#i mean either way i'm holding off for a bit longer because i like keeping my club quiz characters at roughly the same levels

[ghost-proofbaby]

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY FOUR

in which you and eddie win the bet.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 7k+

→ a/n: oh, holy fuck. holy fucking shit. i have no words, because i know it's not really over yet (we still have an epilogue, friends! don't forget that!) but... i did it. i finished another fic. that's just... insane?

thank you to everyone who has been so very kind and supportive of this fic. i owe you all the world. i'm sure i'll either make a sappy post between now and thursday, or i'll get extra sappy in the a/n on the epilogue, but for now - please know you have all my love. <3

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

24:00 ─────────────── ㅇ 24:00

DINGUS: hey, i facetimed them for last hour’s proof. had to work out when they wanted me to head over and pick her up. 

BIRDIE: both still alive? both still well? 

DINGUS: so it seemed. 

ARGYLE  😎: what a relief! I knew they had it in them

JOHNNY BOY: They still have to last one more hour. 

NANCE: They’ll last the hour. Have a little faith, babe. 

JOHNNY BOY: Still don’t like the fact we’ve just started calling them instead of requesting the photo proof. I mean, how do we not know they’re lying? Did you talk to both of them when YOU called, Nance? 

NANCE: Yes, I told you guys that.

NANCE: Besides, you guys already know that Eddie hates having his picture taken. We’re lucky we ever got picture proof to begin with.

DINGUS: also i JUST facetimed them??? physically saw them?? your lack of trust in me and nance kind of hurts jon

BIRDIE: @NANCE hey can you call ME babe next? 

HOUR TWENTY FOUR – 4:00 PM

“Hey there, love birds. Glad to see you didn’t kill each other.”

Steve. 

You wait for Eddie’s arm to leave you, for him to put space between the two of you, but he doesn’t. He keeps you pressed flush to his side as if the sudden arrival of a friend doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. 

“Hey, Harrington,” he even casually greets first. 

He’s making no move to get up off the floor. 

Just a little bit longer. Let me sit here and live in this moment a little bit longer.

“Munson,” Steve nods to Eddie before setting his sights on you, “Doll. Nice to see you, kind of glad I’m not having to fish you out of the canals.” 

You feel it — Eddie’s arm tenses behind you ever so slightly at Steve’s nickname. Clearly, it’s still a sore spot for him to work through. 

“I was feeling generous,” Eddie shrugs as if he hadn’t just revealed a flash of jealousy to you. You’re not even sure if he knows that you felt it. But it was there, in the slightest tightening of his grip and the flexing of his bicep behind your shoulder.

“Generous? I think you were feeling friendly,” Steve waves his hand between the two of you, as if he thought he was pointing out the obvious. 

If he thought this was close, he’d faint at the imagery of you on the kitchen counter, Eddie’s face between your legs as he begged for you to let him touch you. 

Just as you had noticed Eddie’s jealousy, he notices the way you suddenly heat up, shifting in your seat ever so slightly. That pull on the corner of his lips tells you all you need to know. You kind of hate how easily the two of you can finally read each other. You kind of love the way he’s looking at you as if he’s thinking the exact same thing. 

“Do I get my free punch now?” you finally speak up, tone flat as you muster a glare in Steve’s direction. You’re forgoing all polite and pretend oblivion. 

Every single one of you here knows what happened. The bare bones of it, at least.

Eddie looks at you curiously, “Excuse me?” 

Steve only grins, holding out his arms as if welcoming you, “Take your best shot.” 

You stand quickly, and Steve even flinches. He clearly had thought it was all a bit, but you were deathly serious. After the night you’d had, you wanted to punch something, anything. 

“Hold on,” Eddie fumbles to follow you as you stand in front of Steve, your eyebrow cocked as you pause, “Hold on, why are you punching Harrington?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. ‘She’d never go for me, why would she go for you?’” you remind him, and fully expect for hurt to flash across his face. Instead, merriment continues to tug on his lips, “That ring a bell?”

“It might,” Eddie drawls, slowing down his movement to stand more casually, no longer in a rush to break up the fight. His eyes flash with something, with some sort of affection as your hand curls into a fist threateningly and you continue to glare daggers at Steve, “‘S cute to see you defending my honor, sweetheart.” 

Your knees almost physically wobble. The nickname that once struck such anger and irritation in you has become your favorite thing, something that can so easily elicit such a physical reaction. Any taunting has dissipated from his tone when he falls from his tongue now. Adoration takes its place.

Steve looks between you two for a second before his face twists up, “God, I think I liked it better when you two hated each other.” 

“Never really hated each other,” Eddie corrects Steve, but his eyes never leave yours. 

“Right, must have slipped my mind.”

One of the questions that had been torturing you has now been answered — Eddie would, in fact, be acting differently around your friends. It’s almost enough that you feel no need to punch Steve.

Almost.

“Where do you want it?” you tear your gaze from Eddie, looking back to Steve now expectantly, “Cheek? Nose? Chin? Jaw?”

Steve’s eyes widen. “My God, have you just been dreaming of this moment for the last hour?”

“I have.” 

Eddie leans back against the wall, still watching and still smirking as he crosses his arms. 

“I know Eddie’s your boyfriend now but-“

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you correct him quickly, but something inside of you twists at saying that.

He wasn’t your boyfriend. You two had just agreed you’d need time apart before even thinking of exploring what this new chapter will bring you two. So why does it feel so wrong? Why do you suddenly feel like a pathetic teenager, desperate to bestow some cheesy title upon her crush? 

Eddie nods when you suddenly look at him, as if he can read your mind, “I’m not her boyfriend. Just… her scary dog.”

Scary dog privilege. And God, does that moment feel light years in the past now. Years ago rather than hours ago. His promise to protect you suddenly rings truer now. If you ever did find yourself in trouble, you knew he’d answer your call. You knew now why his protection only extended to you. You finally, finally understood.

“Scary dog?” Steve squints at Eddie, and his judgmental demeanor has fully returned, “What the fuck does that even mea-“

He doesn’t get to finish the sardonic sentiment. The slap of your palm interrupts him.

“Ow!” he yelps out, head snapping from the force of the hit and hands already coming up defensively. 

Eddie pushes off the wall the moment Steve’s hands are up in the air, “Lay a hand on her in retaliation, Harrington, and I’m breaking your arm.” 

All the joking, cocky demeanor has faded. Like he had said — scary dog privilege. It applies to more than just pricks at the bar.

“I’m not,” Steve grumbles, rubbing at the red imprint now singing his cheek, “Jesus Christ, I said a punch.” 

You fight a smile, “I don’t know how to throw a punch.”

“I can teach you,” Eddie pipes up, now standing beside you, hovering in your orbit. 

“Don’t-“ Steve puts out a warning finger, “-encourage her. I only said you could punch me because I knew you couldn’t throw a punch!” he continues to cradle his face, now pouting at you, “Do you feel better now?” 

You only answer with a triumphant smile. Because your palm is stinging, and you know violence isn’t the answer, but yeah. You do feel a little bit better. 

“I don’t,” Eddie hums. He only has to take one step forward for Steve to back up, throwing out defensive eyes as he narrows his eyes, “Think I deserve to get a slap in, too, Stevie.” 

“Fuck that,” Steve spits, eyes wide with genuine fear that makes you want to giggle, “You do know how to throw a punch. If I’m letting you get a free one in, I deserve twenty four hours notice.” 

“Then consider this your notice.” 

Is this what I had always been missing out on? 

You always knew Eddie was playful with everyone, had witnessed how he joked with friends, but you’d never been included. The thought that this was the new normal makes your heart nearly burst. To be on Eddie’s side finally, to be in his good graces properly, makes you feel as if you belong more than any private movie night with Steve or impromptu dinner date with Robin. More than any night out with Nancy. More than any smoke session with Argyle, and more than any literature debate with Jonathan.

It’s as if Eddie was the missing link. You never felt you belonged, because you’d always ached for your rightful spot at his side, not just amongst the group.

The three of you stand in a makeshift circle and every single one of you smiles. Even Steve, through his slipping pout and swollen cheek, is grinning. 

Suddenly, it’s not quite as heavy as it once felt.

Everything has changed. Leaving now is not leaving forever. 

“I’d pay to see that,” you comment, taking a daring step to bump shoulders with Eddie. His eyes meet yours, his dimples come to life, and suddenly — you’re home, “Think I can get a front row seat to you beating Steve’s ass?” 

Steve starts to protest but Eddie only nods eagerly, “I think that can be arranged.” 

“I am once again reminding you two that I liked your screaming matches more than whatever this,” his hand flails, motioning to the way you two are standing closer to one another than you are him, “whole teaming-up-against-me bit is.”

“We’re not dating,” you’re reiterating as Eddie laughs out, “Stop being a crybaby.” 

You look at one another again. Another foot in the door of your newfound home, another look into your new place to rest your head. It’s as if you’re just now realizing you’ve spent the entire year missing Eddie, even as he was right there in front of you. 

“Well, God save us all when you two are finally dating,” Steve mumbles with a shake of his head.

“If-“ Eddie starts to correct, but you stop him.

It’s not an if when it comes to you two dating, you decide. It’s a when.

“I’ll send a gift basket when the day comes,” you snark. The look that Eddie sends you could heal every wound ever left behind, right then and there. 

You’re home. When Eddie throws his arm around your shoulders and Steve rolls his eyes at you two (affectionately, even if he’d deny it), you know you’re home.

—

But then, you actually do have to go home. 

You try to put it off. The three of you occupy Eddie’s living room for a while, Steve complaining about the way Robin woke him up endlessly throughout the night and how he never did finish that assignment due in his English Literature class. It reminds you that life will continue on; you have to go back to work and school, deal with daily annoyances that should seem bigger than all that’s happened with Eddie tonight, but they don’t. They all seem minuscule now, really. 

“Do we still have to send photo proof?” Eddie asks once Steve’s tirade has waned. You’re sat between the two boys, Steve’s body turned almost completely to face the two of you while you and Eddie slowly sink back into the cushions. 

You’re sure if Steve knew the activities that had taken place on this couch, he would not be sitting so comfortably. If at all.

Steve sighs at the mention of the bet, “You probably should. Jonathan’s been antsy about it the entire time. Me and Nance tried to cover for you guys, lying about calling and stuff but-“

“Why would you lie?” you inquire, uncurling a bit from your overly comfortable position to stop from falling asleep and actually participate in the conversation. 

“Because, unlike the other idiots,” Steve gives a pointed look at you and then Eddie, “We had a hunch about what was going on here. And it’s about time, by the way.” 

You think over his words for a second before you look at Eddie with sudden embarrassment, “Have you- Oh my God, have you been telling Nancy what we’ve been doing?” 

“What?” Eddie sits up straighter, looking just as panicked, “No. No, absolutely not, I-“

“What have you guys been doing?”

Both of you ignore Steve as Eddie continues on.

“-just spoke to her on the phone once or twice. But I didn’t give her any details. Have you been telling Steve what we did?” 

Steve, still being ignored, repeats himself, “What have you guys been doing?” 

“Absolutely not,” you scrunch your nose at the thought of being that honest with Steve. You loved him, truly, but not enough to tell him about those kinds of things, “I’d rather sleep in the canals than tell him.” 

“What have you guys been doing?” 

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up, and he mockingly stabs himself, “Ouch, sweetheart.”

“Not like that,” you backtrack, but more casually as the worry of Steve and Nancy knowing the truth, “I just meant-“

Eddie interrupts with a hand on your knee and a smile on his face, “I know what you meant. I’m just fucking with you. I feel the same way with Nance.” 

“Guys?” Steve grows further impatient, “I- What the fuck did you guys do? Oh my God, is it even safe to sit on this fucking couch right now?” 

“You don’t wanna know,” you say.

“No, it isn’t,” Eddie says. 

It earns him a slap on his stomach as he leans over in laughter at the way Steve launches out of his seat.

“You guys- No. No fucking way,” Steve brushes at the back of his jeans, as if they’re contaminated, “Nope. No way. You’re just fucking with me, Munson.” 

“Am I?” 

Another slap lands on Eddie’s shoulder as he laughs harder. 

“Steve,” you turn to your friend, trying to smile sweetly, “Sit back down.” 

“No.”

“You just said you don’t believe-“ 

“We should get going,” Steve insists through his blush, “You two should take your final picture and we should get going.” 

Eddie finally stops chuckling, leaning back up and against the armrest, his ankle cross in front of your shins as he stretches his legs out and sighs, “God, you should see your face right now, Harrington.” 

Steve’s scowl deepens, “It’s not funny. Take the fucking photo so we can go.” 

You make no move to dig out your phone, because you know. You know once you take this photo, you’ll be leaving, and this will all be over. Once you step foot back into that hallway, time apart begins. Learning how to navigate this new unknown with Eddie begins. It terrifies you, it saddens you, it exhausts you. You hadn’t been prepared for this part of the night.

Even before the confessions, you hadn’t given much thought to the ending of the twenty four hours. You’d assumed it would end in bloodshed and a larger than life fight, probably before the clock even ran out. You’d never assumed it could end in laughing, inside jokes between you and Eddie, in something not only bitter but also sweet. 

“Phone, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers as he leans forward and holds out his hand with the palm up, “Before we traumatize the poor guy any further.” 

“I will wait in the car, I swear to God-“ Steve starts to protest as you finally dig your phone out of your pocket. 

You’re looking down, unable to meet Eddie’s gaze in fear of him picking up on your faint sadness, as you mumble, “Get your panties out of their twist, Steve. Jesus.” 

Eddie snorts at that, right as you pass your phone over. 

Steve doesn’t comment when you willingly tell Eddie the code to unlock your phone, or the way you let him hold it rather than you. He doesn’t comment on the arm that Eddie seems to constantly keep around you now. 

He’s doing it while he can. Cherishing being able to hold you at any capacity before you leave and the distance begins. The time apart you two agreed upon won’t be for forever, but it still kills a buried part of him that had just begun to sprout roots again. A thing made of hope that he planned to tend to this time around. 

“So, how do we wanna do this?” he asks in a strained tone, as if asking that question and throttling you two closer to the finish line physically pains him.

You hope it pains him, selfishly, because it pains you. “No idea.”

“We’ve gotta make it a good one.”

“We do.” 

Eddie suddenly lights up with an idea as his thumb sweeps across your screen, opening your photos’ app and scrolling up to the first picture you two had taken at the beginning of this night. 

“Up for a trip down nostalgia road?” he teases, wiggling his brows as he holds the phone up for you to get a clearer view of the picture.

Eddie, flipping off the camera and scowling. You, hardly smiling with a pathetic thumbs up. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out, nodding slowly. 

It’s unspoken, what happens next. The camera app is opened and Eddie returns your phone to your grasp. The two of you resituate to mimic the photo as closely as possible while Steve fiddles with some of the items on Eddie’s entertainment center. 

You stretch out your arm, put your thumb up into view, blink away any tears burning the back of your eyes. Eddie’s hand has taken position as well. 

You snap the photo before you can think too hard on it. 

“Think that’ll be the winner?” Eddie curiously asks as you immediately bring the phone close to your face, swiping to view the snapshot just taken. And when you do, with the refreshed memory of that first photo, your heart physically aches. 

Almost an identical image. At a quick glance, it’s the same Eddie and the same you from the first one. But the similarities fade the moment you look closer. Eddie isn’t scowling, not genuinely – those damn dimples are even making an appearance as his eyes were squinted up in a valiant effort to fight off the smile he wears now. And your smile, your smile, is no longer half-assed. It’s something real, something full, something even a bit sad. The same face you wear when saying goodbye to an old friend and trying to hold back any tears until their train has long since left the station. You can almost physically see your vines in this photo wrapping around the two of you, clinging so desperately to avoid any separation. Time apart. You’re regretting suggesting that now. 

It’s a cute photo. A photo of two friends, if you could call yourself and Eddie that now. 

“All done?” Steve interrupts the moment, both of you and Eddie only staring at the photo. You take a peak at him out of your peripherals, and you can see it written plainly on his face – he’s feeling all the same emotions as you. Something sad, something nostalgic, something reluctant. “Not to rush the process but… I may or may not have a hot date tonight to get ready for.” 

Eddie tears his gaze from the photo, “A hot date?”

“A hot date,” Steve nods, a boyish grin gracing his lips, “And I’m picking her up in… t-minus…” he pauses, checking his watch, “Three hours.” 

“Smart move. Charm her before I rearrange your face and all.” 

Steve throws his head back in a groan, “You two won’t be letting that go any time soon, will you?” 

“Nope,” you chime in as you swipe to open up the groupchat, not offering Steve a single glance until you’ve sent off the final addition of photo proof to the rest of your friends. You consider adding some sort of sarcastic comment, some well earned bragging and a boisterous told you so, but you don’t. 

It doesn’t feel like you’ve won. Leaving this apartment, this battleground, with all the new bruises and healed wounds you’ve acquired over the span of the twenty four hours doesn’t taste like victory. Really, it tastes like… nothing. 

There’s no victory, no solid ending for you to cling to. It’s simply ending and there’s still thousands of words you have to say to Eddie. You need more time, another twenty four hours, to fill with every single thing you never told him. More casual confessions of honesty, more hours wasted in his bed, more insignificant bickering to partake in. It’s all on your tongue and desperate for attention, and yet, you know you can’t succumb to it. 

You have to go. It’s the last thing you want to do, but you have to. 

Steve checks his phone when it buzzes with the notification of your message you sent and opens his mouth, no doubt about to comment on your lack of words with the message, but you’re already standing. It’s like ripping off a bandaid. You need to get it over with, get out of this apartment before you decide you’d rather sink right into these couch cushions and decay just to ensure you never have to really leave. 

Eddie’s quick to follow. 

“Let’s go,” you say to Steve, grabbing up your bag, not looking at Eddie at the risk of losing all composure. 

Neither boy fights you, following you right up to the front door. Steve leads, opening it back up as reality slams you in the chest. As if there’s an invisible barrier here, and you know that in crossing it, you’ll be leaving a piece of yourself behind in apartment 2C. 

Leaving now is not leaving forever. 

But it sure does feel like it. 

Steve awkwardly looks over your shoulder at Eddie, some silent communication you only see his half of as he shrugs and does a timid wave, turning to leave. 

One foot hangs midair, your toes beginning to push through that barrier, when Eddie grabs you. 

“Hey,” he breathes as he wraps his fingers around your bicep, forcing you to turn to face him. You let him, your body moving to his accord but your eyes still not meeting his, “You good?” 

You take a deep breath in through your nose, “Me? Yeah. Yeah, I’m great. I’m… I’m good.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Positive?”

“Will you look at me, then?” 

Reluctantly, so very reluctantly, your eyes meet his. Big, brown doe eyes. This close to them, you can see the way they shine to match yours. You both probably look insane to Steve right now, but you don’t care. Between the sleep deprivation and all the emotions you’ve had to experience over the last day, the tears are well earned.

You almost reach out and kiss him. You almost press up onto your toes and put your lips on his, almost pour every emotion you’re feeling in the moment into a far from innocent peck. 

But you don’t.

“We did it,” you croak blandly, “We won the bet.” 

As if the Universe is screaming in agreement, you can hear a chime in the distance signifying the hour. Probably the church you recall passing in the middle of the night when the two of you had ventured off to the parking garage. It almost feels as if it’s mocking you. 

“We did it,” he echoes as his grip on your bicep loosens. You expect him to let it fall back to his side, nearly begging out loud for him to retract his touch from you so you don’t do something stupid like stay.

You swallow down thick emotions, just like molasses, “I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

Time. You two needed time apart. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, as he does the one thing you had somehow hoped he wouldn’t yet yearned for ardently – the hand that had wrapped around your arm now cups your cheek, thumb stroking your skin so softly, you nearly melt in his doorway, “I’ll see you around, sweetheart.” 

It doesn’t taste like victory, yet it doesn’t taste quite like loss. It’s bittersweet. 

You still don’t kiss him. And he doesn’t kiss you, even as his touch against your cheek lingers so heavily before he pulls away. 

You cross the barrier and find you were right. You feel that piece of you tear off and flutter to the ground, and you begin to wonder when you’ll have the chance to come back and reclaim not just it, but Eddie.

—

Steve didn’t speak much on the drive back to your dorm, and you’re sort of grateful. 

If you were a good friend, you’d ask more about his date. You’d get him giddy as he spills the details about this girl and his plans for the night, chastise and tease him all in good fun. You’d be smiling and making plans for coffee tomorrow morning so he could tell you all about how the date went. 

But you’re not a good friend.

You sit in your silence the entire drive, and you pick at your nails, and you selfishly stay focused on Eddie. On all of your own qualms and all your own issues, worrying about what comes next and already feeling your chest tighten the moment you start to think about when see you around will come.

The two of you never discussed that, did you? There was no discussion of just how much time was needed apart. 

Steve shifts the car into park in the west lot, right outside your building, “Alright, stop making your cuticles bleed for two seconds and tell me what’s wrong.” 

Your hands pause exactly as he requests, caught red-handed. “Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Something’s obviously wrong. I told you to go get him – and yet, he’s still not your boyfriend.” 

“It’s complicated,” your voice finally breaks. There’s no tears this time, just confusion and desperation clawing at your throat. 

Because, was it complicated? Was it really?

The last year was what had been complicated. All the pretending and the fights and the tension. All the false beliefs and all the lies overlapping with one another. That was complicated. But this? The feelings you harbored and finally acknowledged for the boy you just left behind? 

That wasn’t really complicated. 

And Steve knows this, you can hear it in his sigh, “I think that’s the issue.” 

“What?” you turn your head towards him, scrunch your brows, even your breathing and try to shoo away the image of Eddie’s wet eyes. 

You wish you would have kissed him. 

“Look, i just think you two keep making things complicated when they should be simple-” 

You didn’t want to hear it. Childish as it might be, you do not want to have to hear this speech. Because you know Steve’s right.

“I’ll see you later, Steve.”

“Wait-”

You don’t wait. You slam the door in his face once you’ve got your footing outside of his car, truly earning your title of bad friend.

Awful. You weren’t just a bad friend, you were an awful friend. 

And yet you can’t think on it, leaving it be until you had the time to properly dwell on how you’d apologize later. All you care about now is getting inside your dorm, moping and being miserable on your own. Your strides are longer and faster than they were even when you’d backtracked to Eddie’s apartment, determined to get behind closed doors and to properly mourn all that had been gained and all that had been lost in the last twenty four hours. 

Twenty four hours ago, you were reluctant to even step foot in Eddie’s apartment. And now, it’s the only place you really want to be. 

Luck refuses to be on your side as you slam into your dorm room, sweaty and tired and just fucking emotional, only to find your roommate there. There will be no dramatic crying, no cinematic scene with your back pressed to the door as you fight back sobs, it seems. 

“You look rough,” is all she notes, sparing you a second glance before she returns to whatever she was tasking on at her desk. Her makeup, you think.

Good. Maybe she’ll be heading out, leaving you to suffer alone like you wanted. 

“Yeah,” is all you can answer her as the door clicks shut behind you. 

Rough’s a good way to put it. 

“Think you’ll be here tonight?” she asks, still distracted, “Troy and I are hanging out today – he spent the night here last night, by the way – and if you’re gone again, I was thinking about inviting him back over. Only if you’re cool with it, or already have plans, though. Our RA has this final and I didn’t even have to sneak him in last night-”

She continues on her rambles, never looking your way as you drop your bag onto your bed, and quickly lift yourself to lay right next to it. 

Normal. You were having to go back to fucking normal. Your worries were no longer revolving around Eddie or making it through the next hour, no longer preoccupied with keeping your friends up to date in order to ensure a payout of five hundred dollars – now, you just had to worry about boys named Troy and possible room checks by your RA. Finals to be taken, essays to be finished, shifts to be covered at the diner so you’d have enough cash to go out with your friends next weekend. 

You should be relieved. But it all just feels impossibly heavy. 

Your roommate catches on quickly, and when you only reply to let her know you’ll be here tonight, she stops talking. She focuses on finishing her makeup and gathering her things, hardly even offering you a goodbye as you shift to curl up more comfortably in the center of your mattress. 

You should also know better than what you decide to do next. You can’t help it, though, as you tug your phone out of your pocket and unlock it. You don’t listen to the voice inside your head that screams stop as you click on your photos’ app. Ignore the animal inside that whines as you scroll, and you click on the very first photo of you and Eddie. 

It’s painful, but you have nothing better to do in your solitude. You don’t linger on the first photo too long, still being fresh in your mind, before quickly swiping along. 

The set of matching photos you and Eddie took of one another, black and white socks covering touching toes visible in each one. You nearly laugh at the Darth Vader figurine both of you took turns holding. You nearly cry when you realize you were, in fact, smiling in your photo. A small one, a forced one, but there nonetheless. 

The selfie from the bar, your amaretto sour and Eddie’s whiskey & coke lifted towards the camera. The way both of you had tried to look annoyed, over exaggerated and furrowed brows paired with pouting lips. Your thumb swipes subconsciously over the photo for a second too long, and you’re startled when you realized it was a live photo. The moment after the photo was taken, Eddie’s eyes had moved to look at you. And in that live photo, you watched every ounce of annoyance evaporate. Leaving behind something you recognized now. Leaving behind eyes sparkling with a brief glimpse of adoration. 

There’s something else you better recognize now in the next photo. The picture you’d taken when Eddie had locked himself into his room, only opening up long enough to insist you took the photo, the one that guaranteed you your money. You had been right – there was a flood of regret on his face. You hadn’t imagined it. But you had also been wrong; he was never looking at your own rotted vines and mourning them; he was looking at his own, tethered and shredded, regretting that he had ever taken an axe to them. You don’t press down to see this live photo. You don’t want to witness that door slamming in your face again. 

The two photos taken in his bed. The one in which both your faces are scrunched from the flash, in which you can see the physical wall between you two.  And the one in the dark, where you both wear tired smiles, unaware of the night to come.

The photo on the bike, a helmet mostly covering your blushing cheeks, but not Eddie’s. 

The photo from the parking garage, meant just for you two. 

The photos from Betty’s. You don’t linger on the one of you; you do linger on the one of him. 

Each swipe only makes your heart ache more viciously, painful and sharp reminders of the night you had had. You don’t have to press down on another single photo to witness the live outplay of it – each memory is running through your mind in real time as you retrace your steps of the night. Twenty four hours, twenty four steps. With each photo, you watch yourself grow more relaxed, watch smiles come easier without your awareness and finally pinpoint all the care Eddie had been looking at you with the entire time. 

You notice the lack of photos from the last few hours. You nearly scorn yourself for it, but there had been no time. There was no time for memories frozen in time amongst all that hard honesty and those sacrilegious revelations.

Except there was one more moment in time frozen for you. You’re quick to exit the photo app finally, leaving behind that picture of Eddie with full cheeks only to open up your text messages.

Your text thread with him. Filled to the brim with bad pastry jokes and underlying need. You remember that urgent want to comfort him, to remind him he was enough. To erase all the hurt and all the old scars caused by a life from before your time with him you still hadn’t become fully privy to. 

You’re still rereading the last message, bet you wouldn’t say that to my face, when suddenly a new message appears. 

EDDIE: Make it home okay? 

Space and time. They are the last things you want, that you need from him right now. 

YOU: yep. my roommate just left. 

EDDIE: Is your dorm bed as comfortable as you remember? 

YOU: like sleeping on a cloud. 

You wish you were still in his bed. You wish you were back at the beginning, with him rather than all alone. 

EDDIE: Oh shit, you’re trying to sleep? Sorry

EDDIE: I’ll stop bothering you and leave you to it. Sweet dreams. 

No, you nearly scream at your phone screen, come back and bother me. Bother me for the rest of my days for all I care. 

You’d never sleep another wink if it meant having him. You remember what you told him about starting over, starting fresh. And maybe taking a much needed nap would offer that. Maybe sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time would be the smart choice, letting you awake with a clearer mind and better intentions.

But you don’t want that. The animal inside still clings to all that has happened. 

Something about that makes you brave.

YOU: i never said that, and you’re not bothering me.

EDDIE: Didn’t you say you wanted a nap earlier?

YOU: that was earlier. i’m wide awake now. 

An internal battle continues to take place. Your mind whispers liar, knowing damn well that if you put down the phone and turned your cheek to bury into your pillow, you’d be out like a light within seconds. 

EDDIE: Ah. I see. 

You fiddle with your thumbs for a second, stomach churning as you try to come up with a response to keep the conversation going. Technically, when you had said the two of you needed time apart after all that had happened, it should have meant interactions like this as well. Texting each other was not offering each other space.

But he’d started it. That was on him.

YOU: do you remember what i said about space? and starting over? 

EDDIE: I do. I’m not very good with giving you space, it seems. 

YOU: well, considering you’re on the other side of town, i’d say we’ve got the physical sense of space down. 

There’s a pause in his replies that causes you to sit up. A falter. You curse him for not having a smartphone as well, for not having the privilege of being notified whether he was just taking his time typing or if he had put the phone down. You really hoped it was the former, practically wished upon every star that that was what was happening. You hoped he was glued to his phone as you were yours. 

Maybe he still had that photo he’d taken a few hours ago, the one you swore you’d heard him take as you dozed off. Maybe he was still staring at it like you had done with all of your photos. 

EDDIE: About that…

You stare at the message, the hidden meaning behind it completely lost on you. 

YOU: About what? 

EDDIE: I’m not home right now. 

Your heart clenches. 

YOU: You’re not?

EDDIE: I’m not. 

YOU: Eddie, where the hell are you right now?

Your mind reels with all the possible choices. He could be at the bar, at the parking garage, at Nancy’s place. He could be anywhere. 

But then he only sends a picture in response, and you know where he is. 

You nearly topple into three other students from how you sprint down the hallway. You don’t even grab your key to your dorm room, skipping the elevators and nearly throwing yourself down the few flights of stairs in haste. You don’t care how your lungs cry out, you don’t care how your thighs burn, you don’t care how your shoulder aches from how roughly you slam open that front door of the building. You don’t care about the strange looks you get on your way out. You don’t care about the odd angle you twisted your ankle in on that last step. 

The only thing you care about is the boy standing there, helmet off and balanced on the seat of his parked motorcycle that he leans on, arms crossed as his eyes light up at the erratic sight of you. 

You don’t even check for any traffic in the parking lot as you make your way to him. 

“I’m sorry,” he calls out once you’re close enough to hear him, “I know we said give it time and shit, but you left, and I just-” 

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence. 

When you make it to Eddie, you’re in no business to carry anymore regret with you. This time, you don’t just yearn to kiss him, to wrap your arms around him, to pour out all those emotions you were feeling across tongues. 

You do it. You kiss him, uncaring for all the stares of fellow students. He nearly falls backwards into his bike from the force of you colliding against him, but he’s quick to catch himself as his hands find your waist. 

“You-” you pull back, gasping a bit to start to scold him before his lips follow and interrupt you, “Fucking-” Push and pull. You retreat, and he follows, “Idiot.” 

His hands squeeze around you, tugging you a stumbling step closer so that your chests are flushed against one another.

“I am,” he mumbles against your lip, the tip of his nose grazing over your cheek as he refuses to let anymore distance be put between the two of you, “I am a fucking idiot. I’m sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing.” 

His hands cradle your face and he kisses you this time, reaffirming that he felt everything you had. All those words you hadn’t said, all his own admissions he’d withheld, spill between clashing teeth and eager lips. He takes your breath away, shamelessly, greedily. And you let him. You offer all the air that’s left in your lungs up to him on a silver platter. 

When the two of you finally pull apart, eyes opening wide and foreheads pressing tightly to one another, he’s grinning like a fool. 

“So, I had a better idea than time apart,” he murmurs, “What if we just… start over?” 

“Start over?” you question wearily. 

He nods, “Yeah. Just… Just pretend this last year and all our bullshit didn’t happen. Start fresh. Let me not be a massive dick this time.” 

His hands drop from your face as he takes a step back, taking you in fully. You want to shy under his gaze, but instead you can only melt. His fondness is a warmth like no other, capturing you by the crown of your head and pouring down over you in waves. 

“Okay,” you finally agree, feeling your own cheeks spread and ache in a lovesick smile. Coming home, that’s what this felt like. “Okay, we can start over.” 

“Great,” the homecoming warmth only spreads as he straightens up his posture. A very serious look overcomes his face, laced with determination for a brief second until he relaxes it into a friendly smile, doleful eyes meeting yours as every single flower he had ever planted in your chest blooms like a spring morning. He sticks his hand out, nearly making you snort, “Hi, I’m Eddie.” 

You can’t help it. His front door is open, a warm glow within welcoming you. 

You ignore his hand entirely as you impulsively reach up and interlock your fingers at the nape of his neck, tugging him into you for another kiss. 

He pulls back far too soon for your liking, but his hands have also found their spot against the small of your back, “Do you greet all the new strangers you meet like this?” 

You roll your eyes, “Shut up.” 

He pulls you back in for a chaste peck, and it tastes like home. 

“I like you,” you whisper into the limited space between the two of you, “I mean it. I like you so fucking much, Edward Munson.” 

He grins, cracking your chest wide open with hope, “The feeling’s mutual.”

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[corroded-hellfire]

Hi gorgeous a fic request idea it's my first time requesting so sorry if I'm doing it wrong! What about reader being insecure about herself and worrying she's not smart or hot enough for Eddie and it's just Eddie being confused bc how could she think that wen he's the town freak?? and then reassuring her and just lots of fluff

Ah, this is so relatable! I know I need Eddie to reassure me. Also, the only way to request wrong is by being rude and you most definitely were not 💕

Words: 1.2k

You’re not sure what caused the recent feeling of inadequacy, but you just can’t shake it. The last few weeks it feels like a storm has been rolling in bit by bit, always adding something new to the pile of things you already dislike about yourself. The little things that have always irked you in the back of your mind steadily keep making their way forward, pushing and shoving like there’s a clearance sale on your happiness and they want first dibs. 

It doesn’t matter that your grades are holding steady because you answered a question wrong in class today when the teacher called on you. You’re such an idiot. There’s a new pimple growing in like a second head near your lips. You’re so gross. The weather be damned, your hair is going to look a wreck rain or shine. You’re such a mess. The clothes the other girls wear are flattering and beautiful, making yours look like dirty dish rags in comparison. You’re such a loser. 

Despite trying your damnedest to hide how you’re feeling from the world, your boyfriend knows you too well for that. Eddie notices the way you lose focus, your attention drifting somewhere else—internally, he’s afraid. 

Your latest zone out is while the two of you are sitting on his couch, watching a movie. A part that you’ve laughed at a million times before comes on and Eddie can tell your brain hasn’t even registered what’s on screen. He keeps stealing glances at you from the corner of his eye, growing more concerned each time. Eventually, he can’t take it anymore. 

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

“Hmm?” You’re broken out of your stupor and meet Eddie’s gaze with glassy eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asks, concern etched deep into his brow.

“What do you mean?” You know your attempt at playing dumb won’t work either—on top of everything else, you’re a shit actress too. 

“You’ve seemed sad lately. Kind of…distant,” Eddie says, taking care to choose his words carefully. He doesn’t want you to feel as if he’s interrogating you but wants to convey his genuine worry and concern.  

Shame floods your body as you realize Eddie has noticed your change lately. Just another thing for you to feel bad about. You shift awkwardly, moving out from under Eddie’s arm, where you were nestled comfortably. 

“N-Nothing’s wrong.”

Eddie gives you a disbelieving look. You can’t blame him; that was some pretty shitty bluffing.

“Sweetheart,” he starts, “you think I don’t know you well enough to tell when something’s wrong? When you’re lying?”

“You do,” you admit, voice low and soft. 

It’s a mutual instinct, though, as you can read Eddie just as well. The sadness in his eyes cracks your heart in two, knowing you’re what’s causing it. 

“Talk to me,” Eddie says, taking one of your hands. He holds your hand in both of his and gently massages it. “What’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know,” you say with a shrug, trying to avoid his eyes. “I just feel…off lately.”

“How so?”

Embarrassment grows inside of you, blooming like a flower—or maybe a weed. It’s hard for you to bring yourself to tell Eddie the truth–it just makes you feel even more pathetic than you already are. There’s no use trying to keep it from him any longer, though. 

“Like I’m not…enough.”

“Enough? Enough of what?” Eddie’s brow furrows in confusion as he keeps rubbing his thumbs along the back of your hands. 

“Well, enough for you,” you admit as you feel your cheeks burn with the humiliation that the truth brings.

“Me?” Eddie’s eyebrows pinch together, and he shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

You breathe out a defeated sigh that breaks Eddie’s heart and take your hand from his grasp. 

“I see all the other girls,” you say, anger creeping into your tone. Not anger at Eddie or at the other girls; anger at yourself for being so inferior. “They’re so pretty and smart and I can’t help but wonder why you want to be with me.”

Every word you say confuses and shocks Eddie even further.

“You…huh?” Eddie says, mind not able to comprehend what’s going on. In his mind, there is not a single dimension or alternate reality where you aren’t enough for him. It’s simply not possible. 

“I’m not hot enough for you,” you say with a sniffle and a shrug. “Or smart enough. Or nice enough, or funny enough—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Eddie says, waving his hands in front of him. “You’re not serious, are you?”

The look on your face and the tears about to spill from your eyes when you look at him tell him that you are, though. Eddie can’t help but let out a breathy chuckle and shake his head.

Your brow furrows at his laughter and a tear escapes your eye and makes its way down your cheek. Panic flashes in Eddie’s eyes when he sees your reaction and he’s quick to remedy the situation. 

“Oh, no, no!” he says. His hands come up to cup your face and his thumb wipes away your rogue tear. “I don’t think it’s funny. Well, in a way I kind of do. You think you’re not enough for me? Sweetheart, you really have no idea how amazing you are, do you?” When your only reply is another sniffle, Eddie sighs. “I don’t understand how you could think that,” he says. “You do know you’re dating the town freak, right?”

“But you’re not,” you insist defiantly. 

“And you’re not all those mean things you think about yourself.” He lets his hands fall down to your lap and takes your smaller ones in his. “Babe, you’re so insanely hot I can’t even believe you noticed me.”

Eddie chuckles and squeezes your hands. “And aren’t you the one always helping me with homework? Don’t I always get better grades when you help me?”

Eddie sighs and leans forward to rest his forehead against yours. You’re both quiet for a few moments. Eddie lets his eyes slip closed for a second before looking at you once again.  

“I hate that you’ve been feeling so down about yourself. I wish you saw yourself like I do. You’d see that you’re the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world. Who is smart, who is kind, who is funny, who is everything she tells herself she’s not.” He leans in and presses a soft, sweet kiss against your lips. “I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world,” he tells you.

“I love you, too,” you reply in a whisper, tear tracks staining your cheeks. 

“Now, look at me,” Eddie says. He sits up straight and looks you in the eye.

“I am,” you say in a small voice.

“Am I lying?”

You know him so well, know when he’s telling even the slightest fib. But there’s no sign of that in Eddie’s eyes nor on his face at all. 

“No,” you admit.

“Come here,” Eddie says with a sigh, opening his arms for you.

Immediately you fall into them and nuzzle your face against his shirt. It’s your safe place; everything is always better when your head is on Eddie’s chest.

“Promise you’ll tell me when you have these thoughts, yeah?” he asks and presses a kiss to the top of your head. “And I’ll remind you that they’re not true. That you’re my gorgeous, brilliant girl. Promise me?”

“I promise,” you say, tilting your head up to look him in the eye.

He kisses your lips a few times, punctuating the message of his words. 

“You're my favorite,” he whispers against your mouth as you part. 

“Favorite what?”

“Everything.”

[barcaatthemoon]

playgirl || alanna kennedy x reader ||

you find alanna charming, albeit a bit infuriating.

minors dni, 18+, smut.

alanna was infuriating to lose against. city thoroughly destroyed united in the first derby of the season, and you were seething because of it. a start was huge for alanna, and while you wanted to be happy for her, you couldn't stand her. every single time that you looked at her, you wanted to punch the smug smirk off of her face.

"so babe, is it your place or mine?" alanna asked as she draped her arm around your shoulders. you had taken a shower in a vain attempt to calm yourself down. now that alanna was so close you with her stupid six pack on display with her crop top, you couldn't deny the feelings of desire you had for her.

"how fucking dense are you? why would i want to go back with you after you spent the last hour taunting me on the pitch?" you asked her. alanna had to admit that she had been a bit of a dick on the pitch, but she felt good with how easy the game was going for city. it wouldn't have been nearly such a walk in the park last season, despite everybody's best efforts.

"because i've got a solid seven inches with your name on it," alanna said. your jaw dropped, but you quickly turned away so that alanna couldn't see the blush on your cheeks. "come on baby, let me help you forget that you just got your ass handed to you."

"charming kennedy, you know just how to make a girl blush." you slapped alanna's shoulder as you moved past her.

"i'll meet you at yours then!" alanna called out after you.

alanna had been over hundreds of times, but you were still feeling nervous as you waited for her. it didn't mean anything to alanna, a point that she had worked hard to hammer in over the course of the last couple of seasons. you guys were having fun, and alanna was the very definition of a player. she came over for a good time, not a long one.

the hookups had been going on for a long time. much longer than alanna said she ever allowed in the beginning. a part of you wondered whether or not she did actually like you, but you tried not to think too hard on it. either she'd make a move or one of you would move on the next person, and your money was always on her leaving you.

you shook those thoughts out of your head as you heard her knock on your door. alanna didn't like to be kept waiting, so you quickly checked over your outfit before you opened up the door. you were far from dressed up, but you had put some thought into your choice of shorts and tank top.

"fuck me, you're hot. i mean jesus christ babe." alanna looked like she was at a loss for words, and yet, she found a way to say the same sentiment over and over again. "god, you're so fucking hot sometimes. come here, i'm not waiting any longer."

alanna let you lead her back to your bedroom with one hand wrapped around her wrist. it wasn't holding hands, something that alanna was pretty careful to avoid with you. she toed the line between girlfriend and fuck buddy recklessly, almost like she was trying to keep you second guessing.

"cute shorts, but they're in my way." alanna wasn't wasting any time with you. she had you out of your clothes before you managed to get to your bed. you felt a bit underdressed with alanna standing there still in her sweatpants and tank top, but she didn't give you much of a chance to think once you were laying down.

every so often, you got shades of the player that alanna had been back in florida. she liked to tease you in a way that was deeply unsatisfying. it was far from unenjoyable, but both you and alanna knew that you'd never cum from it. she wanted you wet enough to make a mess of yourself, and alanna never stopped until she was done.

"alanna please, i need more than this. i need you, please," you tried, but it seemed like no use. alanna didn't let up as she kissed and sucked at your cunt. your hands fisted themselves into her hair in a vain attept to pull her closer. alanna just snickered as she pushed herself up onto her elbows and stared down at you.

"poor little thing, do you need me to fuck you?" alanna asked. you didn't have to answer as alanna began to sit up and move. she didn't even get completely off of the bed to take her sweatpants off, letting them just hang just low enough for her to pull out the strap she had worn over. "do you think you can take this after the game?"

"yes, lan, just fuck me," you told her. alanna nudged your legs fully apart and guided the tip of her dildo towards your entrance. alanna gave you a few teasing strokes as she watched to make sure that you were ready to take her. you bucked your hips to try and chase after her, more than prepared to take every inch of her.

"fuck baby, does that feel good? you look so pretty taking my cock," alanna said as she started to set her pace. she didn't look away from her cunt for a moment, not even as she spoke to you. your eyes drifted down to watch as she thrust in and out of you, more and more of her strap disappearing inside of you as your body grew accustomed to it.

this wasn't the same dildo that you had gotten used to over the past couple of seasons playing against each other. alanna had gone out and bought a new one, just a few inches longer, but quite a bit thicker than what you were used to. she was practically drooling as she watched the way that you stretched to grip her tightly. you could have been fooled into thinking that she was feeling everything from the look on her face as she watched you getting fucked.

"here," you mumbled as you reached for her. alanna let you tug her down for a kiss. it was messy and your teeth knocked together a little as she continued to thrust into you. still, you didn't let up, even as you found it difficult to keep your mouth on hers. alanna refused to let up one bit, not until she was certain that you were cumming around her strap.

"hey, where are you going?" alanna asked as she watched you. she was still on top of you, just watching as you began to drift away. it was hard to keep yourself focused on anything, including her. alanna pouted until you looked her way and smiled at you. "everything okay?"

"perfect," you told her. alanna leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead as she rolled off of you. "hey, don't run out on me. i thought we weren't doing that anymore."

"i'm not running out, i'm just stretching my legs a bit," alanna told you. a part of you didn't believe her, but alanna never made it any further than your living room. you were close to drifting off to sleep when she came back several minutes later, dressed back in her sweatpants and tank top. "see? i'm still right here."

"yes, but i'd like you in bed with me." you sat up on your elbows and stared at her until she came over towards you. alanna sat on the edge of your bed next to where you laid down. "are you too cool to cuddle with me?"

"do i have to keep my hands to myself?" alanna asked.

"when do you ever?" it was a fair question, and apparently exactly what alanna wanted to hear. she let you pull her down onto the bed, nuzzling her face into your chest as she got comfortable. you knew that she'd be gone by the morning, but at least she'd stay until you fell asleep.

[rhiannonsknife]

this is based off of something i saw in your mean dom!jackie blurb but i'm kind of obsessed with the idea of jackie riding your face...

she's so shy about it at first, asking you if you're sure and that she's worried about hurting you but you need her so badly that you reassure her that it'll all be ok and to just "get up there already, please"

her thighs shake as she's lowering herself down onto your face. you eventually get fed up with how slow she's coming down that you wrap your hands around her thighs and pull her down onto your face, not even caring that it lowkey hurt 😭

she's keening at the first feeling of your tongue in her cunt and it's not long before she's grinding herself against your face, hands tangling in your hair as she rides your tongue. it's so sloppy and so wet but at the same time it's so perfect and you're convinced you could die like this, face between her thighs and suffocating against her pussy

-🪐

i can’t thank you enough for picking up on that. because yes!!

so: face riding with jackie <333

whether this is mean!dom jackie from this thought we’re talking about or just jackie in general, i think she’d love the idea of riding your face! she’s probably been fantasizing about it forever before she’s finally brave and comfortable enough to bring it up. (after an insane amount of pillow humping, fucking herself to the thought simply isn’t enough anymore. she needs to ride your face instead.)

so, jackie decides to be bold about it and finally brings it up:

“how long have you been thinking about this?” you ask her, after she’s blurted the words: “i want to sit on your face!” whilst the two of you had been cuddling comfortably. that could’ve gone a bit smoother jackie thinks to herself as she blushes furiously. she half expects you to laugh at her. jeff certainly would have. but then again, she never would’ve wanted to sit on his face to begin with.

“we don’t have to!” she immediately says, shaking her head apologetically. “we can just…go back to watching a movie. or something. you don’t-”

“i want to” you interject.

jackie stares at you blankly. she hadn’t even thought about the possibility of you wanting her to. but, after some more assurance and a lot of fumbling to both get her out of her clothes and find the right position, she’s hovering over you.

at that point, she’s probably still wearing her skirt. you’d been making out for way longer than the ache between her legs could handle, grinding against each other and feeling up the other’s body through too many layers of clothes. now, she’s too impatient, too pent-up to get out of bed and step out of it. so, she keeps it on instead, whilst you’re beneath her in your underwear, licking your lips when you notice the way her inner thighs are glistening with her arousal.

“come here” you urge, reaching around her and holding the back of her thighs. you can feel the muscles in her legs jump under your touch.

“but” jackie points out, shyly biting down on her lower lip. “i don’t wanna hurt you. what if i suffocate you??”

under different circumstances, you would’ve laughed. not now, though, when you can smell her scent when you can see how wet she is for you. and yet jackie is just out of reach from your mouth, depriving you of the heavenly taste of her.

“you won’t” you try again, giving her muscles a firm squeeze that makes her squeal in surprise. “get up here already, jax, please”

you’re not gonna try and pretend like you’re not desperate to finally get a taste of her. to finally eat her out the way you both long for.

when she finally gives in, it is slow, tentative for your sake. jackie doesn’t put her full weight on you, you can tell as much from the way her knees dig into the mattress on either side of your head. you can taste her on your tongue, at least, but you have to cradle your neck to reach her, and she’s still holding back.

so, instead, you reach for her, grab her, and force her down against your mouth. jackie gasps when she truly sits for the first time.

„h-holy shit“ she whispers from above. although you can’t see it from where you’re positioned, jackie’s head has fallen back and she’s panting already.

you only lick through her at first, doing most of the work for her. you lap up the arousal that’s practically dripping from her cunt, humming at the taste of her as the fabric of her skirt flares out around your head. but it isn’t long until jackie takes over, until she’s got enough confidence in her to do what she wants to. what she needs to.

the moment jackie actually starts riding your face, you’re convinced that you could die happy this way. that even if she did suffocate you with her thighs, you wouldn’t mind all that much.

it’s so much all at once and not nearly enough at the same time: the weight of her, grinding against your mouth, your chin, your nose. your whole face, really, smeared in jackie’s arousal.

she grabs a fistful of your hair, tugs on it and pushes you closer, further into her cunt until she’s just bouncing on your tongue, high-pitched moans spilling from her lips while she gets off on your face.

it honestly becomes one of her favorite positions. there are few things she’d rather do in bed, knowing she can simply use your face to get off and then lick it from your skin once she’s done <3

jackie cums so fast like this, too :(( the first time, she might actually apologize for the way she finishes within mere minutes. but, once it becomes something the two of you regularly do, she stops with the apologies altogether, realizing that there’s no point in them whatsoever and that she’ll always end up cumming all over your face in record time. (and just wait until jackie finds out about 69…that position hates to see her coming…)

[suugarbabe]

alright wifey, here's a little request for ya. I'm thinking enzo in a modern au at a haunted house or something and he works there as a scareactor, reader is being dragged there by their friends and gets scared by like everything. maybe a little mean enzo like at first he just finds it funny how actually terrified they get when he scares them so he starts following the group to pop out at them everywhere but like he also thinks it's kinda cute?? also I need him to wear a mask. maybe after reader goes on a mission to find that annoying actor to rip that stupid mask off his face and then they realize oh this guy is kinda fine. hope this makes at least a little bit of sense, love youuu 💕💕💕

I love love love that you suggested Enzo because I think his build (at least how I see him) is perfect for this 😇 and perfect for spoooky season 🎃

an: this turned out waaaay longer than anticipated, i may have gotten carried away in the spirit of the season; hope it does not suck

Frustrated. Livid. Infuriated. Pick a synonym for anger and you were feeling it right now at every single one of your friends that have dragged you to this god awful haunted house. And it seemed like you were the only one who felt this way. Around you were squeals and giggles from people excited to either enter the haunted house or playful screams from those being approached by the scare actors tasked with keeping the patrons adrenaline up before entering the main attraction.

Your arm was looped with your friends next to you and you squeezed her closer as two short clowns came dancing by, giggling and twisting their heads this way and that at the people in line. “Babes, I love you, but if you hold my arm any tighter I might be able to join the crew as the new one armed woman,” Daphne started teasing, even though she, herself, also took another step backwards with you as what appeared to be a headless man holding a rotting jack o lantern on stilts made its way through the crowded line.

"Listen, I agreed to come. I did not agree I would enjoy it; this is your own doing," your hold did not loosen as the line began to move forward. A girl about your height stood at the entry, clad in what looked like an old hospital gown covered in different splats of blood; some that looked like handprints. Her hair styled in two messy pig tails atop her head with the makeup on her face applied to make her look more pale and sickly.

Her voice was higher in pitch as she counted the people being ushered in through the entrance door, "One, two, oh you will do quite nicely, yes; five, six, beautiful jacket I hope it survives without getting blood on it." You and your friends just barely made the cut, settling into the room with the others. Your plan was to hover in the background, hoping that if you avoided the front that other people would take the brunt of the horror of the house.

The sickly looking scare actor's voice was suddenly right behind you, so close it felt like she was whispering in your ear and causing you to nearly jump out of your skin, "Most people think that the back is the safest place to be, but it's far easier to get left behind," she circled around your left side, head titled and pig tails dangling. The singular white contact in her right eye made her look a little extra deranged which only made you shudder more, "We wouldn't want that happening to you, now would we?"

All you could manage was a quick shake of your head as a sickly high pitched giggle then erupted from her lips as she maneuvered her way to the front of the room where three doors stood on the back wall. "Our house is full of fun and adventures," she slapped her hand against the door in the middle; a loud, ripping of a chainsaw sounded causing a number of people in the group to jump. "I never leave because my friends are here and we just have the best time playing," she slapped her hand against the door to her right. A sharp, piercing but muffled scream emitted from behind the wood, "HELP ME, PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME, GET ME OUT OF HERE, SHE WON'T LET ME GO!"

The sickly girl held her hand up to her mouth as she smiled and softly laughed, "She is so silly, isn't she silly?" She asked a woman in front of her who seemed to nod in agreeable just to avoid what may have come with telling her no. The sickly girl then pointed and wagged her finger at the door on the right, pouting her lips, "I'll deal with you later, friend."

She turned back to the group, unsettling smile almost too wide on her face. She walked sideways to the door on the left, placing her handle, "The glowing arrows show the way if you were to choose not to stay," she opened the door wide, plastic flaps you would seat in a meat cooler hanging in the doorway. "Remember, don't touch my friends and they won't touch you," the front of the group started through, the sound of the plastic flapping against the walls on the other side.

As you and your friends began to enter, the sickly girl was behind you again, "And don't get left behind." You gasped, turning around only to be met with the door slamming in your face. A large white sign with what was supposed to look like blood (but you were hoping was just paint) read "NOT AN EXIT" dripping down. You turned back round to see Daphne starting to walk away from you.

Hurriedly you caught up to her, holding on the the sleeve of her jacket and your group began to maneuver themselves around the maze like hallways. You weren't completely wrong about your idea to stay in the back. There were a few jump scares by scare actors while in the halls that by time you reached them they simply growled or barred their teeth or fake (very real looking) weapons towards you.

"I fucking hate it here, Daphne, I will never forgive you for this--fuckING BLOODY GOD DAMN SHIT HELL!" As the rest of the group began to enter a large black lit room with what sounded like a dozen creepy clowns in cages, a lone scare actor with a mask leap from behind the door right in front of you. His mask was not necessarily scary, per say. But the realistic ness made it all the more creepy.

He towered over you, his mask emulating similarly to an old porcelain doll with a few exceptions. There were large holes in each eye, so what you were terrifyingly looking into were the actors actual eyes. A large crack went across the left brow to his cheek, dark almost black looking blood coming from it. The bottom jaw was separated, but held together to the top half of the face with wire threading through where the lips should be. This gap allowed you to see where his lips should be coated in fake blood.

You were frozen to the spot, the scare actor in front of you flashing a smile of perfectly white teeth had they not had smudges of blood over them, "You're getting left behind, love." You turned your head to see your friends in front of you again, hustling your way back to them. You grabbed onto Astoria's arm this time instead, "I hate it here, I hate it here, I hate it here." Astoria just laughed, encouraging you to 'just have fun with it', as you all made it through the first room and into the next.

Something was starting to make you think being there was actually making you go crazy as it seemed like the same porcelain masked man was in every other room in the house. He popped through the window of the run down shed seemingly aiming to scare you directly as his low deep voice called out to you, "Hiya, darling," Another string of curses flew from your mouth, "Shit shit fucking shitfuck." You tried your best to push your friends further in the group, swearing you heard a low chuckle behind you.

He was seemingly chained against a wall two rooms after that, arms spread on either side of his head. While everyone else in the room was being frightened by the other actors, Porcelain mask seemed to be calling out to you once more. "C'mon baby, come and save me, won't you set me...free," you let out a high pitched screech, jumping further away from the wall as one of his hands seemed to burst from the chains and grab out at you."

"It's fine," Daphne assured you, "he's not going to touch you if you don't touch him remember?" You started walking in front of her, "I know that, but someone should remind him." Astoria playfully rolled her eyes as she held the curtain back for you to enter the next room. It seemed as if you were in the clear of Porcelain mask, the last two rooms you went through having no sign of him.

To exit the haunted house you had to go through a more narrow, very dark (very dark) hallway to the last door. It was a swinging door on side hinges, you knew it was the last one because every person who exited in front of you gave way to the sounds outside. So close, you're so close, you kept chanting to yourself like a mantra. It seemed like the only real scares in this area were random recordings of screams or quick flashes of light on a grim scene on one of the walls.

Keeping your eyes forward and aimed at your target (the door), another flash of light occurred. Only this time, you saw him. Porcelain mask was standing flat against the wall and when the light flashed, his head jerked quickly, looking straight. at. you. Trying to keep your cool you held your eyes to the same spot as to be aware of where he was and be able to dodge any attempt he would make.

Only when the light flashed again he was gone from the spot. Thrust into darkness again you went to grab Daphne's hand in front of you. Something wasn't right; why did her hand feel so...large. Another flash of light and you see that Porcelain mask is not only in front of you...but you were holding his hand.

Once again cloaked in darkness you were pushed against the wall as the lights began to strobe. The scare actor had a large hand on each side of your head, tall and broad towering over you. The flash from light to dark ness made his movements all the more horrifying as he tilted his head to the side before slowing bringing the mouth of his mask next to you ear, "Do I frighten you, angel?"

You ducked underneath his arms and bolted for the exit door. Pushing through it harshly, the hinges creaking as you made your exit, you frantically searched for your friends. "Over hear!" Daphne waved you over some ten meters from the exit, "You nearly did get left behind huh?" She meant it as a playful joke, erupting in teasing laughter as you flipped her off.

Over her shoulder you saw none other than Porcelain mask exiting the haunted house and heading towards a fenced off area. "I'll be right back," you tossed over your shoulder at your friends as you made your way in the same direction as the person that was torturing you all night.

You found that, luckily, the area wasn't really fenced off, and you were able to slip through a slightly open portion to what you discovered was like a 'break' area for the scare actors. You glanced around, spotting the porcelain mask sitting on top of a picnic table, three or four scare actors standing around and chatting.

In some new found confidence that was bubbling in your veins, you marked right up the table, snatching the mask and holding it up, "Who's is this?" A creepy clown and bloody hospital patient took a step back. In front of you, a tall man with soft brunette hair turned around locking your stare with his, "Looking for me?"

You wrapped an arm around your middle, "Y-yeah, who do you think you are, huh?" The man laughed lightly, "I'm Enzo, so very please to be formally introduced. And that's mine, angel. Can I have it back?" He wore a shit eating smirk, coffee brown eyes twinkling with delight.

The mask was most definitely his. The only horror makeup on his face where the crack in the eye would be and around his mouth. You stood up slightly taller, "No, Enzo, you can't have it back." His eyebrows shot up cockily, "Oh? And why's that?" You stared at him dumbstruck for a moment. His eyes had a playful glint, smirk so deep that dimples popped into each cheek.

You felt a blush creep up your neck under his gaze but you did your best to keep your voice steady as you spoke, "You think that just because you have adorable little dimples under this mask that I'm not going to be mad at you for following me around all night?" His head tilted slightly at this, not much unlike when he had you pinned against the wall in the last hall, "You think my dimples are adorable, hmm?"

Scoffing you look off to the side to break eye contact, "I, erm-" He cut you off, taking a step closer to you, your knees hitting the back of the bench, you reach for the tabletop behind you, clamoring back until you're sitting atop the table. This does nothing but give him leverage as he leans forward now, placing a hand on the table on either side of your hips. "S'alright, you're quite adorable too," he leaned in closer, "s'why I followed you around all night. Cute little angel with the sailors tongue." He was so close, lips ghosting near the shell of your ear as he spoke, "Wonder what else I can make you scream."

[usmsgutterson]

Exactly Where I Want To Be - S.R x gn! reader

Okay!! Second Spencer Reid fic I've written and posted in less than a week, and I kind of feel like I have a bit of a winning streak--when I've not been binging criminal minds or crocheting, I've been writing for Spencer or thinking about it.

My requests are wide open to him so if you have any ideas, send them in and I'll be happy to write them out!! Smut is welcome but might take a little longer (smut for some reason takes me longer to write than other genres do) and I'm willing to write anything within reason!

Fic type - this one bounces all over, but it's primary genres are fluff, angst, and hurt/comfort

Warnings -there are mentions of criminal minds canon typical violence and as such, guns are mentioned and depicted in use. Other warnings include mentions of stalking, depictions of being shot, and mentions of being in a previous relationship that was manipulative (reader was with a guy who was a total ass pre-BAU and it's mentioned he wanted more arm candy than actual person to be in a loving relationship with), there are mentions of dementia and alcoholic dementia as well as a few of the symptoms, mentions of alcoholism, drug dependency and addiction, and this is really, really long. It runs at 13k post-edits.

TWENTY-TWO / TWENTY-THREE 

You join the BAU just a little while after Spencer does—three months, one week, and four days. Spencer counts it during a particularly boring afternoon, after he’s zoomed through most of the files sitting on his desk and has just about nothing else to do. Your desk is across from his and he’s remembered the date you’d joined the team since you waltzed into the offices, so it’s pretty easy to count it out.  

He’d joined on July 22nd, 2001, whereas you’d joined on November 2nd of the same year. You’d been only a year younger than he and you proved, rather quickly, that you were among the only people who could keep up with Reid on a consistent basis. The only other people who could really accomplish that were Elle, Gideon, and Hotch, but it served to make yours and Spencers bond stronger as you settled in.  

Spencer knew he had a habit for going off on tangents without really meaning to, but unlike the rest of the team, you seemed fairly unbothered by it, and even if you were reading a book or knitting or doing something else when Spencer had started, it was clear to him that you’d been listening by the end.  

You’d been Hotchs mentee, so to speak, and your aptness for listening to Spencer when it seemed nobody else was listening was something Hotch picked up on whip quick, bringing it up to you in what feels like both rightly subtle and unconsciously unsubtle as the two of you walk stand in the elevator.  

“If you like him and it goes anywhere, you do realize you’ll no longer be able to be partnered up while you’re in the field?” Hotch asks, his voice quiet. “You won’t be eligible for a promotion of any kind, either, as it’s not permitted for bosses to date their subordinates.” 

You snort. “It’s not like that,” you say, because right now, it doesn’t feel like it is. “You don’t have to worry, Hotch. I like him, but—platonically. I look at him with such a platonic set of eyes that even the best of friends envy it, I promise.”  

“If--and I say if because Gideon has taken to saying when while Spencer and you aren’t in earshot—it does happen, you need to file the appropriate paperwork and ensure that at least Gideon and I are aware as to the goings on.”  

You laugh.“It’s not like that,” you repeat. “Spencer doesn’t look at me that way, and I don’t look at him that way, either. Like I said. So platonic it’s envious.”  

Hotch cracks a small smile, something you never really see but are glad to nonetheless because it cuts the tension like it’s a freshly sharpened knife.  

“Five bucks says he’s gotten you a tea and set it on your desk,” Hotch says. “I don’t make bets, but if I did, I think I’d win that one.”  

You glance at the hot chocolate you hold in your right hand, the one that is certainly not for you, but for your coffee-resistant friend with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory, and crack a smile.  

“I do, too,” you admit. The elevator doors open and the two of you go inside, going your separate ways as Hotch heads for his office and you go to your desk, intending to hit the ground running because you have a long day of paperwork in need of doing. 

You set the hot chocolate down on Spencers desk. He doesn’t look up as you sit across from him at your own, but you hear his usual “thank you, Y/N,” as he grabs for it with his left hand, the pen he’s using to fill out the paperwork still in his right.  

“Yeah,” you respond, shrugging and catching sight of the tea he’d bought you, sitting right next to the pile of paperwork you intend to spend the next eight hours tackling. “No problem. Are we still on for our Doctor Who marathon tonight?”  

“Absolutely,” Spencer confirms as you wheel yourself over to the left corner of your desk. You keep the files there, so that they’re right within your vicinity, and it’s always where Spencer places the tea he gets you so that you can grab it along with the first piece of paperwork on the pile you so meticulously assemble. “Yeah. Picking up from where we left off with doctor number six.”  

“Yeah,” you nod. “Thanks for the tea.”  

“No problem,” Spencer says. He looks up as you take the first sip, and the smile that comes after is almost contagious to him. “I got the right place?”  

The two of you have a thing going on and have had it from the first month after you’d joined the BAU and had learned of each others drink preferences—every single time you got each other a hot chocolate or a tea in the morning, you did it at a different spot. In the three years since you’d joined, you’d gone to dozens of different spots in and around the Quantico area, and both of you had developed favorites.  

Yours was Izzies—their London fog lattes were like nothing else, just caffeinated enough to give you the boost you needed throughout the day, and you’d learned that they made an iced London fog that was just as good, if not even better. 

Spencers was the one with the cutesy kind of name, something Derek occasionally made fun of him for—I Love You A Latte was the name, and they made a hot chocolate that was super smooth and a lavender tea that could will Spencers body into sleep like just about nothing else was capable. It was run by a sweet old lady from West Virginia who’d known both you and Spencer by name and was occasionally at the tills when you were there to pick up a hot chocolate for Spencer.  

“Yeah,” you nod. “Izzies is the best for their tea.”  

“I Love You A Latte makes the best hot chocolate on this side of Virginia,” Spencer says. “Thanks again, Y/N.”  

“You’re welcome,” you respond. “Thank you, too.”  

Spencers response comes in the form of a nod, and that’s the end of your interactions until you’re two minutes out from taking lunch, setting your pen onto your desk and shaking your hands out.  

You tend to grip pens, pencils and the like the same way you hold onto a crochet hook or knitting needles—with a grip so tight that your knuckles get a few shades lighter, usually without you even realizing. As a result, you deal with hand pain on a semi frequent basis, and shaking your hands out every time you’re going to lunch is a habitual thing for you now. 

“Going to lunch?” Spencer asks, eyes flitting up from his file. You nod.  

“My mother sent along some money for my birthday last weekend, which means that I have a date with a box of garlic fingers and an alfredo pasta breadbowl from Antonios,” you grin. “I can never eat the garlic fingers in full, though—they give you what they call half-plates, and I can usually only eat my way through half of the half. I’ll bring it back for you, if you want?” You offer as you grab your bag, stand, and walk over to his desk.

“That’s not necessary,” Spencer says. “I--you don’t have to do that.”  

“No fun facts about the passage of germs through food?” You joke, ruffling his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous, Spencer. I’ll bring you what’s left, and I’ll make sure it’s as not-germy as possible.”  

Spencer smiles at you in a way that almost makes you want to forget the words you’d told Hotch earlier. You want to be the opposite of platonic, if you’re being honest with yourself, which you have a tough time doing on even your best days.  

You leave, heading for your car with an almost gleeful way about you because of the thought of Antonios. You wonder what Spencer is thinking, linger on the idea that he’s thinking about you for three seconds too long before you let it go. Platonic is the best way to be with your coworkers, and despite how much you wish it were different, it’s the best way to be with Spencer, too.  

- 

A week later, Gideon is leaving the office as Spencer is readying himself for another late night. Gideon stops at Spencers desk just for the sake of checking in, catches him on the tail end of a giddy “thank you!” bubbling up from your lips after Spencer had made you an earl grey tea while he was making himself some hot cocoa.  

Gideon smiles knowingly, in a way that almost has Spencer convinced he can see right through him.  

“Just thought I’d check in,” he says. “These late nights will do you a lot more harm than good in the long run, Spencer. Are you sure you can handle this?”  

Spencer nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Just have a few more files I’d like to get done before my weekend off, is all. Don’t worry about it, Gideon. I’m fine.”  

“And you’re totally not here for—other reasons--?” Gideon looks pointedly at you. Spencer follows his gaze on impulse and is completely unsurprised to find you engrossed in a file, using your mug of tea as a paper weight while you fill it out, your non dominant hand clutching the mug like a heat seeking missile.  

Spencer shakes his head. “Just want to finish the last of my files so I have less work on Monday,” he answers. “Nothing like that, I swear.”  

Gideon shakes his head like he doesn’t believe him, and Spencer has no rebuttal because he’s being completely honest. When Gideon claps him on the shoulder as he moves to leave, Spencer is the closest to relieved he’s ever gotten in a situation that borders on that level of intensity.  

“Everything okay, Spence?” You ask, gaze not moving up from the file in front of you.  

“Everything’s fine, Y/N/N,” he says. “Gideons just—he's being weird.”

“Hotch has been weird lately, too,” your voice goes soft. “I think it’s just an office old man thing. I dunno—thirty-eight is hardly old, but Gideons climbing up to fifty. He might be going senile a little earlier than what’s written on the docket.”  

“Gideon? No,” Spencer laughs. “And, anyway—dementia isn’t commonly developed until the person with the disease is at least 60, although there have been cases of people developing it as early as 30 years old and there’s a case of childhood dementia with one in every 2900 babies globally. I won’t worry about dementia in Gideon until I notice his memory starting to falter or his communication starting to change, or any of the other symptoms, and even then, for his wifes sake, I’ll hope It’s origin can be treated with modern medicine.” 

“I thought dementia was an incurable disease?”  

“It is,” Spencer nods. “There are treatable causes for it, not that the disease itself can be cured—treatment is always an option. It can stem from a lot of different things, such as diabetes, a traumatic brain injury, or substance abuse.”  

You nod. “My grandfather got hit with it from the excessive booze drinking,” you say. “I wasn’t around him a lot—my mother didn’t want me to be, didn’t want me to know a drunk when I was that young. He died when I was fifteen, and in that time, I’d only seen him twice. Dementia is pretty damn heartwrenching, I think.”  

Spencer nods, eyes going back to the file in front of him. “Yeah,” he says. “I can’t imagine it. I hate thinking about that sort of thing—the idea of forgetting anything that I’ve learned is enough to scare me into an early grave.”  

You laugh. “Okay,” you say, nodding. Spencer knows it's your not-so-subtle way of moving the conversation along, but he's grateful for it because if he talks anymore about dementia he'll probably cry himself to sleep. “In other news, I picked up a stray cat I found in the parking lot of a Joanns the other night.”  

Spencers eyes widen, his gaze moving to you. “You found a stray?”  

“Yeah,” you nod, eyes meeting his. “I took her to the vet this morning—it's why I was late coming in. She’s got a perfect bill of health, surprisingly, and she likes my apartment a lot. Loves the windowsill.”

“Does this stray have a name yet?”  

“I named her Megatron,” you laugh. “She’s so small, and I love ironic names like that. If I ever adopt a Maine Coon, I’ve already decided their name is gonna be Tiny.”  

Spencer laughs, and the both of you go back to focusing on your files, and Spencer loves it. 

He loves how simplistic things feel between the two of you—conversations can stop and start again after hours without talking, and it just feels easy, inherently, being in your presence. It’s not anything Spencer has ever felt with anyone else, but after three years, it’s one of the few things in his life that he has and actively cherishes.

When he leaves, he doesn’t do so without making you another tea. He uses it as a means of bidding you good night when he knows you’re planning to stay for another hour, at least, and when he hears your shouted “Night, Spence!” as he goes, he dips his head to look at his shoes and barely manages to hide his smile.  

TWENTY - FIVE / TWENTY-SIX 

“Megatron, I’m home!” You sing-song as you unlock your apartment door and step inside. You’re home from a particularly tough case, and Spencer is with you because it’s just one of those nights and the idea of either of you being alone makes both of you want to suffocate.  

Megatron, a cat with brown fur everywhere except her paws and chin, comes running at the sound of your voice, but when she sees Spencer, she bypasses you and runs right up to him. She gets on her hind legs so that she can headbut Spencers hand as he shuffles out of his shoes, and as you take off your coat, you laugh at the sight.  

Spencers momentarily distracted as he gives her some of his undivided attention, and it doesn’t surprise you, how quickly Megatron starts purring.  

“You’re her favourite person,” you laugh. “One would think, three years gone, it’d be me, but alas, Dr. Spencer Reid takes the cake.”  

Spencer shrugs as Megatron lets him do his thing and chooses to approach you instead. “I think we both tie for first in her little brain.”  

You bend down to give her some lovins and laugh at the way she aggressively headbuts your forehead, a clear demand for forehead kisses. You give in as Spencer takes off his coat and hangs it on your coat rack, happily doting on her as she always expects you to when you come home after being gone for a few days.  

“You want to order some pizza?” You offer as Megatron goes to her food bowl. Spencer crosses through to the dining room, where he unceremoniously sets his messenger bag onto the dining table. “I’m completely biased in saying this, but Antonios makes the best pizza this side of Virginia. I’ve been a regular since I first moved here, right when I was joining the BAU at 19. They’ve got good pasta and bread bowls, too, and it’s fairly cheap, considering.”  

Spencer nods. “Pizza sounds nice,” he says. “Could I use your shower, by chance?”  

You’re nodding before you can stop to think about it. “There’s a pair of sweats and a shirt you can change into after in the guest room, and towels are in the linen closet.”  

Spencer nods, having heard this spiel before. You recite it to him pretty much every time he spends the night at your apartment, first as a just-in-case thing and now as a habit.  

As he showers, you turn the kettle on and grab two mugs. Spencer, ever the insomniac, likes himself a little bit of lavender tea in the evenings because it helps him relax when he otherwise wouldn’t be able to, and relaxing helps ease his mind into sleep.  

You’ve known that since he first spent the night and asked if you had any, which, thankfully, you did. You’ve made it a habit to have some lavender tea at your apartment since then, just in case, and it hasn’t failed you yet.  

You’re more of a chamomile with half a tablespoon of honey kind of person—you've been dealing with insomnia since some unknown cause spurred it on when you were eighteen, and in the seven years since, while not a lot had really helped you get to sleep the chamomile and honey always did. The tea always seemed to work the best when you were coming back from a case, your nerves still pushed all the way over the edge and your body on high alert.  

Spencer comes back out into your kitchen after fifteen minutes, his hair towel dry and curly in all of the right spots, but his smile warm. He approaches the dining table and grabs his glasses from it, changing from his contacts to his glasses as you turn on your hotplate and use the back side of a spoon to squeeze most of the water out of the teabags before you chuck them into your compost bin and finish making the teas.  

You set the mugs on the hotplate and let them marinate for a few minutes as you call Antonios and order your usual—a large chicken Alfredo pizza, two Alfredo pasta bread bowls, a box of garlic fingers and two cans of iced tea—and Spencer puts his contacts back into their case.  

He looks so absurdly good in the glasses that it’s never going to cease to borderline upon mind boggling.  

“Hey,” he greets, smiling gently. “Thank you—for letting me use your shower, and everything.”  

You shrug. “It’s no problem,” you say as Megatron the cat headbuts the back of your calves until you side step with your right foot and she can worm her way into the gap between your feet. “It’s never been a problem, Spence. Are you feeling okay?”  

That case had been a tough one, for both of you. It’d taken you, as many cases do, down to the Florida area. The killer was a 20-something white guy attending the local community college, and he crossed all lines with regards to socioeconomic status, risk, and gender. The guy didn’t have a type, really—at the start of his assaults, he’d killed two high risk victims in the vicinity of three days. The week after he’d gone for medium risk victims and then the third week, at which point you and the team had landed in LA, he’d broken into three separate homes, all low risk victims, like he was climbing down some weird totem pole, and his MO never stayed consistent.  

In the end, Derek had almost gotten shot, and you’d wound up with mild bruising on your arms, but thankfully, nobody else had been scathed in the aftermath.  

“I’m fine,” Spencer nods. “Yeah--all good. Are you? You’re the one I think I need to worry about, never mind myself.”  

You bite your lip. “A little sore but I’m okay,” you respond. Megatron abandons her spot between your feet and jumps up onto the counter instead, eliciting a surprised laugh from Spencer as he eyes her carefully so as to make sure she doesn’t get so close as to be able to step on the hotplate. “The bruises only really hurt when I touch them. I’m not shaken up or anything, I don’t think.”  

You turn to grab the milk from your fridge, bending briefly to grab it from the bottom shelf on the side door, careful to avoid the fridge touching any of your bruises as you set the milk on the counter and close the fridge in the process.  

You take the mugs off of the hotplate and turn the hotplate off, grabbing Megatron and gently ushering her away from it as you pass the milk to Spencer. You grab the honey and measure out just a tad bit more than half a tablespoon into yours, ever one to measure in the metrics of your heart. You stir the honey with one of the teaspoons that you keep in your cutlery drawer specifically for the occasion of making it, passing one to Spencer as he slides the milk your way.  

You add a splash of milk to yours before you put it into the fridge and hear the doorbell. Spencer goes to get it despite your protests, pays for the order because “you’re letting me stay at your apartment, Y/N. I’ll get it this time” and brings it back into the kitchen, sets it on the dining table.  

You grab paper plates and eat, the affair mostly silent, even as Megatron sniffs around and tries to get bites at your food.  

As is usual whenever you or Spencer stay at each others places and order Antonios, the pizza and garlic fingers wind up unfinished. You set them aside in tupperware containers and label one with Spencers name, as he would do for you if you were at his place. It’s a conscious decision at this point—you order more than you can eat so that you have food to take into the office the next day or to just reheat in your microwave if you get the chance to take the day off.  

The two of you migrate to the couch as you drink the teas that, despite your efforts with the hotplate, have gone lukewarm.  

“I just—I was just thinking about it on the jet back, is all,” Spencer says. He’s referring to a book you’ve read recently and just cannot, even if it’d save your life as a gun was pressed to your temple, stop thinking about. “Read it the other night, and—yeah. It’s not my usual thing but you do make a few decent points about it.”  

“It’s not usually my thing, either,” you confess. “I don’t read young adult and I haven’t much read it since I was one, but it was on a table and I read the back, and—c'mon, Spencer. A book written from the perspective of death itself. How much more intriguing can you get, really?”  

Spencer shrugs. “Pretty intriguing, I guess,” he says. “It was a really good book, Y/N. I can see why you’d find it an interesting perspective to read from—death is one of lifes many unanswered questions, and the prose was written really well.”  

“Thank you,” you laugh. “You’re the only person I can really talk about books with, if I’m honest. I mean—I like to use books to shut my brain off and you like to use them differently, but—you're the only person who gets it, I think.”  

This brings a grin to Spencers face. “Yeah,” he says. “Did you read the book I told you about? The one by--”  

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” you nod. “A Study in Scarlet—it was really good, which I did find a little surprising because I’ve always kind of found Sherlock Holmes a little gimmicky. I am the first to admit that I’ve never really liked any of the screen adaptations, but I love the way that he writes. Genuinely some of the better stuff I’ve read from that era, and I’ve read a lot of books from that time.”  

“Sherlock is hardly gimmicky,” Spencer rebuts. “I mean—one has to ignore all of the mediums and ways in which it has since been adapted, but—it's not as gimmicky as it could be.”  

“’Not as gimmicky as it could be’ implies that you’re acknowledging how gimmicky Sherlock can get,” you retort. “It’s good writing, Spence. As someone who has read and reread several books I haven’t liked in the name of a PhD in lit, it’s really good writing and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but the original version of the work beats out any and all adaptations by default for me because the original version of Sherlocks story is the only one I have so far enjoyed.”  

Spencer shrugs, takes a sip of his tea. “You make a point,” he concedes. “You’ve gotta read the other books in that universe, though—I'll lend you my copy of the second book.”  

“I can just buy and read it on my Kindle,” you respond.  

“I’ll lend you my copy,” Spencer says again. “Digital is crap, and we know it.”  

You snort, grabbing your own mug and taking a sip thats bigger than you mean for it to be but fine nonetheless—you love your tea when it’s hot or warm, even, but lukewarm and moving into cold territory is only good when it’s what you’re looking for, and it never is what you’re looking for when you’re drinking your chamomile.  

“Fine,” you relent, laughing. “You can lend me your copy.”  

Spencers grin turns triumphant, and for half a second you’re sure he’ll start cheering.  

“And, for the record,” you say. “Digital is not crap all the time—only with regards to books. I just like my Kindle because it lets me bring four or five books along with me wherever I go, and they’re like, two taps away. It’s easier to have four books on what’s essentially a tablet instead of stuffing four of them into my go bag.”  

Spencer shrugs. “You make a fair point,” he says. “This time, anyway. I’ll prove you wrong somehow.”  

You laugh, and you catch a very specific look in Spencers eye.  

It's there for all of two seconds, tops, and then his smile dims and it’s gone, but for those two seconds, he looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be.  

He looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be, sat across from you on your couch with his legs criss-crossed and a lukewarm mug of tea tucked in between his palms.  

“You might,” you concede. “For now, though—topic switch! Uh—has Gideon seemed a little off to you, lately? Like he’s thinking about retiring or something?”  

“No,” Spencer answers. “I think you’re watching him too closely and overthinking it. He’s fine. So is Hotch, if you’re worried about him.”  

You laugh. “I know Hotch is fine,” you retort. “He’d tell me if he weren’t, but I just—I know how much Gideon means to you and I hate the idea of him leaving when he’s the reason you’re here in the first place.”  

Spencers face softens up a little, and there it is again—the look in his eyes that was so fleeting that you almost didn’t catch it.  

“He might’ve been the one who brought me down to Quantico and helped me get the job I have, but—he's not the reason I’m here here,” Spencer says. “I don’t know what I’m saying, Y/N, but I’m exactly where I want to be right now and Gideon staying or leaving will do absolutely nothing to influence that.”  

You grin at him because the words did what they were supposed to by providing reassurance and you can’t think of anything more to say.

Spencer gets to standing. “I’m going to go to bed,” he says. “I’m assuming you’re going to stay out here for another hour, maybe wallow in your anxieties a little bit?”  

You laugh. “You, Spencer Walter Reid, know me too deeply.”  

He shrugs. “Good night, Y/N,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”  

You nod, and it’s only after his back has turned and he’s headed in the direction of your guest room that you have an epiphany.  

You look at Megatron as you hear her tiny little footsteps approaching, and when she climbs up onto your lap and headbuts your shoulder, the realization sets in bone deep. It becomes something you can't ignore anymore, not like you have been for the past three years.  

“Oh, Meggy,” you whisper as you press your forehead against hers. “I’m in it deep, aren’t I?”  

She meows like a kind of confirmation, almost, and the thought sets in, spoken into your mind like a voice through a loudspeaker.  

I’m falling for him. I am falling in love with Spencer Reid.  

Another thought occurs, just as loud as the first.  

Oh, God. 

You finish your tea, rush to the kitchen with Megatron on your heels and set your dirty mug in the sink. You go to bed and it takes you a stupid amount of time to fall asleep even though Megatrons loud purring is enough to get you knocked out after a while.  

- 

Spencer places a London fog onto your desk in an almost wordless manner about a week and a half later. You’re chatting away with Penelope, who’d stopped at your desk to deliver to you two of the carrot muffins she baked and you adored.  

You turn your attention from Penelope as Spencer settles back in at his desk, mug of black but still sweeter than fiction coffee in his non dominant hand, pencil already tucked into his dominant one.  

“Thank you!” You chirp gratefully. You love any and everything earl grey and it’s been like that since before you started with the BAU.  

“You’re welcome,” Spencer responds. Your attention turns back to Penelope and his goes back to the file at hand, and the time passes with ease. Spencer focuses on his files and does so until he’s down to two and you’re down to one.  

“I were a bettin’ man,” you start. “I’d say there’s no way you can finish both files before I get my last one done.”  

“I have an eidetic memory and can read twenty-thousand words a minute,” Spencer says. “If you made bets, you’d lose this one.” 

“Sometimes, you make a bet while knowing you’re probably going to lose it,” you answer. “I mean, shit—When I was sixteen, I bet I wouldn’t live to see my nineteenth birthday. Thought for sure I’d win that one, but on the morning of my nineteenth, I walked to the local bakery, bought half a dozen carrot muffins and stuck a candle in one. I lit it, I blew it out, and I lost the bet I’d made with myself three years prior.”  

“You thought you’d win,” Spencer says, ignoring how achy your subtle admission makes his chest feel.  

“Well, there have been others,” you laugh. “I was two weeks away from joining up with the BAU and I still thought I’d never do it, let alone at nineteen years old. I made that bet figuring I’d lose it, figuring I’d walk in here on my first day and just know I was where I was meant to be, and I did. I lost that bet knowing I’d wind up losing.”

Spencer shrugs. “All right,” he says. “Game on, Y/N. If I win, you owe me one answer to a question of my choice.”  

“Deal,” you respond. “If I win, I want the same but in reverse.”  

Spencer nods, and for the next thirty minutes, as Derek occasionally glances up and watches the two of you with a not-so-hidden smirk, all that’s really heard is the sound of pens and pencils on paper.  

Spencer winds up winning, and it’s after he wins that Derek decides he’s done for the day and the two of you are the only two in the office.

“You get one question,” you say. “Go on. Out with it.”  

Spencer knows a fair bit about you—you were born and raised in Maine, had an IQ on a similar caliber to his own but didn’t really use it the same way he did. He knew you had a past you didn’t really like talking about and he usually didn’t pry, but just this one time, he tells himself, he’ll ask a question that it’s been sitting in the back of his mind since you joined and the tidbits about who you are as a person started coming in.  

“What’s the biggest reason you left Maine?” He asks.  

You laugh. “You and your tea claims to love me but here you are, asking me a question that I’d only ever willingly answer after nine o’clock. Smart move, Spence,” you say.  

Spencer shrugs. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”  

“I left Cape Elizabeth for realsies for the last time when I was nineteen,” you answer. “Hotch had been trying to get me to let him mentor me for a few months, and—well, there was this shithead ex boyfriend who just wouldn’t leave me alone for the longest time. I left when Hotch asked me if I’d at least come down for a few days, and I haven’t gone back since.”  

Spencer blinks. “That explains a lot,” he says.  

“It explains why I don’t really have a social media presence,” you say. “And why the only evidence I’m working in law enforcement is my employment article, which doesn’t even list an active phone number. He never stalked me, and I doubt he’d have the fucking gall to do it even after I’ve been gone for six years, but it still spooks me big freakin’ time. Ask me another question, please.”  

Spencer laughs. “Favorite pastry?”  

“Pain au chocolat, easy,” you answer. “Next one. Dig deeper this time, Spencer. I’m hopped up on caffeinated tea and will tell you just about anything that’s deeper than surface level.”  

“Why do you like crocheting and knitting so much?” Spencer asks.  

“It turns my brain off,” you confess. “I hate working with straight needles—don't understand how my grandmother did it for so long but I respect it. I love crocheting because it works as good as my anxiety meds when I don’t have them on hand, and I love knitting because, yeah, it’s more labour intensive and takes longer, but the end product is just gorgeous every single time. Color work is easier in crochet, though. Crochet tapestry is amazing. I tend to use crochet for anxiety and dopamine because it works up whip quick and stuff like cardigans won’t take me 140 hours. Knitting is the kind of thing I do when I want to put that work in, though. I don’t really do it as often as I’d like to but when I do do it, I’m really meticulous about the pattern I use, and the yarn I choose for the project, and—you'll know I give a damn about you when I knit you something.”  

“You’ve knitted me a few cardigans,” Spencer says. “A purple one, and a navy blue one recently.”  

You grin. “I give a stupid number of damns about you, Reid,” you say. “Also Penelope. I’d knit more for Derek if I thought he’d wear what I made him, but he doesn’t seem the type. Hotch accepts the wall art and stuff I make for him when I can find the time but I doubt he has it displayed anywhere. Hotch is an odd case, though. He cares about me but does so from a kind of distance, almost.”  

Spencer shrugs. “Gideons the same way,” he says. “When I was dealing with my addiction, he was like an absent kind of parent—there sometimes, but not often.”  

You nod. “Everyone was that way with you,” you say. “Gideon especially so, but—nobody really knew how to address it.”  

“You did,” Spencer says. “You’re freakishly good at that kind of thing.”

“Alcoholism runs in the family,” you shrug. “I’ve been to many-a intervention, and I know how to spot the signs of addiction from a thousand miles away point blank. I’ve had to pull myself together and narrowly avoided addiction a few times, though not to anything like Dialaudid.”  

“I feel like this is going somewhere deep,” Spencer confesses. “When I asked you about Maine—I wasn’t trying to get you to open up to anyone before you were ready. It was fifteen minutes ago but I was an asshole.”  

You laugh, shaking your head. “I was going to have to open up to someone eventually,” you say. “The fact that it was you is incredibly fitting to me.” 

Neither of you have any work to do, but you’re not moving to pack up or do anything. You’re using overtime in order to talk with each other when there is absolutely nobody else in the office, even the likes of Hotch and Gideon having gone home. 

Spencer shrugs, grabs the mug that has long since been repurposed, switched out from coffee to tea, and takes a sip from it.  

“The boyfriend who drove me to leavings name was James DeLuca,” you say. “He was a trust fund kid who thought he beheld all the power in the world in a town where it sometimes felt like everyone knew everyone. We dated for eight months before I broke things off, and he hated me for it. I just—I hate the idea of being some rich white guys trophy spouse, y’know? If I’m going to get married or continue a long term relationship with someone, I’m going to do it because I love them, not because I want their money. I’m marrying someone on the merits of love or I’m not doing it at all, no matter what some idiot trust fund baby thinks about that.”  

You sigh, and Spencer tilts his head.  

“I think he’s got a wife now, a kid or two?” You say. “I dunno—I get Garcia to check on him every year or two, just to make sure he’s not gone on to do something that’ll wind up in VICAP and to make sure he’s not made his way to Quantico. I feel safer knowing he’s not here, and that’s probably me overestimating him, but he seemed capable of murder last we talked, and it scared the shit out of me.”  

“If he does come around here, the team has got your back,” Spencer says. “We’ll protect you as best we can, Y/N, you know that.”  

You nod. “I routinely trust you guys with my life and I really wouldn’t have it any other way,�� you respond. “I just—I don’t know. It’s a stupid anxiety that’s been keeping me up at night for the last six years. I’m sorry to vent like this, Spence. It’s late, and we really should be getting home, right?”  

“Y/N,” he says as you bend to pack your things. “Y/N, stop.”  

You’re not listening to him, though. You’re too buzzed, the caffeine in your system and the anxiety making a cocktail that Spencer knows to be an awful, devilish little thing. 

He stands and before he can think about it, his hand is on your arm. When you turn to look at him, your eyes are slightly wide but you make no move to ask him to stop or to force him away.  

“Spencer?” You ask.  

“You don’t need to apologize for venting,” he says. “Seriously--I was paranoid for months after the stuff with Tobias Hankel, and that wasn’t entirely the drugs or the withdrawal. If this guy comes after you, we’ll get to him before he can even so much as look at you the wrong way, and I promise you that.”  

You lean forward and it takes all of three seconds for Spencer to register your forehead against his shoulder. He doesn’t hate or feel awkward about the touch, which is surprising given how sudden it seems, but he instead welcomes it.  

“I’m sorry,” you say, and Spencer huffs a laugh because he knows it’s habitual. “I mean—well, you know what I mean at this point, right?”  

“Yeah,” Spencer nods. “I know what you mean, Y/N. Are you sure you’ll be okay to go home alone tonight?”  

You pull away, looking up at him and nodding. “The drive is fifteen minutes, and it’s 9:30. I should be fine til I’m in my apartment, and once I’m there, Megatron and her weird ability to sense when something is off with me will do wonders.”  

Spencer smiles softly, and he sees what almost looks like love in your eyes. “Get home safe, Y/N.”  

“Are you not leaving?”  

Spencer shakes his head, ignoring the sudden burst of unfamiliar fondness that pokes at his chest when he looks your way.  

“Nah,” he says. “I figure I’ll be nice, do a file or two of Morgans so that he has less to worry about tomorrow.”  

“Do you want Derek to have less of a workload, or do you just want to stay here and think?” 

“I always think clearest when I’m at my desk,” Spencer shrugs. “Goodnight, Y/N/N.”  

“Night, Spence,” you say, gathering up the last of your things. Spencer walks over to Morgans desk and plucks two files off the top of his paperwork file as you leave the office, settling into his own desk thereafter.  

He stares at the unopened manila folder for a long five or so seconds as the reality that he’s been holding off for at least a year and a half truly sets in.  

It makes him laugh.  

“I’m so screwed,” he says to himself.  

Every single time Derek has accused him of being smitten since he was halfway through twenty-four, he’s been right. It only hits him then, and Spencer feels like just as much of an idiot as Derek has claimed him to be.  

TWENTY - NINE / THIRTY 

As you run through the only abandoned psych ward within a twenty mile radius of Cape Elizabeth, you have a moment wherein you realize just how stupid you really are.  

“James DeLuca, I’m Y/N L/N with the BAU!” Like he doesn’t already know your name and place of employment.  

Hotch, of course, disagreed with your plan entirely, but you had been so determined and so convincing that he had agreed to it in the end, as long as there was back up for you posted at the front and back entrances at the first sign of trouble, and as long as you caught him while you were within the first four of eight floors total. If he’d gotten anywhere past the fourth you were to chase him back down within range or talk him down and then call for immediate back up, without firing your gun unless he fired his.  

All of it—James’ MO, his signature, even the ways in which he behaved, tied back to you. All of his victims looked like you did in the lead up to when you’d left Maine for Virginia. All of them had similar hobbies, but you doubted the victims would’ve been half as dumb as you were being, going after James like you were. 

The psych ward was part of his signature—he took his victims to one of the only abandoned psych wards within the entirety of that town and the next. You could remember why vividly.  

Back when you’d initially broken up with him a decade prior, you’d, in a moment of frustration, told him he ought to be admitted into a psych ward if he was going to keep acting so fucking insane. He’d threatened to take you to the very one you were running through, gun and flashlight aimed and ready, and kill you in response.  

“James DeLuca, drop your weapon and surrender to the police! This is over, okay? It’s done.”  

You turn a corner and bump right into him, like he'd been laying in wait for you that entire time.

“I’ll drop my weapon if you drop yours,” he says. “And only after we’ve had it out. I have shit to say to you, Y/N.”  

You take six large steps back, fighting your anxiety off as what remains of it is replaced by adrenaline.  

“Okay,” you shrug, figuring that keeping your cool is the best thing you can do around him. The minute he senses you’re even slightly off kilter, he’s liable to go completely off the rails. “Say whatever it is you need to say to me, James, but put the weapon down first. I won’t lower my gun until you lower yours.”  

He scoffs. “You wouldn’t shoot me,” he says. “Even with all of your FBI training and how long you’ve been doin’ this for, you don’t have what it takes to kill someone.” 

“The rule of thumb within all areas of law enforcement is to avoid shooting unless absolutely necessary, and to be frank, I’d prefer to avoid all the paperwork that’ll come my way if I do shoot you, now put the gun down.”  

James is a more adult-y version of the one you can remember—he looks vaguely like a young Timothy Olyphant, if Olyphant had jet black hair, a patchy beard, and was on the stockier side in build. James is a little taller than Spencer, standing at an even 6’4, and shit, fuck it all if he’s not just as scary as he used to be. 

James, thankfully, relents. He drops his gun. You holster yours.  

“Put it down,” James says, his tone gravelly and demanding.

“From what I can remember of my teen years, you had a pickpockets hands and quick reflexes,” you say. “I’m not going to leave myself absent of a weapon when I know, for a fact, that you can have yours in hand, cocked, aimed, and the safety off within eight seconds. No fucking way, James. That is not how this works. You want to have it out, say what you need to and then we’ll see where this goes after all is said and done.”  

“Even if I do shoot you, we’re on the third floor,” James says. “I’ve got my escape route planned, Y/N. I rush down the stairs, make it to the tunnels, and I’m a free man until they realize there are tunnels under this place. They don’t show up on any blueprints because they were dug by miners after the building was abandoned, and there are only two ways to get to them in the building, both of which are well hidden secrets for only those brave enough to look to find.”  

“The second you shoot, there’ll be FBI agents swarming the place. You won’t even make it to the second floor without being caught.”  

“I have a silencer,” James says, patting his pocket. “I’ve planned this one out, Y/N. Waited a decade to do it, after all.”  

You breathe in deep, but don’t request back up yet despite your instincts practically demanding it. It, you decide, is too early.  

You nod. “Okay, so you have it planned out, Just—talk, please. Before I get sick of your voice, preferably.”  

“I loved you, Y/N,” he says. “I’d bought a ring by the time you left. I was going to propose that weekend, you know that?”  

“You loved the idea of me, James,” you say. You’re trying to subtly back up towards the open window. The hallway you’re in faces the front entrance, so if you get shot, the team is going to see it and know what’s what. “You didn’t love me for me. You demeaned me all the time and when you weren’t being demeaning, you were being an asshole. You wanted a trophy spouse, not someone with whom you shared a genuine connection. Is that why you married Rachel? She wanted your money and you wanted some decent eye candy to hold onto your arm at all of your bullshit charity galas?”  

James, unfortunately, catches onto what you’re doing. He picks up his gun and carries it as he follows you. You redirect, going back the way you came.  

“That’s not it!” James shouts insistently. “That’s not it!”  

“Yes it is,” you say, turning the same corner you’d turned only minutes before. “Yes it is, James, and you know that. You just wanted a bangmaid at the end of the day, and saying that is being generous.”

“Are you asking to die?”  

“Y’know, you’re the second person to accuse me of being suicidal with regards to this case in the past two weeks,” you retort. Being sarcastic is a bad idea. You know that. You should be trying to talk him down. You know that. But you aren’t, and even if it gets you shot, then at least James will have finally gotten to do the one thing he’s been aching to for a decade. “I’m really gettin’ sick of it. Feels like between you and my boss, I’m hearing a lot of people singing the same fucking tune.”  

James laughs. “You are asking to die,” he says. “I dunno if I wanna give you this, knowing it’s what you want from me. Are you still with that pipe cleaner? The one who wears his gun weird.”  

“Where did you get the idea that I was ever with him?”  Maybe it was four years of unrequited love starting to seep through the cracks to a point of noticeability? “No. It’s never been like that, and don’t you dare bring him into this.”  

“He’s got a name,” James taunts. “Dr Spencer Reid, a man with at least three PhDs, two BAs, and an absurd amount of education for someone his age. He's as smart as you are, and if how easily you’ll go down is any indication, I feel like I could shoot him a good thirty feet away and still get the aim right.”  

“Don’t you dare,” you say it through gritted teeth, the mere idea of Spencers life being on the line enough to scare you well past your wits end. “You’re making a mistake by bringing him into this, James. My team will go down for me if they have to, but Spencer will make it the opposite of easy for you to kill him, and Garcia will drudge up every ounce of online criminal activity she can find on you just to give the judge more charges to add to your bit.”  

“Threatening me now?” James asks, grinning wildly. “Yeah. That’s a mistake.”  

You watch as he grabs the silencer and equips it. Because of your adamant refusal to shoot first unless necessary—in pursuit of avoiding more paperwork than the absolutely necessary amount—you start running backwards to keep your eyes on him while minding your footing.  

“You tryin' to watch me equip the gun that’s gonna kill you?” James laughs. “You’re more sadistic than I thought, Y/N.”  

“You do realize what charges come with the murder or attempted murder of a federal officer?” You respond. “James, don’t be stupid. I know you are inherently, but you’re acting abnormally so today. Please just stop.”  

He laughs again, and as you, in a moment of admitted idiocy, turn around to sprint the rest of the way down the hall, he aims his gun.  

He lands four shots in your torso in the last three seconds before you turn the corner.  

“I’ll come and find you in a decade, Y/N,” James calls. “If you’re not dead of blood loss by the end of the day. If you make it out, we’ll repeat this every decade and my aim will get better each time.”  

Your knees buckle, and you pull your phone out as you crawl towards a window. You dial Garcias number as you hear James’ heavyweight footing running in the other direction, towards the stairwell that’s farthest from you. 

“Garcia, call an ambulance and send them to 9981 Lilibet Grove,” you say. “Tell them—tell them officer down. Four bullets, two to the chest, one to the hip and one to the—ow, fuck—to the lung.”  

“Oh--oh my God!” Is Garcias response. “Are you okay? Please tell me he didn’t shoot you! Please, Y/N--oh my God!”  

You’re still ambling toward the only open window, and getting to your feet feels almost impossible, but you do it.  

“Agent down, I meant,” you correct. “He shot me, Garcia, and—tell Hotch and the others that James DeLuca is running for the tunnels. Tunnels are under the entire building and he’s intending to use them to escape.”  

You collapse when you’re two feet away from the window, but you push forward until your fingers can grip the ledge and drag yourself the rest of the way. You hoist yourself up just enough that Spencer can see you, and you see the fear in his eyes in the last second before you scream his name and collapse harshly onto the tiled ground below your waist.  

“Spencer!” You scream, Garcia still on the line.  

“Okay,” Garcia says. “Calling the ambulance and patching Spencer through in the meantime, okay? You—don't you dare die on me, you idiot!”  

“I’ll do my best,” you say as you listen for the sounds of government issued SUV doors slamming shut. When you hear it, a sense of hope dimly registers in your chest. Your team isn’t going to let you die, and they never would.  

“Spencer, talk to Y/N while I call 911 and please do your best to keep them awake the meantime,” Garcia says, voice tinged by a sense of anxiety you’re all too familiar with.  

“Y/N,” Spencer greets. “You’re covered in blood.”  

“You saw me, then,” you grin, pressing your head against the cold tiled flooring. “Two GSWs to the chest, one to the lung and one to my hip. This fucking sucks.”  

“Yeah, it would,” Spencer nods. “You were shot.”  

“I should’ve woken up today and made better decisions,” you laugh. “Ow--hurts. I’m on the third floor, about fifteen feet from the western stairwell. James headed east, and I remember that the blueprints indicated there was a stairwell that way, which means that he’s headed for it if he’s not already there. Getting shot is exhausting, Spence.”  

“Keep talking,” Spencer says urgently. “I need you awake until they get here, okay? Awake awake. Not awake and quiet, awake and babbling like I do whenever you bring up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock.”  

“What do you want me to talk about?”  

“You were complaining about making a blanket out of single crochets before the case started,” Spencer says. “Did you finish it?”  

“Yeah,” you laugh. “Again with the laughter—fuck, Spencer. It really fucking hurts.”  

“I know,” Spencer says, tone briefly taking on an empathetic underbelly. “The blanket. Tell me about it, tell me anything.”  

“Almost every crocheter does it and lives to regret it,” you laugh. “I figured—I've been crocheting since I was nineteen, why haven’t I done it yet? I gotta.” 

“Are you relieved that it’s done?”  

“So relieved,” you nod. “Yeah. If I ever have to do a foundation chain of the length of a queen sized bed ever again, I need to you to kill me the second I voice the idea.”  

“Yeah,” Spencer laughs. “I won’t do that, but I’ll happily talk you out of it. Why did you hate it so much?”  

“Single crochets are objectively the easiest stitch—in my heart they’re called single crochets because you only have to yarn over twice counting pulling up a loop but technically once because you only have to yarn over once when you have the two loops on your hook. They’re the smallest crochet stitch next to slip stitches, which I will never ever ever make a blanket out of, unless someone pays me what I make in a year,” you respond. “Imagine doing sixty-inches wide of single crochets and then continuing down until you have 80 inches of single crochets in length. One monotonous step over and over again for a long ass time.”  

You hear the stairwell door open. “Also, the Bernat blanket formula is fucking terrible,” you laugh, clutching your side when the same pain kicks up again. “I’m really tired, Spencer.”  

“I’m--Y/N, I am thirty feet away from you. Don’t you dare lose consciousness on me.”  

“Garcia?” You ask. “Are you back yet?”  

“Here and at the ready,” she says. “Ambulances ETA is eight minutes. Was sixteen but you are not allowed to die on me, Y/N, and you certainly aren’t allowed to die on Spencer, so don’t even think about it.”  

“You crochet, right?”  

“A little,” she says.  

“Never make a blanket out of single crochets,” you laugh, clutching your side a bit more intensely in turn. “Ow--I really have to stop doing that.” 

“I promise I won’t make a blanket out of single crochets,” Penelope says. “You have my word on that, okay? Which stitch do you recommend?”  

“I like granny squares,” you say. “Anything involving a granny stitch? I’m all over it. They’re amazing, Garcia. They’re like the Spencer Reids voice of crochet stitches.” 

“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Spencer says.  

“That good, hm?” is Penelopes rebuttal. “I’ve seen granny square afghans, and they’re gorgeous, so I don’t blame you for that. Spencer, is Y/N within your line of sight?”  

“I’m fifteen feet out,” Spencer says. “I’m going to get off the phone. Keep them awake for the next minute, please.”  

“Will do,” Penelope says. “Okay--so—the Spencer Reid comment. Are you in love with him?”  

“I am delirious, Penelope Grace Garcia, and that is totally unfair,” you snort. It’s followed by a wince and you don’t even try to mask your grimace. “I have four bullet wounds. Ask me once I’m in the recovery unit, please.”  

“When you’re in the recovery unit, you’ll probably be doped up on morphine.”  

“I’m going to refuse pain medication.”  

“You’ve had—what? Four interactions with this guy in the past two weeks, Y/N, three of which have left your ribs bruised or broken, one of which has left four bullet wounds in you!”  

“Your point?”  

“You will take the pain medication they give you and you will do it with a smile or so help me--”  

You feel Spencers hand on your shoulder. “Spencer is here. Ambulance soon?”  

“Quicker than you can say ‘Spencer Reid is probably totally the love of my life’, my dear,” she says. “You hang on for us, okay? I’m sure Hotch is going to give you an earful, but—it's because he cares. Rossi does, too.”  

You sigh, letting Spencer turn you to face him. “I’m gonna end the call now,” you say. “Thank you Garcia.”  

“I’ll be at the hospital when you wake up!” is how she says her goodbye.  

You look at Spencer pitifully. “I’m an idiot,” you mumble.  

“Yeah, but you're normally smart so I'll let it go just this once,” Spencer laughs. “You’ve seen better days, Y/N. I’ve gotta lift you so I can get you back downstairs.”  

“How mad is Hotch?”  

“Angrier at himself than at you,” he says. “Being a bit harsh, but he’s got a pass. Are you okay, everything aside?”  

“Its all my fault,” you respond. “Eight families are mourning because I left him a decade ago, and—before you try and tell me it’s not, that this would’ve happened no matter what, that’s just not how it is. I left Maine and I did so without so much as a note, and now, a decade later, he’s killed eight people in three months and their blood is on my hands.”  

“Y/N,” Spencer says, his tone cautious. “Their blood is not on your hands—your delirious. We can have this conversation when you’re in the hospital.”  

“James--I think he’d been stalking me for a few months and I hadn’t realized,” you responded. “Like, he was that good at it maybe? I dunno. He asked if I was still with you, in a romantic sense and I just thought, for a second, why would we ever?”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Spencer asks, moving to gently hoist you into his arms.  

“It--I’ve loved you since I was twenty five,” you respond. “Since that night when we were talking about A Study in Scarlett. I realized it after you’d gone to bed. Maybe that’s just when it set in but you looked at me like you were exactly where you wanted to be and it just—when a pretty boy looks at you like that? It’s very hard not to fall in love on the spot. I happened to do so, which is kind of my own fault.”  

He lifts you into his arms and you rest your cheek against his shoulder on impulse. “We’ll discuss this at the hospital,” he says. “For the record—it's not unrequited. Just to get that out of the way.”  

“I’m really tired, Spence,” you respond. “I just—I just wanna nap. For a minute.”  

“Y/N L/N, don’t you dare,” he says sternly. “Nope. No naps allowed. You can sleep in the ambulance, when they’ll actually have the tools to keep you alive if you end up dying.”  

“Spencer,” you whine because you’re exhausted and you can’t help yourself. “Please. Just a minute.”  

You hear the door open, and then it’s impossible to sleep because of much Spencer is jostling you around as he rushes down the stairs.  

“Asshole,” you grumble when you finally reach solid ground and stay on it for longer than the ten seconds it took Spencer to turn from one flight to the next in between floors.   

“Sorry for jostling you around,” Spencer says. “Well--not really. Kept you awake, didn’t it?” 

You grip the collar of his shirt in your fist and press your forehead against his shoulder. “You’re gonna owe me a lot of Jell-O once I’m in the recovery unit.”  

Spencer laughs. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Cherry?”  

“It’s the best kind,” you respond nonchalantly.  

When you hear the wail of the ambulance sirens, you don’t panic. You hold onto Spencer as tightly as you can and it’s only when you feel yourself being transferred from his arms to a gurney that the anxiety sets in.  

You reach out blindly, trying to find him as most of your head gets lost in the noise. “Spencer--please come with me! Please don’t go. I need someone I know I can trust. I’m too scared to do this alone.”  

You feel Spencers hand gently grasp your arm, then dimly register the sound of his voice as he asks to ride with the paramedics. You hear their agreement, then just as you’re being lifted into the back of the ambulance, it’s lights out. You fall asleep before you can even register that’s what you’re doing, and the last thing you see before the exhaustion takes over is Spencers panicked face, blood staining his shirt and vest.  

- 

You wind up needing to be put into a coma, and a week later, when Spencer goes to visit you bright and early on his day off, he finds you awake.  

It’s been a very long, very tough, week. Not just for him, though—Hotch had been harder on the team as well as himself in the aftermath of your being shot, and even though Rossi tried to help him gently, it ended in a shouting match wherein Rossi outright demanded he go easy on himself and the rest of the team.  

Penelope had spent every single day of that week in your hospital room for at least an hour, wanting to be there when you woke up. Derek had gone for long runs before coming into work, and Emily and JJ had both been on edge even while they were filling out paperwork and not in the field.  

Spencer was as he always was when he was going through something—sarcastic and snippy as all hell. It got on Hotchs nerves and he and Hotch had yelled at each other a few times that week, but Spencer had forced it to glide off his shoulders. He was there from the minute he got off work til visiting hours were done every single day, and on his day off, he comes in thirty minutes after visiting hours begin to find you awake, an exhausted look on your face as a nurse fills you in on your condition where she’s able.  

“Hi, Spencer,” you greet as said nurse goes from explaining the ins and outs to checking your vitals. “Has it been a week? Really?”  

“Yeah,” he says. “Garcia is going to be here in half an hour, and I told Hotch I’d call you when you woke up, but—it can wait two minutes.”  

“Yeah, it can,” you nod. “How was it? An entire week without me around to bug you for the first time in a decade?”  

“Terrible,” Spencer laughs. He approaches you finally, sits on the edge of your bed as the nurse leaves. “I kept getting into fights with Hotch, and it was just—oh my God, please never get shot at like that again. Please never put yourself in that scenario again.”  

“I had a thought, as I was running down the hallway on the third floor, about how dumb I was,” you admit. “Even thought about calling for back up but didn’t because it felt a little too early. I promise, Spence, I will never be that stupid again.”  

He smiles gently, reaches out and runs his nimble fingers over the scope of your hands. “Good,” he says. “For the record—it was stupid, what you did, but we don’t fault you for it. Emily joked a few days back that she’s made dumber decisions. How’re you feeling?”  

“Tired,” you respond. Spencers gaze flits to yours, examining your face without meaning to as he looks at you. “Really sore, honestly. Hungry, too.”  

“I’ll call Garcia, ask her to stop at the coffee shop you like so you don’t have to eat hospital food,” he says.  

“I love you, Spencer,” you respond in what Spencer knows to be a slip up. Even knowing this, his eyes still widen, fingers stopping in their tracks as he traces one word after the next against the soft skin of your forearm.  

“Do you remember what you confessed when you were half dead?” He asks, broaching the subject very, very gently. “Because--I do. I have an eidetic memory and I’ve spent the last week unable to stop thinking about it, Y/N.”  

You nod. “I do,” you say. “I’ve been known to have better timing than that. I’m sorry, Spencer.”  

“Do you remember what I said?” Spencer asks.  

“You said we’d discuss it at the hospital and that—oh my God,” you press one of your palms against your face. “That it wasn’t unrequited. Oh my God, Spencer. We both had terrible timing on that one, didn’t we?”  

Spencer laughs, nods wordlessly. “We did,” he says. “You said it was the night we’d been talking about A Study in Scarlet, but for me, it was different. I realized I’d loved you twice but pushed it down the first time, figured it’d be more of an inconvenience.”  

“Tell me more,” you say. Spencer resumes his ministrations, tracing letters that’ll form words with a feather light touch to your forearm. “About the first time, and then also the second.”  

“The first time I realized, I was twenty four,” he says. “I dunno—you were talking about Jane Austen with Elle, and it just kind of hit me as I happened to look over at you. It’d been building for a few years at that point, bubbling just under the surface. I buried it, buried myself in my paperwork, and eventually, I thought I’d buried it well enough that it didn’t exist anymore.”  

“And the second?”  

“It was the night you told me about James,” Spencer shrugs. “I can’t pinpoint what spurred it on, honestly, but I know it was that night. I appreciated—still appreciate—how vulnerable you and I were with each other. You left as I grabbed two folders from Dereks desk and as I sat down to do them, it hit all over again and I just thought: yeah. I’m a goner, aren’t I?” and I’ve been like that ever since.”  

You grin. “Okay--” you laugh a little. “Hotch warned me when you were twenty-three and I was twenty-two, that we’d have a shit ton of paperwork to fill out if our dynamic ever took this turn. Now, that’s all I can think about.”  

Spencer laughs, shakes his head.  

He keeps tracing words over your forearm, and when he kisses your forehead, your eyes are on his ministrations.  

“We can’t command our love, but we can our actions,” you whisper. “That’s something Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. I can’t remember what it’s from, but--”  

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” Spencer provides, his lips still pressed against your forehead. He kisses it again, and when he pulls away, he sees an unmistakably overjoyed look in your eyes to go with the smile that graces your lips. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but the action I’m going to take is whichever one keeps us together. Even if it means paperwork, or no promotions, or no longer going out into the field together. We’re always better when we tag team geographical profiles, anyway, and your desk will still be across from mine. Only difference now is that when I bring you tea, there might just be a forehead kiss to accompany it, provided Hotch isn’t in the bullpen.”  

You grin, and when Spencers phone goes off, you let him answer it.  

“Hi!” Penelope greets. “The hospital told me they didn’t have to call you as you’d already shown up and you were the first on their emergency contact list, but I am on the way! I’m bringing everyone else and also bagels. Is Y/Ns favorite place for tea still Izzies?”  

“It’s been their favorite spot for ages and I don’t think it’ll ever be subject to change,” he answers. “Is everyone okay?” 

“Hotch and Rossi look relieved for the first time in literal days,” Garcia laughs. “But yeah—everyones okay. Is Y/N?”  

“Y/N is tired and hungry but otherwise fine,” Spencer says. “Sore, I think, too, but that’s not confirmed, just an assumption.”  

“Did you tell them yet?” Penelope asks, and he can practically hear the eyebrow quirks in her question, the smile in her tone.  

“That has been discussed to an extent,” Spencer says.  

“What kind of extent, boy genius?” Derek calls from somewhere near Penelopes phone.  

“We’ll both have some paperwork we'll need to do once they’re back in the office, and we won’t be able to go out into the field anymore or be eligible for promotions, but—worth it. So freakin’ worth it.”  

He smiles at you, and you grin in response.  

“Yay!” Penelope shouts. “I am going to bring Y/N the biggest London fog I can get from Izzies, as well as bagels and the rest of the team. I’ll see you guys in a bit?”  

“See you soon, Penelope.”  

He hangs up the phone and looks at you, sees the exhaustion in your eyes as you reach over and press the morphine button.  

“What happened to ‘I’m not going to ask for pain meds’?”  

“Getting shot in the chest hurts like a motherfucker,” you murmur. “Now--c’mere. Please. You’re so warm and I’m so cold.”  

Spencer laughs, watches you scootch over a little in the bed and make room for him.  

In the end, Spencers back is on the mattress and you’re curled up, minding the wires and tubes connecting you to an IV and your pain meds, on his right. Your head is against his shoulder and as you fall asleep, your breathing evens out. Spencer doesn’t think he’s ever felt this content in the entire thirty years he’s been alive, doesn’t want to know if it can get any better than it is. 

THIRTY - THIRTY-ONE 

You're laughing along with a joke Rossi makes, sipping the glass of wine you've been nursing for ages, when you feel Spencers hands on your shoulders.

"Hi," Spencer greets just before he kisses the side of your head. Rossi grins at the display of affection, his smile warm and almost fatherly.

"I didn't know the two of you back when you started," he says. "Hotch did, though, and he told me the other night, he'd seen this coming from a mile away. Was shocked it took you guys so long, but wasn't surprised it happened."

You shrug. "His IQ is 187 and mine is close to it," you say. "That doesn't quite mean we're exempt from our moments of idiocy."

Spencer nods. "Yeah," he says. "Plus, the idea of the extra paperwork was a little daunting, at first." He jokes, kissing your temple again.

"Worth it?" Rossi asks, and both of you nod.

"I wish I'd done it a lot sooner, personally," you admit. "I kind of hate that I told him I loved him while I was half dead, but life gave me a lemon and I made lemonade, so it all worked out."

You let yourself melt into Spencers embrace as Rossi walks away, catches JJ and Will and decides to talk with them for a while. You sip your wine as Spencer shoots off at the mouth about how lemons are man made and were developed through years of creating hybrid citruses, grateful to be standing at that event, in Spencers arms, at all.

-

Spencer grins at the sight as Megatron curls up on your chest. It’s the early hours of the morning and neither of you have work, but Spencer has woken up at 6:30, regardless of the day of the week, since he started working at the BAU.  

She’s been extra loving with you since you were shot and wound up in a coma last year, has become somewhat co-dependent but only really displays these traits when it’s after dark or you’re asleep and she’s able to be affectionate without you poking fun at her.  

She sprawls out over your chest and somewhat onto your stomach, and when she starts purring, she purrs at the noise level of a freight train, per usual.  

“Morning, Meggy,” Spencer greets, running a finger along her chin affectionately. He’s doing anything he can to avoid starting his day because, since you’d started dating and spending the night at each others apartments more regularly, Spencer had discovered how nice it really was to curl up in bed and just kind of waste the morning away. He’d never seen the point in it while he was single or in love with you but doing nothing about it, but since your relationship had started, he loved spending his off days like that.  

He, rather begrudgingly, climbs out of bed. He goes to your bathroom and uses the spare toothbrush you keep for him to use whenever he spends the night, tidies up the dining room from the previous nights dinner and washes the dishes used before putting them onto the empty drying rack. He heads back into your bedroom after taking the necessary steps to make your life just a little easier, and when you wake up an hour and a half later, it’s eight thirty and you greet him with an exhausted smile.  

“Hi,” you greet. “Anything from Garcia yet?”  

“She called me around midnight,” Spencer confesses. “You’d been asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”  

“What’s the news?”  

“James DeLuca was caught in the maritimes, along the Canadian coast,” Spencer says. “They’ve brought him back to the states, and right now it’s looking a lot like he’ll get the death penalty.”  

You curl up against him, wrapping your arms around his waist, and Spencer knows it’s because the news feels like a bit of a relief. A year since he’d narrowly evaded arrest, and the man who almost killed you has been caught. It has to feel like a supermassive weight being lifted off your chest, and Spencer himself was relieved to hear the news when Garcia had phoned.  

He wraps an arm around your shoulders and presses his lips to your forehead. You’d spent a year looking over your shoulder and yielding no results, but now you never would have to do that again.  

“He’s behind bars, Y/N,” he says. “He’s not a threat anymore.”  

He feels your smile against his neck and can’t help the shiver that goes down his spine. Megatron, ever observant and attention-seeking, plops herself onto the centre of Spencers chest, to your amusement.  

“I never have to worry about him again,” you whisper. “That--that’s wonderful.”  

“Mhm,” Spencer says. “Now, I don’t really think either of us need to get out of bed, per se, until the afternoon. I say we just relax for a while, soak it in and maybe give Megatron some tummy rubs.”  

You laugh. “I really like that plan,” you say. Spencer kisses your forehead again.  

He soaks it in—how good it feels, to be with someone he cherishes so deeply. It feels amazing to not have anything on his plate, not a stressful case or some stupid argument with Derek that he’s overthinking.  

It feels amazing to be in your presence, to only really have to worry about how painful it’ll be when Megatron inevitably gets up and puts all her weight into her two front paws when she leans forward and aggressively headbuts Spencers jaw until he gives her what she wants or how, when you take to wanting a forehead kiss or otherwise, you’re liable to press your forehead against his shoulder until he gives in.  

It feels amazing because this, right here, in this moment, is exactly where Spencer wants to be. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else, is so happy with you and Megatron that he’s almost drowning in it.  

It’s a feeling that, before you’d started dating, rarely came about, but one he’s always going to cherish, no matter the circumstance.

[toomuchracket]

club nights (literal d word matty x reader smut)

day 16 of summer75!! post-baby, post-dh2 launch fuckery of the anal variety (girly getting it). surprisingly fluffy. enjoy! <3

the lights are hot on your skin as you dance, pulsing strobes illuminating everything and everyone in the club in stark white; still, they're nowhere near as warm as matty, pressed up behind you with a hand on your hip, your left arm slung lazily back around his neck as you move against him. kelly's set is good, and so is the vodka cranberry in your free hand, bass and booze coming together in your body and making you wanna move. you feel free. you feel happy. you feel sexy, although you're not sure if that's because of the night itself or because of your boyfriend, whose hands have been wandering all over you practically ever since you left the house.

you smile when he kisses your neck, giggling when he blows a raspberry. matty giggles too, smiling into your perfumed skin. “y'having a good time, gorgeous girl?”

“the best time,” you turn to face him, heart fluttering when you re-realise how fucking hot he looks. sure, you've fancied matty for almost a decade longer than you've known him, but lately he's been looking extra delicious to you - then again, you have just had his baby. your hormones must be going mental. “we should go out dancing more often, babe. s'fun when i'm doing it with you.”

matty raises an eyebrow, but he keeps smiling sweetly. “we've literally got a newborn at home, and you want us to start raving regularly?”

“yes i do.”

he laughs, leaning down to kiss you; it's not a long one, but you're woozy when he pulls away regardless. “so do i, darling. kinda obsessed with dancing with you like this, you know?” his hands continue their earlier trail across you, gentle yet eager. “can feel everything. fucking love it.”

oh, if he only knew.

you lean up to peck his lips. “could you maybe possibly feel your way to the bar to get me a refill, baby?”

“‘course,” matty pecks you in return, hands coming up to hold your face while he beams. “m'proud of you, you know. for lyla, obviously, but also for this,” he gestures to the crowds, too busy dancing to notice him. “s'your night too, sweetheart. enjoy it.”

you do just that while he slinks off to get your drink, hugging george to say “we did it!”, dancing with charli, catching up with your friends from the band and bea and amber, most of which is spent gushing over your baby girl, staying at home with both of her grandmothers at present. bea squeals when you show her a picture of lyla, and clutches amber's arm, tipsy-overwhelmed. “she is so cute! oh my god. i mean, she looks like a little doll. i love her!”

“bea, i'm actually obsessed with her,” you giggle. “you're lucky we even made it out tonight - got to the front door like five separate times before either me or matty teared up and had to go back for a cuddle.”

amber laughs. “he was telling me he wished he could've brought her with you.”

“god, he's a nightmare.”

“who is?” matty sidles up to you, handing you your drink and ruffling bea's hair - she swats him away, and he laughs, giving amber a half-hug before wrapping his free arm around your waist.

you smile at him, saccharine. “you, trying to bring our baby to a rave.”

“what? she'd love it,” he elbows you playfully. “she's her mother's daughter.”

“he's not wrong with that bit, to be fair,” amber takes a sip of her drink. “it is actually quite scary how much she looks like you.”

bea winks at you. “well, she knows what's good for her.”

everyone but matty collapses into giggles; he glares at bea for a second, then smiles. “yeah, she does. i mean,” he cups your face, squishing your cheeks playfully. “who wouldn't steal this face if they could?” dropping your face in favour of taking your hand, he turns to your friends. “see you in a bit, yeah?”

with that, matty leads you further into a darkened corner, weaving through vape clouds and various friends before leaning against the wall. you smirk, raising your eyebrows at him and leaning close so he can hear you over the music. “this feels… familiar.”

“what- oh,” he nods slowly, smirk matching your own. “nina's birthday. i remember,” his face softens, lost in a memory, before he speaks, matter-of-fact. “first time i ever saw you in red lingerie, that night.”

you choke on your vodka, eyes wide as you try to regain breath. “matthew!”

“what? m'just being honest. you don't forget a thing like that, darling, trust me.”

“christ,” you shake your head. “you're mental, you know that, yeah?”

“you're even more mental,” he bites back, but the love in his eyes is clear even in the club lighting. “having a baby with me, and all.”

“true,” you down your drink and lay the glass down, wrapping your arms around your boyfriend's neck for a cuddle; his find home around your waist, lips softly pressing against your hair. “i miss her.”

“me too. mum says she's good as gold, though. which, again, is all you. my perfect girls.”

you smile into his chest. “love you. we both do.”

“oh, i love you both, so much,” matty leans down to kiss you, soft and sweet and slow; there's an undercurrent of lust, though, in the way he lightly bites at your lip and takes his time releasing it. “dance with me?”

you kiss him quickly again. “always, my love.”

and you do. you jump around like maniacs in excitement during george's set, holding hands and giggling and singing along, and when you shriek with total joy as soon as you hear yeah i know, matty cackles and pulls you close for a kiss. you stay like that for the rest of the song, wrapped around each other while you move to the beat, matty's face tucked into your neck in an adorable mixture of shyness at hearing his own voice and emotion about his best friend in the whole world taking such a big step in his career; actually, you stay like that for the rest of the set, so close it's hard to tell where matty ends and you begin, bodies grinding and sparking heat in each other in both the literal and metaphorical senses. by the time the night ends, the two of you are pretty fucking desperate for each other, kissing so sloppily while sharing a cig at the taxi rank that your friends can't help wolf-whistling and cheering and throwing digs like “oh, lyla's about to get a sibling!” at you.

you kiss in the taxi, too, little snippets of snogging and matty's hands roaming all over your thighs in between the driver yapping about this that and the next thing on the way to the hotel. matty does his best to answer politely, reluctantly breaking away from your lips to talk while you giggle behind your hand, but his exasperation is obvious - naturally, you rip the piss out of him for it when he throws you on the bed and climbs atop you to kiss you properly. “babe, i'm not going to disappear if you unattach your lips from mine for a few seconds, you know.”

he licks your nose in response, smiling when you shriek. “how else am i meant to show you how much i love and also fancy you?”

you shuffle down to kiss his neck, enjoying the way his breath shakes, dragging your lips up past his jaw to whisper in his ear. “fuck me.”

“oh, baby,” matty sighs, pressing his forehead to yours. “i wish i could, but, y'know… it's still too soon after you gave birth, darling,” he pulls back, confusion etched on his pretty face. “what are you smiling like that for? that's your sneaky smile.”

it drops, in favour of an expression of bewilderment. “my what?”

“you know, the face you make when you're up to something,” your boyfriend cocks his head, squinting at you. “are you trying to get me to fuck your mouth?”

“nah.”

“tits?”

“that would actually be a lot of fun, but also no.”

“hmmm,” matty thinks for a second, then sighs - you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing at how clueless he's being. “nope, you've got me. explain, please, darling.”

“if you let me stand up for a second, i can show you what i mean.”

matty nods, rolling off you and lying propped up on his elbow while you move off the bed. he groans when you start undressing, slipping out of your cargo trousers and shucking your top off without breaking eye contact with him. “fuck, princess, you're so hot,” he claps a hand over his mouth when you raise an eyebrow at the pet name. “sorry, darling. muscle memory, i s'pose.”

“s'alright, daddy,” you wink, turning away from him to let him get a good view of your ass in your sheer panties; you bend forward, slightly, and you hear his breath hitch. “seems we're both thinking along those lines, yeah?”

it takes him a second to respond, but when he does, it's delicious - a calloused finger traces up from your slick core towards your other hole, and he speaks in a whisper. “you're plugged?”

“yeah, i am,” you toss your hair over your shoulder and your gaze follows, focusing on your wide-eyed boyfriend. “because i want you to fuck my ass tonight, matty.”

for a moment, there's silence, a tension permeating the air that you can't quite name. nerves begin to flutter in your stomach; they're dissolved almost instantly when matty flops unceremoniously onto his stomach, almost inaudibly shouting “fuck!” into the fancy bedding before rolling back to face you with defiant lust in his eyes. “you serious?”

“wouldn't have the plug in if i wasn't.”

he sighs, then smiles almost shyly. “part of me thinks i should be against this, but,” he sits up, tugging you to stand between his legs with a kiss to your stomach. suddenly, you're on his lap, and you can't stop beaming - he is so fucking hard. “who would i be if i didn't give my princess what she wanted, especially after everything she's done for me lately?”

your heart soars, and all you can do is kiss him, an absolute head-melter of a kiss that only stokes the heat between your legs, makes you grind even harder against your boyfriend than you were in the club. “thank you, daddy. love you.”

“i love you,” matty smiles against your lips. “missed you calling me that, you know.”

“more than you've missed being inside me?”

he laughs, the soft chuckle he reserves for the two girls he loves most in the world. “nothing i've missed more than that, gorgeous. can i… now?”

“yeah,” you breathe, desperate. “how do you want me?”

matty thinks for a second. “lie on your back for me, sweet girl, get comfy. that sound alright?”

“perfect,” with a final little kiss, you climb off him, shuffling up to rest your head on the plush pillows. as you undo your bra, the fluttering restarts in your stomach; instead of nerves, though, the butterflies are borne of excitement as you watch matty undress. he looks inquisitively at your weekend bag, and you know what it is he wants. “the lube is in the side pocket, by the way. packed a bullet vibe, too, but i honestly don't know if i'll need it.”

your boyfriend hums happily, climbing back onto you, bottle in hand. “so turned on you only need daddy fucking that pretty ass to make you cum?” he coos, thumb sliding across your lips - when you take it between them, he beams. “my little slut.”

god, you've missed this. “only yours. always.”

“perfect girl,” matty murmurs. “gonna fuck you now, yeah? you know your colours.”

“yeah.”

“good girl,” he sits back, tapping your thigh as a sign for you to lift your legs so he can slip your underwear off. his pupils dilate at the sight of the plug, but a sweet smile appears on his lips. “brat green jewel?”

“couldn't not buy it - oh, fuck,” you whimper as matty begins to toy with the plug, every movement sending a burst of pleasure through you. “feels good.”

“yeah? can i take it out, princess?”

you nod enthusiastically. “please. want you inside me, daddy.”

your boyfriend swears under his breath, snapping open the bottle of lube and squeezing some onto his hand; you watch with proper interest as he slicks himself up, practically drooling at the sight of him essentially wanking himself off. he grins when he notices you staring. “you're cute, baby,” he leans forward to kiss you, trailing a hand down your body to play with the plug again. “reckon you'll be even cuter taking my dick, though.”

it isn't so much a word than a whine that leaves your lips. “please.”

“alright, darling,” looking carefully at your face, he begins to gently twist the plug out of you - when you whimper, he pauses. “this okay?”

“yes, yes,” you pant. “keep going, please.”

matty nods, obliging you quickly; you feel the plug pop out, and he moans. “fuck, princess, you look so pretty, all ready for me like that. are you ready, sweetheart? what's your colour?”

as if it could be anything else. “green.”

he beams, kissing your forehead. “good girl. my best girl,” he coos, smiling when you giggle deliriously. “gonna slip in now, alright?”

“hold my hand?”

“always,” he takes your right hand in his left, kissing it before holding it on your stomach. you watch, breathless, as he takes his dick in the other hand, tentatively nudging it against your hole - as the head eases inside you, stretching ever so slightly, you exhale, stuttered, and matty looks tenderly down at you. “oh, my darling,” his voice is just as shaky as your breath, little whimpers leaving his lips the more he inches - well, centimetres - into you. “colour?”

you can barely comprehend him, the intimacy of the moment combining with the pleasure and clouding your brain. but still, you answer, voice nothing more than a whisper. “green. please don't stop.”

“okay,” he breathes, hand moving to your hip to steady himself. “almost fully in, princess. taking me so fucking well, feel amazing.”

you beam, dazed. “good,” your jaw drops as he finally bottoms out, eyes fluttering closed. “oh.”

“i know, darling, i know,” matty caresses your face. “d'you need a second?”

“yes please.”

“anything you want,” his lips find yours, the sweetness of his kiss completely incongruous with the fact the two of you are literally doing anal right now. but it's not totally innocent - matty's lust for you is clear from the way he kisses, and it energises you enough to pull back and bite your lip at him, a silent hint that you're ready for the next step. he takes it immediately. “you want me to fuck you properly, now, princess?”

you nod, doe-eyed. “yes, daddy.”

and that's exactly what he does.

it starts slow, of course, matty gently thrusting into you with his arms braced on either side of your head and his lips pressing soft kisses all across your face; when the desperation gets too much for you to bear and you give him the go-ahead, though, he begins to roll his hips with a bit more force into yours, little gasps leaving both of your lips and foreheads touching tenderly. you don't know whether or not it's purely psychological, more to do with the eroticism and intimacy of the act than the actual sex itself, but you can feel the pleasure jolting through you every time matty's hips meet yours, travelling through your nervous system to the familiar place in the pit of your stomach.

all in all, you can't remember ever being so turned on in your life. matty seems to think so, too, eyes widening when he looks down to watch your bodies joining as one. “fuck, princess, your pussy's so wet right now. can feel it dripping on me,” his voice is joyous; so are you, when he runs a finger over it and settles it at your clit. “you really needed daddy to fuck you, didn't you, sweet girl?”

“yeah.”

“needed this too, darling, so fucking much,” matty smiles sleepily above you, kissing you sloppily. “fuck, need to make you cum, too. can i?”

you smile back, equally as fucked. “can do whatever you want to me.”

he laughs, breathy and beautiful. “i love you.”

“i love you,” you pout for a kiss, smiling and gasping into him when he starts to properly work your clit with two fingers. “mmm, just like that, yes. don't stop.”

thank fuck your boyfriend isn't feeling mean tonight - he does as you say, keeping a steady rhythm with his hips and a consistent pattern with his fingers, cooing praises and promises into your neck in a determined attempt to get you off. a successful attempt, too, it turns out; within a few minutes (although your grasp on measuring time is probably dire at present), you're clutching at matty's shoulders, head buried in the crook of his neck, crying into him as you hurtle towards the precipice of orgasm. with a whimpered plea of “cum for me, princess, please”, you fall into bliss, clenching vice-tight around matty's dick and shaking like a leaf. that's enough to set him off, too, and he cums with a hoarse groan and an “oh, i fucking love you”, hips growing weaker and weaker as his orgasm wears off.

he doesn't linger afterwards, though. as soon as he can physically do so, matty's pulling himself up to hover over you, looking intently into your eyes to check how far you've slipped into subspace. despite the gravitas of the night, you're fairly lucid, and he smiles, satisfied with that, as he strokes your face. “you,” he begins. “are a fucking dream.”

“stop it,” you giggle, trying to burrow into his chest. “you're pussy-drunk. well,” you correct yourself as matty laughs. “not quite, tonight. but you know what i mean!”

“i do know, darling, i do,” he kisses your nose. “but you really are incredible. and i'd say that even if i wasn't balls-deep in your ass right now, so…”

“oh my god.”

matty laughs. “my cue to pull out?”

“i think so, yeah,” you grin. “mostly cos i wanna shower and go to sleep, honestly.”

“whatever you want, my love - hold my hand, by the way, this might feel weird… there we go,” matty winces, in tandem with you, as he slips out. his eyes widen as he takes in the sight of his cum dripping from you. “never ever gonna get over that,” he leans back to kiss you again. “thank you for letting me do that, by the way, darling. m'the luckiest bastard on the planet.”

you laugh. “and don't you forget it!”

he smiles softly, and you fall in love with him all over again. “never gonna happen.”

[ss-skyearn]

Walk With Me

❝In love with the idea of loving you.❞ 

PAIRING : Lee Minho x female!reader.

WORD COUNT : 4k.

GENRE : Smut, Fluff (wow no angst for once.)

WARNINGS/CONTENT : Past angst, established relationship, feelings and emotions, they're in love (to no one's surprise), Minho with long hair, mentioned Soobin.

SMUT WARNINGS : First time together, hair pulling (not the rough kind; minho realises he enjoys his roots being tugged at oops-, this bit inspired by this post by @tasteracha), voyeurism, public sex (late at night, so one witnesses it), unprotected intercourse, sweet lovemaking, so much love and feelings *sob*

A/N : Writting fluff is nowhere near what I'm good at, so feedback is really appreciated. Enjoy, lovelies. ♡

"Everyone can see."

It's a little too late for that now. 

But it's not a complaint, not a protest, an objection. It's a simple statement, divulgence of facts, a declaration made by your brain that has long since lost the ability to conjure lucid postulations. 

"Let them. Let them see," quickening of thrusts, desperation rearing its head in the most sinful of ways.

"Let me show them how much I love you."

"Meet me outside?"

The laughter of your girlfriends drowns out behind you as you weave your way out of the single room you've all gathered in, despite having been allotted seperate ones.

"Outside?"

"Yeah, outside," you don't need to be next to him to know that he's anxiously bouncing off the balls of his feet, rocking back and forth with his bottom lip caught between bunny teeth you flick your tongue across everytime you kiss him, without fail.

You'd have to make it a point to let him know of your adoration for them the next time he decides to take your breath away with his hot mouth.

And make no mistake, that's what kissing him is like, like losing your breath, like gaining your breath all over again; like being locked in an airtight, evacuated room, like being put on the ventilator with nothing but pure oxygen being pumped straight to your lungs.

It's dizzying either way. Whether it's being deprived of the gush of wind through your airways, or being forced to choke up on all the withheld supply of air all at once, it hurts.

It hurts to be with him. But you'll choose to be hurt, to be on the receiving end of the pain, if it means he's the inflictor, the hand on the trigger.

"Right now?"

"Yeah, if that's okay," he's nervous, something you both are a lot around each other from time to time.

"Uh, okay. Okay, yeah, I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay, good. That's good," you hear shuffling, and imagine him moving from one foot to the other, "I'll be waiting outside the dorms."

"Outside the— what if someone sees you?"

"They know anyway."

Which is the truth. Inherently the private person, you'd asked Minho to keep your newly budding relationship a secret from your peers, a request he'd agreed to almost immediately. Ever the understanding and gentle soul, he'd not once asked to go public with you, even though Hyunjin told you how he sometimes drunkenly mumbles about wanting to hold your hand when Soobin gets a little too close, about wanting to get you coffee on 7 A.M. Tuesday lectures when he knows you haven't slept for more than two hours, about kissing you under the lights on prom night when all couples got their fancy on and indulged in each other after a tough semester.

He wants, yearns, craves.

But you'd been cruel enough to deny him that. Trust issues and fear of commitment aside, you'd been afraid to tell people, to introduce him as your boyfriend, because saying that aloud would make it all the more real, and you'd no longer be able to control the flutter to your heart every time he appeared in your peripheral vision, you'd no longer been able to hold back the intensity of your feelings that seeming only grow with each passing hour, minute, second you spend looking at him.

It had scared you. Understandably so.

Caught up in over your head, you hadn't stopped to consider what it all meant for him, what he might perceive this as. He had no way of knowing what you actually felt, not unless you told him.

It all happened a week ago, when your phone dinged with a notification from Hyunjin. Instead of telling you, he sent you a video this time, a video of Minho slumped back against the wall of the speakeasy you both frequent, eyes shut with his head resting on the concrete.

dumplin [2:57 A.M.]

VID_3653833_219389.mp4

he's been like this for half hr

"I love this place," his intoxicated form had rasped in the video.

Hyunjin who was behind the camera had snorted, asking the reason for the sudden confession.

Minho had grinned, all toothy, bunny smile on display, "I come here all the time with my girlf—" only to stop dead in his tracks, eyes snapping open, neck suddenly ramrod straight with panic all over his drowsy features.

"Your girl..?" Hyunjin had prompted from behind the camera, barely stifling his chortle.

"Uh, my, my. Oh god, I don't know. I don't know what I was saying."

He always was a bad liar. Even in his hazy eyes, even through the shaky video, you could see the hurt, the pain behind his actions as he rubbed the heel of his palms against his eyes, chugged a bottle of water to sober himself up.

"It's okay, Minho. I know. We all know."

"Know what?" he had asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"We know you're dating the dance society president."

His eyes had widened, a fresh surge of agitation creeping its way onto his otherwise relaxed face.

"No. No, that's not true. Who told you that?"

Hyunjin had chuckled and told him he was the one who introduced you guys, and the other six seated on the table were among the very few people who did know of your apparently secret relationship.

"I don't know what you're talking about. She and I are just frei—"

The video had cut off there and half an hour later, you found yourself asking the local security guard for directions to 'The Late Bite'.

The bejewelled smile he cast your way as you entered the dining space lasted only a fraction of a second, him going back to pretending you were mere acquaintances and your heart had all but given up.

Marching to him, you had gotten him up on his feet. Ignoring the confused, almost frightened look to his face, you had for once asked your brain to shut the fuck up, and finally given in.

You kissed him. You kissed him on the mouth, swallowing the gasp he let out, ignoring the gasps the people in the diner let out, cradling his face with care befitting a porcelain doll, for truly, he was. As fragile as fine china, as delicate as the first rays of sun hitting the horizon.

Not the tough guy he pretends to be, the hard exterior, the unbreakable shell. You know him to be none of those things.

The dazed smile, the look of blatant relief he'd given you before collapsing on you, mumbling a small breathy, "thank you," was all you needed to know that you'd made no mistake. This was how it was supposed to be, always.

And so it had began.

He held your hand when Soobin got a little too close, he got you coffee on 7 A.M. Tuesday lectures when you were running on two hours of sleep, he held your nape and kissed you under the nightlights, because prom had passed by then but it didn't matter to him, he had kissed you, kissed you, and kissed you some more, till your head got fuzzy from the lack of air supply, till it was physically impossible to stay connected for even another second.

And that's how you find yourself here, making your way out of the girls' dorm in the quiet of the night, it being well past midnight by now— not before checking your reflection in the common bathroom once, fluffing out your hair, splashing some cold water onto your face.

He's standing under a street lamp with his hands into the pockets of his fleece jacket, unmatching with the track set he wears underneath.

He's the single most picky person you know when it comes to styling outfits, deciding what goes well with what, which colour compliments the undertones of another one. Well, besides you of course. Your friends teased you both about how you were practically cut from the same cloth, the same material but different textures, so alike in all the places that mattered, so different in all the places that didn't so much.

So the beige jacket atop the cherry red track set stands out a little too much, and your heart thumps a little too fast at the possibility of his eagerness to see you outweighing his need to look presentable at all times.

You shuffle forward, heart picking up its erratic staccato, the same way it does every time he's within a mile's radius, threatening to jump out of the confines of your ribcage, trying to lunge for what was once so out of reach, for far too long.

He's reclined against the street lamp, eyes closed, head thrown back against the cool metal pole, allowing the ombre light to fall straight onto his fluffy mop of hair. It's unstyled, freshly washed. The caramel tone compliments the muted yellow light streaming down his face, painting him, drowning him.

Your heart aches from running a mile a minute.

Or from feeling so full. You aren't exactly sure.

"Hi," you squeak tentatively, not wanting to disturb him when he looks so peaceful. And beautiful. God, he looks beautiful.

His eyes flutter open. Your heart breaks open with them.

He forgoes pleasantries in favour of wrapping his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest, and you hold him back, hug him back, squeeze him like you never want to let go. Because really, you don't. Not now, not ever.

"Where's your jacket?" he mumbles into your shoulder, stroking his face back and forth against it, much like the stray cat that visits your dorm room at nights does.

"Mm?"

He chuckles, "It's cold out. Why didn't you put on a jacket?"

"Oh," you pull back, there's pink dusting your cheeks, and you really hope it passes as the consequence of the chilly night, "I guess I forgot."

He smiles wide, affectionate and all kinds of pretty, and the tear in the front of your heart deepens, curling a little to the back, threatening to split it into two.

It's not so impossible a situation, you suppose. Lee Minho is very much capable of shattering your heart into a million pieces with a single smile, then healing it back with a kiss to your temple, breaking it along new cracks, then moulding it back together with the same blowtorch he uses to melt sugar atop his Crème Brûlée, the blue flame made all the more hot with searing kisses, aimed at trapping you into this cycle where he plays with your heart, keeping it with him to do as he pleases.

And you'd let him. Let him have his way with you, to make you, unmake you, only to make you again.

You're his clay, and he's your artist.

You're brought back to the present as a sudden warmth engulfs you, and when you look over your shoulder to see the beige fleece jacket dropped around you, it warms you from the inside too.

"Hey, you'll catch the cold, you have an assessment tomorrow too—"

He shrugs, "I'll live."

"Minho, seriously I'm fine, here take it back—"

"It doesn't match my fit anyway," he entwines your fingers together and begins slowly walking, guiding you along.

It's then that it clicks. Glancing down, you take note that the jacket actually goes with your outfit, and you refuse to pick up on the reason for this coincidence, for certainly, it's not one. It's planned, thought out.

You'll ignore it all the same. For the well being of your poor heart that's working overtime, your senses that are on high alert, your hand, so so warm engulfed in his large one.

"Where are we going?" you ask instead.

"Just a night walk," he begins, and you've spent enough time with him by now to know that his voice sounds bashful, the little shy lilt to it endlessly endearing, "wanted to spend some time with you."

You clutch at your chest with the other hand, exhaling a deep sigh, and squeeze his hand, praying that it's appreciation enough, that it compensates for your inability to verbally acknowledge his thoughtfulness.

But if there's one thing that he's, without a doubt, mastered about you, is your tells.

He knows when you're too abashed to outright admit it out loud that you appreciate him.

He knows when you're too overwhelmed to downright confess you're having trouble staying focussed.

He knows when you're too exhausted to unequivocally divulge your reluctance to anything social.

He just knows. But you don't; you don't know what you did to deserve this, to deserve him.

You still don't think you do, truth be told.

When you snap out of your daze, you both are no longer on campus grounds, walking along a lone street you don't recognise, lit by flickering lights threatening to give out any moment, but in a moment of vulnerability that surprises even yourself, you find you're not scared. Because Minho is with you, and as long as that stands, as long as you're lucky enough for that to stand, you know you're safe.

"Where are we going?" you echo your previous question.

But this time, he grins with a mischievous glint to his eye, looks you over and his pupils dilate, as if merely looking at you is enough to kickstart his heart into overdrive, "You'll see."

And see you do. Twenty minutes later, here you stand, bare feet pressed into the wet sand by the shore, both arms wrapped around his bicep, head resting on the trusty shoulder, humming along to the sound the breeze makes as it whisks past you.

"Are you cold?" he whispers, despite there being no one except the two of you on the beach at this time of day, taking your hands in his and swiping his thumb over your knuckles, assessing the answer for himself, lest you lie to not worry him. "Mm. No, you're not," he hums to himself, guiding your head back where it rested against the crook of his neck, only this time wrapping his own arms around, engulfing you in an embrace that speaks of warmth, of comfort, of love.

But for some reason you aren't sure of yourself, you resist, not taking his lead in going back to your previous stance, instead just staring into his eyes with something you don't know, but it seems he does, for his facial expression turns from surprised to lovestruck in the matter of a second.

He leans in, granting your silent request. Really, you don't know how he does it, almost like you don't have to say anything at all, for he hears you loud and clear without you having to utter a single word.

If what people say about having a soul person is true, he is yours.

And as your lips slot together, the waves behind you crash the loudest they have today, as if the nature is rejoicing, the elements exuberating, witnessing the collision of two beautiful souls, their stitching together into a single bracelet in the form of two bright pearls.

He is the black one, burning passion and quiet peace.

You are the white one, inherent perfectionist and loud existence.

You compliment each other, matching almost every piece of clothing in the wardrobe, neutralising when the other gets too much, burning along when the other gets dim.

"I love you."

You don't know what love means, what it stands for, what it entails.

But you're in love with the idea of loving him.

"I love you," you echo into his mouth, forgoing the "too" at the end because it makes it sounds like a passive confession, a favour returned, when it's easily the truest statement you have had to utter in all the time you've spent thinking about him, him, him.

"I love you, I love you," and alas, once you say it, you can't seem to stop, you want him to know, you want the whole world to know. You want to write it on the stars for the universe to read, that you are his, and he yours.

"I love you so goddamn much."

It hurts, it hurts so much, more than it did an hour ago when you caught sight of him standing outside your dorms. Now that your heart is aware of the gravity of what it feels for him, it just hurts.

When he pulls back, it's to hold your chin in the care of his palm, making you look at him, his eyes glittering with the beginnings of perspiration.

"I love you," he says simply.

To any onlooker, it might have seemed tame, insane maybe, for you two haven't been saying anything except the same three words in the last ten minutes.

But you know, only you know that they aren't the same words.

The first time he said it was to test the waters, to see if you would run away.

The first time you said was to check for yourself, did you love him?

The second and third time you said it was to tell your heart that yes, yes you did, you loved him more than you did anyone before, and it's a wonder how it took him saying it first for you to realise that.

The final time you said it, it was to him, to let him know that you did.

The final time he said it was to say yes, he knows, he knows that you do, that he knows the first two confessions were for your heart more than they were for him, that he's proud you've let down your walls enough to let him in, that he's grateful you've chosen him.

You suddenly find yourself descended on the shore, your back pressed into the cool sand that tickles your nape, Minho hovering over you with a look that can only be described with three words.

I love you.

"Be mine?" he says with wet kisses trailing up your jaw, stopping after every one to take in a deep inhale.

It's silly maybe, to say that when you're already dating but you know what he means, for you feel the same.

"I already am," you say as your body cants upwards, up, up, up, towards him, towards safety.

His hands trail down your body to where the waistband of your sweats sits, tracing along the diameter it transcends, looping his arm to the back to lift you up a tad more.

"Can I?"

You don't know what he's asking for, your motor and sensory neurons having stopped working, still chanting the same words over and over, 'iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou'.

So you nod, letting him undo the knot that rests on your lower stomach, letting him expose you in a manner most intimate, letting him have you for him, surrendering to the onslaught of pleasure.

When he sinks down on you, stretching you open for the very first time, it's with a groan you wish you could record, paste onto your eardrum, for every time a sound reaches the tympanic membrane, it would vibrate, carrying with it the symphony of the voice you want to hear every second of everyday.

As the initial euphoria of letting him in wears off, with him buried to the hilt, you look up at him, his soft brown hair falling down like curtains on either side of his temple, spilling over his nape that's suddenly too narrow to contain all the strands. And it's then that you remember saying you loved it whenever he was too busy and pushed back going to the salon, his long locks a guilty pleasure, your indulgence.

You reach your hand forward, entwining it with his silken strands, just holding, feeling, "Did you grow them out for me?"

"Yes," he whispers without a beat, as though waiting for you to take note of it without him having to say it first.

This time, the tears do trickle down your eyes, staring up at what you only appreciated from a distance.

"I can't believe t-this—" you choke out the last word when he begins moving, ever so slightly pulling back, pushing forward with a little more force, a little more ardour, the veins in his neck all the more prominent with the strain it takes to hold himself back from going faster.

You tug at his roots, a sharp hiss emanating from somewhere deep in his throat, the roll to his eyes evidence enough of how there's now another reason for him to keep his locks long enough to pull at.

He presses his body closer to yours, coming down on his elbows, kissing down the trail of your hot tears on even hotter skin underneath. It's his way of saying he's listening, an unspoken encouragement for you to continue, but also that it's okay if you don't.

But today is the day you've decided to bare it all to him, to not coware back, to let him know what only you have for what seems like forever.

"I s-saw you on the day of the orientation," you barely get out, coherence slipping past your fingertips much like the fine sand particles you're currently making love atop.

He stills, looking into your eyes, searching for something, "The very first day of college?"

You nod, stretch your lips into what you hope is a smile for your tears are cascading down with a current, sweeping anything and everything that dares come in the way of your route to him.

"That was like, five months ago," he seems incredulous, unbelieving that you were, in fact, the first to notice him and not the other way around.

Entangling your other hand into his hair, fingers brushing the one already slotted in there, you chuckle, "Yeah, it was like, five months ago. I had my eye on you for quite a while, pretty boy."

He doesn't buy the distraction you only half hoped he would, tenting his eyebrows into an upside down V, "And?" he prompts, yet again knowing that there's more to what you're saying.

"It's silly," you mumble, turning away from his gaze that puts your well being at risk.

A gentle finger to your chin, a swift sway of your face to pin you under the same gaze.

"Tell me." Simple as that, with no way out.

Maybe you don't want one.

"I-I saw you on the first day, a-and… I just, god you were so pretty, I thought— I wanted you already, but I thought you were a little too pretty, you know? And, and that eveyone would want you too, and you'd have so many options, ones better than me, and I'd have to get in line, and then—"

A firm press of lips, locked together in love and lust, in lieu of reassurance that you know is still coming.

"It was you for me, always," he says when he pulls back, "there's no line, no one else, just you. And me. Just us, hm?"

"Mm," you hum, losing yourself in the rhythm of his hips that have begun moving once again, small whimpers escaping right into his ear that is pressed against your cheek. Whether it's deliberate or not, you don't know.

He grasps onto one of your ankles, winding it around behind him, the space thus created allowing him to push in all the deeper.

"Oh god, Minho—"

His pace picks up when you pull his hair enough to cause a faint sting on his scalp, in addition to being a direct result of the way his name keeps overflowing past your lips.

You gasp, fighting for air, clutching onto his shoulders, afraid he'd slip away if you let go, "Everyone can see."

It's a little too late for that now.

But it's not a complaint, not a protest, an objection. It's a simple statement, divulgence of facts, a declaration made by your brain that has long since lost the ability to conjure lucid postulations.

"Let them. Let them see," quickening of thrusts, desperation rearing its head in the most sinful of ways.

"Let me show them how much I love you."

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© ss-skyearn 2023. All rights reserved. Copying, editing, reposting and translating any of my works is not allowed.

[peijizerojournal]

issues and inconsistencies in "khaos reigns" [part 1, probably] :

i already have a post speed-reviewing/critiquing ‘khaos reigns’ and i touched on the sektor parable via a reblogged post, but grrahh, i still have tons of thoughts, questions and comments about the narrative and i need to excise them from my soul so here are some of them. apologies for any spelling mishaps or inconsistencies i may have missed. spoilers below, of course :

- the new era being — essentially — a multiverse, totally cancels out the idea of kronika being THE titan of TIME itself. her timeline was the ONLY one. i know that they tried to explain this away by saying that the fight between liu kang and shang tsung for the hourglass in mk11 was apparently so powerful that it broke the space-time continuum, but still! the way mk1 ended and how ‘khaos reigns’ continues the story basically takes away from the gravity of her position, and the weight of what it means to be the keeper of time. kronika painstakingly tinkered with the realms to achieve a golden balance, but now, since basically everyone and anyone can be a titan, liu kang's sacrifice seems moot. everyone just opens a portal to anywhere and everywhere and does whatever they want to his timeline. he may be reluctant to touch the hourglass out of fear of going insane or mucking things up, but the writers sure don’t mind i guess lol!

- according to titan havik, ‘time crystals’ come from geras (because he’s the only one to exist in all timelines), and they function in a similar way as jinsei (only jinsei is the 'essence' of the realms). so does that mean jinsei isn’t a thing anymore? or are the time crystals the ‘jinsei’ for the alternate timelines? what do they even look like? the needles in geras' back look like they are holding the same fluid that was injected into bi-han, so i'm confused by how they were extracting anything from geras at all...

i wouldn’t really care about this normally, but since they went to the trouble to bring back the kamidogu and insert a weak explanation from havik about the usage of these phenomena, then why not give us the proper exposition? i guess they didn’t bother because the kamidogu are essentially just infinity stones (‘the avengers’) or chaos emeralds (‘sonic the hedgehog’). hm, veryyy creative plot device…

- the scene with sub-zero and havik talking about the time crystals and kamidogu should have been longer. noob saibot's transformation was too rushed and havik’s motivations for corrupting him aren’t there. why didn’t we get sub-zero’s final stand fight scene either? it would have made sense to show that: giving havik a reason to actually keep sub-zero and turn him into a henchman (because of his formidable kombat skills and cunning to follow him into the portal, perhaps) and it also would have helped flesh out bi-han’s dimensionality, too (i.e. jumping into the portal to go after geras).

- geras and sektor should not have stopped noob from attacking liu kang at the end. bi-han needed to fight the fire god. it's such a long time coming. the pressure between the two of them has been building, bi-han’s frustrations have been surmounting and in that moment, he was ready to implode.

would he have lost the fight? yes of course, but that’s the point. bi-han needed to be humbled. maybe after liu kang defeated him in kombat, he might've cooled off a bit and been more accepting of help and willing to go to the temple of the elements instead of having to be sedated and taken there against his knowledge/will. and sektor being the one to break him out and tell him that liu kang 'abandoned' him and left him to rot -- while his last memory of being awake is his failed confrontation with liu kang -- does his redemption arc no favours. no wonder he went back to being 'bad.'

- i believe that sektor is not only bi-han’s enabler, but his full-blown sycophant. i don’t necessarily think she is 100% a manipulative mastermind, but if we ignore the bad storytelling going on, it’s plausible that she is a ticking time bomb of her own, and in her obsessive infatuation with bi-han, she is -- perhaps unknowingly -- sabotaging his opportunities to grow and confront his flaws and frustrations. and to be honest, they don't really seem 'romantically' involved to me, but rather have developed a strange codependency toward one another.

bi-han in mk1’s normal story mode clearly sought to be respected, maybe even revered, and acknowledged for his efforts, as well as exhibiting a keenness to take on more proactive role in leading earthrealm. to go from that to: “better to be feared than respected!” hmm… that doesn’t seem like the same man to me.

sektor’s constant smirking/lurking in the background of the cutscenes, however, makes me think that she’s been planting certain seeds in his head: encouraging him to embrace his negative traits (likely not even on purpose, just out of adulation), be the villain that everyone has already been painting him to be, and continue to isolate himself from everyone who might have ever stood up to his shenanigans or help him find a better path.

whether or not she actually has ulterior motives, it's clear to me that sektor prefers bi-han to be "bad," or unchanged, based on his presented mk1 persona. for her to be the first voice bi-han hears and the first person he sees when he wakes up after his mind is fixed... that's something poignant.

the man has been -- more or less -- 'lashing out' because of the departure of his brothers, and because for sometime now, he's been frustrated by his strained, untrusting relationship with liu kang. so, sektor is quite literally the only one he trusts and feels that he can trust.

but, this sort of 'all-in' attitude is, of course, toxic. when she says to liu kang that she stopped bi-han from attacking him because he 'would have gained nothing' from the challenge'.. uh, who is she to decide that? of course she wants bi-han to be restored: as in, made human again. but not redeemed. a 'redeemed' bi-han would be a different one than the one she has known, and a version of him that has been humbled (like if he fought liu kang at the end and neither her nor geras stopped him), or cannot be controlled (noob saibot) is probably not the one she wants.

she gives off: ‘i’m the only one that understands you’ vibes, but if he remains as noob, or if he were to be redeemed and healed as a better sub-zero, she cannot continue her power fantasy with him. to be honest, i think that would've been an interesting direction to take her character in: where in her mind, she has built up this idea of the lin kuei and the grandmaster, but in bi-han's fall from grace or in realizing her ambitions have diverged from his, she sees her disillusionment and in her delirium, proceeds full-force with the cyber initiative. THAT would have been one hell of a tower ending!

(side note: i also -- like many other people -- was almost certain that she would have looked down on bi-han in her tower ending, the same way she did with cyrax and kuai liang, and thus turned to embracing machinery and going full-on insane with her aspirations for the lin kuei. unfortunately, though... the writers introduced it only to then promptly throw it away.)

there is definitely more than meets the eye with all of this that is worth further exploration and analysis, as there are plenty of examples of her warped fanaticism (think annie, from ‘misery’ by stephen king), but it’s best saved for another post.

- there are too many contradictions between mk1’s base campaign and this dlc, INCLUDING tower endings and intro dialogue. i don’t know what is ‘canon’ and what isn’t anymore because technically, all of it is, if it’s in the game, right? but, it makes no sense for liu kang’s new era. what’s the point of introducing all of these plot twists when they don’t apply to the current timeline? from an ‘easter egg’ standpoint, it is what it is. but from a a lore/storytelling standpoint, it’s confusing and utterly inept. it seems silly to rewrite the lore while constantly referring to the 'old story' at the same time.

- NRS really do hate sub-zero and bi-han… but why? it’s clear that even in mk1, bi-han is shown to be a rather complex, emotional character that is grossly misunderstood and certainly not irredeemably wicked. i have a hard time believing that the guy who wanted to help lead earthrealm, who wanted to use his father’s teachings to guide him, who wanted to lead the clan alongside kuai liang first and foremost…. is suddenly a supervillain? who enjoys lying to his supposed ‘second-in-command’ (cyrax)? this contradicts mk1’s story mode so much (among other things) and it’s WILD. yes, he is extremely flawed, but it's clear that there is more under the surface than is being said. since it was a noob saibot-focused dlc, we needed more info about his upbringing, maybe; more insight into the bond with his brothers and even his subordinates, into his role as grandmaster... but it's clear that NRS can't wholly decide what they want to do with him. they villainize him in 'khaos reigns' except for his story chapter, and even that is nullified by his tower ending. another storytelling fail.

- another conspiracy theory i have is that this dlc seems like it was supposed to be longer and larger, likely including noob’s full character arc, too, because so many things are missing. some of the leaked dialogue from last year was not in the dlc at all, and lots of the lines in the cinematics seem to not really fit… almost as if there were cutscenes that used to be there but were hastily edited out at the last minute or something. also some of the audio mixing and animations are a bit off, if you pay close attention.

- in his first moments as noob saibot, bi-han is literally more human than he’s ever been throughout mk1. strange, considering in the beginning of ‘khaos reigns,’ he is SO out of character and almost comically villainous, but yet… after having his mind broken and then freed from havik’s mental corruption, he is forthright with liu kang, shows distress towards his situation with his hubris on full display, and then he fights alongside the allies to protect the timeline without claiming ulterior motives.

despite the khaos magic still coursing through him, he does his due diligence. but then… all of this gets tossed away when sektor frees him in his tower ending. what was the point in the vulnerable moment where he showed visible concern for how his actions compromised the timeline? or when liu kang lets him know that his desires for a different future aren’t an issue, it’s the ‘methods for achieving them?’ (that scene needed to be longer too, tbh) in short: why introduce the concept of bi-han potentially being salvageable if at the end he’s just going to continue being bad, if not worse off than how he began? the whole dlc was like a flat circle in terms of progression; that's how little happened in it.

- the hand on noob’s hip was supposed to be explained. in the last kombat kast (and i think in that xbox article, too) they said its purpose would be revealed in the actual dlc but… that never happened. aside from the missing fight scene with sub-zero and havik, we didn’t even get a glimpse at his transformation, either. he was just suddenly there… with the hand on his hip and all of these new powers. it would have been nice to get a teeny bit of info as to how exactly khaos magic works for noob, like imagine a scene where havik explains to noob what he can do now, how the hand and the shadow work in tandem and how much more powerful he is compared to how he used to be? it would also have been a chance to explain the random telekinesis, too.

- smoke really, really, really needed to have a chapter in 'khaos reigns'. i have a feeling — as i mentioned earlier on — that the dlc was originally going to be a bigger expansion, but some characters/scenes/dialogue were cut along the way; likely to drip-feed the whole story back to us in a trilogy of dlcs instead (taking notes from BUNGIE i see… ahem ‘destiny 2: lightfall’).

but i digress: smoke having a chapter maybe just before noob’s would have been amazing. it would have been nice to see his visceral response to bi-han’s transformation, as he has claimed to have idolized bi-han in the past and was/is hoping for reconciliation between the brothers. i personally think the brotherly bond between the three of them is the most interesting part of the lin kuei story in mk1, and it sucks to see this angle being completely abandoned when the dlc focuses around bi-han.

we needed MORE BACKSTORY! more info about their parents, their upbringing, bi-han’s obvious long-standing conflicts with his life's purpose, the true nature of their father’s death (what actually happened?), etc. and the dynamic between the three of them with bi-han as noob would have also been really interesting. smoke was absolutely necessary as a the vessel for the more compassionate approach to bi-han’s downfall and ensuing redemption (instead of sektor, who is obviously evil) and bridging the gap between scorpion’s mercilessness and bi-han’s malevolence.

- it's not havik, but liu kang who was the real hypocrite here, and it breaks my heart. first of all, stopping bi-han from killing titan havik in order to ‘save innocent lives’ is such a weak, oxymoronic explanation from liu kang. let’s not forget that he wiped out two timelines in the base game: titan shang tsung's and quan chi's. a bunch of other titans died at the pyramid battle too. liu kang even says himself that without shang tsung to ‘hold the timeline together’ it would collapse! the actions of the final chapter of mk1 were already enough to kill BILLIONS of innocents, yet havik is somehow an exception. actually, leaving havik alive would have been worse, considering he didn’t want to destroy or merge the other realms, but have them tumble into anarchy and khaos instead. bi-han was 100% correct when he said that they were 'not safe until he dies.’

- another problem i have with liu kang is that says he cannot leave his timeline to go help get geras (which by the way… geras is his closest companion and confidant, another powerful being like him who has been at his side for EONS). that left me with a huge, glaring question: where is liu kang’s urgency?

it is so unlike him to be this 'laissez-faire' (but that’s a discussion for another post). he says that he cannot go with them because the timeline would be compromised without him, but that is a silly excuse because:

1) his timeline is tainted anyway, because 'damashi' already messed with it, and the fact that concurrent timelines exist negates this idea that his new era can ever be truly 'safe' again.

2) titan havik leaves his timeline all the time with his cronies… he’s been collecting every geras and kamidogu, so why can’t liu kang? havik said he'd be back to inflict khaos after taking geras, so it wasn't like he needed to wait in earthrealm and twiddle his thumbs. it was GERAS, for god's sake. he should have been right behind bi-han going through that portal, the way they built up the bond them in the main story.

3) liu kang literally DID leave his timeline in the base story mode… the first time, he went to look for titan allies to fight shang tsung, and the second time was when he went to the pyramid to defeat him. he is essentially repeating the former raiden’s mistakes with this sort of approach to protecting earthrealm.

on one hand, raiden was slightly too impulsive and tried to intervene a bit too frequently, causing a negative ripple effect to those surrounding him. i get that liu kang does not want to repeat his — or kronika’s — mistakes, but doing absolutely nothing until your hand is forced and trying to evade all conflict by letting [terrible] events play out is not the way to be doing things. defend your timeline, liu kang!!! get up and get moving!!! just as raiden 'jumping the gun' had its own consequences, so does remaining overly-passive and slow-to-react.

- i like the character of liu kang and i was initially excited at the idea of a timeline reboot with mk1. liu kang is known to be humble, kind, genuine, understanding, compassionate: all of those hero-like qualities that we know and love him for. but that being said, why claim to reset the timeline if everything is going to turn out mostly the same, if not worse?

from a development standpoint, i understand needing to have certain things remain static, no matter what game or era we’re in. for example: raiden must always have lightning, mileena/baraka must always be tarkatan, sub-zero and scorpion must always exist, etc. fair enough.

but having bi-han not even make it a whole game without becoming noob? having shang tsung, shao and quan chi continue their plotting? how come some characters got a pleasant rework (reptile, sindel) but others are thrown so far under the bus and are poorly-utilized/represented (sub-zero, smoke, havik).

constants are needed, of course, but variables are also important too. and there are not enough variables in mk1 for it to feel like a 'new era,' and cheap, low-risk 'changes' are not an effective way to reflect it. at this point, the game should have just been called ‘mk12’, full stop.

- cyrax deserved better. she starts off as what we expected of her, based on her new character bio, anyway. she is loyal, but inquisitive. ‘free-thinking.’ she has no problem pushing back on bi-han a little bit about his explanation for kuai liang and tomas’ departure, and she obviously doesn’t get along with sektor and doesn’t mind talking back to her, either. she is defiant, but noble, as presented. but then…

she spends the rest of story mode groveling to scorpion: following him around like a lost puppy and begging for his forgiveness and receiving the brunt of his anger and spite (which was completely unwarranted and undeserved.)

kuai trying to hold her accountable for something that had nothing to do with her is crazy and really out of character for him, and because of this, her story arc was thwarted by her constant seeking of his approval and validation. the same way sektor’s reliance on bi-han takes away her arrogance, genius and austerity, cyrax’s sudden flip from being honourable but discerning into being manipulated by scorpion is just so, SO unfortunate. both ladies deserved better than to simply be portrayed as the unsung loyalists to a pair of capricious, irascible men.

some insignificant [mostly nitpicky] honourable mentions :

- this was an observation made by gaming youtuber mike hollow who pointed out some telltale inconsistencies regarding believable power balancing: sektor’s camouflage, scorpion’s fire teleportation and rain’s ability to turn into water were all missing in this dlc. it’s like they forgot to include the characters’ defining abilities in the story at all. why weren’t they taking advantage of the cybersuits in the maze? using camouflage to hide from havik’s minions? where was scorpion’s kunai climbing rope? why did rain not turn into water to escape his crushing death? again, it's not that deep in the grand scheme of things, nor is it new to the franchise, but it's definitely something i noticed, as well.

- in that same vein: geras’ time freezing abilities could have stopped him from being kidnapped by havik’s minions. why didn’t he stop them? he casually stopped bi-han at the end from lunging at liu kang, and he had plenty of time to do it since sektor stalled the attack.

in sindel’s throne room, havik was going on a big, illustrious speech about how he was only here for him. isn’t geras on par with being a kind of divine being, considering he himself is a construct of time (i.e. made of the sands)?

perhaps his lack of reaction in that scene can be chalked up to just 'shock', but this is just another example of poor power balancing in mk1's story mode (and i say mk1 and not the other games because the current timeline has all kinds of titans and divine beings that are all fair game). another example of this would be: empress tanya being able to defeat noob, but noob easily defeats titan, kamidogu-powered havik. and -- if the khaos magic had something to do with it -- they should have shown that somewhere in the campaign.

- how come titan havik’s limbs suddenly stopped regrowing when noob fought him? is it because noob has khaos magic in him and thus, he can be defeated by his own powers, therefore stunting his ability to regenerate? they don’t actually explain this whatsoever, unless again: it is another misrepresentation of power scaling in the story, but it is what it is. (seriously though, we should have gotten a scene where havik explains to bi-han his new powers!)

- if bi-han and sektor knew that cyrax wouldn't go for the wedding attack (hence the pointless lie they told her about liu kang 'capitulating to outworld'), then why take her along in the first place? why even include her in their plans at all? this doesn't seem like the same cyrax that kuai liang was referring to in mk1's regular story mode when he said she would 'sooner abet' bi-han's corruption than follow him.

um... as soon as we meet cyrax, she is already weary of bi-han and it seems like she has been for a while, enough so for he and sektor to already suspect her lack of fealty. at that point, she shouldn't have even been given that suit.

(side note: AS SOON as they arrive at the wu shi academy, cyrax is already fighting against the lin kuei and going against bi-han's orders. when she comes down from the roof, she immediately eliminates two of her fellow lin kuei warriors before harumi is even captured. she was already over it even before learning about what really happened.)

it doesn't make any sense and does not corroborate kuai liang's observations from the main campaign. i feel like once more, this is another example of something being changed in this dlc somewhere between the initial leaks last year and the trailer drop this past july. it seems like there might've been more planned for 'khaos reigns,' but they got rid of it, or they're saving it for the next dlc (which i'm almost positive is the case, at this time.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there are a million more things that are running through my mind, and if it comes to it, i'll make a part 2 to this post. there is still a lot to be said about the dlc on a corporate/business level that may be worth touching on.

that being said: the game design, stages, animations, cutscenes, characters, etc. are all absolutely gorgeous! you can tell the ground-level developers really care about their work and that's amazing. c-suite and the 'narrative department' however...

in addition, i've still got some conspiracies regarding liu kang, kuai liang and also... the khaos magic! has anyone out there played batman: arkham asylum? does anyone remember the TITAN VENOM? yeah, i have a feeling that the writers are doing some borrowing from other IPs beyond the obvious comparisons to the avengers (because, of course). the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper.

i will leave the bi-han analyses to the experts in the community. there is already a lot of discourse out there about what happened to him but all i'll say is this... he deserved his comeback, redemption and victory lap. but... he was bastardized. again. bi-han 1000% deserved his moment. JUSTICE FOR SUB-ZERO!

anyhow, if you made it this far, thank you for reading! xo

[the-dumpster-fire-of-life]

Being toms bf while being bills bestie real!! LMFAO LY POOKIE 😭

(Hell yeah! Of course I can! Enjoy!)

Taglist

Tom's Bf and Bills Bsf

You either grew up with them, were a fan or either met them when you, Gustav and Georg all offered to help the band

Either way, you guys had known each other for a long time

Tom didn't really know he likes you until it hit him right in the face

I think he pushed it down more though because he knew how close you were with Bill

He didn't want to get in the way of your friendship if he did try and get with you

But obviously neither of you could help yourselves

Somehow you both ended up having this situation where you would meet up, do your thing and pretend to be just friends who were bored

But obviously, with feelings

Tom didn't care who saw, but felt guilty for his brother

Tom kissed you, hugged you, flirted and didn't care about gender because he just likes you

It was the first time he actually likes someone, so why would he care about what others think?

Only one he cared about was what Bill thought

You felt like it was a betrayal to your best friend to have feelings for his brother, twin nonetheless

Same thing with Tom

But jokes on you, Bill already goddamn knew

He could tell from how you two acted together, and how you looked at one another

He could tell for a while but had that fear that Tom and your relationship would somehow take away from your friendship

So Bill didn't say anything, encourage it at all until he could obviously knew you guys were sneaking off

He felt a bit sad you needed to sneak around him, he felt in the way of your happiness

So one day he just blurted it out

"So, Gustav and I were thinking-"

"I know you like Tom! And I know he likes you and I know you both sneak around me!"

He couldn't keep it in anymore, due to guilt and sadness but it wasn't the best way to due it as you froze and almost died of shock

You both were stumbling, apologizing!

Bill finally got his words out that he was okay with it, shocking you

Bill just wanted you to be happy, and Tom to be happy, especially if that meant being together

He was worried though what some people would think of you two, both being guys

But he swore to always defend you guys, and that he didn't care that you two were together

He was happy you both were happy and that he no longer stood in the way

"If you hurt them-"

"I'm your brother?!"

"I like them better, Tom."

"Ha! Fuck you, Tom!"

"I'm your boyfriend?!"

You and Bill are constantly attacking Tom

Sometimes Bill even infiltrates on your dates, not that you guys mind, just because he wants to

He needs Tom to know he's always gonna be your down bitch

The one to make gagging sounds when you kiss Tom just because

Yet Bill is the best friend to hug you, kiss your cheek or lay on top of you with that platonic affection and stick his tongue out at his brother

He reminds you he came before Tom so he comes first as a joke

But at first he was holding your shoulders, close as shit to your face like

"Are you sure? I'm mean…it's Tom. Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Bill."

"Are you really sure?"

"Oh my- yes! I am Bill!"

"...just making sure."

He actually does warn you though because he knew how Tom was with the flirting and hooking up and you're his best friend so he doesn't want you to be hurt by that

But once he saw how happy you and Tom were, he was okay with it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@billsjum6ie @bigbootahjudy @dead-tapes @ilovebill-and-gustav @r3dheadedw0rld @kiwitsune @V4mpyboyy @novaaisstupid @billybabeskaulitz @yas-v

[xaeethebaee]

baji nsfw hcs? I love urs they’re so funny 😭💗

MINORS! DNI! 18+ FOLKS ONLY!

Thank you so much for being my very first request! I'll try my absolute best to not disappoint, Anon Love!

What's it like to date Baji Keisuke? This Headcanon obviously will contain some NSFW material, fluff, and a little bit of angst.

Warnings: Mean Dom Baji, subreader, very mild blood play, nonconsensual video sharing, and a very subtle hint at sadism

A/n: I know there are a million of these, so hopefully this gives a different take. Also please keep in mind that this is strictly referring to ADULT KEISUKE BAJI!

Let's start with the fluffy parts of your relationship with him!

He’s not very affectionate at first as the most you'll get out of him is hand-holding and maybe brief hugs here and there

He does show other ways of showing his affection for you like randomly kissing your forehead, biting your hand as he holds it, and calling you a cute pet name - Kitten (though it's not always used in a cute way)

He also bites you to mark territory, so he is somewhat possessive

PLEASE play in his hair since your touches are gentle and relaxing to him. It's also the best way to put him to sleep!

Just let him rest his head on your lap and he'll be dozing off in minutes!

It's extra special knowing you are the only person who he'll allow to touch his hair

Style it if you'd like too and he won't mind going to Toman meetings with that hairstyle because everyone knows not to tease him for it. It's also because it is one of his ways of showing everyone who he belongs to.

He does sometimes struggle with having a conversation with you because he does not want to frighten you. That means he tends to avoid talking about his gang-related activities though, it does not stop him from showing up at your place in need of some first aid.

He is the most vulnerable during those moments too. In fact, it is the only time he tells you how much he loves you

It goes without saying that Baji is VERY protective of you

You're never allowed to walk alone at night and go to unfamiliar places. He is either walking with you or he has Chifuyu or Kazutora to accompany you (I'm going to do a headcanon of how the rest of Toman and Baji's mom treats you as his gf in a different post since there is so much to talk about)

Circling back to the biting thing, you two get playful with each other. Wave your finger in his face and he will playfully bite at it.

Baji gives you enough time to move your finger however the times when he does bite it (thankfully not hard enough to hurt) he won't let go

Once you do free your finger from his teeth, he will present the most adorable pout. That moment makes Baji fall in love with you all over again when he sees you smile because of your cute moment with him

You two can keep doing that for over an hour and it still won't get boring

Here are a few not-so-fun aspects of being Baji's girlfriend

He. Wins. EVERY. SINGLE. ARGUMENT!

it does not matter what you two were arguing about, he wins every time because he gets so terrifying (mf has anger issues after all)

Baji can be demanding sometimes whether it is intentional or not.

he has a very bad habit of not saying 'please' or 'thank you' when he asks you to do something for him

prepare for random impulsive actions from him. Most of the time, it is funny but the few times when it is not is because someone got hurt

He's a thieving pyromaniac. Basically, he sometimes steals your things and burns them for no apparent reason.

Usually, he is perceptive enough to tell which of your items you no longer need or use but it is still a mild annoyance

On to what y'all really want to see: the NSFW material!

Remember the pet name, Kitten? There are times when he uses the pet name in a more predatory manner

when he is horny, he basically will see you as his prey that he can devour so he will typically use it before or during sex

it doesn't matter what time of day it is, Baji will send you dirty messages when he feels like it

Baji: send me a pic of ur tits

You: My day has been going well. Thanks for asking.

Baji: then I'll fuck u violently ❤

Baji definitely has a size kink

he knows he is not the tallest however he also knows that he exudes an intimidating aura. That aura makes you feel small (even if you're taller than him) He loves to see the effect his aura has on you. (cheeky bastard)

He ALWAYS initiates sex

You know when he is in the mood because he touches your thighs more. Also, sometimes he'll just blurt out: "I wanna fuck."

don't worry because Baji is typically in the mood when you are as well

MEAN DOM!

those backshots are RUTHLESS!

when in missionary, he does have his hand over your neck and he squeezes it (though you'll still be able to breathe normally)

Despite being a mean dom, Baji does prioritize your satisfaction, so he is a Mean Service Dom lol

he takes eating you out very seriously to the point where his hair is tied into a ponytail before he goes down

those tongue strokes get your legs shaking every time. Yes, he makes you squirt too but don't think that is going to make him stop

the guy LOVES to overstimulate you sometimes

Giving him head is messy because the dude has a very peculiar habit of bucking his hips so he goes deeper down your throat. He may be a slight sadist because he likes watching you choke harder on his length

Don't forget, he's still a BITER during sex too so expect those fangs going in the skin of your neck and shoulders. Sometimes, he draws blood but it is always an accident. He'll lick the blood off though

Baji can last a while during sex but once he cums, he's done (obviously he will make sure you are thoroughly satisfied too)

estimate between 30 minutes to an hour (including foreplay)

As rough as he is, he can also be just as gentle. Sometimes, he just needs slow and romantic love-making, and generally, that happens after you've been such a good partner to him

He does record part of your sessions (with your permission of course) and it is mostly when he is fucking you from behind

He will never share it with anyone (except for Mitsuya and don't ask why and you don't know about that 🥴)

he keeps the recording in his phone for 'self-service' reasons

His aftercare is getting better with time

at first, all you got was a half-assed swipe from a towel but now you're starting to get the princess treatment by being carried to the bathroom. Though he will forget you are bathing and he goes to sleep, so you're just left in the warm bath water waiting for Baji to help you out

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[I hope you Lovelies enjoyed. I really tried my best to bring a different take to Baji. Fun fact, (like so many people) I started watching Tokyo Revengers for Baji! Somehow, I ended up simping for Shinichiro of all people lol.]

[Requests are always open. My only thing is that I won't accept requests for any Non-Con/R scenes and scenarios.]

[soraviie]

asking them for space.txt

━ type: bts x gn! reader  ━ masterlist

━ about: fluff, angst ━  pictures taken from Pinterest

━ a/n: so because I'm rusty af writing here's some headcanons and crack to ease into things. In my free time, I've been sitting down and writing original cosmic horror/despair/no hope story so you can imagine what mood shift it is to go from that to feel good crack about these guys lmaooo

━ note: reader asks for space for personal reasons not because of an argument. This was requested by someone and I hope you don't mind it turned out this way

NAMJOON:

...

right

ok

cool

space

no doubt, no doubt, no doubt

"This is not personal, Namjoon," he tells himself. "It's just a thing one needs to do."

but it sort of feels personal

and that feeling gnaws and festers like an infection, filling the cracks of his day to the brim

so he seeks out the medicine

maybe a bit pettily, perhaps a lot combative

but as he sits down in the studio, during those fleeting, rushing moments of silence and inaction, his fingers hover over the contact info and without much thinking he's speaking into the phone; pleasantly, gleefully surprised you answered this quick

it's all casual, oh, so casual, however, the coursing insecurity manages to break through the veil of distant politeness and he asks in that accusing, grumbling tone

"When are you coming home?"

and, yeah, he kind of hates himself for it but it needs to be said

it needs to be released from the confines of his tremoring inside

whatever answer you give, he accepts gracefully

how can he not

he needs to be a perfectly reasonable understanding boyfriend

because what if you decide to leave him if he's not

...there's that insecurity again...

but either way, he is actually understanding, he's just a bit scared...

what if...what if...what if upon and more if's

it's carving a you sized hole in his heart every time he comes to the stillness and quiet of his home, bed empty, couch - emtpy

all of it - empty

for the lack of the better word it makes him empty

but once the space is over, he welcomes you back with wide open arms

asks you 1000 questions per second and then stares adoringly as you update him on what happened since you met last and what has your thought process been

lol definitely pesters you sweetly to answer what was going through your mind during that "space" period

it's the ever present dichotomy of his to be simultaneously petty and kind about the same thing

so yes he's a bit defensive, bit offended but he still loves you and love equals respect

YOONGI:

there's a long, stretching moment of a pregnant pause and then a single question:

"Would you mind telling the reason?"

if you say it or even if you don't, it doesn't really matter

he gives a short nod, a comforting smile and says that he understands but makes you promise you don't try to move mountains all by yourself

he's okay, if he knows you're okay then you're both okay

he does keep himself busy

fills up his schedule so there's no moment to dwell on anything...untoward

he makes sure you're okay thrice a week by either actively checking your socials or sending a quick, straightforward message

if you call, he picks up in an instant

doesn't pressure you in the slightest

our gentle prince :(

he trusts you implicitly so if you say you're fine and you got this covered, all you need is to think on your lonesome, he's not the type to discern hidden meanings in the undercurrents of your tone

he just accepts what you say at face value

at times, he misses you bit more

but Yoongi is perfectly capable of handling himself

and if he happens to call and then proceed to ask nonsensical, off the topic questions just to stretch the conversation a bit longer then that's none of anyone's business >:(

once the space is over he welcomes you back with a good home cooked meal and a ready ear should you need one

he won't ever hold this against you, won't ever even pry if you're uncomfortable by it

all around he's a safe space that has no selfish desires or inhibitions to be the only space you heal in :')

JIN:

lmaoo but it's literally him

while twiddling with his thumbs, Jin asks, voice small : "is it something that I did?"

he's so wholly convinced he's at fault lmao

so you may need to dedicate an hour (or three) to convince him this is not breaking up, he's not at fault and no one has done anything wrong, it's just a thing that you feel the need to happen

you have to find briefly a different place to stay at 'cause if you're anywhere near his periphery there's no way he won't bother you

like he's not physically capable

I just have a theory that he doesn't like for arguments or any kind of conflicts to drag out so he faces them head on, occasionally cracking a joke in between to lighten up the mood

(and now I'm sad thinking about Jin)

so, yes, it sort of goes against everything he believes is logical

but he's our golden manner superstar :( so, of course, he'll do as you ask

keeps in touch though

if you don't want to talk to him at all, then negotiates that must at least send him a thumbs up every two days

if you're with your parents will swallow the risign terror and call them to know how you're doing hehe

goes out drinking with his friends more because the silence of the apartment is just too damn overwhelming

and, yes, this might just be Hoseok who now gets pestered with 103% increase to go out drinking lmao

as more time passes he begins developing this...habit

"They've got this in a purple."

"______________ likes purple."

"The notepad is in that room."

"_______________ used to like that room."

Namjoon glares at him

"Yeah, maybe because it's both of your bedroom, genius"

With glazed eyes, Jin recounts to himself as though still half suspended in a dream

"Sometimes I still hear their voice."

"Their not fucking dead, Jin" T-T

some people have definitely shit themselves when they see you again because the way Jin speaks made them think he's a young widower T-T

tries to act so cool once you come back home T-T

deadass tries to seduce you again

unsuccessfully of course because either he manages to slip, burn his finger or drop the food he made onto the floor

perhaps he does all three

either way God decides to embarass him in a very personal way

then pouts

needs a lot of affirmation afterwards so he knows both of you are okay

HOSEOK:

(why does he need to go to the military he's been serving for years (¬_¬)

has a very firm, insightful conversation about why you need space

not because he's disapproving of it, or he's personally upset, no, it more so stems from the need to know you're okay and whether or not someone has done some evil upon you

once you're both on equal footing what this "space" entails and why there is a need for it, he lets you have all the space you want with no grudges or resentments

open communication is important for him so he merely makes sure you're both perfectly clear with each other before the brief parting

keeps himself busy but still thinks about you a lot

doesn't call or text that often if he knows where you're at and that you're okay

whenever he misses you, buys a gift for you or anything that makes him think of you

amasses a lot of trinkets

probably makes you some kind of jewelry in the meantime

he trusts you so he doesn't question your thought process but he's still human and needs someone to talk to

I feel like he'd go to Namjoon for advice and perhaps just to relieve the tension rising in the background of his mind

definitely makes sure that the things back at home are in prime condition

like say you've got a winter coat that you never gave a proper wash and left hanging on the coat rack

one day he's walking past it and he thinks: "this needs some cleaning"

and then does the laundry :(

if you update your socials, he likes all of the posts

sometimes pulls out his phone and stares at a picture of two of you

that's when he misses you the most :(

he doesn't say any of this in great detail once you return, always feeling the need to be The Caregiver not the one being cared for

he just says he missed you a lot and kisses the top of your head :'(

gives you all the bought presents over a period of time with an excuse "just because"

(they can't just take Hobi away like that I swear)

JIMIN:

yeah, so...it's not ideal

Jimin's not great with...space

he doesn't like it when people bottle their feelings up, he doesn't like it when they cry alone when they lose all hope and hide themselves away

so when you say that you want space

his mind just leaps and bounds to conclusions

he's making this whole ass conspiracy board in his head, thinking that something awful happened to you, that he'd done something so wrong that now you hate him forever

so one needs to go on a long and detailed explanation with him

still being a caring partner he does as you ask, he gives you space, essentially putting your needs above his

though he might ask you to stay home

so at least he knows you're safe and sound

I feel like if his partner would be gone his anxiety would rocket to insurmountable heights

though it's not like seeing you withdrawn and quiet doesn't unnerve him in a way

probably still tries to initiate a conversation quite frequently whether in person or over text

just small domestic things

"do you want some of this pizza?" "you're going to shower?" "is that jacket...new?"

just craves interaction, it's jut a bit unnatural for him to not hug you or talk to you for hours to end considering that you're not in a fight and he's not mad at you

it's just odd to him that...this is what you want

but as much as he struggles he tries just as hard to be respectful of your wishes

offending or making you mad at him will simply not happen

he will fight anyone who dares to make you unhappy and that does absolutely include himself

talks about this space to few of his friends (I'm thinking Hoseok for emotional release and Yoongi for advice and insight)

sulks a lot

is the happiest, energized puppy prince once the space is over :')

tell you the truth he hated every second of it though he keeps this to himself

I'd still wager his face told it clear and loud enough

TAEHYUNG:

so maybe some of you be surprised but he takes the request rather well

I theorize he might be prone to getting into sulky moods and so he might understand where you're coming from in terms of wanting to be alone

so he nods, gives a polite agreement and affirms that he'll be here once you feel like returning back

though similarly to Jimin I think he would still insist you don't stay at a hotel or with a friend

but he'd go out of his way to make sure he doesn't crowd you

e.g. leaving before you wake up, coming home once you're asleep

he soaks up your company with the simple fact of seeing you resting in the bed, that's enough

be that as it may, his melancholic big heart misses you to the point his throat is choking up with emotions

he listens to love songs while on long drives

watches videos you've made before and photos taken in the past

grows a bit sullen and expresses that turmoil on late night talks, most likely, with Jimin

after drawing a prolonged, suffering sigh, he'd simply shake his head and say: "it's whatever. It's what they want and I'm not going to argue with that."

leaves small indirect gestures of affection

like fresh flowers in the vase

your favourite candy that just happens to be laying around

if he overhears you wanting to go somewhere, you'll wake up with all the laundry magically done with exactly the type of clothes you'd prefer to wear

he's fully capable of not speaking at all if you're in the same room, allowing you to fully do your own thing

he just needs you around as I've said it's enough for now

unlike Namjoon he doesn't want to pry you out of your head and examine every single line of thought running through your cranium (srry Joon)

he's often lost in his own world so he understands that if you say you're okay, it's fine to leave you there for a bit

when the space is over, he calmly and quietly accepts you back, treating this period like nothing at all had happened

and in a way nothing had

he's just in love with you as he was and he will be after you need the next space again T-T

JUNGKOOK:

he's a bit...he's a bit hard to read

he's a more than a tad confused about request

I imagine him blinking in silence for a solid minute after the phrase was uttered

probably inquires whether or not you're mad at him like million times

for some reason his first instinct when you say you'd like to stay somewhere else is to ask whether you'll visit Bam somedays lmaoo

he's honestly a bit too confused to form strong reactions be it positive or negative

but awkwardly he obliges your request

probably takes him a lot of getting used to the change

fishes out his phone to text you the most dumbest, menial thing that just happened and then he remembers "space" and just goes: "guess not..." proceeding to stand like a sim whose action has been interrupted

you know that meme of someone cutting off all of the sleeves of their shirt because they're partner left taking all of the impulse control with them?

yeah, that's JK

inexplicably some things are just changed with zero explanation

you swing by in order to, yes, see Bam and the rest of the doggies and for some reason you find there is just a leg chair in the middle of the kitchen?? like the rolling one??

drunk dials in the middle of the night

while heavily slurring the world: "oh I forgot I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"I never said that."

"Hmmmmmm yeah you did."

okay so he might be just a tiny, imperceptible bit sulky about it but it doesn't stem from a place of intended maliciousness

or even an unintended one

he's just bratty like that

treating it up a silent competition in a way whose more chill about staying away

sleep evades him as he's thinking when will this end though doesn't bother you a lot

(so whose really losing this non-existent competition ey ;))

to put it plainly he hovers awkwardly over you like a anxiety ridden helicopter waiting for this whole thing to blow over

 © soraviie, 2023

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

I'm tired so y'all get angsty Nimona headcanons

So apparently since I’m a masochist I was thinking about how Nimona would react to the boys dying 

Specifically the order cause I feel like that would contribute to how they would react 

If Bal died first he would be crushed and kind of just shut down and close himself off

After a while he would start taking longer trips and meeting new people and the hurt would lessen year after year 

After a while they kind of notice that they left Ambrosius alone

They didn’t mean to it was never their intention to recede into themself 

But that’s what happened and when they rejoined his life he didn’t miss a beat 

He just acted like they never left and that hurt ten times worse 

Especially when she realized that Ambrosius never fully dealt with his death 

At least not in a proper way

Ambrosius passing soon after they reconnected was just another gut punch 

It was like she finally started to recover just to be thrown back down

And a small part of her just a teeny tiny part of her was bitter about it 

And she fucking hated it

If Ambrosius died first I think she would still be angry 

She wouldn’t shut down like Bal she would lash out 

She would act like his passing away was just another betrayal by someone she trusted 

And again it would take a very long time for her to stop viewing it as that

They would never lash out at Bal though

They saw the effects and noticed how deep the sadness ran so they would always hold their tongue around him

One day Nimona made an offhanded joke about how Bal’s eyes should be studied cause they should be able to get even bigger with age 

And Bal just starts laughing 

And he doesn’t stop

Even as he’s bent over sobbing there are still laughs sprinkled in

He asks Bal what was wrong and he says “oh nothing starlight” he keeps pestering him until he finally says 

“You know I don’t think I ever had a chance to miss him because I see him every day when I look at you” 

And they just sit on the couch and seemingly go through every stage of grief 24-hour period 

When Bal dies a couple of years later it’s still like a gut punch

And he wants more than anything to dig himself into a hole and never come back out 

But he doesn’t 

It takes a long time for him to start letting people in again

So I don’t know if the boys were living together or if they were still living in the dorms before the knighting ceremony 

But there in either situation there is something so utterly heartbreaking about the idea of Ambrosius having to rummage through the destruction of people barely knighted  

Desperately trying to pick out the undamaged bits of Bal and clinging to them

I can also just imagine him searching through his phone frantically looking for old photos videos and voicemails 

Trying to figure out if he was genuine or if he was talking with a mask for a decade 

He goes back and forth between knowing those are his genuine smiles and laughs and that’s really love in his eyes 

But then he also has moments when he remembers that he might not know what his real smile looks like or what his real laugh sounds like 

And how can he know what love looks like when he might have been faking it this whole time 

He stops looking through his phone for a while

[theshiftanlibrary]

I'm not sure if you're ask are open are not but can you do ruggie,epel,and Floyd with a Shy s/o who's love language is act of service and physical touch?

I hope this is okay. I took a long time with this, mostly because i lost motivation and inspiration half way. Don't ask me why Floyd's is longer... I don't know either. Also I apologise for the style change, like I said, I spent moths on this... Also, I'm working on a request page, but keep the asks coming!

·˚ ◌༘₊· ͟͞꒰➳ | My little love...

SYNOPSIS: Your shyness doesn't affect you love for these boys...

CHARACTERS: Ruggie Bucchi; Epel Felmier; Floyd Leech

TAGS: Fluff; Gender Neutral Reader; Establised Relationships

: ̗̀➛ Ruggie Bucchi

   “Aw, baby! Ya didn’t have to do this!”

His tail swayed with anticipation and joy as he watched you picking up bits of Leona’s clothes. He was tasked with cleaning the lion’s room after he came back from work and complained to you about it during his break. He hadn’t expected you to actually do it for him!

If you told him that this shy little human would be so steadfast in their love for him, he’d laugh at you. Snickers and all. But through the months of dating you, he found out just how much your love languages differ from your personality.

Hugs, kisses, and hand holding had been his favourite of all though, even if he had to initiate it first. He’d see you in the hallways and barrel towards you after he sees your face light up. Even though you were hesitant with receiving it in the beginning, you would always reciprocate it. He rather enjoyed his discovery of your love language of physical touch.

It was a particularly stressful day for the hyena, so he went to Ramshackle to beg for love to his favourite person. You took him in without him even needing to say anything or pull any self-pitying faces. You cradled his face so carefully, as if he had been made of the finest china and took him to cuddle on the couch. No, he didn’t enjoy the head scritches, Leona! He’s better than that.

: ̗̀➛ Epel Felmier

   “That damn Vil! His no good, egg-layin’ opinions—”

And so, he went off in your arms as you cradled him like a bab—I mean. A seasoned man. Your hands curled through his hair, undoing Vil’s work as Epel dug himself deeper into your collarbone. Just… don’t mention it to anyone. Especially Ace and Deuce, lest they have a poisoned apple at their doorstep yelling profanities.

For the longest time, both of you danced around each other in an awkward shuffle they called love. He confessed first while you initiated things first, even with your shyness. But that would soon change as he saw how affectionate you were with him.

It started with simple touches and hugs. It went up to you helping him de-stress in the bath with you in Ramshackle. He took the many products Vil demanded gave him to use, to you. Only because you muttered something about wanting to look and feel prettier. At least that was what his mind told him.

He let you lead him to the bathroom, a nice warm bath steaming the room in an almost alluring atmosphere. That wasn’t the night for that though. Both of you sunk into the water, simultaneous sighs escaping you as the warmth seeped into your sore muscles. Epel melted into your touch as you turned him around and washed his hair, his back against your chest. You prepared it just right, a mix of lavender and rose, Vil would be proud. Almost.

: ̗̀➛ Floyd Leech

   “And then Azul yelled at me! I mean what does he want from me —”

The moody eel went on, complaining about his day as you prepared dinner, his form draping over you. You turned to give him a kiss on his cheek, a gesture you hoped to calm him down. It did the opposite. He picked you up and carried you off, the food left behind as you scold him to put you down.

Some people wouldn’t consider Floyd’s… affection as that. He threatens anyone that steps on his buttons the wrong way with a squeeze. A sentence you might have misunderstood. One you took him up on despite your shy nature.

Your shy touches and hugs was met with an overenthusiastic puppy eel. He overwhelmed you with kisses and squeezes. When he sees you, you can guarantee he will pick you up twirl you around.

A gut feeling told you that you were needed at Mostro Lounge, something to do with a certain eel. In the motions, you prepared a bento for him, knowing it will lift a bad mood from the stubborn eel.

The dim lighting of the restaurant accentuated Floyd’s slumped posture, taking up an entire bench as his face remained in a pout. You made your way to him with a smile, carrying the bento in your hands. His eyes darted up, the darkness clouding them soon lifting as he sees what you have.

“Shrimpy! For me?”

A/N: I literally finished this today, as I'm posting this. So have it. Also, please check out my pinned post, I kind of have a financial emergency... I'm willing to compensate the people who donate! It's all in my pinned post under "I Have An Emergency".

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

And here we are at xxxHolic Chapter 91!

As usual it’s completely gorgeous. I particularly enjoy the sakura blossoms in the cage that Himawari is holding as her and Watanuki both smile politely at the camera. Because that’s fascinating. 

Like, is that a stand in for memories of Yuuko, since those blossoms were falling when she disappeared? Are Himawari and Watanuki carefully guarding their memories of her existence as they wait for her return? 

Are they indicative of the fate of the Sakuras, who seem to constantly be trapped into circumstances beyond their control? Perhaps it’s a sign of the NEW Sakura who replaced Yuuko - the new person now residing in the cage that Yuuko once lived in? Trapped in a gap in reality and not able to exist in the same way as before?

Or is it a symbol of Watanuki? He’s the offspring of a Sakura - and the branch in the cage is an offshoot of a sakura tree - but cut off, and kept separate from the tree. He too is trapped in an inbetween place, not really able to leave the adjacent-to-reality places he exists in, but like the flowers on the tree branch he is thriving now all the same. 

And if you really want to dive a bit deeper than necessary you could say that the little loop on the top of the cage perfectly aligns with the overlapping fabric behind it, in a way that might be a slight callback to the yin-yang that is the shape of Watanuki's/Syaoran's soul? And having that adorn the cage that keeps sakura trapped within is a very fun idea to play with.

Shall we go DEEPER?

The darker fabric of Himawari's kimono has a pattern of repeated circles, and then one in he middle splits into two.

And the idea of "one becoming two" is at the heart of xxxHolic as a whole, both with Watanuki himself and also the Egg. And here, where the circle seems to split and the two separate halves go in different directions matches what happened with Lava Lamp and Watanuki.

At a stretch you could also apply that idea to the tassle that hangs off the bottom of the cage. Which has it's own meaning, but visually here it ALSO begins with a circle at the top before splitting into two identical but separate tassels below. Which is fun! Possibly reading too much into it? Absolutely! But I'm keeping it.

Either way, it’s interesting that none of the flower patterns here overlap with any real flowers, which has been the theme for quite a lot of the other chapter covers lately. The visible space of real and unreal overlapping is no longer present. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if it comes back.

[yanderes-galore]

Would it be okay to ask for a scenario of Hiccup with a Darling that's from modern times? Like due to mysterious ways Darling ended up in Berk and freaks out because of the Sargon's and all?

Sure! That would actually be terrifying now that I think about it as a lot of the dragons are really dangerous- I tried to pace this longer as I was inspired by another writer but I'm not sure how long it'll get but I hope you like my attempt :) This was long but I feel I executed it poorly, you be the judge of that.

You have a dragon and I wish I expanded more on that but I had no ideas :( This is a tame yandere focusing on heavy manipulation more than full on violence.

Not proofread, you get this raw.

Viking Life

Yandere! Hiccup with Modern! Darling Scenario

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Darling is scared and a bit oblivious, Dubious relationship/companionship, Protective behavior, Implied stockholm syndrome.

You felt your skin bruise when you landed, the sleepiness in your eyes shaking out quickly upon landing. This was not your world, it was one of fiction. One of fantasy, with vikings and dragons.

One moment you were sleeping in your bed for a quick nap. The next you were falling onto the cold ground, eyes darting around your surroundings. This... looked a lot like a series you liked.

You look down at your body, your clothes that you were wearing before were still on but dirty. You try to keep focused and look around your surroundings. Only to freeze when predatory eyes locked on you.

A dragon, straight from the series you enjoy, growls down at you. Adrenaline surges through your body as you quickly scurry backwards. The dragon backs you to a stone rock with a growl.

Great, you just got here by some sort of means unknown to you and you were going to die. Your life was going to end and you would have no idea why. You can't fight a literal dragon.

You make yourself look as small as possible, preparing to roll out of the way of a blow if you could. Before you could you felt the heat of a blast hit the dragon. Said dragon screeches before backing off.

You quickly turn to see another dragon and a rider. On closer look... your mouth shoots open. That's... you know them!

Hiccup and Toothless.

The Night Fury and his rider manage to drive the dragon off with some precise plasma bolts. The heat washes over you and you feel the urge to sweat. You hold your breath when the dragon flies off, but Toothless gaze swaps to you.

"I've never seen you before..." The rider, Hiccup, asks you. His gaze sweeps over your clothes in curiosity. It was nothing compared to his leather armor. "What kind of place wears something like that?"

You can only look at him with the expression of a fearful animal. You can barely breathe with the Night Fury staring you down. This... was reality.

"You don't look like you know how to tame a dragon, either... it's not safe here." Hiccup tells you, getting off of Toothless. "Can I get your name?"

You give the viking your name and he says it back to you. You can tell the name feels foreign to him when he says it but he makes not comment. He looks you over again before introducing himself. The name is familiar to you, of course, as in your world this is all fiction.

"Let's talk more somewhere safer. Last thing we need is a wild dragon attacking you again." He asks for your hand and you hesitantly take it.

Safe to say the first dragon ride on Toothless isn't easy on you.

----

When you were brought to Dragon's Edge you were quickly met with the feeling that your new life wouldn't be easy. When Hiccup mentioned to his friends that he brought someone new there was immediate backlash. Your "warm welcome" was more akin to an interrogation, really.

You couldn't blame them. They were all just as scared as you. But that didn't stop you from cowering behind Hiccup whenever their tones got aggressive.

Hiccup became a big help to you. He helped you give information to their questions without feeling overwhelmed. Answering questions was still difficult even without their aggression, however.

You told them all what you could. You told them your name, your world, and how you woke up. You answered when asked but it appears it didn't get much of anywhere.

You were still an enigma.

The questions they asked often involved your clothes, your knowledge on dragons, and/or your heritage. You answered what you could and tried to tiptoe around the idea of their world being fake where you came from.

You knew everyone's names but you acted as if you didn't to not freak them out. One by one, Hiccup introduced you to his friends. It felt bittersweet, on one hand you liked that you could meet your favorite characters... although...

You wonder if you'll ever go home.

It soon becomes clear that you will need somewhere to go. Since you are not aware of your surroundings you have nowhere to go. When Hiccup brings up allowing you to say in Dragon's Edge there is some hesitancy.

Tension is heavy in the air at the idea of allowing someone they have no idea about staying. Although, you thank Hiccup for helping y0ur case as he manages to convince his fellow vikings enough to allow it. He'd keep an eye on you and make sure you don't try anything.

He doubts your dangerous but anything to make them happy.

This begins your life in this world. A small hut is built for you and you're left to get to know your companions. The idea of adapting to this world is stressful, even with help.

Hiccup becomes your guide on the Edge. He helps you speak to others, he helps you with Astrid pick out clothing more akin to this area, and you are taught about training dragons.

Without Hiccup you doubt you could adapt to your situation. You're happy to have someone like him help you, along with his friends even if you are still uneasy about them. They all make your new life easier.

You still wish you could go home, however....

----

Since you began living at Dragon's Edge you've gotten along with your neighbors. You've spoken to many of the dragon riders and helped tend to their dragons. There's even talk of getting your own dragon. You always decline the offer, fearing that means your stay is permanent.

Part of you felt indebted to Hiccup. He saved you... ever since you've been friends. Even when you feel closed off, Hiccup comes in to help you adapt.

You've learned a lot from him, your friend. He's taught you about countless dragons to prevent how you met from happening a again. He taught you how to fish, he taught you basic combat even if it usually resulted in you falling over.

You and Hiccup seemed to have good chemistry. It wasn't necessarily in the romantic sense, but you two got along well. You felt you could rely on him... and Hiccup always seems so eager to help.

He was never aggressive with you. He always asked you gently about anything, like if you recall anything from before your time here. He's always eager to listen about you.

Hiccup encourages you to take a dragon of your own yet you always tell him no. You still have faith you'll get home someday. You never planned to stay too long.

From what you can tell this doesn't affect Hiccup much. Although it's possible you just don't see the cloudy look in his eyes. All you want is to go home... even if it is nice here.

"It's been months since you came here, it would be safer if you had a dragon." Hiccup had pulled you aside in private one day, flying you to a private part of the island. He was always concerned about your safety due to the Dragon Hunters. It was one of the reasons he rarely left your side too long and always asked to help.

"I've said this time and time again, Hiccup. If I got a dragon, I'll get attached. This isn't my home." You sigh, looking off at the water longingly. This world was beautiful yet home was home.

"I know..." He sighs deeply, looking over at you. "What if you never go home, though? What if I'm not around to protect you until then?"

You give Hiccup a saddened look. Hiccup's stressed expressions softens when he sees this but he looks away. You understand... he's being a good guy, that's all!

"Look... I'm just saying getting you home could be years from now. We have no idea how you got here... we know even less about bringing you back!"

Tears collect in your eyes and you nod. He had a point, even if you hated to agree. You had already gotten to be good friends with every body. A dragon would only prove useful.

At the same time... it feels like it would only chain you to this world.

Hiccup picks up on your silence and shaking body. You pause when he pulls you next to him and holds your face. He scans over your tears and wipes them away with care.

"I understand you want to go home..." He acts like it hurts to say it. "Surely you must understand it's dangerous around here, right? I'll train a dragon for you... just for your protection. Please think of the benefits until we learn how to bring you home?"

You don't have much of a choice. You're left speechless at Hiccup's sudden action to pull you closer and your thoughts jumble together. You look at his eyes and huff.

"... If you say it's what's best for me, I trust your judgment, Hiccup. You are my closest friend, after all."

Hiccup smiles and pulls away. Something feels off but you can't figure out what. You just... weren't expecting such an action from him-

"Great. Let's pick one for you soon... thanks for considering."

His smile is contagious....

"Sure... no problem...."

----

Dragon training isn't easy. Despite this... after little over a year of knowing Hiccup you managed to become close with a Silver Phantom. The dragon was large, fast, yet shy with humans.

They were troubling to train, yet you managed because Hiccup urged you to.

Hiccup urged you to do a lot since you met him.... You felt he was going it because he knew how this world worked. Although now that you had a dragon protecting you... he should back off, right?

Apparently that was not the case. Hiccup still visited you just as often. You adored your Silver Phantom, you adored your now growing hut, and you adored your new friends.... Thoughts of home still lingered in the back of your mind but they slowly faded away as time passed.

You couldn't blame yourself...

You were probably never making it back.

Why would you want to go back now? You had Hiccup, your best friend... and you had your dragon! They were all you really needed now.

Your modern clothes were long since discarded. You had gotten used to viking attire now anyways. Anything that reminded you of your past life was tossed aside.

... was there any point in going home?

It's not like Hiccup brought up any development on it. All he did was stick around you and help you out. You... even began to grow attached the longer you stayed here.

Hiccup had told asked you to not bring up your old home anymore. As he kept saying, who knows when you'll get back? For now... isn't here your home?

Think about it... you've accomplished so much here. You became a dragon rider, you gained so many friends, aren't you thriving here? Plus, leaving would hurt by now wouldn't it?

It's exactly as you feared.

You were in this deep. All thanks to Hiccup's words and comforting advice. You'd think he was doing it all on purpose.

He wouldn't though... right? Hiccup is your best friend. He just wants what's best for you. He... makes you feel comfortable.

He's quickly becoming the one thing that makes you happy in this world...

... maybe you don't want to leave anymore.

----

Hiccup couldn't hide the grin on his face. It took time, but with some well placed manipulation he managed to make you stay. Truthfully, Hiccup didn't know if he could bring you back home.

Yet... why go back? Clearly this was your home now. It was already approaching your second year here and you appear to be thriving.

Hiccup had a huge part in it. He made you a confident viking despite your differences. Your Silver Phantom, Jetstream, had also been a big part in making you stay. Now you didn't want to leave.

Part of Hiccup knows he should feel bad for what he did. He took advantage of you and manipulated your mind into relying on him. Now you clung around him all the time.

You two could possibly even start dating if he pushed a bit farther.

That was an opportunity for another time. All Hiccup really cared about was keeping you here with him at Dragon's Edge. When he first met you... he felt there was something about you.

Maybe it was the mystery that brought him in? He wasn't sure... all he knew was you felt nice to be around. Even when you hid behind him... he felt a strong attachment to you.

Now it's been years. It feels like he's known you for longer. Your past may be foggy to him, but now you're an entirely different person! A person he's had a hand in making.

It felt... nice for you to slowly care for him more than your old home. Again, how wrong of him to say, he can't help it.... He's surprised you never questioned him.

Hiccup will admit he's been obsessive about you since he met you. To the point he follows you sometimes and... watches you when you're unaware. Jetstream catches him at times which causes him to leave, however.

Hiccup prefers to keep you blissfully unaware of his obsession. He's already gotten you to the point you like Dragon's Edge as your home. Far as he knows, from now on, the Edge could be your home forever...

Then you could stay with Hiccup, forever.

Hiccup is... happy that your home is long gone from your mind now. It just means you've accepted the truth, as dark as it sounds.

You're meant to be here, don't you see?

You're meant to be here with him, forever as his.