#i have so many long tags saying no 4 i think im just going to change the short simple ones

[lucabyte]

🐮

[lemongogo]

[pup-pee]

my father telling me how scared he was when i ran away from the house but i cant express how scared i was 2 b in the house

hey, whats up w/that?

[nomairuins]

my tags on that went on for so long i had to go back and edit them to fit tag limit and i still had to delete a bunch of them. Its the autism it literally is

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 4

in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!) a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses

(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!

“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”

You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him. 

“That one is complicated.”

You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye. 

“You don’t know.”

“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”

“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”

“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”

“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”

Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign. 

You look at it. 

And then you set your phone down. 

“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness. 

Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder. 

“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”

Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside. 

“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”

“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”

“Yes, I have.”

It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes. 

“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”

You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work��he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment. 

He looks good. Almost too good. 

“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek. 

“Something… naked?”

His grin widens and he shakes his head. 

“Me naked or you naked?”

Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth. 

“Mm… why not both?”

“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”

The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him. 

“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”

He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.

“You sound sure of yourself.”

“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”

He grabs your wrist carefully. 

“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”

“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.” 

He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”

Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek. 

“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”

“So business as usual?”

He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best. 

“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”

A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.

Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body. 

You cover his hand with your own. 

“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”

Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion. 

“What? No!”

“Are you going to cheat on me?”

“Absolutely not, I—”

“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”

“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”

It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies. 

“Every time?”

“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks. 

“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”

You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense. 

“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”

“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”

You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this. 

“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”

Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy. 

“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”

You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel. 

“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”

He kisses your palm. 

“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”

“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”

Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.  

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”

He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him. 

“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you. 

“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”

“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”

Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly. 

“You want to know what I’d do to you?”

“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds. 

“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”

As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no. 

“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”

You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful. 

“What are you gonna do after that?”

“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”

Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly. 

“Yes, please.” 

He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting. 

“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”

“Why careful? I don’t want that.”

He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine. 

“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”

The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it. 

“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”

It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for. 

Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—

And then his phone rings. 

You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present. 

He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing. 

“I’m sorry.”

Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.

“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster. 

If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem. 

“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest. 

“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place. 

You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand. 

“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”

He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair. 

“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”

You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him. 

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful. 

Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs again. 

“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”

“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”

You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you. 

But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame. 

Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you. 

In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul. 

“Spencer?”

“Hm?” 

It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin. 

“I…”

Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential. 

He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands. 

“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind. 

“I forget.”

FUUUUUUCK. 

Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake. 

He knows. 

He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity. 

Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like. 

“Well, let me know if you remember.”

It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.

Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before. 

You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.

But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it? 

Maybe you have it all wrong. 

Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you. 

You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick. 

24 hours go by. 

24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up. 

Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure. 

Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)

Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off. 

You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking. 

“Hello?”

Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep. 

“Shit, did I wake you?”

“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed. 

“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”

“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone. 

“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”

A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said. 

“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room. 

“Oh. Is everything okay?”

“As much as it can be.”

“Right.”

More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while. 

“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”

“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”

“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs. 

“What? Why?”

“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”

Laughter tapers off into gentler tones. 

“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”

Blood rushes to your cheeks. 

“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”

Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”

“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble. 

“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”

When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no. 

“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”

“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”

You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly. 

“Guess whose bed.”

Silence. 

“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”

“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”

“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”

“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”

Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.

“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”

“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.

“No, not you. You are always the exception.”

“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”

Spencer groans. 

“You’re killing me.”

“What? What did I do!”

“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”

“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”

But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure.  After a pause, he sighs in defeat. 

“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”

“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” you frown. 

“Tell me what this is.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Lying to a profiler is usually pointless. 

“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”

Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up. 

“I don’t know. I miss you.”

He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones.  It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic. 

“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”

“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”

“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”

Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…

“I’m not taking anything out on you.”

“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”

Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand. 

“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket. 

“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”

“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter. 

“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”

“I—”

“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”

The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges. 

“What… what thoughts?”

“None that you need to concern yourself with.”

“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it. 

“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it. 

“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”

“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”

“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”

“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer. 

Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—

“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”

You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing. 

“What are you doing with a box of condoms?” 

He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you. 

“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”

“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”

“You wanted them to be for you, huh?” 

You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that. 

“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”

It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before. 

“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft. 

“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”

You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest. 

“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”

The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows. 

“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”

“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”

“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”

“Do we have to?”

The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts. 

“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”

“But you’re… you’re good, right?”

Thankfully he picks up on your meaning. 

“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”

“And I’m good. So...”

“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”

You groan in frustration. 

“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”

“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”

“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”

The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous. 

“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”

“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”

“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”

You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them. 

“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.

“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”

“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And  how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”

He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit. 

“You want me to come inside you?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice. 

—

On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making. 

“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”

“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now. 

“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”

You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—

“’M not.”

Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that. 

“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”

You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers. 

“Where are you touching?”

“Um—over my clothes.”

Cute. 

“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”

It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”

He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base. 

“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”

Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut. 

“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you’re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock. 

“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”

“I am ready—” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”

“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.” 

He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk. 

“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”

The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump. 

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”

“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”

“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”

He gets the general sentiment. 

“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Mhm!”

“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”

“Yes,” you cry. 

“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”

“Spencer!” 

He knows. 

“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”

The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist. 

“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”

“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”

“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”

He’s barely kidding. 

“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease. 

“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”

You laugh. He blushes even more. 

“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”

“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”

“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”

The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone. 

“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”

“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide. 

Or if it was something else. It could also be something else. 

For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you. 

—

A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here. 

You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?

“Spencer?” you murmur. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength. 

“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?” 

Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink. 

“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”

“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”

Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous. 

“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”

Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue. 

“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”

“But…?”

Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared. 

“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”

The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out. 

“You regret your first time?” 

Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does. 

“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”

Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash. 

Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins. 

What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same. 

You want to scream bloody murder. 

But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”

Maybe that’s worse. 

Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence. 

“I didn’t realize you…”

I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back. 

I didn���t realize I like you more than you like me. 

I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later. 

If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was. 

“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help. 

More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does. 

“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”

Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?

What does one even wear to a breakup date?

“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound. 

Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more. 

“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”

“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right. 

“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.

So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here. 

“Goodnight.”

-

part five

[landososcar]

lover ; LN4

pairing(s) ; lando norris x swiftie!reader

summary ; in which y/n just wants to post pictures of her boyfriend, not expecting people to get the wrong idea

warnings ; smau, lots of fluff

note ; its 3am and i didn’t want to sleep til i finished this so idk what mistakes there probably is lmao😭 also just pretend the twitter stuff says 2024 i cba changing it all

instagram ; yourusername

liked by nando4lorris, carlossainz55 and others

yourusername i saw the dimples first and then i heard the accent 💓☺️

view all comments

user1 who are you

carlossainz55 you tagged the wrong account silly

yourusername you replied with the wrong account moron

nando4lorris you two aren’t slick

yourusename yeah ok mr nando lorris

nando4lorris you’re supposed to be on my side wtf

user2 i’m so lost 😭😭

user3 i’m confused someone explain

user4 babe everyone’s confused

user5 wait so is this carlos’ gf or not

user6 idk who you are but you’re hot as fuck

user7 ok i swear i’ve seen carlos wear that top in the 4th pic before

user8 yeah i think i’ve seen lando wearing it too tho

user9 but lando isn’t in this girls likes and comments

nando4lorris yeah guys you’re right she’s gotta be carlos’ girlfriend

yourusername nando4lorris fuck off i hate you so much 😭😭😭😭😭

user10 ????????

instagram ; yourusername

liked by landonorris, nando4lorris and others

yourusername i’d like to hang out with you for my whole life 🤗🧡

view all comments

user1 crying because lando liked on his main AND his burner (confirmed)

yourusername p.s. the tag in these pics is for PHOTO CREDS 😁

user2 LMFAOOO HER COMMENT

user3 girl said my mans is NOT carlos sainz jr🙅‍♀️

user4 i have so much to say

user5 the taylor love lyrics, the orange heart emoji, the flowers, the ladybugs, THE CAT CARDIGAN

user6 i think i would die for her

nando4lorris 🧡🧡

yourusername 🥰

carlossainz55 i thought you guys were still trying to be sneaky

yourusername carlos you’re the one making it hard to be sneaky

user7 oh it’s so lando

carlossainz55 oh well it’s been 4 years everyone already knew

user8 ITS BEEN WHAT JEHFKSKKS ????????

instagram ; landonorris

liked by oscarpiastri, maxverstappen1 and others

landonorris i’ve loved you (five) summers now honey but i want them all 😁😁

view all comments

user1 oh my god

user2 FIVEEEEE SUMMERS????? EVEN MORE THAN CARLOS SAID !/?;&2!@:9(

carlossainz55 i’m sorry i just guessed how many years because i didn’t know exactly just that its been a long long time

yourusername it’s ok carlos you were close

user3 SHES BEEN TO RACES AND NO ONES EVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT HER OH MY GOD

maxverstappen1 finally mate

oscarpiastri wooo secrets out 🥳

user4 he used a taylor lyric for the caption im gonna be sick

user5 if you zoom in on the second pic you can actually see me drowning myself in the background

ciscanorris1 💓💓

yourusername love you🥰

user6 wait i don’t have twitter can someone explain

user7 oh BABE you’ve got some catching up to do

yourusername my fav boy love you to saturn ☺️🧡

landonorris i love you more than you love taylor swift🥰

yourusername ok settle down babe don’t go too far

landonorris no sorry you’re right

user8 when he understands that ones love for taylor is never beaten >>>>>

user9 i need them biblically

user10 i still don’t understand how they hid her for 5 years lmfaoooo

user11 yourusername ok y/n but did he take you to the eras tour

yourusername he got us tickets for a uk show later this year 🥰🥰

user12 now, how’d that curly haired vroom vroom bitch pull HER

liked by landonorris!

my other works !

[randomwords247]

hi so I originally rambled this in the comments but a) i rambled more than 1 comments worth and b) IT DELETED MY SECOND ONE SOBS so im just gonna reblog and ramble here instead I am sorryfor clogging your notifs 😭

I feel 2 or 5 would be good opportunities to practice backgrounds/framing (i forget the term) and good pieces to show improvement. 5 especially for the latter because while I do think the visual impact is already good, I can definitely see how something potentially more dramatic could REALLY emphasise how small Hilda seems in comparison to the jagged and harsh inside of the cave littered with bells, with the stark contrast of the more vibrant colours of outside's light with the dark duller interior.

While 2 I feel could be a good exercise for backgrounds and, with similar enhanced framing, could also really exceed the original. It could emphasise the mountain or hill Hilda (hehe hillda) is standing upon, and how the forest is far below it and far away. A deep and long look out upon the miles and miles of forest, as she stands besides a solitary tree rooted within this part of the mountain, gazing out at the land, stood in the sunset. The lighting also I feel could be something that, again while I think its already good, I feel like there could really be a way to like EMPHASISE the sunset, and help the piece pop visually, perhaps even with a contrast of the forest being shadowed over by the mountain she's on. Idk just spittballing, but I think with the 2nd piece, again I wanna emphasise I think it looks amazing already, it would be a great show of improvement for backgrounds, lighting and (less so but still there) framing.

These are just my personal picks because I feel these two pieces have a lot more going on visually (not that the others don't!!!) that could be a really good show of your improvement and progression in your art over the last 3-4 years, and they already are visually appealing and impactful!! So I think it would be amazing to see how they could be even COOLER :DD

AGAIN I wanna really say I love the orignal pieces and I don't mean to like hate on them or anything. I'm just kinda spitballing why I think they would be amazing picks for redrawing, and why. This is just my personally opinion on which pieces could really be the coolest but I figured it was worth giving my two cents :D and either way I'm sure whatever you decide to redraw will be amazing!!!

okay I will go back to hibernation apologies for rambling so much

hey guys I wanna try a thing

[bamsara]

A03 Questions Tag Game

I got tagged by: @kagedbird I tag: @onethirdofimpossible, @coffincrows, (first two that come to mind) and anyone else who wants to do the game

1 – How many works do you have on AO3?

At the time of writing this post, currently 30 fics. (Not including any fics or written works that are not posted to AO3)

2 – What's your total AO3 word count?

1,066,633

3 – What fandoms do you write for?

Formerly: Don't Starve, FNAF, Dragons Dogma, Invader Zim

Currently: Cult of the Lamb

4 – What are your top five fics by kudos?

Solar Lunacy, Celestial Omens, Bytes of Lunacy, The Rehabilitation of Death, Saturday Insomnia

5 – Do you respond to comments?

I try to but I also get very nervous responding because I often don't know what to say back and I feel like it's almost rude or disrespectful to respond to a comment, esp the very nice ones that are long and in-deph with just a keysmash or a bunch of emojis, but I do read every single one since I have email notifications on for them

I'd like to sit down and respond to many but I really don't want to make it awkward so pls dear god readers forgive me

6 – What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't like unhappy endings. I enjoy angsty stories but I like when it's at least ending happy to me

7 – What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Not posted? Solar Lunacy

Ongoing? TROD

8 – Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? Most adults (in my experience) know the 'don't like don't read' rule and know basic online etiquette. I've gotten some for discontinuing a fic or switching fandoms though

9 – Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't write or draw NSFW! I like to make some suggestive themes sometimes, but I'm a very ace person, it's not something I do often. (I do have a current running goal that if my friend reaches their donation goal for their medical bills that I would give NSFW a shot, but again its not really my cup of tea)

10 – Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nah I haven't written any cross overs, but I do draw them sometimes. Recently I've been spinning a Alice in Wonderland x COTL crossover in my head.

11 – Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep. I've had people copy and paste my work, go in with a thesaurus to change a few words (like changing 'angry' to mad, 'upset' to 'sad', and so forth) to try and avoid detection and re-posted my written work under a different title name. AO3 staff took them down for violating their policy against plagiarism though

12 – Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. I wouldn't mind it so as long as I'm asked before hand, though not on anon so I can actually work with the person to prevent any mistranslations or mishandling, and that I don't want my work posted to other websites

13 – Have you ever co-written a fic?

I think I did when I was a teen but I cannot remember now

14 – What's your all-time favorite ship?

Eh I don't have any favorites, just ones I really focus on for a long while

15 – What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Pass.

16 – What are your writing strengths?

I can sit down for hours or several days and work on a writing wip completely in the zone. I cant do it on command but its at least something I can do

17 – What are your writing weaknesses?

Spelling and grammar, and sometimes long running sentences. I just kinda write, theres not really a goal for it to be perfect though so as long as the story gist and vibe is right, im fine with it

18 – Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've done it before but only minor, had a friend help me with it (one or two lines of dialogue) Aside from that, I'm not comfortably fluent enough in anything to do it again without assistance

19 – First fandom you wrote for?

Soul Eater, when I was wayyy too young to be posting anything on the internet. My fanfics I wrote are still on fanfic.net to this day

20 – Favorite fic you've written?

It's inbetween TROD and EE&E right now

[mikkaeus]

house md hilson fic rec - medium to long fics (10k+)

Other house rec lists: short fics | episode tags | postcanon | infidelity trope (all of these are mutually exclusive apart from the infidelity one) // Edit: I added the longer postcanon fics to this reclist as well because this one got the most traction!

These are all House/Wilson unless otherwise stated. Before we get into the fics, here are some of my fave authors that have written several house fics.

fourteencandles: im literally in love with them . 10/10 writing no notes. also long fics?? hello???

ictus: this author has the range! from emotional to fluff to funny. very smooth writing. all of their fics have different vibes which was fun to read. they’re all very good. 

Transformatron: fics that are transcendent and porny, all featuring a d/s undertone or theme (wilson as the dom)

Namaste (livejournal / ff.net): Some short fics, some much longer ones. Mostly gen focussing on H&W friendship, with some fics on canon pairings. Interesting character studies and discerning prose.

In order of length. *faves, ***underrated faves

*Brain Damage by fourteencandles (8k) (Ok I know this isn’t over 10k but I wanted all of their fics on one post and it’s close enough so.) This was brilliant. Like a real episode of House, with Wilson as the unfortunate patient-of-the-week, with bonus House/Wilson. Characterisation was bang on, and the plot was original and engaging and had a satisfying conclusion. Love to see House taking care of Wilson.

Down to the Water + Bound for Home by blackmare (~10k) Aftermath of season 4. House and Wilson go on a road trip. Quiet and sad and fragile, with excellent writing. This fic appears to have been fairly well known in lj days but I don't think a lot of newer people know about it.

*A Smaller World by fourteencandles (10k) The thing between them works, if Wilson doesn't push for more. God I’m so soft. I have so many feelings!!! In love with this established relationship hilson, still a little precarious, but with Wilson adapting, and House willing to put in effort.

*What's Past by fourteencandles (10k) The guy who used to have Wilson's job comes back for a visit, and it turns out they have more in common than Wilson ever knew.

*Touch Therapy by nomad (10k) It's not that House needs the human contact. It's just that when you're sharing an apartment, these things happen sometimes. Light hearted and funny, canon divergence from when Wilson’s staying on House's couch in s2. This is pretty much the homosexual waters have started flowing in House's direction post. Excellent dialogue.

***not another medical drama series (10k) by captainharkness Retelling of season 1 with House and Wilson as an established relationship. Great slice of life stories! Ongoing. The first is H/W POV, the second is Cameron, and the third is Chase. My favourite is definitely the second one (someone else’s story). I adore seeing H/W through the ducklings’ eyes. 

Synchronicity by copperbadge (10k) Dead patients, car wrecks, drug overdoses, journalists, Comatose Charlie, and orange chicken. Must be love.

systemic by ictus (10k) Ever since Wilson moved in, House has presented with some inexplicable symptoms. Fortunately, he has a team of talented doctors to aid him with his diagnosis. Season 2 fic! This one is funny and sweet and overall a great read.

Rush Down Darkness by Starlingthefool (10k) House MD/World War Z crossover. Told mainly through interview dialogue from house’s pov. Engaging story. House/Wilson definitely takes a backseat to the plot — there’s no grand getting together or anything. That's not to say it's not about them though, because there were still lots of good moments (good in the sense that my heart hurts). More succinctly, it has the vibes of an established relationship fic., although it isn't technically one.

Defensive Strategies by Milkshake Butterfly (~10k) (lj) In which Wilson is tired of being asked out by women when he's not ready to date again, and naturally House proposes a simple solution: pretend to be together. An enjoyable read.

******Commonplace and True by celestialskiff (11k) It would be a simple story--House and Wilson meet at a medical conference, have sex, and enjoy each other's company--but nothing is ever easy, or simple. Explores Wilson's relationship with House, with women, and with himself. House and Wilson throughout the years — with the version of canon where Wilson has cheated on every wife and girlfriend with House. When I tell you I am FROTHING!!! Pining while fucking?? The way it’s never the right time?? The greed of wanting to have your cake and eat it too? (That one’s specifically for Wilson, our beloved three-wives guy.) The vibes are immaculate. The prose is elegant verging on poetic. I’m eating this fic whole and it will be on my mind always. It is THE hilson fic for me. It is criminal that this fic has been up since 2012 and it only has 200 kudos. Go read it immediately & give the author some love.

***Declarations of Independence by Namaste (ff.net, also on livejournal) (11k) House and winter, throughout the years. I really enjoyed this. Excellent writing. Copy pasting a part of a comment by bedawyn which articulates why this fic is unique better than I can: “So far, I've seen a lot of focus in the fanfic (and the eps) on the pain and the Vicodin, but very little awareness of the practical aspects of limited mobility and the emotional impact of those even apart from the pain. So this was a very nice change.”

***Rule of Three by Transformatron (11k) (House/Wilson/Foreman) Foreman sees something he shouldn't have. And, maybe, wants something he shouldn't have, too. This was well written and super hot, with fun dialogue and descriptions that do justice to the excellent writing of the show itself. Foreman is faithfully characterised in a way that made me sympathetic. Also H/W outsider perspective as a third is such a treat to read. Lower me into my grave!!!!

*Warning Signs by out_there (12k) Excerpt: House looked to the left, staring down at the open box. Wilson knew that expression on his face: House was torn between denying it all and gleefully acknowledging his schemes. Normally, his ego won out and, like a comic super villain, he'd explain all. Wilson just needed to stay quiet and wait. This fic was fantastic. I am disgustingly fond. Superb characterisation. Light hearted and funny.

The Oncologist Trap by zulu (13k) (2007) House subtly seduces Wilson. Somehow.

The Line of Thought by tevinterimperium (13k) House and Wilson pretend to be together to play a prank on the ducklings, which is an extremely plausible scenario. From the perspective of the ducklings. Set sometime after 3x15: Half-Wit.

hail mary by ictus (13k) A post-canon fix it! In the weeks since finishing the show and reading this fic there are times I forgot that this wasn’t canon. It’s such a believable (and well-researched) alternate ending that feels like an actual episode.

Son of Mine by simoneallen (14k) Sherlock is House’s long-lost kid. Usually I’m not a fan of cross-over fics but I enjoyed this one. Established relationship on the johnlock side, getting together on the hilson side.

***hearts turn red by ictus (14k) In my head this is the counterpoint to Commonplace and True. When I found it after reading that one it really was a holy shit two fucking cakes?? moment. The delicious infidelity vibes are similar, but the vibes of the writing are pretty different -- whereas the above fic has a more quiet, subdued atmosphere, this one has more snappy prose and it’s more light-hearted with funny moments as well as emotional ones. It’s not just the infidelity theme that makes me crazy about both of them though; it’s how they play on the great tragedy of House and Wilson. In the author’s own words: In a way they do feel a little bit doomed to never quite be on the same page with each other until the very end of the series and by then it's too late. Of course, in these fics, they’re rescued earlier than the end, but the wretched vibes remain. Also, I’m obsessed with this line: By Wilson’s read, House is somehow simultaneously joking and sincere: Schrödinger’s sexual advance. That is the entire fucking show.

An Inconvenient Truth by annathaema (15k) Wilson helps out Cuddy and reveals something about himself in the process. House freaks out accordingly. Also features banana-colored babies, the men's room, and Skee-Ball.

*at the rind by ShanaStoryteller (19k) An AU where Wilson experiences all the near death moments House has in the show as a series of nightmares. Set between 1.19 and 2.05, but spoilers for the whole show. Protective Wilson!! We love to see it. I also like Wilson’s characterisation here - you can very much see how not-normal he is. We love unhealthy co-dependency.

***Esopus Creek by shaycat (24k) An eighty-year-old widower by the name of Eugene Skinner ventures out one September day in upstate New York for his usual morning activity - fly fishing. His leisurely hobby is interrupted by a bickering pair nearby in the river. That chance encounter with Greg House and James Wilson changes the course of his life. Told from the perspective of the last friend the boys make on their final road trip. This was the perfect post season 8, Wilson-still-dies fic. A sad fic but not a depressing one. It’s quiet and heartwarming, in a bittersweet way. Highly recommend. It has great use of outsider POV — I’m always a sucker for it but it worked particularly well in this case to have the angst but not be drowning in it. Also I just really liked the OC.

***Howler Tone by baffledbear (25k) The calls always happen late at night, and they're extremely sporadic, with weeks, sometimes months bridging between them. They talk on the phone otherwise, of course; about patients, or dinner plans, or carpooling. Typical stuff. But the calls that always end a certain way always start a certain way. Wilson is so repressed but so attracted to House. House is taking as much as he can get while still remaining in relative safety. Together they push a platonic relationship to the absolute limits of plausible deniability. Overall totally realistic within the canon of the show — the natural step up from the gay chicken already depicted. It’s just such a perfect scenario for them! That combined with silky smooth prose, faithful characterisation and accurate dialogue makes this fic is a definite hilson favourite and also a hilson-thesis fic.

*The Open Road by Pun (25k) A fandom classic. Road trip fic set in the earlier seasons. It's good; read it.

*He Won't Tell You That He Loves You by hellshandbasket (25k) [In which Nolan pulls at the Wilson thread, and House can't stop it all from unraveling. Repression is a hell of a drug.] Early s6. Another fandom classic that is worth its salt.

no need to worry (making up your mind) by scribespirare (25k) House makes the mistake of telling his mother he can't join her for Christmas because of his new boyfriend. Somehow, this becomes Wilson's problem. Cute and fun. I put off reading fake-dating fics because I was worried about them being OOC but this one definitely wasn’t!

***Sticks and Stones by Transformatron (25k) (WIP) House has an innovative new idea for managing his chronic pain. Wilson’s not sure he approves - but when has House ever asked for permission? This is such a great concept I am climbing the walls!!! D/s with House as the sub. The story is currently still at pre-relationship stage, with House experimenting with BDSM and Wilson being unhappy with the proceedings (for some unknown reason /s). Also the writing is nice and snappy with some great figurative language that manages to incorporate medical themes impressively well. 

Fresh Feeling by justkeeptrekkin (30k) House is tricked into going on a team-building trip with his colleagues. He does far more bonding with Wilson than anyone else. Funny and well written. The team interactions are very cute.

***Tracking Time by Namaste (37k) (ff.net) A look at House and Wilson's friendship over the years and how it has changed from their meeting through the end of the first season. I don’t usually read long genfics but this one was exceptional. I like Namaste’s take on House and Wilson’s characters. And they are a very good storyteller — one thing that you don’t tend to see as much of in fanfiction is the old adage of ‘show not tell’. The writing in this fic is careful and subtle, and lets you read between the lines, making it so that no part of the 37k words is a drag to read.

*The Body Found by fourteencandles (46k) Wilson's missing. When I tell you I cried... Premium angst & hurt/comfort. Excellent dialogue with some alternating POV (House mainly, but you also get the three ducklings & Cuddy).

You Already Know How This Will End by fourteencandles (46k) What if House had gone to rehab right after/around "Merry Little Christmas"? (3.10) This fic was interesting. It’s told in a series of short vignettes with a variety of different perspectives. It’s not really a hilson fic (or a fic for any ship). It just explores the characters. I did wish for more hilson but it’s a good read (I mean, it’s fourteencandles). The one hilson scene near the end where they hire a hooker in Atlantic City lives in my head rent free. Warning that the ending is rather abrupt and I didn’t find it satisfying, but I think it works for this kind of story, in a way. Messy people and their complicated relationships, with a lot of loose ends left untied, because that’s just what life is. 

***For Every Closed Door by starlingthefool (around 50k?) (lj) Overview of the chapters (14 with 4 interludes and an epilogue) is on the author’s lj (scroll down).  House MD/Dead Like Me crossover.  I love this fic a lot! It’s canon divergence from Season 3. House gets killed in a freak accident and becomes a reaper, remaining in the mortal world to harvest souls, able to interact with people but not be recognisable to those that know him. As the author says, this is an Afterlife!Fic and therefore a deathfic. They also said it’s not depressing — which is true, because it’s more plotty than an angstfest, and there are lots of light-hearted parts, but it is definitely heartbreaking at points. I literally cried all the way through the last chapter. Happy ending though!!! Don’t worry about the cross-over aspects. I haven’t seen Dead Like Me, and as far as I can tell, it just takes the premise of the show. I’m glad I found this fic whilst trawling 2000s livejournal because it’s really a hidden gem. Great plot, dialogue, compelling OCs — the whole package! I got so emotionally invested in the story. I think there were maybe a few parts that were a little unpolished but just keep reading. It’s really worth it. 

*A Modest Proposal and Involuntary Commitment series by ignaz (98k) The one where House and Wilson get married so Wilson can’t testify against House in the Tritter arc.  I have an unfortunate habit of downloading fics and then forgetting to bookmark & comment once I’m done, so I don’t have anything detailed to say about this one, but it’s a classic and a favourite of mine.

Twenty Years of Stealing My Food by hwshipper (100k) A backstory taking place over twenty years, from how House and Wilson met all the way to canon. A reimagining of their fucked up, magnetic relationship, with a straightforward writing style. They get together nearly as soon as they meet and maintain a steady open relationship whilst cheating on their various girlfriends and wives throughout the years. 

[butchcarmy]

ALEXITHYMIA CH 2: alcohol, garlic, and lipstick

Roommate AU: Carmy Berzatto x Reader (R18)

ao3 link ch 1 ch 3 ch 4

Summary: Carmy can’t put into words how he feels about his roommate. It’s only been a couple months, but here he is looking forward to going home and sharing a smoke with them. That’s all it is, though. There are no underlying feelings, none at all, even if everyone around him has something to say about it. 

Or: Carmy is repressed as ever, but through the combined power of vulnerability, weed, and the horny, Carmy too can find love. 

tags for this ch: alcohol use, throwing up, semi-permanent lipstick, accidentally embarrassing carmy in front of all his coworkers

Chapter 2: alcohol, garlic, and lipstick (8k)

He doesn’t get to see them for a couple days after that night on the couch.

This is more the rhythm he’s used to—early mornings and late nights, out of the house so long he never sees them. The next several days blur together into what feels like one very, very long day. When he sleeps, he doesn’t dream. It often feels as if he didn’t sleep at all. 

Their past exchange haunts him. He catches himself slipping, lost in thoughts as he watches the pot simmer. They’ve never had any sort of conversation like that before. Sure, they didn’t really talk about anything, but…

But in that same vein, Carmy can’t stop thinking about it. He wonders if they’re thinking about it, too. The thought feels like a tangled ball of yarn in the pit of his stomach, writhing and messy. He shouldn’t be thinking about it—they’re just roommates, after all. 

He’s restlessly worried about that moment on the couch, and yet, he can’t even muster up the words as to why. 

Because if you finally say it, it’ll all be real, he thinks vaguely, somewhat hysterically to himself, and that’s where it always ends. 

Wednesday evening, he comes in from home exhausted as ever. Nothing new. He feels the strain in his wrist when he shoves his shitty front door open—obviously overdid it in the kitchen. After shoving his sneakers off, he flicks the lights on in the kitchen, and he spots a bright pink sticky note on the counter. 

Now that’s new.

He walks up to it, squinting at the pink that’s almost neon under the fluorescents. It’s a note from his roommate. 

hey carmy, it reads, scribbled on in pen. im going out with friends tonight, so I won’t be back until later + leftovers in the fridge if you want any :)

Carmy makes a small noise of acknowledgement to himself. Picks up the note, puts it back down. 

Running a hand through sweaty hair, he opens the fridge. It’s full of ingredients, perhaps far too many for a guy who barely cooks for himself. Ironically enough, it’s the one who doesn’t cook for a living who keeps the fridge stocked. There's a lot of miscellaneous sauces, near empty coffee creamers, and mysterious tupperwares.

He spots a new tupperware that has another pink sticky note on it, so he grabs that one out of the fridge. 

He pops it open. There’s condensation on the inside of the lid, and it drips onto the floor. Inside sits pasta, potatoes, chicken, onions, and peppers, all cooked into a cheap, yet harmonious meal. It’s a familiar instant pot recipe. 

It tastes familiar, too. The ingredients together taste like home. He’s not sure if it even tastes like his home, although surely his mom cooked something like this. As he stews over the flavors in his mouth, Italian seasoning, garlic, and black pepper, he wonders if maybe this apartment is starting to feel like home. 

The thought is so ridiculous he shakes his head to himself, but…

It feels warm coming home to someone. He can’t deny that he likes that feeling. Maybe he’s settling into this place more than he thought. Maybe he’s…getting more used to having a roommate than he expected.

Maybe I’ll see them tomorrow, he thinks as he stares at his dark bedroom ceiling. He’s so sleepy he can’t even help himself from thinking about them. The lethargy always goes full blast as soon as his back hits the mattress.

Graciously, he doesn’t dream when he sleeps. Unfortunately, he wakes back up again in only a matter of hours. 

When he reluctantly wakes up and squints at his phone, he sighs. 1:14 am. Slapping his phone back down on his side table, he stubbornly shuts his eyes in an attempt to go back to bed. It would’ve been too nice if his body let him sleep throughout the night. 

Then, there’s the sound of the door opening.

He listens to the familiar sound of their footsteps against their old hardwood floor. It’s admittedly a little strange—it’s usually the other way around, with Carmy coming back home so late they’re already asleep. Except for this time. 

They’re in the kitchen, he deduces, carefully listening. It’s easy to hear everything, especially in the quiet of night. As he closes his eyes again, listening, he imagines them. 

The sound of the fridge opening. No, the freezer—it always squeaks when it opens. It shuts. Yes, now that’s the fridge door. He imagines them looking into the fridge just like he was a couple of hours ago, tilting their head thoughtfully to the side. He’s not sure if they know that they do that. 

By all means, it should be disruptive, the way they’re opening and shutting cabinets in the kitchen. And yet, as he lays there, snuggled drowsily into his sheets, it starts to sound like a lullaby. He listens to them, thinking of them cooking, and he begins to drift to sleep.

“Fuck—fuck! Shit shit shit—”

There’s a sharp yelp, and Carmy’s jumping out of bed. 

If he’s being honest, he probably wasn’t actually going to fall back asleep so easily anyway. He rarely ever does. 

He stumbles into the brightly lit kitchen, dressed in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. The lights are so bright that he’s squinting, struggling to adjust. 

“Sorry if I woke you up, there was a roach,” they explain meekly before he can think of what to say. They’re standing there, bottle of roach killer in their hand. 

Carmy looks down. As expected, there’s a big dead roach, sitting in a pale pool of roach killer. 

“I…see.” He yawns, a big one that makes the corners of his eyes tear up. “You didn’t wake me up, I was already awake. You just got back?”

“Mhm,” they reply, reaching for some paper towels, and that’s when Carmy really notices their outfit. Black, flashy, clearly meant for a night out at a bar. Dark colors always looked good on them. Their makeup matches, dark and smudged around their eyes. Seeing them dressed up like this makes it nearly impossible to deny how much he likes looking at them. 

He in particular likes the plunging neckline on their thin shirt, dipping right down their chest.

Stop stop stop, he thinks suddenly, tearing his eyes away. He’s lucky they’re not looking at him, instead preoccupied with throwing away the roach corpse on the floor. He looks around almost a little frantically to find something, anything else to talk about.

“What’s this?” Carmy asks, peering into the pan on the stovetop. 

“I, like, really want garlic bread right now.” They lean onto the counter, looking at the pan with him. “So I was making garlic bread. But then that fucking roach came and killed my vibe.” 

This is when Carmy notices that they’re rather drunk.

“Huh,” he says. “Isn’t this, uh, just a piece of bread?”

“Oh.” They pause, lifting the bread gingerly with one finger. “Um, this is so totally a piece of bread. No butter. No nothing.” They start laughing then, leaning harder onto the counter and covering their face. “Fuck, that is so  dumb.”

“You were getting there,” he comments, unable to resist an amused smile. 

“I couldn’t find the garlic powder,” they admit, face turning into a frown. “Or, like, anything else. But I need garlic bread, Carmy. I need this.”

“We have garlic cloves,” he points out.

“You cannot expect me to mince a fuckin’ garlic right now,” they retort, motioning at him with their arms so aggressively they stumble towards him. Instinctively, he puts his hands on their shoulders, and tries not to think too hard about it. 

They’re warm, and they smell like perfume, weed, and alcohol. 

“I think you should sit.” Carmy suggests, an eyebrow raised. He doesn’t think he’s seen them this drunk before.

“Hm. Yeah. Imma do that.” They trudge over to one of their bar stools at the kitchen island, slumping onto it. Their shirt droops, revealing more skin, and Carmy pointedly looks away. There’s the sound of their forehead smacking against the counter, and then a groan. 

“Uh, you ok?” 

“I’m drunk and I want garlic bread,” they whine, flopping their arms across the counter. “But I can’t find the garlic—the garlic powder, and…I’m too stupid to make it right now,” they end in a miserable mumble. 

“I could make you some,” Carmy hears himself saying.

“...Really?” They tilt their head up to look at him, eyes big and full of wonder. “You would do that for me?”

“It’s just garlic bread,” he tries, instantly stricken with embarrassment. He hopes he’s hiding it well enough.

“But you’re making it!” They make a contented noise. “Imagine getting the best chef in the world to make you garlic bread.”

“I can do a lot better than garlic bread. Just so you know,” he says, entirely in an attempt to hide the way their praise makes him feel giddy. 

“I know.” His attempt backfires—their response is so genuine it makes him feel worse. “You could definitely do a million times better than garlic bread.”

“Maybe not quite a million, but somewhere around there,” he says, and then he starts working. 

He starts with a clove of garlic, mincing it quickly on their small wooden cutting board. He stands at the kitchen island with them, eyes flickering between the garlic and their watchful gaze. They’re still strewn across the counter, cheek pressed against the surface. 

“You literally mince garlic so good,” they mumble, eyes glued to his knife. “I wanna do it like you.” 

“I could teach you.” The garlic is chopped thin, and then scraped against the edge of his knife. “Just takes a lot of practice, really.”

“Teacher Carmy,” they say, almost like a song. They’ve got this big, dopey smile on their face that makes Carmy’s heart hurt. “Mr. Berzattooo,” they add, their smile growing more mischievous.

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” he admits, words tinged with amusement, and they laugh. “I think we should just stick to chef.”

“Yes, chef!” They salute unnecessarily, and he chuckles. 

He takes out the butter—their nice butter, not the spread stuff. Heats it over their pan, scrapes the minced garlic into the hot butter, creating a delicious sizzle.

“You, uh, go out to a bar?” He asks, because he’s curious. It’s easier talking to them with his back turned to them, forced to face the pan. 

“Yeah, just went with a couple of friends. I wasn’t scheduled for tomorrow, so I thought a little fun would be nice. But I must say, bars are not exciting on Wednesday nights.”

“Seems like you got to have a good time anyway.” 

“Mhm, yeah. They had cheap drinks. I got so many.” They laugh. “They honestly didn’t taste that good.” 

“And you kept getting them?”

“It’s just ‘cause they were strong. Sometimes you just wanna get fucked up, y’know? Oh my god, it smells so fuckin’ good right now. What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s just butter and garlic,” he answers honestly. 

“This is the best thing ever. You are literally so nice.” The sincerity in their words is so palpable that Carmy feels his stomach twist. “Anyone would be so lucky to be with you.”

Fuck, Carmy thinks distantly. He adamantly refuses to acknowledge how this comment makes him feel.

“I dunno about that,” he replies, a safe neutral even though he can’t help the embarrassment. 

“Really?” They blow a raspberry at him. “Well, I like having you as my roommate. That’s something, right?”

Carmy’s glad he’s not facing them. He’s not sure what his expression looks like right now. 

“Well. Lucky for me, I guess.” He pauses, listening to the sizzle of the garlic. for a moment. “You’re a good roommate, too. I…didn’t know if I would like having one at all.”

“Oh yeah? You never had one before?”

“Not since culinary school, and they weren’t good.” He sighs at the memory. “But this…I like this.”

“I like it too,” they agree, almost a bit dreamily. “It’s nice not having to be by yourself all the time.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It is.”

He turns around then, garlic bread plated and in his hand, and they gasp, hands over their mouth. 

“Carmy,” they whisper. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“You’re definitely drunk,” he says, smiling in endearment.

“Um, yeah. And you just made me garlic bread. To a drunk person, garlic bread is the next coming of Christ.” They slide the plate towards them, staring at it with big eyes. “And you put cheese on it!” 

“Should I not have?”

“Of course you should have!” They exclaim. “You could’ve put some shit on this I’ve never heard of and I would still eat it. You’re a wizard in the kitchen.”

“Well.” He laughs. Shakes his head. “I’m flattered?”

“You should be,” they whisper. They take a huge bite of it, resounding with a satisfying crunch. “Fuck.” They shake their head from side to side as they eat. “This is so fuckin’ yummy.”

“Good, good.” He nods, pleased. He props his elbows up on the counter, gauging their reaction.

“You are so talented,” they gush, continuing to eat urgently. “And so nice.”

Carmy knows he can’t hide the way his ears go pink. 

“Well.” He gives them a shrug he knows looks as half-hearted as it feels. “I do nice things for nice people,” he says finally, mostly because he can't just take the damned compliment.

“I'm nice people?” They repeat, so genuinely earnest that Carmy almost laughs. “That's a relief. I’m, like, so glad you think that, because I can be an annoying piece of shit sometimes.”

“Annoying?” The self deprecation surprises him. They don’t usually talk like this. “I don’t—I don’t think you’re annoying. Have I ever, uh, seemed like I—?”

“Nonono, it has nothing to do with you,” they interrupt with a hiccup, waving their hands. “I just, like, have issues.” They laugh, although Carmy’s positive there’s nothing funny about this. “And I really like you as a, as a roommate,” they stutter clumsily. “So I don’t wanna fuck it up.”

“I, I don’t think you would fuck it up.” There’s something a little unsettling about all this, something that’s putting Carmy on edge. 

“I always find a way! I just do, because, I’m—I’m not good at being a person,” they blurt out, and then there’s tears spilling all over their cheeks, streaked with black mascara. 

Shit, Carmy thinks. 

“Hey,” Carmy says softly, gentle and careful. He looks up at them, concerned eyes searching their watery ones. He wishes he had the words, but they're talking again. 

“I just can’t do anything right,” they sob, bottom lip wobbling. He’s also not sure if he’s ever seen them crying so hard. Their face is scrunched in pain, skin drenched in tears. “I, I, I can't even fucking make garlic bread!”

“You're drunk,” he reminds them, carefully. “Very drunk.”

“I'm drunk, too,” they wail, and Carmy wonders if he said the wrong thing. “I'm a drunk fuck-up! I, I'm too damaged…”

“Damaged?” He echoes. Their own brutality towards themself takes his words away, and all he can do is repeat their cruelty in disbelief.

“My whole life, I've just,” they whisper, and something about it nestles into his chest and stays there. The feeling of it is familiar. “My—my whole life, I—oh, god—” 

They stop with a sharp inhale, slapping their hand on their mouth. It’s a movement that Carmy would recognize just about anywhere.

“Shit,” he curses, and he rushes them to the bathroom. 

They’re still crying as they throw up into the toilet, apologizing profusely. Carmy tries not to look, just focusing on holding up their hair. 

“I’m sorry,” they apologize again before shoving their face back into the toilet. 

“It’s okay. It happens.”  He absentmindedly notices that he’s never touched their hair before. It’s soft—must be well taken care of. “You’re doing great right now, okay?” 

“Thank you,” they sob, tilting their head to the side to rest their cheek on the toilet seat. He lets their hair fall behind them, instead just keeping one hand on their back. “I’m really s-sorry,” they say again, eyes watery and red. 

“It’s okay,” he repeats, because it's all he can say. They seem grateful enough.

I haven’t thrown up like this since college,” they tell him miserably. “I don’t like it.” 

“Nobody likes throwing up,” he reasons, and they make a weak noise of agreement. 

“Last time, I threw up in my roommate’s bathroom—” they pause, as if fighting a wave of nausea, but it seems to pass. “And I barely missed the toilet,” they whisper, like it’s some sort of dark secret. 

“Damn.” Carmy’s not sure if he should be smiling, but he is, just a little bit. “Sounds like you were shitfaced.”

“So shitfaced,” they echo. At least they’re smiling back at him. That’s a good sign. “It was such a mess. I felt so bad.” 

“Were they mad?”

“No, they weren’t. They even cleaned it up for me.” They groan. “I felt soooo bad, Carmy. So bad. I was worried they would forever hate me for that.” 

“Well, if they weren’t mad at you, I’m sure they wouldn’t hate you for it.”

“I just really didn’t want them to hate me,” they say, and they’re looking so intently into Carmy eyes that it feels like he’s bearing his soul to them. “Are you gonna hate me?”

“I'm not gonna hate you because you're throwing up.” Their hair’s falling into their face, and he moves to tuck it behind their ear before he can think about it. Their cheeks are hot to the touch.  “Would I be doing this for someone I hate?”

“Good point,” they mumble. Carmy’s hand lingers behind their ear before moving back to the middle of their back, rubbing little circles. The touch is guiltily electric on his end. “Sometimes I just…think people are waiting for a chance to hate me.”

“I think it’s a bit too late for me to find an excuse to dislike you,” Carmy says. “But…I get it.”

“...You do?” 

“Yeah,” he says, even though he’s not sure what else to say. They’re still looking at him, clearly waiting for him to elaborate. “I’m not used to anyone caring much about me.”

“I care about you,” they whisper. “I care about you a lot.”

Silence settles between them as any words Carmy had disappear on the tip of his tongue. They just keep looking at him, their eyes gentle and searching, and he can’t tear his gaze away. He can’t tear his hand off their back, either. 

“You shouldn't,” he whispers, strangely honest. “I'm not worth it.”

“Too bad.” He can't look away from their gaze, their eyes that are infinitely knowledgeable. “If I can't care about you, you have to stop being nice to me.”

Carmy opens his mouth to protest, but he can't. They seem to know it, too, with the way a knowing smile creeps up their face.

“I don't wanna do that,” he replies finally. 

“Thought so.” Their face glows brilliantly with a smile, and it should be infuriating, but it's not. “So deal with it. Me caring about you.”

He laughs at that, because it's so stupid. 

“Stupid,” he laughs, and they laugh back, their giggles echoing into the ring of the toilet. “Y'know, I fucked up today at work.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?”

“I was cutting onions. I've done it a million times, but for some reason, I fucked it all up. Onions got all over the floor, and I had to redo it all. Well, my sous had to redo ‘em.”

He's not sure why he's mentioning this to them, or why he's even mentioning it for a second time, but he is. 

“I haven't fucked up like that in forever,” he continues, reliving the memory in the back of his brain. The knife hitting the floor, metal against linoleum. “It was stupid. I hadn't done something so fucking, stupid like that in—god knows how long.” 

That can't be the point, he thinks to himself. He can't just bring up him messing up onions just to complain about messing up onions. That's not worth anything, to him or to them. They're drunk, anyhow. Why is he bringing up his issues like this, right now?

“You're allowed to mess up on onions,” they say with surprisingly clarity. Their words carry a measured gentleness that doesn't seem possible from a drunk. “It would be crazy if you never messed up, y'know. Like, ever.”

“But it's been years,” he protests. There's a pressure building. “Years since I messed up like that. And someone had to clean up after my shit. They shouldn't have had to do that.”

“Hm…” They make a thoughtful noise. “It's not like you did it on purpose, right?”

“Of course not.”

“That's what friends are for,” they murmur. “And coworkers. Sometimes. It's ok that you messed up.”

“...” A part of Carmy wants to continue protesting, but it feels futile. “I shouldn't have brought it up, you're still drunk anyway,” he says, mostly to himself, but also because he can't stand to acknowledge it anymore.

“I don't care,” they whisper. “I like it when people talk to me about things.” Carmy feels something twist in his stomach, palpable and physical. 

“I’m probably being annoying,” he mutters, and as soon as the words come out of his mouth, he wants to bash his head in for saying something so childish. 

“No. You’re not.” They respond before he has a chance to take it back. “I want to know you, Carmy.”

“You already know me.”

“Not as much as I would like,” they mutter, eyes fluttering shut, and Carmy has no choice but to swallow the heavy truth. 

“You shouldn't fall asleep here. If you're feeling better, we need to get you into your bed.” He knows it's unfair, changing the subject like this. But he can't bear to look at it anymore than he already has. 

Luckily for him, they relent without any protest. They lean up against him as he helps them to their room. It's a bit difficult to wade through the piles of clothes on the floor, but Carmy's no better. 

“I really didn't mean to get this fucked up,” they mumble once they're laid back in bed. 

“No one does.”

“Maybe not no one,” they mutter, mostly to themself. No comment. They sigh. “What time is it?”

“Uh…2:35,” he says after a beat, searching eyes landing on their bedside analog clock.

“Motherfucker. I'm sorry. Don't you have work tomorrow?”

“I do. But…it's fine.” It's very much not fine, he has to wake up in a couple hours, and yet. Here he is, at the end of it. 

“You're sweet. You really are.” 

“I'm…not sweet,” is all he can get out, voice quiet. 

“Well, I think you're sweet to me. Taking care of me like this.” They outstretch their arms all of a sudden. “Come here? Please?”

He knows what they're asking. They've never hugged before. He’s only a hugger when it comes to family. He's seen them hug friends before, maybe, but him? Never. 

He shouldn't get closer, he really shouldn't. But he ends up doing it anyway, because he tells himself he likes the way they say please.

“Can I hug you?” They ask.

“Um,” he says. He nods.

They smile again, as brilliant as ever, and bring him into a tight hug. They smell like the mint mouthwash they insisted Carmy retrieve for them, along with their perfume.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” they say. He’s never heard their voice in his ear like this before. They wrap their arms around his neck then, and Carmy’s heart feels like it’s in his throat. 

“No problem,” he gets out, feeling a bit breathless. 

Before he can even form the next thought, they’re pressing a sleepy kiss on their cheek before flipping back down on their bed. 

Carmy feels like throwing up, but…not in a bad way.

“Good night,” they mumble, so sweet. “And thank you.”

Something in his brain shuts off after that. He walks to his room like a zombie, and he falls asleep nearly instantly. 

It turns out that going to bed at 2:30 am the night before work is not so fine at all. 

“Sorry I’m late, couldn’t sleep,” Carmy says groggily when he comes in, and everyone’s eyes are on him. They’re staring so intently like there’s something on his face. “What?”

“It’s, uh,” Sydney starts, but Richie swiftly cuts her off.

“Must’ve been a long night, eh?” Richie says with such a shit eating grin that makes Carmy pinch his eyebrows. 

“Fuck’s your deal?” Carmy bites back, gesturing at him. The length of his fuse matches the amount of sleep he got—slim to none.

“Nothing, cousin,” Richie replies, even though he’s still grinning like a mad man. “You better be telling me about it later though, got it?”

“Whatever,” Carmy mutters. It’s too early in the day to be dealing with this shit. “Just catch me up on what I missed.”

The day starts off rough, but he gets through it because he has to. Throughout the day, though, he can’t help but get the feeling that people keep looking at him when he’s not looking. Maybe it’s just his typical paranoia, but… 

“These look good,” Carmy praises. “Really good,” he reiterates, turning the delicate dessert around on its circular plate. Marcus beams, clearly pleased. It’s a small matcha cake with carefully placed layers of ganache and fruit. Carmy takes a bit of it with a fork, rolling the earthy and tangy flavors around on his tongue. 

“How is it?” Marcus asks, eyes firm on him.

“A little crumbly,” Carmy answers honestly. “Did you take my advice from last time?”

“I did,” he replies, frustration evident in his voice. “Think it’s the oven?”

“Maybe. Probably.” Carmy takes another bite. “Try a lower temp. Other than that, though, it’s excellent.”

“Thank you, chef,” Marcus says. “Means a lot.”

“Wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.” He claps Marcus on the back, short and quick. “You’ve been working hard. That’s all.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I have.” He pauses then, staring at Carmy. Just like how everyone has been all damn day. “Uh, Chef?”

“What?” He feels the impatience bubbling up in him, frustrated and confused. “People have been staring at my goddamn face all day like I got some shit on it.”

“You do,” Marcus says. “It’s not shit, though. Looks like…lipstick,” he says after a beat. 

“Lipstick?” A rock drops in his stomach. Carmy raises his hand to his face, searching. 

“On your left,” he clarifies. “By your ear.”

He rubs aggressively there, but he pulls his fingers back without any color on it.

“Did I get it?”

“Well, I thought you did.” Marcus makes a noise, thoughtful. “Guess it’s one of those permanent ones.”

“Permanent?” Carmy repeats, a little hysterical. 

“Semi permanent,” Marcus clarifies. He seems amused.

Carmy rushes into their small, shitty bathroom, getting close to the streaked mirror. He angles his head to find the stain. Sure enough, it’s right here on his cheek. It’s a dark, reddish color, in the smeared but recognizable shape of a kiss mark.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. His head feels hot. It must’ve happened last night, when they kissed him right before falling asleep. 

Semi-permanent, he hears Marcus say in the back of his head. Of course it is.

With a wet paper towel, he scrubs at the mark so hard it hurts. Even so, it remains, still clear on his pale, reddened skin. He wishes his hair was long enough to hide it.

“It’s not coming off,” he says, stressed upon returning to Marcus’ station. He hopes he doesn’t sound as hysterical as he feels. Sydney’s there too, chewing on the matcha pastry Carmy had earlier. “Why the fuck isn’t it coming off?”

“You’ll probably need a makeup wipe. I think I have some in my bag if you want one,” Sydney offers. Carmy swears she has a halo around her head. “Just a warning, though, they’re old as fuck. I haven’t worn makeup in a long time.”

“It’s fine. Can I take one?” Carmy runs a stressed hand through his hair. “Can’t believe no one fuckin’ told me. I—I fucking greeted customers like this!”

“It’s cool, Carm. At least it wasn’t a hickey,” Marcus reasons, and Carmy thinks his ears go hot. 

“Thank god,” he replies, sarcastic, and they have the nerve to laugh at him. “Shut up,” he tries, but there’s no real heat behind it. Sydney leaves and comes back with a semi-dried up makeup a minute later. 

“Don’t get mad if it doesn’t work,” Sydney states, a cautionary disclaimer. “It might be one of those that has a specific remover.”

“Are you serious?” The sigh that comes out is full of disdain. “Fuck me.”

“Day’s already almost done, if it makes it any better,” Marcus notes with a cheeky smile, and Carmy just shakes his head.

The makeup wipe doesn’t work. Carmy tries not to get mad, but maybe he does. Maybe just a little bit.

“It’ll come off with enough washes,” Sydney reassures him. Tina’s standing with her now, too, eyeing him like a spectacle. Everyone seems to be enjoying his misery. 

“Just ask your girl to get rid of it for you,” Tina says, an eyebrow raised. She raises a thumb to his cheek, rubs at the mark like a mom. “Damn. Shit’s on there.”

“They’re not—it’s not like that,” he sputters. He’s been trying to get through the day without anyone asking about it, but now that there’s some down time, there’s no stopping anyone. 

“A one night stand?” Tina guesses, eyes widening. She laughs and smacks him on the arm. “Didn’t think you had it in you, boy!”

“It’s not that, either,” Carmy stresses. He knows he’s getting overly flustered about it, but he can’t help it. His eyes flicker towards the clock. They’re closing soon. “Just forget it, okay? Please.”

He can tell from their expressions that neither of them want to forget about it, but by some stroke of luck, they’re considering letting it go. Just for now. That’s enough of a victory for now, so he’ll take it.

At least, it would’ve been a victory if Richie didn’t take that very opportunity to step into the kitchen. 

“Been trying to find you all day, bastard!” Richie hollers, slinging an arm over Carmy’s hunched shoulder. Carmy sighs, expressive in his annoyance. “Looks like this baby’s finally growing up, huh?”

“I’m 30, asshole,” Carmy says, tiredly, but that never works. Richie’s still talking, anyhow. 

“So? Do I know the chick?” Richie’s grin makes Carmy want to punch him.

“No,” he replies, flatly. He’s so tired. “And it’s not what you think. It was just, they’re, uh…”

“Oh shit, cousin!” Richie’s laughing, obnoxiously loud in his ears. “Didn’t think you were capable of—“

“It’s not a one night stand. Already guessed that,” Tina interrupts him. 

“What?” He sounds annoyed, like he has the right to be more irritated than Carmy himself. “Then what’s the secret third option? Or are you lying to my face?”

“They’re my roommate,” Carmy explains, finally.

There’s a beat of silence. And then, uproarious noise.

“You have a roommate?” Is Richie’s first question. The second: “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“Is, like, dating a roommate a good idea? No offense,” Sydney says, hands raised in defense. “Just wondering.”

“It’s not,” Tina answers for her, sharp eyes narrowed at him. But strangely enough, she’s smiling nonetheless. 

“They’re my roommate, we’re not dating, and I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be weird about it!” He shouts over the noise, directing the last one at Richie. “Look—they were just drunk, and I was helping them because they were fucking throwing up. Happy now?”

“And they kissed you,” Richie points out. He’s grinning like he knows some big secret.

“Fuck, okay, can we stop fucking talking about this now? It was just an accident, it’ll be gone tomorrow, and we’re never gonna mention this shit again!”

Carmy gets saved by some distant catastrophic noise in the back, somewhere around the freezer. He leaves without a word. Behind him, he hears raucous laughter mostly to Richie’s tune.

Before he leaves for the night, he stops by the bathroom one more to try and get it off. Predictably, it remains stubborn and stalwart through soap, hot water, and scrubbing. The skin under it is red with irritation, and Carmy knows that he's getting nowhere. If anything, he's making it worse. 

His eyes linger on the blotted lipstick on his face. It's smudged, but he can see the cracks and the shape of their lips. His gaze follows the lines of it. 

The memory burns bright in his head for a split second. It bursts in like a flashbang, intense and unavoidable. There's a phantom sensation of their lips on his cheek, the smell of their perfume, the warmth of their embrace, and it's, it's just—

Carmy shuts the lights off and heads out. He needs this lipstick mark gone by morning. 

When he gets home, the apartment is dark. Unoccupied. As he flicks on the lights, he searches for them. They're usually home before him most nights. However, it seems tonight is an anomaly. He walks down the hallway past his room to theirs, and their ajar door reveals an empty bedroom.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself. Just his luck. 

He opens his phone then, a last resort. He has his messages pulled up, but his thumbs hover over the keyboard and stay there. 

How the hell does he even word this?

Hey, I need lipstick remover. 

No, that isn't enough information. Who knows how many types of remover there could be? What if it isn't the right one? He needs to be more specific. 

Hey, I need lipstick remover for the lipstick you were wearing last night. 

That sounds even stranger. Too specific, although it's the truth. That's what he needs. But he can't just…type that, can he? No, there's no way. 

Is there any way he can get out of saying that there's lipstick on his face from last night and not make it weird? He wishes they were here so he could just show them. Words have never been his forte. There's little hope for him now. 

Please come home right now, he briefly considers typing. It's by far the worst one out of all of them. 

After pacing for a solid five minutes, he decides to send a hopefully neutral message. 

Hey, you out for the night?

It's still pretty weird. Carmy is not a texter. There's not much he needs to talk about that can't wait until he sees them next. They're usually the one texting him, and it's usually only about groceries or bills. However, he tells himself it's fine because there's no note left on the counter. They always leave a note when they go out.

…They always leave a note when they go out. 

This thought resets his pacing around the apartment, frantically looking for the square shape and vivid color of a sticky note. That's how they usually do it, and it's typically on the kitchen counter. So, it's honestly a futile effort to be looking around the whole place, but he does so anyway. 

He looks at his phone. It's been almost 10 minutes, and still no response. 

This isn't unnatural by any means. They always end up responding eventually, but the prickling anxiety is getting pricklier by the second. 

They've got to be so hungover. There's no way they're out again tonight, he thinks to himself, and he's positive it has to be true. 

They're missing, and you're not ever gonna get this shit off your face, his brain adds helpfully. 

That's what finally kicks him into gear and forces him to press the call button. 

It rings for a long time. The more it rings, the longer he stands there in the kitchen, the stupider and more anxious he feels. It's a pitiful feeling to be consumed by, but here he is, unable to resist. 

However, when they finally pick up, he's not sure if he feels completely relieved. A different part of his anxiety is spiking now.

“Carmy?” Their voice carries a trace of static through the phone speaker. 

“Yeah, hey. You see my text?”

“Oh, oops. Sorry, I missed it. Is everything ok?”

“Where are you?” He asks instead. 

“I'm just gettin’ a drink from the corner store. Why? You want me to grab something for you?”

The absolute nonchalance in their voice humbles him, reducing him to complete embarrassment.

“Uh, no, I don't need anything. I mean, uh, I do actually need something from you, though,” he amends hastily. 

“Sure, what's up? I guess it must be important if you're calling, right?”

“I, um—yeah, kinda important,” he says with attempted tranquility, completely ignoring how much he was freaking out earlier.  “So…you got, uh, lipstick remover?”

“Lipstick remover?” Their surprise makes him shrivel. “Well, I have a couple types of makeup remover…”

“I think it needs to be specific?”

“You think it needs to be specific? What exactly are we dealing with here?” Their voice carries bewildered amusement.

“It's, uh…” He swallows. He can't tiptoe around it anymore. “It's…yours?”

“...Huh?”

“You got some lipstick on me last night, and it's not coming off,” he says finally, mortifyingly, and the line goes silent. 

“Fucking—I'm so sorry, my memory is spotty from last night and I, I thought I imagined that, and, uh—” They awkwardly clear their throat. “I'm sorry, I really am. It's not supposed to transfer like that, but I guess it just…”

“It's okay,” he says, despite how hysterical it made him earlier. That part isn't their fault. “It's just, uh, really staying on there.”

“Shit. Of course. It's this super resilient lipstick I use for when I go out drinking, because it's not supposed to come off like, at all, so it comes with this specific remover—I'm sorry, I don’t need to be rambling like this.” They laugh nervously. “I'm on my way home now, but it should be on my desk if you wanna look at it. It's a black tube, which…isn't very specific, I guess. And my desk is really messy…”

“I'll start looking,” Carmy decides. 

“I'm sorry,” they reply miserably. 

“It's okay. You said you were coming home now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I'll see you soon, okay?”

“Cool. See you.”

The call ends. Carmy just stands there for a minute. It's like a tidal wave just rushed over him, and now the water is slowly settling to a stand still. 

Black tube, he thinks. How hard can that be?

Very hard, it seems. 

Their room is comfortably messy. Definitely not as messy as his. There's some clothes on the floor, jackets on chairs, underwear he turns his gaze away from (don't imagine them in that lace one lying in the corner or the flowery one or the fucking thong he didn't see anything), but that's about it. Nothing outside of typical clutter, in his opinion. 

The desk, though. The desk. 

He doesn't think he can even see the surface of it. There's just lots of little things scattered across it, from piles of jewelry to stacks of papers and books. It's like an ispy book. 

He stares at it, trying to find a black tube. He quickly realizes how much of a futile effort it's going to be. 

In this moment, he thinks about how he's never spent much time in their room. The two of them usually hang out in the living room. Besides, he's not one to go snooping around in someone's personal space. Until being pushed to his limits and being given explicit permission, that is.

He leans in, peering closer at the scattered items. There's a little bit of everything. Receipts, make-up brushes, scissors, paper scraps, empty water cups, hair ties, empty candy wrappers, lipsticks…none of which are black tubes. 

Maybe it's not on their desk. Maybe it's on a different shelf. 

They said it was on their desk, a voice in his head says, but he’s not listening.

The next closest thing is their nightstand. It's a little messy, but nowhere near as bad as their desk. There's a melatonin bottle, some lip balm, a bedside lamp. He squints, seeing what might be more pills or maybe skincare until a dark tube catches his eye.

When he picks it up, he realizes it's not black, instead being a dark blue. Also, it's not a tube, it's more of a bottle.

The text on it also reads as lube, not lipstick remover. 

…Lube?

It's lube, his brain repeats, helpful as ever. 

I can see that, he thinks back.

“Hello? Carmy?”

A familiar voice has him scrambling to put the lube back. He moves it back to the night stand more quickly than he could have ever expected of himself. 

“Hey, I'm in your room,” he calls back, hoping that his fabricated nonchalance comes off as believable. He steps out of their room into the hallway, and they appear at the end of it. 

The first he notices is how much better they look when he saw them last. To be fair, the last time he saw them, they were sobbing and throwing up into the toilet, drunk out of their mind, but still. It's still an improvement. Their cheeks are flushed from the cold, and their hair is mussed from being outside.

“Hey. Did you find it?” 

“I couldn't find it,” he admits. He steps out of the way to let them through, and then he follows them back into their room. 

“Yeah, sorry, my desk is a fucking nightmare,” they mutter darkly, making a beeline for their desk. “I swear I took it out and put it right here…Ah, yes!”

Miraculously, they pull it out. It looks like a lipstick in itself, and when they uncap it, it just looks like a white lip balm. 

“So, do I just…rub it on?”

“Well—yeah, you should, but it emulsifies with water, so you just use water and then use a cotton pad…” Carmy supposes the confusion isn't too well masked on his face. “Can I see where it is?” They ask tentatively. 

Wordlessly, Carmy turns his head. He supposes they're just glad they didn't see it immediately.

“Oh.” When he turns to face them again, their cheeks are dark with color. It's not a look he's used to seeing on them. “I'm sorry,” they say again with a downturned head. 

“It's okay,” Carmy says again, and he means it. He brings a hand to his cheek subconsciously. “I just…”

“Let me take it off,” they insist, guilt knitted in their expression, and that's how Carmy ends up seated on the toilet seat. 

“Now I'm the one getting patched up on the toilet,” he says quietly. He wonders if it was the wrong thing to say, but it makes them laugh.

“So, um, when did you notice?” They ask. The tube uncaps with a small pop.

“A couple hours ago,” he admits. The balm feels smooth and oily against his cheek. “I had no idea, but my coworkers, uh…”

“Oh my god,” they mutter under their breath. “I just don't think I'm ever gonna stop apologizing for this.”

“It's fine, really,” he insists, even though he was manically scrubbing at his skin earlier. “It was sorta funny,” he adds, even though he was freaking out while everyone else was laughing. They don't need to know. 

“That's good, at least.”

“Yeah. It was—uh…”

He feels their thumb rubbing circles into his cheek, and the words disintegrate like sand in the wind. 

“Sorry, this is just one of those things that takes a little bit of work to get off.” Their tone projects a casual indifference to it, but their voice is so quiet that it feels unfairly intimate. 

“I didn't know lipstick could be this…intense,” Carmy hears himself say. He's far away, still trapped in the feeling of their hand on his face. 

“It's what you need for an intense night out,” they reply with a small smile. He looks up at them then, meeting their dark eyes, but they're concentrated on the spot on his cheek. When they catch him looking, though, they don't look away.

“Are you feeling better?” He asks quietly. He can’t stop looking.

“A lot better. Yesterday was rough, but I'm feeling okay now.” 

“Good.”

“Yeah. Um…” They lean back, breaking eye contact, and Carmy feels a pressure releasing. They grab a wet paper towel and carefully drag it across his cheek. “Thanks again, by the way. For putting up with me last night. I mean, it was more than just putting up, but…y'know.”

“Sure,” he says, much softer than intended. “It happens.”

“I think you're just nice,” they tease, fully intended to be light-hearted, but because Carmy's the way that he is, it weighs heavily in his chest. 

“Sometimes,” he mumbles, because that's all he can bear to say.

Because last night, they looked him in the eyes and whispered that they wanted to know him. That they thought he was sweet, he was kind. They spoke with such earnestness that for a split second, Carmy considered believing them about everything, even though that’s always the wrong thing to do.

Because once he believes them a little bit, he’ll start acting like he’s a good person. He’ll fool everyone around him, even himself. 

Then, the inevitability that is his self-destruction will arrive like it’s always promised. He will mess everything up like he always does, sharp-edged flaws unfurling from the inside out. They’ll slice everyone he was able to fool into getting close enough.

The least he can do is try and give some kindness back before it happens.

“Just take the compliment,” they say with a small grin. “Y'know, I don't remember everything from last night. There's bits and pieces I know that're missing. But from what I do remember…” They make one final wipe at his cheek. “You have to let me be nice to you.”

He remembers, too. 

So deal with it, they had said. Me caring about you.

“How could I forget,” he tries to joke, but his laugh comes out sounding far too breathless. Luckily for him, their laugh, much more tangible and believable, joins his own. 

“I said some crazy shit last night, I know.” They take a seat next to him on the edge of the bathtub. “But I meant it. I like being your friend, Carmy. I hope I didn’t say too much.”

“You didn't say too much. You were just drunk.” He feels a bit stunned. 

“Okay,” they accept after a beat. “I mean, you're right. I was just drunk. Um…” They gesture towards his face. “I got the mark off, by the way.”

Carmy stands up and checks his face in the mirror. Sure enough, it's gone. He feels relief wash over him like a breeze, and another feeling he can't place. It's…It's…

“Thanks,” he says, and they nod. 

“It's the least I could do.” They stand up, too, and walk out of the bathroom. They stand in the doorway for a moment before looking at him. “I'm gonna smoke. You wanna join?”

It's…

“Yeah, for sure. I'll be just a sec.”

Then it's just him in the bathroom, the door shut as he stares at his reflection. The harsh fluorescent bathroom light casts harshly down the planes of his face, creating dark shapes on his face. He stares at the spot where the lipstick mark used to be. The longer he stares, the more the unnamed feeling stretches outwards. 

When it drops in his stomach, that’s when he realizes.

The feeling is disappointment.

~

@zorrasucia

[sugar-omi]

Piggybacking off your last hc. Step 4 Cove DEFINITELY repays the favor when you are older. He forgives but he won't forget it. Once he gets more open and smug about it he waits until you aren't expecting it.

"Now you understand how I felt." With the biggest grin on his face. Absolutely ruining you for the foreseeable future.

YES YES YES THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IM ALWAYS THINKING ABT !!!! i think this is from after i posted *this post. this draft has been sitting here awhile, im so sorry....

tags : NSFW, gn reader, dom/top cove, mayhaps a tad ooc, high libido cove+reader,

older cove becoming more confident in pleasing you, becomes less shy about all his desires and how much he wants you.

and now it's his turn to ruin you.

afterall, you edged and overstimulated him so many times. you've shamelessly begged for just one more round or "just let me get you off once, please?" and you two still ended up sneaking away from your friends or family for a quickie.

now it's his turn to beg for a quickie before you go to work.. "i'll make it worthwhile so please?..."

between those puppy eyes and the promise of the best head you could and will ever get in your life, you can't exactly say no~

even if he doesn't end up pulling you into the bed for a quick round before work, you end pulling him in.

one morning you were showering, cove on the other side of the curtain, fluttering about trying to get ready for the day

and you really did try to ignore your urges. you thought if maybe you just waited for him to finish brushing his teeth, you could shower in peace.

but distance makes the heart grow fonder, even if the only distance is a few feet between the shower and your bedroom, and your heart is your aching sex.

even when you slip your fingers into your cunt / wrap your hand around your cock, it isn't enough. you're e just fucking yourself on your fingers / into your hand so pitifully you can't ignore it anymore

cove almost laughs when you call for him, all pitiful needing him, needing his cock. anything. you just need him to make you cum

he'd be so torn between giving in and fucking you over the counter, and hopefully he either isn't dressed or isn't wearing his best pants because otherwise they'll end up soaked in water

doesn't matter, though, since he gets to see your lewd satisfied expressions in the mirror, and he gets to see you limp, melting into the counter after you finish

but he'd definitely consider leaving you pent up..

kisses you and tells you that you can do it when you get home, and if he's feeling bold, he'll outrightly tell you that if you behave, he'll fuck you once you get home <3

mmm we talked about this a long time ago, but not being able to cum without cove...

after all those years of bringing cove outta his shell sexually, practically training him to please you, and making him crave your body...

you didn't realize you were doing the same to yourself.

after all, you were the one fucking cove senseless and practically milking him.

sucking him off in the middle of your date, all the hot birthday sex, fucking him or being fucked by him...

oh and especially when you made him cum over and over again, pulling all you could from his poor cock until he all but sobbed about how he couldn't cum again

you loved how much he craved you, spurred on by the raging horiness of most teenagers, the two of you feeding off each other in that way, and hs tauntilizing partner

but now it's totally backfired on you, now you just feel restless when you finish by yourself. almost needing your boyfriend in order to have a satisfying orgasm

and some nights you do, more specifically the nights you and cove are apart

doesn't matter which one of you is away for work or just on a trip, cove preens when you call him, all breathless and needy, trying and failing to get yourself off

encourages you to tell him more, tell him how you need him.

i wonder if he'd make you facetime him so he can see how needy you are, see how much of a mess you make of yourself

promises to fuck you once you or him gets home

oh and he holds up to that promise, the luggage hitting the floor and he closes the door louder than he'd have liked, and fumbles to blindly get the locks and chain done up

will fuck you until there's tears in your eyea, if not rolling down your cheeks.

if he ends up fucking you all night, and you finish many more times before him..

well you did help build up his stamina, so you can't really blame him for being able to keep it up so long

he'd be happy to remind you of it as well!!

he'll have you caged between his arms, his hips pistoning into yours, the bed hitting the wall and you're on the verge of tears...

all while he's growling about how you spent so long teasing him, almost using him for a fucktoy when you were helplessly horny in the dead of night

how you used to always pull him aside or sneak in, how you two would take advantage of every second you had alone...

although he's happy to be gentle, that way he can enjoy pulling orgasm after orgasm out of you, and can devour the sight of your lewd expressions and loud moans

don't feel bad, though, for corrupting your sweet boyfriend, you two are soulmates after all, so you two can handle each other in desperate times like these, right? <33

[azullumi]

i don't know if this counts as a request or not but i just want to know how do you think thoma, ayato, and tighnari say "i love you" to their s/o without actually saying it? it could be about love languages or anything, you're free to do what you want! i'm just really curious on what you think :) also, i love your writing so so much im in love with it <3

summary — there are many ways to say "i love you" and he has his own ways of saying it.

characters — ayato, tighnari, and thoma (w/ gender neutral reader)

tags — fluff, different love languages; headcanons

word count — 1116

a/n — hooray to the very first request that i have done! please don't hesitate in sending me more requests because ideas are not unlimited inside my head. anyways i hope this was what you wanted anon! ^^ i tried to do the best that i can in executing this idea because god it's hella cute

“What do you want? I'll get it for you.” — Kamisato Ayato

Gift-giving is definitely his love language. He’s the type of man to always spoil you with gifts, ranging from simple to extravagant ones. Even if you have never asked for those things, he always will and I mean what I mean with always when he has a gift for you daily. It can be a bouquet of flowers from another land or just your favorite ones or it can also be an accessory customized only for you. Nevertheless, he always has something to give you whether small or big.

If you ask him for something, he’ll immediately get it for you. Just mention it and you’ll have it at once on the foot of your doorstep. No cans, no ifs, no buts, it’s always a will. He will always find a way to get it even if it’s at the end of the world as long as it will make you happy.

You told him once how you would like to have the heart of a rainbow, an item that doesn’t exist in the continent of Teyvat nor in other lands and you only made up on the spot to see how he would react. But he… He fell into a deep thought and went: “Alright, however, it might take me a long time as that's the first time I have heard of that.” You couldn’t help but panic and explain that it was just a joke and the item actually doesn’t exist.

He remembers everything about you, especially what you like even if you only have mentioned it once in all of your conversations. You’ll suddenly find him giving you something, an item that you said you would like to have from a conversation that happened 4 months ago, and would apologize for only attaining it just now. It just renders you speechless whenever he does that.

Giving you all that you want is just one of the ways he shows his love for you. He has different means of showering you with affection but gift-giving just tops everything. It’s also one way to tell you that he is willing to do anything and give you anything, anything to make you stay, anything to keep you happy.

“You mean so much more to me than you think.” — Tighnari

This statement was an explanation for his actions that he has done and the words he has said. Tighnari might have never explicitly said those three meaningful words in a relationship but he finds ways to say it to you in different forms and would show it through his actions also. After all, saying “I love you” without having any form of base just feels so empty for him like promises that aren’t going to be kept. He prefers proving himself through a variety of words and acts.

He doesn’t mind anything as long as it’s you. He doesn’t mind teaching you everything that he knows as a Forest Ranger as long as it's you. He doesn’t mind accompanying you every time you have the urge to go deeper within the forest—he reasons that it is part of his task and he’s also there to look for some things but honestly, he just wants to be there with you. He also sometimes can’t help but overthink that something might happen to you once you go in alone because what if you encounter a dangerous situation and he’s not there. He just wouldn’t be able to rest easily. If ever he wouldn’t be able to accompany you, he’ll send Collei out with you.

He doesn’t mind doing anything as long as it’s for you. However, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have any boundaries that he has set and as long as you respect and understand it, everything is fine. He doesn’t mind having his ears touched as long as it's you though, just ask for permission.

As such, neglect happens to himself especially at times of danger just to keep you safe and away from harm. He reasons that he is used to those things because of his work but seeing that look of worry and sadness on your face made him swear to not do it again.

He worries that you think that he always focuses on his job and would abandon you because of it so he tries his best to show you that you hold so much meaning to him and the thought of losing you has already made him overwhelmed with fear. 

“I always have time for you.” — Thoma

Thoma and his everlasting loyalty and consistency with his actions and words. Despite his busy schedule with his constant running around and assistance, he would always find ways to spend time with you. Even if his day is rough and he’s exhausted, he always finds his way to you and your arms. It just feels like he has an empty slot on his schedule saved just for you. 

One minute, you’ll find him all around Ritou, talking to the shopkeepers and helping them with any issues that they are experiencing, then the next, he’s having a walk with you on your side while holding your hands as he tells you about what he has learned from that day, all the stories and gossips that he got from the citizens that he has helped and gotten close with.

Of course, on his day-offs and breaks, he will always have it dedicated to you. He’ll take you out on his day-offs on a date that he has planned for a long time or he will seek you out on his breaks and invite you to lunch with him. He loves having picnics with you outside while you two are watching the scenery as the sun sets and when he’s free by the evening, you two would often have dinner together and would go on a walk to your favorite spot to watch the stars.

When he’s really exhausted, however, plans are canceled— if there is one—and you two would instead spend your time holding one another in each other’s arms while being lulled to chase after the much-needed rest. Those moments of peace and tranquility are greatly appreciated and are meant to be cherished.

Although, it doesn’t mean that he’s being pressured to always have some time on his day saved just for you. Being a housekeeper of the Kamisato Clan and a well-known “fixer” in Inazuma sounds like a really tough job so you do understand that there are times wherein he gets really busy and you two can’t spend time with one another. You simply love the fact that he always has time for you despite everything.

— navigation | masterlist

[saturngalore]

hiii i just wanna say thank you so much to everyone on this list and those following me because in some way you’ve all made my year! i really enjoy seeing yalls posts and knowing that y’all are creating something truly unique for the simblr community whether that’s via your own sim creations, creating builds and cc, writing nicely written stories, and/or just supporting those around you! and i think most of y’all are black so yasssss go black excellence 🫶🏾🫶🏾🫶🏾 black simblr >>>>

@invisiblequeen @riverofjazzsims omg thank y’all SO much for helping me test almost all my cc and always creating such lovely sims, stories, and backdrops to go with my hairs 🥹 y’all have kept me going and really motivated me to keep creating my hairs because i know that y’all will give me much appreciated feedback and support no matter what 💗

@prematurehag @yngblkarawak @simphic @daminini @blackskorpi0n @simsadilla y’all are literally so creative that it blows my mind like every single post y’all do especially the renders are so so good like they’re all masterpieces! y’all just leave me in awe every time so pls keep doing what you do bc simblr would be extremely bland without y’all 🫶🏾

@xmiramira i used to watch so many of your sims 4 videos and gta livestreams on youtube and your melanin skins were literally a godsend when sims 4 first started like almost everyone couldn’t create a black sim without your skins so thank you so much for being one of the best black simmers ever and tysm for showing me so much love i could literally faint knowing that you follow me and like my content🫶🏾🫶🏾

@browntrait i know you’re not active rn but and i already told you this but you’re literally one of the main reasons why i wanted to create a simblr! your edits and your sims especially zenya had such an impact on me like i literally saved your edits on my phone bc i wanted to do something similar with my own stuff. you are my inspiration!!! 🙏🏾

@thaplumbob @yuyulie @fizzysugar @aghilasims @helloavocadooo @gnael @darlyssims @sims4bradshaw @earthmoonz @hdmiports @l-e-i-k-o @koibish @cowboycid @armadoth @francescalater @orphyd @boneheelda @mangosimoothie @minaevesmoths @mrsimqle @chaunceydollz @sleepingsims @thestarboysims @starshinesims @zohrou @bonneblah @kimorasimz @meoanii @simtric @glazeio @faestelle @kyaikoo + many others (im so sorry my memory is terrible 😭) i don’t want this post to get too long but the rest of y’all are amazing in your own ways like creating sims that i can instantly recognize that they’re yours without looking at the username, commenting or leaving such sweet tags on my posts which is my favorite thing ever, helping me test my cc or posting your sims in my cc (like !!!!), inspiring me almost everyday, or making me laugh or smile thru a brief yet lovely interaction with you! just thank you so much again and have a lovely 2024!!! 💗🫶🏾🫡

[asclexe]

haii….intro post…..about me……

click (this is a reminder more for me because i’ll see it easiest this way, feel free to click) / i do not answer donation asks and i cannot donate

haiiii :3 i go bye cameron which is very nicknameable so have fun with that. also call me whatever 🔥🔥

i am a boy-adjacent i think and i ONLY use he/him pronouns!!!!!! please and thank you!

aromantic aplatonic lesbian faggot thing. i think girls r pretty. women are soo awesome 😍

minor!!!!!!!!! im ageless online 4 my safety so B cool im literally 5 years old :3

american :/ + a mixed pot of european ethnically as most american white boy people are (EST)

im Literally a 🪼. btw

currently matching layouts with the awesome @magicmarkerz give it up for the coolest boygirl ever. our backgrounds are like owen and maddy from isttvg. awesome.

interest wise, im pathetically multifandom and im really interested in doctor who (nine and martha and donna and rory and eleven sometimes my beautiful gay wives 😍) but i also enjoy house md, yellowjackets, moral orel, warrior cats (on arc 5 and no intention of reading more), dungeon meshi, six feet under, fnaf, thg, a series of unfortunate events, doogie howser md, i saw the tv glow, good omens (FUCK neil gaiman. 😐), will wood, mouthwashing, and theatrical stuff and anything really and soso many many more.. (i watch a lot of shows and have soo many more to watch. lol)

currently watchinf!! : doctor who (capaldi, s8), the good place (s4), broadchurch (s2), torchwood (s1), and hannibal (s1)

i run @ask-the-ducklings and @ppth-obgyn-dept-head-real for my house md oc and i’m 1/2 of @meanwhile-on-the-road :3

i use #asclexeposting for all original posts + more

trying to figure out my ao3 situation but im on pinterest and discord under assclexe if you wanna hmu (B cool) and roblox as asclexe and my airbuds

so yeah below the cut are just like. boundaries whatever lame. but feel free to follow me, ill likely follow back and we’ll be bestest friends forever ^_^

ughh sum things you should know be4 you follow or follow/unfollow or moot/unmoot me/boundaries

i am a very morbid (i think abt death literally all the time. lol), negative, cynical person and i always have been and i will not absorb those positive vibes. im a hater. im also opinionated like everyone else and im obviously going to have bad takes. B nice. sometimes the fun and joyous whimsy comes out. i can and will be really nice i promise just sometimes im mean

i use a lot of profanity and i say the ONE. one slur i can reclaim.

i will not go to therapy or get help. i’ve been in therapy and it does not help me and i do not like it. i do not want help. i’m fine. please do not tell me “go to therapy u need it” because i do not need it

i say “im going to kill myself” a lot and these are all fruitless, meaningless statements. i am not committing suicide yet, and when i do, you’ll have long forgotten me. hopefully.

pls tell me via ask box! (or dm if i follow you) if i say something offensive or wrong or are overcrossing your boundaries, im sorry, im bound to make mistakes or misjudge a post.

i do not tag my reblogs with the media or characters, only little comments. i also do not spoiler tag my posts. i try to trigger tag things when i can but if you want something trigger tagged specifically pls lmk!!

i do not have a dni, because the block button (which i use pretty often ill be honest) is easier, so instead i’d say go away!!!!! bigots (because you suck) and zionists (because i’m pro-palestine) and pedos/zoos (because you’re #gross) and nsfw/mdni/kink blogs and most people over 21 (unless im comfortable with it) (because i’m a minor) .

:3

[bright-and-burning]

FIC WRITER INTERVIEW

tagged by the beloved darlingsest dearest @vroombeams

How many works do you have on AO3?

12 (10 for f1)

What's your total AO3 word count? 49,323... oh wow. that's. more words than i realized.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

not gonna include non-f1 fics for this lol (but if 8 people wanna go give begging hands knees please kudos to bump it above my old ted lasso fic...)

begging hands knees please (394)

but my tracks are better (341)

dive down deeper still (330)

the light between the lines (308)

relax and catch the manic rhapsody (222)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes absolutelyyyyy i fiend for responding. i guess the first like. mildly successful fic i wrote (said ted lasso fic lol) got a LOOOT of comments, many of which kind of lent themselves to discussion post vibes? like, asking questions, noting foreshadowing, that kind of thing. not sure if that's a ted lasso thing, a multichapter fic in progress thing, a not pwp thing, or just the specific people who got invested in that fic thing, but i was sooo spoiled. got very used to people like picking out their favorite quotes and asking questions and inevitably having like, 4 or 5 comment long threads going back and forth. glorious. all that to say i always respond to comments bc so many of the first comments i got were engaging like that. and now there's less of that kind of comment (though i promise i appreciate all the comments i get!!!) but the habit stuck with me lol

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

that's been posted? none of them. lmfao. actually the three angst-bombs in my docs also have happy endings, i think. well i know for two of them; the third is like, essentially vent fic. so who knows how that ends. not me. it hurts Me too bad to write things that don't end very well. i just can't do it. i gotta put bandaids on the blorbos before the end or i'll die

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

i am the sappiest mf alive . this is like asking me to pick what's heavier, 10 pounds of rocks or 10 pounds of feathers. the light between the lines has the highest end point in comparison to the start point? but yeah. looking at all of these like ok u end in them getting together, u end in them getting together, u end ambiguously but they're cuddling, ur just soppy established relationship fucking nasty. etc etc

Do you write crossovers?

i haven't ever! well not according to what i think of a crossover, which has to heavily involve characters from said other universe, rather than just putting characters in an au. im not opposed but i have no idea what it'd be

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

i.... don't think so?? possibly on something long-orphaned from the early days of me writing i guess. but nothing i've noticed.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

fsdjfal yes. what does what kind mean... "dumbasses accidentally stumbling in a little too deep" is probably the blatant theme actually. oh fuck i probably should've added the under negotiated kink tag to my newest fic.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of??? would be baffled honestly if i did

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no i haven't!! or not in the technical definition of that. a lot of my fic comes out of messaging other people and playing around w ideas collaboratively via kind of chat fic . and then turning that into prose. but that's the closest i've gotten. i'm not opposed tho

What's your all-time favorite ship?

all-time... i have been reading fic since i was like 9 years old . and i am incapable of living anywhere but the present, in terms of taste. so. god. all-time... they all serve such different purposes tho...... if we go on statistics i've posted nearly 30k of landoscar and like 20k of everything else combined so.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

runners au... such a good fucking set of ideas. interweaving stories... unfortunately, i'm not really into maxiel a whole bunch anymore (even tho THEMATICALLY. it would fuck even harder now). and i think i went too hard on world building and lost the spark for writing it. which is super unfortunate. bc i do think it would fuck.

What are your writing strengths?

oh dear fucking god. atmosphere, maybe? ppl compliment that sometimes. paying really strict attention to the like. grounding of what's happening in the physical world???? squeezing in lots of detail without being overbearing, maybe?? (hopefully???)

What are your writing weaknesses?

prior to this month i would've said writing with any kind of speed. and then i wrote an 11k fic in a week and a 3k fic in a day. so im working on it. is it going to sound horribly narcissistic to say i can't think of any. wait that's a lie actually i just needed to think. i feel like my POV characters tend to all sound the same. in general i feel like there's not a whole lot of variety in my fic fjlsdjfals. also probably the aforementioned inability to not put bandaids on the blorbos by the end; i dont think im very good at like deep emotional complexity

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

ehhh. i don't do it. for a lot of the reasons kee said actually jfdlsajf.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

ok so i THOUGHT . it was . ahem. maze runner rpf. which is very funny on its own bc i dont think i ever read the books or watched the movies. i was just really really really into the BTS clips of thomas brodie sangster and . his name is NOT conan obrien. fuck. DYLAN. oh wait that's also a lie i watched the first one with a bunch of 20 year old boys while drinking pink whitney in college . my point still stands; i wrote it like 7 years before i watched the movie. it's still up on ao3 it's just very much so orphaned and also Really Really Really Terrible. and i don't remember the title. i was like 13 ok.

none of which matters bc i recently experienced extreme flashbacks to the fact that i wrote 5sos rpf first. and i was into reading the gay shit (and wanted to get into writing it) but i entered a fic exchange and got a Y/N girlie. so i wrote Y/N fic. for someone else. i think that was posted on wattpad??? i couldn't even tell you which 5sos guy y/n was going on a date with. that was ten years ago 😭

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

soooo many except lando n oscar's voices come so easily to me now that every time i try to write something else im like jesus christ this is so fucking hard and for what. i have a r63 (the BOTH of EM) markoscar fic that would be nice to finish. someday. if i can figure out mark webber's fuckass voice. or that ancient 2019 rookies wip that actually i think was the first thing i ever talked to m @glasscushion about. i want to exploreeeeeeee. but im scared it'll be bad 😔

What's your favorite fic you've written?

the light between the lines for suresies. even when i hate everything i've ever made and want to like, delete my blog and tear down my ao3 and set fire to my laptop. im still proud of it? it's a very weird dichotomy when that feeling hits, lemme tell u. it's just so different from everything else i've ever finished/posted. it accomplishes everything i set out to do w it, and it came together like it already existed in the world, and someone just needed to commit it to paper. it made people CRY. i've never done that before! (well i have but not. in a 'i wrote something cool' way.) there's real growth, and a real world behind it... idk. also some people really liked it and said such nice things abt it that EYE cried. so . <3 (god fucking willing it someday passes that ted lasso fic in kudos. please.)

zero pressure (like so zero pressure it's negative pressure. i've created a vacuum.) tagging @foggieststars @leclercenjoyer @wewentcarracing @userkritaaay @its-all-papaya and @mecachrome <3333

[ilyfynn]

its a beautiful life. fynn hits 100k written this year. it's been a long journey and i thank everyone who has ever even clicked onto a work of mine. its difficult, sometimes, being stupid and a writer simultaneously. ignore the low numbers im a small fandom writer and i have a nother account ok

similarly, my mcsrtober also reached 1k hits which makes it my first fic with 1k hits yay thank you <3

highlights below. im gonna ramble ofc i am

swallow's mate. yeah its not the longest fic ever but i put so much time and effort and i am so so so so so so so proud of it and will always be. the world is a river of crackling chaos and i am the vengeance that simmers inside it

hiraeth. YES I WILL FINISH IT ONE DAY. ITS GOT REALLY NICE LORE. being the first bigger project i've tried to write since i unretired from mcsr, i adored being able to a) worldbuild and b) WRITE IN CHAPTERS. its so hard to write fics in one go my patience wears itself out

lappel du vide. you know nothing about lappel yet. you know nothing, but the plan was like 4k words and now you know something. boy do i have things planned for these stupid ranked runners. the darkness came when doogile was just a boy, after all

mcsrtober. im not as proud of my mcsrtober because i like editing things over and over and over again and mcsrtober simply doesnt allow the time for that. however i think i cooked really hard on some of the prompts and the ones yet to come (peepocute banger one on the 26th i think). like day 2. a full-on 4+1 fic. beautiful

there's a lot to come, i think. theres so many thoughts and not enough time to express them, and im only going to get more and more busy from now on. it's going to be walright. you know, theres a cool thing called a winter big bang, and the word count is projected to be around 18k...and its a oneshot...........................

then i can retire from writing longfics in one go and go back to chaptered becuase WOW chaptered is easier. AHHHHHHH

thank you for reading. this and all my fics. thank you @goober890 (i would be a liar if i didnt say i tried to tag ur ao3 😭) for being the first ever member of the fynn fanclub. thank you @bioluminescentfrog for putting up with me through the whole process of the fics to come. its been - not quite a long journey, but an eventful one all the same. from one mongey to another, i salute all of you.

i