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joeloverture · 8 months ago

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snowbound | dbf!j.m. x f!reader

masterlist | updates blog | ao3 mirror pairing: dbf!joel miller x f!reader summary: [no outbreak] joel is the only guy you know with four wheel drive in the rarely-snowy state of texas, so it seems like a no-brainer to have him pick you up from work — until his truck breaks down, leaving you two to the classic 'huddle for warmth' solution. warnings: (18+ mdni) dbf!joel, age gap (assumed 20s/40s), reader borrows joel's coat, but does not wear it and uses it as a blanket, self-indulgent humor & banter, joel has sarah and she's a 15y/o menace which means liberties are taken with the timeline, blink & miss it drug mention, close proximity, unprotected piv sex, vaginal fingering, (mocking) dirty talk & dirty talk alluding to anal but no actual anal, daddy kink, degradation, dom!joel, brat!reader, brat tamer!joel, mild bondage (with a scarf), rearview mirror sex, clit stim, riding, doggy, a few pussy spanks, 2 spanks, truck sex, sort of edging, getting caught after the act [no use of y/n] word count: 12.3k a/n: this fic was a labor of love from a request i received earlier this month. i didn't expect it to be this long but i really enjoyed these two! massive massive massive shoutout to talia, @lovesickonmybed, for putting up with me + advising. this fic was way too much to handle on my own. they're the reason i pulled it off. joel is latino here, but i think game!joel can be interpreted as latino too, so read who you'd like.

“Looking ahead for our chances at wintry precipitation tonight – measurable snow, freezing rain, or sleet. It’s hard to get snow here in central Texas – if only, huh? We’re seeing some strong flurries tonight, turning into snow showers in the early morning. Low chances of any significant build up, but you can expect hazardous driving conditions. Black ice and low visibility will make extensive travel dangerous–”

The radio in Keith’s Hardware is old fashioned, curving around the volume and tuning knobs. It’s one of the ones that still has a dial pointer, which is almost always aimed at 92.7 if Keith’s in the back (country); 96.7 (pop) if it’s just you and the only other girl that works in the carpenter’s wet dream of a store. Right now, though, it’s neither of those stations. The pointer is at 162.4, the weather station.

You’d known you were in for it on the drive into work. Watch the weather and it’s real nasty out there airing from your parents lips on your way out of the house for your eight hour shift. The drive had been a gunmetal sort of gray, clouds streaked through the sky and spitting bullets of sleet at your windshield.

For a little bit, the weather had almost cleared up. You’d sworn you’d seen a splotch of sun when you’d tried to step out for break, just to be driven back in by your too-thin jacket and the cold as balls temperature.

Now, though? It’s fucking freezing, and the flurries that the weatherman mentioned are starting to fall. And as much as you’d told Keith that your shitty two-wheel-drive couldn’t handle it, he’d insisted on scheduling you and Liz for close.

Which is where Mr. Miller comes in.

Joel Miller, your dad’s buddy. Joel Miller, the grumpiest secret-softie you’ve ever met. Joel Miller, a knight in shining armor with his 4x4 Ford F150 instead of a horse. Although, if your fantasies are correct – and you like to think they are – what’s between his thighs certainly makes up for the lack of a horse. But he isn’t bringing you for a ride on his cock. He just so happens to be the only man your dad knows with a four wheel drive vehicle, or at least the only one willing to spare you from spinning out by giving you a ride home. Just thinking about it has a knot pinching in the back of your throat. His hands, big and wide and stretching over the gear shift. One muscled arm dangling over the wheel. Looking over his goddamn shoulder to back out —

Liz hops up on the check-out counter where you’re counting up the last of the cash, a spread of Hamiltons, Grants, and Jacksons. You wouldn’t expect a girl like her to work at a hardware store, especially one in the backstreets of the seedy part of town. Some sort of family emergency had driven her back to Austin from NYU design school, which you’re thankful for. Mainly because you get out of cutting wood panels since she has the better eye for measurements, but also because after years of sulking in Keith’s, you finally have someone to talk shit with.

“Those heart eyes aren’t for fuckin’ Alexander Hamilton,” Liz says, tapping her acrylics on your ledger to get your attention. You cough, flipping her off with your pen still in-hand. Liz hums, pretending to think about it as you put down the last numbers. “Although I wouldn’t be too surprised. You do love a geriatric man.”

“Joel isn’t that old,” you scoff, arranging the bills into slim white envelopes and then licking them shut. “He’s just an… acquired taste.”

“Sure, his jizz probably tastes like prohibition-era booze–”

“What the fuck,” you wheeze, hands going out to brace yourself on the closest display case. Your head dips as your chest shakes with laughter.

Liz stays completely straight-faced as she continues, “You’ll have to have 911 on speed dial because if you clench, his heart’s giving out.”

“It is not,” you say, voice still strained with the laughs that won’t stop punching out of you.

She puts her hands up in defense and crosses her legs at the ankles. “Hey, it’s not my fault you like playing whac-a-mole with Great Depression dick.”

“Liz!” You playfully shove her off of the counter, thrusting the envelopes into her hands. “You’re nasty. Fucking nasty.”

She splays a wounded hand over her heart, fanning herself with the envelopes. “You know you love me.” She slips into the office behind the register. You hear the click of the safe before she calls over her shoulder, “Any particular reason you’re fantasizing on the clock?”

“Not fantasizing,” you refute. Liz pops out of the back with a uncertain look scrawled on her face. “My dad talked him into picking me up today so I don’t drive into a snowbank.”

“Sounds like the beginning of a shitty porno.”

“Don’t give me hope.”

“I’m just saying,” she grins. “You can still come to mine. Only a five minute walk with zero chance of rejection.”

“You have such little faith in me.”

She purses her lips. “Mkay…. Pro-tip: Keith probably has some Viagra sitting around in his desk drawers.”

“Liiiiiiiz,” you say. You’re about to tune her out completely when familiar headlights light up the wet asphalt, beaming through the windows. The engine idles, a soft rumble through the linoleum floors. The truck lights dim, leaving Joel in the buttery shine of the streetlamp. His thick arms stretch across the wheel, and he rakes one large hand through his hair. “Shit, speak of the Devil.” You clip off your nametag, tossing it into your half-open bag. “Can you finish closing tonight? I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“No problem, no favors necessary.” She closes the register. You fumble to get your bag over your shoulder, not wanting to keep Joel waiting. “Use protection!” she calls after you, and you make sure to flip her off one more time as the door clangs shut behind you.

A wall of cold hits you like a blade of lightning. Wind unfurls, mauling telephone lines and frosted treetops, rippling your jacket. Not even the worn scarf around your neck seems to be doing its job. Suddenly, every one of your limbs feels like an icicle. Joints almost freezing up, you half-jog, half-penguin strut your way to Joel’s passenger side. You wipe the ice off of the door handle with your sleeve. A few stray flurries dust you as you tug the door open, exhaling in relief as you haul yourself onto the side steps and into the toasty warmth of the Ford F150.

You cozy up in the seat, too preoccupied by thawing your hands with long, winded breaths to notice the affronted look Joel is throwing your way. “Are you tryin’ to catch your fuckin’ death, girl?”

“No death to catch. It’s not that cold.” The way you’re shivering says otherwise. Joel pins you with the raise of his brow.

Before you know what he’s doing, he’s groaning as he reaches over the center console into the backseat. You see a flash of his trucker jacket before it lands in your lap, flannel-lined and heavy. You use it like a blanket, draping it across your torso and wrestling your hands into the inside pockets. The canvas smells like car exhaust and off-brand Dollar General deodorant, two things that are so inextricably Joel. As much as you hate to admit it, the warmth is already inking its way across your skin – or maybe it’s just being next to Joel that’s heating you up. “Thanks,” you grumble.

When you adjust in your seat, the inside of your foot catches an empty Dr. Pepper can on the floor. It rattles when you accidentally kick it forward. You lean down and pick it up, going to place it down in the cupholder, only to find it overpopulated with random Home Depot and Whataburger receipts.

“Tax deductions,” he shrugs. “Gotta eat on the job.”

“And a…” You pick up the receipt and squint at the faded typography. “$3.29 strawberry milkshake is part of that, I figure?”

Joel grunts, “Tommy’s order.”

You smirk. “Sure it is.”

“Quit shit stirrin’ and put on your fuckin’ seatbelt.”

You reach back, fingers snagging it and tugging it down. Groping for the belt between the seats and the center console, it goes on for at least five seconds too long before Joel grabs the buckle and shoves it into the slot. His fingers brush your thigh as he pulls away from you and settles his foot over the gas pedal. The singular touch shouldn’t make butterflies beat at the walls of your stomach, but it does. Everything about him does.

Now that you’re all settled in, everything about him is also settling in. The fact that he’s only wearing a tight-fitting white t-shirt now that his coat is off. His sleeves are constricting enough that his muscles bulge below the strip of fabric. Ample scruff dapples his jawline, and his hair is disheveled in the way that you’ve learned you like it. You trail your eyes down his body, his tummy, across the undone drawstrings of his dark gray sweatpants, and no, you move on quickly from there, because you refuse to get riled up in the passenger seat.

He’s slowly peeling out of Keith’s parking lot, arm thrown over the back of your seat. You’re starting to fail at your mission of not getting riled up when you see the flex of his bicep, the way his eyes meet yours as he turns to look through the back window. He turns out of the parking lot and onto the relatively barren, icy streets–

“What the hell are those?”

Joel side-eyes you, brows furrowed. He follows the line of your gaze to his feet, which you’re used to seeing in New Balances or steel-toed work boots, but are instead wearing… fur-lined crocs.

“These here? Yeah, got ‘em recently, good for my days off with all this nippy weather. Sarah told me they’re ‘all the rage’ with the youth–”

You can’t help it. You damn near double over with laughter, clutching at your stomach. Joel’s coat nearly slides off of you, but you hang onto it with your pinkie finger, quickly going dizzy from lack of air. “‘All the rage’? Oh my fucking God– Joel, she was pulling your leg. Those are fucking hideous.”

“Hey, now–” He sighs, pinching his nose bridge with the hand that isn’t dangling over the wheel. “Zip it, I don’t needa justify my shoe choices to ya.”

“Does she do anything other than give you shit these days?”

“You’re one to talk about givin’ shit, y’know,” Joel says. Unfailingly, he smiles. The smile that pulls at the edges of his lips. The smile that he only ever gets when talking about Sarah. It doesn’t matter where – loading up his plate with barbecue, your dad asking him while he’s picking up junk mail in the morning, or on the job. If someone asks him about his daughter, Joel fucking beams.

He sucks on his teeth for a second, and then, “She’s picked up soccer. Goalkeeper. Damn good at it, too, all them other kids on her team can’t match her collapse dive.”

“Of course they can’t,” you say. “She’s got better reflexes than a house fly.”

Joel hunches over the wheel, effectively ending the conversation as he concentrates on the road. The only noise is the rumbling engine and the wagging of the windshield wipers as he attempts to navigate the black ice polka-dotted roads. It shouldn’t be as arousing as it is, seeing him in such a state of focus, his thighs tensed as he manipulates the gas and brakes to stop early, start slow. His arms thickening when he makes a right turn. Thumbs drumming drumming drumming on the wheel and maybe they’d do the same between your legs—

“So how’s work?” you blurt out.

Joel mumbles something that you can’t quite make out.

“Huh?”

“Fuckin’ ‘big shot’ gringos up my ass all day. Goddamn shitshow.” He shakes his head, his lips thinned. “I tell ‘em terraforming is gonna make it look like a Flinstone-owned-and-operated putt-putt course. They say do it anyway. I tell ‘em that orderin’ custom windows is gonna put us months behind. They say do it anyway, then come up jibber-jabberin’ all ‘bout how long it’s takin’. And it’s fuckin’... window madness, not one window in that hellhole matches another. Ain’t had so much trouble buildin’ a house since Sarah had me build her one from Hobby Lobby when she was little. Their architect musta been doin’ lines.”

You think you’ve seen Sarah’s dollhouse before when visiting, just in passing when the guest bedroom door was left open a smidge. You remember stalling in the hallway to look at it, with a fleece of dust growing on the tediously placed shingles and the oakwood front door left open like it’d been waiting for someone to come home. But Sarah outgrew it, and although Joel would never admit it, you know he’s too sentimental to leave it on the curb.

“How bad can building a dollhouse from a kit be?”

“With a five year old yellin’ like a drill sergeant in your ear? Worse than you think. She even made me rig the damn thing with electric so she could have her pink chandelier.”

You pout at him, “Wah wah, I’ll bet you loved it.”

“Was a nuisance at the time. But, uh, she was fiddlin’ with some ‘a the dolls I’d gotten her. Don’t think she knew I was watchin’, had gone to put ‘er to bed ‘cause it was a school night. She was readin’ this book I always read to her. Something about… a stuffed bear with a missin’ button and a girl that was tryna to buy him. I don’t fuckin’ know–” “Corduroy?”

“Yeah, that. Anyway, she was reading, usin’ the same tone I always used with her, tucked her dolls in for the night, and switched off the lights. I don’t think I loved it until then.” There’s a glistening in his eyes at the memory.

You smirk, “Sentimental bastard–”

The truck slides. Or maybe it coasts, skimming across the thin film of black ice. Joel eases down on the brakes, hauling to a stop next to a Minivan with its warning lights on. It’s a long stretch, and you can’t even see all the way down the highway with how thick the snow is. No two snowflakes are the same, but you find it difficult to believe when you’re looking at what must be millions of them. They pirouette, landing on window panes, rooftops, and wind-agonized tree branches. Everything is blotted with white. Red warning lights glare on the ice back at you.

“Shiiit,” Joel says as he squints at the road ahead of him. He scratches at his scruff.

“Tell me you’re not going to drive through that shit.”

“I’m not,” he says.

“Then how the fuck are we getting home?”

“Chill it–” “That’s the last thing I need to do,” you huff.

“I’m takin’ the detour.”

With that, he jerks the wheel — a bit too recklessly considering the weather, in your opinion – and pulls off onto a slippery backroad. The snow seems to have clung to the trees more back here, a sort of incandescent saran wrap over the oaks. At a bend in the road, icicles hang from a yellow sign that says CURVE 30 MPH. Joel takes it at ten.

You’re not checking out his hands while he drives, no, of course not. You’re looking at the gazillion lights on his dashboard display. “You usually have that many lights on?”

“Ain’t your truck, ain’t your business.”

“I’m ridin’ in it, ain’t I?” you mock his accent.

Joel sighs heavily. “Drivin’ me up the fuckin’ wall.” His hands clench briefly around the wheel. “Auto repair shop’s been price gouging, I’m tryin’ to get Tommy to hook me up with his buddy in San Anton–”

“Won’t be able to drive to San Antonio if your bumper falls off halfway there.”

Joel’s voice is dry as bone. “Ha ha. You get off on bein’ a smartass?”

It’s three words – that’s all it is. Just a throwaway phrase that he probably doesn’t even realize he said. If it were anything more, you’d know. But Joel, saying those words in that order? Damn him, because it turns your blood effervescent. You stop yourself from rubbing your thighs together underneath his coat. You’re about to make another quip that’ll not only distract you, but also surely drive Joel up the wall, one of your favorite activities.

His truck putters from ten miles per hour to eight.

Eight to six.

Six to four.

“Motherfuckin’.... shit,” Joel says again, this time much more urgent as he wrests the wheel to the side. The truck skims over the frosted roads and onto the shoulder, rolls for two seconds, and then falls to a complete, utter stop. The windshield wipers pause while they’re still up. Heat no longer spits out of the dusty air vents.

It’s the loudest silence you’ve ever been in.

“...So do you get off on letting your truck break down or–”

Joel sighs in the way that dogs do. “Thin ice, missy.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and pulls out his phone. “I’ll give Tommy a call.” He stares at the screen for ten seconds. Taps it. Shakes it.

“No service?” you ask.

“No service.”

“Let me try mine,” you mumble, shifting in the car seat. Sure enough, zero bars. Even though you know it won’t work, you press your dad’s contact. It goes straight to voicemail. “Well, shit.”

“Shit,” Joel echoes.

It’s unspoken, but you both know the harsh reality of this harsh wintry night: no phone service, no operational truck, and… no heater.

“Hang tight,” Joel says, reaching over the center console and hijacking his coat from your lap. He wrestles his arms through the sleeves and zips it up. He shoves the door open against the hoarse wind that keeps the trees at a slant, hops out, then slams it shut hard enough for the vehicle to rock. From how hard the wind was blowing, stray flurries dust the truck’s interior.

You can’t really see what he’s doing – the snow’s too heavy, the hood popped wide open for him to investigate the truck’s viscera. You run your hands up and down your thighs, already feeling cold. Without the heater, it won’t be much longer before you turn to an icicle in the passenger seat. The hood bangs back down.

Joel climbs in from the backseat, slams the door as hard as humanly possible, and then scoots to the middle seat.

You crane your neck to see him as he shakes out his cold-reddened hands before puffing air into his cupped palms. “What’s wrong with it?” You ask.

He lets out a frigid breath. “Don’t fuckin’ know, snowin’ too damn hard to tell.”

“Ten bucks it was one of the lights on your dash,” you say.

Joel glares at you, still huffing into his hands. His fingertips are bright red to match his ruddy cheeks. Snow is sprinkled through his hair like soot, quickly melting to beads of water on his windblown curls.

“Got some… hand warmers up in that glovebox. Grab the whole pack.”

You lean forward, kneeing it open and rifling through all of his shit. Insurance papers, more receipts, Miller Contracting business cards, a folded pocket knife, lens wipes, and –

“When’s the last time these saw daylight?” you huff out a laugh as you hold up a battered box of condoms.

Turns out, snow isn’t the thing that makes Joel Miller redder than a tomato. It’s the fifteen year old, very expired condoms hiding in his glovebox.

He clears his throat and averts his eyes. “Jesus. Forgot those were in there.”

You shake the box around and pluck a condom out of it. Looking for the expiration date, you turn it over and over in your hand. “August 31st, 2004. Really that long since you got some, Miller?”

“Put ‘em back,” he grumbles. “Pain in my ass.”

You snicker, replacing the condom box with the box of hand warmers. They’re unopened, still sealed. You snatch Joel’s keys out of the ignition and swipe them across the tape. “Happy?” you toss them over your shoulder.

“No.” He tears open the pack and rubs his hands together around the warmer, sighing when it begins to heat.

“Dick,” you grumble.

More tearing. “Brat.” Another warmer lands in your lap.

“Oughta get comfortable. We’re gonna be here a while,” Joel says.

“And whose fault is that?” You ask as you weigh the warmer in your palms. The front seat already feels cramped, and you’re quick to unbuckle your seatbelt. Your legs and arms fold like pretzels as you climb into the backseat. The curse that leaves you when you hit your head on the roof has Joel rolling his eyes.

“Pipe down. First thing in the mornin’ I’ll make the walk out to that country club a mile out and use their phone. Just gotta ride out the night. You ain’t ever roughed it before?”

You fall on all fours on the backseat, finally pulling yourself upright next to him. “Never had a reason to. Like, what if I have to piss? What if I get hungry?”

Joel shrugs. “Tough.”

The cold is starting to settle into your bones. Even your tongue feels popsicle numb, and your fingers are stiff where they wrap around the warmer. It’s like you’ve been trapped in a snowglobe and shaken up by a handsy toddler with how the wind rattles the truck and the snow swishes outside. You suppress a shiver, leaning against the door. Condensation is already building on the windows. Absent-mindedly, you begin to trace a portrait of Joel in the moisture. Your fingertip squeaks against the glass. Your masterpiece wouldn’t be complete without his signature scowl, so you’re sure to paint a frown on his face and his forehead wrinkles on thick.

“Didn’t know you were an artist,” Joel comments from the opposite side of the back. “Looks nothin’ like me, by the way.”

You smirk, “But you knew it was you.”

Because there’s nothing better to do than burn time, you spend the next ten minutes filling up the window with whatever nonsense doodles come to mind — hearts, stars, trees, and of course, the only one that Joel seems to be fond of: Sarah, smiling and curly-haired.

Reality only settles in when you’re done with the ephemeral illustrations, their outlines starting to dissolve back to regular droplets that streak down the windows. You’re stuck, for God knows how long, on this shady backroad that the Zodiac Killer would’ve loved during his heyday. With your dad’s best friend that you’ve been harboring a dangerous crush on.

And it’d be impossible to forget that it’s freezing fucking balls.

“Joel?” you say into the dark truck.

“Hm?”

Always one to speak your mind, you say, “It’s freezing fucking balls.”

A sound that might be a laugh leaves him. “Here,” Joel says, unzipping his jacket. He tosses it over to you, and you snuggle back up with it, nose burrowing into one of the creases in the fabric. His coat smells like him – like cheap body wash, chewing gum, and gasoline.

You try putting your hands in the pockets, even going as far as to open up a new hand warmer for each one, but they’re full of loose change and, expectedly, more receipts. When you curl up against the corner between the door and the seat, the hard plastic bites into your oversensitive back. Sitting upright or cross-legged doesn’t work, and when you test drive sitting diagonally with your feet propped up on the console, Joel makes a disproving noise and swats gently at your shin. You prop your forehead up against the window, but it’s cold enough to give you a brain freeze.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel snorts. “Get over ‘ere, you wuss.” He hauls you over, big hand splayed over your waist, and drags you across the bench to his side. You yelp in surprise, but only for a second before you’re crushed against Joel’s side. “Can’t have ya gettin’ hypothermia,” he jests.

You don’t know where to put your hands, but eventually, you settle on cupping his neck. Touching Joel, hell, even just being near him, is like being by an open furnace. Or maybe the heat is just your stomach doing somersaults at being this close to Joel after years of frivolous pining. His nape emanates warmth, the kind that flows down your arms and wraps comfortingly around your chest.

Joel exhales, the tendrils of his breath curling from the frigidity. He grabs his coat from the side and flattens it over the both of you, a piss poor replacement for a blanket, but all you’ve got.

Still, cold seeps in through the cracks in the doors, spoiling whatever lukewarm air remains. It doesn’t help that Joel had hopped in and out of the truck to play eye spy under the hood. The truck struggles to hold onto heat properly, especially when it isn’t producing more of it.

Joel sort of… flickers against your back. You think nothing of it until it happens again, this time in short bursts, and then turns into full on shivering.

“Who’s the wuss now, old man?”

Joel tenses up behind you. “Funny,” he says. With your hands cushioned against his neck, you feel the grate of his voice in his throat. “This is the best you’re gonna get unless you wanna be butt ass naked to share heat.”

It should be a joke. But the way he says it… doesn’t sound like a joke.

You go still, lifeless, not even sure if you’re shaking anymore. Because now, the only thought in your head is being pressed against Joel, his soft cock hardening against you, his palms splayed and rubbing over your stomach to keep you warm. And if his cock needed to get somewhere warmer, too…. Your clit twitches at the thought.

You smother the initial shock in your voice with your usual solution: sass. “So what, we’re gonna fuckin’ huddle for warmth?”

As much as you enjoy the idea, you're already dripping — and that’s just from your body being pressed against his, breathing the same air as him, closer now than you’ve ever been before. With no panties in the way, it’s not a stretch to say you’d be dripping down his thighs. You’d hate to have that conversation.

“Would you rather freeze to death?” Joel asks. You look up at him from where you’re curled into his side and find no gleam in his eyes. This isn’t just some knee-slapper for him. Joel Miller is being completely, irreversibly serious.

“I’d rather something less like Naked and Afraid, Joel!”

“It works,” he says, nose flaring. “They do it in those fuckin’... action movies all ‘a the time.”

“I didn’t know Hollywood was writing survival manuals for pervs–”

“God, you’re a piece ‘a work, ya know that?” His eyes flick down to you, and maybe it’s just the fact that this road is damn near pitch black, but his pupils seem larger than before. “Listen, I ain’t tryna perv on ya. I also ain’t tryna send you back to your old man with four fingers missin’ from frostbite.”

There’s no way you’re actually seriously considering this. You’ve heard of cold temperatures impairing thinking, but not like this. Your dad’ll go chasing after Joel with a pitchfork and a shovel if he finds out the man who was supposed to get you home safe and sound was cuddling naked with you. Cuddling naked with you in the backseat, no less. You’re certain Joel won’t try anything – he’s not like that. No matter how flustered you get in his lap, he’d never take advantage of you. What you aren’t certain of is your ability to stop yourself from asking him t0 take advantage of you.

This is practical. It’s only supposed to be practical. He wouldn’t be suggesting something this drastic if you both weren’t shaking like a rattlesnake’s rattler.

“Fine,” you say, already unwinding your scarf from around your neck. Determined to keep some semblance of boundaries up, you add, “No peeping, Miller.”

Joel makes an exasperated sound as you once again scoot out from his coat and across the bench, working yourself out of your shoes, your cotton zip-up, and then the stiff Keith’s uniform – a blue polo and jeans. Joel’s eyes are respectfully trained on the truck’s floor mats, which you’re only just now noticing has a sun-bleached Lisa Frank sticker tacked onto it.

Down to your bra and panties, your heart rate picks up. Your fingers are so fucking cold that it’s hard to get your bra straps out of the way so you can unclasp the damned thing, and then it falls to the floor. Your nipples harden in the face of the cold. The only thing you keep is your scarf, which do you do your best to cover your tits with. Scooping up your discarded clothes and tossing them to the front seat, you let out a shaky breath.

Fuck it.

You shimmy out of your panties and get rid of them just as quickly. When you try telling Joel you’re decent, or rather indecent, nothing comes out. Instead, you have to clear your throat with a strained, “All good.”

“Alright,” Joel says, rustling around. You hear his crocs scrape against the mat, and then his shirt swishing over his head.

He doesn’t tell you to look away, but since it’s implied, you look out of the window. The snowy trees tremble in the wind, and you almost wince when you see a small sliver of his tanned skin reflected in the glass. His crocs clunk on the ground when he kicks them off, and you watch his criminally tight t-shirt go flying over the passenger seat. You casually grip the Jesus handle, hoping that Joel doesn’t notice your fist tightening around it when you hear him untying the drawstrings of his sweatpants. When his sweats and boxers follow the path of his shirt, breathing gets a lot harder than you remember it being.

Just an hour ago, you’d been certain that this would be nothing more than a ten minute drive. Maybe, if you were lucky, he’d call you a casual pet name that would fuel the wriggling of your hand between your thighs that night.

The tension in the air is thicker than molasses. Each breath you take is fragile.

“I’m ready when you are,” Joel says.

Since you’re already half-naked, and since chickening out is out of the question, you inch over to Joel’s side. The air tumbles out of your lungs in one fell swoop when your bicep meets his. With some fidgeting, you bring your legs up at an angle beneath you, wrapping around his side in a way that has you feeling a little bit like a koala. You talk yourself into keeping your eyes forward and then scrub your palms across your freezing arms.

Joel, more indifferent than you think anyone else in this situation could be, abruptly casts his coat back over the both of you.

And, fuck him, he’d been right. The engulfing canvas of his coat keeps warmth trapped where it can be passed easily between the two of you. Or maybe it’s just being confined and skin-to-skin with Joel that has you heating up.

The silence is cruel – it’s much harder to make conversation about work or dollhouses or whatever the hell else when you’re naked. Only the wind’s sibilance keeps you company.

You can get used to this, you think. Drift off into a somewhat sound sleep with your head on Joel’s shoulder and hope that you don’t drool all over him or moan his name in your sleep. More embarrassing things have happened to you.

But then, as if you’re the unluckiest person alive, the temperature drops even more, and suddenly, you’re shaking like a leaf all over again. Your teeth almost clack together as you try to stammer out to Joel, “C–cold, Jesus fucking… Christ that’s cold.”

Joel pouts down at you, but you don’t miss the way his lip quivers. “Should I call the wambulance?”

“Should I call the r–r–r–retirement home to pi…pick up a ru–runaway resident?” It sounded a lot better in your head than bouncing off of your frozen tongue, you have to admit.

“Drama queen,” Joel mutters into your ear. “Can’t do anythin’ more about it. Sorry–”

“Can I sit on your lap?” you blurt out so quickly that you don’t even have time to think about it. You grimace, partially covering your face with your hands. Shit.

Joel’s eyes widen. “Excuse me?”

You’re already half doomed. Why not go all the way? “Listen, it’s just fucking… fucking freezing, Joel. Holy shit.”

“That bad?” he chokes out.

“You’d be warmer than the seats,” you defend. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Best behavior.”

Joel seems to ponder it for a moment, brows stitched together while he looks down at you from where you’re furled up against his side. He gnaws on the inside of his cheek before giving you a slight nod. “Alright.” You nod in return, heart in your throat. “–But you better mean it when you say best behavior. Can’t have any ‘a this shit gettin’ back to your dad.”

Another nod. You hold your breath as you shinny your way onto Joel’s lap, mounting him from the front so his chest hits your back. In your attempt to get comfortable, you bracket your legs around his. His soft cock fits at the small of your back, and even though he’s as flaccid as can be, he’s big. Apparently your imagination isn’t too far off. Joel’s sharp intake of breath forms a pit in your stomach, and you know when you’re warming up for an entirely different reason than close proximity, you also know that you need to calm yourself down. Fast.

Think of something awful. Like that time that you had to dissect cow eyes in sophomore year biology. Think about mold. How many murderers you’ll walk by in your lifetime. Expired leftovers. Anything–

You adjust yourself in an attempt to get away from Joel’s cock. Instead, your hips move just so his cock slips between your thighs and bobs against your slit.

You whine.

Your body immediately locks up once you realize what you’ve done. Crawling out of the truck to die a hypothermia-induced death seems like a much kinder fate than facing Joel, but no matter how much you scream at yourself to reach out and unlock the door, your hands refuse to move. You hadn’t noticed how wet you’d gotten, and you have no idea how. It’s smeared across your thighs, and now pressed up against your back after Joel’s dick had dragged through it all.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit–

Chancing a look over your shoulder, you’re surprised to find the tips of Joel’s ears flushed, cheeks cherry ripe. His Adam’s apple bobs when you meet his eyes. Holy fuck.

You’ve flustered him.

For some reason, the thought makes your chest a lot lighter. You look away nonetheless, but this time, with a newfound gleam in your eye. There’s no such thing as a bad accident, right?

Maybe Liz was right about having to call 911, because when you ‘accidentally’ repeat the movement, Joel stops breathing all together. His cock, almost hard now, you’ve noticed, bumps against your clit. You almost swallow your tongue trying to keep your moan down.

“The fuck you think you’re doin’?” he asks, his gruff voice scratching at your ears.

“I didn’t mean to,” you lie straight through your teeth, a smug little grin spreading on your face. Something about his semi-hard cock between your bodies tells you he’s going to say no to your next suggestion. “Maybe you should put the coat between us, instea–”

“Are you outta your fuckin’ mind, girl?” Joel’s voice comes out raspy. He shakes his head, clears his throat. The vibrations rumble up your spine. “And take away the whole point of stayin’ warm? Now quit it. Ain’t that hard to sit still.”

You try your hand at listening – for all of two seconds.

You hike your hips up, fumbling with his coat as you slot his cock against your slit once more, pushing yourself forward. The coat slides right off of you, falling in a dark lump on the floor. Neither of you care — you’re both too heated for the lack of cover to make a damn difference. Joel hisses, a sound like water hitting an open flame. His hands fly down to your waist, anchoring you to his lap. A surprised noise squeaks out of you.

“What, you got rocks rattlin’ around in your brain?” Joel scowls. “You’re real impolite for a cocktease, sweetheart.”

Butterflies flap around in your stomach from his words. It’s enough to make your head tip against his chest so you can look up at him, lips shaped in a perfect pout. “I’m not,” you say.

“Not a cocktease, huh? Not even when you’re rubbin’ all over my lap?”

You gasp as your hands fly down to cover Joel’s, nails etching into where his fingers meet your bare skin. You tug at his wrist, trying desperately to guide him where you so desperately need him.

“Not happenin’,” Joel grunts, yanking your hands behind you and pinning them to your waist like you’re nothing more than a poseable doll. His large, work-worn hands make yours look damn near miniature as he holds you down. The sudden roughness douses your inner thighs with a new wave of wetness. “Jesus, girl. Poor thing, gettin’ all hot and bothered. Don’t blame ya for tryna get me to help out. Can feel ya dripping down my legs, gushin’ like a sprinkler.”

“S–sorry, fuck, ‘m sorry,” you whisper, words sticky with your arousal. Your clit twitches from his words, embarrassment and need doing all the work to keep you warm.

“Nahhh,” he says. “I don’t think you are, baby.” Maybe it’s the condescension he’s purring in your ear, maybe it’s the pet name; most likely, it’s a combination of both that has you convulsing in his lap. It’s like he’s found all of the right buttons to press to get you riled up, getting you back for all of your snide comments earlier.

His fingers find the fabric of your scarf, luring it off of your neck so he can cord it around your wrists. You squirm when you realize what he’s doing, and a breathless huff of his laughter brushes your cheek. “I’ll be damned if you ain’t gonna be, though.” He draws it tight, tight enough for you to feel your pulses bumping into each other. Joel leaves a fair amount of your unreasonably long scarf loose.

“Joel, what the fuck are you up to?”

“Teachin’ you some sweet southern belle etiquette, darlin’. Such a goddamn troublemaker, grindin’ on me like I’m some kinda… frat boy.” He shakes his head, disbelieving. “Pullin’ that shit with your pops’ friend. Real fuckin’ classy.”

“Like you’re so different. Who’s the one that’s tying me up? Huh, Mil–”

You hear the hit well before you feel it, a firm whack to your cunt that makes your vision blacken and electricity scurrying up your spine. It takes you a second to come back to yourself before a ragged cry pulls its way out of your lips. You jolt in his lap, bound arms bobbing in front of you as your body instinctively lurches for control. You damn near kick your feet, accidentally ricocheting yourself into Joel’s chest. His forearms hold you there.

“Guess I’ll make it crystal clear for ya, baby, since that dumb lil’ head ‘a yours is havin’ some trouble. My truck, my rules. You’re ridin’ in it, ain’t you?” You nod reluctantly as he turns your words from earlier in his favor. “That was a warnin’, you showoff. Think you can bat your slutty ‘fuck me’ eyes an’ get away with murder.” He fucking tsks at you.

He pulls his hand away from your pussy, and you’re both surprised and not surprised at all to see it covered in your arousal, webbed between his calloused fingers.

“Got a whole goddamn slip ‘n slide down here…” murmurs Joel. You whine, bucking your hips against him. “Oughta just…” he starts, nudging his cock towards your hole. The noise you make is pathetic. “Stop ya from ruinin’ my seats. Cork you right up.” You tense up, fully expecting the intrusion, but his dick passes your cunt right up, instead sliding up to meet your clit. It taps against your swollen nub, and if his goal was to stop you from ruining his seats, you’re certain he’s already failed with how quickly you gush all over the upholstery.

“But that’d be real nice, wouldn’t it? Givin’ ya what ya want so early on…” Instead of pulling away like you expect, Joel griiiinds the head of his cock against your clit. You moan helplessly, head falling back across his shoulder.

And then he does it again.

And again.

And agai–

“Joooooel,” you whine, knees jerking each time his tip meets your most sensitive spot. Heat spins in your stomach.

He backs his hips up “What? Thought you loved this with how much you were gettin’ at it earlier.”

You shake your head rapidly in the negative, chest rising and falling at a breakneck pace while he teases you.

“So you can deal, but you can’t play?”

“I think you’re just taking your sweet old time getting it up, old man,” you grit out, knowing damn well he’s stiffer than titanium behind you.

Joel hums. “Ah, she’s got jokes.” His cock slips back, quickly replaced by his hand engulfing your mound. Your clit twitches ever so slightly against his palm lines, and you’re almost convinced you could get off from that alone. His palm cracks against your cunt again, somehow even harder than the first time. You cry out, eyes burning from arousal and the slightest edge of pain.

With his thumbpad, he taps your clit like he’s just scrolling through the cable guide with a remote. Fleeting movements that have you wanting more more more. It heals the sting of his slap even if the echo of the hit still simmers in your stomach. Your cunt throbs so hard that it hurts, jumping up to meet Joel’s scarce ministrations.

When he retracts his hand, your hips chase the movement. “See this?” he taunts, fluttering his wet fingers in front of your face. You make a choked noise when his drenched middle finger breaches your lips. He doesn’t even need to tell you; you latch on and suck yourself off of his calloused skin. You’re mostly salty, but a little sweet, and tasting yourself on your own tongue by his insistence manages to make you even wetter.

Joel takes his spare fingers, just as soaked, and smears them all around your chin and lower cheeks. He presses down on your tongue as he does. You gag from the pressure, and you can’t hear his laugh over the roaring of your blood in your ears, but you feel it rattle his chest where it meets your spine. Your slick cools quickly against your burning skin, syrupy as it clings to your face. “Need a bib, baby?”

He pulls his finger from your mouth with a pop and your scarf-wrapped hands spring to wipe yourself from your lips, hoping to save yourself from the humiliation of having your own pussy juice anointing your face. You only scoop up a little before Joel lowers his forearm over yours, but for once, you’re faster than him. You swipe your wet hand over his mouth, smudging as much as you can along the scruff surrounding his mouth.

He wraps a burly hand in the scarf and yanks your hands back into place. All you can do in response is giggle, but the breath is swiftly knocked out of you when he drives his cock right into your clit. “Think you’re funny, don’t ya?” He asks, and finally grunts as he rolls his hip into you. A break in his resolve, a sign that he wants this, or at least the discipline of this, as badly as you do.

You almost weep from the pressure, that rope of pleasure in your stomach that he keeps knotting tighter and tighter and tighter with each stroke of his cock, his fingers. “Joel!” you cry out as he follows it up with another firm swat to your clit. His cock spreads your folds as he softens the bashing, nuzzling his tip against your spasming cunt.

“Really, oughta give standup a go one ‘a these days. Be a real hotshot.”

“Oh yeah?” you pant, light headed and woozy.

“Mhm. If the whole crowd’s drunk.” His cock nudges your nub with a new vigor.

“Assh–”

Right as you’re about to press down and follow the sensation, Joel senses it. His cock gives way through your cheeks, just in time for him to land a ruthless slap across your pussy. It’s harder than the others – makes your ears ring for a second, gives you a sort of visual snow that has you doubling over and gripping at the closest object for purchase, which just so happens to be the metal rods coming out of the headrest.

“Ain’t what you should be sayin’ if you’re plannin’ on gettin’ what you want, sugar,” Joel tuts. He shakes his head at you. “Don’t wanna hear no lip from ya, girl.”

You open your mouth, argument on the tip of your drool-loaded tongue, but your halfhearted attempt at defiance doesn’t last long. Joel’s hand clamps around your chin, denting your skin into your teeth. He jerks your head to face him, knocking you down a peg with scathing eye contact. “You’re pushin’ it.” He loosens his grip.

“As if, Miller. If those pre-Cold War condoms are anything to go by, you’ve been dying for a chance to get your dick wet. Doesn’t matter how much lip I give you, you aren’t gonna blue ball yourself for much longer.” Satisfied, you raise your brows at him.

Turns out, he is going to blue ball himself for much longer, because he lands six slaps in rapid succession across your sopping cunt. The skin smarts, and you cry out. Your grip tightens around the headrest rod to the point of strangling it. Your eyes water, and you can’t tell if you’re crying. Too consumed by Joel, everything has melted into him – the smell of sawdust perpetually sewn into his skin, his cock sealed against your body.

“How many times are ya gonna poke the bear before you learn your lesson, you cheeky little shit?” Joel’s palm cups the inside of your right thigh, just above the knee. He traces circles with his thumb, and heat trails after him with everywhere he touches. “See, the thing about havin’ ‘pre-Cold War condoms’ is that I’ve had a helluva lot more time to learn self control than you. Can wait as loooooong as it takes for you to get your head on right. Don’t matter if you’re waterfallin’ down my seats or not, pretty girl. I’m giving you exactly what ya deserve.”

You whimper, trying (and failing) to get your magma hot core closer to Joel’s unfairly large hand, still splayed out on your inner thigh. You can’t stop how you squirm in his lap, smearing your arousal everywhere with each movement you make.

At a snail’s pace, his hand begins to inch up your leg. Joel pauses to grope at you as his hand travels upward. Handfuls of your skin, rubbing at your scalding hot thighs. Your patience is wearing thin by the time he gets midway there. You need him to touch you. And that’s just the tip of this impossibly destructive iceberg.

You shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t have let him go down this shitty backroad, shouldn’t have agreed to your dad’s ridiculous idea of Joel picking you up, shouldn’t have asked to be naked on his lap, shouldn’t have gotten naked on his lap, shouldn’t be leaking like a twenty-year-old pipe in a building he’d been hired to renovate. If your dad ever finds out–

“Joel, please, please – plea…” you trail off, dissolving into incoherent whimpers as his hand hovers over your cunt. You’re running hotter than a radiator now, and if you both wanted to be warm, then you’ve got your wish. Although mostly gibberish, Joel has to understand what you want from him. It’s just that the bastard is unwilling to provide.

Joel reaches down to pinch your clit, and your body can’t even discern from pleasure and pain anymore. You react the same to it all, back arching as you try desperately to plant yourself on his cock. “Shhh, shhh, quit runnin’ your filthy mouth. Only gonna get yourself into more trouble.”

You swear you hear angels singing, swear you see the pearly gates when he gives your clit a merciful rub. Melting into him, you exhale shakily.

“See? All nice ‘n quiet when she’s gettin’ what she wants.” You wouldn’t even dream of mouthing off to him now.

“I want – I need…” you gasp out, putty in his hands. Moldable to his liking. Everything you’d pretended not to want.

“Go on,” he coos. “Tell daddy what you need.”

You don’t even hear him say that word. You’re too hooked on begging, begging, begging. “Please – Joel, oh god, please – I need… I need… please please please, fuck, it hurts–”

Joel clicks his tongue. “Nuh uh. Start over. Always such a chatterbox ‘cept for when I need ya to be.”

“Wha…?” you ask, admittedly dazed from the harsh treatment that you’ve come to crave more of.

“Tell daddy what you need,” he repeats, words molasses slow.

You clench, gushing even more all over him. Shit, your next paycheck might have to go to replacing the goddamn seats if you keep up like this.

“D–D… D-” you start stammering out, but you’ve lost autonomy over your body long ago, and apparently that goes for your tongue, too. “Da– Da… pl–”

“Any day now,” he scoffs.

“Daddy!” you spit out all at once. “Please, please, daddy, fuck – fuck me, daddy, please, I want your cock, daddy. Feels so fucking big. Need it daddy, it hurts… please, ngh– daddy!” Tears are burning the corners of your eyes, fueled almost entirely by arousal and partially by frustration. You squirm, cunt crying all over the place.

“M’kay, baby,” he says. Running a hand down your chest and squeezing your nipple on the way down. He slides his hand down your stomach to cup your mound, giving your clit slow, gentle circles. Your hips jump forward, and this time, he doesn’t stop you. “Daddy’s got ya.”

At the first intrusion of his middle finger in your cunt, you jump. It’s a lot compared to what he’s been giving you, but nowhere near enough. A second finger slips inside. He doesn’t have to do much work to stretch you out — you’ve been seeping out of you since you first got on his lap. He’s all too quick thrusting them in and out of you – the messy squelch of your pussy filling the backseat has you burying your chin against your chest, averting your eyes. The heel of his palm bumps persistently at your clit with each shift of his fingers inside of you.

“I know you ain’t a virgin, but you’re soakin’ like one. Too damn cocksure to ain’t have had a cock in ya before. Prancin’ around like a glorified dick trap.” You inhale sharply when his fingers scrape that spongy spot inside of you that you can never reach yourself. A moan rips out of you. The combination of him talking down to you and rubbing your g-spot has you dangerously close to cumming. Your moan is quickly swallowed up by more of Joel’s condescension.

He starts mumbling to himself then, obscenities that make you clench even tighter around his fingers. “Gonna get you all sore baby, make you regret beggin’ for this dick like a horny ‘lil bitch that ain’t ever been laid in her life. Fuck you so hard you’ll be cryin’ for daddy’s cock up your ass instead, turn you into an anal slut, too.” He’s too busy listening to himself talk, too absorbed in his own world to feel you balancing on that razor-thin edge.

The noise you make is inhuman. You pulse around him, doing your best to stave off your impending release. “Daddy–” you warn, but he cuts you off then, too. Joel grinds his cock between your ass cheeks, his precum dripping down your slit to meet your trembling cunt.

“Ever been fucked here before baby?” He swipes his tip along your asshole, and the way you shudder is answer enough for him. “Don’t get all jumpy, sweetheart. Ain’t gonna fuck ya there right now. Be cruisin’ for a bruisin’.” Still, he replaces his tip with his free hand’s thumb, simply rubbing at the ring of muscle. You fidget in his lap without an end-goal. You just want to be close to him, want to take everything he’s willing to give you. His fingers hook just right inside of you. “Would love to be the first to unlock this pretty backdoor. If this tight ‘lil pussy’s anything to go by… Christ. You’d look so pretty squirmin with my cock in your ass, baby–”

“Daddy!” You scream as your orgasm guts you. His fingers and his voice rip your climax right out of you and your cum streams down your inner thighs and Joel’s hand, still smacking against your clit with each thrust. Your cunt spasms around his flexing fingers. He has to fold an arm over your chest to keep you from sliding off his slippery lap entirely.

All the way through the aftershocks that make your limbs quake, Joel holds you upright against his body, still bumping his palm and fingertips against your clit and g-spot. You swear you can feel him smiling against your shoulder.

“Didn’t tell ya you could cum, darlin’,” Joel murmurs, flicking his cum covered finger across your clit. You wince in overstimulation, a whine catching in your throat.

“‘M sorry, daddy,” you pant. His hands go up to

“‘S okay, babygirl. Pretty pussy couldn’t help it when I was talkin’ ‘bout fuckin’ your ass, huh?” His hands rove up your stomach to play with your tits, palming and stroking, getting his hands all over every carnal part of you.

You hum into his bicep, “Mmmm.”

“That’s alright. Don’t mean you’re gettin’ away with a slap on the wrist though. C’mon, up,” he guides with a small slap to your thigh. You adjust, bringing yourself onto your knees so he can enter you from behind. You look down at his sturdy thighs, flexing as he adjusts himself between your legs. He gives you one more teasing thrust through your thighs, poking your oversensitive clit one more time before reaching down to spread your folds.

You moan as he presses against your entrance, and it’s not the best time to have a come to Jesus moment, but – Joel’s size was in no way over exaggerated between your legs. You stiffen in realization, and Joel, attentive as always, notices. He guides your chin to face him and nuzzles his nose up against yours, mouth tracing down to your lips. Your breath mingles, stagnant in the long-forgotten chill. A cushion of softness against all of his spiky edges that showed up tonight. “You’re on top, baby. Take it as slow or as fast as ya want.”

Nodding at the reminder, you find yourself that you don’t want to take it slow. You want to be as sore as he’d promised, want to feel him for days and be reminded of this every time you look at the winter morning’s frost on the shingles outside.

Sinking down over his throbbing length yanks the air out of your lungs as you seat yourself with him bottoming out and going balls deep in your cunt simultaneously. He grunts against you in surprise, softening the blow of your heady moan. “Attagirl,” he huffs into the crease between your neck and shoulder. It’s a stretch, searing up your thighs and to your lower back. You’re brought back to yourself when Joel rolls his hips into you, making the pain liquefy into mind-numbing pleasure. You spend thirty seconds waiting for him to fuck up into you in a way that changes your philosophy around the world, but instead, he’s still and solid inside of you.

“Go on,” Joel coaxes, placing a steady hand just shy of your mound. “Gotta prove you deserve to cum again.” He taps your thigh as if he’s telling you to giddy up, and the shame warms the back of your neck better than any heater ever could.

You whimper. His hands coast up your thighs, squeezing your hips tight before falling to grip the seats below. You’re still weak from your last orgasm, shaky legs struggling to hold yourself up as it is. “Daddy… I can’t…”

“Ain’t no different than fuckin’ y’self on that vibrator or dildo or whatever the fuck’s in your nightstand. Girl like you, gotta have a wimpy ‘lil fucktoy somewhere.” His words make you clench around him, and he groans into your neck. Joel looks up at the front window, now covered in snowflakes. He smirks when he spots the rearview mirror. “Oughta make you watch yourself. Show a pathetic, cockstarved slut what happens when she bites off more than she can chew.” At that, you mewl, grinding yourself down. The chuckle he lets out is lined with cruelty.

Joel pins you to his chest with one burly arm and leans forward with a hash of grunts from effort. He reaches out towards the rearview mirror, lowering it to face the middle seat that you’re both braced on. He sinks back quickly, and it almost gives you whiplash before you make eye contact with yourself. You can see everything. Tremors travel up your legs and into your arms. Your body is getting freezer burn from how cold and hot you are at the same time. Pleasured tears threaten to spill over your waterline. Joel’s smug fucking face as he murmurs endlessly at you.

Your mouth is parted as you take yourself in, truly a pathetic, pretty little picture as you pant. “C’mon,” Joel coaxes, squeezing your ass. “You can do it. Make daddy proud. I’ll even give you a boost.” Joel reaches to your tied hands and quickly undoes the scarf, letting it drop to the floor. You flex your fingers and then reach out for the chairs ahead to get a good grip.

You prop yourself up on your knees, anchoring yourself to the two chairs in front of you. Using a combination of your upper and lower body strength, you rise halfway off of Joel’s cock before your body gives out. His balls slap wetly against your clit. He laughs, still not touching you at all. Your head flops forward as you look down to where the two of you meet, and then at the mirror where his cock is buried deep inside of you. You whine in dismay.

He wasn’t lying when he said he was going to get you sore. You can only moan. It’s pleasure like you’ve never had it before – too much, not enough, painful, so good. “Please, Joel – I can’t… can’t handle it.”

“I’ll decide what you can handle,” he says.

“You’re– you’re so fucking mean,” you rasp.

“Gets you this soaked, baby. Don’t see your pussy complainin’. You love bein’ treated like a piece ‘a meat. Like a little fleshlight for men to fuck.”

You clench, tight. “Ah!” Joel fucking sniggers behind you, but a rush of confidence spills through you at the underlying moan in his throat.

Determined to get what you want, you tighten your grip on the front seats. Haul yourself up, almost so that the tip slips right out, and then collapse back onto Joel’s cock. And, shit, it’s a lot. You doubt you could handle his cock in missionary, but being made to ride him in such a compromising position, sprawled out across his shitty backseat? That’s an entirely different animal, one that you hadn’t expected to have to handle.

You focus on doing just enough to please him and just enough to keep yourself intact. You repeat your movements two or three times, rising and falling. Little moans and whimpers, some pained, some good when he nudges your g-spot just right, slip in and out of you.

“Mmmm, yeah, that’s it. Daddy’s ‘lil wannabe pocket pussy. Doin’ a ‘lil better baby. Keep doin’ that. Jus’ keep doin’ that.”

You’re shaking like a leaf on his cock as you somehow manage to lift yourself another time before fucking back on him. “Daaaddy.” Your lips quiver as you form the word. A single tear runs down your face from overexertion, and he’s quick to wipe it up with his thumb as if it was never there. You look truly whorish and pathetic, just like he’d wanted, bouncing on his cock with the last of the energy you have left in you.

His tip jabs against that goddamn spot again, and you double over on the center console. You take heaving breaths, making eye contact with yourself in the mirror, desperate to please as you attempt to keep humping him with the change in angle. You’re letting out strings of disoriented words, but barely can tell that you’re talking.

“I fuck you dumb already? Slutty little girl. Told ya you were in for it. Ain’t ever had much of a knack for listenin’. Gonna dick you down now, sweet girl.” He drags your legs into the crook of his elbows, holding you upright for him as he shifts to his knees between your legs. Braced on the center console with your pussy settled on his cock, the new angle makes you cry out. You hold yourself up on your elbows, giving shallow rolls of your hips in return as Joel gets settled inside of you.

The first thrust makes your eyes roll back so far that you see black. “Feel good?”

“So… so fu–fucking goo… good daddy,” you whimper into the console, gripping the sides of it just so you have something to hold onto.

“Swallowin’ daddy’s dick whole in this greedy cunt. Goddamn, drippin’ down my fuckin’ balls. Such a masochistic slut, all after a poundin’ from an old man. All up in a tizzy for this cock.”

You moan your agreement, completely submissive to Joel’s wills. You move like a ragdoll for him, letting him yank you back on his cock while he meets you there, thrust for thrust. He pulls out, a small mercy, but when he sheathes himself back inside of you in full, it’s the beginning of a punishing pace.

You don’t even notice yourself drooling all over the console until Joel says something about it. “Droolin’ from two places. Yeah, baby, you needed this. Daddy’s pretty cockslut.” You whine especially loudly when Joel drags you back across the console, damn near fast enough to give your stomach rugburn.

Hands framing your spread legs, Joel hooks them both around his torso, using the leverage to plow into you. You’re boneless beneath him, mouth frozen in silent moans. His hips meet your ass with each shove of his cock in your sloppy cunt, the obscene sound of slap after slap pealing out within the truck. “Damn lucky we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Joel growls on another thrust. “Someone woulda been knockin’ on the window long time ago with how loud you’re bein’.”

“Mmph,” you gasp when Joel tosses one of your legs up and over the passenger seat. You hold yourself there as he digs his fingers into your other thigh, shifting his spare hand to your mound.

“Daddy please please please plea–” you start panting like a broken record, desperate to feel his hand on your clit, which throbs with inattention on the console. You grind frantically on the edge just in case he denies you again.

Joel laughs above you, fully smudging two fingers across your clit in a blur of indescribable pleasure. “Ain’t gonna make ya beg this time. Can’t wait to feel ya creamin’ ‘round me… maybe I’ll make ya lick that up too. Nasty bitch.”

“Joooel, oh fuck, please…” you whine as he continues railing you, this time fiercely tweaking your clit in-time with his movements.

The new position has his thrusts meeting your cervix, and you scream, pleasure corkscrewing through your body. There’s nowhere for all of it to go with how viciously it burns in your stomach – all you can do is take it and whine for him. “Takin’ it real good. See what happens when ya behave? You get this fat cock splittin’ your whore cunt in two, jus’ like you were askin’ for.”

He grips your hip tight, clearly expecting an answer. You slur, “Mhm, daddy!”

Joel rubs faster circles around your clit, spouting filth while he drills your pussy. You can tell he’s chasing his own release, too, hips frantically fucking in and out of you, his cock twitching every single time you clench. You’re burning up as he jackhammers your pussy. Your second orgasm of the night brims low in your stomach, “Come on, baby, know you’re close. Feel this slutty pussy squeezin’ me. You gonna ask permission like a good girl this time, or are ya gonna go back to your defiant little slut self?”

“No, daddy,” you whimper, suspended in thin air over orgasmic bliss. He’s rubbing your clit erratically, doing everything he can to hold you in place. “P-please daddy, can I come?” You practically scream it out.

“Go ahead,” he says. “Come for daddy’s, come allll over daddy’s cock.”

The band snaps. Your back arches, and you feel time stop in the second before you fall slack on the console, spasming from the best orgasm of your fucking life. Your clit feels like there’s fucking pop rocks on it, something that not even your vibrator has ever achieved. “Thank you daddy!” you cry out, repeating it as you lose all feeling in your bones. You hardly have any control over your body anymore – it’s just Joel Joel Joel Joel. Sated and weary, you just lay there, letting Joel fuck into you.

And fuck into you he does – roughly, helping you ride out your orgasm as he pursues his. “That’s my girl,” he says, and you swear that alone could make you cum all over again. “Lettin’ your daddy use this juicy, well-fucked cunt to get his own.” He can’t hold back his moans, that’s how you know he’s close, grunting and gasping as he rocks his hips into yours. His hand lands on your ass in a sharp smack, and your pussy clenches in exactly the way that he expected. He lets out a particularly ragged noise, folding himself over you to nip at your neck and rest his forehead against your shoulder blade. “Daddy’s close, where do ya want me, baby?”

“Tits,” you whine. It’s a miracle you can even get that one word out, but somehow, you manage a few more. “Come on my tits, daddy.”

“Fuck!” Joel shouts, yanking himself over you. You help him roll yourself over and sit up on your elbows, and he jerks himself once, twice, before spraying his load all over your tits with the loudest groan yet. His brows fold together as he cums, eyes drooping and his mouth parted as he takes deep breaths.

You sit there for a handful of heavy minutes, listening to each other’s jagged breathing and the sawtoothed wind outside. You’re both so fucked. Literally, and figuratively. Stuck in the buttfuck middle of nowhere, you with your dad’s proclaimed bestie’s cum drying on your tits, and said bestie staring at you with post-coital puppy dog eyes and your cum all over his balls.

You’re the first to speak up, still winded. “That was… that was good.”

Joel nods mindlessly, tongue swiping out to lick his lips. He beckons you closer, and on trembling legs, you bring yourself to the backseat. You return to your previous position, huddled up and curled next to the door. Joel fumbles around under the back bench for a little until he comes up with a small, sunbleached pack of princess-themed pocket tissues that have to be as old as Sarah is. He dabs at your chest before stuffing them into the closest empty cupholder, and then brings you closer to his chest.

You don’t notice yourself falling asleep when all you can feel is Joel.

There’s better ways to wake up than a furious rapping on the window, but that isn’t the first thing you notice. You blink your eyes open groggily, only to face an egg yolk sun cracking wide open over the treeline and snowmelt bleeding out from every given surface. Joel’s behind you, nose in your neck, snoring softly with his arms wrapped around your middle. You take a moment to admire him – his sun kissed skin and his peaceful expression. It takes you a moment to remember you slept with him. You slept with Joel, and it was the best fuck of your life.

You’re stretching, on the verge of a yawn, when you see the familiar head of black hair over the window. “Shit!” you shout. Joel jerks to life behind you, mumbling something that sounds a lot like ‘what?’.

You scramble to pull the coat over the both of you from where it fell off of you in the middle of the night, covering your naked bodies. “Get dressed!” you hiss to Joel, searching for wherever the fuck your panties ended up last night.

“What the hell’s gotten into ya–” he starts, and you feel the exact moment that he realizes Tommy Miller is outside of the truck. “Motherfucker,” he curses, swaying towards the front seat to snag his clothes. You see him almost put his head through his T-shirt armhole three times before he gets it right. His sweatpants are next, which he tugs up his bare legs without even searching for his boxers.

“Joel?” Tommy shouts outside. “Wake up, sleepin’ beauty!” He knocks on the door again, the windows blurry from melting snow. You have that to thank, at least. It buys you enough time to tug your polo over your head, but not enough time to button it all the way up.

“Fuckin’... dumbass,” Joel huffs as he clips the lock on the door and kicks it open, looking at least somewhat composed. You take deep breaths, looking between the two of them. “How’d you find us?”

Tommy looks Joel up and down, scrutinizing him. “What happened to southern gentleman manners? I came out here to save ya from Mt. Everest, brother! Least you could say is ‘thank you’.”

“Thank you,” you fill in for Joel, even if the last thing you’re feeling is grateful.

“Her daddy threw a hissy fit, y’know? Told him you were fine and we’d go lookin’ for ya in the mornin’. We saw all that backup on the highway, I went this way, he went that way, turns out my gut was right. ‘Course my dumbass brother would take this route… hey, you’re truck’s a fuckin’ mess.” Tommy sinks his hand into the closest cupholder, pulling out a wad of tissues that have been soaked in his cum. You hiss as if you’ve been scalded with boiling hot water.

Joel starts, “Tommy–”

“What the fuck is this shit?” The realization seems to dawn on poor Tommy when he’s peeling apart the tissues, and he drops them like they’re a thousand pounds. You can’t even bring yourself to scold him for littering as the wind carries them away. “Joel. You dirty dog!” He says, eyes flitting between the two of you like it’s the most impossible thing in the world.

Your heart picks up to a speed that can rival most NASCAR drivers and your face burns like hot asphalt. You look pointedly down at the ground.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Joel seethes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Get outta here, you little shit.”

Tommy’s hands go up. “Hey now, I ain’t doin’ anything. That is not a conversation I wanna have with her daddy.” He clears his throat, effectively clearing the air along with it. “So, uh, truck break down?” Joel grunts in affirmation.

“Been tellin’ ya you need to make a stop at the auto shop… C’mon, I’ll get y'all home,” Tommy says, jingling the keys to his own truck. “Call a tow on the way.”

Joel drags his feet all the way to Tommy’s passenger side. You get your wallet and jacket together, winding the latter around your waist. The sun almost blinds you on your way out, and Tommy stops you.

“I hope you didn’t let ‘im stick it to ya with them prehistoric condoms. You’re smarter ‘n that.”

“God, no,” you huff out.

“I dunno what’s stupider, lettin’ my asshole brother hit it raw or gettin’ a UTI–”

“Okay!” you announce, hands going up as you round the back of Tommy’s truck. “Conversation over.” You’re still smiling playfully at Tommy as you clamber into the back of the truck, sighing when the air conditioner hits.

Just like that, back to the same old same old sunny, shithole state of Texas. Joel looks at you in the rearview mirror and winks at you. You guess not everything has to stay the same these days.

#vetty's words 𓇢𓆸 #joel miller smut #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fic #joel miller/reader #joel miller/f! reader

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januaryembrs · 9 months ago

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NEARLY BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [2]

Description: FIVE times Spencer thinks he might like you + the ONE time he knows.

Word length: 20k

Trigger Warnings: death, murder, Lauren arc, spencer's addiction mentioned, Diana's schizophrenia mentioned, vomit, alcohol, blood, usual criminal mind warnings. mommy AND daddy issues in the prentiss family.

previous chpt | next chpt

‘so sweet with a mean streak

nearly brought me to my knees.’

The one where he tries flirting

Emily tutted at her as the girl blindly shoved the Lucky Charms in her mouth, her tongue staining a gross blue-green colour from the additives as she read from a battered copy of Anna Karenina. Bugsy had been living with her for just two weeks now, since her impromptu fleeing from the altar, and Emily’s certainly had a good insight into the life of the twenty three year old.

Yes, it was her birthday next week. No, she didn’t act her age anymore than she had at twenty.

“Bug, slow down.” Emily urged, a rogue orange marshmallow dribbling down her chin as she plunged the spoon in before she’d even swallowed the last mouthful, “You get sick when you eat too fast,”

Bugsy waved her off with the utensil, not even ripping her eyes away from the page in front of her, scooping up the marshmallow with the side of her finger and popping it into her mouth.

Emily rolled her eyes, downing a few sips of her coffee and heading for the stairs, knowing her ride would be here any moment and she still had yet to change her shirt from the one she’d spilled toothpaste down not ten minutes earlier.

“Niko needs breakfast when you’re done,” The older of the two shouted down to the breakfast table, a streak of tabby grey running under her feet at the sound of food. Bugsy had insisted she bring her new feline friend into Emily’s apartment, and as much as she’d hated the way she nearly tripped over the chubby bastard almost every day they’d been here, she certainly had a fondness for him.

Bugsy hummed in acknowledgement, though she scraped the edges of her bowl clean by the time the cat in question hopped up onto the counter in search of her leftover milk.

“This is not for you, you have too much already,” She scolded, shovelling the last few sugary pieces of cereal into her mouth right as the door knocked.

She dogeared her page, gulping down a quick sip of Emily’s coffee, cringing when she caught it was much too strong for her liking, and heading for the door, her sister yelling to her again.

“Bug, can you get that- wait- are you wearing pants?”

She certainly wasn’t, having rolled straight out of bed in a pyjama shirt and underwear, and towards the promise of breakfast, nor as she swung the front door to the apartment open before Emily had a chance to rush down the stairs.

Spencer could have laughed when he saw her, all too reminiscent of the first time he’d met her. The boxers that hugged her legs beneath a large top he was entirely convinced was not hers, though her face lit up in excitement to see him.

“Good morning!” He thrust a coffee to-go into her hand, still warm even from where it had been jostled around in his car.

“You’re my saviour,” She grinned, sipping on the sweet beverage with bright eyes, “Cute sweater vest-”

She was quickly manhandled behind the door by two firm hands, Emily’s face enraged as she glared down at her sister where she was now out of sight from the doctor.

“What did I tell you about wearing pants? Huh? You nearly gave Mrs Jensen a heart attack last week,” Emily hissed, as Bugsy shrugged, remembering the look of horror the old woman across the hall had given her when she’d taken the trash out in a hoodie and booty shorts.

“It’s Spencer,” She poked her head around the door, despite Emily’s shoving, like she was taming a wild animal, “You don’t mind, do you?”

He shook his head, an amused and easy smile on his face as he watched the sisters bicker, not entirely unlike the way he and Emily tended to pick at one another.

“Not at all; I agree pants are loathable,” And he wasn’t lying. He tried to go for looser fitting trousers or sweat pants, hating the way the tight fabrics restricted his legs, rubbed his skin, making him want to itch and squirm inside his body.

“Don’t you start,” Emily pointed at him, huffing as she stepped out of the apartment, “You know she gets all worked up and weird on sugar,”

“Hey, I’m the last person to deny someone a coffee,” He replied, and the two turned to head back to his car, not before he threw the younger woman a look over his shoulder and a wave.

“Go save the world, kiddos.” She waved back, sipping her coffee indeed with bare legs that would have a nun blushing, “Curfews at nine, Doctor Reid, I expect both of you home for dinner!” She nudged the door closed with her hip before Niko could run out after Emily, and Spencer chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

“See, told you,” Emily sniggered, rolling her eyes, “Weird,”

Though that wasn’t quite the word he’d have used.

–

A killer, so far as they had been able to profile from the four bodies, was targeting women he picked up in night clubs in Atlanta. Most of the team, except Derek, had outgrown the clubbing scene, though Spencer didn’t quite think he’d ever been in it to start with. They all went to O’Keeffe’s usually once a month or so for a quick drink, but it was not big on his list.

Rossi, Reid and Derek stared at the puddle of blood on the sidewalk, wincing as Emily leaned over the balcony, the five story drop making her tug her lip in between her teeth.

This woman must have been terrified by something, someone, to see this as a better way out.

“Maybe she fought back,” Hotch speculated behind her, drawing her attention back to the cleaning equipment scattered over the floor, entirely different to the last three crime scenes where they had been arranged neatly into a triangle, “And when Becky fought back, his routine was compromised, cause he knew the police would respond,”

“Or she could have jumped,” Emily responded gravely, shaking her head at the carpet beneath her boots, “Her nervous system is pumping adrenaline, her fight or flight response kicks in?” Both were equally plausible options, but not ones they had time to entirely pick over.

“He’s struck two Fridays in a row, and if his routine’s been interrupted, it might compel him to strike again,” Hotch said, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his brow furrowed deeper than it usually was.

“It’s Saturday, the clubs will be packed tonight,” Emily replied, her eyes sad, worried.

“Take a look at the classes the Unsub might have taken, we need to generate a suspect pool as soon as possible,” Her boss ordered, and she nodded heading for the door before she stopped, looking at him with a grimace he didn’t quite understand, “What is it?”

“Bugs-my sister used to work as a shot girl in a club.” She said after a moment of thought, “She could smell a rat from a mile away; said most girls who work in bars get this sixth sense about guys with bad intentions, so they know when to cut them off earlier than most,”

Emily looked at him for a moment, and he seemed troubled, hesitant as she was to even tease the idea to him, before he sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead.

“Call her in.” He said through an outbreath, gritting his teeth the way he did when he was in between a rock and a hard place.

Rock being another girl murdered by tonight with a huge opportunity to catch the guy in the act missed. Hard place being a twenty-three year old risking her skin for his team for a third time. He hated the paperwork she brought him, hated the look on her face the day Spencer and Derek had dragged her out of that chapel bloodied and shaken even more.

“But she wears a vest under her clothes, and she stays with Reid and Morgan,” He reasoned, “And just purely scouting; if the Unsub strikes, she gets out there like any other civilian.”

Emily nodded, her hand routing through her pockets for her phone already, “Couldn’t agree more,” She said, hitting the call button with a sigh. She just hoped this time her baby sister wouldn’t be making any drastic calls like throwing herself in the Unsub’s way. Though, Emily knew Spencer wouldn’t let her take another hit for him ever again. Not after the way he’d seemed so distraught the moment she’d been dragged from that room, his eyes all but glistening with tears when he’d seen her on the bed, bloodied and beaten for his sake.

No, Emily could stake her life on the fact Reid would go down swinging before that ever happened to her again.

“When you think about the nature of serial crimes, it’s amazing there aren’t more predators in clubs,” Spencer said, hoping the pretty girls he’d managed to snag into conversation didn’t hear the way his voice stuttered. This was so far out of his depth, the entire club atmosphere suffocating him worse than any tight pants ever could. The music was too loud, the heavy bass making him wince, the air was too close, too warm, the bodies that kept shoving past him made him want to shower for two hours straight and then wash his hands as well. He’d turned down the drink Derek had offered him, knowing the exact amount of bacteria that swarmed the ice behind the bar, on the rims of the glasses, on the taps-

Spencer was more than overwhelmed. And talking to beautiful women was not helping his flushed demeanour whatsoever.

“I mean, excessive amounts of alcohol, countless opportunities for date rape drugs, not to mention suprisingly risky behaviour being pursued,” He counted off, his satchel strapped tightly to his side, “All right, so who wants a flyer?” The three women turned their nose up in awkward smiles, the tallest pushing past him with little more than an outright scoff, the other girl following her like lost dogs, “Nobody? Okay, all right,” He said, his face crestfallen at their reaction, though he wasn’t so unused to it. Girls tended to react that way when he spoke, his entire high school career had been the same. Infact, the only girl other than his co-workers who ever bothered to listen when he spoke was-

“I’ll take one,” A voice came from behind him, the same one he had incidentally been thinking of since they’d left Emily’s apartment, and he could already tell she was smiling before he whipped around to see her slinking through the crowd.

He was ready to retort something clever, but felt his words congeal in his throat. He had thought, that day when he’d stopped the elevator and seen her in a sodden wedding dress, that he had seen her at her most beautiful. Yes, her makeup had been tracking down her face with her tears, her hair sticking to her cheeks, her expression weepy. But she had reminded him of a star, glistening with the rain, the water shimmering off the snow white fabric, it had taken his breath away then, even when she’d thrown her arms over his shoulders, as if he was the only thing that she could grab on to for safety.

But that dress was nothing like the one she wore now.

It was nothing extravagant, and truthfully he’d seen at least ten girls in this club alone that had gone way more lavish than she had bothered to on such short notice. But, Spencer couldn’t help but take her whole image in as she shoved her way in front of him, an easy smile on her face.

“Beats boxers and pyjama shirts, huh?” She twirled cheekily, warming under his gaze that blinked heavily at her. The dress had been an old thing she’d bought for a frat party, when she’d felt particularly sorry for herself and was going out looking for a bonehead jock to take home. It fit her nicely, complimented the areas she wanted it to, hid the others. A good fail safe option for a last minute night out like this. Covered the kevlar vest Hotch and Emily had wrangled her into.

Not her finest moment, being jumped on by her older sister as her boss forced the bullet jacket over her head; the new girl, Jordan, staring in discomfort as she’d cursed both of them out colourfully for ruining her outfit, but the way Spencer seemed to gulp heavily made her smile wider.

“You look…” He swallowed again, his fingers digging into the flyers in his hand. Hot. She looked hot. Hot enough that he felt his face flush with the same feeling, he hoped she couldn’t see the way he blushed beneath the club lights, “Beautiful,” He settled on, because ‘hot’ was an entirely Derek word to use.

“So you keep telling me,” Bugsy preened under his gaze, grinning like she knew something he didn’t. Grabbing one of the flyers from his sweaty palms gently, she took a look at the general sketch, not noticing the way he had yet to tear his eyes off her, “Alright, this the guy?”

“Yeah, we think he has a mark of some sort- like a birthmark or a scar over his left eyebrow,” He informed, corralling her towards where Morgan stood, his own eyes widening at the girl’s attire.

They knew she was coming to help scout the scene, they didn’t realise she’d come so ready. Derek immediately felt stupid for doubting her.

“Woah, did someone call the fire department, because you’re about to set the damn sprinklers off,” He teased, her face lighting up at the man she knew had a way of making her feel a million bucks every time he saw her.

Emily said he had little sisters of his own, and maybe that was how he knew just what to say. He had many years of experience being the best big brother.

“Oh, please, you guys spoil me,” She snickered, though her eyes scanned the crowd for a general scope of the club. Safe to say she did not miss the eight pm till four am shifts she used to pull, nor did she miss the drunk bodies swaying around her, the men who would get handsy, the girls who would get scrappy, “So, how’s it going?”

“Not good, I gave the profile to one woman and she asked if I was the unsub,” Spencer sighed, running a hand through his rogue curls, the humidity of the stuffy bar making them tighten around his ears just that bit more. “How are you doing?”

“Well, I gave out all my flyers,” Derek said smugly, though Spencer’s eyebrows raised, a smile teasing at his lips.

“Oh yeah? How many phone numbers did you get?” Bugsy snorted at his words, looking between the men with a smirk.

“None, I’m working the case here, kids,” Derek tutted, to which Spencer and Bugsy looked at eachother with identical doubt, flicking their gaze back to Morgan. He huffed, “Okay, four were offered, but I didn’t take any of them.”

Spencer’s jaw dropped, face scrunching in confusion how Morgan was so charismatic with women even when he wasn’t trying.

“Alright, I’m gonna go grab more flyers from the van. You,” He clapped a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, “Need to relax, man. Remind me to teach you the basics on picking up girls. And you,” Derek pointed to where Bugsy nodded patiently, “Make sure wonder boy doesn’t get eaten alive. And stay together.”

She nodded again, watching him leave through the crowd; already a woman grabbed on his arm for his attention, where she watched him politely decline with one of those flirty smoulders he’d mastered.

“I don’t get how he does it. I mean, I get he has the whole body of a God thing going for him,” Spencer sighed, as the two of them went back out into the crowd, scanning for a group of girls who looked particularly sober enough to listen, “But, he just has this way, you know. I’ll don’t think I’ll ever have the way,”

“Don’t put yourself down like that,” She chastised, nudging him affectionately with her elbow, “You’re very beautiful yourself, you know? You don’t need some stupid way, you just need to be yourself,”

She said it as if it was nothing, as if it hadn’t just hit him in the chest that she thought he was attractive, though he still remembered that first day they’d met when she assumed he was a stripper.

His heart swelled in his chest.

“You really think so?” He asked unsure, waiting for her to laugh in his face and tell him it had just been a tease, she was good at those. But she was never cruel. Never to him. He didn’t know why he’d expected it.

“Absolutely! I’ve seen like three girls already giving you goo-goo eyes. Believe me, you got the looks,” She simpers, watching his eyes scan the crowd to look for the supposed culprits.

“So, what, it’s my personality they don't like?” He asked, though he knew that was more than likely the case. He’d always been told he buzzed in people’s ears like a fly, like he was simply background noise the greater population wanted to tune out.

He knew that would be it. It didn’t stop the small stab of hurt in his stomach however.

“If someone doesn’t like your personality, that is a them problem, Spencer, not you,” Bugsy was quick to snap, the joking lessening in her eyes as she caught his dejected expression, “Girls like it when you talk about something you enjoy, something you know what you’re talking about. Which should be easy, since you know everything. What do you feel most comfortable talking about?”

“Statistics,” He said with a nod, to which she looked at him fondly.

“Okay, we have statistics as a backup option. Anything else?” She looked at him, the light bouncing off her eyes in a way that had him pause to think.

“Magic?” He offered, and she smiled even wider, if that was even possible.

“Magic! Perfect, girls love feeling magical,” She beamed, nudging him again with her elbow, and the two of them walked over to the bar, “Show me then, Gandalf. What moves would you pull on me if I was a girl?”

He blinked at her, “Are you … not a girl?” He asked, pure bewilderment on his face as he stole a few napkins from the counter.

She snickered, “Okay, if I wasn’t me. If you didn’t know me,”

“If I didn’t know you, I’d be way too nervous to even talk to you. And you definitely wouldn’t want to talk to me,” He said as he fiddled with the paper between his obnoxiously long fingers, folding the sheets into miniature shapes.

She chuckled at him, shaking her head. It had never been like this with them before. Sure, she teased him, like she always had, but he was teasing back. Complimenting her with a seriousness beyond just being nice.

Something was different in him since the day Cyrus dragged her away. And if that hadn’t done it, then seeing her every morning for two weeks had changed the boyish anxiety that had lingered even then.

“Stop stalling and show me these tricks of yours,” She bit playfully, though the grin she gave him was genuine as she saw something mischievous flash in his eyes.

“Patience is virtue, patience is virtue-” He murmured, fiddling with the short, plastic straws they kept at the bar, “Now for this to work, I’m going to need a beautiful assistant. Do you think you could find one for me-”

She smacked his arm, and he snickered. She shook her head, fighting her own laugh overcoming her.

Maybe she was right. Talking about something he loved made him feel entirely at ease, like he controlled every angle their conversation took, and the air between them had taken this odd electric turn he wasn’t expecting like someone had pumped a thousand volts under his skin.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” He replied, holding out one of the straws, about as plain and simple as it would be if it were in a drink, “But I will need some magic words,”

“Ofcourse,” She drawled, her cheeks hurting from how tight she was smiling, “What are they?”

“Magic words are, ‘I’ll be there’” He instructed, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves as he watched her frown, and he pointed the straw at her mouth like a microphone, “You got it?”

“Yep,” She responded, even though the confusion read clear as day on her face. He tapped the straw on her nose and cleared his throat.

“3, 2, 1,” He tapped it to her temple, then to each of her shoulders, “Go on a date with me?”

“I’ll be there,” She responded, and in a strobe of light the single instrument became a trio of origami roses, stuffed into the straws as stems.

Her brain caught up to her as he gently placed them in her hand, her eyes gazing at him like he had just presented her with a 24 carat diamond, though in reality it was nothing more than a silly trick with napkins and plastic.

“Spencer,” She said earnestly, and he could have sworn her voice quivered for a split second, before she shook her head at him, punching him on the hip gently, “You are the most humble man I’ve ever met. You do that to any other girl and you’re getting laid, I’m telling you,”

He rubbed his chin bashfully, both of them catching the way the waitress behind the bar watched him with large, blue eyes Bugsy could have bathed in. She was gorgeous, and she stared at Spencer as if she’d been the one given roses.

Attracted. Interested.

“Talk to her,” Bugsy whisper-yelled, nodding over to the barmaid who busied herself with another order, though they both saw the way her flicking glances to the two of them as she scooped ice, “She would have seen if a guy like that frequented somewhere like here, talk to her,”

“What- no-” He protested, but his eyes widening as Bugsy leaned over the bar to flag the woman down with that playful charisma of hers, not missing the way a few heads turned as the dress tightened around her ass as she bent forward.

He felt his chest flash with anger, glaring at the men, hoping it was enough to ward them off. Her hand enclosed around his wrist, drawing his attention back to the bartender who watched him with a sweet face. He had to admit she was attractive.

“This is my very best friend, Spencer,” Bugsy told the woman, who smiled at him, and the Prentiss girl lifted his hand up to wave at her like he was a ragdoll, “Spencer, wanted to show you something, didn’t you, Spence?”

Raising her eyebrows at him, nodding to the flyers in his hand.

“I’m gonna go dance,” She fibbed, knowing she was going to go scout out the crowd to see if any guys fit the profile, nudging him a little harder than before, “Remember what we talked about. I’ll be by the DJ,”

Grinning encouragingly, he watched her swoop into the crowd like it was second nature, not missing the collection of guys who watched her every move; she captured the room when she moved, when she smiled, when she politely excused herself past a group of girls that tried to pull her into their circle with friendly cheers.

He did another one of his tricks for Austin, he’d come to learn was the name of the girl behind the bar, but it hadn’t felt the same, not even when she gave him her number unprompted, even as she flirted, smiled prettily, batted those sea blue eyes at him. It wasn’t the same.

He worried for a moment that the electricity he’d felt was reserved only for Bugsy, but he squashed it down faster than he could confront the idea.

2. The one where he nearly dies

“I don’t know how to do this,” JJ confessed, her bluebell eyes filled with tears as she stared out of her boss’ office and into the bullpen full of officers, scientists and even the damn military tearing through pages and pages of resources for answers.

Anthrax. A weapon of mass destruction they’d already had a small dose of, was on the move through the BAU’s own city. And they each had strict instructions to not alert their loved ones.

“I can’t stop thinking about Henry,” She whimpered through a strong facade as she turned to Hotch, and she saw the same guilt eating him up in those dark eyes of his that rarely let anything slip.

He had Jack. He had Haley, even with the divorce papers signed so long ago. He had people at risk too. And yet she couldn’t stop seeing her precious little boy’s face as he lay back in his pushchair and enjoyed the sights of the park, the same park that had just been targeted with an airborne disease-

“He goes for a walk almost every single day at Potomac Park,” She sniffed, the nausea chewing away at her brain as she recounted the lesions on that poor teenage girls skin, that's going to be Henry, that’s going to be Will, “What type of mother am I if I don’t atleast call and tell them to stay home?”

“JJ, we can’t,” Hotch said, though he felt his own dam start to tear down as he tried not to think of what could possibly happen to his own sweet son.

“I know, but-” Her throat bobbed, “It-it’s not just me- Emily’s worried about Bugsy. She told me she cuts through the park on the way to her lectures- she has one every day this week- Hotch-”

It was true. She had caught Emily in her own turmoil as the woman sped off to grab a drink seconds after chugging down the dose of Cipro they’d all been given that morning. She’d caught her filling a glass of water until the liquid started leaking down the sides and went over her shaking fingers, and even then she’d had to tug her friend out of whatever rabbit hole the words ‘Media Blackout’ had sent her down.

“I understand you both have people you want to protect,” Hotch was the voice of reason, as he always was, and it stung her to see his face so cold since she knew he was drowning his own sorrows behind it, “But if we all called home and used this information to give us an advantage other people don’t have, is that the right thing to do?”

She bit her lip, knowing he was right. She just prayed on everything she had Will would stay home with Henry today, Haley would have a movie night with Jack, and for whatever she had seen in Emily’s eyes earlier, a pure, unadulterated self-loathing, that Bugsy at least took the day off teaching.

JJ prayed, and prayed, and prayed.

–

She shuffled her notes together as she marked papers at her desk. They let her take the office to herself since she’d been at the University for five months now, gave her free reign of her lectures without having a supervisor like they had the first eight weeks or so. Bugsy enjoyed, surprising as it was to her, the feeling of somewhere that wasn’t the laboratory. Emily and Spencer had forced her to apply for jobs when they caught her binge watching real housewives for the sixth time back to back, of course lacking any bottoms.

Emily didn’t know why she thought twenty-four year old Bugsy would be any different. They had thought at least that Derek holding her hair back on the night of her birthday party as she threw up copious amounts of jello shots on the sidewalk would be an eye opening moment, but it hadn’t deterred her in the slightest. She had just chucked a handful of gum in her mouth, patted the man on the back and asked Emily to hit up the drive thru on their way home.

It wasn’t until she got the job did she feel a little bit more responsible, like what she was doing actually affected the people around her. Teaching first year college students was so very different than she’d expected, she was the authority figure.

She could hear her mother laughing at her now.

She almost smudged the little smiley face she’d drawn beside one of her student’s B+ as the phone rang on her desk, because she had an office phone believe it or not, and she cleared her throat, trying to sound as grown up as possible whilst also trying not to grin how excited she was to use her new landline.

“Miss Prentiss speaking, who’s calling?” She said, almost not recognising herself as she squeezed her gel pen in delight. She had this grown up thing down to a tea.

“Hi, Bug.” Spencer’s voice sounded out of breath, and she heard his converse slapping against a linoleum floor fast, as if he was pacing, “I got a quick hypothetical to run through with you,”

“Y-yeah, sure- Where are you?” She asked, her brows furrowing when he gave a wheezy cough, “Spence?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you, but I’m fine- for now,” He winced as he said the last part, as if it had slipped unintentionally, as if he knew what was coming next. He could practically hear her brain ticking over, “So, when you’re in the lab-”

“What do you mean for now?” She cut him off, standing up from her desk, already collecting her pencils back into their little pink case, “Where’s Emily? Is she okay? Is anyone hurt?”

“Everyone’s fine; as I was saying, hypothetically, when you’re in the lab where would you-” He talked over her right back, his slender fingers flicking through the piles of work, hoping he stumbled on a formula, a sticky note, a damn cheat sheet, anything.

“Don’t avoid my question, Spencer,” She snapped, and she could already feel the worry lines on her forehead.

He sighed, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his chest rattled and he choked down a cough. It would only make her worry more.

“I promise I will tell you what’s going on if you just answer my question,” Spencer rushed, feeling his face growing sweaty, opening the entire cabinet of drawers. “Okay?”

She nodded, biting her nail, as she sat back down. “Okay fine, shoot,”

“Where would you put your valuable items if you didn’t trust your lab partner while the two of you were working together?” He asked, wiping his brow with his sleeve as he held the phone tight to his ear with his shoulder.

She paused for a moment, “Well it’s standard practice that all jewellery comes off before we get scrubbed, so as not to contaminate anything. I usually put my scrunchie through my rings and tied it back into my hair so they wouldn’t get stolen. I knew some guys who put their watches around their ankles. Basically anywhere we could feel it on us,”

He cleared his throat again, and she heard him take a few steps, “How’s grading papers going? Did you get a fax machine yet?”

He was trying to change the subject, trying to take her mind off whatever it was he was doing that required such an urgent and peculiar question.

“It’s going good, I miss you bringing me coffee; it was like I had a maid who helped me with my crosswords,” She said, biting her bottom lip squeezing her thumb in the middle of her fist to slow the nerves. He tried to pretend he wasn’t smiling hearing that. “Now tell me what’s wrong. Did you go running without your inhaler again? I told you to leave a spare at ours so I could rescue you if you ever-”

“Bugsy, you’re a genius!” He cried, ignoring the way it made his throat burn, “Remind me to tell you every single day how smart you are- I have to go,”

“Spence- Spencer-” She tried to cut in, but he had already put the phone down.

So much for not worrying her, she thought, as she got on the phone to Emily within seconds.

Bugsy all but burst through the hospital doors, apologising when she nearly knocked a stack of files from a nurse's hands, wishing she had an inhaler herself after she had ran all the way from the car park, including the three flights of stairs.

After calling in sick the rest of the day, and practically volleying her rucksack into the passenger's seat of her car, she had blindly called Emily four more times until the woman answered with a frightened lilt to her voice.

Spencer was headed to the hospital. Spencer was headed there on full blues with lungs full of an even deadlier strain of Anthrax. Last Emily had heard he was getting worse. Bugsy put her foot down on the pedal even harder.

She knew the speeding ticket would come any day, and didn't even want to think about the state of her parking. All she cared about the second the lady at the desk had said what room he was in was seeing he was okay, that he wasn’t growing lesions or choking on his own blood or having half of his brain boiled alive.

Bugsy felt a small spike of panic, if it could even get worse, as she yanked the curtain back to see him asleep, a cannula tucked into his nose, a hospital gown tied over his shoulders.

Diving for his file that was attached to the end of his bed, she looked through his information to check what meds he’d been given. He once told her he was allergic to narcotics, said he had been since birth, and while she trusted one of the team to have passed the information on, she had to see it for herself that he was stable.

No narcotics given. Only paracetamol for his fever that was rapidly coming down. She could breathe again.

She jumped out of her skin when the curtain rail was pulled back a second time, and Derek seemed to startle for a moment too before a tired smile met his handsome face.

“Where have you been, Baby Prentiss?” His breath knocked out of him when she threw herself at him, a sigh of relief coming from her bitten lips.

“Oh, thank god you’re okay,” She murmured, and his chuckle echoed through his chest into her ear, “You all worried me half to death,”

“You’re looking very grown up,” He teased as he patted her on the back. And she was. She had taken to wearing maxi skirts and tights, even throwing on a cute blazer for affect, she was the teacher after all. She shoved him away with a smack to the chest. He laughed, holding up the opened pot of jell-o to her face, “Jell-o?”

She gagged, filled with memories of her birthday.

He shook his head with a smile as she sat down in the seat next to the bed and he spooned the first mouthful of the fruity dessert into his mouth.

“Is everyone else alright?” She asked, wringing her hands together. She fought back the urge to tuck Spencer’s curls behind his ear, knowing he was sleeping peacefully.

“Stop worrying. Team’s fine; we caught the guy and confiscated his supply. Even saved the last few survivors with you telling Reid where to look,” Morgan watched her jaw feather, and she picked under her nails.

“I keep telling you guys, I didn’t do anything. I just… spoke to him. He’s the genius, not me,” She said solemnly, staring into her lap with a frown.

“Not to him. Whole journey back, before the aphasia kicked in, he kept telling paramedics to tell Doctor Kimura it was you who’d figured it out.” Derek said, but it seemed to make her sulk more.

She said nothing, pulling out her book from her bag to continue reading as she waited for him to wake up, and Derek took it as a sign she was in no mood to talk, god forbid even take a compliment, and opened the magazine he’d grabbed from the cafeteria.

–

Half an hour and another pot of pudding for Morgan later (she gagged again at the sweet strawberry smell of it), the pair of them sat in silence, reading their own materials when a very sleepy, doe eyed man looked up and frowned.

“Are you eating Jell-O?” Spencer asked, barely noticing the girl on the other side of the bed, who shot up out of her seat as he came around.

“Hey doc. You have a visitor,” Morgan said with a small smile, Spencer’s face falling into a frown. He looked to the other side of him, just in time to see a worn copy of Middlemarch being flung to the floor and a hand grabbing his clammy ones tightly.

“Spencer I’m- I’m so mad at you-” She gasped, every soppy feeling of sadness she’d been stewing in leaving her body when she saw his hazel eyes fall to her, “You put the phone down on me and next thing I know you’re in the back of an ambulance nearly flatlining- I’m so-”

She breathed when she saw his eyes soften. He didn’t think she knew it but he saw the way her eyes glistened, her voice trembled underneath her anger. He felt the way she had yet to let go of his hand, how nice and warm it felt in his palm.

“I’m sor-” He hadn’t even finished his apology when she had latched onto him, trying not to hug him too tight but hard enough she could tell herself he was still here. He was okay.

And he could understand. He’d felt the same when they’d found her in that church, when Cyrus had hauled her away after she’d practically offered herself up in exchange for him. He’d known she was braver than she gave herself credit for, but that had stopped his heart right there and then. He had grabbed her in a hug the first chance he’d got even then, even when he barely knew her, when she was Emily’s sister and not Bugsy. Not the woman he’d spent every morning with for weeks bringing her a coffee just the way she enjoyed it, the woman he’d sat with on Emily’s couch with her legs across his lap as they did the puzzles in the morning paper together. She tried to do them, and he would finish them when she got too annoyed by the ones she couldn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” He said, his arms gently hugging her back and he felt something wet on his shoulder blade before he knew what it was. He felt even worse for worrying her, squeezing her tighter than was even comfortable for him.

“Don’t do that to me again,” She said through tears as she settled in his arms.

He really hoped she couldn’t hear the way his heart pounded.

3. The one at Haley’s funeral

She had no idea what to say. Emily had always been the one who knew how to talk to people. She had this horrible habit of saying the first thing that came to her head, probably because a lot of the time it was the most real, and people liked real.

But now wasn’t the time for what was best for her. Haley Hotchner had been murdered.

She hadn’t spoken to Hotch yet, she’d only met the man a handful of times. But he’d invited her anyway, for the team. For Emily, maybe even Spencer; Emily said he liked when she was around. She couldn’t imagine any other reason she would be there.

Other than, ofcourse, to be Spencer’s crutch. Literally. Since his real one had broken and he was still limping around with one knee weakened by the bullet wound in it.

She’d nearly had a heart attack when he’d called from the hospital, again, though this time he’d waited until he’d gotten the all clear to tell her so she didn’t panic quite as much as last time. She’d cursed him out for being so reckless, and requested another week's sick pay to take care of him until he was able to actually walk. It was only a one year contract with the university anyway, she didn’t care if she missed a few days to make sure he was okay.

“You look very handsome today,” She whispered to him as she hauled him out of the car, minding that he didn't hit his head on the ceiling. He gave her a small smile and tucked her own hair behind her ear seeing it come loose from its braid when she’d leaned down to grab him.

“Just today?” He asked, and she finally smiled back. She’d been stuck in a bubble in the car; her and Emily both had. They had the same thinking face, he’d realised.

“Just especially today,” She answered honestly, and he worked on adjusting his black jacket so she could hold onto him comfortably. She was quieter than usual. Feeble, almost.

“Thankyou, you do too,” He replied, his face scrunching after a moment, “Look pretty I mean,”

He leaned on her arm, looped it around hers as he tried to be the least amount of imposing as possible. That went about as well as you’d expect for a six foot one bag of bones.

She gave up after just a few steps, moving his arm to wrap around her shoulder as she walked with him. To anyone else they would easily pass as a couple, especially as she squeezed him tightly to her when the men laid down Hayley’s coffin, and the service began.

“W.S Gilbert wrote ‘It’s love that makes the world go around’ and if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster with Hayley in it.” Aaron began, his voice strong as his large hands gripped the eulogy like it would give him any comfort. She smiled softly, her eyes glued to the man who stood unmoving for his son, “Haley was my best friend since we were in high school. We certainly had our struggles but if there’s one thing we agreed on unconditionally, it was our love and our commitment to our son, Jack,”

Bugsy smiled sadly when Jack looked to the floor bashfully. Glancing between the photo on top of the coffin, a beautiful blonde woman grinning back at her with brilliantly happy eyes and a soft face, she saw where he got most of his looks from.

“Haley’s love for Jack was joyous, and fierce. That fierceness is why she isn’t here today. A mother’s love is an unrivalled force of nature, and we can all learn much from the way Haley lived her life. Haley’s death causes each of us to stop and take stock of our lives. To measure who we are and who we’ve become.” She felt Spencer’s head knock into hers, felt the sniff run through him, and she searched her pocket for a tissue, “I don’t have all those answers for myself, but I know who Haley was. She was the woman who died protecting the child we brought into this world together; and I will make sure Jack grows up knowing who his mother was. And how she loved and protected him. And how much I loved her.”

If Haley were here today she would tell us not to mourn her death. She would tell us-” Aaron cut himself off with a watery voice, his resolve finally melting as he realised this would be some of his final words to his wife. Bugsy felt her bottom lip quiver in remorse, “She would tell us to love our families unconditionally. And to hold them close because in the end they are all that matter.”

Spencer felt her tug him closer as she hid the lone few tears from the rest of the mourners and wished more than ever he could press a small kiss to her brow.

–

No, Bugsy was not good with knowing what to say and when. Wasn’t good at cheering people up no matter how much Spencer told her she always made him feel better. Didn’t really know much about how to make someone understand that she cared other than showing them with her whole body.

So by the time it was her turn to offer condolences, she didn’t bother shaking his hand. That meant nothing to her. That was a business deal, that was an agreement, a formal way to pretend you cared. But she did, she felt terrible for Hotch, wanted to fix him and his sweet son until Haley was right back there to thank her.

She didn’t shake his hand like everyone else had. He held his hand out for one, his eyes soft and warm, like he could see she was struggling. She brushed past his hand and just pulled him in for a hug, and he wondered if she was always going to greet him that way.

“I guessed that sorry wouldn’t make anything better so I brought you the biggest bottle of wine the store had,” She murmured into his chest, and she was gobsmacked to hear him chuckle weakly. She felt his hands pat her on the back gently, and he appreciated her candour. “I’ve got some Xanax if you’d really like a treat,”

She was a breath of fresh air. Aaron truthfully had been sick of people saying they were so sorry for his loss, and he felt like shaking them and yelling, screaming that they hadn’t been the one to kill Haley, Foyet had.

He pushed all of it down, focusing on the way she’d tucked herself to him like she had the day she’d become a runaway bride dripping rainwater over his bureau floor.

“She would have really liked you,” Aaron confessed, and they finally parted, and she saw he was smiling like he meant it, not just saying it to make her feel more comfortable being here. “You would have made her laugh,”

He saw the easy expression on her face fade, and she turned to look at her heels, nodding quietly.

“I would have been lucky to have known her,” She said, handing him the gift bag with a very heavy present inside. “I only wish someone would ever love me the way you love her,’

And with that she bid him a smile, and returned to her seat in between Emily and JJ, the pair of them mother henning her all day.

Aaron wished he could have said more to her after that, but before he knew it, someone else was offering him their condolences, and the sadness in her voice was forgotten.

–

The team sat around the table, nursing their beers, or in Spencer and Bugsy’s case a tea. Spencer didn’t want to affect his healing process with alcohol, not that he’d ever been big on the stuff, and Bug said she struggled driving even without the help of a beer, so they chatted between sips from two very fancy china cups.

Emily and JJ sat to the other side of her talking about how beautiful the flower arrangements were when a small, fawn haired body came wandering over to where Will held a one year old Henry on his knee.

“Would he like to play?” Jack asked shyly, trying to peer up onto the adults table to see if there were any other kids his age that would like to do something with him. His dad had been busy talking to all those people, and auntie Jessica had been trying to make it round to every table to thank people for being here. He didn’t entirely understand what was happening, in all honesty.

“He’s still a little too small yet honey. In a year or so, you guys can be best friends,” JJ said sweetly as he pulled his chin up to the tabletop and spied the younger woman sitting next to uncle Spencer.

He tottered over to her, where she sat unaware she had a shadow until Spencer's face softened as he looked behind her, and she swivelled around in her seat.

“Hello,” Jack said quietly, looking up at where she seemed to buffer, feeling eight pairs of eyes on her as she interacted with the small boy.

She had never been good with children, had never been around them since she was their age, even the kids she taught now were all at least eighteen.

The mantra to absolutely not fuck up the next few moments reverberated around her head.

She gave him a soft smile, holding out a hand for him to shake, “Hi, Jack. I’m Emily’s sister. You can call me Bugsy,”

His tiny nose scrunched as he watched her, shaking her hand the way dad had shown him how.

“Bugsy? That’s a weird name,” He said, and she chuckled, “Like the bunny?”

She shrugged, “I guess like the bunny, yeah,” although she had never thought of that before.

“Would you like to play with me?” Jack asked, and she felt her chest warm unnaturally. He had such a sweet face. It was just like the woman in the picture.

Smiling at him crookedly, she rooted around her bag for the notebook and pens she kept for her to-do lists. Maybe Spencer was rubbing off on her.

“We could do some drawing if you want?” She offered, showing him the pad with kind eyes. That seemed to satiate him as he grabbed her knee and started pulling himself up to sit in her lap, and she paused.

Kids were so funny, she realised, she would never just start grabbing someone she just met and asking to climb on their lap.

She got him comfortable on her knee, not noticing the flashing glances Spencer gave her between his conversation with Kevin, Garcia’s beau, as Jack started drawing a bunny with a human face, that was supposedly meant to be her.

Spencer watched her giggle as he gave the rabbit a pretty dress, like the one she was wearing, and Spencer had to admit it was a pretty dress she’d gone for today. Had he not been so mournful earlier he thinks he would have blushed how tight she’d held him.

She showed him how to play noughts and crosses, and she let him win most of them, laughing when he asked to tear out the page from her notebook to show his dad later.

That is, until the man himself came over to the table of his work colleagues, only to see the group watching their youngest playing with his sweet son.

“Bugsy,” Hotch said, and her head shot up to him, a guilty look passing over her face, worried she��d overstepped, though the fact he hadn’t said her real name said otherwise, “Can I talk to you for a moment outside, please?”

She blinked, straightening in her seat “O-ofcourse!” Shuffling Jack off her lap as fast as she could without hurting him, smoothing out her dress down as she followed him to the small balcony the funeral home had. It was a classy manor, but she guessed Hotch would have only had the best for Haley.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped, Jack asked to sit on my lap- and- I’m not good with kids anyway I just didn’t want to tell him no, especially not today-” He put his hand on her shoulder to shut her up, a small smile spreading on his face. It was fatherly and calming, something her own father had been much too busy to ever bother with.

“Not at all, that’s not why I called you out here,” He reassured, squeezing her gently as he leaned against the railing, taking a deep breath of the midnight air, and he felt his professional mask begin to slip. “I’ve been thinking… about how much help you've been to us over the years. Reid would be dead if it wasn’t for you.” She opened her mouth to protest, and he flashed her a look that said he was serious. “Let me finish,”

She wrung her hands guiltily, “Sorry,”

“You’re very resilient far beyond your years, you’re incredibly charismatic when you need to be, and you’re by far one of the smartest people your age,” He said, watching her face to see how she felt. He knew she didn’t take compliments well, for some other reason they could dig into any other day. But he needed to say it now, needed her to know now for what he was about to ask her.

“Whether that is true or not, why are you telling me this?” She asked politely, without the usual bite that went with it when they tried calling her something she wasn’t.

“I need to take some time off to spend with Jack, try and help him…” He trailed off, unsure as to what he wanted to say. “Help him understand Haley’s not coming home,”

She nodded with a glistening lash line, and grabbed onto his arm gently.

“My team looks to me to be their glue, but I know I can’t keep everyone together and look after my son. Emily said your contract at the University was ending,” He cleared his throat, looking at her again with something vulnerable in his sable black eyes, “So I was wondering if you would reconsider the FBI academy? It’s only twenty weeks, but Rossi and I can put you forward to do the written exams earlier if you’d like, and then Strauss can have you assigned a trainee position at the BAU-”

“Anything,” She nodded, “Anything you need, I’ll do it,” and he hugged her for once. Maybe it was the way she had said it so willingly, no matter her own reservations about joining the academy, no matter her stubbornness and resistance to her sisters pestering, or even the fact they all talked weekly about how much easier their job would be if she was there. Her and Reid’s brains together were a force to be reckoned with.

And he knew, the surprisingly kind girl that clutched at him back, would keep his team together, would be the glue to keep their heads on while he took some time to watch his son.

“Thankyou,” He murmured into her hair, and she forced herself not to get weepy at the grief in his voice. Of all people here, she was the last person who should be allowed to cry. Least of all to him.

He pulled away from her eventually, cursing himself for letting the front slip, but it was as if she had that effect on everyone on the team, like she had this little way of worming her way between that gap in their chests where their hearts once were before they’d seen the things they had, dealt with the people they had.

It was for that reason Aaron knew they would be just fine.

“You know, when I was a kid, mom got letters every day from people with their own agendas against her,” Bugsy said once they’d taken a gulp of cool night air, “They all said the same thing; that they were going to take me for ransom unless she left the country. She didn’t think much of it until a guy started following the car home from school and she decided to get me trained in self defence,”

Hotch frowned, his chest tightening. He knew how it felt to be a parent on edge for his kid’s safety, but to hear it from the other side cut deeper.

“Which was fine, I got a pretty mean shot if I say so myself, but eventually it progressed into hostage training, in case…” She swallowed dryly, clearing her throat and picking her nails, “I wet the bed the first time they grabbed me, the whole idea was that I wouldn’t know it was coming. They let me go pretty fast, I don’t think they’d expected the eleven year old to reach for the kitchen knife,”

Hotch scoffed, shaking his head in horror, though he didn’t doubt her for a second.

“I slept with it next to my bed for a year, so that next time they came for me, they would think twice and let me sleep in,” She said with a thoughtful smile.

“And did it work?” He asked, watching her run her hands along the stone wall beneath his elbow.

“I dunno, but the one guy left pretty quick when I almost took his eye out,” She giggled, and the sound made him laugh quietly as well, “My point is, you’ve got nothing to worry about with Jack. Kids like us, we get made tougher, resilient. And with parents like you two, I’d say he had a pretty good head start.” Bugs said, smiling to herself flicking a glance up to his face that said just how touched he was. Deciding he was likely waiting for her to turn around before he let himself cry, she took a step back, heading towards the reception. “I mean look at me, I turned out alright!”

She barely heard his small chuckle that faded into a weep before she shut the door behind her, heading back over to the table where the team sat, Jack now with his auntie Jessica, and their eyes fell on her, waiting to hear whatever it was she had to say.

Taking a deep breath, she gave them an awkward smile, “Guess I’m joining the academy afterall,”

And that was all she got out before Garcia dived on her with an excited cuddle.

4. The one with his new hair

He knew he was sweeping his fingers through his hair much more often than usual, his hazel eyes flickering to his reflection in car doors in a way that was almost obsessive. He liked what his barber had done, but that wasn’t the point.

He was hoping she liked it.

Bugsy had passed the academy with flying colours, not that anyone had ever doubted her, and had been part of the team for all of two weeks, though he would argue she was BAU way before that. Hotch had figured out a staggered schedule where he could take care of Jack four days a week and work the rest until Jack settled back in at school.

It had been nearly five months since Haley had died, but it hadn’t gotten any easier for the boy.

Spencer definitely, definitely hadn’t spent the last two weeks practically breathing down her neck whenever they went out into the field, nor had he definitely not found himself fighting off the grin that threatened his composure when he caught her scribbling notes down to herself whilst Penelope presented the cases.

And he most definitely hadn’t gone out to get a new hair cut in the hopes she would find him more attractive.

Definitely not.

And yet, her face was the first one he found himself looking at as he stepped into the office, watching as it trailed up from her notebook, her pink gel pen paused mid sentence as the rest of the team went silent, her face spitting into a grin the minute she saw him.

“What, did you join a boyband?” Hotch asked in a rare moment of teasing, Derek snickering as Emily nudged his arm with her own chuckle.

“Can I be your groupie?” Bugsy asked, which made them laugh harder, though she stared at him with a small twinkle in her eye the way she always did when he squirmed under her compliments.

He hadn’t thought she was being mean, not even when they took a moment to settle down, not even when she smiled wryly at him, her eyes flicking up to his hair twice more before her attention was stolen back by Garcia switching the board.

“Okay, so what are we looking at here? Late twenties, early thirties?” Emily asked after they quietened, adjusting her bangs over her brows.

“All single, though two are in committed relationships,” Rossi added, flicking through his own pack of notes. “All living on their own,”

“Looks like normal suburban houses. Give the Unsub privacy,” Morgan added, his face scrunched in disgust as he looked at the crime scene photos.

“The differences are more striking than the similarities. Different hair colours, different body shapes.” Reid noted, Bugsy’s handwriting scrawling over her notebook as she tried to capture everything they were saying.

“What do we know about his MO?” Hotch asked JJ, the blonde woman shaking her head with a grimace.

“That’s why we were invited in, the abduction sites are pristine,” She said gravely, looking between her team as they seemed to balk at the information.

“No DNA besides the victims, and there’s no sign of forced entry or struggle,” Bugsy noted in the pack Garcia had given her that morning, along with a little pat to the head for good luck. Before now, in those two weeks, they had only dealt with one kidnapping and one group homicide that had turned out to be one very stupid teen spiking drinks at a pool party. This case would be the worst one she’d seen yet.

“And the victims aren’t reported until two or three days after they’re abducted,” Emily tailed off the end of her sister, her eyes serious as the team came to the same conclusion.

He had days to spend as much time with the bodies as he wanted.

“Two or three days? Women like this don’t just disappear without somebody noticing,” Rossi chimed in again, as JJ clicked onto the next screen handing the remote to Garcia.

“Yes, which is why I had Garcia dig into their lives a little,” She said, taking a seat next to Hotch to let penelope lead.

“And I took a look at their online activity, I could easily see what the Unsub was doing,” Penelope said, clicking onto a screen full of the women’s profiles.

Bugsy couldn’t even say she was shocked. Ever since she was in highschool, friendships, or her lack thereof, had been entirely decided on who had the most likes on their status update. Apparently no one found the girl who read Russian Literature for fun cool, nor did they want anything to do with her. Emily didn’t know she’d sat in the school toilets to eat her lunch for three years straight. Turns out kids from every country were bitches.

“Social Media profiles?” Her older sister asked, though the surprise was evident on her face atleast.

“Yeah, facebook, twitter, you name an online life-sharing time suck, these victims were on it,” Penelope said, enlarging the screen for the team to see the specifics, “And if you look at each of their last posts, they say kind of the same thing, ‘Going out of town, Going on a business trip, Going on vacation,’ but when you look at the time and date stamps on each of these, queue the twilight zone music because they were all posted the morning after each of them went missing,”

“The unsub posted them?” Hotch concluded, his natural frown deepening. This Unsub had a way to keep all of his victims hidden for much longer than they’d anticipated. Who knows what he could be doing as they spoke.

“You know, social networks are an easy way for an unsub to target his victims. These women were especially open, they posted everything from what they had for dinner to where they were going on dates,” Spencer said, looking at the print outs Pen had handed to them.

“The unsub ‘Friends’ his victim, and then uses it as a cover once he takes them,” Derek said, as Bugsy’s face scrunched in disagreement.

“What are you thinking, Kiddo?” Rossi asked from her left, as he head shot up to see the team watching her, waiting for her input.

Surprising to everyone, she was somewhat nervous when she’d started at the BAU. The Bugsy Prentiss, the woman who had caught out parts of the Russian Mob when she was just a college student, was nervous to not mess up in front of them.

“I understand what Derek’s saying, but nowadays you don’t actually have to be friends with someone to follow them.” She said, picking her fingertips in thought, “A lot of people have hundreds of total strangers they’ve never met on their page; some settings mean you don’t even need to be ‘friends’ in the first place to see what they're posting. The UnSub probably wouldn’t even bother implicating himself in the first place by following them, he could just access their profile and see what they're up to. I think he profiles as patient and organised, and somewhat tech savvy if he’s up to date on the way these medias work,”

The team watched her carefully, Spencer beating down the proud smile he wanted to flash her, knowing he needed to be focused on this case, but she seemed satisfied with her answer when Penelope nodded in agreement.

“So you don’t think he’s an old guy like me, is what you’re saying?” Derek asked with aghast, knowing full well mid thirties wasn’t too old. Hadn’t stopped his pride hurting.

She shook her head, “I just think he wouldn’t be as old as you. Mine and Reid’s age maybe. But he seems obsessive, and he also must have a job that affords him the spare time to spend the following few days with the bodies, but it means we should also assume that these women are likely already dead,”

She looked to Hotch hopefully, to see him staring at her unreadably for a moment, before he looked to Rossi with a nod.

David slapped her on the shoulder affectionately, “You just put together your first profile, kid,”

And before long, they were heading for the jet with her deductions in mind to hand over to the cops.

–

“Can someone explain to me the appeal of these sites? ‘Eating sushi tonight, yum!’ ‘Boss is keeping me late at work, grr,’” Rossi stared at the status updates, perplexed, as the team snickered to themselves.

“Now, wait a minute. How did you find my profile?” Bugsy asked jokingly, and she drew a fond smile from Aaron her way when Rossi chuckled to himself.

He wished she would stop looking so nervous to contribute. She fit right in with the furniture.

“Whose life is so important that we’d be interested in this kind of detail?” Rossi asked seriously, though Bugsy supposed even the coffee machine was a new useless piece of technology to the man who liked his espresso fresh.

“That’s just it, no one is. I guess everyone just wanted to believe it to themselves that they all have an audience out there waiting to hear every update of their day. Some of them even have GPS tracking systems in place to make it even easier for people to find out exactly where you are,” Bugsy said, her eyes flicking to Spencer who watched her intently, automatically floating up to take in his new hair again.

She couldn’t help think he had stopped looking cute, and started looking hot. He’d always been cute, god knows she’d always thought he was good looking. But now he looked… dreamy. It had made her double take the minute he’d walked through the door, hoping it wasn’t too obvious she was staring.

“That explains how he’s finding them, but it doesn’t tell us how he’s getting into their houses,” Hotch nodded along with her, eying her carefully as she looked through her own notes she’d made once she’d brought herself round to ripping her eyes off Reid.

“At the very least I believe he has copies of their keys,” Spencer said, his finger trailing the information in his file, “Doris Archer had a home security system installed, but the disable code was entered at 1:56am, so he knew that too. He also found a way to deal with her dog, a German Shepard she adopted from the pound last year, it went missing the night she did,”

“Did they find the dog?” Bugsy asked, her face in a frown as Emily looked up to her.

“Why? What are you thinking?” She asked her little sister who played with the ‘TRAINEE’ lanyard around her neck.

“If he hurt the dog, it likely meant the dog had been on alert to him as an intruder, since opportunistic violence isn’t in his profile of being collected and organised. So if he didn’t hurt the dog, and he was found alive and unharmed, it means the dog knew him,” Bugsy explained, and Derek stroked his face in thought.

“This guy’s gotta be in and out of the house well before the night of the disappearance. He comes up with some ruse, talks his way inside, and then once he’s familiar enough with the house he knows he can come back and kidnap them without disturbing anything,” He said, the girl nodding in agreement with him.

“Think of people you let into your home you don’t consider a threat. Home repair guys, dog walkers?” Rossi offered, but JJ was quick to flick to her own pack.

“Detective Fordham looked into that too. No one came even close to being a killer,” She shut down, not wanting to waste their time running through avenues that had already been explored.

“Alright,” Hotch started as he glanced at his watch to see they were landing in around ten minutes, “Morgan and Prentiss, start with the last abduction site, see if anything points to his MO.”

Bugsy raised her hand politely, as if she were still in class, and he nodded in her direction to speak, “Do you mean as in me when you say Prentiss or as in Emily when you say Prentiss?” She asked, and Emily seemed to be having the same issue as she flicked a glance between the two of them.

“I mean Emily, for you I guess I’ll have to say-” But he stopped himself with a frown. What would he say? Bugsy? No, too informal on a case. Baby Prentiss? Absolutely not. He thinks she might just hit him if he said her first name too much. “We’ll workshop it for now. Dave, you, Prentiss, Reid and JJ go back over the women’s lives. Start with asking around their friends on the sites. If this is how the Unsub is finding them, maybe they’re connected to him without even realising.”

The team was quiet for a moment, before Spencer pointed to Bugsy with his pen, “So that time you meant Bug, right?”

Dave wished he could protest but he had also been a bit confused, as Hotch rubbed his head tenderly.

He felt the headache coming already.

–

“What was it about these women that made him choose them as targets?” Bugsy asked as she and Spencer sat in a small room in the Boise precinct, the three victims' profile pictures staring back at them from the board.

It was their second day working on the case, and other than Garcia tracking a very disturbing snuff film of the last murder being streamed from the victim’s own IP address using camera’s he’d set up in the home, they had yet to have a big breakthrough. Hotch had told her to leave the room when they’d shown the footage, knowing it was one of her first weeks on the case, and despite having a strong stomach, he wanted her to ease into the role rather than drop her in the deep end head first.

Even seasoned agents like Morgan and Rossi had both winced, JJ even gagging as they watched it happen. They usually dealt with the aftermath, not have front row seats on the act itself.

She had been allowed in once the tape had finished, but Reid had immediately shuffled her into the small office they’d been permitted to use by the Boise police, his face a little more peaky than usual.

She wished he wouldn’t worry so much about her, wished he would hide it better when he fretted over her. She was sure he would burst a vessel if he kept flicking his head to look at her, though she just sat staring at the women as if the answer would jump out at her.

“They’re all pretty, aren’t they?” Bugsy said, swinging her legs beneath the table, her eyes roving over the three faces, “Though unconventionally, they’re still pretty.”

They weren’t his type, Spencer thought, they looked almost nothing like her. She had removed the last of the pink hair dye she’d managed to keep on top of for a year or so before she’d started at the university. Her nose piercing had progressed to a little thin silver hoop, though her earrings had been dialled down for safety reasons in the field, and she kept her hair tied back away from her face most days. She looked older, which was a dumb thing to think, since of course she was older. But she had grown into her face, and Spencer was entirely convinced she took after her father since the only thing she shared with Emily was the same pout when she thought too hard.

He’d watched her grow for all of three years into the twenty five year old that sat before him, and yet her face had never really changed shape. She still had those pretty eyes that seemed to glint up at him, those soft lips that pursed when she tried not to giggle at him, that perfect nose he would trace the edge of using just his gaze when she had come over to his apartment to study for the academy. She was still as beautiful as the day he’d met her, he thinks part of him had always thought of her in that way. He had just put it down to a pretty girl giving him attention. But girls gave him attention all the time, he had realised since that stakeout at the club, when he’d given her those napkin roses. He just didn’t care for them.

He only cared about what she thought of him.

Only cared what her face looked like-

“Wait,” He stopped his thoughts that could go on for days, weeks, about her. They already had, it was difficult to pull himself out of it sometimes. He stared at the photos of the victims, his mind revelling in her own face that he didn’t doubt had guys swooning and falling over their own feet, as he zeroed in on their eyes, cheekbones, septums, “Their faces are all an identical structure,”

“How did you figure that out?” She asked, wide eyed and he ripped down the photos before she could catch him blushing.

He thought he might take it to the grave what he’d been thinking about.

–

“He’s going live,” Hotch seethed, clicking a button on the remote and the whiteboard in the centre of the room lit up with video footage, a small red dot flashing slowly in the corner telling them they were watching it being streamed.

Bugsy stood behind Spencer, her eyes glued to the small computer at the desk that played the same screen, her heart rate spiking when she saw a small body camera pointing at a house, the UnSub cutting across a lawn in a near sprint.

He’d lost control completely, and he had another victim set in his sights.

“He’s not slow, deliberate. This guy’s pissed.” Rossi said, his jaw hung open in horror as the streamer headed straight for the front door.

“All right, what do we see? Determining markers?” Hotch snapped the groups focus back from the gut wrenching panic that everyone felt, and it was like a switch flipped.

“A one story cottage,” Spencer noted, his eyes glued to the screen so tight he missed the way Bugsy’s face changed colour, and she looked like she was swaying on her feet.

“That could be anywhere,” Detective Fordham commented back, his face grimacing.

“Is there a number on the house?” Morgan asked, and everyone leaned in closer to the footage.

“No, he’s already at the door,” JJ said, running a hand through her long blonde hair.

Bugsy thought she might be sick.

“Garcia,”

“He’s using twice as many proxy servers,” Her shaky voice came through the speaker, furious typing in the background.

“Wait, this window in the background, is that the chat room?” Emily asked, pointing to the small screen at the bottom that flooded with comments from at least forty different users, and more began entering the stream.

Get that bitch.

Show her a good time.

Teach the pigs a lesson for sticking their nose in.

Bugsy wished she hadn’t been so fast at reading, as she felt her skin go cold at the sight of the comments.

“People are getting off on it,” She said quietly, but no one heard her, too focused on finding out where the UnSub was.

“Uh Huh,” Garcia confirmed, as the footage flicked to show a kitchen view, a pretty fair haired woman stood chopping peppers none the wiser to the sick people watching her life before it was about to be ended.

“He’s in the house, guys,” Reid ran clammy hands over his trousers, his stomach churning as the video went on.

“He’s completely changed his MO,” Derek added, and the team could do nothing but watch in terror, “There’s too much light, what happened?”

“Someone asked the wrong question at the press conference,” JJ explained from beside Reid, her nails bitten to hell.

“Oh my god, turn around. Just turn around,” Emily begged, and part of her little sister thought she might have been talking about her.

“Maybe she can fend him off,” Derek said, though even his tone of voice wasn’t convinced.

“New kitchen appliances, maybe we could check the work order?” Spencer was grasping at straws he knew that, but he couldn’t sit back with that big brain of his working overtime and not try to help at all.

“He’ll be gone by then,” Rossi said, and he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Garcia, can you give me anything?” Hotch asked, and the sound of typing got even faster if that was possible.

“I’m stateside now, I’m almost to Idaho, I just need more time,” but Garcia was cut of by the man in the video lurching at the innocent woman, his hands wrapping around her neck with a venomous grip, her every moment of pain and terror captured on his body cam for his audience to see.

His audience including the team.

Bug felt the bile rise then, felt her eyes burn as she watched the woman’s face freeze in fear, a yelp of “No!” leaving her oesophagus, her small hands coming up to his wrists to try pry him away from her, anything to gasp for another breath of air.

She wasn’t listening as Hotch barked orders at Garcia, her eyes were stuck on the woman that writhed in pain, pleading with the masked man to spare her. But her rebuttals got weaker, her whimpers began to grow quieter, and soon he’d tackled her to the ground in a blood curdling scream, his whole body weight crushing her throat.

Her own hand came up to cover her mouth that dropped open in shock, her eyes burning with tears that she couldn't let fall. It was this woman who was suffering, not her.

There was a bit more struggling from the woman, her eyes bulging from her skull, lips turning blue, until she slumped beneath his hands, and he released her.

She took a step back, bumping into a chair she hadn’t even known was there as her eyes fixed to the screen, and Spencer’s head shot around to see her shaking on the spot, her eyes haunted.

Emily followed suit, but Spencer was already out of his seat, rushing forward to grab her arms and lead her outside.

“I’m gonna get her some air,” He called behind him to the team that watched her go with forlorn glances, and he hated how he felt her trembling beneath his grip, grabbing onto his jacket just as tight.

They made it halfway down the stairs before she bolted for the bathroom, and he heard her retching as he dipped into the room after her, not caring that the sign clearly stated it was for women.

“I’m fine, Em, just give me a minute,” She said, and he heard the sniffles between her words.

“It’s me,” He said, finding the one stall on the end that had it’s door engaged, pulling a cup from out of the dispenser and filling it at the water fountain, “You should drink some water, the cold helps reset your body’s instinct to fight or flight,”

“Or in my case, make a complete fool of myself and take time away from a time sensitive investigation because I’m such a wuss,” She said cynically, coughing chestily and he heard the toilet flush.

His forehead creased as he frowned. The door unlocked and she stepped out, her eyes red and teary as she gently took the water from his hands, and he rooted around his pocket for a stick of gum to give her. She chucked it in her mouth, letting the peppermint clear the vile taste from her mouth, hoping she didn’t look too gross.

“You shouldn’t stand so close to me, toilet bowls are like full of germs and my heads just been in there, I know it makes you feel funny to be around germs-” He pushed her hair behind her ear as if to tell her to stop thinking so loud, and she couldn’t help smile sheepishly at him. “Do you think Hotch will be mad?”

He shook his head instantly.

“Mad? No. Worried? Incredibly.” Spencer replied, stroking her hair a little the way his mom used to when he felt sick.

Bugsy shook her head, sniffing to herself a little more.

She couldn’t stop seeing that woman’s face as the life slipped from her, the hands around her neck. The yelps and pleads and begs and she fought with everything in her.

“How long was it until you started feeling like this?” She asked earnestly, running a sleeve under her nose, “You’re so brave, I always knew you were but, since I started, it’s like I realised nothing really touches any of you anymore.”

He fought the incredulous laugh, him; brave? The man scared of the dark and elevators brave?

“We all take things home with us at the end of the day,” He said, wiping under her eyes for her with his own cardigan cuff, “If you didn’t feel anything for the victims we help, you wouldn’t be human, Bug,”

She nodded, “I know. I just don’t want to let anyone down. Not you guys and especially not the people we’re helping,”

“It’s for that reason I know you’re going to do great,” He said, giving her one of those small Spencer smiles he reserved for when he wanted to see one of hers.

Her forehead thumped onto his chest as he pulled her a little closer, and his cheek fell on top of her hair as he ran gentle hands over the sides of her arms, calming her until her breath started evening out.

“You never said,” She pointed out, “How long it took for you to start getting cold feet. Bet I beat some kind of record, two weeks is absolute dog shit,” She chuckled to herself, not noticing how his face evened out in sadness.

It was Tobias Hankel that had done it. It was getting tied up and injected that had made him feel like a failure, like he wasn’t cut out for anything let alone the force. Like his life was taking a huge spiral downwards.

But he wouldn’t tell her that, not yet at least.

“Come on, let’s get you back,” He brushed off, and she figured it was a sore spot for him. She cursed herself for asking in the first place.

Nodding, she downed the rest of the water and got herself a refill, following him out of the bathroom, looking back up at him for a moment.

“I forgot to say,” Bug said, nudging against his side with her whole body, knocking into him lovingly, “Your new hair is very… dashing. I really like it.”

He swore his face went crimson in a single second.

5. The one with his migraines

“Let me pay for your fuel at least,”

“Spence, just shut up and get in the car,”

That was around about how the past eight months had gone. Every day, she would drive by his apartment, Emily in the passenger seat of her little sisters beat up Renault Zoe, affectionately named after its model, the back seat reserved for Spencer’s lanky legs and satchel bag as she drove the three of them through through roads of Virginia, to work and back again.

Sometimes he surprised her with coffee, sometimes Emily brought them donuts. Either way, they all enjoyed their morning routine that had stood the test of time about as much as Bugsy had as part of the BAU.

It had gotten easier after that first case; she still had her moments, but her skin had thickened to a point she barely remembered what her life had been like before that day Hotch asked her to join the academy.

Things were going well, she felt settled, even with the new girl Seaver replacing JJ while Jareau was away on business in the pentagon. She couldn’t say she was the girl’s best friend, but they got along. And that was good enough for her. Her team was a well oiled machine.

That was, except for Spencer. Spencer she worried for every day.

She hated the way he twitched in the passenger seat, now his since she’d forced Emily to get the subway to work today, bitching eachother out in the way sisters did until the older woman left in a huff but without asking questions, and she left to take Spencer to the hospital.

The sunglasses did little to stop his eyes hurting, his brain quite literally feeling as though it was pressing against his skull. He even turned down coffee this morning, and her stomach had dropped when she realised just how serious it was.

He didn’t even question her when she held his hand tightly in hers as she walked him into the office, knowing he would hate every second of having this MRI done.

“Everything’s going to be absolutely fine, they’re going to find what it is and we’re going to get you fixed right up to your perky self again,” She said, as they sat together outside the doctor’s office, keeping her voice calm and quiet as not to upset his delicate head even more.

He nodded, appreciating her gentle touches on his hand, and he jumped in his seat when the door opened, his name being called through and he wished she could come with him.

“You got this,” Bugsy smiled at him reassuringly when he looked hesitant, and nodded again, squeezing her hand once before he let go, following the nurse into the MRI room, wondering how he got so lucky to have a best friend like her.

–

Spencer sighed, leaning back in his seat. The flight had not helped the building pressure in his head in the slightest. He looked up to the ceiling, closing his eyes as the harsh office lights beat against his face mercilessly.

Two bodies found sacrificed to a 'higher being', their tongues and fingers cut off, shells put over their eyes and mouths. They had seen worse, perhaps not as odd, but they had seen worse. And yet this was the case that made him feel like his brain was about to explode right out his ears.

He hadn’t felt like this since he had been on Dilaudid, since he’d be on a come down and his whole body would sweat cold, and his head would rattle with every movement. And even that almost paled in comparison to how bad his head hurt right now.

Spencer had wondered if that was what had done this to him, if it was a long term side effect of its use. He knew it wouldn’t be, but the self punishing part of him couldn’t help but fill his head with it.

He just wanted answers. He just wanted it to stop. He just wanted to crawl into bed with an ice pack over his face and never surface again until this thing had subsided.

Spencer felt hands in his hairline, fingernails weaving and massaging until he almost moaned, the touches releasing some of the metaphorical knots like magic at their fingertips, and he knew who it was, because that was how she always made him feel.

He opened his eyes to see her very upside down as she looked down at him, their eyes inline with one another as she continued running her fingers against his temples gently.

“You okay, handsome?” That was somewhat new, not that he was complaining. Part of him said she just felt bad for him and his weird brain, and maybe that was how it had always been, but ever since he had started getting these migraines she was impossibly even softer with him now. Like she was his comfort blanket he cuddled to when he was feeling particularly sorry for himself, and she knew it too. They were rarely not stuck together like velcro, where he moved, she moved. Where he sat, she was pressed against him like the concept of personal space had never been such a huge deal for him.

And when his pain struck him down into the embodiment of a wounded doe, she was right there fluffing his pillows, grabbing him aspirin, massaging his head like she could grab the bastard migraine right out of his skull and say leave my precious boy alone.

She was too sweet on him recently, but then he never wanted it to stop. It felt like a relationship without the kissing and especially without the sex. The thought of it made him want to moan again.

“This one’s a stubborn one,” It had lingered around for three days straight, and the Miami heat wasn’t helping as he looked up at her inverted face, and he could tell she was smiling gently at him.

She ran her thumbs over his eyebrows, smoothing them out and he sighed in delight as he felt the muscle begin to relax beneath her touch.

“You make things better,” He confessed, her fingers tracing down his pretty nose, and he closed his eyes as she went over the bags beneath them. “You always do,”

He felt her kiss his forehead for good luck, and he knew she hated seeing him in so much pain. He could have whined when she pulled away, letting go of him gently as Rossi stepped into the room, hoping he hadn’t seen the affection before too much teasing could come.

But he said nothing, even if he had seen, just raised his eyebrows and grabbed the file off the desk for his own thorough look through.

He sure as hell missed the way she interlaced their fingers under the desk though.

–

Spencer twisted the bracelet around his wrist as they sat together outside the doctor's office. Orula’s ide. That was what Julio had called it. Said it would protect him from the bad spirits that clouded his head.

Spencer was a man of science, a man of logic. But even he couldn’t quite explain how Julio had managed to figure out he was having migraines despite him not letting any infliction of pain cross his face, even more confused when Julio had said his body had been a conduit for a higher spirit who wanted to help him.

He was glad to be back in Virginia where everything made sense to him. Where she could hold onto his knee at the doctor's office to stop it from bouncing and his team couldn’t tease or ask him what was wrong or make her stop touching him so much.

“I say we get some ice on your head and put on whichever Doctor Who episode you want, don’t even care if we’ve seen it before,” She offered, smiling over at him and hoping he couldn’t see the worry in her eyes.

He could. He just nudged her shoulder with his forehead to say thankyou without ruining the solace the quiet brought him.

That is until his name was called, just as it was the last time he was here, and he stood to enter the office, not letting go of her hand as this time he’d made sure she could come.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” He said as he sat on the bed, his doctor showing him the clear brain scans that hadn’t flagged a single neuron out of place.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” His doctor replied, watching the way his female accomplice frowned, squeezing his hand tightly.

“Isn't there any tests that would look for a specific prognosis we could try?” She asked, and the man shook his head.

“Not unless we’ve ruled out every other option, and in this case I’d like to suggest that Dr. Reid’s condition might be psychosomatic in nature,” The doctor explained, wary of the way the two agents screwed their expressions up, almost identically, hearing his explanation of Spencer’s headaches.

“Psychosomatic…” Spencer echoed softly, in near disbelief.

That couldn’t be it. It had to be the Dilauded. Or a tumour. Or a long standing concussion. Something physical and tangible he could point out and get fixed.

“It just means a mental or emotional cause-” The doctor explained, only to have Spencer cut him off.

“No I know what ‘psychosomatic’ means Doctor, but it's not that,” He said, his voice tired; the idea he was making up his problem in his own head bothered him.

“Well, I think it’s something we should consider.”

“Listen, I’m not crazy,” Spencer insisted, and he felt her tugging his hand closer to hers, her own way of comforting him when she couldn’t grab at his hair or face or jaw.

“Dr Reid, I’m not saying-” But he was stopped by Spencer’s voice that was slowly growing more irate.

“No, listen, I have headaches. I have increased sensitivity to light, because there’s something wrong with me physically. Not mentally. It’s not that,” He corrected the doctor, his sweet face pulled into a grumpy pout, almost offended that the professional was willing to write his pain off as a hallucinations.

“That?” The doctor asked, a frown on his face as Spencer continued.

“Listen, doctor, my mother’s a paranoid schizophrenic who’s been institutionalised. So I know very well what mental illness looks like, maybe even better than you. It’s not that, it’s not.” Spencer said in a huff, standing from the bed and grabbing his satchel, all but pulling her from the room as she sped walked after him, her hand still tightly in his.

She was gobsmacked. She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before, and suddenly every single instance of her whining about her mother to him entered her head and she felt a pit growing in her stomach that only had room for guilt.

They sat in the car in silence, her hands at ten and two as she tried not to stare at him.

She couldn’t stand the quiet in which he stewed, murmuring to himself every now and then about how that most certainly wasn’t what was causing his state to decline.

“You never told me that before,” She said after a while, and it was quiet, whether to satiate his headache or because she didn’t know if she was allowed to say it he wasn’t sure.

“It never came up,” He said in a way that left little question. He didn’t want to talk about it.

They sat in the quiet some more, the only sound being the way her engine hummed beneath the bonnet, the music turned low for his pounding head, and he saw the way she chewed her lip and flicked glances at him from the driver's side.

He sighed, not wanting to snap at her the way he had the doctor, “Bug, would you please stop looking at me like that, like you pity me-”

“No, it’s not that it's…” She started carefully, her gaze flicking ot him for a moment as they stopped at a red light, “Every time I forget you’re the strongest person I know, you just seem to remind me,”

And just like that his heart swelled all over again, and he felt like maybe his head wasn't an entire failure to him.

+1 The one with the eulogy.

This was hell on earth.

She sat around the table at the funeral home with her mother to her left, her father and Stephanie to her right.

She could feel the team’s eyes on her; she hadn’t spoken in days, her face shallow and off colour, sick looking. Speaking to her mother and father was difficult for her on a good day, let alone when she was all alone.

Because that was how she looked, as if she were half a person now, her face bitter and angry as she tried to take up the least amount of space at the table as possible, her mother inspecting her finger beds as if they’d scorned her.

“Sit up straight,” She chided, nudging her daughter's knee, but Bugsy made no move to adjust her posture. She just stared blankly at the ugly floral tablecloth, waiting for the other mourners to arrive, to give their sorrows, before they could move to the church.

Emily was right next door. Cold. In a box. Her entire body was likely in rigour mortis now, her face was probably white as snow with the blood pooling away - pallor mortis Reid had called it - her hands were probably twisted and ugly like a raven's foot-

She couldn’t keep doing this to herself. And yet the thoughts wouldn’t stop, not even as Stephanie, step mother from heaven as she was, began to chime in to try lighten the mood.

Her dad hadn’t said a word to her yet, just patted her on the head the way he hadn’t done since she was five.

“It’s a lovely day for a funeral, don’t you think?” She commented, but her voice was too sweet, too soft, too normal to have the charm she’d intended.

Stephanie wasn’t a bad person. Not evil or horrible like Bugsy had always thought a step mother would be. But she was the person her father had left little Bugsy for, and though she knew almost all of her anger had been displaced onto the poor woman when he’d told her he had a new wife, Stephanie had never exactly bothered to remedy their relationship.

Emily and Bugsy had been someone else’s kids. Had been Richard Prentiss’ problems, not hers. And no amount of kindness she bothered to overcompensate with today would change the past twenty years her father had been too preoccupied to even call for her birthdays.

Bugsy scoffed, ignoring the warning look from her father. He knew very well how his youngest felt about his wife.

“Mr and Mrs Prentiss,” Hotch came over, as if sensing the girl’s annoyance at the woman’s words, and she mentally could have planted a kiss right on Aaron’s lips when he made the effort to exclude Stephanie in his condolences, “I’m so sorry for your loss. Losing a child is a devastation I never would wish on anyone,”

“Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hotchner,” The step mother piped up again, before either of them could say anything, and Bugsy shot her a look so full of hatred, Aaron thought she might have slapped her right then and there.

Richard cleared his throat, moving to put an arm around Steph’s chair, one that she’d pulled up to the table herself.

If there was one thing Elizabeth and Bugsy would ever agree on it was that Stephanie was intolerable.

Her mother looked empty as she nodded at Hotch, crossing her legs properly and pursing her lip, not saying anything. She’d never seen her mother cry, and she doubted that would start today. Elizabeth was much too of a proud woman to weep in front of the masses.

“Thanks, Hotch,” Bugsy said the first words she had in days, the only time she’d gotten out of bed was to feel Niko and Sergio or to use the bathroom. Her voice was raspy, ghost like, and it scared the crap out of him.

He couldn’t see her getting through this alive.

With Haley, he’d had Jack to get him through it, keep him going, if not to put on a front for his little boy that was the spitting image of his wife. But Bug had nothing left of her sister, nothing but herself and two parents that couldn’t stand to look at one another without screaming curses.

The other’s had already given their condolences, had already bombarded her with enough letters, flowers, stuffed teddies to fill a house, and she knew she wasn’t being fair ignoring them when they were grieving too. If not just as much as she was.

But she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t be anything except this shell of a woman once called Bugsy. Her sister gave her that name, she didn’t think she deserved it anymore.

Spencer just wished she would cry. He had been sobbing non stop, even where his eyes were puffy and red as Garcia’s as they stood in the funeral home, the smell of incense too strong, the sounds of wails too loud. But she looked… he hated to say it, she looked dead.

“That poor little lamb,” Penelope sniffled, tears already streaking down her cheeks as Derek tucked her under his arm, pulling her close into his smart black suit, “I wished she would let us in,”

“That girl is a carbon copy of Emily, of course she’s going to take herself off to lick her wounds,” Rossi said, his own fancy blazer stuffed with tissues in case his dark eyes welled up with tears again. He’d already managed to save himself once this morning before leaving the house, but he didn’t trust himself anymore than that.

Spencer missed her smile more than anything, though he himself was struggling to muster anything past a grimace.

“The Spring flowers are all in bloom, isn’t that lovely?” Stephanie continued, an easy grin on her face as she looked out of the window to the graveyard, as if she was entirely unaware of the grief lingering in the room, “I think she'll like it here,”

That was it.

That was what pushed Bugsy over the edge, even Elizabeth broke her cold facade to look at the other women in shock, her daughter’s eye twitching as her head snapped to Stephanie, a rage encompassing her entire face.

“What the fuck would you know what she liked or didn’t like, Stephanie? She barely even fucking liked you,” Bugsy hissed, drawing the attention of a few of the mourners with her vitriol anger.

That wiped the smile off the woman’s face harder than any slap could have.

“You watch your mouth, young lady,” Richard snapped, his face a blazen rage as Stephanie cowered behind him.

Bugsy scoffed, and Hotch knew by the sound of it alone, something had been lit inside her that was about to go off like a hand grenade.

He couldn’t say he blamed her.

“I don’t know why you even bothered showing up, Dad. You’ve not seen either one of us since Emily left college,” She spat back, her eyes wild like a cat ready to claw its way out of a fight, “Surprised you even remember my name now you have your shiny new family and your million honeymoons to keep you busy,”

Richard stood from his chair, his black three piece creasing as he pointed in her face, his hand shaking with rage, and she saw the tears well in his eyes that looked too much like her own for her comfort.

“You are turning out to be just like your mother, pushing away anyone who ever cared about you.” He barked, not caring that a few mourners turned to look at him in shock, “Don’t come crying back to me when you end up alone, little lady,”

And with that he took Stephanie’s hand, who was the patron saint of guilt as of now, a face like a scolded child, too naive for the grown woman she really as. At least she had finally shut up, Bugsy thought darkly as her father stormed out of the home, ignoring the way faces watched hers carefully, knowing every word he’d said had been true.

She thinks for a minute if Emily was here she’d poke fun at the way Steph’s face had been hilarious when her smile had dropped, or that her dad still had the worst temper out of them all, Bug included. She thinks that if Emily were here, she’d tell her he’d said all that stuff out of anger, and that she won’t end up alone, and that she’d always be with her.

She thinks that if Emily were here, she wouldn’t feel the empty nothingness where shame and sadness would be after having that entire thing play out infront of so many onlookers.

But Emily wasn’t there. And she couldn’t even say she was shocked when her mother stood from her seat besides her too.

“Where are you going?” Bugsy snarled, the Ambassador looking somewhat concerned before the expression fell and she went back to an equally lost look of her own.

“I refuse to be made a spectacle of today,” Elizabeth said detachedly, collecting her purse over her black midi dress, her painted nails skimming the handle gently, “I can say my own goodbyes to your sister later, when everyone has left,”

Coward. Coward. Coward. Bugsy wanted to scream after her, wanted to tear her hair out, wanted to grab the two of them by the neck and make them feel the way her words trapped inside her and clawed at her throat, sitting inside like a moth bouncing against a window trying to escape.

But she said nothing. Did nothing, as her mother left the home, left her sitting there alone, until the officiant came over to her not even a moment’s later and told her it was time to start the funeral.

And then she truly felt as if she would never be whole again.

–

Her hands shook as she got to the podium. She’d always hated public speaking, which Spencer thought was odd since she seemed to grab the attention of every room she walked into like it was second nature. She didn’t even bat an eyelid at chasing down a criminal or being shot at or evening chewing out a detective that wasn’t pulling his weight, but speaking to a handful of decorated officers that watched her with grieving eyes was too much.

Adjusting the mic to a more appropriate height, they watched her eyes scan the room, her brows scrunched, her mouth dry. Trying to find Emily, Hotch realised with a crack in his chest. The way she always did when she was nervous. The way she did when she was looking for Emily to come save her.

“H-hi, um,” Her voice shook, her fingers fiddling with the chord for something to do, “Mom- Ambassador Prentiss got called out on business so I guess I’ll be giving the eulogy,”

No one spoke, not even the ones who knew it was a lie, her eyes falling to where Spencer gave her a sad smile, some sort of encouragement for her to keep going, though his eyes were red and bloodshot, and he was sure the burn in his throat was rising again.

She hadn’t cried yet. Penelope had cried four times today alone.

“I- um, I wasn’t really prepared for a speech, so I’m, um, I’m just going to read the letter I wrote to her if that’s okay?” Her head shot to the priest who had handed the spotlight over to her, the warm spring breeze pulling at his robes as he nodded, his hand gesturing for her to continue.

She cleared her throat, tearing the envelope open, and the paper rattled in her fingertips with her shaking hands as she pulled out the double sided A4 that had been written on in neat blue ink.

Unfolding it, she let her gaze rip off the crowd of people who stared at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to say, the final words her sister’s body would hear before she was put in the ground forever. The last goodbye. The only one that had ever mattered.

“Dear Emily,” Bugsy read, her voice finding footing as she was able to look away from the hundreds of eyes that watched her tearfully. But it was the wrong move. Because the minute she’d prepared herself to say the words out loud she felt her eyes well up.

This was it. The last chance she would ever get to tell Emily how she felt. How sorry she was. How she was so damn sorry for being such a shitty person for so many years, for never saying thank you enough, for never hugging her when she really ought to have, for never appreciating how lucky she was to have a sister like her.

Her throat clogged, and she sucked in a deep breath, releasing a trembling sigh. Her bottom lip quivered.

“Sorry-” She apologised to the watchers, rubbing her mouth nervously, hoping no one could see just how deeply she had broken, just how harsh the wound had gaped open, “Dear Emily,” She started again;

“Everyone thinks they know what a sister is; it's the woman you share fifty percent of your DNA with who you’re put on this earth to annoy the shit out of,” A small wet laugh reverberated around the crowd, and she flashed a small smile at her own words. “But the truth is you can actually share up to sixty-one percent of your genes with one of your siblings. Which is crazy to me, because I know no matter how hard I try, I will never be even one percent of the woman you are,”

She swallowed heavily, and she heard Penny burst out crying again, her head buried in Morgan’s neck.

“If I was as gracious as you, I’d probably say you’re in a better place now, and if I was as brave, we probably wouldn’t even be here, because I would have been able to save you that day instead of just watching like a fly on the wall.” The first tear fell then, her face crumpling in pain. “If I was as considerate as you, I would be able to look every one of your friends in the eyes and tell them it would all be okay in the end. And if I was even the tiniest bit as kind as you, then I would have told you all of this to your face when it actually mattered.”

She sniffed heavily, and Derek did the same, his own throat burning, picking the thread on his nice trousers as Penelope’s tears wet his shirt through.

“Everyone thinks that true love is finding someone you want to marry and have children with, but I know now that’s not the entirety of it. Love is a person you want to spend every day making happy, and make them proud to say they love you too.” Her chin wobbled some more as she read the next few sentences with something darker than remorse in her glassy eyes, “I sometimes think, if we were given a second chance, if we could try again, I would be able to tell you that I truly love you, Emily, and that you’re the only person I ever cared about loving me too,”

Her voice cracked, and she regarded the paper with misty eyes, her cheeks soaked as she quickly wiped them with the back of her white, lace gloves.

“I think maybe next time I wouldn’t be so spoiled and bratty, and you could have been more relaxed and maybe less like my mom at times, but I think if we could do it over, we could have done it right, the way sisters are supposed to,” She sniffed, missing the way Spencer’s face dripped with tears of his own, her words tearing him inside and out with the guilt in every line. “But I guess it’s too late for that now. I only got one chance to be your sister and I failed, no matter how many times you pulled through for me. And that’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay.”

She braved a look at the closed casket, imagining her big sister, the only person she ever truly loved laying in there with fair, snow skin, her noir hair sitting perfectly like a princess in the fairytales she used to read to her before bed. Only this one had no happy ending. This one ended with her heart torn from her chest, bleeding for the rest of her days until her own body was buried and everyone could mourn the girl who was barely half the woman her sister was, no matter what the statistics say.

“I’m sorry, Emily” It was the first time she’d said the two words that had been playing in her head on a loop for weeks, the two words that sang to her like a mantra, every morning, noon and evening. Even in her sleep she had dreams where she could do nothing but scream into a void of darkness, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It should have been me, I’m sorry. “I hope you can forgive me,” She whimpered through a sob, ignoring the way her cheeks gushed with fat tears now, as she wept freely at the podium, her hands no longer shaking.

“Lots of love, your shitty baby sister, Bugsy.” She finished with a small whine, her expression broken as she folded the letter back up and placed it in the envelope, the cursive lettering of her big sister’s name staring back at her. Finishing where she’d started.

Tucking the letter underneath a tulip wreath atop the coffin, she stepped back down off the podium, ignoring the way the eyes followed her back to her seat, ignoring the way Derek rubbed her shoulder affectionately, or the way JJ handed her a packet of tissues, even though her own face was flooded, and showed no signs of stopping. She felt Spencer grab her hand in his delicately, entwining their fingers together, and squeezing lightly.

The priest continued with a hymn, though she didn’t bother singing it. She just stared at her shoes, as if her entire soul had been sucked from her the minute she’d ended the eulogy.

Which it had, because that had been Emily’s last goodbye.

She didn’t speak in the car on the way back to Spencer’s, not as Hotch pulled her in for a wide hug, rare and warm, even going so far as to stroke the back of her head with more affection than they’d ever seen him give her.

“Call me if you need anything,” He’d murmured into the side of her head as he held her close, feeling two hands hesitantly wrap around his waist, as if she wasn’t entirely switched on which, going by the vacant look on her face she wasn’t.

Spencer made her tea the moment they got in. She didn’t ask for it, she just sat on the sofa and stared at the beat up, old TV he kept only for the occasional documentary, and for the shows she liked to watch too of course. But she hadn’t even switched it on, just stared at the inky black glass like it would jump to life itself and tell her how to feel.

He took a seat next to her, on the other end of the couch, flicking the screen on for something to stop it from being so silent in his home; the silence meant they were alone with their thoughts, and for once he and his thoughts couldn’t stand being together. He didn’t want to interrupt her, or be the first to break the quiet. Not even when he watched her tea go cold in front of her, or as she barely acknowledged the cartoon on the TV, or when he pulled out his copy of The Brothers Karamazov that he’d been re-reading for the third time.

“Would you like me to read to you? Would that be better?” He asked tentatively, and she didn’t even blink, as if she were some sort of zombie or corpse sitting next to him programmed for instruction on acting human.

She said nothing, but she did move, the act of it making him jump slightly, and it was then he realised she had been perfectly still for the past half an hour, barely even showing signs of breath. A puppet with no master.

She leaned over, her body dropping onto the sofa softly as if she was taking a nap, only for her head to rest on his thigh, and his hand flew to pull the claw clip out of her hair like he read her mind. Her knees nestled to her chest, in foetal position, her pretty black dress, the same one she’d worn for Haley’s funeral riding up past her knees.

He gently tucked his long fingers into her roots, stroking her hair like she were a tame cat curled in his lap, clearing his voice as he continued where he’d left off, making sure he wasn’t reading too fast the way he would if it was just him.

His head still whirled around the eulogy she’d read. How watching her crack beneath the weight of her own words had hurt him more than his own grief, had made him bury whatever it was he felt and just need to put her back together again.

Because he didn’t need an eidetic memory to have ingrained what she’d said into his head, not even as they went to bed, and she burrowed into his side in one of his sweatshirts he usually saved for his own bad days.

“Bug,” He braved to say, watching her eyes force themselves open from where they were on the very lip of sleeping, “You’re my very best friend, did you know that?”

She hummed, her nose digging into his arm that he wound under her head, pulling her close enough he could feel her heartbeat against his own where she was in the crook of his neck.

“I love you,” She said, like those three words didn’t rip the air from his lungs.

Not even as her breathing finally evened out, and he felt himself heave a sigh of relief; the bags under her eyes had been more noticeable today than ever. Not even when he dared a kiss to her forehead as she slept, the smell of her shampoo completely taking over his pillow as he allowed his own heart to hurt for just a few moments, missing his friend dearly as he looked after the woman.

Love is a person you want to spend every day making them happy, and make them proud to say they love you too.

He knew then.

–

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