#realized i never actually posted this here!

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 MAYBE I JUST WANNA BE YOURS

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: dazai does not get jealous. he especially doesn't get jealous over someone he's not even dating. because he's not dating you. he doesn't want to date you... right?

(wordcount: 5k; fem!reader, nsfw, lots of smut LOL idk what got into me this is the first fic ive written with more smut than plot in ages. but anyway: jealous!dazai, fingering, oral (f->m), semi-public/public sex. whiplash from dazai's thoughts (as always). unedited.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: hihi. SO this actually wasn't going to be connected to anything, but i decided like mid-fic that i wanted to make it a continuation to the adareader universe ive been considering building. i was too lazy to go check for inconsistencies, so if there's any dihfausihdfsudf just ignore them LOL. when i eventually make the masterlist for it and officially connect them all, ill go thru and double check for them. first i need to write them something with actual substance and not just horny posting LOLLLL.

Dazai is not a jealous man.

He’s not.

In fact, he’s the most un-jealous person in the whole world. He has no reason to be jealous, especially over you. He’s not dating you. Dazai never asked you to be his girlfriend, and that was intentional because Dazai doesn’t want a girlfriend. More specifically, he doesn’t want to be someone’s boyfriend. You’re just a friend—a friend that he sometimes fucks and occasionally seeks out to spend time with. He doesn’t want someone relying on him in a way a girlfriend would, and he certainly doesn’t want to rely on someone in the way a boyfriend would, because he doesn’t want the rug pulled out from under him when it inevitably goes to shit. 

The thought is suffocating, it makes his skin crawl.

Almost as much as the realization that the cop the two of you are assigned to be coordinating with is clearly head over heels enamored by you. Dazai scowls from where he’s standing a few steps behind you, watching as you go over the details of the file that the man brought to you—Dazai didn’t care to learn his name. And yes, Dazai means you because when the officer came over with the file, he didn’t even acknowledge Dazai’s existence and walked right over to you.

He still hasn’t acknowledged Dazai’s presence, staring at you with an adoring expression as you read through the file. Dazai thinks if this were some sort of cartoon, the officer would quite literally have hearts in his eyes—it’s disgusting, Dazai can hardly stand to watch it.

“Dazai,” you finally say, voice a soft hum. He likes the way you say his name—it rolls off your tongue prettily, and it makes his chest oddly warm. He’s not used to people saying his name with such softness; he’s used to anger, irritation, fear, but never this. He’s wondered how his given name would sound, he’s spent many nights imagining it, one hand pressed to his mouth and the other wrapped around his cock, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to ask you to call him by it. That’s a step too close to actual intimacy and he’s not willing to take it.

You raise your eyebrows at him, and Dazai realizes you must have said something after you said his name, but he didn’t catch it because he was too absorbed in the way you said his name to notice.

“Come here,” you say again, nodding your head for him to drag himself out of the corner he’s sulking in to come to you. He feels a bit too gleeful watching the way the officer’s expression shifts in surprise as he turns to look at Dazai, finally noticing him.

Dazai pushes himself off of the wall to take a few steps closer to you, and he may or may not stand a bit too close on purpose just to see the other man frown. He stands behind you, chest brushing your back as he looks over your shoulder to scan through the file you’ve been reading. It takes him twice as long as it usually does because he didn’t realize that being in such close proximity to you would make him as dizzy as it did, and he’s too stubborn to back off now. 

Your hair smells like vanilla, and Dazai can smell the faint scent of your favorite perfume dabbed on your neck, worn off throughout the long day. His attention strays from the file to you, tracing the smooth curve of your neck, dipping down to your collarbone and swallowing when he realizes that the top three buttons of your dress shirt are undone, the stuffiness of the tiny room and the lack of air conditioning causing small, visible beads of sweat to form on your skin. His breath catches as his gaze lowers just a bit more and-

You turn to look at him and his gaze snaps up before it can drop to dangerous territories, and Dazai catches the amused look in your eyes—you know exactly what he was looking at. Instead of having some shame, because Dazai has no shame, he shifts just an inch closer to you, one of his hands resting on your hip. He watches the way your lashes flutter the same way they always do when you’re trying to pretend you’re not affected by his touch, and his lips curl up into a small smirk.

“What do you think?” you ask after a second. 

To your credit, your voice isn’t as strained as he expected, so Dazai ups it a notch, fingers sliding from where they’re caressing your hip to trail across your inner thigh. All out of sight from the officer on your left, but Dazai can tell he’s aware that something is going on from the way his enamored expression starts shifting into a more awkward one.

Dazai gives him a smug, sardonic smile before saying, “I think our friend over here should go get us the CCTV tapes—that’ll be much more useful to us then a bunch of reports.”

The other man’s face shifts in confusion, brows furrowing and lips curving down, but before he can say no, you speak up and agree, “That would be great.”

Dazai rolls his eyes when it makes the man straighten and nod, “I’ll get it right away.”

Before he steps out of the room, Dazai tosses another look over his shoulder, this one colder than it is smug, and he says maybe a bit too snidely, “Don’t come back until you have them.”

The officer doesn’t reply as he leaves the room, and as soon as the door clicks shut, Dazai is pulling away from you to walk over to it. He locks it quickly and then turns to face you, tilting his head to the side as his gaze roves over your body. You’re leaning back against the table, eyebrows raised, and Dazai doesn’t stop himself this time when his gaze lowers to the swell of your breasts just barely made visible by your partially unbuttoned shirt.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, motioning for you to come over to him.

You don’t budge. Instead, you raise your eyebrows and say dryly, “There are cameras in here, Dazai.”

He pointedly looks up to the two corners of the room that they’re in and then back down to where he’s standing, silently telling you that this is a blind spot. After a moment’s hesitation, you push yourself off the table and make your way over to him. Dazai tilts his head back against the wall, looking down at you through his lashes as you come to stand directly in front of him. He pretends that his throat doesn’t bob when he feels your fingers slip into his belt loops.

“What’s gotten into you?” you ask, but your eyes are glittering so he knows you know exactly what the problem is—and to think he thought you weren’t cruel, you might just be the worst type of cruel there is, hiding it behind pretty smiles and sweet words. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous because that cop has a crush.”

“I don’t get jealous,” Dazai replies with a simpering smile, lifting one hand to cradle your cheek, breath catching as your eyes flutter shut, pressing your face into his hand. “I just didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

Dazai thinks that you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen—he’s thought it since the day he met you, but he thinks it especially now when you’re leaning into his touch like it isn’t poisonous, like his hands aren’t stained with blood and his soul isn’t black and rotten. You deserve better than him, and that’s another reason why he refuses to take that next step: he knows one day you’ll realize it too. You’ll realize that you’ve fallen for a mask, that the man you care about doesn’t actually exist, it’s a thing that can barely call itself human pretending to be him.

He wonders if you know. He wonders if you know that something is wrong with him—he thinks that you must have some inkling after the bout of paranoia he had a few weeks ago when he was at your apartment, but he doubts you know the extent of it. He doubts you know that thoughts running through his head whenever that officer looked at you were anything but just casual jealousy; that every time he leaned in closer to you, Dazai’s fingers twitched in the direction of the gun given to him by the Agency that he’s only supposed to use in emergencies. 

Old habits die hard, Dazai has always been quite trigger happy. They never should’ve put a gun in his general vicinity.

 He leans down to ghost his lips below your ear, savoring in the way he feels you take in a sharp breath. His fingers tangle in your hair as he pulls your head back just enough to kiss the spot beneath your jaw that makes you writhe, and just as he expects, you let out a breathy moan against his ear that makes his head dizzy, your hands darting up to cling at the sleeves of his jacket.

“Dazai,” you gasp as he kisses down your neck. He hums in response, his free hand resting on your waist as he pulls you impossibly closer. “Are you sure…”

“I’m sure,” he says, and then adds smugly, “When am I ever wrong?”

He doesn’t have to see your face to know that you’re probably rolling your eyes at him, but he doesn’t give you the chance to make a witty remark about the first time the two of you met. His grip tightens on your waist as he flips you around so that your back is to his chest.

His hands immediately work to unbutton your slacks, lips finding their way back to your neck to pepper kisses up and down your skin as he watches the rapid rise and fall of your chest. He lets out a low groan against your skin when he slides his hand into your pants and feels just how damp your panties are.

“This better be for me,” he mutters more to himself than to you, nipping at the skin of your neck. His voice is a bit more rough now as he asks you, “Lace?”

He lifts his face from your neck to look at you. Your eyes are half lidded as the pads of his fingers trace the cloth of your panties, head lolled back against his shoulder, breath ragged and lips parted, but there’s something teasing in your gaze as it flickers up to meet his.

“The ones you like,” you breathe out, and Dazai swallows thickly. “I was gonna see if you wanted to come over after this.” 

“Shit,” he whispers, putting pressure right over where your clit is hidden, watching the way your thighs tremble. “Look at you, only I make you feel this good, yeah?”

“Don’t tease.” The whine that clings to your words makes Dazai’s head spin. He can already feel his cock straining against his pants and tries to ease some of the friction by pressing you back into him, rolling his hips against your ass. “Dazai-”

“Shhhh,” Dazai soothes with a grin, kissing up your neck to your ear when he hears the distress in your tone. “I’ve got you.” 

With practiced ease, he slides his fingers beneath your panties, middle finger dipping between your folds. He inhales sharply, immediately losing his grin when he feels how wet you are.

“This better be for me,” he repeats, a bit more seriously this time as he slides his finger between your folds, putting pressure on your entrance but not quite pushing in. “Hm?”

He waits for a response, relishing in the way your whole body trembles against him. He doesn’t even know if you know what he asked, you already seem so fucked out—lips wet and parted as you breathe in and out shakily, lashes fluttering and chest heaving.

“Tell me,” he presses, his free hand sliding up your body, untucking your shirt so he can slip his hand beneath it to feel your skin.

“‘course it’s for you, Dazai,” you say after a few seconds of confusion, like you were trying to remember what he asked. “What kind of question is that?” 

Dazai doesn’t respond to that, letting out a pleased hum as he kisses your jaw again. He also doesn’t give you the chance to say anything else, quickly plunging his middle finger deep inside of you. The sudden intrusion has your hand flying to your mouth to muffle the cry that escapes your lips—he almost wants to pull your hand away, but decides against it because he doesn’t want anyone else hearing you like this.

You try to rock your hips to get him moving, but Dazai’s hand flattens against your stomach, holding you still against him.

“Dazai-” you gasp his name again, this time your voice is more pitched, caught between a whine and a complaint.

“Patience,” he coos, but his voice is strained and his breath is heavier as your tight walls hug his finger, imagining that it’s his cock instead. He drags his finger out until only the tip remains inside of you. He teases your entrance again, tracing a gentle circle but not pushing back in. “Bet you could already take two fingers for me, yeah?”

“What if he comes back?” you suddenly ask panic flying through your eyes as if you’ve only just remembered where you are. Dazai is distinctly displeased by the thought of another man crossing your mind while his fingers are inside of you. “Dazai, what if-”

“He won’t,” Dazai answers you, making his displeasure known as he nips your neck. 

“How do you-”

“The corner that the disappearance took place on—it’s a blind spot for the CCTV cameras,” he answers before you can finish. Dazai knows this because he killed a target in that exact same spot two and a half years ago. “He’ll be gone for a while. He won’t want to come back empty handed to you.” 

Dazai doesn’t give you the chance to question him anymore, sliding his middle and ring fingers inside of you and watching as your jaw falls slack. To make up for the displeasure he felt at you bringing up that irritating cop, he fucks you hard with his fingers—you barely have time to bite the palm of your hand before his fingers are stretching your walls.

He thinks he might be pushing his luck—he doesn’t know if the cameras in the corners of the room pick up sound, and if they do, he doesn’t know how well they pick it up. Even if you’re doing your very best at muffling your moans, there’s no hiding the sloppy sound of his fingers driving in and out of your cunt—it’s wet and filthy, and it has Dazai’s head dizzy. 

His eyes drag up from where his fingers are plunging in and out of you back up to your face. Your pretty eyes are almost fully rolled back as he fucks you closer and closer to the edge and your lashes are wet. One particularly rough snap of his wrist has your hand falling limp from your mouth to your side and your lips parting in a moan that Dazai doesn’t dare allow anyone else to hear. Quickly, his free hand darts up to grab your jaw hard, turning your face toward him so he can press his lips to yours messily, swallowing the keening moan before you can let it out. 

He kisses you deeply, tongue tracing the inside of your mouth gently in contrast to the rapid thrusts of his fingers. You try to kiss him back, but you can hardly even breathe with how deep his fingers fuck into you. He knows you're close—he can feel it in the way your whole body is trembling, and how your pussy flutters around his fingers, so he picks up the pace, just as desperate to bring you over the edge as you are to get there.

He’s the only one that can make you feel like this. He’s the only one that can make your body shudder and writhe, he’s the only one that can make your eyes roll back in pleasure, he’s the only one and he needs to prove it.

“C’mon, baby,” he pleads against your lips. The pet name that spills from his lips is not the teasing bella he likes to hit you with like he intended—it comes out strained, breathy, just as desperate as he feels. The lack of control scares him a bit, but he’s too out of it for it to take hold. “C’mon, once on my fingers, then as many times as you want on my cock when we get home, alright?”

He doesn’t know what you’re trying to say, the noise that spills from your lips, muffled against his mouth, is a moan, caught between his name and a please and something else he can’t make out. Distantly, he thinks that the bandages on his forearm must be ruined, he can feel your slickness dripping down his hand to his wrist and he can hear the lewd sounds of his fingers pushing in and out of you. He doesn’t care—in fact, the thought only makes his lower abdomen tighter. 

“I’m gonna-” you gasp, the only word she can make out and Dazai grins.

“Yeah, you are,” he rasps, scissoring his fingers inside of you and rubbing his index finger over your clit, and you’re gone. 

Dazai groans when he feels you moan his name against his lips, hand dropping from your face to your waist to hold you upright as your knees buckle. You cum hard on his fingers, hips stuttering and stilling, and he can feel tears spilling over your cheeks. His cock is painfully hard now and he wants nothing more than to unbuckle his pants and replace his fingers with it, but he thinks that would be pushing his luck—he’s never had any semblance of control once his cock is inside you and he needs to keep an ear out for footsteps approaching the conference room. 

He rides out your high, pace slowing as he continues to fuck his fingers into your sensitive cunt, wiping your tears with his free hand once you’ve steadied yourself. You tremble, reeling from the intensity of your orgasm, and Dazai only removes his fingers when you claw at his wrist for him to stop.

His fingers are dripping with your cum, and though Dazai is aching for a taste himself, he instead lifts them to your lips. You’re still trying to get ahold of yourself, leaning back against his chest and breathing heavily, but you instinctually part your lips for him. His breath catches when you take both of his fingers into your mouth, lashes fluttering shut and tongue swirling around his digits as you taste yourself off of him.

“Fuck,” he groans, hand dropping down to rub the heel of his hand against his cock, desperately trying to alleviate the pressure. He has no idea how he’s going to hide this before the officer gets back and…

His thoughts trail off when you finally push off of him, your legs are still trembling, and your eyes are still a little hazy, but your gaze drops from his face to his rapidly rising and falling chest down to where he’s rubbing his cock through his pants. And then, you lower yourself to your knees in front of him.

“Oh, fuck,” he repeats, voice breathy this time and pupils blown wide as he watches your fingers work at the buckle of his belt.

Dazai almost wishes that the officer would come back soon, just so he could walk in on you with a faceful of Dazai’s cock. But if that happens, all of Ango’s work will go out the window because there’s no way he’s letting someone see you like this and walk out alive. 

Dazai’s cock twitches as soon as you free it from its confines. He’s already leaking an embarrassing amount of precum, and his tip is flushed red, but you waste no time before ghosting your lips across his length, suckling gently at the vein running along the underside of his cock before wrapping your lips around his tip.

Dazai chews at his lower lip, thighs tensing as he resists the urge to thrust his hips forward and shove his cock down your throat. Instead, his throat spasms as he swallows, reaching out to cradle the back of your head gently, carding his fingers through your hair soothingly.

“Lookit you,” he breathes out, voice wavering as he swallows another low groan. His fingers tighten in your hair just a bit, but he doesn’t push your face down on his cock, head falling back against the door as you work his cock further down your throat. His breath is ragged and heavy as your tight muscles spasm around him, desperately trying to adjust to the intrusion, and he can feel your nails digging into the bandages wrapped around his hips. “That’s my girl.”

Another loss of control that should probably concern him, but you’re quick to take his mind off of it with the way he can feel you let out a whine around him, nails digging a little bit deeper into skin as you take him fully into your mouth, lips flush to his pelvis and nose buried in his pubic hair.

His head falls forward as he pants, watching your throat struggle to adjust to him. He strokes your hair gently, silently beckoning you to look up at him because he worries that if he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll let out a pornographic moan, one that will be impossible to deny if anyone over hears.

Your lashes flutter as you look up at him, eyes wide and glassy with fat tears that roll steadily over your cheeks. 

Beautiful, he thinks hazily, and his—all his. No one else gets to see you like this, no one else gets to imagine you like this—you’re his. 

He chokes over air, free hand coming up to cover his mouth and hips jerking forward. He feels you gag around him and his hand drops to caress your cheek in apology, trying to wipe away your tears, but it’s clumsy and frantic—the sight of you on your knees for him, tears streaming down you face as you take him down your throat, is enough to send him spiraling over the edge.

His vision spots with black dots, the taut cord in his abdomen tightens and then snaps. He’s hardly able to muffle the moan that spills from his lips as his eyes knock back and his head falls against the metal of the door. His whole body tenses and spasms as he cums down your throat, he gasps for air, thumb still stroking your cheek as you struggle to swallow all of his cum.

It takes a minute for Dazai to regain some semblance of control over himself. By the time he has, you’re standing on shaky legs and tucking his sensitive cock back into his pants. His hazy gaze focuses on your face—your lips are wet and swollen, your eyes are still glassy, and this time Dazai doesn’t have an excuse as he lifts his hands to cradle your face and says quietly, “Mine.”

Your smile is teasing. “‘I don’t get jealous,’” you mock lightly, leaning in to press your lips against his. Dazai’s eyes flutter shut as his hand slinks around your body to your back, pulling your body flush to his as he deepens the kiss, sinking into the familiar feeling of your lips sliding against his. 

“I don’t have reason to be jealous,” Dazai murmurs, this time with a different meaning. He pulls back slightly so he can button your pants back up and tuck your dress shirt back into them, making sure you look presentable before the officer gets back.

Instead of teasing him again, your smile softens and you affirm, “You don’t,” and Dazai’s throat tightens. 

The thought of being in an actual relationship has always been suffocating to Dazai. Imagining having to spend the rest of his life with one person, having someone rely on him when his will to live is fickle at best and nonexistent at worst, becoming dependent on someone who could leave him on a moment’s notice… It makes his stomach churn with disgust, his chest tight with anxiety.

But when that faceless someone turns into you, Dazai realizes that the thought of a relationship is not quite as unappealing as it’s always been to him. Does it still make him skittish? Sure, but does it outweigh the green hue that colors his vision whenever someone looks at you and thinks you’re not his? Does it outweigh the bolt of fear he feels whenever he sees someone display interest in you, wondering if maybe you’ll get sick of his flighty behavior and give them a chance?

Absolutely not.

Dazai hears footsteps approaching the door he’s leaning on, and quickly unlocks it, motioning for you to stand back by the conference table. When the officer opens the door, the two of you are standing there casually like you never moved.

The officer gives you an apologetic smile that makes Dazai’s eyes twitch. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any CCTV footage from the area.”

Before you can respond, Dazai smiles tightly and says, “Wow, and it took almost twenty minutes for you to realize that—no wonder the police keep coming to us for help.”

You elbow Dazai, but he’s unrepentant, giving you a sweet smile before turning a cooler one back onto the officer. “If you don’t mind, we can finish the rest back at our office tomorrow now that we have the files. We have a date to get to.”

He doesn’t have to look at you to know you’re raising your eyebrows at him, but he keeps his gaze trained on the officer, finding sick satisfaction in the way the man’s eyes dart between the two of you, a dawning expression crossing his face.

“A… date?” 

“A date,” Dazai confirms, picking up the file and motioning for you to leave. He pointedly ignores the amused expression on your face as you make your way out of the room, walking past the officer who dumbly steps out of the way. “Thanks for the help… or, well, lack thereof.”

It’s only when the door slams shut behind the two of you, do you finally echo, “… A date?”

Hesitantly, Dazai confirms, “A date?”

When you don’t immediately respond, Dazai’s smile starts to freeze, considering that maybe you don’t want to date him and he read all of this wrong. You want to keep things casual, no strings attached. But after a few agonizing moments, you hook your arm around his and lean into him.

“Where are you taking me then, hm?”

“… It’s a surprise,” he replied.

A surprise for both of you, because Dazai hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. 

A tenseness that he hadn’t even realized was in his shoulders dissipates when you laugh and press your lips to his upper arm before resting your head against it. 

“Alright,” you agree, although he’s pretty sure you know damn well this is all spur of the moment. “Let’s go then.”

Though Dazai tries to rifle through all of the options of places you like to go, when the two of you step outside, all coherent thought washes right out of the window when you turn to look up at him, the setting sun casting an ethereal glow over your face.

“What is it?” you ask when he freezes in his tracks to admire you. “Dazai?”

For just a split second, Dazai can imagine it. He can imagine a life with you, and there’s no sign of any of the suffocation or discomfort he usually feels when he thinks of long term commitment too hard. He imagines waking up to you in the morning and falling asleep to you at night, he imagines spending his days laid up in bed with you sharing kisses and sweet nothings and he imagines dragging you around the city to show you off to anyone and everyone. His thoughts start to spiral out of control, and he’s glancing down at your ring finger, wondering-

“Dazai?”

Dazai’s thoughts come to an abrupt halt, and he swallows thickly when a more realistic image comes to mind—the expression on your face when you find out about his past, the disgust, the fear, the realization that he’s just not who he made himself out to be, that he’s been lying to you since day one.

“Nothing,” he says after a moment, voice a little raspy, so he shakes his head, giving you a disarming smile and clearing his throat. “You’re just so stunning that it leaves me at a loss for words, sweet bella.”

You don’t seem to buy it, but you don’t press, arm tightening around his as you make your way back over to your car.

As soon as you look away, his expression shifts into a more downcast one as his gaze tracks back over to you. It’s only a matter of time, he remembers. His past will catch up with him sooner rather than later, and no matter what you may insist about the past being in the past, he knows everything will change when you finally realize what all he’s been hiding from you.

… but maybe there’s not too much harm in indulging while he still can. He just has to keep reminding himself that he can’t get too attached.

“You should let me drive,” Dazai says sweetly. “So I can drive us to the place and keep it a surprise for you.”

You laugh in his face. “As if.”

You usher him over to the passenger seat before making your way back over to the driver’s side, and Dazai finds a genuine smile unconsciously curling at the corners of his lips. One that quickly falls when his fingers wrap around the handle of the car door.

He thinks, maybe, it might be far too late to stop himself from getting attached.

[bonus-links]

rereading with the latest update to get caught up, and now I know its an option I am desperate for director's commentary on Ruins pt7, if you're willing, please

(Also I first started reading this before taking sign langauge classes, and while I am learning a different SL to ASL/whatever Slate is using, some things translate well. Which is to say I was very excited seeing Loft use thank you and other small signs, or recognising Slate's signs. Its very cool!)

OH AN OLDIE yeah sure!! i will do my best to remember wtf i was on about lol

first of all. this was posted in 2023. what do u mean it's 2025 and im only on ch2. explodes. ANYWAY.

I'm still proud of myself this this panel thing w the arrow lol where it's both coming towards the octorok and has already gone through it. this is something that didn't rlly end up making it into the final product but I don't think Slate actually makes a habit of just killing monsters willy nilly. I don't see him hunting down every monster in Hyrule after the calamity ends. He kills this octorok bc they antagonize the horses but also because. I needed an excuse for his bow to already be out HAHA

I have complicated feelings about the yiga and what their lore implies lol but for Slate's part, he has personal beef with them on account of how many times they're tried and nearly succeeded in killing him. I like to imagine the Yiga as both deeply goofy and also a serious threat at the same time lol, which i think sums up how Slate feels about them.

I did however want to take this opportunity to show his capacity to be a brutal fighter, the same way Loft is in the opening of ch1. Actually the idea for this scene even came about because in my own late-stage game I kept getting attacked by a blademaster literally every 2 feet in certain regions, and I was getting so frustrated by it I just started obliterating them with ancient arrows 💀 Slate using way more arrows than necessary was a nod to that. idk maybe this guy lived lol

this scene was also to spur comparisons between Slate and Loft's experiences. Loft is brutal with monsters, but he's never killed a human being. Realizing that the Yiga aren't monsters shocks him.

this is a failure of my own paneling bc I didn't have enough room on the page and refused to add another, but Loft is hallucinating this guardian being active. all the guardians are inactive since defeating the calamity. actually what I should have done was add a red targeting line that then disappeared in the next panel. MAN.

alright and probably what you actually wanted commentary on, first Champion sighting! The first time Slate actually sees Champion is at the end of ch1, so if you're wondering if Slate knows he's there in this scene, the answer is no. I think rather than following Slate around all along, Champion has spent most of his time just sort of. barely existing here at Fort Hateno, or sitting with the master sword. He's not exactly like the ghosts of the other champions, or King Rhoam. sorry buddy :-(

i do have a bonus comic the works re: ghost lore that I will hopefully finish. someday so I think that might answer some questions ppl have. and possibly introduce a few more. but on the whole I like to keep whatever's going on here a little ambiguous. like I said in this update's commentary, one part literal and one part metaphorical. maybe two parts metaphorical lol

I think that's all I got for this one!

[ssa-dado]

24 - Logos

Aaron Hotchner x fem!bau!reader Genre: fluff, hurt/comfort, SMUT Summary: A few weeks ago, Aaron had read a passage from Plato's Symposium - "And when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself... the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, even for a moment." He hadn’t fully understood it. Not until he found himself sitting on your couch at 3 a.m. Warnings: + 18 MINORS DNI (I will ground you) alcohol consumption, some cuss words here and there, VERY GRAPHIC AND DESCRIPTIVE SEX because I'm a weirdo, it's basically porn with philosophy (not in the middle of it - of course - I'm not that weird), dirty talk, unprotected sex, piv, oral sex and a lot of pining. Hotch is a whore. Word Count: 18.9k Dado's Corner: I don’t know, I’m both proud and deeply insecure about posting this. It’s my first time writing smut. Ever. I have no idea if it’s good. No idea if it’s too much or too little - if I over-explained things or if I didn’t explain enough. It’s their first time actually sober, and they’re supposed to be a little cringe - uncertain, hesitant, not entirely sure what to do with each other or where they fit and that’s deliberate. I wanted it to feel real - flawed, messy, something that isn’t just perfect and seamless, but human. There’s good and bad, there’s laughter and uncertainty, there are tears of joy and tears of fear. And I just hope it feels like something.

masterlist ; mandatory first part because if you skip this, you'll be utterly lost and it's not my fault

In Stoic philosophy, logos represents the rational principle that governs the universe, uniting logic, physics, and ethics into a cohesive worldview. It is the divine reason permeating all existence, structuring nature according to order and necessity.

In Stoic logic, logos manifests as the foundation of rational thought, guiding human reasoning toward clarity and truth. Mastery of logic enables individuals to distinguish between valid judgments and deceptive impressions, ensuring alignment with reality.

In physics, logos is the active, organizing force (pneuma) that sustains and directs the cosmos. Everything unfolds according to its rational design, making the universe an interconnected, purposeful whole rather than a realm of randomness.

In ethics, living in accordance with logos means harmonizing one’s will with nature’s rational order. By cultivating wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue, individuals align their actions with universal reason, achieving tranquility and moral integrity in a world shaped by necessity and change.

Happiness is a complex concept - or at least, it became one once thinkers like Aristotle started overanalyzing it.

He distinguished between fleeting pleasure (hedonia) and deeper fulfillment (eudaimonia), and ever since, that debate has been stitched into the fabric of western culture.

Now, most people unknowingly follow this hierarchical model of happiness, never realizing it originated from a handful of bored, existentially troubled men desperately trying to intellectualize their own misery.

Maybe that’s why it’s considered completely normal to ask if someone is really happy - because centuries of philosophy decided that happiness alone isn’t enough – it had to be the right kind of happiness.

And yet, even you weren’t immune to that trap. Because standing there, dancing with Aaron, you admitted to yourself that you were, in fact, truly happy.

Not just for yourself, but for him - for the man who, for the first time since signing his divorce papers a few months ago finally looked light. Not weighed down. Not lost in some invisible battle in his mind. Just… happy.

And the moment felt so sweet, a microcosm where locking eyes with each other was ordinary conduct in such close proximity, where neither of you felt the need to temper that undeniable - if slightly terrifying - undercurrent of chemistry.

Just the understanding that this was safe, that this was allowed.

And somehow, that made it even sweeter.

Not just the warmth of it, not just the effortless way you fit into this tight space together, but the inescapable fact that your probably borderline-manipulative plan to drag him out of his self-imposed exile - had actually worked.

"Now you have to tell me how you managed to get not only Rossi but Hotch to join us tonight, sweet Teach - what kind of sorcery did you pull?" Penelope beamed, not even giving you a second to breathe after you’d opened the door to your apartment.

Ever since she got shot and still struggled with being alone in her house, the two of you had built this little ritual - getting ready together, spending a few hours just the two of you in your apartment before a night out.

A win-win, really, considering you also took your time settling into this place, figuring out how to make it feel like home. Penelope had even been the one to help you unpack your very last box, and now this little tradition had taken root.

She brought the wine, you experimented with vegan appetizers - some more successful than others - and the two of you would rant, gossip, and talk about everything and nothing. But, most importantly, Penelope took on the herculean mission of wrangling your ridiculously high-maintenance team into one place for a night out.

It was a diplomatic nightmare. The venue had to be quiet enough for Spencer but still have music good enough for Derek, serve whatever mocktail JJ was obsessed with that month, and somehow accommodate Emily’s inevitable last-minute curveballs - which, incidentally, was how Spencer found himself at a drag show for the first time.

Shockingly, he’d been asking to go back to that bar ever since.

You, meanwhile, were more like Penelope’s unpaid secretary. She desperately needed one, given the sheer level of effort it took to coordinate this mess.

"You asked, and I delivered," you said, shrugging. "Told Rossi that Hotch was coming, told Aaron that Rossi was coming too - he actually turned out to be much easier to persuade."

"I wonder why… oh, right," Penelope sing-songed, eyes gleaming. "Big Bossman has a soft spot for you, smiley little thing."

You rolled your eyes. "The fact that we’re friends doesn’t change that he is infuriatingly stubborn once he makes up his mind. So annoying."

"Nine years of ‘friendship’" Penelope quipped, stretching the word out suspiciously.

"Actually, it’s ten," you corrected, sipping your wine as you settled onto your kitchen stool.

Penelope gasped - full dramatic hand-to-chest gasp. "Oh my STARS and MOONS! Ten years?! And you didn’t tell me?! What did you do? What did he do? Just the two of you , alone somewhere private, existing in your natural secretive habitats like the little pretty, reserved, woodland creatures you two are… especially now that he’s divor-"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down, Pen!" you cut her off before she could run that train straight off the rails. "How many times have I told you we're-"

But no. She didn’t let you finish.

"Oh, Teach!" she grinned, eyes sparkling enough to concern you. "I was just suggesting you two do something to celebrate… something you two love to do. You know, stay up all night bonding over files… bending over files…"

You choked.

Actually choked.

Wine went straight up your nose, burned your throat, and splattered all over you, going everywhere.

Your counter.

Your floor.

Your poor, innocent, pristine white pants.

Penelope screamed - but not in horror, in absolute, unhinged delight.

"OH MY GOD," she cackled, slapping a hand against your back like that would somehow help you breathe again. "I HAVE NEVER BROKEN YOU SO FAST."

You wheezed, still coughing. "Penelope-"

She wiped a fake tear from her eye, grinning. "Oh no, sweet pea. You absolutely just got - wait." She paused mid-celebration, tilting her head as if she had just made a discovery.

Then, in a tone far too calm for the amount of damage she was about to inflict - "Much like I imagine Aaron Hotchner could do."

A horrible, inhuman noise clawed its way out of your throat - your last dying breath, probably.

Penelope lost it. Full-body laughter, already snatching a towel but making zero effort to hide the criminal glint in her eyes.

"I’m just saying," she went on, barely containing herself, "you and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Emotionally Repressed have this whole agonizingly slow-burn, will-they-won’t-they, tragic yearning thing going on, and you know I’m right."

You groaned, dabbing furiously at the stain. "There is nothing slow-burn about a decade-long friendship."

"Aha! So you admit it’s a burn!" Penelope beamed, pointing at you like she had just cracked a conspiracy wide open.

The more you dabbed, the worse it got - just like this conversation, apparently. "Oh, no, I never-”

"All I’m saying is," she steamrolled over you, completely unfazed, "the energy you two radiate is so thick I could slather it on a bagel. Toasted chemistry. Smothered in slow-burn spread. One time I saw him look at you like you personally hand-crafted happiness from scratch just for him. Like you reached into the fabric of the universe and said, ‘Here you go, Hotchner, a reason to believe in joy again.’"

You paused, glaring at her. "That is insane."

She ignored you, fully in the zone now. "And don’t even get me started on the way you look at him when he isn’t paying attention."

You looked at him completely normally. Totally neutral. A textbook, regulation-approved gaze.

Even Anderson looked at him with more fervor than you ever did - and as far as you knew, he wasn’t even into men.

You scoffed, crossing your arms. "And how exactly do I look at him, Penelope? Enlighten me."

She grinned - dangerously - and leaned in like she was about to drop the biggest bombshell of your life. "Like you already know what he looks like naked and are trying very, very hard not to think about it."

You froze.

For exactly half a second - which, unfortunately, was half a second too long.

Penelope’s entire face dropped. Eyes huge. Mouth hanging open. A moment of stunned silence. And then-

"OH. MY. GOD."

Your stomach plummeted. "Penelope, don’t-"

"OH MY GOD. YOU DID."

"Penelope," you tried again, desperately attempting to rein in the chaos - but, to your credit, you did at least try to keep your voice level.

"JESUS, MARY, AND EMILY PRENTISS, YOU TOTALLY DID THE HORIZONTAL TANGO WITH AARON HOTCHNER. YOU SNEAKY LITTLE MINX. HOW DARE YOU HIDE THIS FROM ME?!"

"Penelope, for the love of-" you started, but of course she chimed in again.

"WHEN?! WHERE?! HOW?! DETAILS, WOMAN!"

You exhaled through your nose, dragging a hand down your face because there was no getting out of this.

"Once," you muttered. "Nine years ago."

Silence.

Then, with the most scandalized expression you've ever witnessed on her face, she shrieked, "ONLY ONCE?!"

You threw your hands up. "Yes, only once! And never again."

"WHY ONLY ONCE?!" she shrieked, as if you had just admitted to committing the single greatest injustice known to mankind.

You exhaled, bracing yourself, hoping that a little honesty might finally get her to calm down. "Because, at the time… I might have had a bit of a crush on him. And we were coworkers. And it wasn’t exactly… ethic-"

"FUCK THE ETHICAL!" she screamed, thrilled by the sheer scandal of it all.

You should have seen that coming."Penelope!"

She flailed her arms so violently she nearly knocked over her wine glass, eyes wide "You had a crush on him?! ON HOTCH?! AND YOU ONLY DID IT ONCE?! Oh, I cannot with you right now. You are so infuriating sometimes! You have the emotional restraint of a saint, and I do not mean that as a compliment."

"We were both drunk, and it was a mistake. It happened, we moved on, and that was the end of it. We’re friends, and that’s all it’s ever going to be." you said, unwavering. " Honestly, I don’t even think about it anymore - sometimes, I even laugh about it."

Penelope squinted, gears visibly turning in that devious head of hers, already cooking up something absolutely unhinged. "Mmm-hmm. Okay. Fine. Sure. Let’s pretend I accept that. But-"

Oh no.

"-if it were to happen again, hypothetically speaking, do you think it would be even better now that he’s aged like a fine, expensive, top-shelf wine? And, and, anddd - follow-up question - on a purely objective, scientific level - how would you rate him? You know, visually?"

"Penelope!" you groaned, but unfortunately, your traitorous brain had already started answering the question.

Yes.

And no comment.

"Okay, okay, fine, no ratings," she huffed dramatically, rolling her eyes so hard you were surprised she didn't sprain something. "But-"

This was it. Your moment. Time to end this madness with a good old, firm, satisfying -"No."

But, of course, that would have been too good to be true.

She continued "-would you say he's more on the impressively sized side or-"

"Penelope, please." You were already suffering.

She waved you off like your dignity was a minor inconvenience to her scientific research. "Listen, I’m just saying," she went on, tone now fully deranged, "the man carries himself like he’s got something to be confident about. Big hands, big energy, big…"

You froze. "Do not finish that sentence."

"BIG, HUGE D-"

Time to draw the line.

You shot up so fast your chair went flying, rattling against the floor as you grabbed your phone.

Penelope screeched. "Wait - what are you doing?!"

You scrolled, thumb unwavering, and hit call. "Giving you a direct source."

Her soul left her body. "NO. NO, YOU WOULD NOT-"

You absolutely would.

And you did.

"Come on," you said, completely deadpan, as the dial tone rang. "It’s just Aaron."

Penelope malfunctioned. She glitched like a corrupted file. She stared at you, horrified, mouth moving but no sound coming out.

"He’s just 'Aaron' to you?" she whispered, her hands flailed before slamming onto the table as if physically stabilizing herself. "No last name? No title? Just oh, you know, my casual little ex-lover, Aaron? Just ‘hello, this is a man I have been biblically familiar with, Aaron?’ Just ‘we had sex nine years ago, and now he’s simply Aaron, like we’re old college roommates and not two people who have seen each other naked’"

…Hmm. Well. Yes?

To be fair, you’d never really thought about it before. It just… happened. One day, he was Hotch, then - sometime after that night - he was Aaron. And after that, you never really stopped.

No big discussion, no conscious decision - just a shift so seamless that you hadn’t even registered it until right now, in this very moment, with Penelope practically having a full-body breakdown in your kitchen.

Not important. Moving on.

Because, frankly, you had bigger concerns - like how you were about to experience instant, irreversible consequences for your actions, since the call, after one, two, three rings-

Connected.

"Hello?" His voice came through the line - slightly huffed, a little breathless, like he’d just moved across the room.

"You took a while to pick up," you said casually - a joke, a throwaway comment.

There was a pause. A beat.

And then, in that deadly flat, unbothered tone of his, he answered, "I was still in the shower."

You froze.

Penelope froze.

Somewhere, on the opposite side of your living room wall, your elderly neighbor Mrs. Lee - who had been subtly not subtly eavesdropping through the thin drywall of your apartment - probably froze.

You could feel Penelope vibrating beside you, gripping your arm so tightly she was cutting off circulation, meanwhile, your brain was running in circles, slamming against metaphorical walls, and screaming into the void because-

Aaron in the shower.

Aaron, freshly out of the shower.

Aaron, picking up the phone, standing there, probably half-naked, hair wet-

No. Nope. Absolutely not.

You leaned back against the counter, schooling your expression into something completely unfazed. "Well, now I feel bad for interrupting."

"I doubt that," he said dryly. "Is something wrong?"

"Not at all. It’s just that Penelope had something very important to ask you," you said, glancing over at her with the most innocent, borderline sadistic smile you could muster.

"I - what - no, I don’t-" she sputtered, frantically shaking her head and waving her hands.

Aaron, still completely unaware of the impending disaster, said, "What is it, Penelope?"

Dead silence.

Garcia looked like she had been struck by divine retribution.

"Go on," you mouthed, biting back a grin. "Ask him."

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Nothing.

Just the sound of sheer existential regret.

"Garcia?" Aaron prompted, his tone patient, if slightly concerned.

"I - um - hi, sir Sir," she finally managed, voice several octaves higher than usual. "I - I just - well, you know - um. How was your shower?"

You slapped a hand over your mouth to keep from screaming.

Aaron, completely unfazed, just answered like this was a normal human interaction,"It was fine."

"Good! That’s great!" Garcia blurted, nodding furiously at no one in particular. "Love a good shower! Love hygiene! So important! Huge fan of cleanliness! Showering - what a concept! Water? Incredible. Soap? Revolutionary. Scrubbing? Life-changing. Anyway, I have to go bye!"

And then she hung up so fast it was a miracle she didn’t break the phone.

You just stared at her.

She just stared back.

Then, in perfect sync -

You both screamed, laughing.

"You traitor!" Penelope wheezed, still half-laughing, half-mortified.

"You were the one who wanted answers!" you gasped, nearly crying from laughter.

"Not from him directly!" she shrieked, burying her face in her hands like that could somehow reverse time - but she was laughing anyway, because this was, undeniably, the funniest and most horrifying thing that had ever happened.

"Well, I just saved you the effort," you teased.

She ripped her hands away from her face, wild-eyed. "You made me ask our boss about his shower."

"You made me listen to your entire dissertation on whether or not he’s impressively sized - I feel like we’re even."

You still somehow winced thinking back about it.

She groaned, collapsing against the counter. "I will never recover from this."

"Oh, I’m sure you absolutely will," you said, reaching for the wine bottle. "Do you want more wine?"

She lifted her head just enough to nod. Begrudgingly.

You poured, sliding her glass across the counter. Then, with the kind of magnanimous generosity only wine-fueled chaos could inspire, you added, "And - because I am a good friend - I will allow you one question about that night. One. With a detail."

Penelope snapped upright faster than the speed of light, gasping. "Oh, this is the best day of my life."

You chuckled, shaking your head, sipping from your own glass too. "Make it count."

She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and then, she leaned in and whispered- "Was it at least good enough that you'd do it sober?"

You nearly choked, again. "Penelope!"

She lifted a hand. "No, no, no, this is a very fair, very respectable question."

Sure, a question that required another sip of wine to be answered, especially because at this point you literally had nothing more to lose. "Penelope, I would do it sober, wide awake, fully caffeinated, after eight hours of sleep, in a well-lit room, with a legally binding contract ensuring I’d remember every single second."

Penelope screamed.

"OH MY GOD," she wailed, collapsing onto the counter. "THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE NIGHT."

You took another sip, completely unfazed, as she flailed so hard she nearly launched herself off the stool.

"I NEED TO LIE DOWN," she gasped, gripping onto the counter for support. "I NEED TO CALL EMILY. JJ – OH SWEET LITTLE JJ – SHE’S IN NEW ORLEANS SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW”

"You need to calm down," you deadpanned.

She pointed at you, accusatory, still half-breathless from screaming. "You were gonna take this to the grave. You were gonna let me die not knowing this. ME. PENELOPE GARCIA. The person who has kept all of your secrets and asked for nothing in return except unfiltered chaos."

"I was absolutely going to take this to the grave," you confirmed, refilling your wine.

She let out a dramatic gasp. "YOU MONSTER."

You shrugged. "You survived."

She slammed a hand on the table. "You know who wouldn’t have survived?"

You tilted your head. "Who?"

She leaned in, eyes glinting. "Aaron Hotchner."

You made a low, strangled noise in the back of your throat.

"Oh, he absolutely wouldn’t have survived if he knew this just came out of your mouth," she continued, giddy, thriving off the absolute chaos she had unleashed. Then, dead serious - "Text him right now and tell him."

You slammed your wine down. "I am definetely not texting him that."

"Why not?!" she howled.

"Because I told you - I’m never doing that. Ever. I’m serious. If I could go back in time and relive that sober? Sure. But not. Now."

She narrowed her eyes, assessing, calculating.

"Okay, okay, alright then - next question." she said too fast, taking a sip like she was preparing for battle. "Do you think he’d do it sober?"

You opened your mouth - but nothing came out. Because you hadn’t actually thought about that before.

Penelope gasped so loudly that you were surprised the walls didn’t shake. "OH MY GOD, YOU DON’T KNOW."

"I-"

"OH MY GOD, WHAT IF HE THINKS ABOUT IT, WHAT IF HE REGRETS NOT DOING IT AGAIN."

"Penelope," you said slowly, carefully, " you know what? I have reached my limit. This conversation is getting put away. We are going to the bathroom, I am curling your hair, and we are talking about something else."

"You know, Teach," she mused, stretching luxuriously as she grabbed her wine glass. "You have a really weird way of showing love."

You took a slow sip of wine, watching her over the rim of your glass. “I agree - it’s because I hate you just as much as I love you, PG. Opposites aren’t really opposites, you know? They kind of fold into each other - love, hate… same fire, same burn. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.”

You were actually proud of this philosophical pearl of wisdom. Penelope? Not so much.

She cut you off immediately. "Oh my GOD, this explains so much. This is exactly why you and Hotch looked like you were about to fuck in the middle of the bullpen yesterday."

"PENELOPE."

She pointed at you, completely unbothered. "OH NO NO NO - I was sitting there, minding my own business, when suddenly you two were arguing about the profile like you were in some kind of battle for dominance, standing way too close, talking way too low, making way too much direct eye contact."

"We were disagreeing about the profile."

"YOU WERE HAVING A MENTAL THREESOME WITH THE PROFILE BETWEEN YOU."

You let your head drop onto the counter.

She kept going. "It was totally foreplay - and then, mid-argument, he even took you to his office."

You lifted your head just enough to glare at her. "We went to his office to continue the discussion in private."

"Sure..." she grinned, skipping toward the bathroom. "Fine, fine. But just so you know," she threw a look over her shoulder, "if Hotch ever does take you to his office for anything other than work, I expect a full report."

Oh fucking hell.

"I hope your curls come out uneven," you muttered, grabbing the curling iron.

"I hope you get stuck in an elevator with him," she shot back.

You narrowed your eyes. "I hope you trip in your heels tonight."

She grinned wider. "I hope Hotch sits across from you at the bar and just stares at your lips the whole time."

You scoffed. "I hope your mascara smudges so bad you look like a raccoon by the end of the night."

She perked up. "I hope you two sneak away to the bathrooms at the bar, and you have to keep quiet while he-"

"PENELOPE."

She continued, undeterred, "I hope he backs you up against the bar, leans down all serious like he’s about to tell you something important - and then just whispers the filthiest thing you’ve ever heard."

"I hope you break a heel on the way there and have to borrow one of Morgan’s sneakers."

"I hope he offers you his jacket and you realize it still smells like his cologne and suddenly you’re thinking about it again."

"I hope you stub your toe so hard you rethink everything."

"I hope he says your name in that low voice of his, and for a split second, you remember exactly what he sounded like nine years ago-"

"I hope you spill something on your dress and have to go home early."

She cackled, victorious. "I hope you wake up in his bed and don't regret a single thing."

And maybe, exactly because the two of you had this conversation, you shouldn’t have agreed to go to the bar together in a single car – hers.

You should have seen this coming.

Indeed, as you and Aaron made your way back to the bar, drinks in hand, you spotted Derek and Penelope approaching with a very specific look on their faces.

Derek clapped a hand on your shoulder and said, "Teach - Babygirl had too many drinks to drive, I’m bringing her back home, can-"

Aaron didn’t even let him finish.

"I’ll give the professor a ride," he said immediately, smooth, confident, like he had already made up his mind before Derek even spoke. "You go, Morgan. See you tomorrow morning."

You barely had time to process how utterly inevitable this was - how there was no escaping the tension that had been building up all night until the very moment you stepped out of his car and reached your apartment door.

And then - Penelope smirked.

The smuggest, most self-satisfied, most evil little smirk in existence. You hoped, deeply and sincerely, that this wasn’t her plan all along - but judging by the way she waved so innocently as Derek dragged her away, eyes twinkling like the devil himself-

Yeah. You were doomed.

You were doomed the second you and Aaron stepped out of the bar and, with zero effort, he pushed open the massive, heavy wooden door like it weighed nothing at all. Casual. Effortless. Like he hadn’t even thought about it.

Just naturally stepped aside, one hand braced firmly on the doorframe, the other resting lightly against the door, waiting – watching - as you walked past him.

You were even more doomed when you reached his car and - of course - he opened the passenger seat for you too.

Didn’t even let you reach for it yourself.

Just beat you to it with ease, pulling it open - but instead of walking away immediately, he lingered for half a second longer, his hand still resting on the handle, holding it just firmly enough so he could be the one to shut you in himself.

Like this wasn’t already a lost art. Like this was just how things were supposed to be.

To top it all off, he got in, and as he backed out of the parking spot, his arm reached behind your headrest, fingers resting exactly there, his body leaning in just slightly closer as he turned to glance over his shoulder.

You had never wanted to fight for your life more.

Not because of the closeness.

Not because of the way his short-sleeved polo shifted, muscles tensing subtly, biceps flexing just enough as he turned the wheel -

No.

It was because he chose this exact moment to mutter, in that low, distracted, completely serious voice, something about the structural failures of public infrastructure.

"Parking lots aren’t properly illuminated," he murmured, half to himself, half to you, as he pulled out of the space - leaning in just enough for you to be wrapped in the warmth of his woody cologne. "Streetlamps are too far apart - against regulation. Visibility’s compromised."

You blinked.

It was so incredibly Hotchner of him to be thinking about streetlamp regulations at a time like this that you nearly lost your mind.

But you couldn’t even react, because then he turned on the car radio. And instead of some normal, pre-set station, it booted right into his most recent activity.

Which meant - of course - it immediately picked up in the middle of whatever custom CD he had been listening to on the way to the bar.

You had exactly one second to register the unfamiliar tune before it clicked - this was from whatever Broadway musical he was currently obsessed with.

Oh, he was such a loser.

You turned your head toward him, but Aaron - unfazed, unbothered - simply reached forward and turned the volume down to a casual, background level.

Like this was all perfectly normal.

Like you hadn’t just caught him.

"Aaron." You bit back a smirk.

He kept his eyes firmly on the road, expression unreadable. "Hmm?"

"Which one is this?" you asked, already knowing the answer but needing him to say it out loud.

"Wicked," he muttered. Then, quickly -"I can change it."

"Oh no, no, don’t you dare, Hotchner." You chuckled, settling in. "Always wondered what your music taste sounds like."

He exhaled deeply. "It is not only this-" he started, trying, truly trying to make you understand the complexity of his other music tastes, to defend his honor, but – they just started singing. And he knew.

He knew.

You were never going to let him live this down. Better off saving his breath.

Hilarious, and the best part? He didn’t even know he was.

Halfway through, you tilted your head, listening. "So this whole song is about two girls absolutely hating each other because they’re complete opposites, but they’re forced to be roommates?"

"Pretty much, yes." His answer a little too quiet, and - though he tried to hide it - deeply embarrassed.

You grinned. "It kinda sounds like they have a crush on each other," you commented, trying your best not to notice how his fingers tapped the wheel, completely in rhythm with the song, while his face remained perfectly composed - extremely normal about something he so clearly wasn't at all.

"That’s the whole point," he said, deadpan, keeping it short.

"Oh “ You blinked. “Do they get together at the end?"

"Unfortunately not." He sounded so genuinely bitter about it that you nearly laughed. "They become best friends, though."

Though, judging by the way his gaze flicked toward you for half a second, he wasn’t entirely sure if you were still talking about the musical - or something else entirely.

Especially when you simply hummed, turning to look out the window. "Best friends."

"Yes. Best friends." His fingers tightened on the wheel.

And damn if you didn’t let the silence linger just a beat too long.

"They don’t get together because they’re completely different, so they’re not compatible?" you asked, your voice just a little too earnest.

"Not because of that," he started. "It’s because one of them becomes a political fugitive and is declared a national threat, while the other is essentially forced into being the corrupt government’s PR puppet."

Ah. Okay.

There was no possible way to explain it in a way that didn’t completely kill the mood - impossible, really. But he tried anyway.

"Although," he added, keeping his voice even, measured, like this was not something he had many thoughts on, "they do have a really dramatic goodbye, where they sing about how much they changed each other’s lives and how they’ll never be the same again."

He felt you turn toward him, and though he kept his eyes on the road, he felt it - that shift in your attention, God knows on what, though.

"Best friends," you repeated.

He gripped the wheel just a little too tight. "Best friends," he confirmed, again.

A beat. A pause. Too long.

"And you think it would have been better if they had been together?" Your question landed way too heavy, like you knew exactly how much weight it carried.

Like you knew exactly how his mind worked, how he had spent far too long thinking about this, not just in the context of some musical, but in general.

He exhaled, keeping his eyes fixed ahead, but his grip tightened again.

And then-

"Fuck yes," the words left his mouth way too fast.

So fast that he heard you laugh before he even saw you smile from the rereview mirror of the car.

And God - that laugh.

It wrecked him.

Not because it was loud or sudden, but because it was yours. Because it was real. Unguarded. Effortless. Because it was him that pulled it from you - and it was then, in that moment, that he knew.

He was so, so fucked.

Because this wasn’t new. This wasn’t some sudden realization, some reckless thought that had just wormed its way into his mind out of nowhere.

It had been there. For a long time. Ten whole years.

He had just never let himself look at it too closely.

Because if he did - if he let himself really think about it, about how he felt like he was burning alive every time you looked at him like that - it would be too much.

It would consume him.

And he could not, would not, risk this unless he was absolutely sure.

Unless he knew you wanted him too.

Unless he knew you burned for him the same way he was combusting for you in real time in this car.

And that terrified him, because he was not sure.

Because you laughed like it was just funny.

Because you smiled like this was just a conversation.

Because you did not look wrecked.

Not like he felt.

So instead, he cleared his throat, steadied his grip, and forced his voice into something casual, distant - yet still, somehow, not completely backing down. "You think they should have ended up together too, then?"

Not ‘do you think I’m wrong’.

Not ‘do you disagree’.

But  - you think so too.

Like some small, cowardly, pathetic part of him needed to hear you say it.

There was a pause - not a long one, not anything noticeable if he wasn’t paying attention. But he was.

He was paying attention to everything.

To the way your breath hitched just slightly, to the way your fingers twisted at the hem of your sleeve, to the way you turned your head to look at him.

“Obviously.” You gestured toward the radio. “You don’t harmonize so effortlessly with someone you’re just calling a ‘friend.’ That’s literally just denial with extra steps.”

He almost told you that harmonizing perfectly was the entire point of musical theater. That it was scripted, practiced, designed to fit together.

That it didn’t mean anything.

But he didn’t, because he knew what you meant. “So you believe in that?” he asked, voice steady, casual, like this was just another discussion.

You raised an eyebrow. “In what?”

His fingers tapped against the wheel, once, twice – thoughtful - before he finally spoke. "That some people are just... deluding themselves."

The shift was small, but he felt it. Your smile didn’t falter. Your posture didn’t change. But something in your expression - in your eyes specifically - shifted.

It was dangerous, talking to you like this.

Because you noticed too much. Because you understood more than most. Because you saw through things - through people - with a clarity that was often unnerving.

Especially when it came to him.

Especially when he wasn’t sure he was ready to be understood like that.

It was your job, afterall.

"Oh, absolutely," you said easily, your tone way too light for his liking. "People are the most oblivious to themselves. We exist in a perpetual state of contradiction - endlessly chasing clarity while fiercely protecting the illusions that comfort us. We reshape our own realities, bending them to fit the narratives we can live with, refusing to confront the truths that feel too heavy - even when they’re staring right at us."

And didn’t he know - hadn’t he always known - how precise you could be with words in moments like this? The moments where he wasn’t, the only moments where he wasn’t precise at all.

How effortlessly you could thread meaning into silence, weaving it into something he could either acknowledge or ignore.

How your gaze lingered just a fraction too long, like you were offering him a choice.

And he didn’t know whether to turn away from it - or step straight into it.

Because for once, he couldn’t read you and that terrified him.

He had spent his entire life seeing through people, understanding them before they even understood themselves.

Yet here he was, in the quiet of his car, in the space between you, not entirely sure who you were talking about.

And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

So he did what he had always done.

He lived with it.

With the sound of his heart thundering louder than the music - louder than your occasional singing along when something familiar played, or the rhythm of your voice alternating with his as you both filled the car with conversation about everything and nothing.

Each block closer to your apartment building felt like a loss, something slipping through his fingers before he even had the chance to hold onto it. He was already mourning the night before it was over.

And neither of you seemed to want it to end, given how relentlessly the talking continued, stretching time as far as it would allow.

It wasn’t until half an hour later that it even occurred to either of you that you were standing outside in the cold, leaning against the driver’s side door, your arms wrapped around yourself in a futile attempt to keep warm. He was still in the car, window rolled down, engine still running, caught between staying and leaving.

It made him ache, interrupting you mid-sentence to point it out. “You’re shivering,” he said quietly, apologetic, as though he were to blame for the biting chill in the air.

It made him ache even more when, instead of brushing it off or saying goodnight, you invited him upstairs, at how his jacket was discarded somewhere along the short path to your building’s entrance, now draped over your shoulders along with his arm, pulling you closer.

It was ridiculous how, even with two jackets on, the only thing keeping you from freezing was his arm.

What was even more ridiculous - hideous, really - was how he should have been the one freezing, left in nothing but short sleeves, yet somehow, standing there with you wrapped up in him, he’d never felt warmer in his life.

So warm that he didn’t even notice the chill of the night.

So warm, in fact, that he didn’t even need the blanket you handed him when you both settled into your living room, waiting for the heating to kick in. He let it drape over his lap out of politeness more than necessity, as if pretending to care about staying warm.

Now, you sat on opposite ends of your couch, shoes abandoned by the door, both of you leaning on the armrest closest to the other, legs angled toward one another, the space between you steadily narrowing. Distance itself felt like an insult, your arms resting along the back of the couch so you could still face each other, still hold onto the moment that neither of you wanted to let slip away.

And he didn’t dare lose sight of your eyes.

It was in that exact moment that a memory surfaced—some weeks ago, sitting alone in his living room, reading Symposium, a book he only picked up because he had seen you so engrossed in it on the jet. Because he had wanted to understand what had captured your mind so entirely.

And everything that followed - a whole night of texting, deep conversations neither of you ever brought up again, like always.

His eyes had analyzed the book twice, dissected its structure, its meaning. And yet, only now, in the absence of it but in your presence, did he finally understand that one passage.

"And when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself… the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, even for a moment."

He understood.

Because he couldn’t look away from you - not now, not ever.

The world outside was so quiet that every word exchanged between you felt magnified, as though the universe itself had leaned in to listen. And when even your whispers felt too loud, you shifted closer, scooching toward him on the couch.

Just a few inches at first.

And then he did the same.

You moved again. Then so did he.

And suddenly, your crossed leg was draped over his, the fabric of your tights brushing against his jeans as naturally as if it had always been there. His left hand settled somewhere near your knee - hesitant, not gripping, but resting. Shy.

The ticking clock on the wall was the only tether to the concept of time, because what he’d assumed to be ten, maybe fifteen minutes revealed itself to be a full hour.

3 A.M. And neither of you seemed to care.

By then, his hand had already found the courage to rest between your thighs, still safely on your knee. Though it didn’t take long before his thumb began moving on its own, tracing slow, idle patterns over the thin fabric of your tights.

He didn’t say anything about the way your foot brushed his calf, or how his name on your lips sounded softer in the early hours. Or at how all of this mutual care betrayed his mind, cracking open a small window to what it could have been.

Yet somehow, it felt far more like a glimpse of what it could be.

“Aaron,” your said, soft enough that it sounded more like a thought than a spoken word.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a statement. It was just his name. Him.

And somehow, that made it all the more devastating.

You hesitated, your eyes dropping to where his hand rested on your knee. He followed your gaze, and in that moment, even though he’d memorized every fleck of color in your irises, their absence felt like a loss.

So dull that his thumb stilled its movements across your knee under your inspection, as if the simple acknowledgment of the two of you now might shatter everything.

He braced himself for a shift - for the game you always played, where lines were drawn, and walls went back up. Where the closeness between you was something fleeting, fleeting enough to pretend it never existed.

But then, you looked back up.

And instead of retreat, instead of scolding or teasing or anything he expected, there was something else entirely. “I really don’t want this night to end.”

He wasn’t sure he’d heard you right, but the look in your eyes left no room for doubt. You weren’t just talking about the night… and neither was he.

But he didn’t know how to give you the honesty you deserved without completely unraveling, not until his thumb resumed its gentle movements on your knee - more to selfishly steady himself than anything else.

“Neither do I,” he admitted finally, even if each second was daring him to say more, to close the space between you entirely. But he didn’t move. Couldn’t. Not yet.

It was you who moved first.

Plato said that ‘At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”

Maybe he was right, because as your hand slid down his arm, it felt like a verse being written. The way your fingertips barely grazed the surface of his skin, tracing the map of his veins with a tenderness you hadn’t realized you possessed, pretending the warmth under your fingertips didn’t make your stomach tremble, until finally, your touch lingered on his knuckles.

A pause, hesitant. Then, almost instinctively, you laced your fingers with his. It felt... inevitable. Natural in a way that terrified you.

“Didn’t expect you to be this warm,” you murmured, your voice light, almost teasing, though you couldn’t hide the way it trembled.

You finally found the courage to meet his eyes. Hazel. Searching. Devastating.

And you weren’t afraid of what you saw, you already knew. What terrified you was that, with one touch, you might have unraveled something too fragile to survive.

His gaze fell to your joined hands, his thumb gliding softly over the back of yours, speaking in the ineffable language of touch.

“I didn’t expect to feel this… right,” he said, the words so quiet they felt more like a confession than a statement.

The smallest smile tugged at your lips, and you leaned in just a little more. “Aaron…”

And that was it.

Whatever restraint he’d been holding onto slipped away entirely. Before he could overthink it, his hand came to rest against your cheek, his calloused palm cradling the softness of your face.

Gentle. Steady. Tender.

The contrast was almost startling, culminating in the soft whimper that escaped your lips as the cold metal of his watch grazed your neck. And so, apologetically, his thumb began to move, tracing gentle patterns along your cheek, as though committing every curve, every subtle shift, to memory.

You didn’t pull away.

Instead, your hand slid to his wrist, holding him there, your thumb tracing the same delicate patterns along his inner wrist, matching his movements with the same ease that echoed in the way you ordinarily mirrored each other’s posture, each other’s language.

His gaze flickered to your lips. “You have no idea how hard it is to stop myself here,” he just said, now without a hint of regret, not when your eyes searched his with the same intensity he felt pulling at his chest.

“You don’t have to,” you whispered, the words so soft they barely reached him, but he heard them as clearly as if you’d shouted.

His breath came shallow now, his gaze searching yours, as though looking for any sign of hesitation.

But there was none. Only the quiet, unspoken truth reflected back at him.

And so his other hand found your waist, pulling you closer - so close that, without thinking, you moved to straddle him, your knees settled on either side of his hips.

“I-” he stammered, as he looked at you wide-eyed tilting his head back slightly, before shaking his head, a breathless chuckle escaping him.

“Sorry,” you blurted, heat rushing to your face as you realized just how intimate the position you’d claimed truly was – the cruelty of not having even thought about it once before moving, how it was the only way to still communicate with his eyes.

“No,” he said quickly, almost shy, but the way his thumbs brushed your sides betrayed how much he didn’t want you to move. “Don’t apologize. I just wasn’t expecting it...” he trailed off, though you didn’t miss how his gaze flickered to your lips more than once.

“…Are you comfortable?” he asked softly, his eyes wandering across your face.

It wasn’t just a question; it was a moment stretched taut, as if he was buying himself time, wanting to keep this moment balanced on the edge of the razor for just a little longer.

On this space of tenderness, where care outweighed desire, where everything still hung in the balance, where there was still time to hold back, to savor the precipice, waiting for one of you to risk it.

You nodded. “Very.”

The smallest, warmest smile flickered across his lips. “I’m happy you are,” he murmured.

How could he be even so sweet? How could he, in the middle of this - when your body was pressed so close to his - still be so considerate, so cautious, so Aaron?

How could his hands, now steady on your waist, have only settled there after he’d murmured a careful, overly-polite, “May I?”, the formality of it, juxtaposed with the intensity of his touch, was enough to make you giggle.

“Please don’t smile at me like that when you’re this close,” he said, his voice dropping to a low rasp, his gaze fixed on your lips.

You couldn’t help but grin wider. “Why not?” your fingers brushing lightly against his jaw.

“Because,” he began, his lips twitching up, “it makes me forget how to think.”

Crazy, really. The idea that Aaron Hotchner, the most precise and methodical man you’d ever met, could forget how to think. Thinking was practically the core of his being, wasn’t it?

Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.

Because if forgetting how to think meant losing himself, then you were the cause. You had undone him.

Shaken the core of a man who had carved his entire existence around reason – or at least, tried to fool everyone into thinking so. And now, here he was - disarmed by nothing more than a smile, a touch, and the mere proximity of your lips.

If existence is rooted in thought, and Aaron’s thoughts were consumed entirely by you, did that mean his existence was yours to hold? Did that mean, right now, he existed only because you allowed him to? Couldn’t be that.

Still, how dizzying it was to consider how quickly you’d become his undoing – yet, perhaps what was even more terrifying was the way he seemed to welcome it.

“You’re not wrong,” he murmured, his voice quiet but steady, like a confession meant just for you. His dark eyes searched yours, their intensity almost overwhelming. “You do undo me.”

Your breath caught. “How did you even manage-”

But he didn’t let you finish. His forehead pressed softly against yours, his nose brushing yours in the faintest of touches.

And so your eyes closed together, as if the nearness alone was too much to bear, especially when his lips hovered so close that you could feel the warmth of his breath.

How paradoxical it was that you both desperately craved each other’s mouths, yet now, in this unbearable closeness, neither of you could summon the courage to take the last step.

How you continued lingering in the tension, your breaths mingling, your bodies pressed so close that those strong hands of his, still firmly on your waist, urged you even further onto him.

Neither of you wanted to bear the responsibility of what came next. What was about to happen. What was meant to happen. It wasn’t a game anymore. You were done waiting.

You wanted him. Now.

You were ready - to let it all go.

“Aaron,” you whispered, looking into him.

And as always, he seemed to be the only one who understood you, he began to trail kisses across your face, soft, slowly, taking his time.

Your temple.

The side of your right eye.

The curve of your cheek.

Down to your jawline.

Then, he traced his way back up, planting one final kiss at the very edge of your mouth.

When he pulled back, intoxicated, his eyes found yours - wet, shining, unguarded, just like his.

“Please, ask me to stop,” he whispered, his voice breaking, his eyes already glistening with unshed tears.

“Aaron, I can’t,” you murmured, the words trembling on your lips as your breath mingled with his, the space between you growing thinner with every passing second.

The moment.

How do you measure a moment like this?

One tick of the clock. Two tears slipping free from both of you. Three uneven heartbeats, each louder than the last.

And then, finally, he closed the distance.

You should have probably expected that your first kiss would taste like salt, the tears trailing down your faces mingling somewhere in between and masking the real sweetness of it. How the flavor of each other’s mouths was obscured, just as you’d both hidden your true feelings for so long.

It was so cruel in its irony, yet somehow, it fit so perfectly that neither of you could bring yourselves to care.

Because his lips were too soft against yours for your own good, the gentleness of his hand gripping the nape of your neck pulling you closer, while the other rested against your tear-streaked cheek, damp from both the lingering press of his lips moments before and your tears.

When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t to retreat - it was to cradle your face, his thumbs brushing away the tears that wouldn’t stop falling, even as his own streamed freely, unchecked.

And as much as you wanted to keep going, to lose yourself in the solace of his mouth, something greater pulled you both in.

Without hesitation, you collapsed into each other’s arms, clutching tightly as though the world around you was slipping away, tears soaking into the other’s shoulders.

Was it penance? For realizing too late how simple this could have been? For all the wasted years, the missed chances, and the pain endured in silence?

Or was it just acceptance -that only now were you both ready to bear the weight of this, to hold each other completely, to disappear into one another?

Maybe that was the point.

Because in that embrace, unplanned and unbidden, came a feeling so familiar it ached.

That same resonance in your chest, the same connection of that first time you ever held him like this, nine years ago in your old apartment, when his walls cracked just enough to let you in.

And so the memory bleeds into the present, and it’s almost unbearable how much has stayed the same, and yet, how utterly everything has changed.

That stupid Hegel wasn’t wrong: the synthesis always becomes a new thesis, a cycle repeating itself. The moment was reborn, again and again, every time.

But damn, how it changed with every turn.

The same, yet entirely different.

The weight of then. The depth of now.

It was all there, in that fleeting, aching embrace. Not just holding on to each other, but to every version of yourselves that had come before - and every one still waiting in the future.

Even as the moment began to fade, as you pulled back - both drawn by the undeniable hunger to find each other’s mouths again - the synthesis was already shifting, reshaping into something new.

Another storm, another struggle, another antithesis loomed ahead, but always, always, the cycle reached for a new synthesis. And Hegel, damn him, was right again.

The cycle never ends.

But neither, it seemed, did you.

Competing with each other, as always.

Neither of you willing to back down, both so eager to claim the other that it became impossible to tell who started the second kiss, it just… happened.

This time, there was no softness, no hesitation - just urgency. Your hands tangled in the back of his hair, pulling him closer, keeping him right where you wanted him, while his hands gripped your lower back.

The moment your lips parted, offering him the faintest invitation, he deepened the kiss without even thinking it twice. His tongue slid against yours with so much hunger you were intoxicated, only for you to interrupt with a sharp bite to his bottom lip.

He growled at the challenge, he had to one-up you, returning the favor by sinking his teeth into your jawline, as if to stake his claim all over again, a sound so low and primal it seemed to vibrate straight into your skin, making you gasp and tighten your hold on him even more, eager to hear it again.

Damn him and his competitiveness.

You couldn’t help but meet it head-on, your hands roaming over the taut muscles of his back, feeling every shift, every flex as he moved against you.

He broke away briefly, not to stop, but to catch his breath as his lips found new territory. From your mouth to your jaw, and then down to your neck, your head tilting back reflexively, granting him even more access.

He smiled against your skin, insufferable even now, and when his lips returned to yours, that grin only widened. You kissed him again and again, but since his stupid smile kept getting in the way, you ended up kissing his teeth more than once.

Damn him.

And yet, you found yourself smiling like a fool, because how could you not? There was no way you could be making him feel this way, yet here you were - both of you lost in it, pushing and pulling, both refusing to surrender.

The more you had of each other, the more you wanted, never satisfied, never close enough, as though the only way to end this ache was to somehow crawl into each other’s skin.

And so, blame the position.

Blame the dress you’d chosen tonight, skimming your thighs, leaving so little to the imagination as it rode up with every shift against him.

Blame the way your kisses had shifted, growing hungrier, messier, more tongue than lips, more heavy breathing than words.

Or blame his new-found obsession to place wet kisses on the spot just behind your ear just to hear you gasp, while he had the audacity to hum into your neck, utterly satisfied with himself, like he was savoring your every reaction to the exquisite work of his mouth.

Blame his body, the way he pressed against you, his hands sliding from your waist to your hips, then lower, settling on your ass with a grip that didn’t make the things any easier.

Blame the way his growing bulge rubbed against you through the rough fabric of his jeans, the friction hitting exactly where the ache was blooming, pulling shudders from deep inside you.

Blame all of it - the kisses, the position, the maddening press of his body against yours - because it only made you more desperate.

The carnal realization of just how badly you wanted him, left you unable to stop. Your hips moved instinctively, grinding against his hardness, the rhythm of your kisses syncing with the desperate roll of your bodies.

Thank God his jeans were dark, because you were sure by now your arousal was leaving its mark on him, soaking into the fabric, leaving evidence of just how far gone you were – and if he noticed, if he felt it, the way his grip tightened on your waist told you he didn’t care.

If anything, it spurred him on, pulling you closer, holding you tighter, neither of you could stop moving.

The worst part? You didn’t want to. Not even a little.

What was even worse than this? The fact that Aaron, ever the master of timing, felt the need to comment on the obvious.

“You know what you’re doing, don’t you?” he asked breathless, lips flushed and slightly swollen from yours.

No shit, Sherlock.

You didn’t hesitate. “Aaron, do I look like I don’t know exactly what I’m doing?”

That even managed to earn a chuckle from him – speaking of victories - “Just… wanted to make sure you’re alright with this pace. We’re not exactly taking it slow, you know?!” he rasped, as his hands slid up and down the sides of your hips.

No shit, Sherlock, part two.

Was he worrying about you or himself?

You tilted your head, searching his face, the faint crease in his brow, the way his eyes softened as soon as they were met with yours. “Aaron,” you cupped his cheek. “Do you want to take it slow instead?”

Shit. What if you’d misread him? What if this hesitation wasn’t about concern for you but second thoughts about the entire thing? You hated yourself. How could you even think that-

“Not really,” he admitted, his lips curving into the most kissable smile. “I just… don’t want you to regret this. I’d wait forever if you asked me to, but right now…” His words faltered, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Right now, I don’t think I can. But only if you want it too.”

Oh God, how considerate he was.

Oh God, how much you never trusted anyone as him, how safe did he make you feel, how it almost brought tears to your eyes because you’d forgotten what it felt like to be looked at, cared for, wanted like this.

Oh God, how much you didn’t want to respond with words, to just take his hand, guide it between your legs, and let him feel exactly how much you needed him.

But words it was, then.

“I do, Aaron,” you said, taking his hands in yours. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything. I want this. I want you. But…” Your lips curled up. “Not on my couch. Could we maybe hold out until the bedroom?”

Ah, yes. Turning 30 had officially made you someone who prioritized the longevity of their furniture over their sex life.

How responsible.

How tragic.

And yet, neither of you moved. It took a second - or two, or three - for both of you to gather the energy to even try standing after spending what felt like an eternity tangled up on your poor, overworked second-hand couch…

…a poor overworked second-hand. Hm. Now there was a pattern.

You hated yourself a little for how evil the thought was. Poor couch, poor him.

Not that it wasn’t true. But still - evil.

Still nearly as evil as the absolute disaster you’d made of his hair with your hands while you were making out. A fitting match for the flush on his face and the state of his half-untucked polo, which you’d been yanking at so fervently it was a miracle it hadn’t come off entirely.

Speaking of things you couldn’t stop noticing, the sight before you now was definitely a huge… huge walk with him to your bedroom. Because surely your hallway hadn’t been this long before.

Or maybe he was thinking the same thing, because just as you reached the doorway to your bedroom, he turned you, your back pressing against the wall before you even had time to push the door open.

You didn’t expect him to be this passionate – and desperate, when his mouth was back on yours, claiming you in a kiss so hot and wet it that the wetness surely wasn’t exactly isolated to your mouth at all.

You gasped, caught completely off guard, and that was apparently all the invitation he needed to slip his tongue deeper into your mouth, tasting you, claiming you, and it was so good that you barely managed to catch your breath, let alone remember the damn bedroom door.

“Aaron-” you managed between breathless kisses, barely stringing the words together.

As if you could talk.

As if you could pretend to hold any moral high ground here when your leg was already wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer. And oh, he was there - all of him. Thick, hard, and pressing against you.

He groaned into your mouth as his hands slid lower, gripping a handful of your ass, “I know,” he muttered, his voice rasping against your skin. “I know. The door.”

Oh, but why did his voice have to sound like that - so low, so wrecked… so unfair.

Anyway, the door.

Not that it mattered, apparently, because he didn’t move. His lips found your neck, kissing and nipping at the sensitive skin there, as his hands kneaded the flesh of your ass like he couldn’t get enough.

“You’re not exactly working on it,” you managed to gasp, and oh, you were so proud of yourself for having the strength to bicker with him even now, even like this.

Of course, Aaron, being Aaron, couldn’t resist biting back.

You felt the curve of his lips against your neck, he chuckled as his teeth grazed the hollow of your throat. “Well,” he murmured, returning to nip at your earlobe. “What about you?”

The man was infuriating. And hot. And so completely overwhelming you could barely think straight.

“I’m very busy right now,” you managed to counter, though what you really meant was that your back was far too occupied arching into him, practically begging for more.

At least he somehow found the self-control to pull back after what you could most graciously describe as an obscene amount of very enthusiastic dry humping. You were both so doomed. His hands steadied you just long enough for him to fumble for the doorknob.

And then the second you crossed the threshold, all bets were off.

His lips - no, his mouth - were on yours again, the kiss so heated it was more teeth and tongue than finesse. Probably because it hit you both at the same time - the realization of just how painfully simple it would be to strip the other bare.

His polo? A quick tug away from being tossed aside. Your dress? One little zipper stood between it and the floor. No barriers. No obstacles. That was all it would take.

And it was as if he read your mind because without a word, his hands found your waist and spun you around, pulling you back against him.

You barely had time to gasp before his head dipped to your neck, as his fingers found the zipper of your dress way too easily without even having to look. Just before he moved it, he paused. “I might’ve left a mark.”

Oh no, what a pity…

“Make it two,” you whispered, your voice trembling as your hand slid into his hair, pressing his head right where you wanted it.

And because Aaron apparently took instructions very well when they suited him, he bit down, his teeth grazing your skin just enough to make you shiver, the sharpness of it immediately soothed by the warm drag of his tongue.

The sound you made was embarrassing - breathless and high-pitched – that only seemed to spur him on, since in less than a second, the dress was pooling at your feet, leaving you bare save for your tights and underwear.

Mismatched underwear.

A good lace bra - at least there was that - with the most comfortable white cotton grandma pants you could have pulled from the depths of a multipack that were, by how the things have been going now, almost certainly transparent. Perfect.

Not that any of this was supposed to happen, of course.

You hadn’t exactly planned on getting laid by your… what even was he? Your best friend? Your boss?

An objectively gorgeous man with dark eyes that burned into you, whose voice could make your knees completely weak? The person you’d been quietly, stubbornly, and stupidly in sexual tension hell with for a decade?

He was all of that. He was none of that. He was Aaron, and whatever Aaron Hotchner was to you, you hadn’t planned on getting laid tonight. Or this morning. Or whatever ungodly hour it was now.

But plans didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Not when his hands were sliding over your body like you were something he’d wanted for so long that touching you now felt like the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

Not when his lips found yours again, claiming them in a way that made you wonder how either of you had ever survived without tasting each other.

And certainly not when the moment your back hit the mattress of your bed, his full weight pressing into you fully, how your legs opened instinctively, welcoming him, pulling him closer, your body arching into him like it was chasing something only he could soothe.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded, scanning your face like he was trying to memorize every detail. “God, you’re so beautiful,” he said softly, his voice rough but sincere.

“God, you’re so clothed,” you shot back without thinking, your quick wit betraying you yet again, unsure whether to curse yourself for ruining the moment or to thank your sarcasm for always wanting to keep things… balanced.

But instead of appreciating your humor or giving you the satisfaction of stripping him, the insufferable man had the audacity to bypass your comment entirely.

With a swift motion, his hand reached behind you, unclasped your bra, and tossed it somewhere into the abyss of the room without so much as a second glance.

You blinked, momentarily stunned, a flush creeping up your neck at the brazenness of it. “I was referring to you, Hotchner.”

“Eventually,” he murmured, his lips brushing yours before capturing them again in a kiss that effectively cut off any protest you might’ve had. Clever man.

And so he started his descent, a study in patience, still hopelessly romantic about it, as if the situation weren’t already infuriating. Because even though you knew for sure he could feel the way your nipples had hardened against him, he still took his time.

Kissing his way down your throat, spending far too long mapping out the curve of your collarbone with his mouth, fingers just hovering - like he wasn’t already touching you everywhere.

And then, finally, his hands moved. Possessively. His palms covered your breasts, kneading them in a way that sent sparks ricocheting through you, his lips pressing a single, scorching kiss right in the middle of your sternum.

That did it. That had your thighs clenching on instinct, a desperate attempt to manage the growing fire low in your belly.

But you refused to let a sound escape.

Oh no. You weren’t about to give him that satisfaction. Especially not when he got to enjoy the full view of you laid out beneath him while you were left with only the delicious flex of his biceps.

Biceps, which, while spectacular, were not the bare expanse of his back. Not the firm ridges of muscle you knew were under that godforsaken polo, the one thing keeping things uneven between you.

He seemed to catch on to the game you were playing, though, because without warning, his mouth closed over one of your nipples, his tongue swirling over the sensitive peak so perfectly that it had your breath catching in your throat.

At the same time, his fingers found the other, pinching, rolling, teasing - the combination so damn lethal when paired with the languid flicks of his tongue, sending shocks straight to your clit.

Still, you bit your lip, stubbornly holding back the sounds he so clearly wanted to pull from you, even if the ache between your thighs was unbearable now - a dull, insistent throb that begged, no, pleaded for attention.

Attention that the insufferable man was withholding.

Or, unlike you, he simply didn’t want to rush… damn him. He was making it impossible to keep up the charade.

Because every flick of that damned talented mouth of his - now moving onto your other breast - every brush of his fingers, every sound he made against your skin that revealed just how hungry he was of your flesh, was undoubtedly designed to unravel you, piece by piece.

Every piece, that is, except for your poor, neglected, throbbing clit.

And of course, he was enjoying every second of it. Smug bastard.

“You know,” he murmured against your skin, his lips still grazing your nipple, “sounds are appreciated.” …Oh, fuck him.

“So is nudity,” you managed to snap, though your voice trembled, betraying just how close you were to falling apart.

He stilled. Lifted his head just enough to meet your gaze. And then he smirked.

Ah. That smirk. Never a good sign.

Especially not when paired with the way his hands started working your tights down - so slowit was almost unbearable. Always careful, always considerate Aaron. But God, right now, you wanted him ripping them off you.

His gaze swept over you, his eyes instantly darkened as they dettled on the on the damp patch at the center of your underwear.

“You’re soaked,” he murmured, his voice dipping lower, rougher, as his thumb grazed over the edge of the fabric.

Before you could process how pleased he was with himself, he spread your legs further, settling himself between them. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of your thighs, pinning you down, and he started trailing kisses along your inner thigh.

From the knee.

Oh, come on.

Still, you hissed at the contact, at the way his mouth devoured your thighs like he was savoring every inch of them.

Like this, this was what he lived for. Worshipping you.

And the way his lips moved, how drunk he looked as he worked his way upward, kissing, sucking, biting - just enough to make you twitch, the way his breath shook when he exhaled against your thigh - it only made it worse.

The closer he got, the more impossible it became to hold back the sounds slipping from your lips.

And then - one last kiss, right there, where your thigh met your core.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he murmured, and before you could even think about responding, his tongue flicked out, tasting the arousal that had trailed up to where his mouth lingered.

Oh. What a whore.

“You’re such a who-” you began, but the words barely escaped before he bit down lightly on your clothed clit, sharp enough to send a jolt through your entire body and rip a strangled cry from your throat.

Your reaction must have been exactly what he wanted, because his fingers replaced his teeth immediately, pressing against you through the thin, damp fabric.

“Oh, there you are,” he murmured, dragging his fingers down the length of your slit. “For a second, I thought I wasn’t doing it right.”

You scoffed, or at least you tried to. The sound barely made it past your lips before breaking into another sharp, breathless cry as his fingers rode back up, pressing against your clit in slow circles, the cotton barrier dulling the sensation just enough to drive you insane.

One, two, three strokes - then you stopped counting, too caught up in the feeling of him until he finally tossed the fabric aside, making you feel the cool air against the wet heat of your core, but he didn’t move.

Didn’t touch.

Just -

"You're a goddess."

He stared for so long that you started to wonder if he was waiting for you to say please, some kind of power play. 

Your lips curled slightly as you lifted your chin. "If you think I’m going to beg you now, Hotchner, I’m absolutely not.

Apparently, you had never been more wrong in your life.

Because his head snapped up so fast it was almost comical - except for the way his entire face flushed. Not just with arousal - well, yes, definitely with arousal - but with something else.

The way his mouth parted slightly before he swallowed, his throat bobbing, his gaze flicking away for half a second like he had to collect himself, undoubtedly made you think-

"I was actually…" he cleared his throat, "asking for permission."

Oh. Oh. Apparently, someone couldn’t hide being a bottom for more than a few minutes.

Aaron ‘Attitude’ Hotchner? Gone. Reduced to sheepish glances and waiting for permission like a damn Victorian gentleman the second he actually looked at your cunt.

Hilarious.

"You have it," you murmured.

That was delicious.

And because he was so whipped, he didn’t just dive in immediately. No. Of course not. He had to come all the way back up first, had to kiss you before anything else.

And then he was gone. Gone from your mouth, gone from your chest, gone from anywhere but exactly where you wanted him most.

The very first swipe of his tongue across your folds obliterated any coherent thought, reduced your world to this - to the wet heat of his mouth, to the steady press of his hands holding you open, to the obscene sounds of him devouring you.

There was nothing but him, the way his tongue curled against you, the way his lips closed around your clit with just the right amount of pressure, the way his name tumbled from your lips and melted into the deep, guttural moan he let out as he first tasted you.

And honestly, you couldn’t decide what was hotter - the way his sounds came in perfect harmony with your own cries, or the fact that he was so vocal while eating you out, like it brought him just as much pleasure as it did you.

And it probably did.

Because he lapped at your dripping cunt like a man starved, frantic, desperate, moving with such a hunger that made your fingers dig into his hair, gripping tight like you could somehow hold on to reality through him.

But he didn’t want space. Didn’t need it. If anything, he leaned in further, groaning low against your soaked, swollen cunt, letting you drip down his chin as if he loved the way your arousal was entirely coating his flushed face.

Loved being drenched in you. Loved ruining himself on you.

“Aaron-” your voice broke, your hips jerking up into him, needy. “God, your tongue is unreal.”

And oh, he heard you, loud and clear.

Because his immediate response? Teeth. A quick, sharp graze of his teeth against your clit, followed by a suction so deep, so overwhelming, it ripped a scream straight from your throat.

Fuck him.

“Your-your mouth is unreal,” you stammered, correcting yourself, because apparently, he wasn’t letting you off the hook without acknowledging his full range of talents.

Smiling against your skin - as if it wasn’t blatantly obvious that he had a praise kink, too.

“Sorry,” he said with a kiss to your inner thigh as his thumb kept working on your clit. “I just thought you were a thorough one, Professor.”

What a whore.

“Oh, fuck you for calling me ‘Professor’ like it doesn’t turn you on just to say it,” you shot back.

 “Oh, it does,” he admitted with no shame whatsoever. “I just wish you could feel how much.” His gaze flicked down, daring you to follow it - to the thick, aching bulge straining against his pants, so hard it had to hurt, so obvious it made you clench around nothing.

How cruel of him.

“Keep talking to me like that, Aaron, and I’ll crush your head with my thighs,” you warned, voice shaking, hands fisting into the sheets because he was still teasing, still circling with his thumb instead of putting his damn mouth back where you needed it most.

“Please do,” he said.

And then he gave you exactly what you wanted. His tongue plunged into you, pushing past the unbearable emptiness, giving you something to clench around, something to grind against, something to drown in.

And because he was, apparently, crafted to be the most infuriatingly perfect thing to ever exist - his nose pressed against your clit with every movement, sending white-hot jolts of pleasure through you so intense your legs tried to snap shut around his head.

He was faster. Stronger. Hands tightening against your thighs, keeping them spread as he pressed you further, pinning you down so he could devour you properly. And when your thighs twitched again, reflexive, desperate-

"Stay open for me."

That awful, awful sound. That little flick of his tongue against his teeth, a wordless tsk of disapproval - he did it every time, every single time, and it should have pissed you off but instead, shot straight through you, coiling low in your belly, leaving you breathless, made you arch into his mouth, made you-

"Still, please," he growled, more desperate now, fingers tightening like the control freak he so obviously was. Apparently, the man simply could not function if his so-called work space wasn’t perfectly in order.

Some things never changed.

“You’re such a hypocrite, it was-” Your breath caught on another roll of his tongue, hips jerking up against his face. “It was you who begged me to-”

"Mm," he hummed against you like he was thinking about it, his mouth hot and slick as he pressed deeper, let his tongue flatten. "And?"

…And then his lips closed around you, sucking just right, and you broke. You felt it coiling, tighter, tighter, low deep in your stomach.

"Aaron, I'm so close."

"I got you," he murmured, suddenly warm, suddenly gentle - because despite all the arrogance, the smug little smirks, he was nothing but a softie. All bark, no bite. Well… except for the other kinds of bites. "Don’t worry. Let go."

Then his tongue flicked - once, twice… and you were gone.

Shattered apart, trembling beneath his mouth, your fingers tangled in his hair, yanking, desperate. The pleasure hit sharp and fast, so intense it almost hurt, your muscles locking up as wave after wave crashed through you.

But he didn’t stop. Not until you’d come on his face just one more time.

So his tongue was back on you before you could even recover, dragging you higher, keeping you there, refusing to let you go. His mouth was relentless, but his fingers - God, his fingers.

How many times had you daydreamed about them? How many nights had you imagined the way they’d feel sinking inside you, stretching you open, fucking you deep and slow until you couldn’t think?

A reasonable number of times. That’s what you told yourself.

So it only made sense that you were impatient now, desperate to feel them inside you instead of just ghosting along your soaked folds, teasing, tracing, dipping in just enough to have you thinking, finally -

Only for him to pull away again, just as fast.

“Need some help finding it, Hotchner?” you bit out breathlessly, your voice dripping with sarcasm despite the whimper it ended on. “Don’t be embarrassed. I can guide you if-”

Before you could finish, one thick finger thrust deep inside you, cutting off your words with a strangled moan.

“I think I’ve got it,” he said smugly… oh, he definitely did.

The stretch of just one finger had you reeling, but then he added a second without hesitation, the fullness making you gasp. Two of his fingers felt like three of yours, stretching you perfectly, pressing against spots you didn’t even know existed.

“Fuck, Aaron,” you moaned, gripping the sheets as he started to move faster, stroking that perfect spot again and again until your vision blurred.

“You like that?” he asked, his voice so low and rough that made your toes curl, unable to respond if not with a whimper.

“Yeah, you do,” he murmured, his lips brushing your thigh as his fingers curled deeper, pressed just right, dragging a broken moan from your lips, his own voice dark with approval. "God, you’re so wet."

Your cheeks burned because well, wasn’t he right?!

The evidence of it was everywhere - slicking his fingers, his hand, his face, and the way he said it, so casually, like he was just stating a fact, only made the heat in your belly coil tighter.

"Damn, you’re so fucking good," you gasped between shattered breaths.

“Mm, so is this cunt,” he shot back between licks, groaning as he felt you flutter around his fingers.

What a dirty, dirty mouth. And damn, if he did he put it to use.

It didn’t take long. Barely a few more thrusts of his fingers into your slick, throbbing cunt, barely a few more drags of his tongue against your clit - before he had you unraveling completely.

Your body seized, back arching clean off the bed, a sharp, helpless cry ripping from your throat as you came so hard you almost sobbed.

He didn’t stop.

His fingers kept fucking into you, curling just right, stroking deep, drawing out every last shudder, every last desperate moan. His tongue never left your clit, flicking, sucking, keeping you there, forcing you to take every wave, every aftershock, dragging you through it until your thighs trembled around his head, until you were whimpering, pleading, too overstimulated to handle another second.

Only then did he finally pull away, lips gliding up your body, dragging sticky, open-mouthed kisses along your stomach, your ribs, your breasts, until his weight was pressing you into the mattress again, until you were surrounded by him, the scent of sex thick in the air, his mouth still hot and wet against your skin.

"God, you’re a fucking vision when you come," he murmured, voice husky, lips brushing over your jaw as his hand slid up to cradle your face.

And then he kissed you.

Deep, filthy, his tongue sweeping into your mouth without hesitation, letting you taste yourself on him, letting you feel the slick mess he’d made of you, the evidence of how thoroughly he had devoured you.

Romanticism truly was dead.

“Still too clothed,” you whispered, voice low, teasing, as your fingers trailed from his jaw down to his chest, nails scratching lightly over the fabric of his polo, feeling the heat of him beneath it. Annoyingly in the way.

“You’re very welcome to change that now,” he huffed, smirking, giving you another quick, teasing kiss, the barest brush of his lips over yours.

Who were you to refuse?

Your hands moved swiftly, gripping the hem of his shirt and tugging it up, over his head, before tossing it somewhere behind you - who cared where? That would be his problem in a few hours anyways.

And oh damn-

If you thought the polo highlighted his frame, without it he looked absolutely massive. His chest, his shoulders, the way his muscles shifted beneath his skin - it was almost unfair how goodlooking he was.

You leaned in to kiss him, letting your fingers roam all over him - probably lingering a little too long on those broad, perfect shoulders. Honestly, you were doing your best not to bite them.

Mostly. A little nip didn’t count, right? Surely it was allowed. To test. It wasn’t your fault they looked like they could carry the weight of the world - and you - without breaking a sweat. But of course, he couldn’t know that. He couldn’t know that his shoulders alone were making you go feral.

So you distracted him the best way you knew how - your lips pressing against his neck, soft at first, teasing, before nipping lightly at his pulse point, teeth scraping just enough to earn you a sharp inhale.

Still, even as your lips worked to keep him occupied, your thoughts betrayed you.

You were sure you’d implode the moment you saw his back - the way those muscles would shift and flex. Just the thought of it had your pulse racing. Thankfully, he was still facing you, so you had a little more time to live. But not much, considering the way your mind still found a way to betray you.

Because now all you could picture was his weight on top of you, pressing you into the mattress, pinning you down with no way out. Now all you could feel was the phantom stretch of him, the way he’d fill-

Right. His jeans. Still in the way. Still ruining your life.

You swallowed hard, forcing your hands to move lower, fumbling with his belt and zipper. If your hands trembled, you’d blame it on how hard you were trying not to stare at the thick bulge beneath the denim. Trying being the keyword, because at this point - you weren’t better than a man.

His jeans hit the floor, leaving him in just his boxers, making it quite difficult to ignore the outline of him anymore - thick, hard, already straining against the fabric, the damp spot at the tip teasing at just how ready he was.

Your pulse pounded in your ears as you glanced up, silently asking if you could take things further. He gave a small nod, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded, and that was all the encouragement you needed.

Your hands turned momentarily shy as you hooked your fingers into the band, slowly tugging them down. He sprang free, thick and hard, flushed at the tip, already glistening with slick arousal, and God, you swore your mouth went dry and then wet all in the span of a heartbeat.

You couldn’t stop yourself from murmuring, “God,” as your fingers wrapped around him, thumb brushing over the swollen, leaking head, smearing the wetness there, spreading it over the burning skin.

The reaction was immediate.

His head tipped back, his grip on your hips tightening, trying hard not to just rut into your fist like some desperate, touch-starved needy thing. But he was trembling , his self-control fraying one slow stroke at a time as you worked him over, your fingers squeezing around the slick head before dragging back down his length.

"Fuck," he muttered, the sound wrecking you, shooting straight between your legs.

“You’re so-” you started, but the words failed you. What could you even say? You were too distracted by the weight of him in your hand, the way he twitched against your palm and the way the thick vein along his shaft throbbed with every stroke of your hand.

All you knew was that you wanted him in your mouth. Wanted to drag your tongue along that vein, wanted to feel the heavy weight of him on your tongue, wanted to take him down until tears pricked the corners of your eyes. The need burned in your gut, tight and relentless, but still, it wasn’t enough. Because as much as your mouth ached for him, the fire between your thighs was worse. So much worse.

“Aaron,” you breathed, voice shaking as you looked up at him, your fingers still wrapped around his cock, still stroking him, enjoying the way his chest rose and fell with every movement of your hand.

His eyes - dark, heavy-lidded - met yours, his breath coming uneven, jagged, as he rasped, desperate, "Take whatever you want."

“I want you.”

Aaron groaned, his lips twitching into something that might have been a smile if he wasn’t so wrecked with desire. “Come here,” he murmured, as he leaned down and kissed you. And God, what a kiss.

Before you knew it, he had you back on the bed, his body hovering over yours, his broad shoulders framing your view of him. He settled himself between your legs, his mouth moving to your jaw, then down to your neck, at the point there was no doubt in a few hours you’d wear a turtleneck to work.

Still, he paused, hovering just above you, his lips brushing against yours as he asked one more time, “Are you sure?”

At this point, if you weren’t aching for him, you might’ve had the patience to be sarcastic. Something like, No, actually, I’m not sure. Let’s both get dressed again and see if that helps.

“Aaron, I’m literally begging you,” you said, exasperated, though you didn’t miss the glint in his eyes – if he just wanted you to beg him he could have simply asked. You would have never said it out loud but at least he could have tried…

“Just making sure,” he said so softly his voice seemed even deeper than it already was, but his hand slid between your legs, fingers gliding through your folds, and the way he groaned when he felt how wet you were made you shudder.

“God, you’re soaked,” he muttered, almost to himself, as if confirming what he already knew.

You didn’t think it was possible to be more turned on, but apparently, Aaron Hotchner could always prove you wrong.

And ever the hopeless romantic - because apparently, he was so much of a kisser - he kissed you again. It wasn’t fair, honestly, how good he was at this, how much intention he poured into every press of his lips , every flick of his tongue, every sharp little pull at your bottom lip that had your hips rolling up against him. It was infuriating.

"I’m on the pill," you gasped between kisses, cutting straight to the point because at this rate, you were about two seconds away from losing your mind.

"Good," he murmured, his lips ghosting over yours again. "That’s good."

Of course it’s good, Aaron. As if you were trying to create another insufferable Hotchner. One man who could argue his way out of anything was already more than enough for the world.

He shifted, aligning himself at your entrance, the thick head of his cock pressing against you, dragging through your slick folds with just the slightest roll of his hips. The stretch, even in just the promise of it, had you gasping into his mouth.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he rasped, his forehead pressing against yours, still searching for any sign of hesitation. Classic Aaron.

And because he was Aaron, of course he kissed you again, stealing what little breath you had left as he began to push inside.

Holy fucking-

Your nails dug into his shoulders as he filling you inch by inch, his cock sinking in with a slow, thick glide that made your head tilt back into the pillow, your mouth falling open as sounds escaped your lips - a moan, then a gasp, and a whimper.

When he bottomed out, buried to the hilt, so deep you swore you could feel him in your stomach, you swore you might break, and you loved every second of it. How the hell did he even feel this good?

"Jesus Christ," he gritted out, breath hot against your jaw.

He paused, his cock throbbing inside you as he let you adjust, his lips ghosting over your jawline with kisses so soft they felt almost reverent, as though the slight ache of the stretch was something he needed to apologize for.

“God, you’re so tight.”

You involuntarily clenched down around him in response, "Fucking Christ," he groaned, his forehead dropping to yours for a moment. “You’re going to kill me.”

And fuck, if the second he started moving you weren’t utterly determined to hear every name of every deity from his long-lost religion tumble from his lips, as long as it meant he kept thrusting so deep inside you – making your breath catch from the mere drag of him pulling his entire length out before pushing it back in.

“Fuck Aaron, you feel so good,” you gasped, your hands tightening on his biceps.

And damn him, because he loved it - loved your praise so much that a low chuckle rumbled in his chest, even as his breath came uneven, ragged. “Fuck, you look so beautiful from here,”

He leaned in, his hips still moving, his lips brushing against yours just enough for you to feel the heat of his breath, to taste the promise of his kiss. “You’re perfect,” he whispered, making your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, needing him deeper.

The shift in angle made his next thrust hit you in a way that tore a cry from your lips. He must’ve felt it - the way your body tightened around him, the way your nails sank into the strong muscles of his back, leaving red lines in their wake - because his pace quickened, each thrust better than the last.

And damn it if he didn’t fuck you so good.

“Right there,” you gasped, arching your back as the head of his cock hit that spot “Oh, Aaron-”

“God, I love how you say my name,” he rasped, his forehead dropping to yours as he planted a kiss on your temple between thrusts.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, dampening the dark, thick strands of his hair that clung to his face, his brows furrowed all concentrated, his cheeks flushed, jaw tight, and God, if he wasn’t the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

How stupid, how utterly reckless, it was to feel yourself falling for him all over again. And not just falling - but plummeting, freefalling into the abyss of him. Exactly now, exactly like this - when he was buried so deep inside you that it felt like he was carving himself into your soul.

How shallow, how ridiculous, to let your pupils blow wide with hunger, to let your chest ache with something too tender, too raw, while your body burned for him like this.

Because it wasn’t just the way his hips buckled into yours, wasn’t just the rhythm of his thrusts, wasn’t just the stretch and fullness that made you gasp. No, it was the way his name tumbled from your lips like it was the only word you knew, and the way he rasped your name back, hoarse and desperate, like it was his prayer.

The wet slap of his hips meeting yours, the creak of the bed beneath you - it was way too loud for the early hours, you knew that. Too wild, too shameless, probably waking every neighbor you had, giving them the privilege of hearing his name tumble from your lips and yours from his.

But how could you care? How could you even think about anything beyond him, especially when he shifted suddenly, leaning back and lifting your legs over his shoulders?

“Like this,” he muttered, his voice rough and breathless. His hands gripped your thighs, steady, holding you in place as he adjusted himself, his cock driving deeper - God, how was it even possible to feel this full?

His next thrust stole the breath from your lungs, and the one after that made your vision blur, leaving you gripping the sheets, then the bedframe, his arms - anything you could reach.

“I got you,” he rasped, his tone softer now, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was absolutely wrecking you, you might’ve laughed at how he said it. So casual, so reassuring, like he wasn’t currently fucking you out of your mind.

And then, just to make sure you were well and truly destroyed, Aaron leaned down and pressed a kiss to your trembling leg. A kiss. Soft and lingering, like he wasn’t simultaneously driving into you with enough force to make you think about it for days. A true gentleman, really. Absolutely chivalrous.

“Oh, fuck you,” you managed to gasp, your voice shaking as your nails dug into his arms.

He smirked, his hips snapping forward harder, making your back arch off the bed.

“I believe I already am,” he shot back smoothly, and damn him - despite the situation, or maybe because of it - you laughed.

The sound made him pause for a fraction of a second, his brow quirking as his lips twitched into something softer, something that could almost be called tender if he wasn’t currently wrecking you.

He leaned in, clearly intending to kiss you - except you were still laughing, leaving him kissing your teeth instead of your lips.

“You’re ridiculous,” he muttered against your mouth, his voice filled with faux exasperation, as if it weren’t entirely his fault. But the way he looked at you, his eyes soft and sweet despite the hunger blazing behind them, made it clear he wasn’t serious at all.

“I really hate you,” you managed to say, still laughing, the words breathless and shaky.

“Liar,” he countered smoothly, his lips curving into a grin of his own before he kissed you properly this time, slow and deep, stealing the air from your lungs. “You’ve never hated me at all.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but the next thrust silenced you, sending a bolt of pleasure straight to your core, leaving you gasping instead of speaking.

“Yeah,” he rasped, his voice thick, his eyes locked on yours as he watched you fall apart beneath him. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

Bastard. Oh, how he’d pay for this. Just… not now. Not when the heat in your stomach was building too quickly, you could already feel your toes curling, your legs trembling where they rested on his shoulders.

“Aaron-” His name spilled from your lips in a broken cry, your hands clutching at him desperately, your body trembling beneath him.

“I know,” he rasped, his forehead pressing against yours, his breath hot and uneven as it fanned over your lips. “You’re close. I can feel it. Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight.”

And then, just to destroy you completely, he spat on his fingers. The sound alone sent a shiver through you, but watching him, seeing the way he reached down and slid his slick finger to your clit, circling it, left you utterly wrecked.

That alone was so unfairly hot you were surprised you didn’t come on the spot just from seeing it.

“God,” he groaned, his hips keeping the same rhythm as his fingers worked you over, the combination of his cock driving into you and his fingers basically breaking you apart. “I’m close too. Come for me. I want to feel it - I need to feel you.”

And there was no stopping it. The pressure snapped all at once, a tidal wave of pleasure crashing over you, leaving you shaking and gasping for air. Your body clung to him like he was the only thing keeping you tethered to reality, your nails digging into his back as your orgasm ripped through you.

“Aaron,” you cried out, his name falling from your lips in a broken, desperate plea as your cunt clenched around him so tightly that it pulled a guttural groan from his chest.

His movements stuttered, his rhythm faltering as he buried himself deep one last time, his head tipping back, lips shaping into your name.

You felt him spill inside you, the hot rush of him filling you, the heat prolonging the throbbing waves of your own climax, as your body convulsed with the lingering echoes of pleasure. It was too much. Too raw. Too perfect. The kind of climax that left you completely destroyed, your mouth falling open as you tried and failed to even catch your breath.

Your limbs felt boneless, your heart was about to burst out of your chest, a haze in your head. Wow.

Aaron’s thrusts slowed, his movements becoming languid as he guided you both through the final waves of pleasure, his hips rocking into you softly.

When he finally stilled, he stayed inside you, his body collapsing onto yours, every muscle undone, spent, his breath hot against your neck. His skin was slick with sweat, his weight pressing you into the mattress, and fuck, you never wanted him to move.

A slow, lazy kiss landed on your shoulder, his lips lingering there for a second before he murmured, "Are you okay?"

Really?

A laugh bubbled up before you could stop it, as your fingers threaded through his beautiful damp hair. “Okay?” you echoed, still struggling to breathe, still feeling the aftershocks of him inside you. “Aaron, I think you might’ve just killed me.”

He huffed out something that could’ve been a laugh if he had the energy, and just because he was perfectly positioned - completely wrecked, head buried against your shoulder, practically melting into you - you pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.

It felt almost paternalistic, sure, the kind of kiss that came with the smug satisfaction of having him completely undone over you, like he might fall apart if he even tried to move. The salt of his sweat clung to your lips, a stark contrast to the bitter taste of the tears you’d swallowed earlier. It felt better - so much better.

Aaron sighed against your skin, lips twitching like he wanted to smile but was too exhausted to bother, he pulled out, leaving you wincing at the sudden emptiness.

He sat back on his heels, his gaze dropping to the mess he’d made of you, and for a moment, you swore he looked almost proud. But, of course, because Aaron fucking Hotchner couldn’t let you have five uninterrupted minutes of post-orgasmic bliss without switching into Mr. Practical, he tilted his head and said, “You should probably clean yourself up.”

You blinked at him, deadpan. “Wow. Romance is truly alive and well.”

He grinned just enough to make you want to hit him and kiss him at the same time. “Where do you keep your towels?” he asked.

“Wow,” you muttered, flopping back onto the bed. “Absolutely fantastic. I give you my soul, and in return, you turn into a housekeeper.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to your temple before standing and stretching.

And, of course, because the universe hated you, he looked absurdly good doing it. Broad shoulders, sweat-slicked skin, and the faint red lines your nails had left down his back. God, his back. Huge. Muscular. You really wanted to-

“Dramatic?” you scoffed, snapping yourself out of the borderline feral train of thought. “I just had the best orgasm of my life, and now you’re asking me about towels. What’s next, changing my bedsheets?”

He shot you a look over his shoulder, that infuriating smirk still tugging at his lips. “Best?” he echoed, his tone dripping with mock surprise. “Did I hear you correctly?”

You groaned, “God, you’re unbearable.”

“No, no,” he continued, turning back toward you, his smirk widening into something dangerously close to smug. “Say it again. Best orgasm of your life? Because I recall giving you three - you might need to pluralize that.”

Oh, how cocky he was. You grabbed the nearest pillow and chucked it at him, unfortunately the man also had perfect reflects. “So, where are these towels?”

“In the bathroom,” you muttered, gesturing vaguely in its direction. “Third drawer on the left. Please, by all means, go do your very important post-coital housekeeping.”

He chuckled as he made his way to the bathroom, and you watched him go, biting your lip as your gaze drifted lower. Because of course you looked. How could you not? The way his muscles moved as he walked, the strong lines of his back leading down to that quite flat yet perfectly sculpted-

“Stop staring,” he called over his shoulder without even looking back.

You scowled, sitting up and grabbing the other pillow to hurl at the bathroom doorway. “I wasn’t staring!”

He was no fun.

“You know,” you called after him, unable to help yourself, “it’s a shame you’re so good in bed, because you are the single most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

“Funny,” he shot back from the bathroom, his voice echoing slightly. “You didn’t seem too annoyed about it five minutes ago.”

Not that you had been even a little annoyed when you woke up right into his arms - despite the fact that you distinctly remembered falling asleep holding him.

“How much time do we have?” you murmured, your words muffled as your head stayed nestled against his chest.

“You’ve got 1 hour... I got half” he chuckled, then continued “I need to head home and get changed.”

But his arms instinctively tightened around you, like he wasn’t quite ready to let you go just yet. Like he could pretend, just for a little longer, that there was still time.

“How amazing would Agent Hotchner be if he just called to say we had the weekend off?” you said, tracing patterns of his flexed bicep tighetened around you.

He chuckled softly, the vibration of it rumbling beneath your cheek. “I doubt Agent Hotchner even has the strength to get up and take his phone from his jacket.”

“Well, since I’m feeling so generous, I could go and hand it to him,” you offered with faux magnanimity, but before you could move, his hand slid to the back of your head, pressing you back into him, while the other hand gripped your waist.

“Stay,” he said too softly for your own good.

You smiled against him. “I could stay longer if we didn’t have to go to work, you know...”

He chuckled again, this time shaking his head in amusement. “Nice try, sweetheart.”

Your head lifted slightly, an eyebrow raised. “Sweetheart?”

And there it was.

Fuck.

Was this the time to tell you? That if he’d been smitten before, now he was utterly undone? That despite making a living solving puzzles, he couldn’t think of a single scenario in which he wasn’t yours?

It was logic, wasn’t it? A proposition is true if it’s reflected in reality.

And this was his truth: he was yours. Irrevocably, undeniably yours.

There wouldn’t be a more evident fact - not until the marks you’d left on his neck and chest faded away. But even then? He would still belong to you.

Damn the stoics for being right.

“Sorry,” he said, as though the endearment had slipped past his guard.

Before he could say more, you tilted your head up and kissed him, catching him completely off guard. His startled expression was so genuine that you couldn’t help yourself - you kissed him again, determined to wipe it off his face.

His lips curled into a smile against yours, and when you finally pulled back true to form, he couldn’t resist deflecting. “If you’re trying to charm me into giving the day off, I’ll save you the trouble - it’s not going to work. Even if you keep kissing me.”

You laughed and leaned up to give him another kiss. But this time, you didn’t stop there. You moved down, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses along his jaw. “I just want to make sure you understand the opportunity you’re blowing here,” you murmured into his skin, your lips ghosting over his pulse.

“The reports aren’t going to fill themselves,” he replied, though his voice lacked conviction.

Oh, neither was your cu-

“You sure about that?” you teased, nibbling gently at his collarbone as your hand trailed lower, brushing over where something was definetely starting to grow in between his boxers, making him hiss.

“What’s the matter?” you asked innocently, your hand now resting over his hardening cock, feeling the heat of him through the thin fabric.

“Maybe it’s the fact that you’re devouring my neck at seven in the morning,” he managed.

“Devouring? Not yet.” Your lips descended again, this time grazing over his collarbones, the faint scrape of your teeth dragging along his skin. When you bit lightly at his chest, his sharp inhale was all the reward you needed. “But don’t worry, I plan to.”

His mouth opened like he was about to fire back, but before he could, your hand slipped beneath the waistband of his boxers.

You stroked him slowly, dragging your thumb over the slick head, smearing the precum as if you had all the time in the world. “So,” you started lightly, as he cussed at your touch, “what are you going to do with the hour we have left?”

He tried to respond, he really did.

“I-” His breath hitched when your tongue darted out to trace just above his lower stomach.

“Well?” you pressed, lifting your head to look at him, your grin so sweet it could’ve killed him. “Breakfast? A shower? Or, you know, something else?”

“Breakfast sounds…” He barely managed to get the words out before his voice broke entirely, his body jerking slightly when your tongue flicked out to tease the tip of his cock.

“…like a good idea,” he finished weakly, though you weren’t convinced he even knew what he was saying at this point… better like this anyways.

“Good,” you hummed, dragging wet kisses along his length, while your hand kept moving, stroking him slowly, savoring the way his cock twitched in your hand. “So, Aaron, what do you feel like having for breakfast?”

His head fell back against the pillow, a low groan escaping him as his fingers tangled in your hair. “God,” he rasped, the word dragged out of him so pitifully it was almost tragic.

You grinned against his skin, looking up at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s not in my fridge,” you replied deadpan.

“Sweetheart…” He was absolutely desperate as your kisses moved lower, your tongue tracing a path along the underside of his cock.

“Hmm?” you hummed innocently, as if you didn’t notice the way his grip tightened in your hair or the slight tremble in his thighs.

He didn’t answer - but his phone did instead.

The sharp buzzing from the pocket of his discarded jacket in the living room shattered the moment.

Both of you jerked back, adrenaline ripping through the haze, already halfway off the bed before you even thought about it.

It was clumsy, both of you scrambling, bumping into each other as you stumbled toward the sound, breathless for entirely different reasons now.

Aaron got to it first, answering with the efficiency of a man who had switched back to work mode in an instant.

The call clicked on, and a voice - male, urgent - filled the room. "…The two bodies. The man died from a gunshot to the head, though he was stabbed multiple times post-mortem. The woman died from stab wounds."

You stilled.

Aaron’s face hardened. Rocher’s victims.

The ones he had been taunting you with.

"Agent Hotchner, there’s one thing…" the agent on the other end hesitated.

Aaron’s eyes sharpened. "What?"

"These bodies were killed exactly fifteen days ago," he said.

Aaron froze, you felt it at the same time he did - fifteen days ago.

You and Aaron had been interrogating Rocher exactly fifteen days ago.

He hadn’t killed them himself. He couldn’t have.

You were both there.

Your eyes met his, and for a split second, neither of you spoke.

“He had a partner,” Aaron said, his arm sliding around you instinctively, pulling you closer before you even realized you were starting to breathe too fast.

“Did you manage to identify the victims?” he asked.

“Yes - the man’s name is Michael Fowler, 34, a lawyer, junior associate at Madison & Green. The woman is Renee Hudson, 22, student at Columbia University, enrolled in the faculty of…”

You didn’t even know why you tensed so much.

The answer was obvious before he even said it.

“…philosophy.”

The call ended, but the silence left behind was louder than the voice on the line had been.

And in that silence, you could hear everything - the inevitability of it, tangled with the sound of the tears slipping down both of your faces.

And when your gaze flicked to Aaron, when his arm instinctively pulled you closer, you knew - without a word, without a glance – you’ve been both staring at the exact same spot on the wall.

Because it wasn’t just the age gap.

It wasn’t just the coincidence of numbers.

It was what made it undeniable.

A lawyer.

And a philosopher.

And the way your broken voices found each other in the quiet, harmonizing each other’s names in perfect, unintentional sync, just a few rushed heartbeats later.

Almost like in the musicals.

Almost sweet.

taglist: @beata1108 ; @c-losur3 ; @fangirlunknown ; @hayleym1234 ; @justyourusualash ; @khxna ; @kyrathekiller ; @lostinwonderland314 ; @mxblobby ; @oxforce ; @percysley ; @person-005 ; @prettybaby-reid ; @reidfile ; @royalestrellas ; @ssa-callahan ; @softestqueeen ; @theseerbetweenus ; @todorokishoe24

I sincerely apologize - but the cockblocking was absolutely necessary. Otherwise, they'd never keep their hands to themselves. Honestly, with a job like this, interruptions are basically a given. If I had a nickel for every time these two got cockblocked by a phone call, I’d have two nickels - which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happeend twice.

Ahem... so, uh, let me know what you think... of this. All of this. I need your feedback because I am currently gnawing at the edges of my enclosure

[berfgrimm]

staring at the sun: payback | choi seunghyun (t.o.p) x reader

pairing: choi seunghyun (t.o.p) x f!reader

warnings: smut, oral, unprotected sex, face sitting, some overstimulation, deepthroating, fluff, dirty talk.

notes: surprise to everyone including me, inspiration struck, so please enjoy! another deleted scene from staring at the sun, and the phone call scene as well if you haven’t read that yet. (also I just posted this with an ask but the formatting was weird so I deleted and reposted. pretend you didn’t see that.)

———————

Sneaking into Seunghyun’s hotel room at night didn’t happen frequently, but when it did, it was thrilling. The night after your prank on Seunghyun was no different. You dressed like you were hiding from the police: dark closed with a hood pulled over your head. Seunghyun laughed when he opened the door to let you in.

“Are you running from the police?” he joked when he pulled you into the room with him.

Seunghyun pulled the hood off of your head to get a better look at you, but his hands never stopped, dragging the zipper of your sweatshirt until it was open. His eyes stayed focused on his task of removing your hoodie and your shirt, before he began to unbutton your pants. But he stopped, gently placing his hands on your hips to get your attention.

“Relax,” he whispered, peering into your eyes. “It’s like undressing a mannequin.” It was impossible not to laugh at his comparison, because you hadn’t realized you were quite so stiff.

Once you loosened up, Seunghyun undressed you down to your bra and panties before he sat on the foot of his bed staring at you. You weren’t sure what he had in mind when he threatened that you ‘owed’ him, but you knew how you wanted to pay him back.

You were on your knees before he spoke. Seunghyun set his hands on the bed behind him, resting his weight onto them so he can intently watch the way you rubbed his thighs. When you unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants, you finally looked up at Seunghyun from under your lashes.

“You couldn’t wait, could you?” he teased, and the way he spoke made your heart flutter. “Is that where you like to be? On your knees?”

“As long as I get to look up at you.”

“Hmm,” Seunghyun hummed, staring intently at you for a moment until he sat up straight again, beckoning you to meet him halfway. When you leaned your body towards him, he gently took hold of your jaw to hold you steady while he kissed you. “I didn’t bring you here for this,” he muttered against your lips.

“I know,” you replied, kissing his cheek and keeping your mouth close to his ear. “Consider it an apology before you collect on what I owe you.”

Seunghyun watched you slowly stroke his length, staring at you like he’d won the lottery. He told you later it was the first time that he actually watched while you got him off, so he was transfixed. He said the way you took your time, and paid attention to how he reacted made him think you loved it as much as he did. Of course you did.

That day, however, you gave him a little extra. It was sloppy and deep, because you could not get enough of the way he moaned. Each time he hit the back of your throat, he would let out moans and groans that made you wetter every second. You didn’t realize at the time but you were moaning along with him, hungry for him in a way you had never completely shown him at that point.

“Don’t move,” he muttered out during one of the occasions where he was pushed deep into your throat. You did as you were told, relaxing your throat to keep him as long as you could, listening to the soft, shaky breaths he let out. “No wonder your first instinct is to get on your knees,” he struggled through his words. “You’re too good at this.”

You pushed yourself until you had to back off, sliding his length from your mouth to desperately drag in a few ragged breaths broken up by coughs. Seunghyun stroked your cheek soothingly, smiling down at you as he watched with lust filled eyes. You tried to keep sucking him, but he stopped you, much to your disappointment. All you were able to do was give him a pleading look, but he only smiled in response.

“If I let you keep going, then you’ll make me come, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

Seunghyun switched places with you, tucking himself back into his pants so he could lay you down on the bed. The way he stalked around the bed for a few moments, staring down at you, was an image that burned itself into your brain; he looked like he didn’t know where to start, too overcome.

”Let me see you,” he nodded towards you, gesturing for you to remove the last of your clothes.

When you were naked, on display in his bed where his eyes drank in your whole body like it was the first time, he climbed into the bed. His fingers traced along your skin delicately enough to cause a chill to spread through your body.

“You’re beautiful just like this.”

The first orgasm he gave you that night was only with his fingers. He straddled one of your thighs and stayed knelt with his hand braced against the bed to support his weight — just so he could watch your face while he got you off. It made you feel vulnerable and you would have been embarrassed if you couldn’t feel him gently grinding himself against your thigh.

You grabbed handfuls of his shirt, pulling him closer to you as you came. Seunghyun smirked when you kissed him, not slowing his fingers working until he was satisfied. He pressed his forehead to yours when he slid his fingers into your mouth, watching you intently as you cleaned the taste of you from them.

“I want you,” you breathed, hoping that your pleas would convince him, but he only shook his head, now kneeling between your open thighs. “Please.”

“You have me,” he said, kissing down your neck towards your chest. “Just because I won’t let you have me exactly how you want me doesn’t mean you can pout.”

The stern voice he used leaned towards smug, but he was right; you’re at his mercy after your prank. Besides, you liked when he was in charge, and you trusted that he would give you what you wanted.

Seunghyun stopped at your breasts, giving some attention to your nipples. You weren’t sure how he was so good with his mouth and his fingers but you were thankful that you got to experience the benefits. You’d never gotten much excitement from having your nipples played with before but Seunghyun had a way of making you feel things that you weren’t used to feeling. Sometimes you wondered if you could get off on nippleplay alone.

Seunghyun is still fully dressed, a fact that you became aware of when you also realized that you were grinding yourself against his clothed torso. You tighten your legs around his body, trying to keep him close to you to get more friction.

“Easy,” he breathes against your skin, rubbing your hips. “I’m almost there.” He continues lowering himself down your body, kissing and occasionally biting your skin. “Don’t be too loud, baby,” he warned, pausing for a moment to peer up at you. “Daesung’s room is next door.”

“I promise,” you whispered, cupping his face and stroking his cheek with your thumb.

You felt his smile when he pressed his mouth to your clit, nipping at the already tender nub. He sucked softly for a few moments before his index and middle fingers pushed into you again, shallow thrusts to his first knuckles. You whimpered and moaned as quietly as you could, rocking your hips against his face.

Seunghyun’s hot breaths and quiet moans got lost between your thighs, his insistence in getting you off slowly making your head spin. He took his time, not moving as fast as he was for your first orgasm but still you felt the tension building up inside of you.

When it finally hit you, it was better than the first, slowly creeping through you, making your joints numb. You rolled your hips with each wave of pleasure, grabbing a pillow to cover your face in an effort to muffle your moans of his name. Even after he stopped, your body shook with pleasure, but an ache still pounded between your thighs. You needed more.

Seunghyun surprised you when he climbed from the bed, leaving you alone and confused. He wasn’t gone long, returning with a cup in his hand that he placed on the side table.

“Make room,” he said. You sat up, scooting towards the other side of the bed to allow him the space to climb beside you, where he laid on his back. When he looked at you expectantly, you were even more confused. “Well?” he asked. “Climb on.”

“Your—?”

“My face.”

You were sure you could have passed at that moment. It wasn’t something that you’d tried with him or anyone else for that matter. As if he read it on your face, he grinned at you, beckoning you over with his finger. You leaned over and he met you halfway, kissing you softly.

“Do you trust me, my good girl?” he whispered against your lips.

“Of course.”

“Then let’s go for a ride,” he grinned. You shook as you straddled his head, resting on your knees as you waited for him to tell you how he wanted you. Seunghyun’s hands rubbed your thighs, his hungry eyes fixed between them. “The cup,” he said.

You grabbed the cup from the table and peered inside to see it filled with ice. When you glanced down at Seunghyun, he opened his mouth, holding his tongue out. When you realized what he was planning, it was the second time that night you thought you might pass out.

After placing a cube of ice into his mouth, you put the cup back onto the nightstand, keeping it within reach. You could hear him crunching on the ice as you turned back to settle into place once again. As soon as Seughnyun’s arms locked around your thighs, pulling you down against his face, you held your breath.

The fragments of ice on his tongue made contact with your clit first, and you jumped at the contact. Your hands instinctively wrapped around his forearms, fingers digging into his skin. His tongue worked passionately, alternating between teasing your clit and circling your entrance.

You both knew it wouldn’t take long for you to climax for a third time, and you can tell that he wants to make it worthwhile. His eyes fluttered open, looking up at you to find your gaze already on him, so he squeezed your thighs to signify for you to move.

“Mmm,” he hums, when you shift your weight back to your knees. “Ice.” His mouth opened up expectantly and you quickly popped another piece of ice onto his tongue for him to crunch again. Seunghyun yanked you down on top of him again, his tongue, covered with ice, sliding into your entrance.

“Oh, fuck!” you gasped out, louder than you intended. He chuckled against you, but gave a warning smack to your thigh. “Sorry, baby,” you breathed, leaning over him and pressing your hands to the mattress to support your weight. “It feels incredible. I’m so close.”

Seunghyun let you ride his face, his cold tongue licking you closer and closer to your climax. When you tugged his hair with one hand, he groaned against you and squeezed your thighs tighter, his mouth working you more furiously.

You clamped your hand over your mouth to silence your moans as you reached your third orgasm of the night. The vibrations of Seunghyun’s moaning against you works through your whole body, buzzing in your hips and your stomach in a way you’d never felt before. He kept tonguing you until you pried at his arms, pulling yourself away from him for even a moment’s reprieve.

“Oh, my god,” you panted, collapsing onto the bed beside Seunghyun. You felt like you couldn’t catch your breath and still all you wanted was him. “Please,” you begged, reaching for him to drag him on top of you. “Fuck me. Please.”

You noticed the smirk on Seunghyun’s lips when you pulled him in for a kiss. His face was wet with your juices and you savored every taste of it that you could, kissing around his mouth. While you were distracted by the kiss, Seunghyun worked his pants and briefs down his hips to free his cock once again.

He knew you wouldn’t be able to take any teasing and he was on the verge himself, so he only rubbed his length through your wetness a few times before he finally pushed himself inside of you. It felt like it was the first time again, his size stretching your walls that clamp down around him.

“You feel incredible,” Seunghyun muttered against your lips, starting a steady pace of thrusts, forcing in all the way to the hilt. “Do you think I can make you come one more time? It will be a new record for us.” You grabbed his face with both hands, keeping him close.

“I want to see you come and then I’ll come for you,” you breathed, repeating what he’d said to you early on in your relationship. Seunghyun licked his lips, his eyes locked on your mouth.

“Inside of you?” he asked. “Tell me you want it inside of you, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Come inside of me,” you begged. “I need it.”

It was a new experience for you, feeling him come inside of you while you came as well. You both struggled to keep your moans to a reasonable volume, and decided to silence one another with your mouths. His moans rattled in your mouth while he kept fucking you hard until he couldn’t more anymore.

Your body was exhausted, aching all over. You weren’t sure you’d even be able to move if you wanted to, and with Seunghyun collapsed on top of you, kissing your collarbone and leaving little bites, you were content with staying where you were.

“How are you so good with your mouth?” you rasp, combing your fingers through his hair, gently scraping your nails along his scalp. “I don’t know how you didn’t get tired.”

“I’m a musician,” he responded, nuzzling into your hands in a moment of vulnerability that you want to remember forever. “I’m accustomed to using my mouth for long periods of time.”

You both stayed tangled together for several more minutes until Seunghyun unfortunately pulled away. He climbed from the bed, excusing himself to the bathroom and leaving you practically melted into the bed. After a few moments, he returns to the room, now only wearing his briefs, carrying a towel and cloth.

You could have fallen asleep while Seunghyun gently cleaned you up. It was so tender and slow, it almost brought tears to your eyes. When he finished, he placed a loving kiss to your lips before slipping back into the bed beside you, snuggling your bodies together under the covers.

He told you later that it was one of the sexiest and most memorable nights of his life, and you were inclined to agree.

[asahicore]

hometown - pjs (teaser)

teaser wc: 1.8k don't ask me about the expected word count or release date. that's knowledge only the higher powers of this universe have access to just a little extract from the exes to lovers, small town au Jay fic i'm working on because I feel like I haven't posted in eons... hope you guys like it and are looking forward to it, I was going thrrooooough it writing this for some time but now it's getting better and i'm enjoying the process... let me know if you'd like to be tagged when it comes out!! enjoy!!

You stay behind. Jay doesn’t know if the three women are exceptionally good at reading the room, or if he missed some silent signal of understanding between you and them, but they don’t question your not following them. The sudden quietness makes Jay feel like a giant in a too-small space, a room that can’t possibly contain the two of you.

And yet. You sigh and head back to the living room, going for the couch rather than the cushions on the floor, but Jay can’t bring himself to join you, and so sits back at the same spot from earlier.

“Seriously, Jay?” you say, chuckling, but he detects an actual trace of annoyance in your voice. Unable to hide your thoughts as always, you are. You pat a spot on the couch next to you. “Come here.”

But Jay doesn’t move. Can’t. All he can do when he looks at you is search for traces of grief. He had five years to work out all of his feelings around your breakup, and he thought he had sorted through everything, gone through all the phases. Seeing you again, he feels like he has to start over. The past week hasn’t felt real, he thinks. He thinks it so hard, he says it out loud, only realizing what he did when he sees your expression soften.

“It’s been weird, hasn’t it?”

“Weird is one way to put it, yeah.”

There’s a pause, of which he spends every second worrying about what sort of turn this conversation will take.

“Is this a good time to talk about the elephant in the room, then?” you finally say.

He looks around, eyebrows furrowed with worry. “There’s an elephant in this room?!” he whispers.

You burst into laughter. “I see your humor hasn’t improved over time.”

“Seeing as you’re laughing, I’d say yours hasn’t, either.”

“Touché.”

Silence settles between the two of you again, creeps inside Jay, makes him wait for your next words with bated breath. 

He had a feeling that all the skirting around the subject you’d been doing would come to this. It’s not that you’ve pretending it didn’t happen, that would be impossible, for him, at least—he looks at you and he’s transported back to Seoul five years ago, at school, in one of your apartments, in the streets after dark. But you haven’t been actively tackling it either and with every passing day, the weight of unspoken words grew, making every conversation, every look at you harder and harder to navigate. This is new for the two of you, who in your six months of being together, had mastered your communication skills—you never didn’t speak to each other. You especially were good at saying what was on your mind without ever being hurtful, and you’d helped Jay stop bottling his feelings up when he thought he could get over them himself and not have to trouble you with them.

Nothing you say could ever burden me, baby, you’d told him. I want to know everything that goes through your head. 

And many things have changed since then, but maybe this hasn’t—the look you have in your eyes now is the same one as then, soft and inviting, aware that conversations aren’t always as easy as they are necessary. 

“You’re here,” you say after some time. Jay was so caught up in his own thoughts, entire minutes could’ve passed without his noticing. You spoke so quietly, he wonders if he imagined it until you add, “You’re in Sojuk-ri.”

He smiles, stops himself from replying with something annoying like “What an astute observation, Y/N,” it would only be stalling. So, for lack of a better alternative, and because he assumes you have more to say, he whispers, “I am.”

“We used to date.”

Jay isn’t sure where you’re going with this. He nods, unable to suppress a grin. “We did, yeah,” he replies, louder this time.

“Then we broke up.”

A chuckle escapes his lips. “You’re on fire this morning,” he says, because he can’t help himself, and warmth envelops his heart at the sound of your laughter.

“I just want to recontextualise.”

“Wow, big words.”

“Big word, singular. And shut up. I’m trying to be serious, here,” you chide, still smiling.

“Sorry.”

A sudden shadow passes over your face, making your eyebrows furrow, your smile disappear. Jay’s heart drops, his feelings, as always, a mirror of yours. You rise from your seat on the couch and make your way to him. Every step you take echoes inside of him and grows louder as the distance separating you decreases. Then you’re standing in front of him, and he looks up at you, and there’s something like a magnet under his skin, desperately reaching out for yours, that makes his hand wrap around your ankle. His eyes stay trained on your face as you lower yourself to the ground and cross your legs. If you mind his touch, you don’t say or show it. 

“It doesn’t feel real,” you say. Your eyes sweep his face, focus on one part at a time. You simply stare at him for a moment as though trying to convince yourself that it is, indeed, real, that he is really there, not a figment of your imagination but a person whose flesh and bones used to be as familiar as your own. He lets you look to your heart’s content, because it allows him to look at you, too.

His loose grip around your ankle tightens ever so slightly and you look down at his hand as if suddenly noticing its presence there. After a second of what seems to Jay like hesitation, you place your hand atop his. “Would you still have moved here if you knew this was where I lived?”

“I would’ve come here years ago, had I known,” he says with a small smile.

You furrow your eyebrows. “You didn’t even try calling.”

This takes him aback. Was that what you’d wanted? “I texted you, and you blocked me right away.”

The crease between your brows deepens. “I know.”

“You also didn’t try calling.”

“I sent you a letter.”

For some reason, it astonishes Jay that in all of five years, communication between the two of you amounted to one unanswered text and a letter with no return address. “You did. That was nice of you.”

Finally, this gets a smile, albeit subdued, out of you. “I know.”

“If I’d managed to call you somehow, would you have picked up?”

“Yes,” you say immediately. Then, “No. I don’t know.” Then, in a smaller voice, “It hurts too much to think about the other ways it could’ve gone. The better ways.”

Jay sighs, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Then let’s not think about them. It won’t do us any good.”

Your eyes meet. The sadness in yours tugs at his heartstrings. “Are you mad at me?” you ask, the tremble in your voice making it sound like you’re on the verge of crying, and it’s all Jay can do not to take you in his arms and hold you tight against his chest.

“No. Not at all,” he says, and he hopes his tone alone is enough to convince you. 

This magnet under his skin is uncontrollable. It raises Jay’s hand from where it was resting on your shoulder to your face, makes it cup your cheek, makes his thumb swipe slowly across your skin, right where tears are threatening to fall, as if preventing them.

“I tried being mad at you,” he says. “I tried a bunch of emotions. Sadness. Indifference. Nostalgia. But anger made things so much worse. It didn’t feel right, because I’d never been angry with you before. And it felt… It felt like admitting things could’ve gone differently. It felt like grieving a version of us that never existed because it never got the chance to. I decided to focus on the actual memories we had, and remember them fondly, instead of wasting my energy on being angry.”

A single tear falls from your right eye, wetting the top of Jay’s thumb. “I understand why you did what you did, baby,” he continues. “You had your reasons. You handled everything the best you could. It hurt like hell, but I can’t be mad at you for that.”

Jay doesn’t have to hold himself back from embracing you; you do it for him. Arms wound tightly around his neck, face in the crook of his neck, you quite literally cry on his shoulder. He hadn’t realized how close he himself was to crying until tears start falling freely from his eyes, mouth trembling as they gather at his jaw before dropping down the back of your t-shirt. Between sobs, you say, “I’m sorry. Even if you aren’t angry, I’m so sorry, Jay.”

He has never expected, and to this day doesn’t expect, anything from you, least of all an apology. Yet hearing those words from you heals some of the fissures in his heart, puts the pieces back together like superglue. He doesn’t need or want a repeat of your break-up conversation, and he doubts you do. He doesn’t want to hear how staying together wouldn’t have been a possibility, how you’d both have too much going on, how you were too young to hold each other back, how the distance between France and South Korea was too substantial to dismiss.

He wraps his arms around your waist and brings you closer to him. Closing his eyes and trying not to let your proximity overwhelm him, he strokes your hair, rubs your back, tells you it’s all okay. “Don’t apologize, baby,” he says, the nickname unwittingly slipping from his lips a second time. “We’re here now, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” He feels you nod against his shoulder, but your sobs don’t relent.

Would it be very wrong if Jay said he missed having you like this? Of course, he hates to see you unhappy, but there’s a part of him that has always been endeared by the sight of you crying. If he could, he’d destroy the thing making you so upset in a heartbeat, but it’s him that you go to for comfort, and he can’t help but selfishly rejoice in that. It’s in his arms that you find what it is you need to get over what’s troubling you; under his touch that you slowly calm down.

He doesn’t know how long the two of you stay like this, nor does he care, but at some point, you lean back and take a deep, stabilising breath. Jay feels a page turn when your eyes meet—there might be no way to change the past, but the future is a blank canvas, the blinking line at the start of a computer document, and it’s up to the two of you how you want to write it.

You smile, and so does he. “I missed you,” you say.

“I missed you, too.”

There are more things to be said, but you’re both talked out. You have so much time ahead of you anyway.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

read the leona flaws req(?) and now im curious about silvers flaws. i was gonna ask about kalims too, but it's probably pretty obvious what his are (obliviousness or wtv). but if you've done this before then just ignore this ask m(__)m

[Referencing this post!]

I won’t be going out of my way to make a list of all Silver and Kalim's flaws due to the reasons cited in this post. However, I’m going to at least discuss Kalim here!

This anon proposes that Kalim's flaws are "probably pretty obvious" and mentions that his obliviousness is one such flaw. Yes, that's true. Kalim often does not notice how his requests and ideas impose on others (namely Jamil). At other times, his obliviousness leads to him unintentionally insulting others. For example, he accidentally insults Riddle's lack of stamina by remarking, "You know, it's kinda nice to see even you can't come first in everything, Riddle." Finally, his obscene wealth allows Kalim to not really be cognizant of his privilege; Kalim often does not realize there is a significant wealth disparity between himself and others, and while he isn't mean about it, it can still come off as demeaning when he casually talks about what he has or acts surprised by what others don't have.

Honestly, a lot of Kalim's flaws come from the sheltering that his privilege gives him. He doesn't seem to understand how a lot of things work and doesn't seem to be aware of the struggles that the common man experiences. Kalim also believes that there are easy solutions to what are very complex issues, like claiming that he and Jamil can "start over" and try to be friends and rivals on their own terms. This optimism can be a good thing too though--Kalim chooses to be trusting of others, even if it puts himself in danger, because he doesn't want to live life being suspicious of everyone and everything. When you think about it, Kalim doesn't know when the day could be his last (since there are constant attempts on his life). So his whole "party boy" persona... maybe he's just living it up as best he can because hey, if he dies today then he wants to have gone out like a firework... shining brightly, being happy, etc.

A flaw of Kalim's that I don't see being discussed much--perhaps because it's not as easy to "see", given how cheery he seems and how he has all of his basic needs and more met--is how Kalim actually doesn't entrust much of himself to others. "But wait, Raven!" I hear you saying. "That's not true! Kalim's so generous! He's always throwing parties for others and offering to buy them things. He's also one of the only students to be warm and inviting, and he can get emotional and talk too much about personal details." Yes, you're right! However, that's not the same as Kalim truly being vulnerable. A lot of his dialogue is talking about the fun he has with others or about his family and its business or connections. But what about his troubles? It's not realistic for Kalim to be happy 24/7. Surely he must have bad days too? Problems of his own? A line in his Dorm Uniform card suggests as much: "Mind if I bend your ear about my troubles sometime?" BUT THEN THE INSANE THING IS THAT HE FOLLOWS THAT UP WITH, "Let's see... Hmm... Actually, ever mind, my life is great! Ha ha!"

It sounds like he has issues he wants to share with you, but he never actually does. Instead, he dismisses it and claims that his life is just fine... even though this guy might have tons of trauma from the many assassination attempts on him. He gets ill at the thought of curry because Jamil was harmed in taste testing poisoned curry for him--and even in this story, Kalim is shown to care so much for others, but is unwilling to speak about himself and what he's going through. In book 5, Jamil is, for the first time, selected for his genuine skills over Kalim, who is used to everything being handed to him on a silver platter. Kalim struggles to verbalize why it is that he's frustrated, but resolves to practice more on his own without telling anyone. He even seems a little bashful that Yuu walks in on him, almost like Kalim is hesitant of showing people how he is when he's not happy. He's ultimately able to talk out his feelings with Yuu (which is great), but I'd argue Kalim doesn't truly come full-circle until book 7. That's when he finally makes good on a promise he makes in book 4: that he'll slug Jamil and call him a bad guy for betraying him all the way back then. Here it is in full force, that ugliness that Kalim wasn't ready to let out or come to terms with when we first met him.

I completely understand that it can be harder to spot the shortcomings of someone who so readily masks their problems with the whole "I'm okay! Look at how happy I am!" schtick. I'm not even necessarily accusing Kalim of "faking" it; that's genuinely how he is, and potentially also his main means of coping with whatever issues he's got going on. I think it's really fascinating to consider though! Even when you're as rich and as powerful as Kalim is, he's got his own demons to content with.

[fipindustries]

there is no need to be angry any more

so that was it.

that was the ending of jennyffer.

long long ago, back in 2008, i made a deviant art account and i started sharing my works online. i made the very concious and very deliberate choice back then, to fake it until i made it. every time i posted something, every time i updated my journal, every time i left any kind of note for a potential audience, i would talk with the register and confidence of someone speaking to a huge audience of adoring fans. would apologize for delays, i would advertize big ambitious porjects i had in the works (which i never finished or published). i would explain what i was going for with every work as if i had my dms filled with questions and fan theories.

much of that was me mimicking the style with which pretty much everyone posted at the time in deviant art. i did this when i only had like 4 followers there.

i carried this attitude with me when i came to tumblr and started posting my work here, but it wouldnt find much use until i started my webcomic Disregarding Reality back in 2016. in there, much like i did in deviant art, i would post extensive authors notes explaining my thought process behind every strip, id make announcements, id update people on my schedule, i make big celebrations of milestones achieved and would give tearful gratitudes to my audience for sticking with me all those years. again, i did all this for an audience of probably less than ten people.

a part of me was perfectly aware that this was all theatrics, it was me roleplaying as a famous artist and comic creator, because that had always been my dream, to be recognized for my art. it wasnt even necesarily fame what i was looking for. i was perfectly content to be someone on the same tier as, say, tom sidell or zach morrison or scott dewitt. someone with a well liked webcomic who could feed a relatively small but loyal group of fans that would spurn discussion, analisis and fanart. that was the thing i was looking most of all, praise i can do without, i wanted engagement, i wanted analisis, i wanted the kind of fan interaction that is measured in fan content. i wanted reviews, even bad reviews, it meant people were thinking about my work.

one thing i started with disregarding reality was to make small self contained story arcs, that is where we got mama bird, soft boys, hexen snatch and the begginings of max splosive.

and every time i concluded one of this arcs i would post a giganting wall of text as a sort of retrospective, an after game analisis, where i would explain what i was going for, what inspired me to do this, how was the process of creating the thing and to what degree i succeeded or failed. i did the same for my novel there is a crack in the world.

and is time to do the same for Jenniffer. except this time is special, is it not?

this time i do have an actual, proper audience.

this is no longer theatrics, this is no longer me roleplaying, now there are a significant ammount of people listening.

dreams do come true after all.

in many ways that was the second greatest success of this project. the fact that i actually garnered a following of some kind. to be sure, i doubt there are more than a hundred people who have seen jennyffer, but that is irrelevant to me, i got engagement, i got comments and analisis and fanart, that was all i ever wanted and i got it. i am realized, i am fulfilled.

the actual biggest success of this project id say is the fact that people got me. people truly understood what i was going for. i have heard many analisis of what is art in the last few months, wether there is such a thing as objective criticism of art, what is art for, what is the purpose of art, why we make art. and one position i heard over and over again was that art is not for communication. you know, death of the author and all that, what the creator meant has no bearing on the work and the experience of the work itself.

and yet i cannot help but disagree on some level, because if so what else can i call jennyffer other than an absolute triumph of conveyance. people understood it, time and time again i would see comments where people descrive pointedly, incisively, precisely what i was going for. i felt seen. so in that regard, im going to pin the blue ribbon upon my chest, sorry barthes.

there is a lot more that i want to say about this project, loads and loads. do you have any idea how many easter eggs i hid? how many references? do you know whats the story behind the little dinosaur painting in the therapist office? do you want to know?

well all those questions and more will be answered in the ~JENNYFFER COMMENTARIES~

thats right, every week on my patreon, starting today, ill be posting two videos (thats right TWO) with a director's commentary of a jennyffer episode. so if you want to know all the cool super secret details you can go to my patreon and subscribe, these are going to be patreon exclusive so i wont be releasing them to the public for a long long long time, sorry! i gotta eat!

***

Now i want to end this with a talk about the characters themselves in this story. Jennyffer and Peter.

They are based on many many different things, things that i have descrived many times in the past. but one thing i want to put emphasis on is that they are very much two sides of myself. the sensitive, morally punctillious and enciclopediacly nerdy Peter, and the assertive, sarcastic and ebullient Jenny. those who have known me for a while would have seen my inner peter poke out whenever in talking about some interest of mine, or when i first met them and want to cause a good first impression, or when im kinda tired or melancholic. and they would have also noticed my inner jenny get out whenever im salty, or stuck in debate mode, or excited or enthusiastic.

They are two lovely kids. they are endearing, they are funny, they are a little messy and sometimes a bit too much to handle. but it was an absolute delight and a priviledge to have them live in my head for four years and im very greatful that i had the time, the energy and the will to bring them to life.

now, as they grow old and mature and have to get ready to leave their mother's house for college i do have to let them go, im going to miss them a lot and im sure they will ocassionally come back to visit. but is time for them to do their own think. all i can do is say goodbye and thenk them for letting me tell their story.

best of luck to both of you

[philtstone]

ok so originally i tacked this on as a rb to this post abt shawn spencers true calling as a stay at home girldad but then i decided its my blog i can do what i want so im making it its own post. obligatory disclaimer, i love the movies, this is not a dig at their choices, etc etc. anyway. i need to lay out my Vision to the people in a formal capacity

shawn needs a baby because psych was his baby

hear me out

i wont get into like, the thematic/narrative reasons why shawn and jules should have a kid to subvert their mutual Fear of Becoming Their Parents growth, bc that's a whole other dimension that requires its own post. i wont even mention how many times shawn talks about wanting kids in general. but purely based on the narrative role that psych as an agency played in shawn & gus's lives:

psych starts out as shawn and gus embarking on this big adventure that's an actualization of their childhood dreams. from the get go, gus has a day job; psych is an initially just fun, then great and meaningful thing he does in addition to that day job. on the other hand, psych is shawn's main Thing. it's his only real outlet (if we don't count the random 2-day long jobs he does for the bit) and full concentration point for all his energy, creativity, caring, and altruistic impulses. its the first time in his life he's ever committed to a job -- responsibility, long-haul endeavor, whatever -- that uses his skills, intelligence, and compassion in any kind of lasting way.

over the course of the show, shawn and gus's relationship to psych shifts and changes, and it becomes increasingly evident that shawn's personal relationship to psych is a representation of selfless versus selfish motivation within him. as he matures, he's less inclined to use it as a way to prove himself or show off or mask his personal insecurities/arrogance. he becomes more overtly reliant on it as what it was meant to be along: a way for him to help others.

obviously, the boys' evolving relationship with each other, shawns evolving relationship with juliet, and, critically, shawns evolving relationship with his dad are all key mediating variables in his maturation and subsequently his relationship with the business. parallel themes of commitment and responsibility -- shawn proving to his dad that he can be genuinely responsible for something as big as other peoples' well being and shawn proving to juliet that he's capable of committing to her long term -- run and grow here. imo a point where u really see all this exemplified is his willingness to give psych up to earn back juliet's trust in s7.

through all of this, gus still has a day job. that's not to say psych isn't also a hugely important part of his life and key factor in his own growth and maturation, but it's not the focus of his whole life, because gus has always operated with relative (relative ...) moderation. the peak of gus's growth is realizing that what was most important to him all along was being able to live life with the people he loves (shawn) at his side, even if it meant everything was chaotic and messy and imbalanced all the time. his last act of maturation was leaving behind stale security to bravely dive into the sincerity-filled unknown.

shawn on the other hand is fundamentally an obsessive person who will latch onto something and put 112% effort into that thing for as long as it holds his attention, and the show demonstrates to us that very very few things have been able to hold his attention for very long -- except psych. and despite the fact that this tendency changes in his personal relationships, it never really demonstrably changes in his ... employment habits.

we arrive at the end of the show. shawn gives psych up to move to san francisco to be with juliet (again; the selflessness). gus moves with him (again; the growth). so what now?

once again, their detective work does not pay many bills, so gus has his day job. but even with all of his growth, shawn spencer is not a day job kind of guy. juliet is extremely employed, of course (no one even slightly less employed than her could be with shawn long term, employment being not necessarily literal but a spiritual state that gus, too, possesses in spades). it's here that i posit that shawn's psych replacement has to be a baby.

thematically, he's left psych behind. whether or not he does still do detective consulting work is immaterial; psych in its original form has been irrefutably outgrown. he's in a different phase of life now, one that is explicitly marked by his commitment to juliet (who incidentally is the way she is because she never had a father who put her first). if we're going to continue the story, shawn and gus need another big adventure: one that will help them grow in this phase of life just like psych helped them in the last one. given how significant shawn's healing relationship with his dad & realizing how much of who is is comes from his dad was over the course of the series, AND given how raising a child is probably one of the biggest and scariest responsibilities an adult can take on (plus see jules note above), what better great adventure for shawn and gus to embark on than fatherhood?

as with before, gus will be a pharmaceutical salesman on the side, while the more interesting, exciting, meaningful work he does is Being Dad. gus has his baby first, because unlike before, he's comfortable tackling the scary and unpredictable without reservation from the outset.

and, as with before, shawn's kid will be his whole world.

like i said: narratively, shawn does not need a another job. he needs a baby. he needs to be a part time p.i., full time stay at home dad, who is totally, delightfully, chaotically, sincerely obsessed with that kid.

do all these points lead us to believe he'll have a "balanced" approach to parenthood? no way. is this a "healthy" dynamic to have with one's child? unclear. will there be multiple catastrophes along this great journey? undoubtedly. no one ever said he doesn't still need to go to therapy. BUT. 1) shawn's always been intense. we know this. we love this! we wouldn't want to change this about him. 1b) he loves the way his dad loves, and i'd personally be really interested to see a version of that love that's been tempered by shawn's growth and has (correctly) improved on henry's parenting style while retaining the obvious love and devotion. and 2) gus and juliet are right there with him! henry did not have a gus and juliet! everything will be fine!

finally, psych is a story about learning to be brave. all of the characters are forced to learn this, in a multitude of different ways. for shawn, a lot of his fears do stem from his relationship with his dad. having a kid would be his final boss battle! and i for one believe that he can win!

idk. i just think it fits so well. shawn as a dad would be imperfect, messy, sometimes disastrous, and full of love and sincerity -- just like psych was.

has to be a girl tho. amen

[sossolei]

I'm actually crying rn please, how do I really shift? For a fact Ik that shifting and manifestation is real. But I've been unable to shift my awareness to my Dr.. I saw your hogwarts posts and im really happy and glad that you get to experience all of that but I can't even shift to a better version of my cr let alone some fictional world??I really wanna get out of this abusive household, it's messing up with my mental peace each day, everyday waking upto fights and getting blamed for being a disappointment. I'm sorry I'm not trauma dumping but I just really wanna get out of here.

I am 10000% going to make a more detailed post about this very soon, but to answer your question right now, the best advice I can give you is to genuinely stop listening to other people and try to make shifting/a ritual before shifting, as fun as possible.

Advice is great don’t get me wrong, but after a certain point everyone is just repeating the same talking points and yapping about things that don’t work for you and your journey. Find your own groove but for now here’s what I’ll say:

1. Practice meditation as often as you can. Do it for sleep. Do it while you’re awake. Do it before school or work. Do it whenever and genuinely get in tune with who you are without a body and without a mind. You are pure consciousness and meditation is one of the best ways to internalize this.

2. Since you mentioned manifesting, practice small manifestions in your current reality because that is also considered reality shifting. Every time you decide to walk left instead of right, you’ve just shifted realities because universe is now adapting to what you have chose. If you think manifesting is your thing, build up your confidence within that AND ( best part ) try to manifest things from your better c.r, into your current reality. Start off small like maybe a cute cup from your better reality to bring into your current one or even some curtain bangs to look more like your better reality self—not only will these things build your confidence but they will also make you feel so connected to that other reality. Genuinely apply this and you’ll wake up one day and realize something so small like a cup, or a cute notebook from your other reality that is in your c.r means that that reality is never as far as you think it is.

3. Be mindful of the language you use. Never come back from a shifting attempt and think, “omg I didn’t shift again”, instead switch that to “damn I gotta practice waking up in that other reality instead of just sleeping there all the time” does that make sense? You realistically could’ve shifted while you slept, but because you were sleeping, you wouldn’t have noticed. HELLO! It makes sense guys.

That’s all I can say right now but definitely ask me anything else, I’d love to help in any way I can and I can guarantee you will shift to that reality ( even if you haven’t already ) because you shift every single day and this reality is no different than choosing pizza instead of burgers for dinner LOL.

[11queensupreme11]

What would Cú Chulainn do if Percy actually DOES fall in love with a mortal when she’s in Midgard

i'm assuming this is about the cheating au, which would mean cú chulainn's a god in this scenario and OHHHHHHHH MY GOD........

pissing off cú chulainn back when he was a demigod was already bad enough (dude was a menace), but when he's an almighty GOD????? that could literally ruin lives with just a single THOUGHT???????

😭😭😭 rip to the mortal man

(i think i might actually write about this way later btw lol)

percy, to her credit, knows damn well that she can NOT get attached to this man she met in midgard, that would put him in danger. so she pines from afar, but let's say she goes back home to valhalla after her lil break. she goes back to her motherly and wifely duties, but cú chulainn, who's become 1000000x more hyper-focused and loving to her then usual since he learned his lesson, starts to notice her attention lingering. she's more distracted than usual.

and so he looks to see where her Sight has been focused on lately!

(and btw, when i say "Sight" with a capital S, i don't mean she's physically looking at something. gods are omniscient to a degree, they can literally see wherever and whatever they want regardless of where they're at. i've explained this several times throughout the fic, but i'm just putting this here in case some forgot cuz its been a while since i brought it up 😅)

so he looks to see where his dear wife's attention has been at and oh. it's towards some mortal man. and she wasn't just gazing down on him, but subtly helping him from afar as well. school debt? gone. hospital bills? gone. that job interview he's been waiting to hear back from? he got the call and he got the job! his little siblings' school is suddenly able to afford free school lunch for all. his parents were given huge bonuses in their salary that could make them eligible for a comfy retirement years early! this man's life and the lives of his family has become nice and safe thanks to cú chulainn's sweet lil wife 💖💖💖

but cú chulainn fucking sees RED. he's seething with jealousy and also the dawning realization that this human man was a threat. because he knows his wife has a soft spot for humanity, that she even preferred their company over her fellow gods. percy's straying affections are a horrible reminder of his own infidelity -- an infidelity that he regrets because it led to his beloved wife temporarily leaving him for a few years. he can't let this man live, can't run the risk of losing percy again.

demigod cú chulainn would've went down to midgard to rip the man to shreds, and then kill him again once his spirit gets to valhalla, and then he'd be done with it.

but as an omnipotent god with unlimited power??? he's so much more crueler than he was as a demigod. if you remember my previous post about what sort of domains i'd give him (here), god of WAR would be one of them.

he doesn't even need to do much. he just needs to think of it and everything falls into place right then and there.

one night, the mortal man falls into a good sleep and when he wakes up the next morning, it's to the news that the US president has declared war with another superpower country. that same day, he'll get a letter in his mail saying he's been drafted. he doesn't have the money to be a draft dodger and he's in peak health, so he doesn't have a choice. he has to leave his family, give up on his career, all to fight in a war he never wanted.

and cú chulainn makes sure this war would be the worst war to ever occur in all of human history. and he makes sure the human lives through every grisly second of it. he exposes him to the worst of the worst, gives him un-ending trauma that he could never recover from. he makes this war drag on for years, decades even, all to make sure that the only thing this man knows is death and pain. he'll make sure to shatter this human's mind, make him a former shell of the man percy once knew and loved. he's going to ruin him for daring to try and steal percy's attention.

he'll make this war drive him to the brink of insanity until he finally kills himself, and even then his agony won't end because cú chulainn's already waiting for him in the afterlife.

[fandom-susceptible]

So Harrow's In The Bird

So. I'm not here to argue with anybody. If anyone really dislikes this plotline, that's your prerogative, and if you want to use this post as a jumping off point to talk about it, that's your business. This is not a promise of interaction. This fandom has always been a comfort/safe space for me and I'm not changing that, but I did want to share some more . . . nuanced analysis of why I'm okay with this development.

The theory that Viren switched King Harrow's soul out with the bird has been a thing since 2018. I personally was one of the ones who really liked it, though I don't know if I ever bothered posting about it. The creators of the show claimed it wasn't true at SDCC 2019, but even if this was the plan, they sort of had to or it would have ruined their own plot twist. There was definitely something going on with Pip in the show, they made too much of a point of showing us the bird behaving oddly, so I don't think this was actually a last minute out of the blue choice. They've been genuinely planning this since the early seasons.

Now, part of the reason I was also okay with Harrow just being dead is that it does add to the impact of the story. Both old kings are dead, killed by each other's legacies, while their sons work together to bring about a new beginning. There's a certain symbolism in that.

However, Harrow's character is more than just the King of Katolis or Ezran's dad. He's also Callum's stepdad, which I think is more important for this particular plot line. Like Runaan, he had unfinished business. Not only did he leave behind both of his children, he never got the closure of having an openly stated father-son relationship with Callum. The same way Rayla still refers to Runaan and Ethari by name, Callum always called him King Harrow or Your Majesty, and Harrow never heard him say Dad instead.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that there were three Quasar diamonds, and Callum and Rayla only used one, with Claudia using the other. There's still a third out there that hasn't been used yet. Once again, I'm convinced they had this planned all along; it's not just a last minute hail mary to spare Runaan some sort of guilt or disgrace.

It's going to be messy when he comes back, if we get Arc 3, and I genuinely hope we do. It will be interesting to find out if he eventually agreed to Viren's plan or if Viren forced it on him knowing he could leave Harrow in the bird to watch and suffer as Viren usurped his sons and took control of Katolis. I genuinely look forward to the confrontation between Harrow and Runaan, Harrow facing down the man who killed him (also his son's father-in-law) and Runaan facing someone he killed (also his daughter's father-in-law).

The thing is, I really don't think Harrow being alive spares Runaan anything. He's a professional assassin and has been for over a decade (Rayla mentions he has 20 years more experience than she does, which may or may not include either of their training years). Harrow is not the first life he's taken, and having to face not just the outer consequences but actually look someone in the face and listen to them after killing them would be a mindfuck at best. Harrow being returned doesn't excuse what he did, and I really don't think Runaan will see it that way either. We see him struggling with guilt for almost killing Rayla, and his entire arc in season 7 was realizing how fucked up his worldview (which, admittedly, is highly driven by Moonshadow culture as a whole) is. One singular life being returned isn't going to backslide that entire mental breakdown, no matter how important that particular life is to everyone else. Runaan didn't have a personal tie to Harrow. It was just a job.

Now though, he does have a personal tie to Harrow, through their children, and I think that's going to play a role in how things develop in the next arc. I expected Callum and Rayla's romantic arc from the very first episode where they met, and I think this was all planned to fall into place this way.

So, Harrow kills the dragon king to avenge his wife, restarting a war that had somewhat cooled with time. His sons aren't involved with this decision, but they have to live with the aftermath.

Runaan kills Harrow to avenge the Dragon King, and brings Rayla in order to counter the shame of her parents' fleeing (which they later discover didn't happen, but while it's better culturally, it's not much better in the long run).

Harrow's sons and Runaan's daughter work together to rescue Zym. One of Harrow's sons carries the political plot by going home and taking the throne. The other continues with Rayla to return the dragon prince, and along the way, the two begin a romantic relationship.

Callum's father was killed by Rayla's. Rayla's father dies in Callum's father's dungeon.

Skipping forward, we discover that neither of their fathers were actually killed, but they were both cursed by Dark Magic. Importantly, they were both cursed by the same man, who was manipulating them both (Harrow personally, Runaan as part of a whole) in order to orchestrate his own ascension to the throne and an eventual war and attempted genocide.

They find out about Rayla's parents first, and Rayla looks at recovering them as a personal quest, but Callum looks at it as both personal and a way to undermine Viren's legacy. They only manage to obtain two Quasar diamonds, which means Rayla has to make choices about which parents to rescue, and this drives her personal arc of making peace with her abandonment issues (a plot which runs parallel to Claudia's abandonment issues) and cultural shame connected to Tiadrin and Lain. The father she recovers is the one who stayed with her growing up, and took her with him when he left for his duty.

He is also the one who is ultimately the most helpful as the plot develops. He doesn't run from the consequences of his assassination; Rayla's the one who breaks him out and urges him to go home despite his arrest, and he just doesn't argue with her (I have a whole other post about the confrontation between Ezran, Callum, and Rayla where I go into Runaan's response and why I think he behaved the way he did in season 7). And when greater forces are threatening the world, he doesn't hesitate to work with Callum. In the early seasons I was prepared for him to end up being as racist as Viren in the opposite direction, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by how he just treats Callum as another person.

I think Callum makes his peace with Runaan as a person due to his experiences with dark magic, actually. He understands being so driven by his need to protect someone that he'll do very dark things because he doesn't see an alternative. He's chosen to step beyond that, but I think he understands Runaan's worldview in a way that Ezran simply doesn't until he has the epiphany with Aaravos and the Nova Blade late in season 7. So he's able to look past it, especially since this is Rayla's father.

Then in the very end, we discover that Viren cursed Harrow too. So neither Callum nor Rayla's fathers are dead, but they were both cursed by the same man to be no better than dead and left that way. And Viren died before revealing it to anyone, so Runaan, the man who came to kill him, ends up also being the one whose story saves him.

So now, a killer from the previous generation, who contributed to the cycle of violence, has been returned not only to help end it but to save another and reverse a little bit of the damage he's done.

More specifically, Rayla and Callum both lost their adoptive fathers to Viren. Now, they will be the ones to rescue those adoptive fathers and finally get the closure of claiming them as such.

Plus, the impersonal angle of Harrow's assassination is now disrupted because there's a personal connection through their children now, which will further drive Runaan's cultural deconstruction and likely some mental dissonance for Harrow as well.

All in all, I hope they greenlight Arc 3, because I look forward to seeing how that develops Callum and Rayla's relationships with each other and their respective fathers, and how it changes Runaan and Harrow both as people. Runaan's development didn't really get the focus it deserved in season 7, which I really honestly think was because it was intended to take place over a longer period of time and the writers just didn't have it because Netflix refused to promise them seasons 8-10. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes once he and Harrow are both around to be having their midlife crises at the same time.

[snowseasonmademe]

Let love set you free

warning ‼️: angst, breakup

word count: 3,370

paring: levi colwill x black female reader

summary: you both tried to run and hide from it but the weight of time crushes your love into dust

tag list: @sucredreamer @irishmanwhore @whoevenisthiz @iamquiantrelle @dexastres @coffeevacation @goldenngt @btslover117 @kennasutopia @jessnotwiththemess

note: this song is one of my favorites of all time. i think it’s really beautiful and i thought levi would be perfect for the storyline so here it is! i know this is my second angst for him lol but he just fits. i’ll write something fun for him soon, i promise. actually i’ve written quite a few angst fics that will be posted soon, so be ready for that. anyway, as always enjoy and tell me what you think🤍🤍!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a time when loving Levi felt like second nature, like breathing—something you didn’t have to think about, something that just was. The two of you fit together effortlessly, your souls woven into each other with a quiet certainty. It was in the way he’d wake up before you, pressing soft kisses to your shoulder before slipping out of bed, letting you sleep in while he made coffee. The way his voice would soften whenever he said your name, like it was sacred. The way his hand always found the small of your back in a crowded room, as if reassuring himself that you were still there, still his. It was easy back then, simple in a way that felt rare. Love had been an unspoken promise between you—constant, unwavering. But even the most beautiful things can fracture under the weight of time.

You both felt the shift before you ever spoke it into existence. It started with the little things, the ones that seemed insignificant on their own but built up like cracks in a foundation. The calls that went unanswered for longer than usual. The texts that felt more like obligations than conversations. The quiet moments that once held comfort but now felt strained, like neither of you knew what to say anymore. He would come home later, exhaustion etched into his features, and you’d be waiting, hoping for something—anything—to remind you of what you once had. But it never came. His kisses were still there, but they were different. Routine. A habit rather than a desire. And that scared you more than anything.

Levi had always been the type to carry his emotions carefully, tucking them away where no one could reach them. But you had always known how to read him. And the truth was, he had been pulling away for a while now. Maybe not intentionally, maybe not even consciously, but you could feel it, like a slow, inevitable tide pulling him further and further out of reach. He still loved you—you knew that. But love wasn’t always enough. Not when the silences between you stretched longer than the conversations, not when you felt lonelier with him than you ever did alone.

You had tried to fight for it, for him, for what you built together. You had tried to remind him of the love that once felt like home, like something neither of you would ever have to question. You planned dinners, showed up at his training sessions, left little notes in the pockets of his jackets, just like you used to. And for a while, it almost felt like things were getting better. He’d kiss you longer, pull you closer, whisper things that sounded like hope against your skin. But it was fleeting. A temporary fix to something deeper, something neither of you wanted to name out loud.

And now, standing in his apartment as the golden light of the setting sun washed over everything, you realized that the fight was over. Not because you didn’t love him anymore, but because you loved him too much to keep holding on when you knew it was hurting you both. Love, in its truest form, wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Like waiting for something that would never come. Like grasping at something slipping through your fingers no matter how tightly you held on.

Levi hadn’t said much, but he didn’t need to. The silence between you told the story neither of you wanted to speak aloud. You could tell he was trying to find the right words. Words that might soften the blow, that might make this hurt less. But there weren’t any. You had both known this moment was coming. You had both felt the ending long before it arrived. And that was the hardest part—not the anger, not the fights, not even the pain. Just the quiet acceptance that love alone wasn’t enough to keep you together. There was no need for words between the two of you—everything had already been said, written in the spaces between your breaths and the pauses in your conversations.

The golden hour light filtered softly through the large windows of Levi’s apartment, casting elongated shadows that stretched across the sleek, polished wooden floors. The soft amber and rose hues of the setting sun bled into the room, bathing the space in a gentle warmth. Everything was tinged with that fleeting glow, transforming the otherwise simple, modern apartment into something dreamlike—like a scene from a painting. There was a quiet stillness to the air, almost as if the whole world outside had slowed down, leaving the two of you suspended in time. You stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, not for warmth but for comfort, as you gazed out at the London skyline. The city stretched out beneath you, its buildings sprawling like giants in the distance, bathed in the last remnants of the sun’s light. The sky above had taken on a gradient of colors, with the softest shades of amber and rose slowly merging and shifting, stretching toward the inevitable night. You watched as the light began to fade, but there was something inside of you—an ache—that wanted it to last longer.

Just a little longer. If only time would slow, just for a few minutes, enough to hold onto the way this moment felt before it all slipped through your fingers. You wanted to capture it, to freeze it in place. The beauty of the scene outside was starkly juxtaposed by the heaviness in your chest. You could feel the weight of the finality in the air, and it was suffocating, even in the midst of the quiet beauty.

Behind you, you could sense him before you heard him. Levi sat on the edge of the couch, his posture rigid, elbows resting on his knees, head slightly bowed as though the weight of the situation had pressed him down. The light caught the sharp angles of his jaw and the dark strands of his hair, falling messily against his forehead. You could feel the quiet tension between you, so thick it almost seemed to hang in the air like a heavy fog, making it hard to breathe. He hadn’t spoken much since you arrived, and you realized, with a sinking feeling in your stomach, that he didn’t need to.

You exhaled slowly, shifting your weight slightly on your feet. Finally, you felt him move, his voice breaking through the heavy stillness. When he spoke, his words were quiet, almost tentative, as if he were unsure whether he wanted to break the fragile silence that surrounded you both. “So this is it then?”

His voice sent a fresh, sharp ache through your chest, a painful reminder of the reality of it all. You stood frozen for a moment, not sure how to answer, not sure if you could answer. Slowly, you turned to face him, and the moment your eyes locked with his, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of you. For the first time, you saw him—really saw him. Levi, usually so composed, so controlled, now looked entirely different. There was a weariness in his eyes, a quiet exhaustion that had nothing to do with football. The weight of everything between you was too heavy for him to bear. The sharp line of his jaw was tense, his brows furrowed in that familiar crease that spoke of worry, of something deeper than just the surface of a football game or a training session. His dark brown eyes, usually filled with the usual quiet confidence, were instead clouded with something you couldn’t quite place—rawness, vulnerability, maybe even regret. It wasn’t just his eyes that gave him away. His hands, usually so steady, were clenched in tight fists on his lap, his knuckles stark white in contrast to his skin. The air between you was thick, charged, and all you wanted to do was reach out to him. But you knew that if you did, you’d never be able to let go.

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat tightening as you fought to steady your breathing. His question hung in the air between you, and the weight of it pressed down on you, suffocating you in ways that no words ever could. You had known—both of you had known—that this moment would come, but saying it out loud felt like a betrayal. “I think we both knew it was coming” you whispered, the words tasting bitter as they left your lips, laden with the sorrow you had been holding inside for so long.

Levi let out a slow breath, a low sound that seemed to carry all the weight of the conversation, all the years of unspoken emotions and fractured moments. He ran a hand down his face, the action almost mechanical, like he was trying to rub away the exhaustion, the grief that clung to him. He shook his head softly, a humorless chuckle slipping from his throat. “Yeah… maybe. I just didn’t want to admit it” he admitted, his voice rough and strained, like he was fighting back something that was much larger than either of you. It wasn’t just the end of your relationship, you realized—it was everything, all the weight of the unsaid things, the unfinished stories that would never come to light. The ache in his voice mirrored the ache in your chest, a jagged wound that you couldn’t fix.

You took a step forward, each movement slow, like the ground beneath your feet might crack open if you moved too quickly. You were terrified that getting too close would shatter the fragile thread that still connected you, but your heart was already betraying you, pulling you toward him, against your better judgment. Levi didn’t move, didn’t retreat. He stayed there, sitting on the couch, his eyes never leaving you as you came to stand between his parted knees. His presence was suffocating in the best and worst ways, the space around him charged with the weight of everything unsaid. You stood there for a long moment, your fingers twitching at your sides, aching to reach out for him. You wanted to touch him, to smooth over the tension that had taken root in his shoulders, to hold him like you had so many times before. But you couldn’t. You knew you couldn’t.

Instead, you inhaled deeply, trying to steady the tremor in your chest, trying to make sense of the swirling emotions that were threatening to overtake you. Your words were soft, but they held so much weight as you whispered, “I don’t regret any of it” The confession fell from your lips like a quiet promise, one you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to fully keep, but you said it anyway, because it was the truth.

His lips parted slightly, and for a brief moment, his eyes softened, the walls he’d built around himself crumbling just enough to reveal the vulnerability beneath. His breath hitched, and before you could even think to pull away, his hand lifted, warm and familiar. It wrapped around your wrist, his fingers curling around you with a quiet intensity that made your heart skip a beat. He didn’t grip you tightly—he never did—but it was enough. Just enough to make you feel the pull, to make you hesitate, like the weight of his touch had an invisible tether that you couldn’t ignore.

“Then don’t go” he murmured, his voice so soft, so pleading, that it sent a tremor through your body. The words were laced with desperation, with a longing that twisted your insides. The space between you both seemed to close in, the air thick with something you couldn’t name, something that held you in place even as every part of you wanted to move, wanted to give in to the urge to stay. But you couldn’t. You knew you couldn’t.

Your resolve wavered, just for a moment, the invisible force between you so strong that it almost overwhelmed you. The connection, the history, the intimacy you had shared—it all came rushing back in a tidal wave. You had spent so much time memorizing him, every detail of him—the sharp cut of his jaw, the way his dark brown eyes would soften when he was being serious, the fullness of his lips when he would smile, the way his gaze would darken when he was thinking. You had cataloged every inch of him, every moment, and now, standing here, you could feel yourself pulling toward him, the magnetism of his presence impossible to resist.

But you had to resist. You had to.

You let out a shaky breath, forcing yourself to shake your head, to put distance between you that neither of you seemed willing to close. “You deserve someone who can meet you where you are” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, cracking under the weight of the words. “And I deserve to be the person I’m meant to be” Saying it out loud felt like ripping off a bandage, but there was no other choice.

Levi’s jaw tightened, his features hardening for a brief moment, and you saw the way his grip on your wrist loosened, just enough to let you go. But he didn’t fully release you. His fingers lingered, brushing the inside of your wrist, his thumb gliding slowly, almost absent-mindedly, over the sensitive skin of your palm. It was a touch that spoke louder than words—muscle memory, something deep inside him that couldn’t stop himself from reaching for you, even now, even when he knew it was too late. The slow, absent-minded stroke was like a quiet confession in itself, a final, fleeting reminder of everything you had been. The air between you was heavy with unspoken longing, and for a moment, you weren’t sure if you could walk away.

The silence between you stretched, thick with longing, saturated with the ghosts of things left unsaid, the weight of your shared history hanging in the air like a heavy, fragile thread. Neither of you moved, each of you caught in the stillness, knowing that one of you had to make the first move, but neither of you ready to do it. The tension was unbearable, thick enough to suffocate you, but at the same time, it was the one thing that kept you anchored to this moment, to him.

Then, as though drawn by the same invisible force that had kept you tethered here, Levi moved. Slowly, he stood, rising to his full height, his presence swallowing the space between you, commanding attention in the quiet room. He was so close that the air between you seemed to shimmer with the pull of his gravity. The scent of his cologne, warm and familiar, still clung to his skin, wrapping around you like a memory, like something that had always been a part of you. It was the kind of scent that felt like home—deep, comforting, with an edge of something sharper, more complex. The kind of scent you’d never forget.

Your breath hitched as he lifted his hand toward you, his fingers brushing against your cheek in the lightest, most delicate touch. It sent a shiver racing down your spine, a tingling warmth spreading from the point of contact, spreading like fire across your skin. Your heart thudded loudly in your chest, each beat sounding like a drum, a rhythm you couldn’t escape. His gaze was heavy, searching, as if he was trying to memorize every detail of you, every curve of your face, every line of your body, as if he were trying to hold on to something that was slipping through his fingers. His eyes traced the shape of your lips, lingering there for a moment too long, and you could feel the tension building between you, the magnetic pull that had always existed.

You barely realized you were swaying toward him, your body betraying you, moving on its own, as if it knew something your mind was too afraid to admit. Your fingers twitched, curling into the fabric of his shirt as if you could hold him in place, as if you could stop time, stop yourself from walking away. His nose brushed against yours, the touch so featherlight that it felt like it was the only thing keeping you grounded, the only thing tethering you to reality. His breath hitched, and you felt it—felt the hesitation, the way he was fighting the urge to lean in, to close the space between you. There was an undeniable pull, something so raw, so desperate that it nearly consumed you both. But then, in that suspended moment, you realized that all it would take was the slightest tilt of your chin, the faintest movement of your lips, and you would be kissing him. You would be tangled in the softness of his lips, in the warmth of his touch, and you weren’t sure if you could walk away from that.

But then, just as suddenly, reality came crashing down. It was sharp, unforgiving, and harsh in its clarity. The weight of your decision pressed down on you, cutting through the longing, through the desire, through the history that held you together like chains. You exhaled sharply, forcing yourself to pull away before you could cross that line, before you could do something you would never be able to undo. You couldn’t give in. Not like this.

Levi’s eyes flickered, and in that brief moment, you saw everything—the pain, the understanding, the frustration—tangled together in a storm that you couldn’t fight. He dropped his hand from your cheek, fingers flexing at his sides like he was struggling to let you go. His eyes held yours, unblinking, his gaze unreadable, but there was something in it. Something raw, something almost desperate. A quiet plea for you to stay, even though you both knew you couldn’t.

Your throat tightened, a lump forming that made it impossible to speak. But somehow, you managed to get the words out, your voice trembling as you said, “Goodbye Levi” It felt like the hardest thing you’d ever said, like each letter was a weight that you couldn’t carry.

His jaw clenched at the words, his lips pressing into a thin line, his whole body stiffening with emotion. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t say anything. He just held your gaze, something unreadable swimming in his dark eyes, something that you couldn’t quite place but felt deep in your bones. And then, after a long moment, he gave you the smallest nod. It was almost imperceptible, a subtle movement that meant everything. An unspoken okay, a silent acceptance of the decision you’d made, even if it hurt him. Even if it killed him.

You turned away before you could change your mind, before the pull of his gaze could drag you back to him. Your steps were slow, each one feeling heavier than the last as you moved toward the door. The weight of your decision was starting to settle in, pressing down on you, making every movement feel like it was taking everything you had left. Your fingers trembled slightly as you reached for the door handle, the cool metal grounding you, reminding you that this was real, that this was happening. Your heart was racing, but it wasn’t relief. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But there was something else—a strange, unsettling sense of lightness.

It wasn’t the freedom you had imagined, but there was something freeing in knowing that love, even the deepest kind, didn’t always have to end in ruin. Sometimes, love meant knowing when to let go, when to walk away, even when every part of you screamed to stay.

As you stepped out into the cool evening air, the London cityscape stretching out before you, the soft hum of the city blending with the rhythm of your heart, you felt it. You couldn’t explain it, but you swore you could feel them—the wings, unfolding, lifting you, carrying you toward something new, something different. Pretty wings, light and delicate, but strong enough to carry you away from this moment, this love, and toward the future waiting for you.

[rynnthefangirl]

I loved the list you made about the things that Stan and Ford can and should or can't and should not be accountable but like there are somethings I don't get and I hope you could help me see things from your perspective. Like, the majority of people agrees that Ford has the right to hold a grudge at Stan for him breaking his machine since he did not apologize to Ford and time is not an apology. Ford also thought that Stan would be fine on his own and that was the reason he never checked on him. Also, Bill is a master manipulator, so Ford believing in him is more about Bill being good at manipulating people than Ford's ego.

I also think you forget to add some things, like, Ford didn't explained to Stan the situation that he was in, he just shoved the Journal 1 on him and ordered him to hide it without even saying if he would contact him to come back or not. He also brought up their childhood dream while doing that and later said to Stan that did nothing worthwhile with his life until that moment. And he also burned and branded Stan. While Stan called Ford selfish for not using his grant money to help their family and later tried to burn Journal 1 out of spite. He also messed up with Ford's infinity sided dice, which put him and Dipper in danger.

Thanks for the ask!

Regarding Ford not checking on Stan, I think you are correct that he figured Stan would be fine… but I also think that Ford believed this at least in part because he doesn’t want contend with his mixed feelings about his brother. He just wants to feel justifiably angry, so that he can forget about Stan and focus on himself and his future. Knowing that Stan was suffering would force him to confront how he does still love and miss his brother (but his aim is getting better), which would burden him and put him in a position of having to choose whether to make a sacrifice (whether it be time, money, emotional effort, part of his career goals) for Stan’s sake. Which he doesn’t want to do. Ford isn’t a bad guy, and he does love his brother… but he is really good at believing things just because he wants to believe them. I don’t think this is a reasonable view of reality though. Stan was kicked out at 18, with no money to his name, no friends, no family, no home. Ford should have considered the possibility that Stan may be suffering and need him. I certainly don’t blame him for being upset with Stan about the project or even necessarily for holding a grudge about it (especially given how terribly Stan handled that confrontation), but we know Ford cares for his brother despite that, and he doesn’t really show it when he chooses to never check on him for 10 years.

As for Bill and Ford, well I think it’s both Bill’s manipulation AND Ford’s ego. Like yes Bill was a good manipulator, but it worked because there was something for him to target. Ford was so desperate to believe he was special and important, which goes back to Ford being really good at believing things that aren’t actually reasonable just because he wants them to be true. I’ll link a more in depth post that I made that is kinda on this same topic, if you are interested :)

Then for the other points you bring up, you are right that both of them did a lot to escalate that situation into a fight. I will admit I am extremely lenient towards Ford in this situation because he was in the middle of a mental breakdown. I mean he’s been essentially tortured for days on end, I don’t blame him for being a bit thoughtless. I think the onus was on Stan to see that and realize he needs to be the bigger person in that moment. As for the infinity sided dice though, gotta disagree about that being on Stan… who puts an incredibly dangerous object like that in a cheap plastic case in a little sack? 😂 but to be fair, that dumb choice was more just for plot purposes so the episode can happen.

Here’s a link to the post I mentioned:

And thanks again for the ask, I love the Stan twins and talking about their relationship!

[puhpandas]

R.I.C.E

(3,837 words)

Hadi and Cyril walk in on Greg's Dad grabbing him just a bit too harshly. They help him treat the bruise.

warning for bruises, child abuse, mentions of death and corpses, blood, & decapitation. if u read the book ur probably fine but better safe than sorry

"I think I flunked the test."

Hadi glances over Cyrils hair to look at Greg. "What makes you say that?"

"Because I didnt understand the majority of the questions on the sheet." Greg says, rubbing his eyes with the balls of his hands. "Half of it I didnt even recognize."

Hadi just furrows his brows. "Is it because of..." He trails off.

"Yeah." Greg confirms what Hadi had been thinking. "It's gotten worse, I think. But..." He sighs. "I don't know."

Hadi and Cyril stop on the sidewalk they'd been walking on to get to Greg's house, and Greg instinctively pauses as well.

"Nothing you've tried to help has worked?" Cyril asks.

"No... well, I don't know. I havent really tried anything." Greg says, running the hand that's not holding on to his backpack through his hair.

"You need to try to find something online tonight, dude." Hadi suggests. "Try anything. If it works, it works. If it doesnt, then no harm done."

Greg supposes Hadi's words ring true, but he still frowns.

What is he supposed to do, anyway? He's pretty sure remembering something bad that happened to you is something everybody goes through. Besides, even if he did try to search for a solution online, what is he supposed to search?

'How to stop remembering how an evil dog that loved you too much killed your crush, bit off your uncles finger, and killed his neighbors dog and delivered their corpses to your front door in class so you can focus and stop flunking'

Yeah. It sounds as crazy as he thought it would. Another thing hes sure of is that what he went through wasn't normal. And normal problems don't have normal solutions that you can find on Google.

"I'll try." He says anyway, because at this point, he's willing to try anything.

It's not that he's not smart enough. He's had good grades all of his life. He likes science, and with science comes math, and like his friends and the other kids always like to say, if you actually like math, then you're a nerd. And if you're a nerd, then you're really smart.

It rings true, he guesses. But that's not what's holding him back, anyway. It truly is just that he doesnt know. If you asked him, Greg couldn't tell you what was taught in any of his classes yesterday. Or today, for that matter.

He can't stop seeing visions of the bloody, beige sheet sitting in front of his bathroom door, or the neighbors dogs organs spilling out onto his front porch beneath his eyelids in the middle of class. And with that comes missing every single word said by his teacher as he desperately tries to send the memories away.

It's taking its toll. The fact that it happened at all is already bad enough, the fact that his failure is always plastered against every wall of his mind, pushing through every thought to remind him of the dog, finger, or person he couldn't save...

Kimberly's parents moved away. His neighbor got a new dog. A cute, fluffy brown dog that reminds him too much of him. Uncle Dare still talks about 'The Magic Finger Of Luck', and Greg still desperately tries to shove away the memories before they creep back up on him every time he does.

Hadi and Cyril are the only other people that know, and they try their best to help him, even though they didnt see what he saw.

"Let's go." Cyrils voice rips Greg out of his thoughts. "Let's get to your house so we can help you study."

Greg rubs his eyes again, but he's thankful that his friends are willing to help him get caught up so he doesn't get into even more trouble.

"Okay." He says, and it's not long before they get to Gregs house.

Greg tries not to look down when he steps onto the walkway leading to his front door, and eventually his 'welcome friends' mat, and just uses his keys to unlock the door.

The car in the driveway goes unnoticed as Greg steps into the house, Hadi and Cyril caught up in some hushed discussion behind him, but he pays it no mind, just kicking off his shoes and slinging his backpack off of his shoulder to bring it to his room upstairs.

He gasps harshly when a hand suddenly grabs at him, fingers curling around his forearm tightly.

He tugs on instinct, and he can hear Hadi and Cyril have gone silent behind him.

The hand tugs back. Greg finally forces his head to swivel to see who the culprit is.

His Dad stares back at him, something angry in his eyes with a sneer on his face.

Greg immediately knows what's going on.

His Dad doesn't usually bother him, only when he does something he doesn't like, or... sometimes what he doesn't do.

But Greg was sent to the principal's office today because of how much his once perfect school performance had plummeted in such a short amount of time, and...

Crap. Why did he not realize this sooner?

He glances back to the front door, where Hadi and Cyril hang back, a confused expression on their faces as they duck behind the frame of the doorway.

He almost curses. That's not good. He doesn't want his friends too see this. He doesn't want them to know. Not yet at least.

He would be worried that his Dad would be mad he isn't gracing him with eye contact, but he hasn't respected his Dad enough to look him in the eye in years.

He would be an idiot to not expect this from him by now.

The iron grip on his arm squeezes a bit tighter, and Greg instinctively wraps a hand around the free part of his wrist, a grimace twisting on his face.

"The school called today." His Dad says, confirming exactly what Greg assumed. He looks down at him with slitted eyes, his gaze cold and angry. "They say that you've been slacking in class, son."

Greg doesn't say anything. Just stares at the ground besides his arm. What is he supposed to say, really? 'Sorry, Dad. I've been slacking because I can't stop being haunted by the evil robot dog that killed Kimberly and ate Dare's finger, so I can never pay attention.'

He thinks his Dad would lose even more respect for him, but realistically, Greg knows that isnt possible.

Dad grips his arm even tighter, his nails digging into Greg's skin, and Greg cant bite down the grimace that stretches across his face.

"Nothing to say to that, huh?" His Dad taunts.

Suddenly, Greg's arm is tugged harshly, and he has to try really hard to not stumble and fall to the ground as his Dad yanks him forward.

"I will not have a deadbeat delinquent for a son." Dad whispers harshly into Greg's ear. Greg furrows his brows and tugs on his arm instinctively as his back twinges, but all he gets from it is another tug from a titanium hold.

"You will fix your grades, and your mistakes." His Dad tells him, hes not asking. He's ordering him. Telling Greg what to do so confidently, because he knows Greg will always do what he says, no matter how much it makes Greg bristle for acting like an obedient dog.

(Not a dog. Never a dog.)

His Dads hot breath is harsh on his face, and Greg makes a face when he starts speaking again.

"Maybe then you'll be good for something."

Gregs Dad gives his arm one last agonizing squeeze that almost makes Greg cry out from the pain. He can feel something give, or twist, or something from his Dad's white knuckled grip, but then, he finally releases him, sending Greg stumbling for footing.

It's only after hes gathered purchase that he becomes painfully aware of his arm. Its pulsing, each wave sending an electrifying ache of pain down his forearm, and he can feel some stinging from where his Dads fingernails no doubt broke some skin.

Greg peeks at his Dad through his curtain of blond wavy bangs, and doesn't even bother trying to hide the way he grits his teeth when his Dad is staring at him with the same look Greg is so used to.

Disappointment, indifference, and a third thing Greg could never put his finger on, but he's pretty sure is hatred.

Greg should be used to this by now. He is used to it. The way his Dad has never celebrated anything Greg has ever done, and the way his Dad has always told him he'll never be good enough.

Just like the other times, he scolds himself for the way his chest tightens and hurt stabs at his heart.

He's used to it. Has been for years now.

So why does he still let it get to him?

Hadi and Cyril apparently decided now was the right time to walk in. They step next to Greg, Cyril hovering, not too confident in the same presence as Greg's father, but Hadi puts a steadying hand on Greg's shoulder. Comforting, and in solidarity. Its almost like it tells him I'm on your side.

Nothing like the white knuckled grips of his Dad after he had a bad report card, or he got in trouble with the neighbors, or Greg would watch documentaries a little too loud up in his room and disturb his Dads work.

"Hello, Mr. Smith." Hadi says, his tone cold and accusing. "We just came to help Greg study."

Greg almost bristles at Hadi's confidence, at his bravery, but Greg gets one look at his Dad, who's staring at Hadi and Cyril with something Greg has only seen on his Dads face a few times.

Fear.

His Dads never been caught by anyone but his Mom before.

Hadi and Cyril don't hang around for his Dad to come up with an excuse. For him to try his hardest to erase what Hadi and Cyril weren't supposed to see from their minds. They push Greg up the stairs, and even when they're almost all the way up, where the light doesn't hit, he doesnt need to see. He can feel his friends concerned eyes on his back.

He ignores the familiar twinge in his gut and the ache of his heart as Hadi and Cyril follow him into his room, where he collapses onto his bed as soon as it's in sight.

Theres a stretch of silence after Cyril shuts and locks the door. Nobody says anything, and Greg is thankful. He's not ready for his friends inevitable concerned questions.

He never even wanted them to know up until recently, after... you know. When he stopped wanting to hide things from his friends. It isn't a big deal, really. His Dad is nothing he can't handle, if the fact that he knows how to use makeup to cover bruises and knows how to make them stop hurting is any indication.

But his father already looks at him with pity enough, like he's a small, pathetic bug that will never be enough to achieve greatness. Even though it wouldn't be the same, he doesn't want his friends to look at him the same way.

Theres another beat of silence as Greg just lies on his bed, his good arm slung over his eyes as he wills himself to stop feeling like crap.

The silence is broken by Cyril.

"...You never told us your Dad was..." He trails off.

"Like that." Hadi finishes. Greg finally let's his arm slide off of his face to sit up to face his friends. It's a little difficult with his still throbbing, sore arm, but he manages.

"How long has this been going on? How long have we not known?" Hadi asks, and he moves from his spot in the middle of Greg's room to step up to the bed, looking Greg straight in the eyes. "We could have helped."

Greg doesn't say anything, just heaves out a sigh as his body deflates a bit, but he tenses right back up at Cyrils next words.

"W-We need to tell somebody." He says, brows furrowed and eyes darting to the door like Greg's Dad will suddenly decide to mow it down to murder them all. "I mean... right?"

"No!" Greg springs up, eyes wide as he holds a hand out to Cyril. He doesn't mean to sound so desperate, but he does. "Just... no."

"Why?" Hadi asks, and Greg turns to look at him again. "He hurt you, Greg. And this isn't like last time, where nobody would believe us if we told somebody."

Greg knows exactly what 'last time' Hadi is talking about. Last time, Greg had to lie to the polices face about Kimberly's death, because if he had told the truth, he would surely be somewhere else entirely right now.

He shakes the thoughts away. "No, Hadi. It'll just make things worse."

Hadi doesn't look convinced, just staring at him with almost smothering concern, and Cyril still looks on edge, more scared than Greg himself, even though Greg was the target of his Dads aggression.

"Its nothing I can't handle." Greg insists, offering his friends a smile. "My arm isn't that bad." He holds out the arm in question to show them it's fine, but he can't stop the way his brows pinch when another wave of soreness washes over his arm when the skin stretches.

Hadis eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "Your arm!" He exclaims, and dives for Greg's arm so fast hes afraid he'll grab ahold of it like his Dad did, but he slows down at the last second, instead taking it and holding it gingerly in his hands.

Greg's brain takes an embarrassing amount of time to catch up while Hadi rolls up his jacket sleeve, sucking in a harsh breath when the place his Dad grabbed becomes visible.

Greg himself finally takes a look, and he too gasps at the sight.

It's worse than he thought. Theres a nasty, swelled up imprint on his arm in the shape of a hand, fingerprints curled around his forearm like a snake coiled around and squeezed. The area is a nauseating reddish-purple with flecks of blue and green, with the area underneath having red, inflamed, crescent shaped punctures with a small bit of dried blood around the edges.

Greg's mouth twists into a grimace, and although he himself isnt too worried about it, Hadi looks like somebody just died right in front of him.

Cyril squeaks when a door slams below them, muffled and faraway, and Greg can see him slightly relax when they all come to the conclusion that Greg's Dad just left the house.

Hadi startles when he remembers what's really important.

"Come on." He says quietly, because he's mildly horrified or because he wants to be comforting, Greg doesnt know. But he appreciates it all the same. "Let's go fix your arm up."

Greg just nods. He's gonna have to fix it up at some point, anyway. And probably cover it up with some of his Mom's makeup before school tomorrow, but if helping Greg bandage his arm is what makes his friends feel better, Greg isnt going to complain.

Hadi doesn't let go of his loose grip on Greg's wrist, just below his bruise, instead, he just leads him to the door, unlocking it with a soft click.

"We have to ice it, first." Greg says, and he tries to ignore the heat on his face when Hadi doesn't let go even when they're out the door. "There's some zip-locks in the drawer we can put some ice in."

Hadi and Cyril both look a little sad at the fact that Greg knows the steps, but they nod nonetheless.

"Okay." Hadi pauses. "I'll go get that, and you go sit in your room while Cyril finds some bandages."

Cyril nods at the task given to him (Not a task. Never a task.), while Greg sputters.

"My legs arent the thing that's bruised, you know." Greg says. "And I still have a good arm."

"You're hurt." Is all Hadi says, pausing at the mouth of the stairs while Cyril heads down to find bandages. "Just let us help you, dude."

Greg bites the inside of his cheek, but relents. "Okay."

Hadi smiles at him before heading downstairs, and Greg averts his eyes before he can stare for too long.

He heads back to his room and waits on his bed, resting his arm on a throw pillow, and he's only been waiting for a few minutes when Hadi and Cyril come back through the door.

Hadi shuts the door behind him when they both enter the room, Cyril setting down a roll of bandages next to the throw pillow. Hadi walks over to where Greg is sitting on the bed and holds the ice pack over Greg's arm, hovering.

"You ready?" Hadi asks him.

Greg's shoulders loosen a bit at Hadis soft words, even though he didnt realize he was tense at all. "Ready."

Hadi doesn't beat around the bush any longer. He sets the ice pack on the nasty, purple area on Greg's arm and holds it there.

Greg would be lying if he said he didnt wince at the pain that was sent through his arm like an electric current at the ice packs pressure, but he bites down any other sign of being uncomfortable, and when Hadi and Cyril look at him with concern, he just smiles for them.

He doesn't want them to worry. He really is alright, after all.

"So... how long do we keep it on for?" Cyril asks.

"Twenty minutes on and off." Greg says. "That's what Google says."

Hadi and Cyril just make that sad face again, and Greg resists the urge to comment on it.

They're just worried. He has no reason to get angry at them for that. He can ignore his self pity, he just want to appreciate that his friends care this much.

The forty minutes go by fast, the only buffer being taking the ice pack off after twenty. Its been silent most of the time. They're all just... thinking, he supposes. Nobodys really in the mood to joke around after what had happened.

"I'm going to get rid of this." Cyril says, holding up the homemade ice pack that's just a bag of lukewarm water at this point. "I'll be right back."

Greg and Hadi both nod, both knowing that Cyril is just using the ice pack as an excuse so he doesnt need to be there for when the bruise is uncovered for the world to see.

He's always been a bit squeamish.

Cyril heads downstairs, and this time, Hadi doesn't ask. He just waits for Greg to offer his arm out and begins bandaging.

Theres a stretch of silence as Greg just watches Hadi hold Greg's arm delicately, like its porcelain glass, and wrap it with the fresh white bandages. But eventually, the silence is broken.

"Why do you not want to tell anybody?" Hadi asks out of the blue. Greg startles, glancing up at Hadi when he pauses bandaging for a moment. "Your Dad. He hurt you."

"I know." Greg says, staring at his lap. "It wouldn't solve anything."

"How?" Hadi asks incredulously. He continues bandaging, and when he wraps a little too harshly, at Greg's wince, his eyes soften and he takes a deep breath, slowing down. "I mean... people could help you."

"You're helping me. And Cyril." Greg smiles, but it's gone as quick as it came. "It would be more trouble than it's worth. I can handle a few bruises," He gestures to his arm with his good hand. "And..."

He trails off. Hadi slows down with wrapping, just looking at him questioningly. "What kind of trouble?"

"...Money." Greg says simply. "And my Mom. If my Dad were to be separated from us, well... he's our main source of income, and me and my Mom would probably have to move, and that means leaving you guys."

Hadi is silent, just tucking the end of the bandage underneath the surface layer to hold the bandage in place.

"Its too many things that would go wrong." Greg says, flexing his newly bandaged forearm, then letting it drop.

"...I dont know if I could stand being away from you guys." Greg confesses, staring at his lap with furrowed brows and playing with the hem of his jacket. "I mean... after what happened with Kimberly, and-- and--"

"I get it." Hadi interrupts, and Greg is silently thankful. He doesn't look up to meet Hadi's eyes, not until Hadi takes the hand of his injured arm and laces their fingers together.

Greg whips his head up so fast it could be equal to the speed of light, and Hadi laughs at him.

"I won't tell." Hadi promises, finally meeting Greg's eyes. They're a deep, almost royal blue, not too different from Greg's own, and he has to fight to not look away. "I promise. I'll tell Cyril too."

Greg can feel a weight be taken off of his shoulders when a burden he didn't even realise he was carrying is lifted away. "Thank you."

Hadi doesn't speak for a moment, just staring at Greg's comforter, but then, he shifts, and Greg is immediately made hyper aware again of his own hand interlocked with Hadis.

"But you have to promise you'll let us help. Dont hide from us," Hadi says, squeezing Greg's hand to make him look him in the eye. "okay?"

"Okay." Greg promises. And he really means it, too. It's nice to finally not have to hide things from his friends anymore. Especially after... him, Greg doesn't want him and his friends to be strangers towards eachother.

They went through that together. They were his only allies. Even if Greg was really the only one truly involved, that just makes his friends sticking by him that much more meaningful.

He doesn't want to hide things from them anymore. Maybe this wasn't exactly the way Greg wanted them to find out about his Dad, but it's done now, and Hadi and Cyril had done everything they could to make him feel safe and comfortable.

Hadi is still staring at him, and when Greg catches a glimpse of his face, partially obscured by his mop of wavy blond hair in his mirror, he can see pink dusting his cheeks.

Cyril suddenly peeks into the room from the doorway.

"...Are you done yet?" Cyril asks. He seems to have come to the conclusion that neither Greg nor Hadi were fooled by his excuses and gives up with the charade.

Hadi slips his hand out of Greg's, but it's okay. They both just look at eachother and laugh.

Cyril steps into the room and says something, but Greg doesn't hear it.

He'll be fine. He has Hadi and Cyril.

He'll be okay.

ao3 link

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[murkying]

redstone supervisor