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gutsby · 5 months ago

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If You Like Piña Coladas

Pairing: Neighbor!Joel x Reader

Summary: You secretly make Joel a profile on Hinge. Then he shows you exactly why he doesn’t need one.

Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Oral (f!receiving). Foodplay (i.e., Joel fucks you with a fruit popsicle). Girthy, unspecified age gap. Mentions of blood.

Note: Loosely inspired by ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’ by Rupert Holmes…minus the part about mutual infidelity LOL

Word count: 8.0k

Joel Miller had been on his own for too long.

The least you could get him was a date. Or even just laid.

Likes: Long walks on the beach

Actually…he hadn’t seen a coastline in ten years, at least. You backspaced slowly and then lowered Joel’s phone.

What did that old grump like to do, anyway?

In all the years you’d been living next door to Mr. Miller, you hadn’t seen him take pleasure in much of anything besides mowing his lawn, rolling his eyes, and screaming like a fiend alongside your dad at whatever game was on.

Likes: College football. Quality time with friends :-)

Nope. Corny as fuck. Backbackbackback.

You wiggled your thumbs over the keyboard in muted concentration. You knew you didn’t have much longer. Joel was currently engrossed in one of the three things he loved most—mowing long, careful rows through his backyard—and you were supposed to be watching the season finale of the Mandalorian while he did. That had been the pretext of your visit, anyway. It’d been a little over an hour since he’d stepped outside and a little under thirty since you’d let your curiosity get the better of you and seized his phone, so you figured he’d be back soon.

You had to think of something witty, and do it quick.

Feeling inspiration strike a second later, you typed:

Likes: Piña Coladas. Getting caught in the rain. Making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape.

Perfect. Easy. Everybody loved that song in the ‘70s.

Having thus put the finishing touch on Joel’s profile, you leaned back and let out a contented sigh. You scrolled. Flicked through photo after photo of your very own hand-picked selection and smiled, feeling proud.

You’d started him off strong and suave with a picture from Tommy’s wedding, wearing a tux that fit him well. Then a cool, casual snap of him at a brewery. A photo taken out on the lake, life jacket snug and showing off a sliver of his broad, bare chest. Then a picture of him at your graduation—you made sure to crop yourself out—followed by a candid shot of him playing dress-up with his niece. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that all the yet-unknown, lovely folks of Hinge would eat this shit up.

You set the radius to 100 miles. Beefed up the age range and gender preferences to include virtually every living soul over 30, tweaked a few more prompts to be cooler, then scrolled through his newly-minted profile. Again.

Oh, and— shit, wait.

Quickly, you toggled to the phone’s settings and disabled all notifications for Hinge. Then you grabbed the app and wrestled it somewhere deep within all the utilities ones that no one ever used. This had to stay hidden for now.

And, just as you stretched your thumb to make a couple last changes to his page, the back door thundered open.

Joel stumbled in, half-hunched. Rubbing his face with a towel and treading slow, heavy steps through the living room. With your heart about to burst from your throat and your impulses blown to shit, you panicked and crammed his phone in your shorts—like, in them.

Joel’s phone was just then settling above the groove of your ass when the man collapsed on the loveseat across the room. Instinctively, you drew your legs to your chest as Joel groaned and pulled the towel away from his face.

“The beast is at it again,” he declared, expression grim.

Before you could ask who ‘beast’ might be, he clarified:

“Marlene’s shit-for-brains labradoodle won’t quit diggin’ holes under my fence. Whole thing’s gonna fall if he—”

You didn’t mean to be rude, but you had to tune out the rest of what he said; your butt squirmed against the sofa as your neighbor’s phone traveled perilously down and took partial lodging between your cheeks. Then stuck.

There was no way you were getting caught like this. One stray phone call or text and you would have the world’s most jarring ringtone buzzing straight up your ass. And a very uncomfortable conversation with Joel, to be sure.

So, while he droned on about the chaos being wrought by the paws of old Sparky, you nodded to the window.

“Aw shit, Mr. Miller…did he just…dig up another?” You feigned surprise as you stared over Joel’s shoulder at a hole that didn’t even exist. Then, when he’d jumped to his feet and growled ‘No fuuuuuckin’ shot’ as he made his way over to the window, you acted fast and pulled the phone out of your ass and stuck the old, cracked thing on top of the coffee table where it’d been last and stood.

Before he could see—or say—anything else, you seized your own phone and made a swift beeline for the door.

Shouting over your shoulder, probably sounding like a fucking lunatic but not particularly caring either way:

“DAD’SCALLINGMEGOTTAGOMISTERMILLERBYE.”

And you left. You had no desire to explain your baseless, bullshit observation or why his phone was currently covered in a thin sheen of sweat from your butt.

You’d never seen so many roses in your life.

Joel Miller could legitimately give the whole Bachelor franchise a run for its money with all the goddamn virtual flowers he’d been getting from his Hinge admirers.

It’d been a week before you’d finally gotten the chance to abduct his phone again and check his ‘likes’ for yourself. Honestly, you hadn’t been expecting much—Joel was hot, but more so in a niche-ish sort of DILF-sexy way. You figured he’d be more of an acquired taste, really.

Once you’d scrolled through just over a hundred different messages, you realized at once how wrong you were.

‘GNAWING at the bars of my enclosure.’

‘Daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry, I mean, Daddy?’

‘Need you in a way that is concerning to feminism.’

‘Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.’

And that was truly just the tip of the iceberg when it came to all the wild, chaotic, and horny messages Joel had received over the last week. You couldn’t believe it.

You got to firing off responses as fast as you could. Sitting cross-legged on the back porch while your dad, Joel, Tommy, and a dozen other neighbors were busy grilling burgers and soaking up as much sun as possible.

The only other person who hadn’t joined them was Tess.

She peered over your shoulder and fought back a laugh.

“That man is a fuckin’ menace to society, I swear.”

“No, we’re a menace to society. All about team effort,” you corrected her as you typed up a lightning-quick ‘Hey ;-)’ to each message, fingers moving fast.

“He doesn’t even know you’re doing this!”

“He will soon enough,” you mumbled. Grinning. Then, “Mission’s not over until that old man gets his dick wet.”

You’d probably made it through seventy or so replies and got to go back-and-forth with a couple hot prospects by the time you heard footsteps trailing up the steps—heavy ones that you instantly recognized as Joel’s. Without another word, you exited the app, turned the phone off, and chucked it to Tess, who placed it discreetly onto the porch railing where Joel had left it.

That phone really should have had a passcode on it.

Two weeks later, it did.

You saw it as soon as you’d slid your thumb up the screen in the comfort of Joel’s living room—over at his place pretending to be watching your Star Wars spin-off again—and you felt your heart jump up in your throat.

Your passcode is required to enable Face ID.

Since when the fuck did your neighbor have a passcode? Or even know how to make Face ID a thing? Or use it?

These questions and a dozen more were thrumming through your skull when you heard the screech of the back door once again. This time, instead of taking his sweet time on his yard work, Joel had only been gone five minutes. You swallowed a scream and did that dumb, reflexive thing you had before: shoved his phone in your shorts and thrust yourself back into the couch.

Practically shaking when Joel stepped into the room.

Of course, he wasn’t sweaty. His shirt wasn’t smudged with flecks of dirt or swaths of green from the grass outdoors, nor were his Wranglers the slightest bit muddied. He was perfectly clean in a plain white tee, jeans, and boots. You couldn’t help but notice how tight the short sleeves of his shirt hugged his biceps, and then you realized it was because his arms were crossed.

Joel regarded you with a look as long and as careful as the rows he was supposed to be mowing out in the middle of his backyard right now, and he let out a breath.

“Guess what,” he said.

“What?” you squeaked.

Your eyes widened without meaning to, and when Joel plopped down on the sofa beside you, you felt a shiver pulse through your body. Joel stretched his big, wide, denim-clad legs out as he leaned back, and you had to force yourself not to jump when his knee struck yours.

“I’ve gotta brush up on my Gen Z lingo,” he announced.

Wh— okay? What the fuck?

Just as you opened your mouth to speak, and feeling the slightest twinge of relief at this declaration, Joel started to tug something out of his pocket. It took you several seconds to see it, then a couple more just to work out what it was, then Joel was squeezing it. Flipping it open.

An old Motorola Razr? When did he get that?

“See, I, uh— met a girl last week,” Joel resumed, plainly careless in the way he fingered the thing in his grip.

Your chest tightened. Had he really?

“She’s a little on the…younger side. You might know her.”

Oh shit. Was Joel banging one of your friends?

You swallowed hard and nodded for him to continue. You pretended not to notice when he flipped the phone open and left it that way—starting to thumb through the keys to do something on it. You fought the urge to take a look.

To distract yourself, you watched his face instead. It was lax.

“She said somethin’ kinda funny last night, and I—” Joel paused to let out a breath of a laugh, and you nearly broke down to steal a glance at what he was looking at.

Narrowly, you resisted. And it was a lucky thing, too—the next thing you knew, Joel’s gaze was fixed right on you.

“Y’know what she said to me?” he asked.

“What?”

Joel blinked. You probably should’ve heard the click of a little button on the phone he was holding, but you didn’t.

You did feel the vibration of another phone under your ass a second later, though. That one was unmistakable.

That one was Joel’s.

Out of one more stupid, senseless instinct, you coughed. Loud. Like the momentary scratch in your throat might reasonably mask the sound and sensation of a small hunk of metal buzzing between your butt and the couch.

It didn’t, of course. You sat and stared at Joel as it rang.

Slowly, he brought the Razr to his ear. At one corner of his mouth, you could discern the first inklings of a smirk.

“Wanna answer that?” he hummed, nodding to your rear.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

You weren’t sure how you even had the strength to do it, but you reached back and plucked his phone out of your shorts. With your gaze still stuck to his, you answered it. Put it to your own ear out of habit—and a little bit of fear.

“Hello?” you said, stupidly.

“Hey.”

The second you heard Joel’s voice rumble out beside you on the couch and across the line, your heart dropped. Ironclad confirmation of all you didn’t want to believe.

You squeezed his phone even tighter and sincerely hoped the man couldn’t hear the wild, erratic beat of your heart as it throbbed and thudded in your chest. The noise was almost too loud for you to hear anything else, too fast-paced and frantic to discern another word until:

“Can you tell me what a ‘Hinge DILF’ is, darlin’?”

You rose to your feet, scarcely even realizing it.

You had to get off of that couch, had to get away from him and come clean, as calmly as you possibly could. The phone fell out of your grasp just as he ended the call.

“Shit— Mr. Miller— I-I-I-I can explain.”

Swiftly, suddenly, Joel recovered his phone from the floor. He set the other device aside and propped his feet on the coffee table, lounging a little more comfortably now that he could scroll the phone at his leisure. Before he did, though, he made a point to wipe the screen.

“Nothin’ I love more than ass sweat on my phone.”

Your cheeks heated to a thousand degrees.

You wished the ground below your feet would open up and swallow you whole. It was like you were floating somewhere over your own body, unable to move or speak. From this vantage point, and still paralyzed with fear, you could see Joel opening Hinge on his phone.

“Crazy how long the stuff sticks,” he mused aloud, starting to peruse his likes, “When you got up and high-tailed it outta my place that first day, I thought I must’ve been seein’ things—what with how wet my phone was.”

You would’ve closed your eyes in utter resignation if you’d had the strength. Joel had known this entire time.

The old man continued to scroll, cavalier as ever.

“I figured ya might’ve been havin’ some…personal time of your own on my phone—maybe your old man blocked PornHub on the home WiFi or somethin’—but then I kept diggin’ around…” As Joel spoke, his actions seemed to mirror his words, and he was really scoping out the app. Combing through profiles and roses and streams of old messages that you had sent, then shrugged to himself.

“…and all I found added up to jackshit,” he concluded.

This time, you managed to meet his gaze when he looked back up, but really, you hardly saw him at all.

Joel was smiling.

“I did see a text, though.”

He waved his phone, where a few messages were visible, though not legible, to you. You didn’t try to read them.

“‘Welcome to Hinge! Reply ‘C’ to confirm your phone number and get started,’” Joel rattled the first one off.

Of course you’d forgotten to delete the fucking text.

“And I know my memory’s all but gone to shit, but I didn’t remember ever replying ‘C’ myself, so then—”

“It was a joke,” you choked out, cutting him off.

Joel cocked a brow. He leaned even further back in his seat and crossed his feet. You were already vomiting words before he could attempt to get one out himself.

“N-Not a funny joke,” you clarified, voice shaking, “Fuckin’ stupid as shit, I just wanted to see— y’know— me and Tess were talkin’ ‘bout how hard it must be…in your…in your fifties— it’s just hard finding somebody.”

Joel didn’t know what you were trying to say, and his face showed it. You didn’t know what you were saying.

“So you think my sex life is a joke?” Mr. Miller quipped.

“NO!”

You hadn’t meant to say it so loudly. You quieted down:

“No. I didn’t…no. I just wanted to see who would…”

“…wanna fuck me?” he finished, blunt as ever.

If your face had been hot before, surely it was about to burst into flames right now. You didn’t get like this—not around Joel Miller, not around anybody—but here you were, chest constricting with humiliation and shame, wishing you were anywhere in the world but the place you were, and Mr. Miller was smiling, he was still smiling, and it was all you could do to just stand there and…stare.

And wince when tears started to prick at your waterline.

As if this day couldn’t get any more mortifying, you were actually crying in front of your neighbor, nose stinging and beginning to leak. Stupid, stuttered gasps leaving your lungs like you’d just learned to breathe yesterday, vision blurring the man in front of you and then dimming, momentarily, as you brought your hands up to your eyes and tried to shield this wretched display from his view.

You paced a couple hasty, blind steps away. You pressed the heels of your palms so hard into your sockets that stars started to dance behind your lids and a pain began to stab your brain. You continued to sob. It was just then dawning on you that you’d have to make a run for it now and never set foot near this man’s property again. You’d have to lock yourself away, never get to go to a barbecue again, probably face a restraining order from Joel and—

“FUCK!” you shrieked.

With all the grace of a giraffe on roller skates, you tumbled over Joel’s end table and took a nosedive into the floor. Your hands had no choice but to fly out in front of you in an effort to break your fall, and of course, they had to land on a lone, stray beer bottle on the ground.

One lovely little container of Corona Extra went splintering under the weight of your whole body, and briefly, before the thing exploded beneath your palm, you swore you could’ve heard a tiny, self-righteous voice:

‘¡La Vida Más Fina!’

Fuck you, Corona.

You’d never been more embarrassed in your life. Even if the bottle had managed to roll far enough to nick just the edge of your hand, slicing a minuscule strip of skin beneath your thumb, you still wanted to cry even harder. You looked pathetic, crumpled up beside this man’s couch with your wrist pinched between your fingers and your tears paving two steady streams down your cheeks. Hedged in by a field of shattered glass, you cast a look around yourself and whimpered. Then cursed. And cried.

You heard the shards around you crackle and snap even more when a pair of boots stepped in and crushed them.

Joel made easy work of your deadweight frame—your body hanging limply in his grip as he hoisted you up to your feet. Your vision was still as bleary as it had ever been, nose running and stinging and still struggling to take in breaths, but Mr. Miller’s hold was steady. He guided you into the kitchen and straight over to the sink.

Water ran. Wounds stung. A couple more sobs clawed out of your throat while Joel held your hand under the faucet, dabbed a paper towel across your hand to dry it off, then disappeared, momentarily, to retrieve what you assumed would be a first aid kit from the other room.

Instead, Mr. Miller returned with a fifth of Maker’s Mark. You eyed the bottle of whiskey in his hand and grimaced.

“N-Nuh-uh,” you blubbered, emphatic, “No way, man.”

“Uh, yes way, man,” Joel mimicked your voice, nose scrunching for dramatic effect as he elevated the pitch, “Like, you totally need this antiseptic so you don’t die.”

“I don’t s-sound like that!”

“I don’t so-o-und like that!”

Of course your neighbor couldn’t be assed to show an ounce of compassion to another person for more than two minutes. He drew closer with the whiskey. When he grabbed your wrist, you huffed and shook your head.

“That’s gonna hurt. I don’t want it.”

“Oh, cry me a fuckin’ river.”

Though as soon as he’d said it, the man winced a little. Maybe that had been a bit too harsh. You sniffled hard.

“Fuck you, Miller— I-I was doin’ you a favor!” you spat.

Tears and snot becoming the fuel for part of your newfound indignation, you shot Joel a look and scowled. You wrenched your hand out of his grip and made a point to rebuff the bottle of liquor as you moved back, shaking your head again. Mr. Miller stood there and watched you.

“Only time you ever leave this fuckin’ house is when you’re hangin’ out with my dad or your brother, you haven’t got shit else to do around here but mow that fuckass lawn and jerk off— I was tryin’ to help you out! Get you laid like any normal guy would like, but no, no— you’ve gotta go and be the world’s biggest ASSHOLE about it, just like you are with everything else. I’m sorry.”

Deep down, you were and weren’t remorseful at all.

You were sorry you’d gotten caught, ate shit over a side table and got your palm fucked up by a bottle of beer.

You weren’t as sorry that Joel seemed to be regarding you as a joke now—something to tease and poke fun at. Trying to pour his makeshift disinfectant over your cut and force you to obey his orders because you were just too dumb to figure it out yourself, then mock your voice.

Then watch you with tightly knit brows, eyes scanning your face with a skepticism that was almost palpable.

Condescending old fuck.

“What? Ain’t got nothin’ to say to that?” you seethed. Emotions running high—and humiliation momentarily usurped by anger—you stared him down and dared him to speak. You didn’t care what he thought of you now.

If it had been in your interest to care, you probably would’ve looked a little harder at what the man’s body language was communicating to you in the meantime. What his mouth was evidently loath to say, his hands and feet hardly displayed the same reticence: he set the bottle aside and stepped closer to you. He stared back.

It wasn’t until he’d approached near enough, had closed the space between your body and his with barely more than an inch or two to spare, and glowered down at you, face frozen with a frown, that your brain got the hint that he might not be the type to chicken out. Or back down.

He reached behind you and opened a cabinet.

“A favor,” Joel echoed, and you could tell he was trying his hardest not to replicate your intonation as he said it.

He’d just marginally checked his douchebag predilection, was closing the cabinet door beside your head and was starting to rock back on his heels, when a little cylindrical glass swung low in your line of vision. Joel held the tumbler loosely, then lifted it and pointed with his pinky.

“You,” he said, accusing, “fuckin’ suck at those—favors.”

Your stomach clenched at the sight of a slight, impish smile just then starting to frame the sides of his mouth. The featherlight grip he kept fastened on the glass, the ease of his stance, even the jab of that stupid, rough finger, still pointing at you, all bordered on nauseating. You fixed him with a pitiless look as he leaned in again.

And when his knuckles brushed your side, you tried not to flinch. You arrested his gaze without a word and let the smug, sun-tanned, sweet-as-shit-pie son of a bitch have his fill ogling you back and closing in on the bottle.

“What? Having half the tri-county population on Hinge ready to suck you off isn’t really your style?” you jeered.

Joel popped the cap and poured his drink. He shrugged.

“They ain’t you.”

As casual as if he’d just told you the weather forecast for the week ahead, his favorite place to eat, or the mundane specs on a construction project he’d been saddled with for months. Nothing of note. Nothing unknown. Just a routine admission of truth that sent your head reeling.

“You wh— w— well that’s—” you stammered, equal parts astonishment and exasperation as he continued to feed you steady, unrelenting doses of that look: “GROSS!”

You were standing stock-still, forced to watch that blip of a grin morph into a full smirk, slowly. He had to be joking.

“You are…fucked in the head, Miller. That’s not funny.”

Now you were the one pointing. Joel was drinking.

“—and I’d never in a million years even think—”

The side of your palm began to throb. It bled.

Blood was trickling down your wrist, roaring like thunder in your skull as your heart thudded away, impatient.

Impatient.

Impatient, impatient, impleeeeeeeeease fuck me, Joel, PLEASE!

Your libido a filthy, rotten traitor to all the rest of your better sense, you continued to stand there and suffocate on words like something akin to acid reflux in the throat. Your thighs snapped together, your back collapsed with equal force against the rigid set of cabinets behind it, and slowly, almost excruciating this time, you felt the pulse between your legs give way to a bout of warmth.

That cockhungry slut governing your bodily functions was actually getting wet for this asshole, and you were powerless to the effects of her wily, DILF-lusting ways.

“Gross,” you uttered out loud, again, reflexively—face overlaid with a look of horror as the heat began to pool.

And, as though the man had been endowed with the gift of infrared vision, or else just an external thermostat to gauge how hot you’d gotten between your two sweating legs, Joel brightened. His gaze flirted down to that soft, unseasonably tepid spot with a knowing look and then—

“Gross,” he parroted back. The smile behind his eyes said he wasn’t disgusted at all, just teasing some more.

When he pinched your wrist to get back to the business of blotting out blood with a paper towel, he kept that smug look painted across his creased, ancient face.

“‘S’that why ya made a Hinge for me? ‘Cause I’m gross?” Mr. Miller applied pressure to the still-bleeding cut, then directed your other hand to hold the paper towel in place.

You shook your head.

“No,” you started, trying not to wince before he turned. Again, the man ambled out of the kitchen, only to come back momentarily—finally—with a long-awaited bandaid.

“I mean…yeah, you’re a perv, but that’s beside the point.”

Joel exhaled a little harder through his nose. He pressed the underside of your palm again, ensuring the bloodflow had stopped, then swapped the napkin for the bandage. The adhesive might’ve been in place for two seconds before he was retreating again; this time, to the fridge.

“Then what was the point?”

Joel yanked one door open. You glanced over your shoulder to the one that led out to the back porch.

The longer you stayed, the harder it would be to go.

Go.

GO!

“I don’t know,” you answered honestly.

From where you were standing, you weren’t sure why you’d decided to make Joel the profile in the first place. Your curiosity, for one thing, had been one hell of a persuasive motivator to getting you scrolling on Joel’s behalf, but why did you care one way or another if your neighbor was drowning in pussy or enduring Sahara desert-levels of dick deprivation at his big age? It sure as fuck wasn’t your business to care, and nothing about Joel Miller had ever intrigued you consistently enough to venture an inquiry about his personal life before, so…

“Why?”

Joel was looming overhead again, the force of his presence like a fist through your chest. In an effort to steady your breaths, you turned your gaze away from his.

“I should go.” You couldn’t have dodged his last question more clumsily, or pathetically, if you’d tried, “It’s…late.”

Outside, the midday sun was still high in the sky, and there was nowhere in the world you had to be, Joel knew.

“Okay,” he said at length.

Then he leaned in closer and held something out.

“At least take one for the road, alright?”

And he was smiling, almost kind.

You looked down and—shit.

There it was, clear as day: a creamy piña colada popsicle.

The sneaky, conceited motherfucker had remembered what you’d written in his dating profile. You winced.

You accepted the cocktail popsicle without a word.

‘Thanks’ or ‘You’re a fucking pig, Miller’ likely would’ve sufficed for a farewell on any account, but by then, you were far too shell-shocked—and frankly, incredulous—of everything that had just transpired over the course of the last thirty minutes. You didn’t thank Mr. Miller, nor insult him by likening him to swine or any other thing; you left.

Your feet carried you fast out of his house.

Down the steps of his back porch, across pristine, power-washed concrete, past seemingly endless beds of hibiscus blossoms, marigolds, cape plumbago, and those god-awful periwinkle plants—who the fuck enjoyed gardening in a heatwave, anyway?—you practically sprinted away in a fugue state until the toes of your shoes hit the edge of your lawn, then you stopped.

“FUCK!”

You’d forgotten your phone.

It felt as though your body were turning in slow motion, and for a second, you seriously considered abandoning the device altogether and begging your dad for another. Then you set your sights on the wide, uninviting exterior of the back of your neighbor’s house, the place you’d just been hauling ass to escape, and almost rolled your eyes.

Joel was leaning back against the frame of his open back door, arms crossed, expression smug as he watched you.

It was extraordinarily difficult to throw a half-decent punch at a man while wielding a popsicle in your hand.

“Give it back!” you barked.

“Give what back?” Joel grinned, easily side-stepping what struck him as neither a punch nor a slap—in fact, the hit never struck him at all. He laughed as it missed.

“You know what.”

Of course, you’d gone back. Of course, Joel had tried to play dumb and pretend like you’d never left your phone behind at all. And of course, he hadn’t budged until you’d threatened to shove your left foot so far up his ass his dentist would be picking toes out of his teeth for weeks.

‘Violent little thing, ain’t ya?’ Joel had replied, chuckling.

Then, when he’d attempted to brush you aside with a patronizing wave of his hand and an admonition to run on back to daddy and quit buggin’ me, all bets were off. You’d aimed right for center mass and nearly dropped your frozen treat with how hard you’d shoved his chest.

That was how the conversation had started.

That was how the so-called ‘altercation’ had come to be—Joel easily swatting you off and indulging you no further than to chuckle and laugh and taunt you like an older brother who was faced with a sibling half his size—and all the while, your injured hand was throbbing again. White, sticky rivers of melted popsicle now trickled down your wrist instead of blood, and you were just as pissed.

“Listen—” Joel began, catching a fist meant for his face.

“Gimme my fuckin’ phone, Miller!”

“—you—”

“Can go to hell.”

“—owe me.”

“Owe you?!”

You stopped. Your weak, one-handed assault was halted just long enough to peer into Joel’s eyes, and the gaze that met yours was solid. Sincere as you’d ever seen it and blinking slow as the chocolate browns of his irises moved lower over you. Whether they were drinking you in, sizing you up, or merely plotting your demise by calculated turns, you could have been no more certain, or prepared to hear, what came out of his mouth next:

“Wanted to do me a favor, didn’t ya? C’mere.”

And the next thing you knew—or felt—was one thick finger hooking into your belt loops. One swift tug in his direction, another light push toward the old wood railing to your side, and then more fingers crowding in, crawling over, seizing the coarse denim material and pulling hard like the thing was the single most annoying impediment.

“Take these off,” Joel grunted.

You were too stunned to move. Even breathing felt like a chore, every last sense elevated to impossible heights, it wasn’t surprising at all when Joel just went and did it all himself. In a blink, your shorts were yanked down and then dropped to your ankles, your legs guided backward in shuffled steps, and then, nearly tripping in the fabric at your feet, you fell back, ass smacking the flat railing. You winced at the warm, knotty texture of the cedar beneath you and, out of habit, shot the old man a look.

Joel cocked a brow in response, likely already knowing what that glare from you was intended to convey, and instead of giving voice to any words himself, just sank.

Lower and lower and lower, until his knees were the only things holding him upright on the floor before you and his hands were pressing—melting—into your thighs.

Audibly, his kneecaps cracked.

You couldn’t help but giggle.

While Mr. Miller’s mouth moved dangerously close to a place you should’ve been appalled to see him go, all you felt capable of doing in that absurd moment, it seemed, was laugh. You gripped the thick white column beside you, scooted back slightly until you were in a comfier seated position, then snagged your lower lip between your teeth to contain the sound, but it was of no use.

Joel was both drooling and scowling between your legs.

“That funny, huh?” he managed in a low, ragged breath, “Sound’a some crackin’ joints on a man as old as me?”

“Yeah,” you said. Smug, for once.

Admittedly, any other normal person in your position would’ve been concerned with about a million different, more pressing issues—namely, your neighbor and dad’s best friend sticking his face between your legs—but really, after all the frivolity, commotion, and fucking insane behavior the two of you that day, it was like your brain had logged off and left the body to its own devices.

You didn’t mind that for right now.

When Joel’s tongue grazed the space between the cusp of your panties and inner thigh, you really didn’t mind.

Fuck it. If this was the favor he’d wanted after all, so be it.

As if reconsidering the foray of his mouth for the time being, Joel tilted back a little: just far enough to get his hands on your underwear and start tearing those down your hips too. One short, hot puff of air from his lips was a bliss unto itself, and your knees instinctively kicked up. With the thin white fabric barely halfway down one calf, you hooked your ankle over Joel’s shoulder and cursed.

“My daddy’s gonna kill you for this, Mr. Miller.”

And, for what felt like the thousandth time, Joel smiled.

Bigger this time, as if to show he didn’t really care at all what the man next door was liable to say or do about his present endeavor as long as he got to stay. You let him.

He pressed a kiss to your slick, puffy lips and hummed.

“Fine by me.”

Without another word the tip of the man’s tongue glided up the length of your slit and curled in, drawing your arousal between his lips in a hungry sort of kiss, and then sank even deeper. Going nose-deep in just one go, the old man looked positively obscene burying his face so far inside; his features alone a cruel, unseemly sort of fixture between legs as smooth and supple and warm as yours—how did a man so many years your senior get to be so lucky?—and somewhere further, in the darkest recesses of your mind, the sight sparked desire. A hunger, really.

Seeing that silver, stubbled chin getting drenched in your wetness, the weathered lines of his face growing even deeper with each new movement of his tongue, the strain in his neck with muscles that were firm and taut and so visibly aged with decades and decades of life—

You adored it.

A man Joel’s age never looked more out of place and still somehow perfectly fit for the space between your thighs.

You lowered the hand that was cradling your popsicle, braced your weight against the railing with the other, and then pressed on either side of his skull with your legs, quiet moans tumbling one after the next off your tongue.

“‘S’all for me?” Joel breathed, licking and suckling kisses along your clit, “This sweet, needy pussy’s all mine?”

“All yours.”

You scarcely recognized the sound of your own voice. Your legs were shaking. Though you loved to see him make you come undone, piece-by-piece, you also couldn’t bring yourself to stare a second longer, stimulation too great and his tongue too good.

If he kept going at a rate like this, you’d have no choice but to cum, and you didn’t want to be done just yet. Or ever. You refocused your gaze to look down and tell him as much, when your mouth fell open around a gasp, rather than words, and the weight in your hand fell away.

Swiftly, Joel took the popsicle in his own grasp and slid it down to the vicinity of his lips and tongue, now grinning.

The thing was half-melted by now, having sufficiently soaked half your forearm and leaving a vague, sugary aroma in its wake, but it was still intact. Still unlicked—unlike you—and still perfectly cool and light and long. The off-white hue was almost taunting in the way it winked and caught rays of the sunlight shining behind you, and as the man slid it even lower, you jumped back.

“Joel,” you hissed.

“What?” he hummed.

“That’s not—” You blinked, swallowing a moan.

“Not what?”

One warm, callused hand pressed the tip of the frozen thing to your bundle of nerves—the first contact it had had since Joel’s tongue—and you let out a low whine.

Even after all that time in the sun, the popsicle seared your soft, wet, aching parts with a biting cold you’d never thought possible. It sent waves of a strange, trembling pleasure coursing through your lower half and left your head with no choice but to moan. And fist Joel’s hair in a vice-like grip when he angled the wooden stick lower.

Suddenly, the white, sticky head slipped from your clit to the rim of your yet-untouched entrance, and that made your muscles leap to attention once again. You cursed.

“Not what, honey?” Joel pressed, with affection—and as he did, sank the tip of the popsicle deeper inside you.

“Th— that’s not—” You were shaking your head, racking your brain for any trace of the English language and failing miserably, “Not…doesn’t…g-go there, fuck.”

Joel sank the pretty, dribbling popsicle another inch inside your pussy and sucked a whistle through his teeth. If your senses weren’t as raw and utterly shot as they were, you likely would’ve seen the expression on his face transform from one of pleasure and amusement to awe, eyes darkening at the sight of your hole opening wider.

“That’s it, baby, take it,” he cooed, voice low.

Another couple soft utterances of ‘Joel,’ and your legs only parted wider. Free to grip his hair, the railing, the column beside you, or just the insides of your own palm as the icy sensation sank inwards and into your body, you whimpered. Your hips, instinctively, bucked toward the source, and you heard Joel’s groan join your sounds.

He withdrew his new toy just far enough to make you mewl for him again, then drove it deeper. With the friction of that, a stream of white went trickling out.

Joel couldn’t help himself; he flattened his tongue against the stream and licked you clean from the spot where he’d split you open to the cusp of your clit. He circled that place over and over, worked the object in his hand even further inside and back out again, then, getting a taste of your arousal with the white, wet, sticky-sweet juices starting to mix together, he moaned.

It was a guttural sound, something just shy of the ‘feral’ demarcation but at least ten steps ahead of desperate. You relished the gruff, throaty sound reverberating from his lips to your cunt, the way your walls fluttered around it and for him, and were just about to throw your head back and grind your hips even harder when it stopped.

Joel stopped. He started to get up.

Quickly for him, but slow as molasses from your point of view, the man straightened from his place on the hard wooden floor and expelled a breath. His chest heaved, and his torso twisted to one side, momentarily, to get the strain out of his back as best he could. From where you sat, the spattering of grey in his beard seemed to glisten even brighter with the sheen of your arousal now sticking in it. He wiped his chin and reached in between your legs.

“Got any favors left in ya, sweet pea?” he smirked.

Fortunately for you, it didn’t sound like a question at all, and didn’t appear to be intended that way, as the next second had Joel pulling the largely-spent popsicle out of your slick and straight into your mouth. He didn’t inquire whether he could push it down on your tongue and make you taste your own cunt on the thin wooden stick, but the smile on your lips assured him that was fine by you.

Nor did he ask for your permission to flip you around, bend you over his porch railing, and take your hips in his hands. You were still sucking down the last traces of sugar and citrus and a vaguely tangy taste when you felt the head of something else prod your soft, wet folds.

Much bigger—and warmer—than the thing that had breached you before, Joel nudged at your hole with the tip of his cock, coated the head of it in light, gentle circles, and sucked in a breath. He didn’t have to ask, and you didn’t need to answer; he just parted your walls with the force of one steadying thrust, and the pulse of that sharp, dizzying pleasure was back in an instant.

Shared this time, and manifesting in sounds from you and Joel alike: you gritting the stick between your teeth and managing muffled cries of his name and whatever expletives you could scream, Joel with ragged breaths.

For a man who ostensibly hadn’t fucked since the Clinton administration, he was off to a pretty good start.

Joel gripped your hip even tighter and started to saw his cock in and out of your dripping, pliant hole, his other fist finding purchase in your hair for more leverage. His thrusts were shallow enough at first to get you used to the new stretch, and you could feel him making space in a way no man’s girth ever had before. You couldn’t see his face, but you imagined it had come to settle into a mix of guilt, rigid composure, and pussydrunk pleasure.

“Good girl,” Joel murmured behind you. Then, groaning, “Good fuckin’ girl, keep squeezin’ my cock just like that.”

You felt a slap on the ass and the speed of his thrusts pick up in turn. Your mouth fell open in a moan, and the stick on your tongue almost slipped out of place when, shortly, Joel leaned over your body and pulled you back. He snagged the popsicle stick between his teeth just in time to get your back flush with his front—in perfect position to get fucked against the nearest column.

Breaths coming out in short, ragged grunts in your ear, Joel teased the side of your face with the stick, then nudged it back in your mouth. You sucked it softly.

“One more favor, baby?” he panted against your cheek.

You nodded, not knowing what it was but that you wanted to be the one giving it. Joel pulsed inside you.

With every stab of his cock, every string of your wet, messy, combined arousals making the most profane noises imaginable between your body and his, you were squeezing him tighter and teetering on release. Joel’s hand snaked down between your legs, and just as the head of his cock nudged against that spot, you keened.

“Any favor?” Joel groaned and nipped at your earlobe.

The heft of his stomach and chest made for a warm, sturdy place to start rocking your hips, greying peach fuzz at the base of his belly a small comfort as you writhed against his body and whined that you’d do anything, anything he wanted, as long as he let you cum.

Joel’s middle finger found your clit, and you nearly screamed at the welt of pleasure coming to a head. Again, the popsicle stick tumbled out, but neither one of you could be bothered to try and keep it in this time.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

The man behind you didn’t even attempt to conceal his grin as he leaned closer, hugging your body to his while he circled your clit and fucked you harder, lips straying every now and then to press a kiss on your shoulder. He plunged his cock deeper and was met with a squeezing, leaking mess trickling down his length and onto his balls, growing louder with each new wet slap against your ass. The old man was a tease, but he couldn’t hold on forever.

“Wanna fill you up,” Joel groaned.

“Cum inside?” you murmured.

You were barely able to tilt your chin to him, but when you did, he held it—made you look him in the eyes and, for once, give your unequivocal permission to do it then.

And you did.

You were startled to find Joel’s lips crashing against yours in the next second, mouth overwhelmed with the remains of your own taste, his tongue, and a series of relentless, hammering thrusts. It was only a matter of moments, then, before your resolve gave way and his followed suit, and the waves of pleasure between you both manifested in ropes of sticky, hot cum painting your walls. Joel held you closer, as though needing to feel his seed as he fucked you through it, groaning when he felt it start to move with each sharp, stuttered thrust.

You panted in his mouth coming down. You kissed him back. You almost couldn’t believe the sensation between your legs, soon to come dripping out and undoubtedly bound to make a mess all over the floor of Joel’s porch.

Equally unbelievable was the fact that you’d just fucked your neighbor in broad daylight, outside, with Marlene’s house directly to your left and your own on the right.

You stared out at the sprawling expanse in front of you—Joel’s impeccably kempt yard, one of the reasons why you were standing where you were just then—and, as you’d found yourself before, you felt the urge to laugh.

Not on account of Joel’s old, ailing knees, this time.

Clearly, the man still trying to catch his breath behind you suspected that that might’ve been the case, though, because you felt him shift his weight and grunt, lightly.

“What’s so funny? My knees crack when I cum, too?”

You could feel the smallest of scowls start to take shape, muted momentarily with kisses that he pressed on your cheek, and others, still more teasing, down your neck.

You let him, unfazed and still giggling. Then pointing.

It seemed Joel was loath to detach his lips from your neck—or his cock from the place he’d just stuffed full—but when you lifted your finger to indicate a direction toward the side of his backyard, his senses perked up.

There, along the white picket fence between his yard and Marlene’s, was the furry, merciless, lawn-destroying labradoodle that had been plaguing Joel’s life for years.

The man was out of you in an instant. He yanked his jeans up even quicker, tucking his dick back, clumsily, into its place in a fit of rage, then cupping his hands:

“WILL YOU FUCK THE HELL OFF, SPARKY?!”

#REMEMBER - JUST BECAUSE JOEL PUTS A POPSICLE IN YOUR P*SSY DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO THE SAME IRL!!!! I’M SO SERIOUS #PLEASE PROTECT YOUR PH AND DON’T PUT SWEETS DOWN THERE LMAOAKSK #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller imagine #joel miller one shot #joel miller #joel miller tlou #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel tlou #the last of us fic #the last of us #tlou

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sergeantsporks · 1 year ago

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Actually, I’m going to give MORE nonromantic wolf traits to werewolves

Werewolf bf won’t hold your hand in the winter because he’s obsessively walking in your footprints for snow-walking efficiency and so no one will know how many “wolves” are in the pack

Werewolf bf will eat anything past the expiration date because it hasn’t technically actually gone bad yet, don’t worry about it. He’ll get rid of it if it’s stinking and rotten.

Werewolf bf has really sweaty palms and feet because of wolf musk glands in wolf paws

Werewolf bf has stashes of food all over the house and buried in the snow during the winter (cache behavior), even sometimes with food that HAS TO BE REFRIGERATED, BRIAN, PUT THE GROUND BEEF BACK IN THE FRIDGE

Werewolf bf buys way more food than you need, and does it infrequently because “it’ll feed us for a while.” If you can find his caches. And if they’re still good by the time you find them. He’ll eat it if it’s not though.

Werewolf bf circulates through like 4-5 different grocery stores across a 50 mile radius to approximate a large hunting range. Which is fine, but except grocery shopping could take him anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours, depending on which one he picks.

#werewolves #wolves

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justliketoreadsowhat · 4 months ago

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Saturday Night Lights ❦

- 𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐛 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 -

𝐀/𝐧 ; 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 ♥︎, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐈’𝐦 𝐬𝐨 𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐦 𝐫𝐞-𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞.

____________________________________________

“You look so beautiful tonight�� Paige expressed her admiration for you, her eyes roaming across your features relentlessly, it became like a second nature to her, no matter where you two were.

As for tonight, the Washington Spirts Soccer game was one of the many side quests you two had planned together. If there was ANY women’s sporting event occurring within a 30-mile radius, you could bet money you two would be in attendance.

“Mmm.. so what about all the other nights?” you teased, knowing you’d be amused by her reaction, you just loved to egg her on.

She clicked her tongue at your antics, “You look beautiful every night baby, but you already knew that” her tone low and soft eyeing your facial expression.

“Ewww! Can you guys stop being so cringey and watch the game” Drew groaned dramatically, moving over 2 seats away from the two of you. He never failed to make you laugh even though he was being so serious, he was definitely a 2.0 version of Paige.

“Just relax and eat the popcorn you begged me for”, she side-eyed him playfully

“Now you’re just dragging it, I can’t wait until Azzi gets here” shaking his head shamelessly, fixing his pride hat in the process.

“She’s not gonna save you Drew” you laughed, reaching over to flip the top of his hat inside out. You loved messing with him every chance you got, over the past few months, he’s become one of your greatest little sick kicks. “Eh she might, y’know she has her favorite children, too bad you’re not one of them” she shrugged.

“Not too much on Drew!” you snapped, mushing her face into your hands. “Guys! stop you’re on the big screen, look!”

Both of your eyes jolted upwards, only to meet eyes with the jumbotron zooming in on the two of you. The stadium erupted with loud cheers and applause that shook the seats.

“They left out Drew” she muttered through her cinematic smile, waving at the screen.

Without a 2nd thought, you pulled Drew back to his designated seat next to you, he cheesed at the screen with delight

“Yeah that’s definitely getting posted on Tiktok, guess you’ll have more to add to your collection hm?” a familiar voice rang from behind you. “Azzi! finally, I was getting tourtered out here” Drew said exasperated, pulling her down into a tig hug.

“Wow so now we’re lying for fun” her nose scrunched up in disbelief, “remember those words”

“Gosh what did ya’ll do to him this time?, kiss??” she questioned lingering with sarcasm.

“No! we’d never do that“

“THATS A LIE! I still remember that day I caught you guys outside-“

“Okay anyways!” you intervene, saving yourself the embarrassment of re-living the moment. “There’s a spokesperson heading our way so act like civil human beings”

“I already talked during the Mystic game so I’m clocked out for the day” Azzi sighed, climbing over the row of seats to sit next to Drew “Paige this is all you” tilting her head to the woman who stood near the railings waiting for people to clear the path.

“I don’t even know what to say..” she trailed off, her fingers lightly tapping your forearm trying to gather her thoughts, her social battery had to be low by this point, but she would never turn down an opportunity to speak out at events, a professional yapper in her natural habitat always thrives.

“Come with me” she asserted standing up to her full frame as you remained planted in your seat. There is no way you were going to endure a microphone being shoved in your face for thousands of people to see, being on the big screen was good enough for you.

“What am I supposed to say?!” you said barely above a whisper. Your brain began to rattle with scenarios

“Just stand there and look pretty like you always do” her hands met yours as she gently peeled you from your seat.

“Don’t forget to make eye contact, it gets em everytime” Azzi winked, you chuckled at her antics, she was so effortlessly charming, although she’d never admit it.

“Make sure you remind her to blink, sometimes she forgets” Drew laughs, popcorn spilling from the bucket he soon forgets he was supposed to be holding.

Paige swung her arm across his lap, sending the popcorn flying across the stands. “Make sure you clean up your mess, sometimes you forget” she grits. You gasped trying your best not to bring any more attention to the scene unfolding. Pulling her away from the seats you made your way to the spokeswoman.

What a fun way to spend your Saturday night, and to think it was only the beginning.

#paige bueckers #uconn wbb #uconn women’s basketball #azzi fudd #uconn huskies #black stories #paige x reader

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reasonsforhope · 6 months ago

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"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.

That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.

Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.

You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?

Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.

Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.

[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]

We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.

To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.

The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]

The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."

-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024

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zvaigzdelasas · 8 months ago

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You can’t buy the Seagull in the US. But I bet you wish you could.

A small hatchback around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric car and claims a range of up to 250 miles [...] BYD, its Chinese manufacturer, claims it can go from 30 percent to 80 percent charged in a half-hour using a DC plug. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. “If I were looking for an inexpensive commuter car … this would be perfect,” veteran car journalist John McElroy said after taking a drive.

The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China.

That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In South America, it’s a little pricier, but still fairly affordable, at under $24,000 for a top-trim version. Even in Europe, you can get an entry-level BYD for under €30,000. These are absolutely screaming deals — exactly the kind of products that could turbocharge our transition away from gas and toward electric vehicles.[...]

The problem for Americans? The Biden administration is hell-bent on preventing you from buying BYD’s product, and if Donald Trump returns to office, he is likely to fight it as well.

That’s because the BYD cars are made in China, and both Biden and Trump are committed to an ultranationalist trade policy meant to keep BYD’s products out. [...] Shipments to Europe have increased astronomically; Chinese companies sold 0.5 percent of EVs in Europe in 2019 but they’re already over 9 percent as of last year. Companies like BYD make cheap, reasonably good-quality cars people are eager to buy.

In 2018, Trump imposed, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made autos, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars.

That has so far prevented BYD and its Chinese peers from trying to enter the US market. US customer tastes are different enough that Chinese manufacturers would probably prefer to make cars tailored to them — but US policy has been so hostile toward cheap Chinese EVs that so far, the companies haven’t wanted to bother.

So, the result is that we’re left out of the bounty of cheap EV options created by BYD and others. “If you’re a consumer right now, the best place to be right now is China, because you have the best choice of EVs,” Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Chinese EVs, says.[...]

Still, China’s price advantage is big enough that even the extreme Trump-Biden import tax might not be enough to deter companies like BYD from entering the US market. Even with the tariffs, Chinese cars might be cheaper than their rivals. “Subsidies most likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose [more] trade restrictions,” climate journalist Robinson Meyer predicted recently. The Biden administration is already making noise about imposing even more draconian taxes or trade restrictions against these vehicles. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Chinese-made cars as a national security threat, and recently announced an investigation into the vehicles’ data collection abilities and the possibility they could send movement data to Beijing.

On the one hand, Biden is offering Americans up to $7,500 per vehicle to buy EVs (provided they meet certain made-in-North America rules). On the other hand, he’s imposing massive taxes to keep Americans from buying EVs. It’s a bizarre policy that makes no sense from a climate perspective.[...]

[The Biden Administration] has proven shockingly willing to sabotage its own climate policy if it gets to stick it to the Chinese in the process.

“There’s almost an across-the-board apprehension about Chinese EVs, even though they would make an important contribution to [lower] CO2 emissions,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a veteran trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says.[...]

Realistically, Helveston argues, BYD might not sell something like the Seagull in the US because it’s smaller than most cars Americans buy. They’d probably build plants in the US instead, or its free-trade zone partners Canada and Mexico, to build vehicles tailored for Americans. “If you’re going to really enter a market, you have to make it locally,” Helveston explains. “US automakers like GM sell and make millions of cars in China to sell in China.” BYD would do the same. Indeed, it’s already reportedly scouting sites for factories in Mexico.

If they ever were to set up shop in North America, BYD and other Chinese car companies would still have a major price advantage versus American EVs. They have years more experience and a much more successful track record of building batteries and EVs at low cost.

“Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” Mazzocco says. They took the “opposite of the Tesla approach”: starting not with luxury vehicles but ultra-cheap cars fit for taxi fleets and not much else, and constantly improving their early inexpensive prototypes. The result is that Chinese firms have gotten extremely good at making inexpensive EVs, at a time when Ford, by contrast, lost $28,000 for every EV it sold in 2023.[...]

“If you have more affordable EVs in the United States, no matter where you come from,” Gopal says, “that’s better for the climate.”

Still, the Biden administration reportedly wants to restrict Chinese car companies’ access to the US even if they do set up shop in North America. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the Biden administration is formulating rules that would limit US sales of Chinese-made parts, even if they’re in vehicles ultimately assembled in the US or Mexico.[...]

But the Biden administration’s objections to Chinese EVs are also ideological. The Biden administration represents the victory of a protectionist, trade-skeptical wing of the Democratic party that was relegated to the sidelines during the Clinton and Obama years.[...]

[O]ver 90 percent of American households have a car, and surging car prices were a huge contributor to the 2021–2023 rise in inflation.

Barriers to importing cheap cars make inflation worse and reduce the real incomes of the middle class.

Not only are the administration and other left-leaning institutions opposed to Chinese EVs, but hardline conservatives at places like the Heritage Foundation are calling for outright bans on Chinese EVs as well. Their rationale is security, another theme the Biden administration evokes often. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced it was beginning a process to “investigate the national security risks of … PRC-manufactured technology in [internet-connected] vehicles.”

6 Mar 24

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fishenjoyer1 · 1 month ago

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Fish of the Day

Hello and happy day, everybody! Today's fish of the day is the Alabama sturgeon!

The Alabama sturgeon, known by scientific name Scaphirhynchus suttkusi is an incredibly endangered sturgeon found in the American South. Found, as the name implies, in the great state of Alabama, this species once had a wide historic range, stretching the entirety of the Mobile basin and bay, from the Alabama, Tombigbee, and Cahaba Rivers, but now has such limited numbers they are listed as wherever found. The Alabama sturgeon is now found only in the lower 130 miles of the Alabama river, living in fast currents of water 6-14 meters of depth nearby rock or mussel beds.

With only 3 confirmed sightings of them since 2009 confirming the species is still extant. With little hope of proving that the Alabama sturgeon continues to live other than the rare sightings, in 2016 researchers turned to another way. Using eDNA, which is usually sheddings, excrement, or other materials left behind in the environment around an animal, they got a positive result determining that the Alabama sturgeon population is still alive, leading to hopes of a captive breeding program. Despite this, there have been no female Alabama sturgeons caught, forcing plans for a breeding program to be entirely paused until they can secure eggs for it.

Regardless of current conservation efforts of the sturgeon, let's discuss other things known about this fish. This sturgeon's diet is made up of plant materials, aquatic bugs, mollusks, and other small bottom dwelling organic matter. Like other sturgeon, the Alabama sturgeon is a bottom feeder with a protrusible mouth, acting as a vacuum. They can get up to a size of 30 inches, relatively small for sturgeons, and are mostly known within the family for their striking orange-yellow color. Their life cycle is nearly identical to that of other sturgeon: sexual maturity occurs at 5-7 years of age, at which point they swim upstream to lay eggs, repeating this every 2-3 years until their lifespan comes to an end around 12-20 years!

That's the Alabama sturgeon, everybody! Have a wonderful day!

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urfavouritegirlie · 8 months ago

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Hobie HC's

Is of Jamaican descendant. His grandparents moved to England from Jamaica because of the job opportunities.

Has 5 older sisters and he's the youngest. (Knows how to treat women)

Is his dads favourite child.

Knows how to cook Jamaican dishes and does it passionately.

He loves jerk chicken. (Who doesn't?)

Has a big family. Uncles and aunties and a whole bunch of cousins ranging from 30s to babies.

Very family orientated before he was bitten.

Is distant to them now so they won't be in danger. Only close to his immediate family but only see them a few times.

His extended family think he's a rebel and a disappointment but they don't know him like his family do.

Excelled at school even though he thinks the school system is fraud.

Got his first piercing when he was 14. Asked his 5th born sister to go with him.

Had a hard time hiding the fact he is Spiderman until he found a place of his own. Small cheap apartment.

Hates politicians.

If some of them were campaigning to be Prime Minister he would would play his guitar on multiple speakers on high volume to disturb.

Has a good amount of money from when he modelled. Designers were begging him to model their latest outfits because they loved his look. Tall and slim. Immediately quit after big brands were after him. Did not want that kind of attention.

Prefers to do small shows with his band.

Was given so many numbers on pieces of paper from girls backstage.

Does not call any of them.

When he met Miles, got the need to protect him like an older brother. Was a nice change for him.

Has been suspicious of Miguel but doesn't show it. Waited till something happened aka Miles.

Can sip Wray and Nephews and not feel a thing. He has a limit tho.

Has a folder of drawings from kids that draw him.

Is an uncle to a nephew and two nieces. Sends them gifts 'from uncle Hobs'.

Check out the Miles 1610 HC’s right here

#across the spiderverse #hobie brown #hobie #Spiderman #Hobie x reader #Hobie Brown x reader #atsv

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anikaluv · 1 year ago

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THIS IS REAL —

❤︎︎ pairing: Miles (e!42) × fem!reader

❤︎︎ genre: fluff (slight angst?)

❤︎︎ cw: reader gets stood up :( , Miles (e!42) is named Myles (creative Ik), suggestive content, cussing

❤︎︎ summary: It’s been a few months since you and Myles have been “practicing”, and you finally got the courage to ask Miles out. Unfortunately, you get stood up on y’alls first date and Miles (e!42) happens to come in time to sweep you off your feet.

❤︎︎ w/c: 2.1K

❤︎︎ a/n: Tysm for all the support on my last post babes <3 . Decided I’ll post a part two cause y’all make me feel a lil motivated.

PART ONE EXTRA

You lean back against Myles desk as he pinned you down, making out with you mercilessly. His hands once on your waist now fully rummaging your body looking for anything he can get his hands on. You mumble random pleads, the more his lips interact with yours the farther you tip off the edge.

Myles smirks confidently, fully aware of the effect he has on you, and he revels in the satisfaction it brings him. "You've wanted this all along, haven't you, princesa?" he taunts, knowing deep down that you desired him. Over the past few months, during your visits to the Morales' house for your supposed "study sessions" with Miles, you came in clothes more revealing than the last.

He loved it.

In truth, you have no idea why you had been secretly finding your way to Myles' room over the past few months, and honestly, you still had no idea what you two were. Each time, you reminded yourself that these encounters weren't truly bringing you closer to Miles but rather betraying him.

However, you managed to summon the courage to ask Miles out recently, and to your surprise, he accepted. So you decided to fully give in to your desires, which lead you to this very moment.

You gently pulled away, ending the intense kiss. Myles licked his lips, shamelessly admiring your curves while you struggled to catch your breath. Releasing your arms from around his neck, you placed them on his toned chest.

Bashfully, you gazed up into Myles' eyes and summoned the courage to address the question that had been weighing on your mind for months. "Myles, this is still just practice, right?" you asked, attempting to speak out the uncertainty that had plagued you.

Myles chuckled at your question, but his amusement quickly faded as he recognized your seriousness. "Of course, mami." he replied, his tone shifting to one of sincerity.

You nodded, finding comfort in his reassurance, and tilted your head back as Myles began planting tender kisses along your neck. His hands glided down to your ass, squeezing it firmly, while he trailed a path of kisses down your collarbone.

Each peck he lays on your skin came with little compliments that makes you melt in his hold. “You taste so good, mami….such a good girl f’me” he whispered, and your heart swelled with warmth at his praise. You babbled a thank you, the words sounding like a melody to his ears.

Unfortunately for the both of you, a ringing sound rang around the room, snapping you back to reality. Your neck naturally turned towards your phone, giving Myles more access to your skin.

He bit into it fiercely, trying to catch you off guard. That for sure left a mark. You gasp loudly, Myles took that as consent to continue. "Come on, chiquita, just ignore it," he urged, attempting to persuade you to brush off the interruption. You tried to, yet you couldn’t ignore the loud ringing that echoed through the room.

You reach for your phone, dismissing the sound of Miles groaning in defeat. Your eyes bulged at the alert on the screen. “Reminder: Date Night with Miles at 9:30” . Instantly, you sprung up from Myles' desk and swiftly gathered your purse and belongings.

Myles watched you, curious. "Woah, where are you going in such a hurry, ma?" You finished collecting your things and made a beeline for the door. "I have to go home and get ready before I'm late for my date with Miles!" Turning around one last time, you planted a swift peck on Myles' cheek.

"Thank you, Myles, for everything," you said quickly, and just like that, you were gone. Myles stood there, his hand subconsciously caressing the spot where your peck had left its mark, grinning softly.

“Anything for you, mami.”

You sat at a circled booth looking around at your surroundings. Miles told you he would pick out the place so you had no idea what to expect.

The restaurant was amazing. It wasn’t extremely fancy, it carried a homey vibe, but still had elegance. Soothing Soul music echoed throughout the restaurant as scents of delicious foods wafted through your nose.

It was perfect.

You squirmed in the booth, feeling a mix of nervousness and anticipation. You had chosen to wear a short skintight black dress. It hung tightly to all of your curves in the right way. It was a little see-through, but the restaurant was partly dim, so you hoped it wouldn’t be too much.

Your hand instinctively moved towards your neck, gently caressing the hickey mark that Myles had left behind. Even spending nearly 30 minutes meticulously applying makeup to conceal it, you couldn't help but feel frustrated.

An annoyed grunt escaped your lips as you envisioned Myles smirking, fully aware of the predicament he had caused.

You slapped your forehead in frustration, this was your exact problem. You’ve tried to get your head off Myles for the past 2 hours. But no matter what, he would always stick in the back of your mind, like a leech, a hot attractive leech.

You rolled your eyes and let out a sigh of exasperation. If Miles didn't show up soon, you feared where this train of thought might lead you.

Your gaze swiftly shifted towards the entrance, and lo and behold, there he was—the face that had captivated your admiration for quite some time.

Despite the dimly lit ambiance of the restaurant, you recognized him instantly, his iconic smirk played on his lips as he exchanged pleasantries with the usher, pointing in the direction of your booth. His untied Jordan's adorned his feet with effortless style as he strode towards you, a sleek black suit hugging his lean frame.

Your heart raced in anticipation, unable to resist the overwhelming feeling of swooning in his presence.

As he approached, you reached into your clutch to retrieve your phone, determined to put it on silent. There was no way you would allow any distractions from this man.

Just as you grabbed your phone, the screen suddenly lit up, revealing the notification: "4 unread messages." The sender's identity puzzled you for a moment.

Miles <3

Hey, something came up.

I’m so sorry.

Would you wanna reschedule?

I’ll make this up to you, I promise.

You’ve never been more confused your whole life, everything was frozen in place, the pieces just weren’t coming together. If Miles wasn’t coming to y’all’s date, then who on earth-

“Hola, mami.”

Fuck.

Myles smoothly slid into the booth beside you, casually looking through the menu. "What are you thinking of getting, ma?" he asked, his tone nonchalant. "I’ve never been to a place like this so imma let you choose.”

“Myles. What the actual hell are you doing here?”, you stutter out, your voice filled with confusion.

Questions raced through your mind. How did he even know your date was gonna be here? Why was he here? Was this some sort of sick joke?

“Woah, chill out.” Myles jokingly rose his hands up in defense. “Let’s focus on you, hermosa.”

He inched closer to you, his gaze leisurely roaming over your features. “Te ves absolutamente hipnotizante… (You look absolutely mesmerizing),” he murmured.

The way he looked at you so intensely, you felt like you were naked.

Despite the way your breathe became caught, you decided to shove those emotions deep down and face the problem at hand. “Don’t try to change the subject Morales. This was supposed to be a special night, my special night and I don’t need you ruining it.”

Myles let out a playful scoff, clearly not taking your words seriously. "Oh, come on, ma, you don't actually mean that," he teased.

He casually draped his arm around your shoulder, his other hand delicately caressing your thigh as he toyed with the edge of your dress. "Forget about him. He's not showing up anyway. Besides, you have me," he mumbled the last part, but it was enough to provoke frustration within you.

You swat his hand away forcefully, displaying your aggression. "I can't simply forget about him, Myles!" you exclaim, your voice filled with desperation. "I've been looking forward to this day my entire life, for fucks sake!", you crossed your arms and huffed, denying to believe the situation you’re currently in.

It felt as if smoke were coming from your ears, and though you tried to maintain a composed tone, the venom in your words could not be contained, striking into Myles heart like knives.

Myles clenched his fists tightly, irritation seeping through his features . "So, what? Am I not good enough for you now?" he spat, his eyebrows furrowing in anger as he locked eyes with you. "All those times you snuck into my room, it was all just a game to you, huh?"

He gently rested his hand on top of yours, and when you didn't pull away, he intertwined his fingers with yours.“He don't deserve you and you know it. Leaving such a pretty girl like this, and you still want him? You a fool, ma,” he admitted. His other hand reached up, gently gripping your chin, tilting your face towards his. “I can treat you so much better than him.”

You responded with silence, overwhelmed by a whirlwind of emotions flooding your mind. "So, what exactly are you saying?" you mustered, your voice filled with a desperate need for confirmation. You craved concrete words, an explicit declaration that this wasn't some sort of joke, prank, or-

Myles gently cupped your cheek, pulling you closer until his lips met yours in a light kiss. It was different, it was gentle. Unlike the heated sessions you had in his room, right now he treated you so delicately. His hand found home around your waist, and you let him hold you, accepting anything he would give you.

"I want you so bad, mami," he confessed, his eyes captivating your attention with every word. "I adore every aspect of you. Todo, princesa—I want all of you," he expressed, his words filled with passion and longing.

A smile broke across your face, a realization dawning upon you. Who knew you’ve been after the wrong Morales brother this whole time. "I feel the same way, Myles," you confessed, giggling as he released a sigh of relief you didn’t know he was holding.

You playfully pecked his cheek, causing his signature smirk to return to his face. He leaned his head against your neck, finding solace in your embrace.

You wrapped your hands around his neck, reciprocating the hug wholeheartedly. However, a lingering question continued to nag at your mind. "So, does this mean we're officially together?" you asked, a touch of worry laced in your voice.

Thankfully, Myles sensed your unease and began whispering into your ear, his words comforting as he gently traced soothing circles on your waist.

“Don’t worry princesa I promise you, this is real.”, and you immediately felt content, because at the end of the day you wanted him, needed him, and you knew he would happily give you everything you desired”

“Also, I see that you tried to hide that hickey I left on yo neck, if you want, I can give you another one somewhere el-“

“Miles Gonzalo Morales.”

“Love you too, mami.”

EXTRA: "Goddammit, I'm not gonna be able to make it," Miles muttered, frustration evident in his voice as he listened to the news of a villain initiating a bank heist. He sighed, reaching for his phone to send you the disappointing message.

Meanwhile, Myles paused his game and removed his headset, intrigued by his brother's conversation. "Won't make it to what?" he inquired, his curiosity piqued. Miles exhaled heavily as he began preparing himself, putting on his spider suit.

"Me and [your name]’s date. We were supposed to have it at [restaurant name] tonight, and I even bought this special suit for the occasion," he explained.

Myles feigned disappointment, masking his true intentions as his brother prepared to make a daring exit through the window. "Ah, what a bummer," Myles responded, concealing his excitement.

As soon as Miles left the room, Myles sprang into action, rushing straight to his brother's closet. If he wanted this to work, he would have to be quick.

ENDING A/N: AHHH THIS IS MY BABY. This girly took a whole week and I hope y’all like her. I wanted to continue the playfulness of the practice kissing idea but also dig deeper on the uncertainty of what you and Myles were and I think I did it well! Thanks for everyone who waited and supported Just for Practice, you are the ones who motivated me to write This is Real. Stay tuned for my next post loves <3

TAGLIST: @moodysunflowerbaby @bbybubbles @nightshxdex @sparkysparking101 @go-to-sleep-salem @hellokittygator @yumimak @stevenknightmarc @spidrstar @sukisprettyface @loaks-tanhi @homebyeleven @urmotherswhor3 @hxidyq @axeoverblade @kaaylvst @em711 @agstuffsworld @st4rmiles @imonmyvigilanteshh @1uv4jiya @l5byrinth @planetspiderzz @janaeby @6thhokageswife

TAGS:

#anika❤︎︎writes #miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #across the spiderverse #into the spider verse #miles morales spider man #prowler miles #earth 42 miles morales x black!reader #earth 42 miles x you #earth 42 miles fluff

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eideticmemory · 1 year ago

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ALONE TOGETHER | SPENCER REID

A chance meeting on a dating app spirals into an odd type of…friendship? Relationship? Who knows, but it means a lot to you.

Word Count: 8.6k

Warning/Includes: Excessive smut, fluff, 7 year age gap.

You are so sick of crying. You are nauseated from lying in bed, staring at a ceiling fan that does nothing but spin. You’re angry. You’re restless. You’re impulsive. And it is this impulse that takes you on Bumble, but more specifically, makes you set you preferred range between the ages of exactly twenty-eight and forty. You think, I just need someone to pay attention to me. You think, I need someone to make this go away because I just can’t.

Old men are gross, but they like you. They just can’t get enough of you. You’re flooded with hundreds of admirers, but you rarely match with any of them. You swipe. You swipe again. Again and again and it is with the teeniest, tiniest little bit of hope that you wish for someone to take your breath away. You wish for a man with a pretty face and kind eyes and a name that sounds nice when you say it with a moan.

And there he is.

Spencer. Age 30. 5 miles away.

You actually gasp.

You swipe right and it is a match!

You gasp!

It’s up to you to make the first move. There’s prompts you could send, questions you could ask, and just down the street, Spencer, who has just landed back home recieves a message only saying -

Hey :)

He immediately covers the notification on his phone as he exits the jet. When he swiped on your profile, truthfully, he didn’t expect a match. Let alone a message. So in less than three seconds, he becomes anxious and flustered and cannot stop shaking his hands because he can’t feel his fingertips.

He waits until he’s alone to message you back. He has no idea what to say, no idea if you’re even still interested, but down the street, you are lying on your belly and kicking your feet and you get a reply -

Hi, [y/n] :) How are you?

It’s not a lot but Spencer feels like he’s going to pass out.

You squeal, cover your mouth and type: Good! How are you?

And Spencer doesn’t even know how to answer the question. It’s not a hard question, it’s not a trick question, but he can’t figure out what to say so he stays objective.

I’m okay. I’m leaving work now.

You furrow your eyebrows, A little late, isn’t it?

He chuckles under his breath, Kind of early for me, actually.

Here, is where you decided to get bold. You make the decision before you even figure out what to say. How to say it.

I’m sure you’re worn out from a long day. Was hoping I could see you tonight. If not, maybe another time?

And aside from the millions of things that rush through his head, that are always rushing through his head, the first thing he thinks is: Oh, god, I wish Morgan were here. Although Spencer’s a little mad at him at the moment, he knows Morgan would tell him what to say. But no one’s here. It’s just him, pacing the empty halls of the bureau, a satchel with tums in it, and a pretty girl trapped inside his phone that wants to see him in person.

He types and he goes back, he types and he goes back, and then he asks, Do you like coffee?

You smile as you type, I love coffee.

So he has you meet him at this coffee shop in town. You stand outside, cradled in a cozy jacket, your hands stuffed in your pockets. Spencer sees you before you see him. And anyone with common sense would’ve walked up to you right away. Except, Spencer doesn’t really have common sense. He’s worried that you’ll figure that out. Still, he walks over to you and you’re only alerted by the sound of his timid footsteps. You turn to him with a grand smile and he immediately forgets how to breathe.

“Hi,” you greet him, holding your hand out. “Spencer?”

He looks down at your hand and then back at you and then back at the floor and your brain goes: ???

“Are you…not Spencer?”

“No, no, I am. Me…Spencer, yes. I just…I don’t like to shake hands.”

“Oh,” you retract, hold your hands behind your back.

“I mean not that there’s anything wrong about your particular hands. They’re just dirty- Not! Not-you’re not dirty, I know, you smell really good. I…” he stops, takes a breath, “The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering, it’s actually, uh, safer to kiss.”

You tilt your head at him for two reasons. One, because you cannot believe he just used the word pathogens in casual conversation. And two, because you take his fun fact as a challenge that is readily accepted. You step towards him, slowly, because with the way his eyes go wide, it looks like he might run away. He grips onto the strap on his satchel so hard that his knuckles turn paper white. He goes cross eyed trying to look at your face as you lean in. And with a tiny smirk on your face, you press your lips to his.

It’s kinda, awkward. Spencer stays frozen in place and you mush your face into his and he doesn’t start to lean into you until the last second.

His face has gone bright red and you smile and say, “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice t-to meet you,” he stutters.

You look around, “What is this place?”

“Oh, um, it’s, uh, it’s a coffee shop. It’s also a library. It’s, uh, it’s open late and I come here a lot when I can’t sleep.”

“It’s cute,” you smile.

He holds the door open for you and buys you a latte and you two sit at a table by the window. You sit in silence for a minute, neither of you really sure what to say and then when you do go to speak, you do it at the same time. It cuts the tension and you both laugh.

“You go first,” you tell him.

“I, uh, I was just going to ask if you’re from here?”

“Oh, oh no, I just moved here for med school. I’m in my first year at Georgetown.”

“Oh! Nice. That’s cool.”

“Yeah, it’s alright so far. We’ll see how I’m doing in the spring.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great.”

You smile, “What do you do? What has you getting off work so late?”

“I’m, um, I’m a profiler…for the FBI. I, uh…”

“Analyze criminal behavior,” you nod. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard of that. I love forensic sciences.”

He can’t help but smile at you, “Yeah. It’s tiring but I like it,” he shrugs.

The conversation goes dead again and you sip on your latte, “Should we…should we just keep asking each other questions?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay, I asked the last question so it’s your turn.”

“Um…” he ponders. “What’s your favorite color?”

You snicker and he instantly puts his face in his hands out of embarrassment. You giggle, “My favorite color? Seriously?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else,” he shakes his head, smiling, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Blue. You?”

“Purple.”

“Ooh, that’s a fun one.”

“I like it. Okay, your turn.”

“Okay, um, what’s your biggest fear?”

He raises his eyebrows at you.

“What? We got the favorite colors out of the way.”

He nods, agreeing, “Having nothing to show for my life.”

You nod, “Same. Your turn.”

“Why do you want to be a doctor?”

“Oh. You got me with that one. Um…because I’m not squeamish and I’m good under pressure and I want…to make a difference. Y’know, actually do something with all this ambition. Aaaand, I’m good with anatomy. I’m good with people. I like medicine.”

“Did you say all of that in your interview?”

“That’s two questions…” you grin.

He chuckles, “You can ask me two.”

“No…I told them what they wanted to hear. And admissions doesn’t wanna hear that you’re doing this for yourself. They wanna hear that you’re selfless, Mother Theresa, Princess Diana selfless.”

“And you’re not selfless?”

“That’s three!”

“Okay, okay, your turn,” he laughs.

“How’d you get into the FBI?”

“Um, about 8 years, 11 months and 3 days ago, I attended a lecture on criminology hosted by some members of the BAU. I…became fixated. I wanted to join. I wanted to make a difference-“

“Oh now you’re just copying me.”

He chuckles, “I applied and, uh, yeah.”

“That’s so cool,” you tell him. “So you’ve been working there since you were…22?”

“Yes.”

“How did you become a profiler at 22? It takes forever, I thought?”

“That’s three!” he laughs.

“Oh, c’mon! You can’t leave me on a cliffhanger here.”

“I, um, I graduated college when I was 16. Had my Phd at 20. I’m…not the fittest guy so I skipped a lot of physical assessments.”

“16?” you gasp.

“That’s four!”

“20?” you shout. Emphasis on the ???

“That’s five!”

“Oh, no, nuh-uh, forget that, you’re filling me in on this.”

And so, he does. He tells you everything. About the eidetic memory and the IQ of 187 and you just sit there in awe. You fire questions at him and the last one is, “What’s…” you type in your calculator. “34 times 106?”

“That is a different genre of question.”

“But what’s the answer?”

He sighs and shakes his head, “3,604.”

You look at the calculator and he’s right and you gasp, “You’re a fucking genius.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Are your parents geniuses?” you ask.

“My dad is a…” he pauses. “I guess the colloquial term is deadbeat?”

You burst into laughter but quickly cover your mouth. That’s not funny. But Spencer is smiling.

“And…my mom is…smart. Yeah, she’s a genius.”

“Is she…dead?”

“What?”

“You just got, like, super sad there.”

“She’s not dead. She, uh, she has schizophrenia.”

“Oh. I’m an asshole.”

“A little bit,” he chuckles. “But, I’m-I’m not sad…she’s been that way my whole life.”

You can see on his face that it’s a sore subject, so you say, “Okay. Your turn. Ask me a question.”

And he wants to ask something that will get you talking. Something he can poke around like you have at his brain.

“Who is…” he starts. “Your very best friend?”

He asks this as you’re taking a sip of your latte and you very suddenly slam your cup down on the table.

“Whoa,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“No, no, I’m…I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“I haven’t spoken to her since I moved. Any of them. I…we…we had a disagreement.”

Spencer studies your face, “How many friends are we talking about here?”

“Three,” you spit out. “Three. I’ve had the same three friends since I was twelve and I’m not talking to any of them.” Your hands shake around your mug and you clear your throat, avoid eye contact.

Spencer feels so bad for dulling your light that he doesn’t even know what to say. He knows it’s an illogical guilt, but a strong and pulsating guilt nonetheless.

He watches you take an anxious sip of your drink and he sighs, “Today’s my birthday.”

You almost spit out your latte, your hand flying to your mouth, all of your own thoughts and worries dissipating as you look him in the eye, “You’re…you’re kidding?”

“No.”

“You’re joking. You’re just saying that to distract me. A psychology trick.”

“As of…” he checks his watch. “Twenty-three hours and ten minutes ago, I’m thirty,” he can hardly say it. “Thirty years old.”

You sit for a moment. You realize your mouth is wide open so you close it. You realize your eyes are wide so you shrink them. You stutter, “You’re…not kidding?”

“No. I’m thirty, and I…worked a case for days straight and…and it was awful and we were too late and…I’m scared I’ll sound self-centered…”

“And…” you encourage him.

“And…it wasn’t enough. The case. The chaos. It wasn’t enough. I hoped…I hoped it would help. That I would…that I would get so lost in the rush that…that I’d forget I’m having an emotional crisis. I don’t know how to be thirty. I don’t know how to be an adult. I’m a child progidy…I’m a child prodigy and now I’m thirty so, what does that make me? What am I now?”

The question hangs in the air because you cannot answer it. You just reach across the table, put your hand over his, and trace his knuckles.

He releases a long sigh, “I’m having an emotional crisis and I’m thirty and my-my team…my friends…my family, the closest thing I have to a family…they, um, they forgot. And it was…it was a really bad case, it was a really tough case and it was enough for them to forget. But not me. It wasn’t enough for me.”

He lets you take his hand in yours, your pathogen ridden hand, and he can hardly look you in the eye.

“Hey…” you whisper.

His eyes flicker up to you and he looks so sad.

You give him a small grin, “Let’s get out of here.”

He lets you drag him outside into the cold air and the two of you stand under the soft light.

“Do you drink?” you ask him.

“Um. No. No, I used to do drugs so I’m scared if I drink, I’ll forget to…not do drugs.”

“Oh!” you raise your eyebrows. “Okay, fair enough. So, no weed then?”

“I…” he laughs. “You do know I’m a federal agent?”

“Ah! So scary!”

He cackles, “No marijuana.”

“Marijuana,” you roll your eyes, “Okay…okay…” you look around and the city is asleep. It’s cold. Another block over, there are clubs and people fighting the weather for a chance to party. Spencer does not want to party. “Okay, my place?”

He looks at you, “What are we going to do there?”

“Have a birthday party!”

“I don’t want a party…”

You pout, look around, “Do you want a donut?”

He nods.

You grab a couple donuts from a late night bakery down the road and you drive him back to your place. He grips onto the door as you whip your car into another lane, his breath trembling.

“Dude, chill out,” you tell him. “I’m a good driver.”

“Good…in the way that tsunamis are good waves.”

You look over at him and your eyes lock and he smirks at you. It has you so flustered that you’re quiet for the rest of the drive.

You let him inside your apartment and close the door as you two step into the entryway.

“Okay, wait here,” you tell him, quickly taking the donuts and taking off into the kitchen.

“What? Why?”

“Just wait!”

He can hear you banging around, drawers opening and slamming shut. Things falling to the floor. You muttering, “Shit!” under your breath. You rush by him and into the living, so quickly that his brain can hardly process it.

“Okay!” you call. “Come in!”

He slowly steps inside, a bit anxious at first, but then he sees you and his shoulders relax.

You finish lighting the last candle and look up at him, throw your hands in the air, “Happy birthday!”

His face breaks out in this great, big smile and he can’t help but laugh. It’s not much. One single glazed donut with chocolate, sprinkles and candles on top.

“Three candles?” he questions, stepping over to the coffee table.

You stand beside him as he sits on the couch, “Well, yeah, three because three and then none because zero. Three zero. Thirty!”

He furrows his brows, “Actually-“

“Hush,” you cut him off, putting your hands on his shoulders, “You gotta blow out your candles.”

So he goes to blow them out and you shout, “Wait!” and his heart stops for a second. “I have to sing the song?”

“Oh, no, really, I don’t need the-“

“Haaaaappy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”

He covers his face to blush and laughs into his hands.

“Happy birthday, dear Spencer, happy birthday to you! Mwah,” you kiss his cheek. “Now make a wish!”

“Okay, I wish-“

“Whoa, stop! What are you doing? You can’t say it out loud, it won’t come true.”

“Well, actually-“

“The candles are melting.”

“Yep, right,” he nods. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, makes a wish and blows out all three candles.

You cheer and clap your hands. You go to remove the candles from his donut and stop, “Oh. Should I? Can I?”

“You’ve already touched it. I think, uh, that ship has sailed.”

You take out the candles and sit down beside him, “Should I have picked it up with my mouth?”

He giggles and picks up his donut, holds it out to you, “Cheers,” he smiles.

You pick yours up from the table and touch it to his, grinning, “Cheers.”

As you eat your donuts together, you can’t help but watch him. “I hope this made your birthday a little better.”

He shoves the last of his donut in his mouth and the corner of his lips is covered in chocolate, “It did,” he says with a full mouth.

You chuckle and lean in, wiping the chocolate from his lip with your finger and sticking it in your mouth.

He watches you, chewing slowly until he swallows and clears his throat, “Is this…is this weird to do with someone you just met on bumble? Genuine question because I have no frame of reference.”

Your mouth turns up in a small smile. And you nod. Slowly, quietly, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a little weird. But I’m having fun.”

“Me, too.”

You look around, awkwardly rolling your next words around your head until you can say them out loud, “Do you…wanna do something that’s…not weird with someone you met on bumble?

His raises his eyebrows at you, “What’s that?”

You take a sip of water, eyeing him in your peripheral and set down your bottle. You lean your body into his and this time, Spencer is ready. You catch his mouth on yours and he kisses you back, even though his heart is racing under your palm. Your hand travels down his chest, over his tummy, and to the hem of his pants.

His breath catches in his throat as you kiss his neck, “What…what are you doing?”

You pull away and undo his pants, taking his cock in your hand. He whimpers and his body goes limp and you furrow your eyebrows at him, “It’s your birthday?” you explain. And then you kiss him again.

His neck. Down to his chest. Down to his tummy. And Spencer watches you drop down to your knees in front of him and he goes, “Oh, my god,” and he only says it once but his brain keeps going: oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god.

“Is…is this okay?” you ask.

But he can’t talk! He can hardly breathe! You’ve got his dick in your hand and he’s looking at you with these wide eyes and you look perfect and he’s just worried that he’ll bust all over you before you get a chance to do anything. So, he nods. He nods and nods and nods and leans his head back.

You smile and with a few pumps of your hand, his whole body tenses up. He grips onto the couch and struggles to breathe. Then your mouth is on him and he goes limp. Dead weight, not a feeling in his arms or legs or chest, just the warmth of your mouth around his cock, taking it all the way to the back of your throat. His nails scratch at the fabric of the couch and as undignified as it feels, Spencer gets noisey.

You bob your head, up and down, in slow and sticky motions, swirling your tongue over his tip and a loud moan burst from the back of his throat.

“Oh…oh, my god,” he pants.

You move your mouth on him and run your hand up his tummy, feel it heaving up and down in your palm. He nearly breaks a nail on the couch so he grabs onto your hand, squeezes it really tight and groans. The sounds he’s making are so whiny and breathless and sexy that you have to squeeze your thighs together before you go leaking down your legs.

His other hand takes hold of your face, caressing your cheekbone with his thumb. You lean into his palm a bit but you keep your pace, letting him hit the back of your throat, feeling him twitch between your lips. You look up at him and all you can see is the veins on his neck, his jaw clenched tight. His fingers slip through your hair, over your scalp and you hum, but just quietly.

The soft touch encourages you to speed up just a bit. His whole body trembles as you take the base of his cock in your hand and jerk him in unison with your mouth. It overstimulates him immediately and he yells out, gives your hand another tight, tight squeeze.

“Oh-oh, my god, [y/n],” he moans, and you squeeze your thighs tighter.

He doesn’t ever want this to end. And so he fights the fire burning in his belly with everything he’s got, but he knows it’s useless. You’re too good. You’re so good.

He lifts his head and looks down at you, his face red all over and his eyes locked on yours. He holds your hand against his chest, caresses your face softly and lets out these soft, desperate whimpers. His body tenses up, leans towards you a bit and his jaw hangs wide open with very little sound coming out. He gives you this look, maybe a little warning, and then he’s gripping onto your hair and hunched over your body, filling up your mouth and whining into the air.

You put your hands on his waist and keep him in your mouth until he rides it out, falls back onto the couch.

You tower over him, wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and put your hands on his shoulders, “Good?”

“Yes. Wow,” he pants. “Thank you.”

“You’re so welcome,” you smile.

He huffs and he puffs, yet he can’t seem to catch his breath. “You know…” he breathes out. “That entire time…I actually forgot I was thirty.”

You burst into laughter and put your forehead to his, your giggles mirroring one another’s.

Spencer fixes his pants and huffs, “Will you…will you lay with me for a second?”

Your heart melts a little. You climb onto the couch, taking a seat beside him and swinging your legs over his lap.

And you sit like that. For hours. Talking until it’s no longer Spencer’s birthday and he’s just…thirty. You try your best to convince him to stay the night. He declines. And he declines and he declines.

Then he falls asleep in your arms.

In the morning, he wakes up alone and for a one whole minute, he forgets where he is. Then he remembers you and he goes looking for you and finds you in the kitchen.

“Oh,” you smile, “Hi, you. Breakfast?” you hold out the box of cereal that you’re eating out of.

He glances at the box and then back at you and he stares.

“What?” you ask.

“I…” he trails off. “I thought…I thought I dreamt you. For a moment, I thought it all was a dream.”

You tilt your head at him, “I’m very real.”

He chuckles, scratches the back of his head, “And…and the…the…”

“Blowjob?” you laugh. “Yeah, that was real, too.”

“The donuts?”

“Yes,” you laugh. “All of it.”

He continues to stare at you, this soft smile on his face and you hold out the cereal again. Shake it around.

“I’m okay,” he chuckles, stepping over to you. “I should…I should probably get going.”

“Oh, but why?” you whine.

“Because I…need a shower,” he laughs. “And to brush my teeth and lay in bed until I get called in again.”

“Yeah, I should probably start preparing for my lectures this week, too.”

You stare into his pretty, pretty eyes and you set the cereal down, hold his face, “You’re not gonna ghost me are you?”

He furrows his eyebrows, “Ghost you? What does that mean?”

“Oh, I forgot you’re old,” you laugh.

“Stooop,” he whines. “Stooop.”

“Ghost me. You’re not gonna go radio silent? You’re not…not gonna act like this never happened? Like I don’t exist?”

And Spencer instantly thinks: I don’t think I’m ever going to leave you alone. But instead of vocalizing it, he strokes your waist and he says, “No. Of course not.”

And he really meant that.

The next time he got called out on a case, he let you know that he’d be gone for a while but he’d be back. And he’d really, really like to see you when he’s home. He tries his best not to text while working, but when he’s laying in a hotel bed, unable to stop thinking about you and what you’re doing, he opts for a phone call.

“Hey, Sherlock,” you greet him. “Crack the case yet?”

He chuckles, “No. Almost. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were home in a few days.”

“And then you’ll come see me?”

“Yes,” he nods. “I’ll come see you.”

“Good.”

“What about you? How’s your journey to being a selfless doctor going?”

“Terrible. I missed like half of my lecture this morning because I blew a tire on the way.”

“Oh, no, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just hit a pot hole and swerve a little bit but it’s not my first time.”

“Oh?” he nods. “That’s…not good,” he laughs.

“I survived. I’m tough.”

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you?” you can hear the little grin in his voice.

You bite down on your lip, “Okay, tell me what’s going on there. Serial killer? Kidnapping?”

“Confidential.”

“Booooo!”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs. “Um, a couple days ago a body washed up on the beach and…”

You talked until you both were nearly asleep. In the morning, Spencer rolls out of bed and the lack of sleep hits him like a truck, but he thinks about you and your sleepy, soft voice and he smiles. He smiles out the door and down the hall and Morgan strides up beside him.

“Morning, kid,” he says.

“Morning!” Spencer replies and Derek eyes him because it was just sooo cheerful.

Derek bites his tongue for a moment, but is incapable of doing it for any longer so he asks, “Who were you on the phone with last night?”

Spencer trips over his feet at the question and stutters, “O-oh, me? Me? I wasn’t talking to anyone.”

“Mmhmmm,” Derek hums.

“No. N-nope, just the voices in my head.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Spencer comes back home on a Thursday and immediately hops on foot, on a train, to get to your apartment. You open the door for him and pull him inside, taking him in a big hug.

“Hi, you,” you whisper in his ear.

“Hi,” he snuggles into you.

“I made dinner. Pasta. It’s the only thing I know how to make, but there’s plenty. You hungry?”

“Yes,” he nods, pulls out of the hug. “Thank you.”

He goes to walk into the kitchen, but you grab his hand, “Hey, wait,” and you throw yourself into his arms and take him in a long kiss. He grips onto your shirt and goes weak in the knees, smushing his face into yours.

You step back, “Okay, now we can eat.”

He mumbles something incoherent and walks into the wall and you laugh, putting your hands on his shoulders to guide him into the kitchen.

The entire time that you two are hanging out on the couch, his arm around your shoulders, you can feel him looking at you. The one time that you catch his eyes, you lean in for a kiss and he is much more forward when it comes to kissing you back. He pushes his body into yours and a soft moan empties from your lips. It gives him enough courage to drop to his knees in front of you.

“Whoa,” you exclaim. “What are you doing?”

“I…well, I…I wanted to do this for you and I’m ready, I researched it.”

“You…researched how to eat me out?”

“I just want to return the favor.”

“But it’s not my birthday?”

“Is that a…requirement, or?”

“No,” you laugh, cover your face, “Okay. Okay, show me what you learned.”

And so Spencer disappears under the hem of your shirt, pushing it up your thighs and grabbing onto the thin straps of your underwear. He pulls them off your legs and you chuckle as they fly off. His face flushes bright red and he gives you a soft smile, taking a deep breath before he leans in and kisses your thighs. You hum under your breath, spread your legs for him out of instinct.

He’s very timid at first. Peppering gentle kisses on your hips, teasing his tongue on your clit. Then your back arches, his face falls into you and all the notes and research just fall right out of his mind. He wraps his arms around your hips and moves his tongue in this rhythmic up and down motion that he can tell you love so he keeps at it. And at it and at it, stepping off with a sharp suck that makes you yelp.

You rest your head on the couch, licking your lips because they’re so dry from your gasping, your constant moaning. You grip onto his hair and moan his name, only twice because you’re losing your breath. His fingertips press into your skin, spread your pussy open so he can bury his face in you.

Your body starts to twitch and tremble, your toes curling into themselves so tightly that it cuts off circulation. Your voice is high and whiny, growing louder by the second. Spencer feels your thighs tighten around his face and he knows now is not the time to let up. He swirls his tongue over your clit and you tighten your grip on his hair, straining your throat from moaning so loudly. You try to say his name, one last time, but then your back is arching off the couch and your orgasm washes over your entire body. From the tip of your head to the tip of your toes.

Spencer wipes his mouth off with your inner thigh and stands up looking so, very proud.

“Fuck,” you laugh. “What did you read?”

He cackles and gives you a wet kiss on the cheek and then the lips. Immediately after, you push him down and suck him off and as he holds you afterwards, he breathes off, “Remind me to return the favor again.”

“Oh,” you giggle. “Believe me, I will.”

The next few days, you two are inseperable. He spends two consecutive nights at your place, bitching and complaining and listening to each rant for hours at a time. He helps your study for your next exam. It’s not until he gets called out again that real life creeps in. It’s the first time goodbye is really hard.

You joke over the next month that he should just move in. This constant pattern of fly out, fly in, visit and repeat is a lot of run around.

“You’d get sick of me,” he replies.

And you hold him real tight and shake your head, “Never.”

When he’s on his next trip and calls in the middle of your lecture, you only step out and answer because a feeling in your gut tells you something is very wrong. Spencer never calls in the middle of the day. He’d never want to inconvenience you. But, today, it has to be you.

“Hello?” you answer.

“[y/n]? Hey…” he huffs.

He sounds distraught, like his chest is tight as he speaks and you take a seat on the floor, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I’m…I think I’m having a panic attack. I think…I think I’m dying.”

“What? What happened? Honey…”

“Just tell me something to calm me down, anything. Anything. Please.”

“Um, um, um, uh,” you sutter. “I think we should have sex.” As you say it, someone walks by giving you a dirty look and you shake it off, wait for Spencer’s response.

His breath has slowed, but just a little, “Oh…that works.”

“Yeah,” you clear your throat. “You know, I’ve just been thinking about it. A lot, aaand yeah, when you get back, I-I think we should do that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” you whisper. “Do you wanna tell me what happened?”

“When I see you,” he says. “I know you’re busy and I should get back.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Glad I could help,” you laugh. “Call me back tonight, okay?”

“I will. I miss you.”

You smile to yourself, “I miss you, too.”

When you hang up, you’re happy and giddy, grinning to yourself like a fool. Then you look up to find the same person from before, whispering with their friend as they watch you.

You roll your eyes and shout, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and you walk back into the lecture hall.

The day Spencer tells you they’re flying back, you start preparing. Shaving, showering, spraying on some nice perfume. You walk around your apartment in a silky, short nightgown, lighting candles in the hall and all over your bedroom. When you’re content with the atmosphere, the only thing left to do is wait.

And wait.

You check your phone several times and when there is still nothing hours later, you think it’s time to blow out the candles, lay in bed and cry. For a moment, you feel so stupid and confused and angry that you almost throw a lamp at the wall. Then there’s a knock on the door.

Spencer stands there, immediately saying, “Don’t be mad.”

“Too late, I’m mad,” you snip, turning away from him.

He lets himself in and grabs your hand, stutters when he finally notices your nightgown, the candles, “Oh. Wow. You did all this?”

“Spencer!” you whine, crossing your arms.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I…I bought you a donut,” he holds the bag up to you. “Your favorite. I’m so sorry, please don’t be mad. Not tonight. Any other night but tonight, please?”

Maybe if he wasn’t so good at the kicked puppy eyes, you could’ve held out a little longer. But you’re happy he’s here and your horny and this is happening no matter what time it is. You snatch the bag from his hand and just as quickly as you drop it, you pull his body into your, gripping his waist, your mouth open on his.

He trips over your feet as you pull him down the hall and into your bedroom, the two of you tangled up so tight that you collapse on the bed in one big sweep. He falls on top of you, between your legs, kissing you hungrily.

“Wait,” he huffs, breaking the kiss. “Wait.”

You stare up at him, his face only visible due to the candles, “What is it? Did you…already?”

“What? What? No,” he laughs. “I just…uh…um…I’m not an expert at this. I…I don’t…I’m not experienced in this area and I will do everything I can to make it good for you. I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Aw,” you whisper, caressing his face. “Take your clothes off.”

“Huh?”

“Spencer. I’ve been thinking about having sex with you since I first saw your picture on bumble. Now it’s happening and you were late so we gotta catch up.”

You pull him back in for a kiss and reach between your bodies, undoing his pants so you can grab his cock. He gasps and moans into your mouth.

“Don’t overthink it,” you mumble, staring in his eyes, “Just do whatever you want to me.”

He moves his hips forward, stroking himself with your palm and whimpering against your cheek. He starts to kiss your neck, gripping onto your waist, bunching up your nightgown in his hands. You push his shirt up his waist and he quickly pulls it over his head, catching you in a kiss as soon as he can.

“Can I take this off?” he pants, pinching the hem of your clothes. And you sit up, allowing him to pull it right over your head.

His eyes rake down your body, lingering on your breasts, “Can I…?”

“Oh, god, yes, please,” you nod and lay back on the bed, holding your hands above your head.

Spencer chuckles and leans down, taking your nipple into his mouth ever so gently, swirling his tongue around the hard bud. You purr, grab a fistful of his hair, and lick your lips. He presses his body weight onto you, holding your other breast in his hand and sucking on your skin.

“F-fuck,” you moan. “Spencer…”

And he moves to the other side of your chest, now more confident, now unstoppable, flicking his tongue on you so fast that it makes your body twitch. He kisses down your tummy, looks up at you as he slides your panties off, kisses on your thighs. He knows how to do this. He’s good at this, per your review and when he puts his mouth on you, the most broken, whiny little noise falls from your lips.

He hums between your thighs, holding your hips tight and flush against his face. With your moans rattling around his skull, he loses all inhibition. He works his tongue on you slow, methodical, in all the right places. You give his hair a soft tug and he grunts, his hand trailing up your waist. You brace your hands on his biceps, squeezing them between your fingers, sighing out his name.

You hook your legs over his shoulders, tightening your thighs around his face, moving your hips up and down to feel his tongue gliding. Wet and sticky like he’s drowning inside of you.

“Oh, god,” you moan. “Yes, Spencer, yes, yes.”

He moans under his breath, quickening his tongue, clamping his hands down on your thighs. You pull at his hair as your back arches off the bed and your legs tremble around his head. He gives your clit a sharp suck and you cry out, gripping onto his hair at the scalp. And when your voice gets so high and whiny that it could break glass, he knows you’re close and he spreads your pussy open, works his tongue on your clit and doesn’t stop.

Your body tenses up and you hold him tight, tight, tight, crying out his name, your breath catching in your throat. And when you come, you collapse with a long and drawn out groan, shoving your fingers in your mouth to catch your breath.

You instantly reach over to the nightstand and grab the condom that’s been waiting all night to be used. Spencer brings his face back to yours and you kiss him instantly, grinning when you feel him pushing his pants down his legs. He lets you roll the condom onto his hard, leaky cock and asks, “Do-do you wanna be on top?”

“No,” you shake your head, wrap your arms tight around his waist. “Stay on top of me,” you say against his lips, “I like it.”

“Okay,” he nods into a kiss with you and settles between your legs. You help him align, you kiss his neck and hold him close as he pushes his cock into you. The both of you gasp, your noses smushed together. “God…” Spencer moans. “You okay?”

You nod, “Mhm. Are you?”

“Mm…” he hums. “Trying not to explode.”

You two chuckle, catching each other in yet another hungry kiss as Spencer starts to move in and out of you slowly. His breathing in low and jagged, hot against your face. He’s so gentle with you, pushing into you with little pressure and caressing your face.

“H-harder…” you pant. “You’re not gonna break me, I promise.”

So he plunges into you a bit harder, a bit deeper and you gasp, “Harder.”

He obeys and angles himself above you, watching your face as he pushes into you with the right amount of force. You moan, your eyes rolling back and your head along with it, “Oh, fuck, yes. Like that.”

“Yeah?” he repeats the movement, his moan blending in with yours.

“Yes,” you nod. “Yes. Yes. Just,” you reach down and start rubbing your clit. “Fuck, keep going.”

And he does. He focuses on keeping his rhythm, slow, but intense, the bed squeaking everytime he moves his hips into yours. You gasp against his lips, wrap your arm around his waist, your hooded eyes focused on his. He runs his hand over your hair, whimpering to you, melting into you, and taking short breaks to keep himself from finishing too soon.

Your fingers get cramped and soaked from the incessant rubbing on your clit but it’s like you can’t stop. Spencer leans in to kiss your neck, his hand absentmindedly running up your ribs and gripping your breast. You hold onto his hair and groan into his ear, his low and breathy moans vibrating against your skin.

“F-fuck!” you cry out as he slams into you. “I’m gonna come, don’t stop. Fuck, please don’t stop.”

But he does, only for a moment because the dirty combination of your voice and your hand tugging his hair and your pussy tightening around him, he’s dangerously close to bringing this entire thing to a premature end. So, he pauses. He takes a breath and he pounds into you. Even slower, over and over and over, watching your face closely, watching you fall apart.

“Oh,” you whine, your fingers quickening on your clit. “God, Spencer,” you moan and then body trembles, tensing up underneath him as you come so hard that you lose your voice. He grunts, falling into a sloppy kiss with you and following right behind you, his body suddenly going weak as he comes, his entire weight placed upon you.

Spencer collapses beside you and instantly pulls you into his chest, squeezing you in his arms and peppering your forehead with kisses. “How was that?” he asks, looking down at you. “Was that good for you?”

You touch your fingertip to his chin and smile, nodding, “Oh, yes.”

“Good,” he hugs you. “Good, good, good. For me, too.”

You smile into a long kiss with him and giggle against his lips. Lying there, your breathing falls in sync and you trace the center of his tummy, sink into the bliss.

“They, uh…” Spencer starts. “They remembered my birthday today. That’s why I was late, they threw me a party.”

You glance up at him, but only for a moment and then you put your head back on his chest. “Oh.”

“It was nice,” he shrugs. “It was fun, but the whole time, I just…thought about you. I thought about how angry I was that they’d forgotten at all and how…how you just made everything so much better,” and he tilts your head up to say this next part directly to you, “You always make everything so much better.”

And as you stare into his eyes, the corners of your mouth turned up ever so sightly, your eyes start to water and your lip starts to quiver.

“Oh,” he softens. “Oh, no. Nooo. Are you crying?”

“No,” you shake your head. Then you put your face in your hands and nod, suddenly sobbing.

“Oh, no, no, [y/n], no, I’m sorry. Did I say something?”

You shake your head.

“What is it? What-what just happened?”

“I-I-I-“ you stutter. Lifting your head from your hands, you cry, “I-I just wish I could tell my friends about you.”

He frowns and takes you into a tight hug, rubbing your back and kissing the top of your head, “I’m so sorry,” he whispers to you. “Oh, [y/n], I’m so sorry.”

And because he’s never really seen you cry before, his only thought is to ask, “Do you-do you want me to go down on you again?”

You look up at him, your lip poked out in a dramatic pout and you nod.

“Okay,” he says, climbing on top of you and wiping the tears from your face. “I can do that for you.”

It works. It leads to more sex. The two of you don’t go to bed until the sun has nearly risen and don’t get up until well in the afternoon. Spencer thinks you’re using his dick as a distraction and you fear there’s no respectful way to say: I just can’t get enough. He gives you a few days and nights worth of it and still, it’s not enough.

He’s actively trying to get inside of you when he gets called into work. He’s on top of you, between your legs, pushing his tongue into your mouth when his phone goes off. He pulls away to check it and you whine, “Nooo, noooo, don’t goooo.”

“I have to. People are dying,” and as he speaks, you kiss his neck, touch your tongue to his jaw and he moans, “Oh, god,” before he can stop himself. “[y/n]….”

“Just-stay. Stay. They can save one day without you, can’t they?”

“Actually, I don’t think they can.”

“Ugh. You and your big, useful brain. I’m sick of it.”

“I’ll be back,” he gives you a kiss.

“Nooo, stay,” you hold him tight so he can’t move and he busts out laughing.

“I have to go, I’m sorry.”

So he showers and gets dressed and you sit on the bed pouting the entire time. He comes out of the bathroom and frowns, matching your pissy and childish expression.

“I will be back,” he tells you as he takes a seat on the bed. “I always come back.”

“I know, I know, I’m just being dramatic. Let me be dramatic.”

“Okay,” he chuckles and gives you a kiss. Nuzzling his nose against yours, he whispers, “You should call your friends.”

You instantly recoil and he puts his hands on your shoulders, “Okay, okay, I know. I know. But I think it’s time. You need them. They need you. You’re an easy girl to miss.”

You roll your eyes and he sighs, kisses your forehead and squeezes you in a hug. “Call them,” he says and then he leaves.

You sit there for a moment, ponder on his words. Ponder on the entirety of the past few days, past few months. You pick up your phone. You stare at it in your palm. You dial your friend’s number and though you don’t expect an answer, she picks up with a, “Hello?”

You take a deep breath, “Hey…”

When Spencer arrives at work, he finds himself heading up the elevator with Morgan who is so completely and totally normal that Spencer thinks he can smell the sex on him. He watches Derek from the corner of his eyes, fidgeting with the strap of his satchel and shuffling on his feet.

Suddenly, Derek smashes the emergency button on the elevator and brings it to a halt. Spencer falls back and grabs onto the wall.

“Why-why-why did you do that?” Spencer stutters, his pulse starting to rise. “Why did you do that? You remember what happened the last time you messed around with the elevator? Turn it back on.”

“Not until,” Derek says, turning to him. “You tell me whatever it is that you’re dying to tell me.”

“I’m…I’m not dying to tell you anything. I’m just scared of dying.”

“Pretty boy. I step in the elevator, you start sweating. I act like I don’t notice, you’re giving me the side eye up four floors. What’s up?”

Spencer closes his eyes and shakes his head. Then he stands up straight. Then he falls back again.

“Kid?”

“I’m…” Spencer starts. But he can’t finish. “I’m…” He thinks he doesn’t know what to say. Key word: thinks. But there’s only one sentence swirling around his brain and he has to say it, but he doesn’t want to say it and so he bites his tongue. He shakes his head and then looks up at Derek, “I’m having sex!”

And he says it with such a whiny voice that Derek can’t help but laugh. Visibily.

“I knew it,” Derek says. “You’re shaking in your converse to tell me that?”

“What? What do you mean you knew it?” The response sobers Spencer up a bit, his anxiety weakens just enough so he can figure out why Derek is laughing.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you walkin’ on in here everyday with a lil’ extra pep in ya step,” Derek chuckles. “You’re not that sneaky, kid. I knew there had to be someone.”

Spencer sighs, lets his shoulders relax. “It’s-it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just…sex…lots of sex. Lots of really, really good sex. I think. I think it’s good. It…feels good, seems good. I don’t have much to compare it to but, um…yeah…”

“My man,” Derek laughs and Spencer breaks a smile. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

Spencer smiles wider, “[y/n]. She’s gorgeous and smells good and makes me laugh and I…don’t feel weird around her she makes me feel so unbelievably not weird and y-yeah, she’s a little bit younger but I hardly ever notice.”

Derek puts the elevator back in motion, “How young are we talkin’ here?”

“Um, she’s twenty-two.”

Derek replies with nothing more than a whistle and Spencer rolls his eyes, “Stop.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said plenty.”

The elevator dings and they step off, Derek swinging his arm over Spencer’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, pretty boy, we’ll get you back to your lady soon.”

And Spencer laughs it off but in his head, he’s thinking: yes, please.

It’s the first week out of town that Derek is suspicious every time Spencer checks his phone. When the case starts to get heavier and harder, Spencer missing a few of his nightly phone calls, you worry. You can’t help it. He texts you when he lands and it’s stupid how wide you smile.

Library? he texts.

Y: Literally on my way.

You approach each other at the front doors, and from far away, you can see the bags under his eyes and the hunch in his shoulders.

“Hey, you,” you cradle his face in your palm. “Tough week?”

He leans into your touch, nodding and closing his eyes to take a moment and reset. When he opens them to find your face, illuminated by the light, he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you in for a kiss. You giggle against his lips and your leg lifts behind you, almost uncontrollably.

You smile at each other and Spencer asks, “Do you like coffee?”

You cackle, “I love coffee.”

He holds the door open for you, asking, “Hey, what do you think about meeting some friends of mine?”

You smile, turn to him, “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

#mine #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reidxreader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #Spotify

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thesewordsareallihavetogive · 1 year ago

Text

Cold Nights to Sunday Mornings - bradley "rooster" bradshaw x reader

Summary: 2.1k words. loosely inspired by "Hold My Girl" by George Ezra. (idk what to put for the summary but! pls trust that it's worth your time bc i'm proud of this :) )

Warnings: lots of angst & fluff to redeem the angst

a/n: the fall semester just started & i've been really busy so i'm just as shocked as you are that i'm actually posting a fic. enjoy & please let me know what you think <3

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“Baby, we have to get up,” she pleaded. Bradley ignored her request and wrapped his arms around her midsection tighter.

A soft displeased hum left her lips—though it was mostly in jest. She could never be anything but content in Bradley’s arms. The sound only had the aviator nuzzling his head further against her neck, peppering light kisses across the exposed skin.

---

Before y/n, Bradley never slept in. Rooster was his call sign for a reason. For better or for worse, he had a habit of being up before the sun and the rest of the sane world.

Sleeping in meant that he was only prolonging the amount of time he spent in bed alone. The barrack beds were uncomfortable and cold. When he’d been promoted and was able to arrange for housing off-base he ran into the same issue. A thousand dollars and a new mattress later, the comfort issue was fixed. He might as well have been sleeping on a damn cloud. But his bed was still cold. And lonely.

Without an alarm clock he rose every morning no later than 5:30 a.m.. Maybe it was because of all his years in the military. Maybe it was the broken teenager inside of him that was always running—from his past, to his future, to find someplace somewhere that he could rest easy—and damn, was that exhausting. Everyone he loved and counted on died suddenly, or abandoned him, or died slowly.

As he got older, he found a little bit of peace. Bradley worked his ass off and earned his successful career. He reconnected with his estranged Godfather. He was reassigned to the same base he spent most of his early childhood at.

He slept better after that. In his mid-thirties, it was about damn time that he was able to relax a bit. Yet still, no amount of blankets warmed up the everpresent unwelcome chill.

---

One morning he had a particularly unpleasant wake-up. At just after 4 in the morning, Bradley woke up drenched in sweat. The nightmares weren’t frequent, but they weren’t uncommon. It came with the territory of being directly involved in combat. He couldn’t go back to sleep–he never could–so he got up. He cleaned his entire house. He watched a movie that he wasn’t paying attention to. He went for a run. He didn’t bother counting the miles, he just ran until he felt better; even though he never really did. When he was done showering, it was finally a socially acceptable hour to call someone.

Bradley’s thumb hovered over Pete’s phone number. Before he could talk himself out of it, he pressed harder than necessary on the screen and winced as the phone rang. After 3 rings Bradley’s tense shoulders deflated. Just before the call went to voicemail, it was picked up with haste. Shuffling could be heard on the other end of the line.

“Hi sweetie!” That’s not Maverick.

“Hey Penny…” he trailed off awkwardly. He was hardly prepared to have a conversation with his godfather, much less his godfather’s girlfriend.

“Mav is out in the hangar right now working on his plane,” Penny explained with a sarcastic air of ‘what else is new?’. There was more shuffling as Penny moved to hold the phone between her shoulder and ear. She had a splatter or two of pancake batter on her manicured hands. Pete would just have to suck it up when he saw the evidence on his phone later.

“I’m making breakfast right now, would you like to come over? I’ll make up a plate for you, hun,” Penny offered sweetly. She was so caught up in putting together her Sunday breakfast feast that she hardly realized she never asked Bradley why he called.

The younger man paused for a moment. He didn’t want to impose, but he really didn’t want to be alone right now.

Pete met Bradley at the front door with a fond smile. Bradley tried his best to return the smile but he wasn’t successful. His lips just looked like they were twisted in pain and there wasn’t much light in his eyes. Maverick’s brow furrowed. He wouldn’t push until the kid was ready to open up, and he had a feeling that wouldn’t be until after he had a plate full of Penny’s famous pancakes.

Amelia all but inhaled her breakfast before she twirled around the house like a mini tornado, grabbing her bag and keys and shouting ‘ThanksforbreakfastI’mgoingtothebeachwithsomefriendsloveyoubye!’ as the door slammed shut behind her. Maverick’s eyebrows raised and Penny just shook her head with a smile.

The older woman subtly watched Bradley clear his plate. She waited until he swallowed his last bite of food and washed it down with orange juice before she rested her soft hand over his white knuckle clenched fist on the table.

“What’s going on, Bradley?” she asked gently. She was careful–like he was a scared animal that might bolt in an instant. Pete leaned in, making sure he was within his godson’s line of sight too. Bradley couldn’t meet either of their eyes. He cleared his throat and was quiet for a moment.

He told them about the nightmare. About the cold sweat, and the cold sheets, and the cold bed, and the cold empty house. Mav’s heart broke. He was trying his best to do right by Goose; he’d just barely managed to repair his relationship with his godson, but he supposed there was only so much he could protect the younger aviator from.

Pete reached across to rest an arm on Bradley’s shoulder. He tensed then relaxed, but didn’t shake off Mav’s hand. Maybe that was a good sign. Penny’s gaze was sympathetic. Bradley rarely opened up to anyone, but he knew Penny was the person to go to when pity would make him nauseous.

“It might be helpful to get some company,” the older, wiser woman suggested and squeezed Bradley’s hand. His fist unclenched a bit. Pete had been mostly silent up until this point. He wasn’t good with emotions, that much was obvious to anyone who’d spent more than half an hour outside of work with the man.

“Company other than one night stands and the stray cats you swear you don’t feed,” Pete remarked. Rooster chuckled. It was the first genuinely positive reaction they’d seen from him this morning. The cats are lovely company, thank you very much, Bradley thought.

---

Bradley tried to get his shit together. He was mostly successful. He officially took in one of the stray cats. He brought him to the vet and made sure his vaccines were up to date and got the poor cat neutered. A cat tree tower took residence next to the backdoor Bradley left cat food out by.

He even tried his hand at gardening. He started a small vegetable garden and did a bit of landscaping. Two months ago he didn’t know which perennials were best suited for California weather, much less how to take care of them. Now he’d installed a carefully timed automatic sprinkler system and even built a tarp over part of the earthy plot to prevent too much sun exposure for some of the more delicate plants.

You have to love yourself before you can love someone else.

Bradley was convinced that phrase was absolute bullshit. Plenty of people were in happy relationships and still went through bouts of being miserable with themselves. Penny tsked Bradley’s pessimism at her bar top. She’d unofficially taken on the role of being his intermittent therapist.

“Bull shit or not, you need to work out some of your own issues before you start dating around,” she said pointedly. She was being pulled in the opposite direction by another bartender that needed her help when she shouted back to Bradley, “Don’t you dare download Tinder, mister!” The exclamation was far too loud for Bradley’s taste, especially when several heads suddenly whipped around to focus on him.

So work out his issues he did.

He stopped throwing himself into work and ruthless workouts simply for the sake of avoiding his thoughts and being alone. He tried out sitting in silence with his thoughts in his lonely house. He hated it. But he got better at it over time. Goose the cat climbing across his lap and snuggling against his thigh made things better.

Companionship. Mav and Penny were right. He needed someone outside of work. Someone whose life didn’t center around the Navy or planes or beer.

---

y/n wasn’t who he ever imagined ending up with. She didn’t particularly care for the U.S. military-industrial complex. She wasn’t a beer girl and she wasn’t very good at driving. She was afraid of heights so she preferred not to fly when she traveled. Whenever she could drive instead of take a flight, she would—even though she’s admittedly a bad driver.

y/n loved Bradley’s cat. She was a cat and a dog person. She was also a bearded dragon person—something that Bradley did not expect to learn about anyone over the age of 20. Her eyes were filled with wonder when she first laid eyes on his thriving vegetable garden.

y/n was very outdoorsy. She loved nature and the beach, she dragged Bradley out of his cold house more times than he could count. The more time y/n spent at his house, the less cold it felt. She brought Bradley on hikes—he had no idea how many trails and reserves were within driving distance. Bradley always drove.

Their green thumbs linked well together. y/n introduced several cat-safe plants to the interior of Bradley’s home. Every once in a blue moon, the couple would spend time at y/n’s apartment. Her roommate was even less of a fan of the military-industrial complex and it showed. One morning Bradley woke up before y/n so he headed to her kitchen to make them breakfast. Her roommate, Allie, woke up early as well. A not-so-casual conversation ensued (read: scrutinizing questions) about Bradley being ‘“Property of Uncle Sam” over the sound of scrambled eggs sizzling. After that, Bradley suggested they spend more time at his house. It was roomier, he reasoned. y/n snorted. “You just don’t want Allie talking at you at the butt crack of dawn,” y/n corrected. Bradley nodded with tight lips.

Mav and Penny enthusiastically offered to help move y/n into Bradley’s home after the spunky y/h/c accepted his offer with a massive grin and a PG-13 kiss.

Now that Bradley woke up with y/n in his arms every morning, he wasn’t really eager to hop out of bed anymore. He was pretty sure the last time he habitually woke up later than 9 in the morning on weekends was when he was in high school.

---

y/n huffed and leaned back into Bradley’s warm embrace. The man was practically a space heater in bed, but he was her space heater.

She twisted around in his arms with a grin so that they were chest to chest. Bradley’s legs tensed when y/n’s cold feet assaulted his skin.

“We need to go feed Goose,” y/n reasoned, even though she knew full well that Bradley couldn’t be reasoned with when he was comfortable in bed. Comfortable and bed were two words that weren’t associated with each other for quite a long time for Bradley.

“He can starve for a bit,” he mumbled without opening his eyes. y/n gasped and swatted his arm. The corner of his lip twitched into a grin as he leaned forward to blindly press a kiss to y/n’s face.

“You have morning breath, Brad,” she wrinkled her nose. He squinted one eye open and stuck his tongue out at y/n. She rolled her eyes but she too snuggled further into his warm embrace. 20 minutes or so passed by. y/n was falling in and out of almost asleep, and she was ready to get the day going.

She squirmed in Bradley’s arms again.

“Bradleyyy,” she groaned, feeling antsy. The aviator shook his head with a smile. For the first time all morning, he cracked his eyes open. The light streaming through the window highlighted the flecks of gold in his beautiful big brown eyes and y/n forgot what she was going to say.

“Shhh, five more minutes” he hushed softly and pressed a kiss to y/n’s nose, a content smile on his face.

“Give me a minute to hold my girl.”

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#rooster x reader #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #rooster imagine

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