#i probably have been on ao3 for 5 hours

[mysicklove]

i’ve read so much fanfiction today i think my brain is actually rotting

[peachesofteal]

Simple Math / Part 5

Simple Math masterlist

Ghost/Soap/female reader 4.5k words - AO3 Warnings-tags: 18+ MDNI, no smut but this fic contains mature themes. Stalking. Brief mention of domestic violence. Feelings of fear, self loathing, and anxiety. Vomiting. Panic attack/comfort. Medical inaccuracies, hospital setting. A little bit of praise. Johnny is a flirt and a menace.

“Ye’re off yer head.” 

“I’m not.” Johnny expects Simon to relent, to give it up, but when he doesn’t budge, something hot sizzles alive in the pit of Johnny’s stomach, desire roaring to life in his veins. 

“Jus’ like that? Ye’re goin’ let me see yer bonnie face finally?” He slurs, lifting the bottle to his lips, and Simon nods.

“Only if you win."

“And if ye win?” Simon moves closer, his chest brushing against Johnny’s, balaclava covered face dipping down, noses nudging against one another’s in a tentative, teasing way. 

“If I win, you’ll remove something of my choosing instead.” 

Your phone is ringing.

In your sleep, you hardly recognize it, but your subconscious is well trained, and your hand seeks the source of the noise effortlessly, dragging it from the nightstand and next to your face, to squint blearily at it, awareness coming quickly when you recognize the charge nurse’s work line.

“Hello?” You clear the cobwebs of sleep from your throat.

“Hey, sorry to wake you.”

“No, ‘s alright. What’s going on?”

“I know it’s your day off, but-“

“You’re short.” You fill in the blanks, and she huffs.

“We’ve got two out with flu like symptoms, and I’m floating another to-“

“It’s okay.” You swing your feet over the edge of the bed, rubbing your eyes. “I got you. Just give me like, an hour? I have to get ready and stuff.”

“Of course. Thanks so much, you’re a lifesaver.” You zone out for a moment, plotting out the rest of your day, and mumble something like ‘don’t worry about it’, ending the call with your thumb.

The hotel carpet is plush. It’s cushioned and soft, and it gives a little when you stand and stretch, pulling your arms over your head, twisting and turning with tired bones, shaking loose the stupor that holds your neck too straight, too tightly.

OT isn’t the worst thing in the world right now, considering you’re paying for a long term stay in a hotel, you tell yourself more than a few times as you shower and dress. You should be grateful for it. Understaffing has it’s benefits, financially.

The only wrench about coming in on your day off this week is you’re supposed to be collecting more things from your flat. Particularly, clothing. You’ve only got a short rotation of outfits, scrubs, both in short supply, and… no clean underwear. You had planned to move large chunks of your wardrobe over today, probably at least two trips worth, but will now have to settle for stopping by fairly quick to grab what you can.

It will be fine, you think, casually checking your surroundings as you step off the platform. In and out and on with your day.

You were wrong.

You see it immediately, stepping through the door. The locks are in place, handle, deadbolt, extra one at the top, but you can tell, you can feel, that someone has been in here. Your blood thickens in your veins, freezing to a stop, sluggishly propelled by your frenzied heart. You can hear it in your ears, the thunder of your panic, can feel the fear twisting itself into a sailor’s knot and holding you hostage.

Your feeling is confirmed, rationalized, when you push your bedroom door ajar and see the carnage of what’s been left behind on top of your bed.

Shredded panties.

The entire underwear drawer has been spilled out across your sheets, lace and cotton and silk all ripped to pieces, torn edges clearly made by hands, not knives, not scissors, but the personal touch of fingers, of fists.

Your breath catches in your chest, oxygen in the room falling away, leaving you panting, gasping for your next inhale as you cautiously pick up a pair close to you. They’re grey cotton boy shorts, and your stomach flips up into your throat when they stand as stiff as a board, some sort of dried substance splattered across them, rendering the fabric firm and inflexible.

Not… not just some dried substance… you realize in horror, scanning the pile of panties, noticing the stains on most of them, a milky white color shining against black silk.

You can’t breathe. You stumble away, back slamming into your dresser, sinking down onto the floor, hands covering your ears.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. 

This is sick, even for him. An escalation of disturbing behavior that sends a chill down your spine, frightening you even more than you already were. You knew he’d get in, hoped he would buy your carefully crafted lie: the appearance of you still living there… but to act so brazenly, to do something like… this.

Does he know, does he realize, you’re not actually living in the flat now? 

He’s really going to kill you this time. 

You race to the toilet, heaving yourself over the seat as your breakfast rushes past your lips, a cup of coffee and half eaten muffin accentuated by the sting of bile, and you gag, spitting and hacking until you’re finished, flushing it all away.

You don’t look at the girl in the mirror. You don’t want to see her. Don’t want to tell her all the ways you’re letting her down. She thinks you’re smarter than this, stronger. Braver. She believes you’ve done it once before, you’ve escaped, you’ve hid, and you can do it again.

She doesn’t know you’re not sure you have the heart for it now. She doesn’t realize you’re tired, you’re afraid. She doesn’t understand that you like the life you’ve made, that running is exhausting, that sometimes, in the very darkest corners of your mind, you think that letting him win might be easiest.

So, you don’t look at her. You mourn your pile of panties for a too long second and lock the apartment up tight.

Get it together. Get yourself together. 

You coach yourself the entire way to work, trying to ignore the rubbing and bunching of your scrub pants, an unfortunate consequence of being forced to go commando.

Deep breath. You can do this. 

You still have your sanctuary. 

You had hoped, for a miniscule moment, that your day might improve once you step foot in the hospital, and you pushed away the inkling that suggested that optimism may be linked the fact that you’ll get to see Simon and Johnny, opting not to even acknowledge the strange sensations swirling about inside your heart whenever you think about the other day. The day when the world stood still and Johnny touched your hand so gently, stroking his fingers over your skin, or when the elevator doors parted to reveal Simon and their baby, a sweet baby girl safe in his arms, his eyes alight and adoring, your knees almost giving out at the sight.

Needless to say, you’re eager to badge in.

The day is quickly derailed, when within a half an hour of getting settled into your routine, an alarm goes off for two sixty-eight: thirty-nine degrees.

Your mind immediately somersaults to the pain in his upper right quadrant from your last shift, logical thought leaping all around as you jog down the hall.

You notated it. You passed it on in shift report. It’s only thirty-nine. You did everything right. No one here would just disregard something like that. Deep breath. 

Still… 

Bile leak. Abscess. Infection. Or worse… hepatic artery pseudoaneurysm, hemorrhaging. Big things that could lead to worse things, worse outcomes, worse- 

The door comes up quicker than you realize, and without hesitating, you slip inside.

“Hi.” You’re a little breathless, and Simon’s eyes snap to yours, taking you in, studying from head to toe, brow knitted together. Johnny’s asleep, and you’re not sure if that makes you feel better, or worse.

“Everything alright?” Of course. He’s too perceptive. Get control of yourself, it could be nothing.

“Yeah, I ah… have to draw some blood.” You really do not want to wake your patient, or alarm Simon, but you refuse to lie. You fire off a text to the attending on call, advising him of Johnny’s temperature and reminding him of the upper right quadrant pain, letting him know he can expect labs as soon as you get them downstairs. You give Simon a nod, turning to slide the draw open quietly, pulling out everything you’ll need. His gaze burns a hole in your scrubs, the ever-present scrutiny impossible to escape, and sometimes you wonder if he’s reading your mind.

“What’s wrong? He just fell asleep, Pen was here all morning, tired him out.” His protest is husky, and you think he’s frowning behind the mask. You imagine a strong mouth pulled downwards in consternation; wide jaw gnashed tight with worry.

“He’s running just a bit of a fever.” He jolts, and you shake your head, hoping to soothe his fear. “It’s not too high. I’m not super worried, but we’ll need to check his white cell count, just in case, okay? And then we’ll go from there.” He nods.

“You said this could happen.” You smile. It feels unsteady, but you hope he can’t tell.

“I did. I promised, that if there was something to panic about, I would tell you. We’re not there yet.” It’s not a lie. Your wild spiral from a few minutes ago was an extreme, not reality, and you need to keep your head on.

“Okay.”

“Right. So, just going to do a quick blood draw and get it downstairs so we can find out what’s going on.” Simon shifts uncomfortably, and you carefully squeeze Johnny's arm, wrapping him with the tie and swabbing the inside of his elbow as fast as possible.

He blinks, eyes opening slowly, confused brow smoothing when he realizes you’re leaning over him, and his gaze darts to Simon before landing back on you. “There’s our bunny.” He mumbles softly, and your face heats, eyes widening in surprise before you regulate your reaction, and Simon coughs. Loudly. Bunny? 

“Such a flirt, MacTavish.” You playfully chastise him, relieved he’s feeling like himself. “I just need to get some blood and then I’ll leave you in peace to sleep.” He shrugs, but Simon rubs a thumb against his thigh in tiny little circles, too fast to be considered comfort, and Johnny clucks. “Ah, come on Si.”

“You’re runnin’ a fever, Johnny.”

“Ach. ‘s nothing.” He brushes it off, but his eyes are slow to track Simon’s movements, and you casually sneak a peek at the monitor, noting his blood pressure.

“Could be.” You assure him, smoothing a hand over his shoulder and taping a small patch of gauze over the puncture. “But better safe than sorry, right?”

The labs are inconclusive. The attending hems and haws before finally asking you to schedule a stat ultrasound of his abdomen, and you manage to bump him to the front of the queue, pulling a few strings here and there by rattling off some bullshit about being higher priority.

In the time it takes for the tech to get to two sixty-eight with the machine, you get a new admission. Intubated, but awake, and getting them and their family squared away takes longer than you would have liked, the patient’s middle-aged husband a wreck of nerves and worry, the kind of anxiety that makes you sit with him in the room for a little while, patting his hand and promising that you’ll be there for them, every step of the way.

By the time you step out of that room, it’s been nearly an hour. You catch a glimpse of Simon in the chairs outside two sixty-eight, and you throw him one of your best work smiles, hoping to reassure him, soothe his nerves. You want to go to him, want to sit beside him and talk him through everything, the outcomes, the possibilities, but you still need to add the notes for your new admit, and-

Someone catches your eye from the end of the hall. It’s a man, white, with brown hair, in regular clothes, and he stands taller than the others around him, shoulders rolled back just- just like-

No. You force yourself to look, to truly see him, taking in his facial features, the slope of his nose, and it’s hardly a second before you’re realizing it’s not who you thought it was. It’s not him. 

The second doesn’t matter to your heart. It’s already racing, tripling it’s steady pace inside your chest. You’re shaking, trembling in the middle of the hall, frantically looking for the nearest closet, or empty room, or…

Stairwell. There’s a stairwell just beyond where Simon is anxiously waiting, and you beeline to it, nearly tripping over your own feet past him. You think you hear your name being called, but the blood rushing in your ears is too loud, and you can’t be sure. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters right now is getting away. Hiding. Not letting yourself be noticed.

You take the first flight down, stopping on the landing to rest your face against the polished, cold wall, desperately trying to fill your lungs with air, encouraging yourself to breathe.

It wasn’t him. You’re safe. 

Deep breath. You can do this. 

Your fingers dig into your hips, squeezing through the numbness, through the overwhelming feeling of your impending doom, and your head swims, lightheadedness nearly knocking you off balance.

“It wasn’t him.” You whisper aloud. “It’s not him. You’re safe. Get it together.” You chant, eyes clenched tight. Your heart is still pounding, no sign of relenting, and your lungs burn, screaming inside you, desperate for air. The feeling of suffocating, of dying, grows stronger, gaining momentum, and your eyes slam shut, your mind and body locked in a tomb of panic and fear. 

You hear your name again. It’s sharper, authoritative, but you can’t open your eyes, too overwhelmed to even make sense of it. Deep breath, just breathe.  

Something touches your shoulder. It’s unexpected, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you register it as gentle, but you’re too far gone, too far buried beneath your fear and your panic and your shame. It triggers you into a defensive posture, and you flinch so hard you jostle yourself into the wall, turning into the corner, hands out in front of your face.

“Hey, hey.” It’s Simon. Simon is standing in the stairwell with you, palms open, concern heavy in his eyes, and you vaguely realize he’s talking, soft, deep words washing over you. “-to breathe?” He comes closer, only half a step, but it’s enough to startle you back into the corner, and he stops short. “It’s alright. I’m not going to touch you.” He soothes, and you recognize the pitch, the calm, affectionate tone from Johnny’s bedside. Sour nausea surges in your stomach, and your lungs fight the invisible hand that tightens around them. “Can you take a deep breath?” You shake your head, and he huffs a soft chuckle. “You can do it, just try. Through your nose, like this.” His chest expands, eye contact never breaking, and you try to follow suit, getting halfway before your head spins, vision tunneling. “You’re alright.”

You’re not alright. None of this is alright. You’re having a panic attack, in the stairwell at your job, in front of a patient’s partner. 

You can’t speak, so you shake your head instead. No.

“Yes, you are.” He assures. “Everything’s okay. Focus on your breathing. Try another one for me.” His hand covers his heart, and you focus on the way it ebbs and flows with the movement of his diaphragm, the pace of his breaths.

You manage to get one full inhale and exhale. And then you get another. Then a third, a fourth, until it’s coming easier, and your head doesn’t feel as fuzzy.

“Good job, that’s it.” Your fingers twist together, the grating noise of your jagged breathing smoothing out even more, and Simon nods encouragingly. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Nice and slow.” Sweetheart. The word is bright, boundless and sweet as honey, the sentiment settling in your belly and growing warm. The two of you stand there, just breathing, staring at one another, for what feels like an eternity, until you find the strength to summon words. 

“I-I’m sorry.” You finally choke once you’ve got a better handle on yourself, hands going lax at your thighs.

“Nothin’ to be sorry about.” You’re about to brush it off, thorny lies starting to form in your mind, excuses and carefully crafted explanations fusing together when your work phone beeps, the low frequency different from the ones related to patient care. Shit. Already? Simon’s glances at it in your pocket and cocks his head.

“End of my shift.” You explain, moving towards the stairs, your hand trembling on the button to silence the alarm. The muscles in his neck flex, molars grinding together.

“Still feeling a little shaky?” He observes, and you look down to your feet, mortification crawling up your spine, blooming across your cheeks through heated blood vessels.

“Um…”

“Would you mind, maybe sitting with Johnny for a bit?” You do still have notes to do. “If his test is done? I have to run home, help the Prices' put Penny down. She’s been a bit fickle, lately. Missin’ her Da.” He rubs the back of his neck, chest flexing inside the charcoal grey hoodie, and for a weird, too long second, you wonder what it might be like to fall asleep there, or just close your eyes for a minute, even though it's something sweet and far away, unobtainable in every facet. Simon says your name, jogging your attention, and then takes the first step, partially turning like he wants to reach for you, but thinks better of it.

“Uh. Yeah, I… I can.”

You badge out and grab your stuff, keeping your tablet so you can complete your notes while you sit with Johnny. You’ve already checked his results, and when you slip inside the room, the attending is updating them, explaining how he has a very small bile leak, and will need an endoscopic procedure tomorrow morning.

The attending excuses himself, giving you a quick nod, and then Simon leans down, knocking their foreheads together tenderly. 

“Keep an eye on him, I hear he likes to make trouble.” Johnny smiles, pink-red color creeping up his neck into his cheeks, and Simon seems like he’s smiling, before he turns serious. “Behave. I won’t be too long.”

“I always behave.” He pats the side of the bed, beckoning you, and you shake your head, plopping down in the recliner to his right.

“I hear ye’re keepin’ me company, pretty girl?”

“I am. Got some notes to finish, heard this chair was pretty comfortable.” You quip back easily, and it feels natural, to be joking and laughing, to be hiding again.

“Well, I’ll try not to distract ye then.”

Your tablet clicks dark with a satisfying shutter, and when you place it face down, Johnny gives you one of his stupidly handsome smiles. “All finished?”

“Yeah, not too bad.” His phone vibrates against the tabletop, and with his good hand, he opens the message, turning it to show you the screen. It’s a picture of Penny, half asleep against Simon, clad in a pink onesie covered in little ducks. Her cheek is squished against him, long baby lashes fluttering on her skin. “She’s so cute.” You say, and he nods, flushed with pride. You glance at the contact name, Lou, and before you can stop yourself, a question bursts out: “Who’s Lou?”

“Our captain’s wife. She’s been helpin’ a lot, with Pen. Which is great, they’re getting a lot of girl time.”

“Your captain?”

“Aye.”

“Is that…” you want to ask but trail off. You don’t want to admit that you’ve heard gossip about them.

“Military. Simon an’ I work together, in a task force.” A task force. A task force sounds eerily close to special ops, and your nausea comes back with a vengeance.

“What… what kind of task force?”

“Global ops. Anti-terrorism, domestic threats, the lot. How I ended up here, with ye.” The image of your ex looms, his body tense in his gear, or the memory of his boots, sitting shiny by the door, one of them pulling back, swinging towards your stomach. “Bun?” Bun?

“Huh?” you blink. “Oh, sorry. Spaced out there for a second.”

“That’s alright. Simon said ye had a bit of a scare earlier?”

“No I uh, just couldn’t catch my breath, but I was fine. It was fine.” You deflect, moving on as quick as you can manage. “Did you call me bun? And… didn’t you call me bunny, earlier?” He gives you a sheepish look.

“Aye. Is our nickname for ye.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Well… ye look a bit like a bunny, and ye had that sticker the other day that Penny noticed.” Your face heats. “I know ye’re probably real soft like a bun, too.” Real soft? Is he… does he mean- your eyes widen, and he smirks.

“Johnny.” You flounder, helplessly, confused by his attention, this flirtation that seems to have grown into real affection, and he shifts slightly, leaning forward, reaching for your hand.

“Ye dinnae need to be afraid.” He coos. The words are a moon above a tide, pulling and reaching, dragging the swell of the waves higher and higher, until they threaten to pull you under, overwhelm you and drown you.

“I…” I don’t understand? I thought you were gay? I don’t know what is happening here? Johnny grimaces, and you immediately forget about the conversation and leap into action, jumping to your feet. “What is it? Where’s your pain?” Your hands hover over his belly, and he points to where his liver currently sits, slowly leaking inside his body, spilling bile that could eventually kill him if it hadn’t been caught. You pull down the blanket, unsnapping his gown to push it aside, checking for anything physically observable, site swelling, a rash, anything. “Does this hurt?” You cautiously press down, tapping slightly, watching his face for a reaction.

“No.” he says, and when you reach over to his other side, turning to watch his facial expressions, he moves with you, barely leaning, chin pointed in your direction.

His face is suddenly incredibly close to your face. And he looks… so handsome. So pretty, with his bright blue eyes and perfect bones, soft lips that part with an inhale. He dazzles you. Distracts you.

This is your patient, get it together. You’re a professional, act like it. 

“Does that hurt?” You croak, and his lips quirk into a half smile, a warm palm gliding over the small of your back.

“It doesnae hurt, bun.” He winks.

“Oh my god, were you faking?” You try to stand up, but the pressure on your spine is firm, and he chuckles.

“Can I tell ye a secret?” He’s fully serious now, question whispered just above your ear, and you nod.

“Of course.”

“Ye’v been drivin’ me mad today, pretty girl. Walkin’ around here wit’ no panties on.” Oh. Oh… my god. You shoot upwards, hand covering your mouth in shock, and he laughs, raising an eyebrow before his gaze drifts over the curve of your hip.

“Johnny!” you hiss, scandalized, and then guilt hits you like a train, like two tons of rocks have been dropped on top of you. Simon. “Johnny, you… you and Simon, you’re-“

“We’re lucky ye’ve come into our lives.” He finishes, and you frown, confused. “We think ye’re really special.” We. We?

“What did I miss?” Simon says from the doorway, and you jerk, stepping back like Johnny’s bed is on fire and you’ve just been burnt, eyes wide and wild. You feel like a child, caught with a hand in the cookie jar, but Simon doesn’t look angry. Just curious.

“Jus’ talking.” Johnny replies, and he starts to lower his bed, watching you with heavy eyes.

“Well. I should get going. I’ve got a few trains to make.” You glance at the clock, and then give them both a polite smile. Simon crosses his arms.

“Looks like you tired him out.” He comments, and they glance at one another, some sort of communication happening silently before he shrugs. “Let me drive you.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t. It’s not… you just got back, and I’m fine, really. It’s not that far, I-“

“If it’s not that far, let him drive ye.” Johnny pipes up, and Simon piles on easily. 

"He's not going to let this go, and neither am I. Let me get you home safely, please." You shouldn't. You really, really shouldn't. "It's the least we can do." Your shoulders slump in defeat. It’s just a ride. It’s not crossing a line.

“Okay, then.” Johnny smiles, and Simon moves to his side, brushing his mask covered mouth against his forehead.

“She go down okay?” Johnny murmurs, tenderly cupping his cheek. 

“Like a champ. Promised I’d bring her tomorrow morning. Think she understood me.”

“Aye. She’s smarter than ye, so probably.” He teases, and they share a lighthearted laugh before Johnny’s bidding you a goodbye, and Simon directs you out the door.

“Uh, right here is fine.” You point to the curb, and Simon slows the car to a stop, turning to face you with that ever-present scrutiny, brows shoved down above his eyes.

“A hotel?” You swallow.

“My um, my flat is being renovated. It’s a whole thing so I just figured I wo-would stay somewhere else.” You want to flee, run out of this car and away from him, but he holds you in place so easily with just his eyes, so you sit there, frozen, one hand on the door handle, the other splayed against your thigh.

“Is everything alright? Earlier-“

“I’m fine.” You rush out, cutting him off. It’s well practiced, the denial, the avoidance, these things that you normally excel out.

But nothing is normal with them. 

He cocks his head, and then nods, and you breathe a little easier, turning to push the door open.

“Wait.” A hand tugs at you, thick, warm fingers lightly touching your wrist, and you whip back around to face him, eyes wide. “If you ever need anything, Johnny and I… we’re here.” Why is your heart beating so fast? 

“Oh, I uh… I’m fine, I don’t need-“

“That doesn’t work on me. Johnny either, pretty girl.” He tells you, and it’s so firm, so strong backed, that your mouth goes dry, and you gape at him. What? What doesn’t work? Is he… is he saying he doesn’t buy it? Doesn’t believe you? He’s reading your mind, subtly raising an eyebrow, and then nodding. “Put my number in your phone.” He instructs, and like a robot, like a vampire’s Thrall, you pull it from your bag, swiping open the contact list and pressing each number in the order he gives it. “We’ll see you tomorrow?” He asks once you’re finished, and you mumble a shaky yes, finally pushing the door open, and climbing out.

“Alright, well. Good night.” You bend at the waist, giving him a wave through the window, and his jaw moves beneath the mask, shifting to the side, eyes squinting at the corners. He's smiling. 

“Good night, bunny.”

[foone]

would i regret asking wtf the human domestication guide is

Probably not. And people keep asking this so I might as well give the tl;dr answer:

Human Domestication Guide is a shared setting of kink stories involving Dommy-Mommy plant-aliens who want to keep humans as pets.

It's almost universally dubcon/noncon, the protagonists are nearly always trans girls, it's heavily wish fulfillment. There's drugs (space drugs! Like regular drugs, but better) and hypnosis and a lot of kink even if there's entire stories without any "sex".

It's weird but endlessly fascinating (at least to me!) setting. It zigs in a lot of places that most erotica zags, in part because it's got this heavy wish fulfillment angle where it's just "aliens show up and they give you everything you ever wanted and then you have kinky lesbian sex" but it's also unusual just for having the protagonists being mostly trans women (and I myself am mostly a trans woman).

Anyway if you're interested in learning more, the setting has a nice wiki, and a list of Foundational Works that's a good place to get started reading it. It's a surprisingly active fandom! It's only been around a couple years and it's got nearly a thousand works on Ao3.

Sometime later I'll make a longer post that goes into some more details, or I'll release that 5 hour video essay I keep threatening to make.

One final thing: 95% of all jokes about HDG are on the word "floret". That's what the plant aliens call their pets. It means "little flower" (which is very cute!) , but it's also the word for the little bits of broccoli that you eat. So it's RIPE for shitposting and memes.

[dcandmarvelimagines]

sweeter than you ever knew. (pt. 1)

Series: pt 1 pt 2 pt 3 pt 4 pt 5 Pairing: Wade Wilson x Logan Howlett x Fem!Reader Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6.8k Warnings: AFAB reader (uses she/her pronouns), 1st person POV, non-mutant Reader, some blood, Wade being too flirty for his own good, vaginal fingering, bathroom sex, dirty talking, the relationship with Logan is a "slow" burn in comparison. More smut to come, I swear. Author's note: Damn...it's been a while huh? My last comic related fic was in 2018, funny enough also because of a Deadpool movie. I was already sappy in a post before so I wont subject y'all to it. But this was intended to be a short little oneshot and has absolutely ballooned out of control. I'm thinking this will end up being five chapters. I will upload the second chapter concurrently with my ao3 upload, so if you prefer to read there, feel free! Also as a little aside: I am so unbelievably sorry that the reader's job working in outreach to help Al is barely described and is probably highly inaccurate. I was desperate not to get lost in the weeds of research on the subject. I needed something that would keep the reader out of the apartment most of the time and let the relationship grow differently, so neighbors was out of the question. If you work in community outreach (absolute angel), please just avert your eyes.

I used to think my life was boring. It was the same day in, day out. I never met anyone interesting or experienced new things. That changed when I knocked on an unassuming apartment door in a dingy building.

I worked in government outreach, providing assistance to elderly blind clients. I had been assigned to work with Althea Sanderson. Her file had listed her as combative and she didn’t disappoint. She absolutely hated my guts at first, grumbling about how she just needed her “disco dust” to keep going. She assured me that she had roommates and didn’t need me “thundering” around her small apartment. 

For nearly two weeks, I thought her mind had to have been slipping, because no one else would come from that apartment besides me. Imagine my shock when I walked into the place and found a hulking mass of a man, only in his boxers, in the kitchen. His brown hair, streaked with white, was wet after a shower and he was half heartedly rubbing at his shoulder with a towel covered in sparkly unicorns. “Who the hell are you?” He snapped, voice gruff. He glared at me like I had personally insulted him by my mere presence. My eyes darted all over him, the thick ropes of muscles in his arms, the harsh planes of abs, the thin sheen of dark hair on his chest, the trail disappearing into his boxers. The man yanked the fridge door open and snapped me from my drooling. 

I had barely stumbled my name out before Al, as she insisted I call her when she realized I wasn’t going anywhere, came around the corner, her hands guiding her along the wall. “Leave her alone Logan. She’s like herpes and I can’t get rid of her.” My lips pursed at the comparison. The man, Logan, huffed with either annoyance or laughter before padding away, beer clutched in his hand. For how big he was, I was shocked at how light on his feet he was. In comparison, I really did thunder around. 

“Oh! Do we have a new roomie!?” The voice trembled in excitement. Its owner bounded around the corner, clad only in low slung sweatpants, nearly tripping over the scraggly dog at his feet. I drew back, sucking in a sharp breath. The new man was no less tall than the other, but lean in comparison, with a wide chest and firm arms. But I was far more distracted by his skin. It was a mixture of mottled pink and white, looking more like swirled bacon fat than anything else. He was completely hairless but I saw the skin of his forehead rise. “Al, you didn’t say you had a hot granddaughter!” 

“Oh I’m not,” I said. While I was scheduled to be here for four hours, I was already contemplating how to escape the suddenly cramped apartment. 

“Does she look like she’s related to me dick for brains?” Al growled at him. The man shrugged, a megawatt smile plastered on his face as he picked up the dog and let it lick at his face. 

“She has the same wild sexual energy you do, my sweet black Betty White.” He walked closer, carelessly dropping the dog into Al’s lap just as she lowered herself into a creaky chair. The man theatrically bowed, snagging my hand to press a too wet kiss to my knuckles. His skin was unbelievably soft as it held mine, the grip light enough that I could pull away at any moment. “Wade Winston Wilson.” 

He was so close to me that I took a half step back. I gave him my name, just my first, and wriggled my hand free. “Um, I'm assuming your Al’s roommates?”

“Roommates is such a safe for work word, I prefer to be her personal pommel horse.” A laugh bubbles up before I can stop it. Wade grinned at the sound and shit, his face softened in such a charming way that I felt my defenses come down just a little. 

“I don’t think you understand what a pommel horse is.” 

“Isn’t it something you ride? Get all flexable on?” 

After that first awkward day, all four of us fell into an easy routine. Al seemed to warm to me more, though her sharp tongue never faltered. Wade was a vibrating ball of energy whenever I came over. He bounced around the kitchen as I made Al her coffee or insisted I sit with them to watch Golden Girls . I came to realize that only his right hand was so soft, the left was scratchy and blistered, which was something I refused to think about any deeper. Logan remained standoffish and reserved but he was there when I needed a break from Wade’s constant talking. I would occasionally find him sitting on the fire escape, smoking the cigar that seemed permanently stuck to his fingers. We often just sat in silence while Wade and Al argued about Ikea furniture. 

I had always found their schedule strange. They would disappear for days, sometimes weeks, at a time with no rhyme or reason. I had originally thought they might be businessmen but Logan’s quick temper and Wade’s obnoxious energy clashed with the idea. Wade often talked about going to exotic places and had brought me back a diamond that he swears up and down is not only real, but is also the tip of a woman’s finger. 

The day I found out their real profession had started horribly. The train line to Al’s apartment had broken, so I had to take a cab there. I was flustered, hungry, and in desperate need of caffeine when I trudged up the five flights of stairs to Al’s apartment, because, of course , her elevator had broken. It was customary for me to knock twice, allowing Al to respond before I used my key to come in. Today, my knocks were much shorter. “Good morning Al,” I called, slipping into the door before turning to close and lock it. I spun and nearly screamed. 

“Oh hey,” Wade said, leaning against the wall of the kitchen, a mug clutched in his hand. I was far more distracted by three massive claw marks across his chest, blood oozing down his stomach, staining his plaid underwear. 

“Oh my god! Wade!” My keys and purse clattered to the floor as I rushed to him, bracing my hands against his chest. “What happened?! Holy shit, oh fuck.” I was babbling now, distracted by how sticky and hot the blood was. But his chest rumbled under my shaking hands. I glanced up and saw a smile on his face as he failed to contain his laughter. “What are you fucking laughing at?! You’re dying here and you're laughing?!” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear. Miss good samaritan knows such nasty words.” I tried never to swear around patients but this was a worst fucking case scenario. 

“Oh fuck off! You’re dying and you're laughing ‘cause I said a bad word?!” That only seemed to make him laugh harder. 

“Calm down sweetheart,” came a rough voice behind me. Logan had started to call me that more often, but it always felt like he was insulting me with the word. It usually had a stinge of annoyance laced around it, now was no different. “He’s fine.” I peaked over my shoulder, hands still pressed against Wade’s firm chest, about to argue with the other man about how un fine Wade was. I nearly screamed again. A knife was embedded into Logan’s shoulder. There was blood everywhere . On his bare chest, his face, his hands and arms. 

“Logan!” I wanted to reach for him but couldn’t without leaving Wade to bleed out. 

“Now peanut,” Wade cooed and slid out from under my touch. “I told you, baby knife is just for the bedroom.” With that, Wade yanked the knife from Logan’s shoulder. The spurt of blood made my head woozy and I gripped the counter to hold myself steady. Logan barely reacted to the five inch blade being ripped from his skin, just a small grunt. 

“What’s going on?” My voice was thick with confusion. They had clearly been mauled and attacked in their own home, yet they walked around like nothing traumatizing had just happened.

“Target practice,” Wade said, using a kitchen towel to clean baby knife. Logan turned and dropped on the worn couch, the springs screeching in protest. 

“What?” I grabbed at his wrist before he could walk away. “Wade, please, I hope you understand how jarring that was. Now, please explain and cut all the punny bullshit out.” Wade pressed a dramatic hand to his chest like I had insulted him. 

“We’re mutants.” My eyebrows knitted together as I stalked toward the living room. Logan sat there, whiskey already in hand. He seemingly hid a bottle everywhere. Wade followed behind before collapsing on top of Logan. The older man snapped his jaws like an animal and a little snarl escaped his throat. Wade grinned, tugged at his hair, before going to the other end of the couch. 

“Mutants? Like the X-Men?” The scowl Logan shot me turned my blood to ice. Some of that shock must have shown on my face because Logan glanced away, taking a hefty swig of whiskey, and Wade tugged at my bloody pinky. 

“Ignore him, the X-men are a touchy subject for him, and never touchy in the fun way.” He scratched at his chest, some of the blood smudging. The skin was…

“You’re healed?” I knelt before the couch, hands feeling his chest. “Holy shit I thought you were going to bleed out.” It was impossible. The wounds were deep , I could have sworn I saw bone before. 

“God I’ve thought about you kneeling there for so long.” Logan’s fist cracked into Wade’s arm. My hands flinched away and I quickly stood. “Hurtful peanut. You know my arms always take too long to heal.” 

“Stop being a fucking creep,” Logan hissed. I turned to him and saw that the wound in his shoulder was also gone. Without thinking, I bent to touch the smooth skin, as if I couldn’t believe it without feeling it as well. Logan went still under my touch. I knew Wade didn’t mind the physical contact, he practically threw himself at me whenever I was around, but Logan was always just out of reach. I was too frazzled to think correctly anymore. 

“So you can heal,” I mumbled. 

“Very fast,” Wade said. He grabbed the remote and clicked on the tv. 

“You can stop touching me now sweetheart.” Once again, I snatched my hands back with a mumbled sorry , a faint flush burning my cheeks. 

“Comes in real handy with our line of work.” Wade was bouncing his leg, the couch squeaking under him. Logan’s hand shot out to still him, knuckles showing white for a moment. Wade winced and I heard another snap.

“Which is…?”

Logan answered for me, “mercenaries.” 

“Oh,” I plopped down on the rickety coffee table. The information settled like a lead weight in my stomach. My first instinct was fear. They killed people for money. Would they then turn on me now? Curiosity tugged at me as well. I couldn’t explain it but there was something so magnetic about them. The edge of danger had always been there, especially with Logan. I would have never guessed it was this. Ever since I first met them, I knew I would be fascinated. I guess I had my answer as to why they were as fit as models. “How come I’ve never seen anything? Do you guys not have…guns or whatever?” 

“He didn’t want to scare you.” Logan jabbed his thumb Wade’s way. I cocked my head at Wade, a tiny smile pulling at my lips. He actually looked a little bashful. 

“I’ve found that women don’t always respond very positively to my intestines hanging out.” My stomach flipped and I sat a little straighter. 

“Has that happened?” 

“No, but a fortune teller told me it will happen when I least expect it.” He stood with an excited jump, moving to stand in front of a small closet. There was only a faint limp in his movement. As he walked, I became incredibly aware that both men were nearly naked, only clad in thin boxers. With every step, Wade’s well defined back flexed and his legs tensed. I only allowed myself a moment to take him in before I drew my gaze away. He turned and flung the door open with flourish. “Behold! My batcave!” I glanced inside, and found a tall gun case, massive stacks of ammo, and two katanas balanced against a red suit. There was a yellow one tucked next to it as well. “Mine is the red one, a very flattering color I assure you.” 

“The yellow one is yours?” Logan just gives me a curt nod. His face is stone again, clearly done with this conversation. “Do you use any of that?” I ask, motioning to the “batcave”, whatever the hell that means. 

Snikt.  

“Woah,” I whispered. The three blades protruding from between his knuckles were shiny and looked wicked sharp. I leaned forward and pressed the pad of my thumb against the middle blade. It immediately split the skin and a drop of blood oozed down my skin. Logan watched my warily, like I was liable to jump on the claws at any moment. “Do they hurt?” There were small beads of blood around where they had pierced through his skin. With a flex of his veiny forearm, the claws disappeared. The blades slid smoothly between the bones on the back of his hand.

“Yeah, everytime.” I watch his skin knit itself together again with rapt attention. Once it finished, I ran my injured thumb over the regrown skin, our blood smearing a thick stripe across his knuckles. Logan’s hand was relaxed as I held it. Wade flopped back onto the couch, his head in Logan’s lap, baby knife clutched in his hands. Logan seemed resigned, face relaxing just a bit, and allowed Wade to rest. He withdrew his hand from mine before resting his arm across Wade’s neck. The motion was surprisingly domestic and it made my heart warm. Behind me, the Golden Girls theme played. 

“Isn’t Al in danger with you two here? Don’t you have enemies that could find her?” The briefest sad expression flashed across Wade’s face. I stood suddenly, “oh my god where is she? Did someone already grab her and that’s why you were fucked up?” 

“She’s fine, probably wandering the streets or whatever women of her age do,” Wade made a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“Wade!” I stepped on his foot in my mad dash to my fallen purse. I needed my phone to do…something. Call someone? The phone call would sound ridiculous. Hi, I help a blind woman and her two mutant roommates are mercenaries and got her kidnapped. Yeah, totally believable. I had just snatched my bag up when the door opened and Al herself appeared. 

“Fucking Jesus,” she snapped as she ran into me. My body sagged in relief at seeing her. I gripped her shoulders, just to make sure she was actually there. 

“Oh my god Al, don’t fucking scare my like that.” Her hands flew up and shook out from my touch. 

“Well you were late!” I wasn’t. “Are those two done fucking yet?” I twisted to look at the men on the couch. Logan was half way out the window to smoke. I could have sworn I saw him lick at his bloody knuckles. Wade was studying me, the hint of a challenge in his eyes, daring me to say something about their relationship. I smiled, hoping it let him know I didn’t care. But that easy look might have been ruined when pieces fell together. The knife. The three slashes to Wade’s chest. Their near nakedness. 

Huh.

“Uh yeah Al, I think I ruined the mood for them.” She scoffed and shoved a grocery bag into my hands. I dutifully turned to the kitchen and began to store away the random assortment of items. She guided herself over to the coffee maker and began to load the grounds into a filter. 

“I think you are one of the biggest things that puts them in the mood honey.” I heard a growl float in from the window. 

Wade and Logan stopped avoiding me after finding out their true occupation. It never got any easier seeing their bloody bodies strew around the apartment. I slipped on enough stray bullets that I learned to watch my feet. Wade was always cleaning his guns with a concentration I didn’t think he was capable of. One night he forced me to sit down, offering his lap first and whimpered pitifully when I took the chair, and made me hold the gun, showing me how to cock it and flick the safety on and off. The name Chekhov was stamped across the side in shiny gold letters. “Do I really need to know this?” He leaned closer, cheek pressed to mine. His warm hands slid over my own, guiding me to a button that would pop the magazine out and helped me click it back into place. He had grown much bolder in his touching and I couldn’t bring myself to stop him anymore.

“Never know when you’ll need to flip the badass switch.” His bubbly finger tapped the glittering name for emphasis. I shifted in my seat to face him, my lips ghosting over his cheek. He followed my lead and our noses brushed. 

“I didn’t think I would need that with you around.” A beat passed as we looked at each other. There was something soft in his eyes that made my heart clench. “You’re going to protect me, right?” It wouldn’t take much to lean closer, to finally kiss him. I knew he was thinking the same thing and my eyelids fluttered closed in anticipation. 

The alarm for my Al’s meds broke the moment. 

I knew I was sliding into a sticky situation. I found myself staying later and later, well past my shift with Al had ended. It was absolutely forbidden for me to become involved with clients. The excuse that they weren’t technically my clients wouldn’t work on my boss. I needed to make a decision. Either stop working with Al or end any attachment to Wade, and Logan by extension. 

***

I’m not sure how Wade and I ended up on that date. He and Logan had been away on a job for a week. It was finally peaceful in the apartment but I couldn’t lie to myself, I had missed them. So I didn’t fight Wade too much when he asked “nicely”, aka demanded , he tag along while I ran errands for Al. She was the last person I had to visit for the day so I allowed him to drag me to a bar after I dropped her meds off. Logan had a dark look in his eyes when he saw Wade clutch my hand. “The old man is just jealous. He wishes someone would take him out, but he doesn’t do well in crowds, very bitey.” I smirked and let Wade choose our destination. His hand was steady around mine, giving it occasional squeezes as we rushed across busy streets. The bar he picked was properly seedy, full to the brim with haggard men with face tattoos. Normally, I would have run screaming from a place like this. But Wade was clearly well liked. He moved through the room, smiling and waving at everyone. He tried introducing me to some people but it was hard to keep their names straight. We found an empty booth tucked behind the row of pool tables. I eased onto the sticky laminate bench as Wade headed to the bar to get our drinks. I listen to the men next to my seat argue over who was supposed to break for their next game of pool while I waited. 

Wade returned with my drink, a neon green one for him, and two small shot glasses. I eyed them suspiciously as he passed me one of the whipped cream topped shots. “I thought it was only right to start our date with a blowjob.” I coughed on my laugh, examining the glass. He tapped his against mine before downing it and I followed his lead. It was pure sugar, nearly masking the burn of the alcohol. 

“Whoever made this has clearly never given a blow job. Way too sweet.” Wade grinned in that mischievous way he always seemed to when he was going to be especially gross. I had no idea why I was being so forward. But I felt light, happy. All my worries from work had melted away as Wade held my hand on our way here.

“Oh yeah? I’ve been told my cum is rather delicious. It’s all the pineapple I eat.” I rolled my eyes and matched his grin, propping my elbows on the table, head cradled between my hands. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat a single fruit. Or a vegetable honestly.” Wade copied my pose, fluttering his nonexistent eyelashes. 

“How about you taste mine and I taste yours?” I pretended to contemplate, eyes scrunching, head tilting from side to side. My hand inched across the table before I plucked the cherry from Wade’s drink. He saw me, I could tell by the minute flick of his gaze, but he let me take it regardless. I yanked it from the stem with my teeth and chewed thoughtfully. 

“Hm, I’m not sure. Don’t you think Al would talk if you were moaning my name so much?” He grabbed my wrist and dragged my hand closer. My breath caught as his lips enveloped my index finger and thumb. His tongue lazed over them before he drew back, the cherry stem between his teeth. 

“Sweetie pie, I moan it enough as is.” I blushed and my stomach grew warm. The stem disappeared, his jaw moving. “I haven’t been able to convince the old bastard to dress like you yet. But he lets me pretend.” I took a big gulp of my drink and glanced away. The patrons were starting to get more boisterous. Their shouts echoed off the peeling wallpapered walls as they called for more rounds or catcalled some of the working girls. I watched as a pretty blonde walked off with two men. Would Wade and Logan take turns? Or would they pin me between them, spreading me open on both of their- “Jealous?” My head whorled back to him but only found a knowing glint in his eyes. 

“Shut up,” I growled and took another deep drink. Wade’s tongue lolled out, in the center was a perfectly knotted stem. I shifted in my seat. This was not how I had intended the night to go. I wanted just a drink, conversation, and then home for a long awaited rest. But here I was, squirming at the mere sight of Wade’s tongue. “Impressive,” I mumbled. I reached across the table and plucked the stem from him. It looked like he was going for another kiss but my hand drew back too fast.

“I know it’s impressive. Just spelling out my name gets it all twisted like that.” I rolled my eyes with a smirk. 

“You didn't strike me as a guy who would spell his name out. I thought you might be a little more creative.” He leaned closer, eyes just a bit too wide. 

“Oh? What were you imagining I would do? I have a lot of skills and I’ll use them all on you.” Damn it . I finished off my drink and the booze buzzed down my body as it settled inside me. A small voice in my head reminded me that I needed to pick. That if I went down this road with Wade, I needed to stop visiting Al. But fuck, I craved the feeling of his hands on me. I dreamt of him and Logan anytime I saw them. My brain became more and more depraved as the weeks went on. I could barely look at them sometimes without blushing. 

“Wade,” I sighed, twirling my straw in the slowly melting ice. “If we do anything, I have to stop working with Al. It’s a conflict of-“ he held a scarred hand up and my voice died away. 

“No work talk. It’s Friday, let me show you a good time.” I sighed again but nodded. 

The night passed blissfully. Wade was a strangely great date, much better than any guy I’ve been with recently. He asked me a million questions, ranging from my childhood, food allergies, to my favorite Mexican food. He gave me half joke responses about his own childhood, but gave me enthusiastic answers to everything else . He bought me another drink after he finished his but I was careful to sip mine slowly. The last thing I needed was a hangover. He also brought some greasy fries and I dove into them gratefully. We played one round of pool, which he won by only a few points. Then he promptly annihilated me in darts. “So unfair,” I groaned. “You do this for a living, I would have never won.” 

“I thought you being sexy would distract me enough. Strip, then you’ll win.” I had that pleasant buzz running through me so his words just made me giggle. 

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that.” I held up my hand to cut off his next words. “Not now you horny bastard.” He pouted, lip stuck a full inch off his face. I playfully plucked at it. “Pout all you want. You gotta put more effort in to get me naked.” 

That was perhaps the wrong choice of words because he bent down, his lips colliding with mine. I gasped but grabbed at his sweatshirt, clinging to him. He kissed like he wanted to eat me, all tongue and spit. He tasted as sweet as candy from the bright cocktails he had. It made my head swirl, skin heat. His hands moved to my hips and traced the sliver of exposed skin before they dove into my back pockets, and jerked me closer. I moaned into him as I felt the hard ridge in his pants pressed against my hip. The few whoops from our onlookers made me pause. “Probably not the best place.” Wade’s voice was a little husky, lips still close enough to mine that they moved with his words. 

“No,” I mumbled. But neither of us disentangled from each other. “I should probably go home.” Wade sighed and straightened. He nodded, tucking a loose lock of hair behind my ear. 

“Fuck you look gorgeous.” His voice was barely audible under the conversations and the music. I opened my mouth to say something but he cut me off. “I gotta hit the head then I’ll take you home.” He removed my hands from his sweatshirt, but still held one as he guided me to where the bathrooms were, situated at the end of a long hallway. “Wait here, don’t get too many men drooling over you.” Once he disappeared into the men’s room, I let out a breath. He was overwhelming, equal parts sweet, filthy, and ridiculous. The last thing I wanted to do was be responsible. To go home and ignore all the things he made me feel. I had already gone too far, what were a couple more steps? I bit at my thumb nail and watched the bathrooms intently. I didn’t see any women come or go into theirs. I scanned the bar and only found a handful of them. I knew I would have it mostly to myself. 

Cautiously, as if I was somehow breaking a law, I walked down and into the women’s bathroom. It was empty, mostly clean, and smelled fine. Which I’m sure is more than I could say about the men’s. I propped myself against the wall in the hallway, waiting for Wade to emerge again. Two men passed before I saw him. “Aw, I don’t need an escort out of this creepy hallway.” I roughly grabbed his shirt, and backed into the still empty bathroom. “Oh wow, the promised land.” 

I slammed him against the door, far too rough from nerves, but his face lit up nevertheless, a little excited laugh escaping him. “How about you show me those skills you talked about, yeah? Consider this a trial period before I let you fuck my brains out.” He didn’t need to be told twice. He hauled my body tight against his, lips crashing against mine again. This time, I gave into his kisses completely, his teeth tugging at my lips. There was a pinch of pain each time but it only made me claw at his neck harder. Judging by the groan he let out, I think I broke through skin. His tongue prodded its way into my mouth and I moaned loudly against him. His hands slid all over my body before they hooked behind my knees and he carried me to the counter. He lifted me like I weighed nothing. My head was beginning to grow fuzzy from our kiss but I refused to part, greedily sucking air from him instead. 

Wade was the first to rear back, gulping down lungfuls of air. I wanted to drag him back and kiss him till I was lightheaded again. “Goddamn woman,” he mumbled. I just hummed, moving my desperate kisses to his jaw. My hands crawled up his shirt and littered his torso with scratches. He leaned closer, my head hitting the mirror behind me, as he gripped my hips and dragged me flush against him. My legs curled around his waist, craving the feeling of his hard cock against me. 

“Wade,” I whined while I ground my hips against his. I found a particularly sensitive spot just below his ear that made him rasp my name. He cupped the back of my neck, leading me back to his greedy mouth. His thumb brushed along my jaw before his fingers delicately laid across my throat. I arched my neck to give his hand better access to the column of muscle. But his hands slipped from me entirely so he could shove my shirt over my breasts. He buried his face between them, peppering the skin with long, sucking kisses. “ Wade,” I moaned, hips bucking desperately against him, “I need you to fuck me.” His hand went to my jeans, pulling the button free and easing the zipper down. I yelped when his teeth captured a bit of flesh and bit down, hard . But the sting of pain only made me crave him more. Finally his hand plunged under my jeans and into my underwear. 

“So wet all ready,” he hummed, biting at more of my skin. He drifted over my clit in loose, but firm circles. With his free hand, he worked the cup of my bra down and captured my nipple in his mouth. I thursted against his hand in an attempt to get him to do more, to bend me over this sink and fuck me like I knew he wanted to. Instead, he traced the tip of his finger over my entrance and had the nerve to chuckle when I tried to force it inside. 

“ Jesus, Wade , stop teasing me.” My voice was airy, tinged with desire. His teeth glanced across my nipple and I nearly wailed. “Wade!” My nails went to his head and dug into his scalp, heels digging into his ass in annoyance. 

“I love the way you say my name, pretty girl.” His finger drove into me, pumping in and out quickly. He sucked one last bruise onto the top of my breast before he was kissing and licking back up my neck. 

“ More , Wade,” I panted, “you aren’t going to break me.” He laughed, the sound sending goosebumps across my feverish skin. Another finger worked its way into me and my eyes rolled back at the stretch, a sigh catching in my throat.  His thumb moved into more controlled figure eights. My legs trembled around him as he crooked his fingers inside, hunting for that spongy spot inside me. “Wade, oh fuck.” 

“God you moan so nice for daddy Wade.” Something between a laugh and a sob of pleasure bubbled up from my chest. Heat oozed through my body, settled deep in my stomach. 

“I’m not gonna call you that. Ah, keeping doing that, so good.” 

“Are you going to call Logan daddy when he makes you wiggle like this?” He found his mark and stroked the spot deep inside me with complete focus. My hips bore down on his hand, chasing for the orgasm I sensed. “ Aww seems like you like the idea. You’re sucking me in so much.” He bit more bruises on my neck, tongue lapping at the skin after to soothe the ache. “I can’t wait to see you stretched on his big dick.” 

I whimper, the tension inside me near breaking point. “Yours first.” The coil finally snapped. My eyes squeezed shut as a stream of his name and half gasps fell from my chapped lips. His free hand pinned my hip to the counter to stop its wild jerks. He scattered soft kisses across my face and cheeks as he worked me through my orgasm. It seemed to last an eternity and the waves of bliss made my body tingly. 

Eventually, my body relaxed and slumped against the mirror, chest heaving. Wade’s fingers remained in me, lazily plunging inside. Now that the haze had passed, I could hear just how wet I was. The lewd noises echo off the cramped bathroom’s tiles. “Wade,” I mumbled, tugging weakly at his wrist. “You should get to fucking me now.” 

“ Ew , how about you guys don’t. Do you know how dirty it is in here?” I jumped at the voice, scrambling to cover myself. Wade shifted himself to block me from view as I did. His fingers withdrew with a pop that made my face heat even more. The woman idly scrolled on her phone to give us privacy. My bra was fixed, shirt back over my chest, in record time. 

Wade was fine to let us wait it seemed. His sticky fingers lingered on my stomach, running over the curves and stretch marks, before he buttoned up my pants. “Okay sugar bean, let’s get you home.” He helped me off the counter, my weak legs wobbling just a bit. He kept his firm arm around me for support anyways. I had half a mind to think it was just to keep touching me. I didn’t mind and leaned into his side, head against his chest. 

The night was cool, the slight bite of oncoming autumn in the crisp air, and I breathed it in. My head felt clearer with each one. I went to pull away first, to tell him that I would see him on Monday, but he kept walking. “Where are we going?” 

“Gonna take you home.” I blinked. 

“How do you know this is the way to my place?” He made a noncommittal noise and shrugged. 

“Is some light stalking a turn off?” I knew I was crazy, absolutely insane, because all I did was beam up at him and cling closer. We made our way to my apartment in long winding segments. First the train where he pulled my legs over his and kissed at my wind whipped cheeks. Then a stop at a late night burger chain where Wade promptly drowned his in ketchup. We walked slowly to my apartment, hand in hand. Exhaustion had finally reached me and my feet dragged behind me. The night had only grown colder, breath misting in front of our faces. I was wearing a light jacket as I anticipated being home before the drop in temperature. I drew Wade’s arm closer, pressing it against my chest, clinging to the bit of heat. “You know, if we were both naked you would be warmer.” I rolled my eyes. 

“That’s absolutely not how that works. Also, my place is just around the corner.” We only had to walk a few more steps before I saw the familiar entrance to my apartment. Wade followed me to my door, leaning against the rail, waiting for me to fish my keys out of my purse. Once I had them in hand, I also tugged my phone from my pocket. “I don’t have your number.” I oddly felt shy, like this was too much of a leap. It felt more official like this. When I held it out for him, he took it eagerly, fingers tapping quickly. Then he kept typing. I peered down at my phone and saw him adding information for Asshole GILF, surrounded by an assortment of hearts. Quite frankly, I didn’t even know Logan had a phone, I had never seen him with it. 

My stomach dropped when I saw Wade open a conversation with Logan and began typing. I was only able to read the words horny and get it up before I snatched my phone back. “Oh my god Wade!” I rapidly deleted the text, refusing to read anymore of his nonsense sexting. “I would prefer Logan to not think I’m trying to jump his bones.” 

“Aw come on! Live a little. Logan loves people who come on too strong, especially on his face.”  

“I think you are probably the exception, Wade. Logan doesn’t seem to want much to do with me.” His cold palms cupped my cheeks and drew me closer. 

“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, just you and me, yeah?” I nod, arms encircling his waist. The warmth of his chest spread into mine. “Logan dreams about you. He growls your name. He humps me in his sleep like a teenage boy. Then he wakes up and fucks me for hours.” My face heated at his words. I could feel him getting hard against my hip. “He wants you so bad it makes him crazy.” He pushed against me, just the slightest bit. “ I want you so bad it makes me crazy.” I realized that I never repaid the favor at the bar before being interrupted. 

“Do you want to come upstairs?” Wade smirked, kissing the apples of each cheek then my nose. 

“No, I’m gonna surprise Logan. He’ll go nuts when he smells you on me.” I blinked in confusion. I didn’t smell that bad, did it? “He has enhanced senses,” he explained. “He’ll be able to smell your cum on my fingers from outside the apartment.” 

“Oh god,” I mumbled, stuck between embarrassment and arousal. “Okay, well, don’t keep Al up.” 

“She has ear muffs.” I shook my head, chuckling at the absurdity. Wade pecked at my lips but didn’t allow me more. “Goodnight baby girl. Make sure you text me so I know who you are. So many crazy fangirls, you wouldn’t believe it.” 

“Uh huh,” I teased, finding the key fob for my building. Wade left one lingering kiss on my forehead before giving me a nudge toward my door. The scanner beeped, door releasing with a click. I wedged the door open before it could lock again. “Goodnight, see you Monday.” I blew him a kiss before the door clicked behind me as I went to the elevator. I reached for my phone and searched for Wade in my contact list. Of course I found him listed as Bootycall . Instead of solely hearts, his name was circled by eggplants and hearts. 

Me: you have to send me a picture for your profile. I could have missed you 

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. I traced my usual route to my apartment, jiggling the lock open with my key. My phone buzzed on the counter as I set it down to toe off my shoes and hang my coat up. 

Bootycall: once I’m done with Logan, I’ll send pictures for the both of us. 

Bootycall: Do you have other fuckbuddies? How could you? We should be the only ones for you

I woke up late the next day to two pictures. One was blurry, but the brown hair and a pointy white tooth told me it was Logan. It seemed Wade had tried to sneak it and was caught. The picture of Wade nearly made me faint. Pearly white beads of cum were splattered across his face and dripped off his exposed tongue. 

Me: I can’t possibly make that your contact picture

Bootycall: you’re right! Make it your background!

[swordsandholly]

Little Death

Incubus!Soap x fem fat reader | Ao3

NSFW | MDNI | cw: dubcon, noncon, drinking, biting, afab reader, blood, PiV sex, cunnilingus, anal, monsterfucking, size difference, kidnapping, dead dove

Word Count: 4.5k

You sit in your apartment on your worn out couch, sipping a glass of shitty gas station wine at some godforsaken hour in the morning. Just like you do nearly every night these days. Love Island plays loudly on the TV while you try to drown out the overbearing silence that seems to cling to you. It surrounds you at all times, everything just a little too quiet. A little too distant.

You knew getting divorced would be lonely. You didn’t expect it to be this bad.

Your eye connects with a piece of paper that’s been living on your side-of-the-road coffee table for the past… who knows at this point. The friend that gave it to you meant well. She intended it to be a funny, light hearted gesture. Instead, you just feel pathetic. The pitiable fat girl that can’t get a date. Not that she’d be wrong. Out of drunk boredom, or maybe sheer desperation, you grab the stupid cut out article. It’s some plasticky, cheap print with the title ‘How To Summon A Lover’ which is probably the laziest headline in the world for a supposed spell.

Are you lonely? The summary asks, Do you need some special company? Just follow these steps and get exactly what you’re looking for!

It’s stupid. It’s corny. Luckily - or unfortunately - you are just drunk enough to take part in stupid and corny. Your eyes graze over the materials list - paper, a red marker, a metal baking sheet, and a stick candle. Your brow scrunches. You suppose you can sacrifice one of your outdated, unused decor candles that sit on your mantle. You gather the supplies with clumsy, uneven steps.

Fuck your ex. Fuck him for making you this sad and pathetic. Fuck him for piling on the insecurity, for isolating you and taking nearly all your friend group. For all of it. You plop down on your rug, items in hand and thoughts swirling angrily.

Step 1: Place the paper on the baking sheet

Step 2: Draw a pentagram

You roll your eyes. Of fucking course it’s a pentagram. You do it, still.

Step 3: Write “I Light The Flame of Desire” on each side of the page

Step 4: Place the candle in the center of the paper

Step 5: Light the candle and concentrate on your intention until it burns out.

You regret picking up such a big candle.

When you wake your mouth is dry and your back aches. The sunlight offends your eyes when you attempt to crack them open. You must have fallen asleep on the floor at some point. You look down at the mess in front of you. The candle burnt the paper into almost nothing at some point. Thank god the article told you to put it on a baking sheet.

You feel so fucking stupid.

You stumble into the shower, allowing the hot water to help rouse you from your hungover, groggy state. That feeling of stupidity tickles the back of your mind. It’s not like you expected it to work - really, what’s making your heart twist and shame crawl up your back is the disappointment, is that it didn’t. At least you don’t have to work today. You don’t particularly feel like being around people. Not that you do the rest of the time.

As you turn to get out, fear strikes through you at a shadow in your periphery through the fogged shower glass. Just as soon as you see it, it disappears. You shrug it off, heart still thumping wildly as you towel off. Something in your gut churns as you do your best to get ready for the day. An unease that won’t leave as you make yourself at least appear like someone with their life together. A feeling that someone is watching makes your hair stand on end.

You send up a thank you to the universe that you managed to get up early enough to make it to the grocery store during quiet hours. While buckling your seatbelt, that shadow comes back. Right behind you, in the back seat. It’s gone as soon as you check the rearview mirror. You let out a shaky breath. It keeps happening. While you get your shopping cart, while you choose produce. Every time you turn an isle, it’s there. It sends shivers down your spine. Some black, effervescent shape that follows you worse than a shadow. That catches your eye even when you consciously try to ignore it. You really need to lay off the drinking.

As soon as you get home, you toss everything from the night before - including the baking sheet. Some superstitious part of you rears its head, telling you to walk the damn thing all the way to the outside dumpster rather than leave it to fester in your personal trash. You don’t believe in ghosts or spirits. You’re sure you just drank too much, that you slept strangely and it fucked with your head. That not speaking to anyone besides brief interactions with coworkers and customers for weeks on end has left you jumpy and off. Maybe you really should see that therapist your lawyer talked about. She’s expensive though, and not covered by your insurance…

You turn over another bottle of wine in your hand, wrinkling your nose. Not tonight. Not when you turn to put the bottle down and nearly jump into the ceiling at some shape moving to the living room from behind you. Only in your periphery, only vague images, leaving you uneasy. You toss and turn when you finally get into bed. It still feels like you’re being watched. Like there’s a camera just over your shoulder, or in the ceiling fan, staring down at you. For the first time since you were small, you bury yourself under the covers and screw your eyes shut, hoping it will save you from the monsters under your bed and in your head.

You stir at a weight dipping your bed. It’s slight, so slight you almost miss it entirely, until it isn’t. Until whatever it is moves again and you feel something brush over your legs. In a panic, still half asleep, you turn onto your back, fists flying through the air only to be caught by inhumanly large hands. You flail, kicking as a scream catches in your throat.

“Shh, sh, yer a’right.” A distinctly Scottish brogue coos, pinning you to the bed without so much as a grunt. You finally manage to open your eyes properly. He’s big - eyes a bright, unnatural blue with a wild light in them. When he grins at you it exposes long fangs where his normal canines should be. Two horns poke out from his head, the shorn sides of his haircut further exposing them. There’s an unnatural red tint to his skin, darkening to nearly pure crimson at the ends of his exposed limbs. A shiver runs down your spine.

“Wh- who the fuck are you?” You squeak, far less threatening than you might have liked.

The beast’s grin only widens. “Donnae ye know? Ye called me, after all.”

Your eyes widen to saucers as you stare up at him. Did- there’s no way that stupid spell worked! It was a cut out from a damn off-brand Cosmopolitan. It was stupid sleepover bullshit. It was - It’s wasn’t- You couldn’t have summoned a real, actual factual demon into your apartment. No, this has to be a prank or intruder or - or hallucination even.

You try to shove at his chest as soon as he retracts his hands, a weak attempt at escaping. Part of you expects to phase through him - to wake up in your quiet, dark bedroom. Except his hands are very much real and warm as they pin your wrists back against the mattress. The silhouette of massive wings block out the little bit of moonlight that might have otherwise drifted through the slit in your curtains. You can barely make him out, now. Those too-bright eyes glint like a cat’s as he stares down at you.

“Now, why did ye call me, little one?” He leans in, nose brushing against yours before ducking his head down to lick a long stripe up your neck.

Your face heats, mouth struggling to form words. “I… didn’t think it was real…”

“Tha’s not a reason.” Too-sharp teeth nip at the shell of your ear.

“I just… why do you want to know anyway?” You spit defensively, thrashing under him in a sudden burst of confidence - or desperation. You’re not sure. It does fuck-all for you, the beast pinning your thighs under his weight. A deep, warning growl rumbles in his chest. You freeze at the sound - some ancient instinct telling you to stop all action and pray it saves you.

“It’s no’ polite t’dodge my question, bonnie.”

You whimper involuntarily, his sharp teeth grazing the soft skin of your neck with just enough pressure to threaten a bite. The words tumble from your lips near incoherently, “I haven’t- I’ve only been with one person… for a long time. I’m nervous… about a second…”

He hums. Something brushes your shin - a tail, you think. You can’t make it out in the dark. “Whit’s yer name, doll?”

You blurt it, a little horrified at giving that information to some supernatural creature. For some reason you find yourself following it up with, “What’s yours?”

He laughs and mulls it over, jaw clenching briefly, as if he can’t make up his mind about what it is. “Call me Soap, aye?”

You snort despite yourself and he - Soap - quirks a brow. “Weird name for a demon.”

“Incubus.” He corrects.

You have half a mind to complain when he tears your nightgown off before you can react. The cloth rips fast, practically disintegrating in his rough hands. That’s until he climbs down the bed, taking one nipple between his lips and flicking the other. Your back arches, hands fisting the sheets. You let out an indignant ow when he bites down on the fat of your breast, leaving a mark just shy of drawing blood. Soap ignores it, continuing to lavish them with attention as he sees fit. Your thighs press together and you can’t help but squirm, becoming desperate for more in spite of the voice in your head telling you to run. He senses it, you think, moving down your body leaving nips and bites in his path before settling between your thighs. He takes your underwear off in much the same fashion, turning them to shreds in barely a moment. His wings disappear into the shadows - there but not simultaneously. Shifting in and out of your vison.

“Look a’ tha’.” He sighs. “Whit a pretty pussy. Cannae believe yer lettin’ her go unused.”

You whimper and attempt to close your legs, failing when those massive hands hook under your knees and push them up to your chest as far as they can go. His nails - near claws - dig into the flesh of your thighs. A gasp tumbles from your lips as his tongue drags through your folds. Soap places a light kiss your your clit before following with a harsh suck that leaves you twitching and whining. Part of you feels ashamed for enjoying this as much as you are - for lapping up the attention from this stranger like a starved dog - but it feels too unreal for you to really care. Too fictional to apply your real world morals or sensibilities.

You yelp in surprise when his tongue flicks over your back hole, causing him to chuckle and mutter, “Tha’s for later.”

He doesn’t leave you time to think on that promise. You throw your head back as he slips his tongue inside. Fuck, it’s deep. Unnaturally long - built to systematically pull pleasure from you just like the rest of him. You find yourself grinding down onto it despite yourself, pent up body giving into instinct and abandoning rational thought. You grab onto his stupid hair to further press him into you. He doesn’t seem to mind as a low guttural sound rumbles through his chest.

A thick finger circles your entrance, replacing his tongue in one swift motion. He doesn’t wait to add a second - the stretch causing you to hiss. His fingers are big. His proportions just on this side of incompatibly large. You wonder briefly, distantly, why his claw-nails aren’t hurting you. It’s hard to care much when the pad of a thick finger presses roughly against that spot that leaves you gasping. His lips wrap around your clit again, sloppily sucking and licking at the little bud as you careen closer and closer to the edge. Your back arches harshly, almost painfully, as you tumble over with a choked moan.

“So easy.” He chuckles. Your face gets hotter, an indignant pout forming on your lips. Rude. Your eyes drift over his body and, somehow for the first time tonight, you realize he’s already naked. Not a single piece of cloth in sight upon his arrival. You let yourself take in his strong torso, the thick dusting of hair from his chest all the way down to a healthy happy trail, down to-

“That’s not gonna fit!” You squeak, clumsily trying to back away. His cock hangs heavily between his legs; thick and veiny and already leaking. His hand on your sternum stops you in place. You’re sure he can feel the way your heart hammers away in your chest - practically beating against your ribcage. For a moment, you think you see sympathy in his eyes. Rather quickly you realize that warmth is, instead, hunger. An eagerness to swallow you whole dances across his sharp grin.

“We’ll make it fit.”

That’s all the warning you get before he’s bullying his cock inside you, inch by inch despite your shaky pleas to slow down. It burns, just crossing over the threshold into too much. Your teeth grind, a deep whine resonating in your throat. Your fingers claw at the sheets below you and your body jerks with odd shocks of pleasure and pain all tied up into one.

“Fuckin’ tight…” Soap groans.

“S’too much!” You practically sob, hips squirming to get away from the intrusion.

“Y’can take it.” His other hand grabs onto your waist to still you. You can’t stop the moan that forces its way past your lips as his hips meet yours.

You expect it to hurt when he fucks you - he doesn’t allow you time to adjust, each thrust practically punching the air from your lungs. Instead, it sends electricity up your spine. Your brows knit together, eyes screwed shut as warmth pools at the base of your spine. Soap hooks one of your legs around his hip, the other over his shoulder. You watch him through bleary eyes, the strange red of his hands contrasting with your natural, human skin. The way his hand nearly wraps around your thick calf. The way his core flexed with every thrust. The pleasured knot in his brow.

Soap lets your raised leg drop, pressing his weight down onto you and bracketing your head with his forearms. He smells so good - spices and trees. It invades your senses, leaving your mind somehow foggier than it already felt. He pulls you into a kiss. It’s not romantic, not emotional, just a searing exchange made up of messy teeth and tongue. He tastes like cinnamon. His fang catches your lip and copper coats your mouth. A light whine escapes him as he licks it up and sucks at the small wound.

“Please, please, please.” You pant rhythmically, chest heaving.

“Please, please, please.” He mocks, chuckling at your begging as he presses his thumb to your clit.

You practically seize, already overdone and so close to another. You’re babbling, you know that much, but the contents of your words are lost on you.

“Gonnae cum f’me?” Soap presses his nose to your temple. “Gonnae cum on this cock?”

You nod vigorously, nails leaving half-moons his strong shoulders. His thumb swirls your clit as he continues to spill filthy words into your ear. Things you’ve never thought of, otherworldly promises no man could keep, and groaned nonsense to match your own. Your climax slams into you. You practically howl, whole body shaking. Soap’s tongue drags up the side of your face, licking up sweat and tears. He’s not far behind, a growl rumbling through his chest; his hips stutter as he spills inside you.

You think, for a moment, as you desperately try to catch your breath, that it’s over. He’ll disappear off into the ether and you’ll wake up tomorrow from this strange dream. All of it a lonely, mentally unwell delusion that you can tell your therapist. After you book her. You really should if your brain is coming up with shit like this.

Except, he doesn’t stop. The slowed rocking of his hips immediately picks up again. He leans up, hands gripping your waist as you let out a long, keening whine. You try to shove at his hands, to kick your shaking legs. They’re clumsy. Weak and used and uncoordinated. The sweat on your palms leaves you slipping, unable to get a grip around his wrist. Soap just laughs - dark and unnatural. Far too entertained by your panic. A malicious spark lights his eyes as he stares down at you.

“S-soap!” You gasp, mind and body going into overdrive. “P-please! You don’t have to - you can - fuck - just stop!”

He laughs again, only speeding up - using the hold on your soft waist to fuck you back onto him. An anger flares up in you and you reel back, slapping your open palm against his face as hard as you can manage. It doesn’t do anything to deter him, his hips still slam full force into yours without so much as a stutter. His chuckle cuts off into a gravelly groan. “Do tha’ again.”

As much as you don’t want to give in to him, you do. You batter your fists against his chest, his arms, anywhere you can even slightly reach. You dig your nails into his hands. He just speeds up, lewd, wet sounds an loud slaps echoing in the room along with your moans and shouts. Soap pulls out just long enough for his arm to encircle your waist and flip you over as if you weigh nothing to him. You hardly get your bearings before he’s forcing his cock back in your cunt. His hands latch onto your hips so tightly you’re sure they’ll bruise, if not be crushed completely.

“Please! Fuck - Soap - please - st-” You choke out, barely able to lift your face out of the sheets to breathe. Your whole body tremors violently. You try to reach behind yourself for him - to get some purchase, but all you’re met with his a hand firmly planted between your shoulder blades to hold you in place.

“Whit? Ye think tha’ was all? Jus’ one round an’ yer done?” The beast condescends, voice rough. “Nae, we’ve go’ forever. Well, until yer body gives out, at least. Gonnae shove my cock down tha’ pretty throat next, I think.”

The hand still on your hip lets go. Gathering slick from between your thighs, Soap pushes his thumb against your back hole. You gasp and attempt to lurch forward, to get away, but it doesn’t work. You can’t move out from under the weight of him. You feel a glob of something land there, quickly realizing he spit on you just to gasp as his thumb pushes inside. Part of you hates that it feels good, hates the words spilling from his lips about your unused ass. The rest of you succumbs to the fullness as his thumb is replaced by a finger, then another, working you open.

You whimper, fear mixing with the ongoing growing pleasure in your gut. It’s all too much. You’re overstimulated, soft body bruised and exhausted. Filled to the brim. Soap drapes himself over you, removing his fingers with almost a pop, and sinking his sharp teeth into the crook of your neck. His arms bracket your head once again, nearly flattening your against the mattress underneath him. You cry out, tears streaming as you feel another climax approaching, your pussy drooling down your thighs.

Something deep in the back of your brain snap as you cum. You lose yourself to base instinct. The heat in the room and anger in your chest consumes you. The air burns as it enters your lungs, sparking and electrifying your skin. Your head turns, eyes locking on the strong forearm anchored just above you. On impulse you lurch up, sinking your teeth in as far as they’ll go. A dog with prey caught in it’s maw. Soap growls in your ear - deep and animalistic. His blood isn’t quite coppery, not like yours, it’s far too sweet. It only spurs you on, your fingers twisting so tightly in the sheets you hear threads pop. Your other hand reaches back to dig your nails into his upper arm, to scratch at wherever you can reach. The sounds tearing through your throat aren’t right. Aren’t human. His arm muffles them slightly, the grunts and growls becoming borderline screams as you cum again so soon.

Soap flips you again, tearing his arm away from you and planting his feet flat on the bed, using his inhuman strength to help bounce you on his lap. You snarl, nails digging into his pecs to draw more blood. It drips down your lips, onto your chest, it covers the pads of your fingers. It’s animal. You’re just an animal.

“There ye are.” He grins, eyes practically glowing.

You don’t think much of it, you can’t think at all, really. Not in words, or even images. Pure instinct drives every action, your nose flaring at the scent of sex and blood that’s filled the room. Your skin is feverish, limbs shaking. Frenzied. That’s the word. Frenzied and rabid as you reach for strength you don’t have an meet his thrusts.

The two of you keep going that way - for how long, you aren’t sure. At some point you end up on the floor, at another he holds you against the wall by your throat. At another you hear the bed frame crack in two. Claw marks and bruises litter your body - litter his, as well. He pushes his cock into your back hole, not caring about the minimal stretch. You don’t need lube, you’ve drenched the both of you enough. The last thing you’re conscious for is Soap moaning in your ear as your hands wrap around his horns, holding on with all you have as your lips meet.

When you wake, your body feels heavy. Buried under something - blankets, you think. Though, your blankets at home have never had this weight to them. It’s more than quilts - your fingers tentatively running over both the texture of soft cloths and thick furs. It feels luxury, buttery smooth under your touch. Briefly, you shut your eyes again, content to drift back into blackness out of this cozy dream.

When you do peek your eyes open, a shudder runs down your spine. This isn’t your apartment. You shoot up, looking around the odd bedroom. It’s strangely decorated. Modern but with hints of something more scattered about. The smooth, painted walls of a modern home and ornate, lit fireplace of a castle mixed with current and antique furniture alike. A large couch sits in front of the mantle with embroidered, thick blankets hanging over the back. There’s a cracked door that seems to lead into a walk in closet. The area rug covering the far half of the room is a rich emerald green embellished with flowing designs in various golds and darker tones. Drawings and random scrawl are pinned to the far wall. There’s an open sketchbook on top of an old, hardwood desk with similar designs carved into it as the mantle.

Panic begins to surge as you open the massive curtains on the wall opposite the mantle to reveal floor to ceiling windows. They’re heavy like tapestries. You realize quickly that two of the panels are sliding doors onto a balcony, though you hesitate to step out. It would only corner you further. The sky looks like fire - waves of clouds lit in orange and yellow hues. It moves to fast. Streams of flames twist and run across the sky, overtaking one another.

You swing open the only other door that doesn’t appear to be the main exit. All it leads to is a bathroom. Large and expensive but nothing abnormal. Except for your shampoo inside the shower upon further inspection. Memories flood you, the night before comes in flashes. Was it the night before? Time feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. You’re sore, eyes heavy and body weak. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, dressed in some gauzy, black floor-length thing that leaves little to the imagination.

Just as you exit the bathroom to look for somewhere else to hide or run, the main door opens. Soap steps in, adjusting the sleeve of his t-shirt. You freeze, as if he won’t see you as long as you’re still.

It doesn’t work, of course. Those bright eyes lock onto you, thick brows raising. “Bonnie? Yer up!”

He looks… different. Less demonic. Not that anything has visibly changed much besides the fact that he’s wearing actual clothes. He simply fits into the scenery better - the room made to accommodate him. You realize part of the strangeness of it is the furniture size; meant for someone much taller and wider than you. The light helps as well, defining the contours of his face that you couldn’t make out in the dark. You back away from him as he approaches, pressing yourself against the wall as tightly as you can.

“So glad yer up. Are ye hungry? I can-“

“Where am I?” You cut him off meekly, eyes darting around the room.

“Och, my home of course.” Soap grins as if that explains anything.

“Why?” It doesn’t come out like the demand you want it to, more like a plea. Your voice cracks and you can’t meet his eye.

He tilts his head, eyes watching you, raking over you from head to toe. A predator observing it’s prey - deciding how best to catch it. “Ye live here, now.”

“What?” You gasp, trying to back further into the wall as if you could phase through it should you just try hard enough. “No- no, please! You have to let me go home! I need to go home!”

Johnny shrugs far too casually for your liking. “A soft little thing like ye? Nae, think I’ll keep ye fer the time bein’. Never met someone who could keep up like ye can. Go’ a lot of pent up energy in there, hen.”

“I don’t-“

“Yer gonnae feed me fer years tae come.” He continues as if you didn’t say anything at all, “Besides, I’ve go’ some friends tha’ I think would like ye.”

[spaceman-earthgirl]

Supercorptober 2024 Day 5: Alone

ao3 fic link.

Lena wakes up, and she knows instantly she’s alone. Panic sets in for a moment, because Kara wouldn’t just leave, not after last night.

Lena would though. Lena has, after a one night stand where they did what they needed to do so she left in the early hours of the morning.

But this isn’t like this, this is Kara. Kara who told her she loves her, Kara who kissed her so gently that Lena cried.

This is Kara, her best friend, the person she trusts most, the person she loves the most, and now she knows Kara loves her too.

Lena sits up and looks around, blanket clutched to her chest. She sees her clothes neatly folded in a pile, which is definitely not where she left them last night. She’s pretty sure some didn’t even make it into the room. 

Lena blushes at the memory.

She looks around for her phone, and realises it didn’t make it to the room with them either, that it’s probably still in her purse in the living room.

That’s the first thing she needs, to find Kara. That, and she needs coffee. She debates for a moment putting on her clothes but instead decides to grab a hoodie and pair of Kara’s pants instead.

The hoodie smells like Kara, this whole place does, and for a moment it makes her want to bury herself back in bed and wait for Kara.

Because she knows Kara wouldn’t just leave her, knows Kara will be back.

It’s in the kitchen that Lena figures out where Kara is gone. Or at least that she’ll be back, a scribbled note on the table.

Be back soon. -K x 

It’s still early, and Lena knows she probably should go back to her own apartment, shower and get ready for work. But she’s not going to do that, not yet. Because all she can think about is seeing Kara, kissing her again and making sure that she doesn’t regret what happened.

Lena doesn’t.

Lena hasn’t even had time to consider making herself a coffee when the door clicks open and Kara is walking through the door.

“Oh,” Kara startles, clearly not expecting to see Lena. For a moment, Lena wonders if she should have left, but she doesn’t need to worry when Kara continues. “I was hoping to surprise you in bed.”

Lena had been so focused on Kara, she hadn’t noticed the paper bag and coffee cup holder in her hands.

Lena suddenly doesn’t know what to say. This is all new to her. Not only has their relationship changed overnight, but she doesn’t want to mess this up. Kara is too important to her and she can’t lose her over this. Lena doesn’t have a great track record with relationships and she’s never felt like this about anyone before, never wanted a relationship to work out like she wants this too.

“Are you panicking?” Kara asks, suddenly much closer than before, food no longer in her hands.

“No,” Lena replies. Kara raises her eyebrow and Lena knows she’s been caught. “Ok, maybe a little. I don’t want to mess this up.”

Kara takes her hands, and Lena instantly feels her thoughts settle, the warmth of Kara’s hands seeping into her skin.

“I know, me too. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I do know that you and me? We can do anything together. So, we probably will both mess up, but I know that no matter what happens, we can get through anything, because it’s us.”

Lena smiles. “Thank you.” 

She knows this will be a constant worry but for now it’s quietened down, both because of Kara’s words but also because Kara is smiling now too and it’s hard to focus on anything else when Kara is smiling at her.

Kara leans forward and Lena gets the memo, meeting her halfway in a kiss that feels so much like coming home that Lena feels like crying again.

“Good morning,” Kara mumbles against her mouth, Lena can feel her smile against her own.

“You taste like cinnamon,” Lena replies, and Kara pulls away. Lena would regret her words but Kara is grinning, looking sheepish in a way that’s too cute for words.

“I got hungry.”

Lena laughs. When is Kara not hungry?

“I like this, too,” Kara says, tugging on Lena’s shirt. “You look good in my clothes.” Kara pauses. “You look good out of them too.”

Kara’s blushing as she says the words, it’s adorable.

“Is that so?” Lena asks, and it’s her turn to lift her eyebrow.

Kara leans forward, clearly embarrassed as she hides her face in Lena’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Kara mumbles and Lena laughs, wrapping her arms around her best friend. ...Or girlfriend? She’s not sure, but they’re going to have plenty of time to figure that out.

Lena grins. “Good to know.”

[audliminal]

Survivability Bias Pt 5

Masterpost Ao3

“So hypothetically,” Superboy begins, glancing over at Robin. “Say I met another meta, and they, like, needed a civilian identity...” He trails off, listening intently. Trying to get anything from Robin's expression is pointless - between his skill at maintaining his composure, and the expression obscuring mask, there's not a lot to be read on his face. Instead Superboy focuses on his heartbeat, which speeds up the smallest amount as Robin turns away from the tablet he'd been working with, and settles his full attention directly onto Superboy.

“Hypothetically,” Robin repeats.

“Yeah. You know, in theory, if that ever happened.” Robin stares at Superboy for a moment, presumably reading everything that's missing from his own face in Superboy's.

“Well. In theory, the Justice League has the means to grant any meta hero a full identity. Is this about you? Because honestly it's insane that they haven't bothered yet, and I will straight up make you one right now if you-”

“No, it's not about me,” Superboy interrupts. “But like, you could do that? Without the Justice League’s support, I mean?. Like, say if this hypothetical person really didn't want the Justice League knowing about them?”

“You met a meta who doesn't like the Justice League.”

“I don't think it's really about the Justice League specifically. I mean, they definitely don't exist, but if they did, then I would say that the second I showed up they were bracing for a fight. Like before they even saw who I was.” Robin sets his tablet to the side without looking, and leans just a touch towards Superboy as he talks. It's honestly wild, he thinks, how the other boy can manage such intense eye contact through white lenses, but, well, that's the bats for you.

“Theoretically, I could absolutely make this person an identity, if they did exist. But I would want to meet them first.”

“Cool, cool,” Superboy says leaning back into the couch. “I offered to introduce you and they said they'd consider it. I think, maybe they don't trust adults very much, bc they asked if you were our age.”

“Theoretically?”

“Exactly.”

* * *

Though the specific details as to when the founding member first became acquainted, it was only after multiple incidents of near-worldwide devastation that they realized the necessity of an organized front.

The details of the forming of the Justice League should be fascinating, if only for the revelation that world-ending disasters are, apparently, relatively common in this universe. In a way, it’s a comforting thought. Memories of Dan sit as heavily as ever in Danny’s mind, especially now that he’s effectively lost his family, just like in Dan’s timeline. Of course, here there’s presumably no risk of him getting fused with Vlad, so probably that specific threat isn’t likely, but - well, if it comes to the worst and Danny does go mad, there’s at least a reasonably good chance that the heroes here will be able to stop him.

On the other hand, this also means that if the heroes turn out to actually be evil or whatever, he has less chance of getting away. Of course, Superboy hadn’t really seemed evil, but Danny really has no clue if he would even be able to tell. Sure he’d known Vlad was a nightmare from a mile away, but Vlad wasn’t exactly subtle about his obsession with Danny. Evil steeped in calculation would surely be harder to spot, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” someone says from behind Danny. “But are you going to be using that computer for much longer?” Danny blinks, staring back at the teen who’s looking at him nervously. Danny glances over at the clock, but it’s now reading 2:30, which means that he’s been here for like three hours already,and he really hasn’t read much of anything in all that time.

“You can have it,” Danny says, pulling back to shove his notebook into his backpack.

“You sure, man? I don’t wanna chase you off, but I really could use it. Physics project, you know?” 

“Yeah, I get it. Wasn’t really making much progress anyway. Might as well take a break.” Danny says. He never got to take physics in school, but he remembers struggling with lit class enough to understand the sentiment. And he really isn’t making any progress, if he’s been staring at the same Justice League page for multiple hours.

“You working on a history project or something?”

“Yeah.” It’s close enough to the truth.

“What teacher d’you have? It’s pretty cool that they’re letting you do it on the Justice League.”

“Oh, uh,” Danny quails for a moment, focusing on closing the tab so he doesn’t tell the kid he’s not going to school. After all it’s probably reasonable to assume the laws about delinquency are the same here. “It’s more about the meta protection acts than like, the Justice League itself. And I’m not really local, so...”

“Ah, that explains why I don’t recognize you,” the other teen grins.

“Yeah,” Danny says, stepping back so the other teen can take over the computer. “Well, good luck with your physics project.”

“Thanks, man, and good luck with your meta-acts essay.” The other teen turns his attention to the computer as Danny steps away, heading for the library exit. Clearly research isn’t going well today, and Jazz would definitely yell at him for trying to force his brain to focus when it clearly doesn’t want to. He pauses outside for a moment, trying to remember what Jazz said to when your focus was shot. Obviously part one was to take a break, but he’s certain that she’d had more to say than that.

He thinks he remembers her going on a rant about monotony, and boredom, but he doesn’t really feel bored. Actually more than anything he feels wired and anxious. And anxious means he should...

“Turn slow tigers into fast tigers,” Danny mutters, gaining a deeply confused look from the couple other patrons standing outside the library. He ignores them, though, and starts heading for the nearby park, so he can do some stretches. Fast tigers means he has to exercise, which he would usually complain about but- well, his routine has definitely been a lot less active since he got here. Other than the train crash the other week, Danny’s been spending most of his time sitting and reading, and while it’s been insanely nice to have nobody hunting him, honestly the idea of exercise sounds almost horrifyingly nice.

He does his best to run through the kind of stretches he remembers doing in PE, warming himself up as best he can before starting to jog the little looping path. The jeans make it a little more annoying than he remembers in PE, but luckily they’re kind of loose, so they’re not too terrible to run in, and Danny has no intention of going very fast. There’s too many people around even if he wanted to, and he does his best to be polite and not in the way as he jogs. it doesn’t take long for his breathing to go heavy with exertion, and as he finishes his second circuit, Dannyt relaxes into it, and just lets himself run.

Thirty minutes later, Danny is feeling markedly more tired, and he lets himself slow to a walk. His heart is thudding rhythmically in his chest, the occasional stutter only more prominent in the heightened pounding, and his legs feel a little wobbly, but he keeps walking, The sweat he’d worked up feels gross against his clothes, so probably he could’ve gone about it better, but Danny figures a whole thirty minutes without worrying about his existential situation is more than worth feeling gross for a bit. His usual tactic of sneaking into the local gym while it’s closed isn’t gonna cut it during the day, so he’ll have to wait to shower, but in the meantime, he can walk off the remaining adrenaline, and decide what to do for dinner.

* * *

“Hey, did you really mean what you said about me having a civilian identity?” Robin looks up as Superboy sits in the air beside his work desk.

“I have four different identities, ready for you to choose from,” Robin says.

“Wait do you just keep possible identities around in case anybody needs them? Is that, like, a Bat thing?” Superboy leans over to examine the tool Robin had been working on. Like everything else he uses, it’s emblazoned with a bat insignia, not that the marking does anything to help identify what the little machine even does. It’s ridiculously small, definitely not any kind of weapon, unless Robin’s been tinkering with the idea of murderous nanobots, which honestly wouldn’t be that shocking. Of any hero Superboy’s ever met, Robin seems uniquely predisposed towards mad scientist-type stuff.

“I keep exactly two emergency identities on hold, but those are separate. I was talking specifically about identities for you.” Superboy freezes, turning his eyes back to Robin, who looks at him like this is a perfectly normal thing to say. Superboy is at least ninety percent sure it isn’t, but what the hell.

“What the hell,” Superboy echoes his own thoughts. “Why would I ever need four identities?”

“You don’t need four, you need options. There’s no point in giving you an identity you hate.”

“Okay, but people don’t get to choose their names? So why would I care.”

“Most people don’t choose their names because most people receive them when they’re babies, but everyone has the ability to change it later if they decide they don’t like it. You have the unique advantage of being cognitively developed enough to have a say from the beginning, and you should have the opportunity to use it.”

“Huh...” That’s actually kind of sweet. “Do you like your name? I mean, like, that’s not why you don’t want to tell us, right?”

“My name is adequate,” Robin answers slowly. “It’s mine and I am... accustomed to it. The reason I haven’t told you my name is because it... implicates the other bats, and Batman considers that to be a significant security risk.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s fair. Could I see the names you were thinking of?”

“Certainly,” Robin says, pushing back from the desk. “Let me get my tablet.”

* * *

“Uh, Superboy?” Danny shouts, trying to ignore how fucking ridiculous this feels. “Are you, like, free to talk? I think I want to meet your friend.” He’s hovering in the sky about a mile out from his town, in as close to the middle of nowhere as he could manage. He’d done a bit of looking into Robin this morning, before making his decision, and what a wild discovery that Robin was a name that had been held by multiple individuals. It makes him think of Dani, and he almost hopes that wherever she ends up, she might use the name Phantom too. After all, if anyone else rights to it, it would be his genetic clone.

Danny has no clue if time is flowing the same here as back home, but with any luck his friends have managed to orchestrate Dani’s escape too. It was always going to be a little more dodgy than Danny himself- his death being inherently tied to the portal had meant it was a bit more responsive to him than it otherwise would be, and that detail had been pretty quintessential to the rewiring that had needed to be done in order to send him to an entirely different universe, but they’d been hoping that her nature as a post-portal clone would mean that she had a close enough tie to the portal to send her through as well. Not that Danny would likely ever get to know for sure.

The soft rush of air alerted Danny to someone’s arrival, and he just managed to keep himself from falling into a defensive posture as he turned to look at the newly arrived Superboy, and the other teen being carried in his arms. Danny recognized the other boys outfit as that of the current Robin, who was now staring at Danny through a pair of disconcerting white-lenses set into a domino mask.

“We were free so I figured we’d just come meet you?” Superboy says with a nervous grin.

“Yeah, that’s, um, kind of obvious. Should we land?” Danny’s pretty sure that none of the Bats have flight, and like, as much as flying is cool as hell, Robin doesn’t look particularly impressed by it.

“That would be preferable, please,” Robin says, confirming Danny’s thoughts. He nods, and heads for the ground. Superboy follows just as quickly, and a moment later they’re all gathered on a gravel road in farmland.

“So, uh,” Superboy begins, once he’s deposited Robin on his own two feet.

“You told him about me before,” Danny says. Superboy may have had plenty of time to fly over here, but there hadn’t been enough of a delay to have explained the situation to Robin just now.

“It was an entirely theoretical conversation,” Robin offers dryly, before Superboy can respond.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that he was asking if I could theoretically help a meta acquire an identity if they were uncomfortable with the Justice League. Nothing of it was mentioned to anyone else and he told me no details about who any theoretical metas might be.” Danny blinks, taking a moment to process Robin’s explanation. In a way it makes sense, and he can see why Superboy would want to make sure that what he was offering was even possible.  Besides, it’s pretty obvious already that they both really trust each other.

“Okay, sure. I guess I get it.”

“I would like to know why you’re concerned about the Justice League, though, if you’re willing to share. If there’s anything illicit happening-”

“Oh, no, it’s not like that,” Danny cuts in as soon as he realizes where Robin’s going. He’s suddenly glad he’d already decided to explain his situation in more detail. “It’s like, I’m not from here so my shit is entirely unrelated? It’s just, they’re -you’re?- associated with the government, you know?”

“And your government is a threat to you.”

“Honestly, everything was. But they can’t get to me here. It’s why my friends- that’s why I’m here.”

“Okay, but are you sure you’re safe? Because like, space travel is a thing, and if you need protection...” Superboy trails off, looking concerned.

“I mean, it should be fine? Even if the GIW did manage to figure out inter-dimensional travel, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to figure out where specifically I went, so yeah.” Danny really doesn’t want to think about a GIW that’s gone inter-dimensional.

“Well if they did manage to make it here, they would be breaching the meta protection acts if they tried anything, so I hope if that does happen you inform myself or Superboy.”

“Yeah,” Danny laughs. “It’s honestly been kind of crazy trying to wrap my head around the idea I have protections here?”

“That’s understandable. Plenty of meta-individuals have complicated feelings about them, even if they grew up here.”

“Oh?”

“Well, just because it’s illegal to exploit or discriminate against someone doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t happen. And metas who have been treated poorly often have trouble trusting in the protection acts.”

“Or sometimes you just didn’t get that info programmed into you and then you have to adjust to your understanding of history being manufactured,” Superboy mutters under his breath. Robin doesn’t react at all and Danny’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it either. The implications are a bit concerning, but Danny’s not about to press him on it.

“Yeah, I mean that’s kind of where I am, I guess. I think I’d like it if you’d be willing to make me a legal identity? I’m basically homeless at the moment, so I’d like to be able to get a job or something. But I’d really rather not end up on the Justice League’s radar yet. You guys seem nice, but databases are- a lot.”

“Easy enough. I can actually do it all with my personal resources, so the info never goes anywhere near the Justice League’s databases. We just need to determine what name history you want to have.”

“I mean, I’d like to keep my name, if possible?”

“Sure, What’s your name?” Robin tilts his head.

“Danny Fenton.”

[bucketsofmonsters]

Deep Water - Part 3

cw: the ocean, almost drowning, kidnapping, more tags to be added as the story continues

merman x fem reader

Word count: 5k

read on ao3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

On your first day of work, you were already regretting not pushing harder to get your siren to promise you he would stay away, glimpses of a snaking tail under the water every few hours stopping your heart for a beat every time. 

You ignored your first sighting, reporting into the office, getting a list of duties and of expected intake for the day. 

You asked when you’d be paid, part of you worried he’d say at the end of the month and you’d be stuck without a place to stay for weeks. You let out a sigh of relief when he said at the end of the week. Only two more days then. You could manage two more days. You were sent off on your way without much else said. 

No one was assigned to help you, to figure out what you were supposed to do or how to start, so you did the only thing you could think of. You went and found Finn.

His face lit up the second he saw you, dropping the box he was holding to run over to your side. 

“Hello little lady, how’s your first day going?”

You glanced back at the discarded cargo. “Do you not need to get that?”

“Is this going to take long? Okay, you probably want help, I’ll be right back.”

He rushed over to the dropped box that at the very least didn’t look like it had been damaged and hauled it over to a safer location, amidst some other unpacked boxes. 

He was back at your side before the incredulous huff of laughter managed to escape you, giving you a sheepish look. “Sorry if I’m overeager, we don’t get many pretty girls out here, I’ve gotta try and help you before someone else snatches you up.”

You gave him a humoring laugh, more polite than anything. 

You had a feeling your intentions with one another did not align, but he seemed pleasant and helpful and whatever his intentions happened to be, you could use that right about now. 

And he held true to his word. For the rest of the day, he helped you figure out your various duties, largely abandoning his own, only occasionally popping out to make excuses or run and do something that others laughed and insisted really couldn’t wait. 

The day passed quickly. The work wasn’t particularly hard, just repetitive. Finn did his best to help but once you realized he couldn’t read, it became a little more difficult. 

He still hovered over your shoulder, something that you appreciated but had the unintended consequence of you having to struggle to pull his attention every time you caught another flash of scales out of the corner of your eye. 

They seemed particularly likely to appear whenever Finn set off from his latest task he was ignoring to help you again.

You bristled at the thought, trying to tell yourself you were making up patterns, that it wasn’t anything at all. 

At least you hoped you were. If it was a pattern, you were going to kill him. 

Even once you got the hang of things, Finn refused to actually leave you, insisting that it was improper to abandon you on your first day. You just smiled and continued on, set on getting everything done. First impressions were important after all, and you needed to look just as valuable as your sister had been. 

Before you knew it, the day was over and people had begun filing out. It wasn’t empty, the dock was never really empty, but it had quieted down and you finished the last of your work, marking everything down as neatly and perfectly as you could. 

“I can take that back for you!” Finn exclaimed as you carefully looked over your work for any glaring mistakes. He seemed excited to find something he could actually help you with. 

Part of you wanted to refuse, to take it back yourself, but he seemed too excited, refusing felt like kicking a puppy. Besides, you imagined he’d have a few kind words to say about you and that couldn't hurt. 

He came darting back over in minutes, that persistent, goofy smile plastered across his face as he skidded to a halt. “Mission accomplished, ma’am,” he said with a little salute. 

“Thank you, I really appreciate it,” you said, trying to push as much gratitude as you could into your voice.

“Now that that’s done, I was wondering if you wanted to go out or something. I could get you some drinks or food or whatever, celebrate your first day being over.”

There it was, exactly what you’d worried this had all been leading to. “Finn…”

Water came splashing up through the gaps in the wood on the dock, drenching the pair of you. 

You jumped, reflexively and far too late to save yourself from any of the water. 

As you looked through the slats, you could have sworn you saw the glint of scales. 

“Yes,” you blurted out, bringing Finn’s attention back to you. “That sounds great.”

You gave him what felt like a poor approximation of an excited smile. 

“Really? That’s amazing. The ocean seems to have something to say about it. She’s nervous, poor girl. Promise I won’t leave you behind.” He spoke down to the waves, attempting to lighten the mood as he saw your face go white in your newly wetted skirts. 

You smiled, your heart hammering in your ears, and after another quiet little bit of reassurance, he scurried off, telling you to stay put while he found a coat he’d discarded earlier in the hot sun and promptly forgotten about, and then you could be off.

Simon, you guessed that was what you were calling him now, decided that was an opportune time to breach the surface of the water and look up at you with those big, golden eyes. 

An anger that had been simmering quietly inside of you at every flash of scales you’d seen throughout the day came to a head as he had the audacity to simply appear like this. “Go away,” you hissed, the words coming out louder than you meant them to. 

This wasn’t like the day before. You knew Finn would be back any moment, you didn’t have time to argue on the shore. 

He remained resolutely above the water, looking up at you with a determination that almost frightened you set across his impish features. 

When he opened his mouth, you held your hands out, trying to tell him to stop, that it wasn’t safe. 

And then he started speaking and your hands fell limp to your sides, warning him not seeming quite so important anymore. 

The words sounded different. Maybe he was singing? It was hard to tell. You couldn’t even make out the words, couldn’t understand any of it. All you knew was that he was there. Why were you all the way up here? You should be down there with him. Maybe then you could understand. 

Whatever noises he was making, ones you were too far away to really hear, wormed their way right through your ears into your head, snaking their way around inside you, taking up the space where your thoughts were moments ago. 

There was nothing but him. 

Everything else faded away until all you could see was amber eyes. 

And then, walking carefully and intentionally, you tumbled into the water, seemingly of your own accord. 

The second you hit the icy water, the warm calm you’d been pulled into dissipated. You weren’t sure if it was the shock of the water or your head going under, no longer able to hear the hypnotic noises from the siren you’d thought was harmless. At least to you. 

And what a foolish notion that was. He was a siren. It didn't matter if he'd saved you or not, of course he was dangerous. You weren’t special to him. Why would you be?

As you tried to come up for air his arms met your shoulders and pushed you deeper and you realized, horrifically, just how wrong you’d been. 

You didn’t understand why he did what he’d done, why he’d helped you before. Maybe he’d just been playing with his food, toying with you until he got bored. 

Your mind newly cleared, you fought to swim up. As you did, his tail wound around your legs and you saw a pout break out across his face. 

Panic rose in your chest and he watched, head tilted, examining you carelessly, with your legs still bound together under the water. 

He looked at you, eyes big and bright and expectant, flicking across your face as he tried to fight back a smile. 

You struggled and his hand grasped yours, keeping it in place, effortlessly keeping you under the waves. The bright look in his eyes shifted to confusion, seeming baffled as to why you’d rather breach the surface than steal a kiss from him and let the cold water invade your lungs. 

As he stared expectantly and confused at you, you wiggled just enough to free one leg, something he seemed unconcerned with as he continued to hold you under. He knew he was stronger than you, that you had no real shot of escape. You both did. 

That didn’t matter to you. You brought your knee up as swiftly and firmly as you could in the cold water that forced a horrible, sluggish feeling into your limbs, and kneed him right in his gills. 

That seemed to activate some instinct in him and he wrapped entirely around you, effortlessly countering you at every point of struggle. They were the movements of a practiced hunter. 

You kicked and fought and made every attempt to break away and breach the surface but he was too strong, too practiced at this. At holding people down. 

You wondered how you matched up to them, how hard you fought compared to his other prey, if he’d remember this at all once you were gone?

At some point in the struggle you must have kissed, in the loosest sense of the word. You missed it in the flurry of movement, just another brush of skin against skin in the struggle. It must have happened though because as your lungs burned just a bit too much and your brain forced you to inhale, you didn’t choke on water but instead felt the burning soothe and your instincts calm, despite the salt water flooding inside you. 

Regardless of your newfound ability to breathe, the fight and lack of oxygen had weakened you and your struggle slowed. 

As it did, he rose to the surface

When you breached the waves, the dock was nowhere in sight. You had no idea when in your fight he’d dragged you out to sea or how far you’d gone. 

“You can breathe,” he said, looking at you with that same quiet confusion as when you’d fought against him. “I made sure you could breathe. Why do you still worry?”

You inhaled in an attempt to answer him with a screamed admonishment and then, before a word could escape you, you were coughing up water

He sat patiently as you did, his arms wrapped carefully around you. 

The last time you’d coughed up water like this, you’d been too relieved to be alive to really notice it. You did not have that luxury this time. The saltwater burned coming up, your lungs feeling heavy in your chest as the water poured out of you. 

It felt like you were dying. You didn’t understand how you weren’t. 

He didn’t seem concerned, just holding you as you fought to empty your lungs so you could finally inhale, every attempted inhalation just stirred the churning water in your lungs, agitating them further. 

As you finally emptied your lungs, you sucked in air. Your chest filled and it hurt more than it brought you relief. 

“You have to take me back,” you forced out, the burning in your lungs exhausting you past the point of screaming at him. 

His lips pursed into a pout and his eyes darted away from yours. “You don’t even like it there,” he said, sounding openly disappointed, not even attempting to hide it. But then, why would he? You were at his mercy, he could do whatever he wanted to. 

“I like it better than I like it here,” you said, gesturing around you at the open ocean. 

He looked around at the ocean surrounding you and then returned his gaze intently to your face. “I can take you somewhere else.”

“You know that’s not what I mean, you’d better not…”

And then he was off, swimming quickly through the waves. 

He kept your head above water carefully, although you still had to keep your mouth firmly shut to avoid inhaling anything, but even that didn’t slow him down. 

And then, with no warning, you were going down, back through thick water. You didn’t have a chance to gather your bearing before it was too dark to see anything, Simon’s grip on your arm was the only thing cutting through the cold black abyss around you. 

Your arm brushed against hard rock, scraping painfully before it was gone and you found yourself disoriented in the space around you once more. You could be surrounded by rock for all you knew, inches away from it. There was no way to tell, no way to really know anything about where you were being dragged. 

Your fight renewed as your air began to run out and the darkness still imposed itself around you. You knew better, knew you couldn’t get away. Even if you did, you didn’t even know which direction was up anymore. Your instincts, however, were not so easily suppressed by silly things like facts. 

You couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to kill you. Even more than that, as your time under the water dragged on, why he was going to kill you? Maybe you’d upset him, made an unforgivable mistake when you kicked him or complained just a little too much. The way it looked now, you guessed you’d never know. You didn’t have the oxygen left to figure it out, your brain starting to get foggy. 

And still, it continued. He dragged you down and down and then your head breached the surface and as you gasped in air, the word flipped right side up once more. 

You dragged air into your pleading lungs, this time no wretched water biting your throat as you did. 

Your lungs still hurt though. A quieter ache. 

Your eyes adjusted slowly to the dark and you could barely make him out in what appeared to be a cave, the moon shining in through a few holes riddled in the rock above you. 

“You could’ve killed me,” you said, desperation creeping into your voice. 

His head tilted. “No. I know how long it takes a human to drown. You were fine.”

His words did nothing to settle your unease

“Is this better?” he asked, gesturing around to the cave you’d approached from beneath. 

The water was just a small pool in a larger cave, leading off a few feet before revealing a glimpse of the outside world through the holes that let the light in. 

You hauled yourself out of the water to look and saw that there was no other way out, only the horrible, dark path through the water he’d taken you through. 

You couldn’t get out of here on your own. 

Even if you could, you had nowhere to go. There was probably just more open water outside these walls. Even if there was land, you had no idea where you were. 

You wondered if Finn was worried about you yet. Maybe he was. Or maybe he thought you’d abandoned him, left him alone on the dock in lieu of having to go out to dinner with him. 

You weren’t sure which you were hoping for, which was better for him to believe. Which would be easier to explain when you returned? If you returned. 

“You need to take me back,” you said, trying to force some authority into your tone. 

“Can I ask you some questions about humans?” he asked, completely ignoring you. 

“No,” you snapped. “You can’t. You can take me back.”

He drifted towards you and you pulled back further onto the patch of dry land. 

That seemed to hurt him, like he couldn’t understand why you would possibly be wary of him. 

He rested his head on the rocky shore, looking defeated, slowly drying blonde hair curling up around his eyes as it was freed of some of the weight of the water, and you fought to not think that if he hadn’t just done what he did to you, maybe he’d look sweet. 

“Who was that?” he blurted out, his head lifting with his words as his jaw moved against the stone below him. 

“What?”

“On the dock. He was talking to you, you were leaving with him. Who was that?”

“Who, Finn? Why do you-” A thought began to dawn on you. “His name is Finn. You hang around the dock, do you not know him?”

He shrugged in the water. “I’ve seen him.”

“And you care now? That’s kind of sudden.”

“I guess.”

“Alright. Did you kidn- Did you take me so I wouldn’t go with him.” You did your best to keep your voice measured in an attempt to get an honest response from him. 

“You’re supposed to go to the beach. You weren’t going to the beach.”

“No, you rejected my deal, remember? I thought I wasn’t going to the beach because you were just hanging around.”

He rolled his eyes just barely, enough to make a quiet irritation stir in your stomach. “Can’t talk to you when I’m around,” he said, matter of factly. “You said you’d go to the beach.”

“I know, but something came up. I’d have come back. I can’t miss one day?” you said, trying to reason with him. 

“One day? It was the first day!” he said with a huff. 

“I hadn’t even left yet, how did you know I wasn’t going to go meet you.”

“Were you?” he asked, and you didn’t have a good answer for him. 

“We’ll never know, will we? Because you decided to kidnap and almost drown me.”

“I didn’t almost drown you. I would never drown you.”

Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. “Alright, well at the very least you decided to hurt me.” Sharp words bounced off the stone walls of the cave. 

His eyes widened. “I hurt you?”

“Yeah, of course you did. I couldn’t breathe. And that’s beside how bad coughing up sea water hurts.”

He shook his head. “You’re fine, why would it hurt?”

“Simon,” you said, “It hurts humans when we can’t breathe. And we aren’t meant to have to breathe water, it burns when I have to get it out.”

For someone who presumably had drowned dozens of humans, he seemed to have little idea how drowning actually felt. To be fair, he probably didn’t have many chances to learn about the human side of the experience, you didn’t imagine many survived long enough to tell him about it. 

“Oh,” he said, deflating a little. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Right, just to kidnap me.”

He nodded with no air of shame regarding his actions. “Yeah.”

You settled back against the wall of rock behind you, trying to think of what else you could say to get yourself out of there. 

He looked up at you and suddenly he seemed unbearably nervous. “You want to leave.”

“I thought we discussed this, I have to leave. I can’t just disappear, there are people waiting for me.”

“Finn,” he asked, saying the name like it tasted rotten in his mouth. 

“Yes, Finn. I told you, I can’t just disappear.”

You had to lean closer to him to hear his next words at all, his voice unbearably quiet. “It’ll hurt you.”

You slid back into the water beside him, hope sparking through you. “I’ll be fine, I just want to get out of here.”

His hands snaked around your sides, pulling you close to him. “Do you want to hold your breath or breathe the water?” You could feel his breath on your skin as he spoke. You didn’t understand how breathing worked for him, where his lungs ended and his gills began. 

You shivered as you thought back to retching up the water, how it had burned coming up, how the attempted gasps felt inside already heavy lungs. “I’ll hold my breath.”

He nodded solemnly. “I will be fast.”

You sucked in a breath before he pulled you down, a luxury you had not been granted last time. 

He was true to his words. You could feel the water rushing past you as you held your breath, clinging to him the whole way. 

When you breached the surface, your lungs didn’t hurt quite as much as they had the first time around. His grip on you was tighter than when you’d arrived, a fear present in him that wasn’t before. 

Your hands were wrapped around his neck, the desire to get yourself away from him gone now that you were fairly certain he’d bring you back, even if he wasn’t happy about it. 

He brought you to the shore, a familiar spot.

Something occurred to you as you found yourself in shallow water. “How’d you even know where to take me? When you first found me, you took me right here.”

“I know where the ships are going. Always to the same spot.” He sounded almost annoyed at the ships’ predictability. 

“Well, they have to go to a dock.”

He grumbled in response, his discontent evident. You weren’t sure how much of it was from this grudge against ships and how much was because he’d had to bring you back to shore.  

You pulled yourself out of the water and wanted just sit there for a while, regain some of your energy. 

The second you hit dry land, Simon was gone, disappearing before you could say so much as another word to him. 

You didn’t really have time to talk or rest anyway, running back onto the dock as quickly as you could, hoping Finn hadn’t left yet. 

You found him standing alone on the dock, looking dejected right until his eyes drifted towards you. His eyes widened as they met yours and his expression shifted from surprise to concern, rushing towards you. 

“What happened?” he asked, pulling the jacket he’d run off to retrieve over your shoulders. “I thought you’d gotten bored and abandoned me but a swim at this time of day hardly seems like a good idea.”

“I fell in. Guess I’m more tired than I thought,” you said with a sheepish smile, hoping it was anything close to convincing. 

His hand drifted up to push wet hair away from your face. “I’m sure you’re not feeling up to going out anymore…”

“No,” you said, not thinking of Finn at all but instead set on rebelling against the attempts to stop you from going. It wasn’t fair to Finn, but by the time that occurred to you, you’d already spoken. “I mean, you waited all this time for me, it would be rude not to go.”

He seemed too excited to notice how suspicious you were being. “Alright, but make sure you’re not overextending yourself.”

You nodded with an unenthusiastic smile and let him lead you off to a tavern somewhere. 

It was a largely uneventful evening, all things considered. He bought you some soup, something nice and hot that you could feel in your bones, creating a comfortable warmth in your core. 

Your reticence to talk was barely noticed. Finn seemed more than happy to fill the silence, letting you bundle up under the thick wool of his coat and focus on your food. 

Before you knew it, it was gone and there was nothing left to distract yourself with. 

You waited for Finn to finish whatever story he’d been telling that you hadn’t been listening to and said, “This has been lovely, but I should be getting back.”

He laughed. “What, back to work? I’m not that boring, am I?”

You started as he pulled you fully out of your head back into the tavern. “What? No, of course not.”

“So where are you staying then?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Nowhere. I’ll find an inn after I get paid but until then-”

“You could stay with me!” he blurted out before you even had the chance to finish your sentence. 

You weren’t quite as enthused. “Look, Finn, I don’t…”

“This isn’t me trying to come onto you, honest. You shouldn’t have to stay out in the cold, it’s not right. I mean, no wonder you're tired. If you don’t get some proper sleep you’ll drown, and then who am I supposed to try and impress every day?”

It was most certainly untoward, but the offer was tempting nonetheless. 

You reevaluated Finn, trying to determine how much you really trusted him. Enough for dinner, sure, but enough for this?

You thought about spending another night alone on the cold shore and decided that yes, you did trust him enough for this. 

As soon as you nodded your assent, he grabbed your hand, pulling you towards the stairs in the tavern. 

You couldn’t help but think that taking you to the tavern he was staying at felt presumptuous but the allure of a warm room and blankets were too strong for you to say anything to that effect. 

His room was decently sized, with a large bed pressed against the back wall. Reassuringly, he started to set up a space on the floor for you, moving some blankets from a chair in the corner to the floor. 

To your chagrin, he began to settle into the nest of blankets on the ground and you immediately moved to set it right. 

“Absolutely not, you will not sleep on the floor in your own room.”

He looked up at you with big, sad eyes. “But-”

“No buts, I will leave.”

He sighed. “Fine. But know that I’m not happy about it.”

You settled onto the floor and he slid another blanket off the bed onto you. You accepted it without argument, allowing him this at least. Besides, you were in no state to be turning down blankets. 

It was late and the blankets helped against your still damp form. The calm itself was refreshing and you fought the urge to thank Finn, who seemed like he’d already drifted off to sleep since you’d begun to settle down. 

You had no choice but to try and follow him. 

You slept restlessly but at least you slept.

[easy-there-leftovers]

Magnum Opus Ch. 2

When an MIT prodigy on their gap year is contacted by the FBI regarding potential involvement in a series of murders in Washington D.C., she must now cooperate to uncover how paintings are mysteriously appearing at the crime scenes.(Written with Season 1-4 Spencer in mind, but the timeline could be anywhere pre-season 12. No mentions of past cases)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Artist! reader|cw: Canon-typical violence|word count: 2.6k words

Notes: I made up a bunch of chemicals and their chemical properties up so shhhh!! Also, I'm not American, I have no contextual understanding of the distance of one place to another. The US is large enough.

Also on Ao3!!

Series Masterlist

“Anything new?” Rossi asked as he and Prentiss returned from the crime scene, making his way into the space the MPDC made for the BAU. Surveying the area as he does before stopping abruptly.

“Forensics are running tests on her stuff. She brought everything in. Apparently she didn’t know anything about the murders before we interrogated her.” Morgan shifts his weight from leaning against a desk to approaching  JJ who motions for his help across and out of the room.

“And she’s here with us in the room, why?”

 Hotch feels the scrutiny of his friend’s eyes, so he turns his sight away from where you and Reid stood. 

“Reid doesn’t think she fits the profile and wants her insight on the case. I trust his judgment, so I allowed it.”

“You said that?” Emily asks with furrowed brows. 

“Well, non-verbatim, I said that her knowledge on–”

“And you allowed our prime suspect to help with a case?” The unit chief sighs when Dave interrupts Reid but stays firm.

“I don’t enjoy the idea of it either, but she’s the only lead we have.” 

Rossi shrugs, but keeps a watchful eye on the young pair. Only turning away when Emily starts to debrief the earlier crime scene.

She recounts that they had found Jonathan Edwards’ body, aged 28, seated on the previous apartment owner’s couch. One hand across his chest, and the other placed on his lap. A pose that they assume was the closest their unsub could get to mirroring the man in the painting. 

Same M.O. Cleaned wounds, no IDs, sharply dressed. 

The dark haired woman adds the pictures of the crime scene to the growing collage on the board.

 Seeing all of this was like a backstage view, which excited you! But knowing that your work might have inspired someone to kill? Not so much. 

“When you look at the victimolgy, there are no obvious links. Their occupation, race, and gender are all different. Our unsub here seems mission oriented, only targeting people that bear a striking resemblance to Dr. L/n’s subjects and murdering them in their own homes…”

 You sigh as Spencer continues, eyes searching though the unsettling images.

“They’re someone that the victims might’ve been interested in. Someone that could contact them or schedule to meet in a formal setting. The victims weren’t reported missing until they didn’t show up for work, suggesting that they had met in private on their off hours. They’re also highly educated, likely with a background in chemical engineering or a related field with permission to operate in a lab. Or at least a private space like one. This level of intelligence is evident in the precision the bodies were handled with and the synthesized 5-durastelene in the paint.”

“So we’re looking for someone who is charismatic, well connected, and had access to a lab at some point.” Emily simplifies. 

“Their area of activity is concentrated in the east.” You mention, looking at the map and noticing the pattern of the bodies’ location as it crosses three states. “That’s probably their comfort zone. They either live there or are stationed there for their job.”

You assess the distance. “Assuming the place those three were killed and the place they were found are different, he must be comfortable traveling with a body.” 

He shifts his focus from the board to you, but you keep your vision stationary. “Do you know anyone like that? Someone from there that you’d be on unfriendly terms with? A colleague, a mentor?” 

Well that caught your attention.

“...You think they’re trying to incriminate me?” You feel the space between your brows twitch when you ask. Still staring at the map.

He frowns a little at that and responds. “Do you think they’re not?”

“Well–” You start, but then feel nervous feeling all the attention on you. You’re a little overwhelmed, but press on anyway. “I’m not saying that, it just—seems like a few ‘why’s’ are missing.” 

Why bother adding a painting? Why bother even making them? Why bother mixing durastelene, a compound that would definitely alter the paint’s integrity given its properties, to replicate something the public wouldn’t even know you made? All questions you asked with a more steady tone.

“Let’s not get carried away, kid. We’re trying to see the big picture first.” The senior in the room says.

Picking at the skin of your lips, you acquiesce and turn to finally look at Spencer. 

Spencer feels his eyes flick to your fingers first then to your eyes. “I think they’re trying to send you a message.” 

He looks back to the pictures of your paintings on the scene. Trying to see if he’s missed something.

 “They might believe that by recreating your work, they’re challenging you– establishing a level of superiority. You said that no one should have access to your paintings, so this must have been someone that once knew you intimately and is now mocking you to make a point. It’s not just about incrimination—they’re trying to reach out to you.”

You feel the space between your brows twitch again.

You can think of a few people who might dislike you; competition is expected in the academic world. But the obvious signs of fixation on you suggests two possibilities: you're either being seen as a rival or as an idol.

It’s unlikely that anyone sees an unemployed PhD student with burn-out syndrome as a worthy rival. 

And something tells you that if they really wanted to place the blame on you, they wouldn’t go this far, in this way. 

They might as well have left a note with your name on it and that would’ve been more believable.

Then again, you could just be wrong 

You’re in a room full of professionals. You’re speculating based off of a theory that might not be applicable to your situation due to a variety of factors. There’s a reason this is their job and not yours. 

You take this thought in stride with a deep intake of breath and now slackened shoulders before responding with a careful nod.

“If that’s the case, then I think it’ll be a little hard to find someone that meets the criteria. I didn’t really have friends when I graduated from MIT, and even if I did, they wouldn’t know about my art—not because I kept it hidden–! It’s only because I started painting when I left.”

The team looked a bit sad at the revelation of your almost non-existent social circle, but quickly acted like what you said was normal.

“Let’s focus on anyone that you had worked closely with then.” You nod at that and start discussing possibilities.

—-------------

Spencer is thankful for Hotch’s suggestion as it diverts the earlier attention away from him. He wouldn’t have minded it at any other time if he wasn’t too preoccupied with thoughts of you.

Thoughts of you with regards to the case, he finds himself justifying to no one in particular.

Everyone has tells. A gesture, a change in posture, nonverbal cues that give someone away. They’re hard to hide because it's in human nature to have them. Trying to keep them hidden is essentially like holding your breath. Suspending the inevitable will only make the tells much more noticeable.

And you don’t seem to be doing that. 

On the contrary, it’s the presence of your micro reactions that are throwing him off. He has noticed five pauses, four instances of rapid eye movement, three tonal deviations, two quirks in your glabella, and now your previously leveled shoulders have dropped. 

Maybe it’s because he’s spent a lot of time with people who try to hide them, but seeing an overwhelming amount of tells manifest in you has him scrambling to figure out what each one means.

Within the two hours and 33 minutes that have passed since he was allowed into your home, the only thing he’s found out about you through your interactions is that you’re disorganized, you’re insecure about your intelligence, and that you don’t like being called doctor. 

All superficial quirks. Two hours is too long a time for him to have only figured three things out. 

He’s missing something. Or maybe he’s not looking at it from the right angle.

Before he can think more on the matter, his mind refocuses on the team. 

Penelope had called them to say that she had gone through lists of attendees from all the conferences you’ve spoken at, both private and open-house events, at Aaron Hotchner’s request. 

“I was able to pick out a few names that are poking around here and there, but I’m going to need a little more than that, my dear comrades! Sifting through names of geeks isn't really my favorite pastime.”

“Pen, narrow down the list to names from MIT. We’re looking for a student from the Chemistry programs or a lecturer that might have access to a lab.” Emily supplied, leaning onto the table where the blonde was on screen. 

“Doing just that and—oh! Would you look at that! Looks like the tools aren’t as diligent as they claim to be.” The mocking tone in her voice causes a small smile to creep on your face.

“Caltech?” The bubbly woman snorts at that.

“Anyone in their right mind knows it’s the superior choice! Tech geeks hate MIT.”

“Don’t let our tools hear you then, we have a history of going nuclear.” That certainly earned you a giggle from the woman on the other end. 

“There’s a sense of humor I can get behind! We–”

“Garica, focus.” Hotch said with urgency.

“Yes–I will! I am! So focused in fact that I’ve got a few names, but only one is super consistent—Lecturer Dr. Annaliese Andrews! Looking up this nerd as we speak and—!” 

You all heard the hitch in her breath.

“Oh no….”

“Garcia, what did you find?”

The BAU and you were silent for a moment before Penelope composed herself. “Dr. Andrews owned a lab near the Charles’ river.” 

She shows its location on screen and a picture of your mentor, Dr. Andrews with a notebook in hand, posed in front of it. The picture was from her social media update, and it couldn’t have been taken more than a year or two ago.

“She built it herself in the 80’s and maybe she wasn’t keeping up with safety protocols but eventually a fire broke out, and she–” Then you see a news headline of the same lab on fire.

“How long ago was this?” Hotch demanded. This got the attention of everyone in the room. 

“Uh,” Penelope sat in her office, frantically typing until an article showed up. “This happened around nine months ago, but it says here that her next of kin decided to keep the property.”

They’ve found a stressor.

“That’s impossible.” You countered. “Dr. Andrews had no family. No husband, no kids.”

“Who is the property under now?” Rossi pressed. 

Muttering under her breath, she continues to search. 

“Says here a month later, a workshop was built right where the lab was– Aha! It’s under 35 year old Liam Turner, freelance photographer. He’s got a studio on Bay State Road.” 

Penelope pulls up an image of an almost unremarkable looking man on screen along with a scan of his BA in Visual Studies from Harvard.

“What the hell…” You don’t recognize this guy at all. 

“Do you know him?” Hotch asks and you say no with a shake of your head and upturned brows.

“Right now, I’m not seeing a connection between these two either—anything you guys can give me?”

You want to interject. Something about him seems familiar, but you don’t recognize him from anywhere. 

You want to ask— no–it wouldn’t be your right. They can figure this out themselves and you're still a suspect! Besides, you’re not even sure if– 

“Do you want to say something, Y/n?”

Your head shoots to the voice and you see Spencer staring back at you. Mouth slightly open which lets you know the question probably came from.

 Maybe it’s because he used your given name, maybe it’s the heavy feeling in your stomach. But regardless, his question certainly makes space for you to voice your thoughts as the room awaits your reply.

You feel your shoulders tense as you speak. “Was his name in the list of attendees?”

Garcia checks quickly but she shakes her head to say no. You thought so.

You ask a different question. “Then uh, can you pull up surveillance footage at any of the conferences?”

She does just that and presents a split-screen video from a month before you graduated. One camera was stationed at the back of the room, and the other overhead from where you stood. She speeds it up as the team watches not much movement until Spencer points something out with a start.

 He gestures to the upper right corner where a lone camera man stands on the side, and asks their tech analyst to zoom in.

There lied the face of the man from earlier search with a camera in hand. The thing that makes him special though, Spencer says, is that based on the angle he was holding the lens at, he was focusing only on you and not on your projection.

“He was in the room, but not in the list.” He furrowed his brows.

You shook your head. “He probably wasn’t an official attendee, someone that a lecturer could’ve requested the assistance of last minute— anyways, can we see where the pictures he took were used? Like articles, tabloids?”

“Absolutely, just give me a second…” You all watch a bunch of sites pop up as Garcia combs through anything that may be related. 

In no time however, she comes across a website. 

There on the screen, for all of the team to see, was a blog, or maybe a portfolio, that had snippets from interviews, headlines, and pictures that featured you. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it looks like any image of you that would show up if you were googled were credited under him. 

Conferences. Campus surveys. Even candid conversation with school representatives.

Penelope digs deeper until she finds the first upload. A picture of a sunset taken somewhere on a bridge with a notebook and pen on its ledge. Though it might not have been enough for most people to recognize, Spencer notices it immediately. 

“Garcia, can you pull up the picture of Dr. Andrews with her lab?”

She does just that and he only needs one look before he turns to address his colleagues. “The notebook is the same! His initials, ‘L.T.’ are on her notebook cover, and this picture!”

And as much as you wished you could sympathize with Spencer’s excitement, you were feeling very overwhelmed at the moment. 

Case and point; first you find out your mentor is dead, then you find out you have a stalker that possibly hates your guts. Find out that said stalker may or may not be related to said mentor, who may or may not hate you, and now you have to digest the possibility of him being a murderer as some sort of vengeance arc?

You shake the thought away.

The tie between him and the victims is still something you don’t get. Clean wounds,  no IDs, sharply dressed.

 So you ask.

“Any chance the victims visited Turner’s studio before they disappeared?”

Analog photo developers have no problem working with a lot of chemicals, and IDs are commonly taken for legal confirmation, you share with the team. The only reason they’d be dressed like that was if–

“They—-all booked an appointment with him.”

You almost regret asking.

--------

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[covetyou]

open hand or closed fist would be fine

part 1 ⋆ part 2 ⋆ part 3 ⋆ part 4 ⋆ part 5

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist ⋆ series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) chapter warnings: dub con, vaginal fisting, oral (f receiving), unprotected P in V, creampie, praise kink, derogatory names (slut), drug reference, unspecified age gap. word count: 5.7k chapter summary: You see Joel everywhere, the sight of him alone making you even more desperate. You turn up to his door, drenched from the rain, and let him give you (almost) everything you need.

A/N: I cannot believe there's only one week to go. Thank you so much for all your support. ily 💛

The last few days I've been chanting "fist it fic, fist it fic" whenever I've gone to write for this. They hype has been real and the triumphant and feral SCREAM I let escape my body when it was done. You probably all heard it. And the amount of squeezing and examining my own hand I did this last week? Unreal. I am deeply acquanted with my own fist anatomy now.

4k of this is pure porn, 2.5k of which is fisting and the build up, my fucking god.

follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future work

song: cherry wine by Hozier

You see him everywhere. You're really not looking for him, but everywhere you turn it seems he's there too. Turning a corner as you walk your dad to a job. Talking in the street, Tess by his side, her eyes briefly catching yours as you stare, a smirk tugging at her lips when you dart your eyes away.

You even see him at work. He ignores you, of course, turning to your colleagues to pick up food, exchanging flirty quips and a wink with one of them, making her giggle and bat her lashes, before walking away without a single glance at you.

It's driving you mad. You don't want to talk to him, you wouldn't even dare to, but seeing him is sending the thread of want through you scalding hot, burning through your veins. There's no let up and there's no relief, no matter how much you make yourself come.

Thankfully, collection day comes around fast.

Your dad had been good recently, even with the change in weather. He maybe could have stretched his pills further, gone a bit longer between collections, but you were eager to see Joel again, and even more eager to have him look at you, to touch you. Seeing him around so often had done nothing to ease your desperation either, and by the time your free day rolls around you're trying not to bounce off the walls.

And, of course, it's fucking raining. You hold off as long as you can, watching as the rain drizzles consistently from the gray sky for hours. With no sign of letting up, you head out, resigning yourself to a damp walk to Joel's apartment. You're going to be wet by the time you get there anyway, rain or not.

You're not quite wet through when your cold knuckles tap against the wood of his door.

When he answers, he takes your breath away. He's stood there, pants slung low on his waist, towel thrown over his shoulder, hair damp and touselled. He's shirtless, his usual shirt no longer stretched across the width of his shoulders, and you gape at him. If the last few weeks hadn't been enough to send you stupid with want for him, this certainly has sealed the deal.

There's a glass of whisky in his hand and he takes a sip, looking at you, before he says anything.

"Did you not see the rain?" he quips.

Your skin prickles and burns just looking at him, the cold wet from outside already leached from your bones just by setting your eyes on his bare skin. You swallow heavy and he's talking again before your brain can kick into gear.

"You really that desperate, ain't you?" You don't answer him. You know he's not talking about the pills any more and you know he already knows the answer.

His eyes roll and he twitches his head to the side. "In," he says, moving from the door, taking another sip of whisky. "And take this shit off, I don't want you drippin' on my floor."

You take your coat off and hang it on a hook on the wall, reaching for the button on your pants just as he throws the towel at you.

"Dry yourself off."

You keep your eyes on him the entire time you strip off the rest of your wet clothes. Now that the towel is gone from his shoulder you can see everything - every scar and blemish on his broad torso, every curl of hair. You've never seen him shirtless and you want to take in every part of him now whilst you still can. He might dress whilst you blink and then the moment will be over. Who knows when you'll see him like this again.

"So, you're so desperate for it you came here in the rain, huh?" He asks, taking another sip from his glass. You don't answer. You're stood in just your panties now, grateful for the warmth in his apartment, but that does nothing to stop the pebbling of your nipples and the shudder that creeps down your spine.

"Dad's out of his meds, he -" you start.

"Sure. S'always the pills," he scoffs. "Don't think I ain't seen you lookin' at me. It's like I'm being fuckin' watched with you out there."

You couldn't really help it, if you saw him your eyes were magnetically drawn to him for as long as possible. You didn't think you'd been that obvious but, well, you'd not exactly tried to hide it either.

He's approaching you now, whisky glass discarded on the table.

"Look at me," he says, tilting your head up with a finger. You reluctantly drag your eyes away from his chest and meet his gaze. His own eyes are burning into yours, maybe as much as yours are to his. If you didn't know better you'd think he felt as needy as you did. You hope it's even for you specifically and not just needy for a warm, wet hole.

"What are we gonna do with you, huh?" You shrug - you didn't mind what he did with you, to you, you just know you needed it. "Something's got you showing up needy and wet to my door sweetheart, gotta do something about it. Can't have desperate sluts like you lookin' at me all the time without repercussions."

At his words you tense.

"Hm? Is that what you are?" he's whispering to you now. "S'not enough that I'm giving you your daddy's pills, is it? You need me to give you more."

You nod. You need fucking more, anything more.

"Take the rest of this off. Y'know I like lookin'." He pings the waistband of your panties against your hip, the elastic sharp against your cold skin.

He could complain as much as he liked about you watching him walk down the street, but the way you looked at him in those moments would never compare to the way he looked at you now. You liked him looking.

You quickly tug your panties down your legs, wobbling as you stand upright. You reach a hand out to him to steady yourself, not wanting the humiliation of falling on your ass in front of him and desperate to feel his skin under your fingertips again. His hand reaches out and grabs your wrist before you can make contact.

His thumb brushes across the inside of your wrist. Your heart is hammering and he must be able to feel the thrum of your pulse beneath the thin skin of your wrist. Air huffs from his nose, a single dry laugh coming from him.

"You're wet already, ain't you? I can tell, sweetheart. Always been able to tell." Then he strokes a single thick finger over your body - across your arms, over the swell of your breast, down the valley between your tits, across your belly, stopping at your mound and pulling away.

"Let's get you what you need then, huh," he tucks hair behind your ear, never letting go of your wrist with the other. He's already tugging you to his bedroom when you nod, closing the door to keep in the warmth.

He drops your wrist, telling you to make yourself comfortable as he moves to the window, closing the curtains, keeping yet more heat in.

You climb onto his bed, scooting yourself up and sitting yourself by his pillows, watching his every move.

"It's been a while since I got a proper look at that cunt," he says as he turns around to approach his dresser.

You spread your legs for him instantly, no shame and no heat in your cheeks as your thighs fall flat to the bed, spread so wide the stretch in your hips is almost painful.

He laughs at you, shaking his head and muttering under his breath as he pulls his belt from its loops, placing it onto the dresser before popping open the top button on his pants. You're still staring at his crotch, willing the zipper down with your mind, when he's crawling on his knees toward you, a rough hand smoothing up your calf as he goes.

With no warning, hands clamp around your ankles and you're being yanked down toward him, slipping down the bed and back hitting the mattress with a thud, knocking the air from you.

Joel lets out a deep breath, moving closer to you, massaging your thighs in both of his hands, squeezing the meat of them and dragging thick fingers across your flesh over and over until his fingers meet at the crease of your thigh.

"Jus' look at her," he breathes, eyes transfixed on your cunt. You roll your hips, pulling a smile across his face as he tuts at you. "So desperate."

You nod, trying to hold back a slew of begging as his hands run across your thighs and finally - fucking finally - pull you apart and start stroking your lips, spreading slick over your pussy with one thick finger.

"Barely even touched any of this yet," he says tickling your clit with his index finger before dragging back down through the wetness of your cunt, "and just look at you. You're a fuckin' mess."

You wiggle at the touch of his finger, shifting your thighs to ease the stretch in your hips, and he's holding you down with both hands, staring at you with a stern look.

"I know you want me to spank your pussy again sweetheart, but keep 'em open, lemme see the mess you made."

You moan at the mention of it, tempted to let your legs twitch closed to feel the clap of his hand on your cunt.

"If you're good I'll spank your pussy another time," he smirks as he says it, but you hope he means it.

"I'll be good," you promise in a whisper, watching as his eyebrows raise at your words, shaking his head.

He covers your bared cunt with his hand rubbing softly, gently jerking the nub of your clit between his fingers before spreading them and ducking his head down to swipe his tongue where your clit peaks out from between his fingers. "We'll see how good you are."

His hand drags down you, two fingers stroking your empty hole before pushing in smoothly in one movement. Your cunt is so slick there's no resistance, and Joel notices.

"So easy," he taunts, looking down to where his fingers push into you. "You been keepin' her stuffed at home?"

You had. You couldn't lie. Tess's fingers had felt so good in you, you often stuffed three of your own into yourself and pretended they were hers. You look at him and nod, watching as a soft Fuck falls from his lips. He pushes his fingers down inside you, stretching your hole open as he massages from side to side. The deep pull makes you groan.

You feel his teeth graze your clit, making you buck into his hand just as he's pulling his fingers from you and replacing them with three, sliding them in and flexing them inside of you. He licks at you once more before sitting back on his haunches, watching your hole grip tightly around his fingers.

"My dick not been enough for you?" he suddenly asks, pulling down his zipper and tugging at his pants to free his cock.

You start to shake your head. "It is I-"

"Don't lie to me," he cuts you off, distracting you with the increased movement of his fingers in and out of your hole as he suckles your clit back into his mouth. He releases with a wet pop, giving your cunt a broad lick, sitting back once again. You watch him tug on his cock, fingers still buried in you, thighs still spread and pussy dripping.

He's reaching now, over the side of the bed, fingers keeping a slow pace inside you, the slow drag of them stretching your walls as he flexes and swirls them in you. You hear a familiar snick and look down to see a bottle just as a cold trickle of oil hits your clit, drizzling down to fingers spread into your pussy, funneling it in. He removes them, rubbing broadly over your entire mound with his hand, smearing oil everywhere. You don't think about how fucking long it'll take to wash off this time, you just think of how wet he's making you, staring burning heat straight into your core as he massages your oiled cunt with his heavy hand. You were already a slip and slide, but now you're impossibly wet, cunt and inner thighs shining with oil and your own slick.

His fingers push back into you, the stretch move obvious than before, when you realize four of his thick fingers are seated in you.

"Good girl," he says as you moan, feeling so stretched but not full enough, you want him deeper, you want more. "Your own fingers feel as good as this?"

"Not even close," you say around another moan. Of course they fucking didn't. You wondered if he ever thought about what you did to yourself in the dark of night, what you did the chase the feelings you'd only been able to get in his apartment. You wonder if he ever touched himself to thoughts of you too.

"That's cause a needy pussy like this needs more than your little fingers."

You nod. He'd never said anything more true - you needed more.

"I'll give you more, sweetheart."

A wicked smile pulls at his lips, sending a thrill through you. You'd stopped expecting anything of your visits to the nice apartment on the other side of the QZ, leaving your fate up to Joel entirely the minute you stepped through the door. You could trust him, in some sick twisted way. Somehow, he'd never showed you reason not to.

His fingers push in, curling and squelching inside you as he fucks you with them. A calloused thumb finds your clit, rubbing slick oil across the bared surface of it, making you squirm, throwing your head back as you plead with him.

"That too much?" You shake your head. "Didn't think so. It ain't enough, is it?" You say nothing, just whine through the wet sound if your pussy being fucked by four of his fingers.

There's more pressure, a deeper push of his hand, the ridge of his knuckles stretching and burning the entrance of your pussy as he pushes. The feeling startles you, and you shoot up onto your elbows.

"Wait," you gasp, "What-uhhh."

"Shhh," he says, pushing a hand down onto your lower belly to keep you still.

His slicked thumb never stops circling your clit just as the widest part of his knuckles breach you - he can feel a jerk of movement as the rock of your hips into his palm, desperate to take more of him in, is stopped by the weight of his hand on your belly.

"Fuck, that's it sweetheart. You can take it, just a little more." His words, as always, generate a surge of wetness from you, and with that his four fingers slip into you past the solid ridge of his knuckles and down to the palm of his hand. The only thing stopping him from slipping into you completely is the jut of his thumb.

You pant and still, willing yourself to relax, but instead whine with the immense fullness in your cunt. The length of Joel's cock had prepared you for intrusions battering your cervix, but his impressive girth was nothing compared to the width of his hand.

"Oh I know, I know, that's so much ain't it. So much for this little pussy." He teases a finger around the swollen skin of your hole as he admires the look of his fingers buried in your cunt.

He places a gentle kiss onto your clit, the gentlest he's ever been with you. "Doin' so good for me." He kitten licks the sensitive nub, distracting you from the stretch in your cunt, and before you know it you're liquid beneath him again, writhing on his bed and moaning his name as you get teased closer to the edge once again.

"So good. Reckon you can take it all, sweetheart." He had a knack for asking questions that were never really questions.

"N-no, I can't, it's too much," you beg, his fingers still wedged deep inside you. "This feels good, I promise."

He begins to move his hand, flexing his fingers at first, before twisting his palm this way and that. You stare, mesmerized between your legs as the opening of your cunt stretches across his twisted palm.

"S'not gonna be too much. You'll like it, I promise. Look," he pulls his four fingers from you, the burn so much less this time, and you feel yourself stretch over the bones of his knuckles again before the pressure releases and you're left totally empty.

You whine with the loss.

"She just wants to be filled up. She's gapin' and empty right now, sweetheart. She needs it." He kisses your clit again, holding you open with thumbs that you feel slip inside of you and tug you apart.

He plunges four fingers into you again, drawing them together as much as he can as he fucks you past his knuckles again in one movement, aided by the slick of oil that's now dribbling out of you and making a mess on his sheets. You only just feel his knuckles pop inside you before they're pulling out again, the sensation making you feel weak as you let your arms fall and drop back onto his bed once more.

When he goes to push back in, his thick thumb joins his fingers. You feel it as his knuckles approach your cunt, the stretch even more this time.

"Wait, no I can't do it," the words tumble from your mouth in a panic. You're gripping his sheets, trying not to slam your legs closed at the intrusion of most of his fist seated inside you.

"Yeah you can, you can take it. You wanted more. Remember how empty it feels?"

You nod. You remembered, you felt so fucking empty without him inside you.

A slick hand smooths up your thigh, calming you. "Then lie back and close your eyes, sweetheart. Greedy girls gotta get their pussies stuffed."

The hand never stops caressing your thighs, dragging oil slicked fingers up and down your skin, turning you to putty with each stroke. By the time he's pushing in again, your legs are pinned back, spread obscenely, just for him, as your pussy stretches wide over his fingers.

His hand stills on the apex of your thighs, holding you down, stopping your hips from moving as he tries to seat his entire fist in your desperate cunt. You start to whine when his knuckles pull at your entrance, the sting of the stretch stronger again now.

"You can take it, you can take it," he murmurs, spurring you on.

You breathe deeply, uncontrollable whines falling from your mouth, the stretch is so much you feel like you might burst. You take a deep shuddering breath to steady yourself, and as you breath out Joel pushes his fist in harder, any resistance giving way to his force.

The sound he tears from you as he pushes his fist fully into your pussy is animalistic, guttural. It roars from you and he continues to fuck his fist into you until your hole is clamped down on the thickness of his wrist. You throw your head back and reach for him, fingers touching his where they rest on your leg and you grab onto them.

"Fuck yeah, that's it. That's fuckin' it." He lets you grip his fingers, still moaning as the blood pounds in your ears.

He's smiling up at you, almost laughing, when you next look down.

"Got my whole fuckin' hand in your pussy sweetheart. Hole is so stuffed and stretched out now."

His cock had been a stretch at one time. You were usually so wet that it parted you easily, but you could still feel that ache inside you as you gave way to him. This was new. Even rock hard and standing to attention, his cock had a softness to it. His hand did not. Calloused palms, rough fingers and bone did not yield or give way. The ridges of his fist felt foreign inside your cunt, and yet part of you still wanted to ask for more.

One breath, then another, and another, and your fingers are relaxing their death grip on his own. He twists his hand inside you from side to side just a fraction. Feeling so much moving and writhing inside you feels strange, but the fullness in your cunt and the depth of his hand have you moaning again, throwing your head to the side.

"That good?"

"Yeah, 'sgood," you whine.

His hand twists more, the ridge of his knuckles dragging on your inner walls.

"Ohhhhhh."

"Oh fuck, that's it," he says, pulling his fingers away from your grip and finally letting go of your hips.

You hear the wet sound of his oiled hand on his cock as he strokes himself, gripping his tip tightly and jerking it slowly at the sight of his hand buried in your cunt. Your pussy pulses around his fist as you watch his thumb swipe at a bead of cum about to drip off the tip of his cock and onto his pants to join a wet patch forming there. For all the mess you were making, it seemed he was making plenty of his own.

"Sit up now, want you to watch," he's saying, letting go of his cock and stroking around your stretched hole, dragging more wetness up to your clit.

Joel moves his fist, twisting this way and that, before dragging it back from you. His hand barely releases from your cunt, the edge of you stretching over the lowest part of his palm, before plunging back in. His eyes are locked on your pussy, watching his fist gently fuck into you. You groan at the sight, at the feeling.

"That feels good, huh?"

"Yeah," you whine. "I wanna cry," you're suddenly saying, because it's true, it's so much, so good, that you want to do nothing more than sob.

"That's because you've been so desperate for it, sweetheart," he says, stroking your clit more firmly now as his hand continues its movement in and out of you, barely breaching you before punching in a little further each time. You can see your lower belly bulge and move with each movement of his fist.

"Please," you're begging again. "It's so much. It's too much." You could be begging him to stop, for more, to come, to take it out, you don't know.

"S'too much for your needy little pussy, I know, but I ain't takin' it out 'til you come on it."

"Oh, fuck."

You almost come there and then, but then he's lowering his face back to your pussy, replacing the roll of his fingers with the lick of his tongue.

You start to garble, a blurred mess of words falling from your mouth. You have no clue what you're saying, you just know that you can't stop, can't do anything but focus on the whole fist fucking into your cunt, stuffing you full as he suckles your clit so delicately.

"Stretching you out, no one's gonna wanna use you after this. Goin' to ruin this pretty pussy."

You start begging again. "Please, please ruin me. Ruin my pussy. Please, please." You feel him smile into you clit and you know you're done for.

He latches fully onto you, sucking hard as he flicks his tongue over and over. His hand punches in harder, faster, fucking you and filling you more than anything before. Your insides feel like they're being shifted with each thrust of his fist, your womb jerked forward and back. You're so near, so close and then the hand on your thigh pushes on your belly, feeling each deep punch of his fist as he bottoms out.

The pressure builds and explodes almost instantly, your whole pussy clenching down on his fist, drawing him in with each pulse of your orgasm. Your hips rock, thighs try to clamp shut around his entire body as you scream - scream - into the cavern of his bedroom. He doesn't stop, doesn't relent, fucking his hand into you deeper and deeper as you come undone beneath him.

Only when you stop writhing and your back falls flat against the bed does Joel stop, disengaging from your clit with one final pop, stilling his hand inside you.

He watches as you come down, glassy eyes staring into space as you sigh in the aftermath of the most intense orgasm of your life.

"Was that enough?" he asks you as he kisses along your mound. You're shaking your head before you even realize what you're doing.

"Such a needy hole that even stuffed full of my hand it ain't enough?"

You moan, shaking your head. No. It's not enough. It feels so much, so full, stuffed to the brim, but it's not enough.

"Oh fuck, 'course it's not enough for you, sweetheart. Look how fuckin' greedy she is. You want more fingers?"

"No, no," your head is filled with as much clarity as delirium. You don't know where you are but you know exactly what you want, what you need.

"But you need more, sweetheart," he taunts, pushing his fist into you more.

"Hnnnng. Your cock," you gasp out. "Please. Your cock. I need your cock."

"Not sure you're even gonna be able to feel it after this, but I knew I'd have you beggin' for it sooner or later."

He's tugging his hand from you, gently pulling his entire fist out of your body as you bear down and groan with the pressure. It releases with a wet squelch and you watch as he immediately places it over your mound and lower stomach.

"All of that was in there," he says, almost in disbelief. He looks down at your pussy, still gaping. Thick fingers drag back down, past your over sensitized clit and around your hole, watching as you bring yourself together.

He moves closer to you, moving his slicked hand from your body to his own, covering his length with it as his palm slips over himself with ease, massaging his balls before teasing his tip. It's so angry and red now, desperate for some kind of relief, relief you want to give him.

"If you want it that bad, you're gonna have to put it in."

You grab at him, his cock looking huge in your hand. You line him up, dragging his glistening head through your folds before pushing him to your entrance. You roll your hips, feeling the ridge of him drag across your hole before you rock against him, letting the tip of him breach you. You feel your stretched walls pull around him, letting him in, wanting to swallow him whole.

"That's it sweetheart, you put it in," Joel coos, stroking your thighs as your rock yourself onto his tip. He starts to rock his hips with you, plunging his cock into your further as your hand still grips him.

You want to reach out and touch him. Run your hands across the planes of his body, feel how his muscles stretch and contract with every movement. You're still instead, holding his cock as he fucks it inside you.

"Let go now, let me all the way in." You let go of him, gripping your own thigh instead of pulling him toward you like you so desperately want, and he's bottoming out inside you with a deep groan. His cock retreats almost all the way before plunging back in to the hilt again, and you gasp when his tip collides with your cervix.

He watches your face as he bottoms out each time, eyes locked with yours. You feel so close to him, he's so near, you could just reach out and touch him, hold him to you, kiss him.

Before you know it, the world is spinning. He's pulled out of you and flipped you onto your front, laying you flat on his bed. He pulls your ass cheeks apart, notches himself back at your abused hole and pushes in with one easy movement. You grip the sheets, stifling your gasp into his pillow before he's yanking it away from you.

"Nuh-uh, lemme hear those pretty noises. Sound so good when you're moaning on my cock."

You let him hear you, not holding back a single moan as he fucks into you from behind, his weight heavy on your legs. His body falls forward, and he's threading strong arms under your body, hooking them over your shoulders. He holds you tight, the closest thing to a hug you've ever felt from him, as he pulls you down onto him with every thrust.

You're about to turn your head, turn so you can see him, so he can run his nose along your cheek, but a hand grabs your hair, yanking your head back as he slams his hips down into yours.

"Fuck," he gasps into your ear. "Can you even feel that? Can you even feel my cock?" You can feel every part, every ridge dragging across your insides in ways you've never felt from anyone before. You nod your head, hair tugged in his grip as you move.

"Oh fuck yeah, had my whole fucking fist in you but you're still clenching around my dick."

Your mind is blank, you feel dumb from his cock and his fist, fucked out whilst still being fucked. The best you can do is moan out a garbled "yeah" before going back to unintelligible babbling and moans.

"Good girl. Always takin' it all so well. This pretty pussy'll take anythin' I give her, won't she?" he whispers to you, like it's some kind of secret and not the most obvious thing in the world. He nuzzles your hair - he nuzzles your fucking hair - and you're soaring, floating above the clouds on a high you will never come down from.

"Joel, fuuuck."

He's all around you, warm breath on your face, grunts straight into your ear, the sweat of his chest slick on your back, his broad hands anchoring him down to you. You feel his whole body start to tense, shaking and quivering. His hips stutter, slamming into you hard once, twice more before he groans deep, burying his head in your neck.

His weight relaxes on top of you, pushing all air out of your lungs, but he's gone again before you start to struggle for breath, pulling his cock from your used hole. He spreads you, looking down at your pussy, pink and swollen from being so used, first by his fist and then by his cock. Cum dribbles out of you, down to your clit, and he takes his softening cock, swiping it up your folds and to your ass, squeezing out the last dribbles of his cum and wiping his tip on your ass cheek.

You lie still, hoping he'll lie next to you for a while, but his weight leaves the bed and there's the rustle of his jeans as he pulls them on. Before you can even turn around he's opened the door and left you alone, still dripping his cum.

You flop back down, face into his pillows, mind reeling. He'd been so close, felt so near. You could've reached out and touched him, grabbed him, but you didn't. And then the moment was gone. Every time you got near to something, it was gone before you could make up your mind. You were so frustrated you could scream.

Instead, you bury your head into his pillow and breathe deep, calming yourself.

The bed shifts again soon after. You didn't hear him come back in, but Joel's rough hands are lifting your legs and pulling the fabric of your panties up to your knees before he climbs on top of you and yanks them up the rest of the way. He massages your ass in his hands, smearing the remnants of his cum into your panties with the action before climbing off of you.

"You gotta go," he says, simply.

You turn round immediately, panties crooked and not quite covering your pussy. You scramble for an excuse, a reason to stay.

"What if my clothes are still wet." You want more time. You want to stay longer, cocooned in the warmth of this room. Maybe if you stay longer you'll get to feel the weight of him on top of you again.

"It's still rainin' outside so they'll be wet when you get home anyway," he doesn't look at you as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. "Pills are on the table."

And he's stalking out of the room again. You see him flop down onto the couch and pick up a book, as if nothing had even happened, as if the hand holding the pages open hadn't just been buried in you.

There's a chill in the room as you stand. Your clothes are still wet as you put them on. The pills burn your hand as you pocket them, wanting to do nothing more than throw them back at him. If they were for you, you would.

He doesn't walk you to the door, doesn't see you out. You unlatch it and twist the handle yourself, pulling it open and stepping through.

"You gotta stop lookin' at me so much," he calls out as you go to leave. "Not gonna protect you if some asshole thinks you're one of mine."

You don't turn to look at him, you just leave, slamming the door behind you as you make to walk home in the rain.

You didn't even want him to kiss you anyway.

next part

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[king-urameshi]

my favorite bucktommy fanfic

I figured I've read enough fanfic for this ship to curate a list of my favorites since wading through the ao3 tag can be a challenge. Some of these have been recommended numerous times already on here but hey, what's another shout out for some good writing?

I will add more on reblogs as I come across other fanfic I like:

left breathless by elizabethgee [e] [11.4k words, 2/3 chapters]

summary:

Buck turns to Tommy for comfort when an arson case involving a man who looks like Tommy ends up being ruled a murder. And Tommy doesn't have daddy issues. Really, he doesn't. This fic will include very dark themes, including blackmail, murder, and arson.

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prescribed burn by wakeupnew [t] [8.4k words, one-shot]

summary:

Tommy's busy fighting a wildfire at the edge of the Angeles National Forest, but every time he checks his phone, he has an increasingly unbelievable series of text messages. (Or: Over the course of eighteen hours with Buck and the 118, from a distance and then up close and personal, Tommy keeps having to reassess.)

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gettin' bi by brewrosemilk [e] [10.3k words, one-shot]

(you have to be logged in to read it)

summary:

God, this feels really good. Everything about it; from the size of Tommy’s hand cradling his face, to the gentle yet firm way he sucks Buck’s bottom lip into his warm mouth - to the rough traction of their faint stubble, a slight sound going with it. Men, Buck decides right then and there. Yeah. Men are good, too.  disclaimer because i have picked up on some confusion: this is not a friends with benefits > lovers story. they are good friends, but they are not in love. this story embraces the concept of casual and platonic sex, especially between bi/gay men because it tends to be something that is heavily stigmatized.

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company through every twist and turn by kitthekazoo [m] [12.2k words, one-shot]

summary:

Five fights that help Buck and Tommy grow closer.

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all the vices i can't give up by starryeyedjanai [e] [4.6k words, one-shot]

summary:

It’s kind of second nature at this point—if he’s not sending a picture to Eddie, it’s probably going to Tommy. So his mind must have been running on autopilot when he hit send and now he has to deal with the fact that he accidentally sent Tommy a picture of him with water dripping down his chest, a clear come on. And that Tommy took the bait. or, Tommy doesn’t kiss Buck when he comes over to make things right between them, but Buck still manages to accidentally bag him

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while you arranged flowers by newtkelly [e] [4.6k words, one-shot]

summary:

Tommy’s eyes catch his and Buck is taken aback by the state of them, blown so black and glassy. He always looks so tongue-in-cheek, like he’s in on some joke and waiting for everyone else to catch on. He doesn’t look like that right now, though. Tommy’s composure is waning—the guy who takes on the world with a million dollar smile and a statuesque cleft chin and flies choppers to Vegas on a whim and into Cat 5 hurricanes to help old friends and kisses clarity into men who thought they were finished figuring themselves out, that guy is just as much a slave to his desire as any mortal man, and Buck is winded by the fact that he’s played any part in that. — Buck’s got a wedding date, but as far as today goes, he’s also got a regular one.

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looking for an ocean breeze/so i can fill my mind with ease by newtkelly [e] [8.8k words, one-shot]

summary:

“Can I top you off?” Buck’s head whips frantically in Tommy’s direction. “Huh?” “Your champagne,” Tommy says with a sooty half-smirk, while Buck irrationally feels like his bluff’s been made. Tommy taps a finger twice against the plastic in his hand. “It’s empty. Can I get you some more?” — Maddie gets married in an emergency room and Buck learns how to ask.

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of coming outs and spiderman kisses by alicemcgee [g] [1.9k words, one-shot]

summary:

After coming out to the two most important people in Buck's life, he decides to wait with telling the rest of his friends. he's ready, he just wants to find the right way to do so. Naturally, as this is Buck we're speaking about, things get a little out of his hands. Or should we say mouth?

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the ally and the beast by jobairdxx [e] [2.4k words, one-shot]

summary:

Tommy knows he's late, and he feels awful about it. He so badly wanted to make it to the wedding, but the fire was an absolute inferno that would not go out. When it was finally extinguished and Tommy was given the okay to head out, he jumped in the rig with the rest of his crew, immediately asking them to drop him at the hospital. And of course they had given him grief for it, but he didn't care as long as they got him where he needed to be. When he walks through the ER bay doors and sees Evan, he's instantly apologetic. “Sorry I'm late, that fire was a beast.” But then Evan hits him with a, “So are you,” and grabs him and kisses him, and he wouldn't be able to stop the moan that leaves his mouth if he tried.

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i could be the one (or your new addiction) by milominderbinder [t] [4k words, one-shot]

summary:

“You know you’ve got a hard limit on five Tommy mentions per day,” Hen says.  She puts one hand on her hip, and the other points accusingly towards the large jar in the middle of the coffee table; once home to Cap’s homemade trail mix, it’s recently been emptied out, labelled the Tommy Jar, and is already stuffed half-full of Buck’s hard-earned dollars. It’s only been four weeks since he came out to everyone.  The jar was introduced by the end of week one. With a sigh, Buck reaches for his wallet. He pulls out two dollars, walks over, and stuffs them both into the jar.  “That’s one on credit,” he says, “'Cus you have to let me finish the story—" Five times Buck had to put a dollar in the Mentioning Tommy jar during 7x07, and one time nobody was around to catch him.

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an outlier that should not be counted by dadvans [e] [7.4 words, one-shot]

summary:

Buck knows a lot of random trivia. Tommy falls in love with him one fact at a time.

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flying blind by kat2107 [t] [3.3 words, one-shot]

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summary:

Evan Buckley loves his boyfriend. He also loves sex. He would love to have sex with his boyfriend. When he gets a bad feeling why Tommy insists on keeping things PG13 way past any necessity, he turns to the only gay firefighter he knows. Consent is easy, right? It's all about the communication. note: There is a hint of bad sexual experiences Tommy had in the past when he was figuring out his sexuality. There is no details but it might be read as lack of consent, though it was more likely a lack of care.

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little by little by mediawhore [t] [4.7 words, one-shot]

summary:

‘Some wounds never vanish. Yet little by little, I learned to love my life.’ Mary Oliver Or Buck & Tommy, during and after the wedding.

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you've got the love to see me through by emquin [g] [4.7 words, one-shot]

summary:

Tommy's POV throughout 7x06 where he's mostly just exhausted.

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down, down, down by sketchytaco [t] [6.2 words, 4/4 chapters]

summary:

He rubs the smudged words on his chest more and more he gets older, wondering where his soulmate is. Wondering if they're thinking of him, if they're close. He wonders what they look like, what they sound like. If they've always been out, or if they're hiding, or even if its someone who hasn't figured themselves out yet.

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five ways to fall in love with the man in the mirror by evcndiaz [m] [1.9 words, one-shot]

summary:

Buck meets God at a gay club. He finds him in an oil-slick puddle on a damp night, neon lights reflecting off the kaleidoscopic liquid in the parking lot. or; Evan Buckley falls in love with himself.

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raspberry by evcndiaz [e] [4.4 words, one-shot]

summary:

“do you want to dance with him?” evan raises an eyebrow. “i want to dance with you.” tommy sways forward, nudging his thumb up underneath evan’s jaw so he can tilt his face up and to the side where the man is dancing against some young twenty-something that thinks they have a chance. and hell, maybe they do. but tommy’s not interested in the kid, not tonight at least. he drops his voice, hand snaking down to evan’s ass so he can pull him close. “let me change that: do you want me to see you dancing with him?” evan shivers. bingo. or; sometimes three isn't a crowd. or x2; buck, tommy, and a gay club. things get messy. literally.

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evan, elated and euphoric by brewrosemilk [e] [16.5 words, one-shot]

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summary:

For a moment, that’s all that seems to echo inside of Buck’s head, more than ever before; you have a man on top of you, you are kissing a man; you’re touching a man, and he’s touching you, and you like it. Buck likes it - not just being with Tommy, being with a man - that part is obvious, but he… likes that he likes it. He loves that he likes it. Truthfully, he doesn’t think that he has ever felt more at home in his own body than he does in this very moment.

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a (not so) new hoodie by littlebipolarsunshine [g] [2.8 words, one-shot]

summary:

In which Buck doesn't look very closely when putting on a hoodie before going to work.

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learning to fly by captainmintyfresh [m] [56k words, ?/8 chapters]

summary:

A fic inspired by the 7x05 promo Tommy gives Buck the love he deserves. AKA Tommy goes from 0 to whipped as fuck real fast.

[musings-of-a-rose]

Hi, just wanted to say that I love your work! Especially with Benny and Frankie so much that I have an idea for Benny! Female reader (not picky about the name) meets Benny at a bar days after she catches her now ex-boyfriend cheating on her and they hook up at his place, but she leaves before he wakes up. She later finds out she's pregnant but doesn't tell anyone who the father is. Months later while still pregnant, her friends convince her to come with them to see a MMA fight and low and behold Benny is there fighting. He doesn't see her at first, but when the fight ends (which he wins) he sees her and she leaves abruptly while hiding her stomach since she's wearing baggy clothing. However, Benny manages to catch up to her, where she reveals the news to him. They then talk some more at her place where he reveals to her that she's been on his mind ever since that night and begins the start of something new.

One Night Can Change Everything

Pairing: Benny Miller x f!reader 

Word Count: 6400+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: Rea is a general nickname for a “reader” character that @mermaidxatxheart came up with and I think that’s genius! This is not beta’d.

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❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Benny Miller Masterlist

“Ok, that’s it. I’m making you get out of this bed now,” My best friend Sage declares as she towers over my bed, where I have lived for the past several days. Ever since I caught my boyfriend sleeping with my co-worker. Co-workerS.

Ex-boyfriend now, I suppose. 

I groan, attempting to roll over but Sage grabs my shoulder and flips me back over, digging her fingers lovingly into my skin. “I love you Rea, I do. But you have to get out of this bed. He’s not worth it.”

She’s right. I know she is. But we had been dating for nearly 2 years, mostly. It was on and off, but we had talked about marriage, kids, all of it. I thought he would be my forever but apparently, I was his “for now”. 

Fuck this asshole.

I sit up quickly, nearly colliding with Sage, and yank the covers off me, determination flooding my veins, choking out the hurt. For now, at least. 

“Alright, alright. I’m up.”

Sage points to the bathroom. “First, please take a shower. Then we’re going to Mick’s.” 

I’d almost forgotten about Mick’s, Sage’s favorite bar. Probably because it’s full of rugged, blue-collar men and Sage definitely has a type. Not that I can blame her. 

“Ok, but I’m just going for you. And science.”

Sage snorts. “Sure, Rea. Sure. Don’t forget to shave.”

—--------------

An hour later and I’m walking into Mick’s front door, loud music vibrating through me. It’s busy, but I’ve seen it busier and we manage to snag a couple of stools at the bar. Within 10 minutes, Sage is led to the dance floor by some burly lumberjack, complete with flannel shirt and all. I throw my hand up in the air in a “what about me” motion as she glances behind her, shrugging and gesturing around the room before focusing all of her attention on the flannel clad bear of a man in front of her, who is surprisingly agile. I turn back to the bar, taking my hand off the top of my glass, tossing the last of the liquid down my throat, coughing slightly at the burn. I set my glass down, my finger trailing along the rim, wondering if I should call an Uber or wait for my friend, when a man slides in next to me, flagging down the bartender. 

“5 beers, please.” His voice has a slight drawl to it, his tone warming me all over. 

“Seems a lot for one man.” Where the hell did that courage come from?

The man, clad in a button up light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up that opens to reveal a camo print shirt, turns his head to me and for what feels like days, I’m rendered speechless. This man is gorgeous - a sloping nose,  sandy blonde hair that flips out from behind his backward hat, some patchy facial hair, and the most intensely blue eyes I’ve ever seen. They glance quickly down my body and back up, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“Ain’t all for me, sweetheart. Got a table full of impatient assholes waiting for a beer.”

I cock my head to the side. “You lose a bet or something?”

The man tips his head back and laughs, his shoulders shaking with it and I feel my body tingle. I could listen to that sound forever. 

“How the hell did you know that?” His smile is wide, all of his attention on me, his eyebrows raised in question.

I shrug. “I’d send the guy who lost a bet to get the first round, at least.”

He chuckles. “Smart girl…I’m Ben. Friends call me Benny.”

I tell him my name. “But my friends call me Rea.”

“I like that. Nice to meet you, Rea.” He sticks his hand out to shake mine, but before I can, 4 beers slide in front of him and he glances down at them, his shoulders dropping ever so slightly. 

Finding courage from somewhere, I lay my hand on his forearm and have to resist squeezing. “You have to go back so soon?”

He smiles again, the skin around his eyes crinkling with it. “Nah, sweetheart. I’ll be right back. Promise me you’ll wait right here?” There go the eyebrows again, pulling together and making him look like a puppy. Fuck I am so screwed.

“I’ll be waiting.”

He hesitates for a brief second before taking my hand and kissing the back of it. “Now that’s something to make a man move fast.” He winks, grabs the four beers, and heads off into the crowd, making his way towards the back of the room. Hate to see him leave, but damn I’m loving watching him go, his 6’3 frame easily visible over the crowd. He drops off the beers somewhere at the back of the room, turning quickly to push his way back through the crowd, his eyes locking on mine and giving me a sly smile. 

“You waited.” He slides back into the barstool next to me as I pull my leg from it, the universal gesture for this is saved.

Fuck his eyes are so blue. “You came back.”

A smile plays at the corner of his lips. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

I look down for a moment, my mind going back to my ex and all of his cheating, making me feel less than. Benny seems to sense something, his large hand hesitating a moment before he gently squeezes my arm. “You ok?”

I shake my head, my eyes locking back on his blues. “Yeah. I’m great now you’re here.”

Benny is easy to talk to, fun, and flirty. He’s in Delta Force, or was, with his actual brother, one of the men that he’d owed a beer to earlier. We talk about everything and anything, Benny eventually pulling me to the dance floor and whisking me about, sometimes dancing and other times being silly and smiling when I laugh. After several songs, we need a break, managing to snag a couple of stools at the bar, sipping on a couple of drinks. 

“So you live local?” He asks me, taking another swig from his beer.

I nod. “Yeah. I don’t typically come here, but my friend Sage dragged me out of the house.”

“Well remind me to thank her. She here?”

“Actually,” I turn and look out at the crowd for several moments, finally seeing her in the back corner, making out with Flannel Bear Man. I chuckle. “Yeah, she’s a little occupied.”

Benny chuckles, taking another swig of his beer, his free hand hesitating a moment before landing on my bare thigh, just above my knee. “Well I can keep you company.” 

His warm hand against my skin has my brain short-circuiting. I can’t think of what to say so I return his question. “Are you local?”

He nods, his thumb slowly rubbing circles across my skin. “Yeah. But some water main or somethin’ broke in my building. They put us all up in hotels until they fix it. Burst a few pipes.”

“Oh no! Is your stuff ok?” I place my hand over his on my leg, giving it a little squeeze and move it further up my thigh, heat immediately rushing to an area not far from where his hand is. 

He clears his throat. “Uh, y-yeah. Well, I had some water damage but didn’t lose anythin’ big. They just have to put down new floors.”

The music volume suddenly goes up by several volumes, turning the place into a mini club. Benny winces and I can see that it triggers him, the loud sounds and people becoming a little much. I lean in closer to his ear, gently rubbing circles into the back of his hand. 

“It’s too fucking loud! Wanna get out of here?” I pull my head back to look at him, our faces only an inch apart. His eyes flit between mine, briefly pausing on my lips.

“If you’re sure, hell yeah.”

I smile and he returns it before I lean back into his ear. “Let me flag my friend down and let her know. Stay right here so I don’t lose you.”

He turns his head, his nose brushing against my cheek. “I’ll be right here.” Hating that I have to move, I gently place his hand on his thigh and give him a wink before turning, scanning the corner where I had last seen Sage. She’s still there, Flannel Bear Man sucking on her neck. I force my way through the crowd and eventually emerge in front of her. Sage’s gaze takes a moment to settle on me.

“Rea! Where’ve you been?” She yells above the music.

I gesture to where I came from. “At the bar. Waiting for you.”

She gasps as Flannel Bear Man starts to bite her skin. “S-sorry, Rea. I-”

I cut her off, not wanting to intrude any longer. “No worries. I’m getting out of here. With a guy. I’ll get an Uber.”

Sage reaches out and grips my wrist, breaking the suction from Flannel Man who only seems to just realize I’m standing here. 

“A guy? You found someone? Do you need condoms?”

“Sage! I have to go!”

“Wait!” She pulls her clutch from somewhere and digs around in it, quickly sliding a few foiled square packages in my hand. “ Remember, it’s just a rebound. Don’t get attached. Have fun and be safe!”

I can’t help the heat in my cheeks, but I tuck the condoms in my bag. “Thanks. I’ll ping you my location.”

Sage releases my wrist and smiles at me before I turn back to Benny, shoving my way through more bodies on the dance floor. I emerge on the other side and see him still sitting where I left him, hat turned backward and looking so fucking hot. 

This is all so unlike me, but I like Benny. Sage’s words echo through my head “it’s just a rebound. Have some fun.”

I walk up to Benny and he turns his head, standing and giving me a wide smile. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”

I nod and he offers me his hand, which I happily accept, his touch warming me all over as he guides us through the crowd and out the front door, the volume immediately decreasing the moment the door closes behind us. 

“Now I can hear myself think!” Benny chuckles as he pulls my hand to his lips, lightly brushing them against my knuckles, his puppy dog eyes on mine. “Did you drive?

“Hhhm? Oh, uh no. Uber.”

Benny nods. “I have my jeep. I can drive us somewhere? Unless you’d feel safer using Uber?”

I study him for a moment, deciding that I trust him. “I love Jeeps.”

He smiles, his grip on my hand tightening slightly as he directs me to the parking lot, chatting a little too fast about his Jeep, like he’s nervous. He helps me into the passenger side, sliding across the hood to make it to the driver’s side quicker, smiling at my laugh. He starts the Jeep and gets the ac started before turning to me.

“Where to?”

It’s just a rebound. Have fun. “I’d love to see your hotel.”

His eyebrows raise, that same smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Yeah? You don’t have to. I mean, we could just get a burger or somethin’.”

I look down at my hands in my lap. Did I misread the signals? He was definitely coming on to me, right? I wasn’t reading into that? Before I can spiral further, Benny puts his hand over mine. “Hey, look. I like you and think you’re fucking hot as hell and would love to take you to my room to uh, show you the room. But I don’t want to presume or make you feel obligated or anything.”

I would choose a fucking gentlemen for a rebound. Fuck. I close my hand over his and meet his eyes. “Thanks, Benny. I don’t want to push you or presume either.”

He chuckles once, removing his hand to put his Jeep in reverse and then back into drive. “Sweetheart, you can take advantage of me any day.”

That breaks the awkwardness and has us laughing, falling back into conversation easily as Benny navigates through traffic. Gently, I lay his hand on my bare thigh again, wrapping my hand over his. He’s talking about something, I honestly can’t focus because he’s started to move, his fingers tracing slow lines across my skin as his hand moves further up my leg, getting closer to where I desperately want him to be. We hit a red light and the Jeep goes quiet, Benny turning to look at me as he slides his hand further up, his pinkie finger just barely tracing the crease of my thigh, heat and wet pooling just beyond his touch. My lips part and I let out a gasp of air, my eyes finding his. 

There’s a moment of hesitation but then I grip his shirt, pulling him towards me, our lips crashing together. He nips at my bottom lip and I gasp, Benny taking full advantage to slide his tongue into my open mouth, a small moan escaping me. His free hand leaves the steering wheel to grip the back of my head, holding me to him as he explores my mouth. The car behind us honks and we jump apart, the light having already turned green. Benny sticks his hand up to apologize to the car behind us, driving on, but immediately places his hand back on me, this time, his pinkie grazes up my panties and I squirm a little in my seat, not used to this much attention. He stills his movements.

“Is it too much?” He’s actually concerned.

“More like, not enough.”

Benny makes it to his hotel in record time.

Heated touches and kisses down the hallway has Benny dropping his room key a few times. As he tries to jam it into the lock, I slide my hands around him from behind, moving up his stomach from under his shirt and fuck he has a nice body, my hands moving lightly over his toned chest. He finally jams the key into the lock and flings the door open, tossing his keys on top of the dresser. He spins back around to face me, his eyes blown wide and dark with lust. 

He swallows hard. “Are you…are you sure?”

I step close to Benny, gently take his wrist and turn his hand palm up. One hand still holding his, I open my bag and fish out one of the foil squares, and place the condom in Benny’s hand. He glances down at it before looking back at me, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

“Rea, did you get a condom from your friend?”

I can feel the heat blooming in my cheeks. “No! I mean, technically yes but she-”

He cuts me off with his lips, one hand wrapped around my head and the other grips my hips, fingers digging into my skin as he pulls me flush against him. I can feel him hard beneath his jeans and I moan into his kiss, pressing myself against him so I can try to relieve some of the rapidly increasing hear between my thighs. He moves us and I feel the bed hit the back of my knees, but he holds me tighter before breaking the kiss. Both of us rip the shirts from our bodies, my bra quickly following. I reach for my pants but he grabs my wrists and stills them, his blue eys falling to my chest. He gently cups a boob and lightly pinches the nipple and I gasp, the small movement shooting straight between my legs. 

Then Benny sinks to his knees, eye level with my pants. He pops open the button on my jeans, sliding them down my legs where I help him kick them off. His large fingers trace the outline of my panties, the heat pooling there as I gasp at his touch. He hooks his fingers into them and slides them down my legs too, his eyes locked on the space between my thighs. 

“Fuck you’re beautiful,” he half whispers. A half chuckle escapes me before it turns into a moan as he slides his nose up my slit, bumping into my clit. He growls, using my hips to push me down on the bed, tossing my legs over his shoulders like it was nothing. 

Which I have no time to think about because his mouth is on me, his hands on my inner thighs, pressing them further apart, widening his canvas. His tongue explores me, seeking all the areas that have me writhing under his firm grip. He somehow finds spots that I didn’t even know existed, sucking lightly, lapping, the coil of pleasure quickly tightening until a sound erupts from me, somewhere between a chant and a moan, my fingers gripping his hair to keep him in the same spot as he prolongs my release. 

My head is in a blissful haze, but I manage a whine as he pulls away from me, taking his pants off when he does. I hear the sound of the condom opening and I watch him as he rolls the condom on himself. I lean up on my elbows to see better, because he’s gorgeous, not girthy but longer, and definitely not anywhere near a size I’ve had in me. 

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll take my time.” I blink, looking up at his face and see that there’s a hint of concern there, like he wants to make sure I’m comfortable.

I scoot further up on the bed to give him more space. “Don’t worry about me. I can take you.”

His eyes darken and he grabs my ankle, yanking me back down towards the end of the bed. I squeal, my body heating up again as he lowers himself between my legs. He pauses, his eyes bright as he glances between my own. 

“You’re so beautiful,” there’s that almost whisper voice again, his eyebrows pulling together so he looks like a puppy.

“So are you, Benny.” We take each other in for a few more moments, my body about to burst with all of the tension and hormones racing through it. “Now please fuck me, now.” I know I’m begging, but I don’t care. 

And neither does Benny, apparently, as he smirks. “Yes ma’am.”

He slowly presses his hips forward and I let out a moan as he stretches me, pushing further and further in. I’m not sure how, but he bottoms out, dropping his head to my chest, breathing heavy for a moment. 

“Fuck, you feel so good. Gimme a sec so I don’t blow my load like a teenager.”

I manage some sort of confirmation sound, but then a moment later, he slowly pulls out and presses back in, repeating this a few times so I can adjust to his length. It’s driving me mad and I writhe under him, feeling every inch of him as he slowly moves in and out of me. He pulls out, his hips pausing as he looks down at me and it’s like time stops. Just for a moment. Then his lips crash to mine as he pushes forward quickly, sliding into me in one fast movement and I cry out, my hands gripping his biceps, nails digging into his skin as his hips set a fast pace, his direction and speed adjusting to my moans of pleasure. Every time he pushes in, he hits a spot somewhere at the back of me, a place no one has touched, and it sends sparks through my vision, my entire body like a livewire as he pushes me towards the edge.

“Fuck, Benny, I’m gonna-” my body ignites, pleasure radiating out from my cunt, his name tumbling from my lips in praise, begging him to keep going, or stop, or do it again. I have no idea, my head so engulfed in pleasure. 

“Fuck!” He yells, pressing into me one last time before he grunts, little pants and gasps tumbling from him. His head falls to my chest as he comes down. 

We stay like that for several moments, trying to catch our breath. Eventually, Benny pulls out, tossing the condom in the trash can by the bed before rolling onto his back next to me.

“What’s your third favorite dinosaur?”

I laugh, my entire body moving with it as Benny joins in, tears running down our cheeks as my movements turn me towards him. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question, let alone just after sex.”

Benny shrugs, smiling. “Had to break the tension and awkwardness somehow.” 

“Well that definitely works!”

His face grows serious. “You didn’t answer the question.”

After that laughing fit, I think on it a moment. “Pterodactyl. Because they can fly.”

Benny nods. “Interesting. What’s your favorite then?”

“Nope. I’m saving that answer for after round 2.”

His eyes grow dark almost instantly. “Round 2? Like, tonight?”

“Well, my friend gave me a whole row of condoms and I don’t want to take any home.”

—----

A few hours later, I’m laying in Benny’s bed, thoroughly fucked, Benny sprawled across the bed on his stomach, lightly snoring. He’s so fucking beautiful. But then Sage’s words echo in my head “It’s just a rebound. Have fun and bounce.” I sigh, unsure of what to do. I actually do like Benny, but is that just because he’s the first guy to actually pay attention to me in a long while? Self-doubt seeps in, my ex’s hurtful words and actions taking away the blissful feeling I’d had moments before. I shake my head, telling myself that if any of it was true, I wouldn’t be in a gorgeous man’s bed, a man who just spent the last few hours pulling every spark of pleasure possible from me. 

I quietly stand, gathering up my clothes. I get them on and lace up my boots, trying not to wake Benny. It’s better if I leave before he wakes up. Rebounds don’t work out anyway, so why prolong the inevitable? 

I turn to head towards the door and see the hotel pad of paper and pen next to the phone on the dresser. I stare at it a moment before grabbing the pen, scrawling a quick “Thank You” with a heart at the end. I slide it under his keys and walk to the door, glancing back at the sleeping form of Benny, the man who just restored my confidence. I close it quietly behind me, making sure the lock clicks into place and request an Uber to take me home. 

—----

Over the next few weeks, I try to get Benny out of my head. I try to stop thinking about him or talking about him. I know he’s a rebound, and those relationships don’t work out, as Sage has reminded me more than once. And I’m not sure I’m ready for a new relationship. I think. But talking to him had been so easy, effortless. Like we had been friends since forever. In a moment of desperation, I looked up the hotel on my Uber app and called it, knowing they wouldn’t give me any information about Benny. I can’t blame them. I don’t even know his last name. 

—----

2 lines. The pink lines emerge bright against the white of the testing stick, showing me the same result as the other 4 pregnancy tests I’d taken. My stomach lurches again and I make it to the toilet just in time. I close the lid and flush, wiping my mouth with a washcloth as I stare at my reflection. How the fuck did this happen? We’d used a condom every time, and he used them correctly. It must have been a faulty condom. Fuck, Benny. How am I going to tell him? No really, how? I don’t even know his last name and now I’m having his child. A knock at the door pulls me from my spiral.

“Rea?”

I sniff and wipe my face again. “Pregnant.”

She’s silent for just a beat. “Can I come in?”

I make a noise in approval and she opens the door, heads directly for me and pulls me into a hug where I let myself lose it. Tears streaming down my face, dry heaving breaths, all of it. It takes me a while to calm down enough to talk. Sage wipes my face with a cool cloth and it helps to soothe me a bit more. 

“Are you going to tell him?”

I scoff. “How, Sage?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Call the hotel? They have to have his info.”

I shake my head. “They won’t give it to me. Especially since I don’t know his last name.”

Sage cocks her head to the side. “How do you know?”

“Oh. I uh, I may have called a few weeks ago to uh try and uh…find. Him.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it. “That doesn’t really matter now. Do you know what you want to do?”

There’s so much I don’t know. I don’t know Benny’s last name. I don’t know where he lives, just that it’s local. I don’t know what he’d even say. I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know a lot. But there’s one thing that I did know right away.

“I’m keeping the baby.”

Sage takes a deep breath and nods once. “I can’t wait to be an auntie.”

—----

“Come on, Rea! You need to get out.”

I sigh, rubbing the side of my belly. “I’m 6 months pregnant, Sage. I don’t belong at an MMA fight.”

Sage copies my sigh and places her hand over mine. “You’ve been cooped up in your room for weeks. Just…come out to get some fresh air?”

“By sitting in a crowded auditorium surrounded by drunks?”

Sage shrugs. “I’m sure they won’t be drunk drunk. Besides, Henry has a special section all roped off just for us.” 

Henry is super sweet. The burly bear sized, flannel clad man from Mick’s had fit right into our friendship, even becoming a sort of surrogate brother for me. And it’s clear to me that he loves Sage with everything he is just by the way he looks at her.

I sigh again, shrugging in a defeated manner. Sage squeals and grips my arm. “Thank you! Oh, you’ll have fun! Just wait and see!”

So now I find myself in a crowded auditorium, surrounded by people drinking. Well, ok the crowd isn’t bad around us. Sage was right - Henry had literally roped off an entire section just for us and glared at anyone who tried to grumble about it. He was really into MMA and had a couple of cousins that were fighting so he always had tickets to some match that was happening. Are they called matches? I don’t know. 

Whatever they’re called, we’re a few in, Henry leaning over to tell us about each of the fighters as they’re announced. These matches are pretty brutal - I didn’t realize just how violent they can get, even with rules in place. The last match ends and the guy with the mop comes back out, cleaning away the blood that came from the last guy losing several teeth with a blow. Once cleaned, the microphone squeaks back on to announce the next fighters.

“From Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, standing 6’3, weighing in at 195 pounds, I give you BEN MILLER!”

A familiar memory scratches at the back of my head as the crowd screams and the doors open from the locker rooms somewhere in the throngs of people now on their feet. Henry leans in to yell in my ear.

“This guy is great! He’s kicked my cousin’s asses a few times! He…”

Whatever he said after fades into the background, which has dimmed to a loud hum, as Ben Miller struts into the ring, tossing his shirt to the side, revealing a very familiar tattoo and his face finally comes into my view.

Benny. 

My stomach leaps into my throat, my heart hammering through my chest as I stare down at the man who I could never shake from my mind, even before I was having his child. Which he doesn’t know about. 

A bell dings and Benny takes a few steps towards his opponent, who immediately clocks him in his jaw, Benny’s head flying backwards. The man manages to get a couple more hits in, Benny almost absorbing all of the hits. But then the man hesitates and Benny takes that moment to attack, winding his way around the ring, jabbing at his opponent in swift, concise, planned motions. The man only stays up for a few more seconds before crumbling to the ground and giving in. The crowd goes wild as the ref holds Benny’s arm in the air, blood trickling down from his nose, a giant smile on his face. My stomach lurches and I quickly stand, yelling something about the bathroom to Sage as I grab my jacket and run for the doors, the room suddenly too small and loud. I shove open the arena’s double doors and stumble out into the nearly empty hallway. The doors close behind me and I pause a moment, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself. But then the doors open behind me again and I attempt to stand up right.

“Rea?”

Benny’s voice echoes down the hallway and through me, my insides simultaneously tightening with nerves but also excited and swooning at his fucking calming tone. My back is to him but I don’t move. He takes a step closer.

“Rea? Is that you?”

Fuck. This isn’t how I would want him to find out. But how would he find out? It’s not like I could find him. I didn’t even know his last name. I don’t-

“Are you ok?”

His voice is closer now, only a few steps behind me. I swallow hard, willing myself to hold it together as I turn to face him, keeping my jacket covering my belly. His bright blue eyes immediately find mine, a smile quicking spreading across his beautiful face. He’s still shirtless and I have to focus to keep my eyes on his face.

“Rea! It is you! I thought I saw your face in the crowd! Did you see me fight?”

I manage a small smile. “Y-yeah. I did. Congrats.”

He shrugs. “Thanks. That guy was easy but when I saw you, I thought maybe he’d hit my head harder than I thought. What…I mean uh, how are you?”

I sigh, my small smile dropping. “I…I have to tell you something.”

His expression turns serious. “Ok. But if it’s about me not calling you, you sort of left me without a last name or number.” He chuckles but stops when I don’t react. 

I hold his gaze a moment longer before letting my jacket fall to the side, exposing my belly under my form fitting black dress. His eyes immediately fall to my belly, his head turning to the side as he takes it in. I can see the moment it clicks, only a second or 2 after I moved my jacket, his eyes widening as his brain works double time to do the math. He points to himself.

“Is that…am I…the dad?”

I nod, rubbing my hand along the side of my belly where the baby is currently moving. “Yes.” I wait for the yell or scoff of disbelief, storming off, telling me I won’t get anything. All of what I had anticipated. But when I look up at him I see tears shining in his bright blues.

“You’re not fuckin’ with me?” His eyebrows pinch together, enhancing the shine from his tears and I shake my head.

“No. You’re the only one I’ve been with since my ex.”

His eyes shift down to my belly again and his hands start to reach out, but then he stops, looking back up at me. “May I?”

I give him a small smile and nod. “Yeah.”

Benny drops to his knees in front of me, placing each of his large hands on either side of my belly, rubbing small circles into my skin. I take his hand and move it, placing it right over where I’d just felt movement. 

“He was just kicking over here.”

His eyes shoot up to mine. “A boy? I’m gonna have a son?”

Fuck how can his eyebrows do that? “Yeah. A son.”

And the tears start to fall, quietly streaking down his cheeks as he laughs, trying to dab at them with the hand I hadn’t just moved. “Hey, little man. It’s me. Your dad.” A hard kick lands right in Benny’s hand and he whoops, rubbing the spot with his thumb. “You got your old man’s feet!” He continues to talk to my belly in the middle of the hallway, not caring if anyone sees him. His face is animated and lit up, despite the dried blood caked under his nose and for a second, I can see an entire future laid out before us. A wedding, a house, dancing together, maybe more kids. The love. It’s only when I snap out of this fairytale vision that I realize I was smoothing back his hair. I yank my hands back and drop them to my sides.

“Shit I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

He glances up at me. “Nah it’s ok. Actually, it felt good.” He watches me for a moment before his expression hardens. “Ok I need to get off this floor.”

He waves away my offer of a helping hand, gesturing towards my belly as he groans, standing to his full height before stretching out his legs. “I’m gettin’ too old to be kneeling on hard ass floors.”

We’re quiet for several moments, each of us just watching the other. 

“Why did you leave without sayin’ anything?”

I take a deep breath. “Benny, I…I’m sorry. I thought about you after that night. A lot. My friend had told me to just make it a rebound, to get my ex out of my head. Which it did, but what I didn’t expect was..well..you. I liked, well…like you a lot. You make me laugh, have some amazing stories, you’re funny, and hot as hell. But you also make me feel seen and heard. Like I wasn’t just there for convenience, which is ironic considering how we met, I realize that. I thought about trying to find you but the hotel wouldn’t tell me anything and I didn’t have anything to go by. And then I found out I was pregnant and I feel so guilty for not t- telling y- you, but I di-didn’t know h-how. I’m so s-s-sorry!” I can’t fight the pregnancy hormones anymore and the tears come, streaming down my face as I try to turn away, looking down and wiping furiously at my face. But then he’s there, pulling me towards him as best he can, his hand cradling the back of my head. 

“Hey, it’s ok. I never did tell you my last name or ask for your number neither. I could’ve but I didn’t.” My crying slows and he pulls back just enough to look down at me, wiping away a tear. “And I’ve regretted it ever since. I haven’t stopped thinkin’ about you either, Rea. But I really had no way of finding you. But now that we’ve found each other again, can I have your number? I’d really like to take you to dinner.”

I let out a shaky chuckle. “It’s ok, Benny. You don’t have to do that.”

He cocks his head. “Do…what?”

“Take me to dinner. Listen, you can be as involved as you want. I won’t hold you to anything. I just wanted you to know. But you don’t have to-”

“No. I’m not asking you out because you’re pregnant. I’m asking you out because I’ve wanted to for months and regretted it every day that I didn’t.”

“Benny, really. It’s ok.”

“No, I- will you wait right here a moment?”

I nod and he places his hand on my belly once more, his son giving him another thump before he practically runs back through the double doors. Once they close, I walk over to the wall and lean my back against it, my emotions running through me. Is he telling the truth? Were we both just fucking idiots? That’s an obvious yes. But still, I don’t want him to feel like he owes me. It would be nice to hang with him again, though. No, Rea. Don’t make him feel forced. The double doors fly open and Benny comes running up to me, his wallet in his hand. 

“I don’t need money, Ben-”

He shakes his head. “No. Well I mean if you need it, I’ll gladly give it but that’s not…here.” He slides out a small slip of paper from behind his driver’s license and unfolds it, handing it to me. 

It’s the thank you note I scribbled to him and left in the hotel.

Tears well in my eyes again. “You..you kept this?” 

His eyes sparkle as they look at me. “Hell yeah I did. I told you, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about you. But I had no way of findin’ you. I went to the bar every night hoping to see you walk in. But I never did.”

“I got too busy with work and then..” I gesture down to my belly and he laughs, placing a hand on my stomach again.

“Yeah I can’t blame you for not wanting to be in a bar. Especially your first trimester.”

My eyebrows raise. “What do you know about trimesters?”

“My sister was a hot fuckin’ mess during hers. Sick all the time, emotional, all of it. She felt bad about it too no matter how much we told her not to worry. My niece is 5 now and has the attitude to match.” He chuckles. “I can’t wait to meet this little guy..my little guy. Ours? Fuck this is hard to say.”

“Either way, I’m just glad you can say it.” I clutch the paper in my hand for a moment before handing it back to him. 

“So when’s that dinner?”

We’re married a year later. 

---------------------------------

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[harmonictechnicality]

Eddie’s Memory Log Day 1:

part 2 here | part 3 here | part 4 here | part 5 here | part 6 here

(ao3 link here)

The only reason Steve volunteers to keep a journal to track Eddie Munson’s skim-milk memories, is because of the twerps.

They have school, they can’t commute to the government-protected hospital that’s all the way in the city. That, and they gave Steve this well-rehearsed, tearjerker performance about how grateful they would be.

About how grateful Eddie would be.

Pfft like shit on a stick, he’ll be grateful. The dude doesn’t even remember how old he is, how the hell is supposed to be grateful for Steve Harrington jotting down notes in binder?

But those kids have been through Spielberg-level disaster shit. Steve has too, but they’re just kids.

So he’ll do it. He’ll do it for them and only them.

Eddie knows his name today.

He’s pissy - he’s always pissy cause Eddie is battered up beyond belief. But still, he’s extra pissy today because Dustin is his favorite visitor and he hasn’t stopped by in almost a week.

Eddie knows Dustin’s name today too.

And guess who’s his least favorite visitor?

“Harrington.” Eddie grumbles, mouth full of lime jello. “Who paid you to be here today?”

Remembers Steve’s name… last name.

“No one.” Steve makes himself comfy in the vinyl armchair. “Call me crazy, but I’m not too big on taking lunch money from sophomores.”

Speaking of which…

“Do you know you know how old you are?”

Eddie crumples the plastic jello container. “You’re a patronizing sack of shit.”

Steve rolls his eyes, starts to write down:

Eddie doesn’t know his age.

“Twenty.”

Eddie does know his age (20).

“Swell.” Steve fakes his amusement. The kids are much better at cheerleading Eddie along in this process. But Steve’s poker face is nonexistent. Sarcasm and assholery occupy every seat in his brain these days.

They go through a few more questions before Eddie begins to get tired. He’s tired a lot, even though the coma knocked him out for almost four months.

Guess holding hands with Death really takes it out of a person.

Eddie doesn’t know his birthday.

But Eddie does remember it’s in the winter (has a memory of seeing leafless trees from an early childhood birthday party).

Eddie remembers his uncle’s name.

Eddie doesn’t remember which street he lives on.

Eddie has a headache (that’s not a memory thing - he’s just told Steve a thousand times now).

“I’ll let you rest.” Steve folds the binder shut, sort of desperate to do anything to get Eddie to stop whining. Seriously, he thought this guy was funnier pre-bat attack.

Eddie doesn’t remember he has a sense of humor.

“You don’t have to stay, you know.” Eddie settles into his pillows.

Steve shrugs, puts his hands behind his head. “I took the bus from Hawkins today. The next one doesn’t leave for another few hours.”

“Still… it’s a city, right? You can go explore or whatever. Be a tourist.”

Yeah Eddie’s persuasive skills aren’t completely back either, it’s all very half-assed.

“Been here before.” Steve lounges deeper into the squeaky chair material. “I’m good.”

“Probably haven’t seen everything is all I’m saying -”

“Do you want me to leave that bad?”

Steve doesn’t shout, but his tone takes up space. Makes the room feel crowded with accusations and cutthroat honesty.

Eddie stares back hard. Sometimes, he doesn’t look like Eddie Munson - he looks like this war victim with knotted-up hair and sulky brown eyes.

Like a John Doe cadaver - tagging his foot with the possibility of Eddie Munson.

Anyways, that’s how he looks right now as he stares at Steve. Barely Eddie.

“Just. I don’t know you.” That’s a shitty ass comeback for someone with a memory-tank that’s perpetually blinking with the low-engine light on. 

Eddie continues with his weak argument. “Were we close enough back home that you’d stay here while I sleep?”

Eddie doesn’t remember Steve ignoring him in high school for four years.

Steve finds no reason to lie. “No. We weren’t close at all.”

“Right.” Eddie nods once. “So why do this? What are you getting out of this?”

This is a complicated situation to explain to anyone, let alone to someone with fuzzy comprehension abilities. But Steve gives it a whirl:

“Look, we have mutual friends that are… younger. Dustin’s age. And whether I like it or not, they’re like siblings to me now - I’d do anything for them. But they’re in school, they can’t be here every day like I can.”

“Why can you be here?” Eddie asks.

“I lost my job.”

Eddie attempts sympathy. “Sorry.”

Eh, Steve gives him a B-minus.

“Didn’t like it anyways.” Steve reassure him plainly. “The point, I’m doing this for them. For you too, but they’re the anchors in this.”

Eddie thinks for a moment - readjusts to laying on his side, facing Steve. “Won’t you need a new job eventually?”

“Nah. Trust Fund Baby.” Steve points both thumbs at his chest.

“Yeesh.” Eddie rolls to the other side, away from Steve. Disgusted by his comment, yet still chuckling very quietly.

Okay… Eddie does remember he has a sense of humor (just a teensy bit).

His breathing becomes long and hard - sleep heavy breathing. It doesn’t take long, sleep seems more natural to Eddie right now than being awake.

Steve watches him for a moment. There’s always the ghostly-distant fear that Eddie might stop breathing. He’s done it before - four months ago and once more while he was still at the hospital in Hawkins.

Max is still asleep. Steve hates thinking about that detail because it’s cruel. This twisted game that the universe is playing is truly unjust. 

Like an Almighty Asshole rolled Eddie’s stupid dice and decided, ‘I’ll let one of your friends wake up, but he won’t remember that he battled along side you in the trenches of darkness. Take it or leave it, douchebag.’

Steve will take it.

Eddie is still sleeping when Steve decides to head out - the bus will be arriving soon and he’s gotta get a window seat. Needs control over the window cause he gets carsick way too fucking easily these days.

“Heading out?” Eddie mumbles, eyes not even open.

“Yeah - sorry.” Steve doesn’t know why he whispered that. “Didn’t think I should wake you.”

“I gotcha. I’m assuming you’ll be back tomorrow?”

Huh… Steve thinks there might be a hint of implication that Eddie wants him to come back tomorrow. Interesting.

“Your memory isn’t as shitty as you think it is.” He’s overly smug when he says it. 

Eddie gives him a closed-lip smile. Only Dustin and Wayne receive those.

“Want me to pick up some food on my way in?”  Steve decides to give generosity a try, since Eddie is tolerable enough to give him a smile. “Get you off of this lousy hospital meal-plan temporarily?”

The smile is gone. “Nah, you don’t have to do that.”

Right.

Eddie definitely remembers how to be Stubborn with a capital ‘S’

But Steve is a Trust Fund Baby, so he’s unfazed with difficult behaviors. He can match difficulties all damn day if he wanted to.

Which he does.

“Suit yourself, Munson.” Steve acts so uncaring. Very uppity and douchey. “I’m thinking Chinese takeout for me personally.”

“Cool.”

“Cool. See you tomorrow then.”

There’s a pause, so Steve takes that as his sign to turn the handle, get the hell out of here.

“Steve?” Eddie calls weakly just before he shuts the door behind him.

He cracks it open, peeks his face back in. “Yeah?”

Eddie sighs. “Kung Pao Chicken.”

“Excellent choice.”

Eddie gives him another closed-lip smile.

Steve grins wildly, with all of his teeth. “In fact, I think I’ll do the same.”

And as Steve claims his middle seat on the bus, he pulls the binder back out of his backpack to add one more note for the day:

Eddie remembers that he likes Kung Pao Chicken.

[awkward-halfhug]

probably not the best sedative | eleventh doctor x reader

summary: the Doctor's finally asleep. Which is nice, but you have to pee

chapter 1 2 3 4 5

contents: fluff, cuddles, full bladders being the enemy of cute moments

(also on my ao3)

1.2k

The Doctor is insufferable.

This was the first thing out of your mouth to him when he returned from his half-hour's worth of rest that you had forced him to take. You hadn't expected a full 8 hours from him, but at least one hour would've been nice. 

According to the doctor, he was going to sleep, that was definitely his plan, and he was definitely trying to do so, until he just so happened to remember that Time Lords are physiologically unable to sleep all by their lonesome. Something about cats?

Needless to say, that was one of the most ridiculous things the you had ever heard him say (and you travel with the doctor, so that's saying something.)

And yet...

And yet, you think as you peer down at the Gallifreyan currently curled up on your lap, snoring softly, maybe it wasn't as ridiculous a 'fun fact' as you originally thought.

It has been, not one, not two, not eight, but twelve whole hours since the Doctor came traipsing into your room with what seemed like yet another excuse as to why he was incapable of taking it easy.

Twelve whole hours since you rolled your eyes at his antics and told him, with a challenging quirk of your brow, "Fine, then you should have no problem as long as you're not alone, right? There's a stack of blankets over there, you can sleep next to me while I read." 

Twelve whole hours since he grabbed a blanket, almost eagerly, and settled himself down on the couch, without a hint of reluctance. He had wiggled around until he was apparently comfy, nuzzled his head against your leg where he laid it, and let out a little contented noise that made your heart swell.

Twelve hours that he slept like a baby through, and possibly might even be coming onto thirteen hours, except you really, really have to pee, and unfortunately you think you're going to have to wake him soon or your bladder might well explode.

But a few more minutes won't hurt, you think.

At one point he seemed a bit restless, perhaps because of some dream he was having, or maybe he was just uncomfortable. So you tried to calm him. Hesitantly, you reached out and gently ran your fingers through his messy locks. He calmed almost instantly, and you marveled at that a bit. The more you stroked his hair, the more relaxed he became, and so with one hand you continued petting him (and that's effectively what you was doing; petting him), while you held your book open with your other hand. 

You had to stop petting after a while, your arm tiring of the repetitive task, and immediately the Doctor's sleeping face twisted into the cutest little pout. He even made a little whining sound that you wishe you had recorded, for future teasing purposes, but alas your phone was in the other room.

His head is heavy (must be all that infinite knowledge he claims to carry around) and it's long since cut off the circulation to your feet. But he looks so peaceful that you couldn't bring yourself to move him.

And truthfully, it's nice to be able to look at him this close. To study his features, all the little details that people miss because he never stays still long enough to notice them.

Like, for instance, you noticed somewhere around the fourth hour that he actually does have eyebrows. All this time you had secretly thought his species just didn't grow them. You had thought that was just a feature of the Gallifreyan race, and he would most definitely laugh at you for the assumption, so it's a good thing you realized before you asked him about it.

Carefully, so as not to wake him, you had run just the tips of your fingers across his delicate (and near invisible) eyebrows. They were so soft. You did that a few more times before deciding he must be a pretty heavy sleeper when he actually was able to sleep like this.

And so you let your fingertips trail across more of his face. His skin is so smooth, you had noted, as your fingers glided down the arch of the Doctor's nose, across his sharp cheekbones, his strong jawline, his funny chin...his lips. His lips were so soft under the pads of your fingers. You wondered if--

You had wrenched your hand away from him when you realized how creepy all that had been. Had you been checking him out? While he was asleep? Your face had probably turned crimson, you're sure, and you're incredibly grateful that he hadn't woken up while you were doing...whatever it was you had been doing. Just the thought of how he might've reacted to that has you blushing in embarrassment again.

You push the thought from your mind forcefully and attempt to focus on your book, but you're unable to focus with the Doctor snuggling into a different position on your lap. This time, he clings to your knees like they're his favorite pillow, and once he's sufficiently comfortable, a contented little smile on his face, he starts doing something that you would never have expected, even from him.

The Doctor starts purring.

Actually, honest to goodness, purring. You have to stifle your giggles, which only makes the full bladder thing that much harder to ignore. And yet now you really don't want to get up. The Doctor is purring! Again, where is your phone when you need it?

You reluctantly decide to get up finally, when you can think of literally nothing else except your bladder.

You place your book down on the side table next to you and carefully, gently, you unlatch the Doctor's hands from your knees and lift him up enough for you to slip out from under him. You place a nearby pillow under his head and lower him onto it. He latches onto it, and, when he doesn't appear to be waking, you run to the bathroom as quietly as you can manage without sacrificing speed. You really, really, really need to pee.

~~

Returning to your room, bladder no longer crying out for your attention, you find the Doctor blessedly still asleep.

You have a decision to make. Your legs have just regained feeling, and your back is actually aching pretty badly from sitting upright like that for around thirteen hours straight (had you really sat there for thirteen hours? Had the Doctor really stayed still for thirteen hours?), and you desperately want to crawl into your bed and sleep yourself.

But the Doctor said he's a social sleeper. What if he doesn't sleep well without your presence? And besides...you really want to hear him make that purring sound again.

The choice is easy.

Grabbing an extra pillow for your poor back, you make your way back over to your couch. Lifting him up (he really is heavier than he looks), you settle down on the cushions and gently place him back onto your lap, which he takes to like a happy kitten once again.

The Doctor's purring starts back up as he turns towards you and wraps both arms around your waist.

A slow, happy smile blooms on your face, as you brings your hand to his hair for more of those pets he loves so much.

"The things I do for this man" she try to grumble to the TARDIS. But your voice is too full of affection to pull off annoyance, both you and the TARDIS know it, so you give up the pretense with a happy sigh.

The TARDIS hums knowingly.

"Yeah", you agree. "I guess he's worth it."

thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider reblogging/commenting, it means a lot! ♡

[icaruspendragon]

I got tagged in one of those "get to know me" tag games back in 2021 and I wanna see how 2024 me's answers compare!

2021:

1. Nickname: berk

2. Zodiac: Gemini

3. Height: 5’4

4. hogwarts house: it’s been years since I last took the test, but Gryffindor

5. Last thing I googled: yellow wallpaper. The short story haha.

6. Song stuck in my head: movement by hozier

7. Number of followers: 1021

8. Amount of sleep: 4ish hours recently

9. Lucky number: I don’t think I have one but my favorite is 27

10. Dream job: something where I get to help people

11. Wearing: mom jeans, black turtleneck, gray quater zip for the university of Mississippi chapter of delta gamma. Thrift store finds, ya know?

12. Favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut

13. Favorite instrument: cello

14. Aesthetic: someone once told me that I looked like “every kind of lesbian.” So whatever that means.

15. Favorite song: uhh, currently it’s probably “would that i” by hozier

16. Favorite animal noise: kitty cat purrs

17. Random: today at work some lady told me that everytime she comes in she looks for me because I make the best drinks. I haven’t stopped smiling bc of that :’)

2024:

1. Nickname: berk, professor alpha

2. Zodiac: gemini

3. Height: 5’4

4. hogwarts house: once again it's been years since i last took it, but my result that time was slytherin

5. Last thing I googled: "how does a pipe bomb work? I'm not gonna make one I'm just curious /gen"

6. Song stuck in my head: nothing at the moment, but according to receiptify my top ten most listened to songs for November so far are:

man or muppet - jason segel, walter

blue sky & the painter - bastille

marie & polonium - bastille

intros & narrators - bastille

eve & paradise lost - bastille

red wine & wilde - bastille

seasons & narcissus - bastille

fratelli d'italia - this is the italian national anthem lmao

the rattlin bog - seamus kennedy

nobody's soldier - hozier

7. Number of followers: 14,841

8. Amount of sleep: not enough

9. Lucky number: my original answer still stands. big fan of 27 still, too.

10. Dream job: I don't dream of being a laborer, but I still very much want to something that helps people.

11. Wearing: biker shorts and a 2024 gran premio dell'emilia romagna crewneck. welcome back princess diana

12. Favorite author: opal_bullets of ao3 fame

13. Favorite instrument: banjo

14. Aesthetic: on a spectrum that goes from academic queer to refined-button-up bisexual

15. Favorite song: it changes somewhat often. my all time favorite is icarus by bastille but my current is the don reno version of feudin' banjos

16. Favorite animal noise: when my cat groans like she's a blue-collar dad whose long day at work and just wants to decompress in his recliner

17. Random: I was very brave and also very sexy and I decided to go back to school after dropping out at the end of my senior years four years ago and I registered for classes this week and I am not going to let myself self sabotage and quit before I've even started because of anxiety-driven-fear-of-the-unkown-control-issues because it's okay to be scared. you just can't let that stop you and I'm done letting it stop me !!!

[longing-for-the-past-times]

finding out it's your birthday

task force 141 x reader

synopsis: It's your birthday, but you don't know how to tell your teammates about it

notes: don't really know how to properly describe this, but it's based on this request and my personal experience of having to spend my birthday at work (no, I did not bring them baked goods, just sweets from the shop). Really short, not proofread, no plot.

comments and reblogs are always appreciated🙈

warnings: none

find it on ao3 masterlist

"and now I am dreaming and you're singing at my birthday// and I've never seen you smile so big" - moon song

There were a lot of potential ways you could have spent your birthday, but running through the narrow hallways of the base with a heavy backpack slung over a shoulder definitely hadn't been one of them

You almost crashed into other three operators, including König from KorTac who had the common sense to place his heavy hands on your shoulders in an attempt to steady you before you ran him over in your rush to get to the meeting room

Laswell had advanced the hour the post-mission debriefing was supposed to take place and it ended up clashing with your own schedule, the one day you decided to organise your actions into one and now you were late by almost 5 minutes. Which wouldn't seem like much to some, but being a member of Task Force 141 meant you needed to uphold a certain standard.

But it was your birthday and even if you were 99% sure no one was actually aware of it, you'd spent the morning baking oat cookies and muffins, and carefully packing them into casseroles. You also tried to bring them to the destination with minimal damage, but now you could only hope there was something edible left of the baked goods.

"I'm sorry I'm late!", you meekly excused yourself, taking a seat between Ghost and Soap and blushing slightly when feeling Price's judging glare.

"Anyway, as I was saying when you tried to infiltrate through this crack in the perimeter…"

Slightly tapping your left foot against the floor, you couldn't focus on Laswell's words. What if they didn't like the cookies - you were never able to make them both soft and chewy - or what if the muffins stuck to the muffin liners? Did you put too many chocolate chips in them?

"Y/N? What's your take on this?"

You looked at Price with an alarmed expression, panic bubbling up in your chest upon seeing the questioning looks of the others. You didn't catch the last part of the question - were they asking about your birthday? Laswell must have known, she was the one responsible for all the intelligence after all.

So you did what seemed the most logical thing to do. You opened the backpack and placed the plastic casseroles on the table, unaware that everyone else in the room was literally frozen in place.

"So yeah, it's my birthday today and I made some cookies and muffins and thought it would be nice to share them with you and… that's not what you were talking about, is it?"

Your words trailed as you realised that the timing wasn't as ideal as you planned. At least, now you were sure they hadn't known: Price's eyes were widened comically, and Gaz was repeatedly blinking at you in confusion and disbelief. Soap let out a thunderous laugh as he instantly pulled you into a bear hug and Ghost… you couldn't tell his expression under the mask, but the blank look in his eyes meant he was probably still wrapping his head around it

"How about we forget any of this happened and I do it again after the debrief is over?" A blush spread on your cheeks as you tried to put the casseroles back into the backpack, but you were stopped by Gaz's firm grip.

"Are you kidding? It's your birthday, we should celebrate - go out for drinks and do karaoke and-"

Price and Kate shared a knowing look between themselves and shook their heads in defeat. Before being able to ask them what was the matter, Kate closed the laptop and began to stuff the files back into the manilla folders

"Happy birthday, Y/N! We will resume this tomorrow. And now tell me, what kind of oats did you use for the cookies, plain or instant? My wife's been trying to make them this chewy, but she never seems to get the recipe right."

It was your turn to open your mouth in disbelief when you saw Price joining Kate at the table, securing a casserole of oat cookies just for themselves

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?", he asked in a gentle tone, fishing breadcrumbs from his moustache.

"I… It's not that important, I mean…"

You couldn't help but flinch when someone placed a hand on your shoulder, squeezing it slightly, as if in reassurance. You turned your look to Ghost, who was holding a pink muffin in his gloved hand. His mask was lifted up to his nose, revealing his tight-lipped smile:

"Don't ever say that again, ok? That is all the more reason to celebrate it. You were the one who got us out safe from the bunker after all…"

And you could swear you saw his lips twitching into a smile, a playful glimmer dancing in his eyes as he bit into the cupcake