#hey look another essay

[tonydaddingham]

I would not be surprised at all if this turned out to be The Fanservice Season of all time and mostly fluff, because Gaiman said that a season THREE would be an adaptation of the planned sequel novel. This is more like,,, an intermediate setup for the sequel. And I also heard that some stuff got cut out because of COVID complications. So on one hand I'm kind of, worriedly, expecting a dip in quality with S2; but it makes me wonder if we're going to get any real answers at all until the very last minute.

hey anon, evening!!!✨ not sure if you necessarily asked for it, but here's my take on what you've shared💓

i hear you re: concerns, and i think that is a risk with any sequel; that it won't carry the same panache, or quality, or heart and soul of what the original source material was or meant to be. this fandom is incredibly fervent and enthusiastic and every single one of us wants it to succeed, so it's only natural that the fandom might carry these doubts to varying degrees. the concern is usually only meant out of the sheer hope that it will be a fitting continuation of this hugely loved and magnificent book and series, rather than out-and-out pessimism that by nature of being a sequel, it was always doomed to failure.

the concern isn't unfounded... on paper. COVID had the potential to be fatal to elements of the tv/film industry, and certainly the way it works has since changed dramatically... some of it for worse, some of it for better. as you say, neil has been really candid that it affected the budget of s2 and therefore posed certain limitations, but i truly don't think it's going to be to s2's detriment. there is also the fact that there is no novel from which s2 will be adapted. however, that novel started in neil and terry's minds, the same genesis as s2/s3, and regardless of terry sadly having since passed away, it will always be the story they want or wanted to tell.

frankly, i think neil is naturally the no.1 fan of the story they built and were planning to build together (would be alarming if he weren't!) and obviously cares very deeply about not only it and its characters, but also the legacy that it embodies. if neil states that he's happy with, and proud of, how s2 turned out, im more than inclined to trust and believe him. he has the highest stake out of anyone else involved; cast, crew, studio, or fan.

exposition in books (from the uneducated, inexperienced view of this reader) is arguably easier to navigate than translating the same to screen. you have a literal narration in books as opposed to it being optional in tv (eg god in s1), whether that be 1st/2nd/3rd person, a central character or side character, whoever. so, elements like thought processes have to be acted out through an experience or as dialogue, rather than an inner-monologue recollection. a memory has to be actualised, rather than just remembered, because we don't have a written narrative to help us. for example, in the hypothetical book sequel, aziraphale could remember the job incident with probably a one page summary, and that would get the point across - but to adapt that the screen, that's going to require a more literal depiction so that the audience is up to speed, and there's no ambiguity.

so my thought process would be that s3, yes, would have been the hypothetical second book, but for tv's sake, s2 is made from elements of the first and second book combined. as you say, it's made to build a bridge to s3 where, i imagine, the proverbial will hit the fan. all of that set up, the exposition, background narrative, needs to be laid out somewhere, and im inferring that it would be altogether too much to put into a s3. hence s2 will exist. it would be a big story to tell, and easier to do in two books than in two series.

my gut feeling is, and i totally realise a) others may not agree, and b) this may end up being wrong, but some of that set-up in s2 is going to be a major tone shift. there usually is in any show/film or book series; in the middle of the overall story, the characters are put against conflict usually not only working against them collectively, but conflict also amongst each other. i don't think it will be any different for s2; that there will be something that occurs in this series that will carry the driving emotion into s3.

i truly and honestly hope that i am surprised by the boys not having any conflict between each other (as well as conflict with Other Entities) by the end of s2, and i would love for the opening of s3 to be rooted in solidarity and togetherness between them both, but i just somehow don't feel like it will... but that's my expectation, not a certainty. in any case, regardless of the S2 Angst Debate, this season is again set up for s3, so yes - i think it's guaranteed that all of the threads from s2 will weave together in perhaps the last ten or so minutes, and the final Problem will be revealed as the "dun-dun-dun" moment to propel us into s3.

as for fanservice? id respectfully disagree, and say i don't think it will be fanservice at all. fanservice looks different for different people, and honestly nowhere more than in GO. some people will want certain romantic moments, or certain hurt/comfort moments, angst moments, intimate moments, conflict moments, historical narrative moments... you catch my drift. neil has been pretty adamant that the story and canon is where he takes it, and is pretty upfront that he takes measures to avoid fans' headcanons and fic wherever possible. so actually, if someone's headcanon happens on screen, doesn't that just mean that that someone had the same thought for where these characters were going as neil did when he wrote it? that's not fanservice in my eyes, that's just being on the same wavelength as the author, and that - in my opinion - would be pretty cool.✨

[quirkyfries]

this is mostly about my last reblog tags about Ruin’s comment on the Mimic having a rough time if they were to go into his body but

Ruin, I think, has a lot more experience than most of the other animatronic cast. Just experience. Being alive. He is older than a lot of the main cast, and because they’re robots, all that memory is also a lot More than the rest of the main cast. Imagine what the Mimic would experience if he went through Ruin’s memories—years and years of trauma and probably random stuff. The sheer volume of it should be a lot more than, say, Eclipse, whose cumulative lifetime across all four versions is likely dwarfed by Ruin’s. It’d be like watching a 10 minute YouTube video versus watching Oppenheimer (a three hour long movie.)

Alternatively, Ruin’s comment could be about his physical body. Is he implying that he’s in constant pain? Combined with previous comments about feeling unsafe/not okay and not sleeping, I’d believe it actually. On this note, I’m surprised that he wasn’t more upset about Puppet fiddling with the back of his head/his back ring to get a look at his endo. Maybe considering the last “hold still” moment between Puppet and Ruin was when Puppet attached a debt to him, he’s a little more trusting? Albeit he was not too happy about the endo peeking, he didn’t insist he know beyond simply asking. Compare this to how pissed Ruin was when Dark Sun may or may not had done something to him and didn’t tell him what it was.

[like-sands-of-time]

The more research I do into Wilson's cancer (stage II thymoma) the more confused I am

According to the national cancer institute the treatment for stages 1 and 2 are surgery .. then maybe radiation therapy after depending on the situation.

According to cancernet the 5 year survival rate when the cancer is located only in the thymus is 93%. If it's spread to surrounding tissue and organ the survival rate is still 79%. And if it's found only after spreading to distant parts of the body the survival rate is still 40%, on average much higher than say lung cancer that's still localized (which is 56%) while lung cancer that's spread to other organs has a 5 year rate of only 5(five!) %. (This is from the American lung association)

I just find it frustrating that of all the cancers they picked, they picked one that ... Won't kill him? At stage 2? And he didn't need to do chemotherapy he needed to just have surgery???

What's even more interesting is I was looking into this cancer trying to find a way to make it believable .. give them the benefit of the doubt. And I found a disorder called Cowden Syndrome which is very rare and causes the patient to have an increased risk of both benign and cancerous tumors in their life.

While the most common tumors are in the skin, mouth, and gastrointestinal tract, the patient has an increased risk for cancerous tumors in the thyroid, colorectum, breast, etc.

Now these growths would be noticed on any number of scans so I can only assume a whole body scan was the only way they got a diagnosis of such a rare (indeed very rare cancer for Wilson. A statistic I read on cancer net said that for every 1 million people in the US only 1.5 people will be diagnosed with this disease. Naturally the complete picture can never be known but that's an insanely specific cancer for Wilson to get !)

Anyway the only way I can justify him having such a small and specific cancer is to have him highly susceptible to tumors and therefore one grew there. By that logic maybe he got another one elsewhere and that was the real reason he was dying.

Not a doctor so if anythings inaccurate I apologize but I just spent a lot of time reading differential diagnoses for both thymomas and Cowden Syndrome and can honestly say as far as rare interesting disorders go, that would have been my choice. Fits very well with House's zebras not horses mentality that the cancer doctor would get a disorder specifically generating tumors throughout his whole life and maybe one just went somewhere deadly.

[b3ach-bunn7]

READ YOUR MIND

You're roommate and her boyfriend are incredibly loud, so you decide to spend the night at your hot friend Jason's house.

fluff, college!au, confessions, one bed trope

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It takes about twenty minutes of internal conflict before you find yourself outside Jason’s dorm room. 

You feel stupid. It’s not like you haven’t been in Jason’s room before. You guys were friends. He’d slept on your couch after a movie night gone too long, you’d stayed up for hours writing essays together on his bedroom floor. This was nothing weird, nothing new. 

But for whatever reason, today it feels different. 

It might be the fact that you’re seeing him differently. You’re not sure when, but the line between friend and something else has started to blur. You don’t know how you didn’t notice the strong slope of his jaw, the fact that he was probably strong and muscular enough to throw you over his shoulder. How funny he was, how kind he was. The fact he studied English, how smart he was at it. It’s really no one's fault but his own. You’re surprised you’d lasted this long without crushing on him, anyway. And maybe the way his eyes lingered a little too long on your own. Innocent touches felt like something else, a hand holding your hips as he stepped behind you, a thigh against your own as you sat in impossibly tight lecture halls.

Whatever. There’s no point looking at it like that. You love your friendship with him too much to let a little crush ruin it. 

If you were in any other situation, you wouldn’t be here. But it’s late and you know of all your friends Jason’s the most likely to be awake. You don’t want to bother him but you can't spend another night third-wheeling with your roommate and her boyfriend. That, and the fact that it gets particularly loud whenever you come to sleep. 

After a deep breath to steel yourself, you knock on the door. It takes only a few seconds before it swings wide open. 

And God, you take back everything you just said. Because he's wearing a pair of grey sweats, and an old band shirt that is showing off his delicious arms, and you don’t know if you can blame the fact it’s nearly midnight on the thoughts running through your head. His movements are slow, sleepy, as he blinks at you confused.

He pushes his glasses up his head, tufts of brown hair falling over his face. “Oh. Hey. Is- Are you okay?”

“Oh god, did I wake you?”

“Nah, you’re good.” He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms.

It takes a second before the words come out of your mouth. “I- Lily. She has- She has her boyfriend round, and I don’t sleep very well when he’s there.” You laugh awkwardly, scratching your arm.

You hold up the books and paper you brought with you. “You mind if I crash here tonight? I bought stuff to keep me busy, so I’ll be out of your hair.”

Jason smiles easily, pushing the door open further. “Of course, yeah.” 

You step in, thanking him as he grabs the stuff out of your hand and puts them on his front table. His dorm is so boyish. Him and his roommate, an eccentric boy everybody called Gar, were not the best at interior design. Their couches are dark grey with red pillows, jarring against the white carpet you’d bought them as a housewarming gift. The kitchen was an amalgamation of whatever plates and mugs they’d found at thrift stores, their fridge filled with pictures from Gar’s old polaroid camera. It was cute and very them, and a warm place to sleep that wasn’t accompanied by the sound of your roommate and her boyfriend doing whatever the hell they got up to alone.

“Thanks again. I can’t stand another night with those two.”

Jason snorts a laugh, sitting down on the couch. “It can’t be that bad. They’re nice people.”

“Yeah, sure. But all they do is remind me of how painfully single I am.” You huff, sitting beside him.

He’s close enough that you can smell the expensive cologne he wears. He’s shown you it once, a fancy glass bottle. He’s spritzed it on your wrist and the smell lasted all day. He nods at your words, and you turn your head towards the TV to avoid his gaze.

“That guy you saw last week didn’t work out?” 

Your eyebrows furrow. Honestly, the date had been crap, and you’d forgotten about him the second you’d gone home. You’re surprised he remembers. You tell Jason about all of your romantic adventures, hoping it will have some effect on your feelings for him. It hasn't been very successful so far. And while Jason looks disinterested as he asks you, eyes focused on the movie on screen, his leg taps up and down, and he looks a little restless. You think about lying for a split second, but you can’t bring yourself to do it.

You scoff. “I haven’t spoken to him since. He was boring. And stupid.”

Jason laughs, his eyes crinkling. “That’s rude!”

“He couldn’t hold one conversation with me! Like, I asked him what his favourite book was and he said Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We are nineteen years old!” You whine, hands covering your face as Jason cackles next to you.

“So that���s all women want. A man who reads?” There's a teasing lilt to his voice and you roll your eyes.

“Well, duh. I am studying English after all. I’d like to be able to hold a conversation with him about what I do.”

“That’s a fair dealbreaker, I'll be honest.” Jason hums, resting his arm on the back of the couch, brushing your back slightly. “Is that all you’re looking for in a man?”

The TV blares quietly in the background. Some random show on the food network where the contestant currently on screen looks like they're about to drop the tiered cake in their hands. His question rings out in the room, and you know you only have a few seconds before your silence is considered awkward. But you can’t help but think his question is so suggestive. Does he want to know why out of innocent curiosity? Or does he want to know out of something else?

“Well. Obviously not.” You finally say, bringing your knees up to your chest. “But English comprehension would be nice.”

Jason snorts a laugh. “That being said. He has to be funny. And tall, at least taller than me. And he needs to be smart. And fit. Like, physically.”

Jason watches you with a small smile on his face, nodding, like he knows you're just trying to describe him in a roundabout way. You laugh, a little nervous under his gaze. You reach across the couch and grab the remote.Your arm brushes against his leg and the contact is fleeting but it makes your skin burn.

“And all these guys at uni, and you haven’t found one who fits?” 

His voice is lower when he speaks again, and when you look at him he’s looking at you so intensely. And it’s then you notice that the two of you are sitting quite close on the couch, considering it's one big enough to fit about four people. 

“Well. Yes. I- Maybe.”

He just nods again. You take a quick breath in, quickly grabbing your book from the table. “Did you finish the essay for next week?” 

Jason groans, leaning his head back on the couch. “Fuck. No. I completely forgot.”

You wave your own essay in the air. “Well. I was gonna ask you to read over mine, but. Nevermind then.” You sigh dramatically.

“Shut up. Lemme read.” He takes it out of your hand, slipping his glasses back on his face. They’re thick rimmed lenses that make him look older than he is and you love them.

You watch him as he reads, fingers playing with his bottom lip as his eyes skim over your work. Some part of you feels the tiniest bit self-conscious, because he is a hundred times smarter than you, but you know he’d never make it feel that way. Jason suddenly looks up and his eyes meet yours. You smile, face heating, as he raises an eyebrow.

“Enjoying the view, sweetheart?”

“Shut up.”

You tap the edge of your paper. “Good?”

“Great. Can you write mine too?”

You snort. “You wish.” Jason pouts and drops your paper back on the table.

“It’s fine. I’ll do it tomorrow. Right now I’m hungry.”

You sit up immediately at that. “Yes. Let’s order food.”

Jason looks back at his kitchen. “I shouldn’t. I’ve eaten takeaway every night this week, I think. It’s also,” he quickly glances at his watch, “barely half twelve. What’s even open right now?”

You groan, shaking his shoulder. “Jason, don’t be responsible! I’m here, this is like a sleepover. We need to eat something junk-foody.”

Jason just frowns. You flick the centre of his glasses and he tuts. “Hey.”

“I’ll even pay! It’s on me.” You nod and pull out your phone. You’re opening UberEats before he can protest again.

“See. Burger King is open. We love Burger King!”

“We do?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“A whopper.”

You spend the next ten minutes deciding and then the next thirty waiting anxiously for your food. The thing with Jason, and probably the reason you like him the most, is that you can talk to him about anything. Tonight, it’s his brother Dick’s birthday party. He leans in to show you the picture on his phone, and you try not to laugh at how unhappy he looks to be photographed.

When the doorbell rings Jason runs to grab the food, before bringing it back to the two of you. It takes another twenty minutes for the two of you to finish eating, old episodes of Friends humming in the background. Sleep circles your limbs and you yawn, sipping on blue slushy that had come with your order. It’s entirely too sweet and stains your tongue blue but you keep drinking it anyway.

“I don’t know. Bruce is always asking me to come over, but. Things are still weird.”

You nod. “Yeah, I get it. But it’s good you’re trying. I-“

You're cut off suddenly by Jason yelling and pointing at your arm. You screech, dropping your slush and shooting off the couch.

“What! Oh my god, what is it?” You yell, hands rubbing at your sleeves.

“You-“ Jason tries to speak but his words are cut off by a laugh. “It was just a little bug.” 

“Jason. That is not funny! You freaked me out, look!” You whine, pointing at the now spilt slushy all over your hoodie.

“Ah, shit. Sorry, sorry.” 

He gets up and grabs some tissues and you furiously dab at your hoodie. The couch is also now blue, and you frown. “There goes my bed, too. Guess I’m sleeping on your bedroom floor today.” 

Jason perks up where he’s blotting the couch. He frowns, thinking for a moment. “You’re not sleeping on the floor, what? Take my bed.”

Your hands drop to your sides. “Well what about you?” 

“I’ll take the floor. It’s my fault you split this, anyway.” 

“It’s your bed. I’m not gonna make you sleep on the floor.”

“Well, it’s my dorm so. I think I’ll have the final say, sweetheart.” He teases. 

You bite your bottom lip, thinking, and toss the used tissues on the table. “Why don’t we just sleep together?”

The tips of Jason’s ears turn a dark red and he looks a little shell-shocked at your words, before it’s replaced by a smirk. Your face flushes too, and you quickly shake your head.

“I- Not like that, I meant- Stop laughing.” You snap. But the sight of him laughing behind his hand makes you giggle a little too.

“I just mean, like. I don’t mind sleeping in the bed with you. I just- I don’t think there’s any point in one of us sleeping on the floor, if there’s a perfectly good bed that can fit us both, you know?”

You’re well aware that you’re rambling, and the way he tilts his head and smiles at you is not helping. He gives the couch one last wipe and stands.

“Alright. That’s cool with me if it’s cool with you.  I can also get you something else to wear.” He gestures at your now blue hoodie and you smile gratefully.

You’ve been in Jason’s room once or twice, to grab something or take a call. But this time it’s different, because you’re looking at his bed and you’re going to be in it in about five minutes. You ignore the band posters plastered on his walls, the messy stacks of books all over his floor. You sit gingerly on the edge of the mattress and wait. He comes in only a moment later. He starts rummaging through his drawers and you just watch. He glances at you over his shoulder and shakes his head, huffing a laugh.

“Stop staring. You’re making me nervous.” He whispers.

“Man up.”

He throws a hoodie at you and you catch it. “You know where the bathroom is.”

You walk into the toilet and quickly get changed. You leave your old hoodie in the hamper. Jason’s one is bigger and smells like him, and you don’t see yourself giving this back anytime soon. You give yourself a quick once over in the mirror, fixing your hair and wiping mascara from under your eyes, before you head back to Jason’s room.

When you come back, Jason’s already in bed, doing something on his phone. You linger in the doorway and he looks up.

“You want a formal invitation?”

You roll your eyes and shuffle your way over. You gingerly lift up the sheets and climb in. You are so painfully aware of how close he is, your shoulders brushing as he puts his phone to the side and lays down properly. The room is silent other than the two of you breathing. Just when you're about to speak, he beats you to it.

“Night.” He whispers.

“Goodnight.”

You’re not crazy, right? This is weird. Maybe if it was Victor’s room. A boy friend who was completely platonic, it wouldn't mean anything. But you’ve felt the tension between you and Jason, the subtle flirting, the lingering touches. You know that whatever is happening between you guys is not just friendship. And you have no idea if it's just you, because Jason is breathing so evenly you think he’s fallen asleep already. 

You shuffle a little in the sheets, uncomfortable. They smell like Jason and it’s not helping to calm your thoughts down. You turn around to lay on your side, and when you do, you’re met with a face right in front of you, looking back. 

It doesn’t take long for your eyes to adjust to the darkness and this close, you can make out the spattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, the grey hairs he’s growing at 20 that he always complains about. His eyelashes are so long, and you smile sleepily.

“Hi.” 

He smiles too. “Hi.”

“I can’t sleep.” You mumble, eyes fluttering shut. “Those burgers woke me up.”

Silence. You don't get a reply. You open your eyes again and Jason is just staring.

“Is there another bug on my face?” You joke. But he doesn't laugh.

“No. You just look so pretty right now.”

Your mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. Jason looks like he’s telling you the time of day, so casual. He lifts up his hand slightly, and brushes a strand of your hair from out your face.

“I- Thank you.”

He doesn’t say anything again. You don’t know what to say. A silence settles over the room again. The two of you just look at each other. And just when you’re about to break it, he sits up so fast it makes you jump.

“Jason, what-”

“I can’t do this, I-”

You eyebrows furrow and you sit up, watching Jason flick on the lamp on his bedside table. The room is enveloped in a soft warm light, and his hair is tousled a little, his shirt wrinkled from how quickly he got up.

“What is going on right now?” “Did you know Gar isn’t home?” He says.

You say yes, because the fact you can’t hear him yelling at COD or something else, and the fcat he didn’t come say hi, is enough clue that he’s not home. 

“Right, so. When I made you spill your slushy, which was an accident by the way, I could’ve easily just let you stay in there. He wouldn’t care.”

“Okay.” You say slowly.

“And. I didn’t. Because I knew that you wouldn’t let me sleep on the floor and i wouldn’t either, and then we’d be in this position, and I’d finally get the chance to fucking tell you how i feel.”

“How- How you feel?”

“Yes. And then I pussied out and I just said goodnight, and. And then you looked at me, and, fuck. I can’t take it anymore.”

And then Jason turns to look at you, and he looks so desperate as he grabs your hands, his skin calloused as he tightens his grip. 

“I like you. A lot. And, you know, I’d like to think I'm pretty smart, but I know I am horrible when it comes to people, at feelings. So I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say that.”

This is a dream. There’s no way this is real, that the Jason Todd, biceps and all, is confessing to you on his bed. You want to pinch yourself because the way his thumb is rubbing soothing circles on the back of your hand is making your heart squeeze in your chest.

You watch those pretty brown eyes furrow slightly at your silence. 

“I- If you don’t feel the same way, I-”

You don’t think before you reach forward, palms grabbing his jaw and pulling him forward so you can press a kiss to his lips. And he barely waits a second before his eyes flutter closed, hands tangling in your hair to pull you impossibly closer. Your arms slide down to curve around his neck and you toy with the hair on the nape of his neck, and he groans. You finally let go and he leans his forehead on yours, kissing your nose, your cheek.

“I like you too, by the way. If the kiss wasn’t tell enough.”

He grins, boyish and handsome, and you want to kiss him again.

He sighs happily, hands slipping up the edge of his hoodie, eyes waiting for your nod of approval. When he gets it, he smiles again, pressing a kiss to your jaw.

“God, thank fuck for Lily and her boyfriend

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nia try not to write a college au mission impossible... I LOVEE JASON TODD! In my head any alternate universe hes not emo so i write him nice and cute.

thanks to all who voted in the poll! im gonna make my way through all the guys on that list so look out for it! next up will be shinsou because of a very nice commenter ;P i hope u all enjoy this, leave any fic ideas in my ask box!

[rin-may-1103]

The Eyes of Death.

This story is mostly inspired by Jaybirbie's prompt | Master post | Next?

"Hey, sweetheart?" Danny called, quickly jotting down the last sentence for his paper. He'd have to remember to go back and reread it and make sure he didn't trail off into another tangent. He swears he wasn't this bad at managing his ADHD back in Amity...

"Yes, Danny?" Damian asked, turning back from the door to face him as he scrolled further down the story he was reading. The familiar font of Gotham City's gazette blurred as a picture of Mr. Freeze and Penguin finally loaded. So that's what was going on. Danny should have known; the bats already dealt with the other usual rouges, and these two were next on the list.

"Can you walk with me? I just know Nancy and her boyfriend are out there, waiting. I really don't want to deal with them again... We could spend more time at my place? Tucker sent me another movie, and I'm unsure if I should watch it alone after last time." Danny pleaded, quickly shoving all of his papers into his bag. He'd deal with straightening them out later, it wasn't like his professors weren't used to his wrinkled essays at this point.

However, he should probably redo the blueprints for Workshop. Mr. Anthlow was a hardass, but nothing could compare to his anger when a student handed in wrinkled blueprints; he claimed he wasn't going to have another 'Tanner' incident on his watch, whatever the heck that meant.

He was not looking forward to whatever Nancy wanted to talk to him about, she looked excited. Which could only mean bad things for him; considering the last time she was excited, he ended up spending time with Bane of all people. And there was no way her boyfriend was just going to let Danny get away again.

Damian grimaces, finally looking up and away from his phone. "I'm sorry beloved..." he held up the device just in time to show an incoming text from his Father, "I promised Father I'd be home a while ago. And with what's happening down on-"

"It's ok, I'll just head out the back door," Danny cut in, seeing the start of guilt on his boyfriend's face. He knew how much Danny hated having to deal with those two, and the fact Damian hasn't been able to even introduce himself to them hasn't helped. With a smile, Danny scooped up his textbooks and made his way to stand in front of Damian, "They can't bother me if they don't see me!"

Unsurprisingly, Danny could feel the guilt grow and start to float around Damian as the boy glanced at his phone, the message tone sounding out again in warning.

Danny only met Damian's father once; it was just a simple shake of hands and sharing names before the man ran off, but it did leave an impression. The man felt tired and paranoid; like, to the point Danny kind of wanted to drag Jazz over and lock the two of them in a room, paranoid. (Danny wants to say he's never seen someone that paranoid, but he'd be lying. He looks in the mirror after all.)

The point is; Danny's only met the man once, but that was enough for him to know that the man would tear down the world if he thought for even a second that one of his kids was in danger. This meant, that if Damian didn't go and reassure his father that he was alive and safe within the next sixty or so seconds, then there was a possibility that there wouldn't be another date for at least another week.

And considering this "study date" was supposed to make up for the last one Damian had missed because of his Father? Yeah, Danny wasn't going to be happy if Damian got grounded or dragged into another 'surprise' family road trip because his father was convinced his children would be dead before the 'yearly' planned get-together in November.

They had a trip to the zoo planned for tomorrow, and Delilah was supposed to be allowed out with her kids. This would be Delilah's first public outing since her kids' birth. There's no way Danny was going to allow Damian to miss that. (he swears to the ancients, if there was a rouge attack he was going to kill someone, Dark Dan's future be damned.)

Lifting his heels off the ground so he could stand on his tiptoes, Danny snagged Damian's arm and pulled him down so he could kiss his cheek. "I'll get home safe, just focus on keeping your dad from going insane. We've got a date at the zoo tomorrow and we're not missing it even if your father becomes the next city rogue."

Damian wrapped his arms around Danny, trapping him in a hug as he sighed in fond frustration. "I promise I won't miss it, ok? I'll be there."

Danny rolled his eyes and pushed Damian back, dropping back to stand on the ground, "You better, 'cause hell hath no fury like a gorilla denied the chance to meet her human best friend's boyfriend."

Damian snorted, before looking away and pretending to cough. Danny moved his textbooks to rest more securely in one of his arms, so he could point at his boyfriend. "I'm not kidding, if I show up tomorrow and tell her all about my life and you're not there, she will break out and track you down. I won't stop her either, you'd deserve whatever she does to you."

"Alright, alright. I get it, and I already promised I'd be there didn't I?" Damian chuckled, raising his hands up in surrender. Which would have been cute if it wasn't for the fact that his phone went off again, this time in an insistent buzzing. His eldest brother's ringtone; which meant Damian was going to be busy for a while.

Cursing, Damian turned and answered, "I'm in the middle of something, this better be important Grayson," glancing back at Danny, he mouthed for him to wait a moment as his brother started talking.

Smiling, Danny shook his head, snatched Damian's jacket, and started making his way out the door. There was no way Damian would finish this phone call any time soon. Danny's learned not to wait after the last four times this happened. Damian turned back with betrayed eyes, but the urgent voice of his brother buzzing even louder held him back. Waving goodbye with a smile, Danny shut the door and started making his way down the hall.

He'd have to ask Damian what happened tomorrow, Grayson didn't usually call him, especially when he knew Damian was spending time with Danny. He said it had something to do with how it was sacrilege to interrupt time spent with a significant other. Danny had wanted to ask him more about it but hadn't gotten the chance when The Riddler crashed their spontaneous meeting.

Speaking of The Riddler, Danny's social science paper wasn't looking too hot right now. He'd have to block out a time for him to work on that at some point this week. He wasn't doing anything on Friday, well, besides his early morning classes. That should work...

"Hey, Danny!" someone called, pulling him out of his musing. Glancing up, Danny internally groaned when he noticed Nancy waving at him in sheer delight. Giving her a half-hearted wave, Danny sped up and continued making his way to the back of the library. If he was quick enough maybe he could-

To his dismay, Nancy's boyfriend stepped out from behind one of the shelves and latched onto his arm. Tightly.

Just great, this is exactly what he wanted to avoid. Curse his inability to pay attention when he got lost in thought. Damn ADHD. Blasted non-existent spatial awareness. This was what he got for relying on his ghost sense, he just knows it.

"She said hi, kind of rude of you to just keep walking, Kid." Wyatt huffed, roughly dragging Danny back and towards his girlfriend. Nancy smiled brightly as Wyatt let him go, allowing Nancy to weave her arm with Danny's and practically drag him toward the front of the building.

"There's this big party going on tonight, some Jr invited us. He said it was going to be a night to remember! You should totally come with us, Danny! My friend Shela said she was bringing her nerdy freshmen too! I just know you'd fit right in with them!" Nancy squealed excitedly, shaking Danny as they finally made it to the front doors.

One of the desk attendants rolled their eyes at them as Danny glanced over, hoping that Barbara might intervene. No such luck, she was nowhere in sight, probably off somewhere shelving books. So much for that plan.

"uh, thanks, but I already-" Danny tried, stopping when Nancy scoffed and yanked him out the door and into the frosty night. "Damn, it's cold!" Wyatt cursed, taking his jacket off and quickly handing it over to Nancy. She let go of Danny and pulled it on, then stared at Danny for a moment, "Put your coat on Danny, no way in hell am I letting my kid catch a cold!"

Rolling his eyes, Danny wrapped Damian's coat over his shoulders. He was too lazy to actually put it on, not when that meant handing his textbooks over. The last time he did that, Nancy got bored and started doodling all over them. (how she had managed to do that in the little time it took to put a hoodie on, Danny wasn't sure.)

"I just want to go home, Nancy. I'm not really a party person." Danny sighed, allowing Nancy to drag him down the dark streets. His apartment was in this general direction anyway. Nancy turned to her boyfriend with a huff, "Wyatt! make him come with us!"

"Let the nerd do what he wants, it's not like it affects us if he kicks the bucket all alone," Wyatt grumbled, rolling his eyes.

Ouch, but true. Please listen to your grumpy boyfriend, please listen to your grumpy boyfriend, please listen-

"But Shela said she was bringing Carly!" Nancy turned back to Danny, a pout clear on her face, "You two would be so cute together! she's nerdy just like you! And she's totally into all those murder mystery shows you watch!"

Damn it. Not this crap again.

"That's nice, Nancy, but I'm not interested. I already told you guys, I have a boyfriend," Danny sighed, trying to gently extract his arm from hers; for a human, Nancy sure had one heck of a grip.

"Yeah, right," Wyatt snorted, patting Danny's back, completely ignoring the fact that Danny was literally wearing someone else's jacket. "We'll believe you when you introduce us, until then. You're a virgin loser."

And there we go, people; the reason Danny wanted to crawl into the sewer and die whenever he saw these two. They were nice, don't get him wrong, but they were also stubborn idiots.

"Being a virgin has nothing to do with my relationship status, Wyatt. I'm ace. you've known this since the first time we talked." Danny grumbled, allowing Nancy to drag him down another street. He wasn't sure exactly where they were going now, but he was too tired to care at this point.

If these self-claimed 'Parents' of his wanted to drag him to this stupid party, then fine. Whatever. It's not like Danny had any other plans tonight anyway.

"Asexuality isn't a thing man," Wyatt huffed, speeding up so he could guide them in the right direction now that they were heading into a rougher patch of buildings. Danny could see the man was shivering, though trying to act tough in front of Nancy. Smirking, Danny sent a cold breeze his way. The man scowled up at the sky, cursing quietly.

"Yeah!" Nancy agreed, smiling brightly down at Danny without a care in the world. Like they didn't have this conversation every other week. "You just haven't met the right person yet, Danny! And I know how awkward it is to admit that you're staying celibate until marriage, but you don't have to hide it behind being ace."

Taking a deep breath, Danny closed his eyes and focused on not shouting out of frustration. The celibate comment was new, the acephobia, not so much. "Ok, first of all; Asexuality is a thing, which many people ARE. Literally, 1% of the world is ace. That's over 70 million people. Second of all, I'm not celibate, and I'm not sure if you even know what that means, considering you know I was raised Atheist."

"What does being an Atheist have to do with celibacy?" Nancy asked, tilting her head to look at him. Danny groaned, smacking his forehead against his textbooks. He was NOT going to explain this to them tonight.

"You know what, Nancy? It doesn't matter." Danny huffed, trying again to gently pry her hands off. He wanted to go home. He wanted to cuddle with his boyfriend. He wanted to go back to Amity. Maybe go to the realms and play with Cujo. He did NOT want to deal with these idiots.

Wyatt stopped walking and turned to face them, rolling his eyes as Nancy pouted at Danny. "Come on babe, let the loser go. He obviously doesn't appreciate your efforts."

"but who else is going to convince him to live a little? He's just going to go back to his apartment and sulk by himself!" Nancy cried, tightening her grip again.

"Who cares what the kid does, Nancy? let the dude die a virgin loser. Now let's go, we're already late as is."

"But I really want him to-," Nancy tried, cutting herself off, as both she and Danny spotted a cloaked person appear out of the shadows behind Wyatt.

Wyatt lifted his brow before slowly turning to see what the two of them were staring at. The cloaked figure suddenly whacked him over the head with a metal pole before he could fully turn around. Wyatt's body dropped to the ground with a heavy thump, making Nancy scream, "Wyatt!"

Shit, Danny stepped back, trying to pull Nancy with him as the cloak dude tossed the metal pole to the side with a loud clank. Which was confusing, why would he through away his weapon?

"Shut her up!" the cloak dude cried, bending down to grab Wyatt's arms. He better not be telling Danny to do that, because that would just be stupid and- Suddenly, a dozen more cloaked people flooded out of the darkness and surrounded them. That answered Danny's questions at least.

Danny tensed up as a couple of the people tried to grab onto him. Quickly pulling Nancy back, successfully this time, Danny glanced around to try and find an exit. He couldn't do anything crazy right now, not unless he wanted to give away his secret, but some self-defense should be fine.

Nancy suddenly let go of his arm and smacked one of the cloaked people in the face, "Don't you fucking dare touch me! Wyatt! Kid, get out of here!"

Danny turned to her in alarm, eyes wide in horror as she quickly disappeared into the cloaked crowd. Another cloaked person managed to latch onto Danny's shoulder, reminding him to focus on his situation. Quickly stepping back, he slammed into the man grabbing him, knocking his grip loose. Ducking under another attempt, Danny swung out his leg and tripped the dude into two others.

Twisting to try and make his way over to where he figured Nancy was, Danny dropped his textbooks and punched someone in the face. Damian's jacket was yanked off his shoulders, making him turn with a growl. Punching another person in the face, Danny lunged at the group.

"Hurry! before the bats find us!" the supposed leader cried, making even more cloaked people surround Danny. There was no way a normal civilian would be able to fight their way out of this, so Danny would have to allow himself to be caught soon. Only after biting and scratching the fuck out of them though. Just because he had to let them catch him, doesn't mean he has to make it easy.

~30 min later

Danny stared at the leader as the man droned on and on about needing the right sacrifice for the ritual to work. Nancy and Wyatt grumbled behind him, agreements from the other kidnapped victims filling Danny's ears like bees.

"The sacrifice shall be the one who treads the veil between life and death, the one who's beloved by the spirits as their own! He shall be pale as a corpse, his body kissed by death many times throughout his life. His hair as black as the sky on a moonless night, cradled by the moon since birth." Mr. totally-read-one-fake-ritual-book-when-he-was-a-teen-and-now-has-to-make-it-everyone's-problem droned on dramatically, reverently dragging his finger down the old dusty tome's page,

"so Mr. Wayne?" Nancy huffed, pressing her back into Danny's side. Wyatt chuckled, shoving his foot into Danny's knee, "No, it's totally Mr. Drake he's talking about. Have you seen that dude's eyebags? they make him look like a ghost."

One of the strangers leaned over, rolling their eyes, "No, it's got to be Mr. Dent. The dude's literally half living half not."

"No, Two-Face is half insane, half burnt chicken. Ain't nothing about him going to please ghosts. He was a fucking lawyer, for Christ shake." another guy added.

"the dude said 'he' which crossed out half of y'all," Danny added, glancing at the group around him. The women blinked and then rolled their eyes; only in Gotham would they get kidnapped and not actually be needed.

"Assholes," Nancy huffed, she glanced over her shoulder and down at him, her face set into a frown, "You good, kid? you're like freezing cold."

"I'm fine," Danny huffed, focusing back on the leader. He could just feel the old magic rolling off the book; this was something dangerous, especially in this dipshit's hands. Ancients, he was going to have to do everything he could to keep the man from actually doing the ritual or mess it up if the bats didn't get here in time.

One of the cloaked people suddenly dragged a camera out from a side room, grumbling about networks and livestreams being shit. Huh, well that would definitely help provide their location to the bats. They must be really inexperienced cultists then...

"The sacrifice shall fall into our hands by fate's design. The sacrifice is here and waiting for what his whole life was meant for. Now-"

"Elder!" one of the other cloaked figures cried, waving their phone in the air in excitement. Dread quickly filled Danny's stomach.

"All the bats and birds are busy dealing with those scoundrels they call rouges! If we hurry, we can complete the ritual before they can interfere!"

"Perfect!" Mr. 'Elder', cheered, slamming the tome closed and handing it off to one of the others. "So?" Mr. Elder started, turning to face them with a sharp grin, "Who's it going to be?"

Danny glanced at the group behind him, all of them having gone silent as the cloaked group started pulling out their ritual things, one of which was a very blood-stained knife.

Mr. Elder started circling them, humming and hawing as he studied each one of them. He stopped next to Wyatt, studying him intently.

Quickly weighing his options, Danny straightened up and glared at the man, "I'll be your sacrifice."

Immediately Nancy leaned away from him with a gasp, Wyatt's foot dropping to the floor with a thud. "Danny, no!" Nancy hissed, turning her body so she could face him. Danny didn't glance at her, just continued glaring at the cultist. The cult leader laughed, "Well then. So it shall be! You heard the sacrifice, tie him to the chair!"

With everyone watching, all Danny could do was tense as four of the followers walked over and pulled him up. "No!" Nancy shouted, leaning over and grabbing onto him. Wyatt reached out to Nancy, wanting to pull her back. The men tensed up, ready to interfere. Quickly pulling back, Danny frowned at Nancy and Wyatt, "I'll be ok, just don't do anything stupid!"

They harshly pulled him up and away again, before Nancy could reply. And because he was already pissed off, he made it as difficult for them as possible as they dragged him to the wooden chair. The camera person focused the lens on them, recording it as they shoved him down to sit and wrapped a bloody rope around his limbs.

So much for thinking they were inexperienced... They've done this before, he knows now. How many times? He wasn't sure, but if he had any say in it after tonight, they'd never do it again.

Once he was securely tied to the chair and gagged, because Danny couldn't help himself but insult them, the cultist started preparing the ritual. Why they hadn't done so beforehand, Danny wasn't sure; that is until one of them sliced a deep gash into his right arm and collected his blood into a bowl.

With a grimace, Danny watched as they mixed his blood with black paint and started drawing a circle around him. The camera dude stepped closer and practically shoved the camera into his face. leaning back, Danny glanced between the camera and the people drawing with his blood.

Suddenly, his arm tingled with ectoplasm, making him panic for a second. he can't heal the wound! not with all the people around him and being recorded! Shit, what had Vlad done last time?? Uh, right! core smothering. He could just smother his core to stop his body from healing. Man, acting like a civilian was a pain in the ass.

Glaring up at the camera now that he wasn't as panicked, Danny watched as the dude stepped back, pulled out a paper, and started reading out loud. "GOTHAM! tonight you shall join us as we summon the most powerful being in the world!"

Did he seriously need the paper just to remember that?

The leader stepped forward when the circle was complete, "Now!" His voice echoed around the silent warehouse, startling the other kidnapped victims. The cameraman turned and focused on him, stepping out of the circle altogether. Danny watched the kidnapped people out of the corner of his eye, wanting to make sure they weren't hurt during this whole fiasco.

"Let us begin!" the leader cheered, suddenly gripping Danny's shoulders tightly. "Join me as we summon our lord and savior! The great tyrant of the dead! The embodiment of war and bloodshed! The one named PARIAH DARK! THE HORRIFIC GHOST KING!!!!"

Immediately, Danny was both completely terrified and amused. He had been worried that they were going to try and summon some great evil demon, not the fucking old tyrant. He could fight Pariah any day of the week.

No, what terrified him was the fact that because Danny won the right to the crown by defeating Pariah the first time, he had no idea what this summoning was going to do. Was it going to work like they wanted and summon Pariah? cool, great even. He can deal with that, might have to reveal his ghost powers if the fight got dirty, but nothing too bad.

or was it going to summon him because he was the king, and if so? how? Would that even work considering he's the sacrifice? would he just disappear and reappear? This could lead to a lot of questions Danny was NOT ready to answer. Gaslighting everyone here into believing he could fight Pariah as a 'meta' human would be easy, convincing everyone that he's not the ghost king or a ghost AFTER getting summoned; not so easy.

The leader released Danny from his grip as he walked over and snatched the tome from one of his followers. Snapping the book open, the man started chanting without warning, pointing at random people to notify them when it was their turn to start.

It was like watching a school play; all the student's doing as they were taught as their teacher directed from the side. Cultist A slammed the bowl of leftover blood on the ground, splattering the black remnants all over Danny and the circle. Which was gross, Danny was going to have to burn this shirt, because there was no way he was going to get this stain out. Cultist B tossed salt at Danny a few minutes later, smacking him in the face with the small white crystals. Shaking his head, Danny glared at him. Cultist B threw the salt again.

The leader's smile grew as he continued chanting.

Seven other cultists joined in the chanting, waving their hands up and down as their voices echoed around them. Danny glanced nervously around the warehouse, hoping he'd spot one of the bats. This was being broadcast, they should be on their way at the very least.

After another minute of looking, Danny glanced back at the other kidnapped victims. Nancy was balling her eyes out, burying herself into her boyfriend's chest. Wyatt was staring at him with wide eyes, clearly unsure about what to do. Probably feeling guilty because they both knew the leader was going to choose him. A few others were looking away, clearly fearing for his life. The rest watched on, trying to show him through their actions that they were there with him till the end. (whether he 'died' or not)

It was weird, but Danny had to give it to them; Gothmites were badass. He doubted anyone in Amity besides his friends would have been brave enough to watch what was happening. Even if they didn't know if he would live or not.

His core crackled, making him choke a little as he finally felt the pull of the summoning. Well, that's just great. Shaking his head, Danny tried to clear his throat. The summoning was making him feel weird and he did not appreciate it.

The chanting got louder as one of the people walked up to him, holding the knife in a white-knuckled grasp. Danny eyed it wearily, glancing between it and the rafters above. Where the hell were the bats when he needed them???

The cultist kneeled before him and raised the blade, slamming it down into his chest right as the leader stopped chanting; Danny gasped, more out of surprise than pain as he stared at the knife. The dude gave him no warning that he was going to stab him. Usually, cultists slit people's throats, right? What the fuck was up with stabbing him???

His blood slowly bubbled up and around the knife, slowly staining his shirt red. Yeah, there was no way in the realms he was going to be able to save this shirt now. Man, he had liked this one too.

He could hear Nancy's sobs turn to wails as the cultist yanked out the knife and handed it to the leader, who Danny just now noticed had joined them in the circle. His blood started gushing down his chest with every beat of his heart, again he held back his core. (what does he do now??? faint? scream? how do normal people react to getting stabbed?????)

"Take this lowly sacrifice as a sign of our eternal loyalty, and grace us with your presence! Your humble servants plead that your godly ears hear our prayers! Join us in this mortal realm and bequeath us your power and name to rectify the sins of our brethren!"

Ok, first of all Danny was no where near lowly you piece of fuck-

Danny's core pulsed, sending out nauseating pain up and down his spine. Gasping, Danny leaned as far forward as he could, trying in vain to grasp at his chest without using his powers. His core crackled, striking a blinding flash through his brain. The echoes of his death crawled up his left arm, waking the old dead nerves into firing signals at his brain.

Danny couldn't help himself, he screamed as the pain grew worse and worse. His thoughts turned hazy, his body cold as his core pulsed again. His heart stuttered and then froze, his core flooding his body with freezing ecto not a moment later. Absently, he could feel the wash of ectoplasm crawl over his body, changing his body minutely. He didn't transform, but he definitely looked more ghostly than human.

All the pain disappeared a moment later, allowing Danny to slump forward, his head hanging low and blocking his face from view. His chest did not rise in ragged breaths, nor did his fingers twitch with life. His mind was still sluggish and clouded with something, making it nearly impossible to think. Squeezing his eyes shut, Danny tried to focus.

"Your Highness?" someone asked, their voice too loud as it rang in Danny's ears. His core pulsed, another flood of ectoplasm flooding his body. His eyes slid open again, allowing him to see the green glow lighting up his chest and lap as he stared down at them.

Slowly, Danny lifted his head, his bright green gaze locking with the man in front of him.

Next

[atlabeth]

pretty boy

pairing: spencer reid x reader

summary: spencer walks in one day with a new look. you handle it pretty well.

a/n: im in the opposite of a writing slump right now (will prob fall into a writing slump right after i say this) probably because im procrastinating on essays for school and i can only write when im meant to be doing work. but tiny little fluffy spencer one shots are very good for the soul right now. i think it's my way of healing from my hotch fic

wc: 1.8k

warning(s): one slightly sexual joke from emily. all fluff

You usually don’t get to the office this early, but you don’t exactly have a choice. The BAU’s last couple cases have all run one after another, barely leaving you any time in the office, and now you’re paying for it. 

You’ve got a mountain of paperwork to get through and not nearly enough time to do it all—if you’re lucky, you’ll be writing reports for a few days straight. If you’re not, you’ll be putting in some overtime.  

“This is the most focused I’ve ever seen you this early,” Derek comments. 

You shake your head with a sigh. “These reports are government mandated torture.” 

He chuckles, and he nods at Emily as she walks over to her desk. “Are you this busy?” 

She shakes her head. “I’ve still got a report to get through, but nothing that bad.” 

“I get it,” you say wryly. “You’re all more organized than me. Just don’t come to me asking to go out tonight—you know I can’t say no.” 

“But don’t shots taste better when you’re supposed to be doing work?” Derek asks, and you roll your eyes with a laugh. 

“Not when I’ve got this much work I’m supposed to be doing.” 

You hear the elevator ding and glance up—Spencer’s walking through and fixing his tie. You look back down at your report as you greet him. 

“Hey, Spence,” you call. “Why’re you late?” 

“I’m not late,” he says, and you can see him checking his watch out of your peripherals. “I’m two minutes and thirty-three seconds early.” 

“Really?” you muse. “I guess I’m just so used to you being here before me.” 

“You can’t judge my timeliness on yours when you’ve been here for an hour already,” Spencer says. 

You frown, tapping your pen against the paper. “How do you know?” 

“You’re settled in already. Your coat’s on your chair, your stack of unfinished files is smaller than it was last time we were in the office, your coffee isn’t steaming, and your mug has a chipped handle—when they were put away last night, that one was set in the front, so you’d have to be here early to get it.” 

“Touche,” you murmur. You’re not sure why you ever ask your team of profilers how they know something. 

“You also look like you don’t want to be here,” he comments. “That’s pretty typical of agents who have to be here before their regular hours.” 

You chuckle and tilt your head in admission. You don’t really want to be here, especially running on so few hours of sleep. 

“Why aren’t you as early as usual?” Emily asks. 

“My neighbor knocked on my door this morning to ask me for something,” Spencer says. “It threw off my whole routine. I picked the wrong tie, I couldn’t pack my bag properly, and I had to toast my bagel for two minutes instead of three and a half to make it out in time.” 

“How terrible,” Derek says with mock austerity. 

“It is terrible!” he exclaims. “It’s scientifically proven that a morning routine makes you happier, more energized, and ready to seize the day—carpe diem.” Spencer sets his bag on the floor next to his desk and looks at everyone else with a smile. “Did you know that phrase was actually coined by the Roman poet Horace in his Odes? It comes from the first book out of four in the eleventh poem—the full phrase in Latin is carpe diem, quam mini—”

“How was your bagel?” Emily asks to interrupt him, and he pauses. 

“It was good,” he says. “Could’ve been toastier.” 

You look up, a teasing remark on the edge of your tongue, but the words die in your throat when you actually see him. 

Spencer’s started combing a hand through his hair to fix it—must have been another part of his affected morning routine—his lips set in a pout as he tries to see his reflection in his dark monitor. He always looks good, even without trying, but now—

“You’re wearing glasses,” you say dumbly. 

“My contacts dried out,” he grumbles, still focused on his hair. “We got home so late last night I forgot to put them in their solution, and I had no time to fix them because my neighbor messed up my whole morning.” 

You nod, still unable to tear your eyes away from him. “Are you gonna keep wearing them?” 

“I don’t know. Contacts are better for cases because I’m not worried about them falling off or fogging up, but I usually sleep on the jet on the way back, and sleeping with contacts in isn’t good.” He smiles a bit as he fully turns to you, seemingly satisfied with his hair. “It reduces the amount of oxygen that gets to your cornea, which damages the cornea’s surface and makes it harder to regenerate new cells. Sleeping with contacts actually makes you six to eight times more likely to get an eye infection.”

You nod again, your brain still not quite working at full power. You always love listening to Spencer’s fact dumps—it gives you a lot of material to impress your non-BAU friends with on the side, and you’re eternally thankful for that—but right now, you seriously cannot focus. 

You’d never really thought about him in glasses, but that’s probably a good thing if this is how it makes you feel. 

You were valedictorian as an undergrad, and you received stellar feedback from your professors during your masters program. You’re an excellent profiler, a valued member of the BAU, and you’re a goddamn FBI agent. 

And yet you can’t find a single thought in your head because your coworker showed up to work wearing glasses. 

He’s still rambling about other common causes of eye infection and how nobody seems to take them as seriously as they should, when Derek, not even trying to hide his grin at your turmoil, speaks up.  

“Reid. Wanna cool it a bit?” 

Spencer’s eyes dart over to him for a moment before he stops. “Uh— sorry.” He frowns as he looks back at you. “Why do you ask? Do you not like them?” 

“No,” you blurt out, and you shake your head a multitude of times. “No. They look great. You look great. They’re—” You dig your nails hard into your palm as you try your hardest to smile like normal, and this time you nod. “They’re good, Spence.” 

“Thanks.” Spencer does that little smile-nod combo of his, and he pushes his glasses back into place with his thumb by the bottom of the frames. “That’s nice to know I’ve got another option.” 

You thank whatever god may be out there that Hotch and Penelope are busy in their offices and JJ is busy with some other case, because you think you would die if anyone else saw you like this. 

“Hey, Reid,” Emily says, also not doing a very good job of hiding her amusement. You hate your team sometimes. “They’re almost out of sugar in the breakroom. If you want coffee the way you like it this morning, you should probably get in there.” 

“What?” Spencer shoots up, his brows already furrowing into a frown. “That— that’s ridiculous. I can’t mess up my morning any more.” 

“You’d better get in there, then,” she remarks. 

“We’re an entire office of agents running on coffee,” Spencer complains as he starts walking. “How are we almost out of sugar?” 

“Because half of ‘em drink it black,” Derek says, and Spencer shakes his head with a sigh as he leaves. 

“That’s ridiculous.” 

You bury your head in your hands the moment he’s gone and Derek laughs. “I wish I could’ve gotten that on video.” 

“Don’t talk to me,” you groan. “It is not fair of him to walk in like that.” 

“And that is why I call him pretty boy.”

“He needs them to see,” Emily says with amusement as she leans against the side of your desk. “You just can’t control yourself.” 

“I need to transfer offices,” you say, shaking your head. “I can’t do this.” 

“You should ask him out!” Derek encourages. “He’d probably say yes.” 

“Absolutely not,” you insist. “I doubt he likes me like that. A— and even if he does, that’s the last thing either of us need right now.” 

“I don’t know,” Emily muses. “It looks like you clearly need something.” 

You let out a frustrated noise as you screw your eyes shut. “I’m doomed.” 

You hear Spencer say your name, and when you look over at him, one hand still pressed against your head, you see he’s got two cups of coffee in his hands. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” you say weakly. “I’m great. Why?” 

“I got you one too,” he says, holding one of the mugs out to you. “The one you have is probably cold by now, and it looks like you need an extra kick to get through all those reports.” 

“Thanks, Spence. That’s sweet.” He nods as you take the proffered mug, and you swear your cheeks are as warm as the coffee. He is really testing your strength today. 

“You— you have a lot,” he says, and you huff a dry laugh and nod. “I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I could take half of them if you want?” 

Your grip tightens on the mug and you can feel Derek’s eyes on you. “I couldn’t make you do that, Spence.” 

“You’re not!” Spencer exclaims. “I can get through mine really quickly—we worked together for almost the whole last case so I can do all of that anyways.” 

“...You’re sure it wouldn’t be an imposition?” 

“I’m sure,” he nods. “Besides, I offered. I wouldn’t if I didn’t want to.” 

And god damn him, because he nudges his glasses back into place again, pushes a strand of loose hair back into place. You’re dying over here. 

You set the mug of coffee on your desk and pick up the top half of your pile. “All yours, Spence.” 

He takes the bottom half and smiles at you, and you smile back before he walks back to his desk. You are dying over here. 

“Let me know how I can pay you back,” you say, and he shakes his head. 

“You don’t need to pay me back.” 

“Really?” 

Spencer nods. “I mean, Morgan invited us all out on the jet last night, and I don’t think I can do it alone. If you can get out of the office in time, I don’t have to. I think that's enough of a payback.” 

“Yeah,” you say. “I’ll be there.” 

He smiles again and nods, then he picks up a pen and focuses in. You turn back to your desk, your face burning. 

“What was that about him not liking you like that?” Derek says. 

“Quiet!” you whisper-yell, swatting him with the pile of files in your hand. “He might hear you!” 

“He’s not hearing anything while he’s focused on that,” he says. “That just means you can ogle him more.” 

You groan again, letting your forehead fall into your palm. “I’m pathetic.” 

“I think you’re right.” Emily chuckles as she stands up. “You are doomed.” 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Predicting the present

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/#deny-defend-depose

Back in 2018, around the time I emailed my immigration lawyer about applying for US citizenship, I started work on a short story called "Radicalized," which eventually became the title story of a collection that came out in 2019:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250228598/radicalized/

"Radicalized" is a story about America, and about guns, and about health care, and about violence. I live in Burbank, which is ranks second in gun-stores-per-capita in the USA, a dubious honor that represents a kind of regulatory arbitrage with our neighboring goliath, the City of Los Angeles, where gun store licensing is extremely tight. If you're an Angeleno in search of a firearm, you're almost certainly coming to Burbank to buy it.

Walking, cycling and driving past more gun stores than I'd ever seen in my Canadian life got me thinking about Americans and guns, a subject that many Canadians have passed comment upon. Americans kill each other, and especially themselves, at rates that baffle everyone else in the world, and they do it with guns. When we moved here, my UK born-and-raised daughter came home from her first elementary school lockdown drill perplexed and worried. Knowing what I did about US gun violence, I understood that while school shootings and other spree killings happened with dismal and terrifying regularity, they only accounted for a small percentage of the gun deaths here. If you die with a bullet in you, the chances are that the finger on the trigger was your own. The next most likely suspect is someone you know. After that, a cop. Getting shot by a stranger out of uniform is something of a rarity here – albeit a spectacular one that captures our imaginations in ways that deliberate or accidental self-slayings and related-party shootings do not.

So I told her, "Look, you can basically ignore everything they tell you during those lockdown drills, because they almost certainly have nothing to do with your future. But if a friend ever says to you, 'Hey, wanna see my dad's gun?' I want you to turn around and leave and get in touch with me right away, that instant."

Guns turn the murderous impulse – which, let's be honest, we've all felt at some time or another – into a murderous act. Same goes for suicide, which explains the high levels of non-accidental self-shootings in the USA: when you've got a gun, the distance between suicidal ideation and your death is the ten feet from the sofa to the gun in the closet.

Americans get angry at people and then, if they have a gun to hand, sometimes they shoot them. In a thread /r/Burbank about how people at our local cinemas are rude and use their phones in which someone posted, "Well, you should just ask them to stop." The reply: "That's a great way to get shot." No one chimed in to say, "Don't be ridiculous, no one would shoot you for asking them to put away their phone during a movie." Same goes for "road rage."

And while Americans shoot people they've only just gotten angry at, they also sometimes plan shooting sprees and kill a bunch of people because they're just generically angry. Being angry about the state of the world is a completely relatable emotion, of course, but the targets of these shootings are arbitrary. Sure sometimes these killings have clear, bigoted targets – mass shootings at Black supermarkets or mosques or synagogues or gay bars – more often the people who get sprayed with bullets (at country and western concerts or elementary schools or movie theaters) are almost certainly not the people the gunman (almost always a man) is angry at.

This line of thought kept surfacing as I went through the immigration process, but not just when I was dealing with immigration paperwork. I was also spending an incredible amount of time dealing with our health insurer, Cigna, who kept refusing treatments my pain doctor – one of the most-cited pain researchers in the country – thought I would benefit from. I've had chronic pain since I was a teenager, and it's only ever gotten worse. I've had decades of pain care in Canada and the UK, and while the treatments never worked for very long, it was never compounded by the kinds of bureaucratic stuff I went through with my US insurer.

The multi-hour phone calls with Cigna that went nowhere would often have me seeing red – literally, a red tinge closing in around my vision – and usually my hands would be shaking by the time I got off the call.

And I had it easy! I wasn't terminally ill, and I certainly wasn't calling in on behalf of a child or a spouse or parent who was seriously ill or dying, whose care was being denied by their insurer. Bernie's 2016 Medicare For All campaign promise had filled the air with statistics (Americans pay more for care and get worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world), and stories. So many stories – stories that just tore your heart out, about parents who literally had to watch their children die because the insurance they paid for refused to treat their kids. As a dad, I literally couldn't imagine how I'd cope in that situation. Just thinking about it filled me with rage.

One day, as I was swimming in the community pool across the street – a critical part of my pain management strategy – I was struck with a thought: "Why don't these people murder health insurance executives?" Not that I wanted them to. I don't want anyone to kill anyone. But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone? This is an industry that is practically designed to fill the people who interact with it with uncontrollable rage. I mean, if you're watching your wife or your kid die before your eyes because some millionaire CEO decided to aim for a $10 billion stock buyback this year instead of his customary $9 billion target, wouldn't you feel that kind of murderous rage?

Around this time, my parents came out for a visit from Canada. It was a great trip, until one night, my mom woke me up after midnight: "We have to take your father to the ER. He's really sick." He was: shaking, nauseated, feverish. We raced down the street to the local hospital, part of a gigantic chain that has swallowed nearly all the doctors' practices, labs and hospitals within an hour's drive of here.

Dad had kidney stones, and they'd gone septic. When the ER docs removed the stones, all the septic gunk in his kidneys was flushed into his bloodstream, and he crashed. If he hadn't been in an ER recovery room at the time, he would have died. As it was, he was in a coma for three days and it was touch and go. My brother flew down from Toronto, not sure if this was his last chance to see our dad alive. The nurses and doctors took great care of my dad, though, and three days later, he emerged from his coma, and today, he's better than ever.

But on day two, when we thought he was probably at the end of his life, as my mother sat at his side, holding the hand of her husband of fifty years, someone from the hospital billing department came to her side and said, "Mrs Doctorow, I know this is a difficult time, but I'd like to discuss the matter of your husband's bill with you."

The bill was $176,000. Thankfully, the travel medical insurance plan offered by the Ontario Teachers' Union pension covered it all (I don't suppose anyone gets very angry with them).

How do people tolerate this? Again, not in the sense of "people should commit violent acts in the face of these provocations," but rather, "How is it that in a country filled with both assault rifles and unimaginable acts of murderous cruelty committed by fantastically wealthy corporations, people don't leap from their murderous impulses to their murderous weapons to commit murderous acts?

For me, writing fiction is an accretive process. I can tell that a story is brewing when thoughts start rattling around in my mind, resurfacing at odd times. I think of them as stray atoms, seeking molecules with available docking sites to glom onto. I process all my emotions – but especially my negative ones – through this process, by writing stories and novels. I could tell that something was cooking, but it was missing an ingredient.

Then I found it: an interview with the woman who coined the term "incel." It was on the Reply All podcast, and Alana, a queer Canadian woman explained that she had struggled all her life to find romantic and sexual partnership, and jokingly started referring to herself as "involuntarily celibate," and then, as an "incel":

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o

Alana started a message board where other "incels" could offer each other support, and it was remarkably successful. The incels on Alana's message board helped each other work through the problems that stood between them and love, and when they did, they drifted away from the board to pursue a happier life.

That was the problem, Alana explained. If you're in a support group for people with a drinking problem, the group elders, the ones who've been around forever, are the people who've figured it out and gotten sober. When life seems impossible, those elders step in to tell you, I know it's terrible right now, but it'll get better. I was where you are and I got through it. You will, too. I'm here for you. We all are.

But on Alana's incel board, the old timers were the people who couldn't figure it out. They were the ones for whom mutual support and advice didn't help them figure out what they needed to do in order to find the love they sought. The longer the message board ran, the more it became dominated by people who were convinced that it was hopeless, that love was impossible for the likes of them. When newbies posted in rage and despair, these Great Old Ones were there to feed it: You're right. It will never get better. It only gets worse. There is no hope.

That was the missing piece. My short story Radicalized was born. It's a story about men on a message board called Fuck Cancer Right In the Fucking Face (FCKRFF, or "Fuckriff"), who are watching the people they love the most in the world be murdered by their insurance companies, who egg each other on to spectacular acts of mass violence against health insurance company employees, hospital billing offices, and other targets of their rage. As of today, anyone can read this story for free, courtesy of my publishers at Macmillan, who gave permission for the good folks at The American Prospect to post it:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

I often hear from people about this story, even before an unknown (at the time of writing) man assassinated Brian Thompson, CEO of Unitedhealthcare, the murderous health insurance monopoly that is the largest medical insurer in the USA. Since then, hundreds of people have gotten in touch with me to ask me how I feel about this turn of events, how it feels to have "predicted" this.

I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I gotta tell you, I have complicated feelings.

You've doubtless seen the outpourings of sarcastic graveyard humor about Thompson's murder. People hate Unitedhealthcare, for good reason, because he personally decided – or approved – countless policies that killed people by cheating them until they died.

Nurses and doctors hate Thompson and United. United kills people, for money. During the most acute phase of the pandemic, the company charged the US government $11,000 for each $8 covid test:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/06/137300-pct-markup/#137300-pct-markup

UHC leads the nation in claims denials, with a denial rate of 32% (!!). If you want to understand how the US can spend 20% of its GDP and get the worst health outcomes in the world, just connect the dots between those two facts: the largest health insurer in human history charges the government a 183,300% markup on covid tests and also denies a third of its claims.

UHC is a vertically integrated, murdering health profiteer. They bought Optum, the largest pharmacy benefit manager ("A spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) in the country. Then they starved Optum of IT investment in order to give more money to their shareholders. Then Optum was hacked by ransomware gang and no one could get their prescriptions for weeks. This killed people:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/malicious-threat-actor-accesses-unitedhealth-groups-monopolistic-data-exchange-harming-patients-and-pharmacists/#

The irony is, Optum is terrible even when it's not hacked. The purpose of Optum is to make you pay more for pharmaceuticals. If that's more than you can afford, you die. Optum – that is, UHC – kills people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Optum isn't the only murderous UHC division. Take Navihealth, an algorithm that United uses to kick people out of their hospital beds even if they're so frail, sick or injured they can't stand or walk. Doctors and nurses routinely watch their gravely ill patients get thrown out of their hospitals. Many die. UHC kills them, for money:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-08-16-steward-bankruptcy-physicians-private-equity/

The patients murdered by Navihealth are on Medicare Advantage. Medicare is the public health care system the USA extends to old people. Medicare Advantage is a privatized system you can swap your Medicare coverage for, and UHC leads the country in Medicare Advantage, blitzing seniors with deceptive ads that trick them into signing up for UHC Medicare Advantage. Seniors who do this lose access to their doctors and specialists, have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their medication, and get hit with $400 surprise bills to use the "free" ambulance service:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-05-manhattan-medicare-murder-mystery/

No wonder the public spends 22% more subsidizing Medicare Advantage than they spend on the care for seniors who stick with actual Medicare:

https://theconversation.com/taxpayers-spend-22-more-per-patient-to-support-medicare-advantage-the-private-alternative-to-medicare-that-promised-to-cost-less-241997

It's not just the elderly, it's also the addicted and mentally ill. UHC illegally denies coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Imagine watching a family member spiral out of control, ODing, or ending up on the streets with hallucinations, and knowing that the health insurance company that takes thousands of dollars out of your paycheck refused to treat them:

https://www.startribune.com/unitedhealthcare-will-pay-15-7m-in-settlement-of-denial-of-care-charges/600087607

Unsurprising, the internal culture at UHC is callous beyond belief. How could it not be? How could you go to work at UHC and know you were killing people and not dehumanize those victims? A lawsuit by chronically ill patient whom UHC had denied care for surfaced recorded phone calls in which UHC employees laughed long and hard about the denied claims, dismissing the patient's desperate, tearful pleas as "tantrums" :

https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

Those UHC workers are just trying to get by, of course, and the callouses they develop so they can bear to go to work were ripped off by last week's murder. UHC's executive team knows this, and has gone on a rampage to stop employees from leaking their own horror stories, or even mentioning that the internal company announcement of Thompson's death was seen by 16,000 employees, of whom only 28 left a comment:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/unitedhealthcare-tells-employees

Doctors and nurses hate UHC on behalf of their patients, but it's also personal. UHC screws doctor's practices by refusing to pay them, making them chase payments for months or even years, and then it offers them a payday lending service that helps them keep the lights on while they wait to get paid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frr4wuvAB6U

Is it any surprise that Reddit's nursing forums are full of nurses making grim, satisfied jokes about the assassination of the $10m/year CEO who ran the $400b/year corporation that does all this?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/leading-medical-subreddit-deletes-thread-on-unitedhealthcare-ceos-murder-after-users-slam-his-record/

We're not supposed to experience – much less express – schadenfreude when someone is murdered in the street, no matter who they are. We're meant to express horror at the idea of political violence, even when that violence only claims a single life, a fraction of the body count UCH produced under Thompson's direction. As Malcolm Harris put it, "'Every life is precious' stuff about a healthcare CEO whose company is noted for denying coverage is pretty silly":

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1864471932386623753

As Woody Guthrie wrote, "Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen." The weapon is lethal when it's a pistol and when it's an insurance company. The insurance company merely serves as an accountability sink, a layer of indirection that lets a murder happen without any person being the technical murderer:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you. This is the entire pitch of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: that wealth concentration leads to corruption, which is destabilizing, and in the long run it's cheaper to run a fair society than it is to pay for the guards you'll need to keep the guillotines off your lawn:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

But we've spent the past 40 years running in the other direction, maximizing monopolies, inequality and corruption, and gaslighting the public when they insist that this is monstrous and unfair. Back in 2022, when UHC was buying Change Healthcare – the dominant payment network for hospitals, which would allow UHC to surveil all its competitors' payments – the DOJ sued to block the merger. The Trump-appointed judge in the case, Carl Nichols – who owned tens of thousands of dollars in UHC bonds – ruled against the DOJ, saying that it would all be fine thanks to United's "culture of trust and integrity":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-antitrust-shooting-war-has-started

We don't know much about Thompson's killer yet, but he's already becoming a folk hero, with lookalike contests in NYC:

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1865472577478553976

And gigantic graffiti murals praising him and reproducing the words he wrote on the shell casings of the bullets he used to kill Thompson, "delay, deny, depose":

https://www.tumblr.com/radicalgraff/769193188403675136/killin-fuckin-ceos-freight-graff-in-the-bay

I get why this is distasteful. Thompson is said to have been a "family man" who loved his kids, and I have no reason to disbelieve this. I can only imagine that his wife and kids are shattered by this. Every living person is the apex of a massive project involving dozens, hundreds of people who personally worked to raise, nurture and love them. I wrote about this in my novel Walkaway, as the characters consider whether to execute a mercenary sent to kill them, whom they have taken hostage:

She had parents. People who loved her. Every human was a hyper-dense node of intense emotional and material investment. Speaking meant someone had spent thousands of hours cooing to you. Those lean muscles, the ringing tone of command — their inputs were from all over the world, carefully administered. The merc was more than a person: like a spaceship launch, her existence implied thousands of skilled people, generations of experts, wars, treaties, scholarship and supply-chain management. Every one of them was all that.

But so often, the formula for "folk hero" is "killing + time." The person who terrorizes the people who terrorize you is your hero, and eventually we sanitize the deaths, and just remember them as fighters for justice. If you doubt it, consider the legend of Robin Hood:

https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/1865554985842352501

The health industry is trying to put a lid on this, palpably afraid that – as in my story "Radicalized" – this one murderer will become a folk hero who inspires others to acts of spectacular violence. They're insisting that it's unseemly to gloat about Thompson's death. They're right, but this is an obvious loser strategy. The health industry is full of people whose deaths would be deplorable, but not unsurprising. As Clarence Darrow had it:

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Murder is never the answer. Murder is not a healthy response to corruption. But it is healthy for people to fear that if they kill people for greed, they will be unsafe. On December 5 – the day after Thompson's killing – the health insurer Anthem announced that it would not pay for anesthesia for medical procedures that ran long. The next day, they retracted the policy, citing "outrage":

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits/index.html

Sure, maybe it was their fear of reputation damage that got them to decide to reverse this inhumane, disgusting, murderous policy. But maybe it was also someone in the C-suite thinking about what share of the profits from this policy would have to be spent on additional bodyguards for every Anthem exec if it went into effect, and decided that it was a money-loser after all.

Think about hospital exec Ralph de la Torre, who cheerfully testified to Congress that he'd killed patients in pursuit of profit. De la Torre clearly doesn't fear any kind of consequences for his actions. He owns hospitals that are filled with tens of thousands of bats (he stiffed the exterminators), where none of the elevators work (he stiffed the repair techs), where there's no medicine or blood (he stiffed the suppliers) and where the doctors and nurses can't make rent (he stiffed them too). De La Torre doesn't just own hospitals – he also owns a pair of superyachts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

It is a miracle that so many people have lost their mothers, sons, wives and husbands so Ralph de la Torre could buy himself another superyacht, and that those people live in a country where you can buy an assault rifle, and that Ralph de la Torre isn't forced to live in a bunker and travel in a tank.

It's a rather beautiful sort of miracle, to be honest. I like to think that it comes from a widespread belief by the people of this country I have since become a citizen of, that we should solve our problems politically, rather than with bullets.

But the assassination of Brian Thompson is a wake-up call, a warning that if we don't solve this problem politically, we may not have a choice about whether it's solved with violence. As a character in "Radicalized" says, "They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: that's only true so long as you ignore all of human history":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

[parfaitblogs]

north star ❀ s. reid x reader

in which you're up late doing an assignment, and spencer reid has a nightmare. 

pairing: spencer reid x uni student!reader genre: comfort  tags: post prison reid. & his trauma. & his fears. casual nudity (showering together). hurt/angst but its secondhand. which is what we call empathy... yes... reader mentioned being hurt in a nightmare. word count: 2.3k a/n: i got a request recently with a similar sort of premise to this, so while it isn't exact this is indeed for you... north star is one of my all time favourite searows songs. here's to being spencer reid's north star. and also a university student awake at 4am. 

Spencer Reid had not slept in his own bed in three weeks.

The couch in the centre of his apartment had become a constant pile of blankets and pillows, a — probably permanent — indent of his body pressed into the cushions. The coffee table a littering of books he had read through, contact solution, and, when he wasn't reading, his glasses. Always.

You had gotten used to sleeping alone in an apartment somebody else was residing in after the first few days, leaving the bedroom door open so you could hear the sound of pages of a book turning, and faintly see the silhouette of your boyfriend out in the living room. It was comforting enough that it willed you to sleep, though the longing for him to be beside you never dulled.

Tonight was no different. In fact, the only slight change from your usual routine, was the fact that you were the one still awake, and he was fast asleep. Albeit, it was four in the morning, and you most certainly should not be up. 

Your face was illuminated uncomfortably by the blue light of your laptop, a knee beneath your chin as you stared blankly at the half written essay in front of you. You were tired, and all you wanted was to be in bed. Unfortunately, your university had the worst deadlines imaginable, and three o'clock in the afternoon was creeping up on you and this unfinished assignment fast. 

Your head lifted at the sound of blankets rustling, expecting to be met with the sight of a peacefully sleeping Spencer Reid. Instead, he was sat upright, blanket covering his silhouette, though not hiding the heaving of his chest; the rise and fall of his shoulders. 

"Spence?" you called out from his desk that you were currently residing at, still slightly unsure if he was actually awake — he had sleep walked one of the earlier nights. 

He didn't respond. You watched as he hunched over, and you could make out the action of his fingers burying in his hair. 

Assignment be damned, you pushed the wheelie chair back and stood up, hands fidgeting with one another as you headed over to the couch. 

"Spencer?" you said his name again as you hesitantly got closer, not wanting to startle him too much if he was about to start sleep walking. 

His head lifted, and you felt your heart slow in relief when his eyes met yours. Short lived relief, however, for the soft glow of the lamp across the room illuminated him just enough for you to catch the glassiness in his eyes, the sticking of his hair to his forehead from sweat, and the frightened look on his face. 

"Hey," you greeted, quietly, one step after the other carrying you over to him, and you crouched down in front of the couch. 

"Nightmare," he muttered, simply, voice hoarse. 

"Ah," you nodded in recognition, hands flexing by your side with the need to touch him. "You wanna talk about it?"

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, but you didn't press any further for a response as he zoned out on the coffee table behind you for a few moments. When his gaze finally landed back on you, he stared blankly at your face, finding the words inside his brain. 

"They hurt you," he managed to choke out successfully, voice heavy with whatever was lodged in his throat. 

You didn't have to ask who they were, your eyes flickering in acknowledgement of what he was telling you. "They can't," you settled on saying. 

"I know," was his response, eyes dropping to his lap, the blanket falling from his shoulders as his posture hunched over even more. "But they did. And I couldn't do anything about it."

You despised being speechless in front of him. The silence layering over the two of you in a dimly lit room, a heavy blanket translating your lack of words for what he was going through. He always knew what to say to you, and yet, Spencer Reid being traumatised from prison was a concept you could never seem to grasp no matter how hard you tried. Not fully, at least. What on Earth is there to say to somebody who was having nightmares like this? What comfort could you provide?

You hesitated, then reached out, clasping one of his hands within your own, bringing it to your face. Every action was cautious on his end, but you managed to splay his fingers across your cheek, palm resting against the skin. Gently, for despite everything that had changed about Spencer in prison, his gentleness for you had not.

"I'm okay," you whispered to him, and it was then that he registered what you were trying to do. 

He carried more weight in his hand, committing the feeling of your warm, active skin to memory. His fingers stretched and found the pulse of your neck, for no reason other than to feel it beat against the tip of them. It was minutes of sitting in this silence, his eyes firmly shut, while yours studied his face. Every parting of his lips, every irregular breath he took in and exhaled, every slight twitch in his eyebrow. Everything. 

When he finally opened his eyes, breathing a little less erratic and gaze a lot less afraid, you spoke. "Shower?" 

Wordlessly he nodded his head, and allowed you to lift him to his feet, trudging after you with short steps, that you waited for patiently. 

It had taken a week for Spencer to shower again upon coming home. And since then, you had needed to be there for every single one. A stark contrast to the man who isolated himself much more now — needing to be able to see you as he showered. He never explained it, but you sort of knew why.

He stripped of his shirt at the same time as you, his torso no longer the palette of purple and yellow it had been weeks ago. Which should be comforting to you. And yet, as his bruises faded, so did his already dampened spark. The excitement of coming home wearing off, as he was forced to face everything he had endured for a quarter of a year. 

And you tried not to hold it against him, or even be upset about it. It is not his fault existing everyday has become an uphill battle, and it certainly isn't his fault he's horrified of seemingly normal things. But you missed him. It. The light of the man you fell in love with.

The two of you stepped into the shower, in silence, once you had rid yourselves of your clothes, and despite the cold air nipping at your bare skin, you let him stand under the water for as long as he needed to. Visibly watching him sink further into his skeleton, shoulders drooping. He reached for you, hesitantly, and you allowed him to decide where to place his hands. Eventually, one looped around your waist and pressed against the small of your back to step closer to him, the outer water droplets from the showerhead spraying uncomfortably onto your face. Your face scrunched, and your head jerked back, and his lips pulled into a frown. 

"Sorry," he mumbled, stepping back, and your heart sank at the frown on his lips. 

"It's okay," you answered, voice soft. "Can I wash your hair?"

"Yes," he confirmed with a nod, ducking his head down when you reached for shampoo. 

Shaking, your fingers worked lathered shampoo through his hair. Your heart sank at the sight of him, for his shoulders were tensing with every stroke of your fingertips against his scalp. 

"You're stuck in your head," you observed, guiding his head back under the water to rinse the soap out of his locks. 

"Mm," was all he replied with.

"How can I get you out of it?" 

"I can't even get myself out of it," he mumbled.

You don't know what to say. Again. There's only so much you can say to him when he's like this, and even then, most of the time he won't listen. Too overwhelmed with the flashing images of you hurt, usually, the screaming guilt in his brain.

"I'm not hurt, Spence," you decided to tell him instead. 

"I know," he responded, voice pleading, though you knew he wasn't pleading with you. "But I can't get the image of you like that out of my mind."

You fell silent. Again. 

"Sorry," he repeated, his apologising incessant. Though, you knew better than to tell him not to apologise anymore.

Instead, while your fingers worked conditioner through the ends of his hair, you brought up another idea. "How about we go to the roof?"

"It's four in the morning," he murmured. 

"Like that's ever stopped you from doing anything ever," you huffed, and his lips twitched.

"It'll be cold," he argued, watching your shoulders deflate with his second denial of the idea. His own heart dropped. "Yeah, okay. We can go to the roof."

"We don't have to," you said, guiding his head back under the water. "Not if you don't want to."

"I just don't want you to get sick," he replied.

"Don't worry about me."

"I do."

You knew that. It was his constant worry for your wellbeing that led you to these moments.

"Come on."

Stepping out of the shower, you handed him the first towel, wrapping one around yourself afterwards. You picked up both toothbrushes and gave him one of them, leaning against the edge of the sink.

Every movement he now completed was calculated. Hesitant. He was almost completely stationary as he brushed his teeth, if not for the slight shake in his arm with each stroke. But he was staring at you, and it was the kindness in his eyes that kept your heart from falling apart in front of him. 

By the time you had reached the roof, he was a little more conversational, even smiling at your attempt at a joke (though, you were pretty sure that wasn't very genuine).

"Come here," you said, holding your arms out in front of you, walking backwards. He caught up to you, clasping your hands within his own, movement akin to a rag doll as you tugged him closer. 

"No," he protested when you placed his hands on your waist, clocking precisely what you were doing with him within seconds. 

"Yes," you argued, encircling your arms around his neck. "Humour me for a bit."

"I thought we were looking at the stars."

"You thought wrong."

Despite himself and his disdainful grumbling, he let you sway your two bodies, a silent dance amongst the distant, quiet hum of car engines. 

"I don't like dancing," he said, after a few long minutes.

"I know."

"So why did you take me up here to dance?"

The sharp sentences had become a staple in Spencer Reid's speech, though usually unintentional, and usually going unnoticed by him. They still hurt.

"Because," you began, forcing your eyes to fixate on his face, and not the scattering of stars and silhouettes of buildings you could see stretched out behind him. "You're thinking about how much you don't like dancing."

"Yes. I am."

You stilled your bodies and stared at him for a few beats, expectantly, until it rolled over in his brain, and he realised what you were doing. You had, successfully, distracted him from the nightmare. 

He didn't say anything more, but his eyes had softened, and you knew from that he was thankful. Silent communication had become your shared best friend with Spencer.

"I don't know how to stop them," he mumbled, head bowing and unkempt curls covered his face, that you were quick to brush back, hands resting on either side of his jawline. "The nightmares."

"I don't know either," you answered, hating the sound of the words coming out of your mouth. You despised not having all the answers for him, like he probably would for you. "Therapy, I guess."

"I've been doing therapy. Everyday. It isn't helping."

"You've been home less than a month."

"But it isn't getting any better."

Your chest ached, meeting his gaze once again as he snapped his head up on his words. Uncomfortable desperation dressed his face, and it was as though he was crumbling right there in front of you — your hands unable to pick up the shattered pieces quick enough. 

You hadn't dealt with a trauma wound this bad, this fresh, ever. You weren't equipped for that. A university assignment, that sat incomplete in a softly lit apartment, for a degree you were yet to claim, proved that. Spencer knew that. He knew you wouldn't have the answers he needed; they were answers even he didn't have. 

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. "This isn't fair on you."

No, it wasn't. And you don't want to imagine how you would be in his position instead, but you were pretty sure you'd be just as bad, if not worse. 

"Please don't apologise for feeling things," you decided to say instead. "You're allowed to feel things."

"I've been horrible."

"You've been human."

He fell silent at that, and when you were sure he didn't have any other incessant apologies or heartbreaking discoveries to drop on you at — what was now probably — five o'clock in the morning, you offered him your arms. Arms he took, and arms he allowed to wrap him up in an embrace you wanted to die with. 

Silence communicated words you couldn't say to one another. Echoing I love you's ricocheted around in your brain, and you hoped they did in his too. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

your reblogs and replies are always appreciated ♡

[pseudowho]

The Stacks

(Higuruma art by @milanvaan on X)

Stuck together on an all-night study session at the University library, you and your rival Higuruma Hiromi find you may have more in common than you thought...

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, rivals/enemies to lovers, breaking point smut, mild brat-taming/retribution, 'missionary so we can continue fighting'

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The twilight crept in-- but, while your fellow students were heading out for a night of drinks and debauchery, you walked under the evening-dappled willows, to the entrance of the library. You already knew it would be as quiet as the grave.

In the morning was your final, decisive Law exam; this was it. The culmination of years of effort. The final hurdle before the start of a glorious, prolific career. The recognition of yourself as the best Lawyer that your University had ever produced. And, with a curious, melancholy twinge of anger, the last time you would ever have to share a classroom with--

"You." Two voices rang out through the library entrance corridor; one disgusted, the other surprised. Higuruma Hiromi's hooked nose wrinkled at you, beetle-black eyes glinting as he straightened under a straining bag of books, to full height.

A taut moment of silence. Something in Hiromi's jaw clenched and unclenched rapidly, his foot tapping, and he looked aside. Looking back at you, his fury a thin veneer over a flicker of curiosity, he tensed to feel you sweep past him.

"I'm taking the Law section. You can grab some books, and fuck off to study somewhere else, Higuruma."

"Hey-- hey-- you can get fucked if you think you're taking over the place, sunshine--"

Hiromi prickled, rushing to catch up with you. You raced him, his long spidery legs easily putting him in front of you. Two sets of frantic footsteps running up the staircases, crashing and jostling-- "don't touch me!" "--stop it, you're a fucking menace--" "--not sitting with an arsehole like you all night--"

Hiromi and you approached the Law section at speed, a single plush sofa hidden away within circular stacked shelves, tables running between them like the spokes of a wheel. Hiromi shunted you aside at the last moment, slamming his bag on the couch with a satisfied hoot of success, turning to you with a grin and a twinkle in his eyes.

"Bastard!" You snapped, your hackles raised, and the twinkle in Hiromi's eyes dulled, replaced by tired disappointment as he looked away again, jaw twitching under your hateful gaze. Hiromi huffed, moving to empty his bag of textbooks and scattily-organised notebooks.

"Not like I'm going to stop you from studying here," Hiromi clipped, tense, "Lots of room. Didn't anyone ever teach you to share?" He teased, offering another wan smile. You rejected it categorically.

"I don't share with rats," you snapped, grabbing your bag and slamming it onto a nearby table. Hiromi was silent, tapping his fingers against his thigh, mouth puckering up into a bitter snipe.

"Yeah, well...let me know if you want to borrow my paper from the Spring term," Hiromi offered sarcastically, his anger burning low, "I know you didnt do so well on that one--"

"Shut up! My paper was perfect, it was--"

"--second best in the class?" Hiromi hissed air through his teeth, his crossed legs bouncing and jittery as he started to sort through notes, "Yeah, it's okay, I suppose...always room for improvement though, right?"

"Yeah, well..." You retaliated, stumbling over your words, "...you know where you can find a decent essay on Commercial Law, I know you struggle with it."

Hiromi ignored you, relaxed and not taking the bait. It pissed you off how effortless he found all of this, how he didn't have a competitive bone in his body...and all the while, you had toiled away blood, sweat and tears to get to the position you were.

You sat in stony silence for an hour, studying quietly. Any time you relaxed in his presence, you mentally snapped at yourself, not willing to concede one inch to such a snake--

A cup of coffee from the vending machine was dropped in front of you by one long-fingered, elegant hand. You looked up to see Hiromi loping away, warm and lackadaisical in his slim black jeans and Law school sweatshirt. You bristled. Hiromi sat on the sofa again, rolling his eyes as you pushed the coffee away from you with a huff, his own coffee hiding the hint of a smile on his lips and coal-ember eyes.

You tried to hide a yawn behind your hand. Between studying, and part-time bar work to pay your way, sleep was a rare resource. You knew no light in your life other than that from the candle you burned at both ends. Rubbing your eyes, your elbow slipped when you moved to rest it on the table. Your impeccably written flashcards hit the floor, scattering as you swore, kneeling to pick them up.

A few slow footsteps, and those long-fingered hands appeared in your vision again, helping to collect your flashcards with meticulous care. Your shoulders bunched up, and you snatched the pile of cards from Hiromi's hands when he offered them to you.

"Thank you," you begrudged. Hiromi remained on his haunches, hands clasped in front of him.

"Nice flashcards," he offered, and you bristled again, looking for insult, "want me to quiz you?"

"I can do it by myself," you snapped, turning to sit on your chair again, your back to him. You weren't sure if you heard Hiromi sigh.

"Suit yourself, misery guts." Hiromi moved back to the couch, not partaking in the bitter little competition he had never entered. As the clock ticked onwards, approaching midnight, the sky beyond the windows now an inky black, your brain began to fog. You caught yourself reading the same sentence again, and again, and again--

You heard a persistent little tapping. Hiromi had not looked up from his notes, but patted the spot on the sofa beside him in invitation.

"Come on," he pressed, soft and unyielding, "bring your flashcards over, and I'll quiz you. If we're here all night, we might as well be useful to each other."

Your resolve crumbled, despite your prickles of disgust towards Hiromi, and you picked up your lukewarm coffee and your flashcards to sit beside him. You hadn't realised how cold you were, until you felt the warmth of his thickly muscled thigh against yours. You shivered. Hiromi's gaze flicked up and down your body, his hangdog eyes impassively reading you.

He took off his sweatshirt in one fluid movement, holding it out to you. You pretended to ignore him, turning your face away with a pout. Hiromi scoffed. Momentarily, you squealed in indignation to feel his sweatshirt being pulled over your head, your arms being pushed through the sleeves like you were a child.

"Do as you're told," Hiromi chastised without venom, "and wear my fucking sweatshirt. You're cold." You swallowed, rendered speechless by his warmth, the soft notes of his shampoo, and, to your surprise, cologne.

"Did mummy buy you some nice perfume?" You jabbed, and you blushed as Hiromi surprised you with a laugh, deep, rich and genuine. Hiromi leaned across you, his face skirting so close to yours, on his way to reach for your flash cards. He moved his face even closer, his voice conspiratorial as you felt his warm, coffee'd breath over your lips.

"Mummy still thinks I'm some little boy."

You felt a shiver down your spine, feeling heat pool in your belly and pussy, before mentally shaking yourself. Higuruma Hiromi? You berated yourself internally, don't be so fucking ridiculous.

You had felt your eyes wander to him, early in your first year, his quiet confidence so magnetic. You had almost been pulled into his gravity. Then, he bested you in test, after test, after test, never seeming to break a sweat, being lauded as a prodigy, touted as the youngest Judge the Law school would ever see instated. It hadn't taken long for you to see him as the nuisance he was.

Then, he had done something unforgivably dirty, becoming a filthy little sellout, and your conviction in your opinion of him was solidified with brutal finality.

Your train of thought was interrupted by your coffee being pressed into your hands.

"Drink up," Hiromi urged, his tone broaching no argument, a wonky smile on his face which made your stomach somersault, "and get ready. I won't go easy on you."

And, he didn't. He grilled you mercilessly, becoming more and more thrilled as you snapped back each time with devastating precision and accuracy. The flashcards soon became secondary, and eventually discarded in favour of a soulful debate. The back and forth roared through you both like wildfire. You bounced off Hiromi's challenge with ease, his natural foil, and he took it all with a sultry delight that intoxicated you.

Your legs were entangled, now, facing each other on the sofa, and ribbing each other for all you were worth. You hadn't noticed how low your guard had dropped, until you saw how Hiromi looked at you, your wide sparkling smile, your twinkling eyes, your dimples. His square jaw leaned on one hand, his slim fingers stretching from chin to temple, one finger between his teeth, eyes dipped low and burning through you as he smiled. You gulped, feeling the fire warm you from head to foot.

"I'm, uhm..." you trembled, pushing your glasses up your nose as he raised his eyebrows, otherwise still as a panther in the rainforest, "...uhm...just going to get a snack...want anything?"

"...sure," Hiromi eventually answered, watching with mischief as you untangled your legs from his, "anything." You skittered past Hiromi, and it took everything in his power not to pull you to straddle his lap and see just how much he could steam up your glasses.

Turning the corner to the vending machine, you finally released the breath you had been holding. You fanned your face, pressing buttons, selecting a random assortment of snacks, and tapping your card to the card reader. Three little bleeps-- declined.

You felt a thread of panic. You checked your bank account with your heart in your throat...pennies. Literal pennies left to your name, until payday before the weekend. You now burned with shame, considering just leaving your books and bag and turning tail back to your apartment. Instead, with a furious blush over your cheeks, you headed back to the sofa, Hiromi looking at you curiously as you pulled a book onto your lap, empty-handed.

"Nothing decent," you lied, "sorry." Hiromi was silent; his gaze rendered you transparent in a way that was so unwelcome to you now. You felt a wash of relief as he stood up and walked away.

A few minutes later, Hiromi returned, gently placing a bag of crisps and a bar of chocolate down on the book on your lap. Tears of shame prickled in your eyes.

"You like these, right? I've seen you eat them before," Hiromi mused, gentle and casual. You pressed your eyes and lips shut, tears threatening to overspill.

"You didn't have to," you urged, your voice tight. Hiromi hummed to himself, taking a bite of his chocolate, and raising your chocolate bar to boop you softly on the nose.

"Big day tomorrow...today. You won't do well if you're hungry." A pause. "You work hard. It happens." You flooded with a sickening rush of gratitude, Hiromi's easy empathy almost washing away the shame.

"...thank-- thank you," you mumbled, fingers closing round his, your little heart thumping for him, as you accepted the chocolate bar. "I get paid on Friday, I'll pay you back--"

Hiromi scoffed, playful, "Don't worry about it. Just...buy the second round of drinks." You felt your stomach flip, your fingertips pressed over your mouthful of chocolate as you blushed. He was so casual about it. You couldn't see how his heart pounded in anticipation, awaiting certain rejection.

"...I...uhm...yeah. That sounds...that sounds...nice." Hiromi released the breath he'd been holding in a shaky, quiet whoosh. He felt the bridge of his aquiline nose redden. He tried to look surreptitious as he scooted closer to you on the sofa, pretending to choose a textbook.

The exam in the morning was now the furthest thing from Hiromi's mind. You shivered to feel the heat of his thigh against you again, and your fingers itched to reach out and feel the hot corded muscle of them. Hiromi wanted nothing more than to turn, pull your mouth to his, and share the taste of chocolate on each others' tongues. He was torn by indecision.

Shifting your legs, your textbook tumbled off to the side of you. You leaned back, reaching down to the floor, at the same time as Hiromi leaned over your body, his fingers stretching out, too. You found yourself suddenly bracketed by his lithe, long body, his arms either side of your head and his lap pressed to yours.

You stared up at Hiromi, like a little bunny rabbit, trapped. You reached one hand up to brush the black commas of hair off Hiromi's forehead and he shuddered, feeling his cock throb and fatten behind the zipper of his jeans. He leaned down towards you, pupils dilated, a pit of possessive thrill just above his aching length as he spoke, millimetres away from your lips.

"How long has this been almost happening for?" Hiromi pondered aloud, his cock thickening even faster as you squeaked, little hands gripping his biceps.

"Never," you challenged weakly, "it was never going to happen--"

"Yeah, right," he whispered, low and sarcastic, one hand looping behind your neck in preparation for fucking into your mouth with his tongue, "always the same shit with you--"

"-- it might have happened sooner if-- if you didn't sell yourself to that filthy company to become their corporate lawyer lapdog--"

Hiromi stiffened instantly, pulling away from you, your lips chasing his briefly in confusion. You blinked up at him, feeling so small as his face twisted in fury above you, his eyes incandescent with rage.

"I'm sorry-- what?" He snarled, climbing off of you and leaving you cold, confused, blinking.

"--you--you were scouted by that nasty finance company, right? And you accepted. Everybody said--"

Hiromi laughed, humourless, both of his hands cupping his nose and lower face as he leaned back into the sofa, staring at the ceiling, "Yeah? Everybody says, do they? You listen to everybody, do you?"

You felt a thread of dread run through you, the adrenaline of having almost been taken by Hiromi, now replaced with the adrenaline of confrontation. You felt a ruffle of indignation through you.

"I always thought you'd go that way," you asserted, doubling-down, rendered stupid by the need to win, "some little corporate rat for pay."

Hiromi's teeth clenched so hard, you heard the crunch, and you felt exactly how seriously you had fucked up. You gulped. You stood, brisk. You crammed books and flashcards into your bag, before moving to make a swift exit.

"--a--anyway. Good luck in the morning. Have a nice life."

You hurried away, towards the tightly packed bookshelves, at first hearing silence behind you, before the sudden rush of heavy footsteps chasing you and your heart in your mouth and--

You squealed, forcibly spun by one strong hand, your back slammed against the bookshelves. Books slipped and fell around your head, but none of them hit you; Hiromi barely winced as he craned over you, books tumbling off his head and shoulders while his arms blocked your exit. His hips pressing against your belly trapped you further, and you felt the erection you had left him with, straining against his jeans.

"You're smart, but you're such a fucking know it all," Hiromi spat, urging you to answer for your crimes by forcing eye-contact. You swallowed, heart fluttering between your legs, speechless.

"Oh, what? Now you shut up, huh?" Hiromi tsked, a wonky smile on his face, still twisted in anger as he laughed, humourless, into his shoulder.

"What the fuck did I ever do wrong?" Hiromi demanded, leaning down so the side of his hooked nose pressed against yours, your lips almost touching, "What did I do to make you hate me? So fucking competitive, you act like a total brat to the one guy who's good enough to keep up with you."

"Higuruma, I-- I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"Oh, no no no," Hiromi whispered, nose still pressed to yours, his cock rigid and twitching against your belly, "Hiromi, please. Enemies are just as intimate as lovers, after all." You shuddered, and Hiromi felt a drip of pre-cum soak his boxers, to see you finally yielding beneath him, and in his sweatshirt no less.

"...I did accept a job, obviously," Hiromi sniped, watching the colour drain from your face as he told you, "...at the Public Defence Office...you gullible little tart."

"...but if you think I'm such a bad person, how about I fuck you like one, hmm?" Hiromi drank down your squeak with a nose-crinkling grin, before crashing his lips to yours, moaning with relief into your gasping, warm mouth. The tension snapped in you, brittle under Hiromi's righteous rage, and you tangled your arms around his neck, pressing your body flat against his, in a kiss that was three years in the making.

"--oh, fuck yes-- fucking pain in my ass-- hate me all you like, still better than being ignored by you--" Hiromi nipped your bottom lip between his teeth, before sucking it between his, soothing the sting. You could feel how he shook with restraint, wanting retribution for years of ill-treatment. In a fleeting moment of shame-faced acceptance, as Hiromi laid claim to your neck, you realised you absolutely deserved it.

Hiromi marked your neck, sucking with his teeth and lips, raking the neckline of his sweatshirt down to do the same to your collarbones with a sandy moan. He scooped his arms under your thighs, lifting you against him, carrying you back to the sofa where he fell back, forcing you to straddle him. The sudden jolt of your clothed aching pussy against his cock made you both moan, and Hiromi bucked his cock up against you instinctively.

Feeling Hiromi's gaze burning into you again, you blushed, looking aside and sheepish. He reached up, tangling one hand roughly into your hair, tilting your head to the side, examining the lovebites down your neck with a shudder.

"You-- you're such a dickhead-- always came so fucking easy to you--" You whined at Hiromi, blushing as he laughed, his hand snaking under the sweatshirt to cup your breast with a groan of satisfaction.

"Fuck off," Hiromi scoffed, "fucking easy-- you treat me like scum, and you think I'm going to let you see me struggle? Please. Been fighting me for three years when you should have been fucking me instead."

Hiromi scooped your tank top and bra down beneath the sweatshirt, doing the same with his other hand, taking both of your breasts between his long, kneading fingers as he rutted his aching cock up into you.

"So go on then, if you're so clever...fuck me with your clothes on." You whimpered above him, feeling both of your nipples rolled insistently between his thumbs and forefingers. Your skirt had rucked up around your hips, and Hiromi swore under his breath to feel your arousal soak through his jeans, onto his cock.

He bucked up against your pussy again, and you mewled as shockwaves ran through your clit. Hiromi's fingers dug into your breasts, squeezing them with barely-contained need. You did as you were told, and hooked your panties aside, your pussy now flush against Hiromi's concealed length, and began to ride the underside of his weeping cock.

Hiromi threw his head back with a hiss, "Good girl-- not such a brat, now you're doing as you're told..." Hiromi bit his lip, moaning unashamedly to feel you hump yourself to orgasm against him. Despite his punishment of you, he already longed for you to fight back. He bucked his hips into you in challenge, thrilled when you planted your hands on his belly, your breasts squeezed together in his hands beneath the sweatshirt.

"--bet you're-- bet you're really fucking pleased with yourself--" You blushed, tears glittering bitterly in your eyes, moaning into Hiromi's mouth as he laughed again, kissing the pout off your face.

"I am, actually," he gasped, tweaking your nipples hard enough to make you whimper, "--gonna cum on my jeans, huh? Shit...don't know-- you never knew-- so fucking beautiful when you're being mean to me--'

Your thighs burned with the effort of rubbing your pussy against Hiromi, but you felt your orgasm building with the rough friction of Hiromi's trapped, twitching cock. Hiromi helped you, rutting up into you, staring at where your lap joined his, his face twisted into a feral snarl.

"--cum on me-- cum on me...shit, I need it, need to see your face when you finish...come on sweetheart--"

Hiromi's insistent growls send you tumbling over the edge, and you came with the sweetest cries Hiromi had ever heard. He watched you convulse and twist above him, his fingers still rolling over your sore nipples, his pupils blown with lust, teeth clenched with the effort of not spilling in his boxers. Hiromi rutted slowly into you, guiding through the haze of your pleasure until you came back to him, glassy-eyed and supple.

Hiromi released your breasts, flipping you over so your arse was on the edge of the sofa, with you on your back. Kneeling, Hiromi positioned himself between your thighs, one hand squeezing the plush of them, while his other pushed the sweatshirt up, his tongue drawing circles on your belly. You tangled your fingers into his hair, tugging until he moaned into your skin. His mouth travelled downwards, dipping beneath your skirt.

"Want to taste you," Hiromi insisted, yanking your panties down your legs, balling them up and shoving them into his back pocket. You opened your mouth to object, suddenly self-conscious. Hiromi growled at you, squeezing your nipple again until you keened at him, high and whimpering.

"Just shut up, and let me taste you," he growled, nuzzling his nose between your folds in an instant, rubbing it harshly from side to side over your sore, abused clit. You clapped a hand over your mouth to hold back the scream. Hiromi reached up, tugging your hand away and gripping them both together on your belly, "and hear you."

Hiromi swore into your cunt, lost in the taste of you, licking quick little flicks over your clit, in a way that filled your head with stars. Your thighs trembled, and you babbled Hiromi's name, watching with fascination as Hiromi unzipped himself, pulling his fat, heavy cock into his hand. He began to stroke himself with wet little plap plap plaps, soaking your pussy with his spit in preparation for sinking himself between your folds.

"Hiromi I-- right there god yes keep going with your nose I love it-- so good, I-- gonna cum, Hiromi--"

The last syllable of his name was dragged out in a sobbing cry. Hearing you whimpering and begging him as his nose and tongue fucked you through the waves of bliss, was worth all these years of your miserable torture, Hiromi thought lightly.

You blushed deeply as Hiromi came up for air, his gleeful face glistening with your cum. He grabbed you by the hips, yanking you so they almost fell off the sofa at an angle you knew would have you twisting against him.

Hiromi grasped his red tipped cock, and you drank it in hungrily; its pretty upward curve, three thick veins running down its length, the thick jet-black hair trailing down his belly. You felt your mouth water, and Hiromi was hyperfocused, sliding his cockhead up and down your folds with hooded eyes, sloppy and pussy-drunk.

"...fuck...I can't wait-- sorry, I--" Hiromi sheathed his length inside your slippy cunt in one slick thrust, whimpering and gripping you to him with dimpled fingerprints, "-- I can't wait any-- ahhh shit, so tight...squeeze my cock, c'mon--"

You didn't need to be told, clenching involuntarily as Hiromi completely impaled you on his cock. Hiromi gasped and cursed, yanking his t-shirt up and gripping it between his teeth, so he could stare down at where his cock sunk into you unhindered.

He fucked into you, slow and smooth, eyes flitting between your fucked-out face, your hands clawing at the sofa, and his cock pushing through your tight walls, its sweet upward curve dragging harshly against your spongy sensitive spot, nudging into your cervix and belly. Hiromi rolled his thumb around your clit, pinching the fatty flesh around it, gently pleasuring you to feel the way your walls fluttered and gripped him.

You locked your ankles around Hiromi's lower back, dragging an animalistic growl out of him. Hiromi stood bringing your hips with him, holding you by the thighs as he planted one hand on the sofa above your head, and upped his pace, fucking into you with messy abandon.

Watching your glasses bounce in time with your tits as he rammed into you, stoked a competitive urge in Hiromi, and he cursed, spitting venom as he upped his pace again. You arched involuntarily, feeling him fill you with such ragged fucks, that you forget where you were, clenching and whining around him.

You felt a fire, deep in the pit of your belly, watching Hiromi with absolute awe as he chased his orgasm, using your body as a cock sleeve with total reverence. Every muscle in his body twitched with effort, and you felt his cock twitching within you as he moaned and cursed. You clenched your pussy deliberately around his length, and Hiromi almost fell apart, his fingernails leaving crescents in the smooth leather of the sofa, his face twisted in anguished ecstasy.

"--so long waited so long-- shhhhit, ugh, s-so tight-- wet, fffuck...squeeze me agai-- oh fuck yes, cumming, I-- I--"

Hiromi broke off into strangled, desperate strings of moans, spurting hot, thick glugs of cum against your cervix. Hiromi continued to pinch and roll around your clit, and you felt yourself judder weakly as you came again, Hiromi gasping as your wet, velvety walls sucked the last spurts of seed from him.

Hiromi dropped to his knees, weak, still plugged inside you, gasping. He dropped his head onto your belly, grinning at the feel of your fingers sinking into his hair, holding him to you. A few sweet moments of companionable silence.

"...still gonna beat you in the morning, though."

Hiromi laughed into your plush belly, biting the soft skin there until you squealed, hearing him mumble against his sweatshirt.

"You wish."

[darlingdaisyfarm]

texting Stan and Ford headcanons

smut version

˚ ༘��� ⋆｡˚ Stan Pines

✧ Stan is the kinda guy who thinks emojis are a scam, but somehow, he figured out how to use the "thumbs up" and "money bag" emoji. so, expect a lot of those in your chats.

✧ his text tone is rough, a little misspelled, typed like he's yelling even when he isn’t. Half of his texts are in all caps, and he absolutely does not care about grammar. but he gets the point across, always.

✧ you’re getting messages at 3 am about some ‘brilliant’ scheme to make a quick buck. he’ll send, “LISTEN, doll, what if we made... GIANT… glitter-filled eggs for easter? Tourists'll go NUTS." you reply, half-asleep, with “Stan, ily but go to bed." and all you get back is a “🤬 YOU GOTTA THINK BIGGER!”

✧ Stan sends those weird chain messages he swears are from some “hotshot businessman” that’ll make you rich in a week. and when you don’t respond immediately, you get a: “Fine, Miss Doubtful, see you when I’m rolling in gold.”

✧ there are whole days where he just floods your phone with random, blurry photos of some new Mystery Shack "artifact" he found. It’s usually junk he picked up at a garage sale, like a “haunted” ashtray or some knock-off painting that’s “probably ancient.”

✧ If he’s feeling sappy (and tipsy): you might get a rare “thinking bout you, sweet thing” at 2 am. but if you try to call him on it the next day, he’ll just be like “Didn’t say that. You’re makin’ stuff up.”

✧ when he’s really riled up about something, though? then his messages are just. . . a stream of caps-lock curses, mixed with misspelled attempts to describe whatever nonsense he just got himself into. you just sit back and let him rant; he’ll cool off eventually.

✧ and the voice messages are something else. they sound like he’s talking through a fan half the time. one minute, he’s rambling about how tourists are “the dumbest suckers on the planet” and the next, he’s ranting about how “bigfoot definitely broke into the shack last night!"

types of messages Stan texts: 

"So… whatcha wearin’? 😏"

“Hey doll, I just found a penny on the ground! Maybe today’s my lucky day… hint hint ;)"

"I’d say somethin’ romantic, but I think my brain just shorted out. You’re a little too cute for a guy like me."

"Just tried that new café downtown. Ordered coffee… tastes like they filtered it through someone’s laundry. You’d hate it. Wanna come mock it with me?"

"Not gonna lie, I miss that face of yours. So what’re we doin’ about it, huh?"

“Again missin’ that cute little smile of yours… maybe you could send me a pic to remind me?”

"Wanna help me scam the tourists today? I’ll split the loot with ya… maybe ;)”

"You wouldn’t believe what I caught Ford muttering in his sleep. Man’s like a walking encyclopedia, even when he’s unconscious."

“Got any plans later? Thought maybe we could… y’know… not have plans together."

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ Ford Pines 

✧ hehehehe he’s like an old-school emailer who’s just now getting the hang of messaging apps. texts in complete sentences, full punctuation, like he’s drafting a dissertation.

✧ He sends you whole paragraphs at random hours, talking about some discovery he’s made, like he’s reporting directly to NASA. you’re like, “Ford, it's just a weird-looking squirrel." and he's already typing another essay about its "possible interdimensional origins."

✧ once in a while, he’ll send you a message that says, “Are you awake?” at, like 3 am followed by a string of thoughtful yet completely bonkers hypotheses. you find it cute, though, his mind never stops, not even for a second.

✧ If he’s feeling bold, you might even get a “hypothetical” confession out of him: “Hypothetically, if one were to develop... strong emotional attachment to a certain person... how would one proceed?" You tease him about it the next day, and he gets flustered, “It was purely scientific curiosity."

✧ Ford isn’t big on emojis, but he likes the brain and alien ones, using them poetically. he’ll sign off texts with a single brain emoji, like it’s his version of a little goodbye wave.

✧ on really rare occasions, he’ll send a voice message. they’re always way too long, and it’s usually him whispering so he doesn’t wake Stan up. he goes on about cosmic rays or “gravity anomalies,” his voice dropping lower when he gets excited. you live for those moments

✧ and if he ever texts you a “good night,” you just know he’s been up thinking about it for hours, trying to figure out if it’s “appropriate.”

types of messages Ford texts: 

“It’s been approximately 3 hours, 12 minutes, and 23 seconds since our last conversation… not that I’m counting or anything. Just… miss you."

sends a meme about science nerds “Us. But mostly me.”

“My hands ache from writing… though perhaps if it were writing about you, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you think about me too, or am I the only one utterly ruined by this… whatever this is?”

“I’ve been thinking about that book you lent me... 🤔 It’s honestly so much more interesting than I expected, thank you for recommending it."

"I don’t know how to work this... But I managed to send a meme! It’s not the worst thing I’ve done, I suppose? 

“I did it. I fixed the telescope. Finally. Now we can actually look at the stars like we’ve talked about. :)"

"I hope you’re feeling okay today. I noticed you seemed a little stressed the other day. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. :) It’s important."

"If I could rearrange the periodic table, I’d put U and I together. :( Sorry, nerdy joke... :’D)”

ps - I CANT THEYRE SO CUTE BOTH I WANT TO SMASH THEM AGAINST THE WALL

lmao if someone wants, i can write some spicy types of chatting with them :)))

[doodlingbiscuit]

Bite Me

Hey, first drabble I've finished! I have many more in the works, don't worry! :]

Rise!Donnie x Reader

Words: 3,760

Warnings: Biting, Slightly suggestive content, Mentions of blood Please let me know if I need to add more content warnings! I am still learning!

Donnie’s eyes trace over the curve of your shoulders, catching onto the slight muscle shifts as you reach up to put away the dishes. He can feel the need rising and tries to shove it down. He knows that it’s only a matter of time until he gives in to it. 

Donnie has never had a feeling like this before, being the least likely of the brothers to give in to his more yokai urges. Sure, hissing and growling came to him instinctually and was natural for him to do, but biting? He felt like that was something that he could not allow himself to give into. This was just another blaring reminder that although he walked and talked like one, he was not human. 

He almost considered locking himself up just in case these instincts delved into something deeper, he was quite familiar with the concept of other mutants becoming slave to their more animalistic side. But just before he definitively decided one way or the other, you had persuaded him to go out to a local cafe with him. He came out warily, expecting to want to bite every human he came across, but interestingly enough the instinct had dissipated entirely. He had celebrated internally, maybe just a bit of fresh air was what he needed to push the urges aside, he had been spending too much time in the sewers lately. Maybe it was just the sewer fumes finally getting to his head. 

Yet as soon as he caught a glimpse of you through the window, he could feel the urge to bite come back full force. His eyes slide over to another human, testing out the limits of what he was feeling. As soon as you’re out of his eyesight, the lessens but sure enough when he turns back to look at you, there it is again. 

Although he prefers to use his mouth as a metaphorical weapon, there were times that he had been desperate enough to use it in the literal sense. He had bitten and chewed his way out of many situations before, often getting out of them by quite literally the skin of his teeth. He had bitten to hurt; to wound, but the way he wanted to bite you was something else entirely. 

He had never wanted to bite someone so gently before.  

Donnie hadn’t told you about this urge of his, feeling too embarrassed to even bring it up. He didn’t even want you to know about it, hoping the feeling would pass without ever having to get you involved in it. This whole thing was so stupid, he was better than this. He had seen your shoulders before, it wasn’t like it was anything new, he had known you for years before ever getting into a relationship with you. But now every time he caught a glimpse of your shoulder, he oogled you like a middle school Victorian boy. This was surely just another instinct messing with his head and Donnie being Donnie could surely fight it off on his own. But after two weeks, it persisted. 

He was constantly chewing on the inside of his cheek nowadays, an old stim that had come back in full force these past few weeks. The mindless chewing satisfied him to a point but apparently, it wasn’t enough. 

You were both chilling on the couch watching some mindless video essay on the projector. The urge to bite was lessened when he held you like this but it still lingered in the back of his mind, and he was unconsciously chewing on the inside of his cheek to try to stave it off. You were cuddled perfectly into him and he was content to lay with you for hours. Glancing down to admire you in his arms, he goes still. Your jacket had slipped oh so very slightly down, revealing the entirety of your shoulder to him. 

In his realization of what he was looking at, the urge grew tenfold, and in his momentary loss of control, his teeth sliced clean through the inside of his cheek. He only realizes that he has bitten hard enough to draw blood when the metallic tang seeps into his mouth.

Immediately catching onto the way he had frozen underneath you, you turn to him slightly in curiosity. Not expecting his wide eyes to be staring back at you. 

“Are you… okay?” your eyes flick back and forth between his. 

Donnie just stares at you for a moment before shaking his head slightly, trying to clear his thoughts. He nods sharply once and moves to get up, softly shifting you off of him. 

You’re left to sit there in confusion, watching as he briskly walks to the bathroom. 

He shuts the door quietly behind him before quickly making his way over to the sink. Spitting into it, he watches the blood slowly trail down the side and into the drain. He drags a hand down his face and comes to the reality that biting his cheek wouldn’t work forever. 

This was not good. 

So Donnie tried to compensate in other ways. 

He tried buying chew toys, something that he knew had helped Raph before, keeping them hidden around the lair when he felt the urge to bite you. Donnie felt a little foolish ducking away from you and going to bite a chew toy instead, but… it was better than hurting you. 

You had caught onto his slipping away from you and he could see how it concerned you. Amazing, perfect you, had immediately thought that it was something that you had done. He was quick to shut down those thoughts, although he wasn’t entirely truthful as to why it wasn’t you. Unfortunately, his lack of an explanation still made you suspicious of him. He had the conversation with you almost two weeks ago now and you were still zeroed into every slight change in his demeanor. He was now more wary to sneak off in your presence. 

Which led him to this moment; chewing his cheek raw as he fiddled with scrubbing a particularly dirty plate. There was no way he could escape without immediately alerting you; doing the daily chore of washing dishes had become a way for you both to decompress after a long day and it had become a habit you both had come to enjoy. While he washed the dishes, you would dry them and put them together. Leaving now would surely make you think that something was wrong and that would start a conversation about Donnie’s behavior… and yeah, he didn’t want to get into all of that. 

Between keeping up a conversation with you and washing dishes, he can feel his control slipping away from him and chewing his cheek was, again, not helping. He stares into the soapy water, battling with himself before allowing himself a glance towards you. 

Across from him in the kitchen, you’re putting away a stack of glasses in the particularly high cabinet, one that you could only reach if you stood on your tippy toes. You take a glass from the stack and then place it up onto the shelf one by one. In the midst of your movement, there your jacket goes again, loosely hanging off of your shoulders. 

He bites down on his cheek a little harder, the pain from when he cut himself before breaking himself out of his reverie. Donnie sucks in a breath and forces his eyes away from you.

He’s only able to focus on the dishes again for mere moments before his eyes drag themselves back over to you. Before he realizes what he’s doing, his hands slip out of the gloves and he’s already halfway across the kitchen and out reaching toward you. 

Hands sliding across your waist, he pulls you slightly against him before leaning down into your space, his head hovering mere inches over your shoulder. 

Pausing to put away the dishes, you crook your head slightly to him. 

You say something to him in question, but his mind doesn’t register it, he’s too focused on your shoulder. 

Everything else fades to the background as he’s stuck in a stalemate between his mutant and logical mind. His mouth opens, blowing hot breath across your neck causing a shiver to travel up your back.

God, he can’t take this anymore. 

You’re saying something again, trying to catch his attention but he doesn’t hear it. You squirm slightly in his arms but Donnie only tightens them more. 

His eyes bore into your shoulder memorizing every slight muscle shift you make as he brings his mouth down closer. He opens his mouth wider, almost about to bite down-

“Donnie!” You say firmly, pushing against his embrace. 

You shrug him off easily, successfully breaking whatever hold his instincts had on him and turn to him exasperated. 

“What has gotten into you?”

Donnie stands there, at a loss for words. 

Which rarely happens to him, he often seems to have way too many.

He fumbles with his words, “I uh-.”

You stand there expectantly waiting for him to talk. 

Donnie’s mouth opens and closes like a fish before just stopping entirely. 

“We can’t just keep dancing around each other like this.” You huff out, “There is obviously something wrong with you and I think it’s reasonable enough to want to know why.” 

You cross your arms one over the other as you look at him, muscles shifting slightly beneath your skin.

Unfortunately, this means Donnie is distracted once more by you. 

Focus, Donnie.

They’re expecting an answer. 

Donnie’s mouth opens once again to respond. “I-”

“And don’t try to explain it away this time. You might be smarter than me, but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb.” 

“I never said that.” He bristles at the implication. “You sure imply it when you won’t trust me with what you’re going through.” You bite out. 

His eyes drop down to your shoulder once more, before flicking back up to meet your gaze.

“I want to bite you.” He blurts out. 

You take an ever so slight step backwards from him and he feels his heart drop into his stomach. 

“You want to what?” 

It’s not entirely an accusatory statement and he’s sure that you’re only asking for clarification but he can only feel the dread of what he’s about to explain to you creeping up on him.  

“I want to… bite you,” he repeats.

It all suddenly seems so real when Donnie says it out loud and it leaves an uncomfortable feeling on his tongue. He wants desperately to be rid of it. 

“That’s why I’ve been acting all weird.” His face scrunches up in frustration with himself and he taps his palm against his forehead. 

“My mutant instincts are messing with my mind. You know when people get cuteness aggression; when they like something so much their brain doesn’t know what to do with itself and instead counteracts it with something negative. Well,” He swallows. “I think that’s what’s happening to me… with you.”

You both stand there for an agonizing couple of beats before the sentence fully registers in your mind. 

“Oh. Oh...” You huff out a laugh in relief. “That’s what all of this has been about? I was beginning to think that you didn’t like me anymore.”

“What? No! This is the turtle side of me saying I want to be near you… though not in the most productive way, I might add.” He murmurs the last part out. 

“Donnie, why wouldn’t I understand this part of you?” Stepping forward, you take his hands into yours, softly laughing. “I mean you already purr and hiss like a cat.”

Donnie takes a little offense at the comment, but it's hard to hide the smile creeping up from the corner of his lips. He’s just glad that you’re still joking with him. 

“It’s called ‘churring’, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, uh huh. You overgrown cat.” You smile playfully at him before turning a bit more serious. “When I got into this relationship, I wasn’t expecting you to be human, I don’t need you to be human. I need you to be Donnie.” 

He squeezes your hand and nods.

 “I know, I know.” He murmurs, leaning forward to place a kiss on your forehead.  “But I am sorry for keeping it hidden from you, I’m just afraid of-”

“Hurting me?” You finish his sentence. “I don’t think you could ever hurt me on purpose.”

“I’ve tried to distract myself from it with other things but I have yet to try… giving in. It might go away if I can.” Donnie clears his throat before looking to the side, feeling a blush start to bloom on his cheeks. “If that is something you would be interested in.”

“I might” You smile playfully. “...How do you feel right now?”

Donnie thinks for a moment, the urge is still there but it’s lessened considerably.

“I think-” He swallows. “I think I’m okay for now.”

“Next time this urge happens, please let me know. I’m fine with it, but I just need a warning, you know?”

His instincts had given him a much-needed break for the rest of the day and he was able to act normal (well Donnie’s usual normal anyway) for the rest of the day. After finishing up the chores in the kitchen you both had gone through the motions of the day before finally settling into bed. Donnie’s body was curled around you as the big spoon and you both watched whatever videos that happened across your phone. Both of you had fallen into a sort of trance as you both watched the screen and Donnie could feel sleep beginning to tug at his eyelids. 

But of course, there was that feeling again. 

Donnie's head falls against your back in defeat as he can feel the urge to bite you rising again. He really didn’t want to ruin this moment with you, but you had said that you wanted him to be more honest with you… and that was something he could honor. 

Donnie props himself up onto one of his forearms and leans slightly over you so that he can see your face a bit more clearly. He murmurs your name softly and you murmur back in response. 

“Can I…?” He leaves the rest of the question in the air. 

You turn your head a bit more to look at him and set down your phone, the sleep in your gaze slowly wearing off as you recognize what he’s asking you. 

“O-oh. Yes, of course.” You adjust a little bit in his hold before asking hesitantly, “Do I need to do something?”

He slowly shakes his head. 

“No, I don’t think so. Just tell me as soon as I go too far.” He murmurs out, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Okay.” You murmur back.

He wraps his arms around you once more, holding you loosely against him just in case you want to pull away before reaching up to slowly drag the fabric of your shirt away from your shoulder. Donnie breath blows across your shoulder again as he hesitates once more. 

“I’m serious. Tell me to stop and I will.”

You nod softly.

His tongue sweeps across his teeth as he makes a final nervous swallow before opening his mouth once more, going as slow as possible from him too, giving you ample time to tell him to stop. He needs to be careful with you, any fast movements from either of you and he could break skin. Although he wanted to bite, he didn’t want to cause you pain. Donnie’s mouth hovers for a few moments before finally settling it onto your shoulders. 

You involuntarily flinch when he bites down on you and Donnie immediately stops, pausing to see your reaction.  

“You’re okay, Donnie.” You breathe out, “Just… surprised me is all.”

He hesitantly continues, slowly but steadily increasing the pressure of the bite just up until the point where he is too afraid that he’ll break the skin. He holds the pressure there; just languishing in the moment. The instincts seem to have settled in his chest, satisfied and he pulls away. 

When he sees the bite mark, he can’t stop the involuntary churring reverberating from his chest, and dear god, was his tail wagging too? He didn’t churr often and when he did, it was-

Embarrassing…

You turn to him slightly with a smile creeping out of the side of your mouth. “Happy?”

He huffs through his nostrils and nudges his head against yours, feeling too embarrassed to admit that simply biting you could make him get like this. 

His snout nudges in between your neck and shoulder, planting a soft kiss there. 

You pat the arm that he has wrapped around you. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

He peppers another kiss along your collarbone before maneuvering so that he hovers over you, now able to reach more of your neck. Donnie feels your heartbeat get faster through the kisses he leaves along your shoulder. 

One bite mark would deter off another Yokai, but it's less likely for them to see it if he only left one, it would be better if he left more. 

And you did say that it was okay for him to bite. 

He leaves one kiss along your neck, nipping slightly before pulling away, checking for discomfort. 

"Oh c’mon, Don.” You laugh slightly, allowing him to continue. “I'm not made of paper.” 

His churr deepens as he leaves bites along your collarbone and your shoulders. Your heartbeat picks up and your hearts beat in unison, tangling yourself into one. Donnie’s instincts demanded more and more of you only stopping when you let out a gasp. 

He pulls back, checking over your face for signs of pain. 

Your face is scrunched up slightly into a grimace. 

“Donnie, I’m okay.” You reassure him. 

He opens his mouth to respond and he notices the tang of blood in his mouth. 

Not his blood, yours.

His eyes flash down to your shoulder again, seeing red just beginning to bloom on your shoulder. The churring in his chest peters out as he feels his stomach drop. 

There it was, blaring proof that he went too far. 

“I knew this was a bad idea.” He murmurs to himself. 

He can fix this, he can fix this. 

He clambers out of the bed and starts to leave to get supplies. 

Sitting up in bed, you reach out to stop him but you’re unable to. 

“Donnie-” You start to get up to follow but he gently stops you from getting up. 

“Stay.” He says firmly. 

Sitting back down, you instead watch Donnie leave, making his way out of the bedroom before coming back with a first aid kit and ice pack in hand. He quickly makes his way over to you again, laying out the first aid kit before picking out an antiseptic wipe. 

“Donnie, I’ll be fine you didn’t even bite that hard…” Your words trail off as you watch his expression change into one where you know he’s made up his mind. 

He pulls the collar of your shirt down so he can look at it a bit closer. He feels a sort of pride as he looks at the mark, one that immediately sours.  

“You are never going to let me do this again.” He says firmly, taking the wipe out of the package. “I don’t care how much my instincts tell me to.” 

He presses it into your shoulder and you flinch a bit at the sting of it. 

There are so many bite marks… all of these will surely bruise. 

He busies himself as he cleans up the various marks on you, everything else fading into the background. 

“Donatello.” 

He pauses, he hasn’t heard you say his actual name in a while. 

You lift a hand to his face, softly guiding him to look at you. 

"Accidents happen. I knew it might hurt… you knew it might hurt. We went through with it anyway.” You drag a thumb across his cheek before letting your hand fall to your side. “I don't regret letting you bite me.”

Donnie opens his mouth to protest but you give him a look that makes him shut it once more. 

“If this is something your instincts are telling you to do, then there must be some reason behind it all. Just ignoring it obviously didn’t help last time and it won’t help in the future. If I have to get some love bites from you once in a while, I think I’m okay with that.” You say gently, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, and even if you do, I trust you.” 

Of course, you had to pull out the genuine love and affection, you knew exactly how fast that it takes him to crumble under that kind of pressure. 

 Donnie sighs, “God, I love you so much.”

He pulls you to him, leaning his forehead against yours. 

You laugh softly, “I love you too.”

Donnie maneuvers the both of you so that you’re sitting in his lap, the deep churring starting up again, although lessened from before. You sink into his embrace, enjoying the feeling of the reverberations traveling up through his plastron and onto your back. 

Donnie continues to patch you up, going into medic mode so you both sit there in silence enjoying each other’s company. Once finished with cleaning up the bite mark, he places a soft kiss on it and you let out a soft hum. 

He warns you before he carefully places an ice pack onto your shoulder, while his other hand traces circles across your other forearm.

Leaning your head back so that it's propped up on his shoulder, you smile up at him. 

Donnie is so focused on holding the ice pack to your bite that his eyes only just flicker over to yours before going back to what he was doing. His brows scrunch together as he slowly peels back the ice pack to check for bruising. 

“If biting makes you all lovey-dovey, I don’t think I mind it.” 

He lets out a huff of breath, that directly counteracts the churring’s volume that heightens considerably. 

He wasn’t going to admit it, but he didn’t mind it either.

“Donnie?” 

He responds with a simple hum. 

“Does this mean I get to bite you?”

[rainydayathogwarts]

Unsteady desk chairs - Ron Weasley

summary: when ron's been locked in his dorm trying to finish an essay all afternoon, you decide to help motivate him a little cw: SMUT, established relationship, unlocked door 1.2k+ wc

You'd been sitting with Hermione in the common room after having finished all your work, waiting for Harry and Ron to come down from their dorm and join you downstairs, making mental notes of the silly stories you had to tell them. You furrowed your eyebrows when you checked the clock again, noticing how late in the afternoon it was becoming. Leaving Hermione to check on your boyfriend, you began walking up to his dorm when Harry suddenly came running down the staircase in his Quidditch uniform, carrying his broom in one hand and yelling "I'm so late to practice!" A laugh bubbled in your chest as you continued trekking to the right dorm.

You waited for Ron's call to come in after knocking twice on the door, cracking the door open slightly to see him crouched over his desk, completely still while whispering things to himself under his breath. You stalked over him, careful not to make any noise before sighing at the sight. He was absolutely precious, unusually stressing himself over his care of magical creatures essay.

Wrapping your arms over Ron's shoulders behind his spot at his desk, you pressed fluttering kisses all over his cheeks and the side of his neck. The boy groaned, leaning his head back to allow you more space as he shut his eyes tightly, taking a short break from his homework. "Baby I don't get it." He whined, rubbing his eyes tiredly. You ran a hand through his messy fiery hair, pressing another kiss on Ron's temple before he was twisting in his chair to wrap an arm around your waist, guiding you around his chair so you could stand next to him. Shifting his chair backwards slightly, Ron tugged you to the space between his legs.

Resuming your soft massage on Ron's hair, you hummed slightly as he rested his hands on the back of your thighs, head leaning forward against your stomach. "What are you struggling with sweetheart?" "Everything. I don't get this stupid essay." He complained again, pulling you impossibly closer to him. "D'you need help? I finished mine not long ago." Ron shook his head against you, looking up at you with a pouty face. "This is something I need to do alone." You giggled slightly, leaning down to peck his lips quickly. Ron chased your lips the second you pulled away, trying to pull you back in. You smiled against his lips when they finally found yours, pulling away to laugh happily.

Your arms slung over Ron's shoulders squeezed him closer to you, letting him hug you as tightly as he wished. Ron moaned in annoyance against your jumper, and you grinned, an idea popping into your head. "Hey, bet you could some motivating though." Curiously, Ron's face was peeking up to look at yours, a pink tint forming on his cheeks. "Yeah, what kind of motivation?" You leaned in once again, lips barely touching his, moving your hands down to Ron's thighs. His muscles flexed under your touch, and he swallowed thickly, hands coming down to rest atop yours.

"I think you have a good idea of that." Ron was pulling you onto his lap before the words even left your mouth, hands positioning your legs so you straddled him, the both of you barely fitting on the desk chair. Your knees were uncomfortably tucked into the space below the arms of the chair, digging into the leather. Cupping Ron's jaw, you kissed him slowly, pulling back every time he tried speeding up the kiss, breathing heavily into your mouth. You giggled, lightly biting his bottom lip before retreating and unbuckling his thick belt. Ron's fingers wandered underneath your skirt, pushing your panties to the side while you freed him from his boxers. He watched intensely as you spat on your hand before stroking his length, waiting for him to fully harden before guiding his cock towards your hole.

Lifting your hips up to push his tip into you, you sunk down on his cock slowly, biting your bottom lip to suppress a loud moan. "Fuck. Should've locked the door." You muttered, digging your head into the crook of Ron's neck while you adjusted to his size, feeling his chest vibrate with a chuckle. Slowly beginning to lift your hips up, you gained momentum to bounce on your boyfriend's dick. Ron met your movements, snapping his hips upwards to meet your thrusts, hands loosely holding your waist just in case you lost your balance. Ron shut his eyes, taking pleasure in the feeling of your cunt against every ridge of his cock. You gasped, reaching a hand out to grab the back of the unsteady chair as a wave of pleasure shot through you, panting loudly.

One of Ron's hands left your waist, finding a path under the untucked shirt of your uniform to grope at your breast, tweaking your nipple to harden the sensitive nub. You arched your back towards his chest, cursing as you leaned down to suck on the soft skin of Ron's neck - a desperate attempt to silence your cries. The burn in your thighs paired with the uncomfortable pinch of the warm leather on your pace had you readjusting yourself above your boyfriend before recommencing your movements, only slower. Ron groaned as you began grinding down on his cock, wrapping his arms around your waist and tugging your body into his chest, where you leant your head on his shoulder, stilling your movements.

A sharp thrust of his hips up into your core had you whining, nails digging into the sides of his shoulders as he jerked himself into you with a fast pace. You bounced upwards with every snap of Ron's hips, but he hugged you close to him, only making you brush against his chest. Taking the easy access to Ron's neck, you resumed your kisses there, biting and sucking occasionally to leave red hickeys in their wake. Licking over a spot below his ear you just kissed, you firmly bit down, leaving a stinging pain in Ron's neck. Your boyfriend gasped at the sudden sear, harshly forcing his hips upwards into you with a loud "Fuck!" Your high pitched moan filled the room, your cunt clamping down again Ron's cock as you reached your high. A string of curse words left Ron's mouth as his hips uncontrollably twitched, releasing his orgasm into you while his arms squeezed you tighter against him.

Breathing heavily, you bit your lip to try and suppress your moan as Ron shuddered against you, urging his arms to loosen up against you so you could breathe. "Oh my god." You panted, grabbing the desk behind you to help you stand up as Ron's arms fell to his side, slumping against the chair. "Shit, baby." He mumbled as his hand reached out to shove your skirt up, watching his cum dribbled down your thighs. You separated your legs in discomfort, bending down to take your soiled panties off before placing it on Ron's desk, leaning your hips against it while you scanned his working space.

"I'm gonna go clean myself off and read a book in my dorm. Come find me when you're done with this essay." Ron nodded, dumbfounded, accepting the short kiss you gave him before strutting away, slowly reaching out for the panties on his desk to shove them in his pocket and zip his pants back up.

[millerscoffee]

Hello!! 🤍 I was wondering if you could write something where Joel is the reader’s college professor, and then Prof. Miller INSISTS that reader comes over to his home for tutoring assistance, (because of failed tests or bad essays), and then finally coaxes her into letting him have his way with her.

hi nonnie! here it is! i hope you enjoy 💖

extra credit

6.2k | joel miller x afab!reader (professor!joel au)

rating: 18+ MDNI

warning: professor!joel au, age gap (joel is 46, reader is 21), soft!dom joel, pining, consensual sex, pet names (darlin', doll, baby), oral (f receiving), face riding, fingering, piv (unprotected, wrap it folks), squirting, joel spitting over the reader's ass for 0.5 seconds (OOPS IDK???), a pretty dress with easy access, hints of after care, spoiler: honestly prof. miller could've told reader to just do the paper in a different format but – that's the point 🤭

When you picked your major, English was a necessary credit needed to achieve your goals.  It wasn’t your strong suit, but you weren’t one to quit just because you were bad at it.  So far you were coasting through, getting a mix of good and bad grades in your English Lit class when the last essay before finals was presented.

Among the crowd in Professor Miller’s lecture hall, you typically sat in the front.  He hands out papers, hovering by your desk.  Giving you a look of disapproval, he places the grade face down.  You peel the pages in anticipation, a sense of dread falling over you when you scan the big, red mark of failings.  “Shit,” you say to yourself.  That was it.  That was the grade that was the defining factor of whether or not you had to retake this course.  You use the side of your hand to wipe sneaky tears in falling.  You failed.  Doing your best to keep it together, you’re not sure you even heard the rest of the lecture from the possibilities running through your mind.  What were you to do?  How would you recover?

Class was over before you knew it.  The sounds of bags zipping and feet stepping, you stayed seated until you were able to look over to Professor Miller.  Dressed in black slacks, a brown button-up with leather shoes.  His hair was slick, the slightest bit of salt and pepper patched at his sideburns.  He looked like he had it all figured out, and that struck a nerve.  A feeling of jealousy that he knew what he was doing, and you obviously did not.

Professor Miller calls your name when the class is emptied, and you sniffle, standing up to straighten your skirt.  Your manicured nails pick up your essay as you walk over in an attempt to hand it to him.  “I guess you want this back,” you hold your full bottom lip between your teeth.

“Did you read the material?”  Professor Miller inquires, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  His voice is so dark and honied in comparison to his scowl.  Proving not to judge a book by its cover.  The irony.

“Well, I did, but… I struggle with this stuff.  Predicates and imagery?  I’d rather be learning about biology.  But I need this course, you know.  And I…,” you swallow hard.  God, the last thing you want is to embarrass yourself in front of your teacher.  He doesn’t know you, out of the hundreds of people he teaches – how could he possibly even remember your name?

“Hey,”  Professor Miller takes his glasses off, putting them on the table.  He looks as concerned as you are over it and crosses his arms.  Keeps his distance.  “It happens, you know.  There are things we can do to accommodate.  You’re very bright, I’d hate to see you fail.  You have options.  I can’t let you rewrite the paper, but I could tutor you for your final.  Another option is getting a student tutor, but it’s rare.  You know the workload of this university.  Not a lot of people are willing to sacrifice their precious time.”

“And you are?”  You look up at him with grateful, bright eyes and he loves it.  The praise just from your stare alone is cause for him to clear his throat.

“Listen, for someone like you, I believe it is important to help.  You just need a little more time understanding what you’re doing, is all.  I’m not in my office for the rest of the weekend, though.  You’d have to come by my house…,”  he watches those pretty eyes widen again, and that makes a smirk fall over his greying features, “if that’s okay, of course.  If it’s not, we could work something else out.”

You think about it.  You’ve never had a teacher invite you over, much less someone who looked the way he did.  Though, that was neither here nor there.  His lips formed words you couldn’t even pay attention half the time in hearing.  Maybe that was part of the reason why you were failing in the first place.  But you needed to pass, and if he could help you – and was so kind enough to do it in the first place, you should jump at the first opportunity.

“Okay.  Is there a particular time you’d like me to be there?”

“Are you busy tonight?”

What the fuck. That makes your heart race.  Tonight?  Tonight?!  Ton–

“Tonight… tonight is good.”  How did you even form the words?

“Perfect,” he started, bending down to write his address on a sticky note – his cologne wafts in your direction, and you clamp your legs shut reflexively.  “Here’s my address.  7 o’clock.”

“Seven.  Okay… thank you, Professor Miller.”

“Please, call me Joel.”  His teeth gleamed in a smile, and his personality shined through it.

A personality you didn’t get to see too often from your position behind a desk.

Shit.

---

According to your phone, he didn’t live very far from campus, and you were able to walk to his house without breaking too much of a sweat.  You decided on a black dress, although it was a casual one, that paired nicely with your sneakers.  It had buttons down the front with a relaxed collar.  Your bag slung over your shoulder when you knocked on his door, a nervousness fluttering in your stomach.  It was such a weird thing, meeting your professor in his home.  Much less having him request you call him by his first name.

Your knees all but buckled when you saw him on the other side of the door.

He looks… young in his jeans.  His t-shirt stretched over the broadness of his shoulders, but it’s still loose enough that it doesn’t look ill-fitted.  His stomach, soft at the bottom.  You flash him a smile, but internally you’re reeling over how casual he looks.  You’d never seen him like this, not even during those school meetings that were informal.

“Hey, you,” he’s bright, too.  Charismatic as he invites you into his home.  Takes your bag, lets you take your shoes off until you’re in your socks.  His words hit your stomach, how easy it is for him to talk to you like you’re the brightest sunflower.  What’d you even do to deserve it?

“Hi, Prof– uh, Joel,” you titter, taking in the curated decor of his home.  It was sophisticated, yet a little cheesy at the same time.  His alumni cover his walls and a mix of pictures.  Some with a couple of young girls you assumed were his children.  He has children, you swallow.

“Wasn’t too hard to find this place, right?  When I moved here, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t too far – not much of a mornin’ person,” Joel laughs and you do, too.  Fuck, this feels so easy.  But it’s nothing – it’s nothing.

What you don’t pick up on right away is his open body language.  He places your bag on his couch and you follow him like a puppy – he likes that.  You look so soft under the sienna hue of his lights, your hair falling into place naturally.  Plump and ripe for the taking.  Of course, he meant it when he said he’d tutor you, but the air got thick the moment the door was shut behind the two of you.  What were you doing to him?

Joel’s large frame walks over to his bar cart, turning on his heel to face you, “Interested?”

“Huh?” You blink and he laughs again at your deer caught in the headlights expression.  You’re cute.

“Do you drink?”

“Oh, uh… water would be nice.”

“Water it is,” Joel’s pleasant, gesturing his hand for you to follow him.  And you do – that puppy he was coming to know, right to his kitchen.  You study the marble countertops, the farmhouse style kitchen sink.

“So, tutoring,” he starts, taking a glass from the cupboard, he fills it with filtered water before handing it to you – you thank him with a nod, “I was thinking we could look at your paper, and then go over how to fix things in the future?”  When you take the water from him, your fingers graze.  The first sign of contact, your head continues to nod unthinkingly, but all that scorches your mind is how his skin feels.

“That sounds good,” you overcompensate, shoving the ideas from your mind.  He was your teacher, and it was easy to get back into the mode of why you were here.

Joel’s expression doesn’t change much, still the same grin with hooded eyes and wrinkles at his forehead.  The two lines between his brow.  “Alright, well I have it on the coffee table.  Let’s get settled on the couch, and we’ll get started, okay?”

So you agree.  You take your glass of water and follow him back to the couch where everything was set up – your paper, his laptop.  All of the correction marks in your face as you sit down.  You take another sip of water before placing it down on the coaster.  You dread it, you really do.  Going over your failures?  You scrunch your nose up to yourself, but Joel notices when you’re both settled on the cushions.

“You know, Voltaire said, ‘perfect is the enemy of good’,”  Joel bends his knee on the couch, thigh pressing into the cushion to turn to you and it causes the couch to shift.  The quote makes you giggle a little to yourself, and you shake your head.  “What?” His eyebrow quirks in curiosity.

“Voltaire also popularised the story of Newton’s apple, doesn’t make it true.”

“Huh…,” Joel trailed off, keeping his eye on you – his tongue skating over his bottom lip in thought.  You were so quick all he could really do was laugh, and that made your shoulders relax.  Makes you feel more in control and comfortable to laugh at yourself.  “You got an answer for everything?”

“Not everything.  See this,” you pick up your paper, thumbing over the ink of corrections the man on the couch made and you shrug, “I don’t really understand why this got marked wrong.”  Joel’s gaze flashes over your mouth when your teeth press into the plushness of your bottom lip – he should be given some damn award for having so much self control around you.

“Wrong format.  This citation works for your research papers, right?”  He nods with you before leaning in closer, that damn cologne coming back in full force just like earlier in the day.  You all but freeze when his warm touch graces you again – this time, fingers tracing over where you’re holding the paper.  “Oh,” your voice is soft, a bit of disappointment pangs at your ribs.  You were so busy you didn’t even realise that was the majority of the issues you had.

“So… it’s not really what I wrote, it’s how I wrote it?  You asked if I read the material?”

“Exactly.  If you read the syllabus, you’d see the required format.  Listen, there are some ways for extra credit, I do think this is salvageable.”

You suddenly feel silly.

You did all that work, Professor Miller was kind enough to let you into his home, and it was all for some redundant formatting.  An open palm curls over your chin as you look at the paper in deep contemplation.

“I really fucked up,” you say, hushed in the space.

“You didn’t fuck anything up,” you manage an exhale of amusement at the sound of your teacher curse.  You shift your gaze to look at him.  The curls at the nape of his neck, the way his t-shirt dropped enough so you could see his neck, his chest.  The freckles that splayed over his aged skin.  “You just needed someone to tell you what to do.”

That was the loaded statement.  And a pointed one, it seems.  Someone to tell you what to do.  And Joel wanted to be that person?  Your eyebrows raise for a flash, thumbing over the paper.

“That would be too easy,” you scratch at your neck idly before going for the glass of water, sipping in contemplation. “...I mean, I should’ve known better.”

Joel takes the glass from you, offering himself a sip of your water and it stuns you speechless, doing your best not to convey it.  Maybe he did that just because this was his house.  That must’ve been it.  He was comfortable, but goddamn – the eye contact he gave you when he swallowed the liquid.

It felt intentional.

He watches your features, vague as they were, in what to do next.  He honestly wasn’t so sure what he was doing either.  What?  I know how to give you extra credit, sweetheart.  Too forward, too boastful, too… cheap.  You deserved better than that.  He saw you in class, how hard you were on yourself.  He talked to your other teachers, how well you were doing in your other classes.  He felt for you.  And he was a bit lost in your eyes.  You were all too pretty, too brilliant to be dimmed down to a fuck for extra credit.  Joel could see that.  He wasn’t even sure what he was thinking, you had him distracted.  You threw him off without even trying.  The plight within him grew stronger as he handed back the glass.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Joel straightens up, his hand cups over your forearm in a way that’s understanding, but also makes goosebumps rise.  You look down to see where you connect and he pulls away slightly.  “Sorry, I–,” “No, it’s okay,” you agree, “It’s okay.  You’re right.”

“It’s just, I see hundreds of bright, beautiful young people every year, but none of them have stood out to me like you.”  He can’t believe the words that are coming out of his mouth.  The candor, the nerve.  A filthy old man, that’s all he was in the eyes of someone as sweet and innocent as you were.  Even if you happened to be experienced – god, what was he thinking?!

Joel clears his throat, shifting a bit in his seat, but he sees the way your lips part, but your eyes don’t show an ounce of shock or distain.  They look soft, and… willing.  You know that is because the pull at your core feels too strong to think of anything else.  You look down at his left hand, making sure you’re not dreaming.  He’s not married?  You’d casually look at his hands from time to time during class and ignored the ache it gave you, but this?  So close?  Backed by the glow of his house?  It was so different from the boys you were used to.  In their dorms or disgusting apartments.  It smelled as nice as it looked.  You realise you’re not speaking, but the way you lean into him says more than you really ever could.

“I don’t know what to say,” shyly, you touch your knuckles to your cheek, “you should teach the guys that go here how to chat with someone.”

It’s a mutter, but not to yourself.  You drink one more mouthful of what you were offered before putting it back on the coaster.  Honestly, any distraction was welcome to defer from the ever-present density in the room.

“Those guys don’t know what they’re talkin’ about anyway.  I know I didn’t at that age.”

There.  The topic right in front of both of your faces.

“How old at you, anyway?”  You inquire, thumb mindlessly circling over your knee.  Joel tracks it, licking over his lips as he answers.  “Forty-six.  You?”

“Twenty-one.”

Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.

There’s this standstill, as if you’re both in the air together looking at each other in slow motion.  How will this land?  What are you both even doing here like this?

“I’m sure your boyfriend takes good care of you,” Joel’s eyes, round and bright brown, get lost in yours – the way your breath hitches, the shift of your thighs on his sofa.  He wondered what you tasted like, what sounds you make when these boys who don’t know what they’re doing with their tongue attempt to eat you out.  Do you fake it?  Do you give it to them straight?  Neither of you had a drink from that bar cart in the corner of the room, but somehow you’ve become closer – and more intoxicated.

“Don’t have one,” you respond softly, orbs flickering to the set of plush lips that grow more red the longer you let the tension build, “what about you?  N-no partner?”

Your attempt in confidence wavering the longer he stares at you.  It’s like staring back into the sun and you have your brows knit together until the tug of muscle makes your forehead hurt – smoothing them apart with the twitch of muscle fibers.

“No partner,” Joel’s hand settles on your thigh and you can’t hold it back; you gasp.  But you do something he doesn’t anticipate, or well, you don’t do something: you don’t pull away.

How did you two get to the topic, anyhow?

How did you end up straddling his lap, for that matter?

It’s within six eager seconds that his hand, hot and rough, touches your soft skin, and you – green, you – fervent, throw all inhibitions aside and lunge.  It’s more fluid than you realise, and his hands (both now) grip the backs of your bare thighs and you whimper at the sensation of him squeezing you.  Your wetness against your cotton panties grows from the kneading alone.  No, absolutely not, the boys back in the dorms didn’t know how to do this.

It takes an even shorter time for your mouths to meet.  He’s first to kiss, and he tastes like coffee and his dinner, and the faintness of a cigarette – maybe early in the day?  You couldn’t tell, your head was swimming too deep in now to come back from.

And although his calloused fingers roll patterns into your soft skin, he’s just as willing.  Just as desireful and you can feel it beg to be set free at the seam of his jeans.  His tongue skirts against yours, hips rolling up the second yours tempt to roll down; causing you both to moan in each other’s mouths.

It gets feverish after that.  All teeth, tongue, bite.

You don’t want to stop, you don’t want to take a moment to breathe because fuck, that could stop things.  That could make him realise what is happening.

But that only is another item to your list of naivety.

Because Joel, he’s ready.  His masculine arms wrap around your frame to lift you up just enough so he can get out of his fucking jeans that he now regrets wearing.  Shoulda been wearin’ sweats, but it’s effortless… eventually.  He hurriedly pushes the thick fabric down until they hit at his thighs and you’re pushed down onto his boxers that – holy fucking shit – leave nothing to the imagination.  “Joel, J-,” you pant between kisses, fingernails digging into the base of his neck, he pauses.  Pulls away, gets a good look at your face.

“Y’want this?” And goddamn, you can’t see yourself, but you imagine you look just as fucked out as he does.  On the cusp of every little fantasy he’s had about you from the moment you sat down behind that desk.

“I want this,” you repeat.  You weren’t sure exactly when the nerves subsided, maybe because all of the blood is now rushed at the apex of your thighs, but you mean it.

You want this.  You want Professor Miller.

“You got me,” his breath dances over your lips before guiding you back a bit, “here… I’m going to lie back, I want you to– I’ll show you.”  Your lips quirk up at the fact he’s so flushed he can’t even finish his sentence.

But that soon turns to you flushing when you realise his request.  “I – what?”

“No?”  Joel sits up on his elbows, looking over to you and you’re worried you’ve killed the mood.  It’s just, straddling his face?  Blood rushes to your cheeks.

“I’ve never done that… What if it’s bad?”  His eyes, reassuring, but a deep shade of black now beckons you.

“Darlin’, I think you’ll be a natural.  But I can teach you, if that’s what you want.”

You swallow, straddling his knees somewhere at the bottom of the couch and you think about it.

Joel, on the other hand, was living in a fantasy of teaching you things in and out of school.  Showing you how to make yourself feel good on his mouth – make you forget all about the essay that caused you grief today.  He leans over, pushing it under the couch out of view for good measure.

“Okay,” you agree, though nerves still flood you.  “Okay, you wanna take your panties off?”  You lick your lips at that, biting back another whimper that brought you to this predicament in the first place.  And you did – you wanted nothing more than to slip your underwear off and give into your pleasures.  His voice was deep, graveled with the prospect of him fucking you senseless on his couch and who were you to deny him that?

Who were you to deny yourself that, more importantly.

“Yeah,” doing as you say, you slip off your lace-trimmed undies and abandon them somewhere on your Professor’s floor.  “Fuck,” you mutter.  This was naughty.

“Already so good for me,” you weren’t even sure that Joel’s voice could get deeper, or more inviting, but it does.  You bite your lip and oblige when he pats his chest.  Going over to him, you straddle just above his broad shoulders, and he’s almost out of view with him like this – somehow making it easier to just feel what he could do to you.

Joel on the other hand?  All he can do is see the outline of your glistening core from the shadowed tent you’ve made of your dress and his groans are muffled slightly from the fabric, “Fuckin’ Christ,” he wants to devour you, but he takes his time instead.

Peppers kisses along your thighs that make you claw the armrest, causes you shiver at the contact and you can’t believe this is happening.  “J-Joel,” you hesitate, but his hands are wrapped around your hips now, fingers digging into the breadth of your ass.

“Sit.”  Joel commands.

Oh, fuck.

You’re almost certain you’ll break skin at your lips from biting down so hard, but you do as you’re told.  Anchoring down, it’s subtle at first – the brushing of his facial hair against your folds, his chin prying you apart.  Then, it’s incredibly palpable.  His lips are the first thing you feel as they press and kiss over your middle and as you shudder it only makes your muscles sink deeper on him.  You’re the first to moan, and then Joel, and his mouth is open when he invites you inside it.

“Oh, my god,” thighs shaking, Joel flattens his tongue under the hood of your clit, a body part you were certain hadn’t been touched by anyone else but yourself.  There was no time to compare, the white hot pleasure coursed through your veins and he took his time with it, too.  Made sure he was teasing you, his tongue dipping inside your entrance, as sloppy as it felt.  “Hmmn,” you can’t speak, forearms resting on the armrest now as your head hangs between your shoulders and his fingers make pliable work of your asscheeks.  Pushing you down, using your hips to move back and forth against his mouth – like he’s using you while you use him.

The air is thick under your dress, sticky and humid, as Joel swirls this tip of his devilish tongue in the most astonishing circles you’ve ever experienced, and you know it’s because he has more experience than you do.  Has so much to teach you, if you let him.  Your mouth hangs open as you try to inhale, but it’s just too much.  Especially with the way he thumbs into your stomach, then your pubic bone – lifting it just slightly to expose your clit to him.  An angle, not even you have found yourself.

It almost feels like too much.  It’s intentional, the way his tongue flicks over that bundle of nerves right at the top of your cunt.  Delicious, deliberate.  Two fingers greet your entrance and it startles you, the way he’s rubbing your hole with his two fingers in slow circles before pressing them where you want them most.

“Tell me you want it,” you hear, muffled and fucked, and you shiver at the slightest bit of lack of contact.

“I want it, I want your fingers – please!”

And that seems to send him over the edge of how much he’s willing to hold back because he’s exactly where he was.  Mouth on your clit, but fingers skillfully pressing inside of you and you don’t know how long you’ll last.  Not with the pads of his fingers tapping in the perfect tempo against the ridged spot inside you.

That’s when a weird sensation comes over you.  A pressure, you felt like you had to pee and your insides pulled in more trying to keep it all contained.  “I–,” you start, but it happens so suddenly.  Your orgasm rushes through you, convulsing and almost falling over the edge of the couch, you dig your fingernails into the upholstery.  Your eyes roll back, and fuck, so are your hips.  Unable to stop yourself using Joel’s mouth to keep you exactly right there.  Pleasure pricks your skin, it feels like every cell is ignited – but you jump when you feel a rush of fluid come out of you.  The pressure rebounding out, then rippling pleasure back inside you.  Joel fucks you with his tongue and fingers until he feels you calm down.

“W-what, what… did I do?” You pant, and Joel is groaning, too.  He lifts your hips to get lungfuls of oxygen, so dizzy on you and you notice how soaked his pair of fingers feel on your skin.  Sits you down on his chest and you can see his face finally.  Can see his mouth parting, gasping as his eyes are hooded and so gone.  Curls stick to his forehead, his shirt a dampened colour at the collar.  You blush heavily, embarrassed because you aren’t even sure what that was.  Did he hate that, was that weird?

“C’mere,” he growls with gritted teeth and sits up, the tables turning instantly.  Joel’s stripping his shirt off, kicking every last bit of the bottom half he had on to be abandoned on the floor.  His fingers remove the buttons, but he can’t really get them – those fingers too big for the buttons.  “Here,” you whisper, an intense feeling of lust falling over any self-conscious self talk you had.  You undo the top of your dress one button at a time until your breasts are released from your bra – you moan when he has no problem spilling your tits from the satin, nipples in stiff peaks from your orgasm.  And everything else.

“You know what you did?”  Joel asks, taking both of your nipples between his fingers from each hand.  You moan, lifting your hips and he bites his lip when he sees your cunt front under your dress.  “What was it?”  You ask, curiously.  Innocently.

“You squirted f’me, baby,” he slurs, thumbing over your clit now as he gets a good look at you and he’s drunk on you.  His cock throbbing against your thigh, he taps it against your skin before realising what he needed.

 “Fuck,” Joel mutters and you can tell by the tone it’s not just at your appearance.  “What is it?”  You inquire, eyebrows knit.

“Gotta get a condom,” you hear him mutter, getting onto one foot and you stop him.  “No.  No.  I want to feel you.  It’s okay, I don’t get pregnant–” well that sentence isn’t exactly how you mean for it to come out, but your mind is mush, your body feels boneless underneath him, and he chuckles at that.  At how gone your brain is.  Here he was, thinking he was the only one.  “Okay, okay, darlin’.  I believe ya.”

And really, maybe he should be using more discretion.  But he can’t get the feeling of you out of his head.  You were everywhere.  His mouth, his glistening chest and beard.  He takes you by the hips then, sitting back to flip you on your hands and knees with your help and you moan at the sensation.  Joel looks down at you, groaning of your ass in the air, pushing back for his cock.  “Such a needy little thing, now,”  it’s as if someone else is talking.  This isn’t the Professor Miller you know.  This man has layers and you’re first in line to know exactly what that entails.

Joel takes the base of his cock, bobbing it as it throbs alive in his hand and runs through your slick with the head of it.  “So fucking wet.  Beginning to think you’ve been wanting this for as long as I have.”

You bite a whine and he can see the back of your head nodding as you crane your neck back enough to make eye contact, but his eyes fall down to your ass pressing eagerly on his cock.  Doing your best to press him inside yourself.

“Go ahead,” he slaps his cock on your folds and you mewl at the wet sounds coming from it.  “Take my cock.”

And take, you do.  Joel holds it out for you, keeps it steady and you push back slow on his cock.  Clenching around the head and he growls at that.  “You dirty thing.  This how you fuck all your teachers?”  It burns your skin, pushing your face into your arm and you shake your head.

“Words.” He warns.

“Just you!  Just you, Joel!”

“Just me,” he parrots, hissing when you shift back and you both twitch and groan when you take him to the hilt of you.  It was so thick, stretching you out until you felt split apart from him.  “Just me, show me then.  Show me how you fuck me.”

You bite into your arm then, choking on a sob as you push your ass back over and over.  Your cunt taking him deep like this, it almost feels like too much and not enough at once.  Torturously slow against the spongy spot again

 It felt so amazing taking him yourself, but it was like an itch you couldn’t scratch on your own.  The tapping of his balls against your clit was too far apart in tempo, his cock speared inside you at a pace that didn’t have quite the same leverage as Joel did behind you.

His hands busied themselves on your ass, peeling the muscle apart – pressing his digits to leave bruises and just when you think it’s too much to take, he gives you something else.  His spit falling from his lips right to the velvet of your asshole.  You shudder and flutter around him when it falls to where you’re connected.  Your fingertips grip the other armrest now, cheek resting atop of your hand and you can’t do it yourself anymore.  “Fuck me, Joel!  Professor Miller, please!”

“Shit – you know where to push, don’t you?”  Joel’s wide hands slide up your sides, keeping them locked in place as he pulls your hips to him at first.  Using your whole lower body, your head hands doing your best to keep yourself up but you’re so close when he uses you like this.  When he picks up the pace and you let your head fall on his throw pillow – your screams of desire are targeted into the plush cushion.

Joel is bound up in amazement behind you.  How you feel around him, your gorgeous figure in front of him as he gives you every bit of power he can now.  His hips hammering into you, but with the right amount of speed – not too fast, not too slow.  The sound of his balls slapping against your clit is faster now, and the difference is what you focus on.  The way it sounds.  Joel feels you tighten, pulse around his own pulse and he has to say something to you.  Has to talk you through it, even if he’s not sure you’ll like it.

“So fuckin’ good for me,” he drapes his body over your back, huffing into your ear as the controlled weight of him pushes your ass down just enough to make your thighs shake.  You are soaked, sticky against his abdomen, between your thighs.  Over your own stomach.  You move your face so you can feel his skin closer against your.  His lips staying on your cheekbone, he grunts and nods.

“That’s it, fuckin’ take it.  I know you can take it.  Those shaky fuckin’ thighs better hold on.”

You feel yourself coil and he is quick to sooth over your hips with his palms.

“Relax, baby.  That’s it, that’s good, darlin’.  Shh, easy.  Do you feel that heat?”

You nod hopelessly, the buildup was so strong you couldn’t do anything but curl your fingers into fists and whimper repeatedly.

“Give into that heat.  Come for me, I know you can be so good for me.  Good for – fuck – fuck.  Good for my cock,” Joel groaning in your ear makes you flutter uncontrollably, and he wastes no time in wrapping his arm around your front, rolling quick circles at the split of your cunt, right at your clit.  “Milkin’ my fuckin’ cock like that, don’t stop.  Don’t fuckin’ stop,” he grits, and you’re gasping.

Clawing at the pillow, head craning up and back as you come.  Mouth gaped, Joel takes advantage – pouring his tongue into it, swirling and drinking you while his cock bottoms into you repeatedly until he can’t take it anymore.  You feel too good.  Perfect, even.

“Joel!” Your whine is high, as your wet folds take his merciless shoves.  “You feel so good, youfeelsogood!”  Your lip quivers, jerking in aftershocks that feel a lot like multiple orgasms.  You aren’t even sure how you feel, but he knows he has to pull out.  So he tells you, rough and pained against your ear.  He doesn’t want to any more than you do.  But as soon as he does, that reward feels just as sweet.

He exhales roughly through his nose, a popping sound filling the room when he pulls out.  Not even needing to touch himself to spill himself over the small of your back.

“Fuck,” he’s out of breath, grunting, and doing his best not to collide into you.  You’re still, the nape of your neck dews with sweat and you can feel it stick to your dress instantly.

“Stay there,” Joel pulls away, and you sit up on your elbows now that you’re fully flat and study his frame walk into the kitchen.

The back of him is just as irresistible as the front.

You hum hungrily at the landscape of his back.  But you do as you say, you don’t move a muscle.  When he comes back, you take note of the splotches of his chest, his neck red and sheened with sweat, too.  He’s just as disheveled.  The paper towel he comes back with is rough against your lower back, but tickles more than anything else.

Makes you wriggle and laugh.

“What did I say?”  He threatens, but his voice is much more smoother and tender.  More playful.  More like what you’re used to.

“Tickles!”

“You must endure it if you know what’s good for you.”  he’s finished enough for you to roll over.  You pull your tits back into your bra with another low laugh, but to yourself at how exposed and a mess you’re sure you look on your professor’s couch.

“I think I like that threat.”

“No more,” and that makes your heart drop.  He must be able to see the disappointed look on your face, so he rephrases his sentence in an instant.  “No more tonight.”

“Maybe I should be teaching you the importance of ambiguity.”

“Next lesson.”

Your heart soars just as fast as it dropped.

---

While you slip on your sneakers, you turn your heel to him – bag in tow.  “Listen, I don’t want this to be why I passed.”

“It’s not – it won’t be,”  Joel chews up the space between you – his hand pressing against the doorframe that your delicate hand adorns at the knob, fully dressed himself, now.  “You will pass by your own volition.  I meant it – you are bright.  You won’t let anybody take that from you, will you?” You knew that wasn’t a question as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear, but you still swayed your head ‘no’.

“Not even me.”  He whispers, pressing his lips to your forehead before dropping his arm – allowing you to leave.  And that’s exactly what he’ll let you believe.

“Especially not you.”  You smile, leaning up to kiss his lips – your flavour lingers over his facial hair and tongue.  Your panties in his pocket.

“Goodnight, Professor Miller.”

“Goodnight, doll.”

taglist: @cool-iguana – comment to be added!

[marvelwitchergilmore]

Something's Changed

Summary: Logan Howlett x Fe!Reader -> Something changed when you and Logan kissed. Did it change for the better?

Disclaimer: Fluff, angst, kissing, steam/illusions to sex, best friends to lovers vibes. Mentions of cheating (not reader or Logan -- a client of reader as reader is mentioned to be a PI). First kiss = fake dating...sorta. Some swearing. Not Proof Read.

Something changed when you kissed Logan. Or, maybe it was when he kissed you. Either way, something had changed. 

Only, neither of you wanted to admit it. 

“Hey, is everything okay between you and Logan? Usually you’re joined at the hip but I…I haven’t seen you both together for a while.” Jean asked as she spotted you in the kitchen as she poured herself some coffee. 

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Why?” You popped another grape into your mouth, praying she’d drop her question. 

Jean looked you over. You could only thank your mutation that you could block her ability to read your mind. 

“Are you sure?”

To Jean, you looked a little dazed as you nodded your head and walked towards the door. “Yep. Everything’s perfect.”

Everything’s perfect. 

Everything’s perfect?

Everything was perfect. 

Until you kissed. 

Turning down the hallway, you made your way towards your classroom but not before stalling at the door. From down the hall, Logan had turned the corner, looking up from the open History Essay books in his arms. 

Jean watched from the kitchen door as you and Logan stopped in your tracks and had a broken connection of a conversation before sheepishly escaping into your assigned classrooms. 

Something had been different between you both for three weeks. One morning, like every morning, she had watched you and Logan at the breakfast table. Eating. Talking. Laughing. 

When Logan had first come to the school, the first time Jean had ever seen Logan laugh – truly laugh – was with you. 

Ever since, until three weeks ago, you had been inseparable. 

So what had happened?

It was the next day when a second person questioned you about what had happened, but since she didn’t get the answers she wanted, she turned to interrogate the only other person who could give her an actual answer. 

“Okay, what happened?”

Logan looked up from his marking to see Rogue plant herself in the chair opposite his desk. 

“Shouldn’t you be studying?”

Rogue smiled. “I graduated last year, remember?”

“Then don’t you have college to deal with?”

She shook her head. “Not until next week. All assignments are in. I’m as free as a bird.”

“Then go and…peck at someone else. I’ve got work to do.”

Rogue nodded with a smile, kicking her feet up onto the corner of Logan’s desk. “I could always help.”

Stopping his marking, his pen hovering above the page, Logan finally looked up at Rogue and found her looking…too happy at him. 

“What do you want?”

Rogue waited for a moment, wondering if he actually wanted to know. But she knew him. The quicker he got through her question, the quicker he could be left alone. 

“I want to know what happened. Between you and Y/n.”

Logan’s face dropped and he turned back to his work. “Nothing happened.”

“I’d beg to differ.”

“You’d beg to differ?” 

Rogue shrugged. “My Professors are English. But, yes. I’d beg to differ. You two were inseparable. So what happened? You’ve been sulking around here for weeks.”

“I don’t sulk.”

“You sulk.”

“And nothing happened.” Logan repeated. “Why not go and ask her?”

“I already did. She told me to come here.”

Logan looked back up. “She did?”

Rogue couldn’t hide her smirk. God, he was so smitten with you. 

“Not in so many words.”

“In how many words exactly?”

Rogue shrugged. “It’s besides the point. Something has happened and I want to know what.”

Logan sighed. “Nothing happened. But I am busy so…” Logan waved his hand at her for her to leave, but she only sat up in her chair and leaned in. 

“Did you tell her?”

“Tell her what?” Logan asked, without looking up. 

“That you love her.”

That got his attention. 

“It’s okay.” Rogue assured him. “Everyone knows. Well, mostly everyone. The students know, and the Professor-”

“I’m not in love with her.”

Rogue sighed. Was he really going to be in denial? 

“Logan,” Rogue began. “You look at her like she hung the moon. You spend practically every waking minute with her, and some sleeping. Yes, I was the one to cover you both up with a blanket. You’re welcome. You know her like the back of your hand. Better yet, you know each other better than anyone knows either of you. I know you get up early every morning to make her coffee-”

“Okay, okay, okay. Those things might be true. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with her.”

“Then why did you kiss her?”

Logan practically stood to attention. “She told you that?”

Logan watched as Rogue remained seated and smiled up at him. “No. But you just did.”

She was a little minx. 

“Look, truth be told. I don’t know what happened. But now that I know that you both kissed…”

Logan swallowed thickly and steadied himself on his desk. “We did-We didn’t kiss.”

Rogue smiled as she stood. “Sure. But, Logan. If I were you, I’d talk to her. And once you’ve done that, talk to me. I want to know all the details.”

Rogue left with just a smile and no other words. Meanwhile, Logan felt like he’d been put into a boxing ring, was sent to the floor, poured into a broken washing machine and yanked between two sharp pegs on a frayed washing line. 

He sat himself down. 

If you weren’t going to be the death of him, Rogue definitely was. 

In your room, you lay on your bed, a pillow against your chest. Ever since classes ended, you had been in your room, hugging your pillow, staring at the ceiling, replaying the thing that changed you and Logan seemingly for good. 

You’d been tasked with following a suspect. It wasn’t anything too elaborate. Except, half way through your day, you had found you had a tail of your own. Logan. Apparently he’d been following you around the city in case something would have happened and you needed back up. 

“What if you get caught?”

“Logan,” you sighed. “I’ve been a PI for over a decade. I think I know what I’m doing.”

“Still, I’m coming with you.”

“Logan, he’s suspected of cheating. His wife needs evidence if she’s going to divorce him. It’s not like I’m following the head of a mob or something.”

Logan shrugged. “He could be the head of a mob.”

You didn’t look impressed. “He’s an accountant from Minnesota.”

“Still could be the head of a mob.”

He wasn’t going to leave.

“Nope.” 

You didn’t even ask, but he answered anyway. 

“Fine. You can stay, just…don’t go all Wolverine on me.”

Logan followed you. “You say that as if it happens all the time.”

“Logan, a guy asked me out at the grocery last week and you punctured a bag of rice.”

Logan’s eyebrows furrowed at the reminder, all the while his hand came to the bottom of your back as he helped you through the busy street. “He was getting too close for comfort. And who asks someone out in the grocery store anyway! He didn’t even know you!”

You and Logan followed your maybe-head-of-a-mob accountant from Minnesota around all day. And until then it had been mostly coffee runs, business meetings in tall buildings with high offices and quick lunches at the cafe on the corner of the street. 

Until he decided to take a detour. A text from your client let you know he had told her he had a business meeting run over late, so he’d miss dinner. 

“Doesn’t look like he’s in a business meeting.” 

So, you and Logan followed. 

Except, once you had both gotten out of your car, there was nowhere in particular either of you could hide. The street was a small town street, quiet enough to alert everyone that someone new was in town. 

And with Logan being…well, Logan. It meant a lot of eyes were on both of you. Two strangers in a small town, who seemed to be taking the exact same walking turns as the man, who a few seemed to recognise, in front of you. 

It was only as you and Logan slowed your paces that you realised he had taken hold of your hand. 

“Stay close to me.”

You did as he said. The more you both looked like a couple, maybe the less stares you’d get as you walked down the street towards-

“Come here.”

Logan pulled you in close to him as you both disappeared into the darkness of a small alleyway. 

“Logan, what are you-”

“Shush.”

He seemed to be focusing on something. His hearing. 

“What is it?”

After a few moments, he finally told you. “Phone call. He’s meeting up with a woman called Sandra.”

“Sandra’s his co-worker.”

A little more following and you and Logan came to a stop by a motel. 

“Well, this doesn’t look like the place to have an affair at all.”

As you stood on the corner, hidden behind the sharp edges of a brick wall, you snapped a few shots of him leaving his car, meeting Sandra by the door, sharing a kiss and- shit. He was turning back. 

“Oh, shit.”

You had moved down the street to get some clearer shots. Only, now his car was practically parallel to where you and Logan were standing. 

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

“What do we do?”

Logan might have been able to run fast enough to get back to the main street, but you couldn’t. And it would have looked too suspicious to be moving that fast away from an already suspicious meeting. 

He was getting closer. 

Apart from the buzzing of the lights close by, you could hear his dress shoes against the gravel getting closer and closer. 

You looked up at Logan. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

Logan seemed frozen in place. 

The shoes were getting closer. 

With slight panic, you let out a small groan followed by a quick, “I’m sorry.” Placing your hand at the back of his head, you pulled him down to kiss him. And, for a moment, he was rigid. Stuck on the spot. Frozen in time. 

It didn’t have to be a good kiss. The darkness you both were in covered you enough so that, just sharing a crappy kiss with your best friend saved both of your asses from the guy who was fast approaching. 

Except it wasn’t crappy. 

Not after that split second moment. 

Because you found Logan kissing you back. 

He shocked you at first, but then…you wanted more. You didn’t want him to stop. His hands pushing through your loose hair, his body coming closer to yours, his arm around your waist,  your own hand in his hair, down his neck, your desperation for breath. 

Neither of you had noticed the man stall on the gravel when he saw you both. Quickly, he made his way to his car to take out the box of condoms from the glove compartment before locking his car and hurrying his way back towards his motel room. 

And somehow in that space of time, you and Logan had stopped. Both of your chests begging for breath, his hands still like fire against your skin. The kind you never wanted to put out. 

“I…” your voice shook. “I think that worked.”

“I think it worked, too.”

You heard yourself apologise to him, for kissing him. It might have just been the best kiss of your life, and you heard yourself apologise to him. Then everything came back into focus. You had just shared the best kiss of your life with Logan. Your best friend. Your partner. Your person. 

“I think I’ve got enough evidence. We…we should…”

Logan stepped away from you and you heard your inner voice yell for him to step back into you. 

“We should go.” Logan finished your sentence. 

Nodding, you led the way back to the car. 

The journey back was…silent. No talking. No laughing. Nothing but the awkward readjustment of seating every now and again and silence. 

And nothing had been the same since. 

One kiss and suddenly you were…no longer Y/n and Logan. You were Y/n. And Logan. 

Opening your eyes, you turned your head and looked outside. You must have been daydreaming for so long, you fell asleep. The moon was out, hanging bright in the sky, surrounded by a blanket of stars that no doubt were being tracked by the small astrological society that had been set up in the school. 

Turning to look at your desk, you found the time. 

Just a little before midnight. 

You had missed dinner. And as if on cue, your stomach growled. 

So, after changing into your pyjamas and pulling your hair back, you slipped your feet into the warmest socks you could find and made your way downstairs and towards the kitchen. Everywhere was dark, save for the kitchen light which remained on. 

“Hello?” You called out. ‘Lights out’ had been called out hours ago. No student should be up this late. 

“Please don’t yell.” 

Walking a little further into the kitchen, you found Bobby sitting at a small table with a bowl of cereal, the milk and box still by him. 

With a tired smile, you shook your head and reached for a bowl in the top cupboard. 

“You’re not a student here anymore, Bobby. You can’t get in trouble for staying up this late.”

Bobby chuckled a little. “I know. Sometimes it just feels…like I never left.”

Joining him, you poured some cereal into your own bowl, followed by the milk. Once you’d placed the milk back in the fridge, you reached into the draw to grab a spoon and sat down across from him. 

“Still plenty of change around here.”

“Like you and Logan?”

You hadn’t even taken your first bite. 

Bobby held back a laugh. “Sorry. Rogue told me something happened. Did something happen?”

Sighing, you pulled your legs under the table and pushed the cereal deeper into the milk. 

“One of my professor’s told me sometimes it’s better to say it out loud so it doesn’t feel so big. No one else is awake. And you know Rogue will only keep pestering you.”

Your eyes narrowed a little looking at Bobby. “Did she-”

Quickly, he shook his head. “No. Not at all. You just…you look like you need to talk to someone.”

It was true. You did need to talk to someone. 

“Usually I’d talk to Logan,” you admitted. 

“But you had a fight?”

You shook your head, chewing your food before swallowing. “No. The complete opposite…sorta.”

“Then what happened?”

You hesitated for a moment. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone?”

Bobby nodded. “Patient-Doctor confidentiality.”

You smiled a little at that. He wasn’t a doctor yet but the fact he still treated the situation as such was a good sign. Especially considering Rogue could get a lot of information out of him, or anyone for that matter. 

“Well, we…we kissed.” 

You waited for Bobby’s reaction. But it never came, until…

“Finally.” He turned back to eating as if nothing had been said. 

“Finally?” You asked. 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “We’ve all been waiting for you and Logan to finally do something for years.”

“Bobby!”

“What? Oh, come on. You two are practically soulmates. You spend every waking hour together, and some sleeping. I know Rogue has caught you both asleep on the sofa together a couple of times because she never shuts up about it. You only really trust each other. And, with that, you both won the couple’s round last game night and neither of you were playing.”

That was true. 

You and Logan, being the single ones out of the adults, had sat out of the round but whilst sat by the desk under the window, you both stated aloud what the other person would have chosen whilst some of the couples struggled with finding an answer. 

Logan kept score on a piece of paper, but Rogue had been keeping her own’ later declaring that night that yourself and Logan had won. 

Shaking your head to bring yourself back to the present, you looked at Bobby. “Look, we kissed and…we haven’t spoken since.”

“Was it a good kiss?”

You made a face at Bobby but he just shrugged, so with a roll of your eyes you turned back to your cereal. “Yes. No. Maybe? Yes, yes. Okay. Yes, it was a good kiss.”

“And would you like to kiss him again?”

“Are you even allowed to ask these questions?”

Bobby smiled, taking another bite of his cereal. “That’s not a no.”

You pointed your spoon at him. “If you tell anyone this, I’ll kill you.”

“Okay, but when Rogue finds out I knew first, there might be a line.”

The next couple of minutes were spent in silence as you both ate until Bobby was close to finishing and crossed his arms. “Do you love him?”

You almost dropped your spoon as you looked up. “What?”

“Do. You, Love, Him?” 

Your conscious and subconscious both screamed “YES” but your mouth didn’t move. 

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Bobby sat back. “It’s got everything to do with it. Clearly, you want to kiss him again. And, even more clearly, you’re in love with him so-”

“Now, wait a minute.”

“It’s got everything to do with it. You and Logan have been around each other for so long, you don’t know where else to go in fear of something changing. But, you should know – things have already changed.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Oh, I know you know it.” Bobby finished off his cereal. “But I think you need to accept it. Even if you’re scared of something changing, you should talk to him. Things have already changed and they could go back to how they were before, but I have a feeling they might just change for the better. You should let yourself believe that; that it’s changed for the better.”

Changed for the better. 

Changed for the better. 

Changed for the better?

Those four words echoed over and over in your head as you sat in the kitchen alone, as you washed your dishes, as you walked around the school, as you walked upstairs and into your bathroom and as you laid down in bed and fell asleep. 

Logan was your best friend. You never wanted to lose him, under any circumstances. But if the last four weeks had been anything to go by, things definitely hadn’t changed for the better. 

Another two weeks went by and you had somehow seen less of Logan in those two weeks than you had done in the four weeks beforehand. 

Until you were assigned a new classroom. A joint lesson was going to be taught. Who your fellow teacher was going to be, you didn’t know. Until they walked in through the door, stalled at the entrance, found just over two dozen pairs of eyes watching him and made his way to the desk to your right at the front of the classroom. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Neither you or Logan had ever been this awkward. 

“I didn’t know it was you I was…partnered with.” Logan blurted out. 

“Xavier probably picked this last semester.” You replied. 

Then you just looked at each other. This was the longest conversation you’d both held for six weeks. 

“Here are the books you wanted.” The student you had sent out to the supply closet came fumbling back in through the doors carrying a high stack of exercise books. Rushing over, you took them from their arms. 

“Thank you.”

Handing half to Logan, you started handing them out and the lesson began. 

At first it was a little more than awkward but once things got settled, everything…started going back to normal. 

Almost. 

You and Logan were communicating with each other, and helping your students. But for a split second, every time you looked at him, you felt your mind wander back to the kiss and you felt a need to be near to him, close to him. But then the last six weeks crashed through your mind. No talking, no laughing, no late nights marking work and inevitably falling asleep. 

No friendship. No relationship. No partnership. 

Nothing. 

Then your gut seemed to punch itself and your heart as you turned and looked at some other corner of the classroom. 

Yet, once class was over, you found yourself and Logan talking. It felt unsteady, but at least it was something. Then he asked if you’d want to mark the essays written with him. 

“Twice the people, half the work? Plus, we don’t have to run and find each other to check over the work later on.”

He made a reasonable request. 

“Okay. But we’re getting food first. I’m starving.”

“I’ll make you grilled cheese. Scott did the cooking last night. You didn’t miss much.”

You groaned. “Not that bean casserole savoury thing again.”

“There’s leftovers in the fridge if you want them.”

With a grimace look, you shook your head. “No, no. Grilled cheese, grilled cheese, grilled cheese. Please.”

Logan laughed. 

“If I have to even smell that unholy casserole again, I think I might actually puke. Who even allowed him back on the rota for cooking?”

Logan met you by the door. “Apparently he was getting suspicious over why he hadn’t cooked for so long.”

You followed Logan towards the kitchen. “I’ll tell him why. Because that dish is god-awful. It tastes crap, it’s got a weird texture. You spend more time trying to decipher what beans he’s used than you do actually eating the thing. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.”

Logan chuckled as you both entered the kitchen. “Then sit down and I’ll make you grilled cheese.”

“Thank you.”

As you started marking the first few books, Logan got to work making your dinner and before long he was sitting beside you, handing you your plate and he placed his own to the side before swiping some books from your pile.  

For the most part, you both sat in silence eating your grilled cheeses, marking essays and deciphering between student’s handwriting. 

Before either of you knew it, the night was drawing in and you found yourself half sleeping at the kitchen table. 

“Come on,” Logan finally announced. “We can finish these tomorrow.”

After shutting his own books, he shut yours. Then, standing, he pulled out your chair and took your hand despite how much you protested you weren’t tired. 

“That’s the fifth yawn in three minutes. Come with me, I’ll walk you up.”

And he did. 

Both of you carrying your books in your arms up the stairs, Logan walked you to your door. 

“I’m sorry.” Logan blurted out. 

Slightly taken aback, you looked up. “Sorry about what-”

“I’m sorry if I took it too far…that night. And I’m sorry it’s been weird between us ever since. You were just trying to-”

“Logan, I kissed you.” You told him. “I should be the one that’s sorry. I didn’t give you any warning and I shouldn’t have even asked you to begin with. You’re my best friend, Logan. If I knew it would cause this,” you gestured between the pair of you. “Then I wouldn’t have done it. I care about you, Logan. A lot more than I care about getting caught by a cheating husband who’s soon-to-be-ex-wife hired me.”

After a moment, Logan let out a small laugh.

With an exasperated sigh, you finally found the courage to let his features become clear when you looked at him. “Can we just go back? To how they were before, at least? Before the awkwardness and the silence and the…everything. I miss you, Logan.”

With a light smile, Logan nodded. “I’ve missed you, too.”

It was like a weight off your chest. He was back. You and Logan were back. 

Putting down your pile of books on the floor, Logan was quick to do the same before your arms wrapped around him. With his arms around you, for the first time in weeks, you felt home again. 

His body heat warmed you in a way no blanket or hoodie ever could. The scent of him and his aftershave comforted you in now way your favourite candle could on a rainy day with nothing to do other than relax. The sound of his voice was more like music to your ears than any of your favourite songs were. The pressure from beneath his grip on both you and your heart made you feel more alive than anything else had ever done. 

Logan was your home. Your true home. 

Feeling your feet back on the ground once more, you let your arms slide down the length of Logan’s shoulders and arms, all the while you felt his own hands trace around your back until they found a safe space between your hips and waist. 

With your heads still so close together, you could hear Logan’s breathing getting louder. Or maybe that was your own? When did he- it. When did it get so hot? 

Kiss me, your heart told you. Kiss him, your gut said. 

“L…Logan…”

Feeling his nose brush yours for an instant, Logan tried his best to control himself. He’d only just gotten you back. You might be the love of his life, but he didn’t want that to be the reason he lost you again. 

“We shouldn’t do this.” He eventually forced out of himself. 

But then you countered with a demand even he couldn’t refuse.

“Kiss me.”

Looking him in the eyes, you said it again.

“Kiss me-”

You didn’t get to finish your sentence because his hands were holding your face, kissing you as if it was his last moment on earth. 

Walking you backwards a little until your back hit the wall of the small angle between your bedroom door and the hallway, you felt your heel kick over the pile of books on the floor, sending them falling from their neat stack to a heap on the floor. 

Somehow everything you had imagined about being kissed by Logan again failed to meet the expectation of the real thing. Logan fit you. And you fitted him. 

Despite your history, his lips against yours didn’t feel foreign or awkward or terrible at all. In fact, it was almost familiar. As if you’d been kissed by him your entire life. As if you’d kissed him in a past life. As if this would be the first of many. 

Of course, it felt new and slightly surprising. But there was a comfort in being kissed by him. In having his hands be the one to touch your body in places it hadn’t before. In having your space be crowded by him and him alone. 

Pushing against him a little, he allowed you leeway to do so. Your hand fumbled until you found your door handle and pushed it open. From behind him, Logan kicked it shut before he felt his back against it. But not for long. 

Lifting you up and hearing a small squeal come from the back of your throat, Logan felt your legs around his hips as your back came against the door. Pressing into you, Logan smirked a little as he took your hands in his own, pinning them beside your head as he began to leave small love bites across your jaw and down your neck. 

Slowly, he trailed his hands down your arms before they secured themselves under you to hold you up as he left another mark by your collar bone before you pulled his head back up so he could kiss you properly once again. 

“Tell me where.”

“The bed. Now.”

With a slight laugh, Logan carried you over to the bed and dropped you by the edge. Scanning up his body and you smiled before pulling him in by the hem of his t-shirt until he was almost laying on top of you before you helped remove his shirt. 

A few hours later, you both lay in each other's arms, talking and laughing together. 

“We need to move the books.”

Logan pulled you back into bed, almost pinning you down with his body. “The books will be fine.”

“What if the students find them? What if someone thinks we’re in here together.”

“We are in here together.”

You scoffed a little as you tried to get up again, but to no avail. “You know what I mean.”

“Sweetheart, the books will still be there in a couple of hours. And no students come up onto this floor anyway.”

“Clearly you’ve never met Rogue.”

Logan laughed at that. “Fine, you can move the books.”

Quickly kissing him, you thanked him and escaped from his grasp. Rolling onto his back and placing an arm behind his head, Logan watched you tie a robe around your body before slowly opening up the door and bringing in the stack of books and placing them in the plastic box behind the door and snapping the lid shut. 

You also locked the door behind you. Something you and Logan had forgotten to do the first two times around. 

Not hiding the fact he was checking you out, Logan smiled as you walked over to him and repositioned himself to pull you across his lap. Sitting up, Logan looked at you in a way nobody had ever looked at you before. 

Like you hung the moon and the stars. 

Little did you know, you had the exact same expression on your face as you looked at him. 

“You’re beautiful.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Logan.”

Logan laughed a little, seeing the blush creep up on your face. “I mean it. You’re beautiful. Not only,” he kissed your lips. “Here. But also,” he pressed a kiss above your heart. “Here, too.”

Then he looked back into your eyes. 

“I’m in love with you.”

A little shocked at first, your hands slid to the back of his neck and you studied his face for a moment. The expression never changed. His heartbeat was steady, even if a little faster than usual. 

Then he watched as you stopped studying him and broke into a smile. “You’re in love with me?”

“I think I have been for a long time. I’m sorry it took so long for me to admit it-”

“I’m in love with you, too.”

Logan’s head tilted slightly as he smiled. “You are?”

You nodded and hummed a happy response. “I am.”

With a smile, Logan kissed you again, this time pushing himself to his knees and you towards your back. Smiling into the kiss, your hand linked behind his neck as you said his name in playful warning. 

“What are you doing?” You almost laughed, looking at him as you got comfortable underneath him. 

Still smiling at you, Logan’s hand trailed down your thigh that was hooked at his hip whilst his own lips came down to meet yours. 

“Making up for lost time.”

Kissing you, your own hands roamed his body as one hand trailed across your skin and the other slowly unravelled the loose knot from around your middle, letting the light robe fall from your skin. 

Something had definitely changed when you kissed Logan Howlett. But they had definitely changed for the better. 

[shewki]

"if we were to do a hear me out cake right now who would u put" you ask ur scrumptious boyfriend Katsuki. He eyes you judgingly and paused on writing an essay he was working on.

"The fuck type of question is that?" He grumbles and proceeds to think about what he'd add to his essay. Ok, the question was stupid but it was silly and funny so there's no harm... you think.

You sit up from his bed and hummed to think about your own answer even if he didn't even ask "hm.. but if I were to answer.. hear me out.." You pause, grabbing his attention but he won't look at you. He knew bringing you to his room while working on his homework was a bad idea.. now look at you asking stupid questions (affectionately)

"you know Clay Calloway from the movie 'Sing'?" he stops his motion and turns to you with an even more judgy look.

"What the fuck, Y/n?" he asks with an almost disturbed tone.. Lets be honest, who wouldn't react like that? a damn lion from a movie- not to mention a fictional one? But you continue to look at him as if it was a casual thought.. which was insane to him. He knew you were insane but not this insane.

"You really cant be judging right now, Kats. Whenever we rewatch big hero 6 I see you attentively watching when Aunt Cas shows up on screen."

"NO I DO NOT" he drops his pen, facing you now with red ears and a disbelief look at your accusation.

"why so defensive then" you squint your eyes as if you were trying to push his buttons on purpose. You probably weren't.. or you were.. but either way, you were an annoying little thing.

"Thats not even half as bad as yours!" He scoffs, rolling his eyes at your antics. "At least im not a furry"

"HEY IM NOT" you respond with a bewildered tone.

"A lion. From the movie 'Sing.'" He reminded.

You try to ignore his statement and your eyes light up again with a dumb thought "OUHH I have another one.. how about.. Stuart from minions and the closet robot from barbi-"

"SHUT UP!"

GUYS THIS IS A JOKE,,.... please back me up 🙏🏻 also sorry if its still a bit lacking! i made this for funsies bc i thought it was funny HHAAHAH and I'm still trying to improve my writing style after not being able to write properly for years 😭 but i hope the thought and idea makes up for it! <3 love you

[soobnny]

howl and sophie — han jisung x reader ; he realizes he’s in love with you (0.8k words)

advance happy bday hanji!

“Do you guys ever think about how Howl spent his whole life—“

“Is Chan coming back already?” Jeongin questions, unknowingly cutting Jisung off as he impatiently checks the expensive watch wrapped around his wrist.

He’d lost a bet earlier and had promised to get the kids ice cream, and if you were to ask the youngest how long the boy’s been gone, it’s been around 23 minutes and 24 seconds, but he’d never admit to his impatience.

“Howl spent his life looking—“

“Sorry, I’m late.” Chan comes rushing through the door, crouched down to his knees the moment he’s inside with his dominant hand gripping a plastic bag from the convenience store.

He’s still panting when the boys swarm him, the youngest managing to catch the bag and veering off to the direction of the kitchen.

“Hyung!” Jisung calls out the eldest’s attention, and you notice your best friend’s features drop when Chan moves to break the fight in the kitchen as to who has which flavor.

“Hyung, don’t ignore me.”

He’s whining now, arms crossed and body unmoving from the space he’s occupying on the couch. Jisung has his tells when he’s getting sulky, his lips form a pout and his eyebrows furrow just a little—all tells so blatantly obvious on his face at the very moment.

Jisung should know better than to expect his friends to listen to him when there’s free ice cream and a limited stock of flavors up for grabs in the kitchen. They might be good friends most of the time, but they are not below putting their entire attention to making sure they do not have the worst flavor.

He’s still sulking, and you can hear his breathing getting a little louder, but their attention is still glued on the kitchen table.

You place a hand on his arm gently, shifting closer to the pouting boy. You know exactly what he wants to say, but you choose to ask him anyway.

“What is it?”

It’s comedic the way the pout instantly washes away from his features, instead replaced with a giddy smile as he angles his body to look at you properly.

Jisung’s always been cute in the way he could never hide how wide his smile gets.

Howl spent his entire life looking for his Sophie.

“Howl spent his entire life looking for his Sophie. Don’t you think that’s the most romantic thing ever? Especially when he tells her she might as well take a piece of his heart.”

You’ve heard him talk about Howl’s Moving Castle a thousand times now, but you let him ramble anyway. You’d lose nothing but your time, but it’s easily compensated with the way he’s smiling at you.

“Are you talking about that movie again?”

It’s Changbin who butts in the conversation when Jisung takes a deep breath in between his spoken 1000-word essay about Howl and Sophie. The older boy is seated on the bean bag in front of the pair of you, ice cream in hand as he monstrously takes a bite off.

“How he spent his entire life searching for Sophie?”

“(Name), what ice cream flavor do you want?” There’s a call from the kitchen, and Jisung’s starting to pout again.

“Don’t worry, they just don’t understand the movie like you do.” You whisper in his ear, enough to solicit a laugh from the boy.

Then, when you expect him to continue, he grows quiet.

In all honesty, even Han Jisung doesn’t understand why. He thinks about this all the time, and he’s never had a problem talking to you, but now his head is blanking.

It isn’t until you take his hands in yours and encourage him to keep talking that he realizes oh—is this how Howl feels about Sophie?

This is a dilemma.

Jisung’s always known he’s had a crush on you, but the way you’d listened to him with a sweet and gentle smile on your face, with your attention unwavering, he’s suddenly painfully self-conscious about how much more he feels about you and how his hands are probably sweating from the sudden realization.

“Jisung?”

“Hey, I know another topic he never shuts up about.” Seungmin hums, having gone back from the kitchen. “His big fat crush on—“

“Chan was asking you what flavor you wanted, right?” Jisung suddenly interrupts, eyes flickering between you and Seungmin, the kitchen, then back on you.

“Come on, (name). Let’s get some ice cream.” Then, he abruptly gets up from his seat and pulls you to the direction of where there’s only two pieces of ice cream in the plastic bag.

“What was Seungmin say—“

“Here. Take this.” He all but shoves the ice cream in your hands, smiling a little too sheepishly before hurrying to shut Seungmin up.