#the perils of getting old
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I basically never participate in munday, but my daughter has taken to carrying around an old, dog-eared photograph of me and my husband. So here you go, Puffin c. 2007:
#we are babies 😭#anyway! i thought i'd be on last night but i crashed and fell asleep early#the perils of getting old#i'm here to make mischief today though#i'll be focusing on threads rather than dms or asks#might try to catch up with some ooc stuff tonight#i'll also be clearing out my follower list#that'll include folks who haven't shown much interest in interacting#or who i don't feel gel well with me and my gaggle of characters#it's nothing personal#anyway i hope you all have a good day and aren't feeling the monday blues ♡#◈ — ooc; puffin speaks
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hurt my heart why dontcha.
#adventure time#fionna and cake#fionna and cake spoilers#simon petrikov#BMO#this is seriously fucked up u cant do this to me im so sadSNSSN#IMAGINE BEING BMO#just one day finn and jake say they'll brb and they're going on a important mission...#and BMO after this and them being gone for awhile just see's the world go into peril#death everywhere. no sign of his friends expect remnant's of the past..#and the only survivor is them...#no other's expect the thing who released hell upon this once lively and colorful world in the first place.#and BMO just accept's this...tells themselves that they're still around...cosplay's as they're old friend's...this is fucked up#in the current timeline all his friend's are gone to natural circumstances.#but for this one? it was too early. too sudden. atleast in this one BMO will remember they're name's but...man.#this poor lil robo cant get a BREAK.#AND THEY FUCKING DIE IN SACRIFICE AT THE END TOO SHUTUPPPDPDPDPD#and the fact BMO also consider's “jerry” a friend...not knowing...that the same person caused all this.#this is...SO FUCKED UP#WHY MUST THE SHOW WRITERS DO THIS TO MY HEART.
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So there's this burden of perspective that the Bad Kids struggle with and it's definitely because they live in a genre where nearly all the adults in their lives -- especially at their special school -- are failing them. They have to or there is no plot but the farther I get from high school and college, the more I want to shake teenage and younger protagonists and just go:
None of this shit fucking matters. It is not your job to save the world all the fucking time. Please just phone a fucking adult who loves you.
But again, not the point of the story.
However, the Bad Kids are stuck. They've been stuck saving large groups of people since their freshman year of high school. Fighting Kalvaxisis should not have been their responsibility and yet...
Retrieving the crown of the Nightmare King should not have been their responsibility and yet...
Now they are doing what teenagers are supposed to do -- throwing a stupid, dangerous party -- and then something weird starts going on with a goddess and because they know that adults are unreliable, looking at you, Arthur, large amounts of people are in danger, if they don't act, probably no one will.
And it just isn't fucking fair.
And yet this group of mushroom stompers practically have the same skills and abilities as they do, but they gained them safely, under adult supervision, without incurring near the amount of trauma, and their Completed Rogue Junior Year On A Technicality teammate has the audacity to say groups like the Bad Kids (and probably the Seven if we're being honest) get special treatment?
My head would explode, too.
But I'm glad Sandra Lynn pointed out that high school doesn't really matter. Because it doesn't.
#fantasy high junior year#fhjy spoilers#dimension 20#dimension 20 spoilers#this is how i meta#i'm just old enough and my high school situation was just weird enough#that there was exactly one university i was allowed to apply to#so the stress in this season makes sense to me#but i also had a reason to do well#and GET OUT#i wish we could have explored more with cassandra before putting her in peril#i thought she was such a cool goddess during season two
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what if we don't see our eggs come back but in a day the new players get a message- you're being assigned a partner. go to the adoption centre. and they go and there are eggs but none of them are oeufs we know- pomme, dapper, richas, leo- they're gone. there are new players, now. and so there must be new eggs.
#qsmp#i am in PERIL#what if there's more eggs and its not our eggs but they're played by the same admins and we have to just sit there knowing that as long#as these eggs live we physically Cannot get our old eggs back#i miss them already i miss them
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big shoutout to headphones for hiding how many times i listen to the same song in a row and making me seem a lot more sane
#one idiot's journey#the grocery delivery guy arrived during roller disco playlist time and seemed pretty delighted by it#im perilously close to getting ye olde timey stereo with a turntable tbh
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eldest brother five got me gnashing my teeth like a dog
#𝐢⠀:⠀𝚘𝚘𝚌. . .⠀⠀drive a ship i cannot steer.#don't even care if it's ooc once all the apocalypse timeline bs is over he will re-adopt all six of his siblings as a 13 year old ass man#he Does Not Care he missed out on so much already#he didn't get to see any of them grow up.... he just got adult corpses and adults in life-threatening peril constantly#like nothing had even changed like they were still kids living under something greater's thumb#[<- sweating blood]
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Ok so a long while back I had a story with a trio of main characters who each represented a core aspect of the world they were trying to protect: the natural, the technological, and the magical (a human, a sentient AI, and a shapeshifter witch)
and then a few years later I made a sequel to it with a new trio and somehow by complete accident made them represent the same things as the first trio except this time combined with elements of another aspect (a human who finds out he's more magical than he expected (he's a demigod), a shapeshifter being who relies on tech for communication and accessibility (he can only turn into a few things and none of them are very expressive or mobile), and a sentient android that looks so human almost nobody can tell he's not (even his best friends))
and the whole point of the first story was those initial three protecting their world from people who wanted to separate or eliminate one of the three elements (trying to get rid of magic and technology altogether), and the reason why i wrote the second story was to write something a few decades into the future showing the impact those first characters had in bringing those elements together. and i accidentally put the perfect themes into the new main trio
#we've also introjected both of these trios!#the entire reason their themes were an accident is bc both of these stories started out as FANFICTION#but i got so obsessed with it i was like 'im making this au into its own thing' so now it's original#completely forgot about this but one of the original trio is actually also a fanfic character LMAO#i just picked him up out of his au and put him in a new world that fit him better and he is no longer an au of that guy#these are the guys from Mara aka one of the biggest worlds we have in headspace/paracosm#most of them are superheroes or similar professions#and then we have a threequel which is another au we're still working on making original but that one's more complicated and different#it's two superhero factions fighting over who gets to have control over a big city#the first one is called Nightfall- i have a giant playlist for it on spotify that i think i made on youtube as well#and it's a faction of the first superheroes ever trying to unravel a missing persons case and fight an anti-magic-and-tech mafia#and then Daybreak (also with a playlist) takes place 30 years later when superheroes are more common and no longer government controlled#and it's three teens who turn 18 and find out the building they live in is the base for a superhero agency#they live there bc their family members are superheroes (but they had no idea)#and they get recruited when they're old enough and get thrown into solving a murder case (that's a bit too close to home)#the third one is Eclipse and it's the two factions fighting over their city (no playlist yet I'm lazy) this one is more fun drama#i also have one brewing in the background of our brain that could be like. a more younger demographic spinoff#of a group of kids whose parents are heroes so they all do hero stuff too (in secret!) but like. kid hero stuff. no real peril here#we've been writing this world for like 8 years now we're Obsessed with it#it's one of the few paracosm storylines we actually plan to properly publish someday
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nothing makes me feel like more of a stalker than scrounging the internet for new Laura Berlin pics for Imogen refs….
#it would be helpful if I had access to like the other 90% of her filmography#the perils of having an international faceclaim#listen I’ll never get sick of her face but the handful of photos I have in constant rotation is getting a little bit old
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Why is there no Cable tentacle fic in this world?
enamoured by the way this is phrased, as if you're messaging from a world where cable getting his holes plugged with tentacles is a common story plot.
#but also yeah i agree where's the bound in peril content for krakoa's old man cocksucker#where is cable getting trussed up by vines and also where is cable's sentient living metal getting deep in frank's guts
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I need old ex mutuals to stop overlapping into my new mutual circles
#THEYRE NOT EVEN FROM THE PEOPME FROM THE OLD CIRCLES THAT IM STILL WITH#LIKE. I BEFRIEND NEW COMPLETLEY UNRELATED PEOPLE#THEN SOMEONE I GOT BEEF WITH COMES OUT OF THE WOODWORKS A FEW MONTHS LATER AND STARTS MAKING THEMSELF AT HOME#like dude I cannot stand your bitchy ass get the fuck away from me#this is how i keep getting chased away from mutuals#the perils of liking animedia i guess#although these fandoms are so massive idk HOW THIS KEEPS HAPPENING
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I am so sorry, but I have to rant a little bit.
.
To put in a bold disclaimer, this isn't going after those who have a certain way of viewing Giorno whether he be Jonathan 2.0 or Dio 2.0. People are going to have different viewpoints and that is perfectly okay by me.
.
I've seen more posts complain about Giorno getting turned into Jonathan 2.0, which is a somewhat justified take to have. But I don't think I've seen as many people complain of Giorno being turned into Dio 2.0.
But doesn't Giorno getting turned into Dio 2.0 also a disservice? I don't see as many posts complain about Giorno getting turned into a carbon, younger copy of Dio 2.0.
Giorno is supposed to be an anti-hero, the traits that come from Dio, yes. But he also has his good, heroic side from Jonathan as well.
And to see posts lambast just one aspect of flanderization concerning the good side of Giorno while seemingly ignoring the other aspect of flanderizing the bad side of Giorno is baffling to say the least.
#jojo kimyou na bouken#jojo no kimyō na bōken#jojo's bizarre adventure#jojo bizarre adventure#jjba part 5#jojo part 5#jjba pt 5#jojo pt 5#vento aureo#golden wind#giorno giovanna#i get that giorno is not supposed to be a uwu soft boy#but he is still a decent person despite being in the mafia#or are we forgetting how he railed against polpo for killing an innocent old man#or how he went after cioccolata due to cioccolata being a monster#or how he went after the boss for putting innocent people in peril due to drugs#or how his overall goal was to make Italy a better place for the innocente people?#he's ruthless#but he's also kind#he would be cordial and polite to an innocent person before beating the tar out of a ruthless monster like cioccolata#let him be a good boy who kills to protect others
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aughhhhh i wish i had books 2 read i wanna read books so bad rn 🤓 <- i look like this. 2 pictures of me 👇
#IM SO CRAZYYYY its whatever. im half done with listening 2 ersatz elevator .. 7 more left.. ill prolly finish ersatz elevator tmrw innit. n#Probably i will finish vile village as well and potentially get started on . its hostile hospital after vile village roght.... i feel so#fakee im sry 9 year old me#bc let me think with my head im almost positive carnivorous carnival is the 10th. YES IT IS bc theyre on the mountain from. oh lord no wait#its all so evil let me check. bc theres 7 left#ok my prediction is. 7. vile village 8. hostile hospital 9. carnivorous carnival? might be switched with prev 10. slippery slope#11 grim grotto 12 penultimate peril 13 the end.#im pretty much positive on the last 3. now i check and kamille screams at me in my head Sorry girl.#> me being entirely fucking right im literally like god if he was autistic and haunted#sooo let me do some math rqq... the last few books r likee 4 hours each i think. and i work 8 hours a day 5 days a week...#ive done the math and its sort of dire it appears ill probably finish either thursday or early friday. what on earth will i listen to after#that.... sigh. oh well... + tbh i dont just wanna do audiobooks even tho im excited for the last half of asoue bc i dont rememberit as much#well. clearly i do idk if you recall but i just named the last 7 books in perfect order. but anyways. im excited but also Lorddd i forgot#that i love irl real life readingg 😭😭#i might say fuck it and read the 3rd miss peregrines on internet archive. miserable .. i want to have it irl but you know.#n then i can go ahead n put the last 3 books on hold Rn so i can read those next week#AND ill put 2001 on hold too bc im sososososo excited abt it :]]]]
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Who’s Your Daddy?
Pairing: Stepdad!Joel x Reader
Summary: You get stuck in the washing machine. Thankfully, your stepdad is around to help you out.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected piv. Deadbeat-Perv-Peepaw LOVES corny porn tropes and women over half his age. Stepcest & dubcon technically bc Reader’s locked inside an appliance, but she’s into it (getting fucked, not stuck). One (1) kick in the dick. Spanking. Brat-taming. Choking. Daddy issues. Size kink. Praise kink. Infidelity. Creampie.
Note: Saw this post by @ovaryacted and started BARKING. For my Old Man lovers/daddy issues crew, this one’s for you.
Word count: 8.3k
It was the closest thing to porn you’d ever done before.
Still, you weren’t quite ready to call it that.
And why should you? Financial straits were no anomaly to a girl your age, especially in this economy, and almost everyone you knew had a side gig of some kind. It just so happened that your job required slightly skimpier attire. And a webcam. And some very special…accessories that would likely send your grandmother into cardiac arrest if she ever took a peek inside your bottom dresser drawer.
Okay, it was definitely porn.
But you never showed your face, so it didn’t really count as the same kind of stuff that your family condemned.
You scampered out of your room the second you heard the front door to the house slam closed all the same. Arms laden with G-strings, stockings, satin bralettes, lace and tulle bodysuits of almost every style imaginable, you ran a quick, perilous path to the living room window and made sure to keep your head ducked low as you did. You peered out through the gap in the curtains and had to squint hard to see anything in the midafternoon sun.
Then you saw it and felt instant relief—they were leaving.
Your grandma for one, your mother for second, and wherever the latter was headed, you knew her shadow would be soon to follow. You saw a thick plume of smoke outside and surmised that Joel was somewhere around the other side of the SUV, smoking and droning on about how he was perfectly fi-i-i-ne to drive, don’t be like that.
By ‘like that’ he meant sensible. And by ‘perfectly fine’ he meant two Miller Lites shy of completely shitfaced. You could already imagine the wry smile on your mother’s lips as she tried prying the keys from his hands. Your stepdad would probably plant a wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek to win a ‘yes’ in return—and when she shyly reminded him that he couldn’t afford to get another DUI, he’d get pissed and yank them out of her fist anyway.
Fucking loser.
Fucking triple-the-legal-limit dumbass motherfucker.
It didn’t bother you as much today because you knew they were only driving a couple blocks away to get to the farmer’s market, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t hope he’d get caught. Again. Maybe blow a 0.25 this time and land his old, ungrateful, law-breaking ass in Travis County Jail, where his little brother Tommy was likely keeping a cell bench warm for him, per usual.
At any rate, you didn’t have time to be fantasizing now. It was your turn to embody some guy’s grossest wet dreams for the next two to three hours. Stripping away layer after layer of your latest, tightest ‘costume’ while catering to whatever requests happened to float in your inbox, you knew you’d be up to your eyeballs in work. Though almost routine by now, you had to hurry up.
If you could just get the rest of this ridiculous gunk out of your clothing, you’d be all good to go for the job.
TRMAN22: Pour honey on your tits in the next vid???
TRMAN22: Milk too. All over you.
Looking back, you probably shouldn’t have obliged that request. Now you were facing the consequences—forced to throw all your clothes in the washing machine because the milk and honey you’d dumped on yourself for that video had gotten everywhere, and then swiftly congealed while wasting away in a pile of laundry for over a week.
The whole heap smelled rancid. Still felt sticky, too. Presently, you chucked each one inside the washing machine while holding your breath, and as soon as the last was discarded, you sniffed the shirt you had on.
Tolerable. With the rest of your stuff in the wash, you hoped to get at least one request off the checklist:
TRMAN22: Bet you’d look sexy in a schoolgirl outfit!!
TRMAN22: Why don’t you try one on for me?
It was gag-worthy and gross. Slightly alarming for a man who was more than likely twice your age and old enough to remember Watergate, but you agreed to play along. Your old school uniform was, after all, the only clean clothes you had left, and ‘TRMAN22’ was, unfortunately, your top subscriber. He’d paid $300 for this video alone.
TRMAN22: Wear some NEON pink panties for me too ;)
You squatted in front of the washing machine and stuck a hand inside. You sifted around, furrowing your brows.
The brightest undies you owned were in there, soiled, but you figured you could get away with one gross article of clothing, all things considered. You reached a little further and continued to dig. When you couldn’t find it by feel alone, you peered inside the circular, metallic cavern of the washing machine and craned your neck.
Not here…not here…not—
You tilted forward, venturing a closer look with your head, then shoulders, pushing into the machine.
—here, not here, not—
“EW!” you shrieked.
In your search, you’d inadvertently brushed up against a mildewed piece of clothing that had gotten wedged between the grooves of the washing machine’s interior.
A pair of boxers, it seemed.
You recoiled as soon as your fingers grazed the wet and smelly thing. Your skull went crack against the low-sloped ceiling of the appliance, and a jolt of pain was quick to course through you at the contact. You groaned.
Of course Joel had forgotten some old, cum-stained scrap of fabric out of his last load. Always leaving his shit around for you or your mom to pick up like he owned the place. And here you went, again, angrily plugging your nose and pulling as hard as you could on the shorts to get them free from the washing machine. You hardly thought twice, just made a face and then yanked on it.
The boxers wouldn’t budge.
You tugged even harder. The fabric stayed put.
Something akin to a grunt and a whimper, only far more pathetic, slipped out of your mouth, and you slapped the half-hollow steel wall in frustration. Surrounded as you were—fully encased in metal—the sound just echoed.
“Fucking…CUNT.”
You weren’t sure if you were talking to the shorts, the machine, or Joel Miller in the abstract. Or maybe all three. You just hated the thought of washing your lingerie with your stepdad’s skivvies, and no amount of rational thought or practical reasoning could hold you back now.
The tip of your index finger sank deep beneath the same ridge of the wall where the boxers had gotten stuck. You curled it inward, trying to loosen the material up a little. You wriggled your knuckle even further. And just when you managed to get a hold of the cusp of the tangled fabric—just when it seemed the green plaid cluster was about to give way—you heard a low pop. You felt it, too.
Shortly, your finger was pinched inside the deep, blunt valley of steel that had similarly snagged Joel’s boxers. It seemed you’d pushed the tip of your finger so far that you were caught straight down to the second knuckle—trapped between two grooves of unforgiving alloy inside the washing machine tub with no clear means of escape.
You jerked your arm back, panicked. When the metal sank its teeth even deeper, you didn’t stop. Completely heedless of the pain, you operated on impulse and by the feeling of needing to get the fuck out of that little space, quickly, and instead yanked your hand back even harder.
To your horror, your finger was stuck.
“FUCK!”
You stared down at the poor digit, only half-visible inside the wall at this point, then glanced down at the heap of sweaty, sticky, slutty pieces of clothing that were presently strewn about you, and felt an even deeper stab of dread. Stuck inside your family’s washing machine with every bit of damning evidence one could hope to have—and wearing your old school uniform to boot—you realized at once you were fucked if you didn’t get out.
You slammed your palm against the nearest wall once more, shaking your other wrist like an unruly child.
“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!”
You weren’t good at solving problems. In point of fact, you sucked at all things prudent resolution-related and regularly made it a habit to capitulate whenever you sensed loss inevitable. You were a little like your mother in that way, quick to give in to life’s uglier challenges. The only way you could conceivably claim to be stronger, the only place you always had the strength to say ‘no’ was—
“Aw, shit.”
—Joel.
Your throat tightened as soon as you heard the voice. Your eyes went wide, and the rest of you went numb.
Bent at the waist and kneeling with half your body inside the washing machine, you remained there, motionless. Back arched and ass out. Thanks to the way you’d rolled your old plaid skirt, the fabric covered almost zero cheek.
Someone behind you cleared their throat. Then coughed.
And coughed again, again, and again. Evidently trying to clear the smoke out of his lungs and the surprise from his eyes as he drank in your sight from the doorway.
“What in the—wh—th—” You could hear Joel wheeze, beating his chest with his fist, “What— in— the hell?!”
“Help me,” you hissed.
You weren’t sure why you chose that as your go-to. It just sounded like the right thing to say, and frankly, you weren’t sure how else to distract from the fact Joel was probably gawking at your ass as he coughed up a lung.
“The fuck do you mean ‘help’?! What are you doing?”
The coughing subsided, if only momentarily. You tried pulling back on your finger again to get out, but couldn’t.
“I-I’m…I was just…” you stammered, heart racing.
You heard the tread of heavy footfalls. You felt them.
“Just—trying…” you ventured again, suddenly at a loss for words and breath alike as you felt a presence draw in.
You could smell him.
That realization alone made you want to stop taking in air altogether. It happened out of instinct, really—feeling the shift of two huge boots settle behind your feet and then flinching inward, further inside the metal tub for…safety? A pang of abject humiliation? You were far past the point of civility with the man, caring what he thought, or fearing for your modesty in a position like this, but something about the proximity now just made you itch.
You wished your finger wasn’t jammed inside this appliance so you could give that feeling relief, somehow.
At length, Joel’s voice dragged you back:
“What’s stuck?”
Too calm. A second passed. Then he added, more stern,
“This some fuckin’ joke’a yours or somethin’?”
“No!”
“Then what—”
“My finger. My finger’s stuck.”
You tried to crane your neck to see behind you, but all your eyes had to feast upon was denim. Bluish-grey stonewashed denim, faded with years of use. Joel stood back for a second, as if considering what to do, and then you saw two hands descend to brace themselves against his knees. He bent at the waist to get a better look below.
When his eyes locked with yours, you got the same twist in your gut as you’d felt before, only sharper. Shameful.
The look on Joel’s face was abnormally bright.
“And how on earth did that happen, dumbass?”
Your shame morphed into chagrin in a blink, seeing the ghost of a smile bleed into your stepdad’s features.
“‘Cause of you, leaving your shit in here!” you snapped. Your chin jerked toward the green fabric, “I was just trying to get your boxers unstuck—and my finger…”
Your finger was kind of fucked.
Joel cast a look inside at the source of your frustration. He extended his left arm and reached over your torso, and as he did, you felt the slightest, albeit solid, sort of warmth press in. The man let out a low groan of exertion—likely at the strain the movements placed on his joints.
The warmth got worse. You weren’t sure where it started.
Vaguely, you were aware of Joel’s thumb pressing into your hand. Gliding down your finger, stroking across the spot where your knuckle had gotten caught, he circled over it, slowly, and made another sound in his throat.
“Well that ain’t…good.” Not one to mince words.
By now, your whole body was on fire. You barely had the strength to keep kneeling, much less speak to the man thumbing your hand and pressing his heat so close—
“Just get me out!” you shrieked.
You heard your mother’s voice in that. A shrill, impatient lilt in her speech that came out, invariably, around Joel. Normally, he would have done something to deserve it. But today, with his hand splayed over yours and his breaths as calm and even-keeled as he could hope to have them while he tried to help, he was blameless.
Evidently, he heard a trace of your mother too, because you heard him laugh. You felt the reverberations of his amusement travel up from his belly all the way to his lips.
“Cool your pits, kid.”
For that, you would’ve loved nothing more than to reach back with your free hand and hit him in the balls. But, as it was, this man was your only hope for escape, and he was being tolerably polite, anyway. He pinched your finger between the tips of two of his and gave it a tug.
“Okay, lemme just—” Joel started.
“Why are you home, anyway?”
The question came out more clipped than you meant it.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Joel countered evenly.
“I asked you first.”
“I asked you second.”
You reckoned he could probably feel you roll your eyes, even if he wasn’t able to see you do it right now. He waited another moment, then leaned back on his haunches and withdrew his arm from the tub.
“Mama don’t like me drinkin’ and drivin’, you know that.”
With that, the warmth was gone. Joel retreated.
“Like that’s ever stopped you before.”
You heard him exhale a little harder through his nose. When he’d steadied himself against the washing machine, gave his knees another second to prepare for getting up again, you could feel his eyes back on you. Maybe he lingered longer than his legs really needed.
Maybe if he hadn’t stayed crouched like that, he wouldn’t have gotten the chance to give your surroundings a second look. He wouldn’t have stopped to watch the rate of your breaths pick up or the way your skin startle to bristle with some strange, unknown sensation. He certainly wouldn’t have felt for himself the fever leaking out from the base of your spine right then.
Today just wasn’t the day for keeping secrets, it seemed.
“And what’s this?” You could feel Joel lean back in.
He was looking again. Peering inside. Steadying his weight with the edge of the washing machine gripped in one hand, while the other snaked its way back inside.
You’d already squeezed your eyes shut by the time Joel got a hold of something. You didn’t know what it was.
But it became painfully clear that it wasn’t just one ‘thing’ that had grabbed his attention at all, but rather a series of items that his hands were just now getting to explore. You didn’t have to see his broad and tan, callus-streaked fingers to feel them roaming over your clothes.
Gross.
Gross.
“Gross,” Joel agreed, as if he’d read your mind. Grinning.
If you thought the embarrassment was bad before, you really only knew a fraction of what humiliation could be. Your finger throbbed along with the pulse in your skull.
Your mother’s husband whistled and lifted something.
“Darlin’, this is just…disgusting.”
You winced. You tried not to pry an eye open, to steal a covert look through the frame of your lashes in that dim and crowded spot, but the inducement was too great—Joel was dangling one of your lime green G-strings like it was a fish he’d just caught out on the lake. Boasting it.
Doting, almost.
“Well I’ll be—”
“Will you quit?!” you snapped.
You grabbed the thing out of his hand and threw it aside.
“Can you be serious? For one fucking secon—”
“Oh, I’m bein’ serious, sweetie,” Joel cut in. Cool as ever, “Serious as the business end of a .45, I swear.”
He paused. Then he reached for a white nylon bustier, drenched in a layer of honey that was as hard as a rock.
“Do you always keep your little…skank tanks so filthy?”
That was it. You kicked your heel back—and up—and made a pass to hit your stepdad square in the balls.
Your aim wasn’t the best it’s ever been, seeing that half your body was trapped inside a home appliance at the moment, but what your jab lacked in accuracy, it made up for in force: your foot plunged into the seam of Joel’s jeans full throttle. From the way the back of your heel plowed into his crotch, and the sound that clawed out of his throat the same instant, you reckoned you did okay.
What you weren’t expecting was a smack in return.
An answer in kind—delivered by the palm of Joel’s hand.
A taut, thoughtless THWACK on the swell of your ass.
Your mouth fell open. Your body barely had the chance to recoil when, shortly, another blow landed on your cheek.
Joel spanked you.
Spanked you.
“Fuckin’ brat,” he spat. His palm had slid up with the weight of his last slap, and now his fingers were clenched in a fist in the back of your skirt. You couldn’t see it, but you could feel him gripping fabric. It was firm.
He was firm—unrelenting in his hold.
Kneeling behind you, yanking back a handful of tartan skirt like it was nothing, then sidling up behind you.
And just when your attention was drawn to some other firm thing, it was shortly diverted by another sensation.
“JOEL!” you shrieked as he gave you another spanking.
The bare skin of your cheeks was on fire. Joel hit hard. Just when you feared you might legitimately whimper with the sting of that last blow, and while the imprint of his palm was still fresh, you felt it move again. Lower.
“Joel.”
That came out more like a whine than a cry of protest. And how could you, now, when he was soothing the raw bite of his hand with a touch that was kneading the skin?
Working the soft, supple flesh of your ass in his hand like he’d never dream of being anything else but gentle to it.
“Good?” Joel said.
Your head flinched to nod, but your brain thought better.
It did feel good. So good, in fact, that your eyelids were starting to droop just a bit and your back was subtly arching into the touch, but those were only instincts. Stupid, useless, brain-rotted reflexes born of years of paternal neglect and replete indifference, the likes of which could bring a grown man to his knees, begging—
“Please.”
But the entreaty was your own, and the voice that spoke it was hoarse. Your belly sank into the circular aperture of the washing machine, and you could feel your ribs scraping close to metal. Nevertheless, you didn’t mind. That ditzy lizard brain of yours was starved for physical touch, and who were you to deny her at a time like this?
No, not when Joel was squeezing like that.
Groping was the more appropriate word for it, really. Notwithstanding the decades of sexual experience that no doubt preceded the man that was standing before you—behind you—today, Joel was unduly coarse. His broad, weathered hand made as if to cool its former sting, but the motions themselves were jerky. Desperate.
He needed this worse than you, the fucking pervert.
Just when the realization had begun to settle over your mind and your legs were getting to feel a little less like jelly, knowing you weren’t the only weak one here, Joel’s palm slowed down. He pressed the heel of it into your flesh as if to force himself to stop, then he took a breath.
“Now use your words.”
“But—” you sputtered.
“I said,” Joel resumed, and you could sense it was through gritted teeth. His movements came to a halt.
“We use our words when we want somethin’, hear?”
It was the first you’d heard Joel attempt to enforce anything close to discipline with you in your life.
That had to warrant a little defiance, no doubt.
Under your breath, quiet: “So ‘we’ includes ‘you,’ too?”
Beneath that one, seemingly innocuous question was lurking another, and both of you knew it: Remember that time you put a fist through the kitchen wall? Was that a good example of what it means to ‘use words,’ Joel? Whether it was adequate provocation or not, you could sense what was coming next before you’d even finished. When the spank landed on your right cheek so loud that it echoed, you didn’t flinch. You did snag your lip between your teeth to keep a sound from spilling out.
“A dad makes rules. Ain’t his to follow,” Joel growled.
You blinked and bit down harder. Watched the broad, amorphous shape of the man’s reflection shift along the back metallic wall in hues of grey and blue and wished you had the strength to turn around and face him then.
“You aren’t my dad.”
“Said ‘a’ dad, didn’t I?”
“You’re not that either.”
Heat was rising to your cheeks again, this time for different reasons. For a cause you were far better acquainted with to date—annoyance at Joel.
“So that means I’m—”
“Nothing. You’re nothing to me,” you finished, tone wry.
Nothing to anyone, you wanted to add. Not with a shiny gold band latched onto your left hand to tell the world that you’re married to my mother, a pack of smokes tucked away in the jeans she washes every week, or a couple years spent under the same roof as me. Nothing.
Your teeth clamped back down—and almost sank clean through your lower lip this time—when next you felt a touch at the plush, covered mound that was normally shielded between your legs. The spot that was hardly ever tilted up in a position like this, exposed to the air and a man’s hungry gaze, now invaded by the press of a single thing: a warm and soft middle finger at your core.
Joel brushed the tip of it against your entrance, through your panties, and sucked a breath through his teeth when both of you felt a tiny squelch at the pressure.
He pressed harder, and the wetness only spread.
You didn’t have to be in Joel’s position to know what he was seeing, but the feeling from his finger overpowered any better sense to speak—or tell him to stop. He traced his slow, cruel circles against your warmth and moved it up to where he knew he’d find your bud, and when you whimpered, he simply added his index to the mix. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind you were leaking heat at that point. You could feel it seeping beneath his touch.
“Nothin’, huh?” Joel breathed, voice low. Your arousal made a sickening hiss beneath his fingers as he rubbed you even harder, “This feel like nothin’ to you, honey?”
You couldn’t speak. He knew you weren’t capable of it.
“‘Cause this sure don’t feel like nothin’ to me.”
Wet and tacky beneath his touch, your warmth supplied the answer that your mouth couldn’t form. It came out in more of a tap, tap, tap, punctuated by breaths that were toiling in earnest not to turn into moans too soon. But, as hulking and clumsy as his hands had once shown themselves to be, the old man knew where to put them, at least. He made circles on your clit with practiced ease.
“You can try lyin’ to me, but she can’t.”
He was right. ‘She’ was a traitor.
You could deny it all you wanted, but the proof was there.
Indeed, she was crying. Aching. Bleeding with desire. Throbbing beneath the pads of Joel’s fingertips and growing only more desperate as he increased the speed of his touch. When he notched the drenched cotton to the side, you had to grit your teeth to keep in a whimper.
Joel whistled.
“See? Seems like she likes me just fine right here.”
Your jaw stayed wired shut with the weight of your own humiliation. Instead of answering aloud, you hummed. Made a sound low and soft in your throat like, ‘Uh-hmm’ and tilted your hips, as if you didn’t know how else to ask. Joel couldn’t see inside the washing machine, but he must’ve felt the gesture, because he greeted it with a motion of his own: he chuckled, and he puckered his lips.
And when you felt the warmth of his spit hit you between your folds, your shame should’ve tripled. Should’ve made you flinch away from his touch and tell him that was so fucking gross, Joel, stop, but then he smeared it up your slit. He pressed in and mixed it with the rest of your arousal; any reproach died on your tongue in an instant.
A part of him was on you now. Trickling in, sticking to the most sensitive part of you, and settling into your skin like a glaze. With his other hand, he found your skirt again.
“Who’re ya wearin’ this for, sweet pea?” Joel murmured.
“No one.”
Another glob of spit landed between your cheeks. Now, the man used the lubrication to sink two fingers inside you—pushing them in until the rim of your cunt met his knuckles. You whined at the stretch, felt him coax your walls open with a consciousness and a carefulness that felt almost mean, but then he stroked down the base of your spine with the hand that still held onto your skirt. He soothed your startled cry with a curl of his fingers.
And he found the soft, spongy patch of flesh inside that made your eyes roll straight to the back of your skull, quickly. Working his fingers in and out, flattening the base of his free hand over the skin exposed by your flipped-up skirt, and watching your body give way to the force of his fingers, he was uncharacteristically patient. Exacting in the way he worked your body open to him.
“What do you care?” you groaned. You winced when you felt a squelch signal that he’d stretched you even wider.
“‘Cause,” Joel started, slow. Pumping his fingers through your folds and likely wondering when he’d add a third, “You got your hand stuck in a fuckin’ washing machine, a treasure trove of this slut stuff piled in a heap…I mean…”
“They’re just clothes!”
“Just clothes?”
In the wake of those terse, incredulous words, you tried your best to match his tone—call his bluff—but the only sound that came out of your mouth was punctured by a pitiful whine. He tried another finger but couldn’t fit it in. As wet as you were, and as strong as he was, your cunt wasn’t quite ready to accept all three of Joel’s thick, probing digits inside. You’d fit more than a thing or two with a girth even greater than that in the past, but you figured your nerves might have something to do with the way you were tightening around the man’s fingers now.
Why you couldn’t take more of him in, as much as you wanted him there, felt, at present, like something of a shortcoming, and a pathetic one at that. You let out a breath, and a second later, Joel slowed his motions.
You didn’t expect him to stop. Didn’t hold out a hope he might curtail his pace and talk you through a quiet, gentle arrangement for fitting a third finger inside you—that just wasn’t him. You didn’t have to share a paper-thin bedroom wall with your mother and her husband for the last however many years to know that Joel Miller was not a tender lover. It simply wasn’t in his nature to care.
So when you heard the clink of a belt coming undone a moment later, your senses strangely flooded with relief. He wouldn’t care, wouldn’t inquire, wouldn’t coddle with false, romantic ideals of how a woman should be treated.
In that way, Joel shared something in common with your father after all: he set standards as low as they could go.
“Just clothes?” he repeated, snapping your underwear against your ass and jerking the fabric further aside.
Then somehow send those expectations even lower.
There was a hand splayed out across the small of your back. Another fiddling with the front of his pants, wrestling the button and zip of his jeans in little more than one, two, three careless seconds, before he drew in closer to your rear. Your slit was messy, wet, and exposed to his eyes once again. For a second, you almost took comfort in the fact that your hand was still wedged inside a groove of steel and you couldn’t meet his gaze.
That was, until Joel slid his bare length along the seam of your cunt. When the inability to see him made it so you had no other choice but to be surprised when he finally touched you was unnerving, to say the least.
And when the head of his cock blended seamlessly between your folds, was drenched in less than a blink and nearly notched straight into the place you needed him most—well, that had an effect on him, too. Joel moved his flat and sweaty palm up your back, found purchase in the hem of your blouse, and gripped it. Tugged it down a little more and let a low groan billow out of his throat while he rocked his hips back and forth.
Desperate, clumsy, pussydrunk Joel was back before you’d even realized he’d left. Only now he was keen to put the disquiet and hesitations to rest; he needed to fuck you before either one of you wisened up just then.
Your parts and his commingled again. First, with the lethally warm trail of precum leaking out from his tip. Then the intrusion that followed, inevitably, glossed with self-indulgence and desperation—soiling any semblance of platonic affection or parental attention—as he fed you the first inch of him. Barely half the head got fitted inside and your grip on that was like a vice. Joel’s was bruising.
Suddenly firm on your hips, carving crescents in the skin:
“When’s the last time you got fucked, baby?”
You reckoned Joel had a guess—and it wasn’t correct.
“Last…week,” you whimpered, words punctuated with a sigh as his cock tried to make room for more of him.
Joel sucked in a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. He’d barely gotten an inch past his tip, facing more resistance than he’d felt in a long, long time, and you were wet, but so tight. He was big but not so massive as that. He couldn’t fathom what you were saying was true.
“That…fratboy fuckstick you went out on a date with?”
“Didn’t think you even saw me leave.”
Joel withdrew, gripped your hips even tighter, then drove his cock to nestle three solid inches inside your cunt. It was extra snug, but he made sure to try to loosen you up with a couple short, shallow thrusts and a hand gradually drifting down between your legs. Of course he saw you.
The circles on your clit and slow-growing movements may as well have been kerosene in your veins. With what limited range of motion you had in that grey, compact space, you let out a sigh and dug the fingers of your free hand into the closest scrap of fabric beside you. Joel’s own touch gradually moved from your hip to drag your hand behind your back, clasping his. He fucked in deeper
“So that’s who this is for?” Thumbing your skirt.
“Y-Yeah,” you lied.
“Wanted to send naughty pics in the schoolgirl getup?”
“Yes,” you lied again. You closed your eyes when Joel sank his cock even deeper and made you stretch inside.
“‘Atta girl,” he praised.
It might’ve been the first he’d validated you in your life.
“Grippin’ this cock extra tight, ain’t ya, sweet girl?”
Never in a million years would you have imagined it’d come this late—or leave Joel’s mouth in a way like that.
‘Elastic’ wasn’t a word you’d ever used to describe your body, either. Frankly, there was no need for it to be; every one of your partners before had been average-sized, and every other object that went inside you, too, had almost always been a comfortable squeeze between your walls. Outside of maybe your first time and a once-off awkward hookup now and again, you were never forced to feel a stretch to this degree. Joel felt huge moving inside you.
He was nearing your cervix and still nowhere close to the base of his cock. Meanwhile, you were stuffed to the brim, saturated with arousal and his spit, and practically keening at every stab of his hips. You couldn’t reach back because Joel’s fingers were still enmeshed with yours, gripping them hard behind your back. As wore down, fucked out, and desperate as you already were, you were less than only a second away from asking him to ease up.
And then he stopped.
Joel pulled out, let go, and pressed onto the old washing machine, where you heard his touch echo through metal.
He was leaning against it. You were about to turn around. Before you could, though, you felt his form mold into yours—this time not in it, but on it, as he drew closer and once more reached into the space where you were stuck.
“Can you be brave for me, baby?” Joel murmured.
“Wh—” you started, soft, only to feel the words plucked straight from your lungs as Joel leaned his body inside. Carefully, and with concerted effort, it seemed, he was trying to squeeze his way into the O-shaped hole of the washing machine, snaking his arm around your torso.
Pinching your finger again. Breathing just gently enough for his exhales to tickle at your shoulders and your neck.
“Can you be brave?” he repeated, and you weren’t sure you’d ever heard him so soft-spoken, or felt him so close.
You nodded, not knowing why.
Without another word, your stepdad pinched the digit even tighter and yanked it out from where it was stuck.
It all happened so fast. Joel freeing your finger, squeezing it tight, helping you out of that hot and crowded space while your legs gave way like mush beneath your weight—and your hand throbbing in pain. You’d never thought a single finger could cause a feeling as strong as that, but it stung like hell. You almost raked your nails through the man’s arm when he tried to hold you back, holding you up just as well as you stood.
“Joel!” you screeched, like the whole thing was his fault.
You flexed your hand and wanted to sob. You could feel the streaks of pain start to claw up your wrist, were just about to shove Joel aside and wallow in agony, when at length, he did something strange and unexpected again.
This time, he lifted your index to his mouth and kissed it.
It wasn’t a sensual kiss. Coming from Joel, it hardly even seemed affectionate. His lips were so warm and firm and decidedly unacquainted with anything approaching a threat of tenderness that his act read almost aggressive. He let your finger rest loosely against his mouth, and he kissed it again, while his eyes burned holes into yours.
‘You’re okay’ came out muffled against your hand.
“You’re okay—hey—baby, you’re good. Don’t cry.”
You hadn’t even noticed the tears had started to form. You blinked and felt one trickle down your cheek. With the hand that wasn’t holding your wrist, Joel brushed his thumb against that lone trail of moisture. He didn’t cup your face, hold you close, or stroke your cheek in the seconds that followed, though he did keep kissing you.
Or, rather, it—your finger.
Joel didn’t have to care for you at all. He just feared he might’ve pulled on your hand too hard in getting you out.
‘You’re okay’ was being mumbled away like a fractured refrain, touch descending gently to your hip, and his eyes grew softer by the second, surely he had to be thinking it.
Sinking inside you, again. He was standing; your hips were tilted to his, and your ass was pressing flat against the front of the washing machine. All it took was an inch or two off the ground and your limbs hanging limply around his hips for Joel to fuck back into you. He sucked on your finger so hard you feared the skin might actually bruise—a hand hickey, of all fucking things—and when his grip tightened on your side, you knew he felt it too.
His teeth succeeded his lips in an instant, and he was biting, gnawing pathetically as a groan shuddered through his chest. If you didn’t know better, you might’ve said the sound was veering perilously close to a whimper.
Fully sheathed inside you, Joel Miller didn’t seem to care. His lids fell like lead across the upper half of his brown, glossy eyes, and the expression behind them was blank.
Safe.
“‘S’alright, baby,” he grunted. Maybe he’d just seen you wince, as he cradled your hand and withdrew another inch, “Keep squeezin’ me, it feels real good. Right here.”
Out of instinct, your gaze drifted down to the spot where his body joined with yours. The sight was hardly a shock, but the feelings it evoked were not—he had you split along two-thirds of his dick, a pretty shelf of belly protruding beneath and gleaming with the arousal he’d drawn out from your body. Tufts of silver and grey littered his skin in every direction, aged muscles tensed with the weight of each thrust, and the warm weathered hand that hadn’t dared touch you once before today was now cupping your chin. Tilting your head closer to him.
“Right here, baby. Look at daddy.”
Wild, unbridled heat flooded your brain in a second. The thing seared the insides of your skull with all the force of a fire and stole the air from your lungs just the same—still, you couldn’t refrain from making a face in disgust.
“What the fuck, Joel?” You shouldn’t have liked it.
His hand ascended your throat in a blink.
“Ain’t that what you want, sweet pea?”
“I—”
Just as you started to answer, though, his cock took a dizzying plunge, hitting exactly the right spot inside you. Like clockwork, your mouth fell open, a whine tumbled out, and Joel took that as his chance to grip your neck even tighter and push your hips against the washing machine, where his height afforded him an easy hold.
“What you want—”
He squeezed harder.
“—what you need—”
You gasped, starved for air. It wasn’t every day a man took your breath away. Not like Joel could, anyway.
“—is me, ain’t it?”
The gaze fixed on your face was alight with desire.
“Bet you miss him somethin’ awful, huh? Been needin’ a man to fill that spot ever since he left, haven’t ya, baby?”
‘He’ required no further clarification. The words stung. You communicated as much by wriggling your hips back and pressing your hand against Joel’s chest, just quit it.
Keep fucking me, but shut the fuck up about my father.
“I don’t miss shit,” you sniffed. Felt the head of Joel’s cock carve a shape somewhere deep inside your body and couldn’t pretend it wasn’t filling a metaphorical void someplace else. You hadn’t got this much attention from a man as many years your senior since…well, ever, really.
You preened beneath his touch. Wanting to feel. Wanting to please. Wanting, more than anything, to be needed.
Joel sated each craving with a simple hand smoothed over your face. His palm moved from your throat to your chin to the hinge of your jaw before coming to rest at the nape of your neck. This time squeezing lightly, bringing your face in close while he fucked you. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, and your stomach tightened inside you.
“That’s alright,” he said, words hardly above a whisper, “No need to miss that man at all, ‘cause I’m right here.”
For once the assurance came as somewhat of a comfort. You suspected it had something to do with the fact he was balls deep inside you and pushing you closer and closer to the brink of release with each painstaking stab of his cock. You fisted his flannel, holding him there. Spreading your legs, accepting his thrusts, taking each movement with ragged, shallow breaths and moans that blended with his own, you felt your body grow warmer.
Almost febrile beneath him as he tilted your head again.
“Who’s your daddy now?”
You winced, shaking your head. You hated that word.
“Who’s your daddy?”
Joel lowered his hand and began to thumb at your clit. Hot pleasure coursed through you, made you whine at the contact and dig your heels even deeper in his back.
“Who’s your daddy, baby? It ain’t that hard to say.”
But it was. Joel stroking your clit, stuffing you full, ghosting his lips against yours without ever furnishing a kiss, just goading you on with: ‘I know you wanna say it.’ Tough grey stubble teased your mouth with each word.
“I know she needs to cum, sweet girl. Know that poor little pussy’s taken a beating—and she’s done so good for me—but she needs to let it out now. All over me.”
His gaze held yours. You couldn’t turn away.
An unmistakable tenderness pervaded that look, and it didn’t seem keen to depart. No matter how tightly you pursed your lips, made fists in his shirt, or choked his cock between your walls in fluttering, desperate pleas, the man remained calm. Attentive. The eyes didn’t stray.
“It’s okay to say it.”
“C-Can’t—”
“Sure can. Be the easiest thing you ever do—D-A-D-D—”
“Please. Please.”
You hardly even knew what you were asking for at this point, only beholden to that big, swollen something in your tummy starting to give way beneath the push of Joel’s cock. Tightening up, leaking out, practically drooling down the length of this man who seemed relentless in his current pursuit. Two more circles on your clit and you were keening, whimpering pathetic as ever:
“Pleasepleasepleaseplease.”
“Say it now. Who’s it for?”
Above you, Joel’s teeth gleamed in a smile—or a snarl, you couldn’t tell. All you knew was the pleasure, the concomitant pain of having to contain this desperation while his thrusts sped up. You were bouncing on him, getting fucked against the washing machine in the raw and terrible central Texas heat wearing a sheen of sweat and a set of clothes that no longer fit your body, but that was just fine. You were okay. Joel was here, and he was holding your head, lips hovering less than an inch away.
“Who’s. Your. Daddy?” His words were slow. Coarse. Spilling into your mouth with every short puff of breath.
You couldn’t take it. You felt a band of pressure come to a head in your belly and the brush of Joel’s cock making its rounds in and out of your swollen cunt, pushing hard, and you knew that you’d had enough. He knew it, too.
“Y-You.”
“Who?”
“Joel.”
“Who?”
Your wet, pearly slick rang a deafening pitch. Enough.
“You, daddy! Daddy—please, fuck—I-I-I’m gonna cum.”
“Gonna cum for me? Make a mess of your old man?”
“Make a m-mess— yes, daddy, yes—” you slurred.
Joel drove his cock, fully coated in you, down to the hilt. He captured your lips in a kiss and didn’t even mind your mouth was whining, hissing, whimpering its filthy pleas for him to fuck a nice, big orgasm out from your body.
“—want yours inside,” you added, without realizing it.
“Sweet girl…” Joel groaned.
You didn’t know what you were asking him for. How badly he wanted it, too. His cock dragged in and out of your precious cunt and was barely more safe from the threat of its grip when you spasmed, at the last. Joel should’ve expected no less, after all the time he’d spent teasing and edging, then begging you gently, in grunts, ‘Cum for daddy, baby. Let me have it, that’s it, good girl.’ Still, somehow, he wasn’t prepared in the slightest.
When you squeezed your eyes shut and kissed him back—that was all it took. When you clenched on his cock, gave the front of his shirt a tug, locked your ankles about his hips so you could more properly increase that friction by fucking him back, grinding in place, he feared he might fairly make an irreparable, unforgivable mistake.
And when the whites of your eyes appeared again—eyelids fluttering open while your lips were glossed with his spit and a lazy smile—and said what you said next, he sensed that his fate was sealed. The old man was fucked.
“Cum inside me, daddy. Please.”
Joel couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. He shuddered, then flooded your insides with rope after rope after rope of his spend, burying his face in your neck and taking your hips in his hands like a looser grip might lose you to him forever. He fucked his cum deep, deeper, darlin’ don’t move, can’t lose a drop, baby, please, he let out a whimper that made your walls pulse again. You felt him fill you to the brim and keep rutting his hips. Your body and his were shaking by the last of it.
And when he was finished, Joel dropped a kiss along your limp, glistening lips. He slid you back on the metal. By the expression on his face, it was plain to see he was loath to withdraw, but he had to. That tender little hiss and the sounds of your shared fluids trickling out were all the impetus he needed to act quick. As soon as he’d pulled out, Joel was back leaning against the washing machine—tilting your hips back a little, then lowering his sweaty, handsome head to the spot between your legs.
The wrinkles to the sides of his eyes grew more pronounced when he smiled. A happy grin, plastered across his lips, would have struck you as almost smug, were it not for the look of sheer adulation that followed it.
Joel was enthralled, watching his cum leak out of you. He kissed your thighs, flickered his gaze to your own, briefly, then damn near sank his nose inside the place he was watching before your fingers stopped him cold.
It was your body, after all. He had already had his fill.
Hardly knowing what came over you in that moment, you sank two fingers inside your wet, drooling hole and watched the eyes of the man beneath you go wide. He soaked in that sight completely: you pushing his cum back in, drawing it out, using the viscous white liquid as a lubricant of sorts before releasing a pleased little sigh.
Joel closed his mouth reluctantly. It took him more than a second to tear his eyes from that place, but when he did, the motions were quick to grow assured, by turns.
As if remembering something.
In a second, the innocent smile you’d seen before was being infiltrated, slowly, by a look you couldn’t place. Joel’s grin morphed from gentle to contented to plainly enthused and beaming ear-to-ear with a conceited glint. With his finger, he tugged your panties back into place.
“Baby—” he started, only to be cut off lightning-quick.
“What? What is it?”
His smile stretched even wider. By that act alone, you were half-tempted to forget the events of the last hour and set your jaw in a scowl. You looked down, unamused.
“What?”
“It’s just…” The man trailed off, and as he did, his gaze descended with it—straight down to your bare pantyline.
You cast a look there too—“What the fuck is it, Joel?!”
At that, two brown eyes flitted back up to you.
“I thought I asked for neon pink underwear, baby.”
Your breaths slowed. His gaze didn’t waver. Your heart came to a standstill in your chest, and you were amazed you had even half your present willpower then to speak.
“Wait, Joel, wh—”
“Shame you couldn’t get around to filmin’ today. Had me hard as a fuckin’ rock with all that milk and honey stuff.”
You nearly choked on your spit. Joel kept grinning.
“You’re—”
The guy. That fucking subscriber. The one who’d paid almost $500 in commissions in the last month alone.
You stared at Joel with eyes as wide as saucers, and were about to press on, when you heard the front door to the house shriek back on its hinges. Two sets of footsteps followed it, and their entry inside was loud.
Immediately, Joel rose to his feet. It seemed that grin wasn’t meant to stay long on his lips, because the next thing you knew, he was dropping a kiss somewhere soft and sweaty on your face and flipping your skirt back into place, holding his index up to his lips and stepping away. Your mouth twisted into a frown but stayed zipped out of sheer necessity. Seeing this, and likely unable to help himself, your gross, depraved, grinning old man leaned back in and planted his hands on either side of your hips on the washing machine. His nose nudged into your own.
“Between us—” he began, slowly.
“Get fucked,” you finished for him.
Joel nodded his assent, smirk faint. He cast a look over his shoulder, and, hearing what sounded like your mother’s footsteps drawing closer, lowered his voice.
Rubbing his thumb under your chin, making you tip your head back to meet his for one final look—then a kiss:
“You keep my secret, I keep yours, alright?”
—
Note: I’ve never done a real writing challenge before, but hopefully this fic will work for #hotdilfsummerchallenge !!! @hellishjoel this is such a fun ass idea & i hope you enjoy❣️
#‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING STEP BRO????’#BUT IT’S JOEL#AND HE’S VERY CONFUSED BUT ALSO VISIBLY ER*CT#don’t ask me to elaborate because i have no idea what i just wrote#joel miller smut#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller imagine#joel miller one shot#joel miller#joel miller tlou#joel miller fic#joel miller fanfiction#joel tlou#the last of us fic#the last of us#tlou#stepdad joel#hotdilfsummerchallenge
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Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.
In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.
And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.
In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.
#the hunger games#hunger games#katniss everdeen#peeta mellark#finnick odair#media analysis#haymitch abernathy#sunrise on the reaping#the ballad of songbirds and snakes#tbosas#thg#catching fire#mocking jay#mockingjay#coriolanus snow#effie trinket
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I am happy to report that my childcare reflexes have not dimmed as just today I pulled a cirque du soleil worthy feat of launching myself from the kitchen to the front door in two seconds flat because the neighbor kid turned up and I’d misheard them that their sibling needed to go to the hospital. In fact, their parent was ill and they needed a ride to school.
#twice I’ve utilized those new found caretaker speeds#once when I saw a toddler pulling the rocking chair over onto a month old infant. i managed to clear the room before as it fell#and catch it before it hit the baby (although I absolutely destroyed my thigh and arm muscle doing it. it was nuts.#and then once again when I ran across the room to perform abdominal thrusts in a preschooler. super sucky. traumatizing.#cried in the bathroom afterwards. kid was totally fine though#children in mortal peril is what’s required to get me to move
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𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐚 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you thought that after a certain misunderstanding, your relationship had taken on a purely platonic and friendly form but then the investigation sent you to the freezing wilderness of alaska, where every night you find warmth in his bed.
𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x fem!bau reader, the same reader as in my story "the bolter" but it's not necessary to read it before! there are no major references, but people who have read it might treat this as a continuation (if they want to). in this story, we still have our wonderful queen elle greenaway, gideon and morgan, and many of my attempts (not always successful) at being funny. mostly smut with A LOT of plot, description of the case, oral (f receiving) and some much actions but described in a subtle way. a little bit of angst, but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't add some. again, GLASSES REID!!
𝐚/𝐧: first fic at the beginning of the month, i really wanted to post it today. i think it's time to start posting christmas-themed works? would you be interested? by the way, i hope december will treat you kind <3
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 11k
“I’m freezing, God, I’m freezing.”
“Me too, look how I’m shaking, I swear, one more hour and my feet will fall off, and then my toes…”
“Guys, for god’s sake!” Morgan finally spoke up, his voice tinged with impatience. The hood of his waterproof, windproof jacket covered almost half of his face, and even so, he was clearly the lightest dressed of all of them. “We’ve landed.” He pulled off a glove to check his watch. “Just under fifteen minutes ago. You still don’t know shit about freezing, so stop complaining like a bunch of old women in a knitting cycle…”
“I’d love to be an old lady in a knitting circle right now,” you sighed, your breath immediately turning to steam. You exchanged a look with Reid, who was freezing just as much as you were, and together, you had been driving Derek crazy with your whining. You all had similar gear, thermal layers, and jackets designed for extreme conditions, but it still wasn’t enough. “Sitting by the fireplace, knitting a sweater. Gossiping with other retirees.”
“Exchanging gingerbread recipes,” Spencer suggested, his tone just as wistful.
“And sharing tips for dealing with worms in our cats’ anuses,” you added.
“I’m done," Derek muttered.
Your work often sent you to various corners of the United States, but it rarely involved Alaska. Well, due to the state’s relatively low population density compared to others, fewer crimes were committed there, especially at the federal level.
However, in recent weeks, strange disappearances had occurred—teenagers and young men. Their bodies were found in remote areas, deep in the forest or in completely uninhabited wilderness, places so isolated that even an experienced survivalist would struggle to find their way out.
The local police, as local police often do in most criminal cases, initially pretended there wasn’t a problem, insisting the victims had died as a result of tragic accidents, simply getting lost during a hike. But when the number of deaths began to rise, and the victims included even high school students—locals who were well aware of the dangers of wandering alone after dark in such perilous areas—the case landed on JJ’s desk.
And so, you found yourselves in the brutally frigid surroundings of Fairbanks, heading toward the inn where you were supposed to drop off your things and immediately dive into the investigation.
"The temperature this week is going to range from 15 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit," Spencer informed you over his shoulder as he opened the car trunk to retrieve the luggage. "Of course, that's during the day. At night, it’ll drop as low as -4 degrees."
Elle shivered as he handed her her bag.
"I was doing just fine without those numbers," she said, nudging you lightly with her shoulder—a touch you barely felt through the thick layers of clothing. "What do you say we make up for this with a New Year’s trip? Mallorca? The Himalayas?"
"I’m dreaming of the Caribbean," Morgan chimed in. "Beaches, sunshine, and cocktails—that’s what I’ll be dreaming of tonight."
"And half-naked sunbathers," you added.
"And half-naked sunbathers," he agreed with a grin.
Elle trudged ahead, sinking into the snow up to her calves. The inn was a sizable wooden building, adorned with balconies and terraces that, given the weather, likely went unused, though they added considerable charm. It was tucked away in a secluded spot, offering privacy and a peaceful atmosphere—ideal for work.
You lingered by the car, waiting for Reid to grab his things, unwilling to leave him behind.
“Do you know much about the northern lights, Rudolph?” you teased, nodding toward his red-tipped nose. “I’ve always dreamed of seeing them.”
“Well, then you’re in luck,” he replied, looking at you with a slight smile. “We’re in one of the best places to see them, during the season with the longest nights. They’ll be visible pretty early, though the most stunning views will probably happen between ten at night and two in the morning. I’ve always wanted to see them in person too.”
"So, what do you think?" you asked, raising your eyebrows. "Midnight, at my door, and we’ll go play aurora hunters?"
You shivered just at the thought. Of course, you were joking—there was no way you'd even stick a single hand out from under the covers at this hour with those freezing nighttime temperatures. You planned to admire the beautiful phenomenon from your room window. Warm, you hoped.
"Alright. Just make sure you bundle up,"
"Sure. Thermal thong and all that."
Your room was on the same floor as Elle's and JJ's, and you were glad to have them just behind the next door. Unpacking took you only a minute, and within that time, you were all together, sitting as a team, going through the case files.
“These boys were so young,” JJ remarked, shaking her head with a hint of dread. “Sixteen, the youngest, twenty-four, the oldest. They were found in such remote locations that if it hadn’t been for the ongoing professional search and the dogs, who knows how long it would have taken before anyone stumbled upon their bodies.”
“Given the heavy snowfall, they might not have been found until the thaw. What do their parents and families say about all of this?” Hotch asked.
“Unanimously, they believe their kids would never have ventured that far on their own. This is where the mystery starts, though, because there were no wounds on their bodies, except for the ones they inflicted on themselves in their attempts to survive in the cold.”
“So, it looks like someone kidnapped them, drove them out to a place you’d never get out of without serious survival skills, and just left them to die?” Derek asked, baffled.
“Seems that way. Yesterday, an eighteen-year-old named David Moore was reported missing. Normally, it probably would have been classified as a delayed return home or maybe a runaway, and the police wouldn’t have even taken the report. But given the current circumstances and the rising panic among the locals, his parents decided not to wait. A wise decision.”
"How many hours has it been since he went missing?" you asked, running your own grim calculations in your head. "Around eight, right? Is it even possible for him to survive the night out there in these conditions?"
"That depends on what he was wearing and the specific location where he was left," Reid explained, thoughtfully cleaning the lenses of his glasses. You realized it had been a while since you’d seen him wearing them—he used to wear them daily, but lately, it was only on occasion. For a moment, you found yourself staring at his face, liking how the dark frames suited it.
"His parents believe he was likely abducted on his way home from tutoring," Elle noted, flipping through the case file. "People around here dress warmly as a habit, but even so, I doubt his everyday clothes would be particularly suited to weather like this. At night. In the middle of the woods."
An uncomfortable silence followed her words, broken only by Hotch clearing his throat.
"Anyway, we need to join the ongoing search efforts. We’ll be more useful out in the field than trying to build a profile with the scraps of information we have. I’m not sure if I need to remind you, but out of habit, I will: be cautious and don’t, under any circumstances, stray from the search group. They know this area."
Before you all moved out to get to work, Reid shot you a fleeting glance. Like a dad, you mouthed silently, and he let out the faintest chuckle. You both enjoyed spotting those unmistakably parental tendencies in your boss, though they were directed at you and the rest of the team.
Hours of searching had, unfortunately, yielded no results—the crushing pressure of time bore down on you all. The knowledge that each passing moment was stripping this boy of his chances for survival felt almost unbearable. If he had somehow managed to survive the first eight hours in the forest, sixteen seemed an increasingly unlikely feat.
And yet, hope lingered. The group, driven by his distraught family, refused to stop, likely continuing to scour the area despite warnings. Meanwhile, you stood in your hotel room, so close to the window that the cold glass brushed against your nose.
Your thoughts were consumed by the case and the fate of the teenager. Just as Reid had said, the sky was illuminated by that breathtaking greenish glow. Watching it felt almost surreal, and you wanted to take in as much of it as your eyes could hold.
If it weren’t for the fact that you had frozen to your very core during the search, you might have stepped outside to see it more clearly.
Just as the thought crossed your mind, there was a knock at your door.
You furrowed your brow, not expecting anyone. When you opened it, you came face to face with none other than Spencer. Well, it was hard to tell it was him at first. He was bundled up so tightly in layers of warm clothes that his body lost its natural shape and resembled more of a puffy ball than a person.
"Hey," he greeted awkwardly, raising his hand hesitantly and scanning your appearance from head to toe. "You're not ready yet. Sorry, I think I came too early. I thought we were meeting at midnight..."
"We were meeting?"
"For the northern lights hunt, you forgot? I checked the Kp index, it's a measure of aurora activity that determines its intensity, and it turns out tonight is really favorable... wait, why are you laughing?"
His furrowed brows and face, barely visible in the dimly lit hallway but clearly confused, only made you laugh harder. Shaking your head in disbelief, you covered your smile with your hand.
"Spencer, I was joking," you said, suddenly feeling guilty that your sarcasm had led him to spend time and effort preparing for a night out. "There’s no way I'm going out in this cold. I’d rather dive headfirst into boiling water, at least that would be warmer."
“Oh,” he let out a short, disappointed sigh. He quickly nodded, as if trying to accept the situation, and forced a more neutral expression. “I—I really thought you were serious. Sorry for... for waking you up, then.”
For a moment, you stood in silence, your hand resting on the doorframe. An odd, unexpected thought sprinted through your mind. It had been such a long time since the two of you had been together like this, late at night, in the same room...
“Well, in that case,” he cleared his throat, snapping you out of your thoughts. “I’m sorry again. Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen, okay? Forget I came here and embarrassed myself. That’s all. Sorry. I should probably go if I want to avoid being completely sleep-deprived tomorrow...”
“Go where?” you interrupted, suddenly standing straighter, alarmed.
“Aurora hunting.”
“By yourself? Spencer, have you lost your mind?”
He opened and closed his mouth, caught off guard by your outburst.
“Well, I don’t know when I’ll ever get another chance like this, being in the Arctic Circle...”
“It’s pitch dark and freezing cold. You don’t know the area—”
“...I’ve had a chance to look around, and I’m not going far. There’s a small hill just behind the inn—”
“...And there’s a freaking serial killer on the loose around here, did you forget?”
“Well, I have a gun.”
“Well, I’m not letting you go,” you cut him off firmly, crossing your arms over your chest. Spencer tilted his head, clearly ready to argue further, but before he could speak, you added, “Give me five minutes.”
“What?”
“Five minutes to get dressed. I’m coming with you.”
At first, you could have sworn a faint smile flickered across his lips. But then, just as quickly, he shook his head vehemently.
“No, really, you don’t have to. Not just because of me. I’ll be fine…”
"Five minutes," you repeated once more, slightly flustered and trying not to dwell on the fact that the moment you stepped outside, you’d likely regret this decision. “Wait here. Or come inside—I don’t want to shut the door in your face.” As you spoke, you opened the door wider, inviting him in.
Without wasting another second, you headed straight for your suitcase. Okay, how many layers does one need for a night outside in Alaska?
“I actually bought a set of thermal underwear specifically for this case,” you said, pulling out the essentials from your bag. Most of what you’d worn during the day would work fine, but you debated adding an extra sweater and another pair of socks. “And, oh my God, I hate it. I’d rather wear lace thongs 24/7 than spend more than eight hours in this bugger.”
You glanced subtly over your shoulder, curious to see his reaction and waiting for his reply. It wasn’t like you wanted to embarrass him, but you absolutely adored how, in response to even your most suggestive remarks, he could always respond with complete seriousness—like he was dissecting some profound issue. Judging by the furrow of his brow, this time would be no different.
“Really? You know, thermal underwear is generally associated with comfort. The fabric is typically elastic, soft, and breathable. High-quality models are even seamless, so they don’t cause any chafing. Maybe you bought a poorly fitted one?”
“Maybe. I don’t know, I have no expertise in this area. It digs in so much, though, and I have to keep myself from adjusting it. Can you imagine me sticking my hand in my pants right in front of the missing boy’s family?”
He hesitated before responding.
“Not really. But I can picture Hotch’s face.”
“And I can picture a termination notice on my desk the next day,” you quipped.
You grabbed all the clothes you had gathered and disappeared into the bathroom to layer them on. It wasn’t a quick job—by the end, you felt like your movements were completely restricted by the weight of it all—but at least you were prepared. When the first merciless blast of Alaskan air brushed against the tiny exposed part of your face, it didn’t immediately make you want to run back inside screaming.
Instead, you sighed in awe.
"I know I’ve invoked God's name a hundred times already, but God, this is beautiful," you said, feeling your own words too inadequate to describe the miracle above your heads. The streaks of light stretching across the sky, an intense green with a certain transparency, a glassy quality, the stars peeking through it all.
Spencer turned to you over his shoulder. He was only a couple of steps ahead, but he kept doing it as if afraid that in a moment of not seeing you, you'd fall into the snow and disappear forever.
“Wait until we get to the spot,” he said, his smile clearly excited. In his dark eyes, the light seemed to reflect and stay there, even when he blinked, as though he had already absorbed it all deep inside. “It’s only ten minutes away, but it makes a difference.”
"I hope you're not one of those people who says, 'Oh, it's just around the corner, we don't need a cab!' and then leads you to walk halfway across the city" you scoffed. You tried to keep your gaze fixed on his back, his lantern swinging in his hand. Alaska, the vast empty terrain, the thick layers of snow, seemed to hide some sort of mystery beneath them, and it filled you with a fair amount of fear. "Will you shield me with your chest if a bear jumps out at us?"
"Actually, yes, I would," he replied. "But not because of heroism, it's more because I have bear spray in my pocket, and by that very fact, it's probably my duty."
"Okay, let’s make a deal: you protect us from a potential bear attack, and I’ll take care of Bigfoot. By the way, that legend never really scared me. A monkey with gigantic feet just sounds too ridiculous to me. Remember that episode of History's Mysteries that we watched at your place?"
You both shared a love for a certain TV show about conspiracy theories and famous mysteries from around the world.
"Of course. You know part of it was filmed right here in Fairbanks? Bigfoot never really fascinated me either, but I liked that at the end of the episode they also mentioned other Alaskan legends. Like The Kushtaka, for example."
"I don't remember that. But I'm not sure I want you to tell me," you confessed, taking a breath, the cold biting into your lungs. Despite the layers of clothing, it was getting colder and colder, but at least you'd finally reached the spot Spencer had chosen. He was right; the vast plain on the small hill was perfect for watching the aurora. You had the feeling that the sky was only an inch above your head, and a childlike urge to reach up and touch it. "Alright, you've got me too intrigued. Go ahead."
You noticed that, unlike you, Spencer wasn't tilting his head back to gaze at the sky. He was looking at you.
"The Kushtaka is a creature from the folklore of the surrounding tribes. It is most often described as a hybrid of a human and an otter..."
You couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
"Otters, seriously? Is that supposed to chill me to the bone?"
Spencer raised an eyebrow in a somewhat sarcastic manner.
"Okay, let me tell you the story differently," he proposed in a similar tone, swallowing as if to prepare himself for the tension-building drop in his voice. "Just like now, we're heading out to see the northern lights. Just the two of us, surrounded by nothing but darkness. The sky is overcast that day, and there’s hardly any light to see." At that moment, he switched off the flashlight he was holding, and his previously well-lit face faded into obscurity. You crossed your arms over your chest, silently promising yourself you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being scared.
“In this story, do my thermal undies also ride up so uncomfortably?”
“Your underwear isn’t a significant part of this tale. Anyway… crap, where was I?”
“The thought of my underwear distracted you?”
You heard him sigh, almost in exasperation, and a sly smile spread across your face.
“Let me continue. No more comments about underwear.”
“My underwear or in general?”
“SO WE’RE HEADING TO SEE THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. It’s dark, it’s creepy, and you’ve got chills running down your spine. Then suddenly, you realize you’ve lost me.”
“Phew,” you exhaled with theatrical relief. “Finally got rid of that creep who kept obsessing over my underwear.”
"You know what, I’m done. I’m done. I won’t tell you the story about the human-otter hybrid."
“I’m devastated by this fact!” you assured him in the same overly dramatic tone. Taking it a step further, you jumped toward him, desperately grabbing the fabric of his jacket. “Dr. Reid, please, I beg you, tell me about the human-otter hybrid. I need this. I’ll sell my soul and body, just please…”
Spencer threw his head back, laughing, and as you tried to calm yourself down, you leaned against him. Taken by surprise, he lost his balance, sending both of you toppling into the snow.
“Damn, we’re going to be wet!” he groaned, trying to get up from the deep snowdrift you both had fallen into. It wasn’t the easiest task with all the layers of clothing and a girl who was dying of laughter on top of him.
“I think that’s enough of our aurora watching,” you said once you both finally managed to get back on your feet. Despite the ski pants and very, very warm clothes, you were starting to feel frozen. “And enough of your legends. It’s late, and we should head back.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” he complained, sounding like a little puppy that had been scolded for peeing on the carpet.
“You can tell me on the way,” you replied. “Come on.”
You sent one last glance toward the sky before moving forward, your mind focused entirely on the vision of a hot, soothing bath and a blanket with an extra layer for warmth. For the rest of the walk, Spencer didn’t try to use his low voice or mysterious narrative tone. He finished the story in his usual manner, sounding more like a fascinated lecturer. You couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed—he had sounded really sexy earlier, you had to admit.
When you both got back to the guesthouse, you glanced at the stairs leading up to your room and shook your head in refusal.
“If I don’t get under at least five blankets right this second, I’m going to die, so sorry my dear, but I’m coming to you and I won’t leave until I’m warm, or I’ll never leave at all,” you said quickly and firmly.
Spencer raised an eyebrow but replied just as energetically.
“I don’t think I have five blankets in my room.”
“Three will be fine.”
And that's exactly how it went. First, you took off your jackets, and then, in your typical everyday clothes, you quickly jumped into bed, covered with the duvet up to your neck, waiting for the pleasant warmth to spread across your bodies.
“Was seeing the aurora worth all that suffering?' you asked, turning onto your side in bed so you could face him.
'Well, it wouldn't have been suffering if someone hadn't shoved both of us into the snow...'
He said this while lying on his back, but shortly after these words, he followed your lead and also turned onto his side. Your breath became shallower. It had been almost a year since you last had him this close, almost a year since you slept together, and then decided to let the situation fade into oblivion.
Honestly, you almost succeeded. After all, that incident was like every other encounter you had with guys. Spontaneous, one-time, followed by bolting. But you didn’t see those other guys afterward. Every day at work, forced to watch him wipe his glasses, his damn glasses, with the same fingers he…
“Are you thinking about something specific?” he suddenly asked, his voice eerily similar to the one he used to tell you the story on the hill, a voice you found so sexy.
That was the kind of man Spencer Reid was. Always wanting to know what was going on inside your head.
You sighed, probably too loudly.
"You don't want to know what I'm thinking right now,"
You felt a little pathetic, realizing that your whole excuse about not being able to go to your room was just a pretext to end up in his bed. Once again. This whole trip to Alaska must have really messed with your head. Or maybe it cleared the fog in your mind and left a single thought, naked and defenseless. You wanted him.
"I know how pathetic that sounds, but I always want to know what you're thinking," he replied after a moment, swallowing audibly. You heard it clearly, you were so close. So close...
You had to make a quick decision: whether to continue and face the consequences the next day, or, perhaps worse, to be rejected? It was possible that he had learned from your last time together, and didn’t want to get involved with you that way.
"I can show you what I'm thinking," you finally proposed, not blinking for a long moment, just carefully studying the features of his face, any signs of uncertainty or tension.
Because there was that one small seed of probability that he wanted you too.
His lips parted, but were immediately covered by your kiss.
Slow and curious. How did he taste after all this time?
Maybe it was a thought whispered by the moment, but you had the feeling that even better.
You didn’t play the role of a taster for too long. Soon, still not pulling his lips away from yours, you lifted yourself into a sitting position, propping yourself up with your elbow on the bed, pressing closer to him with every passing moment, more intensely and hungrily.
Something seemed to haunt you, preventing you from moving any further. Something in his posture—lying on his back, surrendered to your control, yet somehow absent.
You pulled away from his lips, your gazes meeting. There was a certain weakness and sadness in his eyes.
"Is something wrong?" you managed to ask, your voice strangely trembling.
Spencer suddenly sat up, straightening himself, though there was still a slight bend in his shoulders. His movement forced you to pull away from his chest.
"I can't do this," he confessed quietly, taking a deep breath. "I can't sleep with you." In a way, it hurt more than if he had simply refused to let you kiss him. Your forehead furrowed in disappointment and... shock?
"Why?" you asked directly, foregoing any excuses about not aiming for that. Because you had been.
He let out a laugh, filled with pity.
"Because after this, I won’t be able to stop thinking about you. And you, after tonight, won’t want me anymore."
You were breathing heavily, completely unsure of what to say. His words were painfully eye-opening, first and foremost. And secondly... true. Because did you plan, like a normal person, to wake up next to him, greet him, date him? That wasn’t how you operated. In your plans, there was always just one option—escape. Exactly like that time.
You slowly began to slide off the bed, his hand moved to reach for yours, and you hoped he would take it, but at the last moment, he hesitated. He hesitated.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," you reassured him, yet you didn’t look at him the whole time. You sounded stiff, almost reproachful, even though you were the one who should be reproached. You were the problem.
You looked around the floor, used to picking up your clothes from it, but this time there was nothing. Except for the jacket hung up and the ski pants you’d pulled on over your regular ones to avoid freezing in the cold night. Leaving without a word seemed excessive.
Your back rested against the door as you turned to look at him. Your quick-thinking mind raced, searching for something to say to at least salvage some dignity in this situation…
“Let’s pretend this didn’t happen,” you finally suggested.
Spencer was still sitting on the edge of the bed, as if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to get up or stay there. Eventually, it seemed like he stayed, though you weren’t sure, having already turned toward the door, your hand pressing on the doorknob.
“T-think that’s the best solution,” he admitted, just as one of your feet stepped into the hallway.
Then, you heard someone whistling.
You immediately stepped back into his room, keeping your face turned toward the door.
“Damn, it’s Morgan,” you said, recognizing the person in the hallway by the sound alone. “We better not let him see me leave, or he’ll never leave us alone…”
You expected that when you turned around, you’d find him still sitting on the bed. After all, you hadn’t heard him get up, hadn’t heard him approach. You certainly didn’t expect that, when you turned, his lips would almost immediately attack yours.
It was so unexpected, so sudden, that the back of your head slammed against the door.
“Fuck, sorry…”
But you didn’t think for a second about the pain, nor did you focus on why Spencer had suddenly changed his mind. Your attention was solely on the two of you, two desperate pairs of lips pressing together and pulling apart, never staying away for long.
He pulled you toward him, wrapping his arms around your waist. Unlike the last time, it was your back that hit the mattress first. The cool surface, the heated bodies, and the weight of the layers of clothing between you both.
"You've changed," you noticed.
A different dynamic. The pace was set by him—just moments ago, you were standing by the door, and now, half of your clothes were gone, while the soft skin of your neck was buried under a cascade of messy, impatient kisses.
"Do you like it?" he asked, his face hovering above yours, one hand resting on the bed next to it.
"I haven't gotten enough to say for sure," you replied, teasingly. "But I get the feeling you're more confident now. A lot of practice since last time?"
He shrugged.
"I don't think it's about practice," he said, his hand sliding down your side until it stopped at the waistband of your pants, lingering there but not moving any lower. You reached for his hand, brushing against it before trailing your fingers along its length up to his forearm, feeling one of his veins beneath your fingertips. "I guess... I was just scared you'd leave, and I had to stop you somehow. That’s why I rushed," he admitted.
His gaze lingered mostly on your face, but it wandered across your body, his frustration clear as he eyed the layers of clothing still in his way. Something about his desperation and impatience stirred something playful in you, and you couldn’t resist teasing him.
Propping yourself up on one elbow, you tilted your chin to look at him.
“If I tried to leave right now, how would you stop me?”
The corner of his mouth twitched at your question, but he decided to play along, nodding thoughtfully.
“I think I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Care to show me?” you asked, your voice dripping with challenge.
For a moment, he didn’t move at all, just kept staring at you, until he allowed himself that first, utterly shameless drop of his gaze and a soft sigh. His lips began their journey, starting at their usual, safe spot on your neck, trailing toward your shoulder, and crossing over your collarbone with deliberate intent. You were still half-sitting, struggling to steady your breathing so your chest wouldn’t rise and fall too much or too quickly, trying not to disrupt him. The first hint of uncertainty appeared between your breasts when his kisses momentarily softened, carefully exploring unfamiliar territory and testing your sensitivity.
You struggled more and more to keep yourself from collapsing fully onto the mattress. But when his cool tongue met your skin, pressing against it so firmly that his forehead brushed against your stomach, relentlessly moving lower, you couldn’t hold out any longer.
He was between your knees, bent in anticipation. He reached them, sliding his hands down your thighs and coaxing them to relax. He fumbled a bit while unbuttoning your pants, and had trouble sliding them down while you were lying there. You lifted your hips to help, even tried to do it yourself, but he stopped your hands, placing them above your head.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said softly, finally freeing your legs from both pant legs. His hands wrapped around your ankles, his thumb tracing gentle circles around one of them, which somehow completely seized your attention, and you focused solely on that subtle motion. For a moment, you closed your eyes, and when you opened them again, you noticed that his chin was just above your panty line. "Actually, it will be much more pleasant for you if you just focus on feeling and nothing else. I was supposed to show you my ideas, remember?"
“As someone who apologized for being in too much of a hurry, you sure have an unexpectedly large amount of patience now,” you remarked with reproach, lifting your head again. Maybe keeping it down allowed for more comfort and relief for your neck, but on the other hand, the sight of his face immersed between your thighs was simply priceless.
If the sight itself was priceless, how do you describe that feeling?
With every move of his tongue, your hips swayed, adjusted to the rhythm. Often tense, trying to find some outlet, especially when sighs escaped his lips and his cool breath penetrated through you.
"Think I'm gonna cume embarrassingly quickly," you confessed, unsure whether he even understood anything from your sentence, which was at least interwoven with two moans. Three.
When it happened, you uncontrollably squeezed his head with your knees, a similar groan also came from his mouth.
Spender didn’t stay in that position for long. When you opened your tightly shut eyelids, his face was right above yours, stretched in such satisfaction, as if he was the one receiving pleasure.
"Was it too quick for you?" he asked, still absorbing you with the same gaze, which seemed to pulse with desire. "If you want, we can try again, you’ll surely improve..."
"My God, when did you become so cocky?"
He chuckled, but instead of answering, he once again pressed himself against your body and skin, closing his eyes in devotion and lingering on each spot for as long as it took, as if he could never be satisfied, no matter how much he took in.
Your hands, instead of tormenting the innocent fabric of the blanket, moved to his back, tightly embracing his neck and basically everything they could latch onto. All of his earlier composure seemed to evaporate; you didn’t even have to ask twice to make him slide in. It actually sounded more like an order than a request, a bit desperate, it's true, but still an order.
"How is it even possible that it feels even better than the last time?” His words, his lips, ticked your neck as he moaned out this question. "Just... I feel like I won’t have enough of you tonight."
"The night is long," you said, almost into the air, not really paying attention to the meaning behind it. "Tomorrow night too."
Spencer stopped, completely. His eyes desperately searched for yours, and when he finally found them, they widened in disbelief.
"Tomorrow night too?" he repeated. "But I thought... I thought you didn't want anything more than a one-night fling…”
"It's already our second," you reminded him. "And I'll be completely honest with you, I don’t want to walk around all day tomorrow sexually frustrated just at the sight of you. Let's make a deal, okay?"
"A deal?"
"Yeah. I'll tell you about it in a moment, but right now...Oh God, I think I’m gonna…”
You both got dressed right after, but not because either of you intended to leave. The temperature inside simply didn’t allow for sleeping naked, no matter how warm you were after sex.
"So?" he asked, handing you the piece of paper you had sent him to the bathroom for. Then he sat on the bed, facing you. "What did you mean by this deal?"
"Well, after thinking about it, I'm not sure if it's a good idea after all..."
"I want to know, even if just out of curiosity."
"You want to know everything, Spence. But fine. I thought maybe... while we're in Alaska, we could just, you know, allow ourselves to do whatever we want. In more direct terms, fuck each other as much as we want.”
It sounded a bit...crazy? Spencer kept his gaze suspended in the air for a moment before turning it back to you, questioning.
"But only as long as we're in Alaska?"
"Exactly. Since there's only one floor between us, why not take advantage of it?" you tried to joke, lightening the mood.
It didn’t seem to have much effect on him.
"But what happens next? When we get back?"
"Do we really have to think about that?" you wondered, moving closer to him, to the body that just moments ago made you feel so good. "We'll get used to being apart, just like before."
"Okay," he sucked in a breath, clearly torn over the proposal. "I mean, no, I didn’t mean okay... because it doesn’t seem like a great idea, but on the other hand... on the other hand, I really, really want you, even if it only means for this short time."
You smiled, though deep down, somewhere very deep, there was something somber in that gesture.
Ignoring that, you kissed him to seal the deal. And not just that.
"That was for good night and goodbye."
"Goodbye? You're leaving?" A clear look of disappointment crossed his face, but he quickly shook his head, trying to get rid of it. "Good night, then."
"It's not that I don't want to stay. It's just that it would be better to be well-rested for work, and I don't think we'd sleep properly if I decided to spend the night here. “
You saw him open his mouth, ready to protest, but you had already gotten up from the bed and started gathering your remaining things.
"Wait," he called as you were about to leave. "You said... you said something that's been bothering me, you know? I can even quote it, so listen up. You said that you don't want to walk around all day tomorrow sexually frustrated just at the sight of me."
You couldn't help but let out a burst of laughter.
"And that bothers you?"
"I don’t understand what you meant by that. What in my behavior makes you feel that way?"
"A lot of things."
"Like what?"
"I'll tell you someday. Maybe it's better if you're not aware of it."
"Hey, now I won’t be able to sleep!"
"Anyway, good night, sweet boy."
*
Almost the first thing in the morning, you found yourselves at the local police station, full of disappointment and anxiety. You had to inform the parents of the missing boy found in the forest that he had been located. But unfortunately, it was not good news.
The first hours of the day passed in constant analysis and discussion, until finally, around noon, you gathered in front of the town's police officers, ready to deliver the profile. You didn’t have much time for any reflection on the previous night, or even for a conversation with Spencer. A sober one this time, when you weren’t intoxicated by desire and each other.
You stood in the corner of the room, listening to Hotch and Gideon.
"The UNSUB is a white male, likely with military experience or, at the very least, extensive survival skills, estimated to be around 50-60 years old. He abducts teenagers, boys, and young men who look younger than their actual age, which suggests he doesn’t know his victims very well."
"If he observes them, it’s for a short period. He doesn’t have time to get to know them but understands their routine and daily schedule well enough to know when to strike."
"He doesn’t drug his victims, which means he is physically capable of abducting them without assistance. This ties into the type of victims he selects. All these boys were more the intellectual type than athletes. When abducted, they were coming from school, tutoring sessions, or the library. David Moore, for instance, was tall but lanky. His family described him as gentle, with a big heart and a passion for learning."
"The UNSUB abandons them in remote forest locations. Forcing them to fight for survival gives him a sense of control and serves as a way to prove his belief that modern society and boys today are incapable of handling adversity. He openly despises them, viewing them as weak and effeminate. His mindset reflects a toxic approach to gender roles and what he considers the traditional male archetype."
“White men aged 50-60 with survival skills make up about half the population here,” a policeman noted. “Take me, for example…”
Hotch began providing more detailed information, while Gideon stepped out of the center of the room, and the atmosphere became more relaxed.
You approached Reid, who was sitting in a chair, and ruffled his hair with your hand.
“Watch your back, genius-boy,” you warned, standing behind him. From his seat, he tilted his head all the way back to look up at you. A smile instantly appeared on his face.
“You might just be next. And we wouldn’t want that.”
“So, you think I’m effeminate?”
"I know very well that you're not. But you do have that intellectual spark in your eyes. And, you know, those glasses don’t help."
Ever since you’d been in Alaska, he’d worn them less often because, as he’d told you while chatting in bed, they kept fogging up. But now, they were perched on his nose, making him look... delectable. Simply delectable.
The rest of your team approached, Elle's gaze lingering on your hand resting on the back of Reid's chair. As usual, she had to notice everything.
"I need to send you all to a few places to check out some individuals the police have identified as matching the profile," Hotch announced. "Y/N and Elle, I’d like you to speak again with the bus driver who drove David Moore just before he was abducted. Once he understands the profile, he might be able to recall more details."
You lingered in the room, wanting to exchange a word with Spencer. In complete privacy... He was slowly wiping his glasses, as if hoping for the same. Watching the movements of his hands, you shook your head.
"This is it—what you asked me about yesterday. What makes me sexually frustrated. Our agreement still stands, right?" you asked, running your hand along his shoulder, just to touch him. Even though the many layers of clothing made it almost impossible to really feel him.
He looked at the glasses he was cleaning, then at you, disbelief written all over his face.
"That's what you meant? Cleaning glasses?"
"Don't judge me. It's about the motion. Or maybe the glasses themselves, I don't know. Maybe I’m a fetishist. Anyway, are you going to answer my question?"
Still seated in the chair, he had to tilt his head back to look at you, which reminded you—just a little, okay, a lot—of another situation where he was down below.
"What about you?" he countered. "You haven’t changed your mind?"
"Absolutely not."
"In that case, yes. It still stands."
“Oh, I don’t know what I’d do if you’d answered differently. See you tonight, then,” you promised, glancing around the room to make sure none of your team members were still there. Just a few local officers... who weren’t paying much attention to you. Even if they were, it wasn’t their business.
You leaned in quickly to kiss him. He closed his eyes, as if hoping for more.
“Not now, and not here. I need to go find Elle. Hotch gave us an assignment. Have a good one.”
You walked away, feeling his gaze on your back.
You found your friend in the car, one of those suited for tough terrain, with high tires. She was sitting behind the wheel, tapping her nails on it.
"So, what was the address of that driver?" you asked, fastening your seatbelt.
"Forgive my bluntness, darling, but I’ll die if I don’t know. What was that all about?"
"What do you mean, ‘What was that all about’?"
"Oh, come on, you know exactly what I mean. Messing with his hair, the chair, the looks. Are you two sleeping together again?"
You technically had no reason to hide anything from her, after all, you trusted her completely and had never hesitated to talk about your sex life. But this time... you kind of liked the idea of keeping whatever happened between you and Spencer just between the two of you.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. We're just acting like we usually do," you said.
"Yeah?" She raised an eyebrow, slowly pulling away from the police station, her gaze shifting between the road and you. "Then what were those sounds last night from his room?"
"Oh shit, did we make noise?"
She smiled triumphantly.
"I don't know, you tell me. I'm just teasing you. I'm on a completely different floor. But I'll take that as an admission of guilt."
"Manipulative bitch!"
"I'll take that as a compliment. So?"
You rolled your eyes with a heavy sigh, but eventually, you confirmed her suspicion with a nod.
"I thought you didn't sleep with the same guy twice."
"The air in Alaska really does something strange to me."
"Sure. The air," she scoffed, and you furrowed your brows in slight confusion, looking at her, waiting for her to elaborate. The car glided along one of those completely empty, snow-covered roads where there was nothing to focus on. "You know, I wonder why you just don't admit that you like him?"
"I don't hide the fact that I like him."
"Then why not give it a try?"
"Try what, Elle?"
She glanced at you sideways, her lips tightening at your obviously irritated tone. She didn't mean to upset you, of course, but that's how you felt. She sighed, as if thinking about how to approach the subject.
"You've learned to live with it," she finally began, slowly and cautiously weighing her words. "With that fear. Of intimacy and commitment."
"It's just a preference."
"No, it's not a preference. It's fear. You're afraid that if you get emotionally close to someone, you'll be abandoned, and you don't want to risk another painful loss. You want to have full control over the relationship and disappear when you feel like it's fading. Usually in the morning. It's a common mechanism, and it's not just about you. And no mechanism can be broken without making an attempt."
"Elle, stop. You're profiling me, and you know how much I hate that."
And actually, you hated being confronted with the truth about yourself and being internally forced to draw conclusions about yourself.
It was easy, living without reflecting on oneself. Especially when those reflections were painful. You could hurt yourself, unsuccessfully trying to confront them, or flow along with their current, completely subordinated to them and deaf to the words of others, who said you were only hurting yourself in the bigger picture.
Elle dropped the subject, as you had arrived at the house of the man you were supposed to interview. She didn’t bring it up again afterward. The hours at work passed, and you only waited for that specific moment when you'd cross the threshold of that room again.
The previous night danced vividly in your mind, never slowing down or taking a break for a moment. As soon as he opened the door, you threw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his neck, kissing his face, and unbuckling his belt.
Spencer took a sharp breath, shocked and amused, as soon as you touched him.
"It would be incredibly awkward if someone were at my place right now," he chuckled into your mouth, half of his sentence drowned out by your kiss.
You pulled your face away just slightly, raising your eyebrows. It was only then that you noticed he was wearing glasses. Oh, he was so completely unaware of what you were about to do to him...
"How many people do you bring to yourself every night?" you asked.
"In that regard, only you. Besides, this is only the second time, so I wouldn’t call it every night... but I could always be here with someone, talking..."
"Keeping each other warm," you added.
Your hands slid under the fabric of his clothes, brushing the lower part of his stomach.
He noticeably tensed under your fingers, swallowing slowly, impatient and pleading.
"Engaging in a worldview discussion and exchanging conclusions," he finished, a smile playing on his lips.
"Uh-huh. Exactly like we are now. Honestly, does that turn you on? Do you want me to share my political views while you’re eating me out?”
"This is probably the only scenario in which you could make me not feel pleasure because of it."
His hands hesitated, roaming uncertainly across your body, unsure of where to start. They brushed over so many spots, moving from one to the next, chaotic and desperate.
You didn’t know where to focus – on the lips in the hollow of your neck, on the hand on your hips, or the other, slipping lower and lower?
Or perhaps on that sound, right by your ear, sweet, pleading whimper?
Moan left your body just for that reason and you already knew how you wanted the rest of the night to unfold.
You gently pushed him back, and with quickened breath, you dropped to one knee, then the other.
"After yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking about you," you confessed, making sure your lips were close enough to his body as you spoke. You heard him inhale sharply, whispering something under his breath. "I couldn't focus on work at all. So today, I want to take care of you, completely."
You thought he would be satisfied with the offer; well, it was hard to deny that he was. Still, for some reason, he started shaking his head.
"N-no, that's not... I want to do it. Take care of you, I mean."
You couldn’t stop smiling, but at the same time, you weren’t about to back down, which should probably be enough to describe the dynamics of the following hours.
At times, it was brutally slow, while at other moments, it was hurried and impressive. Sometimes, you interrupted each other constantly, unable to stop talking, and at other times, the only sound filling the room was your two breaths, the only constant, restless, and laced with moans and cries.
"You’re not leaving me tonight, right?" he asked, drawing closer to your body and holding you almost pleadingly. You laughed against his skin, shaking your head in denial.
"At some point, I will have to. For about fifteen minutes, before everyone wakes up."
"You’ll say you just came by for something. To ask a question or something," he tried to convince you.
"Oh, at this early hour, looking like I’ve just done a two-hour workout? Derek would eat us alive. His eyebrow would never drop again. If I ever end up in hell, it will be with him there, looking at me like that." You tried to mimic his expression, tensing your jaw as you did.
"Stop, I feel harassed."
"You see? And if he found out about us, this is how the next... God, I can’t even predict when he’d get tired of it. Maybe in a year. Do you want to suffer for another whole year just to be with me for an extra fifteen minutes?"
"I’d be able to survive that," he declared quietly, placing his hand under your head and playing with your hair with one of his fingers. "But if you don’t want it, I’m not going to waste time and try to convince you."
"Sure," you scoffed playfully. "So many things could be done in that time."
"Like what?" he asked, clearly intrigued. "Try to sleep. What were you hoping for?"
"Nothing, nothing. But you used a plural in that sentence and then only gave one thing. So, I’m waiting for the rest."
"That’s an overinterpretation."
"More like a simple analysis of sentence structure."
"Maybe sometimes it's better to analyze a little less. Spencer."
"I don’t think I’m capable of that," he admitted, his tone a little more serious. You furrowed your brow, looking at his pale face in the weak light, showing signs of the night’s exhaustion. "That’s just how my brain works. It doesn’t give me much time to rest."
You often wondered what the world looked like from his perspective. How, in many ways, his genius was both a revelation and a curse. But you’d never heard him complain about it—until now. In fact, it wasn’t even a complaint, just a statement of fact, somewhat melancholy.
You kissed the top of his head, hoping it would have a soothing effect.
And indeed, it worked. He moved even closer to you, rested his head, and after a moment, almost at the same time, your eyelids fell.
*
The morning passed slowly and longingly, even though you were still so close to each other. However, there was the awareness that with the arrival of the day, you would have to wait many, many hours before you saw each other again. In a similar way, you meant. After all, at work, you constantly spent time together, which only made everything more difficult. It would have been much easier to push him out of your head and focus, if it weren’t for that.
Meanwhile, Spencer, perhaps trying to gently play on your nerves, cleaned his glasses much more often than necessary. But there was also the possibility that he was doing it the same amount as usual, and you were just imagining it.
"Are you doing that again?" Morgan nodded in his direction as a greeting when you were sitting in the guesthouse room that served as your team's meeting place. There was a long table in there, similar to the one in your office, but much narrower. Sitting across from Reid, you could easily touch his hand. If you wanted to. "Is this some new nervous tic of yours? Polishing them?"
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Spencer furrowed his brow in mock surprise, stopping the corner of his mouth from twitching. You kicked him under the table, and he couldn’t suppress a gasp.
To hide your amusement, you covered your face with your hand, but Morgan immediately picked up on it.
"Is this some new inside joke of yours?"
"He’s literally just polishing his glasses, leave him alone," you said.
Morgan’s eyebrows raised in the same way you had imitated him the night before. Neither of you could hold it in and burst into laughter.
"What’s going on?" JJ asked, walking into the room.
"Something very strange is going on," Derek announced mysteriously, staring at you both intently. His hands were resting on his hips, and his head tilted in thought. "Something very strange..."
Then Hotch arrived, even more serious than usual, which immediately dispelled the good mood. The rest of the team also arrived—Elle and Gideon—and everyone took their seats at the table.
"In the past few hours, there hasn’t been any concerning missing person reports," Hotch informed you. "On one hand, that’s good; on the other, it means the unsub will strike again soon. And we can’t let that happen."
"And you even have a plan," Gideon stated, with some sort of understanding in his eyes.
Hotch looked at you all with hesitation before nodding in confirmation.
"That's right, I have. I've concluded that we have no choice but to set a trap."
At those words, his gaze rested on Spencer, which was enough for you to figure it all out even before the main subject did.
"With all due respect, Hotch, have you lost your mind?!"
And how exactly do you envision this?" Elle asked, not as shaken as you but clearly concerned. "Sure, he fits the profile of his victims, but how is he supposed to set himself up? Walk around town and hope to get kidnapped?"
"At least two of the victims were abducted on the same stretch of road, after getting off the bus at the same isolated bus stop while walking home alone. It’s an exceptionally safe location for him," your boss explained.
"Honestly, I’m not convinced," Derek interjected, staring ahead with a furrowed brow. "I just don’t think he’d use the exact same spot again. Word has probably spread around the area that the FBI is on the case. He might be more cautious and change his methods."
"But he might just as well try again," JJ said quietly. You looked at her with clear surprise, as you had expected that, with her characteristic care for the team, she would be against the idea. "Right now, it’s the only thing we can do to try to prevent another abduction."
You drew a breath, understanding her arguments but remaining entirely opposed. Your gaze finally fell on Spencer, for the first time since the idea had even been brought up. He was sitting very upright, his brow furrowed, and he slowly began nodding.
"JJ’s right, it’s the only thing we can do," he said. He wasn’t looking at Hotch, nor even at the team as a whole—he was looking at you, directly and only at you. A calming, slightly nervous smile crossed his face, making you scoff. "Nothing’s going to happen to me. You’ll all be around, on the bus, near the stop."
With his words, the decision was made, and all you could do was shake your head in disbelief.
"I want to be on the same bus," you declared desperately, crossing your arms over your chest. You simply couldn’t reconcile with the fact that Spencer was willingly putting himself in harm's way—especially when the unsub's desire was to hurt people like him. "I’ll pose as a civilian. A random young woman. I shouldn’t seem like a threat, and someone from our team has to be inside."
"You’re right," Hotch replied, looking at you with sharp attention. "But it will be Elle."
You and your friend exchanged a confused look, startled by the firmness in his voice.
"I don’t think it makes much of a difference," she tried to intervene, which made you feel grateful.
Although, it didn’t change anything…
"I’m not obligated to explain myself to you about this decision, especially in front of the entire team. This is an order," Hotch announced with almost brutal professionalism. "The only thing I can say is that we need someone who won’t break character until the very end. Someone who won’t let emotions cloud their judgment."
"Are you sure you’re up for this?" Gideon asked, directing the question at Spencer. His tone was understanding, prepared to accept any refusal without judgment.
This time, he didn’t look at you. As Spencer nodded in confirmation, he actually avoided your gaze.
"Then we have the whole day to prepare for the sting. Let’s hope this leads to catching the unsub," Hotch concluded the meeting, signaling that you could leave the table.
You were torn between staying and screaming at your boss or leaving the room after Reid. Well, the second option wouldn’t get you fired. And, honestly, it seemed like the better choice. It turned out he wanted to talk to you too, as he was clearly waiting for you in the narrow hallway of the inn, where animal antlers hung on the walls and an informational board about moose was displayed.
"Are you angry because I want to do this?" he asked, the narrow walls around you making you stand quite close. Well, not as close as you could be, but close enough to add gravity to the conversation and allow you to study his face carefully.
Especially his determination. The determination for this job, for solving the case, and for preventing others from suffering the same tragic fate at the hands of this killer. Finally, you understood that your reaction was a bit irrational. Because if the victims were young women with your looks... you’d agree to it without hesitation. Some hypocrisy, huh?
"No. I'm just terrified that you're going to do this," you confessed, your honesty and concern making his face twitch in surprise. You snorted, trying to ease the tension. "I’m angry at Hotch for calling me emotionally unstable in front of all of you."
Spencer smiled gently, though there was stress hiding behind it. He may have been determined to go through with it, but that didn’t change the fact that there was fear accompanying him. He tried not to show it, but anyone in his position would feel it.
"Well, in his defense, he phrased it a bit more subtly."
You let out a soft laugh, stretching your arm out to gently touch his forearm. As your hand slid up, you leaned in a little, the simple gesture helping you feel more grounded and at ease.
His gaze followed your movements with a gentle satisfaction. You didn’t pull him closer, you were simply stroking his arm in that easy, caring way that calmed both of you.
"You’ve never done this before, have you?" you asked quietly. "You’ve never put yourself in this position like this."
He shook his head in denial.
"I’m really... really worried that I’ll do something wrong and we won’t be able to catch him because of me."
"You should worry about yourself, Spencer. Not about that. I’m sure you’ll play your part better than anyone could. "But I really regret that I won’t be able to be right next to you, in case something goes wrong."
His lips parted and closed in a kind of... amusement?
"I was going to say that maybe Hotch could be convinced, but then I realized, no, he won’t be. No matter what you say. And besides, having you there wouldn’t let me focus fully."
"I’m aware of that," you joked, tossing your hair dramatically. "After all, I look stunning."
"I was more referring to the fact that I’d be focused only on making sure nothing happens to you, but yeah. That’s one of the reasons too."
You fell silent, oddly moved by that confession. It was so simple, driven by care, affectionate. And it definitely made your head spin in the context of your relationship. You shook your head, pulling yourself away from those thoughts. As long as you were in Alaska, you could afford anything. After that, who knows.
You swallowed and put on a playful expression, it came with some effort, but you managed.
"Okay, genius-boy. Let me prepare you. You need to know how to behave."
"I thought I was just supposed to be myself," he noted, letting you pull him by the wrist.
"Well, mostly, yes. But it's still better to rehearse, get you into character. Don't you have any random fun facts to share?"
"I always have some fun facts to share. An endless amount."
"We'll see."
For the rest of the day, up until the inevitable moment of setting the trap for the unsub, you listened carefully to everything he had to say. His constant chatter allowed him to occupy his mind, pushing the stress aside to the point that, when it was time for him to head to the designated location, he seemed almost surprised that the hour had come. Only then did certain shadows begin to cross his face.
You paced restlessly around the inn as the whole team prepared. Your task was to take a position with Gideon at a certain distance from the bus stop, to cut off the unsub's escape route if necessary. The bus driver had agreed to cooperate, and JJ was giving him instructions, asking him to act as naturally as possible. There were to be no civilians on board, only Elle and a few inconspicuous local police officers. Hotch and JJ planned to follow the bus from a distance by car. Morgan was to lay low at the bus stop, also posing as a civilian.
You moved closer to Spencer, breathing heavily, his presence alone calming you down.
“You’ll be fine,” you reassured him just before you were about to leave. Morgan gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and everyone was still gathered around you. You gently hugged him, just as any other friend would, just like Elle and JJ had moments before.
He, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned with appearances. He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and rested his chin on top of your head in a strong, lingering embrace.
“Y/N, you and Gideon need to go now," Hotch interrupted.
As you were walking away, you noticed out of the corner of your eye that he also gave Reid a brief squeeze on the shoulder.
It was a truly tense moment. You found yourself in a position where you had no visibility on what was happening inside the bus, nor could you gauge the gravity of the situation. All you could hear through the earpiece was Elle's whispered signal informing you that the suspect, fitting the profile, had just entered the vehicle.
And even though you didn’t have high hopes for the plan, everything unfolded exactly as it was meant to. Spencer exited the bus, and the unsub followed him. The suspect seemed intent on tracking him down that desolate, shadowy road, planning to attack and abduct him. But at the last moment, Reid turned, and before the man could react, he was surrounded by the police.
On your last night in Alaska, you found yourself on top, with his head resting against the headboard of the bed, his hands placed on your hips, and in a position where you could look at each other and talk.
"You really did great today," you praised, leaning in to gently kiss his collarbone.
He didn't seem flattered by your words, no smile on his lips, just that sad, aching expression that caused you pain. Wanting to shake off the feeling, you quickened your movements, hoping it would work, but then he tightened his embrace, making you slow down once again.
"I want... I want to enjoy you," he said with a slightly embarrassed tone, his fingers tracing restless, tender circles on your bare skin. "Since this is our last time together."
For a moment, he gazed at your face, as if hoping you would say something. But he couldn't find any trace in your expression that would suggest you had changed your mind. The small, naive spark in his eyes faded. Elle's words about breaking the cycle echoed in your mind, but not in your heart. You couldn't turn them into reality; you simply couldn't. The agreement remained the agreement.
Once you returned, everything would go back to how it was before.
another author's note: I plan to create a tag list and I want to know who among you would like to be on it. please, let me know in the comments.
#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic#spencer reid#spencer reid criminal minds#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid fanfic#doctor spencer reid#dr spencer reid#spence reid#spencer reid smut#criminal minds smut#criminal mind#spencer reid x you#spencer reid x y/n
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