you are, he knows better than most that you have a tendency to take it too far, inflicting that relentless consideration on yourself until it wounds. 

“Bambi.”

The sternness of his tone surprised both of you, so much so that when you snapped to look at him, both of you froze. Your moon-sized eyes were further proof that your childhood nickname still rings true to date, although your being the deer made him the oncoming car in this scenario. 

He didn’t love that analogy.

Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:

“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”

Begrudgingly, you’d conceded, just like Seokmin hoped you would. You sat with him while he figured out travel plans to the mountain resort, helped him visualize what the hell he needed to wear to an event like this. When the time came, you sent him half the cost for the room he booked, even though he repeatedly insisted that you didn’t need to chip in.

Now, that unsolicited sum sits untouched in his Venmo balance. You sit next to him on the night train out of town.

Sit, he thinks, is a bit of an understatement. You’re barely upright, so exhausted from your work day that his shoulder and side are bearing most of your weight. His arm went from tingling to numb an hour ago, but Seokmin doesn’t mind. There isn’t a burden he wouldn’t carry for you, up to and including you yourself.

Besides, he’s not worse off for being left to his own devices. In fact, he keeps himself thoroughly entertained by taking selfies of the pair of you. The aftermath will stay securely in his camera roll — largely because you’d kill him if you saw how squishy your face is, pressed against his coat, or how your little pout trembles slightly, almost as if you’re trying to talk through your sleep — but he still finds it worth the risk. This mochi-cheeked version of you is one of his favorites.

When Seokmin has amassed enough silly photos to comprise a dossier, he tucks his phone back into his pocket with a self-satisfied smile. You’re still out cold, so you don’t stir at his subtle movements or the sound of the concession trolley rattling your way down the aisle.

The girl manning said trolley is significantly outweighed by the thing itself. She hardly looks old enough to have graduated high school, he figures, and he can’t imagine how it is that she’s working at this hour — or how she got stuck doing this job, when it takes all she’s got to maneuver the giant metal contraption through all the train cars.

“Anything, sir?” She asks politely, albeit slightly out-of-breath. 

Even though she’s speaking to him, her gaze is directed squarely at his hat, leading him to believe that she may also be too shy for her job. Nonetheless, it’s been two entire hours since his dinner, and he’s on the brink of starving to death, so he coughs up a few bills in exchange for several different snacks. 

She could do him the kindness of assuming his massive pile of food is for sharing, but she doesn’t. She gestures to you and whispers, “Anything for your —?”

Seokmin intercepts the question, knowing exactly where it’s headed: in the same direction as the million others like it that he’s heard over the years. 

“— parole officer?” He supplies with a smile, “No, this nap is fueled by a lot of crab rangoon. She’ll be out for the duration, I fear.”

Both halves of his response seem to stun her, which means he has to cover his inevitable laugh with a fake cough. 

This bit of yours will truly never get old, although the implications that prompt it did a long time ago. It was a stroke of genius on your part, dodging inaccurate references to your relationship status by offering up something too absurd to converse around.

“You two make such a cute couple,” an Uber driver once told you.

“He’s not in a relationship,” you’d politely corrected him. “He’s in witness protection. I’m duty-bound to keep him and his identity safe.”

The silence turns awkward, so Seokmin thanks the girl and gives her a smile he hopes says, “you’re allowed to run away from me now; I won’t take it personally.” She bows her head a little too eagerly, then skitters off with a grimace, like she pulled something in her neck.

Alone again with you, he wiggles gently upright in his seat so that you can rest more comfortably against his pectoral, rather than his shoulder bone. Even though you’re still asleep, Seokmin swears he hears a quiet mmpfh, as if you’re expressing gratitude. He bites his lips to keep from smiling, knowing that smiling in your proximity is one step away from laughter: the only thing you’ve never been able to sleep through.

Instead of giving into the urge, he murmurs, “You should get paid royalties whenever we use that joke. Being as smart as you are should pay off.”

Now, he knows he’s not simply hearing things because you’re just barely loud enough to overcome your own mumbling. 

“Agreed,” you sigh on an exhale before slipping to sleep off again.

“Well?” 

There are two beats between his first question and his next: the unfilled gap you’ve left in the conversation and the cab’s trunk shutting firmly. “‘s that cool with you?”

Seokmin stares at you, staring at him. His expression is soft, like your lack of responsiveness is something to be fond of, rather than annoyed by. It’s unexpectant, too, leaving the door wide open.

You blink. “Sorry — I — What did you say?” 

Hitting him when he least expects it, you shift your suitcase from your dominant hand so you can gesture properly to the bright, poorly crocheted bucket hat flopping over his forehead. “It’s a bit hard to hear you. That hat is so loud.”

His quizzically raised eyebrows drop in an instant. Likewise, that airy smile of his flattens into a straight line. 

Bullseye.

“Is it me that you hate?” He asks, tone dead serious as he points his finger towards his own chest. “Or is it the very concept of whimsy?”

You’re too busy biting back a grin to protest when, without being asked, Seokmin reaches out and takes the handle of your suitcase into his own hand, as well as the garment bag you’d draped over your arm. Before turning away to abscond with both sets of luggage in addition to his own, he shoots you an incredulous look. It dissolves entirely before his face even disappears from view. 

“This is an objectively delightful hat,” he mutters, nonetheless, in furtherance of the bit.

He spots a member of hotel staff standing on the sidewalk directly outside the hotel’s double doors and pleads his case to them. “She made me this hat, you know,” he announces, gesturing back to you with a nod.

The valet’s uniform hat casts a shadow under the lamplight, but it doesn’t do enough to hide the expression on their face. It is abundantly clear — even in the dark — that they didn’t hear a single word Seokmin said before he offered up that bit of trivia, seemingly apropos of nothing. They muster up a customer-service smile that doesn’t reach their eyes and tell him it’s a wonderful hat. Meanwhile, you roll your eyes from behind because nothing either of them just said is true.

That hat is the byproduct of delusions of grandeur and innumerable skeins of color-conflicting yarn. You made it for yourself, believing that you were the kind of cute and kitschy person who could pull it off; and inconsolable weeping Christ, were you wrong. It was — no, is — your greatest fiber arts failure.

Frankenstein’s floral monster would be in a secondhand shop somewhere if you’d had any say in the matter. It isn’t because you didn’t. Seokmin “rescued” it from the “to donate” pile on your bedroom floor. Since then, he’s worn it at every — public — opportunity, season be damned.

Admittedly, he’s exactly the kind of cute and kitschy person who can pull it off, but you’ve decided out of sheer pettiness to keep that appraisal to yourself.

You take your time catching up to him, both because his long legs make it hard to keep pace; and because the room is reserved under his name. After all, he’s the welcomed guest, not the reluctant party-crasher. The receptionist is already handing him a white keycard when you finally reach the desk. Seokmin holds it up between his index and middle fingers, closed-eye grin sparkling in a matching shade of ivory.

Though the journey up to your shared room is long, the real trip is being confined to an elevator with mirrors for walls. 

No matter how hard you try to avert your eyes, you manage to keep finding some new, horrible angle of your stale, post-train state. It’s torture. Three versions of you stare back with deep, dark undereye circles; and all you can think about is how dull your complexion is — especially in comparison to Seokmin, who may as well be bioluminescent with the way he glows from the inside out.

It’s joy, you know, his primary state of being and something he radiates like no other. He’s happy to be here, happy that you’re here, and happy to be happy. Whether or not he means it to be, it’s infectious. Now, you feel yourself starting to smile, too.

Despite your quiet observation, you must have missed him looking at you. Seemingly out of nowhere, he carefully sets down your belongings, raises his now-empty hand, and cups the right side of your jaw. Unaware that you’ve frozen solid, he swipes his thumb carefully over your cheek, tilting his own head to the side and frowning.

“I got you bad, huh?”

You blink.

“The zipper on my coat,” he explains, laughing. “Looks like it took a bite out of you when you used me as a pillow on the train.”

For reasons you can’t possibly explain, the only word to roll off your tongue is a sheepish, “Sorry.”

For a second, Seokmin is just as confused as you are about whether you’re needlessly apologizing to him or his coat. He chuckles quietly at how easily distracted you both are, then he gets back to the point: “Does it hurt?”

“No.” 

Your response comes unnaturally quick. Your pulse does, too, when you finally make eye contact with him. After clearing your throat, you give him a half-hearted smile, ignoring whatever medical event you seem to be experiencing. “I didn’t know it was there until now.”

He hums in acknowledgment, then rescinds his hand. You watch in silence while he re-encumbers himself with your luggage and turns back to face the elevator doors, which open almost immediately.

Seokmin steps out easily, like the weight of your respective burdens doesn’t mean a thing. “I’d say this way, please, but I’ve already forgotten the room number,” he admits with a sheepish laugh. “The keycard’s in my pocket.”

You take his cue and reach into the front, right pocket of his coat for the keycard. As soon as you see the room number, you snort.

“You booked room number 218 because that’s your birthday, and then… what? You forgot your own birthday?” 

“I’m deeply flawed.” He sighs, put-upon. “Now, let’s go, Bambi. It feels like you packed a week’s worth of bricks.”

There’s no time to point out that you never asked him to carry your suitcase or bag for you in the first place. Likewise, there’s no opportunity to ask exactly how many bricks is a week’s worth. He’s on the move again before you can blink, energy evident in each step regardless of how late it is.

Once again, you follow Seokmin’s lead. Despite the signage, which is clearly visible on the wall, he walks confidently in the wrong direction, prompting you to grab him gently by the elbow and steer him the opposite way. His smile doesn’t falter; he plays it off as if he was just testing how closely you’re paying attention. 

It takes several turns down several additional hallways before the pair of you reach your target. When you come to room 218, you tap the keycard against the reader, causing the lock to click open. You turn the handle, push the door open into the room, and step awkwardly out of the way so your personal bellhop can get by.

“This is what I was trying to tell you when you so viciously insulted my favorite accessory.” Seokmin nods his head towards the center of the room. “All of the rooms Seonmi included in the reservation block have a king-sized bed — singular. The rooms outside the block are criminally overpriced for ski season.”

It’s far from the first time you’ve doubled up, so you shrug. “Just like old times, right? Like, when you thought your house was haunted, and you forced your way into the top bunk with me?”

“First of all,” he says as he sets both of your suitcases down and places one hand on his hip, the other pointing at you. “We were six.”

After locking the door behind you, you toe off your shoes, smirking at him from over your shoulder. “What’s your second point?”

“It was haunted —” He insists. Then his stern expression melts into something smug, the way it always does when he’s about to blatantly rewrite history. “— and you asked me to come up there because you were scared.”

A laugh slips out of you automatically, but you selflessly decide to let him have this. Crossing to him, you pat him on the bicep, patronizingly simpering all the while, “You are the brave one.”

Even though you’re both cowards, and he knows it, he pockets this little victory with a pleased hum and a grin.

Turning away from him, you make a beeline for the closet area near the door. There, you shuck off your coat and hang it up, out of the way. While you do, Seokmin passes you both your garment bag and his. From there, the pair of you work in efficient silence: you, pulling your respective formal wear from their bags and smoothing out any wrinkles; him, tucking away your extensive collection of toiletries in the bathroom.

When everything is in its place, you turn back around and notice for the first time how beautiful the room actually is. Though the shades of the floor-to-ceiling windows are almost completely drawn, the snow-covered mountains are at least partially visible through the gap in fabric. If you had the time, you’d spend all day tomorrow sitting on the forest green, velvet chaise directly in front of the window, staring at frosty peaks so massive, they feel close enough to touch.

To your right, an electric fireplace heats the room, while a portrait-framed television hovers on the wall above the mantle, flipping through famous artworks as a screensaver. In between flashes of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms and Klimt’s The Kiss, you catch a glimpse of Seokmin’s smile reflecting on the black screen.

Awestruck, you turn to him and sigh, “Don’t let me get used to this.”

He jerks his thumb to his right, gesturing towards the bathroom. “Don’t judge me if I steal one of the bathrobes. They’re probably more expensive than half the shit in my apartment.”

“I won’t, but they’ll bill you for it when they figure it out,” you warn him. “On that note, do you need to shower or anything before I start my skincare side quest?”

Seokmin shakes his head, causing the crocheted abomination to flop. “All yours. My hair’ll get weird if I don’t deal with it tomorrow before we head out.”

And with that mental image of his insurmountable cowlick, you quickly grab your pajamas and shuffle off towards the bathroom.

The first few seconds after you close the door are spent gawking at the insanely intricate, geometric tile pattern in the walk-in shower. Thinking of how much time it must’ve taken to lay each one of them, you set to work on your own tedious task: your ten-step regimen of cleansers, toners, serums, and moisturizers. Seokmin says otherwise, but you don’t think any of them truly make a difference. As stupid as you know it is, the routine itself is therapeutic, even if your skin is no more bouncy and glowy than it was before.

When it’s all said and done, you emerge from the bathroom to find your best friend stretched out on the half of the bed nearest the door with his eyes fixed on his phone screen. It’s the side of the room he always chooses, claiming that it’s to protect you from any intruders, but you know the truth: he’s too much of a freeze baby to sleep near the window, and he knows you like it cold.

“Feeling refreshed?” He mumbles to the best of his ability; his sweatshirt hood is pulled up and drawn so tightly that it squishes his cheeks and chin, restricting his movement.

Chuckling quietly as you go, you pad over to your half of the bed and slip under the comforter. Like a moth to a flame, the other occupant sends his last text, tosses his phone to the side, and scoots closer to you, eager to siphon whatever extra body heat he can. His head winds up on your shoulder, while your cheek rests against the top of his head.

“Before you tell me that I look it, I’d encourage you to stare long into the abyss that is my under-eye circles.”

When he laughs, it’s merely a puff of air from his nose. “You never look as tired as you feel,” he says distractedly, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Pretty miraculous, given how little sleep you get.”

That comment warms you up so thoroughly, you wonder if he can feel it. Then, you wonder if that was the point. You intend to tease him for that, but then it dawns on you how fidgety he’s being. It’s rare for him.

“You okay, Thumper?”

It feels silly, using that nickname after so long. Your clumsiness stuck around for the ride, continuing Bambi into perpetuity; but he grew out of his companion name when he hit puberty, and his giant feet were suddenly proportional to the rest of him. 

He’s certainly no bunny, nor is he a child, but the low ebb of anxiety rolling off of him reminds you of the scared little neighbor boy you used to know. It fits, even if it is silly.

At first, Seokmin begins his explanation without peeling his gaze off his restless fingers. “Apparently, Seungcheol and Mingyu are in town.”  Then, his eyes slowly lift up to find you peering down at him. “They want to meet up to go snowboarding before we leave.”

Ah.

There it is: the top-secret look in his eye that only you can decipher. The one he’s been practicing for years, at your insistence, for moments like this, when he needs to be talked into something. When he needs to be brave and avoid missing out on something he’d love, solely because it freaks him out.

You respond the same way you always have; the way you once pinky-promised you always would: “I triple-dog dare you.”

He sighs deeply, neither fully resigned nor relieved, but then he nods. His head knocks slightly against your shoulder as he does. “I’ll do it.”

And that’s that; it’s settled.

Or so you think.

A beat passes in silence, until Seokmin suddenly pipes up again, “But you’re going to have to hold my hand on the chair lift, or I’ll pass out and fall to my death.”

“Deal.” 

You grab his hand now in consideration of your promise and scratch affectionately at his palm. Surprisingly, his thoughts haven’t made him clammy. His skin is even softer than usual, likely due to the expensive hotel lotion he’s undoubtedly now harboring in his suitcase. Tongue firmly in cheek, you look at him sideways. 

“Just — leave the hat in your suitcase, okay? The snow will be blinding enough.”

Seokmin’s been dressed and ready for at least thirty minutes, but you’re still standing exactly where you have been for the last forty-five. Face pinched, you turn this way and that in front of the mirror, smoothing fabric that’s already wrinkle-free, apparently for the hell of it.

“I’m oh-for-three.” Your exasperated sigh is punctuated by your bare, right foot stomping on the carpet. It doesn’t make the impact you likely hope it will, at least sonically. It does, however, speak volumes about how close to the ledge you are.

“All of them looked good,” he says earnestly. “I think this one is my favorite, though, if that means anything.”

Apparently, this is the wrong answer. Your wild-eyed gaze lifts from your own reflection until you’re staring him dead in the eye through the mirror.

“Why did I even pack this?” You ask, “Do you see this?”

Suddenly, you lift a manicured hand to point at your neckline, from which he’d admittedly been averting his eyes. “This is too much cleavage for a family function, isn’t it?”

As quickly as you glanced at him in the first place, you go right back to fussing with your dress, thankfully missing the way he swallows thickly.

Fuck, now he’s staring — but you’re the one that made him look in the first place — and he can feel heat rising to ears, a dead giveaway. His sudden silence does enough to communicate his struggle. He has no idea how to respond without vaulting over the boundaries of your friendship.

Is it hot in here?

Deciding to rely on his usual tactic, he jokes his way out.

“If you think I’ll ever side against tiddie…” He forces a grimace, shaking his head gravely. “Then you really don’t know me at all.”

You laugh loudly, and whatever one-sided tension filled the room snaps like a twig. Better still, the smile you give him stays on your face while you reassess your dress. Seokmin takes it as a personal victory that you commit to his choice, rather than cycle back through your options for the second time. 

While this means that you’ll both be able to hit the open bar sooner rather than later, the biggest upside is that he no longer has to keep excusing himself to the bathroom so you can change again, and again, and again.

You finish up quickly, tossing on jewelry, and then turn to him. His shoulder keeps you steady while you slip into your devilishly high heels. Seokmin pays them little mind now, however; his attention is drawn to the accessories you’ve chosen. Sure, they match perfectly with the rest of your outfit, but that’s not what strikes him. It’s the fact that everything you’ve picked was gifted to you by his parents at one point or another.

Unable to stop himself, he reaches out and gently taps on one of your dangling earrings. “Eighteenth birthday,” he muses to himself. 

Then, both his gaze and his hand lower to your necklace. He skims his fingertip along the delicate, gold chain, inadvertently making you freeze up. “Christmas 2019?”

You shake your head slightly, though it barely counts as movement.

“Ah,” Seokmin corrects himself. “2020.”

Sensing that he’s somehow made you uncomfortable, he reels himself back in and clears his throat. “Shall we?” He asks, furnishing you with a bent arm to loop yours through.

You take his cue, link your arm to his, and sigh, “I suppose we shall.”

The walk to the elevator is quiet, in that neither one of you says a thing. Seokmin can hear the gears in your head turning, though, without any conversation to drown them out. 

You step inside that glorified, mirrored box; and for a few minutes, he lets you work through the thing he knows ruined your sleep last night. That is, until he hears your breathing come a little quicker than usual.

“Hey.” 

It was supposed to be a jumping off point. He was going to go from there and reiterate that you belong here with him. The plan was to reassure you for as long as it takes to get you to believe it, but you look up at him almost helplessly, and his Etch-a-Sketch brain is wiped clean in an instant.

The very best he can do is smile and offer a single word: “Hi.”

“Hi,” you whisper back, eyes twinkling. 

Your plagued frown curves slightly back in the right direction. The creeping shroud of doom lightens, if only a little bit.

“That’ll do, pig.” You swat his arm, but he says it again, emphatically, “That’ll do.”

Halfway through you scolding him for quoting Babe at a time like this, the elevator door reopens, ready to regurgitate the pair of you out onto the ballroom level. 

Unlike the lobby, which sits only one floor below, this floor looks like it was ripped straight from the pages of a fantasy novel. Everywhere he turns, there’s something new — and vaguely elven — to look at. Fairy lights hang in perfectly spaced arches from the lofted ceiling, delicately illuminating the exposed, wooden beams above. The chandeliers — plural — are crafted out of antlers of some kind, cutting between rugged and highly refined.

As stunning as it all is, Seokmin’s mind snags on a single conclusion. You’re the one who voices it, though, much to his surprise.

“This is the most Seonmi thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” you whisper to him, all without taking your eyes off the extravagance in front of you. “Is this a dress rehearsal for her wedding next year?”

He bites down on his lips hard to keep his laughter to himself. Of course, you’re dead on. Nothing about this space feels like his parents, who are supposed to be the sole focus of this entire event. He already found it odd that they agreed to such a big to-do in the first place — especially when it would require their loved ones to go out of their way, literally and financially — but this is….

“Am I being petty, or is this kind of… selfish?”

Petty, no. 

Psychic? Probably.

“You’re right, and you should say it.” Seokmin nods and withdraws his arm from yours so that he can drape it properly around your shoulder. “This way to the beer, please. We’ll need it.”

Merely four steps in the direction to the bar, and a screech rings out from somewhere neither of you can locate. In fact, Seokmin’s head is turned the opposite way when someone launches themself at you, damn near ripping you from his hold.

“Oh, my god! I knew you’d come!”

Soyeon’s relief in seeing you is palpable. Seokmin can practically feel his bones being crushed as she hugs you tight, swaying from side to side. He catches a glimpse of your expression, which barely peeks through the curtain of his oldest sister’s hair; you’re far happier now than you were in the elevator.

His sister kisses the side of your head. “I missed you so fucking much. I love my residency program, but I hate how far away it keeps me.”

A solid minute passes by like this. When it starts to get unbearable, Seokmin clears his throat, hoping to remind his sister that she hasn’t seen him in months, either; and he’s also standing right here.

Instead of greeting him, Soyeon shoots you a wry smile. “Who is he today? A fugitive you’re harboring?”

In tandem, the two of you appraise him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. See, this he didn’t miss: being both of his sisters’ least favorite younger sibling.

“Oh, no, though I can see why you think that.” You shake your head, then reach out to pat his shoulder patronizingly. “If anyone asks, this is a foreign diplomat, and I’m the interpreter he can’t understand a word without. Best not say hi to him; he won’t know what you’re saying.”

Soyeon nods, though Seokmin wonders if she truly  gets what you’re trying to achieve. Not quite, he realizes a moment later. Instead, she covers his chin with her hand so she can squeeze both his cheeks at once.

“He’s adorable,” she coos. “Doesn’t look old enough or mature enough for diplomacy, though.”

Seokmin rolls his eyes. “Well, we can’t all be doctors, can we?”

Again, in tandem, all eyes on him widen with feigned shock. Between overlapping gasps of “he does understand!” and “someone’s been studying!”, he shakes off his sister’s touch and scowls.

“If you’re going to keep bullying me, can you at least do it at the bar? That way, I can numb my suffering with booze.”

At this, Soyeon drops the charade and pulls him into a hug like a vice grip. She holds him so tightly that his vision starts to get spotty. It’s not until he gently pats her back, begging for air, that she lets him go.

“I missed you too, Thumper,” she swears, prompting you to snicker.

Now, he’s annoyed for a completely different reason — one that makes even less sense to him. That nickname hasn’t bothered him in the last decade, so it shouldn’t now. Then again, the only person who’s called him Thumper since middle school is you.

The rules are different for you, if they exist at all.

“And I promise to catch up with you later, but I’ve got five thousand questions for Bambi, and the answers aren’t half as juicy with you around.”

Just like that, his plus-one is subtracted.

As much as you love Soyeon, she’s no Seokmin. With him, talking is easy; he never rushes to fill silences, doesn’t steer the conversation with a white-knuckled grip. 

On the contrary, his oldest sister comes forward with a pickaxe, smashing through small talk while she mines for the wild stories she thinks she’s missed out on since moving away.

You don’t blame her, really. If you spent all your hours in a hospital, only sleeping in the lulls between other people’s trauma, you’d probably become just as intense — the human equivalent of a cracked-open fire hydrant — in the search for closeness, too.

In the thirty minutes you sit with her, you brief her on all the cliffhangers you’d left her with the last time you saw her.

Yes, you’re still stuck with your lease in the same apartment; and the old lady next door still regularly sets off the building’s fire alarm by accident.

No, you decided not to stay with Kai and haven’t spoken since the breakup; he needed more of your time and energy than you wanted to sacrifice for him.

No, Seokmin still hasn’t gone out with anyone that you know of in months. In fact, it’s been so long since either of you have touched on this topic, especially compared to how little time he and the last girl were together, that you can’t even remember her name. 

Beyond that first, limited fact, you keep your mouth shut about the rest. It’s not your business to share; and it wouldn’t kill her to ask Seokmin about himself for once.

The longer you spend with her, the more frustrated you find yourself getting, although you keep this fact to yourself, too. Soyeon and Seonmi have both spent their lives fussing about Seokmin, talking about him like he’s some helpless baby, without doing much to get to know him.

That’s it.

If you were at all confident that Soyeon would take the initiative, you’d let her find all of this out on her own. She won’t, you know, but maybe it’ll sink in if she hears it from you.

“Seokmin’s doing really well, now that you mention it,” you offer, though she barely mentioned him in the first place. “He got promoted last month; he’s now lead architect on that massive commercial lot downtown. Apparently, it’s still a secret, whatever it is they’re putting there. Must be something special.”

Seokmin is something special, you all but yell inside your head.

Soyeon’s eyes brighten. 

Nobody loves secrets quite like she does. You wait for the barrage, anticipating all the questions to which you’ll have to respond with “seriously, I don’t know,” but they don’t come.

Instead, she puts her drink back on its coaster, reaches out, and squeezes your wrist with her slightly chilled hand. “I’m grateful that he’s always had you, Bambi. If he didn’t, I don’t know if he’d lean in to opportunities like that.”

The look on her face tells you she means it. Maybe that’s what makes your stomach sour: that she can sit there, hearing of Seokmin’s accomplishments, and still find a way not to credit him for them.

Anger ignites inside of you. The flames lick up your esophagus, ready to explode, and you suck in a breath with every intention of letting her burn.

But then an arm slinks around your waist. Seokmin’s head bumps slightly against yours until you’re cheek to cheek.

“I hope I’m interrupting something.”

For a second, you think his slight tipsiness caused him to misspeak. Tilting your head to the side the best you can, you look at him out of the corner of your eye and catch his very subtle wink.

Soyeon opens her mouth, but Seokmin makes his wish a reality.

“Sorry, sis,” Seokmin says, entirely unapologetically. “I just found out that the band takes requests; and I’ll be goddamned if Bambi and I don’t show you clowns the meaning of dance.”

It takes no encouragement whatsoever for you to slip off your stool, get to your feet, and inch your way closer to his side. Then, like a starting gun was fired, the two of you bolt clumsily away from the bar, with you shouting “sorry!” over your shoulder as you go.

Your heels skid against the dance floor when you finally reach it, but Seokmin steadies you before you can eat shit in front of god and everyone.

“You’re way too expressive, you know that?” The fact that he’s out-of-breath doesn’t keep him from laughing. “I could’ve seen that grumpy turtle face of yours from space.”

Unintentionally, you prove his point, drawing your eyebrows together and frowning. “I do not —”

“— Also, I lied,” he interrupts yet again.

This, coupled with the everything else going on, leaves you too stunned to speak.

“This band is all trot, all the time. They don’t take requests — trust me, I tried — but if you stay here with me long enough, we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Seokmin doesn’t wait for you to answer because he knows it’s a yes. He doesn’t wait for you to assume your position, either, and instead holds your left hand in his right before placing your right on his left shoulder. This close, you feel the urge to tell him how handsome he looks with his hair parted off his forehead. You don’t, however.

The music swells behind you. Seokmin leads, and you follow, swaying slowly and moving across the floor.

“Two birds?” You remember to ask, one eyebrow arched.

His right arm lifts. “Spin,” he whispers. You step under his arm, then twirl. While you’re facing the opposite direction, he continues, “There. Do you see it?”

“Oh, my god.”

You do.

The bar stool you were just occupying is now filled by Seokmin’s great-uncle, Hajoon, while his new and much younger girlfriend, Yunhee, hovers near his shoulder. Even from this distance, you can see the look of abject distress on Soyeon’s face, totally unhidden by her attempt to seem engaged.

You return to your position in front of Seokmin, your hand accidentally landing on his bicep, rather than his shoulder. Flustered by the deceptive bulk there, you immediately scoot your palm back to where it belongs.

He leans in so that only you can hear him. It doesn’t feel necessary at all, given how loud the band’s horn section is, but you don’t recoil this time. 

“They had me trapped over by the appetizers,” he explains, low voice making you shiver involuntarily. “Every time he started a story with when I was your age, I wanted to point out that Yunhee hadn’t been born yet.”

You can’t help the laugh that erupts out of you and therefore can’t pull your head away from Seokmin’s ear in time to save him. Instead of wincing or complaining, he looks at you and breaks into laughter of his own as soon as your eyes meet. The effect doubles, and before you know it, both of you are teary-eyed.

“How the hell did you get away from him?”

It’s a feat you've never once managed. Uncle Hajoon’s inability to read a room is equal parts due to his horrible hearing and his tendency to never stop talking. Even if he did leave space in the conversation for you to excuse yourself, you’d never successfully get the message across.

Seokmin lifts his arm again but not for you. He takes his leave to spin himself, simpering as he goes, “That’s where Yunhee came in handy, actually. I didn’t know she had it in her, but she’s not as much of a dud as we initially thought.”

“Oh?”

“She told him that I should be able to dance with my girlfriend, and he shouldn’t keep me any longer.” He shrugs. “It didn’t seem like the time to correct her.”

All the heat in your body goes straight to your cheeks. Nonetheless, you attribute it to the dancing and choke out, “No royalties for me, then.”

“Not this time.” Seokmin shakes his head. “I said that Soyeon was trying to catch up with everyone and would love to hear his stories.”

You bite back a grin. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

“Maybe.” He smiles with every single one of his teeth. “But you’re free.”

“Surprisingly so. I haven’t felt the Eye of Sauron on me at all yet.” Just in case your statement serves as a jinx, you glance around the room for Seonmi. The tension you’ve been keeping in each one of your muscles slackens when, once again, your radar is blip-free.

“Dinner was supposed to start ten minutes ago. If I had to guess, she’s either leaving a scathing Yelp review or personally waterboarding the chef as we speak.”

“Both at the same time,” you counter, earning a wry smile. “She inherited your mom’s self-assuredness. If she believes she can, she will.”

After the pair of you dance through two more songs, the band breaks, and the hotel’s battalion of waiters come in, bearing domed, silver trays. Seokmin takes off in a hurry for your assigned table in the far corner of the ballroom, so famished that he barely remembers to tug you along behind him.

Through the meal and all its complimentary wine pairings, you do your best to focus on the conversation. Seokmin introduced you to the few people sitting with you that you haven’t had the occasion to meet yet. While he does what comes naturally to him, charming them with ease, you struggle for the first time to pay attention to him.

A few tables over, Seonmi sits down with her fiancé, joining the company of her parents; Soyeon and her date are there, too, leaving Seokmin out by design. Like an insane person, you can only watch her, rather than Seokmin’s blatant theft of bites from your plate. She laughs at whatever jokes her mother cracks, but you’d recognize that look of veiled angst anywhere. She isn’t happy, you realize. You can’t avoid the feeling that you’re the reason why she isn’t.

Time passes, somehow too quickly and too slowly. The plates are emptied, then cleared away by the wait staff — except for your half-empty glass, which is your third. Much like the other guests at your table, the joyful buzz you’d been feeling so far leaves, too.

All that’s left is you, Seokmin, and that ominous, storm cloud you can’t seem to shake.

“You’ll probably feel better if you talk to her.”

He’s always more observant than you give him credit for. You snap out of your zoned-out stare across the room in order to look at him. You frown. “I doubt it. She already looks pissed. Me parading my presence here despite her isn’t going to help anything.”

“Bambi,” Seokmin sighs, not impatient but gentle. “She’s not exactly warm, but she has always liked you. There’s literally no reason why she wouldn’t be happy to see you —”

You open your mouth to argue.

“— that happened over twenty years ago, and you really need to stop feeling guilty about it —”

You close your mouth, cross your arms self-consciously, and sink in your seat. Despite yourself, you glance over at him and catch the way he’s looking at you. He doesn’t need to say the words out loud for you to hear them.

It’s either the unspoken dare, his reassuring, soft-eyed smile, or all the blasted merlot that does you in. You’re not sure which of the three was the coup de grâce, and as you slink off towards her table, you realize it doesn’t matter. For one reason or another, you’ve decided that fear isn’t going to get the better of you this time.

Seonmi somehow senses you coming. Even without the band underscoring your movement, your timid steps across the mahogany parquet should’ve been impossible for anyone to pick up on. 

Must be an older sister thing, you think, being doomed to keep a perpetual eye on others. 

She doesn’t say anything when you slip into the chair next to her, which doesn’t bode well but isn’t a deal breaker, in and of itself. The important thing is that she doesn’t get up to leave. You tell yourself that this is a good sign. The knot in your stomach begs to differ, however.

Say something.

Say anything.

“Everything’s… lovely, Seonmi, seriously.” You gesture around you, smiling, but she only gives you a cursory look. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this one.”

Seonmi takes a sip of her cocktail — something bitter, the petty voice in your head assumes — and lets the corner of her mouth rise slightly. If it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a smile, you’ll take it. She hasn’t granted you a proper one in the decades since you got gum in her favorite Barbie’s hair.

“Thanks, kid,” she sighs, setting the drink back down on her personalized, cardboard coaster.

You can’t remember the last time she called you “Bambi”, let alone your real name. Just like Seokmin, you’ve always been a child to her. Apparently, you always will be, no matter what you do.

Her grip around the glass remains rigid, not unlike her overall posture. Condensation weeps under and around her manicured fingers, uninhibited. You watch those droplets soak through the coaster’s design, darkening her parents’ initials and wedding date, while you mull over whose turn it is to talk.

Ultimately, as is usually the case, Seonmi makes this decision for you. Without so much as a glance at you out of the corner of her eye, she muses, “It was a lot of work, getting all the details ironed out.”

You pick up on the subtext immediately. One of those details would’ve been the guest list; another, the invitations. Seokmin assumed it was all an accident and said as much to you no fewer than a hundred times, but this little comment from his sister blows his assurances to smithereens. 

Your exclusion wasn’t an accident at all.

Suddenly, somehow, the room is twenty degrees colder. You shoot a panicked glance over to where Seokmin was just sitting, wanting nothing more than to slink back to his warmth with your tail between your legs; but he’s not where you left him. In fact, he’s nowhere to be found.

Fuck.

“Ah,” is the best you can do.

And then the two of you sit awkwardly in silence while the seconds age in dog years.

You should’ve brought a drink over with you so you’d have something to do with your hands. Or your phone — except you left it on its charger, you idiot — or a time machine, so you can revoke your bullshit decision to walk over here in the first —

“He deserves that, don’t you think?”

The combined suddenness of her voice and the switch in topics makes you jolt ever so slightly. You try to pass it off, to pretend that you’re simply adjusting the skirt of your dress, but your efforts go unnoticed. Seonmi is too busy pointing casually ahead, drawing your focus to the center of the dance floor.

Like absolutely no one else is watching, Mr. Lee twirls around his laughing wife, his heart-shaped smile beaming so brightly that it almost hurts your eyes. The love of his life has to hold one of her hands over her mouth to keep her laughter from bursting out; the other hand is raised with the rest of that arm, allowing her husband to spin himself underneath. When he’s halfway through, she surprises him, drops her arm down, and embraces him fully, giggling all the while.

It almost makes you tear up — Mr. Lee’s unabashed, silly love, and how much it reminds you of his spitting-image of a son; the way Seokmin’s mother’s eyes sparkle in the same blissful, radiant way his do. Maybe the same can’t be said for his older sisters, but it’s abundantly clear where Seokmin came from. It’s even clearer where he should end up.

“Yes,” you breathe, and it almost sounds like a laugh because of course, he does. Before you can stop yourself, you ask, “Is that really a question?”

No, you realize too late, it’s bait.

Without batting an eye, she counters, “Is it really so hard for you to let him have that?”

Seonmi turns her head to look you dead in the eye. Confusingly, despite her words, there’s nothing in her tone or gaze that reads like malice. If anything, the slight furrow of her brow shouts concern.

Your mind is spinning too fast to keep up with. Whatever her next move is, you’re too dizzy now to see it coming and too disoriented to follow it. With the knot in your stomach tightening further, you stammer, “Is — what?”

“God,” Seonmi drops her face into her hands. “You don’t get it, do you?”

A fish on dry land, all you seem to know how to do is open and close your mouth. You may not be literally flailing, but with the state your mind is in, you may as well start.

“Seokmin loves love.” 

She says each of these words slowly, like she’s trying to hammer each nail through a thick skull. 

“It’s the one thing he’s wanted most since he was a kid, yet I can count on one hand the number of short-term relationships he’s been in. He doesn’t ever bring anyone home to meet us; he doesn’t bring anyone to weddings, or parties, or holidays; he just brings you.”

Of course, you’ve been right there through all of his situationships. He’s always scant on details when they end — and you’ve never pressed for any — but you know better than anyone that nothing has stuck long-term. 

You’ve never thought about how odd this really is, but with Seonmi spelling it out for you now, you can’t come up with a single, good reason why someone as objectively incredible as Seokmin can’t make these things work — or why, even as you rack your brain, the only constant you can find in his life is you.

She glares now, as if she’s daring you to speak; as if you’ve got anything she’d deem worth adding. The bulldozer revs up again, whether you’re ready or not: “You’ve always been the only person he saves space for, whether or not there’s a place for you, and he has no room left in his life for someone to love him like that —” 

Seonmi points again to her parents, who are circling slowly on the dance floor, talking softly to one another. 

“So, what is it? Do you truly not see what he’s missing, or are you choosing not to because you like his attention?”

Your eyes burn with tears, but you can’t let them fall, and you can’t wrap your head around why that is. 

Who are you hiding them from: Seonmi or yourself?

The longer she stares at you, the muddier it gets. You don’t want her to be right. You don’t want to be the kind of person she’s describing; but there’s something awful whispering in the back of your mind, saying that you might be. 

You’ve left every relationship you’ve been in, telling everyone who asks in the aftermath that you like being on your own better. But that’s bullshit. It’s not your own company that you keep when you’re single; it Seokmin’s. 

He makes sure that you never spend a day feeling alone, that he’s always available over the phone in the rare times he’s not physically with you. As his best friend, he treats you better than every single one of your exes ever has. Like you’re worth more than anyone else will credit you.

What kind of friend are you if you feel relieved whenever his relationships expire?

Seonmi’s hand drops, landing half-heartedly clenched on the tabletop. Just the same, her voice drops until it’s almost a whisper. 

“I am begging you,” she pleads, eyes narrowing desperately as they search yours. “If you don’t want him, someone else will. Please just —  get the hell out of their way.”

By the time you reach the elevator, all you’re left with is a blur. You’ve already forgotten how the conversation ended, or which one of you was the first to get up. If she said anything else to you, it was drowned out by your own hammering pulse and a looping chorus of voices validating your biggest fear, stating in no uncertain terms that you don’t belong.

You’re shaking when you reach your floor. Heels clicking under unsteady footsteps, you make for room 218; and as you go, you shove your hand into the well-concealed pocket of your dress for the keycard Seokmin forgot to grab himself on the way out earlier.

He’s certainly not in the room when you finally step inside, although you have no clue where he’s gone. It’s for the best. The door closes behind you, and with no one to see it happen, you burst into tears.

All rational thought flies out the window, shaken off by the tornado of utter confusion tearing through your brain. You grab your suitcase, needing nothing more than to be anywhere else, and begin haphazardly throwing your things back inside of it.

Why did you still come with him, knowing it wouldn’t end well? It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve told him no; he would’ve listened if you truly meant it.

If you didn’t mean it when you initially tried to squirrel your way out of this, why not? Was it just your friend asking sincerely that won you over without a fight; or was it because you knew, deep down, it’d hurt to see him bring someone else?

Why would it hurt?

The answer to that will crack the foundation of everything the two of you have built, but only if you admit it to yourself. It can’t threaten you if you don’t say it out loud, don’t make it real.

So, you won’t. 

You’ll bury it deeply enough to forget about, repour the concrete, and tiptoe through the rest of your life with your best friend still at your side.

That is, if your friendship survives the weekend — rather, your sudden departure from it — at all.

“Halmoni, it’s time to go back to your hotel, okay?” 

He coos this, as if he’s pleading with a toddler at bedtime, because that’s exactly what it feels like to wrangle the drunk, 80-year-old clinging to his arm.

Physically, she needs to hold onto Seokmin to keep herself steady. Mentally, she’s ready to run and has made several attempts to do just that when she thinks his guard is down. It’s no wonder the hotel staff cornered him and begged him for help; she’s too wily for those who don’t know her.

The manager had at least done him the courtesy of hailing a cab. It sits out front, warm and waiting, while he shepherds his grandmother through the lobby.

“— and another thing!” She slurs.

There is never not another thing. She shouldn’t bother concluding her sentences in the first place; she’s never done talking.

“I told your sister — I said, Sunny —”

Seonmi, he dares to presume, although he doesn’t dare to correct her.

“— you can’t have stuff like this —” She gestures animatedly, albeit vaguely around her. “— in places like this and expect retirees to pay for it! I said — oh, what did I say? — Ah, I said, ‘find me the cheapest motel in the area, or I’ll be staying in your room with you’ —”

Her kitten heels hit the brick outside with an angry thwump.

Seokmin can’t help himself. “She didn’t go for that?”

“No!” His grandmother squawks. 

The driver sees the ball of a woman wobbling his way and quickly exits the cab, skirts around it, and flings the back door open for her. 

“I can’t imagine why, halmoni,” he lies through his teeth, which shine down on her in his best, least sincere smile. “You’re a blast in a glass.”

She roars with laughter, even while two grown adults work together to pour her into the backseat without bumping her head on the doorframe. “Glast in a blass!”

“Exactly. Can you —?”

He gives up before he finishes voicing his request; it’s no use. Instead, he bends down to hug her and finagles the buckle of her seatbelt while she’s too distracted to fight him off. That click is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, after the clunk of the door shutting her in.

By the time Seokmin turns to the cab driver, his grandmother is fully slumped in her seat, pilled peacoat rising and falling with every wine-laced breath.

“I am so sorry.” He sighs, which devolves into a sheepish laugh, and fishes all of the cash out of his pocket. No tip could possibly cover the emotional toll of this ordeal, so he does his best and gives the driver everything he has.

The driver’s eyes widen. Seokmin gets the impression that he doesn’t quite understand the task he’s undertaking. 

Poor bastard.

Seokmin continues, “My grandfather is at the inn already; he didn’t feel well enough to come here, but he’ll be ready to get her inside once you drop her off.”

“Sounds easy enough.” The driver smiles and holds out his hand to shake. 

Seokmin reciprocates, and he declines to explain just how wrong that assessment is. He thanks the man and chirps a quick goodbye to his grandmother before rushing back inside.

Walking into the ballroom, he hopes to find you and Seonmi laughing about whatever misunderstanding had gotten in your way before. At the very least, he expects you to still be sitting next to each other at the same table. That would be good enough, he thinks; he could assist in repairing the situation from there.

The problem, it seems, is beyond his help. Neither one of you occupies the same table. If his quick scan tells him anything, you’re not even in the same room.

No matter which way he turns, he can’t spot you. His sister, on the other hand, is near the far corner, having what looks like a nightmarish conversation with their parents. There are approximately five billion things Seokmin would rather do than get in the middle of that, but you don’t have your phone on you, and he has no other way to find out where you went.

Above the heads of the two women, Seokmin’s father catches sight of his approach. They lock eyes; there’s something insane in his father’s gaze. The older man shakes his head, mouthing “no.”

Seokmin stops short, raises his hands with the palms up to get across his confusion, and mouths back, “Bambi?”

In response, his father extends a single finger and points upwards. He then makes a shooing motion with his hand. His wife and daughter are so engrossed in their argument that neither of them catches the pantomime or Seokmin’s quick exit, back the way he came.

On the elevator ride upstairs, Seokmin worries. The most likely explanation is that you went to find your phone so that you could find him – but you haven’t texted or called him in the time he’s been looking for you, so he supposes it isn’t likely after all. 

Maybe, he thinks, the wine caught up to you. You’re not as strong a drinker as you think you are. While he walks down the hallway to room 218, he steels himself. Even though you both hate it, he’s ready to hold your hair if he walks in and finds you with your head in the toilet. That dress looks too good on you not to be expensive; he’d rather talk you out of your embarrassment tomorrow than have you shell out for dry-cleaning.

You didn’t deadbolt the door behind you, which strikes him as odd. In fact, you didn’t even close it properly; it isn’t latched. All he has to do is tap on it for the door to open.

“Bambi?” He calls out before stepping inside entirely, thinking it’s only decent to confirm in advance that he’s not an intruder. “Sorry for disappearing. I had to pour my grandmother into a cab – it was exactly as awful as it sounds.”

The faint rustling sound he hears isn’t coming from the bathroom, which is both dark and unoccupied. Part of him wants to take this as a good sign, but the rest of him wonders if he’s walking in on a burglary. That flicker of fear is followed by a stupid sense of validation: 

You always laugh at him when he cites this as his reason for choosing the bed closest to the door; you claim it’s statistically unlikely. Finally being able to say “I told you so” after a robbery wouldn’t make either of your belongings magically reappear, of course. That said, it might make him feel a little better.

But the figure rooting through your suitcase isn’t a bandit at all. It’s you with your coat on.

“Um,” he starts, unintentionally startling you. “What is….” 

His question peters out when you look up at him. There are broken mascara tracks down your cheeks, as if you tried to wipe them off without actually looking at them. Above them, your wide eyes are wet, like you’re seconds away from crying all over again. Even worse, you’re trembling.

Seokmin’s only instinct is to reach for you. Before he can wrap his arms around you, you jerk away from him. “Please don’t.”

So, he stops, though he doesn’t understand why. This is quite literally the only time in your life that you’ve pushed him away.

“What’s going on?” Ideally, he’d project calm at a time like this. He just sounds desperate. “What happened with Seonmi?”

“She — um, she didn’t — It wasn’t that bad; I’m just… You know how sensitive I get when I drink wine.”

Like a switch flips, a half-hearted smile takes over the bottom half of your face. It’s not real; if it was, your eyes would light up and crinkle at the corners. Whatever that look is, it’s bullshit.

Seokmin gestures to your suitcase, where everything you brought with you has been unceremoniously shoved. “Sensitive enough to, what, run away? No. I’m not buying it. She said something — or did something — to make you this upset. Bambi, what happened?”

His urgency is selfish, he knows it. Seonmi’s always been way too intuitive for her own good. There’s no way she hasn’t noticed the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking; how god-awful he is at acting platonic.

He tries — has been trying, for a long time now — to shake these feelings off because he knows you’re not emotionally available. Because he knows who he’s supposed to be for you, and how devastating it would be if he threw your friendship away.

That devastation is right in front of him now; and it’ll  push you out of his life forever if he doesn’t shut it down. He has to get in front of it.

You strike first, though. “Seokmin, why didn’t you bring anyone else?”

There are two ways for him to interpret that question: with the emphasis on anyone, meaning not you; or as an escape route. For your sake, he chooses the latter.

“She gave me a plus-one, not a plus-two,” he says softly.

Despite his tone, it must hit you like a punch. You nod curtly, once. “Got it. Basic math. Thanks, Seokmin; that was never my strongest subject.”

Foot, meet mouth.

You immediately set back to work, reaching for the lid of your suitcase to close and zip. Before he thinks once, let alone twice, his hand darts out and flattens against the mesh inner pocket on the top, preventing you from doing so.

“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “Not happening.”

You don’t scowl at him the way he expects, nor do you even stop to look at him. It’s far worse than that; your eyes start swimming, focused helplessly on your suitcase. 

When you speak, your voice cracks. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place. I knew that this invitation shit wasn’t an accident; I knew I wasn’t welcome to —”

“— You came anyway.” Seokmin doesn’t mean to snap at you, but the point is moot. Softening at the edges, he quickly continues, “And I’m glad that you did because I don’t want to be here with ‘anyone else’.”

It’s not the whole truth, so it may as well be a lie. You know him too well for him to get away with it; it was stupid of him to try. Your head turns, and the slight narrow of your eyes says it all.

I triple-dog dare you to tell me the truth.

This fork in the road has two dead ends. His only options are to do just that or double down and lie straight to your face, while you see straight through him. Either option pulls the pin, he figures, so it’s no longer a question of who gets hurt; it’s who gets hurt worse.

Seokmin jumps on the grenade.

“I don’t want to be with anyone else!”

It comes out too loudly, startling you. In a way, it’s angry, too. He wishes could project that anger onto Seonmi for starting shit, as usual, but the person he’s maddest at is himself for putting you both in this position.

For the first time ever, he can’t decipher the expression on your face. He’d shove his foot into his mouth to try and keep himself quiet, but his adrenaline is firing on all cylinders, and he can’t seem to stop shouting.

“And I’m really fucking sorry to say it because I know you don’t want to hear it, not from me or anyone else. So, you can leave, alright? I’m not going to stop you.”

The force of the surprise almost knocks the air out of him, so quick that Seokmin can’t process what’s happening until his back is flush to the wall behind him — until your hands, flat against his white button-up, curl to grip the fabric, and you kiss him so hard that he sees stars.

You’re surprised too, it seems. When you pull away, chest heaving, you freeze in the same way he does. Eyes searching the other’s, unsure of what to do now that twenty-plus years’ worth of boundaries have been blown to bits.

You whisper, “Are you still sorry?”

Of the five million feelings swelling inside of him — fear, kind of; joy, yes; fucked up by your blown-out pupils, definitely — regret isn’t one of them.

Actually…

He cups your face in his hands like water from a spring, drinks down the sight of you in this new and perfect light. “I’m only sorry that it took me this long to tell you,” he confesses before kissing you back twice as hard.

You’d ask Seokmin to pinch you and prove to you that you’re not dreaming, but the fear you feel at the thought of waking up is too overwhelming. 

Even if it wasn’t, he can’t help you, can he? 

His hands are far too busy.

Your pretty dress is long gone now, having been shucked off and tossed somewhere out of sight. In its place, it’s Seokmin’s body that now drapes over yours, warm in touch and tone, like molten gold. 

His middle and marriage fingers curl inside you, working you up again; and all you can do is cling desperately to his hair, whimper, and wait for the fall.

“I take back what I said earlier,” he murmurs between nips and kisses at your neck.

You can’t ask him to elaborate. You’re too close to careening over the edge for the second time tonight; too busy babbling fucking nonsense.

His simper against your throat reverberates all the way down, lights up your every nerve in tandem like a switchboard. “Only an idiot would tell you to be less expressive.”

The pad of his thumb swirls over your clit; its movement synchronizes with his middle finger inside of you, targeting your weak spot. He presses down on that spongy patch of nerves, and your hips buck involuntarily, a hallmark of your body begging for you while your words fail.

“You were right, though.” 

You summon all your concentration. “I’m always right,” you counter. Seokmin pulls his mouth away from the underside of your jaw just to look at you pointedly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

He picks up the pace of his ministrations, pulling no punches. You’re teetering on the ledge with no real ability to lift your own neck; your head crashes back against the pillow as you wail, clenching and gushing around his fingers.

“I do know how sensitive you get,” he snickers before slipping his fingers from you and sweeping down to kiss you sweetly.

The ringing in your ears has barely subsided, but you’ve decided not to take anymore of his teasing laying down. Slipping your fingers from his hair, you move your hands to his shoulders; and with whatever muscle control you still maintain, you flip him off of you, onto his back.

“How long —” 

You climb over his lap and straddle him, placing your palms flat against his chest. It’s as much a show of dominance as it is a carefully disguised trick for balance. 

“— have you been waiting to say that?”

Caught red handed, Seokmin shoots you that trademark, heart-shaped smile. His cheeks were already flushed from the effort he just expended on you; that perfect pink only deepens when he blushes and laughs, “What, you think I can’t come up with killer lines in the heat of the moment?”

You scratch your nails gently down the lines of his abdominal muscles. “Nope,” you purr.

Sitting up on his elbows, Seokmin tilts his head to the side and narrows his dark eyes at you. You’re nowhere near used to seeing him look at you like this, like you’re something to be devoured. The feeling of being wanted so badly makes your stomach flip.

“Give me some credit, won’t you?” He asks, voice low. “You’re a knockout; you’re naked in front of me for the first time; and it’s a miracle I can talk at all when I feel this concussed.”

When you lean in, he licks his lips expectantly. You’re close enough to kiss him, of course, but you stop a few millimeters shy of your mark and watch him fight the urge to pout. His eyes search yours, almost pleadingly.

“Is that why you’re still not naked?”

Seokmin’s next move is to reach for the black briefs he’s still got on, but you stop him, encircling each of his wrists with your hands.

“Ah, ah, ah,” you tut with a patronizing shake of your head. “You’re fired. I’m in control now.”

If the little sigh he lets out is any indication, he is very much on board with your self-promotion.

He takes your cue and reels himself in, allowing you to move further down his body, your fingertips hooking under his elastic waistband and tugging as you go. When his length finally springs free, you duck your head to take him into your mouth, beyond eager to feel his weight on your tongue.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, eyelids fluttering, while you swirl your tongue around his head. “Feels s-so —”

The rest of his sentence gets stuck in his throat; you take what you can of him down your own throat, working whatever remains with your hand. 

Seokmin wants so badly to watch, you know he does, but he’s sensitive, too. His head tips back, eyes closed and mouth hanging open.

It’s messy, the spit dribbling down your chin and the sound brought forth by the suction of your mouth around him. The obscenity of it all spurs you on. Nothing inspires you quite like Seokmin’s breathy whines and low moans, though. Above all else, it’s his reaction to you that slicks the inside of your thighs.

You’d give him the ending he deserves, right down the back of your throat, but you feel his fingertips graze your shoulder, beckoning you to look up at him.

Voice rough, he pleads, “Come here.”

With his steadying hands on you, you move back into your original position with your bent knees on either side of him. You immediately spot the indent his teeth have left on his lower lip, which is now slightly swollen. Delicately, you brush your thumb over the mark. “Oh, you’re a goner.”

Seokmin looks at you pointedly. Though you tease, you’re even worse off: drunk on the taste of him, as much as the sight of him underneath you, wanting you just as badly.

“Alright, alright,” you concede. “I am, too.” 

The hand you use to wave dismissively at him then reaches down between your thighs, fingers wrapping around his cock and lining it up with your entrance.

“But I’m taking you down with me.”

And you do.

So thoroughly that you barely recall him staggering off to the bathroom when all is said and done, the wash cloth he returns with to clean you up, or the way you slump into his waiting arms before promptly falling asleep.

You sleep so soundly, in fact, that you don’t stir when the sun blares through the open curtains. Likewise, when Seokmin carefully maneuvers himself out of the tangle of your limbs and places your head on a real pillow instead, you’re none the wiser.

What finally gets to you is the clatter of the expensive, hotel-issued shampoo clattering against the floor of the shower, echoing off the tile like a sonic boom. You sit bolt upright in bed, staring bleary-eyed in the direction of the bathroom. 

As if on cue, Seokmin pokes his head out of the doorway to see if you managed to sleep through the noise. Damp hair splays over his forehead, hanging just as loosely as his lazily-knotted bathrobe. If you weren’t still too sleepy to function, you’d love nothing more than to grab him by that tie and drag him back to bed.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Bambi,” he coos, though his mouth is full of both toothpaste and a toothbrush in a distinctly greener shade of blue than usual.

You merely point at his mouth with a half-powered look of distress, otherwise unable to put your suspicion into words. He doesn’t get it; he glances down at his chest, looking for what he assumes is a stray glob of paste.

When you finally do speak, it’s a prayer: “Please tell me that’s not mine.”

Seokmin blinks at you, then down his nose at the toothbrush he’s using. He cocks his head to the side, opens his mouth to assure you it isn’t, and finally, when the realization makes his eyes widen, he groans.

You wail, “Noooooo!”

Memories of your last trip together clash before your mind — specifically, attempting to navigate a drug store in a foreign language while you shopped for the replacement toothbrush Seokmin is currently holding.

Ears bright red with embarrassment, he ducks back into the bathroom. Immediately, you hear a rush of water from the tap, which nearly drowns out his feeble cry of “I’m sorry!”

“I know it’s an honest mistake, but how do you make it twice?” 

You collapse back onto the pillows and bury your face in your palms; and you stay that way, even when you hear him padding softly over to you. The mattress shifts under his weight as he makes his way, one knee at a time, until you feel him looming over you. His hands reach out and gently pull yours from your face.

Before you can get any ideas, Seokmin flattens himself on top of you; a weighted blanket, smelling like vanilla and spearmint. He folds his arms across your chest and props his chin up on the top of his right wrist, bright eyes sparkling as he peers up at you.

Suddenly, you find it very difficult to be annoyed with him. The worst part is that none of this is by design. He always just looks at you this way, not to get out of trouble but because you’re you.

Your hand reaches out of its own accord and brushes the remaining damp strands off his forehead. When your touch lingers, Seokmin leans into it, warming your palm with his cheek.

“Hey,” you say, after failing to come up with anything better.

He beams. “Hi.”

“Why are we awake at this hour?”

That smile of his evaporates slowly, giving way to a grimace you’ve seen before. “Seungcheol and Mingyu want to meet up at the ski lodge before the post-brunch crowd gets there,” he explains. “And I told my parents we’d get breakfast with them first, since yesterday was… well, mostly a disaster.”

“And it will conveniently provide you with time to think of a way out of snowboarding?” You chuckle quietly and pat his cheek.

Seokmin shakes his head firmly, then stretches his neck enough to kiss you.

“No,” he mumbles defiantly against your lips. “I never back down from a triple-dog dare.”

[wannabanauthor]

What if Tommy and Eddie discussed the breakup, and it goes from serious to funny?

So Eddie goes to Tommy's house and is like "I'm here to check on you, let's get a beer."

Tommy tries to refuse, but Eddie says, "You broke my best friend's heart, so the least you could do is explain your reasoning to me."

Tommy reluctantly goes. After a few beers, he starts rambling.

"I fucked up, and I don't know how to fix it or even if I should fix it. I was falling in love with him, and it snuck up on me. I didn't expect for it to get more serious," Tommy says. "I thought it was just going to be fun for awhile, and we'd go our separate ways."

"Your second date with him was to his sister's wedding," Eddie points out.

"Oh so sue me! It's not my fault I caved. He gave me these pleading puppy eyes, and I found myself agreeing."

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Well, if you never expected it to get serious and didn't want it to get serious, then why haven't you found your rebound yet? It's been weeks. Even Chimney and Maddie are telling Buck to start dating again."

Tommy groans into his hands and then rubs his temples. "Fucking traitors."

"Well, I know this hot priest-"

"Been there, done that," Tommy says and takes a swig of his beer.

Eddie looks at him with a bewildered look on his face. "What?"

"What?" Tommy responds with a shrug. "I was raised Catholic. Guilt about sexuality is easy to spot, but he made the first move."

"Do I even want to know how?"

"Ever had sex in a confession booth?"

Eddie's eyes are wide and horrified. "Please don't tell me-"

"It was an old booth in storage, but it was still pretty hot. Once I admitted to myself that I was gay, I had a lot of catching up to do."

Then Tommy goes quiet and gets sad again. "I'll never meet another Evan in my life. I think he's ruined me for other men."

"Don't say that. While, I prefer you two together, you can always find someone else."

Tommy snorts in disbelief. "Yeah, not gonna happen. At least when it comes to sex. His adorable face and cheery smile haunt my dreams, and his proficiency with dick makes it impossible for me to get it up even when watching porn."

"Oh no, I need more alcohol for this," Eddie says and orders some shots.

He and Tommy go through a couple of them.

Tommy's tongue gets looser. "His dick is fantastic. Perfect length, thickness, and stamina. I know my body pretty well, and let me tell you, the prostate orgasms from him were out of this world. I barely lasted five minutes before coming just from him fucking me."

Eddie is drunk enough that he's not even fazed.

"Not to mention he has this slight curve that makes him hit the spot every time, and goddamn, I miss that dick and the dork attached to it," Tommy continues. "He made me feel comfortable and safe and cherished. Being around him was effortless, mostly, and I miss him so much."

Tommy starts sniffling, and then tears roll down his cheeks. "Fuck, I don't want to cry."

Eddie puts a comforting hand on Tommy's shoulder. "Call him. He's a mess and miserable without you. He's been baking so much that the entire station's hemoglobin A1C levels are pre-diabetic. We had to force him to focus on savory cooking."

Tommy shakes his head. "He doesn't want to hear from me. I broke his heart. I'm the last person that should be contacting him."

"He does want to hear from you. He's only been baking and cooking so much to stop himself from contacting you because he wants to give you space and respect your boundaries post-breakup."

"What would I even say? That I panicked and ran? I told him he would break my heart if we moved in together. There's no coming back from that."

Eddie sighs and sets his drink down. "Listen, the first time you ended things with Buck, I told him he was an idiot but to call you anyway. Now it's your turn to be the idiot. Go get your man back. Call him. Talk to him. He'd settle for a text. Just do something! You both are suffering without each other. You don't have to move in with him. He just wants you back in his life."

More tears run down Tommy's face and it turns into full sobs. Eddie scoots closer to him and gives him a hug. Tommy clings to him, sobbing even harder.

After drinks, they stop by a taco place and sober up while eating delicious birria tacos. They go back to Tommy's place, and Eddie sleeps on the couch just to make sure Tommy is alright. Before he falls asleep, he texts Buck.

"If Tommy contacts you, go easy on him. He's an idiot too."

When Tommy wakes up the next morning, he nearly stops breathing when he sees that Evan texted him.

"I miss you." was all it said.

Tommy cradles his phone in his hands for several minutes before pressing the call button. He holds his breath until Evan answers.

"I miss you too," Tommy says.

[amoressb]

☆ LOWKEY

pairings : childhood bsf!riki x reader ; friends to lovers

synopsis : in which you and riki have been best friends since you guys were in kindergarten. youre both now in your last year of high school and with all that time together, people would think that you guys were bound to end up falling for each other, right? well, that seems to only be the case for riki. hes fallen in love with you after all this time, especially since you guys tend to flirt constantly, but he knows you dont feel the same. right? either way, he doesnt want to risk losing you so he tries to keep his love for you on the lowkey. will it work?

☆.。.：*。.：*・.：*・.。.：*。.：*・.：*・.。.：*。.：*・.☆

will you be mine?

small smau + written wc. 4.05k

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as the riki walked down the quiet street, his heart raced faster than his footsteps. the bouquet of daisies and soft pink roses he held in his trembling hands was a stark contrast to the biting winter air that turned his cheeks redder by the second. he kept glancing at his reflection in store windows, adjusting his scarf nervously.

today wasn’t just any day—it was the day. the day he’d finally confess his feelings to you. for years, you’d been his best friend, his confidante, the one who made him laugh even on his darkest days and now, here he was, walking toward your house, knowing this wasn’t just a casual outing. it was you guys first date.

the thought made his stomach twist in knots. what if you didn’t feel the same? what if he ruined everything? he shook the doubts away, taking a deep breath. you had agreed to this date after all and that had to mean something. he gripped the flowers tighter, his palms sweaty despite the chill.

as your house came into view, he paused, his heart pounding louder than ever. He took another deep breath and forced himself to smile. no turning back now. today was the day he’d tell you—tell you how much you mean to him, how you’d always been more than just a friend. whatever happened next, he was ready to take the leap.

riki stood at your doorstep, heart thudding in his chest as he stared at the polished wooden door. he adjusted his scarf one last time, took a deep breath, and raised a shaky hand to knock. before he could, the door swung open, and there you were, framed by the warm glow of the house behind you.

“hey!” you greeted, your smile wide and welcoming. your cheeks were a little flushed, whether from the cold or something else, he couldn’t tell. you looked effortlessly beautiful, your cozy sweater and scarf making you seem so at ease, while he felt like a bundle of nerves barely holding it together.

“hi,” he managed, his voice cracking slightly. he cleared his throat quickly and thrust the bouquet forward. “uh, these are for you.”

your eyes lit up as you looked at the flowers, and you let out a soft laugh. “they’re beautiful, thank you!” you reached out to take them, your fingers brushing his for a moment, and he swore his heart skipped a beat. “you didn’t have to, you know.”

“i—uh, i wanted to,” he said, fumbling over the words. “i mean, it’s a special day… i mean, not just because of the date—uh, i mean the calendar date, not our date—” he stopped himself, realizing he was rambling. “sorry i’m nervous.”

you laughed again, this time a little softer, your gaze meeting his. “you don’t need to be nervous, it’s just me,” you said, your tone reassuring.

“that’s exactly why i’m nervous,” he admitted before he could stop himself, his cheeks immediately heating up. “i just… i want today to be perfect.”

your expression softened and you stepped closer, your eyes searching his. “it already is,” you said quietly, holding the bouquet to your chest. “come on, let’s go. we’ll figure out the rest together.” he smiled then, feeling a bit of the tension melt away. together. maybe today would go just the way he’d hoped after all.

the crisp winter air nipped at you and rikis noses as you two arrived at the ice skating rink. string lights hung above, casting a warm glow over the sparkling ice. the sound of laughter and the scrape of skates against the rink filled the air. you looked around, your eyes wide with excitement.

“i haven’t been ice skating in ages!” you exclaimed, turning to him with a grin. “me neither,” he admitted, though he wasn’t sure if it was the truth. his focus wasn’t on skating—it was on making this day special for you.

you two picked up your skates and as you two sat on a nearby bench to put them on, he noticed you struggling with the laces. “here let me help” he said, kneeling down before you could protest.“you don’t have to-” you started, but he was already working on the first skate, his fingers deftly tying the laces with care.

“i want to,” he said, glancing up at you with a small, nervous smile. he couldn’t help but notice how close you two were, your face just inches from his. you smiled softly, your gaze lingering on him as he finished the second shoe. “there all set,” he said, standing and offering his hand to help you up.“thanks,” you said, slipping your hand into his. your touch was warm despite the chill, and he found himself reluctant to let go.

on the ice, it was clear you were both rusty. you wobbled almost immediately, letting out a squeal as your arms flailed for balance. “woah, careful!” he said, laughing as he reached out to steady you. you grabbed onto his arm, gripping it tightly.

“you said you were rusty too!” you accused playfully, though your grin gave you away. “i am!” he protested. “but i think i’m a little less… wobbly than you.”

you gave him a mock glare but clung to his arm as you glided—well, shuffled—across the ice together. every now and then, you’d laugh as you nearly lost your balance and he couldn’t help but join in, his nerves slowly melting away with every smile you gave him.

at one point, you tugged him toward the middle of the rink. “let’s try going faster!” you said, your eyes sparkling with mischief. “are you trying to make us both to fall?” he asked, but he couldn’t say no to you. now picking up speed, your hands clasped tightly together. when you stumbled, he caught you, pulling you close to steady you. “see? you’re getting the hang of it,” he said, his voice soft as he looked down at you.

“only because i have you to hold on to,” you replied, your cheeks pink—not just from the cold. you and rikis eyes met and for a moment, the rest of the world faded away.

as you two skated, you found herself stealing glances at him. there was something endearing about the way he focused so intently, like he was determined to make sure you didn’t fall. you felt your heart flutter every time he reached out to steady you or laughed with you.

he, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how effortlessly you lit up the entire rink. every laugh, every smile, made his chest feel warm despite the freezing air. he wanted this moment to last forever, wanted you to know how much you meant to him.

as you two reached the edge of the rink, both cheeks flushed from the cold and laughter, you slowed to a stop. you leaned on the barrier, brushing a strand of hair from your face, your breath visible in the chilly air.

“you’re not so bad at this after all,” you teased, glancing at him with a playful smile.“thanks,” he replied, grinning. “but i think you’re the one stealing the show out there.”

you laughed, shaking your head. “sure, if by ‘stealing the show,’ you mean almost falling on my face every five seconds.”

“you call it falling, i call it making a dramatic entrance,” he said, earning another laugh from you. the sound made his chest feel light, like he could float away.

standing there for a moment, catching your breath. riki hesitated, the words he wanted to say lingering on the tip of his tongue but instead of speaking, he shoved his hands into his coat pockets and glanced at you.

“you know,” he said, breaking the silence, “all this skating has me craving something sweet. want to go grab some ice cream?” your eyes lit up and you turned to him with an incredulous laugh. “ice cream? in this weather?”

he shrugged, trying to play it cool despite the slight tremor of nerves in his voice. “what can i say? ice cream is a year round thing.” you tilted your head, pretending to think it over. “hmm, i suppose i could be convinced. but only if you promise not to steal all the toppings.”

“deal,” he said, his grin widening. he offered his hand, and when you took it, your fingers fit perfectly in his.

as you two left the rink and walked toward the nearest ice cream shop, laughter echoed into the crisp evening air. neither of you said it out loud, but you both felt it—this was more than just a good day. this was the start of something you’d both remember for a long time.

the warmth of the ice cream shop was a welcome contrast to the crisp winter air outside. the smell of freshly made waffle cones filled the air and the glass display case showcased an array of brightly colored ice cream flavors. you pressed your face to the glass, scanning the options with wide eyes.

“okayyy,” she said, pointing dramatically. “strawberry cheesecake, always the winner.”

“solid choice,” he said, nodding. “but i think i’m going with cookie dough.”

“you’re so predictable,” you teased, shooting him a grin.

“and you’re not?” he countered with a laugh. “strawberry cheesecake every time?”

“hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” you replied as you two stepped up to the counter to place your orders.

minutes later, you and riki were sitting at a small table by the window, your cones in hand. outside, the world was still covered in a blanket of winter, but in here, the laughter and warmth felt like a bubble just for the two of you.

“so,” you said between bites of your ice cream, “do you always eat ice cream in freezing weather or is this just a special occasion?” riki shrugged, smirking. “ice cream’s good anytime but i guess today feels… special.” you paused, your ice cream hovering in the air and smiled softly at him. “yeah…it does.”

as you took another bite, a tiny smudge of ice cream clung to the corner of your mouth. he noticed it instantly, his heart skipping a beat.

“you’ve got a little…” he said, motioning to his own mouth. you frowned, confused. “what? where?”

“here,” he said softly, leaning in. before you could protest, he reached out with his thumb and gently wiped the ice cream away. his touch lingered for a moment, his hand close to your cheek.

your breath caught and you sat still, looking up at him. your eyes met and the playful banter faded into silence. the world around you two seemed to blur, the warmth of the shop and the soft hum of conversation fading into the background. all tiki could see was you—the way your eyes sparkled under the shop’s lights, the slight flush on your cheeks.

you felt your heart racing as his gaze held yours. his hand dropped slowly and for a moment, neither of you spoke.

“thanks,” you finally said, your voice barely above a whisper, your lips curving into a small, shy smile. “anytime,” he replied softly, his own cheeks a little pink now.

the moment lingered between you both, full of unspoken words and something new, something neither of you were ready to name just yet. then, as if on cue, you laughed lightly, breaking the tension.

“you’re lucky i didn’t get sprinkles,” you said, your tone teasing again. he chuckled, grateful for the ease in your voice. “true, that could’ve been a real disaster.”

you both laughed and just like that, the moment passed, leaving behind a warmth that neither of you could shake as you finished your cones and ventured back out into the winter air.

as you two stepped out of the ice cream shop, you and rikis laughter lingering in the frosty air, he glanced at you with a small, nervous smile. his hands were tucked into his coat pockets and his heart raced as he finally worked up the courage to say it.

“so, uh… i have one more surprise for you,” he said, his voice tentative.

you turned to him, your eyes lighting up with curiosity. “another surprise? you’re really pulling out all the stops today.”he chuckled, shrugging. “well, i just thought you deserved a day that’s… special. come on, you’ll see.”

intrigued, you followed him as you two walked through the softly illuminated streets. the quiet crunch of snow beneath you and his boots were accompanied by your soft hums of contentment. eventually, you two arrived at a gated entrance glowing with an otherworldly light. a sign read “the imaginarium”, and through the entrance, the entire area seemed to sparkle and shimmer like a dreamscape.

your breath hitched as you took it all in. “this… this is amazing,” you whispered. “come on,” he said, offering his hand. you didn’t hesitate, slipping your fingers into his. your touch sent a warmth coursing through him that no winter chill could touch.

inside, the Imaginarium was a wonderland of lights and color. twinkling displays of glowing flowers, cascading streams of light that looked like waterfalls, and luminous arches stretched across the pathways. ypu walked slowly, your eyes wide with wonder, marveling at each glowing creation.

“this is incredible,” she said, your voice filled with awe. you pointed at a field of tiny glowing mushrooms that pulsed gently with shifting hues. “look at that—it’s like a fairy tale come to life.”

riki barely heard you. his gaze wasn’t on the lights or the displays—it was on you. the way your eyes sparkled brighter than the lights themselves, the way your breath fogged in the cold as you spoke, the soft, genuine smile that hadn’t left your face since they’d entered.

you let out a delighted laugh when you spotted a tunnel of stars, their golden light shimmering above like a celestial canopy. as you walked ahead to admire it, your hand still in his, riki couldn’t take his eyes off you. the glow of the lights danced across your face, illuminating your soft features in a way that took his breath away.

you turned to him, catching him mid stare. “what?” you asked, tilting your head slightly, a playful smile on your lips. he blinked, caught off guard. “nothing,” he said quickly, his voice soft. but then, unable to stop himself, he added, “it’s just… you look so happy. i love seeing you like this.”

your cheeks turned pink, though whether it was from the cold or his words, he couldn’t tell. “well, this is kind of magical,” you admitted, your voice quieter now. “thank you for bringing me here.” “anytime,” he said, his tone sincere. “i mean it.”

you and riki continued walking, your hand still in his. every now and then, you’d stop to admire another display, gasping softly at the details, while he simply stood beside you, his gaze never leaving you. to him, the lights, the beauty of the imaginarium—they all paled in comparison to you. the way you lit up, the way your joy was so genuine, it made everything else feel like a backdrop to your presence.

at one point, you and him reached a small pond surrounded by glowing reeds and lily pads that seemed to float on the surface, their soft hues reflecting in the water. you leaned against the railing, taking it all in with a dreamy expression. riki stood beside you, his heart full, unable to stop himself from memorizing every detail of your face—the curve of your lips, the way your eyes shone, the gentle way your scarf framed your features.

you turned to him again, your smile soft this time. “you’ve been quiet, are you okay?” he nodded, his throat tight with emotion he wasn’t sure he could put into words. “yeah,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “i’m more than okay.” your gaze lingered on him for a moment before you squeezed his hand. “good,” you said, your voice just as soft.

as you two continued through the glowing wonderland, hand in hand, he knew one thing for certain : he could have spent the entire night in the imaginarium and never looked at a single light, as long as he was with you.

the path through the imaginarium led them to a grove bathed in soft, golden light. the trees were wrapped in strands of tiny, glimmering bulbs that cascaded down like waterfalls, swaying gently in the breeze. overhead, a canopy of suspended orbs glowed like floating moons, their light shifting from white to gold to the faintest pink. the snow beneath their feet sparkled faintly, reflecting the magic of the lights above.

you walked ahead of him, your hand still in his, your soft laughter carrying on the crisp night air. your eyes were alight with wonder, darting from one glowing creation to another. occasionally, you’d point something out, a strand of lights that mimicked shooting stars or a delicate sculpture made entirely of shimmering glass. your voice was filled with awe and your smile was brighter than any light around them.

but while you admired the world around you, riki admired you. the way the lights danced across your face, casting delicate patterns on your skin, made you look almost otherworldly. your hair caught the golden glow, framing you in a soft halo that seemed to pulse with every step you took. your cheeks were flushed from the cold, your breath visible in tiny clouds and your scarf was slightly askew, but to him, you had never looked more perfect.

you stopped beneath an archway of intertwining lights, the beams curving overhead like the ribs of a glowing cathedral. you turned back to him, your eyes wide with excitement. “look at this,” you said, gesturing upward. “it’s like standing inside a constellation.”

riki barely heard your words. his heart was pounding in his chest as he took you in. your face, so full of wonder, seemed to glow from within. every detail of you—your sparkling eyes, the gentle curve of your lips, the way your hand fit so perfectly in his��was etched into his mind. in that moment, the beauty of the lights around them seemed to fade, paling in comparison to you.

it hit him like a sudden wave..this is it. the feeling that had been growing inside him, simmering quietly for years, could no longer be ignored. seeing you like this, so radiant and full of life, made him realize that no moment would ever be more perfect. he couldn’t keep it in any longer.

“hey,” he said, his voice soft, yet steady. you turned to him fully, your head tilting slightly. “what is it?” you asked, your expression curious.

he took a deep breath, his fingers tightening around yours. the words felt heavy, like they carried every ounce of emotion he had been holding back. “i need to tell you something,” he began, his voice quieter now, almost trembling with vulnerability.

your expression shifted, your eyes searching his face. “you’re being serious,” you said softly, your tone laced with concern and curiosity.

“i am,” he said, nodding. he took a step closer, so close now that he could see the reflection of the lights in your eyes, the way they shimmered like liquid gold. “i’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and… i can’t keep it to myself anymore.”

your brows furrowed slightly but you didn’t say anything. you just waited, giving him your full attention, your hand still warm in his.

“you—” he paused, swallowing hard as he gathered his thoughts. “you mean so much to me, more than i think you realize. and today, seeing you like this, seeing you so happy, so… beautiful…” he trailed off for a moment, his chest tightening. “i realized that i can’t go another day without saying it.”

your lips parted slightly, your breath visible in the cold air as you stared at him, your expression unreadable. “saying what?” you asked softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

he exhaled shakily, his gaze locked on yours. “that i care about you..not just as a friend, not just as someone i love spending time with… but as someone i’ve fallen for. completely.”

your eyes widened slightly, the lights above catching the faint shimmer of emotion in them. the world around you two seemed to pause, the sounds of distant laughter and soft music fading into silence. all he could hear was his own heartbeat, thundering in his chest as he waited for your to respond.

he took another breath, his voice growing steadier as the emotions poured out of him. “you’ve always been this… light in my life, you know? like no matter how hard things get or how much the world feels like it’s falling apart, you’re there and suddenly everything makes sense again. you make things better, just by being you.”

you were silent, your lips slightly parted as you listened, your hand still in his. the golden light above them danced across your face, illuminating the soft flush of your cheeks, the slight shimmer in your eyes.

“you’re the first person i want to talk to when something amazing happens,” he continued, his voice filled with quiet urgency. “and the only one i want to see when things feel impossible. i look at you, and it’s like..it’s like the world slows down. and today, seeing you here, like this..it’s made me realize something i’ve been trying to deny for too long.”

he took a small step closer, the space between them narrowing until he could feel the faint warmth radiating from you despite the winter chill. his gaze softened as he looked down at you, taking in every detail of your expression.

“i realized that i don’t just like being with you. i need to be with you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper now. “you make everything brighter, everything better. and i-” he paused, his throat tightening, but he pressed on. “i’ve fallen in love with you, completely. and i don’t know where this will go, or how you feel, but i had to tell you because you deserve to know just how much you mean to me.”

your eyes glistened as you stared at him, your breath hitching slightly. the silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken feelings, as the golden lights flickered softly above. he held his breath, waiting for your response, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

riki took another step closer, your hands still intertwined, his thumb gently brushing over your knuckles. his heart raced, the weight of the moment pressing against his chest. the lights around them seemed to blur into a soft golden haze, as if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting for what would happen next.

“i know this might feel like a lot,” he said, his voice quieter now but no less earnest. “and i know this changes everything but i also know that i don’t want to keep wondering, or waiting, or pretending these feelings don’t exist.”

his gaze locked with yours, his eyes soft and full of vulnerability. “you mean so much to me, more than i can ever put into words and i want to be the one who makes you smile like this every day. i want to be by your side, not just as your friend, but as..something more.”

he let out a breath, the faintest mist forming in the cold air as he finally asked the question that had been building inside him for so long. “will you be my girlfriend?”

the words hung in the air between them, fragile yet powerful, carrying every ounce of hope, fear, and love he felt for you. your eyes widened slightly, your breath catching as you stared at him, the golden lights reflecting in your gaze.

you opened your mouth to speak, but no words came out at first. the world seemed to slow, every second stretching out endlessly as he waited, his heart pounding so loudly he was sure she could hear it. your lips parted again and you drew in a breath, your expression unreadable.

and then she gave him a response—

wouldn’t you like to know - (hobie brown from spiderman)

☆.。.：*。.：*・.：*・.。.：*。.：*・.：*・.。.：*。.：*・.☆

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[push-the-heartbrake]

𝙃𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙔𝙤𝙪 (𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙄𝙣 𝙈𝙮 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩) // 𝙎.𝙍

𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘙𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘳. 𝘕𝘰𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺’𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦. 𝘏𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘵, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.

Summary: “I’m not supposed to do this, but you’re the only person still here, so I made us tea.”  — or the one where Spencer really likes the library for its books, the chess, and the girl working the night shift.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem! Reader (she/her)

Word count: 14.9k

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI ♡ Cm typical violence, Spencer gets injured but nothing major. Mention of bullying, sick parents, and addiction. Takes place sometime after he got clean, so S4 perhaps? No smut, but talk of sex. Spencer being an insecure virgin and reader having used sex as a coping mechanism in the past.

A/N: Hello!! New blog, new fic. I'm too dumb to write for Spencer, but I tried my best. Reader probably has too much personality and backstory but I stopped caring midway through. No physical descriptors used though, except for some wacky clothing. Tell me what you think? Please? Love ya, bye.

You wouldn’t think it was possible, given how most Americans viewed paying taxes, but for some reason, in some way, a very persistent person at some board meeting somewhere had managed to get through the idea that at least one library in D.C. should be open all hours of the day. 

Spencer, for one, couldn’t be more pleased with that decision. 

He had fond memories of spending long nights in quiet libraries when he was working toward one of his many degrees. Now, his longing for the silence and solitude stemmed from insomnia. He guessed most people his age spent sleepless nights out at nightclubs or in the never-ending search for love or just a one-night stand to suffice some sort of primal need. Spencer wasn’t like that. Never had, nor ever would be.

The library was a better place in every sense. He grew bored out of his mind by being alone in his apartment for too long, but he also got tired of having people around him. His job was social enough. The library was a perfect mixture of the two, requiring silence but still had people in motion so that he didn’t feel entirely isolated. 

He’d browse the shelves, searching for things he hadn’t read. Quickly getting through many books in an evening with his way of processing words. It got to the point where there weren’t enough books about his usual interests, so he would pick up books about old cars that Rossi mentioned and learn about their engineering or read some wacky poetry that Emily had recommended that she loved as a teenager. 

Sometimes he’d bring whatever knitting project he was working on and join some old ladies who met up at the library to knit and discuss romance novels. Spencer didn’t bring much to the conversation, but he liked hearing them talk. He wasn’t much for gossip, but made-up drama between fictional characters was surprisingly entertaining. 

He would also borrow one of the computers and play online chess for hours until his eyes had grown tired from the bright light and he finally thought he might be able to go home and force himself to sleep. Eric, one of the chess players that he frequently met in a local park, showed up sometimes, when he wasn’t swamped with homework or had a curfew to keep. Maybe he should make some friends his own age that weren’t his colleagues, but Eric, at age fifteen, was also the best chess player that Spencer had ever met. 

So, the quietness, the books, the knitting, and the chess were all perks of spending time at the library. The cute girl sitting at the front desk, working almost every night shift alone, was also somewhat of a perk.

Spencer wasn’t entirely sure how it came about or why he was so enamored by even just the idea of you, but he couldn’t help but let his eyes linger for a little bit too long whenever he walked past the front desk or saw you organizing books at some shelf in the library. 

That was a lie. Spencer knew exactly how it happened and why. 

It started with simple people-watching. He liked to imagine wild backstories for people he only saw in passing. Probably a result of being a profiler. 

With students he would wonder about what project they were researching late at night in the library and what their majors were and if he could notice patterns in their appearances and behaviors. 

He’d connect the dots with the old women knitting and their opinions about the romance novels to actual experiences in their own lives. One had been cheated on in her youth and found any sort of love triangle to be awful, while another couldn’t understand certain writers fascination with sneaking in unplanned pregnancies because she had never wanted kids herself. 

And while Eric and he played chess in silence most of the time, he still picked up on how Eric didn’t like how strict his mother was on him and how his sisters got treated differently, more easygoing, than him. 

And then there was you, the only other person who would frequent—well, you worked there—the library so often that Spencer could start to piece together your backstory. 

His first impression was that you were cute, in like an objective way. The same way people would look at Garcia with some sort of childlike awe of how uniquely herself she was. You had that same thing about you, with colorful cardigans and ribbons tied in your hair. 

The second thing he noticed was that you probably didn’t work that much. You were sat at that front desk all night, organizing what needed to be organized and helping those who needed help, but then you were left to yourself for the rest of your shift. You read a lot, but Spencer never got close enough to see what exactly. You also had the news playing really quietly on a little radio, perhaps to not go completely insane from the silent nature of the library. 

At first he thought you weren’t too talkative, but then he observed an interaction you had with a student. A young mother who came to the library to study while her child peacefully slept in their stroller. Spencer wasn’t one to judge. If the child got to sleep and the mother got to study, it was a win-win situation, although unconventional. 

When he saw the mother and baby leave, going up to you to check out some books, he saw just how talkative you were, practically spewing out words about the subjects she was researching and cooing at the baby who was then awake, calling it adorable and quickly playing peekaboo. 

Now, as Spencer sat in a chair, not too far from the entrance and the front desk, acting like he was reading a book he had already read through, he observed you inconspicuously. 

You were fronting books on a display shelf that was the first thing you saw when you entered the library. Usually seasonal books, or that followed a current event or a theme. It was Halloween this time around, and you fought with the mess that was fake cobwebs. A garland of little black bats hung over the shelf and plastic jack-o-lanterns acted as bookstands. He could spot certain covers of books he recognized. Goosebumps, for the children. Stephen King, for the horror fanatics. Edgar Allan Poe, for the poetry lovers. 

You quietly cursed under your breath as your fingers got stuck in the cobwebs, and Spencer had to cover his laugh with an unnatural cough. That was when he saw that your nails were painted a pumpkin-like orange and your black cardigan had a little skeleton pattern. You were going all out with the theme, even if you barely saw any people during the night shift, telling Spencer that you were doing it all for your own enjoyment. 

As you stretched to place books on the highest shelf, he noticed your trousers, and Spencer was only a man—granted a little peculiar and different—but still a man, with working eyes and needs. You wore slacks so well-fitting he wondered what tailor you went to or if you could sew yourself. And Converse, always dark red Converse. You dressed like him, but in a more colorful, feminine way. 

He saw you pick up a book and judge it by its cover, then instead of placing it on display, you put it in a tote bag placed on the cart you had to pick books from. He’d seen you use the same tote bag before, when you were organizing the shelves, placing books back or collecting ones loaned online. The album cover for Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside was on it, not because Spencer knew of the album but because the text was printed on it. 

You used it to pick out books for yourself, Spencer noticed in the moment. While rolling the cart around with books for others, if you saw one that you wanted to read during your shift, you’d place it in the tote bag to not lose it in the masses. 

You were filled and covered in idiosyncrasies, making you nothing but enchanting to watch. And cute, in both the aforementioned objective Garcia-esque way and also a subjective Spencer-esque way. Not in the sense that Spencer found himself subjectively cute, but that you were subjectively cute in a way that felt catered to him and his attractions. 

Spencer thought all of this about you, while he had never even spoken a singular word to you. He would fantasize about what your initial interaction would be like, but he never had the courage to actually do something about it. He wouldn’t say that he was shy, and he normally didn’t find it that difficult to speak to someone, but something about your subjective cuteness made you terrifying. 

And it didn’t come naturally. He had a library card; he didn’t need to talk to you to check out a book. And asking for directions to a certain book seemed pointless when he had the shelves memorized. 

Spencer stood up from his chair to place the book he’d pretend to read back on the right shelf, passing by his favorite section of classics translated into their original languages. He was grateful that D.C. was multicultural enough and filled with diplomats and embassies so that the library found it necessary to take in books that weren’t in English. 

He stopped to browse the Russian selection, his finger grazing the spine of Война и мир. 

Wait… Certain rare books had to be checked out at the front desk. 

And while he already had this book at home, annotated and analyzed, you didn’t know that. He could totally loan this to compare to the version he had at home. This was an earlier copy than his own, and maybe certain parts of the Russian language were different. 

Yes. That could work. He was going to talk to you.

With the book in hand, he willed himself to approach the front desk you were now sitting at after finally winning the wrestle match against the cobwebs. 

You looked up from the computer as you noticed him, the soft glow of overhead lights casting shadows over the high points of your face. A welcoming smile, although well-rehearsed in a customer service-like manner, stunned him as he placed the book and his library card on the counter. 

“War and Peace… in Russian?” you asked, raising a brow as you grabbed the book to scan it. The way you viewed it showed that you recognized the book from the cover, but not the Russian language. And then you looked right up at him, not afraid of keeping eye contact. 

Spencer cleared his throat, suddenly hyperaware of how intently you were looking at him. “I’m rereading it to compare to the English version.” 

“Are you by any chance from Russia?” 

“No,” he said with an honest smile. “I’m from Nevada. But I know enough Russian to get by.”

You let out a low hum of appreciation, your fingers quickly typing something down on the keyboard after having scanned his card. Your nails weren’t only pumpkin-colored, but on them were also minuscule little pumpkin faces. 

“To each their own. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive.” 

“Have you read it?” Spencer asked, his curiosity slipping through. 

“No,” you admitted with a laugh. “I picked Infinite Jest as my designated brick of a book that I’ll never finish but still spew opinions about.” 

The honesty of your response caught him off guard, and a small chuckle escaped before he could stop it. 

“Which is embarrassing to admit to someone who actually can read said bricks,” you added. 

“Even worse as a librarian,” he teased, the words leaving his mouth before he had a chance to second-guess them.

“Hey,” you said, your tone mock defensive. “I mostly recommend things to kids anyway. I know all about Daisy Meadows and Captain Underpants.” 

That Spencer was twelve years old when he discovered Tolstoy was something he kept to himself. He understood that most kids wanted something funny or imaginative to read, like underpants or fairies—not Russian realism. 

“How long until you gave up on Infinite Jest?” he asked instead, leaning slightly on the counter in a way that felt more natural than he anticipated.

“I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.” The quote escaped you easily, like you actually had it memorized, but the way your smile cracked through revealed that you were painfully aware of the ironic implication of it. 

“That’s the opening sentence,” Spencer pointed out, fighting the urge to laugh outright.

“Captivating, right?” you quipped. 

Spencer kept his smile tight as he enjoyed your sarcastic humor. He would’ve never assumed that Infinite Jest was the beast that broke you. Stereotypically, he thought it was stoners and annoying philosophy majors thinking the world was doomed who enjoyed that book. 

You didn’t look like either.

But there was also the huge amount of guys who kept it in their bookshelves and had it on display when they had girls over, as a conversation piece, although they hadn’t read a word from it. Maybe you had fallen victim to one of those guys and decided to give it a try on your own, at least getting further than they ever had. 

“So you’re more into modern literature?” he was quick to ask, keeping the conversation going. 

He wasn’t even sure if David Foster Wallace was considered modern. Contemporary was probably a better word. In comparison to the Russian mellow kind of realism, Wallace was hysterical. Spencer had read it for the sake of saying that he’d read it. After all, it didn’t take him that long. While he was comfortable being the guy who read Tolstoy in Russian, he wasn’t sure he’d be comfortable being the guy who had Infinite Jest as his holy scripture. It made some interesting points about substance abuse and addiction, but that was about it for Spencer, if he was going to give a literary review. 

“Not really, I adore some classics,” you admitted, before pointing to a small stack of books behind the counter. The ones you’d snuck into your tote bag. “Now I mostly read poetry, though. All kinds, as long as it’s short and impactful.”

“Oh, you’d hate this then,” he said, like a realization, meaning War and Peace. 

You scrunched your nose, nodding softly. “Mhm, and Infinite Jest too.”

There was a beat of silence, not uncomfortable but charged with the kind of potential Spencer wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

“Alright, Tolstoy,” you said, sliding the book over the counter in his direction. “Enjoy your comparative studies.” 

“Thanks,” he replied shortly. 

As he walked away, book in hand, he couldn’t help but glance back once, catching you fiddling with the edges of your cardigan as you returned your focus to the computer screen. If you wanted to hide your smile from him, you weren’t doing that good of a job. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

Spencer wasn’t sure if he had overthought it, read too much into it, to the point where nothing was making sense. A conversation with a person loaning a book at a library that you worked at probably wasn’t that noteworthy to you, even if it left you dumbly smiling after he’d left. 

So, he didn’t dare walk up to you again. He couldn’t justify it in his head. Maybe when his War and Peace loan expired, he’d find an excuse to check it out again, but until then, Spencer didn’t know how to talk to you. 

On one afternoon, when the unit had just finished up a case in rural Virginia, Spencer had taken the train back home to D.C. and gone to the library earlier than usual. It was more crowded, with students cramming in some last-minute studying for their finals and parents taking their kids for a little after-school adventure. 

He sought refuge in a quiet corner—a cluster of armchairs nestled between the history books and autobiographies—where he could read in peace even though it was busy. But on his way, he was stopped in his tracks. Walking past the kids section, a voice he had begun to recognize caught his attention. 

You sat cross-legged on a colorful mat, a worn picture book spread wide in your hands. Your voice carried the story with a mix of humor and animation as you brought the story to life, reading aloud to an audience of tiny faces. Children leaned forward eagerly, their eyes wide with fascination, while a few younger ones had already succumbed to the comforting cadence of your voice, their tiny bodies sprawled across cushions in peaceful slumber. You held the book up for the kids to see the illustrations, pausing occasionally to add exaggerated voices that sent giggles rippling through the group.

Spencer lingered, a faint smile tugging at his lips, before he walked away to not get noticed. 

As time passed, the library emptied out. He saw people leave, tired from a long day. For him it was the opposite. Now was when his favorite time of day began, if he wasn’t stuck in the limbo of trying to get himself to sleep. But he had the day off tomorrow and could spend all of it sleeping if he wanted to, so tonight he wouldn’t be anxious about the lack of sleep he was getting, and instead fully indulge in the quiet sanctuary that was the library. 

Spencer sat in one of the armchairs, a book open on his lap, though he hadn’t turned a page in over fifteen minutes. Something heavy about the history of Nobel Prize winners in chemistry. He was lost in thought, the events of the day fading into memory. 

Footsteps broke the silence, rubber soles squeaking against the linoleum floor, growing louder until they stopped just beside him. He looked up to see you standing there, two steaming paper mugs in your hands.

“I’m not supposed to do this,” you began, a playful smile tugging at the corners of your lips, “but you’re the only person still here, so I made us tea.” 

You placed both mugs on the table in front of Spencer before flopping down into an armchair of your own. You had dungarees on and a soft maroon sweater underneath, matching your Converse. Spencer blinked, unable to form a sentence as he watched you get comfortable, picking up a book from the tote bag you always seemed to carry. He didn’t necessarily recognize the cover, but he knew of the author’s name.

“John Cooper Clarke? You’re into punk?” he heard himself ask before he could think twice about it. You didn’t even get the chance to start reading. 

You tilted your head. “You know who he is?” 

“I have a colleague who used to be goth in high school. Full on Siouxsie Sioux. And she has told me about JCC,” Spencer explained. 

Emily. She was the reason he knew about the “punk poet”. He still couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw her yearbook photos from high school. Even less so when she would quote the same poem every single time they had to wait for something—the jet to get ready, blood samples and lab reports, Rossi to catch up when they had to run somewhere. Whatever it was, she would quote Evidently Chickentown. 

“Makes sense,” you replied. “He performed on the same bill as a lot of those early post-punk and goth bands.” 

Spencer smiled, quietly reciting, “The fucking train is fucking late. You fucking wait, you fucking wait.” 

“You’re fucking lost and fucking found. Stuck in fucking Chickentown.” You chuckled, picking up the line seamlessly. Spencer sounded like cursing was something alien to him, as if the crude words didn’t belong to his vocabulary. You found it sweet, yet unusual. “That poem is in this book! Along with the weird one about being someone’s vacuum cleaner, do you know that too?” 

“Uhm, no. I don’t think I know that one,” Spencer admitted, silently begging for you to read it to him. He would be just as excited as the children hearing you read aloud earlier. 

“If I’m annoying or distracting,” you said after a moment, “you can tell me to leave. I just sort of go insane spending all night here alone in silence.” 

He’d been sitting by himself, looking like he was reading a book about chemistry breakthroughs, and maybe that didn’t come across as someone who wanted to be talked to. Spencer at least assumed that was your thought process when shyly admitting that you were seeking company. 

“No, uhm, it’s okay. Thank you for the tea,” Spencer was quick to say before grabbing one of the mugs and taking a small sip. He didn’t want you to leave. If you were voluntarily talking to him, that was better than any made-up War and Peace-related plan he could come up with. 

“I’m Spencer, by the way,” he added. 

You told him your name in return, pointing to your name tag—a little yellow one with Winnie-the-Pooh on it—before reaching out your hand to him. He hadn’t noticed the tag before, and maybe that was because he didn’t want to get caught staring at your chest. 

He looked at your hand, the germaphobe in him coming to life as he observed your dainty fingers. At least in comparison to his own. The orange nail polish was gone and replaced by a simple black coat. Even your hands were cute to him, yet covered in bacteria. 

“Oh, I don’t do handshakes,” he said and took in your reaction, your smile fading as you retracted your hand and hid it in your pocket. 

“The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss,” he felt the need to explain. It was a simple fact, yet he didn’t think of the implications. Spencer’s eyes widened at the sound of his own voice, and he stammered, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, “Uh… not that you and I—I mean, you know what I mean.”

You acted like you didn’t mind, keeping the conversation going without noticing the huge bump in the road that Spencer thought he had created. 

“But doesn’t the other person’s bacteria stay in you forever after you’ve kissed them?” you wondered, a crease forming between your brows as you thought about it. “Don’t quote me on it, but I’ve read that somewhere. It’s like eighty million bacteria exchanged on average in a french kiss, and that some of them stay and colonize, becoming part of your own… what’s it called?” Your voice trailed off, searching for the right word. 

“Microbiome?” he supplied. “The community of microorganisms found living together in one habitat?” 

“That’s the one!” You lit up with realization. “It’s horrifying and poetic that, after you’ve kissed someone, they become part of you forever.” 

He thought of the bacteria, while you thought of the internal battle of someone you’ve kissed staying with you forever. He blamed his background in STEM and his lack of experience with kissing for not seeing the big deal. 

“I’m sure it’s not in any way that’s noticeable to us. It’s modest at worst,” he tried to reassure. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what research you were referencing when mentioning the eighty million bacteria, or if it even was scientific research. Knowing a little bit about you, it could possibly be poetry about clinging to something or someone for too long. But he knew enough about microbiomes and their complexity that one exchange of saliva wouldn’t alter them majorly. Maybe in a constant way, but never majorly. 

“In the sense of bacteria colonizing?” you wondered, seeing Spencer nod. “Well, it’s still psychologically fucked up.” 

Spencer raised his eyebrows at your frankness, urging you to keep talking. 

“I would like to forget the fact that I made out with Cody Parker in ninth grade, but no, he’s stuck in my microbiome. That’s fucked up,” you laughed, gesturing with your hands in frustration. 

“Now, what was so bad about Cody?” 

You huffed before answering. “Captain of the football team. Is that enough of a reason to hate him?” 

Spencer could’ve guessed it from his name. Cody. He could imagine what he looked like and why you would’ve kissed him. Hell, Spencer would’ve probably kissed a guy like him too if given the chance at that delicate age of self-discovery. Just to have it done early, and as a bragging right for the future. His first kiss had been at a college party that he was too young to attend really, with some girl who probably saw him more as a little brother to care for rather than someone she was actually attracted to. 

“Do you also have a deep hatred for anyone that ever played high school football?” Spencer asked with a small, curious smile. 

“You could say that,” you admitted, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “I lost my virginity to Cody the same night, and then he stole my underwear and stuck them to my locker with a note that said I was up for grabs.” 

You laughed after you said it, but Spencer couldn’t help but wince. He understood why you laughed, a response to make something uncomfortable feel less serious, but he couldn’t believe that someone had done that to you. 

He was an annoying, know-it-all, little boy when he was in high school and had internally justified the bullying he had gone through by telling himself that football players and cheerleaders were just jealous and stupid, probably still stuck in their cliques, in Vegas working dead-end jobs. But you, you shone like light itself, and someone had still found a reason to humiliate you. It didn’t make sense. 

“The football team at my school tied me to a goalpost and stripped me naked in front of a girl I had a crush on,” Spencer shared softly. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt like the right thing. Not to make it seem like he’d had it worse, but to show that you had similarities. 

Your head turned sharply to look at him, eyes wide with disbelief. “Not that we’re competing, but I think you win the bully-off we just had.” You straightened up in your seat, lifting your legs to sit criss-cross. “But you’re cute, though. Was the girl at least nice to you?”

Spencer looked down at his hands, the faintest smile tugging at his lips. You’d called him cute.He thought you were cute. It shouldn’t be the other way around. 

You stared at him like you were questioning his sanity while he reacted to the compliment.  It wasn’t him you were questioning, but the eyesight of all the people Spencer had around him, because why wasn’t he used to being complimented? It didn’t even necessarily need to be about their eyesight. They had to be deaf too, because just from hearing him talk, you were fascinated by the way his brain worked. 

“I graduated high school at the age of twelve, and she was like sixteen, so no, she didn’t care much,” he answered slowly, keeping his cool. He knew now that he never had a chance with the girl anyway, but twelve-year-old Spencer had been heartbroken, and, of course, humiliated. 

Your eyes turned even wider as he spoke. “Huh? Is that legal? Are you some kind of genius?”

“I don’t believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I have an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory,” Spencer admitted matter-of-factly. He didn’t know why it felt like a secret to tell people just how smart he was. In an academic sense, that is. 

“Certified genius,” you declared with a grin. 

“And I do introduce myself as Dr. Spencer Reid when I’m at work,” he added, emphasizing his name.

“You’ve got a PhD?” you asked. The crease between your brows seemed permanent at this point. 

“A few.” 

“More than one?” 

“Mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. BAs in psychology and sociology,” Spencer rattled off, glancing at you cautiously to gauge your reaction.

“Oh my god,” you groaned, throwing your head back dramatically. “I would’ve hated you just as much as those football players.” 

“Not in the sense that I would’ve tied you to a goalpost,” you added quickly, “but more so that I would’ve been insanely jealous. I might still be jealous; the jury is out on that until you explain further.” 

Spencer gave a soft laugh, believing that you wouldn’t have been a mean girl. “Do you want to get into the reasons why certain people are smarter than others?” 

“No, I just…” Your voice trailed off, and you paused to take a sip of your tea. “Do you ever get freaked out over how people’s lives are vastly different even though they’ve spent the same amount of time on earth?” 

He tilted his head slightly, intrigued. “How do you mean?”

“Like, we look similar in age but probably have very few shared experiences because you were born a genius and I was born…” you gestured vaguely, searching for the right words, coming up with nothing in the end. 

You were born… how exactly? Spencer tried to fill in the blank, but his guesses seemed almost offensive. “You don’t appear to be dumb,” Spencer countered gently. “You seem to be socially smarter than I am.” 

“Because I’m sat here oversharing high school stories with virtually a stranger?” you teased, almost self-deprecatingly, like your easy way of talking was a fault. 

And maybe that was true. Spencer knew what it was like to say too much at the wrong time, or have people turn uninterested mid-sentence when he was speaking. But he thought that stemmed from how bad he actually was at talking with people. And you were good at it, with a fluidity and humor to your speech that not many people had. 

“I’m not good with words, and you obviously are,” he settled on saying, earnestly. 

“No, not really. I was never good at anything. Always a straight B-student. It’s a damn mystery how I managed to get this job without a master’s degree,” you said with a shrug. “When I realized my own mediocrity in high school, I stopped trying. I thought it was much more fun to do drugs and get railed in the back of some college boy’s car. Spoiler alert, it’s not.” 

“R-railed?” Spencer stammered, nearly choking on his tea.

“Too crude of a word for you?” 

“No, I just would’ve never assumed—” 

“That I was a slut in my youth?” you retorted, staring him down. “I’m only messing with you, Spencer. Now I’m sober, and boring, and in on a three-year-long dry spell.”  

“We’re more similar than you think, so you don’t have to be freaked out about our lack of shared experiences,” Spencer said softly as realization struck him. 

“You also got railed by college boys?” you quipped, and Spencer let out an unexpected laugh, his cheeks reddening.

“No, uhm, I meant being sober from drugs, and the dry spell too,” he clarified quickly.

As the conversation stilled, Spencer noticed he still had the book on Nobel Prize winners opened in his lap. He shut it quietly and placed it on the table, carefully looking at you as you sipped your tea. Your own book was long forgotten too, sliding down the side of your seat. You ran your fingers over your knees, still sitting cross-legged, nails rasping against your denim dungarees. You weren’t scared to look right back at him, not scared to be with him in silence for a moment. He watched as your eyes drifted to his book, struggling to read the title upside down.  

“What does an actual genius do for a living? And why can he spend so much time at a library in the middle of the night?” you asked, leaning forward with genuine curiosity, turning the book to see. 

“Do you want to guess?” he asked, not because he didn’t want to tell you, but because he sensed you were about to guess anyway. 

“You’re probably some sort of professor, teaching and researching something I couldn’t even begin to fathom,” you speculated, resting your chin on your hand, flipping through the pages. “You’re also away for like a week at a time and then back here for a week, so you must travel. Maybe you go to conventions and guest lectures. Have you ever done a TED talk?” 

You noticed his patterns. That he had noticed yours was no surprise. He noticed everyone’s. But you had noticed his, meaning that you cared enough to mind when he was at the library multiple nights a week and when he wasn’t. What did that tell Spencer? Absolutely nothing he could make sense of. 

“No, I haven’t. And I’m not a professor, though I have done a couple guest lectures,” he explained, waiting for you to continue guessing. 

“Do you work for some tech company then? Are you secretly a billionaire?” 

“Nope, I make a humble living compared to the work I put in.” 

“So, the public sector then,” you deduced at the same time as a bell could be heard. 

You quickly whipped your head around, straining to see the front desk, where an awfully stressed-out student could be found, holding some heavy book on human anatomy that Spencer knew had to be checked out manually. 

“Oh, fuck—” you muttered, quickly standing up, momentarily lost. “I should probably get back to work.” 

“Don’t forget your bag,” Spencer hurried to say before you could leave without it. The Kick Inside. Was that a reference to pregnancy? Maybe Spencer should look into Kate Bush to have another thing to talk to you about. 

You picked up your book and paper mug, slinging the bag over your shoulder, and gave him one last smile. “Do you know you have the face of a genius?” 

“W-what?” he questioned, unsure of why you’d said that. 

“It’s a lyric from a song on this album. It made me think of you,” you said, pointing to the bag, before walking away to the front desk to do what you were paid to do. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

The next time Spencer talked to you was exactly two weeks and one day later. They’d been on a case in California, which naturally led to him not seeing you. But then when he was back, you weren’t working. He spent three days filling out reports at the office, waiting for time to go so that he could take the train home and go to the library, and when he showed up, you weren’t even there. 

Two weeks he planned what to say to you. The last three days of those felt like torture, not knowing where you were. On the fourth day, you were finally back. And Spencer wasn’t shy. And he could justify his reason for talking to you. Two weeks and one day ago, you had talked to him first. 

It was early December, and the first snow fell softly outside as he walked into the warmth of the library. He knew immediately that you were back working because you were the first thing he saw. Perched on a small stool near the front desk and the display shelf of seasonal books, you were stacking books into a makeshift Christmas tree. Carefully selected covers in colors of red and green were stacked into circles, narrowing as you built upward, creating somewhat of a tree shape.

You hummed softly as you worked, occasionally glancing down at the growing stack with concentration. As you reached for another book, you were stopped in your tracks by the telltale sound of footsteps against the library’s linoleum floor. Footsteps that could only be made by a pair of Converse. 

“I listened to The Kick Inside.” 

Looking over your shoulder, you found him standing there, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, a small smile on his face. Your hands paused mid-placement as you looked down at him, brows lifting in surprise. “You did?” 

“Creative use of resources, by the way,” Spencer mentioned, picking up a book from the pile and handing it to you, his long fingers brushing yours briefly in the exchange. “Did a song about incest really make you think of me?” 

“Oh, no. Just that singular lyric.” You laughed, shaking your head. “It’s inspired by some old English folklore, I think.” Balancing on the stool, you placed the book carefully onto the stack, leaning back to eye the structure.

“A murder ballad called Lizie Wan. Her brother got her pregnant, and then he killed her.” Spencer supplied, his tone instinctively slipping into lecture mode. He stepped closer and shed his coat to drape it over a nearby chair as he continued to hand you books. 

You made a face. “Well, did you like it? The album, I mean. Not the incest.” 

“I understand why youlike it. It’s very… you,” Spencer explained, hoping it made sense. It was theatrical and wacky. Feminine too, in a brutal way, only archivable in lyrics written by an adolescent girl. Spencer wasn’t a music lover by any means, but even he could hear that it was undeniably good, just not his taste. “Is Wuthering Heights perhaps your favorite classic novel?” 

“No, not at all. I think it’s a stupid book and a stupid song,” you said. 

Spencer handed you another book, his eyes darting between the growing tree and your face. The grin you put on betrayed your monotone voice. 

“Okay, no. I adore it,” you admitted. “It’s a nightmare to read, and I fully believe Emily was clinically insane, but I can’t help but love dark and twisted women. One review at the time when it was first published questioned how she could’ve finished writing it without committing suicide. That’s badass.” 

“Do you know that Kate hadn’t even read the book when she wrote the song? She just watched some TV adaptation, which is why the names are all messed up,” you continued as you perfectly balanced the book he gave you onto the others. You’d soon be done at this pace. 

“I did notice that she sang Cathy instead of Catherine, and Cathy is the daughter, right?” 

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “So if you know the book, the song totally reads like a love song between Heathcliff and his dead lover’s daughter.” 

“That’s disturbing,” Spencer concluded. “I can’t help but think that Brontë would’ve loved it.” 

Your lips twitched into a smile, but you didn’t comment further, too focused on your Christmas tree. He handed you another book in silence and saw how your nails were now painted red with little white snowflakes on some of them. He wondered if you painted them yourself. You were back to wearing your usual slacks and cardigan. This time a white one that looked terribly comfortable and wintery. In your hair you had a red ribbon tied into a bow, matching, as always, your red Converse. 

After a moment, you spoke. “You were gone for a while, again. Who in the public sector travels that much? I hope you’re not a politician.” 

“No, I’m not,” he said, his voice soft but steady. “I’m with the FBI. Behavioral Analysis Unit.” 

You blinked, looking down at him in mild shock. “You’re a profiler?”

He nodded.

“That actually makes a lot of sense. And it’s scary as hell. No wonder you’ve got insomnia, probably messed up from all the murders you’ve solved.” 

“I’m not making fun of you,” you added quickly. “I’ve obviously got it too; I wouldn’t be working the night shift voluntarily otherwise.”

Spencer handed you the final book for the top tier, his gaze steady on you. “You weren’t here for a couple of days either. I had to talk to Omar, and he’s not as good of a conversationalist.” 

You snorted. “Period cramps from hell,” you said casually, knowing it was the fastest way to end questions. 

Spencer also knew that it was a common lie told by women to men. And he wasn’t the kind of person to be grossed out by basic biology. He might have issues with pathogens and handshakes, but he had no issues talking about the human body. 

“Bold move to lie to a profiler,” he remarked, tilting his head slightly.

“I didn’t necessarily lie—” 

“But you didn’t tell me the whole truth.” 

He waited, silent and expectant.

You sighed, and for once your gaze was scared to meet his. “I’m kind of…depressed. Probably just seasonal, I fucking hate the winter. Spent three days on my living room floor, in some sort of verbal shutdown, just staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’m even human.”  

Spencer’s brows knit together, concern flickering across his face. “Do you feel better now?” 

“I’m here, aren’t I?” you said, forcing a small smile.

Before Spencer could respond, the precarious stack of books wobbled. You tried to steady it, but the entire top layer you’d just finished collapsed in a cascade of covers and pages, books tumbling to the floor in a loud crash. You stepped down from the stool quickly, and Spencer instinctively grabbed you by the hand so that you wouldn’t fall. He didn’t even have time to think about germs. 

“You’re legally allowed to shoot me in the head,” you said with a disbelieving sigh. 

“You can’t consent to murder,” Spencer replied, his tone matter-of-fact.

“But you can consent to bodily harm, right? So maybe you can shoot me in the foot at least?”

“That’s more reserved for sports and medical procedures. Shooting you would still be a crime even if you coerced me,” he explained. 

“Sadomasochism too, right? You can consent to sexually inflicted pain?” 

“Ehm—” Spencer mouth got dry, and his cheeks flushed red. “Well yes, technically.” 

“So you really can’t figure out a way for me to not have to work another day this year?” you asked, leaning down to pick up one of the fallen books.

Now, if Spencer was as socially smart as you were, he’d notice you were flirting. Maybe even insinuating that you’d be okay with a sexual injury that resulted in you staying home from work the rest of December. But Spencer was surprisingly dumb for having such a high IQ. And his ears sort of started ringing as soon as you mentioned sex, so he wasn’t sure he’d even heard you correctly. 

“Not if you need the money, no,” he replied, a small, apologetic smile playing on his lips.

“Some kind of genius you are, Spence,” you teased, shoving the book in his hands before crouching to start rebuilding the tree. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

After that conversation, Spencer helped you rebuild the Christmas tree. He’d handed you book after book with a quiet determination, his brow furrowing slightly as if the arrangement were a problem he needed to solve. Occasionally, he would pause to ask you a question about your favorite winter-themed books or share an anecdote about an obscure author. All throughout December, Spencer became a constant presence during your night shifts.

You found him fascinating to listen to, even if he seemed to doubt himself midway through every tangent. His voice would falter, and he’d look up at you with a quick, “Is this boring?” or “Am I rambling?” as if he needed reassurance that you were still interested.

You always were. At this point, he could probably recite the yellow pages, and you’d still find it captivating. Knowing him and his eidetic memory, he most likely could do it on the spot if you asked him.

December always moved slowly for you. Students crammed into every corner, poring over their textbooks and laptops as they prepared for finals. The library was busy, but there was a strange liminal quality to your evenings, the dark winter nights stretching endlessly as you walked the halls, organizing books and straightening shelves.

You wouldn’t admit it to yourself just yet, but because of this heavy feeling, you found yourself sat at the front desk, waiting for Spencer to walk through those doors. You now knew that he was a busy man—a brilliant, busy man with a job more important than yours, so you stopped expecting him to show up, getting positively surprised every time he did instead. 

On the 23rd of December, Spencer walked through the entrance at exactly 9:32 p.m. You knew the time because you’d been watching the seconds tick by on the digital clock of the computer’s screensaver.

You straightened your back, softly smiling as he made his way up to you. Sometimes, you had to go on little treasure hunts to find him in the library, but today, he didn’t appear to be shy to approach you first.

With a soft thud he placed a heavy book on the counter, one you immediately recognized as War and Peace, in Russian. Your heart lifted slightly. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been waiting for the day the loan would expire, so that he either had to return it or extend it. 

“Have you finished comparing them now?” you asked, eyeing the book.

“No, uhm,” Spencer hesitated, adjusting the strap of his satchel. “Is it possible to extend it?” 

“I’ll have to check,” you replied, tapping at the keyboard. “It’s quite a popular book. A lot of Russian diplomats in D.C.”

You pretended to eye the screen, searching for whatever you were searching for, when you already knew that it wouldn’t be an issue to extend the loan. He didn’t have to know that, though. 

“Are you doing anything special for the holidays, Spencer?” you asked, to make it appear like small talk while you were tapping away at the keyboard, mindlessly clicking between pages of the software you used.  

“I might make it to Las Vegas to see my mom. I don’t know if I’ll have the time, though.” Spencer’s lips quirked in a small smile. “What about you? How will you celebrate Christmas?”

You knew by now that it was a dumb question to ask if he had a lot of work to do. He didn’t have a normal schedule, sometimes getting called in the middle of the night to fly across the country. 

“I’ll probably be here,” you admitted. “We’re closed for two days, and then over New Year’s, but otherwise I’ll be working. Might go see my dad if I have the time and he’s feeling up for it. Nothing major. Do you have plans for New Year’s, Spence?”

He opened his mouth to respond but paused, tilting his head slightly. “I, uh— Sorry, what’s that on the radio?”

You cocked your head, listening to the faint news broadcast filtering in from the staff break room that had caught his attention. You always had it on to not go insane from the silence. All afternoon it had been occupied with the same emergency broadcast. “Oh, you haven’t heard about it? I honestly thought you’d be working the case.”

“What case?” Spencer asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Some senator was kidnapped, and another one was shot. Apparently no one heard or saw a thing, but they can’t figure out how since the neighborhood has, like, crazy good security.” 

“Kidnapped in his own home?” 

“Mhm. I think they used the helipad, but Janice and Charlotte didn’t believe me.” You gestured toward the corner where the two older women usually sat knitting and reading romance novels. “Y’know, the regulars?”

“You think the kidnappers used a helicopter, without being heard or seen?” Spencer asked, a note of skepticism in his voice. “How would they even get access to a helicopter?” 

“If you know how to find and operate one, certain helicopters are easier to steal than cars. No locks in the way or keys needed,” you explained as if it were common knowledge. 

Usually, this was the point in a conversation where you would shut up, thinking that you’d crossed into boring territory. But by the look on Spencer’s face, he just wanted to hear more about it. 

“And if the security guards are all at the entrance to the gated community, I think you could go unnoticed. It’s close to the air force base, there are probably aircraft flying there on the daily.” You shrugged, a little self-conscious. “This job gives me a lot of free time to overthink things.” 

Spencer smiled in slight disbelief. “How do you know how to steal a helicopter?” 

“My dad was in the air force,” you explained. “From Fork Union to Master Sergeant. With today’s standards he’d probably be diagnosed with autism, but back when he was working, he was mostly just known as the guy who knew everything about every type of aircraft.” 

You scrunched your face at the thought of your dad. You adored him, you really did, but he hadn’t given you the easiest of childhoods. That meaning being stuck with your mother because he was away a lot for work. 

“What was that look for?” Spencer asked, because of course he realized stuff like that. 

“I have tried so hard all my life to not be like my mother that I unconsciously picked up my father’s personality instead,” you said with a self-deprecating laugh.

Spencer’s expression softened. “I despise my father, so I’m doing the opposite. Turning into my schizophrenic mother.” 

“My dad got sick too,” you said quietly. “That’s why he stopped working. And why my mother divorced him. He lives at a care facility by the coast now.” 

Before Spencer could respond, a buzzing noise came from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen.

“Duty calling?” you asked. 

Spencer hesitated before nodding.

“I don’t think I can extend this, by the way,” you said, picking up the copy of War and Peace, placing it behind you on a shelf with other returned books. 

“That’s fine—” he began, but you cut him off.

“I do, however, have another solution,” you said, standing up from your chair to go into the staff room. With quick steps, you grabbed your tote bag, the one with the Kate Bush album on it, and walked back out. Spencer stared at you in confusion as you pulled out a book, not wrapped in paper or anything special, but there was a dark red ribbon tied into a bow around it. 

Spencer recognized it immediately as the same type of fabric you often wore in your hair.

“I have no one else to buy gifts for, so I thought I might as well. You won’t have to keep loaning it over and over again,” you said with a shy smile, handing it to him. 

Spencer stared at it, his hands hesitating before taking it. A Russian copy of War and Peace. A nice one too. Hardcover with gold leaf embossment. “Thank you…” he said softly. “I feel bad now. I don’t have anything to give to you.”

“You’ve made my night shifts a lot less depressing these last months,” you replied. “That’s enough of a gift to me, Spencer.”

He opened his mouth as if to argue but closed it again, nodding instead. “You know I’m not good with words,” he said after a pause, “or sometimes I think I might be too good with them. I say too much too quickly—”

“Do you wanna go on a date with me?” you interrupted, your voice steady but your heart pounding.

Spencer’s eyes widened. “A d-date?” 

“Y’know, we go somewhere, maybe get some food, and then we talk. And if it leads somewhere, it leads somewhere.” You hesitated, your confidence wavering. “If I misread this entirely, that’s fine. You don’t have to say yes. But I’d like to keep your company during my night shifts, if I haven’t ruined that completely now by admitting that I find you attractive.”

“No, no, uhm—” Spencer stammered, his cheeks now fully pink. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been asked out this directly before.” 

You held your breath as he gathered himself. 

“I’d love to go on a date with you.”

A grin broke across your face. “Good, so how about those New Year’s Eve plans?” 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

The D.C. police office buzzed with activity despite the late hour. Phones rang, officers rushed past with files in hand, and the muted hum of fluorescent lights filled the air. Spencer stepped into the building, his scarf still loosely draped around his neck and his cheeks slightly pink from the cold December air. From the side of his messenger bag, a red ribbon could be seen peeking out. 

“Spencer, where the hell have you been?” Morgan’s voice rang out from across the room. He strode toward Spencer, his brow furrowed with equal parts concern and frustration.

“At the library,” Spencer replied, unwinding his scarf as he spoke. His tone was calm, almost as if the answer were obvious. “I came as soon as I heard.” 

Morgan crossed his arms. “At ten at night?” 

Spencer hesitated for a fraction of a second, his gaze darting briefly to the floor before meeting Morgan’s eyes again. “There’s one open all hours of the day.” 

Morgan’s eyes narrowed slightly, but a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Why are you smiling like that?”

Spencer’s lips twitched as if suppressing the grin threatening to break through. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, clearing his throat in an effort to sound composed.

Morgan tilted his head, his smirk growing wider. “Uh-huh. Sure it is. Library must’ve gotten a whole lot more interesting since the last time I was there.”

Spencer ignored the comment, shifting the conversation back to the matter at hand. “We should look into stolen helicopters in the area. I think that’s how they got in.” 

Morgan’s smirk faded as his professional demeanor returned. “Helicopters? That’s a hell of a theory. What makes you think that?”

Spencer adjusted the strap of his bag, his fingers fidgeting slightly. “The location of the kidnapping is close to an air force base. Certain small helicopters are relatively easy to steal—no locks or keys required. If the neighborhood security was focused on the main entrance, a helicopter could bypass them entirely. Given the proximity to the base, it’s plausible they used the airspace to their advantage.”

Morgan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Alright, genius, I’ll get Garcia to pull up any reports of stolen aircraft in the area. Nice ribbon, by the way, really pulls your outfit together.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––

If December in general was slow for you, the holidays were fucking dreadful. Your dad had a cold and could not receive visitors, so you ended up spending Christmas Eve at a party—two hours sober between drunk friends, and then you had enough. Christmas Day was spent on your couch, watching all five hours of Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, eating your body weight in Chinese takeout. 

You did get a postcard from your dad, a pretty coastal view on it that was of the beach he lived by. He also sent a pair of hand-knitted socks, a hobby you knew had been forced upon him by the older ladies he lived with at the care facility. His squiggly writing was harder and harder to decipher with every year that passed, but it still filled you with immense joy that his mind seemed to be bright even if his body wasn’t. 

From your mother you also got a postcard. A pretty coastal view was on it too, from Bali, where she was spending Christmas with her new partner. Hers wasn’t handwritten, instead only printed with a generic Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. No thought put behind it. 

You placed your father’s on the fridge, hung with a magnet you knew he’d gotten you when he was abroad for work in England. Your mother’s ended up being a perfect makeshift and temporary coaster on your living room table. Within days you had to throw it out because the paper had been ruined by tea stains. 

When you were back at work, the library was even quieter than normal, which honestly was to be expected. Janice came by to borrow some new romance novels to have over New Years. Some poor students had deadlines due first thing in January. But still, so calm you might even call it boring. And you loved this job. 

You sat at the front desk, flipping through a worn-out copy of a poetry collection by Patti Smith. You’d fallen down a hole of punk literature ever since you talked about JCC with Spencer. He didn’t seem like the kind to like said literature, but he had talked with you about it anyway. It was a tradeoff maybe, quid pro quo; he got to geek out about Tolstoy and Nobel Prize winners, and you got to talk about British bands and Vivienne Westwood. He’d actually really seemed to enjoy the irony of her bringing French 18th-century aristocracy into clothing worn by the most alternative and radical people in punk-era London.  

Deep down in thought, you barely heard when the entrance door opened. It was a gust of freezing cold wind that made you look up from your slouched position. In walked a man, obviously bothered by the weather, his sharp gaze sweeping across the room as he walked forward. He was followed by… 

“Spencer?” you wondered, standing. “You should be in Vegas.”

Spencer didn’t even have time to answer before his companion did. “Serial killers don’t care about the holidays, miss,” he said, his voice firm but not unkind. “SSA Derek Morgan.”

“You’re working the senator case, aren’t you?” you asked, narrowing your eyes slightly. “It’s turned into a serial case?” you rambled before shaking your head. “You probably can’t tell me the details anyway.”

Morgan gave a tight smile. “Not exactly.” He gestured toward Spencer. “We need your help with a quote. Spencer said you were the only person he could think of who might know it.”

“I didn’t say that—” Spencer tried to explain. 

“Don’t you have search engines and databases for things like that?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We do, but nothing came up,” Spencer replied. “And I don’t recognize it for the life of me.” 

“Must suck to be a genius, Spence,” you chuckled. “What’s the quote?” 

Morgan pulled a photograph from his pocket and placed it on the counter. Written in bold, smeared letters that looked disturbingly like blood were the words: Whoever is strong must also be good. 

“Jeez, give a girl a warning,” you muttered, grimacing slightly as you studied the photo.

It answered your question about whether or not it had turned into a serial case, because this was a place where someone had been murdered, and it wasn’t some fancy senator mansion this time, but more what looked like an abandoned warehouse.

“Ehm… I honestly don’t know. I mean, it’s a very simple quote. I could come up with that.” You tilted your head thoughtfully. You weren’t sure why Spencer had thought of coming to you when faced with this problem. You knew of a bunch of books and quotes, sure, but you were honestly mostly known around your workplace as the one who knew all about children’s bo— 

“Oh, oh! It’s sort of similar to a quote from a children’s book, but very badly paraphrased in that case.” 

Morgan straightened. “Can you show us?” 

You were already walking out from behind your desk when he asked, making your way to the children’s section with quick steps. The two taller men following. “Ever heard of Pippi Longstocking?” you questioned over your shoulder as you walked. 

Morgan looked skeptical and Spencer for once, too, like he didn’t recognize the name at all. 

“I would assume that you had a more refined taste in literature as a child and did not waste your time with translated Swedish fairytales about the strongest girl in the world,” you added, finally reaching the right shelf, filled with thin books with bright yellow covers.

As you ducked down, you practically disappeared out of view for the two of them, squatting on the floor while picking out the right book. 

Spencer perked up, smiling gently. “My mother is a professor in 15th-century literature. She used to read to me a lot.” 

“That’ll do it,” you concluded, flipping through the pages. “We use it sometimes for kids’ reading hours, that’s why I recognize it. Popular with bilingual and immigrant children too since it’s been translated to over 70 languages.” 

Spencer knelt down beside you, reading over your shoulder. You knew he was a quick reader, but when you knew what you were looking for, you were quicker. 

“Here!” you pointed out on a page, disturbed by the look of your chipped red nail polish. “The quote in English is ’If you are very strong, you must also be very kind’.” 

“That’s oddly similar,” Spencer agreed. 

“It might be translated. I can look into our non-English books.” 

You didn’t even wait for an answer before you started walking again, forcing Spencer and Morgan to follow suit. Down a corridor of shelves with children’s books, around a corner, to a new shelf, and then you ducked down on the floor, quickly scanning the spines. It was all children’s books divided into different languages. You picked whatever yellow spine you could see, collecting them in your arms before you sat down right on the floor. You knew the cleaning lady, she was great at her job. 

“The story is from the 1940s but still relevant. Pippi is an orphan living in a big yellow house with her horse and monkey, and has to fight with adults and authorities, saying that she can’t survive on her own. Honestly quite progressive,” you explained as you gave Spencer a copy in Russian, trying to hand a different one to Morgan before realizing that not all agents had the skills of Dr. Spencer Reid. 

“How’d she get the house?” Morgan asked, crossing his arms.

“Her dad is a sea captain and a king over some fictive island. She’s rich,” you replied matter-of-factly.

As you sat there on the floor, books spread around you, searching and comparing to the English version, talking about the pure feminism and boldness of a female author creating such a character during that time period, Spencer found you fascinating. Like a dancer, you had moved through the rows of shelves, with a grace and a crazy smile, firing you up. 

He had sensed it as soon as the unit stumbled upon the issue with finding the quote, that if someone was going to know this simple, moral-of-the-story quote to feed down the throats of children, it’d be you. 

“I don’t think it’s Russian,” Spencer said after finding the right page. ‘Kind’ didn’t turn into ‘good’ like it had in whatever way the unsub had paraphrased it. 

Morgan gave Spencer a sidelong glance. “Do you even need me here for this conversation?”

You ignored the comment, pulling out a book and flipping through its pages. “The missing senator has a German surname, right?”

Both Spencer and Morgan turned to you with confused faces. 

You shrugged. “I watch the news, okay? I’m alone here all night!”

With the German version in your hand, you scanned the pages for the quote. “Oh, look! My high school German might finally be paying off.” You read aloud, “‘Wer stark ist, muss auch gut sein.’”

You stood up and showed the book to Spencer, pointing to the quote. “‘Kind’ turns into ‘gut’, which can translate back to ‘good’,” you explained, even if you felt like he probably didn’t need it. Morgan might’ve found it useful at least. “Whoever is strong must also be good, right? That make sense?”

Morgan leaned against the shelf, rubbing his chin. “So, the quote is from a Swedish children’s book, translated into German, and then badly paraphrased into English? What do we do with that?”

You shrugged, closing the book. “I just know what it says. I don’t know what it means.” 

Spencer paced as he thought out loud. “The unsub has to be a woman.” 

 “Who speaks German?” Morgan added, mostly out of confusion. 

“And she most likely identifies with the abandonment issues of the girl in the book, and having to be independent at a young age,” Spencer added, a light in his eyes shone like the stereotypical picture of a lightbulb turning on when an idea was formed.  

Morgan glanced at Spencer. “Reid, didn’t the senator have a daughter?” 

You watched them as they spoke, unsure if this was even new information to them or something they were reciting to jog their own memories of the case. 

“So, wait, was I helpful?” you asked a little self-consciously, looking around, seeing the mess of bright yellow children's books on the floor. 

Spencer nodded, his excitement bubbling over. “Yes, yes, your brain is unbelievable! Thank you so much.” Without thinking, he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around you in a brief but firm hug. You felt him stiffen slightly, his germaphobe instincts clearly battling his enthusiasm, but he didn’t pull away immediately. You knew he didn’t do handshakes, so the thought of him hugging you felt even more abnormal. His voice was soft as he added, “I mean it.”

Before you could respond, Morgan cleared his throat, a teasing grin on his face. “Alright, Romeo, we’ve got to get moving.”

Spencer stepped back quickly, fumbling with his feet. “Right, of course.”

You hesitated, looking up at Spencer’s flushed face, before softly hurrying to ask, “Are our plans for New Year’s Eve still on?” 

He grinned, walking away. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

Spencer did miss it. Or in thirty-two minutes he would. He watched the clock on the wall in his hospital room with an anxious feeling. The fragments from a bullet had just been removed from his arm, and yet his biggest worry wasn’t the lingering ache in his arm—it was you.

“Your first date with her was supposed to be in a park at midnight? Do you realize how creepy that sounds?” Prentiss’s voice broke through his thoughts as Morgan had just explained why the first word they heard from Spencer as they had been allowed to enter his hospital room was your name. 

“Could you stop yelling at me while I’m literally in a hospital bed?” Spencer shot back. He wasn’t one to complain, and he could hear the humor in her voice, but if he were to complain, now wouldn’t be an awful time. 

Morgan leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed, an amused smile playing on his lips. “They’re both insomniacs and were going to watch the fireworks. It’s sort of sweet.”

They hadn’t been able to just get the unsub when they figured out who it was. It had taken them days to plan their attack, knowing that the daughter would kill her father if they ambushed the place. A senator being killed because they had rushed their strategy wasn’t a defense that would hold up in any internal investigation. 

So they waited and waited, mapping out the place where he had been taken, trying to get the daughter to leave. But she persisted, and an ambush was in the end the best choice anyway. Spencer hadn’t been shot directly. The daughter’s boyfriend had fired a shot, landing in the wall behind him, which left fragments flying all over. Some grazing his right arm, leaving it now fully bandaged. He’d also managed to hit his head on a beam while being lead out of the building afterwards, so he had three stitches on his forehead and blood in his hair. 

It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounded. He’d been through worse. Which was why he now felt restless in the hospital bed, just waiting to be discharged. He wouldn’t make it in time to see you anyway, but maybe he could at least call you and tell you what had happened so that you didn’t wait outside in the cold for him. 

He didn’t even have his phone on him, now that he thought of it. Or your number. 

Restless and impossible, the situation was. 

He had Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi, and Garcia all in his room. Just restlessly waiting too. Hotch was somewhere talking to a nurse about getting him out of here. Garcia was anxiously knitting. Rossi was half asleep while standing. Prentiss and Morgan were bickering about whether or not his date plans were cute or creepy. There was a radio in his room playing some sort of New Year’s program, almost taunting him by mentioning how time was closing up on the clock striking midnight. Some sort of reverse Cinderella, that was what he felt like. 

With a slow knock on the doorframe, Hotch announced that he was back. “They don’t know when they can release you, and, uhm…” he began, poised as usual, though he was fighting a smile. “Look who I stumbled upon in the reception,” he continued, stepping aside as you appeared in the doorway.

It was probably all over the news that the senator case had been solved and that officers and agents had been harmed in the process. And you listened to the news, like religiously. 

“You got shot…” you whispered, your voice trailing off as you took in the sight of him, pale but upright in the hospital bed.

“Oh, oh, is this her?” Prentiss asked as the entire unit watched as you entered the room.

They already knew your name. Now they knew what you looked like too. 

You were all done up. Date ready. For Spencer. You had on a black coat, covered in little snowflakes from being outside, but underneath he could spot a dress that sparkled like diamonds. You had red ribbons in your hair like usual and your Converse, squeaking from being wet against the hospital floors. No tights, and while Spencer worried you might be cold, he also knew from Garcia that you just couldn’t wear tights with certain dresses. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Garcia said, practically swooning. She nudged Spencer playfully. “Spencer, she’s gorgeous.”

Rossi stepped forward, clapping a hand on Garcia’s shoulder. “Maybe we should give them some time alone.”

Hotch, ever the professional and hopeless romantic, nodded. “We’ll be down the hall if you need anything, Reid.”

“Or pressed up against the door to eavesdrop,” Garcia added, earning a pointed look from Hotch as they all filed out, leaving you and Spencer alone.

The door shut with a click behind you as you stood flat on your feet in the middle of the room. You looked almost scared to move. 

“We were supposed to go on a date, and you got shot, Spencer.” 

The words left your mouth in nothing but shock. You didn’t even have time to be embarrassed over his colleagues being there and almost making fun of the situation because all you had in your head was the ringing sound of a gun firing and Spencer being the target. 

“I’m okay, I promise,” he reassured gently, reaching out his unharmed arm to you. 

You tentatively moved forward, almost in an inspective manner, seeing where he was hurt and not. With his hand reached out in your direction, you assumed he was fine with you touching it. You grabbed it gently, and Spencer spotted that your nails were just as sparkly as your dress. 

“You. Got. Shot.” You emphasized every word, scooting to sit on the side of his bed. “Like a bullet penetrating your skin kind of shot. That’s insane.” 

“It didn’t actually penetrate the skin, more like grazed me with fragments after it hit the wall behind me,” Spencer tried to explain. The bandage looked dramatic but all that was under it were scratches, basically. 

“But still—” you began, but he cut you off.

“You look very pretty.” 

You blinked, momentarily thrown off. “Don’t change the subject.” 

“But you do. I like you in red,” he insisted, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“I always wear red,” you pointed out.

“And I guess I always like you then,” he replied simply. 

You tilted your head, a teasing grin forming. “Did they give you something strong for the pain? What kind of smooth talking is this?” 

“I, uh— I got nothing for the pain, y’know—” He gestured vaguely.

“Drugs and that?” you filled in. 

“Yeah.” 

You didn’t press further. He figured you understood. Not that you had talked about it more than briefly. But you were sober, and he was sober, and breaking a sober streak even in a hospital setting was nothing easy. The pain from the fragments being removed was only temporary. The aftermath of any sort of prescription painkiller was a long-term thing for people like him. And maybe you. 

In silence, Spencer moved to the side of the bed, a way of notifying you that you could come sit higher up beside him. He hadn’t let go of your hand since you grabbed his, and when you scooted to sit so that your right arm touched his left one, he felt himself tense up at the closeness. While you still had your coat on, it was like a fire spread through it to his hospital gown and in turn his skin. 

You toed off your shoes, kicking them on the floor, as you lifted your legs to place them alongside his. “So, was it the daughter? Did she shoot you?” you asked, turning to look at him with wonder in your eyes. 

“Her boyfriend did. Helicopter pilot, by the way,” Spencer answered, gaze stuck on how your hand held his, perched in his lap over a thin blanket. 

Your eyebrows shot up. “No fucking way. I was right?” 

“You’re smarter than you realize,” he replied, his tone earnest.

You looked like a child on Christmas with the way happiness spread across your face. A happiness of being right, not over the situation. That was a given.

“It was the same old tale about a rich man abandoning his child and them later seeking financial compensation for it, thinking they’re entitled to their parents wealth after they’ve practically been left to live on the streets,” Spencer explained. Journalists would’ve figured out the motive as soon as it was public that is was the daughter, so he didn’t think he was breaking any protocol by telling you. 

“And those are the good kind of senators,” you quipped, earning a small laugh from Spencer. You could see that his tired body didn’t react particularly well to the sudden vibration in his chest. 

Your hand dropped his, only momentarily to soothingly caress his chest. He moved to hold yours again, keeping his held against his ticking heartbeat. You were so close. 

The second he could think that, you whipped your head around at the sound of a thud. It was outside, a flashing light coming through the window. 

“Oh my god, you can see the fireworks from here too,” you whispered, jaw dropped. 

Spencer turned his head, following your gaze. Bright colors lit up the night sky, faint booms audible even through the thick hospital walls. Both hands on the clock were on twelve. 

“It’s also a lot warmer in here than the park would’ve been,” Spencer mused, squeezing your hand in his. 

He could almost feel you relax as you watched the colorful explosions go off in the night sky. You leaned into his side, the side of your face carefully placed on his shoulder. In this cold, sterile hospital room, you filled him with tepidity. He glanced down at your face; cute was the only word that came to mind. The subjective Spencer-esque way of defining it. You had silver glitter on your eyelids that twinkled whenever you blinked. Your lips had been glossy but were now mostly bitten raw from being anxious. 

Spencer could only think of one thing as he took you in. 

“Would you mind me becoming part of your microbiome?” he whispered. 

You blinked, startled by the question, looking right up at him. He hadn’t even wanted to shake your hand when he introduced himself that first time. But kissing was, according to him, more sanitary anyway. You hadn’t been nervous for a kiss since you were in high school, yet this paralyzed you. It was terrifying, looking at him, feeling an invisible force pulling you towards him, towards his face, towards his lips. 

“W-what if some bacteria from Cody Parker becomes a part of you now?” you joked, buying time to collect yourself.  

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he replied easily, his face now dangerously close to yours. 

Your breath caught as he closed the distance, his lips meeting yours. You were both tentative at first, his hand still holding yours clasped over his chest. With your other hand, you pushed his hair from the side of his face, cradling his cheek as you deepened the kiss, touch by touch. 

Spencer had never had a New Year’s kiss before. He wasn’t sure this was considered one either. The clock was probably 12:07 if he were to estimate. 

From the hallway, Garcia’s voice could be heard through the door. “Oh my god, he kissed her.”

“Shut up, Garcia, I’m trying to see,” Prentiss whispered harshly.

You pulled back, laughter bubbling up as Spencer’s cheeks flushed deep red. Despite his embarrassment, a shy smile lingered on his face. The fireworks outside continued, unnoticed by the two of you, as you leaned in to kiss him again. 

–––––––––––––––––––––––

The apartment was quiet as you stepped inside, the muffled hum of the city beyond the windows the only sound accompanying your footsteps. Spencer moved carefully, his movements stiff and hesitant from the pain radiating from his arm. Two pairs of Converse stood on his doormat. One pair of simple black ones. Another pair of smaller, red ones. 

“You need to shower, Spencer. There’s coagulated blood in your hair,” you said, setting his bag down on the floor before reaching up to tuck a strand of his hair behind his ear, it all sticking together in a knot. 

He groaned softly, glancing toward the bathroom, then at the inviting sight of his bed just a little bit further down the hallway. “When I, for once, feel like I could fall asleep just looking at a bed?” 

You crossed your arms, giving him a pointed look. 

“No, you’re right. I just—” He hesitated. “How am I going to do it with this on my arm?” 

“I’ll help you,” you offered immediately, then Spencer could see the realization hit you. “O-or maybe we can call Morgan, or someone else that you trust—”

His face twisted in mock horror. “I’d rather die than have Morgan wash my hair.” 

“I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“I’ll be fine,” he said, firmer than intended. 

“You don’t have to pretend around me.” Your expression softened. “When was the last time you were naked in front of someone?” 

His eyes widened, and he stammered. “Ehm, I—” 

“Never?” you asked, far from in the teasing manner he was used to. 

“Do doctors count?” he muttered, his face flushed.

“Okay,” you said, putting your hands together, stepping back slightly. “We’ll work around this to make you comfortable. Do you have swim shorts?” 

“Yeah, that could work.” 

Spencer retreated into his bedroom while he saw you go into the bathroom. It wasn’t easy for him to get out of his clothes and into the shorts, but he managed in the end. He spotted himself in his full-length mirror just as he was about to exit the bedroom. Tall and scrawny. Bandaged all over his right arm. Dressed in light blue shorts with flamingoes on them that Garcia had gotten him, as a joke he thought or she could have been completely serious. You never knew. 

This was about to be the closest he’d been to another person while wearing so little clothing. And that was terrifying. No other word for it. It didn’t matter that you had kissed. Twice at the hospital. Once in the taxi home. Another small one as you helped him unlock his front door. Still terrifying. 

It wouldn’t get easier the longer he waited, so he stepped out of his bedroom, too self-conscious to look at you, already rambling before you even noticed him.  

“Don’t laugh, Garcia bought them for me when we had a case in Florida—”  

“They’re cute,” you simply said, sat on the edge of his bathtub. 

When he lifted his gaze to see you, you’d also changed. Or maybe undressed was a better word. Your dress was gone, and left were a pair of spandex shorts he imagined you had on under for comfort and warmth, maybe? And your bra. A simple black bra. 

“You—” Spencer couldn’t form a sentence. 

“I thought I’d make it even,” you shrugged, standing up. “Can you get in the tub without hurting yourself further?” 

Spencer pressed his lips together to keep his posture. He nodded, as he at least though he’d be able to sit down on his own. But no. His balance betrayed him as he had both feet down on the porcelain, trying to lower himself down into a cross-legged position. 

You were there within seconds, your hands trying to help him from falling. With an ungracious thud, he was sat down. 

You sat halfway on the edge of the tub, turning the water on, waiting for it to get warm. As you did, you reached to comb through his hair with your fingers, but he stopped you before you got the chance. 

“Just wait,” he said quickly, putting his hands up so that you couldn’t touch him. “For a second, will you?” 

“Cause you’ll pop a boner if I touch you now?” you teased, shockingly how easy dirty words fell from your mouth. 

A baffled laugh escaped him. “You’re so…” 

“Rude?” 

“Honest,” he replied. “I’ve been having a hard time keeping it together since you kissed me.” 

“Nuh-uh, you kissed me,” you shot back with a grin. “You’re a good kisser, by the way.” 

Spencer didn’t say another word as you started to wash his hair. Feeling slightly pathetic, he sat there in the bathtub, water falling from his head like a wet dog. He didn’t know how to make the situation less awkward, so he just accepted the way it was. 

At least it was comfortable, having your fingers untangle his hair and massage his scalp with shampoo. When you were done, you helped him stand up, handing him a towel, but not before quite obviously eyeing his body up and down. 

“You’ve turned pink all the way to your stomach,” you pointed out, and before Spencer could react, you added, “Don’t worry, it’s hot,” like that would make it any easier for him to process. 

Later, Spencer was sitting on the edge of his bed, his damp curls sticking to his forehead as you helped him dry his hair. You moved gently, careful not to jostle his injured arm. 

He’d been able to change into a t-shirt and pajama pants on his own, with you trying to hold in your laughter from the other side of his bedroom door when he would stumble and hit his shin on his bed frame due to the lack of balance he had with only one working arm. 

“I can sleep here, right?” you said, tossing the towel into his hamper of dirty laundry. “It’s like 3 a.m. and I totally get if you wanna throw me out—” 

“I want you to sleep here,” he said softly, looking up at you. “With me.” 

No words left your mouth, but the smile that cracked through was unmistakable. He gave you a t-shirt to sleep in, something with an old college logo on it, and then he watched as you swiftly removed your bra from underneath it, like magic. 

He settled under the covers, making room for you on the side where he didn’t have his injured arm. Spencer hadn’t shared a bed like this with anyone before, so to say he was surprised when you laid beside him, snuggling into his side like you’d done it a million times before, would be an understatement. 

“Am I hurting you?” you mumbled, your head resting in the crook of his neck. 

“No, not at all,” Spencer squeaked out, trying to find a natural spot for his hand under your body. 

As you took in his room, your gaze landed on his nightstand, and your breath caught. Sitting neatly on the surface were three copies of War and Peace. One was pristine, the Russian copy you’d gifted him. Beside it was a well-worn English version, its pages annotated and creased. And then there was… another Russian copy, similarly worn and filled with notes.

Your hand rested lightly on his chest as you began to laugh. “You—” you started, glancing up at him with a soft smile. “You only loaned it from the library to talk to me.”

Spencer’s gaze flickered between you and the nightstand as he realized that you had realized. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered with a smile. 

You chuckled a little, reaching up to kiss his cheek before relaxing back down again. He’d been so tired before, as were you. But now it was like he could feel every nerve in his body, running through him like electricity. Just because you were here with him. 

“Is it—” Spencer whispered, unsure where his words would lead him. “Is it weird to sleep in the same bed as someone without having experienced the sexual aspect that is usually the reason couples share a bed for the first time?”  

Shit, he’d called you a couple. Maybe not directly, but definitely indirectly— 

“No, not at all,” you hummed against him. “Do you think it’s weird?” 

“I haven’t exactly done this before, so everything feels new and weird.” 

You looked up at him through heavy lashes, makeup-free and squeaky clean. “Most men that I’ve been with never made me feel like a woman—like a ladylike presence they cherished. I’d sleep with them too quickly and they’d get bored, or I wouldn’t put up with it, and they’d call me a prude.” 

Your voice sounded fragile in a way he’d never heard before. He’d picked up on little things where he assumed you weren’t exactly inexperienced, but the fact that experience could be something bad wasn’t necessarily something he’d thought about before. 

“Whatever this is, whatever weird order we are doing stuff in, feels better than anything I’ve ever felt before when it comes to love,” you continued, stuffing your face back in his neck to hide. 

Shit, you’d said the word love. Not even indirectly, like fully pronounced it, no mumbles. 

“It’s not a dry spell if you’ve never done it, by the way,” you joked, and he melted at the sound even though you were trying to embarrass him. “You’ve never gotten it wet for it to become dry.” 

Spencer stared up at the ceiling, biting his lip. “Can you not make fun of me?” 

“I’ve used sex as a coping mechanism all my life, allow me to be a little amused about someone going over 25 years without it.” You gently laughed again. “It’s sort of sweet.” 

On the side of your body, you found his unarmed arm placed all limp. With a bold move, you intertwined your fingers with his, taking both of them up to place against your chest. He was now embracing you, and he couldn’t even begin to think about the soft, ample flesh that could be found under your t-shirt. 

He let out a faint groan, mumbling, “You’re not making it any better.” 

Your expression softened further as you tilted your head, meeting his eyes. “We’ll get to it,” you said, your voice low and steady, “when or if we both feel like it. Don’t stress about it, okay? I don’t care.”

Spencer swallowed, his eyes darting to yours before quickly flickering away. His voice came out quiet, uncertain. “That’s something—” He hesitated, his brows furrowing as he searched for the words. “Is that something you’d want to do with me?”

You smiled, kissing his cheek again. “You just indirectly called us a couple, and I mentioned the word love, so don’t act clueless. I know you’re not.”  

His face turned a deeper shade of pink, and he ducked his head, letting it rest on his pillow as the ceiling yet again became very interesting. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt warm. He felt at home in your presence, no matter how foreign it was. His hand was still grasping yours, tucked against your chest. He could feel you fiddling with his fingers. 

“Can’t sleep?” Spencer asked after a long moment of silence. 

“I like ’em,” you murmured, lifting his hand to kiss his knuckles. 

“My hands?” he wondered tiredly. 

“I like everything about you,” you answered simply before closing your eyes. 

Can we all pretend I posted this on New Years? Yes? Thank you. And thank you for reading. Title and beginning quote is from Purple by Wunderhorse btw <3

[artdcnaldson]

hey <3 so i have been thinking about patrick’s sister au a lot and reread it and if by any chance its on your mind i just think it would be like crazy if mr.art is around for the holidays with your fam and being extra careful with the sneaking around even tho like seeing you like dressed up and enjoying the holiday season makes him like so down bad 🙏🏻🙏🏻 she gets him a present and he actually has a nice one for her too 🕯️🕯️ (i’ve been talking to this guy irl for sometime and im a little impatient so im trying to distract by rereading challengers stuff)

pat's SISTER 💜

this is still my absolute favorite au of all time i just feel like rahhhhh like i want to write it but i always want it to be perfect yk??

Anyways, yeah <3 <3 <3 <3

With Art's grandma in the retirement home, he doesn't really have a big reason to go home for Holiday break from Stanford. He goes home with you to your big, pretty house in the North East, and says it's bc he wants to see Patrick and make sure that you don't run your big mouth and tell him everything.

But you know he's really just eager to spend the holidays with you... because he loves you... you're his sweet girl, his pretty little plaything. He can't go a few weeks without slipping inside that perfect slice of heaven between your legs <3 And he loves you, obviously. <3

That's why he tries to ignore you at first <3 He loves you so much he doesn't want Patrick to get mad at you for fucking his best friend!

But it's hard to stay away when your mom has decided that this is the year you'll all go out and celebrate the holidays (which has nothing to do with your father's upcoming election, of course). You're out ice skating, and Art and Patrick can barely manage more than a wobble on their skates, but you're skating circles around them, doing little spins and trick because you took a figure skating class when you were twelve. And, god, he hates how cute you look. He hates that he even thought of you as cute and not something more degrading and in line with how he wants to think about you.

You go to the nearest botanical gardens to look at the decorations, sipping at hot chocolate, breath puffing out in front of your face. He wants to kiss you so badly, or maybe he wants to pull you in the nearest bathroom and fuck you over the sink. Both? It's all so confusing.

It's that night that Art finally goes to your room, and you're awake like you knew that he was going to be there. Not like you had been staying up until the middle of the night since your first night there, or anything. He pins you against your sheets, murmurs in your ear about how goddamn crazy you're driving him. And it all sounds like a confession of love in your ears.

But then his tongue is in your mouth and his fingers are rubbing over your clit and he's spitting into his hand so he can fuck you in your childhood bed. It's all so perfect, it's all so right. His hand clapped over your mouth, his hot breath panting into your neck.

You feel weird, when you knock on the door to his guest room for once. His hair is shaggy and messy from his shower, and he's wearing a stanford tennis crewneck. He looks so cozy, if not a little concerned that you're there.

"Are you insane? Patrick's gonna see y—" His gaze drops to your hands, to the carefully wrapped box in them. "Oh."

You sit on his bed, eyes frustratingly hopeful as you look up at him. He unwraps it carefully his brows knitting as he opens the box. Jesus fucking Christ.

"It's a watch!" You say, like it's that simple. Like it's not a really fucking nice one. "You're always wearing your digital one that beeps for no reason at 3am, and I know you'll never fix it, so I thought a future famous tennis player needs a big, fancy watch."

Big fancy watch indeed. He sighs, runs his hands through his hair. He thought he'd make it through the trip without having to be sappy, but, unfortunately, he was. He goes into the closet and grabs a little gift bag he'd brought. Just in case.

When he hands it to you, you look at him like he'd just proposed marriage or something. You open it to find something a little simpler than an expensive watch. It's a crewneck, just like the one he'd been wearing. Actually... it's a little more worn, not brand new at all. And when you pull it from the bag, you can smell his cologne on it.

"You're always stealing it anyway, so I just thought... y'know. I upgraded mine, so I figured you can just have it." He says. "It's not a big deal. And just don't wear it around Pat."

You don't say anything for a while. You just tug him to sit on the bed, then shift to your knees in front of him. "Can you stay quiet?" You whisper, lips brushing the hem of his boxers.

He nods, brushing your hair back with a surprisingly tender touch. You kiss the soft skin of his thighs, and he nearly shivers. You're quick to undress him, desperate to have access to the part of him that you love so much. You mouth at his balls as he steadily hardens above you, getting lost in the pulse of him on your tongue, the way he moans softly, just for you to hear.

When you finally take him into your mouth, he thinks he could probably love you, if he let himself. But wouldn't that be kind of cruel? To give you everything you want, when he knows that you love him so much more than he can love you? It almost makes him feel guilty when he cums down your throat, when you swallow his spend like it's a gift in and of itself.

You kiss his thigh twice, practically nuzzling against him before you get up and go back to bed.

[piastri-fvx]

Walking in the wind. Arthur Leclerc.

Pairing: Arthur Leclerc x girlfriend!reader

Genre: angst

Type: smau, irl

Summary: When Arthur's girlfriend follows her dream and goes to college in New York, making Arthur and her have to deal with the distance.

Word Count: 1.285+

Face claim: Sabrina Carpenter & girls from pinterest, as usual, lmao :)

Disclaimer/s: not really any, just angst and i guess seperation anxiety/the fear of growing apart (?) also wanted to mention that my french is not perfect, so please don't come at me if i make any mistakes <333

A/N: wooooo, kinda trying something new with this, hope u enjoy!! <333

------------------------------------------------------

@arthur_leclerc

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc, yourusername, charlotte2304, lorenzotl and 481.847 others

arthur_leclerc pour toujours ma fille ❤️

[translation: forever my girl]

tagged: @yourusername

| view all comments...

yourusername je t'aime!! ❤️ liked by creator [translation: i love you]

-> arthur_leclerc je t'aime, y/n/n ❤️

-> user1 yall, this kinda looks like a breakup...

-> user2 yeahhh, like... WHAT IS HAPPENING??

-> user3 y/n's going to New York for college 😭

-> user4 oh noooo, it's a goodbye post 😣

user5 face card is eating 😍

landonorris who's this DIVA? 🤭 liked by creator

-> user6 FRRRR, she is literally stunning

-> user7 i hope arthur can fight 😣

charles_leclerc ❤️ liked by creator

-> user8 the whole leclerc family is here 😭

alexandrasaintmleux we'll all miss you so so much, y/n!! i love you 💕 liked by creator

-> yourusername i love you, love of my life

-> arthur_leclerc i thought I was the love of your life??

-> user9 period.

-> yourusername @arthur_leclerc you're a solid second place 🥰

-> arthur_leclerc why, ouch. i thought we had something special

-> yourusername jk jk, you'll always be my number one ❤️🙄 liked by creator

-> user10 as she should, lmao

user11 i love how y/n's basically a part of the leclerc family 😭🙏

-> user12 arthur and her are basically married atp 🤭

-> user13 real

-> user14 the cutest family

charlotte2304 wishing you all the best, y/n 💕 liked by creator

-> user15 OMG HI CHARLOTTE

-> user16 frrrr

user17 i'll misss the y/n & arthur content so much

user18 you're the loss of my life 😣💔

-> user19 😭😭😭

<>

Arthur and you stand in the airport opposite of each other, tears glistening in both of your, but also his eyes. You both know.

You didn't want to believe it, but you knew that due to his busy schedule and you being in New York, you wouldn't be seeing each ither for a long time.

"So..." he finally speaks up, his voice gentle and unsteady. He doesn't meet your eyes, instead directing his gaze to the airport floor. "I guess this is goodbye?" He then questions, his voice barely over a whisper, afraid of the answer.

You almost immediately shake your head, protesting, "Don't say that. It's not goodbye. It's just a... see you later."

He opens his mouth to speak but you gently shush him, instead adding, "It's just for two years. After that, I'll be back here in Monaco with you. In our apartment, as if i was never away," a tear rolls down your cheek but you smile, knowing that you have to be strong now.

He slowly nods, his eyes flickering to the terminal that shows the flight times and then to your luggage that is standing next to you.

He tries to smile at your words, knowing that you'll wait for each other, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes, seeming rather sad. His voice is barely over a whisper when he speaks up again. "You'll miss your flight.."

Your try to hum, your heart breaking into a million pieces at the sight of Arthur, the person you love the most, in tears, his eyes sad and his whole deameanor seemingly down.

Despite the amount of noise at the rather busy airport, the world around the two of you seems to fade, leaving only him and you, both with heavy hearts.

He knew you had to leave, you both did.

He takes a deep breath, taking a step forward and tightly wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into a tight, kind of desperate embrace.

You simply stayed like that for a moment, his face staying buried in the crook of your neck as he gently rubs your back, trying to comfort you.

He pulls back just enough to cradle your face in his hands, his palms warm against your skin.

"Don't forget me, yeah?" He speaks up, a small smile tugging at his lips, an attempt to cheer you up. "And you better come back to me as soon as you're done with your studies."

"I will," you speak up, a small, soft giggle leaving your lips ad you finally meet his eyes. "I wouldn't dare of forgetting you. I'll text you every day. And we'll call each other."

"Promise?" He asks, a soft smile appearing on his lips as he gently held your chin in his hand, his thumb gently stroking your skin.

"Pinky promise." You grin, holding up your pink finger as he mirrors your action, locking his pinky with yours.

A sense of relief washed over him at your promise, his shoulders visibly less tense now, the firm yet soft expression on his face softening even more. "Bien.."

[translation: good]

He slowly leans down, his lips meeting yours in a soft, tender kiss.

The kiss was so bittersweet; the feeling of his soft lips on yours so familiar, despite this being the last time you two would have a moment like this for a while.

Arthur was kissing you like he was afraid that the moment his lips left yours, you would dissapear. He was holding you tight against his chest, as if afraid that he would never touch you again.

The kiss wasn't hurried at all. It was slow, chaste, tender and gentle. It was a goodbye kiss, a "i'll miss you" kiss, a "please don't forget about me" kiss.

The moment your lips eventually parted, Arthur rested his forehead against yours, his eyes remaining closed, as if he wasn't quite ready to look at you yet.

You just wanted to stay in this moment as long as possible.

He let out a sigh, reluctantly opening his eyes to meet, taking a step back, his hands now holding yours.

"I really gotta go now," you quietly spoke, knowing there was no way around this.

He nods, finally letting go of your hands and looking at you one more time. "Be safe. I'll wait for you." He said, his voice soft, yet sure.

With that, you smile, turning around and finally dissapearing into the criwd to go board your flight.

Arthur stays where he is, waiting until he can't see you anymore.

<>

@yourusername

liked by arthur_leclerc, charles_leclerc, alexandrasaintmleux, charlotte2304, lorenzotl, landonorris and 1.947.027 others

yourusername happy anniversary to the love of my life ❤️

tagged: @arthur_leclerc

| view all comments...

arthur_leclerc happy anniversary, l'amour de ma vie ❤️ liked by creator

[translation: the love of my life]

-> user1 they're so 😍😍😍

landonorris wowwwww, keep it PG13, please liked by creator

-> yourusername shush, you're single 🥰

-> user2 i love how lando and y/n act like siblings when they're together

-> user3 she ate him up 💀

-> user4 @yourusername preach, girly

user5 y/n in her aesthetic era 😍

user6 favorite wag 💕

-> yourusername my favorite wag is ollie 😝

-> olliebearman no.

-> yourusername YES.

-> olliebearman i am NOT a wag.

-> yourusername yes you are. you have kimi 😌

-> olliebearman he has a girlfriend???

-> yourusername i know, she's stunning 😍

-> babickovaeli tyyyy!! you're literally drop dead gorgeous 🫶🫶🫶 liked by creator

-> yourusername AHHHHH OMG HIIII

-> babickovaeli heyyyy!!!! liked by creator

-> user7 damn 💀

user8 ollie and y/n bickering like children is so funny to me 😭

alexandrasaintmleux so happy for you both 💕 liked by creator

-> yourusername how's my baby???

-> arthur_leclerc me?

-> yourusername no, silly 😌🙄 i'm talking about Leo.

-> charles_leclerc leo's good!! he misses his aunt though liked by creator

-> user9 poor arthur 😭

-> user10 i don't even blame her, leo's adorable

user11 "thank you for the couple content, y/n" we all chant in unison

------------------------------------------------------

A/N: actually had no motivation for a moment because i had already written half of this and tumblr deleted it, but yeahhh... 🥰 hope u enjoyed!! reblogs, likes and follows are greatly appreciated <333

[sainteclectic]

what do you think would cause soul to not see whole as a god or deity anymore?

i am interested

ohh very good question...

it's a buildup of things, I think. soul is trying to tuck his pain away because it's all worth it! all of it was worth it to see whole, all the thousands of loops of endless suffering {caused by} for whole, it's all okay because whole is here and everything is alright now. he gets frustrated with his involuntary responses to things- the way he flinches when heart or mind raise their voices too loud, the sound of fireworks sending him into a panic thinking it's happening again - the constant looming dread he's grown so used to, things he could manage before, they get to him because it's supposed to be over. he's supposed to be free. why isn't everything perfect, why isn't he perfect?

and he tries so very hard not to blame whole. in the beginning, he'd never even dare to. the other two do, but soul never would. sure, he put them all through hell and knowingly put soul specifically through an endless loop of suffering whole knew he remembered - but it's fine! whole got him through it too, he's the reason soul kept going, and who is he to question god?

things also become less perfect on whole's end. whole tries his best to impress soul, to not let him down, to live up to all the expectations of divinity. but he's not a god. he's just a man, and a very mentally ill and unstable one at that. so it's inevitable that he does things that aren't godly. he lashes out, he makes mistakes, he does all the things humans do and gods don't.

soul tries not to blame him again. it must be something with soul, somehow. it has to be that their harmony isn't perfect, there's something soul could be doing better, if they just find that perfect synchronicity, then it'll all be perfect. soul is a flawed and broken thing by design. whole is the ideal he's been striving for for... god, how long has it been now? hundreds of years? thousands? the loop number {333,333} is all that he remembers {always 3, never 1}, it's all that matters {not soul's suffering, not all the work that goes to waste, only whole}

the breaking point, like most things, happens gradually. maybe he starts to understand why heart and mind are furious with whole and feels terrified that he can relate to an emotion he'd never dream of having. maybe whole pushes him away and soul feels upset with whole instead of himself for once. maybe he realizes he's been praying to the altar of the god who brought him salvation, not to the man who damned him.

it's slow. and it's unwilling. and it's painful. for the first time, he's the one to pull away. he doesn't want to see whole because he can't bear to see the imperfections instead of the god he reveres. he doesn't want to have his whole life to be meaningless. doesn't want his mirror image to be as flawed as he is. {doesn't want to see whole's heartbroken face when he realizes it's finally happened.}

why is the world so cruel? why couldn't things just be alright? why couldn't soul be satisfied? {why couldn't whole just end this already? why did he put soul through hell if he loves him so damn much?} he's angry, and it hurts that he's angry, he doesn't want to be angry. but he is.

like the fall, the rebuilding takes time. whole is the one to reach out first for once. whole has always been terrified of initiating anything, always letting soul take the first step, but he's willing to try for soul. it's painful. there's a lot of crying. and soul is devastated when whole hugs him and it doesn't feel sacred anymore.

but it's warm. and it's human. and maybe that's enough.

[mawlbone]

MARKED MINES - NIKTO

SNIPPET: The lingering sensation of pain is more than enough proof that you’re human enough to still feel the sharp sting of pain when you feel there’s no one there to hold you in all your numbness.

[CW: gender neutral reader, dom reader, mean reader, kidnapper reader, manipulative reader, insecure nikto, soft sex, dehumanization, stockholm syndrome, dubcon, unhealthy codependent relationship, mention of sh scars and brief vivid description of previous sexual assault and torture (not from nikto and reader), vomit, water boarding, knifeplay, masochist nikto, mild bloodplay, self depreciating thoughts, scarring, degradation, marking, touch-starved nikto, forced proximity, hand-holding, dry-humping, and lots of cuddling and a Kreuger appearance.]

[COMMENT: If you are sensitive to the topics listed above, I recommend you to read my other fics because yes, the warnings are heavy in this one. What is a happy ending is subjective to the reader’s opinion.]

Time touches all that is living. It’s the simplest fact that all men know.

It’s ever so present with the way the young burst into towering adults, the way they mature with fine lines growing onto one’s face, and the greying hair that sparkle onto one’s head once they turn back into little old creatures. But for all what time can touch, it cannot heal all wounds as much as the people like to preach it from their mighty ground that everything will eventually be alright.

Does it truly?

For what the brain cannot remember, the body pays in tenfold.

So it’ll desire a release. A means to end an illness all stuck in your head as a desperate measure to prove it’s all real and still there. Why else would one’s body constantly clutch over in pain trying to piece the fragments of an once clear image? All that stress, all that anger, and all those tears makes a terrible sight for everyone. It’s shameful. It’s not like one can control these emotions, much to the disappointment of the world.

Time comes and goes, and it’ll forever leaves everyone behind in its mess. For time does not heal all wounds. All it does is make you forget in the obscurity of itself.

Maybe that’s why Nikto is so desperate to be around people. People are permanent. People are alive. But why does he always feel so lonely in the company of others, even when he tries to escape it by fleeing to the emptiness of other rooms. Maybe it’s himself that he cannot stand to be around, he thinks as he collapses into the bushes, hissing as he clutched his stomach feeling the bullet inside his flesh. A failed mission, he was left behind. His fault for not paying attention.

It’s fine.

He’ll just make his way back again once he recover, he thinks, just barely dragging his body, following the lights in the woods to a little house hidden amongst the grasping branches of the forests.

Hopefully a good samaritan is nice enough to house him for a little while.

—

You always wanted a pet.

For all your assortment of critters you had over the years, despite all the love and care you can put into ensuring they get the best meals and enrichment. All of them had inevitably die to the hands of the clock and left in heartache.

Your family suggested that you find something else to accompany you instead, tired of you griefing over every animal you ever had. Young and old, big or small, fur or scales.

Animals are not meant for a human lifespan, no matter how long humans tried to domesticate them. So people were naturally your next choice, but a lifelong companion never last long anyways as much as you like to try again and again. Many failed dates, whether through online dating apps or setups from your friends all ultimately failed. None of them were half as loving or loyal as any ol’ hound you had before.

Hell, if anything they were worse.

So when a thump was heard at your door, you can only hold in a squeal seeing a collapsed man at your door. All big and brawny, a perfect pet. How perfect, you thought as you pulled your back to drag the man inside your home and down into your basement.

You don’t receive much visitors nowadays, simply hunting and fishing around the area to occupy yourself. Isolating yourself to the ends of the woods was what you prefer to the bustle of the city life. So nobody should mind if you keep another pet, right?

You got a big enough kennel for him down there, he’ll be all healthy again once you get that bullet sorted out.

—

Like all strays, Maybe you should had expected your new dog to be so reactive once he woke up bounded to your bed, cussing and all as he tugged against the chains holding his ankles back from grasping the bars of his cage. It was fairly spacious, if anything, more than what you’ll usually give, but the whole basement was designed to keep some guy’s exotic pet collection once before, so you suppose this dog of yours still perfectly suits the room’s purpose.

But damn was he a bitch to handle, biting your fingers every time you tried to feed him, barking at you whenever you tried to bond with him and even threating to kill you, calling you disgusting and pervert for keeping him down here. Seething anytime you come down to check on him and saying his men will come find him and torture you for what you done to him.

How mean.

That didn’t stop him from crying though when you held him down to clean him up, too weak to fight back from constantly spitting out your food as he shivered at the cold water wiping away the mess. There’s no bathroom in the basement after all, only a bucket to relieve himself in.

As much as, what your dog, Nikto, which he liked to calls himself, likes to bark at you. You learned he was terribly easy to break, absolutely despising being alone as you watched him from your cameras down below.

The constant whines, the pleading, the lack of time down there made it all too easy within the darkness of the room. You’ll watch him hold himself tight as his arm cling tight around his head or chest to protect himself crying and screaming, demanding you to come down. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll find him whimpering quietly trying to relieve himself to ease his stress.

At first, he’ll turn his back to the camera trying to get off as he whines into the room unable to get his fix. But no longer he cares anymore once you dropped several of your old pillows and blankets to comfort him and watching him snuggle against them, a pillow settled underneath his hips to rut against as he presses into nose to your things.

What a freak, you thought as he watched him sigh and mewl so prettily, even taking a hand back to thrust back into his own fingers. Biting into the blankets to muffle his screams when he finally got his release.

But you’re impatient. You want a companion still.

His reactions were fun for you to bully him with every time you came down to tease him. You made it a routine to drop many of his meals off and leaving for multiple days on end to fuck with his concept of time. Seconds turn into hours, and days turn into months as you lied about what day is it everytime you come down. But eventually it got tiring, you gotbored with the same response over and over again anytime you try to be nice to Nikto.

Perhaps it’s true that you’re not fated for a lifelong companion, maybe this dog is not meant to be yours. So you gave up on him.

Your final test was when you left the cell and basement door ajar, no word directed at Nikto as he whined at you to let him go still. His voice softer, weaker now with the lack of water you give him after splashing his glass onto you. If he doesn’t want to stay here, fine. You won’t keep such an ungrateful thing here anymore if he keeps fighting back at you. You had a work trip to go to anyways back at the city.

He could be freed and gone from your house for all you could care once when you arrived back.

Though the last thing you could had expected was the sight of him sitting on your porch, just like the day you find him, dazed as you pulled into the driveway. Naked with nothing more his briefs and blanket strapped over his shoulders as he stared at you blankly, whining at you once more to ask why you left him as fat tears fall down his face.

You watch his struggle to stand up, wobbling as his hands reach outward trying to grasp you and apologizing for behaving so badly to you.

Oh… He thinks you’re a hallucination, you thought as he cutely stumbles over to you, sniffing in his sobs as he loudly cries your name. Looks like he’s could still be good dog after all, you hummed to yourself as you walked forward to allow him to collapse against you, taking him back to your house once more.

Finally he is properly broken in and all yours.

—

For what little Nikto can remember, between the grasps of many nitrile blue hands clenching his face and the sting of scalpels pushing onto his skin as if he was a human pincushion, he cannot for the life of him remember the faces of the many men that held him in that icy metal chair those long nights once ago.

A blessing or a curse?

He is unsure.

Perhaps he was too preoccupied in that moment taking in the circumstances of his fate as he rattled in those chains hissing from the sharp stings of thin cuts lined across his stomach as he is forced to endure hearing the laughter of the crowd that surrounded his form splashing him with cold water running down his naked form.

In that time, he was a showstopper. Their entertainer for them to please as they push and pull him all around. So it’s no wonder when he had threw up so violently over himself that he knocked himself out once those nitrite blues started crawling down his hips and grasping at his skin to cut further into. He remembers nothing further of that eventful day but the fade of hysterical laughter will always be drilled into his ears.

He doesn’t know who he is without his trauma anymore. It’s almost intimate to him of how he feels reassured with the numerous scars decorating his skin. It’s something that had become whom he is.

Almost a lover.

But, how do you explain that to someone? It’ll seem like to anyone that he doesn’t want to get better but he already lost so much of himself. He had already become so familiar with this sight that its disappearance will toss him further back into the ends of his mind to find himself back. This sight, these scars are what’s left of him, a reminder that’s he’s still undeniably human and one of them, one of you.

Back in the basement, at least you didn’t hit him, taunt him, or stop feeding him.

You’re different. You always allow him to touch you and he’ll feel soft skin, and not latex on his fingers. Instead of drills and mocking laughter, there’s you peering down on him and praising him and giving him easy affections as you pat down and take care of all his wounds.

Maybe that’s what he finds so fascinating about this sight, Nikto thinks as he watches you bandage his arms, gently scolding him after catching him picking his scabs all bloody again in the bathroom that night, deciding to not punish him.

He doesn’t know why he did it.

You two just had a nice romp that afternoon with you spoiling him hours on end. Constantly cuddling and caressing his face, even giving him plenty of attention to his dick, easing him from the mess of his mind. Every sweet croon of your voice as you squeezed him dry had him gasping for air, head too full of that overwhelming pleasure as you bullied him to tears as you pushed him over and over to spill over your hand until he was empty, leaving him fuzzy enough to sleep as you cleaned and kiss his cries quiet. A reward for behaving so well, you said.

So why did he had to go and fuck it all up and ruin all your trust, he was doing so well!

Was it to remind himself that good things don’t last long when he snuck out the bed that hour, that this much happiness doesn’t belong to him, that he needed a relief to remind him of whom he was? What he came from?

He isn’t sure.

None of the rest do either.

Despite your best efforts to help him from his vices, as nowadays, you help him shave after telling you doesn’t trust himself with something so sharp near his face anymore. Sweetly enough, you said you don’t mind him hairy anyways if he so wishes to keep it that way, it’s cute, as you smoothed your terribly warm hands on his chest and patting it like he’s some big dog.

Humiliating.

But damn if he’s isn’t enjoying your attention as you cradled his face, calling him your good boy and how he’s still cute and all even when his face is obscured by his mask and saying it’s little happy hoodie to calm him down, you said once day, dropping multiple pairs on the bed for him to try on. Even allowing him to gather your clothes to sleep with. Compared to before, the comfort of the mattress in your bedroom does wonders to his body compared to the one from the basement, as he rumbles happily as you scratch his tummy and letting him thump against the cushion all tucked up in your lap as you watched some old television.

He’s undeniably warm and full from dinner hours ago, too sated with all the heat surrounding but that didn’t stop his stomach from dropping once you place a knife on his tummy.

Your neck is already littered with his marks: from the long scratches down your back, the cheeky playful nips at your fingers, and the dark bruises littering your throat. You know he likes claiming you. But you always wondered if he would had liked a more permanent mark on him from you.

“Nikto”, he’ll hear you speak ever so softly as you dragged the blade against his stomach.

Your breath is hot and heavy, against the back of his neck. You can feel him shiver at the coldness of the blade against his skin goosebumps arise from it. Your voice is clear as you dragged the sharpened weapon against, he’s deadly still.

“Would you mind if I place my initials here”, as you pointed the tip of the blade just a hair away from piercing into him

Fuck…

Yeah he would like that.

He will really like that.

Belonging somewhere, belonging to you. It’ll means you won’t abandon him. You’re just proving that. Anyone one who can see it will know he belongs to you. You can only laugh at seeing the tent forming in his pants as you pulled his shirt away, ensuring you wipe your hands and his skin clean with an alcohol wipe clean before placing on a glove to ensure his wound won’t get infected.

You’ll be a bad owner after all if he got too hurt.

As you settled better behind him, back pressed your chest, it will be your own little secret between him and you, whenever he can see your initials as you gently press the knife against his stomach, ensuring you are pressing into the meat of his lower tummy. No need to actually kill your doggie by cutting into an artery or something.

Slow and precise, you made sure to keep a hand on Nikto’s chest so he won’t move as your made your cuts onto his skin. One by one, a letter formed onto his skin as Nikto hitched his breath, feeling the familiar sharp stings pressing onto his skin.

Soon enough, you were finished with your work as you wiped away the blood and begin cleaning yourself up as you cleaned the cuts with some alcohol spray and pressing a bandage over it. All while praising your boy for behaving so well as Nikto pants away.

You’ll laugh seeing the tent in his jeans as you cooed the man for behaving so well, though you had to swat away Nikto’s hands from pressing down on the wound, however assuring him that since it’s only light cuts that it’ll heal soon and he can admire it later. As he lift his head up, you had little moments to prepare yourself as he flipped himself over to tackle you onto the bed, licking your face as he nuzzled into your neck thanking you for keeping him.

Time will touch all that is yours, but perhaps time will allow you to keep Nikto until your eventual end.

How sweet.

—

Though you will have to do something about that strange little green netted man who keeps popping up in your woods and disrupting your traps.

Maybe you’ll ought to get Nikto a little friend to occupy himself. He did say something about his men finding you.

The more the merrier, right?

[fatuismooches]

In a recent ask, you put in the tags that you wanted more Pantalone crumbs. I HAVE COME TO DELIVER.

Pantalone, who whenever he comes to bed after working all day, just immediately buries his face in your chest. You hear him groan something about "all my coworkers are morons" and then he stands up straight, smiles and does his nighttime routine.

Pantalone, who is a terrible cook, but he's trying his best. Truly, he burns everything he cooks. He's really trying, but he can not cook for the life of him.

Pantalone, who, on the other hand, is very good at sewing and knitting. He grew up in poverty, he had to fix his own clothes because he couldn't buy new ones.

Pantalone, who yells at Dottore because "No, I gave you over a million mora for experiments, you can't have any more!" But the moment you say "Pantalone, look at this necklace! Oh, wow, that's a steep price..." he's dropping his wallet into your hands and telling you to get anything you want.

ANYWAY, I LOVE YOU (/platonic) SMOOCHES

You can't really blame poor Pantalone for his squeezing. Dealing with his fellow Harbingers is one of the harder aspects of his job. Unlike his usual clients, they're more likely to start a fight, whether gracefully or not, over his deals. It was a real pain, having to keep his smile up that long, which is why the first thing Pantalone does is hold you tight in his arms and nuzzle his face into your warm chest to relieve himself of his pent-up frustration. It was an effective method indeed. Of course, he doesn't want to appear too vulnerable, so he gets over it rather quickly.

Unfortunately, the Harbinger didn't grow up in an environment where he could easily cook so it was one of the skills that he wasn't able to acquire. Nor did Pantalone have easy access to enough ingredients for an actual meal. Despite having lavish dishes for meals now, he can eat nearly anything with a straight face, because he trained his body to do so. Whenever he messes up he always manages to laugh it off but in truth sometimes he feels inadequate at not being able to handle something so simple.

Pantalone rarely ever sews anymore, his employees take care of everything of course (and you have like a million outfits you'd never notice a tear in any-) but if he happens to be in the mood, he'll stitch up something of yours wordlessly. If you happen to like the hobby too, sometimes he'll just smile at you, not say anything, and then randomly give some advice if you're stuck.

Every day a new segment of the Doctor comes in to plead his case. Every day they are sent back to where they came from huffing and grumbling. Every day Pantalone tries to present you with an exquisite collection of clothing and items that would look perfect on you. Every day he is sent back pouting. Which is why if you even so give the briefest comment on something, it is already purchased and packaged for you. Use your power wisely.

[viceconnor21]

After two years I finally redesigned Grian's design in my AU. Turns out there is a horse in greek mythology with bird back legs. It was kinda perfect.

Tripwire Personality Traits (short version):

Gremlin energy

Hippalectryon

Extremely powerful but still learning to control it

God of Wisdom and Strategy (He doesn't know that)

Don't let him near buttons

Always coming up with new games for the town to play

Sad boi when he loses control of his power

Loves to be annoying

Defiant towards authority

Calls Darling Dozy anything but his actual name

Makes it his mission to be everyone else’s problem

No memory of early childhood

Raised by birds

Has been a drifter for as long as he can remember

Always felt like he was searching for something until he found his forever home in Hermit Valley

Partner: Terraform Best friend: Crimson Dust Mother: Soul Keeper Father: Crow Keeper Brothers: Day Shaker and Final Sonata

Story clip and Background:

Tripwire watched Terraform’s ears flick in his sleep. Tripwire could tell that he was dreaming, as he mumbled something about cats. Tripwire could only smile to himself in the darkness of the room. He was so lucky to find Hermit Valley. It had been several moons since he stumbled onto Terraform tangled in that tree. Tripwire was grateful for that day. The odd creature he had helped down from the tree had all but begged him to come back to town with him, eager to treat both to a well deserved meal. That was so long ago now, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. However, despite how much Tripwire loved his life in this current moment, sadness tugged at his heart. As he stared into the dark, he tried really hard to remember anything from his childhood. Today, just like any other day he was drawing a blank. He was such an odd creature, with his bird back legs, equine front legs, break, and four wings. He came from somewhere. Tripwire longed to remember his family, the people who he had no doubt loved him at one point. He could remember foggy voices with no real meaning. A kind sounding older male, singing him to sleep. His father maybe. He could also recall the strums of guitar, and a different male singing along. Trip didn’t know why but this voice frightened him a bit. Then there was a third voice; one still wrapped in adolescence. He also remembered a haze of green and black feathers engulfing him in a warm hug. Along with these muddled memories, he often dreams of the burry face of a soft purple mare with a golden horn. Through the mist of dreams, the mare radiates power, but he can’t help but feel as though she is watching over him. It is almost as if he can feel her love just beyond a veil.

Even with being as young as he was, Tripwire felt like he never fit in with the other creatures his brothers and his father associated with. In this wide land from home in the Burrow (Borough) to his brothers’ home of L’Maneberg, Tripwire never felt like this was where he was meant to be. Everybody seemed to view him as an oddity. Even his brothers seem to look at him with a peculiar mix of curiosity, love, and resentment. He knew why of course. His brothers were a fair bit older than him, and he was the only one of them who was a true biological son of their father. Tripwire also knew that the circumstances of his birth were a fair bit dubious at best, given that nobody outside the close-knit family knew who his mother was. That wasn’t his fault. He never viewed himself as any better than his siblings. He looked up to his siblings, and was alway ecstatic when they came to visit him and his father. They always visited him in the Burrow. He didn’t leave the Burrow and his father barely let him out of his sight. He was very young, only just beginning to fly. He had very little control of his powerful magic, but he supposed that was part of the problem. He was the son of a skilled hippogriff warrior and an ultra-powerful death goddess alicorn. He looked weird too. He took on his father’s traits for the most part, but his mother’s powerful genes just refused to be repressed. On top of that, his mother’s Divine blood decided to endow him with a second set of wings and a fierce amount of power that was sometimes hard to subdue. The god-like power wasn’t just for show either. Much like his draconequus uncle, was the walking god of war, and the solar sister was the goddess of the sun, Tripwire had a role to play in the strings of faith. Of course, at this point, the colt was too young to comprehend his true power, much less control it. While his mother was unable to walk the living dimension, his father did his best to raise the demigod. However, trouble was brewing. Tripwire could feel it on the wind, see it in the stress etched in his father’s face, in the way his brothers came home one day; wrapped in bandages and smelling of smoke. Tripwire was too young to understand what it was or what it meant. It came to a head when his father came home, wide-eyed and dirty. His feathers were singed and his eyes were red from crying. Without saying anything, he scooped Tripwire up in his arms, and continued to weep. All Tripwire could do was hold his father close. He did not know it at the time, but that would be his final night with his father, and the final night in his home.

Unknown to the young colt, a war was raging just outside the walls, and just passed the border of the Burrow. It was a long and drawn out war for justice and independence that was slowly shifting towards a struggle for control and power. The night his father came home in tears, was the night Trip’s oldest brother was killed in that struggle. However, that was not the end of the sorrow. While Crowkeeper tried very hard to keep Tripwire’s existence known to very few, rumors of his existence and more importantly his power began creeping among the ranks of power hungry legionnaires and mercenaries. Crowkeeper knew his son would soon be in danger. He knew his son had the capability to cause devastation. Creatures would try to use his son’s abilities to gain power in any way possible. Crowkeeper and Soul Keeper decided that for his own safety and the protection of others, Tripwire would be sent away. However, knowledge of his whereabouts in any sense could leave him open to danger. It was decided for his own good, his mother would wipe his memories and send him far away to a place not even Crowkeeper knew. Tripwire’s faith could not be left to chance.Tripwire could be a force of great creation or destruction. If left with the wrong people, Tripwire might never find his true purpose in this world. In addition, without the guidance and the protection of his father, Tripwire could be hurt or succumb to his own overwhelming power. Options were weighed. It was decided that Crowkeeper and Soul Keeper’s flock would care for and guide the colt. The mixed flock of different birds would keep the boy safe. They would find food and shelter for the child. They would teach and comfort the boy as he wandered the land looking for a place that he could truly call a home. As the boy grew into a teenager, then into a young adult, the intervention of his unknown protectors lessened. The flock shrunk as their charge grew and learned to care for himself. Finally, only one purple magpie was left, keeping an eye on the boy barely seen Trip as he went through his days of searching for something he really didn’t understand. He searched the land blindly, starting to believe that whatever he was looking for was a foal’s errand. That was until he met the creature known as Terraform. From the tallest limb of that apple tree, that purple and gold magpie watched as Terraform insisted that Tripwire should be properly thanked for his kindness. Finally, satisfied that she had led her son to a community that would help him thrive, she left him in the capable paws of the excitable Terraform. He brought him to the valley that Tripwire would instantly love and soon call home.

Tripwire is the hybrid offspring (Hippalectryon) of Crow Keeper and Soul Keeper. Tripwire is a chaos-loving young colt, who has a knack for traps and planning. (In reality, he has a knack for planning traps but not really seeing those traps to fruition.) With his partner in crime, Terraform, Tripwire has learned that he not only has the talent for planning but also executing those plans into elaborate works of art. While Tripwire originally believed his cutie mark was to represent his ability with traps, it actually symbolized his unique gift for organization, design, and strategy. With the help of his friends in the Settlement of Hermit, Tripwire would soon realize he was the god of Wisdom and Strategy. With this realization, is slowly unlocking his true power as a god.

However, not all is sunlight and the power of friendship. Tripwire was still born of mortal flesh. He is young and his power levels are still unstable. Tripwire can be capable of great feats of destruction when his emotions go unchecked. There are times, the power is too great for Tripwire to restrain and it can cause him physical and mental anguish. Strong emotions like fear and anger can trigger this intense state of being. His “god mode” comes with several pairs of extra wings and disembodied eyes. His eyes start to glow a deep purple as his power begins to overwhelm his physical form. Power beyond his control may rip and alter his body and mind to the point where he can no longer recognize those he calls friends. In his worst episodes, he loses all sense of himself. It is in times like these that he must rely on his friends to bring him back from the edge of madness.

[thefiercest]

EPIC: The Musical

I have so many thoughts right now! I can't believe how good this was! I remember when we read the story of Odysseus in High School and I was so bored, just sitting there, listening to the teacher and my classmates read but listening it in music form, hearing all the emotions and events that Odysseus went through made me want to re-read the book!

My teacher was so not on Odysseus side when we read it and I was always like, why?!

Ok, it was stupid of him to reveal his name to the cyclops, knowing that it would get him in trouble. I mean, that's why you told him your name was "Nobody" because you knew if you did, he would tell the gods and you would be in trouble! That was beyond stupid.

But everything else, I say Odysseus did the best he could with what he was given and every asshole he killed deserved it. (Maybe not the baby but hey, Zeus made him do that. I blame Zeus for that more than Odysseus. I mean, seriously dude, you're a god, you couldn't help Odysseus find another way? You had to convince him that killing the baby was the only way to ensure his wife's and son's safety?)

I do not blame Odysseus for turning cold after all the shit they put him through! All he wanted was to go home to his wife and son, and every time he tried, something just had to always get in his way, making getting home nearly impossible! He grew desperate and decided to take the risk, going through the lair of Scylla and it would have all worked out fine if Eurylochus didn't open the bag!!!

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!!!

What kind of idiot, would open a bag that can save all your lives by simply opening it, completely wasting it and then not tell your captain soon after you did it! You can not tell me, had Odysseus known sooner, he would have tried to find another way but they were already in the cave, and he was so desperate to get home, especially after what the profit told him that there was no turning back!

Odysseus took the risk because he thought he could save everyone soon afterwards but Eurylochus screwed it all up and then he had the nerve, to blame Odysseus?! Are you kidding?! Then his whole crew turned against him!

I know Odysseus didn't tell them about Scylla's cave but he probably did that because he didn't want to scare them! Even with the bag, dying is scary, doesn't matter if you have an extra life.

Then after that whole mess, they go to the sun god's island and there, they decide to kill the sun god's cow. Odysseus tried to warn them, he said don't but Eurylochus dumb ass kept saying, "They were hungry, they were never going to make him home, they were gonna die"

You are going to die either way! So, why would you kill the cow, just why?! What was the point?! To have full stomachs before you die?!

I just could not believe how stupid Eurylochus was. If he hadn't opened the bag, if he had just listened to Odysseus when he tried to warn them then they probably all would have made it home but, nope!

And of course, he is going to choose his wife and son, over his crew! He was told his family was possibly in danger and he had to get there! It's hard and he pleaded to Zeus to spare them, even though it was their own fault but your family always comes first. Always.

I'm sorry but Eurylochus and the others killed themselves. Odysseus is not at fault at all. Why should he have to die for the choices those idiots made?!

And the ending, was so perfect! I so loved when Odysseus killed all those sick bastards! And him reuniting with his son was beautiful as well as his mini talk with Athena but the thing I loved most was Odysseus and Penelope's relationship. Like, I have never known such a loyal couple.

For 20 years, 20, they have been apart but Penelope always remained loyal. She never believed her husband to be dead and she kept refusing to choose another suitor, stalling for as long as she could until Odysseus returned.

Odysseus returned that same loyalty and love, by refusing both Circe and Calypso, saying that his only true love was Penelope and he would stop at nothing to return to her.

It is just so, so amazing. This whole thing, Odysseus story, his trauma, his reunion with his son, Athena, his relationship with Penelope, everything!

This is 100% better than Alexander Hamilton! Dude, cheated on his wife and got his son killed! Odysseus is husband and father of the year, I wish there were more like him in this world!

Anyway, I just wanted to get that out of my system. If there is a next Epic Musical, I'm all in!

Jorge, love your work, you did excellent!

[pleasestayawayidonotlikeyou]

can i request killer sans x a reader that has body dysmorphia and bc of that they keep stressing themselves out w diets and working out and killer helps them out? tyyyy if u do <33 want to let yknow i also love ur writing!!

I hope this meets your expectations! I myself didn't ever have body dysmorphia, yet I tried my best to write this as accurately as I can.

Also, obviously not canon Killer bc canon Killer wouldn't give a fuck about anyone.

Featuring: Killer.

Masterlist

He never understood why you always stressed yourself because of diets and daily hours spent at the gym. And he never will, because for him, your body is already perfect no matter the chub on your body.

Yet you didn't think the same, and that bugged him, a lot.

Seeing you practically starve yourself willingly to fit in the society's views made him mad. He saw you always check the calories of the things you bought- leaving things you loved just because it'd make you "fat" in your eyes. It angered him.. watching you worry about your body mass like it's a broken bone and not something that exists for a reason.

.

You looked at the mirror again, barely seeing anything on the darkness of the room, your hands touching the soft skin of your almost flat belly. Your ribs and bone structure could be clearly seen being clenched by your skin, yet it was not enough..

"..I'm still fat.."

You frowned as you turned around and climbed back to bed, you've gotten sick and Killer didn't let you out of the house, that meant no gym, no working out, and he was the one preparing your meals and making sure you didn't forcefully throw up in the toilet. You had no idea how he convinced Nightmare to let him have quicker missions so he could come home, yet he didn't bother explaining to you.

The sound of a door opening and closing could be faintly heard, followed along with footsteps of the person you already expected. Turning your head your eyes met with Killer's empty sockets, a plastic bag in his hand which he put on the nightstand before sitting down on the bed and kissing your forehead.

"How are ya feeling babe? Better?"

"mm... A bit.."

Your lips mumbled softly seeing him smile, grab the bag and put it in front of you.

"Damn it's dark in here huh? No idea how ya can see anything!"

The skeleton jokes standing up and approaching the window blinds, your hands fell inside the bag taking various chocolates, sweets and snacks from it. As the sun light suddenly shined through the window, you turned a package of cookies around to check the calories on the back, only to notice everything except the expiration date was scribbled in back, no numbers or ingredients that always worried your head were visible.

"Don't worry, made sure none of these have something yer allergic to."

He assured stretching his back and getting his jacket off, tossing it somewhere inside his side of the wardrobe and jumping face into the soft mattress of the bed, letting out a tired sign before turning his face to you.

"Killer.. I..."

You paused.

"..Thanks.."

He smirked sitting and covering half his body with the warm sheets, sticking his hand inside the plastic and grabbing a packet of crispy fries, opening it and quickly stuffing a whole bunch inside his mouth.

"mm, no problem babe, love ya."

His socket winked at you as his fangs crunched the fries. Your hand slowly opened the package of cookies and took a relaxed bite out of it. Maybe covering the calories of what you eat isn't a bad idea..

[notawomanimagod]

Today I realised the reason I love Silco so much is because maybe I relate to him in an uncanny way? ( And that I unintentionally have a Silco+Jinx tattoo?)

Some backstory first

I'd gone to college with my childhood best friend/partner and we had a whole plan for our futures and I was a big dreamer. I got us into all the schools/opportunities we wanted to purely by planning a lot. By constantly making sure we had a way out. By keeping us moving. By being the one that put their head down and planned. They had fire initially, which made us bond, but later they sort of showed up and came along for the ride.

Our campus was on the outskirts of a city which coincidentally had a polluted river flowing through it, where dead bodies were found. The water contained so many chemicals, it foamed unnaturally and your skin could feel it.

We would sit on the shores of this river and plan how we'd make it out of here and move to a better place. How we'd break the cycle. How we'd live in a nice house, eat good food and simply live a peaceful life. Away from the violence and chaos of the families we came from.

But things started falling apart, and both of us had vastly different ideologies. We didn't fit like perfect puzzle pieces anymore.

After months of tension, an ongoing fight blew up to the extent they choked me and shoved me down while I clawed at them to get away.

I grew so bitter and felt so betrayed.

This was my best friend. Young, hopeful me considered them my other half in every sense. This was the person I grew up with, we'd gotten each other through so much trauma in our lives and we'd barely survived everything together.

We've both stopped each other from early deaths and yet, there they were, throwing our future away, while I tried my best to acquire it.

I always felt like I didn't resent them for abusing me, I hated them for giving up. On our dream, on our future.

Suddenly I was thrown away.

That dynamic felt eerily similar to Silco/Vander, down to the size difference.

Around that time the only way I knew how to cope was to imagine myself reborn. I became a new person, being betrayed changed me so fundamentally, I had to change.

I viewed everything as pre-incident and after. Pre-betrayal, post-betrayal.

My younger self had no means of understanding why I'd been left behind to rot. While they got a comfortable life. Got to keep our friends. They got the better end of the deal. They got everything.

And I was absolutely alone, isolated. Driven to the point of insanity by everything they'd done to me.

I swore to only trust in myself after that.

I got this tattoo to symbolise my "rebirth" and how to find strength solely in myself.

My younger self had a lot in common with Silco/Jinx and it's a funny coincidence that my tattoo ended up having both their motifs.

Anyways, I didn't understand how much of my own life I saw in Silco's until my brother pointed this out recently. But it helped me process some of the feelings I felt when I began to read more on Silco/Vander's dynamic and why I was drawn to it.

I have always been that dirty little thing, scraping it together and clawing my way out.

No wonder I loved Silco's Rebirth narrative. It truly is the realest arc anyone who experiences trauma/ abuse/betrayal goes through.

And now years later, even though I have a peaceful life, my own apartment, sometimes I get reminded of how I could be hurt and that little part of me that is always on the run comes back in ropes of rage. I need to be in control.I have tried to harden myself and yet, I am still soft. I would often think my caring for others was my biggest weakness, though now I treasure it.

No wonder I love this little rat man. I am what he is. (Down to the black hair and scribbling in journals and leather jackets and cigarettes and being fruity lmfaoo)

No wonder I absolutely love everything about his characterization in season one.

[gingermintpepper]

Day 4: Aristaeus

Interpretation notes and trivia below the cut!!

All rise for the entrance of my president !! Honestly, of all the figures and characters that were up for debate when I first started thinking about this story and who I wanted leading the charge Aristaeus was not one of them. Originally, I'd always known that Asclepius and Orpheus would be worked in somehow - they've always been favourites of mine in terms of children of Apollo (even if Orpheus as the child of Apollo and Calliope is less popular classically) and I expected my pick for the third child of Apollo to be involved to be similarly mortal like Iamus or Tenes but the more I looked into Aristaeus the more I fell in love with him! Ultimately, he's meant to be both a foil and a reflection of his father - a boy who grows up thinking his father's footsteps would always be warm only to realise that following in them would lead to death and destruction. While his status as a rustic and hunting god is still important here, Aristaeus' interpretation is much more focused on his connection to the Etesian wind and his quelling of the dog star Sirius which is why his hair in particular is so long and spiralling. All in all, more than any other figure I've chosen to interpret and represent in my work Aristaeus is the god I hope more people get interested in and research! I think there are a lot of important stories in his various myths and travels and I definitely want more people to discover and fall in love with them as I have!

Some fun trivia:

Apollo's firstborn son. Because he was born mortal on account of his very mortal mother, Apollo immediately took him to Olympus to eat ambrosia to begin his transition into divinity. Apollo would continue to feed Aristaeus small amounts of ambrosia and nectar for the next ten years until the child fully shed his mortal skin and was reborn as a god.

Due to the nature of making mortals deathless (namely the fun part of the process where they are completely remade and lose their mortal memories) Aristaeus spent most of his early life with his mother and siblings where they all pitched in to reteach him his family, his hobbies, his favourite things and ultimately how to live and love. Aristaeus was very attached to his maternal family because of this and his early acts of ingenuity were mostly born from his wish to make things easier for his family.

Aristaeus is the only one of his children Apollo hand raised full time. In those days, Aristaeus adored his father and believed him completely upright and blameless, the true face of a benevolent deity and the kind of man he aimed to be when he was full grown.

They would later have many bitter arguments and conflicts, the first and perhaps most impactful of all being their disagreement over Actaeon, Aristaeus' firstborn son. He wanted Apollo to teach him stating that it was a normal thing for a grandfather to do but Apollo vehemently refused to have any part of Actaeon's rearing, stating that he was not his child and that it was highly inappropriate for him to educate another god's son. When Actaeon later dies, Aristaeus blames a not insignificant part of that on Apollo - something that only worsens when he learns that it was Artemis who cursed the boy and that Apollo was always aware Actaeon would die young.

Spends most of his time travelling from place to place. Doesn't really like Olympus and prefers to spend his time minding animals or tending to fields. Is on wonderful terms with Demeter and Persephone and often makes decadent exchanges of olive oil and preserved meat for exotic flowers and fruit for his bees.

Big fan of wind and percussive instruments. Never liked the kithara because of how finicky it is and far prefers the hand drums and reed flutes of his mother's country. Exceptional dancer.

Will sell prized cattle for high quality and highly unique jewellry. Doesn't much care for gemstones but is an absolute gold fiend and has a massive collection of bracelets, anklets, nose and lip adornments and rings. Has never been north enough to hit India but got a ton of rare and different adornments from his Phoenician in-laws when he was married to Autonoë.

Hates dogs but doesn't mind wolves. Not a big horse fan either

Unlike other winds, he cannot transform into various animal forms. He's close enough to the Anemoi that he keeps up with the gossip but he's only really friends with Notos. Gets along poorly with Zephyrus whose preference for pretty youths has often led to them getting into physical altercations when they were younger. Aristaeus still holds a bit of a grudge about it.

Has a big stupid crush on Dionysus which is embarrassing because Dionysus also put him out of a job. Due to Dionysus' relative youth, he feels a bit conflicted about such feelings - mostly because Dionysus is on extremely good terms with Apollo and Aristaeus doesn't want him to get burned.

Despite kinda despising his father, Aristaeus is a pretty decent eldest brother and regularly keeps in contact with a lot of his siblings. He often delivers mead, flavoured honey and olive oil and uses it as an excuse to chat and catch up. Currently in a bit of a tiff with Asclepius because he's worried about him and his family.

Favourite colour is the rich gold of purified honey, favourite food is lokma and his favourite time of year is winter.

[stiffyck]

people hating a character because they very clearly misunderstand them is forever going to make me so mad

[callmegaith]

Every now and then I would put my art side to side with the Rusty Lake art to see how my stylization progress is going and though I struggled with Dale I think I got something that I'm really liking now c: David just looks good cuz at this point if I can't draw him the way I want to then what's the point of my 5 year long hyperfixation? Lmao.