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justagalwhowrites · 3 days ago

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Halcyon - Ch. 19: Did You Mean That?

Joel confronts your shared past and potential future. A continuation of Halcyon from the prologue through Ch. 18, a modern no outbreak AU TLOU fic found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Angst. Modern No Outbreak AU, No use of Y/N, Slow burn, 18+ only, Minors DNI

Length: 6.6k

AO3 | Main Master List | Prologue | Previous Chapter

Joel was frozen for longer than he was proud of, staring at the place you’d left him.

I fucking heard you.

What the fuck did that even mean? Heard what?

He looked back toward Sarah’s room. He shouldn’t just leave her here by herself but he considered it all the same. He’d just… he’d go after you, make you talk to him like he should have done all those years ago. He wasn’t going to just let you disappear again, not this time.

Instead, he called you, still standing on his front stoop, still considering chasing after you. It rang twice but then you sent him to voicemail.

“Fuck!”

His grip got tight on the phone but he resisted the urge to hurl the phone at the brick of his house.

“Dad?” Sarah peered at him from around the doorway, her eyes somehow seeming especially wide.

He sighed.

“Yes, baby girl.”

“You and Aunt Goldie were really in a fight, huh.”

He sighed again, looking at his daughter even though it only made him feel worse. She loved you so much, you were the closest thing she’d ever had to a mother and Joel had fucked that up, too.

“It’s… it’s complicated, baby girl,” he said. “C’mon, let’s go inside, it’s getting late, you should get ready for bed…”

“But,” she huffed. “Dad, it’s Goldie. You can’t just let her leave, she’s family!”

“I know,” he said, a hand on her back as he guided her back inside. “Not gonna just let her go, don’t worry. I just… need to figure out what to do first, OK?”

“Promise you’re not going to just not talk again for years?” She asked, looking up at him. “Because - sorry, Dad - that was bullshit.”

“Hey,” he said. “Language.”

“Dad.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right. It was bullshit.”

He texted you while Sarah got ready for bed but you left him on read and he ground his teeth. He read his daughter a chapter from a book and resisted her begging to have him read another one before tucking her in, thankful that she still wanted him to do this at all.

“Hey Dad?” She said as he went to leave.

“Yes, baby girl?”

“You’re going to talk to her, right?”

He sighed. She sounded so hopeful.

“I’ll fix it,” he said. “Promise. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she said, sounding more relaxed.

He closed the door behind him and went to the living room, pacing for a moment.

I fucking heard you.

He tried to remember the conversation with Ricky all those years ago, not something he’d really thought about in so long.

Other things from that small window of time had dominated Joel’s memory. He remembered trying to find the words to talk to you, trying to come up with a plan for every possible outcome. If you wanted him, too, then he would figure out a way to be there for Tommy and his mom from afar and go with you. If, heaven forbid, you were pregnant, he would do everything to make sure you could still go to school and still be everything you were meant to be while he took care of the rest. If you wanted nothing to do with him… that had been the one scenario he hadn’t come up with a solution for. Of course, that had been the one he’d been left to reckon with.

He remembered how he felt then, how desperate he’d been. But he couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said to fucking Ricky, something that had apparently stuck out in your mind so much that you’d moved across the country without a fucking word. He went over it again and again but couldn’t remember it, even though it felt like his fucking life depended on it.

Eventually he tried to call you again but it only rang once before you sent him to voicemail.

He listened to your outgoing message, bright and cheery, flexing his hand again and again as he waited, impatiently, for the beep.

“Goldie,” he said when it finally let him record a message. “Not letting you walk out, I’m gonna keep calling. Just… pick up, baby. Please.”

He hung up and immediately called again. Two rings, then voicemail. He called again.

The fourth time, you finally answered, your voice sharp and harsh.

“What!” You snapped. “What more do you want from me?”

“I want to talk to you,” he said, straining to keep calm. “I don’t know what you mean, I don’t remember what the fuck you’re talking about, I…”

You laughed once, derisively.

“Of course you don’t,” you said. “You wouldn’t, would you? Because I was always just another girl to you, wasn’t I? Why would you remember…”

“No,” he cut you off. “No, that’s not…”

“I need some space, Joel,” you said.

“I’m not losing you again, Goldie,” he said, harsher than he really meant to. “Please, let me just…”

“If you don’t want to lose me then do what I’m asking you to do,” you said. “I need space, OK? I can’t just do this with you, I can’t… just don’t call me or text me or whatever, just give me some time.”

“Goldie…”

“I mean it, Joel,” you said. “I need space.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fine,” he said. “I…I can do that.”

“Thank you,” you said. “I’ll talk to later.”

“Will you?” He asked, probably rougher than he should have.

“Eventually,” you said. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice thick. “Yeah, OK.”

You hung up and he sighed, sinking onto the couch and cradling his head in his hands for a moment.

He was on the edge of losing you again, he could feel it. He couldn’t let it happen, not this time. He started thinking again, just like he had all those years ago, trying to think up contingency plans and ways to work through this without you leaving but, really, that’s what it always came back to. He’d do anything - he’d never touch you again, he’d tolerate your shitbag husband, he’d watch you live a life he was agonizingly separate from - if it just meant that you stayed.

Joel got himself a drink, which quickly became two and then three, staring at the ceiling, wondering just how long he was supposed to stay away from you this time before he passed out on the couch.

When he woke up the next day, time seemed to crawl. He couldn’t just ignore you. You were in everything, it seemed. Sarah showed him the books you’d gotten her, excited about reading them. He reviewed his business plan again and again, looking at your notes in the margins. He put on a Longhorns t-shirt and remembered you sitting at his kitchen table, building out your syllabus for the year.

Even Tommy noticed a difference when he was at work on Tuesday, seemingly short tempered and impatient.

“You gonna tell me who pissed in your Cheerios or you gonna leave that a mystery?” Tommy asked as they leaned against his truck during a coffee break.

“What do you mean?” Joel frowned, staring down at the paper cup and thinking about how you took your coffee and wondering what was he supposed to do with that knowledge if you were just gone now.

“I mean you’ve been biting people’s heads off all week,” Tommy said. “I mean, you’re always an asshole but you’ve been in rare form man.”

“Tommy…”

“Don’t feed me some bullshit, either,” he interrupted him. “Know you too well for that.”

Joel looked at Tommy for a moment before he sighed and it all came spilling out of him - prom night, what had been happening between the two of you the last few months, the moment in his kitchen, what you’d yelled at him over the weekend, all of it.

“Jesus,” Tommy said when he was done, just blinking at him, dumbfounded. “I… fuck, man. I always thought there was something between you two but… holy shit.”

“I don’t know what the fuck it is she’s talking about,” Joel said. “I talked with Ricky back then but fuck if I can remember what it was about, that was more than a decade ago, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“I mean… do you know how she feels?” Tommy asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Yeah,” Joel scoffed. “Yeah, I think she’s made that perfectly fuckin’ clear.”

“Has she?” Tommy said. “Because - and maybe you just didn’t mention it - but I don’t think you actually talked about it. Ever. Not once.”

Joel frowned, looking at the ground, going over everything in his mind.

That couldn’t be right, could it?

It sure seemed like you’d talked about it. Maybe not explicitly, but everything you’d said pointed to you seeing him as a friend. You said you wanted to be with someone you could love and that wasn’t him. The first time he’d slept with you again, you asked him not to call you baby and he’d all but begged you to let him. He’d had to fucking comfort you the morning after the concert, tell you that it didn’t mean anything so you didn’t panic because being with him freaked you out that much. You’d never said it, not in so many words, but you didn’t need to.

“Maybe you should ask her,” Tommy said when Joel had been quiet for too long.

“Tommy,” Joel groaned, rolling his eyes. “I can’t just…”

“Can’t you?” Tommy said. “I mean… shit, man. You already blew it all up, what else you got to lose?”

Tommy’s words were still in Joel’s mind when he left the job site that afternoon, going home to get cleaned up before going to the bank for his business loan appointment.

What did he really have to lose? He could at least tell you how he felt, a thought that made his chest tight but brought a sense of relief, too. He’d been holding this in for so long now. It seemed like loving you had become a part of him, one that he was used to keeping to himself but one he didn’t want to hide anymore.

He’d told himself for years that he’d loved you quietly because it’s what you wanted. You weren’t interested, it was unfair to put his feelings on you. Even when you were a country away and not speaking with him, he found it strangely comforting to know that while it might be because he’d caved to his baser instincts and slept with you, it wasn’t because he’d pushed his feelings on you. He had regrets - he’d have given anything to take back that night if it meant you’d just talk to him again - but at least he knew how he felt about you hadn’t been the thing that had driven you away.

Could it really be possible that not telling you had been the thing that sent you running from him? Had he really wasted years of his life not having you all because he’d been too afraid of actually fucking saying it?

He put on his best clothes - wishing he had a suit for the first time in his life - and took a deep breath, looking at himself in the mirror. It felt like his whole life was riding on this, everything he could have sitting there, just out of reach.

He’d never been worthy of you before. Back when he met you, he was barely passing his classes, going nowhere fast. Doomed to spend his life in his hometown, doing some job to get by while trying to keep his kid brother’s nose clean. He hadn’t gotten much better since, staying in the first job he could get, doing his best to raise the child he’d made by accident, trying to make something of himself as he could. It was nothing compared to you. But if he could manage this, actually do something real and tangible, maybe he’d feel worthwhile.

Joel drummed his hands on the steering wheel as he drove, one of the Taylor Swift songs from the concert he’d gone to with you and Sarah coming on the radio and he remembered looking at you that night, remembered how much he wanted to kiss you in a way that actually meant something. He had to do this. He had to.

His stomach was in knots as he sat in the bank waiting room, one foot bouncing as he tried not to crinkle his presentation and application in his hands. He wished you were here. Why was he doing this on his own? What made him think he was even fucking capable of this without you?

After what felt like a small eternity, a woman named Audrey brought him back to her office and Joel took a deep breath before walking her through his business plan.

His heart was pounding the entire time and there was something perverse about talking through a future that you weren’t somehow a part of. He walked Audrey through the financial plans, what the next five years would look like and there was the nagging thought at the back of his mind that he should have talked with you about all of this. How money would be tight for a while, how he’d be extra busy, how much he appreciated the way you’d supported him through all of this so far. He never could have done this without you pushing him, encouraging him, helping him navigate the business world. It felt like your success, too, when Audrey set his presentation down on her desk, nodding.

“Well, Joel,” she said, looking at him with a smile. “I think we have everything we need. Congratulations, you’re getting your loan!”

Joel just laughed for a second, looking next to him quickly before remembering that you weren’t by his side.

“Thank you,” he said. “This is… thank you very much.”

“Looking forward to doing business with you,” she smiled. “Give me just a minute and I’ll be back with some papers so we can get things going.”

Joel took his phone out and stared at his text message conversation with you, the last thing he sent still “I’m sorry.” He wanted to tell you that he’d done it. He was a business owner, he was going to be something, he was becoming someone that Sarah was going to be proud of and it was all because you’d come back into his life. You were who he wanted to share this with and he couldn’t.

Audrey gave him the paperwork and he went through it page by page, more than a little reminded of when he got his mortgage and felt like he was signing his life away but with more optimism about his future this time.

About halfway through the paperwork, though, the pen started skipping. He tried wetting the tip of it, scratching on a corner of the paper but he couldn’t get it to write smoothly again.

“Do you got another one of these?” Joel asked, holding the pen up. “Can’t get it to work…”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” Audrey said, looking around her desk, including at an empty pen cup. “Let me just…”

She opened a desk drawer and took a few things out, piling things on her desk - a purse, water bottle, a book.

Joel cocked his head at the book, the spine of it familiar. So familiar that he couldn’t help but laugh. Of course you’d be here, too.

“What?” She asked as she found a plain, white box and pulled out a handful of pens with the bank’s logo on the side. She dropped them into the pen cup and held one out to Joel.

“Oh, nothin’,” he said, taking the pen and nodding at the novel. “Just… my friend, she wrote that book. Funny seeing someone read it.”

“Wait, really?” She asked, her face lighting up as she held up your book. “You know who wrote this?”

“Yeah,” Joel nodded. “Yeah, she’s my best friend, known her since we were 15. She’s… she’s amazing. She teaches now, over at UT.”

Audrey set the book down, leaning over the desk with her arms folded in front of her like she was going to tell Joel some kind of secret.

“OK can I ask something?” She asked. “Sorry, this is probably hugely unprofessional but I am obsessed with this book, I can’t put it down and my book club is going crazy. Is any of it true? The falling in love and things ending like that? It seems like it has to be at least somewhat based on her life, I don’t see how someone could write this without knowing it, you know?”

“Oh, uh,” Joel cupped the back of his neck awkwardly. “I actually… haven’t read it?”

“Oh,” she said, sitting back a little, looking let down.

“Sorry,” Joel said. “I’ve tried and I know it’ll be amazing but it’s just too weird for me…”

“No, I’m sorry,” she laughed a little. “I overstepped, I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“I should read it,” Joel said quickly. “I got it at home, maybe I’ll give it another go now.”

“You should,” Audrey said. “It’s really, really good.”

The new pen worked and Joel finished the paperwork, staring at his signature on the last page a little too long. He handed the pen and papers back to Audrey.

“You can keep the pen,” she smiled, taking the pages. “Let me make copies of these for your records but otherwise, congratulations, owner of Miller Brothers Construction and Contracting!”

Joel had a bubble of pride in his chest as he drove home, one that seemed too big to keep contained and, against his better judgement, he called you.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he expected, if he thought you were going to send him to voicemail, if you were going to answer and let him actually say something to you or what.

What he didn’t expect was Gale.

“Hello?”

Joel just blinked for a second, recognizing the man’s pompous voice even from just the one word.

“Is this Joel?” Gale - fucking BRAD - said. He took his silence as a yes and laughed. “Was wondering if I’d hear from you. Don’t worry, she’s with me, back where she belongs. Thanks for looking after her while I was gone, though. Appreciate it.”

“Lemme talk to her,” Joel said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” he said. “Seems like she doesn’t want much to do with you these days. Think you blew it. Thanks for that, too, by the way.”

“We’re just…”

“You’re just nothing,” Gale cut him off. “You were nothing but a childish distraction for her. She went running back here when things got hard - which I take my part of the blame for - and she needed a project to keep herself busy but she doesn’t need you anymore. So go back to the little life you’re meant for and leave us be. She was always too much for you and this place, anyway.”

“No,” Joel said sharply. “No, you put her on the phone, put her on the phone right now!”

“Can’t do that,” Gale said. “But I’ll tell her you called. Take care.”

The line went dead and Joel threw his phone against the dash so hard the screen cracked.

“Fuck!” He yelled, smacking his hands against the steering wheel. He wasn’t going to lose you, not again, not like this.

He ignored Gale. Instead, he drove to your house, pounding sharply on the door, panting for breath as he did but you never answered.

So he went to Anna’s next. He only needed to knock for a minute before she opened the door, Ellie’s beaming, chubby face happy in her arms.

“Hey Joel,” Anna smiled at him. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! Here to see this one?”

Ellie squirmed in Anna’s arms, cooing and reaching for Joel and he laughed once, he couldn’t help it, before holding his arms out for her. Anna handed him her daughter and Ellie giggled, immediately reaching to tangle her tiny fingers in his curls. He smiled at her for a moment, marveling at the little girl who’d brought you and him together in the way it felt like you were always meant to be.

“Is she here?” Joel asked, bouncing a little with Ellie, watching her smile, her little body a grounding force that eased his racing heart.

“Oh,” Anna frowned, her eyebrows knitting together. “No, sorry, she’s not here too often anymore, just a few times a week… She moved back home, I thought you knew that?”

“No, I did,” Joel said quickly, looking to Anna and offering a finger to Ellie for her to gum at. “She just… wasn’t there, tried callin’ her but…”

“Oh,” Anna pulled her phone out, looking at the time. “She might still be at the school, I can call her for you…”

“No,” Joel said quickly, not wanting to get your sister involved in the mess of whatever the fuck was going on between the two of you. “Don’t… Don’t worry about it, sure I’ll talk to her eventually.”

“OK,” Anna said, still frowning. “Look… It’s not my business but… Is there something going on with you two?”

Joel just looked at Anna for a moment, wondering if he should tell her, too, because fuck it, why not just let the whole world know how much he’d fucked up with you.

But she beat him to it, going from a frown to an absolutely glowing smile in no time at all.

“Oh my God.”

“What?” He asked, adjusting his hold on Ellie.

“You love her!” She sounded practically giddy. “Oh my GOD I knew it! You LOVE her! Have you told her? Does she know? Oh my GOD, JOEL!”

“I… I haven’t exactly said it,” Joel said, his cheeks getting hot. “I don’t want to make it her problem, I don’t want to get in the way of her being happy, I just… I want to be there for it.”

Anna just looked at him for a moment before shaking her head a little.

“Is… Is she happy with him?” Joel asked, watching your sister closely. “Is he what she wants? I didn’t know her when they were really together, I just… it seems like he holds her back and that he’s bad for her and…”

“Joel, did you read her book?” Anna cut him off.

He frowned.

“What? What does that…”

“You wanted to know if he’s what she wants,” Anna said. “She’s never going to actually say it, you know that. At least not to you or to me, she’s always going to try to seem like she’s OK and handle it herself until she can’t and even then she’s not going to actually fucking say it, Joel, but she will write it. She always writes it. Read the book, Joel.”

He gave Ellie back to Anna and went home, trying to focus as he made Sarah dinner and helped her with her homework.

Read the book. Just read the fucking book. Was that all it would take? Could he even do that? If fucking Brad really was what you wanted, could he really sit and read hundreds of pages about how much better your life had been when he wasn’t in it?

He’d never been able to manage it and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to know you through your words and it wasn’t because he didn’t like your writing. It was because he didn’t know if he could stomach reading something you wrote while you were in love with someone else.

But… Anna was right. He knew that. If he wanted to know the truth of any of it, he’d have to read it. So, after he tucked Sarah into bed, he sat on the floor, staring at the box in his closet that held the two copies of your book like it was daring him to actually confront his feelings for a change. Because that had always worked out so well for him in the past, not like every fucking time he’d resolved to actually talk to you he hadn’t found you loving someone else.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, opening the box and pulling out the books. This time, though, he picked the signed copy, the one he’d never tried to read before. There was something different about holding this copy, knowing that you had once, too. He ran his hands over the cover and the spine reverently for a moment before he leaned his back against the wall of the closet and opened the book.

Joel had to force himself to read past the first few paragraphs, his stomach in knots the entire time, but, after a while, he fell into it - to the point that he almost forgot that he was reading your book.

He’d known, from what little he’d managed to read in the past, that the book started in Austin, he just hadn’t expected the story to linger there.

But it did, the narrative following a girl named Cressida. She started out as a quiet, introspective high schooler who had become unlikely friends with a football player named Eli, a friendship that felt so like his with yours. They knew each other, understood each other, their worlds seem to revolve around each other. It seemed natural that it led to them sleeping together. But instead of the immediate implosion that had ended your relationship in real life, theirs devolved over time. Cressida came back to him again and again, the two of them winding up loosely connected every time a relationship of Eli’s fizzled out, her clinging to a heart wrenching longing that hurt to read, one that her friend seemed shockingly oblivious to.

Eventually, though, things came crashing down. This was different too, though, because it ended not with her vanishing but him, a car accident claiming Eli’s life when Cressida had finally resolved to tell him how she felt. They buried him in a sunny corner of the graveyard just before graduation and Cressida, it seemed, never really moved past it.

The other three-quarters of the book followed her as she tried – desperately, devastatingly – to live again, to get over the love she’d never really had to begin with, to find some place to root herself outside of that sun-drenched grave in her hometown.

She never really managed it, the ending almost painfully unsatisfying but feeling true. She’d become something – Cressida delving into the business world instead of the creative one as you had – and she found success away from home but her mind kept going back to that place and that person. She’d had relationships but, when her last boyfriend had proposed, she couldn’t bring herself to say yes. It had felt like a lie, to tell someone she would love him above all others when she’d never love him more than the memory of the boy who had been gone for years. He’d died at the worst time, the part of her life that would always be on a pedestal no matter what she did. Nothing and no one would ever compare and she was stuck, still going back to him again and again even though he was cold in the ground.

The last chapter closed with her bringing home a man who reminded her of her friend, something charming about him that took her back to that brighter place for a while. But when he fell asleep next to her, she had to confront that hollow feeling in her chest. In the last moment of the story, she bought a plane ticket to go back to that sunny grave site, something about the calm that fell over her when she decided to go back making it seem like that grave was her resting place, too.

Joel just stared at the book when he read the final words, the last pages flopping over, revealing your picture on the inside flap of the dust jacket. That knowing smile and piercing gaze gutted him then, no longer the taunt and temptation of knowledge they had once been.

Was Anna right, was this the truth of it? Did you write out your real feelings? Had he really gotten everything this fucking wrong? Had he really spent years wishing things with you were different when they’d been different all along?

He got out his phone and ignored the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning and called you. You didn’t answer. It didn’t even go to voicemail, the phone ringing once before he got some message saying the number was unavailable.

“Fuck,” he sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. He wasn’t positive but, based on his experience trying to track down Sarah’s mom years ago, that meant you’d blocked his number. It’d be just his fucking luck that he thought - hoped? - that, maybe, you felt the way he did at the same time he lost you for good.

He sat there with his eyes closed in the glow of his closet light, next to the box made up of the history of you, trying to pick through his memory from all those years ago, searching for some sort of guarantee that the book was based on what happened between the two of you back then.

At some point, when he was swallowed by his memory of you, he fell asleep. Maybe it was the book, maybe it was the fact that he’d been sifting through ancient history when exhaustion finally caught up with him, maybe it was your words still ringing in his ears, but he remembered then.

In his dream, he was back under the bleachers with Ricky, pacing to work out his nerves. He talked to his friend - the one who was more experienced, the one who wasn’t reckless, the one who would understand exactly why he was so afraid of what he might have just done to you.

But, most importantly, he remembered exactly how that conversation had ended.

It’s Goldie. I wish it were anyone else. It’d be better if it were anyone else.

“Dad!”

Joel jerked awake, the book still open in his hands, your signature there for him to see.

I fucking heard you.

Sarah pounded on his bedroom door again.

“Dad, come on!” She yelled. “I’m gonna be late!”

“Shit,” he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and checked the time before calling to his daughter. “Two minutes, baby girl!”

He got up as quickly as he could, his legs tingling from his awkward sleeping position on the floor of the fucking closet.

Joel got changed quickly, barely paying attention to what he was putting on.

He’d had the answers sitting there for years, he’d just been too afraid to look it in the face but he had and now he knew. He knew how you felt - how you must have felt, why else would his misunderstood words have driven you away? - he knew how much time he’d already fucking wasted by being a coward, he knew it all now.

He just didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.

Joel got Sarah out the door quickly, barely paying attention on his drive to the school. He couldn’t just give up. He already refused to lose you, not again, but now it would be impossible. You were so close, everything he’d ever wanted there in front of him but just out of reach. Even if you’d moved on now, even if you were happier with fucking Brad, he had to tell you. He owed both of you that much.

“Bye Dad!” Sarah poked her head between the two front seats and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“What was that for?” He frowned, turning to look at her.

She just shrugged and smiled.

“Just seemed like you needed it,” she said. “Love you!”

“Love you too!” He called after her as she hopped down from the truck and slammed the door behind her with a little too much force, waving behind her as she ran to the building.

“Alright,” he took a deep breath, looking at the clock on his dashboard. Just after 8 a.m. He’d start at your place because he wasn’t sure what time you went to campus this semester. But he was going to talk to you. He was going to talk to you and he was going to tell you how he felt and he was going to do it today. “I’m comin’, Goldie.”

You weren’t at your place when he got there. He tried not to think about if it was because you’d spent the night with fucking Brad, if you’d gone to his hotel and had never even been here. Instead, he went to campus. He wasn’t sure where you’d be teaching right now but he was pretty sure you wouldn’t be in your office. You always had morning classes with a break in the afternoon.

“Excuse me,” he said to a random passing college student. “I’m lookin’ for… shit, probably creative writing? Or literature? What buildings are those?”

“Oh, um,” the girl looked around quickly. “I’m a physics major but I know I had an English class in that building over there last semester? You could start there?”

She pointed to a building in the distance and Joel kept his groan to himself. He forgot how fucking huge college campuses were.

But he couldn’t just sit and wait. He needed to find you and he needed to do it now.

“Thanks,” he said, giving her a wave and already starting to jog for the building. “Appreciate it!”

But you didn’t have a class in that building. At least not at that time of day. He knew because he looked in all the lecture halls. You weren’t there.

He tried two other buildings after asking for directions - no luck - before checking his watch. If your schedule was anything like it had been the semesters before, you’d be in your office soon. That, at least, he knew how to find.

He jogged there, resisting the urge to run because that would probably make him look utterly insane, and threw his arm out to catch the elevator on its way up.

“Floor 10, please,” he said to one of the college girls looking at him funny as he panted for breath. She did as he asked, though, and he marveled, for a moment, at just how fucking young college kids seemed to him now.

He closed his eyes and focused for a second, trying to figure out exactly what to say to you, but hearing your name pulled him out of his head.

“I don’t think they’re still like… together together, though,” the girl who’d pushed the button said. “Like I know they were married but she said he was visiting. He’d live here if they were married, right? Besides, I really don’t think her husband would be asking for my number with his wife there, would he?”

“I dunno,” the other girl shrugged. “He’s just… isn’t he old? Like old old, not hot old.”

“I like them old,” the first girl giggled. “They know what they’re doing then.”

The elevator chimed and the girls got off and Joel’s heart was beating so hard he could feel the blood in his body. You’d brought fucking Brad here and he’d hit on one of your fucking students - one who looked so young Joel never would have looked twice at her if he saw her on the street. Right in front of you, from the sounds of it. That’s who you’d chosen, that’s who you’d felt like you deserved because he hadn’t opened his fucking mouth years earlier.

When the elevator made it to floor 10, he squeezed out of the doors, not willing to wait for them to open all the way, and ran to your office.

“Excuse me,” the girl behind the front desk said as he went past her. “You can’t just…”

“It’s fine,” he said, catching the door as someone came out of the hall where your office was.

“No, wait!” She called after him but he ignored her.

He ducked around other professors, dodging them and their questions until he was at your door.

It was closed but he didn’t bother to knock, throwing the door open to find you there, standing in front of your desk in the arms of your fucking husband as he kissed you.

Joel moved so fast that neither you nor Gale had noticed he was there but he couldn’t just stand there and watch that fucking guy kiss you, not like that.

Without really thinking about it, he ripped him away from you, just catching a glimpse of the shock on your face as he punched Gale in the head, sending him sprawling into your desk.

“Joel!” You yelled before grabbing his arm and pulling him back before he could hit your goddamn husband again. “What the fuck are you doing!”

“Sorry, baby,” he said, shaking the feel of the punch out of his hand, his knuckles raw. “I couldn’t just watch that fucking guy touch you like that.”

“Well, it’s really not your business how he touches me!” You snapped, shoving him back. “You don’t get to just come in here and hit people because you’re not getting your way anymore!”

“That ain’t what this is,” he said, taking you by the shoulders, something grounding in the fact that could feel you again. “Baby, I read your book…”

“Congratulations!” You snapped. “What, do you want a cookie because you finally got around to supporting me?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Did you mean that? What you wrote, was that…”

“What does it matter!” You asked, your eyes searching his face. “Why do you care! It’s ancient history, it doesn’t…”

“It does matter!” He held you tight, wanting to kiss you more than he ever had before. “It matters because I love you, I love you so much, I’ve loved you since we were fucking kids, I love you so much that I think it might kill me if you don’t let me just say that to you at least this once and if you feel that way, too…”

“You need to leave,” Gale - who Joel had all but forgotten about - said, trying to position himself between you and Joel. “And take your hands off my wife.”

“Oh I haven’t even fuckin’ started with you,” Joel said, rounding on him. “You’re a fucking predator, chasing after her fuckin’ students while you’re here with her? Doing with them what you did with her, that it? Lucky I don’t beat the shit out of you…”

“Joel, I…” you began, but you didn’t get the chance to finish, Gale pulling you back from Joel and going to hit him.

Joel didn’t give him the chance, shoving him away from you before punching him again. Gale fell, landing on your desk again with a sharp crack.

“Joel!” You yelled.

He didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, he got pulled back, security guards dragging him into the hall and away from you before he knew if he had a shot at really having you for the first time in his life.

A/N: FUCK YOU GALE!

Sorry, I've been picturing that moment since I first thought up the fic. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Taglist: @kaseyconnour

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #halcyon #joel miller x oc

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dwobbitfromtheshire · 20 hours ago

Text

They talked about this before it started, that if it got to be much for anything, they would talk about it. Steve would understand. He always did, especially since he was afraid himself. Eddie's panic attacks were happening more frequently, and what happened over spring break was still fresh in everyone's minds. It was difficult for Eddie to breathe, and Steve knew it was coming, and Eddie did too. They could feel it when they touched, kissed, and fucked. They were already mourning a relationship that was never supposed to be serious in the first place. The next morning, Eddie told him that his band wanted to go on the road.

"I figured," Steve said, picking at his blanket.

"You're not mad?" Eddie asked.

"Of course not," Steve said. "This town is killing you, Eddie, I couldn't ask you to stay."

"You could ask," Eddie shrugged.

"You wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't want you to resent me for staying," Steve said.

"You could come with me," Eddie said.

"You know that I can't leave the kids until they graduate," Steve said.

"And I can?" Eddie asked.

"Yes," Steve said. "You want to go. Do you want to go?"

"I do," Eddie said, swallowing thickly.

"I don't want to hold you back," Steve replied.

"You could never," Eddie said and paused. "I suppose you really can't have it all. You're right, I suppose I can't stay. I know I should have said. . .but I guess you could already tell. This town is killing me and not even you - which is crazy because you're Steve fucking Harrington. You're the most beautiful man alive. Inside and out."

Steve pulled him into a deep kiss, pouring everything he had into it. He could taste salty tears on his tongue. He couldn't tell who was crying more. Steve pulled back with a gasp.

"Eddie, I - " Steve closed his mouth and said nothing.

The next day, they said another goodbye, this time in front of everyone. It wasn't nearly as intimate. No one knew they were fucking. They had still been figuring things out about themselves, and Eddie hadn't been quite ready to label himself or tell anyone. Steve couldn't even tell Robin. The day after Eddie left, Steve took off to another bar outside of Hawkins. He couldn't go to the Hideout, too many memories, and he couldn't explain to people why he was drowning his sorrows. Steve was having a lot more difficult time than he had thought he would, and he respected Eddie's choice but it was killing him that he was gone, that there was an empty spot in his bed. He couldn't even tell Robin why he was so heartbroken. The best thing about this bar was that it was attached to a motel, so he was planning on getting drunk and finding his way to the room he rented. Of course, that's where he met Tiffany, who was just as heartbroken as he was. . .

"Steve, Steeeeve," Robin sang.

"Ugh, Robin, go away, my head is killing me," Steve said.

"Yeah, that's probably because you drank half the motel bar," Robin said.

"How are you here?" He asked, burying his head deeper into the pillow.

"You gave the girl you slept with my phone number, and you told her to let me know if you accidentally died," Robin said.

"I'm not dead," Steve groaned.

"No, but you look it," Robin scoffed. "You're going to need to check out soon."

"Where's - " Steve asked, looking up. "Tiffany?"

"Yeah. She left," Robin said.

"That's probably good for her," Steve said. "Ooh. I'm going to puke. Yeah, no, wait - yeah, I'm going puke."

He slipped out of the bed, butt naked, and ran to the bathroom to empty the contents of his stomach.

"Jesus, what the hell? I thought you were done with one night stands?" Robin asked.

"I just - yeah, I mean, I was but then - FUCK!" Steve yelled and then he burst into tears.

Robin frowned and grabbed a sheet of the bed, tossing it over him. She cleaned his mouth, sat on the floor, and pulled his head into her lap.

"Steve?" Robin asked. "I know you and Eddie have gotten close, but I didn't think you'd be this upset that he left. Jesus, how are you going to handle me going off to college? Shit, I put my foot in my mouth again, didn't I? Was that a little insensitive? Steve?"

"I'm in love with him," Steve sobbed, and then everything came pouring out. "I'm sorry and shit, I think I need to apologize to Eddie because I shouldn't have told you."

"Hey, hey, slow down. I think he'd understand," Robin said softly. "There's a lot to process here. I'm sorry, babe, I should have known."

"It's not your fault," Steve said. "I'm just so stupid."

"It's not your fault either," Robin said. "It was just a sticky situation for the both of you. And if you ever call my best friend stupid again, I'm going to beat you up. Only I'm allowed to call you a dingus, okay?"

"Okay," Steve said and laughed.

"Come on, let's get you home. . .dingus," Robin said.

Steve smiled. She always said dingus like she was saying I love you. God, she was his best friend.

"Dingus," Steve said, and Robin laughed.

"You're so drunk," she giggled. "Come on, Popeye."

It was a difficult time for Steve over the next few months, even more difficult than when he got over Nancy Wheeler. Maybe because he had allowed himself to be more vulnerable than he ever had with Nancy, and maybe in doing so, he had fallen harder for Eddie. With Robin's help, he was able to move forward. It helped that he had sold and moved out of his parents' place. They didn't think he could sell the place, but he proved them wrong. And with the money, he was able to tuck a lot of it away and move into a comfortable two bedroom apartment, an apartment that he was allowed to decorate however he wanted. After nearly a year, he was in a good place when things decided to turn upside down again for Steve. We'll, roughly 9 months later, to be a little more precise. . .

"Oh my god! I can't believe you forgot to buy me my favorite chips! After I came all this way to visit you!" Robin yelled.

"If you would move stuff around, you'll find them!" Steve exclaimed as he set up the movie.

"Oh, there they are! I knew you still loved me," Robin said.

Steve rolled his eyes as Robin came into the living room, her arms laden with snacks. She unceremoniously dumped them on the table.

"I'm glad you were able to pull yourself away from Vickie long enough to visit me before heading back to Chicago," Steve said.

"I can prioritize between the romantic love of my life and the platonic love of my life," Robin said.

Steve and Robin snuggled into each other, their matching pajamas firmly in place, as they settled in for the evening. Just as they were about to start the movie, Steve got the phone call. Robin watched as Steve could only give one words answers before finally putting the phone back down, his face pale.

"Steve?" Robin asked.

"We're going to have to cut the evening short," Steve said.

"What? But we've been planning this evening for weeks - "

"Robin, I'm a dad."

They drove to Indianapolis, where Tiffany had given birth, and now they were standing in the nursery, staring at the swaddled baby right in front of them. Tiffany had already left the hospital by the time they arrived.

"She's so tiny," Steve said breathlessly.

"And pink," Robin said. "She doesn't have a name yet. Do you have any ideas?"

"I - I don't know," Steve said.

"Do you want to keep her?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, I know it's crazy, but I want her," Steve said as he took her hand in his, letting her tiny hand wrap around his finger. "More than anything."

"You think of a name while I take your credit card and go get some supplies for your little chicken nugget," Robin said, squeezing his shoulder. "You're going to be a great dad."

Robin pressed a kiss to his hair, cooed at the baby, and then quickly left them alone. Steve watched his daughter wiggle in her blanket and listened to the noises she made, her little tongue darting out every so often. He watched as her brow furrowed in confusion. It must be so confusing to come into this world, not knowing who you are, where you are, and taken from the only place you've ever known. Steve placed a hand on her chest.

"It's okay, I'm here," Steve whispered, and he smiled when she calmed down a bit.

"You can pick her up, you know," the nurse said.

Steve almost jumped. He forgot he wasn't alone in the room. A friendly faced hispanic nurse was there, chuckling at him.

"I know, I just don't want to - she's so small," Steve said.

"Every good parent is afraid of dropping them," the nurse said. "Come sit over here."

Steve sat down in the rocking chair and watched as she picked up his daughter. He glanced at her name tag. Sofia. She placed the baby carefully into his waiting arms. He gasped in delight, the feeling of holding her overwhelming him in a very good way. Was he crying?

"Thanks, Nurse Sofia," Steve said.

"She looks good in your arms," Sofia said.

"She feels good. Feels right," he muttered. "She's so wonderful. Hey, there. I'm your dad. I know, it's crazy. Don't feel intimated by my hair. You're bald now, kiddo, but it'll grow. . .and even if it doesn't, I'll still love you. . .oh, I'm suddenly terrified. I am going to mess her up."

"Hush, you're going to be fine," Sofia said.

Steve watched as the baby's head started to move around, as though she was looking for something and she started to whimper.

"I think she's hungry," Steve said.

"See? Your instincts are already kicking in," Sofia said.

Steve smiled. Sofia reminded him of both Claudia and Sue. Oh, speaking of them. . .they're going to freak when they find out Steve made them grandmothers. Sophia left to go the formula and came back with it pretty quickly. She showed him how to hold it so the baby wouldn't choke.

"Thank you," Steve said. "I really appreciate it. . .oh, she's really going to town. Yeah, she was hungry."

"She goes after it like my four boys did," Sofia said.

"You have four boys?" Steve asked.

"Oh, yeah, they're a handful, but I love them. Supposedly, girls are easier, but I think that's bullshit," Sofia scoffed.

"Oh, girls are just as much of a handful. I babysit a group of teenagers," Steve said.

"Then you have some practice under your belt," Sofia said. "I always thought that if I had a girl, I'd name her Elizabeth. Never happened, but I'm happy with my boys, more than enough for me."

"Elizabeth," Steve whispered.

"Does that name mean something to you?" She asked. "It sounds like it."

It was Eddie's mother's name. He remembered him talking about her all the time, how she died when he was six, and how he got his love of his music from her. Eddie always wished he could have had more time with her.

"Elizabeth," Steve whispered to his daughter, and he smiled.

"Elizabeth Robin?"

"Of course, I named her after you," Steve scoffed.

"Oh my sweet little baby bird," Robin cooed. "I can't believe I have to go back to school soon. . .as her godmother, shouldn't I get like godmaternity leave?"

"Yeah, I don't think they do that," Steve said.

"Well, they should," Robin said.

"Yeah, I'll get right on that," Steve said.

"If you love your child, you would," Robin said. "By the way, Tiffany left you a letter at the front desk. They gave it to me."

Together, they got Elizabeth into the car seat and then into the car with Robin in the driver's seat, bringing her home. . .

Dear Steve,

I hope that night meant a lot to you as it did to me. I wanted to face you and tell you so many times, but I'm kind of a coward. I think we were both very heartbroken that night, and I hope you found the same comfort in me that I did in you. It gave the courage that I needed to face who I truly am.

I feel like something greater than ourselves brought us together that night. I was just a mere vessel. . .I know you wanted to be with someone else. You called out their name, and you said it like a declaration of love. I wasn't meant to be a mother, not yet. This isn't my baby. I hope that everything works out and that you feel it as much as I do. I was glad to help you and be a part of this journey. Don't wait too long to be honest with yourself.

Sincerely, Tiffany

"A mere vessel? What the hell does that mean?" Steve asked.

"Fuck if I know."

A YEAR AND THREE MONTHS LATER. . .

Eddie scowled, his ear pressed to the phone, as Dustin went on about Steve’s new special girl in his life. How many times did Eddie have to say that he didn't want to hear about it? He swore that Dustin's ears were only there for decoration.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great that this Liddie person likes Robin more than you, but I need to tell you something, and you can't say anything to Steve," Eddie said. "You can't say anything to anyone."

"Ooh, a secret, lay it on me, and by the way, her name is - " Dustin started to say.

"Okay, whatever. I don't care. I'm surprising Steve and coming home for his birthday," Eddie said.

"Oh, shit! He'll love that. He's missed you like crazy. We all have," Dustin said. "If you get in late, make sure it's before 7 because that's when he puts her to bed."

"He gives her a bedtime?" Eddie asked.

"Of course, he does! It would be completely irresponsible to let her go to bed whenever she wanted to. She needs a schedule, Eddie," Dustin said.

"That sounds a little controlling, but okay," Eddie said.

"Well, what time would you give her?" He asked.

"I wouldn't give her a bedtime at all!" Eddie shrieked.

"Eddie! You can't do that!" Dustin exclaimed.

"Look, just don't ruin the surprise, okay?" Eddie asked before saying goodbye and hanging up the phone.

Yeah, he was definitely going to win Steve back because, honestly, this new relationship of his sounded a bit messy, and Steve deserved better than that. How much trouble could this girl be that she needed a bedtime? She has to be the one that's trouble. . .right? Steve Harrington couldn't have lost his way. There's no way he would have turned to the dark side after he left. Either way, Eddie needed to intervene.

"Okay, okay, you can do this," Eddie breathed.

He looked at the address written on the piece of paper and checked it again. He was in the right place. He didn't waste any time after visiting with Wayne. Steve’s apartment was his second place to visit. Eddie took another deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Coming!" Steve yelled, and then he heard muffled laughter from Steve. "Lizzie! Stop barking! You're not a dog! I'm going to have to talk to Robin about teaching you that."

Steve opened the door, and he nearly stumbled back at the sight of Eddie. Steve was wearing sweats and an old t-shirt of Eddie's. . .to Eddie's delight. His hair was longer, and he had quite a bit more scruff to him. Eddie was also pleased to see that he was wearing his glasses.

"Hey, Stevie," Eddie said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Eddie," Steve breathed.

They've talked on the phone and written each other letters but it was definitely better seeing each other in person.

"I wanted to surprise you for your birthday," Eddie said. "Surprise!"

"My birthday isn't until next week," Steve said in amusement.

"So, I came early," Eddie said, and then he smirked. "It's not like I haven't done that before. . .but then, you know that."

"Eddie," Steve scolded, but he was smiling and blushing. "Come on in."

"Don't mind if I do," Eddie said, stepping over the threshold. "So, where's this girl of yours? . . . Liddie? I want to meet her."

"She's in the living room, and her name is Lizzie," Steve corrected, laughing. "Come on."

Eddie followed behind Steve, enjoying the view as he did so. When he walked into the living room, all he saw was a playpen with a little girl inside. Was Steve in the middle of babysitting?

"I don't see her," Eddie frowned.

"Lizzie's right there, Eddie," Steve laughed, pointing at the crib.

"Oh my god! Steve!" Eddie yelled, appalled.

"Uh?" Lizzie asked, looking up from chewing on her teddy bear.

"Yeah, I know, I have a daughter," Steve said. "Surprise! Although, I thought you knew."

"A daughter! Oh, oh, thank god!" Eddie said, clutching his chest.

"What were you thinking?" Steve asked in confusion.

"Uh, never mind what I was thinking," Eddie said, blushing. "So, a daughter, huh? How old?"

"A year and three months," Steve said proudly.

"Oh, wow," Eddie said with a grin.

"Yeah. Time flies, and it seems like only it was only yesterday that I was in the hospital with her. . .holding her for the first time," Steve said.

A year and three months. Eddie looked at the kid. She was cute with curly brown hair and big brown eyes. Apart from that, she looked almost exactly like Steve. Eddie chuckled. It almost looked like they had a baby together. A year and three months. A year and three months?! Eddie did the math in his head. They had sex right before Eddie left, which meant that Lizzie would have had to have been concieved sometime around there. Lizzie. . .Elizabeth. . .oh, after his mom?

"Oh my god," Eddie whispered softly and grabbed his arms. "Steve. . .Steve, is she mine?"

"Eddie," Steve said slowly. "I want you to really think about what you just said."

"I am thinking about it! I'm thinking about you going through all that alone!" Eddie exclaimed. "You had to deliver her without me there to hold your hand!"

"Eddie, I didn't - "

"I'm such an idiot! I never should have left, I mean, I could have toughed it out a few more years!" Eddie shrieked.

"Eddie, I swear - "

"Oh, my god, and even though I wasn't there for you, you still named our daughter after my mother," Eddie rambled.

"If you would just stop for a minute and listen - "

"Steve!" Eddie said, grabbing his arms. "Was it the bat bites? Because I slept with a guy like a month ago, and it was only because he was wearing a polo like you! I also slept with a girl. . .she had hair like yours! Can girls also get me pregnant?! Do I have to take a pregnancy test?. . .Lizzie, sweetheart, I think you're going to be a big sister!"

"Arf! Arf!" Lizzie barked.

Eddie bent over, putting his head between his legs as his mind spun around in circles. He felt Steve grab him and drag him into the kitchen. Steve yanked off his vest and jacket, tossing them onto the counter. He turned on the faucet, grabbed Eddie's head, and shoved it under the water. Eddie shrieked.

"Okay! Okay!"

Steve turned off the water and let him up. Eddie scowled as he rung out his hair.

"Are you done?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, thanks, I needed that," Eddie said.

"Lizzie is not your daughter," Steve said.

"She's not?" Eddie asked, with wide eyes.

"Okay, with you looking at me like that, I kinda regret saying that," Steve said with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Eddie."

"No, fuck, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left," Eddie said. "I think I just regret doing that."

"Eddie, this town was suffocating you," Steve said. "You needed to leave."

"Did I, though?" Eddie asked. "Wayne managed to tough it out here."

"You need to stop beating yourself up for reacting to a bad situation that was out of your control," Steve said.

"I regretted the minute I left, but I was already out there on the road with the boys," Eddie said. "I loved it, but I think I might have left my heart behind here."

"You want to stay?" Steve asked.

"If you'll take me back," Eddie said.

"It's hard to say no when you're looking all sad and wet like that," Steve said.

"I want to stay anyway, even if you don't want to take me back," Eddie said.

"I have missed you every single minute of every single day," Steve said. "I haven't stopped loving you or hoping we'll find our way back to each other."

"I love you," Eddie whispered.

"I love you, too," Steve said.

Eddie grabbed him by the waist and kissed him. He felt Steve smiling into the kiss, wrapping his arms around his neck. He pressed Steve up against the counter, melting into him like butter. He broke the kiss, crossing to press thousands of tiny kisses all over Steve’s face. Steve giggled and pushed him back.

"Will Lizzie's mother have a problem with this?" Eddie asked.

"Oh, she's not in the picture. Hold on," Steve said.

He left and came back to Eddie, putting his hair into a towel. He handed Eddie a letter.

"What's this?" Eddie asked, sitting on a stool.

"The day after you left, I went to a hotel bar, drank it, and met a woman who was just as heartbroken as I was," Steve said. "We slept together and nine months later, Lizzie was born."

"A mere vessel," Eddie cackled after reading it. "I like her. She sounds like me."

"She also looks like you," Steve blushed.

"Okay, so we went the long way around, but we got here," Eddie laughed. "She is my daughter."

"What?" Steve asked.

"In every other way except biologically, Elizabeth is mine. I mean, you even named her after my mother," Eddie said.

"Yeah, I did do that," he blushed.

Eddie pulled Steve in between his legs, wrapping his arms around his waist. He studied his face, drinking in every inch of skin, every mole. . .God, he loved this man.

"Steve Harrington, if you want me to, I want to be your baby daddy," Eddie sighed.

"I do," Steve smiled.

Eddie flashed his dimples and smacked Steve’s ass.

"Well, introduce me to our daughter, big boy," Eddie said.

Steve laughed and pulled him up off the stool. Holding his hand, he pulled him down the hall. Eddie stopped him before pulling the towel off his head and fixing his hair. He straightened his shirt.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, his hands on his hips.

"I want to look good," Eddie said, and then he gasped. "Steve, what if she doesn't like me?"

"Eddie, she barks like a dog. She's going to love you," Steve said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Eddie asked, and Steve just shook his head.

Eddie followed Steve into the living room, where Lizzie had moved onto a cloth book. Her little tongue was out as her little finger traced the words as though she was trying to teach herself how to read. Eddie smiled. She glanced up and smiled at Eddie then at Steve.

"Dada?" Lizzie asked and held her hands up towards Steve.

Steve pulled her out of the playpen and put her on his hip. Holy fuck, Eddie thought, he looks totally hot.

"Lizzie, this is Eddie. He's going to be your other Dada," Steve said.

"Dada?" Lizzie asked, confused.

"You get two!" Steve exclaimed, pointing to himself and then to Eddie.

"Two Dadas!" Lizzie clapped.

"Wow, she caught on quick," Eddie said.

"Yeah, she's smart. I'm still not sure how much she understands," Steve said.

Lizzie leaned over Steve’s arms and reached towards Eddie. He grinned and took Lizzie into his arms.

"Hi," Eddie whispered.

"Hi," Lizzie said.

"Hi."

"Hi," Lizzie said, and then she giggled.

She reached over and started licking Eddie's cheek. Eddie cackled.

"Yeah, we definitely should talk to Robin about this. She can't go around licking people," Eddie giggled.

"Dada! Dada! Dada!" Lizzie shrieked as she bounced on his hip.

"Ooh! I wonder - ," Eddie gasped.

"What are you thinking about?" Steve asked.

Eddie set Lizzie on the floor and sprawled out in front of her.

"Okay, can you raise your little fingers like this?" Eddie said as he raised his pointer fingers to his head to make horns.

Lizzie blinked at him. She reached over and grabbed Eddie's hair.

"Ah!" Lizzie screamed.

"No, baby, no!" Eddie said while Steve laughed.

Eddie eventually guided her gently and got her to make little horns while sticking out her tongue. It wasn't perfect, but she managed it with Eddie's help. Luckily, it took Eddie long enough for Steve to get a camera.

"Good job, daddy," Steve said.

He leaned down and kissed Eddie. Lizzie shrieked and pushed Steve off Eddie. She scrunched up her face at them before hugging Eddie.

"No, Daddy, don't do that," Eddie laughed. "That's gross. . .Thanks for saving me, baby."

"I ordered dinner. . .Are you gonna stay the night?" Steve asked.

"I'm going to stay forever," Eddie said as he hugged Lizzie to him.

After dinner, Eddie happily helped Steve give Lizzie a bath before throwing a colander over a flashlight in Lizzie's room to make stars. He laid down on the floor with Lizzie curled up between him and Steve, her eyes getting heavy.

". . .so I opened my eyes and wondered if I was floating. I realized a moment later that a beautiful man was carrying me out of hell. He was begging me to stay with him, and I did want to stay with him, but I didn't know why. He spent the next few weeks taking care of me, and I spent the same amount of time trying to fight the fact that I was falling for him, a man. It wasn't until the town had run me out that I realized I was in love with him. When I came back, I realized I never wanted to leave him again. . . That man, of course, was your daddy. So, the next time I go on the road, it's going to be with you and your daddy in an RV. Your daddy is going to be playing obnoxious music, so I apologize in advance."

"Hey, your music is not obnoxious," Steve said.

"I was talking about yours," Eddie grinned.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed, slapping his chest.

"Shh! Steve, our daughter is asleep. . .what is that sound?!"

"Yeah, she snores," Steve said.

"My god, that's the loudest sound I have heard from someone so tiny."

"Hey, Eddie," Steve whispered.

"Yeah?"

"We're a family," Steve said and Eddie leaned over Lizzie's head to kiss him.

" . . . And they all lived happily ever after. . ."

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lostintransist · 6 hours ago

Text

Seamstress | Part 8

When John opens his eyes it is to a ceiling. That is his first indicator that something had truly changed.

He remembered bits of his last few weeks. His men had found him and pulled him from a gulag, an outdoor prison in northern Siberia. He had lost a lot of weight to simply keep warm enough to move breath. Turning his head with aching slowness he found the other side of your bed rumpled and still releasing heat.

“I’ve got him. I’m sorry I didn’t see your calls last night. John was at the door knocking and once I got him settled I couldn’t spare a thought for my phone.” Your voice shifts as if you are pacing in the hall. “Can you bring by some clothes and his toiletries?”

John rolls enough to rest his head where your smell remains the strongest, listening to you and his muppets plan on how to care for him while he heals. John knew he would need time to heal from this.

“When you get here can you stay long enough to help me get him washed up? I know he will feel more human with a little care.” A pause as you listen to whoever is on the other side of the line. “Yeah, I will ask him. See you soon.”

He would smile if his cheeks could contract with his face on the mattress. John had decided in Siberia that if you would have him he would marry you the moment he could stand for longer than ten minutes without needing a rest. You had mumbled to him in your sleep when your eyes could no longer stay open last night. Resting on your chest he felt the most tethered to his body and this planet he had since he had been taken.

The door opens on silent hinges. You find him instantly with his face pressed into the mattress. He hears you moving but doesn’t shift yet, waiting to see how you would react. Two fingers touched his pinky. As that had not been what he expected John pushed up with one arm to look at you.

Kneeling by the bed, chin resting on the edge you watched him.

When he caught your gaze you smiled at him so gently he felt a knot of emotion loosen ever so slightly in his chest.

“Hi, John. Can you stand?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded damaged even to his ears.

“Alright, let’s go brush your teeth then and get you some breakfast. One of your guys will be coming over soon with clothes and to help you in the shower. I have just two questions for you about all of this okay?”

John braces for a question that will turn over pain, memories wriggling like worms in the warmer soil of home.

“First question, do you want eggs, bacon, and toast or oatmeal for breakfast?”

He blinked at you. The words should have all made sense in that order but they didn’t. You wanted to know what he wanted to eat?

“Oatmeal,” he creaked.

“Wonderful, I have fresh fruit and jams and syrups. Now second question.”

He braced again.

“Your Lieutenants would like to know how you got off base. Can you tell me?” You look at him with such concern, as if you were worried he did something that might hurt him further.

The broken laugh hurt his throat. It caused his chest to ache with unshed tears as well. You rubbed a hand over his wild hair as his laughs morphed into tears. When he had cried himself out, a wet spot on your bed and your eyes glistening as well he told you.

“I got to my desk, pulled out my emergency cash, and walked out.”

“You just walked out?” The incredulous look you give him warms him. Even frostbitten and thin you stare at him as if he could hang the stars for you.

“Yeah, waved by to the guards as I passed and waited for my cab.”

You stood on your knees pressing your forehead to his.

“I’m so glad you made it back to me,” you whispered, a single tear falling to his wet spot on the sheets.

“I fought,” he whispered back.

“And you made it. Now I won’t kiss you until you have clean teeth.” You send him a big, bright smile. “Up you pop. If you’re stable on your feet I will leave you in the bathroom and get our oatmeal started.”

To his chagrin, John was stable on his feet. He didn’t trust himself to not actually fall over if he faked it so he let you lead him to the closed lid of the toilet seat, hand him a new toothbrush, and slid from his view. The comforting sounds from the kitchen slid through the space. With his mouth clean he did feel more human like you said he would. Keeping a hand on a wall John made his way into your eat-in kitchen, the bright space warmed him from the inside out with bright colors and thriving plants on the counter.

The instant you heard him you turned and pulled him into your arms. You feel like home. He holds you until the oatmeal begins to bubble. Twisting in his arms you turn off the stove and try to move to get some bowls.

“John. You need a shower, one of your guys will be here soon to help you wash. You are already shaking. Go and sit down.”

He takes the command, getting a small thrill of you telling him what to do. You serve him up as much as he will eat and by the time Roach arrives, John is falling asleep at the table. He gives John a gentle hand and helps him in and out of the tub leaving John feeling cleaner than even the time his grandmother had washed him and stripped a layer of skin from him. Roach settles him into bed with only a pair of boxers, John’s preference of sleeping wear when given the chance and John is asleep before he is fully covered with the blankets.

🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡🪡

That’s how your relationship officially starts with John you think, with him sinking into your bed in the middle of the night after escaping unspeakable horrors. He recovers day by day. His men visit and often spend the night on the couch. They loved him and wanted to see for themselves that he had put on weight and started smiling again.

The day he went back to work again he came home early to take you on a proper date. He wore his Christmas suit and you wore your New Year’s dress. John told you he had informed all of his muppets to stay away tonight, and that he would shoot anyone who tried to crash your date.

You weren’t worried. You were almost positive that he wouldn’t shoot to kill. But you had also gone ahead and texted the guys that if any of them appeared at your flat tonight then you would personally take in all of their pants a centimeter at a time until they busted through seams like the Kool-Aid man through a wall. They had all gotten the message.

Seamstress Masterlist | Masterlist

#lostintransit #lostintransit writing #cod #fanfiction #cod x reader #price x reader #john soap mactavish #soap cod #john price x reader #captain john price #simon ghost riley #gary roach sanderson #kyle gaz garrick #fluff

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jaeyunluvbot · 2 days ago

Text

midnight fiction

genre/tags 𝟅𝟈 coworkers to lovers, strangers to lovers, coworker!wonbin x fem!reader, fluff, tiny bit of angst

word count 𝟅𝟈

NOT PROOFREAD

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

You sit at your desk, fingers moving deftly across the keyboard as you try to make a dent in the long list of tasks piled up for the day. The to-do list pinned to your monitor catches your eye, each unchecked box causing a pang of stress.

“Y/N!” Your manager’s voice breaks your focus, and you turn to see him walking toward you, his usual “I need you to do something for me” smile plastered across his face.

“Got a second? The new hire’s here—can you give him the tour? Show him the ropes?”

You smile curtly and hold back a deep sigh. “Sure. I’d be happy to.”

“I knew I could count on you!” he says, flashing you a grin before heading off.

You push back from your desk, grabbing the folder he’d dropped on your desk, and mentally preparing yourself. Usually, you love helping people, but your workload is already overwhelming, and your manager adding random tasks constantly certainly doesn’t help.

As you make your way to the lobby, you spot him—Wonbin. He stands near reception, tall and a little stiff in his crisp shirt and tie. His eyes flit around the room, a mix of curiosity and nervousness on his face. Clearly a new hire.

“Wonbin, right?” you call, forcing a friendly smile as you approach.

He turns toward you, and his face lights up. “Yeah, that’s me. You must be Y/N.”

“That’s me,” you reply, extending a hand. “Welcome to the team. I’m here to give you the grand tour.”

“Thanks,” he says, shaking your hand firmly. “I really appreciate it. Sorry to take up your time.”

The sincerity in his voice catches you off guard, but you brush it aside. “No problem. Let’s get started.”

As you lead him through the office, you point out the essentials—the break room, the conference rooms, the kitchen. “We have free coffee here, and snacks, but if you value your life, don’t touch anyone’s lunch in the fridge,” you say with a smirk.

He chuckles, his nervous energy easing a bit. “Good to know. Anything else I should know?”

“Stick with me, and you’ll survive,” you joke, surprising yourself with how easily the words come.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, flashing a grin.

By the time the tour ends, you begrudgingly admit he’s not as bad as you’d expected. He’s polite, eager to learn, and genuinely seems to care about getting things right. Still, you’re trapped under a mountain of work, and the extra time you’re spending with him feels like another item on your already endless to-do list.

“Alright,” you say as you stop near his desk. “That should cover the basics. Let me know if you have any questions. I’m just over there.”

“Thanks, Y/N. I’ll try not to bother you too much,” he says with an earnest smile.

You give him a strained smile before heading back to your desk, already trying to refocus on your workload. But something about his tone lingers in your mind—a small, not unpleasant, but still unwelcome distraction.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Weeks later, the two of you have settled into an unspoken rhythm. Wonbin often comes to you for help, and while it cuts into your work time, you can’t bring yourself to turn him away. He’s quick to pick things up and always grateful, which softens your frustration even on the busiest days.

“Alright, for this system,” you say one afternoon, sitting beside him at his desk, “you need to make sure the codes match these formats. If not, you’ll get an error that’ll make you want to quit on the spot.”

He leans closer to your monitor, his face contorted in concentration. “Got it. Match the formats or die.”

“Exactly,” you reply with a chuckle. “Here, give it a try.”

He takes the keyboard, carefully navigating the program. “Like this?”

“Perfect. Just double-check the—”

“Y/N!” Your manager’s voice interrupts again, sharp and expectant.

You swivel in your chair, already bracing yourself for another request. “Yes?”

“The scheduling software is acting up again. Can you fix it? And after that, HR needs help with the training program revisions.”

You plaster on a polite smile, even as irritation prickles beneath your skin. “Sure thing.”

“Great. Thanks!”

As he walks away, you stare blankly at Wonbin’s monitor, overwhelmed by everything you still need to do, plus these new tasks.

“Wow,” Wonbin says softly, breaking the silence.

“What?” you ask, turning back to him.

“Do they always dump this much on you?” he asks, disbelief clear in his voice.

You give him a tired smile. “Pretty much. I’ve got a knack for being reliable, I guess.”

“That’s not fair,” he says, frowning.

“It’s just how it is,” you reply with a shrug, masking your frustration. “Anyway, let’s finish this up so I can deal with that mess.”

Wonbin watches you for a moment, his expression pensive, before nodding and turning back to the screen. As you work together, you try to push your stress aside, but you can’t help but notice the way he looks at you—like he sees right through you.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The buzz of conversation and clinking glasses filled the air as your team settled into a lively bar for the evening. It wasn’t your first choice for how to spend a Friday night, but you’d gone along with it—mostly out of guilt for turning down every other optional team event.

Wonbin, obviously, had found his way to your side the moment you arrived. “First office outing,” he said, holding up his drink with a sheepish smile. “Don’t let me embarrass myself too much.”

“I’ll try,” you said, grinning despite yourself.

The evening kicked off with lighthearted conversations and drinks, but it didn’t take long before someone spotted the karaoke machine in the corner. A cheer rose from the group as a few coworkers rushed to sign up for songs, dragging the less enthusiastic along with them.

“No way I’m singing,” you said, taking another sip of your drink.

“Oh, come on,” Wonbin teased, leaning closer. “You can’t let them have all the fun. Besides, it’s a team thing—bonding, right?”

You gave him a skeptical look. “You’re way too eager for someone who’s been here for like five minutes.”

He laughed. “I’m just trying to fit in. Plus, karaoke’s fun. You should try it.”

You laugh and shake your head furiously, “Singing really isn’t my thing, so no thanks.”

He drops it there and you appreciate him not pressuring you to venture too far outside of your comfort zone.

It didn’t take long for the microphone to find its way to you. Someone had signed you up—likely as a joke—and before you could protest, your coworkers were chanting your name.

“You’ve got this,” Wonbin said, nudging you toward the stage with an encouraging grin.

Reluctantly, you chug the rest of your drink, and made you way to the stage, picking the first familiar song you see, deciding it was better to just get it over with. The music started, and as you sang, you felt your nerves ease. By the end of the song, you were smiling, met with loud applause and cheers from the team.

“Not bad!” Wonbin called out as you returned to your seat, cheeks flushed from the attention.

“Don’t get used to it,” you muttered, though you couldn’t help laughing.

When it was his turn, Wonbin took the stage with the same amount of energy he had at work, a lot. He picked a fast-paced, upbeat song and leaned fully into the performance, complete with exaggerated dance moves that had the entire room doubling over with laughter.

You couldn’t stop smiling as you watched him. He looked so carefree, so genuinely happy, and it was contagious.

You’d never noticed how attractive he actually was, usually too distracted with your work and general disdain for the office environment. You brush the thought off as quickly as it had entered your mind, not needing to add a crush, however small, to your already hectic life.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The outing ended with you and Wonbin leaving together, walking side by side toward the bus station. The streets were quieter now, the buzz of the bar replaced by the soft hum of passing cars and the occasional whooshing of the wind.

“That was… surprisingly fun,” you admitted, glancing at him.

“See? Told you karaoke’s not so bad,” he said, smirking.

You chuckled, shoving your hands into your pockets. “Alright, fine. You win this one. But seriously, you were… something else up there. That dance routine?”

“I aim to entertain,” he said with mock pretentiousness, making you laugh again.

As the laughter faded, you found yourself relaxing in his presence in a way you hadn’t expected. The conversation turned quieter, more genuine, as you opened up about the stress you’d been feeling at work. He listened intently, nodding occasionally, his expression softening.

“You do way too much for that place,” he said finally. “They don’t deserve you.”

His words caught you off guard, and for a moment, you didn’t know how to respond. “It’s just… part of the job,” you said lamely.

“Doesn’t mean it’s fair,” he said, his tone firm. “You deserve a break, Y/N. Or at least someone to help take some of the load off.”

You gave him a small smile, touched by his sincerity and care. “Thanks, Wonbin.”

He shrugged, but his eyes stayed on you, warm and steady. “Anytime.”

You turn away from him, your shoulder gently shoving against his as you resume walking towards the bust stop. Your face feels suddenly a bit warm, but you elect to blame it on the biting wind.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Your surprising new after-work routine had started as a coincidence. One evening after work, you found yourself walking toward the bus station at the same time as Wonbin. The conversation was light, filled with random musings about the day and jokes about a particularly obnoxious coworker who always seemed to have something urgent five minutes before clocking out.

The next day, it happened again. Then the day after that. Before long, it became a routine.

“Okay, so tell me if I’m crazy,” Wonbin said one evening as you both trudged along the quiet sidewalk. His breath puffed in the cold air. “But does Mr. Lee always call for a meeting just to hear himself talk?”

You snorted. “Absolutely. The man loves the sound of his own voice. Did you notice he always asks questions, then interrupts when you answer?”

Wonbin’s laugh rang out, warm and genuine. “Right? It’s like, ‘Why even ask, man?’”

You shook your head, still grinning. “It’s honestly a skill. He could teach a class on how not to communicate.”

“Sign me up,” Wonbin said, mock-serious. “I need to be prepared.”

The conversation flowed effortlessly, the stress of the workday melting away as you teased each other and bonded over shared grievances. It was strange, but comforting—having someone who just got you.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

A few weeks into your routine, the weather took a sharp turn. That day, you’d rushed out the door, forgetting your jacket in your scramble to make it on time. By the time you and Wonbin started your walk to the bus station, the cold had sunk its teeth into you.

“Are you seriously not wearing a jacket?” Wonbin asked, glancing at you as you shivered beside him.

“Forgot it at home,” you admitted, hugging yourself for warmth. “It’s fine. I’ll survive, we’re almost at the bus stop anyways.”

He frowned, stopping in his tracks. Before you could ask why, he shrugged off his own jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

“Wonbin—no, you’ll freeze!” you protested, trying to hand it back.

“Relax,” he said, waving you off. “You’ve helped me so much with work—even though you’re swamped. It’s the least I can do.”

You hesitated, looking at him. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll be fine. My bus is quicker, anyway.”

The jacket was warm, carrying the faint scent of his cologne. You pulled it tighter around yourself, your face heating despite the chill. “Thanks,” you mumbled.

He grinned. “Anytime. Just don’t forget it again, or I might start charging you.”

You rolled your eyes, but your heart felt lighter. The walk continued, the silence between you now companionable. You glanced at him, his hands shoved in his pockets against the cold, and a thought you hadn’t dared to entertain before crept into your mind: maybe, just maybe, there was something more here.

It didn’t take long for your routine walks to the bus station to evolve into hanging out outside of work. At first, it was casual—a quick coffee after a long day, or splitting fries at the diner near the office. But soon, those quick moments turned into hours of talking, laughing, and getting to know each other beyond the walls of cubicles and meeting rooms.

One evening, after an especially frustrating day, the two of you sat on a bench at a small park near the bus stop. The air was crisp, and Wonbin had insisted on grabbing hot chocolate, claiming it was the ultimate stress relief. You had to admit, despite the chill, it was helping.

“So,” Wonbin said, leaning back on the bench and licking his cone thoughtfully. “Any progress on that scheduling software you were cursing under your breath all day?”

You groaned. “Don’t remind me. I feel like I aged ten years trying to fix that. Honestly, it’s just one more thing making me wonder if I should stick around here.”

Wonbin turned to you, his brows knitting in confusion. “What do you mean?”

You hesitated, not sure why you felt nervous admitting it. But with him, it was easy to be honest. “I’ve been looking at other jobs,” you said finally. “I don’t know if I want to stay at the company. It’s just… a lot. And I feel like I’m always being forced to work on something way above my paygrade, you know?”

Wonbin stayed quiet for a moment, staring down at his half-melted cone. “Yeah, I get that,” he said softly. “But, selfishly, I think you should stay.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”

He grinned, but there was something in his tone that felt unusually sincere. “Because I’d miss you too much if you left.”

The words hung in the air, catching you off guard. He said it casually, almost like a joke, but the way his eyes lingered on yours told a different story.

You laughed nervously, trying to ease the tension you suddenly felt. “Well, that’s sweet, but I don’t think ‘keeping Wonbin company’ is a valid reason to stay in a job I hate.”

“Hey, it could be a selling point,” he said with a playful smirk. “Think about it: ‘Excellent coworker morale boost included.’”

You rolled your eyes, but the smile tugging at your lips was impossible to hide. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “But I mean it. You’ve made this whole thing so much easier for me. I don’t know how I’d survive without you.”

Your heart fluttered, and you quickly looked away, focusing on the streetlights flickering in the distance. “Well, I haven’t decided anything yet,” you said, your voice quieter.

“Good,” he said, nudging your shoulder gently. “Because the office wouldn’t be the same without you. And neither would my life.”

The conversation drifted to other topics, but his words stayed with you long after you’d said goodbye for the night.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

This day had been nothing short of brutal. Deadlines were looming, the to-do list on your desk seemed to grow longer instead of shorter, and your manager had barely acknowledged all the extra work you’d been handling. By the time five o’clock rolled around, you were drained and on the verge of breaking down in tears.

As you packed up your things, Wonbin appeared by your desk, his usual bright smile in place. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head to study your expression. “You okay?”

You forced a tired smile. “Just a long day.”

He frowned, clearly unconvinced. “Come on, we’re leaving. You need a break.”

You blinked, surprised. “What?”

“Arcade,” he said, grabbing your bag off the back of your chair and slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Wonbin, I’m not exactly in the mood—”

“Exactly why we’re going,” he interrupted, a teasing grin lighting up his face. “Trust me. It’ll help.”

Reluctantly, you followed him, not having the energy to argue with him after the day you’d had.

He practically drags you out of the office, grabbing your hand to guide you, and surprisingly, he doesn’t let it go until you reach your destination.

The arcade was brightly lit and buzzing with energy, packed with kids and teens shouting excitedly over games. As you stepped inside, you couldn’t help but laugh. “Wonbin, we’re the only adults here.”

“So?” he said, unfazed, already scanning the room for a claw machine. “We’re twenty-something. That’s basically still kids, right?”

You shook your head, the stress of the day momentarily lifting. “Debatable.”

But it didn’t take long for you to get swept up in the fun. The two of you battled it out at a racing game, shot hoops side by side, and groaned dramatically when the claw machine refused to let go of the stuffed animal Wonbin had been trying to win for you.

By the time you were done, your cheeks hurt from smiling and your bad mood was a distant memory. Wonbin had even won you a cute plush from a claw machine, and when you’d tried to pay him back for the cost of how many tries it took him to win, he brushes you off, claiming it’s a way for him to thank you for helping him when he was still a new employee.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

You can’t help but feel a touch of sadness at the ending of your little outing, selfishly wanting to spend more time with Wonbin, even though you knew you could use some rest too, probably more than he could.

The two of you walk side by side to the bus stop, occasionally exchanging hushed words, but mainly enjoying the quiet of the city at night.

The bus stop was quiet, the streetlights casting soft swaths of light over the sidewalk. You stood side by side, the energy of the arcade still lingering in the air between you.

“Feeling better?” Wonbin asked, his tone more gentle, almost loving now.

“Much,” you admitted. “Thanks for dragging me out. I needed that.”

He smiled, shoving his hands into his pockets. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate, his usual easygoing demeanor replaced by something more serious.

“Y/N,” he started, his voice unusually quiet.

You turned to him, tilting your head. “Yeah?”

He took a deep breath, meeting your eyes. “I like you. I mean, really like you. And I know it’s probably bad timing with everything going on, but… I want to take you out. On a real date.”

Your heart skipped a beat, warmth blooming in your chest at his words. But just as quickly, reality set in.

“Wonbin,” you said softly, your voice tinged with regret. “You know how strict the company is about coworkers dating. I can’t… I don’t want to risk either of our jobs.”

His face fell slightly, but he nodded, his understanding clear. “Yeah, I figured you’d say that. I just… I wanted you to know how I feel.”

You offered a small, sad smile. “I’m really glad you told me. And if things were different…”

He smiled faintly, his usual brightness dimmed but still there. “It’s okay. I get it.”

The bus arrived, and you both climbed on, sitting in your usual seats together. The ride was quiet but comfortable, his confession lingering in the air between you.

Though you hadn’t said it out loud, you couldn’t shake the realization that you liked him too. And now, you weren’t sure how to handle the growing feelings that had been set in motion.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The past few weeks had been a blur. Work piled higher than ever, and the looming deadline for the big project had consumed almost every waking moment. You’d barely had time to think, let alone spend any quality time with Wonbin. Your evenings were spent in exhaustion, collapsing into bed before you could even reply to his last message.

Despite the distance, he never complained. He still texted you every day—little updates about his life, random memes, or just simple “Don’t forget to eat!” reminders. You tried to keep up, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him in person.

You missed him. And it seemed like he missed you too.

The stress at work finally hit a breaking point one late night as you stared at your computer screen, the relentless grind taking its toll. With a deep breath, you decided enough was enough. On a whim, you updated your resume and applied to a few jobs, not really expecting much.

But to your surprise, an offer came in—one that promised better hours, a higher paycheck, and the kind of work-life balance you hadn’t experienced in years. The decision wasn’t easy, but deep down, you knew it was the right one.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Two weeks later, your resignation letter had been submitted, you were on your very last day, and your going-away party was in full swing.

The office was buzzing with energy, laughter echoing through the room as your coworkers gathered to celebrate your time at the company. For the first time in ages, you felt like you could breathe again. The weight of work stress had finally lifted, and for the first time in a long while, you felt genuinely happy.

Wonbin was there, of course, standing off to the side with his usual warm smile, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite place.

“You look happy,” he said softly when you crossed paths during the party.

“I feel happy,” you admitted. “It’s like I can finally move on from… everything.”

His smile grew a little wistful. “It suits you.”

As the party wound down and the others began to leave, you found yourself volunteering to stay behind and clean up. Wonbin joined without hesitation, the two of you working in comfortable silence as you packed away decorations and collected stray plates and cups.

The quiet was soothing, a stark contrast to the chaos of the last few months.

“So,” you said suddenly, breaking the silence. “About that date?”

Wonbin froze mid-step, blinking at you as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

You turned to him, a small, teasing smile playing on your lips. “You said you wanted to take me out, but I don’t date coworkers, remember?”

His brows furrowed in confusion, and then realization dawned. His eyes widened. “Wait… you’re not my coworker anymore.”

“Exactly,” you said, your grin widening.

The joy on his face was instant, a brilliant smile spreading across his features as he closed the distance between you in a heartbeat. Without hesitation, he leaned down and kissed you—soft and sweet, filled with all the feelings you’d both been holding back for months.

When he pulled back, his expression was full of wonder. “You’re serious about this?”

“Very,” you said, your cheeks warm. “I thought you’d be sad to see me go though. Something about missing me too much?”

He laughed, his voice soft and full of affection. “I’ll miss you, sure. But now I can do this…” He kissed you again, slower this time, his hand gently resting on your cheek.

When he pulled away, he grinned. “So yeah, it’s a win in my book.”

You laughed, your heart lighter than it had been in months. Maybe leaving the job was the right move after all—especially if it meant stepping into something new with him.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

AUTHOR'S NOTE 𝟅𝟈 this one was requested by my best friend so kenz if ur reading this, ur welcome pookie! i lowkey love this one, so pls make sure to leave a like and comment if u also enjoyed it.

masterlist.

#jaeyunluvbot #kpop #wonbin #park wonbin #riize x you #riize x reader #wonbin x reader #wonbin x you #coworkers to lovers #strangers to lovers

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quitealotofsodapop · 13 hours ago

Note

Something came up on the mountain. Will explain during training.

DO NOT BRING OUR FRIENDS! Especially Jangles! Trust me, you'll understand why when you get here.

MK reread the message for the 100th time, worried over the implications. Not only does Wukong rarely use the phone Mei got him, preferring to simply Astral Project any messages they need to do, but he'd never forbid their friends form joining in on training. Not since they all started training together while fighting against Azure and Wukong had promised to not keep secrets anymore what with the Samhadi Fire debacle. So the fact he's asking to keep it a secret is a big deal. Although, as Mei had pointed out when he showed her the message, the other monkey had never explicitly said to keep it a secret, just that he didn't want anyone except MK on the mountain for some reason, likely related to whatever he was going to tell him during training.

"Weird that he pointed out Tang in particular. Like, what did Tang of all people do to make Wukong not want him near!?"

MK didn't know. But as he flew towards the mountain he resolved to find out. The last thing he expected was to be met by a very familiar face when he landed. Or rather, four familiar faces that looked far too similar yet still different from his family to be a coincidence.

"Eeek! Demon monkey!!" The Great Monk Tripitaka shrieked as he cowards behind Zu Baijie, Ao Lie, and Sha Wujing. All of them with weapons pointed towards him.

"Aye! Knock it off!" Wukong's voice roared out as he appeared in a flash of gold and red, standing between MK and the others, guarding him. "It's just my c- It's just my successor!"

The weapons immediately drop as the Pilgrims, the ACTUAL PILGRIMS from the STORIES, looked at Wukong incredulously. Zu Baije was the one to voice it.

"You!? A TEACHER!?"

"Yeah, I know!" Wukong snorted, as if hardly believing it himself, "But a lot can change in 1300 years and MK is a good kid. He deserves only the best, Piglet!"

"And... that's you?"

"No, but I'm the one he's got." Wukong's voice was flat, prompting MK to turn his attention to him. He yelped as a well placed kick hit his shin. "MK! What the heck!?"

"What have we talking about regarding self deprivation, Monkey King."

"What... I- that was for you!"

"Still applies!" MK folded his arms triumphantly as the audience began snickering at Wukong's flustered expression as he tried to find a comeback. Eventually his master concedes defeat with a chuckle, throwing his arm around MK in a side hug with a wide grin.

"Alright... well, let's do introductions! Master, Ao Lie, Sha Wujing... Piglet. This is Xiaotian, or MK as he prefers, my student and successor. MK, the Lilgrim of the Great Journey."

ah yes

Wukong now has to deal with an interlude of his old companions crashing at his place, whilst also worrying about possible time paradoxes!

At least half of the Pilgrims are convinced MK is Wukong's kid.

Tang is especially told to stay away cus he's not supposed to exist according to Buddhist doctrine. Golden Cicada was supposed to be done with the whole reincarnation thing after Tripitaka.

Macaque is going to laugh himself silly when he finds out about this! XD

#pilgrim time warp au #sun wukong #lmk mk #qi xiaotian #lmk tripitaka #lmk zhu bajie #lmk sha wujing #lmk ao lie #lmk #lmk aus #lego monkie kid

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shewasverynice · 3 days ago

Text

Fandoms: 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen

⚠️ SPOILER HEAVY ⚠️

Major Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Full tags/warnings on Chapter links post

Major Characters: Original Character, Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Ieiri Shoko, Yaga Masamichi, Nanami Kento, Haibara Yu, Tsukumo Yuki, Choso

‎‧₊˚✧ Chapter 15 ✧˚₊‧

While Suguru went to relax at home, enjoying the peace of being with just his parents again, and Shoko visited her father, Satoru was busy sighing for what had to be the 100th time in the last hour. The New Year's Eve party at the Gojo estate was always overbearing and irritating in the worst way, spent in an uncomfortable formal kimono and greeting old people who don't give a shit about anything but their status.

He sat in his spot at the long head table, every guest coming to reassert themselves as someone he probably needed when he became the clan head officially. Not that he gave a shit anyway, but in this life he'd determined it would be better to play along rather than rebel and do as he pleased. If he was going to rally everyone together, he needed a good position and good enough standing. Good enough being key, because he certainly had no interest in schmoozing with shitty geriatrics.

Some kind of introduction, a few false compliments, marvel at his eyes, New Year's wishes and rinse and repeat. It was all the same. All they knew how to do. If he asked them to kiss his pale ass they'd probably do it.

He'd heard his Grandfather already asking about daughters and knew that talk was coming too. The attempts to marry into more power and create more heirs for later. A dozen or so pretty but boring women would eventually be lined up for him to ignore as usual. That wasn't going to change this time for sure. No matter what, he would not put anyone else into a position they didn't really want.

Speaking of which... One came to him shortly after he overheard. She was in a lovely purple kimono, the long furisode stitched with cranes and tree branches. She was older than him, but not by much. Bold of her to approach directly. She must have been power hungry. Or money. One of the two.

"Good evening, Gojo," she said with a deep bow and a demure smile.

He resisted the scoff that threatened his throat, and just gave her a polite nod. But unfortunately she didn't take the hint. That or she really was very bold.

"How are you enjoying the party?" She asked, subtly standing up straight to present herself to him.

Tall. Thin. Soft features. Long silky black hair. Very pale. She was, just like the others, a proper Japanese woman raised for this purpose. A willing broodmare if it meant she could live a comfortable life and please her parents. Nothing made him more disgusted than someone who'd submit to someone else's whims.

"Honestly it kinda sucks," he huffed, resting his cheek on his hand. He wished he'd kept his sunglasses on so he could ignore her.

"Oh," she continued, "Yes, I'd imagine you'd prefer to be with your friends."

"Yeah," he said shortly, giving her an "alright that's enough" look.

Still, she persisted.

"Perhaps I could keep you--"

"Perhaps you could find someone else to chat with," Satoru said, plastering on that cocky smile, "Not interested, doll. Thanks." Then he waved at her dismissively, picking up his cup to sip.

She stared at him, painted red lips parted in surprise. He wanted to laugh, but he wasn't feeling like being cruel just yet. Only if she kept it up...

Which she didn't. She bowed and scurried off with her head down.

"Satoru," his mother chided softly, "That wasn't very kind. You should really make an effort to meet with them."

"Nah, I'd rather not Mother," he said, rolling his eyes.

She said nothing more, silenced by him. He sighed, feeling a bit guilty. She was just as much a victim of the marriage contract scheme herself. A perfect little flower plucked by a Gojo and blessed with the six-eyes as her child. She wasn't a weak willed woman, he knew that. He'd seen flashes of who she really could be, but the idea of the "Perfect Japanese Woman" had been ingrained and become her mask.

He got up, picking up his phone from under the table and heading out of the room. A few hours of this bullshit was all he could stand.

Down the hall and into his room, he tore off the kimono as soon as he stepped inside. Throwing on a hoodie and sweatpants, he got comfortable on his futon and flipped open his phone to check his messages. Just a few from Suguru showing photos of his hometown and what he was up to. Shoko had sent exactly one message complaining about soba noodles. Sarah sent him a few stupid jokes, hoping to lighten his mood.

He wished he'd stayed at the school. He still had two more nauseating days of ass kissing while they visited the New Year's shrines and ate all the fancy New Year's food.

He looked at his messages from Sarah and smiled. She was probably watching that "No Laughing Batsu Game" show. He'd never actually had the time to sit down and see it, but she insisted on last year's New Year it was the funniest thing. Apparently Suguru loved it too, so maybe he was watching it this time?

Satoru: What is the name of that show again?

Sarah: Gaki No Tsukai! You gotta turn it on! It's so good! It's a high school theme this year and I almost pissed myself!

(⁠✷⁠‿⁠✷⁠)

Satoru: (⁠☞ﾟ⁠∀ﾟ⁠)⁠☞ I'll check it out

So he rolled over, flipping on the TV to his room. He vaguely recognized the name from his first life. This had become a regular yearly show, but as always he was too busy to sit down and watch it the day of and when he actually did have time it wasn't something he remembered to do.

Clearly he was missing out!

He recognized the main duo of course, Downtown was always the best comedy pair in Japan. Cocorico was really good as well, and Yamazaki of course. The whole idea was amazing! And the set ups! Holy shit! He was laughing so hard his cheeks hurt!

He texted Suguru about it and his eyes widened when Suguru immediately called him.

"You're watching it to?" Suguru said excitedly as soon as he picked up, "Jimmy Onishi trying to count to 100 almost killed me!"

"Holy shit, yes!" Satoru laughed, "This is amazing! Sarah is watching too!"

"That's so awesome!" Suguru said. Satoru could hear him shifting in the background, probably sitting in his room.

Satoru bit his lip. He wasn't sure if this was the right time, but then again would it ever be? He hesitated for a split second before he said, "I wish we were watching it together." His voice had come out softer than he meant and he cringed immediately. Was it too soon? Would Suguru catch on? Did he want him too?

"Yes," Suguru agreed with a sigh, "I wish we could too."

Satoru's heart raced and his word caught. He wasn't sure what to say, so he just settled on, "Yeah."

"Next year we should all get together," Suguru said.

Oh. He meant with everyone. Before he could even stop himself Satoru was already saying, "I meant with just you. Alone."

Suguru didn't answer, but Satoru could hear his breathing still. It felt like an eternity before Suguru simply said, "Oh, I see."

"Too strong," Satoru cringed internally, he was coming on way to strong. Suguru was only fifteen after all and Satoru had only ever heard him talk about women in his last life. Was he even interested in men? Would he try it?

Satoru's face was heating up as the silence dragged on. Did he fuck this up? He was a grown ass man internally and still this made him feel oddly shy and foolish. And a little sick on some level, if he was being honest. The last thing he wanted to do was push Suguru into something he didn't want like some nasty groomer or something. But all of this was so new to him, he wasn't sure what the furthest boundaries should be in the first place!

"I think it would be better with all of us," Suguru said quietly after a moment and Satoru's heart fell.

Shit. It was too fast.

"Ah, yeah... I guess so," he said sheepishly, his hand wringing the futon blanket. He fucked up. He knew he did. "I... I didn't mean anything weird by it--"

"Sorry, Mom is calling me. Talk to you in a bit?" Suguru said, and promptly hung up.

Satoru stared at his phone, his mouth fallen open. "Shit," he mumbled, "Shit shit shit..."

⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆

To say his return to the school was nerve-wracking was an understatement. Satoru hadn't slept well for the last two days of his visit home, constantly worried he'd ruined everything with Suguru forever. He hadn't heard a word from the guy, not even a text or any pictures or anything.

When he reached the top of the steps, he saw Sarah and Shoko waving excitedly to him and he gave them a little half-hearted wave back. Where was Suguru? Surely he wouldn't just... Avoid him right?

"Geto!" Sarah called and Satoru froze. He swallowed thickly, turning to see Suguru about halfway up the stairs.

They locked eyes and it felt like everything slowed down. His expression was unreadable, and Satoru wasn't even sure what he should say. Suguru seemed to be at a loss as well and he stopped in his tracks.

"Hey," Satoru managed, quieter than he intended.

The moment turned violent in the blink of an eye. One moment Suguru was halfway up the stairs, brushing snow off his coat, and the next, he was blindsided by an unrelenting force that drove him hard into the icy ground. The impact echoed, sharp and brutal, as Suguru slid down a few steps before catching himself.

“What the hell?!” Satoru shouted, eyes wide as he processed what had just happened.

The blur that hit Suguru materialized into Toji Fushiguro, his presence as sharp and lethal as the blade he wielded. Satoru’s heart sank as he recognized the man who had haunted his nightmares and memories—a predator without cursed energy to track, armed with the inverted spear of heaven.

Suguru groaned, rolling to his feet, and Satoru felt a surge of panic. “Suguru, get back!” he barked, already moving to intercept the man.

Toji swung the inverted spear with ruthless precision, forcing Satoru to backpedal. The blade hummed ominously, cutting through the air with a deadly promise. Satoru felt the weight of his past crash down on him; this wasn’t a fight he could afford to lose.

But then he heard it.

Sarah’s shriek.

His head whipped around, his mind snapping to Shoko and Sarah. To his horror, he saw Shoko crumpled on the ground, clutching a nasty gash on her arm as Sarah stood over her, gripping a clump of snow like it could fend off Toji.

“No.”

Satoru moved without thinking, the world around him blurring as he appeared at their side. “Are you okay?!” he demanded, kneeling next to Shoko.

“I’ll live,” Shoko muttered through gritted teeth, already working to heal the deep cut. Her fingers glowed faintly with cursed energy as she knit the wound back together. Despite her pain, her eyes were calm and steady, locking with Satoru’s for a moment.

Sarah’s face, however, was pale with fear, her hands trembling as she tried to shield Shoko. She looked at Satoru like he was her lifeline, her only hope. “He—he’s gone. I don’t know where he is—”

Satoru turned his head sharply, scanning the area, his six eyes struggling to detect Toji. Nothing. No cursed energy, no presence—just the ghost of danger lingering in the cold air.

“Stay close,” he growled, his voice low and serious. “Don’t move unless I tell you to.”

Sarah nodded, her grip on her improvised snow weapon tightening.

Suguru was already rushing up the stairs to rejoin them, his face set in a grim determination. Satoru’s relief was brief; he couldn’t let his guard down for a second.

Toji was faster than he remembered. Much faster. And more unpredictable.

Satoru’s brain worked overtime, calculating every angle, every possible move Toji could make. He couldn’t feel him, couldn’t predict his movements, but he could anticipate.

“Stay alert,” he said, his voice sharp and commanding. “He’s playing games. He wants us off balance.”

Suguru reached them, positioning himself beside Satoru, his cursed spirits swirling protectively around him. His face was hard, but there was an edge of unease in his eyes. “What’s the plan?” he asked, his voice steady despite the tension in his stance.

“We wait,” Satoru said, scanning the shadows. “Let him make the first move.”

The air was heavy, every second stretching into an eternity. Snow fell softly around them, the silence broken only by the crunch of their shifting feet.

And then, like a serpent striking from the dark, Toji reappeared.

Toji moved like a shadow with substance—impossible to pin down, and yet his strikes landed with brutal precision. Satoru and Suguru worked in sync, as they always had, yet Toji stayed one step ahead of them both, weaving through their attacks with a precision that bordered on superhuman.

Satoru growled under his breath, his fingers glowing faintly with cursed energy as he aimed another blast at Toji. “He’s too damn fast,” he muttered, frustration creeping into his tone.

Suguru wasn’t faring much better, his cursed spirits snapping at Toji like wild dogs only to be evaded or neutralized in a blink. “We can’t keep this up,” Suguru admitted, his voice tight.

Toji smirked, his blade flashing in the dim light as he lunged at Satoru, forcing him to backpedal. Satoru gritted his teeth, catching the blow with a barrier of cursed energy that rippled like glass under pressure. He pushed back hard, the force sending Toji skidding across the icy ground.

“Now!” Satoru shouted.

Suguru took the cue, lunging forward with a burst of energy. He channeled his cursed spirits into a single strike, aiming to knock Toji clean off his feet and down the stairs. The plan seemed to work—Toji staggered, his balance faltering as he tumbled back.

“Yes!” Suguru exhaled, relief washing over him.

But Satoru’s heart dropped.

“No. No, no, no,” he muttered, his six eyes flaring as he pieced it together.

Toji’s fall wasn’t a loss—it was a calculated move. Satoru could see it now: the deliberate way Toji had shifted the fight, pulling them further and further from Shoko and Sarah.

The bastard played us.

Without hesitation, Satoru vanished in a blur of speed, reappearing near the girls. His heart pounded as he scanned for Toji, but the scene was quiet. Too quiet.

Then it hit him.

Double bluff.

Satoru spun around just in time to see Toji move like a phantom, closing the distance to Suguru with terrifying speed. The gleam of the inverted spear of heaven flashed in the dim light, and before Satoru could react, Toji struck.

“Suguru!”

The blade slashed through Suguru’s chest, the force of the blow sending him reeling. He stumbled, his footing lost, and with a sickening inevitability, he toppled backward, careening down the icy stairs in sickening thuds.

Time slowed.

Satoru’s body moved before his mind could catch up, every muscle screaming to reach Suguru before he hit the bottom. But Toji wasn’t done—he turned on Satoru, readying for another strike.

“Stay back!” Satoru barked, unleashing a wave of cursed energy to force Toji away. The effort left him exposed for a split second, but it was enough to reach the edge of the stairs where Suguru had fallen.

Suguru lay crumpled at the base, groaning softly as he tried to push himself up. Blood dripped from his side where the blade had cut deep, staining the pristine snow in a vivid red.

Above him, Toji watched with a cold, calculating gaze, his weapon held loosely at his side. He didn’t pursue, not yet.

Suguru’s coughing rattled like broken glass, his breaths shallow as blood seeped from the corner of his lips. His dark eyes fluttered open again, his gaze unfocused but stubborn. He started to speak, but Satoru shook his head urging him to stay still.

A scream split through the night air—Sarah’s voice, raw and filled with fury.

“Stay back!”

Satoru’s stomach twisted into knots as he whipped his head around, torn between staying with Suguru and rushing to the others. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might crack. This was the game Toji was playing: forcing him to make a choice.

Suguru or the girls.

Satoru’s mind raced, weighing options he didn’t want to consider. Shoko was fragile in a fight, and Sarah was technically immortal. She could survive things others couldn’t. She’ll come back, he told himself, his jaw tightening with the bitter thought. But guilt still clawed at his chest as he made his decision.

With a burst of cursed energy, Satoru darted back up the stairs, his speed a blur against the snow.

The sight he was greeted with made his blood run cold.

Toji stood at the top, gripping Sarah by the throat, her small form thrashing and kicking in his iron grip. Her hands clawed at his arm, her nails drawing blood and digging in as hard as she could. She may as well have been scratching at a lion.

“Put her down,” Satoru growled, his voice low and dangerous.

Toji’s grin widened, his wild eyes gleaming with sadistic amusement. “Too late for demands, kid,” he said, his tone mocking.

Sarah, despite her situation, bared her teeth and reared back, sinking them into Toji’s hand. Toji flinched, a flicker of irritation crossing his face, but his grip didn’t loosen.

“You’ve got fight, I’ll give you that,” he muttered. Then, with cruel precision, his hand tightened around her throat, cutting off her air. Her eyes widened, rolling back as her struggles weakened.

“Put her down!” Satoru roared, his cursed energy flaring around him like a living storm.

Toji only chuckled, the sound dark and hollow.

With a sharp movement, Toji slashed at Sarah, his blade cutting deep, before tossing her to the ground like discarded trash. She hit the snow in a bloody heap, her body limp.

Satoru’s world narrowed to a point, his vision tunneling as rage consumed him. He launched forward, a strike aimed directly at Toji, but the man was ready. Toji parried the attack with the inverted spear of heaven, the blade’s cursed energy nullifying Satoru’s own.

The two clashed with violent force, Satoru’s blows relentless, fueled by anger and desperation. Toji smirked, darting back into the treeline with an agility that left Satoru no choice but to hold his ground.

Satoru’s chest heaved as he stood over Sarah’s unmoving form, his fists clenched so tightly they shook. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the treeline, but the sound of Shoko’s voice behind him brought a sliver of relief.

“Let me through,” she said, her tone sharp despite the tremor in her voice.

“Not her,” Satoru muttered, his voice tight. “Just... I'll get you to Suguru.”

Shoko's eyes widened, but she understood.

Satoru moved swiftly, his hand firm on Shoko’s arm as they descended the snow-dusted stairs toward Suguru. The air was still tense, every shadow feeling like Toji’s lurking figure. He kept Shoko close, his senses heightened for any sign of an ambush.

Halfway down, the sickening buzz of fly heads filled the air. Satoru’s jaw tightened. He remembered this move all too well from his past life—Toji’s distraction tactics.

“Stay close,” he snapped, pulling Shoko against his side.

Before the fly heads could swarm them, Satoru’s cursed energy flared as he activated his Blue technique. A wave of force exploded outward, sucking in and obliterating the grotesque creatures. Shoko pressed closer to him, shielding her eyes from the chaotic display.

With the area cleared, Satoru turned his attention to Suguru. He couldn’t waste any time. Wrapping an arm around Shoko’s waist, he used Limitless to lift them both, flying down the stairs with precision and speed.

Suguru was still on the ground, his breathing labored but steady. Satoru landed beside him, crouching to scoop him up with one arm. He barely paused, launching them all back up toward the relative safety of the landing.

“Shoko, do your thing!” Satoru barked as soon as they touched down.

Shoko dropped to her knees beside Suguru, her hands glowing as she began to heal him. But Satoru could see it wasn’t easy. Her face was pale, her breathing heavy as she worked to stabilize Suguru’s wounds.

“Focus,” he muttered, standing protectively in front of them. His six eyes scanned the treeline, every muscle in his body taut. He could feel Toji out there, moving like a phantom.

Then he felt it—the inverted spear of heaven. A sharp, cold presence that cut through the air. Without hesitation, Satoru fired a beam of Red in the direction of the cursed weapon. The blast ripped through the trees in a deafening explosion, clearing a wide path of destruction.

But within that explosion, Toji emerged, unscathed and grinning like a predator.

“Miss me?” Toji taunted, closing the distance with terrifying speed.

Satoru barely had time to react as Toji lunged, slamming into him and sending Shoko sprawling to the ground. The inverted spear slashed toward him, and Satoru raised his arms, physically blocking the hit since Limitless wouldn’t work against the cursed tool. Pain shot through him, but he didn’t let it show.

“Cheap shot,” Satoru growled, spinning to catch Shoko before she hit the ground.

Toji didn’t let up, his attacks relentless as he aimed for Satoru, Suguru, or Shoko—whoever seemed the most vulnerable in the moment. Satoru was forced to move like a blur, blocking, dodging, and redirecting Toji’s strikes to protect his friends.

It was starting to unnerve him. Toji wasn’t fighting to win. He was fighting to destabilize, to push Satoru into making a mistake.

“I’m getting real tired of this game, old man,” Satoru snarled, his tone deceptively casual despite the tension in his shoulders.

Toji only chuckled, his movements as fluid and calculated as ever. “What’s the matter, Gojo? Feeling a little off-balance?”

Satoru’s grin was sharp, masking the way his mind raced for a solution. He could feel Shoko struggling to keep Suguru alive behind him, and every second Toji stayed on the offensive was another second too long.

“Off-balance?” Satoru echoed, his voice laced with mockery. “Buddy, I’m always on top.”

With that, he slammed his hands together, his cursed energy spiking dangerously. If Toji wanted chaos, Satoru would give him chaos.

The air crackled with energy as Satoru blinked to the side, then reappeared behind Toji in a daring feint. With a quick flick of his wrist, he fired off a Red, the cursed energy tearing through the space between them. Toji, ever the strategist, raised the inverted spear, absorbing the brunt of the blast before retaliating with a vicious slash.

The clash escalated, the ground beneath them cracking and splintering with every step and strike. Satoru’s precision and speed matched Toji’s raw, brutal power, but Toji wasn’t fighting for a clean win—he was fighting to keep Satoru on edge. His movements were calculated, darting toward Suguru and Shoko without warning, forcing Satoru to divide his focus.

“Really? Using my friends as bait?” Satoru scoffed, his voice sharp with mockery, though his heart hammered in his chest. “Classy move, asshole. Real honorable.”

Toji grinned, his eyes wild with the thrill of the fight. “Whatever works, kid.”

Satoru's mind raced. He needed a way to turn the tide without putting his friends at risk. A domain expansion would be a surefire win, but it would trap Shoko and Suguru along with Toji—and Shoko couldn’t stop healing Suguru for even a moment.

The memories of his first battle with Toji clawed at the edges of his mind. The lack of preparation, the overconfidence, the way Toji had completely blindsided him. This fight felt eerily similar, except now, Satoru had more than just himself to worry about.

Gritting his teeth, he used Blue again, clearing a swath of the surrounding woods and forcing Toji back into direct combat. He drew the man in, deliberately letting him land a hit with the inverted spear. Pain flared as the weapon sliced through his defense, but Satoru’s counterstrike was swift, his cursed energy slamming into Toji and sending him flying.

Or so he thought.

Toji’s smirk was the first sign that something was wrong. Satoru barely had time to process it before Toji let himself be flung backward—straight into Shoko.

“NO!” Satoru roared, his voice echoing in the icy air.

The inverted spear drove into Shoko’s back, and she gasped, choking on the impact. Her hands glowed faintly as she immediately tried to heal herself, but her movements were sluggish, her breath shallow.

Satoru moved to block Toji’s next move, but the man was already ahead of him. With a brutal kick, he sent Suguru’s limp body tumbling down the icy stairs.

“No, no, no!” Satoru’s heart dropped as he watched Suguru’s form bounce down the steps, blood trailing behind him like a crimson ribbon.

Fueled by a mix of rage and desperation, Satoru turned back to Toji, his six eyes blazing. “You’re dead.”

But Toji was already retreating, a satisfied grin plastered across his face. He disappeared into the shadows of the trees, leaving Satoru to pick up the pieces.

Satoru was at Shoko’s side in an instant, his hands hovering uselessly as she worked to stabilize herself. “Shoko, stay with me. You’re okay, you’re okay.”

She gave him a weak glare, her voice barely audible. “Focus... on the fight... you idiot.”

Her words spurred him into action.

Satoru barely spared a glance behind him. He trusted Shoko. She was tough, she was brilliant, and she wasn’t about to let Toji’s cheap shot take her down.

The cold wind cut against his face as he moved, his limitless barrier shimmering faintly as it carved a path through the forest. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through him, his Six Eyes locking onto Toji’s presence even as the man darted through the trees like a shadow.

“Oh no, you’re not getting away this time,” Satoru growled, his voice laced with uncharacteristic venom.

Toji turned to face him, that infuriating smirk still tugging at his lips. Satoru’s jaw tightened. The ground trembled beneath them as Satoru attacked, his cursed energy surging in blinding bursts of power. Toji dodged and countered with precision, his inverted spear striking fast and hard. But this time, Satoru wasn’t holding back. Every blow he landed sent shockwaves through the air, every burst of cursed energy forcing Toji further on the defensive.

Toji's speed was undeniable, his movements almost impossible to predict. But Satoru wasn’t just fast—he was relentless, and his Six Eyes calculated every shift, every twitch of muscle with pinpoint accuracy.

Toji swung the spear, aiming for Satoru’s barrier, but the sorcerer dodged effortlessly, flickering out of range before reappearing behind him. A brutal kick to Toji’s back sent him stumbling forward, his footing faltering for the first time.

“You’re losing your edge, old man,” Satoru taunted, his grin sharp and wild.

Toji’s smirk flickered for a moment, replaced by a glint of something Satoru rarely saw in his enemies: surprise. Just a flicker, but it was enough.

“That’s the look,” Satoru said, his voice low and dangerous. “That’s the face I wanted to see.”

Before Toji could recover, Satoru brought his hands together, his cursed energy swelling around him like a storm. “Let’s see how you handle this up close.”

The air crackled, a vibrant mix of blue and red energy converging at Satoru's outstretched hand. Toji’s eyes widened slightly as the realization dawned.

“Hollow Purple."

The explosion of energy was deafening, a blinding burst of violet light that ripped through the forest, obliterating everything in its path. At point-blank range, Toji had no chance to dodge. The wave of destruction tore through him, the sheer force sending his body careening into the trees before slamming into the ground with a sickening thud.

Satoru landed lightly, his breath visible in the icy air as he surveyed the scene. The trees around them had been stripped bare, the ground scorched and littered with debris. And at the center of it all was Toji, crumpled and motionless.

In a heartbeat, he was at the bottom of the stairs, kneeling beside Suguru’s broken body. His best friend’s breathing was shallow, his face pale against the blood staining the snow.

“Come on, Suguru,” Satoru murmured, his hands trembling as he assessed the damage. “You’re not leaving me like this. Not now.”

Above them, the sunlight filtered through the trees, casting a cold, golden glow over the carnage. Satoru’s jaw clenched as he felt the weight of his failure pressing down on him. Toji had outmaneuvered him again.

Satoru’s heart was in his throat as he sprinted back up the stairs. His chest heaved, but it wasn’t from exertion—he couldn’t remember the last time he felt genuine panic like this. The forest around him blurred into streaks of gray and white, but his focus was razor-sharp.

When he reached the top of the stairs, the sight knocked the breath out of him.

Shoko was crumpled on the ground, her hair splayed across the blood-streaked snow. Her chest rose and fell faintly, but she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t conscious.

“Shoko!” His voice cracked as he dropped to his knees beside her, his hands shaking as he grabbed her shoulders and gently shook her. “Come on, get up! I need you!”

She didn’t stir.

“No, no, no, this isn’t happening,” Satoru muttered, panic rising like bile in his throat. He shook her harder, his usual composure shattered. “Shoko, wake up! Suguru needs you! I need you!”

But there was no response.

His head whipped around to Suguru, lying so far away. He was so pale, too pale. The blood pooling beneath him was a glaring red. Satoru’s chest tightened. Carefully lifting Shoko, he brought her closer and laid her beside Suguru.

He crawled over to him, pressing trembling hands against the deep gash on Suguru's chest. There was nothing he could do. He wasn’t a healer. He couldn’t close wounds like Shoko could.

“Damn it,” Satoru hissed, his vision blurring. “You’re not allowed to die. You hear me? You’re not allowed.”

Suguru’s eyes fluttered open briefly, glassy and unfocused. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Save your strength, okay?” Satoru’s voice was frantic, the words spilling out like a prayer. “You’re going to be fine. Shoko’s... Shoko’s going to fix you. She always fixes us.”

But even as he said it, he knew the truth. His Six Eyes could see the faint flicker of life in both of them, like a candle guttering in the wind. Too faint. Too far gone.

Satoru clenched his teeth, his hands curling into fists against the frozen ground. “No. No, no, no!” He struck the snow with his fist, the icy sting biting into his skin. “This isn’t how it ends! It’s not supposed to be like this!”

But the world didn’t care about what was supposed to happen.

For the second time in his life, Satoru Gojo—the strongest—felt powerless. The weight of that realization crushed him, suffocating and unbearable. His friends were slipping away, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.

A hollow laugh bubbled up in his throat, bitter and broken. The silence around him was deafening, the cold gnawing at his flesh as the wind whispered through the trees.

He stayed there, kneeling between his two friends—the strongest sorcerer in the world, completely and utterly helpless.

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#fanfiction #writing #a03 fanfic #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo satoru #geto suguru #shoko ieiri #reincarnation fic #fix it fic

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cptnbeefhrt · 3 months ago

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im over it to some extent now but I can’t help still wanting him back😭

#i’ve been wishing he’ll unblock me😭#i want him back i shared sm pain w him n he did too w me #i rly hope he realizes he fucked up #in cutting me off so suddenly #Like bro u wanted to have sex w me n we almost did and would’ve if i didn’t get nervous😭#U were makin out w me sm bro…#let me into ur home n all #ur dog loved me too like #cmon man come back #cptn cal’s adventures #we have a real connection i hope sumn pulls him back #cus i truly did mean it when i said i cared #n ik he meant it when he was holding me as tight as he could when i told him i dont get hugs often #and gave me sm kisses too like loved my body a whole bunch #do i need to stand up? yes! Do i still want him… yeah #hes also very attractive objectively so i can at least say i bagged him even if it didnt last #very gorgeous dude n i let him know #Had my hands thru his hair sm #i miss u man come back there was sumn real

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cutemeat · 1 month ago

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@nightcrawlerzincorporated Exactly the point i was making with this post thank u 🥹💛

Season 6 // Season 16

#ive been fixated on this 4ever cuz i think its such a fascinating aspect of their dynamic!!!#but also to be fair like Tai said the twins couldnt even pull the plug on a nazi so BSJDBSNHS #i still think charlie manipulating frank and against the twins specifically is Very much baked in tho even now… and the PROGRESSION of it?o #watching Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender w this pov makes it SO interesting #i mean they also just straight up confirmed this in s11 w charlie changing the prescription on franks glasses #and i will bet u 100% that that is NOT the only case of this #like all the things where ppl are like ‘awww charlie does this for him…’ like the navigation tapes #cuz i think Yes it is coming from a genuine place. but also manipulative place of making frank dependent on him #and i dont want ppl to get it twisted like w the charden resentment stuff..cuz im not saying the two feelings CANT co eixst #they DO and thats what i find interesting but not a lot of ppl wanna talk abt the manipulative side nd thats fine but i rllyrlly do #doesnt mean the sweet genuine side isnt still apart of this. i just wanna talk abt this side of it Too #but also thats the whole subtext… how long until doing that for manipulation purposes becomes Genuine #its why they mirror macdennis!!! just different dynamics #im serious i think when frank moved in all of the bonding was initially a part of a still ongoing long con to get franks money #cuz that would fit w robs original vision of sunny HOWEVER i think its only gotten more interesting #bc charlie is now GENUINELY so emotionally entangled in frank that its way more complicated now for him #and thats GUT wrenching to me i want it so bad #i made that one post paralleling charfrank to [redacted] and no one needs to see that but i still stand by the general sentiment NSJDBEJ…#aaand… part of me wondered if Inflates was foreshadowing for The End..#charlie does this shit and bc hes loyal like a dog he did this for not just him but FOR THE GANG #and so theyre all excited abt that but charlie is just sort of lagging behind #i can see the scene so clearly in my minds eye #cuz yknow. charlie has come to represent the gangs Conscience in a way #s15 ily sm #[queue that post someone made post s15 finale abt charlie being the foundation ..yeah]#which is so interesting how far hes come from s1 to THAT #again i think there should always be room for both the sincere charlie and how generally manipulative he is #i think both can and Should coexist #esp since manipulation comes The Most naturally to him compared esp to someone like dennis #dee is much better but charlie is still The Best at it… thats why frank loves nd believes in him the most LOL

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tinystarbites · 2 months ago

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accidents pt. II | Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Summary: during a long case away, Spencer accidentally sees Reader's nudes on her phone and can't cope because he is a MESS for reader whoops pt.II The Reckoning /j, this is basically just 10k words of porn with feelings yikes

Warnings: SMUT MDNI, 18+ only, fem!reader, fluff, some angst (still Spencer feeling he isn't good enough 😔), EMOTIONSSS, Spencer STILL loves you so much, he gets a hug, and so much more!, talk about sex, detailed asking for CONSENT (be safe people), sex (piv), some frottage, uhhh what else, dirty talk, some dom/sub understones (sub!Spencer ofc), little bit allusion to subspace, Spencer discovers so many kinks in this awww we're so proud of you bby (mentioned kinks: praise kink, squint of liking being embarrassed, tiiny bit of a voyeristic thing), also I made him a virgin whoops so virgin!Spencer, proofread but prolly not perfect lol. Tell me if I'm missing any tags I am so tired

(also, Spencer will be bisexual in all of my Spencer fics because I am not a coward like the writers were and I will honour Spencer the way he was intended to)

HERE you can read pt. I, I do recommend it to have context and all but do whatever you want lmao I'm not your mother anyway have fun being completely wrecked like I was while writing this!! also thanks so so MUCH for 400 followers and almost 2k likes on the first part, you guys are the best and I hope you enjoy this fic as a thanks!!<333

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Spencer’s never sprung from his bed faster in his life before.

His heart is a jackhammer in his chest, chipping away at his ribs one bone splitter at a time because-

It’s you. In front of his door. And Spencer is so hard it hurts but- he can’t just-

“Spencer?”

He sucks in a haggard breath, hands reaching up and messing up his hair even more. His thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at once and he just needs to- needs just a moment to-

“Uh, yeah, just a second!”, he calls back, voice scratchy and used from the- the moaning Jesus Christ because he was about to come with your mental image and he somehow, magically, managed to apparently conjure you up in front of his door with his pathetic pining and oh god-

He has to- ugh- has to wash his hands and make it go away and –

“Okay, I’ll just…chill with that weird plant here.”

An overwhelmed whimper slips past his lips and he just, stands there for at least another five seconds before something in his mind snaps back into place and he rushes to the small, adjacent bathroom of his room.

After he thoroughly washed his hands, his erection has flagged off enough so that it’s not the first thing greeting you when he opens the door and thank god for that.

And oh- seeing you after doing that actually knocks the wind out of his lungs because you are just so goddamn lovely it makes Spencer want to do stupid, stupid things like cry or kiss you or spontaneously combust into a million pieces.

For once, he does something okay-ishly sensible though.

“Hi.”

You look at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement or scepticism, he doesn’t know for sure. Your eyes hold mirthful sparkles in them when he finally manages to meet your gaze, so he settles for the former of the two options.

You’re not wearing your work clothes anymore. Rather, you went for a cozy looking, oversized sweater and funkily patterned leggings. Your fashion sense outside of work always reminded Spencer of Penelope’s.

“Hi to yourself”, you chuckle, “Can I come in or are you too busy reading ten books at once?”

Spencer feels himself flush under your gentle teasing.

“Only seven books. But, yes, of course you can come in.”

He turns out of the way, creating room for you to pass him into his room. As soon as you are inside, you don’t hesitate to jump onto his bed and flop on your back with your arms spread wide.

Spencer’s breath hitches and he has to do some very extensive mental gymnastics to supress all the inappropriate thoughts from escaping the box he banished them into. Controlling his body’s response to seeing you in the same bed he was just jacking off in is… a different story. He pulls down the hem of his shirt as discreetly as possible, as he takes a seat next to you. Making sure that there is not too much distance between you two as to raise any suspicion and make it obvious he’s trying to get some distance between you, but also enough space so that he isn’t enticed to do anything unwise. Like, reach out and feel your warmth underneath his fingers. Or the softness of your skin. Or anything else really.

The more seconds tick by in which neither of you say anything, the more nervous Spencer becomes. He starts fiddling around with his fingers, aborting more than one move to steal a glance at your face to see what you’re thinking.

“Spencer”, you then finally say, voice kind of pout-y and if that didn’t make Spencer whip his head around to face you, the next thing you say for sure does. “Do you hate me?”

“Wha-“, he sputters your name, “No- no! Of course, I don’t- whe- why would you think that?”

You let out an exasperated groan, moving around until you are lying on your side, head propped up on your arm and frowning up at him. “Because you’ve been acting hella weird these last few days and you won’t tell me whyyyy”, you drag out the last syllable, pout on your lips and Spencer has to look up at the ceiling or else he’s just going to confess everything without second thought and that will definitely not happen.

“I haven’t been acting weird, really, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You remain silent again and Spencer feels the judging glare you send his way without having to look at you. Yes, he has been acting weird, he knows that, but you can never ever know the reason why tha-

“Is it because you saw my nudes?”

Spencer almost breaks his neck with how fast he whips his head down to look at you again. A strangled noise escapes him without permission and what. What.

“Because, that would actually explain so much, especially the way you’ve been acting and really, that’s probably on me because I’ve always been telling myself to put them behind a password block but I somehow always manage to forget that because apparently I have only one braincell left that’s stuck spinning on the deep-fried version of Funky Town and well, I guess I’m glad it was you that found them and not someone else and-“

“What? No, no, I didn’t- What- that’s not- what-“, Spencer cuts off your rambling with a horrified, screeched version of a protest because how- how could you have guessed what’s going on with just one try? Is Spencer so- so absolutely besotted with you that he’s so obvious? Spencer is so very confused and overwhelmed with whatever the hell is going on, he kind of misses the slight twitching of your mouth.

“Come on, Spencer. I said it’s fine and basically my own fault. Uh- well, actually… sorry. Because, well, that’s probably not very work-appropriate… I will pay for your therapy session, just send me the bill.”

Spencer thought he’d reached the limits of confusion seconds ago but apparently, he hadn’t. What. What are you even saying?

“Therapy sessions?”

You just- ignore him.

“Oh, also, please don’t tell Hotch? He’ll be pissed, despite me literally just doing hot-girl shit, y’know-“

Oh, Spencer cannot take it anymore.

He says your name and, “Stop, please, please, just-“

You snap your mouth shut, pulling your lips between your teeth and Spencer definitely doesn’t miss the way you have to force your mouth to stay still this time.

“Are you- is this a joke?”, Spencer asks, frazzled and desperate and so confused he just wants to bury his head under the duvet and never come out again. Because if you don’t actually know but- are just joking around, oh Spencer is overwhelmed, alright.

Your expression changes into something panicked then. “No, no, Spencer, sorry. I’m- sorry. Of course I’m not joking, I’m so sorry. It’s just a little bit too easy to tease you. Sorry.” You actually look apologetic now, lips downturned and frowning slightly.

“Not joking- so… so, you know?”, there’s something big and anxious pressing inside of Spencer’s chest. The urge to hide away and never face daylight again intensifies tenfold. He’s flushing before he realizes, hands trembling and breathing a bit too fast to be considered normal. Oh god, you know, you actually know, you’re going to- you’re never going to speak with him again you are probably here to tell him how weird and- and-

You must’ve noticed the frenzy he is thinking himself into, because you reach out with one hand and gently nudge his thigh with one knuckle. “Spencer”, you say, voice serious and steady and not the slightest bit disgusted or harsh and it snaps him out of his anxiety spiral.

“I knew the second I walked back into that room after you basically fled the precinct. I am, really, genuinely, sorry for making you uncomfortable. Like, it wasn’t actually my intention for you to see them. And then, after I realized what… I just wanted to wait and see what you’d do, if you came to talk to me or, well…”

You sigh, the hand that nudged him ruffling through your hair.

“I didn’t handle this situation very well. I’m really sorry. So… “, you trail off, scrunching your nose in that adorable way of yours that makes Spencer want to kiss it until it scrunches even further because you’d laugh and try to fight him off.

“We can just- forget about this. Forget that it ever happened, or-“, you hesitate again.

Spencer feels suddenly breathless. Like he stands in front of a cliff face, seconds before taking the step to send himself careening towards something immeasurably great or devastatingly fatal.

“Or…?”, he breathes, voice small and unsure.

You meet his eyes again after what feels like hours. There’s something intense in them, burning, and it’s like an electric shock to Spencer’s system. He’d give anything for you to keep looking at him like that forever.

“Or”, your hand returns to his thigh, but this time you let your fingers travel along the shape of it and Spencer whimpers. The burning in your eyes intensifies and Spencer feels hot, suddenly, so hot he’s burning with it. “Or we can do something else.”

“Something else?”, Spencer basically croaks because his throat is so dry and it’s difficult for his body to function properly when you are touching him like that.

You hum in agreement. “Whatever you want. You can tell m-“

“You.”

You look a bit startled when he cuts you off with that one, desperate syllable. Startled but also endlessly amused and Spencer just- his mind is apparently turned off, what the-

You laugh quietly, and your eyes soften, and it does something to Spencer that leaves an ach-y feeling in his chest. Oh, he loves you so much he can’t take it.

“Sure. You can have me”, you say simply, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world for you to admit, “Tell me what exactly you want, because I’d give you the world if you asked.”

And suddenly there’s hot pressure behind Spencer’s eyes, at the back of his throat. You’re just- just- amazing and so lovely and so kind to him, no one has ever said something like that to him, he doesn’t know how to handle it.

Spencer blinks up to the ceiling, desperately willing these stupid unwelcome tears away because crying about you treating him kindly is so on the bottom of the list of acting casual about this, so he rather feels than sees you sitting up next to him. Your hand slips from his legs and he feels the loss of your touch as if someone sucked the marrow from his bones. Before he can say something embarrassing like ‘please touch me again’ he feels your hand covering his. It fills him with a heady kind of courage.

“I want…”, Spencer starts, feeling entirely too uncomfortable with having to state his deepest and darkest desires. There’s the old familiar urge to start picking at his nails nagging at him, but you just interlace your fingers with his and start tracing random patterns into the skin there with your thumb. Spencer melts against you and tenses up at the same time because it’s just so- so nice. It feels so nice and Spencer never thought he’d ever get to have things like that with you but you’re here. You’re here, with him, and basically offering Spencer the entire world on a silver platter but it’s still so so unfathomably difficult just saying what he so badly wants.

“You want…?”, you hum slightly, voice soft and so tender as you continue painting patterns on his skin and Spencer would literally die for you. And that’s the entire problem. Spencer doesn’t know if you’d do the same. Well. Maybe not die die for him but. He can’t just sleep with you, and it not meaning anything to you. It would kill him. It would kill him, if after you give him tenderness and pleasure and acceptance in a way he’s never dreamed of receiving, you would go back to normal. Always politely distanced, close, but never close enough and it already twists his chest just thinking of that possibility.

“I just-“, he tries again, but when the words are stuck in his throat, sticky molten sugar that tastes like bile and fear, he pulls out of your grip and buries his face in his hands. He’s so bad at this. He’s the worst. No wonder he’s never had- had something like Morgan has, one night stand after one night stand (not that he particularly wants that, god no, but just-) because Spencer is just so bad at spilling all of the things that plague his gut and keep his thoughts in overdrive at night. No wonder he’s never even had a girlfriend or boyfriend before.

“Hey, hey, Spencer”, he feels your hands cupping his own, still over his face. Not taking them away, but just – there. “It’s alright, penguin, we can always come back to this another time. I’ll wait.”

Spencer’s face crumples and his breath hitches a little because- penguin. That’s the frankly ridiculous nickname you’ve been using for him ever since he apparently once looked like one, with that white scarf and knee-length black coat he wore during one of your cases where a blizzard surprised not only the team, but also the unsub. Spencer, like most of you, wasn’t prepared and thus, had to make do with what the helpful officers provided them with. And well, Spencer drew the penguin stick it seemed.

It’s ridiculous but sweet and it always makes him feel so loved, loved by you, because it’s adorable and theirs and he just loves it irrationally much, okay? And also, penguins are just really fascinating because-

“Did you know that most penguins live monogamously? The Emperor penguin is actually one of the only ones that mate seasonally, they only have one mate per breeding season. But most others have a mate for life, like, like swans and bald eagles.”

Before Spencer even opened his mouth, he was aware of the fact he was going to ramble on about some unimportant stuff. It’s always like this, it always feels like a breath he’s been holding in for too long, like an itch somewhere in his weird brain that only stops when he opens his mouth and infodumps and he cannot stop it. No matter how consciously he is telling himself to cut it out or screaming at himself to shut the fuck up you weirdo, it’s unavoidable. As soon as his brain latches onto a statistic or a fact it is reminded of, it’s an unstoppable force.

Like now. He is kicking himself. Why, oh why can’t he ever be normal? He feels himself flushing bright red from embarrassment and shame and frustration. He can’t believe he is rambling about birds while- while whatever the hell you two are doing right now. While in the middle of a conversation that started out with you confronting him about him seeing your nudes, jesus christ.

Spencer is about to suffocate himself with a pillow when you let out a graceless snort.

It confuses Spencer so much he lowers his hands to look at you and- oh.

Your eyes are shining with something that looks so close to what he would call affection, and it makes him want to bawl his eyes out and at the same time, smile so hard there’ll be laugh lines on his cheeks for the rest of the week.

“Well, that fits perfectly then”, you say, and Spencer doesn’t understand.

“What do you mean?”

You smile just a little wider, a little more teasingly but in a nice way, in a kind way and it leaves Spencer’s chest blooming with warmth.

“If you’re my penguin, I’ll be your penguin.”

Youryouryouryouryour-

Spencer feels entirely braindead. Only the fact that you called him yours registers. Because yes. Yes. Spencer is so yours he’d gladly let you make every decision for him from now on in his life and yes. That’s not exactly a very normal thing to think. Or to want. Spencer doesn’t care. He’s never felt normal about you for a day in his life and he definitely won’t start now.

“You- you mean- like, as, as mates?”

You scrunch your nose in disgust. “If you want to call us that, I think I’ll take back my offer.”

It punches a giggle out of Spencer, sudden and kind of light-headed. He watches your face break into a wide grin.

“But you- you’d like that?” You’d like me?

You pull a face, sniffing in a nonchalant way, direct your face to your nails in fake disinterest.

“Sure. Whatever.”

And Spencer can’t help himself. He sobs out a laugh- laughs out a sob or, whatever that weird noise he makes is, because you’re so ridiculous and he loves you more than anything in the world.

You roll your eyes, fondly, shake your head slightly.

“Of course, Spencer. I’d like that very much because I like you a very unnormal amount. Literally. On my knees, crying, screaming etcetera”, you say just like that, smiling just like that.

Spencer feels like he’s dreaming. He must be. There’s no other explanation for it. He just can’t wrap his head around the fact that you could like him. You. You’re so, so lovely and amazing and you deserve everything good in this world and Spencer is just. Spencer.

“You- you like me? Me?”, Spencer can’t hide the incredulous tone that seeps into his questions because you like him?

There’s no traces of humour in your eyes anymore. Your eyes look painfully honest, face suddenly serious, and it steals Spencer’s breath away.

You lean closer to him again, grabbing his hands with yours. Your gaze bores itself into his, intense and steady and he can’t look away. “Spencer. I know it’s- I know life has been hard on you for way too long. And that leaves its marks on you. That’s fine. It’s human. But. You do not deserve any less love because of that, do you understand me? Of course I like you, what isn’t there to like? You’re kind and funny and sweet and just so- Spencer. You’re so lovable and it kills me to know that you don’t see how you are so worthy of being loved.”

Oh.

You can’t just- can’t just say things like that and expect him to not cry a little. Can’t expect him to act completely nonchalant and cool about all of this when you say things like that to him. Are you trying to kill him? Because it sure does feel like that.

Spencer is so completely at a loss. He doesn’t know what to say to that- not to mention what to do. How do you always do this? How can you see straight to the hidden, bruised core of him, littered with all these ugly and bad things and. Just. Figure out what to say to strike him exactly there.

It should scare him, being known so deeply. It should, but it doesn’t because it’s you. You are warmth and acceptance like his favourite place in front of a fireplace, book in hand and rain gently knocking against windows. You are quiet mornings at work, you are soft rays of sunlight in his hair, you are gentle hands helping you up when you fall and bruise your knees. You are –

A touch to his cheek startles him. He opens his eyes – when did he close them? – to your fingers brushing some stray tears away, so softly as if he’s something precious, something to be held delicately. That thought sends new tears spilling down his cheek. He can’t believe this is affecting him so much, so completely he simultaneously feels like he is going to shatter and be stitched back together again.

He never knew he needed this so much.

“Sorry for making you cry, penguin. I didn’t think this discussion about my lack of nude etiquette would get this emotionally damaging”, you say, voice hushed in the big silence of the room, a small smile on your lips and eyes so kind.

Spencer snorts, despite himself. This has really been a very bizarre evening. He feels almost drunk on the weirdness of it all, on the rollercoaster that his emotions have ridden all evening. That’s probably why he does what he does next.

“Neither did I, especially after you interrupted me while I wa-“

Spencer shuts his mouth so fast he clicks his teeth together, eyes wide and suddenly horrified. He- what-

Why?

Why can’t Spencer ever keep his big mouth shut? Is he completely and utterly insane?

There’re alarm bells going off somewhere in Spencer’s head and a concerning warmth settling deep in his stomach when your grin takes on a slightly devilish edge, one he knows all too well and. And. Oh. He’s in trouble. So much trouble. Why did he have to say that?

“After I interrupted you while?”, you prompt him, eyes electric and hot and oh god-

Spencer is so dumb. An idiot. Of the highest order. High IQ, where?

“Nothing”, he says, voice high-pitched and rushed and he curses himself and his ability to act everything else but nonchalant. He’d be the worst actor of all time.

“Spencer.”

The tone of your voice rearranges something in his neurons. He can feel himself sit up just that little bit straighter, can feel his mind buzz at the edges. He’s never felt like this before.

He loves it.

“Hmm?”, is all he gets out. Trouble, so much trouble.

Suddenly you’re standing up, away from him and Spencer wants to whine because you should stay there next to him, forever fixed to his side. He doesn’t have to despair long, because you take one of your knees and gently nudge his legs apart with it and okay. Okay. That definitely didn’t just send Spencer’s mind reeling. That wasn’t just totally the hottest thing that ever happened to him.

You slot yourself between his legs as if you own that space and. In his humble opinion, you do. You so do. Spencer is willing to give you a map of his entire body and a marker and tell you to please demarcate every part of him you want. He’d give it to you, no questions asked.

He is looking up at you, at your burning eyes that still hold something so soft in them that makes the lump in his throat bigger again. And by god, Spencer just needs to hear you say it again-

“You like me?”

You move closer to him, lifting one hand and placing it underneath his chin. Your thumb traces along his jaw and Spencer feels like he is going to burst into a million embarrassed pieces.

“Yes”, you say simply, but the way you say it. Spencer can’t help but shiver and exhale shakily. He feels so warm, everywhere. His skin burns where your fingers are touching him. He never wants this to stop.

“You- You want me?”

Your hand grips his face a little stronger, your other fingers splaying over and down his throat and there’s a high noise coming from somewhere and there’s goosebumps on his body everywhere and oh, wait- it’s him. The noise. Well, how embarrassing but. He doesn’t care. Nope. Not at all.

…Okay maybe a little. His face feels warm, suddenly, warmer than the rest of him and yes. He’s blushing, okay?

“Spencer”, the way you say his name it- god, “I want you. I said it before, but. I will give you anything. Tell me what you want, Spencer, and you will get it from me.”

Your eyes are so dark and your voice so low and Spencer actually whines and. He’s hard again, so hard, because he didn’t come before and now, he’s even more pent-up and his thoughts are a mess, but you haven’t even touched him more than this and he’s already so worked up from you just saying these things to him-

“I want you”, Spencer pants, currently finding no other English words in the dictionary of his mind. And well. Emily was right about him. IQ slashed to zero when pretty person do thing.

He watches you take a deep breath, as if to steady yourself, as if this whole thing is affecting you as much as it affects him but that’s- ridiculous. Impossible. Because. Have you seen yourself?

“I know that, Spencer. But what do you want from me? Do you want me to kiss you?”, you ask, face suddenly so close to his Spencer feels your breath fan over his skin, and he whimpers because yes he wants that wants that- “Do you want me to touch you more?”, your other hand grabs his side, gentle but just a little bit roughly and Spencer is suddenly vividly reminded of the fact how strong you are and he feels kind of lightheaded-

“Do you want me to fuck you, Spencer?”

Spencer is going to pass out. And die. And moan and say, “Please yes yes yes”. Maybe not in that particular order.

“Okay, angel, anything you want”, you say, smiling softly at him as if he’s the best thing in the world and angel. Angel. Angel.

Before he’s even started to process you calling him angel, he sees a glint in your eyes, that edge in your smile again and before he knows what’s happening, you’re kissing him.

You’re kissing him and it’s- everything.

Your mouth is soft against his, and Spencer’s insides twist and flutter and his brain is kind of lagging behind, but he wants to be closerclosercloser-

It’s so good Spencer completely blanks on everything. There’s nothing in his mind except the feel of your lips moving against his. There’s no insecurity, no embarrassment tainting this moment even though this is literally like, only the sixth kiss or so of Spencer’s life and he has no idea what he is doing. But it’s so good.

A noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper escapes him when you lick into his mouth and Spencer’s soul almost leaves his body. He feels you shudder where you are pressed together, chest to chest.

“Spencer, Spencer”, you breathe against his lips, in between wet, hot, kisses. You rub your nose against his, eyes closed.

“Hmm?”, he hums, his voice somewhere in Canada or wherever. His mouth is too busy smiling so wide it hurts, anyways. No time for articulating anything.

“You’re amazing, Spencer, amazing.”

And he wants to shake his head, no, because the only one amazing here is you. But it’s impossible to disagree with you when your mouth has returned to his in a way that is probably ruining him for anyone else. (He’s okay with that.)

You peck him on the lips once, twice more, before you press your lips against his jaw, exactly where you had your fingers before. Your hands are basically the only thing holding Spencer up in a sitting position, because he feels like molten chocolate in your hands. Muscles apparently forgetting to do their job and well. Who can blame them? Spencer has stopped thinking in proper sentences the moment you had walked into his life, so. Only a matter of time until you broke the rest of him as well.

You kiss his neck and Spencer gasps. It’s really been a hot minute - three years, one hundred, twenty-one days and twenty hours to be exact – the last time he made out with someone. Everything feels heightened on his heated skin, especially you opening your mouth against him and licking him oh god-

It almost feels like a reward when you gently bite at his skin next. Spencer almost screams.

“So good, so so good for me”, he hears you whisper into the skin of his neck and this time, Spencer does make a noise. Because yes. He wants that. Be good for you. That’s the only thing in his fuzzy mind that feels clear, that feels graspable.

He can see your pupils dilate. Can see the wicked lilt to your lips. “You like being good for me, don’t you, angel?”

ANGEL. Spencer is nodding his head before he knows he does so. “Yes, yes.”

“Fuck”, he hears you breathe against him and it’s strange, seeing the effect he has on you. Did really he do that? “I can’t believe how incredible you are, sweetheart.”

And you need to stop. If you keep calling Spencer these things- he’s pretty sure he won’t survive this. The team would need to find another genius to solve cases with. His cactus Greg would dry out and wilt and die. You and Penelope would need to find another victim to send confusing memes to.

“Did you like my pictures, Spencer?”, you then ask and that’s so not fair. You can’t just ask him that while he’s so utterly in your hands that he’s sure he’d tell you about every little fantasy he’s had about you ever if you asked.

Because Spencer wants to be good, feels that need so deeply in his bones, he nods frantically. “Yes, I- I liked them.”

At the same time the words leave his mouth, something feels wrong. There’s an ugly thing twisting in his stomach, so unpleasant it momentarily occludes the high-octane bliss-fuzz fogging up his mind.

You notice the shift in mood almost immediately. “What’s wrong, angel?”

And well. It’s just- that guilt. Of not saying anything to you about Spencer seeing your nudes, of just ogling you like that without your permission. That wasn’t very good of him. Actually, the opposite. He’s been bad and he hates that. Hates that so severely that there’s suddenly tears on his cheeks and oh no. That’s mortifying. Who cries before sex? Jesus Christ he’s such a virgin it is genuinely embarrassing.

“I’m- I’m sorry”, he stutters, a little bit hysterical, creating distance between you, arms slung around himself, “I should’ve, should’ve said something, I’m so so sorry, I’m the worst friend and now I’m- I’m crying, oh god, I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, hey hey whoa. Spencer, darling. Penguin. Look at me, please?”

But he shakes his head. He doesn’t deserve to look at you again. What was he even thinking? He was- so creepy and now- now-

Two warm hands grab his face and then Spencer is looking into your eyes again. He squeezes his own shut, but all that it does is send more tears spilling over his cheeks and he’s so fucking stupid-

“Baby, please.”

Spencer sobs.

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. That’s the best thing he has ever heard but he doesn’t deserve these things.

“Of course you deserve it, silly goose”, you say and oh. He’s said that out loud.

Your thumbs brush over his cheeks and Spencer can’t not lean into your touch, despite everything. Because that’s just the way it always is. He’s drawn to your warmth and tenderness like a moon revolves around its planet.

“I thought we’d established that it was an accident? And if it was someone’s fault, then mine, because no password, remember?”

Spencer opens his eyes. The deep affection swimming in yours makes him sob again. He’s a mess. A crying, horny mess and Spencer definitely fucked this up. Why does Spencer always ruin the few good things in his life?

“Spencer, Spencer. Hey. It’s okay, I promise you. We wouldn’t be doing this, if it wasn’t, okay?”, you kiss his nose. “Do you want to lay down, maybe?”

He nods, not really thinking clearly. He moves up the bed, under the covers and curls up on his side. He waits for you to get up from the bed, for you to walk over to the door and leave. To say that this was a mistake, he was a mistake. To say that you take back everything you said to him in the last half hour.

He’s not just a little surprised to feel your weight dip the mattress, to feel even more sudden warmth engulf him when you spoon him from behind. You start tracing swirly patterns over the skin of his arm and he feels goosebumps spread all over his body.

Some minutes tick by, you still holding him, when his tears have finally dried up. He doesn’t remember crying so much in one day. Spencer feels miserable.

“Do you still like me?”, he asks, and yes, it’s pathetic and stupid but. He doesn’t care if you never have sex or if you’re not going to be more than his friend now. Because the thought of you not being in his life in any capacity anymore- just no.

He can feel you freeze and take in a sharp breath. “Wha- Spencer. Of course, I still like you. I don’t care what we do, I just want to be with you. In any way you’ll have me.”

You sound so understanding and sincere and actually confused about his fear as if you’d never even think of not liking him anymore and and and-

And something in him just- snaps. He wants you, needs you so much he’s going to die if he doesn’t-

He shuffles and turns in your arms until he’s face to face with you. You look at him, eyebrow raised in question but so beautiful and lovely and you still like him-

“I want you so bad”, he says and then he presses his lips against yours again.

You respond immediately, low moan escaping you and Spencer is greedy, he wants to hear more, feel more, feel everything with you.

He’s kissing you as if he’s going to die if he ever stopped, which, yes, he absolutely would, and you kiss him back as if you can’t live without him. It makes everything become hazy again, like before, and every bad feeling suddenly feels eons away. Like he’s underwater, floaty and relaxed. Safe, he feels safe in the way you kiss him and hold him. Like you always do.

You move your kisses to his neck, sucking and biting and Spencer is moaning and moaning and can’t stop and then suddenly, you’re gone, what –

“Spencer, Spencer, wait”, you pant, out of breath and flushed and he wants to cry again, “Sorry, sorry I just-“

You frame his face in your hands, a little bit roughly. “I’m so sorry for making this so hard, you’re being so good for me, but Spencer. Have you done this before?”

Somewhere in the fog that is his minds, Spencer finds his voice. It’s high and airy but he doesn’t care. “No, no, I haven’t.”

He watches you take a deep breath, feels your fingers digging into his skin a little bit more.

“Tell me. Do you want this, Spencer?”, your voice is shaking as if you need to keep yourself in check and Spencer can’t believe he’s getting to see you like this.

“Yes”, he says because he can’t ever want anything else, and, “Please make me feel good.”

You inhale sharply, your grip on his face bordering on painful. “Spencer, you’re incredible, amazing, the best- I’ll make you feel good, okay? I’ll make you feel so good because you deserve it.”

“Yes”, Spencer is not ashamed of how whiny he sounds. No. He’s owning it now. This is his thing now, okay? He’ll gladly be your pathetic wet cat, or whatever the term was that you sometimes use to describe him with. Whatever it even means.

“Good”, you grin, and then you push on his shoulder hard and he’s on his back. And you. Sitting on top of him, thighs on either side of him. Straddling him exactly where he wants you most and he exhales a needy ‘ah’. His hypothesis of liking being manhandled is… yet to be disproven. He’s discovering so many things about himself today.

Pleasure radiates in waves from where you’re passively giving pressure to his hard cock and yeah okay. This is good. Amazing. He’s never felt better. But-

“Please.”

“Please what, angel?”

“More?”

“More what?”

Your fingers trailing along his throat and jaw, down his chest and teasing ghost-like over his nipples are not really helpful in finding the right words to what he wants. You take pity on him.

“More touch?”

Spencer nods his head, so fast he almost gets dizzy because he’s at that point again where everything feels liquid, hazy, a little bit unreal. So, speaking is already quite the task.

You smile at him as if he just solved the most difficult equation. “Doing so good, Spencer. Incredible.”

He moans. Okay. Another hypothesis to add to his ever-growing list of scientific discoveries today.

“Where do you want touch, Spencer? Here?”, there’s hands in his hair. He shakes his head.

“Hmm… Here?”, fingers drawing circles on his chest and yes, that feels nice, so nice but he wants-

“Here?”, you ground your hips down and jesus-

“Yes!”, Spencer almost chokes on the sound. Pleasure shoots up his spine and he whimpers. “Please.”

You exhale shakily, looking flush. “Okay. Because you ask so nicely.” There’re two little taps on his lower stomach through his shirt. “Do you want to take this off first? Or no?”

The way you give him the chance to say no- the way you respect his autonomy so deeply-

It’s basic human decency, yes, but it’s also the hottest thing and Spencer feels so valued and understood and safe that he’s not even hesitating when he mutters a quiet yes.

You help him sit up because he’s currently not really heir over his body like he usually is. Help his head out of the shirt and thread his arms out. And then, he’s half naked in front of you and suddenly, the doubt and insecurity that’ve been so quiet so far are back with a vengeance.

The urge to cover himself is so big it’s impossible to stop his arms from wrapping around himself.

Spencer knows he’s not ugly. He’s not that bad looking actually. Can’t be too bad if Morgan keeps insisting on calling him pretty boy, even though Spencer sometimes still has the sneaking suspicion that he’s teasing him. But his friend wouldn’t be so cruel.

But other people like to be. Pipe-cleaner, leek, straw, big-eyes. He’s heard it all before. He has matured enough and grown into himself so that these things don’t bother him like they used to. But still. Still. These things are arduous to scrub from under his skin.

Your gaze on him though- he’s never felt so, cleaned from all of these mean words before. You look- you look reverent while mapping his skin and maybe that’s the reason why he lowers his arms again.

“Spencer. You’re a dream”, you say, almost in trance. Almost as if you’re hypnotized by him, and he’s flushing. But. Being watched so intently, being admired like that. He feels his dick give an indigent twitch against your clothed core. Another thing for the list.

“So impatient”, you tut and Spencer flushes more. He thinks he’s waited long enough for this. But he doesn’t say that. If you stopped now- he would definitely combust spontaneously.

You lean down, over him. Hands trailing along his sides like you did earlier, but without any clothes between your skin and his. It’s almost too much. And not enough. He feels electrified, where you touch him. His heart is hammering against his ribs so hard you must be able to feel it. His stomach is in knots, fluttery. He’s never felt more alive.

You connect your lips to his throat, placing kiss after kiss along the arched length of it. Follow the same path with your tongue and Spencer whines, curves up against you a little. Everything feels so good Spencer is floating in it.

You shift your attention to his collarbones next, kissing but then gently biting and Spencer feels the indents of your teeth all the way through to his back and he hopes, wants, you to sink them into him so deep they’ll leave marks. So that he carries the evidence of this with him for the rest of this case, so that there’s absolutely no more doubt to who he belongs to. That thought alone makes him whimper, makes him feel that tiny little bit more lost in you.

You start kissing along his chest, down his stomach. Open mouthed, wet kisses and Spencer shivers when the places you put them feel cold after because of your spit. The lower you get, the noisier he becomes and at one point, Spencer would’ve been embarrassed. Well, he kind of is, but he’s also so turned on that the embarrassment doesn’t feel as stifling like usual. Rather, in a weird way, it makes everything hotter, and he does not own enough brain capacity right now to decipher that. But he does add it to the list.

When your face is dangerously close to the waistband of his pyjama, Spencer tenses, holds his breath. Being shirtless is one thing, but… well.

“It’s okay, Spencer. We only do as much as you feel comfortable with”, you murmur, giving a small peck to the left of his belly button. You calmingly follow his sides with your hands, smiling at him with so much affection in your eyes that Spencer feels speechless, breathless, until the tension releases his muscles again and he melts into the sheets.

“’m just…”, he tries, he really tries so hard to tell you that he wants this more than anything he’s ever wanted but that he just feels… insecure.

You kiss his stomach again. “How about we only take off the pyjama? For now? If you want to take off your underwear too later, we can still do that.”

That… that’s actually a good idea. So, he nods.

“Words, angel.”

“Yes, yes. That’s- good.”

You look so proud of him. “You’re so good, Spencer. Perfect.”

He moans embarrassingly loud. He really should be more concerned about this. About how you are basically pulling him apart, thread by thread and he just lets you, willingly. How you know which threads to pull to reduce him to a sweaty mess in what felt like 0.2 seconds.

There’s a finger dipping beneath the waistband, moving back and forth along the newly exposed skin. Your eyes watch him intently, almost predator-like. A question is in there somewhere as well and Spencer nods again.

You help him lift his hips, help him pull down the pants. Spencer is kind of busy kicking his legs a little to shake them off completely but when he looks back and down himself to where you are hyper-focused on the outline of his cock through the thin fabric he blushes.

Even more when he notices the big, dark blue splotch in front of his underwear. That’s definitely never happened before. How embarrassing.

When you look up at him again, you’re also flushed. Eyes dark, wide, voice kind of unsteady. “Spencer, Spencer, can I?”

“Please”, and then you palm him with your hand, and it feels so good it takes all of his concentration to not come on the spot. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive this until you arrive to the main thing.

It’s not the first time someone has touched him like that, but it is the first time you are doing it, and it already feels better than anything he’s ever felt before. You’re either a wizard or Spencer is just biased because he thinks everything you do is ten times better than the same thing done by someone else.

Probably the first reason.

He has his head angled back, one of his arms thrown over his eyes. If he looked at you now, he’s pretty sure, he’d come. Visual stimulation on top of physical would probably be the end of him. It’s already too much, just feeling your hand move up and down his dick in various pressures. Almost as if you are testing what he likes best, and Spencer is definitely here for it. Definitely. He’s happy to just let you experiment with him until you know all the different ways to drive him mad with pleasure with just a few moves.

Which, you apparently already figured out, judging by the way Spencer can’t form a single coherent thought anymore. It’s already, so good, so freaking good holy shit, and you’re still not touching him. Still a layer of fabric between your hand and him and he kind of- just-

“Take it off?”

You still your hand, looking up at him. You look kind of crazed, almost a little pained. It takes two deep breaths for you to process what he just asked, eyes a little unfocused before they fix Spencer to the bed with an intensity that makes him feel unfocused. “You sure, angel?”

Spencer literally can’t do anything but nod. You stay in your position for some moments longer, before you sigh out a long breath, mumbling something that suspiciously resembles you’re gonna be the death of me. Spencer misses your warmth on top of him the second you hoist yourself up. It’s kind of crazy and destitute of him. You are literally right there but he’s waited for this for so long it feels like he’s suffocating without your weight pressing him down. Which is ironic and also, insane.

Your fingers are gentle, when they move under the stretchy fabric of his underwear. Even gentler when they pull down and down and down until Spencer is entirely naked in front of you.

Oh, he feels so exposed. While he has been the recipient of a mediocre hand job before, it’s been in his trousers. This is kind of the first time someone sees him naked like that, because school locker rooms and his mother don’t count.

He doesn’t dare look at you. If there’s anything akin to disappointment, not to mention disgust on your face- Spencer probably would have to jump out the window, stat. His gaze is frozen on his cock, steadily leaking precum on his stomach (which, embarrassing). He’s abashedly trying to insert himself into your point of view, tries to imagine what you think about seeing him like this. What you might think about his dick, if it’s too short or too thin or if it looks weird, if he should’ve shaved. If his legs look strange and too gangly now, or if his stomach connects to his pubic area wrong or-

“Holy shit”, you say, and Spencer is too curious for his own damn good sometimes, because he can’t force his gaze to stay away from you.

You look at him- like before. Reverent but more, so much more. He almost feels like a deity, the way you look at him. Someone to be awed by, someone that should be worshipped. Spencer feels his already in overdrive heartbeat quicken even more, blood flushing his cheeks so much it leaks down his throat, to his chest.

Spencer would literally kill to have you look at him like this for the rest of his life.

“Holy shit, Spencer”, you repeat, eyes now meeting his, “You’re like- a literal fucking dream. I cannot believe- you’re so beautiful, how are you so beautiful everywhere?”

Spencer whimpers and he needs you to touch him kiss him fuck him anything please now or he will absolutely die from heart palpitations.

Some of his despairing thoughts must’ve come through to you, because the next thing you do is moan, which is the best thing he’s ever heard. Then, you take off your sweater. Second to go is your cropped tank top and you aren’t wearing a bra and good heavens.

Pictures could never compare. Not even Botticelli could’ve adequately committed you to canvas.

Spencer must’ve taken some brain damage from seeing you half naked. He doesn’t remember you taking off the remainder of your clothes, nor does he remember you straddling him again. But, fuck.

Spencer kind of doesn’t use the f-word that often but-

fuckfuckfuckufuckfkcufuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckcufkc-

You’re warm against him, and wet, so freaking wet, and it feels so mind-blowingly good- it’s a miracle he’s still holding on. But-

“Won’t last long”, he gets out, breathy and whiny and just so goddamn fuzzy from pleasure. The world could literally perish right now, and he wouldn’t care. He can’t care, because this is the best thing that ever happened to him and he won’t ever care about anything else ever again other than feeling you, you you you you, against him.

“Spencer, Spencer”, you breathe, gasp, and fuck, the way you keep using his name. “Are you okay? Do you still want this?”

It’s ridiculous you even ask. But the warmth in his chest, the feeling of comfort and safety and ease – because everything with you is so easy, so natural - he feels with the way you look after him-

He feels your thumbs caressing his wet cheeks. You put small, sweet kisses all over his face. Take the time to brush away some of his sweat-sticky hair from his forehead. Place kisses there too. You end with a drawn out, gentle kiss to his lips.

“What do you say, sweetheart?”

There’s really only one way for him to answer that. He trusts you. Plain and simple. There’s no one else he could ever do this with.

“Yes, I want. Please.”

You kiss him again. “So good Spencer, you’re so fucking good to me. I can’t believe you are trusting me with this. You are incredible, angel.”

Spencer doesn’t know how it’s anatomically possible, but he blushes even harder. Also, feels his cock twitch against you because he apparently likes to be called good almost as much as he likes being good. For you. Only you. Jesus Christ.

“Do you have a condom?”, you ask and ah. Well.

“Suitcase”, and wow. First word with more than one syllable since you straddled him the first time. He’s being so brave right now. He deserves a medal. Proof of Being Able to Speak Polysyllabic Words While Getting Fucked (Almost).

There’s humour glistening in your eyes, when you hide a fake gasp behind your hand and say, “Oh my god, Spencer you dog. Can’t believe you planned this entire thing.”

Spencer almost chokes on his own spit. “N-no! I just- uh, like being prepared.”

You grind down a snort, drive your teeth into your lower lip. “In case you accidentally saw your coworker’s nudes and them being down to fuck you about it?"

Oh my god, you’re the most ridiculous person he’s ever met. He can’t stop himself from grinning because seeing you trying to keep your laughter at bay-

“Yes. That.”

“But what if- what if it was Rossi instead of you seeing them? How would’ve your plan worked out then, huh?”, you wheeze, shaking from literal suppressed laughter and Spencer makes a sound like a dying horse.

“Rossi? Rossi?”

“Oh my god, imagine it would’ve been Hotch. He would’ve probably fired me so hard and then called me a week later to disappointed-dad-talk me to come back but to please, refrain from bringing personal files to work in the future.”

Spencer laughs. He’s still rock-hard underneath you, but he’s laughing because that’s what you always do. Being so absurd and silly that he’s shocked to laughter.

He adores you with every fibre of his being.

“What the fuck?”, you ask, incredulous but laughing yourself, “Is my misery amusing to you?”

And Spencer feels like being a little bit of a brat. “Very.”

You flick his nose. Grumble something like I’ll show you misery and then you move your hips against his and Spencer sees stars. Let’s out an embarrassingly high whine.

Ah well. It was still worth it.

“Don’t move”, you order, when you climb down from him to retrieve a condom. Spencer watches you, lets himself look at you. All the times he’s wondered how it would be, how it would feel like, being in this kind of situation with you. He’s never in a million years thought it would feel so familiar. Like you’ve done this before, so many times that it’s just become something normal between you two. He’s actually relaxed. So turned on it feels like he’s going to burst any second, but he’s calm. He feels comfortable, so much so that it doesn’t even matter that it’s the first time he’s doing this and he’s so clueless about all of this.

But he knows, if it’s with you, he never ever has to worry about anything.

“Do you have lube as well?”, you ask, rifling through his suitcase and distracting him from his sappy thoughts.

“Hmm. No, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, angel”, you say while returning to Spencer, and the nickname kind of switches something off again in his brain. Perfect. He’s never going to be able to be normal again about that word.

“We’ll have to get some, for next time. Always feels better with it.”

Spencer hasn’t really registered more than next time next time next time-

He’s pulled out of his daze of knowing your intentions of this not only being a one-off thing, when you straddle him again, a bit lower on his legs. Spencer moans, loud and high, when you grab him by the base and god, fuck, his skin is tingling with anticipation.

With your other hand, you grab the condom and then use your teeth to open the packet, and his cock jumps in your hand. How are you so hot. How does everything you do turn him on so much, what.

He watches you take out the plastic ring as if he’s watching from above, out of his body. He watches as you position the condom over his tip and then pull it down, down and Spencer’s brain must be lagging because he feels everything with at least a two second delay and shit, god, son of a-

“You ready, baby?”

He makes a noise between a sob and a whine. He’s losing his mind. “Please please please-“

“Fuck, Spencer”, you whine, lift yourself up a bit with your legs and then you are sinking down on him, inch by agonizing inch.

It’s so good, it’s so good, you are so warm, so hot, and Spencer can’t stop making noises until your hips are flush to his and he’s inside you.

You let out a loud, drawn-out moan above him. “Fuck, fuck, Spencer. You feel so fucking good, holy shit.”

He feels like he’s one move away from coming. God, oh god, it feels so incredible.

“Can I move? Spencer, please?”, your voice is wrecked, you’re flushed down to your navel, and you’re the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Please please please please”, it’s the only word he remembers how to pronounce.

“Fuck”, you almost sob, lifting yourself almost completely off him. You lower yourself back down again, one swift move, and you both moan.

You pick up the pace a little, fucking him with still languid but purposeful thrusts. Every time his cock sinks back into you, Spencer feels bits and pieces of his sanity crumbling away. He can’t think, can’t speak, his mind so fogged up and fuzzy he’s having troubles remembering who he is. He’s so completely at your mercy he’d let you do anything to him.

That turns him on a worryingly huge amount. List, something about a list somewhere.

“Oh, god, look at you. Spencer, baby, angel. You feel so good inside of me, so good.”

He keens, grabs at your strong thighs bracketing his slim hips. Arches up into you, closerclosercloser-

“You like being good for me, right angel?”, you ask, hips slowing down to a gentle grinding that absolutely drives Spencer insane and he’s too far gone to even nod, “It suits you. Being so wrecked for me, moaning and shaking. God, fuck, you’re divine, Spencer, fuck.”

The pressure behind his cock, low in his stomach, that’s been building all evening, all week, holy shit, it’s too much. Spencer feels delirious, feels your hotness around him, feels your hands pressing his chest down into the bed. He’s going to die it feels so good.

“You going to come for me, Spencer? You gonna be good for me and come inside of me?”

Please please please please- it’s all he can think, all he can feel, because because-

You give a particularly hard thrust and-

Spencer’s coming, moaning and moaning, shaking everywhere. He’s coming and it feels so good, so fucking good. He’s never come so hard in his life before.

He might have blacked out a little. The next time he’s aware of something, it’s you cleaning him with a wet washcloth. Slow, and gentle and Jesus.

“What?”, is the first thing he manages to say, and you snicker beside him. You caress his face, hand running through his hair, down his chest. Peck his lips. You’re both still naked.

“Feeling good?”, you ask and what kind of question even is that. You just fucked the soul from his body, and you ask him-

“I almost died”, he says, tagging your name at the end with an incredulous tint to it.

You snort, setting the washcloth on the nightstand behind you. You lie down close to him, cuddling into his side. “That was the plan.”

“Killing me with sex?”

“Yep. That’s for ogling my nudes without my permission, you creep.”

He says your name again, exasperated but so fucking fond it’s a miracle you’ve never noticed his pining before. You shrug, pull a ‘what can you do face’. Spencer rolls his eyes and then, unceremoniously, flops on top of you.

“Uffff”, you press out. “You’re smothering me, penguin.”

Spencer shrugs and copies the expression you just did. You bark out a laugh.

“Ha! Didn’t know post-sex Spencer is such a cheeky little shit. I’ve created a monster.”

He can’t entirely control his face, some parts of a smile slipping into his features. He does manage to poke out his tongue at you though, before he buries his face in your neck.

Some minutes tick by, you both enjoying the other’s presence and warmth and idleness, before something in his brain-

“Wait-“, Spencer splutters, pushing himself away from you so that he can look at you. “Did you- did you even finish?”

He’s kind of horrified. He was so focused on his pleasure- he- how did he forget? He doesn’t remember you coming and oh no, he’s such an asshole, who doesn’t make sure the other person has come as well and-

“Spencer, Spencer”, you shush him, fingers trailing along his back, and he shivers, eyes rolling back.

“I made myself come right after, don’t worry. You were kind of busy in your post-orgasm, pussy-drunk coma.”

Spencer flushes. “But I wanted to…”

You laugh softly. “You can do whatever to me, next time, sweets. This was about you. We’ll go on a date as soon as we’re back home. Fucking Florida is driving me nuts.”

Oh, he suddenly feels shy. A date? You want to go on a date with him?

“Really?”, he asks, and he hates how insecure he sounds.

You send him an unbelieving look. “Uh, what about the last hour makes you think otherwise? Seriously, Spencer, we need to work on your confidence.”

“Okay”, he mutters, a little bit pout-y and you scoff, pulling him down on top of your chest again.

There, with your hands painting patterns on his back and him completely lost in your warmth and familiarity, Spencer thinks that maybe, Florida isn’t that bad.

Bonus

“So, then. Made any scientific discoveries last night, pretty boy?”

Spencer chokes on his coffee.

“What?”

“Nothing”, his ‘friend’ says, smirking and leaning against his table, “You just seem to have figured out that little problem that’s been keeping that pretty head of yours all messed up.”

Spencer feels himself flush. Stupid body and stupid involuntary, physiological reactions. Morgan picks up on it, of course.

“Ohhhhh, want to share with the class what those discoveries were?”

Briefly, so very briefly, Spencer thinks of his self-compiled list but- no no no no.

“Shut up, Morgan.”

⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆

tags: @sebastiansstanswhore @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @wasitforrevenge @wannabewolf @tommorecommendedfics @winterhi09 @theoraekenslover @chaewondrful @okeyhoezayy @busy-buzzing @laurakirsten0502 @redros3y @trashxqueen @kitty-kei @so-long-daisymay @hayleythecannibal @jsnsnsnszjzj @reeidsluv @kayane28 @moonysreid @desperately-seeking-serotonin @munsonslunchbox @tul1p-mimi @anuttellaa @pinkgomie @elizabethmidnight2017 @evrmorets @cyanidebitsg @bangchansdog @pinterestwhore145 @some-one-yiu-dont-kno @emma-e-a

i hope these work lmao, also let me know if you wanna be on my eternal tag list for any future Spencer fic ;)

#tinywrites #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader fanfic #criminal minds smut #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x y/n #tinywrites:accidents #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #criminal minds x reader

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