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yandere-sins · 21 hours ago

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The Octopodes' Tale - Chapter II

Thank you everyone for voting ♥ It's time we actually get to know our new, sweet yan, isn't it? Wonder how you guys will decide this time, especially if you have read about the facility and the Professor in the previous MerMay story, hehe! ;) Fandom: Original Content Pairings: Yandere!Octopus Merman x GN!AFAB!Reader Words: ~2k Warnings: Yandere, Monsters (Tentacels, Oversized Mention, Mermaids, Monster Appearances, Sharp Teeth, Claws), Fear of potential harm to human/animal

"Excuse me!" you repeated, this time firmer, standing up straight. Everyone was now finally giving you their full attention, minus the guards with their guns still pointed at the man in the pool. Questioning glances were thrown your way, and your heart throbbed from nervousness as you felt the eyes of all these great researchers on you. They had decades of experience combined that you'd likely never reach if the facility decided to kick you out for the unnecessary ruckus you caused. And yet, you had to admit to yourself that the truth was more important than your pride. Even if it wasn't in this research field, you could still enjoy and care for sea life. But if someone were to be harmed because of you, that's not something you could easily get over.

"It's my fault! That guy didn't do anything, really. I realized someone was with me in the room after I left, and I freaked out when I returned and found a struggle in the water! I didn't want another person or the octopus to get hurt, which, by the way–"

Directing your focus to the guy still bopping in the water, you gave him a stern glare. "You should get out of there, that's not a pool to swim in! It's the octopus's home! You'd not appreciate someone stirring up your home either, would you! That poor thing must be so frightened right now, I can't imagine what it feels like!"

Stunned silence.

Everyone stared at you, their mouths agape, and you felt the heat burn in your cheeks as your shame made you think about where you had gone wrong. Even if you did the right thing, they were probably horrified by your reveal and the commanding tone of your voice. You wanted to drown yourself in that very pool beneath your feet in that moment, but thinking about them having to fish out your body only made you more ashamed. You should never have come here; this was way too much embarrassment for one day!

Unexpectedly, the silence vanished, replaced by loud laughter all around you.

First, there were chuckles from behind you, then a bellowing laugh from the Professor. Soon enough, everyone had a full-on laughing fit, and even the guards gave each other looks as if to say, "Really?" their stances relaxing just a tad, even though their weapons were still raised.

Perhaps the only one that wasn't laughing was the guy in the water. However, you were glad to see he was getting closer to the pool's edge again, seemingly ready to finally get out of the tank. If you had helped anyone that day, at least the poor octopus who was confined here and had to endure all of this. Hopefully, it would recover from the stress, considering how fragile marine life could be.

Immediately, the guards snapped back into focus as the guy grabbed the metal grates around the pool, and you felt the frustration bubble inside you. The researchers were still laughing at you, the guards kept stopping the man from getting out, and no one cared for the poor specimen in the water, denying it the calm it deserved!

"Let him get out! Isn't protecting your specimens the most important thing for you guys?! You are ridiculous, it's not like he can run away from a locked room!"

Squeezing past the guards, you knelt next to the man, immediately feeling thrown off by how huge he was. Worry crept up your spine as you crouched beside him, and although you remained open-minded, it was unsettling as he was more than twice your size. So, even though you wanted to hook your arms beneath his and pull him from the water, you went for only one arm instead, tugging at it with as much strength as you could muster after exhausting yourself in the water.

Thankfully, after cocking his head a little and watching you struggle, the man finally did his part in slowly moving with you. None of your muscles could truly move him on your own, but with his help, you pulled him up on the metal. You managed to get his torso out of the water just in time before your strength ran dry, someone placing their hand on your shoulder as if to relieve you. Immediately, you felt your and his heavy body sag, his shoulder leaning against you awkwardly as you turned your head to look at the Professor standing behind you. He gave you a slightly pitiful smile and his fingers gripped your shoulder tightly, pressing painfully into your skin. He looked very different from the old man you had met before, the smile not reaching his eyes as they drilled into you from above.

"Your sense of justice honors you, but I think you should take a good look at the specimen you're trying to help. We wanted to wait for you to realize it on your own once you started working here properly, but it would be a disservice to everyone if we kept you in the dark any longer."

Your brows furrowed in confusion as you watched the Professor give you an encouraging nod towards the man you were still clinging on to. Slowly, you turned your head, glimpsing at his face, a cheeky grin plastered on it. Besides his size, you thought there wasn't much special about him. But the longer you looked, the more uncanny he became. His skin had a warm tan, almost reddish and feverish, but icy cold to the touch. His eyes still had the golden glow you had seen before, but there were many different colors melting into each other, his irises dotted with orange and red that made the yellow pop even more. And then his mouth came into view, and you were unsure how you could have missed the pitch-black teeth and the jagged yellow tongue shining forth from behind them.

You let go of the man at once, your instincts tingling in your mind again like before. Something wasn't right about this guy at all, and you couldn't pinpoint whether he looked wrong or simply sick to you, but either way, his appearance was uncanny. You didn't understand what was happening until you looked over his shoulder and down his body, tan skin turning into a pure red mass around his hips.

And from it, tentaclese emerged.

"What…" you mumbled disbelievingly, slowly moving backwards on your knees and away from that creature. The guy leaned forward onto the grated floor, seemingly unbothered, while red tentacles poked out from the water, sticking and gripping the metal around him. They seemed to come after you with all the time in the world, creeping eerily into your direction, while you felt your own world stop spinning as you tried to comprehend what was going on. But there was only so far you could go until your back hit the legs of the Professor, who stood in your way with an unbothered knowing look in his eyes as you looked up at him with questions and a need for answers.

"A siren. Perhaps more commonly known as mermaids—or mermen, like in this case. It's what we are all about here at the facility. We study and live with these creatures. After all, they, too, are creatures of the oceans, you see."

Stretching out his hand, one of the tentacles reached up to meet it, wrapping around it with fluid motions despite its massive size. However, when you looked down at the… siren, you found his strange eyes stuck on you, still smiling while he watched.

"Leomaris is one of our most prized specimens here. You'll hardly find anyone more active and cooperative, which is why I wanted to assign you to him. He can be a bit playful, as you likely have guessed after this ordeal, but studying him will lead us forward on our path to learn about these creatures, I have no doubts."

Shaking his hand once, the tentacle let go of the Professor with the squelching sound, common to the suction cups. Instead, it gently snaked to the ground again, landing right in front of you, winding and twisting as was usual for these appendages. Your stomach churned as you weren't sure if you were in awe or disgusted, fearing you might throw up as you watched the tentacles closing in on you. Although your brain understood the information you were given, even now, watching the merman lower himself flat onto the grid and reaching out towards his own tentacle, long, black claws at the tips of his fingers playing with the winding red, you couldn't quite believe it.

Mermaids were fairytales. At most, they were legends from the past, apparitions sailors had seen or animals they had mistaken for humans. And now you had to just accept that they were real? They actually existed? That the creature in front of you wasn't an animatronic or a projection? But you had touched it, and… it felt real. So maybe it was? They really existed out there, and this facility captured and studied them? And you could be a part of this? This amazing research?

"So?" the Professor grunted, slowly getting down on one knee again to be on your eye level, placing his hand on your shoulder. He gave it an encouraging pat to tear you out of the daze you were under, your head slowly turning away from the organism in front of you. Even now, your body was still screaming for you to get away. Never look away from a creature more dangerous than yourself, and give it a chance to attack. That's what helped with most animals, but you weren't so sure with this one.

"Will you join us?"

The Professor smiled at you, nodding his head once again towards the siren, and you still felt frozen as you looked back at him. A big, red tentacle awaited you, hanging in the air as if waiting for something. Someone. You.

You were supposed to take it and seal the deal. Start your work here and join the research team, even after what happened. You'd take care of this creature and study him alongside others like you. You'd get to do what you wanted and have the potential to be someone greater than you ever anticipated. If this research was finalized with your name on it… you couldn't even imagine the changes your life would undergo by accepting this position. You'd be part of something big and meaningful and everything you ever wanted.

But was it worth the risk? You knew nearly nothing about this type of creature. Even if the Professor was convinced of his willingness to cooperate with you on the research, you knew the legend surrounding mermaids and how they usually weren't interested in building mutual trust and understanding with humans. Who said he wasn't like the human-eating monsters from the books? With all the red on his body, he resembled the comical red devil, and he might very well be one. A predator waiting for you to fall once more for his tricks and jump into the water so he could take a bite out of you. Who was to say you weren't just a snack for him, and your instincts were right to warn you? If mermaids were real, what more crazy things would you encounter if you stayed?

Thoughts and reasoning as always, are welcome! ♥

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moyazaika · 13 days ago

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housewife syndrome

yandere! rockstar x fem! reader

cw; possessive + obsessive behaviour, severe mental instability, paranoia, anxiety, violence, heavy nsfw themes, mdni 18+

genie's notes; commissioned piece by a very sweet anon ♡ thank you so much for trusting me with this absolutely stunning idea. i’ve always been a fan of domestic horror, especially of the spiralling housewife variety, so it was fun to explore a new dynamic and fresh writing style. <3

"welcome home, sweetheart!" the television runs on low volume in the background as you greet your husband with a knowing smile. you run through the motions as you always do, make sure to ask with the most innocence you can muster, "how was your day?"

feroze can make out the sound of gallant applause that indicates you'd been watching reruns of last night's award ceremony.

"such a fucking drag." your husband pulls you into his arms, buries his head into the crook of your neck with a long, satisfied sigh and takes his sweet, sweet time to breathe you in. "couldn't fucking wait to come home to you, meri jaan."

his answer remains the same as it is every other day, and you can't help but smile against his lips when he pulls you in to steal a little kiss; you sigh into his mouth, and feroze is so fucking overwhelmed by gratitude for the familiarity and comfort of this little routine the two of you have seemed to settle down into so well.

"i love when you call me that," you confess; my life.

you know just as well as him that, well—it wasn't always this easy.

"yeah," feroze hums. "i know you do, baby."

you weren't always so lovely for him, were you?

you're quiet.

though the two of you are sitting across from each other at the dining table, your attention is clearly elsewhere. conversation is slow, if not stagnant. it's a far cry from how talkative you usually are; and though he would never fucking admit it, least of all to you, he worries, for a fraction of a second, that things are slipping.

"meri jaan?" he sets down his fork very carefully, reaches for your hands over the table.

you blink, pulled away from wherever you'd been lost in your mind and back down to this moment that stretches on before you.

"oh, sorry, my love. what was that?"

feroze watches your eyes quietly track the movement of his fingers, sliding over your wrists, lingering, momentarily, on your pulse—nice and steady—before they intertwine with your own.

your gaze lands on him, then, expectant. he drags his thumb over your knuckles, glad to find they're soft; unmarred by any labour. he loves having you here, tucked away within the walls of this home he built just for you, away from the rest of the rotten world.

such a darling girl like you deserves to have everything taken care of for you. as far as he's concerned, the only thing on your mind should be him.

which is why the silence is beginning to irritate him, now. he's not really upset with you, doesn't have a reason to be, just yet—he's just wondering what it is you're so focused on. where do you keep going back to in that head of yours, and why aren't you here with him?

is this where it all falls apart?

—again?

"rosy?" you try. "is everything alright?"

"yeah," feroze's hazel eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles, endearingly patient. "i just wanted to know how your day was."

"ugh, don't remind me." you stick your tongue out. "it was so boring. i woke up so late today and didn't really do anything interesting."

"shit, i'm sorry to hear that, baby."

your husband nods towards the television, still playing from inside the living room across the hall; the screen's bright colours reflect against the glass windows that take up half the wall. though the program is muted, he can still hear the echoes from the cacophony of applause ringing loud and true.

the four hour program's been running on loop on some of the smaller channels, and you really seem to enjoy tuning in, he's noticed.

it would be more difficult not to notice this new habit of yours, really. because if he's been counting right, this is the seventh time you've seen the whole thing through to the end.

"seems like you were at least watching the music thing again."

"well, when my stunning husband won half of the awards," you shrug coyly. "how could i not?"

"flattery won't get you anywhere," feroze deigns, though neither of you mention the involuntary curl to his lips as they lift into a small, self-satisfied smile.

"huh, that's strange," you frown, pull your hands away from his own and make a show of examining the elaborately stacked engagement ring and marital band wrapped around your finger. "if i seem to remember correctly, flattery is exactly what got me this ring."

"oh," he laughs. "is that so?"

"uhuh," you nod, still admiring the rings. they're big and they're flashy and there's no fucking chance anyone could ever miss the sight of them; make the mistake of misunderstanding what they mean. you're so obviously his, and fuck, it suits you so perfectly to belong to him.

i love you, he thinks fiercely. i fucking love you.

"you've got an ego, rosy." your knowing gaze flickers back to him, accompanied by a teasing smile. "bit of a praise kink, too."

"and yet, darling wife," he'll never tire of calling you that; never really overcome the thrill that overwhelms him when he sees you adorned in the markers of his devotion and tucked away all safe and sound. "you're the only person whose words mean anything to me."

"ohh, is that so?" you taunt, "whatever happened to 'flattery won't get you anywhere?'"

feroze takes in the sight of you. you're dressed casual, donned in a baggy old shirt and a pair of his softest sweats hanging low off your hips. comfortable in your own home, as you should fucking feel, you have no makeup on, and your hair is unkempt; overdue for a shower; but fuck if he cares.

feroze decides, within a moment, that he needs you—

now.

"come here, meri jaan. i'll show you."

"you greedy, greedy man," you chastise lightly, rising from your seat. "i've just fed you dinner and you're still salivating at my table."

feroze watches you make the small effort of pushing your chair in, before turning on your heel. you pause in the doorway for a second, spare him a knowing glance over your shoulder; "well? aren't you hungry, darling husband?"

he knows that none of it evades you; the nervous bob of his adam's apple as he swallows. the way his fingers are digging into the edge of the table to keep from sinking inside of you right here. his heart is racing; his pants are tight. though you're so willing to be his now, he remembers it wasn't always this easy.

"my love." feroze grits out, "i'm fucking starving."

you disappear into the hallway, mellifluous laughter like the loveliest song, echoing off the walls—inside of his head, for fuck's sake—as your husband follows faithfully behind you when you lead him into the bedroom.

dinner goes cold on the table. you never touched your plate.

upstairs, minutes later, your husband bottoms out inside of the welcoming warmth of your sweet cunt, just as your fingers brush against the butcher's knife tucked right underneath your pillow.

feroze gets you to come twice before he decides he has his fill. he's rummaging through your nightstand for the contraceptives he knows you keep in there. it's got less to do with what he wants and more to do with what he believes is best for the two of you.

it's not that he doesn't want children; he dreams of them often. a little baby swaddled in the softest fabrics, wrapping its entire hand around just one of his fingers. the sound of a second pair of footsteps excitedly running down the hall every time he comes home from the studio, from tour. something more to take care of. to keep you busy.

but your husband knows you.

and though he's always been selfish, he can't risk kids until—well, until he knows you won't try to kill them.

it's taken you years to accept him. he won't undo that.

feroze, so caught up in his thoughts, only really registers the blade until it's slicing into his skin, the sharp edge of it pressing against the side of his neck with just enough pressure to draw blood.

he is disappointed, though by no means surprised, to find you on the other end wielding the knife.

he turns to face you, abandoning his search. you're holding onto the hilt of your makeshift weapon with trembling hands, and though he's suddenly overcome by exhaustion—because, baby, how many more times are you going to pull this—an involuntary shiver runs down his spine at the sight nonetheless.

"jaan," he tries to reason with you in hushed tones; oh, love. "what are you doing?"

you dig the knife in just a little deeper, and he winces; "i hate you, feroze." the words sting, though the relative lack of conviction they’re laced with serves as a promising sign of reconciliation.

"i know, baby. can you please just put the knife down so we can talk like adults?"

he glimpses the almost imperceptible change immediately.

the lines of hesitation on your face; a flicker of uncertainty in your eyes. when your hold on the weapon looses just the tiniest fraction of an inch, he wastes no time in gently but firmly prying the knife from out of your trembling hands; tosses it underneath the bed where it lands out of your reach.

he’s getting better at this. gets through to you so much sooner than he used to.

you’re listening, now, aren’t you?

the thought of it makes him oddly proud.

"there we go," feroze says. you're still shaking, and though he wants so fucking desperately to pull you closer and console you—he's learnt to tread the waters carefully in times like these. you're evidently scared. obviously upset with him. he can give you a little room to breathe. “now do you want to use your words and talk to me properly?”

“i keep rewatching the awards show. every other winner had someone there with them. some girlfriend or wife they kissed before they went on stage. you’re the only one who—” you swallow, voice wavering. ��i’m the only one who wasn’t there. i’m the only one who’s kept hidden away.”

“you don’t want to show me off.” the tears fall almost immediately. “you’re ashamed of me.”

there are millions of words in the english language, and millions more in his own. he’s put into words every fleeting feeling you’ve made him feel; spun both the most magnificent and mundane of emotions into beautiful songs and compelling lyrics and composed entire albums from nothing—and yet, somehow, in this moment all of it evades him.

"i spend all day stuck here w-waiting for you to come home, and when you do—i keep thinking about all those ceremonies and galas and parties you go to, rooms i can never follow you into—and i hate you. i hate you for how much you hate me—”

“i’m sorry,” feroze’s hands run up your spine, to lightly curl his fingers around the back of your neck. he tilts your head up so that you’re meeting his gaze; leaves you nowhere to look away, “meri jaan.”

his touch is so soft and so, so cold against your skin. you've always run warmer than him; but he thinks you might be burning up right now. maybe you've got a fever; or maybe you're just this delirious even without one. it doesn't fucking matter, doesn't change anything.

“i’m sorry for ever leaving you alone long enough to even think that. let me make it up to you. let me show you how much i adore you. let me build you back up again.”

“you can’t fix this,” you whisper.

he smiles, but it’s strange; doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “so you said the last time.”

hours later, you’re less of a sobbing wreck when he’s got you perched in his lap, and all curled up under his chin. “okay… then…” you sniff. your words are somewhat muffled as you bury your face into your husband’s chest. “i’m sorry, too. i didn’t mean to hurt you, rosy. i was just scared, i-i promise.”

"i know.” his knuckles wipe away the tears drying on your cheeks. “give me a kiss, please.”

and ever the sweet wife, you do; but your lips are trembling.

fuck, that’s—

shit.

—not going to work, is it?

with a gentle but firm hand, he pushes you down onto the bed and watches you land on your back amidst the dozens of pillows that decorate the bed. even then, the softest thing here is you. he forgets that, sometimes. let this be a lesson, he thinks to himself, to keep your fragility in mind. this is only further proof that you need him more than he'd even realised.

but you picked the right man, didn’t you? because none of that scares him.

the two of you have faced far more difficult times together; this is just a little hiccup in your life as a married couple. some story you’ll look back on and laugh about, when you’re all better.

so when you look up at him with wide, wet eyes and ask, "its just—can you promise me you still love me one more time?”

feroze regards you closely. you’re so beautiful. so fucking perfect that it overwhelms him. sometimes, he wishes you could see yourself the way that he sees you. though he’s always believed that may just scare you; knowing how deep his devotion really runs. things are fine as they are now.

well, mostly.

he has decided that he will retire from music completely, but the two of you can broach that topic when you’re in a better headspace for it. it’s been a long time coming. work keeps the money coming in, and he wants to spoil you but—he wants you to be happy, above all. you don’t really know what you’re asking for right now, but he has every intention of giving you exactly what it is you wished for.

he can’t give in when you beg to come along with him—but he can come and hide away next to you in this little pocket of the world that solely belongs to the two of you.

"you drive me to madness, my love. nothing about this life means anything if i can’t keep you happy.”

the two of you never had a white wedding; because he wanted to honour your union the right way and celebrate you as his culture deigned. so, yes, he never got to read you any vows, but he'd like to think you've come to know him well enough to understand he doesn't necessarily need to say something so sacred out loud for it to hold true.

"do you understand? i love you," he lowers his forehead against yours. “till death does us apart.”

you put your heart in his hands one more time, looking so small, so vulnerable beneath him. "you promise?"

"i promise," he closes his eyes and revels in the soft, sweeping feeling of your lashes fluttering against his own. "always and forever, meri jaan."

feroze loves you, of this he's certain.

he also knows that you fucking terrify him.

it's a small price to pay, if it means keeping you—

besides, he thinks, reaching once more for the contraceptive pills on the nightstand.

—marriage is all about compromise, is it not?

#feroze #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #yandere male #male yandere #yandere male x reader #male yandere x reader #yandere x darling #yandere x y/n #yandere x willing reader #male yandere x you #male yandere x y/n #male yandere x darling #yandere male x you #commission

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fangirlingpuggle · 3 months ago

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A very very dumb Apothecary diaries AU where Lakan checks in on Fengxian before he leaves finds out she's pregnant. She can't go with him or marry him yet but instead while he goes abroad to study she stays with Luomen helping him set up pharmacy after he's cast out from his family.

She and Lakan stay in regular contact through letters, both of them gushing over letters only for someone top look over their shoulders and see letter is only a move in go They're playing long distance each letter is just the next move. At least until Maomao is born the Fengxian includes scribble drawings Maomao does or hand prints...Lakan office and room are full all walls covered in them.

The two reunite and although they live with La clan and Lakan gets headship but they still visit Luoman and the visit Verdigris house (Madame still hastes Lakan but they send good business recommending them to high ranking officials). So Maomao still has her big sisters and still learns about medicine and poison from Luomen.

She still tests on herself , Lakan freaks out but Fengxian trusts her daughter just makes sure they have plenty of antivenom and antidotes ( Basically every room in the LA family state has an emergency draw for if Maomao has had poison again)

Maomao doesn't get kidnapped, she ends up in rear palace because consort Ah-Dou she can see that Lishu is struggling she can't intervene or protect her within her own court so she contacts Fenxian who she's met at functions other the years.

Ah-Dou- Fengxian you have a daughter correct. Is she as terrifying as you?

Fenxian: Of course

Ah-Dou: May I please request a favor?

Maomao enters Lishu's court not as a noble but as a lady in waiting (and the food tester, it's how she agreed to it)

Maomao: Do I really need to go into court I want to make medicine

Fengxian: You will be testing food for poison

Maomao:....deal

She of course see's the bullying in the court and instantly Nopes, she does totally overhaul terrifying Lishu's ladies in waiting and getting rid of them, she spends time around other servants and ends up recruiting other servants as new ladies in waiting ones who will actually care for and protect Lishu. Full big sister Maomao mode with Lishu.

She keeps an eye on other departments dressing as a maid while moving around to avoid suspicion and still see's the confrontation between Gyokuyo and Lishu and sends the messages with torn dress (She didn't get chance to change and couldn't go into their pavilions in her lady in waiting clothes)

She gets dragged in the room with other maids also, she kinda gets stuck and pulled in and meets Gyokuyo having to admit so sorry can't be your lady in waiting already Lishu's. Jinshi suddenly puts together about the totally change in ladies in waiting and promotion of other servants. Jinshi is very curious but Maomao is able to divert attention.

Gyokuyo still wants to see Maomao and so she moves between both her and Lishu and gets Lishu to spend more time with Gyokuyo the two getting along well.

She also helps Lihua as before and then she is basically going between 3 of them and the 3 consorts spend time together... Lihua and Gyokuyo figure out who Moamao is but they're not saying they want to keep Maomao around and also they are all shipping Jinmao and enjoying watching this soap opera.

The banquet happens but Maomao is of course Lishu's food tester not Gyokuyo's but none of the old ladies in waiting are there to bully Lishu and swap bowls so Moamao still gets poison. (She 100% tried to get to test food for all 3 consorts ... they didn't let her)

Lakan still trolls Jinshi because he's seen letters Ah-Dou and others sent Fengxian keeping her updated and is suspicious about Jinshi and his precious daughter. (Fengxian and Jinshi are planning the wedding already)

When Maomao is still dismissed after the poisoning is revealed and Jinshi is super upset and sulky until fancy banquet and high ranking personnel and then sees Maomao again as daughter of head of La clan...

Maomao: I suppose you are upset than I hide my identity

Jinshi:...

Jinshi:Yes very upset (he says hypothetically ignoring looks he is getting form the emperor and Gaoshun)

She still comes back to rear place (The consorts missed her so much... plus they have a betting pool... a lot of people are in it Fengxian has a board plotting moves so the 2 get together when she's bet...while Lakan is pouting in corner that no one deserves their baby girl)

(Light Novel spoilers

Lahan is raised as Maomao's brother and adores his sister, the two are chaos gremlins her making medicines and him plotting how to self and market them

He is also adored by Verdegris house the beloved little brother... also everyone is pretty sure he and Maomao are twins they know there was only 1 baby but... they're sure the 2 are siblings.

The madame also adores him both coming up with schemes for money and he happily does the accounting when they visit (they're sure he's her favorite)

When Jinshi sees them together before knowing they're related he thinks the 2 might be a couple, Gaoshun is face palming and despairing while the courtesans are losing it laughing)

#au #fic prompt #the apothecary diaries #kusuriya no hitorigoto #humor #jinmao #fengxian x lakan #maomao #jinshi #lishu #fengxian #lakan #gyokuyou #lihua #ah-dou #lahan #maomao x jinshi #light novel spoilers

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prlssprfctn · 3 months ago

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I think Jason should be allowed to manipulate his family with the "oh, you are my favourite, actually" line. It sounds very flattering to them (because Jason? Jason-I-Want-Nothing-To-Do-With-This-Family-Todd? Admitting you are his favourite? Oh, the hundred per cent bust of ego!) and more to say, this system of manipulation is eternal.

They can argue with each other as much as they want, but none of them would believe the other — Jason Todd is too tsundere to say something like this aloud, to each of them. So, someone is lying. For sure.

(And they are too self-assured in themselves to doubt that they are his favourite. Also, Jason makes every manipulation, specifically individual. So, it is not like he repeats the same confession and reasons. Very believable. Aka: this family needs someone to be open about their love, so they latch on everything and everyone who is willing to admit that openly)

Dick, slightly frustrated: Why are you asking me this favour? You know, I don't usually do these sort of things, I don't really... I don't know, it is too dangerous, I don't like the whole idea.

Jason, face dropping: Oh... Sorry. I shouldn't ask you, just... Dunno, I thought since you are my only big brother, and... Urgh, I guess I am still too attached to you more than to others. You are right. I'll ask Timbers or—

Dick, with his eyes suspiciously wet: oh-

Dick: NO, no. I'll do it. Don't worry. Big brother got your back, Lil Wing!

Tim, frowning: So, am I getting this right — you want me to hack into some system in someone's high school to fix the diploma of a kid who got a ONE bad grade—

Jason: He needs this scholarship. He is a kid of the streets! He can't do it otherwise, and it is not like the world would collapse if you fix one grade!

Tim: Yeah, I don't care about morals, I am just confused. Why would I want to spend my time on this, I am pretty sure—

Jason, dead ass serious: You know I don't like to communicate with this family. I only ever love talking with you, so sue me for thinking you could do me a favour.

Tim, instantly smirking: Ah, so I am your favourite... Well-well, big brother, I guess I can do this.

Damian: I am *not* going to tell you what our father is planning to do with this specific villain. Who do you think I am? An idiot?

Jason, sighing: Damn, and I really thought we had each other's back since League of Assassins.

Damian, scoffing: Emotional manipulation will not work on me.

Jason, all confused: Why would I manipulate you? From all people? I didn't raise you to fall on shit like this.

Damian: Tt.

Damian: Fine. Since, I guess, I owe you for babysitting me...

Bruce: Jason, I appreciate your... strive to help me, but nothing has ever gone well when you worked on cases like that. Let me handle this, and—

Jason, silently sitting down on the armchair, hands on his head: (sniff)

Bruce, panicked: Jaylad?..

Jason: I get it. I really do. No matter how much I love you, no matter how much I keep choosing you over anyone in this family, you don't love me anymore. I really understand it. I... I came in peace with it. I just wished you would tolerate my work... a little bit. You know?

Bruce: No, no, sweetheart, I— I am your favourite?

Jason, sniffling angrily: Who else it could be, old man?

Bruce: Oh. Oh, Jaylad— (instantly hands him the case)

(The family dinner)

Bruce, mentally humming to himself: Oh, these kids have NO idea that I am Jason's favourite because we are connected like that ^•^

Dick, mentally beaming: Oh, no one here has an idea that I am Jason's favourite because I am his big brother and protector! :>

Tim, mentally laughing evilly: Oh, these flops have no idea that I am Jason's favourite and that he wishes I was his Robin!

Damian, mentally kicking his feet: None of my family members suspect that I am Akhi's favourite because he was practically my nanny through all childhood. Tt.

Jason, munching on food: Lol

#Alfred: poor bastards have no idea that I am a real favourite #jason todd #red hood #dcu comics #dc universe #dcu #batman #bruce wayne #batfamily #batfam #dick grayson #tim drake #damian wayne

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ohmygraves · 11 months ago

Text

simon who gets into a fight with you, all messy and angry, lots of yelling at each other, and ends with him just slamming the door to your shared bedroom, not wanting to escalate it further and just... cool off.

he hears the cries and sobs from the other room, your mouth babbling something he couldn't quite understand between the sobs and the sniffling. he was upset, you were the one being dumb and was yelling at him and he didn't want to hurt you further. it's not his fault... right?

simon spends some time thinking about it, on the bed with a scowl on his face. he couldn't even hear your crying anymore, you'd probably gotten hungry or thirsty and just left. the silence was a little unnerving, and it's not like it'll end if the two of you kept being so persistent, so he figured out he should just apologize and take it from there, regardless if it was his fault or not.

though as he was about to go look for you, his nose was hit with a familiar scent... instant noodles?

not surprised, you probably were so upset you wanted to eat something too.

he made his way to the kitchen, not going to lie the scent made his mouth water too. he knew how much you liked it, and he loves whatever you like too.

in the middle of the kitchen, you stood in front of the stove, the smell of instant noodles wafting through the entire house. you looked... tired. and small, hunched over the pan just looking at the food as it cooks.

simon didn't really care if you'd claw his eyes out for this, but he reached out, leaning over your shoulder, his arms around your waist.

"smells good... share wit' me."

you didn't respond, still a little upset that he just acted as if everything was fine, but you didn't push him away, not even noticing that there's a small smile on your face. you took the pan off the stove, placing it on a kitchen rag on the dinner table, and handed him a fork. lord knows he can't use a chopsticks.

as the two of you ate together out of the pan, the two of you started to talk again, continuing the fight earlier, though calmer and sprinkled with a few jokes here and there. regardless of who was at fault, the two of you apologized, and you admitted that you'd decided to make the noodles because it would lure him out of the room. simon pouted, knowing that he couldn't resist it when you cooked anything and some good snack every once in a while.

as upset as he was that the two of you fought, you think that he's more upset that you lured him with instant ramen like some dog.

#this was random I'm so sorry #cod #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty headcanon #cod headcanon #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #cod ghost x reader #ghost headcanons #cod ghost #ghost cod

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nereidprinc3ss · 9 months ago

Text

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him.

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened?

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough.

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop.

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes.

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him.

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was.

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again.

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again.

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table.

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world.

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms.

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now.

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x you #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst

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kunareads · 1 month ago

Text

tread carefully

bestfriend!choso x reader

masterlist

wc: 4.4k

a/n: was missing my baby boy and ended up with this. it's nothing crazy but i love it lol

content: bestfriend!choso, they're drinking, friends to lovers, face sitting, raw sex, praise, they're so soft for each other

18+ please <3

you’re both tipsy. or maybe more than tipsy.

it’s hard to tell with choso—he always looks serious, always sounds deadpan, even after multiple glasses of something you can’t pronounce. even buzzed, he’s composed in a way that would be annoying if you didn’t find it sort of… hot.

right now, he’s slouched on his carpet with his back against the couch, head tilted back, eyes a little too shiny to be sober.

you’re sprawled out on the floor in front of him, giggling to yourself at something stupid he said five minutes ago—he hadn’t meant it to be funny, which only made it worse—when he speaks.

“you know what would be really good right now?”

you blink. “water?”

he frowns. “no.”

“a nap?”

“no.”

you grin. “more wine?”

he blinks at you. “tempting.”

you giggle. “okay, enlighten me.”

he stares at you for a beat. then with the kind of low, serious sincerity generally reserved for life-or-death situations:

“sit on my face.”

you go silent. what the fuck did he say?

choso doesn’t flinch. he doesn’t smile, doesn’t even blink. “i’d be so good to you.”

you laugh—not mocking, just completely caught off guard. “you’re so drunk.”

“yeah,” he admits, unable to keep his lips from curling at the sound. “but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

your heart skips. you can't tell if he’s joking. he sounds like he might be, but he looks so sincere.

“i think about it all the time. how you’d sound, how you’d taste. how soft you’d be if i got you to relax on me.”

his voice goes a tiny bit lower.

“you could use me as long as you wanted.”

and for the first time tonight, you forget how to laugh.

your pulse stutters as something hot and heavy blooms in your stomach. you weren’t ready for that.

he must see the change in your face, because his tone softens further, like he means it but doesn’t want to scare you. “you don’t have to.”

he leans back again, gives you the space to say no, to make it a joke, to brush it off. it’s an out, but you’re realizing with startling clarity that you don’t want it. then, after a beat:

“just, if you want to. i want you to.” you watch his throat work as he swallows. “really want you to.”

he drags a hand through his hair, face flushed all the way to his ears. it’s the most disheveled you’ve ever seen him—shirt bunched at the waist, legs spread loose, tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip like he can taste you in the air.

he’s still choso. still your best friend. but he’s never looked at you like this. have you been missing it the whole time?

you press your palms to the floor. “you’re serious.”

he nods. “i want you.” a pause, a tiny smile. “we can blame the wine later if it gets weird.”

you rise onto your knees. not a decision exactly—more like your body answering something wordless, drawn forward by his voice.

his hands twitch when you move, but he waits for you to crawl into his space. your knees press into the carpet as your thighs slide between his and his breath hitches when you settle between his legs.

god, you think, throat tight. he meant it. every word.

because he’s watching you now like it’s killing him not to reach—like touching you before you ask might ruin it.

you brace against his shoulders. he’s warm and solid under your hands.

“you mean it?” you murmur, looking at him and suddenly feeling very vulnerable. please say yes.

his hand rises, hesitates. it lands on the side of your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“yeah.” he leans in, slow enough that you could stop him, but you don’t. “let me take care of you?”

your chest aches from how much you want to let him.

“okay,” you whisper. “yeah. okay.”

his exhale is almost a groan, something that sounds like thank god and thank you tangled up in one breath.

a hand slides from your cheek to the back of your neck, fingers threading through your hair. the other settles on your thigh, spreading his palm there like he’s grounding himself in the fact that you’re real and you’re here and you said yes to him.

you lean in before he does. it’s instinctive, like you’ve done it a million times despite this being the first—forehead to forehead, noses brushing, both of you breathing the same air.

he tilts his chin and his mouth catches yours.

it’s not rushed or messy. it’s careful and soft and devastating in how tender it is. he kisses you like he’s savoring you, and you can’t help but be a bit caught off-guard by it. your hands move down to his chest, then back up to his shoulders before settling behind his neck.

you sigh into him and he swallows it down, fingers gripping tighter at your thigh. the kiss deepens, careful and sweet, and you get the sense that he’s been wanting this for longer than he lets on. you’ve never been kissed like this.

his hands move like he’s scared to miss anything.

the one at your thigh drifts upward, tracing the edge of your shorts as the other slips down to your waist, fingers toying with the hem of your shirt.

he barely moves away, lips brushing yours as he murmurs, “can i take this off?”

you nod and shift enough to raise your arms. the drag of his knuckles across your stomach as he lifts the fabric isn’t on purpose, you don’t think, but it leaves your skin buzzing anyway. when it’s gone, he tosses it aside without looking away from you once.

his gaze trails down and back up, and when he meets your eyes again, his face is softer than before. hazy around the edges, drunk on you now.

“you okay?”

you nod. you feel it everywhere—the ache of wanting, the weight of being wanted. in your chest, your stomach, the insides of your thighs. “yeah.”

he leans forward again, kissing the space below your jaw, then lower, to the hollow above your collarbone. his hands drift to the top of your shorts.

“can i?” he whispers against your neck.

you nod, already breathless. “please.”

both hands move now. he leans back to give himself room and hooks his thumbs into the waistband. it’s clumsy because of the angle—because you’re straddling him and he won’t stop touching you long enough to do it properly. you lift yourself, and he takes the chance to drag them off one leg at a time.

you settle back into his lap. not fully, but enough that your hips brush and he inhales sharply. you like the sound, want to hear it again, so you press your body down a bit, and the breath punches out of him like he’s been hit.

“you’re gonna kill me,” he mutters.

you lean in and press your lips to the corner of his mouth, trailing to the spot below his ear. “that bad?” you murmur.

“worse,” he breathes.

you smile at that, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “you said i could use you.”

he nods, letting his hands slide down to rest on your ass. “meant it.”

you shift again in his lap and hear his groan, muffled against your shoulder, as he presses a kiss there.

“can i lie back for you?”

you nod. he leans away just far enough to turn and ease himself down, elbows first, until he’s flat against the floor.

he looks up at you, eyes hazy and wide, chest rising in shallow breaths. his hands find your thighs again, light at first—thumbs tracing right above your knees—then firmer, sliding up like he’s checking if you’re really going to let him have this.

you follow without speaking. your palms meet the floor beside his head, steadying yourself as you move forward.

his breath catches when you settle above him. you hesitate, hovering. his fingers flex against your thighs like he’s holding back from pulling you down. he won’t do it—not unless you ask—but he wants to.

“you’re sure?” he asks.

you nod fast, the heat between your legs threatening to burn you. “please.”

that’s what does it. he pulls you down gently and you follow, guided by the look in his eyes—the way they go half-lidded when you brush his mouth, the way his hands tighten at your hips like he’s scared you’ll float away.

and when you finally, finally lower yourself fully, he groans like it’s the first real breath he’s taken all night.

a kiss first. one, then another, open-mouthed and needy. his tongue flicks out, gentle and sure, and your whole body shudders.

his mouth is hot, tongue moving slow—so slow—easing you into it. but there’s a hunger in the way he’s licking at you, trying to memorize you.

you don’t mean to roll your hips, but you do a little.

his hands flex hard around your thighs—one of them shakes—and he groans. it’s muffled, desperate, and it sends a bolt straight through your spine.

and after that, it’s like something inside him snaps.

he moans into you, loud and helpless, and his mouth opens wider, tongue working up a sloppy pace, chasing something out of reach.

his nose presses against your clit as his tongue drags up through you again and again, messier every time, and he doesn’t care what it looks like. he’s not even thinking, just tasting and moving on instinct.

“choso,” you sigh. “fuck—”

he doesn’t stop or slow down, only moans into you louder. his grip tightens until it hurts, and he ruts up into nothing, mouth moving more insistently like his name in your mouth broke him open.

you rock against him again and he follows, shifting on the floor to chase your movements. it’s messy, all slick and spit and heat, and his eyes flutter open like he’s been dragged out of a dream just to look at you.

you brace one hand on the carpet, the other tangling in his hair without thinking. his response is immediate—a deep, needy sound that hits you low in your core. you gasp again at the way his hands tremble where they hold you. he’s not trying to tease you, and he’s not dragging it out. he’s lost in it—messy and hungry, worshipful and gone.

“you’re—fuck—” your voice breaks, breath breaking on a moan. “you’re so—fuck, choso—”

you start moving. tentative at first, grinding into his mouth, chasing the flicks of his tongue, the sounds he gives you. his hands slip down your thighs and back up to your waist before one leaves you, searching the floor next to his head until he finds your hand.

you meet his eyes. his mouth parts wider as you roll your hips again, tongue flattening against you like he’s offering himself up.

he nods. permission.

and it undoes you.

you intertwine your fingers with his as your hips find a rhythm. you grind again, more insistently, and feel him moan into you, tongue pressing firmer, chasing you like he might cry if you stop.

“fuck—choso—”

he nods again, brows furrowed, humming small mhms into you. yes. yes, keep going.

so you do.

you ride his face like it’s the only thing you can do. your pace builds up tight, hot and unbearable, and he just takes it. mouth open, tongue slick and starving for everything you give him.

you keep your eyes on him. the way he looks at you renders you breathless—glassy eyed and worshipful and ruined. like he can’t believe you’re real and on top of him and letting him have this.

you cum hard, your body unraveling as he groans so loud it borders on obscene. everything in you pulses—deep and warm and too much. but he doesn’t stop. his whole face is soaked, but he keeps licking and sucking you like he’s not done yet.

“choso—” you gasp, voice trembling. your thighs are shaking, threatening to give out, but his hands are there, steady at your hips. his lips are swollen, his mouth open, his tongue licking slow through your folds like he wants to wring every last drop from you

“you—” he pants. “you taste so fucking good.”

your stomach flips.

you look down at him, barely able to think, and something in you aches. you want to kiss him. want to feel him. want to see him fall apart the way you did.

you want more.

you lift off his face. his hands fall away reluctantly, but his eyes stay locked on you.

you crawl down his body, chest brushing his as you go. he blinks up at you, stunned, still catching up. your hips settle above his again, meeting the tops of his thighs where his knees are raised, and when your weight drags against the bulge in his pants, he gasps.

you do it again, purposefully this time, rocking forward to press against him through the fabric. the heat of him, the tension, the way he twitches beneath you—it’s all there, and it’s all for you.

he groans, one hand clenching at your waist, the other curling against the carpet to ground himself.

“fuck—” he mutters, breath stuttering. “fuck, i’ve been—wanted this for so long.”

you lean down and kiss him before he can say more, swallowing whatever else he was about to confess. his mouth is still hot, slippery with you, and the taste makes you dizzy.

your clit throbs with every pass of pressure, and he strains beneath the fabric between you—his sweats soaked through the front, sticky with your slick and the smear of his own precum leaking through the cotton. you rock forward again, dragging over the mess, and he whimpers.

you smile into his mouth. “choso.”

he breathes your name with his eyes closed like it’s a prayer, lifting his hips to meet you halfway.

your lips move down his jaw, his neck, the hollow of his throat. you drag your fingers over the front of his shirt, the hem bunched between your hands.

“take this off.”

he moves like he’s in a haze—sitting up and pulling the shirt over his head, tossing it aside and turning so his back’s against the couch again.

you take a moment to watch him.

his hard chest rises and falls beneath you. flushed all the way down, lips bitten pink. his hair is a mess, his eyes shining.

“you’re gonna break me,” he breathes this time, and it sounds less like a joke and more like the truth.

your mouths meet again and you let your hands slide down his chest, fingers feeling the hard lines where his abs begin.

and when your hips roll again, dragging against him, he bucks beneath you, eyes fluttering shut, mouth parting to let out something between a groan and an exhale.

your body is sensitive as you move, buzzing from before, and the want lingers low in your belly, aching sharper every time your hips rock forward.

he’s so hard. his length presses right where you need it, and you both gasp at the same time—mouths brushing, breath shared.

you whisper, “do you wanna—”

he nods before you can finish. “yeah,” he murmurs. “yeah, if you do.”

you shift off of him to help with his sweatpants, both of you fumbling, fingers pulling at the strings, the waistband, pulling the fabric down his legs.

he’s flushed and leaking and thick, twitching against his stomach. you both pause, just looking.

“god, choso—”

and he laughs. “don’t look at me like that.”

“like what?”

his eyes flick up to find yours. “like that.”

you smile, a little shy. “sorry.”

he shakes his head, reaching for you. “don’t be.”

you crawl into his lap, thighs bracketing his again, and he’s so warm, cock flushed and twitching between you. your body’s reacting already, clenching around nothing.

his hands slide up to your face as you settle over him, eyes searching yours.

“you sure?” he asks. “we can stop.”

you shake your head. “don’t wanna stop.”

you reach down, guiding him to your entrance, and you both exhale when his tip slides through the mess between your thighs.

you pause, bracing yourself.

and then his hands grab your hips—tender, encouraging—and he tilts his hips up a little.

“go slow,” he murmurs. “let me feel you.”

you take your time sinking down on him inch by inch, nails pressing into the skin of his chest as he stretches you open. it's almost more than you can take. he’s thick, perfect, nearly overwhelming—but the way he holds you and whispers your name makes it easier. makes it good.

you bottom out with a gasp, thighs trembling around him, brows furrowing.

and he’s staring at you. wrecked. like he’s never seen anything more beautiful.

“okay?” he asks, breathing heavier now.

you nod, even though you’re hardly holding yourself together. “yeah. just—can i have a second?”

his hands stroke up your thighs and settle on your waist. “take your time.”

you breathe through it. once, twice.

you’re so full, so warm, stretched around him in a way that makes your head spin. choso doesn’t say anything else, rubbing circles into your skin with his thumbs. his chest rises hard beneath your hands, but he doesn’t move, waiting for you.

you shift your hips a little, enough to savor the drag and the way he catches against every nerve on the way out.

he whimpers. “fuck,” he breathes. “do that again.”

you do.

a shallow roll of your hips, and his hands flex at your waist, trying to stay present, like the feeling of you might knock him straight out of his body.

his grip firms. “that’s it,” he whispers. “just like that.”

you do it again, a little deeper this time, and his jaw goes slack, eyes fluttering, doing his best to hold them open just so he can watch you.

you fall into a rhythm like that, each fluid motion making the air thicker, the room smaller. the only sounds are your shared breath and the soft wet drag of your bodies moving with each other.

his head tips back with a moan. “doing so good,” he pants. “feel so fucking good, baby.”

you lean down, kissing his neck, his shoulder, the curve of his collarbone. you run your tongue along the spot by his ear and he gasps your name like it means something.

you whisper back, lips brushing his jaw: “it’s so good.”

“you’re—” he groans again, hands traveling up your back, then down to your hips, where they stay. “fuck, can’t believe it’s you.”

the next grind pulls a choked sound from him—half gasp, half groan—and you feel it vibrate through his chest where your hands are pressed.

you smile and whisper, “yeah?” like a secret.

he nods, eyes fluttering closed. “fuck—yeah.”

you press your forehead to his, keep moving. the slow grind of your hips is deeper now, messier—slick and hot and so much. every drag makes you gasp, every thrust makes him groan.

you kiss him again, mouths barely working, just panting against each other, all open breath and quiet, broken sounds.

“choso,” you whisper, breath catching and hips stuttering. “god—”

he meets your eyes then, eyes wide and glassy, mouth parted, chest rising fast. “don’t stop,” he murmurs. “please don’t stop.”

your bodies fall into something more intense now. less of a rhythm, more of a tide. you’re grinding and he’s right there with you, hips tipping up to meet every roll, like he needs to be deeper. like he’s trying to keep up, to give you everything he has.

“you’re so good,” he mumbles, almost slurred. “you’re so fucking good, you feel—” he breaks off with a moan when you grind down harder.

your clit brushes his pelvis and your body jerks. the friction sparks low and hot through your core.

“cho—” your voice cracks. “i’m—i think—”

his hands are already there, sliding up your back, one settling between your shoulder blades, the other gripping your waist, trying to ground you, trying to feel it happen.

“yeah?” he pants. “yeah?”

you nod, and he kisses you. not clean, not careful—just there, all heat and desperation, lips parting to breathe you in. his arms wrap tight around your waist, helping you move, helping you chase it, and it shatters something inside you.

“i got you,” he says, firmer now. “come on, i got you. don’t fight it, let it happen."

your cry breaks open in his mouth.

your body seizes around him, clenching tight as your orgasm rips through you—thicker and heavier than before. it floods your veins, pulls the breath out of your lungs, and he groans like it’s happening to him.

“oh shit,” he breathes, the words spilling as his hips roll up to meet you.

you’re clamping around him, still warm and wet and pulsing, and it pushes him straight over the edge.

“oh fuck,” he chokes, throat bobbing, eyes screwed shut like he can’t take it. “baby—baby, i’m—”

his voice cuts off with a loud sigh as his whole body jerks beneath you. you feel it—his hips stuttering, cock throbbing deep inside you, the way he moans through it like it’s being dragged out of him.

you hold him through it, riding it out with him, body pressed close, mouth at his temple, fingers threading through his hair as he shakes beneath you.

he moans again, softer this time. almost like a whimper. you kiss his cheek, his jaw, then the side of his throat, and whisper, “it’s okay.”

his arms wrap around you tighter like he can’t bear to let go yet, even a little. his hands move, one smoothing up your spine, the other curling at your waist, memorizing the way you fit.

you stay close, melt into him. for a while, neither of you speaks. you stay like that, breathing together, hearts hammering against each other.

his voice breaks the silence, rough and stunned and so, so soft.

“… you okay?”

you nod, forehead tucked beneath his jaw. “mhm.” you smooth a hand down his chest, feeling the way his heart stutters under your palm. “you?”

he nods. “yeah,” he says. “i just…”

he trails off. you pull back to see him, chin resting on your hand against his chest.

“didn’t think it’d be like that,” he murmurs.

you watch him for a beat. he’s not looking at you. his eyes are on the ceiling, brows drawn like he’s trying to make sense of it.

your fingers trace a line across his sternum. “what’d you think it would be like?” you ask.

his lips twitch, barely a smile. “i don’t know. i’ve thought about it,” he admits. “maybe more than i should’ve.”

the admission makes you smile, but you don’t interrupt.

“i thought it’d be good,” he continues, voice rough. “hoped it would be. just never imagined it would be like…” he trails off. “like that.”

you don’t press him to explain, don’t ask what that is. you think you already know.

you nod and lean in to kiss him again—warm now, not fevered like before. like you’re telling him me too without saying it out loud. he exhales like it’s a relief.

when you finally pull away, your breath mingling with his, you whisper, “we should probably clean up.”

he nods, but makes no move to let you go.

you smile again. “gonna let me up?”

“mm.” he tightens his arms around you. “five more seconds.”

you let him have it. your head rests on his shoulder. one of your hands finds his hair, damp with sweat, and you comb through it gently. he hums appreciatively, low in his chest. then, finally, he exhales. “okay.”

you ease off him carefully, both of you in no rush. he helps you up, walks you into the bathroom. you clean up together in the quiet way people do when they care—no fuss, no awkwardness. just hands brushing, little glances, and comfortable silence.

once you’re both back in the living room, he tugs the blanket off the back of the couch and settles into the cushions. he looks at you, hoping, but not assuming.

you go to him.

it’s easy, familiar, like it’s not the first time you’ve curled up against him like this, even though it is. his arm wraps around your waist. your head finds his shoulder. and for a while, there’s only the sound of breathing, the soft hum of night through the windows, and the weight of your bodies pressed together.

everything feels warm, safe. but part you needs to hear him say it, just to be sure.

“are we okay?”

his fingers pause for a second, then keep moving. “yeah,” he says. “of course we are.”

you pull back enough to look up at him.

“you don’t think we messed anything up?” you ask.

“no,” he says, gentle. “not even a little.”

some small, invisible knot in your chest loosens.

“okay,” you whisper.

he doesn’t say anything else—just pulls you closer and lets your head fall back against his chest before you can think about it too hard.

maybe it was always going to be this, you think. maybe it was never anything else.

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