#I tend to think those things are one and the same though. or one is a symptom of the other

[revelboo]

Howdy! So idk if you heard or not, but Michael Bay is coming back and is in progress of making another movie. How do you feel about that? Honestly hope it doesn't flop like the last 2 he made 🤩😖

🤣 so he’s going from directing Skibidi Toilet straight to the Transformers/ GI Joe crossover… I have so many fears/concerns about this… can’t… can’t we just have a sequel to TFO? Or the Bumblebee movie with those lovely G1 designs from the beginning instead of that blasphemy they did to Wheeljack in ROTB? Please? Please?

Someone had asked about created Cybertronians and their sparks/ability to bond or have sparklings and my brain kind of took off.

So I’d think that even though Sunstorm is Starscream’s clone created by Shockwave, his spark would have been altered enough from Star’s own for Sunstorm to functionally be independent of Star.

Springer’s spark was created from scratch by Mesothulas to be indistinguishable from the genuine article, so I’d think he’d be able to function like a normal Cybertronian bonding/sparking, too. Thought there might be some oddities.

Then we have the Vehicons. Who seem to be expendable, mass produced identical clones meant to be cannon fodder. I don’t see the Decepticons creating them and bothering to go to the effort to tweak each spark to make them true individuals, so in my head they’re kind of a collective consciousness with each Vehicon developing their own personalities. Maybe even dimly aware of each other to a point and aware when they lose one of their own, feeling it echo through them when a spark is snuffed out. If we go with that interconnected interpretation, then if one of them, Steve, for example, bonds a human, that human just inadvertently bonded all of them. Accidentally unlocking the achievement of most alien husbands.

Legion

Steve and Vehicons x Reader

• Sandwiched between Steve and one of his many, identical brothers, you run your fingers over the mesh of his neck as his own hand rests against your side, servos flexing occasionally like a cat kneading a blanket. And his head bumps yours, visor brightening. Because these soft touches are the norm between you. Have no idea what you are exactly to him and the other Vehicons, but they tend to reach for you. Touch you almost reverently and at this point, you can’t manage to feel shy anymore about it. “I wish they were nicer to all of you,” you whisper after he tells you about his day.

• Nudging your head with his own and rumbling softly, he loves how sweet you are for caring about them when no one else does. They’re expendable. Built to fight until they die. That’s their only purpose. But spending time around you makes him want more. Want things not allowed him or his brothers. And he’s aware of them all around the two of you, recharging as near to you as they can get and he’s not sure if it’s just you or if they’re being infected by his own needs. To be close to you, to feel the warmth of you against him, the beat of your heart. And one of his brothers shifts at your back, servos fisting in your shirt. Clinging to you.

• It’s not right and it makes your heart ache for them when he talks like this. Like nothing that’s done to them matters. Like he doesn’t matter. He’s sweet and kind and gentle. He’s not just a thing to be used and thrown away.

• “You’re a real person,” you argue, chin lifting and eyes angry on their behalf to make him love you even more. Even this, just being able to touch you feels wrong. You’d been the one to reach out to him. Holding his hand, touching his chassis, his face, because humans are tactile and he’d been so desperate for contact he hasn’t corrected you. And it still makes him feel guilty for being allowed these moments, like he’s dirtying you with himself. Shouldn’t touch you, hold you.

• “We all have the same cloned spark,” he argues and you frown at him. Why does he always talk like they’re nothing? Less than other Cybertronians. And he’s shifting his plating and you lose what you were going to say as you stare at the pulsing light inside him bathing you in its glow. Alien and still oddly familiar. Breath catching at the beauty and warmth of it, you reach out and it arcs to meet your fingertips.

• Should have stopped you, but couldn’t move. Frozen because you’d reached for him like you’ve done all along and he’d wanted to feel you brush up against his spark, sure that nothing can come of it because he’s only a clone. So it’s a delicious shock to feel you tangled in him. Your soft, warmth held inside his spark and he’s desperately wrapping around you. Clinging to that feeling of home and belonging that’s you. Asking for more of you, to keep you as your memories and emotions drug him. And you accept him. Accept them all. Aware of his brothers stirring, that they can feel it spreading through them.

[sheepispink]

The Presence of Another

supersoldier!reader x ltghost (+ tf141)

part 9 of Weaponised Series Masterlist

a/n: all relationships are platonic, prolly some ooc who knows

part one previous next

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You sleep surprisingly fine without the stuffed animals, and you wake up around twenty minutes after Ghost does. It’s not much of an issue, since you both get to the mess hall in time to sit opposite the two sergeants, who seem awfully indifferent to the fact you had passed out yesterday. Or perhaps they really didn't know, because they just spent the whole time debriefing you about the mission they went on whilst Ghost would occasionally signal them to cut out parts he didn't want you knowing— more specifically the men who had died in your place.

Thankfully, duties had called them away before they could talk your ear off and now the two of you were headed down to the smaller gym which is always emptier and so far quieter.

 “So, how long do you usually run?”

“Five miles? 20 laps usually.” 

His brows raise for a second before he shrugs it off, writing something down on the clipboard he has. It’s somewhat amusing to you, even for a split second, seeing Ghost holding up a clipboard like that. Maybe you’ve been hanging around the sergeants far too much, but he really does not look like the type of guy to even touch one of them. “Oi, pay attention.” His pen taps the corner of the board, rolling his eyes when he sees that dazed look, and you sheepishly shake your head to snap out of it. “At what point does it start getting painful?”

“Well, my vision gets a little hazy around the fourth, but it’s only painful half a mile after.”

Hearing you talk about your struggles so casually will never be normal to him, but he knows that if he tries to address it now, it’d only cause more problems— right now, he’s on thin ice. 

“Right. We’ll start with just four miles every day now—”

“But I always do five. I’ve done five for months now.” For once, you interrupt, features twisting as he reduces your laps just because you felt a bit off. For you, it didn't matter all that much— the pain was part of this life— so you didn't understand the need for it.

“Well, clearly you’re not in the same state as you were last month when you could do it, hm? Remember those pills you didn't take? The seizure?” His reminder is slightly harsh, but it’s true— you weren't the same person anymore. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he definitely wasn't the same person he was before he met you, nor was he the same person when he started the force. Though, he can understand why it might feel that way for you. The only way you’re supposed to move is forward, never backwards. Thankfully, you seem to have got the memo when you don't argue any further. 

“Good. How about your arm and leg workout then?”

He’d be a liar if he didn't find it somewhat amusing when you’d get a little riled up at each of his decisions. You can't stand changing from routine, that’s clear, but even the slightest change for your own health has your brows furrowing and cheeks puffing. Though, you do end up agreeing to all his plans by the end of it, especially when he promises to only trial it for two weeks. Now you’ll take a break after three miles, run the next mile and, depending on if you get dizzy or not, you’ll run the next half mile too. As for the workouts, he has you on very basic warmups to begin with, stretches are a must since you tend to skip them in your haste; you even promised that you’ll drink at least half a litre between each workout now. 

Part of the reason you agreed was only because he had promised he’d find something to occupy you in exchange for everything he cut out. He didn't want to give you something too slow, since he knows that it’d just allow your mind to easily consume and eat at you again, so he has to think smarter— he has to think in your shoes… This might take a while.

————

You’ve noticed a few changes in your schedule ever since you requested to be in Ghost’s room. 

First of all, the sergeants are pretty adamant in feigning anger at you for not picking either of them, giving you a playful nudge whenever you complain about Ghost not letting you do things and insisting they would. It had horrified you the first time, after Price’s reaction you had thought they were being serious and almost panicked. Ghost had scolded them after that. Now you roll your eyes as Gaz pretends to be hurt by the ‘blatant favouritism’ as he calls it.

Another thing is that post workouts are a lot different. Your schedule has changed massively since you had been the perfect soldier, starting with meals with the team and their doting. Now, instead of eating whatever scraps there are for dinner and scrubbing yourself raw as fast as you can in the communal shower rooms, you take long warm showers in Ghost’s bathroom. Apparently he’s had a budget allocated for you by the higher ups for some time, and it’s racked up to a big amount after the months it wasn't put to use. Not that you would’ve really asked for anything if you knew, but now you get some nice smelling soaps— never lavender though.

Ghost did keep your ‘bedtime’ roughly the same, after he figured out you even set yourself one.

“You get tired awfully early.” He had stated when you yawned during an evening walk with him. It was the fifth day of this new regime, and you didn't really think it was that big of a deal. “I used to always sleep at eight thirty—that was my usual time.” 

“Eight? Why?”

You blink, not really thinking much into your self-proclaimed bedtime because when things worked, things worked. You didn't need to question further, did you?  

“I.. It started after the second week I came here, I think.” Now that he’s got that train of thought running, you can’t help but question how it even came to that early, or maybe it was only because you really had nothing else to do.  “I wasn’t eating all that much, so I relied on sleep for energy instead. At least, that’s how I made the decision I think. Plus, that’s when I'd get startled by nightmares, so I had to give enough time for me to wake up every night and then fall back asleep whilst still getting a good amount of it.”

He stops walking and cocks his head, gesturing for you to sit and the wood creaks when he finally settles too. Nights are still cold, so you have his flimsy hoodie protecting your arms, and he’s bundled in a warm jacket. The both of you are quiet for a little, your eyes focusing on the forest where you had hidden in only a month ago now. Sometimes you still wait, listening for the small yips, a rustle of the bushes or the slightest flash of orange— any sign of that little fox. 

“You know it’s fine, right?” 

“What?”

“Don’t go believin’ every word you’re told. You don't need to push yourself to run five miles. You’re allowed, and should stop when it hurts.”

Ever since that evening you’ve believed his words, in fact you’ve believed everything he’s said to you. It was more than the Captain had ever said to soothe you; it was even more than what that medic had promised you. It wasn’t pity, nor was it even comfort— it was cold hard truth, a command if anything. Weirdly enough, that made your stomach settle, and you didn't doubt it for a second, choosing to just nod and listen. 

So, you stopped arguing, stopped complaining when he gave you a proper breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You definitely didn't complain when he nudged you to bed at eight thirty because, for every day in this strange new regime, you’ve been working just as hard as before and not once have you ever felt that crushing pain.

———————

It’s been a week and a half, and you stumble in at eight o clock as usual. Sometimes Ghost isn't here, and sometimes he is, it really depends on the day. The others have all their differing schedules, and you’re okay with it really— you kind of like the alone time you’ve got now that they’re not coddling you anymore. Price has also kept a fair distance ever since he got angry with you. He did in fact talk to you mildly about it, but after Ghost told him that he’d handle your overexertion he’d dropped the matter quickly. Now you rarely saw him, apart from the occasional uncomfortable breakfast, but the sergeants made sure that the silence never grew too awkward. 

You change into your pajamas, which happens to just be one of Ghost’s old shirts, and then the one pair of joggers you own. One thing you discovered after staying in his room was that you could get away with practically anything just by the excuse of your wellbeing. Maybe Soap was rubbing off on you just a tad.

Now you wear his shirts to bed, because you still haven’t bought me anymore, you say, and he rolls his eyes, begrudgingly letting you take them. Sometimes when he comes to bed he finds you sprawled out like a starfish, taking up as much space as you can just so he grunts, pushing you to the side easily. When he asks about it in the morning, you just shrug, refusing to believe that you even do any of that. He doesn't pay too much mind to your little antics, quickly reminding you that you’re still on punishment for what you pulled and that he can make you sleep on the floor if he so wishes.

You climb onto the bed with a sigh, feeling strange without the usual weight in your arms, nor the softness of your old duvets. Ghost’s weren't bad, no they were comfortable, but you had got too used to your old ones, and now you were regretting pulling your little escapade in the first case. Well, you suppose that was the point of the punishment, to make you regret your actions.

With a soft huff you push your face into the pillow, forcing your eyes shut so you don't think too hard about how quiet this room sounds without him, or how cold the bed is. There are things to do tomorrow— you need to stop caring.

————

Your fingers curl into fists, the sheets rubbing against your skin as you squirm and push your head further forward, trying to push through the haze that seems to attack you with every blink. 

Nothing happens, no light greeting you even with how far you’ve run, and so for once you stop, swallowing sharply. You thought you could handle this, the visions, they never got this bad, and Ghost never noticed anyway— but this was different. Slowly, you take deep breaths, try to concentrate on the whispers swirling around, the flashes of colour that never quite linger for a second longer.

Your hand snaps to the side, grabbing something— or someone— by the neck. You don't dare look, already recognising the cruel voices of the petty soldiers who tried to kill you. Well, they’d be the ones to die this time

Releasing your grip, the body dissipates between your fingers, mere dust as your chest pumps harder, something pushing you further. The deep breaths don't settle the race this time, only tingling your nerves as something looms, towers over you. Not this time. Never again.

Your arm shoots out, the figure right there for you to grab, but you miss, grabbing at the air. Though the figure still overlooks you, threatening as it leans closer and closer. You steady yourself, desperately trying anything and everything to grasp the heavy pressure weighing down on your chest, the monster tearing into your throat. Every night it worked, so why not this one? Why not this time? 

——

So many unanswered questions contaminate your brain, but the second the light finally fills your eyes all you can think of is “What- what’s going on?”

You’re pressed against the floor, pain rumbling through your middle with the heavy lamp rolling away from you on the hard floor. Two hands lock your wrists still, brown eyes staring back at you in the dark of the room. “A nightmare.” Ghost breathes out and, if not for his pale nose huffing out in relief when he lets go, you would’ve thought this was still the dreamscape.

Slowly you push yourself up onto your elbows and then to finally sit upright, nose twitching at the pain in your abdomen before you just swallow hard and finally look around. Now you notice the lampshade has been knocked far away, a small crack also running up the base of the lamp itself. You must’ve fallen off of the bed in your haze and, similar to other experiences, grabbed onto the lamp which landed directly onto your chest. Well, that explains the pressure you were feeling.

He watches you for a few moments, as your breaths heave, and then you eventually steady yourself, eyes locked on your hands like you’re searching for the usual marks left behind. “This the first one you’ve had?” Recently, anyway. He doesn’t say it, but you know it’s lingering as he stares down at you, your eyes tracking every crease as his lips move, every twitch of his brow and bob of his throat. You shake your head, and he nods, understanding, and his eyes roam over your body yet again, watching the way your fingers curl against the hardwood floor. 

“You wanna talk about it?” 

Somehow his voice sounds softer, even if it's at the exact same volume, and you slowly shake your head, his brow furrowing just slightly at your words. You know he wants you to tell him; it’s not like you’ve never talked about them before, in fact you have plenty of times. The scientists never allowed you much privacy.

“Can’t tell you. I don't even know what happened myself.”

Your answer is vague, and honestly a little suspicious. Though, he just locks onto your eyes for a few moments, slowly looking over your features before eventually reaching forward and giving his hand out to help you up. You take it, his large hand tightly pulling you upright before he leans down to pick up the lamp and its shade, placing it back on the counter. “I knew my duvets were pretty bad, but I didn't think you’d rather fall off the bed than be in them.” He mutters, acting like he hadn't just tried to joke with you so casually, before kicking some slippers over to you. “C’mon.”

You follow him down the corridor, down towards your room where he slides his key in and opens it. The room isn't how you remembered leaving it, covers thrown on the floor, drawers, and the closet opened wide and even clothes cluttered on the floor. “Price ordered some soldiers to search your room.” He gruffly states, and you just nod, more taken aback that he had willingly given up that information to you.

“Why?”

He shrugs, pulling your duvet off the bed and tucking it beneath his arm as he reaches for your pillows as well. “Must’ve been searching for something. He didn't find anything, at least not that I know.” You nod slowly, and pick up the two stuffed animals, turning them over in your hands. The soft fur warms your cold hands, making you forget about the sweat trickling down your neck as he heads towards your closet, peeking through the mess made. “Huh, you really don't have any clothes. Well, apart from the uniforms I moved over.”

“Told you.” You murmur, eyes still locked onto the stuffed animals before you finally tuck it beneath your arm, turning over to where he looks at the name engraved into one of your old uniforms. “Maybe he thought I got another gun.” It slips out and, for some stupid reason. you snort at the thought of that gift box on your dresser again, the note inside and the gun laying there so pristine. Some part of you does find it wildly amusing thinking about what Price’s reaction would be, especially after everything you now know. Maybe you could play bingo with whatever fake words he’d spew this time.

“Hmm, you’re not shaken up enough that you can't joke, so do you really need those?” He smirks, gesturing to the plushies in your hands.

“What? You’re the one who forced me to buy them.”

“No, that was Price. I was planning to knock you out every night; pretty good technique I'd say.”

You can’t believe his audacity, to openly say he’d punch you to sleep after he had been the cause of so much that had happened recently. It’s such a wild thing to say that you immediately laugh, a smile breaking out on your face. “Guess you’re speaking from experience then.”

“You’d never know, mask hides it all.” He plucks one of the stuffies out your hands, stealing it from you and squashing it beneath his arm with the duvet. “We better get back before you fall asleep standing up.” He strides out of the room before you can retort, making you jog slightly to keep up with his longer steps– almost like he’s trying to escape your wrath.

“I don't even need sleep– I’ve told you like a million times, and you don't believe me.” He looks straight at you and rolls his eyes before pulling the black balaclava off, closing his room door behind you. “I can withstand many hours awake!” He’s replaced his blankets with yours now, your softer pillows rather than his flattened ones. 

“And you still drool all over the pillows.”

Your face scrunches up, unbelieving as he continues to get even more cocky with his words.  Before you can muster up a response, you’re ushered into bed, beneath the covers with the two stuffed animals tucked right beside you. The mattress dips as he slides in, his face just barely visible in the dim light. 

“If you don't sleep, I will lock you in this room for the whole day. Some poor soldiers will have to guard the windows too.”

You swallow, not wanting to be sitting still any longer than you want to be. The insistence to not sleep was nothing more than empty complaints, just to get on his nerves a tad, but you hadn't realised he’d go that far. That is, to threaten you into sleeping. It’s not exactly like you don't deserve the threat either— it’s for a good cause, that being your health.

The adrenaline of the dream has died down now, finally leaving your heart in its usual steady rhythm and the cold sweat disappearing. However, a little bit still lingers, the reason why you’re still awake now. Even as you hold one of the plushies close to your chest, hidden beneath the duvet, you can't help but be a little worried it’ll return. You’ve seen worse, known worse, but there’s something about him witnessing it first hand that gets you.

“Y’alright?” He asks, reaching over to fluff your pillow a little, but you snap out of and nod quickly, turning over to hide your face away. “Yeah.. Getting comfy, that’s all.”

His eyes still linger on your back that now faces him, your behaviour leaving a worrying feeling settling in his gut no matter how hard he tries to push it down. How had he not noticed the nightmares before? How many had you experienced right beside him? 

“Cold? I can warm it up if you want.” He reaches over your arm to gently pinch at the stuffed animal, before leaving his hand to linger on your upper arm, making you turn back slightly to meet his eyes again. 

“It’s okay, the covers are warm enough.” Your voice lowers to a whisper, the quiet worry in your gut controlling you. 

“Alright. Let me know.” He waits for you to nod before finally turning over, his back now facing you. 

For a while you settle into the haze between awake and asleep, listening for his breaths to slowly even out as a sign of sleep. Though, even with his mask off, it’s impossible to read him. Everything about him is so controlled, disciplined and contained, though just slightly ripping at the seams. You were the same, until you burst that is. March is still cold up north, and the window is a crack open. Goosebumps cover your arms, sending a chill down your back and crawling up to your face. Still, even as you toss and turn, the cold settles on your back like the nightmare did, persisting through all your desperate attempts. Your eyes droop, exhausted, and you know for sure that it’s too late to ask him now for that warmth– even pressing your nose into the plushie does no good for you. 

As you blink again, you watch his shoulder twitch, then again, until he rolls over slightly in his sleep. He settles on his back, chest rising quietly before falling once more. But you’re not thinking about that, more so how warm he is from how his leg had accidentally bumped your knee. You soon fall into a deep sleep with your head on the corner of his pillow, your arm conveniently grazing his and your nose brushing dangerously close to his shoulder. What you didn't know was that your little eagle and wolf would end up discarded to the floor, no longer needed when something else kept you far more grounded.

------------------

buy me a kofi!

previous next Series Masterlist

a/n:

lmk if you guys prefer longer chapters bcus this would've been over 7k words but i didnt want you guys to wait even LONGER. so the next one is prewritte, yes, and i will release it after editing which shouldnt take long. urm do i need to announce anything else... oh yeah i did well on my exams so the break did pay off, now to grind fanfics for the whole of summer :p

Taglist:

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[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 41 Thoughts: Heart of Gold

We're back from what felt like a very long break, but time isn't real any way. As tends to be the case with these X1 episodes, not a whole lot really happens as it's more or less setting up the direction of the act. So this will likely be quite a short one (this is a lie). And, yes, I am aware that 40 is missing. I plan to add that before next weeks episode is out and I'll probably alter the posting date to be in line with the release if possible, no idea how that'll affect how it shows up though.

Spoilers for TMA , and TMAGP episode 41 below the cut.

Not a lot to comment on with Celia and Gwen. Mostly just a reminder that Alice is in Berlin. Also that she hates Gwen, but who could forget that?

I can't say I'm a massive fan of this incident. I think it might be suffering from having to set up some details that'll be more relevant later, as well as reminder the audience of recurring themes. We've got doppelgangers and transmutation and all sorts of alchemically relevant materials. I think my real feelings on this will have to wait until the season, or maybe even the show, is finished. It feels like setup and as such is easier to judge in retrospect.

There are a few things to mention here all the same. Marconi Alchemics is likely another Magnus Institute satellite or partner like Welling Mutare Materia and the rest of them. The body being covered in salt, the head in sulphur, and the lung being full of mercury is some of the most direct reference to the tria prima we've had so far. I've covered this in other posts so I won't dwell on this too much, suffice it to say Paracelsus had a big theory about the base alchemical traits of things and these materials represent those in their truest form. They also correspond to the body, soul, and spirit respectively. The body being covered in salt is a fairly obvious link to make but I think the associations they were going for with the head and lungs is a little murkier. In these contexts spirit is more akin to your imagination and higher reasoning, where soul is more about your emotions. Which has strong parallels to the Greek concepts of psyche and pnuema which are often translated as soul and spirit. Pnuema meaning breath, which does have an obvious connection to the lungs, but pnuema is more akin to sulphur's soul than mercury's spirit and the same is true for psyche.

The perhaps more interesting thing here are the transmuted organs, including the aforementioned lungs. While the organs themselves do have some minor alchemic association it's not particularly compelling stuff IMO. What's more interesting is how many there are and what they are. Aside from the lungs the brain turned to silver, heart to gold, liver to tin, kidneys to copper, spleen to lead, and gall bladder to iron. That's seven metals and not just any seven, its the seven planetary metals. Each of the Classical planets has an associated metal: Silver corresponds to the Moon, gold with the Sun, mercury with Mercury, copper with Venus, iron with Mars, tin with Jupiter, and lead with Saturn. While the alchemic associations with these organs isn't too interesting, what's more important is the Hermetic Qabalah and Paracelsus' own adoption of it. Unlike with most alchemical concepts the organs aren't really symbolic of these planets but are analogous to them. The heart and the Sun aren't connected in any metaphysical sense but the heart is like the sun in that it acts upon the system of organs and provides them with life. And so on for each organ and planet pairing.

If you'd like more of Paracelsus' views on these sorts of things the Volumen Medicinae Paramirum would be the place to go looking for his own words, or something like The Devil's Doctor by Philip Ball if you'd like a more biographic view of the man. Great book, very well researched and cited, albeit quite the read.

It's very lovely to hear from Lena again and I'm really glad she's going to be more a part of this act from the sounds of things. There isn't a whole lot to say on it at the moment but I hope it involves showing Gwen the scope of what the OIAR deals with.

Heinrich has stolen all the scenes he's been in and I love him dearly. He's got some really great chemistry with Alice, the two play off of each other really well. I also love that he's so unapologetically a monster and enjoys being a monster. None of the German is particularly exciting to translate but "Angstjäger" would be something like "fear hunter" depend on how you wanted to translate it. Which is likely the German equivalent of External, or, perhaps, Avatar. I do love that we're going to get more Heinrich too from the sounds of things. I could have a whole spin-off of just him to be honest.

The Friedrich is version 6 thing is interesting but also not interesting. It's been a bit of a weird red herring for a start. Klaus seemed like the obvious suspect for who made it, and then it was Friedrich, but Friedrich and now it's "KS" who is very likely Klaus after all. But what I think is actually interesting is that, presumably, Klaus made a Friedrich version, then nicknamed that version Freddy, and then obfuscated that as Fr3-d1, which was then read as Freddy again because it's just leet. Just sorta circular in an odd way.

Fun fact: in the German spelling alphabet H is for Heinrich.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

Klaus Watch: Klaus probably mentioned babyyyyy

DPHW Theory: 5535 is pretty normal looking all in all. Notably the same as episode 27's incident too.

CAT# Theory: 1 works for P/P/O, although without looking into it I feel like that clashes with how corpses have usually been categorised?

R# Theory: B isn't far off my theory but the last couple of incidents have had fucked up Ranks so IDK anymore.

Header talk: Transmutation (Organs) -/- Experimentation (Metal) is not a particularly interesting heading as these things go.

[wizards-and-tea]

its time. lets classpect some of the deltarune characters.

disclaimer: I do not have the best grasp/understanding of classpecting so YMMV in regards to accurate this seems, and im sure canon will blow me out of the water later but as of chapter 4 these are my reads (also big thanks to @birdhand-arts-extra-chaos for helping with this I would've gotten so stuck otherwise)

Susie: Maid of Rage

Rage is an obvious choice for Susie's aspect, as its all about breaking down rules, walls, and bullshit. Susies not afraid to challenge authority or irrationality which highlights the very best of the rage aspect. Her class was harder but I wanted to make sure she had an active one, and as maid is an active class about creating with/through a persons aspect I figured it fit pretty well. She's quite literally creating new ways of thinking and being for herself and the people around her. I don't believe maids exactly the class the prophecy wouldve given her but it dovetails nicely into the already present friction between Susie and the feminine role given to her. (Plus I think the "made of" pun fits well here)

Ralsei: Heir of Light

Light was another obvious choice, especially after the reveal of Ralsei's burden of knowledge. I like how encompassing it is for him though, as his own knowledge of the prophecy and his nature as a darkner has to be for him. This is where his class helps to show more of his personality, as heir is a passive class focused on changing with/through an aspect. Ralsei isn't seeking to destroy the prophecy, but instead to change it, through action and sheer force of will. Using his knowledge to change the ending.

Kris: Page of Breath

Kris was quite difficult to classpect, as we still don't know much about them or their own inclinations. However, from the little moments we see them without their soul, we see Kris is very much a free spirit or strives toward that ideal. They chafe under other peoples wants and expectations. Kris is so heavily restricted, but I think the best interpretation for them is that they literally cannot use/follow their classpect right now because of what is imposed on them, rather than as someone who is inherently doomed or is a rule follower. I'm still not completely sure on page, but I like it for highlighting Kris' weird connection with the knight, and for it's growth factor, as Kris slowly starts to exercise more agency as they get stronger (weird route not withstanding)

Berdly: Thief of Heart

I thought about giving Berdly mind, but it seemed far too easy. Besides, his problem isn't being concerned with his own intelligence so much as proving his intelligence to other people and wanting the perception that comes with that. Which is much more fitting for a heart player struggling with identity, in my opinion. His concerns with romance also fit nicely with this aspect, as they are a major factor in the heart aspect and in how Berdly shapes himself in relation to other people. His class, thief comes from how he is inclined to 'steal' his personality and the way he presents himself from how other people see him or how he thinks he should act.

Noelle: Knight of Void

I had a very hard time classpecting Noelle. It's easy to jump to aspects like space or life for her, since those tend to be the lonely girl aspects in homestuck proper and call it a day. But I wanted to make sure that Noelle's classpect fit her specifically and wasn't just following impressions based on characters similar to her. I thought about giving her time, because of her nostalgia and connection to the past but Noelle is more inclined to move on from the past than many other characters in deltarune (cough cough her mother) and she doesn't possess the same apathy or pessimism that is often associated with time. However she is still very heavily associated with the past, with things abandonded or forgotten, that we the player are still very ignorant of. All of this I believe makes her a prime candidate for the void aspect. She's so important to the story but is absent for so much of it, and she's one of the only characters to understand these spots that are still dark for us (being one of the only characters thats noticed kris' weird behavior, being involved with dess' disapperance, her whole creepypasta adventure in the sweepstakes and even in snowgrave being associated with things that are uncomfortable and repressed like dragon blazers weird route) I'm still not very confident on her class but I didn't feel that the other passive ones fit (note that I'm using the interpretation that puts page as active and knight as passive) but I like how it contrasts her with Kris as her class' inverse, and puts in conversation with the roaring knight. I'd say this also works with the interpretation that knights exploit their given aspect which is what she is made to do in snowgrave.

[amielbjacobs]

I think this is more the case for Tumblr and, perhaps, fandom culture than it is for contemporary online culture in general. Reddit, for example, tends to have a very reified idea of what "good art" is, and (IMO) one of the bigger problems on that platform is disparaging people who fail to meet those standards - even though you often have to fail numerous times before you can succeed. Discords vary, but it's not uncommon to see those spaces dominated by self-published Kindle writers, people hoping to make money.

But it does bug me that fandom spaces nowadays are totally unwilling to consider fanfic as art rather than as, like, a toy. We used to have a certain defensive confidence in ourselves, we used to feel like we needed to defend our art against a society that rejected it. But now society has accepted fanfiction, but only as, like, a silly pursuit, as masturbation fodder, as personal therapy. But that's not the only thing fanfic can be. A long time ago, there was a reckoning in society, and science fiction was judged to be an acceptable form of art, not just a plaything for children. More recently, we've seen the same evaluation for video games and comic books. Why are we, as fanfiction authors, so determined to reject the artistic lens that game devs and comic book artists have fought for?

I keep thinking about how contemporary online culture seems like it's trying to make Henry Dargers out of its writers. Pretty much the whole internet right now is bent towards encouraging people to write stories completely for themselves.

There is one crucial way that writing differs from all other art forms. In music, painting, textiles, etc. etc. having something to communicate is optional. You can produce beautiful things that are simply beautiful and have no particular thought or message behind them.

Writing is the only art form that has communication built into the very material it works with. When you use words, you are by definition communicating. When you write and it is truly, purely for yourself, with absolutely no audience in mind, what you end up with is the work of Henry Darger - structureless, deeply disturbing stories made up of unfiltered psychosexual fantasies, that form a far too detailed psychological portrait of the man who wrote them. Henry Darger is a fascinating artist, but almost nobody wants to read his fiction. Even fans of his don't often attempt to read his novels.

Your stories should be for someone, I don't care who it is. It can be your friends, it can be a fandom, whatever. Trying to remove the communication from writing is like trying to knit without yarn.

[kacievvbbbb]

This is very Crocodile I think.

I can imagine him saying this to Mihawk trying to recruit him, trying to justify himself and his actions to a man that has never felt the need to justify any singular action he has ever taken in his life and was already going to join soley on the grounds he’d get paid to fuck up the marines day and a good bottle of wine.

Or even just saying it offhandedly to Daz Bones, his most loyal servant, as a kind of unneeded explanation during the initial planning of Alabaster’s down fall.

[shallowseeker]

Hey shal, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but I really love a lot of your speculative meta, so I was wondering how you see a relationship going with Mary and Anna?

This is actually surprisingly easy for me to answer, specifically regarding (our) time traveler angel Anna and young Mary.

///NOTE: I was gonna try to edit this down, but I've decided to just ramble and repeat myself gloriously instead WHOOHOO. I wrote half on my phone / half on my computer, so it's a mess...

Whichever way you take this relationship-wise, I think the most interesting story arc in terms of its THEMES would revolve around the shared trauma involving the loss of their parents. (I really, really like the "I took you for granted" of it all, while being off-key/opposite directions.)

= MARY + HUMAN HUNTER PARENTS =

Mary ran from the support of her human family because it felt, to her, like a trap tied to a job and a future she feared. But maybe her family was more flexible, more loving, than she allowed herself to see? She projected some rigidity onto them, maybe to justify her need to escape.

In the end, she loses her old family, and only sees their value too late. This grief very much haunts her, even after she has her own children, and well into her later episodes in s12.

///

= ANNA + HEAVEN FAM =

Meanwhile, Anna fled a system that was every bit as rigid and punishing as she believed. The angelic "family" demanded obedience, erased individuality, and used violence to enforce order.

And yet... Anna’s pain, her longing, her desire to fall—those probably aren’t alien to the angels she left behind. If angels were truly emotionless, Anna couldn’t have fallen at all. Heaven's system wouldn’t need brainwashing or jails or execution to keep them in line.

So while Anna rightly saw the cruelty of Heaven, she also mischaracterized the "emotionless" suffering of the angels still trapped in it.

= ANNA + HUMAN PARENTS =

When Anna loses her parents, she’s crushed. But like Mary, she never mentions the loss again—and that silence is fucking loud, echoing through each of their narratives.

Even with Dean, someone who might have understood, Anna defaults to speaking about her soldier trauma rather than her human grief. It's an older wound. Easier to voice.

Later, becoming an angel again lets Anna sink even deeper into that celestial numbness. While she’s absolutely backed into a corner, putting on her angelic armor allows her to retreat from the rawness of love and loss she once risked everything to feel.

I'd argue that that the "numbing" process was already well underway, at least emotionally. After Pamela jogs her memory, the parental loss is completely shelved (or is it?) WHICH BRINGS ME TO...

///

= WHY ANNA FELL? =

I believe the real reason Anna fell was because of seeing HUMAN PARENTS love HUMAN CHILDREN.

That kind of love wasn’t something she ever felt in Heaven, and I think that’s what changed everything for her. (It also explains why she didn’t just fall... but she became a baby.) She wasn’t just running from something, she was reaching for the most loved, most vulnerable part of being human.

Her fall came from a wish to be held, to be chosen, to be loved the way a child is...

I feel like this is her mostly closely guarded (but at the same time COMPLETELY OBVIOUS) heart.

And when she loses her human parents, she’s crushed... and then... she zips it up.

ASIDE// Her words about “sex, chocolate cake, yadda yadda” feel like a convenient, surface-level explanation that sidesteps the deeper, painful, human emotions—much like s13 AU Kevin Tran’s “hot virgins and paradise” as the smokescreen for wanting to see his mom again.

So all in all, the loss of her human parents stays shelved, and she throws herself into a physical experience (sex) to forget it. This is a characteristic Anna shares with season 15 Sam with respect to Eileen.

I think Sam, Mary, and Anna all embody this RUNAWAY energy in big ways.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY MOST CHERISHED HEADCANON...

//

= WHY ANNA TIME TRAVELLED =

I've long believed that Anna was manipulated into traveling to the past with the promise that she could bring her human parents back.

After all, Anna's parents were DEAD and feasibly IN HEAVEN.

That is... INSANE leverage. And it perfectly explains the extraordinary desperation behind Anna's actions.

ASIDE// Interesting that this means that Anna either truly escaped Heaven as a desperate bid to prevent the Apocalypse and save her human family... -OR- it also means that the Heavenly orderly that let her go was an ANTI-Apocalypse supporter.

But anyway, it makes THIS scene between Anna and Cas read like:

ANNA (maybe): "I'm sorry, but I'll kill YOUR human family... to save MY human family."

CAS: "You come near Sam Winchester, and I'll kill you."

///

= MARY & ANNA + FEAR, SELF-LOATHINTG, AND THE NON-INTEGRATION OF FULL SELF =

For Mary, it’s not just about wanting to be safe—it’s about feeling powerless despite all her hunter training. As Mary approaches adulthood, she realizes that growing up doesn’t lessen her fear. Instead, she begins to see how fragile her seemingly invincible parents actually are, and like how Sam balks at Dean's weakness in season 4, Mary balks at the fragility of her whole support system.

This realization shakes her deeply, and she reacts by pulling away, going into RUNAWAY mode, fleeing from everything and creating rationalizations instead of owning her fears and desires in a more honest way.

(She's, in short, in a constant state of whiplash.)

Anna’s struggle is different but parallel. Anna wants to be a human to be allowed to feel. (Though, like I said, I’d argue that Anna becoming a human child is also tied to a deep longing for safety as an escape from the harshness of her angelic existence.)

Like Mary, Anna can’t fully reconcile her dual nature. She labels her very real angelic emotions as “human,” living with a fractured sense of self much like Mary’s.

///

= A DIRECTION TACKLING PARENTAL GRIEF =

At the time Anna meets young Mary in 5x13, Mary is still very much haunted by the death of her own parents.

I think it would be a compelling story arc to explore and deepen both of their grief cycles.

Another compelling parallel between Mary and Anna lies in how they both tended to view their fathers as scapegoats for their pain. Maybe Mary unfairly characterized Samuel. After all, he wasn’t actually going ballistic over John; rather, her reaction was shaped by trauma from the brutal hunting life she’d been immersed in.

Similarly, Anna was perhaps unintentionally—and perhaps unfairly (?)—afraid of her human father. From what we can tell, he didn’t seem to want to hurt her, but the trauma of the soldier-angel existence made her perceive him as a threat.

There's great potential for a lot of sorrow and regret to be tied up in each of those scenarios, because in both cases, their fathers become symbolic scapegoats for the larger, brutal dangers they faced.

//

= FEELING MY OWN FEELINGS + SEEING MY OWN UGLINESS AND ACCEPTING THAT IN OTHERS =

I think... both Mary and Anna struggle to fully parse and accept their own feelings.

Make no mistake, for both of them, running away is an absolutely understandable response—an attempt to escape the overwhelming pain and fear they carry...

But their views of themselves as soldiers, and of the soldiers/hunters who came before them, tend to be somewhat short-sighted and incomplete.

They tend to put humanity and civilian life on respective pedestals—seeing it as safer, purer, and better than their own harsh, complicated pasts.

Rather than face their pain/fear/emotions, they try to become something else entirely.

Mary won’t accept the messy, painful truth of being a hunter and especially NOT the vulnerability that comes with it. Anna pushes all her real angelic emotions onto a "human self" she thinks is totally separate. (Anna tends to think: "I'm different from them." Raphael and Metatron echo this, painting other angels as sheep. Compare to Cas seeing his AU self as "the same" as himself.)

ANYWAY

This kind of avoidance keeps them both stuc... and unable to fully accept who they are, both soldier and human.

((Later, it also keeps them from truly facing their grief, regrets, and failures.))

Their matching arcs could be about learning to face the hard, complicated parts of themselves, instead of running from them or idealizing what they’re not.

(These are also HUGE Cas and Sam themes, especially in season 8 re: The roadrunner chasing the divine/the mode of the RUNAWAY, and of course Dean too is stuck in a lot of idealization and apple pie figments at various points, using always-and-never statements a fair bit.)

///

= HOW THEY SEE OTHERS =

Mary mischaracterizes John just as readily as Anna mischaracterizes angels, though in opposite ways.

Even though John is a stone-cold veteran, Mary paints him as purely civilian—everything she believes she, as a hunter, is not. It's a paradox. John is obviously as battle-hardened as she is in a lot of ways; that's perhaps even why they connect so deeply.

But she idealizes him in the same way Anna idealizes humanity, seeing it as all good, all feeling, and all safe.

This lets Mary avoid acknowledging the part of herself that is like John: a weapon, a soldier. She hides how much she actually relates to—and even admires—that side of him. She quietly casts him in the role of someone softer and untouched, almost damsel-like, which lets her keep pretending she is the one who is too far gone.

//

Meanwhile, Anna discredits angels as cold and unfeeling. But that too is a paradox! If she truly felt nothing as an angel, she wouldn’t have fallen at all. Her own story proves that angels do feel—she just doesn’t want to face that part of herself.

By painting angels as emotionless, Anna distances herself from the world she came from. It lets her rationalize their suffering and avoid the responsibility she still feels toward them.

Both Mary and Anna are caught in rigid thinking. They project their fears onto others and deny the parts of themselves that are hardest to accept.

Their self-hatred makes and inability to look at themselves honestly... it's a blinding thing, really...

///

= HOW THEY COULD BOND... OR BUTT HEADS =

I like to think that while Anna bonds with Dean about the idea of a distant, unknowable father, she has the capacity to bond with Mary over the deeper, more visceral hurt that she won't dare voice: "my parents."

These are the deepest parts of Anna that she is way more unwilling to share: LOSS and IDENTITY.

While Mary was willing to make a deal with Azazel to bring John back, she drew a hard line about offering her soul. We see this in her sarcasm: "What, all it costs is my soul?"

So, she takes the deal she thinks she can win (winner take all!) and she walks away, willing to gamble with upholding their safety and getting to have John.

She takes the losses, buries her parents quietly, and carries the grief in silence.

//

Anna, by contrast, is tortured nonstop in Heaven. Maybe she winds up in a place where she's willing to risk everything for her human parents... in the NAME of stopping the Apocalypse and saving the world.

(Because again... it's a grief so profound, Anna needs an angelic mission to justify it and ease. This parallels how I feel like Cas also feels the need to convert his feelings into MISSION MODE.)

Anna maybe doesn’t have a soul in the traditional sense, but narratively, she’s already sold it the moment she’s ready to kill Mary and John.

Maybe Mary tries to live with her the loss of her parents by suppressing it, but maybe Anna tries to undo hers, no matter the price. One buries the past. The other tries to rewrite it.

Both are driven by love.

Anyway, that's how I'd like to see the dynamics play out!!! Mostly I have repeated myself over and over... Oh well that happens when I'm working it out in my head. Tune in for future brevity.

[homunculusnell]

I'm tired, and I haven't watched fma 03 in years, so this might not make any sense.

Wrath is a prey animal. Not in a literal sense, but more of in a vibe kind of way. It's Just... when I think about him I tend to associate prey animals with him. I fear if I were to explain why people would find it ridiculous, but I feel like Wrath is one of those characters it's well with (when talking about my reasoning, which could include a lot of characters).

Even when he has predator animal qualities (I like to give the homunculi animal qualities) in my fanfics/au ideas, he tends to still be associated with a prey animal.

[namelessprince]

sitting here very seriously pondering how i would draw albatrio if riptide were an smp rather than a dnd show...

[eyepatchdate]

i got my shinigami and yuma figures today yayyyy

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I think someone put the brain of a mouse or maybe a squirrel inside my head at some point because all winter I was like “I crave nuts and seeds” and now that it’s getting warmer and brighter out my brain keeps going “it’s fruit time”

Like, modern transportation has made it possible to move many fruits all over the world (in theory) all the time! But the primal early plesiadapiform part of my brain is like “you must eat what is available this season”

[ceramicbeetle]

one of the many reasons Aabria is such a good GM is because of the very keen eye she keeps on the social dynamics and interactions that happens at the table and i absolutely Love her for it

[novaimperia]

★ asking roommate!sukuna if you can get a lift to campus

halfway out of the door, your roommate turns his head and lifts a singular brow at you, the piercing there glinting. keys hanging off his finger, backpack slung on over one shoulder, you’re glad you caught him right before he left – his long legs make him impossible to catch up to. 

“no.”

and then he leaves.

you run after him. “oh, come on. why not?”

not slowing his pace down at all, he lifts up a hand, counting down. “one, i’m not a taxi. two, i don’t want to. three, it’ll become a habit. four, you’re annoying. and five, i don’t want to.”

he’s probably not wrong; since his car is much, much nicer than the public transport available, and quicker too, you’d likely get too used to the comfort and plead to make it a regular thing. although, you’re not really convinced it’d be so bad. “please? there’s a creepy man on the bus and i don’t want to run into him.”

at his car now, unlocking it with his key, he opens his car door, throws his bag inside, climbs in, and slams the door shut in your face. shooting you the most unamused look in the entirety of humanity’s existence, you’re sure, he drawls, “so then walk.”

you watch his car disappear out of the car park.

five minutes later, you’re grumbling about how he’s the worst roommate ever and how, if given the chance, you’d gladly suffocate his irritatingly handsome face under a pillow. just because he’s rich, naturally smart, effortlessly athletic, crazily popular even though he doesn’t want to be, he thinks he can do as he pleases. and yeah, guess he can. but still!

the past couple weeks since you’ve met him, you’ve been good to the bastard. you say hi, you keep clean and tidy, never make too much noise, don’t invite yourself to any of his plans, and you don’t snoop or invite friends over. by his standards, you’re the perfect roommate. whereas he’s been rude – he doesn’t accept any of the baked goods you’ve offered him, doesn’t watch movies with you, or even share dinner at the same time. too often have you caught him walking around in just his boxers or in a towel after he’s showered and he doesn’t apologise, just smirks when you get all flustered. the monster doesn’t even look at you when you cross paths on campus; he just pretends he doesn’t know you.

“hey, sweet’art. you live ‘round here?”

oh, great, there’s a crackhead limping towards you. despite this being the main street, there’s not many cars or people passing by. it’s just you and a creepy old man ogling at your body. whether on the bus or off, it seems you attract weirdos on a spiritual level. fantastic. 

“leave me alone.”

that doesn’t go over well with him. a scowl darkens his raggedy features. his steps hasten. you stagger back. 

beep!

“fuck off, you dirty old geezer.” a familiar car pulls up beside you. sukuna sneers at the man, who backs away a little frightened. huh, it’s quite easy to forget that people tend to find your roommate’s energy off putting. that’s pretty useful. those heated eyes slide over to you. irate, he jerks his chin. “what are you waiting for? get the fuck in.”

beaming, you squeal. “thank you!”

perturbed by your cheerful disposition despite how your morning’s going, you can only assume, he mutters some half-hearted insult under his breath and pays you no mind whilst he has a hand on the steering wheel and the other on your headrest, fingers drumming. 

satisfied when he hears the click of your seatbelt, he drives off. “you finish at three today, right? meet me at the parking lot by the gym at quarter past three. if you’re even a single second late, your broke ass is getting left behind, clear?”

“crystal.”

grimacing at your sudden laughter, he groans. “fuck this year’s gonna be a long one.”

and he couldn’t be more right.

[traegorn]

while i completely agree with your assessment of realistically what a trump vs harris presidency will look like, i think the issue me and a lot of other leftists have is that there is no need to tell people (and effectively tell harris) that oh ofc we are gna vote for her despite these issues because trump is THAT bad and if you say you don't want to vote for her because her party is pro-war, pro-genocide, then you are condemning americans to a trump presidency. we know trump is worse! i don't want him to win AT ALL, but why would harris even consider even changing the language she is using (i'm looking at the absolutely stupid speech she was giving in michigan, given the large arab & muslim-american population there and given its a battleground state) if she thinks she is going to win on a not-trump basis? i know who i'm voting for on nov 5th if it comes down to it, but we need the democrats to THINK they are going to lose until the very last minute, we need them to feel like they can't just rely on being the lesser of two evils if we want any chance of a shift on palestine. because they very well might lose, for this exact reason (and i'm speaking again more to the votes of the arab & muslim-american population which is far more demographically meaningful than the votes of leftists) and if that happens, they have no one to blame but themselves.

So I'm going to tell you something important: You don't have the leverage you think you have.

Political campaigns are a machine that's been operating the same way for a long time on the Democratic side. The Republicans may have abandoned a lot of the old ways of doing things, but the Democratic party hasn't. And you've got people running these campaigns who are steeped in the "wisdom" of how you win.

And when a block of voters says they're not going to vote for their candidate, they tend to believe them. So they decide to go court the people who they think will vote for them. That's why you've seen the Harris campaign trying to court moderate Republicans who might be iffy on voting for Trump a third time.

Right now one of the reasons Netanyahu is refusing to commit to a cease fire is because he thinks Trump can win. If Trump wins, he has no reason to ever agree to one. One of the reasons he thinks Trump can win is because the polling is so close.

If you want to know why they've gone to the right recently, it's because they think they've lost the left. And since a lot of those leftists are claiming there's a line in the sand that they don't have the power to appease (because -- again -- they can't get Netanyahu to do shit right now), they're going to go for the centrist Republicans.

Also, there seems to be this weird notion that the only way to move the Democrats is during the election. That's not how you move people. You keep pressuring them during their term and it works. Like Biden is continuing to work on forgiving student debt even though he doesn't have an election ahead of him. Because they know that what he does reflects on the future of the party. Voting doesn't end this game, it's the start of it.

But none of it will matter if Trump wins.

[sevsgiirl]

— do the girls back home touch you like i do?

sevika x insecure!reader. men and minors dni.

synopsis: having feelings for the most feared woman in zaun had more cons than it did pros - her being popular amongst women and a regular at the brothel just to name a few. it hurt because you knew with her history there’s no way she’d return your feelings… right?

word count: 5.5k words.

tags: insecure!reader, jealousy, miscommunication, public sex, oral sex, vaginal fingering, porn with feelings, top!sevika, bottom!reader.

it was silly, honestly.

you knew it was a shot in the dark for sevika to reciprocate your feelings. much or less consider you an option on her roster.

sevika gets around. there was no denying that, and you’ve come to terms with it the second you caught these stupid little feelings that just wouldn’t go away. no matter how hard you tried.

you assumed it would. back when silco hired you to be his informant, you saw the opportunity as nothing more but an upgrade from your previous jobs. it’s safe to say, you’ve gone through a lot just to get to where you are now. whether it was scrubbing the floors of a dingy, run-down diner that made jericho’s look like a michelin star restaurant, to going as far as thinking about working at babette’s.

but then silco saw some potential in you that not a lot of people have seen before, and you were grateful for it. a lot of your co-workers were tolerable, just as long as you looked past the carnage of their jobs, it was pretty easy to get by when working for silco because he never really asked you to get your hands dirty.

no, he asked sevika to do that.

you knew she was different from the others the second you laid eyes on her. she remained unyielding in the eyes of catastrophe, she gets the job done no matter how tedious the assignments were, and she navigates through life like an enigma.

you were intimidated by her at first. when she walked into a room, her presence demanded to be felt, crowds of people would always make space for her to walk through and she could silence someone with just the heat of her glare. it was then you understood why she was silco’s number two.

but despite her brooding personality, you couldn’t help but gravitate towards her. maybe it was the allure of wanting something you can’t have, but every time you were sent on a mission with her, this desire to know her better always tempted you. even though you wouldn’t know the first thing to say to strike up a conversation with the older woman, you couldn’t deny that what you felt was beyond just physical attraction. you were intrigued by everything about her.

it tethered the line of obsession but hadn’t quite got there yet, the better way to describe it was infatuation.

she’d occupy your thoughts but not so much to the point that she was all you thought about, but when you did, you had to force yourself to snap out of it before it became borderline creepy, and you wanted to justify your feelings thinking she wouldn’t feel the same in a million years.

not only that, but her reputation precedes her.

you knew your hesitation to make a move stemmed more from just being shy or thinking you wouldn’t get along with the older woman, and it was because her sexual proclivities scared the hell out of you.

again, she gets around, far more than most people. before you worked for silco, rumors regarding his second in command traveled through the streets of zaun in whispers, whether it was good or bad, it didn’t really matter.

one detail that caught the attention of many, specifically those of women, were her frequent nights spent at the gardens. you couldn’t deny that aside from being incredibly scary, so much of sevika’s appeal came from her appearance as well - her tall stature, impressive built, corded muscles, the rigged lines and hard angles of her face. she was just as beautiful as she was domineering.

that’s why it didn’t surprise you that women tend to set aside her notoriety in hopes of sleeping with her, but that doesn’t mean the thought didn’t cause your insides to flare up with jealousy.

as mentioned, you thought about working for babette at one point. when your low paying jobs in the past couldn’t suffice to get you through the week, the idea came to mind on some occasions. but you knew it wasn’t easy work, not to mention your looks paled in comparison to the girls you’d seen working there. all slim waists, toned arms, long legs, big tits and even bigger asses.

you didn’t possess any of the traits that made the girls there appealing.

you just set aside the idea because your ego wasn’t big enough to make you think you were up for the job, and knowing that’s where sevika prefers to spend most of her nights made your insecurities worse.

especially when she’d stroll through the last drop late at night littered with hickeys and bite marks around her neck that she’d let the world see without shame, and how you’d just ogle at them with the ugliest emotions churning in the pits of your stomach.

it didn’t help when silco’s men would poke fun at her for it “damn, was the night that rough? you gotta take it easy on those girls.” they’d joke as a sly grin would make its way on her face.

“they love it,” would be her response, which would earn a roar of laughter from the group meanwhile you’d walk away after eavesdropping, with a heaviness in your chest that wasn’t there minutes ago as you tried to erase the image of sevika indulging herself with countless women.

you understood the intention behind it. you knew it was her way of escaping the stress of silco’s workload, and having sex with multiple women was just as much of a coping mechanism as gambling and drinking was.

that doesn’t mean it wasn’t any less painful to think about, even though you knew you couldn’t have stood a chance.

because how could you? who even were you in the bustling, chaotic world that is sevika’s life? if simply nothing more than just her co-worker?

𐙚 ˙ ⋆ .˚

you didn’t think she’d ever acknowledge you outside of work.

you’ve had your fair share of interactions but it was all professional so those don’t count. you were delusional but you weren’t delusional enough to think that your quick conversations about paychecks and shipment were considered bonding.

it wasn’t until an incident transpired in one of her missions where silco asked you to come along, and it so happened that the firelights decided it was a good day to ambush you, sevika and the rest of the team.

you cowered away from the commotion because it’s not like you possessed any of sevika’s combative skills. you were an informant, for crying out loud.

but you weren’t quick on your feet, and when the leader of the firelights threw one of their bombs in your direction you were crystallized in place near the cargos, unable to move.

you knew the crystals would dissolve after five minutes, you were aware of how their weapons worked, but the fear of being unable to move still stressed you out, and as you kept squirming you caught sevika’s eye who was immobilized herself.

one thing led to another, silco’s daughter came up from underneath the airship and began firing at the firelights, grazing you with one of her bullets as you let out an agonizing scream in response.

suffice to say, the mission went horribly and everyone who go out was reprimanded by silco, because of course he’d never put the blame on jinx. while you on the other hand, were hunched over the bar later that night, nursing your sides that were still bleeding due to jinx’s mishap.

thieram was more than happy to help, aiding you with your injury but your pain tolerance wasn’t necessarily high, so every time he dabbed you with the wash cloth dunked in alcohol, you couldn’t help it as you let out a wince, clutching thieram’s forearm.

“I’m sorry,” he said, cringing at your pitiful state “I don’t know how-“

“move it.”

your eyes widened as the shadow of sevika’s tall silhouette casted over you, pushing past thieram while she took the bottle of alcohol and cloth from him. she nodded at you for you to raise your shirt up.

“let me see the wound,”

blushing, you were debating whether or not you should let sevika see you in such a compromising position, but she probably only wanted to help and couldn’t care less about seeing you exposed.

so you did as you were told and let her press her large palm onto your rib where a lot of the bleeding came from.

you hissed, gripping the sides of the bar and sevika cursed “fucking jinx,”

you shook your head “it’s okay, it’s not that big of a de-“

“but it is,” she grumbled “if only she did her fucking job and didn’t lose her shit, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

gulping, you tried not to overthink her choice of words and how she only focused on your injury and not the rest, considering you weren’t the only one who got the brunt of it.

“it’s fine, I’m just worried if the others are tending to their injuries.”

“don’t worry about them,” she muttered “they’re built for these kinds of things, you aren’t.”

you snickered, pretending to take offense “excuse me? are you calling me weak?”

sevika couldn’t hide her amusement, wiping away at the little blood smeared on your lower stomach.

“not weak,” she replied “I just don’t think a pretty little thing like you is meant for this kind of work. you’re not equipped for it.”

“I can look out for myself, you know.”

she hummed, her grey eyes staring up at you “maybe, but still. it’d be better if you didn’t need to.”

you tried not to let her words get to you, and calling you a pretty little thing didn’t help with your growing infatuation. perhaps she was just playing coy with you, you thought.

but then silco continued to let you join in on her missions, and you couldn’t ignore the way your heart fluttered every time she’d ask you to ‘keep close behind’ or how she’d shield you with her massive frame every time danger was imminent.

if she couldn’t trust you to look out for yourself, then she did it for you.

you wanted to excuse it thinking since she’s already lost so much men she didn’t want your name to be crossed off on the list as well. but that doesn’t mean you stopped dwelling on it.

especially when on most nights where she’d catch you in the last drop, she’d ask you to have a drink with her. going as far as to teach you how to play cards when you’d watch her gamble with the rest of silco’s men and how she’d win every time.

“you’re so good at this,” you said in awe during one of her games which earned a chuckle from her.

you were seated right next to sevika, not too close but not too far apart either, that sometimes you’d feel her elbow brushing against yours.

“want me to teach you then?”

“hey, that’s not fair, how come she gets to have you as her teacher while we’re stuck here getting our asses beat?” one of the men she was playing with chided in.

she only ignored him, flipping her cards over to reveal she’s won yet again, making them groan “then play better.” she quipped, turning over to you with a smirk on her face.

you swore butterflies almost erupted out of your belly. she was so smug, but radiant in her victory that you couldn’t even bring yourself too feel bad for the others, if you’d get to see her this way all the time, you hoped she’d win all of her games.

the guy huffed, taking a swig from his beer as he looked up at her, grinning “I dropped by the gardens today, by the way. lily said she missed you.”

you froze as those words left his mouth, but sevika remained ambivalent by the information as she shuffled her cards “I’ve just had a lot on my plate,” and perhaps it was just your mind playing tricks on you, but you swore you caught her eyeing you for a brief moment.

“well, better not to keep those girls waiting. you know you’re their favorite,” the table laughed and sevika couldn’t help herself from joining along.

“ain’t that right,” she said, chuckling.

you gulped, feeling a lump in your throat as you forced yourself not to spew something bitter because really, who were you to act jealous over who sevika chooses to spend her time with?

she may act flirtatious with you from time to time but it’s not like it meant anything. you wanted to set it aside, and tell yourself it was just never going to happen. spend less time with her if you need to.

but as if it fate wanted to play a joke on you both, that was thrown out the window when one night, sevika came stumbling into the last drop all battered and bruised. her prosthetic dangling from her arm in ruined wires while she tried her best to steady herself as she walked in.

instinctively, you rushed to her side and examined her state “sevika, oh my god.”

she groaned “it’s not a big de-“

“like hell it is,” you reprimanded as you told thieram to fetch the first aid kit and inform silco of sevika’s condition.

she was against it but you simply silenced her, pulling up a chair as you pushed her down “you need to be more careful.” you said.

“stop fussing over me, I’m built for these kinds of things. it’s my job.”

“just because it’s your job doesn’t mean you have to be so reckless! you’re more than just silco’s killing machine. you can’t keep putting your life on the line like this.”

sevika remained silent before soft laughter bubbled out of her, making you raise an eyebrow.

“I guess this makes us even.”

“what?”

“from when you got hit by jinx’s bullets,” she said as realization dawned on you “I guess we’re even now.“

you rolled your eyes at that “I’m not doing this because I owe it to you. you’re more than just my co-worker.”

she eyed you, curious “what am I then?”

there was a moment of silence as you knelt down in front of her, staring at the uneven lines of the wooden floorboards, refusing to meet her eye.

“a friend, if you’d let me,” you muttered.

she hummed, leaning against her seat “I don’t do much of those,”

you snickered “you don’t do much of anything really,”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

you realized your mistake but decided to keep it going anyways.

“you’re too guarded. you keep your circle too tight, and I haven’t really seen you out with anyone. romantically, I mean.”

you knew you should’ve kept your mouth shut, but you couldn’t help it.

she was silent for a minute “I didn’t know you kept tabs on whether or not I date.”

you scoffed, although it sounded unconvincing “I do not.”

then there was that god awful smirk on her face again, eating away at you as she cocked her head to the side.

“sure you don’t, princess.“

your mind immediately went haywire because oh god, did she know?

on one hand, you weren’t exactly subtle. even thieram would tease you about it. noticing the way you’d sneak glances at sevika whenever she strolled through the bar and you’d hear him let out a snort from behind the counter.

“take a picture, it’d last longer.” he’d joke while you flipped him off.

but judging by the way she teased you about the idea, you’d be lying if you said there wasn’t a part of you that felt a bit hopeful that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.

because if there was, it wouldn’t hurt to try and seize the opportunity.

𐙚 ˙ ⋆ .˚

when silco suggested the group had a day off and to use the bar to their liking for one night as compensation for a successful mission, you were elated. for a number of reasons.

because this is it. this is the moment that you’ve been waiting for, to finally make a move and to squash your fantasies once and for all.

you’re aware about wanting to keep your feelings at bay and to never let sevika know about them, but as the days flew by it was getting harder and harder to stay silent.

especially since the night you tended to her injuries and how she reacted at the idea of you taking an interest in her, and how she didn’t seemed fazed by it, if anything, she seemed intrigued.

it was worth a shot, because it’s better to say you tried than not at all.

so on the night of the party, you went out of your way to doll yourself up for once. your days were normally mundane and your job was tedious enough as it, so you never saw a reason to dress up. living in the under city, going out partying and sleeping with people was scarcely something you ever thought about.

but that doesn’t mean you never anticipated it, and so you went digging under your closet for the handful of dresses you’ve stolen from a couple of boutiques in topside. something you kept for special occasions and this was one of them.

you settled for a black halter dress that stopped below your thighs and also accentuated your cleavage, along with a pair of sheer dark tights that allowed you space to move around freely.

you rummaged through your drawers and pulled out a couple of broken makeup pallets, likely expired, but you didn’t really care as you meticulously dabbed silver eyeshadow on yourself and applied some red lipstick.

you inspected yourself on your mirror and let out an approving hum. you looked nice. you didn’t really consider yourself drop dead gorgeous but when you made some effort to make yourself presentable, the pay-off was worth it.

your chest swelled with hope thinking maybe this will be the day sevika sees you, really sees you. not just as a co-worker, friend, but someone worthy to replace the girls at the gardens with…

with that, you slipped on your combat boots and strode out of your apartment building, walking through the streets of zaun and not minding the lewd comments thrown your way by the men passing by you.

you showed up at the last drop and one of the bouncers, after taking a good look at you, opened the door for you while shooting you a sly grin.

perhaps you’ve outdone yourself, or maybe the people around you just weren’t used to seeing you all dressed up but either way, their reactions stroked your ego. all that’s left now was to just find sevika.

you made your way up to the bar where thieram was busy serving drinks, and he didn’t recognize you at first until you called out to him.

he blinked as he said your name “damn, is it really you?” he chuckled “you look great.”

“thanks,” you said, smiling “I never had the chance to wear something like this before but since silco is in a good mood…”

“and it suits you. everyone’s eyeing you like a piece of meat, I don’t know if you can tell.”

“yeah, well. they don’t matter,” you looked around “where’s sevika, by the way?”

because she was the only one that mattered.

she was the reason why you even showed up looking like this, why you got out of your comfort zone even though these types of settings weren’t your thing, but you tried, because you wanted to prove yourself to her.

thieram turned to the side and pointed to his left “she arrived about an hour ago.”

you stood up and were about make your way towards her when the sight that greeted you quickly stopped you dead in your tracks, all previous excitement dying as you sunk to the nearest stool.

because there, in her usual booth, sat sevika with not one, but two girls cozied up against her sides while one of them was practically sitting on her lap, and the other was kissing along her neck while a cigarillo was dangling from her mouth. making more room for them to grind against her as she whispered in one of their ears, causing the girl to giggle as she grabbed sevika’s jaw and connected their lips.

you took a step back as your chest begun to feel heavy, while the room suddenly felt ten times more crowded as you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the scene in front of you because of course, this just had to happen.

how dare you think you had a chance when she went out of her way to bring two of babette’s girls to this blasted party when she already visits them on a regular basis? how dare you think you ever stood a chance against these girls, with their pristine clothing, nicely styled hair and perfect bodies?

you wanted the world to swallow you whole.

“hey, you okay?” thieram asked as your breathing became shallow.

you nodded, harshly swiping the tears that threatened to spill at the corners of your eyes as you walked back to the exit.

“y-yeah, I’m just-“

in your stupor, you didn’t even realize a man was behind you not until you bumped into him, causing him to spill his drink and cuss you out as you started apologizing, creating a commotion.

“I’m so sorry!” you said, your cheeks heating up as you looked around the room before your eyes landed on her again.

but this time, sevika was staring straight at you.

swallowing nervously, you pushed past the sea of people and made your way out of the bar, not even bothering to say goodbye to thieram as you busted through the doors of the back exit, breathing heavily as you slid against the wall of the bar, with your hands on your knees and your tears ruining your makeup.

you should’ve known this was a mistake. you mentally scolded yourself over and over because who were you fooling when you thought sevika would spare a glance your way? even if you dolled yourself up, in the end sevika had countless of women to choose from, and you were never going to be an option. no matter how hard you tried.

stewing in self-pity, you wiped away at your cheeks and stood back up, planning to just head back home and forget the night even happened when the doors of the bar suddenly burst open, making you jump as you whipped around, and your breath hitched when you were met with sevika’s steely grey eyes.

she assessed your frenzied state, staring just a bit longer at your attire, scanning your legs up to your thighs until it stopped at your chest, which was heaving erratically, drawing attention to your cleavage.

“leaving so soon?” she quipped, not hiding the shameful way she was ogling at you “especially when you look this pretty?”

biting your tongue, you tried so hard not to let her words get to you. no. this is what she does, she butters you up and makes you think you have a chance then she turns around and makes you feel like utter shit. this is what she does and you’re not going to sit around making an idiot out of yourself.

“I’m just not feeling good is all.” you said as you attempted to walk past her.

but you were immediately stopped when she grabbed your arm, though her touch was gentle “let me walk you home. it’s not safe especially when you’re out here dressed like that.”

you couldn’t stop yourself, you were filled with so much unnecessary bitterness that as soon as those words left her mouth, you could only scoff before ripping away your arm, causing her to look at you with her eyebrow raised.

“I can handle myself, just go back to those girls that were all over you. it seemed like you were having a great time with them anyways.” you spat, attempting to bristle past her.

however, you gasped when she not only blocked your path but abruptly pushed your body against the wall of the building. not too harsh but with enough force to make you look up at her in compliance.

she towered over your smaller form and took your chin using her prosthetic hand, her metal fingers making you shiver as her breath mingled with your own.

“what’s with the attitude?”

“just let me go-“

“the fuck I will,” she cut you off, her tone harsh “now, I’ll ask again, what’s with the attitude? you’re never like this.”

you clenched your jaw “never like what? you don’t even know me enough to make assumptions of how I normally act.”

“like a bitch is what I’m saying,” she said through her teeth “seriously, what crawled up your ass? you show up looking like this and you can’t even be bothered to stick around let alone have a drink,”

“why should I?” you shook your head “you looked too busy anyways. just forget it and go back to those-“

“what’s with you and the girls I brough-“

“because why waste your time on me?” the dam finally broke, and all your thoughts came flooding out as sevika blinked at you, dumbfounded “you never give me the time of the day even though we’ve been working for so long, and it had to take me getting injured for you to even strike up a conversation with me. you’re always at the gardens and I know it’s none of my business what you do with your time but just…”

you looked to your feet, regret washing in “just forget it. it’s so stupid.”

however, her grip on you only tightened “no, you’re right. it is none of your business, that’s why I want to know why you’re acting this way. I’m not a mind reader, princess. you can’t expect me to know what you want and you haven’t really made it easy either. you think I wanted to wait that long to approach you? talking goes both ways. and you avoiding me so much in the past hasn’t really given me the chance to get to know you. fuck, I even thought…”

you waited for her to finish as she faced away from you “thought what?” you said, your voice merely a whisper.

she sighed as she pressed her body closer to you “I thought you didn’t like me. you never a spoke a word to me but I’ve always noticed you. you’re so good at your job but you only kept to yourself. I just thought you found me and the others too vulgar. I get it. we’re different. but then you had a drink with me and you seemed genuinely interested…”

you inhaled sharply “I was, and still am.”

“then what’s the matter? why are you acting like you’re disgusted with me all of a sudden?”

“it’s not you! it’s just…” you let out a shaky breath “it’s just hard to be around you because I’ve always noticed you too. I was just intimidated but I’ve admired your work ethic, just everything about you really, so much that I even… god, it’s embarrassing.”

“no,” she pulled you closer “tell me,”

you swallowed the lump in your throat, looking away “it’s silly.”

she lifted her flesh hand and pushed away the strands of hair that fell over your face. leaning closer that you felt her lips brush against your cheek.

“you got a little crush on me is what you’re saying?” her mouth quirked into a teasing grin as you groaned, trying to push her away.

“you’re such an ass…” you muttered as her hands slowly maneuvered down to your thighs, and suddenly, she was lifting you by her arms and against the wall as you squealed.

her nose nudged your jaw, leaving a soft kiss underneath and your hands found purchase on her strong shoulders.

“you should’ve told me sooner…” she purred, her voice deep and enticing “it would’ve saved me a hell lot of money from visiting the gardens when I could’ve had you all this time.”

you weren’t given the chance to speak when she suddenly captured your lips in a fervent kiss, making you gasp as she lets out a growl hearing your needy whines.

eventually, you surrendered to it, moving in sync with the frenzied way she was kissing you. almost as if she was just as desperate for this as you were.

you rolled your hips against her torso and sevika lets out a chuckle at your urgency, taking your legs as she wrapped them around her waist.

she took the ends of your dress and pulled them up, tearing your tights down and you let out a whine “s-sev… we’re outside-“

“then let them hear,” her breathing was staggered from all the movement “I’ve waited for this for so long.“

you bit your lip “yeah?”

she nodded, slipping your tights off your legs and discarding them to the side “if you think whatever feelings you’ve had for me was one-sided, you thought wrong.” she kissed your lips with bruising force and you could only moan against her mouth “ever since I laid eyes on silco’s pretty little informant, you’ve always been on my mind.”

her fingers felt down your covered cunt, and you writhed against her palm as she pushed past the waistband of your panties and slowly slid them off, teasing you as your slick met her calloused fingers, making her head spin “you’ve been waiting for this haven’t you, princess?” she asked softly.

you nodded as you begun soaking her palm with your juices, riding her fingers and she parted your folds, thumbing at your clit before she slid one finger in, feeling at your gummy walls before adding a second finger and soon, she was scissoring them in you as your forehead dropped to her shoulder.

jostling in her hold as your body shook, she curled her fingers and started a slow pace that got you moaning her name, and she nodded at your desperate sounds “yeah, that’s it, baby. let everybody know how much you needed this.”

she bent her head down and nipped at your jaw while you humped her scarred hand in earnest “you should’ve fucking told me sooner. do you know how much torture it was to see you walk around the office, all pretty and shy, and not wanting to make a move because I thought you didn’t like me? when all this time your tight little pussy has been weeping for me to fill it.”

you cried out, getting closer to that awaited peak especially when she starts to piston her thick fingers inside you at a maddening speed “I needed this so much, sev. fuck.” you admitted, completely lack of shame.

“I know, baby. now that I know how much you’ve needed this I’m never letting you out of my sight again.” she said and you opened your tear stained eyes to look at her.

“do I feel better than the girls you’ve had before?” you whispered and she nodded, an urgency to it as if she wanted to drill it inside your head that she means every word.

“fuck yeah, baby. I can’t wait to have you in every way that I like. on my tongue, around my fingers…” you let out the most obscene moan at her words “and my cock.”

your orgasm tore through you like a punch to the gut, your mouth falling open into a guttural cry as you creamed against her fingers while she kept curling them inside you, already feeling overstimulated while she talked you through it.

“that’s it…” she said in awe “you feel so good, baby.”

she slowly pulled her fingers out of you and you whined at the loss. but your eyes widened when suddenly sevika planted your wobbly legs down onto the ground and knelt down in front of you and started lapping away at your soaked pussy, her pupils blown wide as she began cleaning you up.

once she was done, she stood up and helped you into your underwear, breathing heavily before connecting her lips with yours. you melted as you tasted yourself on her tongue and the kiss was warmer, gentler this time.

she pulled away, leaning her forehead against yours “let me take you out?”

it took a while for your mind to process her words, still fuzzy from the aftermath of your orgasm but once it sunk in, you could only chuckle as you smiled up at her.

“usually you’d ask that first then try to have sex with me in an alley…”

there was a playful glint in her eyes “what can I say, I couldn’t wait any longer.”

you hummed, cupping her face as you drew her in for another kiss.

“yeah, me neither.”

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 7

in which spencer reid and inexperienced!fem reader sleep together for the first time

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: loss of virginity, oral f/m receiving, so much praise, pain during sex, unprotected sex, cr**mp**, bit of overstim, soft dom spence, if u don't like that freak shit (love and intimacy) this is not for u, spencer is a nerd, they're both nerds actually and that factors in heavily, you may get more from this part by FIRST reading how they met in this bonus chapter a/n: thank you all for being patient, ilysm, this was the most laborious thing i've ever done for no reason and also this part changed so many times and is not what i expected it to be so pls go in with tempered expectations and keep in mind that this story is more about the characters and their specific relationship dynamic than just being porn. i truly have no idea how you guys will react to this but i sincerely hope you love it and them like i do<3 also it's twice as long as the other parts so feedback would be very very appreciated! again i love u all and enjoy the penultimate part!

Spencer’s lips are on yours, and you weren’t expecting it—hell, you weren’t expecting him to be in your apartment. After all, he’d wished you goodnight and walked out only a moment ago.

“Spencer—wh—” 

But he’s insistent with his lips, kissing you bruisingly over and over like there’s nectar on your tongue and he’s parched for you. Still, he has enough decency to not completely ignore you, exhaling a quick excuse over your flushed lips. 

“I missed you.”

This time, though, you dodge his hungry kiss. Part of you thinks, as he watches you, eyes alight and breathing heavily, that he sort of likes your playing hard to get. It’s not something you do very often, admittedly. 

“We’ve been apart for like, maybe a minute.”

“I didn’t even make it to the parking lot.”

Your face heats.  

“Well you can’t just—you can’t just walk in like that! And I thought you said we weren’t supposed to mix fighting with pleasure.”

“Then start locking your door. And I thought you said we weren’t fighting.”

You roll your eyes in response, though your heart is still pittering in your chest. 

At least his hands move to your arms, stroking up and down relatively chastely—although he has this way of making everything seem intimate. Especially when paired with those amber eyes of his—glowing like a candlelight beacon in the window guiding you home. He speaks in low, appeasing tones and darts his tongue over his lips. 

“I originally said it’s a bad idea for couples to sleep together after an argument. But you know—makeup sex is ubiquitous across culture and time because it works. Anger and arousal trigger a lot of the same hormones, specifically norepinephrine which is involved in feelings of longing and—”

“Spencer.”

“You know what else?” He mutters in a way that feels dangerous. “It tends to feel better than regular sex.”

That earns a shaky exhale from you. Whether from irritation or arousal is anyone’s guess—probably a combination of both. 

“So you came back to fuck me?”

It’s probably evident to Spencer from your choice of language that this already isn’t going exactly as he’d planned. He doesn’t answer right away—just regards you, gaze bouncing between your two eyes like he’s trying to calculate your level of anger. 

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

You push him away and move to walk down the hall. 

“Maybe your window of opportunity has passed.”

A warm hand wraps around your wrist in the dark of the hallway and he pulls you back until you’re falling against something tall and warm and lean. The smell of polished amber and sandalwood overwhelms your senses. 

“What’s wrong, angel? What happened in the minute I was gone to change your mind?” His voice is scratchy like a favorite record. It’s the voice he could hold you captive with. The one you have a very difficult time saying no to. 

“I don’t know,” you mutter, unintentionally leaning back against him. “What happened to change yours?”

His response comes pressed against your ear, half-lost in your hair. 

“You’re upset that I changed my mind. I thought you wanted this, honey.”

“I do,” you admit, letting your head fall back against his shoulder and bringing his arm to wrap around you. “And if you hadn’t walked out earlier I would’ve done it. But… I’m tired of us doing everything on your timeline. You just… you expect me to be amenable to what you want, constantly.” His nose and lips press into your shoulder. 

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I’ve been begging you to sleep with me for I don’t even know how long. And you keep changing your mind, and I feel like you’re being really confusing about it. Obviously you don’t have to sleep with me, you never did, but I just feel kind of… jerked around. And you did it again tonight.”

A beat of silence. 

“I understand your frustration,” he appeases, securing both his arms around you. You cling weakly to his wrist, to his warmth, like he’s a tether in a storm. “Would you prefer to wait until you initiate it?”

“No. Yes! I don’t know,” you huff, disentangling yourself from his arms and continuing toward your bedroom. “Now I’m annoyed at you again.”

He follows you right through the door. 

“Just tell me what to do! I don’t want to be annoying.”

“I can’t. I’m being unreasonable.” You flick on your adjoining bathroom light and examine yourself in the mirror. Yeesh. The eye makeup situation is abysmal after all the crying that has taken place over the course of the evening. 

“So choose to be reasonable and tell me what you want from me. I’ll give it to you.”

You frown at your reflection, pushing your hair back and rubbing at some excess mascara. 

“No, you’re not understanding me. I’m not choosing to be unreasonable. My thought process regarding the situation is inherently unreasonable and there’s nothing I can do about it because it’s just the way I feel.”

“The feeling being that I’ve been too domineering over how our sexual relationship has unfolded?”

Spencer watches you in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed as you tip some makeup remover onto a reusable cotton pad. You try not to check him out as you nod, but it’s impossible—with his sleeves rolled up to show defined forearms cradled in capable hands, and his hair all messy. 

When he pushes off the wall you freeze, unsure of his next move—until he’s gently spinning you around and taking the bottle and cloth from your hands. 

“Maybe it would help,” he begins, soft as he focuses on the new task, carefully bringing the round to your right eye so he can remove the bleeding mascara. You allow your eyes to flutter shut. “If I remind you why I’ve been so hesitant.”

“Because you hate giving me joy.”

He laughs, nothing more than one huff from his nose. 

“You’re spoiled and we both know it.”

Point taken, as he gently wipes your makeup away for you. Your silence is his cue to continue. 

“Everything I said about worrying that you would regret choosing me is true. It was especially true when I thought you felt lukewarm toward me. And all of that confusing stuff I said in the phone is true too—having sex for the first time is incredibly intimate and weird and sometimes scary. If you’re not 100% sure about your partner, or if you think your feelings are unrequited, it’s hard to be completely comfortable in such a vulnerable situation and your likelihood of getting hurt or having regrets skyrockets. I know that from experience. I wanted better for you than what I got. Still, I know it was wrong to project my feelings about the significance of sex onto you. In that regard, you’re right. I was being domineering, and I guess… I guess to an extent I’m still deflecting. I shouldn’t be trying to pretend like it’s about you when in reality I mostly just didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to go through that again, and that’s okay, but I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was something you could have changed.”

You try to process that. 

“Go through what?” You whisper hoarsely. Something about having him at such close range while he takes such care with you feels whisper-y. 

“Sleeping with someone who didn’t love me back.”

Your reply is small. 

“Oh. Right.”

How could anyone not love him back?

Spencer’s reply is simple and kind, without a hint of, obviously you dumb bitch—which is pretty much what you’re thinking to yourself. 

“Does that make sense, lovely? Do you understand why I wanted to wait?”

He lets you ponder for a while in comfortable-enough silence as he finishes removing your eye makeup with a characteristically gentle hand. When you open your eyes, he looks genuinely content, screwing the lid back on the bottle as if he’s got an eternity to wait for your answer. 

“Yeah. That part makes sense. But why did you seem so… I don’t know, like, wishy-washy about it?”

Spencer’s eyes dart up to meet yours, brows slightly raised. Then a small laugh bubbles up from somewhere inside him. 

“Because I’m obsessed with you. I thought about you like that constantly. I still do.”

Your breath catches at the casual admission. 

“Oh.”

Spencer hums, setting the bottle down before tenderly thumbing away some excess mascara that he must have missed from under your eye. 

“You didn’t think it was easy for me, did you?”

“Well… kind of,” you admit, tracking his eyes until they meet yours. 

“Not sleeping with you has been among the hardest things I’ve ever done. Especially when you started begging me. That first time, when I picked you up from Penelope’s and you asked me why we hadn’t had sex yet…”

He trails off, still rubbing at your cheek as he loses himself in thought. 

Eventually, you grow impatient, prompting, “what?”

“It’s not a nice thought.”

“Well, you have to tell me now,” you insist. 

He half smiles, thumb straying to your lips. 

“It was just… you had no idea what you were talking about, and you were ready to throw a tantrum in my living room until I gave you what you thought you wanted. Part of me was imagining bending you over the couch right then, since you thought you were so ready.”

It feels like someone has snipped the pulley that keeps your stomach in place. 

“Spencer,” you splutter, convinced your cheek is tangibly heating under his touch as your head reels at the revelation that he could have such a deeply dirty and mildly sinister mind. 

“I told you it wasn’t nice.”

You swallow. 

“Is that… is that still what you want?”

His brows flicker again and he tucks hair behind your ear. 

“To bend you over my couch? No.”

Your face warms even more and you turn to leave the bathroom, sick of his teasing. 

“Okay, goodni—”

“Hold on.” Spencer catches you by your waist and pulls you back into him for the second time tonight. A dangerous smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “I know what you meant. And no, I don’t want to bend you over my couch.” He laughs, slipping a hand under your shirt to rub your back. “You know what I want. I’m more interested in learning what you want.”

“I want…” Your eyes dance between his, and your heart flutters against the confines of your chest as you realize what you’ve wanted for so long is finally yours for the taking. “I want to stop talking about it.”

His expression neutralizes and you know it’s probably intentional to stop whatever feelings you assume him to be having color your decision. 

“Oh?”

“I just think we’ve talked about it enough.”

Before he can say another word, or ask you another question, you kiss him with such passion there’s no way he can doubt how much you want this. 

Only a moment passes before he allows himself to lean into it, cupping your face between reverent hands and taking control of the pace of the kiss, slowing it down until you can hardly breathe. Your little noise of want has him quickening the process, pressing against you until you’re walking backward out of the bathroom. It’s like the first crack in a dam. After that, everything becomes inevitable. 

Your knees hit the back of the bed and you sit down hard on the mattress, smiling up at him. You skim the front of his thighs with your palms as he smooths your hair.

Spencer groans, leaning down and kissing you til you’re on your back. 

“Don’t make that face.”

An affronted huff from you breaks the kiss up and he pulls back to study your expression. 

“What do you mean don’t make that face? I was just smiling at you.”

“I know you were. And you have such a pretty smile it makes me feel guilty about… defiling you.”

Your brows flicker up and your mouth drops open with an affronted scoff.

“Watch yourself. I’ll defile you.”

“You already have,” he admits with a half-laugh as he kisses you again. “My mind was never this dirty before we met.”

“Hm. Tell me you like my smile.”

He pauses and then chuckles dryly against your mouth. 

“I love your smile. You’re gorgeous. Any more demands?”

Pleased, you shake your head and pull him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. 

“Not currently.”

“Really?” he murmurs, trailing kisses over your cheek and down your jaw, “I’d do just about anything you asked me right now. You don’t want to take advantage of that?”

The sensation of his lips just below your ear threatens all rational thought in your brain, but you manage a reply with only a slight delay and a hint of a waver coloring your tone. 

“I shouldn’t have to demand things. You should just know to do them.”

His kisses drag lower, warm and unhurried and you’re trying not to let your hyper-sensitivity from going a week completely untouched show—but you doubt he misses the way your breath catches, or the barely audible squeaks, or the arch of your back or the tightening grip on his shirt. 

“Well, for future reference—” he nips at a sensitive spot and you gasp quietly, even as you tilt your head to offer him more access. More room to bite, if he so chooses. “—I happen to enjoy it when you make demands of me. Especially when those demands entail letting me call you pretty.”

“I’ve never not let you call me pretty before,” you huff. It’s a touchy subject, and Spencer can probably sense your hackles rising, but he has you right where he wants you and so he pushes anyway. 

“No. But you never believe me. We’ve had this conversation. You always act like I’m walking you to the gallows when I compliment you.” 

It’s hard to make a defense when he’s leaning his weight onto one arm so he can unbutton your jeans, when he’s looking down at you with sparkling onyx and scorched-earth eyes like you’re something to be consumed. But not violently, no—ardently. Like fruit heavy on the vine. Like you’re a religious rite to the devout and deluded. A sacrament.

But it’s not a blind passion. Spencer knows you; every inch of you and every loose thread on your soul begging to be pulled. He knows you and he still wants you like this. To be perfectly honest, you’d never thought you’d feel comfortable handing yourself over to someone like this—vulnerable and all your layers of armor shed. Never in your life would you have thought you could trust a person so implicitly that you’d hand them a knife and show them exactly where to press, that you’d say, I know once you open me and you see me you’ll not want to change a thing.

You adore him. Cosmically. Enormously. In every dimension. He’s lodged so deep in your heart you have no choice but to love him eternally. 

It’s deep in the midst of all these very profound revelations that you realize Spencer has stalled with your zipper undone. His hand has strayed to your hip, to sweetly push your shirt up and trace love letters into warmed and downy skin with his thumb. 

“I just wish you could see yourself how I see you,” he says softly, the weight of the truth a strain on his vocal cords. 

Sometimes, he is so kind it’s like a punch to your stomach. You’ve never been quite as kind as him. And nobody’s ever been as kind to you as he is. You’ve done nothing to deserve his kindness, but you know he needs a place for it, and you’re here with open arms. 

He studies you a moment longer, swallowing as his eyes trail over your face and lower. You want to reach out and brush strands of caramel hair out of his face, but he seems to be thinking so hard you’re hesitant to distract him. 

“I’ve never told you this, because I know you’d just shoot it down, but… you are genuinely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in my life.”

Something twinges in the depths of your stomach—the darker shades who live there and exist solely to whisper not enough not enough not enough to you every minute of every day. 

But they’re simply not a match for the softness you find when you do reach out for his hair, or the way he looks at you. Spencer loosely wraps his fingers around your wrist—not a cuff, but an affectionate hold. 

“Do you believe me?”

There’s so much earnest hope in his voice it almost jars you. He so badly wants you to understand how feels about you—he’s been trying to tell you for months and all you know how to do is refute his praise and insist on your worthlessness. 

Ever since Spencer, you don’t see the faces on magazine covers or in superhero movies, no matter how mathematically flawless they are. Nobody gets close to being as beautiful as he is in your eyes. He’s in an entirely different echelon, and despite how you feel about yourself, you have to accept that he might feel the same about you. 

“I do,” you say, equally soft, and 100% honest. You believe that he believes it, and that’s enough. It’s all that matters. 

The shallow knit of his brow loosens. His lips ease into a suggestion of a smile. But it’s most visible in his eyes—the way smoldering coals reignite, melting the amber glass of his irises until they’re molten. 

The way he kisses you then, you’d think you’d lassoed the moon and pulled it down from the sky for him. But apparently all it takes to make him incandescently, contagiously happy, is to accept a compliment.

There’s a renewed sense of urgency on his breath as he kisses you deeply and quick enough your heart is racing. It only goes faster when he remembers his previous task and begins tugging your jeans down, but he doesn’t even bother to pull them past your knees before his hand is creeping up your thigh. Goosebumps race each other across your body as you try to remember what it feels like—what he feels like. But you can’t, even as his thumb fans over your inner thigh and pushes it open, gently encouraging you to give him more access to you. 

“You’re not wasting any time,” you breathe against him while he traces the edge of your underwear.

“Do you want me to slow down?”

Judging by the way the tips of his fingers only barely shy away from the fabric, he really wants the answer to be no. But you know in his searching gaze that he’d never push you. 

“No, it’s fine. As long as we… don’t go this fast the whole time.”

“We won’t.” The hasty words are of lower priority than the next kiss he plants to your swollen lips. “We won’t. I just missed you so much.”

“Yeah?” You giggle airily as he drags his fingers over your clit through the material, trying to ignore the way it makes your head spin. 

“Yes. Yeah.”

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him like this, so… desperate for you, as he drops his lips to your neck and presses barely-there kisses everywhere he knows you’re sensitive. Just the feeling of his breath against your skin has you shivering. His hand between your legs only brushes your most nerve-dense spot, but a few touches in and you’re already wound up, like if Spencer doesn’t give you more soon you’ll burst. And not in the good way. 

When he finally commits to actually kissing your neck, you squeak, warmth emanating from that spot just below your jaw all the way to your toes. The frantic energy of earlier is slowly melting away, and he loses focus with his hand, as it begins straying wider, stroking your hip, your inner thigh, your stomach. It’s like your nerve endings are on overdrive, delivering twice as much feedback to your brain as they normally would. Each touch feels like he’s conducting electricity over your body, like you’re a plasma ball. He’d probably like that analogy—you, a core of alternating voltage, and him, the conductor, tracing a path and giving all those electrons an easy release. If you weren’t so distracted, you’d tell Spencer you found a way to work Nikola Tesla into your mutual sex life, and he’d probably propose on the spot. 

But that electricity is building fast—even more so when he drags his lips down just above your collarbone. Your breath hitches, simultaneously trying to crane your neck to give him more room, and curl into him so as to escape the stimulation. Finally he pulls away, and losing the softness of his mouth while the air feels so cold against the places he’d kissed almost hurts. 

“You’re a mess,” he chuckles affectionately, raising his hand to brush hair away from your face before stroking the heated high point of your cheek. “What am I going to do with you?”

It’s teasing, but so low and gentle and honeyed it swirls your stomach. 

“Whatever you want,” you admit quietly. It’s a shy confession more than it is a salacious flirtation because he already has you. And you want nothing more than for him to act on that in any way he so pleases. Whatever he does, it will be careful, and kind, and because he loves you. You know that no matter how he takes you apart—he’ll put you back together again. 

“I don’t know if I can. You’re all jumpy.”

God, he has the prettiest smile—even when it’s twisted with sarcasm and a thin veneer of guilt, like he knows he shouldn’t be teasing and just can’t help himself. 

“I’m not,” you defend, face heating further. “I’m not nervous. I don’t know what it is.”

That sticky sweet tone is back, pooling in his eyes and dripping all over you like nectar as he languidly looks you over. 

“I didn’t say you were nervous. Just a little bit jumpy.”

It’s not accusatory—he’s simply stating a fact. Easy, gentle, designed to soothe. 

You shrug helplessly and chew on your lip, unsure of how he wants you to respond. It’s definitely true that excited as you are, you’re slightly on edge. You feel taut as a string on a guitar, tense and waiting to be yanked at any second. 

His expression is serene, and his thoughts inscrutable as he continues lavishing you with his eyes, down to where he’s lying over you and back up. His lips part, but he doesn’t speak for a moment as he formulates his words. 

“Can we try something? There’s this tantric exercise that might help you relax.”

Your brows draw earnestly and you nod up at him, not requiring any convincing even though you have no idea what he’s talking about. 

Spencer directs you to sit up, and you do—kicking your jeans all the way off so you can sit criss-cross with your hands braced on your ankles. 

He’s next to you on the bed, at a slight angle, one of your knees in his lap. You blink at him. 

“Now what?”

“Now you give me one of your hands,” he says, tone tinted with a hint of an amused smile, as if your impatience is funny to him. Of course it probably is. 

Frowning only a little, you unlock your left arm and hold it out for him, watching curiously as he takes your one hand between his and flips it palm-up. 

“Did you know,” Spencer begins, voice low and confidential, “that the fingertips are the second most sensitive part of the human body?”

“What’s the first?”

“Lips,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on your hand where he’s brushing the tips of your fingers light enough it almost tickles. “They’re both incredibly important for keeping you alive, which is why they’re one and two. But you’ll be particularly sensitive anywhere you’re vulnerable.” His words are trailing off as he brushes his thumb over your palm and to the delicate skin of your wrist. “Like here.”

His knuckles skim up your forearm, to the crook of your elbow. 

“And especially here.”

You’re fascinated as he traces back down the length of your arm and over your inner-wrist, feather light. Then up once more, with the blunted edges of his nails, and your breath catches. You’ve never noticed how sensitive such an innocuous part of your body could be, but it has your stomach flipping—more so when he looses a breathy laugh. “You know, some people are actually able to reach orgasm just by light stimulation to this area.”

Your response is just as airy—you don’t recognize your voice when it comes out like that, hanging in the pitch black between you. 

“Really?” 

An affirmative hum from him, as he lifts your hand and places an intentional kiss over your pulse at the bend of your wrist. Your chest aches and heat is pooling in your stomach as his gently trails them up the delicate skin of your arm. Maybe you should be embarrassed by the reaction you’re having—after all, it’s just your arm. But he treats every part of you like it warrants love and attention and intimacy. Even the parts you typically ignore. Certainly parts you never considered to be sexually or romantically relevant. It’s dizzying. It’s like magic. 

“Arms up,” Spencer finally directs, just as sweetly as he’s doing everything else, and helps you tug your shirt over your head. Every brush of fabric, every seam against your skin registers more than it normally would. Everything is heightened, and despite your state of undress you’re still warm. “Your neck is really sensitive, too. It’s the most commonly acknowledged erogenous zone.”

Erogenous zone. Of course this all comes back to biology. 

“Tilt your head for me, honey.”

Utterly entranced and useless to not abide by him, you do so. Spencer brushes your hair over your shoulder, and if the slip of it down your back weren’t enough, the graze of his fingertips against the nape of your neck has you shivering. 

The warmth of him at your throat feels completely brand new, despite having already had his lips there only minutes before. But now they ghost over your skin with a kind of novelty, and your own lips part in silent pleasure, head lolling to allow him greater access.

“Lie back.”

Without hesitation (but perhaps a bit sluggishly in your stupor) you obey, sliding down until you’re propped up only by pillows once more. Spencer takes his place propped above you once more, thighs slotted with yours as he quickly picks up where he left off. 

The sweet kisses are perfect and feel so much better than you’d ever thought to notice before—but at the same time your core aches and there’s that pressure building again that’s starting to get to you. 

“Spencer,” you try, and it comes out hoarse but you don’t care at all. “More.”

“You want me to leave marks?” 

And the offer is so tempting you’ll wait a few more minutes to ask for what you really need, nodding semi-frantically and ‘mhm’-ing desperately. 

As he gently latches onto a spot that will require concealer later but feels fantastic for now, one of his hands slips down your side, just barely letting his nails skim, and your back actually arches. It’s a shocking amount of stimulation for being nowhere near any sexual hotspots. That tiny caught breath dissolves as his fingers continue down just as lightly over your hip and thigh. Your muscles tense as you chase and run away from the feeling. It’s ridiculous.

There’s no point in trying to keep your eyes open now—they grow heavy and you let them fall shut as he sucks another love bite to your throat. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it? It’s kind of weird.” He says, voicing your thoughts as he eventually decides the mark will be sufficiently dark. 

“Yeah,” you agree, lacking all eloquence as he caresses every sensitive place you didn’t know you had and your hips writhe minutely in a little desperate dance of your own creation. 

“Most people aren’t aware of the potential of the erogenous zones that aren’t actual sex organs. They don’t pay attention to them. You know what else is an interesting function of erotic stimulation to areas that aren’t directly involved in reproduction?”

“Hm,” you hum as his hand skims to your back. You lean into it and he promptly undoes your bra with a single hand—a skill you’re not even sure you have. 

“It releases not quite as much oxytocin as an orgasm but more than sexual pleasure alone. So you’re less tense before sex than you usually would be, and you’re primed to build more trust and feel more connected with your partner during.”

God, he’s a nerd. And it’s so, so hot. 

You roll over on your back again and look up at him through half-lidded eyes. The corner of his mouth flickers as he takes in your expression, before trailing downward, following the path his fingertips make over your skin as they tug the straps over your shoulders. Trying to stop him, to be shy, would be a pointless venture. He’s seen you like this and you want him to see you again. 

A shaky exhale of his own brings a little smile to your face as he pulls your bra away and observes the newly bared skin with a hunger that you can feel. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, eyes cast pointedly down and thumb brushing over the side of your right breast. 

“You mentioned.”

“I’m not allowed to say it again?” He teases, leaning down to kiss you soft. Your lips curve against his. 

“You can say it as many times as you want.”

Spencer hums, finally thumbing over your breast’s sensitive peak. It sends a chill down your back and seeing as you’re already worked up to the point of near insanity, the pleasure from such a simple touch is much stronger than it would be otherwise. 

“Good. Because I missed you a lot.”

After that, he doesn’t waste much time—only toying with your flesh for another minute as he kisses you before his hand is skimming down your abdomen and dipping below the waistband of your underwear. 

“Please,” you whisper, tilting your hips toward him when he doesn’t move to touch you anymore. 

“Please what?”

“Spencer, don’t.”

He smiles at this, pressing another kiss to the corner of your mouth as his hand travels lower. Fingers slip between wet folds and he begins making the lightest of circles over your clit. 

“You’ve probably been waiting long enough, huh? I should be nicer.”

Your answer is a breathy almost-whine as you seek more friction against his hand. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing down harder. The sensation sends sparks down to your toes and you attempt to clamp your legs shut around his wrist. “These need to stay open,” Spencer chuckles, “or else I can’t help you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The words are a sweet sing-song against your cheek as he kisses you there, before hooking his fingers into the fabric of your underwear and pulling down. You try to help wiggle out of them as best you can, gasping when he tosses them away and immediately returns his hand between your legs. He dips his head down, tongue lathing over your breast, and teases you with the tip of one finger circling around your entrance. 

“I need—”

“Shh. Let me worry about it.”

With that, he’s dipping his ring and middle fingers just barely inside of you to the first knuckle, then back out, before pushing a bit deeper, and repeating the cycle until they’re as far as they’ll go. When he slowly starts fucking you with them, still mouthing sweetly at your breast, you’re ready to melt. 

The room is quiet except for your breathy mewls, the lewd, wet sound of his fingers inside of you, and the blood rushing in your ears. Soon your breast pops from between his lips and he finds somewhere else to leave his mark. Spencer is turning you into a work of art, with his fingers, with his mouth. You don’t mind at all. You’d let him sign his name, if he could—but you doubt he’d let you get his name tattooed. 

Soon you stop fighting the perpetual tug of your lids down and let them flutter shut, loosing a freer moan as he brushes over that sweet spot inside you. Even when he’d told you how to find it over the phone, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like this—maddening enough to have your hips twisting again and that hot bed of coals in your tummy sparking. 

“Spencer,” you warn, leg twitching as he stokes the fire beyond the point where you can passively enjoy it. Either he’s got to slow down or he’s got to let you burn all the way up. You practically jump when you feel his tongue flick over your clit—you hadn’t even been aware of his shifting positions. Maybe you’re more out of it than you’d previously thought. Your eyes shoot open and he does it again. “Oh, fuck.”

The words are simple, quiet, and apparently that’s not enough. Before you can even process the sensation of the tip of his tongue on you he’s latching onto your clit, suckling in a way that has your vision momentarily going out. You cry out and kick involuntarily, hips jumping up, but he captures your leg and presses you down into the mattress so no matter how much you squirm and squeak you can’t get away. 

“Fuckfuckfuck, Spencer I wa—ah—sn’t ready—oh my god.”

He remembers his fingers deep inside you and begins rutting them and you hiss, inhaling sharply through your teeth before letting it all out in a tremulous moan. The orgasm is building up so quickly it almost feels like an attack on your poor body as you try to process it all to no avail. Every sound you make is a vulnerable mess of pleasure and pain, a clear fear of surrendering to something inevitable. Of course, it doesn’t really hurt at all. As usual, he’s blindsided you. Found you unprepared. You rake your fingers through Spencer’s hair, continuing on with your shaky moans that sound half-worried. 

“Oh, please.” Really, you’re just pleading to be put out of your misery. It’s in moments like this, as the black is creeping in around the edges of your vision and your thoughts become threads in the tangle of an existence knotting in on itself with no discernible end or beginning in your mind until everything is completely abstract, that you’re reminded why the French refer to orgasm as the little death.  

Your fingers lace tight enough in the wilds of his hair to pull, and he groans against you, and those vibrations are your undoing. You succumb to the dark momentarily but he continues a loving assault of gentle kisses to your clit—careful enough so as to be inoffensive even after the euphoria abates and you’re hypersensitive, still relishing soft strands of hair between your knuckles. 

You’re breathing hard as you blink your vision back, looking down at him as he looks up at you from his place between your legs and rubs the top of your thigh.

“I wasn’t ready,” you pant, lips flashing into a tired smile that doesn’t hold a candle to his own livelier one. 

“Took it like a champ.”

If you weren’t already so warm his sarcastic comment would inspire more heat in the apples of your cheeks. 

“Dr. Spencer Reid using sports idioms?” You smile as he climbs back up your body. 

“It’s unreasonably sexy that you said idiom and not simile.” He kisses you, grin mirroring yours, and you don’t complain about the slick still on his lips. “And look at that. Not afraid to kiss me when I taste like you anymore.”

“I remember what you said,” you whisper, eyes bouncing between his, glowing amber pools in the low light. The words echo in your head from the first time he’d gone down on you and you’d been hesitant to taste yourself. 

One day, I’ll make you come just like that again, and then I’m going to fuck you, and you’re really going to want me to kiss you then, angel.

“So do I,” he points out needlessly. “Eerily prophetic, hm?”

“I think you just like going down on me,” you laugh. 

Without the light on, his smile is just as brilliant as usual.  

“You might be right about that.”

Another interlude of quiet begins, but you don’t mind it. Taking this slow, as desperate as you’ve been for it, feels nice. Easy. Waves of burning need ebb and flow, but for now, it feels nice to be bathed in his candlelight gaze, know you’re loved, and nothing else. 

“What next?” You whisper after a long moment, lifting your hand to trace the line of his jaw. He leans into it slightly, lips brushing your palm. 

“That’s up to you, angel. What’s going to make you feel most comfortable?” 

Your bottom lip rolls between your teeth as you think and he tracks the movement, corner of his mouth twitching fondly. 

“It might help if you weren’t fully clothed.”

“I think we could probably do something about that.”

He pecks the tip of your nose playfully and then he’s pushing off the bed. Your brow wrinkles as you follow suit only partially, sitting up with your legs folded under you and pulling the sheets over your body to combat the chill and the vulnerability of being completely naked. 

“Oh, my god. You had your shoes on that whole time?”

“I got distracted,” Spencer defends, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to slip the loafers off. 

You clutch the sheet to your chest, watching the adorable way he pushes his hair out of his face as he rushes. He’s so clearly excited—it shows in the flush of his cheek and his even worse than usual coordination. 

“But on my bed?”

“I’m sorry,” he says without seeming very apologetic, leaning down to catch your chin between his thumb and forefinger and pressing his lips to yours. “I’ll pay to have your comforter dry cleaned. I’ll buy you a new one. I don’t care.”

“How chivalrous.”

“I am,” he insists against your lips, shaped by what is surely a boyish smirk. 

Unsurprisingly, you get lost in the kiss, dropping the sheet to hang onto his shoulders. Spencer takes advantage of the once-more revealed skin, rubbing your thigh with slow passes in a way that has you all lit up again already. It doesn’t help that his tie is skimming right over the recess between your folded thighs as he leans over your seated form, kissing you deeper as the moments pass. 

“You’re distracting me now,” you scold, but your voice is quiet and smiley as your noses brush. 

“Do you want to help me with my clothes?”

You nod, heart hatching like a cocoon and already slipping a finger into the knot of his tie so you can tug perhaps not gently enough. He chuckles, bracing himself with his fists on either side of your lap as you pull and yank until the fabric comes loose and you slip it from around his neck, flinging it blindly for dramatic effect. Then he slowly draws back to his full height, until you’re about eye-level with his chest. His gaze fixes on you, feverish and intent as he finds the buckle of his belt without looking. The slide of leather on leather, the jingle of the metal has the hairs on the back of your neck rising and you fight a chill as he pins you with his stare—feeling rather powerless as he towers over you, still essentially fully clothed while you’re completely naked. 

You probably shouldn’t be as thrilled by it as you are. 

Spencer tosses the belt on the floor and watches on, utterly charmed as you rise to your knees. His hands find your waist, steadying you as you begin unbuttoning his shirt with slow, careful fingers. 

“See?” You murmur bashfully. “Helping.”

His voice is equally as soft. 

“Very helpful. Thank you.”

The tension in the quiet room gets to be too much and you have to focus hard on the task at hand, failing to bite back a twisty smile. For once, he keeps his stupid perfect mouth shut and lets you push the fabric of his open shirt from his shoulders in humid silence. 

Your fingers skate down his torso and you watch the muscles tense. You wonder if he notices the way he pulls you slightly closer or if it’s subconscious as you both track the path of your hands. 

“Your button is on the wrong side,” you note, voice wavering slightly, once your fingers stall at the waistband of his pants.

Spencer chuckles. You feel silly. 

“Men and women’s clothing tend to have the buttons on different sides, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh.” A beat of silence, before the words come pouring out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m still a little bit nervous, I think.”

“That’s okay,” Spencer assures you, hands gliding up and down the soft lines of your waist. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. But I’m going to take really good care of you, okay?”

You nod, not looking away from the exposed skin of his torso. 

“And if at any point you need to take a break or stop, you’ll tell me.”

“I will, but… I don’t need to stop right now.”

“Then you can go as slow as you want.”

You swallow and take a moment to gather yourself before continuing on undoing his pants. With his assistance, you pull them down, and with them his boxers tug an inch or two lower, exposing a subtle v-shape before it disappears beneath the waistband. The fabric is obviously tented. A ball of nervous anticipation spins faster in your stomach, drawing all the heat in your body down between your legs. He’s pretty everywhere. You’d nearly forgotten. 

Spencer’s stomach tenses under your light touch as you drag your fingers down, down, just to the waistband. It’s then that you look up at him for permission to continue, and find his eyes already on you, heated and intense. 

“Go ahead, honey.”

Again you find yourself quite excited to touch him, but you start cautiously, simply letting your hand fall over the shape of him through the fabric. Even that has his chest rising and falling at a slightly quickened rate, and one of his hands finds your unoccupied one, twining them together. That small gesture inspires you to bolden your explorations, becoming more insistent in the way you palm at him. He feels big, which is a concern of yours. But you try not to let that intimidate you.  

Already he’s quite hard, you suspect from going down on you earlier (which is flattering as much as it embarrasses you) and your fingers graze a small wet patch of fabric. You fixate on the shaky little breath he releases as you push down his boxers with new fervor, and his cock springs up. 

He’s still perfect. 

You smear beads of precum down his tip, and he sighs, letting his head fall against yours as you both watch. A few coquettish pumps and he’s humming, kissing your face and dragging his lips down your neck where he makes a home for himself. Apparently the sight of your hand wrapped around him had been too much to bear. 

“So good. Missed this.”

“It’s just my hand,” you whisper, a little insecure that he’s maybe playing it up for your benefit. 

“It’s you.”

His voice is so breathy, you sort of have to believe him. 

“Can I…?”

Too nervous to voice what you really mean, you trail off, but it apparently doesn’t matter to Spencer. He lifts his head like he’s in a stupor but you’ve said something urgent. 

“Anything you want. You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay. Um…”

You let go of his hand (and his dick). Spencer automatically rotates to accommodate you as you end up on your knees on the wooden floor in front of him. 

“This is what you want?” He breathes, already pushing his fingers through your hair and gathering it back as you look up at him and nod. 

Very quickly you have him back in your hand, trying to remember what you learned from the few times you’ve done this. You start perhaps a bit softer, less eager to prove yourself than you have in the past—simply dragging him over your tongue before enveloping his tip in your mouth, and releasing with a pop. Despite being overtly, explicitly, and undeniably sexual, there’s something almost chaste about the way you handle him. It’s a (dirty) expression of love, and you think he understands that as he rubs at your cheek affectionately. 

Eventually, however, you get too excited, and you take him into your mouth in earnest, bobbing your head slowly and seeing how much of him you can take without gagging. 

Spencer makes the prettiest noises—they’re breathy, and not ostentatious, but he’s got such a nice speaking voice it’s like his gasps are bars in a song. You whine around him, wriggling your hips in a rather pathetic display, and then all too quickly he’s tugging your hair so you can’t keep him in your mouth. 

“What?” You ask, closer to pouting than you’d care to admit and voice slightly hoarse. “You said I could do anything I want.”

“Not if you’re that good at it. Come here.”

He helps you up and catches you in a deep, messy kiss before you’ve fully regained your footing, swaying against him, but he holds you fast, pulling away slow like strings of honey trail between your mouths. 

Spencer’s eyes are fixed on yours, lips parted in a sort of wonder before he glances down to your own mouth, wiping the shine from your bottom lip. Any moment you’re expecting him to say something, to tell you you’re beautiful or perfect or that he’s in love with you—but instead he just meets your eyes again, that same wonder-struck look on his pretty face. A tiny, breathy laugh forces itself from his chest like you’re a genuine miracle. 

You feel so observed—seen in a way you’ve never been seen, looked at closer than anyone has ever looked at you before. And he still looks at you like you’re the human embodiment of love, the closest mortal manifestation of the divine, Galatea come down from her marble pedestal. The way he looks at you has your heart pounding and your breathing hastened. Adoration has never been something so physical, so tangible, ever before in your life. Your blood hums at the frequency of his electromagnetic field—an energetic aura that surrounds each person and can be detected from several feet away, as he’d explained it to you. It originates from the heart and if you spend enough time close to  someone, syncs up the beating of your most vital organ with theirs until it’s a perfect match. Maybe that’s why, almost as quickly as your heart had begun to pound, it slows again, and you feel any reservation flush from your body like a fever. 

“Okay,” you breathe, cataloguing every angle and curve of his face to store with all the rest, all the moments that feel important. Of course, you’ll never remember them like he does yours. But you’ll be damned if you don’t try your hardest. 

“Okay?” Spencer asks. He understands the confirmation for what it is, and searches for signs of hesitation on your face while rubbing reassuring circles into your hip. You nod resolutely. 

As he lays you down on your bed, it feels like you’re entering some kind of altered state. Everything is muted and glowing with a watercolor aura in the dark and you really only care about the man on top of you and the way moonlight dances on his skin and the way he smells like smoky amber and rain. He makes sure the pillows are fluffed under you, before sweeping your hair from beneath your shoulders into a corona around your head. All the while his eyes are so soft on you, just like his hands, and his lips when he leans down to touch them to yours. 

One of said hands finds its way to your jaw, trailing down over your neck and collarbone, before settling over your breast where he swipes a thumb over your nipple, lightly, slowly, several times. 

Once again you’re struck with the odd feeling, even with his hand on you like this, that the situation isn’t sexual in the way you’d anticipated. It’s not pornographic, or even very dirty. Everything Spencer does, even as his hand sneaks down between your legs, he does because he loves you. 

“One more like this,” he mutters against your jaw after a moment. 

“Why?”

Your impatience yields a smile you can only feel against your skin. 

“Just want you relaxed and feeling good. That’s all.”

When you assent, his fingers are already slowly pushing inside you. 

It seems you’ve entered some sort of time warp as well, because you reach a gentle peak in what feels like record time, aided by his easy murmurings and saccharine praise.

“Perfect. That was perfect,” Spencer says with a kiss to your shoulder as he slides his fingers from you and you feel yourself literally dripping onto the sheets. “Can I ask you something before we get carried away?”

“Mhm,” you hum, sweet and compliant as pleasure dulls your inhibitions for the second time tonight and your head lolls into the pillows. 

“Baby,” he croons, voice soft as worn paper as your lids flutter and lashes brush febrile cheeks, thumbing over the heated skin. “Need you a little more alert, sweet girl.”

“’M trying,” you whine, though it’s half self-effacing laugh. Spencer chuckles too as you shake your head and take a deep breath, trying to reinvigorate yourself. “Okay. Go.”

“Well… we don’t have any protection.” Before you can groan, loudly, he hurries on. “And that’s… I’m okay with that, if it’s what you still want. I trust you. But there will come… a moment of reckoning. And I need to know where I should… reckon. So you don’t end up surprised.”

Now you’re really laughing—a giggly mess beneath him as your arms loop over his shoulders. 

“Stop it,” he whines, pressing his nose to your cheek as you turn your head in an effort to not snort at your boyfriend to his face. “That was for your benefit, you know. You get squeamish.”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t take you seriously when you refer to it as reckoning.”

“Fine. I’ll rephrase. When I come, you essentially have two options. Inside, or on your stomach. Tell me where you want it.”

Your breath catches and your stomach does that tripping-over-itself thing again. 

“Um…”

Another fond half laugh, at your expense, is pressed against your skin. It’s enough to prompt you into answering—he doesn’t have to say anything to make his point about your being squeamish. 

“Inside,” you mutter, shy as you attempt to bring him closer so he won’t be able to look at you quite so closely. You wonder if he’s remembering the conversation you’d had over the phone last week—before he’d accidentally kind of broken up with you—about this very subject. You certainly are. 

“Okay. I want you to have everything that you want.” A few kisses to your neck later, between nips, he speaks again. “Just need to hear that you want this one more time.”

“I want this,” you repeat, obedient and honest, plain and simple. “Now, please.”

Spencer responds by first kissing you, firm and loving. It soothes you, and he punctuates it with a kiss to your cheek, before he’s reaching down and guiding himself between your legs. You feel surprisingly calm, more overcome with love and the light pleasure rolling down your back as he drags himself over your clit than you are by nerves. Still, you pointedly hold his gaze, not looking down in case you psych yourself out. He slots himself in place, tip resting against your entrance. 

“Remember, if you need to stop at any point—”

“I remember,” you cut him off hurriedly. 

Okay. So perhaps you’re still slightly nervous. 

He watches you, sympathetic though you’re not sure what for. 

“I need you as relaxed as possible, okay? I want this to be easy on you.”

You take a moment, scanning your whole body for tense muscles. When you feel sufficiently relaxed, you offer Spencer a small nod, and at that, he begins pushing into you ever so slightly. 

At first, it just feels foreign. He’s going so slowly, so carefully, you’re not sure he’s moving at all—until he finds resistance and the odd full feeling changes to a hint of burning stretch. Your hips jump and your breath catches, and Spencer stops immediately, relieving the pressure with a tiny shift in position. 

“It’s gonna hurt,” you realize, eyes darting between his like he might be able to tell you otherwise. You’d always been aware of the possibility, but you were holding out hope that you’d be one of those people who didn’t experience any pain their first time. 

“Just for a minute. Then it’ll feel good, angel.”

You swallow and nod. At the end of the day, you trust him completely. You trust him enough to let him hurt you. 

“Super deep breaths for me.”

He watches intently as you follow his directions, taking several deep breaths in succession, before he begins pushing into you once more. The pressure builds and builds until he pushes past that point of resistance, and it’s like he’s breaking you in two. 

“Ah,” you gasp, abs twisting as your body tries to escape the sensation without any input from you. 

“I know. I know, baby, that was the hardest part. Breathe.”

He drops his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles with light pressure to distract from the pain.

You nod, lips pressed together tight as the deep ache muddles your brain. It’s an insistent pressure against something does not seem to want to budge. It burns and stretches and is laced with sour, flirtatious pleasure so that you can hardly tell what it is you’re feeling. Mostly, you’re dizzy and hot.

“Relax, just like that,” he strains, looking down. “My good girl. We’re almost there, baby.”

Cries spill unbidden from your mouth and your eyes shut as he continues to open you up deeper, until finally, finally, his hips settle into the cradle of yours. 

Spencer sighs a curse under his breath, so quiet you don’t think it was meant for you. 

He’s inside of you. It’s bizarre. 

You whimper, and he snaps out of whatever revery he’d been in. 

“You okay? How does that feel?”

You take a shuddering breath, closing your eyes and trying to clear your head to no avail—your thoughts are like TV static. 

“I’m good. I need… I need a minute.”

“You can have as much time as you need. It’s a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” you admit, voice small and weak. 

“I bet,” he agrees, peppering soft kisses all over your face. “But you’re doing so well. Proud of you, brave girl. You’re doing so well and we’re gonna make sure it feels good soon, okay? Whenever you’re ready.”

“Will you please kiss me again?” you whisper, and Spencer’s brow knits with concern. 

“Of course, angel. Of course I’ll kiss you,” he says, and makes good on his promise with his lips on yours. It sweetens the ache. “I’ll do whatever you want. You can have anything. You’re so perfect.”

He kisses you again, just as lovingly, and soft, like you’re delicate. All the praise is only contributing to your lightheadedness, but you don’t mind at all. It feels good. 

“You can… you can move.”

“Okay. We’ll go really slow, yeah?”

He waits for your nod before his hips are pulling back and you arch at the odd sensation. When he pushes back in, eyes carefully locked on yours the whole time, you keen slightly, frowning and brain shorting out as it tries and fails to process this new feeling. 

“Uh-huh. You’re okay, I promise.”

At first it doesn’t feel good. It mostly hurts. But slowly, the pain begins to abate as you acclimate to having him inside of you, and he’s careful the whole time. 

“Spence?” 

“Hm?”

He sounds concentrated on the task at hand—you’re entranced by the sight of him above you, the parted lips, the unkempt hair over the brow furrowed in pleasure and focus. But he’s never too busy for you. 

“Does it… um—” you pause to hold back a whine—“what does it feel like for you?”

At this, he slows even further and chuckles—it’s a strained, slightly breathy sound. 

“For me?”

“Mhm.”

“You feel perfect, baby. You feel so fucking good.”

The slight fry in Spencer’s voice as he curses, which is a rare event in and of itself, flips your stomach, turns you on immensely. The idea that you’re giving him pleasure too—it’s almost overwhelming. That’s when it starts feeling good. 

“Oh—” you squeak, jaw dropping and bucking your hips inadvertently as the first bolt of true pleasure shocks deep in your core. He hums. 

“Yeah, is that it, sweet girl?”

But you can’t answer for a long moment. Your brain is melting as your legs lock around him. 

“Mm—it’s—it feels…”

“I know it does,” Spencer murmurs.

You whine and press your face into the curve of his shoulder as each thrust gently rocks your body. As the pace picks up bit by bit, you feel yourself clenching hard around him. His hips stutter and he hisses. 

“Ah. Can’t do that, lovely.”

“What? Did I hurt you?”

He laughs breathily. 

“No, you didn’t hurt me. You almost pushed me out. You have to relax.”

“Sorry,” you whisper. “’M trying.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. I know you’re trying, baby, you’re being so good for me.”

Your nails skim his back—a small expression of a much larger desperation. Once he’s sure you’re relaxed around him, begins going faster. 

Your gasps and soft moans come more often now as he finds a steady rhythm and it feels so different when he’s actually fucking you. It feels like he’s everywhere. Every time your hips meet you feel the sweet shock of it in your teeth, your toes, the back of your neck. In the best way, you feel consumed by him. It’s not at all like you’d imagined, and it’s perfect. 

“Wait, Spencer,” you breathe, struggling to form the words. Immediately he stops again, lifting his head from your shoulder to examine your face. 

“What is it?”

He sounds just as wrecked as you feel, panting and strained and it feels good to hear. 

“I wanna watch.”

For a moment his eyes dart between yours like he’s trying to determine what you really mean—but you said exactly what you meant. Then he laughs, a huff of air from his nose as he presses his head to yours and gives you a quick kiss.

Your toes curl as he readjusts his position, holding himself a little higher and resting your heads together so you can both look between your bodies. 

“There,” he murmurs as he slowly begins to withdraw again. “Like that?”

But you can’t answer, because you’re too busy whimpering at the sight of him pushing into you. The feeling seems to increase tenfold as you watch it happen. Distantly you wonder how the fuck it fits. 

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Like that.”

Spencer takes this as a blessing to find a pace again, slower now as he seems to be just as enthralled by the sight as you are. 

“Give me your leg,” he rasps after a few moments like that, and you don’t know what he means exactly but you lift your right leg slightly only for him to press his hand to the back of your knee and push toward your chest, effectively opening you up and giving him more range of motion. It also enables him to fuck you even deeper. Again he slows, apparently savoring the feel of you yielding around him all the way down to the hilt. 

Black spots dance in your eyes as he settles at your deepest point—not pain, necessarily, just overwhelming sensation. Your jaw drops and you choke out a moan as he presses into recesses you didn’t know you had, as he shows you a part that you might have gone the rest of your life without knowing existed. He stops there, like that. Everything stops there, like that. If the cars on the road below ceased to drive, if the airplanes froze in the sky, you’d not be the least bit surprised. Somehow, you’ve unlocked a small eternity. There’s no sound but your joint heavy breathing and your heart pounding in your ears. The words just come bubbling up out of you in a little whine. 

“I love you.”

Spencer’s breath pauses for a moment before he’s letting it all out at once, brushing his lips up the ridge of your nose before they settle on your forehead in what seems like a permanent kiss. A few breaths in, you allow your eyes to flutter shut. Your heart rate slows down a touch, and you settle into the moment, never having been quite so content as you are like this—never having felt quite so adored and safe. 

“I love you,” he finally echoes, voice rasping, lips still pressed to your skin, still breathing against your hair. When he starts to move again, drawing back ever so slowly, you hiss softly. He raises his head from yours, and you look away from where he’s pulling out, meeting his eyes just in time for him to push back in, just as deep. They shine in the mostly-dark room and you moan unabashedly. It’s a high-pitched, sweet thing, nothing that will have the neighbors complaining—but so clearly true, from the depths of your soul, an expression of everything you’re feeling—not just the pleasure. 

Although that’s good, too, as Spencer shapes you to him again and again, the head of his cock kissing places nobody’s ever been and places you hope nobody else will ever venture to. This is all you need. Him. 

“Jesus,” Spencer groans, eyes fixed on your face as he fucks you slowly. But you can’t bring yourself to talk, too new to this kind of pleasure to find it anything other than mind-boggling and world altering. Your lips are still parted, allowing each sound to pass without filter. “Listen to you, beautiful.”

When he stops again, just to look down and marvel at you, you’re conflicted. On the one hand, you can taste the pleasure on the back of your tongue and he keeps taking it away when it’s so close. But on the other—you’re just as overwhelmed as he said you’d be. Your body has never had to process this kind of sensory information before, and you’re exhausted, but it’s so good. 

“Spencer,” you manage. He looks up, pupils blown and eyes lidded where they’d normally be wide. “Please don’t stop.”

He swallows, spurred into action again as soon as you say it. 

“Good?”

You nod and whine again as he picks up the pace bit by bit, remembering to push your leg back once more so he can get as deep as you need him. 

“So good,” you exhale at the top pitch of your voice. Your brows pinch and you release a fuller moan as Spencer finds a speed that’s fast enough to constantly feel good no matter where he is. You’re gasping for breath, back arching—and he finds a new angle, catching against the spot inside you that renders all those years of human evolution that gave you sentience and intelligence a waste. He chuckles airily at your series of series of affronted moans and halted gasps. 

“Right there? That's a good spot, isn’t it?”

“Oh, go—fuck, fuck!”

It feels so good it almost hurts, and your eyes are stinging to prove it. Your legs clamp tighter around him and you realize there’s a very lewd wet sound and you can’t believe that’s you. 

“Spencer, you’re—oh my god, I love you,” you whine, and it sounds like you’re pleading for your life. At this makes his own sound of pleasure, and hastens his messy circles on your clit as if in reward. 

But it’s too much all combined. 

Your hand claps to your mouth to obscure the loud, licentious moan that comes out—but Spencer immediately moves his hand from between your legs to grab your wrist and pin it gently to the bed, intertwining your fingers. 

“Don’t do that. Let me hear.”

You nod, and he lets go of your hand to return his fingers to your clit. If possible you get wetter around his cock—you can feel yourself gushing. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you whine as if pained. 

“Yeah? Gonna finally let me feel you cumming, angel?”

He has a filthy mouth when he wants to. The words hit like high voltage to your core and the very pit of your stomach. You can’t even respond beyond a desperate sob. 

“Show me, baby. I’m right here. Let go.”

You cum around his cock with a broken cry and it’s like a purge of every drop of angst you’d felt over the past week or so—hell, it’s a purge of all the insecurities that had bubbled to the surface since you started dating him. None of it matters anymore. How could it matter when you have him? When you have this?

The orgasm washes you out like a tidal wave, taking everything with it. It’s strong, and it’s so good, so intense, your body is overwrought with sensation and it’s too much even though it’s perfect. Your brain is drawing a blank as it tries to react to the feeling, and it’s like every button on the damn panel has been hit. 

“Fuck, I’m close,” Spencer grits, and you feel it in the way he adjusts his position, shifting as he grips at the edge of the mattress for leverage and the thrusts become messier, needier. You gasp as his other hand tangles in your hair, turning your head to ghost your lips over his forearm. It’s not entirely surprising when his own lips find your shoulder—but the feeling of him finding his release just as his teeth sink into your skin does come as quite a shock. It doesn’t hurt, and you’re sure there’s no skin broken, but it’s an undeniable fact that he has grounded himself in the throes of passion by biting down on you.

Inside you, he feels hot. Searing, almost, as his spend tries to fill space that doesn’t exist. There is absolutely no room for anything else inside of you. Stars dance in your eyes at the overstimulation, but long after he’s finished he’s still fucking into you—albeit much slower and with far less technique. Spencer moans like a two bit whore, like he’s reached pain to a point of ecstasy, and to you it’s as good, as special as the singing of the planets. If he’s as sensitive as you are now, it’s no small feat for him to keep going on like this. It’s a testament to how much he doesn’t want it to be over. The pleasure is carrying him away, but you’re beginning to feel how soft you must be and how if he continues on like this you may bruise like an overripe peach. 

“Spencer,” you manage, skating your hand up and down his back in what you hope are soothing lines. “Baby.”

He whines as his lips detach from your shoulder, but his hips finally slow to a stop, nestled inside you. 

“Jesus, fuck, I'm sorry,” he breathes, opting now to bury his face in your neck (with significantly less biting this time).

You’re still reeling, toes still curled, still struggling to breathe as your head spins and spins and spins. His chest pushes against yours with every heaving breath, hot and heavy on your skin, and that’s the only sign he’s still alive until his hand eventually reanimates in your hair, scratching your head tenderly. 

For a span of minutes, you stay like that—silent, twined together like caducean serpents. His weight on top of you is perfect. This, the lack of differentiation between your body and his, is perfect. You don’t know where he ends and you begin and you don’t need to. It’s a blissful moment. 

“Hey.”

Spencer’s voice is hoarse when he finally speaks, lifting his head to look at you with flushed cheeks and messy hair and sparkly eyes. 

“Hi.”

He smiles. 

“You’re so pretty.”

“You too,” you murmur, moving your hand from his back and pressing your thumb into the hollow of his cheek. His eyes map the curves of your face as he pushes your surely askew hair back. 

“How do you feel?”

It takes you a moment to seriously consider his question, scanning your body for any undue pains, but for the moment, you find none, beyond a dull aching throb that you can manage. 

“Good. Tired.”

You wince at the uncomfortable feeling of him pulling out. Spencer hums sympathetically and presses a sticky kiss to your lips which makes it a little better, though you can’t ignore how uncomfortable all the previously pleasant wetness has become between your legs. 

“Here—stay here, I’ll get a wash cloth and—”

“It’s fine,” you insist, holding on even as he tries to roll off of you. “I just need… will you stay here for a little bit?”

“Of course,” he promises, now pressed close to your side and propped up on an elbow, “whatever you want.”

You lavish in his gaze, warm like a spotlight, as he strokes your cheek and plays with your hair. Very quickly you’re lulled into a doze, eyes fluttering shut. Minutes stretch. You feel drunk on waking dreams, and perfectly at peace. Safe. 

“Angel girl,” he christens you fondly. More than anything, it’s an observation, so lovely it sinks into your skin like a balm, soothing every tired muscle and little mark he’d made. Even half-asleep, it makes you smile. 

“You’re an angel,” you slur, reaching blindly for him, and he chuckles, catching your wrist and helpfully settling your hand on his cheek. 

“I thought you were asleep.”

You hum, “mm-mm,” looking up at him with just as much adoration as he has for you. Those cuddle hormones must be kicking in because soon you’re attempting to pull him back on top of you. He doesn’t quite comply, probably for fear of crushing you—rather he settles next to you, gathering you in his arms. 

Silence blankets the two of you, but it’s not unpleasant as you just watch each other with barely-there smiles curling your mouths. This kind of intimacy still manages to give you butterflies, even after everything else you’ve done. This kind of satisfaction, reverie in the sound of each other’s blood flowing and lungs filling. Setting aside words because you don’t need conversation as a pretense for wanting to be around each other anymore. You don’t need an excuse to look at him like this. You don’t need words any more than you need clothes. It’s enough to just be. 

“I love you,” he says, a soft reminder, and entirely redundant with the way he’d already been looking at you, touching you. 

“I know. I love you too.”

The smile flickers brighter on his face. 

“And thank you.”

Your eyes narrow minutely as you consider what he could possibly be thanking you for. 

“For what?”

“For loving me. And trusting me. It’s…” your heart squeezes as you realizes tears are pooling in his eyes. He takes a moment and clears his throat. It’s incredibly endearing. “It means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.”

You look down, thumbing at the sheets where you’ve hoisted them over your bodies. 

“You do realize how lame we are if we have sex and both immediately start crying, right?”

At this he laughs loudly but not loud enough to pop the little bubble you’re in, and you look up just in time to catch the brilliance of his smile, the way it changes his whole face and he becomes superhuman in his beauty, the lines that form by his eyes and the way they narrow and crystalline tears bead his lashes like precious gems. 

“Don’t cry,” he requests gently, hypocritically as your own eyes sting. The way his smile fades is like the sun setting. Gorgeous, like everything else he does. “You’ve cried so much, honey. Please don’t cry.”

You sniffle, gathering yourself. 

“I’m not. That would be pathetic.”

Spender leans forward to kiss you tenderly a few more times. Ordinarily you’d worry about coming across as clingy when you hold onto him so closely and so insistently like this, but for now you don’t care. Neither does he, it seems, as he seems unable to get you close enough. Eventually, you end up curled against him, head tucked under his chin and dozing on and off as he traces shapes into your skin. 

“What are you writing?” You mumble some time later, cheek smushed against his shoulder. He only responds with a soft hm, like he was lost deep in thought. You clarify, “it feels like you were writing something.”

“She Walks in Beauty.”

Your lips pull into a sleepy smile. 

“The Lord Byron poem?”

The first time you’d met Spencer, he’d inadvertently caused your painstakingly annotated copy of Lord Byron’s works to go flying all over a cafe, and then kindly helped clean up the pages and reorder them for you in record time. Among the poems had been She Walks in Beauty. 

“Yeah. I was trying to figure out when exactly I fell in love with you, and as someone who is deeply skeptical about love at first sight, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I keep coming back to our first conversation. I mean, I believe in genetic compatibility, and how that contributes to attraction and what we think of as chemistry, but—”

“Wait, what about our first conversation did it?” Your cheeks ache from smiling as you speak. “As I recall I was being a bitch and I was covered in coffee.”

He laughs dreamily, still tracing letters over the small of your back. You wonder what part of the poem he’s at now. 

“Yeah, mean to me and covered in coffee is pretty much exactly my type. But I think it was actually the annotations on that copy of Lord Byron’s works. They were so insightful, and personal, I—it kind of took my breath away, and I know I shouldn’t have read them all but I couldn’t stop. You were compelling, and charming, and funny and wildly intelligent and beautiful and… and I didn’t stand a chance.”

Everything aches. It’s a good ache. Despite being seconds from tearing up all over again, you snort. He never told you about that first day.

“You thought me writing ‘sister fucker’ in all caps every time he mentioned Augusta was charming?”

“Oh, obscenely so. But now that I’m looking back, I feel like… I feel like I can’t remember not being in love with you. I mean, I remember when I realized I was, and that was later. But it was like I met you, and then I was just… waiting for you to catch up.”

You grab his hand and interlace your fingers, watching the way the ambient nighttime light from the window and the bathroom dips them half in color. 

“We were pretty much on the same page. I was debating courthouse versus small intimate ceremony as soon as you left.”

You watch him watching your joined hands, features soft and relaxed, fiddling with your fingers absentmindedly as he speaks. 

“Definitely small intimate ceremony. I have too many friends who would kill me if they weren’t invited to the wedding.”

You giggle and pretend the thought doesn’t give you butterflies. You imagine a ring on your finger, the one he’s got between his own. Marriage had never been something you’d considered. Not when you had no reason to. It seemed like something for other people. But maybe one day, it will be for you, too. 

“Did you know Lord Byron had a daughter who is regarded by many as the first computer programmer? She wrote the first algorithm for a theoretical machine that was so complex it couldn’t be built with the technology available at the time. It was called an Analytical Engine.”

He sounds almost wistful as he gives you the utterly unprompted, but still welcome, abridged version of her life. The description is ringing a bell—but you can’t quite place her, sleepy as you are.  

“What was her name?”

“Ada Lovelace. She was exceptionally gifted. The odds of parent and child being so extraordinary in their respective fields are incalculable, but from a purely theoretical perspective, negligible. I mean, they’re both massive historical figureheads. That’s extremely uncommon.”

You adore it when he goes off on these tangents—the passion that stains his voice, the ardor that grips him until he has no choice but to tell you exactly what’s got him so excited. You could listen to him talk for hours. It means he’s here with you, and he wants you to love what he loves. 

Since he met you, that’s all Spencer has wanted—for you to love what he loves. 

You want the same. 

“Pretty name,” you murmur, eyes fluttering shut. “Tell me more.” 

-

part eight